UFC Mexico | Cain Velasquez Sentenced | Pereira Injury Confirmed | Full Episode | Morning Kombat - MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Reveal.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Reveally look at this now, timpt it sup.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Jesus?

Speaker 3 (00:14):
Oh do you want to.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Using?

Speaker 4 (00:28):
Will be?

Speaker 5 (00:28):
Fuck?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
It's time to beat. Oh yeah, you know what that means, right,
that sound, that feeling, that lifestyle. It's Morning Combat. It's
back into your damn face whole and you better believe
it's Friday. So you ain't got ship to do but
to sit here on March twenty eight, twenty twenty five

(00:53):
and stare at Luke's red microphone. Hey, it's the best
damn combat sports show they ever thought about putting together.
And again it's the one that just won't die on
that BBC with that alpha like quality. They call me
Brian Campbell. The guy next to me though to normally
representing DC right now though is the is a hero
of the Midwest. Let's welcome in on location, Luke Franklin Thomas, that's.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Me, buddy, that's me body. How are you?

Speaker 2 (01:21):
I'm doing great? But Luke, you have like huge news today.
We're all fired up for you in Team Morning Combat.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
I wouldn't say it's huge, it's cool. I'm in Iowa, BC.
I'm in I'm in Iowa, which is yeah, I got
off the airport I was a little shaky, a little
shaky waiting to welcome you. No, no, no, I got
out of the airport. I was like a little bit nubs,
but no, I'm all in all, seriously, I'm here in

(01:48):
Iowa City, which i'd never been to before. I've been
to Des Moines before and in Iowa City. Uh, I
think University of Iowa's here, Okay, I mean everybody's wearing
Hawkeye stuff here. I mean I can go, I can
assure you and I actually when I got off the plane,
there were the University of Iowa track and field team
in all of their like travel clothes, all getting on

(02:09):
some other plane nearby.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Hot chicks.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Anyway, I've been hired to be a commentator for xFC
in particularly the event is called xFC fifty two. It
is here in Iowa City. Yeah, yeah, it'll be And
if you're asking where can I watch this, it'll be
on be in Sport, which if you're a La Liga
fan before La Liga went to ESPN, they were on

(02:32):
be in Sport for all those years.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, being sport, you should do a lot of boxing
with They had Mikey Garcia as a as a commentator.
I've watched a lot on there.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yeah. Yeah, so folks have been like, oh, why didn't
you mention something sooner? And I'll just be completely honest
with everyone. I am very nervous about this. If I
can be honest, I'm trying to just you know, keep everything,
you know, manage my emotions, manage expectations. It's only it's
only I think six fights that are even being aired. Okay,

(03:00):
so it's not a big it's not a long show.
And I actually think some of these fights are going
to go pretty quickly. The cage that they use is
very small. But if I, if I may, I got
to uh the guy, well, I guess I should just
pull back the curtain. The guy who basically got me
the job is big E from w w E. Big
E was the one that basically got me this.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
He chesticles on that guy, right, he got.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Titties for days. I saw him yesterday. I was like, Jesus,
he's jacked. We talked a long time yesterday. So big
E was the one who was like, hey, I guess
big he's an investor in the company and was like, hey,
do you are you interested in trying this? And I said, uh, well, sure,
I guess I am so here we are.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
We get some of that. Dude. Look, when someone in
this family wins, we all win. So we are fired
up to see you doing what you were born to do. Uh, dude,
remember you called an early branded shop fight back in
the day at the Ultimate Warrior showel he won.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
He beat the fuck out of that guy. Actually was.
That's a true story. So yeah, I don't know who
the Brendan shob is on this particular card BC. Maybe
there is one, maybe there isn't, but main event is
real cool. It's Kenny Cross, who I think is if
he wins this one, he might be UFC bound taking
on an well a Brazilian guy who lives in Argentina
and named Lucas Corbagi. And I will tell you know

(04:18):
what's kind of interesting, bec I had to do a
lot of tape study for this, so I've do a
lot of tape study. There's a surprising amount dude. Look
at that puss.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
That's Zoe. Yeah she's alive.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
Look at that puss.

Speaker 5 (04:30):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
There's a lot of tape of people who've never fought
in the UFC on fight pass. It's a yeah, there's
a surprising amount of it. Like Lucas Corbagi has never
fought in UFC. I think he's got like five fights
on fight Pass. It's crazy. So anyway, Yeah, if you're
if you're at the Extreme Arena in Iowa City tonight,
come come watch the fights.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Check it out. Shout out to your your cohort on
the broadcast, Johnny Lo Costo, ABBI.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
What a great guy. Also, I'm calling it with Jessica. Yes, yes,
he's She's just a sweet person. And Johnny's been amazing
so did. Everyone's been real nice to me, you know,
so hopefully I don't fuck it up too bad.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
You know, Hey, hey, break a leg, Luke, you got this,
You got this, and we have, by the way, a
great show for you today. Of course we'll be set
in the stage for UFCE Mexico City looking at the
latest headlines involving the likes of Alex Pereira, Ilia top
Tortia and so much more. Did you see future president
elect Connor McGregor spoke at the BKFC conference and looks

(05:30):
like Luke, he may never fight again, That's.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
What it looks like. He basically was like, yeah, I
got something else in my gut that I want to do.
And I'm like, take a dump, because yeah, no no
no no no no no no no no no no
no no no. Yeah, he's he looks done, bro, he
looks fucking done. He really looks done, you know. And
he was like, Oh, I've got other things in mind,
which I to be president, which, by the way, is

(05:53):
as I understand, it's largely a ceremonial role in Ireland anyway.
It doesn't really confer like like the Queen of England.
I don't know if it's quite like royalty since you
get elected. But nevertheless, he was like, yeah, you know,
I'm satisfied with what I've done the UFC.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
I was like, yeah, he's been that way since the
I'm not saying.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
That he's wrong to feel that way. That's not my point.
My point is if he's saying that out loud, he
is I would bet you never see him again.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
But then he did counter that. He did counter that
by saying that he wants to be the first sitting
president to fight in the UFC and get announced as
you know, Irish president.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
So I don't know what you know, I'd like to
be the main judge in a dick sucking contest among
you know, okay on Biggest, I mean like it's never
gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
So you know, here we go, so fantastic show coming
your way, folks, get fired up. We will close with
our fan segments, dead Wrongs, fans submissions, and Luke. We
do have to shout out both Dave sandein the the
you know, proprietor of today's modern sex trade, and Danger
Miles for sending fan subs that we can air but

(07:00):
did make us laugh until we cried. Only we'd love
to stay employed, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
Let me just explain something to you all these two
fan subs. I am not joking when I said tears
were streaming down my face at how good they were.
They're absolutely amazing. But if we air them, this would
be the last MK show that you'd see. So I think,
in the interest of just keeping everything cool, we'll just
say thank you, but we have to pass this time.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
There it is whoop, there it is. Hey, why don't
you follow us and like us and subscribe to everything
we're doing right here? It helps a lot, It takes
the show to the next level. You can see our
social handles right there. Please like and subscribe on YouTube.
You can check out our YouTube channel's personal spin off
channels as well. And don't forget the third member of
our team today. He is a producer, he is a director,
He's a bong enthusiast. He was born from the nutbag

(07:49):
of an Australian. They call him Luke Nosita of the
main card minute.

Speaker 6 (07:53):
What up, gang?

Speaker 7 (07:54):
I don't know why my dad's scrolled him for lack
of a better term. Is becoming my go to intro nowadays,
but you know it is what it is. I guess guys,
wig ins are happening right now. Moreno ersag both made
Waight Drew Dober, Manuel Torres both made weight.

Speaker 6 (08:08):
So our main and comine are officially official.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
For okay, there you go to hear that.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
Here right there, I'm having some technical difficulties here. Look
anything you want to say to the fans, wife, fix this.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
I just want to watch you struggle if I can
be honest with you. Look at this, motherfucker. Dude, do
you just tape shit to your wall like a college student.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
I don't need to talk to you about my practices
and my methods.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
You just put a thumb tack in there. Dude? How
old are you get a frame for this ship.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
Dude, I changed stuff all the time. You know what
I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
You put duct tape on your car, you fucking white trash.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
Okay, all right, it says the guy sitting in a
hotel room in Iowa right now. All right, yeah, that's great. Hey,
I want to tell you.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
I gotta tell you Iowa. Let's let's talk about some
good parts. Very friendly people, very friendly people, and as
I mentioned, the downtown pretty pretty cool, actually, like very cool.
The Mexican food here real bad, stuper not good. Yeah,
they're pulling a fast one on these gringoes here. Let
me tell you. I'm sure the pizzas worse, you know, huh.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
I'm sure the pizza's worse. But you know you actually had.

Speaker 1 (09:10):
One slice yesterday for catering. It was fine. It was fine. Okay, Okay,
there you.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
Go, there you go. Well we reviewed food in Iowa.
Now it's time to set the stage for what's coming
to you this weekend. Let's transition, folks into topic number one.
UFC Mexico City is upon us this Saturday. It is
a fight night card and it will be at high elevation,
no sea level. Kane will be appearing based on the Yeah, okay,

(09:34):
let me start all over. Hey, you have see Mexico
City as this Saturday, and of course the main event
will take us to a potential flyweight tilt that could
have title implications of course from former champion Brandon Moreno
welcomes Steve Erseg, the former title challenger, So Luke, Steve
Er Sag kind of has his back against the wall here.

(09:54):
A win would be massive for him, but a third
loss in a row against the division elite that could
be that could be permanent exile in a lot of ways.
When you look at this matchup, do you think the
storyline is really focused upon just that Steve Ver Sag
getting back in the win column, improving that he deserved
that initial title shot and that pretty good performance he

(10:15):
had against Pantosian.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
Flyweight is a really interesting division for this particular reason,
which is, on the one hand, there are divisions in
the UFC where it just takes a long time to
break through. You have to beat so many quality opponents
that just you know, there's there's a queue in front
of you that has to get sorted. You really have
to be patient and quite good and then to an

(10:37):
extent obviously quite lucky. It's just hard slogging. But then
there's flyweight, which is really kind of the opposite. I'm
not saying that they give title shots to just you know, Bozo's,
but they need contenders. They need guys because you know,
they're both both in the way which it works now
and then overall, how thin it is, it's it's relatively

(10:57):
speaking easy to get a title shot. But that has
created a real big problem for stevers sake, which is
he had a bunch of nice wins, then he gets
a title shot, probably a little too early in his career.
He performed quite well up until the last round, and
then he follows it up with a devastating knockout loss
to Kai Car France. Here he is an I think
we have audio to this effect and video where he

(11:19):
describes how he was surprised they gave him a main event.
Be see, this is the point I'm trying to make.
What is so interesting about this is, on the one hand,
you can get divisions where it's a hard slog On
the other hand, you can get to the front of
the queue pretty consistently. But if you do it enough
times and you bought him out enough times and it
wasn't like he fought badly against Pentojo again up until
the very end. But to follow that up against kay

(11:40):
Car France and then let's just hypothetically say something bad
goes happen against Moreno where are you in this division
on some level. You're close to the front, but they've
given you now multiple tries to win a title. Put
yourself in a number one contender's position, get back to
a number one contender's position, and if you bought him
out on that, they may not go back to you
for a long time. But then it just leaves you

(12:01):
in real limbo at that point. So you know, I'm
sure that most UFC fighters would say if the choice
is well, get a title shot early versus not at all.
Of course you would say early, but you also have
to be careful what you wish for on the back end.
That can cause some problems. Steve Versag is trying to
wrestle himself out of that here on Saturday night.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, I mean, it's hard to answer this question until
we see what happens on Saturday night, because look, if
he gets a super impressive victory over a multi time
former champion and a great dude, by the way, and
Brandon Moreno, I'd had an interview with him on the BCX.
You can check that out right after this program. Then
it might change that. But as we speak right now, Luke,
when you look back and see he fought for a
world title in the UFC in his third fight, and

(12:40):
it's not like he necessarily went through killers to get there.
Maybe it's due to more of the effect that the
top of the division had already fought each other a ton.
But do you lean more towards the feeling that it
was a little bit too soon.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
I definitely think it was too soon. I think the
fact that he made such a poor decision in that
fifth round against Pantoje is kind of evidence of it. Now,
I don't really know how to explain the Kaikr of
France one, which is to say, there could be a
bunch of different ones. He took him lightly, could be
one he just made a mistake and got caught, could
be another one he didn't necessarily make a mistake. That's
just more of a reflection of the actual level he's at.

(13:16):
Like that's an explanation too. That's why this fight against
Moreno five rounds Mexico City. You know, it's a tough
as you mentioned, like one thing we just have to
keep going back to that elevation in Mexico City is
no fucking joke at all, So very difficult circumstances for Erseg.
Here you're gonna get a real good test of him.
But now now he's been in five round UFC Man
events quite literally, right, he's been in five round UFC

(13:38):
Man events, So this is a chance for him to
kind of really set the level of where he is. Like,
we know how good Brandon Moreno is. On his best night,
he could be the best in the division. If not,
he's like a step behind it. But he's like right,
he's like right there, you know. But on the other hand,
with Ersag, we never really c his his something of
his best performance was those first four rounds against Pantoja,

(14:00):
you know what I mean. But in the end it's
a loss. We talked about it before, dude. There's no
moral victories in this game, not really. The only question
is who you beat, and to this point he hasn't
beaten an elite opponent, even if he has performed at
times quite elite against elite opposition.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
Well, Luke, I amg I and Mischad o'gary seem to
have a really nice moral victory in that loss to Shavkat. Notwithstanding,
here our DraftKings odds at the moment for this UFC
Mexico City main event is Brandon Marino minus two fifty eight,
your favorite Steve Rseg plus two ten. But Luke, you
mentioned we've got some sound from er Seg, who was
surprised that he's going to get this opportunity, but it

(14:37):
is a potential make or break fight. Let's see what
he has to say.

Speaker 4 (14:41):
I'm I was surprised they gave me another main event spot,
and yeah, somebody's so highly ranked, But I mean, all
I want to do is fought the toughest dudes on
the planet. And yeah, whether I have sit backs or whatever,
that doesn't doesn't bother me. I mean, obviously he's losing sucks,
but I want to, yeah, prove that I'm a I'm
a tough guy and I would never would think about

(15:02):
turning down a fire, especially this magnetude.

Speaker 5 (15:04):
Have you thought about how bizarre your UFC run has
been because it's only five fights, but you've been in
uh two main events counting this one one comin Event
four pay per views. I mean, you fought for the
title already. A lot of people will go years without
even coming close to doing something like that.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
Have you gotten a chance to.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
Process all that?

Speaker 5 (15:23):
And did you expect your UFC run to be sort
of this Uh, I don't even know what to call it,
like this fast, this intense.

Speaker 4 (15:29):
Maybe I definitely wouldn't expect by USC run a girl
like this. You're like, when you think about it, like oh,
five six, seven fights and then you work you out
at the title to get a shot, and yeah, I
got thrown into the deep end, which I mean honestly,
like I couldn't imagine a better outcome. I mean, I
think life's a bad experiences and I mean I have

(15:51):
some pretty amazing experiences so far. So Yeah, might be
the luckiest guy in the world at the moment.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
Real quick breaking news from Long Island. Luke Ronaldo, lazy Boy,
Rodriguez missed Wade. He came in at one hundred and
twenty seven pounds. We'll get more into the updates on
the undercard as we keep going. You heard from erseg
right there on the flip side, of course. Luke is
the thirty one year old Brandon Moreno motha tom champion,
co author of that fantastic four pack of Big Time

(16:20):
Fights against Davison. Frigoredo did bounce back to put a
side a two fight losing streak when he won a
decision over Emir Al Basi. But look if you look
at that two fight losing streak. Yeah, he did lose
the title to Pantosia in a dog fight, but it
was a split decision. Yes, he did follow that up
with a split decision loss against Brandon Royval. Where are

(16:43):
you heading into this moment at the nearly three to
one Moreno, In terms of his current.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
Stock, I'm still pretty high. I mean, I don't know
if that's crazy or not, but I still have.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
A good vac Moreno.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
I wish I was No. I mean maybe later, maybe
during the broadcast, who knows, But in all seriousness, I'm
not super down. I mean, like his three losses, as
you mentioned, the Royal loss, which was a split, then
the Pantojia one which is also a split, and then
he lost the Figuredo back in excuse me, January of
twenty twenty two. These are hardly disreputable losses. These are

(17:18):
hardly you know, things that kind of tell you, well,
we've sort of discovered the limit of him. He's really
at the limit. There was a question about you know,
he was in some really really really tough ass fights
and like what that did to him in terms of,
you know, the physical toll that it took. But he
took some time off I think appropriately, and he looked

(17:38):
pretty good against a mere Albasi. Now I think the
Albasi when there's going to be a little bit of
an asterisk there because folks are going to say, and
not unfairly, that Albosi. You know, this was a guy
who was not fully himself dealing with the variety of
potentially long term well not long term injuries, but long
term issues he'd been struggling with and you know, trying
to come back from that and it's very very difficult

(18:00):
to do. But okay, fair enough, but this is a
chance to really like this is what I mean this
The matchmaking here is kind of clever. It's not like
it's the fight that you needed to see, like, oh
I need to see er seg against Moreno, it doesn't
necessarily like blow your skirt up in that particular direction. However, however,
both guys are kind of facing a little bit of questions.

(18:21):
They're different ones, but they're important in nature. In the
case of Erseg just exactly what is his level. We've
seen flashes of it, as we indicated, but we're really
trying to figure this out and like who he's going
to be in this division. In the case of Marino,
we've already seen who he has been. He's been the champion.
The question is whether he can get back to that
after you know, yes to you guys, you pointed out
some setbacks to me, not they were setbacks, like in

(18:41):
the way that you couldn't technically overcome them, but that
they were kind of neck and neck with him, and
that there was this physical toll that was associated with it.
I think he's still just thirty one years of age,
so for me, I'm still pretty high on him. But
this is one of those fights where you're you, at
least in theory, could get great answers to some of
these bigger questions about exactly what where they are and
where they where they're likely to go from here.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
No doubt, and we will hear from Marino on a second.
But I forgot to mention the voice of friend of
the program, Danny Segura, he made the trip to Mexico
City to cover this.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
Yeah, yeah, of course they sent the Spanish language reporter
out there. Of course.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
Yeah, I know he's done some Remember he went to
that Lobo Jim and did that really nice video feature
out there in Mexico. So well traveled, gentleman. But let's
hear from Brandon Marino, who is looking to put the
past away, and I wish he would also step back
from that ledge. All right, let's just hear fro him.
Let's go.

Speaker 5 (19:30):
When you got the call to fight here, was it
like ah, here we go again, or was it like redeeming,
Like yes, I want to go in there. I got
to get away in front of my feet.

Speaker 6 (19:38):
Brother, I don't.

Speaker 8 (19:39):
I don't even thinking about my past, you know, I
think that is something I had to avoid for this one,
because you know I you guys always ask me about
what is the pressure of your next fight, and I
always ask I answered the same, like there's a lot
of pressure us always. But then I can't more on that,

(20:00):
you know, I can't put more a weight on my shoulders.
So hey, man, I just stopped the thing in the past.
I don't know nothing about my past. I grave all
they of the lessons from that, but after that, right now,
I'm very focus on my president. I'm focus on Steve Ersik,
and I'm ready for the challenge.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
Fair points. There By the way, Luke back for all
the toxicity in this sport back to back times her way,
Yan Blohovich sound last time. Now we got Brandon Moreno,
two of the true good people, it seems in the sports.
A shout out to those guys. Stylistically, Luke we mentioned
the betting favorite edge to Moreno. He's got the higher
level experience. Of course, although Ersk did fight, Pantosian did

(20:41):
fight well until that late mistake. How do these two
match you up? In your mind?

Speaker 1 (20:46):
This is an interesting one. So definitely you would imagine
if can work behind the job, he's going to have
a fair amount of success. So you really have to question, like,
what role is Erseg's jab going to play because a
lot of his offense flows through that. Someone like Moreno
has a couple of answers to that. He has great
lateral movement. He's probably going to fight more at kickboxing range.

(21:07):
I don't fight a boxing range, of course, but he
might try to keep it a little bit further away
to stifle both the distance closing and to give himself
additional weapons. I mean, think about it, right, they both
fought Kay car France. Kai car France was lighting Moreno
up a little bit until what he tried to exit,
and then he got hit with the body kick on
the exit and it folded him. You know, so you
really have to be like, Okay, Moreno's got difference to me, BC,

(21:29):
And maybe you disagree. I think Moreno has overall more weapons.
I think the sharpness of Erseg's boxing is definitely better
than the boxing of Moreno. I don't have any question
about that. But I think Moreno's going to try and
mix it up a little bit. Maybe he goes for takedowns,
you know what I mean, But like it's hard to
say exactly. There might be some clinch fighting just kind
of you know, just just trying to find different ways

(21:51):
in which to make Erseg respond to what he's doing.
But I really believe that this one is going to
be at kickboxing range and or some kind of if
he can get a dominance, you know, position through a scramble.
He's gonna be looking for that. But I guess the
point I'm trying to make is I think he can.
Moreno can probably for the most part, at least for
at least short, short bursts. I think he can hold
his own in the boxing. If he does that too long,

(22:11):
he's gonna get it's gonna be trouble for him. But
between that and then the lateral movement of the kicking range,
I think he's gonna go for the leg kicks a lot.
Body kicks I think are gonna be another part of it.
You know, to what extent is Ersek bite on that
to then go for the takedown, right, because it's an
easy way to go for a takedown if you can
grab the leg versus having to shoot. It's kind of
like one of those natural things. So to me, I
favor Moreno. I think Moreno's got a different distances he

(22:34):
can win at Moreno. By the way, let's be clear
about this. Moreno's beating better guys, just flat out He's
beaten better guys, and I don't. I don't think he's
washed yet, I really don't. But we're gonna see here
at Ersek again. If Ersek is flowing behind that job.
It's gonna be a real problem for for Moreno. But
I think Moreno should take this well.

Speaker 2 (22:54):
I mean, just on the surface. Moreno's got two wins
over Brandon roy Yeah, one win over Brandon roy vall,
two wins over car France. He'd be guys like for Mega,
he'd be al Bazi. He's been the multi time champion.
The main problem for him, Luke, although he has victories
on Mexican soil, on the regional level, he's curiously two

(23:14):
to one fighting for the UFC in Mexico all three
times it came in Mexico City. We're looking at a
twenty seventeen decision loss to Sergio Pettis, a twenty nineteen
draw split draw ou to my guy ascar Askarov, and then,
of course, fast forward all the way to two fights
ago he loses that split decision over five rounds in

(23:36):
the main event against Brandon royval so an opportunity, of
course for Moreno to exercise that demon. He comes in
ranked number two, Steve erseg ranked number eight. Now, Luke,
I asked Moreno when I interviewed him this week, are
we looking at a title shot? With a win, and
I think rightfully so he was hesitant to lean in

(23:57):
that direction. Not only is it, you know, is their
plan set up for the champion at the top. Let's
not forget he's now lost three times to the champion Pantosia,
one in the Ultimate Fighter, two in the regular UFC,
and he did echo my concerns of whether the UFC
would be willing to give him yet another chance. But

(24:18):
he's in this fight in the space because he's a Mexican,
nationally super popular. They know he's gonna move tickets. What
do you think is really at stake for each fighter
in terms of a victory.

Speaker 1 (24:31):
Ersega is sitting at eight, so it's not like if
he loses to the number two guy, he all of
a sudden is in a terrible place in the division.
But it's the bigger kind of concern. They thrust him
to the front of the line. He accepted, and again
we understand that these are difficult calculations to make dwake
except the UFC title shot. Who turns those down? You
don't even know if you're ever gonna get one again.
But it did kind of rush him into a place

(24:52):
where it's not really clear if he's ready for it,
can he settle into some kind of elite space because
he can get another title shot, He can be a
guy like Mareno, I'm not saying necessarily from just this win,
but he can definitely put himself in position to get
another one. He already had one, and you know, I
don't know if they could sell a rematch, but they
might try for Breno. It's about, you know, maintaining relevancy

(25:13):
at the top of this division. It's like, Okay, this
was the once proud champion multiple times. As you indicated,
Okay got a nice one over al Bosi. There are
some questions about it, but you know, he definitely got
the job done against a tough guy. Where do we
go from here? Somebody has to kind of stick a
claim about the future. Who is the future of this
Not the next five years per se, but who's the

(25:34):
future for the next year or two potentially of this division.
You're gonna get a much better answer depending on what
kind of fight you get and depending on who wins.
But I think also, like with the loss er, Sag
might get bounced. You know, I don't know if we
get bounced out of the top ten, but it would
just be a really kind of solidifying loss that it
was too much, too soon for him. And you know,
this is why you have to build guys up over

(25:56):
time the right way. Maybe he'll rescue himself, but he's
up against it for these reasons. And then for Moreno,
it's about recapturing what was once lost. So they're in
different positions. But again, the matchmaking is cool, not because
it's a rivalry, but because of how they match up
and pretty big and important stakes for some real big
questions surrounding two talented guys.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
All right, let's say Moreno wins. Here's the interesting debate
about who really would be aligned for that next title shot.
And obviously we do have to take into account what
we both said, the fact that Moreno has lost three
times essentially to Pantosia. Number One is Brandon roy Vall,
he got hurt, didn't get the cop fight. He's sitting
out at the moment. Three is Albozi coming off that defeat.

(26:38):
Four is Kai Kar France, and he's hot at the
moment and very well could get the next title shot
when he considered. He knocked out Steve Verseeg in round
one last August, the con against France. Right, the plus
is that he hasn't fought for the full title yet.
The con is that he had two consecutive losses before that.
One was a split decision to Albozi, who Moreno just

(26:59):
beat the the other was a stoppage loss against Moreno
for that interim title. Obviously, the real red hot guy
at the moment is Miguel Copp, who is currently ranked
number six. In your eyes, let's positive scenario where Moreno wins.
What is the order right there of those three fighters, Moreno, KKF,
and Cop in terms of what you think UFC preference

(27:21):
would be in giving them a shot at Pantosio.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
Cop would probably be a fresh matchup and a really
interesting one. I think that's number one. Kkf would be
number two because that's also a that's a fresh one.
Right then they've not fallt before. I'm trying to wreck
my brain. I don't believe that they have fought. He
would be a fresh title contender. Now. I think Moreno
would be three. Now, I think you could move that

(27:44):
around depending on what happens. If Moreno gets like a
absolute like thudding one punch shot, I mean that's unlikely,
but you know something really electric. You know, you can
move stuff around. But to me, Cop has been the
deserving guy. He's new, I mean new as a title
contender KKF, not new, but still quite deserving or at

(28:05):
least you know, could also prove useful for promotional purposes
if they want to go back to Australia or whatever.
And then on the back end, Moreno's kind of there
if you need it. But because he's already been there before,
he'll have to do something I think a little bit
special to jump the queue.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Okay, would you agree with what I thought was going
to happen before they booked royvall Cop. Let's say Moreno
does win, he's going into a trilogy with royval Ainy.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yeah, that's a possibility. Would they really do a trilogy?
Is there a big market for that?

Speaker 2 (28:41):
I mean they'd be two top contenders who probably don't
have a stake to face Pantosia because they both lost
to him multiple times. So you eliminate one of them
by going through each other a third time.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
Yeah, I mean that's a possibility. Yeah, I can't. I can't.
I couldn't rule that out. Flagway, This is what I mean, dude,
Flagwight is so weird where you know, like the rules
where okay, but you know, we normally know it takes
this long to get to this position for this kind
of a title shot and flywaight, it's like, yeah, good night,
you know what I mean, like good enough, got the
job done. You know it's it's it's very weird. So
that creates weird matchmaking downstream, not just from who gets

(29:14):
the title fight, but obviously how that affects the rest
of the division. So you might be right that they
would do a trilogy. I guess it's we have to.
We have to see what if it's one of these
wins where it's like, hey, Moreno one three, you know, Pantojia,
excuse me, I'm er Seg one two. What does it
all mean? I don't know. We're kind of waiting for
a mandate from one of these guys. We haven't had

(29:34):
that yet.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
Yeah, I'm with you on that. I'm leaning Moreno as well.
The elevation, the Mexico City factor. I do think he's
the better fighter of the two. He's coming off a win. Obviously,
Erseeg's gonna have to answer for those defeats, the first
round knockout loss that he suffered a KKF. I do
want to bring in our betting expert Long Island, Luke Nosita,
who will be probably hot and heavy and high on
the main card minute betting Pod this weekend. Nosita, where

(29:57):
are you leaning on this main event and where do
you find the best value from a betting standpoint.

Speaker 7 (30:01):
Unfortunately, I'm agreeing with you guys, and I'm also going Moreno.
I say unfortunately because I always back the Aussies and
I want to go Steve verseg here. But I just
I do think Moreno has more ways to get it done. Also,
I definitely think this fight goes the distance. That's where
I think the value is. Take either guy by decision.
I believe Moreno by decisions like plus one twenty or
sex like plus two fifty.

Speaker 6 (30:22):
So either of those I think are good beats.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
You noticed in one breath, no Seat is like, I
don't know why, it's always going back to my dad.
Scroll to him and then he's like, you know, I
back every Aussie. It's like, you know, dude, it's obvious.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
Dude. I mean, come on, you know we still don't
have to talk about his dad's balls though.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
Okay, all right, you think we'll ever get him on
the show or am I trying too hard?

Speaker 1 (30:40):
Someone should just make like a paper mache set of
balls and then like like put a mouth on it
and then like high, I'm looks Dad's balls, you know
what I mean? We could just have an interview with that.
I'm good on that.

Speaker 6 (30:52):
But you know that's gonna be a fan s up
next week now.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
Yeah, probably well with some nine to eleven connection and
we can't play it, thank you.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
Som balls will be driving a right into the towery.

Speaker 2 (31:04):
Do we care about this co main event at all?
Is Manuel Torres and fellow lightweight Drew Doper cross swords Luke.
Obviously there's bigger names to talk about down the card,
But are you moved at all by this matchup?

Speaker 1 (31:14):
I am a little bit. Manuel Torres actually fell a
little bit short obviously against Ignacio bay Mundees at the
Sphere card, but he is all action. Drew Dober all action,
but you know, kind of faced a little bit of
a rough stretch more recently of late. And you know
it's a one fifty five bout, like you know, is
there a title fight on the line?

Speaker 9 (31:32):
No?

Speaker 1 (31:33):
Is there top five ranking? Not necessarily, but is it
a fun action. You know it is BC. I'm gonna
use the BC expression. It's an awesome TV fight.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
Oh, cot technical thriller.

Speaker 1 (31:44):
I know it's a technical thriller. It's a technical thriller.
I really do believe it'll be a really, really fun
TV fight, and manial tour is still an interesting question
about how far he'll go. But you know, we're not
even close enough to really to get there. It's a
fun TV fight. I like it. I'm not backing on it.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
The thirty six year old's looking to snap a run
in which he's lost three of his last four. He
can win or lose any fight. He goes, big, handsome fella,
just the same, Luke. Let's look at the odds at
the moment. According to DraftKings A minus one twenty is
Drew dober as your favorite. Manuell Torres plus one hundred, Luke,
So you can get plus money on the younger, less

(32:19):
established name who's on the rise there against the veteran Dover.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
So yeah, I like those odds too. Those are interesting odds.
Torres to me, obviously he didn't do great against bay Mundez,
but should have more ways to win. But dober has
proven to be historically more sturdy sturdy error, but of
late has been less so. So it's a real interesting
Are we at the tipping point of Drew Dober being

(32:43):
able to beat like, you know, relevant guys at this level.
We'll see, we'll see.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
I hope they go tip to tip. What do you got, Nocita?
You got something?

Speaker 7 (32:51):
I just wanted to say that the odds on this
flip flopped because earlier I got Manuel Torres that like
minus one twenty and now he's the underdog. So a
lot of money's come in on Drew Dober throughout the week.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
Maybe Jeff Molina and Dereck Minner got involved, you know. Possibly.
All Right, here we go, Luke, Let's talk about the
fight that you know is heavy on my heart. One
of my favorite fighters who just can't seem to put
it all together, as Kelvin Gastellum. He's back at middleweight.
I mean, who could forget what he co authored at
UFC two thirty six, some six years worthy?

Speaker 1 (33:22):
Huh?

Speaker 2 (33:23):
Against is he Hall of Fame worthy? He will be welcoming,
of course, be like twenty eight year old Joe Pifer,
who bounced back from that decision loss to Jack Hermanson
in February of last year knocked out Mark andre Bury.
Oh and of course mister Pifer is going to come
in here as a somewhat sizeable betting favorite minus two

(33:45):
ninety eight to the plus two forty Gastelum Luke, what's
really at stake?

Speaker 1 (33:50):
Here?

Speaker 2 (33:50):
Feels like crossroads battle. One guy coming on, one guy
going what do you like about this matchup?

Speaker 1 (33:56):
Pifer is trying to get a win over a name
this is is obviously his stablemate Sean Brady already beat him,
submitted him. But Sean Brady's got a very different game
than Joe Pifer in a different weight class, so it's
a different fight. But to me, it's clear that, like
you know, Joe Pifer was on his way, got a

(34:16):
little bit of a setback, but he's still young. There's
still a lot of room for growth and opportunity. And
Kelvin Gastlim appears to me, like you know, I don't
know if I would describe it as last legs of
his career. I don't think that's necessarily exactly right. But
you know, if you don't win this, it's hard to
know how many more fights of any kind of relevance,
you would be in right because by his own admission,

(34:39):
I think we have audio of this, by his own admission,
he's never going back to Walter Waite. So it's it's
one five or bust. Yeah, he's still pretty young. What
is Kelvin GASLM thirty three three? Yeah, so he's still
pretty young, which is pretty good, but it's it's the
middleweight thing. I yes, I completely agree that what he
turned in against Is in Atlanta is an all timer performance.

(35:00):
He didn't win that one, and it's like, what can
he actually win at at middleweight? Like what is actually
achievable here? And I think all of us probably have
some questions. We know when he's on, he's good. We
know when he wants to, you know, leverage some of
that Chris boxing, he can do it. When he wants
to show good wrestling, he can do it. But we're
at elevation. It's one eighty five. Yeah, I don't know,

(35:22):
I don't know what.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
Yeah, thirty three, but you know he's got mileage on him.
He's never been stopped by strikes, which you know speaks
to his chin. But he also gets beat up in
a lot of fights, even once he's went, he's won,
and he's lost six of his last eight. If you
go all the way back to that Adasania interim title fight,
maybe if there's a plus in this. He has won
two of his last three. There was the loss at

(35:45):
welterweight by submission to Sean Brady, but he wanted a
decision over Chris Curtis, and most recently, in his return
to one eighty five last June, he won a three
round decision against Daniel d rod Roaldriguez. Let's hear from
Kelvin Gastolum about what is now going to be a
permanent home at Midleway?

Speaker 5 (36:03):
Is one seventy done?

Speaker 1 (36:04):
Can we say that, like is going to be your
home for now?

Speaker 9 (36:07):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, One eighty five is my home, and uh,
you know what, I feel good about it. This is
where I've had the best moments of my career and
this is where I'm staying. So I feel good here.
I feel happy, and I feel strong. I put in
a lot of muscle for for to be able to
compete with these big guys. I knew so, so I
was when I was fighting for the title. I just

(36:27):
stayed at Middleway because I was doing well, right, I
was winning fights, I fought for the title.

Speaker 6 (36:32):
So I stayed at Middleway.

Speaker 1 (36:34):
Uh where Now I feel like, Okay, this is my
actual home.

Speaker 9 (36:39):
I feel good here and I'm ready to put on
a good show against some of the best fighters in
the world. And I'm not undecided. I'm one hred percent
sure that this is this is where I'm staying.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
Look, we did see the picture. We don't have it
at the moment, but that picture, would you know, all
the fighters take the official UFC pictures and their fight
gear before each fight. It looked very dad bod like.
I mean, I hate to say this out loud because
I love this guy. He's an action fighter. He wears
his heart on his sleeve. He goes out there and
gets after it. But he's never been stopped. Let's say

(37:10):
he gets stopped here, is he gonna be uh making
his GFL debut next?

Speaker 6 (37:16):
He has been stopped. He's just never been knocked out.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
Sorry, he's ante twice. Yeah, he got stopped by Sean Brady.
But BBC has been mentioned he was he was infer
or implying, uh, you know, to be a strikes. I
think they hold on to him a little bit longer,
even if he loses, they might you know, I hate
to say it, dude, but this is the fight game. Like,
if he loses, well, they cut him potentially. But what

(37:39):
I think was more likely to happen is that they
just try and use whatever's left of him against any
kind of name on the come up for as long
as they can, and then you know, tell him to
get to step in.

Speaker 6 (37:49):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
You know, it's I don't think I don't think that
a loss here by itself sends him packing, but I
think it would be you know, like, again, you lose
this one and you're the UFC matchmakers, what lesson are
you supposed to draw about his future if you can't
win this one at a weight class where you know,
we all kind of looked at it and it was like,
can he perform at this weight class? At times? He

(38:12):
certainly has been able to, but it also looks like
to me, he's just better suited physically for one seventy,
but he has a real hard time making it. Where
are you supposed to go if this doesn't work it
just narrow.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
Drops Johnny Eblin on a PFL Dublin card or something.
I guess you could go to BKFC, where there seemed
to be paying well where you can go brawl like
you want to. I'm not trying to write the old
bit already. He's this's a big fight, and like if
he wins this, he's had what he would have one
three of his last four, so I'm likely you should
we should.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Point out something to b C. Piper faded down the
stretch and I don't know if it was last fight,
whatever the whatever the uh whenever that last loss was.
I don't the Jackermanson. I don't have the date in
front of me, but he faded down the stretch in
that one. Yeah, and that was it. That was not
at altitude. So it's like that's a good point.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
He altitude could be interesting. Let's hear from Pifer, who
believes the scenario could be true. He believes he's the
first one that could knock Gastle him out.

Speaker 5 (39:10):
What'd you think of Kelvin When they offered you the name,
you fought like some obviously well known guys Jacker, Mancin
and others. But when Kelvin came, you know he's also
a veteran. What did you think and did you like
the matchup?

Speaker 10 (39:22):
Yeah? I love the matchup. I thought it was very exciting.
You know, he's a guy that likes to bring it.
You know, he's entertaining the watch. I would say, as
of lately, his performances I don't think are of Calvin
of old, but I do believe that he did his
best work at middleweight. So you know, I know my
teammate beat him and Sean Brady and dominated, but we're
two completely different fighters. That's a question that's been popping

(39:44):
up a bunch, But you know, our styles are different.
Shawn's an amazing grappler. I'm a good grappler. I'm a
great striker, I think, and I want to be the
first guy to knock Calvin out. So yeah, when I
saw the matchup, I thought it was a great, great
fight for me.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
Luke, the twenty eight year old Pifer is four and
one in the UFC. We mentioned that loss to her Manson. Obviously,
he's going to have to test his guest tank at
elevation here against a veteran. Both of these guys unranked
that middleweight. Do you think Pifer has the type of
game where he could make a run here into title
contention with a few more wins.

Speaker 1 (40:20):
I think Mexico City is going to be a great test.
It's amazing that they had a guy who kind of
faded in an important contender fight and they're like, you
know what, let's see what he does at elevation, Like,
you know, could just almost compounding the misery. But it's
important to see what the answer is there. Beating Kelvin
gastolim By itself wouldn't necessarily portend a title future. Knocking

(40:40):
him out potentially could, or dominating him over the course
of three or winning a convincing decision while clearly answering
the question about could you get right at elevation for
you know, a challenging opponent, like those kinds of things,
Like what do you need to see to believe he
could do it? I'll tell you, Like what was missing
in that loss to her Manson one? He went too hard,

(41:00):
too quickly, right, so he didn't manage his resources. So
can he paste it out a little bit? Uh? Three,
this is a this is a three round fight, correct,
not five correct, three round fight, so you know, it's
a little bit different than uh than the than you know,
a five round man event or whatever. So he can
he can kind of be a little bit more. He
has to be somewhat judicious with it, but he can
kind of step on the gas pedal as well. But

(41:22):
the other one too was he was just kind of
lunging into attacks, you know. And so what I would
like to see from him is like, okay, methodically set
it up. Like, dude, if you put somebody who's like
not that great or halfway decent in front of Joe Pifer,
he'll decapitate them quickly, you know what I mean. Like,
it's very very you know, it's it's a it's a
it's a crocodile eating a gazelle or something like. It's
it's very very fast. But what we need to see

(41:44):
is somebody who can more patiently, over time apply it
against a credible, experienced and durable veteran. That's that's a
and again at elevation, this is a much different kind
of test. So I need to see him overcome the
things that set him back previously, a one note attack
and maybe fading with the cardio gain in different circumstances,

(42:05):
but faiting with the cardio down the stretch. You adjust
both of those in a meaningful way. And I think
you're cooking with gas hell.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
Yeah, And obviously he's on rank, so this isn't about
catapulting him. It's title contention. This is about the road
to get there and getting bigger names moving into that
top ten. This would be a good start, obviously, guesslam
still is a name. He still brings danger to the
table of some level. We'll find out high up in
the elevation of Mexico City. Hey fan favorite, twenty year
old still maybe future phenom. He's ten to one overall

(42:37):
and of course his name is Raoul Rosas Junior. And
one thing you have to say about him, luke UFC.
Crowds love this guy, especially when he's either in Las
Vegas or in Mexico City. He'll be here matched up
in this bantamweight bout against a Vince Morales who is
riding a two fight skid, and as we look at

(42:58):
the odds at the moment, the oddsmakers love Rosace minus
four eighty five the favorite to the plus three seventy Morales.
Does this feel like stay busy, showcase fight put another
popular name on the card to you? Or do you
still think because he's only twenty he really needs a
lot more of these type of matchups to continue to

(43:19):
round out his skill set, he.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
Needs a lot more of these matchups. But I will
tell you I have a very different feeling about Roller
Rosas in part because one, I think what you're seeing
from his attacks or that they are slowly maturing in
the right direction, like things are headed in the right direction.
But what I think is actually helping him, and hear
me out on this, what I think is helping him BC,
is that people have kind of stopped with like he's

(43:42):
the grappling prodigy of the future, you know what I mean,
Or he's you know, oh my god, he'll be a tile,
He'll be a champion by twenty three, by the time
he's twenty three, which, by the way, you know, could
still happen. But we're at twenty he's not really close
to that yet at all, and doesn't need to be.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is BC.
There was a bunch of hype around him about how
good he was already and how fast this career was moving,

(44:05):
and a lot of that has slowed down to what
I think is a much more natural and frankly fair
level to him, where you know, you've seen him kind
of fade a little bit or have some weaknesses. He's
slowly working on them. They're giving him opponents piece by
piece where he can kind of, you know, just get right,
fine tune everything along the way. And we've said this before, dude,

(44:25):
you know this is not the place ideally where you
want to be fine tuning your game. Of course, you're
always going to make improvements as a martial artist and
a fighter over time, but you need to have be
like more, much more foundationally set. He's trying to do
this on the job in the UFC. That's a very
very difficult thing to do. But because the sensationalism around
him has died down, I feel like this is a

(44:46):
much better time for him, you know what I mean.
Like there's not this crazy ass hype about him. That's
not fair to him, it's not fair to the situation,
it's not fair to his development. You tone that down
a little bit and everything becomes much more manageable, iterative,
all the right things. So I like this fight for him.
I like this fight for the crowd. I like this

(45:06):
opportunity for both guys, but obviously for him in particular.
And I'm glad that this nut is the completely crazy
over hyping of him has come to earth a little bit.
It's only gonna make him better in the long run,
not worse.

Speaker 2 (45:20):
Yeah, of course. He had that April twenty twenty three,
lost to Christian Rodriguez over three rounds, which kind of
exposed the fact that he's, you know, can't even legally
drink in the US. He's still developing despite having eleven
pro fights, but the three fight win streak since then,
we've seen a lot. He stopped Terrence Mitchell inside of
one round to close twenty three, and then he submitted
Ricky TURKEYO tercios excuse me to open last year, and

(45:43):
then he had that big win at the Sphere over
three rounds against the Chinese guy. How do you pronounce
that guy? Iori Klang? Is that right or wrong?

Speaker 6 (45:50):
I always get this one wrong, Ariki Lang Ricci something
like that. Either way.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
I don't know if that's right either.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
Anyway, he had a nice viral moment at the Sphere
when he delivered that oh so famous, catchy and viral
catchphrase that the whole crowd repeated. And our own friend here,
who's made a lot of appearances on today's show, Danny Sigurha,
gave the people what they wanted at media Day. Let's listen,

(46:18):
how are you?

Speaker 5 (46:20):
I think there's only one proper way over here. I
think there's only one proper way to start this Meetia day.
Any chance we can get a chiweweize to get things
on the right foot.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
Cheeweewee.

Speaker 5 (46:29):
Awesome, there we go.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
Look, doesn't chewee wee sound like if you, like accidentally
crapped your pants while sleeping and then woke up and
found out about it. It'd be like, oh shit, chewee
wee's again, right, you know what I mean? I'll see
myself out. It was great. Yeah, I'm gonna let you hang. Okay,
all right, Luke, What do we know about Vince Morales?

(46:55):
What kind of test could he give?

Speaker 11 (46:57):
You know?

Speaker 1 (46:57):
I think the odds kind of speak to this a
little bit. As you mentioned, to fight skid not not
the worst takedown defense I've ever seen, but not great.
And I think you know, people are gonna say, ABC, well,
Raoul should really work on his hands, And of course
the answer to that is you have to yes, like,
that's obviously true, million percent, but he should still be

(47:17):
winning fights on the ground. In my opinion, take the
case of somebody like Aaron Pico. Yeah, when he finally
started to get everything integrated into his game and to
get his confidence back and to get his ground game
on notice, then they started letting him open up the
hands a little bit more, and you saw what happened.
You know, everything was just working flawlessly. But they spent
a bunch of fights where they were like, just win

(47:39):
on the ground, no matter what. I still think he
should be in that mode, not in desperation mode in
that sense, but you know, this is where this is
where the fight should be won and lost is right
down here, and I think he has the acuity to
do that. So this is one of those fights we
see where it's like, you know, if he trained hard
and he's in shape, and you know he doesn't make

(47:59):
stupid mistakes, it's his fight to lose, is the way
I would put it. It's his fight to lose. So
this is what I mean. This is better, This is iterative.
This is a smart kind of matchmaking. Do the UFC
like when they're doing him a favor, man, they're doing
him if they're doing him a lot of favors, and
it looks to me like he might be taking advantage
of him. Let's let's see how this goes.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
Well. I'm not going to criticize it a because he's
twenty B because I like that they're bringing him back
to Mexico City where they know he's gonna get huge pops.
And see, we criticize them for not putting in the
time to make stars and instead taking people out of
the Contender series and throwing them in big fights. Dude,
sometimes you have to slow roll a guy and let
him build it up. So well done to Sean Shelby

(48:40):
and uh Mick and the crew over there. All right,
great stuff. Look, let's continue to move down this Mexico
City card. We know that there's got to be something
on this undercard that's gonna move you. Is it Lupy
Godinez against Julia Polastri or not that at all?

Speaker 1 (48:57):
That's one you could do. Let's see Long Island. Luke
and I were talking about this earlier. I would say,
I mean it's a couple of these. The for me, uh,
the Chaidez and Vergata fight is probably gonna be pretty
action packed, good flyweight fight there, Long Island. Luke, you
were you were talking about which one of the Costa
and c Rod fight, that's the one that you like

(49:18):
the most.

Speaker 6 (49:18):
I think it'll be a good fight.

Speaker 7 (49:19):
And then I said Emmer's Miranda, I feel like, yes,
second fight of the night should be low key banger.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
Dude, if you actually look up. And I also think
the Rofa Garcia and the Vince Bachelle fight could, depending
how it goes, could be kind of fun and interesting
along the way. There's thirteen fights on this card we see,
and none of them are exactly like, oh my god,
this is the best banger I've ever seen in my life.
But they've all got action fight potential, or at least
for the most party, they all have action fight potential.

(49:45):
So for that reason, it's like there's a this one
of those This is one of those cards where the
prelims could could end up being better than the main
card in insofar as you know which which which section
of the car delivered the most exciting action. In that sense,
the card really could over deliver here. But there's a
there's a few different ones you could pick up and
down this up and down this card long.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
I don't look any final words about some good bets
that people.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
Can look at the bet.

Speaker 7 (50:10):
Well, you guys, didn't ask me about Rose as junior,
but I wanted to say Luke was talking about him
getting a takedown.

Speaker 6 (50:15):
He's taken down four or five of his UFC opponents.
The only one he didn't take down was that Terrence
Mitchell win where he knocked him out.

Speaker 1 (50:21):
In like fifty. That guy was so terrible.

Speaker 7 (50:23):
I mean, that guy was on tough and he comes
from Alaska Fighting Championship. If you guys have never watched
Alaska Fighting Championship, don't, just don't know. It is the
I've ever seen. I gotta say, like, yeah, gired Kinnoneer.

Speaker 6 (50:36):
I think came from they they've never Euros Medicic. You
know they've had guys come from there, but that the
majority of them are terrible.

Speaker 2 (50:44):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (50:44):
Anyways, he's taking down four of his five UFC opponents.
Morales was taken down in five of his seven UFC losses.
So I feel like, dude, Rosa just has to wrestle here,
easy win for him. What else I got in the
main card? I got the over one and a half
in Pifer Gaslam. Gaslam hits it pretty much every single fight.
Piper's only hit it three times though, in sixteen fights,
so very risky there. I'm hoping the elevation slows him

(51:06):
down and maybe he learned from that Hermanson less take
it easy this time a little bit, you know. But
other than that I already mentioned, I got Manuel Torres,
I got the over two and a half and the
main I mean, dude, I'm doing a full card.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
Watch along.

Speaker 6 (51:17):
If you guys want the full place.

Speaker 1 (51:18):
Boyfriend of the year right here, boyfriendly.

Speaker 6 (51:22):
Right here, let's go deep deep, but you should hit something.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
You should change the name of the main card minute
to I ignore my girlfriend.

Speaker 6 (51:28):
Okay, that's you know that is I got no comeback
to that, all right?

Speaker 2 (51:34):
That is UFC Mexico City pokes.

Speaker 1 (51:36):
Everyone just joke.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
Luke Thomas, will you be providing post fight content or
during fight content?

Speaker 1 (51:41):
No, I'm gonna take a break. I'm gonna take a break.
I have been getting slammed this week. I've barely kept up.
I have a Cory sand Taket interview I haven't even
had the chance to post yet, so I'll do. I'll
probably do a recap on Sunday, but I'm not gonna
go live on Saturday. I'm gonna spend time with my
my wife and kid.

Speaker 2 (51:55):
They deserve that. As you're criticizing Nocita for just avoiding
the women in his life, you know what I mean,
It's crazy. Let's go to topic number two. Former two
time UFC heavyweight champion Kane Velasquez was officially sentenced to
five years in prison four that shooting attempt. We remember
the whole story of what went down, but that time

(52:16):
will be mitigated by time served both in house arrest
and the previous time that he was incarcerated after his
initial arrests, meaning he's expected to serve less than two
years total time coming forward in prison. Luke, We've seen
a very polarizing mix of opinions upon this sentencing. The
hashtag free Kine movement continues up and down the MMA landscape.

(52:39):
In your opinion, was Kane velaskaz is sentencing fair for
what was, in a lot of ways a reckless car
chase and shooting and he ultimately shot the wrong guy?

Speaker 1 (52:51):
Yeah, I mean this is an interesting one to me.
BC like pop quiz on this one. How long was
the car chase that he went on? Do you remember
it was over multiple towns?

Speaker 2 (53:01):
Right?

Speaker 1 (53:02):
It was eleven miles? Okay, eleven miles? Eleven miles and
if you actually read the police report, they found shell
casings at least seven miles apart both of the initial
spot in his car at the next one. You can
go and map this out. If you read the police report,
you can see where he went. There were elementary schools
operating at the time, ordinary businesses, pedestrians. I mean, you

(53:24):
name it. Here's the thing. Be see. This is not
one of the situations where IM going to get up
here and be like, you know, Caine deserves to rot
in prison. I don't think he does. I don't think
that's true at all. In fact, I'm pretty satisfied, such
as one can be with the outcome. I mean when
I say satisfied, I'm not happy about it, but I
think the justice system kind of worked out in his favor.

(53:46):
A little bit here, we should back up a step.
People are like, oh, why is it that the state
is hammering Kine and not doing anything to the guy
who's alleged to have done stuff to his kid. Oh no, no,
that dude has a trial in June, so he's going
to see his day in court. Let's start with that.
Cain pled no contest, so he was able to move
through this process a little bit more quickly, which is
why they could resolve it quicker. But like, make no mistake,

(54:09):
that dude who is alleged to have done what can
only be described as basically the most hetous, like one
of the most heinous crimes a person could even engage in,
He's got a court day in June, So let's be
clear about that. That's the first thing I'm gonna say.
The second thing I'm going to say is I think
that the justice Again, I'm not a career prosecutor, and
so like, understanding what our accounts for normal sentencing guidelines

(54:30):
is beyond our purview, But I'm trying to understand the
argument made by others that Cain has been done wrong
by the justice system. Now, again, we will see what
happens to the court case of the guy who is
alleged to have done unspeakable horrors to his kid, And
I don't know how to weigh in on that until
that happens, but that is going to happen. And in
the case of Cain, I mean, you know, guys, like,

(54:52):
are we really making the argument that if you feel
like it, you can go and chase people for or
eleven miles risk. You know, you could just endanger the
public in this particular way, not even get the person
you were looking to get, get somebody who is at
least legally speaking, totally innocent. Again, legally speaking, totally innocent,

(55:13):
and that like this is a suitable way in which
to operate like this is obviously quite nonsensical. Now do
I understand? And BC as a father, you understand this
as a father, I understand this. Like someone said, what
would you do if you know this happened to you,
if you were in Kane's position? Dude, maybe I'd react
the same way as Kane, right, you know what I mean?
Like I'm not here to say, oh I would. I
would take a deep breath and sleep on it. If

(55:34):
you don't even like I don't know that. I mean,
maybe you and I would do the Maybe you and
I would do the exact same thing. But the reality
on top of it is he got time served. This
was during busy traffic. Two eyewitnesses saw him ramming a truck.
This was near schools. This was it went on for
eleven miles. Was a forty caliber pistol that he was using,

(55:54):
which is not a small round.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
And didn't he wait for the accused to exit court
or a prison, like it was when that guy got released, right, he.

Speaker 1 (56:02):
Was showing up to get his ankle monitor because obviously
he you know, due to the nature of he has
that the dude who was accused of doing this heinous
shit has And we have to say that because that's
where we're legally at and you know, you have to
describe it accurately at the time present, he had to
get an ankle monitor because he pled not guilty. He
has pled not guilty of this. Now again he's accused

(56:23):
of doing the worst shit on earth. We'll get his
day in court. But the one I want to make
is are we really saying that King was done wrong
by the justice system that like, dude, b see, just
to understand something, What if he had hit another person
and paralyzed them or killed them with his car or
with a bullet, What if he had what if one
of these things had gone into a school. What if

(56:44):
he had flipped his own car somehow or endangered himself
and gotten injured? Like, how is that a better outcome
for his family? Is the state supposed to look at
that and say, yeah, no big deal, Like we totally
get it. Like, as far as the state is concerned,
they have to do something. They can't just allow people

(57:05):
to act in this way. And I want to make
one last point about this PC Like the person who
makes the most compelling argument about Cain's actions, you know,
while you can understand them certainly, but nevertheless being legally
quite reckless, is kane Velasquez. Kane Velaskaz's statement to the
court was total contrition. He totally understood it was reckless,

(57:29):
it was dangerous, and it was irresponsible. You only have
to read what he says. So to me, if he
had gone through with this and someone would have gotten injured,
not only would unspeakable horrors have happened to his child,
but then he would have had to gone away for life.
And that doesn't serve anybody's interest either. Here is a
case where the state says, Okay, what you did was bad,

(57:50):
but we understand the circumstances. A little bit more prison
time about a year, and some change is required, and
then you can go live your life. I think that
that is all things being what they are. Tragic situation,
but a reasonable outcome given the circumstances.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
I'm aligned with you. I don't I don't think you
can just easily say, well, he didn't shoot up accidentally.
You know a kid or I know someone who received
the accidental gunfire.

Speaker 1 (58:16):
Was it a the Yeah, well, I believe the stepfather
who was in the vehicle, and I think he was driving,
if I'm not mistaken, and.

Speaker 2 (58:24):
I think you know, and it took place out a
daycare which was owned by the accused his mother, I believe. So, like,
I get all this, but I don't think you can
just say like, well, it didn't happen, so he's free,
because obviously the intent was there. I agree with you
if this happened to either of us, like you just
really don't know what you would do. We may have
done the same thing, but I think I also would
have understood what the penalty would be by doing that,

(58:45):
and I think a lot of us would accept that
penalty in that situation if that rage was so real. So, uh,
he got the most lenient sentencing possible. So I'm not
against the MMA community supporting him and even saying to
the level of well, I probably would have done the
same thing, because again, this is a heinous crime that
was committed to his family, but the whole hashtag Free
Kine movement just kind of supports a lawless eye for

(59:07):
an eye society. And that's what you know, Like he
got off ultimately well. And so yeah, I mean I
think that's all that needs to be said.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
Yeah, right, we don't we don't have to go into detail.
Like I said, dude, I'm not the Only thing I
want out of this is for Kine's family to find
peace and happiness. And I absolutely mean that with every
fiber of my being. And what I will say is,
after he went on that rampage, and again, like you said,
maybe you and I would have done the exact same thing,

(59:37):
but after he went on it, of all the ways
that like once he did it right, of all the
ways that could have gone in terms of that, it's
gone pretty well in the sense that somebody didn't get killed,
which you know then would have just been like mandatory
sentencing at that point, I believe, so like you know,
you would have just been screwed. It would have been
nothing you could do. And he'll be with his family

(59:59):
in about a year or so, give or take, right.
And I do think that Kin learned his lesson in
the sense that, like he realizes that this is not
a way you can go through your life, and you
have to be there for your family, which I'm sure
he will be. I have no question about that whatsoever.
Like I believe Kin will live a completely and I
mean it's in a good way, ordinary law abiding life
from here on out. I have zero concerns. So I

(01:00:22):
just want everyone to be like, what do you know?
You have to ask yourself, like what do you want
the state to do when somebody engages in this behavior?
And even if we are totally sympathetic to the motivations
about why he got into a blind rage, and we
certainly are, there is it's very easy to understand that part.
Just being like nothing should happen in those cases seems
to me a bit going overboard. It's a it's a

(01:00:44):
it's a of all the ways this could have gone,
this was one of the in terms of his punishment
and what he has to do, this was one that
I think this the you know, more or less reached
a suitable conclusion.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
Let's see that statement from Kane's attorney to put a
closure on this. If you today's results are bittersweet. We
had hoped mister Velaskez would remain out of jail. However,
the facts remain clear. Kine is a good man, a
devote a father, respective member of the community. What he
and his family have endured have been nothing short of
a living nightmare, one they did not deserve. Throughout it all,
Cain has shown courage and strength of character. He has

(01:01:16):
taken responsibility for his actions, which is true, and has
been held accountable. The sentence handed down today reflects the
complexities of the situation and acknowledges the man behind the headlines.
When he's released, he will continue to lead by example, protecting, contributing,
and caring for the people around him. So there we go.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
That's what it is.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
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Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
All Right, luke Let's transition into topic number three and
a continuing trend here from the idea of UFC seeking
design big name foreign free agents that have established themselves
and either other organizations or other sports. Right, think about
the time that Alex Poeton Pereira came to the UFC
because of that storied rivalry and kickboxing with Israel Atasania. Well,

(01:04:01):
let's flip that forward. We know the last person to
defeat Pereira in kickboxing was Glory champion Artam Vakitov, and
he did go through the Danna Y Contender series and
get a win. But when presented with a UFC contract,
he ultimately passed. Let's first read vak Toov's statement and
it says the former Glory champion no longer has UFC

(01:04:23):
in his immediate plans despite that contract offer, and the
quote is, according to UFC protocols, they were not able
to offer me more than the standard contract offered to
all fighters who progressed through this show, meaning the Contender series.
My team attempted to negotiate, vaky Tov said, but the
UFC rules were strict and no changes were possible. End quote,

(01:04:48):
Luke Thomas. Interesting story here. Does the UFC need to
sign free agents like this or is this handwringing from
the bitter online fan base who like us, tend to
really focus on this whole idea of fighter pay.

Speaker 1 (01:05:08):
PC. What is the point of monopoly if we can't
even get the fighters that make exciting noise, that are
easily affordable by the promotion, Like, what is the point?
I mean? Because what folks will tell you is having
everything vertically integrated. Right, We've got which is more than
just who you have on the roster. But you know,

(01:05:29):
having this roster, you have eighty eighty five ninety percent
of the world's best guys, which I think is a
bit of an exaggeration. Now maybe closer to eighty. But
you know you've got the majority of them. What is
the point of keeping some on the outside that you
can easily afford that could be a big boost to
your roster in really important ways, and in fact, you know,
could be the next big superstar. Folks might note they're like, well,

(01:05:51):
how do you know that the Vaki Tov thing would
would work? I don't. I have no idea. If that
would work, they might sign him and he could totally
bought him out, in which case great, Like you tried
and it failed. What about Cedric Doombay? Maybe he would
only be relevant for France and he couldn't beat anybody
good here, Like, maybe that would bottom out too. I'm
not really opposed to that idea, but maybe also BC,

(01:06:12):
you sign those two guys, and you signed Saladeen Parnass right,
the guy who's trying to become the triple champ of KSW,
still the existing double champ, and he hits, and all
of a sudden you've got the next exciting star in MMA.
It didn't matter what you spent, in part because it
was never going to be that much anyway. But whatever
you spent on vaky tav and whatever you spent on

(01:06:33):
Doombay in this hypothetical is a is a penance of
the kind of money you're going to make back on
the next star that hits like it. It's not a
question about whether they can afford it. And if you
can afford it and it makes your roster better, why
wouldn't you do it? And the answer, of course PC
is what matters most is such that we can tell

(01:06:54):
is that when there's a conflict between what a fighter
wants and what the UFC is willing to pay in
terms of, you know, keeping fighter compensation at twenty percent
or below, they have they penny pinch. They penny pinch
on this. And again we're not making a case that
you have to sign every free agent at every amount
dollar amount that they want. You can pass on some
of these guys. But it's like, how is this better

(01:07:19):
for the consumer? I know what folks might say, oh, well,
this keeps the UFC's you know, finances in order. I'm
not I'm not talking about that. I'm asking, as a
consumer make the argument that the UFC passing on guys
like this is good for you. Make the argument that
it's good for me. Make that up, make that argument
because you really can't. And BC, funny little thing. I

(01:07:42):
used to live in a world and it was called
twenty ten, twenty twelve, twenty fourteen where the UFC was
excited and like, oh there's somebody else out there making
noise in another promotion. We're gonna get them. Exact, we're
gonna we're gonna get them, and there was like this
hunt to go get them, and sometimes they might overpay,
not not all of them paid off BC. But to
go from that to like, yeah, well, dude, just to
be clear about something, vaky Tov is better than Izzy

(01:08:04):
and Pootonic kickboxing. He's better than both of them, and
they're just like, no, I'll pitch it back to YOUBC,
but I really don't understand what the consumer argument is
for looking the other way on that.

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
Well, look like when Poton decided to come over from MMA,
he didn't have to go through the Danaway Contender series.
They made Vokatov do that. Okay, that's fine, right, that's
the newest trend. Everybody's got to do that. He did that.
He gotta win. He was impressive, and while we don't
know about the figures offered, I can't be like, well,
who's gonna sign for twelve and twelve when you've got
a name elsewhere. It seems like they low balled the

(01:08:42):
shit out of this guy and was like take it
or leave it. And obviously it seems like there's a
larger trend of this continuing to happen. And Luke, I
don't know if you read Kidnap's piece in the MMA draw,
but it feels like Endeavor going Private just awarded Ari
Emmanuel upwards of over one hundred million, and Patrick.

Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
White sell himself you're seventy four precise.

Speaker 2 (01:09:03):
Right, So we are seeing what the TKO era of
UFC ownership really means. The rich get richer as they
continue to pull every single dollar incent out of the
promotion that they can, meaning raising ticket prices, charging out
outrageous government contracts to bring their events to cities, which

(01:09:24):
is within their right of course. But when you're making
year over year financial record breaking gain and the matchmaking
continues to suffer, the star power continues to suffer, the
idea that UFC always makes the matchups that we want starting,
you know, in some big cases continuing to suffer, and
now you've got this opportunity of a free agent who

(01:09:46):
wants to be there, has a name, has a resume,
has a history with Poeton that's very comparable to the
one that Poeton had with Izzy went through your Dana
White Contender series. But you're like, yeah, but you got
to come in on that low ball offer like everybody else,
because that's what we do. I get when you're on
top going, which we often hear said from UFC or

(01:10:06):
even you know, the vincric Man led WW previously, that
we don't offer a career, we offer an opportunity. I
get that. But if somebody's already established elsewhere and they're
deeper into their career and they're not some twenty something
right out of the regionals, how are you going to
get off making this much money and then offering this
little So you're right, Luke. I think that there is

(01:10:26):
a general UFC apathy that started, of course with journalists
like us who were noticing trends and really not liking
it right continuing on with the great kind of financial
reporting from the likes of the nim drawer John S Nash.
But I think it's now catching up with the audiences
as well. We saw what happened in London last week.
A sparse crowd, a lot of complaints. That's the only

(01:10:48):
way things are going to change, right when when they're
when it affects their bottom line, when people are no
longer buying tickets, are no longer buying pay per views.
But it really has to hurt if you're a hardcore
fan and there's things you were just accustomed to getting
in a monopoly, like the leading organization employing the leading
fighters and putting on the biggest fights possible. And I

(01:11:08):
don't know how you can still defend that they are.
That's really the continuing trend here that's so troubling.

Speaker 1 (01:11:15):
And they can afford all of it. They can afford.
This is not a question of like, hey, it's the
Oakland A's can they really afford you know show? Hey
o Tani, Well they can't, they can't. But that's not
this case. This is like the La Dodgers and the
New York Yankees all being and a bunch of other
teams all in one being like, yeah, we're not going

(01:11:36):
to pay. I'm not saying for Showhan, I wouldn't call
them put them on that level, but you know, some
kind of interesting prospect out of Japan, interesting prospect out
of the miners. So you're like, wow, this would be
really interesting. They can afford all of it. It's really
not that very It's not difficult for them to do
at all. And you see what would be the reason
why they would want to pass we said previously it
would be in fealty to the business model, or they

(01:11:58):
would just the their athlete compensation is essentially capped. Also,
you know, some of these guys they just may not
believe in and we should. You know, there's a there's
a fair way to reject them on that level, right, or.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
Maybe somebody said, look maybe I mean, do we know
if Vakitov said you have to sign me at this
number or I'm walking. I mean there's there's a negotiation.

Speaker 1 (01:12:14):
But like whatever Glory's paying him, like UFC could easily match.
I mean, that's just this is not even a thing.
But the point I wanted to make is in regards
to the situation is, you know, part of it is
this fealty, as we mentioned, to the business model, but
the other part of it is like for example, you
mentioned Tko there's a report late last night that the
that like Orlando's government, I'm not sure exactly which arm

(01:12:37):
of it, but they're looking to raise or collect eighteen
million to give TKO for several different TKO events. I
think many of them being pro wrestling for WWE, but like,
you know, eighteen million, like like they've got a like
the UFC has this, like we talked about this before,
like they never want to be leveraged. They don't want
to be leveraged by sponsors, So they want sponsors who
are you know, politically like aligned with them, and they

(01:12:59):
you know, they they don't want to be leveraged by media.
They don't want to be leveraged by fighters. But it
looks to me like they don't even want to be
leveraged by like fan demand at this point. They want
to be able to sign guys on the cheap. And then,
because you can't ever really gain full legitimacy without fighting
in the UFC, you're kind of just if you're one
of these free agents, you're left to just kind of
roam out there. But to me, I'm just gonna ask

(01:13:20):
a very important question. Is it not better for the
consumer when companies are forced to hustle for your dollar
when they're forced to pay competitive rates for at least
what is perceived to be a premier talent or interesting talent,
or the kind of talent that can meaningfully help the
consumer experience. Like if all, if the business is completely

(01:13:41):
insulated from these pressures, are you actually getting what you
deserve as a customer? And I would humbly submit. I
don't know if ucketov would ever been anything good in MMA.
I have no idea of doomb is going to be
anything part and ask to me is already quite obviously good,
but you know how good would he be in the end.
I don't know. I don't know how to answer these questions,
but I just feel like the reflex to be like,
tell people like that to fuck off. I just don't

(01:14:02):
understand what the consumer argument is for that given the circumstances.

Speaker 2 (01:14:07):
Well, we have a statement here from Parnass which can
further this conversation. Along he is a French French UFC fighter.
Morgan Cherryer told Ariel Juanne that the KSW two division
champion Parnass didn't sign with the UFC because KSW is
paying him very well. Also, Morgan says his teammate Tyler
Lapolis didn't get released his contract recently ended. Morgan thinks

(01:14:30):
Taylor is talking with the UFC right now and looking
to get more money and better opportunities. Luke, what the
hell does that mean?

Speaker 1 (01:14:37):
So the point is that Parnass was like, I'd love
to go to UFC. Can you match what KSW is offering?
And they were like, yeah, we're not even gonna try.

Speaker 2 (01:14:45):
Didn't that kind of happen with Kayla Harrison? I mean, like,
are we under the belief that she had to take
a lot less than PFL was paying her to go
to the UFC, and but she was out a point
in her career where she wants to be great and she.

Speaker 1 (01:14:55):
Yeah, And also like you know, getting on pay per view,
I mean, you could still make more in UFC depending
on the circle stance, right, But I do believe that
there was you know, PFL was paying more for her
than UFC is. I don't know if it's substantial, but
you know, again, it's like her circumstances different because she
was just willing to do it. But it's like this
is this is better for the average MMA fan. I

(01:15:15):
would love to hear how that argument works because I
can't even understand what that would even be.

Speaker 2 (01:15:19):
I think we have a statement from Cedric Doombay as well.

Speaker 1 (01:15:22):
Here if you can post that, it's not a statement,
but if you just look here, Doombay was on his
YouTube channel. This was some months ago. This is yeah,
it's about a year ago. Excuse me a little. Actually,
even more than that that he was saying when he
first signed with the PFL he was going to get
paid one hundred and forty k per five. This is
not a huge sum, but he was only offered twenty
and twenty to sign with the UFC, and he was like,
you know, yeah, it's like, dude, one forty to fight.

(01:15:45):
I mean, is that breaking the UFC's bank? Like, this
is what I mean. Like when they're not asking for
princely sums, it's just asking beyond what the business model
typically affords.

Speaker 2 (01:15:55):
Final question on this, like when when TKO is in
the business room when they're having the big boy meetings,
do they just not care? Are they looking to pull
out every cent and then flip it and sell it
like or like like what is the mindset like, Oh,
we have the fans where we want them, they'll they'll
pay for anything.

Speaker 1 (01:16:16):
So f that, Like, yeah, I think it's I think
it's I mean, I don't know if they have like
an f the fans attitude exactly, but what I would
say is they it appears to me they feel quite
quite understandably very confident in the market position. You know,
this is this is this is not the actions of
an organization that feels like they have to compete. They're
literally just like yeah, whatever, what do you what? They mean?

(01:16:38):
It doesn't matter to them, And it's not You can't
make the argument that like they're passing on these guys
because they don't pass the test about ability like sliding
partnass doesn't. I mean, what are we even talking about here?
He doesn't pass the test of ability. He's better than
you know, half the guys in his division on the roster, like,
if not more than that. Like it's crazy that you
could even make an argument like that. It's just that

(01:16:58):
they feel so secure that they don't have to compete
for your dollars one more time? What is the consumer
argument for this arrangement? I just don't know what it
could be.

Speaker 2 (01:17:09):
I just want the old UFC back. It was really
fun covering it watching.

Speaker 1 (01:17:12):
It, right when they wanted to dominate and they really
felt like hustling for your dollars. They were, they went
white knuckle with everything, and I don't know what to say.

Speaker 2 (01:17:21):
Meanwhile, Don Davis's tweet and hey John Jones, if you
want fifty million, come to the PFL and fighting ghanu
As if it's possible.

Speaker 1 (01:17:28):
Yeah, yeah, right, thanks, thanks Tom, thanks for this. I
mean he's right, but like also that's not going to happen, so.

Speaker 2 (01:17:35):
Yeah, so thank you very much. Let's transition to topic
number four, and we're talking about, you know, previously maybe
the biggest star in UFC, alex Poeton Perera, who's coming
off of that title loss at UFC three thirteen to
Magomt and Calaiath. Joe Rogan put out a rumor that
now Pereira has confirmed during an appearance on the Area
Hallwane Show that he had both a broken hand and

(01:17:57):
neurovirus entering thatloser than people remember decision loss to Ank Aliev.
So let's bring in Quervo's shots fired. Time to look
at these quotes. Thank you very much, Quervo. Here is

(01:18:19):
the statement that Pereira made on the Eral Hawani show. Quote,
my hand is fine, but it did affect things. But
I don't want to use that as an excuse. I
don't want to make excuses. I don't want to use
this as leverage for anything. Yes, I considered not fighting
at UFC three point thirteen. It was one of the
more complicated fight camps. From everything that happened, I don't

(01:18:40):
regret it. End quote. So so Luke Thomas, interesting stuff here.
He's not making an excuse, but it did happen. So
did what to what extent did those factors, in your
opinion contribute to the loss? And do we think it
even matters in terms of whether the re match will

(01:19:00):
be any different?

Speaker 1 (01:19:02):
I'm pretty sympathetic to it, to be honest with you.
I know that people hate excuses and I do too.
I do too, So there's a little part of me
that's like, you know, you lost in the title fight.
Better to just accept it, you know. But he wasn't
the one that put the rumor out. I'm not, you know,
I'm curious about like how that actually I know that
Joe Rogan said it, but I'm saying, like, who told
him and why he told the public is an interesting conversation.

(01:19:26):
But I'll say this did you know this BC, These
guys go into these fights fucked up all the time,
all the time. And I tell you what, you know
it's probably true because he went and fought other guys
in twenty twenty four with broken ass toes on short
notice saving events, and he tried to do he tried
to pull another rabbit out of the hat and yeah

(01:19:47):
against Uncle IAB at that time, it didn't work.

Speaker 2 (01:19:50):
He didn't look. He did admit after the Roundtree fight
that he was ill heading into that camp as.

Speaker 1 (01:19:54):
Well, exactly like these guys are all as fucked up.

Speaker 4 (01:19:56):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:19:57):
The training is hard, their bodies are beat up, especially
if we want to stay in like you know, competitive frequency.
We were just constantly out there all the time. So
I got to tell you that alone makes me like,
for a guy who saved a bunch of events and
you knew he was fucked up before, like this is
not a thing he's afraid to do, to then be like,
you know, I was fucked up in this one too.
I believe him. And second of all, B see, this

(01:20:18):
is to me the litmus test about all of this.
Did po Aton look like himself? There's a pretty strong
argument to make that he didn't. Now, of course, the
flip side to that is, well, Magamed made him not
look like himself. Okay, I'm absolutely sympathetic to that. I
don't think that's some kind of crazy thing, like, oh,
you're just saying that because of this injury, Uncle Ive
just waltzed in and did what he did. No, Uncle

(01:20:39):
Liave's good. Uncle Ive's very good. But I'll say this,
if you can get a poeton who doesn't have a
broken hand, what does that do then? Like, where are
we at at that point? He can Uncle I have
do it again against a guy like that. You want
to see the rematch anyway, for a guy who you
know will step in on those conditions and for a

(01:21:00):
guy who didn't quite seem himself. Which is a complicated topic,
but I'm just putting that out there. I don't like excuses,
so it rubs me a little bit the wrong way.
But I'm sympathetic to this guy a getting another shot,
And b do I expect the rematch to look a
little different. I absolutely do.

Speaker 2 (01:21:18):
Sure I do. Do you know what I'm saying? I
think it adds some element of intrigue more to the
rematch because he was compromised.

Speaker 4 (01:21:25):
I like that.

Speaker 2 (01:21:25):
He didn't lean into it as an excuse. If you're
gonna do that, you got to take what comes with that.
But let's also not forget even though I thought Uncle
I have performed better run by round scoring I had
at three to two Perreira, he was never taken down.
He was certainly controlled and muted. But I think that's
gonna make this rematch very, very interesting. And that was,

(01:21:46):
of course shots Fired, brought to you by Quervo, And
now's a good time to enjoy the tequila that invented tequila,
of course with Quervo, and we will be seeing more
of Quervo Luke Wednesday, April ninth, when we hit up
live and direct from New York City. That loaded UFC
three to fourteen pre game preview, So get ready for
that one coming at you for that Miami card. What'd

(01:22:09):
you think quickly about Pereira sending him to Hell and
Calia on Twitter and basically being like, well, you couldn't
take me down at all, So let's see what happens
in this rematch.

Speaker 1 (01:22:18):
Complaining about the greasing too. Yeah, I'm curious with the rematch.
I'll just leave it that way. I'm curious about the rematch.
I want to see how that looks. I believe that
you should do it for a lot of reasons, not
least of which is can you reasonably expect that the
second one could look different? Absolutely for that with even
on Calia winning in that one too, but that it'd

(01:22:40):
be different than the first one.

Speaker 2 (01:22:41):
Yes, I mean I'd like to live in a world
where injured fighters wouldn't fight because it changes everything. Right,
if you're flying to the fight and making a weekend
out of it and then the fighter you're expecting to
see is compromise like TJ. Dillshaw's shoulder that time, or
if you put money down on the betting line, it
seems unfair. It also seems really hard to police if
people are gonna hide injuries. But I guess I mean

(01:23:03):
that's the.

Speaker 1 (01:23:03):
Other part too. It's like, dude, if all these guys
didn't fight when they were injured, I don't know how
many events there would be per year, to be perfectly honest,
And like, you know, they need the money, you know.
I mean, obviously Poton's not poor or anything, but a
lot of these guys we're talking about the total of
who fights injured, there's a lot of these guys that
need the money also, b see a lot of these guys,
you know, they have to learn this the hard way,

(01:23:24):
which is they'll fight with injuries and then they'll win.
Then they'll be like, okay, well I can just I
can fight with a lot of different injuries. Then and
then they'll fight with some kind of injury that was
a bridge too far, and then they're like, oh right,
there is a limit to this kind of thing. But
it takes them a while to figure that out. Like,
if you're going to celebrate a guy for stepping in
and being injured, you know, and winning, and you know
he's done it several times when it ends up on

(01:23:46):
the losing side, you don't have to like look the
other way. But I think being a little bit forgiving
about it is in order here.

Speaker 2 (01:23:52):
Yeah, I mean, think about what prayer has done for
this company and for us as fans, right bailing out
these big events and being great.

Speaker 1 (01:23:58):
So, see what would twenty twenty four have been if
Polton didn't fight injured.

Speaker 2 (01:24:03):
It would have been the year that made tul Toria
a living legend. And speaking Luke of a bridge too far,
that's the perfect transition to topic number five, the former
featherweight champion, my number two pound for pound in the sport,
Iliot Taporia held a press conference to announce he's changing
his nickname from El Matator to La Leenda, aka the Legend.

(01:24:29):
At a time when the UFC could really use star power,
of course, to step up and energize the fan base.
Is Toporia missing the moment? Missing the point here? Luke
we softly criticized him when he changes Twitter bio before
ever winning the title. As as the unbeaten champion. He also,
you know, did that whole thank you to himself. Now

(01:24:52):
now you know, mid career, he's calling himself the legend.
We need stars, we need people like this. But I
need you to take the stand here for your boy.
It's this a little bit too pretentious. Let me make
the case for this, if I may, let me make
the case for this.

Speaker 1 (01:25:09):
Okay. It goes something like this. All right, there's three
reasons why I'm not gonna say I like this because
I think it's super fucking weird. Okay, but I think
it's a good thing. And here's here's the argument. First,
as you mentioned, he's done like super ballsy shit like

(01:25:30):
this where I'm gonna be I'm gonna call myself the
UFC champion on Instagram before you even fought the guy,
you know, before you won anything, which is like the
ultimate jinx. And then he goes out there and he
actually does it right, You're like, okay, all right, I mean,
I wouldn't recommend anybody else do it, but he got
away with it this time. Okay. There's certain kind of
stakes in anticipation, so it's not like he's never done

(01:25:51):
this before. He's done it almost exactly this kind of
thing before. That's the first thing I'm gonna say. The
second thing I'm gonna say is, either way, someone gets
to feast here. So he changed his nickname to the Legend,
which is like, I mean, the kids say cringe. We
used to say Douce chills b see. But either way,

(01:26:13):
you know the feeling that you get when you when
you read this, you're like, you gotta be fucking kidding me.
But if he wins, let's say he fights Charles and
then viciously Chao's him, I mean, it doesn't exactly. It's
not the same thing as like I'm gonna call myself
the champion, then like you literally become the champion afterwards.
It doesn't like there's a there's a direct switch being
flipped in that case. You don't get You don't get
that with beating Charles per se, but it certainly adds

(01:26:34):
ammunition to whatever he's trying to do for himself, and
so you know, it's another way of like upping the
ante here a little bit. Conversely, conversely, and I think
this is where you come in. Let's say he loses badly,
but loses, dude, the amount of fucking salt that is

(01:26:56):
going or not not even salt, the amount of vitriol
and absolute dancing on his grave that is going to
happen is gonna make it for an all timer in
the world of MMA social media, whether it's Twitter, whether
it's IG, you name it. They're going to rake him
over the coals like no one's been raked before. So

(01:27:18):
to which I say, BC, under these circumstances, I'm not
saying it's like, you know, Connor McGregor in the three Arena,
like we're here to take We're not here to take part,
We're here to take over like this incredibly charismatic moment.
It's not that, but it's a way in which to
stand out and either up the ante as I mentioned about,

(01:27:38):
like his identity and what he's attempting here and like
the stakes and everything, or you get a chance to
dunk on him, like shack on that white guy who
he then put his junk in his face and then
shoved him on the Jeff, I forget who it was
that Yeah, the knixt.

Speaker 2 (01:27:52):
Player, you're the ball at him because he had to
have Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:27:56):
So, I mean, I feel like there's a lot of
ways people win here, fair or unfair. What do you think?

Speaker 2 (01:28:01):
I get it. It will raise the entertainment quotion and
all that, but it's it's lame as shit. It's a
heel move. And he was looking like the ultimate babyface,
the ultimate star, and this is dude, this is a
heel move. It really is.

Speaker 1 (01:28:15):
I mean it's like he tilts the who who tilts
the fan base more than him with this kind of
self promotion?

Speaker 2 (01:28:23):
Nobody right now outside of Poton because they don't really
have that, those those uh disruptors, those tilters of the
fan base. But if his next move is I have
removed two of my ribs so I can filate myself
in the cage, then I'll understand Luke.

Speaker 1 (01:28:37):
Okay, Marilyn Manson.

Speaker 2 (01:28:39):
Bit, Yeah, what the hell are we doing here? This
will lead me to cheer for Mahachev to not move
up to the to welterweight and to take care of
the business.

Speaker 1 (01:28:51):
Okay, but long, Luke, Long Island, Luke, you have to
admit if he okay, so let's just let me positive scenario.
We don't know what's gonna happen. But if he goes
out there and ICE's Islam before that calls himself, Oh
look at that face, motherfucker. You didn't predict either of
the Vulk or the Max Holloway wins, It's time to
get a little.

Speaker 3 (01:29:10):
Bit of respect on his I thought he would beat Max.
I just didn't think he would knock him out. Yeah,
well me neither, but neither here nor there. If he
does something like that, the payoff is going to be dramatic.
Or if Islam goes in there and subs him or
something with that famous short arm. Darse dude, can you
imagine the memes that are gonna be produced from this?

Speaker 1 (01:29:32):
Tell me how? Tell me how we lose? In either case? Here?

Speaker 7 (01:29:35):
I mean did, people are gonna make fun of him
hard no matter what I put a pole in the chat.
By the way, what should we call ilia Taporia? I
put El Matador, la leenda, tuptoria and hand sanitizer boy,
And overwhelming forty three percent picked hand sanitizer for the majority.

Speaker 6 (01:29:54):
Of people already trolling him with this. By the way,
lalenda the.

Speaker 1 (01:29:57):
Least eight percent, So it's the it's the worst nickname,
Like it's terrible. I don't know, dude. El Matador was
fucking cool, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:30:05):
That's cool, dude.

Speaker 1 (01:30:07):
I mean like when we remember the UFC did that
bit where they had him in the bullfighting ring. I
think they had him with the with the Legaspi, the
Mexican ESPN reporter, and like, dude, they had the whole
imagery around it. I was like, this is fucking this
is sick, Like why would you pass on that? I
don't get it.

Speaker 2 (01:30:23):
Did you see where? He also came out publicly and
said that he doesn't believe there will be a UFC
Spain card until the end of the ESPN deal because uh,
he's unwilling. He said he fought at early in the
morning Leon Edwards time in Abu Dhabi once and he
won't do it again and he's unwilling to fight at
four or five am local Spain time, which ESPN would
necessitate for it to be a prime time saper.

Speaker 1 (01:30:45):
So let me say this, We've never I did see that.
I'm glad you brought it up. Let me just say this,
And I think I speak for a lot of the fans.
I don't say that normally, but in this case, I
do whatever they do in their next broadcast deal UFC,
whether they stay with ESPN, whether they go to Netflix,
whatever they do, I wish and I hope that they
have the freedom to put on fights in primetimes in

(01:31:06):
the markets that they're going to. Now we know that
we do that in Saudi Arabia, and we know they
do that in Abu Dhabi, but Europe gets fucked on this,
and I just think it'd be dude. I mean, let's
think about this, like Connor's off in a different place
in his career. We started the show talking about it,
and he did get to fight in Ireland, but he
never got to fight in Croke Park, and I do
think that that was a miss by UFC. And you know,
it's hard to make all that work, and I understand
it's not like the most important thing, but it would

(01:31:27):
have been cool, and it definitely would be cool if
Duporti ends up winning and you know, continues his rise,
like getting him at the Bernabeyu, which is like a
really really important.

Speaker 2 (01:31:35):
Or look aspinall and Wembley Stadium, Like this is the
kind of shit we want and deserves.

Speaker 1 (01:31:39):
That's what I'm saying. To give them the freedom to
put those in primetime so you can make that a
little bit easier. I really feel like, dude, the European market,
we should just say, and we talked about it before,
the European market is fucking hot. If PFL can go
over there and sell fifteen thousand tickets, it's hot, bro,
it's hot. Get those shows in primetime there so we
can really do something about it.

Speaker 2 (01:31:58):
You know, I'm ready for the esp era to be over,
and I do get we brought it up before that
part of our issues with the UFC could have been
fueled by ESPN wanting a card every weekend and really
wanting in the terms of that deal to have so
many dates, which is completely watered down the product. But
you know, I'm secretly hoping that UFC doesn't get the
money they thought they were going to get from this

(01:32:20):
new TV deal and has to go in and maybe
have a little bit less amount of content and dates
and the motivation to come out and really shine. I mean,
I don't know what that's going to look like. I
think they'll get paid no matter what. We still think
Netflix or Prime will be, you know, two of the
big potential suitors here. But like, what this has become
at the tail end of the ESPN era is not

(01:32:41):
what we wanted or signed up for. Especially it's such
a departure from where they were during in post COVID
they were, you know, the heroes for being the only
show in town. But like the momentum they were on
fire Man and that's just not the case anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:32:55):
Well, like I said, I think you'd be exciting if
they can just dude putting events in prime time in
the markets that they're in. And also not for nothing.
I like it when they go to Europe and they
do a show at European time, because we get I
don't have to go to bed at four in the morning,
you know, and then get up at eight and then
take two gy to gymnastics, you know what I mean.
Like it just makes my life a little bit easier too.
It's a smaller note, but I'm just saying it. There's

(01:33:15):
so many positives to just doing that. I really hope
in the next deal they get the contractual freedom to
try it.

Speaker 2 (01:33:21):
I also to close on Tiporia Toptaria, I really hope
he fights again soon, right like we need him. He's
a star. He's moved up to lightweight. So let's figure
it out. Is it gonna be Mahchev for the title.
Is it gonna be Sar Rookie and or Doe Bronx.

Speaker 1 (01:33:34):
We got We've got audio to that. We've got audio
to that.

Speaker 2 (01:33:36):
Oh we do. Let's let's let's do that.

Speaker 12 (01:33:37):
Let's done standing Forcalo, Islam and Mende averse he Lord

(01:33:59):
frances Kasen, So.

Speaker 4 (01:34:00):
We have.

Speaker 1 (01:34:18):
Damn bro This is what I mean. And I know
I know for our people listening on the audio podcast,
if you don't speak Spanish, she didn't here. Basically, he says,
you know, he's looking to fight Charles or Charles Lavera
or Islam Makachev, and that those guys are making excuses
to not fight him, and he goes he understands because
if they were him, if he were them, he'd be
he'd be afraid to, and I was like, I can't wait.

Speaker 2 (01:34:41):
To see him fighting, Like if we're a monopoly and
we can't make the fights, Like did you see that?
I'm sure you saw that debate.

Speaker 1 (01:34:47):
I'll make a big fight for him. I mean, if
all my complaints still, make a big fight for.

Speaker 2 (01:34:50):
Okay, But like you saw that debate When Terrence Crawford
was on the Henry Sejudo and Kamaro Usman.

Speaker 1 (01:34:55):
Podcast, I forgot, but it's the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (01:34:57):
And basically they had an argument about fighter pay, and
Terrence Crawford's like, man, you know, MMA just doesn't pay
on the same levels across the board. And then you
had you know, company men, so Hudo going, yeah, but
what about the pride of never having to miss out
on opponents, which I get on the surface is a
decent point, especially since Crawford was on the wrong side
of the street business wise and wasn't able to fight
the top guys for a long time. But it's like,

(01:35:21):
I don't know if that's the right excuse in this moment.

Speaker 1 (01:35:23):
Guys forget how yeah, yeah, forget any other purse, like
forget the Amir Khan purse, Forget the Madromov purse. Forget
any of that, Just the Errol Spence perse was twenty
five million, Like what the fuck are we even talking
about here? Yeah, Like, what are we even talking about here?

(01:35:43):
He could have fought for free in literally every other
fight he's ever been in and still made more than
probably Kamaru and Henry combined in their careers.

Speaker 2 (01:35:52):
And I don't want to turn on Bud, but there's
another comment that came out of that sit down where
he is like, yeah, right now, yeah, Erol Spence not
even hall of famer. He never you know, he only
did the business in one division. Blah blah blah. It's like, dude, Bud,
I love you, but that's your best win and you're
gonna try to say that he's not a Hall of
Famer when this guy unified three of the four titles

(01:36:12):
in that star studed division, beat a great run of fighters.
And then Bud's like, well, he beat killed Brook after
he heard his eye against Triple G. It's like, Bud,
you beat kill Brook after he heard both eyes. You
were the one to fight like Jeff Horn and all
these guys because of the business issues in this sport.
I'm not knocking Bud's resume, He's won titles in three divisions,
he's undisputed and in two of them, or maybe no

(01:36:33):
titles in four divisions now. And of course he's beaten
some some a couple of really good name Sean Porter,
obviously Spence, but dude, Eryl Spence. If he never fights again, dude,
his resume is immaculate, almost outside of the one huge
loss in the biggest part.

Speaker 1 (01:36:46):
Of his career. The loss to Bud hurts him, but
everything else definitely lifts him. I was a little surprised
to hear that too.

Speaker 2 (01:36:54):
Yeah, and I also didn't like Canelo in that fight
hype interview set yesterday, saying basically, fuck Ben, David Ben
is because he's not even a champion, and he's not
even in my division. Why would I have to fight him?

Speaker 1 (01:37:05):
Dude? I mean what BC he's ducking. I mean, there's
there's just there's nothing else. There's nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:37:09):
We can't get access to your belts because you're hijacking them.
He left your division because you won't fight Come on,
big man.

Speaker 1 (01:37:15):
You're killing me, man, And do I understand the Point's
like I'm in the point of my career where I
can do whatever I want that's true, but the sanctioning
bodieshould then take the belts from you.

Speaker 2 (01:37:23):
Yeah, then go fight Williams Skull and Saudi. We don't care, dude,
we don't care anymore. And I love Sewel, you know
I love Swel.

Speaker 1 (01:37:29):
But come on, like I said, dude, he after the
win over Caleb Plant, if he had retired from there
and even still today, of course, like nothing changes, but
just that alone would be a Hall of fame resume.
But since then it's not been the most fun.

Speaker 2 (01:37:42):
Yeah, before we transition to our fan topics, we do
have a piece of content to throw to that. I
was very excited.

Speaker 1 (01:37:47):
I had a little of breaking news here if I may, Oh,
let's pause that. What do you got for us? It's
nothing big, but it's kind of sad if I may be.
See guess who has a fight allegedly booked on the
boxing side?

Speaker 2 (01:38:00):
Oh not BJ Penn. Oh yeah, Deontay Wilder, dude, I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:38:03):
Deontay Wilder is going to be fighting on Friday, June
twenty seventh on BLK Prime at the Charles coch Arena
in Wichita, Kansas against Terrell Herndon. I don't know who
that is BC.

Speaker 2 (01:38:16):
Like journeyman heavyway low lolo low level journeyman heavy.

Speaker 1 (01:38:19):
Yeah. I gotta tell you, I have a lot of
respect for Deontay Wilder. I don't I don't know about this.

Speaker 2 (01:38:25):
I mean they're trying to start from the bottom. Again,
you're not from the bottom, but trying to like start
a new chapter.

Speaker 1 (01:38:31):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:38:31):
He fought big competition in Big Bang Zang and Joseph
Parker and his comebacks for big money in Saudi. He
clearly wasn't physically ready. He wasn't the same, I mean,
more than likely. Unfortunately he's washed. I'm not against restarting
a lower level of competition if you still feel like
you can do it. But is this off the radar?
This is off the freaking reservation. Dude, Wichita Kansas on

(01:38:53):
BLK Prime.

Speaker 1 (01:38:54):
Okay, yeah, okay, yeah. I again, it's a better opponent
given where he's at.

Speaker 2 (01:38:59):
But remember Bud Crawford fought on b OK Prime when
he initially didn't take the Spence fight, remember, Yeah, because
they gave him so much money. Yeah, So transitioning here,
let's let's we're gonna throw a really good piece of content,
so you know what's going on in our friends on
All the Smoke Fight and the Art of Ward podcast,
which of course is andre Ward the unbeaten Hall of

(01:39:19):
Famer sitting down with one big name boxer after another. Luke,
they got Joe Kalzagi, the former super middleweight and like
from one of my five favorite fighters of all time,
retired forty six and zero. But he's really not in
the spotlight anymore. He doesn't do a ton of interviews.
So andre Ward recently sat down with the Pride of Wales,
the Boxing Hall of Famer Joe Kalzagi, to discuss life

(01:39:41):
after boxing, Kelzagi's illustrious but often underrated career and much more.
Check out the full Art of Ward interview with the
undefeated legend on the All the Smoke Fight YouTube channel,
and we have a clip right now to with the palette.

Speaker 11 (01:39:55):
But I was in the position now where I wanted
to fight against Hopkins. Hopkins was making the big, big
shout now, he was like coming off some great wins.
He was a ring magazine champion, so that was a
natural fight.

Speaker 2 (01:40:08):
But how hard was it to make that fight?

Speaker 11 (01:40:10):
Well, that's the thing I had, Yeah, how I was
at the fight and make that fight? I remember speaking
the phone he was making he mentioned the fight called
Clinton Woods.

Speaker 1 (01:40:18):
You know, no disrespect.

Speaker 11 (01:40:19):
I love Clinton was but I'm like, I want to
fight Hopkins he said. And he said to me, Hobbins
is not going to come, kay. I said, it doesn't matter.
I go to America. So what I did I bought
my own ticket. Mean, this was a week after the
Kestler fight. Ricky Hatton was boxing against Mayweather. So basically
what I did I paid me off flight. We had

(01:40:39):
cheap seats at the back, and I remember the main
reason was to go over and for me personally bumping
out to Hopkins, you know. So that's what happened to
I remember speaking with HBO. I think it was Coco
and she said yeah. He said, oh Coco lovely.

Speaker 2 (01:40:57):
Right, she says Hopkins in the press room and I
was like, yeah, let's go.

Speaker 11 (01:41:00):
So I said Andrew McConnelly was with me, and then
I said, man, we went to the press room and
the fight was made there. If I didn't go to stay,
I fight not be made. So I skipped everything else
the boat with the you know, the promotion. I went, mantum, man,
you made that happen. He come over I went over.
He made the comment never gonna get in that.

Speaker 10 (01:41:19):
He made the infamous comment I'll never Little White would
be there when he said there.

Speaker 1 (01:41:23):
What are you thinking? What can I say back? What
can I say back? Bro? How did you feel? Though?
I was a bit sort of taking the back shock,
but also I went and like even dry or if
you fight me, you would lose. If you fight, I
don't like there's this I was.

Speaker 11 (01:41:42):
I was pretty excited because I felt with that comment
and I saw at the time, I remember ringing Frank
warns that this.

Speaker 2 (01:41:50):
You're not taking it personally, You're thinking baked personal You
got I got hot because attention. Now, look, I watched
a lot of this so far. I can't wait to
finish it. A lot of great tidbits from a really
under exposed legend. Remember when he's known for like they
call his power patty cake, right, you know, because he's
quick hands. I didn't realize at the peak of his
prime he had an elbow injury that was so bad
he couldn't even extend his hands, so he had to

(01:42:13):
alter his style to stay on top. And I don't
think any of us will forget that. Two thousand and seven, Uh,
super middleweight unification Cardiff Wales, Millennium Stadium, unbeaten Kalzagi against
unbeaten Michel Kessler. That was a moment in time in boxing,
in a great fight. Shout out to that.

Speaker 1 (01:42:30):
Legend, master technician, master boxer NBC. You're a masturbator, but
all together it kind of works.

Speaker 2 (01:42:38):
You know, absolutely one more boxing thing to throw out there.
I just had published a nice, an interesting feature on
CBS Sports. A lot of rumors out there that Jake
Paul and the Kisabaderian and MVP are raising a ton
of capital make a move to become a true power
promoter in boxing, maybe even to the degree of taking
on the TKO takeover. I didn't interview with Nikisa. A

(01:43:01):
lot of interesting comments about that. Check that out right
now on the boxing page at cbssports dot com. We
now transition into our final segments, where we offer you
an email address Morningcombat at gmail dot com and you
return to us a piece of your own content. We
start off with putting us on trial. We don't always

(01:43:21):
get it right. Sometimes, in fact, we get it dead wrong.
So now we're gonna stand up to you guys. You
better have time. Stampson you better come original. Let's hear it.
This is dead wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:43:32):
Then wrong?

Speaker 2 (01:43:38):
All right, Luke, Let's see if you continue to take
l's from the pedantic.

Speaker 1 (01:43:41):
Coordinated hate campaign, I'm going to call the Human Rights
Watch on you fucking bozos out there.

Speaker 2 (01:43:46):
Yev our arm Budsman's are here. He's Lewis from Oregon,
and he says. On Friday Show, March twenty second, at
one hour and forty four minutes, during the dead Wrong segment,
Luke arrogantly declares he understands that John Jones was doing
an anime reference when talking about Avatar the Last Airbender.
Had Luke had any clue on what he was talking about,

(01:44:08):
he'd know that Avatar the Last Airbender is not anime.
The show was created in America by Nickelodeon Animation Studio anime.

Speaker 1 (01:44:16):
Is you hear this, fucking nerd anime.

Speaker 2 (01:44:18):
Is from Japan, you dummy? Yes, referencing Dana White's rant
on Floyd Mayweather, your lack of knowledge of cartoons from
two thousand and five really reflects who you are as
a person.

Speaker 1 (01:44:28):
Do better, Yes, two thousand and five, I was spending
my time getting blown by the opposite sex, not watching cartoons.

Speaker 2 (01:44:35):
Yea, yeah, hey Louis, how many chigs you FuG? All right?

Speaker 10 (01:44:39):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:44:39):
Yeah? Oh Luke, this gits in bit. I mean, here's
the deal. Here's the deal. Though, it's all cartoons, all right,
all the anime.

Speaker 1 (01:44:52):
Yeah, I know. That's why my point is like it's
all the same to me. I mean this a little bit, Dovisi,
it's not, but like, yeah, I don't know enough about
cartoons to a give a fuck and be making an
important differentiation there.

Speaker 2 (01:45:03):
I mean, you know, one of our favorite listeners from Hawaii,
Big Papa telvin Key Papa, you know right, he had
me ask Brandon Moreno who his favorite Dragon ball Z
character is. And I did it because I love the people.
I don't know what Dragon ball Z is. Brandon Moreno
thought I was sixty years old when I asked that.

Speaker 1 (01:45:18):
I'm going to be dragging my balls across your face here, That's.

Speaker 2 (01:45:21):
What I'm talking about.

Speaker 1 (01:45:23):
Okay, all right, did you hear from DS I'm gonna
be dragging my balls across did know?

Speaker 2 (01:45:30):
What's your name? Get you down? Who's that?

Speaker 5 (01:45:32):
I saw this nut?

Speaker 1 (01:45:34):
I saw this. I saw this Instagram bit where they
were like this guy goes up to like a co
worker and he's like, hey, uh uh, you know, do
you like that band? Imagine dragons and they're like yeah.
He goes, imagine dragging my balls across I'm forty five.
I'm forty five.

Speaker 2 (01:45:51):
You are a year old and you probably have blown
up the commode in your Iowa Hotel.

Speaker 1 (01:45:55):
Room only seven times. Yeah, all right.

Speaker 2 (01:45:57):
Our second one is from our second favorite Hawaiian listener,
Mahalo from Dad or sorry Aloha from Daz. He says,
hey donks at one hour and forty three minutes of
Monday's episode. On March twenty fourth, Luke, in discussing Gable
Steveson's achievement, said quote he had won three national titles. LT.
Maybe I misheard you, but Steveson has two national titles

(01:46:20):
in twenty twenty one. In twenty twenty two, he was
attempting to obtain the third in the most recent match,
and Dad says this, I apologize for my absence from
the show, but you both have been doing a really
good job regarding dead wrongs and BC. That bare knuckle
fight with Telvin Ky Poppa outside the Lava Shack, which
would be the first card under MK Promotions is never happening,

(01:46:43):
though I appreciate your attempts to make it happen. What
a bunch of whisses. Grateful for all the MK and
Personal Channel content. I thot that went wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:46:52):
I guess there was a graphic I had seen that
I thought that he had three, and then the last
one ended up being the silver or you know, yeah,
second or whatever. But I got the wrong. I'll take
I'll take that out. I'll take Look.

Speaker 2 (01:47:01):
Is that a perfectly fine request from Daz to say, Look,
I don't need to bare knuckle fight outside the lava shack.
We can all just be friendly here.

Speaker 1 (01:47:09):
No, you need to fight, motherfucker.

Speaker 2 (01:47:11):
Yeah, you gotta fight. Keep popple. We gotta find out,
you know. I mean, I'll get the governor. I'll get
BJ if you really want me to, all right, I mean,
I love of BJ. Look, finally, on dead wrong, we
have a gentleman named owayne O w A I n
owayne Hey, donks, it's that time of the week again.
To correct one of BC's many.

Speaker 1 (01:47:31):
Errors, finally got a B one at one hour.

Speaker 2 (01:47:34):
Twenty eight minutes. BC claims that Gilbert Burns was quote
piecing up JDM until Madelena finished him double Madelena will
Gilbert looked good and was out wrestling Jack. It was
actually JDM landing more significant strikes in the lead up
to that finish, with Gilbert landing two point seven per

(01:47:55):
minute and Jack three point nine per minute, respectively, prior
to that third round. PS, send me some of what
you've been smoking BC much love it's Owayne Luke. Do
I take that out? What do you remember from that fight?

Speaker 1 (01:48:09):
I mean, I think he's I would say I generally
agree that your assessment of what happened is a little
bit off. I could kind of split the difference here
a little bit. You just don't have confidence in JDM
from that win, and I do. I thought that was
a pretty good win, Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:48:26):
All right, I didn't think he was winning that whole fight.
I thought he pulled it out late.

Speaker 1 (01:48:29):
I got he did pull it out late, but I mean,
you know, he performed against a tough opponent quite ably.
I think it is the way I'm trying to put it.

Speaker 2 (01:48:36):
Yeah, remember that guy pulled it out late on that
zoom call and then how to apologize on.

Speaker 1 (01:48:39):
The air after No it was what's his name, jeff
something cubin, Jeffrey Tubin. Yeah, yeah, the former than he
wrote for The New Yorker. I think, yeah, he's just
cranking it on fucking on Skype, you know.

Speaker 5 (01:48:54):
God.

Speaker 2 (01:48:54):
All right, finally we offer you an opportunity to send
in your artwork, your memes, pictures of your significant other,
and tight MK t shirts. Just don't send Mikey any
pictures of your piece or we won't run it. It's
called fans emissions.

Speaker 1 (01:49:12):
You've got mail feuers.

Speaker 2 (01:49:16):
That's a fact, Gaffney. We have plenty of male viewers
coming in, and the first one is the best man
in our MK wedding. He's from Louisville. He can fix
your gutters if you ask kindly. His name is Saoul,
and he says I went to a block party and
got myself a seven dollars old fashion from the bar
Clayton and Kroom. The building the bar is in is
an old training location for Muhammad Ali. On the way home,

(01:49:39):
I saw an interesting intersection and I had to snap
a pick MK all day. Look does that say Campbell Street?

Speaker 1 (01:49:47):
Yep, it sure does.

Speaker 2 (01:49:48):
Dude, Saoul is repping us.

Speaker 6 (01:49:50):
So wait, this one's hard to read, but it's Muhammad
Ali and Campbell cross sections.

Speaker 2 (01:49:55):
Oh, two legends in the boxing game sick. Wow, Luke,
what do you have to say about Saloul's ability to
always look cool and always be repping MK?

Speaker 1 (01:50:08):
He could use a shower?

Speaker 2 (01:50:10):
Okay, Okay, that's just great, That's.

Speaker 1 (01:50:13):
Wonderful, all right, But I think his fandom is maybe
the best that we've got in the in the in
the MK, Donkeyer.

Speaker 2 (01:50:21):
That's like, I'm starting to feel like if we had
to bury a body, no questions asked, Saloul would be.

Speaker 1 (01:50:26):
There for us. Yeah, for sure, NBC, I know you
want to bang all of our listeners wives. He might
also be first up for that one too.

Speaker 2 (01:50:32):
Okay, I never said this out loud. I just want
you to say that, but you know, was I thinking
it that? No, not at all, not at all. Our
second one comes from at Matt is in the Zone
and he says for the MK content moderators. The context
is from Luke's recent live chat watch.

Speaker 1 (01:50:49):
Along Randy Gatour H forty three, Vander Holyfield H forty six,
You Ol Romero H forty seven, Luke Thomas, there's a
I mean, I mean, okay, granted, I'm not built like
those guys, but they're there's a padded stomach in the
actual that makes it worse. You fucks.

Speaker 2 (01:51:04):
Wasn't this about you saying how awesome it was that
the late George Foreman won the heavyweight championship at forty five.

Speaker 1 (01:51:10):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I mean that's
what I'm saying, Like he wanted a forty five. And
I can tell you forty five is not an age
of you know, athletic achievement for most of us, you
know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:51:21):
Unless you're taking the twenty thirteen TRT that v Towar did.

Speaker 1 (01:51:25):
Then you know that's a different ball game. I mean
you're playing a different You're playing with a different decca,
our house, or to say, a different hand of cards.

Speaker 2 (01:51:30):
At that point, you like a different deca.

Speaker 1 (01:51:32):
I heard you say that, you different wind scrawl.

Speaker 2 (01:51:35):
Yeah, send me some Stanazol on that ass. Thank you.
Matt is in the zone. Our final fan sub comes
from Dave s. He says, attached are some fan subs
the guys might appreciate if they can't be shown, though
that's understandable and maybe nine to eleven is off limits.

Speaker 1 (01:51:52):
He says.

Speaker 2 (01:51:53):
The Dave's burial service is me showing off my well
worn MK jacket that needs a replacement. Let's see it
for us need to bury a body called Dave Sandin.

Speaker 1 (01:52:02):
That's my probably true, Yeah, that's probably true. I would
probably agree with that.

Speaker 2 (01:52:06):
Yeah, all right, thank you do. I guess we can
call uh Saouola and Sandin. I thought Sandin was more.
If we wanted to get deeper into the sex trade, we.

Speaker 1 (01:52:15):
Should have those two fight to the death and then
the winner has to bury the loser.

Speaker 2 (01:52:19):
That's great. Yeah, that's fantastic K promotions. Uh and I'm
gonna guess that his nine to eleven content was off limits.

Speaker 6 (01:52:26):
Nine to eleven was, But we do have one more
from him.

Speaker 2 (01:52:28):
Oh, we have one more from Daves. Let's see it.

Speaker 1 (01:52:31):
If there is one constant in this universe, death taxes
and UFC not wanting to be levered, it's not magic, bro,
I'm a genius. I'm some combat sports savant. I'm just
a guy who spent a lot of my free time
and professional time trying to understand the world around him.

Speaker 2 (01:52:51):
I don't get it.

Speaker 1 (01:52:53):
I guess he's trying to argue that like it's the
it's the it's the old adage, like death taxes and
blah blah, blah, but that's three things. But like it's
kind of like the expression that like, these are the constants.
But when I say one constant, I meant the one expression.
But fair enough, you know, it's more of a dead
wrong than it is anything else. But uh, I'll take
that l and it's all right than fifty fifty on

(01:53:15):
the joke.

Speaker 2 (01:53:15):
I mean, if only we could have shown San Dene's
nine eleven to one, Wow, that would have been the
end of our lives. But that was great stuff, dude.

Speaker 1 (01:53:21):
The nine to eleven one is I was in tears.
I was in tears laughing so hard. But yikes, I
also enjoy you know, paying my bills. So there it is.

Speaker 2 (01:53:31):
There it is. That is our fan segments for the
week of reminder Morningcombat at gmail dot com. You can
send in dead wrongs fans, so you can just email
the show, but please no private parts. Thank you very much.
Tell Mikey we said hi, all right. I mean Mikey's
doing the lord's work right, gatekeeping for.

Speaker 1 (01:53:47):
Us, trying to keep us, trying to protect trying to
protect the brand. You know what I mean, protect the brand.
There it is.

Speaker 2 (01:53:53):
We have had a fantastic show. Luke Thomas, and I
really want to wish you well. Is it xFC the
name of the promotion.

Speaker 1 (01:54:00):
XFC fifty two again be in Sport. Now, there's some
other ways to win or watch women. That's some of
the ways to watch, depending on where you're at. But
I think the xFC website will have an answer to that.
But the big one is be in Sport that they
just signed a deal for it. So check us out.

Speaker 2 (01:54:15):
xFC fifty two. Check it out tonight. Luke Thomas back
in the booth where he belongs. Shout out to the
great Big Ee of WWE fame as well.

Speaker 1 (01:54:22):
It thanks to Biggie Big.

Speaker 2 (01:54:23):
Thanks Yep, Long Island, Luke. Can we hear from you
one more time? Sir, Hey, I hope you have a
nice weekend. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:54:31):
Thanks, I hope you guys see too. Luke, good luck
on the commentary this week. Guys join me full card Saturday,
a USC, Mexico.

Speaker 1 (01:54:37):
Thank you, no it brother, We'll see you Monday too.

Speaker 2 (01:54:39):
We will be back in the studio Monday, eleven am
Eastern where we will belong at Metal Lark for Luke
and Luke, I'm your boy, BC. Take care of yourself,
enjoy the fights. This weekend. Stay hard, stay hungry,

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}UFC Mexico | Cain Velasquez Sentenced | Pereira Injury Confirmed | Full Episode | Morning Kombat