UFC Qatar Preview: Tsarukyan vs Hooker | Muhammad vs Garry | Dana White’s Ngannou Claims - MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Really look at us now, timpt.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Jesus.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Oh do you want.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Using will be ung.

Speaker 4 (00:31):
For?

Speaker 1 (00:32):
It's time to beg Oh yeah, that Friday feel better late? Right,
let's do it. It's morning combat directly in your face
whole November twenty one, two thousand and twenty five. We
don't need no Amtrak delays. We got our own technical
issues to deal with here. I'm Brian Amble, live and

(00:53):
direct from the Hartford, Connecticut suburbs. Yeah, the b d
be the guy, you know, the dude next to me though,
the lumberjack is back. Yes, it's Luke Thomas of Washington,
DC fame who's down to one shirt but it's a
great one.

Speaker 5 (01:08):
Yeah. I wore this on mylfchat yesterday. But the truth
is I've never had a car heart shirt before. I
just bought one because it was real thick and I
was at Dick Sporting Goods. When I get something and
uh do this thing is like a little jacket. I mean,
I've got like a different shirt on. I showered this morning,
but like, okay, kind of like.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Honest, nice Luke as the official uniform of Luke Thomas streaming.
So there you go.

Speaker 5 (01:29):
It's the official uniform of guys who are screaming on
the inside and having midlife crises. You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
The official uniform of Tristan the cameraman. You're about to
get rabbit animals.

Speaker 5 (01:39):
No, the official interist in the cameraman was the skin
of another dead human being. That's actually that.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Man has put the lotion in the basket a few times.

Speaker 4 (01:48):
Hey.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
Today's episode of this fantastic combat sports program is presented
by DraftKings. Hey, DraftKings, the crown is yours. Shout out
to everybody watching on the DraftKings Network. Shout out to
all you YouTube watchers live and of course the divorce
dads on the audio only vibe. Stay with it, stay
in shape, get back in the game. Alrighty, then please

(02:10):
like and subscribe to this show. It's been here a
long time and it's gonna keep jamming. Okay tooy, we
are here to bang. Indeed, you can follow our YouTube channels,
including some that are rather inactive, but we'll see what
happens there. And also, you heard his voice earlier, A
quick hello to the third member of the team, a
bong enthusiast producer director son of a horned Ozzy. Yeah,

(02:34):
it's Long Island, Luke, Nocita and Luke, great to see you.
What about what about this main card minute Prop Quiz
Season two championship? When do we get to see who's
going to face off with the BC?

Speaker 2 (02:49):
It's going down in roughly two hours fifteen minutes ish
one thirty pm Eastern time. Jose Young's Ben the Baine
Davis winner gets one hundred dollars. Winner faces you next week.
You see. So we're hyped for it. Great matchup.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Tune in, doesn't it, Luke Thomas. You know the pedigree
of those two. They're new school prop Quiz champions where
I was old school. Doesn't this feel a little bit
like om Hoist Gracie and they're Matt Hughes And I'm.

Speaker 5 (03:15):
Coming back like it sounds to me like you feel
that way.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
I mean, Luke, I've pulled an upset or two before.
I don't know if you remember when we won the.

Speaker 5 (03:22):
World I watched I watched I watch Jeopardy almost every
day or most days anyway, and yesterday was one of
those rare events where all three contestants got the final
jeopardy wrong.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
So that was very rain man of you, Luke. I
support that Wapner on after or what Wpner?

Speaker 5 (03:38):
You know, it's kind of funny. I put on Jeopardy
yesterday and my daughter goes, Dad, why are you watching Jeopardy?
And I'm like, because I like it, and she goes, yeah,
but it's boring. Well, it's probably why I like it.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Actually it was ground Basedma Luke. But we're still here, Okay,
war Islam, let's go, Yes, thank you, that's all right.
I'm sure that we've got a great show for you
today as we set the stage for really a loaded
combat Saturday from the standpoint of UFC Cutter with a
man and Comaine that you just can't miss in the
lightweight and welterweight divisions, and how about Turkey Ala Chic

(04:13):
Saudi Arabia. We're back in Riod with the Ring four
card which gives us David Benavidez, Devin Haney, Bam Rodriguez
and a few others and some really big fight. Look,
you gotta say you got to say about old Versace
Reno and the team over there. They're not always there
when you call, but they're on time. With this card,
it's deep and we need it in boxing right now.

Speaker 5 (04:35):
Card is pretty great, actually, The only thing that's kind
of interesting is one regrettably, I get it. They're paying
the bill. Because they're paying the bill. He who pays
the piper calls the tune, as my dad like to
say when I was growing up. So the fights are
in Saudi Arabian, which we get. I don't know how
great that is for the American market, but whatever. Putting
that aside, the one thing that I do think is noticeable,
BC very quickly on this, wouldn't you agree based on

(04:57):
what people are talking about related to this card? Hany
and Norman is the real main event. It's not the
actual main event, but it's the real main event.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
No, it's a it's like a virtual pick. I'm still
it's a Oh god, it's such a great fight. It's
such a great fight. Yes, unbeaten versus unbeaten because the
Ryan Garcia fight doesn't count. Yes, main event. I'm into.
It's gonna be a banger. The undercar card fights are great,
but you're right, I'm here Saturday of all the fights, Saturday,
of all of them, including a Blah muhammed Ian Muschado

(05:30):
Gary fight that I cannot wait for. I'm most excited
about Norman Haney, no doubt about it.

Speaker 5 (05:36):
I'm all, can I say, we'll talk about this later.
I'm also kind of low key excited to see what
Bam looks like.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
But other than that, Yeahponent in Puma Martinez and don't
forget about Benavidez in Yard. They're gonna bang, Luke, They're
gonna bang.

Speaker 5 (05:47):
They're gonna bang, They're gonna bang. We're gonna see what happens.
I think the Yard's gonna have some trouble, but we'll see.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
All right, we'll get into all that the latest news
as well. Uh No, John Jones talk today, So that's good, right.

Speaker 5 (05:57):
I saw I do. I just I can't do it anymore.
I can't. By the way, if you knowed how he
goes on like these podcasts that you've never heard of
in your life. Yeah, kind of interesting how he ends
up there and like not the other.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
Convention explains how he fumbled the bag, but it wasn't
his fall. You know, it's just interesting.

Speaker 5 (06:11):
He meant, dude, won't you stand it's it's three dimensional chess. Brother. Yes,
he's trying to walk away from thirty million, even though
he said he wanted fuck you money.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Because he's going to add that legacy with Poeton. You know,
I don't know, I don't know. I'm just here. I
just work here.

Speaker 5 (06:25):
But in the famous words of Habib number made off,
who cares Brother? Who cares?

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Number one? Bullshit? Yeah yeah, I love that shit. All right,
shout out to everybody. Let's go, let's get into the show.
It's going to start right here with topic number one.
We're back UFC Fight Night. But it's a very very
good card. In Cutter, the former residence of a very
young Luke Thomas, and this road to Cutter in a
UFC Qatar or however you pronounce it preview, I'll tell

(06:53):
you it's brought to you by Total Wireless, the official
wireless provider of UFC. Get unlimited data that won't slow
you down. Yeah, I'm talking about Total Wireless. The UFC
does make its debut and Cutter, and with it it
brings a lightweight main event that promises action to the
air of Nation as armand Sarukian is finally back after
pulling out of that title opportunity against islam Ma Chev

(07:15):
when he welcomes a law refurbished and well tattooed Dan
Hooker for what could be considered, especially if Sarayukian wins
a number one contender fight for Ilio Taporia's one fifty
five title. However, they're battling for other things as well,
So Luke Thomas, we want to hear about those other things.
What lingering doubts or questions about either fighter does this

(07:39):
bout try to solve? As we get fired up for
Saryukian versus Hooker.

Speaker 5 (07:44):
Did you see the ceremonial weigh in face off between
these two?

Speaker 1 (07:48):
I did not yet know Saryukian.

Speaker 5 (07:51):
Head butted him, head butted him. And the reason why
I bring this up is I don't think in anything
in the end happened. He didn't cut him, he didn't
break his face. Isn't hard enough to do that, although
with a guy like Hooker who has pretty considerable scar tissue.
Just an incredibly bone headed move by Saryuki. And again

(08:11):
I don't think anything bad necessarily happened to the point
where the bout is in jeopardy. But of course you
risk the bout being in jeopardy by doing things like that.
And the reason why I mentioned is because it feels
to me like people kind of know that Saryuki in
may be that guy. But he is also in a
bit of a probationary period in his career. He was

(08:34):
supposed to fight Islam Makhachev. I mean, how the beginning
of this year. Correct me if I'm wrong. We see
January of twenty twenty five that falls through because of
a reported back injury. Some folks thought it was the
weight cut. He comes back a few months ago, previous
to this present date, and he was able to be
the backup for a lightweight contest and made weight. I
believe this was maybe the fight between Iliya and Charles Olivera,

(08:58):
and he did that, no excuse me, He did that,
no problem. But nevertheless, there are lingering doubts about him
about you know, is he.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
Really nineteen month layoff? Luke nineteen months dude.

Speaker 5 (09:10):
Yeah, yeah, nineteen monthly off. It's been, i mean an
extremely long time. And so the point I'm trying to
make here is people kind of know that he looks
like a physical beast. He gave Islam a bit of
a tough fight in his basically his UFC debut, and
has looked very, very good. But at the same time,
you know, the fight against Charles Lavera, he won fair
and square, but it was a bit of a dull contest,

(09:32):
although he proved something. But nevertheless, they're waiting for this
guy to get over the hump. They're waiting for this
guy to be like consensus. Here we go. And you
could have maybe said he was that guy after the
Darus fight, but I think that when not that it's
aged badly. But there's a question now about the significance
of what that means. The huge layoff is here. You know,
he he completely fell apart at the finish line, and

(09:54):
maybe for good reasons, but he fell apart at the
finish line against Islam, and there's kind of this sense
of like, is this guy really got does he have
things dialed in ready to make a move at the
top of this division. I'm not saying that headbutting Dan
Hooker doesn't tell us or tells us that we can't
get to that place. What I'm saying is stupid in
its own right to do something like that and seems

(10:17):
like just not understanding. The UFC was seemed very upset
with him that he pulled out of that fight against Islam.
Whether they should or they shouldn't, they are key masters
just understanding what the moment is and how you're being
perceived kind of important. The head butting at the face
off didn't fill me with great confidence. On the hooker side, BC,

(10:38):
this was a guy who if you had told me, oh,
he's gonna face a wrestler even up to a year ago,
I'd have been like, well, you know, foregone conclusion about
what's going to happen here. And if you look at
the odds, I don't know what DraftKings has him as
at the present moment, but.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
I can tell you, yeah, what are they to be here?
Saryki In is a minus six fifty favorite against the
plus four seventy Hooker.

Speaker 5 (10:58):
Fair enough, I'll wrap this up. The point is he's
a substantial favorite, sar yuki In, but in the case
of Hooker really performed in ways I didn't think possible
against Batayosh Gamrot. Don't want to play MMA math, but
he's got to win over Arminsuryuki and it certainly has
a very similar fight style. And so there's this question
of at thirty five, Ken Hooker, who appears to still
be skill building in some of the areas we see

(11:21):
that have been deficient in his game, can he do
that again when the stakes are even higher. Can he
actually get to a point where he beats two of
the very best wrestlers in this division on route to
a title shot? At thirty five? In a sense, he's
halfway there.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yeah. Hooker comes in as the number six rank lightweight
in the UFC, sar yuki In ranked number one. I
think you're right what you say, Saryukin's twenty nine. It's time.
It's time right now with this long layoff to find
out who he really is. We never got to see
that rematch against Islam. But again, the idea of him
facing Eliot Taporia, which you could argue should be you
could argue should be the kickoff fight for UFC on

(11:58):
paramount because I think it's very attractive, especially when those
two men have their shirts off. Luke, I don't mean
to be a hashtag body guy for days over here,
but if my dad was here, he would see a
shirtless Saruki and say he's built like a brick shit house.
Do you not agree? Are you not entertained?

Speaker 5 (12:14):
Dude?

Speaker 1 (12:14):
This guy looks like an Armenian Hulk.

Speaker 5 (12:17):
Yeah, first team all body brother. I'm like John Anick.
If I look like that, I'd be shirtless at all times,
all day.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
He's a specimen four fight win streak, as we know
for Sarayuki and Hooker. As you mentioned at thirty five,
he's resurgent with a three fight win streak, the stoppage
over Clausio poy ish paijosh.

Speaker 5 (12:36):
Play pay Josh That's right, Anthony.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
Puay Joshua, and also Luke. Though the last two fights
he's coming off of split decision wins. I'm not saying
he didn't earn him, but that's the road he took
to get here. So let's start off first by looking
at the tense face off between the two of them
earlier this week outdoors in Cutter where I'm sure it's
hot as balls year round. Luke, what are those cones

(12:58):
behind them? Those large?

Speaker 6 (13:00):
No?

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Yeah, like Madonna and the Vogue video kind of yeah, wow,
that is you can see the size right there between them.
Let's start with the odds here, Luke nearly nearly a
seven to one betting favorite. Now, I'm gonna be straight up,
I'm gonna jump to the prediction. I think Saryuki and
beats the crap out of Hooker, I really do. But
I respect Hooker's durability. I respect his overall game. How

(13:22):
the heck is sar Yuki in a six and a
half to one favorite here?

Speaker 5 (13:26):
Well, it's just that here's the issue. The problem with
Gamrot is not that he can't wrestle. He can wrestle
quite well. The problem is that he doesn't have all
the time as much ground and pound as you would
expect from someone who's got that kind of control. And
on the feet he actually can hurt you, but never
seems to be able to build a offensive sequence standing

(13:48):
on the feet that ever, proves to be really decisive. Interestingly, BC,
if you go back and you watch the Hooker in
Gamrot fight, Hooker gets dropped I believe in the first
or second round, kind of like by almost like a
like a bolo punch from a Gamrat that lands, but
there was just the jab side that lands, and he
catches him intercepting the pressure and it drops him. And

(14:09):
he had some other moment where he had uppercuts kind
of coming underneath the guard and stuff like that, so
he can be vulnerable there too. The thing is on Hooker,
as I mentioned, you go back to the two losses
he had previously against Islam, Makachev. Okay, he losened to Islam,
not the everyone loses to Islam basically at this point.
And then he also lost to Arnold Allen, but that
was when he tried to make that very foolish move

(14:30):
to forty five. He's always been a guy who's real lanky.
He's always been a guy who had problems with the wrestling.
But his ability to get up is better, his ability
to defend takedowns are better, and he's fighting a little
bit longer now, a little bit more strategically, putting things
long range to put guys at far distances. Clearly, the
odds makers don't think that's going to be enough. They
think that's so you can is gonna be able to

(14:51):
overcome any of those things, but it does. It should
be noted that Hooker has made real visible improvements you
can see on screen be enough against the guy of
the caliber of Orman.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah. The main theme, as we keep saying, is can
so you can get in line and finally show us
how good he can be. We do have sound from
Arman this week talking about how badly he does not
want to miss another opportunity at the title.

Speaker 4 (15:15):
When I beat the then Hooker and not get any injured.
Of course I'm gonna take that fight because it's a
this is title fight, and as I know now, you
cannot turn down the title fight. So you gotta get
there and get your opportunity and a fight for the title,

(15:36):
because you can fight maybe once in your life for
the title.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
Look, he does a lot of things well, he looks well,
he's a powerful punter, he's a very good wrestler. But
do you think to linger back to our original question
about the answers they need to solve with the layoffs,
with people labeling him a rich kid who didn't come
up the hard way, and maybe with the attention in
detail he puts in his Instagram eating videos, there's of

(16:03):
this belief that he isn't wired exactly like Hooker, And
maybe that's part of why I'm so surprised, even though
I ultimately think he breaks through and wins this dominantly,
I am surprised about the wide odds. Do you keep
hearing what I keep hearing that people question whether he
has the fire to ultimately fulfill his potential.

Speaker 5 (16:23):
I think that questioning or having some degree of skepticism
about whether he's fully dialed in both in terms of
not so much physical preparation BC. But but to the
point you raise about to what kind of extent he's
got competitive fire to make the sacrifices necessary in order
to get the very best out of himself. He's clearly

(16:44):
very talented, and he clearly works pretty hard, and that
clearly is going to take him a pretty long way.
But when you get to the top, it's those small
differences in those small margins, and to what extent he's
got the same kind of hunger and the same kind
of focus and the same kind of willingness to really
pursue things. Again, I'm not saying that he pulled out
of the Islam fight for some kind of insignificant back injury.

(17:06):
Maybe it was quite severe and he really had to
as very much on the table. But it just feeds
this perception of being a little bit easily derailed, not
not beaten, but derailed a little bit easy to look
at the jangling keys and not stay dialed in on
what you have to do. I think it's important to
we see not just that he beats the hook or
even like you know, beats him up real bad, but

(17:29):
what I want to see a focused plan brought to action.
A lot of times he just kind of does what
he does and then lets opportunities unfold with what seems
like a strategy, but not a very particular specifically you know, hardcore,
dialed in kind. He doesn't exactly have a plan. Can
contrast that with Islam. It's not granted Islam is the

(17:52):
very best in the world, but he's got an extremely
methodical game plan and every little piece of it and
every little assignment he knows exactly where he has to be.
That's a high standard. But think about the mindset and
think about the mindset you have to have to even
pull off something like that. I would like to see
Saryukian edge a little bit closer to that kind of

(18:12):
a side to really believe he can take this all
the way.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
Why do you think you don't have to go along
on this? But why do you think this fight is
the main event when it seems to be with the
hottest division being Welter Wade and Ian Maschadlegary being a
big you know, on the verge of breakout starble All Muhammed,
a former champion who's literally coming off of a title loss.
Why do you think that they ended up going with
this as the main.

Speaker 5 (18:35):
Event, I think there's a bunch of ways you get
title fights from this one. If Saryukiin wins title shot,
if Hooker wins, you could give him a title shot.
But if Hooker wins, you don't have to and you
can give him the BMF fight. I think that is
very much on the table.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
Well, we can go to that quote tweet right now
of him just rere squick, just to see that if
you can throw that up, here's a tweet, or here's
a quote from Hooker that says, I beat Arman, I
can walk in fight for the BMF title or the
undispeated title. Considering his rank six, I mean this would
be a huge win, right. I would think BMF would
be more in his face and more likely.

Speaker 5 (19:12):
But yeah, but either way, look what you can at
least potentially arrange. Whereas if Ian Gary wins, he still
could very much get a title shot from it. I
think that is absolutely on the table for him. For Blahmahammed,
if he beats Gary, maybe he gets back to a
title shot. But if it's Islam, I don't know how
that works. I don't know if they would even allow it.

(19:33):
More to the point, Do I really believe that the
UFC is going to promotionally favor Bala Mohammed over Kamara Usbin? Candidly,
I don't think that they will. So there's less gold
so to speak to mine in the co main event.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah. Well, look, let's give Hooker credit for the three
fight win streak altering his game a bit at thirty five.
Between twenty twenty and twenty twenty two, he did lose
four of five fights. Yes against elea a competition. Yes,
that first loss was a Fight of the Year contender
and one of the best action fights of this decade
against Dustin Poier. But three stoppages in his next four

(20:07):
fights against the likes of Michael Chandler, Islama Chef and
Arnold Allen sort of showed showed us where he was.
But where he is right now is in a very
big spot. Here's Dan Hooker talking about fighters waiting around
for title shots.

Speaker 7 (20:22):
Manager of Justin Gager said that if Peddy Pimblett would
get title shot before just engage, Justin Gager will out
from the spot, out from the MMA.

Speaker 5 (20:32):
What do you think about that situation?

Speaker 2 (20:38):
You can't give Petty this hordle?

Speaker 8 (20:39):
Can they?

Speaker 4 (20:41):
No?

Speaker 1 (20:41):
I mean that probably it looks like they're probably going
to you.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
It looks like they're probably gonna do Petty for the belt.

Speaker 5 (20:47):
But that's just.

Speaker 6 (20:50):
That's a ridiculous or if he gets then you, Yeah,
but you can't do that either. You can't just be
I'm not playing anymore.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
No, like can't like you.

Speaker 6 (21:02):
You know how you get a title Shaw is you
beat i'm on Seruki, And that's how you get a
title Shaw. You beat the number one contenda, You beat
the bass guy in the division, and you get a
title Shaw sitting around and fucking pointing fingers in arguing
who deserves it more?

Speaker 1 (21:15):
Just god, THEMN win fights.

Speaker 6 (21:16):
Got damn beat the bass guy in the division and
you get a title shot.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
So look, there was a lot of talk at media
day there about the fact that the UFC changed lightweight
rankings and has Patty pimblet now at number five. I
believe our friend Christina Duty from She Loves the Gloves
was the one who started that convo and got hook
her a little bit upset there. But let's not forget
Hooker also on a fifteen month layoff himself coming in here.
But do you believe what he's saying might be true

(21:42):
that they are positioning Patty since Gaechie's hurt, Sarukia needs
to win one more. It does kind of feel like
it would be Patty next for to Poria.

Speaker 5 (21:50):
No, I mean, it's a fight we kind of all
want to see. I don't know. I don't know how
to answer that one. It doesn't take a genius to
look at this and say, we already know that Paddy
Pimblet is promotionally favored. We already know that Pimblet's done
a pretty good job of making himself have to fulfill

(22:13):
a guy's promise to become promotionally favored and then for
that to mean something. And we also know that there
is obviously heat between he and Eliot's Aporia. I can't
really add much to the conversation beyond that, But you
know this idea that like, oh they might favor Patty,
they already they've been doing that a long time. This
would be the last extension of it, you know what
I mean?

Speaker 1 (22:33):
Well, by the way, if we don't get Alia versus Islam,
and I am starting to feel that that what we
talked about after last weekend's card, that it feels further
away now or not happening. I would love if the
first three title defenses, if Taporia makes it through them,
are Patty Armand and BSD. I mean, that'd be a
nice little.

Speaker 5 (22:53):
Why are people high on BSD.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
Because he's the god of war, you should get high
on him too. Luke, okay, unchallenged.

Speaker 5 (23:01):
Good, he's good. He's not beating.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
I mean, okay, but let me tell like this, you're
of the belief and I'm not saying you're wrong, and
you said it on Monday Show that Ilia should not
ever go up to one seventy and fight islam its two.
That gap is too much size wise, wrestling wise. And
we can say the only lightweight fight we've seen on
the title level from Ilia is the title win over Olivera.

(23:25):
But didn't it look early like Olivera size was a problem.
These are full fledged, action, tough as shit lightweights. I
want to see the challenge that.

Speaker 5 (23:34):
Yeah, fine, that's a fair argument. Well, not that Charles
Olavera won. He didn't appear overly strong to me relative
to Ilia.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
But in the beginning he was kind of he was having.

Speaker 5 (23:45):
A little bit. But what I would say is to
the point where you raise like fighting true big lightweights
like guys like BSD. Should he able? Should he sufficiently
climb the ladder? Totally fine? Fair, that's much more competitive,
and I think almost actually to a degree. You know,
number one versus number two pounds pound of aime is
always going to be the most important but relevant and
interesting because it's actually competitive the formerer than the latter.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
All right, let's get the betting take here from One
Long Island, Luke, Main Card, Minute and OSDA. We mentioned
those wide odds plus four seventy on Hooker. Are you
taking them odds?

Speaker 4 (24:19):
No?

Speaker 2 (24:20):
I mentioned to Luke, I took Arman in a parlay.
I think he wins this.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
I think it goes to diser from you is I
got this guy in a parlay. Tell the people how
to bet this fight's all right?

Speaker 2 (24:29):
Well, so what I did throw down on this fight,
which is plus money right now, is the Dan Hooker
plus thirteen and a half spread. It's plus one forty.
So if it goes the distance, one judge needs to
give him one round. I think very five. Yeah, if
it goes the distance, I think that hits. I just
don't know if it's going to go the distance. The
over under is said at three and a half, and

(24:50):
the over three and a half is plus money, so
do with that what you will. But that's the only
hooker bet I got here.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
All right, Look, you haven't bet on a hooker since
that time you said no to the Osbourne. I think
that that was a good bet. Okay, you know, I
think that's a very good bet. Lt who wins this fight?
It's striker versus wrestler, but armand can throw around too.
What does it look like? Whoa?

Speaker 5 (25:10):
That's what. That's the thing that caught my eye when
I was obviously prepping for today's show, I was like,
you know, let's rewatch this Gamrot and Hooker fight. And
Gamrock was landing on Hooker several times, hurting him several times.
We want some more than others, you know, but clearly
having an effect, busted his face up a little bit.
I would just be very surprised if Hooker loses the
Oh sorry, I'd be very surprised if Saryukiin loses this.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
Now.

Speaker 5 (25:31):
One thing that Hooker did to counter the wrestling pressure
of Gamrock was to go for that guillotine over and over.
That helped them stuff takedowns or sometimes he was able
to get back to his feet or even to his base.
Something to pay attention to. Syukiin can be reckless at times,
but BC he really should not lose this fight. He
should be able to finish it. I just I would
be surprised if he doesn't.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
So you think he grounded, pounds him.

Speaker 5 (25:54):
Out or he I think what he might do is
hurt him on the feet and then finish him off
on the.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, I think it's time for Armand to make a statement.
I wonder if that is what fueled that moment in
the face off. Look, look, we're gonna get into it.
In that Hani Norman face off that everybody thinks Hany
showed too much nervous energy and you're never really sure.
I wonder if this is just Arman showing I'm serious
this time. I'm coming to kill you. I know what's
at stake. I'm getting that title shot, So maybe we'll see,

(26:20):
we'll see. All right, I'm going stoppage there on strikes
as well before the probably go mid third round there,
take it, run it to the bank, the blood bank.
All right, let's go to that Colemane event. Heck yeah,
Former champion thirty seven year old Ballah Mohammed going directly
back in the fire after losing his world title the JDM.
He's going to fight a still overall surging twenty eight

(26:42):
year old Ian Maschado Gary, who is eight and one
overall in the UFC two fights removed, of course, from
his one loss against shav Katt Rockmanov that you can
argue he got almost the most critical respect for how
he behaved. He's also directly coming off of Victor River
Carlos protest that looks great on paper, but did see
him have to truly scramble and hold on for dear

(27:05):
life late to avoid getting stopped. Either way, this is
a very very important fight for the sport's deepest division.
As we look at the rankings right now, Gary coming
in at number six, Bala Mohammed's still ranked number two,
as the UFC likes to do with a former champion
coming directly off. Keeping that high ranking. Are odds from

(27:25):
DraftKings plus two twenty Balah Mohammed minus two seventy Ian Gary.
This could be a number one contender's bout. So, Luke,
what are the keys to victory in this contest?

Speaker 5 (27:39):
You know what's so funny when There's been a lot
of criticism about Jack Dala Medalana. We'll talk about this
a little bit later in the show and the game
plan or the execution of the game plan and what
exactly was the problem. But BC, you went back before
UFC three twenty two and you watched JDM and belaw
Right or did you did you reveal it? Yeah, one
thing that I really noticed in that fight and reviewing

(28:00):
it prior to three twenty two was the footwork of JDM,
and not just the footwork in a sense of setting
up angles, but the lateral movement. You know, we talked
a lot. There was a big storyline made about how
Ballall didn't shoot enough, and again we've been over this,
but we're not going to relitigate it. But one thing
that I think kind of gets lost in this conversation
a little bit is part of the reason that maybe

(28:23):
Bollaal didn't shoot as much as he ordinarily would have
was many reasons. One of them was the lateral movement
of JDM in that fight. Of course, if partly that's
keeping range, partly, if that's stuffing takedowns, partly that's clinch breaking.
There's a lot of other factors that go into that one,
but he was on the move. We'll be see who
has faster feet and better lateral movement at one hundred

(28:44):
and seventy pounds than Ian Gary, and the answer is nobody.
Nobody does. He is very quick on his feet. He
is very good about fighting at range. He's very good
about touching and going. He's very good about circling, changing direction.
He also be se can do this in part because
I believe that against the fence he has very very
good takedown defence, a little bit less so in open space,

(29:08):
but certainly up against the fence, he's tough to take down.
This seems to me like it could be a problem
for Balmhamad BC. It seems to me that a guy
who can do that kind of thing, who can touch
at long range, who can touch and go, who has
good offensive and defensive footwork, fast feet, can throw with
hands and foot combination, and is tough to take down
along the fence, that is the battle that Blall has

(29:32):
to be able to overcome. He has to be able
to win that battle some kind of ability to get
Ian Gary up against the fence, which I do think
he might be able to do. I'm not gonna say
with ease, but it will happen, and then he's gonna
have to find a way to then make that work
because if he can't, it's gonna be real tough for him.
Here's one of my concerns, and I wonder if you
share it, that a guy like Gary might be able,

(29:54):
for the most part, to control the offense or to
bare minimum have ballall fighting on Gary's terms because of
the nature of the movement and the range he's occupying. However,
what it might mean is that the fight kind of
stalls out and gets a little boring, true, you know
what I mean, because he's just gonna have a hard
time getting offense going. And Gary's whole style against these

(30:16):
pressure wrestlers is to touch and go. It's not to like,
you know, stand your ground and really put up your dukes.
What kind of fight do you get for three rounds?
And what does Bala Muhammad have in mind to challenge that?
These to me are the central questions that are going
to answer this fight, depending what we get on.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
This is officially a three round fight. That's confirmed.

Speaker 5 (30:38):
Yes, it's three rounds, okay.

Speaker 1 (30:40):
I wonder what that means for if Bilal has trouble
on the feet because Gary doesn't doesn't let you hit
him easy. I wonder what that means for him. Just
try looking to spam takedowns, Luke, and if you I mean, look,
I get exactly what you're saying. Here's the biggest question
I have for you ultimately as we break this down,
because I'm I don't think I am Luke a fair

(31:00):
uh you know, a watcher of this fight, because I
do believe that Gary will fight for a title probably
where one one day, and you know we do have
similar tastes in life, Luke. But what did you learn
ultimately about Ian Gary off of his last two fights,
which are the two fights on his resume that were
they he fought truly elite opponents in Shavka and also
Carlos Protest. What did you ultimately learn about what he

(31:24):
what he's like under fire, what he can do at
the highest level.

Speaker 5 (31:27):
Gary? Yeah, kind of what I mentioned. I think that
he understands his body type. He has a and his
athletic type, and he's got a style that naturally that
is I would say, built off of that, which I
do think is going to carry him pretty far. If
you're if you're fighting a style that really caters to

(31:48):
your athletic skills and your gifts as well as you
know what just they work together. He's building an offense
based off what he should be building an offense off
You might ask for it to be more potent. You know,
not everyone can have the punching power of Carlos Proceez.
But what I would say is bec this is the
biggest problem I've had with him, and I've mentioned this

(32:09):
a number of times. I mean, for example, for example,
even though he lost to shoff kot Rochmanov, you consider
where that fight ended, where Gary's on his back, but
he can't quite get the job done, and he was
able to buy the way to also get MVPs back
early in that fight without much resistance. He is very,
very skilled and technical, both on the defensive side and

(32:29):
sometimes even on the offensive side, especially as it pertains
to getting quick attacks from the back and dominant positioning.
But his finishing mechanics are just not great. There's been
a number of times he's been in really great positions
to put very very skilled guys away, like he had
him dead to rights, and he couldn't do it because
the mechanics were poor and so when you combine poor

(32:52):
finishing mechanics as well as you know, not necessarily having
torrential ground and pound, in part because he's more of
the back than occupy the top side. And then it
range he's touching and going. It's piecemeal offense. There's never
like a real running current of offense. I think that's
the issue that's going to hold him up. You see,
he's skilled, he's athletic, he's young, and he wants to smoke.

(33:14):
It's the refinement of that last ten percent of his game.
If he can unlock that, he can be champion. It
reminds me I don't know.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
Umar in that regard, although Umar does have that on
the ground, it seems, but not necessarily on the feet,
that next extra level or a layer. Let's hear from
Ballal because he's been staying consistent with the big headlines.
Although he did not comment this weekend media day whether
he believes Koshogi had it coming, he did weigh in
on Epstein Luke.

Speaker 3 (33:42):
My future is bright, right. I'm training with young masters.
Ignacio BALMNDS is probably twenty eight, and I think he's
one of the best strikers in UFC. Like I said,
I got a seventeen year old now Nata, his younger brother,
who's a monster.

Speaker 4 (33:53):
Right.

Speaker 3 (33:53):
It feels like the Epstein Files with it without the
you know, the sex right in their their their powers
through through sparring and training. Uh So it feels good
and I love training every day with these guys. I'm
learning from these guys, and I'm growing so much from
these guys. The energy they bring it. It makes me
feel younger and I'm still young into sport. My body

(34:14):
feels good every single day I wake up. I'm blessed
to be where I am right now?

Speaker 1 (34:20):
Does that make him gi? Just Laine Maxwell of UFC
is that I don't get it.

Speaker 5 (34:26):
Dude, What the fuck was that? It's the it's the
Epstein Files without the sex.

Speaker 1 (34:34):
It's like, h sir, that is not an acceptable statement
in twenty twenty five.

Speaker 5 (34:38):
That's the worst thing I've ever heard.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
Maybe all right, Well, he did make a prediction about
defeating Ian Gary, and here is the response from mister Mushado.

Speaker 8 (34:48):
G BLO has had a lot.

Speaker 5 (34:51):
Of success.

Speaker 8 (34:54):
Those best which is making it up. He should continues
to try to do that. However, there is not a
chance in hell that if he stays on the feet
with me, that he survives past five minutes. There's not
a chance in hell. If you want the genuine reaction

(35:17):
of what I believe that video is. That's a man
lying to himself. That's a man who is playing reverse
psychology and is gonna tell the world that he's good
enough to do whatever he wants when realistically he knows
he has to grab a hold of me. It sounds
like he's already making excuses and grab a hold and

(35:37):
I'm gonna let him up. So he's gonna grab a
hold of me. He knows I'm gonna defend. And do
you see what I mean? You see the way with
the thought patterns, I'm seeing the big m at the start,
You've spent eight weeks. What do you mean You've been
thinking about this every day of your life for the
last eight weeks. You have an idea in your mind
of how it's gonna go. You don't need to study,

(35:58):
you don't need to pause, you don't need have a breath.
I just think he's he hasn't learned from his last
fight if he has this approach, So I think I
think he's lying to the world. I can tell you
right here, right now. I'm gonna be bout anywhere I want,

(36:19):
but I plan I'm not going to mount in the
first round. I can promise you this right now, Mike.
If he shows up and tries to box me, he
won't land a single punch. That's my promise to you
right now. There's a reason I look this good after
well after this fight would be my seventeenth professional win.
It's because I don't get hit that much. But I'll honestly,

(36:44):
I don't want to get irritated. But there's just no
world where he shows up and tries to out box me.
If he does, he's an it.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
Look, let the record show that my love for Ian
Gary does not fully cover the fact that he's very
annoying on the microphone. But he did make some strong
points right there. I mean, look, you know, Saryukin's in
a similar spot where they need a breakthrough, powerful statement
win here to get that title shot. It's a little
harder and a more crowded welterweight division. The best thing

(37:13):
Gary can do here is do exactly what he's saying,
look to get that stoppage. But let's not act like
Balal Muhammad has a lot of losses in the UFC.
He's got one this decade. Let's not act like he's
not durable. How likely is this, Luke, that he could
do this? I mean, he's gonna have to turn it
up a whole nother gear and really take chances.

Speaker 5 (37:35):
Yeah, I mean, I guess if Blaal is compromised right
now or like insanely reckless, yeah, maybe Gary knocks him
on in the first round. Dude. One of the takeaways
from the Ballal and JDM fight was JDM was piecing
him up and Ballaal just kind of kept moving through it.
And JDM is not a soft puncher. I mean, obviously
he didn't get going against Islam all right whatever, but
like in general, I think the record kind of shows that,

(37:58):
and Blat took his best punch and kept it moving.
I'm like, Gary's not really known as a heavy hitter.
That seems to me just a bunch of pre fight bullshit.
I don't would it would it be Would it be
great for him if he did? Yeah, obviously, but I
don't know how could the chances of that long? Isl Luke,
Would you bet on that in any capacity? Would you

(38:19):
bet on a first round ko At the hands of Garry.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
Even a second round.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
I think this fight's going the distance. Yeah, I don't
know who win. Like I'm leaning Ean Gary. I could
see a ball all upset, but regardless it goes all
through that.

Speaker 5 (38:32):
Yeah, I mean we're just talking bullshit here.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
Yeah. I mean that's like getting a law of degree
and never using it. Luke, you know what I mean,
like like stand in show us that power mesh. You
all right, let's go, Yeah, come on, we're.

Speaker 5 (38:41):
Talking about We're talking about better call y'all.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
Yeah, Well I love that guy, you know that. I mean, look, look,
I mean, do you are you angry at my you know,
affiliation with Ian Gary. I just believe in him. We
both love Layla, him, the woman Me the song. Luke,
you know what I mean?

Speaker 5 (38:56):
You picked weirdos, but you know, yeah, so I'm make sense.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
Well, speaking of weird interactions, Luke, we had one this
week between these two comin event fighters at the hotel
in cutter Let's watching.

Speaker 5 (39:17):
Good enjoy your finish.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
Want to say, how do you say you going?

Speaker 8 (39:21):
You know, there's no my intentions to have any research.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
Okay, that was a little weird. Well, all right, ball.

Speaker 5 (39:31):
Didn't Ball didn't want to do it.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
He was like, uh, you know, Luke, what does Balall
need to do in this fight? Because he's a he's
had an interesting cross like his record's great the run
he went on to win a title. I never believed
him in the along the journey and look where he got.
I give him so much credit. But he's thirty seven,
and if he gets a second straight loss against an

(39:54):
elite foe, we're talking probably about the twilight of his
run here. What does he need to do to get
a very important victory to hold serve atop this division.

Speaker 5 (40:04):
I honestly feel like, again, you know, very easy for
me to say, oh, add wrinkles to your game at
age thirty seven, but I really do believe it's kind
of necessary. I believe that if he could really meaningfully
add what they call you know, well there's different names
for it, but the ability to do effective clinch work

(40:26):
up against the fence not so much. I mean, you
have to mix in takedown attempts. That'd be part of it.
You know, you could add some judo in there to
what the what the daugistanis do where they switch between
you know, different kinds of universes of takedowns. I mean,
that'd be one thing, but the other part two is
just kind of mauling a guy up against the fence.
If you're going to be able to get a guy
there and the takedown's not there, then you have to

(40:47):
have a second answer, right. So the second answer would
be either change the way you do the takedowns by
adding these other wrinkles to it, like the so justin
Flores style of what he calls wall wasa that'd be
one route you could take, or the other one would
be to really being to rough people up along that
space you just have to go. You have to have
offense where the fight's going to go. And yes, you
can try and make it go to a certain place

(41:08):
where you know you have offense, but you have to
have a secondary gear to hit in the event that
that that's not possible. And I know he's trying to
use his hands at distance, but the reality with Ian
Gary is he's going to be on the move, So
you have to have one where it's a little bit
more of control of him, an underhook head pressure he's
being held, and then being able to start working something

(41:29):
a little bit more particular. I think these are the
kinds of things that are going to really give him
an extra edge. But that's you know, fifteen minutes is
not a lot of time against an opponent of this
quality who's got this kind of movement. It's a tough
fight for Ball. I think it can be done. Certainly,
if he gets the takedown, it can definitely be done.
But if it can't, it's possible still. But this is
to me the point of friction.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
Yeah. Look, I think that what you teased earlier, the
idea that this could be a boring tactical fight, not
even a technical thriller, Luke more of just well Gary
control the striking action, mitigates the times he's on his back. Look,
he's a large welterweight. He's these certain like skills, you know,
like he's very good at preventing you from having great

(42:11):
success against him, from taking over the terms of the
fight against him. I think this is a win for Gary.
I don't see the breakthrough finish. It's been a long
time since he had kicked d Rod, especially at this
elite level. Is a decision win, even if it's wide.
Is a decision win enough to crack the code in
this larger title picture, because I don't know. For some reason,

(42:33):
after Saturday when the name Kamara Usman got thrown around,
I was like, I don't love it, but I get
it the further we get away from that fight. I
hate it now, don't want I don't want Kamorrow in
there against Islam now after coming off of this breakthrough win,
best fighter in the sport. Look, I'll always get it, Luke,
but I don't think the Buckley win should be the
free pass to get here. Tomorrow is thirty eight? Can

(42:55):
Gary do this without a breakthrough early stoppage where he
gets on the mic and does some quasimicggor shit.

Speaker 5 (43:03):
I I don't know. I don't have a strong beat
on that, do you.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
I don't think. I mean, I know, there's a lot
of options. Look, you got Morales, she got protests. There's
a lot that UFC can do here. I just with
considering that, I don't want Uzban anymore. Luke, don't do
it to me?

Speaker 5 (43:21):
Well, I mean, I agree, I agree, I agree, but
I just I mean the UFC might want it, in
which case it doesn't really matter what we say, you know.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
Yeah, all right, here's the final word from Gary about
what he's ultimately gonna do to Bolah.

Speaker 8 (43:35):
Blah Muhammad is a perfect example for me to go
out and show the world how talented an. I'm gonna
break them.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
My goal on.

Speaker 8 (43:42):
Saturday night is to make it on the niable. Then
I'm the greatest wealth away walking upon it. Right now,
Blah Muhammad is a perfect example for me to go
out and show the world how talented an. I just
don't see him lasting very long. I just don't see it.
The way I'm hitting, the I am moving, the power,
the vision, the speed. I just I'm gonna break him.

(44:06):
He likes to talk about being but Aw's biggest strength
is he's tough and he's durable, and he likes to
get in people's face. He's not gonna get in my face.
He's gonna be captain arranged and I'm gonna ping them
out off and buss his face open, and eventually he's
gonna look for an easy way out and I'm gonna
give it to him. It's gonna be my left on
my right hand landing on his chin and pull my sleep.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
I mean he's saying the right things, Luke. I mean
it's so listen, deliver it now, deliver Yeah, if he
does that, I mean he's off to the races.

Speaker 5 (44:34):
I just need to see something like that first.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
I'm gonna go Gary by decision. I feel like you're
doing the.

Speaker 5 (44:39):
Same, Dame. I'll do exactly the same.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
Yep, all right, this is for a fight night card.
We got some things to talk about. I like this card, Luke,
what else you love it? What are you loving on
this card?

Speaker 5 (44:48):
Well, there's actually quite a bit on this card. I
don't I'm not super high on the Uzdemir Minifield fighting
part because Uzdemir I think has been good, but I
don't know if we're getting the best of him anymore.
Minifield is an interesting athlete, but a little bit of
a donk Donkerson. Let's start with the interesting fights. Jack
Hermanson down at welter went against Mike tebec or Bick Tebec,

(45:10):
Oral by a former lightweight. So we have a former
middleweight and a former lightweight meeting in the middle at
one seventy. A super strange fight. Oral by an absolute
hammer who came off that nice win over Tafiite Masaya
where he got I think the Kamoraf I'm not mistaken. Yes,
that's right. So that was a nice win. Obviously, had

(45:30):
the blood and guts fight with Rombetski, which was just insane.
I don't know what it means for him to go
to seventy. I think he needs to, obviously because of
some of the weight cutting issues, but nevertheless, a strange one.
I don't know what you're gonna get with Jack Hermanson
drained down to seventy.

Speaker 1 (45:45):
Years old, thirty seven years old, he's gonna cut down?
Do you know? He's alternated wins and losses for ten
straight fights.

Speaker 5 (45:51):
It's insane. And his last two wins, if I'm not mistaken,
were like Joe Pifer and Chris Curtis, some decent names
he's got on the list there. But nevertheless, that a
strange one, and they're both kind of grapplers. So we'll
see how that one plays out. BC we have to say, well,
was it forty eight hours notice or something? Waldo Cortez
a Costa fresh off of the main event or Comaine

(46:12):
or whatever the fuck it was against Ante Delia, flies
to cutter, makes weight and he's taken on Shamil Gassi Ghaziev.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
What the heck?

Speaker 5 (46:20):
I don'kay? Then we go down Kiogi Horror Gucci's on
the prelim card.

Speaker 2 (46:26):
What are we talking about, or maybe it's it's still
moved him.

Speaker 5 (46:30):
They moved to the main okay, fair enough, but for
a while he was he was on the premium card
taking on too Garu Lambakov, who to me has had
a couple of tough breaks in the UFC. Not a hammer,
but very very well, very very well rounded, especially good
with some of the positioning things. So that's gonna be
I think, a tough grappling battle, and as Horror Gucci
can really stay on his feet there.

Speaker 1 (46:48):
I'm beaten in sixth straight, going back to that patchy
mixed loss in Bellator, and.

Speaker 5 (46:52):
Then from there it's a you can just pick a
lot of different ones. A guy who's been kind of
an internet hero, shem Rock, is making i think, is
UFC debut here against Narillo Aliev. That's a fun one.
Bezott Alma Khan taking on Alexandre to Toporia. That's gonna
be Ilia's younger brother dude. Up and down this card,
there's a this is not an ordinary fight night right.

(47:14):
It's the first time in this country, so they're bringing
a bit of a heavy dough. This is like not
a pay per view, but it's not exactly just oh,
we're in Atlanta this weekend. No, it's something one of
those in between ones.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
It's very very good card Long Island. Look, let's talk
from either a betting or just from a this man
lives for the prelims standpoint. Is there a storyliner matchup
that you're more focused on than others?

Speaker 2 (47:36):
Well, I was telling Luke I was bummed about Waldo
Cortez a Costa stepping in only because I had a
bet on Serge Spivak as an underdog. I thought that
was a good fight for him against Gazib Gaziev. However,
the fuck you say his name?

Speaker 6 (47:47):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (47:47):
The fight they bumped to the pre limbs to put
Horigucci on the main Alex perez A Sue Almabiev. If
you guys remember Asue Almabiav was my dark horse of
twenty twenty five, you know, not the greatest year, but
I need a dub from him here to solidify a
spot in the top fifteen. Other than that, there's some
great like local, not local, but you know, middle whatever

(48:08):
you want to call it. Guys, Yak Yayev, this guy's
like the biggest favorite on the card. He's like minus
thirteen hundred. There's this other guy fighting, Nicholas Dalby is Zakamaya.
I don't know, man, there's a lot of ostu amabaya.
If you love that guy, yeah, I just said that guy.

Speaker 9 (48:22):
I know.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
I'm saying like, this is great for you.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
That's my boy. Uh either way, dude, I know we're
coming off three twenty two, one of the best cards
of the year, but this is like one of the
best fight nights of the year too. This is pretty
damn good.

Speaker 5 (48:32):
Totally right.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
It all goes down and they.

Speaker 5 (48:34):
Also I'll be I'll be doing a watch along and
postfight show for this one tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
Excellent long Island loud. Can we see you tomorrow on this.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
Yeah, full car baby ten am Eastern really st.

Speaker 1 (48:44):
Leave the women and children behind for this one. Wow.
It'll take place in the city of Al Raison Cutter,
inside the venue known as Ali bin Hamad al at Tiya.

Speaker 5 (48:55):
This is a suburb or just outside like the outskirts
of Doha, So it's it's.

Speaker 1 (48:59):
Basically, did you live near that arena when you were.

Speaker 5 (49:02):
I don't know. I'm not sure where we lived when
we lived in Doha.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
But yeah, are there pictures of you in Cutter? Yes,
Oh wow, a young lt You were probably like a
thirty eight pound baby at that point, right, just like.

Speaker 5 (49:16):
Uh yeah, I'm not sure how because we lived was
born in India, then we spent some time in Japan,
and then we went to Doha, so it was little.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
While I'm gonna guess fifteen pounds.

Speaker 5 (49:27):
When I was born. Yeah, no, ten and some change.
Was still pretty big, all.

Speaker 1 (49:31):
Right, still pretty big, look still pretty big. That goes
down this weekend UFC Cutter watched those gentlemen's YouTube offerings. There.
I'll be on CBS Sports HQ after the card as well.

Speaker 5 (49:41):
You go on to the studio.

Speaker 1 (49:42):
No, not for this, No, I'll be from home. Oh.
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(50:04):
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(51:12):
Topic number two time UFC Cutter. Somewhere near there on
that side of the world, we're going to get a
huge boxing event in riod As, Turke Alaschik Ring and
Company present Ring number four, a loaded dizone pay per
view card offering In the main event, David Benavitez defending
his light heavyweight championship his title against battle tested Anthony Yard.

(51:38):
We're also going to see some big fights we'll talk
about like Hani Norman, the return of one Bam Rodriguez,
along with the hot prospect Abdullah Mason in his first
title fight. But let's start at the top. Right here.
Anthony Yard has racked up four consecutive wins to get
to this point. We've seen him give big time names
like Sergei Kovalev and Arthur betterbv Tru in big title fights.

(52:01):
He may look as like just a muscular, slugging brawler,
but there's something about his ability to hang in fights
and make it difficult for his opposition. Could this be
a fight for David Benavitez that catapults him into unification
with beevall a showdown with better BF. Well, he's got
to get through Anthony Yard first. So, Luke, when you
look at the road that Yard has taken to get here,

(52:24):
what has still out to you as the most impressive
to make you believe that he's actually got a shot
on Saturday.

Speaker 5 (52:31):
I don't think he has a shot.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
Well, let me tell you the odds from DraftKings minus
nine hundred Benavidez. Yeah, just five point fifty for Yard.

Speaker 5 (52:40):
Yeah. I mean, here's the thing, right, So he the
last win he had over someone with a Wikipedia entry
was Lyndon Arthur, who he originally lost to. Then he
was able to avenge it, and then there was a
rubber match and that was the last one. That was
his fourth wind in a row since losing to better BF.
I thought he gave better beev a tough fight for
as long as it lasts, not closer to the end,

(53:01):
but maybe the first but I don't know what you
want to say. Five six rounds, he was kind of
hanging in there and making him work for it a
little bit. Got marched down closer to the end there,
and that was that. You know, I just feel like
Benavitez is in a bit of a different category. I
think the thing that I'm looking at BC is less about,
you know, who's gonna have the better gas tank down
the stretch. I think it's gonna be Benavidez, who's got

(53:22):
the best I should say, who has fewer miles on them.
Yard is kind of no pun intended. BC has kind
of been through the hard yards in his career. A
little bit more to this point. I think you mentioned
this already, but Yard is what how old is he?
Thirty four? Right? And I think he's not over the hill,
but you know, he's been in some real tough outings

(53:43):
during the course of his run in a way that
Benavidez hasn't. Really Benavidez has done a lot more dealing
and has had a lot I think fewer pressure situations
that have been put on him. I think that's part
of it. I think the hand speed for Benavitez and
the combination punching is simply going to be much. But
the issue with Yard is he is big. He's hugely muscular.

(54:03):
He looks like a bodybuilder, and you know in boxing
and clothing so to speak, and I do think can
punch and it certainly has great experience BC and I
think these are the things they're gonna have to make
Benavidez work for it, especially because there's been a little
bit of a concern about whether or not Benavidez has
punching power that's really substantial in this weight class. He

(54:24):
throws with enough volume and in enough combination where he
gets guys to just kind of try to find an
umbrella under the rain, but he looks like he might
be lacking a little bit at seventy five PC at least,
there's been some suspicions that he doesn't have the same
kind of punching power as he did, you know, back
at sixty eight. And we get a guy like Yard
who is especially big for this weight class, there there

(54:48):
there might be some buffer ring in that particular space
where you know, we don't really know what the answer is,
but could Yard hang on underneath and then you know,
find big opportunities certainly seems possible, not very not very
likely in my estimation, but I think this might be
some of the places where it's either one or loss.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
I give it. I'll give you that. I really think
the co main event is the main event or the
people's main event, as Ariel likes to say, I think
this main event is going to be fun. The Benavidez yard,
I think it's gonna tell us things. Like you mentioned
about Benavitez a light heavyweight. Remember he does have two
impressive wins in this division, but one came against a
former champion. What was that guy's name? Luke just just
fell off the side of my head. God, the guy

(55:27):
he beat in the PBC card devastic buzz, thank you,
the former title holder who's more of a technician but
definitely world class. And then he beat David unbeating David
Morrell on a light heavyweight bout in which they were
both essentially blown up super middleweights. But you've got to
give Benavide's credit at twenty eight thirty and Ozero record
not being overly focused on waiting in line for Canelo,

(55:48):
has moved up to handle his business here at one
seventy five. Like I said, this should be if he
wins the catapulting fight into either a Bevall or better
BEF fight that I'm sure Turkey is going to really
showcase and feature on a very high level. But we
do need to see him against a legitimate physical light heavyweight,
and that's what Yard is. I think the problem with Yard,

(56:09):
despite his twenty seven and three record in despite the
fact that he did give you know, like we mentioned
Cove eleven better be of trouble, is he doesn't have
a signature win. I mean that Lyndon Arthur win was
a rematch of a split decision loss. He doesn't have
a breakthrough win around that. He's really built his reputation
on a world level for what he's done in defeat
by being durable and by staying dangerous with the power.

(56:30):
But that is a test. We need to see Benavita's pass.
So let's see the two of these guys show off
at a workout so you can see what you're looking at.
There there's Benavidez, who look, don't forget he said he's
gonna move a cruiserweight and then heavyweight before long, so
we don't know how much longer we're gonna see him
at light heavyweight. And look at this fellow Yards All

(56:51):
that's a Dulla Mason there.

Speaker 5 (56:52):
I'm not sure how that happened. Sorry about that, No.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
Problem here, we can pull that. But speaking of Canelo, who,
let's be fair about breaking news here, Luke. It was
reported today that Canelo has said he wants a rematch
with Terrence Crawford and that they were currently negotiating that
for a twenty twenty six super fight. You'd have to
guess it would be on Netflix. He believes he could
get you know, he's felt the same way when he

(57:15):
lost the Bevall. By the way, here is Jose Benavidez Senior,
the father trainer, manager of Benavide's, talking about Canelo's ducky.

Speaker 10 (57:24):
If he faces David, Benavide's guaranteed he's going to go
to the hospital. Canelo was aboding David for a long,
long time, five six years. What makes you think that
he wants to fight David now when he got stronger
and better in Canelo's declining, You know, the body is
not the same, the reflex are not the same. I
think my best advice to Cannelo is, you know, retire,

(57:47):
you know, because at the end of the day, he's
done so much for boxing, you know, and the body
doesn't want to go anymore, you know. I hear that
they're going to have a second fight with test Crawford.
I think it's going to be the same thing. TestCraft
is gonna beat him again, you know, Like I said,
you know Terros Craffor, I don't think he can hurt Canelo.
He's a little guy, but I think that the outcome

(58:07):
is going to be the same. So if he faces
David Benavidez, guarantee he's going to go to the hospital.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
Damn. Tough words, right there, Luke. Do you believe you
agree with that?

Speaker 5 (58:17):
Yeah? I think that's about right. I mean, it's tough love,
but it's I didn't no lies detective from me.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
I don't think there's love there. Yeah, but I mean
you do you not give Canelo a chance to beat Crawford?

Speaker 5 (58:31):
No, No, why would you.

Speaker 1 (58:36):
I'm not saying I love that fight. I do think
he can fight.

Speaker 5 (58:39):
You seriously, you want to see that ship?

Speaker 2 (58:40):
I know.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
I'm not saying it's my first. No, I would rather
see Crawford look to become the undisputed middleweight champion. But
I understand, I understand it. No, I don't want that.

Speaker 5 (58:51):
Look, see, I overstand you understand.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
Here's the That fight was closer than people. Remember, That's
what I'm saying.

Speaker 5 (58:59):
Okay, on the judge's scorecards, not in actuality.

Speaker 1 (59:04):
Did Crawford overwhelmingly show that he was the better fighter
in that fight. Ultimately, yes, but it came through close
rounds and in some challenge. Can Canelo do better than that?
Did he underestimate Crawford? I think if he comes back
and looks to make it a real fight, like fight
him full on Mexican style, not try to box him,

(59:24):
not try to you know, then it's a different fight.
Then we It could be exciting. I don't know. I'm
trying to talk myself into it. Maybe not.

Speaker 2 (59:30):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (59:31):
Look, if Benavida stops yard, he makes a big statement
either way. He needs to win here to step up
to an even bigger fight to where we really find
out where he's at in this division. Let's talk about
this co main event. Oh my god, is it awesome.
Brian Norman Junior, the unbeaten American, the welterweight title holder,
one of the more underrated fighters in this entire sport.
He is the WBO strap. He's twenty four years old

(59:55):
out of Greater Atlanta, twenty eight and oh twenty two KOs.
But he's stepped up, undoubtedly to the toughest challenge of
his career to date in Devin Haney. It's why Norman
opened as a betting favorite. It's why it has closed
to the point where it's basically a pickum right now
on DraftKings minus one ten for Hani, minus one ten

(01:00:18):
for Norman. I saw last night Norman was a slight, slight,
slight betting favorite all that they were both in the minus. Here, Luke,
this is a great matchup of the power of Norman
and the slickness the boxing skills of Devin Haney. But
let's not act like two things that are going contrast
to each other that are but are both true. Number One,

(01:00:40):
Devin Haney doesn't really have a huge track record in
this division. He lost to a routed up in crazy
Ryan Garcia in a fight that's now a no contest.
He yeah out boxed Jose Ramirez in Times Square, but
took the least path of full the full path of
caution is possib But simultaneously he's one of the best,

(01:01:03):
most skilled pump for pound fighters on the planet. Even
if people don't like the way he reacted to the
Ryan Garcia fight with the lawsuit. In all of that,
I can't figure out who's gonna win this Because there's
times you feel like, you know what, Norman's a guy
you don't mess with. If Haine doesn't have the power
in resistance at one seven against a true welterweight slugger,
he's gonna have issues. Then the other side of me

(01:01:26):
remembers just how skilled Haine is. Where are you leaning
right now in terms of how you feel narrative wise,
who has the edge coming into this matchup when you
look at their two skills and the sort of narrative
surrounding both.

Speaker 5 (01:01:40):
Do we have the video of the face off?

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
I don't think you grabbed that.

Speaker 5 (01:01:46):
Luke, damn it. There's a face off between them at
what was it the media day or with the press workout? Yeah,
press confor whatever it was. It was some kind of
media event between them. There was a bunch of stuff
I wanted to pick BC of Ian Norman and Bill
Haney arguing, but there was constant rap music playing in
the background of the video which would get it flagged

(01:02:08):
and so I couldn't include it. Unfortunately. Uh, I'll say this, BC,
there are a lot of people who don't know who
Brian Norman Junior is, and there are a lot of
people who may have seen his highlight over Jin Sasaki
where he the guy goes for a sort of a
dipping jab and then comes back up and Norman just
greets him with a gigantic leap, almost like a gazelle

(01:02:30):
punch from Hagler knocks him out cold in a single shot.
Like it was absolutely brutal. We had him on the
show here, Brian Norman not long after that feat. He
was great, fantastic guy born my sophomore year of college.
Oh my god, we're old, all right. But the point
I want to make is BC, I don't know that

(01:02:50):
he's got the track record in terms of elite opponents
that Devin Haney does. And Devin Haney you can say
he shouldn't have deserved. He didn't deserve to beat Lomachenko,
but you know he gave Lomachenko, I thought a credible
effort in that fight. At a bare minimum. Certainly you
can score for him too. The one I'm trying to
make though, is if it was just down to that,
I would be like, well, Hani's better. But there's two problems.

(01:03:12):
As you indicated, won the weight class, right, I just
don't know exactly hany for his part from what I've
seen during fight week looks to be in incredible shape.
We'll see what that means. But there's still some mystery there. Two,
and this is the big one to me, he might
be damaged goods. He might be damaged goods. That left

(01:03:34):
hook assault in the Ryan Garcia fight just leaves questions
about one his technical preparedness and then two what it
actually did to him, because in his comeback fight in
Times Square, let's just be honest, he didn't look great.
He looked flat. He got the job done, but he looks.

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
I don't think he looked flat. I just thought he
looked completely unwilling to engage with an aging former champion
who was there to be hit by him.

Speaker 5 (01:04:00):
Fine, that's a better way to put it. Flat Maybe
isn't the right word. Yours is better description. But he
didn't look how about this. He did not look especially
potent offensively to me, and he didn't look like he
was willing to be in that line of fire as
you described in ways that he previously had, which two
degrees understandable given what he was up against. But I'm
just pointing it out. But Brian Norman looks like calm, composed,

(01:04:21):
ready to go in the zone. In the moment just
sharp as attack. BC. And there's this face off they
have where Brian Norman doesn't move and Devin Haney is
doing I don't know, fortnight dances in his face. How
would you describe that, BC?

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
Well, I mean like we used to say about Holly
Holm having nervous energy, where when you see her in
face off, you know, even the Rondo one where now
in hindsight we look at Ronda being you know, trying
to make herself psych herself up that oh she looks nervous.
I can't figure out here if this is just nervous
energy from hay NEI to fire himself up, or if
this constant, weird movement in the face off is telling

(01:04:57):
because every time Norman is in a room with Haney,
he looks at him as if that's his next meal.

Speaker 5 (01:05:01):
Yeah, he looks at him like he's looking at lunch.
And the other part too is BC and I you know,
take this for what it is worth, which maybe is nothing. However,
just kind of scanning what like people I would consider
to be boxing heads on social media are saying they're
all kind of creeping on a come up here. They
all kind of feel like Brian Norman's about to surprise

(01:05:23):
the world. There is clear chatter that they think this
is his breakout party, and again take that for what
it is worth. But insiders seem to think that Brian
Norman might have a big day tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
It's tough to figure out, man, I mean, Brian Norman
has not fought somebody on this level. Can Haney prove
at welterweight against a guy who is going to be there,
is going to be in his face, that physically he
can handle it. Let's hear from Devin Haney talking specifically
about why he moved up to one four seven.

Speaker 11 (01:05:51):
Just more of my not yourself, more of you know
who I really am, and in passplight, you guys see me,
you know what, as a more of a shell of
myself because you know, I wish killing myself to make
the waves. I feel a lot better, I feel a

(01:06:11):
lot stronger, and I'm excited for it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
Look I'm I'm I actually believe him on those statements.

Speaker 5 (01:06:19):
Yes, like I didn't.

Speaker 1 (01:06:20):
I didn't love his unwillingness to fight with Jose Ramirez,
who is kind of passed it. I thought that could
have been a huge showcase for HAINI yet I saw
that physically speed wise moving all that was there. I mean,
I know how good he is. I'm seeing this more often,
you know, whether it's Islam moving up and then you
see suddenly he's got this gas to wrestle for five
rounds or Roley talking about at you know, one thirty

(01:06:42):
one or one thirty five and forty. Those weight cuts
left him without punch resistance and he didn't look the same.
Then he moves up against welterweight in a weird fight
against Ryan Garcia. But he's a different fighter. I wonder
if that plays into this, whether people are just really
overlooking how skilled Devin really is and now full dehydrated
or close enough, will we see a different type of fighter.

(01:07:03):
I don't know. Norman is scary. Here's Brian Norman with
a cold assessment of the game.

Speaker 7 (01:07:09):
If my last opponent could do the same thing to me,
I bet he will have. If he can knock six
weeks out of me and out of my memory, things
of that nature, I'm ten times out of ten, I
bet he will have. So really, there's no remorse in
this game. It's a cold game. It's the cold world,
and that's the beauty of it. All really the powers
in your hands, as in yo, whatever you want to
do tomorrow matters today. You take control. So I can't

(01:07:34):
hold myself back because of somebody else, because I know
for a fact, if they had the opportunity, they don't
care if I die. Of course they'll come on these
cameras and say, man, I feel so sorry for him.
I feel so bad for him, But guess what day
life goes on. I'm dead and gone, just that easy,
just that quick. So hey, it is what it is.
I got to go out here and get money.

Speaker 1 (01:07:54):
Dude, he's so easy to like. Seriously, he's cold direct,
he's twenty four.

Speaker 5 (01:08:00):
I've seen the fact that Jin Sasaki had weeks of
his memory taken from him by virtue of the ko
that Brian Norman laid on him. That's what they're reacting to.

Speaker 1 (01:08:08):
I mean, it's kind of perfect. Brian Norman looks like
a potential great we just haven't seen him prove it yet,
so we really don't know exactly how great he is.
Whereas Devin Haney, I think people are labeling as damage
goods where I'm here to tell you, Luke, ultimately, I
don't believe that Devin Haney is damage goods. I think
it's somewhat similar to that you know saying in baseball
that great pitching will always be great hitting. I feel

(01:08:30):
that about the highest levels in boxing, where great defense
and great technical skills and movement can ultimately be exciting
young power. But somebody who hasn't fought somebody this good yet.
Even with the questions about Hani in this division, I
can't not from a betting standpoint, I can not not not.

(01:08:52):
I can't do anything but put money behind Haney, the
more proven product. I want to see how he looks
in a tough fight at this way lass without having
to cut down. I actually think this has all the
potential for Devin Haney. At times he's gonna have to avoid, Yes,
he's fighting a killer in there. He's gonna have to
do some avoidance movement all that. But I think he's

(01:09:12):
gonna showcase, showcase his skills and talent against Norman.

Speaker 5 (01:09:18):
I like Norman to win, fuck it to finally we
finally we break apart. I'm gonna. I hated what I
saw from Hany in his last fight, to the point
you wreck, you bring up there's a lot that's unknown
about Brian Norman on this stage, the bright lights, the
whole nine yard nine yards, excuse me, and I hate
that both of them have very loud dads. Yes, but

(01:09:40):
at the same time, Brian Norman is on one right
now in a good way, and I'm gonna take a
flyer on him.

Speaker 1 (01:09:46):
Look, we might it might be in the situation where
he just hasn't gotten those names yet, but he gets
in there, he shows he's a killer. Hany though in
sick shape.

Speaker 5 (01:09:54):
Luca amazing, amazing, amazing. He's always been in good shape,
but it's even another degree or two from even some
of his better.

Speaker 1 (01:10:01):
And he's a weird dude in all that. I'm not
going to deny that he's not always overly likable, but
people I think have always slept on just how skilled
he is.

Speaker 5 (01:10:10):
I mean, this isn't insane that Ryan Garcia was having
a manic episode saying the most insanely racist things you've
ever seen in your life. Clearly cheated in numerous ways
prior to that fight. Haney did underperform, obviously, and then
had to be the most hated man in boxing for
a year.

Speaker 1 (01:10:27):
I know, I know, I'm not that I got caught
up in that but you know what, I'm starting to realize, Luke,
I don't think it was really as much of a
even though he was getting hit with the same punch
against Garcia at the time, I'm like, how is a
fighter in hany who's this defensively responsible, this technical, this
much of a great athlete. How is he getting hit
with the same damn punch over and over again. I'm like,

(01:10:49):
there must be a defensive hole. I'm not wondering if
just the you know, the peds and the craziness made Ryan,
who's already one of the most athletic and as one
of the quickest, most dangerous left hooks in the game,
was just that much more insane with it, considering the
drugs in what was going on.

Speaker 5 (01:11:07):
Let me say this, I don't want to speak for him,
so I haven't heard his breakdown of this fight, but
you know one of my favorite you know, you guys
know I love any Paz from Jedi Mind Tricks. He
has a boxing podcast called Knock Him Out the Box.
And again, I don't know what they said on this podcast,
but I know in previous fights BC and by the way,
he is a believer. If my memory is correct, that

(01:11:28):
Lomachenko did not lose to Haney, and that he thinks
that Haney is a good fighter. He doesn't bag on Haney,
he's not insulting to him, but he doesn't necessarily buy
the idea that Hany is one of these guys that's
like destined for boxing greatness. And in fact, I think
he's very skeptical of that claim. If his assessment and
he's got you know, pretty good boxing knowledge, I would say,
if that assessment is correct and he's really not that guy,

(01:11:50):
then you know, I think what you're gonna see is
Brian Norman potentially go to work. Now again, who knows.
I'm not a boxing officionado. We'll have to see. I'm
just trying to point out. This is what I mean
when I say, like, what do people who really pay
attention to boxing think? They think that Hani might be
in for some trouble on Saturday?

Speaker 1 (01:12:07):
And Alix Sean Porter has gone on record like crazy
saying Hani's damage good, he's good, He's gonna get blown out.
I mean it might not be her. Look, the history
of Hani, in terms of facing a real puncher and
being in tough moments is not always great. There was
the Lenaris at the end of the fight. In Lenari's
fight where he got hurt and was basically running the
final rounds. Of course, there was the Garcia fight, but

(01:12:28):
he did keep getting up against Garcia, and again I'm
wondering what those weight cuts did to his durability. Hey,
we're gonna find it out on Saturday, luke quickly. On
those other two fights, they are top shelf. I really
want people to realize this. Jesse Bam Rodriguez, the young
pound for pound top ten or from San Antonio, will
enter a unification fight at super flyweight against a very

(01:12:51):
very tough out in Argentina's Fernando Puma Martinez. The odds
won't tell you the real story on this fight, as
it's minus eleven hundred for Bam plus six point fifty
for Martinez, but you could argue from a hard core
standpoint that this fight is almost as good as Hani
versus Norman. Both are unbeat and it's a very very
very real fight. Whoma Martinez thirty four years old, eighteen

(01:13:14):
and oh does not have the power of Bam and
that's probably the ultimately the difference here in the odds,
but has faced very good competition twice beat Sherwin Ankaijas
twice beat Kazudo Ioka. This is a real showdown down
there at super flyweight that can't be missed and Luke
House excited. Are you to see your guy Abdullah Mason

(01:13:34):
step up to the title level here for a vacant
belt against Sam Noakes and Mason is nineteen and oh
this is for the WBO lightweight title, the one of
course that Keishan Davis was forced to vacate here. This
is also a very interesting clash, but I do think
more suited for Abdullah to show us exactly who he
is and maybe even show off in this one.

Speaker 5 (01:13:55):
Yeah, this is one of the ones I want to
see him take his time. That's what I kind of
want to see because usually he just blows of doors
off of people. I'd like to see him again. There's
such a difference to be seen with people. Oh so
and so won fast, that's great. Winning fast is important.
Can you win fast and methodically, not just like I'm
just gonna do my thing and let it go and
let it rip and then see what happens. Nah nah,

(01:14:17):
Methodically that's what I want to see. So we'll see
how it goes. Four year old question for you, question
for you? Yeah, are these events overlapping in time because
they are taking place essentially in the same region.

Speaker 1 (01:14:28):
So I've seen that the cutter main card for UFC
will begin at one pm Eastern, and I've seen that
the main card for boxing will begin, I think at
four pm Eastern, and I saw Coppinger tweet that the
main event walks are expected around seven pm, so maybe not.

Speaker 5 (01:14:47):
They might not overlap.

Speaker 2 (01:14:48):
There's gonna be no overlap of these like main four
boxing fights. There might be overlap. Are there fights before
these four?

Speaker 5 (01:14:55):
Yeah, I mean it's a prelim card.

Speaker 2 (01:14:56):
That's what I mean. So there that might overlap because
I saw coverage starts at three thirty Eastern, but I
saw the first like Abdullah Mason's ring walk was like
six thirty Eastern or something.

Speaker 5 (01:15:05):
Okay, okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:15:06):
So then by the way speak the Mason fight is
the odds are closer than the others minus three point fifty.
Mason for the plus two sixty Oaks was seventeen and
oh fighting out of the UK, but not a killer.
I think Mason gets this done, but we gotta see that.
And I do think by the way Bam gets it done.
I'm just telling you that's a real fight right there.
All right, all you people that hey boxing. Let's get
into topic number three, back to the MMA side. We're

(01:15:29):
talking about UFC President Dana White, who went on the
Flagrant Podcast where he discussed many issues, not the least
of which is his ongoing feud with one Francis Enganu.
Dana would claim that in Ghana once put his hands
on Dana in the UFC offices, and this sound, this
accusation was so huge that in so spicy. Yeah, you

(01:15:52):
know what's coming. We got to call our friends over
there at Cuervo for a little something that we like
to call shots fire. SHOT's fire, brought to you by Quervo.
Now is a good time to enjoy the tequila that
invented tequila. Let's hear from Dana White.

Speaker 9 (01:16:13):
I guess the one I will tell you is, you know,
everybody has this thing about Francis and Gania. Francis and
Ganya is a bad guy. He's not a good guy.
He plays the whole dud. I don't understand the language.
And he tries to come off like he's a fucking
nice guy. You know, what I mean, and people doll
wrot the language barrier probably now there's no there's no

(01:16:34):
fucking language barrier with this guy.

Speaker 5 (01:16:36):
He's a bad guy.

Speaker 9 (01:16:37):
And I told my guys, you know, I wanted to
cut him early, and two of my matchmaker guys will go, oh, no,
you don't understand, said, guys, let me tell you a story.
When somebody shows you who they are, believe them, believe them.
And this guy has shown so he's going in to
fight Steve A. Miochich in Boston and he knows he's

(01:16:59):
gonna fucking kill Steepe right, So after the press conference, uh,
we're walking down this hallway and he comes over me
and he grabs me and he says, uh, let me
tell you what's gonna happen because English is fucking great. Okay,
no language barrier whatsoever. When this fight's over, they're gonna

(01:17:21):
book me a private plane to Paris. And uh, I said,
I laughed, So yeah, he goes, I'm not joking. You're
gonna book me a private plane Paris. So okay, so
we go around ways, step Amochi beats the fucking shit
out of him. So that ended that whole conversation and

(01:17:45):
he had just fought, and he comes up to my
office and uh, you know, he's in the hallway or whatever,
hanging I and I said, come on, what's what's going on?
And he was pissed off that he didn't get a
fifty thousand dollars bonus uh in his in his last fight,
that he didn't get the bonus of the night. And
I said, whoa, Francis, you didn't get it because this that.

(01:18:07):
And he's in my office and he's arguing with me,
and I'm like, yeah, this guy got this, this guy
got that, and this is why the conversation's over. I'm
starting to leave and he grabs me by my shirt fuck,
and like pushes me back in my office and I said, dude,
get your fucking hands off me.

Speaker 1 (01:18:27):
Those were the words came Francis and grabbed you by
the shirt. Yeah, So, Luke, let me frame it like this.
To be fair, we did take Francis's side in the
Dana Great Dana debate, and I think from the clues
we had rightfully so. And I do think Francis has
an incredible story crawling through the Shawshank, you know, crap
tunnel to get out of his contract and to secure

(01:18:49):
what he was looking for freedom, big time money, he
went over to boxing. But maybe we've been souring a
bit of late from PFL, accusing Francis of not doing
what they expected for everything that they gave him, the
fact that he's only fought for PFL once in like
the three years since he's been there. What do you
make of Dana White's story? And do you believe it's

(01:19:10):
time to consider that to some degree, not that we
were wrong on Francis or just that we didn't have
all the info or how about it, we were wrong
and that Francis is maybe a less reputable character. Then
his origin story seems to create this you know, hero
myth around him.

Speaker 5 (01:19:29):
We were wrong about Francis in what way.

Speaker 1 (01:19:33):
We did frame him? I mean, I don't know the guy, right,
We framed him as this great guy.

Speaker 5 (01:19:37):
Have you have you interviewed him before?

Speaker 1 (01:19:39):
Yes, I think he's a very polite and.

Speaker 5 (01:19:41):
Yeah, I've interviewed him, I think one, maybe two times
something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:19:44):
I've interviewed him a bunch yet.

Speaker 5 (01:19:46):
I mean, here's my point, Okay, I cannot imagine a
character assessment less interesting or relevant than one given by
MMA or boxing promoter. I mean, I just can't. I mean,
who on earth would treat that as like some kind

(01:20:07):
of illuminating character assessment. I mean you're talking about I mean,
he calls he calls Francis a bad guy. It's like, dude,
you got a lot of bad guys on that roster
and you do business with him. You've got guys on
the roster who have to get ankle monitors removed by
a judge so they can show up to fights. You've

(01:20:29):
got guys who, in major headline news, were adjudicated civilly
to be liable for the sexual assault of various victims,
and when asked about it, treated it as if you know,
he couldn't couldn't imagine a more irrelevant question. They continue
to do business with them, I mean I could go on.

(01:20:49):
I mean, they just they're probably gonna sign Gable steveson
who you know, if you've never looked into the stories
about how he avoided issues in Minnesota due to a
loophole that is now since been closed related to sexual
assault at least allege, I should say go take a look.
I don't think he's got any kind of a problem

(01:21:09):
doing business with bad guys and More to the point,
even if he says it's a bad guy. I mean,
can you imagine, b C. I made this point in
my life shot. Can you imagine like someone like Oscar
de la Hoya trying to be like a character witness
for or against somebody like, Oh, Oscar says that guy
over there is a scumbag who cares? Who cares? Like

(01:21:30):
Oscar's assessment of this is irrelevant, It doesn't mean anything. Now,
that's not me saying that Dana White is lying. I
don't know if Dana White is lying, And in fact,
we see what I can also say, and I think
you'd probably agree if someone came to you with like
a blind test and they were like, hey, an MMA
fighter did this to Dana, do you find that plausible? Sure? Sure,
I find that plausible. This world is filled with people

(01:21:53):
who will do things like that. Whether Francis did or didn't,
I don't know. And I'm not in any way suggesting
that Dana is lying to the world. I don't know
that either. It could very well be true that he
did it. We will have to see. That's the first point.
But the real point is it doesn't like the taking
what a what a combat sports promoter says, at face

(01:22:13):
value is in every case Bob Aram, Dana White, Don King,
Gary Shaw, whoever is a bad idea, just don't do it.
That's the second part three. He's not a bad guy
for exercising the rights and maximizing his value. Like if
he's a bad guy because he put his hands on Dana, fine, fine,

(01:22:37):
that's got nothing to do with him being that, and
again kept him under roster long after that in order
to continue to do business with him, because hello, they
do business with people of ill repute in in MMA,
in this organization. And so what I would say is,
let's see what Francis has to say. Let's not take

(01:22:58):
assessments from Fight for Motors at face value. And even
if it's true on that particular level, which again it
very well might be, that's a separate consideration about whether
or not was it appropriate for him to seek out
the maximization of his value in the way which he did.
You can like or you can hate that fact, But
does that make him a villain that act that those

(01:23:19):
kinds of efforts. Of course it doesn't. It's a silly
thing to suggest as much. So my view is it
could very well be true, but we have to parse
what parts of that could be true and what parts
of that are even relevant to the questions of how
he got sideways with Dana after that.

Speaker 1 (01:23:34):
It's fair I always assume that Dana hated him because,
out of the typical fighter response, he seemed to exercise
his potential leverage so aggressively. Remember that that stretch that
he's talking about where Francis lost to Steepe. Then he,
you know, Dana would go publicly before the Derek Lewis
fight for Francis and say, Francis isn't the guy we
thought he was. He's all into material things like cars,

(01:23:56):
He's not you know whatever. Then he has that performance
injured against their Lewis and one of the worst fights
of all time loses. Dana blames everything on him. Then
it felt like they froze him out of the title
picture for a while, and he didn't get an interim
title shot when he maybe should have. I mean, I
thought all that stuff. In the end, Francis was right.
Dana was just upset. Someone was trying to push it.

(01:24:16):
But if this story is true, Luke, it would change that,
and maybe that explains why Dana's hatred seems to consistently
be so aggressive toward him. I don't know. I just
wonder if the recent stuff from PFL, I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:24:30):
I mean, everybody, listen, maybe listen, dude. Look again, it's like,
maybe he's selfish, maybe he's you know, maybe he's maybe
he's a bully, but.

Speaker 1 (01:24:40):
He's not wearing a LoJack to the cage. Is your point?
I get that, you know what I mean?

Speaker 5 (01:24:43):
Yeah, you know, there's nothing you could tell me about
the malfeasance of a potential MMA fighter doing something and
I'd be like, wow, that makes no sense. You know,
of course, and we don't know. Francis like, this could
all be true. I'm just trying to say, take those
issues for what they are. If they are true, then
then that's one part. But the exercising of value in

(01:25:04):
getting trying to get the most amount of money, that's
his job to himself. And again, in the process of
doing that, did he do things that were potentially you know,
not not illegal, but you know, done in bad faith
or negligently. Yeah, that could be true too. I just
want to make sure make the argument about what it

(01:25:26):
is if he's a bad person because he puts hands
on people. Fine, fine, but that has nothing to do
with maximizing value in contract disputes. Very different.

Speaker 1 (01:25:36):
What do you think John Jones would say if Dana
pulled the one eighty and said we're signing Francis If
that was even possible, I don't know contractually. And the
White House car sorry, Tom, the White House fight that
we really want is Francis and Gano versus John Jones.
Does John go back and die? Look, because that's a legend,
right he said? Tom's not a legend. That's why I'll

(01:25:56):
give up the thirty million not to fight him. But
Poeton is my resume need that he wouldn't.

Speaker 5 (01:26:01):
I think John will just say whatever he needs to
say to get whatever he wants. And I don't know
what he wants other than I think he wants to
do what Mayweather did, which is fight like Andre Berto
on his way out the door and get a.

Speaker 1 (01:26:10):
Big check to clothes on Dana Luke, he was wearing
that black polo with the white writing that he wears
like almost as much as you of that red and
black right there. Do you think he has one of
those or like fifty of those in his closet?

Speaker 5 (01:26:26):
That's a good question. I definitely think he's got more
than one. How about that. I'll take the over. If
that's the line, I'll take the over.

Speaker 1 (01:26:33):
I mean, Dana's been showing us who he is for years. Luke,
I believe him. I really do, ultimately, you know what
I'm saying. Yeah, I believe Yeah. All right, Hey, speaking
of Cuervo, and now's a good time to remember where
tequila's story truly began. How about a history lesson. In
seventeen ninety five, Quervo invented tequila, and since then, you
better believe that Quervo has stayed true to its roots.
Same family, same land, same passion. Two hundred and thirty

(01:26:57):
years later, Cuervo is still right here and every pore
and every margarito or three and every celebration. So enjoy
the tequila that it started at all Quervo, the tequila
that invented tequila. Proximoquervo dot com. Please drink responsibly and
LT you and I always have fun drinking responsibly. At
Morning Combat UFC pregame preview and with three twenty three

(01:27:22):
on the horizon, Saturday December sixth, in Las Vegas, we
will be having our next pregame preview that week Monday,
January twenty first, Live in the middle, December December first,
Sorry I read it wrong. Monday December first, eleven am Eastern,
Live in the Meadow Larks Studios in Manhattan. It's ELT,

(01:27:43):
It's BC, and it's Jed Meshu. Number two breaking down
three twenty three with some chasers, maybe some Devil's reserve
and a lot of quervo to go around for everybody.

Speaker 5 (01:27:57):
Let's bang, let's eat chowder.

Speaker 1 (01:28:00):
All right, better call y'all. We did, we did, Okay,
we did for that one, Thank you very much. Let's
go to topic number four. Ben Vickers, the head coach
a former Wealth Which champion Jack Della Maddelena, spoke to
our friend Dennis at Submission Radio, and while Vickers made
no excuses for Dela Madeleina's title loss to Islamahachev at
UFC three twenty two last Saturday, he did say the

(01:28:22):
issue was not the game plan and they'd use that
game plan again. First, let's hear from coach Ben Vickers.
Then we'll get Luke Thomas to respond.

Speaker 12 (01:28:32):
The game plan was movement, but I feel like we
never got the movement going. We had sort of roots
to the feet on the floor. But for whatever reason,
we couldn't start executing and getting to the first point
of those routes. Just Islam did such a good job.
And I don't want to go too much into the
game plan because it is a game plan we'll use again.
I mean, I don't think there was an issue with

(01:28:52):
the game plan, just the execution. But yeah, definitely more movement.
We wanted to do more movement.

Speaker 2 (01:28:57):
Obviously.

Speaker 12 (01:28:58):
We didn't want to be on a ground for nineteen
minutes of a twenty five minute flight. We wanted to
do some damage. I wanted to death by a thousand cuts,
you know, like just pick away on the outside and
blah blah blah.

Speaker 1 (01:29:09):
But it just wasn't our mind, Luke, Does that make
Does that add up to you?

Speaker 5 (01:29:15):
It does? Actually, Yeah, I have a video. I have
to record it, well, the second half of it, after
the show, and so it'll be up on my personal
YouTube channel. I think at some point this afternoon, basically
I did a I got a breakdown BC. I was
trying to answer this question of like, hey, is Islam,
is it fair to call Islam boring? I didn't find
him boring, You didn't find him boring, but I did

(01:29:37):
kind of see a lot of belly aching about it
and to what extent is that fair? And I was
trying to also answer this question of to what extent
was Islam JDM similar. We talked about it on Monday
to DDP homside and I went kind of through what
the tape showed, and I was like trying to explain
to people, like, like, look at how the basic point was,
look at how squirmy underneath JDM is this is gonna
It's a very different kind of threat than what you

(01:29:58):
saw with DDP, who had his guard passed immediately, where
Hamzak could get mount almost immediately, could park inside control
for as long as he wanted, you know it, could
get the back and there was nothing that DDP was
doing in terms of building height or you know, just
basic kinds of defense. He was just kind of surviving
in the most you know, just truly like there was
not much technical about it. And my point was that

(01:30:21):
was not the case with JDM. You saw a little
bit more underneath. But there are moments in that fight,
particularly in round three, at the end of the round
he passes jdm's guard, and there's moments where he looks
like he is very much setting up to pass, and
you can see moments where JDM is trying to reguard.
Now why do I bring this up? Because I put
the video out and then someone sent me a link
to I guess Craig Jones has like a like a

(01:30:44):
well known, you know, troll account, but he's not trolling.
He was actually just talking about the fight, and in
it he was saying what they wanted. They did not
want to spend time in half guard and maybe a
little bit of Nie shield, but there was a problem
with that and the goal was to get Islam to
try to pass. And I'm like, well, that doesn't make
sense because the tape is I mean, you could clearly

(01:31:05):
see on tape he's trying to prevent it and then
using an active half guard at times, So like, what's
the contradiction here? And you know, I did a little
research and I talked to a couple of other Black
Belts that I know, and they didn't exactly say this,
but I'm kind of piecing it together, which was it
just seems to me BC that Jack got lost in

(01:31:27):
there a little bit, where at times what they wanted
was to bait the pass because what you really wanted
from Jack was for Jack to go belly down, right.
He wanted to go belly down because if he can
go belly down, he's got two on one. He can
go belly down. That's how you start the true escape,
because you build to your knees and you can then
get up and go, and you've already they've got no grip,

(01:31:49):
so like, what's holding you, right, there's no grip, You're
on your knees.

Speaker 2 (01:31:53):
Just go.

Speaker 5 (01:31:53):
And you saw him do this as a matter of fact,
against Bala Muhammad. He did it quite successfully, but he
couldn't quite get it going against Islam, and part of
what happened was Islam was turking the bottom leg. That
means Islam was from half guard or even nie shield
using his leg to scoop the bottom leg of a JDM,
and he couldn't turn. He got kind of stuck in

(01:32:14):
those spots. And I think because he was getting stuck
b see, he then kind of resorted to this confused
game plan where some of the time he's doing what
he's supposed to be doing and then other times he's
just resorting back to like what he knew. And it
was this total like there was no application of this
game plan that I think that they had come up with. Now, again,

(01:32:35):
I wasn't in their strategy meetings. I don't exactly know
what they were talking about. But Craig Jones saying that
they did not want to end up there and they
wanted him to be able to belly out. That was prevented.
And so when you hear Ben Vicker say the game
plan wasn't the problem, I know folks are going to
hear that and say, dude, how could you say that?
You were like you got dusted in this fight fifty

(01:32:56):
forty five. But I understand what he's saying. They had
an The problem was not what were the ideas that
were powering this or that JDM hadn't pulled it off previously.
The problem was Islam was a step ahead of them
in the way in which he was prepared for it,
and how it deteriorated Jack's game that that game plan

(01:33:17):
maybe some things have to be tweaked, you know, BC
not like there's nothing wrong with it. Yeah, I think
a few things have to be tweaked, And I think
the wrestling and the down blocking was really missing in
this fight. But once they were on the floor. Some
of the ideas that I think that they had about
getting out of these spaces or reversing them, they were
not bad ideas. Whether they should be changed a little bit, BC,

(01:33:40):
you can have that. The issue to me was jdm's
application of the game plan. He got lost in there,
so you can't even really say, oh, did the game
plan fail. It wasn't really ever fully implemented to begin with.

Speaker 1 (01:33:52):
Dude, I think you just got a helt classed in
every category. He did nothing on the feet he was
he was too slow for Islam. Islam was easily bait
him into raising his guard and then shooting in for
the takedown. I just think he got out classed, and
I think maybe some of that is the fact that
we didn't see JDM climb the traditional path of going
through multiple top elite contenders. The schedule sort of opened up.

(01:34:13):
Shafcott was hurt. Look he filled that gap. He won
the championship. He is an elite fighter, but he lost
to a super elite fighter, the best fighter in the sport,
and he lost very badly. So now it's about bouncing back.
He will retain, of course, the number one ranking in
the welterweight division as UFC likes to do here. First
is jdm's statement that he put out on Instagram, in

(01:34:35):
which he said, quote Islam is one of the greats
and deserved to win. I will learn and move forward. Luke.
Sometimes guys win the title, they lose it. They never
get back there. Doesn't mean they don't have wins in
their career after that, but they never become that same
elite guy again. I want to know if you believe
JDM can become that guy again, considering the depth in

(01:34:56):
this division and what is the suitable opponent now for
the number one ranked welterweight looking to bounce back and
redeem his, you know, reputation.

Speaker 5 (01:35:07):
I don't think Islam's going to be here for very long,
and Jack's just twenty nine. I absolutely think Jack will
fight for a title again.

Speaker 1 (01:35:14):
Okay, change your opinion that. I asked Islam that directly
on last week, and he told me that because he
doesn't have to cut as much weight, he's going to
fight more times per year and he has no plans
of stepping away anytime soon.

Speaker 5 (01:35:28):
We'll see about that. We'll see about that. What's he
gonna say? I mean, well, I mean I suppose he
could say a lot of things. I guess we'll see.
We'll see. That'd be great. I mean, don't get me wrong.
I mean more of him sticking around I think is awesome.
But in any case, he is thirty four BC and
JDM is twenty nine. So like jdm's got like what
at least three years left or two and a half

(01:35:48):
years whatever it is of his physical prime potentially more
so that to me seems like the idea that he
won't get back there that I don't believe that. I
think he absolutely will. You know, the point I wanted
to make, though I just to drive home, is like,
imagine if someone you know, this is an exaggerated example,
but imagine if someone was like, hey, you have to
go pass you know, Gordon Ryan's guard and I trained

(01:36:11):
for it, and I had great training partners, and I
had some the very best people come up with a
game plan. But like, it doesn't matter. Once you lock
up with him, you know he's going to be the
skill differential so vast. Even if I had the right ideas,
and I even tried to prep those, it's going to
fall apart against a skilled operator like that. It just
wouldn't make any sense. And again that's a very exaggerated example,

(01:36:32):
but something kind of similar happened here along the way.
But then the next fight, I don't know, that's an
interesting one.

Speaker 1 (01:36:39):
B See.

Speaker 5 (01:36:39):
Sean Brady versus JDM is kind of interesting to me
because obviously on the feet, you know, I think Brady's
put a lot of good skills together, but it seems
to be part of the thing that's been his undoing
against ballall and then here against Morales. But on the ground,
what could he do against JDM? Probably a lot. So
I kind of like that one. Both guys coming off

(01:37:01):
of losses they were I think we're supposed to fight originally,
make that one maybe.

Speaker 1 (01:37:05):
I wouldn't hate that, But he is the number one
ranked fighter, so there's no chance they make him fight Shavcot.

Speaker 5 (01:37:09):
Right, I wouldn't hate that one either.

Speaker 1 (01:37:13):
I mean, it's more likely Shavcott gets one of Protests
or Morales.

Speaker 5 (01:37:16):
Okay, so there's a so long island, Luke, you think
that they should get see I want to see the
protest Morales fight, don't you.

Speaker 2 (01:37:23):
I know, I know you're sold on that, But like JDM,
protest does sound pretty fucking fun.

Speaker 5 (01:37:28):
How do you how do you handicap that one.

Speaker 2 (01:37:30):
I'd probably favored. It'd be close. Jdm's slight favorite minus
one thirty JDM plus one ten car That sounds about right.

Speaker 5 (01:37:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:37:41):
No, you don't want to give him like Gabriel bone
Feme or anything.

Speaker 5 (01:37:43):
No, No, that's.

Speaker 1 (01:37:48):
What I can't do one all eleven. Yeah, or I
don't know. I don't know if he would, Luke. But
we'll have to see that. Okay, we'll have to see it.

Speaker 5 (01:37:54):
Dude, he lost to Islam. Let's dial it back here
a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:37:57):
I get you, I get you. But also we have
a short track record of him beating elite foes, Luke,
we gotta admit that he's got a lot of split
streations in a row on the way. To get to
this point, all right, topic number five, As we're running
out of time here, the PFL has laid out its
overall plan for twenty twenty six, at least twenty four cards,
with sixteen sixteen of them airing on ESPN and ten

(01:38:18):
of those being title fights. No more tournaments except for
on their regional level, and a trip to Spain before
the UFC even makes it there in the first quarter
of next year. Are these the kind of changes here
as we can show the PFL announcements that the promotion
needs to stay relevant. Could you show us that tweet.

Speaker 5 (01:38:39):
Their l to the ayiel I think it's the Uh,
it's a video.

Speaker 1 (01:38:43):
Oh, it is a video. Well, let's watch that and
then we'll react.

Speaker 13 (01:38:45):
Hey everybody, John Martin, PFL CEO. Here in twenty twenty six,
we are leveling up. We're running at least twenty four
events worldwide, with sixteen major cards on ESPN in the
United States featuring our top fighters in the PFL going
after World Championships, and ten of those are going to
be right here in the United States. We're going to
kick off.

Speaker 1 (01:39:05):
Things in a big way.

Speaker 13 (01:39:06):
Our first four stops Dubai, Madrid, Spain, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Chicago, Illinois.
And yes, we're continuing to make big changes to PFL.
Many of you probably remember that we're stepping away from
the tournament format. So what does that mean. That means
every card is going to be built around the best
fights possible, the biggest fights every card, the fights the

(01:39:29):
fans are asking for and the fights that the fighters want.
Our regional leagues and MINA and Africa are going to
continue to maintain tournament formats, building the next wave of
stars who will move up to the global stage. This
is a new era at the PFL, the best fighting
the best every time. Reminded December thirteenth and leone, two

(01:39:50):
championship belts on the line.

Speaker 1 (01:39:52):
After that, we.

Speaker 13 (01:39:53):
Look forward to going into twenty twenty six with a
lot of momentum.

Speaker 1 (01:39:56):
They'll see it there, Lukes. Those our third straight year
where you could say it's a make or break. These
seem to be better moves. Will it be enough to
sustain and even get re signed with ESPN?

Speaker 5 (01:40:08):
I think my first thing I would say is I
don't know how you can hear this and think these
aren't important improvements. First of all, BC few work. I mean,
how many annual events does PFL have typically in a
normal calendar year. Do we know the answer to that?

Speaker 1 (01:40:23):
I don't know. I think it's more like coming.

Speaker 5 (01:40:26):
No overall do with like PFL Europe and all right
tournament I think it's ten. Yeah, So I mean you
know the question is what that means for these kinds
of cards. But first of all, they're gonna go to Madrid,
Spain before UFC. I mean that's absolutely the right, call
like a million times. That is so smart for them
to be able to do that. I don't know what
kind of Spanish talent that they have, but nevertheless, just

(01:40:48):
putting a foothold in that market and having a big
event BC. We've seen their shows in Ireland, we've seen
their shows in France. They look big, they look grand.
Getting something like that is a no brainer. That's the
first thing. Second of all, there's still to have the
tournament format, as you heard in kind of these like
sort of smaller regional sort of like offshoot brands. But
for what we expect here in the United States or
for the big shows, They're not doing that shit anymore.

(01:41:10):
They're gonna have best fights available. But the fans want
to see. They mean, they made this whole thing and
this whole identity around Oh we're taking the matchmaker out
of it. Yeah, that's the problem, fellas. So this is
I think a better choice as well. In addition, we
mentioned on the one hand they're going to Madrid. On
the other side, they're going to I think some of
these underserved markets. I don't know if Pittsburgh makes sense,
but Chicago not a small market but has been I

(01:41:31):
think a little bit underserved until a little bit more recently.
I know they went back for UFC three to nineteen,
but it had been a while up to that point.
Belletre was serving those interests. But I don't know if
PFL was necessarily making as much of a home of
there as they could have been. That smart and I
think going to some of these again, Pittsburgh might prove
to be one of their better shows, These kind of
like mid major ones. Right, your Omaha, Nebraska is your Pittsburgh,

(01:41:52):
Pennsylvania's These kinds of places, at least in theory, make
a little bit more sense. So I love that model
of things as well. Putting title fights on ESPN, you see,
the big question that you asked was is this going
to be enough to get them to a different place?
Is this going to be enough to get them to
be resigned with ESPN because this will be their last
year on ESPN and it'll be no UFC. You could say competition,

(01:42:15):
but honestly that would also bring more visibility to MMA
as well. What I'll say is they're doing the things
that they have to do to give themselves the best
chance to get those I still believe that as long
as the UFC doesn't co promote. It's kind of like
a done deal. But you can't say that PFL isn't
making important changes at important times in the right direction

(01:42:38):
to give themselves the best chance possible. I think what
we need to ask ourselves is, at the end of
twenty twenty six, did it work? And if it does,
kudos to them. They they made the kind of adjustments
that we have been asking them to make. On the
flip side, if they make all these adjustments and it's
all or not, these are kind of the questions you
have to ask yourself about the state of the MMA
industry and what it means on the confines of the UFC.

Speaker 1 (01:43:02):
Yeah, they did announce that the first fight card of
twenty six will have usman and margametof in the main
event defending his lightweight title against Archie Colgan. I think,
as I've said from the beginning.

Speaker 5 (01:43:11):
Alfie No, was it Archie Colgan or Alfie Davis?

Speaker 1 (01:43:14):
Alfie Davis, My apologies there on that good catch. As
I've always said, you've got you know, three four fighters
that the larger nime world does care about. Feature the
shit out of those fighters. Okay, Like, seriously, they should
be fighting as often as possible, always in main events.
Great move getting rid of the tournament. But if these
are gonna be on ESPN unlimited and there's a paywall

(01:43:36):
behind a paywall to get to PFL, it ain't gonna work.
Loud work all right. That's that. All right? Those are
your five topics for the week. Thank you for playing.
We close with fan segments and we offer you an
email address to reach out for the show. It's Morning
Coombat at gmail dot com. For your Friday fan subs,
dead wrongs. You can complain show Mikey or genitals whatever

(01:43:56):
is on your agenda for the week. Unfortunately, our fans
blue this week. So since we blew off the dms
from donks Monday after our late start due to Amtrak fails,
we will bring back those questions here from the people
that we care about the most, the listeners. This is
dms from the digities. All right. Let's hear from josh

(01:44:22):
Akacubbies fan eighty out of the Chicago area. He says,
if the first major event of CBS Paramount was an
all welterweight card, Wow, Imagine a main card all welterweight
bangers with Islam defending the belt at the top. How
would you match maker? Now, look, the latest rumors are
and I don't have it internally. This is just what

(01:44:42):
i'm hearing that possibly January twenty fourth in Las Vegas
is the kickoff card. We'll find out once they announced that.
But imagine if they said, this is our division, it's deep,
it delivers. Let's go five fights. Who do you match
Islam with in the main event?

Speaker 5 (01:44:58):
Okay, I get to pick whatever I want. I got
to pick something that everybody loves.

Speaker 1 (01:45:02):
Well, you're McK maynard calls you right now and says, Luke,
remember that matchmaker for a day who now works at
white Castle. You're that guy today?

Speaker 5 (01:45:10):
All right, all right, prochest Morales. I just want to
see that one.

Speaker 1 (01:45:14):
Okay, I thought you were going to start at the
top with Islam. Who's he fighting?

Speaker 5 (01:45:18):
No particular order, but so these are the ones the
top of mind. Islam. I'd probably go Islam. Okay, Islam,
I'm just gonna do it Islam Rochmanov all right.

Speaker 1 (01:45:29):
God, that dude, that is such a good fight.

Speaker 5 (01:45:31):
Oh my Brady JDM.

Speaker 1 (01:45:34):
Wait but yeah, okay, yeah, I'm with you.

Speaker 5 (01:45:37):
I'm with you, right, you can do all those.

Speaker 1 (01:45:39):
Garry getting if he beats Blah, No, that's too quick
of a turnaround. Sorry, that's too quick of a turnaround.

Speaker 5 (01:45:46):
Yeah. Uh so you probably can't do that one. So
I would do Buckley and who I put Buckley in
there with? You could do Buckley Chris Curtis again, since
they're both at welterweight.

Speaker 1 (01:45:58):
That doesn't move me. How about.

Speaker 5 (01:46:01):
What do we have for Buckley Leon? Buckley Leon?

Speaker 1 (01:46:04):
My question is everybody just fought. That's the problem with
this question, right are we? But if we were suspending
that notion and didn't worry about that, are you bringing
in Colby? That's what the people want to know.

Speaker 5 (01:46:13):
Why with the funk would I bring in that guy? Well,
I would do Buckley Leon, and then I would do
I'm not sure what you do with Gary. That kind
of messes it up a little bit. How would you
do it? All right?

Speaker 1 (01:46:26):
I like Islam versus See, I would go Islam versus Gary.
If he wins, okay, all right, then I'm gonna give
you protest morales. Do it while it's there. I'm kind
of with you, But then it's like, what do you do?
Then you're kind of screwing Shovcott though, so I don't
even know if that works. Long a. Look, do you
have a solution? You're sending us some notes here? What
do you have?

Speaker 2 (01:46:44):
Yeah, I wrote my five card out here. Ready Islam
Shavcott main event, Comaine, JDM protest next fight Brady Usman?
All right, you could change these two Morales versus the
winner of this weekend balal E and Gary and then
Leon Buckley opened all.

Speaker 1 (01:46:58):
Right, how about I go Shavcott Usman so I can
keep Gary against Islam it's not and then everyone's going
protest Morales and uh bone theme Covington because he called
him out.

Speaker 5 (01:47:11):
Luke, not the worst fight in the world.

Speaker 1 (01:47:14):
I like the idea. I like the idea, Luke. Now,
I know you've been fighting for an all female UFC
pay per view. Let's maybe we'll get that one day.

Speaker 5 (01:47:21):
I mean, I think that there are ways to do that,
but I don't know if it's what I would recommend.

Speaker 1 (01:47:25):
All right, let's go to our second question from Stick's
place time, what chance do you give a La Pantosia
and Josh Van It could be one of the best
fights of the year. I have a feeling that fight
will be an absolute banger. Luke what chance do you
give that this could end up being in the Fight
of the Year discussion.

Speaker 5 (01:47:42):
Hi very hard to say that in front of things.
I mean, also just in fairness beating that Contender series
fight between those two donks, the Russian and the Ecuadorian guy.
That's going to be a tough fight to beat. That's
not going to be easy. But this one has such
high potential. You've got two guys who are just action
or into Josh. Van has only one gear and it's

(01:48:02):
the gas. The gas pedal to the floor. Pantojia, even
when he is making it a ground fight, is always
hunting the finish you got. I just you know, certainly
has the capacity to be the most entertaining main event
this year. Gonna be tough to top Poeton and Uncliave
in terms of the shock factor, but in terms of

(01:48:23):
the back and forth, it honestly might be the most entertained. Well,
not because I guess. I guess Morob would be main event.

Speaker 1 (01:48:30):
Most Roy Vall versus Van that was.

Speaker 5 (01:48:34):
Pretty crazy, but I'm saying title fight, Yeah sure.

Speaker 1 (01:48:37):
Pantosio minus two eighteen favorite according to DraftKings plus one
eighty is Van very much looking forward to that Comaine
on December sixth, let's hear from short Underscore Fluke. I
know it's blasphemy to even say it out loud, but
I'm gonna ask anyway, who wins Prime Islam prime Hobbib.

(01:48:58):
I want to say, I mean, Islam's more skilled in
the better striker, but you wonder if Habib has that
older brother strength and wrestling. You know, I taught you
everything except for this type of feeling.

Speaker 5 (01:49:09):
Yeah, I got I get that feeling a little bit too.

Speaker 1 (01:49:13):
I mean, Prime Habib figures out no matter what, whether
it enters with broken bones, he figures out a way
to win the fight and finish you and finish you
on top of that.

Speaker 5 (01:49:21):
Maybe, I mean, it's kind of interesting that we're talking like,
you know, Prime Islam or Prime gsp At one seventy
or Prime Islam or Prime Habib. And I don't know
if he's better than either of those guys, but the
fact that he's in close competition with both of them
in both weight classes is kind of insane.

Speaker 1 (01:49:37):
I'm still gonna lean Habib, but that would obviously be
a banger. Yeah, definitely, This is from a man in
his cat You know, we love that guy, Luke, which
current or former UFC champ would you pick to have
as your partner for a table tennis ping pong?

Speaker 5 (01:49:53):
Don't? Don't you pick Chinese fighters? We see that's that's yeah.
I mean I see, I see the wheels turning over there,
ping Pong? Who is like agile like that Ping Pong?

Speaker 1 (01:50:03):
That's who you're tyro. Oh, sorry, that goes against what
you're saying.

Speaker 5 (01:50:07):
He's Jeff.

Speaker 1 (01:50:09):
Uh okay, yeah, you gotta go flyway here right get
how about Roy Vall. He's got long limbs, he won't
fight in the White House, he doesn't use condoms. I'm
going with the raw do.

Speaker 5 (01:50:19):
Yeah. Yeah, that's a good answer. That's a good answer,
I would say, honestly. Okay, so technically he's Asian, but
josh Van as well, because he's just kind of you know,
he's pivoting and he's turning, and he's got he can fast,
he's fast. I might go Josh Van.

Speaker 1 (01:50:37):
Burmese pythons of his Luke, let's close with fly in
Ryan eight six. Oh, I know that area code. Uh
that's Connecticut, by the way, Luke, the upper half, thank
you very much.

Speaker 10 (01:50:48):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:50:48):
Although I see nobody cares Okay, you what are your
top three fruits? You're standing in front of a treasury
chest of perfectly ripe fruit, and you need to pick.
What are your three favorite perfectly ripe fruits?

Speaker 5 (01:51:04):
Great question. Number one gotta be mango, a perfectly delicious.

Speaker 1 (01:51:09):
Dude. I hate all all melon. I hate all melon.
It's because it's too close to cucumber. And I was
grown up forced to have cute raw cucumbers shoved down me. Luke, Dude,
I can't do it. I was that kid at field day.

Speaker 5 (01:51:22):
They're servin you can eat at Arby's and you can't
eat mango.

Speaker 1 (01:51:26):
Not watermelon, honeydew, none of that chit at, Luke, No,
don't do that. Don't bring that shit to me. Pomegranate seeds. Bang,
they bang, Luke, they bang.

Speaker 5 (01:51:38):
You are a billy goat and you eat you eat beer.

Speaker 1 (01:51:41):
Cans, I eat fruit. I just hate melon. Is that
not allowed here, Luke?

Speaker 5 (01:51:46):
That is absolutely melon as like in general, Like I
don't like honeydew. What the you don't like candle loop?

Speaker 1 (01:51:51):
I'm guessing that obviously, well, all melons, dude, it has
a cucumber consistency. I hate that shit.

Speaker 5 (01:51:55):
It does not have a cucumber consistency. You're completely out
of your mind. What if the fuck kind of fruit
are you eating? You think that I'm gonna.

Speaker 1 (01:52:01):
Say rawberries, bananas, grape.

Speaker 5 (01:52:05):
The answer is mango, watermelon, and I'm gonna say banana
is a close one. But I'm gonna say just in
terms of pure deliciousness when they're fully ripe, I'm gonna
say pineapple.

Speaker 1 (01:52:14):
Uh no, pomegran seeds. Those things will change your life.

Speaker 5 (01:52:16):
Luke, I like pomegranate. I'm okay with pomegranate. Long Island.
Luke is BC out of his fucking mind? Or is
it just me? You know you might as well.

Speaker 2 (01:52:28):
Not like any melon is kind of wild. We were
actually all talking about this pre show, and there's difference
between like your favorite flavors of fruit and your favorite
like ripe fruit, you know what I mean. Like I
love cherry.

Speaker 1 (01:52:38):
Watermelon flavor is my favorite.

Speaker 2 (01:52:39):
By the way, I just say, like, I love cherry
flavored anything, but I would never pick cherry as like
my favorite fruit, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:52:46):
It's one of those do you guys hear yourselves?

Speaker 2 (01:52:48):
Yeah, yeah, we hear.

Speaker 1 (01:52:49):
Yeah. We're not allowed to have like like things we
like and things we don't like. Luke, I mean, how.

Speaker 5 (01:52:55):
Can you say something like, yes, I like the synthetic
robot version of watermelon, but not prime in it's in
its fucking I mean, you know, I I don't understand
who you are.

Speaker 1 (01:53:09):
I don't know watermelon is disgusting. By the way, I
knew kids growing up. Wait, the whole thing, seeds and
the green part.

Speaker 5 (01:53:15):
I mean, come, okay, the green part I'm not eating
and the seeds you gotta spit, but delicious green.

Speaker 2 (01:53:21):
Part.

Speaker 1 (01:53:22):
I I knew people, okay from this is.

Speaker 5 (01:53:24):
A true story speaking of fruit. One time I was
visiting I was I was visiting my friend in New
York and so I was a woman, Mary and I
took the I took a car ride up to d C.
Stayed with my friend at Georgetown for a day, and
then we took the peter Pan bus. But it got
into the Greyhound station at the same time. You know
what I'm saying. And uh, I saw a dude in

(01:53:45):
the fucking Greyhound bus station waiting for the Peter Pan
bus taking orange and then just eat it, peel and all,
like it was an apple. You know, I'm talking about,
like just biting the motherfucking orange and then eating the
peel and the pulp that way.

Speaker 1 (01:54:00):
My wife's grandfather used to take lemons and just chew
them like they wear an orange, and I just can
you imagine.

Speaker 5 (01:54:05):
Eating the fucking peel just like this? It's a bro.
You're a food disposal.

Speaker 1 (01:54:10):
Ell and honey dew. I hate all can name more melons?
I hate them all. Luke, I hate them, hate candloup,
I hate cucumbers and black liquor spiders, chicks who smoked cigarettes.
I mean, I can keep going, all.

Speaker 5 (01:54:22):
Right, you are a strange human being. I cannot believe
what you're saying.

Speaker 1 (01:54:27):
Look you're telling me if I laid out all the
foods I love that, and some of them being very basic,
you wouldn't go, Oh, I don't eat that. That's gross.

Speaker 5 (01:54:32):
I hate How do you get the balls to say?
I like artificial watermelon and an ARB's beef and cheddar,
but don't you dare give me one of nature's most
delicious candies and perfectly in season. I eat them ready
to go.

Speaker 1 (01:54:46):
Every other fruit, seriously, even weird ones at the Jamaican
buffet on vacation. Okay, I'll get after it, do you dragon? Fruit.

Speaker 5 (01:54:54):
I have dragon fruit's okay, it's not great, but it's
all right, fine, fine, you know what, you gotta have
this fruit that they haven't. Columbia, by the way, has
fruits that I've you literally cannot even buy here. I
didn't again, I didn't know much about Columbia before I
went there and married my wife. But the level of
biodiversity down there is kind of insane. And so they've
got fruits I never heard of. They have a fruit

(01:55:15):
there called granadija, which is it's a it's got like
an orange shell. You have to peel like they're like
an orange fruit, and inside it's these seeds and you
don't actually eat the seeds, you eat the coating around
the seeds. And it's insanely sweet. Okay, like this maybe
the sweetest fruit I've ever had, but with one big
caveat the consistency of the granadija seed is like a booger.

(01:55:42):
Like like it's like you ever seen a bag full
of tadpoles at one of these like fish restaurant, or
not at restaurants, but like like a pet store. It's
like eating a bag full of tadpoles. It's the consistency
is too hard for me.

Speaker 1 (01:55:56):
Avoid all melons. They're like cumbers. Avoid pickles, by the way,
cucumbers in disguise as if we don't, we can't see that.

Speaker 5 (01:56:02):
I mean, you have the palette of a toddler.

Speaker 1 (01:56:04):
I mean I've got a very I did when I
married my wife. But I have a very evense pellette.
Now look I live in.

Speaker 5 (01:56:09):
A out I don't. That's not what I'm right.

Speaker 1 (01:56:13):
Our final fan segment is where you put us on trial, folks.
So that's what we're gonna do. Were we right or
were we dead wrong? You'll have to get.

Speaker 5 (01:56:22):
Wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:56:27):
All right. Sorry for the late start today, folks. We're
wrapping up a little late, but thanks for staying with us.
Here's Adam. He says on Monday's MK at one twenty
five fifty two BC states that Ethan Ewing won on
eight days notice, and that is dead wrong. He won
on two days notice, and he was the champ from
a one combat, which is your right, f not Anthony Pettis.
Don't forget weed is a memory last drug. Very true,

(01:56:50):
big fan of the show. All right, The eight days
I was referencing was that he had fought eight days ago.
I got it wrong. You're right. I did think it
was Anthony Pettis's promotion. I guess I'm wrong on that
one too. Okay, thank you. I'll take all the l's
you got for me, except for the honeydew melon ones.
Here's from John oh Mark at the one forty six
mark of Monday's episode, referred to John Pork as being

(01:57:13):
Italian brain rot, which is absolutely false. That's what my
kids tell me. Well. John Pork is originally from Italy.
He's based in London and started posting selfies on his
Instagram account in twenty eighteen. His online activity thus predates
the emergence of Italian brain rot in twenty twenty five
and it's subsequent spread. From a quebec Qua based in

(01:57:34):
Montreal who remains unconvinced of BC's French Canadian heritage. That's
funny because I was watching a Christmas movie based in
France with my wife last night, saying you also married
a Frenchman and she's like, no, I didn't. I'm Mike.

Speaker 5 (01:57:49):
Was that Costco last night? And they had toys that
had that were called skibbety toilet have you heard of yes? Yeah, yes, yes,
And it looked like some kind of robot from the future.

Speaker 1 (01:57:59):
It's connected to all that brain rot stuff. I'm not
gonnact like I know anything I hear secondhand from my kids.
They get in trouble for dropping skidity things all the time.
I don't know final one here from Jeff. I'll take
that ol if you got it, thank you. While listening,
Jeff says to Monday's MK at one thirty four to
twenty two. I was caught off guard by Luke's language
about as much as I was caught off guard waking

(01:58:19):
up at three am in two thousand and seven to
a Girl's Gone Wild commercial playing on my TV. When
Luke referred to Teddy Atlas as Titty Atlas, did I say, Now,
I know VC talks about no Cita's horned up OSSI father,
but we need to acknowledge there's even more horned up
Indian on the program. I know this may be nitpicking,

(01:58:41):
but Luke is typically the go to for name pronunciation
unless they're not Hispanic folks or Spanish. And to end
on a mythological note, maybe Teddy Atlas's name triggered Luke's
desire to be Atlas, but instead of holding up the
world he's holding up a couple of jugs hashtag for days. Wow. Wow, okay,

(01:59:02):
that is a dead wrong. By the way, Teddy Atlas
is thirty year run at ESPN just ended with that
UFC card last weekend. Thirty years.

Speaker 5 (01:59:11):
He was still on ESPN.

Speaker 1 (01:59:12):
Yeah he was.

Speaker 5 (01:59:13):
I thought he's been off for years.

Speaker 1 (01:59:15):
He's been off calling fights, but they've used him like
in the studio and stuff. Oh okay, okay, all right,
that is our show. A reminder, first of all, the
reminder that this episode of Morning Combat was brought to
you by DraftKings. DraftKings. The Crown is yours. I forgot
to hit you up about the merch guys. It is
Morningcombat dot Shop and it's the holiday season. November exclusives

(01:59:36):
are available the Dripping Blood MK logo, T shirt and hoodie.
How about the average Joe Aret produced Combat Buddies Get
it in T shirt, Get it in autographed poster Long
Island Luke as the official handler of this year merch shop.
Do we have any Black Friday sales coming up ahead
of next week?

Speaker 2 (01:59:57):
Yeah, well we'll tease it more next week, but yes,
big Black Friday Today sale ahead, So stay tuned, especially
for Wednesday's episode.

Speaker 1 (02:00:03):
Next week BBF Big Black Friday Sales coming up at you.
All right, there you go, Morningcombat dot Shop mixing match.
The callers get one for your abuela to close. Here
a reminder, next week is a holiday week in the States.
Here Thanksgiving. Luke Thomas, I believe we're doing a mail
bag episode that will air Friday. We'll record it on Wednesday.
What if the people sent in video questions?

Speaker 5 (02:00:24):
Would we answer them video questions? Put the email if
you can, on the screen here along on Luke. Video questions,
emailed audio questions. You can just pick up your phone
doing nice a little recording into it like that you
can send to us or written once any of them
will take. We'll take written, we'll take audio, we'll take video.
Multimedia preferred, All versions acceptable.

Speaker 1 (02:00:47):
All questions will be answered in some form.

Speaker 2 (02:00:49):
Maybe I got a dead wrong myself in real time.
I thought we were airing the show on Wednesday. It's
gonna air on Friday, So we'll preview the Black Friday
Sale on Monday, Okay, and then it'll go live.

Speaker 1 (02:00:59):
Get your question ideas in, have fun with it. Not
longer than what a minute?

Speaker 5 (02:01:02):
Do we say yes? Sixty seconds or less.

Speaker 1 (02:01:05):
Okay, hit us up there at Morning Combat at gmail
dot com. Thank you, guys. Enjoy the fights this weekend.
UFC Cutter the big ring card on his own pay
per view for Long Island Luke for the Great Luke
Thomas I amb Sizzle. We'll be back next week. It
is Turkey Week and I'm not talking about Ali Sheik. Hey,
enjoy yourselves, take care, have a great weekend. It's been

(02:01:27):
mkwe ol

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