MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELLMORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL

Merab vs. O'Malley 2 announced for UFC 316, Ian Garry vs. Prates, UFC Apex Preview

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Published Apr 7, 2025, 6:08 PM

On today’s show, the guys react to the UFC 316 announcement, including the controversial Merab-OMalley rematch, Ian Garry accepting UFC KC main event on late notice vs Carlos Prates, UFC Apex Preview and the kickoff of the 2025 PFL season.

Really look at this now, timpted.

Jesus.

Oh, using will be well for it's time to be.

Oh yeah, get fired up. It's Friday, you're unemployed, you ain't got nothing else to do. You might as well give head over heels excited for the combat weekend to calm. It's Friday, April fourth, twenty twenty five, and you've stumbled into Morning Combat, the best damn combat sports show they ever put together. It won't die. It's amazing. I love being employed. Hey, it's Brian Campbell. To be with that BD. The suburbs of Connecticut is where I call home and fresh off the set of CNN, it's your favorite DC resident. Shout him out. It's Luke Thomas and Luke. We got a great show today. I'm happy to see how you're feeling on this Friday morning.

Good good. By the way, I was only on set for four minutes and fifty seconds, I mean, the shortest turnaround ever, but awesome.

Yeah.

I will say, you know how this is when you go to like a real uh, like a fully funded let's put it that way, television studio. They got nice shit there, you know what I mean? You're like, whoa they got nice shit here. But anyway, I'm feeling pretty good. I feel I got I slipped to the alarm BC. How about that slip to the freaking alarm? So I feel I feel pretty good. I'm I'm ready for today, and and I did watch PFL and I have to say I feel pretty good about it.

Like what they turned on in recapping PFL one as they kick off their tournament sison, Uh not bad. We're gonna get into that today as well as set the stage for UFC Apex some boxing to come this weekend, and also hit the latest headlines involving UFC matchmaking. So get fired up if you don't mind like this video on YouTube. If that's how you're consuming it, subscribe to the podcast. Get us off that one seven six K bubble so we can continue to grow. If you're listening on audio, tell a friend about it as well. Shout out to the DraftKings Network if you are watching us right there, and you can follow us on our YouTube channels. We do have a third member of our team who is live in direct from LA today and who may or may not have pulled an all night or hey, it's the son of an Australian ballbag man card minutes. Luke, No, Sita, Luke. You are live and direct from all the smoke studios at the moment, are you not?

I am, guys, beautiful, all the smoke set right behind me.

There would I would be on set if I could reach over there.

But it's all right, you know, yeah, stretch around a little bit.

I knew, I knew you were gonna say that.

I knew I need more, I need better material. Don't go anywhere, Nosita lt. I woke up at at at three am to a text message from the West Coast that was a video of Luke, Nosita Gaffney, Jim Pierre and the artist formerly noticed Manich singing, singing.

Home and now like a carry I like a karaoke restaurant in all kinds of Creed on that ass.

Yea.

We were just wasted.

There was karaoke going on, Creed was playing and.

We were all like, we got to send BC a video this. We sent it to BC. He texted me back at like three am. We're still up our six am, I guess on the East. But yeah, it was a late night, but you know we're here, guys, We're ready for the show.

That's all, Wow, this young fellow Nosita still can get after it in the middle of the night, So shout out to that. Unfortunately, uh, we start the show on a somber tone. Our friend and yours, the great average Joe RT Joe Romero, who we have so much love for. Nobody has a heart for animals like this guy. His beloved Princess Bagel did pass away, and we want to shout out. Look at that smile right there. We did want to shout out our sincere condolences. If you know Joe, if you follow him on ig you know the heart he has for animals. Luke, you recently went through this. It's it's it's there's no words that fix it. It's never easy, but we we love you.

Joe. Yeah, I had Yeah, you're right. I mean I brings back memories of Yeah, he's been going on I think a month or month and a half, maybe a month or two, so it's still kind of fresh. I'm sorry, Joe. I sent Joe a note or a tweet anyway, but I'm glad we could start the show this way. It just sucks, man, It's just painful. It's never easy. And and for folks who've never had a pet. They're always like, oh, how much could it be to lose a dog or a cat? You would be surprised. It's tough.

Yeah, I've got I've got two cats right now begging for my attention.

Here.

It's my life, all right, it's my passion. It's a spirit I bring to this. But we will have a great show for you today, Luke, anything else you want to tell the audience. I don't know if I was supposed to do it, but yesterday I was on Submission Radio with a pair of great dirt bags in the host, Dennis of course, and Jed Mishue, the second of Atlanta and disbarred lawyer fame, and we did, you know, spill the beans a little. This Wednesday, April ninth, New York City, eleven am Eastern at Morning Combat on the YouTube's UFC three to fourteen pregame preview. Get some Quervo in your shots. It'll be you, me and that man Jed Meshu.

Your thoughts les, it's gonna be awesome. So Wednesday, as you said, not a Monday, not a Friday. Now, we're not doing a Monday and a Friday. We're just doing a Monday and a Wednesday this year or this this next week, but should be a lot of fun. As we indicated, and BC, we have to tell them we're gonna do I think a mailbag episode? Are we not? So I think go ahead?

So yeah, so we are going to record in advance a mail bag for Friday, April eighteenth, when Luke and I will both be with our families enjoying the school break. So we would we would encourage you now for that special mail bag episode that will air April eighteenth. Can you send in your questions to Morning Coombat at gmail dot com. If you send a piece of your private parts, we will not read the question on air. Mikey mad You know Mikey made as swear to that rule, so shout out to him. I'm kidding all the way, but send us your questions. We'll do that. Luke and I have vacations that'll kind of cross over each other, but we will have Chuck Mindenhall replacing me in studio of the Day two days after UFC three fourteen, so you're still going to get your MK fix. And as Luke mentioned, no show next Friday, but we will hit you with that pregame preview on Wednesday. We got to take vacation somehow, Luke, so you know, at least we're still in the air at least.

The only folks who don't have kids don't understand this. But like, if you have a child, you can only take a proper or even even any kind of vacation when they are off from school. Like there's there's just no other way to do it. So you're at the mercy of the school system.

And well, in the eighties, my parents have just pulled me out of school for a week. People didn't care. But nowadays, I feel like you.

Can do that for like a long weekend. You know, let's pull them out of school on Friday. We'll have a long weekend camping or whatever something like that. That's fine. But I can't check her out of school for a week, you know what I mean. I can't do that.

My kids are juniors in high school. You know, I'll get ready for college. They can't. They can't miss that, ish, But it is what it is. Twoky's got to get her her time in the sun. She deserves it. So that's what's gonna happen. We'll still be giving you the great content and without any further ado, we might as well just bang to it. It's time to get into it. Let's hit it topic number one. Hey, let's react to some big news. Dana White came out on April Fool's Day after the UFC Twitter account Tuesday huge announcement.

Is it gonna be Jones ass Ball? Is it gonna be the UFC meta deal? Is it gonna be the new movie with Turkey and Zach? All Right, enough of that, bs no, But it is UFC three sixteen June seventh, Crudential Center in New Jersey. And it wasn't as if we didn't know about the two title fights that had the potential to top this card, but now it is official. In the main event, Morov Devolishvili will make the sameecond defense of his bandamweight title against former champion Shan O'Malley in a rematch of their fight at the Sphere last fall. And in that co main event, Juliana Pana, the two time champion at one thirty five, will defend the women's bandam weight title against Kayla Harrison and a fight that, uh, maybe this division's dead, but we want to see Kayla have the opportunity to inject some life in it.

We know they're spicy, they don't like each other. So Luke Thomas, let's talk about this announcement because since it happened, it has been a little overwhelming how much fans have balked against the idea of Morob Sugar two. There's been a similar vitriol to when UFC three twelve announced DDP Strickland two. A lot of people feeling it's unnecessary. But you do have to consider when you look at the top ten of the Bandam weight rankings, I'm not sure I see another overarching, obvious, deserving challenger in that top ten. I mean, there is Payoto Yon. We'll talk about it, but do you think the fan backlash to Morob Sugar two two is justified? I want to make sure were not, you know, being cranky for the sake of it. Are the fans right that we don't need this rematch?

That's a tough one. So what I'll say is this, to the point that you raise, it is clearly detectable that the fans, or at least not all of them, obviously, but either a vocal minority or at least a visible portion of them whatever the number ends up being don't want this. And not only do they not want this, they don't even understand it. They and to the point that they raise it's like, O'Malley lost, took time off, and is just getting a rematch. How does that even make sense? The first fight wasn't competitive, like the reasons why they don't want it. To my mind, actually all kind of makes sense, right they as I indicated, the guy's been off, he didn't get another win. The first one was a wipeout, blah blah blah, Like there's just an All the things that would normally happen to merit a rematch organically they didn't happen here. But here's the problem. They need title fights to stay in rotation. This is reasonably close to Morob's adopted home of Long Island. I mean, I realized that he's now in Vegas, but you know, he still has a strong association to that place. I don't think that's the chief motivating factor, but it probably doesn't hurt that they can count on that to a degree. But more to the point, they just have to keep the titles in rotation. Islam is sitting out and figuring out what's going to happen. Heavyweight is not really in rotation. I guess you know obviously there is one for light heavyweight, but they haven't booked it yet, and you already know what that is. They got to get some of this stuff moving, so you have to keep these divisions churning. And to the point that you raised, BC, I actually was a little bit surprised at the reaction, not necessarily that people weren't super enthused with it, but they were like, oh, this is the wrong call, to which I would respond, well, what is the right call? BC? To your point, let's just go through. Let's just go through. Rude ready. Number one contender is Sean O'Malley. Okay, And then you know, again, I'm not saying that, like the position at one, oh that therefore means he should get it, But I'm just saying, here's who's available at the top.

Don't worry. I will fix those rankings.

Can't wait, can't wait. Sean O'Malley is number one. Piodrian is number two, which of course was another one we'll talk about just a second. I'm sure three is Umar he literally just lost. Four is Sandagan, who's got a fight with number five, Devison Figuedo at.

And san Haagan just lost too, yeah, and say he just lost, but he's already booked.

He's got a main event for UFC Iowa already. And then of course after that's just Songing Dong and Chudovera and people who just are not really in the title conra good fighters but not in the title conversation. So those are your choices. So now you can't use four and five or three. You can literally only use one or two. So then you have to ask, okay, well, why didn't Yon get it? After all, he did get a win recently, he did beat Devison Figuedo. To the point I would raise is yeah, you could do that, but now you're going to have someone in a pay per view market in the United States that you and Morob obviously speaks English, but the challenger does not. So that's gonna limit what kind of media you can really get. And also, if you're you have to think like a promoter. The promoter is probably gonna want to give preference to an American person. I'm sorry to say that when the chief audience that buys pay per views is North America and in particular the United states like having an English speaking American person is what a promoter is at least going to favor. And then I would just simply say, BC, I'm sorry to say this. I wouldn't hate it if they've given it to Yan, that would not have upset me at all. But Yon got wiped out by Mirob and I know that Morob beat Sean convincingly, but he beat Yon pillar to post, pillar to post. It was not close. It was fifty forty five. O'Malley won at least one or if not two of those rounds, and then the fifth round he kind of put it on Morob a little bit. So it's not like it's the best scenario you could ever imagine, But of the available names, that's the guy given the considerations in play.

Yeah, I gotta agree with that log on. Look, can we show that meme that was put out on Twitter and it originally echoed my belief of Peter Yon deserved that title shot. But like I would have preferred the Payodo Yan rematch. But if we're gonna complain about star power in this era and want pay per views that get people's attention, I don't hate it. In this spot, we're gonna show some video on a second of O'Malley talking about injuries and where he was in that first fight, And I'm not saying this to excuse it, but i do believe this rematch will be a better fight. So I'm not ultimately against this right now. For anybody wanting Songya Dong, it's like, Hey, he poked Henry Shudo in the eye and didn't get in trouble for it. That's not a real win for me. And the fight before that he lost to payot Yan, so could it have been Yon, yes, But to your point and injured, O'Malley was more competitive most recently against Morob and having O'Malley in there should, in theory, sell more tickets, So I don't hate this at all. O'Malley reacted on his podcast on YouTube with coach Tim Wel cheers O'Malley, saying that this rematch will be different.

Dude, I'm so excited for this fight. Sugar Shane versus mirob two is happening, and I don't think people are gonna be too happy about it. My life is completely changed over the last year. Last time I fought almost twenty nine, I'm thirty now I'm a growing man. I have harram a chest now. I quit smoking weed too. I haven't gamed either, quit gaming.

Yeah.

I also haven't ye huge once this year jade the pen. Haven't jaded the pen once this year, not once, not once this whole year. Last camp, we had some shit going on. My body hasn't felt this good since twenty twenty two. Gonna fight at my full potential. I know I'm gonna be a huge underdog. Everyone's gonna count me out, just like the Algie fight. Oh I want to jinx it, But dude, if I can just keep this pace up, how we've been able to train these last few weeks all the way up into the fight, I'm going to be seventy percent better than I was in that first fight.

So Luke, I'm gonna see you up in a second. He would go on in that interview on podcasts to say, I don't want to sit here and make excuses. We had a great camp. The first fight. I showed up. I was in shape, but every single journey entry for me was like my groin kept me up at at night because I tore my labrum ten weeks before the fight. I have serious growing I had serious groin pain. I'm going to be significantly more agile, mobile, and in better shape for the rematch. So Luke, we're not gonna sit here and make injuries. O'Malley took the fight even though he was injured. There's pressure to stay on top and stay active as a star. But do you believe now that the fight is secure, that we will see a better O'Malley, that we will see a better matchup and that in hindsight, yes, he was compromised in that first fight.

I suspected will be better. I don't know exactly how much better it's going to be, Like I can absolutely see a scenario where it's better at the margins, but you know, effectively what happened in the first fight was more or less repeated, Like that's that's something we could see too, where it's like, okay, cleaned up. You know something around this scenario. I mean, just think about realistically, like what do you have to work on if you're Sean And the tactical answer is many things, But the big picture is you have to stop the takedown, you have to create separation, and you have to hurt him like everyone does this gang with morob where they just try and neutralize him and that does nothing because he's got an endless gas tank to just keep trying, and he does. He gets stronger as time goes on, not weaker unless you can actually hurt him. You have to legitimately hurt the guy, so easier said than done, and how you do that is really the answer. So I could see some improvements on that, and again I could. I don't think it's out of the question by the stretch of the imagination that he could that he could win. But you know, part of the lack of enthusiasm BC for this is also we should be honest, is also rooted in the fact that like, okay, he definitely was injured, and that's you know, there could be a real big difference the next time around, but it may not be that much of a difference. Since it was just three or UFC three or six, UFC three, sixteen, This is not a huge expanse of time in which to get better. You would have had to have been really compromised for there to be like a major change potentially in performance. And the other one is to BC is if he loses, he's in a bad place at age thirty. It's a gay. Yeah, it's a huge the UFC. I'm not saying they're cashing him up because they're giving him an opportunity here, But like we just saw what happened with Steve verseg if you don't manage when you take these opportunities, and I recognize fully it's a difficult call when you've got a short career. However, it should also be noted we have many documented examples of guys getting offers for things potentially too early and having a backfiring effect long term. Will this be the case at UFC three sixteen? We shall see.

Yeah. I think the pressure of just that that his startup power would take an additional large hit if he lost consecutive fights and if he got you know, lost in a humbling way where he was taken down controlled. But do you think there's something to what he said? I know we can make jokes about the uh however he described uh that Luke, Yeah, it's bad.

For your prostate to not ejaculate guys.

Just so you know that's neither here. I mean, try telling that to yourself in a hotel Oh you do tell yourself that a hotel room.

What I'm trying to say I'm working out my prostate, Like I.

Never guess that showan with somebody who didn't take training seriously. He always seems to be in great shape. He seems to like live his life, about this life. But do you think there could be something to the idea that back is against the wall. So he's not what not gaming, not jerking, not smoking weed, like this has to be a positive change in totality right for him?

I would say this again, not not busting a nut is not good for you. But however, you know he's got a very unusual occupation, right, I mean, how many people do you know that fist fight for a living. That's a pretty rare business. And the other components we see are the ones that are to me a little bit more interesting, including getting off social media. I think that is maybe the most important one of them all. The gaming I don't have an opinion on because I don't really I don't. I don't game enough to know exactly what it does or doesn't do to you. The weed smoking probably again, if if I'll say this, if he feels like that helps him, it almost certainly will. But getting off social media, there's no doubt in my mind that will boost uh, you know, not really cognitive performance more broadly, but potentially his ability to focus, stay calm. We know that when people are too online they become agitated, irritable to say nothing of what it affects in terms of memory and recall and the like. So I think in general, this kind of what would you call it, BC semi monastic turn right, I feel like that probably is a good thing.

In general, I do there would be no excuses left. So I want to see him. Well, so, did you did your sailing?

Leak luke or is rech loud ass noise on my roof?

It could be a raccoon. You gotta be you know, you gotta be careful. Just keep that.

Yeah.

Would you have a pulldown attic or like a stairway or what?

No, No, I have a fully fully.

Finished keep took out of there. We don't need any of that. Yeah, So I think there's gonna be no, you know, no excuses here. I do want to see him. If he's down risk losing by knockout, by really going for it, I think he will. I think he realizes maturity time he's thirty, he has been a star but he needs that belt in a lot of ways to be considered one of the faces of this operation. There is some There are some people on social media though, saying, look, how is this fair? A champion who never really got the respect in al Jamaine Sterling was not allowed an immediate rematch, even though he had four title defenses. Fans even tweeted at Al Joe. But here's Sterling's response, and I want to get your take on it. He says, look, honest answer, the UFC is going to do what's best for the business and for the brand. What I've liked in an immediate rematch due to the circumstances going into the first fight, absolutely, but I understand the business model better than most. And O'Malley he is a really exciting guy that has beaten many top five contenders, so I think he rightfully deserves it after all the rank names he has beaten. And look, if you remember Sterling was rushed by the promotion to take that defense against O'Malley. What do you make of his reaction?

I don't agree that it's put the quote up one more time if you can where he says, omle, he's a really exciting guy. That has beaten many top five contenders, so I think he rightfully deserves it after all the ranked names he has beaten. See I disagree with that part. I think that it's understandable that he got it given what the promoter is valuing, which is, to an extent your resume, but to an extent your sellibility. Also understand something right, they're negotiating a new television rights deal, Like what prominent American fighters you can have for an American broadcaster is probably pretty important, you know what I mean? So getting them out of there, out there in front of the public and active and potentially even winning, this is something that's quite imtant. But what I would say is I don't actually think he deserves it in the traditional sense. I actually don't think that's the argument at all. My argument is like, oh, this is unfair. This is you know, they're playing favorites. Yeah, yeah, that's the matchmaker model. The alternative everybody is you can do the tournament model where you win and you advance, but we have seen how that works and that's even worse. So the matchmaker model absolutely, by definition, BC plays favorites. They get to pick and choose, but as flawed as this system might be. I'd rather have that than you know, the tournament one where you just get locked into this shit all the time and then you know, things go haywire way too often.

It's spoiler alert. And I didn't think I'd come in here and defend the UFC consistently after ripping them for two years. But I mean, I've been at many jobs where certain skills give you privileges. You know, in fighting, when you sell, that'll give you a privilege. Look, I once got fired out a factory for doing a no call, no show one time when there were guys there that would like not show up for weeks, but they had more talent, so they kept that job. You know what I'm saying, damn that factory life. Final point on O'Malley is maybe because it's a time when he's down, meaning he just lost the title and people he didn't take a follow up fight, and people don't seem to want him in this People are now revisiting just the opposite of what al Jo said. Does he actually have an impressive resume? They're saying, you know, outside of the knockout of Thomas Almeida when he was on that rise since then, you know, he beat that Mutino guy, he beat Paeva, he was losing to Munio's when the ipoke made it the no conto contest. People think he got a gift against Yon, then he fought al Jo, who wasn't one hundred percent. Then he got a title defense against Cheeto because of their history, even though Cheeto wasn't on that level. Would you agree that it is fair to critique O'Malley's ride up to this point and actually question whether he ever really was a true pound for pound great.

Yeah, yeah, sure. He has clearly been the beneficiary of matchmakers in a company that wanted to promote him in ways that means giving him opportunities that his peers simply didn't get. It's not very complicated. That's one billion percent true. It's not up for argument. That is exactly what happened. What's interesting to me, BC is I can understand this call as we've as we've indicated here where you know what they have to keep this title in rotation. You got to figure this out. Given the circumstances, we understand why they picked Sean even if we wouldn't have mined at all, if they picked yond but I will say this the point you raise and all those different items in the journey. If Sean goes out here and let's say, because here's something we didn't talk about. What if he goes out there and loses even worse the second time, Dude, I have to tell you, the backlash against him is going to be I'm not going to say biblical. It's not going to be the same as you know, the Tuporia backlash after changing his nickname. If you that that would be worse, it would it would, It would be worse. However, However, there is a little bit of underlying, kind of seething resentment about O'Malley getting pushed to the front of the line. And I think they'll let it go if he wins, because you can go there. You can be anybody who can beat Morob is legit, right. I think people understand that. But if Morob goes in there and just roughs him up worse than the first time, I feel like there's gonna be a massive backlash against him, and so yet another risk that they're running here in this fight.

I feel bad for Sandagan because if he had been coming off a win, this would have been the perfect time for him to get that title shot, but he's gonna have to continue to grind.

Uh.

Can I add one little detail here? I would love it so people pitch this one to me and I'm okay, let me just see what you think. Let me see what you think. And I would love to see what Nocita thinks as well. Namely, okay, you can't give it to you on we don't want to see O'Malley, why couldn't you do Pantojia versus Morob to which you would say.

I would say that there's all already a bottleneck atop that flyweight division. I know my argument can be countered by the idea that Pantosia has except for even fall cop, he's fought everybody that's in the title picture. I mean, I guess outside of KKF. That's why they're probably going to do that next. But I would I would say, because there's a bottleneck upon a top there, and because Pantosa is on an arc of actually creating a meaningfull run, that you can make the argument that he's the second greatest flyweight of all time. I don't know if you would want to hurt that division. I mean, you wouldn't necessarily need to strip him. You could give him the opportunity to become a two division champion. But I don't know, Luke, I'm actually happy they didn't in this case.

I would love to see that fight. To be perfectly honest with you, I would love to see that fight, but I think the only way you can do that is if you introduce an interim title at flyweight, because I'm assuming obviously Pantoja is going up right, so it's going to be a ban someweight fight. You could only do that if you introduce an interim title, which is not fair because Pantoja has been as active as possible. But like to the point you raise, dude, there's a bottle already, and you know, bantamweight there is a little bit of playing repeat, but there's still a bunch of other viable contenders that we still haven't had a chance to for Rob to beat yet. Your Sam Haagen's, your Figuredo's that kind of a thing. So to me, it's like, I think that fight would actually be the best of all the choices that I've heard as on pure fight terms. But you also have to manage divisions, and this is why some of these fights. Islam to BBC is the is the exception that proves the rule because he's the number one pound for pound fighter in the sport and just doesn't have a whole lot of time left. I think you just create some bottlenecks in his particular case if you had to.

You know, I just hope the UFC doesn't close this calendar year without giving us both Jones aspinall and Islam versus La Leendo Luke.

Okay, like, imagine you get imagine you get neither of them this year. Imagine that they're.

Gonna have a lot of splain in to doing like they care, like they care, they'll get another government contract. All right, Let's talk quickly about this co main event. Kayla Harrison, as we and now, according to DraftKings, is more or nearly sorry just shy of a six to one favorite against two time champion Juliana Painna, who I've said a lot of bad things about her and her resume, but she did win the title second time. She did outlast Rocky Pennington in a horrific title fight. Is the bigger battle for Kayla making the weight and being able to go five rounds than actually defeating paina.

Here, wait say that again.

Is Kayla's challenge bigger to make one thirty five and have the stamina for far start and actually winning against this opponent?

Um?

Probably, probably. It should be noted that I think Harrison has not necessarily taken to the striking all that well. Obviously she's cleaned up a lot, but it's not on the feet a potent part of her game. You know, I think that's pretty fair, and there are some real defense of liabilities, and somebody like Panya just takes risks. You know, she'll come forward doing this number, you know what I mean, and so like, you know.

It's like rids me, like Ronda Rousey highlight.

Yeah, well, I mean, here's the thing, do you we sleep on Pina. But it's like, okay, it wasn't the very best Amanda Nunez I've ever seen, but she did beat Amanda Nunz, Like dude.

In hindsight, though, that was an injured, under trained Nunaz who had pressure on her to keep.

Okay, fair enough. But Kayla's going to be drained, Like to your point, She's gonna be drained like a motherfucker at one thirty five. Well, I think That's.

Where Penya's strengths are. She can go five hard rounds, she could take a beating. She's willing to brawl. I'll give her that credit. I just don't even think she beat Rocky in a horrible fight.

You know, yeah, I don't think she did either. And so again it's not like who's more skilled, I mean, what the fuck are we talking about. We know who's more skilled, like obviously the two time gold medal winning Olympian. For fuck's sake, That's not really the question. The question is is she so drained versus a risk taker? To your point, you raise got good cardio and just throws caution to the wind. Is that a combustible mix? It certainly can be. I just feel like, you know, in all likelihood, this is Harrison's fight to lose. But she has struggled a little bit with some of the takedowns and then a little bit obviously on the feet as well. Once it gets to the mat, it's it's a done deal, I feel like. But it's getting there as proved a little tougher than I think some of us might have imagined.

If Kayla wins, I know I'm projecting much forward, but Let's be honest. The odds are nearly six to one here. People aren't expecting this to be a classic. It could be dramatic. We'll find out. But if Kayla Wins is getting Amanda Newness out of retirement, the only thing that can save this division and maybe by proxy, the current state of Women's MMA.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes yes, I'm not even gonna bullshit at all. Another great thing would be if Dakota Ditchivill went to UFC. I don't know if that would save it Win's MMA, but that would be awesome and exciting. And hey, we can't wait for any of those matchups, but certainly as it pertains to Women's thirty five, and more importantly to the question you raise, which is just putting Women's MMA in a very important spotlighting role. And I don't mean like, oh, they're going to headline this card or comin event this card. I mean capturing the imagination of the fan base, getting the fan base riled up in a good way about an important women's fight. When was the last time that happened? I guess the rubber match between Schivchenko and Grosso on the Sphere card and before that I'm not really sure and even that is somewhat debatable. And also that fight, as I fight shit the bed, it was, you know, just takedowns and top control wasn't very good. Like, there is a gigantic, yawning gap that has emerged in terms of, you know, what the game used to be and what it is now. So on the women's side, so getting a big name out of retirement, which carries its own kind of storyline former teammates as we all know for again Kayla Harrison, the best American judoka ever against this best female fighter essentially or certainly the best women's UFC fighter ever. That is, you can sell the shit out of that if you play that right. I think the game needs it. This division certainly needs it. And here's my question back we see, which is if not this one, what is even the biggest fight you could make, if Amanda Nunez is not in play? The answer is nothing even remotely as interesting, nothing even on that thing. You're right, like, you have to make this fight.

So the problem we've been talking about women's MME of late usually surrounds the lack of depth in all divisions, maybe except for the top end of one, twenty five and obviously one fifteen one. I'm sorry, woll one fifteen is glaringly narrow, you know, shallow at this moment, which is we're not used to that in the history of that, and also the lack of quality evolution. It feels like it's going backwards in terms of skill. But you bring up a great point, like there was a couple of years stretch where we had big women's fights that people care about. Let me remind people, Nunas versus Cyborg Nunas, Chefchenko two, Rose Yoana one and two, and to maybe a smaller degree than Rose Wayley one and two, there were matchups where you're like, Okay, these are two of the greatest in the history facing off and they're having a form of a rivalry. I mean, maybe has it Has it not been the same since Rose shit the bed against Carla in that rematch? Do we blame Rose for that? Luke? I don't know, but it's uh.

No, I don't know if that's the line, but it definitely feels like it's been a while since we had like a really awesome, hotly anticipated women's fight.

Hotly yes, let's go, I think.

Pants, pants, pants, around my ankles. Ankles, ankles.

Hey, let's transition to topic number two. It's also some UFC matchmaking and this one has me excited. In fact, color me bad with two d's because I want to sex you up. TikTok, you don't stop. Hey, here's the deal. April twenty sixth at the t Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri is a UFC fight night Carter. Remember it's part of that TKO takeover weekend where they're sending tickets or they're selling ticket bundles with WWE and Professional bull Riding. We were supposed to have a banger of a light heavyweight main event with Jamal Hill and Tree. Jamal Hill is injured and that matchup is rumored to get rescheduled. That UFC azer Baijan Wow Wow. But what we do have as a replacement in just twenty two days is they must see welterweight till as Ian Machado. Gary once again will take a big fight on short notice when he welcomes the red hot knockout machine from the Fighting Nerds and the cigarette smoke in love in car lots pratesh And now, given the recent comments by Gary, would be a good time to reintroduce Shots Fired, brought to you by Quervo. To quote che Chin Chong, what balls Ian Gary has? And here is Ian Gary taking to social media to react to why he took this fight on short notice.

Right, it's official, You've got a new main event. Kansas City, Missouri, me versus Carlos Pratchez April twenty. I'm excited.

Why do you see the ah?

We need someone? Who do we need? Who do we call? You? Call me?

Why?

Because I'm a real fighter who wants to fight the best in the world. I'm gonna show everybody how good I am. Carlos Prachie is awesome. But this is my world. I love to fight. There's nothing more I love in this world than fine Missouri, Kansas City. Let's go Ireland. Gadget tickets, Gadget flights Brazil, Gadget tickets, Gadget flights on Brazil.

Just school.

But his name deus brasi vamla practice vivs Venji, says Luke.

The key quote there was this is my world. What is this decision making by Gary do, in your opinion to change the way we look at and talk about him?

I mean, I said this to you over text BC, and I'm happy to say here there's a lot of things you can say about Ian Gary, good, bad, and in between. But whatever else you say about him, you better make sure that you add at the end of it that that dude ducks zero smoke. None doesn't happen not in his DNA took on Shavkat Rockmanov and gave him all he could handle on short notice. And here he is again taking on a guy who not undefeated but certainly has had an amazing run with four and oh last year did unbelievable out of this undefeated team in the UFC, that is in fighting nerds taking him on short notice, that dude, speaking of our parent company here wants all the freaking smoke, and you just have to have a lot of respect for it. But I'm of two different minds about it. I want to say largely that I absolutely fucking love this fight. I love this fight so much. I was actually pretty interested in the Jamal Hill Khalil Roundtree fight. I still hope that they I think their plan is to make it a little bit later in the year. I was excited about that main event. But if excuse me, if I could just be honest, B see, I like this fight much more. Now, now let me say a couple things that do you give me some pause? Okay, First, it's short notice, not so much for Projess, who was expecting an opponent and he just has to extend it by but a couple of weeks or whatever, So that's no big deal for him, just has to kind of monitor his weight. But for Ian Gary, I don't know how well he's been preparing or training or how ready he's going to be. And so you're not getting these guys with like, you know, ten weeks for each other where you really can get a sense of things. There's just a lot of questions about what kind of Ian Gary or you know, exactly how ready Projess will be. It is a five round main event as I understand it, though, so some interesting questions for his cardio as the cigarette smoker that I think we're going to get some answers to. The Other thing that kind of is interesting as we see is like, okay, I mean, there's simply no questioning Ian Gary does not duck smoke at all. What I wonder is is he ducking no smoke a little too much? Right? So he took on Rockmannov and he gave him all he could handle, but he didn't lose. I'm sorry he didn't like lose badly. He did lose, but it was you know, it was an eye opening performance. I think you can say that. But here he has taken on protests again on short notice, and it's like, does this guy have this trigger where he's willing to take risks in terms of matchmaking that we enjoy as fans, because here he comes to rescue us and again in like totally unenviable circumstances. Is that something that if he keeps doing, if he keeps that instinct up, it will actually end up hurting his development because he's still just twenty seven years of age. I do have some concerns about that, but I just want to say fight to fight this or fighter at a fighter. I should say, excuse me, I fucking love this fight and I cannot wait for this main event.

And that of course with shots Fire brought to you by Quervo, Don't forget. Next Wednesday, April ninth, Quervo UFC three to fourteen pregame preview Luke me Jed Mischue check it out, Luke I want to kind of counter the concerns that you had, which are certainly fair. First, Long Island, Luke, can we throw up the graphic showing the time off in between in terms of the short notice takes here from fighters only, it was a twenty one day turnaround for Gary for Shavcot Rockmanoff and he twenty five day. And if it's under the for protest, and if it's under the working idea that Gary stays ready so he doesn't have to get ready, then I'm not that concerned about it. I know twenty five days is not a full camp, but it's you know, it's not six days. And also the idea about chasing smoke. Look, he's the number seven ranked welterweight right now, but I think that performance against Shafcott, which we obviously was a clear loss, but was also a huge moral victory and obviously arguably the biggest win of his career. Although people hate when I say shit like that, he is reaching back to fight the number thirteen protest, and I know protest is dangerous as hell, but if you believe like I do, that Gary is maybe even the second best welterweight right now in the UFC, and he's gonna prove it to you and prove BC to be a prophet. Then I'm not that concerned because he's still climbed, meaning when you're climbing, you gotta take chances. And I think he proved to himself in taking that chance against Shavcat that he really really is of this level. Does he have things to work on? Of course? Do you have to be a little bit more offensive and have the opportunity to hurt people and knock him out? All that is true, of course, But you also brought up a good point about the smoking. So let's go to Carlos protest talking about exactly how much you know nicotine? He regularly ingests Purty. Yeah, it's the fans, Broye.

Maybe two or three facts like normal day. Not really, Maybe he felt worrying about something. I'd be run back pretty.

So, Luke like, this is a five round main event, and what Gary has proven is that you're not going to walk through him. He's got sound defense, he's big, he knows how to handle distance, he knows how to counter in there. Do you think that when Nocida talked about this matchup on Monday in our studio and he said, I think Gary runs through him, and all these fans got up in arms that hey, protest, you might want to follow, O'Malley. Put away the gaming, the social media, the jerkin and the smokes ahead of this because Gary is coming to win. Luke, I'm not afraid of the short turnaround or taking the chance here because he's actually reaching back in the rankings, because you're not going to get a title shot off of a loss unless your name is Jose Aldo or Holly Holm. You're gonna have to get a win. And if he gets a win against this red hot dude, he's going to be right there knocking on the title door.

Yeah. But it's like, okay, so let me tell you what my problem with this is that I the more I think about it, he had in Gary Rochmanov's back and was looking for a choke, and his application of the choke was a little I'm not trying to be insulting, but you know, if we're nitpicking high level fighters in bouts of consequence, we have to nitpick in that sense. It was a little amateurs the nature of the things for the white guy here. No no, no, no, no, no, not white belt. I mean you're going against a good grappler. It's not so easy. But what I mean is like, and not everybody can be Charles Olavera, but there's a certain degree of muscle memory that Charles Lavera shows where he doesn't have to like calculate the decision. He can just kind of go with it, right, Whereas you could see Gary kind of trying to force something that wasn't really there and it didn't work, and I'm like a little bit more polish, and we might be having a very different conversation both about I and Gary as well as Shofcat Rockmanov right where it could be in a totally different position.

Uh.

And so to me, it's like, to clean that up, you need time in the gym and then just you know, I understand that protest is not Rockmanov. They're very different fighters. This there's probably going to be more of a striking contest, and maybe he feels for that reason he could have taken it on short notice. I'm simply saying, you know, to me, a little bit of reinvestment in his game, given that he's still quite young, I think will produce much better long term results rather than and if he beats prochess, you know. But let's say he does a stick and move game plan, which we know he can do right, a lot of lateral movement, touch and go. He could win this, and then that could help propel him a little bit forward. But you still wouldn't be ready for the top guys because you had, you wouldn't have ironed out the other issues. There just simply hasn't been enough time. I think that's kind of my point. So I love this fight. There's many things I love about it. But what I am not gonna do is, even if he goes in there and smokes process, I don't think it's the kind of fight that you you should be talking title win, title opportunities afterwards. I think we need to give this dude some time to get better.

See, I think he's building a case for being a star on the rise that I think he's going to get those opportunities to cut the line. And I think especially if he wins convincingly. Here, Hey, let's bring our third member of the team who is well hung I mean sorry, well hungover. Luke Garcita. Yeah, there he is, Luke. You said he's gonna run through protest. You still believe it now that the fight is true.

Now, I just feel like Eating Gary is super calculated in the fights he takes, so like there's a reason he's taking this fight. Also, like Carlos Protest, we've never really seen tested on the ground.

I just feel like Ian Gary's gonna be able to have his way with him, have his way.

Wow, dude, it might you know, he might just wrestle him for five rounds, but whatever, that's having his way with him, you know, like, yeah, yeah, I think it's a good matchup for him.

Honestly, Luke Thomas, do you do you at least applaud that a year ago, all this talk was about cook and ex husbands in BS, and now we're talking about, you know, how badly this guy wants to win and show us what he's made of.

I wasn't talking about that dumb shit other than the extent you brought it up on the show, because I'm not a fucking loser ass bitch. That's all.

Okay, Well, well you say, and I am, Well, yeah, I guess a little bit.

I mean talking about that who I mean, it's the ultimate who gives a fuck conversation. We're just talking about a dude's personal life and half the details are completely invented out of thin air. What the fuck are we doing? This is a total waste of time, Like, dude, do people do people not reflect on their behavior at all and look at this and say, holy shit, you got to be an under sex fucking loser or to even engage in this conversation to fucking begin with.

Well, I have been married for almost eighteen years, Luke, so kind of fits into the you know what I mean?

Okay, all right, your honor, the defense arrest, the defense arrests.

So three weeks from now we will be seeing that fight in Casey, and it is a hell of a good fight. We'll have a lot more answers about where Gary's going, and obviously the top of this division will see JDM against Bilal Shavcott's got to get back from injury. This this division rules. I can't wait. Poor Jeff Neil, Luke, He's out. But this is a better matchup here, So I'm fired up.

This is definitely a better fight than the I mean, I don't get me wrong. I like the Jeff Neil fight. It was a good fight, but dude, this one has heat. I'm all about it.

Plug the UFC for upgrading the matchup, and again, I think they kind of had to do it, given that that's a big TKO weekend, but I'm glad they did it. They didn't just roll Derek Lewis against you know.

Uh, marching Taibora four or whatever.

I know, come on, and that's what people were thinking that they were gonna do. By the way, all right, let's go to topic number three, and it's looking to head to this weekend. On Saturday night, the UFC Apex will be populated again with another fight night card.

Is it deep?

Well, it's got a couple things worth looking at, and one of those things is, of course, this main event in the featherweight division. Hard hitting Josh Emmett is back. He's a man, he's pushing forty, but he is welcoming the number ten Laron Murphy, who is looking for his moment, Josh Emmett coming in at number eight, and Luke considering Laren Murphy is fifteen zero to one as a pro unbeaten in eight UFC fights, a three to one betting favorite against Emmett and coming off of wins against Edson Barbosa and Dan Egay why have we not and why are we not talking about Murphy more seriously as a legitimate contender for the featherweight title.

A lot of his fights have been in the apex, a lot of his opponents have been good, but not the kind that made it all that interesting. He to my knowledge, at least on this side of the pond, doesn't do what appears to be any media whatsoever. And so he's just a very quiet figure. But to the point that you raise he's fucking good, like, he's real good. And was it the EGA fight, I believe that's right where he got rocked several times and was able to kind of persevere and then get the w like, So he's not just well rounded and the stats speak to that BC here and we can go through them here in a minute. But uh, he is, I would argue at this point pretty battle tested and surging, and you know, we don't we don't. There's it's really interesting like when we talk about like who are the surging UK fighters, for some reason, Murphy is not always or you know, typically I should say, is not at the front of that list. He fucking should be. He's real, real, real skilled and Josh Emmett has been off since. This is his first fight since the Bryce Mitchell fight. He's been off for quite some time. This is a tough ass assignment for him, and, as he indicated getting close to forty, a super tough fight. Laren Murphy is a dangerous opponent.

The odds, as as I teased earlier from DraftKings, Murphy is a minus three twenty five favorite in this five round about plus two sixty for Emmett Luke. If people know the name Laren Murphy but don't know the game, what do you what would you say? He does bring to the table.

Super completely, utterly well rounded and not just well rounded, like, oh I can do this well, I can do this well. But the blend of everything is you can tell thought has been put into this. When you look at the game plan, you can do. His game plans, you can tell are very precisely ironed out. I'm not saying they have a memorized for every single situation, but there's direction, there's purpose, there's intentionality, there's by the way, and I know this is like a thing that you know I should. I don't know how people are interpreted when I say something like this, but MMA is so offensively based that people's defense is typically pretty bad. His defense is actually quite good. His cardio is good. He's big for the weight class. By the way, consider this, he has a three inch reach advantage on Emmett and his three inches taller as well. He's just a bigger physical presence. Now, em it's a little bit of a short stack for this weight class relatively speaking. But I'm just saying he's got the physical tools, he's got the brain power, he's got the overall skilled development, and we've just been kind of waiting to see him get the experience and see exactly who he could beat. But he keeps answering these challenges quite effectively. He is a well rounded fighter. B se if I may Lan's four point eight significant strikes per minute that's high, only absorbs two point sixty seven, so he's got a very positive differential averages per fifteen minutes. This is a five round five but per fifteen minutes one point seven to eight takedown, so nearly two per fifteen minutes. Almost take down accuracy and take down defense are roughly in the fifty percent range, But that's not the biggest part of his game. He just uses that to mix it up. He can do anything. He can do absolutely anything. He can fight absolutely anywhere, not a specialist necessarily anywhere other than that blend BC. That's where he really shines.

Well done, Well done. Murphy took to media Day and talked about his new contract with the UFC and his belief that despite entering this fight ranked tenth at the one, four or five, he believes this is a number one contender fight. Let's listen in.

First fight on your new contract. I know when you announced it, man, it seemed I don't know, like a special moment. Were there discussions around it or was it simply the figures that were on that contract. It seemed like it was like like a milestone for you, even though you've been around for a while.

For me, the contracts a contracts. I'm here to fight in it. But I've got six fight contracts, which is good, and it's just just the word and in the contract for me, he's like the UFC behind me, and so I see, and I've been even going to go on to do big things.

I think I like to do the announcement cause you're like the road to the title starts now. So I mean, obviously You've always been building that, right, you have this amazing record, all your accomplished, but does it feel like this signifies like a very important milestone or or you know, part in that journey, particularly all the contract itself. Yeah, and just this moment in your career.

Yeah, for sure, for sure and fighting number eight in the world. Josh Emmon's been around India. Borio went on to fight for the title after Josh Emmett. So for me, this is the number one contend to fight. I feel like behind Lopez and Volcanoski fight in the week after. I think this is the this is the best fight in the division for me, this is the number one contend to fight. So yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

Look, with all due respect, that can't be true.

Unlikely, unlikely, But I mean I can understand why. Like, you know, again, quietly building a very quality resume, not a lot of pomp and circumstance. Again, you don't see a lot of interviews. You don't see them out there, you know, jacking off are doing talk dances on social media. But when it comes time to lock the cage door, he goes to work. Make no mistake about that.

Kind of has a Leon Edwards. You know, understated presidents. They are coming from with that accent, from that area of the world.

All right.

Josh Emmon is forty years old officially, but he has not fought in fifteen months. We mentioned that viral first round devastating knockout of Bryce Mitchell, but the two fights before that, he lost a five round decision to Eliot Taporia and was submitted in round two fighting for the interim featherweight title back in February of twenty twenty three against I I A. Rodriguez. In that fight snapped a five fight winning streak for him. Emmett says that Murphy here is in for a root awakening. Let's listen.

I know he's been working on his weaknesses hence be his grappling and his wrestling over the years. I've seen a lot of improvement in his later fights. I know he says he's still learning on the job. You know, there's no learning on the job. One year in there with me, you know, I only yeah, we'll see. But yeah, he's good. But uh, you know, he's never fought anybody like me. I know he thinks he's fought someone similar to me. But knowing that he's fought, he's even close to me, and he's going to be in for a root awakening on Saturday night. Yeah, at the end of the day, I just have to go out there and win. Like I've never been in a boring fight. I know what the UFC wants to see. I know what the fans want to see. They're excited when I'm when I'm on a card because every strike I throw, I'm trying to finish the fight. And Uh, I don't feel like i have to go out there and make a statement, but I'm going to. And the goal is to be a world champion. That's always been my goal. Murphy wasn't the original opponent I wanted because he's behind me. It's a high risk for really no reward. But at the end of the day, I've never turned down a fight. I've always fought these fights. I fought the best in the world. So I should be able to go out there handle business and uh, and then we'll see what's next.

Look. He would go on to say in that same sit down that in the time off, he's worked on his power, and he says his power is way more potent and brutal. I mean the media even questioned him, said how is that even possible? And he says, you know he's going to bring it. So look those recent losses, right, two losses in his last what eight fights, only they were against super elites. It's Ilio Taporia and Yayi Rodriguez. Do you think even at age forty, let's say you get to win here like is there's still time for him to make noise atop this division?

Okay? So I mean Ilia leaving actually makes it a little bit easier because he obviously lost to the guy, and it also is just one less top ranked guy. The fact that Pitbull was subbed in, though, makes it a little bit harder, you know what I mean? And so I do think there is time. He's not the most charismatic guy on the mic. We interviewed him on roobserver his diars. I want to be clear, I actually really enjoyed our conversation. But I'm just saying, when I observe how the fan base receives him, it doesn't I do like him, and they love his fighting style, but they don't necessarily respond to his personality exactly. I don't think that's unfair. Uh, And you know that is probably going to limit him to a degree. However, you know that knockout of Bryce Mitchell was it's literally one of the most vicious knockouts in UFC history. That is especially especially be a punch. So like, if you eliminated like the most vicious knockouts with kicks and those only with punches, that that's either going to be at or near the top of that list to to to be to be quite clear. And then on the other side of Bryce, you could say, yeah, I mean he gave him a he gave him a brain injury in all likelihood, right, I mean that was really bad. So I think that those things could definitely buoy him. But the problem is this, like if you're a pit bull and you beat Yaeir, Hello, you're the best fighter in bellator history and you just beat a top ranked, super exciting fighter. That's great. Or conversely, you're a top ranked guy plus they want to go back to Mexico for nocha UFC, Like you're just going to move to the front of the line. If you're Laron Murphy, you get a big name on your resume for sure, but not necessarily like a fan darling. And by contrast, if you're Josh Emmett, you beat Laron Murphy. It's quality in either direction, but it's a couple of quiet guys, you know what I mean. And for that reason, you know, it's hard to say exactly like they're gonna get thrust to the front of this division if they win. It's it's quality all the way around. But as we just saw with one thirty five, quality is only part of the conversation.

All right, let's talk about who wins and how they win. And before I get that from you, I want to bring in our betting expert co host of the main card, min At Luke Nosina. Luke, I gotta believe you're itching at the idea even with the fifteen month layoff of Emmett at plus two sixty, do you agree with what he said that Murphy may be great, but he never fought anybody like Emma before.

One hundred percent, Lauren Murphy, the only person who's fault in the top fifteen was Dany Gay. Danny Gay's number fifteen. I mean, he hasn't fault anyone in the top fourteen. Josh Emmett, I believe his last five fights against top fifteen guys, you mentioned he went five rounds of ilia. Dude, I just feel like this is like forty years old or not. The vet's going to get the win here. Also, Laron Murphy. His path to victory usually is implementing the wrestling. Josh Emmett comes from tam Malfa, mil They got great takedown defense. They always got that guietine, you know, Like I like Josh Emmont in this fight a lot.

I gotta say I took him down three times in one round.

All right, that's Taporia, that's La Liende.

Say it, say it, that's Taporia the magician.

Lt You heard our betting expert loving the plus money, but he loves plus money on almost anyone. Do you like the veteran in this matchup?

I'm going to take Laron Murphy. Now, I say that with some degree of trepidation, because here's the thing, Like, how would you classify Emmett's style? You could say boxer puncher, but he's not really a boxer. Sorry, a boxer wrestler, I apologize, but he's not exactly a boxer. He's more a puncher wrestler.

I mean to interrupt you. Do you remember he told us at RSD on the couch in Vegas, and we couldn't believe it. He doesn't have game plans, doesn't he doesn't make adjustments.

He fights, and Loroon Murphy is the exact opposite. So here's the thing, Like, if Laron Murphy makes the same kinds of mistakes against Emmett that he did against Egay, He's gonna wake up looking at the fucking lights. I mean, there's really just no two. You know, Josh Emmett has nuclear power. It's just next level armageddon when he balls up the fist, to quote the great Vinnie Pass. But I think a guy like Murphy should be able to neutralize that. He's skilled enough at this point, should be experienced enough. And I take the plus money might be a good bet. You know, it was one of those things for you can kind of hedge, but head to head, I'll take Murphy.

Yeah, I'm leaning Murphy here. I love the matchmaking. I love the opportunity really for both fighters, because if this would be an impressive two wins in a row, even with the time off, should Emmett get it? And like we said, the two recent losses were against super elites. Even though it did seem like he not folded, but he got handled by ya year in less than two rounds. But it was a long time ago. We have one more piece of sound to throw to. I don't think a loss puts them at you know, even have forty in territory of needing a new job. But he's been taking notice of what's going on in the GFL, particularly the pay scale. Let's see, I mean if they ever have their first card, Luke, but let's hear Josh Imma talk about.

That for me.

Are you stoked that the team leader your I favor is coming back to fight again?

Yeah?

Yeah, it's yeah, a lot of guys, you know, they're coming back, and yeah, I want to go down there and watch that fight. I'm curious to see how the that organization kind of pans out and plays out. But yeah, it's it seems like a lot of you know, veterans for sure, or fighting each other and in people that were in this organization. So yeah, more power to them because they're making a I know some of the pay that these guys are making, and it's it's ridiculous. I wish I could go hop over and do one fight then I'll come back.

Yeah, is it pretty well?

To see those numbers.

Do you think they last more than two events? Who knows? We'll find out.

Look, is that an indictment on the UFC?

Or are we doing this?

Or is this some money laundering operation that will not be there after the first Golden Boy?

The trick to being an MMA fighter, and I've seen this so long that like that you just can't even deny it is that, like, like, okay, there's a few different ways. Okay, very basic question. How do you make a lot of money fighting at MMA? All right? So the first answer is obvious. Become a UFC champion and get pay per viewpoints or you know, becomes some kind of celebrated figure. I realized that pay per view buyerser down, but you know, historically speaking, that's been one. Okay, that's one. Two. You can be somebody who gets a lot of bonuses, you know what I mean? Like Chris Little ended up getting like another million dollars added to his career earnings from just from five bonuses. Jolson told me all the five bonuses are what enabled him to pay for his gym to open it up. And you know, again it's not like getting striking it rich, but definitely being able to like change your life in pretty fundamental ways with that money. That's another one. The other way to do it, if you can get it, is to take advantage of the very limited window of scam operations that pay more money than they ever should. They don't last, but to the extent you can just surf that little wave, you can get a serious financial windfall. I have seen it over and over again. So that's one way you can absolutely make money in this business.

I think, well, turn that shit coin into a hawk ta.

Yeah, I'm telling you we need to launch an mk shitcoin and then rug pull the listeners and then just move somewhere quietly and never and never talk to them again.

Yeah. Yeah, we'll be on the beach with Andy from Shawshank just living our best life. Luke, let's look up and down this card here. Pat Sabatini of Philadelphia fame back in the co main event and a featherweight bout again Joe Anderson, Brito, Do you care about that one at all?

Yeah, that's one. Should be an interesting grappling battle. That should be a very interesting grappling battle. So you know, Pat Sabbatini is kind of like move forward and then kind of taking a step back and move forward and taking a step back. But this is an interesting, interesting one. Also, the UFC fighter with the most college football name ever is competing BC Cortevius Romius. Yes, that's a that's a college football name, dude, I saw a college football name the other day. I'm not kidding. You can look this up. Please double check this. Booby Feaster. Yep, Booby Feaster.

It's crazy that that key and pell skit, which was hilarious is real life now across college sports. It's wild. It really is wild, man. I mean, there's a few matchups to care about. GM three back against bred Tavares at you can smell what Torres is cooking as the three time DWCS alumni. Torres Finney will open this six fight main card at middleweight against Robert Valentine. I don't think you really care about that, do.

You not much? But I will say Davey Grant ticket on Daniel Santos is pretty interesting as far as I'm concerned for me personally, Loma Luke Boone Me against Estella Nunez actually has a fair amount of value. Victor Henry Josh Barnett train fighter is very good against Pedro Falcon and then you know for opening two fights. By the way, this dude Dan Sati Baldiev, the uh I believe he's I think he's Kazakh or wwiger. What is he? He is Kyrgyzstan. He's a Kyrgystan. He's real good and kind of interesting taking on Morton Boudet. And then your your favorite BC, Vanessa Demopolis is back against Telita alan Kar, a very very good jiu jitsu black belt.

Would you agree, outside of the jokes we can make and that the stripper pol training, that she Vanessa is one of the best UFC Fight Night TV fighters they have. They always put her on the first fight and it's always exciting and she comes from behind and then jumps in somebody's arms like it's good TV.

Right.

She is memorable. She has a fun personality and she delivers for the most part, action fights. Yes, for a TV fighter, she delivers absolutely.

Lukenoshita, what should our degenerate fans be betting on when it comes to this card this weekend?

I mean, besides josh Emmett in the main event, I do like GM three against Brad Tavares. They're both they're both like three days apart in age. They're both thirty seven years old, roughly the same UFC experience. I mean, dude, you gotta take GM three here thirty five of his thirty seven wins by finish. Brad Tavar has been finished five times before. I do like Brad Tavar's and he normally goes long, but I got a ride with GM three here. As far as fights to watch, you were mentioned that Terz Finny fight. Dude, Robert Valentine coming off a tough He's in the tough finale, gets controlled for five of the seven minutes that fight. Win on the ground terz Finny averages, Luke, how about this ten takedowns per fifteen minutes.

That's insane.

I've never even absolutely fucking I think he's just gonna wrestle, like probably finish him in like the second round or something.

But he's definitely just gonna wrestle. You know what that means, though, If you have ten takedowns in fifteen minutes, that means you can't hold him down for shit, That's what that means, all right, But you can get him down, and that's all that matters here.

You know.

Look, Diana, Belbeta is also back in this but she has lost five for last seven, so that's.

Not I wish.

Sure well, but that's not exactly appointment viewing.

Odei Osbourne will be in the preliminary featured about at flyweight. He's lost four of his last five, including his last three. He'll welcome a non Wikipedia page entry, Luis Garul. Maybe he'll be end up in GFL. I don't know whatever, we'll see.

He's undefeated. Louis's undefeated, all.

Right, then this is that type of matchmaking to find out if he's ready. Anything else you want to say about UFCAPEX.

No main event is real? Good? Is there?

It is?

I like it, Let's keep it going. Topic number four PFL one last night ten pm Eastern start on that main card, but I watched it live main card and I enjoyed it. It was from Universal Studios in Florida in their new residency there in Orlando. It was the first night of the tournament season welterweights and featherweights, and in that main event, former Belator welterweight champion Jason the Kicking Machine Jackson took on another former champion in Spartan Koreshkov, and Andre got elbowed on the top of the dome head was bleeding and shortly after he got submitted. So, Luke Thomas, I do want your thoughts on the main event, but first on an overarching look, there's been so much criticism against PFL. What did you make of the changes that they made to the broadcast, the format, and the presentation on Thursday night?

I liked it. I thought PFL generally speaking, did really well. I think, generally speaking, that was a very good effort by them. That was evidence that they are listening. It was evidence that they have people internally in the organization giving them good advice and that they took it. And I thought not everything, not everything, but I thought a lot of it worked. I enjoyed that brought. So let me say a couple of things. I spoke to some folks who work at PFL. I have I had questions, why the fuck did they have a ten pm East Coast start time for the main card. So the way it was explained to me is that's a call from ESPN and there's just not much PFL can do about it. And BC I have some good news and I have some bad news about some future start times. Are you ready? All right? I think it's either two or three weeks from now this one. I have to double check. But in one of those, the main card start time will be seven pm. Primo can't wait. Perfect end during the undercard, that's great, exactly. My understanding, however, is, and again this is not pfl's call, it's ESPN's call. My understanding is that next week's main card starts at eleven PM, which is a fucking backbreaker, if ever there was one. I can't stand that. But that's what I've been told. That is what I've been told. Now that aside, let's just talk about last night BC. What did I like about it? First of all, it looked like they were in a much nicer apex. Yes, and it turns out you can do a studio fight if you put a little effort into it. And they had that big wall, the you know that big screen wall behind them where the fighters come out. They had the ramp, BC. Did you like those like video stanchions all throughout the cage on the outside.

I did it.

I did.

And the thing I also liked is when it was time to go to the fight, when when both fighters had entered the cage. They had the lighting truss above could force all the lights down and make it look like real nice As a consequence, I thought that was awesome. I thought overall the look was great. Did the graphics package look.

It?

Was it me?

Or did the screen in general, from the colorization to the quality of the cameras, It just looked top shelf.

It really looked awesome in tattooing. What they say is two things. The colors looked saturated, and then when you look at it, it popped. All the colors popped right in your face that way. And they did a lot of like doing the Humans stories of Jason Jackson, which by the way, I thought they were good. That to me slowed down the broadcast a little bit, if I may so. I didn't love that part. I also thought poor Dan Hardy, I mean, he was doing there's nothing he could do, but his voice was going that was kind of weird. I do think we have to have a conversation about, like to what extent Kator is adding a lot to these broadcasts. I obviously he's a legend in the fucking game, and you know, I think look could.

Be on our show in another fifteen minutes yeah, No, I don't have.

I don't have I don't have anything bad to say about him. I just don't know, like, do they need a three man booth. It's not exactly clear to me that they do.

I love Randy though, still, I just enjoy his presence. I know what you're saying is after is he washed?

Now?

I don't think he's washed. No, he's not out there just saying bullshit. You know it's not that. But the last thing I want to say is and this is like, you know, clear proof that they listen to people. Obviously, the simplified format helped, you know, all the all the bigger decisions helped in terms of the television execution. B see, but how about getting rid of those dumb fuck stats. Here's how fast my shin was traveling, bitch, nobody cares, nobody ever give a fuck, and you're taking up all this dumb ass real estate on the screen. They bye by dude, less is more, less is more. They streamlined, they simplified, They took the existing things that they do well, they made them pop, from the graphics to the presentation to the whole bit. I I enjoyed this show quite a bit.

I agree it looks so professional and that matters. It made me want to sit and watch it. It made fights with guys that I knew already and maybe weren't overly excited for. But I was like, it just looks so good. I mean, how much they zoomed in with the cameras when they're fighting against the cage like. It was well shot, well presented. Not having a busy screen played a big part. The graphics popped. They were perfect. And also I got to say, like in the past they would integrate Jonathan Coachman and Ian Parker but bring them in on like fuzzy skypes feeds. I like when they brought Parker down between fights to the announced team and talked about the odds. I liked having Jonathan Coachman walk around the arena and talk about the fan base, chairing for fighters or doing the sit down interviews. And did they do too much of essentially the same personality preview packages. Yes, but think about this. We complained often that they don't utilize what they have. They don't push the stars forward, that the smart Cage is the most famous member of their fight roster. At least they're trying to show you that these guys can be stars. I mean, I want to ask you about that main event in a second in terms of the fight itself. But Jason Jackson is thirty four years old from Jamaica. Look is, he's won nine of his last ten overall, and if you look at the names he beat like he may have lost the beltre title in his last fight in Ireland in June of last year, but outside of that, he beat Jordan me and Benson Henderson, Nieman, Gracie, Paul Daley, Douglas Lima, knocked out Yarslav Amasov when he was unbeaten to win the title, stopped Ray Cooper the third, and now goes in there and dominates and puts away a strong former champion in Core. That is the type of guy they should be pushing, and they did that. So I'm going to sit here and do this. I mean, I do still have a larger problem. Even though they took this convoluted regular season playoff thing and made I guess the right decision and making it single elimination easier to understand. You know who fights who. I like that they brought in the next fighter to do the face off. That's all good. I guess my only issue connected to that is really like where does it lead? The winner kind of maybe gets a title shot, maybe in a champion series. What is a champion?

Like?

We still have too many belts and I still feel like I'm not sure where it leads. But for an opening statement, after they've taken nothing but a PR beating in recent months, and a lot of it was deserved, Yeah, they kind of made me want to tune in next time and see what other fighters that I normally would dismiss might actually have both good stories and have good fights on this level. So luke, let's hit that man.

One final point, if I made them to challenge that, like wrong, I fully co signed having Ian Parker there was great coachman with the mic and moving around was great. They had a backstage reporter, a woman I don't know her name, but she she's like the reporter for the Washington Nationals, so I've seen her a million times in the local market. I forget her name whatever, but you know, they they all of those pieces I enjoyed. My point my challenge to PFL would be this, I absolutely think that telling these guys' stories is important. But I'm a little bit like gonna call bullshit on it because I'm sorry to tell you this, but the PFL media, like the PFL PR people, they're nice people, but like as a posture, PFL is disdainful of media. Like the only person that they had doing media was Sean O'Connell on Aeriel Show, and that was fucking it. They don't pitch people. When they do, it's a bullshit pitch. I'm sorry to say. I've brought us up a million times. They had Francis here, they had Jake Paul here. Nobody could talk to them. When you ask why, they don't ever have an answer. They're not good about getting their fighters in front of people who can tell their stories them. By the time the fights come around, they have to shove it all in there, and you know, some of that is great, but it becomes a little bit much. So I think having a different media strategy can alleviate some of that pressure a little bit. To just stuff so much into the broadcast, that's it.

I agree. Also, what could help them is taking their actual best fighters and put them in featured in this tournament. But that's my opinion. It's neither here nor there. Let's talk about Jason Jackson. I mentioned the larger run he has been on, even though he did technically lose the belot Or title last year against a guy's name who I can't pronounce. What's that fella, Ramazan Coramago Medoff, So I guess I can't pronounce it, Luke. He's meeting a lot of people, and he looked like the better fighter against the guy who I've always loved to watch in Koreshkov. And now and we're gonna talk about the guy who's gonna face it in the next round, they've actually created an even better fight coming off. How impressed were you with Jason Jackson in that main event?

So how do I say this? It's not like I didn't see anything. Okay, the only stuff I saw from Jason Jackson in terms of what he was trying and blah blah blah, none of it was bad. I mean, he pressed up Koreshkov up against the fence for a long time in the first round, and that was a little annoying, But he didn't look bad at all. He looked good for as much as we saw it. But BC, like, we just have to say it, man, And I know this fucking sounds like a broken record. To be clear, it's definitely not a UFC problem. It's an MMA problem. Jason Jackson is up against the fence with Koreshkov uses I think a Kosoto hook to pull him off and then take him down, and he has an arm over him, and Koreshkov is intertal and he els excuse me else he lands an elbow on him that cuts him in the back of the head. He gets the full five minutes to recover, but he doesn't really actually recover because basically right after that, or not long after that, anyway, he takes him down, passes the mount and then closes closes the freaking show. And my point is, like Keith Peterson didn't take a point called an accidental foul, which I don't even know. I mean, who could give a shit less if it's accidental when it's that impactful, a clear, unequivocal shot to the back of the head. I don't think Jason Jackson is a dirty fighter. That's absolutely not my point. But that was that was a negligent shot. He shouldn't have thrown it. It was too heavy, it had an obvious impact on the fight, and I'm sorry to say this, but Koreshkov was done wrong by Keith Peterson. Koreshkov, we have yet another main event BC where a foul of consequence happens and the referees just sit there and look at it, like, you know, like like a people on the New York City subway when a homeless person's going crazy and they just don't want any part of it, and they just pretend it's not even happening. Like, I'm so fucking tired of it. It is an epidemic at this point, and it affected the results of this fight. There's simply no other way to say it.

That's a very fair point. I didn't emphasize that because they gave him so much time. But you're you're right, it was, you know, and it's possible that Dom Cruise was right about Keith Peterson smelling like cold cuts and cheap women. But that was a that was a big time fail. But Luke, were you not entertained on the idea of who this guy will fight next? Because in the in the featured prelimb about before that on ESPN Plus, how do we say it Thad or tad?

No, my understanding, it's thatad Fad Gene.

Thatad Gene there in one round against Mukammed Berkamov, who's good by the way and had a big fan base there. And dude, that combination that he landed to knock him down and then finish him with strikes nine And oho is that Gene? Holy crap? Is he fighting out a Haiti too?

Like?

That's Gaff Pierre's guy right there.

I think he's fighting out of South Florida.

But do he?

I saw him on the mic. He he talked to the other the roving reporter of the one who's from the Washington Nets. Again, forgive me, I don't remember her name. He's interesting on the mic. Dynamic fun that was such a huge win. Berkowmov is a excuse me, how I always fuck up his name?

Uh?

Where is it here on this thing? Oh? Yeah?

Uh.

Berkhamov is a AC or was anyway ACB Champ, which is perhaps the most prestigious kind of semi regional ish internationalist title you can get out of Russia. It's a very very legitimate promotion in terms of like the kind of talent they recruit and then develop. Bricolov is a good fighter, and and Jean do. It's just kind of funny. Both Jean and Jesus Pinato got good stoppages based off of straits and then those check hooks are the the I should say, the hook that comes behind it. Both of them did it off the exact same kind of not full setup but execution anyway, and great finishing instincts. Great shot that he landed. Uh, and then you know they had that awesome face off between them. Yes, I'm pumped for that fight. And when they when they locked.

Ho Gene after the Ko just kind of stood over the guy and screamed.

I was like, yeah, well he filed it on short notice, like he was not supposed to be in this tournament to begin with, and now he's fucking in the semis against Jason Jackson, Like this is working out perfectly.

A good development. Now they did have they were supposed to have twenty twenty four Walter Wight Tournament finalist Magomed you You Malatov in this, but he missed weight by two point six pounds on Wednesday, they pulled him from the tournament. Joseph Luciano got the replacement spot. Adam Storley kind of Russell fed him over three rounds to advance. But look in that Colemane event, the twenty twenty three PFL featherweight champion Jesus Pinato came in there against a guy and we know very well from Bellator in respect Adam Borich. Dude, he put it on him. And this was Panato coming back after a year and a half off and he needed less than four minutes to brutalize Borich. I was impressed with that performance.

Oh, I was absolutely impressed with that performance. Adam Borich is a very very good fighter, and he got he got kind of worked by Hazes, dude, Hayeses. Pinato fights with fucking attitude. He marches down guys and not not in like a super reckless way, but certainly an aggressive way. And he also was going for that straight hook, straight hook. He would actually go hook, straight hook, and they actually was the third of those that ended up landing in those combinations. And do what I love about this, what I freaking love about this is this is going to be the rubber match with Gabriel Braga. So Braga beat him by split the first time, then they rematched and then he wiped the floor with Braga. I think he stopped him in the second or the third three final by the way, Yes exactly, And so now they're going to meet again in the rubber match, and do they They also had a super fiery, awesome face off. Dude, These guys that want in Gene and Braca to an extent too, but certainly in this case of a Hazes Pinato. Dude, these guys fight with attitude, they fight with personality, like what they what this is kind of what PFL needs. They need rivalries, they need bigger than you know they need. They need guys who have memorable, action friendly styles, and you know they need memorable personalities and identities too, and that's I think the part of the media strategy that's missing. But in terms of like getting I'll say this, in terms of getting favorable results to set up interesting semis and finals, if you're the PFL this morning, you have to be very happy with how all of that turned out, especially since some of this was on last minute notice.

For guys like John, yeah, please don't remove parts of your ribcage and start blowing yourself. But you did well right there. And Gabriel Braga on that preliminary card had a first round submission net crank of Federick Duprat.

So he also on that fight, Braga nearly got submitted with a guillotine choke and had to like gut that one out, and then as soon as he did, he was able to reverse position, get the back and and close the show. So a good gut check performance by him too, if I do say so myself.

And in the opener of that main card, Luke, that was a pretty gnarly fight Jeremy Kennedy, the Belatoor veteran against Mavlid kaibu Laiev, and it would become a split decision twenty nine to twenty eight. In either way. Kennedy looked like they had they had stolen his best girl. Afterwards, he was incredulous after that decision. Do you think the judges got it right?

Umm?

I kind of like the elbows and the striking of Kennedy better. But it was a good back and forth.

I thought Hablaiyev was I'll say this. When the fight was over, I was like, I think Hobalaiev is likely to take it based on what the judges prefer. But I don't think Kennedy is crazy to say that the he did more meaningful work between them. Does that make sense?

Yeah, damn, dude, I know I keep hitting this point, but I just wish they combined the rosters and put everybody in the tournament and created champions at the end of it, because I want to see Pitbull in here. I want to see yarsov Amasov, who's now a free agent and trying to get to the UFC. I know there's financial considerations based on how Coker was paying them more, but like with this structure, with this presentation, now it's better put your best fighters in there. Corey Anderson should be in there in my opinion, more and more blah blah blah. Look any other matchups you cared about on.

Here or no.

I'm trying to look up and down this one that we saw here. Uh, the Kiku Edy fight against Bachara was not very good. And then the take Young Kim against Nathan Kelly. He dropped him with a good shot then choked him out. That was actually pretty good. A little again, dude, nice little card by PFL, No question about it. They're listening. Let's see more I got to do.

I do have to play a piece of sound shront O'Connell yesterday before the card, was on the Area Hajwane show to preview it and did kind of call out fans and media for being negative. Now this was before they had the card, and the card seemed to raise pfl's goodwill and profile in the MMA space. But I want to play this sound and get your reaction to it because I like Sean O'Connell a lot, but here's him standing up for the brand.

The source of frustration for me Ariel when it comes to the way the PFL is treated in the MMA space is I know how hard people are working to try to do it right in the PFL. I see the behind the scenes stuff. I know the individuals personally were trying to make things happen and trying to, you know, jump through the right hoops and think like that. And I also know that I can go find as many loud complaints about boxing, about the UFC, about you know, rule changes in the NFL whatever from fans, and they get so disproportionately amplified those complaints when you're talking about the PFL, because you know, we're right now, we're the little brother that's trying to make a space for itself and himself herself and we're trying to carve out this niche and it's like people don't want it to happen. And it's crazy because if you love the sport of mixed martial arts, you usually want there to be more mixed martial arts and more places for fighters to go get paid. And I don't know why the fan base and the media are not championing alternative causes more. Criticize us when we need to be criticized.

Criticize me.

If you think I'm calling fights wrong or I say something I shouldn't have said, please do because you know, I want us to be held accountable and at a very high want us to be, you know, at a very high level and hopefully someday on par and past the industry standard that's said by the UFC. But man, it doesn't feel like in a lot of cases people are rooting for success here and I know that I am.

Now, look if he's talking specifically at UFC fans, and this is somewhat similar to like in pro wrestling, when people are like WW only we hate everything else, we want it, we chare for it to lose. Then is there some of that in the fan base I'm sure, But as much as I really like Sean O'Connell and actually think he does a great job, I don't know if the media has been extra harsh, Like Don Davis has given us plenty of reason to be they're they're they're convoluted format, you know, and and the and their resistance to change until now has has been justified to criticize.

In my opinion, Yeah, I mean, I like Sean O'Connell too. I think he does a great job at PFL. But it's like, also, you're paid to like them. It's not like you're you know what I mean, Like I'm not mad at him for it, but let's not act like I'm in partially cheering for PFL. You get a paycheck from him, bro, Like come on, okay, uh, But that aside, I do think he does a fantastic job, and I you know, I think the PFL is better for having him, but you know, PFL, Like, listen for anyone from PFL watching see how far blaming media and the fans gets you. Like, what are we fucking talking about here? You know what I mean? Like, like, one of the big challenges that even with Last Night and the which has been a problem with their product. Is like Don Davis cares more about his audience on LinkedIn than he does building a bond and a bridge to MMA fans. I mean, part of the reason why they're in a studio is because they can't sell fucking tickets to any kind of reasonable degree. I mean, you can get you know, two thousand or if you're lucky in DC, which is where PFL is technically where the guys are from the leadership, you know what I mean, Like if you're if you're His relationships are to investors, his relationships are the people who are raising money for him. He doesn't have a relationship to the fan base. And then you wonder why the fan base is like super aggressively against you don't have a relationship to them. What the fuck are you talking about? So that this is a silly ass argument to me, And more to the point, there was a lot of problems with the product. Now again we just said today was last night. Anyway, was a great turnaround. I thought this was okay, this is a very auspicious beginning of something they could do well. But at the same time, like you know, you guys can lecture media all you want, about how mean they are. You can lecture fans all you want about that's not gonna save you if you want, if you want to survive to the extent possible, you have to convince fans to like you. And if you want media to cover you in a favorable way, you have to make it worth their while. And right now, for all of the very good things that PFL is starting to do, they don't do any of that shit. So a nice long look in the mirror has already helped them. I would recommend doing a little bit.

More, I know, because the point goes back to what I keep harping on, the convoluted nature. It's like you've got Paul Hughes, AJ McKee, these type of guys. I feel like they should be featured in everything that you do. If you're gonna do tournaments, if that's what you feel is your best way, then put your best talent there. So, Luke, we have one more piece from Sean, and I think it's important to hear it because I'm still not really sure, like what the winners of these tournaments get. What is their champion series? They have too many series, too many titles, this whole you know, English Premier League of MMA type of idea. Let's hear from Seawan and see if we can make sense of it.

We know that it used to be like a season thing. You win the tournament, you become the champion.

Now, with PFL absorbing Bellator, I thought Dakoda the Cheva would just be the flyway champion, Usmanner Maaga Made would just be the lightweight champion. The biggest name available would then become the champion if they're already holding some kind of title. It's a very easy transition that doesn't seem to have happened. Can you clear this up for us?

Here's the way that I see it working out. Here's the way that it's been described for me. We have the World Tournament. You bring in a bunch of great fighters from all over the globe, you put them in an Olympic format, you say win and you move on to the next thing. And if you win the tournament, you're going to be the PFL World Tournament Champion. There's going to be a belt associated with that, and ostensibly, if you've proven enough through that process, you're going to move on to the PFL Champion Series Fights, which is where you will find to go to ditch of a living now, which is where you're going to find Usmanner Magamedev living now. And so if you win the twenty twenty five Lightweight World Tournament, the dubious honor that you get after that is you got to go and you got to fight somebody like Usmann and Magamede or maybe Paul Hughes can wrest that belt away from him when they rematch one another. But this is going to be the world tournament, and my understanding is going to be something that builds you into being the number one contender for the chanceampion the series belts.

Look, it felt like he didn't really fully get it either, And I went on their website trying not to be a hater. There's no champions listed, Like I feel like that's a big fail. We should know right away because I want them. Like I'm not cheering against them. Am I cheering against Don Davis after he claims that they're already you know, one A competing with UFC. Yeah, you can't say stuff like that. I'm cheering against the format, but I want to know who their best fighters are, know when they're fighting next, and you know, I guess this tournament will inevitably produce that. But we don't even know is Usman the bellachor champion or the PFL champion. And the fact that fans and media don't know this that's holding them back more than anything.

In my opinion, I don't have much to add. I think that's a great, great point that you're making. I completely co sign once again. They're learning this lesson slowly, but less is more, less is more. I know that they feel like they need to differentiate. There are ways to differentiate where you can add a little bit of spice, a little bit of heat, a little bit of a twist. But to your point, if I don't even know who your best fighters are and I don't even know which designation that they hold, what the fuck are we doing? Guys?

Uh? You know?

All right?

And we got a tweet here from Patty Mix yesterday which says, and you can argue, he might be, you know, one of the three best fighters in their organization, coming off the longest layoff of my career, been working harder than ever to perform when given the chance, I just want to compete. Exclamation point. It shouldn't be unknown to him when he's coming back who he's fighting and what the stakes and circumstances, and.

You could say, oh, well, you could have had Patchy Micks fight in the main event last night, right, spice it up a little bit. But then they have they're doing a bellator or a bell tour, they're doing a bantamweight tourney, and they don't have the available guys, so now he's unavailable, and now we're back to the same or the contenders are unavailable, so you're back to the same problem. This is what I mean, guys. Less is more focused, streamline, promote and create stars. That's what the UFC is not hardly trying that much. Big opportunity for you.

I know.

The time is now. UFC is making us dislike them on so many levels lately. The opening is there to do something easy, simple, cool, and you'll get our attention.

Dude. All right, these fans are complaining that they're not prioritized by by the UFC. If your PFL, I know you guys, love investors, I know you love Excel spreadsheets, I know you love PowerPoint. Probably a lot of canvas subscriptions in that PFL office. But I've got news for you. The path to sustainability is creating a relationship to the fans. You got to fix that first.

There.

It is good advice right there. But congratulations, PFL, just the same on a good night.

By the way, Cortavius Romius missed weight.

So I was just going to bring that up on breaking news. Uh he missed Wait for that Bannam weight about against Chang Holy who has not weighed in yet. Romeias came in at one thirty nine point five. So that's a substantial miss right there.

We'll see fantastic there.

It is all right, Luke. I'm wondering though, given that we're you know, it's not March anymore. It's early April. But the whole idea that March Mania is on fire right now is a true fact. Page buckets and the Yukon women are back tonight. Look that matters in my state. I don't know about yours. But if our fans are ready to win real money during this March Mania, Attorney, then I got something for them. If you're struggling to choose which team will pull off the big upset here, forget about the teams. All you need to focus on are player stats to rack up big cash. Prizes with DraftKings Pick six and when it comes to massive payouts, DraftKings dunks all over the competition. Pick six is available in most states including Missouri, California, Texas, Georgia, and more. You can track your picks for a shot to win huge cash prizes. It really is as simple as that. It's like picking a fantasy lineup. It's like looking at players, will they go over under a certain stat You can turn your March Mania knowledge into cash right now today, And here's the kicker. New players can get fifty dollars and Pick six credits instantly with only a five dollars entry. Luke Thomas tell them about it.

All right, here's what you guys are gonna do. Everything BC said is accurate. This is your next step. This is your call to action. Ready, here we go. What you guys are gonna do is you're gonna download the DraftKings Pick six app now and use the code combat. Of course, that's gonna be combat with a K that's code combat for new customers to play five dollars and get fifty dollars in Pick six credits, better payouts, bigger wins only with Pick six from DraftKings the Crown is yours. Gambling problem Call one eight hundred. Gambler help is available for problem gambling call eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot Oregon, Connecticut. Must be eighteen plus. Agent eligibility restrictions vary by jurisdiction. Pick six not available everywhere, including New York and Ontario. Voidware prohibited one per new customer. Bonus awarded as non withdrawable. Pick six credits that expire in fourteen days, limited time offer. See terms at pick six dot DraftKings dot com slash PROMA look.

Before we get to topic five, I just wanted to pick your brain very quickly on two things. One that's cgi. Two about that was announced between Craig Jones and Gable Steveson. I wasn't sure if that was a joke. That's real, right, that's really happened.

I am told that is real.

Do you like that? That's kind of interesting to me.

Gable Steveson is a complicated figure because, like, as an athletic prospect, you just can't be anything but excited. But he also appears to be a terrible person. So I don't really know how to answer that question. You know what I mean.

You don't think hanging out with John Jones and training with him makes him all right enough for that BS. Also, you know I dunked on the UFC Meta deal because it just means more zuck in our life. I did get a lot of fans pushing back and being like, you don't want the sport to advance across very popular you know, social media channels. Is there a potential plus here even outside of the stupid ratings debate? And now Meta AI is going to fix our ratings issues even though no one actually knows the journalists that there are all no name guys who aren't really employed who actually do these rankings and seem to be forced to do them under the UFC's rules, which keeps Kamara Usman on the top five at welterweight. Is there any pluses that you see coming out of this or is this just another way that Aria Manuel get rich?

Yeah? I mean, I just can't believe how gullible people are, Like they think this is like a real serious, genuine thing rather than a business entanglement to receive favorable treatment from our government. I know, I know people don't want to hear this, but it really like you just have to be naive to think that this is Like they were sitting around and they were thinking of ways in which they wanted to enhance the fan experience, and they thought, you know what, let's get a company that is facing antitrust pressures that we just put or Dana White was just put on the board of it for like really no one for reasons, like really no one even understands because that itself doesn't make sense. But like I clearly it is a play to entangle their business as a long term protection effort against you know, verious or I should say too, you know, you can't stop obviously some of these efforts, but to hedge their bets is probably the best way to put it about government interference. I mean, it's not to say that there's like nothing that was proposed. You know, those ray band glasses and seeing that kind of stuff as like fighters walk out, it's kind of cool. I suppose there's some different technology that's available in terms of like getting a three sixty view of the cage if they end up going that direction. The AI rankings part, I don't even know what to say. That's a real change. It remains to be seen if that's any good. But I would just caution everyone, like, what does Meta produce that's very good? They bought Instagram, That's not a thing that they ever developed on their own. They bought WhatsApp, That's not a thing that they developed on their own. The metaverse is a complete and total flop in every possible way. Those ray band glasses are kind of cool, but a limited technological influence over everything. It's a very very big company, in part because they've been able to avoid regulatory scrutiny. This is just a way to enmesh their businesses as a protection. Like, Oh, they're gonna have in fan activation on threads, well, shiver me fucking timbers. Wow, what a vast improvement to the fan experience. You want to improve the fan experience, pay the fighters enough that that you can make the big fights, and you can recruit high level athletes to want to come participate and to make the I mean, there's ways to make the fan experience better that have nothing to do with Mark Zuckerberg's stupid ass glasses. That is such a limited window into things, So do I take it seriously? Let me be as clear as I possibly can be. No, because I'm not gullible.

Thanks well, wow, well said final piece. Luke. I got an email, like a press email today that had quotes from Eric Bischoff, the former WCW wrestling head, about some interview he gave. He's claiming he heard that Vince McMahon is currently talking with BKFC and if people don't know the disgrace Vince McMahon, who still is gonna still has trial coming up in that Janelle Grant case. He has been rumored to be putting a lot the money together and looking at first there was talk of him doing something in pro wrestling on Fox and doing something in this space. Could you imagine if BKFC has Connor and Vince in the bullpen working for them, is there anything to that? Is this the weirdest news you ever heard?

Who are they missing?

Mother?

Teresa? I mean, that's really.

But let's get war machine up with a bullpen. But like, seriously, like what the hell is that, Luke?

I mean to you know, to bkfc's credit, they're probably spending a lot of money. They probably need an investor. Vince might like that. You know, it is a it is a BKFC is a real alternative for MMA fans, so to speak, in terms of, you know, another combat sport that is like MMA adjacent but not MMA. So you know, there's it's not together, it's not it's not crazy to think that that would could be a partnership that works. But yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, all the female fighters should wear hairnuts from here on out. All right, look there you go. Hey, let's get into topic number five. It is the weekend boxing preview and all there's no Slam Dunk pay per view or you know, super fight this weekend. There are four boxing cards of note, from Tim Zu's comeback to Janebec's Kazakhstan homecoming, to US Olympian Richard Torres Junior getting his first top rank main event, and oh how about that UK heavyweight clash between Joe Joyce and Philip Ergovich. Luke, is there a fighter storyline of the above that tickles your fancy the most this weekend in terms of you caring? Uh?

Yeah, there's definitely a few of these that I care about. So let's okay, I don't care about all of them. The Torres fight against Vanello or Vnao, I'm not sure how you pronounce it, is not interesting to me at all. Can I be honest about that? I don't care. I don't care even a little bit about that one. So although it's competitive, reasonably speaking, nor do I care about the Jannebec fight, and not that much. Right However, the first two you listed are quite interesting. Tim Zu is taken on Joey Spencer. Timzu was a big acquisition for PBC, and I think still has a possibility of turning this around. But holy shit, it has not gone according to plan at all. So you could be forgiving obviously with the loss to Fundora because he had the cut on the top of his head. It was an absolute blood bath, but that was surprising for PBC and certainly unwelcome. But that really wasn't the problem. The problem was what was the guy's name, RTAZALIEVALI Yeah, yeah, Then he loses badly to Bakra Mrdazaliev in a fight that was supposed to be a walkover for the guy, and now you just don't even know where he is now. Granted, Keith Thurman kind of won, and so they're saying for PBC, they're building a star in that direction, and you know, God only knows what could happen there. But they're just trying to rehabilitate this guy. Joey Spencer is not a great fighter, but he's a decent fighter. So this is a fight that tim Zus should win. It's back in Australia. And by the way, Joey Spencer was kind of objecting because all three judges are going to be Australian, which I'm told unless it's like a world title fight, that's not necessarily uncommon. They do try to, you know, mix them up, like from all different geographical fix it.

By the way, they didn't appear to his complaints even though said publicly don't worry, we won't need the judges in this fight. They did it all right.

So but you get my point, Like there's been a little bit of controversy about it, but Tim Zoo needs a win bad.

So well let's stay here. Yeah, let's stay here with this fight for a second. Zoo will be a minus eight hundred favorite against Spencer, who's plus five hundred.

Now.

Spencer's a pretty good fighter, a former PBC prospect. He does only have one defeat, but it was a stoppage loss to Haesus Ramos Junior and a Prospect versus Prospect fight. Uh, Like Luke, it's tough. Zoo's thirty or thirty one years old, one of the two. Those are disastrous losses last year. But I do think not excuses, but everything you said is true. It's like he was on his way to knocking Fondora out, who, by the way, was a late replacement for Thurman until that cut changed it. And I guess you have to give credit where credit is due for Zoo for gutting it out, not asking out of that fight, and nearly winning it. He only lost by split decision. But the Murdozalia fight, whether his father being ringside for the first time since his pro debut, as they fix, there's a strange relationship mattered or not. Dude, he walked into the same punch over and over again, with no defense, no head movement. So while that was awful and bad, I think it's fixable because don't forget when Tim Zuo made his US debut on Showtime against Terrell Goshe, he did the same thing. He got into what he calls terminator mode off the start and he got dropped in disciplined in the first round by Gashet. But finally adjusted. I do think there's an argument to make that Tim throws away the game plan too quickly and just goes to war. There is a window, though, where he can turn this around, and Spencer is the type of opponent who can be tough enough if Zuo's not the same guy. I mean, look, should we have concern about the amount of punishment he took in the last year.

Yeah, that was terrible. It's been terrible. The cut in the blood I have less concerned about. But definitely against Murdosaliev he got rocked. How many times did he get dropped? Three times?

Yeah? Yeah, but I think even four it was just I call that.

But they had to throw the towel to stop the shit because it was just awful. Like, you know, Joey Spencer is not that kind of a puncher, so it's obviously a more manageable risk. But dude, Tims and I want to point out something too. You're like, the Fundora fight was close. You're right, but like even that was not expected to be that close because Brian Mendoza had sent Flndora crashing to the mat with one of the best knockouts of that previous year, and then Mendoza fought Zoo and Zuo smoked him like or beat him easily with a decision win, like you know, had him beat up real bats. You're like, oh, you know, we don't want to play too much boxing math, but he should go in there and win and he got fucked up, you know. So this is a this is a real precarious moment for Tim Zuo.

Yeah, Zuo's main promoter, No Limit Boxing in Australia, will be putting on this card, but PBC will air it on prime video non pay per view of course, in primetime live in the US on Saturday nights. You can check that out. Here's Tim Zoo talking about the lessons learned against Murdozaliev And as you mentioned, Luke, it looks like he'll be fighting Keith Thurman in July if he wins on Saturday. Is it hard to see the fight again, like to look back at it.

Yeah, to a certain extent, to a certain extent. But you know what, when I when I rewatched it, Uh, there was a lot of lessons learned, and I watched it from a tactical point of view, and.

It was it was different.

I got hit with a shot that I shouldn't have been hit with, you know, And I've learned my whole my whole life to defend it in a certain way and stuff like that, and.

Yeah, it was, it was.

It was.

I've been here with shots, but usually I'm recovered and and and and stuff like that. But I don't know, I wasn't able to recover myself this time. I don't know what it was exactly. Could have been the rehydration stuff and stuff like that, but yeah, it was an ideal and but yeah, you live and you learn. Don't get caught with it again.

And he got caught with it consistently. We have a quick face off between the two of them. We could talk over at Luke. If he loses here, it really might be over in terms of an elite level, but a little bit of a dad Bob there or no from Zoo on the right.

He's never been exactly you know, Ronnie Coleman, All right, yeah, I.

Never see workout gloves on him.

You're right, oh yeah, but you know I think he should be fine.

All right, there we go. That is Saturday night, PBC and no limit. Can it bring that to you? Luke? You mentioned the other fight that you will care about. It goes down Saturday afternoon on his own. So Joe Joyce who to be fair. When he was a prospect, he was like thirty five years old. But this is a man who ko Daniel Dubois and Joseph Parker until a recent run of three losses in four fights, which included two bad knockout losses to Big Bang Jiang. Now at age thirty nine, he's going to try to come back in a big fight and put it all together. Philip Ergovich is in front of him. Ergovic was previously undefeated until he got stopped by Daniel Dubois last year for the vacant IBF heavy title after Usik was stripped because he chose that immediate rematch with Tyson Fury. So, Luke, here's the real question right now, brother, is Joe Joyce washed?

Yeah? Yeah, I didn't think so until his last fight. I don't think he can take a punch. And here's the thing, Dubois. Remember that that win by Dubois or Ergovic was important for two reasons. One because it was just a quality win, but the other one was like Ergovic was kind of putting it on him a little bit, like he was landing big punches and Dubois had to kind of take it and roll with it and then storm back a little bit later in that one, winning a TKO in the eighth. So that was like a very very impressive win, but make no mistake, like Ergovich was, it was handling him a little bit early, and as you mentioned, has beaten Big Bangjang and was undefeated up until that Duboi win. Hasn't fought since, so it's been a year here. He is back. But Joyce, you see, you know, you know boxing certainly better than I do. But my assessment about all of that is his ability to take a punch has been badly diminished. And Ergovich is both skilled from an amateur perspective, and then on top of it, he can punch. I mean, it's not the most devastating puncher I think in that division. That's not what I'm saying, but he could certainly, he can certainly cause serious problems. So I don't what are the odds I think they have him here in the Oh.

Yeah, it's Joe Joyce plus two seventy five. The underdog minus three p seventy is Ergovic. And don't forget you mentioned Joyce's last fight. That was at ten round war with old best Derek Jesra, and he took a beating in that.

One, you know exactly. So this is what I'm saying. I'm surprised the odds are that close. I get that Ergovic has been off for a while and that that du Bois loss was surprising, but I I think Ergovich should win here. Excuse me, I think Ergovic should win here. I'll say if he loses, that would be very surprising and would be a huge redemption for Joe Joyce. But I just don't think it's in the cards.

Well, there's an undercard a bout on this Joyce Ergovic card, and at the press conference this week it got wild. Let's look in on this piece of business.

I trust me to Amy children.

Look, I get down for that, all right. I don't know you guys names.

You know that's how That's how all dinners look in the BC household, right there, yes, yes.

There you go. Yeah. So Janna Beck will bring his unified middleweight title in a Kazakh homecoming on ESPN Plus. He's a minus eleven hundred betting favorite against a fellow name, Annual Nagamus and sorry for that seizure. And as we mentioned, Richard Torres Junior, who is twelve and ozer with eleven KOs, has only fought fat white guys. Look, this is considered a step up. He'll be a minus two fifty favorite when he headlines in Vegas against plus two hundred Guido Vanello, the Italian who has decent experience against good names.

I don't think Torres is bad, but we're still not at the stage where I'm like, you know, get excited. We're not there.

I'm with you. He's a South Paul. He's got a porn star mustache. He's a little bit weird, but he can think and punch a little bit. We'll find out out with the box this week Long Island. Look, you're you don't care about any of these from a betting standpoint, right, No, to be.

Honest, I bro he Long Island. Luke is like the quintessential MMA fan. It's like, oh, you like combat sports, right, Nope? Just MMA fuck off? Nope.

Also, like I was working all week, I wasn't really on top of the not I'm just.

Giving you ship. But it's kind of funny.

All right, It's time for our fans segments to close today's episode. UH morning combat at gmail dot com is your chance to reach out to Mikey and touch someone. Just be nice with it. Uh So full disclosure here. Mikey said, we only had three fan subs this week and they were all nine to eleven related, so uh he made the judgment call to uh to not to not run those this week?

Are fans hitting you up and being like, hey, can you show us the fan subs now that you couldn't show on MK And I want to be as clear as I possibly can. They'll never see the light of day, Okay, not not from us anyway.

Yeah, unless they put them on that Reddit page. But that's on them all right, So we won't have fan subs, but please, if you care, put them in for next week. We do have, though, a few dead wrongs where we take the stand because not everything we say as well reached shirts are even accurate. Sometimes we're just shitting out of our mouth. But you better come original, you better have time stamps. This one's called dead wrong, dead wrong. Do we know who's voice that is?

Is that?

Keev?

No?

I think it's like AI.

I don't even know AI voice? All right? Here we go hey, our first dead wrong is from Marcus. What's up, Douncle Berry Finn and Donk Sawyer. I'm a have you whitewashed mf ors paint and fences all day with this one. At thirty eight minutes and fifty one seconds of last week's episode, y'all devoted a whole ass segment to sharing your personal top five pound for pound welterweight rankings. Let me say that again, pound for pound welterweight rankings. Maybe it's the booze or maybe it's the green, but y'all got to be some shit think in thinking that you can have a pound for pound ranking list of fighters in the same damn weight class. More egregious than this verbal misstep was having to listen to BC's completely asinine take on Ian Maschado Gangbang go ahead and collect your l on the way to painting this fence with love from the Midwest. It's Marcus Luke. I'd love to dunk back on Marcus, but he did. He came original, I mean.

He brought it also. Mark Twain, big lover of the N word. It turned out in high school I learned that wow.

So Luke, technically it was wrong for me to say pound for pound because they are all the same.

You were using pound for pound as like you know all time, you know, all time best welterweights.

Right, No, I said, let's rank our welterweights in a pound for pound ranking, because I was using essentially the criteria that I believe is most important in pound for pound rankings, which is ultimately like what is their stock right now? And would they beat each other head to head? And yes, it made sense to me, but yes, technically, Marcus, I will take that l. There we go. Number two comes to us from Gabriel. Hey, donks mild dead wrong for LT on his Espanol this Monday. For mk, LT was half right, and that some sounds in Spanish are not fully enunciated and natural speech, so sometimes the G sound is so soft that when spoken, it disappears because of that, though, BC is actually fire to a pronounced squadalajara as wada lajara, because in natural speech that is essentially how the word sounds. You can enunciate the G. But how BC said, it is actually pretty natural and didn't really need to be corrected. Not sure if that's specifically a Mexican thing, maybe a regional dialect. Some other words with the soft g are agua and gooey.

Well, also like just you know, so it's so okay. So I'm learning this so like it g on what it comes before. We'll have different pronunciations. Obviously, it can be like ge would be heraldo, right, So it just depends on what's in front of it. But like guacamole, I've just never heard anybody say wuaca moley.

You know what I mean?

Well, I have, but not gringos, but real people they say. Unfortunately, I'm around Latin.

I've been around Spanish speakers every day in my life. Not one of them says wuaca mole. Motherfucker.

You're going to do with the with the true difference between pronunciation between different Spanish speaking countries.

Yes, absolutely, that's what I mentioned to you before. They'll say certain things so softly that you're like even saying it.

You know, I was doing it Mexico style about a Mexican city, showing respect for the fine Mexican.

People meet in the middle on this one.

Yeah, it's like, hold on, I gotta interrupt you too.

I'm just saying when they teach it, because I've taken classes on this when they teach it, they don't teach it wuaca mole or Guadaalajara. They may say it that way, but they teach it guacamole Guadalajara.

Gabriel goes on to say, unfortunately for LT clapping latina cheeks does not making fluent in Spanish.

Wow, I've never claimed to be good at Spanish. Never never never.

All jokes aside, MK all day love y'all at Gabriel and his source is that he is a full blooded Mexican with roots Injuadalajara. So there you go, all right, Luke's took a half l a half.

Hell, I'll tell I'll take that half hel, I'll take.

It all right. Daz is ready to uh what, Luke, Daz.

Back up on that ass and give these motherfuckers a blasphem the.

Past aloha donks. In light of the disagreement on the pronunciation of Sa saka quebara around an hour and thirteen minutes, and as an ethnically Japanese person, Daz says, I would like to weigh in. In Japanese general, generally, all syllables are given the same level of emphasis, meaning syllables are not emphasized the same way as they are in English. Thus, Luke was more correct wow in his pronunciation of Sokka quibara because he did it with less syllablic emphasis. BT's preferential pronunciation of Sokka kibara places too much on certain syllables and broke the pronunciation up in an awkward way. In this case, LT is more right and BC is incorrect. I'm sorry if this is too pedanic. I figured if we are discussing the pronunciation of wadalajara, then we can try to get these Japanese names pronounced correctly as well. Mahalo, it's Dat's all right. Well, I respect what Das is saying, and I respect the root of what he's saying, being that he is of the Japanese persuasion there and knows the pronunciations. I have to say, though, what I forgot to say, and I should have said it during that episode was I hosted that Ryan Garcia press conference in December, of which Saki Kabara was there, and I asked his very well known translator, slash matchmaker guy from back in the Pride days, who was kind of representing him there, because Saki Kabar's English is not wrong, and that's how they told me to say it. Sak or guess Saka Kabara. All I was saying to you is there's no chance in hell it's Sakaki. There's no chance. There's not even a remote chance.

I mean it sounds like neither of us were all that close, but not that far either. But I didn't realize that they didn't have like so for example, as you know in Spanish, like if you see an accent, that's where you put the emphasis. I didn't realize that Japanese. I mean, obviously, jobs is very different language than Spanish, but I didn't know that they did or didn't have those kinds of emphasis points on their on their words.

I mean, I'm sure I get I was wrong in a great degree. I'm always wrong. On speaking Luke, I can barely speak English on this show. I get shopped like a lo out of nowhere. Sometimes our last dead wrong comes to us from Paul. He says, hello from Belfast, you washed Pos's it's a dead wrong of sorts from Luke and BC. When discussing the best fights to watch in WEC history, how about the absolute banger of Leonard Garcia versus Chan Sung Jung.

Oh jesus, how did we miss that fun?

We did? We screwed up the very fight that earned him the nickname the Korean Zombie. Okay, maybe not a dead wrong, but certainly deserves to mention as an absolutely insane fight in which Garcia got the nod, only for the Zombie to get revenge in the UFC via twister, Paul loves our work. He's a Day one, donk. He's not a Jan sixer. He's from Belfast, Northern Ireland.

All right, I'll take that out, especially that one I'll take because how the fuck did we omit that? That is egregious?

That was egregious right there. Great moments in uh pre other mma promotional history which the UFC consistently bought out or folded, But yeah, that was WEC had consistent bangers. Dude in that small cage. Shout out to Reid Harris back in the day, great matchmaker, right yeah, I.

Mean again, they had divisions that went, you know, above one seventy or above fifty five and the under the UFC brought some of those guys over and folded him. But obviously the magic was that they had all the guys fifty five and below, and this is what I mean about being you know, less's MOREBC they put a blue cage and they went to different weight classes, but it was just MMA at that point. They didn't try and do like we're gonna have a tournament season format with points like what the stop stop stop? And now obviously it's harder now that you know there's less innovation that's possible. But that WEC worked for a reason. It was not accidental, you know.

Indeed, indeed, all right, Morning Coombat at gmail dot com. Hit us with fan subs, hit us with dead wrongs, reach out to the show, complain, show your ball bag to Mikey, whatever, except for that last part. Whatever you gotta do there it is. That's our show. By the way, for today, we will be back a remote episode Monday, eleven am Eastern at Morning Combat on YouTube, and we'll be back in studio Wednesday. For of course, that UFC three fourteen pregame preview brought to you by Cuervo, the tequila that invented tequila. Yeah, baby, yeah, Luke, fantastic show. You got any great weekend plans you want to share?

No, I'm just gonna hang out with the fam. I'm not gonna do a watch along for that. I'm not gonna insult it because people get very sensitive about it. But I'm not gonna know if I did a watch along, no one would watch along, you know what I'm saying. So I gotta wait for it. I gotta wait, but but I have to say this PC. We're not far from UFC three fourteen now, pretty pretty close. Very excited about that.

That on the gums. Check out that appearance I made by the way on Submission Radio with Jed Mischue and Dennis Big Dennis fan over here. Luke, what a great guy, right.

Dennis is awesome. I did an hour long UFC three fourteen preview with him yesterday, So that'll be out fasting job.

That guy will get up at that ass crack of dawn to meet US Americans on our own time. So I got a lot of respect for that guy. For Long Island, Luke, Nocita, Luke, you got you got anything else?

Probably not join me for the watch a long tomorrow, Luke won't be live.

I'll be there, guys, main card, join me for that.

Appreciate you all right, Plenty of long hits to be had between.

He showed me what he's going to be enjoying after today's program. Let's just say TSA needs to check his bags, you know what I mean?

Hey, Tsa, we got some THC coming in. Indeed, all right, here we go.

If you're sitting next to Long Island Luke on his flight home, prepare to get a contact high because that's what's coming.

You know.

Hell yeah for Long Island Luke regular Luke, I am your boy. BC. Take care of yourselves. We love you, Thank you for supporting. Be nice to each other, have a great weekend, enjoy the fights.

We are out of here.

Yeah yeah, baby,

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