This is the Dan Levitar Show with the Stugatz Podcast.
This episode of the Dan Levitar Show is presented by DraftKings. DraftKings, the crown is yours.
Number 60, I'm Fullerton Vern Fuller. 59, where's my click click? 58, hey Butterfinger! 57, punt. 56, Scranton. 55, I'm visiting your one-armed paper hanger. 54, Georgia! Georgia! 53, I'm the kind of guy that— 52, ballin' the jack. 51, hey hey, we're the Monkees, baby. 50, thank you, Billy. 49, I love 'em like a pet. 48, who made it a salad? 47, we're rollin' now, huh? 46, your brain beatin' me. 45, let's go States. 44, driver comfort is paramount. 43, dummy up, say bop. 42, catch as catch can. 41, doesn't make it right. 40, so on and so forth. 39, very good! 38, the Little League Theory. 37, nice hat, asshole. 36, the others, they all learn from me. 35, don't go showering to try to please me. 34, look at that jerk. 33, it's like a packing house in here. 32, would you learn? 31, hee haw, 3, badap. 30, I'm not gonna take a quiz. 29, sassafras. 28, what we do, break a window? 27, hello. 26, who won? 25, trailers for sale or rent. 24, you got to eat a peck of dirt. Oh, I missed the one he did this week. These are my brand new ones.
My brand new ones.
The Glenbarry leads.
Okay.
He just covered up. He's been hiding it from me for some reason, and he just covered it up with his hands. So you just gave away one.
Yeah, with great fanfare. I need it. Needed the fanfare. I meant to say, and now number 24, you got to eat a peck of dirt before you die.
A note to his mother.
My grandmother Nellie.
Sorry, right?
Of Nellie's Diner.
That's, that's exactly right.
Yes, Greg.
Please stop talking occasionally to your inner monolog. Just occasionally.
Just, I'm so sympathetic.
Famous fictional diner.
And number 23, 3 words: we are the Lobos.
The Greg Cody Show featuring Greg Cody, where you can get all of your catchphrase needs. I've told you before that Luke Thomas is as good as anyone doing it in MMA.
Had to be confused by that.
He's a journalist, analyst, and host of Morning Combat on the DraftKings Network. He's covering everything happening in boxing, MMA, new episodes Monday and Friday. And he's also the host of Luke Thomas Gets Political. Luke, thank you for being on with us. Want to start here with you. Just simply playing the back and forth, or I guess the back is what I'm going to show you. Ariel Hawani responding to Sean Strickland's claim that all of his hate speech has just been to sell fights and he was just joking. Here's Ariel Hawani.
What Khamzat did was dirty. Yeah, you can't kick a guy that you're about to fight in the balls before anticipation, all-time high, building up. Holy shit, you win that fight and tell the world that was all for show. That was all for promotion. That is the biggest bunch of bullshit that I've ever heard. That is fraud. That is cowardly shit. You cannot do what he did and say what he did in the buildup to that fight and then tell us seconds after the fight is over, I was just trying to sell the fight. Yeah, you can't do that. You cannot walk that back. You called his mother a whore. You called his religion awful things. That doesn't go away. I'm sorry. And all that tells me is you're not who you say you are.
Uh, Strickland comes back at Helwani by calling him a leech. Uh, Luke Thomas, what are your thoughts here on this back and forth?
Um, I'm not really sure what to say about it, to be honest with you. I mean, I might take a slightly— I, I don't— I would— this is a complicated answer. I mean, for me, the fight game is so devoid of even any gesture of real humanity. You can decide if Strickland's overture at the end of the fight was real or not. I actually didn't mind it. I actually thought it I was glad that they— I mean, violence can spiral in these situations, and, you know, fomenting this kind of anger that they did, and for whether it was theatrical or otherwise, that's all bad. But then extinguishing after the fact, I didn't mind this at all, to be honest with you. I was actually quite glad that they did. Now, to the extent that that is, you know, some degree of fraudulence or whatever, I guess people can make their own claims. But I mean, to me, the bigger issue is just this is the nature of fight promotion in 2026 in MMA. And, um, I think the bigger question is why is it like this now in ways that it simply was not, understanding that the fight game is always going to be full of the kinds of people saying provocative things.
I mean, this is not necessarily new, and including things that are— would still be by this modern era. I've heard things in the '90s, for example, from like Ricardo Mayorga. Mayorga used to say horrible things to Oscar De La Hoya. I can't even repeat them on the show here. So it's not necessarily new, but I do think that the nature of it has taken a turn at a little bit of a darker place. And so while I personally don't mind that they— I don't know if they would— what do you want to call it, burying the hatchet? I actually think that that's actually pretty good. But the problem is, what, what, what are they burying the hatchet for? And that's to me the bigger issue.
Ali did some of this as well. It just wasn't quite, uh, as lacking in subtlety as what Strickland is doing. I didn't think that there was worse in the fight game than what Strickland is doing. Do you have somebody who dabbles in hate speech more than Strickland in combat sports?
Um, there might be some other ones. Yeah, there might be some other ones. I mean, I don't know if he's— he's certainly, you know, to the extent that you're making an inventory of who does this maybe the most, um, I think, you know, he'd probably be either at the top of the list or pretty close, but he'd have some company. For sure. I don't think he'd be the only one. Uh, he just— the issue is that what's happening with Strickland is that he has a growing fan base that's been growing for some time. He has been this kind of a late career surge he's had where he's had, you know, whatever you want to think of him, just in terms of what's happening in the octagon, he's having like genuine real athletic achievement. And so it's all of these kind of forces working together to amplify the way in which he goes after it. But yes, I would say in terms of like who's the most high-profile guy who exchanges, uh, engages in this kind of stuff. It might be him, but in terms of like just pure rhetoric, I don't know that I would say his is necessarily the worst, while acknowledging it's, you know, to put it euphemistically, not for me.
Yeah, but Luke, it's how he's made himself a star. It's not the achievements or the fighting style that have made him a star. The thing that's made him a star, even though he's a champion, is that he's doing that.
That is a key ingredient. Yes, that is true. There's no denying that there. But I mean, like the— yes, yes, that is true. I'm not going to sit here and say that that plays no role or not even a significant role. I do think though that, um, you know, how big of a star would he be absent any of that just from the achievements he has? And I think that would certainly be diminished. But you know, a two-time UFC champion is going to be noteworthy almost no matter what. I mean, there's probably a little bit of exception to that Carlos Esparza would probably be an exception to that. But in general, that's going to be— I'm not trying to diminish your point, and I hope I'm being very clear about this. I'm not trying to diminish it. What I'm trying to say is there are a confluence of factors, and simply pointing, I think, to the rhetoric and the audience that that has gained, while I certainly recognize as a contributing factor, I don't think it'd be accurate to say it is the only contributing factor.
But I'm not— I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is there are a lot of two-time champions in the UFC. This one has gone outside of the UFC in star power in a sport that doesn't have very many stars because he does this. It's not the fighting. He's got a couple of big upsets on his resume. There are a lot of guys in MMA who have that. It's because he's doing this other stuff that he becomes somebody in that sport that is star-depleted. He becomes a bigger name, and it's not about the achievements, it's the personality. It's what he just told us was a fraud.
Yes, there is no— I mean, well, okay, but it's— there's the what he says on fight week, and then there's what he says just generally throughout the course of his like, and throughout the course of his, uh, you know, his professional life. So like, he ratchets— I mean, obviously this, I mean, this past week, I don't even know what to say about it. It was, it was one of the most insane things I've ever seen, to be quite honest with you. But like, in general, he adopts and espouses a worldview where he might ratchet it up to, you know, some kind of theatrical degree where it's now very, very public during fight week. The point I'm trying to make is he is espousing a worldview beyond that And yes, there is simply no question that the promotion of that and the, and the, and the views and the rhetoric around it has enabled him to grow an audience from it. I, I don't deny it at all. I just want to be clear, it's not simply a fight week thing. It's, it's, it might be more noticeable and louder and more insane on fight week, but there is a general worldview that is adopted and pushed again throughout any kind of professional interaction you might have with him.
Luke, what'd you make of Dana White's two main media appearances last week? One, a totally apolitical appearance on Katie Miller's podcast in which he totally downplayed mental health, and the second on The Breakfast Club where he was kind of taken to task with, uh, for his relationship with Donald Trump, and he kind of struggled with his answers.
Good question. So I mean, there's two different ways you could— well, there's two— I mean, they're very, very different experiences. So the Katie Miller one, let's talk about that one first. That one was kind of interesting to me because it was so funny, right? He, he is sitting in front of Katie Miller, who is the the wife of Stephen Miller. And during the course of this conversation, she's asking him, like, very bizarrely, like, do you think sports and politics should be kept separate? It's like, I don't— why would you ask him this? So, you know, like, it's like asking LeBron, do you like to score points? Yeah, probably all the time. It's what he's been doing this whole time. It's a very strange question to ask a guy who has made the answer to that unambiguous for years. But what's kind of funny is she sort of follows up with it being like, you know, when did you become red-pilled? And he was like, you know, he tried to walk it back and be like, you know, I'm a 1980s or 1990s Democrat. I'm like, well, you're not Michael Dukakis. I can say that with total confidence.
And so what a point I'm trying to make here is on that show, even his own ideological allies are asking him about being an ideological ally, and he is having difficulty coming to terms with it. And then on The Breakfast Club one, I mean, you know, this is the funny thing, and I think Dan probably can speak to this to a degree. Dana used to spar the media much more, not just MMA media, just kind of media generally. He was doing a lot more media, and this was when, you know, you didn't have this kind of alternative podcast circuit full of people who are obsequious in every possible way. And so, you know, he kind of had to be on his toes a little bit more, and he would be able to like, you know, you maybe you like his answer, maybe you don't, maybe he's lying as a promoter, maybe he's not, but he was certainly able to tread water if not outright swim in certain cases. And he's become so removed from that process that basic questions about his relationship to Trump, or if you paying your guys enough, or about, you know, any kind of health concerns related to the product or whether the product is even working.
You know, he didn't get mad. I'll say that. I was actually kind of surprised he didn't get mad. But as you can see, he is, you know, you could again, even if he was in practice, you might disagree with the answers. But the point I'm trying to make is he's taken this alternative route about only talking to media that will do the bidding that he prefers, and it has made him unable to be able to have forthright and forceful answers to key questions, both about his behavior as well as his organization's.
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Don Lebatard.
You don't remember the idea for home run call?
I was probably like, that kind of thing, something.
Okay, no, the home run call was that kind of swing, that kind of thing.
Stugatz. Oh, it's a good call.
Thank you. And plus, it doesn't matter who's hitting it. Like, you're not tailoring it to a particular name.
Correct.
You know, all that jazz. You know, you don't got to do that. You just generic call.
Oh, that would be a great call.
That kind of swing, that kind of thing.
This is the Don Levitar Show with the Stugatz.
Let's go ahead and play the sound for Luke and everybody about, you know, Charlamagne basically asking Dana White, hey, do you tell your friend Donald Trump the truth?
But when your friend has a disapproval rating of 62%, right, record high, people say they don't like his handling of the Iran War. The economy is shitty. Cost of living for people is fucked up. Why can't you tell your friend he's failing the people as a friend?
Well, he's the president of the United States.
Still your friend though.
And yeah, I know. But, you know, for me to get involved in— it's like if your friend had a— I'm sure people disagree with you that are friends with you and everybody has friends that you just— doesn't mean you're not friends with them anymore. It doesn't mean that you're—
Oh, no, I didn't say you shouldn't be friends with them. I just said Why can't you tell your friend he's failing the people? Because these are the same people who make UFC a success.
Yeah, I don't, I don't know if I agree that he's failing the people. Um, I think that when the, when the president is done in 3 years, people will look back on and realize a lot of the good things. See, I'm closer to him too, and I see all the good things that he does.
Can you tell your friend when he's—
Yeah, we talk about a lot of things, but I don't try to get into You like everything he's doing? Like I just said, you're never going to agree with everything. But, you know, as a friend, I'm not going out there and—
Don't be a glazer though, Dana.
Don't be what?
A glazer. Like just somebody that just tells him he's great. A yes man, basically.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't think anybody's ever accused me of being a yes man. And I think that's—
Are you part of the MAGA movement culturally? Do you align with their ideologies and their values?
And, you know, I consider myself right down the middle or leaning a little liberal, to be honest with you. Everybody thinks I'm some far-right guy because of our relationship.
Because you are. Go ahead and tell us, please, Luke, is, as it relates to Trump, Dana White a yes man?
I don't know the contours of their relationship, but I would not describe White's relationship to Trump from my vantage point as anything other than that. You know, again, there is mutual transactionalism happening. It's not like Both sides aren't scratching the other one's back. That should be clear, right? So they're both getting something out of it. But, you know, I don't know that Trump bosses him around or like a son of a minor lackey or something like that. But this idea that, like, you know, there are challenges forthrightly, I mean, the entire thing, like, it's interesting, right? So this buildup to the White House card is happening. And one thing I'm beginning to notice is, and it's not necessarily all UFC driven, but it is a little bit. Where they're putting out, for example, a clip of one of the champions, one of the guys fighting on the card, Ilia Topuria. He's very good. And he's saying, yo, I met Trump and he was much nicer than I thought. And Dana's like, yeah, see, I told you he's a really nice guy. Like this kind of slow, you know, very sort of seemingly innocent, but very clearly trying to launder his image.
And again, I also noticed, for example, they had that White House press conference and they're beginning to suggest— White wasn't there at that one. I don't know. Maybe he was there. But anyway, they were suggesting that, you know, Donald Trump was responsible for the UFC's turnaround, which I'm going to be as clear as I possibly can be. Is absolutely false in every possible way. The point I'm trying to make is like, this is what they do. This is what they do. They consistently marshal their forces for some kind of magnification, for some kind of glorification of Trump, and also to further assist his political project. And then when called to task on it, they keep saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm just down the middle, guys. Let me be as very clear about this as possibly can.
Okay.
I don't care if you're Bernie Sanders. I don't care if you're Che Guevara. It doesn't matter to me if you marshal considerable, considerable private forces to help return a guy to power who— this is not even debatable— tried to steal a presidential election with a fake elector scheme and you return that political project to power. My friends, You are on the hook for it. That is what you are. You are part of that movement. I'm not talking to private citizen. Of course, yes, too. This is more than just that. This is taking support that you literally cannot buy. There's no money to buy this. And they gave it to him after January 6th in 2022, in 2023, and certainly in 2024. And now they're doing this in 2026. To help him. I mean, it's more than obviously they announced in 2025, but part of it is— then I'll wrap this up— part of it is, of course, to continue to launder a guy who, by the way, couldn't do this job if his life depended on it. This idea about like, you know, whether this is, you know, where there's any, any degree of neutrality or power balance to me seems so ludicrous.
I barely even know what else to say about it.
I don't think that anyone who leans left spoke at the Republican National Convention. And when you say specifically that you don't know if Dana White gets bossed around by Trump. Trump telling him Derek Lewis has to be on the next card and then Derek Lewis being on the next card is him being bossed around.
Yes, fair enough. I mean, yes, that's an example. I, I, to your— yes, yes. I mean, to me that is, to me that is, um, low-level enough of an accommodation, um, that it could be more representative of a larger reality. But like, to me, there was— this is the part too, right? Like, I understand this is why The transactionalism matters. So, for example, they're pushing this legislation on Capitol Hill. The first labor bill that Congress has taken up in 2026 is a bill to gut boxer protections. I just want to point that out. And I've had conversations with staffers on the Hill. And what they tell me is that their understanding is that the White House kind of pushed this forward. You're going to be accommodating to a guy who is making like generational sport-altering change to a regulatory mechanism possible. Like, there's no way you would get sideways with a guy who was giving you fights on the White House lawn. So for on this level alone, it requires its own kind of obsequiousness.
Leads to my question, like, how do— how would you play this? There seem to be these quarter measures where Dana White's trying to be a little bit more apolitical, uh, offer some kind of wretched olive branch over to, you know, moderates to come back into the tent because they have this new broadcast partnership. So let's put Luke Thomas in charge of the UFC. You get the data from TKO. You have this situation now where it is advantageous to have the world's most powerful politician on your side and coming to events. How would you play it going forward?
I think I'm the wrong guy for the job. I think that the die is cast. You know what I mean? I think the die is cast. This has been a longstanding project to remake the sport in a particular kind of image. Not Trump specifically, but, you know, this kind of what you see it is today. You know, it's kind of a sort of like right-leaning, more than right-coded. In my view, it's a vector for right-wing politics explicitly. And, uh, that has changed the sport, that has changed the fan base, that has changed literally the advertisers, that has changed, you know, who they now broadcast with. They're now broadcasting with a regime-aligned oligarchic, you know, the Ellison family, you know what I mean? So like, it has— like, there, there is, there is no going back on this one. I don't— I mean, I, I don't— you part— partly you have to understand something, like, the pitch that MMA made when I came up, and this pre-Ultimate Fighter, but, you know, certainly post-Ultimate Fighter, the claim was very specific. It was, this is for everybody. This is for young, this is for old, this is for Black, this is for white, this is for rich, this is for poor, this is for East Coast, this is for West Coast, you name it.
More than that too. And the idea was anybody could get a hold of this. Yeah, it's going to have some, you know, some groups are going to like it more than others, but we're going to prove it to you. We're going to make this something for everybody. That is not the pitch anymore. That's not the culture anymore. That's just not the reality anymore. The reality is now it's either this and you can take it or you can leave it. We're not going to necessarily accommodate, you know, as wide an audience as possible here. Again, I know they want to make a big audience possible for the White House card. I suspect they'll get one, but I'm talking generally for the enthusiasm MMA products. Like, you're asking me to go in there like, what do you do now? Let it play out, to be honest with you. I mean, uh, you know, I don't want them to go to the White House. I want to be very clear about this, but like You, you can't change like the— so many other elements of this train have left the station. Now it's just on to what it is.
To be able to claw this back, you would have to, you would have to again take on a years-long project to make that possible. And I just don't think we're anywhere near that. So I want to be clear. I think that this White House event is a tragic mistake for MMA, and I think the long-term stain of it will be something that they will never live down. But I don't know how you walk in now and say we got to change course when we have— we have done everything possible to push it in this direction.
Luke, are you into the Rousey fight this weekend? And what do you think that looks like?
It's a good question. I'm modestly curious. I guess I have deep reservations and I'm also kind of interested. So it's both a negative and a positive. On the positive side, Netflix getting into MMA at a time when MMA, in my opinion, is contracting, uh, worldwide. I think it is contracting. That is probably something that the sport could use. I think that, you know, they certainly have big dollars when they put on Jake Paul fights. You can obviously quibble about the quality of the fights, but like, how does it look on television? It looks great. So I'm kind of curious to see what happens there. They claim to be paying their guys well. Like, it seems like a nice thing that they're doing. On the other hand, like, what is the relevancy of Rousey versus Carano? Rousey's been out for 10 years. Carano's been out for 17 years. I saw Carano fight in New Jersey once in my 20s, you know what I mean? Like, it's been a while, right? So like, what are we— what does this fight even mean necessarily? I don't even know.
I can't believe you're even moderately interested in this.
Well, to have Netflix involved, yeah, I'm kind of curious to see what they say. But let me just finish then, if I may, which is that Rousey spent time after her WWE career doing a media tour talking about how she had like massive concussion problems and it was like a game changer for her. And then the commission in California approves this and they're going forward with it, and I'm like, how is that— it can't be both. Either you had concussion problems or this fight can't happen, or you were lying the whole time and this fight can happen. But in either case, like, it just seems extremely troublesome that the commission would allow such a thing. That's what I would say.
I don't know who it's for. Ticket packages reportedly cost $1.5 million, but military members are going to get in free. But the reason I wanted to have you on, uh, Joe Rogan has called the event a gimmick and said it was a bad idea, but he'll be there commenting on it. Where is the Rogan, uh, Donald Trump relationship right now? Because I think you've been very interesting on it when you've been talking about it on either Luke Thomas Gets Political or Morning Combat.
To the best of my assessment, Joe is trying to have it both ways, right? So on the one hand Joe can look at the things like what, you know, the civil liberties being eroded by ICE, or in particular the killings that are happening or had happened certainly, let's say, in Minnesota, and he can see that this is clearly not really unpopular but quite horrible, and he'll say something like, wow, that's really, really bad. But the reality is, like, for example, you saw him in the White House recently, and you might even say, oh, that's for an anodyne thing. They're trying to get psychedelics approved for research to, you know, help of not just vets, but certainly combat vets who might have, you know, certain forms of traumatic brain injury. And I don't know the merits of ibogaine, I don't know the merits of any of that, but what I want to say is the reality is, like, you listen to him describe how it came to be— he's texting him back and forth, right? They're having this thing. And by the way, Trump even like, yeah, you want to get FDA approval? I don't think FDA approval should work like that.
Separate issue to talk about. To talk about Rogan, the issue for me is that in order to have any kind of a life or an effect, certainly within Trump world, it requires you to play nice with him. It requires you to be inside the circle. It requires you to have a certain degree of acceptance of that program. That's to say nothing, by the way, of what he did in the 2024 election, literally outright endorsing him. I made the point that White is on the hook for it. So is Rogan too. He's on the hook for all of that as well. I think he's trying to live in a world, Dan, where he's able to say, look, I can speak to some of these excesses and he'll say things like, wow, isn't that crazy? Right. Trying to give some verbal lip service. But at the end of the day, who is he actually aligned with? Who is he actually keeping circle with? Who is he actually texting back and forth with? And that should tell you exactly what his political priorities Despite claims of being homelessness, actually are. Don Lebatard.
Baker Mayfield tearing up Tampa Bay, 38 for 45.
Stugatz.
Shred 'em!
This is the Don Lebatard Show with the Stugatz.
Yes or no, Rogan regrets supporting Trump?
Uh, no. No, I don't think so. I think he regrets how bad it's turned out. I don't really think— if he really regretted doing it, then he should say it. And until he does, it doesn't mean anything. I've made mistakes before. I've had issues where I got it wrong. I've had things where I've rethought it, and I've had to come out and say as much at different points in my life, either publicly or personally or whatever, privately. It's all happened. But until you do that, like, any kind of statement about like, oh, this is so lamentable that it is this way— it's not lamentable. If you helped return that guy to power and you have been unapologetic about it. Nothing is lamentable about it. It is only lamentable if you can now see the error of the ways and you can recognize the specific contribution to his return to power that you explicitly made. Until then, it is all support, tacit or otherwise.
Who needs whom more? Does Trump need Rogan more than Rogan needs Trump?
Trump needs Rogan more. Yes, Rogan, I think— I mean, I suspect that what he's trying to do is trying to be like, okay, if I stay in the circle and I try to do good things, I can make a positive influence kind of from the inside. But of course, you will just be co-opted in the end. It's not really possible. In fact, what did you notice there with that, with the ibogaine stuff, the psychedelics for veterans? He— there's this giant photo opportunity. Trump needs those, man. He needs those. I mean, his support is cratering. New polling came out today from CNN, 70% consumer dissatisfaction. I mean, there is huge dissension in the ranks and Trump needs all of the adulation and/or third-party validation he can get. And so even if it's for something, again, relatively anodyne like, you know, psychedelics, there nevertheless is, wow, look at who's being endorsed here. Look who's in the photo op with who. And then to say nothing of the White House lawn, which they're going to say is, oh, it's about the presidency, it's about the country. It's on this guy's 80th freaking birthday. Please stop saying that nonsense.
Dana White said he doesn't give a shit if the UFC's relationship with Trump has cost them money. What needs to happen for the UFC to distance itself from Trump?
By the way, that's, that's the real thing I want to— oh, I'm so glad you brought that up. That's the real one. If everyone wants to know what they really think over there at TKO about this, again, they might be, you know, limousine liberals in some kind of capacity, you know, there might be a little bit of that. But if you want to know what they really think, it's this, it's this: if you don't like it, walk, right? And so when they make these claims about like, hey, it doesn't matter who's on— he goes on Pat McAfee— it doesn't matter if you're left or right or down the middle, This is for everyone. If you love America, actually, if you love America, you would never have returned a guy who tried to steal an election back to power. That's what I would say. More to the point, beyond that, beyond that, in terms of saying that, like, if you don't like it, basically walk. That's what they really believe. They believe that when they say, hey, you know, it doesn't matter if you're left or right, this is for everyone. Please be serious, dude. If you know people who have been deported and don't like Trump, it's not for them.
If you know people like I do who— whose friends lost their jobs in Doge and they can't stand what had happened to them, it's not for them. Or to say any of the other acts of vandalism and destruction that this, this administration has undertaken. The most extreme of my life. I'm nearly 50 years old. Like, you cannot have it both ways. You cannot say on the one hand, hey, this is for everybody, especially if you love America, and then on the other hand undertake a project aimed at its destruction. And more to the point, when questioned about it, say, listen, we don't really care if it's cost us. That, that, that's the truth. That's the truth. The truth is, at the end of the day, they feel like this thing is worth it to get legislation passed, to avoid regulatory scrutiny, to get a certain kind of visibility through this, the, like, this event that is also I don't know how you buy something like that. Like, how do you get— like, what's the purchasing equivalent of being on the White House lawn? I'm sure there is something to it, but it's probably extraordinary, right?
Very, very difficult to come by. My, my feeling is, man, this is not going to come apart honestly until they sell it to new owners. Like, and even then it may not necessarily, but it— the first step is like, as long as everyone who's there now stays there, it will just be this way until the end of time, basically.
You've come after McAfee, you've come after Rogan. Who's the sports media member that is pissing you off the most these days?
I don't know, man. Like, I'll tell you that, like, the thing that just gets me, man, and I can't— it just drives me nuts, is I don't even like McAfee. You know, I don't watch his show regularly, but on occasion I've seen it. And, you know, when he's not doing anything political, and I can see why it's popular, right? You know what I mean? I mean, like, I can get that. And obviously Rogan's success is, is kind of, is kind of, uh, you know, speaks for itself. So it's not like I've got this continuous ax to grind. It's just the thing for me that drives me crazy is at a time where, for example, Dan, you may not be aware of this, but yesterday there were a series of layoffs for a, uh, um, you know, a medium-sized website called Boxing Scene, which is, which does great coverage and had gone, by the way, you know, to the mat to talk about the issues related to Saudi Arabia. They had mass layoffs yesterday. And then, you know, you'll see stuff like Ring Magazine just outright lying publicly through their tweets about ticket sales for a rival promoter failing, and even when tickets hadn't gone on sale.
The point I'm trying to make is like, I'm not really against anyone in that— in the kind of way you're asking, like with an ax to grind. But the thing about it is, like, at a time when the sport just— and sports journalism just needs support for the people who are trying to do this the right way, and then to see the people on the take from some of the people. And again, sports journalism's problems kind of exceed, uh, obviously what the, uh, individual actors in the space currently are doing. But like, then to see the people kind of indulge in, um, you know, all of the people trying to undermine truth and all of the people trying to undermine good reporting and all the people trying to undermine just quality work, I, I, I couldn't say enough contemptible things about, you know, uh, that kind of a world. And it just feels to me like everything inside of sports journalism present company excluded perhaps, is just headed in the wrong direction. And it's, uh, it's extremely deflating.
Morning Combat on the DraftKings Network. He's also the host of Luke Thomas Gets Political. Luke, thank you.
Oh, Dan, hold on, hold on, Dan, hold on a second. Fight of the Year.
Now you speak.
Fight of the Year candidate over the weekend, co-main event, Joshua Van versus Tatsuto Taida.
Luke Thomas, please tell me that was a Fight of the Year candidate.
Enjoy your political commentary and thank you for being on with us.
What do we do at 170?
See you later.
Protest Morales?
Am I? I don't know what to do here. I don't know what to do. Answer the question. Fight of the year candidate, yes or no?
You're going to get out of here or you're going to be excited about the fights. Which do you want?
Uh, Josh Vand, a future star of the Super— he's amazing. And at 170, I don't know what to say.
That's the first time that's happened to Luke Thomas.
Multiple, I don't know what to say.
You did, you really did. You disarmed him. Thank you, Luke. Appreciate the time.
Thank you.
I have a theory. I should have thrown it past Luke. I just think these people have been clamoring and wanting mainstream support for so long that they're just thrilled to have viable power entities say of mixed martial arts, which has always been a stepchild in sports, hey, you belong. I think it's true of the fan base. I think it's true of the journalists. I think it's true of the entirety of the business. They're just thrilled to have people around them who are mainstream, who are supporting the combat sports because they've been fighting for it forever and they'll trade anything to get it.
Took too hard a turn, I think, into negative town. I don't think the die is cast, maybe for Dana White and the TKO era, but I don't think the sport is just exclusively for right-leaning. Even in its present state, I'll still occasionally follow the fights because I like the sport. And if they have an engaging new dynamic leader that is willing to say, hey, we are for everyone, I do think there is a way for this sport to reshape its image.
Has there ever been a discussion what UFC looks like without Dana White one day? I look forward to the day, but I feel like I've never heard that conversation. You know, as a pro wrestling fan, it was a conversation often in the last few years of Vince McMahon. I haven't heard what UFC would look like without Dana White.
I don't know if we can still say— Dana was kept aboard through, you know, whatever's going on.
After slapping his wife in public, he was kept aboard because he was invaluable. That's the— he was kept in power and survived something that nobody in power can ever survive because he was said to be that invaluable.
I think the data would suggest he is less valuable today than he was back then.
Well, it seems everything that I've heard is that he's less involved.
He's less involved.
He used to be really involved. He's less involved to the business. Business operations, but where he brought the most was that public juice. He was the face of the sport. He would go on every media show and he would do well. He was an electric personality. He was associated with the sport and now he's associated with Donald Trump. And the more time that goes on, the more polls that roll in—
but he leans liberal—
the less value Dana White brings to the table because he will only serve as a reminder to this chapter in the UFC. I think his days are numbered.
Tony, your thoughts?
Uh, my thoughts are— and Rogan has said as much— like, when, when Dana leaves the UFC, whenever that does happen, he's also gone, right? So there is a kind of shifting of where you're going to have the commentary team be different, you're going to have the, the higher CEO level be different. Um, the sport is fun. Like, if, if you are not a fan of the sport and you watch two guys have high-level boxing, high-level grappling, it's a fun sport to watch. Maybe you don't like the blood sports, but that's fine. It, it's for everybody, and I hope it one day it does be for everybody.
Greg Cody, do you think, in order to lighten it up around here, do you believe that there is such a thing as a 14 or 15-second fart?
I—
my own personal record would probably be about a third of that, so I find it hard to believe.
Yeah, 14 seconds feels like a long time.
I've hit about 10.
Uh, let's—
and there's no way you've, uh, got a new underwear situation if you go past that.
There's no way that 10 seconds is something that human beings can do, but perhaps horses can.
Must have felt so good.
"If you loved America, you would have never returned a guy who tried to steal an election back to power."
Sandwiched between #24 and #25 on Greg Cote's catchphrase list and the fart of the year, Luke Thomas of Morning Kombat joins us to discuss the state of the UFC's relationship with Donald Trump, Dana White claiming not to be a yes man for Donald Trump, and why the White House event will be a stain that White and the UFC may never shake.
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