This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is morning combat.

Well, my daughter is not in the house, but we're ready to make some noise just the same. Hello, everyone, on this 9th of August, 2021. Welcome to morning combat. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm one half of your hosting duo. I'm from CBS Sports and Showtime. I join you from the capital of Los Estados and needles right here in Washington, DC. And I have a different co-host BC, got a tan, grew a beard, changed his hair, just changed everything.

I'm kidding. Of course, it's reshot Evans, the winner of the ultimate fighter, former UFC light heavyweight champion and many other accolades. What's up, sugar? How you doing, man? What's going on, LTA? We know BC can never be this cool, man. Come on, man. Come on. I know. He always is like, Oh, I've got BD. I'm like, dude, you are the last candidate, whoever would have that and people would recognize it. But he is missed. He is on vacation. Where are you? Are you in sunny South Florida? How South Florida these days? Yeah, sunny South Florida, man. It's beautiful out here.

The weather's still nice. Been a little bit of a rainy summer, but I'll take it, man. I mean, it gets hot in the summertime. So these showers actually cool off the day. Pretty good out here. You know, for people who live close to the beach, you don't go to the beach very often. Do you? No, I don't sad to say it. I don't. Every single time I go, I bring some people in town. I say, man, I need to go to the beach more, but I just I just never do, man. By the way, do you ever get back to like Niagara, where you are? Are you from from that area? Or like, how does that work?

Yeah, I'm from from Niagara Falls, New York. I haven't been back since everything with COVID. It's just been kind of crazy to go up to New York since that. But I was going on a consistent basis. I miss home, you know, as the older I've gotten, you know, I've grown to miss home a lot more now. So it kind of holds a lot more of a sentimental value than it did before. Yeah, fair enough. Well, listen, we got a lot of stuff to get to here. We have UFC 265 results to go over and a whole lot more. So thumbs up on the video.

If you're new here or whatever and subscribe, if you haven't done this already, we have a live show Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and we do a lot of stuff in between Thursday, live chats, Saturday, post fight shows, and interviews, galore. You can see how you can follow us there on social media. If you want to email the show for dead wrongs or for fan submissions, morning combat at gmail.com is the place to go. If you want to try Showtime to catch the next Bellator show or the next Showtime Boxing show or anything else Showtime offers. Go to Showtime.com. You get a 30 day free trial. If you like

it, you can keep it. If not, you can go pound sand and be a rich at home. It's called your BC. Rashad, can you hold up your shirt just a little bit for us? Because I believe you have an official MK shirt on. Hey, I'm proud. I do. I finally got one in the mail the other day. It's a little bit a little bit big for me. But, you know, without rocket, I normally like my shirts extra medium just to kind of show off the vegan cuts. But I guess I was big deal with this one. They had the they were they were watching old tape of you fighting the hillbilly heart

Rob what was his name Brad Ims Brad I'm getting that size Rashad some t-shirts. I don't know how that's exactly what it was. Hey, I'll take it. You know how long it took me to get this shirt. I was thinking about making some of my own, but you know, that'll be bootleggin. I'm not for any bootleggin. All right, fair enough. I don't see. Do we miss anything? Oh, I think we have some interviews. I believe BC spoke to Manny Pacquiao and sings karaoke with him, which only BC would ever elect to do. You can catch it on the YouTube channel. I think he's got one with Errol Spence Jr. If you want to check out

that out as well. So youtube.com slash morning combat where you're watching this right now. Just dig around. We don't just do the episodes. We do a lot of supplementary content. And BC is doing a lot of interviews on the boxing side. Okay, Rashad ready to get this going. Let's do it. All right. Point number one is where we start. Let's talk about the main event for UFC 265. Now I did a post fight show, but I've not heard from Rashad. So obviously we'll give him the floor first. But Rashad, I don't think it's fair to say actually, but I don't think it's unfair.

To say that Cyril gone easily defeated Derek Lewis in the final there. But let me ask you this. What impressed you most about what Cyril gone did? I mean, his movement to me stood out was just like, I mean, I knew going into the fight. His movement was, you know, pretty good. But I didn't think it was that good. And when you start to break down his movement, it is something to behold. And it's really something that, you know, a lot of people to take note of, especially fighters.

You know, the way that he's able to stay light on his feet the whole time at a nice consistent bounce. But at the same time, never long his feet to leave the ground. So he's not without, you know, feeling the ground. But then at the same time, he switches his stance. And he operates at this length where the guy has to reach a little bit extra to reach him. But he gives you illusion like he's a lot closer. And that illusion right there, it makes us so that he can dart in and out and just pop you with the jazz.

And then once the jabs are gone, he starts breaking down the leg on the foundation. But his transitions from South Paul to conventional is so fluid because he does it while he's striking.

So the opponent never really sees that he switched stances. And now whenever a guy switched stance in front of you, you have to come with a different, different defense. But when you don't realize a guy is change a stance on you, you're still in the same defense. And that opens you up for other things.

So I mean, it was just picture perfect, great movement showed very high IQ just because the simple way that he didn't get greedy with one to with one of those areas of exploiting Derek Lewis.

He took his time with it. You know, he really took his time with it. You know, he really allowed the fights unfold at the same time. He avoided those big strikes.

It's how hard it is to absorb the power from someone who has that kind of power of Derek Lewis without grappling without locking up in any kind of way.

What he did was just completely just drawn Derek Lewis to the point where his, you know, with the in and out, the stops and starts, it ruined the timing that he needs for that big powerful shot.

And importantly, just kept him in a position of just kind of holding that shot till it was pretty much ineffective.

And then the fact that his, he took the legs out of Derek Lewis. So then he didn't have a base to land a big overhand right.

He really just took him apart systematically. He shows the IQ and heavyweight division. He shows some wrinkles in the game.

And after watching him fight Saturday, like there becomes a point when you realize that, you know, a certain division has changed a bit.

And watching him fight, you realize the evolution of heavyweight has definitely changed.

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