Brendan Schaub, Bryan Callen, Eddie Bravo: Fight Companion - June 18, 2016 (Part 2)

The second part of the Fight Companion opens with the hosts returning to the air and joking that some listeners may not realize the show is still running. One of them calls the show "the LeMans of podcasting," a reference to how long the broadcast has gone on.

The plan for this stretch is to watch the Fedor fight against Fabio Maldonado "in its entirety." Before that can happen, the crew has trouble with the studio's older Apple TV. One speaker says the new model has a better remote. Another says they tried the remote app on a phone but found it seemed to work with only one Apple TV, so it was no use on a unit somewhere else.

When someone asks whether the fight is five rounds or three, the answer is a hedged "I believe it's three." At least one host has already seen the fight and offers to hand over the remote so others can fast forward "if you get panicky." Eddie says he has only seen highlights and is told, "You're in for a treat, my man."

The first real argument is about what to expect from Fedor after a long break. One speaker says it would be more surprising if a fighter like him took that much time off and came back as good as ever, while also granting that this is "what you expect from the greatest heavyweight of all time."

Asked whether Fedor's decline is the same thing that happened to Kane, or to anyone at a certain age, the answer is plain: the body reaches a point and gets older.

Father time does not give a fuck if you're Russia's greatest fighter.

The same speaker then qualifies the point. When Fedor does let his punches go, they still carry real force. "Power's the last thing to go," he tells Eddie, and says he doesn't know anybody who throws shots the way Fedor leaps into them. The group concludes that power lasting longest is "why heavyweights last so long," and that Fedor could still knock his opponent out.

The pre-fight presentation draws a lot of mockery. A female singer appears with a spider prop, and the hosts call her "the Russian Lady Gaga." One speaker jokingly claims the staging was his idea, saying he wanted "a little cultural appropriation along with some poisonous spiders." After someone points out that the spider is a black widow and that black widows eat their mates, the hosts riff a crude mock version of what the song is supposed to mean.

Then a fighter appears and the hosts aren't sure who it is. They agree it is not Fedor. One asks whether it is "the kickboxing gentleman who knocked out Badr Hari" and suggests Peter Graham. The person being asked answers that he "never watches kickboxing." The question comes up again, and the only answer is "I think it is," so the transcript never confirms who the fighter is.

The commentary on the staging continues with sarcastic praise of the "powerful violins" as a sign of class and sophistication. Someone also says they would like to know whether the singer can actually sing, and another asks to fast forward.

A sarcastic question about the track team leads to the news that "The Russian track team's banned from the Olympics," which one host waves off as "a little cheating here, a little cheating there." Another adds that officials say they will check other Russian sports as well.

This prompts one host to bring up a complaint from someone he describes only as "an Olympic dude," who had tweeted at him claiming he says steroids and EPO aren't dangerous. The transcript of this part is muddled. It doesn't make clear whether the host accepts or rejects that description of his view.

After another speaker tells him to dismiss the critic, the host gives a more careful position. He doesn't call the substances safe. He says danger depends on the dose:

All that stuff is dangerous if you use too much of it.

He adds that if you "redline" these substances they "could be dangerous," and widens the point by naming common substances he considers dangerous: sugar, and then ibuprofen.

Ibuprofen gets the most detailed discussion in this section. When someone guesses the problem is blood thinning, the host says "it's not even thinning your blood" and claims instead that it "causes all sorts of issues with your body." He describes it as a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory that "a lot of people take all the time."

His evidence is one person's experience. He names Cameron Haynes, whom he describes as "running the 100 miles right now." By his account, Haynes had been using ibuprofen because he was "sore all the time." Then Rhonda Patrick came on the podcast and talked about how dangerous it is, and Haynes stopped taking it.

The host gives a specific dose: "800 milligrams the morning" and 800 milligrams at night, which he calls "just too much." He says that "apparently," according to people who understand it, the drug affects gut bacteria "when you take too much of it if you abuse it." His account of what happened to Haynes is this chain of effects:

Raised blood pressure while Haynes was on the drug. Inflammation in his gut, which the host links to the overuse, and which he says was affecting Haynes's joints. After stopping, the pain he had been taking the drug for went away. The host says the pain had been caused "partially at least" by inflammation from the drug itself. Blood pressure dropped after stopping, while Haynes was "doing the same thing in every other way."

The evidence here has clear limits, and the host states some of them himself. The case is one person, told secondhand, and the gut-bacteria claim is attributed vaguely to people who understand it. The host also admits he doesn't understand the mechanism: "I don't understand blood pressure." He notes that Haynes was running so often that the situation "didn't make any sense," which suggests the training load was part of the picture. Every harm he lists is tied to heavy use or abuse, not to occasional use. The other speakers react with surprise ("That's crazy," "That's nuts") and don't push back.

Coming back to the broadcast, one speaker says the commentator for this event was reputedly "the funniest fucking guy ever," and another agrees that "everyone says he's the best." They would like to air his audio but expect the UFC would "pull our shit," because the fight is on Fight Pass and they would need permission.

Someone suggests asking Dana, who they say would probably agree, especially for Fight Pass content. The host decides against it: "I should have asked in advance," he says, and he doesn't want to bother Dana because "He's got a lot of planning to do."

The mention of Dana's planning leads into UFC 200. One host is amazed that the card is "still together" and that nothing catastrophic has happened yet, calling it "too goddamn good." Another tells him he has just jinxed it.

Even if two fall out, it's still the best card of all time.

Someone pushes the point further: "Even if four fall out, we're still good." The host's real argument is that the sport is so "wild" and "volatile" that it would be strange if no fights fell out at all. As a recent example, they cite Rumble pulling out of his fight against Glover.

Everyone agrees that "there's a certain amount of fights that just are not gonna happen" and that there is "literally nothing you can do" about it. The reasons they give are general ones: the sport is "too dangerous," "Training's too tough," and training is "too bad on the joints and in the neck." These describe the sport as a whole, not Rumble specifically. The section ends with the question of why Rumble pulled out this early still unanswered.

This part of the broadcast opens with Jamie pulling up the UFC 200 fight card, and the hosts read it aloud. The opening bouts named are Jim Miller versus Takanori Gomi and Diego Sanchez versus Joe Lozon (as the name is transcribed), followed by Musashi and Brunson. These are described as being "on fight pass, pre-cards."

Enrique Marin's bout against Sage Northcott sparks a short exchange. Neither speaker admits to knowing Marin. One of them predicts a lopsided fight, saying that "Sage Northcott's going to rip your face off with his abs" and that Marin's place on the card "ain't because your name's Enrique Marin." The other pushes back with "Oh, you never know, son," before conceding that "Sage Northcott's there for a reason."

Damn, that's the best fight pass card they've ever had.

The hosts agree that the preliminary lineup is exceptional, and one adds, "You'll never do better than that." Kat Zingana versus Juliana Pena gets an immediate "Holy shit" and a prediction that it will be "a wild fight."

Main card names read out: Cain Velasquez, Travis Brown, Jose Aldo, Frankie Edgar, Misha Tate, Amanda Nunes, Brock Lesnar, Mark Hunt, Daniel Cormier, John Jones (spellings as transcribed).

The reaction is pure hyperbole. They call it "a heart attack card" and joke that "By the time you get to the main event you're dead."

One participant offers a contrarian view, addressed to Joe. Despite all the talent, "Without Brock Lesnar and Mark Hunt, that card's not that big of a banger. Pay-per-view wise." By this measure it "doesn't beat a Conor card or a Ronda card." The argument is about commercial draw rather than the quality of the fights. The group accepts it and suggests it explains why the promotion "sent that bat signal and Brock Lesnar came in from WWE."