MMA analyst Luke Thomas has drawn a firm line in the sand regarding which athlete’s he’s willing to interview, and his criteria have everything to do with their association with controversial figure Andrew Tate.
During a recent episode of his show, Thomas explained his evolving approach to conducting interviews within the combat sports world. As the years have passed, he’s found himself crossing more names off his list of potential interview subjects based on their public associations and statements.
“This is truly part of the reason why I do fewer interviews,” Thomas explained. “As the years pass it’s like, oh this guy celebrated Andrew Tate and this guy showed up with a [ ] guy. You just cross them off the list. It just narrows. Nobody who can follow any of those people has anything interesting to say. Matter of factly. Like your judgment is so bad.”
Thomas’s stance stems from a deeper concern about how figures like Tate have influenced young men, particularly in combat sports. He argues that many male athletes fail to understand the scope of harassment that women face regularly, and that elevating Tate only makes the problem worse.
The analyst shared a personal story that shaped his perspective. A female Marine he knew never reported numerous incidents she endured throughout her service, despite the fact that doing so could have ended multiple careers.
“It blew my mind,” Thomas said. “I would have seen nothing. I had no clue.”
This realization led Thomas to become increasingly critical of fighters who publicly support Tate, someone he describes as “trying to make this problem decidedly worse.”
“In a sport that lionizes and celebrates the Andrew Tates of the world and like their proximity and you see athletes being like top G,” Thomas said. “The most innocent explanation, you guys don’t simply have any scale of the idea of like how much women encounter some version of violence in their life or harassment or some combination of the two. But now you are actually befriending and elevating and magnifying a guy who is trying to make this problem worse.”
