MMA Fighting - #456 – Israel Adesanya, Alexander Gustafsson

Episode Date: November 6, 2018

Luke Thomas speaks to Israel Adesanya in studio about his big win over Derek Brunson at UFC 230, his career development, possibly fighting for the title next, more (17:44); Alexander Gustafsson about his faceoff with Jon Jones at the UFC 232 presser, what he’s expecting from the rematch, more (1:05:01) Luke also looks at Adesanya's MMA technique development through his UFC career on the Monday Morning Analyst (1:17:55), and shares his thoughts and opinions on Floyd Mayweather's RIZIN bout with Tenshin Nasukawa on The Weigh-in (6:33) We also answer your questions on the latest in MMA on A Round of Tweets (1:43:36) and Sound Off (1:49:05). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Where's Caesar? There he is. Caesar's home, donkeys. What's up, everyone? My name is Luke Thomas. This is the MMA hour right here on MMAFighting.com. Thank you so much for joining me. Fun show we have to get to in studio. He's going to be right there in about 20 or so minutes. The last style bender, fresh off of his win.

at UFC 230. So of course, Israel Adasanya is his real name. Let's see. Beyond that, we're going to have a conversation with Alexander Gustafson, fresh off his pushing and shove in the event. UFC 232 presser on Friday here in New York City. That'll be a fun conversation. And by the way, I don't want to jinx it.

I'm not going to knock on a little wood here. I spent two grand. I'm not kidding. I don't even mind saying how much I spent. I spent two grand of my own money and all day yesterday to give you a brand new, well, not brand new, but massive. improved anyway. Monday morning analyst. We've got us sitting up right here, some new equipment. Here's what I'll say. The trial run at home worked. The trial run here worked. That doesn't

mean it's going to work in real time, but we've got about as close as we can, given the circumstances. So I am cautiously optimistic about that. Of course, we'll have the way in as well. You'll be my guest on the sound off. We'll do a round of tweets. It'll be a full and complete show. As always, you can send those tweets using the hashtag the MMA Hour. Appreciate everybody who did. You can call 844-866-2468. You can leave that number. And if you are international, which many of you are, apparently,

the MMA Hour at Vox Media is a great way to leave your calls as well. All right, not a moment to waste. We had a crazy pack show this time, a little bit streamlined this time, but I'm actually excited because now I don't have to race through the Monday morning analyst, so that should be kind of fun. Let's see. Let's go to my man. He is the a tequipa to my pan,

the aros to my frioles. He is Danny Sigura. There he is. Yo. How you doing, bud? I'm doing good. You? I am better.

I am better. I was so, let me do this on the air because I need to. Okay. I promised Danny we would hang out on Friday. And Danny, it turns out, lives in Turkmenistan, and took forever to get to Manhattan. So I did pay for a couple of drinks,

but I was like, oh, we'll hang out Sunday. Then Sunday came around, and your boy was so. old and so tired that I duffed on you. So I want to apologize on the air for being a flick. I am sorry. Kay Pena. Please forgive me, okay? No, no, don't worry. All good. But I did get the feeling. Don't worry when I think it was like, it wasn't even midnight. It wasn't even midnight on Friday. And you were already calling it a night. I was like, what is what's going on here? This is what happens when you're underslept in 39. So, I suppose. In any event, great fights over the weekend. Yes, very good Okay, outside of the main event, which was fairly routine, I guess, in the way we had anticipated it.

Your favorite performance, your favorite fight or something from the card? A lot to choose from, actually. Tons to choose from. I'm going to go just with the coming event, Chris Widman versus Jackery. I know that's kind of like an obvious pick, but I honestly think that's one of the best fights of 2018. Easy. That's one of the best fights I've seen, period, at least in the last three, four years. That was a fantastic fight, but like you go down the line and there was amazing fights. that a sanya's performance blew me away. I had a feeling he was going to win, and I had a feeling he was going to look good doing it,

but I didn't know he was going to look that good. Yeah. So that was super impressive. Shane Burgos, I mean, you just go down the list and those tons of impressive. That's Shane on Mariah's fight. Yeah, your fellow Colombian, Julio Arce. Julio Arce, man.

Tough is out. Dude, Jesus Christ. That dude was bathed in his own blood. And I was like, at what point he... Which was probably like 10% Aguardiente. I know. For the folks who doesn't, who didn't know, actually, Danny came on studio on set.

and just started to the dome taking the Iguer d'ante. Yeah, of course, that's how you got to start the show. Look at you in all high energy now? Why were we giving you coffee before? We should have been given you, paid in full, son. Should have been giving you some accordionte.

Yeah, that's what you got to do. Real quickly, a story broke last night and we just didn't have time given all the new changes. I was going to make today's Monday morning analyst given, I had no time, but given I had time, I would have made it about Tension Nasukawa.

Tension Nasukawa, if you don't know who he is, just a second. He's probably the most important combat sports prospect out of Japan since pride, maybe, something like that. I mean, we're talking about a massively important combat sports and cultural figure. He's fighting Floyd Mayweather and Risen. This news breaks yesterday. It didn't even seem real.

Like, if you had put together, Risen, Tension, Aesikawa in a word association game, you never would have come up with Floyd Mayweather. Just for a quick moment here, Danny, before we move on to the Baxter. beginning of the show here. Your quick thoughts on what on earth that is. So I went to sleep early, you know, because I'm being responsible, right? So I got to wake up early. So you can drink on the job, yes. Exactly, yeah. That's exactly right. And yeah, I woke up and I started seeing all these screenshots like, oh, Floyd May Weather, and it just looked Photoshop. I'm like, wait, this can't be real. I thought so, too. And then I actually looked at the video at the press conference and I couldn't

believe it. But you know what? I'm very skeptical about the matchup. I'm very skeptical about the details. No rules have been determined yet. Everything's still. still very foggy. I don't believe Floyd Mayweather's going to fight until I actually something, until I actually see something more concrete. I don't know. Everything's still very, very murky for me right now. All right. I got some thoughts on. I'm going to share him here in just a minute, but you want to talk about out of left field? Super out of left field. Whoa, I did not. Welcome to combat sports. The thing about it was with McGregor and Mayweather, there were like these drops and hints and drops. This was like

bombshell out of nowhere. Crazy, right? Yeah. All right. Very quickly, the tweets on the calls. How are they today? I heard the tweets were really good. So we got tons of tweets and tons of calls. Nothing very funny as the last episode. Very serious stuff. Tons of people asking about Arasagna. I feel like more questions came from him than from the actual

main event of UFC 230. So, you know, there's that. But man, we got tons of questions. And, you know, we only have two guests today, so we'll probably get to a lot of them. So that's good. Would I had another one, but there are these mysterious forces interfering with the show. I can't put my finger on what's happening exactly, but it's just so

funny, isn't it? Weird. All right. Strange, yeah. I dropped that little bomb on you. All right, let's do this. So I'll check back with you later. I appreciate it. Let's do this now.

It is time, ladies and gentlemen, for the way in. All right, time now for the way in here on the mixed martial arts hour on MMA fighting. It is about Floyd Mayweather and tension Nessikawa. I had a whole other thing planned to do on this segment. And then I thought to myself, well, that makes no sense anymore. What are people talking about? What is all the rage? it's this Floyd Mayweather story.

There's a lot of different ways to look at this one if you wanted to. You could make it about any different facet. I actually think that this story cuts through so many different parts of MMA that it, focusing on merely one aspect of it, really misses the forest for the trees. But let's talk about some of those individual aspects. First of all, is Floyd broke again? I don't know.

I don't know what the issue was with Floyd. But he might be broke again. Maybe he's realized that he's not broke, but the real trick to him making money now is to fight somebody over the hill like Paciow. Get a tune up fight versus tension Nassikawa. And in a boxing rules exhibition bout or something, you know, three, three minute rounds or six three minute rounds or something like that, get paid handsomely for it and then move on to the next big payday. That could be an opportunity. in any event, real quickly. So that's one way to look at it.

Another way to look at it is like, what about Risen? You know, Risen is this interesting force as well. Where are they getting the money from? I looked at this and I was like, where are they even going to pay for something like this? Like, how does that even, how does that even work? I heard that they were apparently going to use some of the money from the purchase of the Pride DVD to splitting the pay-per-view

costs, like all different kinds of, all different kinds of ways. So, um, there's a lot of different things about this that you're just trying to individually figure out like, why are they doing this? You get why Risen would be doing it, right? They get Floyd made with this global combat superstore. Oh my God, they can blow it up. You look at, uh, something like, I don't know, Floyd, maybe he's broke again. I don't know. I'm actually going to say it's something a little little bit different. Yes, those individual pieces might make sense for Floyd, for Risen, whatever. Is there an upside to this? Dean Thomas. Thomas was tweeting earlier that this is good for MMA because finally people are going to realize that there's an MMA organization or MMA life outside of the UFC.

Maybe that's true. I don't know that that's wrong, but that's certainly a nice positive spin on it. Some of our colleagues here at MMA fighting were very, very skeptical that this would even be an MMA fight or any kind of fight that matters at all. I actually think that there's no way they'll do it. Floyd has always just been who he's been. Floyd has just kind of always been a guy who's risk averse. He's just always been the kind of guy who's going to make sure, not always risk reverse, but certainly the last chapter of his career of risk of verse, moving through to get the smartest challenge.

He realized in beating McGregor that there's a lot of money to be made while taking on a challenge that realistically is not that difficult. Titchen Nassikawa is incredible at what he does. Boxing isn't necessarily that, although like McGregor, probably reasonably adept at it. But the point being is he's got a huge name. he's willing to take on Floyd for this big opportunity under a hamstrung rule set that will enable him to A, if he loses, write it off, B, make money in the interim.

So it's a lot of the same mechanics of what happened with McGregor. McGregor might be the biggest global superstar, certainly North American pay-review store on the MMA side of things. But Tenshinxawa is the big to do in the east, at least on the come-up. So he gets, it's a lot of the same mechanics, but I actually think it's something a little bit different than that. actually. When you really begin to drill down and begin to examine it, where is this, where is this appetite coming from for just this weirdness? I get what Floyd wants. I get what, I get what Risen wants. I get what Takata wants and Sakakibara and I get what all these, or Sakikabara, yes, well, all these guys want. What I'm wondering is why, why are things like this happening

routinely, this weirdness. Over the weekend, you had Jake Paul calling out Dylan Dennis. And I know Dylan Dennis is like one of these figures where he rubs a lot of people the wrong way. You know, Dylan Dennis would beat Jake Paul within an inch of his dumb life in a nanosecond. It would not be close. And then, of course, he comes out and says, well, it's about boxing. Right. Why don't you keep calling out more jujitsu guys about their boxing? Everyone's looking for these really weird hamstrung star power matchups across a variety of combat sports platforms. It is because not merely are tastes changing, but tastes are being developed as a consequence, I believe, of kind of this static nature that MMA has been the last few years.

This new thing you're seeing is a bit of a reaction to that. That is the connection here in my mind. There's always been an appetite inside combat sports for spectacle. For crying out loud, I believe the most watched combat sports event ever, certainly in Japan, was horrible. Hoise Gracie versus Yokosuna, right? And it was something like 54 million people who watched just inside Japan alone. This is hardly new territory for them.

It's not that. It's that when you look at what the Logan Pauls and the Jake Pauls are doing, and then this Mayweather and McGregor, and now this Mayweather Nasukawa and Champchamps and all these different weird kind of permutations, these walls coming down over and over, these people trying to connect dots that ordinarily were always siphoned off. People are trying to make new pairings, new matchups, new creations, new iterations.

A lot of them not that great. Some of them actually pretty good. The Champchamp era, I think, is for the most part fine. But I'm just pointing out this. MMA and combat sports are naturally cyclical. People always get on the MMA media. Why are you guys paying so much attention to ratings? Why are you paying so much attention to gates and pay-per-view sales?

It is because this sport and these kinds of sports are much more boom and bust than your standard sticking ball sports. There are always these boom periods followed by these crashes. The UFC has done a pretty good job of finding a way to insulate its revenue from the worst of those impulses. But the reality is that has always how it's happened. There's been some kind of event that always propelled combat sports forward, including the 20th century, and then what drug it back down, what brought it back up, would drug it back down. They know that. and I believe we're in part of this shift.

Now, I don't know exactly boom bust for the most part. You can make a larger read about that. What I'm saying is a taste shift. There's been a lot of content that has been just pouring out of promotions on North American TV. Much of it good. I'm not even really complaining about that. But it has clearly reached a point where it has become, I think, too many, including me in some capacity, a bit of banquet food.

People are looking to now play with their food. Yes, Mayweather's an opportunity. Yes, Ryzen's trying to make some noise. Fine. All of those factors are true. And this is part of a long dedicated tradition, perhaps, in Japan, of accommodating these kinds of events. But I don't think you can just look at that and say,

well, this is just them being them. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. Floyd is following up on something he started. That thing he started is a function of Connor doing what he was doing, which is a function of some of his frustrations with a promotion, which is a function of the ordinariness of things. this is a next move, not that this is a wave that everyone can follow, you can't replicate what Floyd does at scale, but it is a reflection in my mind of changing tastes. It's a reflection in my mind of, let's do things different. Let's trade a Ben Ascran for Demetrius Johnson. It's Demetrius Johnson wanting a new rule set. It's Ben Ascran wanting a new set of challenges. It's breaking down these old barriers that kept everything siloed, everything siphoned off, everything right in the pocket that they needed to.

be. All of those pockets are now going away. All of those walls are beginning to break down. Maybe it's the opportunists who are leading that charge. Maybe it's the opportunists who are taking the most advantage of it, which can change how the picture looks a little bit. But I doubt this is the last that Floyd tries of this. And I doubt it's the last that a megastar, at least one who has the contractual flexibility anyway, tries of this. There's more of this. There's more of this. coming. And if Zufa gets into the boxing business and then those squabbles begin, you're going to see those go back and forth. I guarantee it. The public has an appetite for indulging their own curiosities. The public has an appetite, not even for indulging a curiosity, did anyone ever put

Mayweather and Tension Nessakaawa together? No, not really. But Mayweather trying new things and what would it be like if a boxer went after a kickboxer but had these rules? These are all questions kind of answered before, they're just coming back full circle again. It's that cycle I'm talking about. There's the boom and the bust of the economic cycle and then the creativity cycle that comes around and around and around again. This is where we are with MMA. This is where the audience has been pushed. This is where the audience, I think, wants to go, at least in some small part. So promoters should take heed. It's not that you need to follow that model. It's not that you need to indulge that at all times, but understand where that appetite might be coming from. Star power, yes. Japanese

history, because this is not the new thing, potentially. Somebody craven like Floyd dying to make money, of course. But more than that, more than that. It's a reflection of shifting attitudes and appetites inside the space. And I think promoters should respond. We've had a locked in rule set. We've had a locked in style of promotion. We've had a locked in style of production. Some change is needed. Some updating is needed. More than a fresh coat of paint is due here. Otherwise, that curiosity will be satisfied in the most bizarre, ridiculous of fashions, which is what that's going to be. And by the way, that's going to be a boxing fight. And that's going to be a boxing fight for like three rounds and or whatever, three minute rounds. It's going to be very much

on Floyd. You think Floyd's going to kick box tension, Nassikawa? Please, you. You know, Y'all, there's no chance that happens. Not the point. The point is there's an appetite that's driving that kind of thing. And it's coming from a bit of the, it's coming from, how do I say this exactly, a bit of the, of the repeated ordinariness of current MMA. So either fix it to address that or let that kind of thing live. All right. Let's do this.

Do we have our guests? Are they here yet? Someone tell me in the back. All right, let's bring him in now. You want to talk about a ridiculous win. My God, I couldn't believe it. The last stylebender in studio, look at that. With the Tim's on, no less.

There he is. How are you? Gravy, baby. They got you all miced up. How are you feeling? Mickey. Yeah, I'm gravy. Well, first of all, thank you for coming in the studio.

Yeah, I really appreciate it. Let me just. It's nice, right? Yeah, I've seen this so many times. That was me at boot camp. How about that? What? Yeah, bro.

Okay. 20 years ago. Straight up. I like that. You know what? We've got to get a picture of you up here. In fact. In time, in time.

In time. How was your Saturday night, by the way? Easy. We just went to a little Irish bar around the hotel. And, yeah, my whole, my family that came from New Zealand and Australia were there. Yeah. Family and friends. So we just had a few.

Your family travels for this? Just my siblings. My parents are watching at home. Okay. My siblings, all of us just kind of had a little reunion. And because we're in different parts of the world and different parts of the country. So, yeah, we just had a little reunion. and just congregated, celebrated my win with a few friends and my team.

And yeah, it was good. It was just like a little turn-up, nothing crazy. And I just went back to my hotel and, yeah, plotted. How many siblings do you have? I'm the guinea pig, and there's four others after me. Ooh, geez. I know. Are any of them twins or anything?

No, no, no. I'm going to have twins. My mom's a twin, so I know it's kept a generation, so that's coming. My dad was first, and then my grandmother had half. him and then two sets of twins after him. Oh, okay. That's kind of wild, right? Yeah, definitely. Now, where are your siblings at? You're in New Zealand. Are someone there too? Yeah, most of them in New Zealand within Australia as well, but just different parts of New Zealand.

Okay. Oh, the oceanic region. Yeah, exactly. We're out of year. That's a long flight to watch their brother work. They just moved to New York from L.A. as well, from Yorba Linda, so they came to watch as well, which is cool, kind of reconnect with them. So what did they tell you? Just, I mean, I don't know, people keep showing up. How do you know Style Bender? How do you know him? I was my cousin.

They're like, what? Like, you know, but, you know, it's just fam. Did they go to MSG? Yeah, they watched the fight. Now, how many times have they watched you compete? I think they started watching me since the start of the year. Hasn't really been long. So, yeah, they've been watching me work.

And physically, too, it looks like you were not in any kind of conflict at all. Did you take, what, one? I saw one left hand that landed pretty nice for him. That was at the end of the fight, but he had his feet parallel, so he had no power on it. And by that time, that was when I sat there, and I said I wanted to throw some power shots. And then he threw it, and I was like, ooh, he was already on wobbly legs anyway.

He was chicken dancing. So, and I saw, okay, here comes the next one. And then I just, boom, pick them apart. All right, let's talk about some of the pieces of that fight because I was blown away by it. I'm actually, I do a little bit of a breakdown of coaches film. I'm going to do it on your takedown defense. I went back and I watched all of you.

After you leave. After you leave. But I'll send you, I'm not, I'm not, I don't be hating. I know, do your work. I will send you. to you later or if you want to see it. But I went back and I watched all of your fights and went back and watched the evolution of your takedown defense. Some homework.

Holy shit, man. Your takedown defense has gotten it was always pretty good. Because sometimes you remember a fight in your mind and then you have to go back and you watch it. It's like, ah, it's a little bit better than I thought it was. Definitely the first one was much better than I thought it was. 100%. But it's gotten way, way, way better. Yeah. What has been the key

to the rapid development? Is it those steady camps? Andre Paulette, my wrestling coach. People sleep on them. You know, they don't really know who he is. I'll be honest, I don't know who he is. Exactly. Like he's he's a guy who's he's a Romanian guy who lives in New Zealand and a lot of people might just you know just because he's not a big name or he's not like a NCAA Division I whatever but he competed worldwide in the wrestling championships and the I think Commonwealth Games might have been

on his way to the Olympics as well but he fights I think 135 he fights as well so that's the big difference because no matter what you can be a wrestling coach you know from high school or whatever or college but if you haven't fought you don't really know what wrestling for fighting is and he kept on saying like brunson kept on saying you know uh because i go back and watch the interviews of all my opponents because after the fight what they were saying before the oh really that's interesting he heady so i go back and watch it and just like let me see like what he had to say so i remember on the aerial one he was laughing at my prediction and i said it was round one if his chin doesn't hold up it's going to be round two and instantly so i mean

Yeah, he said all my wrestling, you know, all this shit he's been saying since my second fight in the UFC in Arizona. Remember, he tweeted like all ground games from trash. I think he called you what, last pretender or style pretenders or something like that? Last gender bender. Hey, I'm comfortable with my sexuality. I can fluid. I'm gender fluid. But like, yeah, it's just, I mean, it's the same shit they all say.

So I watched his interview. You can see he's just not even believing anything he's saying. He's just saying things like the same old rhetoric. same old he's all hype and even like when we had us saying hype is over he said it like as I was leaving I was like chute chute they said it's all hype but they don't realize

there's a whole fucking train behind it and it's running people over man he said hype is real hype is over like at the media day face off yeah and then he's like hype is over and I was like all right cool whatever because I remember when I was looking in his eyes

stiff and then he started doing this and I was like why are you shaking what are you shaking I was like, I'm not shaggy, I'm cool. And then I kind of thought some someone was going to pop off. Even in the fight, after he pulled my shorts twice, I remember he panicked. He threw a shitty-ass psychic to my leg, and I miss, and I was like, why are you panicking? Because that's panic strikes, you know?

And that's one thing I didn't really like as well. I watched the fighting, and I broke it down. I watched that bit over and over again, because the first thing he does when he shot, it was so slow. He got to my leg, pulled my short. I put it on Twitter. He pulled my shorts blatantly, and I thought, I heard, did he see it? He can catch that? All right, whatever.

The second time, he kept me on the cage by pulling my shorts. And you see, I'm so glad I always, I like to wear in the spandex, you know, chick's hamper you only one's showing that ass, you know what I'm saying? Got to flex that. And then he pulled it and he almost ripped my fucking shorts off. Yeah, there was like a full six eight inches on the camera you could see. Yeah, I know, right? He tried to like, yeah.

And then I remember he looked at her, but it was only one time in this look on his face like, what did I do? But that's just shows like he was already fucked from the get-go. He already knew, oh, fuck, this is my only hope. This is all I have. And I really wanted to get to the second round so I can look in his eyes after the first. And they have all that same look like, oh, shit. It's going to be a long night.

Did he physically feel like you thought it would feel? It's weak. Weakest piss, honestly. And you're too skinny, bro. You too skinny, bro. You need to live some weights. I'm like, dude, you're just fat. And also, this ain't CrossFit.

What am I going to do, fucking bench press you? I'm body dudes. And when he felt me, he knows I'm strong. He knows I'm strong now, and it's not about hitting hard. It's not about who can hit. I can hit hard. Trust me, those shots that I landed, I was just going at like literally 40%. The knee was the one that hurt him, and that I threw that probably like 90%.

Or maybe I almost go. You know when you accelerate, you almost get to 100%, but he kind of closed it with his stupidity, with his force. So he hurt himself. He played himself on that one. And then the rest of it was just ping, pink, pink. A couple things you do that I want to go over real quickly. There's one thing you do where a lot of guys will, you saw,

Jacques Jocqueray do it. Chagre would stand in front of Wyman and he'd have trunk movement and head movement to varying degrees of success. I like that too. You do a little bit of that, but you also do the bit where you have guys, for some reason, they charge you more

and you will slip under and then they go by you. You reset the angle. Right. So you've already reset and you can go from either way, and now they have to come back around. Exactly.

And while they're doing that, you attack them. Right. And keep turning. Well, you know, this is his levels, man. This is like, my coach said something

on one of the countdowns on the engage. on the engage page. That's one of the, like, my guy, they followed me around for the buildup for the fight. I always kind of knew this already because I've been doing it, but my coach, he's the one that put it

and he instilled it in me, Eugene Barerman, that's my head coach. But he said, you know, the wrestling begins way before we even get in the clinch, way before they even engage. What does that mean exactly? Footwork, you know. A lot of these guys, man,

they suck at footwork in the MMA at the highest level. A lot of these guys are taking punishment when they don't have to. A lot of these guys are like, they're fucking themselves over in the long run. Let me ask two questions about that. How hard is footwork to learn at Caesar?

I love guerrillas, man. Ape shall never kill ape. You understand? Apes together strong. Dude. I'm like obsessed with guerrilla imagery. He's going to get tattooed on me at some point. Yeah?

Definitely. Yeah, I just haven't figured out when or where yet, but there's going to be a whole gang of them. I love it. Yeah. Shout to Plastic Shell as well. They're cool. Yeah. I'll talk about your tattoos in a minute.

But the footwork. Is footwork hard to learn because it's hard to learn? or is footwork hard to learn because fighters are resistant or people don't know how to teach it? Why is it that some guys just have it in spades and some guys just kind to have it? It's a mixture of all that stuff, you know.

It's a knowledge of it and also the lack of knowledge or thereof. And also, if you have it, you have it, but it can be learned, you know? Was it Miyamoto Musashi that said, never give a man a sword who can't dance? Something like that. It's quite like that, you know.

And I can dance. That's one of my things I used to do back in the day. So that comes easy to me. And so it's always being part of my arsenal. And a lot of guys underestimate the power of footwork. You know, you can really control the pace, the distance, the rhythm of a fight. And you don't really know until you're actually in there. And yeah, so they think they can attack me.

Oh, it's safe now. It's safe now. But realize it's already a trap. He kept on the same as well. Oh, he's got all these holes in this game. These holes are not holes. They're traps. Once you get in them, you're fucked.

You're in a genjutsu. And you don't even realize it to you're deepening. like oh shit what am I in for so they think it's just holes but um yeah it can be taught you just have to find the right uh it's the internet is out there is you can tap into different sources of knowledge and there's so much bullshit as well do you do you use like um like youtube at all to pick up on stuff definitely there's a lot of guys I uh I plug and I talk to like sometimes and I even it was one of them I think I don't want to I don't want to blow up a spot but he said like he got random messages leading up to this camp like on the same week three different

people, three different accounts on Instagram saying, oh, yo, can you do us a breakdown on Stylebender? And he's a fan, so he kind of declined. And I said, no, I don't do that. Give it to them. Like, I can give them the blueprint and I'll still fuck him up. You understand? So I was like, I wanted them to make some money. So do that. But that also forces me. I knew this day was coming. I always knew like when these guys start to break my work down, I'm going to have to, it's inevitable. It's exactly. And it forces me to adapt. You understand? So I have to keep changing my game. And I love that. This is cat and mouse. And I'm ahead of the game. Couple of things. When he got double underhooks early against the fence, there was one part, I think, at the post-fire presser, you were saying, oh, you let him do it. Was it that one or was it was a different one?

It was late before I fucked him up, before I knocked him out. So he had double underhooks. And he was literally, he was just, he was fighting to survive. He wasn't trying to win. He was just. He didn't level change. Like, I went back and watched the Vitori fight. Everything my coach, Andre said he was going to do. He did every single thing. Even before we leave from the hotel, like me and Andre kind of go over some things in the, in the hotel in our room. And he just. It lets me know, it reminds me like this. And even though initially on the fence, same thing. We like it. He's going to rush, rush, rush, get the double underhook. So, you know, the over under.

And then on the left side, that's his power side, he's going to let it go and find the wrist control. And I was trying to get risk control. I couldn't get it. I couldn't get it. I saw you. You were trying to find bicep too, right? Then I heard Andre.

He calls an audible. I'm very coachable. I listen. I have these ears. They're big for a reason. So he said, fuck the wrist. Bicep. I was like okay cool and have biceum control even he threw like a shot of two in the in the clinch didn't do shit

And I got the bicep and then I was able to turn him and then got off but the one I was talking about was later on when He had a double unders and I turned him. I just felt I don't want my back to the center of the of the octagon so I just let him turn me back I turned him back but it looked like he turned me back and eventually I broke the grip and then that's when he kind of tried to level change and I Especially when I escape from this side either is gonna throw his left hand and If he doesn't have that, he'll shoot the takedown this way and try to take you down. Excuse me? I'm trying to bite off some dead skin.

There's some chapsic. Are you? Is this what they call ashy? Yeah, I know. My lips are a little bit ashy right now. It's a little bit of ashy right now. But, yeah, he tried to shoot, and I just stuffed his head, got off, and he kept on running again. Yep.

And that's when I just felt, ooh, okay, boom. I didn't even notice this, but my coach said, good work. I like it when it does that because he rarely gives compliments but he said good work because when I landed that knee first thing I did on the hooks

on his left side he got your hips back exactly and then he was all fucked he was dazed and I was like ooh pop pop knee boom

and he hit the ground did you know when you landed the knee that it was a wrap done and I saw him get back up and smile I was like uh huh

because earlier on I set up my question mark kick on my left side too early yes that would have knocked him that would have slept them because I've done it many times that would have slept them

but I set it up too early hit his shoulder and he went I was like, oh, okay. Then I kind of, then this time when he was fucked up and he was smiling at me, I was all right, cool. I switched back to orthodox. There's something called a four by two.

You thought of, here's the blueprint, guys, take it. So I hit him with the right kick, and I threw the right hand. But the thing is, I didn't even realize I did it. I questioned mark kicked him, and then I whipped it. So let me ask about that, because I went back and I watched that. The question mark kick, he had this,

he thought it was coming to his ribs, so he leaned into it, and the foot of yours, wrapped, right? Around the back of his head. So then he was trying to recover it because I think he saw the hand coming. He pulls the hand up while the foot went around the head. The, his hand went in front of, your hand went in front of the glove. Yeah. So he went to block another shot, but he was, he actually pulled, he actually didn't block in either case even trying to block. Was that intentional? Muscle memory. That's just what we've been drilling like over, over how many

years. It's just, it's, when I say muscle memory, muscle memory, it's a memory. It's coffee. Yeah, it's a memory. So it's something like I don't even have to think about it. My muscle's already doing it before my conscious brain. My frontal cortex is already aware of it. So as soon as I was as I went, as long as the land, I was like, oh, okay, then I framed. And then just pick my shots. I don't throw in hope.

I aim and fire. That's what I do. There's no point. And I was just hitting them at like 40%. These are just baby shots. And people are like, oh, well, when I hit guys, they fall. I can starch guys, trust me. If I wanted to, I could have thrown the kitchen sink at him and the fridge.

But what's the point in that? He's already fucked. Just pick your shots. Now, the post-fight celebration, there's a name for this you did? The hands were crossed over? At least there's a picture about it. Okay, that's a shaku-shaku. It's a trendy dance right now in Nigeria.

Shout to all my Nigerian people out there. It's a training dance in Nigeria right now. And, you know, everyone's fucking with the culture. We're Afro beat with guys like Davido, Wiz Kid, you know. Who else? like Burn a boy, like a lot of Nigerian artists, they're making the big out here. So they're with the culture,

and everyone's trying to jump on that bandwagon. So I'm original. I'm not a mutt. I'm a pure blood, pure bread, you know? So I just show love to my people, because last time I spoke in my native tongue, and I was blowing up over there. So this time I'm just showing them like,

you know, I'm still with the culture. I still got it and let them know. And then after that hit the Guadagada, and that's from South Africa. That's a little dance trend. as well. And then I just galloped up and just showing love, you know, I was crumping, do my own, you know, do my own thing. That's crazy.

A couple of things I want to get back to the Jacquiry 5, but let me follow up on this. How did your folks get from Nigeria to New Zealand? Okay, long story short, we were going to move to America in 2001, and then unfortunately 9-11 happened, and then it looked like America was on the brink of war, some shit was going to go down. Tell me about it. Yeah, I know, right? And then,

I don't know, I was just like, my dad was moving to New Zealand. I was like, where is that? Is that a new country? because I was really naive and went there. I think it's just for better education. They wanted us to have more recognized tessiary education because you see a lot of guys like cab drivers. You know, if 4 a.m. you're drunk. You know, the taxi, start talking to the guy.

They're like, you find out like, oh, he's an Indian guy from, you know, India, of course. And he used to be a maybe medical doctor moved to the States or wherever when he was 32. But his degree is not recognized in the Western world. So now he has to do med school all over again. And you don't want to have to do that shit for another how many years. So just get a cool job that can provide for your family because maybe the lifestyle over there wasn't what you wanted. And they just, I mean, there's no shame in that.

You have to do what you do. You have to provide for your family. So yeah, it's just they wanted us to have better recognized tertiary education. So that's why we moved over to the Western world. Do you ever like think about, I mean, somebody like you has a lot of ability, right? Maybe it would have been a success no matter what. But have you thought about to what extent? that choice versus the other one has impacted your your course in life?

Well, we'll put it this way. If I tell my dad today, I want to go back to school, he'll freak out. He'll be like, why? What's the problem? You all right? Like, I'm glad they didn't let me. I mean, I'm glad they, because your parents and people close to you, whenever you want to do something,

when you want to follow a dream, they'll try and stop you. And it's not out of their hating. It's just protection. They want to try and preserve you. Like, what if he fails? and from the culture we're from, they don't want to, you know, they want to protect you. They don't want to see you get hurt. But I knew what I was going to do from day.

I always knew I was going to be the best. So I just had to prove it to the rest. And yeah, now they're on board. I got my degree in asswhip, and I'm trying to get my master's degree. I think I actually read this yesterday. I might have this wrong, but I believe of all immigrant populations here from anywhere. So China, Nigeria. Nigeria.

It has the most advanced degrees of any population in the United States. When I went to, when I first moved to New York, New Zealand, right? I had to do a, so I lived in Ghana for about a year as well. What was that like? It's cool. Same thing. Like Nigeria as well. So I was first in, I don't know what your system's like.

You have like grades. Yeah. High school is nine to 12. Nine to 12. Well, anyway, I did like this. I repeated this class three times in three different countries in Nigeria and Ghana and in New Zealand. So I did form one three times. And then when I was finally in New Zealand form one, we were doing shit when I was doing probably when I was six years old.

So when I was in class in form one in New Zealand, I remember one of my first things. days we did like times table and I finished my test like literally within like two minutes and then I was like finish miss and everyone was like oh my god he's a fucking prodigies he's a genius but I'm like nigger I was trying to find X back home like this is baby shit I know the song to this this is nothing I do so I'm not the most book smart kid or whatever I learned different I was never good at school but they all thought like oh he's a prodigy but the thing is the curriculum back home was way hard way harder than ever is in New Zealand or even in America. Like the thing is you guys have the the opportunities, you know what I mean?

Like it's very corrupt back home so a lot of people don't really get the opportunities that I have. I'm fortunate enough that my dad was well off, my family was well off, so we're able to go to private schools and stuff like that. But yeah, it's a lot easier to, so you see like, you know, a lot of Chinese as well, Koreans like, you know, they excel over here. Like a lot of Nigerians excel over here because we work hard, we're smart. But I'm just, like I said, I'm the run to my people physically and mentally. Like, I had to work to where I'm at. Like, I was not an athlete in school. They called me butterfingers because I couldn't catch a ball for shit, you know, in high school.

That's funny. I know. I didn't owe my blackness enough. If not, I would have played basketball. I could dunk now, but I had no, I still have no handles. Let's talk about that for just a second. You have the Africa tattoo right here. Yeah.

What is the one here? Broken Native. Yeah. Let's start with the one of the chest and because you grew up in New Zealand. I don't know how much of New Zealand is. black. How much of it is black? Not much. Okay, right? So it must have been like... They've got their own indigenous people of the like the Modi tribe. Yeah. They've got the Pakeha tribe. But that's not the same as African African. No, no, no. They're

there, that's their own people, the Modi. So when did you decide I'm gonna be, I'm just gonna be black? I'm just gonna be, that's just who I am. Uh, later, because literally there was, there was a point through high school. I used to try and sound like them. I used to try and be like them and talk like them, just so I can fit in. I tried so many times to fit in, but I could never, ever fit in. I was always like outcast. At the end of the day, I'm looking my skin. I'm all black. And Ironically, that's the country's national rugby team's name All Black. I love the All Blacks. Yeah, but I mean, I was never able to fit in properly and be accepted when I was a kid.

So at some point, maybe around like 22, 23, I decided. Wow, that late. Yeah, but like, you know, it took a while as well. Maybe 19, I'd say I started to try and just, you know, just like a video game character, customize myself. I'm player one. I keep saying I am player one in this. Every bots, everyone else in this is bots, you know, no disrespect.

But it just feels like, I'm sure from your perspective as well, but from my first person view in my head I'm player one and I'm looking at everything like shit am I really like who's playing this who's really cannot we we're in the matrix right now someone's just like making all this shit happens because everything I can go into details like everything

I was trying to plan for this trip I've got done and more and way more even it goes deep man like even like this morning I was like you know Charlamagne the God of course breakfast club of the morning DJ Envi come on I was talking to him like kind of having a little ban to on him

Instagram because he shared some of my stuff and I was talking about this book which I just finished reading and I had a lot of um so black empowerment something like that no no that was black privilege his new book it's called shook one anxiety poetry I know that one yeah it's he just came out you know um and I fuck with the dude and uh Andrew Schultz uh he's uh co-host on a brilliant idiots I fuck with them a lot and yeah we have we just had a little banter and whatnot shout to Charlemagne the god and Andrew Schultz yeah I mean they're cool so I'm gonna do um uh the flagrant tour podcast as well later on today so that would be cool I'm doing a little media tour, but yeah, so a lot of shit.

Even a little DeValle, the guy came out to his track, you know, smiled. Yeah. He shared my shit. And I just, I kind of whipped up a little highlight real quick of me walking out. So this is the point now where you've arrived to this, whatever got you to begin to be yourself. I'm playing this game. I'm customizing everything. It has evolved into something where you're like so much uniquely your own.

No one could possibly, not that anyone would necessarily, but they try. They try to say, oh, you copy this is a copy this, but to me, it's like, I look at you and we all kind of copy each other as humans. we naturally To borrow the word To aid one another But dude You have you have carved out A very unique identity

In this game And I think people are starting To become aware of it Same energy And if you see a lot of guys In this game They come out They start

And they try and be You know media darlings Or say the Say the right things To be sponsored I'm like look If you don't fuck with me You don't have to

And people try and tell Like even I have the show With Dan Hooker right The Frany Me's show It's not a podcast I love that I asked you by last time You were on

But like every single time they try and like oh i'm every single show can we try and keep swearing down a little bit and i just yeah cool and i still do me i don't care i don't give a fuck because it's at the end of day it's just me expressing myself like classic example i used as a black beast he doubled up his followers or something crazy just by my balls are hot and just being his unique self i'm like don't try and put me in your fucking little box i am not in a box i don't think like there's a box i don't think outside a box there is no box i'm going to do me at the end of the day it's language like oh what about the kids. Kids know what the fuck I'm talking about. I've been swearing since I was a fucking

kid. It's just like I'm not trying to hurt anyone. So I'm not trying to be malicious. I'm just being me. I'm just trying to be free. If you can't handle that and not everyone's going to like you at the end of the day. You can't please everyone. So if they fuck with me, I do me. If they don't see ya, I'm living my best life. What did UFC say to you after your win? They love everything. Everything. I can't talk into detail about some things. General sense of things. Oh, they, it was a tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. You know, even after the press conference, I mean, I was trying to organize my flight back home. I was like, you know, I'm going to skip my flight on Sunday.

I'm just going to stick around and do all this shit. And then I talked to Dana just recently and I was like, all right, cool, whatever. And I said, oh, Dana, can they bump me up? He's like, yeah, done. Cool. To first? Yeah, on the way, all the way back. Oh, that's such a difference.

I've done it a few times. Last time I got to McMainter. Shout to McMainter. I got him to do it as well. But it just, my legs, I don't have. have to get up like three times. I'm the same height as you, bro. I get it. Trust me. If I'm sitting like this for how many and then sometimes I get it. How long is the flight? 11 and a half hours. So imagine that like, and that's on the way here to fight. Then it's just

like you cramped and I have to get up like three or four times during the flight sometimes if I don't sleep the whole way. And if I sleep the whole way like that and I'm like on my seatbelts hold of you. You know all that kind of shit. It fucks with my leg, fucks with my blood flow. And I feel like, but on first class I make a bed and I have a TV right there. I can ding the bell. get what I want and just relax and just chill and my legs are stretched out and it's just I'm the merchandise I'm now you know you got to look after the merch understand I understand I'm like a racehorse in this understand I know I know what I'm doing here but you got to look after the racehorse so I can perform better I'm less stressed I'm free I don't just be me you know bro I tell this I mean I don't get

the first class treatment but I straight up tell them I'm not riding coach like I'll ride economy plus yeah or even if I can try and get there early as I can get like the exit row or the front of the cabin so I can just get a little stretch that's fine but then the yeah but then the exit rows don't recline sometimes. It's a goddamn nightmare. I know, right. And it's just, first of all, struggles. Oh, my God.

By the way, I didn't ask you this, because of the same one will be the, I know, we're complaining. My seat's not big enough. I know, right? That's why I love going back home. So I got to go back home next year, just like, because it always humbles me

when I go back home. And I, because Nigeria, you either fucking stupid rich, like literally they're stupid rich, or you just like, not dirt, broke, but poor. There's no middle class. There's no,

and there's not a lot of social mobility, as I understand either. How much fit? everywhere. Like my granddad on my dad's side had two wives And on my mom's side had three wives You know, say there was a... What?

Yeah, it was regular shit. So, yeah, they were... So when I went back last month... Wait, is polygamy legal? I don't know if it's legal, but it's, they're old school. It's not criminally... I don't think so. What are they gonna do?

Oh, you can't... You go to jail for that shit here. Why? That's stupid. Look, man, I'm not making the rules. I know, I'm just saying, like, if you look at it, there's a lot of things that don't make sense in this world and I'm like, when I look back at it, I'm like, really?

like even something as simple as the unified rules of MMA 12 to 6 elbows They just need a group chat to be like Okay all in favor I aye aye aye I done Okay no okay who we win Cool change the rules But somehow it seems like it's gonna be this fucking big

Whoha and whoopla like we have to fucking Contact the guards I'll tell you exactly what the problem is Do the rain dance to see what's gonna happen I'll say exactly what the problem is People won But the problem is what they basically did was So in America the biggest sports the end of

NFL, right? NFL, if they don't like a rule, they wait until the season's over and they say, you know what, fuck this rule. Let's make the goalpost. Is that the same with the celebration as well? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Celebrations just changed. Hold on a second. It came back. No, no, they, they dialed it back, but you can't, like, I don't know if you saw yesterday got from the New Orleans Saints had pulled out a cell phone, they had hid under the goal post. Nice. Which is kind of funny. But the basic difference is, we went to the government and we said, you control these. So to get anything changed, and it's not federally regulated. We have 50 states. You're going to have to go state by state by state by state.

Get a group chat. Get a group chat. Literally just. Get on WhatsApp. Exactly. Figure the time. Poll. Facebook poll.

Instagram poll. All in favor. I. Nay. Cool. We win. Change the fucking rule. It's stupid.

Dude, that's crazy. You're going to be doing, are you doing, you're doing Charlotte Mains podcast? No, well, he and Andrew Schultz have one called The Brilliant Idiots.

I've watched it. Yeah, I'm a big fan. I listen to that. You're not doing that? Are you not doing? I don't know what they're doing, but I'm doing the Flaygrin one, which is Andrew Schultz's one.

So I'm doing that one today just to... So you do your... This is amazing that you're kind of hitting outside of MMA. So we need, man. I'm going mainstream, man. I'm going mainstream. Dude, MMA... This whole trip, people think I was playing when I said I planned everything to the

smallest detail. Did you know you were going to do that before you got here? In my head I did. I'm also... I might do the breakfast club, but I don't know. I might see how I feel first. Fuck, do the breakfast club, dude. Yeah, of course.

I'm hot right now. So, I mean, strike while the iron is hot. Yeah. As you will. But yeah. I mean, get at me, Charlotte, man. At me. Speaking of somebody who keeps the same energy,

say why I like Charlemagne, because in this business, if you give your opinion a lot, you can't buy him. Bro, people will come up, they will run up on you in this business. And in his business, they will run up on him as well,

and he still does it. I have a ton of respect for that. Definitely. You know, you can't fold. You can't, same like me. I told you, the guys at my TV show, online show, they try and tell me how to be, and I'm like,

yeah, cool story, bro. And I keep that same energy at the end of the day. Because people fuck with me, because they fuck with me. If you want me to just sit there and just, yeah cool and also I hate it because if I'm trying to censor myself then what I'm trying to get I'm constantly worried about what I'm saying like trying to try to edit in real time and I'm like oh fuck just go just talk let me flow and I it's it's a funny story because when I was young

not too long but when I was young like I used to go to this church young young means what like 14 15 15 yeah 14 15 15 13 I just go to this church right and very you know uh what's the I don't want to say culty, but like they had this very, it was very elitist in a way, so, and the way they, you know, I used to like really be one of them, so one of them, excuse me. Puberty in real time.

I know, I'm still trying to get this. Next year it's coming through puberty. Next time you come on the show, you have a big ass barber right here. But, yeah, so I used to try and, like, be one of them, so anytime I'd swear, I start off with like, oh, stop swearing. Anytime I'd swear.

And then go to the point, like, if I'd swore, like, fuck, stop swearing. Like, and then, I look back at myself now. I'm like, they never told me to do that. But it's the kind of morals. They try to instill in, you know, like purity rings and all that shit. I'm like, how the fuck did I think?

Like, stop sweating. I'd hit myself. No one never told me to do that, but it's just like they got in my head. So now I'm not going to the other spectrum where I'm just going to be like, fuck this, cunt that, blah, blah, blah, blah. What you got? Hey, there it is. Dude, one time.

Oh, my God. Look at that. They wouldn't let me fly with this on. The airline? Yeah, like I think it was American Airlines. So I just, it was, I was in LA. Yeah, we're sensitive here about that. And honestly, like, and they were like, sir, we can't let you fly with that on.

I was like, what do you mean? It's really offensive. We're going to have to change that. I'm like, your stewardess impression is dynamite. Bro, honestly, like, literally I was shook. Like, because I couldn't, I was like, okay, what if? Wait a second. What state were you in?

L.A. Oh, that's surprising. Oh, no, no. I was going Denver to L.A. Sorry, Denver to L.A. at the time. It's less surprising. But like, I was like, because my brain couldn't rational. Because, okay, what if, say, oh, people are offended?

Okay, what if I'll say there's a chick, I had a kid, and there's a chick with fucking big tits and cleavage, and I'm like, oh, my son's getting a hard on. Can you please tell her to zip up? Can she not show her chips, please? It's really offending me. I'm getting hard as well. So who gives a fuck? So wait, what did you do? I just, I have to change.

I kind of, like, protested a little bit, but at the end I was like, fuck. Like, it took me about three hours or a whole day to kind of get off a shit. I'm getting triggered right now. triggering intensifies. Like, I was just, I'm like, I still can't wrap my head around. Like, how does me, what I'm doing affect you? And? Let me, let me, let me,

Dick, that's another, I'm gonna, because Dick is less offensive in America, so just to kind of play. It is, that's right. Yeah, so I'm like, good cunt. Okay, we're gonna play this game of words. It's the next one. Cunt is what, it's not, don't get me wrong,

it's not the N-word. I'm not saying that it is. Yeah. It's the cousin of it here. Why? I don't know, I don't make the rules, man. I'm not blaming you. I'm just, I'm trying to find out why.

that you were ready to hit. I say it to dudes. I say it's, I'm a good, you're a good cunt, but if you're a shit cunt, but if you're a shit cunt, you know what I mean? It's lingo.

I bet you, so many people are like behind this. Oh my God. Like just offended as fuck right now. But it is what it is. If I say, oh, you're a good dick. Oh, you're a dick, man. Everyone uses dick.

Penis, cunt, vagina. What's the problem? I don't get it. It's just words at the end of the day. The other part is that Americans, I don't think realize how readily the word, it does. Cunt is used.

But like, if I put it that way, dick, penis, cunt, vagina. Dick is okay. Someone is going to take this clip and they're going to put this on social media. Does that make sense? And they're going to think we're having. Am I making sense? I don't know. They're going to think we're having the weirdest convo ever.

I know, right? Dicks and cuntz. Let's move on to back to M.A. for just a second. Yeah. Did you see what Jokkeret said after you left? No, what do he say? He was not disrespectful. But he basically made, Chakray is always a pretty friendly guy for the most part.

Oh, he's cool. I caught away with him. He's nice. Yeah. So his basic argument was, you know, who should be next to the line for a title? Because you had sort of major point about, like, me and Winterker if things work out. I got to make a case. And he was like, look, Israel beat Brunson, but I beat Brunson twice.

Strike Force. Oh, fair enough, fair enough. He did be been in pretty recently. Yeah, as well. Yeah, the last fight. So would you be interested in the fight with Jacqueray if that was the pecking order? I'll be interested in the fight with him. But when it makes sense right now, though, if it makes dollars, it makes sense.

Especially if Robert wins. Like, right now, I'm not doing shit. This is the first holiday I'm going to have just to chill because I'm like the last two years I've been having a fight in January or early February. So I just trained through the holidays. So I don't really get to enjoy the summer in New Zealand like I want to. So this time, my friend's getting married in Ireland and I'm going to do a little Europe tour. I'm going to New Year's in Amsterdam. I'm going to enjoy myself.

Not yet. Oh my God. I heard good things. I've heard so much good things for my friends. Do you ready for this? Here's my Amsterdam, too. Oh, okay. So I went with my wife.

But she was cool. She was like, we didn't go inside any of the places, but she was like, let's go check out the red light districts to see what it's all about. Right? So here's what got me. You go down there and there's literally like, it's on these, you know, it's full of canals.

And there's literally on the streets. They have these little like fire hydrant type things. And there's really red lights there everywhere as you know when you're in there. Yeah. Here's what gets you. You walk by the, what do you want to call them, prostitute homes or I don't know what they are,

call girls. What they do is they stand in the window, scannily clad. No. Manichens. No, no, no. When you walk by, they make eye contact with you the whole way. And then they lick their lips and then the way.

Dude, it is, when you first walk by, you're like, what? They're holding here. Stalking to me? And then my wife is like, hey, get it together. So I have to kind of, but dude, it was like I never, they make that kind of weird human contact. Yeah, yeah. You've got to have a good time, bro. Hey, I lived in China, man.

When I lived in China, imagine me walking in a, mainland of China. What was that like? I have the world record of staring contest with everyone. Good stairs or bad stairs? Both. Most times if you, it's just like they have like, what is this? Bigfoot? And then you kind of have to like smile and then someone smile back. But if you want to stare at me, I don't blink. When did you live in China? I left my job to September 4th, 2013. So the next day playing in China and I got back to New Zealand around like April or May the next year, 2014. Where in China did you live? Everywhere. I was based in Chengzhou, but then I was Elsa and Shian. And I was around the Hanan province was when I was based, but I just went everywhere, Shanghai.

And so many places I've been, I don't remember because I just fought all over the show. That is wild. Yeah, I was out there, I was like, for real, I was immersed in the culture. What was China like? Culture shock for the first month and a half. Dude, I heard it's for Westerners, to say, you want to call yourself that at all? I heard it's hard to eat. I'm African. Oh, right. Fair enough. I'm Nigeria, trust me. I never questioned a lot of things I ate there.

I might have eating some questionable things. I remember this one time, John Singh, he probably won't see this because the internet over there is really, the police or everything. But he one time was like, would you want Asperger? And I was like, what? It's like, Asperger. I was like, what do you mean? So you're like, wait, what's this?

It was like, Asperger. He's like, ah, Shama. Oh, donkey. Donkey burger. Like ass, donkey. I was like, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh. Then I tried it, but it could have been better.

It tasted alright, but it was a little bit cold. It could have been way, like, it could have been, if it was fresh, I think it could have been alright. Like, it was, it like corned beef a little bit. I kind of feel. Were the people, were the people nice? To me, because I was a celebrity, but to other black people, sometimes they're not very. I've heard the races, get a little real out there.

They're all over Africa right now, raping the land, and they're not giving anything back, so I'm not, I'm jaded about that. Eventually, I'll do something about it. Like, you know, I'm with the culture, but I want to change that. I want to try and see if they're, but yeah, they're, I mean, they got money. Trust me. They've got money and they're making money. And, you know, they got a lot of people over there, so they kind of export. But yeah, because to me, they were nice.

My people that were close to me were really like, like one of their superstars right now, Al Yang, he's this guy for our bro. He is a beast. And he speaks English, like, pretty well. So I was able to communicate with him. And he's my friend. He's cool. And the people I was with, cool.

But the ones that never knew I was any, like, I've had it many times. They treat me like shit. And then when they find it, oh, because they call me the black dragon over there, you know, with Shur Haileong. That's my name. So they're like, oh, then they kind of like flip the script and, you know. But yeah, I see how they treat other people as well. Like one of my friends, Wes, he's a French guy that lives over there. He's black guy.

And I saw how they treated him. And it was just not nice. So I never, I was always jaded about that. But sometimes you have to play your, you know, at that time, I didn't really have the push I can have. So I kind of just played my role. And I'd help him however I could, but I never liked how they treat my people. Well, let's talk about you real quickly and we'll wrap up here. I appreciate all your time.

Really? I mean, I got a ton of stuff. I got that. I know. I know. I really appreciate your time. So, okay, you're going home when this week? Tomorrow, Wednesday, something like that?

Wednesday, probably. All right. And you're going to do Christmas in New Zealand? Is that the idea? No, in Nigeria? London. London. That's right.

You said we're going to a European tour. Yeah, I'll be in London. And then what do you think we're going to see you in 2019, man? Whenever I want. I don't believe that. You want to tell me my theory on this one? Why? They're going to come to you with a sick opportunity.

I know they will. But I'm sitting pretty. Like I said, I've got the buffet in front of me so I can pick and choose. I'm not. Like, you know, you can entice me. And also I get itchy feet and itchy knuckles like pretty quickly. But these holidays, I'm just going to just take time because I could fight if I want. I could fight Adelaide.

Trust me. There's no doubt I'll fight. I could pull up. I'm bringing my mouthpiece just in case because I know I'm crazy. But I'm smart. You know, also I'll just. Oh, I was going to pull out from this fight. Like I said, I was like...

I was literally, you can ask you, Eugene. Even Dan, I remember one time when we went to go do our show, he was looking at me like, and my knee was inflamed, and I was just like thriller, just like a zombie limping. It was bad, man, and we were so close. But my dad just said, just take a whole week off. And Eugene, and we all agreed, like, yeah, take a whole week off and just let the...

And three days in, inflammation went down. Then I got a cortisone shot, axed the snitch first, the golden snitch. He said it was cool. Got it in. And then, yeah, it was sweet. So I might have to have surgery as well. But it's a recovery time of all that stuff.

So I have to go see my surgeon or specialist when I get back. And also, I'm getting a tattoo as well. Finish my back piece. It was got shaded in. That's, I call him Kunda Kunda Kinta. Let's end on that. How much have you spent on ink so far in your life? My guy, Rod Dawson.

Rod Dawson, he's a friend of mine. Stained skin. That's his tattoo. But he doesn't know low. He came through. He and his wife came to support me as well. They came here? Yeah, he came through.

No way. Yeah, definitely. I think it might have been this first time in New York. So he and his wife came to support me. And he's been doing, he's done probably like all my tattoos. Yeah, all my tattoos. Are you going to get fully covered? Probably.

I don't, people will just, oh, you only get tattoos because you're not interesting. Who the fuck says that? People. I've heard that before through the grapebrien. Like, dumb people. I know, very stupid. Dump cunts. A lot of dumb cunts out here, man.

But, I mean, yeah, I just like my body as things that empower me, you know? I've got Calvin and Hobbs over here. I've got Toff from Avatar over here. I've got Nykwala, but that one kind of got infected from a spider bite. And I've got Deadpool over here. And I've got the Naruto Reaper Death Seal. But inside it, I've got the Avatar Ocean and the Moon Spirit. And I've got my new dragon, my Kunda Kinti on my back all the way down, my ass.

Ooh, the ass cheeks hurt, man. I didn't think. I thought because I got, you know, jiggle over there, it'll be fine. But yeah. It's the exact opposite. You want skin on muscle. Yeah. It's when it's fat.

It's when it hurts the most. Yeah, exactly. But like, even like the bones, when it's on the bone, it's like my right on my spine. I got one and it goes to my stomach and it hit the two parts of the ribs here. Bro, I thought I was going to have a heart attack. It was so painful. Well, for me, it's also, it's like therapeutic in a weird way. And also, like, I wouldn't just get tattooed by anyone.

It's people that I fuck with. People that something bought. So Rod, he's just so easy. He's just a guy I just chill with. And we just, I always insult each other the whole time. And then have a break, have some wild turkeys, you know, bourbon. And then, yeah, get back to it. And we just, it's a good time.

And it goes by like that. And yeah, you just, I just fuck with my people. I love it. I like keeping my circle small. You know what I mean? I'm going to do this on the fly. You can say no, trust me. Like, there's no pressure.

That's what's your drink of choice? Bourbon, any kind of bourbon. Like right now, any honey bourbon. Oh, we got to fix that. Yeah, why is that? Who you, who you plug? You got to get some of the Japanese whiskeys. That's not what I have here.

Japanese whiskey. Yeah, you ever had that? See, for me, I'm not one of those guys that like, I like my, I like sweet drinks. I like sweet drinks. I like sweet drinks, too. Yeah, I don't like... Oh, the Japanese wouldn't be that one for you, then. Yeah, yeah, no.

I don't like to have a... Like, what's the point in that? I don't really enjoy it. I like something that's refreshing and goes down easy. Oh, well, that's not that then. Never mind. Play. It ain't that.

Hey, man, what a win for you. I was incredible on Saturday. I really feel like, I don't know this. It was cool how it was, like backstage reading your tweet. And I rolled up on you. I was like, manifestation. We're in a fucking Matrix, man. Dude, you were the king of the world this weekend, man.

You really were. It was unbelievable. Everything. And the weird thing is like I've said new levels, new devil. And I anticipated everything. From my February debut, like, you know what you say for the longest time? Like, okay, I'm going to get this Ferrari. I'm going to get this Ferrari.

I don't say that, but I know what you mean. Yeah. And then I get it. You push the start. Oh, shit. Oh, okay, got to adjust to the speed. Take a little while. So after UFC 221, I had to adjust to the speed of my life.

Because, dude, even right now, snakes everywhere. Oh, yeah. All the snakes. Let's see look up all the vultures. People do not want you to succeed in this world. They want to build you up to let you fall. If I didn't win this weekend, you think this should be happening? No.

None of this will be happening. So at the end of the day, I know, like, I know my role. I've even posted. I'm going to repost it as well. After every five, I'm going to repost it, my little PSA. If you go on my Instagram, go on my Instagram. Plug it. What is it?

At Style Bender. Go on my Instagram. On my highlight, you see my public service announcement. It's a post I made, just press the post, read the caption, watch the video. And I actually lived it. I'm fucking manifesting this thing. This guy, I don't know what his name is, he's a YouTube guy. Went to Times Square in the daytime, right?

Average as fuck, no one, you know, walking past him. And then he went at nighttime, dressed apart, entourage, bodyguards. And then people were just like, oh, who's that? And then people started taking photos, randoms. And then people started coming up to it. Like, they started entering people like, oh, so where do you know whatever his name is? What do you know Joe from? I like them Spider-Man.

I thought he was really good in Spider-Man. He's not even an actor. He never was in Spider-Man. man, and then they would go to another guy. So what do you, you heard his new album? And I'm like, oh, you know why? I didn't really, I mean, I didn't hear the album, but I heard the single on the radio.

I thought it was pretty good, pretty good. And then, you know, oh, my God, I love him so much. Blah, blah, blah, blah. I was doing this shoot for Engage. It's my fight way brand. Engage in Times Square. And already, this is like the day, like the night before the fight after Wains and stuff.

And already I don't, Ash knows me. Ash is very, like, you know, aware of how I like to be. And he knows, okay, he doesn't really want to do this. but I do it for him because I love him. And people were just like, because I'm wearing gloves, I'm just wearing slides, I'm chilling. And they're like, you know,

taking photos. Only like two people recognize me, but the rest of them just taking photos. And I don't, dude, I don't mind. They're taking photos because I've got cameras around me, like a whole entourage and people are there and all this shit. And they're like, oh, and people want to take photos. But at the end of the day, I know what this is.

I'm not stupid. I know my role. And I do my little song and dance. And this is not fake. Smile and wave. jazz hands, all that shit because I'm doing my work. But when I'm chilling, I'm chilling.

I don't run up on me when I'm in a restaurant. Like, there's a way to approach someone. You know what I mean? When people approach me nicely, I love that shit. And I'm so nice to them back. But many times when I've just been

either in line waiting for something and someone just like, oh my God, oh my God. And everyone just looks around. And they blow up your spot. And now I'm just like, chill, chill, it's all right. What's up? How you doing? And I'm like, just,

people get rude as well. Like, if I'm at a bar or something, just like, I'm talking to someone, they just interrupt. I'm like, dude, I'm fucking having the conversation. Don't just have some respect for the person I'm talking to, you know what I mean? And there's so many nice fans as well. So many of them like, they know what's up. And I can like, I just, when someone's nice to me, if someone's hospitable, I'll give you the time of day. I'll fucking sign your tits if you sign mine. Like, I'm not, I'm not a hostile guy, but just be cool. And on that post is my little PSA because, hey, I don't want to be in front

of a judge having to explain why I turn someone into a carrot. You know what I mean? I don't want to be that guy. So yeah, I'm just, I'll do my part if they do their part. Just don't run up on. I'm not the guy to play with. I'll put, I'll leave it. I'm not the guy to play with. Last question, then I'll do my part. Are you the fighter of the year? Facts. Big facts. That's New York shit. Give me the case. February, I got signed. You know, four fights. It's been how many months? Come on, man. Come on. Who else? All wins as well. Correa has had a great year. Facts. Okay, you know what? Hold up. Let me think. nah break out

star of the year then breakout star of the year it's a lock you've got that yeah that one fight over the year Kormier hmm who else let me think

I'll have to sit and think about that one and some other guys I'm trying to think who else But Kormier Porreier had a good year Porreier yeah from lightweight But nah I beat that

I beat that I beat that I'd be cool see him in a Ds showdown on this one that would be sick I would love that But um Cormier would be the only guy

Me and Kormier I'll give you at that because double champ So yeah, got to respect the double change. That's the double big Mac. All right. Hey, look, man, what an honor was to have you in studio. Pleasures all mine.

Thank you so much for coming by. You're good energy. You're a good, con. I love that. All right. I got to get that shirt. How do I get the shirt? Ash, get the man a shirt.

Yeah, that man. What size of you? Xcel double XL depends on you how you make them. All right. Ash, he'll plug. He'll contact you. He'll be in touch. All right.

My people will call your people. My man, Joe's going to help you out here. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I really appreciate. Sleep travels too. Okay? I appreciate that. All right. There is. There's a lot of sign you on its way. Amazing. Amazing stuff. All right, let's do this. We're a bit behind schedule. Can we flip things around?

Can we do Gustafsson next so I can reset? Is that possible? Yeah. All right, here's what we're going to do. I had Gustafson on Saturday. I pre-recorded an interview with him. You're going to see my face here. Don't worry. I put photos on top. But I believe we're the first outlet to get a chance to speak with him here inside MMA. So I asked him about what happened at UFC 232, about what this would all mean to him. Gustafin and I spoke on Saturday. It's a pre-recorded interview. Let's watch and listen to that now.

Alex, we appreciate your time recording this to what we are doing. It's let's just get right to it. You had your face off with John Bodes Jones on Friday at the UFC 232 presser. How was it? See, look, you were having a little bit of fun up there. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm excited.

I'm excited. I'm looking forward to it. I've never been dismotivated before And like you said We just had fun up there So And I'm We're both getting ready

For the biggest show ever Walk me through the The shoving and the pushing He steps in front Then you step in front Are you surprised he shoved you What did you make of that? Nah, I don't know

I don't know You know, I just did that And the only thing I noticed was that I wasn't impressed by his power at all. And then, yeah, you know, we had some fun up there. And the 29th of December, we're going to give all the fans a really good show, even better than the first one. I can promise you that.

You can, I mean, every UFC fight, right, for every guy at your stage is the most important one. But this feels like, this one feels a little special, a little different, doesn't it? Oh, yeah, yeah. This is the biggest fight of my life, for sure. And I'm so happy to have my, to return and get my first fight with John for the belt. So, you know, I can't have some more. And it's for sure the biggest, the biggest ever. When you envisioned this fight being made again, like after your first fight, many years passed, you had many other fights.

and you thought one day I'm going to, I'm going to get that second chance against John Jones. Did you think it would be like this? Like now that you're here, is this what you thought it would be like? Well, yeah, you know, I guess so. You know, it's just so much excitement, it's so much motivation. You know, I got this fire in me, and I'm just, I'm eager to get in there again. It's been a long time for me since I fought, and it's just, it's just such a, I can't, Like I said, I can't ask for more.

You know, I can't find a better way to get back in that outcome. Then, like, you know, I'm fighting John and for the belt. It's just massive, man. It's massive. All right, so let's talk about that layoff. It has been quite some time. In fact, a lot of folks don't realize this. You've been on a bit of a longer layoff than even John himself. Would you have liked to have had a fight before this one?

You were supposed to, of course, have a couple of those, and Volkan Usdemar being the most recent of them. What do you make of this long life and how it will impact you? Oh, yeah. It's been tough from time to time, but I'm just, I haven't been busy. I'm just, you know, every day to gym is a fight. So it won't affect my competition in any way. You won't affect my performance in any way.

It's just, you know, you need something to push every day in training. And so I feel that the lack of the lack of fights has been, it's been tough from time to time, but it doesn't matter. I'm here, I'm fighting the best guy in the world for the belt. So beginning that, you know, it's just so excited and so motivated. Okay, so how will this impact your training at all? You've already fought this guy before, right? You've got a rematch now. You kind of know what to expect, but at the same time, it was a bit of a long time ago.

So how will that impact how you prepare for him? I'm back, I'm back here. Yeah, no worries. Yeah, no, I'm just, I'm just, you know, I don't know. We're fighters now, and it's been five years. So, you know, let's see what happens. I'm just going to make sure I'll be in my best shape ever. And I'm going to make sure I'm going to do my homework for this fight.

You know, everybody knows what John brings to the table. and, you know, whatever he brings, I'm going to have an answer for it. I'm going to make sure I'm going to beat him. I'm not going to leave that off the arm without the belt. In your mind, aside from the judges not seeing it your way, what could you have done differently in the first one to have made sure, no doubt about it, that you were that clear, unequivocal winner? Well, I think I just respect him too much the first time.

I didn't have the same experience like I have now. It's just different times. It's a few times. And, you know, it's my time. That's how I see it. I see myself turn. And I'm going to stay busy. I'm going to do my, we're going to do this rematch.

And everything is just going to like go, go, go like I wanted to be. And like I said, it's my time. and yeah no matter what happens I'm not leaving that often without the belt I'm going to show

the world the guy's never been beat him is beatable you made an interesting comment I thought yesterday when he was I think you were asked

about all the USADA stuff you said you didn't care about it how come no I don't I don't you know I had a green fight in front of me you know I'm unfortunate

to just just had my third fight for the belt and I'm fighting I'm fighting John so you know I'm not I'm not I don't care about that stuff now it's in the past whatever happened just happened and you know it doesn't it doesn't affect me at all I'm just focusing on the fight and and yeah the training right now my camp and all that you know it's interesting you do have some experience in these big fights this is not new for you I'm wondering you know, maybe you said you gave him too much respect tactically the first time, but I'm wondering emotionally and professionally, this is actually the best time, right?

Third time's a charm because you've been through everything else already. You've seen every possible challenge that light heavyweight has to offer you, both inside and outside the octagon. There's nothing new for you here other than the opportunity. Is that a fair characterization? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. It's, that's exactly how it is.

And, you know, like I said, whatever, whatever, you know, whatever John comes with, you know, he says he didn't train for the first fight or whatever, you know, I don't care. I really hope it brings his A game. I really hope it brings, it brings the best to the table because I'm getting ready for the best. I'm getting ready for John's A game. I don't want to hear any excuses after I beat him. Now, what's interesting is you're also a tactician, you're a high-level fighter, When you look at him, not a question of better or worse, but just different, how do you think he has changed as a fighter over time as you've been watching him?

Well, he's a very talented fighter, is a very smart fighter. Whatever John does in that alterone is, you know, he has a strategy. He's a very smart fighter with a good eye. So you can't relax. You can't relax with this guy. You can't even give him an inch. You have to be on your toes the whole fight. You have to be in the whole fight.

So that's how I see John now. You know, John has just been so impressive in all this fight. He never lost. So he's just that guy. He's been beating everybody. So we all know how he is and how he's been. He's the best fighter in the world. For me, he's the best fighter.

So, like I said, I can't relax for a second when I fought him. So do you believe that if you beat the guy who you currently think is the top pound for pound, that would make you the top pound for pound if you won, right? Yeah, 100%. And when I beat the guy, it hasn't been beaten. It's going to be the biggest thing ever, and it's going to be a highlight in my career and it's going to change my life. And that's my motivation.

Would it make you the biggest, most popular athlete in all of Sweden? Would it make you pass, Zlatan? Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. That would be a sight to see. A couple more questions for you while we have you. Really appreciate your time. Can you give us an update on your health? As you know, you were supposed to fight it was 226, I believe,

against Uzdimir, and you pulled out. What happened there and how has the recovery gone since then? Well, he broke his nose, and then, so whatever. when we fight the next guy. But then I, yeah, I put my, what's it called? My leg, I got a beating in my leg, and I hurt my leg in training. And I took a break for a week or just did my rehab. Yeah, and just been on it and been in rehabbing and been healthy.

And, you know, as soon as I felt good, I was. back in it and I've just been training. So yeah, this is where we're out now. I feel good. My body is ready for war and I'm healthy and I'm ready. And so when the UFC came to you with this opportunity after he had his USADA clearance, you must have been over the moon. Were you surprised that you thought to yourself, wow, by the end of 2018, I'm going to get a chance to get the fight I've been looking for all this time. Oh yeah, it was not for me to believe. And then I signed a contract. And then it was just like, yeah, like you said, it was on cloud.

And I was just celebrating, man. It's the biggest thing in my career so far. So, you know, you can't compare it to any other fights. Not even our first fight. This fight is going to be even better. This fight is going to be the best fight there is in the U.S. history. You know, another amazing fight you had was the one against Daniel Cormier. Look, Cormier is a very different opponent than John.

But that was another five-round war where you took him to the absolute brink. I'm wondering, like, what can you take from that fight into this one? Just experience, just experience doing, like, fire round at a very high pace. That's what I take. And I'm feeling confident. I feel my conditioning is one of my strength. I feel like fire round is nothing for me. So, you know, I'm just going to win, and I'm going to push, like, nobody's pushing a jump before.

I'm going to make him be on his heels. I'm going to push him, and he's going to be tested. His condition is going to be tested, for sure. You know, last question, and again, I appreciate your time, Alex. You have obviously been at a high level for a very long time, and a couple of times you got the chance to really cross that finish line. You came up short, but now she's a lot. your chance to, as I mentioned, really write those wrongs. I'm wondering, is there any way to

imagine how it might feel at that point, not just beat the best pound for pound guy, but to cross that threshold, to finally get what everything you have been looking for all in one moment. Have you thought about what that might feel like? Yeah, I have. All I can say is word can't describe that feeling. And I don't even, you know, I don't even know how I just know I would just be the king of the world. That's it. I'll be the king of the world. Nothing more, nothing less.

And take it from there. Well, Alex, I got to say, I think the MMA world is buzzing. I'm excited. I know you are. We appreciate your time, and we can't wait for December 29th at UFC 232. Thank you so much for your time. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate that. All right. Thank you. Bye. All right. Look at that. Time now for the Monday morning analyst right.

here on the MMA hour. Now, I may have jinxed myself, but I think we're in good shape, so we'll see how this goes. I spent a shit ton of money yesterday, and I spent literally my entire Sunday prepping for this. So we'll see how this goes. A somewhat improved, I hope, experienced for you. So we had Israel Adasania in studio. Here's the truth. I was grateful as him for having him.

The tension, Esakawa one was really on my radar once the news broke, because no. No one knows who he is, and it would have been amazing to get you guys acquainted with him. I thought I'm some kind of expert, but I at least have a passing familiarity with him, and he's an amazing, amazing fighter, but news broke so I didn't have time. I did think that the big story coming out of UFC 230, aside from the main event, aside from the co-main event, obviously, is going to be Israel-Asonia's rise. And I went back and I thought about, like, breaking down the striking, but others have done that better than me. You can go and check out, well, just, there's plenty of tutorials online.

And we will do some striking breakdowns on this show here, eventually, I promise. but it was the takedown defense, and I brought it up with him. So I went back and I watched all of the fights that he's had in the UFC to see the development of his takedowns. And I found something kind of interesting. We can go to the screen now. Here's going to be our new setup. Now, I don't know how well you can see that, so let me blow it up here a little bit.

These are the first fight, second fight, third fight, and fourth fight here. Israel-Ais had in the UFC. Let me blow this up here a little bit if I can. All right, a little more here. All right, you see this? In his first fight in the UFC, he gave away three takedowns. In his second, two, in his third one, in his last one, zero. Zero takedowns given up here.

As each fight progresses, he's giving up fewer and fewer and fewer takedons. it's a function of understanding the mechanics of the position better and better and better. So let's look into this a little bit. Here is the first fight that we have. This was against Mr. Wilkinson, as I recall. I forget what you have seen this was. This is all, by the way, in 2018. Keep that in mind for just for a second.

We're not talking about a two or three or four year evolution where the guy begins to build and stuff all the takedowns that a lot of strikers used to have to go through. We're talking about within the span of a year as the fights get harder and the rest of the wrestlers get better, his takedown defense is getting better and performing better against increasingly difficult opposition. It's not even like the fighters are staying the same. They're getting better. So is he, not just relative to his previous position, relative to the rising competition. Sort of remarkable. He does a lot of things well. He does some things not so well. This is his early ones. You're going to see some of the development. Here he is against Wilkinson. Wilkinson is bashing

into him with his knee. You see this right here? Look right there. You see that knee? Hold on. Right there. Bashing into him with that knee, right? Why is he doing that? Because he wants Adasanya to move so he can pull it out of the way like that. And once he does, watch Wilkinson, digs his hips up under him. And you'll notice with this hand by Adasanya, oops, hang on, right here, he's not doing anything to block Wilkinson getting his hands together. So what ends up happening? Wilkinson gets his hands together. He grabs the fence there a little bit, Aslania does, and he balances. You would think this is fine, but this is totally suboptimal, because if you block with your hand, you're only telling me, I'm not stopping to take down. You're changing the position about which I'm going to take you

down in, right? And all your weight is forced forward. Okay, that's not you stopping to take down. that's just you telling me which takedown I need to finish it, right? You can do it for a second, but if you hold it in this kind of position where he has complete inside control, it's not really going to work. So watch him. He's just going to step around and turn him and then come on top. Now, Adasanya is very good for the most part outside the Vittori fight of not giving up bottom position and staying there for very long.

He likes to get up pretty quickly, which he does really well. So you'll see him get back up here very, very quickly, right? We're going to go through this very fast. He's good about keeping the whizzer here. but you can see not a lot of attacking right here of the bicep of the hand. We'll show the Derek Brunson fight in a minute. He's very, very good about it. So here you can see he's good about getting up fast, good about keeping the overhook,

not so great about knowing where he needed to be with his position and his balance, not knowing where he needed to be with his hand and how to control and fight for the underhook. That part still very, now there he finally gets it, but it takes him a little bit of comfortability. Finally he underhooks, right, scoots out. Here's one of his bad habits. He still does it a little bit, although each time he does this, it gets better and better. He likes to push away and then turn and run. He did it successfully against Derek Brunson.

Here he does not. Why? That's why. Because you need to have their face and their stomach all the way on the ground so you can slip your ankle out. If they're still around the knee like they are here, it's not going to work. Look at that. Right there. It's too high.

It's way too high. high, right? So he tries to run away and can't and the guy is able to reset. That's one issue he still has to kind of work through a little bit, although as I mentioned, that's getting better and better and better. And here he again, here's one other mistake he makes. He lets go of the overhook. See this? This prevents him from, this prevents Wilkinson from going around to the back. He mistakenly lets it go. You can let it go. You can do stuff like this, but it's a little bit more of a complicated take down defense. You can come inside for the switch, but you have to know when your position is right. I watch him switch knees here as he drops and comes down, right?

We'll get through all this a little bit. You get the idea here. There's one more of these. I'm going to fast forward through. So here he is. He's got the overhook, fires the underhook. This is good. He's going to wrench him up.

He's going to turn him. But watch what he lets Wilkinson do. He gets the underhook, and he's trying to get the better angle, right? Autasania's hips are facing this way. Wilkinson's hips are facing this way. Watch Wilkinson. He just moves to the outside. Adasanya never stops him, so he's able to take him right back down. But credit to Adasanya, posting on that hand right here that allows him to get his hips turned over and at least begin to fight. So you can see early, by the way, he stuffed

a lot of these shots. I'm showing you the ones where he got taken down just to show you some of the things he was doing. And by the way, he tries to go for an arm bar here, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you can see, look, I'm trying to run away. See that? Reminds me of Holly Holm against Amisha Tate. You've got to do what's called referees position. In collegiate wrestling, you'll see referees position. One guy gets on his hands and his knees. The other one goes around the hip and around the elbow and as soon he makes contact, referee blows the whistle, right? What does he do? Jose Aldo is the king of this. People who have never wrestled, they think I want to go this way. I want to lean forward. You don't. You actually want to lean backward, pushing your weight into them while you fight the hands. It's in. You break

it and then you turn, right? That's how it's done. It just takes practice and it's hard when you're tall and lanky. Understand, I'm nitpicking here because he wins this fight in devastating fashion. But this is what we're talking about. We're talking about the evolution of some of his weaknesses and how they started maybe here and now they're about here. So we're going to fast forward through this one, forget it. It's enough of this one. All right, here he is in the Marvin Vittori fight. he gets much better about this. Derek Brunson tries something similar and it doesn't work. Vitori, by the way, only landed two takedowns.

So now better opponent, less success. Took him to the third round, by the way, to get it. So keep that in mind here. This is the space we're talking about here. Took him that long to be able to have some success. All right. So what does he do? He is going to get Adasanya moving.

If I can get you moving, one of my favorite takedowns. I'm tall. I'm 6 foot 4. I can't really level change and knee pound for a takedown. It's just not in the cards for me. I'm not fast enough. I don't have good enough timing. I'm not really an athlete in any kind of respect that anyone would ever recognize. You've got to be like a Henry Sohudo type, man. You've got to be able to drive up under. And, you know, even the St. Pierre, St. Pierre's 5'9. Like he's Chiquitiko. I'm tall. So I don't do that. One of my favorite takedowns is called a sucker drag. A sucker drag is what you do in the ghee. Cross body. I'll grab in here, right here, and I'll push, and I'll push, and I'll push. And I might even rotate in a circle, depending on which side I'm grabbing, and I'll push, try not to over-commit to myself, trying to get a reaction out of them. When they come back in, this is my favorite. Now, this is where I can use my size and my relative strength advantage of most of my competitors to make it work.

On my inside collar, once I push and push and push, they come back into me as a reaction, and that's when I drop my foot in front of them, and I essentially, I drop to the ground myself, and with their collar, I yank them past me. It's called a sucker drag, and if you can do it right, you can send them face first flying into the canvas, and then either they regard and I come around

or I take the back, right? Now, that's what the ghee, but the point is the principle is the same. If I can get you moving in space, motion going one way, motion going the other way, if someone's pulling you, you're going to stop. But once I stop, now I have a different way I can be taken down, straight back, leg for the single. There's just all kinds of reactions. So one thing that Israel-Asriya will see in the

Derek Brunson fight does a really good job of is Brunson tries to pull him off the fence, number one, to create space, and number two, to get his body in motion. By the time the Brunson fight comes around, Adasanya no sells it. Votori had a little bit of success with it. So watch, he's got the, let me pull this up here a little bit, right? He's got the overhook here, right? He's got his hands clasped together. He's got a bit of a C-grip. He is pinching in Habib style with this hook. He's taking this one, follow me here, and he's squeezing into it. You see that?

And what he's going to do is, he's going to, as you see him, sagging his weight onto the same side, he's going to pull him in a circle. Now watch, Adasanya braces. But that's what Vittori wants. He wants you to brace. So what as Votori do, he drops his weight and then swings the other way around it using the fact that Adasania had been planted to do that and then look at this. Where does Adasania have no defense?

Here, Vitori gets him to move, drops his weight, swings him to create a weak plane, and then drives him over it. See that? That's how he does it. This is something now that Brunson tried and couldn't do. Joe, you okay, bud? What the hell was that? I got guys dancing in the studio here.

So, as I mentioned, we're talking about some of the things that he's already good at. He gets up very fast. Look at Adasania, already inching to the cage, right? Gets right up, amazing. He's very, very good at that. Vitori was the only one who could hold him down for a little bit, and he'd already lost the first two rounds anyway. This was one of his better takedowns. So getting guys, getting Adasania in motion, and this one gave him a little bit of trouble.

We're going to just go past it. You can see him. He's real good about this, getting up, and of course, Votori gets him down. This was the one takedown. The one takedown in a five-round fight we got. So we had three takedowns with Wilkinson, had a bit of an overhook issue, a bit of a running-away issue,

a bit of a sort of where do I keep my feet, how do I balance my weight? Those were largely ironed up against Vitori. Vittori was like, okay, well, that's not working. Let me see if I can get him in motion. Had one little small bit of success with that. That's not working anymore. Brad Tavaris tries that too.

Doesn't work a hold out that well, but he gets a little bit here. So watch, by the way, keep in mind where we are. We're in the fourth round here. Okay, so it took him that long. This is the one takedown he gets. So watch, he's going to level change.

This is a decent. He didn't really set the shot up that well. He just kind of ran in. But the timing is good. And then fires him back to the cage. Adasanya, I didn't say this on the thing. One of the things he's so good at, one of the best he's at. A guy like Paul Daly, if you shoot on Paul Daly, he will stop your takedown for the most part.

Real good about digging the underhook. Rampage Jackson, same way. Rampage Jackson at his best head. I mean, go back and watch the Kevin Randerman fight. Really good take down the fence, driving those underhooks, driving his hips in, right? Very, very good at that. But he's not that great. Once he's up here, he's kind of trapped.

Adasania is never trapped. He uses that overhook better and better now. You could see it right there. Really like it. And on top of that, he's better about bicep control, better about keeping the hands separated here. He does a really good job. I know I'm showing his weaknesses because I'm just trying to show you the evolution of how they're going away.

Just trying to keep that in mind here. In any event, he's real good about getting his back off the fence. Very diligent. A couple of finishing touches about not running away. He could probably iron up or sharpen up a little bit. But long story short, he is one of the best about stopping a takedown, getting an underhook, getting an overhook, and using either the head or the underhook to create space and get his hips away. It's one thing to stop a takedown.

It's quite another to get your back off the fence. A lot of guys can stop takedowns, and then they're just trapped. Adasagna is never trapped. So this is the one bit of success he has. Right away, by the way, by the way, what do you notice? Much better hand control. Much better bicep control. He's much, much better, much more diligent muscle memory. You heard him talking about it here and set. This is better. You're already seeing quicker reactions to all the right spaces. Now, Tavares has some luck here. He separates it. I just think he didn't see this coming. Frankly, neither did I. So Tavares switches the attack, tries to go for a double here, which Adasanya blocks.

He's got the underhook right there. Yes? So Tavares, like, what am I going to do with this guy? All right? Switches to a single, and I think here, Adasanya got a little bit confused because he doesn't really fight the hands. He gets one hand underneath the neck to come up and lets Tavares just get deep on his leg. So Tavares just runs the pipe. He pulls him out.

Watch, digs in real deep and just pulls them out right there. That's it. I think it's just unaccustomed to the ad different of attack. It's not a head outside single where you run the pipe. It's the head inside single. That's all it is. Look, head around the inside. Just it.

He pulls him away from the fence and then runs the pipe. You can go down. Just like that. And it gets on top. This is the only place he has success in it the whole time. So now you're seeing guys try something on him and it doesn't work. Guys try something on him and it doesn't work Guys try something on him and it doesn't work

So they go to the next one But now none of that stuff is working Now it's like he won't get taken down again He might right this is a very very difficult division That he's in he's gonna have tough opponents He's gonna have tough opponents He ends up fighting him Very good wrestler, very good on the ground

So all this will be kind of interesting if he does I'm just pointing out It's usually never the same thing twice with him You're noticing every time You could say well look wasn't as kind of similar to the Vittori one Not really it was up against the fence here, he wasn't really getting him to plant his weight any kind of way. He was just using the fence

to drive in and then try a takedown defense where he got kind of caught not really attacking the hands enough here. So he just kind of just doesn't really, he's got two hands on there, but at this point, Tavares has already got him together, right? And then he just takes him down. And that's it. All right. So now we get to the Brunson fight. Now watch this. You saw all the things that went wrong in his previous fights in terms of the takedown. Again, bear in mind that was the only takedown he got against Tavares. One of two, Vitori he got, and Adasania won all those fights. So here we have against Brunson.

What are we looking at here? Brunson comes in, by the way, doesn't set it up. You can see Adasanya already good about getting the underhook. Look how he's planting his weight, squaring up on him, not letting him get to an angle where he can be taken down, rotates around. Here, get his hands up high if he needs to come and drop down. He can. He mentioned having trouble.

he's trying to write his posture here. If I can keep you up, I can't get down. That's what he's trying to do. Now, Brunson's a very good attacker, and he gets double underhooks. You can get that cross-face there, depending what you're trying to do. That's not a wrong answer necessarily,

but watch. He gets him up against the fence here as I just rotate through the footage. Calm, right? Not panicking. Where's his weight? Back up against the fence, but down and squared.

Not letting him get to any kind of angle, right? Keeping those other underhooks. Brunson trying to use his head, Adasanya, avoiding most of the pressure. Now he gets in a little bit there. I'd assign you, writes it up a little bit. What does he do? Watch.

Here's Brunson trying to use his head pressure. See that right there? Look, let's it go so he can change because he's not getting anything with it and immediately goes to the hand. Looking, by the way, look at his eyes. You can see them here. He's watching. Watching down here.

He can look at everything. Nice that he did that, right? And here he is. Fish is the whole time for it. Fish is the whole time for it. Had a little trouble? you see him doesn't give up on it holds position let keeps fighting grabs with the wrist and then look this is what I'm talking about gives up the overhook comes around the head uses this inside tie with the

hand with the hand control to push and then turn at the same time brunson reads it he goes back to his fundamentals overhook trying to find the hand now he has the underhook let's it go because he wants that bicep control right we're going to roll through this footage here just very quickly, if I can. He's staying on him. By the way, here's where he's grabbing these shorts. Look at that. Look at that.

Like, he's got a handful of shorts. Where is his hand? Right on the bicep. Much cleaner fundamentals, instinctual fundamentals here that he's got. And Herb separates them, and then he does his bit. Here we go, the next one.

So there's no take down there. Here's another one. Look at him. He tries to go to the side of him, and then almost like a sacrifice throw, take his leg to the side. Otisanya puts his hand. It looks like underneath for the underhook and then pushes on the head.

Doesn't give him his hips on the angle. Stuffs it. Almost decides to take the back and then decides. Now look at the difference here. We mentioned before he likes to run away. Something he probably needs to clean up a little bit, but look at the difference here. Now he's only on the ankle. There's no knee.

Ankle, knee. Ankle, knee. Watch the difference. It gets away clean. Right? Much better about these kinds of. of things. All the things that were kind of getting him a little bit of trouble, he's getting a little bit too hesitant about, clean in this one. You're not fighting the same out of sign. You have fight to

fight to fight to fight. He gets better and better and better. Right. Faces him, turns on him. He kind of overcommitted here a little bit and Brunson is able to reengage. Keeps his hand down as he did before, right? But why doesn't Brunson get him down? Watch, because he immediately stands back up, uses that overhook and immediately goes back. He has double underhooks here. But look at his, look at his balance. It's even. It's squared up on him. He's not letting Brunson get to the side of the side. Brunson tries what I told about before. Let me get you off the fence. Let me get you moving in space. Adasanya no sells it. Sacks his weight, pulls up on the underhook, drops the other one, fishes for the hands, and goes back in. Right? Brunson tries to use his head. Adasania stays calm,

avoids the trip here gets to the side. Now he's looking about, look at him. Right now, look at him. Plotting his next move, yes? Here we go. Fires there, tries to see if he can get a reaction out of him. So as the hand, let's go. What's he go right to?

Bicep control. Every time. This is what I'm talking about, folks. You're seeing it in real time. Keeps his hand down there, finds the bicep. Watch, he's probably going to go. I haven't even remember this. Is he going to go around the top and grab the head and get away?

Let's see. Let's see, let's see. We're just like that. Overhook comes out. He pushes away. He's got a hand on the shoulder, right? And then the hand on the overhook pushes away. Brunson fires.

He, oops, sorry, Brunson fires. He ducks, stays calm. As soon as Brunson reshoots, he goes back to his fighting position. Look at that. Yes. Here's Brunson deep on the overhook. Adasania, so he's deep with the underhook. Adasania has the overhook.

He's got the elbow kind of tucked inside to prevent the hands coming together. This is the same kind of takedown, by the way, that Brad Tavares was trying. Watch the difference. Tries to pull him away. Adasanya no-sells it. Tars to change and step around it. What does he do? Pulls his leg out.

Breaks the hands so now he can't. That was almost identical to what Brad Tavares was doing. No success. And who's a better wrestler? Brunson or Tavarez? Tavars is very, very good. A very well-rounded fighter. I would argue Brunson's a better wrestler.

You're seeing all of those holes I showed you plugged in, one after the other. Separates it. What did I tell you before? Let's go of the overhook. Look up top here. Let's go of the overhook. Grabs. Oops.

Sorry. And turns. Purses him away. Brunson follows. Look at that. I mean, that is crazy, right? Unbelievable the difference there. So now he gets away.

There's another one. We'll go through these quickly. Stops it. No-cells it. Let's go through this. Look at him getting down. Watch this. Ducks the punch.

Look at the underhook. Instinctual, immediate. Right away. He loves that right underhook. Now what does he do? He's got to the side. He's got the overhook. Pushes the face away.

Gets in, gets his hips back. Got the forearm to create a frame and gets away as he steps back. Now, he's this one where he said Brunson. He lets Brunson get him. But he didn't get taken down. Brunson runs him back into the fence. Let's see what he does here. Look at Adasanya.

Pummels in. Whoop. And now he's back to a working position. Turns him. I think he gets turned one more time. We'll go through this kind of quickly. Blah, blah, blah. Right?

I won't show the finish because I know U.S. will get mad if I do. Sags his weight, turns him, just stays calm. Keeps Brunson from level changing, right? Because Brunson has double underhooks. He probably wants to. to drop at some point, pull them off, not letting him. Balance is good. Weight is good. Posture's good. Presence of mind is good. He loves to lean to this outside right side here. And when Brunson tries to

pull him away, what does he do? He drops further, breaks the hands, opens up, turns to the angle he needs to turn at, and look, gets his hands down and sprawls like a king. One more time. Brunson, to pull him away from the fence, Adasanya drops, tries to get his hands inside, sprawls, drops his hip with his hand, comes straight down, and stays on the appropriate angle

as Brunson turns and drops his hip at the same time. Right? We got to get right out of here. I know, we're late. Sorry. Try to take the back. Brunson gets back in here

and then he just pushes away. Boom. And then he hits him with his knee. Watch this. Bink. Ridiculous, right? So here's my point. You saw a lot of the things

guys were doing, he didn't know where to put the overhook. He didn't know necessarily what to do with his feet in the position. He didn't know, even if I have an overhook, they can come around and get the same kind of position or a better angle. He didn't know necessarily what to do when guys are to pull him off the fence. He didn't know what to do about fighting the hands on certain positions in his first few fights and then went one by one and fixed all of those. Derek Brunson had a chance, man. He never had a chance. Look at that. You want to talk about a fighter improving in real time? That is less than a year, folks. Less than a year. He did that in. That is crazy. If he keeps that up, I am telling you, man, that is going to be one,

one tough customer to beat. Israel Adasanya is not the same fighter over and over again, fight to fight. He is massively improved. His take-down defense is now sensational. Good luck fighting him, because you're going to need it. All right. We go now, back to the desk. Let me see here. As I put my headphones on. All right. Now Joe has to reset. You've got to put that, like you hear, Joe, Joe, why were you dancing earlier in studio? I don't even understand that. Oh, you tripped over a cable. So you just decided you were going to be in the bullshit, Bolshoi ballet, huh? Interesting. All right, well, big thanks to Israel to sign. I'm seeing all the responses to it on, uh, on Twitter.

Apparently y'all were big fans of it. Me too, man. That was the best interview I've ever done on this show. And one of my favorite I've ever done in MMA to be perfectly candid with you. So, um, big thanks to him. I always like it when. people come in studio it's always a little bit better you can go ahead bud we gotta make this work don't we all right um how much more time do we need we're ready to go we want to do the sound off yeah we can do a round of tweets if you want you want to do a round of tweets all right we're time for a round of tweets here we go hey jo's all on the shot Joe can I have my my phone please all right let's get these tweets up let's get the

clock up once they're up and running we will keep this going all right here We go. Let's see what we got. My phone's over here, my friend. Thank you. First tweet and they get the clock and I'll be ready to go. There's the clock. Let's see the tweets. All right. Floyd versus tension. There's not even a question. It's just don't say to. Yeah, man. I mean, I spoke about it earlier. People want to see strange things because they're tired of what they perceive as the ordinary. Welcome to a new hell. Next. Can we thank Japan for doing what they do and letting May with do whatever he was doing with Horizon so we can move on with the Habib rubbish. Ooh, I hadn't even thought about that. Yeah, you know what?

I would rather Mayweather fight Tension Nassikawa than Habib Numergamedov. Because Habib Numergamedov, well, Tension should be fighting tough guys too, and will be, of course. But Habib is a little bit longer in a tooth. He's much younger. I think Tension's like, what, 20 years old, something like that? He's very, very young. So he's got a lot of time to do some stuff. You know, Habib, man, I think he's 30 at this point.

pretty close. Let's make sure he's fighting the toughest guys he can and defending that UFC title. Yeah, I agree. Next. What news do you have about whether or not Habib is getting paid and any suspensions for UFC 229 incident? Y'all know that's not the kind of reporting I do. So I have none. Next. Okay, if Habib gets a long suspension, wouldn't it make sense for him to fight Mayweather, make money, improve striking, and stay active? If he gets a long suspension, he can't fight Mayweather. you wouldn't get the suspension would carry over to boxing. Right? So because the suspension, I mean, I guess if you mean by the UFC, then maybe.

But if the suspension's from the Nevada Athletic Commission, he can't fight no matter what. Now, I guess he could fight in Russia and just say F it, but then he'd be ruining his career in the United States and any kind of sanctioned territory for the rest of eternity, basically. Although Vitor Belfort did it, so maybe not. But, yeah, that's the issue. If the commission suspends you, it carries over to all the sports. Next. What did you think of the new Slipknot song released on Halloween?

Sorry, I don't pee sitting down. Next. Let's see. Please, Here's the thing about unblocking. Y'all tweet dumb-ass stuff to me, like anti-Madrid stuff. I'm not real bitter about it, but I want my Twitter experience to be pleasant. Don't do that, and you won't have to beg here, like a homeless man, jingling a cup outside.

All right? Uh, give me his name. I'll unblock him later. Next. What do you think is a more promising prospect of this moment? Israel Adesanya or Zabit Megamad Sherpaw? I think very highly of both of them. Um, well, Israel has a bit more of the total package, right? So that's interesting. Zabit, um, and Zabit's going to be title. Both of these guys are future title contenders, right? So in that sense, probably the same, but Israel has more crossover appeal. I'll say that. But Zabit might be better for the demos that I'm not aware of internationally, like in Russia and places like that. So I'm still going to say Israel, but both are championship material. No doubt about it. Go ahead.

Does Israel deserve the next title shot? Jacaray is two and two in his last four with losses to Gasplum and Whitaker. Wyman is coming off of a loss, and so is Rockhold. He matches up great with either Kelvin or Whitaker. I say why not. Here's what I would say about that. I would not be opposed at all to any of those kinds of opportunities. I think if they want to go ahead and give him one,

I would kind of get it. I still feel like, though, in a perfect world, which I grant is not the one we live in, but in a perfect world, I would say, I would like to see him have one more fight. If it's jacqueray great, if it's rock hold, I would take that one too.

Someone like that, some kind of OG super force in that division. Brunson was a very, very, very tough test, but more than that, I think he needs somebody who was either a champion in a previous major organization like Jacaree or in this one like Rockhold. I think getting past that would just send the hype into overdrive. So if they wanted to go with the title shot next, I'd be okay with it. But I kind of feel like just one more, one more.

All right, next. Do gloves change with the weight class or is the padding for 115 the same as the 265? My understanding is it's the same, but I might be wrong about that. I actually need the two. I know it can change in weight based on the size in the sense of do you have quadruple XL gloves versus small gloves? That can change the weight,

but I don't think it's changed by virtue of designation in terms of the division. Next. How do you feel about the UFC having division-driven cards like middleweight fights on Saturday of UFC 146? I feel like no matter what I feel like about it, it's the future because it provides insurance against all kinds of problems that emerged.

It's like it or don't like it. It's your future. One more. One more. One more. I know what went. Last one. Do Adasanya and Costa fight before one of them gets a title shot or after? I'm going to guess after because you kind of, not ruin, but you set back a contender unnecessarily at that point. All right. With that out of the way, not a moment to waste. Let's go to it now, Mr. Segura. It's time now for the soundoff right here on the MMA hour, please. All right. Let's go back to my main man with the plan. Bogota's finest, there is Danny. Great interview with Arsanya, man.

I appreciate that. It's all him, really. If you're just an interesting person, I don't have to do much. Did the Monday morning analyst make sense? It did, a lot. And no technical difficulties, man. I know. Can you believe it for the first time?

All I had to do is just... I feel like something bad is going to come from it. Like, okay, if this doesn't mess up, you're either going to miss your train leaving this or something. Something's got to go on. I interviewed Derek Lewis last week. He's like, I don't like good things because all it tells me is that bad things are around the corner. Yo, what, you're right.

All right, but you know what? I'll take what I can get. Let's do it. Okay, first call, set it up, my friend. Okay, let's do it. Let's just get the whole Mayweather stuff out of the way. Let's do it. Let's just do it.

Hey, Luke, it's Kotl from Ireland here. I'm just wondering, what's the logic behind Floyd May where they're fighting and rising? It's on FIRE TV. It's the same price as usual. The ticket prices haven't gone up at all. The arena is pretty much sold out for the most part. What's the financial logic? I know it's great exposure in media, but what's the end all for Floyd to take the risk and take this fight?

Thank you. Well, risk is a strong word here. I am absolutely convinced there's going to be no risk, Danny. They're going to have a rule set that very much appeals to him. The fact that they didn't have a rule set announced automatically tells you he's going to use his leverage to get them to change it late. Whether it's an exhibition or not, I don't know. By the way, tension Nessakaawa fights in the 120s. Floyd hasn't fought that much, that weight since, what, 2005, or what?

or something. So he has a size advantage for the first time ever. He's got a lot of advantages. It's not, I think the logic here is that who's a big star that they could put on pay-per-view

and make money off of in MMA and still make the same kind of, and still get the same kind of opportunity. You could have said Habib Nirmigaramehamedov, but I don't know, I think he's looking for a better deal and if they're doing 50-50 on pay-per-view,

Danny, maybe that's the difference. Because he's not going to get 50-50 pay-per-view anywhere else. Yeah, it's just so weird, rising out of all promotions. He's a, Mayweather's a big star wear in the U.S., right? He's a global superstar. Right, as well. But, like, his main brand, I mean, he's,

Mayweather, you think of Los Vegas, right? Yeah. That's just how it works. He has a deal with MGM properties to fight. I think if he fights in the United States, he has to be on one of their properties. Yeah. So, I mean, this whole situation is super weird.

Plus, like, the rules it is not even made. Like, I saw him wearing, he took a picture, and he put on an MMA glove and a boxing glove. I saw. So I don't know if that's going to go down. But yeah, it's just a really bizarre situation. There's still a lot of questions left to be answered. By the way, why is Risen going to bankrupt themselves to pay for Floyd?

That's another weird part about this that I don't quite understand. Yeah. But, okay, here we go. Yeah. A, shout out to Floyd's Movember beard. Did you see that? You know what's funny about Floyd? Why is it he shows up to pressers in track suits?

And then when he's out with Kedarov, he's out in nice suits. It's like, wouldn't you want to do the opposite? I don't know. All right, whatever. All right. Now let's get to UFC 230, which just happened over the weekend. And let's talk about our guest today because he's popping right now. Yeah, yes.

Hey, Luke. This is Mike from Deerfield Beach, Florida. My question for you is Israel, Adisania, Style Bender. When it comes to him having this 4-0 record in just eight months, what do you think his ceiling is coming into 2019? Do you think you'd be able to possibly get the innocent civil fight early that January, February? setting up a title fight in mid June, July, possibly, maybe end up with a rematch and possibly even at self-fight.

Could 2019 be an even better year than Israel-Aznihani is 2018? Big fan of the show. Appreciate everything you do. And thank you. Well, thank you, sir. Here's what I would say to that, Danny. 2019 is going to be, I would be shocked if he doesn't contend for a title, if not outright win one.

We're talking about a very, very, very special individual here. The Anderson Silva fight does nothing for me. Nothing. Really? Do you like that idea? I'm a huge fan. Okay. I think that fight needs to go down.

You are a believer. Give me the case. Okay. So the whole idea of this, a lot of people are going, whoa, but that's a step backwards. It is a step backwards. I don't think it is. I think this is the path to the title, and I think Anderson Silva is a slight detour, but I don't think it's a step backwards at all.

I mean, the fight for Derek Brunson was the fight to see how legit is he? And we saw that he's super legit. I mean, no scrub beats Derek Brunson. You have to be very legit to be Derek Brunson. And Arasanya went in there and made it look easy. So we know he can fight. After watching that performance, like, okay, this guy can definitely win a title. Like this guy can definitely give a fight to Robert Whitaker, Kelvin Gasolm, whoever wins the belt.

Now let's bring up his star power, right? because we already know he can fight. And who's the biggest star? I mean, at least for the casuals, at the middleweight division right now, I would say Anderson Silva. It's still a fight that, you know, standing-wise is interesting.

And, you know, it gets him another win in his record, you know, a manageable task because I'm not saying Anderson Silva, you know, is a walk in the park. But it's a manageable task that will put his brand up even higher. At this point, I don't think there's any questions regarding an at a science skill.

I don't know if you still have any. I think he's super legit. My only question about his skill is, oh my God, How good is this guy about to get? That's the only question I have. You don't think Anderson Silva provides enough of that room for him to get even better? No.

And also building his star power. Why don't you like it? I think Anderson Silva's star power has massively faded. As a fighter, he has massively faded. We're talking about an all-time great. If not the best ever, number two. Understand what I'm talking about. I'm not making a claim about what he's done.

I'm making a claim about who he is today. Who he is today is not an appropriate challenge, either for star power or for a test. A Luke Rockhold is a much better one. U.S. Romero would be an interesting one, but can you make weight? I don't know. Somebody like that. I want to see somebody who is still relatively close or in their prime. I don't care about

people who, I mean, I care about Anderson Silva, but not as it makes, does nothing for me here. If he goes in there and mows him down and around, what did you learn? Nothing. You got nothing out of that. But I feel like I got all my questions answered with the Derek Brunson fight. Did you against you all Romero? I would want to see that.

Sure, but then you'd be taking a very risky fight. Yeah, well, do you want to be a title contender or not? I mean, that's what risk is. He's already a title contender. I understand, but I'm saying like, you want to beat these guys or not, man, like, you know, you don't get easy fights. You get the right fights to get you to where you need to be, as I mentioned. Look at his ticket on defense getting better and better and better against better opposition. But at some point, you just got to swim in the deep end and I think he's probably ready. Let's see him do it. I don't know. I'm all for the Anderson's still if I. Let's agree to

to disagree there. Okay. Let's talk about another middleweight on that card who was doing quite well, but things didn't go the way he planned. Oh, is this about Wyman? Yes, sir. Hey, regular Mike from Indiana, longtime listener, first time caller. How much would Chris Wyden benefit both from a bump up to 205

and really getting some outside eyes by exploring some other camps, even if it was only for part of his camp? Thanks, love the show. Great question. First of all, I think the world of Matt Serra, I think the world of Ray Longo, I think those guys can train just about anybody

to be their best. That being said, there's always room to grow in the martial arts world. Anybody who's involved in martial arts will tell you that. Dave, you know, shouts to Dave Camarillo, the guerrilla jih Tzu guy. He made a point, or Dave Camarillo, how do you want to call it?

He made a point years ago, and he has a motto, he has it in like the hashtag of all his Instagram posts, train with everyone. Train with white belts, train with black belts. Train with Gordita. trained with Fayas.

You know what I'm saying? Trained with tall, train with short, train with strong, train with weak, train with guys who have good guards, guys who have good from Turtle, guys who are good wrestling. Train with everybody. It just makes you better over time. And he does get some nice looks over there with Henzos and all the kinds of guys. I'm not recommending a camp change,

but what I wonder is, would it be the worst idea in the world? It's up to him, only he knows that. But I want to be clear, just because you're at one of the very best camps in the world, doesn't mean another very good camp. Well, you're not able to shake things up. But Chuck Mendenhall in the post-fight show, Danny, I'm sure you saw it. He had the right answer. Just kind of start fresh.

When you can start fresh, look at Jared Cannoneer. Starts fresh at middleweight, takes a short-notice opportunity, and it beats number seven guy in the world. Bam, look at this. You're looking at Jared Canineer in a whole new light. Highly recommended move to light-heavyweight for Chris Wyman. Couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more with Chuck Mindenhall. If you guys haven't checked out the post-fight show, go over to M-A-fighting, if I didn't do that after the show.

But, yeah, I couldn't agree anymore. I mean, for me, always changing weight classes was hitting the reset button, right? You kind of forget about everything. It's a fresh new star, you know, and he's, white man is one in four in his last five bouts. And if you look at who he's fought here, he's fought, he's fought. Luke Rockold, you remember Rio Romero, Gagard Musassi, Kelvin Gasolm, Jack Arsosa, all killers, man. I feel like at middleweight, you're not going to get a tune-up fight. If you go up to light heavy weight, it's a lot more accessible to get, you know, a guy that's, you know, not a top five contender in that division.

So I would recommend the weight class change plus. He's a big dude. And look, skill-wise, I think 185 is a lot more dangerous than 205 at this point in time. I would agree. Yeah. Especially with the guys like Israel out of sign that coming through the ranks, man. There be no shelter here. Yeah.

For sure. All right, let's talk about Sejara Eubanks. This is not really a question. This is a statement, but, you know, brings up that topic. What's up, guys? I just finished watching the Sejara U. Banks fight. And I just got to say, she's so lucky that she didn't go up against Chubchenko, looking like that.

Maybe the way Coe would have been different, but, man, that she just wouldn't have had it tonight. What? So that was just a statement. No question. Why was he drinking on the microphone? Was he drinking? Oh, sounded like, like, like, gulping.

Sounds to me just like a tap, like if he was tapping on the mic. Marana. Marano. Is it a run? That's right. Thank you. Yeah. The gender thing, always.

I always botched the gender. Yeah, it's a weird thing, right? So, Zajar, Eubanks. Interesting story, had a lot of media attention going into this fight. Misses weight on Friday. I asked her about that at the Post-Fart Presser. Did you see the scrum? Yes, I did.

I said to her, I said, look, you know, great win. You look good. By the way, I thought she was tired after that second round. She came out firing in the third, man. So credit to her. And she even admitted, she's like, I was a bantamweight before the tough season came around to be a flyweight. She kind of admitted, like, I'm not really a flyweight. And I said to her like, yo,

Great win, but what is the U.S. you going to do with you? You missed weight twice, you know? She was like, yeah, I don't know. All I could control at this point was just getting the win on tonight. I can't. She acknowledged this is a real difficult. I don't know, man. She's going to have to do like a test cut for him or something because I don't know.

I don't know how you get around that problem. Yeah, it's a very difficult situation. And she has so much media. I feel like, you know, there's a saying in PR, you know, there's no such thing as bad publicity. Well, I feel like in her case, it worked out in the very beginning as far as, like, you know, the whole cancellation with the fight. The Joe Rogan thing. Yeah, the Joe Rogan thing was huge. And I feel like people just knew her just from the fact that she was on the headlines constantly.

And she misses weight, which she should have made $1.25. And she should have gone out there and destroy Roxanne and then just get on the mic and be like, Schochenko, this would have been you, you know? Something like that. Cut a nice promo. But instead, she has a very tough fight, somewhat, you know, pretty competitive. there was some parts there that she didn't look so great and, you know, she missed weight. So it's a really tough position. Very interesting, very interesting position where she's at right now.

Certainly is. Yeah. You have time for more? Yeah. A few more. All right. This is not about UFC 230, but still women's MMA. Very interesting question.

All right. What's up, Luke? This is Sawyer, Colin, from D.C. Yeah. My question is about Amanda Nunes' legacy. If she were to win this fight in December. So she's already beaten Ronda Rousey, Misha Tate, Valentina Shipshchenko twice. And if she were to beat Chris Seiberg, do you think she would be the greatest women's mixed martial artist at all the time?

I don't feel like a lot of people are really talking about the opportunity that she has in this fight to cement her legacy. You know what? That's a great question. Yeah, dude, I didn't think about that so he brought it up, man. That is a good point. Wow. Dude, and especially because, look, let's be honest, Shashenko's going to, there's a good question. there's a good chance she's going to become

the USC flight champion. She's right. If you beat, if you beat Shevchenko, twice, Tate, Rousy, and Cyborg, wow, that's a good, yeah, you might just be. I have to think about that for a second, but yeah, you just might be, man. That's a, what a, how have we not talked about this?

You know what? That's what we have sound off, man. We're sitting there talking about hot balls on Derek Lewis for eight weeks, and we're denying about the fact that Amanda Nunes is on the cusp of something really important here. By the way, if Cyborg wins, you know, you could say, well, was that the right fight in weight class and stuff, but she also would be submitting a bit of a legacy

right now, she has a pretty impressive resume to claim that, you know, goat status. Yeah, yeah, of course. Jesus, how have we not talked about that? That's crazy. It's insane. Also, Megumi Fujii had done a lot as a fighter as well, but I think Amanda Nunes, yeah, if you can get those scalps, that's gonna be tough

to beat, bro. Yep. All right, what else we got? You got one more? Yeah, no, we can come more. Okay. I'm just going to run like a jackass, like I always do uptown. All right. Okay, so let's go back to the middleweight picture. Sounds good? Yeah. Hey, Luke, it's Joel calling in from Canada.

My question today is, after UFC 230, what is kind of the lay of the land for the middleweight division? We know that Gastilum and Whitaker will be fighting early next year, but after that, who's the next contender? I really think Wydeen probably would have got this shot if he had won, but since he lost, shock raised lost convincingly to both Gastilum and the chance. Whittaker. So who's next? Is Adasanya ready to step that up there? Or somebody like Rockold Romero, we already saw them fight against Whitaker recently. So who do you think is next in line? And kind of what's the lay of the land in your opinion for the middleweight division? Thanks. Love the show. See ya.

Danny, why don't you feel that one first? I kind of have given a little bit of here or there. What are you thinking for it? Well, I would say give Adasania the Anderson's civil fight on the same car. where Robert Whitaker will be defending his middleweight title. I do like that. I like Adesani competing on that same card. Adesania has to be on that card, in my opinion, because he's got to get on the mic and be like,

yo, whoever wins that fight, you know, I'm next. And I really like the whole, you know, putting the same weight classes, you know, putting a lot of the weight class contenders in the same card because one, it, you know, makes the timelines work. And two, it cuts for incredible promos. Plus, you get them all immediate day, all together, you know what I'm saying?

It's pretty good. I think definitely get out of Sanya in that card and I think Adasanya is the guy. I think he's ready. For me, the Brat Tavares performance was definitely eye-opening, but you know, Brad Tavaris, although very skilled, he's not, you know, a top-five contender. Brunson, I think, very

highly. He does a guy that can strike, has power, can wrestle. Fought tough guys. He's fought tough guys, and he's only lost to the very, very best. So the fact that he was able to do what he did to Derek Brunson, to me, speaks volumes that this guy's ready for the title shot. So I'd like to see him fight. I wouldn't be opposed to it.

Yeah. But I feel bad for Jackeray, too, man. I guess put in the work, but he's got losses to two guys contend your photo. Another thing was that, you know, we saw Israel here today in studio, and we saw him with the Postal Presser's face looking clean as shit. Yep. And then poor Jaceret was nicked and dinged, man. Fantastic five, by the ridiculous. What a warrior he is. I've said this before.

Have you ever seen the clip where Jacaray gets his arm broken by Roger Gracie? And then he just, kind of like... If you've never seen it, it's upside down, trying to break Jacaray's arm. They're in the ghee, so you can't just slam him out. by the way, there's no slams in IBJF anyway. And his arm breaks. And Jacaray doesn't scream. He lets the arm break.

And I'm going to stand here for a second. Here's what he does. So the bell expires. Arm breaks, bell expires. And he stands like this. He stands like one arm like this. Dangley's like, yeah! Oh, no, wait.

You missed the part. He broke his arm and he has about like 45 seconds to a minute left on the match. And he gets back on the feet on neutral position. And he's just headposting with his with his guard. He forgot about that, yeah. The broken on the way, and he's defending takedowns. And the worst part is that you can see his face, he's just like, you can tell he's in a lot of pain, man. Yeah.

And to win a jujitsu tournament, like, what do you win? Bro, to win 50 bucks and a high five. Exactly. You get like 10 dudes on the bleachers cheering for you. Dude, Jacqueray is 38 and out here beating up the best of the world. He's a ridiculous athlete. It'd be kind of sad to see him never get a UFC title shot, right? It would.

Because he's one of the great time. It would. He really is. Very quickly, you have time for one more than I have to go. All right. Let's do it. Hit me with the digits. All right.

Let's talk about some refting and controversial decisions. Hey, what's going on, Luke and Danny? Love the show. You guys have been killing it. Obviously, the widening stoppage this weekend was awful. My initial reaction was to blame Murgliata. I think it's not the real problem because you've done this before, the Yamasaki, Thirb Dean, even Big John, you know, probably every ref.

I think the problem is not with the individual refs. It's just that there's only one ref. There needs to be a second trained official, outside the cage, watching via a monitor, and they would just simply press a button if they determine the fight should be stopped. The rest in the cage you'd have a buzzer and something that would vibrate on their hip, letting them know.

You think about it, most sports have multiple officials, and most sports are far less dangerous. As far as I can tell, there's not really a downside to adding an extra set of eyes to the fight, especially when there's already multiple... Okay, I get the point. There's an answer for this. Yep.

The answer is who's going to pay for that? And what states can do that? California can do that, having extra refs. You can say, well, what about the other refs who are not working? But they need a break. They need to collect themselves. They may have other issues. They may be checking people ringside.

There's lots of things. You have to have the amount of refs. You have to have the amount of money. You have to have a lot of things going on. You have to change how the sport would be structured and observed and officiated. Not saying it's a bad idea to have more eyes. It's fine. But this is the problem I mentioned when Adasania was in the studio.

You hand over the keys to the car to the government, and now everything is bogged down in government bureaucracy and lack of efficiency and a lack of resources. Not a bad idea, just not a realistic one. Yeah. Hey, shout out to Jack Griff for not dishing out any more punishment to Chris Whiteman. That's a true gentleman right there of the sport. But yeah, that stoppage was bad, and it kind of makes me think because, like,

okay, we see the fights on camera from our home, you know, with all the angles, you know, nice, clear view. The refs don't get that, you know. So I think it would be a great idea as this caller brought up to have a second ref, chilling outside, watching, you know, on a monitor, what we're seeing and then, you know, talking to the ref inside. We see this in soccer all the time, you know, refs standing on the side telling the main official if there was an offside or et cetera.

I think it'd be a lot better to have more eyes on this sport, especially since it's a very dangerous one. I can't argue with it. The only thing I'd say is because I got to get out of here. The only thing I would say is people are like, oh my God, how can these guys keep refing and they make such mistakes? You're looking at the best. That's what the best refereeing looks like.

Tom Brady throws interceptions. Aaron Rogers throws pick sixes. Doesn't happen very often, but they do. Maybe these guys aren't Aaron Rogers and Tom Brady, but something like, okay, it's more like Kurt Cousins. But the point still remains. That's one of the best quarterbacks in the world. That's what that looks like when they do their job.

They're going to make that many errors. It doesn't mean you don't comment on the error, but show me somebody who does it better. There's not many. All right, that's it, man. Hey, good show today, buddy. Yeah, very good show. Really appreciate you doing all the work you did.

And then again, I'm a douchebag for bailing on you, but I will make it up to you. Yeah, you owe me, you own me. I do. Thank you so much, man. I really appreciate it. And thank all you guys out there. Keep sending those tweets using the hashtag, The MMA Hour.

be sure to keep calling that phone number 844-866-2468, The MMA Hour at Vox Media. And until next time, stay frosty.