MMA Fighting - #458 – Sean O'Malley, Cynthia Calvillo, Curtis Blaydes

Episode Date: November 19, 2018

Luke Thomas speaks with Sean O’Malley about his suspension from the NSAC, USADA drug test failure, more; Cynthia Calvillo about her UFC Argentina win, her weight issues leading up to the fight, more, Curtis Blaydes about the heavyweight division, upcoming rematch with Francis Ngannou at UFC China. Luke also looks and breaks down some of the action at UFC Argentina from Johnny Walker’s clinch elbows to Calvillo’s bulldog choke in the Monday Morning Analyst; and he shares his thoughts on Neil Magny’s corner not throwing in the towel against Santiago Ponzinibbio on The Weigh-in. We also answer your questions on the latest in MMA on A Round of Tweets and Sound Off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's the Mixed Martial Arts Hour. It is Monday, November 19th, 2018, and Caesar is home. Welcome, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas, and this is the Mixed Martial Arts Hour right here on MMAFighting.com. Thank you so much for joining me, a pre- Thanksgiving edition of the show today. Very excited. A lot to get to. Our normal stuff, we'll have a round of tweets.

We'll take your calls. We'll have the way in. I've got a great Monday morning analyst plan for you guys, as well as a trio of guests. Fresh off of her win at UFC Argentina. Cynthia Calvijo will be here. Let's see, Sean O'Malley just got suspended by the Nevada Athletic Commission, but it's only six months. Does that tell us anything?

We'll talk to him. And then he is headlining his rematch against Francis Engano in China this weekend. Curtis Blades is going to be here. So a bunch of fighters in their 20s on today. show, which is always kind of fun. As always, we take your tweets using the hashtag the MMA Hour and keep those calls coming. 844-866-2468 or the MMA hour at Voxmedia.com. All right. Thank you guys so much for joining me on this wonderful Monday. I really appreciate it. A lot to get to. I had a, not a great weekend, but not a bad one. Just sort of a very ordinary one.

There was a ton of combat sports that happened. Tension Naskal. a ridiculous win over the weekend. Patricio Pitbull got a ridiculous. When I say ridiculous, I mean good. Win over the weekend. So that was kind of cool. Let's see what else happened. Jarrell, Big Baby Miller got a win.

There was just a bunch that happened across boxing, across MMA, across kickboxing. So a lot of stuff to get to. I actually thought in the end, UFC Argentina ended up being a pretty good card. But I don't know how many people watched it. Well, anyway, it doesn't matter. Let's go now to my friend and yours.

he is the arroz to my frioles he is the arippi to my pan he is the one and only Danny Sagarra hi Danny how are you I'm good yeah good buddy are you ready for Thanksgiving now Thanksgiving I know this from personal experience Thanksgiving in Columbia is not a big deal

so what do you guys celebrate it or what Thanksgiving is really only an American thing from what I'm aware of yeah I think the Canadians do it but on a different day yeah they do it I think in October I think maybe but you are an American as well now what's up you are an American

as well now. Yeah, for me, like, Thanksgiving, like, I still have Christmas and New Year's, like, you know, over Thanksgiving as far as, like, holiday priorities. It's not, like, a very important holiday for me, but I feel like it became more important for my parents. Um, so yeah, we do celebrate it. It's a good excuse to, you know, instead of Turkey, we have, uh, because, you know, my family's not big into Turkey. We have, like, either pernil or, or something else. No one's big into Turkey. Turkey's the most overrated shit birds that ever live. It's way too dry, man. Way too dry. People don't know how to cook it either. Everyone's like, oh, Thanksgiving at my house is great. I've been to Thanksgiving at your house. It's trash. Not you, Danny, but the proverbial you.

Every time I go and visit it, people are always like, they eat this dry turkey like it's dry wall. They're like, isn't this great as they're shoveling this terrible food in their mouth? It's like none of y'all can cook. But all right, I'm just being a hair. But it's a great excuse to get together with friends and family. It certainly is. Now, did you watch UFC Argentina over the weekend?

I did. See? Strongest performer, yeah, what's the fun to see? Do you see the ring girls? By the way, who is it on the MMA fighting Instagram page? Did you see this? They took the picture of the ring girls. And so one of them had the riverplate scarf.

And the other one had Boka Juniors. And I believe the caption was like, you know, the two most important teams in the Copa Libertadores or some kind of description. I was like, that's technically correct. And yet so far from what actually defines, it's the most important rivalry, arguably, in South American soccer. Yeah.

It's the two biggest teams in Argentina. Not only that, it's the two biggest teams in Argentina who, while playing the same league, are also playing for the South American all the South American championship. It's like saying if in champions they get was Atlantic Madrid versus Real Madrid. It's more like Barcelona.

You guys are more our little brother than the rival. Sure, that's why we're on top of the table. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, how fun against Seltavigo. Keep losing to them. All right, strong performer for you at UFC Archie Day. And here's the thing, a lot of strong performers in that card. Okay, so for me, it was Santiago Poncinio.

Obviously, that's the main event. So I'm going to, I'll throw in a second option out there. Johnny Walker, man. First of all, badass name, Johnny Walker, right? You get a nice sponsorship out of that. Yeah, if you can't get a sponsorship. It's like being, it's like, who's this new fighter? His name is Carl's Jr.

Better get a sponsorship with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, he had an amazing performance. And Roundtree was coming off that big win over, over, what's his face? Kickboxer. Oh, Go Kansaki. Go Kansaki. And he looked great in that. And, dude, Johnny Walker just looked like a killer.

And those elbows, that clinch was devastating. We're going to go over that in the Monday morning analyst. That was a tough spot to be in. Also, Chito Eta had a nice comeback, picked up a solid win. He really did. Cynthia, we were going to talk to her later. Cynthia, Calvijo had a nice win. Just looked ridiculous.

There was a lot of really strong performers on that one. And then, of course, Ponziadio in that main event, that crowd went wild. Here's the one thing. I got to give it to Argentina. They cheered a lot of people, I thought. And more than that, they went wild for Santiago when he won. And even more than that, folks don't realize that main card started at 10 p.m. for us. That was midnight in Buenos Aires.

Yeah, I think their main event wrapped up at like 4 a.m. Dude, what are they? And we actually have a question with the sound off of it. Do we? Okay. Well, I'll save my, I'll save my rant for that. Because I was just like, you know, I feel so bad for the... I mean, that is a hard way to watch live sports, man.

Yeah. Anyway. All right. Well, look, let's do this. We got a lot of stuff to get to today. We'll come back and checking with you for the sound off. By the way, the calls, how are they? I didn't even ask you before. They were good, man. They were good. Really good. Yeah, yeah. Any lady calls? Yes. We got our game. The same one? Yeah. Yeah, of course, it's the same one. That's the only woman listening. No, we've had it. We've had different, different female callers. They just haven't, you know, given us a call recently. All right, you know. Yeah. Ladies, we have a ladies first policy on the show. Call us. I don't even know what that means, but call us.

All right, we'll check back in with you a little bit later. So that means it is time now for the way in. There we go. Time now for the way in right here on the mixed martial arts hour. One of the controversies, not a big one, pretty small one actually, but one I think worth discussing coming out of UFC Argentina was the issue about whether Neil Magnus Corner should have stopped the fight ahead of the K.O. A couple things you want to weigh here.

Number one, Neil Magny was asked about it afterwards, and I'm paraphrasing, but in so many words basically said, my corner did the right thing. They should not have stopped it. I deserve every opportunity to win that contest. Didn't go his way in the end, but he had no issue with it. I have not spoken to his corner, who by the way, I think are, I think Elliot Marshall was in his corner.

I'm not sure who else was in it, but I know Elliot to be a fantastic coach, an experienced fighter himself. and I'm sure a man who cares deeply for for Neil Magny. So there wasn't like there was a bunch of neophytes in there who were just fumbling their way through everything. But there was actually a tweet that I saw that I wanted to bring up. Can we put it on the screen here?

It's from Tom Lawler. I don't know if you guys can see it. Can we show it to them? I don't want to just read it if we can. Let's get that up on the screen. There it is. Here's what it says. Lots of people complaining about Magny's corner not stopping it.

have never stepped foot in a cage and fought for money. I found this to be a very interesting tweet. First of all, shouts to Filthy Tom Luller, who, by the way, competes this weekend, I think even in the co-main event of the Golden Boy MMA show with Tito and Chuck. So we've had Tom on the show. I respect Tom's opinion.

Sometimes he and I agree. Sometimes we don't. I'm actually 50-50 with him on this one. But I found it to be a very, very interesting tweet. and I think it tells us a lot about this controversy. Now, why would it tell us a lot about this controversy? Let me tell you where I disagree, and then let me tell you where I agree.

Here's where I disagree. A lot of times when there's a controversial stoppage, we go and then we ask, or non-stoppage, whatever you want to call it, a controversy. We go and then we ask the fighter involved about their opinion of it. And almost without exceptional, they're pretty rarely, they'll just defend their corner, even if what they did was totally medically inadvisable.

We're going to have, for example, we're going to have Curtis Blades on the show later. Go back and watch the first fight with Curtis Blades and Francis Angano. He has his, I believe, a right eye, I mean, shut, shut. His corner is like, he's fine, he's fine. Curtis saying he's fine, he's fine. The doctor has to hold his hand over the other eye and then say, can you see? and of course he couldn't see anything, he couldn't even grab the hand in front of him, and that's when the doctor decided to call it.

Here's my point. It's not that you never want to take the fighters' considerations and beliefs into a larger account. You always do. But we have this thing in MMA where we just defer to fighters, like, their answer is always the right one. It's not. Like, here's the reality. If you let the fighters pick the rules of fighting,

there would be a degree of barbarism that would make it untenable. These guys are telling you many of them that they will fight until the death. I believe them. I believe them. I believe that they are that tough and that committed, that they will act in ways that are totally against what is medically advisable and certainly their long-term health. Now, fighting generally is not good for your long-term health,

but we put some limits on it to make it at least reasonably sustainable. Again, you always want to seek the opinions of fighters, but you don't want to always defer to them. The idea that people who might be weighing in on this have never fought in a cage is utterly irrelevant. The fact that you never fought in a cage and fought for money is totally irrelevant. You have to take the opinions of those who have into consideration. Totally agree there. But you don't just defer to that.

You take both perspectives. It's why there's civilian control of the military. You let the military run amok and do whatever the military wants by their own accord. And from the top on down, and you begin to get some problems. It's that softening from the civilian side that actually makes everything kind of work a little bit better. So I understand that's a hard perspective for me to make people like, what do you know? It's not about what I'm saying.

It's about what the argument means, right? You're protecting them against their own, you're protecting them from themselves. However, I said I disagreed with Tom and I said I agreed with Tom. That's where I disagree with Tom. Let me tell you where I agree. Let me tell you where I come down in accordance with him because I do think Tom's a bright guy, and I think he's got a point here.

It is very easy for me to say, well, maybe the corner should have stopped it. And if you're asking me my belief on the Magni case, I think it got really close to the situation where they should have stopped it. I don't think it crossed into territory where it's clear. For me, the Raquel Pennington situation was one where it was abundantly clear, and every explanation I've heard since then has not been even remotely convincing. this is not that. This is not that at all for a variety of different reasons.

To me, it's borderline. And I tweeted about it in real time being like, I don't know if we're there yet, but they need to keep a strong eye on it. You heard Herb Dean saying, in the fourth round, to Neil, you've got to fight back, you've got to fight back. So we're not there yet.

But the area where I think Tom has a great point and where I really sort of resonated with me when I saw this tweet was about how what the rules say don't match up with what the actual incentives are. The rules say if you're not intelligently defending yourself, and the customs say, if your guy is injured and he can't protect himself, what are you doing sending him back out there? Remember, we had Coach Duke Rufus on the show talking about Anthony Pettus. Anthony Pettus broke his hand

in that Tony Ferguson fight. What is the point in sending him back out there, right? Everybody knows Anthony Pettus is tough. You're really going to beat Tony Ferguson with a broken hand? I mean, Hell, Tony Ferguson is hard to beat with two fully functional hands, much less one. So we have these rules that in a medical context, totally abstracted, and customs anyway, totally abstracted from what the actual situation is, and that seemed kind of reasonable. And then you drill down to the fighter's perspective, which is why you always have to take it into consideration. Folks, if you stop that contest, he automatically loses half his pay. Now, maybe he gets a bonus along the way.

Maybe he doesn't. Probably not. If you're that worried about a guy in his condition, you're probably saying to yourself, this is going so poorly that we need to help him be protected. There's probably not a bonus coming your way. And for sure, the extra part of your check ain't coming that way. And there's another factor involved in here as well. Not only are you just robbing this person, essentially, I think they feel that way, of the money, right?

If you don't have much money to win, you need every opportunity to collect every single dollar. The other reality here, independent of what the rules of the customs say, is that there's a degree of honor involved. Now, I don't think that there's a whole lot of valor in taking a beating when we already know you're tough. there are moments that it's time to prove you're tough and then there are moments where we kind of already know and it doesn't really serve a purpose. Again, whether this one in the situations is the one that we're talking about or not is a separate point.

But I do think that like when you're not competing for much money, not as much money as you should be making anyway, and you're going to lose half if they stop it. And more to the point, in MMA, one of the reasons why everyone is so sensitive in the sport and they can't tolerate any degree of even quite fair criticism is because it's a bit of an honor culture. Right? It's why we valorize taking a beating. It's why everyone is always walking on eggshells about their opinions, whether it's media or fighters or any other kind of figure. Everyone is very, very careful about what they say, in part because you have to see everybody else, but in part because it's an honor culture. People are trying to preserve their honor. You know, listen to the tweet. Lots of people complaining about Magnus Corner not stopping and have never stepped foot in a cage and fought for money. He's talking, one, about the need to make that money and get every opportunity you can because,

there's not much of an opportunity to make much money generally to just have someone take it away is very, very difficult. And he's also talking about the honor of it all. If you don't have much money that you're going to win anyway, part of what you can preserve is your sense of honor. And that is a big component here that has nothing to do with the rules. The rules don't speak about this at all. And the rules don't incentivize any change in those incentives. There are two things utterly divorced. You want to get better. corner stoppages, there's probably a variety of ways to get them. You want to get more proactive corner stoppages? There's probably a variety of ways to get them. It will come when the rules and

the language and the customs cohere with the actual incentives that fighters face. What Tom Lawler quite correctly is observing here is that there is a whatever the rules say and whatever the customs say and whatever people who never fought in a cage from money say, here's the reality that we're facing. If they are that divorced and they are that far apart, you're never really going to make headway. An obvious way is to raise pay, but there's probably other ways as well that are worth exploration, but you're never even going to come close. It's never going to happen as long as there's the fighter and rule set utterly divided by an ocean of competing non-overlapping values and incentives. They don't ever make any sense. In boxing, they're much more closely aligned.

You have a bit of a father-son relationship and training. You have guys who have been through the ringer who understand what they're looking at when they see somebody in a particular predicament and when to make that call and when not to make that call. They know guys can have a higher upside if they can stay healthy and make more money over the long term. They have a lot of guaranteed purses. I mean, you don't even hardly see any splits in boxing. So all these different factors put it in alignment. There's no alignment in MMA. So I can get up here and say whatever I want about any issue related to this. As long as the fighters feel like that is utterly divorced from the rules in which and the customs in which and the incentives in which they operate,

there will be no progress. All right, that's the way in here. What is next? Oh yes. How about this? Time now, ladies and gentlemen, for the Monday morning analyst. All right. Let me take that off. There we go. Okay. How do I look? I look like I've slept, not at all.

I'm going to get my coffee here, actually. I'm going to put it to the side, though. Don't worry. Don't worry, Joe. I know what you're talking about over there. Here we are. All right. So, I always ask folks, if you want to be able to steer this segment one direction or the other,

on my Facebook page, Facebook.com slash Luke Thomas News. I always ask folks on Sunday night or Sunday afternoon, sometime on Sunday, what would you like to see on the Monday morning analyst? And I got a lot of responses. There wasn't any one thing that was like so, oh, my God, bigger than the next. Sort of like last week's Yair Kail was a pretty big deal, and Soroni's Arm Bar was a pretty big deal. And there's lots of pretty big deals. But the big three that I kept seeing over and over were one, that clinch that Johnny Walker put on, on,

guys, his names escaping me now. Khalil Roundtree. The second one was the arm bar by, excuse me, the choke rather, by Cynthia Calvijo.

And then at the end, the leg kicks. How were, I should say, Ricardo Lammis and Santiago Ponsanibio, able to effectively leverage their leg kicks for success? So that's what we're going to look at

here today. July, I'm going to have to use you a little bit in this segment. Is that okay? I will throw nothing, I will do nothing. I will just make a point. Yep, okay. Let's go to the screen here if we can.

Yeah, look at that. We actually had some technical difficulties ahead of time, and the boys in the back worked it out. Shouts to them. All right, here we are. This is obviously the first round. Johnny Walker taking on Khalil, roundtree, and I like this little combo he throws.

He throws a right head kick, right? He's all doing shucking and dancing there. Throws this, and then watch. He throws the right behind it. I kind of dig that because now, He's in an opposite stance. So now he can throw the straight. He still throws the right over it.

But now he can switch back by doing this. And he chases him down. Okay. So here was the question about the clinch. Folks are asking, like, what are you supposed to do when you get stuck in a predicament like this? This is a uniquely bad situation for Khalil Roundtree. And I want to make something clear. Like, what is the purpose of the Monday morning analyst?

Is it to break down film? Yes. Is it to help bring some elucidation to what happened in retrospect? Yes. But also it's about celebrating fighter achievement. It's really what I'm trying to do here. So I want to be clear either in this segment or any other, I'm not trying to demean what anyone does wrong.

If you get knocked out, you made some bad choices probably, right? But at the same time, this is a very difficult sport. You're operating in real time. You need to be kind of respectful. people even in defeat in this scenario. So just understand what I'm trying to do here. I'm just trying to be clear about what happened rather than being disrespectful. I'm actually trying to magnify what he did. Here's what occurred to me. This is why I mentioned it was a uniquely bad scenario for Calillo Roundtree. There's two things I noticed right away when this was happening. Number one,

the height differential. So if you're, if you've got somebody shorter than you and you're clenching, you are going to be in a, and you're the one doing the clenching, you're going to be in a very, very advantageous position, folks. very, very advantageous. You're going to have just shorter distance to travel to bring a knee, shorter distance to, you know, you can use more of your weight to pull down on them, right, rather than trying to, if your elbows are going past parallel to go and grab and pull something, it's just going to be harder versus, I mean, think about where you're strongest, your strongest here, like in jujitsu, right? This is where you're strongest. You're not very

strong here. That's why gymnasts, as a display of strength, the male, ones do the iron cross where their arms are totally out to the side because that's their essentially weakest point. How strong are you at your weakest point? So think about this clinch. He's got his elbows kind of here. This is a very strong position. Number one, there's a major height differential. That's going to be a major problem for Khalil Roundtree. There's something else and the graphics here are not good enough to show even though I recorded this in high-deaf. The clinch is a technical position and I want you to understand that. It's a technical position. However, size matters and so does strength.

You can see here, if we can go back to the screen so I can point it out. Yeah, you can see here, you see this, it's the brachialis muscle, so you've got your bicep and your tricep. There's a muscle in between. People who are super yoked, get it. He is ridiculously strong. It looks to me, not merely because he is chiseled, but because you have Khalil Ravis. who can barely move. He is just stuck in this thing. And I'm going to show you he tries to fight his way out of it a couple of times and can't get anywhere close to it, in part because, yes, he's

using physical strength, in part because of the height differential, and in part just because it's a very obviously good position for him. You'll notice he never even, let me be clear about this. I'm certainly so far from an expert on the clinch. It's not even funny. But the way it was taught to me was hand over hand like this, hand over hand. I've seen some guys do it this way. I've seen Some people gable grip it up. There's lots of different grips. He doesn't even have any of those grips. He just has two hands, collar tying, and even still Khalil Roundtree.

Can't break it. Folks, that is a very, very, very strong, mechanically advantageous situation for Johnny Walker right away. Now, here's the situation. Joe, if you want to come here for a second, if you can. Just for a second. I'm not going to do anything. Just don't, just be cool, Joe. I'm making you famous, Joe.

Come here, face me. Face me. Okay, you can put your hands behind my head, yes? So here we are. We're just two lovers, gently embracing. Here's the point, though. If we're in this situation like this, and you're pulling on my head,

what I don't want to do is I don't want to break at the waist, because if I break at the waist, bad things are going to happen. So you want to have nice posture, but I don't want to be in this space. See, look at this space. This space is where he can land an elbow, he can land a punch,

he can turn me, he can do a lot, and Khalil Roundtree always stays here. Roundtree wanted to be here. Try to throw an elbow here. There's no, there's no mechanical way. We're head to head. There's no way. Hi, Joe. Nice to see you. All right, you can go back. You get the idea? So keep that in mind. People asked, why did the elbows work? The elbows worked because he was always in a position to be landed on. He never got head to head with him. He didn't break at the waist. When someone pulls you down, your natural instinct is to force back up. But after that, you got to go to the secondary motion. So watch. He tries to punch his way. He tries to punch his way.

out at first. And I want you to pay attention to this elbow. Watch how, when he has the clinch, he's actually going to sink his right elbow inside. Watch this. See that? He sinks it inside the chest and creates a frame. So now the punch is nowhere where it needs to be. Nice little dodge there. And by the way, he's got it now on the clavicle. See that? So he's pulling the head down and he's got a frame. So not only are you being pulled towards him, you're being pulled and then locked into position because the frame is stopping you from coming forward, but the pull is making you come forward. So he's locking you into position with this. This is a very, very, and again, look at his muscles straining, right? Very, very, very strong position. So Khalil Roundtree looks to me like he

tries to dig through and bump the elbow. This is better, although the height differentiation still makes it a problem, and he's going to push him back, right? Let's get him to the fence. because you want to get hip to hip. Okay, this is better. And he tries to go underneath the elbow. And by the way, people are like, how do you break the tie clinch? Folks, there's a million ways to break the tie clinch. One of the most obvious ways is you swim inside and you capture the inside space.

There's all kinds of ways where you break the tie, where you break it off your head. You break the collar tie here. There's different ways where you can reach under and grab the elbow and then turn and trip them. There's a million different ways. Usually, though, one of those ways involves grabbing the head. Did you notice? Calil Roundtree never grabs the head. He doesn't pull.

Remember how Joe and I were head to head in our loving embrace? Did you notice that he never pulls the head down? So there's nothing keeping... Look at that. His head is completely untouched. The neck is completely untouched. So he's trying to dig up under here and he can't, right? And he's getting turned.

Now they're head to head, but only because Johnny Walker wants it that way. Watch this. So you can see right here, let me do this. Look right there. You see this? Let's do it again. See that? Khalil Roundtree is trying to pummel inside.

You see that? He's trying to pummel inside so he can be the one doing inside control. Watch what Johnny Walker does again. Remember how he collapsed the elbow inside? Watch this. He throws the strike, and now there's no more of him trying to pummel inside because Kalil Roundtree is now put it. it across his waist so he doesn't get drilled.

Okay? Look at this. No one's ever touching his head. Now that punch lands, but punching your way out of the clinch is going to be hard. A lot of guys are good at ducking and rolling with stuff inside of that space. So here he is again. So it looks like he's trying to, Khalil is trying to at least control this side so that he doesn't get bombed on there.

Let's see what happens. Johnny Walker is just rotating him over to now he's rotating him over where he's rotating him over where Roundtree's trying to get the hand inside so he can establish inside control. Johnny Walker says, fine, but boom, you're unobstructed there. Look, look at the space. Folks were asking, why did it land? Why did it not land? Like, how on earth would it not land? There's nothing blocking. He's standing straight up in perfect range. There's no mechanism bringing the head down. There's no mechanism getting them head to head. There's no mechanism effective enough anyway to pummel in. All those things are missing.

So of course it landed. Right? And that hurt him bad. And by the way, look at this. Look at how, look at this. He doesn't have to throw up an elbow at all. It's just straight across. His arm is parallel to the deck.

How about that? Crazy, right? So then he stumbles. He recaptures it. Look at him again. Look at Roundtree. Hold on, let me. Look at Roundtree.

Trying to pummel in. Whoop. And what does he do? He sagged it inside and then pulls. Right? Walker, sags it inside. Now you can't pummel in. Now you just have a fist there.

There's nothing there. The guy who has inside control, it's him. Roundtree is holding the other one. So that left arm of Walker is no good. But the right arm is home free. Pushes them back, right into the fence, and then just pops him. Boom. There's nothing, I mean, it's, there's nothing, there's nothing stopping him.

And then he collapses, and I don't want to show you the final, final ending, but there you go. So why did he win? There you go. You know who's got a YouTube channel with a ton of good clinch break tutorials on them and stuff? And he would know this, I mean, I could never in my lifetime know as much about that as Bazooka Joe. Go check out Joseph Valtolini's YouTube site. He's got a ton of good stuff about clinch breaking and strategy and what to do and what not to do. So go give him a look. There's other ones too. Just Google tie clinch break.

You know, how to work in the tie clinch. There's a thousand things that at least give you a heads up. There are so many ways to break it. But there are a couple rules about it, not getting broken out the waist, bringing head to head. That will help you in the long run. All right. So now we move on to the Calvijo situation. Here's Cynthia on top.

I want to show you something that I've mentioned. in the CM Punk and Mickey Gall scenario, right? What was that? Look at this side control. Folks, that is a read. Let me zoom in here just a little bit if I can't. Oops. Let me zoom in here a little bit. That is a ridiculous side control. Now, why is that ridiculous? Look at this elbow. Her arm is so far away from her body. What's strong? What's weak? What do you think that is? Super, super weak. Ryan Hall one time made a point to me,

if I'm on my back and my arm is by my side and someone is in what they call side control, but I've got my arm next to me and they're not actually inside of this space. Are they really inside control? Of course, there's a debate about that, but the answer is against anybody good, no, you're not. You need to be inside this space.

And even against somebody good, they're almost never going to let their elbow get away from their body like this. Your elbows need to be kind of glued a little bit. Look at that. Wide open, folks. That is impressive. That is a deep, deep, deep side control. She will lose that because she goes for other things. But I just want to point that out. When she gets there, I saw that and I was like, ugh, you'll never see, unless he's unconscious, you'll never see Marcella Garcia like this. You'll never see Browlio Estima like this. You'll never see Keenan Cornelius like this. You'll never see their elbows. They may lose a match. They may even get submitted.

You'll never see them sustained at a position that week because that is just a set up for disaster. Okay. So here she goes. She's going to just near in the gut here. She's going to try. And by the way, this is, people do this. They'll bring their knee on the bridge of your nose. Let me tell you from personal experience, does not feel great, as you can well imagine. that coffee is very good. So we move along here. So now you can see, she's trying to, like, you know, grind out her face here. I mean, dude, look at this side control.

It's ridiculous. You have complete inside control on the body. Amazing. So she's going to try, her coach was telling her to step over the head. I think they were either going to look for an arm bar or some kind of Kimura or something. Hard to know.

Anyway, so she fumbles here a little bit. I mean, dude, the bicep is resting on the I can't anybody who's ever rolled will tell you like holy Jesus this is terrible this is a terrible spot to be in right you need to get that for you

this that needs to be along the inside of the hip not like floating on the outside like a seatbelt in any event we move along here looks like she's trying to just grind her out you can see here

right you can see right there Oh, wait, hold on. You can see right here. She's just grinding her out, right? So we go back, she's moving along. There she begins to lose a little bit of it. I mean, I just can't get over how ridiculously good the side control is.

In any event, so here's when she begins to lose it a little bit. She tries to control one of the arms. Now, here she inadvisably tries to, like, go to mount. But she goes to mount right along the middle of the guard, essentially. You could still do it here, but as you can see, she tries it right when Botelio has a chance to grab it, and she kind of does, like that, rather than when their hips are the other way or, like, it's just harder to do when they're facing you. See how the hips are facing Calvijo? You can not say you can't do it that way, but not the best way. But again, when you have a side control that deep, you might let some things go that you just don't really care about.

So anyway, they move along here. Let's just, you know, she's just battering her. Okay, so what does, let me blow this up a little bit. What does Botelio want? She wants that underhook here, and you can see what does Calvillo want, Calvijo. She wants to layer out. So what's the best place to be is standing? If you're on the ground, what's the worst place to be on your back?

What's a better place to be than on your back, on your side? What's a better place to be than just on your side? Underhooking, kind of protecting yourself. So she's in a relatively okay spot here, all things considered. That underhook's just not deep enough, though. and the Unhart needs to be way up inside that armpit, which it's not, right? Now, what is you think Calvigio going to do? She's going to try and get her flat on her back, or at least, you see how she's curled up, Motelio?

You're going to see her try and smash her open, right? You see a lot of, okay, I don't want to speak for 10th Planet because I know so little about what they do, but all of the 10th Planet guys, whoever ever roll with, they get to this position, and, man, they just keep going for that under. underhook, underhook, underhook, because all they need to do is once they get it, they have a whole bunch of attacks. So from being here, you often find yourself overhooking with them a lot and trying to flatten them out. And you can see that right here. Then she flattens her out a little bit.

Then she recaptures the inside space. Kind of lets it go a little bit here to bang on her. And then you see, Botelio, she's trying to get to that other elbow so she can underhook elbow and then get her hips out and maybe stand. and then she's just getting pressed out here, right? Pressed out. Look at that. It's almost like a knee on belly. Boom.

Right? She's got this knee kind of on the groin sort of hip area. She's flattening her out with like a, like a just posting her weight on her face and jaw. And then just crushes her with a belly shot. That was nasty. Gets her to move, by the way. So here she is on top. She's established inside control again.

Remember when we saw Soroni lap. week recaptured that far side hook on Mike Perry. This is the same thing, right? Same thing. Oops, I don't want to do that. Here we go. Let's move along here. Doing the same thing, doing the same thing.

There she goes to the underhook again, but the underhook is not. You need that underhook to kind of like, you got to press it away from your body a little bit, which she's not doing here. She gets to her side. Okay, that's something. But you can see where it's the right arm doing here, a battalion. She can't get to an elbow or a hand or anything. So that's a problem.

Right? We keep going here. And now she kind of rolls to her base. Let me make sure I zoom back in. She kind of rolls to her base, which is interesting. It's not a very technical role, but she kind of just sort of muscles her way there, which is fine. Calvijo is just letting her have it.

Okay? Herb Dean kind of blocks this so you can't really see exactly how she gets it, but it doesn't matter. So she has the choke right here. Now, why does she have the choke? First of all, a couple things I want to pay attention to. All of this is forcing her, all of this ground and pound from her, is forcing her to just get to her hands, right? Because it's creating enough space where you can do that. She's not mechanically holding everything, and she just wants to get up as much as possible.

So the ground and pound forced the roll, and the ground and pound is forcing the sort of desperation to get to her hands as well, which is how the choke went. it appears to me, because you can look at the arm here. Nope, hold on. See that, that arm is of Botelio. So it looks to me like the choke went unobstructed. That's a nice high choke. Look at that. She's almost on the shoulder muscle.

You see a lot of times guys try to go for chokes, and they kind of get here low on the crook of the arm. Boy, she's up here on that bad boy. That is a nice choke. So she also has this hook. See this right there? Oops. She has that hook.

See that right there? Right there? So I'm not sure what purpose that serves, to be perfectly honest. Think about a rear naked choke. Why do you take the back? You take the back because the choke should be enough, but by taking the back, let's say you have a body triangle,

just as an example, the benefit that that serves is you're not controlled their body. So if I just come behind you, if I came behind Joe and I choked him, would he have options to escape? The answer is yes, Bas Routen has a whole bunch of escapes from that. You can flip somebody over. You can get behind them, pick up their legs, and you can drive into them, because you can't control their body. Now, on the ground, it can be a little bit different. Part of me wonder is if she left that hook in there just as some kind of way of not to control a biltileo, at least slow any kind of movement that she was applying from the choke. The choke,

I called it in real time, a bulldog choke. It is not a bulldog choke, although the mechanics are pretty similar in some ways. The reason why it's not a bulldog choke is she's posting off of her left arm or left leg, excuse me, and it's the left arm that's doing the choking. It'd be a bulldog choke if she switched. So she's posting here, choking here. If she switched to the right side, then that would be the bulldog choke, which she's not doing.

So it's not a bulldog. I called it incorrectly. There you go. So she's going to slide. Watch out. She's going to grab this choke. She's going to slide out that leg. See the bottom leg there?

She slides it through. And then immediately takes the back. And then she's already tapping. Nicely done. Nicely done by Cynthia on that one. All right. So let's move along. And by the way, look at this from Cynthia.

Let them know, Cynthia. Let them know. All right. Moving along. Two down. Basically one situation left to go. Okay. Ricardo Lama's taken on Darren Elkins. Great win by Ricardo Alamos, great redemptive performance by him. We'll talk about Pons and Nibio here in just a second. Folks were asking, what about those leg kicks? How do they do that kind of stuff? The calf kick. The calf kick, I will be very clear about this, and I'm always clear about my biases and my limitations. It's not something I know a tremendous amount. I encourage you to look up. Some folks that I talked to over the weekend, though, they gave me some

interesting information about it. We'll get to here in just a second. There's also some other points that I've been hammering home this whole time that I need folks to pay attention to that's really important here. I'm trying to find a good scenario. All right, I want to show you something. In this particular case, it's to their back. But I want you to look at this. I want you to look at all this. Okay, look at everything between the blue lines. Now, remember, they have their back to this, but these things exist all the way around. Lamas is forcing Elkins into it. I've asked fight metric a basic question.

Where on the canvas, if you're looking down at it, do most fights end? They don't track that. But anecdotally, I encourage you to look, and I would tell you that there's information to suggest, almost all of them end here. Or if they don't end there, they end as a consequence of what happens in here. behind these black lines. I kind of exaggerated this one, but you get the idea. This outside rim, when you're looking at guys cage cutting, they want to do a couple of things.

They want to prevent the person from moving, right, outside of this space. They want to keep them locked in here. Because, one, you can corner somebody. And two, there's just weird things that happens where if I'm in free space, I might move like this or whatever. I'm just chilling. I'm doing my thing. but when someone gets put up against the wall, their behavior changes.

Sometimes they get tall. Sometimes they don't feel like they can move the same. They don't throw the same kinds of strikes. So not only are they cornered in terms of their mobility, their behavior changes. It literally forces them to be a different fighter as a consequence. When you watch your next fight, when you watch Tito versus Chuck this weekend or whatever you're going to watch, pay attention, especially in the UFC where they had this demarcated space. This is where all the action happens. Think about the round tree elbow.

Where did it happen? Right against the fence. The Cynthia Calvijo one, who happened just outside that space. It happens so frequently, which makes sense, right? Because you're talking about a sport where people are pushing out, well, they have nowhere to go but out,

and then once you get here, you're a limited mobility and your behavior changes. Kind of interesting point to make. All right. So how do Ricardo Lomas use it? Differally than Ponziabio. He did not want to get too too close to him. Not a lot of boxing.

What he wanted to do was make sure he was in a position to defend the takedowns. The calf kicks are a game changer for wrestlers. They're very powerful. They're very effective. And my leg isn't raising as high. It's kind of staying here. So it's much easier to retract it and not have any threat of a takedown from a guy like that who's really good. What you're going to see from Ricardo Lomas is some handwork, yes, but mostly he wants to keep his distance

and then use a variety of kicks, including and especially the low kick, to set up other things. Let's watch. So here they are bouncing around. And again, where is the dangerous territory? Always remember here. Anything in here. That is the danger zone. That's what you're always looking for right there.

That's why he wants to push out. He wants him in this. space right here, or up against the fence line. That's what he's looking for at all times. Got pretty close, obviously, right? He's going to jab his way in, but look at Ricardo Llamas, gets right back out. He does not stay in range with a guy like Darren Elkins, yeah? And well, there you go. You see it. How is he using it? Darren Elkins, fading to his right. Let's see, he fades, and as he gets close, Llamas lands here. Why is this important? Because, number one, watch what it does to Elkins.

It shifts him back a little bit. Number one. Number two, sets up a future kick later. And number three, he's just sort of, he's got his hands up here. He's not really expecting it. And his, look how far, by the way, if you can show me again on the screen. Look at how far the leg stands of Darren Elkins. He's way out here, right?

Way out there. So he's just a natural target for it, which means Llamas can hit it at range. He can be way far away. Swing on it and get out without having to worry about too much. So boom, lands it, right? Nice. We keep going here. Oops, don't want to do that.

Hold on. Now he's throwing other kicks, setting them up, right? Look how he does. He engages Llamas and then retreats. He's never hardly in boxing range. Very, very little. Clinch breaks, stays out of the way. We keep going here.

Throws the uppercut, tries to put a kick behind it, right? He's trying to just confuse Darren Elkins. And then, watch this, as Elkins tries to step in, boom, catches him stepping in with it, and immediately what does he do? Puts a hand up to frame out to block. All right, we keep going. I'm going to go through this kind of quickly because I want to get to Ponziabio here. All right, where is Darren Elkins?

Once again, let's do this. I want to make it a little bit clear. Where is Darren Elkins? He's in the close to the danger zone. Yeah? There he is. This is not to say that in the middle of the cage, there's no danger. I'm just illustrating a point.

All right, so they're moving along. What does Darren Elkins expect? He's expecting some kind of a jab or cross. Maybe some kind of a leg kick. It's not really clear. So boom, he gets drilled. He got confused. Bam, eats the kick.

All of those other kicks are beginning to invest. That's the purpose. And what does Ricardo Lamas do? He gets out of the way. Now Ricardo Lamas is in the danger zone. I am so surprised by this. Maybe he didn't want to get hit. Maybe he was just not thinking.

I can't believe Darren Elkins lets him circle back. I couldn't believe that. No cage cutting at all. Look at Ricardo Lamas. He knows not to get his back on the fence. And now look at their positions. It's back to a much more advantageous one for Ricardo Lamas. He goes here and tries to cage cut, follows his hips.

Backs up a little here. Watch this. You'll see he comes in. Again, just throwing a variety of kicks, as you can see here. Making it all work. Boom, do-do-do-d-d-d-d-d-d-do-d-d-d-d-d-m. All right. Watch this.

Doesn't get caught, frames out and gets back to a more dominant position. And he loves to nail him, by the way, in these sort of, like, entry moments. Breaks it, fights out, never keeps his back along the fence. Here he is moving away. When he's moving away, look, there's no way he could punch him or take him down from there. But Llamas can reach out and grab a guy with his leg who's got this super wide, almost like, kung fu horse stance.

Get some. Get some again. All right. We'll fast forward through the rest of that. You get the idea. All right. Now, how did Pons...

God damn it. Oh, Jesus Christ. Hold on. There we go. How did Ponsonibio use it? Very differently. Some of the same things, of course, right? You know, it's very easy to land

without being taken down, all those things I mentioned before. But the one that's a little bit different for him is he was much more willing to use his hands. In fact, you can make an argument he was almost too willing to use his hands. willing to use his hands, but he uses it pretty similar as well. I'm only going to show you the second round. First round already happened. He's already landing. What was the game plan by Ponziadibio? It was to get Magni backing up as far as possible. Once you're getting back, back him up as far as possible, then there's all kinds of different stuff that's happening there. There's just so much you can do there, right? So, watch. Now, Neil Magny comes out in the second round and says,

Oh, man, I can't allow that. I got to get after that. So he does get after it. He tries to come out and make a strong account of himself. Look at him here, jabbing. You can hear his corner yelling to him, put a pace on him, put a pace on him. Let me zoom in here a little bit, right? Here we are, just so you can see a little bit better.

So Magni's coming after him, and you could see Ponziadibio trying to keep his back away from the danger zone, right? As we mentioned before, here he comes, here he comes. So he's just kind of absorbing all the pressure here a little bit. Not doing a whole lot, minding his distance, doesn't want to get too far in. He L steps out, right? Now he's sort of putting more pressure on him. Here's what it looked like to me. It looked like to me that the power, the power of Ponziabio was so overwhelming that

Magdi would go out there and do all the right things. He was, you know, putting a pace on him, sticking a jab in his face, trying to leg kick. It just never had an effect on Ponziabio. So I'm not saying he doesn't kick or punch hard. Maybe Ponziabio was in serious pain and just no sold it. But if you no sell it, it's almost the same. is they're not being very hard. So watch this.

He jabs, and here he did this. Whenever Magny would jab and then fade to his right like that, you can see we have to step out. He was always getting drilled. Ponsonibio did it a lot to limit the jab. So he jabs to his right, or excuse me, to his left, excuse me, boom, catches them. Did I say to the right?

I'm into the left-handed. So I jab to my right. To the outside of his jab hand. I apologize for getting that wrong. Boom. Cracks him there. So now he knows if he jab, and he tries to move in space, he's going to get torn up.

That was a great way that he was able to use it, right? So he kind of switched his stances here for a second, blah, blah, blah. Now they're back to where they were. Here's what Ponsonibio goes to work, right? Where are we? You guys know the story here. This is a story that's already been told. That's the danger zone.

Is it not? Yes, it is. All right. So he's going to back him up because, again, you have less mobility about what you can do. and your behavior changes when you get lined up like that. Look at the cage cutting. And look at the distance, very different than Ricardo Lomas.

Lomas was way outside. He's not doing that. He wants to get inside the reach of Neomagny. He wants to back him up with his strikes. When he tries to circle out with his jab, he wants to crack him on that lead leg, doesn't want to give the takedown, so he's not going across the thigh,

he's going to go across the calf. I'm talking about these calf kicks here. And he wants to get up in his grill, Not clinch range because Magny would have the advantage to be the taller guy there potentially, but right in that boxing range, right? That's what he's going to do. He's just going to faint his way in. Boom.

Catches him still in space. Look how wide out he is, right? Catches him still in space. Boom, drops him and goes after him here, yada, yada, yada. By the way, I like this from Neil Magni. Look at this. He kind of gets on his three, his two hands and his foot and then kicks out the other one. It's actually an interesting way of creating space so you can get up.

It doesn't work here in this particular case, but that doesn't mean anything. All right, so then they stand. He brings him back up. So now, Magnet on the game plan, right? Trying to get him to go back. But it just doesn't work for very long. Ponziabio on his horse, standing out from range, ducks it, turns, and now look where they are. I mean, it's just right back to where they were.

Who's on the danger zone? Now look at this. Remember how I told you your behavior changes when you are up against the fence? He's all squared now. Partly that's because of the pain. He was trying to square up his stance because he didn't want to get drilled anymore. But as I mentioned, guys touch the fence and ladies, and they just get kind of tall. They get tall all of a sudden.

So it's not a great place to be, right? And look at him here. Inside that range. Look at how far back Magni is to the point where, look at where Ponziabio is. Even Ponziubio is inside the two black lines. Crazy, right? Boom. Now he's just using his boxing.

By the way, look at Ponsonibio. Ready? Watch this. One, two. And watch him jump back out of range. Boop. Slides. Just slides in that pocket.

That's what they mean when they say slide in the pocket, right? Brilliant stuff. Here he comes. Chugging along. Keeping him centered. Neil Magnet's trying to throw a one, two. You see him back off here, but then gets right back into range, jab to the body. All right.

Let's see what happens here. You see, he's not overly relying on the kicking. All right. Look at him following him here. Like two gazelles on the same path. Crazy, right? He keeps going. Look at him inside the range.

He blocks the hand so that he can throw that jab, gets out of the way, and gets right back at his face. So he's throwing a one and getting out a one, two, and then getting out and then getting back in. Good entries, good exits. Boom. standing still, he catches him not moving. Neil Magny stops moving, so Ponza Nibu goes, gotcha,

and drops him. All right, we keep going, yada, yada, yada. It's all this nonsense. They let him back up. All right. Again, Neil Magny goes back to the gameplay. Neil Magny, when I was watching this fight in real time,

I was like, man, he just doesn't need to be able to do much. But you go back and you watch it in and then after the fact, you're like, man, he was actually trying pretty hard. He's always trying pretty hard, but like he was getting up and he was listening to the instructions. He just couldn't make it work over time. Ponsonibio stays on his horse, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right?

He moves away, moves away, moves away. Jabs, circles back, counters his own striking. They clenched there. And now he begins to just step on him. I think that's where the power, when he felt the power, it was just overwhelming for him. And as we see here, we'll do a look at one more leg kick. I think that drops him and then we'll call it a day here on this very long edition of the Monday morning analyst da-da-da-da-da-da punches punches and bunches throws that all right let's see

there's one more I want you to look at and then we will end this here I apologize for going so long yada yada yada all right this is the last one last one here all right look at he gets him he drills him with a shot that puts him back so now he can't see he's all the way back up here. You get the idea. He's following him here. Cage cutting gets in with a punch, gets out, and then stays right back on him. Cage cutting, cage cutting, cage cutting. And then when he catches him just not doing a whole lot, you're going to see he's going to drop him with a, not with the punch, but with the leg kick right here. Bunk. He just catches him reaching like this, off balance, and then drops him. So that's enough of that. You get the idea. How did he use it?

Two very different ways. What's the key consideration there? It's powerful, it's quick, It helps prevent getting taken down. It can be used in a variety of different functions. It's a brand new weapon. You're seeing a lot more of in mixed martial arts. The calf kick, very, very effective. Congratulations to all the winners, excuse me, from UFC Argentina, especially Santiago Ponsanibio.

All right. Let's do this. Okay. With that out of the way, it's time to speak to our first guest. I had to do this over the weekend, yesterday, in fact, because she is traveling today. Cynthia Calvijo had a phenomenal win and got back in the winter circle even

with the winner of Polia, I think her name is Paulina, Paulia Botelio. In any event, there's a lot to discuss, including the weight failure and what's next for her. This is our conversation. Fresh off a successful win from Saturday night's UFC Argentina. We're joined now by the one and only

Cynthia Calvijo. Cynthia, how is lovely Argentina? It's amazing. It's beautiful out here. We got a little bit of all kinds of weather. We got rain and a lot of sunshine too. So it's been great. And then the food's amazing. So I've been able to enjoy that now after, you know, my fight. Yeah, I can only imagine. First time in Argentina, by the way. Yes, first time in Argentina. Amazing. I'm dying to go. I've not been yet. Well, look, let's start with some great news. You got an amazing win last night. A couple of factors I want to home in on first. But let me, put it to you on these terms as we begin. How would you grade your performance yesterday? I think that was probably the best that I've ever been, just prepared for that fight. I think I covered a lot of things just as far as my athleticism, my conditioning and dealing better with my stand-up. I don't feel like she really touched me. She had obviously the better, she's got more experienced stand-up fighter, and I shined through with what's,

you know, my strongest, which is jiu-jitsu. So, I feel like I did a great job, especially considering everything that happened with my weight cut as well. She didn't stuff the first take down, but she was kind of able to like inch her way and sort of backwards, technical get up her way into standing up. Obviously, you got to take down later on anyway, so it didn't matter. But when she did that, were you anticipating she would put up that level of resistance? Yeah, no, of course. I mean, I mean, there's no secret that, you know, I have a good ground game. So, you know, for her, she probably wanted to keep it standing.

Most of her fights come from knockout. So I doubted that she would have wanted to play down, you know, in the ground game and make it a close fight if she felt like she could knock me out. So, no, I was really ready for that. You know, she's got a great jiu-jitsu coach. She comes from a great, you know, team, Andre Pannonero. So, you know, I was expecting that from her for sure. Walk me through the finish.

No hooks on the bulldog choke. Now, they're calling it a rear naked choke on various places. And certainly it had the rear-de-year-dark. make a truck bicep grip, but it wasn't with the hooks in. How did you set it up and how did you finish it? Well, I mean, I just always feel like comfortable. I just cross-faced and, you know, after I threw in a few punches and I, you know, waited for her to give me the opening and it was right there. I knew that once I had the choke in, you know, I've gotten finishes like that before, you know, in training, you know, I have a really strong choke and I have a really good sense of my, you know, just,

just feeling the body and stuff. And so I knew once I had that choke, I can figure out and wiggle my way, way out eventually even if she wouldn't have tap like right there and then I knew I would have got my hooks in at some point but she tapped I knew there was a big problem for her when you were in side control and uh I believe you were on her right side right and her right arm was like all the way across her face like it was there a point in that fight when you're like uh wow I've really got dominant control here I feel like I can set up the finish here anytime I want and it seems to me like In fact, like the Bulldog took, a lot of people wouldn't attempt it, but you must have been entirely comfortable given the resistance she had shown to that point.

Yeah, I'm extremely confident in my ground game. So I can hold a lot of people down in that position. So I usually stay in that position, and I usually use a lot of ground impound, and eventually I find my opening to get any submission or whatever it is there. So I was pretty confident once that I had her down in the ground that she wasn't going to get back up once I established the takedown. All right, so there's a lot of different factors about this fight that we'd like to unpack here just a little bit. Number one, solid win for you.

It's the only fight you get to have in 2018, which is another separate issue. But where do you feel like you stand now in the division? In your absence, which has not been tremendously long or anything, but the division moves quickly. There are some big names asserting themselves all the way down to like a Macy Barber, certainly a Tatiana Suarez as well. Yeah. You know, I'm just focusing on just getting back and winning. I really wanted to get this win back.

You know, the last thing everybody remembers is your last fight and what happened. And everybody, the last thing that happened to me, I came off of a loss and I was suspended. And I just wanted all of that to go away. So I just put all my time and energy and motivation to getting prepared for this fight. I think that me just winning just puts me back in there, hopefully back in the rankings, or, you know, a shot at climbing up the rankings again. I think that I've proven myself with this first round finish. You know, Pollyanna is a very dangerous.

wider. There's no doubt in my mind that she's going to bounce back. She was super strong. So hopefully, you know, yeah, hopefully I can get somebody in the top 10 for my next fight. I'm assuming you probably will. It's going to seem like this is your one and done for 2018. Very quickly, when you anticipate our 2019 return might be possible. You had such an active 2017 all the way up to that Carlos Sparza fight. Yeah, no, for sure. I'm hoping that I can fight in January. earlier in the year, I'd signed a contract against karate-hadi. And it was the same day that I found out about my suspension. So we had to cancel the fight.

You know, I signed that contract. She signed the contract. So hopefully we can run it now. You know, she just came off of a win over Phillies Herring. I just had this win. I feel like we can make that match of habit. And, you know, start the year off there. Hopefully, you know, I mean, I threw it out there.

I told Mick, you know, in January, I want to be on the same card as T. T.J. Dillishon, Henry Sehudo, Nelling, Nelling, California so hopefully we can make that happen if not you know maybe in February but that's that's where I want to go next and then after I we can keep it moving and any particular reason why it's that card uh just because it's in California you know and then plus you know I feel like it's enough time for me I you know it's November so I'll have I just want to keep going you know I had such a long layoff and you know I think that would be an appropriate amount of time and so I don't know I just really like that that card all right let me ask you this way if you

could describe 2018, which would include last night, a very triumphant moment for you. How would you describe it? Man, I don't know. It was a tough year. Like, just a lot of, a lot of things happening. And I don't even know. I don't even know. I don't even explain it. It was really even tough for me to enjoy last night's win just because of everything that happened. I really, I had such a tough year and I really wanted to prove myself and come back and I felt like me getting this win would have like definitely turned this whole year back around but then I missed weight and that was something completely out of my control what happened and I'm really bummed out about that like it was super bummed out I feel like I haven't been really too happy with you know my win just because of that

but it's not so much the errors. We prepared for it. And so I don't know. Right now I'm not feeling the best. I wish I did. You know, I wish I could have been like, hey, you know, this made it all better. You know, this made it all worth. Everything happens for a reason.

But I feel like I need to get back up there again and reproved myself. I don't know. Let me see if I can figure it out because I saw, you put out a statement to, I believe, our own Guillermo, who was down there, at a very personal. and candid explanation of why you had missed. People can read it in short. You had explained your biological reasons specific to women that made for some challenging moments,

which I want to talk about just a second. But was it the issue that you were coming off suspension for a stupid reason, but suspension just the same? And that the first thing people saw was you missing weight? Was that it? Like, it left a real bad taste in your mouth about it? Just like, you know, like Jesus, like, you know, I can't give me a break.

Like, I lost that fire. It was hard. I get the suspension. Like, I was, I followed all the rules. Like, I followed all the rules and I still got screwed on it. People are still looking down on me. Like, I wanted to get it back. I wanted to give it back for my family, for my coaches, you know.

And then, you know, this shit happens. More bad luck. And, like, it just, yeah, it's just kind of all of that. I definitely left the bad taste of my mouth. In terms of the wake up beyond the explanation you gave, was there a point where you knew heading into the step? stepping on that scale, you're like, ah, I don't think this is going to happen. That the fight wasn't going to happen or that I wasn't going to make...

That you weren't going to make the weight. Well, yeah, I mean, I knew they stopped me from continuing to... I was really embarrassed. I honestly didn't want to go on the scale, knowing that I wasn't going to be on weight, but I had to do it, you know, and I'm one of the first ones that I have, you know, and it's just kind of like made me look done because I have, like, been, like, I've never, like, really gone out in public and, like, we say, oh, you know, people, oh, it's unprofessional to, like, miss weight, blah, blah,

but I had made a statement about McKenzie Dern, but that's a whole different situation. She missed weight four out of seven times, you know, and seven pounds over, and Zona wasn't because of her period. Me, I've never, this is my first time missing weight. I've never experienced my period on Fight Week ever, ever. And I never understood it, like, to, you know what I mean? But I felt the symptoms.

So I was like, hey, you know, this is a possibility I heard of it. You know, your body does retain water. my body can barely make 116, but I do it to the best that I can possibly make in the healthy way. I did it because at the time that I wanted to get into UC, there was no 25ers. So I did what I needed to do. I have this fucking dream. I want to be, you know, a professional side. I did what I needed to do.

I figured out that I could do it. And so this fight, I can feel the symptoms. I knew what's going to happen. There was a possibility. I prepared well, me and my team, I got a nutritionist. I worked with, you know, Lock Cards team. Me and my coach bought it. I got my weight down lower.

I have from any other fights. A week out, I was 10 over, nine over when I left to Argentina. My body would just not cut past 118. I woke up at 5.30 Wednesday. I had two, I had from 530 to 11 to cut two pounds. My body did not sweat one ounce at all. We tried the sauna for 45 minutes.

We went to the bike. We did the bathtub. We did a bunch of stuff and I cannot break a sweat. Like, want nothing. And eventually, you know, Donna, one of the U.C officials there, she was just like, we're going to stop this right now at 9. We already can tell your body is not going to let you do it. So that's it. I need you to, you know, cut it off, get rehydrated that way you can fight and be healthy.

You know, so Pileana doesn't lose on a fight either, you know. And so I did not feel good going out there and showing my face like that. I was super embarrassed. I am a true professional and I busted my butt to get to the same. fight and I was just getting so much backlash and and it looked even worse because I get on the scale and like you know I had my hands down the yeah to the women that were holding the the towel for me they weren't tall enough and so when I sat up they said put your hands up and if I would have done that my boobs would have showed so I went down and I was like no you know what I mean and it looked

like I was about to faint so it just made it look even more worse my face looked horrible because I was already embarrassed oh wait so that's why You looked like you were like teetering on the scales because you were trying to hide. Yeah. Oh, okay. All right. Now that makes a little more sense now. Doctors knew that.

I mean, if I was really that messed up, the doctors would have never cleared me. You know, everybody did what they were supposed to do. It's just like, I just kept having all this like bad luck. It just looks like horrible. I have all these people, you know, hey, you fat ass. Hey, you know, you only won this fight because of this and blah, blah, blah, blah. Be a professional. Hey, you just got suspended.

You're your paw head. No, you can't even make what. wait like it's just like Jesus like you know what I mean it's just I just I just want to put all this shit behind me and it's like all these little things just keep happening and it's really unfortunate but that's that's basically what happened like I went up there they tell me to put my hands up the towel is not high enough you know I'm not I can't hold it I can't hold it to make sure that it goes over my boobs so then I go down because I'm not going to give everybody a free show and then instead it looks like I'm freaking fainty and you got people all over the internet

and social media, oh, I can't believe they're letting her fight. Oh, not even knowing what's going on with my period. And, you know, get your period. You go cut weight. Do you have experience on knowing how to cut weight for women on their period? I don't think so. You don't know what it felt like. I didn't even know.

I didn't even know until it happened to me. But you have all these like, like just, I don't know, you know, people just love kicking a dog when they're down. Like, they just love it. So I'm going to ask this question from a position of ignorance, which is the only one that I have. But it is at least partly, I think, my understanding that to some extent you can plan when the period's going to happen if you're on birth control or something like that, where you can just sort of know that this week is the one that hits. Is that a real thing that? Let me ask you.

Is that a real thing you can do? Should that be expected of women fighters? Or is that simply unrealistic? You know, I thought that I could. My body was just not letting me. I try to prepare for it just in case because I was told. from whatever I've researched and done before, like, you know, read somewhere where you can hold anywhere from like two to five pounds of water weight.

So normally before, I mean, weight cutting has always been tough for me, but I've cut about 15 pounds in a week for my... This time around, I was only cutting 10 pounds. And my body still did not let me cut it. We tried. We tried. And, you know, people... And, you know, going back to as far as just like other people,

people on social media. It wasn't so much the people, the fans that don't know, but it was a lot of other athletes that were making comments and that was really unfortunate because you would think that other athletes that, you know, or UFC fighters knowing how they deal with weight cuts and especially other women who make

you know not be understanding of that. But that's a real thing. You know, your symptoms and especially my age, I'm 31 years old. These symptoms are just getting more they're just stronger. And I've never really experienced or felt anything.

My body was just going through some weird stuff. And I don't know. You know, I feel like I got to go back to the drawing board and talk to my coaches and maybe move up to flyweight because if that happens again, I don't know if my body will allow me to cut down to 116 or 115. Or if they really need to look into, you know, women's body and figure it out, you know, if they really are in their period, maybe give them a leeway to, you know, allow them to have that that two to three five pounds or you know in case that happens because do

I want you know you think I want to lose freaking 20 20 percent of my purse no I don't you know I don't think a two pound me trying to kill myself or I'm just going to give me advantage to win the fight I just you know it certainly is no seven pounds it wasn't like because I was ignorant and I didn't care or I'm unprofessional you know so it's just you know we don't we don't know there's it's not like there's a bunch of studies about women weight cutting and fighting. Like, and, you know, it just, it's just crazy. So it's just something, you know, that happened and I had no control over it. So if the UFC came back to you and said, look, we know this is a one-time thing,

but we're entertaining the possibility of here's a great fight at flyweight. Would you take that next if it was, in the words, euphemistically, the right kind to fight? No, absolutely. I mean, I've always thought about moving back up to flyweight, but at the time when I'd you know, got into the UFC, there was no one flyweight division. And so I had made the commitment. I put myself in a really good position in the Strattway Division. I mean, I got up to rank to number six as a strawweight,

and I continue to make the wait. So for me, I made that commitment to myself. I said, hey, I'm going to see what I can do in the Strathway Division and, you know, get the title and then hopefully move up, you know, but now this happens. So, you know, we'll see what happens moving forward. Let me pick your brain as an analyst, if I may. upcoming is going to be something of a meeting of those two weight classes to an extent, right?

You're going to have you want to Jacek taking on Valentina Shevchenko. Who do you like in that contest and why? I like Shefchenko. I think she's going to get the job done. I'm not sure what's going on with like Joanna, but I think a lot of things have changed with her as far as like her training and, you know, I don't know what other situations. I feel like after fighting and sitting at the top,

sometimes your attitude and your ego get the best of you. And I'm just, I just feel like, I don't know, I think she's got a lot of things to fix and I'm not sure she's made those adjustments. But I think Shishanko is very strong, mentally and physically, and she's got a great team, you know, that she's loyal to and she sits by. And I just feel like she would definitely get that win.

I'm curious to see, though, to what Joanna can do. I have heard that she walks pretty heavy, so I don't know she'll come back to the Strawway Division. I do feel that now with the opening of the Flyway Division, now that it's new. And it's just like, I mean, the title is right there. It's like, you know, it's fairly new. So I feel like it's easy to move up in the rankings and get up there. But I feel like a lot of women already move.

Marina Moro's moved up to 25s. You know, page runs out moved up to 25s. a lot of them. And then I fought Jillian Robertson, who's also Flyway. I fought Montana Stuber, who's also Flyway in the UFC. Like I've, you know, Joanne Calderwood, too. I fought her strawway, but she moved to Flyway. And, you know, it looks like I might be going that way, too, with my period.

So I don't know. We'll see. I feel like there's going to be a lot of new, exciting matchups. Certainly will be. Interesting note from your corner yesterday. You had Team Alpha Melco coach Fabio Prado, I believe. And then you had the former coach, Justin Buckles. Now, both of those guys are pros.

Certainly they didn't get in the way of you getting to victory. Was it a little odd at all in that arrangement? No, I mean, absolutely not. I mean, we're all adults here and everybody can get along. The main concern was me. You know, I'm the fighter. They're my coaches. There's no issue.

You know, there's no reason why, you know, that shouldn't allow them to be my coaching coaching. Plus, you know, Fabio and Justin have always been my corners. They don't have any problems, you know. Fabio has his own gym. Yeah, he still is an affiliate of Team Alpha Mel. You know, Justin's not, but that's fine. You know, there's not, fighters don't have all their coaches in one gym.

So there's no reason why I can't have multiple coaches from different gyms, you know. So, you know, we made it work, you know. We made this deal. You know, I have his back. He's got my back. They got my back. I got their back. And, you know, we were set out to be a champion, you know, in the U.C.

so no issue there. I'll say this as we wrap this conversation. I really appreciate your time, Cynthia. I'll just say that, like, I know this trip didn't go exactly as you planned, giving all the weight-cutting issues, but, you know, you did reassert your authority a little bit last night in the division. Do you not feel that at all? Because I got to say, from the outside looking in,

it was like, okay, man, she's back. Like, you know, there's still plenty of people left to fight, of course, but it did feel like an important monumental moment. for you. It did. You know, it felt great. It was very emotional for me. I went through a lot of shit, a lot of shit to get to this day. I don't know. I just, I don't like leaving any room for excuses and that whole weight cut thing is just like, even though I had no control of it. And that's why I was just really embarrassed to even get on that scale. But like, that took a lot away from it. And I just want to get back. I want to get back and continue to prove myself. I know I belong

at the top of the division, but I just don't want to give anybody room to say anything about it. You know, I want to go in there and win my fight and have not one person say shit about how, oh, you won that fight because you missed weight and you're fat ass. Like, just, like, let me have it. Like, let me, I fucking work my ass off. So I'm not feeling too great about it right now, but I just need another fight and come back and not give people another reason to talk shit. Well, I'm sure it will happen very soon.

I don't want to keep you anymore from those Argentinian stakes. They are world famous for a reason. So, Cynthia, congratulations on your win. Welcome back and look forward to seeing you making your next step into the Octagon. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I really do. My face might not look like it right about.

Yeah, no, thank you. I'm still really happy. I'm excited to also get back home and spend some time with my family. All right, big thanks to Cynthia for spending some time with us. We go from one guest now to the next. Sean O'Malley, Sugar, Sean O'Malley, was suspended six months by the Nevada Athletic Commission for the Osterine found in his system. But that's a very short suspension.

What does that mean for his future? What's he going to do if he has to sit out two years? How was he feeling about it all, especially all of the haters? I spoke to him over the weekend as well. Here's our conversation. All right, we're joined now by rising UFC bansomweight. Sugar Sean, Amalee. Sugar, Sean.

I know you're traveling. I really appreciate your time. And I guess you met Habib In your travels in Bahrain How was that? Yeah, it was awesome Got to meet the Prince Got to meet Kib, Habib, Habib.

It was cool. I think it's awesome what he did For the people in Africa. You know, it's something I'd like to do someday You know, once I get to make the money he's making So I'd like to be able to do stuff like that So it was cool to get to meet him, the prince And be out here in Bahrain

So it's, and I go to Dubai At tonight, actually, I go to Dubai And you're going to be there for a few days So it's super cool. Well, I won't keep you too long. I really appreciate your time here. So let's get into it. You were handed a six-month suspension by the Nevada Athletic Commission.

A very small fine. I think it was about $474. In general, fair, how do you feel about what was handed down? Yeah, it sucks. You know, I didn't do anything. So getting suspended at all is, you know, it sucks. And getting fine also sucks. It isn't, you know, the fine, it sucks for getting a toll for something I didn't do.

six months. I wouldn't be able to fight within this next six months anyway. Well, within the next, you know, four, three or four months, because the suspension came from the day of the test, September 5th. I just got surgery three weeks ago on my hip. So I'm going to be rehabbing that and hoping to return within the next five or six months. So as far as the suspension goes from the athletic mission six months, and then we still got to deal with Usada and figure out that. So that's, I don't know, my lawyers are working on it and trying to figure out. We still got to test a bunch of supplements,

and I tested 0.08 nanograms, which is a very small amount. They're confident. You know, UFC knows I didn't take anything. They know it's a tainted supplement. I think you Sauta knows that. I think the athletic commission knows that. It's not a, this isn't a rare thing.

It's common. It happens, especially with the substance I tested for us, Austrian, you know, a lot of stuff. You know, I think my fans really got my back and it does bother me when I read stuff online. People say, you cheat or I didn't do anything. And I know those guys are just haters, and they're just trying to get a ride at me or whatever it is,

but it sucks hearing that from, you know, people. Because I really didn't do anything. And it's just, it is what it is. Yeah, so you put out that tweet, and I saw where you explained exactly what the amount was. Yeah. And then you gave, I think, a middle finger emoji, among a number of other things.

But I'm guessing, like, why acknowledge them was the response overwhelming, Were you just feeling a certain thing? Like, what prompted you to send the tweet? I just really want to keep people updated. You know, I just, you know, I feel it's fair to the fans who, you know, maybe people that are skeptical, they're like, oh, I don't know if you did or not. But, you know, I think releasing the levels I tested for really goes to show.

I didn't take anything. There's no performance-enhancing effects from, 0.08 nanograms. You know, my lawyer I'm talking to said he was, he just had a case with someone who was in the Olympics, and they, they tested for the same thing, Osterine,

and they found it in the daily multivitamin pill. She was taken. So, you know, it could be in anything, and it happened, I don't wish it upon any athletes. I don't care if, you know,

if you have a rival in the UFC, I, it sucks to have to go through. So I don't wish it upon anyone. And, you know, I get a lot of, there's a couple of UFC, fighters. I seen Andre's soccer mom retweeted that I got suspended. I'm sure he's loving that after

I whipped him. So, you know, there's some guys out there. Tim Elliott, he was making, I seen him commented on stuff saying maybe he shouldn't do steroids or something, you know, and I met that kid, that guy in Vegas, and we were kind of friends, but I don't know why, you know, I hope it doesn't happen to them, but if it does, you know, that's karma. Because it could happen to anyone. Everything I take is Usada approve. Everything, every ingredient I take is you, you got approved. It's what in what's in the supplements that they don't list. So, you know, I take all natural stuff, and it can be in

anything. So we're going to try to figure out what it was in and how, you know what I mean? So it's, you know, it's a long process. So as I speak to you today, and again, as you mentioned, it is a lengthy process. You haven't quite identified what the origin of this, and I grant that like it could be, as you pointed out, I mean, it could be in so many different things down to the multivitamin. You haven't quite

identify what it might be yet? No, Jeff Novitsky, when I originally sent him, when he called me that day, I sent him all my supplements, and he said I guarantee, or he didn't say I guarantee, but he said I have a strong feeling it's those caffeine pills. So those were the only things we sent in because he was so positive. He was sure it was those. And it ended up not being those.

So we just sent in all of my other supplements last week. And those take a couple weeks to get back. So I'm just patiently waiting. My lawyer's, you know, helping me a ton. Jeff Novitsky is helping me a ton. The UFC's helping me a ton. So we're just, you know, it's just a wait in game right now. But really, it doesn't matter.

It's just I'm recovering from this hip injury, and I'm going to get back in the gym. I have a fire under me. I want to train. I haven't been healthy. Even going into that last fight, that October fight, when I was supposed to fight,

El Teco, I wasn't healthy. I needed this hip surgery. My foot wasn't healed. So, you know, it's a blessing in disguise. I'm healing up from a bunch of injuries,

and it's, I'm excited to come back. A lot of people are saying that I'm overhyped. Oh, not a lot of people. Just some of the comments are going to read comments. I was going to say, Sean, I don't think it's a lot of people. I mean, it's some, maybe, but that's not a lot.

Very few people. They're definitely the good I weigh the bad, but there's people saying, you know, why you're over-hyping yourself, but, you know, I'm the real deal. I train hard. I have true skills. It's not, this isn't, this isn't luck. So, and I think a lot of people know that, but there's some doubters out there, but, you know, those guys at the end of the day kind of, you know,

they don't, they shouldn't motivate, not they shouldn't motivate you, but that shouldn't be where your motivation comes from, but it does light a little fire under me, and, you know, I like proving them wrong, but. what exactly was wrong with your hip I had a torn labrum um the you know a lot of athletes have it um just depends if it's severe or minor

after surgery the doctor called me and said that was very bad tear um they had to dislocate my hip shape part of the bone and then reattached the labrum so um he said it was very bad and i should be able to i i wasn't able to run that entire fight camp i ran one time and it hurt so i didn't i going into that fight was you know i knew i was going to go out there knock Lteco out and I'd love to fight.

I'd love to fight when I come back. I don't know if he's going to get a fight book or what's going to happen, but I'd like to get that fight. I was going to go out there and knock that kid out in the first round, whether I was healthy or not. Now let's assume, just for the sake of this conversation, that the USADA suspension matches what the NIC gave you, which means you can go back, I think, around March or something, right?

Right. Would you be ready to go physically by then anyway? No, no. The doctor told me a couple days ago I would be able to run for three months or the last two weeks. So I'm going to, I really, running's a huge part of my conditioning. I move a lot in the cage constantly on my feet, bouncing around. So I think I rushed that last comeback just because it was the Connor Kibibkubkart.

I told Dana that day, before Connor Kibb got an analysis, I said, I'm getting surgery. I won't be able to come back for a while. I talked to him. And then they announced that. And then I went right back to you and I said, hey, I can fight. We can make this happen. So I got a quarter zone shot and it kind of numbed it up for a while. And I would have been able to fight.

I would have been able to fight, but it would, you know, it is what it is. It's okay. So between the injury and then the stuff where you're still trying to figure out what's going on, like what are you doing to like stay focused? I mean, right now you're traveling, but that won't last forever. How are you mentally centering yourself to deal with? And I mean, this is like the first real, frankly, even competitively, this is like the first real adversity in your career.

Yeah. Back-to-back surgeries and coming off of, you. you know, in the middle of the suspension for something I didn't do. I've been super positive. It hasn't, I think, like a big thing right now is I'm super into gaming, and I think that's helped me a lot. I see people always like, do you even train, stuff like that? But honestly, I haven't really been able to train the last month

because of this hip issue just got off crutches last week. So I've just been playing Fortnite, building my Twitch channel, keeping busy that way. I use my Instagram as a business. so I feel like I've been keeping busy in the industry. I've been doing a lot of kind of fashion pictures and talking to some fashion people. So I'd like to dip my shoes in the fashion industry.

You know, I like being the entertainment business. So I'm excited to come back. And, you know, at the end of the day, fighting is what I truly love to do. And that's what I really love doing. So I'm excited to be able to get back in the gym and start training. Now, I've never done Twitch for Gaming. I use the IRL, IRL in real life channel briefly, just to experiment with streaming.

So I'm like, I know my way around it, but I'm certainly no expert on Twitch. So tell me the truth about Twitch, like, or just gaming generally. Do you think, like how financially lucrative can that be? I know those guys like Ninja can make a gazillion dollars, but you do. How much, I'm not asking for a figure exactly, but like how lucrative is that actually for you? Do you think potentially, let's say over the next year or two? right now I'm making around $4,500 a month through gaming. That's not bad.

No, it's, it's, I just do it because I love it. I didn't even, you know, I've been playing video games since I was a little kid. And, you know, I've had a couple people say, why don't you stream? Why don't you stream? It's like, no one wants to watch me play. You know, and the more fights, you know, after, I've been streaming for like nine months now. And, you know, there's some loyal fans in there. I only get 50, 60 viewers at a time.

So, you know, fans have questions. They come in there, and there's some kids there that literally every time I go live, they get a notification on their phone and they're in there talking saying, hey, what's up? So I have a good relationship with my subscribers. They come in there, subscribe. And I'm in the UFC video game now, so I was playing that a couple times. I've seen some people on Twitter like, why would we pay to play with you?

It's not like that. It's, you know, it's, I'm running a business. It's something I do. It's not just fun. It's work, too. It's, you know, I put a lot. lot of hours into that to try to build that channel so it's it's it's uh it's uh it's work really at the end of the day yeah i mean it's it's good work but it's it's work just the same one it's yeah it's fun

and on the fashion side what are you trying to do um with the fashion i know um the more fights i win the bigger fights i win you know the more my following goes up right now um i think uh Eventually I want to get out there and be on the cover of GQ magazine. Just kind of get my own style out there. It's some different, something not like all these other guys. And I think I'm doing that pretty well right now. I just need a – the more fights I win, the more popular I get, the more eyes are on me. So it just really comes down to win in the next fight, and then everything from there just gets easier.

So I'd like to get my own style out there, my own brand, my own clothes. line. Is there a moratorium for now on face tattoos? That's such a like that's such a your generation thing by the way. It is. It is. I don't know. I just, I remember the star was a it was, it was, I wanted it fight week in Vegas because I was, you know, all the media, all the outfits, uh, all the attention. I felt like a star. I was like, I need to get a star tattoo. And, uh, I'm going to fight for the, I'm going to, you know, this is what I do for a living. I'm not, I don't need. to go get a job where I can't have a face tattoo. So, you know, I just, I liked it.

And I've always, always kind of been the type of kid that when I want to do something, I do it. And I wanted to get a face tattoo. And I did it. And I was like, you know what? I liked it. I'll get another. So don't be surprised if you see another one.

But I want to keep it, you know, I think what I got going on right now is still, you know, it's not, the people don't look at me like, you got face tattoos. It's, it looks normal. I feel like. Yeah. You haven't reached Takashi 6-9 level. You haven't quite got the whole forehead covered up. I don't think I'll quite reach that level.

A couple more questions for. I appreciate your time and then we'll let you run. Number one, let's say this again, it matches up with Usada and the NSAC, right? So you're back, again, health issues notwithstanding. You're back in March, right? So let's say that's the situation we're operating under. You know, I was told by somebody who knew your fight pass numbers from Dana West, it's using a contender series.

And I can't divulge what they told me other than to say what you turned down. and when people were, when you were fighting, with several orders of magnitude higher than everybody else, including, well, I can't say, but it was very, very high, okay? Are you worried at all, and their T-shirt sales were great? And, you know, again, you've got a lot of metrics that show that fans are really interested. Are you a little bit worried that even if you get back soon, that this whole episode could stain or derail that at all?

No, I'm going to come back, and whoever I end up fighting, I'm going to go out there and do what I do. And I think a healthy me is very dangerous. I think I could beat anyone in the division. So I think I'm going to come back in a, you know, my last two fights were finishes. They were both decisions. My last two fights before that were both viral knockouts. You know, I want to go back and, you know, be on that knockout.

That's what I love this. That's what I live for is knocking people out. And, you know, I've been really, really into Jiu-Jitsu. So I wouldn't mind putting somebody to sleep or breaking someone's arm. I want to come back and get a, viral finish and with those finishes even even those both my decisions were you know it's good good for me to get 15 minutes in both those fights and and and uh learn a lot about myself i can't i battled through adversity through both those fights the second round against that terryon fight i was you know i looked like i was

gassed out and i got a second wind came back obviously broke my foot against andre and still slapped him so i think uh i think i think i'm going to be able to come back get a finish and uh everything's gonna you know shirt sales they sold out in a couple hours those like first Reebok shirt. So, you know, Rebox made me three shirts already, and I've only had two fights. So I'm doing something right. The amount of views I get as far as on Fight Pass on that contender series,

UFC obviously knows it. And I've renegotiated my contract after both fights. And the money's going, you know, doubling, triple-in. It's going up. So it's, you know, at the end of the day, we're trying to make the most money as we possibly can out of each fight. this is a very dangerous sport and I don't want to get

you know hitting the head more than I have to I'm very cautious about concussions I've had bad concussions before so I'm trying to make a lot of money you know and I love the fight so I'm trying to you know I'm trying to fight and make a lot of money without having to fight too much so

and I'm used to fighting four times a year four five six times a year especially than the amateur I was fighting I remember I fought three times and 30 days so I like to fight a lot so this has been really weird only fighting one time this year I got I got a fire under me I want to train and get back in there the the contract

renegotiations like when you won did you go and say Dana pay me or do they come to you and they say kid we want to pay you like how did that how did that go um after so the first fight I got just to start now against tarion and I think they approached me and they said hey we can renegotiate and they offered me that and I was like uh well well okay whatever I still got to go out there improve for myself because in my mind in my head I'm worth you know I'm worth a lot more than I'm getting paid but that's fine because it's fair I know I still have to go out there and perform and my head I've already went out there and performed I already am the champ I'm already you know the most viewed fighter in my mind and I just got to go out there and make that happen and make that a reality so

I'll get at the end of the day I'll get what I what I deserve in their eyes and I just got to go out there and keep performing our last question for you and again I know you're in a positive mindset so I don't want to put a damper on that. But just sort of like questioning how you're feeling. It sounds like UFC believes you. Jeff Novitsky, you know, you guys are working together. And it does sound even like Nevada believed you, right? Because they gave you, they could have given you more.

They gave you less. And as you mentioned, look at the numbers. Like all the reasons to believe you are, I think, are in place. But at the end of the day, you saw it as you saw it, right? Like, have you even contemplated the idea that I don't think it's likely, but it is possible that they could give you two years and what that might mean? Have you even thought about that? Yeah, I'm okay with that.

I mean, I got to be, there's no reason I'm not okay with that. I have to be, if they gave me two years being upset about it, literally does nothing. You know, I'm always trying to be in a positive mindset, no matter to the situation. So I'm trying to, it is what it is. I don't think what I think's going to happen come January. I think UFC is going to do something about USADA.

This can't happen. This isn't right. There's three weeks out before the biggest fight of my life, a six-figure payday and a huge opportunity for me to gain a following that's not right this can't happen you know like i said i don't wish this upon any ufc fighter this is or any athlete um ufc has to do something about it as far as getting usada you know coming up with the new rule saying if you test below this certain amount that it's not even it shouldn't even be counted um either that or be done with usada or i don't want i like the idea of usada i love the fact

that they're testing people and catch people cheating but I don't it's got it's just not real it's just got there's got to be more more to it I point zero eight nanograms is absolutely nothing it's you know I don't I don't know I think the point is right if you can catch someone for that little amount

but you agree that that little amounts performance enhancing well then who cares right right well it's it's like a lot of people have been like why do you take why do you take that many supplements and it's like go out there and train twice a day as hard as I do your body breaks down.

You need those supplements. You need that stuff. You know, I'm taking joint supplements, vitamins, a bunch of things. It's like I thought all athletes took supplements. But, you know, so a lot of people don't understand being a professional athlete and how bad your body breaks down. So everyone takes supplements that I, you know, that I know. So I think there's got to be something. And it's so easy to get a tainted supplement where unless it's third party tested.

See, I didn't, you know, I didn't. I've never done anything. I didn't know, know better. All the stuff I've taken is all natural, all natural stuff, but it's not third party tested, which I guess is what is the safest way

to make sure you're not getting that. So I'm going to have to make sure I get all third party tested. And any of the UFC fighters that watch this, you know, it's a good, good advice, you know, make sure it's third party tested. Well, I don't know what's next, but I hope it's the best safe travels.

We really appreciate your time. We really appreciate your candor, of course, and we look forward to seeing you back in the octagon, and, of course, heal that hip and heal that foot as well, Sean. Thank you so much. Yes, thank you guys. Appreciate it. All right, big thanks to Sean O'Malley as well as Cynthia Calvijo.

Well, there, something interesting he said there about UFC might be doing something in January with Usada. I don't know if he knows something or he's speculating. That might be a story to follow. All right. We have still much more show left. It is time now for a round of tweets. All right, five minutes on the clock. Tweets up here on the screen.

When the first one goes up, the counter hits. Let's do it, y'all. Bada, bop-pom-pom. There we are. Okay, by the way, there's no comment I have here. We have to show the screen. There it is. Well, the clock's on it on top.

All right. Point being is a dude painted this, and they're going to send it to the studio, apparently, and we're going to have to find a way to put it up here. But that should be a lot of fun. Check that out. That's an actual painting that this gentleman, J. Fox did. So give him a follow, please, because that would be amazing.

Next. Hi guys. Is Satiago Panzanibio the most underrated, undervalued fighter in all of the UFC? He's such an elite striker. Well, I have to say, we haven't even talked about it, but the most underrated fighter, maybe in MMA right now is Patricio Pitbull, but of course he fights for Bellator. But to answer the question is he one of the most underrated,

undervalued striker in the UFC, he might be. He's certainly up there because I think after that win over Gunner Nelson, there was so much controversy about the eyepokes, no one really knew what it meant. And to be clear, Ponziadubio has some ranks to climb. But as you can see, if I showed you from the movement, he's got good meta-game. He's got good tactics.

He has very good power, good composure. He goes for the finish. Like, he just does a lot of things really, really well. And so, you know, is he the most underrated? I don't know. It's hard to quantify who's number one and number two. But is he on the short list? Yeah, there's no doubt about it.

People just don't realize how many things he does well. I don't mean grappling, jiu-jitsu, wrestling, striking. I mean, metagame, tactics, finishing, the whole bit, all the other things we don't normally discuss. Next. In my opinion, Magnus Corner did the right thing by not throwing in the towel. Fighters get to know they're true physical and mental limits only in a fight. Such limit-checking fights should be very limited in a career but necessary. Otherwise, they won't grow.

Thoughts. There's no denying, as I mentioned before, I thought that case before was borderline. I'm not, I just don't think there's enough evidence to say that the corner did Magni wrong and I made that point clear. I do think they got pretty close. To me, it's the one of people are like, oh, there's no way you would want to do it. Or like, let's ask the fighter. Well, the fighter says they're glad it didn't happen. These are not relevant considerations. That's certainly not the most important ones. The most important ones are what is medically advisable and what kinds of things you're going to see is, well, we allow this. You guys think that there's no consequence, some of you anyway. There's a consequence to be paid. let somebody take a beating when they're not supposed to, typically in a championship five-round

context, they often don't come out the same, right? So everyone thinks, oh, well, they just lost a fight. Well, they'll come back and fight tomorrow. Uh-uh. You get a fight like that long enough, right? Because the idea is that you had an opportunity to stop it. Time had elapsed. You let that go and you don't stop it. They don't come out the same on the other end. You're going to see. You're going to shorten people's careers and you're going to turn them into something that they don't have to be by not having enough humanity in the moment. Next. Who should Calvijo face next? Should it be Waterson like she wants? I would love to see it. I think it's a great matchup. I like both of those ladies. They have differing, but in some ways

complementary abilities. They both go for the finish. They're both exciting. I like it. Next. Is Roxanne Motifery's idea of taking a point as a penalty for missing weight a good idea, as it's something that could realistically be implemented in the future. I wasn't sure about this until our own Guillermo Cruz had told me about, I forget which promotion it is in Brazil that already does this. I don't think it's Shuto, but it's one of like Wailid Ishmael promotions, and apparently they've had a lot of success with it. I'm in favor of a trial basis.

But again, here's the point. I keep making this point about athletic commissions, and it goes in one ear and out the other. Folks, here's the reality. How are you going to get every state to acknowledge that? Good luck doing it. We have enshrined the worst possible way to make any kinds of rule changes. Next.

Where does Johnny Walker rank in great names of MMA might have the skills to back it up too? Man, what an unbelievable name that is. Do you have to be I.E. to be the liquor? But I was making Johnny Walker jokes on Twitter. I'm trying to think there was any other name. Kimbo Slices is a great name too, but Johnny Walker's kind of up there.

Next. Why does UFC always start at 10 p.m. Eastern time, even if the event means it will end at 3 or 4 a.m. local time when all other sports don't cater to American time zones. Doesn't make sense and seems disrespectful to the home crowd. I think Fox is looking for some kind of consistency. Like we're always going to air at this time. But I agree, it's ludicrous. No one wants to stay up that late.

You could have started it at 9 and no one would have been. Is it really effective viewership? Maybe, but I haven't seen any data to that effect. and I felt so bad for the Argentinians who had to sit there. Next. Apologies for the Floyd question. Do you agree that Chales assertion that Risen will attempt to put one over on Floyd by handing a victory to tension despite any contractual agreements

or possible legal repercussions, what other motivations could they have? Wouldn't put it past them to try something like that, but I also don't think you should underestimate Floyd. Floyd might also have some contractual provisions in there that prevent these kinds of shenanigans. So Floyd is annoying and none of us like it. him, but he's not a dummy. He's not. All right. We are rounding out the show here. It is time now for the sound off. Time now for the sound off. That means I go back to my friend in the back.

He is the, he is the, oh, that's not him. He is the shredded chicken to my Ahiaco. He's the queso to my hot cocoa. People don't know about that queso and the hot cocoa thing that you all do. Quezolanco, bro. Is that what they call it? No, no, that's the cheese, but what are they called the thing? What, the, if I ordered the, okay, so in Bocota, Columbia, you order hot cocoa, they put cheese in it.

Yeah. I'm not kidding, they put actual cheese in it, which I find horrendous, but they swear by it. You love it, right? Yeah, it's awesome. It's just chocolate with a kiss. But it's not like typical chocolate, hot chocolate here. It's a little richer. Oh, yeah, for sure.

I mean, hot chocolate here is made with water. Yeah. And it's just, it's very watery. the one in Columbia is very, very dense and rich. Yeah, yeah. All right, man. Got us through these calls,

Signor, Segura. All right. So let's just keep talking about Johnny Walker because that name is just... People love that name, don't they? Oh, I mean, what's not to hate? You know, what's not to love about Johnny Walker? Yeah, true.

What's up, Luke Thomas? What's up? Danny Segura, Alan, from Rio, Brazil, currently in Colorado. Want to talk about Johnny Walker. Got really impressed about the guy, a tight clinch from hell, raining elbows from the top. Do you have an intel on how good his takedown defense is and how far he can go, in

your opinion, and who you think he should fight next? I'm pretty sure he can demolish all those guys around the top 10, like Glover, like OSP. Do you think that that's the next step for him or he should get someone around the top five? Thanks for the show, guys. Grandi Abrazzo. My papa is a horita in Bogota, Colombia. Lucky him. Yeah, no kidding.

That is awesome. By the way, his English is amazing, too. I try English. English is great, yeah. I'll say this about Johnny Walker. I used to be able to one of these guys who would go through and do all kinds of scouting. I don't have time for scouting anymore.

So the answer is, how good is his takedown defense? Couldn't tell you. How far can you go? Couldn't tell you. Here's what I can say. Super excited to find out. If you want to know a lot about prospects, you got to follow the Grubaka Hitman on Twitter. You got to follow Smuggy on Twitter as well, S-M-O-O-O-G-Y.

These guys were kind of involved in like the scouting of talent. They might know more than me. But I'll say this. We want to talk about a UFC debut. Jesus Christ, he's good. If you're looking for more readily available footage, remember he came through Dana-Wy's Tuesday Night Contender Series, Brazil edition. So that's available as well. Yeah.

And it's just so nice seeing fresh blood in the end. in that heavyweight division and Johnny Walker just looked like a killer. I mean, athletic. Yeah, super athletic and his tie clinch was,

I mean, he, what he did to Kalila Rountry is super high level and Kalila is pretty high level on the feet, so it's super impressive.

He's only 26. I think he's currently in a seven-fight win streak right now, so. And has a lot of natural advantages. Again, he appeared to me to be incredibly strong,

but to be tall, long, lanky, and athletic. We've seen, Gustafson, we've seen, Now Johnny Walker, John Jones, these guys, it works if you can have those kinds of dimensions.

And contrary to this caller's request, keep them away from the top ten, right? I mean, this is something we do with exciting prospects as soon as they get, you know, a nice win. You're just like, all right, let me see them against, you know, so on and so and so. Just keep knocking people out. We'll see you. We'll see you later. Yeah. All right.

Let's talk about Cynthia Calvillo. Great interview, by the way. Thanks. Hey, Luke. This is Mark O'Connell from Orange County. California. I just wanted to know what you thought of Cynthia Calvius' weight issues and how far you think she's going to go in the division. And also, I'm not sure if you caught the translation of when Ricardo Lamas was asking, who's going to invite him for the barbecue?

The poor translator asked them if anybody was going to invite him over for a meat eating. So yeah, just let me know what you think. All right, thanks. I did not hear that. I had this, the volume down low. What happened with Ricardo Llamas? So I don't think, I didn't think it was that big deal, but basically a translator who's also a commentator for the Spanish broadcast over in Latin America, Emilio, who also did our post-fi show. Anyways, basically just said if anybody would want it wanted to invite Ricardo Lama's to eat meat, basically. Which the translation is weird, but in Spanish, it doesn't, it doesn't sound bad. Yeah, you just invite someone over for the grill, basically.

Yeah, grill out. Okay, that's funny. But anyways, Cynthia Calvillo, this question to me got a lot more interesting when, you know, after listening to your interview. Yeah. She was saying how she has trouble making 116. You know, and she has that sort of,

she really uses that extra pound, you know. If you want to fight for the title, you want to make sure you're hitting, you know, 115. So if your goal is not to challenge for the belt, I guess you can see why you would want to stay at 115. 15 because there are advantages to being bigger. But man, if you're putting your health at risk, go up to 125.

And she already said she's somewhat open, so just do it. So here's what I would say. Remember, she fought Joanne Calderwood and Calderwood was the one that missed weight that time. This is her only weight miss as far as I am. No, she's got two missed. What's the other one? In the U.S.C. Are you sure?

Yep, I'm pretty sure. I thought this was the first time she had it because Calderwood was the one. Oh, no, never mind. Never mind. Calderwood was the one that missed. Now, so for me, I'm willing to say, okay, I'll grant you a mulligan on the this one. If it happens again, I think you're right. It's like maybe she can make $116 or whatever. But if you're

somebody who we're thinking about could be a title contender, it cannot be an issue. It cannot be unknown. It cannot be uncertain. It's got to be. Look at poor Yuel Romero, man. It's just a situation where if you're going to be in that space and that's going to limit you, you're just kind of always going to be there. You have to figure this out.

So she even said she was at least the good news is she appears to be open to the idea of going to 125. So I'm very happy to see that. I'm going to say this. Temporary pass. Let's see how things go. This happens one more time.

You've got to move up. Yeah. And I mean, she also said that she went into, the only reason why she went into this division was because there was no 125 in the UFC. Right. But now there is, you know, so I don't know. Options.

And also, I feel like the latter at 125 is still not determined. So you can get a couple wins or even just one win. And if you play your cards right, you're in the mix. Exactly. So. All right. So we got, by the way, correction, you said we only have one lady listener. Well, Esther Lynn listens to us every Monday.

I forget. Yeah, but she kind of has to. That's different. And because you said that, we actually had another female caller hit us up. Oh, there again. You know what? Got too. Turns out you insult them and they come out and defend themselves.

There's more, man. You're underestimating our female lives. I suppose I am. What do they have to say, Danny? That's right. They actually have a really good question. Okay. you, Nick Dade me as is scheduled

to fight Jorge Mazzvedal. Do you think that this is a good fight for him or I missed up? And if not, what is the fight you would have chosen for him? All right, huge fans of your show. Thank you, thank you, thank you. So it's been reported that... Where's Orange Park, Florida, by the way? I'm not sure.

Central? Go ahead. I'm going to look it up while you share your opinion here, please. So it's been reported that Nick Diaz is going to final. return and it's against Jorge Masvidal. That was being reported. That is a fight that I would consider it a dream fight for me.

Like, if I had to make a matchup involving Nick Diaz, Jorge Masvidal is at the top of that list to fight. Why? Or top five. I feel like they're... I feel like in a way,

they're kind of the same person just from different areas. Like, Jorge Masvidal, you know, he's got... He's Hispanic, you know, he's got a Cuban heritage. And, you know, he's from Miami. he's got this whole 205 going, 305 going. Well, Nick Diaz is, you know,

from the, from the west part of this country. And, you know, he's got sort of the same, you know, swagger going on. And they're both strikers, very exciting. They both, not only are they, they're somewhat brawlers, but at the same time, they're also very technical. Yeah, technical brawlers. Yeah, they're technical brawlers.

They like to stand. They also have good jiu-jitsu background. They're not afraid to, you know, to talk trash. And, you know, I just feel like that's a super exciting. fight. Yeah, they're the street guys who came up the right while, in terms of a professional ranks that came up through the system. You know, they're tough as nails. They don't take shit from anybody. Nope. And, but they can do it all. To your point, Jorge can strike. He can wrestle. He can do jiu-jitsu. And Nick's probably better as a grappler, but in MMA context,

Jorge is certainly no slouch. Yeah. And, yeah, I love this fight. I love this fight for all the same reasons that you do. I think that this fight is incredible. It's a good opportunity for Jorge. Maybe the Soroni win is a signature win, but this would for sure be the biggest one. Nick's been gone for four years, I think just pumping him into a title fight. I don't know how much sense that really makes. Obviously financially, you could probably make it work. I think it'd be an exciting fight for the fans. It would tell us exactly where Nick is in his career.

Some reason I was interested in having Ben Ascran fight Jorge Mazbadoll. You beat Jorge Mazbadole, man. You are a good fighter. So that would tell us exactly where Nick's at. I'm not saying it's the best fight. I'm not saying it's the perfect fight, but it's a damn good one and I like it. By the way, apparently Orange Park, Florida,

a suburb of Jacksonville. Hmm. There you go. Interesting. Nobody cares. All right. Yeah. So let's keep it Florida themed.

All right. What's up? Hey, guys. It's Alexandria from Gameville, Florida. My question is, do we think that Ben Ascran is trying to create as many rivalries as possible so that he can stay relevant and become maybe as popular as Connor McGregor? what do you guys think?

I personally think yes so let me know thanks guys the planting seeds right you know that's that's one of the most not the most but definitely overlooked

aspects of the fight game everyone just talks about their next opponent and that's it and if you try to ask them other questions they go no I'm just focused on this fight I mean you've done fighter interviews you try to be like oh so you know what do you think about this

oh no I'm only focused on my fight right now but Ben Ascran is going out there kind of like Connor McGregor did when he was coming up, and he's just calling everybody out and just getting into arguments with everyone on Twitter. Just spraying the block with the AK-47, right? Everybody gets a shot. Yeah, you're right.

It's like, oh, this rivalry falls through, I've got that one. That one falls through, I've got that one. Remember, Chil Sondin, when he was trying to get a fight with Anderson Silva, after every win, he would barely even talk about what happened that night, at least with Joe Rogan. And he'd be like, Anderson Silva, you absolutely suck, or whatever he was going to say. maybe at the post-fight press conference where he's talking to the media,

well, then he'd pull off the mask a little bit and sort of be more of himself. But he stayed on message picking fights, or he was picking a fight with Vanderlay, or he was picking a fight. He was always picking a fight with somebody so that when that fell through, the next one was up and ready to go. And it's obvious what Ben's doing. Now, being as popular as Connor McGregor, you've got a lot more fights to pick than just Colby Covington and Darren Till.

But, yes, the idea is he's just trying to open up his options. super smart from his part Yeah and he's been doing it for quite a bit too All right let's talk about Alistar Overeem who fights this weekend Yes he does Yeah let's not forget about that Hey Luke and Danny it's Max from Winnipeg Manitoba Canada

I'm just asking a question about Alistair Overing if you were to lose this weekend Where do you think he would go from here Given his brutal loss of Curtis plays And then a loss to a newcomer in the UFC Thanks have a great day So this is People are not really aware of this

I feel like this upcoming card is kind of flying under the radar. Yes, it is. And there isn't a very important fight involving Alistar Overeem. His co-main event, right? And he's the co-man event, yeah. I mean... He's coming up. Okay, so for research for the Curtis Blades interview,

I went back and I watched Blades versus Overeem. Dude, that is a very horrible fight for Alistair Overeem. He got knocked out, and then he gets cut a million different ways with elbows. It was really kind of bad. And he's 38 years old. He's won two of his last five, one of his last three. The last two, he lost via stoppage. Look, man, Alster Overeem is one of the best heavyweights to ever do it.

Yeah. Remember when Overeem was the dream champ, the K-1 champ, and the Strike Force champ all at the same time, or within close proximity of each other? I mean, he was on top of the world, and I take my hat off to him. What an unbelievable career he said, by the way, he might win this Saturday. I'm not saying yes or no. I'm merely saying if it were to go poorly for him, you know, again, I'm not here to tell these guys how to live their lives, but I don't know why we're retirement, or at least considering it anyway, would be some kind of horrible option. I mean, if he's not going to be contending for a title, you know, do you want to be going there and losing to people that you haven't heard of in China? No, I think Overeem has beaten the very best of his generation more often than not. He's done amazing things. If the peak has passed, hey, that's okay. Everyone has an end. If he wins, different debate.

But I just feel like he's done enough. Would you agree, though, sort of his careers on the line, at least for title contention? For title contention, for sure. Yeah. I mean, if he loses three in a row, although he's come back from somewhat similar situations. Remember when he lost to Bigfoot, I was there for that card?

That was my first EOC card, I recovered. Is that right? Yeah. It was in Vegas. And then he lost to Travis Brown. And then it looked for a split second that was sort of the end of Alistar overring, but then he reinvented himself and had this crazy run.

Oh, and he also had the Ben Rothwell loss. But he beat Shrewd, Nelson, DeSantos, Arlovsky, lost the steepe, but came back and beat Hunt and Verdume. And then he loses the last two. Here's the other thing. I've been wrong about heavyweights before and trying to bury them before they were ready to be buried. So I've been wrong about it.

I'm just going to say, let's see how it looks. But if it's three losses in a row and you're not in title contention, then you just have to ask yourself, what's the point of it all? Yeah, maybe a step down in competition to head to another organization. I don't know how his contract is. Goes back to kickboxing or something. Who knows? Oh, yeah, for sure.

All right, let's talk about BJ Penn. And this is going to be a fun question. All right. Hey, how you doing, Luke? My name is Adam. I don't know from Wayne, New Jersey. Just reaching out to you. I'm a big fan in the show.

I just wanted to understand. One thing that I've always seen people say, say, BJ Penn is one of the greatest lightways of all time. What did he do exactly to become the greatest lightweight of all time? Now, I'm not ignorant to the question. I understand that, you know, he was dominant at his era. Well, if we look at his record, he never had the belt for a certain amount. He never had multiple defenses.

It was most he won one, one fight, won two fights, and then lost the belt. He didn't keep it consistent. Why do you think people for B.J. Penn in such high regards? Thank you for answer my question. Thank you. This is an opinion a lot of people hold, actually. They're like, well, what is so good about B.J.? You look at his resume even during his peak, and they're like, that's not Habib's resume.

But you have to understand he competed in a totally different era. Here's why he was special. He was called The Prodigy for a reason. First American to win the Black Belt World Championships in Jiu-Jitsu, right? No one had never done it before him at that level, number one. Then he crosses over into MMA with virtually no training and started blowing the doors off of people. And it wasn't doing much prep. Jumping weight classes.

He had some losses along the way, but would jump weight classes and then go do incredible things. You know, Connor was jumping. People were like, oh, my God, this is amazing. He was doing something like that. Up to the pole where, yes, he fought Liotomachita, Adelaide heavyweight, and he was all bloated and it didn't go well. But the point being was BJ was doing these heroics. He had a lot of heroic moments, including the beating of Matt Hughes at UFC 40,

whatever it was, to capture the Walter Way Crown. And up to that point, you just never seen anybody do anything like that. So you're saying, my God, look at this guy who was a technical phenom. Here's the other thing. At his peak, he didn't take damage very much. Like if he got punched, he didn't get swollen up. He had ridiculous wrestling. He had an amazing.

jab, his jiu-jitsu spoke for itself. He just did things that were incredible. And you can look at, he lost to St. Pierre the first time. Yo, he put St. Pierre through the wringer in that one. So you're like, well, he lost, but he was just doing incredible heroics. BJ's resume is not about consistency. BJ's resume is intermittent moments of peaking. Maybe we're overrating it.

Maybe we're not. But that's the way to evaluate it. Yeah, I also feel like when we start discussing, you know, the go conversation, A lot of it is also what that fighter makes people feel at the moment. If you watch Anderson Silva when he was at his peak, there was something much more that you got than just watching his performance. It was sort of an aura, right? There's something to be said there.

So I feel like, and I'm just assuming maybe this caller didn't live exactly through that era, and that happens to me. Like when people talk about Fader and people have been watching him for a really long time, I respect Fader. Obviously, I can look at his record and look at the stats, but I still don't have the same connection that others have when they watch them fight live, and I think that's huge.

It is a major component. My producer on my radio show never saw Couture fight. For me, that's like... Yeah, and if you look at his record... Crazy, yeah. You're like, well, he's got some nice wins, but look at all these losses.

You're like, no, no, no, you don't get it. Like, he was doing incredible things. But I admit, you know, there's a modern sensibility that resume... Those old resumes don't quite match. What else we got? All right. you pick

something about a movie or John Jones Gustavson? We'll do both. We'll do the movie first. Okay. Hey, Luke and Danny. My name's Alice,

calling from Orlando, Florida. First of all, Luke, want to see if your allergies are doing better, I hope they are. And wanted to ask, Luke,

what's your favorite martial arts movie? I'm very curious to know. And if you haven't, you should watch a movie called The Night Comes for us. some of the best martial arts

I've ever seen in the movie all right thanks I can't tell if that question is trolling because I did a 40,000 viewed review of the movie on my own YouTube channel about a month ago and I've been raving about it on my radio show constantly have you seen the night comes for us

no you have Netflix I do is that the one in Thailand that you've been talking Indonesia Indonesia and Jakarta you need to watch it I'm not kidding you seriously need I will I will this week here's what I'm talking about telling you, 20 minutes in, and your hands are going to be sweating. It's ridiculous.

Let's do this. I'll watch it. Next Monday, I'll give you my review. Well, when they start cutting each other's face off with box cutters and the final scene, you begin to get an appreciation for it. But the point being is, best way, I mean, it depends what you want to be. Bloodsport holds the one that closest to my heart from my romantic childhood. Yeah. Bruce Lee's, you know, Enter the Dragon, Game of Death, all those are big. We've ever asked about, like, the best action slash martial arts movie I've ever seen? Like, what's the best representation of martial arts. Super Ninjas is this old school movie

that a lot of folks don't know. People died making that movie from injuries. Two people died making it. But I would say, have you seen The Raid or the Raid 2? From what era? Oh, the Raid and the Raid 2 are from just a few years ago.

Okay. See? Okay, go on. Dude, the Raid and the Raid 2. When I grew up, I mentioned this on my review. When I was a kid, all the major Hollywood Studios or Hong Kong studios are where the martial arts movies came from. Now it's Indonesia. Bro, those Indonesian guys, Joe Taslim,

and Eco Yuayson on how he pronounce his name properly, those donkeys are out there putting on a show. If you've not seen the raid, it's three bucks on YouTube movies. It is the best $3 you will ever spend. No one, no one is making martial arts movies like the Indonesians. To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of martial arts movies. Get out! The newer ones.

The newer ones. I'm a huge fan of Bruce Lee. The Big Boss is one of my favorites. And I, first of all, the aesthetic of the 70s also like the sort of those movies really captured it. And it was nice. Bloodsport, amazing. I like the older movies. I feel like the new ones, most of them are cheesy and they always have the same storyline.

It's like some dude that either got bullied in school and then, you know, started training and beat up the bully. Like, it's always like the same, you know, the same. you know the same like all those never back down and stuff like well watch the raid yeah i watch the raid never back down is like first base with a girl freaking the raid is i don't even know it's like your wedding night i don't even know what to tell you it's it's it's it's ridiculous it's it's ridiculous all right one more then we got to go all right this one was a pretty well i've I did the Curtis Blades interview, but I mean for the segment. Yeah.

One second. All right. A little Jones Gus, right? Yeah. Give it a few seconds. For some reason, this caller took like two seconds, like five seconds before. Hello, the MMA hour. My name is Harun, and I'm calling from Madrid.

I have a question regarding the Gustafsson's Jones fight. It's tough one to call for me since they've both been out of action so long, but no one seems to back Alex Gustafson. So my question is, how does he get it done? And let's imagine he does win what happens next in the division if he shocks the world. I've learned a lot from you guys. Thanks for the hard work. Haupa Atletti.

Aupa Adletti. Two losers, you and him. You and are, by the way, you said this off air, I'm going to call you out on air. What? If Atletical, Madrid, manages to win Champions League. Either thing. We're putting the scarf up. Yeah.

We're not taking down my Real Madrid one to understand. Okay. We'll just hide it behind the... Political. The things. All right. Okay, so how will he manage to get it done? The answer is I have no freaking clue.

Part of the reason why people aren't believing him is not that they don't think Gustafson's talented. But since then, John has had OSP fight notwithstanding a bunch of really good performances. Gustafson lost to D.C. And he had some other good ones too. But it's not like he had the same reign of terror that John did, number one. Number two, John has actually been more active recently if you can believe it. That's probably another reason. So how would he get it done?

For me, the issue is, I don't know. But if he were to, I would believe. that something relative and related to John's inactivity would make that possible. But I'm open to all possibility. Trying to predict that just seems like with specificity seems like a fool's errand. So I'll just say it's possible. I need to see what it looks like. What it would do is it would turn two divisions on their head.

John's return is about asserting supremacy at light heavyweight and then picking up right where he left off, or I should say, at light heavyweight. And then taking off rather at heavyweight. Yeah. It would turn both of those on their head. It would be a major monumental upset. And it would probably have a third fight after it, by the way, to settle it. So there you go.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure, a third fight just because then it would be a 1-1. So that would come. I don't know if it would be immediate rematch. I would put money on it that it would be yes. Obviously, depending on how the fight goes. Yeah. But if Gus wins, there will be some sort of rematch at some point.

And, yeah, it'll put those divisions, you know. It would tear up. It's a weird order, yeah. Because I feel like you can imagine. Imagine all the possible paths that any division, any of those two divisions can take with Jones winning. But with Gus winning, now you've got to think about like what you're going to do next, right? It's not so obvious. It would be a third fight between the two.

There's no way. All right, man. That's it for us today. Yes? Where'd you go? Oh, no, I'm not done. Hold on. Bring them back.

There he is. Have a good Thanksgiving, my friend. Dazes. And enjoy the Ahiako. I'm sure you're going to be having some. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Or I'll be jealous. Send you picks.

Well, yeah, send me some picks. All right, thank you so much. We'll talk to you next Monday. All right, here's what we've got to do. I am going to sign off, but we're not done yet. I also spoke to Curtis Blades over the weekend. Remember, he's headlined this UFC China event. He's fighting Francis Inganu, right?

For the second time on totally different circumstances. This is a huge fight for that division, for that guy. So I got to sign off. I want you all to stay frosty, but here is my Curtis Blades interview. I am joined now by UFC heavyweight Curtis Blades, who faces again Francis Ngano, November 25th, all the way back in China. He joins me now via The Magic of Skype.

Curtis, how are you this fine afternoon? I'm doing good, man. How are you? Doing very well. I really appreciate your time today. A couple things I want to get to just to start things off. When the UFC came back to you and said, hey, we want you to rematch Enganu,

your immediate thought was what? I mean, I was happy because it was, It was pretty much the only alternative. It was either that or just me having to wait and see what happens with this whole Brock Lesnar, D.C. things. So I was just happy to have an opportunity to stay active and get another win. Or you were going to have to sit out a long time after you beat Overeem waiting for D.C. to do whatever D.C. is going to do?

Yeah. There was no telling, like, when they're going to fight because who knows? Brock Lesnar, if he gets out of the, you saw the testing pool or who knows when they actually finalize the deal. So I didn't want to just be hanging around in the win, just waiting. Now, was Engadne like your first choice? Like if you had, I mean, obviously, D.C. would be the top choice, right? So put that out for a second.

Not including a championship title shot. Did you have a preference beyond that? I mean, I would have preferred Steve, but I asked for, for sure. Stipe for the November 10th card here in Colorado, but he didn't want it. And I understand. He feels he deserves a rematch, so in Ghana was an next-bix option. Do you think he deserves the rematch? He has a good, a very strong case for it because he did defend the belt the longest in heavyweight history.

and it was a first round loss and I remember when Yohanna when she got knocked out by Rhodes in the first round they gave her an immediate rematch so I understand

why he feels the way he feels but I also understand this is the business and he's he's almost in the same position as I am He doesn't have the... He's not a fan favorite. I mean, I like him.

I think he's a great fighter, but a lot of the everyday fans, they don't really appreciate his game. So I get why the UFC picks Derek Lewis, because Derek Lewis has a lot of Instagram followers. He said funny things in his post-fight interviews. so I get it. Why do you think you're not a fan favorite,

to use your own words? I mean, I know what. A lot of fans, well, not a lot of fans, but there's a population in the fans of MMA that find it hard to appreciate wrestling. And I'm a wrestling-based fighter

and they see it as boring. And, I mean, I wish they didn't. I like to change the grind in this next fight and, and, uh, throughout my career. But I think that's the biggest issue. They don't like to see a guy, taking another guy down and grounding how they want to see big men in the middle, just hucking and chucking at each other. And I get it, but that's, that's not my, that's not my game. It's not my style.

Uh, I have the best grappling in the division. I'm going to use it to my advantage. A bit of a side issue here. Do you kind of believe that some of the reasons maybe why D.C. gets booed is for that? Or do you think, and he gets booed less than he used to, of course. I was just at 2.30, some boots, but not nearly as many as it used to be. Is it a fight-style issue, or is that just a John Jones rivalry issue? I think it's more of a John Jones rivalry issue.

I think the majority of fans are pro-John Jones, which means if you're pro-John Jones, that means you're anti-DC. Fair enough. But Steve, to your point, though, I mean, he won a lot of fights via knockout. Now, the Ngano fight that he had went to distance, and it was not that way. But by and large, he's been knocking people out.

So why would you and him be in the same boat? Is it just because he doesn't, like, seek out the spotlight? Yeah, he's not a attention seeker. He doesn't, he doesn't promote the way I think the UFC, he would like him to promote himself a la dirick lewis or hovey hovington guys of that nature he doesn't like do the look at me look at me type of things go ahead i'm sorry being to cut you off i'm just saying i respect him for that there's i never really saw a need for all that extraness like you go in there you fight you win you lose no matter what you respect your opponent

before and after the fight. Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, look at you now, man. You're a reckon, you know, you were always a top prospect, and now you're a top contender. You've never felt the need to be like, all right, maybe just this once. I'll go out there and say a bunch of wild things and boost my profile.

But you haven't done that. Why not? It's not a part of my character. I come from a wrestling background, and we never did that. You don't do that. When you go to a wrestling tournament, you get a bracket.

You look at the bracket and you wrestle who you're going to wrestle. It doesn't matter if you talk smack or not. You're going to have to wrestle the number four seed or the number eight seed. So talking smack, it wasn't really a factor in that sport. And I've just always had that mindset. I'm going to fight whoever they give me. And I don't need to hype it up. All right.

So let's talk about this fight with Engano. A couple of things that stand out to me. I want to go through the list here. Man, you're a bit of a road warrior. You guys first fought in Zagreb, Croatia. Nice place, by the way. You've been all over the United States, but beyond that, you've been to Perth.

You've been to, let's see, Portland, Houston, Las Vegas, New York. Now you're going to China. Do you like, I mean, it's one thing to travel through the United States. It's quite another to go travel the world as you're doing. Do you like that? I mean, do you hate it? Are you just part of the game? Where do you come down on the travel issue?

It's not really an issue for me. A lot of these places I'm, I've been sent to a fight are places I would have ever actually thought about going to visit. So I see that's just an opportunity to explore the world and I don't have to pay for it. You know, it's like it's a win-win for me. Like I never would have gone to Beijing had it. I not had a fight out there. So I'm just, I appreciate the opportunity to see other cultures and experience the world.

That being said, there are questions about performance. Now, the Zogranos fight was your UFC debut, and it was against Angan. We'll circle back to that in a second. You did win the one in Perth. That was against Mark Hunt. At the time, your biggest win to that point, although the Overeign win might be bigger now in retrospect. But the point being is, to what extent does that impact your preparation? How much extra do you have to do?

It's not really a big difference. I treated like a normal fight week well no I go out there a few days extra sorry it's all good man it's all good yeah it's just like a normal fight week

I go out there a few days early just to reacclimate to the time zone but by Wednesday I'm, it's a normal fight week. So the first fight was your UFC debut. You did get them down a few times. I think it was your right eye that was all swollen up.

But before we dig into those specifics, when you think back to that fight and you look at it, number one, how many times have you gone back and looked at it? I guess number two, what does that first fight mean in your mind? I've watched that fight at least a dozen times. I haven't watched it in a few months now, but I've watched it at least a dozen times. I've picked it apart all the things I did wrong,

all the mistakes I made, all the ways I could have won. I had plenty of opportunities to win that fight. When I took them down the first time, and I allowed him to get an underhook and just get back up, I could have easily, had I had the knowledge I have today, I would have easily been able to counter that underhook and hold him down and ground and count him out because he doesn't have,

he didn't have great conditioning then. He doesn't have great conditioning. Now, I know if I hold him down for two to three minutes, he'll be gassed, he'll be done for it. So that right there just lets me know I could have beat him back then with all the holes I had in my game. And today, I'm 10 times.

better than the version of my self that debut that day. So I know I can win. I have so many different ways to win now. I don't have to wrestle, but most likely I will wrestle because I know that's his weakest area of MMA. So when you talk about that first fight, you did get him down a bunch of times. The right I got super swollen.

In fact, that's why they ultimately stopped the contest, the doctor did. between rounds, I guess, basically. I think it was after the second round, if my memory serves. How hard of a hitter was he? Pretty hard, right? No, yeah, he hits. I will give him that.

Like, he hits very hard. He hits very hard. He's not the hardest hitter I've ever faced. I think that would be Mark Hunt, but he definitely has hammers in those fists. Now, where do you think he is, man? Because he had that fight with Stipe, and then he had the fight with Derek Lewis,

and it just hasn't been the same. I'm not saying he's done for it's not a call I'm prepared or even able to make but certainly it's been a bit of a detour where do you think he is um that's a good question I don't know because I've never I've never had a two-fight two-fight losing streak but if I if I can project I'm thinking he's probably feeling a bit of pressure right now he knows he loses another one doesn't look good. That's, that would be three back-to-back losses in one year. And he's a fan favorite, but that could, you can still get released after that.

So I know he's got a little bit of pressure on him, and I might, I might make him press. And when guys start pressing, they make mistakes, and it just usually gets worse. Let me, let me see how you feel about this. Do you think that his, there's been a debate in the MMA media about this, and you've probably heard it as well, maybe even thought about it, which was that fight with Sipei Miochich. It's like, look, I don't in MMA, you never know when someone's done. But it also seems to me this guy wasn't a five-round fight where he was getting,

I mean, he was getting bombed on and just controlled and thrashed. And then he comes out in his next fight and he can't even pull the trigger. Should his corner have intervened in the first fight to save him that beating? The first fight, meaning, not the one with you, but the Miochich fight. No, no. I wouldn't want Mike. I wouldn't want my coaches to intervene in that situation. It's up to me to get out of the bad spot.

If you're on your back, it's up to them to do the work prior to the height. And I'm sure they did. I'm sure they drilled get-ups. I'm sure they drilled how to get off the page and all that. But he wasn't able to apply it, but you have to give you a higher every opportunity to apply the next. knowledge that you've already instilled him. I think that's what they were

doing. Okay, but let me play devil's advocate if I may. Again, I don't know what the truth is because we still have to see how he performs in this fight and going forward. The jury's still very much out. But let's imagine a scenario where because of that Miotchich fight, he's now damaged. He just

can't pull the trigger. You'd still not want your coaches to intervene if it had to if it led to that kind of permanent consequence? If it led to that, then I would probably retire. If I can't pull the trigger in a fight, that's just not smart to go in into a fight like that.

You have to go into a fight believing in all your tools. And he doesn't have a lot of tools, but the one tool he does have is a nasty overhand. So if you don't believe in that, then, yeah, you shouldn't be in the octagon. You can get hurt. If he goes in there and he fights me the way he fought Derek Lewis, it'll be real bad for him. So I'm hoping he's in a better place in his head right now that he believes in his skill sick.

I want him to be at his best. I don't want any excuses from the fans or pundits or anyone. I want him to come out guns blazing. So a win. Let's say you get a nice, emphatic win, right? Let's reverse it. You get a win with the inside two rounds or something like that. Where does that put you?

Because you're already kind of in a pretty good position. Now what do you get? Honestly, I don't know because there's so many different variables. Like we previously stated, Brock Lesnar's in the mix. I've heard John Jones, he might bump up the heavyweight, so he's in the mix. He's still got steep hanging around. He's in the mix. so there's a lot of

a lot of variables I haven't really tried to project past this fight because I did that previously with the Allister over and I projected oh I beat Alister

that I should be going after the belt especially after I watched Derek Lewis versus Nangano I didn't think either one of them after the second round

I didn't believe either one of them deserved the high responsibility shot. Whoever won, I didn't believe they did that kind of shot. So I was already in my head. I'm already thinking, oh, I'm next. And then I get disappointed because I'm not next. So I just don't want to do that to my self again. I'm just not going to project like that. Okay. So let's say you win this and you don't know exactly where it puts you. What is the plan then, just to stay active?

I guess the plan would be Ask for Stipe And if we get it, great Because if I beat him, then yeah, there's no denying me But that's only if he accepts the fight If he doesn't I really don't know I'd have to talk to my manager

Talk to my coaches Get their input and go from there It's just a weird situation to be in, like, limbo. Now, you mentioned you can, wrestling is your base and is likely the way you'll fight this one. But let's say you beat in Ganu, then you would have to face Steepa, who's also a really good wrestler.

How do I ask this question? Do you have enough confidence in your hands that, let's say, Stepe was able to stop your takedowns? You could win strictly on the feet? Yes, my movement, my footwork, my head work, my conditioning. That's my greatest attribute is my conditioning. I'm here in Denver. I train at 5,500 feet every day.

I believe I'm the best conditioned heavyweight in the division. So I believe eventually my right hand will find a home and I'll be able to win the fight. That's only if I couldn't get to take down. I totally believe I can still get to take down. I don't know if you know, but I previously, back when I was an amateur, like five years ago, I was a part of Stipe's camp for Gabriel Gonzaga, and we sparred, we wrestled, and back then I could take him down.

He would beat me on the feet, but the dump was always there. And I was just trying to give him a good look. look on the feats or I try not to shoot too much. But whenever I did, not whenever, but a lot of the times when I did take a shot, I ended up getting it. I just didn't know what to do with it because he was better on the ground. But the skills I have now combined with the wrestling, I fully believe I would be able to get a takedown eventually.

And I would be able to, because I'm heavier than he is, he'd have to hold my weight. I know that I would gas him out. Do you welcome John Jones at Heavy. weight, if that's a path he takes? John Jones is the goat. He's the greatest. I think anyone who gets the opportunity to face a guy of his skill level, a guy like him or an Anderson's silver, like those type guys, those, they're legends.

So, yeah, if he decided to bump with the heavyweight and we had to fight for the belt, I'd welcome it. If there's nothing else I can do, I'm not going to, I can't go down in a weight class. so we'd have to fight. Before we let you go, are you a big fan of Chinese food? How are you planning to feed yourself when you're out there?

It'll be a lot of orange chicken. A lot of that. What is your walk-around weight, by the way? Right now, I'm walking at like $2.55. You got a little room. You got a little room, I guess. Well, you know what? I know it's a long trip.

I don't want to keep you any longer. I really appreciate your time, Curtis. Best of luck against Francis and Ghanu. It'll be the 25th for us. I think the 24th for you, but whatever it ends up being that weekend. Best luck to you. Thank you so much for your time.

No problem. Thank you. I appreciate you having me on your show.