MMA Fighting - #461 – Valentina Shevchenko, Colby Covington, Kevin Lee

Episode Date: December 10, 2018

Luke Thomas speaks to Valentina Shevchenko about her win over Joanna Jędrzejczyk at UFC 231, capturing the flyweight title, what's next for her career, more (1:31:18); Colby Covington about the state of the welterweight division, a possible fight with champ Tyron Woodley, Ben Askren signing with the UFC, more (1:00:00); Kevin Lee about his upcoming rematch with Al Iaquinta on the very last UFC on FOX show this weekend, Max Holloway potentially moving up to lightweight, more (41:07). Luke also looks and breaks down some of the key factors that helped Holloway defend his featherweight belt against Brian Ortega on the Monday Morning Analyst (2:56). He also shares his thoughts on the Holloway's GOAT status and his similarities to Georges St-Pierre on The Weigh-in (1:23:22). We also answer your questions on the latest in MMA on A Round of Tweets (35:10) and Sound Off (1:44:56). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It is Monday, December 10th, 2018, and Caesar is home. Welcome, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas, and this is the MMA hour, right here on MMAFighting.com. Thank you so much for joining me. I greatly appreciate it. I hope you had a great weekend. I know I did. Boy, what a show we have to get to today.

A ton of stuff. Also, shaking things up here a little bit to start, huh? A little bit different, but the show will still be the same kind of thing you have come to expect and love. So three guests, number one, to discuss his impending bout against ally acquaintance at the very last UFC on Fox this coming weekend. That will be the one and only Motown phenom. Kevin Lee will be here about 1240. Then at 1 o'clock, what the hell is going on at Welterweight? Who's going to fight for the title?

What's next? To help us get a little bit more of that, we're going to have Kobe Covington. He will be here, Mr. Chaos himself. And then last but not least, fresh off her title winning victory at UFC 231. The brand new women's flyweight champion will be here at around 130 or so, Valentina Shevchenko. As always, we will continue to take your tweets. We'll get to those later using the hashtag the MMA Hour and your calls as well. 844-866-2468.

That's always the number to call. Plus, we will take anything you send us for your international folk using the email, TheMMA Hour at Vox Media. dot com. Okay, again, thank you guys so much for joining me. I greatly appreciate it. A ton of stuff to get to. We're trying to shape things up, find the right format to start the show. I just don't like sitting down when we go live. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I'm trying to buck up little campers, you know, get ready to go, have a little more high energy start to things. Danny Sigurta is here. We will check in with him a little bit later. He tells me that the tweets on the calls were overwhelming. So that's always a good sign. I'm very happy about that. But you know what?

It was an incredible weekend. We have so many questions to get to about, well, we're going to talk to Shevchenko. But when it comes to Max, is he the goat? Is he not the goat? There's a hot debate happening online when it comes to being who's the featherweight king of all time. Should he fight Tony Ferguson next? Should he fight someone at 1.45 next? We'll get to all of that stuff as well.

But right now, I've said this before. I'll say it again. Every time a fight happens over the weekend, I go to my Facebook page. Facebook.com slash Luke Thomas News. And I ask, who do you guys want to see on the Monday morning analyst? And that's really the basis on how I go by this. I have some editorial judgment included, but okay, that's the way I go. And the overwhelming response was Max Holloway. So we don't have a moment to waste. Let's get right to it now. It is time for the Monday morning analyst. All right. As I mentioned, here we go, Monday morning analyst. Now, if you're

listening on the audio podcast, I'm going to try something here, which is why we got this new setup in part so you don't turn off or fast forward right away. Let me give you some things you can hang your hat on here just a little bit before we get to some of the footage breakdown that we'll do or slide by slide anyway. As I mentioned, Max Holloway winning over the weekend via a doctor stoppage at the end of the fourth round. I went back and I watched this fight several times. I also went back and I watched the two Jose Aldo fights. I have a couple of remarks I'd like to get to before we look at some of the things here in detail. Number one, he was way more reserved in both Aldo fights. Now, less so in the second one, particularly in the third round of the second

one. My point being here is he was, I won't say wide open because Max is judicious with how he makes his choices. You're going to see shot selection. I don't mean shot. I mean, like, what shot do you pick? His shot selection was very, very, it's always very smart. He doesn't just go out there and wing too much. He brawls a little bit, but not like people think. But he is wide open in this fight, relatively speaking, for him. He just goes out there, balls to the wall in ways that he didn't really in any of his previous fights. Now, why is that? Did he feel comfortable with the matchup? Maybe. Was he trying to prove a point? Probably. Did he like the style, how they used to have the two interacted? Almost certainly, you'd have to ask him, and hopefully we'll get a chance to do that

here on this show. But I encourage you, if you're a fight past subscriber, go back and watch the Aldo fights. This is a much more aggressive attacking Max Holloway. Here's one stat if we can go to the screen here, and I'll read this out again if you're listening on the audio podcast, that will speak to this. I'm going to pull this open right here. This is round four. Let me do this a bit here. Look at the... Oh, crying out loud.

I could never get that one shape right. Hold on. Here we go. Let's do this one. How about that? I can get this one right. Look at that. All right.

You see that? Pull that up here just a little bit. That's round four. In round four, Max Holloway threw 196 significant strikes, and he landed 134 of them. You want to know how ridiculous that is? Let me give you a number for context here, if I may. For Max Holloway, he's never thrown volume like that. His total volume, total volume of strikes. In the second Aldo fight was 174. In the first Aldo fight,

104, against Anthony Pettis, 94, against Ricardo Llamas, 103. How about Jeremy Stevens? 57. That was a lot of attempt to take downs against the fence, but you get the idea. He had 124 against Clay Collard, and I think he had

a bunch, he had 124 against Clay Collard. How many did he have against this? Against Dennis, he had 75. He had 120 against Leonard Garcia. What is the point here? Literally, that number, 134, is more than he's landed in any single fight in UFC history for himself, except for one,

just the last Aldo fight. And that's still only adding up all three rounds of the Aldo fight. That is an absolutely ridiculous number. 134 strikes in a single round. It's almost unheard of. It's almost unheard of. In fact, he passed the total for significant strikes in UFC history.

I think he passed GSP and maybe Demetrius Johnson or somebody else. We're talking about a historic, a literal historic performance for Max Holloway and UFC 231. There's a lot of different ways to understand it. That's one of them. By the way, you can look at some of these other numbers here. Let me clear this off. You've got, let's do this one. you've got 66 here and 50 here.

Even that is unusual, right? Consider this. I mentioned the second Aldo fight, right? Which is the one where he had overall the greatest total, not including the last one, but not greater than some of these other parts. Listen to this. Even in those rounds, 25, 41, and then 108. You go back to, let's say, the first Aldo fight.

What was Max's output in that contest? Even then, same kind of thing. Max Holloway throwing 12, 28, and then 64. He threw 64 in the round where he finished Aldo. He threw 66 in round two. Folks, in round one, let me clear this off. In round one, God damn it. Let's zoom that out.

In round one, he threw 40. Historic, historic output. Max Holloway, as the challenges get tougher, as the opponents get more lethal, he's actually getting better and better and better. One way you're able to notice that is that maybe this was a favorable matchup to him in terms of the way which they interacted,

but nevertheless, his output in this contest from the word go is his most ever. In fact, in this contest, the previous total he had, as I mentioned, total was 174. His total in this one for significant strikes, 290. Let me make a point about Brian Ortega. His chin is absurd.

He did get kind of knocked down one time, not like flatly, but he kind of went to his knees and then rolled somewhere in the third or fourth round. I think it was the fourth. If you are cornering Brian Ortega, you have a solemn obligation. He told the media through, or the world, I should say, through Instagram yesterday, that he was ready to die. in there. I believe him. I believe him. He has the capacity to absorb an unbelievable beating. You need to be careful cornering Brian Ortega because he will allow himself in pursuit of the fight. This is what they call gameness, folks. Pursuit of the fight despite the physical consequences. Brian Ortega is a dog. He is a dog. He needs to be protected because he will go out there

and literally fight to the death if you let him. If you are cornering Brian Ortega, you need to be careful because he is just, he's a remarkable talent, but when he's on the other end of the equation, he will fight to the point where it is well past his interest. You need to be careful with that. Now, before we get, for the audio, folks, move on. There is one more thing I want to show you here. Let's do this here, if I may. Look, I made a little, huh? I made a little slide for you. Isn't that nice? Now, I have four keys to victory. This is my disclaimer at all times. It's my disclaimer now. there might be other keys to victory than the ones I didn't pick up on. There might be better ones than the ones I picked up on.

There might be a better way to frame these. In fact, now going back, I would like to change the way I wrote number four, but I just want you to know, I'm not saying these are the best keys to victory. I'm not saying these are the only keys to victory. If there are other folks out there who have analysis, I encourage you to please listen to them. I can only offer you what I see for all the good and for all the best. bad. It does have limitations. It's just something I always want to make sure I get out there.

I don't want to come up here and say, this is how it's done. This is how I see it. Keep that in mind. Now, what are these keys to victory? Let me pull up some of my notes here and then we'll look at some of this footage. I appreciate your patience. Number one, put forward pressure. Why does he want to put forward pressure? At sometimes, early in the fight, he was giving clockwise pressure. He'll remember in the Aldo fight, he yes, Max is interested because Max fights this way and he fights this way. But no matter which stance he fights from, he can circle this way and he can circle this way. So he can literally go like that. Not a lot of guys can do that. It's not about which way does he stand. It's about which way does he stand and circle at the same time.

That'll be number four here in just a minute. But the point being is here, he starts out doing that and then that quickly goes away when he realizes he can just get Brian Ortega to back up. One of the reasons why he wanted to jam was number one to do that. And number two is to jam the space, going to see is whether he's standing in the orthodox or the South Paul stance, he wants to get inside the punching range by moving into Brian Ortega constantly. That pushes Brian Ortega back and it gets him where the punches are whipping around the back of his head. He doesn't have to worry about just sort of being at the end of them. He's inside of them. That's number one. Number two, get the defensive shell open. You're going to see Brian Ortega has an interesting defensive

shell. Whether he's Orthodox or South Paul, the rear hand is kind of tucked here and then he's got this elbow out here. In fact, Kevin Lee uses the same shell in the first I equitified. I actually went back and I watched. It's like this. And partly you understand it, he likes to throw a bit of the elbows, although that's a little bit more slashing over the top. But it's an interesting thing. What he wants is for either Ortega to do that or to extend. He wants Ortega to extend. Once Ortega extends, he can either come over the top, he can come inside or he can use the other hand to then attack at an angle. So getting that open rather than here, let's say, and at a distance, opening or open is what he's looking for at all times. Number three, lead with

the halfbeat or the jab, otherwise counter. How does Max Holloway land? One, he'll just jab his way inside. Again, Orthodox or Lefty, doesn't matter. I kind of did it opposite here. Orthodox. No, excuse me, lefty, I'm a left-hander. And then Orthodox. That's one way he likes to get inside. Another way he likes to get or leave his offense is on the half beat. So remember, if I'm standing this way, one, two, three, four. That's the beat. But rather than trying to fire on the one, two, three, four, you fire in between the one and the two. So the beat is like this.

You fire in between. Before you can hit that final snap, that's when you want to get it. And the timing on that just takes skill and work on the half beat. So hold jab his way open, pushing back. jamming inside, getting Ortega to move back, and he'll do it with a half-be. Sometimes with a half-be, he won't jab. He'll do it from the power hand. He'll just pop, but it's the timing on it. It catches Ortega in dead space, or again, with the jab. Otherwise, he's countering. Connor McGregor does what? He pushes into guys, gets them to react, slips it, and it hits a shot. Remember the Ivan, is it Buckinger, Bukinger, whatever it is?

The fight he won in Cage Warriors that got him launched all the way to the UFC. The guy throws, what was it, a right hook? Connor leans. and then cracks him with the left over the top. Max does a lot of the same stuff, not the same shots, but the same meta game. Pressure into you, get inside of your positions, launch on the halfbeat, launch on the jab. If that doesn't work, use the counter, get you to open up with a fake and a faint,

or he likes to do this from the orthodox position, he'll go double, double, and then launch this one. Whatever the case is, he gets you to open up first. Remember we talked about getting a defensive shell open? Ortega would be here, and once the hand comes out, once the hand is away from the face, he's got a gazillion attacks for that. So it's pressuring you, fainting into you, getting into you, turning on an angle,

doing something, opening you, once you open, pow, crushing you. And then last, never be out of position. Now this one, I should rephrase this one. This is not the best way to put it. But here's the point I'm trying to make with this one. Why don't you ever want to be out of position? Well, obviously, it's never good for you. There's times where if you look at the footwork,

Brian Ortecatega's kind of crossing his feet a little bit and he's off balance. But here's what I want to point out. So many guys in MMA today will switch stance. They're here, blah, blah, blah, jab, and then they'll come in and then they'll twist. You know, and you're getting ready for this, and then they'll duck and throw a punch.

In other words, on the outside looking at you, they're switching. And maybe from each side, they can do a lot. Max can do that too, but that's not what makes him special. What makes him special is he's never out of position. ever. He might come in at an angle, he'll step out at a wide angle, he'll push his opponent over, and then through combination, he did the exact same thing to Joseo, he'll step here and then catch him with a left hook coming in. He catches these guys with check hooks off the stance switch constantly, and even when they try to get an angle on him, he switches. You're going to see in this footage and these slides, dude, Max Holloway, how do you get an angle on a guy who's never out of position?

I legitimately don't know. Ask an MMA coach, because I sure as hell don't know. It's remarkable. Keep these keys in mind. Let's look at the tape. All right. Move this along here. All right, here we are.

So I'm going to look at the first second and then just a couple of moments. Again, just a couple of moments in the first second and fourth round. You can be like, oh, Ortega's best round is the third. Right. But even then he lost that one and it's not instructive. So what do we have here? Max, pay attention to this at all times. What stance is he in? What stance is he in? Big time important. So you have Max in a orthodox stance. You have Ortega in a Southpaw stance. Keep that in mind. So what is Max going to do here? He's going to pressure into him. What does he want? He wants that hand extended away from the face and he's got it. And he's doing this the whole time. Sometimes you'll see him parry it down and come over with this one. Sometimes you'll see him parry it down and come over the top. He's got a lot of different attacks from that position, right? Watch this. Ducks down.

Comes in, measures, now you can say, oh, he missed. Who cares? He's measuring, right? Steps in, and you can't see it here, but down here, trust me, he's getting his lead foot to the outside of Ortega's lead foot, which gives him a wide open lane for the right hand. Like that, boom. And what is he doing? Jamming him, pushing him back at all times.

You can see all of that here in play. Here he is again. What does he do? you're mindful of the distance, jab. Now Ortega slips it. Now watch how Max just hops out of the way. You're going to see Ortega a lot of times likes to do trunk movement, but his feet are basically planted.

And for a guy like Max who can just set angles, it ends up being a real big problem for him. We move along. Watch what we're doing here now. Orthodox, orthodox. Orthodox. Okay. Let's see what happens. Right?

He comes in, flicks the jab, already jamming into him, right? pushing him back. Does it, doubles up on it, and look at the footwork here. Nice and balanced, almost running back, and look at his hips. Hips facing that way, hips facing this way. Who has the superior angle? He does. Right?

Comes in, boom, and goes to the body and gets him to circle out. Look at Max. Now switch his stance without you even knowing it. A little bit here, right? Look back here. Actually, no, he suits me. He stays in it. He'll switch stance later.

Boom. He goes in, oops, don't want to lose that. And he goes into it. Follows him cage cuts. Next. We have Orthodox, Orthodox. What does he do? Fakes, doubles up on it, and then comes over the top, jamming him inside the space, right?

Getting him to cover. Pushing it back, resets the angle to make sure he's far enough apart. Eyes looking down. Ortega L steps? That's an L-step I talked about with Tyson Fury, if you're wondering, by the way. L-step, just like that. Nice L-step. Look at the footwork here.

Bubbles inside. Look at Max. Pay attention to this. Pay attention to that. He steps to the outside, gets the arm extended, comes over the top. Look at that angle. Ooh, trouble, trouble. That right hand is wide open. Plus, he can connect with that one too, stepping around. And he misses, but understand this, you guys saw how this ended up. Nice, nice step around for Max Holloway, move along. Still on the first round, by the way. I kind of I'll blow through these here a little bit. Watch this one. So he gets the hand to come out.

Watch Max's feet and watch Ortega's feet. Max, just a slight adjustment, hop to the side. Look at that angle. In a nanosecond. In a nanosecond. Look where they were before. In front, he just hops around, has the hand come open, crack. Dude, how do you fight that guy?

He puts his own hand out to get... He wants either the jab to land or for Ortega just to reach. Because when he reaches, he can hop around, boom. All right, fast forward here. I'm going to go through all this. Oh, this is a nice little combo too here. Southpaw, Orthodox. He's going to step around.

When you ever you have the open stance, one wants the outside lead foot, right? Goes to the body, stays orthodox, and then they reset. There's another one. Watch this. Again, open stance, you're going to look for that one to go to the outside. He's going to get the hand to come out, which he does. Takes the angle, throws, and then doubles up on the movement. A lot of times guys will come to this one after they throw,

and then they'll switch if they go that direction, but he doesn't go that direction. He actually stays. So Max just stutter steps and then keeps it. Nice little piece of work by him follows along, right? All right, here we are. Orthodox, Orthodox. A little more square, but Orthodox, Orthodox.

What does he do? This is what I'm talking about, getting him on the half beat. He just doesn't even see it coming. Look at the feet of Brian Ortega. It's in the air. He's leaning when the punch lands. He's catching him. It's hard to tell if I just go slide by slide.

If you watch the video, I'm not going to play it in real time, because obviously it would be a problem. But if you play it in real time, you can see it. He's just kind of standing there. And right before his foot can even really land or he can really get his balance max tags him, right? From that orthodox position and watch. This is what I mean by never.

out of position. Comes in here and resets. So now he's based he could be, it's sort of a squarish one, but it's it's supposed to mimic being a stance switch here a little bit. Stays in here. Get angles off just slightly to the side, right? Misses the uppercut, but then stays defensive and then moves out of the way. Here we are. Orthodox, orthodox. Orthodox. Right. Getting the hand to come out, doesn't bite on the fake. And watch how he doesn't just back up. He changes angles. Change, look at that, very subtle, right? Changed angles.

You can see all of his tattoo here. Now you can't. Folks, in boxing, that little angle will set you on fire. And against the guy like that, it's the same kind of thing. Boom. Why do you think it lands? Because he doesn't reset the angle. And he catches him, look at the feet.

Catches him on the half beat. Foot in the air. See that? Every time. Just the timing is beautiful. it, boom, and then we move along. Here we are again. All right. So it looks like Ortega is switching. He goes south paw. This is that stance I was telling you about. It's like sort of defensive posture he's got. It doesn't do a necessarily a ton of good against Max Holloway. He

comes over the top. He's going to get the angle. Boom, right hand lands, stays in the orthodox position. It's one there because that's a nice shot by Ortega. And then look, look at him catching him on the halfbeat. Pop. See him? Look. Foot in the air. Catches him. Right on the timing. It must, you know how frustrating it must be to where, you don't even know it's coming, you can't even tell it's coming, and I have nowhere, a guy's timing is so good. You can just catch you right when you're most vulnerable from your walking position. Dude, it must be enraging.

It must be enraging. It's so difficult. And that's what he does every time. So he does every time, dude. It's ridiculous how good Max Holloway's timing is. Okay? And then slips it. By the way, look here.

Orthodox, stays Orthodox. Pops him, leans out. Look who's setting the angles. He resets the angle there. You kind of can't see it, but you get an idea. Here we are now. Southpaw, Orthodox. Same kind of rule would apply if he wants to get the outside foot.

Let's see what happens. Perry comes down. He kind of just, he parries and then kind of like does a Benson-Henderson jab like that. Pops him and then waits and then it gets obstructed here. But he was, the lane was wide open, which is why I'm showing you that, stays in his face the whole time doing this and catches him on the outside. Look, drops like this.

I think making him think that this hand was coming, so he moves away from it and then just lands right inside two right hooks from a South Paul position. Here's one thing I want to make a point about Max Holloway's game. You're going to have to get a better striker or someone who understands striker striking better than me, and there are many,

going to have to get one because I don't know how you folks feel and I don't know how you feel watching this or having watched this previously. I can't tell if there's a discernible difference in his game from Southpaw to Orthodox. He favors Orthodox more and he uses more stuff from Orthodox just by virtue of the time spent there. But from the South Paul position, there's no discernible drop-off in ability. There's no discernible drop-off in the game. It's not like, you've seen basketball teams, right? The top five starters come on the court, and when they're on the court, oh my God, like that they're winning, but then the subs come on and then the other team begins to take over because there's such a difference. That's sort of how you want to think about stances. But that's never the case with him. Maybe it's not the exact same weapons or the exact same strategies, obviously, but there's no discernible drop-off at all from this to this, which is unheard of. So many people think like, oh, I want to see something flashy. like a flying triangle, like an X-Guard sweep, like a Superman punch. He doesn't do any of that, man.

It's a meat and potatoes game, as I mentioned before. But the meat and the potatoes is, it's Wagyu beef and it's, I don't know, who's got the best potatoes? Idaho, Ireland, whoever. What I'm trying to make a point here is, rather than students of the world, rather than worrying about flying triangles, learn how Max time someone on the half beat. Rather than worry about all that stuff, figure out how Max is able to get people to bite on his fakes and faints to get them to go a certain direction as he steers them, only for them

to run into the punch like this. That last punch I showed you was similar to how Anderson Silva got Forrest Griffin. He changed stances, got him to circle into the power hand, and then just connected with it. The exact same thing you saw there. All right, here we are. Boom, boom, boom. Crushes him, bro, leaving his feet, too. So I'm talking about like aggressive Max Holloway. Move along and skip all this nonsense. All right, here we go. What do we have? We have South Paul. we have orthodox. Okay? Hands come out.

Look at Max. Pull the hand down. See that? Pulls it down. Sets the angle. Jams his way inside. Double jab. Eats one for it.

Okay. And then pops through, pushes him back behind. We've been over this, right? Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. Into the danger zone. Ask yourself where this fight ended.

Where did it end? Yes, on the stool. But where did the round end? That's where all the magic happens, folks. Pushes him back, right? Here we are. All right, I want to just fast-word this a little bit. Here we go.

Again, same scenario. South Paul versus Orthodox. Jab, backs his way out, didn't like how it first went in. Perrys it, comes around, doubles on the same side. Watch Max turn into the angle. Pops over the top, stays. Now, where did he start? You started Orthodox.

Let's see. Bit of a state. switch here, comes back, it's like effortless, and gets out in that same orthodox stance, right? Same thing. Now it's orthodox, orthodox. All right. Hand comes out. He comes inside, and it's a bit of a turn. Watch Max's hips, right? It's not just this, it's he's fading towards us a little bit. Steps inside to get that lane. Then the watches as the guy turns, pops him, waits, changes,

look at that, changes stance, follows him, and then waits for the hand to come out, like I told you before, slips it, pop,

pop. Now he's full on South Paul, cracks him, well, I kind of missed there a little bit. This is what I meant about never be out of position.

He started in a different stance. He's now in a, I believe that's starting in different stance, right? Hold on. Let's see. Kind of switched here a little bit. Yes, let's see. Orthodox kind of switches midway through. Yeah, right there. Switches back again, stays there. Now watch this. He's in a left-handed stance here. Max Holloway makes him stay in it. He never loses it. This is what I mean about never be out of position. If you get an angle on him, because let's say he overcommits with a punch and he misses you or you slip it, he can just pivot and he's back into position. That's stance switching.

facing off against the opponent and just switching, it's not not valuable, it's just not nearly as good as what he does. He does it through combination to both attack and then reset the angle to make sure he's never out of position. Look at him. He just goes right to firing from South Paul, jamming into him, getting inside the space, opening him up with the jab or catching him on the halfbeat. You get the idea. This is now the second round. Let's fast forward a little bit. Here again, on the half beat, pop, just like that.

Look at that. And what is he doing? Look at that. Hand comes out. He wanted his hand away from his face, either to get the angle to come inside or come over the top. And then the timing is just beyond perfect. Let me just move along here in the interest of time because I don't want to take too much time. And by the way, here's all your stance switching.

Look at that. No matter where it, dude, you are trapped under a sheet of ice with. this guy. It's absurd. Let's just want to move along. Forget all this. This is more of the same thing, by the way. Oh, hang on. Yada, yada yada. Here, can you put up the other thing real quick while I find it? I want to make sure I just scroll through it. Thank you. Appreciate that. Let's find that fourth round. Just two more sequences I want to show you. Here we go. Oh, you can put it back. Thank you. Last two. I'll show you. Just two more. And then we'll call it a day on this one. As again, I had too much on here. All right, what do we have? This is now the fourth.

round. South Paul, South Paul, right? So these guys are going back and forth. But who's like leading the dance on this one? Who has an answer for every single position? Who's never out of position? Who's pushing who back? Who's jamming in? Who's catching him on the halfbeat? Who's using the jab to open them up? Who's double jabbing and then throwing the straight inside? Blessed. Right? So here comes. Here comes. Ortega. You can see Max kind of hand fight. Look at Max's vision here, by the way. Looking downfield, like a quarterback at all times. And then it kind of comes around to check them, see what happens.

Ortega switch his stances on an L-step. Max follows, catches him on the halfbeat here a little bit, and then comes over inside. Remember how I said he wanted the hand away? Sometimes he was coming over the top. This time, he just wants that hand away, kind of just throws his own jab in there, and then shoots the punch on the inside.

turning the head the whole way. Exactly what I was talking about before. And then he swings and misses and then just gets chewed up. One thing about Max Holloway is when he's first fighting, he's very judicious. Punch, punch, punch, jab, or excuse me, punch, punch, cross. He'll do that a lot. As the fight begins to heat up, you'll notice less time between shots. He goes from chess to speed chess.

You go to the Aldo fights. He had 20, 30 punches in a round. than 108. You go to this one, he had 60, 40, 50, than 174. It's not just that there's more offense. It's that what he begins to do is, as he's jammed into you, as he's taken over, as he's got your timing and your rhythm and your movement, and he's inside that space and he's inside that range. What he's doing now is he's just began to attack more often, less time between them to give you less time to think. Even if you land on him, it probably won't be that much of a punch. A couple good shots he landed in there. Keep that in mind for Max Holloway. He starts like you're a full. frog in the pot boiling.

And at first, it's not that bad, but as it gets hotter and hotter, you're boiling before you even realize that it's happened to you, right? And then the last one, and again, watch this. He just sort of zips out of the way. By the way, look how Max doesn't travel back in a straight line in the line of attack. He's back sort of in a straight line, but opposite the attack. The punch misses, he gets to the weak side plane and then pops him with that counter that check hook. And by the way, he's in a orthodox stance here, right?

excuse me, left-handed stance, what am I saying? He pops, pops, and then just cracks him from the South Paul stance. This is what I mean. It's like, is there a discernible difference in his game between the left and the right? I mean, maybe someone with the better I can tell you, I'm sure that they could. But from my vantage point, not much, not much. And then he pops him over, stays in the South Paul. I mean, look, how do you, how do you, look at this?

I mean, what are you supposed to do about this? There's nothing you can do. Look at this. He's playing him like a set of drums. And here he is now from the Orthodox stance. chasing him, jamming into him, putting him back. And then last but not least, all right, let's take a look at it. Left-handed, left-handed, right?

Jabbs his way inside, and now he's already in. Even if this punch loops, it's not going to hurt, right? Which it comes around misses. He lands his own right there. Cracks him inside that space. Doesn't need to come around. Comes back. Now he's back to the left-handed stance, right?

Boom. There he is. Again, stays in that left-handed stance. pushes him back, eats a jab for his efforts, gets underneath, he can see everything coming, by the way, gets his head off the center line when he throws, and then make sure he, after the center line, he gloves up before he comes up.

So many guys get the head of the center line, and when they want to come back here, this is down, he keeps his up nice and tight. I'm almost done here. Boom, stays in back to Southpaw, right? And then just stays in his face, and then you saw how the end went. All right, that's enough.

You can close the show. You get the idea here. Stant switching. What were my keys to victory here? Let me go back one more time. Right here. Go back. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

One more time. Put it on the screen. One more time. Put forward pressure. How much was forward pressure a part of it? Just getting him to back up, getting inside the space to jam him. Get defensive shell open. Once that hand came away, he could get inside.

He could get around with that pressure. That was all the opening that he needed, especially when it was this. Lead with the halfbeat. How many times you see him lead with the half beat or the jab? Otherwise counter. Force a reaction. and then counter him and then never be out of position. How many times did the stance switching put him in a position

where he was offensively able to capitalize, whether it was a south paw check hook or if somebody got away, he overcommitted with a punch. Now they're this way, he can just face that way and then launch offense that way. Max Holloway is an ambidextrous fighter. He is one of the best fighters in all of MMA. Folks, we're not saying it, we need to say it.

That was a virtuoso performance. You are looking at greatness in real time. Luke, what does greatness look like? It looks like that. That's the Monday morning analyst. All right. Let's do this. I'm sitting down.

I know that was a little on the long side, but I think we have time. Let's do it right now. I believe it is time, ladies and gentlemen, for a round of tweets. All right. Clock starts when the first tweet goes up five minutes, like one round of MMA. Let's see what you got, donks. What you got? What you got?

Anytime. Well, I'm still good looking. All right, can you play Face the Pain as an intro to a round of tweets? I would rather... God, what would I rather do? I would... Without being grotesque. I'd rather just die.

How about that? I'd literally rather just die. Next. Who would you most like to see Max Holloway fight next? I was so impressed by his striking display last night that I feel Habib is a great style. By the way, shouts to Brian Boone Kelleher, who I know has another fight they just got scheduled. So shouts to him, first of all, for the tweet.

Shouts to him for watching. Best of luck to him his next fight. We'll get him here in studio before too long. But to answer the question, I would actually like to see him stay at 145 because I want to see him produce greatness at that weight class. But here's the reality. If he goes to 155, there's no wrong answer. You could go Connor if you wanted to. You could go Habib if you wanted to.

You could go Tony Ferguson if you want to. Let me introduce this idea. How about Nate Diaz? I'd like to see, if he goes to 155, I'd like to see Nate Diaz take on Max Holloway. I think that would be an interesting fight. And certainly, a big fight to boost the cards profile as well as Max, maybe even Nate as well, too. Next. What does your setup look like during a busy fight weekend?

How many devices do you have out, TV, laptop, and smartphone? Well, thank you for the compliments. Here's what I would say. So I invested into a little setup. I have a little YouTube studio. inside my house. It used to be my bedroom. My wife and I moved up to our second floor. We put our bedroom up there instead. We finished it and I laid some carpet and now we are upstairs. And so our old bedroom is now my YouTube studio. So I have a PC tower. I have two monitors here. So I'll have Twitter up on one side or news or whatever. And then I'll have the screen up here. If there's multiple events like there was for Lomachenko, I'll have Lomachenko and I'll have the Schiffchenko fight next to each other. I'll have that. I'll usually have my phone next to me. And I'll have my phone next to me. I'll have a iPad as well. I have everything. I have just, like, like Camillionaire and Paul Wall once said, TV, TV, TV screens falling out the sky like rain. There you go. Next. How would you rate that

card among the best pay-per-view cards of all time? Low. To me, it had everything from start to finish, flawless. Flawless is a strong word. It was a great card. Don't misunderstand me. I enjoyed it. Paid for it. Loved it. I felt like I got my money's worth. I'm a happy camper. But all-time cards? No, I don't know that that would rate. That's an all-time main event. virtuoso performance, but that's about it. Next. What do you think the 1229-18 promo that showed the U.S. Canada flags on a beltment? I think it was shouts to Jose Youngs here on the staff. He surmised that you've got Daniel Cormier as the American champ,

and Brock Lesnar was Canadian, or not was Canadian, but certainly represented Canada in his last fight at UFC 200. So maybe something to do with that. but your guess is as good as mine. I literally have no idea. Next. Mighty Mouse became a dominant champ at 125, a new division after mixed results at 135. Do you think possibly Valentina could do the same

in the newly open 125 women's division? Here's a real basic question. Who's going to beat her? Maybe somebody from 135 who drops down to 125 like her, but like of all possible 125 candidates, I mean, maybe if Tatiana Suarez jumps up, something like that, maybe if Andrage goes back up, that might be something kind of interesting.

But then she got pieced up by Yanjchecks. So I think that Valentina is going to be champion for a while. Next. How can UFC expect a thin women's 125 division to survive when seemingly a more developed men's 125 division could not? Perhaps they don't. But the difference is that 125 in women's side is sandwiched between two a brilliant important divisions, and so it at least serves as some kind of intermediary between them.

It gives them another belt to hang on, whereas 125 is at the end of the men's divisions. And so therefore, they probably feel like they need it for, if no other reason, to give a home in between two-way classes, rather than just having the tail end of something that they're not sure provides a ton of functional value. Next. Now that Valentina and Yonah have finally fought for the fourth time, and Nunez Cyborg are on the horizon, do you think we have exhausted women's MMA superfights for the time being? Val versus Nunes 3 is a hard sell and no way Val fights training partner rose.

Probably, but I'll just say this. If Nunes wins, they're going to have some kind of a rematch, right? She becomes the female goat at that point in my argument, in my belief. You know, she would be the first woman two-division champ, and she'd be a two-division champ at the same time. So keep that in mind very quickly next. Corners aren't throwing in towels. Fighters are doing just enough to keep the referees from intervening.

Is it time to start asking if five-round fights are unethical in light of what happened to Brian Ortega. Again, Chalstonin was the first one to raise this issue. Unethical to me, seems like a bit of a strong word. I don't know that I would use that exactly, but what I would say is certainly this idea of just letting people fight on until a doctor has had enough. That's one way to do it. But I just feel like, oh, they're intelligently defending themselves. Maybe we need to refine what that means exactly. Maybe that's actually not enough because he didn't need what was literally a historic beating in that fourth round. It didn't do him any favors. And the fight was kind of already in hand, to be perfectly honest.

All right, do we have one Kevin Lee on? Yes or no? All right, let's go to him now. This gentleman has a big weekend ahead. He has got a rematch coming against Al Iaquinta. I cannot wait for this. UFC on Fox 31, the very last UFC on Fox. The Motown Fianom joins us now on Skype.

Kevin Lee is here. Hey, Kevin, how are you, sir? What's going on, my man? Always good to be here. You know it. Are you tired? Yeah, I'm just getting up. Not going to train until like 1 o'clock.

So you caught me right before my morning coffee, but you'll get the real me. That's what I always look for, is the real you. Hey, man, you know what I did? I don't know if you saw this, the UFC always puts out free fights, you know, previewing the next weekend's fight. They put out your original fight with him. You were 21. It was your UFC debut. Have you gone back recently and watched that fight?

No, I watched it when we first were talking about. about fight now and you know and and I haven't watched it since it's like I just feel like I'm a completely different fighter from that and I think anybody who watches that uh and then goes back and watches me in my recent years you can just tell I'm a different man than that so uh the the the fight it's going to show some of the things that Al's going to do again you know I don't feel like Al has made as many improvements but you know it's not really going to tell me much uh here's what it was interesting to me first of all I don't remember but I saw it um Ally like,

Quinta hit an excard sweep. That was pretty, I'd say that was pretty impressive. I didn't know he had... Look, I mean, for a guy who's got a reputation as a wrestle boxer, that's a nice little move.

But more than that, you, your striking defense, to me, was the biggest area of improvement because your ground game was good. He took his back, you nearly choked him out.

So that's part... I mean, I'm not saying you're not better, but that part was already pretty good. Sure. But would you agree that your striking defense is probably the biggest area of development since that time?

Yeah, that was the first time that, up. I was fighting in front of, you know, country bars. And, you know, I didn't come from another organization, like a Bellator or, or a one-fc or whatever. I fought from, you know, fighting in front of 500 people into the Prudential Center. And to be honest, Al was really the first really tough guy that I fought. Everybody before then, you know, they just didn't give me much challenge. So it was a big learning experience for me. At the time, it was the toughest fight. But I've had

12 fights since then, all at a higher level. You know, I fought much tougher guys. And, you know, you just learn and you learn through that experience. And, yeah, maybe my striking defense has gotten a whole lot better, but my offense got a lot better, too. So that's what he's going to see on Saturday. I'm worried about that offense. I'm going to put him out.

Who was your coach in that fight? He had, like, an Arabic tattoo around his arm. I did not recognize the gentleman. His name is Sean Dezay. He was my original head coach. It was really just me and him just doing it. You know, I didn't really have many training partners at all. I was still at college at the time when they gave me that fight.

And, you know, since then, as soon as that fight was over, I knew I had to make some changes and really started to train like a professional just because I wasn't getting in the training that I should. You know, I would train like halfway once a day. And then I go and do, you know, go and do a bunch of other things. So right after that fight is when I moved to Las Vegas and really got behind a good coach. That's interesting. What were you studying in college, by the way? Biomed, actually.

I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but, you know. Yeah, I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but you never know. Maybe, maybe. So you made the move to Extreme Couture. You had this large development in your game. What do you see in Al? You've mentioned that you didn't see the same amount of progress. I don't know the number of fights he's had since.

And obviously, he's had a fairly recent intermittent layoff, I guess the way I would call it. but what do you make of his development? Yes, he's a different fighter too, maybe not as much in your estimation as you, but he's grown, right? So how much? Yeah, Al has changed a little bit, but I think it's more he's just changed with time.

You know, he's got a little bit older, but I've had 12 fights since our fight. He's only had six, and he's taking years off in there, you know, and he's a real estate agent now, you know, he's going around, he's worried about other things. He's the one that's doing something else. When we fought the first time,

he has so much more experience over me, you know, He had been through the ultimate fighter. He had already had three or four fights in the UFC. And now the tables have flipped a little bit. You know, this is what I do full time. And I think that's what's really going to show through is the evolution. He changes up a little bit.

You know, he's got some things that I got to watch out for. I was a tough guy. I'm not going to take it away from him. I don't really like him, but I'm a respective style and I'm a respective skills. He can show up and he's never going to go away and it's going to make for a damn good fight. So I've made this training camp the hardest that it could possibly be because I know he's going to give me a good fight. I want to follow up in just a minute, but you said he didn't like Al. Okay, tell me why.

Now, let me give you my vantage point from a media guy, which is very different. I don't have to fight him. But at the same time, he can be, you know, look, he's got a fiery disposition sometimes. But when it comes to us, he's super professional, he's friendly. He speaks out on behalf of fighter interests. Why doesn't that matter? I mean, he has some, of course he's going, I've had a couple people say this to me already. You know, he's got some good qualities probably, but we just are two different types of people.

You know, we cross past a couple times in these last years. And, you know, we just two different. He, you know, he's that Jersey boy that's going to get drunk and fuck up a hotel room. And, you know, I just don't think there's a, his voice shouldn't be no bigger than it already is. So I feel like it's my personal duty to get him up out of there. and put them back on the prelims. This is like the standard MMA media question, but you mentioned the training camp was harder.

Help me understand in what ways it was harder meaningfully that will contribute to a difference in the outcome this time. I don't mean it was necessarily harder than my other training camps before. You know, I feel like each training camp I get a little bit smarter. I get a little bit better at what I'm doing. And this time I really just added more guys in

that are going to be tougher opponents than now, you know, tougher strikers, tougher wrestlers, and tougher on the ground. So, you know, and I've done rounds with them where I'll go three guys and won every round, which is something that I haven't done before, you know, it's something that I feel like is really going to help me during the later rounds, especially against Alice. He gets tougher as the fight goes on, and I make sure I even win those late rounds against a fresh guy.

Not only that, but then I've added a nutritionist in for this camp, too, who's been with me for a couple of days. So he's going to make that weight cut a little bit easier on me. And it's going to make me, it's been able to make me focus more on the actual training. He's been cooking all my meals and everything for me. So I'm just focusing just on the training camp. Now, I have to ask, how do you take your coffee? Straight black.

Look at it. Straight black. Not even a little splendid, nothing? Strong, strong, strong. Now, where do you like your coffee from? What part of the world? Do you get that specific? No, no, I ain't there yet.

You know, it's a couple of good coffee shops around here that I'll go to and splurred sometimes. But, no, I ain't there yet. I get the, you know, straight from whole foods. So I don't know. Wherever they get it from, where I get it from, I don't even check. Fair enough, breakfast blend. Now, you mentioned you had a nutritionist, okay? You know the questions are going to be about the weight cut,

because as you get into championship territory, you saw Hanata Moikana was just on standby and failed to make weight. That ain't going to be good for his call up when it comes. title time. So give us a sense of how your weight management at this stage is going. And to what extent the nutritionist had an impact on that? I mean, the weight is perfect.

It's right where it's going to be. The only thing that I needed to add was just the scheduling. He's going to make sure I get the time it down. You know, people want to talk about the last time with Edson, me missing by a pound. But really, I was cutting until 9-59. They allow us until 10 o'clock. You know, I'm not

one of these guys that came in 30 minutes before and just couldn't cut no more. Really, we just got off on the timing of it. So I feel like that's going to be the biggest thing. But, you know, if you ask, you know, I'm ready to go. I'm ready to fight. And I'm showing up on weight. That you got my word on.

How much are you right now, do you know? I'm about 174 right now. That's not so bad. It's not so bad. It's a little on the heavy side. No, no, it's much bigger, it's much smaller than I've been in the past, at least. What's the most of your performance?

coming on on Tuesday. 178 at one point. You know, and that one was, that one actually wasn't even too bad. I think it was just a lot of the water cut and everything. It's a lot, it's a lot of science and things that go behind it. But, you know, do I wish I didn't have to cut the weight? Yeah, of course. I feel like that 165 pound weight class is coming.

I think it's, it, people see it's just, it's necessary. You know, I'm working with the best nutritious, nutrition. in the world. And even some of the guys down at the UFCPI, I've been kind of consulting with them since the last year. And they even said, you know, I'm as lean as I can possibly be. When you see me, you can see I'm as lean as, you know, I can be in my perfect weight.

If they added with the 165 where I didn't have to cut that 10 pounds of water for my brain, I think it would be a whole lot healthier. But, you know, for now, for the foreseeable future, I can make 155. Not only that, but 165 would help guys like Max too. You know, Max can go up and compete at 155. He wouldn't have to go against guys like me. Because just when I stand next to him, you know, I've got a bigger frame. It would be unfair for him to have to compete with somebody like me.

But he did his thing. Yeah, I want to ask you about him. But first, the 165, you heard what Dana has said recently. Even I, I'll admit, Kevin, I was a bit of a skeptic of the 165 idea. And then on my radio show, we did like a mock draft of pulling from 170 and pulling from 155. And you can get three stacked division. that way. It's entirely doable. And yet Dana seems intent, at least for now, on not doing it.

Have you talked to him? Why do you think he's so resistant to the idea? I've talked to them a few times. The last time I talked to him was before kind of everybody hopped on the train. You know, I feel like I was one of the first guys to kind of bring it up. And when I first talked to him, it just seemed like it seemed like too much work for them, which to me is, you know, I kind of had to take that with it, with a grain of salt because, you know, we're talking about our health here. We're talking about the longevity of the sport.

I don't know. I feel like the more that people keep talking about it, and it makes all the sense of the world. It's inevitable. So I feel like maybe sometimes he just don't want to do stuff just because it's somebody else's idea, I think. If it was straight from his idea, then you probably do it first. He probably ain't going to like to hear that, but he can text me after this. Fair enough. Let me ask you about Max Holloway.

I was blown away by him on Saturday. You know, and there's a lot of numbers that I called in my previous segment that just speak to how absurd his performance was. But I'm wondering, as much as I like Max, he was on the show last week, how frustrating is it for you as a top lightweight when you hear the guy at one division below does well? And the first thing everyone says is, he should fight Tony, he should fight Habib,

he should fight whoever. It's not that I don't want to see those as a fan, But then I think about guys like you, I'm like, well, what is Kevin Lee supposed to do here? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that needs to, I feel like in time, maybe people will stop doing that, that they'll kind of see, you know, we're talking about something bigger than that. You know, I feel like people are too short-sighted. They go right to, you know, you win one fight and then all of a sudden, like, you get a goat. And this is not, no disrespect to Max at all.

Max is one of the very few fighters in the game that I got a lot of respect for. And I actually consider a good friend. And, I mean, he looked amazing, really. And really, we all kind of the same generation. I feel like me and him are both in the new generation of fighter. And he just set the bar last week. So it's given me a little bit more motivation, a little bit more fuel this weekend to go out there and put a show on.

But, you know, I feel like that's not the way you get it done. You know, that's not the way you become a superstar is just by, okay, automatically, just bump up and, you know, you see the same thing with Khab. And I told this to Ali is, you know, he wins one fight and then all of a sudden he wants to fight Floyd Mayweather and make $100 million. And it's like, come on, that's not how this game works, you know, it's, it's a marathon. Keep, keep putting in the work, keep taking out number one contenders.

And then maybe you'll get there eventually, you know, you talk about guys like George St. Pierre who had to defend the title nine, ten times before they start saying that. And I feel like that's the way that the sport should really be. let's get back to the real sport. Let's get away from these, you know, we've already seen it. Why you want Kabebebe to fight Floyd, it doesn't, it's not even a great fight. You know, why you want Max to come up and fight somebody like Kibib or like me, you know, it's unfair for him to even have to, that's a lot of weight.

People don't understand, you know, we're just too big and too strong. It's just too big of a disadvantage. So I feel like it needs to be a clear playing field. And then that's when you really see the best. fighter. All right, let me be a hypocrite. I'm going to acknowledge I'm a hypocrite right in front of you, Kevin Lee, saying that I would feel bad for a top competitor, given that someone in the weight class below is making noise. How competitive is Max Holloway at lightweight in your, you know, we don't really know, but guessing. If I had to guess, I mean, he can beat a lot of guys. I think

he would for sure he would be top five, but, you know, And this is coming as no disrespect to Max. It's just you're just dealing with, you're just dealing with too much size and strength, I think. And it's just a different game, you know. And it's really unfair to even have to make those comparisons. I think he would be, you know, it's matchups make styles. This is MMA. There's a lot of ways to win.

There's a lot of ways to lose. And I really can't make that call. I bet you can. I bet if I asked you in private, you could. No, no, no. Look, I'm being real with you. Like, honestly, I don't know. Do I think he would be champ? I think he could probably get the belt at some point.

But, you know, I don't know. I don't think he could be there for a long run, at least. Now, that does leave Max Holloway, notwithstanding, still these unresolved issues at lightweight. Now, we don't know what's going to happen with Connor and Habee because the Athletic Commission just decides they're going to take their sweet time with that. But in your mind, I know you've got to have a plan to just drive forward. So, okay, Saturday goes your way, let's say, right?

You beat Al Ayiquinto. That's tremendous. What is reasonably available? I mean, the next fight is definitely a bead for me. I feel like I've been seeing that man's game for years now, and I just know I got his number, and I know that he know I got his number. And after this one, this one will show the world that I'm just on a different level. You know, Al took him five full rounds and showed that the man was human.

And, you know, he, Kabib just didn't have his best performance against him. So once I go out there and I smoke out, I'll leave it up to the people to make those comparisons. I said that I beat Barbosa worse than he beat Barbosa. And I'm going to do the same thing with Al. And if I got to do that, if I got to do it again next with Connor,

then then so be it. But I feel like the winner of Khabib and Tony, whenever they make that fight, hopefully they make it in the beginning of the year. I'm waiting on a winner of that. And then we'll see where. everything goes. Now, before you go, you and I both know you're a thoughtful guy. You're fighting on the last Fox card, certainly the last big Fox card, sort of a bookend here on the Fox era. I think it would be

safe to say, Kevin, that MMA changed in some ways for the better and some ways for the worst during the Fox era. Give me one change you loved during this era and one change you hated. Oh, wow. Okay, that's, that's, that's, you come on this show with me, Kevin. You know I give you questions like that. question that that's that's a better question that i was expecting you to ask uh one thing that i that i that i love that's changed is uh you know you can see you can kind of see the the the the i don't you know you can see the evolution of the sport you know you can see people that can do it all now uh and you can really see that that you know everybody is kind of on that way you know you know You know, you see a less specialists in the game.

Yeah, some guys have a lot of things that they do real well. Like Max is a volume puncher and that's what he's going to be. But he can do everything. You know, and I feel like you really starting to see that now. So for me, as a fan of the sport, it just, and as a competitor, it gives me a little bit more, you know, hope for the future of the sport. It's still getting bigger. It's still getting better. And I feel like switching over to ESPN is going to be huge for it.

I'm excited. I'm glad that they made me the last Fox card. You know, I'm from Detroit. I remember a time when we had channel two, four, six, and seven. And to be fighting on one of those channels in front of millions of people. And as a young kid, it's just like it shines my heart a little bit. So I'm excited that they made me the last card. They did the right move.

I'm going to show the future and continue to show that evolution of the sport. one thing that I've hated is that, you know, people just stop seeing the sport for what it is and, you know, kind of get a little too lost in the drama and the bullshit. I'm trying to get it back to the real. And, you know, that's what I'm going to do this weekend. You know what? I cannot wait to see it. UFC on Fox 31. This takes place at the FISA Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It's the last big Fox card. Kevin Lee takes on Ally Quinta in the main event. Kevin, thank you for spending some time with us. Enjoy the black call. Can't wait to see you on Saturday, my friend. Appreciate it. It's just kicking in. I appreciate you kicking her with me.

Thank you, spending some time with us. All right, safe travels. There he goes. The Motown phenom. We appreciate him stopping by. We go from one guest to the other. This gentleman is known as Chaos. And speaking of Chaos,

what the hell is happening in the Walterway Division? I couldn't tell you, but maybe he can give us some insight here. He joins us now, I believe, on Skype as well. Let's go to Colby Chaos Covington. Look at, I knew he was going to do it. I knew it. How are you doing, Mr. Covington?

I'm doing great, man. Thanks for having me on the show so I can come back and make the M&A hour great again. Yes. Has anyone thanked you lately? Say again? Has anyone thanked you lately? No, I don't get a lot of thanks. Well, I just want to just start off by just giving you a thanks.

You know, thank you for your service. You know, it's the holiday season. We know that war doesn't take a holiday season. So thank you for protecting our freedoms. and thank you to all the men and women in the service. Now, I do appreciate that. Certainly you can see my Marine Corps pictures up here. Thank you, Kobe.

I appreciate the genuine sentiment. All right, man. First of all, let's get to it. What the hell is going on at Welterweight? Let me just start from this sort of basic position. Why is it so hard to make a fight between you and Tyrone Woodley? What's going on? What's going on at Walter Wade is, you know,

the same thing that's been going on for the last, you know, year or two is I've been waiting for the UFC to send me a contract with Tyrone Woodley's name on it, and he's not sending the contract. You know, he's been kind of ducking and waiting. You know, he's trying to pick his spots. He's trying to, you know, go to TMZ and still have that title as champions. So, you know, he's just trying to get these cameos over in Hollywood. He doesn't want to fight, man. He's not here to make the Welterweight division great again like myself. So that's what's going on. I'm waiting for him. You know, we're fighting next, Luke. I don't care what it is. I've been building it. This fight has built itself

for the last two years. Let me let me stop. I built this fight for the last two years. This fight sells itself. It's the next fight. It doesn't matter if me and Tyrone Woodley fighting the UFC or we fight in CBS. I'm fighting Tyrone Woodley next. Okay. Let's start with

this. Your health. You had, what was it, sinus surgery in October, right? How are you doing today? Are you fully healed? In other words, let's say everything changed. Bout agreement comes down. You could fight, you could sign a agreement today if it came to that? 100%. You know, I'm 100% now. I'm over my sinus surgery.

And I also had a little ligament tear on my foot about two months ago. So I'm 100% healthy now. If they sent a contract with Tyrone Woodley's name today, I'd be ready to sign it. So, you know, obviously we want a full training camp for the fight. You know, a good eight to 12 weeks would be good notice, not trying to do it last minute. But as of today, I'm 100% healthy, ready to go for Tyrone Woodley. Did that ligament tear on your foot affect things at all? Yeah, it did affect things. You know, I had to take a little time off.

You know, I did it in sparring. I came back sparring and I threw a kick and it landed on the guy's elbows. So, you know, it did affect. But I got the rehab. I went to a doctor in Miami thanks to, you know, Dr. B. And I went down there and, you know, I was doing the foot therapy, the stem cell, the ultrasound and everything. So now I'm back to full health and I'm ready to go. All right.

So let me then see if this. big sense. Is UFC 233, which would be the end of January, is that on the table as far as you're concerned? As far as I'm concerned, you know, yeah, it is on the table. I would fight Tyrone Woodley there, but, you know, I can't speak the same for him. You know, I know we don't agree on a lot, but we do agree on one thing. We are fighting each other next. You know, he wants to punch me in the face, but that's not going to happen. These moves right here, he can't punch me in the face. He's not going to be able to touch me. So, you know, that's what it is. At what point can you no longer fight at UFC 233. Again, I don't mean

health reasons. I mean waiting on this. At what point does that no longer become an option? And I guess the other option is what? UFC 235? You know, I don't know. How many weeks is that out right now, Luke? I couldn't tell you offhand. A while. No, no, for UFC

233. Oh, that's January 26. So we're talking about I don't know, six weeks-ish, something like that? Six weeks-ish. I mean, I don't know if that's the ample amount of time. for a real champ that he deserves to get a fight. All these other fighters, they get 16 weeks.

You know, Daniel Cormey is some of these guys. You know, Cody, no love. Those guys were getting 16 week training camps, 20-week training camps. So, you know, I am America's champion, and I'm willing to put it all on the line, just like our servicemen and women, to protect our freedoms and make UFC great again.

So if that's what the UFC wanted to do with me and Tyrone Woodie, yes, I can go do it in California. Now, I don't want to speak for Dana White, but it sounded like he was frustrated, number one, generally, with the title situation. And number two, if I could be candid, Kobe, Kobe, excuse me,

it did seem like he was more so upset with Tyrant, obviously, which we'll talk about in a second. It did seem like he was a little bit of mad at you as well. What is the state of y'all's relationship? You know what, me and Dana Wright, we've never really had a relationship. I leave that between him and my agent, Dan Lambert. They have a relationship.

They do the business. I'm here, you know, he knows, Dana White knows what's good for business. I am what's good for business. I'm the biggest fight in the division right now. I'm the numbers. That's why everybody's calling my name. They want to fight me.

They don't even want to fight anybody else. They want me. So, you know, I just keep Dan White, you know, like he is who he is. I am who I'm doing what I'm doing. He's doing what he's doing. I'm not focused on what he's doing or what he's saying. I'm focused on what I'm doing. And I got one thing to say, you know, just like Scarface said,

I got my balls and I got my word and I don't break them for nobody. Fair enough. Do you believe, how do I word this question? How about like this? is the state of the, is the acrimony, is the difficult relationship independent of you. Let's put you out of the equation for just a second. But just the inability of Tyron and Dana to get along is that also impacting this and impacting you. Like it's not so much about making this fight per se, but just those two, they just can't see eye to eye.

And that's slowing everything down. Yeah, absolutely. That's been the wrench and everything. You know, I've been ready to fight Woodley, you know, for over, year now. They try to put that fight together multiple times, you know, three, four times, and he's put his head, his tail between his legs and went running. So it's definitely effective. But, you know, the thing is, is he has a disputed belt. His belt is disputed right now. So, you know, he knows I'm the next fight. He knows he needs to dispute that belt. And we need to fight. So it doesn't matter

if they have a bad relationship. I'm good for business. And once I get finished with Tyrone Willie, we can move on from that saga. That 47-year-old virgin is going to get retired. Sorry. Okay. You caught me off guard with that one. He does have three kids, I think. So? 47.

I'm just speaking on his behalf, if I may. Okay. The acrimony is certainly not good for business. Do you side with... You must side with Dana, right? You must side with Dana in the nature of his disputes. Like, the fact that you... For example, you must side with Dan.

and when he complains that Tyrone Woodley doesn't fight enough, yes? For sure. 100%. I mean, it's obvious, you know, like the thing about it, when I fought Ralphie Dos Nachos in the United Center, by the way, there was 16,000 screaming fans on their feet. And, you know, he came out and he was like Mick Jagger, you know, when he was walking out to that arena.

He's probably pissed off Ralphie Dos Nachos, walking out to 500 friends, 500 people that they had to give tickets away last weekend in the Pearl. So, but besides that, you know, I don't side with anybody, but I do know that Tyrone Woodley doesn't fight enough because after I fought, he hadn't fought in, you know, a year, 13 months. That's why they made the real belt, America's belt. And then all of a sudden, he wants to fight 14 months later, which is two months after my fight, and he knew I had to get surgery. So he was trying to get me when I wasn't healthy. So, you know, he's a pick and chooser. He wants to pick good times. He wants to get, you know, a lot of fights that he's fought the past. Damien Amaya, you know, he got him on four weeks, five-week training camp. He made him come in unhealthy. healthy. So he's a strategic player. He's trying to pick and choose his dates, you know, and fight once a year and go to TMZ, do his cameos in Hollywood and go on, you know, but that's why I'm here. I'm going to get rid of him. I'm going to drain the swamp and then I'm going to make this

division great again. What about Kamaro Usman? He has been calling you out so far as to call you Colby Duckington. If they made an interim title fight with him, is that appealing to you? Everybody's calling me out, Luke. Why do you think everyone? Everybody wants to fight me. I'm the money fight. I'm the biggest draw. I do the biggest numbers in this division, and it's not even close.

There's a reason all these guys want to fight me. They don't want to fight Tyrone Woodley, because I'm the biggest fight and the biggest draw on the division. It's only, I've only hit the tip of the iceberg, Luke. I got so many tricks up my sleeve. You haven't even seen my promotional tactics yet. Just wait till I have what I have in store in the future.

Can you give me a hint? I can give you one hit that I am the Neil Armstrong, MMA, only fire to ever go to the Oval Office and hang out with our sitting president, Mr. Donald Trump, the greatest living American. I don't know if you remember. You probably didn't see that because the UFC didn't post it on their page, but I can tell you one thing is the biggest history and the biggest moment in the sport of MMA history. Do you think if you fought by the, do you think if you fought Donald Trump would come

to see you? You know, I talked to him about it in the Oval Office, and I don't think he would come to see me, but he would definitely be tuned in. I'm Donald Trump's favorite fighter. You know, he will be watching, but, you know, it's too much of a risk to go to a fight, you know. Just if people knew he was coming to a fight, the place would 100% get bombed, you know, by all these Hollywood liberals. So, you know, it wouldn't be a good place for him. But Donald Trump Jr., I'm sure some would come.

We've reached out, and he wants to come to my next fight. So the Trump family is completely behind me, and they're excited to see America's champ. And just keep, you know, making the division great again. And Trump 2020, baby, we're just getting started. best is yet to come. How long are you willing to sit out to wait for tiring? Because at some point that works to your disadvantage, right? Like a little bit of time off to make sure the right fight is coming. Okay, that makes sense. At some point, though, you get some pretty diminishing returns. Is there some kind of a drop dead date where you're just like, you know what, I need to

get back in there. I got to get paid. I got to, as you put it, make the division great again. Nope. I'm waiting on Luke. I'm waiting on Tyrone. He's on borrowed time. He's the only person I'm fighting. I'm young, Luke. The best years are ahead of me. He's old. He's at the end of his career. I'm just getting started. It's just, I've just barely begun this journey. So as long as it takes to fight Tyrone Woodley, we have unfinished business, Luke. I've been selling this fight for years. This is the only fight to make. I don't care. I will find him. I'll go to St. Louis. I'll find him in the CBS and St. Louis. I don't care. I'm going to fight Tyrone Woodley. I've been beating his ass for years in the training camp.

There's a reason he doesn't want to come back to American Top Team anymore. I'm the King of American Top Team. I'm the King of the Welthwaid Division. and soon the division will be great again. Just bear with me, Luke. I'm sorry, it's not my fault. I'm not the one holding up. Blame Typoil Woodley. Are you, what do you make of the concerns?

Let's say they make a fight between you and Woodley at headlines an event, whether it's 233 or 235, let's say, whatever it is, that you're mentioned that the promotional tactics have another level that they could go to. At what point is it begin to get ugly and bad for MMA? At no point can it get bad for MMA. I mean, we were,

at our lowest point, like a couple months ago when that sheep lover, Khabib, jumped out of the cage and put innocent people's lives in danger. So, you know, at no point, well, everything sells these days, Luke, so, you know, but let's be honest, have you seen a bigger fight in all your

years of covering MMA that has a bigger buildup and that's more wanted than me and Tyrone Woodley? Yes. Yeah, which fights? I mean, this... Jones Cornier, too? Okay. One fight, you know, maybe a couple

fights, but it's definitely the top five all time. Don't get me wrong, Colby. Don't get me wrong. Everybody wants to see this fight. Maybe no one more so than me. It's a phenomenal fight. It's the right fight to make. But I don't necessarily think it's out of place to be concerned that the tension could boil

over into something kind of ugly. You're noting that the tension boiled over at 229. I guess what I'm wondering is don't you agree that's too far? I don't think that is too far? I don't think that is too far. I think that, you know, people live in safe spaces these days. So, you know, they don't want to deal with the controversy and the drama. But at the end of the day, all this drama and controversy, this is what everybody wants.

This is the drug that they're needing. They're addicted to this. You know, I'm addicted to winning. They're addicted to drugs and other things, but they're also addicted to this fight and the controversy that sells this fight. So, you know, I don't think you can go too far promoting these days. You know, when people, when I fight, people are going to be. going to watch me fight, Luke. They're not going to turn the channel to real housewives of OC

like they will other fighters. So, you know, there's not anything that doesn't promote and you can't go too far in this business. Let me ask you about Kamarne Usman, one more time very quickly, if I may. He had some of the same opponents you did, Maya, of course, and then Hafelde de Sanjos, what was it two weeks ago at this point? What did you make of his performances? I didn't make much, you know, let's be honest. When's he going to fight a ranked fighter that's coming off a win, Luke? Those two guys. he fought, they were coming off some of the worst losses of their career.

Maya and a pool of his blood in his home city. He was so concussed. I remember seeing it backstage. Oh, my head. He was all concussed and messed up, man. I saw him in the training room when I was with the doctors and stuff. So, you know, these two guys were coming off soul-taking wins to me. So he's taking my

sloppy seconds. Good job, you know. You haven't earned anything. You haven't done anything with your life. This is the real belt. I earned this against a great fighter that was on a winning streak, not a guy that just came off a loss. So it's a different confidence level for those fighters and they're mere images of themselves now. Here's the one thing I have a little bit of difficulty squaring. You and Ben Ascran are both MAGA guys, right? You guys are both big Trump supporters, but y'all can't stand each other. Now, it's a little simplistic to say that

everyone who shares a political ideology should all be friends. I think that wouldn't make sense. But it would seem that two people who have the same profession, same world, mostly the same worldview. Can't get along. Why not? Is that guy in the top 100, Luke? In the rankings? I couldn't tell you. I haven't looked at it. I can tell you in just a second. Is he even ranked? I don't know. That guy was fighting in Asian bingo halls, Luke. He couldn't sell it in Asian bingo hall. Just like all the other guys that they want the fight with me. I'm the biggest fight. He's begging to fight for me. But quite frankly, it's an easy fight. You know, the guy, you know, he's scared to get hit. You know, he's, you guys ass beat by my team.

teammate Luis Sopos Santos and he started cheating and poked him in the eyes. So, you know, the guy, you know, he's not a good fighter. He hasn't beat anybody that's ranked in the division. He doesn't have a belt like myself, a real belt, the UFC championship belt, America's belt, the people's belt. So, you know, I'm not worried about him. They can all call for my name. They all want this.

They're all thirsty. They're all thirsty for the Colby train. They want this. They know I'm only going up. They're at their peaks. They know that if they fight me, they obey the most. amount of money they make to get a losing paycheck, Luke. Who's better? Ascran or Usman?

Askeran for sure. You know, Usman's a D2 guy. His wrestling's not that good. Ascran will take him down and beat him up. So I would say Ascran over Usman, but both fights stylistically very easy for a fighter like myself or Tyrone Woodley. What's the ring you got? I noticed you got a big ass ring on your right hand. What is that. That's my national championship ring, Luke. It's the same, you know what's crazy? You know who else has one of these rings? Who? John Jones. Is that from Iowa Central? Yeah. Yes, sir. I got the Tritons back-to-back national champions. Got my name embroidered on the side, Covington. National champion, baby. Wow, that is a crazy. Is it heavy? It's pretty heavy,

man, but it's not as heavy as this belt. This belt is very heavy. Now, I've noticed, Colby, you've never one to shy away from beefs. In fact, you know this as well as I do. You certainly seek them out. You made a disparaging comment about Habib. I've seen your John Jones tweets and everything else in between. Here's a serious question for you. Does that not at some point all the beefs get a little exhausting? Maybe not. Maybe not. It seems like it doesn't. Luke, not at all, man. This is business. I'm doing business. So, you know, I'm I'm doing big business. I don't have any problems with it. This is just who I am. If you hate me, that's cool. You're going to tune in and you want to watch me. You want to see me lose. You want to see me

get knocked out. But you want to see me fight. And for these other fighters, all the fans, they're in the middle. They don't care to see one or another fight. They're invested in me. They want to see me. They're thirsty for my blood. They want to see me lose. But it's not going to happen, Luke. So they can keep waiting the rest of their lives until they're old and their graves and I'm going to keep, you know, being America's champion and unify my belt soon with Tyrone Woodley. All right, before you go, be honest with me. Last time we spoke, this was like, God, what was that? 223. When you came to my radio show, the pre-fight show, and we were talking about some of the threats that people have made against you. Have they gotten worse or stayed

about the same? They've gotten way worse, Luke. They're at an all-time low. You know, I thought Brazil was a piece of crap country. I thought that place was a dump full of filthy animals, but Let me be honest. They've gotten worse. The Hollywood liberal snowflakes, man, they got feelings worse than the Brazilians. So they're saying death threats, bomb packages, all the works, you know, the ugliest in people. You know, you see that come out now. And, you know, they're going to continue to happen.

I get thousands of them every week. And, you know, I'm going to continue to do what I do. Keep winning. And these guys can't stop me. Nobody can stop me, Luke. Certainly can't. I'll tell you what, Colby, I really hope they make this fight sooner rather than later. It needs to be made.

It's good for the division. As you noted, I will agree. It's the fight that everybody wants to see. It's the fight that needs to happen at Welterweight, right? They can't move forward in the right way without it. So keep us posted. I hope you guys get the word about that. And thank you for your time.

There you are. Thank you, Colby. Just like Donald Trump said, and just like Dana White and the UFC promised me, Donald Trump's slogan, promises made, promises cat, baby. Good talking to you. I'll talk to you soon. Thank you, Colby.

I appreciate your time. Thank you, buddy. There he goes. Oh, boy. That is a fun interview, huh? Man. Hey, we got to get to something, one of the other segments here in just a second,

but I got to give a shout out to a friend of the show who sent this over. Let me show you guys this if I can. So, you guys have seen the Caesar doll, right? This is from Plastic Cell, right? This is the company. there's that one. You guys have seen the Rory McDonald one.

I would take it out. I can take it out. You can see it here. It's amazing, right? The Rory McDonald one, but I don't have the stand for it, so it can't stand. But it's there. But look at this one. These are great.

In fact, the Caesar one is sort of, I'm like partial to. Here's another one. Look at this one. Pretty remarkable. This is a limited edition. They've only made 490 total. This is a limited edition, Bruce Lee. If you can see that, I'll put it here against the backdrop, so you can take a good look at it right there.

It's got Bruce Lee with Nunchucks. I don't know what you would say about his attire. I don't want to call the shirt he's wearing a wifebeater, but whatever that is. And he's sort of making the face, like the whoo kind of face. And it's self-standing, like that, right? Doesn't need a stand, unlike the Caesar one. Came in a nice little box. Here's the interesting part about this.

anything that has to do with Bruce Lee's estate needs the sign-off, of course, of his estate. So it came with this card, right there, if you can see it, it came with this card. You can't really zoom in here. But it says Bruce Lee plastic cell. It says certificate of authenticity, limited edition Bruce Lee figure by plastic cell. This certificate verifies that this figure is an authentic, limited edition sculpture. Of course, by a plastic cell. The sculpture has been hand-painted and is limited to only 490 pieces worldwide.

Each hand-painted resin sculpture was numbered and signed by the artist on this one was August 1st This is number 253 of 490 It's signed by the gentleman who is behind the company I won't say his name in the interest of privacy, but again plastic cells the company And it was also signed, excuse me, by Shannon Lee, the daughter of Bruce Lee from Bruce Lee Enterprises How cool is that? Kind of amazing, right? If I can be clear, it's going to sound like I'm being ungrateful, I'm not

Bruce Lee's role in and contribution to MMA is sometimes a little overstated but if you read the Tao of Jekung-Doh you'll see that some of the in other words he was not necessarily responsible in the lineage of how it was developed but if you'll notice that concurrently

as that was happening or even before it happened he was espousing ideas that would later be adopted in order for MMA to become what it did but it would not be historically correct to say that he was the father of it that's a little inaccurate Nevertheless, we're talking about a mixed martial arts icon. We're talking about a guy who is a proud immigrant story.

We're talking about somebody who just has an enormous, enormous role to play, certainly inside the sport of mixed martial arts by virtue of his success in Hollywood. He was a philosophy student at the UC system and an incredible thinker and contributor to the martial arts more generally. So I'm beyond honored to have this. I think he's an important character. and person and all the things I've mentioned. And this is just an incredible, incredible piece to add here. So we will add it right there.

Thank you to the Bruce Lee estate. Thank you to Plastic Cell. And thank you to all you guys who watch the show for another reason that I'm just thanking you. All right. Time now for the way in. There was a bit of a debate online about who's the goat at, featherweight and some people think it's still Jose Aldo. Some people think it's Max Holloway.

I'll save that debate for another time. I don't really want to get into it because no one's going to win. Every side is just going to pick who they think is the right answer. But here's one thing I can say. There is a real possibility that Max Holloway can become the featherweight GSP, only the more modern risk-taking version. Here's what I mean. Like, what may GSP GSP?

Well, first of all, again, These are things that could happen. I don't know if it's going to happen. But one probability you should probably consider is that if you think about what made GSP so special, right, it was probably a combination of things. He was an incredible skill. He was a national icon.

He defended his title a number of times. All those things sort of put together this larger package. But when he fought, what did he do? Especially in that later stage of his career, he used basically his skills to define the terms of the fight over and over in a very controlling, stifling way. Didn't take a lot of damage at the end there,

the Hendricks fight or a couple of others notwithstanding. And that was a, you could make an argument that some of that was a little risk-averse, but the point being it was smart, he kept his title, and he did legendary things. But the key there is that he was able to just impose a very dominant, encompassing, fight-defining way of managing his opponent. He took a fight that is normally a very chaotic thing and then controlled for it. We had Hennar Gracie on last week, and I asked him, you know, what defines the jujitsu of Brian Ortega? Everyone's got their own style, right?

Like, like, gosh, I mean, Andre Galvon's jujitsu is not the same as Keene Cornelius is not the same as the Mendez brothers. It's not the same as, I mean, you pick it, right? It goes on and on. Everyone's got their own little style. But his was that in the middle of chaos, he can find a neck. He can find an arm. He can bring something to bear down upon it, which is true. I thought it was a really smart observation.

And by the way, Brian Ortega will be back. He will make a reappearance and remind you why he was so highly valued as a potential threat to Max Holloway's crown down the line after he heals and everything. But here's the point, that ability to control the chaos, Max Holloway does the same thing. he takes everything away by making the fight on his terms through distance, through use of the jab, all the things I mentioned in the MMA hour. If he can cut the weight enough and stay at featherweight long enough,

people keep saying, oh, who should you fight next? Nate or Tony or Habib or Connor, it is not that I don't want to see those contests, but I'm telling you we are missing something if we deny him the opportunity at being the sentinel at the guard for 145. because he can be the exact same kind of thing. Doesn't matter what skill you bring.

Are you a high-octane jiu-jitsu specialist who's got a ridiculous chin who has developing striking? He has an answer for that. Are you potentially the guy who was the guy, the best ever in that division? He's got an answer for that. Are you a wrestle boxer? He's got an answer for that. Are you whatever?

He's got an answer for all those things. If you look at his rise, whether you want to compare it to Aldo's or not, look at the different kinds of fighters he has faced. Has he faced all the different kinds he could face potentially at 145? No, which is why some kind of a rain there is necessary. But he has fought a lot of different types already. Guys who are a wrestling threat, guys who are a power threat, guys who are a volume threat, guys who are a striking threat, guys who have veteran experience, guys who are a little bit undeterred by experience and just sort of go for broke. He's got a lot of those things already checked off and he still is able to narrow the fight to his terms right away,

right away and then over the course of a fight. Except he takes a little more risk when he wants to brawl. He takes a little bit more risk when he wants to put an opponent away. He's putting opponents away his last three in a row, I believe, maybe even more, no, four in a row with the Pettus fight, I believe, because I don't think he stopped Llamis or Stevens. But you get the idea. He's putting all these guys away. He takes a little bit more risk. But it's that central insight. Who is controlling the fight on their terms by removing the chaotic element? Two guys striking at range, you just never know what's really going to happen, right? It could go one way or the other.

Guy gets clipped upside the head. How many times you've seen Max Holloway clipped or just straight on drilled with a punch and nothing happens? Number one, he rarely gets hit. And number two, when he does, it doesn't do a whole lot because he's the one doing all the ass kicking on the other end. He can mind the distance. He can work behind the jab. sets the terms through the whole course of the fight. Let him stay at 1.45 for a little while and let him rain. Let him be that guy in that division who can do big things. Because if he does,

and he gets time to sit there long enough, especially with his age, he can be the guy to do the kind of work that could make him the GSP, so to speak, of the featherweight division. And remember, how did GSP really begin to ascend that division? You know, he had a bit of a rough start at first. Carl Parisi and J. Huron fights notwithstanding. Lost to Matt Hughes, came back, had a nice run, beat the guy who was the guy, and sort of never looked back. He's already done that with Joseo Alto, Max Holloway. He's already done that. Look, you're going to say, oh, there's all kinds of different ways in which the two cannot be compared, GSP and Max Holloway. It's not a global comparison. I'm not comparing everything about Max to everything about GSP.

There are clear and unequivocal and meaningful differences. What I am trying to tell you, tell you is that if you let him stick around 145, you've got a guy with an all-encompassing skill set who's young enough, talented enough, to define the fight on his terms, round over round, and can be there for a very long time. Only this guy, I think, takes a little bit more risk and can take that a little bit further. That is my way in. All right, we have one more guest, and then we will get to your calls. Don't forget, 844-66-24-68. That is going to be your number to call. We also will take your tweets, as we already did, using the hashtag the MMA hour. Now, we've been showering praise on Max Holloway for all the right reasons. How about

we shower some praise on Valentina Shevchenko? You know, it was funny. We talked about the MMA beat last Thursday. I got to be honest, I thought that the main and co-main were two of the more predictable fights on the card. If you went back and you watched their tie fights and there's that long highlight reel of them, you could see them on YouTube. How the big question was how do you get over that dynamic? How do you get over that dynamic of if you lead with your offense and the other person uses that lead to counterstrike you? How do you change that dynamic? And it turns out that you couldn't.

I actually thought that Jaychick had the best fight of the four this time in the MMA fight. But Shevchenko, the styles don't work too well for you and Jacek in this particular context. just favors Shevchenko won too many ways. And I think you saw that here. You saw her just able to work off the jab, work off the cross, work off the leg kick, take her kicks away from her by either tree topping or using him to get some kind of body lock or, you know, you get the idea. So it was one of these performances that kind of fell under the radar.

But because Max did what he did in that main event. but a historic moment for her. She's literally one of the best fighters in the UFC, and she's on the phone now. She's the women's flyweight champion of the UFC of the world. Valentina Shevchenko is here. Hi, Ms. Shevchenko, how are you? Hello, Luke.

I'm fine. Thank you very much. Boy, first of all, congratulations. Can you give us some kind of indication about what this win means to you? Thank you for congratulations, and definitely I can't say something. because this win, it's meaning for me so much all years what I was doing my martial arts

and now competing for the best organization of mixed martial arts in the world. And being the belt, it's like it's meant for me to be on the top. And this is where I wanted to be all the time. And this is what my goal for the last couple of years. and here I am and for me it's just beginning. You had the fight against Amanda Nunes and it didn't go your way. And you must have said to yourself, you know, I'm frustrated with this judge's decision and also because I didn't get the belt.

And you probably wondered what it would feel like in the moment that Bruce Buffer read your name and your hand was raised. Did it feel the way you thought it would? Of course it was. It was the same kind of feeling that I was expected. And more I can say, like, it feels great because you accomplish what you desired, what you desired and what you wanted for so long time. And, like, you know, being 17-time World Mouet Thai champion K-1 and MMA, it's made me like to know what comes.

kind of feeling you can have when you are getting what you want. How many times along this journey were you frustrated and worried it wouldn't happen? Not one time. I never first was frustrating. I never was in doubt. I never was like broken or something like this. I'm very strong person. I have strong character. It's something doesn't go my way. Okay. I will wait. I will prepare. me better and I will come back and take what is mine. All right, let's talk about the fight itself. It had to have gone the way you thought it would, and here's why I say that.

I went back and I watched your three fights, or at least the highlight reel of them that's on YouTube. Junjeechek loves to lead with the jab. She likes to be first, and in those Muay Thai fights, you were constantly counterstriking her in a variety of different ways. Well, the same thing played out here, so it must have gone the way you thought, right? You know, I told before the flight that for me, it's going to be just unique difference between Muay and MMA fight with the size of gloves. And, of course, the atmosphere, what we had to pass before the flight, all media, all pressure, it was totally different that we had, like, in our Muay Thai competition. But from technical side, for me, it was the same. Of course, I had more technique, what I can apply, for mixed martial arts fight,

and it's made me more happy because I can use all my arsenal of all my arms. And this was great because I had more chances to show all my versatility. Yeah. How did she feel? Now, four times you all have fought, four times, you know her, pretty well as a competitor this time. I actually thought she fought pretty well, given the circumstances, but at 125, was it a different fight?

Like, how did she feel when you guys locked up? Oh, you know, I cannot, I cannot answer you about how she feel. I can answer how I was feeling in that moment and what I was found. And for me, it was the same. It was the fight. It wasn't the difference that I was fighting like. any other opponent. For me, it was the same concentration

and study your opponent, study a recent fight of your opponent, and just to be able to apply every single game plan that we had with our team before the fight. I noticed that with the counterstriking,

that was something that well for you. You were also able to take her down off the body lock, which also was kind of funny, right? Because that's what happened during in the Muay Thai fights. That was something I didn't think was going to happen here, and it did. However, she was able to get up, right? Took her a little bit, but she was able to get up. Were you surprised at her strength?

You know, no, I wasn't surprised because I know, Joanna, she's very strong athlete. She's a very strong fighter, and she has her take down defense, very good, because in every fight that we can we could see before she was doing it with success and of course like um uh from my part I didn't want to uh lose more power on holding just holding her when I can use it like uh during like striking or using my power you know for striking or for kicking or for whatever so of Because when the fight go by some kind of scenario, I flow with this scenario. When it's changed, I just change my game plan for this moment. That's why I say I'm very happy that my coach, Powell, and my team,

we have all kind of game plan for any, any situation, what can happen. Did you get tired in that fifth round? and if so, was the weight cut a part of that? No, the weight cut, it didn't affect me anyhow, because you could see on the way in, it was the same weight with Joanna, and I can say that I don't cut weight hard for 125. My work weight is 135,

and with trainings, I go down for 130 easy, and it's nothing that, like, I feel, you cutting weight or tired or something like that. I felt very good in fighting in 125. And of course, like five rounds, five minutes is no joke. When you go all this distance, you naturally feel tired by the end. It's normal. But I didn't feel any, like, extremely tiring or something like this.

No, I feel good. Who would you say are the top contenders in that division? What would I say? I don't know. I don't know. Just go and I will fight you. So you're not too worried. They're going to put someone against you.

You're not really worried about if it's X or if it's Y or if it's Z. I tell everyone I'm real fighter and I would fight everyone. And it doesn't matter who, doesn't matter how and doesn't matter where I'm ready. By the way, getting back to the win itself, do you think this is the kind of win that will get the history books to remember you forever? Forever, it's difficult to say because I'm still active. Forever you can remember someone who's already retired or something happened or don't want to fight anymore. You can say, like, remember forever. But I'm still active.

I have all my future in front of me. So I can say what will happen like tomorrow, next day. next my fight. So I hope some, I will have another great fight as well. And we'll see, we'll see. And we will speak and we will continue this discussion maybe like a few years later from here. How many more years do you think you have left? Like at least five, something like that? As much as my body permit me, as much as my health permit me. And while I feel strong and healthy and good for the fight, I will continue. All right, so one of the things that was brought up

was, of course, Amanda Nunes. What is your feeling about her? You've got this division now to worry about. How much, like, what matters to you as a champion? To avenge that lost or to reign over the division? Like I said before, and I said right after the fight, yes, of course, we have unfinished business with Amanda. And in the future, I see this fight happen because I never lost that fight, our last fight, and everybody knows it.

But for now, I see me fighting in 125, defend my belt as much time as I can, and then we will see what will happen. Right now, all my concentration, it will go to 125. By the way, real quickly, if I can just pick your brain, let's say, I'm not a lot of, saying this is true, but let's say, just hypothetically, that I thought Amanda Nunes was going to beat Chris Cyborg. Tell me why I'm wrong. If it's not happened, why we have to speak about this? I don't see any reason why. All right, fair enough. This win here, how would you rank it relative to your Muay wins? You know, it's everything, it's so totally, not totally, but different because for me, victory. It's not just about the victory. It's not just about the fight.

It's all tied together. Training camp, what you had before, where you had this training camp, how you had this training camp, what persons was, what people was around you, what feelings you had, what emotions you had. It's all like all complete. And for example, for any of my fight, doesn't matter. or MMA we was preparing in different places. Even for the fight with Joanna, for that championship, when I fought with Joanna three times in Muay Thai, it was every time different training camp,

different preparation, different feelings, different emotions. So, of course, now it's totally different as well because first it's mixed martial arts rules. Second, it's a huge organization where we fought the greatest in the world. And of course, it's bring you much bigger and much stronger emotions because it gives, like, all the world, everyone who love martial arts,

they was watching this fight. Yeah, no doubt. Very quickly, you know, as a champion, you have, you know, you have a say, not a say, but you have a way to contribute over where you might fight. I know you love to travel. So what's one place as a UFC champion that you'd like to defend your title? Difficult to say.

So many places in the world what I want to visit. But you know, the first one, what it came up in my mind, it was Australia. I never been there before, but I see this country very interesting and very attractive, and I would like to visit it. By the way, what about Peru? What about Russia? Any of those come to mind? Anything is possible.

And I think it will be great maybe to have a title defense in Kyrgyzstan in my home country. And it's no doubt it will be a great event because I think all country will travel to the capital and will watch the fight. Last question before I let you go. I really appreciate your time, Valentina. Do you think you're done fighting Yawani and Jacek? You guys fought three times in M.MA. You fought this time. Every time you've been the winner, is this it?

Is this no more? I mean, you got to just move on now and fight all these new opponents? I think for now, yes. For now, we have so many opponents to fight with. For me, I have much more goals and who are pretending for the title. And Joanna, she has her business in Strawade. So I think for now we are good. We are good to go and move forward.

All right. Well, I got to tell you, Valentina, it was an incredible win. It was an incredible performance. I know you've been waiting for this day, well, the day you won anyway, for a long time. I give you my biggest congratulations, and I thank you very much for spending some time with us here on the show. Thank you very much, Luke. Have a great day for you. You too. All right. There she is. The straw, excuse me, the flyweight champion of the UFC. Let us not waste another moment. Let us go to our man in the back. It is time now where you become a guest on my show.

Time for the sound off. There he is. He is the adikipe to my pan. He is the aros to my frioli. He is the queso blanco, queso Colombiano to my hot chocolate. Is that what it is? That means a lot. Thank you. Uh, yeah. Is it a queso blancco or is a queso Colombiano? It's both, but it's just referred to it as

Casso Alanco. Okay, there he is. Yeah. All right, we don't have a moment to waste. We got a bunch of calls to get to, sir, you take it away, but I'm sorry we couldn't get to the front of the show. I'm trying to try different formats. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. See what works. See what doesn't, but, uh, all right, take it away, my friend. All right.

We're coming off a big weekend. You know, Max Holloway, picking up his second title defense against Brian Ortega, and most of the calls were center around that, obviously. So let's get into it. From Phoenix, Arizona. Luke, I could not believe that Max Holloway was the underdog, the betting underdog in that fight.

Like, I mean, I'm not a rich man, but if I could have possibly known that a day ahead of time, two days ahead of time, I would have bet my house. Like, there was no doubt in my mind that that's what was going to happen. Like, Brian Ortega had not proven himself to the level that Max hallway has proven himself as far as being an MMA fighter. Thank you for your time. I appreciate your comments on that.

Yeah, that was a hilarious one. I mean, here's my basic attitude towards it. I said this on my own YouTube channel on the night of the fight. Everyone's going to get bitter at the UFC. People are going to say, oh, my God, how was Max so underrated? I noted it was madness on Twitter. Actually, I literally used that word madness when I saw that. But at the same time, it's not, right?

At the same time, it's like, look, did the UFC build up these contenders, perhaps to a degree where they were not as competitive as advertised? I mean, maybe, right? I mean, I guess they weren't. But I'm really not mad at the UFC for that. People should do their own due diligence, number one. And number two, if you didn't build them up and they somehow win because MMA's crazy, then you've got a scenario where your challenger didn't get promoted properly.

I get that they've had a lot of these guys recently that they've promoted who didn't necessarily work out in the big moment like an Angano or an Ortega or a Daryl. What am I saying? The big ass welterweight, the gorilla. Till. Till. They're in two. That when they were trying to turn a corner didn't reach that moment.

Big deal. All those guys, well, less so in Ganoo, but the case of Till and Ortega, dude, they're young. And they are very good fighters. Maybe not to be the best in their division, but they're really, really good. I don't really blame the UFC

for building up and promoting a young contender. I mean, you, ideally, that's what you want, right? You want fights that are intriguing, fights that you don't know what's going to happen, right? You don't want a wash going into, you know, thinking is going to be a wash going into a fight. I think that was fine, but I don't know, I'm curious, where

do you think maybe the reason why he was a big underdog was because of his health issues? Of course. I mean, was that only it? That was a big one. And dude, Ortega, even if the numbers didn't favor Ortega, the numbers have never the striking differential. It's never mattered. They never mattered. Because he just overcame them in the end. Now, in this one, it did

matter. Okay, Max is different. But look, you had a really interesting, exciting contender. You had a champion with a ton of questions. I did not think it was fair that he was the underdog. But I get why the line narrowed. And I'm really not that upset about it. And hey, if you're a Max believer, he even said it himself,

you made cash on Saturday night. So good for you. Yeah. It was just super bizarre. But anyways, let's keep going on. Now, let's talk about Max Holloway performance and where that ranks. Okay. What's up, Luke and Danny?

This is John from the University of Memphis. And I would like to know how you would rank. Cormi's performance at 226, Kabib's performance at 229, and Holloway's performance at 231. My opinion is that Holloway outshined everybody. Good show. Thanks for keeping up the good word.

So let's forget about exactly those. Just 2018, did, has so far, obviously there's still time left, but has Max Holloway had the best championship performance in 2018? Boy, that is a phenomenal question. And I would like to throw to that list, Tyron Woodley's win over Darren Till. It was very impressive. Caller didn't mention that. All right, well, partly the strength of the performance is going to,

be a function of the strength of the contender. In that case, it would make Cormier's the best, but his wasn't as comprehensive. So that would make it a little bit limited. Cormia's win over Steepa. Yeah, because that was the strongest contender, for sure. And he was fighting the champion. He was fighting the champion, you know, and he starts him in a round. So there's that.

But if you're talking about, like, virtuoso overall performance, golly, because Khabib's was good, too. Man, you're splitting hairs here. because Habib's meta game was great, like the overall strategy. I mean, forget the tactics, the strategy he employed was super smart. It's recency bias. I'm going to say Max, but I honestly don't think there's a clear answer to this question, at least not the top of my head.

But you saw what I pointed out, like Max is, Max doesn't do anything super flashy. But every piece of fundamentals that he has and then these abilities to just switch in between different types of games is basically unparalleled. and for that reason, him and Pivivar probably had the most interestingly and comprehensive performances. Yeah.

And to your point, I agree with your take. One of the reasons why I think Habib's and Max Holloways were probably the most impressive out of this year, it's also because they try to go and take the route of fighting, you know, their appointing at their own game. Like, Habib, although he used a lot of wrestling, he still stood and striked with Conner McGregor, even knocked them down. And I don't know if you noticed. Max Holloway was trying to submit Brian Ortega at various points.

Like he was down to go to the ground and fish for, you know, guillotines. And that's pretty impressive. You know, when you're like, okay, I'll step in your game and, you know, let's go. He abandoned it pretty quickly. But yes, to your point, you did try, right? I thought for a second, like, if he submits Brian Ortega. Holy crap. Didn't Brian Ortega almost kind of lock them up in a leg-lock position, right?

And then almost had the back, remember? He kind of slipped off the side. Yeah. All right. Now let's talk about, you know, the other side of the equation, Ortega. Okay. Hey, what's going on, Luke and Danny?

My name is Seth, Colin here from New Mexico. And I was just wondering if you expected Brian Ortega to do better than he actually did. And if you think his stand-up is at a world-class level, or if Max is just too damn good with distance, timing, and pressure for anyone else in the 145 division right now. And also, what changes do you think Brian needs to make in order to become a champion Monday? Thanks, Luke. Love the show. Wow. What a good, damn, good questions today.

I'm telling you, man. And the amount that we got was a lot, too. Okay, all right. So let's answer this as best we can. Number one, is it a world-class level. No, I mean, I think he probably has to work on it. He's got some striking. He gets hit too much is basically the problem. And I'm not the guy to fix it, but I can certainly at least diagnose that there is an issue with him getting hit. The numbers speak to that. Remember, also, he's really young and he came from Jiu-Jitsu. And by the way, I would really encourage you. Being a fight past customer has its values. Because you can go back and look, do look at his early fights. He was barely throwing. And his last fight, he was just chucking, not this one, but the one before. He was throwing a lot more. I made this point before. Striking offense comes before striking defense typically on a learning curve. It takes time to get that

defense at the end of it. So I'm telling you, do not count out Brian Ortega, but he does have some issues to iron out. It is also true that Max Holloway, he may have fought the best striker in the UFC. We need to have this conversation. Where does Max rank among

the best strikers in MMA? If he's not the top, okay, fine, he's not the top. But boy, is right up there. There's very few to nobody who can strike in the way that he does. It is phenomenal. And I also made the point before, go back and watch the Jose Aldo fights. The numbers speak to it. Danny,

I'm telling you, Max, he was throwing, but he was very judicious with it. He was wide open in this one. And I can't tell if that's because he thought he could, or he was just going to make a point about it. Hard to say, but that's my response. Yours? And he had a little more swagger in there, Max Holloway did. You know,

there's a lot of things like the taunting think he doesn't usually do. I mean, he did the whole thing with Ricardo Lama's where he was pointing down and things like that, but still he wasn't dropping his hands and all that. As far as Ortega, I'd like to see him, you know, obviously improve his striking, but you can already see he has what it takes to become a great striker.

The type of elbows he was throwing and stuff like that, you can tell those are some things that you don't necessarily train with in a training camp, but just things that come up. So naturally, he has that instinct of where to throw shots. But yeah, it's all about the striking defense. And I would like to see him add some more takedowns to his arsenal because we already know he's already a very dangerous grappler. You know, and in order to be able to use that,

I know Max Hollow is a tough customer given he has an amazing takedown defense. But, you know, if you had a few takedowns or, you know, arm drags or just find ways to take the fight to your element, you know, I think that'll greatly improve his game. Yeah. Because he was just basically forced to strike with Holloway. That's what happened. I mean, it's a rough place to be, man.

All right, well, we got tons of questions about this, so I picked the one. Okay. I'm going to guess it rhymes with Schmanner-Mex-Schmager. Yes, pretty close. Hey, Luke and Danny with a mouth of breather special from my mom's basement, this is Sean from Chicago. Dana's post-fight presser, he said he wants to see Max go to 155. If this change does happen, who would you like to see as his first opponent? I think he's deserving of immediate title shot, but I think we all want to see Tony v.

to be first. And with the idea of Max moving up, I'm dying to see Max versus Connor in a rematch as a non-title pay-per-view headliner. Thanks. Love the show. I mean... First of all, I feel, when I was screening that, I felt like I was, you know, going through a tutorial of, you know,

how to do something on Premiere or something. Hello, guys. The voice. Hi, this is Steve here. Today we're going to look at Adobe. Yes, blah, blah, blah. Exactly. Man, here's the interesting part about this question.

There's really no wrong answer. to it. There isn't. I made my plea about if you wanted to have a guy who do something with a legacy like a GSP did at Welterweight, keep max at 1.45. The big question there is going to be what about the weight cut? All right, man, did it look like that weight cut was killing him in that fight? Now, I'm not saying it's not bad for him. It's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying it wouldn't be better for his help to go to 155. It's also not what I'm saying. But it's not impacting his performances, not even a little bit, at least not in this one. Now, maybe that larger issue about his health. I don't know. But certainly on Saturday night, it made no difference to him at all as in the bad thing.

The McGregor fight, dude, who wouldn't want to see it? I'd actually bet on, I know this is going to enrage the world when I say this. I think he beats McGregor the second time around. Okay. You won't get taken down. He can do, I think he'd out, we know McGregor gases, unless he could fix that issue. The kind of pressure that Max would put on you, the kind of ability to not take damage and hand it out, I think it would be a real big problem for McGregor, but I'm sure folks will disagree. That's fine.

Yeah. The Habib one, I mean, look, who doesn't want to see any of these? What about my idea, Daniel? How do you feel about, first of all, how do you feel about Max versus McGregor? And also, what about Max versus Nate Diaz? All right, so let's start off with McGregor. I feel like that fight has to happen,

just because McGregor has a win over him, and we've seen what Max Holloway has become since, you know? So it's not like we're just running back the same old fight, you know what I'm saying? So that fight has to happen. It's a huge fight. And I agree with you. I would say Holloway would be the favorite going into it,

at least on my book, you know, still a really competitive fight and, you know, a very intriguing one. And I feel like it would be a lot like the Diaz fight. And, you know,

to switch over to Nate Diaz, didn't Max Holloway in some sort of way give you like a Diaz vibe in the sense of... Bro, those Hawaiians, it's like the mini Stockton. Yeah. And no,

outside of his attitude, just the way he fights, like, he'll just chop you down. It's just like a decline. You start here with Max Holloway, right? And it's just downhill. And you know, and you see the end coming. Like, you know, you're landing one punch.

And then all of a sudden you're not landing as often. All of a sudden, you're getting, you know, completely washed. So I would like to see the Diaz fight in that sense because I feel like those two would just bang it out. And, you know, Diaz has a chin. Holloway has a chin. They both like to scrap. You know, Max Holloway apparently likes the taunt now.

You know, Diaz does too. So I know there's going to be some nice photos there. And also, just think about this, Danny, if I made real quickly, how many times do we see rematches back to back? Somebody loses rematch. Somebody who loses rematch. Here's a rematch years in the making. I think those are the best rematchers.

Those are exactly right. That is exactly right. They're much better when there's a little bit of space. Now, five is a long time, five years, six years. Usually two or three years is the best. But that's my point. This is a real test of who really advanced, you know? Yeah.

In fact, immediate rematches are usually kind of crappy, to be honest. I agree. In the sense of, it doesn't really make sense. Only if it's controversial. Like a triple G Canelo. Right. Great question, though. So many good options, right?

So many good options. That's the beauty about Max Hollowing moving up to 155. He's already cleared up the division on his weight to the title. He beat the goat there twice. It's also hard to tell him to move up because he did make weight. Not only that, but he looked damn good in that performance. So it's kind of hard to tell him like, hey, you need to go up. No, you don't.

He's killing it. But, you know, health-wise, we know for the long run is probably better. All right. Now let's talk about the commain. And, you know, you and J. Chick's next move. Hey guys, what's going on? This is Alex from Lindbrook, Long Island. My question is, what's next for Yonahian Jacek?

You know, obviously she lost her title, couldn't regain it at the rematch, and now she lost the flyweight title against Shefchenko. And, you know, clearly that's not going to be something that's going to get rematched anytime soon as ever. So I'm just curious, what do you guys think is next for her? and also I'm a pause it right there

because then he goes on to talk about gossip and we're going to do that here all right I don't mind a little gossip but okay I mean what is next for you want

a tough spot very tough spot she could it sounds like she might go back to straw weight if the title opportunity opens itself and remember she beat Tisha

Stores at UFC Calgary so she still obviously very competitive there I think a third I am not opposed to a third fight with Rose given how competitive the second one was.

But you got to get some wins in between. I think it's really the issue. And Shepchenko, I'm not interested in another. They fought four times already in two different sports. And one person was clearly better in both. I don't need to see that one another again. But a third fight against Rose, or if Androge wins and somehow becomes the champion, that works for me.

Yeah. So we first have to see, I think Androge is probably going to get the shot next. So we'll have to see how that plays out, because Androge, dude, Adrage is legit threat to Rose. stylistically, in my opinion. So we'll have to see how that plays out. I would like to see her stay active, and, you know, I don't think she's going to get

any immediate title shot, you know, in her next fight. So, you know, go down on 115 if she can, if she wants, get another win, and then, you know, fight whoever the champion is. She has a big name, so, you know. Fans love her. Yeah, you can still put her up in a pay-per-view, Co-Main or even Maine, and, you know, have her challenge for the title again. Okay.

And the Valentina fight, Sure, I don't want to see it anytime soon, but she did mention how she's kind of mostly done with 115 and she wants to go up to 125 because she's older. It's a much healthier weight class. Who knows? Maybe she puts on weight, gets a few wins, makes that fight interesting again. Maybe. We'll see. For now, for now, I don't need to see it.

Yeah. All right. Do you have time? Yes. All right. Do you want to talk about five-round fights or light heavyweight division? Light heavyweight. Right.

Hey, Luke and Danny. this is Boyd from Salt Lake City. And my question is a simple one is light heavyweight kind of good now with some of these new guys, Johnny Walker, Gagosanto, Sampan Smith, and now Alexander Rackich.

Thanks. So we all hate on the light heavyweight division. It's fun to do that, rightfully so. But man, this color is correct. Light heavyweight is getting kind of good. They go through cycles, right? I said this before. Alexander Rackich fought in Rotterdam and he fought in Germany.

and I don't think a lot of folks saw those fights because they just sort of took place on a card that was not a big priority for the UFC. Well, this one was, and it's a fight past portion, but okay, it's a big card. That dude is awesome. Shouts to Alexander Rackach. I think he's that American top team.

I think he is natively Austrian or maybe whatever his full background is, but I think he's from Vienna, Austria. That dude is huge for that weight class. Big, naturally gifted, powerful. Obviously, his game is still coming together. He wouldn't even know the full potential of him. him, but I've been very impressed watching him. That's a guy who stands out on tape. You already

know about Dominic Reyes. He's obviously phenomenal. Gustafsson sort of back in the fold. We'll see what happens there. Anthony Smith got his, Anthony Smith got his black belt over the weekend. So shout out to Anthony Smith. You know, good again. I don't know. I think you need a few more names, but definitely look, these divisions, they go through highs and lows and lows. And the stock's been low for a while. It's been like Bitcoin. But I think it's about to start going back up a little bit. Yeah. Dude, and Tiago Santos had an amazing performance, and this should be an example for all the

middleweight struggling to make weight or, you know, just go up a weight class. 205, you can get favorable matchups there, because at 185, man, it's just a bunch of killers. And, you know, imagine if, like, a Yo-Romero goes up or a Luke Rockwell. All of a sudden, that division starts, you know, holding some weight. Yes, I completely agree.

For sure. It's fire through a couple more. Cool. Let's do the five-round one. Luke Danny, Allen, Colorado transplant from Rio Brazil again. A quick question about five rounds, five minutes fights. I used to be over

the fence about it after last Saturday I really don't like to watch those fights anymore. It can't take away years of their careers, maybe out of their lives. I think definitely we should move into three rounds, five minutes across

the board. What is your opinion, guys, about five-fives for main events and title shots? And a grand A braso, amigos. Thanks for the show. Abrazo, much thank you. That's awesome. Okay, how would I say this? Dude, five-round fights are awesome.

So here's the deal. I brought this up on the MMA beat because Chail Sonnen was in studio on my radio show brought up to me. The first time you hear the argument, hey, five-round fights are really bad for you. You say to yourself, ah, it's just, I mean, yeah, they're rough, but nah, it's not that big a deal.

And then the more you begin to think about it, you're like, oh, my God, you know, there is clearly a drop-off. after three rounds where defense just goes down and there's so much horrible damage happens in those fourth and fifth rounds. I like the solution that we came to on the MMA beat, which is you can't really get rid of them. You can probably limit them,

but you've got to pay these guys. Dude, Brian Ortega probably should have gotten, what, $5 million for that fight? Yeah. Comfortably $5 million for that fight? I mean, dude, do you look at the numbers? I showed you, 134 strikes he took. He took.

That's more than Max has landed in any other fight combined except for the last Aldo fight. That is an insane amount of damage. If his paycheck is not $5 million at some point, dude, he got robbed. He got robbed. He deserved so much more money for that. And I think there's something to be said, man, these, Belator, people are like, oh, Belator,

why don't they have all their main events five rounds? Good for Belator for not doing that. Save these guys some health. The fans don't need to have everything that they want. For sure. Yeah, you got to pay them more, but, dude, I'm all in for five rounds. I think in order to, I think legendary moments, legendary fighters are made out of five rounds. I mean, Anderson Silva submitting Chal Sunning, you know,

John Jones coming back, you know, with his fight with Alexander Gustavson. If that were three rounds, he probably would have lost that, right? And Silva would have lost. Yeah. Max Holloway, we were just talking about how ridiculous he looked. He needed that fourth round to show everyone like, yo, this guy's like one of the best strikers out there, period. That's one of the best rounds of domination in UFC history.

That's not a 10-8, or maybe it was a 10-8, depending on your perspective. That's probably 10-7. But the point being is this, dude, you've got to pay those guys, man. If you're making 50 and 50 for one of those, bro. I don't know what to tell you, man. Yeah. And also we got to hold the corners responsible as well, man. If you're seeing, for example, the Raquel Pennington situation,

I mean, sure, the fight is five rounds, but the corner decides if it's five rounds. You know what I'm saying? It could be four. It could be three. And dude, that's why I said at the beginning of the show and I said it out of respect. If you corner Brian Ortega, you've got to be careful.

Yeah. Because that dude's ability to take punishment is. Beyond compare. For sure. You saw what he posted on Instagram? He said, I'm willing to die. I was willing to die that night. Do you believe him?

Because I do. I do. I 100% believe if you had asked him to die that night, he'd have said yes. I mean, the fact that he took all those hits and he was still swinging and he was still coming at him. Like, a lot of people would have maybe just shot a terrible takedown, let, you know, people take their back and then just tap immediately as soon as the hands go around the neck. He just stood there and just did what he could, man.

I mean, what a dog he is. It's ridiculous. So you got to protect that guy, man. Yeah. All right. Let's see we can fire one or two. more. All right.

Let's talk about Max. Max. What's going on, Luke and Danny? This is Dylan from New Jersey, and I'm calling you directly after the Halloween and Ortega fight. And I just want to ask you about Holloway's feeling, like, we watch him right now. He's honestly spectacular. And I want to know what's next for him.

Like, is it the Connor rematch? Is he retaining his crown at 145? He's fighting Moycano? And then the next man up, maybe Chad Mendez, because he's been around for a while. Or do you think he's going to go up? if you think he had trouble making the weight, is he going to go fight Kabib or he's going to go fight Porre? What's it going to be?

I really want to know what Holloway's feeling is and what you thought of his title defense against Ortega when the odds actually had him as the underdog when it came down to the fight. Thanks for taking my question. So what's his ceiling? I know there was a few other questions thrown in there and the same question, but, I mean,

Max Holloway, 27 years old. And not taking a ton of damage. Just clear the entire division. A little bit of damage, but not a ton of damage. If he can stay healthy, which obviously is, you know, I think he thinks that the injury stuff and the illness stuff is behind him. I certainly hope, I guess the only time will tell. If that's behind him, bro, I'm telling you, I am, listen to what I'm saying.

I am not saying he is an all-time great. That is not what I am saying. Not yet. However, if I'm looking at the division and the landscape and what he can do, does he have the possibility of becoming one? I don't think that's crazy to say. Not at all. A ton of work he has to put in to get there,

but he has special, dude. Max Holloway is a special fighter. Yeah. I think he, with this fight and also his Aldo fights, he put himself in a stage where he's letting everybody know, I'm world class, I'm legit, I'm one of the greatest. Now, from here on, that's where the work comes in to really define his greatness and who he is

and how he will be remembered. But yeah, his ceiling, man. I mean, and not only in cage, but take outside of the cage, like, it feels to me that he's always known he's good, but with the taunting,

with the things he's been saying, like he really now, like he feels it. Like, he's like, okay, I'm really, like, levels above these guys. Who can strike in the way that I showed, like him?

I can't think of another striker that can do that. The way he uses the distance and his accuracy, very Connor McGregor-esque. The only thing is that Conner McGregor's more like a one-shot type guy. And he doesn't switch stance nearly as effective. He'll put some combinations, but, you know, Max Holloway's like, you know, he puts on.

And he's never out of position. It's absurd. The last thing I think I'll say about Max in this case is, well, I forget I was going to say, so there you go. But I guess I'm just pointing out, I don't know. I forgot. Let's do one more because I have things to attend to. Cool. Hey guys, it's Josh from Windsor, Ontario.

I was with the fights this weekend, and my question is about the cowboy fight. It was very obvious that he couldn't defend his grappling game because he was trying to avoid getting blood in his eye. And I was just wondering, if the UFC or MMA should put something in place where they try to protect fighters against getting other fighters' bloods into their eye, into their mouth, their ears, and all other orifices, by pausing, cleaning up the fighters, getting them back in the position.

I mean, we've seen it when it gets really bad, but in this case, Cowboy was completely defenseless. He was just basically trying to get his eyes out of there and ultimately paid the price for it and losing that fight. But up until then, I feel like it was his to win. So what do you guys think that they should be doing, if anything? Okay, all right, I'm a short of time, it's fine. It's fine.

Here's the answer to that. Too bad, so sad. I mean, that's something a terrible thing to say, but I don't mean in that way. What I mean to say is, in wrestling, for example, you know this. If two guys clash heads and you get your head cut open, they have what's called blood time where they go,

and they'll even wrap your head up so you can do that. Like a mummy. Like a mummy. So they'll do that. You don't want to really do that in M.A. Because blood is part of the story. If someone kicks you in the leg, and tears one of your ligaments,

you have to kind of hop along on it and just let it be what it is. Now, at some point, there becomes too much of it to let it continue. I mean, the way he was bleeding, I'd never seen someone bleed like that, from the forehead. It looked like someone had taken a balloon and just sliced it open and all the water had just fallen out. It was absurd. But he ate that shot and the blood guy in his face and he rolled. This idea, he was in, he was mounted taking punishment. He took the hand of, um, uh, the wrist of Oliver and then rolled his elbow on top of it. And that's how it landed. Dude, he was completely

in control and then he showed him his back and he got finished. Yes, the blood in the eyes was a hindrance. But that was, I once said it was headed one way, but, um, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, was in control of that and that was a nice one by him. Yeah. I mean, he had a mounted. He was threatening. He was landing shots. But the blood did it.

I mean, the shot was hard. But I feel like there was just so much blood on his face. I feel like cowboy freaked out for a second just of the amount of blood that was coming out. And that's when he rolled over and he knew something was off just because like it was pouring out. And he just tapped immediately. But it is an interesting question because also Gunner Nelson was bleeding from his nose quite significantly. And when he was on top, I saw in a few instances. instances, like, there was blood dripping on him, and he was just, like, moving around.

He was actually affecting, like, you know, moving around his position and based on the blood and the amount of blood that was falling on. You've rolled with guys when they're on top and then their sweat falls in your mouth. It's awful. Or in the eyes, disgusting. All right. I have to go. All right.

But my friend, great job. I appreciate it. We'll either have the beat this week or next week. I'm not sure, but we'll figure that out. Thank you, sir. Thank you to all of, for all you donks out there for watching. Keep sending those calls. 844-866, 2468.

use the hashtag the MMA hour. Until next time, stay for all. Steve.