MMA Fighting - #462 – Sage Northcutt, Ray Longo, Brandon Gibson

Episode Date: December 17, 2018

Luke Thomas speaks to Sage Northcutt about his decision to go from the UFC to ONE Championship, his career and development, more (2:11:12); Al Iaquinta's coach Ray Longo about Iaquinta's win over Kevin Lee, potential match-ups moving forward, more (1:50:38); Brandon Gibson about coaching Jon Jones and Carlos Condit for their respective bouts at UFC 232, more (41:28). Luke also looks and breaks down some of the key factors that helped Iaquinta defeat Lee in the main event of UFC on FOX 31 on the Monday Morning Analyst (01:59); He also shares his thoughts on the refereeing of the Barboza-Hooker fight on The Weigh-in (1:03:37). We also answer your questions on the latest in MMA on A Round of Tweets (35:57) and Sound Off (1:11:50). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. It's the Mixed Martial Arts Hour. It is Monday, December 17, 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. A jam-packed show for you today.

Yes, indeed, a trio of guests will join us. Sage Northcutt will be here to talk about it. his matriculation to one championship. Let's see, fresh off of the coaching, well, it's Ally Quintas victory that happened to UFC on Fox 31, UFC Milwaukee, but his coach and his striking coach, Ray Longo is going to be here at around 150 or so. Sage will be after that. And then I think around 1240, looking ahead, you're going to have Brandon Gibson coaching

both Carlos Condit as well as John Jones at UFC 232, so we'll check in with him as well. Plus, this is a multi-faceted show, ladies and gentlemen. We do many, many things here. We take your tweets using the hashtag the MMA hour. We take your calls at 844-866-2468. We'll get to all of that during the soundoff where you become a guest on the show. We've got some opinions we're going to share

and a whole lot more. So thank you so much for joining me. I'm going to have a sip of this coffee. Trying things out again, standing up. I think it worked like last week, not so bad, right? Pretty good. All right? It was a busy MMA weekend.

There was a lot of stuff to get to. So let's just, without further ado, let's just get right down to it. Let us kick things off on the MMA hour with the Monday morning analyst. There we are. Look at that. Change of graphics. You have no idea. Every time I show up on Monday mornings to get this thing to connect to that, it is a Chinese

fire drill up in this piece. And I got to give a shout out to Joe, who's behind the camera, and everyone in the back over there. We, it's, it is five idiots trying to figure out how to airplay an iPad to a TV. And let me tell you, none of us know the answer, but we figured it out. So here we go. As I always mentioned before, if you want to contribute to what we talk about in this particular segment, the best place to do that is going to be on my Facebook page. Facebook.com slash Luke Thomas News.

I always ask people, hey, what do you want to see broken down? And there were so many fights over the weekend. There was Elam Leigh McFarlane winning over at Bellator, Michael Chandler winning, and Neiman Gracie choking out Ed Ruth, which really surprised me. But there's so much to get to. But really the big one, I just feel like we'd be doing this segment incorrectly if we didn't talk about the main event from UFC on Fox 31.

Allaya Quentin would be a unanimous decision over, put that like that, over Kevin Lee. And, you know, it was funny. Kevin Lee said something after it was over. I think he had to take a moment to compose himself so he could extend a level of sportsmanship. But he said something that a lot of people were like, oh, that's crazy. And in real time, I thought, you know, we had Kevin Lee on the show last week. I'm a big Kevin Lee fan.

And he said, well, I thought I'd won the first three rounds. And in real time, I thought, man, I don't think that's true. And don't get me wrong, I still don't think that's true. But if you actually go back and watch, it's a lot. truer than you think. And I'm actually, the reason I'm going to make that argument is because it's one of the reasons why Al won. You're going to say, well, look, how would Kevin Lee thinking he outstruck Al be proof of that? I'll show you in a minute. I'm not saying it's true. Al is the winner outright. Let me be clear about that. But there's something that happens

throughout this fight where what Kevin Lee was doing was disguised and it was hidden and it was camouflaged and it was something that Al was doing. Now before we get to that, let's go up here. Let's take a look at the numbers. I always like going to fight metric and seeing what numbers they come up with. I know you can't read it, so don't worry. We're not going to go through all of these. Couple of ones I want to point out. All right. So let's do, let me change the color here so you can see better. Here's one number I want to point out, and I'm going to zoom in here if I can, like that. Can you see that? It says in round three, Al-Aiquinta landed 16 of 29 strikes. Now, what's interesting about that number? That's the lowest he landed in terms of what he was able to produce per round.

So of all the rounds, he had 20 he landed, Al-Iquinta did in the first round, 18 in the second, 16 in the third, 24th in the 4th, and 33 in the 5th. He really hammered him home. Why is that number 16 relevant? Because that's the most strikes he landed in a round against Habib Numer Kamedov. Remember, after the fight, Al-Aquinta saying, I deserve a rematch. I did much better than Connor did against Numer Gamedo. That's true. It's interesting that his worst round against Kevin was his best round against Habib. What does that mean for a rematch? We'll actually look at that a little bit later. I just sort of want to point out that number. That's one number to look at.

Here's the other number to look at. Let me jump ahead just a little bit here. Here's another one. If you guys don't know what these mean, don't worry, I will show them to you. Here's one. This one right here. Let me zoom in here. Hang on.

You see that one? S-A-P-M. Do you know what that stands for? Strikes absorbed per minute. And it's four, which I'll be honest is a little on the high side. All right. That's what he averages. These are his career statistics.

That's what he averages over the course of a career. And I believe these numbers are factored in, but they were almost identical before the fight because I made sure to check. Why is that interesting? It's interesting to me for a couple of reasons. Because Al was making a point on the UFC on Fox post-fight show that he's a new owl. And in many key ways, that's true. In some ways, it's not. here's one of them.

He absorbs 4.05 strikes per minute, right? There were 25 minutes in that fight, so what are we talking? 100 strikes plus is on average what he absorbs over the course of a fight, right? Look how many Kevin Lee landed. 102. Right on point. That is about what he normally takes over the course of a fight. It wasn't particularly bad.

It wasn't particularly good. It was right in line with what he normally takes. over the course of a fight. So when Kevin Lee is like, I'm landing on this dude pretty consistently, because by the way, four is a little on the high side, he's not crazy.

But as I mentioned, number one, I don't think he beat Al. I made very clear I thought Al won, and again, under review Al one. But I can kind of see what Kevin Lee is thinking. So those are some numbers to keep in mind. Let me see if there's anything else that stands out to me. I was like looking at the numbers.

They don't tell the whole story, but they kind of tell you a little bit of things to put together. And I sort of believe this is a side note that the boys at Fight Metric are totally maligned. People are like, what counts is a significant strike? Well, listen to their definition. It's pretty clear and it's actually pretty useful if you want to take the time to learn it. Okay.

Those are just some basic numbers to look at and keep in the back of your mind, right? Let's look at the keys to victory here. And these again are striking. By the way, take down defense here, pretty good. 73%. strikes landed per minute. This is always good. 4.3, so he's landing more than he's receiving. Not necessarily a whole lot, but that's good. Doesn't attempt a lot of takedowns. Okay, no problem. When he does, they're not all that accurate. That's no big deal. And it doesn't really go for a whole lot of subs. Okay. No big deal there either. All right, let's move on from that and let's look at less so keys to victory, but more so Y. Al won. Look at that. I got you a nice graphic again, huh? Look at that. Your boy has the Photoshop skills of Coco, the finger-painting gorilla.

All right. Why he won. I made this point last week. I will reiterate it again today. I am not telling you that these are the only reasons that he won. I am not telling you these are the best way to describe the reasons why he won. There could be a number of ways to examine it. Here's what I am telling you. This is how I see it. These are the things that come to my mind when I look at the fight and I review the tape and I say, oh, okay, now this all makes sense. So, remember Kevin Lee, as I said before being like, I thought I won the first three rounds? He didn't, but I can understand why he thought that because you look at the number totals

and you say to yourself, well, he did land on him pretty consistently and he has some takedowns in there. We'll talk about those a little bit later too. But number one is critical. No sell everything. What does that mean? Here is what I did not notice in real time. And I don't think the commentators did. And I don't think anybody but Kevin Lee did.

Maybe even Al doesn't think about it. When Kevin Lee got hit with an Al-Iacquinta strike, whether it was a jab or a cross, he either reset or his head popped. There was a physical effect. When Kevin Lee hit Al-Aquinta, it was as if nothing happened. Why is that important? Number one, if he hit him with a cross, especially with a jab, he could not get Al to respect the punching power. I'm not suggesting to you that Kevin can't punch hard.

What I'm telling to you is that if he does, Al shows no signs of it. Yes, his face gets marked up. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is, does he back up? Does he begin to shell up and decide not to throw anymore? Does he reset the position? Nothing. It is as if he's just swatting mosquitoes and just marching forward, right?

That's a big deal. If somebody lands, especially if you're throwing with them, can the judges even see it? Maybe they can see your face getting marked up, but can they see if we're both trading jabs or trading crosses? Can they see that it gets confused? If I can't back you out with my punches, I can't change your game plan. I can't put you where I need you to be. It is it's not as if nothing's happening, but not nearly enough is happening. He no-cells everything.

There were way more punches landed in close review than I thought by Kevin. But remember the key issue here is not how many times you land, but the damage. And what are the judges going to look at when they assess damage? Yes, physical damage on the face like John Cena style. You can't see me. But more than that, does someone's posture change? Do they wince? Do they make a reaction?

Does their head pop? Like, are there things you can really observe somebody doing? And when Kevin Lee hits Al, you don't really see hardly any of that. And I did not see it in real time all that much. And on review, I was shocked. I was shocked at how often Kevin Lee landed and it did nothing. And again, scuffed up his face. And maybe Al was hurt.

Poker face, bro. Poker face. Incredible job by Al Iaquinta and just... Because Max Holloway, he fought last week, D'Ortega would nail him with shots. And you even see Max's head pop. Not Al. Nothing. Like as if it didn't exist.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one's there to see it, did it happen? Two, constant but careful pressure. What you're going to notice is only once or twice does Al get drilled with a shot coming in recklessly. Almost never happens. But he's just in Kevin Lee's face constantly. What was interesting to me was, here's what he's trying to do. Al is standing, I'm left-handed, so this is a little weird for me. He's standing in the orthodox stance, right?

He is going to go this way. He's actually going to march into, if Kevin Lee is also in the orthodox stance, he's going to march into his power hand, not directly straight, he's circling. But you ought to be asking, why is he doing that? Because he wants Kevin Lee to fade into his own right hand. He's not worried about Kevin Lee's power, so why not push into it? He just pushes into it, pushes into it, pushes into it. Now, there are times when he circles the other way, often as an evasive maneuver.

There are times when he comes in straight. There are times when he resets it. But you'll notice in this fight, he stands in an orthodox stance, Ally Quinta does, and kind of fades and turns clockwise. That's the way he's going clockwise. And with that careful pressure, by the way, whenever Kevin Lee is going South Paul, you see Ally Quinta trying to get lead foot positioning. you see a lot of just, he's just finding ways to get in that space

and make his punches count more than the other guys. Kevin Lee is not wrong when he says he kind of numerically was in there a little bit. He kind of was numerically in there. But again, he was the one getting backed up. And he was the one when he was getting hit. It was rocking his, you know, you can even see his hair jiggle a little bit, right? Couldn't see that with Al, and Al was just always on the march. Always, always, always.

consistent march, but usually very careful. There's only really one instance where he gets clipped kind of hard. And again, no cells. It doesn't reset. Just keeps on moving. It's crazy. And then last but not least, attack and create openings. So what you'll see him do is if he's standing to Orthodox position, you'll see again,

remember Max Holloway on the half beat? One, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, bang. And get in between that two and that three. you're going to see Ally Quintan do the exact same thing. Guys, everyone likes to see who's throwing strikes like this and, you know, like this and whatever else. Like, people just want to see crazy acrobatics. But at the end of the day, if there is a lesson you can take home from last week and then this one,

at least insofar as the striking is concerned, the best strikers in the UFC, usually what they're really good at is not some crazy, you know, I know Kung Fu, come at me, Morpheus bullshit. That's not what they do. What they do is they have an incredible sense of timing. They have an incredible sense of distance, and they have just enough weapons where they can be modular in all situations.

They kind of just are who they are, and it looks a little basic, but it applies so broadly over the range of the fight that they can just take over. So you'll see Al fake and then throw, you'll see him catch him on the halfbeat, just come from this side. You'll see him double up and come.

You'll see him Stance Switch early. He kind of abandons that a little bit late. But what he also wants, just like Max Holloway, is he wants an extension. He wants an extension from Kevin Lee, either for the left to come out or the right in this case or the left to come out, and he wants to get inside of it in certain cases.

He wants to come over the top in other ones. He wants to get inside of it. It's not the same game plan as Max Holloway because that's not true. He doesn't stand switch nearly as often, but there are some similarities to it. great crisp footwork from Ally Quintos. So for me, when I go back in review, he no-sells everything.

There is constant but careful pressure, and he's either attacking with different tricks to get him open. And we'll see all those here. All right? All right. Let's do this, shall we? Okay. We'll take a look at a few things from each round,

but I limited very narrowly what we took a look at. There is way more than this. So this round one, right? 310. What are we looking at here? By the way, I'll say this. Kevin Lee was going back and forth, Southpaw, and traditional. I don't think he was bad from Southpaw.

I think that would be very unfair to Kevin. But last week we saw Max Holloway going back and forth, and I literally couldn't tell if the game dropped off at all. You can tell here. He can be effective from Southpaw. I do not want to take that away from Kevin Lee. But if I'm assessing where he's at his best, offensively and defensively, I would argue, humbly, I would submit, the Orthodox position is

much better for him. That's just me. That's not to say he shouldn't keep pursuing this and get better at it. It's not what I'm saying. It's just they're not equal. There's the only point I'm making. All right, so watch Al. You can see him doing a lot of the same thing, you know, jamming inside, using a hand to gauge distance or to parry and come over the top. Watch the foot here. Let's see sort of what happens in this exchange. you all see Al a little low, and sometimes he would hang the hand, the commentators noted, so that he couldn't be in the line of sight to punch. That's one of those things, right? You see, Kevin take a step in. Al did this a lot. He'd lead, lead, lead. Kevin would come in. He would

drop and go to the body and come up, or he'd drop and go body, body, then come up. You see this dropping level a lot from Kevin Lee, excuse me, from Al-Iquinta getting underneath the jab, like that and then crack he misses. Now watch, left-handed stance, Bink gets right in on him. What do you notice again from last week? Inside the space. He's not coming around.

Sometimes he'll come around, but here he's coming inside the space, switching stance through combination here. Because remember, he started, Orthodox, switches to Southpaw, bang, and cracks him inside the space. He's jamming him, constant pressure, moving forward, creating openings, getting underneath the jab. There you go.

Here's another one. So watch. So now he's going to circle into... So this is one of times where he's not circling the way he normally did. It wasn't constant, but it was constant in a sense of like unrelenting, but it was consistent. You'll see it in each round over and over and over again. Right? What's he doing?

Kevin Jabbs, right? Lans one. He gets one inside two, and you can't see it here, but look closely. Who's got the superior foot position to ally Quinta? Bink comes inside to the body, and then it rips it again, getting him to get too close, going inside, sometimes he'll go upstairs, backs him up like that, and that's from the orthodox position, right? And he switches to south again.

Again, this whole bit about I'm going to be on the outside, and I'm here up South, South Paul and now I'm Orthodox and now I'm South Paul. I'm not saying it doesn't work. It's just not nearly the same as like what a Max Holloway does or even what an ally of Quinta does when he's he basically is a conventional fighter except just that little tiny moment when he needs to not be. All right, here we go. South Paul stance. Let's see what happens. Here he is circling. He's resetting position so he's going to come here. Normally what you're going to see Al do is go this way. That's normally what he did in this fight, right? Look at who's got the lead foot position.

He drops his level, parries the hand down, bink kind of grazes a little bit, but he comes inside. It only just like hit the side of his arm and knocked him over, right? We move on. Here's another one, right? Jabbs his way inside, and he's catching him on the timing here too. Kevin just puts a foot down. Kevin just puts a foot down. He's already in motion.

right because he's timing everything one and two and three and four and he's getting in at the right moment you can you can throw all that nonsense if you want i want a guy who can do that you get a guy who can do that you can you can do a lot with this you can do you know a little bit you can swap flies at a family picnic i guess boom comes inside gets a little too far inside but then still manages to crack him as he comes in same kind of thing just sort of jumping into position by the Notice, look at Al's feet. They never cross. Fundamentals.

Look, when he throws this punch, look at the stability of this position. Right down the middle, man. Like a kung fu horse stance, like, ugh. Like you could deadlift him a position like that, man. That's how strong that is. Boom, and he's hitting him with it.

All right? Okay. Put up the screen here for a second. Put up the, yes, thank you. Let me see what this one is. I just want to make sure I'm not getting too much of this. We can skip that one.

Go to the next one. Skip that one. Okay, let's put it back on. Here we go. Round 2, 49 seconds left. There's a lot of the same themes repeating over and over again. Here he is. Look, you get in a bite, and this is the normal way that he goes.

Although if Kevin Lee gets far enough, well, then he just cage cuts, right, as a wall to get in front. But if he can corral him to that side is what he wants to do. because he wants them to fade into his own right hand just like that. Look at Al. Again, feet never cross. See that? Throws this hand out like this. Kevin Lee thinks the right is coming.

If someone goes like this, you automatically think that the other hand's coming because this hand is literally away, right? Watch what he does instead. Pop and look at this. Feet in the air catching him every time. I'm telling you guys, it's not the ninjitsu, man. It's the guys who have just perfect. Italian chef kisses fingers, timing.

Timing is everything. You hear all these coaches and they bore you to death on these interviews. Footwork, timing, distance control. What you want to see is that Deonte Wilder knockout punch. Yo, that's what sets it up. Guys like that. Right? Catches him.

Here's another one. Look at this. What I tell you before? He had a low stance so he could get under the jab. I guess they felt like he, Kevin Lee, kind of leans. I don't know. I'd have to talk to Ray. We will talk to Ray.

I guess they felt like he kind of goes forward a little bit too much, or he doesn't retract it enough or he doesn't stick and move, he just kind of plants, because they feel like once he opens, they can get inside and they have a variety of attacks here. He backs out, resets, cage cuts here,

and again, sort of ducks down anticipating it, misses, boom, and comes around the side this time. And look how he's pressuring him. Let me draw some arrows here. He's pressuring this way while Kevin Lee is trying to go this way and they meet at the intersection

of this right hand right thank just like that that's why he's circling into the power hand from the orthodox position just like that here we go

just look at this fakes jabs once hold on fakes down comes inside backs him up he circles to the outside so this was a nice circling away

except now Al, who knows he eats a knee. It's a good job by Kevin Lee there. Here is again. Remember I told you he wanted him to open up, right? He pressures in. You can't see it with the left hand. He actually fakes with the left hand a little bit, which gets Kevin to open up, bink, and he comes over the top.

So he can go inside, especially from that orthodox south ball position, or he can come over the top if you can get you to engage. And remember, what have we said before? When you're behind the two black lines, that's one thing. When you're behind the two black lines and you're right up against the fence, your behavior begins to change. You're going to see another version of that a little bit later, right? Okay, put the screen up, if you don't mind. The flat screen, thank you very much.

Let me move beyond this. See what this is. Let's see, let's see, let's see. Bink, we can skip that one. Okay, move over to this one. There's no video here or slides. Well, it's just a one slide, I guess. Just this.

So a big portion of this fight was fought on the ground, right? is a big thing here. Look at this photo. I'm not sure what you guys see with this photo, besides a loving embrace, similar to the one Joe and I had when we were teaching each other to clinch, which just sounds like a metaphor

for a lot of terrible things. But, okay, look at this. Here's what I see when I see this. You could say, you see control. All right, I see control. But here's what I'm going to point out. You have locked your own legs, if you're Kevin Lee. you have given one of your hands to your opponent

and you have attached yourself to him. That gives you one free hand. I don't know what the answer is. I'm not nearly good enough in Jiu-Jitsu to be able to tell you what the answer is. Here's what I know. This is not enough. And by that, I don't mean Kevin Lee didn't do enough.

What I mean is MMA's best practices are not enough. One thing you're going to see when Crone Gracie, comes to the UFC, he almost never uses the body lock. He puts both feet and shins or whatever, calves on the hips. He likes to use that to rotate someone's hips around and turn them and steer them rather than lock into position. But the lock into position, if you see that, you think, oh, man, he's got him, he's got him dead to rights. But the reality is, in modern MMA, you can get an ally Quinta with the high hand here, and they can just block it. Here's my point about this. You have trapped your own legs. You have trapped your own arm. You have trapped. You have

Trapped your own body, chest to back, you have one arm. You're not going to submit somebody good that way. At least not with modern practices. And that's not a knock on Kevin Lee. That's a knock on how everybody treats this position. This is what you're told to do. You're told to get the back. You're told to have hand control.

You're told to have the body lock, right? Not everyone has to have it, but it's a good thing to have. I think we need to rethink that. I just don't believe that's true. What is the answer? There has to be some kind of way to get, I don't know, rear naked choke from the back as possible with the arm. I don't, I mean, maybe somebody can work on the mechanics there, but there has to be some kind of arm or shoulder manipulation from the back

that is possible. I really, I really think that because this joint, the shoulder is mobile, right? Like your knee can only just bend, but your shoulder can go to the side, it can go to the front, it can kind of go to the back, but it stops there, which is where the Camorra comes into play. But even if you have your shoulder in a proper scapular position, you can put it up here and it kind of stops. Well, what does jiu-jitsu do? It takes a limb to the point where it's not supposed to go and then pushes it even further. My hunch is somebody, if they really want to work on it, they could find a way. You know how you can see the Sulu-Ev stretch now?

People are just getting behind the ankle and then the hamstring and just ripping that son of a bitch. I happen to Jared Gordon in his fight. what if there's a way to Sulove stretch out the lat or the tricep or the shoulder joint or just to rip the arm out of the shoulder it is possible to do i don't know exactly how one would do that i don't know what the best practices are i don't know how you have to set it up someone has to figure this out but just attaching yourself to somebody and then giving up one of your arms so all you have is one hand it's not going to be enough in modern mbma as for the job that ally Quinta did, what I would say is,

Al is, here's how I would classify it, Al is good at stopping takedowns. Al is excellent at neutralizing the bad effects from them when he gives them up. So he can stop takedown, 73%. That's pretty good. But what he was really good at is if you even get his back, he gives you nothing.

There's nothing here. I mean, it's not nothing, but there's not, there's no damage. He's not in dire straits. He's just in close contact. And so I think, the end, that's really where he excels. You can put him in bad positions. He doesn't get beat up a lot. And yeah, all right. There you go. We move along. Round four, two rounds left. All right,

here's where we're going. Look at Kevin Lee, circling into that position. Al gets underneath. How many times have you seen this? Get low. Get low. He's like little John. Getting low, right? and the ying yang twins. And then it comes into the body and then sort of sticks in his face here a little bit. Constant pressure, which, by the way, what do you notice about this? Right? Oops, hang on. What do you notice about this?

Lee is circling this way, takes a shot to the body, and decides to go the other way. See what I mean when it says changes his behavior? You don't notice any of that with Ally Quinta. It doesn't change his behavior at all, right? And here he gets in his face again. This is where he does less so circling more cage cutting. Gets in his face. Look at this.

Times it. Gets inside, goes to the body and in the head. And this is what I mean. Pushes him back with punches. There's a physical result from the impact. All right? Here we are again. What do you think is going to happen?

I suspect he'll have the lead foot position. He'll get this hand open and he'll either come inside or then over the top. All right? Something like that. So here's what he does. He parries it kind of down or just fakes it. comes inside. Look at the foot positioning. He moves away, but, boom, see what I'm talking about when there's a physical result to the punch? Look at that. Physical result to the punch.

You can see the impact. Go back and watch this fight. You barely ever see that with Al. Slightest of degrees of change, right? Catches him, and by the way, changes his motion as a consequence. Here we are. Still round four. Look, South Paul position. I'm not seeing a ton of advantages for Kevin from this position, right? Lead foot position comes in wide misses, switches stance, eats one for it. This is what I mean. Look, this is the fight in a nutshell, right here. This is how to understand Ally Quinta versus Kevin Lee, too. This is all you need to see. Lead foot position draws out the punch, doesn't land. Comes in misses his own, switches stance, eats one, does not affect his behavior comes right over the top and lands the harder shot. That, ladies and gentlemen,

is how Al Aiaquinto won. You see it in one sequence. That is how he did it, with superior boxing, superior timing, superior footwork, superior combinations, and an ability to no-sell the other person's offense while clearly affecting change on the other side. Let's put up the screen one more time, please, if you may. Thank you very much. We'll move through this. Let's see this real quick. Bink, pink, bink. Javing, jabbing. I just want to make sure I'll give you something

that's worthwhile to look at here. This one's a little long. We can skip that. Oh, wait, here we go. Okay. Put it back on, please. Watch whose behavior changes. Al's already going this direction.

Right? Comes in, takes a shot, and it lands, but he just keeps going the way he's going. He circles. right circle circle circle what does he do pop and look at that it sends him backwards now this shot does not nothing it's not fair to say it does nothing but he was kind of already fading that way he just kind of takes it it doesn't change his behavior he's still out there and then he pops the other guy this is what i mean when he no sells the offense and this is easier to sort of evaluate when one goes and then the other, but there's a bunch where they go at the same time, and one guy is clearly getting hit

harder. We move back. Actually, hold on. Think, boom. And like, who's backing up? Who's wearing the shot? Okay, put the screen up one more time. Let's jump here real quickly with the time we have remaining.

Let me see this real quick. I'm going to show you one more version of this, and then we'll move along. Okay, there's a good one. Put it back on, please. Okay, check this out. This is why I told you when Al sometimes overcommits. Here's one where he over commits, right? Nice timing by Kevin Lee.

Now who's catching who on the half beat? It's a nice shot from Kevin Lee. Here's the problem. Look, it does nothing to Al. Look at this. This is what I mean when I say no cell. He literally, it's not even if we're standing here and eating a punch. He's standing there and he walks into it.

Bink and he misses. Look at this. So it wobbles his head. Don't look at his head. Look at his hips. They don't hardly move back at all. And then he lands the superior shot. That is what I'm talking about. That clip and the one before is all why he won. The proper fundamentals, the proper circling, the no-selling. One last thing. Put this clip up. I want to show you one tiny little thing here if I can, and we'll move along. Okay, remember I told you he was circling and what he was doing to Kevin? He wanted to rematch with Nirmugamedov, right? Throw it up one more time. This is from their fight at whatever this was, UFC 223, whatever it was. Check this out. Remember what Al was doing. He was circling.

He was far enough back. He was circling clockwise coming into him. He's getting underneath the jab. He's setting up his own. He's trying to elicit a reaction. He's trying to throw his right, right? A lot of boxing there. Watch this.

It's the same thing. Now, he had no time to prepare for this. And this is round three. Boom. He eats one from Nirmagamadov. Look at him. Low stance. Right?

pressuring into him, going to the body, right? It looks pretty similar. Cage cutting, come off the top, he misses there. That's good work from Nirmagamatov to get out of the way. But look at him. Cage cutting, going off the jab, trying to find him, direct him to his own. He wants to direct him here, right? That's what he's trying to do.

Boom, misses, and then he comes back in, and you kind of get the idea. So that's it. You can put the screen back up. Just sort of wanted to show you some of the basic mechanics. There wasn't a ton there. He's asking for a rematch with Nirmigamehov to get that. Here's the only point I'm trying to make. Man, Al-Aiquinta, to me, it's like, has he grown as a fighter? Of course.

Was he radically different than the one we saw against Nurembergamedov? Well, he had no time to prepare for that. Here's what I am saying. His chin is amazing. His forward pressure is always on point. His cardio, by the way, we don't even talk about that, enables everything you saw here. And it's just you catch these guys.

I can't be clear about this. I know I'm like a broken record at this point. Show me the guys with the good timing. Show me the guys with the good sense of distance. Show me the guys that know where their feet are supposed to be. And I will show you some UFC champions. I do not know what is next for Ally Quinta. I don't know if he gets that Nirmagamato rematch.

I don't know if he's going to be a title winner. Here's what I know. He has all of the material to have a bare. minimum be a real title contender and not on short notice, but by doing it the hard way. Al-Aiquinta is one of the best fighters in the best division of mixed martial arts. If you didn't know on Saturday, now you know. That is the Monday morning analyst. All right.

Let's do this. There we go, boys and girls. All right. With the time we have remaining, it's, how about a round of tweets? The clock starts when the tweets go up. Let's do that now. All right, Luke, here we go. I don't know why I said my name like that. That was weird.

The UFC on Fox card did its best ratings in two years because it was based in the central time zone. Perfect for the entire U.S. when it came to the main card start and end time. I don't think that's actually the reason because the card itself didn't change its times. I'm guessing it's because there was less competition from college football on. But that's just me. Next. Do you think the Hooker versus Barbosa match should have been stopped early? earlier in the fight. We'll talk about this a little bit later in the show, but if so, when and by who and the ref in the corner of Dan himself, that was a travesty. I mean, Dan Hooker, it's like, I don't understand this. People are like, oh, Dan Hooker, man, he showed us he's tough. Who are these people, and if you can hand me that sheet, that'd be great, Joe? Who are these people that think that MMA fighters in the UFC aren't tough? It's like, boy, that plumber really knew how to stop a leak. Yeah, that's what plumbers do. I don't, are people like, confused that you can make it to the UFC and not be tough.

Bro, you can't even make it out of your local amateur league without being tough. You have to be absurdly tough to get to that UFC level. It's like, I get the dance even tougher than we thought even at that level. But people were like, oh, I give, I give Dan props for being tough. Yeah, of course, we all do, man. The guy's incredible. But I'm telling you, I'm going to make this case a little bit later on the show. That's going to get some, that attitude is going to get somebody killed in the sport.

next. You're probably going to talk about this, but just in case, at what point should the ref, doctor, or coroner have stopped the fights? Well, it's a little bit different for each fight, obviously. They keep saying intelligent defense, but there needs to be some other kind of mercy rule where at some point there's the amount of damage that has been incurred, especially if there's an amount damage differential.

Like, Condit and Lawler was tough because they were both handing out punishment, but what if one's taking it and the other one's not, then you're in a bit of a pickle. So think of it that way, but it's a conversation we're going to continue to have next. Who do you think is next for Edson Barbosa? I don't know.

God, I hadn't thought about that one at all. That's a good question. Would you want to do a Kevin Lee rematch? You could do Dustin Poirier. They kind of train at the same team, but I wonder if they'd be up for that. Looking here, Kevin Leitz and Barbosa, Justin Gachy, would be a hell of a fight,

although Gachi seems to want somebody else, but that would be a fun one. There's a few of those guys up there you could run that back with. Next. Do you think Charles Olivera's submission record is underappreciated, not being talked about as much? Will it ever be broken and what's next for him? It will eventually be broken. As far as what's next, I don't like this flirtation with featherweight.

I'm not one of these absolutists who thinks, oh my God, what is the point of cut and weight? Like, we're all confused about it. The point of cutting ways that it often. and not always, but often provides a strategic advantage, or certainly a size advantage. In any case, that's why they do it. But what is next for him?

Just keep climbing the ladder at lightweight. I mean, if you want to do, like him versus Gilbert Burns is kind of interesting, right? I don't know if he's, all of errors merited that, but that'd be two really elite jiu-gizu guys. That'd be kind of fun. Next, well, one elite jitzsu guy. If you were an owner of a growing MMA brand, I would sell it. Would you pursue a now vacant Fox or new streaming outlets like DeZone?

What is the likelihood Fox goes into business with another MMA promotion? You know what promotions seem to be doing? They seem to be going whoever is cutting the biggest check, right? Like you look at the streaming deal with one. They called it a television deal. I mean, technically it has a television component. But really what it is is a streaming deal. But if you think about it, it's actually a great move for one

because they were giving away all of their content for free, all of the, to us anyway. on their app. Now, maybe less people will see it here, but they're based over there, and here they're going to get paid money by Turner Sports. So it seems like that's where all of the action is, is who's cutting the biggest checks. Also, I do think that no one really understands the future of television and getting involved with the streaming company is probably a pretty good idea. Next. What lessons should the UFC learn from their stint on Fox? What should they do differently with ESPN? I think editing, editing the product, finding a more hospitable time to start.

a more hospitable time to end, a more hospitable way to structure the product. So much of the product ends up in places and is delivered in places based on whether it's good for the brands involved and not the audience. And I understand that's partly the way the world works, but I also think you can have a better product overall if it's just edited a little bit. You don't have to start at 10, you don't have to go 30 minutes of fight, and you don't have to have six-fight main cards. Narrow it a little bit.

Next. Why the UFC won't announce an event in Hawaii, can you unblock me? Apparently, they wanted all of the Hawaii tourism authorities yearly budget to come one time. And so Hawaii was like go pound sand or the UFC was like go pound sand, depending on what your perspective is. But there we go. All right, let's go to our Z-phone or Z-Sy Skype, right? Let's go now to our first guest of the show. He is one of the best coaches in the game.

I have not spoken to this man in a while. I'm happy to catch up with him, and I'm glad he made some time for us here on the show. The one and only Brandon Gibson is here with a fresh haircut. No, it's not fresh. I need to get cleaned up. Is that a ritual? You know, the older I get and the busier my kids' activities come, the less time I find myself having free for haircuts. Fair enough.

But you always do one before a big fight, right? Yeah, yeah, I try to look good, feel good. before we get out there. All right, let's get into it now. So you have, I mean, you got a busy calendar, right? Especially for UFC 232. Let's start with John Jones. Man, I got to tell you, I am really excited for this one.

I've spoken to Gustafson, and he sounds as motivated as ever. Here is sort of my feeling on this. And I know what you're going to say, but this is just my opinion. I feel like the window to beat John, you can never say it's closed. MMA's crazy. People do crazy things. but it feels like in terms of taking advantage of a strategic or tactical lapse, that window has closed. Do you know what I mean?

I would agree with you on that. I would agree with you on that. John's only getting stronger, faster, smarter. And, you know, a lot of guys this much time off, I think, would be detrimental. But for John, it's been invigorating for him. It's helped him focus. It's helped him mature. and it's given him that much more fire to go out and reclaim what he feels as his.

He does seem from media to be a little bit more, I don't know if in your face is the right word, but unconcerned with how it's perceived. Is that a fair characterization? Yeah. Yeah, I don't want to say he's brash or Kurt or anything like that, but he's unapologetic, that's for sure. Right. I think that's the right word. Yes, that's right.

Does that carry over to training in some capacity, or is that simply, part of the media side of things? I think that's the media side of things and the business side of things. I think when it comes to training, he continues to humble himself. He continues to just be that ever-evolving

student. I know it's always cliche to say how good the camp was, but I just couldn't be more excited about not just the camp, but the time we've had building up to the camp. John was working in shadows. He was working in secret and improving and improving and

And we have pulled together an amazing team on this one, amazing training partners. And I just got done watching his workout this morning. And, you know, we're heading into this last week. And I just feel excitement. I feel focused. I can't wait to get out there and watch him make a statement. What do you make of the argument that, oh, what about all that time off?

It can't be good for him. To that, you say. Yeah, to that I say, you know, he's not getting his brains battered in. He's not getting concussions. He's taking care of his body and his mind. And, you know, this is such a, at this top 1%, these, just like you were talking about, these guys are tough. That's not an aspect that comes with sparring or anything like that.

The time off, we're not having impact, where his body's not getting beaten up and broken down, where we're just continuing to evolve the skill and the technique and the strategy and develop John that much more as a martial artist is key. And, you know, he's 30. a long fight career ahead of him still. And he really feels like this time off has prolonged his career that much more. Interesting.

Prolonged it on the last end of it? Yeah, I mean, you know, I think if he was still fighting three to five times a year like he was when he was younger, you know, that I think that will burn guys out early. I think that's where you start seeing the guys in their mid-30s that are slow, that are not reacting. They can't pull the trigger that just aren't recognizing things like they used to. And I think a lot of that comes with just the toll of the training camps in addition to the fights. So just having, you know, the kind of pre-camps where it's just all technical base, I think, has been really good for them. I think it's going to show in the fight. You know, we had long layoff before Ovin-Saint-Prue, and we had a long layoff before the second D.C.

And he came out sharp and focused and new in a lot of ways. You know what's interesting, if you were trying to study tape about the first Gustafson fight, I don't know how fruitful it is. I don't know that it's irrelevant and meaningless, because that seems a bit strong. But in your mind, when you look at that, what do you see? I mean, yes, you see John Augustuson.

I don't mean in that sense, in the literal one. But it bears no resemblance to the modern day. Yeah, I think Gustafin is improved and grown tremendously as a fighter. I think he's become that much more fluid. I think he's become that much more of a precision striker. I think his wrestling's gotten. better. He's had these five-round bouts since. I think Dussibson is really matured. I think we look at John in that fight and think how many more tools we have now, how many more setups, how much

more strategy, and how better we are at all the little transitional elements now. I think it's going to be a very different fight. We find ourselves, you know, always kind of falling to that fight to study as a baseline like we did with the first Kormier fight, but I find myself watching, you know, Gus's fight with D.C. or Sarkinov or Glover that much more. Try to pick up trends of his newer style as much as we can. How has Gustafson changed in your mind since the last fight? I think his confidence has grown. I think his confidence with his wrestling has grown.

I think his endurance and his cardio and his stamina has grown. we'd be foolish to think that Gus isn't going to come ready for anything but a five-round battle this time. Where the first fight I feel like Gus in some ways he just didn't have them in the championship rounds and

that's what John was really able to take the lead and do the damage and show why he's a champion. So I think Gus is going to be well prepared cardio-wise. I think his boxing technique and his setups have grown and his wrestling defense can

continues to be outstanding. And then the fights like the circanal fight, he had brilliant ground and pound and brilliant, brilliant position and timing on his shot. So, Gassison's all around dangerous guy, for sure. Remember the first fight, how it was marketed as like,

oh, look at these two really tall guys. And in the end, the fight was close. Yeah, I know. In the end, the fight was close. So folks were saying, well, maybe the height did play a role. Does height play a role in how competitive that first fight is? You know, I do feel like the first one was under play.

a little bit like it just showed they both have long arms two guys with long like no we have one of the greatest of all time up against an amazing outstanding knockout artist you know u.s versus europe there's so many different ways to play that besides long arms but i this second one so much more than that everybody knows what a amazing championship fight that first bout was um and this has been a long time coming you know both of these guys have been matched up before and things didn't worked out. So, you know, I know they've both always had their eyes on each other. We knew that this day would come. So I'm excited to be in this camp and be closer to this battle. How curious are you about John at heavyweight? So, for example, here's what I mean, not just because, oh,

the matchups would be fun. I mean, that's pretty obvious. But I guess, you know, Cormier going up to heavyweight and he was like, wow, man, his knockout power was noticeably better. And you would have to imagine something similar would be that way for John, too, right? Yeah, I think the day will come. I think John's focus right now is just to continue his light heavyweight rain and solidify his legacy as light heavy weight. You know, maybe the day will come where it's a heavyweight, but I don't think it's right around the corner. It's not something we're talking about. But if the right opportunity came, I think it would be easy for John. I don't think you'd put on a massive amount of weight or anything like that.

I think you could go in there at kind of a more cruiser weight, like a 225, 235, and have a tremendous amount of success against these guys. I mean, I saw it in all the years of sparring against well-known heavyweights out of the Jackson Lincoln Gym. So I know John's capable of it. I think it's focused right now is the light heavyweight rain, though. What does he have to do in terms of winning to, in your mind? Maybe you already think that, but I guess convince the public, and to some degree convincing them is impossible. But it is also, if you take the right attitude, it can be possible. What does he have to do to convince the world that he is the goat?

How many wins? What kind of wins? Yeah, you know, I think that's always going to be an interesting topic, and it's one of those fun ones where people are going to debate and... Yeah, but it seems like it's on his... Here's the thing, Brandon. It seems like it's on his mind. It is, and I think it's something he really wants to solidify. So, you know, I think part of it's just going to come time with...

Come with time and trust and making statements, and, you know, the second DC fight, I feel like we're right on path, and then we got derailed a little bit. So, you know, John's going to come out and make another statement, and I think we're just going to have to take it one fight at a time. But I think if John's John, and he dominates the way you can dominate, at the end of the day, there won't be room for a debate. We solve a lot of time left in this game.

How would you characterize his relationship to the fans today versus how it used to be? I think it's a healthier one. I noticed a bunch of cheers at that New York City Presser. But I guess my question is, It used to, like, be a thing he craved, and I think would boost his performance. Now it seems like he, well, you tell me, how is it now? You know, I think he really did vibe off that New York City press conference. He called me excited afterwards, and he liked the pop of, from the fans.

And whether John ends up, you know, being the good guy or the heel, I don't think it really matters to him. He knows that the fans want to see him as a martial artist. and the transgressions he's had are always going to stay with him. But I think he just wants to go down to the great. And I think a lot of the fans know that. And I think as long as he comes out and puts on great performances, he's going to have their support, the ones that are going to support him regardless.

I think the fans that he lost, they could boo against him or cheer for the, cheer for Guff's the Center, whoever. And it's not going to change John. By the way, real quickly on that co-main event, what is the Brandon Gibson's Spidey Sense telling you about the Cyborg Nunes fight. I saw, I think it was an interview on MMA fighting with Jason Prio,

and he was talking about Cyborg, like, like, bitch, you don't do Coke, you don't drink, all you do is train. And as a coach trained, that got me a little fired up. So I know what it's like to have that kind of athlete that's that focus and that motivated, and that's a hard thing to stop. I think it's going to be competitive about Nunez is very skilled, well-rounded, but I think Cybor is just going to be too much. Hmm. Dean Thomas, who I course is biased, but he swears that Amanda Nunes is the hardest hitter of any woman he's ever even, like, possibly touched gloves with.

Sure. You know, I wouldn't doubt that. I bet she generates a lot of power. She's a very fluid puncher. She has great rhythm change for 135er. I'd be, you know, there's so many variables and unknowns. Like, we haven't seen Amanda at 145. So. So it's going to see, it's going to be interesting to see how that power carries over at a weight class up. You know, at 135, she's very successful. At 45, you know, Sideboard's neck is a little thicker. She may not be bouncing in your head back that quick and gets two counter coup. All right, fair enough.

Let's talk about your other student here, Carlos Condit, who I don't know this gentleman personally. I've sort of known, obviously been covering his career for years. Here's what I can tell from Instagram, which is very, you know, comes with quite the asterix around it. he seems to be quite happy. Is that a fair characterization? There was a time where I felt he was aloof and distant.

Not so much right now. I would say he is very happy. Carlos and I have been very close friends. You know, martial arts aside, we've been good friends for a long time. And I got a lot of love in my heart for Carlos. And I want to see him happy. And I think that he's getting to a really good place in his life. And I think that's really been showing in his work, right?

Like, it doesn't matter what our career or our profession is. if we're having a hard time, it's going to show in our work. And sometimes it's at the gym, sometimes it's at the fight. But I think where he's getting in his life right now, it's been showing in the gym every day. I think it shows things like social media. And I'm very confident it's going to show him the fight too. I'm really happy with where he's at. So I couldn't ask for more as a coach in the training because the mental aspect is so much of this game at this top level.

You know, all these guys are tough. They all have skill. They all have technique. They all know what to do in the positions. A lot of it comes down to their mindset and their approach going into it. And I really like what Carlos is out right now. How much of a reset did he need after that Lawler fight? You know, that was a battle for the ages.

And that was a hard one as a coach to be a part of. It was so back and forth. And I saw how much wear and toll it took on both of those men. Sometimes there's moments that make you really, like, love this. sport and feel like it was to do it another level and I think that fine a lot of ways did that but there was also kind of like the darker

side of it too where man that you know it's hard to watch your friend go through that so here's my read on that from the from the outside looking in I just you see a fight like that and you know this as well as I do something better than I do man I don't I don't know how you fight like that without leaving a piece of

yourself and let me be clear about what that means I'm not suggesting that means he had to hang him up. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is, my God, what, I mean, you have to, you have the, the sacrifice on the altar of athletic glory that that is, you don't walk away from that unscathed, man. Was there a part of you that was like, not worried he'd ever come back, but how much of the same will he be? Yeah, and there, you know, there was talks of retirement after that fight. You know, there was talks of retirement prior to that fight.

So, I think it was, it was challenging to get past. that and to find love and passion. And not just like on the physical toll of the fight, but when you go out there and leave it out to the way he did and then you don't get your hand raised and a split decision in a five-round fight, that's a heartbreaking time too. And it's hard to find love and trust for the game sometimes after going through something like that.

So what is his motivation now? This was a guy who I think he's one of the best welterweights to ever do it. He is, however, on a bit of a four-fight skin. when you evaluate what he's fighting for, is he fighting for himself? Is he fighting for title aspirations? When you talk to him, what read do you get as his coach?

I think right now he's fighting because he loves this game. I see a fire in him. I think he's fighting for himself. He's fighting for his future. He's fighting for his sons. And he has a lot on the line right now. And it's shown to us in camp. And I know it's going to show him fight night.

Michael Kiesa, the toughest thing about him at 170 is what? You know, Kiesa has his own rhythm. He is a very unique striker with different flows and patterns and rhythms. And that also applies with his wrestling and grappling. He's hard to mimic. He's hard to get a look of. I think a lot of it's going to be out there game night. But this is going to come down to, you know, these two guys want to go forward

and who's going to be the one to back up? Fair enough. Let me ask you a separate question. You didn't see the hooker, because I know you're super busy in camp. You did not see the hooker Barbosa fight. It's okay if you didn't. I don't mean to put you on the spot. Oh, man, what a night for martial arts this or Friday and Saturday were, you know,

with Canello, with UFC, with Bellator. And I was in the gym training John and Carlos, you know. I'm a fan. You know, I'm a student of this game. I'm going to go back and study all this stuff. but I was in the trenches that night, sweating and bleeding. So here's the thing. For example, the Condit versus Lawler fight,

that's one where a corner throwing in the towel you can't do because it's so back and forth. You just don't know what's going to happen. However, I made this point earlier, and you've been a corner, you're a coach. Let me ask you this one, because someone asked me earlier on the show today, when is enough enough? And here's the way I'm going to ask it. Not from someone who is getting concussed,

but from someone who can just take an absurd beating. We saw Brian Ortega against Max Holloway. That probably should have been stopped a little bit earlier. And even if you didn't see that one, that's a good reference point. So let me ask you an open-ended broad question. When you see something like that, when is enough enough? I think there's a lot of different factors that come into play. Like you said, when it's a back-and-forth battle and your guys always in it,

and you know what they're capable of, sometimes you're hesitant to do it. Sometimes if it's a title fight like Ortega, you know, the guys don't necessarily want to go out that way. But that doesn't mean it's not in our best interest to protect them as our athletes and students. And then, you know, one other thing, I don't know if the media and the fans always get is that each commission is different. Like, I can't just throw in a towel in every state in the middle of a round. Sometimes I could wave it off in between rounds. Sometimes the coach or the cornerman isn't allowed to wave it off between the rounds. have to get the doctor to come in or the ref to come in or a commissioner come in and wave it off

so it's important as a cornerman to know what state you're in and what are the rules when it comes to that um and there's times in retrospect i wish i would have maybe stopped a fight um there's a few that weigh heavy on me and you know as i get older and wiser in this game and more experience um i know i'm going to be addressed with with a situation like that again and you know those are call that I want to make. This is a sport at the end of the day. These guys have families. They have futures. I don't want to see anybody pay an ultimate

price because I let them go far trying to show everybody how tough they were or, you know, let them go out on their sword. That's never been my mindset of my mentality with my regards to, like the technical aspect of this game or the coaching side. You know, I have a theory about boxing, Brandon.

This is why they do one thing better than us. They have old men as corners. right for two reasons one old men don't care what you think it's why they walk around naked in the locker room number one and number two they've seen it they've seen the full arc of an experience and they're just more ready to make that call i think as i think as i think we'll maybe get better about this as a community and you know i'm i'm lucky to have uh two old men as my coaches gregg jackson and my the oldest of the old.

No, but, you know, I, we're getting there. We're getting there. And I think, you know, like Trevor Whitman's made that call a few times. There's a lot of coaches I know wouldn't hesitate to do that to protect their guy. You know, the one that weighs heavy on me is, is Cowboy Mosphidal. I literally picked Cowboy up off the canvas at the end of the first. And a lot of it weighed on his fight. prior to that, which was the Matt Brown,

where he had been dropped in the second, came out in the third, and head kick knocked him out. I was like, man, I can't count cowboy out. I need to give him a chance. He's able to get up and recover. And then the second round was even worse. And, you know, he would have never asked me to, he would have been so pissed off if I did that,

but it doesn't matter. Like, you know, those are the moments where I wish I could have done more from my fighter. So it's not that we don't think about it. That's for sure. Well, you know, it takes a lot of guts to it to, you know, call yourself to task and think about it, but you definitely do a lot more good than anything else.

And I got to tell you, man, 232 can't come here soon enough. I am just, I can't wait. Do you have a prediction, sir, for the main event? I know victory, yes, of course. But if you're thinking, like Professor Xavier, which way is this going to go in what way? I want to, oh, man, the submission could be there, the ground and pound could be there, the knockout could be there.

I don't really know until we're going to get in this mix what path John's going to be able to take to that goal, but we have a lot of tools and a lot of options. And victory, a decision victory is the last of those options. You know, I think we're cutting, looking to finish, standing on the ground, in transitions, finding submissions. I mean, it's going to be one for the ages, I think. It certainly is.

Well, I got to tell you, Coach, you're one of the best and the brightest in the business and one of the good guys, too. I wish you nothing but the best of luck at UFC 232, but you don't need luck. So do what you do, and I'll be watching. Thank you so much. All right. Appreciate it, bro. There he is. Truly, one of the best guys in the sport.

Always an honor and a privilege to talk to him. Hey, we're talking about this. Let me bring up something here very quickly. And I alerted, we alluded to it earlier with the Dan Hooker. thing. Let me make one final comment on that, if I may, and then we'll get to the sound off. I would just like to say something about this. There are a number, first of all, for a coach to be able to acknowledge some areas and some lapses and judgment, because everyone's going to make them. I'm going to make them, coaches, fighters, everybody. And to do so publicly, I take my hat off

proverbial hat off to coach Brandon Gibson for doing that. But more to the point, I have Hulk in the Urah glass. Let me be serious here for just a second. I thought what was happening in that commission was insane. And they were letting him go. Now, I don't know who corners Dan Hooker. I have to go and look it up. There's so much MMA this week. I couldn't keep up with it.

Here's what I bet I know about that without even knowing who it was. I bet you they're smart. I bet you they care about them. And I bet you they're experienced. And that to me is precisely what is so scary about it. I've had these debates before. And I don't expect people to agree with me right now. I think over time I will win that debate.

because that is just the way the facts are headed. But I don't have the same view on performance-enancing drugs that a lot of people do in this sport. I don't think that they're good. I just think that you have to find a way to live with them because the zero-tolerance policy doesn't work. And in the process, it creates more problems. It's sort of one of the situations where you take a pill

and the side effects are worse than the disease. That is what I think is happening with us in our current regimen. I don't think that allowing a world where you just don't account for moral hazard where everyone uses is a good idea, but I don't think the current system is certainly any answer to that. I think sort of putting a lid on it and learning a way to live with it,

it's probably the best. And you're asking, what does I have to do with Dan Hooker? It's got nothing to do with him and performance-hensing drugs, but there's a question about what is actually more damaging for the sport? The culture that valorizes taking a beating or the folks who are using performance-enhancing drugs,

I would submit to you very strongly that it's the culture that valorizes taking a beating. Let me be very clear about this. We are shortening careers. We are affecting people's quality of life, and we are going to get, mark my words, somebody killed in this sport if we keep this up. I saw after the fight my Twitter timeline filled with well wishes to Dan Hooker, which is fine. Dan Hooker is an amazing fighter. He's an amazing lightweight.

he will be back. I am certain of it. He's not taking a ton of damage in his career. This is clearly the most of it. I'm not trying to clutch my pearls and say the sky is falling. What I am trying to tell you to say is, you're just reinforcing that culture when you say, oh my God, Dan Hooker is so tough. Yes, he is. But there's another component to that, which is what are we doing asking how that went on the way it went on? Why is this some kind of ritual, gang initiation every time a weekend comes around, man. What are we trying to prove? Who is confused that MMA fighters at the highest level are tough? Of course they're tough. And yeah, even inside of that, some are going to be tougher than others and appears like Dan Hooker is the highest tier of tough. It's not that I don't have respect for that.

Of course I do. But what I have an equal amount of, if not more, is a long. that that's the only thing we're focusing on. Dana White, I take my hat off to him. He was blown away by the toughness, but even he, most of his comments after the fight were about that one should have been stopped earlier. Yeah, dude, two weeks in a row

where fights are going to the point where we are threatening to take away the length of someone's career, their quality of life, and God forbid down the road, if we really do this again with improper regulation, somebody's life, man. And you could say, how is that worse than PEDs? because the culture starts at the amateur level and goes all the way to the top. This is not

merely a function of what happens in the UFC. This happens in sport jujitsu. This happens in, God knows, kickboxing gyms. Certainly, MMA gyms, when guys are fighting at the amateur level, man, you see there all the time. Referees are a little more trigger-happy about stopping at the amateurs, thank God in my experience, because what's the point of this guy taking a beating? even getting paid. You know, he's an accountant Steve wants to make his MMA debut and he gets waxed by somebody who in about a year or two is going to be in the UFC. I've actually seen that.

You guys know Sadiq Youssef. He fought in a show in Northern Virginia that I called. And I saw him as an amateur absolutely bludgeon some kid. They stopped it fast. Don't misunderstand me. But blood landed all over my sheet of paper. But the point being is, even at that level, I have seen fights go long. and then the coach, after a guy gets his ass whooped, put him on his shoulders and talk about what a warrior he is.

Dude, that is not the message to send. The message to send is you have my utmost respect and my deepest gratitude for your sacrifice. Let's never effing get close to that level again. Go watch boxing. They don't even sniff stuff like this unless it's for a title against somebody who can offer you the biggest payday possible. or unless there is some kind of bad regulation. That's what like bad boxing regulation looks like, letting a fight go like that. That's our normal regulation because everyone involved is like, the real winner here is the guy who earned our respect

and shortened his life expectancy as a consequence. This is sick, man. It's disturbing. It's super disturbing that our takeaway from that is, oh my God, look how tough he is. It should be, yeah, dude, oh my God, Dan Hooker's tough, but what were we thinking? That's the takeaway.

The takeaway is we have a problem. We have a disturbed appetite for something kind of fucked up, if I'm being honest, when our reaction to that is, I love this man so much for doing that for us. No wonder we keep doing it. We're praising this guy for that. You don't want to hate on him for it.

You don't want to be mad at him for it. You don't want to take away the fact that, yes, he is incredibly tough. But what you should really walk away from that fight with is not glee about it. It's concern about what's wrong with us that that's what we sought out. I'm telling you now because it affects amateurs, it affects men, it affects women, it affects pros, it affects part-time, it affects full-time, it affects American, it affects Canadian, it affects Hawaiian, Mexican, you name it, UK. Our culture not only allows for it, encourages that. We are wrong.

We are wrong. We have got to stop doing it, or somebody is going to get to a point where they can't come back from if they already have it. Please, let's stop doing that. Please. We'll be back, but first, on New Year's Eve, the Professional Fighters League will be making history,

finishing the $10 million season in New York City live on NBC Sports Network, six weight classes, six epic world finishes, million-dollar fights, six lives will be changed forever. Plus, the biggest name in women's mixed martial arts, two-time U.S. Olympic gold medalist, Kayla Harrison, will be in a special event bout.

All on one groundbreaking night, the Professional Fighters League Championship will be held on Monday, December 31st at the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden. Watch live coverage exclusively on the NBC Sports Network starting at 7 p.m. Eastern Time, or get your tickets now at Ticketmaster.com. All right, enough of the doom and gloom.

It's time now for the sound off. There he is. Got to keep it to my pan. Didn't even wait for my intro. He just decided he was comfortable. Comfortable Danny just waltzing on in. Hi, comfortable, Danny. How are you? I'm good.

Nice and comfy. How was your weekend? I drink my emergency. Are you sick? No, but I'm, you know, trying to be cautious. All right, fair enough. The weekend was good, worked a ton, obviously, because there was so much MMA. Yeah.

I'm looking for the holidays. Yeah, yeah, for sure. The holidays are always nice. But it was a good weekend of M.A. I mean, the fights, both in Hawaii and Milwaukee, were amazing. I didn't get a chance to watch Invicta, but, you know, I saw a few positive things out there. I'll be candid and I feel ashamed about this, but I'm not going to lie to the audience. I forgot Invicta was on.

Until like on my feed there was like, hey, there's Invicta fights going. I was like, my bad. It's hard when there's so much MMA going on in boxing too. Canello was fighting here in New York. Fighting well. Competing. Exercising. Getting a light work is what he was getting.

I mean, that was a massacre. But okay, how are the calls today, my friend? The calls were amazing. As always, the fans just keep getting. You know what? I feel like they're really showing up these days. Yeah, man. They really are. They really are. All right. Well, you know what, Maestro? You have the keys to the car. Let's do it. Well, let's keep talking about Dan Hooker because I don't want to go back and forth.

So let's just get that out of the way real quick. I have a few thoughts as well on that fight. Hey, Luke. This is Drew from the home of poverty and overdoses Lewis and Maine. So that Dan Hooker fight, what the fuck? That was literally my reaction. You couldn't have said it better. I agree with you 100%. Don't you think it's sick when people are like, yeah. Yeah, because I was looking at my timeline,

everybody's praising him, and I'm like, eh, the only tweet that I wrote about that fight, I said, you know, Dan Hooker, tough as hell, yeah. But I said that at the end. The first thing was like, yo, that fight should have been stopped earlier. Like, I did not need to see that. We knew who the winner was way before it got stopped.

What's the point of MMA? To find out who's the best fighter, right? We found out who was the best fighter in that fight, at least that night, way before that stop each. That's what we're trying to find out here. We're not trying to find out if somebody can kill another man. That's not what we're trying to find out over here. We're trying to find out who

the better fighter is, and we got that answer deep into the second round, though. You know, there was no need for a third. And yeah, it's just rough watching, and I think there is a time in place to let a fighter take a beating as bad as that sound, but

you want to do that in championship rounds. You want to do that also you want to save those wars towards the end of your career when you're at the top you know what I'm saying? Yeah right before you walk out. Dan Hooker man he's so young he's so promising. This is this was his first like real big fight. He's only 28. Yeah. This was

his first fight I believe from a top five guy. Um, no need to go through that. No need to go through that. Look, you're not having a good night. You're slow. You're not hitting hard. You're giving me absolutely no reason that you're going to come back. Because it's not like he's trying to take Edson down and it's

Like he's throwing haymakers and, you know, almost landing him. None of that was present. He was just taking punishment. And, you know, Hooker is going to do his job and he's going to try to stay in there as long as he can. So you can't blame him. That's when the corner has to step in

or the rest have to be smarter. Someone has to do it. Okay. Dan Hooker in his last fight, now I don't know if he's getting a bump in pay or if they took care of him. Do you know what he made at UFC 226 when he knocked out Gilbert Burns?

This was his winning total. That was an amazing fight, by the way. Yeah, it was a great fight. Do you what he made? What? 20, 2020? Total. He made 30, 30, 60,000. Okay.

That means he took, he probably made 30,000 to fly from New Zealand to take that kind of a beating. Yo, it ain't worth it, man. It ain't worth it. It ain't worth it. You got to be kidding me. It's insane. What you hating on Dan Hooker?

And what planet am I hating on Dan Hooker? Of course not. I'm hating on how sick it is that we're like, this is what it's all about. This has got nothing to do with what it's all about. Yeah, if you're an MMA fan, you want to watch MMA. You want to watch fights.

In order for fights to happen, fighters need to be healthy and fighters need to be, you know, in the right condition to fight. And putting them through that, you know, they're not going to last long. You know,

well, you know, knocking wood, hopefully this is, you know, nothing on Dan Hooker and he can come back and, you know, he's perfectly fine.

I'm sure he will. He's a young guy. So only the beating I think he's ever taken, too, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. But still,

you want to stay away from this because sometimes you only need that one fight, you know? So, yeah. Also, that call was hilarious.

What was it? Yeah, yeah. Overdosing and what? Well, he's had, this is a frequent caller. Oh, is it? Yeah, it's either the shithole of whatever or the impoverished whatever. So this one, he switched it up on us in overdosing. He said overdosing.

You know what? Sounds about right. Yeah. All right. All right. Well, let's talk about the main event of UFC on Fox 31. A lot to discuss there. Okay.

How's going, Mr. Luke Thomas? Dennis Sigur. This is Charles Jalen Ware calling out of Atlanta, Georgia. My question is about Kevin Lee. He talked a lot of smack about Khabib and the hold that he can exploit. Based on his performance against Allied Quintz Saturday night, what holes do you think Khabi can exploit if him and Kevin Lee ever match up? And how do you think a rematch between a Kib versus Aikwin's would go?

Lee personally, I think it would go the same way. I, Quentin, we do better, but the beach still beat them all five rounds. Let me hear your thoughts on that, my man. Thanks for taking my call. Keep doing what you're doing. I love the show, my man. Thanks. Hey, shots out to Charles Yellen from Atlanta, Georgia.

He always calls it. I don't feature him all the time because I also want to give opportunity to other callers. But, you know, tunes into the show, you know, all the time. And, you know, shots out to him. I went to high school in Atlanta. Oh, yeah? Yes. How was it?

I don't live in Atlanta anymore. Okay, so we'll just leave it. Atlanta's fine. Atlanta's fine. The women are beautiful. But, you know, it's the South. I mean, people, you know, they like Waffle House down there. What can you say?

I like Waffle House. Okay. You and Kid Rock, but you get the idea. It's not a cultural touch. Everybody in Florida, South Florida, all the people from South Florida know this. Waffle House is the place you hit up at like, you know, 4 a.m. No, I get it. I've had them scattered, smothered, covered dice.

I had the whole bit. I'm just saying... Some nice hash browns, eggs. I'm just saying it's like, the South is full of beautiful women and uninteresting people. I'll put it that way. All right, which I know is going to get everyone enraged,

but that's my life. Okay. What are we doing? So, Al, he called out, he wants this shot at Habib. What do you think of a rematch there? I didn't get a chance to really... I didn't get a chance to really dig into it

Monday morning analyst, but I went back and I watched the Habib fight too. Yeah. As I mentioned, what's Al really good at? His take down defense, I would say, is good. What he's really good at is he doesn't allow you to do much to him on the ground. He's good at either getting up or at least moving in transition or blocking shots or defending the submission or just, he just, it's hard to take real full advantage of it. But a guy like Habib can just take you down and hold you down or at least put himself in a controlling position to accumulate points.

And on the striking side, Al is a better striker than Habib. but I think Habib striking at this point, we gotta kind of say it's underrated. I think his speed is underrated. I think his timing is underrated. Power. But I think the caller's right. I think Al would do better.

I think it'd be much more competitive. It's just really hard to pick against Habib right now. I just can't, I can't bring myself to do that. Yeah. I don't see him beating Habib, although I would say his style is a very good style to have if you're facing someone like Habib. And we saw what it did when they actually fought.

You know, they went all five rounds. you know, he's got a pretty good take down defense. He's tough as nails. He's willing to take a punch to give one. His jab is really good. Moves well. Just a very well-rounded fighter. What's his face?

Aliquinta is. Yeah, I can totally see him do better, obviously, with a full camp. But my thing is also, you know, having Al being healthy, you know, because I know he's had certain issues before in the past. But I think when Al is healthy, dude, he's one of the best. best. I think he's the top five lightweight. That's probably right. Yep. I think his, uh, yeah, his performance outside of the cage, like the way he carries himself

in the media a lot, I think it like, you know, kind of takes away a little bit because like people just see them as like, I don't know. They see him as a big jokester. Yeah, exactly. They don't, they don't take them as a world-class fighter. Yeah, what Saturday showed me was, first of all, how gangster was that soprano's walkout. It was so good. I was like, okay, Al, I see you. But to me, what you got from that was a, not like a super serious, but in a, a, appropriately serious, committed veteran performance.

People see him as the guy who beat Masvedol in Fairfax, Virginia. And then we're like, you're going to boo me, well, F you. And I guess to an extent that's kind of who he is, but what you're seeing is a much more grown-up thoughtful owl who's making better decisions, I think, inside and outside of the cage as well. Yeah, for sure. What do you think should be next for him? Obviously, not, Habib.

He's not getting that rematch at least anytime soon. I don't know. Edson Barboso would be a good one. Edson would be fine, yeah. Anthony Pettis, Justin Gaggie, any of those guys would be good. Yeah, yeah. There's really no way. By the way, he said the Tony Ferguson fight was what he'd like.

He also threw out there Connor McGregor, which I saw, you know, a few people tweet about it. I think I was a bad matchup for Connor. I know people are going to go crazy over that. I think he's a bad matchup for him because he's hard to hurt. His cardio is phenomenal. He hits hard. He has good boxing, his good timing, yeah, the whole bit. I think the Tony Ferguson one is interesting, only because

Tony's such a risk taker and Al is a guy who takes advantage of the mistakes that come from unnecessary risk. It's like an interesting matchup. Tony's beating really amazing guys. Frankly, his resume is better at the stage than Al's.

But that's a matchup that gets my interest for sure. 100%. The only thing I would like to add to that is that I do feel like Tony Ferguson is just, I wouldn't say levels above as far as skill-wise, but as far as the work he's done in the division, he should be getting either a money fight with Connor McGregor

or maybe even, you know, Max Holloway or fight for the title, you know? I think he should fight for the title next. Tony should be, you know, doing Tony things at the top of the division. Exactly, yeah. By the way, one quick thing that I wanted to add on your Monday morning analyst, when you have the back, when you're saying you didn't,

you weren't really sure what you can do from the position while having like a figure four in the back and, you know, Al Aquinas defending with the telephone. You can just, you know, wrap around, go underneath that arm and go and, you know, get grip on the opposite shoulder. And go to the triangle.

And then, no, you can turn into an arm triangle. You can do that, but good luck doing that to Al. Here's my point. My point is you can do arm bars from there, from the back. You have to isolate the arm. Yeah, there's a lot you can do from there. If they're opening up this arm, there's ways to scoop it and do it.

Here's the point. That level of sophistication is going to take. take anybody, including Kevin Lee, who's, by the way, very good on the ground, at least for MMA purposes. We're talking years of advancement. What I'm saying to you is, it's a good way to clarify it, actually. What I'm saying to you is, we need best practices that the, I'm going to say average UFC fighter and what I mean by that is the average high-level fighter can more basically

employ rather than this constant searching for the neck and the guy is just always two-on-oneing it, hand-offending and doing this. We're getting into stalemates constantly. Your point is, there are answers to that. My point is, in MMA, the guys who are in sport jujitsu, there's a lot of guys who could do that. In MMA, there's virtually nobody that good. Cronin Gracie is a difference. He can do it, right? But that's what you have to be. You got to be that good. I'm talking about something that can be democratized across a wider array of fighters. That's it. That's true. All right, let's move on now. Let's talk about the other side of the equation. Mr. Kevin Lee.

All right. Hey, this is Phil from Atlanta, Georgia. I just have one quick question about Kevin Lee. So now after his loss on Saturday night, who do you see him fighting next? Does the rematch with Edson-Barboza seemed likely? Okay, enjoy the show.

I'll hang up now. Thank you. Can I tell you who I'm feeling? I don't know that I want to see another Edson-Barboza fight because... Yeah, I don't either. It happened so recent. That, and it's like, what Kevin Lee has to work on

is not really his ground game. Like, when he beat Al, he beat Al on the ground. And again, I'm not saying every time they were on the ground, but look at the first fight. He won the second round. How did he win the second round on the first fight? On the ground. How did he score points in this one?

On the ground. He got a couple of nice shots here or there. But, like, his ground game is phenomenal. That's how he beat Edson. And moving to Mount, by the way. Yeah. What I'm trying to say is he needs growth in his striking and it's come a long way, and he's so much better.

But what about Anthony Pettus? They had Pettus and Gachey rumored, but Gachi was out there calling for other people this weekend. So that seems like a one that could be kind of interesting. Yeah, and Pettus coming off that Ferguson loss. Exactly. It makes sense there. Kevin Lee did mention that he really wants that 165-pound weight class,

but at least we don't know that it's going to come anytime soon. So he did mention that maybe Walterweight might interest him, because the cuts are getting harder. I would throw out there, recent winner, Gunner Nelson. Ooh, that'd be a good one. Gunner is not a big guy. That'd be a firm for that division. That's a bad matchup for Kevin right now on the feet.

Well, that's a tough matchup for him. That's a tough matchup for him. Kevin, so here's the other thing about Kevin, that people are going to bury him. I had someone saying this on Twitter to me today. They were like, I was like, you know, I was teasing that we were going to do the Monday morning analyst. And I was saying like, oh, we're going to talk about why,

Kevin Lee or why I'll be Kevin. And whenever I do that, I always get two kinds of responses. Like, how did Max beat Brian? And people always go, he punched him in the face, bro. It's like, thank you for this illuminating conversation. But the other one is that, oh, you see it all the time. Kevin Lee sucks, bro. He was overrated.

No. Kevin Lee's 26. And I don't know how he's going to progress. But Al Iquint is, what, 31? Yeah. Was Al as good as Kevin Lee is now? five years ago, I would submit to you he wasn't. I would submit to you that he wasn't.

Kevin Lee is 26 years old, and he keeps trying to reach for that next ladder rung. He's coming up a little bit short. But notice what the words I'm saying are, a little bit short. I am a big believer in Kevin Lee's ability. I'm a big believer in how good he is. I just think he has to keep going a little bit and he'll round those corners.

Yeah. Also, like, he might just be fighting in a wrong weight class, too. we got to consider that too. Like, there's so many fighters that are good and just can't reach that next level. And when you're at the very top, just little things can make huge differences. Maybe just five extra pounds just turns them into a killer. You know, so who knows? But yeah, so let's keep talking about UFC Milwaukee.

This caller had an interesting question. Hey, Lou K, Danny. This is John from Lake the Village, Michigan. I went into Milwaukee for the Fox Fight Night, and I was looking around the stands. I saw a lot of empty seats there, and I then, between fights, I was looking on my phone,

and I noticed that they had a Groupon for this fight where you could have gotten like 37% off the lower-level tickets. Luke, have you ever heard of a UFC event ever-needing a Groupon? sell tickets, just wondering. I really enjoy the show. Thanks for great work. Bye.

Yeah, that's a... Yeah, so I don't really know where I'm going with that question, but have you ever even used Groupon? I haven't... I think I used Groupon once. Is it a thing where you have to buy something or whatever the case is with a lot of...

Like, you've got to get like several people on board. Is that what it is? Not necessarily. Here, I can show you a coupon. I had it a Groupon once for like a hot air balloon experience. Okay. Because a friend of mine recommended it. Here in the U.S.

Yeah, here in the U.S. Yeah. Yeah, you can do group-ons for meals. Yeah. You can do group-ons, like if you order certain things to buy stuff. I've heard of group-ons. Like, here you go. You can go to the tanning spot NYC.

Instead of 40 bucks, it's 19, bro. 19. What's the difference from, like, do you have to do something? You have to pay for a coupon? Yeah, you pay for it. It's like, but you're, it, they essentially serve as like an advertising conduit for it. Like, it's like, you want to have a sale on something. They just have a much bigger reach about it. And then I guess they take a cut from all this kind of stuff too. So it's like their platform to advertise your sale. Okay. Something like that. In any event, I've seen other promoters do it. I've never seen UFC do it. That's, I'm not saying they never have before. That's new for me. They revised attendance was up from 7,000. It was closer to about 10. It was sub 10. It was like 9.

and some change. Here's the thing about that. First of all, the ratings were much better this time around. I'm not going to say they were amazing, but they were better. They were definitely better. Number one. Number two, like the thing about it is, Dana White went on first take last week,

which is one of ESPN's top programs. He went on Get Up, which is their top program. And I could be wrong about this. If I am, by all means, correct me. But I saw the videos that they put on YouTube. I did not watch them live, but I've watched the YouTube ones, the full ones. he didn't mention that event one time

and he went on two different ESPN shows in studio it's not like they went out of their way to promote that one hardcore they didn't even have a local guy in the main event they had a bunch of Rufusport guys they had a bit of a rough night but but okay neither here nor there like what am I supposed to say they barely promoted it

like it did well in the ratings okay it's a fantastic card man if you were a fan you were there that night that was a pretty good fight also if the UFC's had a problem recently it's actually not so much been with attendance. It's been with declining ratings and pay-per-view. This one was a bit of the opposite.

I'm hesitant to read too much into it. Yeah. All right, with that out of the way, let's move on and let's talk about Fox, sort of the big picture, and now the UFC transitioning to ESPN. All right. Hey, guys, it's Alexandria,

representing the 352. My question is, will you miss Big Fox, or are you more excited for ESPN Plus? Let me know. Thanks, guys. What is the 352? Gainesville. No?

Is it? I think so. Yeah, she calls from Gainesville. Is that right? I'm pretty sure. Yeah, it is Gainesville. Shouts out to Gainesville. Someone's got to.

I'm such a hater. It's unbelievable. Yeah, hey, someone's got a hate. Yeah, you know what? Like T.I. said, haters, time to get on your job. And I got my hard hat and I went to work. Okay. What was the question?

Oh, am I got to miss Big Fox? You know what? Or are you excited for ESPN? I'm more excited for ESPN. Because here's what it looks like to me. The ESPN deal is about many things, one of which, of course, is no one really knows. Like, what was interesting about the Fox deal?

I made this point in my radio show. What was interesting about the Fox deal is, think about the Fox deal, Danny. It was 2011, yeah? It kicked in 2012, but it was 2011. They announced it. And what they said was, do you remember this quote from Lorenzo Fertita? He said, if by the end of the Fox deal,

if all we've added is another. 100,000 subscribers or not 100,000 buyers of pay-per-view, then if nothing else works, that alone will have made the deal worth it. And we are so far from that, and you could blame a lot of things that the UFC had control over, namely the glut of shows, for example. But what that deal really told you back then was, people just believed in the continuity of television in 2011. Everyone thought, let's just double down on this medium. And what happened is underneath their feet and everybody else's feet during that time is television changed. This deal with ESPN is interesting to me because it's somewhat future proof. Is ESPN going to stay the way it is? Is streaming the

future? No one really knows. Maybe it's a combination of both. This deal is built in as a challenge to the last one, which really gives me some hope about it. That's why I'm really excited about it. But yeah, I'm going to miss Fox, man. Those FS, those FS1 shows can die in a fire. Seriously, if FS1 was a person, not FS1. If the FS1 shows were a person, I would lock it in a coffin, set it on fire, and then after it burned, chuck the ashes in water so that no one would ever find it again. Those 10 p.m. start times... Man, you've planned this out. Those 10 p.m. start times, I mean, they... I can't tell you how much life I've lost as a consequence of them. Yeah, those were brutal. I'm more looking forward to the ESPN rather than, you know, being sad and

missing Fox. But the big Fox shows? But the big Fox show. 8 p.m. start time. Four fights. I loved those shows. Loved them. Those were awesome.

Favorite Fox memory. U.S.C. and Fox Memory. Nate Diaz giving Benson Henderson the finger. Oh, okay. Or Nate Diaz going Kada McGager, you took everything I'll work for, M.F.

That's a pretty good one, too. Yeah, those are pretty good. My name involves Nate Diaz, too. Oh, yeah? That's a great one. That was the best. Yeah. That, I mean, that was a good internet right there. That was good internet.

Nate Diaz and Fox, man. Bro, what a treasure he is, huh? Yeah, he really took advantage. Probably the fighter who benefited most out of the Fox deal was Nate Diaz. That's actually a great question. Which fighter benefited most? That's a really interesting one.

Nate Diaz got that Connor McGregor fight. It changed his career. Yeah, it did. That's a great point. Yep, that's actually a really good point. Yep. All right. Let's move on.

So, UFC, Milwaukee happened this weekend, but also at kind of almost the same time, Bellator was going on in Hawaii. So let's talk about that. Hey, Luke, this is Joelle. I'm calling from Honolulu International Airport on my way back to Los Angeles after watching Bellator 213 on Saturday night. And wow, what a card it was. The question I have for you, Luke, is this weekend I saw what I thought to be Bellator

emerging from the shadow of the UFC and really coming. into their own. It was a heck of a promotion. Where do you see the state of competition between the UFC and Bellator over the next few years? And do you think that the Honolulu card will mark a turning point where we move away from what seems to be the cult of personality surrounding Dana White and UFC and more towards respect for the athletes, respect for the sport and for martial arts, and seeing the athletes get their due? We'd love to hear your opinion. Thanks, Luke. Appreciate it. Aloha from Honolulu. Super cool. What a great call and what a great question.

Yeah. I'm always going to keep repeating this. Look at who has the talent share. The UFC still has well in excess of 80% of the world's top talent. And so as long as that is the case, this notion of like Bellator really challenging them for supremacy, I think is a little bit premature. However, let's see how things shake out. Let's see what acquisitions they make. But the biggest thing for me is like, Scott, Scott Coker knows his MMA. And Rich Chow knows his MMA. And what they understand about MMA, and all promoters understand it to varying degrees, but some celebrate it more, is what they've been doing it for a while. But the UFC just turns MMA into banquet food, where it's all the same and it's just designed to be processed at scale. And when they take time to really promote something as special, lo and behold, it comes out pretty special, right? Max versus Ortega. I thought they did a really good job

or promoting that fight, for example. But I made this point before, the individual matters so greatly in MMA, but so do the shared communal roots that we all have. You don't really know Santiago Panzanibio until you hear him speak in that Argentine accent, I mean in Spanish with the Argentine accent. And he's out there, dude,

he met the leader of Argentina. He's getting keys to the city, and he's coming out to, I don't think it was soda stereo, some other famous Argentine rock band. And the crowd has responded to him, dude, that is Santiago Ponzanibio. Right? When Ilema Le McFarlane is coming out with these traditional Hawaiian,

I don't even know what the word would be described them, but these interesting intros. And she's wearing the colors of her people, and these guys are doing these traditional dances and these greetings. Dude, that is Ilema Leigh McFarlane. Gives you chills, right? You don't know these people until you see that. That is who you are.

And I would say this to you, Danny. You are, to me, I don't know how you should. feel about it. I would actually ask you how you feel. I have somewhat of a better appreciation this by virtue of who I married in this world. But I have heard you, we speak English to each other. And I've heard you talk to my wife. I got a better sense of you when I saw you to interact. Your Spanish sounds the same as hers to my ear. It's like, dude, you're both things at this point, but that is who you are. And Bellator celebrates that. And it is awesome. It is awesome. It is awesome. How do you, do you agree with me?

And how do you feel about that question? Oh, for sure. As far as language-wise, like, it almost feels like, you know, if I'm thinking in English, it's almost different than when I'm thinking in Spanish. And I feel like a lot of people who are bilingual or trilingual can, you know, maybe feel the same way. And in a way, you get to share, you know, language is so important. A lot of aspects of your personality and who you are can come across when I speak

Spanish than, you know, if I speak in English, you know, they probably wouldn't, they'd probably be absent. Your Spanish is faster. I've noticed that. Yeah, for sure. I mean, that's my native tongue. I grew up speaking Spanish. I lived in Colombia until I was 12 years old.

You know, that's my first language. And, yeah, what Bellatory is doing, like, taking these fights to, you know, the headliners where they're from, where they're supposed to be, I mean, that's just genius. Not only that, but, like, you also feel different towards someone when you see other people, react to that person in a certain way. For example, me watching the leech fight in China beating Zach Otto. I would have seen that in Milwaukee. Who cares?

Nobody cares. But the standing ovation that that guy got and everybody cheering for him in the arena, same thing with Elim Malay McFarlane this Saturday. It gives you a different sense of who that person is and also what that person means to others as well. So, yeah, it is super important. But as far as this question goes, I think obviously the race, It's still pretty far. The UFC's the leader here,

but, you know, Belator is doing really good things, the zone deal. Not only that, but, and you've touched about this, you're like, well, in the past, who's Belator? What's their identity? It seems like they're having an identity crisis. This weekend, I've got a pretty good look at who Belator is.

Agreed. Main event on Friday, Belator guys, two Belator guys at Brent Primis versus Mike Chandler. Great fight. Fantastic fight, actually. But then you also have the Frank Meier fighting in the comane. You also have the big names of the UFC.

Same thing on Saturday. Lioto Machita making his debut, but Elimala was the star. You know what I'm saying? So Bellator is now showing like, look, we got all these assets, we got all these acquisitions. We can be the home for the former UFC fighters,

the former legends, but we can also bring our, you know, our talent. And look, some people are so famous that they transcend territory. But imagine Connor never fought in Dublin. What would you have missed out on that show? You just, you don't know these people until you know who they are

when they are, it's imploribus, you know, out of many, one. I kind of feel like it takes someone like Elaine McFarland, if she was in the UFC, maybe she would beat Schiffchenko, I don't know, probably not, but let's just say she would. Yeah. Would that be her real, like, would that be her legacy? It's like, I suppose so, but now seeing her in this environment, she gets a much greater degree of visibility,

not my virtue of being in the main event, but by seeing she is representative of this entire population, and they embrace her as well. Dude, it's a completely different way to To promote. It's been missing in the sport. I take my hat off to Belator. I thought Belator hit a home run this past weekend.

Yeah, it was great. Good for them. Plus all that footage from Hawaii was sick. Yeah, I was bitter about that. You kind of get tired of like the same backdrop and like, you know, same arena. It's a round world, man. Go see it. Yeah, for sure. All right. This is not really MMA related,

but I thought it was a fair question. Okay. Hey Luke, it's Jake calling in from Western Mass. I know you're more of a Taco Bell kind of guy, but my question for you is, do you think you could finish an entire large two-topping pizza in one sitting? I'm talking one glass of water, soda, whatever you do, but in one sitting, can you crush a whole large pizza? All right, if so, I'd like to see you post on social media. Have you ever seen those eating challenges?

In fact, bodybuilders do it on... like the 10,000 calorie challenge. Like you need 12 eggs or something. Yeah, no, dude, if you get 10,000 calories, you got to do a lot more than that. But like Max Chuning does a 10,000 calorie challenge. And Brian, you know Brian Shaw, World Strongest Man, Four Time World Strongest Man?

Yes, yeah. He did one, I think it was like either a 15 or a 20,000 calorie challenge that he got up to. Now, he's 400 plus pounds, but I have no desire to try that. I have not, there's nothing I watch about that. And I'm like, wow, man, that looks awesome. Yeah, yeah. Like, when you actually see what someone has to do to get to 10,000 calories?

That's gross, bro. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So could I do it? What's one sitting? An hour? Yeah. That's about how long a dinner lasts, right? About it.

Probably I could. I'm not even going to come close to attempting. I've come close to finishing a whole pie by and something. A large? Yeah. With toppings or just cheese? Pepperoni. Mm.

You're... What's the most you've ever eaten? Like, have you ever remember, like, whole... Oh, when I was in, when I was in college, I was in a fraternity, and we did the Taco Bell Gallen of Milk Challenge. That sounds horrible. It was real bad.

So we went to Taco Bell, and they didn't tell us we were doing this. We thought it was just the Taco Bell Challenge. Oh, wait, was this like a hazing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. You know where hazing comes from, by the way, right? Hazing comes from the military. So what happened was all these rituals of abuse

after the GI Bill came, they gave it to all these guys after World War II. They all show up to college, and they're like, hey, look at these games we played, and they sort of entered the philanthropic system, and that's how you get fraternity hazy. I was in a fraternity in college, loved every minute of it.

So I know fraternies get a bad name now. I had an awesome time. Trust me. Your boy fried a gazillion brain cells, and I don't regret one single loss of them. In any event, we had a taco eating contest, which I lost. I think I got up to like seven or something.

Okay. Seven or eight, maybe. Then we got back, and we had to finish a gallon of milk. And I think in an hour of milk, hour. And what happens is you can't actually do it. Have you ever drink a gallon of milk? But before, like, what happens is you just end up, like, when I say vomiting, I mean projectile vomiting. So there were garbage bags and cans everywhere, and they made us drink

till we all vomited up. These are really stupid games that I cannot defend in a rational basis other than to say that at college I had a really good time. So there you go. That sounds horrible. Fun fact, at one time, Chipotle had this promotion. It was like, buy one burrito, get another one free. That's a lot of burritos, bro. I was wrestling So the first weight class that I wrestled in high school was 103 pounds, 103.

Chiquitiko. And then I jumped from literally in one summer, I jumped from 103 to 125. Wow! And I was just eating like a madman because I'm like, there's no way I'm going to be a senior and weigh 103 pounds. So I ate two, the most irony in was in one sitting, two Chipotle burritos

and I have witnesses. I don't know if I could do that. That's a lot, dude. That's a lot. All right, let's go through a couple of these questions, but we get to to Ray Long. go cool let's talk about uh uc 2 32 right up yep hey luke and danny i'm chris from indianapolis indiana and i'm curious looking forward to ufc 232 main event who do you guys think has the most to lose so gustafson loses is he looking at a very long road back um to a title fight since this will be his third time fighting for a title uh when people talk about the great at light heavyweight is he

going to be just a footnote and if jones loses is he going to be not done down the list when people talk about the greatest of all time. And will this be a sign that his best fighting days are behind him? Thanks. Great question. I've actually thought a lot about this. So the truth is what makes one of this main event great is not really how capable the fighters are, but to the callers point, Danny, the stakes involved.

I would submit that as much as Gustafson has to lose, and it would be, it's hard to say. I would argue Jones has more to lose because he's never lost before. However, a loss for Gustafson would be more career defining. Because to his point, if he loses, and let's say it's relatively straightforward, whatever that means, his chances to get a title unless John goes up to heavyweight or virtually nil at that point, in which case he'd probably have to go to heavyweight. And you would just be sort of marked for life as the guy who was not quite good enough. John losing, he's never lost before, so that would be terrible.

but at the same time he had to have a chance to come back. He could say it's the layoff, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So it's close. I would still say John because of it would just tear him down from... There'd be so... There'd be... The apocalypse is going to happen if John loses.

Yeah, but there is something permanent about Gustafson if he loses. Yeah, I would go with Gus because if John loses, in some sort of strange way, it would spice things up. And all of a sudden you're like, wait, a third fight with Corpian. Hmm, that could be interesting. Or he can move up to heavy...

Wade, I mean, he will still remain at the top. Like, his fall wouldn't be bad. If Gus loses, I believe this is his third title shot, it'll just be such a long road to get back at the top. Well, John Jones is still a big name. I mean, if he loses, he can, it wouldn't be a crazy idea. If he would just go, okay, I'm moving up to a heavyweight and gets a title shot immediately.

Wouldn't be crazy at all. But for Gus, you know, a little rougher. So I think the consequences of Gus losing are greater than for John. Fair enough. I can get a boy with that. All right. So I'm going to get Ray in, and I'm going to leave you with this question.

All right. Sounds good. Let's do it. Prove him wrong. Hey, Luke, James from New York. As impressive as Holloway looked on Saturday, even though I think Ortega was on a hype train because I really didn't like the competition that he fought, can you tell me why I'm wrong in thinking that Holloway cannot be six of the top

seven guys at 155. I honestly think the only chance he has is against Connor. And I just want you to prove me wrong. So prove me wrong. I don't think that Holloway does anything at 155. Prove me wrong. Thanks, buddy. Great show.

Bye-bye. That's an interesting question. Prove you're wrong. All right, he can only beat Connor in the top seven. Well, let's read out who's in the top seven. Well, top six, if you're going to include Habib. So there's Habib, Tony, Connor, Dustin, for now, Kevin Lee, Edson Barbosa, and Justin Gachie.

Well, you know, look, we have to have a degree of humility about this. I'm not Ms. Cleo. I don't know exactly how he would do. But here's why there's reasons for optimism. Number one, he has it, it appears, a pretty good chin. In 155, it would be only more enabled because the weight cut would be that much less. Number two, as I've said before, what makes Max Holloway so interesting is he takes what they call the basics. But they don't mean basic like a white girl who orders a pumpkin spice lots of.

in October. That's not what they mean by basic. What they mean by basic is foundational. He has all the foundational elements of striking that he has a down pat and then has built a modular game around it. In other words, are you a kickboxer who likes to fight at range? Are you a boxer who likes to fight in close? Are you Southpaw? Are you orthodox? Which way do you circle? Do you like to come forward? Do you like to back up? Do you lead? Do you counter strike? Max can adjust his game in a modular way. He's like an AR-15. I hate to make a gun comparison, but let's just make it.

An AR-15, what makes it so powerful is a lot of different reasons. One is that it's incredibly modular. You can add a lot of different things to it, scopes, sight posts, grips, all kinds of different lights, all kinds of different things you can add to it or subtract from it on the hand guards to make it do a lot of different things.

And so Max, in that sense, is just incredibly capable of, like, whatever that challenge is, he can go into his toolkit and figure I can do this, this, this, and that's a bad matcher for that. So he can make himself a bad matchup to so many different kinds of people. Now, how would his take down defense and physicality hold up against the Habib with these other wrestlers? I mean, your guess is as good as mine. But I think it is very foolish, very foolish to count out a guy like that.

Now, speaking of being foolish to count out a guy like that, man, Al-I-Quinta, what a performance on Saturday. As I mentioned before, in some ways, quintessential Al, but in some other ways, a real mature, amazing, thoughtful, pressuring, but careful Al at the same time. And his coach now, I believe, joins us on the telephone. The inimitable Ray Longo. Ray, welcome to the show, sir. How are you? Great. Look, I couldn't feel better, Luke.

I mean, honest with you. I thought it was a great night. I'm feeling it. I feel really happy for Al. And I think you said something in your introduction. I think we did see a more mature out, even outside of the cage. And I think that all laid into the cage. And you saw a very patient, calculated, cool, calming, collected, ally of Quinta.

Let's talk about the game plan now that it's already out there. What was the thought process heading into this contest? Well, we wanted to take away the rear naked choke. I know he's a very strong grappler. So, you know, you could see he was never really in any danger down there. I mean, Matt had him very, very properly trained. He's got so many high-level jujitsu guys over there that attacked Al's neck, not every day of the week, but whenever Al was over there, that Al felt very, very confident defending.

And I think it showed in the fight. And standing up wise, I knew it would be kind of like. like the first fight. I didn't see any people were talking about Kevin Lee's reach. I never saw a fight where he's actually used his reach. You know, his reach is very important when he gets his hands around the back of your legs on the cage. That's where he's really tough.

He's very strong and he's got long arms and it's hard to spread your legs out and really defend the right way. And I think that's why he sees the success. But standing up, he didn't evolve to a guy who's keeping you at the end of his punches. At least I've never seen it. I didn't understand the value of his stance switching. You know, last week, Ray, I'm sure you saw Max Holloway and Brian Ortega. Max Holloway, when he switches stance, he's so lethal no matter what.

To me, Kevin Lee, again, he's only 26 years old. I think he's got a bright future. But I didn't see the value in it. I'm not sure what it added. Do you share my assessment? Yeah, no, it actually added nothing. If anything, he got him in trouble. Look, but Holloway's a different creature.

That's the first thing. And what really makes Max Holloway really good, he don't give his shit about getting hit in the head. You know, you, you know, he's, you with him, he's coming back with five. You with Kevin Lee, he's backpedaling. You see the look in his face of confusion. You never see that with Max Holloway. So Max is a different creature than that. But no, I don't think the stance switching, you know, I don't think it did him anything.

You know, look, Kevin Lee is a very strong guy. He's very athletic. So when he throws, he throws hard, but it's never a combination. He's never slipping and ripping. He's not, you know, he's not the most sophisticated striker, but he certainly is strong and he throws hard. But the stand switching, I think, did nothing to, it didn't confuse anybody if that's what you're asking.

No, I didn't look like it did either. You know, it was one thing else I noticed? Kevin said after the fight, he thought he won the first three rounds. And let me tell you what I saw. At first I was thinking, geez, that doesn't sound right at all. I thought Al kind of ran away with it. I watched it again, and let me tell you this, I still think Al is the clear, decisive winner.

But here's what I did notice. There were times when Kevin would land on Al, and Al just no sold it, but when Al landed on Kevin, to your point, it had a big impact on him. Did you notice that as well? Thanks. I'm agreeing 100% with that.

You know, you saw it. Look, Al just kept going, you're 100% right. Al did get hit, but he, never ever looked like the guy that wasn't in control of those stand-up battles. Never ever. I mean, he was pushing him back. And even when he did get hit, he just took it away immediately just by, you know, his posturing

and his ability to deal with getting hit and coming right back. So when Kevin got hit, it was, like, dramatic. So, you know, look, the fact that even says after what happened in the fourth and fifth, like, like, he's looking to eke out of victory. I mean, you can't possibly think you won that fight. I mean, I don't even know. I mean, I, look, I gave Al one, two, four, and five, two being the close one, because he did do some damage on the floor, but the last two minutes of that round was Al chasing the guy around again. And pot shot him all over the place.

So depending on what you're looking for, but if you're looking for damage, Al did the most damage in that fight. And he always looked like the guy that was in control. even when he was in bad positions. He never looked like he was in any danger of getting a choke finished. The first fight was, you know, was definitely way closer than this fight, you know, as far as going for the choke. But, like, again, you know, it's almost like his talking, you know, you got to back up your talk. He's the guy that looked like he didn't, you know, evolve at all. I mean, his stand-up didn't evolve.

than he did better in the first fight than he did on the second fight with as far as attacking the back. You know, as crazy as Al comes out to that Sopranos theme, which was just the best. I mean, that, if you didn't get, if you didn't, you know, fist pump to that, you're probably dead inside. But then Kevin came out dancing.

Man, that's usually, I don't know what it is. Why is it, Ray, then we see fighters come out dancing. Sometimes they win. It's not like they always lose, but it does feel like that pre-fight dancing is, is a bit of a red flag. Yeah. Yeah, I listen, I don't know, but I do agree with you again on that.

Yeah, I just, I hope my guys never want to do that. But I don't know. It's, yeah, you got to, you got to stay focused, man. I don't even like any of the bullshit talking. Look, I thought out, like, again, handled himself like a professional after the Friday, thank Kevin Lee, thanks Sean Shelby, Hunter Campbell. I think, like you said at the beginning, what I, would I, what I, would I saw, it wasn't a physical thing.

It was more of a coming of age and just maturing as a person. And, you know, here's a kid that just really wanted to get paid for his performances. That's all. You know, he always told him, I just want to go in there, feel good about what I'm making and thank Sean Shelby. That's what he would tell me, you know what I mean? And here's a kid that never lets anybody down in the spotlight. His main event performance, he always comes through.

He always fights with his heart. And, you know, like he said, even in the Khabit's fight, they'd still be fighting, both of them. Both of those guys would have never stopped fighting in that fight. Nobody was going to quit. And I think that's the mindset you want in a fighter. Was he, was Al happy with his performance after the fight? I think so, yeah. I mean, you know, I think everybody, everybody was happy.

And I have to say, you know, he was happy. You know, even when you look at the end of the fight, like Al just loves the fight. I don't even think he gave his shit about winning or losing. He just really wanted to fight, you know, and I think that was the other problem. The other guy was, you know, if he could have eeked down a decision somehow, he would have been happy with that. Al doesn't want to fight like that. He wants to fight and then, you know, yeah, so to answer your question, I think he was very happy with his performance. Yeah, well, he would have to be.

I would say this was his best one, in part because I do think Kevin Lee is very, very talented. You know, against Al, it certainly just was not a good. enough on Saturday night, but he's beaten some really good fighters before, like Edson Barbosa, and he gave Tony Ferguson a run before things went south. And I have a lot of respect for him. And just as you mentioned, it was the maturation of skill and then the maturation of self. It was a bit of a can't lose position for him. Without a doubt. Without a doubt, that's what I felt. And, you know, look, when I started looking at the fight and who they fought first of all, because I really was confused over why Al was such

a big underdog, but, you know, luckily it worked out for everybody on Long Island because they won a lot of money. But I was really, really confused. I was like, wow, what are they seeing? Are they not put in any emphasis on what this guy did with Khabi on 24-hour notice? This guy has molded everybody, like mold them. And as far as, you know, Kevin Lee beaten Barbosa, he beat Bobozer after the guy got literally hammered by a grizzly bear. You know, like, I think he caught him at the right time. So I didn't even put any emphasis on that. And, you know, I'll have three rounds with Jorge Mosvidal, which I thought was who I think is one of the best fighters out there, tough as nails, skillful as hell. And I put more credence into that than what I was looking on the

other side. So we felt confident going in there. But look, I'm just glad to work out the way it did because we've had so many problems with injuries and just getting people to the fights, you know, healthy. So luckily this one worked out. I mean, you never know, right? Luck is what luck is. It's unpredictable and sometimes it's difficult. But do you feel like Al has, do you feel like Al has his injury woes behind him for the most part?

Look, we did a great job this camp. Are they behind them completely? No, definitely not. He'll always have to deal with certain things. But I think we found the recipe how to work around them. And, you know, he's got a great team around him now. He's got, you know, he goes out to Staten Island with the sports sciences. They really stay on top of him.

He's got a couple of Dr. Sherry over here in the house that watches him, you know, every day that he's here. So he's going to need that type of monitoring. I think he's got those type of injuries. But who the hell knows, man? You know, I've seen him with great days and I've seen him with really not good days. So to answer your questions, I really hope that it's behind them. But I can't say that positively, you know.

And, you know, that's what to me was such a great. you know, it was just a great culmination of watching all the things that he does. It's like his rehab. He's so disciplined with doing like even like the little band stuff and how to keep that knee and all the surrounding muscles functioning right for him. Like he's very, very disciplined, but it takes hours before and after sparring, before and after working out. I've never seen a guy that discipline.

And that's what it's going to take to go forward. So he doesn't have a lot of margin forever in the future. And, you know, as you get older, it's going to get worse. But I think for right now, we found the recipe. And I think if he sticks to that, he's going to be cheese. He's held for anybody, man. You know that at this point. He's coming to fight.

He's never disappointed in the fight. He's always coming forward and not just going forward getting hit. He's coming forward, making you missing hit. And so I couldn't be happier for a guy. I watched the time. And I watched, you know, the sacrifices he's made to just get to this point. And what's interesting is he seems to be. to your point, given his post-fight comments,

he seems to be, look, Al believes what he believes, and that shouldn't change. But in him, he's found a working relationship with the UFC, it seems. I believe 100%. I mean, you know, Al has a great family behind them, you know, and a lot of people don't even have that luxury, you know. So he's got really great support.

He's got, you know, great teammates and people that really like him. And, you know, I texted Sean, Sean did a great job with this guy because trust me, they go back and forth. It's craziness, but it almost is craziness to the point of, you know, comedy at this point. But Sean really stayed the course with this guy. He believed in him, you know, he loves Al's father. And, yeah, I think they got a great working relationship. I hope that stays the course, you know, because that took a while, man.

Those guys went back and forth and all the crap, you know. But I'll just look, at the end of the day, he just wanted to. feel like he was appreciated. And he's never let anybody down with his performances. He always comes to fight. So I think they found the right thing now. And hopefully it just progresses from here on out. You know, did he buy himself a lot of goodwill with that Nirmigameadov performance?

Because as you noted, we've seen what Numergumatov does to everybody else. Al took him on short notice and they made a strong account of himself. Plus, he did the promotion of solid. It seems like maybe they turned a corner together at that time. Hopefully. I mean, look, it was very. Certainly, in my head, I considered it greatwill. You know what I mean?

It wasn't even goodwill. It was, you know, I think he really did a great job stepping up. And again, against it, I don't know, I put so much emphasis on that fight because I guess I know I trained them for three rounds. And I was like going into that fight. I'm like, this is insanity. You know what I mean? But if anybody could do it, it's Alan. I don't know.

I put a lot of credit on that. And I hope the UFC did. Maybe you're right. Maybe that's what turned the corner. But it's all good, man. There's a lot of good things, not just the win. That's what I'm saying. There's a lot of things on the periphery that also happened,

that I'm just glad to see the relationships and some of the other stuff and just, you know, overcoming adversity with the injuries and just watching it culminate into a great performance on the last Fox card ever. You know what I mean? Which I heard the ratings were pretty high. Yeah, they were the best in two years for overnight, so which is a great thing to see. Last thing about Al, you know, what's funny is I still think the raging nickname is appropriate because look at what a ferocious competitor he is.

He was in Kevin Lee's face right after the last bell sounded. But then they stick a microphone in his face and he was ever the statesman. So like, I think sometimes Al, it's true though, but don't you, I was there in Fairfax when he yelled at the crowd after the Mazvedal fight. I'm not saying Al doesn't have a little bit of that left in him, but it seems to me he can channel it more appropriately. Hey, listen, look, when I explain killer instinct to people, not that I explain, I mean, wherever I got it from, but it's got to be like a light switch. You got to be able to turn it on and turn it right off. You can't walk around like a lunatic 24 hours a day.

So you have to know how to really bring it on at an instant and get rid of it at an instant. And I think that's what you saw. He was raging for the last 10 seconds of that fight. And he went right back to, you know, you want that, you don't want a lunatic on the mic. and then he handled himself. Again, a statesman's a pretty cool analogy. And then he read, cool and collective. But, you know, thanking Kevin Lee was in the moment, knew exactly what was going on. And that was, like you said, right after, you know, screaming in his face, same out.

You know, with his hands down, with no regard for whatever this guy could throw at him. I think, man, that's the stuff movies are made out of. I mean, I think that's going to live on forever. Who should he fight next? I like to see him, you know, I really like to see him fight Connor next. You know, I don't think Connor deserves the Khabibibibib at all. And it looks like they're going to get Ferguson, you know, Kibibb, which is 100% fair. That makes, you know, fair sense.

Not everything is, you know, you know this loop, not everything is fair sense. It's money sense. And, but I'd like to see I'll get a big money fight against, you know, a good, a great guy who could, you know, bring a lot of eyeballs to pay for you. I think that would be great. I think Al deserves it. And I think that's a great matchup. I'd love to see it. I'd love to be a part of it. Now, I think Al

matches up with him well in the cage. But as you know, man, there are some depths that Connor will sink to to promote a fight. Does Al really want that in his life? Wait a minute. Luke, you know what? I think I take that back. I don't even think I want that in my life. Yeah, exactly.

I think you're making a good. I'd rather run for political office and have that guy researching my doing my background check. But, uh, yeah, I don't think Al gives his shit. I said,

I think it's all good. And I think, you know, I think Connor knows who he can get away with that shit with and who he can't. You know, he's a street kid. So I, I think it'll be to no avail.

And yeah, that's all good stuff. I think, you look, it's entertainment at the end of the day. I don't, I really don't take anything personal at this point. And I don't think,

you know, Al just wants to fight. You know, it's almost like what he did with, with Kevin. Lee, same Al. That's what you want to say. And now is your time to do it. You know, it's put up a shut up. He said he was interested in a fight against Tony Ferguson. Now, of course, I could mention all these fights and you'll probably say you like them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But outside of Connor,

that seems like a, that could be a really interesting fight for Al. That's a great fight. That would be a, I think, look, I got Ferguson up there. Ferguson is unbelievable. So that's a, that's a great challenge for Al. But I think that, like again, think Ferguson does deserve the fight with Khabit. So, I mean, I'm just going based on that. I mean, look, Al's going to take any fight. I think he deserves a big, big fight for sure. Either way it goes.

But I think Ferguson really deserves, I mean, I think the Kibib fight is the way to go. Because Ferguson's, I mean, what else can that guy do in the division? I think it's only fair to give him a title fight. And, but if it has to be Al, for some reason, then that's fine. That's great. just pick your brain on that. Who wins in a Tony Ferguson-Habib-Numbergam-A-off fight? I'm going to tell you

something, man. I know I... You'd have to give me more time to think about it. That's not a done deal. You know what I mean? So, I don't know. I mean, I got to tell you, because

Ferguson has the gas tank to survive on the floor and to get up and keep pushing the action. And it looks like Khabi always takes a round off, like round three or four, which normally I know what Al was telling me after the first two rounds his arms with kids from defending that guy

so whoever can get up off the floor and still have enough juice in there stand up to press the action is a problem for Khabibh. Before we let you go real quickly you know I know Chris Weybin had a bit of a rough run in his last contest.

You never want to change something that's not broken but I do wonder how you feel about him in a potential move to 205 pounds. Is that something as a trainer you think would be beneficial for him? You know, it's funny.

We were just talking about weight cuts a little while ago. I mean, he's guys really killed themselves making the weight. So I think that's a potential thing. You know, but, you know, he's scheduled for surgery on his neck again, December 26th.

He definitely scheduled it. They're going to see if they could, if it doesn't have to be, it won't be. But, you know, he's got some injuries, man, that he's going to have to deal with that are really coming back to bite them in the ass, I think. So 205, and you never know. And those injuries could be a result of, you know,

making the weight and dehydrate in your body and, you know, not being 100%, you know, in that regard. So 2.1, I think it's a possibility, but we never really sat down and talked about it. But, you know, I think it's worth entertaining. But right now, for me, I just want to see a healthy Chris Wyden for anything, you know, just in general. And that's for all my guys at this point.

This sport is unforgiving, man. And these guys, their bodies go through hell. You know what I mean? And I think that's where even out was coming for wanting to get paid. You know, he just, it's not a look, this ain't an easy sport. Nobody's, you can see by some of the older guys now that are starting to retire. They're not getting out of their unscated. You know what I mean?

So these guys deserve to make money. They know the risk and rewards. And, yeah, if 205 is going to make him healthier, then I'm 100% for it. Well, I got to tell you, Al-I Quinta looked amazing on Saturday. I think he woke up a lot of people, surprised some, confirmed the beliefs of others,

and you guys did a fantastic job getting him ready. Ray, I really appreciate your time. I take my hat off to you, and can't wait to see what you guys over there in Long Island have cooked up next. Beautiful. Thank you very much, Luke, for having me on. Really, good luck with the show.

I hope it's going great for it. Thank you, buddy. I appreciate that. We'll see you on the road, I'm sure. There he goes. There he is. One more guest, and then that'll be that. We go now. I mean, this gentleman has been in the news for a while now, but we wanted to sit him down here on the MMA hour. Sage Northcutt's gone from UFC to now one championship. I spoke with him earlier today. Here's our conversation. Hey, what's up? Thanks for having me. That's a very festive, is it a shirt or a rash guard you're wearing? I think it's like a mix. It feels like a rash, it's like a rash, it's like a.

t-shirt. It's a little tight. Are you excited for the holidays? You must be. I can tell that you are. Oh yeah, definitely. I'm actually in my family's house right now. I've got some lights in the back. Get ready for Christmas. It's going to be fun. All right, man. Let's get right to really appreciate your time. I know you got a busy schedule, so I don't want to waste any of your precious day here. So let's just go jump into it. How long before you signed with one did you know you were going to sign with one? Well, you know, the UFC had a 90-day period. after my contract ended with the UFC in my last fight against Zach Otto. So before that 90 days was up, the Uriah Faber actually asked the UFC to release me from my

contracts. That way we could go out and talk to other organizations about what they have to offer, I guess, and where I'd be going. So once that 90 days was up, around that time, I went over to Singapore and saw one championships and then found out that I was going to be signing with them. When you went over to Singapore, what were you expecting? in your mind, what were you expecting and how much did reality match that?

Well, you know, I heard it was the cleanest city ever in one of the coolest cities in the world. So I went there, it was definitely clean, super pretty, and it was like that movie, Crazy Rich Asians. I saw, like, a few little pieces in there. Had, like, the super awesome boat-looking thing on top of the building.

It was nice. But I mean, in terms of one. I mean, I know you had seen their fights before, and they obviously just raised a ton. of money. But in your mind, what were you expecting and did it match the reality of ultimately what came to be? You know, it was even better in person. It was super cool. I know there's been a lot people that have said that haven't actually seen the event or been to the bench yet. They were saying, hey, Sage, I don't know if you want to go to one because it may not be as big as what the UFC

is. But over there won, one championships. They had, when I was sitting there, they had 35 million viewers watching the fights right there just at that time. And then they had over I think it's over a billion viewers total that watch the fights, over one billion, which is crazy. So it's definitely huge. And then I thought it was really cool how when you walk out, they had fireworks shooting up in the arena. And then when the people that had the title won the championship or they defended their title, they had like gold confetti that went everywhere. It was really cool. What is it about one and you're 22 years old, if I'm not mistaken, right?

Yes, sir. Oh, man. To be 22 again. blessing that would be, right? But all right, so you're 22 years old. What is it you want out of this next chapter in your career? And tell me why one is the place to do it. Well, you know, what I think's cool is, is that not only they have MMA, but they also have Muay Thai and have kickboxing. So I want to be the champion in the MMA. I'll be the champion of Moy Thai and kickboxing. I want to do it all. And I think, I think that one championship is really cool because I'm going to get to display my different

skill sets in each of those. And I believe I can be the champion in each of those. So I think It's a perfect league. Do you have like a, so sometimes I talk to fighters and they say, oh, I've got a five-year plan. I've got a 10-year plan. Some even just say, I've got a one-year plan, I've got a two-year plan. What kind of plan do you have in terms of time? You know, I've got to ask my coaches and stuff because we just assigned the contract.

So I'm going to ask him and I'll have to get back with you about that. No, but I mean like in terms of your, forget the contract. I mean like your personal development as a fighter, as a, you know what I mean? Like when you think about where you want to be, what time horizon are you thinking about? Two years, five, years, ten? Like, what are you thinking about? Well, you know, I'm looking to be the champion as soon as possible. So I think I can be, I think I can go out there in kickboxing, Irmoy Thai, and I believe

I could be the champion right now because I've grew up as a little kid doing full contact karate, kickboxing, and my movement and skill set is so different and explosive. I think I can do it. And then being the MMA champion here in the future very soon, I believe I can do that too. It was interesting you bring that up. Did you know that the Muay Thai and kickboxing thing was an option before you went to visit in Singapore? Well, you know, I knew they had it, but I didn't know if it was an option that I was going to do if I was only going to be able to do it in May or if I was going to have the chance and opportunity to be able to do all of it. So now I know it's an option.

I'm definitely going to do that and take advantage of that. That's really cool. Do you think you could spread yourself too thin if I could just play devil's advocate, of course? do you think you could spread yourself too thin? It's like so many different things you wouldn't concentrate enough on maybe one of the right things. What would you say to that? Well, you know, I think it's just going to make me a better athlete all around.

So I don't think I'm going to be able to spread myself too thin. I think if my kickboxing and Moytai gets better, then my MMA is going to be getting better too because obviously I'm at one of the best gyms in the world at Team Alpha male with Diori in favor and all the good guys over there. So I think my wrestling and my jistu is always improving. So if I have the better stand-up also, it's just all around I'm a better fighter. So I think it's to be great.

Man, when you look back on the decision to start training there and you think about how beneficial it's been, I'm not there. I've only interviewed you, I think maybe once or twice in my life. And I'm not at Team Alpha male. But just from the outside stage, it seems like, I mean, what a great decision, right? Like, when you think about how beneficial that's been, is there any way in your perspective to describe that? Yeah, you know what? I've had, I think it's total about one year of training actually full-time that I've ever trained at an actual training camp, which is cool, or training gym.

So I've improved so much. I've had three fights, three UFC fights at Team Alpha-Mail and come up in my fourth fight when I have that one for one championships. And I think my skill sets has improved so much that another year down the line, another six months down the line, I'm going to be a whole lot better too because I'm just beginning. I'm 22. really I only got to start training if you count it at 21 years old for MMA. Otherwise, I'm just using the athletic ability I had

the explosiveness and speed and cardio that I had just naturally but now I'm getting to actually apply all that with skill. Why do you think Team Alpha Mail works so well for you? Because there's a lot of good teams, right? American Top Team's a good team, Jackson's and so forth. But what is it about Team Alpha Mail that makes it

the right, you know, the right, the Cinderella slipper for you, let's say? you know i think it's the the environment i think it's the personality and environment and uh that your riot favor has and all the coaches so like if you start at the top you're right favor who is his gym everything flows down from there so he's a he's like me he's super happy energetic all the time high energy and then uh he's obviously one of the best of all the time ufc hall of famer and he knows what's like to work hard and he has that skill set so i think not only that but uh along with having great coaches, great training partners, but I think also just being able to have someone that's

hands-on with me also definitely helps out. When you think about your own progress, again, as a fighter, what do you think has made the biggest leap in improvement since you started training there? And by the way, that's not necessarily like jujitsu or wrestling. It could be like a tactical approach, patience, could be a lot of different things. You know, I think it's really how to apply everything. So you can have all this knowledge. You can have the best wrestling and you can have the best striking wherever it might be, but

how to apply it out there. You can be the best wrestler, but you may not be able to even lay in one take down someone and may ring or the cage. So I think really how to apply the knowledge and then putting it all together. So that way, I have the individual karate, I have the wrestling now, the Jitsu now,

how to piece it all together so that way I can choose what I want to do and optimize what I know best to be able to block there, win the fights and win. Speaking of that, point karate, getting back to that a second, obviously that's your bread and butter, right? That's what you grew up doing. Has the MMA training, and here's how I would ask this,

MMA training doesn't necessarily, like, interfere because you have to strike an MMA, but at the same time, MMA's not point karate, right? So do you feel like in order to get back into some kind of kickboxing, just strictly kickboxing, how would that affect your training? Would you go to Team Alpha Mail to do that? Yeah, you know, I could do that Team Alpha Mail for sure. Also, my good friend, Raymond Daniels, he's, for instance, he's the

World Kip boxing champion. I've known as a little kid. He grew up competing with me, my sister, and he's an incredible fighter. He grew up doing point fighting and everything that I did, and he goes out there, and he's the kickboxing champion of the world. So his style applies. He could be a partner I could train with, and we've already trained with each other several times, and he's a good friend of him. How does your, how does you like your calendar work? You're from, let me see if I remember this, right? You're from Katie, Texas. Yes, sir.

All right, Katie, Texas. That's right. You're from Katie, Texas, but you're training at Team Alpha, Mel. So how does your year split? You're at home until there's a training camp. Is that the idea? No, you know what? I've actually been up in Sacramento, California, at Team Alpha,

full time. So I'm only just came home just for the holidays, actually, and just for a couple days or a week or so, and then going back up to California again to train. How are you adjusting to life in Sacramento? It's actually super fun, which is cool. I think the weather's nice. There's a bunch of friends to hang out with.

The teammates are cool. They're kind of like brothers almost. Everybody's super nice. And then I think your stuff to do is really fun. Like you go up to the mountains, you have Tahoe and different areas. You can go off-road and go swimming. Super fun. Amazing.

I've not been up to Sacramento. I can't say a whole lot about it necessarily. but you are certainly giving me a good impression of it. Let me circle back real quickly. The Zach Auto Fight, that was the last fight on your UFC deal, right? If I'm not mistaken. Yes, sir. Okay.

When you were heading into that, you knew you were fighting out your contract. I guess the question is why fight out the contract? I mean, I understand it. It gives you leverage for the next stage. But I guess what I'm wondering is, heading into that Zach Auto fight, did you know you were going to move on? Or was there a chance you were saying,

hey, we'll see what happens? Well, you know what I was going to see what happens. I'm always keeping your options open to see which direction it takes. But I knew that when I had my Zach called a fight, there'd be a 90-day period. I wasn't sure if the UFC was going to make me wait all 90 days to get back with me about resigning or if they were going to come to the offer and try to match something that some other league was offering. So really, I was waiting to see what was in store. But what I guess what I'm wondering is why not re-signantly.

signed before. Was it clear that both parties wanted to split before the Zach Otto fight? You know, before the fight actually, the UFC had actually put me off a little bit. So meaning is, I've been scheduled to fight and then they tried to re-sign me, I guess, and we were negotiating with him and they said, okay, says you're going to fight on this card. And then it got moved from one card to the next card. And then I was scheduled a fight on another card and then it got move from that car to the next car, then I end up finally fighting several months down the line. So the time span just kept getting put off, put off, put off, trying to renegotiate. So it was actually a good thing I went ahead and fought.

Otherwise, who knows, I might not have fought for a year or so, which I didn't want to happen. Yeah, of course, at this stage in your career. Now, again, you may end up back with the UFC. Who knows where you're only 22 years old. You got the world is your oyster, sage. Truly, I mean that. But let's say that you are done with the UFC. What was your favorite UFC moment that you had, at least in that first check?

The highlight of that experience was what? I think my favorite moment would be, well, I guess two moments would be probably coming into the UFC, being the youngest fighter coming into the UFC and winning the most fights, being undefeated 5-0 is lightweight, and then my last fight going out was a knockout and seeing how much I've improved from my first fight in the UFC and against Sack Auto. Now, you're also relentlessly positive, but let's flip the equation. What was the toughest challenge that maybe you had to entertain while being in the UFC? No, I think the toughest challenge would be having to fight for the UFC, being so sick,

and then not having really any training experience. So just going there with my natural talent that I had and being in school at the same time and then being extremely sick was strep through and I should have had my tons was taken out because it was so, so sick. What fight was that again? What was that? What fight was that? Oh, that was my fight against, uh, Brian. Well, actually, she's coming in from the, from the UFC, after my first fight, the UFC,

I was super sick for all my fights up until about, right after my fight against Mickey Gall. I was super sick on and off throughout several fights, unfortunately. But then I have my time was taken out, and now it's much better. Yeah, I'm going to say, you've got to be feeling tremendous at this point, right? Yes, sir. I feel great, sir. Let me ask you, uh, you're obviously a gentleman that works out. in the gym, how do you keep the physique doing MMA training? Because I talk to a lot of MMA fighters and they say, well, I don't, I have no ability

to lift weights like a bodybuilder. So are you still in there slinging the weights around? Yeah, absolutely. Yes, sir. I think that being strong and having strength does help out. So if you're one of the strongest guys, pound for pound on your weight class or whatever division you're in, I think that definitely helps out. I mean, if you can, if you're in and a shot, maybe you don't have the right technique yet,

but you're able to pick some up above your head and slam them on the ground, then that definitely helps out. You saw Rampage Jackson back then the UFC when someone had him in position. He picked him up and slammed him, knocked him right out. Maybe it wasn't, people might say, well, that was dangerous. Maybe could have got triangle choked more or something, but root strength does play a factor and can't help out for sure. All right, so between the bench, the squat, and the deadlift,

What's your favorite lift and why? Man, that's hard. I would say, I probably would say legs, so probably squats. Why do you like the squats so much? I like to squats because you need to squat so much weight and a normal degree you walk into you. You get to see the bars start to bend. It's fun, and then, I don't know, it's just super fun.

It's an explosive thing. You really get to throw that translate big time You're picking people up and you're throwing them around. Just having that power, or squat power just goes good. Man, you got to set up an Instagram channel of just you lifting. Just that, nothing else. Hey, I might have to do that. That'd be fun.

Can we get one front double buys before you go? Look at those things, man. That's incredible. Oh, it's ridiculous. It's the most ridiculous physique. Hey, before you go very quickly, when are you looking to make your debut, first quarter of 2019? What are you thinking about?

Yes, sir. Well, it looks like sometime around February of March. So I'm looking that there's a card in Singapore for one championships, February 22nd. And we'll talk with one championships and see what card's going to be on. Amazing. Well, I got to tell you, it's a real treat to get to talk to you, Sage. I wish nothing but the best for you in your journey at one. Who knows where life's going to take you, but right now it takes you to one FC or one championship, excuse me. And by the way, Felice Navidad, Merry Christmas. Look at that. Santa's most helpful elf right.

there. Thanks. Appreciate it. There you go. Thank you so much, Sage. Really appreciate it. There he goes. Sage Northcutt. There he goes. All right. All right. That is it for us. We really appreciate it. Remember, subscribe to the YouTube channel. Listen to us on Apple Podcast, iTunes, the whole bit. And until next time, stay frosty.