MMA Fighting - #466 – Dennis Bermudez, Allen Crowder, Eric Albarracin

Episode Date: January 21, 2019

Luke Thomas speaks to Dennis Bermudez about his decision to retire from MMA, his win over Te Edwards at UFC Brooklyn, a look back on his MMA career, what's next for him, and more (1:00:37); Henry Cejudo's coach and mentor Eric Albarracin about Cejudo's win over TJ Dillashaw, the future of the flyweight division, what's next for Cejudo, and more (02:36); Allen Crowder about his DQ win over Greg Hardy, the fight itself, what's next for him, and more (1:28:31). Luke also breaks down Donald Cerrone's head-kick knockout win over Alexander Hernandez and the controversial stoppage of Cejudo vs. Dillashaw on the Monday Morning Analyst (33:53). Additionally, we take your questions on everything that's going on in the MMA world on Sound Off (1:41:23) and A Round of Tweets (2:05:07). 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. Oh, it is Monday, donks. This is the camera here, apparently. What's up, y'all? It's Monday, the 21st of January, 2019. All right. And this is the MMA hour right here on MMAFighting.com.

Thank you so much for joining me. I greatly appreciate it. Boy, what a show we have played for you guys today, not one but two in studio guests. Here in just moments, we'll have Henry Sehudo's coach, Eric Albarasin. At one o'clock, he just retired from the UFC. Dennis Bermudez will be here at 120, Alan Crowder. He defeated Greg Hardy and the co-main event via disqualification.

Plus, per usual, we'll get to your tweets using the hashtag the MMA hour, as well as your calls using the number 844-866-2468, and I've got a great Monday morning analyst plan for you donks as well. All right, so I believe Eric is here. Let me put that away. I believe Eric is here, and we're going to move him in studio here just momentarily. I think they're micing him up. How about that UFC on the ESPN event, right?

Pretty good, I think I would say, all in all. It was a little nerve-wracking when they had to kill time at the end of the Duke UVA game. Good thing it didn't go to overtime. There wasn't a lot of other channel options for them to push that broadcast, but that was a great lead-in. By the way, if you've not seen Zion Williams, and I don't know what you're doing. But I think generally the ESPN embrace was,

I'd give it like B plus A minus. I mean, I'm sure that folks there want a higher grade. And again, I'm pretty satisfied with the numbers apparently adding nearly 600,000 subscribers for ESPN Plus over the weekend. Some people having some ESPN Plus issues, which I'm sure we'll talk about a little bit later in the sound off, or maybe with some of your tweets. But mine was flawless.

The event went off really well. It felt bigger than it ordinarily would have been. Like, it would have been a big event no matter what, but the ESPN handshake, so to speak, made it feel a little bit bigger. The crowd in Brooklyn was pretty good. So all in all, a great start to the ESPN era. And I have to say, Henry Suhudo,

the crown jewel of the whole experience, to be quite honest with you, I wasn't sure how that fight was going to go. I guess I was leaning a little bit Dillishol, but, man, Henry Sehudo is not to be trifled with. And here to talk about him now is his guest, my favorite person in the world. That's a strong statement, but he's pretty close. He is his coach, his mentor, his friend. It's Eric Albatasine.

Hey, how are you? How are you, sir? Thanks for having me. Have a seat, my friend. With the trademark white glasses. It's a story behind those, actually. What's the story? Actually, the glasses started in Brazil on the Ultimate Fighter, Brazil.

Brazil, first week, one of the fighters got cut. And I didn't want the, you know, you live in your house with your opponent, so I didn't want them to see where he was cut. And it was close to Halloween. And I said, you know what, I got a pair of glasses with a skull on it. I go, I bet that would distract your opponent from looking at the cut on the side of your eye. So he wore the glasses all week. He ended up fighting, and we avoided them seeing where the cut was.

And then the next week, I had left the glasses inside the workout room, the practice before the next team came in, which was at the time, Verdoom's team. And then they took the glasses, and they did like a voodoo thing with my glasses. I had a baddana at the time, and they did candles around all the other fighters' pitchers. It was kind of like reality. and then the glasses became a thing. Like when they took my glasses, we went, lost four straight. And I got them back, and then we won four straight, and then we won the show. So then...

Are they actually prescription glasses? I'm blind without them. Oh, okay. All right. Did you wrestle with contacts? No. No, no, I didn't. How did you wrestle? I'm joking. They're not. Oh.

Okay, so they're just for show. They're just for the... They're my business card. Yeah, fair enough. They pop. I one time did an interview at a local D.C. news station when Mike Easton, I remember him. Mike Easton was a team-lewed Irvin guy. And this was long before you saw.

It was like 2007 or eight, something like that a long time ago. And we were both on set together. And this was back in the day when you could do IVs, you know. And he had done it. He had weighed in. He had done an IVs. We went right from the way-ins to the TV station. And he had done something to plug the IV, but it was blood was still leaking.

so he had a towel over his hand the whole time and someone was asking him, what's up with the towel? He's like, decoration. But he had to keep the towel on there from the thing from leaking. So people do all kinds of crazy things

to trick opposition. It happens all the time. Yeah, Mike Easton, actually. That was one of the last fights we watched was Mike Easton. And Dillishol? Yeah. We lost that fight like last week.

That's right. One of the last fights. Man, you guys have to be on Cloud 9. Did that go about as well as it possibly could have? Almost too fast. It was actually right. It was so fast that people were like, oh, well, we didn't. What can we really say about Henry?

You know what I mean? Some of the haters are up. Yeah, well, I can say is that what I was saying all week long, that he was 10 times better than what he was in his last fight. And like, he's still evolving. And that's something to see when you're in training camp from one week to the next. I was like, wow, he's getting better and better. That first week.

How long was the camp? It was about, it was supposed to be eight weeks, and they cut that week off so it was seven. To tell you the truth, I kind of liked it, almost six to seven weeks, because usually around, in that eight weeks, around that sixth week is when a lot of my fighters started getting injured.

So the fact that it was, we were already on our way here. At the end of the sixth week, we were coming for a fight week. I was like, wow, this seems, almost better. It seems like perfect timing. All the stars aligned. And from the first week, I remember I was sparring, he only could spar, 17 minutes. And we were a little worried. Like, wow, 17 minutes, we're fighting a 25-minute match. Obviously, we had six weeks.

We weren't worried, but we had to stop it. Okay, there's no use going past these seven minutes. He's mounted, and these guys are beating up on him. We were switching guys in, so we just stopped it. And the next week was 20 minutes, the next week was 25 minutes, the next week he was wrong through six, seven guys, you know, nonstop, you know, round after round, just smashing everybody. I was like, wow, I could really, to witness it was a treat. What did you guys see on the tape with Sehudo, sorry, with Dilisha, not the fight itself, but ahead of time.

He was saying he could pick up on all of his different, you know, because T.J. has a lot of leans forward, does this. and then shoots the left or any different kind of thing. What were you guys seeing on tape that you knew Henry would be a bad matchup for him? His wrestling, I think we thought our wrestling was going to be the difference, that the threat of us going for the takedown, the threat of us putting him on the cage, working his body, basically making it hard for him to get into those third and fourth rounds.

You know, he said he wanted to test our cardio. Our cardio was off the chart, so we're ready to. to test his, really. Test his cardio, make him feel that weight cut, whether he's a 35-pounder or 25-pounder. I mean, you always want to try to make your opponent feel the weight cut. You know, test his body out. So that was the plan. Do you think the weight cut affected his ability to take a shot?

Obviously, talking about T.J. Not Henry? You know what? I don't think so. I can only go on what their coach is saying. He's faster. He's stronger. He's never felt better. Right.

So, you know, Henry's, like I said, I'm not worried about what he, how much he was doing as much as what Henry was doing. Henry was never seen him stronger. Like, he, last week, the last camp he only weight lifted or did strength conditioning for three weeks. And this time we did it throughout the whole time, seven weeks. And it was, you could really see the difference. You know, Henry hadn't done S&C.

for since the 2008 Olympics. So really, in the last 10 years, he's only done strength and condition for nine weeks total. And he just puts on muscles so fast. So what was he doing in the other camps? Like the Marcella Garcia thing, where Marcella Garcia is famous.

He was like, I don't do strength of conditioning. If I need to get in shape for a tournament, I just do more jujitsu. He didn't have a specialized program outside of that. What was he doing for all those fights before this? Yeah, he was just, you know, training technique, training hard training uh probably hard and not smart and then you know i made some changes once i got on board and uh really the i found this uh sports performance company called neural

force one and ever since we've been with them it's been a game changer you know i don't know you know alexandra pantosia he's in the ufc sure he blew out his his elbow and a armed bar during camp he was fighting Peter, a guy from Scotland, he was fighting in Scotland on his retirement fight. The guy was from Ireland. And he blew it out about it was still about five, six weeks before the camp. And he was crying because, you know, he needed money. They were telling him he's going to be out of 18 months.

He's going to have, he needs a surgery. And I said, hold on. Let me do some research. Let me see if we can find something that, you know, at least take. care of you so that you can fight and we found this place and he did like 10 sessions and then I said him on I changed his flight he did 10 sessions with them and went back and won the fight and I was like and this is when Henry had hurt his wrist right before the pettus fight or right after the no I'm sorry right before the right after the pettus fight was canceled right so he was canceled

and then he came back from he went on a trip after that fight was canceled when he came back we brought him in Norfolk Force One. Ever since then, he's been doing weight lifting and training with him. I asked him this at the press conference. He didn't seem to identify it as a moment. But I don't know, man. I feel like if you go back and look at the tape, and I'm not saying he's done getting better. What I am saying is right around that Hayes fight, Hayes, then Pettus, then this last one

was before this one was Johnson, then obviously Dillishaw on Saturday. Man, something was different about him. His movement was different. That's when he had that wide open stance like this. and he just keeps building on it. Do you think he turned a corner somewhere around that Hayes fight? Oh, I know he did. Okay.

I brought him to Brazil. We brought him, so I have the team Pitbull Brothers with Patricio Pitbull, Patrici Pitbull, Leandro. And they had a karate coach named Mano Santana. And really how it went down was, it's funny, I always tell this story, is that it kind of started with wrestling. So I brought Patrice, I finally got Patrice and Henry together. After years of training both of them separately, I got them together and we brought Patricia to the Olympic Training Center.

So in Colorado Springs, shout out to the Olympia Training Center, USA Wrestling. We all came and trained there. And, you know, I threw him to the wolves early, Patricio. So he's going against Olympians and stuff in the room. So after about a couple weeks of that, his shoulders were shot. So he said, Eric, my shoulders are shot. I can't keep up. And I said, well, what do you want to do?

He's like, well, let's try kicking. I can kick. If my shoulders are shot, let's try kicking. So I said, okay, let me get one of these Olympic Taekwondo coaches to help you. And then it started like that. And then from Olympic Taekwondo, when he went back to Brazil, it evolved into, he had a karate kid on his team who said, hey, let me introduce you to my coach. He's the number one.

He's the head for, I believe, for Brazil, for the karate team. Team Brazil's karate team. His name is Mano Santana. So then he started training Patricio. Then when Patricio beat Benson Henderson, that's when Henry paid attention because he was like, man, Eric, you shouldn't let. Benson's too big for Patricio. And then he paid attention and watched this fight. He's like, wow, that style.

I like that style. I like his attitude. How aggressive he is. I like the wide stance his arm. And then I said, yeah, I called him up. I said, you got to come down here now. Now you got to come. I want you to train this style.

And he came down and he started training with Patricio and Patrician and all those guys. And that was where he made that change for Wilson Hayes. So it's kind of funny how I tell the story that it was wrestling that brought karate to Patricio and round the way all the way back to Henry. It's really good that the combative arts are now much more open with each other. There's still some walls there where everything's kind of segmented, but relative to how it was, maybe even when you were wrestling in the Army, it's so much better now in terms of finding people and having access to the technical experts

in various combative arts and bringing them all together. Yeah, you've got to have an open mind. That's one of the biggest things, I think, of being a coach, especially from a traditional combat sport. As we have, a lot of us have closed minds, and I always say that the illiterate of the 21st century aren't people that, cannot read is people that can't learn, unlearn, and relearn, especially in MMA. You have to lose, you have to unlearn the wrestling moves that are going to get you choked out.

You have to unlearn the boxing that's going to get you knocked out or the Jiu-Jitsu that's going to get you knocked out. It's got to be catered to MMA. So, you know, a lot of people don't consider, I consider his, that karate, our karate coach, man will be like a secret weapon because nobody's training really like that. And a person that really enjoys karate for MMA, making sure he studies how is it going to work in MMA. And that's what he does. So even Henry, just before he fought on Saturday, the last person he called was Patricio Pitbull because he really respects him. And Patricio gave him, told him, you're going to knock him out, have confidence in your hands, go to the body.

You're going to hurt him early. Hurt him early. And as soon as T.J. switched stances, Henry hit him to the body, then he hit him to the head. You know, it was 30 seconds, but, you know, Henry, Henry was coming for the kill early. He looked powerful.

He looked fast. What do you make of the criticism of the stoppage? I'll tell you, candidly, I'll put my cards on the table. I didn't think it was a great stoppage, but I think it's probably okay. No, you know, I've been, you know, obviously anything could have went a little bit longer, but I think the result might have been the same,

would have been the same, probably just more damage on him. Henry was hurting him. He hit him with the kick, the head kick, hit him with the left, one behind the ear. You got a straight right over the ear.

And there's a YouTube video that's called What Really Happened with T.J. Dillashaw versus Henry Sehout. And they break it down perfectly how many shots he took and how he wasn't maybe defending himself intelligently. The wrong hand was up. Henry was over here, but he was looking over here. So, you know, he explains it perfectly, and I'd rather have, that's probably the best video for us to watch because he breaks it down, blow by blow. Do you want this rematch to happen on 135 as a coach?

You know. I get the economics of it. I don't know how much I love the idea. Yeah, you know, it's kind of like working against us saving the flyweight division. But it's not that Henry doesn't want to save the flyweight division. It's more for that one match. I'm not so sure how much Henry likes to conquer. He's a conqueror.

You know, he conquered the Olympics, retired the next day. He conquered the Flyweight Division. And yesterday again and, you know, challenges for the next title. But that doesn't mean he wouldn't go back. I think go out there beat TJ just to get that belt and be able to say you're the double champ champ, which would put you in one of one, meaning Olympic gold, flyweight gold,

Bannonweight gold. And I think that's kind of that's what he wants for his legacy. It's not more about that accessory of the belt. It's more about creating a legacy for us. You know what's interesting about Henry, I made this point previously. If you looked at T.J. Dillshaw,

he had reached a mature level of his skill set. Not saying he couldn't get better, but you know how to talk. Guys get to a certain level where they're more or less going to be that, and then they can make adjustments in tactics or strategy around that. And I thought Henry was, as I mentioned, in getting better and better. Since the Hayes fight, it's been a completely dramatic shift. You can watch tape on Henry, but there's not much of it because fight over fight now, he's making these huge leaps.

He's still entering that mature stage. No, he's definitely still learning. Definitely. Like I said, I saw it in camp. And you know, it's a credit to the coaches, Santino DeFranco, Randy Stanky, Coach Allen. We brought a guy from Holland in called Paul Lamatch, which was that was an interesting one because we had, you know, the bangmoit Thai system was at our gym, fight ready. So we had been anticipating, we're going to fight that guy one day. So we actually got his system at our gym.

So we walk in the gym every day and you got 30 people. training bang moit Thai and august fourth we beat demetre johnson henry calls out tj in the press conference on monday morning the gym workers tried to log into the system and they cut off he cut us off so we're like okay he's so like it looks like we're going to be fighting uh tj so what do mean he cut you off so i uh you know you have to log into like a you have to log in every day when you're when you're in the bank way tie system i think the the personal trainers okay have to log in and see what's the daily log oh i see i see so they weren't able to log in so he kind of cut us off and it was look like

we're fighting tj but when we when that happened i had already seen uh the combos and everything and one of the combos called the andy sour combo so Andy sour's a 22-time kickboxing world champion Yeah, yeah. So then we went and got Andy, so we didn't have the sister no more or the Andy Sauercombo. We went and got his coach named Paula Motch. Wow. So we went to got Paula Mott's from Amsterdam to come down. And we had met him actually a year ago in Amsterdam.

We lived in Amsterdam for a month and went and trained all over the Amsterdam. And he was one of the guys that we met. And I just remember that Andy Sauercombe. I was like, we're going to go get his coach then if we can't. We can't see the same. then we'll go get the guy who taught him. Unbelievable. Where do you think he deserves, Henry, to be ranked pound for pound? You know, he hasn't really defended, you know, his title, but only once.

But the fact that he's beating the two greatest, you know, the greatest pound-for-pound fighter and Demetres Johnson and now the greatest bannum weight, you know, he's got to be right up there. He's got to be ahead of these guys that don't have titles. You got to think, you know, because I think Connor McGregor and Steepa are ahead of them. or we're ahead of them. They don't have a title anymore, a world championship. So I'd put him definitely, I think he's top three. And, you know, as a coach, I'm pushing for number one.

I think all my fighters are right up there. Patricio Pit Bull as well is right up there. He's criminally underrated, Patricio. For sure. I think I would put Patricio Pit Bull against anybody in the UFC. Anybody in the world, really. Really? Oh, yeah.

The thing is people, I see it in the room. Right. You can see it. It doesn't matter if they're UFC, ACB, Road FC, Bellator. These guys all in the room train together. I got video of Henry and Patrice are training together. I got video of some of the best fighters training together that aren't even in any of those promotions.

I know who's good and I know who's not, and I've seen, I've coached some of the best. So I can honestly say Patricio is one of the, he, I would put him up against anybody in the world. and even his brother, Patrici, he's on another level also now. Henry, you know, he beat Demetrius. It's so funny, right, because the big super fight they wanted to make however long ago was Demetrius versus T.J. Henry comes along, it beats both of them, which is pretty amazing testament to that. But, like, you know, Demetrius has this deserved reputation as the best flyweight ever.

I mean, just look at his body of work. It's pretty extensive. Is Henry trying to do that? Now, I know Henry beat him, but what I'm trying to say is that legacy. at that weight class. We don't even know they're going to keep it around, but is that something he thinks about?

Like, I really want to be up there. When people talk about the best fly weights, they talk about me. Definitely he wants his legacy, but I don't know if it's going to be like 11. You know, I don't see him going for, to beat that record of 11 defense. I probably don't see anybody breaking that, actually.

It's, uh, I was amazing what he did. That's not easy. Training for five-round fights. Training for five-round fights. fight shortens your career at you know you it's almost double the three round fights three round fights are easy for me now it's like so easy to go into a into a camp when they only have to do three round fights that's interesting you know it's funny chale son and told me five round fights are a problem you

believe that too oh yeah because instead of sparring three guys sometimes you got to four five and six you know sometimes henry was sparring two guys around because one guy got hurt and we'd have to get another guy come in. So, yeah, I mean, five round fights, I mean, you're doubling your training time, doubling amount of times you can get hit, basically, low kicked, head kick, body kicked, hard. So you're just doing double the work of everybody else. So, you know, that's why these guys should be compensated. And that's why they do get compensated out for the five round fights, championship only. But I've been in five round fights for like four or five years now. So it's a three-round fights is a treat nowadays.

February 9th, I got a three-round fight, going to England, Newcastle with Patricie Pitbull. Right, right. So when do you think Henry's going to come back if you had to recommend? Looks like TJ wants it right away, but, you know, we'll see how these things go. Oh, I know Henry wants to be on a big card, so. He wants that money. Yeah, you know what? He's earned it.

He didn't get it. The last fight, I said the last fight, he took basically a pay cut. He got paid less than anybody else, but he did it because he said, I'm not in for the money. I can beat him now, and I'm not going to wait two years to get my shot at the belt. So finally, with this ESPN deal, it kind of put him on the next level, top tier for pay. So he's getting paid now. But I would say maybe International Fight Week, that's a big one. If we can get on a big card, I think Henry's one of the money fights now.

You know, I think that not only that he saved the Flyweight Division, he created the Suhuda Way Division. Who wants to come down from 150 pounds or less? Come on down and fight the champ, champ, champ. Last question about this, because we've got to keep things moving. But it's interesting you mentioned that. I was wondering, it's like you saw the response. Now, ESPN did a really good job promoting this card. I thought they really got after it, you know.

I don't know if you saw they had what the highest rated shows in the last five years, essentially, on cable for the UFC. And they added 600,000 subscribers on ESPN Plus. You know, it's interesting. People were telling me, who is that talking to? Joseph Benavides told me this. He was like, not that he was like, oh, I'm so thrilled. Demetrius lost, but now that Demetrius is not there, some of these other personalities and flyweight will get a chance to show who they are. Dude, Henry, you know, I saw him at the Latin Grammy's telling people he was single on stage, right?

And he got a award from Powell Gasol. I remember this explicitly. You were there? We were watching. I was watching with my in-laws. I was there. Because I didn't know the word at the time for single was Soltero, I believe? Sotero.

Soterro, that's right. And he was saying he was single, and I asked my wife because she giggled. She's like, yeah, he says I'm single, right? Just getting out there, just showing personality and doing it in two languages. You have to wonder, like, Demetrius has his own thing. he's enormously accomplished. But I kind of think that Henry might be able to prove that these littler guys can be pretty popular.

We have to see, but I have a hunch it might be possible. Oh, yeah. Did you see him at that press conference with that viper snake? And he was wearing the gold-skin jacket. The jacket I liked, the viper wasn't for me. He's just trying to make sure people tuned in. No. He was doing his job to help save the flyway division.

And I remember that 2008 thing like it was yesterday because we met I think Julio Caesar No, no, no, the guy who just fought Pacchio. Broner? No, not the guy

who just fought him. Oh, Matisse. Lucas Matisse from Argentina? The guy who knocked him out a few years ago, I'm sorry. He fought him like five times. Menlo-Marquez. Manuel Marquez was there

and we had a good time there. He met the guy from Blood in, blood out, which is one of Henry's favorite movies. We used to watch it all the time when we had no teeth. TV, we flipped up in this DVD. So we watched Blood and Blood out like 30 times in one month because we had no TV or no cable.

And then we met the guy named El Mero Mero that time. And yeah, even back then, he had personality. Like you said, he said he's a single trilingual and ready to mingle from Sunday to Domingo. I think that's what he said. That's amazing. Yeah, he's definitely got the, I think he could be the face of the UFC. I mean, who else has an Olympic gold medal can speak three languages and, you know.

It takes on big challenges. Takes on huge challenges. He'll take on, I could see him even going up to 45. Well, you know, it would be some, it would have to be like a perfect matchup. We don't want, you know, to get crazy like the other team was talking about. Holloway is big. Yeah, Holloway. I'm thinking more like one superfight or something coming up, going up there, somebody that's a good matchup for him.

But, yeah, I think he could be the face, you know, not only for the Flyway Division, but just for the UFC in general, for MMA overall. You know what I got to say? Part of the reason why he's successful is because he's majorly talented. The other reason is why he's got great coaching staff, man. You can just see it around him. He's had a big change. You're a big reason for that. So I know you guys don't want to pat yourselves in the back too much, but I'll do it for you. You guys did a great job getting him ready.

Again, all credit to him for doing all that work himself, obviously. But it takes a team to get somebody that talented, ready for that event. And everybody did. So I take my hat off to you guys. Well done. Yeah, thank you. You know, I was, I used to remember, because when I was coaching at Tino Garer, we had Anderson Silver, Junior Dos Santos.

And I remember Anderson used to have an entourage of like 30 guys. And I'd be there at the fights. Like, wow, man. This is way too much. And sure enough, as we get closer to the last two fights, we're rolling like 20 deep now. Yeah, y'all had a squad out there. 20 deep in it.

They all have a specific role. Each one of them have a role. One is social media. One is his nutrition. One is his strength and conditioning. One is stretching. You know, one guy is, you know, everybody has a role. And it's awesome to see us as a co.

piece of unit. Yeah, we even brought in a team leader, Dave Zonwine, to manage it because the last time it was almost too much for me, almost. We got it taken care of it. I was like, I need somebody to help me with the stuff that doesn't have to do with fighting. And so he came in and helped out a lot with that. We had team meetings every day.

It was like the military, man. Monday, Monday morning, team meeting, Tuesday morning. team meeting Friday, video conference and video challenge. The owner of the gym or the team leader, he was calling from Portugal. You know, nine hours ahead, he was calling before, practice, and after and getting updates. So it was probably one of the best camps I've ever been a part of or ever was in charge. It was definitely this last camp. And I saw it.

I saw it going into that six times. week. Never, ever have I seen Henry so confident, so calm, so composed. And I was like, wow, Henry was always happy. He only, not even cutting weight. He really didn't get angry or cranky. It was just like, man, I've just never seen him like this. And I was like, it's going to be a massacre. We're going to go out there and destroy. And, you know, that's what he did. Certainly did. All right. My man, Joe, if Joe wants to come in here, we've got to move this along. I really appreciate you coming in studio. And next time you're in New York, you have an open invitation here.

For sure. How about that? Thank you for having me. This is, I want to congratulate you. We last time I was here, it was Ariel Hohani. I were here here, so that's awesome. And Columbia. Look.

Columbia, baby. I'm Columbia. You know, a Colombian coach, my dad was born in Columbia. So I think it's interesting. A Colombian coach, half Colombian is one of the greatest fighters in the in combat sports history. It really does. And by the way, my producer's full, full Colombian.

How about that? Danny back there. Not Joe. Joe is our typical white trash. You know, nothing. But Danny's cool. All right, we've got to move along. Eric, my friend.

Congratulations for all your success. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And next time we're in the city, come on by. Thank you. We'll do. Take care. Let's do this.

We are a little bit short on time. Joe, is it possible after you're done with him? We can do the Monday morning analyst because I want to bump tweets. We don't have time for tweets. We'll do tweets a little bit later. You want to get, can we get me set up? All right.

All right. Well, I mean, is it the same amount of time with the tweets to do it? Is it the same thing? All right, let's do this. Let's reset here for just a little bit. Eric is, Eric, I met, yeah, I definitely want to do Monday morning. And let's next. Eric, I met, gosh, when was that?

I want to say, I could be wrong about this. I want to say the Kimbo Shamrock, maybe before that. I don't know. And he's always been around the Pitbull Brothers, and he's always just sort of been on these guys' camps, and they're super loyal to him. And he kind of flies under the radar. I don't think a lot of people know exactly who he is.

I know he was working with the Noggera brothers and stuff before, the Black House guys. But ever since I've known him, man, ever since I've known, he was like, dude, I'm telling you about Henry. I'm telling you about Henry. And, you know, Henry had an early strong start, but hit a couple of roadblocks in the Benavitas fighting in the,

first Johnson fight, of course. And there's been some other ones, too, in the, in the, trying to get back into the Olympic cycle and he didn't make the team, I think, I don't know when that was, 2012 or so, something like that. But look at them now, dude. They have figured it out. They have got them in the right physical shape. They've got them in the right mental space.

They've got a good coaching team around him. They got an expensive coaching team around him. But it looks like they got a good one. And so I'm very curious to see how far he can take this. The 145 thing, I think always is going to be a bridge to, far at 100 and, uh, a hundred and, um, 25 pounds, but that's the way to go. All right, how about this? Want to do Monday morning analyst? Yeah, come on in, Joe. It's fine. We just, I switched it up on you on the production elements. Let's do it now. It's time for the Monday morning analyst right here on the

MMA hour. Let's hit it. All right. There we are. A little closer. Sorry about that, Joe. Sorry about that, boy's in the back. I know I, uh, I know I, uh, switch things up on the show rundown, but I had to because we ran a little long and yada, yada, yada. Okay, let us get to it right now. What are we going to talk about today? We are going to talk about Cowboys Soroni. Now, this always happens whenever I do a analysis on a fight where the ending was fairly clear. In other words, like if I asked you, how did Donald Seroni win?

The answer is going to be quite literally via head kick and then he sort of followed up with a series of punches thereafter. So whenever I'm always like, you know, how did Cowboy Soroni win? if you just literally answer via headkick, you are admitting you don't understand actually how he won because there's a lot of work that goes into it. And yes, the way he did it was he tricked him by going to the body because if you watch Alexander Hernandez, he actually leans into it thinking he's covering for his ribs.

And instead, he did get the hand up, so it wasn't like full on, but it was pretty close. But the point being is he leans into it being tricked. But even that's not the full story. In fact, I would only consider that a part of the story. It's a devastating and obviously enormously consequential part of the story. But in order to get to that point, he had to do many other things. And if he had not done them, it would never have made the other parts possible.

You have to look at the full breadth of the experience, what they did, tactically what they were looking at, and then draw some broader conclusions. So whenever I ask people like, oh, how do you think Soroni won, be ahead? Head kick, bro. Head kick, bro. It's like you are automatically disqualifying yourself from conversation. There is much more to the story, and you need to be able to understand that much. Now, as a general disclaimer, before I go through all of this, let me just say, as usual, I don't present to you these, the authoritative findings, the only findings, or even the best findings.

I present to you them as mine. But like other people, excuse me, unlike other people in the sport, I am willing to make an argument about it. How good are the ideas? I'm perfectly willing to stand by them because I believe. they have supported by the facts. Let's go throw the slide up here if we can. Now I've got my Apple pencil today because I got the new iPad. I'm

going to try using this because I've had some issues. But, okay, here we go. This is Donald Seroni, looking very tan, I guess. All right, the key to this one was really absorbing pressure because, yes, he landed the head kick, yes, he set

everything up, and that was kind of nice. But what was Alex Hernandez doing. He was getting in his face constantly. He was constantly trying to crash into him almost. So Seroni, to find ways to go to the body, go to the body, trick him, then go to the head, he needed space to, a, soften him up, cause more damage on his own, but also he had to have a tactic for dealing with a fighter who was coming forward. Let me say something that's not listed on here that I think is really important. Fighters today, young fighters, if you are watching this, I'm not in a position to coach you, but I'm in a position to offer something that I think might be

valuable by way of argumentation, namely, we are watching the era of stance switchers. Every week I come on here and I talk to you guys about people switching stances. There is an arms race happening inside mixed martial arts where everybody wants to switch their stances. I think, generally speaking, that's a positive development. It is an advancement over just sitting in one particular stance and being committed to that and only having offense from that. However, what I am also seeing is guys are trying to get to that and using it before they're really ready. Donald Serroney is something of a throwback fighter. Now, he's got an advanced skill set in the sense where he has, I think he has a phenomenal guard, by the way.

And I was wondering if we were going to see that. It turns out we didn't. As you saw against Hernandez, much improved wrestling. Those two were fighting over underhooks and wizards, and it was actually Seroni that was winning because he was, well, there's a lot of reasons, high hips and the whole thing. So he can do that as well. He's got much improved takedown defense.

We know he can strike. But here's something you should consider. He mostly stays, or I would say almost exclusively stays, in an orthodox stance and nearly all of his offense comes from the right side. Now here I've got it, same side. clinch attacks because that was specific to this fight. But you're going to see he tries to catch Hernandez coming in on the half beat with the right. He throws same side combinations. A lot of guys little combinations where there'll be jab, cross, you know, hook, uppercut, and they're going

side to side to side to side. He does some of that, Don Saloni. He does a lot of same side. Jab, body, you know, push kick, all on the same side. He stays in stance and he has same side attacks in an era where guys are trying to do too much, Soroni doesn't do too little, but he stays consistent with what he knows. He has mastered a skill set, and it's not as modern necessarily as what some of the other guys do are trying to switch stances all the time. But if you're not really ready to be switching stances, you probably shouldn't be. It's a lesson in humility. It's a lesson in learning that either you're ready to use a weapon or you're not ready to use a weapon, and that you can still win by going back to what would be considered more old school or conventional tactics inside MMA.

If you look at boxing, a lot of guys, you know, they might switch stance a little bit or something or switch dance through combination in certain particular context, but they stay in their stance. In MMA, we're doing this thing that we're just constantly switching, constantly switching. And Alex Hernandez did that. Didn't do them much good. In the end, the guy who was conventional and the guy who stayed in that stance and had same, side attacks, he did much better in the end. Remember, switching stances is great. It is an update over the conventional way of doing things. But if you're not really in a position to maximize

stance switching, it could get you in trouble. It's not all about, oh, if I just stant switch, I'll be ahead of the game. No, you have to be ready to stand switch the right way. Okay, so he had to absorb pressure. How did he do it? These are the things that I found the most compelling. one, he had to take advantage of Hernandez's hard step. How do you think the cowboy ended up landing those knees as Hernandez kept coming into? How do you think he kept catching him with right hands with no setup off the jab as Hernandez was coming into him? Lots of other things he did too, push kicks, all kinds of stuff. Hernandez wasn't merely just coming in hard. He was overcommitting at the same time, a lot of times positionally. So he'd be just not running in, but you know, he'd be

going side to side, switching stances, switching stances, and they would take a hard step, man, and he'd be really on the inside. Seroni read it every time and fired a knee up the middle. By the way, from Orthodox as well as Southpaw stance, or at least alternating different sides with the knee. So he was able to catch him doing that. He caught him coming in off the halfbeat with right hands. He knew that Hernandez was not only going to come into him, he wouldn't necessarily be mindful of the distance when he did, and that opened up a lot of possibilities. And when he would step so hard and stepped so far away sometimes. Sometimes he just stepped too hard in tight. Sometimes he would step far away, but he would step really far like this. So Seroni had a lot

of different opportunities to greet him. There was a height differential, and Serroney's really good about the counternees. So he just took advantage of the height differential and the body type. It took advantage of the hard step, distance-wise, or the just sort of crashing into him a lot. And other times he would greet him with the clinch. So it was this greeting him with the right hand, greeting him with the clinch if he got too far, greeting him with the knee. But it was all from these hard steps he was taking on the inside. That was one. Two, catch Hernandez on the exit.

Man, this was a problem. He had basically as soon as Soroni found it, I would say, roughly halfway through the first round. It was a rap for him. Not only was Hernandez. These two are related. Hernandez would take a hard step and then kind of angle and then sit there. And Seroni would be like, you're still in front of me. Pop, pop.

And he hit him the same way every time, although sometimes in different sense. size, namely straight and hooks or a hook and a straight, got him over and over and over and over with them. Look at Frankie Edgar. You know, Jose Aldo might be kryptonite for Frankie Edgar, but for most people, Frankie Edgar is their kryptonite. Why? Because he does a lot of moving and a lot of fakes and a lot faints, sets it up behind the jab, hits a cross, and he's gone. Dominic Cruz does the same thing. He's bopping and doing this and he'll hit you with a dart and then he's gone. He's at an angle, exiting the pocket so that when you go back to throw, they're not there anymore. Hernandez did not.

And so Donald Soroni caught him over and over and over and over and over with it. That was really, he was just, he was just observing what the guy was, they say in Jiu-Jitsu, they say it all the time. Take what the guy gives you. He's giving you the fact that he's not exiting properly, and he set him on fire with it. Three, same side of clinch attacks. I mentioned this before. You'll see with the right hand, what he was doing was Soroni would align his head on the

side he wanted to throw, which is typically the right side. so that would prevent him from getting hit. He would have an overhook on this one or some kind of bicep control or hand control. There's a few different things he would do. They would separate and then he would get his head into a position where it needed to be and he would crack him every time

or with the right hand from there. But it's the same side that keeps getting hit over and over and over again. Again, if he's giving you an open target, if you can win in the clinch, Hernandez was doing a good job of firing knees in the clinch, but he was getting controlled from the chest up in terms of strategy, not physically controlled, but he was being controlled by he would just contort him

or push him a certain way. Hernandez, I don't know, it didn't seem to me it occurred to him to challenge it strategically. So now he's sitting in this position. And now they would sort of jockey and you would see, you know, you would see, you would see Saroni swim inside for a collar tie, and two of them depending or bicep depending on what he needed to do. Get his head to the side where he couldn't be hit, push out, and then hit from the right side. Over and over and over and over again. Last, Flurri as Hernandez linearly retreats. Why is this important?

So, number one, he's not exiting. So you could crack him with a good one shot, maybe a two shot. Sometimes he wouldn't exit and then would back up in a straight line. And you can hear Joe Schilling the whole time. Shout to Joe Schilling, who is super underrated as a cornerman, super underrated as a guy who can help other strikers in MMA be their best. I very much believe that. You can hear him saying fire, fire, going after him.

So you'd see Seroni just blitz the guy because he was unprepared to circle in the directions that would get him out. Or sometimes he would exit, but he would exit in an obvious way. And Serroney would greet him. He exited to the left, left hook, right straight, and catch him every single time. These things happened over and over and over again. When I was watching fights, I was making notes about what was happening and then adding timestamps. and I just kept adding it to every single thing that they did because it wasn't highly varied offense.

The same things kept appearing. Crazy. All right. Let's go. Shall we? Let's get the first one. This will be, I think, taking advantage of Hernandez. You know what?

Fuck this pen. Not that great. Apple, your pen is overrated. All right. So here we are. I'm going to show you things in the order that are kind of listed here rather than going just through the fight. chronologically.

So here we are. All right. Look at Soroni. Conventional stance. Hernandez, Southpaw. Let's see. stays in Southpaw. Hernandez is always trying to get that outside angle.

His lead foot on the outside of Seroni's lead foot. Soroni saw it every time. And you see he misses here, but look how far he's stepping into him. Seroni's knee here is behind the tricep of Hernandez. You know how far into somebody you got to be? for that to happen. Now, again, you can miss, but you saw all the times it landed.

This is that hard step. Seroni reading that, here again, 243 on the clock. That's about when this fight turned for me. Right around this moment is when Serroney began to pick up on it. Let's look at the next one, right? And then he, boom.

And by the way, not exiting. Whoop, it just barely misses him. He just kind of stays there. Like, look who backed out more. Think, look who backs out right away. Hernandez does a little bit, but not much. It's actually Saroni.

And here comes Hernandez again. Boom. Now he eats one here, but that one kind of grazes off the side. Point being is look at this hard step he comes in with. Right? And there's a height differential. He lowers his weight. You can see it every time.

So this is a nice moment for Hernandez to land a shot, but that would be a damaging blow that would land over and over for him. We keep going. Boom. Again, look at him not exit. So Sironi eats a nice one, comes down. throws a hook and just stays there. Pop, look at that.

He just stayed there. He doesn't move at all. So Soroni comes down, looks, sees him right there, says, okay, bink, crushes him, and then he moves away. All right? So we go to the next one. Here we are. 43 seconds left in the first round. He are two orthodox stances.

Always pay attention to that. He tries to go down to the body. This was one of the better things I thought Hernandez would do was going to the body a little bit. And by the way, he kept doing this thing either from a southpaw stance or or a conventional stance, he would dip to this side, to the left side, and then shovel punch up or dip to this side, lean, and then go to the body. This case, he goes to the body from the left-hand stance.

One of his better punches. But watch, right? They circle out here. I'm not sure why I included that. Bink, that's why. He sees him coming in, right? Look how he sets it up, right? his level. Big step. Look at that huge step Hernandez is taking. Soroni tries to greet it with a jab.

Watches him, frames out, see some reset, comes back. Look at this huge step he takes. Look at that big step from Hernandez. Watch the feet of Hernandez. Huge step. Seroni cracks him with it. Right. And then he just stays there. Eats the knee and just stays. He just stays. He just stays. so we keep going. 13 seconds left. Tries it from the other side. You'll see Hernandez fading across. He's strafing this way.

And Serroney just tries to time it. It mistsimes it a little bit, but that's one thing he kept finding an opportunity for. Okay, next one. We'll see what this one this is. This is, I believe, him not exiting the pocket, right? Here he comes. Southball stance.

He's trying to... The body kicks I thought in the Southball stance were good by Hernandez. He did some good stuff in this, The problem was he was taking these hard steps, and he was single-shotting. Not a lot of combination work from Hernandez, and as a consequence, he gets chewed up a little bit for it. So he stays in Southball. He tries to come in. Right, watch. Let's see. This is that dip I was telling you about. See that? See how he's dipping to his left side? He's going to try and come in. He goes to the body, which is nice, comes up, but then just stays there.

So when he fires the right, turns, and he's still there. Boom. And he gets chewed up full. two more times. He had a big problem exiting the pocket and took a lot of unnecessary damage as a consequence. Here we are. They're clinched up. Remember, Soroni likes to look

from the right side. Seroni is here. Head to the left, right? Let's see what he does here. He's going to switch out. Boom. Cracks him with the right, gets his head off the center line

and stays on that right-hand side, by the way. Hernandez backs out and then just comes right into it, greets him with the right, pops him again with the left. So this is exactly what I'm talking about. Clinch attacks from the right side.

Here's the second thing you see. Hernandez breaks the clinch. Okay, fine. Seroni greets him with a right hand on the half beat. Again, not on this one, but on the right there, catches him here. And then the guy stays. Boom, Seroni throws two more shots. Again, same pattern over and over and over and over again.

All right, let's go to the next one. Here they are clenched up again. Seroni's going to get a nice frame on his elbow on the inside right here, right? That can be devastating if you get it right. They break away. He pushes. He leans out. Soroni misses with the right.

Again, all the clinch attacks on the same side. He follows up with the punch. And then as he exits, he's still kind of backing out straight in a linear way and eats a head kick as a result. He never exits at an angle. He always exits. Well, that's not true. He exit at an angle sometimes, just not enough. All right?

Now we go to, let's see what he does here. He's Southpaw. You see him try to get the outside lead foot angle, right? Goes to the body. I thought this body work was pretty nice, actually. He didn't follow it up with much, and he did it too far away, and he didn't change it up because he's taking these hard steps and these big jumps into space. But he eats a punch and then just kind of stays there.

Look, Seroni knows if I just follow this guy with combinations, he'll be there, and he switches stances to get to that position over and over. over and over again. Watch this. Let's see what this one is. Boom. greets him with the knee, which you see. And now watch him. I think he's going to flurry here. Let's see. Pow, pow, just coming forward, blitzing him. Here's another one. Let's watch. So remember, what does he do? He's greeting him with knees, all attacks on that right-hand side, greeting him with the right hand, catching him on the half-bee. Let's see how he greets or they clinch. This is commonly how it goes. Watch, he gets out of the way. Those are jab this time, highly unusual for Seroni. But look,

Hernandez just breaks and stays there. So Serrani just takes advantage of it and blitzes him back. Look at this line that he's in. Backing up and he turns a little bit here, but that's when the cross, excuse me, that's when the straight? Yes. Well, yeah, the cross. It's his right hand, yes?

Yeah. So the cross and then his left hook. Boom. Finally he circles out an angle. Here they are. Clinched again. Let's see what happens. Again, what are you looking at?

Right-hand side. If you are going to fight Donald Soroni, you have to understand an overwhelming amount of his offense is going to come from that right side at distance in close and at kicking range. You have to know that. He doesn't do a lot of offense from the other side. You've got to be prepared.

So he cracks him with an elbow here. And let's see, he just stays there a little bit. He gets out of the way of that, which was nice by Hernandez. But Serrani just knows if I keep following this guy, here's your straight, then your hook. You'll catch him every time. Seroni does it over.

I'm sounding like a broken record because it is a broken record over and over and over and over again. All right, here we goes. Another one. They are on the clinch face to face. Where do you think the attack's going to come from? Say it with me, class. The right side. Boom.

Now, this one gets blocked a little bit by Hernandez. But Serrani knows if I just stay on him and follow back straight. Look at this path, man. Look at this path. It's crazy. It's just straight back. Seroni's all over him, man. Straight and then hooks every time.

Every time this is a big problem. It's a lot of unnecessary damage he did not need to take. All right. We're almost done. Throws the right hand here. Where do you think Seroni's offense is going to come from? Wow, look at that. Try to throw the right hand.

It can't do it because he has this left hand hanger up. You see, that's preventing a right hand. it a little bit. That's a nice adjustment from Hernandez. It's not enough, but it's definitely something. He's not a bad fighter. He's just young and inexperienced. He's going to be very good. This is just a bit of a wake-up call, right? Seroni throws that, this is a nice elbow. Look at him, gear. Watch, Hernandez is stepping in that direction, and he greets him with the elbow. It's really, excuse me, the knee. That's really, really nice. Right? Does it again. Same side attacks in the clinch. You see so many people being like, okay, we throw a combination. It has to be this

side, this side, then back to this side, and then back to the side. Alternating can be good. Keeping it the same side on occasion can be good if they keep presenting those same vulnerabilities, which he does, and then again, right hand, right elbow, excuse me. So look at this. What do you think? He tries to throw an elbow once and it got blocked, right? So he goes, right elbow, right knee, excuse me, right knee, right elbow, all same side attacks and he's trying to get away from him, not quite a linear path, but pretty close. Here they are again, clenched up, this he would absorb it like such head on the right side this time right you're looking here head on the right side what's it going to do let's see turns into him prevents the takedown has a frame here

look at that look at this wide open lane man what is what is blocking the face here of Hernandez nothing so what's the road going to do crack right it's the same it's the same fight over and over and over and over again. That tells you that there is something he just doesn't know how to do. Right? Because John Jones gets hit with a few of these. That shit goes away. Take it all

away from you. Mayweather gets hit with a couple of these. I mean, not this version, but the MMA or the boxing version, that just goes away after round three or four. He takes everything away from you. But an inexperienced fighter who's trying to do things that he's not really in a position to be able to do just yet, even though he might be massively talented as a wrestler and super

aggressive and very powerful, he's got a lot of strengths, but there's just too much of a skill gap. And again, same side on the clinch attack, just over and over again. So Roney can feel these vulnerabilities, and he gets away, again, with the right hand. Do you guys see all these patterns? They just keep emerging. I think we're almost done here. So here, this is the very end of the fight or close to it, right? So we're at the halfway through, you know, a quarter of the way through, third of the way through the second round. So he goes to the body, setting it up. This is so nice. By the way, what side? is this from? Oh yeah, it's the right side. Now he's hitting it because the guy standing in Southpaw

so it makes it more possible, but just sort of pointing that out. There's a nice shot, backing out. He's circling. Seroni's cutting off the cage a little bit. Nice jab, right hand, falls him back straight, goes back to the body, all the same things we've been seeing before. This one, and by the way, this is part of the story too. These Seroni's really good. I talked to some people who fought Soroni before. They tell me that his push kick looks a lot sometimes like his roundhouse when he wants to disguise them. So this is part of that narrative of setting up that head kick at the end. Following here. Throws the left hook. Boom. Body kick kind of on the top of the thighs near the cup, right? Same kind of thing. Setting it up. Here comes Hernandez at the orthodox stance.

Serrani gets out of the way. And again, look at these hard steps, man. Look at that. Just, ah, extended a little too far. Serroney gets out of the way, right? This is the end of the first round. what's he going to do boom by the way leads with the right hand every time catches him sometimes he came with the jab but a lot of times he led with the right what's you going to do he's going to lead with the right hand watch boom lead with the right hand catching him how did he absorb pressure he led with the right hand there's another one ready doesn't matter the stance by the way that hernandez is in what does he do lead with the right hand catching him on the half beat the foot of hernandez is not even on ground yet catching him right at the right time right look at that boom and then this is the end

i'm not going to go through this we don't have time for it i was going to go and sort of try and weigh in on this you can put the thumbnail oh you know what put the thumbnail back up for just a second if you don't mind let me go through this da da da da da da okay hold on just a second woo because i know we got dennis bermuda we got to get to is he here joe okay hang on one more time i'm All right, put the thing back up. Guys, stance switching can be great if you're good at stance switching. If you're ready to be in a position, well, that's an important part of your offense. But if you're not, it might get you in trouble.

And you got a game plan around the sky. You saw it over and over again. You come into him, he's going to greet you with right hands. If you're clenched, it's going to be a lot of right-hand attacks. He likes that right kick. You can go either side, by the way, but he likes that right kick to the body in the South Paul stance. He likes to go to the head if it's part of the larger repertoire. again, taking advantage of Hernandez's hard step, he'd get too close to him or he'd lean down,

just making a knee counter possible, and he was telegraphing over taking these wide steps and not closing the distance the right way, catching Hernandez on the exit. He would throw a punch, maybe landed, maybe it didn't, and it would just stand there. So Ronnie would set him on fire. Same side clinch attacks, we'd just been over, and then Flurry as Hernandez linearly retreated, which is part of Hernandez on the exit, not really getting there. So if you're not exiting properly, and then you're retreating in a straight line, dude, a guy like a guy like that. Donald Serroney is going to set you up.

So when somebody tells you, Donald Serroney, we won via headkick, bro. Do not sell this man short. Do not sell one of the winningest, if not the winningest fighter in UFC, Strike Force, Pride, WEC history. Do not sell him short by saying, he landed a head kick, bro, because there's so much more to his game. There is so much more to his offense. There's so much more to what he's capable of doing that, frankly, that's a bullshit answer, and I won't accept it.

Donald Soroni is a bit of a throwback, but in the best way possible. Throwback like vintage. Throwback like this thing gets better like a fine wine. Everyone's trying new tricks. He stays with what works. I take my hat off in a proverbial sense to Donald Cowboy Soroni. That is the Monday morning analyst. All right, let's bring him in.

Our next guest, man, he shocked me. Shocked me at Media Day when, well, after media, actually, let me back up. I talked to him Media Day, and I thought, well, this was a good. great interview. He was very, very nice. And then he wins and he retires. And I'm like, wow, what happened there? That's so crazy. But he did. Dennis Bermudez decided to hang him up, call it quits on Saturday after a nice win. He joins me now in studio. There he is. The Menace himself with a nice MMA beat mug. I read you, sir. What's up, man? Thanks for coming on in. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me, dude. Oie, did you get here okay? Yeah. It's cold, bro.

Is it not cold? Did I pick the worst day to come into the sitting, you know? I knew it was going to be cold, but I didn't know it was going to be like this. Yeah. I'm just sorry if I don't look at you. I'm just about to tweet, but you're here. But I got up this morning and I was like, holy it's balls. I woke up, checked my watch.

I said 8 degrees. I'm like, that's a joke. Yeah, that's not fun. Yeah. You're from this area, though, right? Yeah, I live in Long Island. How is Long Island? It's cold, too.

Yeah. It's nice. It's good. How did you not end up ever with the Longo? It feels like everyone in that area just gets wrapped up in the Longo Serra thing, which is, by the way, I love those guys. I'm not saying it's better or worse. I just mean, how did you avoid all that? Actually, when I first moved to Long Island, I actually had hit up Sarah, and I kept getting Nick.

And I was like, hey, man, I'm one and no pro. I want to train with you guys. He kept, like, selling me on the Mad Monkey. Yeah, he kept selling me on like the classes. Yeah. You know, I'm like, no, no, no, you don't get it. I want to, like, work out with your fight team. I don't want to work out with your Joe Shmose.

Were you a pro at that point? I was one in a no, yeah. And he just kept pushing me. I'm like, no, I don't, no. I don't want to take your classes. That's so funny. And I think that's what happened, you know. I think, you know, I think Nick and Matt cut ties, man.

Yeah, I heard that. That's unfortunate. Yeah. I was at the fight where Nick Sarah, at the Prudential Center, I think it was the Kimbo-James Thompson fight. Okay. Where he got kicked in the leg so much. He sat down, and the ref was like, you got to stop.

stand and he refused to stand. So they just called it. Did you ever see that one? No, I didn't. Yeah, that was an ignominious end to a fighting career. All right, man, well, you're here. I got to say, I was very much surprised by your announcement. You were so, you know, you're a vet.

You know, these media days. You know how they handled. But there was no tell. You had your cards real close to the vest. Did anybody pick up on the fact that this was coming? I mean, a few people. Really? Well, I mean, in a few interviews, I kind of said, it might be my last one.

Oh, really? Okay. So let's talk it through. From the way it sounded at the post-fight scrum you did, it was those four losses, three of which were by split decision, which is just one of the most brutal things I've ever seen in the sport. That really just, I don't know, I don't want to say it incorrectly, so please correct me if I am. It kind of sapped your will for this. Yeah, for sure. It definitely took some win on my sales.

I, because I would rewatch them and I felt like I won them and at the end of the day, though, it still doesn't matter how I felt in the history books I lost. You know, so it was like, man, like going, I had to like fight demons coming into this fight. Like, can you even win, Dennis?

Like, do you, it's been two years. You were telling yourself that? Like, no, man, you can do it. Like, you won those last fights. You know, it's been, not having won in two years is crazy to me. Wow. You know?

What's the, I mean, how low did you get? After the Rick Glenn fight, I told myself I was going to retire. Yeah. Retire and like not fight anymore? Yeah. Going into that Rick Glenn fight, I was like, if I lose, I'm going to retire. Wow. And then I thought I won.

And I looked at my corner. I'm like, yeah, like, you know, you did it. You did it exactly what you had to do to win that fight. And then the results came out and I lost. And I looked at them like, I've got to retire. I told myself I retired. And I sat home for like two months and, you know, played some video games and worked on my YouTube and stuff like that and gained a little bit of weight. I was like, man.

You're like, this is kind of fun. No, I'm missing something. Like, I don't feel good about this, you know. I feel like I'm wasting time. And so I started training and started feeling better. And I, you know, started feeling better about myself. and I just had some things go down in my life that was like, man, I need to focus. I need something to focus on something else, you know, and a fight would do that for me.

And I started just training my butt off and was on the phone. My manager, get me a fight, get me a fight, get me a fight. And I wanted to fight on the Anaheim card. The one that got canceled? That got canceled, yeah. So when I got canceled, I got kind of bumped up to the broken card, and I was like, all, let's do it. You must have been happier, right? Because did you have family and friends who attended this one?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's kind of bittersweet with fighting close to home because you get people like, hey, what's up with tickets? Like, what do you got? It's like, yo, man, I'm focused on getting into a fist fight. And you're hitting me up for tickets. Like, get out of here. Dude, friends and family are scum. Even in my line of work, it's like, dude, I get one press pass for me.

Right. And they're like, what's up with tickets, bro? I'm like, I don't work for ticket master. Yeah, yeah. I get one pass. You know, one of my favorites is, where can I get tickets? I'm like, I'm actually the last person you should ask because I've never bought a ticket in my life. I don't know.

Has the UFC ever given you tickets? Yeah. No, no, no. When you're on the card. Yeah, they always, you get four tickets if you're fighting on the card. Oh, you do? Yeah. Oh, that's why they hit you up.

Yeah, but you only get four. So who gets them? Um, usually like my team and my family, you know. Uh, so like my brother, my wife came. And, uh, usually I give one to like, you know, my strength coach or whoever, you know, my manager. All right. So now it's Monday. You announced a retirement on Saturday.

No regrets, huh? No. Feels good? Yeah. Feels right. Well, I mean, my foot still hurts. Yeah. No.

Okay. So, I mean, that doesn't, you know, my knees are all, you know, scuffed up. Um, because the thing is, we were talking about a little, like, you know, You know, when I turned 30, I don't know if it was like in my brain, but I just felt like my body was recovering so much slower and I didn't feel as good about training, you know. How old are you now? I'm 32.

So in terms of retiring, like, it's been hanging around for a year and a half, something like that, you know. How do you feel about the damage you've taken in your career? I think back to the Stevens loss. Yeah. That one, that was a... Yeah. I mean, that's one of the only ones that I really think...

I mean, you've dished out plenty. I don't mean to suggest that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, for sure. And that's another thing that made me retire is because I'm not one of those guys that goes in there and has a one-hitter, quitter power, and is putting people away. Or I'm not one of those guys that's a submission technician

and submitting you really quickly where I'm getting out of there untouched, you know? Usually my fights are me and another guy punching each other for 15 minutes until one of us, you know, gets tired, something like that, and I accept that going into the fight, that I'm going to take damage and I'm cool with it. Like, I'm okay with dying in there, you know?

And that's not the way I should be going about life at this point. You know, I have kids. If I was single, I would still be like, yes, let's, if I was single and didn't have kids, you know. Well, no, I am single, sorry. If I didn't have kids, I would be, I would still be fighting. I think. Yeah.

So how much did the kids play a factor in this one? Sounds like a lot. Yeah, I mean, I've, you know... How old are the kids? They're going to be four and six in April. Wow. Okay. Yeah.

They're getting up there. Yeah. So, you know, I plan on being like a great grandfather one day and I want to play with my grandkids and be alert and witty with everything. You know, I've done my research on the sport and, you know, there's... You know, your brain gets a little banged up, you know? When you first got into it, what did you think? think, A, what did you think your exit was going to be like? And B, what was your thoughts about

when the exit would come? Like, what were the circumstances under which you had thought? Like, once you were full on in, because I'm not first, you were like, yeah, I'm going to make some money. But once you were like, okay, this is a career for the next, however many years, what did you envision the exit to be? I actually envision my exit kind of being like a lot of fighters, great fighters, and it's a sad one where they become champion. They have got an big name, and it's kind of like, hey, you want $700,000 a fight, even if you lose, and you're like, all right, you know what I mean? Versus, like, ending, like, I did, like, you know, with a win and stuff like that, you know?

Because I think that's very big in a sport where guys should have hung it up a while ago, but it's like, I'll go and get another paycheck, you know? When you watch, like, Ladella and Ortiz, and it's simply, I don't want to be a lot of, to smirch what they are to MMA, they are pioneers and institutions. But at this stage, it's like, what is keeping them around other than what must be a lucrative payday, right? Yeah. I mean, in their case, like, it's like they were fighting in a Masters League, though. It wasn't like one of them was going against a young stud.

No. Did it matter? Ladoga put out and it looked like he did. Yeah, you're right. So you were trying to avoid something like that in the... early on. Yeah. Yeah.

How bad are the injuries that you've had? I've fractured my tibula, or fibula, one of the two. My nose, I mean, I've deviated my septum, a few stitches, fractured my thumb. I mean, nothing crazy. You know, I think I probably have a concussion or a few, you know. But it's all the training that goes into that. 15 minutes to fight, you know. Just constantly getting contusions on my foot and on my shins from sparring, you know?

Because the way we spar in Long Island, it's like, yeah, like, we're going to kill each other for 15 minutes. We're going to really simulate this fight, but we're just going to put on bigger stuff. That's all, you know. So, and it's a double-edged sword because I'm going against the best guys on Long Island to try and get a really, really, really good look to become the best, you know? So sometimes you're not coming out of those sparring sessions the same way you went in. You know, sometimes you get a little banged up in those sessions and you go into those fights damaged and hurt, you know? You know, the internet experts are going to hear this and say, well, why are you sparring like that then?

Kind of just get comfortable being... Ooh. Trying to get comfortable being uncomfortable, you know. If you're in there, you're patty cake in, and then you get in a fight and you get hammered, how are you going to react if you're not used to it? So being able to take damage and be able to react and still win, figure out a way to win. Yeah. When you hear guys say, oh, I don't even spar for camp, you know, at this point I just hit the mitts and work on drilling positions and I get in there and go. I guess for some guys that might work.

What you're saying is that would not work for you? Well, no, I mean, it would definitely work for me. I actually, before this fight even got announced, I'm like, man, I'm going to do one last fight. I don't even think I'm going to spar. I'm just going to hit Mitz and just do what I feel like doing, you know? And then I got the fight and I was like, I have to spar just because I have to, I want to be ready, you know.

But at the end of the day, if I didn't spar for two years and I got back in there, I would still know how to fight, you know? Of course. It's a lifelong skill. It's like riding a bike a little bit, right? Maybe you wouldn't win the Tour de France, but you could do it right with it. There are some guys that do need to work on their timing and stuff like that, and I don't think I'm one of those guys.

What's that? I just keep going coming. I guess you find it over time. Are you satisfied with your time in M.A? Yeah, I mean, and that's another thing, too, is as I got up to my number six in the world, And as I started falling out of that, I looked back on what I had done and who I had beaten, and I was kind of okay with it then,

even though I kept on striving for more. You know, a win over Max Holloway, who's the current champ, it's awesome, you know? I could hang my hat on that. I beat Clay Guida, who's a legend in the sport. I strung together six wins in the featherweight division, I think I had like the most take downs in the division. So, I mean, it's pretty cool.

What about the, I mean, I know this is an invasive question, but here you are. What about the money you made? Happy with it? I mean, that was like another reason about retiring. Because it doesn't pay to lose, you know. Like, for example, what the Saints just lost the other day, and they're not going to become champions in the NFL, but they're going to go home and live a very, very comfortable life.

In that four-fight losing streak, I was fighting paycheck to paycheck, you know, so even though to the average person making 50 grand to show up, like, whoa, that's a lot of money. I only make that in a year. Yeah, but now I have to pay taxes on that. I have to pay my manager. I have to pay my trainers. I have to, the diet that you have to eat is way more expensive than hot pockets and stuff like that, you know, eating, eating very clean and the supplements and stuff like that.

So 50 grand, after all that, said and done, is like 25 grand, you know, something like that, you know, maybe less. And then living on Long Island is expensive. You know, I have two boys that I have a mortgage on a house. And so I was living fight to fight. I'm at four if I lose losing streak there What would you like to see changed in MMA? Like, what would, if, what would be, okay, so the loss is in the way that judging works, perhaps this is part of the answer. But if you could change one thing about MMA, perhaps one thing that would have kept you around longer, what would that be?

Two things, I think, more judges, maybe seven judges. And then the other thing being this, I know we're prize fighters, right? But the fact of fighting for, you know, show and win versus just give me, like, a bigger show, you know. Or a flat fee? Yeah, a flat fee. Because the thing is, is if I was going in there, let's say I was getting $100,000 to fight, if I was going in there, like, all right, I'll just fall down the first round. Like, I'm not going to stick around in your company for very long.

You know, no fighter thinks that way, especially if they put in the proper training and everything like that. Everyone, whether I'm going to win or lose, I'm going in there every time to try and win. You know, I'm going in there to give it to my all. And if there are guys that are willing to go in there and take a fall, they won't last long in the company and they'll get booted. Yeah. How's your relationship with UFC? Amazing. Yeah, you know, it's interesting.

I talk to a lot of guys once they retire and they usually have, okay, I don't want to overgeneralize. But often they have hard feelings toward the organization? Yeah. You don't seem to. Well, no, I mean, I'm honored to. had worked with the highest enchalant of MMA. Everybody behind the scenes was very nice to me, and I've always been a yes man to the company.

I've been fortunate enough to not have to have a real job, if you will, and just focus on training. Like I said, I mean, I don't have a huge house, but I own a house. I don't have a very expensive car, but I have... I have these things. I've been able to put food on the table for myself and my kids and not really have to stress about bills. So it could have been worse, you know,

if I was working a toll booth or something like that, you know. It's interesting. You know, it's like I hear what you're saying. I don't want to disperse the organization unfairly. On the other hand, if you reach six in the world, you should be paid. You know what I mean? I mean, that's one thing that I,

I'm slightly bitter about is that if I was the sixth, if you're the sixth in the world in the NBA, or if you had spent eight years in the NBA, like, you're good. You're going to get paid. You're good. Six. You can be 60th and get paid. Yeah. But, I mean, even if you spend eight years in the NBA, like, you would have acquired a lot of money.

Right. You know? Yeah, that's the issue. Do you believe in things like MMA unionization at all? I think, I think, because, you know, the NFL is. and the NBA, those are all places like that, I call it NFL money. You know, I mean, they didn't start getting NFL money

until they got unionized, you know. But the sport is still very young compared to the NBA and the NFL. And like, you know, I'm like, you know, if I was younger and started later, maybe I would get these big dollars. And then on the other end of the spectrum, I was like, man, if I started MMA earlier and I was older,

I would have known more and been able to crush those guys out of the pioneers, you know, and out of these big stars now. I like I'm in that middle where it's just, I'm a tough guy, you know. Yeah. Favorite fight would be what, the, as people may not remember, of course, 2013, you beat Max Holloway. Yes. Is that your favorite win?

Well, at the time, I, no, it's not my favorite win. No, what's the favorite one? Probably the Matt Grice fight. Oh, that was a dog fight. Yeah, because I remember as soon as that final bell wrong, just being like, and gasping for air because I had left everything I had in the octagon there, you know. Least favorite fight. And not so much because of the way the judges put it. But when it was over, you just, that was an unpleasant experience.

Probably, I mean, the most boring. The boring fight I've ever been in was against... Who's the Japanese guy I fought? Cowheri. Yeah, Cowheri. I remember because I had lost twice, and I was just doing what I had to do to secure a win, so it became like a wrestling match, you know?

Yeah. And not necessarily my fault. He kept shooting on me, too, so I was grappling back, you know? Or even the Glenn fight kind of sucked, too. You know, I remember just him not really, just him just being lanky and kicking me from the outside. Like, dude, we got to bang here. What's going on? Yeah.

You know? What's the most injured you ever went into a fight? UFC or non-UFC? Oh, the most injure I ever went into a fight was against, was the finale against Diego Brandau. I had actually, like, totally annihilated my elbow really bad. It was this big and purple, about four weeks out. where I didn't even know if I'm going to be able to compete. I had got armbard, and it hyper-extended very, really bad.

And, like, it was, I almost got a Corazon shot the week of the fight. But there was, like, a 33% chance that it could go the opposite way and balloon up and be in an excruciating pain. Is it the same one that he armed barred? Yes. Oh, my God. Yeah. That must have been horrible.

Yeah. So, like, that's why, like, when I, when he started going, and going over it. Like at here, it was like, Yeah, it was already in a bad way. Oh, man, that sucks. Dude, this sport is hard, man. It is hard to get ahead. You got to convince, like, MMA judging the more judges theory.

I don't know if that would be better or worse. I have no strong opinion about it, but it's got to be weird because it's like figure skating, where they're, like, this is the only time where I think fighting is an art. It's because you judge it like art. Yeah, so there is two ways to look at it. I remember speaking with a buddy of mine, And I was saying, man, it really sucks that these judges don't know,

that they don't have education behind MMA to give the reason why they won. And my buddy goes, you know what? I actually think it's good that they don't know what they're looking at because it's kind of like if you were to watch a street fight, who won? You know? Yeah, but at the same time, on the media side of things, like from my vantage point, it's like, oh, they'll make a scorecard for something. Like, say, what are your scorecards that were super fucked up?

Yeah. They're not accountable to me. And who am I speaking on behalf of them? I'm speaking on behalf of the public. That's why I'm here, right? So that the public can't ask the judge's questions or the commission questions, but ostensibly I can,

and they won't answer to me either. So there's never any public accountability. It's like, if you got a scorecard and you believe that Dennis Bermudas didn't win this fight, I would like to hear some justification for that. That's where I think it falls short for me. I never saw that. Yeah, man.

Because I know I lost a few fights and people knew who the judges were and were, like, adding them on Twitter Yeah, but they don't say shit. And I almost was going to be like, yeah, man, you want to, like, meet up and talk about this, you know? But it's true. Like, for example, after the whole Tito and Chuck debacle in California, Andy Foster went and spoke to everybody in the media, the guy who runs the commission out there. When was the last time you saw that?

Yeah, it's very rare. Never. Never. So what are you going to do? I'm working on getting, like, a real job. working on I'm pretty working on trying to get into the PSCG

Which is like a lineman And it's a little dangerous Which is kind of like Will keep me on edge a little bit You couldn't take a job like You couldn't, I don't know I couldn't be in a cubicle Yeah you're just not built for it

Yeah unless like I'm a lot of play video games all day That'd be the greatest cubicle Yeah. But, you know, people's power goes out, and you're kind of like their superhero for the time while it's out until you get going again, you know. Bro, you want to work in this weather? I'm tough, man. Yeah, you are tough. I will give you that. If nothing else, you're more than that. You are tough as shit. It's a—it's a lifestyle.

It's an honorable job, you know. I mean, for me, it's the pension is nice. Right. It's good, great benefits. And, again, I have two boys and whatever it takes. You got to look after them. Did they watch your last fight? I think so. At home or? Yeah, I think so. No, they weren't at the arena.

They were in the arena. Okay. Thought about it, but I was like, I don't. I had this buddy come over to my house, and he's from Venezuela, and his kid was five. So in between yours. Yeah. And he was drinking coffee and watching fights on my laptop. I was like, yeah, man, is this normal?

And he's like, do you mind, like, asking like, do I mind? I'm like, it doesn't matter if I mind. why is he drinking coffee and watching fist fights? He's like, he's good. I'm like, okay, man, your kids drink coffee? They do not. Hang on, I just picked up drinking coffee within the last two years. It's unicorn blood.

This is my third of the day. Yeah, because I had gone overseas to do an MMA tour for the troops, and I was with Gray Maynard, and he put me on to some espressoes and stuff of that. And I just kind of like, I felt like it tastes like crap. But, like, you know, a few layers in the bus, I'd be like, whoa, man, I'm kind of pumped. How about this for a little stat? Caffeine for you.

So if you think about all the different drugs people take for performance enhancement, illegal or legal. There are some drugs that if you want to run, they're good for that, or sprinting or long distance. If you want to lift weights, they're good for that, but they're not good for running. Caffeine is one of the only substances known to man that is good for any kind of athletic performance.

How about that? Yeah, I like it. I'm with it. If folks want, we gotta move things along because the show has no time. You have a YouTube channel. Yes. Menace Tube. Menace Tube, yep.

Yes. What are you going to put on there? What do you put on there? I've done like fight predictions and stuff with that and I was doing cooking with the menace for a little bit. But it's kind of turning it more into just trying to put out cool content, whether it's me jumping off cliffs. I want to do like a paintball episode. racing fast cars, whatever, you know, sky jumping, anything. Yeah.

Anything adventurous, you know. Well, I wanted to have you in for a lot of reasons because I wanted to talk to you, obviously. But there's this thing in MMA where sometimes people retire and we spend too much time talking about them because they were a champion. And that's, you know, that's common. Yeah. But I think you had a great career, man. You were one of my – I was like, oh, Dennis is on the card? Here comes an action fight.

Yeah. You never had to worry. And I hope you know that from people who have at least some understanding of the sport, I do not present myself as an expert, but I've been around for a little while. I really respected your game. I really respected the attitude you brought. Thank you. You were a tough guy, but not just a tough guy, like a committed competitor.

And I have a ton of respect for you, man. And I'm sad to see you go, but it sounds like it's the right time. And that means it's a good decision. Yeah. Also, I started a podcast. It's called Menace and the Man. And it's different than, you know, the MMA hour where I ask other fighters, I can ask them questions that you might not be able to. This is true.

Like, Phil Broney, you on Tinder? What's going on, man? Is he? Phil, are you drunk right now? You know, stuff like I like to, you know, mess with fighters a little bit. Good. And I'm kind of allowed to because they know exactly, I know I'm in their shoes. There's a kinship there.

Is that on iTunes? Yes, on iTunes. It's called, what's it called again? Menace and the Man. Menace and the Man. Dennis, we got to move along. but I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much.

Congratulations on a great career. Thank you. If you ever come back, come back here on the MMA hour. How about that? All right, brother. Thank you so much. And my man, Joel, will see you out. All right.

There he is. And the mug is ours, by the way. Not yours. What's up? Okay. All right, so I think we have Mr. Crowder on Skype. We're going to get stuff set up. They've got to rearrange some of these cameras.

And we're going to get him on. I apologize to Mr. Crowder. He was supposed to be on 10 minutes ago, but the whole show got We just don't have enough time It's really the issue here We don't have enough time All right

Are we ready? Ish? Getting there? Okay Oh my God My phone is just blowing up All right Let's go to him now

I apologize So sincerely for the delay He is on Skype He was in our co-made event He is your victor Mr. Alan Crowder Is here Hi Alan

How are you? Jay, what's going on? Alan I'm so sorry for keeping you delayed. I sincerely apologize. It's just hard to manage everything on a timely order. Thank you for all your understanding. I appreciate it. Yeah, no problem, no problem at all. Wow, that is a crystal clear Skype connection. You're looking sharp over there.

I appreciate, appreciate it. All right, let's, first of all, let's get a health update. You took that vicious knee. We didn't hear from you after the fights. How are you doing? Yeah, I'm fine, man. You know, the doctor's willing to stop the fight. You know, I feel like I probably could have kept on going. You know what I mean? It caught me off going. I was not expecting the need to come for sure.

But, you know, I feel like I'm all right. You know what I mean? I got to go see a neurologist and get cleared and everything. But I'll be good to go. So you have no headache. You didn't have one that day. No eye trouble? I got a headache.

I got a little headache, but that's about it. Okay. Let's talk us through the fight before we get to just the ending. The game plan was what? Weather a storm and then see what he really had? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, the goal was, you know, stay away from the right hand. You know, I mean, I knew that's basically what he had was the right hand. I wanted to stick away from that, you know, and, you know, I switched up my stance.

I went to more of a south ball stance. You know what I mean? It helped me move to my right more. I should have my hands up a little bit higher. I probably could have avoided a couple shots. I had my hands up a little higher. Going to the second round, you know, that's where I wanted to get him at. I mean, I knew his cardio was down. He started throwing punches and I could start seeing him coming, you know, really easily. You know, and just kind of, the goal was to get him on the ground. And, you know, I said on a previous interview, I want to get him on the ground. I want to bloody him out with elbows.

And, you know, that was the goal. That was the game plan. All right. So in the early part of the first round, he's a heavy hitter, yes? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, every heavy weights a heavy hitter, though, you know what I mean? So, yeah. I mean, yeah, I was a sorry, you know.

So heavy hitter, but nothing unusual? Yeah, yeah. I was not, I was not blown away by, you know, his power or anything. He has some good shots. He does have a long reach. He's a very athletic guy. You know what I mean?

I think with time, he could be a good fighter. But it's going to be with time. You know what I mean? I think he needs another four or five fights. All right. So when did you feel him start to get slowed down? When did you realize, okay, I think the initial storm is over? I'll say probably about a minute and a half into the first round.

You know what I mean? Once I got on top of him, I was feeling pretty comfortable. you know, he had a little better defense on the ground than I thought he would have. But other than that, you know, I feel like probably about a minute to happen. The takedown, you got it, if not right away, pretty close to right away. And then you passed to Crucifix, if I'm not mistaken. It did seem there that there was a pretty big skill gap in your favor. Do you agree?

Oh, yeah, for sure, for sure. I mean, definitely is working on the ground game. You know, he ended up using the cage, I think, pushing me. off and I made a couple mistakes too. I had a little ring rust, you know what I mean? There was a lot of little things that going back and looking, I was like, man, I should have done this. I should have done this. I could end the fight there. But, you know, that's just part of the game, I guess. All right, so did you feel like you won the first round?

Yeah, yeah, I feel like I won the first round. Yeah. Okay. So then we head to the second. It was a close first round. You know what I mean? I get him probably the first minute and a half. And then, you know, once I got on top, eventually I think he did get up. And then, you know what I mean? I would say it was a very close first round. I'd say maybe like a 10-9 score for me. Okay, fair enough.

Then we moved to the second. And there was this weird moment, man, where you were screaming at him. First of all, why were you screaming at him? Second, what were you saying? Honestly, I was kind of hyped up in the moment. You know what I mean? I was basically just talking a lot of trash.

You know, the words I was saying, I don't really want to repeat. But basically, I was trying to get in the – I knew his punches were slow now. and I knew they didn't have the power they had on before, so I was trying to get him to throw. I wanted to counter and take him to the ground or a counter and catch him with a big left hand

with the game plan from the second round. And I was just trying to fire him up and get him to throw and, you know, so I could take advantage of it. Did he verbally respond ever? No, no, he never said anything. He actually was very surprising. He stayed calm and, you know, just kept backbuilding. Okay, so the sequence with the knee,

You said you didn't know it was coming. You had one, for folks who made, I had people being like, why is it illegal? It's like, dude, it doesn't matter what the hands are doing if the knee is on the ground. If a knee is on the ground, it is, the hands can be both up, both down, one up, one down, does not matter. Did you feel like you were safe and was that part of the reason why you were sort of postured in the way that you were? Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? You know, what I expect him to do is I expect him to kind of come to the side and try to throw a big bomb right hand.

and I was playing on ducking underneath and shooting in and getting my take down. I knew once I got him on the ground, you know what I mean, that last time that's been the end of the fight. But then the knee came out of nowhere and got me, you know, solid. Yeah, it's just one of those things, I guess. So he had made a point. Yeah, he had made the point that he thought you were getting up. He thought, oh, I'm going to need this guy as he gets to his feet. Were you trying to get to your feet?

I mean, not really. I saw him moving over to the side, and I was waiting on him to throw that bomb. You know, I knew that with my knee down, he couldn't throw that knee into my head. You know what I mean? So I was kind of, you know, really looking to avoid that. And then, you know, whenever he started going to the side, then the knee just came out of nowhere. Yeah. Did you feel it?

Like a lot of times, guys say when they get hit with a big shot like that, they don't even feel it until later. It's not like a liver punch or something. How were you physically? It more stunned me than anything. You know what I mean? I fell back to my back and I knew that. He wasn't allowed to do that.

So I was like, all right, I'm going to take a second. So I'm going to get back over. We get to go. And then the doctors come running in there and they immediately stopped the fight and whatnot. You know what I mean? They kept me back there in the back for like 30 minutes. You know what I mean?

They sat there and talk to me, ask me a bunch of questions, you know, a bunch of crap like that. You know what I mean? I'm not excited with it. the win. I don't feel like it's really a win. You know what I mean? Like, you know, it is what it is. Do you, so you don't have any lost memory. You remember the knee and everything after it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, well, that's a good sign. That's a much better sign. All right. I'm happy to hear that. So then it says like you're not satisfied with the win, but you were doing really well.

I mean, did you feel like if that had not happened, you were on your way to perhaps a decision victory or something more? Oh, yeah. No, I mean, I feel like if it had that knee not hit me in the head, you know what I mean? I feel like I was going to get him back on the ground. You know what I mean? I still had more left in the tank. And I feel like I'd have got him on the ground and I'd finish with the elbows like I planned on, you know, from the beginning. Did you hear the crowd chanting for you and then calling him asshole? So I didn't hear that, but I know my family and friends over there, they all told me that he was getting a very hard time. Yeah, that's putting it mildly. Okay, people have said, and I don't believe this, but you were there.

Maybe you have a better idea. People have said that he was facing adversity and he threw that illegal knee on you because he wanted a way out. You buy that theory? I don't think he was looking for a way out. I think he just, I think it's more inexperienced. You know what I mean? He's not been doing this very long.

You know what I mean? He stepped out to the side. I believe in his mind, he thought it was, I know he didn't know it was, I know he knew he's not allowed to throw that knee with me on the ground. But I think heated up in the heat of the moment, you know what I mean? He just, you know, I mean, forgot for a split second and threw that knee trying to get that finished. And he just made a mistake, you know, another mistake of many mistakes that he makes. But I know, I don't feel like he was trying to cop out of the fight. You know what I mean?

He's a tough dude. And, you know, I think it's just an experience kind of thing. So you mentioned you think with some training he can get better, but it looks like, yes, he's got big power. He is athletic, to your point, he is training with a good. team. These are all good things for his future. But it looked to me like on the ground, there was just some positional awareness issues that were a bit of a red flag. How far away is he from being what you would probably consider to be on your level? Probably a couple years. You know what I mean? Probably a couple of years, I would say. I mean, on the ground. He's got heavy

power, you know what I mean? You look at some of the guys in heavyweight division. It's all you really need. You know what I mean, you can touch somebody's face and you put them to sleep. You know what I mean? You can get that win and you can do big things. You know what I mean? But as far as a ground skill level, he's got a ways to go. Yeah. And what about you? You got to get to a neurologist win today, tomorrow? The UFC's got a call.

They got set it up. Hopefully sometime this week. You know, I want to get back to my activities and stuff. You know, I'm ready to start back. I want to start back training as soon as possible. You know what I mean? I got things to fix and, you know, places to improve on in my game. And I plan on doing that as well.

So, you know, as soon as I can get cleared to go, I'd like to fight, you know, hopefully in April or May. What did the doctors tell you about taking it easy? They'd tell me I'd be jumping around, you know what I mean, take it really easy if I had any kind of pain. Any kind of nausea feeling or anything like that. Yesterday it kind of sucked, but I woke up this morning and I wasn't too bad. You know what I mean? I still have a slight headache, but it's not nothing serious.

And are you at home? Can you fly? Yeah, I've already flew. I'm already home. I'm actually at work right now. It's just slow. Wow, look at you. Back on the job.

What do the folks at the job say? Well, I haven't really had anybody here this morning. I don't think they knew that I got back so quick. You know what I mean? So I'll see everybody in night. We got class starts at five or at six, actually. So I mean, I'll go ahead and know that everybody come in and talk and ask questions and stuff. So should be a good time.

May I ask what it is that you do? I actually own my own fitness facility. It's a new millennium martial arts conditioning that's here in Medman. Anatomy of a fighter, they actually covered me. He got in Will Harris. He covered me. He's done a great story on. You can see it all on his videos and stuff.

Yeah, that guy is tremendously. talented. You can catch the stuff on YouTube, right? Yeah, he does such a great job. It's unbelievable. I mean, he showed, you know, the best sides of me. And I mean, he does a great job for sure. And your MMA, or excuse me, your UFC experience has been kind of interesting. You had the great win into the Contender Series. Fulf shorten your debut, but then you come back and you were looking pretty good in this one. It's a weird DQ. You must be itching to get that first UFC win that's like no controversy, clear straightforward. Yeah, I mean, I want it so bad. You know what I mean?

I wanted this fight right here to go my way. You know, I had plans to get that knockout. I wanted that bonus, you know what I mean? And then, you know, I mean, it's, I mean, a wins win, you know what I mean? And I'm happy to have to win, but it's not that feeling. You know what I mean? I want that first UFC victory, you know what I mean? And I want that clear cut.

You know what I mean? Nobody can say anything about it. It's my win, you know what I mean? And that's the plan, you know what I mean? So as soon as I can get back in the ring and they set me up, I'm ready to roll. All right, well, I'll tell you what, don't exercise until the doctor's clear it because we want to make sure when we get you back, you're 100% and ready to go. And I hope this opportunity, I'll leave you on this.

Did you get out of this opportunity, what you wanted? I mean, the DQ kind of hurt things, but your name's out here and you got the win. I mean, I wanted to show that he wasn't ready for the UFC yet. You know what I mean? And I feel like I've done that. I feel like he showed he wasn't experienced, show that he still had some work to do on the ground. He's a strong guy. He got back up.

You know, most people when I get him on the ground, they don't get back up. you know but uh i had suffered a knee injury you know what i mean about uh 10 weeks you know what i mean out from well it's been about 12 weeks now um but i actually had a second degree tear in my mcs i didn't get to work my ground game the way i wanted to until really the last couple weeks um but you know what i mean it is what it is uh i feel like i got out you know what i mean it got my name out there you know what i mean a lot of people know who i am now and uh that feels really good my instagram's skyrocketed you know i've got like a thousand followers in the last day, which is awesome.

You know, I think it's going to set me up for a better future, for sure. Well, I hope to, yeah, I hope to see it. Get well soon. Thank you for making some time for us again. Sorry that there was a delay, but we appreciate the conversation just the same. Thank you, Alan. Yeah, it's awesome, man. I appreciate it.

Thanks for having me. All right, there he goes. Alan Crowder, one of the hardest working men in the sport. All right, we have not a moment to waste. We go from the frying pan into the fire. It is time now, ladies and gentlemen, for the sound off. Let's do it now. He's the ahi to my empanada.

He's the aros to my frihole. He is the club to my Colombia. One and only, Danny Seguer is here. Yo, what's good, man? What's up, Mr. Segura? All good, dude. Great job this week with the coverage. You did, folks who men don't know, that was Danny's work.

Yeah. Learned a little hard lesson about white balance, but other than that, I did. I did. I learned a lot, man. But folks don't, I don't even get into it, but for folks who we don't know, trust me when I tell you that you could not have asked for more from him. And you did a great job, I thought. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, one man army, but, you know, got the job done. Yeah, overall, pretty happy with the coverage we provided this weekend. Good job also on the pre-and-post-fight show. Yeah, I did do a good job, didn't I? Yeah, always. All right, we don't have a moment to waste. How were the – I didn't even ask you about this. How were the calls?

The calls were good, man. They were good. All right. Not as good as before? Not as good as before. But nonetheless, still pretty good. All right, all right. I think it's the cold, man, slowing people down.

You know, it's a holiday today. We're out here, mugging it. That's true. We're out here grinding. All right, let me know. All right. Let's get to start it. Well, it was the first show on ESPN.

So I was very busy working in the back, but I know you had the broadcast up. So I'm curious to get your thoughts on this. Correct, I did have the broadcast up. Yep. Hey, Luke, hey, Danny, big fans of the show. This is Mike Cohn from Deerfield Beach, Florida. I just wanted to ask, what do you give, you know, the first show on ESPN's overall grade based off the flow, based off of, you know, performances, commentating.

I truly like Trevor Whitman being added as the coach factor. I like that. I enjoyed that. You know, kind of had the paper-view-esque feel, mix it a little bit of the old fox. I kind of see what they did there. We're just swapping out of the name. Production does well, but I kind of expect it a little bit more. I did like the intro.

I kind of wish they would lean more towards that type of flow. But I just wanted to ask, overall, what did you give UFC Brooklyn grade? I appreciate you guys. Thank you again. All love from South Florida. All right. South Florida represent. Shots out to South Florida.

I mean, there's nothing else to do but call the show. So I appreciate that. There's the beach. How cold is good Cuban food? What is the weather? Also, my parents are like, oh, they texted me from when he's like, it's so cold. And I'm like, it's 66. That's like literally like 60 degrees more.

Yeah. It's one-tenth the temperature here. Yeah. Okay, what did I give it? I would give it a pretty high grade. I made this point on the post-fight show, Danny, which was they learned a lot from that first Fox show where they had the one fight in it quickly.

Can you imagine if they'd done the one fight this time? It would have been half the length of JDS versus Kane 1. They didn't want to do that. They had a much better presentation. I thought a pretty good card, to be honest with you. Some people were bell-yaking about it. I liked it. But here's what I think I would say the most.

I was talking to my buddy R.J. Clifford, who works at Fox. And I was saying the UFC just kind of took their production elements. they stripped the Fox logo and put a ESPN thing on there. He's like, well, yeah, that's because ESPN, excuse me, that's because UFC still does the production. Right, what does that have to do with anything? I get that there's continuity, but I would have thought that the occasion of being on ESPN

would have prompted them to do more than creating just a couple of different graphics packages. But apparently not. So I would give that a low grade. Whitman, they still haven't quite figured out how to use, but he was already kind of awesome. That's sort of where I come down on this. Yeah.

I was working a lot in the back, so I wasn't really paying too much attention. you know, sometimes you miss a little bit of the action. And also, they had a broadcast up, which wasn't the same thing we were looking at on the ESPN Plus, right? It's slightly different. Slightly different, yeah. But I did like the Trevor Whitman.

I think they still have things to figure out. I feel like he was a little too quiet sometimes. But when he did speak, he gave great insight and did add to the broadcast, which, you know, I thought that was great. And, you know, as I told you, I think it was on last soundoff, last episode of the M.A. hour, like, they need to make this. the UFC consumption as easy as possible, right? Because I feel like all these other sports that are on ESPN are fairly easy to consume.

The rules are straightforward. And they do a pretty good job at explaining everything. With MMA, it's like a little harder, a little trickier. So having definitely a coach in there that can break down what's going on in between rounds is it's good thing. Here's my one complaint beyond this. The ESPN Plus interface is garbage. It is not user-friendly. It's clunky.

It's clunky. It's mixed. It's like, here's the prelims in Espaniel. Here's the prelims in English. Here are the post limbs. It's just this glut of content. Ineffectively organized. The user interface, if anyone from ESPN is watching this, I love the fact that it's $5 a month. I'm a customer. I will be a customer as long as you guys keep offering value. And I believe, I believe that they will get it right. But as I speak to today on the show, yo, ESPN Plus, your interface. is straight Basura. Please, please work on that. It does a brand new platform, so I'm sure they'll be fixing it and stuff. It's going to get better with time, I'm sure. Yeah. Same with UFC Fight Pass. I think when it first rolled out, it wasn't like the biggest thing.

They finally got down. So let's get right into it. The stoppage was probably the biggest talk point leaving that fight. So let's talk about that. Hi. Hi, this is Russ from York, England, big fan of the show. My question is this. Dana White said after the main event, you've got two champions in a super fight, let them fight, let them finish.

I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this. Should there be a meritocracy in how long a fighter is allowed to continue? I appreciate some fights are more significant than others, but surely all fighters should be able to fight until they're deemed unable to continue. Thank you. Right. Do you have a problem with the stoppage now having some time to reflect on it? You know, I went back last night and saw it again, and I do think it was a bit early, but I didn't think it was criminally early.

Like, I didn't think TJ got robbed. Like, it was clear that TJ was hurt. He was wobbling. And I think since the initial touch, I think it was like 12 seconds it goes that Sehudo's attacking him. And I think, you know, 12 seconds might not sound like a lot,

but if you're just counting one, two, three, that's a lot. Yeah. And the whole time I know Tj was saying, like, hey, I was going for that single, but he was going for the single for 12 seconds and he couldn't get it. And, man, you really think you're going to take down Sehudo too? Maybe.

I'm not saying he won't. be able to, but it is a tough ask. That is a very tough ask. Especially when you've been rocked. Yes. So I think if they would have let the fight, I wouldn't hate if they would have let the fight go on longer, I think, in these championship fights. And when there's so much at stake, I think it's okay for fighters to take a little bit of a beating. You know, you don't want to take, not like the Dan Hooker scenario where you got somebody that's so young, right?

There's really nothing at stake. You're already losing a lot. A lot of the fight, you know, just call it. No. In this case, you know, let the fight go on a little bit. but I didn't think it was the worst stoppage in the world. So I went back and I watched the Soroni and Hernandez stoppage. Hernandez was wrestling when they stopped it too.

Now, how thoroughly he was wrestling, not very. He was hurt, obviously. But this idea that like, oh, he was still wrestling, therefore that's intelligent defense. Well, sort of. Like, yes, if he was just laying there, well, that would be terrible. But that you're moving is not necessarily enough. That's to be really kind of coordinated and effective that you're reaching is not all that Look, could he have probably let it go a little longer?

I think that much is incontestable. Yeah, he could have let it go a little bit longer, and I don't think it would have been the end of the world. But this idea that it's some kind of egregious stoppage, you know, this is some kind of, you know, I don't know. I don't know what the worst stoppage is at the top of my head. But, you know, it's uniformly bad. No, I know Dana White got out there and said,

this was a terrible stoppage. He also said he thought Greg Hardy looked amazing. Like, oh, he can definitely fight. I was like, that was not the lesson I took from this. I mean, I don't know about that way. Maybe in the future he will. I'm not writing them off. Right.

But I didn't look at that performance is particularly inspiring. So there's a lot of times you get these media narratives that begin to carry their own weight. Sorry. Was it an A plus stoppage? No. Probably C plus B minus. Somewhere in there. But that's a passing grade.

Yeah, for sure. I would say like in the scale of okay and bad, you know, it's a few degrees on the okay side. But, you know, I don't think it was the worst thing in the world. No, it's not. It's just a totally made up phenomenon that I don't buy it all. Sorry. Yeah. All right.

Now, this next caller asks two questions in one. So obviously pertaining Tiji and Suhudo and a couple other guys. All right. All right. What's going on? What's going on, guys? It's Ricardo from Toronto. I just wanted to get you guys the opinion on the aftermath of Tiji Deghoshan, Henry Sehudo.

I personally think he's going to get that rematch at 125 pounds because he made a pretty strong case for it in the post-fight press conference. And I think it's just a fight to make. and also Cowboy and Connor seems like it's very possible now but does that really hold any value other than just entertainment I don't think it really does much for the division

but it's an interesting entertaining fight but I just want to get on that as well thanks guys all right so let's you know talk about TJ Sehuda first what happens from here God I don't know

TJ I spoke to him about what he was going to do after this fight. He was like, there's no one for me to fight at Bantamweight because Asun Sao and Morais are going to be fighting first and that needs to happen before a clear number one contender. Maybe it would have been Cruz, but obviously he's on ice too. So it's like, who's he going to fight? So he's definitely going to either look for the Suhudo rematch at 135

or he's going to try to go to 125. I think that's probably going to win out over Joseph Benavides. Frankly, Benavides has a win over Suhudo. That's a much more compelling rematch to me than anything else. but I don't know if that's the space that we're in at this point. So I guess it'll happen at either weight class. Just I don't know which one. That one I don't have a strong read on.

Do you? You know, it's such a bizarre situation. I think they might run it again at 125. But this whole idea that there's no contenders, well, is because you're not defending your belt against the real contenders, right? Like you're getting the immediate rematch with Cordy Gar, ran now dropping down to Soto. So those guys got to pick up fights. And a Sunstyle, that's just in a couple weeks.

That's, you know, at the beginning of February. So just wait for that. And, you know, something the UFC has been, I feel like, dropping the ball recently is in the rivalries. For example, the T.J. Cody rivalry, that was a great one. But because they ran it back to back, they sort of killed it. And then they're the life kind of short. Let these guys defend both of the belts and see what happens. You got to let it simmer.

Exactly. Let it cook. Let it brew in. Stay cooking, fam. Yeah, bro. I don't like this whole immediate rematch thing unless it's like something insane. It also doesn't, it also ruins the fights themselves because the guys don't have enough time to really develop their skill sets. Exactly.

And make adjustments, yeah. Yeah. So I'm all for keeping these guys away from each other. I think there are enough fights for both Sohudo and T.J. Dilloshat, their own weight classes to stay entertained for a little bit. And run it back, you know, sometime later this year. Okay. That's what I'm feeling. Then the second part was Sororone Connor.

Are you in? Yeah, I mean, I think this all depends on Connor and what kind of space he's in. said it before on my own YouTube channel, people got all bitter about it, but I don't really know why. Look, if he's really ready to commit and his training to commit to getting back into championship contention, then let's give him the latitude to do that. But I have a strong suspicion that's not the case, and if it's not, then why do I care if he's, you know, going to fight Tony Ferguson at some point? Let the guys who are, Tony Ferguson does nothing, but get up, eat glass, train, take care of his family, and go to bed. You understand? Put that guy in the

title ship contender, you know, cue. What about Dustin Poirier? Boy, he's out here grinding. Never out of the gym. Put that guy in the championship cue. But if you're not going to be doing that, and I'm not judging you for it. You got kids, a whiskey business, like, do what you want to do, man. Life is short. But if that's not the space you're

into, yeah, sure, have him fight Soroni. That's it before. Fucking have him fight and fight Pauli Malinaji. I don't care. Yeah. Plus, he needs a tune-up fight and Soroni he needs a big fight. Yeah. He needs a big paycheck. I'm all in for that fight. I'm good. I have no problem with it. And Serrani's already down to fight in Ireland.

He's down wherever. I mean, come on. He'll fight in the proper 12, you know, manufacturing plant. Distillery, yeah, yeah. So that should be fun. But I'm all for it. Also, Al Quinto was kind of campaigning for that. But I like the Soroni one better, if I'm being honest.

Yeah. I guess so, yeah. Cool. Now, let's talk a little bit about Sehudo, and then we move on to other topics. All right. Hey, Luke and Danny. This has Ben from College Station. Love the show.

with every single fight Henry Sehudo keeps since dropping two to Demetrius Johnson and Joseph Benavides Henry Sehudo has looked exponentially better between each fight so I was just wondering what the upper limit would be or I guess the ceiling

would be for Henry Sehudo Thanks and keep the good work Apparently college station is the way they have Texas A&M University Yo my bad for not knowing the city where they're an agrarian college is Pissing off every everybody in college station, Texas.

Sorry, what did he ask? I wasn't even listening. I was so focused on that. What's the ceiling on Suhuda? I mean, he... God, that's such a good question. And now he beat TJ. Dude, I'm telling you, you, go back and you watch the tape.

Don't even bother looking at the tape until the Hayes fight, because it's just a completely different guy after that. So to me, it's like, how much better can he get? Well, I don't know. I need to see more than 34 seconds every time he comes out here. And if he's dramatically different from the five rounds to the 34 seconds, the answer is

maybe a lot, maybe not a lot. but here's what I do know. He's already made massive gains. If he can get better than he is already, I was talking about this with Eric. They were going to make a DJ versus TJ Superfight, and then Sohudo beats both of them. Are you kidding me, man?

So I don't know the answer to that because I don't think we can draw that conclusion. I need to see more tape. But I can say he has made a fundamental, clear, and massive, massive transformation. Yeah, he's 31, which we know that's a little bit older for the lighter weight classes, but in the MMA years, he feels super young.

He feels like he's just hitting his peak, his prime. And physically he's changing too, which is a bit of another X factor, which can bring his game to life, you know? Yeah, for sure. Dude, I think he could be one of the greatest. I mean, we'll see what happens at 125. I feel like maybe if they do get rid of 125,

I feel like that could low-key kind of be good for him because, I mean, once you beat DJ at 125, any other fight, sure, there's the benefit of one you can get back, after that there's, you know, depending on what happens, you know, you can rack up wins and build your legacy. But man, going up to 135 also says something. See, I feel a little bit different. I feel like if he goes to 135, that could shorten things a little bit for him because it's still not clear how much that cut hurt TJ. I mean, maybe a little bit, maybe a lot, we don't know. But it's the least worth considering. And, you know, where is he

going to be best? He's going to be best at 125. You're not going to get the best of him at 135. So it's better promotionally, but it might be worse for his record. If you're trying to be pound for pound, let's say, like, that's obviously keeping in mind and assuming that he does well on 135. Like, if you're the last champion at 125 and then you go up to 135 and you kill it there and you're like, hey, look, this is not even my weight class and I'm destroying these guys out here. Big if, though. Yeah, that is true. Yeah. All right.

Barry Gillespie. So how about him. All right. Hey, Luke, this is Chuck in your favorite city of Dallas, Texas. Ugh. My question is, do you think Gregor Gillespie is legitimate? contender at 155. I personally think that he is a tough matchup

for any of the top contenders right now. Thanks. Dude, he's such a unique character. He showed me in the back after he did his scrum. He was eating bananas, like a true primate. You know, and I say that in a very complimentary way. He's back there eating bananas, and I'm like, oh, my God. And he showed me how he cut his hair.

He literally just grows it out on like one side forever. And then right before the fight, he just takes it and throws it in front of his forehead and then just go straight across with scissors. The dude's a madman. He's totally his own guy. The fishing thing is weird, but in a good way. Like, he's weird. He's totally weird, but in a very good way. I'm not in a bad way.

Highly unusual. He goes, you know, he creeps back into the swamp between fights. You never hear from him. And then he comes back out here and just rolls on these guys. He's got unending cardio. He has elite wrestling. He has very good grappling. Striking, I don't know, because it's not fully on display.

dude, he is going to beat people. He is going to beat people. I think very highly of Gregor Gillespie. Dude, he's so skilled. It kind of sucks, I guess, from a media perspective that he's not out there, like calling these guys out because you're like, man, you could be going so much farther. But I respect him for sticking to what he believes in, I guess,

and his morals. But yeah, man, I mean, he just keeps racking up wins. You're going to get to the top at some point. So I wonder what's next for him. See, this is why I don't. like the Stephen Wonderboy Thompson versus Anthony Pettus. He could have been fighting Anthony Pettus.

And it would have served something to the division. Pettus fighting another wrestler? I mean, what is that going to do for him? I mean, to Pettis or Gillespie? Gillespie would be great. For Pettis, it does nothing. That's right, but I mean, you're fighting 170. I don't know.

Again, I recognize that that one has some real downside, but I think it's slightly overstated. So, yeah, we'll see what next for him. Is there anyone specifically you'd like to see them match up with? Anyone top 10? Yeah. Anyone top 10. Yeah, I agree.

I don't feel really strongly about like any specific fighter out there. All right. Let's talk about weight classes. Hey, guys. Josh from Windsor, Ontario, calling again. At this question I've been wondering, always wondered, obviously it's very hard to get into the UFC. It's very hard to climb the ranks in the UFC.

But if you were to pick two divisions, one being the easiest, get into, one being the hardest to get into and to be able to climb your way up. Which one do you think it would be? All right. Thanks a lot, guys. Easiest is going to be light, heavy or heavy. On the men's side, hardest is probably going to be lightweight or welter. And then on the women's side, I would say easiest is going to be, you know, $1.45, I suppose.

Maybe $1.25 because it's still newish, hardest is going to be $1.15. These are easy questions to answer. Yeah, for sure. No, I agree with that. I mean, women's featherweight, literally, you can join the UFC and get. get an immediate title shot. It's not that hard. Also, I feel like heavy weight.

It's probably the easiest one for men. For sure. Light heavy has some issues, but again, the guys at the top of that are very talented. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, all right. So about Valentina Shufchenko. Really?

Yeah. This was a pretty good question. This was actually left over from last week. Okay. Yo, this is Johnny from Memphis State University, and I just got to know. That Schenko set the record for women's title defenses. If not, what's the over-under on that? Personally, I think she at least

ties it. Let me know, boys. So how many does Rousey have? Who? Tidal defenses. He's talking about female title defenses? Yeah. So how many does Rousey have? I think it was like eight or nine. That many? I don't think it's that many. No? Or six might have been. Something like that. Can she match that? Probably. Yeah. She never gets injured. She's always prepared. But I have a feeling that they're going to find a way to make her go back up to 135 at some point, even for a super fight. So she may lose in there, although that wouldn't be a title defense issue. But like, if she's not going to match it, I'd be very surprised, very, very surprised. I guess we'll have to see, you know, if a Tatiana Suarez, who I know is not in that way class, but if she goes up, that could present

some interesting challenges. Or a Jessica Andrage, who I know is not in that way class. But I'm saying if some of these, Andrage fought a 135 for crying out loud. Yeah, that's true. So at 125, she could still be a powerhouse. So we'll see. But she is definitely a contender for being able to do that. I think so. I mean, and also, like, she's so dominant. And at that wake glass, I still have yet to see, and don't get

wrong, I'm not trying to throw shade to the other flight weights, but I've still have yet to see somebody that can pose a threat to her. Like, it's probably going to have somebody bigger like Amanda at 135. I don't think at 125 we're going to see a real threat anytime soon.

No. I think. Anything else? I mean, we got a few things left over from last week. Thoughts on UFC 234. Maybe what's next for Kane if he wins? I don't know if you want to tackle any of those. Skip 234. You got one on Kane. You got anything else besides that?

Ascreen and Woodley not wanting to fight each other. No, let's go Kane. Okay, let's do Kane. Hi, Luke and Danny, Chris here from the UK. We came back. What do you think happened should he win his match against Francis in Garnu? And if D.C. wins his target of defense, especially if it's against Depe. DC obviously moved down to light heavyweight to avoid the two of them having to fight.

I appreciate that there are a few of some butts. One of course being John Jones must be fighting DC at heavyweight. Does Kane just wait for DC to retire before going for the title? We'd love to know your thoughts. Cheers. Yeah. There's no way they're fighting. Yeah, that's... It's not going to happen.

I was talking to Javier Mendez about this not too long ago. Not off the record, but we were just... It wasn't for an interview or something. Yeah. And I made a point, man. Like, do you understand what A.K. has done? a.k.a. let a guy like Luke Rockhold go and fight somewhere else but maintain affiliation. I know the things with Koshchek didn't work out.

Right. But generally speaking, to allow guys like Habib to come and go, to Rockhold to remain affiliated, and for Kane to take a backseat to D.C., to take a backseat to Kane, to manage all of this and then still be able to say as a gym in the modern era, you had a middleweight, light, heavy weight, two different heavyweight and then a lightweight champion? Yeah. I say a lightweight, middleweight, light heavy, and then two different heavies. Dude, that is insane.

That is an absolutely sterling record of achievement. Not merely because you trained good fighters and you recruited good fighters, but you managed personalities and competing professional interests in the same weight class at the same time. Yeah. That's unheard of. It's unheard of the idea that those guys would then jeopardize that and throw all that away because, well, we're just stuck with no one else to fight you. They'll fucking retire before they fight each other.

It'll never happen. Yeah, it feels like they have a really close team. whereas other teams that are bigger, there's like teams within teams, you know? Not AK, AK, they're one solid pack. But yeah, it's interesting. Like, I think Kane has a position where, like, if he wins,

he's probably going to get an immediate title shot. He was just going to, I mean, he's already set out for like a while. I think he's just going to wait to see what happens with Kormia and then once that's settled, he'll go for the belt. All right, let's do this. I got to do these tweets and then I've got to get out of here.

Yeah. Good job, my friend. Great coverage all. week. I really appreciate the job you did. And, oh, yeah, well, yes, that's fine. By the way, real quickly, I'm off next week. I got some other stuff to do for my other job, so we'll figure something out. I'm not exactly sure what that is, but I'll see your beautiful face on Thursday. All right? Peace. All right, later, buddy. Time now, ladies and gentlemen, for a round of tweets. All right, clock starts when the first tweet goes up. Here we go. What did you think about Trevor

Whitman seemed like John had to push him to talk, thought he was pretty quiet, but wrote quite, compared to other, but had some good things to add to commentary. Well, he may have been only talking when prompts because the producers may have told him, do not talk unless prompted. Remember, he was a guy that had a great corner moment when he pulled the fight from Nate Marquart. And so I think they thought, wow, this guy, he's trained champions and he knows how to corner. Let's see if we can have somebody talk about the corners themselves. but just talking about the corner is not all that interesting. Every fight, it can be very interesting.

But to me, it's like, yes, if you want Trevor Whitman to do that, that's fine. And DC is a phenomenal commentator, but he's got a bit of a wrestling background. And that's no, that's an asset, not a hindrance, but you've got a guy who's got a striking background like Trevor. The two together, I'm not saying he had to be another commentator, but maybe sort of alternating between I'm going to comment on the actual fights as well as the corners, rather than just the corners is a better role. So they got some things to figure out, but he's amazing. Next. Is there beginning to be a trend of lighter champs having the better ability than the larger champs,

with D.C. Nunes, Connor, Sehudo, and even the natural back in the day, all beating the bigger foe. There might be something to it. Don't misunderstand me, but a handful of fights is too small of a sample size to make any kind of general reading. But I'm willing to believe, like am I saying it's not true? I'm not saying it's not true. I just want to be very careful about drawing.

broad conclusions because size does matter in the positive sense. But yes, it is highly interesting that these smaller guys and ladies are winning. Next. Will gray hair be the man bun of 2019, Luke? No, because a man bun is a choice. And you could say gray hair is a choice. No, hair dye is a choice. Gray hair is the hand that I was dealt.

And I am graying like it's a contest, bro. It is unbelievable. the color is just leaving my hair like life is leaving my body slowly and painfully, but I'm not going to do anything about it because that's what losers. Losers dye their hair. I'm not one of those types.

Next. Okay, do you guys think the UFC should implement a rule that the referee of any championship fight must have a certain number of events under his belt to be qualified? That way he will be concerned a bit more with allowing the fight to be conclusive before jumping in.

Sure, I have no problem with that, but I suspect that the referee in question more than qualifies by any reasonable standard. Guys, I've got terrible and or good news for you, depending on your perspective. I'm not going to tell you it's a sterling stoppage. I'm not going to tell you it's an amazing stoppage. It's a justifiable stoppage. It is. It's not a horrible one. It's justifiable. It's not clear that the guy should have been taking more punishment, and it's not clear that any action he was taking was overtly tactical in the sense that matters. It's an okay stoppage. Next. Okay, so does Dana go after Yamasaki for letting guys get beat on too long?

And now after Kevin McDonald for doing the exact opposite and making a great call, what gives? People see things different. I don't have much comment. I mean, what do you want me to say? Dana's going to say what he wants to say. Yeah, I don't have a strong comment about it. Next. What are your thoughts on fatherhood driving fighters?

Guys like Soroni, Poirre, and others seem to find a new level after having a child. I'd love to get your thoughts before your baby comes. And we'd be curious to see if anything changes for you afterward. Yeah, we'll see. I mean, I'm not a fighter, but I think for some fighters, it's not great. Some fighters would see it as a distraction. It would be a hindrance for them. For others, it is the kind of thing that crystallizes why they're around and gives them purpose. So for some fighters, I think it can boost. For some fighters, I think it can be a hindrance. But in the cases you cite, Seroni, Poirier, and others, quite clearly, it's been good for them. Next.

Who would win, Regan Al or Cowboy? Ooh, tough. Maybe Reginal Al, but that's a competitive fight. And who is the tougher opponent for McGregor? P.S., can I please be unlocked? Yes. I think I was supposed to unblock him before. I don't remember. Probably go with Reginald. Who's a tougher opponent for McGregor?

Probably go with Reginald, but I think both could be competitive. Next. Why do people say people like Hardy are A-plus-level athletes when they've been good at one sport that their physique built for, but not for five-round fights? So this person must not be from this country. Let me explain something to you guys from Europe here very quickly.

I see a lot of people in Europe look at NFL highlights and say, oh, these guys don't know how to tackle. Please understand not one of your rugby players would make a starting squad. They can barely make the NFL to begin with. And it's not because they're not good athletes. It's because you donks in Europe do not understand what you are looking at. I'm not asking you to like American football. Hell, after yesterday's results, I'm not sure I like it either.

You have to understand this is a country of nearly 400 million people our very best athletes, the guys who they get measured at the combine. What is the combine? When you are graduating from college and or declaring for the NFL draft, they go and measure. I know we have to stop. Your physical skills. Let me finish the answer.

And here's what happens. They test your high jump, your speed on the 40-yard dash, your bench press, all the physical things that tell us, although bench press is not necessarily much of an indication of strength. Nevertheless, their physicality is beyond compare. Beyond compare. Now, yes, it is somewhat situated in the sense that it's meant for athletic short bursts rather than long five-round fights, but they're all different kinds of athleticism, is Usain both not as athletic as Thor Bjoranson.

They're different kinds of athletes. The guys who play in the NFL and the guys who are all pro in the NFL are stud athletes, some of the very best in the entire world. Greg Hardy is one of them. First of all, we hadn't even seen him in a five-round fight, so we don't know. and part of that is how you manage your energy, which we can also tell you he didn't really manage his energy all that well. How good of a fighter Greg Hardy will be, I don't know.

How good of an athlete he is, oh, that's pretty high level, folks. Make no mistake about it. And if you're from America and you ask that question, shame on you. All right. But nevertheless, thanks for sending it on that highly positive note. Keep the questions coming using the hashtag the MMA hour. Always call 844-866-2468. It'll be a couple of weeks before I see you on this program.

I'll be back for the beat on Thursday. Until next time, stay frosty.