MMA Fighting - Fighter vs. Writer: Matt Brown Talks James Krause Betting Scandal, Kevin Holland’s Corner Stopping His Fight and Paddy Pimblett’s ‘Fat Camp’

Episode Date: December 6, 2022

On the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer, UFC welterweight Matt Brown and Damon Martin discuss the latest news from around the sport and preview the upcoming UFC 282 card. At the top of the show, Brown will react to the news that the UFC has moved to prevent any fighters associated with James Krause from competing in the promotion due to an ongoing investigation surrounding betting irregularities. Brown will offer his insight into what the UFC had previously told fighters about betting on contests and his own history seeing athletes and coaches wagering on the sport. We’ll also break down everything that unfolded at UFC Orlando including Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson’s win over Kevin Holland in the main event. Brown praises Holland’s coaches for stopping the fight after the fourth round rather than sending him back out when he was clearly compromised. Finally, we’ll look ahead at UFC 282 and the two biggest fights on the card as Jan Blachowicz and Magomed Ankalaev battle for the light heavyweight title and Paddy Pimblett looks to continue his winning ways against Jared Gordon. Brown will discuss Pimblett’s rapid rise and his feeling about the British fighter constantly ballooning up in weight between fights and what that says about his chances for long-term success in the sport. All this and more on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two, ghosts in the machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprise his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love?

The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster, The Downloaded.

It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, Ghosts in the Machine,

available now, only from Audible. To the Vox Media Podcast Network. To the Fighter vs. The Writer, I'm Damon Martin. He is Matt Brown. I'm a journalist. He's a UFC legend. That's the name of the show. Fighter versus Writer. Matt's what's going on? It's going on, man.

A lot's going on. A lot of fights this weekend. A lot of real good fights. A lot of great fights. Another big fight coming up this weekend with UFC 282, the final UFC pay-per-view of 2022. I feel like we're going to have to do like some sort of year-in show at the end of this year. Like talk about our favorite fights and fighters and everything now that we're doing this regularly. But yeah, it's a good fight card this past weekend, man.

Stephen Thompson got a big win over Kevin Holland. Sergei Pavlovich knocked out tie Tuivasa in 54 seconds. overall really strong card, Hoffield DeSanos came back at Welterway looking good. And then, of course, probably the biggest, I mean, honestly, listen, fights are what we're here to talk about, but we can't ignore probably the biggest story of the past week

was the situation involving James Krause. I mean, it's impossible to ignore. It's everywhere. For sure. What a crazy situation. Yeah, he was supposed to court somebody this weekend, was it? Last weekend. He was supposed to quarter somebody last weekend,

and he got, yeah, he got really right. Yeah. Yeah. So just to be clear, Like, okay, let me, let's just, let me preface this, you know, ahead of time. Like, I don't know all the story. I know some stuff I've been told, you know, off the record. I'm not going to divulge any of that information.

But long story short, you know, I mean, there's no way you're listening to this podcast. You actually missed what happened. But I'll just kind of lay it out for you on Friday. The UFC released a statement. I'll read it for you here. So we're both on the same page as far as what's going on. The UFC said, as follows. Following the fight involving Derek Minner on November 5th, 2022,

UFC was informed by sources that suspicious betting patterns had been observed on the fight. In the weeks following the fight, UFC has been cooperating with multiple ongoing government investigations into the facts and circumstances surrounding that contest. On November 18th, the Nevada State Athletic Commission informed UFC and Miner's coach James Krause that Krause's license was suspended and would remain so while the Nevada State Athletic Commission conducted an investigation into the matter. UFC has since advised Kraus and the respective managers working with impacted fighters that effective immediately, fighters who choose to continue to be coached by Krause or continue to train at his gym

will not be permitted to participate in UFC events pending the outcome of the aforementioned government investigations. Further, the UFC has released Derek Minner from the organization. So, long story short, Matt, James Krause has essentially been banned from the UFC for the time being. I mean, again, the investigation is still ongoing. I don't want to make it sound like anyone's guilty or innocent here. Nobody training or working with James Krause can fight in the UFC. And I feel like this is going to probably extend out.

The Nevada State Athletic Commission suspends him just like any other suspension, other organizations and or commissions will abide by that. So that effectively ends James Krause from cornering or coaching fighters and other organizations, although I will say and not to, you know, just put a point on this, Matt, being honest, like this really focuses on the UFC because I think almost all of James Krause's fighters fight in the UFC. He has James Galaher who trained there and fought in Bellator. He doesn't have anyone in the PFL. And I don't think he has anyone in one championship, although I haven't really done the research to know for sure. So basically, this is Jeff Molina.

This is Brandon Marina, the current flyweight interim flyweight champion. This is, you know, a lot of guys and there's people, Laura Sanko, who's a UFC commentator, broadcast and panelists trains there. This is not good. And listen, I've been covering the sport for 20 years. You've been fighting for 20 years. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like this. I haven't either.

You know, and I know James pretty well, man, not like really well. But we were on the show together when I coached TJ, or helped TJ coach on the team. And Krauss was our first pick. And I got to know him pretty well. And I always thought he was a really good guy. I mean, I thought, you know, when I actually, the funny enough, when we first got on the show, none of us really liked him.

You know, he kind of came across like kind of a know-it-all or kind of a, you know, I mean, he had the experience, you know, so, you know, rightfully so, you know, so, you know, he kind of rubbed everybody the wrong way, but then we all got to know him. I got to know him. Like, you know, he's a tough son of a bitch, man, and he is really good. So, yeah, I've kind of kept in touch a little bit with them over the years. and I always thought he was a good dude, man. Very, very smart with coaching, very smart with business stuff.

I actually picked up some tips from him for business stuff. And, you know, he's a very intelligent guy. Sounds like he went to the well one too many times on this one, though, right? He's just, he reached a little too far, overstepped his boundaries. Now he's looking like Pete Rose out here. And he's about to be, you know, long story short, James Krause is fucked, right? Like everything that he's worked for is going down the drain now from this. And I've never seen anything like this.

But you know what? I don't doubt. I mean, I could tell you factually, there are coaches constantly betting on fights, guys that have inside info. We did a UFC summit back in, I would say, 2010, 2011. They used to have these summits every year. And they bring all the fighters out. And they would put us all in a room.

And they would give us speeches from all these people. They had an FBI guy come in once, and he was talking about sports betting and how we shouldn't be doing it and we'd get in trouble if it happens. And then funny enough, that just kind of fell off, right? And then all of a sudden, everybody's promoting betting. All these betting sites are out there. Everybody's talking about it. And I hear about all these coaches betting all these different things. I always kept that in the back of my mind that was like, somebody's going to get fucked here.

Too bad it was James Krauss, man. I really like that guy. I so to be clear I've had James actually co-hosted this podcast a few months ago like maybe like six, eight months ago and I like James. I've always liked James. I texted him because I remember because I hadn't had him on the show yet and I texted him as hey man you want to come on and co-host the podcast with me. We'll talk about coaching, break down some fights. He's like oh yeah. He was on for an hour, had a great conversation, incredibly intelligent dude. Real good mind for the sport. Like he had a mind for the sport.

I always called him one of the most underrated coaches just because he didn't have the biggest team. You know, he didn't necessarily have like the deal. He wasn't known like a Greg Jackson or Javier Mendez. You know, he was kind of like coaching a lot of the kind of mid card guys, but incredibly good coach. I loved his corner work.

I praised his corner work, the way he cornered guys and gave him advice between rounds and things like that. I like him. I'm not, listen, this doesn't make me dislike him all of a sudden. I'm not going to sit here in like abandon the fact that I like the dude. I like James Kraus.

I always thought he was an incredibly intelligent dude. Unfortunately, you know, over the last few months, he had become very open about this betting advice he had been giving people. He opened this, you know, the 1% club on Discord. You know, he went on Ariel Hawani show, of course, you know, same website of MMA fighting and talked about, you know, he was giving advice and people were paying him $2,000 a month for advice on fighting. And listen, part of me says that, you know,

that kind of stuff is walking a real thin line because, you know, you are a coach and you do have some control over fighters and injuries and things like this. On the other side, as you said, over the last few years, like betting has become a huge part of our sport. We get live odds read to us during the fight. Like they literally, between rounds, they're telling us, like someone's a, you know, balloon to us such and such favorite or blah, blah, blah. So this is a huge part of the sport.

So I think what James was doing at that point, at least on the surface, he was just taking advantage of what everyone's doing. You know, he was just, you know, listen. I know people bet on fights. I know fighters bet on fights. I know coaches bet on fights. This is like I don't like I didn't think it was some big secret. You know what I mean?

Like everyone kind of knew that. The problem becomes is where this situation kind of spiraled out of control, which is Derek Minner, who is his fighter, went into a fight compromised. He had an injury. Pretty clearly had some sort of leg injury. He was, he was, I think he was a small underdog and then he ballooned to be just, huge underdog like three hours before the fight he goes out there for lack of a better word match shits the bed loses you know within a minute fights over um and then boom right after that

you know this whole thing starts you know he gets you know the commission's talking about suspending him james kraus is suspended can't corner the guy the next weekend whatever they i don't listen i'm speculating here i don't know does that mean that james like bet against this fighter and that, you know what I mean? Like that obviously would be hugely wrong. But I'm saying like, is that how it happened? I don't know. But something had to have triggered all this.

And that was publicly what got everyone on board here. I don't know the resolution to this. Let me be clear about that. Like, I don't know what's going to come of this. But for the UFC to go this far to basically ban a guy, to effectively ban him from the sport, and go farther than that to ban anyone who has associated with him. Like that is going a whole other step. They didn't just ban James Krause.

They said if you basically if you talk to James Krause, you're out of the UFC, more or less. That's a huge precedent. And then, you know, we saw this past week, Ontario in Canada, that's Toronto, banned UFC betting. Alberta banned UFC betting. New Jersey is no longer taking bets involving James Krause's fights. This is huge. The UFC's based in Las Vegas, Matt.

This is huge for them. and hugely detrimental to them because when you start talking about fight fixing, the allegation of like fight fixing things like that, that's a business, that's how you ruin your business. I mean, you go out of business for something like that.

So this is like, I'm not trying to just like throw James Krause under the bus here, but as big as this sounds, like for them to take that step and literally put out a statement saying, if you associate with James Krauss, we're not going to have you in the UFC, it's bad.

that's as bad as it gets right there right it's crazy because like a banning UFC bad and like doesn't this happen in all sports I mean you know they regulated as much as they can but all fucking sports go through this man like they all have to deal with this like there's just too many people involved too much money on the line like this happens in all the different sports why are they just singling out UFC I mean obviously like we know what just happened but well it's I think it I think it comes down to

when it gets public. You know what I mean? Like you brought Pete Rose. We're Cincinnati guys. Like we know how big that scandal was and like how big that deal was with him. We both know in MMA, you said it. Coaches bet on fights. Fighters bet on fights.

I know tons of people who bet on the fights. I've had people reach out to me asking me for advice and I tend not to do it because I'm like, I don't want you to win or lose a bet based on my advice, man. Like I feel like I know the sport, but I am not going to feel good about myself. You lose like a house over my advice on a bet. so I'm just not going to do it. Everyone doesn't. I kind of knew all this would happen at some point.

Maybe it never really spoke publicly about it or, you know, I wasn't like certain it was going to happen or whatever. But I'm the same way. I got guys texting me every fight saying, you know, who do you think is going to win? And to be fair, my picks are usually wrong. So I tell them, look, bet the opposite of whatever I say. And then you'll probably be a millionaire then.

But even that they're like, It's not like I don't, there's, there's things that I know that they don't know. You know, I know a lot of fighters that I communicate with a lot of guys. Like there's inside info that I can know. So I try to stay away from it, you know. Like I'll talk about like fun stuff or, you know, tell them like, you know, maybe try this parlay or something. But like if I know some info, like I'm not putting that out there, man.

Like I still remember when that FBI guy came and talked to the UFC fighters and he said and made a point of how big and this really is. And I never forgot that. I'm surprised they haven't pushed that since. Like I have not seen, you know, well, up until I guess they sent out an email recently that I missed or they didn't send it to me or something. But there is, you know, I've never seen them press or remind us not to be out there betting like that. Yeah, I mean, they did that, yeah, just to mention that, yeah, like a few weeks ago, they mentioned, like, fighters are no longer allowed to bet on fights, which was a new thing

because it's pretty commonplace that fighters and coaches and things like that bet on fights. And it was never, you know, no one really talked about it. No one really thought it was a big deal. And, you know, you never, I mean, you know, listen, fighters, you know, I've heard, I mean, we heard this publicly people talking about, like they bet on themselves to win, they win, and they win a big bunch of money. That's like, that was like, we've heard, that's, it was a common post-fight interview. you speech when they'd be like I was underdog and I won and they'd be like my family's clean enough because everyone bet on me to win like that was a common thing. So this is nothing new.

But now, like I said, you brought up now it stuck in my head and I think it's true. The Pete Rose thing, like I don't like baseball, football, there's tons of betting. Like we all know this. We all know what's going on. As long as it stays quiet, no one thinks about it. But when it comes when it becomes public, there was an NBA referee who got busted a few years ago for, you know, fixing, helping to fix games, and he got busted. And, you know, it's when it becomes public. When people start paying attention, it becomes public like what happened with that fight with Derek Minner. When his line ballooned up and then he goes out there and, again, shits the bed, looks terrible, has something, obviously is fighting with an injury. There's no doubt about it who he's fighting with an injury.

And James Krause is his coach. And then right after that James Kraus gets suspended on, I mean, listen, this is, you know, is James Krauss the first guy in MMA history to do something shady, potentially, let me say potentially shady, we don't know all the facts, potentially shady when it comes to betting and gambling on mixed martial arts. Absolutely not. He's not the first guy. But what he is and his unfortunate outcome in all this is he may be one of the first guys to get busted for it. And they're going to make an example of him. I mean, even if he does like, even if it all ends and there's no like, I mean, listen, let's be honest. Things like this, you go to prison.

for. Like, you can't go to prison for things like this. Let's just say that's off the table. Let's take away the actual, like, federal investigation part of it. Let's just take that out. For me, I'm saying this. I'm not saying you're saying this. I'm saying this is me, Damon Martin on this show. Unless something dramatically happens, like we see some huge reversal of fortune here. The fact that the UFC went this far already tells me that James Krause's MMA career and I mean that as like coach whatever is effectively over because who's going to he's he's radioactive now who's going to touch this guy who's going to associate with him knowing the repercussions that could come with that yep yeah unless he somehow gets everything proven wrong right maybe he did

no wrongdoing but like you said you know he's just accused right now we don't know all the facts so you know we got to give him a benefit of the doubt and it's it until proven guilty right but it certainly doesn't look very good for him, man. It does not look good for James Krause. And, you know, I just give it, I'll just give my own shout out to him and wish him luck, man, because I really like the guy. Yeah, no, I do. And like I said, you know, on a personal, I do.

But again, you know, it's like I said, when you hear like, you know, horrible, you know, people get arrested for something, you know, and, you know, obviously this isn't like, you know, like a violent crime or anything. But, you know, I like a person great, but doesn't mean they didn't do bad things. And, you know, and, you know, listen, this is, this is like an onion. We're going to be peeling back layers on this for a while because, as we said, we both know betting and gambling in this sport goes a lot deeper than anything that's going on with this situation. Like you said, you know coaches to bet on fights. Now, are they always betting on their own fighters?

You hoped so, but that doesn't mean it happens. That doesn't mean they're not. Like, come on now. Like, the idea that somebody isn't betting against their own teammate, their own, you know, whatever. Come on. We both know that's happened. I don't know names. I'm not sitting here trying to, like, throw anybody.

under the bus and say they did it. I'm just saying, come on. I won't name any names, but I could absolutely name people. I've seen this exact same thing happen before. Like, it has happened. It will happen again. It'll happen in the future. It'll never be stopped, I don't think. And again,

I'm surprised that they have the UFC or I don't know, somebody commissions or somebody hasn't put out more notices. So we're clear on what the laws are, what we are allowed to do and not allowed to do, because, because I don't think a lot of those guys even know what they're not allowed to do.

I'm betting James Krause is a very smart guy. I'm betting that he stayed within whatever lines he knew as possible. You know, he believed that he was within the lines of the law, right? Like he's a smart guy. I bet anything he wasn't going intentionally breaking any law. But he may not have known what the laws were. Like none of us really do. again, I remember this FBI guy coming and talking to us and telling us,

and I just stayed away from it all together. I didn't write anything down that he said, but I said, I'm not fucking with that. It worked. I'm sure that, again, well,

I know for a fact, other guys did not listen to it. But again, we just don't know what the law is. You know, so he's like, what do you do? I mean,

he's just playing the game, right? Like, what do you? I can't even hate on him for. right he's just playing the game yeah i mean it's like like you said it's like if you don't know the rules how are you supposed to know if you're breaking them um exactly and i think and i think but again i think you know like i said it's like peter rose the public thing like when it becomes public they got to make an example of somebody and i think james is a mistake at least on the surface

and i don't know the ins and outs i don't know the whole you again i don't know if he's guilty but when you're publicly saying i've opened a betting club and people are paying me two thousand dollars a month to take advice for me on bets on fights and I give them picks and all this kind of stuff and our winning percentage is this and that I mean you're basically flaunting it and somebody is eventually going to put a microscope on you and saying what do you do that's like going out there in public and saying if you are a mid card fighter earning 25 and 25 a fight and you're driving a Lamborghini and you live in a two million dollar house and you're walking like Floyd Mayweather with stacks of cash.

The IRS is eventually going to come looking and saying, okay, you filed a tax return last year saying you made $75,000. How are you driving around in a $2 million car and living in a whatever? You know what I mean? Like, if you, it's, I know you're not a big movie guy. Have you seen Goodfellas? Come on, you've got to have seen Goodfellas at some point. I know the movie, but I don't think I watched it.

There's a scene in Goodfellas where they go rob an airport and they get all this money, like millions of dollars and afterwards the guy who led the the robberies tells all the guys involved whatever you do don't flaunt it don't spend any of it don't do anything to get on the government's radar because that's how they catch us if you suddenly and then everybody in the crew goes out and they're buying Cadillacs and fur coats and you know buy it all and he's like what are you doing like you're just telling them to but that's that's what it reminds me of here like this is like he he walked up to the line and then he's just like well hold on now I've already walked up to the line.

Let me charge $2,000 a month for people to get betting advice. And then somebody's like, you know what? Maybe we should keep an eye on this guy. And then the Derek Minter thing happens and then the whole world explodes. Like, again, I think that's really what it comes down to them. If he's proving guilty on that, I don't think there's any question. Like, he knew what was going on there, right? Like, he knew he was doing something illegal.

If he did what we think that he did. Right, I don't think, you know, you can't really claim. ignorance on that like okay your fighters hurt you're betting against them you're out there corner and then like this isn't there's not a lot of questions in there you know like you got to be fool to think that's illegal so um you know i'll leave it at that but the other stuff again i don't know you know if he's treading the line you know um but again he just went to the well one too many times man that's all you know that's what that's kind of what i'm looking at like he did probably did did not break the law in most of these instances

and probably wasn't really doing anything to implicate himself. But then he went to the well one too many times, man, and went pretty deep from what it sounds like. That line moved a lot, man. He went deep into the well, and now he's going to pay the price for it, unfortunately. Yeah, and when you get, like I said,

when it gets this far, you become toxic. When the EOC is literally putting up press releases saying you're not allowed to associate with any you were not going to associate with anyone who touches you that's bad i mean that's just real which brings me to brandon marino what is he doing he was in the middle of camp he's fighting in a couple weeks what have we heard about him he's in a title fight yeah he posted on instagram and said something to the effect of like you know we'll wait for the truth to come out posted for a you know hug him hugging james krause i mean if they're being this like rigid about it i mean i think brandon marino's going to have to make a choice

Like, are you going to stick by James Krause and drop out of your title fight? Because in the grand scheme of things, and I mean this with absolute all due respect to Brandon Moreno, and I like Brandon Marino. I don't know him. I've never, never really talked to the guy, but I like him as a fighter. He's an incredibly fun fighter to watch and a really, really good flyweight. The UFC will not hesitate for one second to drop kick him to the curb versus the bigger picture of what they're dealing with with like, you know, if Brandon Marino even has, has the hint that he's working with James Krause, Nevada might stop taking lines.

You know what I mean? That's a ton of money lost for the UFC if suddenly they can't advertise betting on their programming because Brandon Marino's fight. They'll drop Kim Kim to the curb so fast as head will spin around backwards. Because in the grand scheme of things, the UFC's business is far bigger than any one fighter. You and I both know that. That's been the nature of the UFC forever. And rightfully so in a lot of ways.

it's never about one person. It was never just about Chuck Liddell. It was never just about Tito Ortiz. It's never just about one person. So they're, I mean, they, 100% they want to hesitate to drop kick him to the curb if he decides to stand by James Krause. And time's running out. His fights at a month. Like, he's got to figure this out quickly.

And, you know, he's already posting Instagram photos saying the truth will come out and show him. I mean, I don't know. I haven't heard anything. I don't know that they're going to like pull him from the fight. I don't know if he's already. moved his camp somewhere else. I don't know the details of that. But that's the big,

that's the first big domino that's going to fall because he is, James Kraus has been in this corner. That is his coach. And he has a title fight coming up in six weeks. He better figure it out, man. He better go. Yeah, he better figure it out.

I was just curious. I didn't know if you knew any info about that. So I think me and you can still keep up our five-year running bet, though, right? Yeah, the five-year running bet. I owe you like 10 times on. The five-year-running bet that I've never been paid off on. So technically, it's not really that.

So, yeah, and to be clear, before we move on, let me just be clear about this. Like, you know, everyone talking about coverage of the story on my side, like in the journalism side, like, I've asked all the questions. I've reached out to everybody. Very, being very honest, no one is really talking. I understand that because it's an ongoing fluid situation. No one's going to condemn themselves publicly. for, you know, because they will 100% use that against you in a court of law. So no one's really talking now.

So, you know, hopefully we'll have more information as it comes in the next few weeks. But on the surface, on the outside looking in and then on the inside of what my job is as a journalist, none of this looks good for James Krause in the long run. Like, I don't know what the outcome's going to be. I don't know the evidence fully. I don't know what's already been discovered. But I will say on the surface, this doesn't look good. and I doubt there's going to be a happy outcome for him.

Just being honest. That sucked. I love James, man. I think he's a great guy. So that sucks for here. Yeah, it's rough. Unwrap holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. From festive and cozy fashion to Lux Beauty and Fragrantz.

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That's what I'm talking about. The talk last week about Stephen Wonderboy Thompson. We had him on the show last week going in the fight with Kevin Holland. Everyone was saying Wonderboy is getting too old. He should retire. He's this. He's that. he just sent a huge reminder to the world

saying something to the effect of y'all must have forgot because he went out there and put on as good performance as Stephen Wonderboy Thompson has had in years looked incredible also fought through some adversity had a you know took a hard punch in that early in the first round came back from it dominated the latter part of the fourth round to get to finish ultimately you know basically you know Kevin's corner throwing in the towel

you know, waving it off. What a performance from Wonderboy, man. What a performance. I was going to say the exact same thing, man. It fought through the adversity. That was the biggest thing. And just sharp throughout, you know, made so few mistakes, just looked like a phenomenal, tremendous, man,

from beginning to end. Every single thing he did was on point. And boy, that's spinning wheel kick. I thought for sure he was about to get that highlight, KO about three or four times with that spinning wheel kick, man. Yeah, you know, unfortunately he's in a grappling heavy division at the top right there. It's going to be tough for him to get much higher, I think, unfortunately. But I think you said it perfectly, man.

He reminded everybody that he's still a top fighter and just what a great card from top to bottom, man. I was pumped. I couldn't fall asleep that night. I was just pumped, man, and, like, you know, having fun watching the fights. And usually I don't even like staying up out late to watch the fights, right? Like, I go to bed, man. And I know you're a night person.

I'm more of a morning person. So still feeling the effects a little bit, man. Yeah, Wonderboy, man. He just, he was so good, so dynamic. And, I mean, he didn't like, I never understood the idea that he somehow lost the step because he got out grappled in a couple of fights. Like, it's not like he went out there and just got dominated on the feet. He was slower.

His reaction time was slower. None of that. He just, he got out grappled and credit to Gilbert Burns of Bilal Muhammad for figuring out a game plan to beat Wonderboy and not allow him to do what he did because we just saw on Saturday night what happens when you do allow Wonderboy to stand with you

and trade with you on the feet because he is that good. Yeah, and we had to, I think we're both sitting there wondering like, what is Kevin Holland doing here? Like what, you know, he gave that fight away.

Now, would he have won on the ground? Who knows? You got to think he would have. And two times, He let Wonderboy up. And, you know, he's got to go back to that. He's got to be kicking himself in the ass for it right now.

You know, I've seen some of his tweets and stuff and he's happy and he's, you know, he's being Kevin Hall and he's talking and, you know, he's a cool guy and everything. But, boy, he's got to be kicking himself in the ass. And, you know, I threw that opportunity away. And, you know, then he had him hurt really bad in the first round and, you know, didn't really, like, do everything he could. to try to get a finish. And, you know, he was just having too much fun out there, I think, you know, and too bad for him. And, you know, because he was looking, I thought he was doing tremendous, man.

That first round, I thought he looked fantastic. I think he had a great game plan. I don't know if it was his hand getting broken. Maybe that was what, you know, was kind of the ultimate reason that he couldn't win on the feet with Wonderboy. But that first round, he looked tremendous. I thought even on the feet, like his game playing was great. Things were going his way. He had great entries and was blocking everything, seeing everything, being sharp, being fast,

hurt Wonderboy the one time. And, you know, you just got to kind of tip your hat to Kevin at the same time, even though it wasn't the best strategy. Just like we were talking about with Michael Chandler a couple weeks ago, like you got to have a strategy at this level, man. And, you know, but I kind of tip my hat to him at the same time. Like, what a freaking gangster, man. And this guy broke his hand, got Wonder Boy down, still, you know, told him to stand up.

So, you know, you got to give him props for that, but, you know, stick it to his guns. But ultimately, man, we're in there to win a fight. And, you know, it would have done loads for him to win that fight. It would have done so much for him in the division. So I don't know what really he was thinking there. Yeah, there's a danger. And we talked about this with Michael Chandler. Great, great point about that is that, you know, there's a danger you run when you

just want to be entertaining and prove and have fun for the fans. And I appreciate that, but it still doesn't, it doesn't mean you win the fights. And when he had Wonder Boy down was on top of him, I'm like, start throwing elbows, start throwing punches,

and he just lets it back up again. And that is just such a dangerous moment. Like, I think back, like, your fight, like, every,

I say this all the time, because obviously your co-hosts on the show, Matt, but I say it's like when we see a Matt Brown fight, we know what to expect in a Matt Brown fight. That being said, like, I remember when you got matched up with Carlos Condit,

And I said, oh my God, this is going to be incredibly. These guys were just these guys are both, you know, go to war. But that's not the reality of a fight. You have to fight to win. You have to fight to win. And if that means a takedown, if that means a jiu-jitsu, like, what your Tim Means fight? It's a great example. You pull out the guillotine.

Like, were you just going to let him go because you guys were standing and banging? Like, no, you win the fight because you caught him and you finished him. I get that. That's a huge part of fighting is being an opportunity. right like there will be opportunities in 99.9% of fights for you to get an advantageous position those times will come up even against the highest level guys the guys that take advantage of that opportunity are the ones who win most of the time like it's a fight right especially a wild fight like that there's crazy things that are going to happen you know that was a great fight

and like that's one of the things uh you know when we see some of the the greats like Dustin Poirier is one of the greatest at that, I think. Like when an opportunity comes up, he jumps right. Charles Oliver, you know, another one, just tremendous at that. When there's an opportunity, like, you better not slip up because he's going to attack it with everything that he's got. And then there's other guys, like John Jones, I think, is one of the best at creating those opportunities.

You know, Kevin Holland had the opportunity to at least, you know, who knows if it would have won him the fight. You know, it could have turned out, you know, the same way that it did. Or, you know, maybe Wonder Boy just got right up. Who knows? But that's exactly it. You don't know. Like, you had an opportunity. You didn't jump on it. Now you don't know. Yeah. And like you said, when he got him down in that moment, like, who knows? He may he would, you know, maybe we would have survived the second round. But you didn't put that doubt in the Wonderboy's head where he says, maybe I can't throw these kicks as much because he's going to go for the takedown. You know what I mean? He had no fear of that.

You just open the door for him to throw whatever he wants now because he knows he's getting back up. You're here at a standing bank. Yeah. And you've just taken away that element of a threat. You know this. You fought wrestlers. Like, you know how that is. When you know a guy's going to be diving for your legs, you fight a different way than you would against the guy who has no takedowns.

You absolutely do. And if Kevin would have taken advantage of that in that moment, maybe he never goes for another takedown. But if he just stayed on the ground and hammered him with elbows. and beat him up a little bit, then Wonderboy might be a little bit more hesitancy. Maybe I don't want to throw those spin kicks because if he catches me one time and puts me down, maybe I won't get back up again for five minutes.

Like there's that worry in your head, and especially after Wonderboy lost two fights in a row by guys who basically outgraple them. Like that's already probably in his head a little bit. And to give up that, I get it. I love Kevin. You will not fight a bigger Kevin Holland guy than me. I love Kevin Holland.

I think he's hilarious, think he's a fun dude, really fun fighter. But I think we can all point to that and say that was a mistake. I mean, it was a mistake to allow Wonderboy back up multiple. It happened multiple times. Yeah, that's exactly right.

Yeah. Again, we're just like we had the almost exact same conversation with Michael Chandler. And it's like they're, bro, not the exact conversation, I guess. But you have to be an opportunist, man. When that opportunity comes up, you have to jump on that son of a bitch. And I mean, I know this stuff because I've made these mistakes in my own career. And I can, you know, I don't mean to be critical of other guys. You know, so I'm not trying to like bring them down or anything.

You know, they're doing great. They're doing much more than I am right now. But at the same time, I can look at it objectively. And I can tell you, look, at that level, you have to jump on it. When you're fighting Stephen Wonderboy Thompson, if he gives you the opportunity to take him down, you know for a fact that is by far his weakest point is on the ground. It may not even be a weak point, but it's his weakest point. You have to jump on it.

you're fighting at you know top five guys you're finding a world-class guy Stephen Thompson something pops up you take it and that's all that's what fighting is like that's literally what fighting is right you're trying to set up an opportunity or when an opportunity comes up you have to jump on it that that's what the whole game of fighting is so why would you you know when why would you pass up on that opportunity it just doesn't make any sense to me at all and you know if you want to go do it for the crowd and that's where we we kind of go into the same thing we're just talking about a couple weeks ago with Michael Chandler.

If you were doing it for the crowd, that's fine. But that's not going to win you every fight. Yeah, absolutely. Before we move on, let me ask you real quick. We saw at the end of the fight, Kevin's corner stopped the fight. His hand was broken. He was taking a lot of damage in that fourth run. They waved off the fight.

Corner stoppages are kind of a controversial thing in MMA because while guys like me, writers, journalists, we say we'd like to see it more because, you know, sometimes fighters need to be saved from themselves, and I still believe that because there are times, listen, you could have, if your knee was injured in the corner mat, I know you well enough to know, if you had the opportunity, they said, just sever the leg, I'll get another leg. Like, I'll go back out there and fight with one leg, one leg, one leg, one arm, one eye, half a body. Like, you'll go out there with just your torso and you'll be like, you know, stubborn guys. I just know, sometimes you have to save fighters from themselves.

I also know the Anthony Smith approach and have had Anthony on the show. And Anthony, again, very smart, intelligent guy. says, listen, I've told my coaches, don't stop to fight, let me go out of my shield. I've told them this. I would get angrier if they did stop to fight. So I get both sides of it. How do you feel? Because you are now a coach.

You are a fighter. And so you're in the corner of your guys. We talked about this last week. You get more nervous when you're coaching than when you ever do when you're fighting. How do you feel about corner stoppages? You absolutely stop the fight when they're on, when the fight is like that. you know, the Kevin Holland's corner, I applaud them for stopping that fight. That was the perfect time to stop it.

Kevin wasn't showing any chance of really winning that fight. I completely disagree. You know, I would never tell my corner to stop it, but I'd also never tell them, you know, don't ever stop it, let me die out there. I'll tell the referee that because these referees just don't know when to stop a fight. I've been in that situation where I've had. fights stopped where I wasn't that hurt. You know, so I will absolutely tell the referee that because they don't know what the

fuck they're doing. The corner knows me. They know me well. They, they, if, you know, you have the proper corner, right, this guy has been with you through camp. These guys, I should say, have been with you through camp. They know who you are. They know what you're about.

They know what you can handle. And look, when you're on the losing end, you're just taking damage. It is foolish to keep fighting like that. that it is absolutely foolish. And again, I will applaud Kevin Holland's corner for stopping that fight. It was the proper time. No doubt about it. And you could see Kevin's demeanor that he was not going to go out there and win that fight in the fifth round.

So why take the needless damage? And say, you know, say someone like Anthony Smith comes to me, I'm coaching him and he comes to me and he comes to me and says, you know, let me die out there or, you know, whatever, right? It depends. For me as a coach, I'm going to look at, okay, are we friends or am I here as a professional that you're paying me to do a job? If you're paying me to do the job, I'll do exactly what you say, right? If you're my friend and I care about you, which is 90% of the time at least in MMA, right,

because we spend so much time together to get ready for the fight, even if it is professional, like you become very close I will absolutely stop the fight even if you told me not to because I care about my friends it's a reality and like I said I wish we'd see more because there's times where we've seen guys go out

and like you're just you're just waiting for something bad to happen now do guys pull off incredible comebacks do we see those kind of rare instances where those things absolutely but you know by like Kevin like what was what was Kevin showing in that moment to make you

if he would have gone out there and somehow finished the fight in the fifth around nothing. You know what I mean? Like live to fight that day because the risk of maybe he takes a leg kick and blows out an ACL in that moment because he's so, you're beaten up and tired and whatever else. Then you're out for a year. You know, then you're out for a year, year and a half. You know, bad things happen. You know what I mean?

Even worse than that, I mean, the brain damage that you're taking, right? Like that we don't even, again, we don't even, like, you tell your ACs. in the fifth round or whatever anytime you're going to be limping we know that it's it's blown right you can take all these shots and we don't even know that it's hurting you and then 20 years down the road you got you're walking around like Muhammad Ali yeah you know and you know and you you don't I guess you wouldn't blame your corner but um I don't know how a corner could live with that right like no one that's your friend that's what I said is is the difference between your friend and being a professional hired coach right if it's my friend I don't want to see that happen

to him. If I'm there just as a professional hire coach, I'm just doing my job doing what I'm told. If it's my friend, then no. I'm not going to watch you take these shots. Your brain is the most important thing that you have. We're going to fucking take care of it. That's what I kind of said during the fight earlier with Darren Elkins. He was taking so much damage. He was bleeding all over the place. And I was just like, you know what? I'd be okay if his corner stopped it. Like nothing was going to get better for him. And credit to Darren Elkins, he's as tough as they come. you know, they call him the damage for a reason, but, you know, like I said, at some point, you know, it's worth, you know, saying no moss and live to fight another day because things were not

going to get any better for him. And, you know, credit, he stuck it out. He got to the end. He made it all the way to the end of the fight. But it doesn't mean he didn't take undue damage. You know, it doesn't mean that, you know, 20 years down the road, he's not going to be struggling because maybe he took five or 10 or 20 extra punches in the last round, whatever. So, yeah, also.

We talk about people like Anthony Smith to say that, because I know other fighters to say that kind of stuff, you know, keeping it real when maybe in the moment they're going to say that. And then when they're out there, they're still going to feel that. They're still going to want to go out there and they're willing to die and everything. But I would bet anything. Like Anthony's a smart guy when the next week, he's going to say, thank you, coach. I know I told you the opposite, but thank you for doing that for me. And that's the truth of the matter, you know.

you know it's a very very tough call and again it for me it comes down to you know friends versus coaches but um you know it it puts the the the coach in a very very tough position and and you alluded to a little bit there we're talking about like Kevin's demeanor didn't show any chance of winning like we know that he has to get a knockout to win this fight and he's not even throwing punches I thought that the referee might even, uh, was actually thinking about stopping it there at the end of the fourth round. So yeah, that's a, uh, great subject to talk about, man, because I don't think that it's talked about enough. And I don't think that like you said, there is not enough corner stoppages.

And that is literally like part of the corner job. Like that is an actual part of the job is knowing when your fighter doesn't have a, uh, a path to victory and saving him from the damage. You see it in boxing all the time. Oh, yeah. Not all the time, but you see it, right? It's a normal thing. That is part of the fucking corner's job. Save your fighter.

I appreciate you saying that coming from you, not only because you're a veteran and because you've been around, but you have a reputation of being such a tough guy. You know what I mean? Like you're an incredibly tough, durable fighter. The fact that you're saying that says a lot because I think there's a lot.

There's this weird kind of tough guy mentality because we do, in my opinion, you know, this is the toughest sport on earth to do, that you kind of have that machismo. You know, you're like, you're not supposed to be, you know, it's like not tapping out to a submission. Dude, I've much rather tap out than have my arm snapped in half. You know what I mean? It's like, I know I'm not getting out of an arm bar and the difference of me being the tough guy versus tapping or the guy literally snaps my arm into. I'm going to tap.

Like, there's nothing wrong with that. You know, like, I hate that. Like, we had that, we had the mentality in sports sometimes. like, oh, it shows weakness. No, it doesn't show weakness. It shows smarts. It shows that you care about your fighter. You also, you want, as a corner, you want your fighter.

And as a coach, you want your fighter to have that mentality. Yeah. And if they don't have that mentality, then you're not going to want to coach you. But the corner's job is the, it's the corner's job to protect the fighter from themselves. Exactly. Exactly. That's exactly it. That's the corner's fucking job.

Your job is not just to coach them. They're not going to hear fucking almost all the things that you say. like, I don't even hear my corner half the time, you know. And every now, you know, if they say 20 things, you'll get one thing out of it. So, you know, so your job really isn't just, you know, it's not like you're playing a video game. You can just yell at them and push buttons and they just do what they say. You know, your job is to take care of them. That's a, you know, I know some guys, coaches that say they don't even like it because they feel like they're just a water boy.

They're like, dude, all I do is carry the fucking bucket and put Vaseline on them in between rounds. and shit, you know, and it's like, that's really what the job is. I mean, there's absolutely other parts. I'm not taking that away from anything, but that is a huge, huge part of the job that is not talked about a lot. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Real quick, before we move on to 282 this weekend, I know you mentioned on Twitter,

I got to mention it right now. Sergei Pavlovich goes out there and just annihilates tied to Ivasa. That was such an incredible performance. You know, Taito I Vasa, we saw what he did with Derek Lewis. I mean, Derek Lewis hammered him and he wouldn't go away and he came back and knocked out Derek Lewis. We know how hard Derek Lewis hits. The fact that Sergei Pavlovich just goes out there and just walks through him. I mean, march forward, hit him.

And what was so incredible to me about that fight, Matt, was watching Ty, rearing back and doing what Ty does, throw in wild punches. Serge being smart enough to back off for a second, duck and dodge, show defense. and then come right back at him and knock him out. That is 54 seconds, but it was such an impressive performance because he didn't allow himself to make the mistake that Derek Lewis did. When he had Ty hurt, he just boom, boom, boom, goes forward. He back, there was a brilliant sequence we watching where Ty throws this wild punch. You see Sergey back off.

He literally moves his head back to Duck and then he measures his shot. I loved that. I loved that performance. I couldn't agree more. calm, collected, measured, and just walking Ty to Vousa, however you say, Ty to the fucking guillotine, man, walking to the gallows. I just, what a fucking performance. And everything was sharp and it was tight and it was crisp and it was clean.

And Ty looked like he was in a fucking five-round war after one minute of fighting with this guy. I could not be more impressed with Sergey. And that's the first time I watched him fight. I'd heard about him. I knew he was on a little streak and everything, but I'd never really watched him. And boy, I think this guy might be the limit for this guy.

I don't know what he has in terms of other skills. But, you know, he's got a Fador 2.0 look to me. Yeah, absolutely. He's scary. And, you know, I mean, look, there's not much ahead of him now. I mean, you get Curtis Blaze, which that's always going to be a test because Curtis has the wrestling. That's the ultimate, you know, equalizer for Curtis.

He's got that wrestling. can he wrestle? You know, Cyril Gahn is a really, really good striker, really dynamic, fast, fast on his feet kind of striker. So can he go out there and do that to a surreal gone? Of course, Francis and Ghanu, arguably the hardest punchers who ever fight in the sport, but that's really the obstacles left in front of him. It's those three guys. And then if you want to throw John Jones in the mix once he arrives, but right now you got, and I know I'm not mentioned in Stipe. Steve-Bes not fighting. I don't know if Steepe's ever going to fight again, to be honest. So I'm kind of pulling him out of the equation.

Curtis, Surreal Gan, and Francis Ngano. I mean, that's pretty much it for this guy. I mean, there's no one else for him to fight. And the big difference between him and Francis Ngano, you know, Ingano certainly if he hits tie with those shots, you know, his head might be in the stands at this point, right? But Francis wings everything he can into his shots too. So Sergey was absolutely calculated and sharp and crisp and stayed tight with everything.

And like you were just saying, he was still aware too. He wasn't just winging shots and swinging hard for the fences. He was calculated and he was watching Ty the whole time, seeing the response. When as soon as he seen the response, he stepped back out of the way, came back in, finished it. I can't say enough great things about that performance. but I'm going to go back on. I'm going to fight past and I'm going to watch the rest of his fights. I want to see what this guy is all about.

Maybe you know, maybe you've seen his fights. I don't remember seeing him. You know, this guy, boy, I can't say enough good things about him. Yeah, he had one hiccup. He lost Alistair over him early. I think it was his first fight. And again, no shame in that Alistair's a legend. At that point, Alistair was still, you know, a bit more like Alistair of that age.

You know, Alistair's a little older now. But since then, you know, knockout, knockout, knockout. and precise, technical, surgical. That's where I like you, surgical, just really surgical. Because, again, we saw a lot in 54 seconds, and he looked really good. So I really look forward to what this guy's going to do in the future. And I tell you what, you know, we always talk about how hard it is to hold onto a title in the heavyweight division. There's a reason why Steepay with three defenses is the all-time record because of how hard is.

Like, I am the biggest believer. I love Francis and Gondi. You will not find a bigger Francis and Gano fan than the guy sitting right in this chair. I think he's amazing. and I love him and I think he has a great chance of beating John Jones. I don't know anyone. I call John Jones the greatest mixed martial artists of all time, and I still think Francis has absolute chance to knock him out

because it's Francis freaking Inganu. That being said, I can't sit here and say that Francis wouldn't lose to Sergey Pavlovich. I can't say to John wouldn't lose to Sergey Pavlovich. This division is so hard because it just takes one, man. It takes one. And look what Pavlovich did in 54 seconds with Derek Lewis, one of the hardest hitters ever couldn't do. I mean, this is, like I said, man, heavyweight's a, it's a, it's a scary, scary

division. As of now, I've watched one minute of Sergei. And right now, just off what I've seen, I'm calling him Fador 2.0. This guy's going to be the greatest heavyweight we've ever seen. I got to watch the rest of them to confirm that, but I'm going to call it right now. Yeah, I mean, you're not wrong, dude. I'm called it right now with a little asterisk. Yeah, I was a believer already.

That fight made me a true believer. Like that was the fight. I was like, oh, my God. Like the what he did to tie to Evas on the feet. Didn't try to take him down. Didn't, you know, didn't try to just take away his power. And no, he went out there and just annihilated him. Unbelievable performance.

Real quick, Matt, we got to shift gears real quick to UFC 282 this weekend. Of course, that fight card went underwent. A lot of changes. Of course, we just got the bad news. Robbie Lawler, former UFC Welchweight champion, knocked out of his fight with Santiago Ponzoinibio. I was really looking forward to that one. That was a fun fight on the main card.

Unfortunately, not going to happen now. We also lost the actual main event, you know, a couple weeks ago, with Yuri Pajasca dropping out and Glover Tashir get pulled from the card now in a really kind of weird situation. Jan Blovich is going to fight Magamette and Kalaya for the undisputed light heavyweight title because Yeri surrendered the title, relinquished the title. It's a really weird situation.

But it is what it is. I like Jan Bolhovic very much. I think Jan is a monster. He's got that legendary Polish power. But kind of like we just talked about with Pavlovich, man, I am an Ankiah believer. I think this guy I've said since day one, since day one, I thought he was going to be a champion. And it's just getting here a little sooner than maybe it would have been one more fight. But I just, I have a hard time picking against Ankeliah, man.

This guy's a monster. I'm right there with you. Faster, sharper. I think the speed is going to be the big difference, man. so quick and and you know he can he can match everything that um yon does but does everything a little bit better too he's just younger i mean he's younger you know what i mean like listen younger yeah younger faster little i think he's a little bit bigger too but he's a big guy like he's a big light heavy definitely looks longer for sure yeah and he's just and what i like about him even though like

one complaint about ankeliah's last few fights they haven't been the most exciting fights the world but one credit I'll give him with that is is that he always stays within himself, meaning he never goes away from his strategy. And we just talked about this with Michael Chandler. We just talked about this with Kevin Holland. Magamann-Ankeleev knows how to win a fight, and he's not going to allow you to take him out of that.

He's not going to suddenly become... He hasn't had to yet either, right? Yeah, he's not going to suddenly, you know, get drawn into this firefight where he's just going to start wing and punches, hoping whichever one of you lands first. He's not going to go out there and allow you to dictate the pace to him.

Now, if that isn't, up being a knockout in the first round is a knockout in the first round if it ends up being a five round decision is he does i can ankylaev wants to win that's what matters most to him i don't he doesn't care if it's a first round knockout it's a five round decision he wants to win he knows how to win you and he's not going to allow you to take him out of that and i think that is a big difference with ankylaev listen i thought ankylaev i was going to pick angelaev to win this fight anyways i'm still picking ankle i have to win this fight i will and i'll be a hundred percent honest. I was going to pin Ankylaev to be eerie. I was going to be Enkolaev to meet Deshaer. I think Angolaev is the future of this division. So I can't stop riding that horse right now. I'm right there with you, Damon. I think Ankylaev is a special guy. And I think he's

so good and sharp. And I think Yon's best chance is to turn this into a firefight and get that big shot off because he does have the power. And he does have that, you know, he puts a lot of pressure on guys. You know, he is really good. He's got real good defense. He's. He's a lot of defense. He's definitely a tough, tough guy. You know, I anticipate him looking to get this fight to the ground, sort of like he did, Adasanya, but he's dealing with a much bigger, stronger guy this time. So I'm right there with you.

I think Aguilio is going to dominate this fight. And, yeah, I just look forward to see him fight more. And I like, to be clear, I love Jan Belhova. Yon is one of the nicest dudes in the sport. Yeah, he's a really good fight. Like, I think this, I don't think this is, I don't think this is like a fight he can't win. He's got a way to win. I just, again, I'm an Anka-Lia believer.

Like I said, I just think right now Anka-Lia is a bit better, you know? It's not that Yon isn't good. Yon's great. And I think Yon could beat Erie. I think Yon could beat Glover in a rematch if they fought. I just don't see him beating Ankeliov right now. Not yet. Couldn't agree more.

Co-made event got bumped up. And we'll kind of close out on this, our last subject, which will be the fight between Patty Pimbled and Jared Gordon. I had a chance to talk to Jared Gordon yesterday. Really good dude, really smart dude. You know, Fun Fighter. I feel like Jared's one of those guys who's always one moment away from making real waves in this sport because he's had those kind of performances where he's like,

and he'll be the first to admit. He's had those performance where he misses a step and he loses, but he's also had those performances where he goes out there and just looks brilliant. That being said, I want to talk about Patty Pimbleau because Patty's come in and kind of become the new star. Everyone's talking about him. Everyone's buzzing about him. You know,

everyone's calling him Connor 2.0. I don't think that's a fair comparison. He's not Connor 2.0. Much a different fighter. Also, he's not Connor with the trash talk. I don't, I mean, I don't really think he really goes crazy with the trash talk. He's just a funny, relatable dude with a huge fan base behind him. What do you think of Patty Pumbleau?

Because he is a, he's a weird one because he hasn't fought tough competition, really top competition in the UFC. being honest. He hasn't. He's got whatever three or four wins. All quality wins, good, but none of them have been against, like, legitimately like top 20 competitive. I say top 20 because, you know, I don't think he's ready for top 15, but let's just take like a little further out. I don't think he's ready for top 20 yet. And he hasn't fought top 20 yet. So I'm kind of, the jury still kind of out for me on him. I don't know how good Patty Pimble can be. No, I'm right there with you. Yeah, he's a relatable guy. People will love watching him. He's a

social media star at this point, right? He's got so many followers. social media. It's crazy. And I mean, his social media is fun. Like him and meatball together, right? Like, they just crack you up, man. They just, you know, with their accent and the way they talk and everything, it's really funny. And they say all the right things at the right time. Jared Gordon's the right fight for him. That's the point that he's at in his career. And I think he's going to give him a good test. And if he's not right on point, then, you know, Jared's going to beat him. His obvious path to victory is going to be. take down and, you know, look for a choke or look for some sort of submission.

I'm not confident he can do that to Jared Gordon. So that's why I think it's a great test for him. And, you know, he's nothing like Connor. I can't believe anybody would say that, you know, I haven't seen him trash talk at all, right? That's what we loved about Connor was his confidence and his insane trash talking. Like, Patty's just a good talker, period, right? He's just a funny guy that, like you said, relatable, that we all kind of, it's just entertaining to watch, you know, but, you know, Connor was a completely different level.

Still is, man. You know, he crashed me up there. I love Connor personally. Connor, Connor came in day one saying, I'm going to be the champion. You know, Patty hasn't really said that. You know, Connor came in. He beat Marcus Brimidge in his first fight and he's like, I'm the best featherweight in the world.

You're like, what? You just beat Marcus Brimidge. You're the best featherweight in the world. And then he backed it up, of course, because he went out there and did the damn thing and became champion. Patty's not that guy. I actually really appreciate this about Patty Pibble. but Patty got offered to fight in the UFC a couple years ago when he was in Cage Warriors,

and he turned down the contract because he says, I'm not ready. I'm not ready for UFC. I'm not ready yet. I'm not ready to be there. And I appreciate that level of honesty because you and I both know, Matt. Some people get that contract. They come in, they lose three fights, and they never come back. I mean, they never get back that level.

How many guys would have the balls to turn down that contract knowing that you're still going to get there? Yeah, and so he did, and now he's actually ready. Now, there's also a, I know the contract, I mean, I'm, I'm talking about. I mean, I'm talking about the Connor comparison. I'm also talking about talent-wise. Like, he's not Connor in a lot of ways. Let's just take that comparison out of here. But I think Patty, the jury is a little bit more out on Patty than ever was on Connor in that way.

Because when Connor came in on day one, I had seen enough of Connor and then through his first couple of fights, even though he hadn't fought at that point, hadn't fought Mendez or Aldo or any of those guys. But I saw the talent in him saying, this guy's going to be a player. When he beat Max Holloway and didn't have his best night, he. He had to go out there and wrestle Max Holloway doing things like that. I was like, this guy's special. Patty hasn't had that yet, and so I don't know. Jared Gordon is a great test for him. If he gets past Jared Gordon, eventually he's going to have to get to those top 15, top 20 featherweights, or the top 20 lightweights.

Excuse me. He's not there yet, and lightweight is incredibly deep. But the difference here with Connor or, you know, Chandler or any other lightweight, I don't know yet what Patty Pimbley can be. I really don't. I don't know. Can he be? a champion, I'm not ready to put that on him yet. And that's not a knock on him. I'm just being honest. Like I can't look at, I could look at Connor early on and say, man, this guy's going to be a

player. I can't say that about Patty yet. I just can't. Yeah, absolutely. I'm right there with you. And it really, they're really both in the same sort of part of their career, right? Where, you know, one of them is probably good enough to be like top 15, right? Like, whoever wins his fight is probably going to move on to like a top 15 guy. But, you know, one of them is probably, we don't know which one's going to show up and put on a performance at night. We don't know where Patty Pimble is exactly. I think we know a little bit more about Jared Gordon, right? We kind of, we've seen him fight.

We kind of know how he fights, what he's about. And I'm going to pick Jared in this one. You know, I think Jared actually is sort of underachieve so far. My biggest question with Jared is when I hear him talk, like, I think we were talking about this before, was he doesn't really like being a fighter, right? He's not really like excited about being a fighter. And maybe you could add on to that and remember some more details about that.

But like, he's not like, I love this sport. I love doing all this. Yeah, he's talked about that in the past and tried to like, he kind of clarified a little bit of his statements as far as what he meant. But like, you know, the sport really hasn't given him anything good. I think it's kind of what he said. Like, you know, and I get what he's saying. like, you know, how tough this is and how it does take away from so much of what you're doing

and taking time away from your loved ones and things like that. Like, it is. It's a hard sport. And I appreciate the honesty. I do. I appreciate the honesty because, like I said, kind of like the Patty Pimbleau thing, like turning down a UFC contract. I appreciate the honesty to say, I'm not ready for the UFC, so I'm not going to go fight there yet. I appreciate that. But yeah, you're absolutely right. Like, that's a weird thing to have because Jared has admitted like he's had nights where he's just had an off night he didn't quite show up there

and then it's resulted in a bad loss or loss in general and I do get the sense that Patty does love it Patty does want to be there Patty is Patty is loving this Patty's loving the moment and that's a dangerous thing if you're not fully invested

if you're not all the way there now I don't think that's the case with Jared Gordonley I think Jared is 100% in I talked to him literally yesterday He seems ready to go. He's excited for the fight. This is a big opportunity. Co-main event on a pay-per-view. Last minute, kind of getting bumped into that spot.

I don't think that at all. But I kind of still lean towards Patty because one thing, when Jared fought Grant Dawson, he struggled a little bit in the ground game. Now, Grant Dawson, I think, is a monster. And I think Grant, like, Grant would be a terrible matchup for Patty Pimbled right now, in my opinion. Like, that would be a bit bridge too far as far as, like, level of guy he's, ready for because I think Grant Dawson is a contender. I think he's a future top 10 guy. If he is smart and Patty typically is, if Patty's smart, he'll go out there, he'll look for the takedown, he'll look down at grapple and he'll look to be Jared Gordon. Now, if he does that,

I think he wins. Now, if he goes out there and starts winging punches and tries to entertain the crowd, which he did early in his career. He did that with the Luigi Vindermini fight. He went out there and just started swinging and he got caught a couple of times. That's a dangerous game to play because Jared Gordon is really good. but I still lean towards Patty because, again, I don't know the stealing on Patty Pimblit. If you're asking me right now, is he going to beat, you know, is he going to beat Islam Makachev one day?

I said, get the hell out of here. Come on, Ali. Let's slow down on this. But could he be a top 15 guy? Maybe. But I don't know yet. I know enough to believe. Yeah, I'm right there with you.

That's why Jared Gordon was just the perfect matchup for this time, right? one of these guys is going to go on and do a little bit bigger things, right? Maybe, you know, depending on who they get matched up with next. But I think this is a really, really tough fight for Patty Pemlett because I just have not been overly impressed with his skills inside the cage, to be honest. And again, I really like the guy, not putting him down in any way, but I haven't been overly impressed with what he's done. And he just, he has very few paths to victory, right?

It's a single path to victory, really. And I think Jared knows that, and I think he's going to come in ready and be able to nullify that. Yeah, when you're a good grappler, that helps. But the problem with Patty eventually is he'll run into great grapplers. And that's an issue. Like, when you're a good grappler, awesome weapon. Now do that against Islam Makachap. Do it against Charles Olivera.

Yeah, that's not, probably not going to work out too well for you. You know what I mean? Like that's like that's a whole other level. That's what I said. Yeah, well, that's what I said. Like, I don't know that yet. Like, I just don't know. I don't know that he's at that level.

I don't know if he's ever going to be at that level. Like, if I'm just being honest. Like, I don't know that he'll ever be at that level where I was like, listen. There's very few guys in the world at that level, right? Yeah. Well, I mean, like I said this, I've said this publicly. I don't think there's a lightweight on earth right now that will be Islam Markachab.

I just don't. Like, I think that dude is a monster. Could he get caught and clipped? And yes, well, I understand the nature of the sport. like on paper, I don't think there's lightweight in the world that would beat Islam Makachev right now, you know what I mean? And then just to get to that, to go through Porriere and Gaichi and Chandler and, you know, Olaver, oh my God, dude, it's like, it's just, you know, it's impossibly tough.

So that's why I said, like, you know, fun guy. You got to murder his row right there for sure. Yeah, fun guy, fun guy to watch, fun personality, future champion. I'm not ready to say that. Yeah, and, you know, the biggest thing. that little X factor that we haven't really talked about too is Patty's weight problems when he's not in camp. He's sitting there glorifying, you know, eating pizza and cheeseburgers and shit.

And I mean, we've seen the pictures. Like he gets ridiculously big. And that shows me a lack of discipline. And that shows me that he's going to, you know, most of this camp is really a fat camp. And that's probably one of the bigger reasons I'm going to go with Jared in this fight. you just you can't live that way you know especially if you know in the ufc man you can't live that way you're fighting killers that are training year around staying on weight staying ready you know you're fighting fucking lions here man and i think it's a very very bad move by patty

um now whether jared is the guy to be able to expose that i'm not sure but i'm i'm gonna call it well you're not wrong there too i mean i know i've talked to a lot of people and this is a guy who's discipline like a guy like Michael kiasa who is a disciplined guy like it wasn't like he ballooned up between fights but he used to tell me all the time like I spent my entire training camp just trying to get down to lightweight like I was I was missing out on on you know doing things to get better because I was so paranoid about getting down to 155 and I've talked to other fighters like that as well now Patty doesn't seem to struggle that much or at least he hasn't done it publicly but when you're ballooning up to like 200 pounds between fights and I get it's fun it's

joking, whatever, but what happens when you have to do that and then go fight, you know, Makachev or Gaecchi or Chandler or Porreier or, you know what I mean? Like, that, like, they're not doing that. They're not ballooning up to 200 pounds between fights. They're chiseled and working and in the gym.

And, you know, I talked to Phil Roe, who fought on Saturday night. I talked to him to, he won, knocked out. Great fighter Renico Price, got a big win. I talked to him today. He was in the gym already. Like, he was already in the gym. just like, you know, I don't think he was like full on doing sparring or anything, but he was literally doing the interview with me in the gym

less than 48 hours after his fight. That's the mentality sometimes you have to carry to get to that next level. Yes, this is my exact point, right? It's not even that it's, he might make way easy. It might not even be a problem making way. He maybe, he didn't even have to spend his whole camp and in fact camp, whatever. But you can see right through it and see all of the discipline issues that come along with that. no way that he's in there training his balls off every day he's not in there pushing himself

every day he's on there testing himself evolving that's the big thing you're not evolving you're not getting better every day other guys are you know so every every time one they're getting one percent better you know that's a that's another day you're falling behind yeah and you're in a great example this real quick like matt you're you don't have a fight scheduled right now but you're in the gym every day because you love it oh yeah Twice a day. You love it. You love it. You know what I mean?

Like, you love it. And that, that separates fighters, like great fighters from good fighters, good fighters from decent fighters, right? Like, that little extra drive. Like, if you're like, I know it's a cheesy saying, but it's true. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. And Patty may be the most talented guy in the world. But ballooning up to 200 pounds between fights and joking about it and all that, like,

are you working hard? You may be the most talented dude in the world. but there's some guy who's going to come along who's not as talented as you, but he'll work his freaking ass off to beat you. Absolutely. Yeah, and that's exactly where I'm out on this, and I'm going to go with Jared for that exact reason. You've got to be disciplined, man.

You're going there with killers. You've got to be disciplined. Jared may not be the guy to expose him, but he will get exposed. And, you know, he's a young kid still, too. That's the other part is, you know, he is young. So this weight's going to come. come off easy and he may get away with it for a while now.

But he also has time to learn that lesson. You know, when he goes in there and gets his ass kicked by somebody who really push themselves and you see that next level and he feels that next level, we'll see how he reacts to it then because it's going to happen. I think none of us question whether that's going to happen in this division. Again, you were just talking about it. Like you're not going up against Poria, G. Oliver, the Monca Chevy's top five, top ten guys in this division, um, living your life that way. You know, you're, you're talking the,

the fucking king lines out there. You know what I mean? And, and, and you better be fucking ready, man. And you better be ready every day. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Matt, we'll be back next week. We'll break down everything that happens to final pay per view of the year. So we'll talk about everything to unfolds the UFC 282. I know we'll both be watching this weekend. I want to say a big thank you to everyone to tunes in each and every week to the show. Make sure you check us out all of your favorite podcast platforms, Spotify, Apple Podcasts. Matt, I know you got some people you're working with as well, want to give you a chance.

I know you always got things going on in your life way. Where people can check out other people who are supporting you. God, man, I got so many things to check out. It's not even funny, bro. You can check out, for one, my instructional on dynamic striking. I got three of them now that I haven't even been plug in, right, on dynamic striking. I got two clinch instructional and a partner drilling instructional.

I always forget all about that, man. you know, I did those and, uh, um, hope everybody gets that they're, you know, if you want to learn about the clinch, um, you know, I put a lot of time and energy into these to make it the best clinch, uh, system that I've ever seen. Where can they find them? Of course. Uh, dynamic striking.com. Yeah.

Um, it's part of BJJ fanatics. And it's just the striking portion of it. Um, of course, you know, at the, at the, I am the immortal on Twitter and Instagram. You can check me out on there, Facebook. and if you need some energy, man, you can get some coffee at the immortal coffee. You got it. That's the badass coffee right there.

That's the coffee. Make coffee, not excuses. Yeah, you can't be a weakling with that coffee. You've got to be immortal to have that coffee. I'm just telling you right now. All right, folks, we're going to get out of here. We'll be back next week with our UFC 2802 breakdown. Thanks for everyone tuning in to another edition of the Fighter versus the Rider.

We'll see you next week. To the Vox Media Podcast Network. Okay. 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first? There, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes.