MMA Fighting - Laura Sanko Reacts To UFC 297, Explains Scoring Dricus du Plessis Over Sean Strickland

Episode Date: January 23, 2024

Following UFC 297 this past Saturday, UFC color commentator and analyst Laura Sanko joins MMA Fighting's Mike Heck to react to the first UFC pay-per-view of the year, Dricus du Plessis' middleweight title win over Sean Strickland, explains why she scored the fight for du Plessis, the performances of both fighters, where both guys go from here, Raquel Pennington winning the women's bantamweight title, the potential of an Amanda Nunes comeback, agreeing with Jasmine Jasudavicius getting a 10-7 round over Priscila Cachoeira, and more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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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. All right, UFC 297 is in the books. There's still a lot to digest from Saturday night in Toronto, So mostly with the main event, Drickus Duplice, the new middleweight champion of the world after defeating Sean Strickland via split decision, incredibly close fight, fascinating watch. But all of the talk post event seems to be about the scorecards.

So let's talk to somebody in the know about all of those things and more. She is the great Laura Sank. Laura, how are you? I'm doing well. I'm excited to kick this year off with a little bit of judging. I'm not going to call it controversy, but I love a good judging discussion. It's kind of my jam. So thanks for having me.

Absolutely. Well, before we get there, first pay-per-view in the books of 2024. And this is a wild ride. UFC 297. There are ups. There were downs, loud cheering, loud booing, questions about rules, fighters thinking they won during the announcement of the winner. And then we got to see their hearts break when they found out they didn't win. We have two new champions crowned controversy.

This one had it all, Laura Sanko, did it not? It did. it was a it was an emotional cornucopia if you will there was there was a little bit of everything what if you like controversy you had some if you like the ups the downs like you said it had it all for sure it was kind of um it was a good card overall um but in some ways you kind of come away going that was slightly it was good it was a little weird as as a night just because of all of the little things that happened that didn't necessarily i don't know they didn't have necessarily a huge repercussions, some of the things that happened on the prelims, but they kind of were enough

to make you go, huh, I'm not sure how that happened or, huh, I'm not sure why that happened. Yeah, we're seeing 10-7 rounds scored. We're seeing- that actually I was a big fan of. We can talk about that. Yeah, I completely agree with that. I was surprisingly one judge gave Jazz and Jas de Vizzius a 10-7 when a lot of people at home had a 10-7, but we'll certainly get there. Let's start with the main event. DDP versus Strickland. Again, fascinating and compelling fight. The way these two built this up, the press conference, where someone's going to lose their life in the cage. It's going to be a bloody war.

We're going to go. And honestly, we didn't get that per se, but this was one of the closest fights I can remember watching since maybe Volcanovsky versus Holloway 2 in Abu Dhabi. I remember coming out of there being like, Volk won, but I don't know if he won. Like, it was so close. And every time I've gone back and rewatched it,

it is one of the closest fights I've ever watched. And we'll get to the cards and the scoring in a minute. but as someone like yourself who is trained, who has FOD, who has a keen eye for the technique and everything, you do color commentary. What did you think of the main event from a fight perspective, a technique perspective? Yeah, a fight perspective, a technique perspective. As I was watching as a fan, I remember thinking, man, I'm glad I'm not judging this fight. I went back and judged it after the fact, but that's always a million times easier than

judging it in real time. I thought it was an incredibly close fight. And I was impressed by a couple of things from both fighters. I was surprised by a couple of things from both fighters. You know, I think in terms of Drickus Duplice, I didn't get a chance to do my normal preview show with Dean because I got trapped in Colorado. I saw that.

Insane snowstorm. I was actually supposed to be in Toronto, and it kept me from making it to the ESPN desk. So I very much was sitting at home with a massive case of FOMO, but I would have been one of those people that would have favored Sean Strickland and a long, longer fight. And so I was really impressed to see Drickus Duplice go out there and showcase what an incredible gas tank he really does have and an ability to have a tank in later rounds and

manage it over a longer fight because, I mean, the evidence was there that he had struggled with that in the past. And the evidence was there that he didn't have much or any experience going, you know, for a fifth round. It's certainly not at a championship context. So I think it's a fair assessment, but he certainly proved people like myself to be wrong. So I was excited to see that because that just makes him an even more complete fighter, right, to be able to speak of in the future. And those are the more interesting matchups to me at the championship level. And then, you know, for Sean Strickland, I think his defense is such a is such a linchpin of his game. But there are times where it almost becomes a detriment to his ability to really put his foot on

the gas, kind of like in the cannoneer fight. And I talked about this with Dean Thomas. He and I did a recap video. It's not up yet, but it'll be up on my YouTube page tomorrow. So I'm blatantly stealing this from Dean. But what his comment was, which really kind of blew my mind, what he said was, he said, you know, Sean Strickland reminds me of a Jorge Mosvidal,

like a guy who just likes to fight. And he knows in those moments he's getting the better of the guy because he's landing his jab or whatever. Like, he's getting the better of him. And he doesn't really give a lot of, like credence to scoring criteria and all this stuff that wouldn't really affect a real fight, right? So I don't know. I think sometimes, or at least Dean said that he feels like Sean goes out there and just really enjoys being in the fight and doesn't necessarily think about win,

win, win all the time. I don't know if that's fair or not, but I thought it was a really interesting assessment from a, you know, a veteran coach. So I take it, you know, with some credence there. And I, there is something when you watch Sean fight like that where you're just like, I just want 10% more. You know, it was like Eric said, I think it was after the fourth round. I didn't like that round, you know, or maybe it was the third. I can't remember it was the third or fourth. But when Eric came to him, Eric Nixick came to Sean in the corner, I said, I didn't like that round at all. That was exactly how I felt watching the round too, because you know he's capable of stepping on the gas.

But on the flip side, Driekus did do a phenomenal job of making it really difficult for Sean to do that because Sean fights best. off the front foot and Dracus did just enough to consistently keep him. Wasn't like he was running away on the back foot, but he was, you know, he kept getting knocked back, you know, in these small increments. And then, of course, he would come forward. It wasn't a nonstop thing, but it was enough where Sean was not fighting in his rhythm and in his comfort zone, the way that we saw him do against Izzy. And it was just enough to barely get, you know, get the win. And that's, that is how I saw it is. I did have Dracus, Both when I watched it live and when I went and back and rewatched it,

I had Drickus winning, but like by the narrowest of margins, smallest of margins. And people who are scoring it for Sean, absolutely. That's a correct scorecard. I remember covering the only time I've ever been to Las Vegas for a guy who's been covering the sport for so long. I've only been in Las Vegas once. One time.

It was for UFC 276. And Drickus duplice fought on that card against Brad Tavares, who oddly enough was coached by Eric Nixick. And I remember asking him about it because he is just such a chaos guy. Like everything he does is a thousand miles an hour. And Brad Tavares had put his chin on display like never before because Drick is just hammering that dude the entire fight. And I was just like, where does like all this chaos come from? And he was almost like offended by the question because like he's like no, no, no.

Like there's technique to this. And I'm like, I'm not saying you're not technical, but like you just, you come out like a thousand miles an hour. And just. He's just a little in a china shop. Exactly. But to see him on Saturday, fight the way that he did. Yeah. It was, and I brought up Volcanovsky earlier, there were some Volcanovsky isms to it where

the infight adjustments were so fascinating to watch because round one, he couldn't touch Sean. Yeah. He was just jabbed away. He could not touch him. He figured out the range bit by bit by bit by bit. And then round three, he had him. By round three, he had him. He did.

And then Sean made his own adjustment in the fifth round and started really, you know, I mean, he let his technique, I don't want to say fall apart a little bit, but in a good way. He started, you know, curving his punches a little bit more and not just focusing on that beautiful one, too, that he has, but really just throwing down. And that's where he was able to pull ahead. So, you know, he always think, what if there'd been a sixth round or seven, you know, who would, who would win then? But it was fascinating to see both of them make some really intelligent adjustments. And I thought there were a few times where Sean checked some of the kicks of Dracus and it's such a little thing but so few because we saw how it affected Neil Magni

earlier in the night obviously he got the win but like early in that fight the kicks of Mike a lot were really affecting Neil and that's something that he's dealt with in the past and it seems such a simple thing like just learn how to check a kick right you can see how difficult it is that is a that is a very specific difficult skill to be really good at and Sean is incredible at I mean I was I was really really impressed by that there were there were so many things that Sean did well as he always does, that Sean did better than usual. It was just a lack of, you can't even say it was a lack of volume because it wasn't a lack of volume. It was a lack of oomph on the majority of his shots that just, again, allowed DDP to pull away

just by the narrowest of margins. We did our post-fight show at like, I think, 4.30 in the morning because the main card took for it was just a really long card uh i think it was the longest watch party we had ever done and we were trying to figure out like what the biggest takeaway of the main event was and we were having a really hard time putting our fingers on it and we eventually kind of got to different places but my colleague jenn bushoo just said you know what i think the biggest takeaway i have is just punch people really really hard and you'll you'll win and that's what drickis did like he just punched really really hard and while sean was peppered him and was very successful it seems to like that was the biggest difference, especially for like those super close rounds.

Like Drick is just punched harder. It's as weird and as simple as simple as that sounds. And that is in keeping with their criteria and how judges are taught to interpret the criteria. And that's what people need to keep in mind is that there is an inherent bias to bigger punches in the scoring criteria. And, you know, whenever I'm judging a fight and this is kind of how I was I was taught to judge a fight. and it makes a lot of sense to me. It's almost like you have, I imagine like a volume knob or a power meter and to one side is one fighter and to one, the other side is the other fighter.

And if Fighter A lands a really big shot, that knob goes, you know, it goes pretty far over. And if the other fighter lands a few, it might click back a little bit toward the middle, but you may never even get back to, you know, zero. In other words, it takes a good amount of accumulative damage to compensate for a strong amount of immediate damage. Immediate is always more important than cumulative. And I think, you know, we talk about this all the time, but when they throw up the stats of significant strikes, it throws everybody off because I'll say it time and time again. They are not actually significant in the way that we think of the word significant. It's just a word that they attach to it,

because every single distant strike is considered significant. So even if you hit the lightest jab, If it's at distance, it is a significant strike. So when you see someone leading significantly in strikes, which actually, I don't think there was ever an insane margin where Sean outstruck. He did outstriking, but it was never like wildly different. Those numbers, like people want to grab onto that and say, see, he won because he hit him more. And that's just not how it works.

But I can understand why it is incredibly confusing and why people think that. 100%. And obviously when Sean, especially this, past week for whether you like the reasons or not. Sean was introduced to a new audience. Yeah. And I saw somebody say this is like, we're introduced to our, to our little friend, Sean, like the world was introduced to our little friend, Sean Strickland, like that we've known that I forget who said it, but I heard it. I laughed hysterically when I saw it. And a lot of newer fans like are watching the sport for the first time or just watching it for like the last

three months. So I always tell them like, if you want to understand the scoring criteria when it comes to striking battles, there's two fights that I would guide you to immediately. And they're, and they both involved the same guy who lost both of them. Rob Fom versus Barland Vera, Rob Fomt versus Jose Aldo. Those are the two. Because if you look at the stat, the, the significant strike totals, Rob triples them both up. Those are great examples. And that's why people need to understand, like, how important knockdowns are. Knockdowns are in many ways they are king, because quite frankly, you know, if you try to make the equivalent in the grappling area, the closest thing you can get is a close submission that doesn't, you know, you don't end up fighting and ending the fight,

but it's close. Well, who defines close? Like knockdown is visible. We can all pretty much agree for the most part when we see a knockdown that that just happened where someone gets very, very wobbled. Close submission is, I think, much more difficult to judge. So in my mind, you know, fighters who can should put emphasis on finding the big shots, which makes someone with Sean style, he is to a degree inherently at a disadvantage. Now, he has a lot of advantages because his technique is so good and because his defense is so good. But defense doesn't score you any points. In fact, I went down in the weeds on this particular area because it's different in the global rule set.

Some amount of defense does score when you're fighting like one FC and the other promotions that use a different rule set. But I remember thinking, what about checking kicks? Like when you check a kick and the other fighter visibly

is affected by your check because it's almost like your defense becomes its own offense. You hurt the other guy through your defensive action. Does that score? So like I started, I was sending off text and emails like,

what about this guys? What about this? What about this? That's a great point, though. That's a great point about checking kicks, though. Yeah. Because, I mean, that is damaging to the offensive fighter, which is, I mean, Strickland, it's such a good job.

That's why DDP was kind of limping around afterwards because Strickle was checking those kicks. I scored the exact same way you did. We were doing the watch party. So obviously there's a million things going on. But 48, 47, DDP, I gave Strickland, 1 and 5. Yep. DDP, 2, 3, and 4. A lot.

The response to this. one compared to most has been incredible, Laura, because a lot of people feel like not only did Sean Strickland win that fight, but people feel like he was outright robbed on Saturday night, like the amount of people who have just dumped on me for scoring this fight 48, 47 for DDP, I mean, they're just out for blood. Like, they're just like, oh, you're an idiot. They're looking at, they're looking at visible damage. So like that meme that's going around, you know, of Drikas, because he does.

He looks super banged up. He was super banged up. Not even that he looks at. He was. He was super banged up. But that's a whole other discussion of like how you judge visible damage when you judge it, when you don't judge it, and how the accumulation of 1,000 paper cuts can look worse than one shot that didn't cut or cause swelling, but may have knocked someone down, which I realized

didn't happen in this fight, but just as an example, visible damage is not the most important version of damage. And that word, quite honestly, it's almost like we need. a less limited vocabulary to describe what the word damage describes because it really is so many things that we're trying to articulate happening to someone's body upon receiving a strike. You can get real nerdy with it, but which I enjoy doing. Yes, I can tell. I could have this conversation forever.

What was interesting about the fight and you go back to like the quote unquote damage and the aesthetics of the fight because the Strickland rounds were. super clear. Like one in five, no doubt about it. It's Sean. DDP round four, clear round. No doubt about it. Two and three were very, very close. And DDP, like you said, he was getting lumped up early and often. And then Strickland gets a cut that bleeds a lot. And Chris Curtis is on the MA hour today as we record this. And he was like, I thought Sean won. He goes, here's the problem with aesthetics and damage. Sean got cut up in one round. Like it looked bad. And then they cleaned it up. And then like, one shot and he is wearing the crimson mask because the cut just releat.

And he basically said, you can't, you can't score damage that happened in round two in round three. Like if a cut just reopens, that was doing done in round two. Like you can't add that over to round three. Exactly. I thought it was a really interesting point. From like rubbing up against someone's shoulder in a clinch situation. It could, it could even be that that extra bleeding can happen not even from a strike. So it is really important. But I mean, he's absolutely right. But I guess I even knowing that, I still scored it just barely for DDP. And to me, again, it came down to when Drickus would hit him, whether it was some of the body kicks, some of the, maybe one or two of the head kicks, nothing like major. Again, no one got knocked down, right? That's, that makes it

easy to score. But every time Dracus would connect, there was like, you could see Sean physically sort of moved back a bit. There was impact. There was a density to his strikes that you just don't get when Sean was hitting him. And part of it is Drickis has this different style of defense. You know, Sean will lean out of the way and he still might eat, you know, 10% of the shot. DDP, on the other hand, will really shell up and sort of sit down and not be moved by the strike.

And I think sometimes when you see a guy get hit and he gets knocked back, even. the slightest amount in your mind. You're like, oh, that was, that was an effective shot. And it was. So I think that that had, um, a role to play more so than the visible damage. Because Chris is right. You cannot, you cannot carry visible damage into later rounds. It only pertains to the round in which it occurred and really should only pertain to the strike that caused it, um, if you can identify it as such. But Sean said was a headbut and I, I still can't find it if I'm being honest. I can't either. I can't either. And I love Sean.

Like I didn't have a horse in this race. I really like both guys. But I'll be honest, there was definitely part of my heart just because I felt really tied to the moment when he won it off of Izzy. I think there's something about an underdog define the odds that we all love, especially when this sport, you know, like it just makes you so happy. So there was definitely a part of me that was like cheering for him to get this victory. So it's not like I, you know,

I'm not saying he lost because I don't like him, right? You know, I don't like what he says. I love Sean. I love every bit of Sean. Bring him on. And I, I'm excited that he's the type of fighter that I don't think that this will affect his psyche whatsoever. And we're going to see more and more of him. Yeah.

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Do you agree? Like, enough. I feel like here's what we're going to do, Laura. I know everyone's talking about DDP and Izzy at 300. And 1,000% if DDP can turn around and do make that fight, one million percent that's the fight to make. It should also be on that card if we can swing in. is Sean Strickland versus Hamzaa Chimae,

number one contender fight. That fight fascinates me so much. That's what we do. Like, that's what we do. Sean is so close. Like, just needs one win. If he goes out there, it's even competitive with Hamzat Shemaya

and is available when the champion is ready to defend his belt. He's right back in there. It's incredible how it was very Nate Diazzi. Like, he loses the fight, but still wins in a lot of respect. That's a very good parallel. And I could see the rest of his career being like that, where, or sort of Jorge-esque, like, there are these guys who transcend wins and losses.

They are must-see TV regardless. You could be on a losing streak and you would still want to see Sean Strickland fight. To me, that is almost a bigger win in the grandest of scales in the entire arc of your career. To me, that's almost a bigger win than being, holding a belt for, you know, who knows how long DDP is going to have it. Maybe it'll be a long time, but maybe it could be a few months, right? That's possible. So who really comes out on top in that scenario? Sean Strickland is winning in life, and I'm happy for it.

I'm here to see it. And what you were saying earlier was funny because it's like, it was funny watching this whole new group of people that had never really been exposed to him before, just being like very pearl clutchy. I understand why. I'm not, you know, I'm not making fun of that. But what was amusing to me was like, I felt like more. than ever, probably more than usual, a bigger proportion of MMA fans were defending him than would if it was just kept within its own circle. Like, like, you know, like when someone makes fun of your sibling, I mean, you make fun of your sibling, but when someone else makes fun of your sibling,

like, no, no, no, I can make fun of my brother. You can't make fun of my brother. Like, Sean's our nut job, right? You can't, you can't, you can't, you can't denigrate our job. We might denigrate it, but like, you lay off. Like, he's ours. I love that. It's just like you run down how people feel about Strickland. Like he must see TV. And I think back to UFC 276 because that's when people really got to see it. He was on a pay-view card. He stole the show.

He stole the headlines. And then he becomes a meme because Alex Pereira just hustles him. Yeah. And brutally knocks him out. And it's still a story that like when I talk to Eric Dixick about that fight, like we just can't help but laugh because he tells me like, this is what we wanted Sean to do. And he just goes, no, I'm not doing any of that. He gets memed.

And then. fans begin to groan that he's headlining at the apex against Jared Kieran. Like, oh, no, another Sean Strickland main event, ripping the fact that the guy to replace Nasrude, to fight Nasrudeen, Emovoff, oh, here comes Sean Strickland. Oh, we're going to get another Sean Strickland fight. Oh, July 1st, right before International Flight Week, we get an Apex made of it.

Oh, it's Sean Strickland versus Davis-Bogg made up. No one wants to watch Sean Strickland fight. Goes out and gets finished. And then the man rolls into Sydney, Australia. And he gets over. He's the best press conferencer of the modern era, because he doesn't talk to the media, he talks to the people, and the people respond to him. Hey, Sean, what did you have for lunch today?

Let me tell you all something. On Saturday night, I'm going to go in there for you, MFers, and we're going to go to war, and it's going to be bloody. You can ask Sean anything, and he's just going to look at all the people and talk to him. And then he wins the belt, and you're on the call for it. He knocks Izzy down. It was like a, he's Mr. Canada. He's freaking Mr. Canada out of nowhere.

Like, what has this been like for you to watch? Like from UFC 277, UFC 276 coming a meme to the guy everyone groans about is fighting at the apex at a main event. And now he's, he's the dude. He's like the top five guy right now. I got on the Sean train a lot earlier than people than a lot of other people did because it was his comeback fight. And I don't remember who it was. But when after his super long layoff, after the whole motorcycle accident, the knee, like, his knee is still crazy looking. I was back, that was back when I was still a reporter, and I had to do a report on him.

So I was like researching his whole experience really heavily. And then I got to interview him after he won. And I remember like, you know, the ESPN interviews tend to be, you know, a little bit more formal. And it's always like you have to hit exactly two minutes. It's kind of a difficult way to do an interview, honestly. But I remember at the end of the interview when I went to kick it back to the desk, I was like, Sean, you are just you are an absolute psychopath in the best way possible like i don't think anybody had like articulated that to him before and he's like thank you thank you and when we were off camera

we were off camera he's like he's like you get me you get me and i was like i do i think i get you like and we kind of struck up a bit of a friendship from that moment on so it's been on a personal level really cool to see this whole journey and like you said it hasn't just been up. Like there was the the knockout from Pereira where people like you say were just like, this guy didn't belong in there. He's nothing. But what I love about that is that he then sought Pereira out. That to me, I love it when guys do that. The ego check necessary to go to the guy who memed you and say, teach me how you did this, make me better. That's a real fighter. And now they almost have like this, this friendship, this brotherhood that they've built up together that I'm, I'm here for that as well. I love it.

DDP is he at 300. Like this is it. It has to. Like there's no other way to do it. Like I love Holloway Gachie. And you want to make that the main event. That's that's pretty cool. But add that as a co-main event for 300 with DDP and Izzy. Like with Izzy chasing DDP now? Like you could not write this story any better. You couldn't. You couldn't. And I think that that, um, that to me, is the fight. I know people keep bringing up Shamiyv versus DDP. To me, I think, I think it needs to be easy. That, at least personally, that's the one that I'm most interested in seeing for, you know, so many different reasons. And I think I'm even more excited to see it, watching how he approached Robert Whitaker, watching how he approached Sean Strickland. It is a more fascinating technical matchup now than it would have been a year ago. I completely agree. Before,

the main event happened and all the quote unquote controversy. We have a new women's van deroye champion. Her name is Raquel Rocky Pennington. And she's been at this for a long time, well over a decade, just clawing away. She fought for the belt before and did not go very well for her. Amanda Nunes did what Amanda Dunes had done to many women in that division for a long period of time.

And she scratches and claws and goes on a wind streak. People doubting her left and right heading into this fight with Meyer Buenos Silva, who's coming off that win over a holiday. Holly Holm and Rocky Pennington goes out and dominates four rounds to one on every single scorecard, and she is the new women's Banimay champion. Pretty damn cool story, right? It really is. I'm an, I am incredibly happy for her. And, you know, there's something, uh, special to me personally when women of this MMA era, uh, go on and achieve their goals because, you know, she's been at this a very long time, a very, very long time. And I'm talking like pre.

UFC watching Rockell Pennington fight and scrape and you know I go back to this a lot but she she is included in the the generation of female fighters who they only got into this sport for the love of the sport you know there really was no you know there really was no destination when they started there ended up being a destination but those are the women who got into MMA for just for the pure love of competition and testing themselves and what the sport did for, you know, for their soul. So there's something about that generation that will always make me really, really happy and touch to see them succeed. Yeah, listen, it's not a fight. I'm going to go back and watch again, but you can't take away that Rocky fought a good fight. And she did her thing. She does what she does.

and she shut down the game of a very dangerous finisher in Myra Buono Silva. And I do think that I think Myra Bueno Silva will be back and way better for this. I'll say that because there's no doubt she's got a tremendous skill set. She's got a tremendous finishing ability. But it was clear as day that she, those championship rounds were brand new to her. And the, I don't know if it was nerves. I don't know if it was lack of preparation. But obviously the cardio let her down quite a bit.

And when your cardio goes, you can't make the decisions that you would make. otherwise. So, yeah, new champ and new era. And I don't know if you saw, but on the ESPN post show, the interview with Amanda Nunes, did you happen to see that? I felt like she was dropping some heavy hints. Am I wishful thinking? She's like, you never know. You never know. I mean, it's so hard to say because like, she's not going to fight Raquel. But like if, if Raquel and Juliana Pena fight and Juliana's the champion. Can't you see Amanda going maybe one more time? Maybe, but she could have done that anyways.

I know, but she was tired. She was like, I think these fighters, Izzy's the same way. Like you just, you're so sick of Beacon Camp. You're so sick. And you just need a break. And there's no way to take a break other than to retire and then come back. Like that we don't, because when people take breaks and they're not retired, we say that they're running away from fights, which isn't necessarily fair, right?

there should be a pause button. I love that idea. Here's where this division could go. And I think it's going to be fascinating either way. One, I can't believe I'm saying fascinating, but I really truly believe this. One is the man is just going to come back and fight. And she's just going to run again.

And she's one of those fighters, kind of like Demetre Johnson when he left the UFC and kind of even like to some degree, Daniel Cormier when he left. Like you're going to miss, like you're going to love her more and wish her she was around when she's gone more than she was here. And you're going to kick yourself for not giving her

the love and respects that appreciating her while she was here. The other thing is, I think because of everything going on at 125 right now, we don't know what's going on with Lex Grasso, we don't know what's going on Valentina Schifchenko, we don't know if they're going to fight. We don't know what's going to happen with Aaron Blanchfield and Manifioro when they fight. I could see a very real world right now that if the UFC, and I don't think they're going to do this,

but there's a chance they do. Dana wants to go to the sphere for this Doche UFC card. Yeah. There is a real world where we save a Grasso-Sifchenko trilogy for that car. That's a long wait for the queue at 125. Yeah. If you're someone, if you're one of those 125 fighters, like if you're Aaron Blanchfield right now and you just run over Manon, Fioro in Atlantic City. Oh yeah. If I'm her, I'm really giving some thought to going up to 135 because she would literally only need one fight and she gets a title shot. If Macy Barber goes in there and beats Caitlin

Chigigan, she could go to 135. Julianna Payne is already making memes of her. She probably walks right into a title shot. So I think we could see a lot of these 25ers who are really competitive, but have really long roads just say, you know what? Screw it. I'm just going to go up to 35 where the queue is much shorter. Well, and Valentina. I mean, Valentina could just go up right now and fight for the belt. Right. Like the opportunity to be the second female double champ, that's that's tantalizing. I would want to do that too. I would absolutely take one look at this and go, yeah, I will fight a Bannonweight again. Absolutely. I wouldn't I wouldn't be one bit surprised to see Valentina go up.

And I wouldn't blame her. Yeah, just be like, Alexa, we had two good fights. I thought it'd be the second time. I'm good. You can run this division.

I'm going to go up here. I'm going to go up here and I'm going to run, I'm going to run this for a little while, or at least try anyways. But say, we can, we can have some fun with this division. Melissa Dixon,

I think's going to be a really fun addition, moving up the ranks, because she is just a killer out there, but she's a little green. So she's going to need some reps. I don't want to see here, just get thrown into a title fight, like two or three.

fights into her UFC career, but yeah, we got a champion, but we got to build this thing up. I know. I hope we get some Bannon weights on this season of Contender Series. We didn't have a lot of women, uh, season seven. So hopefully season eight, we can get a few more females, maybe in the Bannoyte division. Throw them a couple less things. You mentioned jazz and you mentioned the 10-7 round. Yeah.

Jassad and Jazz Dysius. Talk about that. I know you were happy with the 10-7. I thought we're going to get at least two, maybe I'm starting. We only got one. I mean, this was about as vicious of a beatdown as I've seen since Catcherua probably got viciously beat down by Valencia. She said, yeah, the 10-7 round. Some people were kind of like, what's the difference here?

Explain. Yeah. So the 10-7 round. I'm happy about it for a number of reasons. I'm happy about it because, mainly because it takes a lot of chutzpah to put that down on a scorecard because it's so rare. And at any time you do something that is. could be seen as controversial. These judges get absolutely, you know,

lambasted on Twitter on X. I'm going to keep calling it to X. So it takes some gall to, you know, this is what I saw. This is what I'm going to put down. So I'm glad that he put, Sal de Motto put it on there. And I do think that at least one of those rounds,

and I can't remember which one it was, because they all kind of blur together into one horrific, dismantling. But one of those rounds, and I think it was the one that's all scored, I agreed with him. And how I was taught was you go from a 10-8 to a 10-7 when this happens. So like a 10-8, when you're like, oh, gosh, this is definitely 10-8. There's no question. Okay, when do you start opening the door to an 10-7?

And I was taught if you start in your mind going, oh, my gosh, stop the fight. Oh, my gosh, stop the fight. stop the fight. And maybe there's a little bit of reprieve in that. And then maybe a few moments later, it's like, oh, you could stop this fight. Stop the fight. Stop the fight. Stop the fight. And then like, oh, but somehow something, someone moves. My rule of thumb, if that happens three times, that's a 10-7. Like, there you go. Write that down. There was a lot. There was a lot of me going stop to fight, stop to fight in that particular one. That was those rough. But good for Jasmine Jazz DeVizius, because golly, the whole situation leading up to it.

And, you know, not the first time cashware has done that or other kind of not so great things. So, and I really like Jasmine Jazzavicious. She, she's not been fighting that long, which is exciting to me. Because considering that she's not even been doing MMA all that long, look where she is. And I think she has a very high ceiling. She is, she's a natural. Like she needs, that should be her nickname. Like her telling you her origin story.

Yeah, you know, I'm dating a guy. And she went out to do a seminar and he was just like, yeah, you want to hit pads? okay and then she starts in pads and they're like oh my god yeah you want to hit some pads some more and then she's that crazy it's nuts it's nuts i interviewed her before her first pro fight and she was telling me that story i'm like what yeah now you're just a fighter she's like yeah i love it she's an absolute savage and it was help me remember the timeline because i remember when she came on contender series i want to say she'd only been fighting for like a year or two yeah she had like she had some amy fights i remember she had a fight in new england like one of her early pro fights

because she couldn't get fights in Canada. Yeah. I think 289 was like one of the first times she had ever fought in Canada. Yeah. As a pro. Yeah. Because she couldn't get them. No, it's wild to see that she's this young in her career and already doing so well.

So excited to see what else she can grow into. Yeah. She called out Casey O'Neill after the event, I believe. That's a good call out. Yeah. It's a good fight. I like that one. Last thing, we have a lot of fights in the books coming up.

298, we got Volcanowski versus Toporia. God, I cannot wait for that fight. We got Sean O'Malley-Cito Vera, 300's coming up, and that's going to be interesting as well. One fight on the books right now that you're like, oh, I can't wait to get there. I know there's a million to choose from, but what's the one? It is Volkuthoria.

I mean, that is, I mean, anytime Alexander Volkanowski fights, especially, I mean, I loved his fights against Islam at lightweight, but like there's definitely part of it. It's like, okay, we've seen that. We close that chapter for now. We feel good about it. You know, what happened happened. let's go back to just being great, right? Let's just go back to doing what you do and reminding people

how you are the goat of this division. And on the list of all-time goats, I think, which I guess there's no such thing as a list of goats, but there is in my mind. No, I just, I think that's a tremendous fight. I think Ilya is, he might really surprise some people. And I think the, the psychology of Alexander Volcanovsky is going to be fascinating to me coming into this one, coming off a bad knockout, coming off a season of not winning and not feeling the way inside of himself that he's, yes, not, you know, necessarily used to feeling. So I'm always interested when fighters, just kind of like Izzy when he went up to 205 and then when he came back, I'm always fascinated to see how guys handled that, but I'm telling you, if anybody will

come back and look even better than he did before. It's going to be Volcanovsky. But, man, Toporia, super, super, super dangerous. He is the right guy to be challenging for the title at this point. And I think poses a lot of really interesting problems. So that's the one I'm looking forward to. Such a good fight. It is. You know, champions staying in their divisions and defending titles against fighters in their division, the next man up, the next woman up. This is the world I want to live in, Laura. I don't want the champ versus champ fights. I want, long running championship runs if we can get them. That's what's more impressive to me.

So thank you so much. I appreciate the time. Tremendous insight. Hopefully that answers a lot of questions for all the robbery gate going on with this main event, which again, if you haven't gone back and watched it, I highly recommend you do that. It's really compelling watch the second time around the Laura. Thank you so much.

Thank you. I appreciate it on television. Excited to see you back doing some color work. Hopefully that happens sooner rather than later. February 3rd. Let's go. Yeah. Let's go.

Thank you, Laura. Thank you. to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Okay, only 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.