MMA Fighting - UFC on ESPN 8 Post-Fight Show

Episode Date: May 17, 2020

MMA Fighting's Mike Heck, Alexander K. Lee and E. Casey Leydon break down the top storylines from UFC on ESPN 8, including Alistair Overeem's TKO win over Walt Harris in the main event.  Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Follow E. Casey Leydon: @ekc Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Thank you for sticking with us. Went from one sort of post show to another because the third event and an eight-day stretch for the UFC in Jacksonville, Florida, has come to an end and it was capped off with a huge win for the legend and veteran Alistair Overeem over Walt Harris. And we are recapping it all right here live on MMAfighting.com. Hello there, everybody. Once again, I am Mike Heck. to the official UFC on ESPN8 virtual pipe post-fight show 2.0, I guess. Thank you all for joining us to recap another wild event in the Sunshine State. Of course, I do not do this alone. I'm being joined by Alexander Kaylee and E. Casey Liden and of course, all of you. And I know you

want to talk fights. We're seeing your comments from the last stream that we did. So feel free to jump in with your comments or questions or reactions to everything we saw here tonight. Alex, we're going to start with you. Made events of the evening. Alistair Overeem takes on Walt Harris. He was hurt really badly early on in that fight. Alastair Overeigone, thanks to the great refereeing from Dan Miruglietta, let him stick around. He made the most of it. Got the momentum switch at the end of that first round. And then he got it done in the second round with a vicious headkick, finished the fight.

Dan Merguleada did the same thing for Walt Harris, sort of gave him a chance to recover. But in the end, he had to stop the fight. Huge win for Alistair Overeem, a heartbreaking loss for Walt Harris. Your reaction to the way this night ended. Well, first I'll say, I'm glad that we are now doing the proper post-fight show before we were interspersing the post-fight interviews with Alastair Overeem and Dana White and Clad of Goddalia. So no people, no more having to wait for Alstair Overeign to get off the pooper. It is just us. It is just a, that's a callback for anyone who didn't watch the, check out that stream later, check out the post-post-fight interview stream later.

Anyway, it was a thrilling main event. You know, it was under the most unique circumstances. you can have. I mean, I know it's the third card we're having this week with no audience, but that no audience thing is for a big main event is still, it's going to take some getting used to. I mean, I know that cards could be for the next for the next little while, but still strange. And then, of course, the Anaya Blanchard tragedy, that story hanging over this whole, this fight week, hangover, Walt Harris's fight booking. But both guys, you know, did a great job with the media this week. Alastair Overeem is one of the reasons I think why he was, you know, I know they were booked

a fight before, but why he was the right opponent for this, such a constant professional guy who's seeing it all. And the fight itself was really spectacular. You know, Walt Harris looks great. You know, he's the kind of guy who, on any given day, we always say he looks like a guy who's a contender. And sure enough, the first two minutes, 30 seconds of this fight, absolutely looked like a contender.

It looked like he was going to put away Alistair Overeim in the first round, slipped up, made just a little error with a striking, slipped up, and Alastair, great grappler, got a hold of him. And that was probably at the beginning of the end there. uh, Walt's never really recovered. And then in the second round, it was all one way track for Overeem. And, uh, like you said, uh, big Dan gave him all the chance, gave Walt Harris all the chance to recover as it did Alster and just never happened.

So, uh, you know, we got to stop it somewhat anticlimactic end to the fight, some might say, but, uh, it's the right call. Casey, you had mentioned this on the last stream that we did and I'm going to steal your shine right now like it was my idea, but it wasn't. We'd be having a much different conversation if Dan Mergliata stopped the fight in the first round and had he stopped the fight in the first round when Harris was landing those big shots and Overreem is all busted up.

We would be celebrating Walt Harris. We wouldn't complain about an early stoppage at all. We would have said it was the right stop. We were probably still praising Dan for stopping the fight when he did. So kind of an interesting way that MMA fans look at things, but your thoughts on Overreem's performance sort of a turn-back-the-clock performance for him.

Oh, it's just, I think actually, The Felder or Bisbing kind of said it actually very well in describing Overim and how he's a chameleon and in the sense that he keeps changing the type of fighter he is. And before he was known as this, you know, the Uberim, this just legendary striker, but he was a bit chinny. But none, he's a guy. He can take a big punch. He took a beat and he was so controlled on the ground.

And it's one of those things where I really think experience won over him this fight. He wasn't necessarily the better fighter, but the experience, all those years of experience, being able to take that beating, being able to shield those punches. And, of course, Dan Migliata, giving over him enough respect, has a A-level fighter to work his way out. And Walt Harris, unfortunately, started strong, but he kind of, Shane Carwin, in instance, when Shane Carwin fought Brock Lezner, I kind of had that kind of feeling, where you're like, oh, you can stop the fight right now. it would be totally fine. And you saw when they got up, Walt was breathing very heavy.

Overeign busted up, but he had the cuts in the right spots where, you know, the doctor wasn't going to stop it. And second round, you know, we all saw it. Overeign just had more weapons and that eventually wanted to fight. And that's the difference between Baster Overeign and Walt Harris right now. You know, it's just that's a championship level fighter guy who's continually always at the top and a guy working his way up. And this is just, unfortunately, the timing sucks for Walt Harris, but it's just a learning lesson in the MMA.

Interesting spot for Alastair Overeem heading into this fight. Of course, like you just mentioned, the tragedy and everything that happened with Walt Harris and his family and the tragic passing of a stepdaughter, the violent crime and the murder. It's just a heartbreaking story. And, you know, it was the big storyline heading into the fight. No doubt about that. but Alastor Overeign, maybe for the first time in his entire career, was almost like an afterthought heading into a main event fight. No one was really talking about him heading in, and he comes out and delivers a big performance.

And you know, Alex, we don't let these fighters savor the flavor of a win for too long. We like to look at what's next. And this guy's fought almost everybody in the heavyweight division. So let's put the matchmaker hat on, sir. Let's give a little bit of a tease, a little bit of a preview of the onto the next one column, which will be dropping on Monday. if you are the UFC brass, if you are the matchmakers right now,

Alster Overeem v. Blank. Who fills that spot? Gosh, there's a lot of good matchup there. And everything's kind of in flux, like I said, with the cars. You know, some previously book matchups might not happen again. I kind of like possibly Alexander Volkov or, and I can't believe these two guys haven't fought before,

unless I'm looking at this incorrectly, Alster Overeem versus Derek Lewis? How does that way you're out? appetite. That's the fight. Yeah. That's the fight. And Derek Lewis like wants to, I don't think he's, he's, he's even come out and said that he doesn't want to fight during the pandemic and stuff. He wants to wait for things to kind of clear up a little bit. And Alistair's got, going to need some time to, to fix the bruises and the boo-boos, but I like it. Overeign versus Derek Lewis sounds like a lot of fun to me, but I wonder if we'll see something similar with that fight. But Derek Lewis just, he's, he's,

You can't really describe Derek Lewis. He just can take it. He can get beat for 14 minutes and then come back and finish the fight with 10 seconds to go. He's just such a wild card. So I think that's the fight to make. It would be a good learning experience for Derek Lewis. No doubt about that. He's a top five guy to be a good step for Alistair over him because he said in the post-fight press conference, if you guys missed it,

he's still hunting for a title. He still wants to be a world champion. After all this, after all these years at 40 years old, why not? And that's a good step to get there. And for Walt Harris, I don't think it's fair to even really discuss what's next for him. He's been through a lot to this point. And I think he deserves a lot of credit for sort of getting up. And he told his story a lot throughout the buildup to this fight, getting depressed, dealing with the alcohol and dealing with things that any of us would do in the situation.

I'm a dad myself. And I can't even imagine what losing your child would be like for me. I don't know how I would handle it. I certainly wouldn't be getting in a fist way with Alastor over. six months, seven months later, that's for sure. So he deserves a lot of credit for showing up and being a professional and given Alistair everything he can handle. So hat goes off to Walt Harris tonight.

He is a winner in my book. And I think we can all agree with that as hard as it is to transition from the main event and transition from talking about Wall Harris. Let's talk about the co-main event. We had a hell of a fight between Claudia and Angela Hill. And as you already know, the big theme for this event was very close decision. that could have gone either way, and people were going to be upset no matter what. And this was certainly one of those fights, if not the fight, that's at the top of everybody's

list. I admittedly scored this one for Angela Hill. I'm not going to say robbery here, but in my personal opinion, this was Hill's fight. What say you, Alex Galey? Well, I hope that when people look back at this card, they will remember it for how incredible so much the in cage action was. Again, we had three fights that I think in our sort of private channel, we were talking about this is like a fight of the year candidate.

There was three of those tonight. And yes, when there's controversy with decisions, sometimes that overshadows, you know, the quality of the fight. But I really hope that doesn't happen here because Cordelia Hill was a great fight. We'll talk about some of the other fights later, Ege Barbosa and, of course, Song and Vera. But again, like I said, you know, I had it slightly for Hill, although I may have been affected by the fact that this is like the best that I've seen from Angela Hill. And I think I was thinking that the whole time I was watching this guy. I was like, man, she's really hanging in there with a former, with a one-time UFC title challenger. She had to come back from that first round, I think it was clearly a Goodellia round.

You know, Cordelia's great grab push control down the ground. And it turned into a striking battle. Cordelia, you know, we just saw on the post-fight press conference said it wasn't necessarily part of the game plan, but it wasn't something that she shied away from and that she needed to get into these kind of fights, you know, to advance at this stage of her career. So credit to her, she did that, and she came away with the win. But boy, it was a risky strategy, and Angela Hill definitely almost took this one. Yeah, it was a great fight. And again, we'll plug this because it's so good. Casey and Esther went and visited Angela Hill before she took off to Jacksonville,

got a behind-the-scenes look at one of her last training sessions before she made the trip for the biggest fight of her career. And I thought she delivered in a big way. She opened up a lot of eyes. She proved that she belonged at the upper echelon of this division. She's been one of the more active fighters in the UFC as of late, especially in the women's division. So, Casey, your thoughts overall of Angela Hill's performance. But we'll talk about Claudia, too. I mean, it was a hard fought fight for both of these ladies, and Claudia got her hand raised.

Yeah, I scored for Hill, but I completely acknowledge the third round was extremely close. But I did think, we saw seeing so many fights this weekend. Mine's kind of blinking a bit. But, yeah, I just saw Angela Hill won the fight. I thought the first round, obviously, Claudia did know what she shouldn't have done. Her best path to victory, rather, was take her down, control Angela on the ground. And while she did get Angela down eventually, Angela was never any danger. She was never any deep submissions or anything.

But you still had to give that first round to Claudia. In the second round, finally that power, Angela Hill, because when we talked to her, I asked her, what, what have you, what, what's been some of the advantages of, you know, this kind of quarantine training? And she's like, oh, I can just focus on my power. And she's like, she's like, because she's working on her husband, Adam, who's also a Muay instructor and Muay Thai coach. So she's just working on that power.

And she was like, and she was very confident. It was like, I'm going to knock her out. I'm going to knock Claudia out. And maybe that was actually to a detriment. Maybe once she actually did drop Claudia, she kind of started headhunting a bit. I have to watch the fight again to kind of get that. sense, but I think my big takeaway is, Angela Hill is, well, we know Claudia is a premiered straw weight, a top five, top ten fighter, no matter how you rank her, but now Angela Hill,

to me, without a doubt, is one of the top ten straw weights in the world. And considering where Angela Hill came from, when she came in the UFC 1 and 0, lost their first two fights, basically got kicked out of the UFC, had to work her way back in. And a lot of people, you read all the comments, oh, you know, look at her record, she lost this fight, lost this fight. the woman that fought tonight is such a better fighter than who we saw in the tough house. And, yeah, Angela Hill, she's a great fight for her. Too bad. She got the loss. Yeah, it was a hard fought battle. Gadele gets another win. And like you said, Casey, I feel like she's been in this position in the Strawee Division a hundred times already at this point. And she spot pretty much everybody in the division. One of those females was Carla Sparza, who, after her win at UFC 249, she wanted the rematch with Claudeaadia.

Gadalia returned the favor and had some not so kind words. Both of them were exchanged. I believe Carlos Sparza said, try not to grease this time on social media. Claude Gadalia did not like that comment very much, as she said in the post-fight press conference. Alex, is this the fight? I still want to see Asparza versus Janjacheck. I think that's the fight to make. But now there's some heat.

There's some smoke in the kitchen here. Do we build upon this and make an omelet? Yeah, no, I mean, I like the Asparzaa J-Jic rematch as well. But I think the logical thing here, if you're the matchmakers, you know, you don't overthink it. You go with Godelia as far as a matchup. Like you said, Gidella was really fired up in the post-fight press conference. She used the F word several times, which was just hurting my freaking ears, as it were. And so, you know, anytime that kind of promotional work is already done for you, I think as a matchmaker's you've got to just circle that matchup.

But again, these things fall through. We've seen it happen before. Talks fall through. Fights are booked. People get injured. So we could certainly, again, still see Asparza Yajicchuk 2 or, again, Kedelia a match up with somebody else we don't know. But I say after tonight, I'm very, very interested in that Kedelia-Sparza match and just book it. Yeah, I wouldn't be upset if that's a fight that's booked, but we'll see what happens.

I saw, et cetera, et cetera, make a comment. He agreed that there's a robbery there that Angela Hill should have won that fight. there's some other comments. A lot of people didn't agree with that. The senator of senator's comment was, didn't think judges were correct on Angela Claudia, but more on the Elkins fight. And then PAC says,

Hello, guys. What do you think about the fight between Marlon Vera and Song Yudong, which ended up being the fight of the night? $50,000 go to both of those guys. Pax has the question. Alex, the answers. How did you score the fight and would you think of it overall? I mean, that fight was awesome.

You know, that point was awesome. I'm actually, again, just upon the initial viewing, I kind of leaned towards a song. I did not think it was that. Any time where, I mean, Vera clearly, I think, ended the fight and control for the most part. I think other than he got shrugged off at the end and then Song was kind of standing over him. But Vera did have a long bout of control there near the end of the third round. He was in close. I think there was some doing damage in the ground.

So I get it. people see how strong Vera finished. And then immediately it's like, oh, it's a robbery. It's a robbery. He won a big chunk of the third round. But I think Song could have made an argument that he won the first two rounds. I'll have to look at the score cards again. I think the only round that all the judges agreed on was round two.

And they all gave that one to Song. Otherwise, it was up in the air. So I did not think it was that better robbery. And again, I want to talk about how amazing the fight was as opposed to just all the controversy we saw tonight. because, man, they stood in the pocket. They showed a little bit of everything. There was clinch work. There was grappling.

There was standing and trading. Various kicks looked great. Songs, hands, sharp as always. It was a really, really great test for song. And I picked him to win by decision. And I said it would be a really tough fight. And I think that's exactly what happens. So no complaints about them gaining the bonus.

But, I mean, yeah, you could have gone with Hale Gidellia. You could have gone with Barbosa Igay. Nate Land, where Elkins looked like it was going to be a lock, three fights into the night. and then we rarely remember that now. So, yeah, really, really good stuff from Song and Vera. It was a great fight. And I think one of the big questions heading into that one is what happens when that fight hits the third round?

Does Song Yidong have the gas tank to hang with Cheeto Vera? Because Cheetah likes to come on strong in that third round and make things happen. And I think the quote, the tweet of the night, at least from what I saw, came from Cody Stamen, who was Songuong's last opponent. It was a split draw, which I thought Cody Stamen won that fight 100%. but he tweeted out and said Song Yidong is the luckiest fighter on the roster right now for getting a decision and then getting the draw against statement. So I thought that was pretty interesting.

I do want to point out that Walt Harris has made his first comments since the fight. He said, quote, on Instagram. First, let me thank Alistair O'Rean for sharing the Octagon with me tonight. You're a class-stack brother and a legend. Tonight wasn't my night, but you best believe I will be back better. Thank you to everyone for all your love and support. Can't say it enough. We learn and grow.

baby girl daddy loves you and i promise i will keep pushing hashtag forever anaya and i'm getting a little a little misty-eyed right now just thinking about that but uh class act all the way for walt harris um tough night for him but taking it like a champion the champion that he is and it's a great picture up there as well but um let's talk about the featured vote featured about because when i was talking algeyne sterling in the during the preview show i said that the fight between Dan Igay and Edson Barbosa, I had the same feeling with the Alexander Hernandez-Drew Dober fight. It was like the main of it's great.

Oh, go ahead. About Vera and song. Sure. Jump in. I just want to say, and I've been a big proponent of this. I just hope the UFC starts doing this more often. During these pandemic times, have guys fight one-weight class up. Yeah.

This was a, people don't, if you watch that fight, were you going, oh, these are two fat bannam weights? No, they look like bannam weights. And we just let them, we let these bantum weights. weights fight at a more healthier weight. Now, if you don't know, they both fought at feather weight, so they weight in 10 pounds of other normal weight class, which means they can just more, train smarter, train more safely, and don't have this unnecessary weight cut during these unique times. When everything gets back to normal, okay, everyone goes back to 35, and that's another issue about

weight cutting. But right now, have these guys move up. That's all. I just, I, and, We got a great fight because of it. You know, they didn't have to wear themselves out. They could actually leave it all out there in the cage rather than the sauna. I think science and math and numbers are on your side, Casey, because both fight of the nights in the last two cards were Banimwaits fights that went up to Featherweight. Kelleher and Azure featherway fight. Both these guys are Bannamweights, and then the same thing tonight.

So you might be on to something here. Let's not forget. We also had, technically, we kind of had, you know, Soroni and Pettis, who, I mean, they bounced between lightweight and 249, and they went up to. to, they fought at the more comfortable weight of 170 on, on last Saturday. I was pointing out some parallels on Friday, and it kind of, they all kind of stuck with it. So there was the people, each card had fighters competing, a fight with guys competing at a higher weight class.

Each card lost one fight before the, before the fight came down, before the card came around. And each fight also had a main event that was, this wasn't quite in the tune of the last two we saw. But as far as like how much damage was done and like how I don't say uncomfortable at times, it became it became to watch. All three main events this week had that as well. So some kind of eerie parallels going on this week. So people out there who love the rule of threes, I mean, you certainly had that to look out this week. There you go. We had at least three robberies, so to speak. If you look at Twitter and one of those robberies would be Edson Barboza versus Danny Gay. And we talked about it on the other show that if you look at MMA decisions,

which is where media members score the fight. Pretty much everybody had scored the fight for Barboza, except for Drake Riggs, and then his friend Drake Riggs, who both scored it for Danny. And Danny Gaye gets the win. He continues the surge in a very interesting 145 pound division. We're not going to get into the score,

so I feel like we can do this the whole time. But, you know, Danny Ye gets a big win. He's moving up to bigger and better things at this point. So Casey will start with you here. Let's just get right into the math. matchmaker role. Danny Gay has been surging. He's streaking.

45 has become one of the most interesting divisions in the UFC right now. Where do we go from here, especially in a fight this close? I say everyone, if you want, if you, I actually like his call out. He called out Jeremy Stevens, who is coming off a loss, but it was a competitive fight versus Calvin Cater. And Stevens is obviously almost a legendary UFC fighter now. and in the sense that if Dan Igey wants to be known

as a guy that can win the title, you got to beat Jeremy Stevens. So to me, if Stevens is healthy, you know, once he gets stitched up, three or four months, Stevens versus Igay.

That's my. I think in names matter. I think at this point, names are more important than rankings. I mean, sorry, names is more important than E. E.K. fighting maybe someone ranked above Stevens. So I think that's for the fan name value wise.

I mean, even tonight. I realize I've watched Dan Nige probably fight. I think I've seen him fight five times. And I knew he was good, but then I kind of was thinking about it. I was like, I don't really know any, I don't know how he fights. But because he was fighting a name like Barbosa, I was paying more attention. Now, for some reason, I'm like, oh, Dan Nige is really good, even though he was just as good yesterday or his last fight. So names are important.

So Ige versus Stevens, to me is, uh, smart bite for Danny A. I would agree. I think that's a fight to make. But let's give some credit Alex to Edson Barboza because we're talking about, especially in these times, we want to see fighters move up, maybe a weight class. Edson Barboza moves down a weight class to featherweight. We were wondering what he was going to look like on the scale.

It looked pretty darn good on the scale. And he looked pretty darn good in this fight as well. He looked explosive. He didn't seem to run out of gas at all. And a lot of people felt that he won this fight. So I think, you know, the big thing for me was like, wow, why didn't he make this move sooner? That was like my initial thought after watching the first two rounds of this fight.

Unfortunately, it didn't go his way, and he's lost six out of his last seven, so he's kind of been a rough skid right now. But what did you think of Edson Barboza dropping down to 45, how he looked on the scales, and ultimately how he looked in the octagon tonight. Man, he looked good. He looked real good in there. Again, much like his countryman, Joseo Aldo, some skepticism about the weight cut, but he made it.

And then when he stepped in the cage, it looked great. and, again, arguably won a controversial decision. So kind of some parallels there as well. Yeah, he looked outstanding. But I like what you guys were saying about IGA. I like what Casey was saying that we kind of saw, I don't know if we saw a new side of him, but we just saw the best version of him

and could really appreciate it because he was fighting Barbosa. I have a rule, which I wrote about in the productions, that it's an Edson Barbosa rule. It's just any fight that I expect to be a stand-up battle if Barbosa's in it, I'm always going to pick Barbosa. the only the only fighter I broke that rule for was it was Justin Gathe G and justifiably so because Gates G's insane and Gates G won that fight but otherwise I'm always going to pick Barbosa again I know he lost a Felder I know he lost you know he's lost against stand-up fighters before but

rarely and and even again the Felder fight that was controversial as well the last fight and we have a story up in an NBA fighting now about how much like the Felder fight we could sounds like his management wants to file an appeal for this loss so I have to get so much credit to I get because just standing with Barbosa is insane. The guy is so good. And I wonder if the judges were swayed by the fact that Ige was moving forward for a lot of the fight. You know, maybe this is the other rule that we see sometimes. The Diego Sanchez rule where just by coming forward, he seems to be scoring points in the judge's cards.

So he was coming forward a lot, throwing haymakers, just throwing big shots. Judges love to see that. I definitely would have leaned towards Barbosa on the scorecards. But Igay looked good. And yeah, he looks like he deserves a top 10 guy next. Why not Calvin Cater? Why not the guy who beat Jeremy Stevens? You guys keep saying, Jeremy.

Why not Calvin Cater? That's a big leap for a guy that's like, I think Ego is number 14 heading into this fight. That's a big job. I'd be surprised if Cater accepts that fight. It seems, it's more, I'm just talking more about, realistically. I just don't think Cater needs the EGA fight. I don't think it does anything for him. Right, right.

And I think Cater is on a, that's a pretty spectacular. a knockout. So I think that fight can happen, but I just don't think it's necessary at this time. Yeah, I just think Featherweight's in a much different spot than it was two years ago. Like two years ago, you make that fight, it makes a lot of sense. But there's a lot of guys ranked ahead of him. And, you know, depending on how much stock you want to put into these rankings,

but I think Calvin Cater deserves a top five fight right now. And it's not just because I'm a fellow Massachusetts guy. I think he's got in that. It's funny. What do we got here? It's funny. They're both chasing big fights, just not each other. you know Jeff Atwood dude does anyone

think open scoring needs to happen in combat sports and boxing judges should not be judging MMA fight so let's talk about

let's talk about the open scoring because I saw this brought up a couple of different times tonight especially with these shows being the way

they are the times that we're in seems like an interesting time to introduce open scoring and things of that nature and I know

Invicta did it for one of their cards and and I kind of liked it you know especially some teams can use it how they want. They can tell their fighters everything and some chose

not to use it at all and even implements it. So Casey, we'll start with you here. Thoughts on open scoring all around MMA right now. I absolutely love open scoring and I want to see it. I understand the arguments where like, well, it takes away from the drama when they raise the hand at the end, you know, but I'm like, BS, it makes drama every single round. Every time a round ends, you're like, it's drama. So I just don't buy the whole drama thing as far as... And it's just like, it just makes it a better sport. I mean, in actually wrestling in Jiu-Jitsu tournaments, you know the score.

You know the score has your... As you're competing. And I don't think it's any different. And I just think it's smarter. I just think it's a better sport if you know the score of the dang fight. This would be like the perfect card to have opened. I just think just thinking about how these these guys and gals stood heading into the third round. I mean, there's so many fights where open scoring would have been super fascinating heading into it.

What do you think, Alex? You know, open scoring, or are we ready to spread our wings here with open scoring a little bit further than Kansas City? I have long been an opponent of open scoring, actually. Though, though, again, I also never want to be the person to say that we shouldn't try new things. because if it's a bad idea, I don't think it's a kind of bad idea that shouldn't be at least given a shot. Like, I don't think it's the sort of thing

that if it happens, it's like, oh my gosh, why'd we do that? Like this ruined, blah, blah, blah. No, I think it's worth trying. So I like seeing it at that Invicta Phoenix series show. I thought it was, and I liked the way they did it. So I'm still against it. I'm not a fan, but I'm not a fan of trying it.

I don't know what you guys are going on about tonight, though. Like, what would that have changed tonight? Like, every fight was like, all these close fights were just were barn burners from beginning. And like, I don't know if any, could have fought harder in these fights. Maybe Barbosa.

It's not even about fighting harder. It's just about knowing the score. That's all, like, you just want to know the score coming into the round. It's not about why. Well, how would that have affected the, like, why would that have changed anything tonight? Do you like watching basketball games, just guessing what the final score is? Totally different, totally different situation. It's not completely.

You fight completely different. This is a bigger debate. No, no, no, no. This is for another show. This is for another show. Any other show, any other team sport with, like, a scoring component, it's not the same as in the scoring the scoring range is so much wider uh the the the the the the way blowouts are handled or handled so differently than a quote unquote blowout in mMA it's not it's apples

and oranges you just can't it is not apples and oranges it's like it's like maybe red delicious apples and fuji apples different maybe different different different brand of apples but there's still apples i don't i don't compare i'm made to any other sport in general and definitely not the scoring system so uh no i i i think i think i think what we're both kind of implying here here is sort of the fan experience watching these fights as opposed to the fighters themselves. Can you imagine how interesting Twitter would have been all night if we had open scoring looking at all these rounds and how interesting even the commentary would have been looking at the scores and how things have gone?

So I think from a fan perspective would have made things interesting. Wouldn't have changed the results and how the fighters actually competed? Probably not because of just because the fights that they happened and they were so competitive anyways. I don't think it would have changed the thing. but just sort of the viewer experience, the interaction overall, would have made a little bit of a difference.

I take the only kind of maybe, a fight of the night was of a great car. The only whatever fight was Jacqueso versus Anders. If Anders goes in that third round, knowing he's down two rounds and his coaches, look at the goal, you're down two rounds. You ain't going to win this by wrestling. You got to throw haymakers.

You got to throw bungalows. You got to go crazy out there. It's a different fight. But you don't think he could tell that, though? You don't think he could tell that he was down. after the first two, I saw almost everyone on, right? No, dude.

When Max Holloway fought Vokanowski, I had every round scored of, I had every round for Vokanowski. A lot of people had 4-1, 5-1 for Vokanowski. When Max Holloway walked out for that fifth round, he thought he was winning the fight. His coaches thought he was winning the fight. It changed.

We could do this. Yeah, we got to talk. We have a great card. I shouldn't brought that question up. No. No, AK, you're going mute. Someone else. One of our lovely fans brought it up.

You didn't bring it up. one of our lovely readers brought it up. Readers slash viewers brought it up. So it's a discussion worth having, and I'm not against trying it. I just don't think it would have made much of a difference tonight. There certainly fights would make a difference. And again,

I also think it can have a negative effect on fights. So because, again, imagine if, like you said, Anders knows he has to go crazy, and Jock knows he's definitely up to, oh, and he just cruises, right? That's the fear of any fight, right? Is, okay, well, now I know I don't have to take a risk. Where does this come from, though?

You think, so all these guys are like, these big warriors, now of a sudden, oh, I'm going to, I got better, play it safe now. If Jacqueso know, if Jacques- So you're saying

Zaka, so you're saying Zaco knew he was up two rounds even though there wasn't a score and he that's ridiculous. That's not ridiculous. We've seen fighters who are caught. You are saying yourself that fighters, I think that if they think they're up,

they're going to fight a different way. You just said Anders did that tonight. You said Anders maybe didn't know. So if you knew for sure, you probably would fight. But if he thinks he thinks it's 1-1 or he thinks it's close. Next, next fight, man. I can't believe this is that.

I can't believe this is happening. Oh, I can believe it. I've talked to Casey enough. I can believe I knew this was going to happen. You knew as soon as the question got pulled up. So here's the newcomer. I have no idea what the hell I'm walking. And this is where we're at.

So Christophe Khrie K, Christop Jock, third straight win. That's a big win for him. Eric Anders is a name. He goes back to the losers bracket. Song Yudong gets the win over Marlon Vera, gets 50K. Miguel Baezza. What a win for him over Matt Brown. That fight was frigging crazy.

both guys are hurt. Baez had just proved that this guy is no joke. The Ate No Record. You know, this is one of those fights. Like, when I saw this book, this is going to be a fight that win-l loser draw. Miguel Baez is going to take something away from this one, and he's going to grow from him. And man, what a win for him. Matt Brown, such a warrior, got dropped.

Then he dropped him. And then the second round, Baezza just came out. And it didn't take along. The left hook finished the fight. Alex will start with you. Contender Series vet. Two-in-0 in the UFC, two big finishes. your thoughts of Miguel Baez's performance

and the future of him at 170 pounds in the UFC. Man, he looked, look, I had no idea. Like, I mean, I've seen Miguel Baez a fight before. I saw the Contender Series fight. I saw the fight against Hector Aldana. But, I mean, Contender Series, it's really hard to kind of translate how someone from there is going to do

once they get to the big show. Hector Aldana is, with respect to him, one of the least successful welter weights that the UFC has signed, I think, in the last decade. I don't know, I think, I don't think he's, I don't remember if he won a fight. He may have won his first fight, I can't remember. but I believe he was out of the UFC after losing to Faisa.

So to go from Aldana to Matt Brown is like crazy to me. I know I know age matters. I know younger fighters are perceived as having advantage. But the level of opponent from Hector Aldana to Matt Brown, it's just, again, I wish there was a way to quantify it, but it's just enormous. So I thought too much too soon, I was kind of like what you're thinking, you know what? Well, he'll get a good experience out of it. But he had, I mean, he took, and this was not an easy win. People were going to see, oh, second round knockout early in the second round.

But it was not an easy win. Matt Brown came at him in classic Matt Brown fashion. And he heard him. You know what I mean? These guys were stinging each other. They were messing each other up. And then came out in the second round, not shook at all. Lanz that huge, huge, I think it was a left hand and just ends the fight from there.

So what does it mean for the future man? Again, I don't know how you match to make this guy because, like I said, he went from one of the worst welter weights to one of the most veteran welter weights. So it could be anywhere in the middle for him next. I have no clue. Yeah. lots of be excited about that guy. He proves to 9-0. Matt Brown, such a warrior. He says he's coming back. So good for him. No one's going to want to miss a Matt Brown fight. No one ever ever would want to. And I don't think anyone's going to do so now. But kind of looking down the

rest of the card, Kevin Holland, what a fantastic win case. Let's talk about this. Minute 39. Anthony Hernandez, when you looked at this fight card on paper, when looked at the fight card on paper, and you looked at this particular fight, you were like, man, this is the definition of a coin flip. And I I think the odds had it that way, too. It's pretty much a complete picket between these two guys. Two guys who like to finish, two guys who were looking to live up to the potential they had heading into the UFC. We're waiting for that Kevin Holland breakout moment, and we finally got it here tonight. Your thoughts on the Trailblazer tonight in Jacksonville.

I think Kevin Holland is very good. I think is a really high-level talent that people maybe kind of dismissed for his big personality and his goofy antics. And since, you know, his big personality, which I think is awesome. but yeah I actually expected this to be kind of a breakout performance a bit for Holland and I didn't think it would in like that that has quickly but no great great performance with Holland he implied that he's moving down to Walterweight right if I he's called on Mickey Gall yeah so he came in under like it came in like a 182 so well under the middleweight limit so he says he can make Walter way and if he wants Mikey Gall heck man why not that's

seems pretty cool. I'm down of it. I don't know if he can make watch away. That seems kind of crazy, but go for it, man. You want to fight in two weeks. He seems to think that that's going to happen. Well, if he didn't have a big weight cut, if this weight cut, if he really was fighting at his kind of walking weight, which is very impressive, if you're walking weight, way in it and fight at that same weight, yeah, if he can do it. If the UFC knows something we don't know, he knows something we don't know, then heck. I don't know if Mickey God takes it, though. He's kind of, I don't mean, he likes to. I don't mean, he likes fighting like, I don't know, weird, like, I don't know, like, I don't know what.

Names, names, yeah. So, yeah, maybe it's time for someone to make a name off Mickey Gall. And then maybe Kevin Holland wants to be that person. Yeah. I know Mickey was actually scheduled. He accepted to fight on tonight's card against Phil Rowe, but that fight didn't materialize. So that was in the works. That was being discussed.

Reports had come out. It turns out that that wasn't the case, but I know Mickey Gall did say yes to that fight. it just didn't happen tonight. So Holland could be an option, could see it. Yeah, I mean, look, Holland said he's fought at Welterweight before. He's done a few times before his E.O.C. days. Yeah. I mean, he's tall.

He's six foot three. Like, he's a big guy to not look like a small guy. But I'd imagine he'd have kind of a Ben Saunders. His body type reminds me a little bit of Ben Saunders. So I can see it. I think it's about the same height as Ben. And the body definitely reminds me of that. So it's possible.

And like you said, if he's walking around close to like 182 because he weighed in so much under the limit, the middleweight limit. Yeah. And it's in two weeks. Yeah, maybe it can be done. This guy has always proved me wrong. I don't know what it is. I can't pick a Kevin Holland fight right.

And if anything, he didn't get a bonus for a friggin' 39 second finish. He should have gotten a bonus for his interview because he had a great post-fight interview. We mentioned the Mickey Gall callout. He was really well done. He was joking with Paul Felder. Why did I finish fight so quickly? I didn't want to turn to a wrestling match because he couldn't get that, he couldn't get that Daniel Cormier advice on the side and some of the other fighters had been getting earlier this week.

It was well noted that a lot of fighters said, yeah, I could hear Daniel Cormier, and I was listening to his pointers and his commentary on the fight and adapting from there. So he didn't have that option. He made a nice joke about that. Really made the most of his mic time. So Kevin Holland, you know, if he can start just getting more consistent with these results, this guy really could be something at 185 or 170. Yeah, his post-fight presser was really good, too.

So I go back and check that out. He had some not-so-kind things to say about Marvin Vittori. Drop some words that I'm not going to say here because my wife might want. watch this, I don't want to get mad at me. But big win for Kevin Holland, that was huge. And from all indications, he may be back sooner rather than later. Giga Chikaze gets a win over newcomer Irwin Rivera, props to Irwin Rivera for taking that fight on less than 48 hours notice.

But Giga gets a win. He called it Edson Barbosa afterwards. Like that, call out quite a bit. Nate Landware had like everybody calling him out after his one over Darren Elkins. That was a bloody, fun fight to watch. But Nate Landware gets his first win in the UFC. Casey, the other performance of the night bonus winner gets a first round submission over Mara Romero Borrella in her UFC flyweight debut at 125 pounds.

She's fought in straw weight. She has fought at 25 before. It's the first time in like seven years that she did that. Gets the arm bar. Mara Romero Barrella is on a tough little snide right now, a little skid. So who knows what her future looks like at this point? I think that's the third one. She's lost in a row.

And then Rodrigo Nassimento with a second round. non-sumission win over Dantel Mays to pick up a win in his UFC debut. So hell of a card, some finishes, some fun fights. So let's put a bow on this and the entire week. Some superlatives. Start with you, Alex Keeley. What was your favorite fight of this entire process of these three nights overall? When you look at it from top to bottom, X's and O's, everything you look for in a fight,

what was your favorite fight of this week? Gosh, I mean, if I'm just, reasonancy bias for sure, I really did enjoy the Song Vera fight. It was everything we thought. Like I said, it was everything we thought it would be this young, hungry guy, you know, getting this huge test in Marlon Vera, two guys who were fight finishers. Though I did have a feeling it would go the distance because they're both so well-matched. We got that third round, Marlon Vera surge, which we knew would come, and Son did enough to get the win.

So, again, probably recent C bias. We had so many great fights this week. All three events, I think, I would label as good if we're just using a binary system of good or bad. All three events were good. UFC 249, so much drama, retirements, controversy, big knockouts. And then the fight nights that followed certainly did not pale as far as, at least on the action side of things. So, you know, we said it earlier. I think we said at the last card, you know, so much credit to the UFC staff for the work they put in.

Again, I know there's, I know people say, oh, we're in the media. We question the event going down. And for sure. And look, there's still questions to be asked. And still questions that need to be answered over the coming weeks. but as far as just what happened this week and how did this events go down, it really did look like the U.S.C. did a great job. Safety protocols could have been more consistent, but as far as the actual operations and just getting back to business, things look great. And I'm sure there's a lot of happy fans out there.

I'd agree. So we got Alex's fight of the week. Casey, performance of the week. Who was the gold medalist, so to speak, for the best performance of this eight-day stretch? The human highlight rail, Justin Gage. the week still belongs to him. It still belongs to him. I feel bad for, obviously, Suhudo news is big.

For me personally, the crew, the cruise stoppage put a little, eh on that, you just, you just, you want to see a real finish. And it takes away a little, I don't know, a little momentum from Sehudo. There's a bit of a, what do you call it? Just a, it's just there. But yeah, I think. I think it's still Justin Gagey's weekend. Yeah, it's still, everything was set up for that card.

These were kind of just extra fights for fun, not for fun, but the UFC need to get these fights because they owe a lot of fighters who just lost fights. So, yeah, but when I think of this whole week, I just think Justin Gage's performance. Yeah, and I think the other winner was Dana White's orange shirt tonight. That thing was bright and ready to go. It was very Floridian of him to pull that off. So, you know. And I just want to say, too,

what Alex said is like, man, I just want to give the biggest high five, social distance, high five to all the UFC staff, PR, cage crew, sound crew, the fight relations people, the people who kind of pick up fighters of the airport, no, show them the hotel, show them how everything works, PR, sound crew, the medic, the medical crew, all the media media. they just had to spend an entire week at in Jacksonville, away from their home, away from their families, socially distance in a hotel with only one restaurant and with very strict health safety protocols. And it's just, that's just a tough, that's just a tough time, you know, and to be there

for an entire week, more than a week because, of course, you got there much longer than a week, actually, because you got there three or four days before actually 249. So I remember coming, I mean when these events got, events got announced, I was like, you know, I want to go to this. It sounds kind of cool, you know. But then I'm like, whew, that would have sucked, you know, to be there. But just a big high-five and thank you to all the hardworking UFC staff who did this and put it together. And for our purposes at home, get to watching the fights, they're pretty flawless. So.

Yeah. And shout out to the fighters as well. Sorry. I mean, I know it seems obvious, but we, of course, all the credits to the unsung heroes of the UFC crew and everything, but the fighters themselves and their teams for coming up for this. I know a lot of them wanted to do it. Again, a return to normalcy, quote unquote, whatever you want to call it, or again, just making sure that they get paid. But they, again, everyone left it out there.

There were just some incredible fights this week. It's great fights. Yeah. Really well. And all the other obligations that they had to do, you know, during fight weeks. So definitely staff, fighters, everyone. Hats, you know, hats off to you for sure. Agreed. Hats off to our own Jose Youngs as well.

Spends nine, almost 10 days out in Jacksonville. He's excited to head back home tomorrow. So big shout out to him. And big shout out to all you guys, because this is content galore that you guys have been dealing with from beginning to end. And, you know, like Alex said on the last post-fight show, MMA being back means chaos is back. And nothing ever goes as we planned it out.

And, you know, things have been, We've just been kind of flying from the seat of our pants a few different times during this process. And you guys have stuck with us and watched and listened to the content and read stuff on the site and just kept getting fired up for these events. And we can't thank you enough for that. And now we get a little bit of a reprieve. We get a week off and then back at it again on May 30th location TBD, maybe Vegas, maybe Arizona, as Dana White said. But we'll see what happens there. But it looks like Gilbert Burns versus Tyred Woodley will be headlining that event.

That's going to be a really interesting fight at 170 pounds. and I think this card's going to start building up. We're going to see more and more fights get announced for that card as well. So that's it. That is going to do it. So many post-fight shows, so many preview shows, and that is that. So for Casey, for Alex, I am Mike Heck. Thank you all for a crazy week.

And we'll see you on MMAfighting.com on this page and whatever else is going on. I'm sure you'll be there. So thank you very much. Thanks for watching. Oh, and one more. Oh. Airhorn. Yes.

Yes, we needed that. We needed that. Good night. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.