MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - 13: ISRAEL ADESANYA IS THE CHAMP! UFC 243 IN FRONT OF 50K FANS! IS GGG FINISHED?

Episode Date: October 7, 2019

UFC 243 is in the books and we witnessed not only the crowning of the new UFC Middleweight Champion, Israel Adesanya, but also potentially the new face of the sport! Chuck Mindenhall joins Morning Kombat this week to break down this amazing performance from the dance choreography on the way to the octagon to calling out his next opponent after finishing Whittaker. GGG narrowly escaped with a victory over Sergiy Derevyanchenko leading us to ask, where does GGG go from here? We also talk Shields-Habazin fiasco, Bisping's fake eye! and more!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TD Direct Investing offers live support, so whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. It is Monday, October 7th, 2019, and it is time for Morning Combat. Hi, donks. How are you doing? My name is Luke Thomas. I'm the host of this program. And do my eyes deceive me, the Iceman is here. Chuck Mendenhall. Hi, Chuck. What's up, man? The old team back together. The old team. Well, two of the only part of the team that matters.

That's right. Slapstick Brian Campbell is on vacation, probably at some all-inclusive resort, sneezing on the buffet, which is what his favorite thing to do is. But you are here, my friend. Yeah. Now, you did not go to Australia, I'm imagining. I did not. No, you did not.

Thank God. I think just before the show, I saw a tweet from Ben Folks being like, I just landed in America. I saw the same thing from John Anik, man. I'm like, no thanks. Dude, I don't know how Anik does it. I don't know how he does it. But you know, I know how we do it. The best way possible.

We got a lot to get to on today's show. So obviously UFC 243, Triple G, Derivinchenko, and a little potpourri of other combat sports topics. Ready to get going? Let's go. All right, let's do it. So first order of business. We're going to break this down into different pieces.

Let's go piece by piece. The first one is this. We have a new middleweight champion, ladies and gentlemen. Israel Adesanya defeats via KO Robert Whitaker in the second round at UFC 243 in front of their putative largest crowd ever, 57,000. Do you like how they announced that? It's like, here's a specific number, and a specific number, and a specific number, and then just a little bit bigger, non-specific number.

In any event, they did. It was 57,000 and some change, and it was an unbelievable performance by Israel Adesanya. He looked, I said this on Twitter, Chuck, it was one of his easier fights, which isn't to say that Whitaker is an easy fight, but in terms of losing a round or getting hurt, it was not one of those things. In fact, this is where I want to start the show. Biggest takeaway from the fight, for me,

it is merely that. We'll talk about his ascendancy and comparisons to other greats who have made their way through the ranks, But just as somebody who watches this guy, you just have to marvel at his athleticism and his body control. You know, he's not Anderson Silva, but he feels like the prototype of what Anderson Silva meant to us. Remember when Anderson Silva fought Forrest Griffin and he was ducking and dodging? That's what this reminded me of, yeah. And everyone called it the Matrix, where here he is leaning and throwing hooks, and they're putting away not some chump,

Robert Whitaker, who was the champion. It was remarkable to watch a guy like this, and then he had his whole dance routine. It is just nice to see a young athlete in their prime with this kind of physicality who can be not a new Anderson Silva, but again, to our new generation, a new version of what that meant. To me, man, it was almost, it was like a coming of age in a strange sense. Like here's a guy who plans, first of all, to even plan that kind of dance routine in a situation where you're going out in the biggest fight of your career like that. And you could be roundly mocked if that goes haywire right off the bat, but he goes and does that. He was great all week. I think he met every media obligation. He was doing all that. I think he met every media obligation. He was doing all that.

So he's very good up front of a fight. But he gets in there, and I feel like he's one of those guys who, in the escalation of the moment, he raises the bar for himself in each instance, knowing that he's going to clear it. And it's him showing the world. When he goes in there and he does something like this, I think there was a lot more doubt on this fight, obviously, because of Robert Whittaker. There was a lot of talk about, hey, man, both those guys in their previous fights were willing

to die. That means they're going to be willing to die as they collide into this fight. And that seemed like it could be, you're watching the most, it could turn into a very brutal affair. He didn't make it that way. He made it a showcase for himself against a guy who nobody showcases on or hasn't traditionally done that. And to me, man, I was like, in a very strange way, I've never seen a more meteoric rise to that kind of ascendancy in this sport. I've never seen it, including all the guys that, you know, all the comparisons you want to make. To me, that was that big of a performance. Jill Sonner made a point, had a great video over the weekend saying, you know, this guy killed all three things. He had the intro, which you alluded to, then the fight

itself, and then he gets on the microphone already setting. He had the intro, which you alluded to, then the fight itself, and then he gets on the microphone already setting up the fight against Bohashina. Now, we'll talk about that a little bit later. I'd actually say, Chael, while that's completely correct, I would use your argument a little bit and expand that. In every phase of what a fighter is supposed to do on media day, calling into radio shows, doing fan Q&As, signing autographs, whatever, bringing in his own team to make a show about him for a YouTube series.

In every different version of what a fighter is supposed to do to contribute to their own well-being, to their own popularity, to their own ability to fight, as well as meet the UFC's needs, he kills it every time. Every time he kills it. And you also noted, not merely did he kill it, but some of this he brought on himself. They announced his name, he got booed.

Now again, he had poked the bear a little bit with the Australian fans by making this sort of a New Zealand versus Australia kind of scenario in an amplified way. But at the same time, to have the presence of mind to perform like that, quite literally in the dance, to have the presence of mind to say what you wanted to say after the fight, then to fight that way after that big long week doing all those obligations, Anderson Silva never did that. He was always kind of quiet and didn't say anything to the media. This guy handles every single phase of the entire fight week better than anyone I've ever seen. Do you get the sense he's living something he's already thought through?

Like, he's already imagined every scenario, and therefore he's only enacting exactly what he envisioned would happen. I get the sense that he does that. He's that kind of guy. He brings whatever he conjures to his mind and starts to work over. He brings that into fruition. That's what it seems like he does to me, man. You go back to his first fight, the first UFC fight when he goes in there and he's lifting his leg and he's hiking his leg and he's pretending to be marking the game. There's a new dog in the yard. Exactly. And it was almost, that to me spoke volumes for the way that the guy felt about himself. There was a lot of hype about him coming in to the UFC from his kickboxing career. It told me that this guy already had an idea of what he wanted to do, right? And then here we are, what, 20 months later and

he's accomplished this. I feel like he's one of those guys, he thinks through his every move, but the only thing left for him to do is to go out there and execute it. And he does that brilliantly. That's that it factor. I feel like that's where the it factor comes in, is when people can't relate to the magnetism of somebody who can do that.

And going back to the haters, we'll see what happens after this one. I think some people will say, quite rightly, that Bo Hoshin is a real challenge for him. But this fight was also about a coronation, not merely as the guy who could beat Robert Whitaker and then hold the belt, but a coronation of his own argument. That he has said, I am this person. And there has been this pervasive skepticism. I alluded to it on last week's show the entire way through. I don't know what quarter a doubter might have at this point. Where do you

retreat to to say that this guy is not who he says he is? He is everything that he says he is, and probably actually a little bit more, to be quite honest with you. I don't know. If you've been a prevailing skeptic of this guy, this is a bad day for you. Yes, and I mean, there have been. There have been guys with similar trajectories in terms of there's a doubt, there's new doubt because they haven't faced this style,

they haven't faced this kind of guy. They move the goalposts. They do it every time, right? But this is, I thought the way Adesanya handled it was almost workmanlike. Like he went about his business of saying, like when he got, I remember when he got the, what was his third fight? He was fighting Brad Tavares. It seemed like a huge step up.

It seemed like people were like, ooh, too much too soon for a guy like this. And he handles himself. He goes and fights at Madison Square Garden. He's fighting Derek Brunson. There's a lot of people. It's Feaster Fam. Brunson's going to try to take his head off. And there was a little bit of bad blood in that. Remember, if you recall that fight. And it's like he just punished his aggression. That was one of his first real good showcases, right? Like as he gets a finish in that fight. I just feel like whenever there's a doubt, he takes that doubt, puts it in his pocket, and then just dispels it.

He turns it into confetti. That's what he does. And he did that brilliantly in this last fight. I just can't imagine a scenario where he could have come off better, and not just in the finish itself and not just in how he finished him, but dropping him right before the bell, right before the horn in the first round. So in other words, almost two knockouts against Robert Whittaker in one fight. I mean, I just don't think he could have done better in that fight. Also, when he was making his statements,

he wanted to apparently have his dance routine at UFC 234 when he fought Anderson Silva. I would now get the impression that in some kind of way, if you had tasked another fighter with you have to come up with a dance routine, that would have added enormous pressure. I actually get the sense that the dance routine aided himself in the fight. It made him be more of who he wanted to be. And so he was just ready to go as a consequence of that. Last thing about this. Tailoring to his mood and tailoring to his kind of motivations and things like that. A man in full. The last thing I say about this is, you know, this is not true 100%, but a lot of times there are violent overthrows in these divisions where when some guy takes over, like the real greats, when they take over, they take over with authority. BJ Penn choking out Matt Hughes. Now they've traded, but Daniel Cormier knocking out Stipe,

Stipe knocking out Daniel Cormier. John Jones beating Shogun the way he did. You can go on and on and on. Again, Anderson Silva beating Rich Franklin the way he did in this very division. Again, he didn't lose a round. I went through the stats. He numerically outstruck Robert Whitaker, and then, of course, from a damage standpoint, he outstruck him too. If you guys haven't seen it, you'll see it.

Go undissected. That fight was not, I'm not going to say it wasn't competitive and difficult because obviously Whitaker made everything difficult. But in terms of taking damage, in terms of ever being in danger, this was not even as dangerous as the Marvin Vittori fight, which was a split decision in that sense. He, on every time it escalates, he seems to have an answer for escalating danger. Dude, that's what the greats do.

Yes. Now, I'm not saying he's one of the greats, but I'm saying those kinds of traits are ultimately what the greats, when you look back on their career, what they did. And when they do that, that's when you have a real commodity in the UFC, right? When it becomes compelling to see how they might outdo themselves in their next performance. And obviously, the way he handled himself in this fight,

where I thought the scrutiny was at its absolute biggest for him, I want to see, honestly, if he's still the star that we're projecting in terms of pay-per-view buys and things like that. Like, is he that star? Is the national media going to get behind him and want to talk to him about all the facets of his life? Are we going to see like Esquire jump in and do a big profile on him, spend a day shopping?

You know what I mean? If that's the type of thing we see. I don't know if we will, but the fact that he is doing, that he's handling his work that way and he handles himself so well out of the cage, it's, I think that the next fight, regardless who it is, I think it'd be cost, but like if it's, whoever it is, I feel like it's going to seem like an event times 10. I feel like it's going to have that kind of magnitude. Now, this brings us to the second part, which was when talking about his ascendancy the last 20 months, what would you say

is the most noteworthy part of it? We talked about the fight itself and how he looked and how he felt, Chuck. But now let me ask you this. I'll pitch this one to you first. When you think back on his rise that brings us to this day, what stands out to you most about it? I mean, besides just how quickly he was able to accomplish it. You know what I mean? I mean, to me, that number is mind-boggling that he fought seven times in 20 months and that he was so smart to start his UFC career when he thought he was ready. You know what I mean? So those things stand out. But honestly, man, I think it's just his poise with his showmanship. He's very within himself when he gets in there. And I used to always point out when Anderson Silva would get into his mojo a little bit, you would see him. It was like an activation button. Somebody would do

something, whatever, and then you'd see him kind of flip out a little bit. And it was almost like you weren't sure if he was psyching himself up or trying to psych the other guy out. I feel like we've kind of distilled that type of showmanship and that kind of anticipation into a guy who executes it, maybe even a little, you know, the new version of that. Like the guy like 2.0 who comes in and he knows he's just that much more rounded. He's just that much more daring. You know what I mean? That much more audacious. So I feel like that's really the thing. His poise and just him growing into his own skin and now being completely comfortable in there. But not changing, I would say on whole, not really changing from the guy who came in.

I asked him about the it factor when they were talking about it. I think it was before the Brunson fight. I asked him about what is the it factor because they keep saying you have the it factor. And he kind of, I mean, it was like he thought this through a million times what the it factor was, like delving into the definition, basically saying that, you know, it's when you can, you know's when you can basically make your thoughts everybody's thoughts. Like when you're starting to enact your internal being, like what I feel, what I'm flourishing in my own mind becomes kind of the collective idea of who you are, and that becomes everybody's thoughts. And I thought that was interesting.

So the way I would think about this is the most obvious comparison to what he has done, and there's a lot of differences, but there's a lot of similarities. I just mentioned the violent overthrow every time there's a new king of the division. Well, one guy who did that was Conor McGregor. Conor McGregor overthrowing Jose Aldo in, what was it, 13 seconds? I just heard a collective groan from the crowd here. The parallels are so interesting on this one, right? Because I would say that McGregor had more interest right away from the regional build

he had because by his second fight when he was fighting in Boston against Holloway, you recall this, that was on the UFC's first show in the FS1 era

and they dimmed the lights for him on the premium card. Here's the similarities. Fighters, if you want the UFC to dim the lights for you or allow you

to do a dance routine, they have to see something special. That's just basically the whole idea. Or let Sinead O'Connor sing you out. Or let Sinead, or the donk from Stained, whoever the hell his name is. But there's also, here's some other parallels for you. So he fought, and Conor McGregor did,

Brimage, Holloway, Brandau, Poirier, Seaver, Mendez, and then he beat Aldo to claim the undisputed title in his seventh fight. He had the interim championship in his sixth fight. It's identical now. There was the injury championship in his sixth fight. It's identical now. There was the injury to the ACL that McGregor had, which of course somehow... Here's another part about this. Adesanya's ability to stay injury-free in the last 20 months, that is some Ironman shit, to be quite honest with you. But I wonder, when you make the Conor McGregor comparison, I would say it's a little bit different in the sense... Oh,

and by the way, they both were headlining cards in their third fight. He had a headlining fight with Savarez. He had the UFC Dublin card. There's a lot of similarities. I would say that Conor, again, came in a little bit more intrigue, had a little bit more time off as a consequence of the injury. But in so many ways, flashy, daring, willing to be disliked, willing to be polarizing, willing to be loved. Origin story with national pride. Violent overthrow of the king. There are ominous parallels between them.

I agree with you 100%. I think when Conor came up, there was a feeling of almost a messiah, right? Like almost like this fight game messiah in the UFC finally who was big enough. He was breaking into every kind of national media. There was want to acknowledge it or not, we have this idea of the fighting Irish. There was some kind of parallel to like, hey, we've actually found this Irishman who fits a basic caricature that we've had in our mind forever. And he was brash. He was doing crazy things. It was like he showed up in different forms every press conference. Every time there's a new fight, either he had a shaved head

or he was showing up in some kind of overlord garb. He was always wearing snatching belts. He was insulting countries. I felt like he was just doing everything within his power to... It seemed very natural to him to accept all the attention and

just absorb it. I feel like there's a little bit of a parallel there. I feel like you can't give Adesanya enough attention. I feel like he will just be able to absorb it and grow bigger. And I think it was this coach, Behrman, who was talking about, there's a little bit of a question mark. Once we unify these belts, what does he become? Who does he become?

Is he going to be the same guy? He said he's been the same guy the whole way, or does he start to evolve into something else? And we've seen that happen, where money changes you, fame changes you, situations change you, you feel like a god everywhere you go. I feel like that's kind of the space now. So far, he's handled himself very admirably, but I think there's a little bit of potential there where you could start to see Adesanya evolve in the bigger sense of vanity and feeling invincible. So here's what I'm looking for in the next chapter.

Another parallel between McGregor and Adesanya. I don't think it was exactly the same. There's always some minute differences, but there was pervasive skepticism about McGregor every time. And Dustin Poirier is going to put a stop to this. And Mendez is going to put a stop to this. And then Aldo is going to put a stop to this. And no one put a stop to it. Not until Nate Diaz, of course.

So there's that, too, in answering the critics. I would actually be interested to see what happens. I don't think that Adesanya is – I never got the sense that Adesanya was the bad guy ever. I know some people disagree. And he did go a little bit poking the bear with the Aussies. But Conor McGregor seemed – Not really. Yeah, not much.

Conor McGregor always seemed a little bit bratty, a little bit meaner. I never got that sense from Adesanya. Adesanya seemed a little bit like, I'm a performer of one. You can watch, but you can't touch kind of a thing. So here's what I'm going to see. Now that you have proven all the skeptics wrong, now that he's a perfect fighter, but well, he can't be this guy and he can't be this guy.

I mean, you got the title. That needs to go away. I wonder if he'll keep that chip on his shoulder. Dominic Cruz was asking him, like, do you need hate to be who you are? He said no, that good or bad, it's all energy.

It's very even keel that way. Right. But at the same time, it's like, okay, I'm not saying you've got to, all the skeptics all of a sudden, all of your fans, but you can't,

you can't feast off of skepticism when you disprove it. You need to pivot to something else. So I want to see how he acts in the next chapter of his career. Yeah, it will be interesting. I felt like with Conor McGregor, just going back to that one second, it was a vicarious joyride that his country was on, right? Like they're all living through his experience. And I felt like that extended to the globe. I felt like everybody was just like, we'll have fun as long as this fun will last.

And obviously it lasted as long as it did. It was a long time because there were a lot of people who still want to keep going with that fun. I think that it's over on that scale. But Adesanya is a little different. He almost feels like a throwback to something, too. Like he doesn't seem like he's a firebrand in that sense. He feels like he's a throwback. He's more rooted to something more essential to the fight game. And I feel like that that's his thing. We can't understand him just yet. I don't think anybody

has the idea of who he is. Nobody's going to peg who he is just yet. There's a lot to be discovered in him through seven fights. I think he flew under the radar just enough, honestly, for him to go into now his boom period with a lot of people not knowing who he is. And I feel like that's to his benefit. I think that that part will be fascinating. Folks have said, is he now as popular as Conor McGregor? No. Look at the metrics. They don't, they don't, or even Conor McGregor was by the time he beat Aldo. No, that, that pay-per-view did huge numbers. Adesanya also hasn't, I mean, I don't know what's happening in Nigeria or New Zealand, but I don't necessarily get the sense from afar that he's captured his country's imagination in the same way. You don't see them traveling to Vegas in like thousands of red panties lying over there?

Not yet. We'll see what happens. But again, by the point Conor was fighting for the title, they were already there. So it's a little bit different in that regard. Now, it takes us to the man who lost, Chuck, Robert Whitaker. What do we say about his legacy? Unfortunately, well, look, that's the question. Robert Whitaker loses. So the question is, what do you say about his title reign and what's next?

They're two different questions. On the one hand, I want to make some comparisons. On the other hand, I have a little bit of trepidation about it, Chuck, because he's 28. He's 28. He's fought three times now in about 30 months. It's not a lot of activity. It's a lot of time off. And he still has some growing to do.

Adesanya was 28 when this whole journey got started. And now he's 30. Here's what we can say, though. I know this is a loaded term, so I'm not using it in the way in which it is loaded. But I was looking at all of the various middleweight champions, from Dave Manet to Evan Tanner, Rich Franklin, Anderson Silva, to Chris Weidman, to Luke Rockhold, to you had, well, he got stripped in St. Pierre, and then, you know, went on and on and on.

You know, it's a little bit of Rich Franklin territory. By that I mean, I don't mean he's stuck forever. He could come back in two years and win. You just never really know. But what I'm saying is you had this reign where typically he has zero defenses. Now that's not his fault because the one, Romero missed weight, so it's not his fault. But okay, so he's got one sort of. I think Franklin had like two or so. But it's in a scenario where you lose to this dynamic upstart who came in like a whirlwind and then just tore through everything. And he would have to reclaim it again, and that would make him a bit of a different story where you could go and get a title twice, like a Velazquez, right,

that kind of a thing, or even a Mir in a different way. But to me, it's like, what did you say when it's middleweight title reign? Here's what I'm going to say. One, it's a little Rich Franklin-esque. Not completely-esque. The second part is, and I wonder how you feel about this. Folks were saying, oh, those Romero wars, they destroyed him. I'm not ready to say that that's true.

I'm not ready to say that that's false. To me, it's really undetermined because if you go back, and again, this isn't dissected. If you watch when he gets hit, he's never prepared for it. So it's always going to have the most impact. At the same time, man, the guy has been injury-prone. He had the hernia surgery. Those Romero wars, he told your own, from the athletics, Sean El Shadi, it took him a year and a half to get over it.

I'm not saying it's true. I am saying it's something to pay attention to. Yeah. No, I agree with everything you just said. Watching him, this particular fight, too, I felt like the way he handled himself after he gets beat is almost like he'd prepared for this

eventuality. He'd already thought if I lose to this guy, it's like losing to a maelstrom that will move on without me. I'm now at the whims of a guy who's basically on the verge of being a megastar in the UFC. I'm now on a maniacal whim. If he wants to fight me again,

that's probably how you get back to it. If not, I probably have to move on at this point. I felt like he came to that understanding, even in his post, right away. Like, he understood, like, you know, man, I'm on the market. I want to keep fighting. He's just got to move on. Now, is he diminished?

And that's, I think that that's what probably the next fight will be about. Whoever it's going to be, I'm guessing it's going to be a guy in the top five space. And if that's the case, I think we find out a lot about that. But it's premature, I think, to say that the Romero fights did this to him because he's just that kind of guy, man. He's always had a kind of war mentality in his fights. So I feel like you've got to see a little more evidence before you really say that those fights specifically took it out of him.

Did he look... How did he look to you in that fight from your bird's eye view? I thought he looked... Did he look frail? I didn't think he looked frail. I thought he looked like he was headhunting. You looked at a couple of those shots. I know you broke this fight down,

but a couple of those shots, man, they breeze right by. If he connects on one of those, we're having a whole different conversation. I mean, he was trying to take us out. He was loading up. To me, he looked like he was trying to, he was trying for something spectacular himself. I think he really believed that his striking was going to be elite in this situation,

which was an act of defiance. Let's put it that way. A lot of people really thought that Adesanya, they believe he's one of the elite strikers in the game. I think he wanted to prove something in that standpoint. I don't think he wanted to use the wrestling and stuff in the game. I think he wanted to prove something in that standpoint. I don't think he wanted to use the wrestling and stuff. I don't feel like he wanted to go there. To his own detriment.

Yeah, to his own detriment. So to me, maybe you're seeing more of a stubbornness than a frailty. What about the ring rust? Where are you on that one? I mean, man, I watched him. He didn't look rusty to me. Yeah, I didn't really see that either. And honestly, sometimes people in the lead-up, you'll get a sense that maybe they have a feeling like that because you'll hear them mentioning things they're doing to kind of replicate the situation again. I didn't really feel like he was having any trouble that way. And that guy, man, we've seen him go five rounds twice with Romero. I just feel like his cardio and who he is and his kind of mentality, I just don't believe. It's more like a war. He goes in there and he expects a war. And I think that that's just his mentality. So I didn't see

any of that. Yeah, I didn't see a ton of evidence of that. But, you know, I mentioned this before. I got his permission to say this. I was talking to Brandon Gibson, striking coach at Jackson Wink and for John Jones. And, you know, it's interesting. I'll tell you this. I don't know what's going to happen, whether Israel Adesanya is going to fight John Jones. I can tell you this. John Jones' coaching staff is paying attention. They are paying attention. They're out there looking. They're scouting. That fight could be huge at some point. Not right now. Not right now, though, man. It's got to mature. You've got to maximize on

Adesanya's star power within his own division. Put a pin in that for a second, because I want to revisit it. Sticking with Whitaker, if I can for just a moment, I didn't think he looked rusty. But the point that Brandy Gibson made to me was, okay, let's say St. Pierre fights that fight the exact same way. Different weapons, but it more or less goes how this one went. Landed about the same, missed about the same. And then you get dropped by Adesanya in the first round. In the second round, dude, St. Pierre's coming out wrestling, man. He is coming out wrestling.

I thought he would. I thought he would. I thought he would, too. And this is why I bring that up. It's because his own coach was saying, Whitaker's a better version of GSP. Well, this is why people are not better versions of GSP. And why these compare... Well, it's like you're comparing yourself to the best ever. Man, that's a tall order.

Even as good as Robert Whitaker. That's a tall order. He did not wrestle in that cycle. Which, by the way to me maybe wrestling wouldn't have made a difference maybe it would have

there's no way to know I think it would have made a difference if not in the outcome certainly in the fight's complexion but I think it will give Whittaker

a chance to hang his hat on something to say you know what things can be different next time I can do other things and also I would just like to see him

fight somebody new get back out there. Stay healthy. Get some activity. And, dude, he's 28 years old. Which seems crazy, right? Do you really think that Saturday was the last time you'll see him in a title fight? I find that hard to believe.

Yeah, and he kept – I mean, that was basically his message the whole time was like, hey, you haven't seen the last of me. I'll be back. I'll be back. He will be back. It's just a matter of now, like you mentioned, it's like in the Rich Franklin sense, there's a guy who's the megastar in the division

that the UFC has been trying to tailor. Not tailor, but just they've been rolling out the red carpet for this moment, right? So for him to get back to Adesanya, it may be a little bit tricky. He may have to go a couple of fights, but just because it's that situation. Let me see if I can get the champions.

I don't have it in front of me. It's not the champions. Let me see if I can get the champions. I don't have it in front of me. It's not the champions. Let me see if I can get all UFC champions. I forget where Murillo Bustamante fits in there. So it'd be Bustamante, Dave Manet, Evan Tanner, Rich Franklin, Anderson Silva. Then you would have,

he got beat by Chris Weidman. He got beat by Luke Rockhold. He got beat by Michael Bisping. Who got beat by St. Pierre, who dropped it. And then that made Walker, who was was that interim, undisputed, and then he loses to Adesanya. Those are all your UFC middleweight champions. Slow clap. Yeah, there you go.

I did my homework. In any event, though, I would say this. I think this chapter, maybe not for Adesanya, but I feel like this chapter of layoff, injury, because remember he never got the Kelvin Gastelum fight, then layoff again, then back. I think it's been exhausting for Robert Whitaker, and I'm looking to see him start fresh,

and then let's see what he's got by age 30. I bet you we're going to see him in another title fight, and maybe with a gold around his waist again. I think, again, I don't think you come out of those Romero wars completely unscathed, but I'm just not ready to bury the kid yet. I'm with him. I think you used the word brooding in a tweet you sent out of those Romero wars completely unscathed, but I'm just not ready to bury the kid yet. I'm with him. I think you used the word brooding in a tweet you sent out. To me, that's him.

His walkout. Yeah. I mean, he's just, that's who he is, man. He's an internal fighter. Like, he's a guy who, whatever's going on, you know, he swallows a bomb and it explodes and he's just ready to go. So I feel like he is going to put the pieces back together. I felt like that's what you're seeing right away.

He's a guy who doesn't dwell. I think he puts it back together. So it may be even sooner than that, but I would guess by the time he is, you know, another year, year and a half, I think we'll probably see him at his best form, you know? Quickly, before we go to this boxing topic, the topic of Jon Jones and,

I almost said Anderson Silva, Jon Jones and now Israel Adesanya. I find it so bizarre, by the way. They're nearly identical in age, 30, 30, 30, 31. I find it so bizarre that Jon Jones, and now Israel Adesanya. I find it so bizarre, by the way. By the way, they're nearly identical in age, 30, 30, 30, 31. That's crazy. I find it so bizarre that John Jones, like, Israel Adesanya really ticks them off. I don't know exactly why. I can't quite put my finger on it.

Suffice to say, though, I think we're both in agreement. I do want to see that fight. Sure. If both guys keep winning, I do not wish to see that fight right now. Adesanya has the right frame. He is much smaller than John. John Jones is much bigger. And also just much better at wrestling.

Adesanya's true gift is that he is a different fighter fight to fight, with different tactics and different development. So you give that guy time, sky's the limit. But right now, bad idea. I think it's a bad idea, too, just for John Jones. Because we're sitting, for the last, what, a couple years, we talk about, like, is he going to fight so-and-so? Is he going to go to heavyweight?

We're projecting him against heavyweights. We're not projecting him against a middleweight. So I feel like it's just from his perspective, it doesn't make sense. But if Adesanya transcends the way he's trajecting right now, like if he goes and just transcends the sport, wins a couple of big fights, you revisit that idea? Because I think people then would believe in his invincibility enough to go tackle a guy like Jon Jones. Here's what I think might happen. I think, let's say he beats Bohashina, which, you know, Bohashina might, you know,

God only knows what's going to happen there. But let's say he beats him. And let's say Whitaker gets the winner of Till versus Gastelum and then beats that person. I bet you they're going to put him right back into a rematch after that. Let's do this one over again. They're going to talk about ring rust. They're going to talk about time off, whether or not it's real. And then if Adesanya wins that, I think they're going to say, all right, let's see what he's

got against Jones. But then Jones, God only knows what he'll be doing by that point. Yeah. It's just interesting to me that when you remove Daniel Cormier from the equation, it narrowed Jones' options a little bit. Because he's got, maybe, let's see if Weidman beats Dominic Reyes. But let's say Weidman loses, I think his options about big fights kind of got a little smaller.

Yeah, I just think that also the UFC right now, you just got this guy to the spot where he's going to be a star. You don't want to make him vulnerable. You probably want to play him within the rules of the playing field that he knows he can thrive in. But I can tell you right now, as soon as he's reached a level where it's like he can make Jon Jones feel vulnerable, that's when they'll make that fight. When it seems like a collective idea would be like,

I think he could put Jones in trouble. When that becomes the case, I could see that fight getting made. All right, so we'll have to see how it goes. So let's move on now to boxing. There was a big boxing fight over the weekend. Triple G. It was fun watching both screens at once. It was a little difficult at times, but we made it goes. So let's move on now to boxing. There was a big boxing fight over the weekend. Triple G. It was fun watching both screens at once. It was a little difficult at times,

but we made it work. Triple G taking on Sergei Derevyanchenko. Oh boy. This was interesting. Now he won the vacant, let's see, IBF and IBO middleweight titles

Triple G did. I did not think he won that bout. And people were like, oh, you're saying he got robbed? I'm not saying he got robbed. I'm saying I just completely disagree with the judge's scorecards. I had it,

I think 115-112 for Derevyanchenko, or at least 114-113. That's what I had it. Okay, so here is what happens. He gets knocked down in the very first round. That's kind of what did him in a little bit. It would have been a little bit closer, but in the end, it would have changed enough scorecards to matter. I will say this. Max Kellerman has a famous test. Who would you rather be at the end of that round? You look at the CompuBox numbers, they tell you the story of that fight, which was not merely that Derevyanchenko had more volume than him and that Triple G had better power punches.

But, like, who was doing the work? Oh, yeah. Who was pulling the yoke? Who was the guy who said, I'm going to put on my big boy pants today, clock in for work, and I'm going to do more than you? And Derevyanchenko was all over him. Body shots, pushing him backwards, pushing him backwards, then cutting an angle and pushing him backwards again.

It was beautiful. Tell me this, Chuck. Have you ever seen, even in the Canelo fights, round over round with Triple G looking that deflated? No. And I tell you what, to me, what did it, honestly, was that cut. As soon as that cut came in, I wasn't sure if it was a headbutt or a punch or what happened. There was some confusion there.

Oh, Dervyanchenko. Yeah, Dervyanchenko. When that cut happened, I think it was between the second and third, right? The first two rounds, obviously, were for Triple G. But by that, it was almost like you saw his animal instinct kick in. And he's like, you know what? I better try to finish this thing just in case. I better go in there and try to finish this thing.

And that mode, that kind of animal instinct took over. And it kind of lasted through the whole interior rounds of the fight, from three to ten, and I thought maybe you could give every one of those rounds to Derevyan Chekhov. So it's like he went in there with that kind of thing, and what really struck me was whatever pace he started there, and he started going to the body, it was kind of crazy to see Triple G kind of folding up a couple of times, taking those body shots.

But man, once he started kind of chopping away at him, he just put on a pace that I felt like Golovkin didn't keep up with. He just couldn't keep up with it. Every time he'd kind of come in there, there was an answer of two or three shots, and that kind of just went on. And I think it just slowly dawned on you, like, man, like all the things they were talking about during the broadcast were dawning on you in real time as well, which is just like,

never seen him hurt like this I've never seen him having to dig this far in terms of like uh knowing that he might be down on the scorecards or knowing that he may need a finish which is I thought maybe where he was entering that space around the 11th 12th round I was like he may need to finish this fight now triple g to you know to get this one crazy man um even triple g after the fight said on the he's like, this is a bad day for me. This is a great day for Derevyanchenko. So here's what my colleague over at SiriusXM, R.J. Clifford, made a great point. He's like, you could argue that Triple G got robbed against Canelo,

but boy, he got saved against Derevyanchenko. The karma is even at this point. So here's the thing. We asked about Whitaker. What was the lingering damage after 10 rounds with Yoel Romero? By the way, I don't know if you saw this. Jorge Masvidal was like, Whitaker ain't the same. So he, by the way, staked his claim that he's not the same.

The thing I'll say about this for Triple G is I am much more believer that he's not the same now. Now, the question is, A, how much of a downgrade? And B, what does that downgrade mean exactly? Like, okay, he's less. But what does that ultimately amount to? Because, by the way, he's still got his hand raised. Here's what I would say. To me, it was the punishment.

Like, Derevyanchenko was like an unrelenting rain. He wasn't a hurricane. He wasn't a tornado. But if the rain just never stops, eventually you're going to flood. And that's, to me, what it looked like. It was each shot just kind of a cumulative thing. So it was this constant heat that was on him. I guess the reason why I would say Triple G looked a little bit older to me is he just didn't seem to have, I don't know,

he didn't seem to have another way to put, he just couldn't get the guy off of him. Not a different gear. And a lot of times you would see guys try to put it on him before, and he would score a jab or a body shot, and it would change the whole game. He could not do that to this guy. Yeah. I don't know either.

You know, he had a new trainer, like, for this fight. People say he should have gone back to Abel Sanchez. Well, I mean, that's all possibility, right? But I thought that every now and again you just watch a fight where suddenly a guy starts to look older. I felt like maybe that's what you were seeing because there was no indication in the second Canelo fight. I didn't see any kind of diminishing. There was no diminishment that I saw.

Did you see anything? And then he had the tune-up fight with Rolls. He looked good. He looked like himself in that fight. The old corkscrew punch. So this one particularly, especially in those first two rounds, I thought it was just more of the same. Here's this guy fighting Madison Square Garden more of the same, you know. Here's this guy, you know, fighting Madison Square Garden and doing the same thing he does, man.

And it was almost like over, you know, just like this, he started to look a little older to me. Right. And obviously that, you tell me how much that changes the complexity of maybe a possible trilogy fight. Right. So if you're Canelo Alvarez, that's the big question here. You've got to look at this and say, ooh.

Now, Canelo Alvarez has his hands the big question here. You've got to look at this and say, ooh. Now, Canelo Alvarez has his hands full in taking on a guy two weight classes above him in Sergey Kovalev, same day as the BMF belt being on the line. What's with these guys, first of all, Kovalev had to get by yard, right, to get to Canelo. He struggles to get through there,

and now you have this. These guys trying to get to Canelo, this delicate dancer doing, man, struggling to get through. You want to get to the top, man. You're going to get bruised up along the way. But if you're Canelo Alvarez, you have to be completely delighted with this. I would say it's not that Canelo set the blueprint,

but I've noticed that between the Jacobs fight and Canelo's two fights and now this fight and some other ones too, guys are starting to realize. Well, Jacobs backed up. But what I'm saying is guys have begun to realize, if you just take it to this guy, there's a little bit more of a light at the end of the tunnel than they once realized. Seems like Daniel Chico wasn't even worried about his power. Nothing. Nothing. He was

worried about the cut, only in the sense that, as you indicated, the ref might say it's too big. So, by the way, props to the cut man for holding that on. So, we'll see what happens with Canelo and Kovalev, and I guess if Canelo gets bruised up in that one, all bets are off. But if he comes out of that one, let's say, relatively unscathed, even if you...

Here's the part about this fight, Chuck. Even if you wanted to say that in this bout, GGG A1 or B did not necessarily look old, okay, fine. After the fight, you've now done 12 rounds with Derevyanchenko. You did not come out of that the same, dude. That guy was all over you. I think I have the CompuBox stats, if I may.

Let me pull them up here real quickly if I can here on this delightful iPad of mine. He landed, Derevyanchenko, 230 body shots. Jabs, just 47. And then power punches punches 183. And the majority of those were right to the body. Yes. Yeah. And cutting angles on him.

Yep. And then hurting him. Didn't have him take a knee. Dude, that is a ton of abuse. Yes, it is. After two Canelo Alvarez fights, no less, as well. You can see why these guys in boxing, like the Martirosian fight and the Rolls fight, why they take so many tune-ups.

Yeah, for sure. I think that it'd be really interesting to see if Canelo does soften on this, obviously, because of this whole aspect and obviously with the DAZN, this whole DAZN, like, hey, I promise we're going to get this trilogy thing. I feel like if it's going to happen, this is probably the best-case scenario.

Yeah, Derevyanchenko did a huge solid to Canelo Alvarez. He did, man. By the way, I just feel bad for Derevyanchenko did a huge solid to Canelo Alvarez. He did, man. We'll see. By the way, I just feel bad for Derevyanchenko. Same here. He got dropped against Danny Jacobs, and he came back. He did the exact same thing. In the same venue, except for it was the Hulu theater.

But his same venue, it's like a house of horrors for him to go to the Madison Square Garden. Dude, there are some of these guys, man. They're just bridesmaids, and maybe they shouldn't be. That should have been his day to be like, I finally broke through. I thought he won. That's all I'll say, man. I thought he won the fight. And I'll say this.

It makes you appreciate what guys like Andy Ruiz do. Yeah. Because if Andy Ruiz, okay, he had really dropped. He got dropped too, but he had dropped, I think, Joshua, I think a couple of times before that. Okay, so fine. But let's say they had stopped dropping each other or they had dropped each other the same number of times and that had gone the distance.

Dude, they'd have given that fight to Anthony Joshua. I know. There's just this inertia behind the champion. So you know what? It's the hardest thing in boxing for me, man. I know. That's the hardest part of boxing to me. It's just like you really don't know over a 12-round narrative what the judges are doing.

Because they're piecemealing it for 12 rounds. Like, they're just, you know, chapters. You just don't know how they're looking at it. And they have no stats. They have their own purview. It can be a little difficult. All right. So last but certainly not least, we go back to UFC. There was UFC Tampa this weekend. Sort of a very interesting main event. You're wanting a J-Check taking on Michelle Watterson, a strawweight fight, Chuck. I love this. Okay. So here is the question for you. What is on the line with that main event?

What is at stake? So I feel like this particular fight is a main event because they want to establish the number one contender. I would think that that's what this is all about. That would make some sense to me. Obviously Tatiana Suarez is out there, and I'm not sure if she's even ready to fight because she was kind of coming back from an injury. I don't know, like, does she have a fight coming up?

So she's training, but she's not allowed to, like, do hard sparring. Okay, so given her status, I guess, in the situation, I think that that's what's on the line. It's a strange one, though, because, you know, Watterson, I feel like the UFC has kind of gotten behind her in strange ways because I think they believe she's a marketable fighter. By the way, she's repped by WME. Oh, okay.

So, I mean, yeah, WME, actually, I remember this now before, I think it was during the Fox Talk, I said I actually put her in the booth a couple, like I put her on an analyst desk and just let her talk a little bit. She kind of, I think that they like her in that way. I think they'd like to get her into a spot where she's fighting for a title. Obviously, this one is a tough fight, man. It's a tough fight for her, but if she's able to get through it, I think that especially they would be looking at putting her in that title fight. It's an interesting moment.

So one, I think you're right. It's who's going to get the next shot at Zhang Wiley or Wiley Zhang. I can never do the Chinese name letter. Esther Lin told me once, and I get confused too. I know. Which I know is unbearably unprofessional,

but I just don't know. I just don't know. So there's that. But the other part is, I think it's an interesting moment for both ladies. Ioana Jacek had this moment of invincibility for her career right before she lost to Rose Namajunas, right? She could do no wrong.

She was bringing gifts to the weigh-ins. Not weigh-ins, but sorry, the face-offs, taunting people. And then she loses and then can't quite get right. Loses back to back. I think she ran out of the shipper against Tisha Torres but then she tried to go against Valentina Shevchenko and that was no dice.

She's lost three of her last four. Her only win is against Tisha Torres who is on her own losing streak, by the way. So it's like, wow, man, this is a bit of a tough spot for her career.

I don't know that you could reclaim boogeyman status necessarily in this contest but she needs to get right. She needs to get right. She has lost to a degree what was previously captured. This fight, let's say she goes in and blows the doors off of Watterson.

Now, maybe it's going to get a number one contender no matter what, but I'm talking about a bigger perception about what kind of actual threat she poses. That's been lost. That could be gained here. I would also add, Chuck, in the case of Michelle Watterson, she's had some nice wins. I'd argue her win over Jessica Penny back in Invicta is her best one. I would also add, Chuck, in the case of Michelle Watterson, she's had some nice wins. I'd argue her win over Jessica Penny back in Invicta is her best one. I think that was an Adam Waite fight, if memory serves. You know, the win over Paige Van Zandt was nice because it was a bit of a name, but that's not the

toughest challenge. This would be the best win of her career. And she's 32, 33 years old. She's always flirted with breaking out in the mainstream. Remember years ago, she was in those Samsung commercials for the phones? And you always kind of thought, man, the karate hottie, she's got an interesting style, you know. She's going to be somebody who could really break out.

I know, that's what I mean. And she hasn't broken out yet. And the clock's kind of ticking. Well, this would be her moment. And I feel like that's really, the narrative really is right there, right? I think that it's her moment to break through because Janjacek still has that boogeyman name to an extent. I know that it's been compromised a little bit, but it's still there. I still look at her like I used to, where she would show up, like you mentioned, and turn into almost like this demon during the face-offs, where she was almost trying

to snatch, you know, like it was crazy. And then you'd see her go in there and just destroy opponents. I still see that version. Like, I feel like she's still there. I do feel like that feel like it tells you how psychological the game can be sometimes, how a loss, and especially two losses to somebody like Rose Namajunas, can suddenly change everything. So I feel like there are two different narratives there, but if Michelle Watterson is able to kind of get through and kind of have a showcase moment for herself and do that against Janjacek while her name is still there, this would be a huge moment for her. I do think, though, that you're right. If Janjacek loses this fight, man, I just, what happens?

You almost then start the, you know, you start the eulogies about, like, wow, remember when she ran into Nami Yunus, who herself has become reclusive and no longer has a status after losing. Losing sucks, man. These guys kind of just drop off after this. And it's especially true, if we're being honest, like with some of the female champions. When they've lost, they've had a hard time, some of them, of ever coming back.

Holly Holm fell off. You know, Ronda Rousey clearly fell off. We've seen multiple, you know, Rose Namaunas. I think it's, for whatever reason, there's a lot of mental play in there. That's interesting. So you think, let me explore that a little bit. So you believe that when the women lose, it might carry more consequences? It could.

Because, you know, honestly, like Ronda Rousey probably handled a loss as poorly as you possibly could in the UFC. We've been through this a million times. She kind of, she never returned to form. Holly Holm, though, was the one that I thought, because she had the long boxing pedigree, I didn't really think a loss would hurt her that bad. She took some unfortunate circumstances, some unfortunate fights, that type

of thing, but it seems to have. Like, you know, I don't feel like she's been exactly the same as she was on her come up. Rosanami Yunus is contemplating maybe not even fighting again, although I've been in contact with the camp a little bit and it sounds like she will.

But I mean, you just look at all of that stuff and yeah, I think there might be something to that. It's interesting. It's just the evidence is like that.

Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, you're right. These two, again, it's not the end of the world for either if they lose, but in some ways, it's significant. It's a good point.

It's significant. Okay, so then that brings us to now your questions for us. This is a good point. It's significant. Okay, so then that brings us to now your questions for us. This is a segment that we call DMs from donks or DMs for donks. No, it's from donks. I can never remember the actual name. So I always, if you guys don't know, I'm at Instagram, Luke Thomas News. I post on Sundays a little picture.

It's quite clear. And if you post a comment in there, you will see all of my questions. Or sorry, that's your chance to rather contribute your response. Okay, Chuck, we'll go to you first on this one. This comes to us from Robert Reel, I guess. Will we see a new wave of kickboxers now after Izzy's championship win? What do you think? That's a good one. I don't know, because I feel like we've seen kickboxers over time right like a lot of them have tried to come over and uh mark hunt yeah mark hunt uh i mean there there have been kickboxers have come over not a lot but there have been there have been a handful that have come over and had decent success but nothing like this

i do feel like that he's cut differently like i think that he always had maybe mma mma on his mind even while he was still competing. I remember seeing him in Colorado during one of the Glory events and thinking that. I remember thinking, man, this guy will be a good mixed martial artist if and when he does that. It was like, what, a year later that he was competing.

I don't know, but you know how it is, man. There's a floodgate. If you're not making a lot of money, I don't feel like kickboxing will ever take over a North American audience like they thought it would. And you know as well as me. Yeah, I work for Glory. I mean, they do a good work, but I don't believe it. And I was optimistic when they started.

I was like, yeah, this could be it because MMA being where it is, this is kind of just taking out the grappling. This is just knockouts. People just don't want to go in for it. But I could see a scenario where some people might get some ideas. I could see maybe a little influx of some kickboxers. I'm not sure why. It's like, okay, there might be some out there who can do it, but the key to understanding Adesanya is that you see him in one fight,

and in his next one, I can't overstate this, Chuck, his ability to improve in the areas not included in kickboxing, like the rest of his game, his ability to improve is extraordinary. Moreover, we went over this with the fainting study last week. He adds a layer of trickery to everything that his game sits beneath, and it's so thick. Most kickboxers even don't do that kind of thing. Boxers do a lot more of that than kickboxers. So it's like, could other kickboxers even don't do that kind of thing. Boxers do a lot more of that than kickboxers. So it's like,

could other kickboxers come? Probably. You had another one, I think, Brad Riddell on the card, who had trained with the same team. That guy put on a fight, huh? Holy shit. So yes, the answer is maybe a little. The truth of the matter is it's almost unfair to couple him as just a kickboxer.

Because of who you're saying, he's a very cerebral, he's a different kind of human being. To even just say he's a kickboxer feels wrong. Here's the deal with Israel Adesanya. He's special. He's special. Among kickboxers, he's special. Among MMA fighters, he's incredibly special. So, like, maybe some, but I would not expect an influx.

Okay. This is from Paco. What did you make of the production of UFC 243, Chuck? Did you like it? Oh, all the changes? Yeah, it was cool.

I never really get... I know we used to talk about this stuff a little bit on the MMA Beat. I always like to see them trying new things and trying to spice it up.

You know, maybe getting rid of your favorite intro song and doing some stuff like... Which they still won't do. I think now it's an act of defiance because they know that you won't.

Yeah, I know. Honestly, I think they legit keep it around and be like, fuck Luke Thomas. I actually think that that's true. I actually believe that the UFC would think that way. But I thought it was cool. Like the graphics, you know, it added like a dimension to it. So the graphics, like what, they matched the belt? Is that the idea?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, you know, they kind of just updated the whole package. I didn't, to be honest, I rarely noticed that stuff, but so many people were talking about it on social media that it started to jump out at me as it went on. I didn't notice it. Yeah. Like, the thing that always gets me is,

and it was not in play here, is, like, they go to arena to arena, and you could barely tell the difference. Oh, yeah. Now, this one was so grandiose. You could, and I like what they're doing with Megan O'Leary. Megan O'Leary, where they'll have her near the walkout. And then it comes behind, and it gives you a sense of space and dimension.

That is cool. They're doing a good job with that. And this arena, again, with that white floor and then the white chairs, that was kind of cool. Yeah, that was cool. But, like, you know, they're going to go to Tampa this weekend, right? What do you want to bet, if you didn't know it was in Tampa, you'd have, aside from B-roll, that they're showing the city of Tampa? If they never told you, would you know?

I'm in arenas all the time, and I don't know where I'm at. If I just look around, I'm like, you just forget. You don't even know. I mean, there's nothing that signifies one place from another, really. You know what I mean? So, yeah, it was great, but it wasn't like, wow. Yeah.

I got a lot of questions about this, Donk, but it wasn't like, wow. Yeah. All right. I think that's accurate. I got a lot of questions about this, Donk. I didn't think much about this fight, but I guess you all did. This is from Rob Brenns, who has a weird avatar. Sergei Spivak came out looking way more shredded since getting clowned by Walt Harris, then subsequently dispatches the dangerous Tai Tuivasa. Does he pose much of a danger to the division

since he's had a chance to display his skills in Fight IQ? See, I guess you could look at it that way. You could look at his fight like, well, you could look at it from the standpoint of what Spivak was able to do. But I look at it the opposite way. I'm like, what was Tuivasa not able to do? He was not able to defend the wrestling at all.

Or the judo. Or the judo. Or the judo. It's one of those types of situations you're like, man. So your game plan was really to go chop him down with your fists, and that's it. There was no plan B. That's really what stood out to me. So I need to see more evidence on this guy.

I would need to see him fight another fight or two before I really know his full arsenal. To me, I felt like all he had to do was follow elemental ideas of how to do a mixed martial arts fight. And I'm not trying to be diminishing of Tuivasa, but I'm like, that's how it struck me. It felt very much a disappointment. He was a four to one favorite in this fight, you know, and to get kind of taken down. Yeah. And to get taken down in your home country like that and really have repeatedly and just have no answer for that. I felt like it was more of an indictment on him. Especially in MMA, like if you're in grappling and you're sparring with somebody,

you might find yourself in a common scenario, but you only have like, not one way, but you only have one tool, jiu-jitsu, in your disposal. In MMA, you have a lot of different tools at your disposal that changes the dynamics of a position. And it's like, like do you keep getting i think it was um osoto it was an osoto gari okay i have to go back and look but he kept getting thrown and i was like bro just i know why are you going back to these same positions now i will say this i thought on the feet he was moving side to side he was fainting he was level i actually thought there were some nice differences there he He looked pretty good. But that lasted half a round. And then once

Spivak did this, it was a wrap, bro. It was a super wrap. Those fights are really super frustrating, too, because the first time you see something happen that you're like, ooh, he doesn't have an answer for that, it becomes a pattern. And then you're like, it's just a matter of time. It's either a matter of time or it falls into a boring pattern where you're like, well, this thing's

going to go to the judge's scorecards because he has no answer for this. That fight was very puzzling. By the way, there's also a difference between there's a hole in somebody's game versus they're not necessarily great at it. Right. Right? Yeah. This was a hole.

100%. There was a hole in his game. And there was a piece missing. And it was the same thing. This one was much worse. I tweeted this out. It sounds disparaging. I don't mean it to be. But that Jorgen de Castro fight against, I think it was Justin Toffa.

Right, right. Toffa comes in. I mean, the hand cocked back to the east coast of America. Saw a couple of those on this fight card. Well, here's what I tweeted. I tweeted like, dude, how much of MMA highlights, because he got starched, is just karma for bad technique? I saw that tweet. You know what I'm saying?

And it was so true of this card. The guys were just rushing in and then just punish the aggression and, hey, get your hand raised. I mean, it was just... Dude, I even watched it. He didn't stay in his stance and pop him. He got square and then just said, rah, and then crushed him with it. And I was like, dude, that was...

It's kind of weird, right? You didn't have to lose that way. You know what I mean? You have whole fight cards sometimes where there's 13 fights where it's just such brilliant technique. The guys are so well-rounded against each other that they basically offset each other and neutralize each other to the point where it's a boring

card. You've had that happen. Then you get these cards where I feel like we step back in time and you just see guys go in with these game plans or maybe they just lose their head in the moment a little bit and they do that stuff. Dude about this one this is a point i also raised in real time um i want i gotta move along but you know you have a bunch look there's been some real winners coming out of the contender series yeah okay macy barber um who's the suspended kid sean um o'malley o'malley uh there's been some other ones too that have been like real real talent

you're like wow these could be the next big thing. But they've whiffed a lot, man. And you had a guy on this card who I'm sure is a good fighter. I think it was Maki Patolo. He had a brilliant quick knockout. Dude, here's the fact. There's a question of who's being recruited into the talent pool. So I don't know who's going to do tough,

but I know winning that tournament tells me a lot more about a fighter than a 60-second knockout on Dana White's Tuesday Night Computer Series. It's not a great method of evaluation. That Patolo, was it the Potter fight? It was Potter. I mean, they were like, they were just slamming each other in the face with no movement at all, like, for the first round. It was as if there was a rule, like, no head movement allowed.

There's some people who are going to love that kind of fight. I mean, because it's just, you're watching pure offense. That's all you're watching. It was action. Now, in Potter's defense, he got it together. You're right, he did. He took it after. But it was like, dude, we've got to stop.

Like, if you're, I always say this. You see this all the time, Chuck. You've been in this business a long time. You'll see someone come from the regional scene. You'll look at their resume. It's like 7-0. Seven first-round KOs and TKOs. And the lesson there is, okay, that dude can crack,

but he's probably fought a bunch of chumps, right? Because there's no way you can go seven fights in a row in the UFC, fighting good competition, and get that kind of a record, which means you're untested. It's just not a great way to do it. It's not a great way to do it at all. It's funny how you start to identify the red flags from guys like that. You really do when they come in. It doesn't mean they're not good.

It just means that doesn't tell you how good they are. It just means that punch was good that day. This comes to us from Web Scream. Web Scream. You decide which one it is. Chuck, shouldn't the UFC cancel the BMF fight and just give the belt to Michael Bisping? We just found out that he fought for years and even won the belt while hiding his fake eye from commissions. Did you see this?

Oh, yeah. Are we rolling it? No. Okay. All right. Well, listen to me. I was in Chicago for UFC 238 this summer. Which one was that?

Was that the... Shevchenko Eye. Yes, yes. Ferguson Cerrone. Yes, correct. So I was out there for that card, and I had lunch with Michael Bisping, just for whatever reason,

and he did that for me. No way. We were sitting there eating, and I was talking to him about his eye. I felt like it's always the elephant in the room, right? You're talking to him. And then he's like, no, man. He just pops it out just like he did.

And he holds it. And you're looking at this little piece of rubber. It's like a rubber eye type thing. And you're just sitting there. And he's basically got a cloudy eye. And I sat there just like everybody did on this video with my jaw dropped and just like, dude. And my first question is, how in the hell did you get by the commissions? How did you do this?

And he's like, mind your own business. That's all he says. And I'm like, I mean, that guy, like he is, it's just a crazy thing that he was fighting with one eye since the Vitor Belfort fight, essentially. And did all he did at the end. We've heard of boxing greats going way back 100 years. There's guys who are legally blind who still accomplish crazy things. But this, an MMA man, that's a crazy thing he accomplished. Yeah, he is an unreal. I've talked about this before. Forget the eye for just a second,

which is its own amazing thing. But I made a video years ago about this. Like, dude, you see a lot of people, like take Ronda Rousey, for example. They take a vicious KO, and they're just never the same anymore. And she took, I guess, two of them. But she certainly was not the same from the first one to the second one, and she quit the sport after two. Dude, Michael Bisping was like a quarterback. Like, you throw an interception, come back right on the next series, and you march that goddamn team right down the field.

He had, and I'm dead serious, I've never met a fighter, to his own physical detriment, more mentally committed to the fight and tougher mentally than Michael Bisping. Fact. Fact. I think it's because, and I've asked him about this stuff, I'm sure you've asked him about this stuff,

like, how are you so resilient? I think it's literally that he ties it to some kind of humbler version of himself. He returns back to his humble upbringing, his dad driving him all over the country and putting him in these situations. I think he always ties it back to that, and he just fills right back up. And then he would show up the next fight just like you said, ready to go. There's a term in dogfighting.

I hate to bring that into comparison, but it's true. It's called gameness, and it's where game bread comes from, from Jorge Masvidal. Gameness is defined as pursuit of the fight despite the physical consequences. Well, who's got more gameness than that guy? Right? I mean, gave up his eyesight, quite literally,

so he could go and win titles, and then that was his best chapter of his career? I know. It's shocking, dude. And also, it's like, the athletic commission cleared him. LOL. Who gives a shit what that is?

Commissions? You're not going to let in blind people. Mind your business. Yeah, mind your own business. But the reality of it, too, is like, dude, if these fighters don't want to be honest with you, what are they supposed to do? Go in there and make sure your eyes are real? You're going to take a bit of your work?

I know. It's true. And then you do have to pass a vision test. Yeah. So he must have been like, bro, he must have been S.T. Rugglin on those vision tests. Oh, yeah. Hilarious. All right, finally but not last.

Read his book, by the way. It's a really good book. In terms of fighter books, and there aren't a lot of good ones, I have to be honest, his is actually worth a read. Yeah, I don't read any books about MMA. No, I rarely do. Well, I won't say I don't read any, but I don't read most. Yeah.

All right, from Tyler, Tylorian. Zzz. Can we finally see what's under Chuck's hat? The fans demand an answer. Yes. I do this all the time. I know. Bastards.

I know. It's just a dome piece. Yeah. How many people, when you go to, like, fights. It would shine if I just let the lights shine. How many people, when you go to fights... It would shine if I just let the lights shine. How many people when you go to fights ask you about it? I've had people offer to buy my hats

many times, multiple times. Bullshit. I have. I'm not joking. I've had this happen multiple times where somebody's like... And they're serious. They want to buy your hat. It's like they want it as a souvenir. I should start bringing extra hats. That's what I should start doing. Don't you have extra hats in your bag? I have. I have one from today, yes, because you sweat on the walk in here.

Yeah, for sure. How long have you been wearing that hat? Not this one in particular, but I'm saying hats like this. So when I first wore these little flat caps, it goes probably back to like 2010, honestly, because nobody was wearing the flat cap. Nobody was really wearing them yet. I just kind of put it on for one of the events or something like that. And it just created a monster, man.

Now here we are. Dude, it created an identity. Yeah. Now everybody does it. And everyone knows you for it and shit. Yeah. Now normally what Brian Campbell does, shocker that what I bring to the show is dissected. He brings typically slapstick.

Yeah. He loves, dude, Brian Campbell loves. I'm not above it. I like it too. He can. He brings typically slapstick. Yeah. He loves, dude, Brian Campbell loves, I'm not above it, I like it too, but he loves slapstick. You know how they always talk about good writing is actually in your restraint.

I feel like the kid has no restraint. He's a 90, you would already have 90 different 90s references by now. I refuse. Yeah,

you gave me zero. Thanks a lot, guy. Can't play the drinking game. so back there, Jay, are we doing the, what is this shit? No, I can't hear you.

Okay, no, they weren't. No tip to tip? No, did you see that last week? I just watched that. I was like, I couldn't believe you guys went in for the tip to tip thing. Tell the audiences, because you were there for this. How long has Brian Campbell wanted to talk about two dudes touching dicks? He's literally talked about it to us at least for months, months.

It went on for months. It was a joke that he loved. It actually got uncomfortable. It got super uncomfortable. He's always trying to. Is today the day, Luke? No, it's not the fucking day, Brian. What are you doing?

It's just like one of them dogs that goes after your leg. He would turn to me after he talked to you, and I'd always be, hey, don't look at me either, fellow. Honestly, he would take it and be like, look what I got. Look what I got. He loves that picture. I love, though, this show. We finally found his platform where we can actually show the visual of it, because that cat has been holding on to it for a while. I miss him.

He'll be back next week. Oh, by the way, we have to do the beer testing next week. Are you a New England beer guy? Are you as high on New England beer as he is? I went through a nice phase of it. I've been to all the good brew houses, man. You know, the Treehouse, the New England beast as he is? I went through a nice phase of it. I've been to all the good brew houses, man. You know, the Treehouse, the New England one. I've been to all of them.

And at some point, I can't do it as much as I used to. So I think I've lost some appreciation for it over time. But I've had my moments. Real quickly, odds and ends. What you got for me? You know what? I was going to shout out to Megan Anderson, who came back. I don't know if you guys

saw like she was basically admitting that she had a lot of doubts and she was kind of putting herself in a very vulnerable situation going into this fight she was basically talking about how she doubted her own abilities and things like that stuff that you don't really hear too many fighters talk about not at this juncture of her, of a career that young, but she was able to show up and, you know, get a victory at the, at UFC 243, and I like it when you see somebody who has that kind of emotional outpouring, like it means that much, like somehow they communicated just the hell they've gone through. She let out like three or four screams afterward, and was in tears afterwards, and you couldn't help but feel for her how profoundly this win meant for her, even though most people probably didn't even know who her opponent

was, Dos Santos, right? Or Dos Santos, right? Serene Dos Santos, yeah. And, you know, because she was making her UFC debut. But it meant everything to her, and to do it in her home country, I thought that was pretty cool. So two of them, and I'd like to get into this with you. One would be Clarissa Shields.

Yeah. Was supposed to fight Ivana Habazin. Oh, this is terrible. So the fight was supposed to be on Showtime. The fight got canceled because at the weigh-ins, the trainer of Habazin, I believe, got into some kind of disagreement with someone from Shields' camp. Anyway, that's not who attacked him. But the guy is 65 years old or somewhere in that ballpark. That's brutal, man.

Someone else in the weigh-in attacked him and he had to get emergency surgery. Now I'm told, I guess he's going to be okay, but he had some facial lacerations and fractures. Somebody just stole on him and then, and then rolled out. Okay. First of all, it's a terrible thing that happened to this guy. It's terrible that this fight got canceled. The card went on, but the main event essentially was lost. It's awful. But we were talking about this before the show. Aren't you surprised that doesn't happen more often?

Now, when they do it... So, for example, sometimes I've been to a Bellator or a UFC weigh-in, and they'll do it at the arena. They'll cut off half the arena and then put it on the stage. And everything is kind of controlled and security. But if you go a step down, like a fight night, bro, almost anybody can just wander into those things.

That's true, man. Or if you're with a camp and you're like a satellite person, I am shocked this doesn't happen more often, to be quite candid with you. Or how about Conor McGregor, the dudes from the Mac Live, come on in after that media day. I'm with you 100%. I am surprised.

And that actually occurred to me as the footage came out and the fight was canceled and all that. It occurred to me. I was like, I'm surprised that we don't see this more often. I mean, I was just in Mexico City for the UFC and it starts to reach attention level because it's the fight game. There's a vicarious element to it. People get revved up. They're drinking their beer.

You always see fights in the stands. You see people acting out, doing stuff they would never do. You've seen this a million times it's like people turn into primitive a little bit when they're around the fights and in Mexico City the results weren't going their way it had that tension where it's

something crazy could happen, there were beers flying it felt like something crazy could happen you've seen it in the Nurmagomedov fight where he jumps the cage and just for a minute you're like are we going to see a chaos outside the cage where just a lot of weird things happen? You get into those very heated situations, and you involve alcohol. I have no idea if alcohol was involved in this, but, like, you just get people who get all revved up. And let's face it, man, our demographic sometimes is not the most sophisticated group of people.

Nuh-uh. So I am surprised that we don't see more of that. I don't want to see more of that, but I am surprised we haven't traditionally seen more of that type of thing. What's the scariest weigh-in you've ever been to? Like where the tension was just nuts. Man, the weigh-in. Like now in retrospect, people are like,

why didn't they have an audience there for Conor versus Habib? Thank God they didn't. Yeah. Thank God they didn't. Because. Thank God they didn't. Because can you imagine? That would be the one. I mean, things like that. That fight had such a dark feel over it, man.

That's what I'm saying. It just felt like. And this is the crazy part about it. That one you could kind of telegraph. Yeah. Like you knew that that was going to be ugly probably. This one, okay, it was spirited back and forth. But there was no indication during fight week that this was going to lead to this.

No. You know what I mean? The scariest one I ever went to, I wouldn't say it was scary, but like was no indication during fight week that this was going to lead to this. You know what I mean? The scariest one I ever went to, I wouldn't say it was scary, but like, because both guys were pros, but back when, I talk about it all the time, I saw Amir Khan fight Lamont Peterson, and they had the weigh-in in this tiny little, but it's a very famous library right downtown in Washington, D.C. Okay. But when I say library, it's like marble floor and marble fucking ceilings. It was like this regal thing.

And it was packed to the rafters. And that was when Khan's army used to follow him. There were these guys that would go wherever Amir Khan went and they'd be like, K-H-A-N, Khan, Khan, Khan, all the time.

And they showed up and then all of Peterson's people there and then all the D.C. donks were there. And they were shouting at each other, man. And then he got a controversial decision, and then they all came to the press conference. It was, I didn't feel in danger, but I was like, one wrong move here, and it's going to set the whole thing off. It's being held at the seams.

You know, did you watch the Maradona? Not yet. I can't stand Diego Maradona. Okay, well, whether you do or not, that film does an excellent job without having a narrator and stuff, just letting action dictate the flow of it. It's really interesting. But seeing those crowds, seeing the crowds and kind of the way people act,

I was like, I had a whole different appreciation for soccer fans because I was like, man, there are times where that looks like it's just like what we're talking about. It seems like it is on razor's edge to bust over into something really crazy. By the way, once the toothpaste is out of the tube on that thing, it affects how they go forward from that point on. But I tell this story all the time. I'm going to Columbia for vacation next week.

Look at you. Yeah, I know. Well, it's not that far. It's actually shorter to get there than it is to go to California for me. Oh, wow. In any event, I remember the first time I went to El Campin, which is their major stadium in Bogota, and I saw the home team that

my family, my in-laws, cheer for. I had no choice in this matter, as you can well imagine. And I noticed that there were, like, the fan supporters, they call them the Baro Bravas, on this side of the stadium. I had, like, right in the middle. Yeah. And then I looked over, because the team they were playing, Once Caldas, had a completely different color scheme.

And there was another Barra Brava with the exact same colors as the home team. And I go, are they? Why are they both the same color? Because my assumption was they were cheering for opposite teams. And it was explained to me, they both cheer for the same team. They have to be put on opposite ends of the stadium. And they have to enter. And I did see this person.

They have to enter one by one under police escort, and they get searched, and they have to put them on opposite ends of the team because they used to put the two Barra Bravas together, and it was nothing but fistfights constantly, and stabbings and shit. Jesus, man. So they cheer for the same team. That's crazy. And they're on the opposite ends of the stadium.

Sports does weird shit to people. Yeah. Well, as soon as you start to identify to the point where your relevance and your identity is fixed through something you're watching, you can see how that might happen. Yeah. So again, if you do like a big press, I feel like the bigger the weigh-ins, the safer. Yeah. The more mid-range, the smaller.

No, I agree with you 100%. I agree with you 100%. It's win against. Whatever. And then also, lastly, on my odds and ends, Lorenz Larkin got a nice win over Andrei Korskov at Bellator 229. Not the biggest event

in the world, but he now has wins over Fernando Gonzalez. Very quietly during this weekend. Fuck. Here's what's so funny about Lorenz Larkin.

He beats Fernando Gonzalez, Ayan Pascu, and now Andrei Korskov. That's following up the wins, excuse me, the losses to Douglas Lee in which you can understand.

But then he lost to Paul Daly. Do you remember when he left the UFC? He had beaten in a row Jorge Masvidal and Neil Magny. And then he made the jump to Bellator. And you thought this is his breakout moment. Now, he did get a nice win.

He's got three in a row. Fair enough. But I feel like the reasons why he left UFC, I might have to talk to him to be sure. I don't know that they materialized for him yet. It's very funny you said that because I might have to talk to him to be sure. I don't know that they materialized for him yet. It's very funny you say that, because I remember talking to him during that last stretch, and he was pretty displeased with the way that his star power wasn't bigger, that he wasn't

being marketed correctly, and things like that. And to be in a situation where he went over to, you know, he didn't perform like you mentioned, he did not perform well, but to be on a winning streak and basically have a fight come up that went completely under the radar I don't know how many people actually watched that fight it's kind of like he's stuck in the same

same situation I think he's earned himself a bigger shot now now that he's got three in a row but it's like two steps forward three steps back

with this guy a little bit so I hope he he's still dynamic and exciting and by the way the fight was super awesome it was action packed but yeah I remember talking to him at that Bellator NYC presser being like he's like dude this is why I'm here I want to be on stages like this and exciting. And by the way, the fight was super awesome. It was action-packed. But yeah,

I remember talking to him at that Bellator NYC presser being like, he's like, dude, this is why I'm here. I want to be on stages like this. That's right. I saw him there too.

It's like, back to Thackerville. You know what I'm saying? All right, man. It's nice seeing you. Good seeing you, man. Nice to have you. All the old days.

We made it to the bunker. You know what I'm saying? You're back to the bunker. If Enola Gay comes by here, man, we'll be okay. We will be fine. No Moabs reach down far into the earth like this. So I think Brian's going to be back next week.

And then after that, we're going to have to figure something out because I'm not going to be here. But you're our guy, man. We love having you on the set. Thanks, man. And it's always good to catch up with you. Likewise. How can folks get in touch with you? Social media and shit.

All right, so my phone number? No. Social media is just at Chuck Mendenhall on Twitter. So that's pretty much all I use. I have an Instagram, but I don't really go to it too much. No? Yeah. I am at LukeThomasNews on Instagram, LThomasNews on Twitter. By the way, here's what's most important. We need you to like this video. We need you to subscribe to the channel. We're on our own channel now. We're making steady progress. I'm really happy with it. We've got to keep that train rolling, though. So spread this around to anybody who needs to the channel. We're on our own channel now. We're making steady progress. I'm really happy with it. We've got to keep that train rolling, though. So spread this around to anybody who needs to see it.

We appreciate everyone who watches and contributes and all that kind of good stuff. All right? Any parting words? See you. Thanks, Winston Churchill. That was really moving. All right.

For Chuck Biddenhall and Mr. Brian, who is on vacation, I'm Luke Thomas. Until next time, all of your games. We'll see you next time.