MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Alex Pereira: Does He Beat Adesanya? | Morning Kombat Extra Credit Ep. 16

Episode Date: March 15, 2022

Luke Thomas is back with Episode 16 of Morning Kombat Extra Credit. Luke breaks down a couple fights from UFC Fight Vegas 50 that he didn't get to on episode 276 of Morning Kombat. (0:30) - SODIQ YUSUFF vs. ALEX CACERES (6:50) - DREW DOBER vs. TERRANCE MCKINNEY (12:40) - ALEX PEREIRA vs. BRUNO SILVA (19:15) - JAVID BASHARAT vs. TREVIN JONES (25:00) - MIRANDA MAVERICK vs. SABINA MAZO (30:00) - Honorable Mentions Join the Morning Kombat Bracket Challenge at: www.cbssports.com/morningkombatbrackets Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And... done. That's the sound of bills being paid on time. But with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card, paying your bills could sound like this. Yes! Earn rewards for paying your bill in full and on time each month. Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. It is the 14th of March 2022. It's time for episode 16 of Morning Combat Extra Credit. Hello everyone, my name is Luke Thomas. I am one half of the regular Morning Combat duo.

Of course, Brian Campbell joins me for Big MK. This is kind of like Little MK, just the extra stuff we didn't have time to get to on the bigger show. Today, we'll be focusing our attention on UFC Vegas 50. Let's take a look at the names we're going to highlight today, or at least the fights. Now, if they're not highlighted, that doesn't mean I'm not going to talk about it. There were some other interesting fights that I'll give a little bit of honorable mention to, but here are the five that we're going to be spending the majority of our time on. Sadiq Yusuf taking on Alex Caceres. Drew Dober versus Terrence McKinneyq Yusuf taking on Alex Caceres,

Drew Dober versus Terrence McKinney, Alex Pereira taking on Bruno Silva, Javid Basharat taking on Trevin Jones, and then Miranda Maverick versus Sabina Mazzo. I gathered that there were some other fights that were more exciting than some of the ones that I picked, but I picked these for a very particular reason. So without further ado, thumbs up on the video if you haven't already.

Subscribe if you have not already. And with that, let's get this party started, shall we? Okay. We go to the featherweight division. Sadiq Youssef defeats Alex Kassaris. 30-27, 30-27, 29-28. A bit more competitive in certain respects than the scores might somehow indicate although the 29 28 kind of speaks to that but it's not about which round did Caceres win or not

Sadiq Youssef now he had been off for a while I believe he was coming off of a loss as well to Arnold Allen let me double check the the dates on this so prior to Saturday Sadiq Youssef had fought twice in 2019 once in in 2020, once in 2021. He had lost that one to Arnold Allen, who of course headlines UFC London, I believe, one of the more underrated fighters in the division. And so it had been almost a year since he had been off. And so given those considerations, and I think he had a really bad bout with COVID, so there was a lot of things that had delayed, I think, his return and the path that he was on.

And Caceres had, what, one, four, five in a row to get to this point. He has really improved. And so he really deserved... This fight made a lot of sense, even from a ranking standpoint, I think like 12 and 15. But in the end, what you saw was that Yusuf did have some problems with range. Kassaris was countering him. Kassaris was finding ways to use his length. And that gave, at least certainly in that first round, Yusuf had a little bit of trouble finding him with his hands. But the real big adjustment, which is no big insight, but it's worth going over for just a second,

was they were at open stance, right? So they had one person in Orthodox, one person in Southpaw. I think the Southpaw was Kassaros. The open was Orthodox. Or the open was Yusuf. Sorry, the Orthodox was Yusuf. Excuse me. And the whole point here is he had to go to basically not just one weapon, but one central weapon around which he built a few other things, the inside leg kick. Now he went outside leg kick. He tried to go high kick with it. He was varying it up or when he threw it or he would faint it, sometimes he would get a reaction and he would try to throw a punch over the top because that was bringing Caceres to him, right? So on the one hand, you're like, well, definitely Yusuf struggled with the range here and definitely he struggled with the counter

punching, but because he is such a gifted and prodigious kicker, as well as an overall sort of Muay Thai kind of striker, he was able to go back to it over and over and over again. And it was punishing. It was damaging. It was clearly having an effect on the movement and the ability of Caceres to even counter or explode into range or whatever he needed to do it was a little one note because yusuf could keep hitting it keep hitting it keep hitting it and it it definitely changed the fight it won on the fight but it wasn't like it crescendo to something all-powerful where he was you know he couldn't get up this wasn't um um nick sarah who wouldn't get off the canvas or something like that this is this is a case where his opponent was still able to hang around, and so for those reasons, they're still a little bit dangerous. But obviously, what it shows is that Yusuf was able to make an adjustment.

His offense was limited as a consequence, but he did still have enough not only to get the win, but to showcase he was building things around it, not just other weapons, but then he was fainting into it. You saw him a lot of times kind of leaning over to the left, baiting it, looking for reaction, and then he would kick the outside of the leg.

So he was putting other things around it. So on the one hand, I'm not going to say underwhelming because I don't think that's right, but on the one hand, not a full showcase of what I think the upside of Sadiq Youssef is. However, it spoke to some of his strengths already as a kicker

and then being able to fight a limited but effectively disciplined game plan over the course of 15 minutes, having been relatively inactive over the last two years. That's a big win for him. He needed this one. This was a tougher test than I think the odds on paper may have indicated Kassaris is

a veteran he's seen it all he's tricky he's again massively improved remember Kassaris heading into this contest had beaten in a row he lost to Krohn Gracie in 2019 who we haven't seen in a while then he beat Steven Peterson Chase Hooper Austin Springer Kevin Kroon and Seung Wong Choi these are not names of the level of Sadiq Youssef, but they were convincing enough. And again, he had two of those by way of rear naked choke. And so that was the other part that the commentators noted. Keeping it at range not only limited Youssef's vulnerability to the punches, it also limited any kind of scrambly. They were attacking with punches, and one got across the center line, and now your back is exposed.

Then you have a real big problem. So he was able to avoid situations like that. So he had to kind of work for it a little bit longer. And again, a little bit, I'm not going to call it one note, but a little bit centered around a singular dimension. But by itself, given some of the larger circumstances, I still believe Sadiq Youssef, one of the more premier younger talents in this division had a tricky opponent and was still able to pass it

and then you gotta love the moxie afterwards to call out a guy like Thug Nasty which is what he did so happy to see Sadiq Yusuf back a good performance from him I definitely think a good one overall and hopefully more to come from him for Caceres. You know, he lost here, but he didn't look terrible by any stretch. So I think he will continue his UFC run and he will still give opponents who are, you know, maybe not in that top 10, top 15 ish space, the toughest fight per se, but if you're not in that space, then he definitely will. Okay. We go to the next one. This is one of many. Now, of course, the clear round sheet fight was amazing, but we kind of talked about that on regular morning combat but here drew dober in the lightweight division taking on terence mckinney on short notice mckinney was coming in 317 to the first

round now remember mckinney had come into this contest on an absolute tear he beat matt frivola in his ufc debut in seven seconds and then he beat Ferez Ziam in the first round as well. We talked about the hand stripping that he went to in that sequence. Remember, he had the back of Ferez Ziam, and he actually fed his arm into him so he could get two-on-one. So when the two-on-one was there, he was like, aha, perfect, can grab the wrist, and then he snatched the throat and the whole nine yards.

So here he was against Drew Dober, and he comes out like a house on fire. Hits him with a flying knee, two punches, hooks, follow-up, and Drew Dober is in trouble from the word go. Honestly, 15, 20 seconds in, and he is in deep trouble. He tries to hang on. He is able to hang on, and he gets hurt again. And I think there was a takedown at one point.

Maybe nothing consequential really happened there. They get back to their feet. Then they separate. But you'll notice that at the times Dober was rocked and he was hurt. It wasn't like McKinney wasn't landing on him. He was. But Dober was still moving, covering up. So some stuff was landing real bad.

Some stuff wasn't landing at all. Some stuff was landing partially. But when you keep moving like that, the other person has to maintain that intensity if they assume that they are near the finish and it just looked to me like mckinney was you know and and not to say he was wrong to try to put him away because the guy was hurt and he was in trouble he was wobbled like that's what you want to do but it does look to me like there might be some recalibration about the intensity that McKinney brings because on the one hand it's great when you're putting guys away at seven seconds and two minutes and 11 seconds it's a bit of a problem if after that point it looked to me

like McKinney was maybe struggling with how much he had spent trying to get this fight finished right away again taking it on short notice although he obviously was had competed relatively recently February 26th as a matter of fact. Amazing resilience from Drew Dober. It's not just that he's tough. I want to be clear about something. Tough guys can last. That's not just toughness.

That's veteran experience in being in bad positions and bad spots and doing just enough to slow the fight down, stop it, cover up when you need to. Some of those shots, including powerful ones, are going to sneak through. But one of the more exciting things you'll ever see in MMA are these momentum swings, right? When one person is just leading a charge and then seemingly out of nowhere, the balance shifts and then the other person is leading the charge. And you got exactly that a number of times on this card, this one being chief among them. I don't know that it says, it doesn't exactly tell us who Drew Dober can beat, but it does tell us who Drew Dober maybe won't lose to, which isn't to say he wouldn't lose to Terrence McKinney

in a future matchup. What it does mean, though, is to put him away is going to require more than an early blitz. To put a guy like that away is going to take probably, you know, if you can land a one clear shot, great. But probably a little bit more of a apportioned offense. Again, applied in a disciplined way over the course of a longer period of time. Now, he does have losses that come relatively early, but his more recent performances, again, he's fought tough guys, but he went to a decision with Brad Riddell. He did lose to Islam Makachev, but that wasn't until the third round, and prior to that, he had stopped Alexander Hernandez,

Nasrek Hakperast, and Polo Reyes consecutively. So first of all, he gets back in the win column here, which is big, which puts him at four and two in his last six. And the only two were some good guys in Riddell and Makachev. So it doesn't tell us, like, look at his losses. Riddell, Makachev, Dariush, and Olivier Aubin-Marseille. Now, Aubin-Marseille is not in the UFC at this point. Drew Dover is better. This win doesn't tell you he can beat Dariush or Makachev or Riddell by itself but I think it does speak to growth I think it does speak to um understanding how to work through bad positions bad spots bad moments and um that was enough that was enough and then once McKinney he seemingly got tired right around the sort of two and a half once they got there once they got back to the feet the last time so roughly two and

a half minutes in or whatever it may have been that's when the fight really shifted and then and it didn't take much for Dober after that and then he was able to apply it against from butterfly guard on top against McKinney and finishing him off tough guys can be tough and not do exactly what Drew Dober did. That is toughness married with a lot of defensive sensibilities from previous similar experience brought to bear. If Drew Dober is as tough as he is, but doesn't have, what is his record, 24-11-1, if you take away half of those fights or something like that I don't know if he survives that not everyone survives that that Terrence McKinney is going to be hard for people who don't have the kind of experience and abilities that Drew Dober does he may have polished him off so unbelievable toughness yes but disciplined um resilient resilient, evasive when he needed to be,

and understanding of not, balancing urgency with cool-headedness. You can't just lay there. You got to cover up. You got to move, but you don't want to just flail or fire back something stupid and get caught. There's a little bit there that has to be mixed together,

and knowing how to juggle those, it seems like it's obvious. It is not obvious. It takes a very experienced competitor to know how to weigh those things, and I think that's the reason why you got that. All right, we move on to the third fight here of what we're talking about, and this will be the feature one we talk about for just a second. Alex Pereira at middleweight defeating bruno silva 3027 across the board i could have thought i thought that silva may have won around there maybe around two

some people thought uh couldn't have given him round three because he got rocked in that one so the question here is just how good is alex pareda well he's obviously quite good we talked about this a little bit on mk but i really want to focus in on it more here. Pereira, how does he stand? He stands tall, he bounces a little bit, and his hands are about where you can see on the screen. They're not here, although sometimes they'll go up there, but he typically likes to stand at range. He likes to use his length, particularly with front kicks, leg kicks to then create an angle, that kind of a thing. He does use his range really, really well, obviously, but he gets hit a little bit in this fight. Now, Bruno Silva, I think, was being overlooked a little bit prior to this

contest. Certainly, he had not fought and defeated a kickboxer the likes of Alex Pereira, but I think there was this assumption he was just a knockout guy. Well, Melvin Mennhoff's a decorated kickboxer as well, but who sort of just blasts big strikes in MMA and sometimes finds some success they tend to wilt against the better ones but he had I thought some decent tricks here um one he did have a couple of takedown attempts a little bit earlier in the fight went away from them later and it looked to me like they were calculated if he could get them he would but he wasn't going to spend a ton of energy trying to keep him down I do wonder especially after that leg lace in the first round that Silva hit you know somebody else who might be a little bit more aggressive about that kind of fighting could put

Alex Pereira in trouble so something to think about although in this case it didn't cost him so badly or much at all really but although Silva was able to get some offense off the standing up and then the clinch break but Pereira has Pereira has some good good strikes did you guys notice how good he is about finding the right hook when Bruno would lunge with something and then cross his center line and then he would come over the top so if someone is standing this way and then they fire a punch past you right he would punch over the top of that essentially from the opposite side this was an open stance fight as well really Really, really nice stuff from there. And then he's real good about making you pick a defense and then attacking the weaknesses of that defense. I'll give you a

perfect example. When Silva was standing way far away, Silva would have his hands kind of here-ish. And then when he got close, you'd see him bring high hands here, which is not in any way wrong per se. But again, there's going to be strengths and weaknesses to any particular choice that a person makes. Going like this has a few strengths, but it has some weaknesses too. And what you would notice is that the hooking punches of Pereira, they're real narrow.

He doesn't take super wide punches he takes them real short man he digs them too that left hook to the body of his that left hook over the top when he would he would throw linear punches and then the hands would come a little bit closer a little bit closer a little bit closer that would open up just enough of an angle behind the side or then he would whip a shot around it or he would touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, and then the elbows would come up and he would dig a shot underneath it.

Boy, those are nice. Super, super nice. But Silva was able to get in with some double jabs, some blitzes, some overhands. In the clinch, certainly, Pereira was able to body him a little bit with superior positioning and some good knees, but he got hit a little bit there on the exit as well.

He took a few shots of damage. I'd like to pull up his numbers here if I can from Fightmetric. We can't say a whole lot about it because it's still so early, but let me see what they say about this fight. How many shots did he take here? So, not only his fifth total fight, second in UFC. I mean, he landed a lot. He landed a lot more than Brunosova. From significant strikes. He landed 108 to 59. And that sounds about right.

He did surrender two of eight takedowns. So he defended six, which is pretty good. The distribution is the interesting part. Pereira landed or targeted, I should say, 55% to the head, 37% to the body, just 6% to the legs, which makes sense if you're worried about the takedown. Bruno Silva headhunting a little bit more, 66% to the head, 13% to the legs, which makes sense if you're worried about the takedown. Bruno Silva, headhunting a little bit more, 66% to the head, 13% to the body, 20% to the leg. You notice that Silva was able to back him up with hand combos and then chop at him on the leg on the way out, which was great because it's just a free offense you can catch at the end.

Who else was doing that this week? Boric against Burnell was doing that as well. So that was really nice. The second round was where you had the pretty close offense almost identical significant strike numbers silva being actually a little bit more active but in that first and third especially the third where he got wobbled um so so you know listen he fights tall he fights long he uses his feet well to get out of the way of things he's a real good master of range. His balance is excellent. You notice he's usually for the most part, unless someone's kicking at his legs and he's in motion,

have you noticed how he always has his feet under him and he's able to throw hard punches when he wants to because his balance is so good? Everything about that is really really nice, but he gets touched up a lot more. I know the comparisons are inevitable. In MMA thus far, obviously we'll have to see how

he does against the upper tier of the division and how that all looks. And then the last fight didn't tell us a whole lot. And again, Bruno Silva's being a little bit underrated. All of those caveats notwithstanding, he does get hit a bit. He does get hit a bit. Silva landing significantly 59 of 147, 72 of 160 overall. Control time of 3 minutes and 15 seconds, but in the end, not a whole lot he could do with it. The point I'm trying to make here is, Pereira had a lot of things where he did that he looked really, really good.

Obviously, his stand-up is tremendous, but as it stands in MMA thus far, his defense is not as impenetrable as you might reputationally assume. That doesn't mean he doesn't have a good chin. That doesn't mean that someone's just going to take advantage of this and he's just some smoke and mirrors. It's not what I'm saying. I'm just trying to point out some of the differences. Izzy is much more an evasive guy. I think a guy like Pareda from what I've seen in MMA, where he's touching the lead hand and he's bouncing,

a little bit more of a distance bounce rhythm kind of guy. And each style has its benefits and its downsides, but I think that will mean in MMA he will get touched up, relatively speaking, a fair bit. Let's go to the next fight in the rundown here we go there's some good ones here too by the way the uh the Matthew Semelsberger fight guy out of this area not too far from here AJ Fletcher put it on him early and he turned it around late that was that was pretty interesting but we'll go to Javed Basharat taking on Trevin Jones Basharat wins 30-27 on two of the judges scorecards 29-28

maybe he lost the third or or the end of the third. We talk about the young guys on this podcast a lot. Ignacio Bahamondes, and I forget who I mentioned last week. Here's another guy. Oh, who was it last week? I can go ahead and pull this up. The young kid. I don't want to forget his name or her name.

Jalen Turner. So we have Bahamondes, Jalen Turner. You can add a guy Bosharat to that list. First of all, he's got an all-star crew there, um, with coaches, uh, Jake Shields and some other ones. He has not at all fully developed his offense and I can't believe how developed it already is. Now there's a couple of things he was doing that I didn't necessarily see a ton of value in this particular fight. There were some stance switches that I didn't necessarily see a ton of value in this particular fight there were some stance switches I don't know exactly how much good they did them certainly you know he would have a different perspective we'd have to ask I don't I can't I

can't say this was another open stance fight to the extent that Javid was fighting in orthodox I believe that's right yes he was fighting orthodox which he did the majority of the fight he would switch to south on occasion and from there you could see him having to negotiate the problems a little bit early where he didn't know exactly what Trevin Jones was going to give back at him and he was sometimes getting countered a little bit coming in but over time you can see him begin to figure it out into the first really by the second round he was I mean he won the first but he was cooking in the second for sure where he was able to attack to the body with all kinds of diverse strikes. He was able to maintain range and get out of the way.

He was able to put combinations together and pressure Jones backwards and find angles. Dude, this young guy, again, I think he's 23, 24. For as advanced as his game is at 24 and the Bantamweight division, dude, look out. Javed Basharat is a name you should remember. It's impossible for me to say what his ceiling is at this point. And the reason why I put this fight in here

is because I did not see a lot of acclaim because of some of the action on the other fights. But Javed Basharat impressed me significantly in this fight to have the nimbleness and the calmness and still and it's still you watch his game he's still always in attack mode like the gas pedal is always to the floor and sometimes that gets him a little bit in trouble again there's times where he makes some tactical choices where it's hard to know exactly what benefit might be served from that given the series of other choices but the overwhelming majority of the choices he makes in his understanding of how to set up his weapons and his range and how to execute and to fight someone in an opposite stance and to

to deal with the various threats they were posing, which is in the boxing department, it was a little bit more even, but to the extent that Javid could mix it up, which is to say go kicks and then hands, not just kicks like Yusuf. Of course, Yusuf was not just kicks, but that was really heavily kicking. This was much more mixed with what is, but my point is when it became just boxing,

he was in trouble. But Javid Basharat has a modernity to his game that is impressive super impressive and like all of these young guys you see them deal on the offense you're like god damn it's good um the defense could could be upped a little bit although i would say of the three names i've mentioned basharat turner and bajamondes i would say basharat has the best defense at least you know in the three of in the three fights I've compared. Basharat might have some of the better defense. Let me look at his numbers in this case

as well. I know that, but why aren't you talking about this fight? What are you talking about this fight? I'm telling you, this kid, Javid Basharat, is impressive. So he landed 89 of 164 significant strikes with good diversity as well. 58% to the head, 23% to the body, 17% to the legs. He was busier in all three rounds and landed more in all three rounds, 31 to 18 around one 27 to 20 around two and then 31 to 24 and round three. Although in the third round, um, Jones, excuse me, Jones does have his moments with the counterboxing. So that gave him a little bit of trouble to deal with, especially late. Some of the leg kicking of Jones as well, but dude, the leg kicking of Basharat,

some of the spinning attacks he was able to throw, the quickness, the speed. His gas tank didn't suffer at all. Remember, Basharat was the guy who I think on the Contender Series or something else like that, he had an Israeli opponent who had made some kind of awful comment about him, I think by virtue of being Muslim or not Arab, but certainly from Afghanistan, and didn't take too kindly to it and gave his opponent the business.

And then here he is in this contest. Yeah, this is really his UFC debut. Dude, for a UFC debut, and you saw what he did to Oren Callen, which was the fighter he fought in Contender Series. Dude, this kid's good. He's really, really, really, really, really good. If he can start... Again, it's not like his defense is bad.

That's not really right. If he can start finding out exactly what works for him as he develops his game a little bit more accurately and get rid of some of the things that I don't think are as advantageous, again, this is my personal opinion. I'm not his coach. I leave that to his coaches. I think he's going to be a force.

Javid Basharat is super, super, super talented and really caught my attention on a card where he had a decision win i don't think there's even any knockdowns in this contest nope no knockdowns no sub attempts and i still walked away being like dude are people looking at how good he is he is very talented all right next fight on the card i believe this is the last one of the main ones we'll talk about miranda maverick taking on sabina mazo rear naked choke 215 of the second round sabina mazzo i didn't know this had moved over to the east coast i guess to train with glover tashara and alex buteta and she was previously at king's mma um i don't know exactly what prompted the switch i don't know i don't know i don't know any of those circumstances i

didn't see a ton of change in her game. When she gets cooking and people give her range, she had two head kick, I think at least, at least one, maybe even two head kick knockouts on the regional scene because these fighters would give her, you know, they would try to pressure her, but they weren't very good at it. Then they would kind of stand in front of her and just circle a little bit. And she would time these head kicks with, you know, with the volume and working behind her jab. And they just wouldn't have any answer for it. And she, you know, she sent these people into the land of wind and ghosts. But in the UFC level, she has a bit of a problem with it.

She has three losses in a row, Davis, Agapova, and now Maverick. In the last two, she's been finished. She does have wins over Dobson, J.J. Aldridge, and Justine Kish. Aldridge, who was on this card, but Dobson and Kish are no longer in UFC, so those wins have not held up necessarily all that well, though the Aldridge win did, but that was a split. The point I'm trying to make is you could see she was pressuring, but she was kind of waiting around,

giving Miranda Maverick way too much room to move. If you're going to fight tall, they've got to be at the end of your range, not just so far apart that range is almost irrelevant at that point because then Maverick, you knew what she was going to do. You knew what she was going to blitz in. She was going to try and cut angles. She was going to get in in she was going to try and cut angles she was going to get in she was going to get out mix in takedowns and it was exactly what you saw she disguised them all really well and she needed a strong performance here as well given you know the kind of ho-hum fight again well it was close

against um I should say against Barbara it was kind of ho-hum against Blanchfield but uh or you know she was just overwhelmed wrestling but you knew at 24 years old over at elevation fight team there was there was reason to believe in her upside i still do and this was a win that kind of showcased this she did exactly what she needed to and that finish was spectacular she gets the takedown you see mazo try to get up but mazo is reacting already as maverick is cutting the corner and And Maverick held up an arm to stop, excuse me, Mazo held up an arm to stop her. But the arm, you know, where's your arm going to be strongest, right? We talk about all the time with your elbows in tight,

your hands around here-ish. That's going to be a very strong position. The further the elbows get away and then the further your arm gets behind you, the weaker it's going to be. You can't have your body here and the arm, you'll often see people will shoot a takedown and then the person on top stuffs it. And then what do they do? They go to cut the corner and get behind him. And a lot of times the person fires up an elbow and a hand and they wrap the waist and then the person can't go around. That's fine if you're facing each other or if they have a slight angle. But if you keep working around, if your body stays here and your arm goes around, your arm just gets moved into a mechanically weaker and weaker and weaker and weaker and weaker position to the point where she has to just give it up. And so she gives it up. And folks,

we've talked about this a million times. You have a much better chance of securing a submission in MMA. I know they say position before submission, and that's true. But you can balance that. It's not one or the other. You can balance that with trying to get into an advantageous position so that once you're getting to the back, you're like, okay, I got to the back. Now I'm going to try the choke.

If you do it that way, your chances is you could get the choke. You could hand fight and get it. But if you can lock up the throat a little bit in transition as you move into position, and she's able to do that because remember, she's ahead in the scramble of Mazo. She's getting an angle on Mazo, and she is several steps ahead. So Mazo would have to turn into her just to catch up, just to catch up, she has to turn into her. So it was a safe call at that point to lock the throat

and then fully, as she drops the arm, then fully commit to the position. And even then she was kind of still off to the side, but the throat was so in and then the hand, I guess she had a bicep grip and then this hand must've been tucked or however she held it. Again,

you can usually, I was initially taught by the great Danny Ives by doing this, but you know, whatever she did with the hand, um, it was too late. It was too late. So these guys who can lock in something,

some kind of clamp, some kind of cheat that lets them get halfway to the submission before they've arrived there once they get there they're going to be in a much better spot to finish and that's exactly what you saw here so basically what's the story miranda maverick was better everywhere it looked like she got lumped up on her left side she didn't have to go to the hospital but i you know um obviously people get hit in m, so there's no real... People get injured, so whatever.

But this was a very strong and good rebound performance from Maverick. Mazo, she might get bounced. I'm not sure what's going to happen with her in the UFC, but this was not a strong showcase. And if you're going to be tall and you want to fight tall, you know, you got to be, you couldn't let Maverick blitz into you like that with so much room, so much room. A couple of honorable mentions here. Let's go through them very quickly. We'll talk about the Cody Brundridge and Dolka Lugianbula fight again a case where Lugambula was absolutely bludgeoning Cody Brundridge a Brundage for I don't

know how long the fight ended at 341 in the first round I couldn't believe how long Brundage held on and then he had the Lugambula following up leaves his head underneath and so brundage snatches it sits for the guillotine into full guard and gets it the choke didn't necessarily look too deep but cody's like i get people with it all the time only reason i say it wasn't too deep was it was in but you know um the elbow wasn't like completely driven underneath the shoulder you could still see a little bit but it was tight and the only thing was Lugambulo must have been just totally overwhelmed by it and surprised by it

because he never uses his left hand to hand fight. He just kind of waits and waits and waits and then just taps. Like, dude, got to get that hand involved. But I think he was caught so by surprise that he just... It's weird. Sometimes you'll see it.

It's like guys get caught by surprise and their only reaction is that they... They know how to stop things when things get bad slowly and accumulatively. Things might get worse, but they at't have like you know 15 years on the mat or whatever is if you get past those checkpoints that they are used to experiencing even their signals increasing danger everything falls apart everything falls apart you've you've you've right you've raced past their known universe of submission defense like they know they're supposed to grab the hand but it escalated to a point so quickly that they lose themselves. And so he didn't even use his left hand other than to, uh, signal surrender. So Cody Brundage showing unbelievable heart and was bending over a lot. I think his, you know, if, if, if Lugambula was throwing punches like McKinney was against

Dober, I don't know if Brundage makes it either. Not that he wasn't getting hit hard, but McKinney is a bit of a sniper and can use his knees and stuff. Lugambula is a physical force, but didn't have... You can't make errors in this business. You can't make errors. This is the difference between fighters who win and

losers. Who makes errors? And then lastly, oh, there's two more. The Guido Canetti fight taken on Chris Moutinho. We talked about it on MK. I appreciate how tough Moutinho is. I appreciate him taking the last one anyway on short notice, the one against O'Malley. I don't know if he's ready for this level. I'm pretty sure he's not.

I don't say that as an insult. I say that to his benefit. If you're not UFC ready, don't want to be here. It's a bad place. And then last but not least, Asimov Merzikhanov finding that takedown. I go back and i watched it he does put the hands out which get where has he as he leads that charge for the knee which gets

and chukwi i think is how you say it to lean to the side he wants and then the knee comes right up that so he was baiting that and you'll notice he doesn't come at this angle he actually comes at this angle with his hands that way looking for the side it's not a super hard angle it's just slight deviation off the center line and he uses that to fire the knee almost almost hidden a little bit behind the left the left hip um but it lands just the same incredible right incredible what was your favorite fight what did you like what did you not like who stood out to you the most and more importantly how do you rate Alex Pereira Pereira Pereira after Saturday does he seem to you like a decent matchup for Adesanya he asked for Jared Kananir do you agree with that matchup and how would it go I would love to see

your analysis in the comments below okay so. So thumbs up on the video, hit subscribe. This has been episode 16 of Morning Combat Extra Credit. This is where we get to the fights that we didn't get to in the major Morning Combat podcast. I appreciate you guys tuning in. I'm Luke Thomas. Until next time, enjoy the fights.