MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Brandon Royval's Ferocious Ground Game | Morning Kombat Extra Credit Ep. 20
Episode Date: May 10, 2022Luke Thomas is back with Episode 20 of Morning Kombat Extra Credit. Luke breaks down a couple fights from UFC 274 that he didn't get to on episode 299 of Morning Kombat. (1:21) - Randy Brown vs. Khaos... Williams (6:55) - Francisco Trinaldo vs. Danny Roberts (12:21) - Brandon Royval vs. Matt Schnell (18:10) - Lupita Godinez vs. Ariane Carnelossi (23:50) - Ovince Saint Preux vs. Shogun Rua (27:17) - Honorable Mentions 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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Hi, everyone. Welcome to Episode 20 of Morning Combat Extra Credit.
My name is Luke Thomas, I'm the host of this program.
As you know, I am merely one half of your hosting duo for regular Morning Combat.
That's me and Brian Campbell every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 11am in the east.
But, we don't get a chance to get to all the fights that we wanted to talk about,
so we have a little mini-podcast within the podcast.
Welcome to Extra Credit.
Okay, you guys know what the story is.
It's going to be UFC 274, which of course took place over the weekend in Phoenix, Arizona.
Let's take a look at the fight card for what we're going to talk about here today.
All right, so first, these are not necessarily in order of how they took place on the fight card,
but this is how we're going to get to them here today.
Randy Brown taking on Chaos Williams.
We'll talk about Masa Randuba, a.k.a. Francisco Trinaldo and Danny Roberts.
We'll get to Brandon Royville and Matt Schnell.
Plus, we will also get to Lupita Godinez and Ariane Carnalosa.
And of course, we're going to talk about Ovin St. Preux and Mauricio Shogun Hua.
So thumbs up on the video, hit subscribe.
If you are watching on YouTube, if you're listening on the podcast platform, excuse me,
give us a nice review.
We appreciate any way that you listen.
All right, let's begin here.
First, Randy Brown defeating Chaos Williams.
The decision was a split one, 29-28, 28-29, 29-28. I think the reason that the decision went to Brown's way was he got rocked slash dropped
in the first round, which may have given it to him, to Chaos Williams.
And he got dropped in the third round, Randy Brown did.
But the difference was after he got dropped in the third round, which was a very decisive
moment, or at least a very
important and pivotal moment, the difference came afterwards when he really kind of put it on him,
Randy Brown did, really working quite well after that, visibly, you know, snapping back the head
of Chaos Williams. What was kind of interesting was Brown was playing a lot of sort of showmanship
games and like shoulder rolling and trunk movement and head movement and slipping and whatnot.
And a lot of it was pretty good, especially as the fight wore on, he got a little bit better about it.
But if you notice, his stance was kind of interesting at first.
He would have a square stance at times to kind of reach with the cross, but then to get into range, right, because they were pretty far apart.
To get into range, he would get into more of a bladed stance and then he would pendulum step his way into range, right, because they were pretty far apart. To get into range, he would get into more of a bladed stance, and then he would pendulum step his way into range, which you
notice with the first round when he gets caught, he bends at the waist to avoid punishment, which
is like totally correct. There's nothing wrong with that, but then he kind of comes up, and
I don't know if he... Two things occur to me. One, and you see him get it right later, when he pendulum steps at a bladed stance,
where he's sort of very shoulder dominant,
he's very much not square, it's the opposite of square,
and he steps into range there a little bit.
What enables him to do later in the fight
was he gets out of the way of the left hook,
so he bends over at the waist,
and then later in the fight,
you'll see him lean all the way back
to get out of the way of the right hook, because Chaos Williams throws these really wide hooks.
Now, sometimes they're not super wide, but they're not really linear. They're not a whole lot coming
down the middle. They're very much on the outside like that, and so when he got caught the first
time, he stepped into range, ducked out of the way of the left, but then didn't fully raise his
posture back out and exit. Later on the fight, he kind of fixed that, so one of the left, but then didn't fully raise his posture back out and exit.
Later on the fight, he kind of fixed that.
So one of the earlier problems was he kind of stayed in range,
kind of stayed in the wrong posture for subsequent shots.
He was just right there to be hit.
He got better about it as the fight wore on. So, you know, it was a good adjustment by him to use proper movement in the way over time,
but he had a little bit of trouble with it early.
A lot of folks don't like the showboating.
The showboating is sort of, I don't really mind it personally.
I was glad to see him use his jab.
I thought his jab was great.
Again, once he sorted the movement, because the thing about it is,
when you do that kind of movement to get in and out of range,
remember, and he did this too, by the way. As the fight wore on, I want to be clear, Andy Brown you do that kind of movement to get in and out of range, remember, and he
did this too, by the way.
As the fight wore on, I want to be clear, Andy Brown did do this.
But it looked like early, the problem was, one, he had kind of bumped Chaos Williams
in their first round when he got dropped, so it actually created a little bit of space
for Williams to hit him.
I don't know if that was intentional or not.
I don't think it was.
And again, he didn't quite right his posture.
He didn't duck and then get all the way out. But the other thing he wasn't
doing was he wasn't, and again, he did do it eventually, but early, he wasn't exactly rolling.
You don't have to move your feet necessarily to roll. You can shift your weight back to front
and that's okay. But a lot of times what you'll see boxers do, for example, it looks like he's
being heavily influenced by boxing training at a bare minimum, is they will roll and step.
And then they can use that step to angle off.
They can do all kinds of stuff.
They don't just keep their feet planted and roll.
You can do that.
It's not necessarily wrong.
Again, all different defenses for all different kinds of scenarios.
It just is a function of what makes the most sense for what you're trying to do and what
the opponent is offering you.
But when he began to roll with it and so he could step backwards, he could step forward
to dodge the left hook and then he could step and lean backwards to get out of it or step
across underneath the hook as opposed to just kind of rolling and staying in position,
that aided him a lot.
It got him out of the way of a lot of things he wanted to do.
So I think the thing that dropped him in the first round
was he was just way too,
didn't have the proper upright position,
and he wasn't stepping around or stepping back.
He was just kind of staying in position.
He was just bending at the waist and then coming back up.
I think that cost him a little bit. So the scores were a little bit closer than what I
thought their ability showed. I thought Chaos Williams showed great power and good patience,
but to me, Brown was the superior striker of the two by a pretty considerable margin,
even if he got hit a couple times. Obviously, the bigger power puncher of the two is going to be Chaos Williams. The thing that
kind of surprised me later in the fight was that Williams just, there was just not a lot of
fainting. There was a little bit of it, not a lot of it. And it kind of seemed to me like he had to
find a way to either close the distance on Brown or to get Brown to freeze or to, you know, something
to get Brown to stop the flow state.
And again, he does have big power when he's able to connect at mattered, but not enough
to get two of the three judges to look his way.
So I appreciate what Brown was trying.
I think, again, as the fight wore on, he got a lot better about it.
But go back and watch the first knockdown.
He'll bend and then not come all the way back up or even out of the way.
And so as a consequence,
he gets clipped. As the fight wears on, he is better about bending and shifting back or bending and rolling with a step. And I think that made a big difference in the end.
Francisco Trinaldo defeating Danny Roberts, unanimous decision, 29-28, 30-27, 30-26.
Incredible job. You know, the first round, I thought probably could have, like Danny
Roberts had a claim on the first round, but I think he got rocked in that one too. I bet he got
rocked in the second. Here's the real story of the fight. Once Trinaldo got a read on the timing
of Roberts, it was over. And he got it mostly, you saw a big demonstration of it towards the end of the first,
and then really it kicks off in the second. That's when he really got it. He was able to
rock him with that jab in between his strikes. That was really the story of the show.
What Trinaldo was trying was in the first round, you can see him looking for stuff,
he can't quite get it going. Danny Roberts using a lot of lateral movement, in and out, that kind of a thing, being a
difficult target to find.
But once Trinaldo figured out what kind of strikes he was going to throw and what the
timing was on them, he was off to the races.
That's when he began to slip and throw over the top.
That's when he began to punch with him, knowing his defense would be open.
That's when he would go in between his strikes.
So he was going at the end, going with him in between all the different moments
in a particular exchange where he knew he was going to be open,
and he was just ready for it.
And then from there, he could blast him to the body.
You saw the vicious body shot that kind of crumpled him a little bit later in the fight.
The thing that sort of surprised me was Trinaldo's clinch is pretty strong. And again, like Charles Oliveira, he sort of goes back and
in between it, depending on what he wants to do and what kind of attacks he's trying to set up or
what's available to him. But there's a lot of grabbing the head, grabbing the shoulders,
firing an underhook, that sort of a thing. And so I thought Danny Roberts, if you look at the
first round, was doing his best work at distance.
So if his best work is at distance, how does he get back there?
Somewhat surprising to me that I did not see Roberts do a lot of fainting in the third round.
I did not see him trying to do anything other than mixing up the strikes
in terms of what they looked or whatever to get going.
Like Randy Brown was trying to play with his rhythm.
There was a lot of rhythm changes from Randy Brown in the previous fight.
Trinaldo really wasn't doing that.
He was just sort of stationary.
Not stationary.
He was definitely not stationary.
He was moving side to side.
What I mean to say is he wasn't trying those tactics.
So I thought Danny Roberts might try rhythm changing, right?
Might try feinting to set up something, get out of the way of something,
freeze Trinaldo, get him to block.
And there just wasn't a whole lot of it.
So Trinaldo in the first round, you'll notice a lot of elbow blocking
and high guard that he was implementing to get out of the way of some of the stuff
that Danny Roberts was throwing.
And some of the stuff Danny Roberts was throwing in the first round really got through.
That round was the most competitive, certainly, of the three. I could see how you could
give it to Trinaldo. I could see how you could make a case for it for Danny Roberts. But what
I would say was, I was very surprised that by the third round, there was not a ton of fainting from
Roberts to get Trinaldo to do anything different than what he was. To me, this is, of course,
I'm just sitting on my stupid office chair. Very easy for me to say this. This doesn't mean a whole
lot. But I'm just sort of pointing out as a general rule, second round, of course, I'm just sitting on my stupid office chair. Very easy for me to say this. This doesn't mean a whole lot.
But I'm just sort of pointing out as a general rule, second round, it was pretty clear Trinaldo had his timing.
And Trinaldo could work from all the spaces.
He could work from on top and half guard.
He could work in the clinch along the fence line.
He could work at range.
I mean, he could work in all the spaces.
So if you're going to work at range with the guy, where was Danny Roberts doing his best work?
It was at kickboxing range, more or or less sort of boxing range-ish if that's your best range and now the
guy has kind of figured out your timing you have to shake something up you'd have to go for a
takedown and get it or you need to faint your way into getting this guy confused and looking for
something that's not there and you know again it's very easy for me to sit here and say that
that's the thing he should do and he didn't do it and therefore blah, blah, blah. But, you know, I would be
curious, like, what would be the alternative to that, right? Like, if that is wrong for whatever
reason, what would be the better approach to getting Trinaldo to do what he was doing? Because
by the third round, he was in the comfort zone, folks. He was very much understanding what was
coming his way, what he needed to do,
how to get around it, what it looked like, all that stuff. He could do all of it. And so for
that reason, it just seems to me like there probably would have been a better way to go
about doing things by the third round. Again, easier said than done. He was hurt. He was rocked.
He's doing his best. But Trinaldo, and they made a point on the broadcast about this,
and I really agreed. Trinaldo, yes, he's older,
but he doesn't look too much different than he did at his peak
or whatever his peak was.
He still seems to be, shockingly, still quite physically adept.
I'm sure he slowed somewhat.
I'm sure he doesn't have the same reaction time,
but it was plenty for this fight.
It was plenty.
It took him about more or less a round,
maybe a little bit less, to find his bearings.
And then he was off to the races after that.
Still has good power, as I mentioned.
Still strong.
Still can do a lot of different things.
But Danny Roberts had to shake something up in that third round, either with a takedown or with fainting and faking.
Making Trinaldo think that all of that timing he had figured out was now gone.
How do you do that? What's
another way to do that? Those would have been the things that I would have pointed to.
They didn't really show up, so Trinaldo gets the win. Nice win by him. Incredible that at 43 and
then 170 pounds, he is still this active. That is extremely unusual. All right, we go to flyweight
now. Brandon Royville taking on Matt Schnell. He wins via guillotine choke at 214 of the first round.
I mean, look, I don't really know what there is to say about this.
There's a couple things I'll point out, but the one thing I did want to say was
apparently Matt Schnell had lost his mother prior to the contest.
She had passed away.
And I'll just say to anyone who's lost a parent, mom, dad, whatever,
any kind of very close loved one,
you know, I would not have recommended fighting. This isn't to say that folks have not done it
before, or excuse me, this is not to say rather that folks have done it before and won. That is
true, they have. And, you know, fighters are, if nothing, the toughest, you know, some of the most
resilient people you'll ever meet in your
life. I put Matt Schnell in that category, quite obviously. You know, he did rock Brendan Royville
in this fight. And even though, you know, it didn't go his way. So it wasn't like he got,
you know, totally outclassed or something like that. But, you know, in a fight, you need to have
real clear-headed decision-making, right? In a fight, you need to have real clear-headed decision-making.
In a fight, you need to be as calm, centered.
Yes, a lot of it will be muscle memory.
A lot of it will be instinct to a lot of degrees. But a lot of that happens just from a state of readiness.
And that readiness is a function of doing your homework, of the repetition of everything,
but still you do need to be clear-headed
about thinking through problems,
especially in the grappling department
where it's a series of your next move is very perilous.
You must get this one right.
And I would not have recommended fighting.
I know what losing my mother did to me.
Granted, sometimes it can happen under tragic circumstances. Sometimes that can be widely expected. I really don losing my mother did to me. Granted, sometimes they can happen
under tragic circumstances. Sometimes they can be widely expected. I really don't think that
that matters, at least not for job performance in the immediate passing of a loved one.
You're just not going to be at your best. You're not going to be ready. Again, there are exceptions,
but those exceptions to me prove the rule. So I certainly understand, to a degree anyway,
Matt Schnell's willingness to continue and fight his way through this.
I respect the commitment to it.
I really do.
I think he was trying to do the promoter a solid, plus himself.
He probably wanted to get paid.
There's a lot of factors that go into it.
It's not as easy as me sitting here saying,
oh, you shouldn't fight because you're not going to be at your best.
I mean, those aren't often the reasons why fighters do or don't take fights.
But just sort of realizing, like, maybe Brandon Royville wins 10 times out of 10.
That may be your opinion.
But I would really submit to you, I am quite certain we did not get the very best match
now here.
I'm pretty sure about that.
That being said, he does drop Royville.
Royville has a lot of openings in the stand-up department by virtue
of the way he competes. His chin is a little bit in the air. I think he stays in position a little
bit too long, but on the ground, folks, he is just so dynamite. And again, getting back to
the national situation, didn't really agree with him jumping guillotine or taking the guillotine
here. I know it might be a big feather in your cap to get a guillotine like that, especially
after you rock a guy.
But Brendan Royville just lives in those moments.
And again, it's like, oh, I'm going to enter the grappling world, but I'm going to enter
it on advantageous terms.
And I'm going to go for the guillotine.
He's going to roll.
I'm going to end up in mount.
This is going to be great.
But dude, Royville, understand something.
If you're a guillotine specialist specialist that doesn't just mean you know
all the best mechanisms to get your biceps in a certain way in the hands and the grips and which
one is the best and all that kind of stuff all that's true too but part of being a specialist
in something whether it's the armbar or the guillotine is that you're going to face a lot
of different forms of resistance to it from different types of people times when you're
more tired less tired side control full guard whatever, times when you're more tired, less tired, side
control, full guard, whatever, that you're going to have to figure out all the different ways in
which you want to set up and finish this guillotine. People are going to show you a lot of different
looks of defense. And so if you decide to make it now a grappling fight by jumping guillotine on a
guy or trying to take a guillotine or using the guillotine even to roll to mount, that dude, you
better be iron clad with it because that dude's going to know all the responses to it.
Sure enough, he did. He's able to reverse it. Then Matt Schnell turns and dives into it and
then he gets his neck taken. And I want to point out something. It was the right arm of Schnell
that did the finishing job. I want you to look at, again, it wasn't an arm and guillotine,
but it would work, excuse me, and sometimes in a very similar way.
Look at how he buries the right elbow.
He drives that thing down, and the hand was up here.
By the time he got it and pushed it, it was all he needed.
Dude, that elbow sunk deep.
That thing was so deep, which is why you saw Schnell tapping with the two hands, dude.
It's just, once you enter a grappling exchange,
you do not know how that's going to turn into a scramble
with a guy as good as Brandon Royville.
So as much as I am very willing
and frankly asking all of you
to grade Matt Schnell on a curve,
this should still sort of serve as a general warning
that if you're going to take the fight to the ground
with Brandon Royville,
even if it starts on advantageous terms, even very advantageous terms, you should be very cautious about it.
Especially if he's not badly hurt or obviously rocked.
Because he's going to have not just potent offense, he's going to have very good defense slash scrambling slash positional switching through the course of that to get back
to where he wants. And if you've made it a grappling fight, well now it's just a grappling
fight. Be very cautious to do that against guys like Brandon Royville. He has a lot of answers
to get back to where he wants, even when you start him in a very disadvantageous way in the
grappling department we move now to the early prelims how about lupita godinez taking on uh
ariani carnalosa excuse me ariani carney losi she wins unanimous decision 30 27 and then two 30 26
is lupita godinez looked awesome in this fight. She rocked Carnelosi in the second round. Carnelosi looking quite muscular.
But there was a massive skill difference here.
And I want to pay attention to something too. Godinez had tremendous takedowns.
Every opponent she's ever fought, I think, in a win. I want to double check this.
She has, let's see, even in a loss.
Here are the number of takedowns she's had per fight. Against
Carnelosi, eight. Against Luke Boonme, which she won, five. Against Carolina, two. Against Gomez
Juarez, five. Against Jessica Penne, three. So she lost the Penne fight via split, and she lost
the Luana Carolina fight via unanimous. She won the rest.
So she's three and two in the UFC. This brought her to the above 500 mark. But in all of those fights, she has numerous takedowns. Now her takedown accuracy is 46%. That's about right,
dude. 47, 48% was where Habib is. The takedown accuracy number is not necessarily the most
important number, but takedown average per 15 minutes. Ready for this one?
5.37.
I mean, folks, she is a takedown machine.
If you can't handle that, you have a very difficult chance of winning.
Now, Jessica Penne got a takedown herself.
Luana Carolina, good striker.
I mean, there's a lot you can do with that if you're very, very talented.
But let it be known, she's going to go for the takedown and her ability to capture it is good
plus once she gets there she has strong rides from turtle she's good from
half-guard she can pass she has good savage ground-and-pound she kind of
threatened submissions let's see uh submission average 0.9 per 15 minutes so
she's good for one for 15 minutes. Not a whole lot there necessarily,
but it's not necessarily either
or something you could just disregard.
And in this case,
Carnelosi just had really nothing for her.
She got rocked in the second round early on
because her pressure was,
you know,
not really could you time it,
but it was easy to anticipate, right?
You just knew she was going to walk into it,
which of course made running through the double even easier for Godinez. Godinez, folks, at strawweight, she might be
coming around here. I wonder when she born, 1993. She's still fairly young, not too young, but
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Book at AirCanada.com. Conditions apply. The point I wanted to make here is I was really impressed by the wrestling.
I was really impressed by the control positions.
I was really impressed by the physicality of her game.
She is turning into something special in this division.
Well, I should say, she could be turning into something specialist division.
You've got to beat people.
I don't think she's beaten anyone except Luke Boone, who has a Wikipedia entry.
So there's a little bit of work to do in that regard.
You know, Silvana Gomez-Juarez is just not really on the UFC level in my judgment.
And that fight did not go very long, 4-14 of the first.
All the rest of them, this is the one knock, right?
Three rounds in this win, three rounds in the last win, three rounds of the first. All the rest of them, this is the one knock, right? Three rounds in this
win, three rounds in the last win, three rounds in the previous loss, and then three rounds in the
loss to Pene. There's not quite enough finishing ability. So there's a consistent dominant blanket
she's able to lay over her opponent, metaphorically speaking, obviously. There's a consistent level of
control she's able to establish, and she's able to get to
it um often those are all great things the strength the athleticism the ground and pound
the strength of jiu-jitsu the you know and the the different kinds of techniques like she was
able to run down doubles how about that elbow lift she was able to get like carnalosi was framing here
into her she was able to lift the elbow up and then past her and then not only grab it and then hold it, but use it to then turn and
off balance, probably as she was tripping on the feet as well. But we're just sort of pointing out,
like, that's one takedown. The double was another. Like, she's got a lot of different ways to go to.
If you give her the underhook, you're in trouble against her, especially along the fence line,
where, you know, she doesn't need the fence line to get the takedown, but if you give it to her, especially along the fence line where she doesn't need the fence line to get
the takedown, but if you give it to her, it's just a complete gift. So dominant, dominant takedown
threat. But as good as she has looked against better opposition, there is not enough pushing
the fight towards the finish or some kind of action that really puts them in trouble. What she does is put them
at a metaphorical, anyway, distance. I'm this much better than you and I'm going to maintain it
over the course of this fight. That's important. That's amazing. That's commendable. That's great.
That's different, though, that not only am I going to put distance between us,
I'm going to put so much distance between us that I'm going to give you problems even staying in this contest.
I'm just going to run over you.
That, to me, is a little bit missing.
So rather than looking for a lot of wrestling rides,
I'd be curious to see if she can find it
and then use it to break down opposition,
start slashing with elbows,
maybe move to mount, hold mount,
something like that.
Some kind of way to really devastate the opponents.
Because the control is there.
The ground and pound is fairly there.
Strikes landed per minute.
2.23.
A little on the low side.
But I've seen worse.
I've seen worse.
But still, you get the idea.
That's the kind of thing I'm looking for.
So there's a lot to her game that you have to like.
Someone from Latin America. Obviously it's North America, but someone from Latin America
who can wrestle as well as her, especially in the women's division, phenomenal.
Great.
It's so great.
Lupita Godinez is worthy of taking seriously, but definitely still some parts to her game
that could be rounded out, to be clear.
All right, and then last but not least, listen, I'm not going to sit here
and say horrible things about Ovin St. Preux or Shogun Hua. Ovin St. Preux wins, split decision,
28-29, 29-28, and then 30-27. I'm not sure I understand 30-27, but listen, man, Shogun Hua is
40. I'm not even sure he should be fighting, to be honest with you. He's a legend in the sport.
Again, I'm going to say it. His run through the 2005 Middleweight Grand Prix is the best run that
anyone's ever had in an MMA tournament at any point. He's just a phenomenal fighter, and we
are lucky to have been witness to his career. Ovin St. Preux, not on the same level as Shogun
Hua in terms of what he has meant. Tried his hand at heavyweight, came back to light heavyweight, did look better, got the win. That's great. But
wherever Shogun is ranked, this to me did not look like a guy who's got, I know what UFC said,
that Shogun's got a couple of fights, maybe one fight left in his career, they're going to let
him have it. I don't have an issue with that at this point. I mean, what's done is done.
You know, hopefully they give him an opponent that is not too difficult for him have it. I don't have an issue with that at this point. I mean, what's done is done. You know, hopefully they give him an opponent
that is not too difficult for him to handle.
But, you know, if this was to take a place in Bellator,
y'all would be killing him for it.
And I wouldn't even blame you either.
You know, I understand that, like,
they had lost the Joe LaZon and Cowboy fight,
and so they bumped up Randy Brown in chaos.
You know.
I just, I'm not sure Shogun should be fighting anymore.
I appreciate that St. Preux came back to light heavyweight,
which I thought was the right call, and he got the win.
But he's 38, 39, I think.
Both of these guys are very much on the last legs of their career,
especially Shogun, who just looks like a shell of himself.
So what I would say is, if another organization was putting on this fight,
I think people would...
Not that they were raining down praise from the heavens, exactly.
I'm not here to say you guys all said it was the most amazing fight ever,
that you wanted it.
But I thought if this was in Bellator, there would be a lot more criticism of
it. And I'm not seeing a whole lot of criticism of it. And I think that there should be. These
kind of fights, man, UFC should be past this sort of thing, if you ask me. Not guys, oh,
39 versus 40. We don't have room for that? No, of course. Under the right circumstance,
there could be a lot of room for 39 versus 40. It's not that per se. And I realize they've looked at the rankings.
Let's be clear about the rankings here very quickly. If I look at them at 205 pounds,
Shogun, where would he be? Is he even ranked anymore? No. Neither of these guys are ranked.
Is Owen St. Preux ranked at heavyweight? No, he's not.
So your top 15 at light would be Glover's Your Champ, obviously, Prochocka, well, actually,
Blachowicz, Prochocka, Rakic, Onkolaev, Smith, Santos, Reyes, Craig, Ozdemir, Hill, Krilov,
Walker, Spann, Crute, Jacoby. I mean, again, it's not that guys can't be 39 versus 40. It's not that
they have to be ranked. But in this case, they are 39 and 40, which is very old.
They are, in the case of Shogun especially, he is very much not looking at all like he once did.
Has absorbed a metric ton of damage.
And they're not ranked.
The UFC should not be putting on fights like this anymore.
It's my personal opinion.
Your mileage may vary.
I understand that.
But what are you going to do? Also, honorable mention. this anymore. It's my personal opinion. Your mileage may vary. I understand that, but what
are you going to do? Also, honorable mention, Tracy Cortez, I thought had a nice strong start,
little bit of struggle over the course of that fight, but she got the W. I think she'd been
off for a while. This was a solid win for her. A lot more to work on, but a good win just the same.
So listen, I'm happy for all the winners. Congratulations to all
of them. The losers, they'll have another day, especially in the case of like Schnell, who really
wasn't himself in this one. Chaos Williams, I'm sure we'll get a fight that, you know, I don't
think his winning days are over by any stretch of the imagination, but there you go. To me,
the biggest standouts, Brandon Royval's grappling is just unbelievable.
Randy Brown really working on his boxing.
Francisco Trinaldo hasn't missed a step.
And Lupita Godinez,
really a dominant, dominant grappling force who is making her way
through the women's strawweight rankings.
All right?
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I appreciate it.
This has been episode 20 of Morning Combat Extra Credit.
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That's it for me.
Appreciate you guys watching.
Until next time, enjoy the fights.