MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Dan Hooker, Jessica Andrade Shine at UFC 266 | Fight Card Breakdown

Episode Date: September 28, 2021

Didn’t get enough UFC 266 coverage in Monday’s episode? Luke Thomas has you covered with a deep dive on the rest of the UFC 266 card. (00:01:17) - Dan Hooker vs. Nasrat Haqparast (00:04:50) - Cur...tis Blaydes vs. Jair Rozenstruik (00:08:54) - Jessica Andrade vs. Cynthia Calvillo (00:12:15) - Merab Dvalishvili vs. Marlon Moraes (00:16:02 ) - Chris Daukaus vs. Shamil Abdurakhimov (00:18:00) - Taila Santos vs. Roxanne Modafferi (00:21:02) - Jalen Turner vs. Uros Medic (00:22:27) - Nick Maximov vs. Cody Brundage (00:23:40) - Matthew Semelsberger vs. Martin Sano (00:26:15) - Jonathan Pearce vs. Omar Morales 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  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 You hear that? Ugh, paid. 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.
Starting point is 00:00:19 Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Hi, everybody. Luke Thomas here on this 27th of September 2021 for this brand new extra podcast we're going to do on Mondays. MK is the star of the show. Of course, Brian Campbell and I do that every Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 11 a.m. But starting on Mondays now, a little bit later in the day, we're going to get to all of the fights we didn't get to on MK on this one, right? Because we can only get to like a handful of fights due to time constraints.
Starting point is 00:00:53 So we said, you know what? Let's get to the rest of them. So the folks get all of the fight analysis that they're looking for. A couple of things. Number one, like the video, give it a subscription if you haven't already for the channel anyway, like the video. And on top of that, if you've got a name for this podcast, we've got a couple ideas floating around. But if you've got a name or an idea for this podcast, or even something you want to see on this particular podcast, give us a comment right now down below. Let us know what
Starting point is 00:01:20 you're thinking about some things you'd like to see some segment ideas, some names, whatever you're feeling about it. We appreciate it just the same. All right. The clock is ticking. We're going to do these in 30 minutes or less. So let's get to them now. We'll talk about UFC 266 today. Although in future iterations, I would want to get to some other things like one championship and whatnot in this podcast, but Hey, today is episode one. All right. So we talked about Robbie Lawler, Nick Diaz on MK. We talked about the main and co-main event, the two title fights. What leaves us there is two fights left in the main card plus the prelim card. Normally I'm going to go in order, but for today, I would like to start
Starting point is 00:01:54 with Dan Hooker. Dan Hooker was something like the co-main event of the prelims or second to last fight on the prelims. The results, he defeats nasrak hackbarast via the unanimous decision 3027 across the board and then actually 1326 what was the big takeaway here well we all know the story about dan hooker flying across the earth late notice pack press for his own issues had to fly from frankfurt last minute of course was dealing with a tragic death um that was in his family you know both guys dealing with a lot of different challenges to make this fight happen. But in the end, this was the Dan Hooker show. Why? Two big reasons, I would say. Well, maybe even three. But the ones that stand out to me were first,
Starting point is 00:02:35 Dan Hooker had Hackperast on his heels for the majority of this fight. And even in the third round, when Hackperast was pressing into him, you found that there was a second gear that Dan Hooker was able to go to by changing levels. Before I get to that and talking about the wrestling, let's just keep it on the heels part. It's really good work by Dan Hooker. When he was getting backed up, it's not to say he can't win, but it's not his best work. And you heard Daniel Cormier on commentary talking about Dan Hooker being able to press Hackperast back in the way that he was. It lets him keep Hackperast and any of his opponents at the end of his punches at the end of his kicks it allows him to set things up behind the jab the double jab sometimes and also of course it keeps in this particular case his opponent kind of behind that warning track that inside black line space space that puts them next to the fence it has a
Starting point is 00:03:18 lot of benefits second thing i mentioned number one or i should say second thing i mentioned there's i guess there's a sort of a semi-two-parter to this, but the idea would be he was able to bring wrestling into the game. He got a great takedown at about 120 of the second round off a body lock. He had looked for a wrestling takedown, I think in the first with sort of like a weak single leg, couldn't get it, let it go. But by the time in the end of the second round he was looking for it he had a deep deep body lock picked him up dropped him and he couldn't quite go for the mount he tried to like get the mount like you're going for a horse like you're trying to get on top of a horse you know in the in the stirrup but it doesn't really work that way you have to slide your knee through
Starting point is 00:03:57 everyone thinks it's a big motion it's actually like a really stealth motion to do it but either way it doesn't matter he had hack brass completely controlled and the takedown was beautiful and then in the third round when hack press was like okay i got to do something a little bit different which was good credit to him you saw hooker play the issue where he could you know back up a little bit when needed to and then when the cross came of hack per ass that's when you saw the level change and hooker got under it and got the takedown was able to win from there. So the big factor, of course, was putting Hack-Paras on his heels. Second of all, it was getting the takedowns when necessary. And then third, I would say, listen, it's not a slight to Hack-Paras. He was coming in under terrible circumstances and he's
Starting point is 00:04:38 a quality opponent, but probably, you know, I don't think it's unfair to say he's not as accomplished to date as the two previous opponents that Hooker had in Dustin Poirier and Michael Chandler. This was something of a reset moment for him, and the resetting got done. So to me, this was perfect for Dan Hooker. I mean, all the other things were terrible, but the fight itself, getting to implement your style, showing new wrinkles, and then getting to try them against a talented opponent, but one that was beatable versus going right back to the top in a situation where you may not have been able to use that that's valuable experience I think for Dan Hooker okay putting that aside let's go to the main card if we can Curtis Blades defeating Jairzinho Rosenstreich 30-27 across the board not an
Starting point is 00:05:21 exciting fight I think it's fair to say when Blades can get the takedown, he is obviously formidable. So the good news for Curtis Blades is he gets the win. He gets to move on from the loss to Derek Lewis. And there actually were some positives from this, but some negatives too. Let's start with the positive. Number one, it's important that Blades got the win. I think he needed to, you know, He's never going to be a promotional darling. So getting wins in the UFC is important. It's especially important when you have that kind of situation with management, number one. I think number two, what I would say is
Starting point is 00:05:54 I actually thought there were really good moments with his striking. Now, his striking wasn't... It was not going to ever do to Rosenstruck, or Stryker, however you pronounce his name, the kind of thing where it was going to ever do to Rosenstruck, or Stryker, however you pronounce his name, the kind of thing where it was going to wobble him or hurt him real bad or whatever. But between the wrestling threat and the striking, and then some of the trickery he was using in that striking,
Starting point is 00:06:16 faking low, going high, going to the body, hooking around the top of the gloves, you could tell there was a certain sophistication and growth that had happened with Curtis Blades. There was a moment there later on in the fight where he wasn't really able to get the takedown very effectively or even at all on certain stretches. And so he had to rely on the striking. But because he had established a bit of a wrestling threat early, even though he couldn't reestablish it later, Rosenstreich couldn't just not take it seriously.
Starting point is 00:06:41 He still had to take it seriously. So I actually thought that Curtis Blades managed that portion of the fight against a much better striker, at least in pure striking terms really well. That's going to get lost here because the fight was kind of boring and Nick Diaz fought afterwards. But I actually take a lot from that. The thing that was a little bit more concerning was, and maybe they were trying to go this direction to a degree, between the wrestling and the level of striking that Blades has, it's a winning combination. He didn't just beat some scrub on Saturday. It was good.
Starting point is 00:07:13 But it's a little worrisome that his striking is, while coming along and certainly good for winning rounds where your opponent doesn't do much or you've already done other things, it's still got a long way to go to be like a potent threat to high level guys, especially. And that's fine if your wrestling is a little bit more lights out, which it was in like the Volkov fight. Like the Volkov fight to me is sort of like the opposite here where he had to rely so much on the wrestling that he kind of overdid it. Whereas in this one, he couldn't rely on it, and so he had to use his striking. And again, he did a lot of that really well,
Starting point is 00:07:50 but it wasn't really ever a dynamic fight-ending threat. And so to me, the balance is a little bit off, which when I say the balance is off, I don't mean to say the coach is doing a bad job or Curtis is doing a bad job or anything like that. He got the W. And by the way, he got the W after getting his eye blasted. And I think that was the same eye that got messed up in either one or both even of the Ngannou fights. So, you know, this guy has a lot of metal, uh, to be clear. And he's a high level fighter. What I mean to say is as his game
Starting point is 00:08:19 progresses and as it grows, um, keeping the balance right about the things that got you to the dance, then bringing new partners with you, that can be often hard to manage. I think even the best fighters and the best teams sometimes struggle with that. You see that here. So he was able to get the job done when his wrestling was shut down. But one, I would have liked to have seen his wrestling be a little bit more dynamic. Rosenstreich is stingy and doesn't throw a lot, so he makes it hard. But still, there has to be a little bit more of a threat um conversely though when he was when he was
Starting point is 00:08:49 forced to stand it should not be lost that he actually did a pretty commendable job in maintaining um his composure and shutting down Rosenstreich and showing a clear understanding of you can't just throw the one-two even if you've thrown a fate behind it there has to be a lot of setup you got to be clever with it it was clever I thought this I thought the striking was clever and um just not deadly okay so it takes us to the opener of the main card Jessica Andrade defeating Cynthia Calvillo Calvillo however you want to pronounce it 454 of round number one dude Andrade defeating Cynthia Calvillo, Calvillo, however you want to pronounce it, 454 of round number one. Dude, Andrade gets to break the rules. You know, I remember when she was at Bantamweight,
Starting point is 00:09:31 she was an absolute force of nature, even there. She was stronger than all of her competitors, even there. At, you know, 115 or even 125, and this particularly is 125 she is I mean another level of ferocious that dude go back and watch that fight Cynthia lands on her repeatedly clean super clean teeps to the midsection she was scoring she was scoring jab she was scoring jab cross combos hooking punches like dude it wasn't like Cynthia wasn't landing on her the problem was it was just not having any kind of deterrent effect and if you recall what Dean Thomas said when they went to him for like you know sort of the sideline perspective he was arguing pretty cleanly like
Starting point is 00:10:23 dude she's not respecting your punching power at all you got to go to something else like a takedown attempt at a bare minimum again it goes back to the curtis blades thing dude curtis blades didn't have a dynamic punch really a whole lot in that fight and after the takedown began to get shut down the takedowns were few and far between right the relative to the attempts and he still found a way to get it done, right? He still found a way because that wrestling threat is always kind of playing in your mind. Even if you can't get the takedown, you got to make them respect that there was just nothing happening that could force Andrade to be like, okay, if I'm standing at range, I need to be very careful when
Starting point is 00:10:59 I close distance, dude, she just walked in, you know, and again, against a fighter like Shevchenko or some other ones who have big power you know that's just not going to work you are going to be made to pay for that eventually but at this level even as good as Cynthia is that's just not enough there's just not enough horsepower behind the punches and the strikes to get Jessica to respect it and so she just walked through it. Jessica did a couple of the things that I thought were pretty good. She was using her,
Starting point is 00:11:33 I think it was a left hook to try and corral Cynthia a little bit. She was the, the combo to finish was like an uppercut cross, which was nice. That was really good. Obviously the right hand of hers is super deadly. And she becomes the first person to stop Cynthia in I think MMA certainly in the UFC with inside the distance and did it inside the first albeit with just six seconds left at 454 of the very first round but dude that was super impressive super impressive it doesn't make me
Starting point is 00:11:57 think that her chances against Shevchenko are really any different but it does make me think that like these other top contenders, man, Jessica is, she's not just strong physically in terms of what she can do to others. She has, she has, she's just strong as a sturdy physical presence where landing on them just doesn't, it doesn't spin the head far enough. It doesn't hurt her. She can withstand it all. And so, um, it's such an advantage. It's such an advantage. Nothing changed about her fortunes relative to title implications. Title shot, maybe, but not title implications. Like, can she actually be the best person in this division?
Starting point is 00:12:32 But to beat an opponent like that in the way that she did it, extremely impressive. Your main event for the prelims. How about a bantamweight? Marav Davalashvili. It's spelled Davalashvili. I'm sure that the v is pronounced like a w taking on mariah stew this was a gut check moment for mariah and i feel really bad for him he had all the hype in the world coming out of world series of fighting his run the ufc was great i mean he lost his debut but then after that he beat john
Starting point is 00:13:00 dodson aljamain sterling jimmy rivera Rivera, Rafael Sonsal and then he also beat Jose Aldo albeit via split but since then he lost to Corey Sandhagen, Rob Font and then Marab. He also lost to Henry in between then so of his last five he's won and four and he's lost three in a row all via stoppage all no later than the second round. It's a terrible losing streak. You knew coming into this one exactly what the scenario was. There was no debate about it. There was no doubt about it. He had to get a win here.
Starting point is 00:13:31 He had to. I'm not saying he'll be cut, although I think he probably will be. I mean, I'm not guaranteeing it. I don't know, but I think the chances are high. I guess is a better way to put that. And he started off strong. Dude, he had that slip uppercut combo that rocked marab excuse me that yes that rock marab and then he followed it up with a series of punches and he
Starting point is 00:13:51 had marab i mean another ref might have stopped that keith peterson had a nice close look and another ref might have absolutely stopped that that was he had him as close as you can get to stopping someone as you possibly can without actually doing it but marab doesn't just have an incredible motor although he has the best motor i think in all of the ufc that motor is combined with a certain perseverant will that can just help you get through bad scenarios when a more technical fighter who doesn't necessarily have those things will actually struggle there. Fighting is supposed to be about skills. But one of the skills that gets underrated is if you can weaponize will, if you can weaponize perseverance, you can do a lot with that.
Starting point is 00:14:35 And that is exactly what Murad the Wallish really did. I mean, that was incredible. More to the point, he withstands the storm in the first and then gets the takedown and does some nice work on top to end it. What was more impressive to me in the second round was he didn't just get the takedown. He got the takedown by stealing on Marais first with a punch and then under the level change, getting the takedown. So he didn't just run headfirst into him the second time. Marab's got a lot of work to do to polish his existing skills. And some of them are quite good, but obviously in the standout
Starting point is 00:15:09 department and certainly even in transitions, there's still plenty of work to be done. But already what you can see is, dude, if you don't put him out, right? Remember Ricky Simone with the choke? If you don't put this guy completely out, he is going to be an absolute nightmare. And fighting a dude like that when you're tired, good effing luck with that. That must be torture to try and do something like that. And that was what Marais was up against, man. That's a bad loss. Why he's gotten this way, it just feels like everyone kind of figured out his game.
Starting point is 00:15:43 It also does feel to me like he doesn't have a resilient cardiovascular base upon which to rely it's probably a little bit simplistic especially going up against a guy like marab you've seen in other fights too kind of fades a little bit down the stretch if he gets pushed so it just turns out if you put this guy on his heels a little now a little bit but if you can put him on his heels in a meaningful way all the things that make him great tend to go away pretty quickly. But that early part could obviously be very, very difficult for him for opponents, but Merab, um, dude, good luck fighting that guy. You're going to need it. You're going to absolutely need it. He's going to make up for a lot of technical deficiencies with a will that is indefatigable and a motor that is a perpetual
Starting point is 00:16:24 motion machine. We talked about Dan Hooker already. We dropped to Chris Dawkus at heavyweight defeating Shamil Abdurakimov at 123 of the second round. In going back and through this one, what's the story here? Two things. One, Chris Dawkus has big power at this point. It simply can no longer be denied.
Starting point is 00:16:40 You might be like, oh, well, all heavyweights have big power. To varying degrees, they have big power to varying degrees they have big power his is especially good number one number two he just did a great job uh counter striking and in particular he dropped uh abdur rakimov in the first they said it was a right to the body it wasn't it was a left well the right set up some things but then it was a left to the body and then he immediately behind it left to the body left and then immediately behind it, left to the body, left hook. So it's the same side attack, and that trickery got Shamil big time. The other part about what he was doing that I thought was interesting is he was kind of pressing Shamil a little bit with his position
Starting point is 00:17:14 and feinting and throwing a little bit, and then getting Shamil to throw back. And then when he threw back, he would blitz him inside to sort of make him – I think he thought there was going to be a speed differential, not just with the body, but with the hands and the feet and so when Shamil committed to a punch in a big kind of way he would be lighting him up on the inside he would kind of slip it or cover or whatever and then charge through and a lot of that would land and so he would able to he was able to push Abdurakhimov back a lot but it was the setting up with um any time with the blitzing and it was the counter striking where he would wait for something to come and he just knew his hand speed if he timed it right
Starting point is 00:17:50 was going to be too much for um his opponent so it's it's good power it's a good strategy it's good timing and it's good hand speed all working together in concert for Chris Daukus to get a big win I would actually like this I mean maybe it's too early in their journeys but I gotta tell you know what's one fight that would actually like this. I mean, maybe it's too early in their journeys, but I got to tell you, you know, what's one fight that would be kind of fun. I'm not saying it's the best fight to make, but it would be fun.
Starting point is 00:18:10 It's Chris Dawkins taking on Tom Aspinall. Two guys, one UK, one American who are showing great skills. I would say Aspinall has the smoother technique. I would say Chris Dawkins, a little bit more of the force of nature between the two thus far in terms of what we've seen, but it'd be a fun one women's flyweight featured about to open the sort of middle portion of the prelim card Tyler Santos taking on Roxanne Modaferri Santos wins 30-27 across the board Modaferri setting records here for 49th professional fight which is the most for women's
Starting point is 00:18:40 MMA fighter she has been a part of the fight game as long as I've been covering it and is a credit to fighters everywhere by the professionalism and the commitment and resolve to getting better that she has shown. And she's obviously formidable talent as well. But Santos too much physically and was able to hurt Modaferri on the feet with the punches, back her up to the fence, get the takedown, hold her there. Couldn't really pass a whole lot. Modaferri's got pretty good guard retention, but it was that over the course of three rounds. The physicality of Santos. Modaferri is probably not the best athlete in the UFC.
Starting point is 00:19:13 I don't think that's an unfair characterization. And so you lean on the athletic gifts and you push her around, even if she's able to be technically not overmatched, like from a technical perspective she knows enough about how to keep herself safe underneath she was still getting hit with bombs from the guard even if she was able to retain guard she had she kind of had her neck pressed up against the back of the fence for long stretches of the fight there were times that um moda fairy was able to listen to her corner and get back to her feet i give her credit for it she
Starting point is 00:19:44 was in it to win it throw it punches, trying to back up Santos, even into the third round. But it was just too much of an uphill climb. It was too much physicality, too much firepower, too much difference in wrestling skill. And then Santos had a good enough submission defense, sort of grappling awareness to not get caught. There was one moment, though, that really kind of just blew my mind. Folks, if you are like this face to face
Starting point is 00:20:09 with somebody, you're directly in their guard. Can they get an arm bar on you? Yes, there are methods to get it. But one of the best ways to do is to bring their posture down. And then you want to angle off, right? You have to angle off like this, right? So you're the person underneath, you need to create an angle to get their hips. I mean, if you think about an arm bar, if someone's laying down and they're doing a demonstration, where is the person doing the demonstrating from? They're going to be on the side of them because that's the best way to get the arm all the way out, right? That's what you want. There was a moment where underneath, Modaferri framed for an obvious arm bar. She had got like this and you could tell she was hunting for it. santos didn't like follow like you know you have to be careful following because sometimes
Starting point is 00:20:51 you can follow especially in grappling transitions you can follow into a triangle you can follow into other things but you also cannot let them just have that angle underneath if so if you are grappling someone and they turn the angle underneath you have to pull away or you have to recover the angle to square otherwise you're going to get your shit snatched so um you know not great we'll see if that ends up costing her in a in a subsequent fight didn't cost her this time but that was i saw that through my fingers i was like oh someone's about to lose an arm if they're not careful.
Starting point is 00:21:26 All right, so we go to the early preliminary card. How about Jalen Turner defeating Erdos Medic? Medic is the guy who looks like the real deal to me. He came off the Contender Series with the right attitude, with the right style of fighting. He seems smart. He seems capable. Problem for him in this fight was,
Starting point is 00:21:42 one, Turner has some of his advantages, only more in terms of length and reach. And he just got pressed back. So the two things that really cost him were, one, Medich got a kick caught, got taken down. Turner had pretty good control on the ground. Was able to stall him out for big portions of the round. Not stall him out, but shut him down, I should say, for big portions of the fight. And then even when it went to the feet, you know,
Starting point is 00:22:05 Medich was throwing some nice leg kicks, but he was, he couldn't really keep Turner off of him either. Turner had a great jab, good entries and kind of kept Medich along the fence line and along the fence line. He just didn't have the movement to really get going, to get inside, to back up Turner, to find a way to get around that reach and turn a little bit up,
Starting point is 00:22:23 turn a little bit up was finding opportunities at the end of his own punches or rather, you know, minutes would throw, he would wait and then counter. He was quicker to the punch when he needed to be. It was just a really dominant performance from Jalen Turner, who was the very, very slight,
Starting point is 00:22:37 but somewhat underdog betting heading into this contest. Still think very highly of manage, but that's going to be a bit of a wake up call for him. Ultimately got his back taken and got submitted at 401 on the first round so nice win by uh the tarantula uh let's see Nate Nick Diaz product Nick's Nick Maximoff defeated Cody Brundage um 29-28 not a great performance not a terrible performance Maximoff had to fight a guy totally outside of his weight class on the contender series on like a late notice and he got it done. You know, Brundage is a good fighter, but you know, was shooting from way outside and so was Maximoff's candidly
Starting point is 00:23:18 Maximoff was kind of shooting from far outside. So you had these sort of long sort of stretched out wrestling scrambles were first they're stretched out, but they're making contact. Then they have to get closer. Then they have to work to a superior position. First couple of rounds, you know, Maximo be able to find his way to the back, put Brundage in trouble by the third round, which is kind of hunting, hunting, hunting, hunting to take down. And, um, it was these sort of like long, slow scrambles because again, they're shooting from far outside. I think Brundage a lot of times will bring his feet together and get them scooped out from under him. You know, just a lot of guys at middleweight that I think have a long way to go
Starting point is 00:23:52 in terms of their development. I know in the case of Maxwell, I think he's quite young. I don't know Brundage's age. You know, they come from good camps, and they're talented, but in terms of some of those fine-tuned details, there's some work to be done, for sure. Matthew Semelsberger at Welterweight defeating Martin Sano Jr., 15 seconds of the first round.
Starting point is 00:24:12 This one was a little weird for me. Let me verify this before I go any further, just to make sure. Because if I'm not mistaken, I thought that the opponent, Sano, had been off for like four years or something let me verify that Martine Sano his last fight prior to this was in yeah Bellator he had he had two fights well let's see about this he had one fight in World Series of Fighting which he lost then he
Starting point is 00:24:38 had two fights yeah so he had one fight in two fights in bellator one that he lost one that he drew he got a ufc signing off of that four years later at a record of four and two and one basically and then he gets crushed within literally 15 seconds of the first round this fight should not have been made again i'm not accusing the matchmakers like we're gonna sabotage this guy i don't think that but no matchmaker on earth is perfect none of them are going to get by doing this without incident there's always going to be something there that's a problem um again they will i will fuck up in my everyone's going to mess up with their job i think they messed up with the job on this one this fight should not have been made semelsberger guy um out of this area of the woods from rockville maryland if
Starting point is 00:25:23 you're wondering how close that is, I wouldn't commute from there, but the lady who cuts my hair commutes from Rockville. So take that for what it's worth. Every day to DC. So he's at a clinch academy and at Crazy 88. Crazy 88 is with Julius. What's his name? Also, Tim Spriggs is at a Crazy 88.
Starting point is 00:25:41 It's a lawyer of an affiliate. They do really good jujitsu there. Clinch Academy, one of the better academies for MMA in the area in terms of producing fighters who make it to sort of that lfa sometimes ufc level simmonsberger being one of them nice win by him uh he went to the body and they said oh that's why he went up high that is true but if you also notice a lot of times when sana was trying to check or what he was biting on feints you could see him loading up the hook but he was not just loading up the hook from like a tight perspective like i'm bringing it up and i think he's going to hook he was like telegraphing it like winging it back and he kept doing this
Starting point is 00:26:13 well if you keep doing this what are you creating you're creating this lane down here to get hit that's exactly what happened he cocked it back a straight punch uh delivered at the same time as a hooking punch from the same distance what's going to land first the straight punch boom plus Semmelberger is pretty athletic pretty quick pretty pretty heavy-handed obviously and so this guy draws it back and what does he do hits him right down the middle closes the show sick sick win for him good job by Semmelberger and then last but not least a nice win by Jonathan Pierce taking on Omar Morales. Omar Morales is a good fighter, a Venezuelan, I think, by birth and by nationality. And Pierce winning, by the way, at 331 of the second round. Morales on the feet is a tough customer.
Starting point is 00:26:54 He's going to be hard to beat. So Pierce had the right idea. Let's get into close contact. Let's back him up. Let's go to the fence line. Let's go for back takes. Let's go for takedowns. Let's make him wrestle.
Starting point is 00:27:04 And then once you saw that there was a big disparity in wrestling and it was a big disparity in grappling or Alice getting a moment where he had a nice sweep and reverse actually a reversal, I think to get on top. So that was pretty good. But in the end, there was a pretty big difference. And by the time that Pierce got the choke, you'll notice that Morales doesn't even hand fight. He kind of just let it go back to his hands. And, and that was that. So to me, it's like, dude, Morales doesn't even hand fight. He kind of just let it go back to his hands, and that was that. So to me, it's like, dude, Morales is obviously big, athletic for featherweight especially.
Starting point is 00:27:31 He can strike his ass off. He's very, very good. But those other pieces of his game, I'm not entirely sure what his training situation is. But if he's still – I don't know if he's – he's over at Sanford MMA. So it's not his training situation in the sense that he's with a bad team, he's with a good team, but in the sense of the development of his game, Sanford's a great place to be, obviously, but he's going to have to,
Starting point is 00:27:54 he's got some work to do. He's got some work to do because Pierce is a very talented fighter. Don't misunderstand me. But what Pierce did is something that any really talented featherweight should be able to do, or I should say those skills are going to be ones that Morales is going to face in opposition pretty consistently over time. So if you can't handle it from Pierce as good as he is,
Starting point is 00:28:15 someone else is going to be able to pick up that baton if you don't address it. So Morales has some work to do, but it was a nice win by him. Your fight of the night, Volkanovski defeating, or excuse me, fight of the night, Volkanovski versus Ortega. And then your performances went to two prelim fighters, which is nice to see. Marab Diwalashvili got it. And then Chris Daukus got it. Nice work by them. Okay. That's it. Less than 30 minutes is what we promised, right? So hopefully we kept that up. Thumbs up on the video, hit subscribe. If you want me to add segments to this, or you want me to see any changes to this
Starting point is 00:28:46 or you got a great great great idea for a name leave a comment let us know like the video subscribe leave a comment give us some feedback on what you're expecting from this and what you would want to see timing name everything and we will get that done all right so thank you guys so much for watching episode one here a bit of a pilot. We'll do more of these every week. And until then, enjoy the fights.

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