MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - 🚨 Instant Reaction - UFC 262 Results: Charles Oliveira vs. Michael Chandler

Episode Date: May 16, 2021

At UFC 262, former Bellator lightweight champion Michael Chandler fought Charles Oliveira for the UFC lightweight championship. In the co-main event, lightweights Tony Ferguson and Beneil Dariush locked horns for supremacy of the 155lbs division. Shane Burgos faced off with Edson Barboza, Matt Schnell fought Rogerio Bontorin and Katlyn Chookagian tested herself against Viviane Aruajo. '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: store.sho.com   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

Hey, there we are. Sorry about the delay there. Hi everyone, my name is Luke Thomas. It is, technically, it is the 16th of May. It's Sunday morning here on the East Coast in Los Estados Unidos, and this is the Morning Combat UFC 262 post-fight show. As I mentioned, my name is Luke Thomas. I'm with CBS Sports and with Showtime. And then we're going to go for the next 45 minutes, maybe an hour or so, detailing the results of UFC 262, which just wrapped. It is now in the books.

So we'll get to the results. We're going to largely focus on the main and the co-main. And then we'll do some stuff with the rest of the main card, but not a whole lot beyond that for this particular program. And obviously, Brian Campbell's not here. He's out in California right now doing the boxing broadcast on Showtime, but we'll get his analysis on Monday to see what he had to say. And again, there can be a bit of a discrepancy between what I say on Saturday night or Sunday morning, and then the fights or the morning combat show on Monday. All right. Okay. So if you don't want spoilers, now's your time to go.

All right, let's get this party started. Okay. To be continued... the plunge. We so greatly appreciate your patronage. All right, so without further ado, let's turn this off. Let's get these results up. Okay, so I'm assuming you're here for results analysis. I put up a tweet. It's the most recent tweet that I have. If you want to leave a question underneath that, I'm at LThomasNews on Twitter. I don't know if I have my social stuff, but it's in the description box below. If you put a question in there, I'll get to it. All right. All right. Okay. Here we go. What can we say about this? Let me pull up Fight Metric too. Michael Chandler loses in the main event. He is defeated by Charles Oliveira at 19 seconds of the second round. The method is TKO.

That makes Charles Oliveira the new UFC lightweight champion. It looked to me like that, based on the reaction that he was giving, Charles Oliveira, that this is easily one of the happiest moments of his life and maybe the crowning achievement of his professional career. He's been in the UFC all this time and, well, nearly lost in the first round, nearly got stopped, and then finds a way to just go in there.

I think he landed, it was a left or a right hook, I forget which one it was in the second, and then it completely rocks Chandler. He follows it up and then ices him with punches. It's not that Chandler has a bad chin. I've just sort of noticed, I don't know how scientific this is, but I've noticed that punches that land on the jaw, they don't seem to have necessarily the most effect on him. The ones that land on the temple, which of course is a sensitive place, or even the side of the head. Those seem to have a little bit more effect.

Will Brooks had some success with that. I think even Pitbull had some success with that. It's not so much here as it is up here. That could be total bullshit. I really don't know if there's any scientific evidence for that. But it just seems to follow that pattern. So let's talk about the first round. Basically, Michael Chandler looked pretty good eventually.

So he's doing well. He's moving. I thought Oliveira was getting somewhat the better of the stand-up in the very early stages of the first round, standing tall as we had expected that he would, right, because he's not so much concerned about the takedown, and it gives him use of his knees and all kinds of counters for pressure, and eventually, Michael Chandler gets in a bit of a scramble with him. He tries to sit for a guillotine, can't get it, and in a scramble, gets his back taken. Now, through his back being taken, he actually stands up at some point, jumps in the air,

tries to fall back onto his own back, which of course now has a Brazilian Charles Oliveira attached to it to somehow break up the stranglehold, and it did not work, right? You can imagine that it would only keep it stronger. He had a body triangle on, and a guy like that is going to keep close attachment. there's not going to be separation between his chest and the back of Chandler too much and he's tough like you know those things rarely ever work so Chandler has to end up spending a lot of time hand fighting uh to make sure he doesn't get his you know throat snatched up and get rear naked choked and does actually a very, very admirable job.

Now, I need to go back and watch the scramble after that. But basically, what he's able to do is he's able to create, I think, again, I have to go back and check, but he had two-on-one connection with his hands. And he's just able enough to create a little bit of a separation between the person who has their back. And then rather than creating symmetry, he's got some asymmetry.etry and from that angle he created a scramble then stood up then from there he went right into the guard of uh charles olivera and was pounding on him like it was you know he was really kind of giving it to him there to the point where I don't remember if there was a... If they ever got... You know what?

I don't know exactly. I have to go back and look at some of the details. But in any case, there was savage ground and pound from Michael Chandler. I think he had landed some on the feet as well. Certainly earlier in the round, if not later. He had done serious damage to Charles Oliveira. He was in a bad way to the point where I thought there may have been a moment there. He had landed his own hook on the side of Oliveira's head.

And I thought that fight might get stopped. I was like, Jesus Christ, man, he is pounding on this guy. So he was in a bad spot early, but the submission was never close. It was never like there was ever a rear naked choke that was locked up and he had to fight his way out of it. That was never the case. There was good control, but the control didn't ever really amount to anything. So you would have given him the round if Chandler hadn't rallied, but he did in a substantial way. And because defense is its own reward, yes, you have to account for Oliveira getting the back,

but without the second part of that, which is a real submission threat, the work that Chandler did was ultimately a lot better, a lot more impactful. So I gave Chandler the first round 10-9. Goddamn, now I need to go back and see this thing. What actually happened? Hold on, let's see here real quick. I got the thing on mute. I hope this doesn't mess up my connection. Hang on, hang on, let's see here real quick. I got the thing on mute. I hope this doesn't mess up my connection.

Hang on, hang on. Let's see. Yeah, it's the first round here. Yeah, they went back on the, it's the beginning. Oh, Chandler got kicked with one of the calf kicks, and I thought for sure he'd be a goner. I thought it was going to be a Brent Primus situation again, but it didn't seem to have much of an impact.

The leg kicks didn't play as much of a role as I thought it was going to be a Brent Primus situation again, but it didn't seem to have much of an impact. The leg kicks didn't play as much of a role as I thought it might. I thought that depending on what range it was in, definitely Oliveira landed a few, but it wasn't really round or fight defining. This was about who could land punches. Chandler going really low. I think trying to mix in level changes or having a low stance, and then going to the body, trying to bring the hands down, and then eventually getting up.

And he was trying to push back Oliveira and get into range through that process. But Oliveira was pretty good about it here. I'm going to fast forward. So here he is. He has the back. And then eventually, Chandler is going to create a scramble. Let's see what he does here. He's on the same side as the choking arm, which is the knee of the body triangle.

He goes two on one, explodes over, and then gets out. Yeah, that's exactly what he did. So then he avoids any submission. He gets back. No, sorry. Oliveira stands, and that's when he rocks him at about the 2-0. Let's see here. I'm watching 2-0.

Nope, the 1-57 mark. Let's see here. I'm watching. 2-0. Nope. The 1-57 mark. He hits him with a nice left hook and then a right hand nearly stops him. That's when eventually Oliveira goes to his back. And then you just see ground and pound from 1-48 on. So I'm like, dude, Chandler is coming out looking like a million bucks in the first frame, right? Let's get back to this so I can see what the hell's happening. Whoopsie. Here we are. One second. Sorry, I have a couple of

issues here. All right. So he comes out in that first round. I'm like, dude, he looks tremendous. And then he comes out in the second, and it's really none of those things. Here's what happens in the second, in case you missed it. Let's fast forward here as I look. You just kind of can't believe it. I'll go over the numbers here in just a second. 19 seconds is all it took.

So the round starts and I believe Chandler was going in for a body shot. I believe he was going in for a body shot and then as he lowered it and stayed in range, I think maybe even you had Oliveira stepping in with his punch. Again, I have to go back and see to be sure exactly. Here we go. Now I've got to play it up here. It helps to have some of the highlights. I apologize. I can't show them to you.

So, yeah, Chandler jabs, backs up. Oh, that eats a huge left hook by just staying in space. He doesn't touch and go. He stays right there, and he eats a, let's see here what it is one more time. He jabs, backs up, jabs, stays in space. Oh, golly. And Oliveira cracks him with a left hook. So just a phenomenal job by him.

And dude, Charles Oliveira is a tremendous finisher. You know, we did not do any kind of resume review. Here, I'll pull this up here. We did not do any kind of resume review, which I'm sure for some of you, that's quite the relief. But, you know, Charles Oliveira would be a really great candidate. We might do one for his next fight in which you're like, oh, you're guaranteeing him to lose. Okay, I don't believe in that bullshit, but if you want to, you certainly may.

But I think we can all agree his journey to this position is remarkable, making his debut in August 1st of 2010 on the Jones-Matushenko card. You've got to be kidding me. Beating Darren Elkins, Efrain Escudero, losing to Jim Miller, no contest with Nick Lentz. Losing to Cerrone, beating Eric Wisely, beating Jonathan Brookens, losing to Swanson, losing to Edgar, beating Andy Ogle, beating Hatsuhi Yoki. That was a big win at the time. Jeremy Stevens, Nick Lentz, now things are getting to turn a little bit, but then he loses to Max Holloway, but then he beats Miles Jury,

loses to Pettis, loses to Lamas, beats Will Brooks, by the way, the other Bellator guy. How about that, right? And he submitted Will Brooks, so he beat both champions who came over here. Someone send Brent Primus, let's see what happens. And then Paul Felder, he loses to, but then that's when things, he writes the ship again. He beats Clay Guida, Christos Guiagosos he rematches jim miller of course jim lowe is a little longer in the tooth at this point and that fight was in 2018 but he wins that he submits him to in fact beats david tamer beats nick lance and you know whatever the third fight this is at this point beats jared gordon stops both of those guys with

strikes submits kevin lee defeats tony fergus, and then knocks out Michael Chandler. Dude, holy shit, what a resume. You want to talk about a trial by fire. This guy in his 20s was out here fighting absolute hammer after absolute hammer over and over and over again. And he did it while missing weight, at catch weights, you know, all over the place. And there's performance of the night bonuses sprinkled throughout. There's fights of the night sprinkled throughout. But this guy had one of the roughest roads imaginable. And honestly, you know, if his career had ended, let's say, at the Paul Felder fight, or even, you know, I would even argue a few fights after that,

Clay Guida, Gallagos, or Miller, somewhere in that space, he wouldn't reputationally be where he is. He certainly wouldn't be champion, of course, but I just mean reputationally. Things begin to turn for him where you're like, well, not only is he a submission threat, he has experience, he understands what to do in bad positions, he understands how to have presence of mind when he's hurt. I mean, understand something about this first round. How many times did you see Charles Oliveira in previous fights, and there's a lot of footage on him,

get hit with some hard shot, body shot, whatever, and then just kind of crumble and wilt? And here he got kind of close. I mean, don't get me wrong. Michael Chandler stuck him with a good one. But the truth is he held on. He used what strengths he had. He rolled to his back. He began to engage with his guard, using his feet, using his hands, trying to cover up, trying to extend his body,

create distance between himself from michael chandler like man that's a guy who has learned a lot from his mistakes it's not that the the weakness per se went away it's that he built other strengths around that weakness right so he is still he's still susceptible to you know um i think physical and intense wrestlers can still give him problems in that way. So he's still susceptible to it if they can land. But all the things he can do around that to protect himself and to think and problem solve in real time in that way, that is extremely impressive. It is extremely impressive. And, you know, the guy has had, I'm not going to say every fight was a top five guy, but improving himself and getting better and trying to figure things out. It took a long time, man.

So he didn't really round the corner until he was, what, 28, 29? Something like that. I mean, I feel like every week I come on here and I'm talking about guys who we have to, on the part of the media and the part of the audience as well, we have to say, and of course this is a little bit more telegraphed, we knew from the previous wins that we were getting something pretty special. But in terms of what it ultimately amounts to, man, when you meet guys in the UFC, you have to be very careful. If this is the old days where they're signing guys from Pride who are pretty established, it's a bit of what you see is what you get. But in this newer world

where you're not really acquiring top talent from other elite organizations of a comparable size and stature, and instead you're building up potential really elite guys, but it takes a lot of time and there's going to be a lot of mistakes. You're not going to see a lot of padded records. I mean, this guy's record, 31-8, and he only became a champion after 11 years. He yet still is, as Joe Rogan indicated, the most, I'll say, successful submission artist in UFC history. And only now, through all that adversity, was he able to claim these accolades. I bring this up to say, what, 31-8 record. Dude, would you pay for a pay-per-view if a guy in boxing had a 31-8 record? You would never pay for that.

You'd be like, why am I watching this motherfucker? I guess maybe if he was a YouTuber, some of you might do that. But in general, if you're watching elite boxing and see a guy with a 31 and 8 record, you're like, this dude is mega washed. He's not that good. In MMA, it can be totally different. It's a situation of growth and the difficulty of the division and the murderer's row of guys he's gone through. It's just absolutely shocking how many former champions in this organization, former champions in Bellator, as I mentioned previously, different styles, guys who've got good guillotines, good wrestlers, good cardio, guys who are lanky, guys who are short and stocky, strong ones, weak ones, fast ones, slow ones, the whole nine yards, man. This

guy has seen every color of the lightweight rainbow, so to speak, and not every time he got his hand raised, but it molded him into something pretty special. I will say, I think after all of that, the training and the fights and everything else. You know, I wonder how long his youth, now leading into experience, will hold up as... Like there's this union that he has, right? Where he's not too old. He's still quite young. 31 is still pretty good.

And he's able to not have the damage wear him out yet. How long can he keep that balance? Because there is a fair amount of it. And as we'll talk about when we're in the co-main event, I don't think we talk a lot about the damage that Tony took over his career, Tony Ferguson. And we probably should because I think it actually plays a big role. So there's broader questions here at Lightweight about who is actually the best Lightweight. Is it Conor? Is it Dustin Poirier? Is it Charles Oliveira? Charles,

obviously, is your rightful champion at this point, given how things have played out. We'll need to see. I don't know exactly how long the title reign, frankly, of any lightweight not named Khabib Nurmagomedov is going to be. But for tonight, for tonight, he is your UFC lightweight champion. And he was threatening in the early parts of the first. He showed incredible resolve and resiliency to not get finished after getting hurt. Regrouped in the second, came out, wasn't gun shy, didn't panic, didn't drastically change the game plan. Whipped a left hook around the corner on a guy who didn't move out of range enough and kept his head on the center line

and then polished him off. You know, he has really, really, really just made himself such a tremendous threat. He can wrestle a little bit. It's not the hugest part of his game. He can scramble some too. But, you know, he can find the back effortlessly. He can pass effortlessly. Michael Chandler has never been submitted, showed I thought pretty incredible

and patient and diligent hand fighting and submission defense, but Charles Oliveira, man, he's going to be an interesting guy no matter what because he has put together so many interesting and highly offensive skills, right? Like finding the back, total asymmetry, very accurate punching, good jab. He lands with authority, by the way. Like his power is good at 155 pounds. Good cardio, totally experienced against everything 155 pounds minus Habib Nurmagomedov could throw at him. He is going to be a force to be reckoned with. I tend to think Dustin Poirier, a fight against him could be interesting. Connor could be interesting too. Connor could be lights out with his striking early, depending if he can,

you know, make a career rebound heading into this next Dustin Poirier fight. But holy shit, what a job by Charles Oliveira, man. He's a guy that I have been slow to come around on, in large part because, again, even through 2018, yeah, 2019, he beat David Tamer and then Nick Lentz. Even in 2019, he wasn't beating guys deep into the top 10. It just sort of got there after that. And in 2020, kind of put it all together. His last three are the big ones, obviously, right? Chandler, Ferguson, and Lee, and then Jared Gordon before that. So like, even through 2019, he wasn't necessarily fighting and beating all of the very best guys that lightweight could throw at him. But he was slowly leveling up. And all those guys between Guida and Tony, he stopped all of them.

I think that's when you know he's beyond them. If the argument was just before the Kevin Lee fight who did he beat you know he's got some nice wins on there but maybe not enough to say that you know you could identify him as a future champion uh if it was just who's on the resume when you look at the fight complexion itself and he's finishing all of those guys you know that he has he has really moved beyond how you have previously understood him at that point. And that's why he then beat Kevin Lee and then Tony Ferguson and Michael Chandler. Now, I'm not prepared to make this argument, but I wonder if some might.

If some might say, right, but he got Kevin Lee, who's error prone. Tony, who is, we'll talk about in a second, you know, old for the division. I think that's pretty fair to say. And then Chandler, who's not old, but we'll see whether the Dan Hooker win was fluke-ish or to what extent did the Bellator experience got him ready for this. Is there some kind of way to suggest that the last three wins, if you're an Oliveira observer, are those as good as we think they are? I tend to think that they are. I tend to think that the way in which, again, Kevin Lee beat him in two different dimensions, basically.

Tony Ferguson beat him in two different dimensions. Michael Chandler didn't beat him on the ground, but gave him a little bit of a hard time. Although he had a hard time himself there at the end, and then beat him up standing up. So he constantly finds ways through fights to be dual threats. Let's look at some of the numbers here if we can. So this is, that's interesting, they don't credit, they don't, oh sorry, they don't credit Chandler with a knockdown, that's interesting. Okay, so first round, they have Oliveira 10 punches, 10 significant strikes, I should say, excuse me, out of 15. Michael Chandler, 28 of 51.

Round two, Oliveira, 14 of 17. Michael Chandler, 2 of 4 in the first round. They also credit Charles Oliveira with a takedown. And they credit Chandler with a sub-attempt. I'm not sure what that is. And then they creditler with a sub-attempt. I'm not sure what that is. And then they credit him with a reversal. Not a whole lot of useful information as it relates to striking. What about landed by target?

Charles Oliveira, 83% targeting to the head, 4% to the body, 12% to the leg. That sounds about right. And then for Chandler, 73% to the head, 20% to the body, 6% to the leg. Interesting. As for Michael Chandler, again, I'm not really sure exactly what it says. He looked awesome for the most part in the first round. Is there an issue with, you know, taking punches to the side of the head? I guess we'll have to see how things go.

Certainly, I think fans know and can rely on him for an exciting fight. You watch Michael Chandler. They're usually never boring. I thought for sure, and I tweeted it out earlier, this guy, when he fought Goichi Yamauchi in Bellator, he had no problems going into his guard. If you guys don't know who that is, he's a Bellator lightweight. He's really good.

Obviously, no two fighters are alike, especially when they're completely different parts of the world. But Goichi Yamauchi is a, you know, he has a fantastic guard, really good jiu-jitsu. He's kind of like Bellator's Oliveira, sort of. And Michael Chandler went right into his guard and gave him problems. And I was like, okay, you might be able to do that to Oliveira. Sure enough, he did. But, you know, in boxing range, that's funny. You know, I thought for sure if the fight was going to be in boxing range, that would be to Chandler's benefit. But the reality is he couldn't get in and out quick enough. Oliveira could read it and then time the exit,

and there's not enough of a grand movement on the exit. That left hook's going to fire to you. Sure enough, boom, did exactly that. Pretty, pretty impressive. Pretty impressive stuff. So I think Michael Chandler, you know, we'll see. Maybe he gets the loser of Connor and Dustin, depending on how things go. That doesn't sound right. Maybe if Dustin loses, he gets Dustin. I don't know if he would get Connor if Connor loses. I don't know what they're going to do with that if Connor loses. But we'll have to see.

I still find him a very relevant player. Whether he'll be champion in this organization, I don't know. But Charles Oliveira, not only champion tonight, Bellator killer, right? They keep sending him Bellator Bubbas and he keeps knocking them down. Pretty interesting. All right, let's go to, if we can here, let's see. Let's go to the co-main event. And again, if you've got a question, we'll come back to this fight. We'll answer whatever question you have. Just leave it for me on Twitter, please, in the last post that I have. All right. So, we go now back to the co-main event from tonight.

Excuse me. Benil Dariush defeats Tony Ferguson. He got booed. 30-27 on all three judges' scorecards. Okay. What to say about this one? Not great fight overall. First round was fun, but by the time it became evident that Dariush was going to get Ferguson down without too much hassle, and that once on top, Ferguson couldn't meaningfully extricate himself from the situation, it did not turn out to be the most entertaining fight. But I can

understand Dariush's position and why he would pursue the fight in the way that he did. Am I entertained by it? No, of course not. I wasn't massively entertained by it. But that was the most important fight of his career by a million miles. I mean, think about it, right? This was a guy who had been previously viciously KO'd by Edson Barboza years ago. And for him to find himself in this position against an opponent this credentialed, that's a big deal. Big card, big spot on the card, big opponent. Sometimes it just creates situations where the fighters are a little

bit risk averse. I don't know how else to say it. Sometimes it happens that way. But listen, he was in compliance with the rules. He was clearly the better of the two. It frankly wasn't even that hard for him. He didn't do a ton of damage to Tony, but once he had the control position, Tony wasn't really getting out of it. Interestingly, if you go back and you watch, I think I did a...

I either did a dissected or did a technical difficulties on Ferguson's fight with Oliveira. And in it, you'll note that in the second and particularly the third round, Ferguson gets to a point where he's able to invert underneath and stay out of trouble for the most part. Like he was in real trouble with that. It was an arm bar, I think, Ferguson had against Oliveira, but he didn't submit. But in the second and third rounds, you didn't see Oliveira get nearly that close to anything of that ilk. And it's because he's actually pretty good about inverting and then having some decent defense underneath. It's unusual, but it does work for him. And you saw that here, but Jesus Christ, man. Listen, I was having a sort of a moderate back and forth with Danny Segura.

I don't know what the truth is. And at this point, you know, I'm not even sure that it matters. But this idea that, like, Tony was the guy all along to give Habib the toughest fight, I think that should be reviewed a little bit. And the standard response to that is, well, Tony, you know, that was different before than he is now. You know, certainly I think that that is true. But like, to me, Tony doesn't look quite at, like, here's the problem. All of us would agree that Woodley in that four fight losing streak just looked totally lifeless. Now, Tony took a really bad beating against Justin

Gaethje. That part is true. And he was controlled by Oliveira and then controlled tonight by Darius. But I don't feel like Ferguson is showing the same kind of apathy almost that or you know what do you want to call it just coma you know uh no it's not comatose what's the word i'm looking for catatonic you know kind of look on their face i mean he's engaging these guys the best he can i think there's an argument to be made and i will make this one i think that it is true that do that damage he took against Gaethje, I don't think he ever recovered. I don't think you can recover from that, honestly. When it goes that long and it's that bad, you're never going to be the same. That doesn't mean you can't win again, but the same?

No, you left a piece of yourself out there that night, and there's simply no denying that at this point. I think that beating was bad, but honestly, dude, even before that, if you're in the four range for strikes of sword per minute, that is extremely high. And he kind of had just this unbelievable chin. You go back and you watch the Michael Johnson fight. Dude, the reality is you can think of a lot of times

Tony was bobbing and weaving. He actually had some good bobbing and weaving in this particular fight early in the first round. But in general, I can remember a lot of fights, too, where guys were landing hammers on him. The Venata fight is another one of those. But you could pick out a bunch. Even Dos Anjos landed a bunch on him. Tony just kind of mowed through it. He can't really mow through it anymore. I think it has an effect. And dude, getting your arm stretched the way he did against Oliveira and then to get that heel hook, it was an inverted heel hook. So rather than the heel hook being on the same side and then rolling it, right, a little bit, that's what's

like a regular heel hook. The leg is cross body and now I'm sending the knee in this direct, well, I'm sending the knee in this direction, while I send the ankle in that direction, the inverted heel hook is way worse. It is way more destructive. It is way more painful. And Tony wasn't even really fighting it off. Like, you know, you would think he might be kicking the hands apart because if you can pop that grip with your hands, then if you can pop their handed grip with your feet,

there's no heel hook. You can't really do it. He did it a little bit quite kind of at the end but you know goddamn he is insanely tough to not tap to either olivera's armbar or you know that heel hook but uh between that and then the ferguson fight excuse me what i'm saying the ferguson fight the gaichi fight and then all of the accumulated damage before that it's just it's it has an effect on your psyche i, it has an effect on your psyche. I think it has an effect on your enthusiasm.

It has an effect on what your body can do. It has an effect on the decisions that you make. And I think that is all real. I don't want to in any way say that, dude, there's just, what do all economists say? There is no such thing as a free lunch. You cannot get hit that many times and bear no consequence. Again, the numbers between you and me and Tony and whoever else,

how many punches you can take, everything's going to differ. There's going to be a lot of individual realities to that. But dude, the guy has taken a metric ton of abuse. And of course, that's to say nothing of the surgery he had to get on his knee and all the delicate things that come from there. And then I think Dean Thomas had brought this up as well. Listen, here's the part about where I comment on this. To me, the damage argument and then the age argument are very real. They matter. They're part of the story. But it also seems to me, and I think

Dean Thomas was kind of hinting at this, the division kind of caught up with him. He had a big lead on the division, in part because he could take damage, in part because he had this sort of style that he just brought into existence by force of will. But you can't do that with the state of the division today. After all those injuries, after the age, and then as the division kind of gets better, right? You can only keep your lead on the division for so long before it just goes away or it gets answered

or other guys exceed it. It's natural. It's part of the experience. It's what happens. There's nothing in any way kind of you can agree or disagree with my thesis here but like the idea of that kind of thing happening to a fighter is

perhaps absent in this particular context in no way controversial that's what I think has happened you know Woodley to me got really old overnight you know just kind of overnight and then just seemed out of it. And he had all those distractions outside of fighting.

There's a bigger, broader story there. And obviously there are some similarities, and I want to say that there's no meaningful comparison to what Ferguson was going through and Woodley as well and how their experiences played out. There obviously are some similarities, but I don't agree that Woodley is showing, excuse me,

I don't agree that Ferguson is showing a similar level of lifelessness that Woodley showed. That's not what I see. I just see a division that caught up with him. There are just a lot of other guys in the division that got a lot better, and there was a time where he was the guy that was better than a lot of them. And he took his time to get there, right?

Early to mid-30s. It took him a long time to kind of work up to that particular skill level. And he had his day in the sun, for sure. He accomplished many great things. But to me, it looks like age, damage, they've accumulated, and the division has caught up. And that's just what it's going to be. You know, you're asking, like, where's the refuge here?

You tell me. Where is the refuge at 155 pounds? You know, I mean, good luck. There's not a lot of easy outs there along the way ask Charles Oliveira he'll tell you you know of course yeah you know he's fought in a couple weight classes but you get the idea um so that's what I think about what happened to Tony you know and again him second and third round inverting not taking a ton of damage wasn't the worst thing in the world kind of boring but it's not the point the point is why couldn't he why couldn't he do more I did by the way think

that Tony did a really good job of preventing the pass with his guard in the first round ultimately didn't amount to much but he had good defense underneath too in terms of rolling with punches so like he actually did a pretty good job. I mean, that's part of the reason why the fight was boring was that he actually gave Benil Dariush a good defensive effort and didn't get overwhelmed. So the fight kind of had this stasis that just hung there. As for Dariush, monster win.

Monster win. I think he's a lot better than folks realize. I know he got booed in this fight, but let's sort of review his resume here for just a second. Informally, anyway. You know, here's the win streak he's on. Tiago Moises, Drew Dober, Frank Camacho, Drakkar Klose, Scott Holtzman, Carlos Diego Fajeda, and now Tony Ferguson. Now, for him, he's had some decent wins before that. He had the Jim Miller win, the Darren Cruikshank win. He's beaten Carlos Diego Fajeda, and now Tony Ferguson. Now for him, he's had some decent wins before that. He had the Jim Miller win, the Darren Cruikshank win.

He's beaten Carlos Diego Fajeda twice. He has wins over Rocco Martin, but he had the loss to Barboza, the draw with Dunham, and then he had the loss to Alexander Hernandez. Can you believe that? Plus he had that horrible loss, as I mentioned, to Barboza, the KO, the flying knee, just a terrible one. That sent him on a tailspin. He lost two, or drew and then lost one after that. But he kind of righted the ship. But even then, here's another case where, okay, if you had stopped just before

the Carlos Diego Fajardo rematch, there's not necessarily the most impressive name on there. But Scott Holtzman, he KO'd. Dracar Close, he KO'd. Frank Camacho, he submitted. Drew Dober, he submitted. Then Tiago Moises, he controlled'd. Frank Camacho, he submitted. Drew Dober, he submitted. Then Tiago Moises, he controlled and basically won the whole thing. So he didn't have exactly the same run of separation between himself and the pack that Olivera had that we talked about, all those finishes. But you can see it's a pretty similar kind of trajectory. So we're now in the last two.

Carlos De Gea Fajeda, I have to take very seriously. I think he's a very good fighter out of Fortis MMA. Massively improved. One of those guys who was not all that great necessarily in his 20s, but kind of figured it out in his mid to late 30s as well. I'm not sure his exact age. He is 36, right? So in the last couple of years, early to mid 30s, he kind of got it right. And he's become, I think, a very good fighter. And now he's got Tony on his resume. By far, by far the biggest win. As I mentioned, big card, big placement on the card, big stakes,

and he got the job done. So we're going to see how the rest of the division plays out. It's going to be interesting. Let's look at the stats for that as well. Be curious to see the control time here. Oof. 12 minutes, 15 seconds for Benil Dariush. Yeah, that's a lot.

How many takedowns did they credit him with? Let's see. They credit him with one in the first, one in the second, and one in the third. He was one of two on both attempts. Folks, I got to tell you, that's a great number for Dariush, but it actually says a couple of things. One, not only was he able to get the takedown with not a lot of effort, you're 50% for your attempts in all three rounds. That's pretty good. Note that there weren't multiple takedowns. He didn't need them. First round, he gets the

takedown. He gets three minutes and 40 seconds of control time. Second round, he gets the takedown, he gets 3 minutes and 40 seconds of control time. Second round, he gets the takedown, he gets 4 minutes and 4 seconds of control time. Third round, he takes him down, he gets 4 minutes and 31 seconds. Over the course of the fight, he added almost, on average, a minute of control time per round. On top of what he was doing previously. So X plus that. That's insane. The fight got easier for him as it went along, not harder in terms of control. Not a lot of offense. Tony landed seven to Dariush's 10 in the first. Ferguson two punch, a significant strike I should say in the second. Dariush not much better at six.

And then Tony at six in round three. Dariush with seven. But again, having four minutes and 31 seconds of control time. It's going to be very, very hard to win that way. Super hard to win that way. I don't know if Dariush is exactly going to be the champion. But he is going to be, this fight notwithstanding, an exciting addition to, where would he rank? Let me see what the rankings have to say. Let's see. Currently,

so Dariush is sitting at nine, Hooker at eight, Dos Anjos at seven, McGregor at six, Ferguson at five. He might leapfrog McGregor. Chandler sitting at four. Chandler might fall out. I think Oliveira is going to jump Poirier and Gaethje, so that's going to push them down a little bit. Yeah, dude, we're talking about fights in that space, in that Poirier-Gaethje-McGregor-Dos Anjos kind of space. That is interesting. That's a huge win for him, dude. He was sitting at nine, and Ferguson was sitting at five.

He might take exactly that place. He might sit at the top five. Big win for him, man. That's why he fought the way he fought. I mean, you could argue he should have fought a different way for your own entertainment. If you want to make that argument, it'd be nice if he did. Most of the time, in fact, he does. But this time, he asked informally, so to speak,

for a mulligan from the audience in terms of the fun of the bout because all of his other ones have been exactly that. By the way, that post-fight speech, he seems like a nice guy, huh? I do think Benil Dariush seems like a very sweet person and a very nice guy. But? I do think Benil Dariush seems like a very sweet person and a very nice guy, but that wasn't the most insightful post-fight comment I'd ever heard. Although, you know, I have celebrated my balls as hot, so perhaps I should not take such a dismissive position. Okay, elsewhere on the card. And again, if you have questions about it,

we'll come back to it. Rogerio Bontorin defeating Matt Schnell. That's an interesting fight. We'll skip that one for now. You know, Bontorin, I didn't have it 30-27. I thought that was a bit strange. 29-28 was a little bit better for me. Schnell doing a pretty good job for the most part

of lateral movement. Tons of feints. He had Bonterin, I think, very much taking his time, but that had thrown Schnell off. So he's almost like the feinting, I'm not going to say it was too good, but

he wasn't putting offense behind it and it was slowing the fight down to the extent that Bonteran couldn't get going. But that actually ended up tripping up Schnell because I think he wanted more of an open, you know, kind of fight. Caitlin Shukagian, who had a really, was part of a really interesting moment in the news cycle for her Twitter likes. Defeated Vivian Arujo, 29-28 and then 30-27. I didn't understand 30-27 at all. I thought actually you could make an argument that Arujo won, but what are you going to do? And then very quickly, Edson Barboza defeating Shane Burgos

at 116 of the third round, man. Jesus Christ, what a fight. Barboza showing phenomenal counterpunching. Shane Burgos always committed to the bit in the way in which he likes to compete. He gets hit a lot. You know, he does get hit a lot. That's why he lost this fight. That's why he lost the Josh Emmett fight.

He's insanely tough. I mean, that guy is just old shoe leather tough. And he made it fun. But you've got to really put Barboza on his heels, man. If he is not struggling to get a stance with structure in it, he's going to set you on fire. And you saw it here, dude. It's not just his kicks.

Although early on, I thought the fight might have been stopped in the first based on the success that Barboza was having with his leg kicks. But it wasn't to be. Point being is, you know, you really have to push him backwards. And everyone talks about the Habib fight with Barboza where he got taken down. But folks forget, dude, Justin Gaethje knocked that guy out in half a round in Philadelphia by putting insane pressure on him and pushing him backwards. It was a masterclass. And you just, if you don't get that, if you don't really get him on his heels, like truly on his heels, he's going to be a hard guy to beat. And

dude, the phenomenal counter-punching, the body work, the putting of the hands and the feet, the combinations together, the accuracy. It was really, really great work. Because Burgos had moments too, right? Burgos had the issue where I think he had checked it and had cut the leg of Barboza. He had landed some hard shots of his own. Barboza, man, you know, I don't know if he's going to hold a title at 145. Probably not. I was skeptical that any kind of reinvention would be possible at 145.

And still, I don't know that he's reinvented himself exactly. You know, he did lose to Dan Ige. And then he beat Makwan Amirkhani. And then he won this fight in spectacular fashion. We'll talk about the finish in just a second. 22-9. Again, if you saw there was a guy on a car for boxing that was 22-9, you'd be like, ugh. But, you know, his 22 and nine is completely different.

Anyway, point being is, for Edson Barboza, he hits Burgos with the right hand and Burgos gets right back to moving. He eats the right hand, boom, he gets right back to moving and then kind of backs up a step and then backs up another step

and then stumbles backwards and his head like hits the canvas and then he rolls over face down and his eyes go like goo goo and he got finished off. I'd never seen anything like that. I'd seen guys have like a bit of a delayed reaction you know, before

but not one where they get hit, go right back to framing off and then moving and you know, they're kind of doing their thing. And there's, like, several seconds that elapse before there's any kind of thing. It's like it took a second for the punishment and whatever it does in these fighters' brains

to, like, work its way through. But work its way through, it did. And, you know, losing to Dan Ige, split decision, no shame. By the way, I thought he beat Paul Felder at UFC 242 at lightweight, but neither here nor there. Two wins here. I'll say this, you know, Edson Barbosa, I don't know if he reinvented himself, but I'll say this, he has definitely extended the life of his UFC run, for sure. It was a bit of a dead end for him at lightweight. And, you know, is he brand new at 145 pounds?

Is there some kind of like change in the way he fights that's, you know, a function of 145 pounds? Not exactly. He's physical, obviously, at 145. Physical, 155. But I do think that he has just sort of found a way to still be competitive. And that enables him to have some wins in this organization. And now, two in a row.

Pretty spectacular. All right, let's see if you guys have some questions for me. Bomp, bada, bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp. Let's see. Go to my profile. Okay, there's 70 in there. Let's see what you got. Hear me out.

Max versus Charles Oliveira on the Conor versus Poirier card. What say you? I don't know if that's the right fight to make, but I love it. I absolutely love it. I would love to see them run it back. The first fight was weird. Oliveira just kind of crumbled.

He had some neck issue or something. They'll never do it, but I love the idea. How explosive and powerful is Chandler to be able to break out of that body triangle on the first dude? I told you guys this. It's actually one of the last few times that I've rolled. It has been a long time. It's been years at this point. Well, I guess I rolled after that.

But, you know, one of the reasons why I stopped rolling was there was this dude, and I think he was like a white belt and we were doing drills where it was you know either getting out of the back you know or trying to get to the back I forget exactly the mechanics of it but this guy was trying to take my back and I was trying to press in and turn into him come to find out he was a division one wrestler you know so like he's a white belt only in the most euphemistic way possible he was strong as shit and i dislocated my toe my not my big toe but my second toe uh just trying to push and so i had to step off the mats i had to pick it up and then like you know drop it in there um i'm just sort of pointing out like that's not even you know it's not even like a ufc level you know bellator champion level fighter that's just

a dude who wrestled division one in college and it was so hard for me to keep him down that i dislocated my own toe in the process dude they're fucking animals man i mean if you're a european watching this i don't know exactly how you view when we as americans or you're a European watching this, I don't know exactly how you view as Americans. Or you're Australian or Canadian. Maybe the Canadians are. Maybe Canadians, no? But if you're from overseas and you're watching this, you're like, I don't really understand what Division I is. Let me just explain to you like this. This is not totally true.

There are exceptions to this. But this is basically true. basically what it means is that if you were an absolute fucking stud in high school in athletics, um, you got to go as, and when I say stud, I don't mean like, oh, you're the best player on the team. I mean like you were absolutely massacring your rivals, you know, like if you're a wrestler, multiple times state champion or, you know, football team, you know, you just absolutely fucking demolishing these guys like one guy if you guys have ever have you ever seen somebody who actually went on to the pros which division one is not the pros but they go on to the pros in high school you can tell you've

seen zion williamson in the high school just fucking dunking on these mortals they don't even know what they're dealing with it's not quite like like that for Division I. But if you are part of that elite level, you go Division I. In fact, Zion Williamson went Division I for Duke University, part of the NCAA system. It's reserved for, not in totality, but in general, the best athletes and the best teams and whatever that American college athletics can find. Now, he was a walk-on there. He wasn't recruited, so that's a little bit different, but he ended up being an All-American, which means he finished top eight at a national

tournament in whatever year he got that in. Dude, those guys are fucking studs, man. They're just absolute animals, total animals. And the minimal amount of training experience I have with him has told me like, Jesus Christ, they are not who you think they are. And I know this to be true because Chandler has told me this to my face. Dude, do you know what he walks around at when he's not in camp? Like at his biggest, right? He walks around above 190 pounds. My man is, you know, a lightweight and nearly gets to two bills. You know, so I don't know what he is on fight night, but he was lean as shit.

Super muscular. I mean, yeah, dude, they're fucking, it's, you know, the amount of speed you have to have and then strength to apply that position, like the explosion you have to have, and strength to apply that position like the explosion you have to have and then to and then to keep turning with your force you're in this you're in this mechanically disadvantaged position and yet you're the one who ends up on top by virtue of just sort of dominant force and will it's crazy man it's just crazy do you like the potential for more title holder flux now that we have a seemingly less dominant force than Habib's reign? I think it adds a bit more zest to each title fight. It's like 205. Listen, man, do I, I've underestimated Jan Blachowicz before. Would it surprise you if

he lost to Glover Teixeira? You know, would you be like, oh my God, how the fuck did that happen? No, I mean, you might think that Jan might win and Jan might win. Jan may even be the favorite to win. I don't, I haven't even looked like it's not so crazy, but if he lost, would you be like, I just can't even comprehend that? No, of course not. Like there's going to be parody, you know, when a figure as dominant as John Jones leaves light heavyweight or could be four, one 55 or, um, George St. Pierre leaves one 70, the title gets, you know, passed around a little bit and guys, And guys, they might rack up one, two, three title defenses, sometimes four. And that makes them a little bit different once they get to that three and four stage.

You might see Oliveira defend the title one more time. He might beat Dustin Poirier or something, or Conor McGregor. Who knows? But do I think he's going to be the champion for the next three, four years? No. No. The lightweight is way too wide open. Does all the total strikes Shane has taken in his short and exciting career and recent war

assisted in that delayed power of Barboza? Yeah, I don't know what it says medically. Probably nothing good. Do you think fighters recover from calf kicks faster than they used to recover from thigh kicks? Even when calf kicks made someone limp for a while, if the kicker stops throwing, then the recipient seems to get back to moving well, barring the nerve. You know, I actually think that they recover... Okay, so if it doesn't hit the perineal nerve, no. If they're done right, they actually can last.

All of them can be bad if you absorb enough of them. But I've actually heard from multiple fighters they would much rather take it to the thigh because they can handle it better. Partly that might be a pre-conditioning issue. Like they're just conditioned above the knee versus they're not conditioned below the knee. But I can just tell you anecdotally, many fighters have told me that. Someone asked what's going wrong for Tony.

I'm going to say age, I'm going to say damage, and I'm going to say the division catching up. What does Ferguson do now? I don't think he needs to retire. He took a fucking hellacious beating against Justin Gaethje. You know, if he had lost, if his first loss, you know, after that long win streak, if it had been the Olivera fight, you'd be like, damn, that was, you know, that armbar was bad. But, you know, okay, it wasn't your night. Get back out there.

And if he had lost to Dariush, you'd say, okay, maybe there's an issue here. Was it your night? But you can get back out there. And then imagine that the most recent loss that he had was the Gaethje loss in all the ways that the Gaethje loss was what it was. In fact, a terrible, horrible fucking beating. Would you then change your mind about whether or not Tony should retire? I think I probably would a little bit because it'd be escalating in the wrong direction.

To me, actually, you know, that knee is going to be fucked up from him. But in general, he didn't take hardly any abuse in this fight. The knee, again, was bad. But, like, you know, he wasn't getting punched in the brain a billion times here. He just didn't. Again, I really think that we got to be real careful about what we say in terms of how similar this is to what happened to Tyron Woodley. So I think that his days as a top lightweight are probably over, but I don't think that his days as a competitive lightweight

are necessarily over. But he has some major questions to ask himself, and I think we need to recognize 37 years old at 155 pounds, it's going to be hard to consistently win. It's going to be hard.

Should Tony retire for his own health and safety, considering that he will probably never win a title or even get a title shot again? Retire, I don't know, but I do think he should have an exit plan. For sure. What to say of the career development of Doe Bronx? Remember when they said he would be the Brazilian John Jones? Think of his records held. Is he close? The Brazilian John Jones? Think of his records held. Is he close?

The Brazilian John Jones? No. He has a gazillion losses. He won't ever be that. But as we indicated previously, his story has been one of triumph after astronomical amounts of adversity. Not just in life, but through his UFC run. Several, several big setbacks. While Oliveira's win was undeniably impressive,

did this performance do anything to unseat Dustin Poirier's unofficial status as the best lightweight in the world? Not to me, but I think we have to entertain an argument that he is. I cannot declare to you that the argument for Dustin being the true best lightweight is overwhelming. I actually cannot make that argument. I think it to be true, but I don't know it to be true. Was it just me, or did Tony look quite a bit slower and older than the Olivera fight? Slower, yes.

Yeah, maybe. Yeah, he's slowing down a little bit. What's the hardest fight for the champ? Gaethje, Poirier, McGregor, or eventually Islam? Islam's a bad one. I would say Poirier more than the others, but I would love to see any of them. By the way, you could do Justin Gachey, Mike Chandler,

if he wants to wait a little bit more. There's a lot you could do. Are we seeing a cowboy type exit from Tony? Will he be able to get back to prime Tony Preghetti? No. No. It's not, I don't, I, you know, there's not many things I firmly believe, I firmly believe that that is not possible. Seems like Chandler Gaethje is the fight to make, right?

If they can line it up in time, yes. How much are you surprised by the method of finish for the Oliveira versus Chandler Gaethje is the fight to make, right? If they can line it up in time, yes. How much are you surprised by the method of finish for the Oliveira versus Chandler fight? It wouldn't have been my first choice, but I can't say I'm overly surprised. Someone says you could do Charles versus the winner of Dustin and Conor. Okay. Benil versus Justin Gaethje. That's a hell of a fight. Chandler versus Tony. You could do Charles versus the winner of Dustin and Conor. Okay. Benil versus Justin Gaethje.

That's a hell of a fight. Chandler versus Tony. You could do that. And then Islam versus Gregor Gillespie. If they can make that, it would be amazing. What are the chances that anyone ever breaks the record of becoming champion 11 years into their UFC career? Exceedingly unlikely. It does tend to take time for the most part, but if you had to wait 11, chances are you're probably, I think

mathematically most of the time we would say, if you had to wait 11 years to get to a position where you could claim a title like this, you know, you're probably not the top candidate to claim a title like this. And yet, here he is, defying expectation. How do you think the top five match up with Oliveira? Justin, I think, matches up well. Dustin, very well. Max, pretty well. Darius, I don't know.

That's an interesting one. Connor, well early, but if Oliveira gets a takedown, pretty well. Darius, I don't know. That's an interesting one. Connor, well early, but if Olivera gets a takedown, forget it. Did you find it funny that Darius was thanking Jesus while the crowd were booing? I don't know if funny is the word. Was Olivera hurt in the first round? Yeah, dude, that punch landed hard. For sure. For sure.

How does Dustin do against Oliveira? I think he's going to be working really well behind that jab. I think he's going to stuff most of the takedowns. And I think that his power punching will do the trick if he can avoid heavy leg kicks. That's going to be a big problem for him against Olivero. Can we say that American MMA fans are just hyper-patriotic nationalistic? They booed and chanted USA at Grundy from UK. So claims of racism, xenophobia being behind Zhang being booed

may have been overblown. There were even USA chants during round one of the main, and they booed Benny. Yeah, I go back to this all the time. I was at the fight when Yuki Kondo fought Trevor Prangley, and the crowd chanted USA, USA, even though Trevor Prangley is South African. So, you know, are they nationalistic?

Yeah, sure. Are they as bad as the Brazilian crowd? No, they're not. You know, it drives me crazy when American fans, or I should say American fighters go down there and they like genuflect before the Brazilian audience only for the Brazilian audience to, you know, give them nothing, no quarter whatsoever,

pray for their death, and they're like, it's so great to be down here. You know, I'm not saying you have to call them names, but you could maybe leave the pandering alone. It was great that the ref didn't stop the fight, talking about the main event in the first round. Yes, could have gotten, I didn't think it was ever that close, but I thought a few more shots would make it close. The most illustrious, grindiest run to UFC gold ever.

Grindiest. It might be the grindiest. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Yeah, probably. Probably. How about them judges tonight? Dude, there were several cards where i was like what the

fuck are y'all talking about just total the the lando vanada scorecard just absolute ass sorry someone corrects me inside heel hook, not inverted That's correct, yes The arm break sound on Jacare was Was bad It was really bad I one time It was the only time this ever happened to me, I one time was rolling with a guy,

and I was doing crossbody Kimura, and I rotated his wrist a little bit, and his elbow was fine in the end, but he tore something, and it sounded like someone had taken celery, and then just shredded it with their fucking giant hands. It was extremely unnerving to hear, like,

how things shred. Although his injury wasn't that bad, but still, I felt bad. If Khabib was waiting in the wings, which he's not, for a performance to impress him enough to bring back, like Daniel lied about months ago, do you think Oliveira's performance was good enough to accomplish that? To entertain Khabib, I don't think to threaten him in a way where he needed a win over that guy for some kind of status. But I would love to see that

fight because I think on the ground it'd be kind of interesting. But, you know, that's not what we How long have I been going here? Let's see. Yeah, long enough. Alright. Okay. I appreciate everybody watching. Do me a favor. Thumbs up on the video. Hit subscribe.

Morning Combat will be back on Monday. 11 a.m. in the East. Me, Brian Campbell. You. And we East. Me, Brian Campbell, you. And we'll talk about everything we saw here tonight. You got a question or a comment, email me, lukethomasnews at gmail.com. Thumbs up, hit subscribe. Thank you guys so much for watching. And until next time, get some sleep.