MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - 🚨 Instant Reaction: UFC on ABC 2 Results: Marvin Vettori vs. Kevin Holland

Episode Date: April 10, 2021

At UFC on ABC 2, middleweights Marvin Vettori and Kevin Holland battled it out while Sodiq Yusuff and Arnold Allen fought it out in the co-main at the UFC Apex facility in Las Vegas, Nevada. --------------------------- '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

Hi everybody, it is the 10th of April 2021. My name is Luke Thomas and this of course is my UFC on ABC2 reaction video, my immediate reaction video. Appreciate everybody joining me. I'm going to get to the results for UFC ABC2, but for today's video, just the main event and a little bit of that co-main event, we're going to save the rest of the card and some of the bigger picture stuff, plus Bellator for Monday's Morning Combat. Of course, Morning Combat airs Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 11 a.m. in the East, live all three of those days. But just today, just a reaction video and just sort of the top of that card. Please give the video a thumbs up, hit that subscription, and I'm assuming if you're here, you're not here because you're worried about spoilers, but just in case you are, now's your chance to get out of here because spoilers are on the way. Yeah? You ready? Three, two, one. Okay, let's get to it. All right, so as I mentioned, there's a lot to get to with the entirety of the card, the entirety of the Combat Sports sports weekend, but let's start and really just focus in on for this video that main event. So your winner, Marvin Vittori, defeats Kevin Holland

50-44 across the board on all three judges' scorecards. He, of course, is your winner now. Five wins in a row. Puts him in an interesting position, which we'll talk about here, but let's start with the fight itself. How did he get it done? Listen, I mean, I don't know what you want to say. Kevin Holland took a gamble taking this fight, right? And the gamble was pretty obvious. Yes, if you take a fight three weeks after you took your last fight, you may not be that prepared for this one, and two losses in a row could be pretty bad for you in quick succession like that. Best not to do it, right? Maybe don't risk it. The other side is, yes, it is short notice,

and the opponent is even tougher, certainly more highly ranked than the last one. But if you win, it could, of course, erase much or all of the damage from the last loss. I mean, you'd be getting a win over a top five competitor at that point. There could be huge value to getting that kind of an opponent, and in a world where a lot of guys say no to opposition, getting the chance to fight someone that highly ranked would be pretty, pretty good,

but here's the problem with it, man. You didn't just lose three weeks ago. You lost in a way that enabled the person who beat you, in that case, Derek Brunson, to write something of a blueprint others could follow, especially if the time horizon between the first and second fights is three weeks. I mean, how much could Derek Brunson repair, excuse me, not Derek Brunson, I should say, how much could Kevin Holland repair the damage that was done in terms of, the basic question is this. How much better could Kevin Holland get in three weeks in such a way that Vittori wouldn't be able to follow the Derek Brunson game plan? And the answer is basically

not at all. I did not like Kevin Holland taking this fight. I know there is a lot of belief, with good reason, that consistency is a thing that you want to keep up. If you can get five fights in a year, take it. A lot of times guys only get one or two. Three is a number that a lot of them are satisfied with, but they often want more. And so getting that kind of consistency can be good for you. Being a name that the UFC can rely upon to call and have you answer that call is very, very important for the organization.

They tend to look very favorably on that. Remember, they've got this machine of content that they want to churn out. The folks that can enable that machine to run more nimbly and effortlessly are the kinds of guys that are going to get opportunities in this organization more often than not. So these are decent traits to have for the right circumstance. But this was not the time to double down. Vittori does not have a bad chin. He is huge for the weight class. Strong.

I don't know that he's the wrestler, so to speak, that Derek Brunson is. But he is plenty capable, you knew coming into this fight, of following the kinds of things that Derek Brunson did to win against Kevin Holland. And by the way, he trains with a good team. He's a decent to maybe even good striker in certain capacities. I just feel like it was a really bad miscalculation on his part to put himself here. Now, again, it's not the end of the world. He can take time to get a good camp, work on some of his deficiencies, and then get an opponent, look great, build back on that, take a fight a month later, and then some of this chapter of his career will be forgotten. But this was not well managed.

You just had to ask yourself, what would be the value in taking a fight after three weeks when you got kind of audited in that last fight and the guy you're saying yes to has the capability of following that audited path. I didn't like the gamble for him and it did not pay off in this case. Now, how did Vittori do it? Takedowns were key. Let me pull some of these numbers up here while I'm talking if I can. He was able to get the takedown basically whenever he needed it. I don't know how many of these numbers up here while I'm talking if I can. He was able to get the takedown basically whenever he needed it. I don't know how many of these were stuffed. We're going to find out here

in just a second. Yeah, he landed 11 of 17 takedowns. I think that was tied for the most takedown attempts in middleweight history. His control time, Marvin Vittori's control time, 20 minutes. The fight's only 25 minutes long. He held it for 20 minutes and one second. That means less than a round was at least neutral or Kevin Holland had a better position or some kind of a controlling position on top or against the fence. They have it for three seconds. They've got him in control positions. Three. Marvin Vittori, 20 minutes. They could have fought a three-minute fight and he still would have had an entire another round after that of control. That's insane. That's completely insane. Plus, he attempted 250 total strikes, and he just landed 24 significant strikes, so not a lot there, but he attempted 64.

Kevin Holland attempting 103. Technically, I should say numerically outstriking Marvin Vittori, 37 to 24, but obviously that's not really the story of the fight. The story of the fight is he couldn't stay on his feet. Marvin Vittori, I think, has very underrated takedowns along the fence line. I tweeted to that effect. I think that you'll watch him. He'll pull people off, move them in a direction,

and then switch directions in the last second to get them to go to the empty space he's now created. Plus, if you know anything about wrestling and you change directions through a takedown, it's almost like chaining two takedown attempts together a little bit. So he's really quite good at doing that. On top, he has just great pressure.

Kevin Holland is pretty good about not taking a ton of damage underneath, although that left eye got banged up. Kamaru Usman was remarking about the corner work, that they did not do a good job to put Enswell or otherwise address a problematic vision. I'd have to go back and see exactly. But Marvin Vittori did everything that he was basically supposed to. He did everything that... Listen, I said on Morning Combat on Friday, this was something of an IQ test.

You just saw a guy beat Kevin Holland with all of the skills you might need and have to get the job done. Again, Brunson is not Vittori. Vittori is not Brunson. But there's enough overlap in the way in which he got it done for Vittori to be like, okay, well this is very doable. Was he going to make the appropriate choices, the smart choices to do it? And that is exactly what he did. I know there is some criticism of Vittori for not getting a finish over Kevin Holland, which, okay, fine. You got a guy who came in on short notice and you couldn't put him away. But I'd say a couple of things. One, I just mentioned Vittori, excuse me, Holland underneath doesn't take a ton of abuse. He's

actually pretty good about that. He gets taken down very relatively easily, but underneath he doesn't get beat up so badly. And I'm just sort of flabbergasted by the whole thing, to be quite honest with you. I understand, as I mentioned, criticizing Vittori because he didn't get the finish. But in addition to being a case where Holland is good underneath, we've often seen situations where headliners, their opponent falls out last minute and then they get real risk averse or, you know, they don't quite look like themselves. They get the W, but it's not like all that great. You know, DC against Silva is a great example of that. Or, you know, John Jones against Ovid St. Preux. I know there's some broader questions about potential drug

testing issues there, but still, you know, it's not just cases where people who might have run-ins with USOD. It's happened across the board in multiple weight classes. So I tend to think this guy saw a path, and the path doesn't lead to blinding excitement or easy finishes or whatever, but it does lead to Ws. By the way, Kevin Holland's takedown defense is 51%. Not great, but the bigger story here is Marvin Vittori. So Vittori has now won every fight since the Adesanya loss, which was only a split decision loss.

He had a draw with Amari Akhmedov before that and one loss to Antonio Carlos Jr. who's no longer even in the UFC. So since that loss to Adesanya, he beat Mutonchi, Cesar Fajera, Andrew Sanchez. He stopped Karl Roberson and then he decisioned his last two fighters, Jack Hermanson and Kevin Holland.

So let's talk about some of the good side here for Marvin Vittori. You know, he does scream a lot. He does seem to be a bit of a bro slash meathead, but I got to tell you, I tend to think that the arguments about what that means for someone's fight IQ can sometimes be overstated. He made a lot of really good, smart, calculated, level-headed decisions. He even early had Kevin Holland kind of jibber-jabbering in his ear. He didn't let it deter him. He didn't try to fight fire with fire. He stuck to his game plan. This might seem to many to be like, oh, that's what you're supposed to do. Well, those are basic building blocks for folks who ultimately want to do great things. And I think, you know, it's generally speaking a

condition for winning, but you'd be surprised how many fighters, including good ones, including high level ones that sometimes can't follow through on those kinds of missions. It's not glamorous. It's not pretty, it's not easy, but it's the way to get a W. And, um, you know, I think following that in the way that he has speaks highly of them on top of that, again, physical for the weight class on top of that, again, physical for the weight class. On top of that, I think his striking has come around a long way. I thought for him, the double jab to get inside was really working for him for the most part. He didn't take a ton of big shots from Kevin Holland. Kevin Holland got, you know, he got a pound of flesh off of him with some decent

strikes, but in general, not really. In general, you saw good distance management. You saw good defense, whether he was slipping or using his feet or using his trunk movement he was able to get out of the way and then once he was able to get along the fence line as I mentioned he's got super underrated takedowns on uh along the fence and he passes guard he moves to Mount he moves to half guard he makes the person underneath work he knows how to advance that process both offensively and then in a fatiguing way to add difficulty to what the opponent is already facing. So I have a lot of respect for Marvin Vittori.

I think he's a very good fighter. The question is, would he deserve a title shot from this win? I don't think so. If you look at the current rankings, it's not an, you know, these can be obviously quite subjective and ultimately the promoters win. But if you just look at the rankings right now, middleweight, here's the rankings as they stand.

You've got Whitaker, Costa, Cannoneer, Brunson, Till, and then Vittori. Okay, Brunson's got the win. Till was out, so Vittori's probably going to pass him. So then you've got Cannoneer, Costa, and Whitaker. Now, Whit's probably going to pass him. So then you got Kananir, Costa, and Whitaker. Now Whitaker's going to be fighting Kelvin Gastelum. If Whitaker wins, I just don't know how he doesn't get that title shot. Let's say he loses, so now it's a little bit more wide open at the top. Costa won't get it. I'm not sure if Kananir has a fight, but they might do Kananir

Brunson, or they might do Brunson versus Vittori, or maybe they do Cannoneer versus Vittori. But here's the point. He has at least one more fight, I think, to be in a space where he can be called a rightful top contender. Maybe even two, depending on how it all shakes out. That was not the win as good as I think it was, and as much as I understand why the finish may not come. Also, you look at his record, he doesn't have a ton of finishes. You could probably make the claim that yes, coming in on short notice, your opponent changing can derail the best of efforts. At the same time, you might want to ask questions about Vittoria, whether or not he's enough of a finisher.

But what we do know is he's enough of a winner to merit not a title shot, but you could maybe argue a number one contender fight or certainly top three level opponent, something like that. I think that's the space he is currently in. He's not in top three, he's in top five, but somewhere a little bit above that is where he could probably set his sights on an opponent, but that's not quite number one contender situation. I guess the argument that I'm making is the prettiness of the win to me is not, and it wasn't very pretty, but that's not the determining factor in whether or not I side with Vittori in getting the title shot. To me, it's like, okay, maybe I'd count that if you were close enough, but you're not close enough.

There's another level here to get to. As for Kevin Holland, he was ranked 10th. That's going to drop him outside of the Weidman, Shabazian, Omar. Actually, I should say it's going to drop him into the Weidman, Shabazian, Akhmadov, Tavares, and Strickland portion of that division, which is still quite difficult, candidly. Do you like Holland's chances against Chris Weidman? I've got to tell you, I don't think that I do. I don't think I like that at all.

So that could get a little dicey for him, to be honest with you. So keep that in mind. And he just needs to work on his game, man. He needs to work on his game. Ten rounds here of being held down by guys in the division. And there's probably a lot of other guys who can do that. Weidman could do it maybe. Yes, he can get knocked out, but it's like, dude, what does Vittori offer that Weidman offers? I mean, Weidman might be the better pure wrestler, but Vittori can do most of that work and he's bigger and he's more durable like that's a tough guy to beat so maybe Wyman's more beatable in that sense but not by a whole lot Shabazian I think is still

looking for a recovery moment that could be an interesting fight Tavares can wrestle if he wants to Akhmedov can wrestle if he wants to Strickland of course would be on the feet as well but that would be a fun fight there still there's no easy outs for him. Middleweight is actually tough still through 15. Used to be it was only like the first eight or nine. Now all 15 are pretty tough, especially if you've got glaring deficiencies like that. Really, really, really think he's got to work on his takedown defense. You heard about the down block. We've talked about down blocking on dissected or technical difficulties a ton as it relates to Israel Adesanya being out of position, not being ready to down block. Khal Holland's got some of those issues too. Actually, much more pronounced, I would say. Adesanya has very good takedown defense along the fence line.

So we'll see what happens there. Let's get to that co-main. And in your co-main event, Arnold Allen defeating Sadiq Youssef, 29-28 across the board there as well. A very nice win for Arnold Allen. Sadiq Youssef, again, that's one of those fights where I'm going to have to really go through the tape and see exactly what the weapons were they were using and what the strategies were. So this is just obviously my, again, my instant reaction off the cuff. But the way it looked to me was that Sadiq Youssef is probably the better athlete, certainly the harder hitter, faster, that kind of a thing.

And I think he's a very thoughtful, smart, hard-nosed kind of striker. He's a little bit old school in that way, but he's got a new school game. Still, Arnold Allen I don't think has those kinds of attributes in the way that Youssef does. But he does have good modernity to his game. He certainly knows slouch as an athlete. And the thing for me was he just had more weapons. You know, he just had more choices to go with. It's not that he was more skilled at the things they both do.

He just had more areas to go to in a fight that made him a little bit more unpredictable he had good timing he was constantly timing off of the cross or the straight punch of Yusuf so he would let it go and as soon as he let it go he was either slipping and coming around it or you finding some other opening he was waiting until Yusuf was completely committed and then he was you know finding an option around that. But he had the takedown option. He had a little bit more options to pick in through

the ranges. Again, I thought Yusuf is more dangerous through those ranges, but he had he just had a lot of different looks to give, a lot of different weapons to go to. He slowed the fight down to his pace and then he used that diverse skill set to get the wins. If you look at some of the numbers from this fight, he got two of five takedowns. Those takedowns came both in the first round, but he

attempted a bunch in the third. The numbers are interesting because Yusuf outlanded him basically two to one numerically, 10 to 13 in the first one for Allen and then Yusuf. But after that, it falls off a cliff. Yusuf landed 18-9 for Allen in the second. And the third really came on. Just two strikes for Allen. Yusuf in the third. But what was kind of interesting to me was that even with those 16 strikes,

I'm not sure how many of them were really all that impactful. No one really put their stamp on that third round. It was a lot of clinching, a lot of wrestling. I thought Yusuf doing the most good work with the way in which it was fought. Not especially exciting, but he was able to sneak in knees to the thigh, the occasional punch at range, that kind of a thing. But it was the first two rounds, especially that first round with the takedowns from Allen, that kind of set the tone that showed he was able to control Yusuf.

He was able to find the clinching when he needed to, push him against the fence when he needed to, and then separate and reset. So it was one of these situations where it was like, it's not like a case of smarts versus not smarts. That's really not the right way to look at it. It's a case to me of Yousef. I do think, how old is he? He's not, I think he's pretty young, Sadiq Yousef. I have to look this up to be sure. Let's see. According to Wikipedia, he's 27. Yeah. He's got a couple more years, I think, to keep adding some stuff.

Because what he's got is incredibly potent. What he's got is just really, really, really... He's just, as I mentioned, in your face. Barrels down on top of you. Rob Kamen kind of kickboxing a little bit. They're very different styles, but he just reminded me, especially with that back leg kick he was going after. But I don't think he's really developed the other parts

that he needs to as much as he can. Like, what other threats are there in close range that he has? What other threats are there for the takedown? What are the threats if you take him down from guard? And there it's a lot of just resistance to get back to that same kind of position, which you might say about Israel Adesanya, okay, fine. You can do it if you don't lose fights like this. But if you're in this division, featherweight division, you know,

you've got to become, you just have to have more weapons because these guys like Allen, dude, he's just a Swiss Army knife. The blade isn't as sharp, you know you got to become uh you just have to have more weapons because these guys like alan dude he's just a swiss army knife the blade isn't as sharp you know uh you know maybe it's a buoy knife versus a pocket knife but at the same time if you can do more if you've got scissors and a toothpick and tweezers and you know everything else you're just going to be able to find that useful across many different circumstances plus ar, Arnold Allen already has very good decision-making. He understands when to press go, when to press the brake a little bit. Smart guy himself. Hasn't competed a ton in terms of how long he's been around. He's eight fights over six years or something like that, but now the wins are undeniable. Gilmer Melendez, Nick Lenson, Sadiq Youssef in his last three. The problem is they're just all decisions.

He hasn't had a finish since he beat Mads Brunel back in 2018, which, by the way, that's a very good win. Mads Brunel is a super good fighter. But there's just a little bit more activity you would want to see from him in terms of the arc of a calendar year and a little bit more oomph to it. But in terms of just managing rounds, managing the space, managing the exchanges, when you go first, when you go second, what you key in on as a counter fighting tool or not, he is just exceptional at that. So it wasn't the most exciting night of fights or afternoon fights.

You know, a little surprised they went with what they went with to open the show for an ABC show, but in the end, Marvin Vittori gets his hand raised, as does Arnold Allen. And Marvin Vittori, I think he's on a collision course with Israel Adesanya, but just not yet. A little bit more proving he has to do, and for Kevin Holland, a major reset moment, I think, is needed. Okay? We've got a lot more analysis to get to on Monday.

It'll be me and Rashad Evans, and you will react to this entire card, plus Bellator, plus whatever else is on your mind. So please give the video a thumbs up, hit subscribe, join us again at 11 a.m. in the East on Monday for Morning Combat. Okay?

Until then, see y'all later.