MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Luke's Top 5 Fights of the Weekend | Extra Credit Ep. 21

Episode Date: May 24, 2022

Luke Thomas is back with Episode 21 of Morning Kombat Extra Credit to break down his five favorite fights from the weekend.  (2:10) - Tye Ruotolo vs. Garry Tonon (7:00) - Chase Hooper vs. Felipe Colares (14:00) - Uros Medic vs. Omar Morales (20:00) - Akhmed Aliev vs. Darrell Horcher (23:00) - Chidi Njokuani vs. Dusko Todorovic Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. What's up everybody? Luke Thomas here. One half of your morning combat duo here with a little bit of extra credit. Episode 21, this is where we go over the stuff that we didn't quite have time for on regular MK. Thumbs up on the video if you're watching on YouTube, please hit subscribe and of course if you're listening on podcast platforms, we appreciate that just the same.

Now, we're going to shake things up here a little bit. Normally what I do is I give you sort of five other fights that happen from the same. Now, we're going to shake things up here a little bit. Normally what I do is I give you sort of five other fights that happen from the weekend. Sometimes I like them, sometimes I don't. I'm still going to give you five fights, but I think from now on, I'm going to rank them from five, which all of them will be ones I like, but we'll go five, four, three, two, one. And what I'll do is I will... When I say my best fights, I don't mean the fights that were always the most competitive back and forth. Yes, those will be included here. And they will be included every week.

But also just the fights that I like the most. The ones that brought me the most joy. The ones that I found really entertaining. The ones that I found the most intriguing. These are my choices. This is my list. There are many like them. But this one is mine, if that makes sense.

Feel free to disagree. Feel free to agree. Feel free to have whatever different take you want. But from now on, I'm going to give you my top five, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and that will be what it is when we do extra credit. Okay, so for today, we're going to go over the course of basically not the entirety, but I'm going to pick from, anyway, three different events. I will, of course, talk about UFC Fight Night 206, which, of course, was the one at the Apex, and Holly Holman, and, of course, Ketlin Vieira. We'll go to Eagle FC 47. I'll pick one fight from there, and then I'll also pick one. It's hard to call it a fight, although depending on what language you speak, it's a fight. One championship, 157. Now, that was mostly some Muay Thai. I know Rod Tang was carving people up and whatnot, but I'm going to pick from that card because A, I don't think we have enough one

coverage at one in combat, and two, I actually really enjoyed it. So without further ado, here are my top five fights from the weekend that I like the most. Number five, again, I will normally not do this, but I don't want to exclude this event. And in this event, this one was just shocking to me. How about Ty Ruotolo defeating Gary Tonin in, what, 97 seconds via darts choke? Unbelievable what he was able to do. Dude, the Ruotolo brothers, who I think are like Puerto Rican and Italian or whatever, this was a pure jiu-jitsu match. Let me say something first. Those two guys, if you look at their accomplishments, most of what they've done has been

really interesting, but it's been somewhat of the junior level or somewhat smaller competition. Some IBJJF stuff, but a lot of it at Brown Belt. Some professional jiu-jitsu stuff like WNO and whatnot. But for me, I cannot say that I know the entire history of Tai and Kade Ruotolo's grappling history, but this win over Gary Tonin has to be for Tai.

If not his best win, certainly up there. And the kid was born in what, 2003? So he's 19? I mean, these two are about to start murdering people in jujitsu, first of all. I mean, dude, it was kind of funny. Gary Tonin got in this particular match. And dude, I have a lot of respect for Gary Tonin. I've attended one of his seminars personally. We all know what he's done. We know how good he is. Dude, for him to get thrown around the way he was, and then for Ruotolo to just basically jump on him,

find the darts immediately in this position transition, and then seal it up, Gary had nowhere to go. Just shocking. Just a total shocking event. It would not have surprised me if Ruotolo won, even by submission in that way, but to do it so effortlessly, to do it so quickly, I think that truly did surprise me, if I can be honest. I did not see that coming. And I want to say something about one, and this is why they're

going to start getting more coverage here at Morning Combat, not just on Extra Credit, but the big Morning Combat as well, which is, dude, I realized this was not MMA, this was pure grappling, and I don't know what this was not MMA. This was pure grappling. And I don't know what this might mean for any MMA potential future for either Ruo Tolo Brothers, who, you know, are at the very beginning of their black belt campaigns in sports jiu-jitsu. So it may mean nothing. I don't know what this will mean for Gary Tonin, who, of course, was coming off a loss in an MMA fight in one previous to this. But one does more to either offer a product that's different by virtue of its rules with the way in which it does scoring, and not by round, but as a whole,

or in allowing for a more elaborate rule set that allows for things like knees to the head of a downed opponent, that kind of a thing. They do more in terms of that, plus the Muay Thai in the cage, and now the scrappling in the cage and the cage played a role in this one too because Gary got kind of thrown up against it and then pressed there was a sort of action near the cage

and so that limits some of your movement again you go back to Fedor being triangled by Verdun part of that is that the cage played a role the point I'm trying to make is whether it's you know it's not like a hearkening back to pride

and their system isn't exactly a rule advancement but I have to say it is a differentiation and then this I was very skeptical that other things could work in the cage in the way in which they've done it with the smaller gloves and Muay Thai and now grappling but they keep finding ways either sort of clever match

making or whatever and you could say that his brother Cade had an easier matchup against Shinya Aoki, and that one would have produced more action, right, because there would have been a significant difference in skill. Fair enough that I would have believed that. I would not have believed that necessarily for this one, and you still got it. So it's not just matchmaking. It's a little bit more magic that they've got going on

and identifying premier talent who will really go for the fitness up. They clearly hunt it. So whether it's offering a product that's different meaningfully, like who has the most different product, Bellator, One, or PFL? I would say One has the most different product. Now, whether that's the right product for the North American market, we will see. I don't know. But I have to say, between that differentiation and then this iteration with the grappling and then the Muay Thai and whatnot, again, because Ra-Tang was on this card, they had the whole flyweight turning on this card, it's a real different product.

I didn't think you could get MMA fans to like those kinds of things in that way. But they have found a way to make it useful. Again, partly smart matchmaking, partly the right kind of talent identification, but a lot of it is just maybe it's a good idea in the way in which they've done it. And no matter who you plug in, but you have a pretty wide swath of who you could plug in and get very good action. This was a tremendous event on Friday. That match in particular between Ruotolo and Tonin, shocking result, but super exciting just the same. So we'll see what happens there. And again, it happened in an MMA promotion, so I included it here. Going forward, this will be fairly rare. All right,

my fourth favorite fight of the weekend. How about Chase Hooper versus Felipe Colares? Now, the results of this one are pretty interesting. If you look at the actual time of it, it would go something like this. Chase Hooper getting the submission at just three minutes of the third round. I should say into the third minute of the third round, the three-minute mark, rather. Either way, what was the story here? Listen, a couple things that I really liked from Chase Hooper. One, he appears to be filling out a little bit. I think he's been in the weight room, or at least he's done.

Obviously, he's put some kind of effort, not just into being fight-shaped, but to maybe slowly but smartly bulking up, because strength, he's got a lot of limb length and he's got a lot of ability, but strength is going to be a pretty key component. I still don't think it's where it needs to be. I think he's going to have to put on perhaps weight that he may not desire for his natural movement, but he might need it when he gets to the upper end of however far he goes. Against whatever that limit is, you're probably going to need more strength than he has today. But again, he's still a very young kid, so no big deal.

But again, I do think there is evidence that he is beginning to fill out a little bit in that regard. So that's good to see. Obviously, he got the win. And he got the win via TKO. He was submission hunting, but it wasn't there. His coach tells him in the third, leave it alone, keep pounding on him. And that's what he did. And he got the win. So he was listening to his corner like there was a lot to like here. The only part that gives me trepidation, and again, we're grading on a curve here. Chase Hooper, we just talked about Cade and Ty Ruo Tolo being very young. Chase Hooper, 22 years old, he was born in 1999, so he's very young as well. Still, what I would say is, in addition to some of the physical tools

beginning to develop in the right way, there's much more that needs to be done in that regard. The other part is, I wouldn't call it fight IQ necessarily. I just feel like he has to fight a slightly different way. I would not want to change him completely were I advising him or if I had any kind of say, which of course I do not, but let's say that we did. You wouldn't want to make him become a striker or something or just totally abandon what makes him good. He likes the scrambles. He likes jiu-jitsu. He has long limbs. He can find things in a lot of interesting ways. But the problem with this kind of ongoing, iterative jiu-jitsu fight where you're switching positions and one's coming out on top and now there's been a reversal here and a change of fortunes there

is that, yes, usually he's going to win those over time, especially with, I think, the appropriate matchmaking that the UFC is giving him. And it was full of excitement. Please don't misunderstand me. But what I would say is there's a ceiling to that. Unless you've got, dude, even if you've got Charles Oliveira jiu-jitsu, there's a ceiling to that. You know, look at Charles. Like, he didn't get to be where he is by virtue of just really getting good at jiu-jitsu for MMA, although he is very good at jiu-jitsu for MMA, although he is very good at jiu-jitsu for MMA, it's also with all the other things he's brought along. And you could say, well, look, we can't put Charles Oliveira hopes on Chase Hooper, nor am I trying to.

The only part I bring up in saying Oliveira is this guy is a weight class, or he was the title holder. Let's call him the title holder for just the sake of argument. He's the best 155er in the world that we are aware of. Even that guy, as good as he is, cannot rely on just that alone. There has to be a lot more that goes into it, other kinds of things. I did see some times punching his way into the clinch, stuffing a takedown at times, or really finding key positional moments to land some ground and pound. Like, there was clearly a more concerted effort at ground and pound this time, and a lot of it worked. Again, finishing him off in the third round the way that he did.

I only bring this up to say is that flowy jiu-jitsu game, as good as it can be for you, the reason why fans love it is because there's all these twists and turns, and yes, the better one usually comes out on top, but in MMA, one mistake can make you eat heavy, heavy punches. And they start giving him guys who aren't going to like accommodate him in the ground in that way where they're going to break posture and get away. You know, now you're in a bit of trouble. Now you have to go back to those second and third order skills. And to me, that part is still very much in development. So the story for me from this fight is he's beginning to fill out.

There was more ground and pound. I did see some other scenarios where he was not forcing necessarily this kind of iterative jiu-jitsu process, but a lot of this fight was spent there. Even if he was able to come out on top, this is not a strategy by itself that will scale up evenly as he progresses through the ranks. There will be a point where the costs of that style will potentially outweigh the benefits. And it's at that point where you really have to say, okay, what else do you have? That's why you're going to want those other things being brought along the process. Or he could just get even an infinitely better jiu-jitsu and maybe some of these things aren't as relevant, but I tend to think that's probably less likely.

What's more likely is that this kind of thing will work less as the competition gets stiffer. So it's best to not immediately slowly phase it out or slowly dial it back a little bit to where you have a much sturdier base. You have better... I just spoke to Demian Maia and he told me something kind of interesting. There will be an interview out on Morning Combat about it. And what he said was, if you look at some of the Russian guys, and what they go for is they try to keep you down, a lot of wrist ties, and then they really try to go for the submission only after they've just absolutely bludgeoned you.

When they can see that you're really panicking or really hurt or ready to give up. So it's not just that it comes later in a fight. Sometimes it can happen earlier in a fight. But he said that's very different from his perspective, which was to get to a position and then immediately hunt for the submission, like don't waste any time. Those guys don't mind taking their time dishing out punishment, he noted, because they're waiting for your will to fade. Will in a fight is significantly important.

I shouldn't have to state that, but for those who might not believe it, skills are important too, but will that matches it can overcome a lot or can be a very significant component to defeating someone. What you saw in the third round was a diminished will from Felipe Colarge by virtue of the ground and pound that Chase Hooper was unloading on him. So the point there I wanted to make is in thinking about that jujitsu versus sort of Habib style, what's some of the difference? Part of the reason why Habib had as much success as he did in terms of applying submissions is, yes, he's good at them. But also he would, you know, for example, the Justin Gaethje fight, it didn't really hammer him into a state of unwillingness to compete. But in other ones we've seen, like, for example, Islam Makachev and the Tiago Moises fight fight, like, he hammered that guy until there's just, you know, he just really kind of just didn't

have the same will anymore. I would like to see Chase Hooper get into those jiu-jitsu scrambles a little bit later following the will of his opponents being taken a little bit from them. I think that's the only part for me that stands out a little bit there. Okay, for our next one, my number three fight on the list. How about Uro Shmedich taking on Omar Morales? Uro Shmedich, this one was on the prelim card as well. He wins at the second round, 3-0-5. Omar Morales, a good, good kickboxer. Uroch Medich coming off of a tough loss to Jalen Turner. Now, Jalen Turner's got his work cut out for him. He's going to have to take on Brad Riddell in his next fight.

But it was a big setback for Medich, who I thought looked awesome on the Contender Series and has looked awesome in most of his career except for that last fight. Now, Jalen Turner, it turns out, is a really great fighter. Not perfect by any means, but he's got a lot to offer when he's offensively dealing. This was a bit of a comeback fight. And Omar Morales, he was kind of up against the two here a little bit. He had lost to Jonathan Pierce in the loss to Giga Chikazi. He did have a win over Shane Young, but that was all the way back in 2021. Here we are in 2022. What can you do? Dude, Uros Medich, it's funny. This fight to me was largely even-ish.

What I mean by even-ish is that Medich was busier and was landing more, but it wasn't like the fight was getting out of hand for most of it, right? But then it got out of hand. Here's what I noticed. Medich, a couple of times, was trying to find a home for that left hand. He was standing in a southpaw position. And he got really, really close, but it was a little bit off, a little bit off. And I noticed his footwork, his feet. Again, I'm not saying, I'm sure he knows this, but whether he was consciously aware of it in the middle of the fight is a different

story. But if you notice, his lead foot off it in that first round was to the inside of Morales' lead foot. Now, they often talk about, you know, you need to his lead foot often in that first round was to the inside of Morales' lead foot. Now, they often talk about, you know, you need to have a lead outside foot position when it's southpaw versus orthodox. You do if you want to land the straight, but you don't if you want to jab. In fact, it shortens the distance of the jab if you have the lead hand, the lead foot inside, right? So, and by the way, you can also throw with the rear hand with your foot on the inside. You can do almost anything in almost any pattern, but some things set up others better than, you know, depending on the context.

So in the first round, you'll see him try to throw that big left, and he goes just short, just a little bit off. It grazes, it whiffs by the head of Omar Morales. Change that to the second round when they're dealing, they're going back and forth, he's setting up with leg kicks, he seems to find it. He takes outside lead foot position and then the left, which he still loops around a little bit

because I think he fainted at first, it comes around and cracks Morales. And from there, he fired it again and then a third time. You could argue that maybe the fight should have gone on, but Morales didn't really fight it that much when the referee told him. He was a little bit surprised, and I was like, eh. And then he got up, and his face was a bit of a mess. So this was a win that I think Medic really badly wanted, really badly needed, and made good adjustments between the first and second round to find a better lane for his left hand to really bring it to life. And once he did, fight over. Fight over. That kid's

good, man. He's really, really good. The loss to Jalen Turner, what can you say? Jalen Turner's a good fighter. These guys, they fight. I mean, he's another paid professional athlete. Sometimes a guy like that's going to be a tough thing to deal with. And Medic saw it, and you heard him talking about how much he had been in the camp, and the guys wrapping his hands. Couldn't believe how messed up his hands were. You know, I believe that. I completely believe that. That he, this really mattered to him and he really needed it.

And it forced him to get to a point where, you know, he just had to find a way to win. He had to find a way to get overall better, yes, but he really wanted to make sure he could find some kind of thing. And he didn't rush it in this fight. He didn't just go out there berserker mode. He consistently applied something and then tweaked it and then it worked. That's basically it. Kept himself safe for other parts of it. There were a couple times where some of the long range stuff from Morales was landing. There was a couple times where Morales was chasing a punch as Matic would circle away. So then you saw Morales try and throw a kick to intercept.

That had a little bit of effect, but he couldn't. Let me pull up the numbers here if I can, because what seems to me is probably that the overall work rate somewhat nullified what Omar Morales wanted to do. Because in terms of skills, it seemed relatively even-ish through most of that contest. Yeah, there's not a huge difference. First round, Omar Morales throwing and landing 17 significant strikes, met it's 24. So he numerically had four, probably got a little bit the better of it. Second round, not much difference. 16

strikes landed. Significant strikes landed for Morales. 23 for Uros Medich. No takedowns attempted or given, but he gets two knockdowns targeting. Omar Morales, 54% to the head, 24% to the body, 21% to the leg. Uros Medich, not too much different, but spreading

it out through the body a little bit more 44 percent of the head and then he targeted the body 27 the leg 27 so he's targeting the body and the leg evenly and then you know the rest of it still the majority of it but still well not the majority you know I guess a plurality or whatever uh that 44 percent representing the the biggest number of all three but nevertheless really distributing both guys do again both guys doing it just seemed to me that Morales was headhunting a little bit more and a little bit less active. So Medich did himself a favor by not merely finding good attacks and then fine-tuning them, but just kind of staying on rhythm a little bit more, staying on pace a little bit more, putting Morales on the proverbial and sometimes literal back foot,

and that was all she needed. That was all she wrote. Amazing, amazing job by Orochmedic getting back in the win column over a good striker who deserves to be taken seriously. By the way, he has great tattoos. Orochmedic is still very much a guy

worth paying attention to. He has a very high upside. All right, we go now to my number two fight. This one, I would have put it first, but my first one I love so much. This comes to us from Eagle FC 47, Ahmed Aliyev taking on Daryl Horcher. Now, Daryl Horcher, you guys might remember, was the guy who, I think his fight was over in 30 seconds, basically KO. Horcher was the guy that was one of the fights that was supposed to be Khabib versus Tony. And it ended up not being because Tony fell out.

I forget which one of them it was. And then, you know, I mean, Khabib Nurmagomedov went to work on him. So he didn't have the greatest UFC run, but he's a good fighter. They gave him a shot here at Eagle FC 47. Ahmed Aliyev, folks. I think this might be the... I've only seen him fight a couple of times. This one was impressive.

So he was standing orthodox. And you had Horcher standing southpaw. So it's an open stance fight. Horcher is essentially turning clockwise. Aliyev is moving away. But Aliyev is moving away. But Aliyev is doing something a little bit different. He is bouncing up and down, changing his rhythm, fainting, sometimes circling out, sometimes circling in

to set up different strikes or different feints. And he's bouncing up and down. And dude, he was waiting for Horcher. Horcher extends too far on a punch, on actually his left cross. You see, this is the setup, or excuse me, this was the finish. It was incredible by Aliyev. He slips the punch, so the left hand goes past him.

He comes back with an uppercut. It misses just a little bit because actually Horcher stepped into it, and it kind of smothered it a little bit. But it didn't matter because even though it smothered it, he walked right into position, left hook rings his bell, delayed timing, right hand comes down the pike, sits him down, two finish up shots on the ground, and it was over. Dude, and it happened in the blink of an eye. Slip, uppercut, left hook, right hand, done. It was awesome. Awesome. Ahmed Aliyev had a fantastic showing in this contest.

This was big bank take little bank, 84s and candy paint. You've got to be kidding me. Phenomenal execution. The only part of it that wasn't that great was, again, the uppercut. Just missed a little bit off the slip. But, you know, again, I want you guys to pay attention to something. It's when he slips like this, he doesn't go too far. It's just enough to load his weight so that when the arm goes past,

he can then shift his weight back to either the center or to the left, depending on what he wants to do in the combination. But because he's on that leg, he can shift and come to the uppercut. And then, again, all that does is then cock this back, not in a telegraphed way, to then bring the left around. Anyway, you get the idea. It's his weight shifting defensively to set up the next shot as each one comes down the pipe.

It's just remarkable what he's able to do. So that was a really, really pretty combination. Really loved that. And it was a really, really pretty combination. Really loved that. And it was brutal and effortless and quick. I would have put it my number one. But my number one I have to give to Chidi Njokovani. Chidi Njokovani taking on Dusko Todorovic. We're back now to UFC Fight Night 206.

An absolutely phenomenal contest. He wins this one via KO elbow at 448 of round number one. Dude, Todorovic had the right attitude. He had the right attitude. He was looking for the takedown. He was looking for the takedown right away. Let me pull up the numbers on this one as well if I can. He couldn't get it.

Now, he got pretty close a couple of times. They credited him with two takedowns, seven attempts, so it wasn't like it was very efficient, but he was kind of smothering. He had three minutes and 13 seconds of control time. So again, not necessarily on top per se, but leg riding, kind of between him and the fence, controlling wrist. It's sort of, of the two, the more dominant controlling position, although Njikawane is credited with about 50,-0 seconds of control time himself and even a sub-attempt. But what was the real story? The real story was Njikawane, even though he gets taken down, doesn't stop trying to wrestle through.

Is basically able to get back to his feet. And then from there, they clinch. And as they slide apart in the clinch, an elbow comes over and I can't, my shoulders are all jacked up and this one's been repaired and this one's up, so I can't quite turn the angle anymore in the way that I once may have been able to. But I want you to pay attention. The weight of Ndrakiwane, if you watch it from the angle of the back of Todorovic, you might miss it. Watch the angle

from the back of Andrew Kalani, where he shifts his weight over and then brings the elbow arcing, I mean, right to the temple slash side of the head, right where you would exactly want to place it. And folks, I don't need to tell you how hard this part of your elbow is. I mean, you hit somebody with it, you're going to do some serious damage. Dude, is it not, is it me? We've always seen people say, hey, keep your hands up on the clinch break. I mean, we've seen it a million times, right?

You've heard it a million times. You've seen it a million times. You've heard coaches talk about it. I mean, it's not new. None of this is new. But it does feel like this year that we're seeing a lot of like really heavy, vicious shots on a clinch break. I don't know if that's my imagination.

I don't know if there's numbers to that effect. But it definitely feels that way. And so it just seems to me like there's certain fighters who, when they break off the clinch, they just want to cover. Some break and just want to push away. They don't really think of offense. They think more of resetting. They think more of evasion. They think more of like resetting. They think more of evasion. They think more of let's create distance.

And then there are guys like Chidi Ndrukewani who just want to absolutely, they know that we're not going to separate from each other without me at least trying to just slash you with an elbow. I mean, this is up there in terms of like how his body felt, you know, with like Matt. Matt Brown had something like a running start on it, but it felt like Matt Brown's elbow on Diego Sanchez. I mean, it was an absolutely, I mean, ruthless shot. And dude, you know, it's funny, man. You guys might not remember this.

I remember covering the career of his brother, Anthony Njikawane, who was a very good striker. And this was in Zufa with WEC, so it didn't count for UFC. But Anthony Njikawane, who was a very good striker. And this was in Zufa with WEC, so it didn't count for UFC. But Anthony Njikawane, you ever seen his knockout of Chris Hordeski? Chris Hordeski had this big name coming from the IFL. They brought him over to WEC, and Anthony Njikawane went to work on him, boy. Sent him to the land of wind and ghosts. It was unbelievable. And now here comes his brother, who, you know, listen, through his Bellator run, he had some ups, he had some downs. I wasn't sure if he was ever gonna,

you know, materialize. And I think he had LFA fights as well along the way. You know, let me pull up his record here just to be sure. I don't want to talk completely out of my ass on this one. Yeah, he fought in Bellator for a while. He had one fight in LFA. I mean, his last, he, dude, he went in his last four in Bellator, he went one in three. He lost to Andrei Koreshkov. He beat Hisaki Kato. He lost to John Salter. He lost to Rafael Carvalho.

And then he went to LFA. He rebounded there. He went to the NOS Contender Series. He had a phenomenal win there. And now he's had two wins inside the UFC for a combined total of five minutes and one second, both of them getting performance of the night bonuses. Now, I don't know if this is just totally favorable matchmaking or if there are some larger issues that go into some of the, you know, getting back to some of the wrestling concerns against Andrei Koreshkov back in 2017. He had missed weight, so that fight

had taken place at 170. I don't know what was going on at that time. I'm just saying, I wasn't sure when he was, after two losses to Salter and Carvalho, if you told me he was going to be four years later in the UFC and his first two fights would be a total of five minutes, or not more than that, five minutes, excuse me, I'm doing my math wrong here a little bit. I guess five minutes and four seconds. Either way, basically a round. He's got two finishes and two performance of the night bonuses and has looked like, you know, again, the key with a striker like this, the defensive wrestling is creating separation.

That's what he has to do. He has to find a way to create separation. And there was three minutes plus of control time for Todorovic, but that wasn't, that still leaves about, you know, a shade under two minutes for stand-up should he need all that time, and he didn't. There was a little bit left on the remainder there. So he has, you know, 22-7. He's kind of blossomed into something pretty remarkable. How old is old Chidi Njikawane? 33. So yeah, he's about his prime. This is about the center of his prime. I guess he's a little bit pre-prime before that. I know striking is his base, but now he's a black belt in jiu-jitsu as well. Dude, this was great. This was my favorite of all the fights I saw this weekend. That one, this was the one that captured my imagination the most. Now, I know there were some other ones. The Pollyanna-Vianna and Tabitha Ricci fight was really, really good. There were a few other fights on the course of the weekend. Again, you want to go back to some of the flyweight stuff in Muay Thai, that was pretty good as well. But for me, this one was just phenomenal. I love this one. I especially love it because you want to see a striker this good do well in MMA. It's better

when they're this good in MMA. This is proof positive that they bring an interesting dynamic if they can just find a way to stop the takedown to create separation. Easier said than done. I don't know how far he can go, but I knew his brother was a handful, and now he appears to be a handful. Time is not on his side, 33. I mean, it's a good time now, but what I'm saying is I don't know how much more time he has to develop, certainly more time to fight, but if he's really turned a corner with four wins in a row, you know, you got to be impressed, man. You got to be impressed. This one was phenomenal. And again, seems like there's something in the water this year about clinch breaks. Keep your hands up

on the clinch breaks, folks, because these guys are, the ones who look for it, are feasting this year. I don't know if fighters are getting lazy about it or there's some kind of new thing or it just happens to be, you know, just more this year for whatever reason. But it does appear to be happening. So those are my five. Those are my five. One more time to go over it.

I had Tyru Otolo versus Gary Toner from one championship 157 with number five. Number four, Chase Hooper for Lepic-Horalish. UFC Fight Night 206. Urash Medich for taking on Omar Morales. UFC Fight Night 206. Urash Medich for taking on Omar Morales. UFC Fight Night 206. Ahmed Aliyev. Daryl Horcher at number two.

And Chidi Angel Kawani versus Dusko Todorovic from UFC Fight Night 206. What were your favorites? Let me know in the comments and why. Thumbs up on the video. Hit subscribe. Thank you guys so much for watching. Extra credit. I'm Luke Thomas.

I will see you guys on regular MK on Wednesday live at 11 a.m. in the east. And until then, enjoy the fights.