MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Mackenzie Dern, Ian Garry Progress Report | Morning Kombat Extra Credit Ep. 19

Episode Date: April 12, 2022

Luke Thomas is back with Episode 19 of Morning Kombat Extra Credit. Luke breaks down a couple fights from UFC 273 that he didn't get to on episode 288 of Morning Kombat. (1:30) - Mackenzie Dern vs. Tecia Torres (9:30) - Mark O. Madsen vs. Vinc Pichel (14:54) - Ian Garry vs. Darian Weeks (20:00) - Raquel Pennington vs. Aspen Ladd (24:24) - Mike Malott vs. Mickey Gall Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It is the 11th of April, 2020, and it is time for episode 19 of Morning Combat Extra Credit. This is the podcast within the podcast. Hello, everyone, my name is Luke Thomas. I am merely the one half of your hosting duo for Normal Morning Combat. On that show, we cover MMA and boxing, so we have to leave some of the MMA fights off to the side, or even some of the boxing fights off to the side too. So this is where we get to some of the stuff that didn't make the regular big show. Today, this should be no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention at all to anything. I don't need to tell you what, of course, is going to be who has been paying attention at all to anything. I don't need to tell you what, of course, is going to be the fight, or I should say the card, rather, that we examine the most. UFC 273 is where it's going to be. So thumbs up on the video if you are watching this on YouTube.

Please hit subscribe as well if you're listening on podcast platforms. Thank you either way. Just make sure you let people know that you're listening to Morning Combat, however you consume it. All right. So for today, five fights as usual. Two fights we'll talk about very, very quickly for honorable mention. Let's take a look at that list today. All right, here we go. UFC 273 fight card. We'll talk about Dern versus Torres.

Mark O. Madsen, or just Mark Madsen, taking on Vince Pichelle. We'll talk about Ian Gary versus Darian Weeks. I want to talk about Raquel Pennington and Aspen Ladd. And I want to talk about Mike Malott and Mickey Gall. We'll give some honorable mention to Anthony Hernandez and Julio Arce. Okay? All right. Let's begin.

So, Mackenzie Dern defeats Tisha Torres for fight number one via split decision. 28-29, 29-28, 29-28. When I first watched live, I thought that that was, I'm not going to say clear, but I had a fairly-ish strong lean towards Torres. I rewatched it again, and now I'm not as sure about it, but it didn't seem commanding in Dern's favor either, or Torres. I leaned a little bit more Dern after watching it, but I was still pretty close to even on that round. So I don't mind the decision at all. You could have gone either way. When fights get this close, I know it upsets the losing fighter

tremendously. And for all the reasons that we know, it impacts their pay and record and leg. It's just terrible for them, even though it can come down to the tiniest, tiniest detail. This was an interesting fight because Torres did not fight badly at all. She won the first round, she survived the second, and she was pretty competitive in the third. Now, what may have cost her was that she started the third a little bit playing prevent defense, where she wasn't really trying to, rather I should say, she was just trying to stick and move, but barely even sticking. It was mostly just touch and move. Like, I'm going to do just enough, not to coast, but there was really no engagement whatsoever.

And eventually that changed, and of course there was the near takedown, which she survived and pushed off and whatnot. And there was a couple of decent shots. She landed as well. She had a few good kicks, um, to the body, to the, that sort of heel kick, that hook kick to the chin. That was kind of nice. Um, she had some decent punches. So, but I can admit that the first, you know, minute or two of the third round, it, that may have cost her because it was pretty competitive thereafter. And then that part, it wasn't like Dern did a ton, but it's kind of like Aljo in round one against Jan. Could go either way, but because there was so much inactivity or meaningless activity for enough of

the round that anything after that, even if it's even, doesn't matter. Anyway, the scoring is irrelevant. But what I thought was kind of interesting was Torres fought really well in the first, survived the second, and had some good stuff in the third. As I mentioned, getting away from that second grappling scenario, had it been one, right? She kicked her off from the first one being in the second round. That was big. That at least gave her a fighting chance. So I don't have a lot to say against Torres, or in any way, I don't have anything to say against her personally. What I mean to say is I don't have anything super critical to point out. I mean, she fought a difficult opponent and did her best.

I take that in most ways for what it's worth. The one thing I did notice, a couple of things all around, but for Torres, and I understand it, right? Like if you're trying to survive a grappling scenario where the other person you're grappling with has distinct skill advantages, you are probably not going to want to be reckless with ground and pound, right? You're going to make sure that your hands and feet and hips are, and your weight is distributed exactly where it needs to be to make sure that this situation doesn't get any worse. That's fair. But the problem with

that is, of course, there is not very little, or in many cases, there was almost no ground and pound in any of those scenarios. So I understand the instinct, and even the decision, frankly, to minimize that. But if you need a third round and it's that close, it wasn't like she would have won back the second unless she was able to mount a significant offense. But just finding consistent ways to land pays immeasurable dividends as the fight goes forward. And so that opportunity being missed certainly did not help her. Again, I think her submission defense was excellent along the way. And she's strong to be able to hold her up in the way that she did. So it's a setback for Torres, but she hardly fought poorly.

She fought great. In the case of Mackenzie Dern, it's interesting, right? Here's the thing. She got the win. Credit to her. This is a tough opponent. Credit to her. Mackenzie Dern's still in her 20s. She's clearly getting better. She's clearly deserving of respect. I have a lot of respect for her. The thing that still kind of worries me a little bit for her is that one, her striking's got a lot better. She has a great chin. She doesn't run from the challenge, but she's off balance a lot. She's like tripping over and kind of falling a lot, which tells me like some of the mechanic, I mean, she's gotten a lot better, but I just sort of wonder about the implications of all of that. One. Two, her overall defensive takedown percentage success

rate heading into this contest was just 10%. It has to be, we'll see how they measure it. I'm not sure how that fight metric measured any of those attempts over Saturday, but that would put her, let's see. Yeah, now it's just 9%. 9%. This is the thing. Her wrestling, I'm sure she's worked on it, but in terms of the level of competition she's getting, it's not doing her a ton of favors. When your, you know, takedown accuracy is somewhat of a meaningless stat. It's not totally true, but it can be misinterpreted by a lot of folks. But nine percent is not ambiguous. That is a very low percentage. And you see that with the wrestling. However, once she gets, you know, if she can jump guard or she can find a way to make it a grappling scenario dude she terrorizes these people

even though she lost to Marina Rodriguez dude she was in the round or rounds whatever she was she was on top and like dealing in a grappling situation she has these people running for their lives out there they don't want anything they're not like literally Tisha Torres wasn't even striking her just so she could make sure that she didn't get caught doing something she wasn't supposed to. That's devastating. But it's like, dude, if you don't have the takedowns behind it, you can't meaningfully leverage it, right? That's the first part. And the second part is, I mean, the Torres and the Rodriguez fights share a similarity. In the end, Rodriguez got the decision and Dern came very close to nearly beating her,

but kind of came short. And this time, she nearly got the submission, didn't, and then came out on top. But they carry certain similarities where Dern might have been a little bit more competitive in the standup here than she was against Rodriguez overall, although she was very competitive early and then less so late, if memory serves. The point I'm trying to make is these scenarios where you only get one of these grappling, two of these grappling moments. And they're terrifying and they count and they're great and they showcase all the skills. But they're hard to reproduce. If you don't get it, now the fight's real close. And yes, sometimes she loses and sometimes she wins,

but it's not a hugely dissimilar kind of fight between Rodriguez and Torres. I'm not talking about the opponent per se, but in terms of what she's tasked with, what the dimensions of the game are presenting herself to, and how the complexion of the fight looks as a consequence, she's kind of running this one back-to-back a little bit. So the wrestling's got

to get up. I will say her, again, her durability is incredible. Clearly her overall striking ability has gotten significantly better. She's strong. She had good cardio. There's a lot to like. And obviously on the ground, dude, they don't have anything for her whatsoever. It's amazing to see how she has these people frightened. And I'm not talking about that as a character flaw. I'm saying that's a rational response given what's happening. But there's clearly pieces of her game that are missing. There are clearly pieces that are missing. And that's true for every fighter. It's glaringly true here. You have such an ace in the hole, but your access to it requires her. Yes, she can jump guard and she can pull it in ways that other fighters can't. So maybe taking

an unorthodox approach by virtue of that, like that level of the change in the risk assessment by virtue of the skill, I'm all in favor of. It just feels like there's as good as she is doing and as much upside as there is, please don't lose sight of what I'm saying. I just don't know if you're going to get the most out of her if some of these other pieces aren't brought along more forcefully. That's all I'm saying. But she's a handful, pretty clearly. Mark Mattson defeating Vince Bichelle. I know some folks probably wanted me to go into Hernandez and Fremd instead. That was a ridiculously crazy fight, but there's a few different lessons to learn from that one

that I just didn't want to focus on. I wanted to focus on this one. It was a lightweight contest. Madsen defeating Pichelle via unanimous decision, 30-27 on two judges, 29-28. I didn't understand 30-27. It seemed to me that Pichelle should have gotten the second round. Third round, he got controlled.

And first round was very round, he got controlled. And first round was very close, pretty competitive. It looked like to me that Mattson had a little bit more of a speed advantage, a little bit more of a powered, or at least if not powered advantage, he was landing heavier shots a little bit in the first round. And then he had that takedown, which he controlled for about a minute as well. So close round, very competitive, nothing too crazy, but Mattson probably got it. Second round, you heard Pichelle, very competitive, nothing too crazy, but Madsen probably got it. Second round, you heard Pichelle tell his corner after it that, oh, he's done. But he wasn't there because he got Russell out there.

Okay, why do I bring this up? One, Vince Pichelle is a very deceiving fighter. I don't know if people give him the proper respect that he is owed. He is a little bit longer in the tooth, but he is a guy who has very quietly worked on his game for a long time. And it really shows. There's a lot that I liked from him. I liked the fact that he went for that takedown at the end of the second. I liked the gumption there. He was doing a great job of attacking the lead hand

in striking scenarios against Madsen. He didn't get overwhelmed on the ground, although he did get controlled, which is a different problem. But, you know, I thought that he just had a lot going for him, answering him in a lot of ways for the leg kicks. There was a lot you have to like from what Vince Pichelle did. He's a very talented, well-rounded veteran. So this is probably Madsen's best win. I mean that. I don't know. He's got more forceful wins, but I don't think he's beaten anyone as good as Vince Pichelle. And certainly not 30, 27, I don't quite agree with, but the 29, 28 I get.

The thing about it with Madsen is this, I'm a little bit, I'll say it this way, 37 years of age, obviously he's a phenomenal athlete, right? I mean, you should just see his, on the international stage, five-time, what does he even know, one, two, four-time silver medalist at the World Championships, one-time bronze, and then he was a Olympic silver medalist in wrestling as well. You know, he's just want, or, you know, placed very highly at, at, at some of the more prestigious combat sports events, such as you can call the Olympics that of all time, he's phenomenal. And he moved to the United States and he had, I know he had a rough bout with COVID and lockdown and the whole nine yards. He had a rough go of it. I'm a little bit worried about what is potentially possible,

given that he is 37 years of age, fighting at 155 pounds. For as much as he is an A-plus athlete, and he is, and as good as his wrestling is, especially now in this era of MMA where you're getting a lot of upper body takedowns against the fence, perfectly suited for it. He doesn't look physically overmatched. But his cardio, I think, has been questionable insofar as not in this fight, but if he gets pushed into very difficult fights, potentially five-rounders against very established guys, has he shown cardio in less, admittedly a difficult fight,

but less difficult than what the very best of this division has to offer? It's been a couple of times at least where the cardio towards the end of a fight has kind of faded a little bit. So is it bad cardio? No, certainly not. The question is, is it going to propel him if he continues to move with the food chain? I have some questions. I'm not saying it can't because you never know. It sounds like BS equivocation. We don't know. What I'm pointing out, though, is if you're 37 and you're in an important bout, you're on the main card of a UFC pay-per-view, this is all very relevant fighting.

But your cardio is still a little bit not where it should be, even there. And again, you're much closer to 40 than you are 30. That's a warning sign. That is a warning sign, as far as I can tell from my time covering the sport. I thought in the first round, Madsen did a great job with leg kicks. Again, a little bit faster on the draw, a little bit more kind of getting after it. In the third round, Vince Pichelle complained that Madsen was holding him down and not doing enough ground and pound.

I'll say this. I don't agree, but I see where he's coming from. To me, it was right on the borderline between, you know, is he stalling or is he doing enough? He was probably doing enough, but barely. But barely. Barely. Not enough to like, if you wonder why the referee didn't intervene, every referee's got a different sensibility. But in this particular case, I kind of get it. I see where Vince is coming from. It was, I mean, just over the line. But again, that's all you really need sometimes in very close competitive fights. You got to be just a little bit better somewhere right where it counts. And he was. So to me, this is Mark Madsen's best win. And for that, he should be commended. He clearly has a lot of ability. I do worry, though, that if we're still having cardio issues this, I'm not going to say this late, but this

far into his advancement, not the end of the world, but something that if it can be tightened up, and I'm sure he trains hard, there's always different ways to calibrate this. It's just, he's got to be in a place where... I think he went to the wrestling strategically for a lot of reasons. I think one of them might have been that... And wrestling is obviously taxing on his system too. But I think one of them might have been that he needed a little bit of a slightly more... A less chaotic approach. Let's put it that way.

All right. Ian Gary taking on Darian Weeks. 29-28. He gets one scorecard and then two 30-27s. I wasn't scoring put it that way. All right. Ian Gary taking on Darian Weeks, 29-28. He gets one scorecard and then two 30-27s. I wasn't scoring it in that way. This was Ian Gary's fight to lose. Now, here's the thing. I had a lot of people asking me like, you know, is Ian Gary one of the next future stars of welterweight? Folks, please pump the brakes. Now, I will say this. I was asked on my live chat yesterday, you know yesterday who I think has the higher upside between he and

Paddy Pimblitt if we're looking at Irish, UK fighters. Well, first of all, both of them have a pretty bright future, number one. And number two, it's impossible to tell. I lean Gary in this equation, but I can't say that with a ton of confidence because I simply do not know. There's so much in front of them that is unknowable that answering this question is kind of silly. Forced to answer, gun to my head, I would say Ian Gary. But I want to be clear about what the purpose of this fight was.

There's a lot of different purposes to different fights, especially when you're coming up. This was great for Ian Gary. Not a perfect fight. In fact, I thought Dean Thomas' reflections in the third round, go back and watch that first and second round, and you can see Gary trying to find the right hand over the top over and over and over again, and Weeks constantly blocking it because there was nothing. He wasn't forcing him to transfer his defense. He was fainting and level changing, but doing a lot of fainting, and then he would faint like three or four rotations before

throwing. It just wasn't enough activity. Now, in fairness to Ian Gary, his opponent, Darian Weeks, was doing the UL Romero bit where he was fighting in spurts. It was a lot of just defense, right, and not even trying to throw back. He would clinch with him a couple times. Gary did a phenomenal job staying on his feet. And then he would throw, and Gary would either, you would either get out. By the way, Gary's lateral movement, his ability to throw as like a check hook or to get underneath punches and to get out of the way is really good against the fence line.

Like all that stuff was on point. The purpose of this fight and the value in it was not that you needed to see anything that told you Ian Gary was going to be, you know, the next big thing in MMA. That's not what any of this is about. What this was about was here's a guy who is obviously extremely talented, who is with a great camp, who, you know, how old is Ian Gary? I mean, he's 24 or something, whatever he is. He needed a fight that went the distance where he could work on all the things he's been working on implementing,

whether that was the strategy for the game, for the particular fight, with the lateral movement, pumping the jab, all of that, the particular combos they worked, the overall skill development about where he is generally as a fighter. This was a chance to put those things into practice, see what worked, see what didn't,

get the dub and get home and be safe and don't take a lot of damage. This was nothing you're going to point to when his career is all said and done. This is nothing you're going to point to as like, oh, this is the Hall of Fame fighter, however far he goes. This is the fight that made him into a contender. This is the fight that put him in the top 10, whatever, whatever. This is though one of the more important parts of his development. He got 15 minutes against a fighter who, you know, was a difficult challenge, but not super onerously burdensome, right? He wasn't that way. And he got a chance to defensively take care of himself, to offensively put things into motion.

This was about taking a step forward as a very young prospect who needs cage time and needs implementation time in a live fight scenario, which he did quite nimbly and got out of there. Did he wow you with everything he did? Certainly in that third round, I think he landed a head kick. I think he had a decent one-two that rocked his opponent. Yes, by the third round, he was cooking. I think also he was having a little bit of trouble finding exactly the angle he wanted on weeks based on what was opening. So there was a little bit of the body work he needed to get to. There was a little bit of not accuracy issues so much,

but the transference of the defense. But the lateral movement was great. Rolling underneath hooks was great and escaping. Takedown defense was on point. Jab was on point. That's what this was about. That was about this. And I will say that the level of skill he showed is obviously quite high and should give you confidence about his upside.

But he is at the stage of his career where these fights, they aren't showcases for somebody who wants the smoke right away. These are foundational building block processes that have to happen so he can get there. Because he is young and he is talented. And yeah, you could rush him to the front and maybe he could beat some good guys, but you're not going to get the most out of him. This is what gets the most out of him. This was the right fight to take against the right opponent in the right moment. He won't be heralded for this win as some kind of groundbreaking achievement. Not the point. This will put him in place much better than other

kinds of matchmaking to have that groundbreaking moment. That's the value of this. This was next step, boom, done it. Now we can begin to keep working on this, keep working on this, keep working it, implement it, try it, test it. What worked, what didn't, tweak it, tweak it, go back once again. That's what this is about. He's at that stage of his career, and that's where its primary value comes in. We go to Raquel Pennington defeating Aspen Ladd at Women's Bantamweight. This was a baffling fight, 29-28. I'm guessing they gave, I haven't seen the scorecards, I'm guessing they for Aspen Ladd How old is she? She is 27

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She made weight. She's still 27 and she clearly has some ability. She didn't really get a chance to get her ground to pound going by virtue of what Rocky Pennington was doing to stand up. And by the time the third round sort of forward pressure came, it was decent but not great. In any case, too little, too late. I am shocked that they thought that they had a chance at winning that fight.

That is extremely surprising to hear. Listen, I am very conscious. I try to be. I can't always be, I try to be as conscious as I am about someone in my role offering critical feedback and evaluations of people who are, as it relates to that practice, far better than I. And, you know, this is their identity. Like, I don't want to be, I try not to be unnecessarily cruel about any kind of criticism. Nor do I intend to be here, and it won't sound this way. I just mean to say the following.

I do not know if she's getting the proper amount of development up to this point. Given where she has been in her career, let's pull up Ladd's resume here. When she was burning through Sajara Eubanks in what was her fifth fight, Lena Landsberg, Tanya Avenger, Sajara Eubanks again in her eighth fight. She lost to Duran Demi, which was fine because Duran Demi hit her with a big shot 16 seconds in. And then she was kind of losing the Kuniskaya fight and then lost. The Dumont fight and the Pennington fight, I don't know if I can say she's regressed, but I cannot comfortably say that from the time she beat Tanya Avener, she has meaningfully improved.

She got a performance of the night bonus when she beat Evinger. And granted, Rocky Pennington looked awesome this fight. I mean, she had the timing down of Aspen Ladd right away. She was getting underneath all of her punches. She was getting in between them. She was getting after them. She had the timing down and was giving in the striking department fits to Aspen Ladd through at least the first two rounds. It was incredible to watch that. So Rocky Pennington, she was Superman punching into it.

She was going to the body and then coming upstairs. I mean, just a total veteran showcase of her boxing ability. This was one of the better performances in terms of just straight boxing. I've seen, and Pennington's always had good boxing, but this was like a really strong showcase of it. And then she's gritty in the clinch. Granted, she got pressed into the fence for the third frame, but through the first two, she had done tremendous work. Rocky Pennington, you know, for all the difficulties she has faced, the loss to Nunes and the accidents, and she had a terrible bout with COVID and all this stuff. Through all of that, she has really rebounded and she looks great. She looks as, you know, fresh as a daisy. I don't know.

She's been in the game for a while, but she's firing on all cylinders these days. But for Aspen Ladd, I just, I, listen, at 27, it would be very foolish to write her off. Very foolish to write her off. And I'm not going to join in with the chorus of people attacking the corner. I would just say we saw a lot of progress between her fifth and eighth fight. Between her ninth and her twelfth, we have not seen even close to the same amount. And yes, I grant, I grant,

that between the ninth and the twelfth, she has fought much tougher opposition, at least in three of those cases. All of them were tough, but you know what I'm saying. Duran to me and Pennington titled challengers. And Kuniskaya too, although that was a little bit, somewhat rushed. Anyway, the point remains the same. I've not seen the same amount of development,

and I'm not sure where all of this is presently headed. I think that there's probably some need for consideration about, you know, at 27 years of age, where she wants to be by 30. Granted, the Dumont fight was at 145. She was back at 135. She looked better here, but I guess I'm not understanding where this is supposed to be going

relative to where it had been going. And that seems like a problem. Mike Malott defeating Mickey Gall, 341 of the first round. TKO, this was a welterweight bout. Man, Mickey Gall is in a tough spot, folks. He had won and lost alternately since the 2016 fight against Sage Northcutt. So he beat Sage Northcutt, then lost to Randy Brown. Then he beat George Sullivan, but then lost to Diego Sanchez. Then he beat Salim Touari, but then lost to Mike Perry. Then he beat Jordan Williams, which was nice. That was in 2021.

But then he lost to Alex Morneau and then followed it up with a loss to Mike Malott. Now, he has been finished before. He got finished by Diego, but that was in been finished before. He got finished by Diego, but that was in the second round. He got finished here inside of four minutes. He's in a tough spot. He's 7-5 now. He's not so old. He's 30. That's not old. But at 30, if you're at 7-5, and for the first time ever, you're on back-to-back losses, and Alex Morneau is a very talented guy. He had a 4-7 maybe on the game for a long time.

And then Mike Malott, the guy looks like a physical beast. But these are not guys even close to the upper end of that division. I think Morneau is pretty close. He might be in the rankings. I don't want to disrespect him unless I already have. Morneau, no, I don't think he is there yet. So you get the idea. These are guys that are not even ranked in the top 15. That doesn't mean they're bad. That doesn't mean they won't be

there. That doesn't mean they're not worthy of respect, but we're talking about who's ranked where. He's still outside of even that, and he's getting put away. How did he get put away here? He was an orthodox fighter, and he switched stance through a shift which the initial punch of the shift landed so that worked that was good and then he tried to come over with a right and it didn't come through so he reshuffled into distance to close the distance while staying in that stance he throws a punch but mallet slips off the center line and drills him over the top with it and then if you look closely he already had the left chambered now not chambered like this where you're delivering a straight shot but chambered for the trajectory it's going to go anyway so this pushes the head over and then it's

just a short little left hook almost like an uppercut kind of like a shovel punch and it hits him clean as a whistle sends him face first down so the shift was nice for mickey gall that was actually pretty good but staying in that position and kind of inching your way forward and then standing straight up, you know, your defense is going to be different, obviously, by virtue of the stance switch. You're cheating that position a little bit just by walking up. You had to kind of, you know, either reset or change stances or bring your hands up. There had to be some kind of re-evaluation of that moment rather than just inching forward in that stance, kind of reaching out in front of you. There's just not enough defense there. There's not enough

defense there. And Mike Malott, for him to be able to take that kind of pressure and then slip off the center line and then throw and then bring the left, that was fantastic. Fantastic from Mike Malott. What a perfectly placed shot. Big athletic power. He brought it to bear. And again, I'm going to keep saying it, dude. These guys who can slip punches versus the ones who can't. I'm not saying Mickey Gall can't. I think he may have a little bit in this fight, actually.

But in general, as a rule to think about, you hear me say it all the time, there's going to be a huge, it's already developing. It's only going to widen. The ones who can slip versus the ones who can't in MMA is going to be a massively important dividing line. And that's just not true as a general skill, but fight to fight when you

can do it. Can you slip under certain considerations and not under others? All of those are going to be brought to bear. The ones who can slip most of the time are going to have exponential advantages over their competitors. And you saw that here as well. It brings them into position and creates vulnerability for you to attack. It's a very narrow window, but once you open it, you can just absolutely devour people with it. So sick win by Mike Malott. And as I mentioned for Mickey Gall, 7-5.

He's 1-3 in his last four. He has losses to Perry, Morneau, and Malott. The only win was the Jordan Williams one, which is a nice win, but I don't know what UFC is going to do with him. This is a bit of a cautionary tale, I'm afraid. You do have to at least respect the fact that he has made it an effort, Mickey Gall. I think he went to Joe Schilling's team. I think that was probably a good move for him. He switched it up and went to Stanford MMA. Probably another good move, all things considered. But once you're at the UFC, you have to be very careful about your development. And this is why I always tell people, people develop in different ways.

You know, at this point, Jon Jones wouldn't have needed as much, you know, that careful matchmaking around the right kind of fights. He probably would have been a little bit more fight ready. Well, that's him. That's not going to be a lot of other guys. This is why rushing the Ian Garys and in different ways, the Paddy Pimblitz and whoever else. Granted, Paddy has more experience than Ian Gary,

but certainly in the regional scene. But even then, you really, really, really want to be careful about how you progress these guys. Because once it starts going, it's hard to undo. So you got to make sure that the escalation is happening at the right time. And that can come, as I mentioned, not just getting to the UFC, but getting into the top 10, getting into the top five, becoming a title contender. You have to make sure that all of these thresholds are crossed when they are supposed to be crossed. Otherwise, development can get badly affected. It's just hard to get better when you're under this kind of duress

about making sure everything you need is already there. You needed time before that to bring all of them to bear, and then you can mix and match them as needed. That's what the very best ones do. Very quickly, very quickly, for honorable mention, I had indicated Anthony Hernandez and Josh Fram having an absolute war out there. What a ridiculously crazy fight. Anthony Hernandez, an amazing grappler. I was blown away. I did not see that coming from him. And also his gas tank was phenomenal. He was giving it to Friend, then Friend

gave it to him, and then he turned the tides once more to really kind of claim that fight. Great job from Anthony Hernandez. Salute. What a performance by him. And then Julio Arce out of, I think, Corona Queens, New York, Little Columbia in many ways, defeating Daniel Santos 30-27 on two of the judges' scorecards, 29-28 on another one. Dude, his footwork was great. His jab was great.

I mean, it just looked like he'd been really working on that for a long time. Dude, Julio Arce screams last guy in the gym. You can just tell. You can just tell that this dude has put in a ton of work to make sure his movement looks crisp and clean. His intentionality is clear. His defense is already, you know, yes, he's making reads, but it's already muscle memory about where he needs to be. And what signs do you need to see to begin to escalate, to get more volume out? What fans are working? Which ones are not? How do I bring them back? But dude, that was all set up from his footwork. That was all set up from footwork. That was a phenomenal display of getting yourself into and out of position as required, absorbing pressure,

as he did, and making sure that, you know, listen, it's the basics, footwork, the jab. But dude, you're seeing with skilled technicians like Julio Arce, you can see the value in phenomenal footwork and a great jab. And of course, there's more to it than just that. But those two building blocks alone, boy, if you have those dialed in, those will do a lot for you. Phenomenal job by him as well. So congrats to all the winners and chin up to all the losers

because there's always another tomorrow. Yeah? All right. Thank you guys so much for watching the podcast. Thumbs up. I appreciate it. And got more coming your way. Got a big surprise coming to you, I think, tomorrow, I hope.

We'll see how it goes. But until next time, appreciate y'all watching. Enjoy the fights.