MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Molly McCann Scores HISTORIC KO at UFC London | Topuria, Mokaev, Craig, Shore | Ep. 17

Episode Date: March 22, 2022

Luke Thomas is back with Episode 17 of Morning Kombat Extra Credit. Luke breaks down a couple fights from UFC Fight Night: Volkov vs. Aspinall that he didn't get to on episode 279 of Morning Kombat. (1:15) - Molly McCann vs. Luana Carolina (9:26) - Ilia Topuria vs. Jai Herbert (15:49) - Paul Craig vs. Nikita Krylov (21:25) - Jack Shore vs. Timur Valiev (26:45) - Muhammad Mokaev vs. Cody Durden 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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And... done. That's the sound of bills being paid on time. But with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card, paying your bills could sound like this. Yes! Earn rewards for paying your bill in full and on time each month. Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Hi, everybody. Hi everybody, it is the 21st of March 2022 and it is time for Morning Combat Extra Credit.

This is the podcast we do within the podcast. This is where we talk about the fights that we didn't get to on regular MK. This is in fact my second crack at it. I know this might come as a big surprise to you. I actually did it this morning before I left, but I forgot to record the audio. So here I am doing it in my hotel room late at night one more time. Thumbs up on the video if you like it. Hit subscribe if you love it. What we're going to do today is focus in on, obviously, on what else? UFC London. That will be the card for us. We're going to go over five of the fights as we customarily do. Those five are as follows. We will go over the Molly McCann versus

Luana Carolina fight. We'll talk about Ilya Toporia taking on Jai Herbert. We'll talk about Paul Craig's win over Nikita Krilov. Pretty amazing. We'll talk about one of the most, I mean, this fight's not getting any pub and it should. Jack Shore taking on Timur Valeev. And then last, but certainly not least, Mohamed Mokhaev taking on Cody Dernan. Okay, so those are the five. Episode 17. Without further ado, let's get into it. First fight. Molly McCann defeats Luana Carolina via KO spinning back elbow at 152 of the third round. I talked to Robert Sargent, who runs the MMA Rising account, and he told me that Molly, I asked him, like, if you don't know Robert Sargent, he has been dedicatedly following

women's MMA and like almost only women's MMA in terms of like his coverage for longer than anyone else I know. So I hit him up and I was like, where would this KO rank in terms of all-time women's MMA knockout? Because if you think about it, what most people have said is, oh, it's a KO of the year contender, which it is. It's certainly that is true, but is that the sum total of how we should understand it? Turns out not. He said at worst, at worst, it's third. And you could actually make a case for it for number one. There were some other Japanese fighters. It used to be the case in the aughts and so forth with promotions like Smack Girl and Jules and some other ones where the Japanese had a real head start in terms of women's MMA relative to the rest of the world. They were just better about,

you know, they had their own issues, but they were better about promoting it. It was sort of a more forward part of the sport, relatively speaking, for that time. And he thinks Hosea Watanabe probably has a case for number one with one of her knockouts. But either way, this is what we're talking about here. We're talking about literally a historic knockout for Molly McCann, and she came out on fire in this contest, right? Coming out nearly stopping the fight in the first round, or getting the stoppage fire in this contest, right? Coming out, nearly stopping

the fight in the first, or getting the stoppage, I should say, in the first round. Heavy punches, side to side. Couldn't quite do it, though. Luana Carolina, I'll be honest, I don't know if she's really UFC level. She's not, right? I don't know if this is the good spot for her right now. Obviously, it must be a big deal. Given where she's come from, to be here, I certainly commend and respect that. But she is tall, and she fights tall to a certain extent, but she just leaves a metric ton of openings. But really, that's not Molly McCann's fault, right?

She has to fight who she has to fight. So she goes in there and nearly gets the stoppage in the first round. Second round was a little slower. You could see Carolina, you know, finding ways to try and like force the clinch, hang on the head, which was kind of creating these moments where McCann had to retreat out of position. She did get a couple of takedowns. Both of them were authoritative, you the punching power and obviously the final shot, but the wrestling as well, Molly McCann is strong. Physically

quite strong. Her ability to just lift someone of a similar size with the effortlessness in which she did it, she's pretty strong. So that will be in her favor. And again, she looked great. I thought she was doing good work in and out.

Pressure somebody like Carolina, who might be a little bit wet behind the ears, so to speak, in terms of their overall MMA resume against this kind of competition and this kind of stage. So it was the right game plan. And in the end, how did she score the spinning back elbow? There was one big shift in this fight. For the first two rounds, McCann was the one kind of, I won't say chasing down Carolina, well at the time she was chasing her down, but certainly putting the pressure overall because the fight did slow a little bit in that second frame. So she was pretty good about just keeping

the heat on. But in the third round, well Carolina, the fight slowed in the second. Carolina did a little bit better in the second. It certainly wasn't as disastrous as the first. And then in the third round, she came out hunting. She came out right away looking to go. But all that meant was that now McCann could anticipate that there was going to be pressure into her. So she was ready for it. And more to the point, you would see Carolina just kind of hang out in positions without much defense or moving her feet or setting things up. She throws a cross, right? And it lands off, I think

it landed like behind the shoulder like that of Molly McCann. And so she just spun the other way thinking, I think she was, Carolina had the one cross. I think she was thinking, oh, that's a frame. And I think she was elbow blocking a little bit on the other side, or at least had a hand in that general vicinity. She thought she was good to go, that's a frame, and I think she was elbow blocking a little bit on the other side, or at least had a hand in that general vicinity. She thought she was good to go, but McCann spun the other way, and so she got hit as cleanly as you are ever going to see a spinning back elbow. I think they said just a fourth spinning back elbow KO in UFC history. That might be one of the best, if not the best of them.

Just a tremendous shot. She was throwing some spinning attacks, McCann was, a little bit one of the best, if not the best of them. Just a tremendous shot. She was throwing some spinning attacks, McCann was, a little bit early in the contest. A couple of spinning back fists, some spinning back kicks. I don't think they landed all that much, but it certainly seems like that was a big part of what she was doing. But the thing for Carolina, in terms of giving this to McCann, was McCann had a situation where before, whenever she's throwing spinning attacks, her opponent was a little bit at distance. This was her opponent literally touching her, right?

Not like trying to control her, but physically putting a frame over her, and then another hand there, and then staying still. Nothing covering the face. This is all McCann needs to do her work. And she fired that elbow off the back, and it was devastating, devastating. I hope Carolina's okay. That's the kind of thing that'll break your face. It'll break your teeth. It could break the roof of your mouth. It could break everything inside the gum line that has any attachment to bone. I mean, that is a vicious shot that she landed, so congratulations to Molly McCann, who is strong, who had a good game plan,

who had an opponent who was very much overmatched, but tough, durable, and, you know, trying to, she was, listen, Carolina was pursuing that fight in the third round. It wasn't like she was a wallflower waiting for the referee to do her a favor or the judges to weigh in later. She was getting after it a little bit in a limited way, in a way that obviously cost her the fight. But I just need to say, it was the opponent had not lost spirit. It had to be taken from her. And McCann did exactly that. That's one of the best KOs you'll ever see.

And also, it just sort of deserves to be noted that Molly McCann probably punches pretty hard. You can see how strong she is. It looked like she had maybe broken Carolina's nose in that first round in that onslaught. So obviously, if she did, one, Carolina already had that damage, and then whatever else the spinning back elbow did. But on top of it, just think about it this way. As strong as McCann is and as many punches

as she landed and with all the damage that she did, think about how much more powerful that elbow must have been. I don't want to sit here and say women MMA fighters don't KO each other. If anything, that's going up to a dramatic degree. But I think relative to boxing, having access to kicks, which obviously the kick is going to be harder than the punch in most cases, and the spinning back elbow when applied correctly is going to be a devastating shot. People ask me, why is women's MMA more popular than women's boxing? I watch a fair amount of both, and I will tell you that this is a personal thing, and your mileage may vary, but the array of weapons, available to men and women, certainly, but the array of weapons relative to the boxing side in the women's game empowers it to be so dynamic and so forceful and so full of that in boxing, men or women, as well. But I think that these other weapons that are allowed in mixed martial arts,

it really shows the difference in my judgment. Again, there are structural issues in women's boxing. I don't mean to make a global comparison. I'm just pointing out having access to that when you need it on the men's or women's side, but certainly on the women's side, I think clearly can be not just a fight-ender and a game-changer, but speaks to, you know, there should not be a mystery to me about why women's MMA is more popular. It's more popular because, in my opinion, the current state of things, now this could change over time, but the current state of things, it's just much more exciting. All right, we go to the lightweight division. By the way,

the McCann and the Carolina fight was in flyweight, women's flyweight. This is lightweight, 155. Ilya Teporya defeating Jai Herbert via KO at 107 of the second round. Holy smokes. Hey, folks, does Ilya Teporyev's power carry up a weight class? Yeah. Yeah, it does. What a hammer this kid is. Georgia has a guy on their hands. Obviously, he lives in Spain now.

Spain, you know, Georgia and Spain stand up. Y'all got somebody special with this kid. Now, here's the deal. Jai Herbert put it on him early. This is what it means to be battle tested. Folks, ask what that means. It means this. That means you faced a quality opponent, and I would consider John Herbert to be a very quality opponent,

who put it on you a little bit, right? I always make this point. You see so many guys come into the UFC, less so now, but it used to be a real big thing, and they would come from the regional scene. They'd have like 10 wins, and all of them would be first-round stoppages, and I would always tell folks, got to be careful with those, right? You don't really know what that means.

You can have a case where, yes, they are obviously quite good if they can dust off 10 people like that, you know, in quick order, quick succession. But at the same time, if you've only got those kinds of wins, you probably haven't been fully tested yet. This is partly why Tom Aspinall is just unbelievable. Obviously, his record isn't perfect either. But to do what he's doing in the UFC at this stage in his career where they can't even get him to the third round is ridiculous.

But this is what I mean about Tuporia. He didn't have that kind of a record per se, but he had a very good one undefeated. He goes into this contest, and Jai Herbert hides a kick behind a jab, and Tuporia doesn't see it at all. He had the right idea. He was level-changing and whatnot. He was going side-to-side, but level-changing and whatnot. He was going side to side,

but level-changing and going side to side with a good striker in front of you, all of that can be timed, and he got timed on it a little bit, and I think they knew where his location was going to be too. But he hung on. He made a really smart tactical choice just running down a double as fast as he could,

getting on top, holding some time there, collecting himself, and then kind of getting back to it. Jai Herbert was still landing in that round, so that was a big problem for him. But what did you notice was the big adjustment? Dude, he took away the space. Go back to the last minute of round one. Go back to, in particular, the 34-second mark. What you're going to see is Teporia throw a similar combination,

although not an identical one, to the one that ended the fight. Why do I bring this up? It was a big difference. At the 34-second mark of the first round, I think it was a right-left delayed timing on the overhand right. It looked similar at the end. Here's the difference. Rather than just headhunting and with Jai Herbert having all that space behind him, because if you look at the 34-second mark, Jai Herbert like almost in the center of the cage. Fast forward to the end. What's the difference? Jai Herbert is now very backed up. He is very close to the fence. So one,

his options to simply walk away from the strike if someone is charging at him is now gone. What you often see from folks when they get pushed up against that wall and they know where they're at because they can see it where the advertisements are. They have a clear sense of things. They begin to get a little stiff and stationary. And they wait to counter shot. It's almost like their mind flips. You know who does not do this for the most part?

Israel Adesanya. He doesn't play that game. He gets backed up there. He is looking to either clinch and turn, break away, get off at an angle. He is diligent about, oh, you want me here? You want me to fight me in these places? I'm not playing that game with you. And he goes on about his way. There's a big reason why he's undefeated. There's a big reason why he's the champion. Back to this fight, here is the difference. Dude, Ilya Toploia is a bad motherfucker.

Canelo is one of my favorite fighters who throws the uppercut for a lot of different reasons. One, it's powerful. Two, he can do it rear. Excuse me, he can do it rearhand. It would depend on where you are, obviously, with one hand. But let's say I'm this way. He can do it rearhand. He can do it leadhand. He puts it in combinations.

But one of the best things he does with the uppercut is he uses it to disguise the actual punch that he wants to throw and to cheat the distance. Watch Ilya Tuporov throw the final combination that he threw. Three things stand out. One, John Herbert's now enclosed in space. Two, he goes jab to the body, Teporia, right up top. Then he cheats a step and throws a body shot that turns him all the way this way. So now he has loaded his hips. He has cheated the distance,

right? When I say cheated, I mean, it's not a pejorative. It means like he did the smart thing, but it's sneaky because you can't see it. You don't really pay attention. He takes that step over and to the front and then twists his body. He's throwing that body shot, yes, to land. But what he really wants is this one. Canelo does this all the time, all the time. And so what he does is he uses that huge punch, and yes, it lands, but he uses it to step out, step forward, turn the hips. And so he comes over with this right hand of depth. And the best part about it is this is the third element to it. So there's the space, there's the using that punch to move up and to the left, Teporia's up and to the left.

And then the other part is the overhand right had a slight delay in the timing, just a slight, right? So he throws that, waits for the counter, he actually gets hit for it. Remember that? He actually has to eat it a little bit, but that brings what? That brings Herbert's hands out. Well, if your hands are out, what's around your face? Teporia's punt. That's the answer. Dude, that is awesome. That is awesome. Now, obviously, Teporia has some things to work on. He got touched up in that first round big time. He survived because he is now battle-tested to a degree. Obviously, he can be more battle-tested than that, but that's a real clear example of one. So he has things to work on.

I don't mean to say that he had a perfect performance. Far from it. But his power carried. He made clear adjustments between rounds one and two. I'm telling you exactly what they are. He used a body shot to cheat the distance and turn his hips and set up the overhead punch. He delayed the timing on it. After he cornered an opponent, ladies and gentlemen, and he's, what, 24, 25?

And he already had, 26 maybe? And he has a black belt in jiu-jitsu. How old is Teporia? He is 25, 25 years old. And he has a black belt in jiu-jitsu, and he already did that? If I was Patti Pimble and I turned down that fight too, not a good fight for him. Not a good fight for him at all. Teporia is a hammer.

And he is going to be a major problem For a lot of people A lot of people We go to Paul Craig This is now on the prelim card Obviously at 205 pounds Taken on Nikita Krylov He wins the triangle choke

357 of the first round I mean, what do you want to say about Paul Craig? I had said that on Twitter He was a bit of a unicorn It's probably not accurate. You know, listen, at 205 with the guard play, that is very unicornish, especially when you're snatching victories from the jaws of defeat in the way that he does. But the point I want to make is, did you notice how he did it?

Okay, I talk about it all the time. I talk about it all the time, and the fighters know this. Anybody who's trained knows this. But if you've never trained, you've got to listen to me very clearly on this. I only try to talk about things I've experienced in the gym or otherwise directly talked about with a coach or had some kind of direct study experience in. And this would be one such case, big time. I cannot overstate to you how important gripping is. If you followed me at all, you have heard me say gripping is everything.

It's the first line of attack. And people think gripping is either like wrist control, no gi, or it's just collar and sleeve and the gi. It's not. There's different kinds of grips. Or different ways in which a grip could, you know, a different kind of move could function like a grip. If I, if you have a gi on, or like a shirt, and I grab your collar and your sleeve, maybe if you're Travis Stevens, you can let people do that, and you can find a way out of it, but most people are going to learn how to pop the grips, and they're going to pop those grips immediately. Immediately they're going to pop those grips, because if someone has a sleeve,

excuse me, a sleeve and a collar collar and you don't address that, bitch, you're going to go for a ride. You're going to have a real bad time, especially if the person who has those grips is strong and good at setting things up for them. You're going to be in deep, deep trouble. In jiu-jitsu, we talked about this. Demetrius Johnson did it, I think, in the first fight with Henry Cejudo. If somebody has feet on your hips,

if they are in guard and their two feet are pressing into your hips, you must address that right away. Now, you can kind of cheat it a little bit here and there sometimes, but it's risky doing that. And Krylov found that out. He knows you can't have feet and hips. I'm not saying anything he doesn't know, but he got a little bit too aggressive with the ground and pound. I mean, it was landing, right? It was working. But here's how he got caught. Go back to the finish. In jiu-jitsu, I talk about this all the time.

What is strong? Strong is everything tight and inside and controlled. What is weak? Weak is when everything is, when the limbs are separated from the body and they're out like this, right? This is weak. When you're fully stretched, this is a weak position, okay? This is strong. This is this, right? This is weak. When you're fully stretched, this is a weak position, okay? This is strong, this is weak, all right? He puts two feet in the hips basically a couple of times, and a lot of times Krilov fights it off, but the final sequence is he takes a punch,

Paul Grant does, but he has both feet in the hips. So what he ends up doing is he presses it just a little bit, and so what I want you to go back and look at is right in that final punch that sets up the triangle, look at the distance between the fist of Krylov and the waist of Krylov. And look at how elongated he got by virtue of trying to throw a punch while having feet in his hips and trying to reach for it as a consequence. He is fully exposed. And dude, if someone has feet on your hips, it's going to be bad news for you because they can scoot underneath and lift you and turn you.

They can push you off and stand up. They can just manipulate you in any number of ways. They can take your back. They can lift you and then take your back. They can do helicopter sweeps. Man, they can do all kinds of shit from there. You must address it immediately. You cannot let people put feet in your hips.

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Your chance to save in points ends February 23rd. Book at aircanada.com. Conditions apply. And he does. And so, if you're Paul Craig, think about it. Your butt is not on the ground with your feet in the hips. Your feet are on the hips and your hips are in their hips. And your own hips are engaged.

So, when he throws it, I think it was a right hand, he has this hand kind of cocked back. It's wide open on this lane. And Paul Craig has put his feet in the hips. He has raised his ass off the ground. You have thrown and fully extended yourself. He just whips over the leg. The leg comes over so hard. And by the way, he has control two on one on the hand.

It actually knocks Krilov over and then he seals the triangle. Folks, you cannot let people put feet in your hips. Especially if they are exerting force to either push you or raise themselves. Because if your butt is on the ground and your feet are in the hips, that's not guard. I mean, it looks like guard, it's not guard. Guard is actively wrestling with your legs and using it in that way. And to do that, you have to have a tight core. Your butt has to be off the ground in that particular scenario. You've got to be engaged muscularly. You have to be engaged.

And he was. And Krilov tried to punch basically over it. And I understand that. He was landing a lot. The style that Paul Craig has kind of demands that he eats a lot of damage for his efforts. But, yeah. So, Paul Craig, man, he's amazing. He's amazing he's amazing dude

he has to, the tax on his style is that he has to eat ground and pound that's the tax, he has to pay it because he's not going to get submissions right away the guys on top have to get comfortable landing and he initially had like a lockdown

he had a lockdown on the half guard that Krilov was trying and then he stands they eventually let him go and he stands. And then, you know, came back over, feet on the hips, lets him have it, and Paul Craig let him have it as a consequence. Crazy. Let's talk about Jack Shore defeating Timur Valeev. This was a unanimous decision. 2-29-28, 1-29-27. I'm not sure how to score that third one. Clearly Jack Shore's round. I don't mean that.

Was it 10-9? Was it 10-8? I don't know how judges would score that. I don't really begrudge anyone who gave it a 29-27, because I think you would say Vallejo had the first round, and then Jack Shore had the last two, especially that third, obviously. Here's the thing.

He dropped Vallejo twice. And when I say dropped him, I mean cleanly. Cleanly. Like, obviously. Here's the thing. He dropped Vallejo twice. And when I say dropped him, I mean cleanly. Cleanly. Like, perfectly. And then put on a couple takedowns. You know, I mean, that was his round by country mile. Was it a 10-8? I mean, if it was boxing, it would be a 10-8. But they say boxing. Here's the thing. Vallejo did get dropped.

And he did get taken down. But he was fighting back constantly. You need the three Ds, right? You need what's a damage duration, and you need domination. You definitely had some damage. He didn't have a ton of duration. I mean, he was winning, but I don't mean, I mean, like, he wasn't in back mount, like, pouring punches on him. Anyway, I'm just pointing out, Jack Shore won the third round cleanly.

Some may have given him a 10-8. I don't know if I would have, but it's fine. The right guy won is the point I'm trying to make. And this is also what I want to say. Jack Shore, people were asking us on Morning Combat, why isn't Jack Shore getting more acclaim? Well, BC's right. There's a finite amount of popularity that can only be handed out at events like these. And even then, that's why the UFC had to give out nine performance bonuses

because it was just an epic card with epic performances. And he had a decision win. And frankly, he lost a round. So that's not going to stand out to a lot of people. But I got to tell you, Jack Shore stood out to me almost more than anyone on this card. That dude is good. He's 27. And you look at his fundamentals now, black belt in jiu-jitsu.

He has good movement on the feet. He doesn't take a lot of damage. He has good takedowns, good timing on his kicks. They are never, He never chambers them. They just fly up with no tell on them whatsoever. He understands all the different dimensions of the game, how to get up off a takedown, how to get his back off the fence, how to control. I mean, dude, if you're 27 years old and you're beating opponents the quality of Timur Valeev

by dropping them twice in the third round, even after surrendering in one round to them beforehand, you're good. You're very, very good. Partly, as BC indicated, there's only so much popularity to go around on a card like this. The other part is, dude, it's bantamweight. It's bantamweight. He's going to have a bit of a—

every bantamweight has, right? They're going to have a hard time ascending that ladder. But, you know, this is a guy to definitely keep your eye on. When we talk about the vanguard of UK fighters, you know, we're talking about all these guys and Molly McCann from Liverpool. You know, we're talking about, you know, Mohamed Makaev. We'll talk about him in a second. But don't lose sight of the folks from Wales, right. I think that's where he's from, Jack Shore. Dude, Jack Shore is legit. Legit. His takedowns look clean.

His mechanics look clean. His decisions look smart. The big change he made was similar to what Teporia did. I don't want to overstate that pressure is all you need to go win fights in the UFC. It's not really true. But it can be quite true in the sense that a lot of guys, I think they train getting used to having lots of room. Maybe their sparring partners give it to them.

Maybe they don't realize it. Maybe the cage they use is a different size. I don't know. I would have to look into it more. But Baleev is constantly level-changing and fainting and doing all this stuff. And he's pot- shotting one, two strikes and gone kicking the leg. Both guys had kicked the other guy's leg a million times. By the way, Jack Shorey using the middle kick, um, to counteract the jab. Sometimes, uh, Vlaev was just,

I mean, chef's kiss. It was amazing. But the point I'm trying to make is Vlaev is a mover. He is a mover. He needs to level change. He needs to use head movement. He needs to do all kinds of things that space is needed for. Well, what happens when you take away his space? Vlaev turns into a counter-striker. He was leading before, and then Jack Shul was trying to counter him. That's a difficult needle to thread against a guy like Vlaev. I mean, if you've got a really good person who can counter-strike like that, like a Bud Crawford on Kell Brook kind of situation. Yes, you can get away with it. At 27, that was a little bit too much for him in that first round,

but he turned it around in the second, really turned it around in the third. And it was because once he began to corner Valaev, and he had different setups beyond that, but that space got taken away, Valaev got reactionary. He got still. He turned into a counter-puncher. Dude, Jack Shore ate him alive doing that. Ate him alive doing that. I really, there needs to be more,

it needs to be more licked into because pressure games work in boxing a lot, a lot. Not as much as they do in MMA. Not as uniformly. There is something happening either with the space in the cage or the way people are training or whatever. Also the dimensions of the cage, right? Because even if you get pushed into the ropes in boxing,

you guys have seen Tyson Fury lean way back, right? And he can just let the punches go in front of him. But on the MMA side, when you get to that wall, it's nice and tall. That's why out of sight, he gets the fuck up off of it and moves. But in any case, Jack Shore turned it around. And dude, when it came time for him to start dealing, and he was the guy putting the jab in the face and then putting combinations behind it, dude, he ate Vallejo up. So Jack Shore is a beast. Pay attention to him. Last but not least, Mohamed Mokhaev defeating Cody Durden, submission guillotine choke at 58 seconds of round number one. You know, listen, there's not a great amateur system in MMA. He benefited from, I would say, one of the more developed programs that are out there.

And you're looking at the results, too. We talked about Jack Short, how good his fundamentals is. And I would say his are better than Mokaev's. But what I'm also going to say is Mokaev, at 21, 21, making his UFC debut, two things I'm going to say to any young, young, young fighter watching this. Now, listen, I'm not your coach. You should listen to them more than you should ever listen to me. But it's like, what's my advice now that I've seen several generations of fighters come and go,

especially this new generation? You need time in the amateurs, right, where it doesn't affect your pro record. You need to get all, you can't get everything there, but you need to get a lot of your fundamentals tied up, ready to go. You need time spent down there. And before you jump to the UFC, you need time on the regional scene. Now, that's very easy for me to say because I'm not the one who has to feed any families off of no money to the amateurs and very little on the regional scene for pros.

But this is the other side of the coin. You're going to roll up to the UFC. You might make it. Most fighters don't, but you might. You're going to get up there and you're going to look across the octagon at a 21 or maybe 22-year-old kid by the time you get there, 23-year-old, whatever he ends up being, who's got all that amateur experience. And at 21, look at how clean his footwork is. Look at how clean his decision-making is, look at how smart and adaptive it is, and then to finish that choke, he had it, I think, with a gable grip and then switched to the bicep as Durden, well, Durden gets hit with the shot, tries to get

the takedown off the guillotine choke, and he tries to roll belly up, and when he does that, kind of like what Baja Mendes did last fight a few of these shows ago, where he goes palm-on-palm, switches to the bicep, and then rotates on top where he's actually leaning his weight with his forearm and his body on top of it to adapt it. Dude, he could adapt

the grip and then the application of that choke as people rolled through without having to think about it. It was just muscle memory, and he's 21 and doing it at this level. If y'all aren't getting the fights you need in the amateurs or the pros, you might think you're ready to go to, I want to sign with the UFC tomorrow. I want to sign with Bellator. Careful what you wish for. Careful what you wish for. Mohamed Mokhaev is a bit of a unicorn now because of how good he is and how young he is. There will be more like him.

Maybe not exactly like him. But what I mean is there will be more fighters, very young, with lots of competitive experience, specific to MMA, not composite sports like wrestling or kickboxing or whatever, direct to MMA, and they're going to work on their game in a very dedicated way. Think about these guys in boxing who come from the amateurs, like the Olympians or whatever, and how clean their mechanics are and how good their game is. Now, you don't necessarily need that. Canelo doesn't have a great amateur background or not much of one at all. And he's the best boxer in the sport. But of course, Canelo is Canelo. I don't think that's really a model that most boxers want to follow.

Most elite boxers have at least, I think it's a fair to say, certainly on the American side of things, have at least some, if not pretty significant, amateur experience because it matters. It allows you to start earlier in your training. You can start in your teens and you can get great experience with headgear and then the shin pads and much more coordinated smokers or very simple three-minute, three, three round bouts. You know, all these things you need to slowly work on your game. You start early, you get all these developmental pieces put together so that by the time you get to the UFC, you have a good foundation and not a Jenga tower where someone just, oh, oh, all I need to do is just do this and your whole game falls apart because you have shitty footwork and you don't really know how to do arm bars from the guard and

your chin is high up in the air when you jab or whatever it ends up being. All these things that could get tightened up earlier in your development with less risk and consequence, you need that. You need that. Because if you don't, Mohamed Mokhaev and people like him are going to run your ass over. He's a special talent and he's unique. But there will be others, if not exactly like him, in a similar kind of vein. That thing, as the amateur system gets more developed,

there are going to be more and more and more guys like this. So, again, not exactly like him per se, Mokraev could be a future star, but having 15, 20 fights in the amateurs, 5 to 10 fights or whatever it is in the pros, undefeated or not, they're coming to the UFC with 30 fights and they're 21 years old? You're fucked. You're fucked. You don't have that. You're boned, bro. You're super boned. So

it's great to see that we have guys now in the UFC that have benefited with some kind of amateur experience and his decision making, it just speaks to all of it. None of that shit was new to him, man. None of it. How many times have guys been there? I was like, Oh, you know, the guy did this and I haven't, I've never seen training partners do that and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Not this guy, not him. Didn't go that

way at all. Pretty impressive. What a card, what a city, London, amazing. One of the world's best cities, UK fight fans, probably the best ones in the world. Them and the Irish together. They deserved that night. It had been three years since they'd been there, so I take my hat off to all the winners. I take my hat off to everyone who competed, and I congratulate everyone there in that market, in that economy, in that whole industry and the sport who finally got to enjoy the sport in their backyard. And they got some great guys coming, UK MMA is coming bro in the words of BC if you're coming on come on and that's exactly what they're doing they're about to make some waves you're gonna have some future British champions before too long Michael Bisping is gonna have some company up there with some UK

belt holders you know all right thumbs up on the video if you liked it hit subscribe I'm sorry this is coming out so late but maybe this will will work. I don't even know. Until next time. Peace.