MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Niko Price, Alexander Hernandez Win | MK Extra Credit Ep. 2

Episode Date: October 5, 2021

Luke Thomas is back with the second episode of MK Extra Credit. Luke runs through the rest of the UFC Fight Night: Santos vs. Walker card that he didn't get to in Episode 211 of Morning Kombat. 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  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. It is the 4th of October, 2021, and it is time for MK Extra Credit, episode 2. Hello everyone, my name is Luke Thomas. I am your host for this podcast, but one half of the normal, the big MK.

This is our little mini podcast we do on Monday evenings to get to the fights from the weekend that we didn't get to on regular MK. We'll put the link for regular MK in the description box and everything else. But this is a, uh, well for now MMA specific, certainly. And for today, we're just going to get to all those fights. Like, uh, we didn't, we didn't get to Nico price. We didn't get to Alexander Hernandez on regular MK. We'll do it here. First things first, give the video a thumbs up, hit subscribe. We appreciate you, uh, uh, helping us with the name.

We appreciate you guys watching this and we only have 30 minutes or less to do this. So no time like the present. Let's get things started. Now, first, a bit of sort of note about what I'm selecting. I'm not opposed to picking in fights from LFA or some other interesting regional shows if they're really, really relevant title fights or for some of the reason worth paying attention to. But as a rule, I'm not going to go through that kind of stuff. We don't have time for it. So Cage cage warriors they did have some interesting things going on but nothing really stood out this particular time but I'll always keep my mind open Bellator kind of the same thing they did have Lima versus Douglas too but we got to that on regular MK

and the rest of the card frankly is not really worth any broader examination I don't feel like so let's stick with the UFC card. So this, this of course was UFC fight night, Santos versus Walker. We know the story was at the apex and everything else on regular MK. We got to Santos versus Walker and we got to the Holland and Dawkus situation. So we start just below that with Nico price taken on Alex Olivera,

Nico price wins 29, 28, 29, 28, 29, 28, a decision. He picks up two of the three rounds.

I think he won the first round where he was able to get a takedown and for the most part control on top. Second round, it was a little bit different. He actually spent some time underneath and was kind of outstruck on the feet, although that was a common condition in all three of the rounds. And then the third round got outstruck in the beginning kind of pushed a closer fight in the middle was able to get on top with like a minute 30 or so left I could be wrong about that part but um with you know a decent chunk in the round left to me it

was pretty close I actually thought Oliveira did more damage on the feet to negate what had happened a little bit later in that fight I To me, I thought Oliveira probably, I'm not going to say deserved the nod, that's maybe a strong word, but could have gotten the nod. Wouldn't have been all that unjustifiable, but in the end, Nico Price gets it done. And what was interesting was,

I think both guys were actually trying to be, it foreshadowed what Santos and Walker ended up being. Now, Price versus Oliveira was much more action-packed than that, but it had a similar kind of, at least early and throughout certain parts of it, restraint where both guys were trying to fight to the best of their disciplined abilities, which meant dialing back some of their offense to keep their defense alive. It really is an illustration about people who are able to incorporate defense into their offense more nimbly or vice versa, however you to see it and what dividends that pays I don't present it

to you to be an easy problem to solve but one that does appear quite regularly when you watch high-level MMA even with those pros they have a hard time incorporating the two together they have to kind of go back and forth an extreme example of that would be you all were marrow in the luke rockhold fight that's a completely extreme example but you get the idea a little bit of that but it was a nice showing by nico price still some issues at range he was gonna he was surprised a lot of times with some of the punches and some and some of the setups that olivera was using but in the end there was a little bit more just i think effort exerted they were they were reasonably close in ability.

And Price, I think, stepped on the gas a little bit more to me is a bit of the explanation there. Christoph Jotko at middleweight takes on Misha Surkinov, who was making middleweight for his debut, of course, previously a light heavyweight. He wins via split, 29-28 on two of them, and then won the other way. So 29-28 for Misha Surkinov. I can understand

cirkunov taking a round and he was certainly diligent about um trying to take the fight there but this was sometimes you can see a situation where a guy or a lady drops or changes weight classes and it can pay real dividends right it can pay like if they were cutting too much weight and they move up you know they're healthier they healthier, they hit harder, their chins better. It's just like, oh my God, why weren't they there this whole time? Or in the case of someone like Jared Cannoneer, he was like, maybe you could be a little bit trimmer. Let's see what that would do. And then they got them all the way down to middleweight, right? Because he started at heavyweight. They got him all the way down to middleweight. And you're like, wow, dude, like he's really athletic and nimble and

fast and hard hitting and strong at this big fast but it took some time to be able to get the person in a space where they they knew that was optimal for them the point i'm trying to make here is um i didn't automatically think that cirkunov going to middleweight posed no benefits but i kind of wanted to see what happened and dc kind of addressed it he just i don't think he got a lot out of it like i think he thought it was going to really help him in the grappling department. And I'm sure it did on some level. I don't think it was like did nothing for him, but it wasn't obvious. Jocko looked like he was dealing with a strong, but another middleweight.

It didn't look like, you know, he could sometimes, you know, Holloway will go up against somebody who's 145 or so, or maybe a little bit small for the weight class. And he just towers over them. And he's still thin, but still you can see this difference in the stature of opponents within the same weight class. He didn't really get that here. And for Jocko, I thought he looked, you know, he didn't wow me necessarily with his volume

or any particular one thing he was doing, but he had good footwork. He had good timing. He had great takedown defense and the fact is takedown defense I mean his down blocking was really good right he was able to get his he was able to hit his sprawl with his hands planted before Serkanov could really ever make any kind of contact with his hips this happened over and over for the most part I mean obviously exceptions here or there but um he did a great job with his down blocking and um to me what it

looked like with cirkunov and this is why the weight class change didn't really matter again sometimes a weight class change up or down can solve a big problem that somebody has but in this particular case it looked to me like he just had a hard time setting up anything beyond a single or single double shot like a jab jab cross jab cross hook i don't know i don't think i ever saw a jab cross hook at a cirkunov um i think i saw a lot of like you know the the striking either seemed limited on purpose or by consequence of that's where he is at this level and and or uh it was intentionally dialed back just to sort of aid the grappling and range management portion of the fight. But in any case, it wasn't very lethal.

And because it wasn't very lethal, that didn't help the wrestling. So the problems all kind of compounded and formed a circular chain. He needed to be more dynamic with those in order for the striking to be playing a role. But the striking didn't play a role because it wasn't more dynamic and it goes back and forth right so um but the weight class changes that's not something you can fix like if you can't open up and create if you can't create more openings uh standing across from an opponent for either the striking or the grappling um you know it's hard to know what the weight class can really do for you, even though it is, you know, 20 pounds can be obviously quite significant. Anyway, it was a nice win by Jocko.

Didn't like blow me away, but I would say a veteran, solid, well-schooled performance. He looked good. This one was really interesting. Alexander Hernandez had a catch weight of 158 because his opponent mike breeden did not make weight dude alexander hernandez so he comes out and is a victim of his own success beating benil doryush and uh was it um albin marcia and he just looked like a world beater he's physically like looks strong he had knocked out doryush and and had

out wrestled alin Marseille who's a big lightweight and you were like wow and then he started calling out Day Drink and Don and hit a brick wall from there and has had to retool and looked like maybe he was lost a little bit this was the first time I thought wow man he looked and he just sounded different too right so first of all what happens this is not his original opponent and everything changed last minute but you got what you got you got Hernandez versuseden. He was backing him up behind the jab. He had Hernandez on his heels. He was working the jab. He was finding his angles. He was fainting his way into distance. And what really set it all up was he was going low, constantly

going low, going low, going low. And then he faked like he was doing this and then whipped around the corner with the jab and then put the two right behind it dude that was a nice setup that was a nice execution he didn't rush it he played into it directly was this the most primed opponent the best guy on the roster he could have not necessarily but Mike Breeden is a good fighter even under these circumstances he is not to be just dismissed as a nobody uh so for Hernandez to set it up in the way that he did and then execute the way he did this is the first time I was like, wow, dude, okay. We talked about it on regular MK about Walker and Santos, more so Walker, changing his style. And in that early stage, it can look like they're just lost and they're not going anywhere.

It's because they're at the beginning of this developmental process and they just don't have the acumen to make it all work yet. But if you give it time, let it breathe a little bit you might get somewhere this is the first time i thought hernandez was really getting somewhere with this where i really believed he was finally making use of all the changes he made and then you listen to him talk when i interviewed him the first time he was kind of like a kid not too far out of college who was not just not happy to be there but you know kind of certain kind of the swag that all guys in their 20 twenties have before life comes crashing down on them. Right. That kind of a thing where it's not so much arrogance of, from character flaw, just as much as he's never been humbled.

Well, he got humbled. He got humbled in UFC and it changed his attitude because he was saying it took nothing for granted from this. You know, I, everything is a blessing. I worked on this. I feel like I'm inspired. I got the right team. He was just saying all the right things, man. It was like a really strong performance. And I'm now curious to see him build on this.

It's a long way to build on this. But that was a good, big, important step in the career of Alexander Hernandez, for sure. On the preliminary card, the main event was a lightweight affair between Jared Gordon and Joe Selecki. Jared Gordon wins via split, and it was a tight one, 29-28, two of the scorecards, and then Selecki had one. Selecki came out and took his back right away in the first round and held it for like three minutes or more and was just all over him early.

The fight doesn't turn until the second round, but that first round, I wanted to mention something because Dean Thomas came out. By the way, Dean Thomas is great. He repeats himself a little bit when he gives his advice, which I can say because I like Dean a lot and I've known him a long time, but the actual advice he's giving is like, it's exactly what needs to be said on the broadcast.

It's exactly what the booth is often missing. And what he talked about was the precision of the back control of Selecki. Dude, Selecki's a good grappler. He's a very good grappler, man. He was working from the back, and it just shows you how advantageous the back can be because he was able to keep...

If you think about how Gordon got out of it, it took him three and a half minutes, basically, something like that and it was expertly done but it was not quickly done Selecki was up against the problem that John Danaher has identified that one of the issues with back control is that if you're attacking from the back you are essentially outnumbered because while one arm has to go to attack the throat it doesn't have the other hand has to essentially not fight two at the same time there can be ways to rig it but you get the idea you are outnumbered right and so they

that's why you see a lot of the danaher guys they solve that problem a number of different ways one of the ways they solve it and bj pan did it earlier they're not the only ones but i bring it up because they talk about it is you bring the leg over the top on one side obviously to control the other limb so now it's an even fight right so now you can it's arm on throat hand on hand and now you don't worry about the extra appendage he was never really able to get there because i think an mma controlling up at that way or on the waist is just much more at a premium could be wrong about that not so sure but um in any case he was kind of up against that so gordon was just incredibly patient the whole time and able to make the situation work.

The thing I'm pointing out about Selecki is that everything he did was really, really precise. And Gordon was able to expertly get out. But even expertly escaping the back took him three and a half minutes. Like, it's not quick. You can get out of the back without too much damage happening to you. That is possible. But it's probably not. You can get out of the back without too much damage happening to you. That is possible, but it's probably not going to happen very fast against an operator,

the talent of Joe Selecki. So he found himself there just stuck for that entire time. But dude, it was so funny. The fight turned at two 30 of the second round and ended up going the distance. So what does that mean? The fight turned at the literal halfway point in terms of the time of the

fight itself, where you see so like you're trying to go back to the takedown not really able to get it and then gordon uh has a wizard kick hits it or you know hits it through a right oh excuse uchimata hits it through and then you see was like he plants his hands gordon goes to get on top and then gordon switches him another direction and plants him on his back and from from there, he ran out the rest of the round. They struck it out on the feet again. So Lucky had some nice punches.

But it looked like Jared Gordon had just a little bit more push when the fight needed someone to kind of take it by the back of the neck. This is what coaches mean when they talk about who wanted it more. And that often sounds like, well, dude, they both want it right. But sometimes the talent level can just cancel a lot out where, you know, obviously Selecki's better as a ground operator than Gordon, but Gordon might have some veteran sense about when to go, when to push, good defense.

But neither guy had really put the stamp on the other one, although positionally Selecki had done quite well. In that third round when they were exchanging, it just needed someone to go a little bit more. And that's what it means, just sort of pursuing it in that particular way. When all else fails, all you kind of have left is Will. Will won't get you enough. Will is not enough to win championships by itself.

But Will, as a last resort against someone else, and that's their last resort, can be quite powerful. At women's flyweight, Casey O'Neal defeated Antonina Shevchenko at 447 of the second round. O'Neal running into a lot of strikes. She was getting chewed up at distance. A lot of times it was closing distance with a very kind of rough way. Shevchenko on the feet making great contact with her,

beating her up in the clinch at times, although kind of getting pressed backwards and then along the fence line. But the problem with the strikes were that none of them were good enough or powerful enough to really deter o'neill it wasn't like o'neill wasn't getting bombed on a little bit or eating big shots or you know even if she didn't get tagged that one time you know it wasn't like she she was walking into these entries a little bit rough. But the thing that she has on her side is she has youth, she has daring. And on the ground, she was quite good. Quite good.

I was very impressed. Once it got there, she just shredded right through Shevchenko, to be quite honest with you. Took a little bit to polish her off because Shevchenko kind of has actually decent defense from being mounted, but not enough in the end to stop it. The other part about her is, I mean, listen, it's a great win for Casey O'Neal, who I think is just 23 or something like that.

She has a great foundation upon which to build, but there's plenty more building to go. It's the opposite situation with Shevchenko here. Obviously sister is you know one of the best female one of the best fighters we've ever seen uh you know this is a this is not that um she is dynamic on the feet she is a well-trained martial artist she is worthy of respect but on the ground at 36 years of age there's no reason to believe that these are gonna be problems that she'll be able to overcome with any kind of, this is probably, you've seen her ceiling already.

Yeah. From the next bout, catchweight, it was a Carol Hossa, spelled Rosa, taking on Betch Cahaya, an all Brazilian affair. Hossa demolished her.

She won 3027 on two scorecards, 3026. I'm surprised that there weren't more 10, eight rounds. She beat the brakes off of her. She beat the brakes off26. I'm surprised that there weren't more 10-8 rounds. She beat the brakes off of her. She beat the brakes off her. I know this was her retirement fight, and she showed some goodwill, I thought,

in the third fight herself, kind of not letting... She knew she had lost, and she knew there was no way she was going to win, but fighting for dignity, you can sometimes tell that they can fight for dignity. I saw a little bit of that, which I take my proverbial hat off to uh you know she's obviously been the subject of some

funny jokes along the way but i take my hat off to anybody who can push like that under circumstances like that but hosa tore her up tore her up at every range she would do this constant jump uh switch knee as a distance closer because kohea was biting on it every time or would freeze or whatever. She would never really attack it back and so they could use it to like land at certain times whether she was pressuring, they could use it once she was backing up to close and then they'd come over

the top and hammer her with an elbow or punches or whatever. But at distance she was landing leg kicks inside outside, lead leg, rear leg, everything was just getting drilled um every every available legal target of of cohea was under assault in this one um carol hosa i'm not sure how old she is let me see how old she is she is and currently remains just 26 dude that's that's somebody to pay

attention to carol host is someone to pay attention to. Carol Hossa is someone to pay attention to. She had setups. She could recognize weaknesses and go back to them very quickly and easily. She stayed out of defensive trouble. Like, look at her face. She looked clean as a whistle. Meanwhile, Cojeas, after the fight, was, I think, one of her eyes was already shut. The other one was bruised and purple.

Pretty close to that. You know, Carol Hossa is an operator. Pay attention to her. Jamie Malarkey at lightweight took on davante smith he wins in the second round at 251 of that fight that was so funny we talked a little bit about this on regular mk davante smith at range to me just looked like he would have his way with jamie malarkey as long as the fight went on and malarkey was trying man he was going side to side he was rolling he was creating feints he was giving a lot of different looks he always looked like though he couldn't really gauge the distance or commit enough if you go back and look especially

when like two punch combos he would throw two punch combos and they would miss by about four to six inches something like that like they're they're not well in the case of the four inches they're not like super super far away but they're not maybe it's a little bit more like more like two to three inches i think is a better way to put it but the point being is you know far enough away where you could tell they were trying to engage but they they they there's another half step to go kind of thing and this happened to him over and over and over again so and smith was leaning but not enough to always explain that so he had this trouble there but eventually once he was able man it's just amazing what that that wall of the octagon will do you know you can get so many

of these guys that if they can stick and move and it tells you about like your cage generalship moving through the octagon spatially understanding where you're supposed to be and when you're not supposed to be of course very easy for me to say I'm not the one in there. I'm not the one being tired, but that is the challenge that they all signed up for. In any case, eventually he sort of just kind of stays on him, constantly attacking, constantly moving, for the most part avoiding anything super serious from Devontae Smith,

although Smith is landing on him, to be clear. And then eventually he was able to, in the second round to get them up against the fence line. And from there, dude, it's a totally different ball game. You're already a little tired. Now you're up here and your defense is not what it used to be. You literally can't go backwards. Um, you uncertain ways, your, your forward motion is even limited because you, how are you going to move? If your rear end moves backwards, you can only go forward at the hips, right? So everything gets kind of changed about how you can move in that space and now the distance is not a problem for him he grabs up behind the neck and hits him i think two three times with the knees and then just stays on him so it's one of those cases where like in terms of pure striking skill

malarkey did not prove that he was a superior striker not at all that's not what that showed what it showed was that he was good enough in the striking patient enough and understanding about some of the other weapons that he could employ namely range shortening it and not just the range from i always talk about it it's not just the range from you to the opponent it's the range from you to the opponent the opponent to the wall those are the two variables in play there and when you can change both of those which he did and collapse both of them you have a completely different fight on your hands that's exactly what you got uh douglas the silva excuse me douglas silva de andrage defeating uh i forget how to pronounce this guy's name guy tano i'm sure i'm pronouncing it wrong um parello um again i i i forgot i didn't hear them pronounce his name so i don't know how

you pronounce it i kind of skipped right to the fight itself um this guy i don't know what happened there where parellio you know he tried to sort of skip uh skip faint almost his way into range and then but doing it like way inside of the range he's got he got picked off uh just moving right inside with his hands down. I didn't really understand it. And that dude, DeAndrade, is built like a ninja turtle. He is. That dude looks strong. And he cracked him with a shot coming in. That was all it took. 2 of 4 the first.

Nice punch. From Switzerland, Stephanie Eggerton beating Shanna Young via TKO elbow. Could be a bit of an early stoppage because what you see is Young grab her face and turn away. So I could see why the referee stepped in, but she was still wrestling with her legs and still kind of inverting to protect herself. So it's a bit of an early call. But Egger, this one was not super interesting on the feet. Egger, interesting in the sense that she's a judoka you

can see her going for collar ties trips two times getting the throw getting uh and by the way not just good about um getting the throw but then not ending up in scarf hold which we'll talk about with the last fight on there right where you're you don't your your your chest is facing their face and you have their arm and then or there should be their arm and then their head rather than being on top and side control where it's chest to chest or you know something usually approximating that because if you don't have that underhook on the far side or something some kind of ability to keep the chest down and you're around the head if you're not careful they can come out the back there's lots of things that can get happened you can get rolled over but

um judokas are actually from they call it scarf hold they're from they're very good from that position uh she wasn't able to finish the fight from there but you could just tell on the ground she was just much more physically dominant young was trying to do her best to create space or whatnot but it just wasn't there again you if you can maybe argue that it was a little bit early with the stoppage but uh in any case nice win by stephanie egger uh last but not least Alejandro Perez defeating Johnny Eduardo from uh a scarf hold an arm bar it's an arm bar with your legs and there's different ways you can do it and set it up but uh you know I I thought he was on route to getting beaten up in this fight Perez started in this rocking motion that you thought might be there to like loosen up like

they'll start with an obvious motion and then use that to like, you know, get going with all the other stuff they're doing. No, he just kept doing it. He just kept rocking side to side in a very rhythmic way where I'm like, dude, you're going to get timed doing this. And several times he did because he just kept sticking to it. I wonder if that's something he did

because it helps him get his mind right about where defense needs to be later. Like if you do that practice early, you don't get knocked out. You'll do it just enough later where it won't be so rhythmic. It'll actually be helpful, right? Kind of like muscle memory. I don't know if it's that. I don't know if he was nerfed. I don't know what that was, but it was not doing him favors early in any case, neither, not really why he won the fight. In fact, he nearly lost it several times. I thought he was getting chewed up on the feet a little bit personally.

He was kind of in it, but he had several moments on the ground, taking it back to the ground, didn't do a whole lot with it, but eventually finds himself on the ground later in the second. There was three different parts where they went to the ground. There was one where he had, I think, his back taken for a while, too, earlier on. Eduardo was clearly the better of the two positionally on the where he had, I think, his back taken for a while, too, earlier on. Eduardo was clearly the better of the two positionally on the ground. But, dude, here's the funny part about it, man. You had Perez find his way to a scarf hold,

and then, you know, when he hit it, you can watch him crank the arm. I think it was the far side arm and the head at the same time as soon as he wraps it up with his legs. Dude, that is something i guarantee you his training partners have said i mean listen if you hit something in an mma fight chances are you hit it in the training room all the time anyway it's like the chances that would be the first time you do that would be almost impossible i'm sure it's happened but not impossible but extremely rare most of the things that people hit are the things they have comfortability with and that comfortability is driven by repetition anyway you get the idea still that's one of those arm bars that you know you can get

it once on your training partners maybe even twice that's gonna be hard to get it on three times because they're really gonna know something he's it's it's it's not gimmicky because this really comes from judo but in the modern mma sense especially on the men's side you don't see a lot of that because you don't see a lot of those head and arm throws to that kind of portion of attack so i guarantee you what i'm trying to make is if Eduardo trained with Perez he'd probably never get it but because he just wasn't thinking about it because people just don't go for that kind of thing too often in the gym he just kind of had loose defense in that moment I mean it doesn't take much for someone you could tell Perez knew exactly how to crank

he knew exactly how to pull he knew exactly what he was doing in that moment so um just one of those things where again a low percentage a low percentage uh submission having a couple of those in your repertoire can be beneficial you don't you're not gonna you know it's not gonna be a reason why you win titles it's not gonna be the reason why you're the number one contender but uh especially in a fight where you if they've gone the distance you probably would have lost what i was gonna say What I was going to say was, what I was going to say was an ace up your sleeve with that sort of low percentage submission from a perfectly reasonable position, but one that people just don't,

they don't really focus in on, on the training room because it's just not a thing that you would spend your time doing ordinarily. Even that will help you win UFC fights. Yeah. Okay. By the way, your fight of the night,

there was no bonus awarded, so performances went to Casey O'Neal, Jamie Malarkey, Douglas Silva de Andrade, and Alejandro Perez. So congrats to all of them. Thumbs up on this video. Like it if you'd be so kind. And yeah, MK Extra Credit, episode two.

Tell me what you liked and what you didn't like. What was your favorite fight for the weekend? What was your favorite finish? Give us the feedback. Let us know. My name is Luke Thomas. I'll be back on Wednesday for the next episode of Formal MK with Brian Campbell. Until then, enjoy

the fights.