MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 259 Results: Israel Adesanya vs. Jan Blachowicz | Post-Fight Show | MORNING KOMBAT

Episode Date: March 7, 2021

UFC 259 results and spoilers below. At UFC 259, Israel Adesanya faces Jan Blachowicz for the light heavyweight title. In the co-main, women's featherweight champion Amanda Nunes squares off with Megan Anderson. Elsewhere, bantamweight champion Petr Yan defends his strap against Aljamain Sterling. This is Morning Kombat's UFC 259 Post-Fight Show. ---------------------------- 'Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Hi, everybody. It is, uh, God, it is late. It is 1.30 in the morning. My name is Luke Thomas. I am from CBS Sports and Showtime. This is the official UFC 259 post-fight show right here on the Morning Combat YouTube channel.

Please give the video a thumbs up. If you are new here, please subscribe. We would love to have you around. Morning Combat airs three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, live at 11 a.m. But we do a ton of stuff in addition to that, including but not limited to this here post-fight show. Okay, so all the results are in. If you don't want spoilers, now is your time to go, because we have to get to all the results now. So without further ado, let's get this party started. All right. There we are.

As a standard reminder, this is literally the fights just happened. We are now going to sink our teeth into the results. I'm not going to get to all of them here today. Obviously, there's a ton of stuff to get to on Monday's Morning Combat, which, by the way, BC and I will be in studio together Monday in Jersey City. So that'll be the normal studio show to which we were accustomed pre pandemic. Uh, so these are our immediate takes. There could be changes between mine between now and then. And of course we'll hear everything BC has to say on that Monday show. So I highly encourage you to stick around for that. But, um, for now let's get to these results.

As I mentioned, UFC, um, two 59 is in the books. I'm going to pull up the results here, then on my notes. Okay. I'm assuming if you're here, you don't want spoilers. Let's turn off the subscribe button. Yes, like and subscribe, all that good stuff. Okay. Let's get to it, shall we? All right.

UFC 259, of course, took place at the UFC apex facility in Las Vegas, Nevada, three title fights on the card. Let's start with the one that just ended. That being the main event in the main event, Jan Blachowicz defeats Israel Adesanya via unanimous decision to retain his UFC light heavyweight title. The scores 49, 46, and then two 49-45s. Trying to guess how the scoring worked, because to have two 49-45s, that means that two of the judges had one 10-8 round.

So how did they do that? Here's my best guess, is that they gave, I've not seen them, so when they come out, I'll take a look. The UFC usually mails that kind of stuff at the end of the bout, so you have to give them a little bit of time. It takes them about 10 minutes or so. But my guess is that they gave Adesanya the third round, and then they gave the fifth round not merely to Blachowicz, but they gave him the 10-8 on top for the dominance, eventually moving to mount in the fifth round. Okay, this was a really important fight.

It's kind of funny because... I don't know how consequential folks will take it, but for me, it was pretty consequential. I mean, look, in any one performance, you really want to be very careful about either the superlatives being over the top or the criticisms being a little bit unfair. The sample size, this was a 25-minute fight, but one fight itself,

you need to just be careful about to what extent you go in one extreme or the other because a lot of times you'll see subsequent fights where the narrative will switch very quickly. But Israel Adesanya suffers his first MMA career loss. It wasn't some kind of stinging defeat or like incredible rebuke. The guy was moving up 20 pounds to go to another weight class. He had, again, performed there in other combat sports, but this was his first one, I believe, in MMA, certainly in UFC anyway. And I thought it was tied going into the fifth. I had first round out of Sonia. I had second round Blachowicz. I had third round out of Sonia. And then I had fourth round Blachowicz. So when he got the takedown and then held it for a prolonged period of time. So you're

heading into the fifth thinking it's either guy's fight at this point. And then out of Sonia was doing really well on the feet for the first minute and a half in fact the takedown that Blachowicz got in the fifth round was at the 230 mark of the fight or I should say the frame excuse me and so you were like well it was striking in the first half and there was the grappling in the second half which one was more dominant um the grappling with the ground and pound I guess was more dominant especially since he moved him out and then had really good ground and pound at the end there. Excuse me. So that's the way that they went.

But the reason why I say this loss is pretty consequential and I think does need to be examined is I think two things kind of stand out to me about it on the Adesanya side of things. Don't worry. The big story here is Blachowicz. I understand that. But the celebrity, certainly in many ways, I think sided with Israel Adesanya side of things. Don't worry. The big story here is Blachowicz. I understand that. But the celebrity, certainly in many ways, I think, sided with Israel Adesanya. I mean, this is what this bout was really designed to do, right? You had Adesanya, who was this undefeated phenom, moving up. He was trying to get a title in the second weight class. And it was supposed to be this big to-do.

And then Blachowicz just bought into none of that narrative. And what he was supposed to get out of it was this big boost if he won, which I think he will get at least some of that, although the fight was a little bit ho-hum, I think for the casual observer anyway. But let me start with Adesanya here for just a second. The reason why I think that it's kind of consequential is it turns out that if you look at Adesanya's takedown defense along the fence,

so if he's pressed into the fence, he is very good about getting off the fence, and he's very good about defending the takedown there. Rightly, if his back is up against the fence, he's pretty hard to take down. I actually think he could defend himself quite well there, and I think the weight differential did wear on him, but he was able to get, I think it was the second or third round, he was able to see him fish in a crossface, so getting his forearm across the chin and throat of Blachowicz and create some separation, it actually was okay. The problem turns out to be

not along the fence line, but lifting him off of his feet in open space, so sort of inside the two black lines, where you're far enough away where he can't just shimmy on his elbows and his hips and his rear end to get his back on the fence. He is too far away, and if there is an underhook or you're in half guard or if the guy's using shoulder pressure, you can't just scooch your hips back. You're being controlled at that point. He got taken down twice, and here's what was interesting about it. I mean, okay, end of the fifth, Blachowicz took him out, but it was enough to win the frame. But it didn't do a ton of damage or something.

Adesanya's face seemed, for the most part, pretty fine. But what it did say was Adesanya, once he got planted on his back, he could not get up. He didn't get super overwhelmed positionally, and he didn't get super beat up. That's not really what happened. But he never was an offensive threat off of his back. I know he went for a triangle on Kelvin Gastelum in that scramble, which was pretty incredible. But here, he couldn't really get going. And then, positionally off of his back, he got his guard passed once to go to side.

Didn't make it any worse than that. Was able to, I think, get back half guard at that point. But here's my point. That's almost what happened to him in the third round of the Vittori fight. Vittori just didn't even go for takedowns in the first two rounds. If you actually go and listen to the commentary back then, they were like, you know, why isn't Vittori going for takedown? Sure enough, goes for one in the third, and Adesanya has real difficulty getting back up.

There's a prolonged period of time where he spends on his back, getting shoulder pressured, getting moved to half guard,, not really be able to get the frames out to get his hips back to re-guard or begin to set up threats from guard. There's really none of that. Listen, as a guy who's got long limbs, like Adesanya, you'll see there are guys who can weaponize their long legs. They can wrestle with their legs really well.

I don't just mean wrestling as in driving off of their legs, but I mean off of their back, they can use them almost like they would with the same, you know, clear dexterity of their hands. They're quite good at it. And you get guys who are the exact opposite where once someone was able to move past their legs, they have a real hard time reinserting them into the combative conversation. They kind of just get, they just kind of hold on for like anchors at that point. Adesanya, up to this point, what he showed anyway,

again, who knows what the reality is, but the reality is what we can see, and what we can see was he was very much the latter of those two, that once he got past the point where his knees were still a real line of defense, I mean, think about your lines of defense, right? You put your foot out,

that's your first line of defense, okay? They move closer, your shin is a line of defense, depending on the position. Now your knees are a bit of a line of defense, and then still your hips can be something of a line of defense. But you're making incremental steps through someone's line of defense. Once it got past the knees, it wasn't really able to do a whole lot with it. Boy, I got to tell you, listen, you guys know I have heaped, I mean, I've spent years heaping praise on Israel Adesanya. And I do think when he goes back to middleweight, it would be very foolish to overestimate some of

the deficiencies that were laid bare here. At the same time, that same common denominator of being taken down in open space and not really being able to do anything in terms of getting your back to the fence or realistically challenging from underneath, that has been a consistent problem. Not that it's been consistently exploited fight over fight, but from the Vittori fight to this one, there is a bit of a common denominator there. And again, Vittori is in many ways a very different fighter than Jan Blachowicz, certainly not the striker that he is. But he's big and he's, you know, he's strong for the weight class. He's massively improved. You know, Adesanya is very incredibly clever on the feet. But you could see even with how clever he is, with enough time passing,

a guy like Blachowicz got a beat on it and was able to time those takedowns. I mean, that last one he got was brilliantly timed by Jan Blachowicz. Really, really, really good job that he did on that. You would have to imagine some of the middleweight guys, if they don't get blown out on the feet, which we'll talk about how Jan Blachowicz avoided that in just a second, that's something they're going to take advantage of, or I should say, take notice of. Whether they can take advantage of it, different story. But it does seem to me that there are lingering issues related to

that. Obviously on the feet, I tend to, I mean, who knows how it would look to the judges. I thought on the feet that Blachowicz was doing underrated work, but I did think, generally speaking, Adesanya was doing a little bit better. But once he was able to use the full weight that he had, Blachowicz, and once he was able to establish control on the ground and get the takedowns in open space, dude, it was a completely one-sided fight, really. There wasn't, it wasn't, you know, what are the levels of jiu-jitsu? Offense, defense, and survive.

Well, that was a lot of defense from Adesanya, but there was no offense. And if it had gotten a little bit worse, as it did when Blavich took him out, well, now you're in the survival stage of things. That is a wake-up call. And if you're Jon Jones, I maintain this. I think that we'll talk about this

with Dominic Cruz a little bit later. A guy like Jon Jones is going to start in the game where he's going to have a huge advantage over all his contemporaries. We did a live chat on Thursday, and someone asked me, is Cyril Ghosn a less mean Jon Jones? But the difference between them is many things, not least of which is that Jon had a huge, I mean, he was so much better when he first

got to UFC and really was making his run through the light heavyweight division. He was so much better than everyone who he was around. So he could kind of just act with impunity and he did, he got away with just doing whatever he wanted to do. Um, and so that was a period he enjoyed. And then there was a little bit more parody, but he was still pretty far ahead. Then there were some close calls and still some dominance in between. But now if you look at the last stage of fights that you got at light heavyweight, there was evidence to me that the division has very much caught up with him, or at least the gap between John and the division has narrowed rather significantly. That was not the case 10 years ago or so.

So here's the point I'm trying to make I think he understands that John Jones and is looking for not to say to Francis Ngannou some easy fight but you know there's a way to maybe think about your longevity and how you can really make your skills last as long as possible potentially through a weight class change even if you're going up again I don't know why he chose at this point in his career to make that change. Only he knows the answer to that. I bring all of this up to say, I do think it's true that the light heavyweights, if John stuck around, would eventually beat John. So it is at least conceivable to me that a guy like Jan Blachowicz could win. If Dominic Reyes, I thought, beat John Jones, you know, if Anthony Smith was certainly not get

blown out, Tiago Santos offensively muted John, took a scorecard from him. And like, there was a lot, you know, to say there. So Jan could be that guy too. But here's what I also know. John probably watched tonight's fight and thought I could take that guy down in open space, and if I did, I'd hammer his head through the floor of that thing, you know, and there's, what are you going to do to talk him out of that, you know, again, I think that's a little bit dismissive of Jan Blachowicz, I think beating Israel Adesanya is a big deal, and I think it's a big deal because he is a extraordinary talent, but there's just no way to look at what happened tonight and say that John Jones would be like, well, you know, I don't know if I can get him down or not. I think Jon probably feels like, and with good reason, that lingering liability in that one context, it seems like it's a relatively small context.

But if you can exploit the totality of Adesanya's game, he does so many things well, again, including in the defensive wrestling department. Along the fence line, dude is legitimately quite hard to take down, but in open space to have that kind of a weakness, which is not the world's biggest weakness, but a small one exploited over time becomes a big one. And sure enough, you got a problem on your hands.

You've got a problem. Would Blachowicz have won that fight striking? Maybe if the judges were giving him the first and the second. The second I can understand. First, I didn't feel like Blachowicz won it. So the answer is yes, he certainly could have. But taking it to the ground in the way that he did really made it clear that that was going to be his best policy to do it. And the fact that he was able to time it off of the entries of Adesanya, despite, you know, he was biting, you heard the commentators talking about it, biting on every feint.

That's true. Blachowicz was, but in the end, he was still able to get just enough done because there wasn't that resistance in open. There wasn't that down blocking. And I think part of it is Adesanya's style. You guys know what down blocking is? If you're a wrestler, you know what this is. So if someone tries to take you down, you can plant your hands and you can drop your hip and you get your kick your feet back. It's called a sprawl, right? Because they can't get in on your legs. They can't get their hands underneath your rear end. They can't lift. So you guys all know what a sprawl is, but sometimes you don't called a sprawl right because they can't get it on your legs they can't get their hands underneath your rear end they can't lift so you guys all know what a sprawl is but

sometimes you don't have to sprawl in fact it's not very efficient as a way to like defend a takedown if you just sprawl all the time it'll wear you out so you can just down block you can get your hands down or one hand down or two hands down and a foot back one hand down and a foot back but it's just a way of not committing fully to dropping your hips, just bringing your hands down. And Adesanya is not going to really be able to do that by virtue of how he strikes, right? I mean, how many times you see Adesanya just lean and rock and lean, you know, to down block, you kind of got to be down and a little bit forward, which he can do sometimes. You'll see him kind of step like this. You know, you'll see that a little bit, especially from the right-handed stance.

But a lot of the defense that he employs to cheat that range that he wants comes at the expense of being able to down block, which he would need for takedown defense in open space. That's going to be an existing liability of his. And again, he's got other defensive striking tools, but he would have to really change a lot of the way, not the totality of it, but a lot of the ways in which he defends strikes and how he approaches, because if you're going to, if you're worried about down blocking and open space and you're leaning like this and your feet are out in front of you, it's going to be impossible.

They're going to get you every time. Um you know uh if they can you know if the fight goes on long enough they can otherwise time your shuffle steps in or or whatever because the part of that was what Blachowicz did too you know so it wasn't just the the lack of down blocking it was a you know good timing when he was being charged that was an amazing performance of Jan Blachowicz we should talk about Jan Blachowicz for a second. I always bring this up. I've been so, Jesus Christ, man. I mean, it wasn't like I didn't think he could win this, but he was the underdog here. He was the considerable under the betting underdog in everywhere you went. Dude, Jan Blachowicz has had a, what a remarkable turnaround in his, not turnaround, but like evolution in his career.

I bring this up all the time. He started his UFC career on two different rotations, lost two of three fights. Four of his first six fights in the UFC were L's. They were L's. And he has evolved into the guy who sent Luke Rockhold into at least semi-retirement, who, you know, was not the greatest fight, but, he had good wins. Nikita Krylov, Jimmy Manoa, Jared Kananier was a good one. Devin Clark, he finished Devin Clark and Nikita Krylov with submissions, but those aren't as good as what came after losing to Tiago Santos, where he then knocks out Luke Rockhold. He then split, but he got the job done against Jacare. Got revenge on Corey Anderson. Bulldozed Dominic Reyes.

And now, like, dude, the right guy won in this. I don't know how much I agree with 49-45 as a scorecard, but did Blachowicz do more to win this fight? There is no doubt about it. You can't believe a... MMA journeys don't really happen like this, except in the rarest of circumstances, what a completely special guy Jan Blachowicz is. I know many of you are probably like me. I have been so consistently wrong about him wrong all the time, because

when you, when you get to the UFC and you put in four, five, six, seven fights, you know, you've been around for a couple of years, you've been through rotations of different, you know, contenders and you see them frequently enough, you're like, oh, right, I know this guy. You know, for him to make an impression where you've lost your first four of six, it's hard to undo that. And then you get some wins. Okay, but you beat guys who were kind of old or not really anywhere close to the top of that division. Then you lose outright to Tiago Santos. We were just ready to write this guy off. And that was the moment. And by the way, that was 2019. How old is he now? What is he, 38 or something? Yeah,

he's 38. So at 36, the guy flips a switch and begins to put pieces of his game together and goes on. This is like Michael Bisping kind of stuff, you know, where Michael Bisping at the last chapter of his career, he beats Dan Henderson, he beats Luke Rockhold, and he lost to St. Pierre and whatever and Kelvin Gastelum. But he had a moment there where he got this incredible redemption at the highest level with the biggest stakes. I'm not saying that Blachowicz is getting revenge on anybody per se.

But, you know, going out there and just dealing these death blows to skepticism. Fight over, fight over, fight over. Dude, who was the guy? Show me the person who wrote it, put it in a video somewhere. I want to see it because everyone's like, I believe in Jan. Who was the person after the Tiago Santos fight that's like, that's the guy that's going to be the next champion and he's going to beat other transcendent stars in nearby divisions who dare challenge him. Who was the person who wrote that? Cause you don't exist.

You don't exist. That person is not out there. No one wrote that column ever. There was, so when was that fight? That was February of 2019. There was no one in March or April or may who was like, you know,

who is the next big fucking thing at two Oh five Yon Blahovich. But you know who was like, you know who was the next big fucking thing at 205? Jan Blachowicz. But you know who was? That guy. It defies everything. And this is not a USADA thing either. His physique hasn't changed. And it's not a real wild change to his game either, right? What did he do so well in this fight?

And it's been true for all of his fights, like in the, in the Luke Rockhold fight, real patient about not getting overwhelmed, real patient about not putting himself in bad positions, not overly committing to a big strike. If it's not there, just see kind of what's take what they give you, you know? And then in the second round, they come out, they clinch up. He, I think it was Rockhold who tried like a Haragoshi or some kind of trip. And all it did was just loosen the underhook a little bit, but they stayed connected. And this guy, Blachowicz, just has the presence of mind to give him a two-piece. Bop, bop, sets him down. And that's all she wrote.

You know, just took his time, found an opening when people get lazy and took advantage of it. Okay, his jacare fight wasn't so great. I'm not going to say a bunch of nice things about it. But again, showed you that he just doesn't get pulled into bad scenarios. You can't make him make a ton of mistakes. Dude, Trevor Whitman talks about it all the time. It's very convincing. And I thought it was true about Adesanya.

I still think it's true about his middleweight campaign. Obviously, we have to update things now. But, you know, Blachow, in this current iteration he's in, in this new version, he doesn't make a lot of mistakes, does he? He does not make a lot of mistakes. And yet, I'm sorry, I should say not yet. And because of that,

he's able to meaningfully find his offense. Corey Anderson comes and leans off the same side off a leg kick, boom. He ran it a million miles away, intercepted it with a punch, sat him down. Dominic Reyes tried to get greedy and didn't manage his range, took care of him. Adesanya couldn't really land on him

because so many times you saw a guy like Blachowicz, what he was doing was staying far apart. He was doing a really good job of blocking. He was anticipating a lot, getting his head out of the way. There wasn't a ton of clean head shots. A few jabs really got through. A lot of body work. Obviously, a ton of leg kicks.

That was a big part of it. But he's hard to hurt. He's hard to land on. He's hard to do anything to. In fact, I wonder if we've got, I really hope that we do, I wonder if we've got the fight metric numbers. Yes, let's take a look. Because I bet you Adesanya had historic lows for this.

So Adesanya only landed 78 strikes total. Wow. Just total. 18 in the first, excuse me, 13 in the first, 21 in the second, 21 in the first, excuse me, 13 in the first, 21 in the second, 21 in the third, 14 in the, excuse me, 11th in the fourth, and then just 12 in the fifth. Let's look at other performances. So let's say the Paulo Costa fight. How many did he land in the first round? 22. How many landed in the second round? 33. You know, that patience and that great defense from Blachowicz, it just slows Adesanya

down and he has to get creative with these entries and creative with these feints and creative with these setups and these distance closing. And it's hard to do against Romero. That was a really bad one. Jesus. Uh, yeah. Adesanya landed two fucking strikes in the first one of that, 11 in the second, 12 in the third, 11 in the fourth, and then 12 in the fifth. The difference is that you had Romero landing seven, nine, six. So there wasn't enough on the other side. In this case, that wasn't really Blachowicz's problem. He was able to land. Actually, I think he outstruck him numerically in every single round.

He landed 107. He got three takedowns. His control time, seven minutes and six seconds. Dude, the right guy won this fight. No doubt about it. No doubt about it. There should be zero controversy for this one. And again, he outstruck him numerically.

Numerically outstruck him in the first. Outstruck him in the second. Numerically in the third. Numerically in the fourth. And then numerically in the fifth. Yeah. Jan Blachowicz, man, who was the one that had it 49, 46, Sal D'Amato, Derek clearly had it 49, 45 and Junichiro Kimijo had it 49, 45. Uh, those are your judges there. So that's what, do we have the result? I'm curious. I want to see if they have the, uh, from the judges' scorecard.

And again, if you're watching, thumbs up, subscribe. Do we have it? Let's see. Yeah. Bonuses. Fight of the Night went to do Kennedy and Zetch Kuyu versus Carlos Olberg. And the performances of the night, Juro Schmedich and then Kaikara France. Yeah. Okay. No, I don't have the ones from the main event just yet.

All right. So let's get back to talking about this fight. So Blachowicz, where he goes from here, by the way, just without a sign yet, because Blachowicz has to fight now, probably Glover to share it. He was asked about it in the post-fight press conference, and he said that's who he wanted to fight. Or I should say we spoke to Joe Rogan, rather. And great. That's the fight that needs to happen. I did not think Rakic really put his stamp on the division

with the win over Santos. He was the right guy won there, too, but not in the way that we... Not to leapfrog a guy like Glover Teixeira, but dude, how would Adesanya do against a guy like Glover Teixeira? Glover Teixeira can be hit, but he's got pretty good defense. He's very resilient. He's got great takedowns and dude on the ground with a black belt like that, dude, bad things, bad things would happen. So like, you know, um, yeah, I'm not sure what to say. I mean,

Adesanya is as brilliant Italian, Italian, excuse me, as we've ever seen. Joe Rogan has said about him that he's the most sophisticated striker that the UFC has ever had. I'm inclined to agree with that. I think that's absolutely true. And again, it's not true that the totality of his takedown defense is porous against the fence line. It's airtight. It's really, really the totality of his takedown defense is porous. Against the fence line, it's airtight. It's really, really good. He is hard to do anything against. But, but, in open space, it's a problem. It is an ongoing challenge that he has yet to solve.

I really am curious to see who Adesanya fights next at middleweight. I'm curious to see what Adesanya fights next at middleweight. I'm curious to see what strategy they employ. I tend to think after a performance like this, you are going to see whether it's successful or not. I don't know, but you're going to see a lot of much more wrestling intensive takedowns on him big time. You're going to see that amp up and I should say ramp up to the nth degree. I don't know how you could look at a performance like this. And again, it wasn't shabby by any stretch of the imagination. It's not what I'm saying. But at the highest level, again, you don't have to have a pronounced weakness. You just have to have a small one that you can't really solve for,

and they will just go back to it over and over and over and over again. Vittori probably is curious to see what his chances might be. Rob Whitaker, less of a takedown guy, so I don't know how that one would go. But his work is cut out for him, to be clear. So Blachowicz, again, he said he wanted to take some time before moving on. It'll probably be against Glever Teixeira. but that is impressive, dude. I really hope this guy at age 38, Jan Blachowicz, I really hope that if there's a measure of popularity that can be extended to him that could give him some satisfaction for his work, but more than that, turn to a little bit of extra cash.

Obviously, the points will because of the status as champion, but more than that, any celebrity endorsements at home or where, I don't know. I just hope that if you can turn your, if you can just, after a moment where you're doing really well, but not like elite well, and then you lose, and then you just turn into an elite fighter, I am oversimplifying the journey that he was on, but this last form that he's in, man, it is so unlikely to see this kind of career growth.

It is absolutely proof. Kids out there watching, you just need to keep swinging the axe. Because, yes, it is true that Jan Blachowicz has good punching power. It is true he has very high fight IQ, but it is also true, by virtue of his record, that we can look at it and say he's not necessarily a natural. He's very good, but some of these things he had to work at a really long time. He had to take eight losses in his career, as we've mentioned before, four out of six when he first got to the Ultimate Fighting Championship. But he just kept swinging the axe and he got better.

And lo and behold, he is now at the point where he is making favored sons, so to speak. Granted, he had a weight advantage here, but he is not... Man, this guy did not go down without a fight in his life. Really impressive from him. And there's just no way you can say anything other than that guy is just one of the most rare, unique, special talents the UFC has. And I really can't wait to see him fight again. I want to see how far he can push this. Because Glover Teixeira might be one of those guys too, right?

Goes all the way, makes it to Jon Jones, loses that one handily, and then slowly climbs his way back. Similar kind of age, age 40. Two guys who the division kind of forgot a little bit. And then they made them be, they made the world remember them. Amazing, amazing job. All right, let's talk about your co-main event. Not a whole lot to say about this. I, I, I, you know, I don't want, I feel like if I say too much, then it would just be to a point where you're being gratuitous about the loss. Amanda Nunes defeats Megan Anderson in round one via submission at two minutes and three seconds in the round was the time. This was not especially close. This was not close at all. Listen,

before the fight, if someone asked you, what was the case for Megan Anderson? The argument was not strong. It wasn't, it was like absent, but it wasn't strong. You're going to have to make a claim that Anderson would be really fighting long and would show good defense, good takedown defense, and some of those pieces you could put together. But here was just the reality. The power punching of Amanda Nunes is great. Her hand speed's pretty good. And obviously the way she sets everything up with her strikes is great. Her hand speed's pretty good. And obviously the way she sets everything up with

her strikes is expert. And if you look at the numbers for Megan Anderson, she had a negative striking differential. What does that mean? That means in terms of what fight metric measures, strikes landed or strikes absorbed per minute. She was almost two or maybe even three to one gets absorbed more than she lands. So she not only had a negative differential, sometimes you'll see that because it'll be kind of close, but this was like a wide disparity. And the tape kind of backs that up. She gets hit a lot, right? She gets hit a lot. So you're mixing a person who gets hit a lot with a person who does really excellent hitting. It's just not a matchup that's really going to go well in all likelihood.

And I think the second fight with Shevchenko showed that when Nunes needs to really exercise discretion, she can. When she needs to have a second gear, like in the Duran to me fight, she can when she needs to have a second gear like in the Duran to me fight she can get it you know when she needs to stay focused and not get in front of her skis like she did against who was the Felicia Spencer she can do it she's just got poise she's got championship ability she understands the depths of the fourth and the fifth like she understands it all you know it's just not what there was not a strong argument to make for me. And it just wasn't, you can make it, you can make one, but not very convincing. And that was essentially what we saw. Um, the right hand landed, stunder follows up and, um, you know, gets the back and then

essentially moves into the triangle as she lost it a little bit there, but the back, but you know, a wide disparity in ability a wide disparity i had said on twitter i do believe this is true you know i don't know how far you could push it and it's a silly thought because it will never happen but are there professional level men not necessarily ufc level although some might believe that but as a i'm not i'm not even here to make that claim. Just if I'm making the claim, could Amanda Nunes, you know, hold her own against other professional level men at 135 pounds. I do think that is not unreasonable. Now, would she win again? I don't know. This is a never a thing we really could debate because we don't really know what the answer is, but we have kind of you know you would just imagine what would it look like if dude if a 135 pound dude

was really good fought megan anderson would it look substantially different i mean maybe they i'm sure some hit harder yeah of course you know so maybe they would have knocked her out uh in a more brutal fashion or whatever, but it wouldn't look terribly dissimilar. It would look kind of like what it looks like when Amanda Nunes does it. She just has an extraordinary amount of ability. Again, this is a silly thing to bring up. I get it because there's no way to fact check this or test the theory out or whatever.

But I did say on Twitter as well, it's like, dude, I kind of wish MTV would bring back bully beatdown. If you guys ever watched it before mayhem Miller would host the show, but they would have some bully beating the shit out of some kid. The kid would tell his sob story, you know, Oh, Jeremy at the, every time we go to school, he, you know, throws me in the garbage. And then, um, I can't get a date to the prom because everyone thinks I'm a loser. Help me bully beatdown. And then they would get a different date to the prom because everyone thinks I'm a loser. Help me, Bully Beatdown. And then they would get a different one to help every time. Like one time it would be Eddie Alvarez,

another time it would be whoever, Jake Shields, whatever. Just bring it back and then make every single one of them Amanda Nunes. Beating the fuck out of some fat bully somewhere. Just Amanda Nunes shows up and just absolutely wrecks their shit. That'd be great. That'd be great. It's a show you could do at a bare minimum certainly we could all agree that'd be a fabulous use of her time whether she can be dudes or not you know fine do you guys want to die on the hill you can have that debate but uh it's just not i have no earthly idea something would have had to have been wrong with the man in newness for her to lose you know

she would have had to just take the worst kind of punch that she never takes normally. She would have had to have fucking, you know, dengue fever or been in a car accident or, you know, it just wasn't going to happen. Now,

the one that's interesting is not so much that one. Let me make sure everything looks okay. Yes, it does. The one that's interesting is not so much that one. Let me make sure everything looks okay. Yes, it does. The one that's interesting is not that one. It is the bantamweight fight, which on paper was the one that appeared to be the one that we liked the most, you know, that one that was like the closest, the most competitive, the most interesting. And, God, weird. Total controversy.

So for the first time in UFC history, a fighter has become a champion based on the disqualification of their opponent. Aljamain Sterling defeats Peter Jan via DQ illegal knee at 429 of the fourth round. It was not going Al Jermaine's way. The judges had it, according to John Anik on the broadcast. Two of them had it 29-28 Jan.

One had it 29-28 Aljo. Fair to say in the fourth round that was going Jan's way. So I think the scorecards were trending. They were almost all the way there. And then I think by the end of that fourth, they would have been unanimously in favor of Peter Jan. What did we see in this one? Sterling came out like a house on fire, and he was doing it too much, but I did like what he was doing, which was he was just constantly, he wasn't trying to, everything he was throwing at a bunch of different ranges and stances so partly he was giving him different looks and he was following and he was doing it all quite deftly but the key was he was just trying to stay in Jan's face he

was trying to crowd Jan and he was trying to just give him enough stimuli where yes some of those might get through and hurt but I just want to touch you keep it consistent give you different looks so you're constantly reacting you're constantly trying to make some kind of judgment about what I'm doing and you're having difficulty keeping up. And it's just death by a thousand cuts over time. That's a very interesting strategy, especially if you have good defense and you can really keep that up. But I think he went a little bit too hard. Remember, it's not true that Aljamain Sterling has gas tank issues in the sense of he comes in consistently underprepared. That's really not true. But in this fight and in the, in the, um, Misha Tate's ex-boyfriend, Brian Carraway, in the Carraway fight, I didn't know if he had necessarily managed his resources all that well.

This was not egregious, certainly, but he probably went a little bit too hard early and he kind of faded. Now he did seem to, from a, from a gas tank standpoint, I did think he was rallying. He didn't look as bad at the fourth round as he did like end of the second or end of the third. He literally, he had sort of caught himself a little bit there. So that part was working itself out, but here was the problem with that, with that style. It's like, as long as you can keep that up and you're really in a flow state and you, and you really got them on their heels, it's a fine thing to do, but fights have ebbs and flows. I mean, you can go look at this Adesanya and Blahovich fight. Both guys will faint twice and they pull back and kind of reset. There's a moment before they start to get going again.

Okay. Well, there's the moment when you reset, then they push, right? So there's this ebb and there's this natural flow. You can't always be on the offense in every fight you ever have you can have long sustained periods of it but a fight has a hello they're being paid to fight too like in their pros they're going to have a few moments on their own they're going to have you know even if it's not a strike that lands they're going to have some kind of a moment where they have an effect on the fight they gets you to react to a feint, whatever. Uh, in those moments, Peter Yon just sort of began to really take over. Uh, not so much in the first round. I thought I Sterling won the first, but, um, by the second round to me, it became clear that like, yeah, to the extent that Sterling could really get going with it. Um, it was, it was interesting. It was working. He,

he was landing and I don't think that he was going to stop Peter Jan that way, but that was reasonably effective. Again, it's just not something he was able to do at scale. Once he backed off just a little bit, Jan would then get going. So Jan would sit there and take the storm, sometimes for minutes on end, not storm, but sort of steady drumbeat of rain, perhaps is a better way to put it. And, yes, he would definitely give up stretches of each round, but not enough to really put him out of any round, the first notwithstanding. And then he was really able to get, you saw a couple of Sotogaris he was able to get, those takedowns and the outside trips he was able to get,

and he was kind of taking them off of his base. His takedown defense was tremendo, although Aljamain Stratt he was able to get, and he was kind of taking them off of his base. His takedown defense was tremendous, although Aljamain Sterling was able to show a little bit there. But basically, Aljamain Sterling was starting to, sorry, I should say Peter Jan was starting to operate. He was stuffing of the takedowns. His down blocking is excellent. His scrambling is superb.

There was a couple times, did you guys notice this? He would arm drag Sterling to get him past him to stop the takedown and then get off the fence or at least not get pushed into it. So Sterling would come in, go for a takedown. You would see Jan grab the wrist, cross over the arm, pull the arm past him to go for the arm drag, right? And then use that to get away. So you've stopped the takedown and now you've also reversed position. You saw just a Gaethje try to do that

in all of his fights, but in the Nurmagomedov fight, not get pushed into the fence so they turned at the last second. He's using arm drags to turn and then he was using like, you know, head turns and head, I mean, with his hands. Amazing, right?

He's just so, it's an incredible command of details and range and direction, right? Just really, really good at that. And once he got into his rhythm state, he was, Sterling was never really hurting, maybe with a knee, but in general, with the pitter patter, he wasn't really hurting Jan. Jan was hurting him.

And that began to take an effect. He got dropped, and it was just a lot that went down. What are the numbers there? Let me see if I can look that up. I'd be curious to see that. Yeah, he gets credited with a knockdown that came in the first round. And he got two takedowns there, one in the second, three in the third, and one in the fourth.

Wow, he took Aljamain Sterling down in every round. Wow. That's crazy. And he got him down every single time. He had a 100% takedown rate. Aljamain had five, 5%. He was one. Peter Jan was seven for seven on takedowns. Aljamain Sterling was one for 17. One for 17. Wow. And so you look at these numbers from Peter Yan. He got outstruck in the first 27 to 14. Again, these are numerical totals, not qualitative,

quantitative. He got 17 to 10 in the second, but there's more to that story, obviously. Then the third, it was almost even 30 to 29. And then the fourth, Jan was sort of pulling ahead. So what happens? I thought Jan looked really good, but eventually you have a moment where Aljamain Sterling is on his knees quite clearly on his knees, not ambiguously, in the center of the octagon. Jan is pressing into him. He can see him.

The referee says he's down. Referee Mark Smith. And you just see Peter Jan drill him right in the head. Blatant and illegal as all hell. And, uh, he collapses and he did not pass a medical screening for the fight to continue. It was a hard shot. He took, um, listen, what do you want to say about that shot? People, I think people get this debate,

like they, they over-dramatize this debate in the worst way possible. Both sides really have something to account for here. One side says it is absolutely outrageous that you would ever suggest that any person and any fighter who has been through what he's been, would ever fake an injury or exaggerate it for effect, knowing if the fight gets, because by the way, if the foul is intentional and it's reached the fourth round, then you can actually not only win the bout via disqualification, but therefore then win the title, which is what he did. So I don't know if that would necessarily happen in the first,

although if the foul is intentional, it could, but there are rules about when the fight is stopped, whether it's earlier or it's later with a foul, depending on whether or not that means that the other person can lose not just the belt but the fight itself. But in any case, it met all the criteria. People say, how could you even suggest such a thing? That's totally outrageous. Is it totally outrageous? Listen, here's my thing. I'm not saying Aljamain Sterling did that. In fact, if he did, I don't even give a fuck because the other side suggests, really, are you going to tell me that in the history of title fights, uh, where fighters put on a poker

face to hide things, they're not going to put on a different face and maybe they're hurt, but you know, exaggerate it for effect. You're going to tell me that's never happened either. And obviously both of those claims, uh, are in their own way, kind of right. Here's the point I'm trying to make. I don't know whether he was exaggerating, uh, or not, but I do know that if he was, he would be acting very much under rational incentives to get a fucking belt. Because it doesn't matter what you think or what I think. The next time he fights, he's getting pay-per-view points unless they put him on free TV or something or whatever. But his contract should stipulate that he's going to get points now.

Certainly he's going to get a big-ass boost in pay. You know, this is a sport where these guys don't get big-ass boosts in pay every fight. It's a pretty special moment. So at a bare minimum, he gets that, and he didn't break the rules. He wasn't the one that asked for the knee. He didn't do anything wrong. He literally got hit illegally, and is it plausible? Again, am I in any way asserting it? I have no

idea what the truth is. I don't care what it is. Is it plausible he exaggerated? Of course it's plausible. And is it equally plausible, perhaps even more plausible, that a guy like Aljamain Sterling is incredibly tough and he would never do it? Yes, of course. That is plausible as well. The rule is always going to create a set of incentives. And the incentives here are if you're injured and you can't get up, just, you know, act normally, you know, and take care of yourself. And if you're not, and you can fake it a little bit, the rewards are enormous. And you can say that's dishonorable. Humans do dishonorable shit all the time, sometimes in spite of, but often because of the rational incentives laid out before them.

And because you don't actually know neither I nor you nor actually know if he was actually hurt. And if that was all sincere, you have to give him the benefit of the doubt. By the way, he is a professional fighter for a living. And so this whole debate about, was he faking? Was he not? Who gives a fuck? That's what the rules are. They met the rules to a T. He didn't break any of them. And if he did fake it, then that's the rule that he's able to fake. He's able to do this.

Change the fucking rule if you don't like it. Change the rule and say the belt doesn't change hands on a disqualification. But if that's the rule and you didn't break any rule to get there, oh, you shouldn't exaggerate. But how do you know he's exaggerating? That's my point. You don't. So let it be. Just let it go. But what this is obviously going to set up is it's going to set up a rematch probably immediately. I don't know what that's going to do for Corey Sandhagen. I don't know if he's going to want to fight TJ Dillashaw. Maybe that's what they were going to do before. But now there's going to have to fight TJ Dillashaw. Maybe that's what they were going to do before. But now there's going to have to be time sorted out to see who the true number one contender is, especially if TJ Dillashaw is in play for that, which according to reports from Friday, he is.

So keep that in mind. But Aljamain Sterling, I thought he looked good early and then faded. I thought the takedown wasn't there nearly as much as it needed to be. He was able to land and stick and move, but to the extent that the fight really ebbed and flowed in the natural directions in which it did, Peter Yan was really able to take advantage of that and then command that time.

Some of the stuff that Aljamain was throwing hurt, but a lot of it was much more the from the damaging side from peter yawn so that was going peter yawn's way so uh by the way daniel cormier apparently telling the broadcast that number gamedov was there could hear the corner speaking to yawn in russian and they were telling him when excuse me when aljjamain Sterling was down to knee him. So he thought he was, I guess, doing the right thing or whatever. You might be asking, how do fighters not know the rules? Well, A, the rules change state to state.

And then in general, I don't think they pay a ton of attention to it. Some of them don't anyway. You'd be surprised with stuff like that. So between the language, not barrier so much because he was speaking Russian with other folks, but between getting bad information, let's say, and then the fact that it's confusing and then maybe he doesn't pay attention to stuff like this enough, it created a mess.

So he was the one that committed the foul. There's just no denying it. If you don't want to consider Sterling the legitimate champion, you can do what you want. He's going to have the belt next time they fight. He's going to be the one that's going to get the pay-per-view points, but he has to do that again. Looking at what they took from here, who can make more adjustments to account for what the other one showed? It seems to me it's Jan. Jan, you already know the takedown defense is on point. He stuffed 16 of 17 granted

Sterling did have some decent control time but a lot of that was just along the fence line um not so much on top on the ground and I think he's going to see all the openings from the striking standpoint that he needed to before um he had took a little time to make some of the reads but now he's got you know three and a half rounds in his belt. He kind of knows how Sterling moves and what he wants to do once he, what he wants to set up. What's the next gear that Sterling can go to, to make up the difference. He has to get it on the ground. That was a real task. Is that going to get markedly better next time? I doubt it. And then the striking style, this is the, this is the more developed version of what Sterling's

been working at all this time. Are you going to find a new opening that you didn't last time? There might be some new setups and some new entries and more managed resources, which could make it more interesting. But I still think that Sterling's got a bit of an uphill climb after a night like tonight. Let me see something. Let's see. All right. Let me see what questions you guys have. Just real quickly on the results. We'll save a lot of this for Monday monday islam makachev looking fucking awesome over drew dober rakish getting a win over santos hard fault win but right rightful guy won but not a super standout performance a good one a great one but not that you know uh extra oomph

dominic cruz to me feels a lot like again very very different from john jones both in terms of how he fights and his legacy and what he means to the game. But a guy 10 years ago, I think, was ahead of the division in terms of his footwork and his movement. And you can see now that they crowd him a lot. They really have closed him off from what he's been able to normally do. But he's still enough to get a win over a good fighter in Casey Kenney. Kyler Phillips just outclassing Song Yedong. Askar Askarov just making easy work of Joseph Benavidez.

Kaikara France in trouble against Rogerio Bonteran and then pulls it out out of nowhere. Tim Elliott beating the balls off Jordan Espinosa. Kennedy Nzechkuyu beating Carlos Olberg. Sean Brady, keep your eye on this kid. Whoa, defeating Jake Matthews, arm triangle. Dude, I hope everyone understands that. No, it was the other one that was, it was the Makachev one. Sorry, that was the one that was really impressive. Makachev wasn't even

in the right side of half guard. Makachev was one position away from cross body side control. You understand that? There's side control. So the side control, half guard, guard, half guard, side control. So those are the positions from side control to side control. Okay? For head and arm triangle, your body wants to be on the opposite side of your arm. And that it was the case here, but I'm pointing out there's two different half guards you to be on the opposite side of your arm. And that it was the case here,

but I'm pointing out there's two different half guards you could be on. The half guard here is in theory the stronger one, and it is. But Makachev goes from side control to half, and then from this half, dug in to the submission to get the win. Do you fucking understand how ridiculous his squeeze is for that? That is nuts. That is insanely crazy.

His shoulder pressure was what got him. Unbelievable job by him. Amanda Lemos, who looked unbelievable herself, walking over Olivia Renato Sosa. Oro Shmedemos, who looked unbelievable herself, walking over Olivia Renato Sosa. Odo Schmedisch, however you pronounce it, beat the fuck out of Alon Cruz. Bit of a late stoppage on that one. And then Trevin Jones

getting past Mario Batista. Okay, what are your questions here? Let's get it. Okay. Okay. Let's put this on, on too for just a second. Subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. That's what we're looking for.

All right, this person asks, The fight seemed very close on the feet, but once it hit the ground, it wasn't close at all. Do you think this would be a problem for Adesanya at higher weight classes, regardless of how good his striking is, as long as the heavier fighter can get a takedown? It's not just the other weight classes. Marvin Vittori might want to have a word. You know, Luke Rockhold might want to have a word. Like if he can get to 185, I don't think it's that crazy. I mean, Adesanya is going to tear him up on the feet. Okay, fine. But again, what if you get the open Chris Weidman? What if you get the open takedown in space? I tend to think at this point Chris Weidman doesn't have the same

explosivity, but you get what I'm trying to say. It's a problem. Promotional considerations aside, should the UFC skip over a rematch between Jan and Aljo? No, you gotta write this one. No, no, no. You gotta fix it. You gotta fix it. You can't leave this one. No, no, no. You got to fix it. You got to fix it.

You can't leave this one. Nunez, number one, pound for pound regardless of gender. I see this question a lot. It just really depends on what your definition of pound for pound should be. If you're saying that she has the most pure talent per body ounce or something, like per weight, I don't know how true that is. If you want to say, given what she's tasked with, she has the most, the best accomplishments. I think that's more defensible. Um, it just depends. She's certainly obviously for women. She's, I think she would be

above certain men. I don't know that I would put her number one, irrespective of gender, but there's my, maybe debate to be had about about that how much do the smaller cage impact the main event not so much the main event because that wasn't really the issue they would have clapped the timing that you saw on most of those takedowns from Blachowicz, a lot of them happened when Izzy was out of position, but not along the fence line. So, I don't, I mean, I can't say that the cage had no effect, but fairly marginal.

It was the Jan and Sterling fight that I thought it was much more pronounced. This person writes, should Aljo win an Oscar in addition to the belt? Rolling in agony, feigning confusion, and then remarkably lucid in the interview with Joe, couldn't help but perk up to discuss being champ. I think that's a totally unfair read onto it. Again, would it surprise me if he was faking a little bit? No. Listen, if they didn't allow you to win the belt or even any extra money or whatever by virtue of faking it, how much do you think that would change?

There will be some people who would want to get out of fights who are being on bad positions who would maybe do it. But I suspect a lot of it would just go away or at least some of it would go away. But that's not what we tell these fighters to do. We tell them, dude, you're begging these fighters to do. We tell them, dude, you're begging these people to do what they're doing. So did he do it or not do it? I don't know.

But it's perfectly rational if he did and it's totally understandable if he didn't. It doesn't matter to me. Luke, previously you were confident in not assigning his chances in a possible super fight versus Jon Jones. However, after watching rounds four and five, does your opinion change?

Yeah, a little bit it does. I think you can't look at an event like this and come to the exact same conclusion that I was coming to before, which was, I don't think it's at all crazy to say that the fight could have been competitive, but you may still think Jon could win. And again, I'll say this. I think if Izzy is defending his takedowns along the fence line, John had real trouble with Anthony Smith there at times, certainly Tiago Santos, Derek, um, Dominic Reyes. He had trouble on the fence line with all those guys and he doesn't have the same explosion in the middle of the cage. But if Jan Blachowicz can get it, you would imagine that's still accessible to somebody like John

with an 84 inch reach and obviously, know a lifelong time amount wrestling so yeah I do think that the favor would swing back towards him in a pretty considerable fashion on the feet I think he gets chewed up along the fence line I don't think it's John thinks I don't think he would win there but if he can get that takedown um it's a problem. And to have a weakness that glaring, given who else is out there, it's a problem. It's a problem. In the event of a champion losing by DQ, should the belt be left vacant when the opponent is down on the cards? I think so, but it's not the world we live in. When you say Nunes would be competitive

with professional level men, what are you referring to? Regional? Yes. Contender series? I wouldn't die on that hill. Unranked? Well, yeah, just professional level. Top five? No.

Was it a language barrier that impacted Jan's decision to throw that knee against Sterling? No, I don't think so. Resume review is cursed. Yeah, we did one on Connor and we did one on Izzy and they both lost. That's fun. We should do one on the fighters we hate. There was too much talk about the feints.

Feints spelled wrong, two spelled wrong, of Issy, but he didn't seem to land too much off them. Yeah, well, his game has become a lot more knowable. Now that we've seen it a lot, like I've seen all the feints and then the switches and whatnot. I think there is, um, listen, the more you fight, the more they're going to acquire evidence and accrue a case to be built against you. It's why, you know, beating John is, um, you know, it'd be remarkable if you could do it at the same time. It's remarkable that he hasn't lost in some ways because there's just a mountain of tape on him. You know, over the years, there's just tons of tape on John Jones. So they're going to, the game's going to catch up a little bit. Oh yeah, I should eat crow.

Remember when you said you would probably publicly eat crow if Jan won? Eat crow. Yeah. I'll find that tweet. I'll, I'll, I'll share it because I could been so wrong about Jan Blachowicz been just comically wrong about him. Derek Lewis would have stood up. Maybe heavyweights, um, harder to hold down when someone has a big belly like that. It's actually harder to hold them down, I feel like, because it's like being on top of a BOSU ball. It's not as stable. When they're all ripped and then their stomach is flat and you get on top, it's easier to leverage your weight and be balanced. As an amateur,

I had Jan Blachowicz up on the strikes first couple of rounds, but then play-by-play had me thinking I was dumb. Do you think the commentary was biased towards Izzy? The answer is yes, but not in the way that you might think. Commentary is often biased towards one guy, but it's a lot harder to recognize when you're in the moment doing it. You're trying to be fair.

And you guys just kind of like, once people start talking about something, it just creates this momentum where they go back to it. It's, I don't think it's like this intentional thing. They're like, we got to make Izzy look good. I just tend to think these are kind of habits that broadcasters get sucked

into without really full recognition of it. I had Izzy winning the first three rounds. No. That's not what I said. I said round two could be a toss-up. Not quite. So, again, try to say that I'm... I'll say I'm wrong when I'm wrong, but that's not actually correct.

Makachev versus Charles Oliveira. Jesus, that'd be awesome. With Yadasonia trolling Costa, do you believe UFC will run that fight back? No. No, I think they might do Whitaker. They might do Vittori. I mean, I don't know.

There's a lot of different things they could do. A few years ago, you'd have to almost kill someone to get a 10-8. And now they are handing them out quite frequently. Jan won the fifth easy, but how is that a 10-8? Yeah, I don't know how it's a 10-8 either. He did advance position very nicely. But it didn't feel like he got his ass whipped in that one. I don't understand that one either.

What happened to Jay? He's alive. Jan showed an unexpectedly solid jab, did he not? Yeah, I thought he did really good body work. It's kind of going unnoticed. Someone else here notes it, which is true. All the leg kick checking he did really good body work it's kind of going unnoticed someone else here notes it which is true all the leg kick checking he did that was pretty good will the judges score cards correct you the right guy won

I don't know if I agree with all the scores per se let's see what this says blah blah blah Did Jan give Izzy too much respect on the feet? No, the fact that he was patient like that to me, he's been doing that for this recent run and it's really served him quite well doesn't get hurt too much, as we mentioned doesn't get too out of position. Finds his timing.

Why were the commentators you and some other experts, he puts in quotations, because I'm sure he knows better. All on Izzy's side, first three rounds. Yes, rounds one, close-ish, but I had Adesanya winning. Two, I thought was a toss-up, and three, I had Adesanya winning. I still think that's a defensible position.

What do you think was the biggest factor in Izzy not being able to deal with Jan's wrestling? You could see, okay, so first things first, how are you going to get up? You cannot be flat on your back, and you cannot have your head and your hip controlled. Or if they're going to control one, you have to have the other one freed, right? But if your head and your hip are controlled and you're flat on your back, you have to adjust all of these things. So you have to get them off of your neck and you have to frame, you have to frame off of a bicep, or you can do another frame off of your elbow on the inside of their hip, whatever you have to do, but you have to get them physically off of you. Like they can't be pressed onto you. You have to free your neck to be able to move. Your neck doesn't move. You cannot move. So why, why,

why is it your head and your hip? Because if your head and your hip are controlled, then that's your spine. So they're essentially controlling your spine by doing that. So, um, the first thing is you have to clear that. Then you have to clear this and then you have to go to guard. And then from guard, you need to get to butterfly guard from butterfly guard. You don't have to get to butterfly. There's ways you could do it. You can put your feet on the hips, but I think butterfly guards best for MMA because it can give you, you don't really use it to sweep, use it to set up different things. And that then you get the underhook. And then from the underhook, once you have the underhook and you're not flat on your back, you're either on your side or sitting

up, right? Which is where getting them off of you enables you to sit up, fire the underhooks, get to a side, plant a hand or an elbow behind you, then begin to stand. That's really what you need. It's just a skill you have to develop. You have to really work on it. You have to get them, you have to not, you have to not get put there. First of all, you have to work on your positioning such that you don't get flattened. And then if you get flattened, you have a series of things you have to do to get up. Um, obviously all easier said than done a lot easier to do in pure jujitsu. We are not taking strikes to the face, but that's how it, that that's the, the, I mean, it's much more complicated than I'm making it, but that's the essential conditions. You cannot be flat on your back. You have to be on your side or sitting up. Uh, they cannot have control of your throat, neck

or head or hips. And if all three of those are in play, neck, or head, or hips. And if all three of those are in play, you ain't going to do shit. Some people were complaining about the Islam fight. I mean, you know, who could complain about that? Has Izzy's tendency to lean back while counterpunching been exposed as a liability against opponents who can shoot a takedown at open space. Yes. And did we just find out that Chael Sonnen could have beaten Israel Adesanya?

That's funny. I don't know. I don't know. Could have taken some rounds from him. Yeah. Could have taken some rounds from him. For sure. Let me find that old tweet.

So I can... Eat crow. Let's see. I'll find it. Here we go oh here we go let's put that in there yep i'm gonna do this on the air because i owe it to everyone to eat shit so So I'm going to do that here. Here we go. There we have it.

All right, so I've eaten shit for that tweet. Yeah, wrong. Totally wrong. Adesanya just couldn't really get enough openings on the feet. And then once it went, he did okay, but not enough to really meaningfully work his game. And then on the ground, I had no answer. None.

Zip. Israel Adesanya says he has no regrets in taking tonight's fight. Criticizes the boxing model that one loss ends your career. Right now me and my team are excited to get home and work on little details Interesting John Jones flames Israel Adesanya over UFC 259 loss.

Let's see what he said. Great job, Jan. There's two minutes left in the fight, but Izzy is on bottom. Great win. Definitely not expecting any surprises. Can't wait, he says. Can't wait to make this bitch eat his words. Yeah, never mind.

That's not even worth my time. If you ever wrote me talking shit about Izzy beating me, slap yourself. That's funny. And then he says, I'm imagining that this super fight, in quotations, is off the table. No more distractions. Yeah, I tend to think that his business now at Heavyweight is front and center, let's say. So a lot left to get to. I appreciate everybody who tuned in. Thumbs up on the video.

Hit subscribe. Monday, we are live in studio together for Morning Combat. We're going to recap all of this, all of your questions, and everything else. Tons of stuff. So thank you guys so much for watching.

And yeah, hope you enjoyed the fights. Until next time, stay frosty.