MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - 🚨 UFC 265 Instant Reaction: Derrick Lewis vs. Ciryl Gane | Jose Aldo vs. Pedro Munhoz | Vicente Luque

Episode Date: August 8, 2021

At UFC 265, Derrick Lewis and Ciryl Gane will battle in the pay-per-view main event for the interim heavyweight championship (Francis Ngannou is the actual weight class champion). In the co-main event, former WEC and UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo battles Pedro Munhoz locks horns in a bantamweight contest. Also on the card is a welterweight clash between Vicente Luque and Michael Chiesa. Angela Hill, Tecia Torres, Casey Kenney and Song Yadong also appear on the main card. 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. Good evening, everybody, or should I say good morning? Hello, everyone out there. It is 1255 East Coast time. Guess technically makes it the 8th of August now, 2021. My name is Luke Thomas. I am from CBS Sports and Showtime. I am one half of the Morning Combat hosting duo. Brian Campbell is on vacation today. So I will be guiding you through today's UFC 265 post-fight results. If you're new here, then I will explain to you how this works. If you're

an old head, then you kind of already know. For everyone, I would ask that you please give the video a thumbs up if you're new here. Consider subscribing. We do the show three times a week, plus live shows like this after big fights, and then a ton of stuff in between. We would appreciate anyone's subscription. Okay, so I'm going to get to all of the UFC 265. I should say the major UFC 265 results, the analysis. I put a question up, or I should say a thread up on my Twitter feed, at LThomasNews, and there you can put a question, which I will get to at the end of my sort of summary of the card.

We'll go for about 45 minutes, maybe an hour, and then we'll get to all of your questions or so. Something like that, yeah? Okay, without further ado, let's get this party started. All right, and we are live. So there's the subscribe button. If you watch the live chat, this all looks very, very familiar to you. If not, welcome. Bienvenidos. Okay, let me turn this off. Let's pull up these results, and let's get this going. And that sort of is customary at this point. I'm assuming if you're here, you're not really upset with getting spoilers in the capacity whatsoever, right?

Right, okay. Let's get to it. So just moments ago, oops, hold on. Just moments ago, UFC 265 ended. It took place at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. Love Houston, by the way. Wonderful place. Food is incredible. Okay, they said it was sold out, but it did not look even close to sold out. Okay, it was like, you know, decently attended, but it didn't look full. Different story for a different time. Okay, let's get to the fights. First up, main event. Your new interim UFC heavyweight champion is Cyril Godd. He was widely expected to win. He was a pretty considerable favorite, just shy of minus 400.

Well, not an overwhelming favorite, but a decent one just the same. He wins, as they've listed it, TKO via punches at 411 of the third round. So you had about a minute left in the third before they were going to call, or before the round was going to end, I should say. What's the story of this fight? Well, this was an uphill climb for Derek Lewis, no matter what. I mean, you could look at their styles, you could look at sort of the numbers, and it wasn't hard to tell that Derek Lewis is a guy that's got a couple of big advantages, I don't know, but big weapons. One is huge power, right? He's just an absolute tremendous force when he can connect.

And two, he can be perseverant. He can be patient. He can be put in bad spots, and he can find ways out of them. That's been true when guys take him down. He sort of finds ways, especially as his career has advanced, at being patient, not panicking, and waiting for a moment to explode up off the bottom and then getting out. He finds ways, especially as his career has advanced, at being patient, not panicking, and waiting for a moment to explode up off the bottom and then getting out.

Sometimes he'll use trickery. Like, you know, even when he was kind of getting teed off on in that third round, even I was like, oh, is he going to catch gone? Because sometimes what he'll do is he'll kind of, you know, sort of double over. And whether it's for show or not, he'll then throw like a huge shot behind it. And sometimes they land. So he's got all these ways to lull people into a false sense of security, and then the big power is just a complete game changer. You didn't really see either of those here.

Cyril Ghosn is going to be tough to beat, folks. He's going to be very, very tough to beat. It's not that he's not capable of action. It's not that he's not capable of devastating finishes. Here you saw one. I mean, the last 30, 45 seconds of this fight where he was just beating Derek Lewis like a drum, that was probably bad.

Derek Lewis is a very tough guy, so for him to be doubled over and constantly covering, it must have sucked. Cyril Ghosn must have been putting some serious work on him. So I understand that. I think that should be noted about Ghosn's game. But really what he's good at, what really makes him excel is a few things. Let's go through them. One, his ability to win rounds. He has a game where he can find finishes, but if he just needs to keep a pace on another runner, he can do that. If he just needs to make sure that you're four or five lengths back and we're running a race together, I'm never really going to win the record or I'm never going to sprint to the finish and just leave you in the dust.

Sometimes it's just keeping a different pace on the guy where they can't ever close that gap, both metaphorical and literal. That's one. I think the second part is that, obviously, once he does figure you out, the bottom drops out pretty quickly, which you saw in this fight. But more than that, dude, he just doesn't fight on your terms. I mean, that's sort of the big takeaway for me. I had a jujitsu guy teach me this years ago, years ago, when we talked about opening your guard. And I've said this to you, if you guys have watched my analysis at any point, I brought it up because it was just like,

it was one of those like eureka moments where it just sort of made sense. And he was arguing with me, or he was explaining rather, he was making an argument for, he's like, if you're going to open your guard, you should open it on your terms. Like, when I was early, early into training, folks would, I would wrap up the guard. You know, I had no idea what I was doing. I'd wrap up the guard, and then I would kind of, like, seal it shut as tight as I could.

And so guys were trying to pry it open. And, you know, you could stop them for a while on physical brute strength, but all of these things have pretty quick expiration dates. And he was like, look, you're going to open your guard probably one way or the other, by and large. Don't wait for him to open your guard. You should have a plan of attack where, yes, you're going to open it, but you're going to open it on your terms, and then you're going to set the terms of the attack. He will be responding to your attack. Don't just close it, wait for him to pry it open, and now he's working his game because he set up his grips and

everything else. You got to take charge. And it was like, again, this was very, very early into training, but I remember it was one of those, like, it was a complete fucking eureka moment, and I was like, wow. Writ large, that's what Cyril Ghosn does. He just doesn't fight on your fucking terms, man, ever. You know, not unless he really has to. Look at the blitzes, the big overhand rights. What was Cyril Ghosn doing? You guys ever been to the beach, and then the waves are coming, and you're trying to, like, not body surf, but, like, you're trying to just, you know, maintain whatever you're doing in the water and without getting run over by the waves. And when the waves come, you kind of lean into him a little hard. He was covering up on this side and then kind of leaning into him so that the punch had no chance of really ever landing.

It was being smothered or he was jamming him on the inside. Obviously, whenever there was any kind of blitz, you had a guy like gone bouncing up and down, getting out, changing angles the whole night. And then as the rounds went on, getting out, changing angles, and then catching Lewis at the end of whatever sort of blitzing motion or attack he was throwing, that was a big problem for him as the fight wore on. And obviously, you know, he's got tremendous footwork Gon does. He's got tremendous timing. He's got great management of distance. He understands when to go, when to not go. Just has great reads on his opposition. But really the key here to understanding it all is,

aside from sort of the individual tactical choices here, he just doesn't fight on his opponent's terms. He doesn't ever let them set, certainly not in this particular case tonight, he doesn't ever let the opponents define the not in this particular case tonight, he doesn't ever let the opponents define the terms of how you're going to fight. And so they're always, at least again, always is a strong word, but certainly in the case of tonight,

Lewis was just, he was, you know, he was fighting a battle that was not really winnable because not that the fight wasn't winnable, but the fight as defined by what Cyril Ghosn wants it to look like, that's not a winnable fight. And I think probably his team would say something fairly similar. You know, if Lewis was able to impose more of what he wanted, totally different ballgame. But the way it played out, gone is, he is just an absolute, he's a tough puzzle to solve because, well, he got the finish tonight and he does have big power and he's obviously quick and extremely athletic and quite bright. You can just see he makes really, the guy just doesn't make a lot of mistakes,

does he? Trevor Whitman talks about this all the time. At some point, you get these guys that have got amazing ground games, and they've got big power, and great strikes, and blah, blah, blah. They can do so many things, but the question is not necessarily, can you do those things? The question is, can you do those things consistently without tripping up along the way? Gon's got a game where he just doesn't trip up along the way. He hardly ever makes mistakes. How many times in this fight did you see him get caught out of position? How many times in this fight did you see him zig when he's supposed to zag or, you know, really misread Derek Lewis's timing?

I mean, it wasn't like he fought a perfect fight. I don't think there really is such a thing. Maybe Conor McGregor's fight against Aldo, although even then he got hit in the face. But in terms of a mistake that can cost you the round or cost you the fight or cost you your consciousness, he just doesn't really make a lot of those. Hardly ever.

Hardly ever. Why? In part because he's obviously good in some sort of generic sense, but again, look at what he does. I'm going to stand at distance. I'm going to bounce up and down. When you try to close it, I'm going to have a series of evasive maneuvers to never allow it. When they would lock up in the clinch, you would see him either press Lewis into the fence and then bicep control, wrist control, and then going to his near side leg to the belly. A lot of times he was whipping him around and then pushing him

off, not letting him have that space where he could dirty box or anything like that. If you're trying to fight on the agenda your opponent is setting, that's not easy to win. It's not easy to win. So the fight starts. He is bouncing. He is at range. He's kind of, you know, teep kicking a little bit. He's kind of oblique kicking a little bit.

A little bit of jab here. Seeing what's up. Blah, blah, blah. Making a read. Moving around. Switching stances. Here comes a kick up the middle. Kind of a fake. You know, not a whole lot of activity, a lot of reading, but immediately what is happening is there is a distance that is established that he's

going to, that's going to be, he will get closer, obviously, over time, but he will start in a way that is very, very safe, And he will only inch as inching in has been set up, made more successful, more doable. He's got more weapons he can use. He can find ways. Now he knows different ways he can block, parry, safely exit, whatever it needs to be. And then he just slowly inches his way. But the fight starts at a distance that is very comfortable for him. You want to beat Cyril Gann, you got to take that away. And that's not easy to

do, especially in those big octagons. The little ones, maybe they'd be different. I don't know. I know he has fought, obviously, he has fought in the Apex, but those conditions have to be taken away. As long as he has time to bounce, and remember, distance is going to be partly, or I should say time is going to be partly a function of distance. If you stand far enough away, it's going to take you longer to get over to the other side of where your opponent is. And take you longer to get over to the other side of where your opponent is.

And that extra time to get over there can be weaponized against you, which is what you saw over and over again. If you don't have a jab, if you don't have a double jab to close, if you don't have some kind of more effective blitz than what you've got, or the ability to pull your opponents into you, you're going to have a hard time. And that's really where Derek Lewis found himself repeatedly over the course of this fight. We have some of the numbers. I don't know exactly how preliminary they are. Jesus, they're not great at all for Derek, unfortunately. Here are the numbers according to Fightmetric. Derek Lewis landed just 16 of 37. Wow.

Just 16 of 37. The significant strike percentage... Excuse me, it is late. By the way, I gotta have this. Was 43%. Contrast that with Cyril Ghosn, who landed 98 of 122. His significant strike percentage of his overall strikes, ready for this? 80%.

80%. I gotta have these, sorry. I gotta have them for Sorry. I gotta have them for sleep. I apologize. They're targeting... This was the big difference. They both targeted the head roughly the same. 50% for Derek Lewis, 51% for Cyril Ghosn.

Fair enough. I thought Ghosn would go a little bit more to the body, but I think he found it easy enough to headhunt. Not headhunt, that's a strong word. But to find that kind of range, it came a little bit easier to him than I think he thought. Lewis, 37% of his were targeting the body. Just 16% for Cyril Ghosn. But here's where they flipped. 37% to the body for Derek Lewis in terms of percentage, 12% for the leg. Flip that. 16% for Cyril Ghosn to the

body, 32%. 32% to the leg. And of course, the overall difference there. Let's see round by round. Fucking A. Wow. Derek Lewis was 3 of 11 in the first. 5 of 10 in the second. 8 of 16 in the third. I guess he got warmer, so to speak. But only because I think, I haven't looked at him yet. I'm about to.

I'm guessing Gon's numbers go up too. Yeah, they do. They go down, then they go up. 26 of 35, and then 23 of 29, roughly similar. But then he got 49 of 58 in the third. That is an overwhelming...

8 to 49 was the striking difference. At least numerically. Qualitatively, obviously it's a little bit different. 8 to 49. These are the differences per round. Ready? 3 to 26. 5 different, but 8 to 40. These are the differences per round. Ready? 3 to 26, 5 to 23, 8 to 49. Ooh, that's bad. That's very, very, very bad.

Wow. Cyril Ghosn is tough. He's going to be tough to beat, man. Let's see. Let's look at some of the other numbers here that we have. No real takedown attempts. Nothing serious. Control time, not all that much. They credit Cyril Ghosn with 58 seconds in the second round,

I guess, pressing him into the fence. Something like that. They have overall Derek Lewis with just eight seconds of control time. Man, this was not a great run for him. This is not a great fight. This was always a bad matchup for him. Somebody who can be precise, calculating, athletic, angular. He's got great anticipatory skills, knows how to manage distance, knows how to close distance, you know, and then begin to creatively put shots together

where it's a body shot and then it's a left hand over the top and then you begin to blitz and then they step out at an angle and then they crack you. I mean, you can look at the highlights and you can see him splitting his timing where there's like literally a foot in the air as Derek Lewis is striding.

And he's just getting cracked with a big shot. It was just way, way too much to ask of him in a bout like this. So it sets up, as you know, it sets up a bout with him and Francis Ngannou. A wonderful fight for a number of reasons, not least of which is two of the most deserving guys in the division, obviously. And more to that point, they both are, obviously, Francis is from Cameroon,

but it's fair to say that they have some French origin together, to a degree. And, you know, former teammates. It's big. The thing about Francis is I think Francis is going to find similar kinds of problems, quite frankly. He might be somewhat better

at finding negotiating range and putting more quality shots together. But he's going to have a hard time too. He's going to have a really hard time too. I think Cyril Ghosn is interesting for a couple of reasons. I think the first thing I would say about him that makes him interesting to me is that, you know, I think I said this on Friday's MK, but it bears repeating, which is,

to me, it's not an accident that you've got guys like Leon Edwards and, again, to a lesser extent, Volkanovski, although you get a little bit of this with him, and gone in the same era. Now, they're all in different weight classes. They're from different parts of the world. They have very different ways of fighting in terms of the very specifics of the techniques that they use and how they handle their footwork. Volkanovski's kind of down and angular, whereas, obviously, Gon is bouncing the whole time. And Edwards is a little bit more of a step and slider. They're all very unique.

But one thing that they all really share is that they've got this ability to simply neutralize an opponent and Edwards is a little bit more of a step and slider. They're all very unique, but one thing that they all really share is that they've got this ability to simply neutralize an opponent. And I won't say coast on the rest of the round, but if they need to just ride out the rest of that time and not overcommit to some kind of risky proposition that may well go their way, but they don't really want to put themselves

in that kind of meat grinder if they can avoid it. And they're good at managing range in many cases. In the case of Volkanovski, really good at fainting, really good at faking. I think Gon, you can say that about as well. Getting in, getting out, changing angles, changing looks, and then just the rounds keep going and looking like that. And sometimes they can put a pace on the guy and there's a big enough difference where you can get a stoppage. But if not, they can just go the whole rest of the fight that way. They can fight at these kinds of paces because they don't have an exhausting workload.

And also they're great champions or fighters in the case of Leon Edwards and they train very, very hard. What I'm pointing out is i think there's a really strong case to be made that um you know the modern game incentivizes some of this stuff i think the 10 point must system to a degree incentivizes some of this stuff i'm not even necessarily against it because i think you're going to get a lot more of this it's going to be as hard excuse me it's going to be hard to be as athletic as cyril gone it's going to be hard to be as athletic as Cyril Ghosn. It's going to be hard to be the kind of master technician that a guy like Volkanovsky is. Fair enough.

I don't know that we're going to see people necessarily reach those heights. But people who have, let's say, a nice well-rounded ability, and when it comes to the striking department, they are good at making their opponent fight on their terms, get shut down, fight out of deficits, and not necessarily knock out cat, fight out of deficits, and not necessarily like knockout cataclysmic deficits, where you're eating enormous punches round after round, but sort of Chinese water torture almost, death by a thousand cuts kind of a thing.

And it just accumulates and accumulates and accumulates and accumulates. I think that kind of style is, again, it's going to be hard to implement, but even with that difficulty, I think you're going to see more of it. It is a... Some of the better fighters, not always, but in many cases, like why was GSP so successful with the way he fought in that sort of middle slash latter stage of his career? Because if you go back and you watch the Jay Heron fight, not so much Karl Parisian,

but if you go back and you watch the Jay Heron fight, I mean, it took place entirely on the feet. Go back and look at the first BJ Penn fight. I mean, they slugged it the fuck out, you know? He got to the wrestling because if you just think about MMA and why it's so hard, and you see boxing coaches being like, why don't guys slip like this or whatever? It's like, well, dude, because if you go too far one way, you're going to eat a fucking knee. Like there's so many variables that you have to worry about. Cyril Ghosn and guys like him and GSP previously with his wrestling, they found ways to really control not everything, but a lot of the extra variables

that make things difficult for them. GSP chose wrestling to do it, because if I can get you down and I can control you, and I can pass the, let's say, half guard, I can basically shut down virtually any MMA submission threat in the era in which he was competing. Not so much Nick Diaz. Nick Diaz, he would go, remember, to the back, and then he would kind of do like a ride from the back, like on a hip.

But, you know, what everybody else think about the Dan Hardy fight, like you could reasonably calculate, you couldn't take, you had to take Dan Hardy seriously, of course, but he could reasonably calculate that it wasn't necessarily the biggest submission threat of Dan Hardy's back. He could pass to half guard, even more there was maybe Camorra's there. But you take away so much volatility that comes with striking, some of the scrambling that goes on.

If you could be a dominant top control guy, you get rid of so many different things you have to worry about. Now you have a straightforward kind of fight. Certainly, I think someone like Ghos Gon is entertaining more chaos or potential variables anyway than what GSP was doing with the wrestling. That is truly a smothering style. But at its core, it's the same kind of idea. I'm going to stand far apart from you and I'm going to take my time figuring out how to get closer, what works, what setups get me back there, what exits work for you, what you're trying to do, what you're looking for. I'm going

to stand far enough away where most of that shit is going to be completely irrelevant and I'm only going to really get closer once I've successfully begun to pick all the locks on the door. And then the purge begins. Once he gets through the door, the purge begins. At that point, you're fucked. But it's a similar kind of concept. I'm not even going to put myself in a position where I need to worry about all those variables. Contrast that, and we'll talk about it in just a moment. Contrast that with the Jose Aldo and Pedro Munoz fight, where they just kind of stood in front of each other. And yes, there were some distance to it, but they were, you know, they were in much more, Aldo dealt with it with extraordinary athleticism and blah, blah, blah again. We'll talk about it. But you know, there

was a lot more variables of danger he was entertaining there. Don doesn't play that game. Certainly not early. He doesn't play that game early. So how do you beat that? Do you wrestle him? Do you find clever that? Do you wrestle him? Do you find clever entries? Do you work on your head movement and he's jabbing backwards and you find a way to get inside off your slip line work or whatever? I don't know. That's going to be up. The one thing that Francis has, and you could say, well, Lewis had it too. I would say Francis has it a little bit more. I also think that Francis is a little bit rangier too. Francis has that dim mock, man. You know, just the slightest touch sometimes and these guys just get electrocuted with his power. Gon's numbers, I can read them to you, not from this fight, but overall,

they're excellent, by the way. He averages strikes landed per minute 5.13. His strikes absorbed 2.6. So he's basically 2x to x on his strikes landed versus absorbed. But that number, strikes landed at 5, that is very high. And strikes absorbed 2.6. That's not crazy low, but that's definitely on the lower side. But this is the point about Francis. It's like, granted, Francis may not be

able to land quality shots, but he's got such crippling power that it may not matter. It may not matter. But I got to tell you, I tend to think gone either, should he be favored? I don don't know i think he probably will be favored by the odds makers they'll have it tight they'll have it very very close but dude gone is i put out a tweet up and it got a series of different reactions i don't know how exactly how people took it but i sort of stand by this which is he got to finish tonight but lewis was really overmatched you know if you look at previous fights like Volkov went the distance. Rosenstruck went the distance. Tanner Bosser went the distance, although it was only for three rounds. Even the

Dottel-Mays fight went into the third round. The fight against Dos Santos didn't last, but he was on his last legs. Those are his... Yeah, he's got the in-hand-to-arm triangle against Rafael Pessoa, but you know, it's not that these are irrelevant wins, but they don't tell you exactly how he would perform against the highest level.

To me, the Volkov fight is a little bit more indicative of that. I think there's going to be a lot of debates about Gon. I think there's going to be a lot of people who find him boring. And there's a lot of people who are going to defend him and saying he's really, really smart. And there's going to be this constant tension. And, of course, you know, I don't think it's crazy to say that Gon's fights are, oh my god, every moment is a rollercoaster of emotion. Or even every moment is this incredible display of brilliance.

I mean, he is a very smart fighter. Let's be clear about that. He's got very good fight IQ. But there's been long stretches of his fights that are not necessarily all that entertaining. I don't think that not finding him the most exciting is some kind of indictment or even, frankly, wrong. But it's almost like irrelevant. People who are mad at that, what they want that to mean is that he isn't deserving of respect, or he's not actually that good, or there's something else about him that is disreputable. And the problem is you can't say that. If you wanted to say that, like, hey, I don't personally find Gon, you know, necessarily all that entertaining.

Okay, say it. I don't think that's all that crazy. But it has nothing to do with his actual ability whatsoever. His ability is, this was his 10th UFC... Or 10th MMA fight. He looked like that. And I know what they said. He's got the Muay Thai background.

His Muay Thai background is not all that extensive in terms of the number of fights. And even his amateur background I don't think is necessarily all that extensive either. Obviously, it's going to have... It has real value. I'm pointing out, he doesn't have a ton of competition experience against high-level pros. But against high-level pros, he's done nothing but win to the extent that he's had any experience against them. He's going to be a tough guy to beat. Very, very tough guy to beat. As for Derek

Lewis, I don't know that this is some kind of terrible moment for him. I mean, okay, he was in Houston. He lost via stoppage. That's not great. But he wasn't expected to win this. I think we should be candid about not just what the odds were, but where the smart money was in the generic sense. Let me turn this up a little bit money was in the generic sense. Let me turn this up a little bit. 30 minutes into my podcast. Let me turn up the volume. And listen, he was on a four-fight win streak. The fight he won coming into this fight, the vicious KO over Curtis Blades, maybe his best win against his most difficult opponent in some ways, you could argue that, stylistically anyway. And he just sent him to the land of wind and ghosts.

It's not like Lewis is far from the place he got now. Now, how likely is the UFC to award him a title shot and stuff? I don't know. But in terms of like, was this the night where you're like, wow, we really got to rethink how we understand Derrick Lewis? Not really, right? All the things you know about what makes him good, they're all still there. The ending was bad here, but I think in his career he hasn't taken a ton of punishment.

I think that his injuries are mostly under control. He'll still be in relevant fights. He'll still win relevant fights. He probably just won't be the very best that the division has to offer. You're not going to get Derek Lewis, by the way, versus Francis Ngannou certainly anytime soon. So that's something worth keeping in mind about. But, you know, it sucks for him. I think it obviously sucks for the Houstonians that were there.

I feel for them. Again, Houston's a great place. I love Houston. for him i think it obviously sucks for the houstonians that were there i feel for them again houston's a great place i love houston but um this was this was this was way too big a hill to climb and cyril gone if you see guys like this where you know they're not jumping off the screen because they're just lighting people on fire with these unbelievable uppercuts the way like francis was against overeem or you know they got they take the back like Hennon Burrow did to Brad Pickett. Peak Hennon Burrow. But if you see these guys who you notice that fighters have a hard time fighting out of the deficit.

And that deficit is the one their opponent put them in by defining the terms. When you see guys do that, that's somebody you've got to respect right away. Right away. It's like Leon Edwards doesn't have the most exciting style, but you better respect him. You better. Because he is very good about, okay, here's how we're going to fight today. I'm going to do this, I'm going to maintain this.

And you're just going to have to deal with it. Man, that's a tough guy to beat. That's a tough guy to beat. We'll come back. Certainly, I'll answer your questions as well. All right. So we go now to your co-main, Jose Aldo,

defeating Pedro Munoz via unanimous decision. 30-27 across the board. Let me say something about Jose Aldo as I have my Z-Quil here that will put me to sleep in about 30 minutes, which I need to do because I have a busy day tomorrow. I'm going to poe it up. Sipping my lean

like they do in Houston, huh everybody? There we go. Shouts to DJ Screw Jose Aldo is just so incredible He is in a position where He's a little bit Rich Franklin-ish The analogy is not quite right And I know every time you make an analogy

To some historical figure, everyone wants to be like, well, let's line up every single thing we know about Jose Aldo and every single thing we know about Rich Franklin. Let's find all the differences to make any kind of comparison ultimately not that meaningful.

Yes, if you wanted to make it totalizing, the comparison falls apart. But here is what I mean. In this particular way in which I'm about to say it, how many times have you heard fighters say that if they get put in a position where it becomes clear to them that they're not going to be able to win a title either again or anymore or ever, that they don't really want to do this anymore if that's not really on the table? It's not super common, but it's not rare either. You hear it a fair bit.

And I'm not here to adjudicate whether it's the good view or not. It's just something that some fighters believe. And okay, take them at their word and everyone lives their life and has the career that they want to have to the best of their abilities. Rich Franklin found himself in a position where he realized he was not going to beat Anderson Silva. It was not going to happen. You had a guy who came along in your weight class. You were the champion. Everyone thought you were the guy.

And then the real guy came around. And what the fuck are you going to do about it? And dude, to this day, Rich Franklin, he's cutting the ribbon in front of the Creation Science Museum. You just want to go like, what is wrong with you? But to his credit, dude, he just found a way to have, he took the view that like, okay, maybe another title shot will happen at 205. Maybe, who knows what happens at 185 down the road if I stick it out. But what I'm really just committed to is I want to be in important fights against tough guys. And I want to challenge myself.

And he would take them at 185. He would take them at 205. He'd take them on short notice. He'd take them overseas. Sometimes he lost. Sometimes he won spectacularly. He ran the gamut. But he was at least out there committed to this idea of being a martial artist,

being a prize fighter, and everything in between. And I had, and I still remain, extremely impressed by that attitude. It's not that I judge people who don't want to do that. Rather, if you are going to commit yourself to that, it's not easy to stay motivated. It's definitely not easy to stay competitive. Also, Jose Aldo at this point has a fair bit of miles on him. He's down a weight class that I thought was impossible for him to get to considering the struggles he had to fight Mark Hominick and everything.

And here he is making Pedro Munoz, who is a very tough riddle to solve, look very solvable. Jose Aldo, you know, he had his moment. He is still the class standard for featherweights. He had his opportunity to fight Peter Jan for the title at 135, and it didn't go his way. And here he is against top five guys, still absolutely giving them the business. And not just giving them the business, but looking fantastic doing it. I mean, his head movement was out of control. His jab from the second round on, fantastic. How about those rib roasters he was throwing when he needed them in the third round. What about those leg kicks? Dude, Jose Aldo painted a masterpiece tonight. And this is a guy who probably won't ever sniff another title fight. Maybe possible, but not likely. Not likely. And he's out there doing this? It's just, you know, special guy, man.

Special, special guy. And everyone wants to talk about the Conor McGregor comparisons. Listen, man, I already made this point. I'll say it again. You know, I don't know what happens with Conor going forward. I still think he's a very good fighter. In fact, you know, it's kind of funny. If you look at Aldo's record since, let's say, like the Holloway fights or something, right?

You know, where everything kind of came off the rails. Well, I guess the Conor McGregor fights, but it came off the rails. But he got the title back at 200, or a version of it. And then he lost two to Holloway. So he loses two to Holloway. He rebounds against Stevens and Renato Moicano.

Loses to Volkanovski. Loses to Marlon Marais, although that was a little bit dicey, but he still lost. It's on his record. Lost to Peter Jan, that was clear. And since then, he beat Marlon Vera, tough fighter, and now Pedro Munoz, tough fighter.

The guy has been fighting since fucking August of 2004. He's got 37 pro MMA fights, and he still looks this good. It's just, they won't come around like this very often, fellas and ladies. and ladies they won't they will not you will not see a lot of guys like this a lot of guys who can find themselves in um you know he's respected and revered and obviously is a critically important figure in the history of brazilian mma particularly lighter weight brazilian mma maybe he's the critical figure if you want to put it that way. But he's long in the tooth and he's had a lot of tough fights and he's had a lot of tough opponents and he's been through a lot of different eras of MMA. He made his debut

before The Ultimate Fighter even fucking aired and he's still out here doing this to people. I mean, you almost have to laugh at it. You just can't believe that a guy like this is doing the things he's doing. And I bring up Conor McGregor. I got a little distracted there. I just mean this to say, you know, what's funny about McGregor is, like, McGregor could take a path, if he wanted to, that it wouldn't necessarily be all that dissimilar from Aldo. Now, would he be as competitive as Aldo is now?

You know, is he top five at 155? Probably. Probably. I guess I mean to say, it's just funny to watch. Like, McGregor, all of his losses are supposed to mean so much. And Aldo has kind of carved out this path where he had, obviously, the devastating loss to Conor. And it's not like it's been rosy since then. Since losing to Conor, he's had one, two, three, four, five wins and five losses.

He's five and five. He's five and five. He's not exactly killing the game since then. Of course, he's fighting insanely tough guys. Fine. But, you know, the record is not... He was 25 and one before fighting Conor. And now he's 30 and seven.

Right? So the numbers have changed pretty consistently. Let me get that right. So he has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Yeah. And then since Conor, yeah, 5-5. He's 5-5. It's not like he's killing it.

Imagine Conor going 5-5. It's not that hard to think if he was taking on routine, regular challenges. But not everyone is up for that kind of challenge. Not everyone is up for like, I'm going to just go to a new weight class. That's insanely hard for me to meet. And I'm going to just keep working on my game. I'm going to keep trying. I'm going to keep just doing this.

And I don't know exactly what it's going to lead to. Again, they rewarded him with a title shot. Didn't go his way. After the Peter Jan fight, dude, he could have called it a day, you know? And instead, what did he do? He goes there and he beat Marlon Varela pretty cleanly. And then he just gave Pedro Munoz, you know, the business. It was, he's a marvel.

He's a marvel that you can be in a situation that unknown after previously experiencing all the greatest highs. His best days are for sure behind him. Not that he won't have good days, but his best days, those are behind him. And he's still out there competing like this. And physically, he has traps for days, has those 3D delts. Boy, he's got some delts on him. He always has, man. He is worthy of your adoration. Even Conor McGregor, I think, was tweeting about him positively tonight. Jose Aldo is very much worthy of your adoration. By the way, and let's just say it out loud, again, there's a lot of dudes at the top of Bantamweight that we need to see how things go. We'll see how Corey rebounds. Maybe they do Corey Sanhagen versus Rob Font.

Maybe they do Font versus Aldo. Maybe they do Aldo versus Sanhagen. Where do they have the rankings at? Let's see exactly. And I realize these are going to change come Monday or Tuesday, but let me just see here. They have at Bantamweight... My computer is always slow when I do these.

They have him at... Aldo sitting at five. Yeah, they could do Sandhagen and Font. They could do Sandhagen and Aldo. Dude, I mean, again, I'm saying a title shot is unlikely, but it is not impossible. It is possible he could continue to win his way and they'd have to reward him with another one. Dude, it's just insanely remarkable. It's remarkable. It's remarkable that somebody this long in the tooth is still this much a student of the game and still this eagerly competitive for stakes that can sometimes be quite unknown. You just won't see a lot of that.

As for Pedro Munoz, I didn't think he looked, I mean, he clearly looked a step or two behind Aldo. He's sitting at nine. I didn't think he looked terrible. I just thought that the one mistake that I thought I couldn't get my head around was, obviously, the two guys whose games I've examined the most over the course of my career would be Adesanya and Holloway. Holloway did something kind of interesting in both fights, and he did it differently. One fight, he went clockwise, and one fight, he went counterclockwise. He really kind of switched it up on Jose. But what he did was he turned him. He turned him constantly. He was constantly turning him.

That made it a lot harder for Aldo to set into anything, both offensively and defensively, but in particular, offensively. Munoz didn't really do that. He would kind of L-step and then reset the angle, but then they would just stand there in front of each other. There was a lot of fainting, fair enough, but you weren't putting Jose in a physically uncomfortable position, either pressing him and smashing him against the fence or making him follow you, making him turn, making him stay in a position where he can't drive his weight down into the canvas and then unload. And I think that was a mistake. I think that was a mistake.

Easier said than done. All these things are easier said than done. Not everybody can be Max Holloway, but it just goes to show that even with everything Jose Aldo has experienced negatively in his career, let's say, even at this stage is if you give him room to move, or I should say in this case, yes, there is room to move to exit, or if you give him time to anticipate what you're doing because your path is linear and he has just a clear sense about what to do, dude, he's hard to beat like that. Edgar would do that. I mean, Edgar would do a lot of side-to-side stuff, but really what he also, I go back and look at it.

I did a Monday Morning Analyst on it. He was going side-to-side, side-to-side, so it looked like he was trying to create a lot of movement, but really what he would do is he would just find a lane for the right, and then he would go straight, and every time, Jose Aldo would set him on fire.

He'd set him on fire. He's very, very, very good at that. You've got to get that guy moving, turning. And that was just not part of what Munoz was trying tonight. So it didn't go his way. All right, elsewhere on this card. Let's see. Elsewhere on this card.

How about Vicente Luque, bro? God damn. God damn. That dude is, you know, I'll never forget. I borrowed the phrase that I heard from him. And I saw him, by the way, in Vegas. I went to the High Rollers thing in Vegas when I was there. Shouts to High Rollers, by the way.

I mean, such a totally different product. No one can touch what High Rollers is doing. I saw it in person for myself. Just sensational. And while I was there, I saw Mike Easton, DC legend, Mike Easton. And I remember years ago, years ago, this must have been maybe 04, 05, something like that. I was training. Mike must have been teaching the class, but I was training in a class he was teaching. And we were talking about Overeem at the time. And he said to me, he's like, I don't know what belt Overeem is,

but Overeem has a black belt guillotine. You know, they were talking about some of the nuances of some of the stuff he was doing. You know, Vicente Luque might be a brown belt. That's a black belt Darce slash Bravo choke that he has. Fucking A. If you are not careful about any time you roll from your... First of all, you can be on your side. But let's say you roll from your side to your base. Shit, boys and girls.

You better have your hands here or here or something because it's coming. And when it comes, it is, he brings it on lightning quick and he knows exactly where his body needs to be to snake the arm through and come around. He knows exactly to squeeze the elbows together and then he drives the weight on the non-choking arm. Man. You know, Chiesa came out. His numbers were interesting to me. He has numbers like I've never seen before.

If you look at his strikes landed and absorbed per minute, he's at 1.8 on either way, roughly. I think like 1.81, 1.84, something like that. That means he lands less than two strikes a minute. It's not a lot. It's very low for UFC standards. But, you know, he still beat Neil Magny pillar to post. Well, why?

Because he's got incredible control. He's got incredible control. So, Luque was finding some openings on the feet, and then he goes to this takedown. The takedown from Chiesa was completely authoritative, right? And then he immediately began to move, I think, to half, or at least he tried to. But you saw there was a scramble. And through the course of the scramble, well, first of all, I mean, Luque had his back taken, and he fought out of that, and he was able to reverse and get on top. Now, I don't know if Luque wanted to stay. I'd have to go back and look to see if he got kicked

off or exactly what happened, but there was a separation. Luque on top, and he pulled back out of an arm bar to see what was going to happen. And then Chiesa tries to sit up as soon as he... Dude, go back and look at that. Right even before Chiesa just sits up, you can see the arms begin to slide in on either side for Luque.

Luque just has the best timing, instinctually can go to that kind of thing. And by the way, if it fails, I'm sure he's got other subs he can go to. He can maybe find the back. He can maybe turn him on his side, let it go, do some ground, maybe pass, go to mount He can maybe find the back. He can maybe turn him on his side, let it go. You know, do some ground. Maybe pass, go to mount, knee on belly. I guarantee you he's got attacks

off of a failed bravo choke a number of different directions. But he found that thing instantaneously. Here's the thing about Chiesa. He put out a statement and he said he was really embarrassed. He was in good shape. He put too much pressure on

himself. I can see that because this was a big fight and everything else. I think he'll be back. He knows he made a mistake. He knows he did. There's nothing I can say or even need to say about this that he wouldn't know himself times a thousand. He just wasn't careful enough going from his back or side, whatever it was, to his base to stand and then reconstitute the fight on the feet. He simply was not diligent enough with his defense. And he knows that. I don't think that's indicative of his game in totality. But on this night, you make one mistake against Luque from your positioning,

and he will punish you. He will make you pay. You will pay. And Luque, let me say something about this fucking guy's resume. I mean, you know, a fighter's fighter, a fan's fighter, just an absolute bulldozer in the best way. So since he lost to Michael Graves, which is his UFC debut back in July of 2015, he's won 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, only two losses. One to Leon Edwards in 2017 and one to Wonderboy in 2019.

Since losing to Wonderboy, he beat Nico Brown, TKO. Randy Brown, KO. Tyron Woodley, DARS. Michael Chiesa, DARS. Folks, that's a four-fight win streak and he stopped all of them. All of them. And you can say whatever you want to. Chiesa was on a hell of a run before this.

Woodley was still a former champion. And who had submitted him like that? Nobody. Both of his last two fights were first-round submissions. I mean, if you're not careful against Vicente Luque, and when I say careful, I mean you need to be on it like white on rice, he will take your arm and neck home quickly. And once he gets to the position, by the way,

his other part, like, there's obviously many different stages to completing a submission. One is getting the latch, you know, and whatever it is, whether it's the guillotine or it's the rear naked choke or whatever it may be, and heel hook. You've got to get the bite on it first, and then you the guillotine or it's the rear naked choke or whatever it may be, and heel hook, you got to get the bite on it first. And then you have to know exactly what to do when someone tries to take evasive maneuvers. And he knows how to exactly follow and tighten it up and squeeze. He's got a million different places to go to that, no matter what you do,

man, he is the fucking man at that submission. Very, very, very good at it. Super, super good. I bet he catches people who are better at jujitsu than him all the time with that thing. I guarantee he does. Not a doubt in my mind. And if you're 14 and two, starting in December of 2015, and you're in a four fight win streak, and all four of them are via stoppage, you are owed a big fight. You are owed a big fight. Now, who that might be, I don't know. He was calling for Kamaru Usman. Obviously, Usman's got unfinished business with Colby Covington. I don't think they'll go in that direction, but somebody up there, whether it's Jorge, whether it's the loser of that bout maybe i i you know

i don't know i don't know what they're gonna do but he is he is owed a step up and by the way isn't he still young this kid yeah he's 29. i mean he's he's good he's real he's fun to watch man and he's a nice guy he's trilingual if not more than that he's a nice guy. He's trilingual, if not more than that. He's a hard guy to dislike. Vicente Luque is a hard guy to dislike. You know, is he the best welterweight on earth? I don't know. We're going to have to see. So far, he's not proven to be. But at 21-7-1 is his record. At 29 years of age, on the kind of streak he's on, and the composure he showed when he had his back taken. I mean, what is there not to love about Vicente Luque? Nothing.

Not if you're a real fight fan. That's a real litmus test. It's like, oh, you're a fight fan? Oh, yeah, I love fights. Yeah, what do you think about Vicente Luque? If the answer is anything other than that fucking guy is appointment viewing, you're a poser. You don't belong here.

There's one answer to that question, period. And good for him. That was a solid win. That was a guy. It don't belong here. There's one answer to that question, period. Good for him. That was a solid win. That was a guy. It was a tough competitor. He had in front of him tonight on a big stage and he was smooth. He was super smooth. Very quickly, Tisha Torres defeating Angela Hill. 2-3-27-1-29-28.

That was a tough fight for Angela. The athleticism, both the strength and the speed and the timing of Torres really gave Hill fits, especially early. She was walking into stuff constantly. She had a hard time establishing range. When she did, she could do some interesting things with it. She had her moments, to be sure. I thought she won the third round, so I would have given it 29-28 for Torres.

But you couldn't find two rounds for her. Torres has looked great. She had that, what, four or five fight slouch or slump, I should say, a few years ago or a couple years ago maybe, and boy, she has worked her way out of that. No problem. Yeah, she had lost four in a row to Andrade, Joanna, Zhang Weili, and Marina Rodriguez, and you're going to be like, oh, well, three of those are former champions. It's true. But still, it wasn't a great time in her career. Since then, she beat Brianna Van Buren. She stopped Sam Hughes.

And then she was clearly the better fighter between her and Angela Hill. And I have a tremendous amount of respect for Angela Hill. I like what she's become. Her record is not indicative of her ability. Not by a long shot, but she was up against it tonight. Again, people who have, you know, yes, Torres is fast. She has very, very fast hands, and that played a role. But it wasn't just the speed. Her timing was really good, too. And if you have really good timing and you're fast, that's formidable.

It's going to be quite formidable. And she ran into that over and over again. And by the way, Torres is strong. Jesus, you see them fighting with the Wizards in certain positions. I was very impressed. Also, I will say in defense of Angela Hill, I thought some of her takedowns you know, some of them didn't work, but

the level of technical ability she showed in getting to them and executing them again even if she couldn't pin the person afterwards they were she's clearly come a long way come a long way and then Song Yedong defeating Casey Kenney via split

the 30-27 for Song Yedong I don't quite get but what are you going to do? Also, that Fazaya versus Bobby Green fight was just heaven. True heaven. All right. If you have any questions, I will check them out on the Twitter thread. Let's see what you folks have to say. Oh, goddammit. Hold on. There we go. Okay. Oh, Jesus. There we go. Let's try it one more time.

There we go. Okay. Okay. What are the odds Derek Lewis folded under the pressure of the moment? I tend to think that that may have played a role. You saw him, if you watched some of the UFC's footage about this fight, pre-fight, that he was feeling it. Fair enough. It probably played a role. But I think you have to ask yourself is to what extent, you know, there's no way to answer this, but if it wasn't a huge role, would the outcome have been different? I would bet not, personally. Thoughts on the latest version of Francis versus Stipe when he

showed a real ability to be patient yet athletic enough to get what he wants. While it's true, all Derek has to do is touch you once. It's really true in regards to Francis. Francis is still the favorite? I think so. Maybe. Luke, in your view, how does this result in the rise of Cyril Ghosn affect, one, Jon Jones negotiating leverage? It doesn't change it. Two, your expectation of the public's interest in Jones fighting at heavyweight? Ghosn doesn't, I think, meaningfully

move the needle in that way. Not yet. And Ghosn's going to be a real tough fight for any... I'm telling you, man. That dude's going to be tough to beat. He's going to be tough real tough fight for any, I'm telling you, man, that dude's going to be tough to beat. He's going to be tough to beat. He might, he might win for a while. We'll see. But I don't know that he's going to, it may make things worse in a sense for John, because I mean, I guess we'll see how the public takes to gone. Gone doesn't say a whole lot in media.

And again again he can deliver finishes you saw the one tonight but you might see a lot of like long drawn out performances too i wonder how the public will react to that and and to what extent john fighting him is anything of like francis is the thing people want to see because he has just blinding power he sends people to the land of wind and ghosts and they don't come back. Gon's not like that. He doesn't have a superpower like that. Not an identifiable one to the casual fan. What did you think of the size disparity between

Aldo and Munoz? Personally, I think it's unfair that they're in the same weight class. I didn't care about it. What did you think of the ref that scored the fight 30-27, i.e. Fazaev winning the last round? Simply unfathomable to me. Dude, I think his name was Joshua something, the judge there.

Dude, if you scored the third round, and he deserved to win, so understand what I'm saying. Fazaev was the guy that should have gotten his hand raised, fair enough. So the right guy won. But if you score the third round for Fizaev over Bobby Green, something is profoundly wrong with you. Like you have a mental deficiency of some kind. You can't compute things rationally. This person writes, Boxing had roughly four years to make AJ Wilder.

Dana couldn't wait, so he decided to make it himself. AJ's twin brother gone against a comparatively lesser skilled American with a big right hand. Yes, well, if you have the majority

of the world's talent underneath your banner, it's going to be a lot easier to make fights than it is if they're all spread out and they have a shitload more rights, but okay. I feel like if the title fights were three rounds, Aldo would have a better chance to win

against Jan or TJ. Fair. But he can't keep up with them late. Also fair. I know he doesn't speak English very well, but does Cyril not cutting much of a promo hurt him here? To the casual fan and or to the, not even that, to the hardcore fan, yeah, sure.

Individual preferences, you may be like, oh, it doesn't matter to me at all. That's fine. But there's going to be a lot of people to whom it does. Do you think the D'Arce is underutilized in the UFC? No. I think a lot of people are... Not everyone who practices the D'Arce as much as Vicente Luque does is going to be as good at it as he is. Right. I hope people understand that. Like Jimi Hendrix and I could have started playing

guitar at the same age. And then by 21, he was going to be a lot better than me. Right. Like, just because you train it a lot, uh, doesn't mean you're going to be you can be obviously it will help but you know when people see like it's underutilized like i don't know like how much time is it that you need to invest to get good at it for positions you find yourselves in routinely may not be underutilized at all i tend to think it's probably utilized as much as it needs to be you just see a guy like Vicente Luque who makes it look effortless and you're like, why don't more people do that? Yeah, because they're

not Vicente Luque. That's why. Other than the Blades win, can you say the Volkov KO has inflated Lewis' rep? Yeah, but he had other wins where he would do unusual things and then find ways to, if not get the victory, get a moral one along the way. Does he have the very best resume in terms of wins and losses?

No. But is it fair to say that the Volkov win, while certainly unusual, is it that fluky? It's a little fluky, but at the same time, dude, this guy is capable of late heroics and patient... the kinds of patience to find the right openings, too. It is and it isn't.

Did you notice how well Aldo shut down the kicks of Pedro? Yeah, dude. I looked at his legs at the beginning of every round... well, the second and third round, and they didn't look like they were getting banged up at all. He shut that shit down early on, Pedro. Very impressive.

You can't stand in front of Pedro like that unless you find a way to shut those kicks down because you're going to get chewed up doing that game. I think that's why Pedro probably stood there as long as he did because he felt like, well, if I could just get these going, we can change this outcome, but he couldn't. Who would win, Gon or Jon Jones, as they are both too technical to manage distance well,

unlike the usual heavyweights? I'll say this. Look, I have no idea how Jon's going to look at heavyweight. I'll say this. Look. I have no idea how Jon's going to look at heavyweight. I think there is a grand presumption that he's going to look more or less as good as he looked at light heavyweight. But the reality about his run at light heavyweight is I think his run at light heavyweight was in trouble. Maybe not so much from the second coming of Glover Teixeira or something,

if Glover ends up beating Jan Blachowicz or whatever. But what I mean to say is, I did a video on his takedown defense. If you look at it early in his career versus late, it drops off a cliff later in his career. Now, it's still good. It's still very good in certain cases. What has made John very special to me in his later stage of his career is his defense. He too does not take a lot of abuse and he finds careful ways to do that. Still,

I don't know that he's got exactly what God has. I have to tell you like, A, we've seen God at heavyweight. He is a natural heavyweight. And secondly, I think there were warning signs at the end of his run at light heavyweight that made the move to heavyweight probably the right call, which means he might go back to dominating up there. All I'm saying is, based on the way things were going at light heavyweight, and he won those fights, although I thought he clearly lost the fight to Dominic Reyes. I think there's at least room to entertain the idea that the presumption that John goes up to heavyweight and just picks off everybody, I don't know that that's going to be automatically true.

I want to see, my view is, I don't know what's going to happen when he goes to heavyweight, but I'm at least entertaining the idea that it won't be this magical arrival moment that people presume it to be. It could be. I'm not telling you that it's not. I literally do not know. But if you just look at the end of that light heavyweight run, now he's going to have time off, and now guys like Gahn are coming through the pipeline. To me, the idea that he's just going to pick up where he left off, I'm skeptical of that claim. Or at a bare minimum, I want to see it play out before I'm just ready to tell you it's automatically true.

So I would kind of favor Gon, to be honest with you. Thoughts on the Gon versus Francis matchupup do you think gone poses a significant threat to francis yeah i do i very much do um can you stay away from francis's power long enough to either win five rounds or stop him along the way even stipe couldn't stop that fucking Clydesdale, so good luck with that. But do I think he's got the ability to do that? I do. I don't know how likely that is. I need to go watch more tape to really see, you know?

But, like, if I was Francis, you know, and I wanted to fight the easier of the two matchups, I was going to root for Derek in that one. Gon's a tough fight. Now, they have some experience together, and obviously since then, Francis has grown a lot. He's probably a lot different of a fighter. Fair enough. I think, again, Francis touches anyone right, even halfway right, and it's kaput. That is going to make Gon, That's going to be a difficult thing for Gon to overcome. Conversely, dude, if Gon is really able to set distance on this guy,

that's a tough guy to beat. In this day of prominent calf kicks, why aren't more fighters adding the proper defense to their skill set? Because it's hard to do. How many fighters can start MMA three years ago and make it to the top of the division? Not many and in not many divisions. But Cyril Ghosn is one of them. As impressive as Aldo looked over Munoz, how strong do you think his chances are

of making a run for the belt? Not that strong. Not that strong. But not the kind you can discount. I would not say it's the most likely outcome, but it is not so unlikely as to be dismissible. Why are you covering a UFC card in a red state that allows unvaccinated people to? I mean, get fucked.

Seriously. All right. Good snacks during the fight. I did not eat the rice that my wife prepared. She made me some fried rice. I never ate it. Let's see. Considering almost no damage absorbed by Gon and that Francis seems ready to fight soon, you think we'll see this fight late in 2021?

Yes, I do. I have talked to Francis' camp. They definitely want to fight this year for sure. They want to fight, I think, in September. So, you know, this idea that like, oh, call us when you're ready to fight. Well, I mean, let's stop playing games. They were ready to fight. But yes, for sure. For sure. Do you have any thoughts on Gon using older style leg kicks to the thigh instead of going to the calf like everyone else these days.

No, I don't. That's curious. Maybe it's something he hasn't trained because there's many benefits to the calf kick, but one of them is you can actually stand a little bit further away. And that you would think would be something that he would prefer. But you know what? I was, this is a true story. I haven't told you guys this. I had an interview that day, the day that it happened, with Fernanda Lopez, the coach of gone, previous coach of Francis. And then my daughter got into an accident at the park with her daycare and split her forehead open. You guys may have seen it on the live chat. She had a little bit of a mark here. She had to get 20 stitches. Now,

14 of them were on the inside, six were on the outside, but it was that day that that happened. And then the next day, we had to put our pet down. And then that... Wait, how did it go? No. Right. So she cut herself that day, went to the hospital, and then... That wait how'd it go no so then right so she cut herself that day went to the hospital and then that's right then then i think the next morning or the baby that yeah that's right i think the next one i'm getting my days confused here but it was right after that that we had to put our pet down then i had to go to vegas for the conor mcgregor and poirier trilogy and my whole plans with fernan lopez got blown I owe that guy an interview. I'll reach back out to him, see if he wants to do it. Hopefully he does. But I had to, I was on WhatsApp with Fernan Lopez

at the fucking ER being like, oh, I'm not going to make it today. He was very understanding. But I'll ask him is how I'm answering that question. What was your fight of the night? Fazayev and Green, period. Easy call. what was your fight of the night Fazaev and Green period easy call there's asking about Fernan Lopez is Cyril Ghosn

the most technical striker of all time in the heavyweight division I don't know Overeem is pretty technical K1 champion? Someone asks, the longer it goes, the more it favors Gon over Francis, right? If Francis' power carries late and Gon is playing it closer later, not necessarily, it depends how much Francis is drained early. What's next for Derek? Yeah, somebody

in the top 10. Top 7-ish. A lot of the same questions. In answering the question about, like, is Cyril Gahan the most technical, Cyril Gahan is the most, is one of the most technical while rejecting the idea that we have to kind of mix it up and at risk, you know, because Overeem had that Dutch style where he was kind of hands up. He would just walk into you a little bit sometimes, you know, that's not what gone does.

Is gone the next generation of heavyweight Yeah, yeah I think he is Luque vs. Edwards or Luque vs. Masvidal next? I'd like to see Luque vs. Masvidal I think that would be fucking awesome Those two boys Getting after it, you know. Alright, people insulting Derek Lewis, which I'm going to ignore. Considering Pedro and Cody both have 65 inch reach,

do you think Cody really would be able to beat him with pure skill? Cody Garbrandt? I don't think so. And then that's it. Should John have taken a crack at heavyweight earlier in his career? Yeah, I think so. If I was John, and I'm not, and I seriously doubt he gives a flying fuck what I have to say, but if I'm just reading the room here a little bit, I don't know how he'll do at heavyweight again.

We have to also entertain the possibility that he'll go in there and look really, really strong. And, you know, all of these takes I've given you will, over time, show to be wrong. Fine. But I think the way to play it was, if you want to get out of your deal, and maybe he doesn't. It's hard to say exactly what he wants. But there's an argument to be made to just take the fights at heavyweight that you could have taken.

And you would have been doing it for less than you think you're worth, and that's that and the other. But you'd be through with a big part, or at least partly through with a big part of the chapter of your career, and I think in a way where he was much more up to those challenges. I don't think he's as up to those challenges as he once was, personally, personally. But that doesn't mean he can't win.

It doesn't mean he won't win. It doesn't mean I'm right. Just kind of like a semi- that doesn't mean he can't win. Doesn't mean he won't win. Doesn't mean I'm right. Just kind of like a semi-hunch. One I can't prove. So how right could it be? Not that right. But it's just something to think about. I think that's the way I would put it. It's at least worth considering this idea

of automatic coronation. We might have to pump the brakes on that one a little bit. Okay, that's it for me I appreciate everybody who watched Thumbs up, hit subscribe, please hit subscribe It really matters a lot We're really trying to do some stuff over here

I gotta have a little extra NyQuil Mmm Delicioso Yeah That's it for me So I appreciate you guys watching MK is back Monday 11am in the east Yeah, that's it for me. So, I appreciate you guys watching. MK is back Monday, 11 a.m. in the East.

You can email me, lukethomasnews at gmail.com. And yeah, until next time, get some sleep.