MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 271 Results: Israel Adesanya vs. Robert Whittaker 2 | UFC 271 Post-Fight Show

Episode Date: February 13, 2022

At UFC 271, UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya faces Robert Whittaker in a rematch for the championship belt. In the co-main event, Derrick Lewis and Tai Tuivasa battle for heavyweight ranking supremacy. The ESPN+ pay-per-view fight card also features a top middleweight contenders bout between Dererk Brunson and Jared Cannonier. Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only. At participating McDonald's in Canada. Hi everybody. It is, let's see, it is 1 a.m. The 13th of February, 2020. My name is Luke Thomas. I am one half of the Morning Combat podcast duo. Brian Campbell, of course, will be back on Monday's show.

But this is my UFC 271 post-fight show. We're going to get to all of the results, all of the analysis as well, and then all of your questions. To get those answered, of course, go to my Twitter, at LThomasNews. It's the very last tweet. It's right there. Leave your question in there, and I all of your questions. To get those answered, of course, go to my Twitter, at LThomasNews. It's the very last tweet. It's right there. Leave your question in there, and I will get to it here on the program.

Yes? So, if you're listening on YouTube, please give this a thumbs up. Hit that subscribe button, folks. Help us pull that sled. We need you. That's how you can pay us back. Yes, the ads help, of course, but I don't see any of that money for the ads here on Morning Combat. We need those subscriptions, so please consider subscribing.

If you haven't, we do Morning Combat three times a week, plus this, and a whole lot of other stuff as well. Okay? All right. We got UFC 271 to talk about, do we not? So without further ado, let's get this party started. And we're back. If you're listening on podcast, you know the drill. Give us a nice review there as well. Okay, just sort of one real quick, not even a housekeeping note, just a disclaimer that I always want to make sure folks know.

I've literally just watched the fight. I know you guys have just watched the fight. We're just absorbing this. Second, third watches, or however many, may elicit different views about what happened in the fight or ultimately how it was scored or not. You may watch it again and decide that however you saw it in real time was exactly the same. But it is at least fair to say that a lot of us, not just for the main event, but for everything else, this is my first response to things that might change over time, including by Monday, if I've had a time to watch more tape. That is especially true in terms of getting the technique breakdowns.

But okay, let's turn this one off. Let's get to it. Let's start this process, shall we? Okay. Let's get to it. Let's start this process, shall we? Okay, let's see. UFC 271 took place at the... Oh yeah, and no spoilers. If you don't want spoilers, this is your time to go, right? So, I usually say that before I hit the stinger, but either way, I'm going to get to spoilers. Okay, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Alright, UFC 271 took place at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas, live on pay-per-view.

In your main event, Israel Adesanya retains his title, defeating Robert Whitaker via unanimous decision with scores of 48-47, 48-47, and 49-46. This is a hard thing, I think, for some folks to accept, that the way in which the scoring criteria work and works is that in many cases, particularly when you have close fights with multiple rounds, in the case of a five-round fight, two more than the ordinary amount, you're going to get not a score that is acceptable. You're going to get a range of scores. And this is, to me, one of the problems with the way in which we do scoring, which is that it's really just a judgment call. And the people that we ask to make those judgment calls, sometimes they're great, sometimes they're not. Sometimes they're okay. It's whatever. But they're doing just that they're making a judgment call which means

it is entirely reasonable in certain circumstances to be able to argue that the person who won the fight should have either by this score or a pretty comparable one or in certain cases it is also acceptable to argue that the other person should have won and that it's not one or the other person should have won, and that it's not one or the other. Rather, it is a range of possibilities, all of which are, if not equally justifiable, within the framework of what we can say are rational interpretations of what happened. With that caveat out of the way, my scorecard was 3-2 for Adesanya. I gave him the first three rounds. I realize some of you might not have. I gave him the last two. Five to me was his most emphatic. I think most folks would agree with that. One was by far his worst. I think most folks would agree with that. Two through four is where most of the debate is really happening. For me, and the reason why I scored it that way, and again,

if you scored it 49-46 for Adesanya, that sounds about right to me. I can see a case for giving him the fourth round. And if you scored it 50-45, that would be inexplicable. And if you scored it, I don't know, 49-46 for Rob, that would also be inexplicable to me, or at least just a very poor card. But a 48-47 for Rob is not out of the realm of possibility. Now exactly how that might get apportioned is hard to say. But it probably includes some combination of rounds 4 and 5 with either round 2 or round 3. That's how it would kind of go.

It would be one of those permutations or the other. I cannot imagine someone giving him, you know, I don't know how. It would be no way to get round one, right? He got dropped in round one and thoroughly, in that round, got thoroughly beaten. Why did I score for Adesanya? The reason why I scored it for him is, again, if your card differs, that's okay, within a reasonable framework. For me, first round, obvious. Fifth round, obvious. Let's throw those out. So two through four.

I have to pull up the numbers. I don't have them. Obviously, in real time, you don't have the numbers. So I don't know exactly how that all ends up. And I've cautioned folks about this. They'll put numbers on the broadcast. They are routinely wrong. So be careful about putting too much stock into them.

Let me pull this up here for just a second. But the answer is basically that I thought he did better damage. So the way it would work is octagon control shouldn't play a role, which, by the way, it could have in Texas. It's possible that, remember, I would argue that I don't know how Dominic Reyes loses a fight to Jon Jones, but for a scoring criteria that rewards forward movement, even when that forward movement is not rewarded by any subsequent offense. I don't like that rule. Most states don't have it anymore.

Texas does, although I believe there might have been some development where they're now incorporating some additional set of guidelines. But be that as it may, it could have played a role. But I thought he did overall the better damage. Certainly, this was a much better performance for Rob Whitaker. Now, I thought after the first round, I was like, man, this might even be a worse one. I mean, he started cold, to be clear, and I guess it was, you know, obviously, I don't know if it was that intentional, but it was pretty intentional. Like, obviously, he was trying to kind of disassociate himself from Adesanya as a person. He is merely an opponent.

This is merely another fight. Just as a matter of routine and order, trying to keep himself calm, trying to keep himself centered, not getting too emotional about it in any one way or the other, almost like Seneca out there. And it worked, I think, to a large extent

because he eventually got warmed up and he got working. They were right that the right hand was taken away by some of the counters that Israel Adesanya was throwing. But what really opened up his offense, we'll talk about it in just a sec. I want to finish my scoring thing here and then we'll talk about the ways in which they fought. But I thought, folks, I never put it out. I can't. What are you going to do? What was a big reason, a big reason why Jan Blachowicz won that has nothing to do with the wrestling.

They all ended up kind of feeding each other. But what was one big key to that win? A big key to that win is go back and re-watch it. It's all subtle because you don't really pay attention to it unless you begin to notice some things in the numbers. Jan Blachowicz in that fight, yes, he won in the end by a lot of what he was doing in the grappling department. But even in those first three rounds, he had to get one of them, right? In order to get a 48-47 scorecard or better.

And the way he did that, a big way he did it, was taking away the leg kicks of Adesanya. He checks them right away. Right away. First, I mean, doesn't ever let him get started on it at all. And on top of that, was getting out of the way of them on top. Why is this important? Think about some of the fights that Adesanya has had where they've been a little bit of squeaker fights. This would be another perfect example. A big way in which he collects

offense. It's powerful. He's more frequent sometimes than his competitors. His leg kicks. Leg kicks is a huge portion of his offense. Not just because of what it represents in terms of its overall totality of what he does, but on top of that, the ways in which it sets up other things and allows him to distance close. But sometimes guys will shut him down or they're kind of, oh, you know, he'll be very risk aware, but he'll keep going back to those. And when those land, dude, he's very hard to beat Blachowicz stopped them right away didn't stop them but really put a dent in their effectiveness right away so it forced a second order kind of offense usually with the hands that Adesanya had to kind of resort to in that contest which made it you know much less of a

threat then he was obviously sometimes he can, he got blitzed in that fight, so then he had to get backed up. So you saw Adesanya having to back up, and then he might block all the punches, but then he would get hit by the kick at the end of the combination. There was just all these moments where he was neutralized in terms of the ways in which he sets things up, forced to go to a second level, and that second level is just a much more doable thing. That was a big key to how he did it and then of course he pancaked him on top of the wrestling so when the leg kicks started to get going for Adesanya I was like dude that's a terrible sign for Robert Whitaker doesn't mean

you can't win it's just if Adesanya has those things moving you're it's going to be it's going to be tough he's going to be tough to beat it's going to collect you saw Whitaker he I mean he pushed through it like a champ but those are going to add I mean he's going to collect. You saw Whitaker. He pushed through it like a champ, but he's going to be suffering tomorrow, to be clear. I think the couple times where he got turned and limped, it sends a signal to the judges, whether you think it was too much or too little. Adesanya has been very, very clever about using all of that

as a way to retain his title over Robert Whitaker this time and winning many other contests. The leg kicks, if you can shut those down, again, it doesn't mean you're just going to win, but you take away just a hugely central feature of his game. So he really didn't. And in the end, when you begin to think about what were the pieces of offense, okay, he lost the fifth round clean. But even in that, even from the third round on, think about the biggest pieces of offense that Adesanya landed. They were leg kicks.

They were leg kicks. He's just very difficult to beat if those are moving. And I thought those were landing a lot. He was doing good body kicking as well. He was landing. I thought that was a little bit underrated and not kind of called too much out. Although I will say, I thought Bisping and DC did a great job. We'll talk about that later a little bit as well. But I thought that did, it was close. It was close, but it did better damage. Let's talk about some of the takedowns. Let me pull up the numbers to get a better sense of things. I usually don't go to the numbers this easily, and I do want to talk about what Robert Whitaker did,

because it was great. He was very, very effective. It was subtle and slow. It was very much the frog in the pot kind of scenario, but he got it working. All right, so let's look at the numbers here on this one. Man, a much reserved one. Pretty interesting. Whitaker, 4 for 10 on takedowns. Okay, so let's see the numbers here. What did he attempt? He attempted in the first round, Whitaker attempted two. He got one. He is awarded one in the second. He is awarded one of two in the third, one of one in the fourth, and then one of four in the fifth. Boy, I got to tell you, that was such a big difference maker. When I tweeted about it on Friday before, I think either before or after MK, but it was so clear to me. In the first nine fights of Robert Whitaker's middleweight campaign,

he had a total of five takedown attempts. So five takedown attempts in nine middleweight fights. That nine, that bracketed nine, the ninth of them was the loss to Adesanya. In the three subsequent fights to that, so not including this one, so Till, Gastelum, and Kananir, he had 22 takedowns, right? Or, yes, 22 takedowns. So he had, I think he, yes, full, yes, 22 takedowns. So, excuse me all this is our attempts so the first nine fights nine fights he had five attempts in three fights after the loss he had 22 or again attempts 13 attempts against Till two against uh Kananir and seven against Gastelum I think is the way that it went here he had 10 attempts on Adesanya, and you would imagine that

would have to be the case. That is exactly the way to do it. Adesanya's takedown defense, along the fence line, so when he is up against the fence, he is very hard to handle. He has a very strong and powerful whizzer. He is good about framing. He's good about pulling people off of his hips and then creating frames. And once he creates frames, he doesn't wait for the referee to intervene. He's good about pulling the head past and then scooting out and around. He's good at it, dude. He is a very aggressive, no-nonsense scrambler.

The way in which he was able to get some success, which I thought was really interesting, was, and we knew this. We knew this. It's where Blachowicz, by the way, got him down. Blachowicz had a little bit of trouble against the fence, got his best takedowns where? Out in open space, because Adesanya's takedown to fence along the fence line is excellent. Out in open space, it's a bit of a different story, because then he throws, you know, and he'll move oftentimes in ways that a lot of other strikers may not because he has such body control. But either way, just throws a punch and Whitaker got under it and then used

that to take him down in space, you know, turn him at an angle. The issue was, and I think this is the part that makes some of those rounds a little bit like, how did you judge him? Some people had it for Whitaker, some people had it for Adesanya. What was the control time? See, this is where it gets a little bit dicey. Number one, the control time is minimal. Is minimal. That by itself is not like, do judges weigh control time? They don't even have the numbers on control time.

But it's shorthand for describing the length of time that he was in a confirmed solid position of control. In the first round, zero minutes. Of course, that was a bad round for him. Second round, 52 seconds. That's okay. 30 seconds in the third. That's hardly any. 40 seconds in the fourth.

Hardly any. Minute 38 in the fifth. Now, clearly in that fifth, that was plenty. In the second, it gets a little dicey about that, about what kind of counts. Here's the other problem with it, though. There was that one sequence where he did what essentially Misha Tate did to Holly Holm, where she ducked under the punch, timed it, got around, took the back. Now, Tate figured it out and choked her out. Didn't work for Robert, but that was pretty good. But the point I'm trying to make is he was able to get to the back and then like threaten a submission. That's a real valuable use of a dominant position. You didn't just get to a dominant position, which is hard,

but the point is, what did you do with those positions? What do they confer? The question is, what do you want to give him for the takedowns? I will count the takedowns as being important for a mixed martial arts contest. I will recognize that. I will recognize that he held them for a period of time. But if the first order upon which a judge is asked to make a conclusion, and this is how it is done, even in Texas, I think this is true even in Texas, in most places, in most jurisdictions, damage. Damage is the first order of business. Those takedowns, while impressive, and again, you cannot ignore them. They matter. They count. But for my scorecard, and I'm going to keep saying this, yours might vary,

for my scorecard, if he had put together a little bit of something extra on top of the takedowns, not only do I think he would have won, and I'm not going to say it would have been close, but I think that we would be having very, very, very different post-fight conversations. If you can't hold him for more than 30 seconds or right around 30 seconds, and you can't really do a lot with it, right, in terms of threatening something, getting an arm under the throat, whatever, making him really react to you, you know, you've got to do some other stuff along with it. And I grant that there was, I mean, all these rounds are close except for the first and then even the fifth is not that close.

In the first round, I'd assign you landed at double what Whitaker did. 18 significant strikes to nine. These are, and it's credited with a knockdown. Clear 10-9 round, no doubt about it. After that, this is just the significant strike total disparity. 16-12, 17-12, 15-16, 13-10. Those are numerical, obviously, rather than qualitative, but you can see there that these are all pretty close rounds. So I can understand why folks would have a little bit of a different consideration about things. Noticing the diversity of Whitaker's offense and noting that it put Adesanya in clear moments where he is strictly on the defense, you know, for 52 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds or more during the course of that round. I respect that and I understand that. I just feel like if he had put a little bit of something else behind it, and again,

the choke attempt on the back take, that totally counts. But in general, in general, I think it cost them the fight, to be honest with you. Punt the first round, that's out. You got to win three of the next four. The three of the next, or yeah, the next four were all rounds that I think most observers would say, last two rounds, Whitaker rounds, last round for sure, Whitaker rounds, two through four, let's say, are competitive to the point of, difficult to judge is not what I would say. Well, they're not easy to judge either.

The kind of rounds that are going to produce debate among people scoring. I think that's maybe the safest and easiest way I could put it. They're going to produce debate. Oh, you know what? I got to plug in this thing. Shit. Hang on. The thing's going to go kaput if I don't. Hang on one second. Hang on one second. Let me do this real quick. Uh, hang on. Whoopsie. Good thing I caught it, bitches. Hang on. Let's do this. And now we're good.

Okay. All right. As you can see, this is a very, very high production quality broadcast. Only the finest for people like you. Okay. Anyway, the point I was trying to make was they're pretty close and that the kind of closeness given to these, the way, that pairing, guy who leg kicks doesn't score a ton of stuff elsewhere versus guy who lands a little bit on the feet and then combines it with hard to parse grappling. It's like the perfect storm of getting people to, to not being able to agree for my scorecard. It's three, two out of Sonia. I'm happy to give Whitaker two rounds. I'm happy to concede the other two are close.

I get it. But for me, I have to pick the three. Now, with that three being picked, because, you know, listen, it's not hard to argue for three rounds for Adesanya. It's not. I'm sorry. It's not that difficult. I can do it.

And the judges did it, and so I don't think that's in any way an impeachable scorecard whatsoever. It tells you that even a retooled Robert Whitaker can't beat Israel Adesanya, and that he has some terrible grappling deficiencies that anyone in that division can just take advantage of. This is total fantasy, man. Adesanya is, dude, everyone is going to miss him when he's gone. There have been consistent, it finally appears that the public is coming around to him, which is going to miss him when he's gone there have been consistent it finally appears that the public is coming around to him which is great to see

certainly he signed that huge contract even better for him people are going to miss this guy when he's gone even with fights like these where you know it's not the he didn't just blow through Paulo Costa or something like that but yes they're close and yes some of his rivals are never exactly all that far away.

Understand, these guys are getting second chances at him, right? And in some cases, fights that went from three rounds to five rounds, and they still can't beat him. Oh, Luke, but I thought so-and-so beat him on this night or that night. Right. But the point is, every single time they've had a chance, they actually't do it dude he has lapped this division almost now fully for the second time Whitaker kind of makes these bookends because it's like if dude if Whitaker can't beat him I you know I realize that Hamza Chamayev is some kind of wild card especially when it means for middleweight considering he is focusing his attention attention at welterweight. But when I look down the rankings of who was in that, I mean, look at the rankings tonight. Just ask yourself a question. Now, I know Jared Kananier looked great. He looked great.

But would you pick him to beat him if Robert Whitaker can't do it? Here's the top 10. Robert Whitaker was number one. Vittori, Both of those guys have had two cracks in them. Cannoneer is three. He's had none. Brunson had a crack. Got beat. Paulo Costa had a crack. Got beat.

Six is Strickland. They haven't fought yet. Jack Hermansen haven't fought yet. Till haven't fought. Uriah Hall hasn't fought. Kelvin Gaslam. Izzy beat him too. Anyone who he's ever faced in the top 10, he's beaten.

Some of them twice. And he's at worst, at worst, the second best middleweight ever. I think his reign is better than certainly Luke Rockhold's. I would argue it's better than Chris Weidman's. I certainly recognize that Chris Weidman held an important role in the history of people who held the title at middleweight. He is a decorated and exemplary champion. But if we're asking who we're ranking middleweight champions of all time, the reason why Silva would remain probably at number one would be that he has, was it 10 title defenses? But what Adesanya has done, an undefeated, dude.

Joe Burrow is competing tomorrow. I'm not going to make some grand football comparison because I'm not capable of doing it, but Joe Burrow is competing tomorrow. And there's a potential designation he might get. If you're European or Australian and you're watching this or Kiwi or whatever, Joe Burrow is the quarterback for the Cincinnati Bengals. Tomorrow is the Super Bowl. It's the biggest game that America has by far. Like in any sport, it's huge. Okay, 100 million people watch. It's a thing. Joe Burrow, if he wins as the quarterback tomorrow for the Cincinnati Bengals, he'll be the first person in NFL history to win the Heisman, which is the award that is given to basically the best college football player. It's also voted on, but the best college football player of the year is awarded the Heisman,

a national title in college, and then a Super Bowl. No one has done the trifecta. He is up for potentially doing that tomorrow. Now, I'm not here to compare any one fighter to what Joe Burrow is trying to do or some kind of ham-fisted way. But what I am trying to explain to you is it is entirely common, not just for people to have success at the regional level and then the UFC level, but then stumble a little bit at the next level. It's even common for people to have stumbling at the regional level, kind of get

it together at the professional level, have to retool there again, and then get really good. In fact, you look at guys like Derek Brunson and Jared Kananier, they're exactly that. That was 38 versus 37 years old. In fact, it was 38 versus 38 because in like a month or less, Kananier's going to turn 38. But he had to retool himself to get to where he is. And he is a formidable competitor,

to be very clear. What I'm pointing out about Israel Adesanya, though, is that at every motherfucking level, he has won. You could say he didn't win at 205. Okay, at middleweight, at middleweight, look at what he has done to the point where number one contenders are getting second cracks at him in bigger bouts with much more prep. And they still cannot get their hand raised. Ladies and gentlemen, let's state this outright very clearly. When I use the word campaign, what I mean is someone making a hard slog through a division.

Sometimes a campaign can be one where losses are part of it, right? But if someone, like I say, changes weight class and has many fights in another weight class, I would refer to that change as the beginning of that campaign. He has been a middleweight, say, for the Blahovich fight, essentially at 185 since the beginning. At middleweight for that campaign, ladies and gentlemen, that's one of the best weight class campaigns

you will ever see. It will be very rare, very rare, that someone has 20 plus fights. I know Habib did it. Again, that is easily one of the best weight class campaigns you will ever see. When you put together, who had a run through a weight class? You put Demetrius Johnson's run on the list. You put Anderson Silva's run on the list. You put a couple of the ones that GSP made through,

blah, blah, blah. You add Kamar Usman, whatever. You add this one to the list. And you can sort it however you want. You can put other ones ahead of it if you want. And I think, again, Anderson Silva has the 10 title defenses. But as a weight class campaign, Anderson Silva went to the UFC at what? He already

had four losses by the time he got there. Now, great, he went on to do great things, which is my point. But you understand what I'm saying? Dude, to be undefeated at middleweight at every level you've touched is fucking bonkers. It is bonkers. And to me, it is actually, at least to some extent, related to the fact that even though Adesanya just never gets injured, the dude is an iron man. The fact that he had those fights, let's look at his calendar of how often he was taking fights.

Him and McGregor were like, when it was hot, they were just on it, taking fights all the time. And obviously, Izzy took more in the end. Okay, yeah. So he made his debut in April of 2018. Then he fought in July. And then he fought in November. So in his first year, he got in four fights.

He fought at UFC 221 February. No, excuse me. So here we go. February, April, July, November in his first year. One every quarter. Just getting after it. 2019, February, April, October. And in his first year. One every quarter. Just getting after it. 2019, February, April, October. And then that was it.

Then in March. And he fought twice in March, twice in 2021. And now this is his first 2022. So he has slowed it down. But that one period there for 2018, 2019, basically fighting almost every quarter at that point. Never got injured. Stayed with it.

Stayed taking fights. Even dared to be great up at 205, didn't go his way, got back to 185. The point I'm trying to make here is it's not just that he was good and then kind of hung on to what he had and then lorded it over the division. He had to get better commensurately because all those other guys whose asses he was kicking the first time, they got a second chance at it and they were not going to let that happen to them again. Vittori lost, but he was not going to let that happen to was kicking the first time, they got a second chance at it, and they were not going to let that happen to them again. Vittori lost, but he was not going to let that happen to him again the first time, where he actually held Adesanya down and won.

Well, actually, in some ways he got beat worse the second time, but certainly you can argue he put himself to get the fight. He had done the work to get the second crack. I'll at least give him that. And in the case of Robert Whitaker, he made a very close fight of it, but in the end he couldn't convince three judges that he had won three rounds. He couldn't convince two judges. He couldn't convince one judge he had won three rounds.

They just can't do it. They can't do it, dude. He has this fucking weight class push. Israel Adesanya is on, and it's not even over yet. We'll see what he does with Jared Kananier, although I grant he's pretty tough too. But it's one of the great ones you'll ever see. Listen to his fucking resume, dude. On his resume, since he joined the UFC, Rob Wilkinson, Marvin Vittori, Brad Tavares, Derek Brunson, Anderson Silva, Kelvin Gastelum, Robert Whitaker, Yoel Romero, Paul Acosta, Marvin Vittori, Robert Whitaker, and then he has the Blachowicz loss. At middleweight, though, just, I mean, you've got to be kidding me.

That is, he is he is um you're you're gonna miss him when he's gone all these fucking clowns who like i don't like that he paints his nails you know who gives a shoe gives a shit i mean like of all the things i can't believe that this guy who could beat the fuck out of me and bang my girl in front of me and I'd cry and take it. I can't believe he paints his nails. What a girly man. I'm going to say nasty things about him on social media, you know, and just finding any reason to undercut him or to say that the wind isn't this or that. Dude, they've had a long time to put an L on this guy at middleweight. They've had multiple cracks at it. They've had it in Auckland. Have they had it in Auckland? No, they had it in Perth, Australia.

They had it in Melbourne. They've had it in Atlanta, back to Melbourne, then in Las Vegas, then Abu Dhabi, then Las Vegas, then Arizona, and in Houston. And then, well, I guess the one in Las Vegas with Blachowicz got him. But the other ones at middleweight, as we're trying to point out here, they can't do it. They can't do it. It takes somebody who has an absolutely generational level of ability to ward off contenders like that. And he has to have a thirst and a hunger for competition,

for improvement, for growth, to maintain the kind of competitive lead while staying injury-free that it takes to beat Robert Whitaker. If he had taken a month or two less seriously than he had taken in the last time that they fought, I don't know if you win this fight tonight, Whitaker brings you that much concern. There's any moment in the last four or five years, whatever it's been, four years, not even hardly,

barely four years, if he had slacked a little bit, I don't think he could have done what he did, but he didn't. He kept his foot on the gas. And this is not an argument for his, he cannot be beaten. This is not an argument for his, he cannot be beaten. This is not an argument for, again, multiple interpretations for several scorecards over the course of any

fighter's career, his included. Sure, fine. But when it was actually time to do the tallying, when it was time to do the fighting, when it was time to get the W, the middleweights of the world cannot do it. Robert Whitaker got pretty close. About as close as anyone's gotten, really, inside the middleweight division. That's about it. And he had two tries at it and still couldn't do it. Israel Adesanya is not just one of the best motherfuckers of today. The stuff he's doing, you know, did he wow you this time with the dance

number he didn't do one did he did he blow robert whittaker you know into smithereens no you know these guys he's not fighting chumps by the time they get a second crack it's going to be these are going to be very difficult puzzles to solve but the fact that they still can't do it this far into his run, it's bonkers. Every new level that you reach in a sports career, certainly, it's not just that the people who you are up against make the competition more difficult. The stakes are raised. The requirements on the person, they all go up. So to not only just be excellent there, but be excellent proportional as your rivals come up and come down and take places and change and get better and come out of nowhere and fade to obscurity and blah, blah, blah. To maintain that requires not just a huge lead on your competitors in terms of some skill set or something else. It requires matching their intensity to beat you the entire time.

At least in this case, it does. I don't think he could have done it without it. It's remarkable. It's remarkable. It's truly, truly remarkable to see something like this. It should be a reason why anybody who gets 20 pro wins in a weight class doesn't lose and captures and defends multiple times a UFC weight class title, I mean, that is, they're not going to be a whole lot of them.

They're not going to be a whole lot of them. Israel Adesanya is one of them. Even if, I grant, I could just tell, Izzy has come a long way in terms of capturing the fans' fans imagination but I think there's still a lot of people who either hate him or like to hate on him not as many they're not as many I grant but there's still some and I saw that people were like no man I had I had three rounds for Whitaker okay that's that's that's possible that's a possible scorecard that's not the I would argue that's not the light. When you had to rank which

ones can, are most defensible, I would not put 3-2 Whitaker at the top of that list. I'd put it as justifiable. I'd put it there. I'd put it justifiable. I would not put it as like, this would be my leading. This would be my best argument to explain what happened. I don't think you, I don't think I could do that. There's just not enough. There's missing pieces in what he did that I think make the difference in the end, for me, certainly, anyway. Getting back to these numbers here very quickly, if I can. Let's see. Let's look at targeting. Wow. Targeting by Adesanya, 36% to the leg, 17% to the body, 45% to the head. Robert Whitaker, you can switch head and the leg here relative to Adesanya, 64% to the head. That sounds right. 13% to the body and then 22% to the leg. I thought one of the things he did really well, like why was, for example,

like how did Adesanya kept getting hit clean by those jabs? You ever notice that? Where he would get backed up straight and he would get hit? Because when he could get out of the way of the hooks, he could lean and they would go in front. The jab was straight, so he couldn't lean quite as much to get out of the way. But that's not why. It was the takedowns. Robert Whitaker would kind of get low and you couldn't tell if he was going to reach or come up high. So he would fake it one way and then come over.

And then a lot of times they would have great success. I won't say it had Adesanya completely confused because I thought Adesanya defended six of those takedowns. And again, the rest of them, two of them were pretty good, really good takedowns in the sense of being able to put a little something behind it. But the rest of them, you just couldn't really do a whole lot with them, dude. It's a very aggressive, no-nonsense scrambler. And it was a deterrent for Whitaker. He had to portion his offense and really find the right times to do it. Got better as it went along. Fifth round clear to him, but

interesting. Interesting just the same. We'll come back to that with any of your questions, if you guys have any of them. I'd be to take them again if you're watching thumbs up on the video hit subscribe alright let's talk about the other fight that is highly interesting co-main event Tai Tuivasa defeats Derek Lewis via elbow KO it's not quite right to say this but it's basically right to say this It was a one hitter quitter From Taito Iwasa 140 of the second round

Man Turn this up a little bit I know y'all are going to complain about the sound If I don't It's probably already too late for that anyway Boy Taito Iwasa has arrived That was a great performance by him

Really really really really strong stuff From him Boy, Taito Iwasa has arrived, huh? That was a great performance by him. Really, really, really, really strong stuff from him. Really strong stuff from Derek Lewis for a time, actually. Derek Lewis is really clever. They talked about him, the running, jumping, and switch knees, and the jumping switch eye kick. Those are all done very, very, in a very calculated manner. He did it to Chris Chris Dawkins he does it to a lot of people it's to elicit a big defensive reaction

usually to create space and then he actually just fills it and can retake center often times when he gets pressed backwards or if it's in the center and he wants to press someone backwards he does it because he gets a big motion reaction you see that big ass man coming out flying in the middle of nowhere throwing kicks?

People get the fuck out the way. It's kind of like that. So you saw some of that. You saw some big punches land. I thought the takedowns, the inside trip, and then, dude, he was hammering Tuivasa as he was trying to get up the fence. I couldn't believe Tuivasa's chin. Holy fuck, man.

Because you only know. Doesn't take much from old Derek Lewis to start sending people to the land of wind and ghosts in a hurry. But he withstood. You know, what was funny to me was this was a really strategic performance by Taito Iwasa all the way out, all the way in. You heard the commentators talk about it. Getting double underhooks, driving with his head, kind of working on Derek, trying to slow him down, hold his, I think, survive a first-round storm. I thought he brawled with Lewis somewhat strategically, actually.

A, there wasn't much brawling. I mean, it was pronounced, and we remember that part, but if you look at it as a portion of how much they were doing relative to the rest of the round, not that much. You're like, well, how much could they do? Well, go watch Cyborg versus Melvin Manhoff in Cage Rage, and then I'll answer that question for you. They can fucking brawl as long as the fight is existing, basically. So for them, in this particular case, here are Tuivasa and Lewis.

They would brawl in short bursts. Tuivasa would brawl just enough to buy himself some space and respect from Derek to then either get off the fence, reclinch, just get him off. And I thought it worked. And then after that, he was very much about making sure he was mindful of his range, not taking too many punches. He was on the defensive end for a lot of that, but A, he can brawl. And really, what you saw was a demonstrated, like, where is he very much better than Derek Lewis at? Offense and the clinch. Derek Brunson and Jared Cannoneer had a similar situation where Brunson was separating on

the clinch break, didn't have his hands up, and just gets drilled with a shot. Tuivasa's a little bit different. Man, if you've never wrestled, and I realize that Tuivasa is, you know, he made weight, but he's a guy who's probably been at 300 fairly routinely the last few years of his life. I bet getting up there is not all that unheard of for him at a bare minimum.

And, you know, if you've never wrestled in a 300-pound guy, I always got paired with the 300-pound guys because I'm not 300 pounds, but I'm the closest thing, mid to high 200s. And it fucking sucks, man. It sucks trying to wrestle those dudes because what's kind of funny is if they catch you right, sometimes they can just push you and then they can keep pushing you. And if they push you like in a certain moments where you can never quite get your footing, they can just back you up all the way to the wall. Like Tuivasa can do that with guys. He can kind of like get the lean on them where, you know, it's not really a tug of war or a push of war. He'll catch him on the back foot

and then just kind of keep pushing him backwards a little bit. And he has stopped people with that very technique before, the exact technique where he just kind of runs him into the fence and then just kind of keep pushing him backwards a little bit. And he has stopped people with that very technique before, the exact technique where he just kind of runs them into the fence and then almost ricochets them off the fence to catch the elbow over the top when they ricochet off the fence, or at a bare minimum, giving them no place to ricochet to when their head hits. So there is a greater absorption within the body of the damage of the blow. He got hit with that elbow, and you can see Derek Lewis' eyes go like that, almost, I think, entirely in an involuntary way. He got hit with a fucking hammer of Thor.

That was Mjolnir, like, you know, vision picked it up and cracked him with it. I mean, that was a heavy shot he got hit with, and his body just kind of reacted. And it was actually an elbow in the clinch before that as well that had done good work. To me, the lesson of that is, yes, Tuivasa did brawl a little bit, but I thought he used it sparingly. Not only did he use it sparingly, to my mind, he used it at least somewhat strategically. Beyond that, he had a larger strategic purpose that was slow to materialize, but once he was able to get Derek Lewis in closer range, he wasn't kind of fighting or circling on the outside.

He had him in a space that, A, he's comfortable in, and B, I think Derek Lewis is at least a little bit more limited in. It's fair to say. And he made really strong work with it. He had to endure, you know, he did lean on natural strength and ability. And when I say strength, I don't just mean physical strength, but I mean, you know, that he has a ridiculous chin. He did have to lean on that at times. Lewis was doing good work at times. Dude, Lewis sets traps. Lewis manipulates his opponents. He's very good at

waiting for the right moment and then really kind of overtaking them. And he picks his spots in rounds and he knows where he's good and he knows where he's bad. To see the wrinkles of the wrestling, especially after Big Francis did it, happy to see it, man. It's great. What a phenomenal thing from Derek Lewis. But Tai Tuivasa, to me, was showing that it wasn't just that he was trying to work a strategic game plan and then sometimes brawled. I think it was all part of a larger process for him, part of a transition generally, but staying true to who you are when it's valuable and then staying true to who you want to be when it's necessary. I think those were some of the trade-offs that he was making there. I do want to say something, though.

I feel so, and I mean this genuinely, I feel really bad for Derek Lewis. And the reason why is you feel bad for any fighter who loses, particularly when it's a one-punch KO or a one-shot KO. Because, you know, listen, man, they make themselves vulnerable to the world. It's hard on them to lose like that. But on top of that, for a guy like Derek Lewis, I mean, you know, let's see. Now, he has fought in Houston with the UFC, and he won. UFC 192, he won that contest, so that's nice.

And he fought for them for Legacy, and he won that one. But subsequent to the Victor Pesta fight, he fought in Austin and he lost that one. He fought in Houston against Blagoi and he did win, excuse me, against Latifi. He did win that. And then he got the Taito Iwasa

one. But he did, what was he talking about? Well, I was still going to say, has to suck losing in your hometown. I thought, for some reason, he had two... Oh, no. What am I saying? The Cyril Ghosn one. Sorry. He had the Cyril Ghosn one. Sorry. The...

Elir Latifi was Houston as well, but then he had another one in Houston. Cyril Ghosn he lost, and then the other one, Tuivase. I was just going to say this. He does have some wins in Houston. Legacy wins, some UFC wins. But it's bigger fights he's lost there. And I'll just say this, never lose sight of the fact that a lot of MMA fighters actually don't get to fight in their hometown. I know that sounds kind of crazy, but it really is true. It's less so true now because the UFC is doing a better job of going to Florida,

and a lot of guys are from like going to Florida and a lot of guys are from Florida and I guess a lot of guys are based out of Las Vegas so you may not feel it as much but understand something if you're an a-level boxer you know you're going to go back to your city wherever you're from even if it's a smaller market and you're going to have like a grand homecoming and it's going to be a big thing like this happens all the time like Miguel Cotto going back to you know Madison Square Garden for example was a big one or This happens all the time. Miguel Cotto going back to Madison Square Garden, for example, was a big one. Even though he's Puerto Rican, but obviously he's a giant Puerto Rican community in New York City. Or Lamont Peterson back to DC, or Tank Davis back to

Baltimore. These are all the big ones, but they do this, and it's always this big grand thing. To win there is a big deal. Now, granted, Derek Lewis has had wins with UFC in Houston, so this is not the same thing. But remember, for example, pop quiz, what city was Dominic Cruz versus TJ Dillashaw in? Y'all remember? It was in Boston. Why the fuck is that in Boston? You know, it's because the UFC often has these needs. Now, post-pandemic, I guess they're not traveling as much. And again, they're going back to some of the same places, Houston, or I should say Texas,

Florida, and Las Vegas, and I guess a little bit of California, some other places. But you get the idea. It's a little more constrained. But you know, the point being is there's a lot of fighters who are in big fights. And a lot of UFC fighters, a lot of MMA fighters don you get the idea. It's a little more constrained. But, you know, the point being is there's a lot of fighters who are in big fights, and a lot of UFC fighters, a lot of MMA fighters don't get the chance to do it because the promotion sometimes will work outside of where it makes sense for the main event headliner to be.

It's a real... I mean, dude, we had a guy from Australia and New Zealand today fighting in Houston. Lucky us, but you know, is that really where the fight should have been? Like, I don't know about that, but anyway, we get lucky for it, so that is what it is, but it has to suck because here he had these like really two big moments, and you know, they didn't go his way. One was for a title, and it can't be easy. It can't be easy. Taito Iwasa,

getting back to him, 28 years old. I think it's how old he is. 28 years old. When's his birthday? March. So he'll be 29 next month, but still less than 30. And you just beat Derek Lewis by one punch KOing him. And again, I'm going to go back to it. You didn't just one punch or one strike KO Derek Lewis. You did it applying a strategic game plan after weathering a pretty intense storm in the first round. Like, I don't know if he's on the verge of stoppage or anything like that, but you know, it was not a good round for him. Impressive. Impressive. Especially for a guy who had the three losses to JDS, Blagoje Ivanov, and Sergei Spivak. But since then, he beat Struve, Harry Hunsucker, Greg Hardy,

Augusto Sakai, and Derek Lewis, and all of them by way of either KO, and then the only one that was Harry Hunsucker was a TKO. That's it. He only has one decision in the UFC, and it was beating Andrei Orlovsky. That's it. Everyone else, he's put their lights out if you won.

Super, super, super impressive. I really, really wonder what the ceiling is for a guy like that. You know, as long as Cyril Ghosn is in the division and, you know, we'll see what a Curtis Blades might do to him. I think Curtis Blades has another fight coming up, but let's imagine Curtis Blades is still a pretty viable contender at the top of the heavyweight division. One wonders exactly how far can Tuivasa go. But to be 28, almost 29 years old, this far ahead, and also understanding that things had to change to get this far ahead. He had to want this place.

And he had to make sacrifices to get to this place. And even in the fight itself, he had to really show to get to this place. And even in the fight itself, he had to really show commitment to what he was after. He did. With those things in place, again, you don't look at him and think he's got the kind of physical build to do a lot of different things.

But can he get good enough at the things that he's good at? Can he really shore up the takedown defense and everything else in such a way as to become a title contender. I think if you can beat Derek Lewis, yeah, you probably can be. And on the right night, with the right punch, that guy can win a title too. I just feel like in the age of Francis, in the age of Cyril, and maybe even Curtis Blades too, there's still some work to be done for him. Still some work. But that was a hell of a win. Really was. He really had to show a lot of that was a hell of a win. Really was. He really had to show a lot of himself

on different sides of the equation to get that. We'll go through a couple more of these here, and then I'll get to some of your questions. Let's see results. Excuse me. We'll talk about this one since it's relevant to the main event. Jared Cannoneer defeating Derek Brunson. 429 of the second round

with elbows. Derek Brunson looked awesome in the first round. Let me get the numbers for that one. I would love to see that. Derek Brunson was on his way. He was on his way. Derek Brunson is credited with a knockdown that he scored in the first round. He got two of nine takedowns in the first round, which doesn't

sound like much, but he had two minutes of control time. Think about that. And was even credited with a sub-attempt. Also, numerically, at a bare minimum, outstruck him. But that is not the case for the second round. In the second round, Jared Kananier landed 39 to Brunson's 23. Brunson is credited with one of four takedowns. Kananier, by the way, scoring one of one takedowns. And then closing the by the way, scoring one of one takedowns. And then closing the mother effing show. Dude, Jared Cannoneer is a savage. You knew heading into this.

What was he good at? Not like he's a super specialist in any one area. But he has really just steadily worked on refining his game. And the weight class change has turned him into a physical beast. He is a physical fighter at 185. At the middleweight division, he can move guys around. I actually thought that Brunson was the better wrestler and maybe even a little bit stronger, but Jared Kananier is a very dedicated, hard-nosed, take-except-nothing kind of scrambler. When he scrambles, man, he is breaking your wrists apart. He is breaking your hands apart. He's controlling your wrists. He is scooting his hips away. He is

moving at all times. He will accept nothing. And I have to say, you know what stands out to me about Jared Cannoneer is just how well his team prepped him. There were so many scenarios that he found himself in where you could tell he was executing the framing sequence, the footwork sequence, the head placement, and what they were going to break apart, what he was going to throw and when he was going to throw it, or what he was going to do, how he was going to maneuver. Not just for those scenarios, a million other ones.

They had clearly rehearsed with him, you're going to find yourself in a lot of these scenarios, because, you know, I wouldn't call Derek Brunson one note, but I would call him predominant strength. I think it's very fair. And much of the game plan is going to revolve around that. So you can be, like, with Robert Whitaker, you have some sense of what scenarios you're going to be in. But with Derek Brunson, you have a very clear sense of what scenarios you're probably going to be in. Brunson doing a good job of diversifying some of the takedown

attempts he was trying, chaining them together, and then going with the high ankle to really secure it. A lot of times you can dump them with a... you can run the pipe, so you're twisting them in a circle, you're blocking one side, you're driving your weight over the top of their leg to turn them and drop them to the hip. Everything's pushing down a

little bit. The double you can pick up and turn, but with this, it's just lifting that foot. I mean, there's a lot more to it, but in this particular case, the basic mechanics, of course, you're lifting as high as possible. You can shelve it on top of your leg. You can kick out the post leg. Rich Crunkleton was a fighter at WEC who specialized in this. That seemed to have some success for him. But dude, Kenanir isn't just like a well-schooled fighter, although he is that. He's not merely a well-prepped fighter, although he is that. He is not merely a very physical fighter, although he is that. He is a very determined competitor. Very, it is hard to discourage that guy. Dude, Robert Whitaker was beating his ass

for the majority of that fight, and they even dropped him in the third, and then Whitaker turned it on after that. Like, the guy is hard, he's a pit bull. I mean, I know his nickname is the, you know, killer gorilla, but dude, he is intense and focused, and it really, when you marry that mental focus with the kind of intensity he shows physically when he's in these scramble positions, you can see that there's just a certain fire that he has.

And anyway, long story short is, he was able to connect on Brunson a little bit earlier in the second round. He was able to begin to make some better body work, I thought, in the second round, clipped him with the right hand, and then began to go to just absolute work on him, stuffing everything or almost everything, and finally just smashing him with an elbow in the clinch bend. You got to have your hands up on the clinch break. You got to have your hands up on the clinch break. You got to have your hands up on the clinch break or people like Jared Cannoneer are going to just, you can't make mistakes like that against Jared Cannoneer. It doesn't work. Trevor Whitman talks about it all the time. What separates these guys? Dude, Derek Brunson's super talented, super talented, but what separated him between himself and Jared Cannanier on this night what was the difference between them in one major respect certainly more complicated than this but in a

major respect in that position Derek Brunson made a huge mistake and if you make a huge mistake against guys this talented that's it there is no room for error here. Not room for error like that. So, you know, listen, and I'm sure he knows better. I'm sure he's practiced that a million times. I'm sure he'll look at the tape and be like, fuck. You know, I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure he knows. There's nothing I could say that he doesn't know. But he did, you know, in real time, when you're getting the pressure put on't know. But he did, you know, in real time, when you're getting the pressure put on you, you're getting hurt, you start making different choices, you don't know what's coming or going. And Jared Cannoneer, it's not the exact same fight

that he had against Jack Hermanson. That's not quite true. Hermanson was not quite as smothering with the takedown and was a little bit more like hunt for the back grappling oriented than Brunson. But it's the same kind of thing that won him that fight. He had to scramble out of bad scenarios that Hermansen could at least threaten. Keep it on the feet. Wait for your turn.

Use what you practiced. Use what you guys had game planned. Tons of fakes and faints from that team. They're very good at it. And not a lot of jabbing, but in either case, finding his moment in all ranges, putting, it wasn't just the elbow and the clinch. Like he had put a ton of pressure on him before that and then, you know, had hurt him. And then obviously by the time that that elbow landed, it was it, closed the show. By the way, those elbows that Kananir landed at the end of that fight, it was like,

dude, where was referee Kerry Hatley? Jesus Christ. I mean, he intervened after the second one, so I was like, okay, he didn't need the second one, but all right, I wouldn't have said anything if it was just the second one. But then he intervened, but he didn't really like pull him off he just kind of like eh stuck his hand in there you ever seen the gif of the guy like in europe somewhere

you know he's supposed to be screening people at a soccer match somewhere he just runs his hands along the side he's a big fat old person. He's just like. And the next guy comes up. He's just like. It was like that. It's like. Jesus Christ. You know. All right. I'm just sort of.

I'm saying nonsense. Let's. Let's do this. Where are we on this? Some of the other results here. Very quickly. That's a Moicano. Boy.

Did he look. Great great against Alexander Hernandez. That combo he finished him with, again, from the clinch, I think, or right at, right, no, so Hernandez, I thought, was getting hit a lot. He was doing good work from both stances, but to me, he was getting hit way more at southpaw, and he was switching back, and then, like, not getting hit as much. Now, again, there's a few interpretations of what all that means. He threw a punch from Southpaw, which I thought was not his optimal stance, at least not against Moicano,

and then clinched and then got hit on the clinch and then backed up. So actually he had three fights in a row where it kind of happened that way. But in any case, Moicano's boxing finishes him off with this devastating combo and then takes his back and elicits the tap, I thought, almost immediately. What a performance from Hinozzo Moicano. His best win at lightweight. And I always talk about it. That guy was giving Brian Ortega, T-City pulled out the magic in the end because he's Brian Ortega and he does stuff like that. But prior to that, Moikano was giving him the business. And he had to work some things out, but he's talented. Bobby Green defeating Nesrat Hakparas. Green was looking like a Diaz brother out there. The fans love him. Thank God. John Anik calling for, I think quite rightly, calling for a fight night where Bobby Green gets to headline. I agree. Let's all get on the Bobby Green should headline a fight night card bandwagon. If we can

agree on nothing else tonight, certainly we can agree with that. And then I thought Hack Paras was just a little bit overwhelmed. That was just too tall of a task, quite frankly. All right, let's see what you guys have for questions. And then we'll get to them. All right. This person writes, Honestly, I don't think UFC is marketing Izzy. I think he's marketed the same and has neared his ceiling. I don't see him doing 1 million buys.

More like John doing 300 to 700k depending on opponent, which is still great. Yes. First of all, that would still be great. More to the point, he needs a rival that people want to pay money to see him fight. It's not his fault. I mean, you can say John Jones, but dude, what is, I mean, who the fuck, what is John Jones doing? Like, I'm sure he'll come back and actually, I'm not sure he'll come back and fight at some point. I think that point. I think John returning to fight is likely. I'll put it that way. But likely at heavyweight, right?

Like, he's not got business with Izzy at 205. He's not doing that shit. So, you know, who's this rival? I guess you can go back and see what happens at 205. Yeah, at middleweight, I don't know who that would be. Right now, I don't know who that would be. And I know some folks are like, what about Kamzat? Yeah, but Kamzat, like, I don't know what's going to happen with that. First of all,

he's got to beat Gilbert Burns. Second of all, that's at welterweight. Yes, I recognize that Kamzat looks like a complete destroyer, but it's still so early before you could say anything about that. By the way, I'm pretty sure Lewis was undefeated in Houston until the gunfight. Yes, correct. I appreciate Brunson's corner throwing the towel. I do too. Didn't really matter in the end, but good for them. Good for them. What do you make of Rob winning round five clean? Yes. And arguably four?

Yes. Rob seemed to improve on calculating what works and what doesn't over time. He did. Did Izzy give him too much respect after round one? No. I think Rob found a space, to put it in euphemistic terms, where he didn't get hit as much after the first. And that

neutralized a lot of what Adesanya was doing. But this is what I'm talking about. If you don't take away the leg kicks, he's just going to rack it up over and over. And he did. The initial urgency Izzy uses to get up or good positioning when he gets taken down is special. Makes him near unbeatable and wonder if it's the coaching or his individual will.

Dude, all wrestling is going to be a combination of all that. Dude, it's funny. You hear it more in wrestling and then they try to apply it to life. And it doesn't work in life this way. But, because it's far too simplistic. But it it more in wrestling, and then they try to apply it to life, and it doesn't work in life this way because it's far too simplistic. But it does work in wrestling this way. And certainly it can be a valuable way to get intensity when you need it in life. But you'll hear it from coaches. Who wants it more?

Dude, sometimes at the end of wrestling practice or a match, there are two guys who are asked to square off and you have to go and you're basically equal and you're both more or less as tired. You're both about the same size. It really just comes down to do you have a will inside of you to put it on this person in front of you? Do you have it in you? Scrambling is that intensity at maximum at all times. It's the best scramblers do that. Now some scramblers are like, wait, wait, wait, and then explode. But once they explode,

it is life or death to them that they go. You have to harness that mentality. If you don't scramb... If anyone's ever wrestled, I know that they're not in their head right now. Especially if you go up against somebody else who has wrestled. If you do not wrestle, and in particular, if you do not scramble with intensity,

bitch, you're going to have a bad day. It's going to be a very bad day for you. You have to do it with maximum intensity. Again, more strategic wrestling means you have to pick your spots. But even then, when they go, they go. So yes, it is of course. I know those guys. Shouts to the Hickman brothers over at, I think it's Bang Tao was their new gym.

I know they've worked with the Hickman brothers. I think that's shown. They've got other coaches I'm sure they've worked with in New Zealand. Everyone who's played a role has done a phenomenal job. Not just for Izzy defensively. For Rob offensively. Dude, Rob's takedowns are great. He got four of them.

It's pretty good. It's pretty good. Someone writes, I'm so glad you asked this. What do you make of Bisping replacing Joe? Seems like fans have made assumptions and jumped on the idea that Disney and ESPN called for it. Listen, I have no idea what happened with it. Let me say something first. I literally got on, I was at a kid's party today.

And I came home and I had missed the first fight, but I turned it on by the second one. And I'm listening to Bisping because I was like, oh yeah, Bisping's commentating today. I was like, wow, he's doing a really good job. And I tweeted it and it turned into some controversial tweet. Listen, some of you incels out here who are like, you can't read anything I do without it being the most deranged, bad faith interpretation of it. Somebody thought that some people thought it was like a fucking jab at Joey. How the fuck would that be? Some of you motherfuckers need to touch grass. I mean, you are in desperate need of the touch of a sexual partner and a little bit of grass underneath your feet.

Like, you got desperate, desperate need of it. Literally could not have been a more harmless, frankly, innocuous tweet. What's up, we both go? It doesn't mean anything. He's coming back next event Like I have no fucking idea why he's gone He's back the next one

Mike did a great job Can we all cool down please? Okay thank you Number one That aside I will say this This is a hypothesis About which I have zero evidence, nor am I making any kind of evidentiary claim.

If you're asking me why he was off the broadcast, I think it screams Disney making a phone call. I don't know if it had anything to do with their fallout with Gina Carano and what that told them about the MMA community, because I think even inside the MMA community, Gina Carano has a lot of support. But I know some of you don't want to hear this, but there's a lot of views that are mainstream in MMA

that are completely fucking batshit to wider society. And I think what basically, I don't know how to do it, Gina or not. Point being is, you know, listen, Joe is on his own platform and doing his own thing and it's enormously successful, but it carries with its own share of problems. I think Disney wants to keep distance between that.

I think Disney wants whatever problems that Joe might be encountering to remain that way for him. Not that they want his problems to remain, but they don't want it to bleed over into them. And in a month from now, like most scandals, no one's going to care about this anymore. And everyone will move on. And if the fighters, after he interviews them when they win, they'll say, oh, Joe, that was bullshit that you were on the last one. Everyone will clap.

Everyone will be happy. And then there will be no big deal about it, really. If he had done it this weekend, even then, I don't know if there would have been a big deal about it. But we're just off the heels of this. Again, you can think it's stupid. You can think it's great. Whatever you think about it, it did exist. And I think Disney wants no part of that. But to be clear, and I can't say this more, I have zero.

No one put a bug in my ear. I have not talked to Joe Rogan. I have not talked to Brendan Chobb about it. I have not talked to anybody about it. But I don't know how you explain that otherwise. Especially since Joe Rogan is texting John Anik about Izzy doing this during the broadcast. Like there was supposed to be a scheduling conflict. He's going to be back next time. But, you know, anyway.

Okay. So I don't know what to make of his absence. But I'll say this. Two things. One, not that it's any shot at anybody else, because you don't have to be insane to say, to look at, well, maybe you do have to be insane to look at someone saying a nice thing and be like, what the fuck is that supposed to mean? I said it's a nice day. What the fuck you want, bitch? I mean, okay, everyone chill.

Bisping did a great job on his own. I don't know how much time he had to prep for this. It all seems quite last minute, but either way, he did a great job. And that shouldn't be surprising. You hear him do fight nights. I don't know if he's done fight nights. I can't remember if he's done fight nights with DC or not. But either way, I thought that they did a great job collectively, actually. With one exception.

One thing I actually thought they did was Joe and DC can sometimes be a little chummy at times, which, by the way, some people like. Brian Campbell likes it. And to an extent, I don't like the chummy-chumminess, but I like that they get along because they bring joy to the broadcast. At times, though, they get the sillies. It does happen. Bisping and though, they get the sillies. It does happen. Bisping and DC didn't get the sillies. And so

what ended up happening was it kept DC in my judgment on track. And so you got a lot more technical analysis from them, especially on the wrestling side from DC tonight. I thought there was a lot of that. And then I would add no, I thought it was about right. I thought DC

shined with the wrestling The one critical comment That needs to be made is that They were beaten up on that one judge Who had the worst fucking scorecards Imaginable He had the one fight God bless Roxanne Modaferri

She is an angel We are lucky to have her But she didn't win that fight And she doesn't deserve a scorecard Just calling it what it is He had the fight for her And doesn't deserve a scorecard. Just calling it what it is. He had the fight for her, and then it was a fight right after that, whichever one it was. And I forget which one it was where he had another bullshit, insane scorecard.

The Orlovsky scorecard he had, I think he had for Orlovsky's opponent or something. Something like that. You know, just absolutely insane judging in Texas. And the commentary team is right to beat him up for it. On the other hand, there was also a point where, I think it was DC, if I'm wrong, you can kill me for it, but I'm not trying to be wrong. I do think there was one point where DC was saying, not Michael, Michael did a pretty good job of it,

but DC was saying that like, oh, what may have won this round was, I think it was either forward progression or octagon control is what he said. It was octagon control. Folks, in the scoring criteria, octagon control doesn't show up unless a bunch of other shit is completely equal. Like you cannot tell a difference between the damage and a bunch of other shit is completely equal like you cannot tell a difference between the damage and a bunch of other shit you have to go down the list and then eventually you get to a point where it's like okay the one guy kind of corralled the other one and you know you it's almost like a

tiebreaker kind of scenario but that was in a round where there was unambiguous it was not the main event like unambiguous damage. So it's like, if you're going to kill the judges, rightly, for getting insanely wrong scoring cards, if you're going to tell the audience about what matters for scoring, you have to be up to date on what the best practices are and frankly what judges are using in modern MMA and what they're told to use by commissions in writing in the bylaws you have to

know that so I think that's a fair criticism but otherwise they seem fine and when Joe comes back next month everyone's going to be happy and I just couldn't believe I was like wow Mike's doing a great job what the fuck's that supposed to mean I guess it means that you know um some of you are are hard up for some fresh air. That's what mostly it means. Y'all need to go take a fucking long walk when the sun sets. Jesus. In hindsight, if it was just going to be swinging for the fences,

should we have realized Ty had this one? He's never been KO'd. JDS finished him from mount, but Ty never went out. And we've seen Lewis finished by body shots and KO'd. Mitch Reone, Ty's chin is iron. Again, I think it's a little bit simplistic to say that this was just a function of brawling. It's a little bit more than that. How did Ty just stand up through that ground and pound and then start swinging back? I don't know. He's a mutant. Do you think Rob would have had more success if

he mixed his strikes with his takedown attempts? He did a lot of that. It really seemed like he'd often go for one or the other. Also, am I the only one who thought he seemed a bit scared? You know what's funny? I remember Frank Mir used to talk about how he would adjust his mindset at times to be perfectly cool in scenarios. And at times, he was a little too cool. Underneath Lesnar, he was a little too cool.

Up against the fence against Carwin. He was like getting hit and you could see him not losing composure. Like he was trying to not lose composure, but it comes to a point where if you're getting drilled like that, I understand that you want to put down the instinct to panic. Of course, what good would that do anybody? However, your body giving you some kind of natural reaction, it shouldn't precipitate panic, but it should precipitate urgency. And I did feel like there wasn't,

again, could have been a little bit more urgency in Rob's game, I thought. If he really wanted to make a strong case for himself. Does Izzy giving up his back worry you? If Rob had gotten really close with the choke attempt, I'd be a little bit more open to the idea that he's got some deficiency there. And I'm sure, again, he's never going to

be as good at grappling as he is on the feet, but no, I don't think that's some kind of dramatic weakness or something. If Izzy successfully defends against Kananir this summer, do you think his time at 185 is coming to a close? What would there be left to do? What would there be left to do? Dude, can you imagine how fucking good you got to be? Like they can't, we can't find, we can't find dudes to fight you who we even think have a shot, right? After you beat Whitaker. Obviously Whitaker is, is, is, uh, you know, more or less on the level, but everybody else, you know, it's like, dude, they're not, again, that's the other part. Take out Whitaker.

Which of the other ones are all that close? Like, dude, he's just, you're going to miss him when he's gone. I'm telling you, you're going to miss him when he's gone. What's Tuivasa sealing again? I'm not quite sure. This fight reminded me of Dillashaw versus Sandhagen in terms of who it rewarded and more of exchanges. I'm torn either way. 48-47. I like the interpretation of whoever judges

the fight as long as we can hear the judges' criteria. Do you think there's a chance of judges chiming in post-fight? Nope. And the commission will protect them too. Commission's never going to make them talk to the media. Fucking sucks. Thoughts on Houston crowd booing Tui Vassa all week until he knocked out hometown hero Derek Lewis. Seems like MMA fans are only loyal to their own bloodlust.

No, I didn't read it that way. I read it more like they were being good sports about a guy who wasn't their guy, but was like in spirit kind of their guy. How much of a difference would there have been on the main event scorecards if the match took place in a different state? Without knowing how much they awarded forward progress, I don't know. But Adesanya putting Whitaker on his heels, whether that was just for setting the tone in the fight or also setting the tone and then setting the tone with the judges, I don't know.

But I do think it played a role. Didn't seem like a lot of Izzy's strikes actually landed. Izzy's body posture was better. And Rob always looked skittish. But seemed more effective. He was more effective with his punches. For sure. More effective with his punches. I would agree with that. But I would not agree that he didn't numerically outland him.

And again, we have no way to know, but a subjective standpoint I thought Izzy did, again, three rounds to two Better damage Was Izzy's win more of what Izzy did Or more of what Whitaker didn't do? More of what Izzy did I mean, well no, actually No, I need to be careful about that Parts of it were what Izzy did Parts of, well, no, actually, no, I need to be careful about that. Parts of it were what Izzy did.

Parts of it, you know, shutting down the wrestling and enforcing other dimensions. But at the same time, Whitaker, you know, calibrating his approach the way that he did, maybe a little bit too over-calibrated. So a little bit of column A, column B. It's never one or the other. It really isn't. Especially at this level. Did it seem like Rob had hesitancy at every level including his grappling to avoid risking a repeat of the first fight?

Yeah, a little bit. Sure. Do you feel like the contender has to be more aggressive in order to win? You know, not by my scorecard, but are you asking me does that happen in the real world? I'm sure that it does. With Izzy now defeating Whitaker, the only clear contender is Kananir. There's many reasons he should move up in weight class, but do you think UFC would prefer to keep him at middleweight? No, I think he's going to move up. I really don't think he's going to stick around 185.

Dude, one of the most baller things... Think about this for a second. GSP did this. Not the only one to do it. Other ones have done it. But it's rare. Even the great Anderson Silva couldn't do this. It didn't happen for him.

Do you understand what a bad motherfucker You have to be To be like well I've been here for years A bunch of you had a chance At beating me Some of you a couple times And you couldn't do it

I have beaten anyone that matters I'm going to go and do something else with my life. Have a great day. And you give a belt back to the division. Because none of them could take it off of you. Do you understand what a baller move that is? That is one of the most gangster ass things you'll ever do in your life. If you're one of those prize fighters.

You can have that. Because if I don't give it back to you, you'll just never have it. Like, that is such a fucking power move. And GSP did it when he was like, I'm done with this shit. You know, he was burned out, but still, you can't beat me. Y'all can have it back, right? You need this more than I do kind of a thing. John did it. John, well, I mean, John's given the bell back a number of times, but you know what I'm saying? No one could take it from him, right? Have that. Someone says, I honestly had three rounds to two for Izzy, but I could see how round three could have gone either way. Yeah, that seems reasonable.

Again, a lot of questions about the ceiling for Taito Iwasa. Honestly, I really think it's going to be commensurate with his ability to win. If this is the limit, right, where he can't beat Blades or he can't beat Gan or he can't beat Ngannou, then what's his limit? You know, you're, I mean, higher than what it is today in terms of popular appeal, but not much higher. He's got to really, you know, get out there and make some things happen in this division. Someone says, Whitaker's jab and double jab was the most effective tool of the fight. Agree? No, I don't.

The leg kicks were far more effective. No, I don't agree at all. Is that a copy of Goliath by Matt Stahler on your bookcase? Yes, yes it is. Well, Izzy is without question an extreme talent. The more I see him, the more I feel like a prime Silva is the best middleweight MMA has ever seen. His recency bias clouding Anderson's amazing legacy. Anderson had, you know, his own share of highlight reels. To me, the only real difference is, dude, Anderson had a totally different career than Israel Adesanya. He wasn't in the UFC until his 30s.

And again, I think he had lost four or even five fights or whatever it was before he even got to the UFC. I mean, he had a completely different record and he's still competing higher in his 40s and blah, blah, blah. It's just totally different. But that run of title defenses for me is the one thing that he's got over Adesanya. But I got to tell you, I'm not sure what Adesanya is supposed to do at this point. Again, Kananir deserved it. I take Kananir seriously. I guarantee you Adesanya and his team take Kananir seriously. Kananir is a real threat.

He absolutely is. But I would expect Adesanya to win that. And if he wins that, you're like... You know, what do you want to do? Back in the day, it didn't matter. You would just kind of keep staying there and whatever. But he, Kananir can change things. But if Kananir's not the guy,

then there probably is no guy. And what would it mean for Adesanya to have fewer title defenses, but to go undefeated 100% in that division and just move on to the next one? You know, at that point, you would have to have a different conversation. So we'll see how things go. He still has to beat Cannon here. We'll see how it goes.

Thoughts on your co-host scoring at 48-47 for Whitaker. So Brian, I did not know that. So Brian scored at 48-47 for Whitaker. Well, again, two rounds to Whitaker, not hard at all for me to see, Round five and round four. So the question is, could you see one more round? As we've been over, I don't see it that way. But I could understand how someone would. You would probably accuse me of having an Adesanya bias. I think you could credibly accuse BC of having a Whitaker bias. But I understand why he might come to that position.

I think he's wrong, but I don't think that that's an irrational scorecard. I understand that. Chimaev beats Izzy. He could. He could, but again, dude, the thing is, that's an interesting one. What would happen if Kamaru went up? The thing is, maybe that's what the UFC tries to do now.

They try to find some price point where they can make that fight happen. I don't know if they will or not, but if that's not on the table and Shemya's busy at welterweight, then these questions are irrelevant. Who's next for Rob? Great question. You wouldn't do the Brunson one again. You could maybe do Hermansen. It's a fresh matchup, both coming off of losses, different positions. But you could do Strickland. Strickland's an interesting one for Whitaker. Should Whitaker drop back down to 170?

No, the only guy he can't beat is a guy who may not be there very much longer anyway. Someone's saying, I'll take Rogan back over Bisping's commentary in that main event. Absolutely shocking. It's not that shocking. Honestly. Again, I don't agree. I have it three rounds to two.

So I don't even have Bisping's scorecard. But in the frame of defensible scorecards, I think he said 49-46 was how he had it. Four rounds to one. Yes, that is defensible. Sorry, it is. So is 48-47 Whitaker and everything in between. So there you go.

Those are outliers relative to the middle one, which I think the correct one, 48-47, is the right one for Adesanya. But yeah, I get it. By the way, Rogan has been accused of bad commentary. I'm not accusing him of bad commentary, but, I get it. By the way, Rogan has been accused of bad commentary. I'm not accusing him of bad commentary, but I have seen it a million times. If Bisping got it wrong this one time for you, let me assure you, he would have to add a lot more to equal what a lot of other people who've been doing it on TV for a lot longer have done. And also, it's impossible

to please MMA fans with commentary, whether you're Rogan or Bisping. Someone says Rob versus Marvin now. Yeah, you could do that one too. That's a great one. If Yuri wins and Izzy moves up, how do you feel about that chaos? The thing is the size of those guys at 205. That's the thing that's going to give you pause. The size is really hard for him to deal with, I think.

He's added a lot of muscle. He is much bigger now, but I don't know. Are there any less biased commentators in the UFC? Guys, I don't... Dude, every fight night on my timeline, what I'm seeing from everybody else, people kill Rogan every time. Like, are y'all's timelines full of praise for the... Forget even Rogan, maybe not John Anik, but my timeline...

Okay, for the exception of John Anik, everyone is killing all the commentators every time. Like, where does this come from? We're like, tonight was one way or the killing all the commentators every time. Like, where does this come from? Where, like, tonight was one way or the other. They get murdered every time. Alright, I gotta go do something else. Like, go to bed. What do we got here? Is he too strong for 185ers? Yup.

Pereira or Chimaev being in contention. Dude, Pereira's got a long way to go. Izzy did fuck all other than landing leg kicks. How many times did he land on Whitaker clean? Dude, landing leg kicks is landing clean. What is it? You fucks who've never taken a leg kick? Oh, buddy.

Oh, do I encourage you to go take the Pepsi challenge? I can't lose in that way. I cannot lose. Did fuck all that you asked the, you asked the question, how many times did he land on Whitaker clean as if landing on Whitaker clean with leg kicks is somehow exempt from the larger consideration guys. I know it bothers you. I actually talked about it on Friday explicitly. If you don't shut down Izzy's leg kicks, he will literally win and defend titles on them, and he will do it to very good fighters. The aristocrats. It happens every time. It needs to. Except for Blachowicz, who stopped it. You don't believe me? Go back tonight on Fight Pass.

Excuse me, I can't talk tonight. Go on Fight Pass and watch it. From the word go, watch how often he either gets out of the way or outright checks it. And then over the course of the rounds, how that changes his offense, and then he gets blitzed, hit, and then taken down.

But the first order of business was turning off the spigot to the leg kicks. Once you do that, Adesanya, at least a 205 for Blachowicz on that night, but once he did that in that fight, it made it a totally different scenario. If I can see it on tape, I guarantee all the people who are fighting him can see it on tape. But easier said than done. Easier said than done. All right. Thank you so much for watching.

Thumbs up on the video. Hit subscribe. All that good stuff. I appreciate you watching. We will have Brian Campbell on Monday's show For a full recap There will be an extra credit Where I'll recap all the stuff from the rest of the card

It will be a fun, fun show So thank you so much for watching Please subscribe, please share this video with everyone you get And until next time Stay Actually no, I always say enjoy the fights Or no, it's late Go to fucking bed