MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 273 Recap: Volkanovski, Sterling, Burns-Chimaev | Boxing Roundup | Ep. 288

Episode Date: April 11, 2022

Episode 288 of Morning Kombat Luke Thomas is joined by Danny Segura to recap UFC 273. Alexander Volkanovski dominated the Korean Zombie, is it Max Holloway or 155 for Volk? Aljamain Sterling defeated Petr Yan in a close fight to unify the bantamweight titles. How did the guys score this fight? Khamzat Chimaev defeated Gilbert Burns in the most exciting fight of the night. How would Chimaev fare against Colby Covington or Kamaru Usman? The guys also recap Showtime Boxing, GGG and Ryan Garcia vs. Emannuel Tagoe. Luke and Danny close out the show with DM's from Donks and Odds & Ends. (8:00) - Alexander Volkanovski (31:45) - Sterling vs. Yan (47:00) - Chimaev Defeats Burns (64:30) - GGG (71:20) - Rest of Boxing (83:00) - Dm's from Donks (93:30) - Odds & Ends Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Reveille, reveveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. Smoke them if you got them, Johnny.

Morning Combat is back hello everyone it is the 11th of April 2022 and it is time for your official kickoff to the new fight week the wrap-up of the old fight week all things new and old and speaking of all things new and old, no, Brian Campbell didn't lose 100 pounds or get normal colored hair or grow a wonderful mustache. This is my, well, I won't say new co-host, but certainly co-host for today. Brian Campbell, of course, is on vacation fresh off of his trip to UFC 273. It is my friend and yours, Mr. 305 himself, Danny Segura. Hi, Danny. How are you? And welcome to the show, my good, good friend. I'm doing well. I'm refreshed, finally rested up from the UFC 273 fight week. Hectic, hectic stuff. And here we are to talk about it because a lot went on, not only in MMA,

but also the world of boxing. So thank you for having me, Luke. I'm excited to be here and let's get it rolling. All right. Rate Jacksonville. I'm going to give you the Florida power rankings. I'm going to give you the florida power rankings i'm going to say you're going to put miami one so whatever tampa i'll throw jacksonville in there and then i'll throw in you know actually no those are what the three nfl teams have uh are from right rank those cities for me miami tampa jacksonville i mean i like tampa tampa's not too bad uh i mean jacksonville isn't bad either, but not my cup of tea. Yeah, it's not great. It's like a little bit more of the city life, a little bit more movement going on.

Yeah. You know what would be the – just real quick. The downtown, like here in Miami, like downtown is just buzzing all the time. All the time. Cars everywhere. You know, Miami traffic is infamous. In Jacksonville, the weirdest thing is the downtown is not uh hectic at all at night it's not so you think oh maybe it's just offices but during the day you don't see many cars or many people either so i was telling danny and

i were talking about this previously and i've traveled through the midwest like i've been to des moines iowa and of course des moines iowa is not exactly jacksonville florida it's much it's much different in a lot of different ways uh but But the point I was trying to make was you go through a lot of these sort of like middle America, you know, downtown cities that are still important cities. Like Des Moines, Iowa is obviously for election season is incredibly important. They're empty. They're completely empty. So you know you're in like a top ten, top seven, certainly top five market if downtown is always.

What's the downtown part of, what is it, Ocean Drive? Is big the big street in miami well uh that's more like touristy uh but like the downtown would be like you know brickle and and just overtown in that area which actually habib's uh studios for ego fc are in over town they're like prime miami spot okay that's actually surprising to hear but very cool just the same all right we have a lot to get to today. UFC 273 is in the books. Danny was there. We'll talk about his experience as well. Plus, Danny indicated there was Ryan Garcia who was back. There was Lubin Fundora over the weekend.

And, of course, Triple G had a very impressive showing, all but with a little bit of trouble along the way. So we're going to get to all of that. Thumbs up if you are watching on YouTube. Please hit subscribe if you would be so kind. And of course, this is going to be a huge, huge week for Showtime. Why? Friday, Bellator 277, the finals of the light heavyweight Grand Prix between Vadim Nemkov and Corey Anderson, a sensational fight. Winner has a rightful claim as the number one light heavyweight in the world. I do believe that. And then certainly you have the rematch between AJ McKee and

Patricio Pitbull. Both of those fights Friday night on Bellator and on Showtime regular. And then of course Showtime pay-per-view on Saturday. The fight I have been very much looking forward to. Spence versus Ugas. So if you don't have Showtime, don't know what you're waiting for. Showtime.com. Get a

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That's more BC's thing, to be candid with you. Although I love our merch guy, too. He does a great job. Last but not least, morningcombat.com to reach the show for wednesdays fan subs friday's dead wrong we are going to of course have the show in texas together with bc on friday so we really need your submissions for that and um oh you know what uh danny how could i forget that uh both you and i it should be noted, are NordVPN customers. Both of us use it. Danny, I'll just ask you, why did you have a NordVPN on your computer? Yeah, internationally as well as you can use it here in the States is great.

I love it. I used it all the time when I was covering the Jaid fight. When he fought Jeremy Stevens in Mexico, that's when actually I got it. That was like what, like 2019? And I was using it all the time um vpns are great i i love them so uh i'm a customer of uh nord and i'll continue to be great service all right if you guys don't know you can get the nord vpn app just make sure it's up to date on your phone it helps you with malicious malware websites trackers intrusive ads, all kinds of stuff. So grab your exclusive NordVPN deal by going to nordvpn.com slash combat, combat of course with a K, or use the code combat with a K to get a huge discount off your NordVPN plan plus free threat protection plus one additional month for free.

It's completely risk-free with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee. Yeah, along with the amazing cybersecurity benefits and getting the ability to access streaming services in other countries with no extra cost, NordVPN now comes with free anti-malware feature, which provides your device from malware, malicious ads, and phishing sites. All right. Very good. With that out of the way, let us move into topic number one. Of course, we start with what else?

The crown jewel of the weekend for MMA fans. UFC 273 is now in the books, and the champion retains. Alexander Volkanovsky scores a TKO win 45 seconds into the fourth round. Pardon me, but Danny, it seems fair to say that the real story of this fight is that Volkanovski was miles ahead of the Korean zombie so he retained his title he proved that he was far superior to zombie in this contest When it was all said and done, what else did Alexander Volkanovski prove to you? Yeah, I think there's a recipe right now brewing,

and I don't know what exactly, what ingredient is left, or what fight will we need in order for that whole thing to be complete, but something special is brewing here. And one, Alexander Volkanovsky is just an incredible run i believe what uh 21 fight uh unbeaten streak now he has wins over the two best or arguably the best featherweights of all time max holloway and jose aldo and now he's starting to rack up title defenses he's still fairly early in the title defenses but look if he continues down this path and i'm not asking for huge amounts of evolution or to do something extra, go up a division or whatever.

Just continue defending the belt. If he does that long enough, plus he has a win over a fairly prime Jose Aldo and definitely a prime Max Holloway twice. And obviously not keeping in mind that they might meet a third time and he might get a third victory over him. I mean, with a record like that, with a win over the two goats how do you not uh have a claim in being the best featherweight of all time so I do think he's stepping on on something great here I do think he's stepping on greatness and uh pound for pound I mean I think he's definitely up there in the conversation along with Kamaru Usman again I don't know what fight will do it maybe it'll have to be that trilogy fight with Max Holloway, but Alexander Volkanovsky is around the corner

of becoming the featherweight GOAT, in my opinion. You know, it's kind of interesting when you think about it, because certainly I recognize that both Holloway fights carry a degree of controversy. Some of it fair, some of it not, but it's there, and it's just a part of the story at this point. And in some ways, it set back Volkanovsky,ski. It really set him back because he entered his championship reign under this cloud of skepticism based on people who felt like Max Holloway was wrong or the judges did a poor job or some combination thereof.

But in some way, maybe in the long run, it's actually kind of helping him because he's basically having to go door to door and convince everyone he is actually as good as he says he is. He is actually a next level elite champion, has a claim to your point, maybe as being the pound for pound best fighter in the sport based on his competition record. And so this slow process of convincing various segments of the the fan base various segments of the skeptical community around how good he actually is he's having to manually so to speak convince them and it's it's slow going but now it's really beginning to pick up momentum where the body of work even through his championship run especially in the last two but prior to that again 21 on

unbeaten streak uh in terms of wins and fights he's produced something at this point that basically like there's a i was talking about this yesterday i think the skeptics are in various stages of grief right and one of those stages of grief uh stages of grief is okay i don't like him but i definitely respect him there's a lot of that going around now before before it was i don't think he's a he's There's a lot of that going around now before. Before it was, I don't think he's even the champion. That was a fraudulent win, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And now he's at this point where begrudgingly, even the folks who didn't believe in him before, I have just simply no choice but to acknowledge how good he is.

I'll just say it again. I watched this guy compete, and I don't think there's a lot of folks, you could probably count them on one hand, who have a guy who cannot just deliver on a very advanced skill set, but people who have married that with a broader conception of what fighting should be, what it should look like, and how you go about setting the context for what is advantageous for you, and then the depth of pulling that out there's just not that level of sophisticated thought and planning outside of him and a few other guys it's extraordinary to watch what he's done did you get a sense danny when you were there because it was kind of quiet during that main event that he was not maybe getting all the fans in the world but that he was not maybe getting all the fans in the world, but that he was convincing skeptics? Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, if you ask me to show a fan what sort of is the highest level of skill set

and abilities attainable in today modern MMA in 2022, I'd have to show you footage of Alexander Volkanovsky. I mean, he can do it all, right? And I think it's important, and he said it throughout Fight Week, that I wanted to add that Korean zombie name to my resume. And it's important he said it throughout fight week that i wanted to add that korean zombie name to my resume and it's not really because korean zombie was this huge test and this boogeyman and he had to get through him to sort of prove that he's one of the better guys

at 145 i think we all had a feeling that this was going to go down but obviously a legend just to add to the resume but again he just has to keep up what he's doing um he might not be the greatest fighter right now the greatest featherweight of all time, because that's married to achievement. And again, he's still very early on into his title reign. But as far as skillset, who is the best, which is a different conversation than great, Volkanovski is up there. I mean, what he's doing is just cutting edge of the techniques and abilities that are attainable today in 2022. So Alexander Volkanovsky is certainly an incredible talent.

And if you don't respect him, if you don't like him, you're not a fan of MMA. Because frankly, he is pushing the boundaries on technique. He is pushing the boundaries on what's attainable as far as skill. And it's been beautiful to watch. To be honest, that fight with Korean Zombie was just eye-opening. I mean, the fact that he could be so many levels it's not even a level so many levels above a guy like korean zombie who is obviously very skilled when did you realize after the fight started that zombie was in trouble oh right right off the first round i mean there was just a clear clear difference in speed the zombie was trying everything i mean it almost looked like a sparring footage when like

uh maybe a pro welcomes in an amateur like okay step into the pro practice and and again i don't mean no disrespect to korean zombie by saying that i'm just this is just how good volkanovsky is but obviously volkanovsky was was trying but this wasn't some ridiculous effort that he constantly had to get out of him kind of like the gilbert burns and hamsa shimaya where they're just pushing the boundaries and just redlining the engine the entire time. Volkanovski was out there fighting pretty comfortably, sticking to the plan. And everything that Korean Zombie threw his way, he had an answer for. So it was evident.

And, you know, I know there was a lot of controversy in the sense that that fight could have been stopped sooner, that maybe the coaches should have thrown in the towel. If this were boxing, and I tweeted that last night, this fight would have already been over. I think by the second round, we already had an answer that there was only one way this fight could go. Yeah, you know what's funny was to me, I remember in the first round, I can't remember the time stamps.

I'd have to go back and look. But there was the first real good combination that he had thrown, of Volkanovski, it all of it landed and it landed like super flush on Chan Sung Jung now what's funny about that is this was 10 years ago or well 11 years ago whatever and he was getting landed on flush you'd be like yeah that's about what happens to him but it became significantly rarer again relative to how it used to be over time because not only did his offense get better his defense got better you know if somebody can make this version of the korean zombie look like the old version of himself there has to be a major gap in ability and one

thing i want to say is i totally agree danny i totally agree that there was a massive speed difference and the volkanovski looked like lightning. I guarantee that he is ordinarily quick, explosive, works on that, tries to maintain speed through mechanical function, all of that. But another part of this should not be lost, which is that you don't need even all of that speed if you've got great timing. How many times did he feint a reaction out of Korean Zombie and then blast him for it at the end of a punch when Zombie is the most vulnerable and never saw it coming? He did it constantly in this fight.

Or he would go before. Or he would slip off to the side and go in between or break his rhythm. He was the timing on everything he does, whether it's to break a base um to come over the top of a jab to slip to pull counter whatever it is the timing on it is excellent so when you marry those physical gifts with the timing it is a very formidable thing to beat most guys like a right are ryan garcia who we'll talk about a little bit later okay he's got a little bit of both too but a lot of what he does is very much speed and explosive oriented i don't think it should be lost on folks and it should not be lost in the story

that a big portion of this is the skill from the timing he's developed as well oh yeah 100 you married the speed you marry the timing you marry the feints and the fight almost looked like korean zombie was lagging like he was just a few seconds behind and we were looking at two different videos, two different streams of the fight because that's what it was, like he would do something, he would react and by the time he'd be reacting to something Volkanovski would be coming at him with something completely new and different so 100% and I think I even asked him it looks so unreal that I'm like did you work for this

fight to slim down try to get a little quicker and he's like no i've been around the same way and i think that's when you go like okay it's not just speed or explosivity like this guy's timing and fainting how you mentioned is obviously uh adding into this whole um striking display that he puts on all right a couple more questions about this Where would you like to see Volkanovski go next? Do you think it has to be the Max Holloway fight? Or could he go to lightweight? And if he went to lightweight, who would he fight first? Yeah, that's a tough one.

I think I want to see the Max Holloway because, as you said, they did fight twice. I know he's 2-0, but there is a little bit of that sour taste left in many people's mouths. And I think, you know, in order to get rid of that, why don't you just fight him a third time, right? Even if it's still a close fight, like, dude, if in three fights, Max Holloway is not able to rack up a win, I think we would have an answer on who the better fighter is. And obviously extremely close fights, but, you know, 3-0 is 3-0. So I would like to see that for Volkanovski because I really do think he's a phenomenal talent, and in order to shut up and silence the critics fully,

he needs that third victory over Max Oliver, which sounds ridiculous to say a little bit, like you need a third win in order to prove people that you're the best right now at 145 pounds. But that's what I'd like to see. At 155, you know, that division is a little bit of a mess right now. I think there's a long line of contenders. I don't think it's the perfect time to jump in there. But if so, if he was going to make a move to 155, I would like for him to kind of do the Anderson Silva route, where Anderson Silva was king at 185 pounds and goes up to find like a Stefan Bonner, James Irving, stuff like that.

So like not the very top contender i don't want to see him but just dabble let's just see how he looks at 155 let's see how his skills translate let's just have a little bit of a showcase fight which i think the ufc doesn't put on too often and they probably should um but i wouldn't want to see him to dive straight into a a contender because i think there's work to be done at 145 pounds again as he said he's like turning the corner on the featherweight again as he said he's like turning the corner on the featherweight goat I feel like he's not too far for that argument and in order to do that you need title defenses so um I don't want to see him just leave 145 just yet I'll tell

you what I think they have to do that Max Holloway fight for the third time I mean they don't have to it's can you imagine I've thought about this before can you imagine having fought Max Holloway 10 fucking rounds and all people are saying is gotta see five more dude that's 10 rounds against one of the best like that is such an achievement I granted I understand that it's very very close I completely understand all the scoring controversies i'm just saying i can you imagine volkanovsky waking up looking in the mirror and be like i fought this guy for 10 rounds and people are demanding five more it's just bananas but i do agree i mean they both have the three title defenses they have those two very close contests there's a real big moment here about a placement

in featherweight history that kind of has to get doesn't have to but it would be nice to settle given that they are sort of like if you want to say jose has the longest you know uh overall body of work as a champion at one this would be 2a 2b and you kind of have to sort and i made this point previously danny on other mks which is that the one thing that max really had going for him is he not just beat jose aldo to get it he did it back to back and then both of those times he stopped it volkanovski had to do something similar but he had the two close fights with Max as opposed to the two the sort of definitive statements and then because of that there is this lingering sense that something is being taken from the fans so I really are the in the sport perhaps so I really hope that they make

it I will say something though I want to I want to I want to posit an idea okay I want to give you an idea I have for 155 if volt goes up there so i'm stating my preferences clearly there are so many good reasons to make a third fight with max that i hope that that is next and i fully anticipate that it will be saying that if he goes to 155 and think about this for a second you're trying to you're trying to imagine somebody he could fight that's not the very very best but it would be a good name good test what about Rafael Dos Anjos at 155 what do you think about that I'm gonna give you my logic I'm gonna give you my logic I like that okay 10 to 15 let me read you who's ranked Fazeev, Saryuki, and Gamrot

Hooker, Riddell, Fajeda don't like any of those fights Fazeev, Saryuki, and Gamrot. Hooker, Riddell, Fajeda. Don't like any of those fights. Fazeev, Saryuki, and Gamrot are all kind of on a different track right now. Hooker and Riddell are teammates and coaches, quite literally. And Fajeda's at 15. That's a fine fight, but doesn't excite me. Then you have McGregor, unlikely. Gillespie, not a bad one.

Not a bad one. Ferguson, he's got business to attend to. And then comes RDA. RDA used to fight at, I think he's fought as low as 145. Obviously, he's got business to attend to. And then comes RDA. RDA used to fight, I think he's fought as low as 145. Obviously, this would be a 155 bout. We know about his history at 170. What do you think? I love that fight. I think you're on the money. I think this fight makes the most sense out of all the ones that you can make in the top 15, because RDA is also in a place where like, and he kind of said it after his fight, his latest win, he's like, I want the McGregor one, maybe I want a big money fight, this and that, but he wasn't necessarily going out there, I need the next title shot. So look, if you want a big fight,

if you want to add to your legacy, a legacy bout, why not take a champion at 145 pounds, welcome him to your weight class. And look, RDA, you know, I know he's been around for some time, he's probably towards the end of his prime if not maybe a little bit past it but not too much for him not to be one of the best fighters at 155 but um i think that's a perfect test because he's got the the history he's got the the prestige he's currently still very very good has headlined tons of fight nights and pay-per-views so he can definitely do that again and uh he's not all the way up in the rankings in the top three or top five where you know it'll disrupt some things if uh you were able to you know put in a the 45 champion up there so i love it i think it's a

it's a great pick yeah i love it for a lot of reasons one rda is at that 170 campaign i mean you go you watch his fight with kamaru usman and you're like dude this guy is completely a different size than him you know here he would have something of a size advantage again they'd be the same weight but you know what i'm saying you'd have a size advantage to rda is good everywhere good takedown defense good striking obviously he's got a pretty good jiu-jitsu not a huge submission threat in the way that ortega was but you know a legitimate uh good black belt there's just a lot of and he's physical as well a physical fighter physical striker there's a lot of reasons why i if they if if he if and when he goes to 155 um that that will be a decent choice for him getting back to getting back though to max and just real quick look if i can ask sorry to interrupt you but one thing also that would be important for that bout

i think one of the things about volkanovsky going up to 155 is that at 145, he's not that big. He's not one of the bigger guys. So at 155, probably a lot of people are wondering if his ceiling is going to be too short because of the size. And look, RDA is a physical guy, as you mentioned, can wrestle. So he's not a guy that will stay away from the grappling. So if we're going to answer questions about what he can do with some of the bigger guys, what happens when he locks horns with some of those 55ers, I rda would 100 answer those questions yeah that's right he's a great he's a great measuring stick so to speak to see exactly what volkanovski can really offer in this weight class great point getting

back to uh max and alex let me uh pitch you another thing that sort of occurred to me if it's wrong by all means please tell me i'm going to ask you this question I want to present it this way my question is if they make another Alex and Max fight given what they did the first two times a who would you favor to win and b are there any shades of Canelo Triple G with this is this MMA's Canelo Triple G not the same thing in a lot of different ways uh but you have two fights both times one guy won both times there was at least some degree of controversy they might make a third one it's possible and if they do the guy who has lost the first two who was trying to sort of right the ship for the third one may have been in in triple g's case he got a little bit older and a little bit slower and

you know a little bit of the game has worn him down. Max is certainly not elderly, but has been in a lot of tough fights, has been in a lot of grinding wars. The Poirier one, the Yair one, but plenty more than that. Is there something to be saying that, like, yes, you could look at the first two results from the Max-Alex fights, but this third one's different, given now they're both in a pretty different place in their career in terms of the accumulation of damage and age? Yeah. Yeah, I think there's a lot of similarities.

I think the biggest one is that in that fight, in those two fights that we saw with Triple G and Canelo, we kind of didn't really get an answer on who the best fighter is, right? I mean, both fighters had their moments. They were super competitive fights. And depending on who you ask, Triple G probably should have won both or Canelo depending on who you ask and that's very much the case with Volkanovski and Holloway some people saw Holloway win both fights especially the second one I think that's probably the closest one but I would say it's the big difference there is that I feel like there's not much doubt on Canelo obviously he's gone on to do amazing things and he's become the GOAT right now you know know, the best. I don't necessarily think that that's the case for Volkanovski.

I think Canelo has more of the fans on his side. Whereas in this scenario with Holloway and Volkanovski, I feel like most of the fans or a grand majority are obviously behind Max Holloway. And I think Max Holloway has kind of shown a little bit of evolution, know in his striking just looking extremely dominant against Calvin Cater and then using some wrestling to beat Jair Rodriguez if it wasn't for wrestling I don't know if he would have won that fight because Jair was definitely piecing him up with Triple G he's had some good moments and we'll talk about his most recent fight here in the program but I don't see that evolution if anything we've seen a bit of a decline with Triple G, whereas Max Holloway has kind of kept this dream alive,

this two series, despite being 0-2, just because his two previous fights have been so great. Yeah, I want to be clear. I'm not saying that Max is shopworn. I think Max is still very good and capable of beating Volkanovski. But that bill is going to come due for all the damage he's taken. It's going to come due. He's Hawaiian. You never know, man. It's going to come due. He's Hawaiian.

You never know, man. It might take a few years. Fair enough. It could be, who knows when it will really begin to onset. But that Sier fight was surprisingly tough, it looked like. Yeah, I don't think he expected that. I don't think he expected to wrestle as much as he did. I think Jair really brought it and really turned up his game.

And I think, you know, in no disrespect to Holloway, but coming off that cater fight, he was, you know, self-proclaimed the best boxer in the division. Dude, you have a wrestler to beat Jai. And again, I don't fault him for it. I mean, it's mixed martial arts. He got the win. He was 100% the better fighter at the end of the day. But, you know, you might want to rethink that, especially in a third fight with Volkanovski because i think volkanovsky striking is is very unappreciated because it's hard to appreciate uh it's so it's so technical and and there's so many things that maybe the untrained eye doesn't catch that uh it goes underappreciated yeah it certainly is um he's not like mayweather in the sense that mayweather did some things that obviously got the public to dislike him whether taunting an opponent or trouble with the law or whatever it

may be volkanovsky's so nice dude like i know i know i know he's so he but the other part too is he's also beating up everyone's favorite fighter right he beat max that's true or taking he beat zombie you know what you know nothing man Aldo. But here's my point. Volkanovski badly needs a villain in that division. And he doesn't realize it. He is. He's the joker going through and taking out all of the DC Universe good guys, man. That's what he's done.

At least that's what the public's perception of him. And so he's trying to flip that. It's not easy. It's not easy. Yeah, it's not easy. He's in a tough spot. But all he can do is just keep racking up victories and at some point the facts are going to be the facts if he beats max holloway a third time like what do you what can you possibly say what can you possibly say nothing all right let's

go to topic number two oh actually very quickly very quickly before we go to topic two for korean zombie where does he go from here oh bro i got one i think look uh i spoke to korean zombie at media day and i asked him straight up do you think this is your last title shot and he gave a pretty sober answer he's like yeah i'm 35 um i will continue fighting after this with or without the title i'm not retiring anytime soon i still have some fights in me but this is 100% the last opportunity I get for the title. And I think he's right. I think this is, unfortunately for all the Korean zombie fans out there, this is the last time we saw the Korean zombie in a championship fight. It hurts to say,

but it's the truth. But that doesn't mean there aren't fun fights for him in the division. One fight that I would love to see, and both these guys are in basically the same spot of their career. They haven't fought before. The matchmakers can thank me for this later. Edson Barbosa versus Korean Zombie. That's a great one. Wow, I hadn't even thought of that. UFC fight night.

Get that early going as well so we can enjoy it. Oh, yeah, no, you're right, 145. Wow, you could do that. That's amazing. That's an amazing call. How would that play out, you think? That's such a tough one, because Edson Barbosa's a little bit chinny, right?

I think he... Zombie might light him up with the boxing. Yeah, but, like, I mean, those kicks, man, Edson Barbosa, plus Edson Barbosa moves very well. I think that could give Zombie some issues. He's very quick. I think it'll be a fight where man, Edson Barbosa. Plus, Edson Barbosa moves very well. I think that could give Zombie some issues. He's very quick. I think it'll be a fight where you see Edson Barbosa kind of taking the lead and then at some point getting cracked and then even things out. And then that'll be just a back and forth.

I think that's what I expect. I like that. That's a great call. And the last thing I'll say on this is we moved to point number two. The last thing I'll say is not every fighter gets to be champion. Very, very, very few of them do. It it should broaden your perspective and this should be a learning lesson to folks you don't have to be a champion to have a a great career and do very memorable things and to get the fan base on your side it's like it wasn't just that he was a popular

attraction and is a popular attraction he is still quite good having that twister on his record or whatever and being the first one and some of the some of the fastest he had the fastest knockout for a time he still might with the one over hominic like dude he's done amazing things he never was champion that's okay that he still had a great career and it's not done yet he's a legend he's a legend at 145 all right point number two let's talk about the co-main event this is the much more this is the most controversial i think probably of the three uh the big fights on the card aljermaine sterling retained his title with a split decision victory over peter yan okay so two questions to start this uh conversation danny one how did you score

the fight and two what does it win like this do for Sterling's career and reputation? So I actually scored it a drop. I thought that Sterling took two rounds, but one of those rounds was a 10-8, obviously being the second one, which was the most dominant. And then I thought Jan took first and obviously the last two. Now, that's what I scored the fight after I watched it, because when I was in the media room, I was doing some other things, so I couldn't 100% gauge what was going on and pay full attention. But I saw it on Sunday after the fact. It was sort of a cool head. I think that second round is debatable whether it's a 10-8 or a 10-9. I think it's very close. It's borderline. It was certainly dominant. I think it missed a little bit of damage in order to convince

those guys that the people, or the people that scored it at 10-9. But certainly, it's right there. I mean, you can't say the round was anything but dominant for Aljeman Sterling. So, I scored it a draw. And I think it's huge for Aljeman Sterling because entering this fight, and I'll be honest, I was a doubter of Aljeman Sterling. Certainly, I'll give him his credit. A very good fighter. A guy that got to fight for the title in the first place. For that in itself, you've got to be a was a doubter of aljamin sterling certainly uh i'll give him his credit a very good fighter a guy that got to fight for the title in the first place for that in itself you've got to be a solid fighter to be a top contender especially at 135 135 is just full of killers um but i thought yan was sort of the was sort of the dominant force at 135 and we're gonna see a long reign for him

just from what i've seen but clearly um if you take out just Aljamain Sterling the persona and you put another fighter in and just look at that and have the same type of performance dude he was right there neck and neck with Jan and again dominated him in two rounds so um I think this proves that he is very good he's among the very best if anybody was ever doubting or just thought he got there by chance. Certainly, you know, a close fight. I think on any given night, maybe Jan would have been champion. But yeah, certainly Aljamain Sterling is one of the very best in the most competitive division in the UFC, in my opinion.

All right, I'll tell you how I scored it. Let's see if we can find some place to agree or disagree. Clearly rounds four and five for Jan, 10-9. Rounds two and three for Sterling, round three, 10-9. Round two, I'm going to argue it's 10-9. The reason why I'm going to argue it's 10-9 is because while he did have duration, to your point, I think it's just a shade under four minutes of control time, something like 3.53, something like that, of control time.

That is a significant amount of control time. That control alone should win you the round from the back. But to get a 10-8, he would have to marry that with some things that either cut a guy open from heavy ground to pound, close submission attempts, or just a lot of punching volume that really mattered. And there wasn't that.

He had a body triangle on which glues you to the guy. I mean, the benefit of the body triangle is that it closes down the movement of the guy who's locked in. The bad part is it also locks you to him. So it limits your mobility to do the things you might otherwise do if you didn't have that same form of control. So you have to balance it out. There was not enough damage there for me to give that a 10-8. I am the first person to recognize that the taking of the back must be respected because it's really the only position

where you have complete asymmetry with your opponent. But at the same time, if you just... I'm not saying he just held it. He went for submissions. But you can't just go for submissions. They got to be close. None of them were really close, and there wasn't a damage.

Fair or unfair? I think that's fair. And again, I think that's a round that's borderline 10-8, 10-9. I mean, if you scored a 10-9, I don't have a big issue with that but what i would say to counter that was one the the control time was just ridiculous uh two i mean back mount and just regular mount are the two dominant the most dominant positions you can get on somebody on the ground i mean it wasn't like he was inside of his guard or half guard and then he kept recovering and then there

was a struggle there but he did have that control time no dude he was glued to his back as you mentioned and had it with the most dominant position you can get in grappling for almost four minutes of the five minute round and he did land in some ground and pound it wasn't you know devastating it wasn't sort of Hamza versus Durino or anything like that where he like you know cut Durino open in the first round on the forehead but uh there was some work there so again i don't i don't i can't debate you know it's it's a tough sell you know but um but yeah i i'm okay with a 10 9 scoring for that round but i think it was just enough for a 10 8 okay so then let's let's just say none of the judges gave it a 10 8 so really to me what the debate comes down to right or wrong they just

didn't so you got two and three for sterling four and five for yon it takes us to round one in real time i wasn't quite watching it with like a judging eye i was i was looking to see what they were doing you know so when the round was over i genuinely did not know who won it and it was also hard dude it was hard to score like it wasn't an easy round. Rounds two and three are easy to judge. Rounds four and five are pretty easy to judge. There's not a whole lot to it. But round one was hard. It was hard to get right. And two of the judges gave it to

Sterling. One round gave it to Jan. So I went back and I watched it. Here's what I saw. I retweeted Kaposa, Grabaka Hitman on this one. He basically says he watched the first half of the first round, but two minutes and 20 seconds or so. Dude, Jan just kind of walks him down but doesn't throw anything and sterling didn't exactly land like you know the biggest bomb ever but he did land some body kicks some pretty good ones he landed some leg kicks some push kicks along the way like he did a little

bit there that he counted it was noticeable if even if jan upticked it towards the end of the first he kind of just gave away the front half of it and two judges gave it to him for that yeah i don't that that's close and that sucks but that doesn't strike me as wholly unfair at all yeah it was an extremely difficult round to score i just thought like look the damage is equal here neither fighter scoring and then if you just keep going down the criteria yang was pushing the action had control sort of of the octagon um and i think towards the end i think what did it for me was that yang landed a pretty big left if i'm not mistaken um off a clinch and then the bell rung and that was probably the most significant shot of the fight in my opinion or the round my bad so that's why i gave it a 10-9 to to yon okay fair enough again i'm not here to

tell i'm not here to say yeah i'm not here at all to say that a round one score for yon is somehow inappropriate i don't think it's inappropriate if people saw it that way i again it was tough to score i get it i guess my point is that people, they want this fraudulent sense that they have put on top of Aljamain from the first fight. They want that to still be real. And it's just not real anymore. Like, even if you scored it for Jan, there's a very legitimate claim

that Sterling deserves the scoring in that first round as well. And because it was so close, and one gave it to Jan and two gave it to Sterling deserves the scoring in that first round as well. And because it was so close and one gave it to Jan and two gave it to Sterling, to me, that's just the judging process playing out as normal without a ton of evidence of incompetence or something else. I just don't see that as incompetent judging. No, no, no. I think if you just look at the fight, I mean, it was so close that it could merit to give it to either guy as far as the first round and score.

And I think this should be a big lesson for MMA fighters. In boxing, you can kind of take off rounds because there's so many. So you can kind of gauge and do the math and make sure you pick up rounds here and there if the fight's getting close. But in MMA, dude, there's only five. Taking one round off or just trying to gauge somebody, you might be able to do it for a few minutes, but make sure at least in one minute you're doing stuff that's significant, because if you take one round off, that could cost you the fight, you know? So, yeah, I mean, again, it's a very close fight. I don't think the hate that is going towards Aljamain Sterling's

way, I don't think it's right, because again, it's a very, very close fight. In order to be a very close fight, you know, both parties need to be uh evenly matched you know at least in terms of skill so how are you going to hate on a guy that's just as good as uh peter yan so or you know maybe a little less or a little better depending on where you see him but certainly in the same level you can't hate on that guy he's he's a worthy champion yeah i want to talk about that for a second i mean listen I got it wrong on Sterling too I'll raise my hand I got it wrong on Aljamain Sterling knew he was good knew he would deserve to be taken seriously but thought that like you that Jan was sort of the talent

of this division and what why did I make that claim one Jan's overall body of work against Aldo against Sanhagen and against Sterlinghagen, and against Sterling in their first fight. Against Sterling in their first fight, I thought Aldo won the first. Maybe you could say he fought okay in the second, but to me, by the time the third round started, that was Jan's fight to lose. I talk about it all the time. Jan was 7 of 7 of takedowns on the first

fight. He went 0 for 0 here. In the first fight, Sterling went 1 for 17 on takedowns. Now, he only went two for 22 on this one, but getting the back exposure and then getting the back changed the whole equation. Didn't see that happening based on what had happened the first time, but Sterling went back to the lab.

He did get healthy. He clearly had a great camp. And, dude, Aljamain Sterling is good. He's excellent. He has a claim as the very best bantamweight on this on this earth he simply does and that guy and i want to ask this to you danny that guy endured 13 months of straight up harassment and bullying i remember what fight was i at the last ufc fight i think it was like the connor fight in j or something against Poirier. And I remember they had showed, it was before the weigh-in started and they're running ads or whatever, B-roll or whatever on the screens.

And they ran an ad for like fighter meet and greets out in town. And they had one for Sterling who wasn't even in the arena and he was getting booed by the fans. I mean, you couldn't go anywhere. And I understand that people felt disappointed with the results of the first fight. And, you know, who knows how hurt Sterling was. But they just decided at that point it was going to be a 13-month online harassment campaign that spilled over into real life. And, boy, did he shove it up all their asses. Yeah, for sure.

I would say that Sterling, not to sort of defend the fans but he did bring it onto himself a little bit you know he's kind of taking of course this uh road of this sohudo type antics and uh you know they're very cheesy a lot of people don't like them so i kind of get it he's playing up the heel role and look uh you gotta get fans to care about you or hate you either or but just as long as they feel strongly about you you know they they're gonna pay for the pay-per-view they're gonna watch your fight so he's kind of taking um a page out of henry sahuda's book so you know the the hate yeah it's i don't think it's it's warranted uh but again i feel like at this point in time aljiman sterling has accepted it he's like it is what it is i just gonna i'm just gonna roll with it i'm just gonna roll with it and try to

maximize it aside from the first fight i think the other thing too that like because the algebra and sterling do you see on twitter he put out that like excuse card for all the people who said algebra and sterling was going to lose and you could fill it out and had all the reasons and one of them was i only looked at advanced analytics i'm not sure yeah if you only look at advanced analytics that that won't tell you a whole lot i think the other part too was we had not seen yon made this was the first time we saw yon really vulnerable i mean we've seen him lose a round we've seen him take big shots we've seen him in you know difficult moments but those two rounds rounds two and three we already saw aljermaine

sterling lose fights we saw him get knocked out by marlon marais like we saw we saw him experience some lows we had never seen that from jan sterling is the first to produce that an achievement in itself but i think also might explain why folks had a greater sense of his vulnerability it had just been more on display up to this point yeah i don't think jan had been dominated the way he was dominated in those two rounds ever and i think that was a big wake-up call for a lot of people and also um not only talking about jan's deficiencies but what about aljamin's back take it might be the best in the ufc and mma i mean that control that he has and just the ability to

go from a takedown into like a scramble and then jump on the back, that's next level stuff. And it's funny because he's not Brazilian, so you'd kind of want to not discount him, but you would want to give credit to Dourinho Burns and other guys. But I haven't seen anybody jump to the back and be as quick, as explosive in securing the back as Aljimin Sterling. I haven't seen anybody in the UFC sort of match him on that. Even Damian Maia, he was more of a methodical guy that would work his way to the back. Aljamain Sterling goes from zero to 60 so um I think if you get a really

really good grappler and and can put uh not not even wrestle but just do jiu-jitsu with Jan I think uh there's some some weaknesses there so I think definitely Aljamain Sterling exposed him a little bit yeah yeah I mean and again credit to yon for surviving i mean all that hand fighting from the back that's not easy you know so i know what you're saying but like okay and there was also that time i think it was like the fourth of the fifth where sterling tried to take the back but he was too high and yon kind of yeah you know inched his way out but as a general rule you can ask cory sandhagen you can ask yon in general not always but in general that dude gets your back if sterling gets your back you're either

going to go out from a tap or uh you're going to get put out or the clock is going to save you because otherwise he ain't getting off i agree with you it's not like i don't know how dangerous he is and because of yon's hand fighting on hand fighting is obviously good but you know but his control from there his ability to maintain position over time. It is remarkable. Let's talk about Jan before we move on to Hamzat. What would you like to see as a rebound fight from Jan? He could fight Aldo, but he already did. He already fought Sandhagen, who's still behind him.

Where does he go from here? I'd like to see Jan fight Marab Dallash, really. I mean, I was there throughout fight week. Jan has said it's on site with aljaman sterling's team i mean if i come across them you know i'm gonna you know it's gonna be a fight and obviously uh that didn't sit well with aljaman sterling's team and marab and and alec quinta has something to say about that and look marab is ranked number six right now he's coming off a few good wins and uh he's ready for that step up i, he's right outside of the top five. He needs a guy that's certainly a former champion or has sort of a bit of status and standing and prestige in the division.

And I think there's a built in rivalry right there. He said it's on side. Well, why don't we make that fight? I think it's a good fight stylistically. I think if Jan wants to prove that he's the very best phantom weight, I think he has some answers to give as far as the, some questions to answer as far as the ground game. And I think Murab obviously being a stud grappler, I think, you know, that would be a solid test for him

and a big step up for Murab. I think that's the fight that I want to see next. I don't want to see Aldo versus Jan, to be honest. I'd rather see Aldo versus Cruz or something like that. Yeah, I agree with that. And also, you know, Jan is very much a technician. And not that Merab is not, but Merab is very much like the most incredible motor I've ever seen.

So it'd be like horsepower versus technique. That's unfair, but there's a little bit of that happening. I like that call. I think it's a great call. Either guy, a lot to prove with that one. All right. Speaking of a lot to prove, let's go to point number three. This one was as bananas as advertised.

I don't know what people thought, but this is one of the better versions of what could have happened here. Okay, Hamzat Shemayev defeats Gilbert Burns via unanimous decision in what can only be described as an insane fight of the year early contender. Not BC, sorry Danny, just out of habit. Danny Segura, there's a lot to get to here let me start the conversation this way is the story of the fight that hamzat impressed or is the story of the fight that hamzat was disappointing there's only one story here there's only one story here and that is that Hamza Shemaev impressed. For those people that are disappointed in Hamza Shemaev, they're living in a fantasy world, period.

Because Hamza Shemaev, obviously there was a lot of trash talk going on and there was a lot of promises that he made about this bout that he was going to run through Durino and just put him away and dominate him and just put him away in the first round. I'm going to tell you guys something right now. There's not a single welterweight on the planet living today that can do that to Dourinho. It's just not possible. Maybe get a lucky punch, catch him, but as far as dominating him, completely outclassing him, and then stopping him, there's not a single man that can do that today. The champion, Kamaru Usman, who's arguably the GOAT, tried, and he even had to fight back from hell. So this idea that Hamza Shemaev was going to go in there and just absolutely run through

Dourinho Burns, it's obviously a possibility, but honestly, not a very realistic one. The realistic thing is that this was going to be a tough-ass fight, because that's what you're in for whenever you cross paths with Dourinho. Now, whether Hamza Shemaev was going to get his hand raised or not at the end of that, that was the real question. And he did. So we're talking about a 27-year-old guy that entered a fight with the number two guy in the world with just 10 fights on his record, having made his professional debut in 2018. That's not that long ago, guys. And he went in there, gave him hell, almost stopped him a couple of times, got his hand raised.

Dude, what else can you ask for a prospect? I mean, what else? Not even a prospect anymore. The question was, is Hamza Shemaev one of the best in the world? We got our answer. He definitely is. And in a fight with Kamaru Usman, maybe Usman is favored. But the question of whether or not Hamza could beat Usman, I mean, there's definitely a possibility there. No doubt about it.

Hamza Shemaev is one of the best fighters in the world. And if anything, this performance just makes you dream, just makes, just goes, you know, just, you're able to imagine, just makes your imagination go wild. Because at 27 years old, only, what, four years into your professional career, 10 fights in,

and you're already beating the number two guy in the world? Give him six months, he's going to evolve so much. I mean, dude, this guy's going to be champion at some point. No doubt. He is the future of this division. Is he going to be the immediate future? We'll find out. But he's definitely the future, and he will hold gold at some point.

No doubt. What was the vibe where you were when the fight was going on, especially after the second? I think the vibe in the media room, everybody was kind of just like talking amongst each other. I mean, worked completely stop. All the laptops were, you know, on the tables. And it was the fight was very much up in the air. And I think that was the round where it's like, all right, let's see where Hamzat is made of.

He clearly had the better round in the first round. He did well, had some troubles, but overall was pretty dominant. But in the second round, he really got tested, got cracked very, very hard. And now you're stepping in the third round against a monster like Dourinho Burns that had a lot of momentum going in. So it's like, all right, let's see what you're made of. And clearly there were so many questions answered by Hamza Shemaev. I mean, there was a lot of mystery going into the fight just because the UFC skipped a few steps in the matchmaking process. Usually, Hamzat should have been fighting a number eight, number seven, something like that, not number two.

So there was a lot of unanswered questions. And we got the answers to that. Dude's got a chin. Dude can go three rounds. I mean, that was high-paced, three rounds. He can even go five rounds. We might have gotten that answer as well. He can get hurt and have good survival instincts still make good choices he's got power

all throughout the 15 minutes can wrestle his ass off his takedown defense my god is something ridiculous durino burns was deep on a gable grip even on a squatting position the strongest position you can be and try to lift him up and couldn't there was a one point where he shot at him yeah i i'm i'm in agreement with you i've been i was so surprised when folks were like oh he disappointed me i'm like what what exactly were you what were you expecting him to do to go in there and you know uh leap tall buildings in a single bound and shoot lasers from his eyes yeah i guess that would be disappointing if he didn't shoot lasers from his eyes yes that's a what you got was a letdown folks four years uh total fifth ufc fight and he to danny's point i think that's great who's gonna go in there and just dump truck gilbert burns probably nobody not including uh hamza shemayev but if you can get a win over a guy that good

this early holy crap you're doing something unbelievably special. I think what the problem here is, Danny, is that on both sides, there's people coming in with impressions. And I think this is why it made the odds what it was. I slept on this. I was doing a lot of looking online last night to see what people were saying about Gilbert Burns

because your video with him blew up pre-fight and ours did, our interview did pretty well, but I noticed that people were still, they were still watching and even after the fight. And I was looking at what some of the comments were there and all my mentions and everywhere else. So this is anecdotal. It's not a whole lot.

Even though Gilbert lost to Kamaru and then rebounded against Wonderboy, a lot of people discount the Wonderboy win as very boring, safe, uninspiring, and therefore to some doesn't tell you that this guy is the kind of dog that could meet a guy like Hamzat in the middle. I think that's why a lot of folks thought he was going to get dump trucked, even though a lot of us were shouting from the rooftops like, I don't know, man, this dude's pretty good. And when you saw we saw him train he was crossing every t dotting every i i think that wonder boy performance was clouding people's judgment a little bit and on the other side danny if you

and i watch this we we talked about this before the fight we were like i don't know man burns might have something for him but we didn't we just didn't know let's just sort of see what happens here i think a lot of folks came in not just with a a artificially reduced impression of gilbert but they were thinking that hamzat was ready to beat kamaru tomorrow that it was just way too much expected of him so even though a guy does something amazing he can't know i don't know if anybody could do what they're talking about and so therefore it feels like a letdown in that sense yeah this is to me the part of the story that needs to get told a little bit more and someone else made this point i'll repeat it here if to to do what hamza did you have to be incredibly special number one okay now he managed to get the win even though some of his weaknesses were made

to be you saw them for the first time i'm going to go back to the sterling comparison by the way you saw some of his weaknesses earlier on that did not determine how this fight on saturday ultimately went right it's it we should not lose sight of the deficiencies but at you know when you're in your early or i should say mid to late 20s still as a fighter and you're just now having them exposed by the way that that tells you a lot but more to the point it just sort of says they're not career defining and in fact you can look at a situation where a guy still won izzy versus gastelum and then the question becomes this what are they going to take from this experience are they going to take from this experience

the important parts right are they going to learn the lessons experience? Are they going to take from this experience the important parts, right? Are they going to learn the lessons of, I should have maybe done X, I should have done Y. He wasn't listening to his coach at all, and he still managed to beat Gilbert Burns. The point I'm trying to make is, it's not that we didn't see vulnerabilities, of course. They were always there.

People just wanted to pretend that they didn't exist because they wanted him to be some mythical figure who was a superhero because they've been watching too much avengers movies okay well welcome back to earth these are prize fighters these are humans it doesn't work that way however what is very possible is you take this existing performance danny and if he's like izzy against gastelum he's going to learn from those mistakes and be significantly better the next time out especially given his relative youth is that not a fair interpretation oh yeah for sure i mean i think hamsa learned a lot about himself here and again i would have to say something catastrophic would have to happen along his development process uh for him not to achieve a potential of being ufc

champion i mean this is everything that he's shown. He's a guy that, you know, works extremely hard. I mean, almost too hard. Like his lifestyle is just fighting. Like you even see him in his time off, like we're trying to wrestle Darren Till and Darren Till's like, yo, chill. Like we're not in the, you know, we're not in the training room right now, but he's just on fight mode on martial arts mode 24 seven. So I think you can expect evolution from that guy. I think, you know, the whole smash persona and I'm going to do this and I'm going to run through everybody. That's a bit of persona. I think that deep down inside, he is a guy that's very coachable.

He is a very humble guy when taking advice, when learning lessons. So I do expect him to evolve from this fight. I mean, there's so many good takeaways, so many things that he learned about himself, not only for us, the analysts, the fans, but like just himself, like he, he took really hard shots from probably one of the hardest punchers in the division. He can now have full confidence that he has an amazing chin. He can now have full confidence that he can be in a high pace fight, grueling fight with a lot of damage and still perform throughout 15 minutes. I mean, there's just so much to learn um i just you just can't help but but feel inspired and and let your imagination run wild when it comes to the future of homestead i mean if you're disappointed i just i don't get i don't get yeah you're a clown is what danny is trying to be nice about

you're a clown yeah what i would say but Here's the thing, though. I said this on a broadcast I did. That punch that Doreno landed on him in the second round, is that the hardest punch Doreno's ever landed? Serious question. I know he's knocked guys out before, so maybe you could say that because it knocked him out. That wasn't

Hamza Chamayev he was landing previous punches on. Dude, Doreno, he put everything or nearly everything into that, and it landed clean as a whistle. For Hamza to withstand that alone is remarkable. Yeah, it's funny. Now that you mention it and I'm thinking about it, yeah, Dourinho's sort of knockouts and finishes,

they've sort of graced their opponents. I do think that this is the first time where, you know, he connected. Something landed flush. And I want to shout out Jorge Rubio. He's fairly an unknown figure. One of a Cuban boxing trainer here in South Florida that has trained the likes of Teofimo Lopez. And he does a lot of work with MMA guys and BKFC as well.

And, yeah, dude, he's extensively training with Dourinho Burns. His boxing was clearly on point in this one and uh and yeah i think um i know a little bit off topic but i think this race is durino's burn stock a ton as well i mean who's not excited to see durino burns get back in there uh in terms of what hamza did really well you highlighted the takedown defense and there was that one takedown where gilbert i think it was the one you mentioned had him dead to rights in the third and like a panther he just kind of lipped out of it and even maintained risk control. It was just ridiculous. So the takedown defense was on lead.

I thought some of the boxing was good too. That jab was from his power hand. He's normally orthodox. He switched to southpaw. Gilbert didn't see it coming. It cracked him. He had success from that stance the entire time. There were some good boxing pivots. There were some good leg kicks. There was some decent defense, although the defense to defense to me Danny and this is true for a lot of good fighters who are still a little bit newer right the offense tends to get better quicker than the defense you mentioned him being coachable did you not so two questions one what did you like from him aside from the takedown defense and two was it not true that after the fight that Hamzat seemed to recognize that like listening to his, was it not true that after the fight that Hamzat seemed to recognize

that listening to his coaches was important, that, hello, guys at the very top actually are a lot tougher than you think, and that he seemed to realize that a different approach is going to be necessary from here on out? Yeah, I think he took a lot of lessons. I think one of the biggest things,

apart from his takedown defense, was just the survival instinct and just the attitude when the going gets tough. You've seen it. Once adversity hits, some guys get cracked. You don't feel well. Your head is about to explode. You have a huge headache. You're exhausted.

Fighters start acting differently, and Hamza Shema kept that sort of animal inside of him, that dog inside of him that dog inside of him that makes him who he is alive the entire time that never went away uh so he definitely overcame adversity so I think that's uh that's a thing that I liked a lot um one thing apart from um that you mentioned the striking defense I do think is because of his wrestling style because he's so big and so tall he's always going to be a little bit susceptible. He's not your Volkanovski, you know, smaller, slim, agile guy who's going to sort of bob and weave and use all this movement to get out of strikes. But I do think there's a lot of work to be done.

I don't think there was much head movement from Hamsad. But to his credit, man, his chin's brand new. Gilbert Burns just, you know, just sort uh inaugurated him into sort of taking damage so i mean he still has so much miles left in in in his uh tank because uh again he hasn't taken much damage and uh so far he's got an amazing chin and i don't see that going anytime soon so we're gonna see if you how coachable he is this is a real transition point for him potentially it is in terms of his status, certainly,

but in terms of where he can go, I will say I do have one concern. My one concern is once you get to this level, sometimes it can be hard to really work on your development. That's true getting to the UFC. That's true getting into the top 10

and top five. You have to make sure that not just that you have a ready skill set, but that your process doesn't get interfered with. I am a little bit concerned that getting to this point as quick as he has could delay or derail him. Or, well, I don't know. It may not do anything. One of the things that could happen is that he doesn't take the proper lessons

or there's not enough time because they throw him to the wolves and something else goes on and therefore he can't get the most out of himself because he is now fast-tracked in a way where if he had gone a little bit slower, he could have worked on that's partly contractual. I don't know what else. There could be a few factors in there, not just about what kind of competition he feels like he's ready for. That's the point I'm trying to make. But even with that, he is taking a bit of a slower approach. And I think his ascension at or near the top of the division is, I won't say inevitable, but perhaps likely or certainly something to watch. I will say that. Want to own part of the airline you flew with on your last vacation? Or part of the company that makes your favorite triple shot latte with extra foam? What about owning part of a company that one day could send you on a tour of outer space? Now you can. With partial shares from TD

Direct Investing, you can own part of your favorite companies. Just pick a stock and decide how much to spend on the share. It's a piece of cake. Learn more at TD.com slash partial shares. TD, ready for you. Concerns me a little bit as we go forward. Now, Danny's frozen. Do we have, can Gaff, can the audience hear you? We had Corey set up on Friday for that.

Can the audience hear you? No. Danny's frozen? Okay. With that, I was going to ask where we go here with Gilbert, but I don't know what the answer would be unless we look at the rankings here very quickly. Gilbert was, of course, sitting, where was he sitting? He was sitting at two. This is going to bump him back. I don't think where Hamza was sitting, which was at 11, but it might bump him probably still inside the top five

because you've got Leon behind him, Vicente, and Bilal. I was thinking that Gilbert could potentially fight the loser of that because Luque and Bilal Muhammad are sitting respectively at four and five. So it would still be within that space, and that's a very competitive fight. The only sort of downside there is Vicente and Gilbert may not want to fight one another. So it kind of trips you up there a little bit about which way to go. We're going to work on getting Danny back. I mean, it's never going to be easy, folks.

Technology is your friend. Technology is your foe. We will march on. All right, let's move on a little bit if we can. Danny will pick up with us when he joins us again. Let's talk about topic number four. Topic number four, let's switch gears here a little bit if we can. Danny will pick up with us when he joins us again. Let's talk about topic number four. Topic number four, let's switch gears here a little bit.

There will be some more UFC analysis and extra credit, but let's talk about Triple G here just a little bit. So over the weekend, Triple G defeated Ryota Murata in the ninth round to unify the IBF and WBA middleweight titles. 40 years old, still unifying titles. Pretty impressive. So the question here is, operatively, it's sort of a similar-ish question about Hamzat, given that Hamzat's a totally different space in his career,

but you'll see. The question for Triple G is, did he prove enough to make any of you think that he has a chance with Canelo the third time around, given what happened in the first, given what happened in the second, setting it up. I'll say this for the fight. If you missed it, it was a tale of,

well, there was a real turning point moment, I think in the fourth or the fifth, where Triple G drills Murata with a right hand, knocks his mouthpiece out, and Murata was really never the same after that. But before that, especially in that second and third rounds, dude, Triple G was getting eaten alive to the body. Murata had a decent game plan to start and looked to be as in it as he could be.

He was pressing Triple G back. He was closing the space down. He was staying active. And as I mentioned, he was kind of getting Triple G to hunch over hunch over hunch over and lean out with his elbows and then he was digging around to the body and do Triple G was backing up he was visibly covering up you could tell taking long breaths when he could and then trying to strain to hold himself I mean he was having a ton of problems with it, but he landed a devastating

right hand about midway through what ended up being the total fight. So about nine rounds or so, eight rounds and some change. And from there, the fight was completely different. He was marching Murata down. He was using that corkscrew punch that he used on Maidana to come over the top. But we got Danny back here. We'll bring Danny in just a sec. Danny, we're talking about Triple G here and how the fight turned about halfway through and he came down on him and from that point he looked like the triple g of old so he he went to another fighter's backyard after a long layoff and dealt with adversity early to show like vintage triple g dot dot dot in the end so the question then goes back to you danny

about this did he show you enough to make you think he has a shot against canelo in the trilogy danny hang on your your mic your mic fell out again they're gonna they're gonna take care of you so hang on we'll get danny back here in just a second we'll take over but i certainly well i gotta tell you i'm actually not as high on this as Danny is, candidly. Is what Triple G did impressive? No question. Is what he did resilient? No question.

I do not wish to undermine or in any way suggest that what he showed against Murata on Saturday was admirable. It absolutely was. Especially that, you know, dude, I mean, Murata took it to him and he had to kind of, Triple G did, wrestle the fight back, so to speak, metaphorically speaking anyway. He had to kind of wrestle it back and then from there sort of put it on him. Dude, Murata was not a wallflower in this contest at all. However, that said, even if in the end you saw something approximating vintage Triple G after he lands the right hand and he's corkscrew punching him and he's backing him up and he's eating him alive and the whole thing, yes, in the end you got certainly a taste of that. And Murata's no pushover.

But if you couldn't get that done against Canelo however many years ago at this point, the first time, and granted the judging was not great there. I didn't agree with it either. And then the second time, now with the age kind of catching up with him, I don't want to say he looked elderly or infirm, but he didn't look as good as he did even in the second Canelo fight versus even the first. Canelo has only looked I mean Canelo's in his absolute prime at the moment he is in the center of the bullseye on

the target it's not that I don't believe that Triple G couldn't make it competitive in spots or wouldn't necessarily deserve to be there it's just that dude i don't i don't know what you could have seen from that make you think like okay this is still a very competitive fight for by contrast holloway took a bit of a rough fight against yair and you know i think that was much tougher than expected but he's still young enough where i'm like okay the distance between what he is now and then the first fight, it is some damage, it is worth taking seriously, but I don't know that that's like altering

my perception of what's possible. At 40, even as good as he looked in the end, the early part of this and sort of the general context, it just does not inspire confidence to me about what is possible. And also, by the way, we should note the trilogy with Canelo is not inevitable if in any way Canelo loses to Bivol.

If he loses to Bivol at 175, then this whole thing is out the window. All right, I really don't know where Danny's at, and I don't want to belabor the boxing topic, so let's just move here along if we can. Point number five, we'll talk about quickly the other parts of the weekend in boxing. All right, so we start with Erickson Lubin and Sebastian Fundora.

This was a ridiculous fight of the year candidate on Showtime. Again, that same division, 154 pounds. The winner here you knew was looking for the winner of the rematch just in five weeks from now with charlo and castagno and it delivered in all the action 154 pounds and sebastian fundora is basically with shoes on six foot six and erickson lubin i think is five nine or so a dramatic difference in frame it looked like bruce lee in what was it game of death or whatever the name of that one was we had to fight kareem abdul-jabbar in the movies. I mean, it resembled that. It was the guy, they didn't even look to be even remotely in the same weight class,

and yet they were. And Lubin, who I thought was going to get a ninth round stoppage, not be the victim of one, I thought was the slicker boxer. And in moments, he kind of, for a lot of moments actually, he was the slicker boxer of the two. He was going to the body. He was using the body and then going upstairs. And early on, he was kind of sticking and moving.

And by the way, when the fight was stopped at the end of the ninth, the corner of Lubin tossing it because Lubin's face, I don't know if we have any photos of it, his face looked terrible. Terrible. I don't know what exactly was happening in terms of any breaks underneath in terms of his face i don't know he had a giant hematoma between the eyes here we go getting danny back here he had a giant hematoma between the eyes and it looked like

i don't know he had been stung by some kind of allergic insect or or so it was it was weird it was a bad swelling and his corner kind of stopped it even though he had dropped fundora in the ninth this is the point i wanted to make dude fundora was raining on him constantly touching constantly getting in his face and basically the biggest issue for lubin was not that he couldn't land big punches and drop him in the seventh he could not get fundora off of him look at how much damage takes place by fundora getting close pressing the action pressing into the clinch even though he's the taller guy and that ended up making the difference do we have danny back now we got him back yeah i'm here can you hear me here we are hi danny fundora and lubin your impressions i'm so excited to talk about this fight. I'm actually a Sebastian Fundora fan.

The first time that I saw him fight was in the undercard for Tyson Fury versus Deontay Wilder 2, I believe. He fought a guy that was like 5'7". And I remember just Teddy Atlas in many ways just kind of hammering him like, Yo, why is this guy fighting in the pocket? Why is this guy fighting at close range? Look at his his attributes he should be fighting using the jab and using the distance but fundora is this weird guy that's so big for the weight class 6-6 at 154 and uh yet he's able to fight at every single distance even despite his you know big and lanky frame i mean in the pocket he's very good at medium distance he's he's really good. If he wants to, you know, fight at long range, he can also do that.

I think Sebastian Fundura has tons of potential. I really like that kid. And you don't have any issue with the stoppage, right? Dude, Lubin's face, I don't know what was wrong with it, but it looked bad. Dude, his face has nothing. I mean, sorry, Joaquin Jace chick's forehead has nothing on on lubin's face i mean it looked like it was warping and kind of going off to the side it was it was uh getting to a point that it could be something very dangerous i don't know if there's any update on his injury

but something had to be broken right yeah between the eyes i think even and that was the part that really it made me sad because lubin you know he really suffered a reputational harm as a consequence of the loss to Charlo. When that first round knockout was terrible and everyone's like, oh, he doesn't have a good chin. And he did get knocked down here. But this fight wasn't stopped because his chin failed him. This fight was stopped because some kind of injury was looking really dangerous. And so Lubin, while he was, and that was the other part, Lubin was winning on the scorecards. But dude, to me, it's like Fundora's capacity for volume,

it doesn't make sense that he fights this way. But beating a guy as quality as Lubin, he is the rightful guy to challenge for all the belts, whoever wins between Charlo and Castaño. It's it. 100%, dude. And he looks like a really good kid. He's got a good head on his shoulders.

He almost has sort of like an innocence to him a little bit. He's definitely working hard. I give him a chance against the winner of Charlo versus Castaño. He's probably going to be the underdog, obviously. He's evolving. He works hard at the gym, you can tell. He's disciplined. He definitely has a shot.

If you're asking which belt that is, since Charlo and Castaño are fighting for all of the major ones in the weight class this is the interim one so you know nice that he got one but he even said i want the real one i want the one and i didn't think he was going to do it either dude i really thought lubin was going to get it but yeah nora extremely impressive in his in his win all right let's talk about this over on the zone ryan garceau demolished Emmanuel uh Tago I think it's how they pronounce it not to go but Tago in a unanimous decision victory like obviously I said on DAZN okay I gotta tell you this was his first new fight with Joe Goosen he trained with him a long time ago he'd been more recently with in Canelo's team with Eddie Reynoso

Goosen known for a come forward fight style now Now, Danny, you know this as well as I do. Depending on... Okay. We may have further technical difficulties with Danny. We'll see what happens. But this is the point I wanted to make. You guys let me know if he's around. This is the point.

If you watch this fight, and DAZN, by the way, even if you're not a DAZN subscriber, just sort of a heads up, they put out like 15 minutes of highlights on this. wasn't that Ryan Garcia didn't look good he looked fine it wasn't that he didn't have big punches or he dropped a you know Tago in the second he did but and again a huge part of this could be Garcia looked a certain way based on who he was fighting he wouldn't try some of those things against somebody else who might offer more of a threat.

Fair enough. But I did not love the way that he fought. Not because it cost him, it didn't. Not because it was not exciting at times, it was. But what really bummed me out was that, A, it wasn't as effective as it needed to be, partly because of Tego's game plan. But the other part was, A, it wasn't as effective as it needed to be, partly because of Tego's game plan.

But the other part was, it left so much wide open space for counterattacks that yes, while I outside wonder if those openings were a function of just who he fought, but I don't know, because Tego was kind of connecting a little bit later in the fight. I'm just pointing out, if that's the way he fought just this time no problem

no problem it's fine for what it was if that's his new style and again it's not like he looked completely new but you know really emphasizing certain parts of the Ryan Garcia experience if that's what he takes into fights against Devin Haney Lopez Camb, Cambosis, Davis, or we'll see if he goes to 140 or not. But if he fights any of those guys with that style, he's going to get lit on fire. That is not a style at all that's going to serve him well against the very best that this division has to offer.

And again, I'll say it. A lot of guys, Taylor, it was his first fight back in 15 months. He'd had surgery. He changed camps. He had flirted with, and I should say it. A lot of guys, Taylor, it was his first fight back in 15 months. He'd had surgery. He changed camps. He had flirted with, and I should say, let me be more accurate about it. He had talked about publicly serious mental health issues. Fine. I don't, getting a win here was important.

And they selected an opponent where they made that possible as they could. Fine. I'm just telling you, if what you saw in this fight is taken over to any fight against anybody who's really respected this division ryan garcia is going to taste the canvas a lot danny you saw this fight you know what i'm talking about do you share my trepidation or do you have a more optimistic view um i do share them but i do have also a little bit of a more optimistic view in the sense that, yes, he does have these deficiencies in his striking defense. And, you know, against a big puncher like Tank Davis or some of the other guys or somebody as technical as Haney, like that's definitely going to cost them.

But at the same time, how old is Ryan? Like 23, 24? Yeah, I'll look it up exactly. Yeah, he's still very, very young. Tank Davis is like 27. All these other, he's still very, very young. Tank Davis is like 27. All these other guys have like a few years above him. So in evolution, in training, in fights, in experience, et cetera, et cetera. And I like that he's now with Joe Goosen. Joe Goosen is obviously a very respected coach, a veteran.

There you go. Somebody that's very structured, someone that's very serious, someone that's not going to be just a yes man so um we'll see we'll see i think the the evolution is still very early into ryan's career but just because he's such a big star we're already kind of putting him up with these bigger names that are further along in the evolution and uh and in that progress so so well let's wait and see if these striking deficiencies still exist a year or two from now and we don't see improvement, I think there's something to worry about. Okay, fair enough.

Long review is certainly warranted here. One more note on this fight before we move on to DMs. I was looking, I always check YouTube trending on various points of Sunday, and these are all a function of what your geographic location is. So if you're in the UK, you'll have geographic location is so if you're in the UK you'll have a different one than if you're in the United States but here in the States I checked it on Sunday several different times of all the

fights that took place over the weekend so Triple G so the Showtime one so UFC and now this one the one that was highest up in terms of the ranking sitting at number two is the highest I saw it may have gone higher was the Ryan Garcia fight the highlights on DAZN there were there were more ufc hamzat videos on the top 25 or whatever it is so there was more of them but the highest placed one was ryan garcia dude he is still

extremely popular as an attraction oh yeah huge and he taps into the pop culture audience like the sort of jay pauls and milk boys and sort of he's friends with all those people. So, you know, he's definitely into like another world beyond the combat sports world as far as Starwise. And look, I mean, I think he he obviously has a lot of traction. I don't know if we're going to discuss what's next for him, but I want to see him in a big fight. I think it's so early in his career that even if he takes an L you know dude there's so much time to recover and it'll be like a redemption story etc etc i think uh the time is now to put ryan garcia in a big fight i don't know i don't know i'm i have a little bit more concern than you as your point is well taken but this was this

was this was to me he looked a little rusty to me. He looked rusty to me. He didn't look rusty to you? I mean, he hadn't fought in a while, suffered issues with the hand, also, as you mentioned, the mental health issues. And also, let's be fair, his opponent didn't go in there to fight, man. His opponent just went to go the distance, and that's tough.

In MMA, it's a lot easier to get a guy out of there if they don't want to fight you. But in boxing, with those big gloves, it's a lot easier to get a guy out of there if they don't want to fight you. But in boxing, with those big gloves, it's a lot easier to sort of carry yourself and put yourself in a decision and just lose every single round. I mean, I saw Yodrim go three rounds with Canelo. You know what I'm saying? In MMA, that would never happen, like a world-class fighter going three rounds with somebody that's not so great.

So I think he did look a little bit rusty, but his opponent had a lot to deal with it too. All right. That concludes our top five topics here for the day. Let's move now to the next segment of the show. It's time for DMs from donks. This is where all the donks get to ask us questions. Hee-haw.

All right. You guys know how it works. Every Sunday we post a little video, or I'm sorry, a little photo on Instagram. And then in the comments, we ask for your submissions. The producers pick them. I haven't seen them, but I think I have them now, if I'm not mistaken. Let's see. Do I have them there? Gaff? Just put him up on the screen. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. All right. From Buzz the Blogger.

Is Ray Longo underappreciated by MMA fans and media? He coached Matt Serra to beat GSP. He coached Chris Weidman to beat Anderson Silva. Now he just coached Aljamain Sterling to beat Peter Jan, Piotr Jan. Is it time, Danny Segura, for everyone to put some respect over there on Ray Longo's all right all right so danny's gone i'm not sure what we're going to do about this because this is an ongoing challenge so what i will say to that is it's a fair point by danny the only point that

i would raise here is um i live through the post sarah and post weidman media cycles where he got a lot of attention and all of it was warranted. So to me, you know, I may have slept on Sarah and I did pick Weidman to beat Silva, by the way. So that wasn't as much of a surprise, but certainly I never thought in a million years Sarah was going to win. So that was no shock at all. Or that's right. That was the I mean, that was, was you know i never never saw that coming so i think that there might be a an argument to be made that like you know through various years media cycles that there's not enough attention on longo these days but i can tell you over the course of his career he's gotten a lot of praise from folks um the the the bigger point for me is that you know for longo to do what he's doing is is is remarkable but i understand

why like oh like when when sterling's like how did all these people get it wrong dude if all we have we're not there with longo you know all we have is what we saw what we what they in the first fight what they say in the media clips of of training footage, and that's it. There's not much to go on besides that. We have very little information about what's

to make a determination, so of course you're going to have incomplete information. Longo is there. He can see it all. They can bring this all to bear, so he can go in there with a lot of confidence like you heard some of the things he was telling Aljamain between rounds like different fight blah blah blah you know he has this long arc of history he can see all the stuff and he's there day to day so like you know this is sort of a separate question rather than

you know who likes Longo who does it does he get enough praise I think if you've been around long enough you've seen Longo definitely get his flowers but yes this only adds to the mystique but I was just sort of making a larger point you know he's going to have a very inspired view of Aljamain in part because they train together and they're you know they're close in association but also because he was there for the last camp that's a lot of information I didn't I didn't know if he could do that turns out he could next question here we go now I got these in front of me. From O'Reilly7402, which fighter has the better chance of becoming a UFC champ or at least having the better career in the UFC,

Paddy Pimblitt or Ian Gary? Oof. Well, becoming champ, I'll say Gary, but they're both very far from that. And that's not me hating. That's just saying, just watching their placement. Does not in any way mean they won't get there, but they've got work to do.

In terms of having the better career, Patty looks to me like he's already got a lot of popularity to work with. And if he can usefully manage that and turn it into something, we just talked about Korean Zombie. Now Korean Zombie's mystique is based off of not just you know taking a lot of punches but also getting a twister knockout wins all the kinds of things he's done to capture the fan base so you have to go in there and do that um but in terms of like you know obviously where they're at i'll say i have a i have a higher i don't have enough information to answer this one very accurately my feeling feeling as it stands, you're asking me this today,

is that I have a higher upside view of Gary, but I don't know that that's true. I could be totally wrong, so take that for what it's worth. All right, from the ever-reliable Telvin Kipapa, best MMA walkout song ever. Um, the zombie by the cranberries is probably up there. Anybody who says sweet Caroline should be defenestrated.

It's the worst fucking song ever. It's never been cool. It's never been good. You can only sing it when you're drunk. No one, I mean, no one really wants to sing that sober and it's a good reason for that. It fucking sucks and I hate it. So let's put that as the number one most awful.

But if we're talking best, that's a good one. I've seen some other good. You know, when he used to come out, this sounds antiquated, but when Vanderlei Silva used to walk out to Sandstorm by Darude and Pride, dude, that was huge. And that song blows, but that walkout was epic um so those are up there what's some other good ones um i think tony ferguson's got a great walkout song with like the sort of 80s b-boy dance thing um but those are probably some top top ones all right from tv

gc mma should uf UFC introduce yellow cards like in Pride, though for inaction for both ground and stand-up? I've long believed that this is a great thing. You heard there was a little chatter on Twitter on Saturday night when Joe Rogan was like, I don't believe in stand-ups at all. If a guy can hold you down, then you should hold it down. There's this sense, and I think that's wrong, by the by the way i mean it's just a difference of opinion but i i would disagree with rogan pretty considerably for a lot of reasons one is that people think a fight

should be pure and that you shouldn't interfere with it in some way by putting certain rules and restrictions on it and the thing that is most open is the one that is the most truthful and therefore should not in any way be altered. I don't really agree with that. I mean, yes, you don't want to have so much heavy-handedness that the fight becomes unrecognizable to what it should be. But what I would say is having a mechanism, first of all, there's no such thing as a fight's purity. More to the point, wrestling is a part of MMA.

In wrestling, the referees are aggressive about enforcing action. Borrowing wrestling without wrestling's mechanisms for making wrestling even remotely exciting seems like a terrible idea, right? Yes, we want the sport to be authentic, okay, as possible, but we are selling tickets to this. There does need to be, if not an entertainment quotient, the action needs to keep moving

unless there are very specific considerations, like someone's got the back or whatever. Short of that, we've got to keep this thing moving. It's better for the sport. I think it's better for the observational experience, and it is part and parcel of what makes sport what it is. If you want sport to be... Listen, if you wanted to have MMA fights where there weren't time limits and whatever else outside of commission restriction,

if you could find a place to do it, and you want to do it as an experiment to see what would happen, that's fine. I don't think you get a better product in the end. From CLP Film, Herb Dean made the right call by stopping Volk and KZ when he did, but only after both zombies corner and the ring doctor said he was okay to continue. This again brings up the tenuous issue. Who should stop the fight when the fighter is too tough for their own good? Well, it's why you don't want one or the other.

It's why you want the referee to have that capacity for the ringside. Well, only the ringside doctor can do it, but once the fight is starting, the referee can do it. The corner can wave it off. And then the doctor can tell the referee what his opinion is or her opinion. You want all of those safety valves in place in case there are multiple forms of failure. And in fact, that's how you would have to get to a situation where in fact you had that. You would have to get to a moment where um all of those safety valves have

failed and then the fight keeps going but you you want as many of those in place as possible now what that ends up doing is it creates this sort of situation where it's like well you do it no you do it no you do it no you do it and then nobody ends up doing it but in general what i would say is that that's not typically the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that the people who don't want to do it, the doctor in Nevada is going to be a little bit more forgiving. And the corners in MMA, you know, listen, I'm not saying that the Korean zombie doesn't have a good corner.

He has a great corner. Those guys know a lot about him, and I know that they care about him. All those things are true. But they should not have sent him back out there for that fourth round they did not do him any favors I've strenuously disagree with that decision to do that even in a title fight you saw what it got him didn't get him anything and I as a general perspective I believe in MMA we're gonna we're gonna have to see something tragic happen before there's any wake-up call on this I don't think you can argue there's nothing i luke thomas

can say to convince people who have been in cornering for 5 10 15 years or however long it's been who've been in these gyms who've been in coaching i'm going to come up here and declare to them you should stop this fight they're going to tell me to go fuck myself until something catastrophic happens that speaks to these little broader concerns that people raise there won't be a eureka moment it's just the way it goes, unfortunately. Just the reality of things. So there's that. All right.

We're almost done here because we've had... All right, I guess I just have to end this one on my own. Last but not least, we do odds and ends. So I put out a call for have you seen this shit stuff? And then you guys sent me... There was a you guys sent me there was a few good ones there was a few good ones but the overwhelming majority was stuff i couldn't use someone literally sent me a tiktok of just appreciating wonder woman's ass i was like it's not anything i can really use today thank you um okay be that as it may. Odds and ends. I did want to remind folks of the upcoming Bellator fight card.

I don't know if we have a picture of it or a video of it or not. If we do, I'd like to see it just the same. But I wanted to remind folks, Friday on Showtime. Here it is. McKee Pitbull 2. Two world title fights. Friday on Showtime. This is not Showtime pay-per-view, of course.

Just regular old Showtime. So Showtime.com. 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, pound sand. By the way, Showtime did not ask me to make this my odds and ends. I'm doing this because, listen, you guys know when Bellator doesn't put on a good product, I'm going to say it sucks. I don't care. It doesn't bother me at all. I'm not going to tell you guys something I think is bad, is good, just because of who I work for. If they don't like it, tough. But here's what I am going to do. If the product is good, I'm going to tell you,

this is a good product. Nemkov versus Anderson, to me, has very much the winner getting a rightful claim to being the very best light heavyweight on earth. And again, that's debatable, certainly, of course, no doubt about it. And everyone's like, oh, Corey Anderson's lost in the UFC. Well, if you haven't been paying attention

to what he's been doing, you're missing out on some pretty epic performances. And Vadim Nemkov appears to be the real deal Holyfield. Shocking what he can do, how talented he is. Not perfect by any stretch, but he's got so much going for him. And then you have the greatest fighter in Bellator history against the greatest homegrown product

I've maybe ever seen top to bottom. Here we have Danny coming on in. Incredible fight card. Danny, thoughts on this fight card? Sorry about all the technical issues. It is what it is. We have a very particular setup. It's not what people think, so it's hard to explain.

But in any case, your thoughts on this particular fight card? Just real quick, I know somewhere BC has a big smile on his face. But anyways, neither here nor there. Dude, this fight card is amazing i mean maki is i don't know exactly where he's at but it's certainly he's a great fighter and uh among the very best and the more he fights the more answers we get so certainly uh one of the great one of the greats that we're seeing at 145 pounds so that's a must watch if he wins the rematch convincingly just as he did the first fight dude i mean he's up there he's in that conversation for sure and the same thing can be said about light

heavyweight cory anderson was a top contender in the ufc vadim nankov seems to be the real deal and just running through everyone as well i'm super excited for these bellator fights all right and then for you your odds and ends are what good sir yeah so i don't know if we want to play the video uh but uh so i wanted to get um not provide an update but more to provide like a lack of update on zabit magomed sharipov obviously we just saw the featherweight title being displayed on saturday so he's very relevant in the conversation but uh i had asked ali abdelaziz his manager maybe like a month ago at an ego fc event hey what's up with Zabit? He kind of danced around the answer and said, look, Zabit's going to come back whenever he's going to come back.

I asked Dana White at the presser on Saturday, hey, what's going on with Zabit? I don't know what's going on with Zabit. He was like genuinely surprised. That kind of question took him by surprise. So I don't know what's going on with Zabit. So the question that I want to throw to you is, has his body of work expired? Can we forget about him as a contender now and he has to start over when he comes back? Because the last time he fought, scientists didn't even know COVID-19 existed.

And I'm not talking about the Florida scientists. I'm talking about the other ones. I mean, the last time he fought was back in November 2019. Quickly, we have audio. we have audio they have the audio of this, let's roll it I saw the featherweight belt on the line a lot of contenders obviously in the division but a lot of people are wondering what's going on

with Zabit Magomedsharipov do you know what's going on with him what's the update, he hasn't fought in a while and you just haven't Zabit I don't. What's going on? Zabit. Zabit? I don't know what's going on with Zabit. Yeah, I don't know the answer to that question.

When's the last time you talked to him? I haven't. I haven't done. Yeah, I don't know what's going on. The matchmakers would know what's going on with that. I don't know. I have no idea. You had spoken about Magomed Sharipov and Zabit and sort of his future. You said that you were going to go and meet with the UFC and discuss what's next. And you said like in the next couple of weeks, meaning almost a month ago now.

Can you give us an update on him? Let me give you an update. What about Eagle FC's rating? They have, I think, a total of 930,000 views to 57% in the US 20% in Canada Russia is the fourth, I believe Australia the third, right? I think the Eagle FC, the ratings

of the roof, honestly, I didn't believe it, and I went back to the guys who run this place, I said, can you give me the numbers and they gave me the numbers, and I think PFL to almost get 1 million views uh for the first show i think was unbelievable we'll get back to the beat the beat i think uh i don't know what's a beat down you know when he's ready to fight he's gonna let me know but for right now he's not doing nothing well i appreciate the time ali i know we got a presser that's about to start so appreciate the time thank you so much all right

yeah there you go there you have it very cryptic stuff and if you look at his instagram he's not We've got a presser that's about to start. So appreciate the time. Thank you so much. All right. Yeah. There you have it. There you have it. Very cryptic stuff. And if you look at his Instagram, he's not really training. It's mostly him helping his brother, Hasan, who's a very good fighter in Bellator. And also, you know how I'm super annoying with my 1997 Land Rover Discovery, and I take mad pictures of it and put it on Instagram?

He's the same way, but the caucus mountain version he has this badass black horse and takes pictures of the horse at the beach running around he even has like fan art on on his instagram about the horse uh pretty cool stuff but not much fighting well it's unfortunate to hear but if he's happy that's really all i care about i guess we'll have to see it's a good good good uh good thing to ask about. All right, Danny, that is the show for today. Sorry for all the tech difficulties out there, folks. We will work on it. And I'll also say this. Next time we get down to Miami, we've got to bring you in studio.

We should be a little bit cleaner with that. Danny, good work over the weekend, and thank you so much. I want to remind folks, Showtime.com, 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. MorningCombat at gmail.com. That will be the email. Let's see. NordVPN, I want to thank them. MorningComb them morning combat dot store of course for the merch store for anyone looking for that

and uh yes that is a show more to come on extra credit be on the lookout for it plus some other stuff we got coming we got a big surprise coming for you guys very very soon i am traveling to another city tomorrow for something kind of fun so we we'll see how that goes. No details beyond that, but be on the lookout for it. Okay, Danny, thank you so much. Thanks to Malka. Thanks to Showtime. Thank you to, of course, CBS Sports. Until next time, may all of your gains be loyal.