MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 273 Results: Alexander Volkanovski vs. Korean Zombie | Chimaev-Burns | UFC 273 Post-Fight Show

Episode Date: April 10, 2022

At UFC 273, UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski faces the Korean Zombie (Chan Sung Jung) in the main event. In the co-main event, UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling faces off against former champ and current interim champion Petr Yan in a highly-anticipated rematch. Rising sensation Khamzat Chimaev also takes on Gilbert Burns in the biggest bout of his young career in a welterweight showdown. We'll go over the UFC 273 results and more from the ESPN+ pay-per-view fight card on our UFC 273 post-fight show/instant reaction. 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

TD Direct Investing offers live support, so whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Hi everybody, it is, let's, Jesus, it's a late one. It is 1.40 in the morning on the 10th of April, 2022. This is the official Morning Combat UFC 273 post-fight show slash instant reaction. My name is Luke Thomas. I am merely one half of the hosting duo here.

Brian Campbell is, of course, the other one. But this is today just an instant reaction. This is our immediate takes, our immediate analysis now that UFC 273 is in the books. So you can see right here, there is, wait, hold on, it's going to come up one more time. You can see right here, if you're watching on YouTube, the little subscribe button. Please subscribe, give this video a thumbs up. I mean, it's 1.40 in the morning, I'm trying to do a show for you. Give me a thumbs up, give me, it's 1.40 in the morning. I'm trying to do a show for you. Give me a thumbs up. Give me a subscribe.

You know you can. We have a lot to talk about, so we have not a moment to waste. So without further ado, let us... Oh, and of course, if you don't want spoilers, now is the time to bounce. But at this point, you know, who's up at 1.40 in the morning and doesn't want spoilers? Okay, without a moment's additional wasting, or whatever the hell I'm supposed to say here, let's get this party started. Alright, there we are. I will turn this off.

Man, that one went long, did it not? Jesus, that was... could have been shorter it felt like. Could have been shorter. There was a brief moment in time, I think they did it one time or maybe two times at most. This was maybe like 10 or 11 years ago. The UFC briefly, briefly tried a 9 p.m. East Coast start for pay-per-views. They wanted to try it out and see what happened. I forget which one it was.

You can look this up. It's a piece of trivia. I remember living through it and being like, this is great. And then they're like, no, we're going right back to 10. And I know everyone who's watching over in the UK or in Europe or wherever you're watching, I know. I know that you guys have it better. Or worse, I'm sorry.

And we have it better. I'm just pointing out, the event took place here. Right? It's not like you're up at 1.40 in the morning for whatever's happening there. Although, you know, Bisping and Henderson fought each other at 4 in the morning or whatever it was. Okay, UFC 273 is in the books. We have a lot to talk about. What we normally do is we start with the main, co-main, and then we work our way down from there.

A little bit different today. Based on the nature of the results themselves and the fights and all of the controversy, I'm going to go a little bit different today. For today's event, and I will not do this for the next one, we're going to start with Chemayev Burns, or Burns-Chemayev. We're going to move then to Sterling-Yon, and then we'll go to Volkanovski, Korean zombie. I'll read the results out now in case somebody is tuning in for them, but understand there's going to be a real clear purpose with this. Alexander Volkanovski

defeats the Korean zombie Chan Sung-Jung at 45 seconds of round number four. Frankly, it could have been stopped earlier. It was an absolute beating. Not the worst beating I've ever seen. But you want to talk about one-way traffic. And that is all that it was. Korean Zombie didn't win a single minute of this fight. Landed a few good punches. Landed some decent strikes here or there.

But that was a one-way. I hate to say it because I know we have such love and admiration for Chan Sung Jung. I've been watching this guy since the WEC days. I remember these days distinctly. That was really where he made his name at first. This was a one-way ass-kicking. Bokunovsky on a completely different level. Not even close.

We'll come back to it. Co-main event. Aljamain Sterling, the remains champion, defeats Piotr Jan via split decision. This one is highly controversial. 48-47, 47-48, based on the way that I read it, and then 48-47. A completely different fight than the first one. Totally, totally different, and the stats will really speak to this. We will compare the two when we get to it.

There are a lot of folks that scored that for Sterling. There are a lot of folks that scored that for Jan. A lot of folks had it 2-2 heading into the fifth. Some had it 3-1. Some had it 2-2 heading into the fifth. Some had it 3-1. Some had it 2-2 one way. Oh, sorry. Some had it 2-2, but they had the second round 10-8. Some didn't.

When I say people, I don't mean the judges. None of the judges scored it a 10-8. But there's a lot of feeling out there that the scores are kind of all over the place. But there's a bit of a feeling that maybe Jan deserved more consideration than he got. We'll talk about that, but there's no denying, no denying that people, myself included, I will raise my hand in that equation, slept on Aljamain Sterling. And there's a lot of people, I'll put myself in the L category of slept on Sterling. There's a whole other category beyond that of people who are outright hostile to the idea that Aljamain Sterling could win.

We'll revisit that in a second. But let's start with what was... I needed a cigarette or a vape when this fight was over. Hamzat Shemaev defeats Gilbert Burns, but this won't really tell the whole story. 29-28 across the board with all three judges. Let me pull up the numbers for this, although I'll get to these in just a second. Okay, we talked about this fight all week on Morning Combat. I had mentioned that this fight was historic because it is very rare that you see someone burn their way through a division as fast as Chumai have had.

Granted, only four fights prior to tonight. Not exactly the same sample size you got with Jones. And for that record, let me just go through here very quickly. When I say not the same as Jones, let me tell you how many UFC fights he had prior to fighting Shogun, which of course was the ultimate fight where he then took the title. So before that, he had Gusmao, Bonner, O'Brien, Hamill, Vera, Matyushenko, Bader. So he had seven fights, and his eighth was the title fight. In this particular case,

Chemayev had four fights. This was his fifth, although this was not for the title. And if he fights Colby, that'll of course make six, and you'll get a little bit closer at that point. You'll have more to say about it. But the point I wanted to make here about this fight is that we didn't know if this was going to be another replay of, as I had argued, could be similar to St. Pierre prior to UFC 54 or Daniel Cormier prior to the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix Final in 2012. And then, of course, I think UFC 54 was 2005. I think that's right. In any event, where you have this surging contender who is so full of promise but really untested against somebody who you could reliably use as an indicator. Not a gatekeeper who you kind of know what their pluses and minuses are.

And no fighter is perfect. They're all going to have pluses and minuses. But somebody who's really elite. Somebody who you know can test the very best, if not be the very best on the right day themselves. And you got something like that here. St. Pierre had to go up against Frank Trigg. Daniel Cormier had to go up against Josh Barnett. You can make a similar argument about Jones going up against Bader, although it's not quite the same. And what did you get with Hamzat Shemayya and Gilbert Burns today? First of all, you got absolutely two dogs getting after it from beginning of the fight to the end of it.

And I got to say, there's really no denying it, in part because it was so action-packed, in part because both of them kind of abandoned strategy late and they just kind of had a bit of a piss you know, a pissing contest to see who could just be like the, I mean, they were just throwing haymakers at the end there, you know, no setup, no faint, no nothing. They're covered in blood, covered in sweat. They're both tired. They're both hurt. They're just swinging huge haymakers. I mean, it turned into an undisciplined fight at the end of it, but I guess here's what I would say. One, clearly Gilbert Burns is deserving

of a lot more respect than what he got. Yes, the odds makers were ultimately correct that the favorite, in this case, Hamzat Shemaev won. But this, you know, you could make an argument that you know, maybe Burns snuck it out. Maybe it's possible. I didn't quite see it that way. I thought Hamzat had stuck it out. But Burns dropping Hamzat Shemaev badly, badly in the second round. Backing him up several times. Couldn't get the takedown, but forcing him to work. Clearly was the smaller guy. And I keep saying this. I have seen the text messages and the timestamps.

Gilbert Burns reached out to his manager to go request this fight. Sitting at number two, a billion other fighters would have declined it, and that's just business as usual. And he went out and sought it out. So Gilbert Burns at 35 was in excellent shape for this. He was well-trained for this. I mean, at 35, he has a fully developed game at this point. You know, he made a very strong account of himself.

And I had tweeted this, and I think other people I'm sure did, that both guys raised their stock with this performance. Gilbert Burns, I think a lot of people were like, there was a lot of just pro-Chemayev fervor, which is understandable. There's nothing wrong with that. I mean, it doesn't mean you have to agree with all of it, but understanding that it's there and that you kind of accept it a little bit for what it is is understandable. There's nothing wrong with that. I mean, it doesn't mean you have to agree with all of it, but understanding that it's there and that you kind of accept it a little bit for what it is, is fine. But it should not blind you. It should not blind you to the kind of threat

that Gilbert Burns was, man. And you saw Danny Segura's video down there and Will Harris from Anatomy of a Fighter. We talked him over at Morning Combat. He did a billion places in media. Dude, every indication was that he was in good shape. He wasn't too banged up for this. He had taken it seriously. He had done his homework. He did what he wanted to. Hamzat Shemaev had a hard time taking him down and making any use of it. Had a hard time, despite clearly having the larger frame of the two. So it ended up being a bit of a striking battle. I just wanted to start this conversation by noting you very much need to put some respect on Gilbert Burns' name. It is owed. It is deserved. He earned it. He showed you what he was made of in here and what he was made of up here.

Granted, again, at the end of the fight, he got a little bit undisciplined. At the beginning, he had to use all of that, and at the end, he had to kind of rely on his heart. But he's got gumption. He's got guts. What was it? Full metal jacket and guts is enough. Pretty impressive. We'll get into details round by round here in just a second. But let's talk about Hamzat Shemaev. Now, what did we learn from him? I have to tell you, I am very surprised at seeing some of the reaction. Now, granted, this is my immediate reaction. I have not had a chance to go back and watch the fight. My views could certainly change. I want to be clear about that. But based on what I saw tonight at 1.51 in the morning, I am surprised that there is a, I think people seem a little bit let down or something. And I have like the opposite reaction. I think people were expecting

Chemayev to go in there and just do the impossible, right? They thought he was going to go. He was fighting Gilbert Burns, man. Like it is possible. And of course we saw this on display that his punching power could have, you know, got him out of there pretty quickly. And in the future, it might. The guy's obviously heavy-handed. Clearly, the jab dropped Gilbert Burns, for crying out loud. I mean, the dude could punch. There's a question of how hard he was punching late. And again, there's a lot of questions about his discipline that we'll talk about.

But I am so surprised that the reaction is that, oh, okay, he won, and that's great. But, you know, he won, and that's great, but he looked raw, he was throwing caution to the wind, he got dropped, all this stuff. And it's like, guys, he fought Gilbert Burns, number one, who was super well-prepared, very much took this seriously, gave it everything he had, is experienced at the highest level in jiu-jitsu and a winner at the highest level multiple times, is experienced and a winner at the highest level here. Granted, he lost to Kimoru, but let's be

fair. This guy is at the, I mean, let there be no doubt about his ability and everything else about it. That's the guy you have to fight. He didn't, Kamzat, he didn't fight all that disciplined, especially as the fight wore on. He did get dropped and he still found a way to win in his 11th MMA fight, and the argument is, this is not great? I don't know what the fuck people are looking at. I don't know what they're expecting anymore. I cannot believe this. I genuinely cannot believe this. It is not to say that there aren't plenty of things that you could pick up on in his performance

and note that, wow, this is something that another guy could exploit. 100%. He is so full of energy that he doesn't use it effectively. He doesn't manage it effectively. He is clearly a heavy-handed striker, but I would say he's somewhat basic with the combinations. He has a great uppercut. He's sneaky with it. He has great hand speed. He has great power. And he does switch some stance, which is kind of interesting.

You got a bit of a better look at it. But it's not... And there's good feinting with the wrestling as well. I should be fair about that. But in terms of hand combination uh using angles and whatnot like there's there's not a whole lot of it there and then again as the fight wore on he's just winging shots that are draining that are you know missing widely that are you know just not smart calls at all um granted granted all of that is totally real. Fine.

There's a point to be had about that. If a guy can beat Gilbert Burns with that in his 11th pro fight, your takeaway should not be that like, oh, I guess he's not that great. Are you fucking out of your minds? You have to be awesome to handicap yourself in that way and still pull out the win? Jesus Christ, man. Jesus. I cannot, I genuinely cannot believe it. I cannot believe that the tenor is like, okay, amazing fight. He's great. But I saw people being like, oh, Kamaru's going to dog walk him. Here's the only real point of concern that I would have.

Beating Gilbert Burns the way he did. Again, with all of the things that were great, like his takedown defense was, you know, not only was he the bigger guy, but his takedown defense was obviously technical. But he was so strong. Gilbert Burns looked like he was trying to wrestle a guy two or three weight classes above him. It was crazy how strong Hamzat looked. Here's the question you have to ask yourself. When you jump to the front of the line that way and you can beat a guy as good as Gilbert Burns, even with somewhat limited tools in the way that he has,

the one problem is not that I think that this guy is bad. I mean, I have, if anything... That's fine. If anything, I had the opposite reaction. But what it could foretell is that he is underdeveloped relative to, I think, his peers now in the top five. Colby has got his pluses, he's got his minuses,

but he is a more developed fighter. Was he five, six years older than him, something like that, maybe more? Kumari, a much more developed fighter. Gilbert Burns, a very developed fighter. The point is, now that you jump to the front of the line this way, what does that do to your development from this point on? Because it is not that he is bad. It is that if he is so good being this raw, if he can keep developing this, it is, I mean, how could you have any other take than if you take what you saw today at 27 years old and you give him, you know,

I'm not, but he may not have this time, but you give him, let's say two years to really work more on his game. Would people really argue that that guy wouldn't be champion at some point? Cause how Kamaru would be what at that point, how old is Kamaru Usman, right? Let's assume Kamaru is, you know, as we imagine him to be generationally good. Kamaru Usman in two years would be 30. Actually, on May 11th, he turns 35. So he'd be closer to 37. That's the age at which Tyron Woodley began to experience decline at 170 pounds. So people would bet on a 37-year-old Usman over a 29-year-old Hamzat.

Again, with two years development, boy, I wouldn't take that bet. Maybe now I'd take that bet, Usman over him. Yeah, fine. I think there was enough to be like, okay, I don't know if he's the best guy, but he could also knock Usman out. The question is not, is he very good? Dude, he's amazing. He's amazing. The question is, there are still parts of his game that are noticeably raw and underdeveloped. Now that he is in the upper tier of the division, is he going to have sufficient time to really round out the rest of his game? And the answer is he might. He is naturally very good at MMA.

So that may not be as difficult a reformation process as it could be for other ones. But it is something to pay attention to. And in fact, what I would argue is probably the biggest challenge that he'll have. I mean, Colby's going to be a tough fight if they can make it. Obviously, Kamara's going to be a very tough fight if they can make it. I don't mean to say that those are easy fights. What I'm saying is, existentially, what is the biggest thing that he really would have to be mindful of? It's now that the margin for error against these guys is very limited.

Extremely. The margin of error against Kamaru Usman is limited. And when you can make errors this way, if you're as powerful as he is and your will is as iron determined as it is, and then parts of your other game are pretty good, right? Heavy handed, good wrestling, good pressure, good chin. You can kind of get away with it. He needs to work on that. That's big. So before I was thinking, well, if you beat Gilbert,

there is no other possible conclusion that you should be ready for a title shot. And maybe he could beat Usman, but now I am much more curious about the Colby fight, which of course, I guess after morning combat on Friday, UFC President Dana White had told maybe Pat McAfee, I think that's right, that the plan was they have an upcoming fight the UFC does. Yeah, okay. That's fine. The has an upcoming UFC fight on ABC and that they wanted to line up Hamzat versus Colby for that.

I think that's an important fight to make now. He needs more time to work on his stuff, and he needs to get dialed back a little bit. We'll talk about the Sterling fight in just a minute, but you can see what happens when you're able to more, you know, the Goldilocks syndrome. Not too hot, not too cold, right in the middle. Boy, it can do a lot for you.

There's more to the story than just that, but it obviously is a majorly contributing factor. But like, you know, what went right for Hamzat here, again, he is so strong for welterweight. He is so strong. His power is incredible. His feinting is actually surprisingly good when he really mixes in his takedown threats.

It's very good. He's a little hittable. He's a little hittable. He's a little hittable. His consistent pressure is pretty good, although that he can get chewed up with a little bit in that as well. He employs reach pretty decently. Has a bit of a jab, which I liked as well. He had some decent leg kicks himself. His kickboxing is okay.

Yeah, it's okay. It's okay. But what really sells it is that he's durable. He pushes forward. He makes guys panic. He makes them make mistakes. And then he's able to deliver punishing shots or make use of his wrestling or some combination of the two. But my takeaway is if that guy can do what he's doing through 11 fights, no, he couldn't beat Kamar Usman today. I don't think so. But let me read my tweet. What was the tweet that I had? It was, it was, let's see,

a bunch of Sterling tweets. Yeah, not invincible, but he's a title contender. I mean, he should be the number two guy in the world. That seems fair. And if he can keep progressing, there is simply no doubt he will be champion. Yes, if he can keep progressing. If he does, I don't, I really don't, I mean, I don't, yes. There's Shavkat Rachmanov coming, right? You guys know, if you're new to me, I have a personal YouTube channel.

There's a whole Shavkat Rachmanov study I did on there. I've been as high on that guy as you could be. And maybe if you jumped him to the front of the line, he would get a win like this on a night like this. I don't know. But I can say he's taking a bit of a slower approach, even though he's very young as well, relatively speaking. And I do think that at some point there's going to be a meeting between these two or some combination of him and Brady and whoever else surges up to the welterweight ranks. Yes, there's other guys coming.

I just really hope that, like, dude, if you can't appreciate a dude beating a guy this good in his 11th fight with weapons that's still this underdeveloped and still time to get them developed with all the other things that are going right then you just can't appreciate MMA I don't know what to tell you you have your criticisms have yes for some people I recognize they had him on Mount Olympus and you know he came back down to earth a little bit and so there is a little bit more recognition I didn't have him in Mount Olympus I had him in sort of no man's land. And to me that he can race out in front like this and do what he did to Gilbert, dropping him.

Let's go through some of the numbers here on the stats. It is truly remarkable, truly impressive in every way. Okay, so let's talk about the significant strike volume. They only had, Hamzat Shemayev had a total of 223 significant strike attempts. There was 200 attempts from Burns. Burns landed 119, so he technically landed more numerically, but of course qualitatively there can be a difference. 108 for Hamzat.

Hamzat still had a near 50% significant striking percentage. That's interesting. 59% for Gilbert Burns. All right, so Gilbert Burns in round one suffers the knockdown. That's interesting. 59% for Gilbert Burns. All right, so Gilbert Burns in round one suffers the knockdown. That was kind of big. And then, of course, he got majorly outstruck. In the second round, it was very much the opposite. Round two, Gilbert Burns scores 56 significant strikes to Hamzat's 37. Hamzat did get his takedown in round one and a takedown in round two. Gilbert Burns went 0-3 in takedowns in round two, but there was hardly any control time for Hamzat,

and this is what tells you the story. He got a takedown, but he only had 10 seconds of control time. Gilbert Burns did a phenomenal job, phenomenal job with a takedown defense. Never let himself get overwhelmed. Never consented to the, oh, I'm just going to accept this position. Never, ever, ever. Fought the hands nimbly, knew all the right steps to put himself back in there,

to get his hips square with his opponent, to get the underhook, to get pressure. I mean, he did a really, really good job with that. Round three, Gilbert Burns. Boy, this was a close one. 45 strikes to Hamzat's 44. So they have numerically nearly identical burns, 0 for 2 on takedown attempts. And you could say, oh, that should count for something,

but that's not meaningful offense, like failed takedowns. Unless it would lead to control time, which it didn't. He had four seconds of control time in round number three. But here's the deal. Another thing with Hamzat, he's a headhunter. At least he was in this bout. 77% to the head for Hamzat. Now Burns, not much different.

He's not much different. 74% to the head, but slightly here, he tuned it back or turned it back or whatever the proper, it's two in the morning. I can barely talk right. This is the difference. Burns went 18% to the body and just 6% to the leg. Again, this is in terms of targeting. So what landed and what missed, but what did you aim at? For Hamzat, 12% to the body and 9% to the leg.

So a little bit more body work. Nearly 20% of his strikes, One of five was targeting the body. And then, of course, nearly everything was at distance. A extremely competitive fight. I think in the end, for as much as Hamzat getting dropped, because he just put himself in these kinds of positions, he got dropped bad in round two. It did look like Gilbert was wearing the damage a little bit more, although Hamzat's face was cut open and the whole nine yards. But he got dropped bad in round two. It did look like Gilbert was wearing the damage a little bit more,

although Hamzat's face was cut open and the whole nine yards. But he got tested here. He got a bit of a wake-up call, too, about, you know, Hamzat, I think, fought the way he did because prior to tonight, he never had to think about a guy who could ever do anything to him. Right? You're like, oh, he fought so undisciplined. Right.

But he's 27 and he finally realized, okay, I can't just like motherfuck all these guys. Like all the ones that he had up to, you know, up to this point, yes, he had. But bro, you start getting on the upper echelon, it's a different ball game. Different ball game. And I think he got a bit of a wake-up call

with that tonight. But he's 27. He's at an elite MMA gym. There is very much reason to think if he can just harness that energy and put it back into brain power and back into discipline and learn from this sort of the raw way he fought, that there's a lot of that that might go away against Colby. By the way, the Colby fight might look totally different.

Or Colby could just wrestle his ass to death too. We will have to see. But the point I want to make is, if you watched him have bad habits here, it's because he had no incentive to have anything other than bad habits by virtue of the ease with which he was dump trucking everyone he had faced. Now he is under much more understanding of a world by virtue of the ease with which he was dump trucking everyone he had faced. Now he is under much more understanding of a world where you just can't do that to everybody.

Unless you keep working on your game, keep working on your game, keep working on your game. So there is, on the one hand, as I indicated earlier, there is plenty of concern to have about Shemayev. Being like, okay, now that you're here, are you going to have really the space and the latitude and the time to work on your craft and develop the way you need to? I think that's legitimate. I just also think, on the other hand, you can see the bad habits and you can see some of the mistakes he made, but this experience can only inform his judgment. So we're going to learn what kind of long-term prospect or now contender that he is what kind of decisions he makes after this does he take an experience where he got away with it a little bit because he always could but now was got a little dicey does he learn from that and be like okay i need to i need to harness this into something different i think he so badly wanted to just

take over the fight physically that he put himself in some of these compromising spots. So, you know, a lot of different ways to look at it. I just really hope that it's okay, perfectly okay, and in fact, more than warranted, necessary that we talk about all the things you can find wrong with Hamzat's performance. Please, I don't want to hide from any of it. I don't want to undercut any of it. But I would just say, if you are disappointed with this, it can only mean that you had an expectation of him and really any fighter or any fight that is far beyond even what the most amazing fighters can do. You have to just sort of say like, what is possible in the real world and what he accomplished in the real world is fucking amazing. It is amazing. It is amazing. So let's be cognizant. Let's be vocal about the things that you didn't like.

Fair. And if you thought Burns won, I wouldn't hate that. It was a close fight, man. That was a close fight. That was a really close fight. I could see how Burns took the second and third. And, you know, Chemaev needs to really learn how to adjust his pressure so he can maintain it over the court. I mean, there's a lot he has to learn from this. Dude, this is in the hands of the right fighter. And we will see if he is that. In the hands of the right fighter, this was an insanely valuable experience. Insanely valuable. It just turned into a wild brawl at the end because this guy, he is so used to just dump trucking everything, he never had to accept that another guy can withstand it and then push back.

Well, they exist. So let's see what he does with it. Let's see what he does with it. I'll be very curious to learn. Anything else from this in terms of the leg kicks? Yeah. Burns. Yeah, Shemayev had a, oh, here we go. This is interesting. Burns was 2 of 3 on leg kicks in round 1. Chimaev 5 of 5. I noticed he was pretty good with it. Then Burns was 4 of 5 in the second. Chimaev 4 of 4.

So still good. But round 3, he was just 1 of 1. He kind of got away from it, and then he just went to his hands. That's what I'm talking about. You're like, oh, that's terrible. Not for a... I mean, it's his 11th fight. You know what I mean? Like, you can make the same argument about someone like the same one but you can make these similar kinds of um

concerns about what you see in a performance but you have to grade it against where they're at you know like oh i have this amateur did something wrong in this amateur bout. He's a fucking amateur. They're going to do those kinds of things. So for a guy in his 11th pro bout, I mean, you know, this wasn't the ass-kicking that St. Pierre put on Trigg. And this wasn't, you know, the one with Barnett had its moments. It was back and forth. It was certainly exciting. But that was definitely a bit of a Daniel Cormier show.

This was a lot more even. But even through all of that, I just can't believe a guy with only 11 fights can do that. That's insane. That's completely insane. By the way, where was John at the Shogun fight was his 13th yes was his 14th excuse me was his 14th fight

so if Hamzat has a title shot in three fights which seems unlikely but might happen sooner or later actually we'll see I mean if he loses to Colby we'll see but assuming he wins that

it'll have to be right after so we may not get that but you know it'll be curious to see how his progression tracks relative to John's and by the way John didn't fight so raw in that way but he had a lot of problems with his game you know relative to what he eventually become. Like, if you compare who he was in the Matt Yushchenko fight relative to who he was in the second Gustafson fight, I mean, it's like night and day. So there's going to be a real big question about his development. Development, lessons learned, blah, blah, blah. But if that dude keeps getting better at the rate he's been getting better, or even something approximating that,

I don't know how you can conclude he would never win a title. Seems like he'd be one of the first names you'd pick. So we'll see. We'll see how all that goes. All right, let's talk about the co-main event, because boy, people are upset. All right. Aljamain Sterling, as I mentioned, remains champion.

Split decision, 48-47, 47-48, and then 48-47 for Sterling. How did I score it? I watched the first round, and I tweeted about this as well. You can double check. I just wasn't sure what to make of the first round. I wasn't really watching it in a scoring kind of way. It seemed to me, based on recollection, that maybe Aljo won. But before you crucify me, I saw a bunch of people being like,

no, no, that was Jan's round. I wasn't watching it like a judge. I was just kind of watching to see what they were doing and then trying to remember who was having meaningful offense. So that's very much not a, by definition, not an informed judgment, or partially informed. Second, third rounds, clearly Aljo. Fourth and fifth rounds, clearly Jan.

Two questions remain. One, who got the first round? Before we knew the reality, but I'm saying as the fight ended. Two questions. One, who got the first? And question number two, was it 10-8 in the second round?

Come to find out, none of the judges had it 10-8, which I think I agree with. I think I agree with that. And then two of the judges had the first round for Sterling. One had it for Jan. So that's how they broke it out. Let's look at some of the numbers to inform our judgment here just a little bit about what this fight told us man what a completely different fight in the first fight Jan had I think 10 significant strikes landed in the first he had 14 significant strikes

landed in the second and then everything ballooned from there. He had 30 significant strikes in the third and then 34 in the fourth and then the fourth was an abbreviated round due to the illegal knee. So he was just, I mean, it was going in one direction, you know. He was 7 for 7 on takedown attempts and Sterling went 1 for 17 on takedown attempts. I did a by the numbers video on this channel, and I had said, you know, it's not like he has to get the other 16 to win, but clearly mixing in that would just do a lot for his offense.

Boy, was that true. Although it wasn't really, in many cases, necessarily a traditional takedown. It was forcing a scramble and then creating back exposure. And then from the back exposure, and there's different ways to create it. You can have him plant his hands. You could have, I mean, there's a lot, you know, a lot of different ways to do it, but creating back exposure enables him to then get the back. And then from there, dude,

you know, I, I was, I was, once he went to the body triangle, I was like, he's going to ride these out. We've gone over this before. Unless you've got a real disparity in talent at the elite level, and Jan is very elite and Sterling is very elite, if you've got a body triangle on, there's still a math problem because they still, yes, their back is to you, so you have an advantageous position if you're Aljamain Sterling, but I've talked about this before, the numbers game is the same.

Both competitors have two hands to use, and they each have their head to use in different ways, but the numbers line up. When you have the body triangle unlocked and you can use one of the legs to block the arm, now you create asymmetry in numbers and the attacks can be much more straightforward and easier to come by. Again, that creates a series of problems too, but in MMA where everything is very high cost for error, you can see why guys go to the body triangle because it's significantly safer even if it creates a little bit more difficulty in getting a finish. But he was able to create back exposure or threaten mount and then through that threaten and then ultimately take back control. Dude, his back control is excellent.

Granted, the body triangle doesn't show you a ton of dexterity with it, but the fact that he knows all the tricks to hand fight his way through, to keep it, there's a lot of ways to get out of the body triangle with a foot in the air and foot on the ground. Actually, you can do it either way, although some are more high percentage than others. He avoided all of them or nearly all of them.

It was masterful, masterful. He basically took those two rounds from Jan. Jan needs time to absorb what is happening and then make adjustments off of it. And then taking basically the middle portions, huge chunks of the middle to early middle portions of the fight away from him where he can't make any of these reads standing because he's not going to really out-grapple Sterling. I mean, at the end, he was getting on top and he was doing some ground and pound. But through the course of that fight, that was not the takeaway that he was out grappling him

where he was going to. It derailed his process. It totally derailed his process. Some of the numbers here, they're dead even in terms of significant strikes. Landed 62 for Sterling, 63 for Jan. So very, very close. Jan attempted a lot more. 186 to Sterling's 146. But again, that doesn't really count because only what counts is what lands. Two of 22 attempts for Sterling. So not a great percentage, but it doesn't really matter, right? I mean, he was able to, in this case, defend his belt by just getting to him.

That's all he needed. So like the fact that he whiffed on literally 20 of them, I'm not going to say that's great, but it didn't cost him. And what are you going to say? Like he wasn't the better grappler in the second and third round? He was by a million miles. He was by a million miles. So let me look at some of these numbers here. Boy, these are pretty. Oh, here's the big difference. Jan made a big difference in leg strikes. This makes sense, right? So Jan has his hands up, so they go to the body a lot as a consequence.

Sterling targeting the body 41%. Jan targeting at 26%. The head pretty close, 46% for Sterling, 50% for Jan. The leg is another big difference, 22% to Jan, just 11% for Sterling. And I have to say the leg attacks did not seem to be hugely impactful this time. They felt like they were a little bit more impactful last time. So what did Sterling do differently this time? We'll pull up the numbers from the other one here in just a second.

But from the eye test it was one he put according to two judges he put the first round in his back pocket and then we talked about like once Jan makes these adjustments it's very hard to get the fight back from him so one he banked the first round and then the second and third rounds he changed the whole fight up by creating scrambles to create back exposure, and then from back exposure to then take it. This is much better than trying to take him down and hold him down. Force a scramble where this guy is sort of kind of known for giving up his back a little bit. Create these scrambles, make him show it, and then when he shows it, take it.

It's a similar concept, different execution, to what Habib did to Justin Gaethje. Remember that final takedown where he took the back? He wasn't looking to take them down. He knew that when he tried something, Justin was going to plant his hands. He was looking for that. He was looking for him to plant his hands

so that Gaethje would create a stable structure for Habib to get on top of, and then he could go do his thing. That's what that was all about. I sincerely believe that Sterling wasn't really looking to like put Jan flat on his back. I mean, if Jan gave it to him, I guess he would go for it. But what I really think you want it was knowing that Jan had good first, second, third order takedown defense, creating back exposure, and then from that, lighting him up and then holding him there.

And dude, he is a nightmare there. I've talked about this before. He isn't just technical with the positions. Obviously, he is. And again, the body triangle is, you know, it's not the most difficult position to hold. I want to be clear about it. But I also want to point out like his grappling strength,

like his grip strength, how much that must wear on you. I've said it before, dude, he hit an upside down head and arm triangle on, I think it was Takeo Mizugaki. That is, dude, that is, I just can't believe, I've never seen that other than when he did it. I've never seen something like that in the training room. Never, never. Dude, you got to be fucking strong to do that. A lot of people, including even big guys, have to get the angle set. I've talked about this before. It's kind of like tightening the screw or tightening the faucet to turn the water off. You have to kind of get that angle to thread, to choke fully tight and not just have it on top with a force of gravity or even shoulder pressure or any number of different things you're using. To do that underneath, you just have to be crazy strong, crazy grappling strength,

incredible Hulk shit. And so you marry how effective he is at finding the positions. He's got a great frame for it because he's kind of long and lanky, so he puts the hooks in, and he's getting to work. He's got great strength for those positions. He's got great – I think, by the way, those two rounds, riding someone's back like that, I think that really helped Aljo's cardio. I don't think he has bad cardio, but eventually you're getting

to 20 minutes of fighting or something.'s going to be tired the punishment's going to be difficult he took two rounds of striking basically or how much time it was i think the one of the rounds was like right away he got the takedown i forget i forget i think it was let's see look at the numbers here must have been round three must have been around three yon landed eight punt Jan landed eight strikes. Eight strikes in that fight. Yeah. Listen to the control time.

Jesus. Aljamain Sterling had three minutes and 43 seconds of control time in the third. Three minutes and 50 seconds of control time in the second. Maybe it was the second round. And Jan had four significant strikes in round two. Four. To Sterling's 17. Man, I tweeted on Friday that I was just blown away by Aljo's physique.

Because he's always in great shape. He's always ripped. But I was like, dude, he looks even better than normal. And people raced to my mentions to let me know that Jan was going to do unspeakable horrors to him and that this was irrelevant and didn't mean a fucking thing. Boy, I hope you people, you won't. But for the 1% of you that were doing that, I hope you really reflect on this. Number one, that is such a shitty way to enjoy MMA.

Listen, I have seen generations of fans come and go. It takes about five years. People fall in love with MMA. It's the most amazing thing they've ever seen. They buy all the pay-per-views. go to all the shows they buy merch they have favorite fighters they've watched their favorite podcast you name it they do all that shit and then they realize they start to get tired of it and then you know life gets in the way and they get on their interest and they sort of fall by the wayside and they and it sort of goes and goes and goes until they've

got you know barely a casual relationship with it you're like oh that won't be me that's every generation of fan before you I have seen it a million times by people you would have never expected it. And a big reason why that takes place is because people fall in love. They think they're falling in love with MMA, but what they're falling in love with is the pageantry and the gore. They're actually just spectators at the Roman Coliseum. They're not really there because they love fighting. They're not really there because what really captures their

imagination is the activity. It's something else that's something much less sustaining. A sustaining way to be an MMA fan is you can pick who you want. I picked Jan. I was wrong. I thought Jan was going to win, but I didn't think Sterling was some chump or something like that. You had to take him seriously as a threat. There are thousands, if not millions, of MMA fans, journalists too probably, who didn't think Sterling could do a thing, who was just a lamb being led to slaughter and wanted everyone to know that it was not possible to have any other interpretation other than the guy is terrible. And do you like his act? Do you you like his act?

Do you not like his act? I don't like most fighters' acts, to be honest with you. I'm a 42-year-old guy. Shit doesn't work for me anymore, you know? But, like, if you can't watch a fight, even if you think someone's going to win, and if the way, I'll put it this way, if you go into fights being like, I confidently think this guy is going to win, and not only do I confidently think this guy is going to win, and not only do I confidently think this guy's going to win, I'm going to use that as the

operating principle by which to understand and interpret this fight. Meaning, oh, because I'm so confident this guy's going to win, this other guy is shit and he's irrelevant to me. It's all a binary equation. Fuck him. Blah, blah, blah. You're nothing. Dude, you will not be around here very long. Let me just tell you how this movie ends. You won't be here very long. Because that's not, you cannot sustain anything that way. That is, A, these fighters break your heart because MMA is chaotic. And when you think they're going to win, they don't. And that's such a juvenile way to appreciate what our two extraordinary high-level technicians are

bringing you to just invalidate one because you confidently think one's going to win boy the MMA gods they will they will not allow that they will not allow that I really hope people listen you don't have to like any of these guys and Hamzat Shemayev's got he's sitting there posting shot or pictures of him talking to Ramzan Kadyrov before the fight. I mean, you can like who you want. You can think they're all great or terrible. I'm not asking you to like or dislike anybody.

But, dude, if you want to actually be an MMA fan long term and not just live and die with this love affair, it would behoove you to find the beauty in even when people you think are going to lose. Find the value in maybe one or two unique things that they do or something that they bring. And that's hard to do with everybody all the time. But if you can't do it with the bantamweight champion, the UFC, then you can't really do it for anybody of value. Dude, he is worthy of your respect. He is worthy of your admiration. And now you got to call him champ. And that's going to eat some people up. I don't know if TJ Dillashaw is going to beat him or not. But

I thought one thing about Jan here, getting back to him just a little bit, I do think that like, okay, so I think two things happened in this fight. For sure, Sterling looked a lot healthier and stronger and better. Clearly had a better game plan. I'm talking about Hamzat learning from experience. Clearly, Sterling took a lot of notes about what happened in the first fight that did not go right for him and really made some strong adjustments. I think they also, in terms of energy management and resources,

I think finding those ways to get the back exposure and take advantage of it was such a key detail that they made. So smart, so effective, so demoralizing that he was able to do that, that I think that's probably the biggest reason why he won. I also think Jan did just not fight up to his best. He was kind of really chasing things in the first round. Now, in the fourth and fifth round, he fought pretty safe-ish, smart-ish, Jan-ish.

In that first round, again, you can think he won it, and that's fine. I think that's a reasonable opinion. But he probably could have been more persuasive, I think, with a little bit more of a disciplined game plan that he kind of got out in front of his skis a little bit as well. So he has some work to do. I don't know if they're going to do the Sandhagen fight, maybe.

Probably not. Or the rematch at this point, I think, right? So I'm not sure what they're going to do with Jan at this point, but I do think it is worth mentioning that the biggest factor to me seems like what won Aljamain Sterling this fight was him and his team's adjustments. That's number one.

But I think that saying that all of the things that went wrong for Jan are all things caused by Aljo, I can grant that the most important things that went wrong probably went to Aljo, but not all of them. Some of those wounds appeared to be self-inflicted by virtue of strategy or mindset or not having his normal team there or any number of those things.

Who knows? Who knows? But I did feel like he underperformed relative to what we know him. He's usually much more reserved. Maybe he still would have lost the first round anyway, but I don't know. It was just a weird performance from him. But the biggest story is Aljamain Sterling is just, he is infinitely better than his critics would like you to believe him to be. Infinitely better.

And he has a claim as the best bantamweight on earth. He does. He has a very much a rightful claim for that. You can also say that some other ones might have a rightful claim. Fine. But I don't think you could exclude him from that list. He has really fine-tuned so much of his game. And by the way, it wasn't a perfect performance from him either.

The fact that he can't really sit down on his shots to deter people means that they're going to be in his face for five rounds, right? Unless he can get the submission. But if you're mostly on the feet or whatever, the ground's useful, but you can't finish them there, so the fight keeps going and you can't really stick it to him, that could be a problem. That could be a problem long term. And his style is taxing as a consequence. There's so much work that has to go into it, which is why taking the back is so smart, because that's the best reprieve he's going to get, given his style on the feet. If he can't, otherwise, you know, it forces him to not have to reshoot and everything else.

Although, obviously, I realize it. Where did all the takedown attempts come from? Two in the first, two in the second, four in the third, oh, in the fifth. Four in the fourth. He had 10 in the fifth. 10 takedown attempts Jesus so he had eight then he had ten to twelve before that's still a lot it's still a lot as well all right let's get to the main event here last but certainly not least

Alexander Volkanovski defeats Chan Sung Jung at 45 seconds of round four. I said this on Submission Radio earlier this week. Those boys are Australian, and they were asking me, what's it going to take for Volk to get more popular appeal? And I'm like, you've got to stop beating up everyone's favorite fighters, man. Another two max fights are close and controversial, but Volkanovski won them. Then Ortega had some amazing moments, but Volkanovski beat him up real good. And then today, he just obliterated him, Chan Sung Jung.

That was hard to watch, quite frankly. The crowd was like like the main event was anticlimactic that was tough, it was hard to watch it was a little hard to watch to be honest with you you knew you had to respect Korean Zombie because he is

significantly better than he's ever been relative to like the first WBC UFC run, he's heavy handed he's ever been relative like the first wbc ufc run he's heavy handed he's got good counter boxing he is surprisingly good on the ground um uh and sneaky right you're like okay and he's experienced this is a guy you have to take seriously but you also knew volkanovsky's fainting moving trickery timing entries exits it's a tough puzzle for anybody to solve so maybe you know maybe the guys henry suhudo and his team could figure out something for korean zombie do

they there's he could he could train the rest of his life and not catch up to that um volkanovski is you know there's some real pound-for-pound conversations that have to be had with him. Now, I'm not saying that he deserves to leapfrog the guys who are in front of him by virtue of the overall body of work that goes into that, but with this title defense, he ties Max Holloway with three. Now, I do think that Max Holloway's defenses are a little bit more impressive in the sense that he beat Aldo once via stoppage, UFC 212, and then beat him again via stoppage at UFC 218. So, he had to fight and beat Aldo back-to-back, and he did it both times with inside the third round. Fun little note, first time he circled this way, second time he circled that way,

but he was turning Aldo constantly, but he didn't turn him the same direction. He went entirely the opposite way. It was a very sort of funny little shift that he did from the first to the second fight. But that's very impressive. And then he beat, so the one defense would be Aldo, then one defense would be Edgar, and then one would be Ortega, right? I think that's it. Those would be the three. And so now he ties him numerically. So I think that there is still Aldo as having the best overall body of work as a champion,

and then it would be Max probably still like 2A, and you put Volkanovski 2B, but here we are. Dude, Volkanovski is a marvel to watch. He's one of the most talented fighters I've ever seen, and it is going to take a very, very special fighter on a very special night to beat him until father time whips his ass because, dude, he is in shape.

He is hard-nosed. He is good everywhere. He is physically strong. He's a—a lot of his shots don't have a lot of power on them by design but when he wants to be I think he can crack a little bit and we've talked about it ad nauseum he creates patterns

and right when you think you have picked up on it he changes it and then builds in additional complexity layers by making you make computations. And then as you're trying to noodle this, it has an overall suppressive effect. So let's look at these stats and let's look at it compared to the first one if I can here for just a second. So let's look at Volkanovsky.

Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only. At participating McDonald's in Canada. So Chan Sung Jung, what is his normal output? His normal output is four strikes landed per minute. So he should have been around 20. Should have been around 20.

20 around. So where was he actually? Chan Sung Jung landed 15 significant strikes in the first round. That's close-ish. 10 in the second. He did land 21 in the third round. That's close-ish. 10 in the second. He did land 21 in the third. We'll get to that. And he landed just 2 in the fourth round before they called it.

So he was decidedly below average overall, essentially, in the first two rounds. It was half of what he needed to be in the second round. He was better in round three. The problem is Volkanovski had 57 significant strikes landed. And so you can see he has this overall suppressive effect. He got, Volkanovski got a takedown in the first. He got two takedowns in the second.

He got a takedown in the third. He got a takedown in every round he tried. Control time of 47 seconds, one minute and 22 seconds, and 43 seconds. But really, what did you notice? Dude, he would feint a reaction out of zombies. Zombie would go, and he would counter over the top or step at an angle and counter or kick or whatever the answering shot was.

He would feint, get zombie to cover up, and then go, and then he would blitz him with combinations. Dude, the hand speed appeared to be giving zombie serious problems. He couldn't see what was coming. His face was a disaster by couldn't see what was coming. His face was a disaster by the time that fight was over. Dude, after the second round, Zombie didn't even sit on his stool. He sat on the ground.

I can count on my hand the number of times I've seen that. In fact, I believe I did see that one time at an amateur show, and this was a call I completely agree with. I think the ref waived it. Now, for an amateur, it's a completely different consideration. If they're showing you those signs, you don't let it go. This is a world title fight. You kind of let it breathe a little bit. But after the second round, he goes back to his corner and sits down.

And then after the third round, did the exact same thing. Paul Felder, by the way, this is one of the better nights I think Paul Felder has had. He's always good. He was great tonight on the microphone. So shouts to Paul Felder, by the way, this is one of the better nights I think Paul Felder has had. He's always good. He was great tonight on the microphone. So shouts to Paul Felder for doing a phenomenal job. He had the exact same thought I did after that third round. I was like, dude, they don't need to let him come back after this one. What is one of the arguments a lot of people use about MMA versus boxing

in terms of why corner stoppages are a little bit more consistent over there relative to MMA? It's that in boxing, it's a confined universe. It's just boxing. And so if there is any kind of issue where there's a clear difference in ability and it's that way round after round after round after five or six rounds, you can call it because all this person is doing is just taking punishment. The chance for variation or chaos or upsets happening, it's much narrower by virtue of the lack of variability, relatively speaking.

This felt like a boxing fight like that, where I don't... Well, maybe Volk was going to put him away in that flurry in the fourth, but you were just like, there's no catching up here. He would have to land the most miraculous shot ever. It is very good that they stopped that fight at, what was it, 47 seconds in the third? 45. It is very good that they did that. Because the other, you know, 4 minutes and 15 seconds would have been damage he would have never needed to get back.

This felt like a boxing fight where after, like, for my dissected, I did Errol Spence versus Lamont Peterson. Lamont Peterson, after six rounds of Errol Spence tuning him up, goes back to his corner. Barry Hunter's like, I don't like it. I don't like what I'm looking at. Let him go back out one more, and then they called it after that one. It felt like it. I don't like what I'm looking at. Let them go back out one more. And then they called it after that one. It felt like that. It felt like that where one guy was just clearly so much better than the other one. The other one didn't have a prayer. It wasn't going to work. For Volkanovsky and what he calls scrambling the brains and the faint work he's done and the pattern work he

builds and the suppressive effect it has and the decision making overload that it causes and the computational failure that it that it produces in his opponents he is he is almost unlike any other fighter i've ever seen and i'm going to say it one more time i don't care who your favorite fighter is if they're fighting volkanovski they better pack a fucking lunch. You better do your homework. If you want to have any shot at this guy, you better write down every pattern he's ever tried and every counter he's ever pulled and every switch he's ever made and, and, and all the reasons for it. And you better have it memorized. You got, if you have to have it memorized, like, like, you know, you're an insane person,

it's going to require a level of commitment that would be shocking. Short of that, only Father Time is going to wind him down. I just think he's so far ahead. His ideas about the game, how he looks into it, how he seeks it out, how he handles himself, all of these things, the way in which he conceives of offense, how do I want to create it, how do I want to do this, what are the goals I'm looking for?

He is thinking on levels that are so far beyond what everyone else is doing. I'm going to create computational failure through overload. Who is doing that? And by the way, even if they have that idea, who is like executing on that vision? It is, he is remarkable beyond words. Let's look at some of the numbers here as well, the targeting. Volkanovski went a lot to the head, as I mentioned,

73% to 64% for Chan Sung Jung. 7% to the body, which makes sense for Volkanovski. Never does a ton of body work. 18% for Chan Sung Jung. 7% to the body, which makes sense for Volkanovski. That never does a ton of body work. 18% for Chan Sung Jung. He had a little bit. And then 18% to the legs. For Volk, that makes sense, right? Head shots and leg kicks.

It's how he sets up angles. It's how he sets up entries. It's how he sets up other shots behind it. It's how he sets up any number of things. Constantly turning opponents, even when he's getting backed up. Constantly disrupting their base. Constantly getting them to freeze. Constantly getting them to bring to transfer defense in

one direction or the other so that he can take advantage over it. Fainting out reactions. Going afterwards. This was big bank take little bank. 80 foes in candy paint. That's what this was. So, a remarkable effort by a remarkable champion.

What are they going to do from here? I don't see how you do anything other than the max fight. I don't know what would possibly make sense at this point. What would the rankings be? Let's put the rankings up there. According to these rankings, Holloway is one, Ortega is two, Rodriguez is three. I mean, you could do Rodriguez for a fresh matchup, but I think he's got a fight coming up anyway or something like that. And, yeah, there's Holloway sitting at one. Holloway's the answer. Holloway's the answer.

But that's for all the marbles, folks. Volk versus Max three. I think Max would validate the feelings of a lot of folks who think he won either the first or the second fights. Conversely, if Volk beats him three times in a row, you can say whatever you want about the first two. If you have, let's say, goes another five rounds. If you had 15 rounds against the guy and you couldn't get, you know,

nine different judges to give it to, then what are you supposed to say at that point? So we'll see. We'll see. It could go either way. But Volkanovski was... Jesus, that felt unfair. It felt unfair to watch him. All right, let's see what the folks have to say

on the Twitter machine. All right, let's see someone says I'm worried Hamzat will be a victim of his own success looks like he's a year or two away from taking the belt from Usman but who else does he fight after tonight Colby fights a big one they might you know depending on what happens with Kamaru and Leon

there's a chance he could end up fighting the winner of Bully Luque too will be fights a big one. They might, you know, depending on what happens with Kamaru and Leon, there's a chance he could end up fighting the winner of bully Luke. I too. I mean, it's the first time they fought, or I think it's the first time they fought, but I'm saying that fight as well. So before tonight, I thought that skill for skill.

Yon was the best MMA fighter after tonight. I'm almost certain it's Volkanovski. Seems to have an answer for everything. Yeah. There's a little bit of shifting of the rankings tonight Someone says Before tonight I thought Chumayev may be the one to beat both Usman and Izzy After tonight, though thoroughly impressed with him

I'd see both champs as favorites I think that's fair It's probably fair I hadn't thought about Izzy at all But that's, yeah But that's probably pretty reasonable. Chimaev Stock rose from this, this person writes, but Doreno did enough to humanize him. Totally agree.

This had an insanely long run time. Someone says, Aljo really prioritizes staying balanced and keeping dominant position during grappling transitions, which stifled you on the ground. So it says, Tony Khan was attending. So here's a true story. In 2011 or 2012, I cannot remember what year it was specifically, you guys know MIT has the, MIT has that sports analytics conference,

the Sloan Analytics Conference. It's this giant conference on sports analytics and it's every nerd from every sport you could imagine. One year I got to speak on a panel. It was me, Jordan Breen, and carna sal uh dominant crews all of us got to speak it and we got to go speak at mit i felt like a like a real winner that day um anyway and rami ganar was there who's the guy who's the founder of fight metric and um what the fuck was i going with the story and um jesus christ i don't remember where i was going with this fucking story it's so late in the morning anyway what happened at that event i don't even know uh

why do they sell it for the submission even at a high cost? Oh, wait. Oh, Tony Khan. Yes, sorry. Anyway, so Jordan Breen and I, we speak on the panel and then they have this, like, if you were a panelist, they had their own green room. Like, you could only go in if you were on a panel. And so we walk in there and, like, Lindsey Czarniak is there, and Darren Revell is there. And Breen and I were talking about Dave Meltzer because I was, you know, we were just talking about his newsletter because I don't remember what we were saying. By the way, everyone knows I don't like pro wrestling, but I love Dave.

I work with Dave. Dave's great, and he's a big success. No hate at all. Tony Khan overheard us talking. And he came over and introduced himself. And he gave me his phone number. We've texted a few times over the years. Well, I mean, you don't have to believe me that I actually have his phone number, but I think I still have it, right? Still got that thing? Oh, let's see. I got the Tony Khan phone number. I believe I do.

Let's see. Yeah. Got Tony Khan and Tony Ferguson in there. In the old thing. Anyway, he's been real cool to me. Tony Khan's been super cool. So I know he loves his pro wrestling. That's why he introduced himself. He's like, oh my god,

I'm a huge fan of Dave Meltzer. I love him. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I think he's been a subscriber to the newsletter since forever. So, shouts to Tony Khan. Cool guy. Someone says, Volk is my new favorite fighter and as such will promptly lose his next fight. So, shouts to Tony Khan. Cool guy. Someone says, Volk is my new favorite fighter and as such will promptly lose

his next fight. Yeah, maybe. Very quiet crowd after the Alexander win. I mean, that was a terrible crowd in Jacksonville.

Florida sucks. I mean, Florida's got nice parts. Every part of the world has basically nice parts. And, you know, Florida's got some

really nice parts. Like there's nice people in Florida. The beach is cool. There's lots to see in Florida. There's a lot of fucking dirt bags in Florida too. And you're like, oh, how would you know Luke motherfucker? I've been there for a long time. You've been to Tallahassee, Florida, plenty, plenty of dirt bags in Tallahassee, Florida.

You ever been to Pensacola? You ever been to Daytona where you can just drive up on the beach? Shit. Someone says most of the UFC's current champions don't excite me. That sucks. Aljo's cardio improving so dramatically between fights. Yeah, but more than that, Aljo's decisionmaking about how to use it has gotten better. New graphics.

I thought they were great. People were like, they were hating on them. I thought they were awesome. Apparently, Zombie's translator left out him saying, I now know I can't be UFC champion. Jesus. That is a hard thing to say. Someone says they want to see Sterling versus Jan again.

I would like to see Jan fight somebody else. I'm not going to say he shit the bed tonight, because again, you can make a case that he won, but I don't know. There was something about that first round that even if you want to score it for him, something about it rubbed me the wrong way. Someone says, also, Hamza has serious cardio issues that are being overlooked. I don't know how true that is.

If he's wasting his energy because he's not fighting efficiently, you're not really getting an accurate look about how good his cardio is. Now, I'm not saying it was amazing tonight. It was very okay. But it was just okay on top of all of these decisions to throw all these things and do all this stuff that is a complete tax that you don't need to do. Let's see what his cardio looks like when you remove that first

and then make a judgment call about it. Someone says, Hamzat has quit in him. How can you not see that? Every fighter does. Oh, not my favorite fighter. Oh, them too. Is there anything in the fact that Chumayev competed during Ramadan? Potentially. I've seen certain Muslim fighters do it, and I've seen others not. Kareem Benzema who's not a fighter of course

but is the boss of Chelsea and PSG I think he had food and nourishment 13 minutes before a game recently because he was fasting due to Ramadan so it wasn't like he had a lot to fill him up he was still able to get it done

but these are this is the show this is where we are he had like a lot to fill him up. He was still able to get it done. Um, but these are, these are, this is the show. This is where we are. Um, okay. So this is my instant reacts. I appreciate you watching. Thank you so much. You might've noticed some of the new lighting and whatnot. Showtime came over, um, or the, the folks behind the production at Showtime came to my house on Friday and set me up with a bunch of new stuff, New lighting, hair light, whole nine yards. So, maybe it looked better. I don't know. What was your biggest takeaway from the fight? How did you score

the Hamzat-Burns fight? How did you score the co-main event between Jan and Sterling? I would love to see exactly where your scores were and why you scored it. Don't just say 2-2 this or 3-2 this way or whatever. Tell me why you scored it the way you scored it. I want to see it. Thumbs up on the video. Hit subscribe. Again, thank you for being with me here this late hour.

Try to get some sleep. Until next time, yeah, let them Gaines be loyal, players.