MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 275: An Australian MMA Showcase | Morning Kombat Extra Credit Ep. 22

Episode Date: June 14, 2022

Luke Thomas is back with Episode 22 of Morning Kombat Extra Credit to break down his five favorite fights from the weekend. (1:15) - Jake Matthews vs. Andre Fialho (5:25) - Jack Della Maddalena vs. Ramazan Emeev (8:30) - Hayisaer Maheshate vs. Steve Garcia (10:00) - Brendan Allen vs. Jacob Malkoun (13:15) - Chasen Blair vs. Kona Oliveira (14:45) - Honorable Mentions 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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This is the podcast within the podcast. I am one half of Morning Combat. Hello, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. Thank you so much for joining me. If you're watching on YouTube, thumbs up. It'd be so nice. Hit subscribe. It'd be so nice. Give us a nice review on whatever podcast platform. It would be so nice. Today, as It would be so nice. Give us a nice review on whatever podcast platform. It would be so nice.

Today, as you guys know, here's what we do. We cover a lot of the biggest stories on morning combat, but the stuff we don't get to that's still important, we do on this podcast. That's going to be, of course, UFC 275, some of the other fights on the card, as well as I got one little pick from Cage Warriors because I like to pick the top five fights that just matter to me. These don't have to be your top five. This is my rifle. There are many like it. This one is mine. So, you know, plenty of choices to pick from, but these are the ones that I liked the most,

and for all different reasons, which, of course, we will go through. So UFC 275, as you know, took place in Singapore. I'll pull up the information here if I can. Yes, indeed. We go first to Jake Matthews defeating Andre Fialio via KO. This took place at 2.24 of the second round. I really, really was so delighted to see this. I did not expect this at all. I will tell you candidly, I'm probably one of the guys. I don't think I wrote off Jake Matthews, but I certainly didn't take his chances to become an elite title contender all that seriously after all that had transpired.

But in fairness, that was probably unfair of me. He just, I think he's now 27 years old. I have said this before with other fighters who are like Marvin Vittori, 27, 28 place. You know, you get used to somebody at 23, 24, they could be radically different fighters in the span of a few years. Now, Jake Matthews took a lot longer, but making his UFC debut at 19, it took some time, it looked like, to get his feet under him.

And there still might be deficiencies in his grappling game, we shall see. He's always been a good grappler, but as you saw with, like, Sean Brady, that tells you an elite grappler might be able to do, might be causing problems for him. But let's talk about what the story is of this fight. That's the best opponent he's beaten,

certainly on the feet, by a long stretch. He looked real athletic, sharp. He was making good decisions. I just thought, and you heard that John Anikse was the biggest one in his career, that was the best performance of his career, too. Easily, easily. He was just smoothly executing and reading and for the most part staying out of trouble. That one time where you thought he got dropped at the end of the first, he didn't. It turns out to be more of a trip as the commentator Michael Bisping had indicated. And so for me watching this and what they really had picked up on was the right hand was connecting with Jake Matthews a lot. I feel like I kind of was using that left hand for a lot.

This other one was kind of staying fixed I mean, it's not entirely true Of course because the left hook landed a little bit in combination by the way throwing combinations with purpose and Swift hands Athletically like Jake Matthews was but the real big thing was the right hand was scoring for him over and over and over again That's because Fiala was just kind of hanging out here, you know, not like not lazily It had a purpose but it wasn't there's a cost to every right? And the cost is it just creates a lot of space. And he was kind of using both defense and offense at the same time, which again, not necessarily a bad thing, but again, there's always going to be context that go with it. So the point I'm trying to make is

they realized they could have a lot of success with the right hand, but he was switching stances, setting up a lot of different things. It was more than just that. But as you notice, the right hand lands more and more and more. It was actually the final shot that put him out as he put him up against the fence. Jake Matthews did a great job of patiently getting Fialio backing up, getting him to where he wanted, not attacking until he saw things cleanly, getting himself out of potential stall situations when sometimes that was presented to him. He just looked like a mature, smart, athletic.

There was a swag about him. I mean, I hate that word because I'm a 42-year-old piece of shit, but it is true. Like, he just had some swag, man. He really had a purpose with everything he was doing, and you could feel that when fighters really apply that kind of a thing. And I have to say more generally, we're going to talk more about some of the other results in this card.

Dude, if you're from Australia or New Zealand or the, the, the oceanic region, or, you know, it's a great time to be a fan of Australian MMA. It really is. There is so much already prestigious and predominant talent. We all know the ones like Volkanovski and Whitaker, obviously in New Zealand would be, you know, Izzy. And there's a lot more than just that, but you know, these are the sort of the bigger three, but that's the whole point. Like there's these, these, and New Zealand would be Izzy. And there's a lot more than just that, but these are sort of the bigger three. But that's the whole point. Like there's these – they're coming out of the woodworks. And what really gives me a lot of hope is you're seeing it across both genders from Australia.

Now the men's game certainly more advanced than the women's game on the Australian side to date. But you are seeing UFC-level talent from both of them. You're seeing it across a lot of different weight classes, which is really encouraging. And they're just getting started, man. They're just getting started. I'm loving what I'm seeing out of Australian MMA these days because, again, not every prospect from any place is always going to meet the hype. In that sense, it's a very unfair expectation. But for all of the good things to be happening that is in Australian MMA, and then for Jake Matthews, right as it's really heated up, to turn it on himself,

it really just drives home what a special market that is. And they're producing just sensational talent. So, shouts to those folks. What a performance by Jake Matthews. Really, really great reads. Really great job. He should be very proud of himself. All right. We move now down to the card. Jack De La Maddalena defeating Ramazan Amiv via TKO at 232 of round number one. What a win. I keep, I sound like a broken record. Another Aussie just doing incredible stuff.

So the real one was, this is a very sophisticated striker, but he had to deal with adversity. Now, you might argue, well, you shouldn't get into those positions anyway, but the reality is playing is such a strong defense that you never find yourself in trouble, especially if you're a young fighter in his 20s, is not a realistic expectation. Bad things are probably going to happen to them. It's not that it's not a relevant question, but I think the more urgent, pressing question is, okay, you got into bad spots. What did you do with them? And here he finds just an ability to, Ramazan Amiv locking up piece by piece,

getting Madelina to the ground, and then finally the Anaconda choke rolling through it. And what did Madelina do? He was a bit of a, you know, a sticky predicament, but he was constantly moving, scrambling. Now, when I say constantly moving, I don't mean flailing. I mean, there was, he went when the moment called for it and was ready to, you know, jump off the block when any kind of perceived opening was made. But he was,

it was just, you know, again, a concerted effort to get every stage of it correct. Anyway, so he gets out, he gets on top, and then he just takes Ramazan Amif to school. That really is what happened after that. He had a lot of success. Really what ended up happening was the body work, right? Because he was going low and then coming up high, one landed and he just followed up with another one. But go watch him switch stance. Watch his entry fake off one side, go low,

go low, then come high. And then switching stance. And then one thing I really appreciate about his game is look at how he uses so much, not just clever entries and stance switching which looks fun, but look how many angles he uses. In fact, look at the finishing sequence. Ramazan Amiv is facing essentially where I'm looking, and De La Maddalena is facing this wall.

He has him dead to rights on the angle. You're going to get demolished when someone has a perfect perpendicular angle on you. And yes, he was hurt from a previous shot, but it just goes to show the motion that's in play. You know, that's advanced, high level, really, really, really good stuff. That guy is a sensational striker. And he did it, again, in the first effing round. Very, very clever.

Super high on him. And I think there was some concern because, you know, listen, he faced some adversity on the regional scene as well. But I think there was a concern that you knew he was a good striker, but what's he going to do as he elevates through the rankings? And this was his announcement that he is elevating his game as he moves through the rankings. That's a great sign. That's a great sign. Again, still early, a lot of room to go, but I just thought it was a sensational performance by him. He is, him, you know, I wouldn't have put Matthews on the same level,

and I probably still would give Madalena his flowers, but that was a, that was a, certainly fair to say one of the more exciting prospects coming out of Australia. All right, we jump now down to the prelim card. Mahashate, I think is how they pronounce it. I'm not entirely sure. Defeating Steve Garcia, 114 in the first round. You know, Steve Garcia just seemed to be a little too, just too much pressure.

Just way too much pressure. And if you notice the sort of final sequence there, I include this one because it was just a really nice shot that put him out. But he was just, you know, he had trouble earlier in the round, and then he kept pursuing in his really dedicated way. And then obviously what happens, he switches stances through combination, but he was just, there was nothing that really set up Mahashate's hands to do anything else other than kind of block one,

but he didn't really have to move. He didn't really have to transfer his defense or believe something else was coming first and then something else behind it. So he was just able to more or less move with it, slid back in the pocket, and then drilled him right over the top. And as you guys know, when you switch stances, folks, obviously there's all different ways to do it, and some folks are better at it than others, but the sort of key insight there would be it can cause defensive lapses with fighters less experienced with it. It can do that. So there's probably a little bit of that there, plus this over-pursuit. And, of course, I think Steve Garcia has a decent or good chin,

probably a fine one. But, you know, running into the punch is going to exacerbate its effect until you saw that there. Hell of a shot. Hell of a shot. You don't see guys go face first that often in the UFC. You know, it's not like super irregular, but that kind of a knockout is even still somewhat rare.

But it was just well-timed, and he read it perfectly. It was a great job all the way, and I think sort of, you know, an important learning lesson for a young developing fighter in Steve Garcia. All right, here's a very interesting one. Brendan Allen defeating Jacob Malcoun via decision, 29-28 across the board. You would probably give the second round to Malcoun, rounds one and three, you would probably give to Allen if you were so inclined. This feeds into this debate about does grappling count anymore? I don't know that this fight is the best one to have that over, but I did have a different one, which was certainly you could argue in the parts where Malcun got the round in the second round, he was able to like do

a lot of grappling, have some decent ground to pound. Plus his jab was pumping in that round. There was just enough overall activity, even if it wasn't overwhelming to still be like, okay, he was the clear guy, but like in, in other parts of the round, here's what the Brendan Allen story is of this fight, which is one in the first round, he got taken down. Yes, he got taken down a lot in this fight, but he was able to stand up at certain times after getting taken down slowly, but he was able to do it and then reverse position and even get his own takedown on top. So, you know, he's going from worst position to best case scenario, at least in a grappling context. That's worth pointing out. But the bigger one I would say is, it is a totally viable strategy at this point with the way judging is scored.

If the guy who took you down and has top position isn't all that active with ground and pound, if you play prevent defense where you can't just lay there and throw strikes, but you're pushing on their hips, you're catching their overhooks, you're framing against them, you're shrimping, you're constantly moving underneath, so they can't really get a totally firm hand on you, and then you're elbowing through all of that and punching them, and they're just kind of accepting that, thinking that top position is going to confer more benefits with the judges than it does.

That's a very viable way to win. Prevent defense grappling-wise on the floor, mixed with basically ground and pound off of your back. That is a very acceptable, and I might say, something you might see more common of way of winning rounds in professional mixed martial arts now. That explains a lot. Now, there was other great things that happened for Brendan Allen on the feet. He's very talented.

You knew he was the more talented of the two overall. But the question was could he tighten up some other things. I think the fact that he was able to. The one thing in the grappling context you would say is what? The takedowns, the single leg takedowns, obviously something to work on. And then the other thing you would say is he played a little bit of guard too long in the first round strategically because once he got standing up

and it was reversing position, he was doing quite well. But dude, the other part, you got to hand it to him, was just phenomenal. That ground upon underneath was great. Malcoum was just kind of... Stop sitting on your aeroplane points

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kind of hammer fist there in that position. That is an utterly viable strategy, utterly viable. People who get taken down, everyone thinks that you have to, like, constantly race to your feet. And there should be urgency about it. And I think there probably are going to be, to be made they didn't have urgency in the first round. But if you're not going to be urgent about getting back to your feet or it's otherwise too

difficult, dude, just play prevent defense on the pass and go to work. Go to work. Underneath. It will absolutely win you a round these days. Totally viable way to do that. Lastly, for my number five fight, I'll do some honorable mention here in just a second. I want to give a shout-out to CageWarriors139.

There's a kid you might want to pay attention to. Now, it's obviously insanely early in his development, but I've seen a couple things from him that I've been a little bit interested in. His name is Chasen Blair. He defeated Kona Oliveira at CageWarriors139. Second round knockout, one-p punch knockout, put his lights out, or, you know, mostly put his lights out. Jason Blair wrestled at UNC, so he's a D1 wrestler.

Now, he didn't, I don't think he won any major titles while he was there, but certainly, you know, having a Division I, for folks who may be from Europe or Australia, you know, it's very, very difficult to become a Division I wrestler. You have to be very good in high school, like extremely and yeah yes there's other people the division one level that were much much better than him but you know we're talking about you know one percent of one percent of one percent at that point so you know and I also would make a point that the guys who have a real good background who didn't necessarily achieve the best height sometimes they actually

make better fighters because they were left competitively wanting. Now, obviously, you know, Olympic champion becoming UFC champion is special too, but something to be said for the guys who came in second or third or whatever. But Jason Blair wrestled at UNC, and, you know, listen, he's a very green fighter. He's just, I think, 2-0 at this point.

But he's got great athleticism, great speed, heavy hands, a little bit overzealous at times, I would argue. Good takedowns. You should go check this out. It's on Fight Pass. He knocked Kona Oliveira down in the first round. Couldn't quite follow up with it appropriately. Comes out the second round with a sense of purpose

and just hit him with an absolute hammer. Could be a prospect worth paying attention to. Just want to point that out. Last but not least, we go to honorable mention here as we wrap it up on the fight card. I want to give one shout-out to Joshua Kulibow defeating, I'm going to mispronounce it, Sung Woo Choi. He wins via split. It should not have been a split.

There's just no argument for that. Dude, Kulibow was tearing Sung Woo Choi to pieces from the orthodox stance. Now, he went to Southpaw a lot to just kind of mix it up and show different things. Go back and watch this fight and pay attention to like the 50,000 times he rocked Choi in this one and count how many came from the orthodox stance. And he threw a lot from the Southpaw stance in that land for him too. Dude, that right hand from the orthodox stance, Choi got hit with it over and over. And the left hook, too. That left hook from Kulibao was money.

It was unbelievable. So it was, you know, he had to vary. It can't just be super one-note about it. But in terms of it's very, you know, usually, yes, one person's stance is better than another. And I don't know if that was exactly it or whether Choi had issues reading what was coming his way, depending on the stance. But all I can say for sure is that, you know, usually you see a little bit more parity between the stances. This was like, he couldn't miss from orthodox.

It was crazy. So good job by him. And even if the judges kind of, they didn't rob him, but it should not be a split at all. And then last but not least, Silvana Gomez-Juarez defeating Liang Na via KO punches at 122 of the first round. This was also UFC 275. She walked right into it. She walked right into it.

Silvana Gomez-Juarez is, you know, listen, the Latin American market has made many strides, but it still has many strides to go. And I would say she has, you know, this is obviously a sensational win, but there's been some pretty, you know, noteworthy deficiencies in the grappling department in previous UFC contests. So this is still very much a work in progress. But she can crack for this weight class, which was straw weight. That's pretty impressive. Again, that was accommodated to a degree by how much the punch was being walked into.

But nevertheless, I thought it was a – you have to give her credit where it's due. But still much room for improvement to win and stay at this level. But a fantastic shot. You don't see a lot of people walk into, I mean, I guess you do in MMA. A lot of times you do see because pressure is so important that they over-pursue it a lot. It happens. But this one was like an unusually bad case because she just walked directly into range and punching range too. And it was a good shot because Gomez-Worahs was slipped off the center line and came over the top.

So that's a nice little addition. And again, she put all of her power into it. Great job. But it is interesting how much, I guess you do see that kind of a thing, but this one was a uniquely bad case. Usually you see someone get their head popped but not completely put flat out. The case of previously with Steve Garcia, he was almost running into it, and that was a really hard shot. I guess it was a hard shot too. Yeah, it is something that tends to happen a little bit. Volkanovski makes a bit of a habit of chewing

people up on a smaller scale like that. All right, that's it for today. That's it. We do a little bit of extra credit here. We'll do another one next week or the next, I think next week, at least next Tuesday, if not next week. Appreciate you guys watching. Thumbs up on the video. What was your favorite fight of the weekend? Those were my five. Would love to know.

Leave a comment in the comment section below. Until next time, I'm Luke Thomas. Enjoy the fights.