MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - 🚨 UFC 275 Results: Glover Teixeira vs. Jiri Prochazka | UFC 275 Post-Fight Show

Episode Date: June 12, 2022

At UFC 275, UFC light heavyweight champion Glover Teixeira faces Jiri Prochazka in the main event. In the co-main event, UFC flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko squares off against top contender Taila Santos. Joanna Jedrzejczyk has a rematch with Zhang Weili on the ESPN+ pay-per-view fight card from Singapore as well. 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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Oh, hi, everyone. Hi, hi, hi. Oh, what a crazy night. Oh my God. Woo! Wow. Hi everyone. My name is Luke Thomas.

This is the official Morning Combat UFC 275 post-fight show. I will be your host for tonight's festivities. Um, okay. There's a lot to get to. First things first, if you are watching this either live or at some point in the future, whenever you're catching this,

please be so kind as to give me a, and this entire channel, a thumbs up. If you'd be so generous, a subscription, if you are new here would also be great. It's free. All you gotta do is click the button. We would love be great. It's free. All you got to do

is click the button. We would love to have you around for more. We do the show live, me and my co-host Brian Campbell. We do it Monday, Wednesday, Friday, live 11 in the East, and we do a whole lot more. So we will go over all the results from UFC 275, at least all of the major results. We will go over your questions. If you've got one, I just put a tweet up at LThomasNews. It's near the top of the, if you go to my account. It's not pinned, but it's the one right under the pinned tweet. Give me a question. We'll get to those towards the end.

And, you know, standard disclaimer, if you don't want spoilers, I don't have the computer I need to do my normal stinger in the beginning of the video. So I'm going to give you a five, four, three, two, one. And you might be like, Luke, who would come to this video who already didn't want spoilers? And I'd be like, the world is full of fucking idiots. So there's the answer to that. Okay. That UFC 275 was great. It was great. If you've followed me for some time, what I'm about to say is something you've probably heard a number of times, which is that UFC 275 did not feature any major pay-per-view talent. I mean, this was the first event in Singapore that in fact was a pay-per-view for the company.

Obviously, we're going to have nothing but nice things to say about the people who won, but they are not known for being major pay-per-view draws. That's not a slight on them. That's just a fact. And so, you know, that is a thing that people naturally tie into their factoring about how they buy pay-per-views. Pay-per-view is a star-driven business in large part. And so whenever there's not a major star in it, there's always some kind of knock on it as well and for ostensibly lacking in quality. And tonight is one of those nights where you realize that the star power issue is real, but it's not shorthand for quality, not all the time, and certainly there's many appearances where that's not the case, and here is one such one.

I don't know what kind of pay-per-view number this one's going to do. Probably not all that high. But the quality of the action, the fun of it. The co-main event was interesting, although not as fun as the other ones. But virtually everything else in the car, for the most part, was just tremendous. There were knockouts up and down this thing, finishes up and down. And that main event, you've got to be shitting me. That is an all-time classic. And I'm going to say this very

carefully. If you're new to MMA, one thing you might not appreciate is you kind of look around now and you see, well, maybe Jon Jones is going to go to heavyweight. And you see sort of the preeminent divisions, maybe 170 and below, certainly like 155 and below in terms of like the talent and how deep they are and all that kind of thing. But you have to remember for a long time, the marquee division in the UFC and frankly all of MMA was 205 pounds in the late 90s and certainly the early 2000s and even into the 2010s a little bit. You know, light heavyweight was just an absolutely dominant force with Vanderlei Silva, Rampage Jackson, Vitor Belfort, Chuck Liddell for a time,

Alistair Overeem. Obviously, you know, Jon Jones came a little bit later, but then there was Shogun Hua and Ricardo Arona and, you know, Randy Couture. And I mean, the list went on and on and on and on. I mean, just 205 was so good for so long that you couldn't, in its heyday, you couldn't believe that any other weight class would ever supersede it. And Tito Ortiz, of course, you can add in there. I mean, the list is endless. It is endless about how many Hall of Famers, how good it was. So what I'm about to say, I'm going to couch very carefully. I have seen really

incredible UFC light heavyweight title fights. I don't know if this is number one, but in terms of fun, it's got an argument for number one. And in terms of, you know, I mean, yes, it was a lot of momentum swings, but in terms of, I think, the entertainment quotient and a fight that showcases what each guy is all about, boy, that is one of the best UFC light heavyweight title fights ever. Now, you might put Gustafson, DC Gustafson Jones well ahead of them, fine, if you wanted to do that, but I'm telling you right now, that's one of the best title fights in UFC light heavyweight history, which is an extremely, I think, prestigious thing. And that is a no-doubt, surefire, instant classic fight.

I mean, I was convinced that if Yuri won, he was going to bludgeon Glover. And I thought if Glover was going to win, he thought maybe he could knock him out on the feet. Fifth round, he nearly did. We'll talk about it in just a second here. I'm going to read the results first. But, you know, probably by submission. And dude, they both, I mean, that is, I was watching that through my fingers. Let me say one more thing before I get to the results as well. I tweeted this and I mean it. It was a privilege to watch that fight. It was a privilege. Truly. Two guys doing that on this kind of a night.

That wasn't. The honor was mine. You know, if Glover or anyone on his team sees this, or Yuri or anyone on his team sees this, I mean this with the absolute utmost of sincerity. The honor was mine. To be able to watch something like that, to watch two guys put themselves through that and to, I mean, absolutely, you know, maximize skill, maximize athleticism, maximize grit, and then maximize like what it means to live through a gut check time over and over and

over. I mean, what they sacrificed tonight on the altar of athletic glory is special, folks. The honor was yours, and the honor was mine to be able to watch two guys do something like that, and I really hope you appreciate that. Especially, like, we're going to talk about Joanna and what all of the accumulation of damage and time off probably did. You know, that was a brutal fight for Glover too at 42. Let me get to the results here so we can get this done in a formal way. I am like blown away by that main event. I was watching like that half the time.

I couldn't believe how good that was. Okay, so the official results. Can you believe this? Yuri Prochocka defeats Glover Teixeira via rear naked choke at 4.32 of the fifth round. There was 28 seconds left in that fight. 28 seconds, and Yuri Prochocka did what he did. Unbelievable. Tapped him with a rear naked choke with no hooks in. I think Raquel Pennington got one of those recently as well, or maybe relatively recently. They're surprising. It's not a bulldog choke, because a bulldog choke would kind of be like this. That's the one that Carlos Newton hit on. Pat Miletic would have a real famous bulldog choke, but it's a no hook

rear naked choke. I don't know if Glover thought, because Glover's, I mean, dude, one of the things that really stands out about Glover, his jiu-jitsu is awesome. And it's awesome for a very specific reason. His positioning is very controlled. His, and the reason why it's controlled for a lot of things, he knows exactly all the places he needs to hold and where to sag and where to press and where his elbow needs to be, all that kind of stuff. Have you noticed his spacing is always real? Not perfect, obviously, but his spacing is always just real sharp, right? He never leaves his opponent too much space. He's always passing, but he doesn't hurry the pass.

But when he goes, he goes. There's a real intentionality from it. And, dude, when he moves to positions, side and particularly mount, dude, he takes mount like a cowboy on his favorite horse. He's out there taking mount on these guys. He takes it. And dude, when he takes good jujitsu positions, bro, he delivers punishment. We're going to talk about the scoring in the co-main event because that was really a showcase of how grappling is just not really scored that much in the sort of modern interpretation of the rules. But Glover doesn't really have to worry about that, does he? Because when he gets to positions, buddy, he's raining fucking fire on these guys. But the story of the fight is I have to pull up these stats. I mean,

this is just bananas. I need to get my glasses here too. Oh, mother fuck. Did I really leave my glasses? No, I have a secondary pair. Eat shit. I got one here. Y'all wouldn't even believe what I had to do to get this feed up today. You just wouldn't even believe it.

And okay, let's use this, shall we? All right, these are dirty as fuck. Hang on. Story of the fight is it was just relentless back and forth. Glover, early on, was able to get takedowns. I think that kind of faded over time for two reasons. One, Yuri got a little bit better about, on the single leg, turning away and then kicking out or bringing the knee up and then kicking out backwards or whatever.

But, you know, finding a way to, once you, if someone's trying to go on a single and then hoist it, obviously by turning your body away, it creates an angle for slipping out and you could still get lifted, but it's not as easy. And so, but it creates an angle for easy escape. And so you saw him doing that. And even then, again, you can still get caught if they run down a secondary or third effort. But if initially Glover was doing that and then absolutely battering Yuri on the floor. But throughout the course of the fight, here's what...

Jesus Christ, this is not even any better. Throughout the course of the fight, what we ended up seeing was two things. One, Glover on the feet. You heard him talk about it just now, getting chewed up with body shots. Yuri not having much success in open space. But when he was able to get Glover against the fence, not for takedowns per se, but just to keep the guy stationary. Dude, he was bombing on him. Brilliant work up along the fence.

And he really got his best work done when he was kind of staggering his timing on some of his punches, right? So it was coming from odd angles, yes. But the timing was really good. Catching him on a half beat a couple times, if you're familiar with my work at all. There was just a lot, and it was constant momentum swings. Even when Glover would get the mount, a lot of times Uriel would escape or be at the end of the round. There were times when Glover was able to get the back and he was able to threaten, but sometimes he got reversed and then he would get reversed.

Glover was definitely the better grappler of the two. It's funny that he got submitted, but I think most would agree the better overall grappler from wrestling to control to passing to ground and pound you already had good ground and pound but even in that fourth round it was like that Shovkat Rachmaninoff ground and pound where they don't actually go to the ground with you they kind of let your feet not sink into their hips and then they just stand over you and bomb on you and that sounds like a little weird because you think of ground and pound as like, oh, you got to control the guy. But sometimes when they're tired or for whatever reason, if they're worried about getting up and getting cracked with something big, you can kind of just stand over them. And Shavkat Raghmanov is the king of that.

He'll drop someone and then stand over and then pound on them. Dude, Yuri was bringing it to him. Dude, this fight was all over the place. Constant momentum swings. Constant reversal of fortunes. Reversal of position. And dude, here was the crazy part. In the fifth round, Glover drills Prochazka.

I mean, he had him on skates. And then he jumped guillotine. He must have been tired. He must have been tired or in pain. I mean, I've literally done nothing but make this worse. I don't know why that's possible, but it certainly, certainly is. Jumps guillotine and then is on bottom. I think was able to get back up.

I have to go back through what happened in my mind. They ended up having a bit of a moment against the fence. From turtle position. Glover was hitting slide-bys on the ground. He was getting out of all these front headlock escapes.

He did the famous Johnny Hendricks one where if they go for if they're trying to lean this way, you can go around the back of the elbow by sliding it by dude. He had, I mean, he was doing all kinds of stuff, but he got a little bit loose or, you know, I'm not going to say lazy because the guy was putting out the most amazing effort, but like you can agree that the fatigue had set in at that point and all the damage as well. And his defense was not as sturdy as it needed to be understandably, but it wasn't. And dude, he got a no hooks rear naked choking, rear-naked choke in just like that.

He's your new champion. That is an un-freaking-believable fight to see something like that. That was, I knew it was going to be weird, and I knew it was going to be a good weird. That was even better than I ever thought it would have been. I think most of you, let's see how this looks. That's about as good as it's going to get, folks. Looks like I'm looking through a cloud of smoke. That's about as good as it's going to get. All right, let me pull up these numbers because that really will tell us a lot

of the story. I can't wait to see how many times they got accredited with reversals. That is just, the numbers on this is going to be bonkers. Yeah. Prochocka was credited with four reversals. Teixeira credited with two. Teixeira credited with five of 17 takedowns. So his takedown percentage is not high, but they were pretty impactful. He's credited with nine minutes and 47 seconds of control time. Prochocka credited with four minutes and 29 seconds of control time. Prochocka credited with a round of control time, basically. And Teixeira credited with two rounds of control time, basically. And yet, they both

threw over 200 significant strikes at each other. 212 attempted for Teixeira, 245 for Prochocka. What an insane stat line. First round, Teixeara, again, so this is going to be quantitative, not qualitative. Toshara landing 27-14 in round one. Bit of a different fortunes in round two. Zero takedowns for Toshara in round three. Sorry, in round two. And was outstruck

36-27 Prochocka to Toshara. Round three, very bad. Prochocka for Toshara. Prochocka 43-12 of landed significant strikes. Round four, pretty even, 24-21. Teixeira to Prochock. And then Teixeira was beating his ass in terms of the stats. 21-6 in round five.

He got a takedown in round... Sorry, they only... Oh, yes, they gave him five. So Teixeira got two takedowns in round one, one takedown in round three, one in four, one in five. And in the rounds where he got just the one takedown, he had respectively 117 of control time,

233 of control time in the fourth, and then 133 of control time in the fifth. Sub-attempts. They each are credited with one sub-attempt. One from Teixeira in round four, which would have been the, I think, the head and arm triangle that he was trying to get. Didn't get.

Wasn't super far away, but it wasn't super close either. And then Prochocka, I guess they're going to credit him with the actual sub-attempt that scored the sub, the rear naked choke in the end. Dude, that is bananas. Dude, listen to this. You got to be shitting me.

This is how you know this fight was fucking ape shit. Both of them, identically, identical, nearly, okay, almost identical score lines in terms of targeting. So where were they throwing, right? Were they throwing at the body? Were they throwing at the head? Were they attacking the legs? These are strikes we're talking about here, right?

So what was the other person trying to land on? Were they leg kicking? Were they body kicking? Were they head punching? What were they doing? Glover Teixeira, Yuri Prohodchka, 88% to the head. Teixeira and Prohodcha to the body, 10%. Yuri Prochocka is credited with 1% to the leg. I don't know if the one for Teixeira is like a little bit of percentage-wise on 88,

a little bit of percentage-wise on 10, and a little bit on the zero they count for him on the leg. But you get the idea. 80-88, 80-88, sorry, 88-88, 10-10, and basically 1% on the leg each. They were throwing not exactly the same kinds of things all the time, but they are trying to attack each other surprisingly in very similar ways

in terms of targeting, and then landing at distance. This was a bit of a big difference. 63% for Prochocka, 40% for Glover. That makes sense, right? Because he wasn't trying to do as much at range for the duration of that bout. And then 54% targeting on the ground versus just a 30% for Prochocka.

That also makes sense. And again, these are overall sort of quantitative. You can make a different call about the qualitative. Dude, I can barely remember all the shit that happened in that fight. That's how crazy that was. That was absolutely bonkers. The reversals happened. You had one for Prochaska in round one. You had one for Teixeira in round three. That might've been the slide by on the front headlock. You had two for Prochaska in round four, one for Teixeira in round four, and then one for Prochaska in round five, I can't remember the last time I saw

a light heavyweight title fight that had six reversals in it. Six positional reverses. That should tell you a lot. That should tell you a lot. So as the fight wore on, we talked about it before, early on, you could see he was trying to go for the single leg and he would run the pipe when he could, but Prochocka would kind of stuff it. so then he would do what's called the treetop. Rich Crunkleton was famous for the treetop. He did that in WEC all the time, and then he would kick out the post leg, and then he would get on top. And then from there, he was able to pass to side pretty continuously, or at least a half

guard, or press him up against the fence, or even if he was staying in full guard, he was pretty good. That's the other thing about Teixeira. Yes, he passes to side. Yes, he passes to mount, but he's actually very good about actually doing damage just staying in guard. He can do that as well. But as the fight wore on, it opened up a little bit. And even though Prohacic was kind of getting hit, again, in the second and third round, that's when he did the vast majority of his work. He was having uppercuts coming from the waist, going up. Again, he was very good about getting Teixeira back along the fence line. I was actually amazed, not at Prohachka's chin, right? Because we kind of knew the story on him. The

story on him was always going to be the same, which was he takes a shitload of damage. I mean, what are his, I'm not going to read a bunch of numbers again, but just what is his strikes absorbed per minute? Yeah, 6.8. Folks, for a ranked fighter, 6.8 strikes per minute is a shitload. That's double or triple or even five times, not quite five, but four times what I've seen from some other ranked fighters.

That's an absurd amount of damage to take. So people call him like he's like 205 Tony Ferguson. Yes, that's obviously the closest comparison. There's a little Justin Gaethje in him too, not the same kind of way, but in terms of what kinds of conditions he's willing to tolerate. And, fuck, I forgot what I was going with that. But he takes just an absurd amount of damage. Oh, right, what I was getting back to. So he takes damage, but he's so young, he's so sturdy, and he seems naturally durable anyway, although that cut was bad. Shouts to the cut man who saved both of those guys from that one being stopped by due to strikes from the cut.

You kind of knew he was going to withstand. Although, again, Teixeira nearly got him in that fifth round. I mean, if Teixeira had a little bit more gas, and again, I'm not judging him for it, and I hope you guys aren't as well, because I really believe, as long as that fight was going, I know he tapped, but I do believe that he gave everything he had. I really believe that, and I thought that was an acceptable checkmate. Not that my opinion matters in that sense, but I don't really have any issues with the tapping, and I feel very confident in saying I think he gave everything he had.

It was Teixeira's chin that I couldn't believe. Dude, if you had told me that Teixeira was going to eat 120 significant strikes from Prohodzka, and what was going to actually get him was a choke in the end, I'd be like, well, I'd accept it because you just knew the pairing was going to be weird. But I'd be a little surprised, wouldn't you? And that's exactly what happened, dude. MMA, as long as you watch it, it will never, the instant you think it's predictable, it becomes immediately unpredictable. That really surprised me. Teixeira, I thought, had a good jab when he wanted one. Again, I thought when he was able to press the attack with Prochocka's hands down and when he was kind of...

There were times when Prochocka was trying to lead, but there were times when he was trying to counter. Not very effective on the counter. That's when he got pressed backwards. I thought Teixeira had some good punches. But dude, Prochockka's also pretty good. Not just about eating punches, but he kind of rolls with them sometimes too. And Teixeira's defense kind of blew me away as well.

Like the fact that he has really re-tailored his game towards jiu-jitsu, towards wrestling, and then doing it at the appropriate time. Did you notice in the Blachowicz fight, for example, he went for a takedown right at the four-minute mark. Sure enough, he did it here tonight. He kind of knows that, yes, striking's a part of it. You can't be afraid of it. You have to embrace it, and there's going to be ways you can win that department, but shifting the bulk of the work to this place where you can control these other variables in a much more important way. I mean, dude, Glover Teixeira's investment in his jiu-jitsu, I'm not going to say saved his career,

but I think it's what ultimately lifted him to the heights that he was able to reach. Folks keep saying, oh, well, it's because John Jones left the division. Well, yeah. I think if John was still here and still active and, you know, whatever. I don't know if he'd still be champion. Who's to say? But obviously Glover probably would still be a few ways back. But the other part of that story,

and I think you saw a little bit of that here tonight is He's working on rolling with punches His defense is a little bit better I know he got Lit up a lot too because that fight was kind of open But I thought in general Like the other times guys Landed on him like this like in the Gustafson Fight they were able to overwhelm

Him he couldn't actually get out of it He couldn't find a way to move on from it He couldn't find a way to move on from it. He couldn't find a way to stop the bleeding, metaphorically speaking, and he would get put out for it. Now, obviously, Anthony Johnson's a different story because he can punch like he's swinging the hammer of Thor. But in general, the guys who have been able to land on him a little bit have really given him some problems. Obviously, Corey Anderson was able to out-wrestle him too, but there's been a bit of a consistent thread for that. Here's a case where a guy landed on him pretty consistently, but it didn't actually... I mean, it fed into the investment that enabled the choke in the fifth, but by itself is what I'm talking about before.

By itself, it would previously have stopped him. It didn't stop him here, dude. Glover Teixeira really figured out, what do I need to do with my game such as it is? He's 42. What skills are you really going to add? It's more about what can you take away? How do you rethink and apportion your offense in a five-minute interval? And you can see, it's not like... He's been doing high crotch lifts and single leg takedowns for a long time. But the urgency with which he goes for them,

the setups for them, the way in which he conceives of thinking of winning fights. I mean, that's what tells you about him getting rocking Prochocki in the fifth. And maybe this cost him a little bit, but he's so focused on making sure that his jujitsu and the investment that he's put in for it, not just pays off, but like how much he realizes that using those skills is critical for him to have the success he needs at this stage in his game and in his career. It might have cost him a little bit because the old Glover would never have jumped guillotine. He would have just polished him off on the feet. But of course you're always going to make a trade off in either way because the old Glover would have tolerated much more damage on the feet than

even this one did. He would have been much more embracing of it. Much less cognizant of defense. Much less urgency around the takedown. And now this one he you know, he got much further making the switch, but I do wonder if in that sequence there, this re-embracing of jiu-jitsu may have, you know, backfired a little bit. It's obviously, you know, very easy for me to say at my desk here, and I don't mean it in a judgmental way. I mean, no performance is perfect.

If you get submitted, then something went wrong, right? You have to kind of acknowledge that. But in general, I thought that this, what really made this fight so great was that it was just, it was like a love letter to what they, what makes them both so great. Perhaps vulnerable as well, but what really makes them great? Prochocka has an unorthodox open style, but by God, if he is not a dynamic finisher, I really don't know who is. And even when he's not a dynamic finisher, because he has an open style, there are defensive weaknesses there and he gets lit up a fair degree, but he finds ways to tolerate it.

He finds ways to work through it to keep that kind of mental focus. I mean, he was down. You heard John Anik say, I think all three judges had it 39-36, something like that, heading into the fifth. And for sure, Teixeira was going to win that round. I mean, he had, again, he had Yuri Prochkov on skates. I'll read the numbers to you one more time. 21 strikes to 6. Plus, Glover had a takedown plus a minute and a half of control time. I mean, he was going to win that one. He was going to win that one.

But what really made this fight so great was you got to see Prochock, not at his worst, but at his most tested. And he answered it. And he answered it. And he answered it. I do have to say, I don't think his style is built for longevity. I think that's pretty fair. At some point, the durability will not be what it is now.

And if there aren't enough subsequent changes between now and then, it's going to be a problem for him. But on this night, and with his will and determination and plenty of strange and unusual skill, but skill just the same, he was able to make it work. And for Glover Teixeira, I won't say an ageless wonder because that's not true. It's not like you look at him and you think, well, that guy must be fucking 30. You don't. He definitely looks like an older dude. But he is what it means to be.

When someone says veteran smarts, what does that mean? It means him. That's what it means. It means I've got a tradeoff happening. I don't have my exact peak athletic abilities. Obviously, they're pretty good, but they're not peak. They probably haven't been peak for some time. But the tradeoff is that I got a lot of wisdom.

And more importantly, he does have that youthful, not like vinegar and piss attitude, but he still has, age has not corrupted his desire, right? Age has not rusted over the parts of his game where he still wants to do this and wants to win. So that part is still quite youthful. And then, yes, there's a bit of a trade-off athletically, but there's all that skill building that's

been behind it, and then that veteran savvy. Dude, he has really embraced it. He's leaned into it, and the results speak for themselves. I don't know if they're going to do a rematch, because that was absolutely fucking insane. And I think both guys need some time off after that.

They might be visiting the hospital later tonight. I've not seen on Twitter whether or not that's a thing. I guess we need to check. Jesus Christ, man. Let's see if there's anything like that. I don't think... Okay. Europe Rahachka's submission of Glover Teixeira at 432 round 5 is the second latest finish in UFC championship history.

Johnson over Horiguchi at 459 in round 5 is the only one later than that. And it's not going to get much later than that anyway. Crazy. That is crazy. I can't believe Glover Teixeira got rear naked choked by Yuri Prochocka after he was getting pieced up in the fifth round. Okay, so he tries to go for a takedown.

Someone's got it here. Gets the takedown. Falls through it. Tries to walk around the other side. Let me fast forward the clip here. Don't want to get my video flagged. Moves to mount, pounds on him from mount, still pounding on him from mount. Let's see. Oh, Yuri pushes off the fence, reverses. Glover rolls to turtle position. He gets banged on a little bit here, rolls

to his back, rolls again to his base, and then he gets choked. That's what that fight was. That's exactly what that fight was. One guy on top dominating, another one doing something utterly improbable, reversing his fortunes and then doing something pretty similar to the guy who just did that to him rinse and repeat for 24 minutes and 32 seconds That's what that was crazy crazy, but I um, I just have nothing but respect for both of them. I have nothing but Gratitude for the opportunity to watch something like that in real time

I have um I really really hope people remember this one as, you know, a lot of times people like the craziness more than like what the significance of the craziness kind of tells you. And for a 42-year-old guy and then a weird unorthodox guy in his late 20s, what is he, 27, 28, whatever, maybe he's in 29, something like that, for a Prochocka. Let me verify that actually before I just say that out loud.

Your Prochocka is 29. Yes, that's right. For them to be able to do what they did in a night like this is extremely rare. Extremely rare. And extremely special. I've seen higher outputs,

you know, in terms of overall volume. I've seen more takedowns. I've seen more sub-attempts. I don't know if I've seen more takedowns. I've seen more sub attempts. I don't know if I've seen that many reversals between two guys in a fight. I'm sure there exists. But for a title with that much damage, that much parity, but in totally different but also for Prohodchka to... Prohodchka is so interesting, right? Because he gets pushed to,

if not the brink of defeat, the next step to that. He gets, as I mentioned, he gets hit a lot. He was rocked real badly and I think in both the Uzdemir and certainly in the Reyes fight, he got rocked here really badly but he has just found a way to not only win all three of his UFC fights but to capture a title and to finish everybody you know it's it's it is it's a it's not a frictionless style it comes at a cost right it's not the smoothest thing you've ever seen. It has a lot of friction, but by God,

does he find a way to get to the other end of that thing? Unbelievable, unbelievable performance. All right, I'm not going to keep heaping praise on it. Let's move to another fight on the card. If you guys have a question for it, again, hit me up on Twitter. I will get to it there. Let's talk about the controversy in the co-main. Valentina Shevchenko remains champion, defeats Tyla Santos. Here are the scores. 48-47 for Shevchenko. 48-47 for Santos. 49-46 for Shevchenko. Okay, let's talk about the scoring here real quickly. I know a lot of folks think 49-46 is crazy. I don't know how crazy I think it is. Now, let me put my cards on the table here. I wasn't really watching it like with my judging eye where like I'm really trying to pay attention exactly how to score it. I'm kind of watching it to see what techniques

are they're employing and to see what's working, what's not, what adjustments they're making, that sort of a thing. So I'm not really watching it that closely. When it was over, I was like, I think the judges are going to probably give it to Valentina as a guess about what they're going to do, which I was right. I kind of had a gut feeling that Santos had done it, but I was not sure because I wasn't really watching it that kind of way. And if you're like, oh, I can just watch it and I can tweet and I can hang out with my friends and still score. No, you can't. No, you can't. You cannot actually do that. That's not really judging correctly. I bring that all up to say, how does one come to a 49-46 scorecard? By the judging criteria, I actually understand it. What you have to kind of realize is they have made a lot of grappling scoreless. Scoreless. What do I mean by that? They don't score defense either. So folks don't

realize this. Like if I block a punch and I roll and stuff a takedown, they couldn't do shit to me. Right. They couldn't do shit to you. But you don't get points for the defense. Defense is, in the rules, considered its own reward. What is the reward for stopping a takedown? You stop the takedown. That's the reward. But you're not going to get a, you're not going to get, you know, they're not going to consider that in terms of the things that you need to win around. That just, there's just no debt you accrue with that, right? A lot of grappling has become scoreless in that way, where you can get a takedown, which is difficult to do. You can pass, which is difficult to do. You can get to the back, which which is difficult to do. You can pass, which is difficult to do. You can get to the back, which is extremely difficult to do. And if the other person does, you know, we know the rules,

like they can, if the judge can reasonably assess that the one who got positionally dominated did more damage in some of these other contexts, either on the ground or standing, they're going to get the round. Now, I'm not even necessarily arguing with that, but I am going to say, as a general blanket statement, I don't, and this is my big concern, I'm not telling you that, here's what I'm going to say, based on the way that judging is done, where effective striking and damage play a key role. They say that effective striking is tantamount to effective grappling, but what they basically mean is the only grappling that matters to them are the kind where you can score meaningful or even any kind of damage from, or either score a submission or threaten with one in

some kind of real way. either score a submission or threaten with one in some kind of you know real way someone's head turns purple they have to you know the arm is hyper extended they have to get out like you didn't get the submission but that was count as effective like the only part of grappling that they count is actually the reward that comes from dominant positional control after you've done all the hard part already. The hard part is not raining punches from mount, right? The hard part is not like the arm. Well, if you're sitting from mount for an arm bar, but in general, like once you've got the arm bar locked on, like finishing it, it's not the hard part. The hard part is getting to a place where you can even apply that. That's not entirely true in jujitsu positions, but that's going to be true a lot, especially if

you're trying to attack from the back. You're going to have to find a way to get to the back. You're going to have to hand fight. You're going to have to, you know, whatever you're doing from the back there. The easy part is the actual final application of the submission. The hard part is everything that comes before that. Very much of the hard part no longer seems to matter, right? That is what has happened to the rules. And I would need to think about it a little bit more in detail about the specific nature of my concerns. I understand, in theory, why they've judged it the way they have or why they've written the rules, I should say, the way that they have, where they put this heavy emphasis on the things that produce finishes.

But I think that it overly penalizes the hard work of grappling to the point where they've created a disincentive to even use it, and I wonder to what extent that will have an effect on what kinds of fights we see, with what positions, with how much of a role will grappling play. We've been over this before. It is alarming to me how many of the sports luminaries, top fighters and coaches,

appear to believe that they know how fights are scored and they do not know how fights are scored. Now, of course, that's not universally true. There are a lot of them that do. But there are many, many, like a very alarming proportion of them where every time they speak about it, you can tell they've not really kept themselves abreast of how the changes have been instituted and what judges are looking for. And again, you can like those things or you can

hate those things, but if those things decide your fortunes, being in touch with what they are should very much inform your judgment and what kind of strategies. When there's enough catch-up that's happening where folks are finally dialed into what judges want, and then you're going to begin to see some people tailor game plans around that, what is that going to do to grappling in MMA? Because you have to understand, in jiu-jitsu, you get points for takedowns, for passes, for sweeps, for reversals, for you might get advantages for close submissions, right? The hard parts, other than just the sub itself, they're counted, and they're counted because they're extremely difficult to get, and it proves that if you try to take me down and I resist it and then I take you down, I was actually much better in those

departments. Then you might be saying, well, what does that mean to MMA? What's the end result? You got me down. You didn't do anything with it. I think that the bigger issue for me is not... Again, I'm going to say it one more time. I really understand prioritizing damage and I understand prioritizing things that bring you closer to finishes. I very much do. I think that's right. But I think almost just making getting the back be like, well, you didn't really do anything with the back, so we can't count that. Dude, getting to the back is fucking hard. It's hard. Taking Valentina's back is extremely difficult to do. And yeah, body triangle is a little stall-ish in my judgment. But you don't see people do these kinds of things to her by virtue of how difficult it is.

I don't recall I've ever seen someone take her back this many times and hold it for this duration of time. I mean, I think Jennifer Maya had some success, but not to this extent. I don't remember that. I'd have to go back and double-check, but certainly it doesn't come to mind right away. And, dude, that's extremely difficult to do. And yes, you could say, well,

the benefit should be once you're from the back, you have open season, but it doesn't work that way because maintaining the back, even with a body triangle, it's difficult to do. Yes, it does create asymmetry where no longer are two people facing each other. Now one is facing away. And so you have that asymmetry there, which creates a unique set of advantages but in MMA there's the if a person just wants to play prevent defense and nullify they can do that and that's a lot of times what happens in these grappling contexts because it's like a sub only tournament where it doesn't matter if you get the back all that matters is what happens what you do with it the problem ends up being people don't mind getting there and just playing prevent defense for as long as they have to. And so it turns grappling into something other than

what I think should be more fully reflected in the rules. Now, that's just my personal opinion. You may differ, but I'm trying to explain to you, if you're trying to understand where a 49-46 scorecard comes from, the best explanation that I can give you is that a lot of grappling just doesn't seem to really matter to judges anymore. Not all of it, that's not what I'm saying. Not key portions of it, that's not what I'm saying. I'm also not saying that there is no benefit to grappling in MMA anymore. But the relative benefit of all of the hard work of grappling in terms of what the judges are being asked to tally, its value has been majorly downgraded, and I think a little bit too far.

That being said, let's look at the numbers for this contest. So, this was a weird one too. All right, so this one. Valentina Shevchenko is credited with three of five takedowns, which she got 60%. Tyler Santos got three of three takedowns, 100%. Three sub-attempts, two reversals. She's credited with eight minutes and 49 seconds of control time. Valentina Shevchenko, however, numerically at a bare minimum, I would say argue on the feet qualitatively as well.

Certainly outstriking her. 77 significant strikes, 255. Targeting was pretty interesting too. Shevchenko going 60% to the head, 15% to the body, 24% to the leg. Tyler Santos, 32% to the head. Pretty significant downgrade. 20% to the body, about equivalent, but much more to the leg. 47%.

You see how often, first of all, they were open stance. Which we'll talk about the headbutt in just a second. But did you notice how often. Like Santos had a hard time striking in mid range at all. So she could leg kick, leg kick, leg kick. Kind of play on the outside a little bit. And then she had to blitz to the inside. And that was often how they ended up clashing. Even when Shevchenko was actually the one doing it.

Because she did it as well too. So that actually makes a lot of sense. Shevchenko was actually the one doing it because she did it as well too so that actually makes a lot of sense Shevchenko was was was the better did the better overall striking however we all know the story is the headbutt I saw some people some dorks being like oh did she do it intentionally first of all if you just watch the replay yes they're both kind of leaning but I thought santos was doing more moving into that position number one so like it wasn't like a headbutt in the like that kind of a way it was more like it was clearly like incidental contact and more to the point it's like dude if you watch boxing at all at all this happens all the time all the time to the point now where i've seen it where referees

before fights if they're open stance being like watch the headbutts the point now where I've seen it where referees before fights if they're open stance being like watch the head butts you know blah blah blah I've seen them give warnings for that now not like warnings like I'm gonna take a point but like just be careful out there notice that you guys are going to be standing apart blah blah dude when you have two people like that because their heads come in on the same line basically right versus being like this where they don't come in on the same line that It happens constantly in boxing, all the time. So there's no issue there for me. There's no intentionality.

That is just a byproduct of what happens. And when her eye got shut, the whole shit changed. I could not believe after the end of the fourth round that they didn't stop that. I was shocked. The doctor did one of these. He goes, hey, you can see? And you know, what is Santos going to say? He's like, no, of course he's going to say yes.

Most fighters do. She goes, yeah, I can see. He's like, okay, good enough for me. I was like, yo, remind me to not have you look for any of my medical ailments ever. I mean, just not even given the slightest of fucks about her medical condition. So they let it go, but for basically

two rounds, she couldn't see shit. She was still able to get takedowns. In fact, she got takedowns. Tyler Santos did in the fourth round. That was an incredible one she got. Didn't get any in the fifth, but she got barely outstruck numerically, 14 to 11,

although I would certainly grant that the two takedowns Shevchenko had, and it looked like her striking again was, even her ground-to-pound looked to be a lot better. In fact, Santos' biggest issue to me was not the ground, oh, she just had a lack of ground-to-pound. And this is going to hurt her, dude. This is really going to hurt her argument. Number one, in round one, you know how many strikes she landed? Significant strikes? Five. In round two, four. In round three, seven. Even if I am willing to argue, and I am, that too much of grappling no longer has any value, dude, you cannot go into, of course it's easy for me to say, I understand that, but just, I've been watching these a long, long time. You cannot go into a UFC title fight and have three rounds in a row where you hand out single digit offense, right? And no sub attempts. Was she at, would she get a sub

attempt? Oh, so a couple of those were on the jaw. Okay, those count for something too. She's credited with two of those in round one, zero in round two, one in round three, and then that's it. I think it was the one in round three where she had two and a half minutes of control time. She had three minutes and 40 seconds of control time in the second. She was on the jaw. First of all, I think Shevchenko would just let her jaw get broken before she ever tapped, number one. Number two, there's a lot of different ways to do that jaw one. You can pull to the side. You can pull straight back. There's a couple ways you can do it, but neither of those were exactly what was happening.

It was just kind of on top. There's a certain way that once you get on top that you have to either pull or pull straight back or pull back and up. What's his face? Drew Weatherhead has a video on this. Shouts to Drew Weatherhead. He has a really great video breaking down the different ways to pull from there. She wasn't really doing either of those. So it was, you know, you couldn't, like if you're Shevchenko, you have to address it. But the bigger story for me there is five strikes in round one,

four strikes in round two, seven strikes in round three. And you might be asking, what were her strike totals in rounds four and five? Totally different ball game, at least in terms of the numeracy. In round four, 29 to 28, Shevchenko to Santos. In round five, 14 to 11, as I mentioned, Shevchenko to Santos.

It was pretty commensurate there. But round one, Shevchenko 10 to five. Round two, neither had much, seven to four. How about round three, right? That's a bit of a round that could go potentially some different ways, depending on how you want to score it. Seven strikes for Santos, 17 for Shevchenko.

Dude, if you're just going to rely on positional control, you better make sure you have sub attempts that have these people on the run for their lives. Otherwise, these judges are just not going to give it to you. The only parts of jujitsu that they're counting anymore is the very last part of it. The hardest part to get. The only part, it's like all of that work that you did to get there means jack shit to them at this point. Again, you can like that or you can hate that, but that is really how it is. And so she kind of left it there a little bit. Now, if you're asking me, how do I view that as a personal thing I view that if someone has your back for over three minutes you fucking lost that's my view my view is that that is not only like I can I have to do work to maintain that position but if I can put you in a state of fighting for three minutes where

you basically have nothing to do except urgent defense, that should be counted too. That should be counted as significant. That is to me what the rules do not account for. They do not account for, I used three minutes of a fight to maintain a condition where you only, if they were standing and they had the back and you could jump, that would be one thing. But if we're already now grounded and I have your back and I'm threatening chokes and they're not all that close, but all you can do is hand fight. Now, again, there was one round where she was throwing punches behind her, but that was not in all the cases. So I'm just trying to make a point here. If I can put you in a condition like that, where you have basically nothing but defense,

that should count for something pretty significant as well, but I don't think that it does. But there you have it. So once her eye got cracked from the headbutt, there was no chance on earth she could see out of that thing. Not possible. No way. Even if they let her go. So I give all the credit in the world to Santos for being a dog and fighting that out.

She got a takedown even with that, I think in round four, I think is the one she got. Just gutting it out and finding a way to get it. It was extremely impressive, the effort she was able to turn in. Imagine her to be versus who she actually is. And she is extremely talented, right? She's very, very, very good. She has now seven title defenses, not accidentally. On the other hand, I had tweeted, if you look at the stats, Tyler Santos' numbers were pretty commensurate with hers in virtually every department. In some cases, better, granted different competition. But still, good competition. She had very good numbers.

And a lot of striking numbers, just a little tick off, just a little tick behind. It was what I tweeted. And folks were like, oh, this is blasphemy. She's going to knock her out in a round. And I'm like, you're just buying into the mythologizing here, or you just utterly dismiss Santos, like some combination of the two or whatever. I didn't think that Santos had that kind of positional control in her, but I knew it was going to be competitive on one level or the other, and it was, and it's exactly what it was. There's a big question of, like, is there going to be a rematch? What would have happened but for the eye?

I don't know. I've not been on Twitter. It's hard for me to tell. Have my producers texted me at all? No. No, they have not. So I don't know. I don't know what's happening there. But I think that Shevchenko is utterly deserving of the acclaim that should happen when you get seven title defenses. this over and over and over again. We fall in love with fighters, male or female, for what they are

able to do at their very, very best. And it's true that fighters at their very, very best have these inspired moments that are hard to just put into words. They're so magical. But what they're not really able to do because they're human is to do that consistently. It's just not possible to be a magician in that cage consistently. It's not possible to inspire greatness in that cage consistently. And there's a lot of Shevchenko supporters who are simply unwilling to recognize the other side of the coin, which is she does have weaknesses. She is beatable. You saw some of that tonight. She nearly lost it, depending on how, you know, who knows if that headbutt didn't happen, how this would have gone.

And that should also be acknowledged as well. There should be a little bit of acceptance that there's been this weird mythologizing about her constant ability to score knockouts. She doesn't score knockouts all the time. She has, you know, no weaknesses. She has plenty of weaknesses. You know, no one can do anything to her. Yes, they can. Now, no one has really shown to be the kind of total package necessary to really get over the hump,

but can they test her? Can they show weaknesses? Can they make her really suffer and put her in bad positions and any number of other things? Yes, of course they can, and they do. And Tyler Santos did a bunch of that, not all of it, but did a bunch of that tonight. The big thing missing for Tyler Santos was, one one the headbutt changing the last two rounds basically uh and before that this is the part where she bears some responsibility just not enough of the kind of jujitsu that speaks to what current judges are asked to judge on remember before you

like these fucking judges remember they are told by the commission and the rules, these are how we are telling you how to judge. We're not telling you, give us your fucking opinion. We're telling you, this is the criteria, this is how you weigh it,

this is the end of the story. They're told to instruct and they're instructed to judge a certain way. A certain way. And you're going to get responses like that, which is why I understand, even if I think that there should be a little bit of a dialing back of the fervor and enthusiasm for the invincibility of Shevchenko, I also understand that a 49-46 scorecard for her is legitimate. It's a little bit strong, I think, but I understand it based on the scoring criteria. I actually think there should be a rematch. I think there should be a rematch. I

would love to see one. I actually think that it would actually make Shevchenko's chances better because now she kind of knows what situations to work around and avoid and someone as clever and experienced as her is going to be able to work through probably a lot of those challenges but i think there should be a rematch personally but i hope that folks can what everyone was doing was like and i did this a little bit on mk at first which was oh you know they had to go to the fifth ranked fighter in the division before they could find someone who shevchenko hadn't beat already which is true and now they might have to go to six that won't have to see if someone moves up but you get the idea like they had to go way down the list to find someone. Dude, but then when you look

at the tape, and then you look at the numbers, you're like, okay, there's actually something going on here. Her takedown defense was nearly 90% heading into this contest. She had excellent takedowns herself. She doesn't get hit a lot. She actually does a decent amount of hitting. She has good striking defense. She has good striking accuracy. She was 19

in one heading into this. Yeah. She's a threat. You got to take that seriously. You can turn fighters into Marvel superheroes in your mind if you want, but you're setting yourself up for disaster with that shit. Dude, MMA is crazy, and it is unpredictable, and they're just human. They're just human. They're special humans, and they're exceptional humans. And that's why we celebrate them. But they are human. Speaking of which. How about this one?

Zhong Wai Li taking on Yowani and Jaychek. She stops her. KO spinning back fist at 228 of round two. Dude. Zhong Wai Li beat the fuck out of her. Not the entirety of the fight, but for important stretches. First round gets a takedown.

Understand something that happened in the first shift, in the first, excuse me, the first Yin-Jie-Chek fight, and understand this was in the second Rose fight. One of the big things is that Zhong Wai Li has clearly been a very good athlete.

I think her power was obvious before. Her strength was obvious before. She can thump. She's durable. She's explosive. She's strong. She athletically gets into and out of positions. She has good balance.

She's a great athlete. But one of the problems she had in the first Ian Jacek fight and in the second Rose fight was she could get takedowns or whatever, initiate ground exchanges. She had a hard time controlling them. And there was a little bit of hard time with this one too. I'll pull the numbers up here in just a second, but not nearly as much. She was having a field day in that first round, banging on her face like it was a drum. Zhong Wai Li has clearly improved, clearly, clearly improved. Now on the feet, it was a bit of a different story. Which is to say, in the first fight, in the first round,

Yanjiechek is landing leg kicks. And so the way in which Zhong Wai Li tests that and changes it is that she begins to blitz off of the leg kicks with punches straight forward. And it actually didn't make Yanjiechk stop throwing leg kicks, but it made her switch to more middle and head kicks because it was a little bit easier to not get countered with either the distance or the setups or whatever. It was a safer alternative for her. She was getting countered constantly.

Now, again, she weaved them back in. It wasn't like she fully abandoned them, but she had to really make a switch there. You saw some of that right away. Some of those leg kicks were coming in. We talked about it on MK on Friday. The kicking game is the most potent part of Janjacek's offense. And so if that's going to be the case, what happens if she can't do that much kicking? That was sort of the big central question to me. And then you saw that here on the ground. Dude, Janjacek's scrambling has always been excellent. And her takedown defense, certainly along the fence line, has been really, really good. Fucking Zhong Wai Li is a gorilla. It's unbelievable how good she is and strong. All right, let's pull

these numbers up. Man, takedowns, three of six for Zhong Wai Li. She got three in the first and then a zero, sorry, three of six. Yes, three of six takedowns. She went three of five in the first and then zero of one in the second. Two minutes and 39 seconds of control time in the first round. 47 to 22 strikes, Zhang to Janjacek. And then it was even in terms of striking numbers, 21 to 22, or 22 to 21, respectively. Let me see where the targeting went, because that would be the interesting one.

Ioana Jacek targeting the leg 32%. What did she target the leg in the first fight? Let's see. In the first fight, she targeted the leg 31. Pretty similar for her here. Interesting. Yeah, because I think a lot of that got taken away in the first round as well.

Or again, change. She had to make some changes. Couldn't get away from it, but had to make some changes around it. 20% to the body, 40% to the head for Janjacek. And this speaks to Zhong Wai Li's strategy with the blitzing, with the punches. 75% of the targets were the head, 17% to the body, 7% to the leg. But how did that finish happen? Basically, you know the story. On the feet feet this fight looked a lot like the last one which was they kind of went

back and forth um you and jay check would eat a big shot and then she would come and land you know a good combination or whatever on her own and it was kind of back and forth mostly a wash ish kind of scenario the differences were some of the clinching positions and then obviously the wrestling positions. That was the big one. How did that finish happen? If you guys noticed, she was throwing a sidekick, which Wiley throws a lot of those.

But she kind of missed. So now she was standing this way, and now Janjic is off to the back of her. So this is my strong side. This is the weak side. She's actually getting to the weak side. So if you're going to, like in boxing, this is where pivoting is so central because if someone takes that angle on you, you have to be ready to follow and turn.

And you can't throw spinning back fists in boxing. You can't attack with the back blade of the glove. It has to be, obviously, on the front and then a little bit on the side, depending on how it was targeted. But you can't turn around and then just jack someone up like that. So pivoting becomes a really important skill. But in MMA, none of that matters. So if someone is behind you this way, they've actually given you the angle.

Because if I'm going to be in that way, I have to step across with whatever foot leads my stance. I have to step across both of your feet to bring my elbow or my arm back. But if they've already moved there, they moved into position for you. My guess is she has that dialed up as her go-to when they move past her. If the kick slides and they go this way, you have one set of responses. If the kick slides and then they go this way, you have one set of responses. If the kick slides and then they go this way, you have another set of responses. I guarantee, I guarantee that that spinning back fist

is the go-to response for when they slide off to the side like that, and then she wants to come around the side. And she face planted her. She face planted her. She put her right on her face, didn't follow up, and then the ref called it there. And then, Ioana and Jacek decided to retire.

She said she wanted to be a mother. She's 35 years old. She wanted to be a businesswoman and she wanted to embrace it. She is one of the most important fighters, I think you could say, in MMA history. Certainly one of the most important female fighters in UFC history. She is arguably the most important female fighter in strawweight history. There's obviously some debate about that given what Rose has done, but what is she, number two at worst or something? And she really brought, I think, a lot to women's MMA for the time that she was in it. She represented a lot of the game's development.

You know, being able to strike the way that she could was really important. Having the tie background, but on top of that, you know, having that lights out takedown defense. And what she was able to show, she was showing a lot of advancements. And again, she was stuffing all the Carla Esparza's takedowns. Carla Esparza was a, you know, a decorated wrestler and everything. She was stuffing all of that. She had a certain meanness and a vibe and everyone was on, they loved it and they loved her swag and then her face-offs and then her pronouncements. And then she just brought a lot of dynamism to the game. She was incredibly successful,

a highly decorated champion. I am certain she will go into the Hall of Fame. I think she is worthy of it. And she had a fantastic career if this actually truly is the end. 35, by the way, I think is a good time to get out. She had never been, certainly in the UFC, she'd never been, well, I guess Rose put her out like that. But I don't know. Something about this one felt a little bit worse. I mean, listen, folks, there is no free lunch.

Every economist will say it. There is no free lunch, right? Every economist will say it. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Now, Zhong Wai Li, for whatever reason, was able to endure the difficulties of their first fight. Not without incident, right? Because she came back and got crushed and then had to work her way back. And it's been trying for her. But, you know, I just think she's naturally quite durable. At at 35 years of age with all the damage that she incurred. Dude, this was a very, very extremely difficult task

for Ioana Janjicek to take the kind of beating that she took in that fight. And again, I thought she won the first fight. I really did. I thought she won it. But she didn't. And that's life. And dude, she turned the color. she turned into like an eggplant. And I'm not even making a joke about it. Like it was scary how bad the bruising was and what it did to her. Dude, I'm telling you folks, that's why you need to respect what these guys do

like in the main event and all the fights, but really in that main event, this is why fighter pay is really important too. Their window is very, very narrow. And listen, Zhang Wai Li clearly improved from the last time. The takedowns by themselves told you everything you need to know.

Right? Much more dynamic on the feet in terms of the surprise element, obviously. And, you know, two years off plus could not have been easy for you in JHA. So there's a ring rust factor. There's an improvement factor from the opponent.

But I'm sorry, dude. You do not go into a five-round fight like that and come out exactly the same, as fresh as you were before. I do think that the amount of time she took off was probably very smart for both her health and some competitive rejuvenation as well. So I'm glad she did. I think that was the right call.

But, dude, you can't fight like that. You cannot take a beating like that and think everything is going to be the same afterwards. Not suggesting glad she did. I think that was the right call. But dude, you can't fight like that. You cannot take a beating like that and think everything is going to be the same afterwards. Not suggesting that she did. Who the hell knows what kind of conversation she had with her coach. But I know a lot of fans, again, they treat them like the Avengers where all they have to do is just shoot some serum into themselves that Nick Fury comes with when he's trying to fight Hydra. Here's, take this, and everything will

be great, and then they go back to normal. It doesn't work that way, man. Whenever you go into one of those fights, dude, you come out, you leave a piece of yourself in that octagon that night. You do. You don't come out the same. And given that she had already had a long career before that, what did she say today? She'd been fighting for 20 years, more than half her life?

Dude, you know, that bill comes due. I say it on MK all the time. The bill comes due. So while I can certainly grant that we have to acknowledge that shot would have put out probably anybody or, you know, caused major damage in a lot of different ways, I think is a fair way to put it. And certainly her opponent had improved. There's the ring rust factor. I count all of those. That's all absolutely the same story. But you take a beating like that, it affects your mental health and competitive psyche. The damage, your body just doesn't recover from it the way it did before. It's just hard to get back on the horse. That's why guys like Glover, I don't know if he ever took a beating quite like what Ioana took in that fight, but to be this, like he's seven years older than Ioana.

That's seven more years of UFC fight than he's been doing. I mean, I don't know how long their resumes really compare, but you get the idea to be fighting that late into your athletic life is crazy. It's crazy because, dude, it's a grind on these people. It's brutal on them. And you just can't escape it. It's going to get everybody. You do it long enough, it will get everybody, including the people that you love the most,

including the fighters that have done incredible things like she has, including the fighters that had a hardcore fan base like she did. Dude, she made the sport better, right? She made the sport better. She made the women's divisions better. She made MMA better. I think she taught a lot of people who may have not, like a lot of people came over to the sport with Ronda. I think even some other people came over when they saw her. I think there's probably a lot of fans, male or female,

who, you know, everyone's got a certain vibe that they like and a certain attitude they like. I think a lot of people liked what she offered, and I think a lot of fans became real MMA fans because of her. Add into the fact that she was a decorated champion for a considerable amount of time. Dude, she had a fantastic career. A fantastic career. So if this really is the end, I will give her her respect. I will take my hat off to her and say she has done simply tremendous for herself. But that was going to be too big a hole to dig yourself out of. I just firmly believe that.

And obviously for Jean-Marie Lee, dude, I was not that high on the idea of her getting a title shot off of one win. And I guess I'm still not. I'm a little higher. I'm a little higher. That was pretty sensational performance. Like something had to be different this time and she did it. She did it. She made it different. She made it different in a couple different really important ways. I'm a little bit more accepting of that reality now at this point. Very quickly, and we'll get to some of your questions here. And again, if you're watching, thumbs up, please hit subscribe. Jake Matthews defeating Andre Fialio. We'll talk about this probably. If you're wondering where extra credit was last week, I had a whole computer debacle. It's a fucking thing. It'll be out this week. Don't worry.

Jake Matthews defeating Andre Fialio. That's the best Jake Matthews I've ever seen by a million miles. And not just because he showed skills in a department he's not really known for. Dude, his decision making was great. He had some fucking verve when he was out there moving. There was just a certain poise and deliver... How do I say this? Deliverance. He had a

certain kind of execution and attitude tonight. That was amazing. Amazing. And then Jack Della Maddalena, who's got a really strange and long name, but boy, what a hell of a fighter he is, huh? Defeating Ramazan Amiv. Holy shit, how about those ribs? No, excuse me, the liver shots. Bunch of liver shots. Jocelyn Edwards got doubled over from Ramona Pasquale in the first round with two of them, then a knee, and she was doubled over. And then old Jack DeLaMantelena was just crushing him, switched stances, and then was able to pursue it from a different stance from what he was standing

normally, and then took an angle on Amiv along the fence line and then just bodied him with those vicious, vicious liver punches. Boy, that kid looks like he is about to turn some people into hamburger. He looks like he's the genuine article. Jack de la Maddalena is a force to be reckoned with. But, dude, you got to love it. Jake Matthews was left on the side of the road. And there was a good reason for that. Like, look at him. I know you're like, oh, he's only 27.

How could you say that? Well, you know, I'm the first guy to be like someone as young as Marvin Vittori. Marvin Vittori is like 27, 28. And I just think he's only going to get better. He's already pretty goddamn good. But he had had a lot of success that you could really count on. Jake Matthews had lost to Kevin Lee, James Vick, Andrew Holbrook, Anthony Rocco Martin. And dude, Rocco Martin finished him with a fucking anaconda choke. I remember that very distinctly. And then he had wins after that, like Diego Sanchez and so forth. But dude, he lost to Sean Brady. Now, Sean Brady is awesome, as we all know. But Sean Brady just smoked him, you know, finished him off with a head and arm

triangle. So my whole point is like every time he went up against somebody good, you were like, okay, well, you know, he gives him a fight or, you know, has his moments, but you just can't quite get over the hump. Boy, not today. You can say what you want about fialio being maybe depending on your viewpoint something of a favorable-ish matchup or that he has his own limitations as a striker which he does of course all of them do but the the the kind of uh dude he just had a real killer attitude the whole time not killer like killer as in like American psycho killer, like real strategic about it, but still absolute violent intentions the whole time. It was phenomenal by him.

All right, let's take a look at your questions, and then we shall call it a night. Let's see. All right, what do you guys got for me? I can't remember a fight where the offense was so varied in terms of striking, wrestling, and grappling, but also so bad in terms of striking, wrestling, and grappling. Really? I can think of fights on this card where the defense was worse. Oh, most of the big reversals and subs or subscapes

were caused by slipping due to sweat or blood and or Yuri and Glover being exhausted. Yes. And the defense on the feet wasn't there for either guy, but especially in Yuri in particular. He's always been that way. He's always been that way. Dude, I go over everyone's numbers on Fridays when we preview these fights. Watch Friday's MK. We went over the fact that he gets hit a lot in detail.

Does a fight like that encourage or discourage John from returning to light heavyweight? I think he's just looking for biggest money, biggest... Yeah, no, I don't think it makes any difference. Is Tashara versus Prohodzka the best championship fight in UFC history? No. How long do you think Yuri can hold the belt? I don't know, dude, because he is young, and he's durable, and he's tough, and, because he is young and he's durable and he's tough and he's really athletic and he's crazy. And Jesus, he's got mental fortitude, you know, for weeks. But dude, he takes a lot of damage. He takes a lot of damage. His strikes of sword per minute was above six before heading into this. Now it's almost seven. I'm telling you folks, Shevchenko is less than two. She's like 1.8 or something.

Michael Chiesa is less than two. A lot of people are less than three. He gets hit a lot. He gets hit a shitload. That train, I'm telling you, if he doesn't fix the other parts of his game, for all the wonderful things we can say about him, if he doesn't fix the other parts of his game, once the chin goes, the whole shit is going to come apart.

His game is predicated on taking damage. What would have happened if the clash of heads had ended the fight? Who would have won the technical decision? It would have gone to the judges, I think. Right? I think that's right. Oh, yes, if it's an...

Jesus. Okay, so If it's an Jesus Okay So if it's an intentional foul Then he would win She would have won Via TKO Right If she couldn't continue

If it's unintentional I think they go to the scorecard I have to look this shit up I think they go to the scorecards Did you see the scorecards One judge gave Uri a 10-8 And it was set up for a possible split decision draw Had it gone the distance

No, I didn't see that That's fucking crazy You know what? Which round was he going to give him a 10-8 in? I don't remember there being one But I wasn't judging like that Am I crazy in thinking Corey Anderson can probably beat Uri? No, Everyone was talking

shit about Corey and then Vadim Nemkov. You really think that Corey and or Vadim Nemkov can't beat either Glover and or Yuri? I don't think that. Would Corey already beat Glover? You know, why would that, like, yeah, of course it's competitive. Do you believe that Ioana will legitimately remain retired? Well, we all know the story, right? Like, MMA retirements is just the biggest joke because they retire for like a year and then they come back or something. So, with that caveat in mind, I tend to think, though, that like, I don't know. I think she's probably done, but I'd say 60-40. Is it better for a division to have a dominant champion like Jones, GSP, or Anderson?

It's always better to have a star as a champion leading a division. If that's the answer to your question. With the competitiveness of this fight and sheer entertainment, is it likely we see an immediate rematch? And if so, do you like the idea for Glover? Well, Glover at 42, dude, that was a shitload of damage. You know, not the most I've ever seen, but like, ugh. Like, if you were 24 versus 42, you would still say that's a lot of damage. At 42, like, you know, the amount that wears on you is, you know.

I had a friend write me today on Instagram, a buddy of mine I went to high school with. He was like, dude, I hurt my neck. I was like, what'd you do? He was like, I took a nap. I slept wrong. And then you woke up and then, you know, you have to be in a wheelchair for the next week because your fucking spine doesn't work. That's what getting old means. So whatever you can tolerate at 24, your body cannot tolerate the same at 42.

While Ioana of Whaley was hard to predict, another war, blah, blah, blah, blah, the safest bet was right. Too many questions regarding Ioana's layoff yes and damage taken yes we knew from wiley rose too that wiley could still take uh and give lots of damage yep fair yeah someone says we got to stop assuming every fighter in a given weight class is invincible yeah i yes strongly encourage you to not do that. Can you think of a significant MMA fight with more accumulated damage across both fighters? Bigfoot Silva versus Mark Hunt won. That was real bad. That was real bad. Yuri Glover proved a lot of narratives correct.

Glover could get the takedowns and he did land big hooks. Yuri won the striking but was too wild at times. But Yuri's grappling is underrated and his work with Suhudo and John only improved it. I was not super impressed with his grappling. I was impressed with his intuitiveness and pressure and poise under fire. I was not like, I did not walk away being like, wow, this grappling is like

some of the best I've seen. I did not, I don't think it's poor by any stretch. Please don't misunderstand me. But like, you know, Glover took him out for a reason. Do you prefer a Chandler-Gaethje type of war or a Yuri-Glover

where we see all the martial arts mixed other than a striking battle? Yeah, I like it when they mix it up, personally. But, you know, that's just an opinion. Glover was winning 39-37. Excuse me. Someone says, finally. I think you guys are agreeing with me, finally. I think the narrative by fans that Shev is perfect, Shevchenko,

or quote, the most complete fighter, male or female, should finally die. Yes, of course it's crazy. Nunes or Maya showed she had holes in her wrestling and back game. I thought she fixed this, but they still exist. Chances that Glover can make or get another title run. He might get a rematch, but other than that, it's probably over. Did Singapore have an effect on Wiley's win? I'm not sure of her travel situation.

I think if she had to do less traveling, that probably affected her. But yes, also probably not having Americans boo her was probably nice. That could be the greatest title fight in MMA, top 10. It deserves to be considered highly. I have to think more title fight in MMA. Top 10. It deserves to be considered highly. I have to think more about its actual placement, but yes. I think Glover abandoned his stand-up a little too much. Yep, I agree.

Should they run back Shevchenko versus Santos? I'd like to see it. That wasn't the kind of fight that I was like, oh, I want to see Shevchenko versus Nunes again. Can you think of an MMA title fight with more dominant momentum swings? Ooh. I mean, what would you say about Ioana and Wiley the first time?

It didn't have this kind of momentum swing, but it certainly had a lot of back and forth momentum swings. I have to think about that a little bit more. Is a 43-year-old Glover embodying the warrior spirit only to get choked out in the most, is it the most poetically tragic yet simultaneously inspiring thing you've ever seen in a while? There's nothing tragic about it, dude. Nothing tragic about it. Poetic or otherwise. Glover Teixeira gave everything he had tonight.

I mean, who could possibly say, oh, he tapped. He tapped because he was defeated. He was going to either get completely choked out. Or he was, someone was texting me. Or he was, someone was texting me, or, or he was going to tap. It was, it was surrender by virtue of fair acknowledgement. It's not surrender.

Like, Oh, I just can't take this anymore. I think it was surrender. Like the end is here. He got me, you know, I have,

this is the most exciting light heavyweight title fight of all time It's up there As I said at the beginning of the show It's up there Should Glover have ended his career With an awesome Albeit title losing effort Fuck that dude

Based on what he turned in today I'm so glad he took this fight How do I think Yuri matches up with Izzy After watching that fight Well he is fucking huge So that's an X factor But I think Yuri matches up with Izzy after watching that fight? Well, he is fucking huge. So that's an X factor. But I think as long as it's on the feet, Adesanya lights him up.

I think he lights him up. But how much he can maintain that is an open question. How much fun are you having seeing the light heavyweight belt change hands between contenders that are all so easy to cheer for? It's great. Listen, I love it when, you know, for the sport, How much fun are you having seeing the light heavyweight belt change hands between contenders that are all so easy to cheer for? It's great. Listen, I love it when, you know, for the sport, it's better when there's a dominant figure at the top. But I love situations where, yes, we have one division where there's like this towering figure and it's so fun to figure out, you know, how long they can hold it and all the things that they've done and to talk about it.

But I also love situations where, dude, there's just parody. And if it's one person on the right night has an inspired performance, they're going to be the champion. I love both. I love both for what they offer. I don't have to believe it's an either-or situation. I can accept both for what they are and be happy about it. I love that it's happening right now. I think it's great.

I wouldn't want every division to be like this all the time. You would want some stability. But I like this a lot. Have you ever seen two fighters make bigger blunders? Yeah, Jesus. I've seen a lot of that. Where does Glover rank among super impressive old dudes in MMA history? Higher than Couture? No, no, Couture did it across multiple weight classes. I mean, think about this, who did,

who took Couture's heavyweight title? Do you remember? Chuck Liddell took his light heavyweight belt, or I think it was the, yes, he took it from him, and then they had the rematch of the trilogy. Who took his, who took his heavyweight belt? You remember this? It was Lesnar. I mean, that dude, think about that. Think about how many, I mean, this guy was fighting in the late 90s and it wasn't until Lesnar came along that he took his heavyweight belt after he recaptured it against Tim Sylvia after previously retiring at light heavyweight. Yeah, dude, that's different. That's different. But relative to an Alexi Olenek, yeah, he's much more accomplished than that.

Someone says, am I misinterpreting the unified rules? Quote, top and bottom position fighters are assessed more on the impactful, effective result of their actions more so than on their position. Why is this overlooked when giving rounds for top control like round two for Santos?

Yeah, I just don't agree that the rules should say that, but they do say that. I don't think that's the right way to look at things, personally. But if that's what's written, then you have to accept it. Was Uri out on Glover's chest for like 10 to 15 seconds on the 5th? No. Over under that Brian Campbell shed some tears during Monday's episode after Ioana's retirement? No, he won't cry, but we'll say nice things about her. Was the Singapore crowd quiet? I had my video feed turned down a little bit. I'm not sure. How good was Dana versus Xiong? Incredible. We'll talk about that later. Jan beats Yuri. Does Jan Blachowicz beat Yuri? He might. It's competitive. He might.

And then lastly, yeah, that's it. Alright. How long did we go? A minute and 23? That's a long time, bro. Alright, folks. Let's call it a day, shall we? That was insane. That was truly insane.

I hope you enjoyed it. Monday, back in studio. Yes, we're trying to go regularly now. So Brian and I will be back in the bomb shelter on Monday. And we will do... I will have... I promise, I apologize. I will have an extra credit.

And we're going to be shooting, I think, our video where I will have an extra credit, and we're going to be shooting, I think, our video where we watch Max and Volk 1 and 2, and then score it, and then talk about the scoring. So that should be a lot of fun as well. But Monday, live, 11 a.m. in the East. We'll do a morning comment. We'll get all of Brian's reactions. We'll talk about the Jaime Munguia fight as well. A lot of different stuff. Okay, thumbs up on the video. Please hit subscribe. Thank you so much for joining me. I greatly appreciate it. This was a lot of fun stuff. Okay. Thumbs up on the video. Please hit subscribe. Thank you so much for joining me. I greatly appreciate it. This was a lot of fun. It's a late night.

So everyone should get some sleep. But if you are an MMA fan who watches MMA because you love good MMA, not just big names like the casual fuckheads out there, this was your reward tonight. You get to watch the good stuff that those dumbasses don't have the awareness to make time for. And you did. And that's why you get to have the best stuff. Thank you so much for watching.

I will talk to you at 11 a.m. in the East on Monday. And until then, get some sleep.