MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 277 Showed How MMA Is Changing | Morning Kombat Extra Credit Ep. 27

Episode Date: August 2, 2022

Luke Thomas is back with Episode 27 of Morning Kombat Extra Credit to break down his five favorite fights from UFC 277. (1:20) - Alexandre Pantoja vs. Alex Perez (6:11) - Anthony Smith vs. Magomed Ankalaev (12:25) - Alex Morono vs. Matthew Semelsberger (17:55) - Drew Dober vs. Rafael Alves (21:41) - Michael Morales vs. Adam Fugitt 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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And... done. That's the sound of bills being paid on time. But with the BMimo eclipse rise visa card paying your bills could sound like this yes earn rewards for paying your bill in full and on time each month rise to rewards with the bimo eclipse rise visa card terms and conditions apply It is, let's see, August 2nd, 2022, and it is time, ladies and gentlemen, for Morning Combat Extra Credit. This is the podcast within the podcast. My name is Luke Thomas. I hope you are doing well. Thank you so much for joining me. I greatly appreciate it. This is going to be episode, I believe, 27 of Extra Credit here on the show.

Today, of course, you know the drill, UFC 277. Basically, all the stuff we didn't get to in the regular MK with Rashad, we'll get to here today. So, here are the five fights that I'm going to be covering. As you know, we typically do five fights. Not the best five, necessarily, for you, but the five for me that stood out the most. So they are as follows. They go like this. Alexandre Pantoja fighting Alex Perez.

Anthony Smith versus Meghamed Ankhalaev. Alex Morneau versus Matthew Semelsberger. Drew Dober versus Rafael Alves. And then last but certainly not least, Michael Morales taking on Adam Fugit, I believe is how it is pronounced. So thumbs up on the video. If you're watching on YouTube, hit subscribe. If you're watching on YouTube, if you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, do give us a nice review if you would be so inclined. Without further ado, let's begin. We start with Alexandre Pantoja defeating Alex Perez.

This happened at officially 131 of the very first round. An unbelievable job. This is something I talked about. I've done a few videos up to this point on it, even this week, but it does bear repeating here. Alexandre Pantoja is doing something that I think a lot of folks who might be familiar with things I've sort of highlighted in the last few months or however may realize, but I'm going to say it again, which is you're starting to see guys with good wrestling, but very high level jujitsu create ways to create back exposure that don't involve the traditional paths, which they were typically taught. They're not looking for double legs, putting them flat on their back, forcing them to turn,

and then in the turn, capturing the back. That's really not what they're doing. What you're seeing now is, and you saw this with, by the way, you've seen it with a lot of guys, Demian Maia has done this, Aljamain Sterling has done this, Charles Oliveira has done this, more recently you saw Tiago Moises do it, and in this particular case, Alexandre Pantoja do it. What you see him do is he captures a body lock on Perez, turns him in one direction, then spins him the other, takes him with both legs, trips him out, forces him down off the

trip, almost like a sacrifice throw, and then he creates a dilemma for Perez. Perez can either stay on his back or try and scoot out, but keep facing Pantoja without much to do offensively there. I mean at that point you have to kind of fight from guard or with your back along the fence or your back seated by the way. Or your back along the canvas. Or you can do what probably is instinctual which is to turn over, create back exposure. But you got your hands underneath you, you got your feet underneath you or your knees or whatever, you've turned over so you can escape. But the reality is when they're doing that, they're only giving Pantoja, whoever is initiating the takedown sequence, everything they want.

Pantoja isn't looking for the takedown. I suppose if the takedown arrived, he would accept it. But if you notice, he doesn't control his hips, he doesn't control his shoulders, he doesn't even really control his legs, except for the tripping action all the way through. What he does is he goes for a tripping action, and it's not quite a sacrifice throw because he's already ahead in the scramble.

That's how he's able to win. What he ends up just trying to do is just to create back exposure on Perez, just enough so he turns his back as he plants his hands, and then to create base underneath it. Because that enables Pantoja to have a stable structure to climb. So what he's not looking for is really the takedown. It's a takedown in service of back exposure aided with base. He's already ahead in the scramble and then he can take the back. It's a shortcut to the back. It's very, very clever. Really, really good stuff.

I did something on my personal YouTube channel a little bit more in depth if you want to check that out. But you're starting to see this more and more and more and more. I do think you're going to see stuff like this and many other kinds of things which are going to be shortcuts

to dominant jiu-jitsu positions that don't require the laborious kind of paths that they used to have to take to get there. This is a bit of a cheat. And by the way, it's not cheating. A cheat code. I shouldn't say it's cheating in that sense. But it's coming off of trips typically.

You know, single leg, kick the post out. And this one was body lock, kick both legs out as he spun underneath him in the way which he did. So it involves people losing their balance, having to catch themselves, and then turn to get away. And as they turn to get away, as they turn to get their base under them, people are taking their backs. Now there's also the finish on top of this as well, where he had it, the chin basically of Perez, turned all the way to the side. Again, Drew Weatherhead has a whole video on finishing with the arm over the jaw.

You can go straight back with it and you can crank to the side. That crank to the side is one that is really devastating. By the way, you can finish them not just from pain. Certain types of chokes, even if they go over the jaw, can still elicit enough of a squeeze in the carotid arteries to also potentially put them out. So it can be a dual threat. I don't know if the one that Pantoja had in this particular case was like that, but that is something that is actually possible in the right circumstance. So something to keep in mind there. Dominant, dominant job by Pantoja.

And it's hard to understand exactly what might be next for him. It looks like you're going to get, obviously, Figge and Moreno four. And so I think Pantoja's in the catbird seat there. Well, he'll be up next. So he has to wait. But if something happens between them, either before the next fight happens or as a consequence of injury, he has a choice to make about what he's going to do there. So it should be a title shot next for him.

Not the next title shot, but his next fight should be a title shot. Really a great job by Pantoja. All right, we go to light heavyweight here. Magomed Onkalayev taking on Anthony Smith, winning in the second round via 309 via TKO punches. Basically, Smith in the end kind of had to pull butterfly guard, and I didn't even really mind it because if you notice in the first round, Megamed Ankhalaev was doing a good job with distance, wasn't getting hit with anything clean. It wasn't like he was tearing up Anthony Smith either. I mean, it was relatively even-ish.

In fact, let me look at the stats here. The stats have this one as, yeah, the stats are lopsided in the end, but the first round, yeah, not a huge difference. I mean, noticeable, but not huge. 20 significant strikes landed for Onkelayev. 13 for Smith. It's the second round where shit goes bad. 26 for Onkelayev.

Just 5 for Smith. Now, he got injured in the end of the, or close to the end of the first round. He actually swings on a right hand, misses, tries to catch himself, and when he does, he gets hit off balance. And that's actually where you can see the ankle not really ever recover. In fact, when he stands up from this and then walks back to his corner, you can see him limping right away. So he got kind of injured in there. And then he has to fight the second round, and he was doing his best, but he was able to get Magamana Kalaya to the fence, but he didn't have any push off the ankle. It was a terrible form.

So he tries to pull butterfly guard, and Smith does have very good jiu-jitsu. But even then, you know, it's just hard in modern MMA at 205 pounds, which those guys are much higher than that, obviously, by fight night. To pull butterfly guard and sweep this guy off of his base. You know, get on top, pass, pound him out. It's just going to be a really low percentage weight of victory. It was the best that Smith had to offer given the circumstances. I will say Ankalayev did a really good job of staying away from punishment. He did a good job of checking a lot of the kicks of Smith as well.

I think Smith wanted to use that to kind of soften him up, slow him down. Ankalayev bouncing, using really good movement. But Ankalayev, this was, you know, for everyone criticizing the Santos fight, remember after that, he was like, yeah, I wanted the five rounds. I wanted the time in the cage, because I just needed, I needed more time to get, you know, whatever

experience he was looking for. And here he goes in there, yes, Smith was definitely hobbled by the injury, but you can see why he wanted more time because a lot of times, man, these guys don't make it to the end of the fight with him. How many finishes does Magomed Ankalayev have in the UFC? So Ankalayev has one, two, three, four, five,

six, seven, eight, nine, ten fights, Smith being the tenth. He did lose his initial fight to Paul Craig. Then he KO'd Marcin Prakhneo. He had a decision against Klitsin Abreu, KO'd Dolka Lungiambula, KO'd Ayan Kutelaba twice, decisioned in a row Krylov, Uzdemir, and Santos, and they got back to this one. So in general, he's been handing them out. In general, he's been handing them out. This was a good one, but it was a measured one. He never got over

his skis. You have to notice, Onkelayev's balance is really good, which enables him to get into range, out of range, dodge strikes, put himself in position to throw the kinds of strikes that he's looking for. He just makes a lot of really, really, really good decisions. So what would be next for him? As it stands at the time of the recording of this ranking, excuse me, the time of the recording of this video, the rankings at light heavyweight have Onkeliev at three, Blachowicz at two. You could, of course, do a lot of different things. You could do Yuri and Teixeira. You could do Yuri and Blachowicz. You could do Blachowicz and Onkeliev. I actually kind of like that one. If they're going to go with the Teixeira one, then I definitely like that.

If they go Yuri, Teixeira, I like Blachowicz-Onkolaev. If they go Yuri-Blachowicz, you could do Teixeira versus Onkolaev, or you could just have Onkolaev wait. I don't know how you want to do that. A fight that might make sense is, I know Anthony Smith wants the Rakic fight back. Rakic was injured in his last contest. By the time both of these guys get right, that might be a fight that makes sense. But also, Smith has had a long career, a really long career, and to me, a pretty distinguished one. But he currently sits at 34 years of age, just turned 34, so not super old. But we're talking about a guy who's had more than 50 pro fights, who's been fighting since 2008. A lot of damage he's, I think, accrued during that time. I do wonder about his physical health. Obviously, he's kind of already

somewhat transitioned to the analyst desk, which I think he's very good at. I'm not saying that retirement for Smith is imminent, but I do begin to wonder a little bit how much longer exactly this is something he's going to continue to do. I don't know if it's that much longer. We shall see. It'll be interesting to note that, certainly. All right. Now we go back to the card.

Oh, let me see the targeting here real quickly for this Anthony Smith fight. Targeting by Onkeliavia. He distributes it nicely. 67% to the head, 13% to it nicely. 67% to the head. 13% to the body. 19% to the leg. That's real good. Really, really good.

Stuffing takedowns. 0 of 1 by Anthony Smith. Solid performance. His overall numbers are very good. Doesn't get hit hardly at all. Onkalayev. Career statistics. Just 2.14 strikes absorbed per minute.

Hardly anything. Takedown defense, 86%. Striking defense, 60%. Dude, he doesn't take big damage. You know, but you can win a round here, or Paul Craig got the submission last minute. Dude doesn't take a lot of damage, man. Doesn't get hit very cleanly, hardly at all. He's a hard guy to beat.

I see what Anthony Smith was saying before the fight. He's not some devastating monster. In certain ways, he's right. He's not like a guy who's going to go out there and just blow the doors off of you. He keeps beating good guys. And so for that reason, he gets reputationally looked at that way, which I understand as well. But I think Smith's point was his knockdown percentage is not crazy high. He doesn't go in there and snatch people's throats from the back and stuff like that. He doesn't do that. But what he does do is keeps himself out of harm's way, lands good punches, and just doesn't really let the other guy hardly ever get going. He kind of plays a shut down kind of offense.

It's interesting. All right. Let's see. Up next on our list, how about Alex Morneau taking on Matthew Semelsberger? Matthew Semelsberger, a guy out of this area, Frederick, Maryland, not too far from here. In fact, he listed his favorite athlete as Sean Taylor. Sean Taylor was his favorite athlete. Who's they calling me. And this was to me a real question of experience, to be candid with you.

Let me look at the numbers here if I can for Morneau and Semelsberger. Morneau doing a really good job. Good movement in and out when he needed to be. Had a good jab. I thought the two good things he did early in the fight was he maintained better distance for himself. You would see him doubling and tripling up his jab to get on the inside. He had good punch selection. He would go, retreat, let Semelsberger chase, counter him. He just did a really good job of maintaining distance, good punch selection, and a good job early in the first two rounds of being first.

So Semelsberger was trying to walk him down, and you had this great movement from Morneau on all the different ways in which he was evading stuff. And Semelsberger just couldn't control him. But then what did you notice in the third round? Third round, he hits the flying knee. Okay, that was nice, the jumping switch knee. And then on top, at the end of the second, I think he had vicious ground and pound. What really kind of occurred to me was that Semelsberger's striking is good,

but it wasn't as good as Morneau's, at least not in the way in which he was playing at this time. But Semelsberger is a much more physical guy, much more physical athlete. Someone asked me in one of my live chats, isn't it kind of crazy that Morneau and Ousmane are in the same weight class? And if you look at them physically, yeah, it's kind of crazy they're in the same weight class. But the truth is that I just didn't think Semelsberger leveraged his existing strengths well enough. I think that was the part that kind of got me. The numbers are not great for him. He did get one of one takedowns. Morneau is 0 for 4, though a lot of those are like clinch scenarios or slow Semmelberger down, but the significant strikes were just real bad. A 106 to 74 overall in favor of Morneau. 30 to 22 in round one. 47 to 26 in round two. Narrowed a

lot in round three. 29 of 26. This is the thing for me. I really believe that there should have been more leg kicking, more body kicking from Semmel's burger. Cause you got a guy like Morna who's moving. Whenever you got a guy like that, who's a mover. I had, I did a, I did a,

a live stream with two of the best boxers on the planet. Boots Ennis at 147 pounds. And then you had the super bantamweight unified champ, a cool boy, Steph. And I was asking him, how do you slow down a guy who is a mover? And both of them were almost like talking over each other

about how important body work was. Body work, body work, body work. You've got to get them to slow down. You can do different kinds of body work for MMA purposes, leg kicking, body kicking, whatever. I thought there could have been more of that. There could have been more clinching in favor of Semelsberger. And again, I want to be very clear. Morneau did a lot

to shut this down. Morneau played the game like he needed to. It looked to me like his experience in the octagon to this point, what is it, 14 fights or whatever it is, really has paid dividends. It's informed his judgment about how to do things correctly. And Semelsberger's just not got that same kind of experience. And it doesn't,

isn't as developed in the process as a consequence. But, like, given the success that Semelsberger saw in the third, that should inform his judgment going forward. He is a physical guy. And if he's having trouble negotiating distance, if he's having trouble, you know, sort of playing a technique game with another guy who's a bit of a mover, he was the much more powerful of the two,

he was the much stronger of the two, he had vicious ground and pound. Seems like if he had gotten to that a little bit earlier, he would have had, you know, who's to say who would have won, but it probably would have improved his chances significantly. So he did show some real life in that third, and that eye, by the way, was a disaster, right? That eye was completely closed. So get groceries delivered across the

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who I think, what is this? If you count, let's see, one, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 this is just his 6th UFC fight and the previous loss was only to Chaos Williams which came by way of decision this would have been by far his best win Morino has a win obviously over Donald Cerrone he's got a lot under his belt there

probably a little bit too much too soon and I think the numbers kind of speak to how much he takes in terms of damage. 5.17 strikes per minute. How about landed? 4.99, so he's got a negative differential. It's a slight one, but he's got a negative differential. How about this?

Takedown accuracy, 100%. 100%. He has a takedown accuracy of 100%. Man, if you're that good at landing takedowns and there's that much of a physical difference, got to get to that quicker., gotta get to that quicker. Gotta get to that quicker. So, they all learn at their own pace. We'll see what happens,

but nice job by Morineau to really leverage good movement, great jab, great range management, great shot selection, good counters, proactive when he needed to be, hit all the right notes, by and large. Hit all the right notes. And by the way, the data on that,

the results themselves, speak to that, which was two 29-28s, one 30-27. Okay, how about Drew Dober taking on Rafael Alves? Here's another case where you've got a guy who's super athletic, explosive, big mover. How do you slow him down? Leg kicks, body kicks, body punches. Especially got tuned up in the end of the first, middle part of the second. Completely changed the ball game. When Alves was out there throwing all that crazy stuff,

those crazy hand-planted kicks and everything, which didn't land but are fun for show and certainly physically taxing. Yeah, but are fun for show and certainly physically taxing. Yeah, it's a different ballgame in that case, but he really went heavy to the body. Let's look at the numbers on this, if we can, for Drew Dober. So here's what we have. Dober targeting the body 32%. 32%. That is a lot. Leg, just 6%, a little bit. And then the head, 61%. To Alves is 64%. There's a lot there.

Significant strike totals. Massive difference. Each one got 11 in the first. Dober took over in the second, 37 to 20. And Dober really poured it on in the third, 14 to 6. Dober currently occupying a space of having now a positive differential. 4.47 strikes landed per minute to just 4.16 absorbed. Takedown accuracy, not high, 17%. Takedown defense, 54%, not high.

This was mostly a striking affair. He didn't really have to worry about it. Let me go over and look at the numbers for old Alves. What are his career numbers? Yeah, strikes landed per minute, 2.46. Strikes absorbed, 4.14. My man takes a lot of punishment. Now, granted, he has losses to Drew Dober and Demir Ismagulov, two guys that are very striking oriented. He's got wins over Gia Casey with a guillotine choke and then Alejandro Flores, which he also has a guillotine choke. He tried for a guillotine choke here, by the way. Great job by Dober getting that left I think it was his left knee on the inside

to create space so he couldn't really leverage the guillotine with his going hip to hip with Drew Dober. That was really nice by him. That kept him alive by the way in a lot of ways but the body work the body work was key. Not just in setting up the finish where he was kind of hurt. There was a time in the second round I believe where you saw Alvis switching stance after some of that and his team was calling

him out like, he's switching stance as you can hear it. But love the left kicks to the body, love the jabs to the body, love the crosses to the body, love leg kicking, any of that stuff to just really attack the body in ways that make them mechanically hard to move, hard to breathe, second guessing how it all plays together. You just love seeing a body shot KO. And that shot at the top of the floating rib there, probably exceedingly painful. Now, folks have said, would it be a good next fight for Dober to fight someone like Patty Pimblitt? I think so. Pimblitt has had three wins.

The last one over Jordan Leavitt, a very good one. Striking is something that he can't avoid forever. I think Dober, certainly, with a takedown defensive rate of 54%, that's a winnable fight for Patty. Conversely, I think if it stayed on the feet, Drew Dober would take his head off, but that makes it a winnable fight for Drew. So it's a winnable fight really in either direction. And Paddy has only three UFC fights. This would be his fourth, but he's got more than 20 pro fights, nearly 20 pro wins. I think that's an appropriate next step. Drew Dober, I don't know if he's ranked or not. Let's see if he made the rankings with this one at lightweight. Nope, didn't make the rankings. So he's not even in

the rankings. How about that? Two unranked guys. I think that fight should be next. I like that one. Action oriented. Winnable for Dober. Winnable for Patty. May the best man win.

Very, very, very much like that idea. I think it'd be a lot of fun. And I think it's the right next step for Patty in particular. And then last but not least, again, this is something I discussed a little bit earlier in the week, Michael Morales taking on Adam Fugit. The thing that stands out to me about Michael Morales is he is very good, but he's got what I call a disaggregated game.

He's got all these different parts of his game that are really good. He's athletic, powerful. He knows how to handle the lead jab, but he's kind of hittable he's got a very good takedown defense but maybe not the best ring generalship like there's all these pieces of his game like the parts that are good are really good and it's not lopsided it's not like he's got like amazing striking and then like really bad wrestling or like really great wrestling and then bad striking they're just all these different. And he's 23 years old and he's had uneven experience up to this point. Some of the, a lot of the shows he initially started in were in his

native Ecuador and I think parts of Mexico as well. And here he is now in the UFC. Obviously he trains out of Mexico. So his upbringing through the game has been good and helpful, but you can see that it's not been comprehensively like T's crossed and I's dotted. But he's very athletic. He seems to make, for the most part, pretty good decisions. Fugit was on top of him, eating big shots, kept coming. It was ultimately a short, I think, right hand that sat him down in the end.

What I would like to see is him, you know, he's only, I think, 23 years old. What I would like to see is him continue to develop in the way that he has been and to get more systemically coordinated, right? To really begin to put entire sequences all the way together from jabbing on the outside, getting to the inside, you know, hitting the double, getting to the inside, hitting the double, pushing to the fence, either getting the takedown and working that through or get stopped, retreating, and then doing it all again.

These long, rather than having a few good, I'm not saying he's only good at a few things, but rather than having these pockets of strength, having these entire flows of strength, of this entire process that you're trying to execute there, you're good at, rather than you're good at that part, good at that part, good at that part. Please don't misunderstand me. At 23 years of age, to be as good as he is, as athletic as he is, as confident as he is,

and by the way, he had a great half guard, I think it was a butterfly guard sweep. It was either half a butterfly guard sweep from underneath where he was able to grab this leg, block the outside one, create separation, and stand. So in other words, guys who are able to use a guard to stand rather than just fighting everyone off, getting your back to the fence, and pushing off the head, and getting your hips away. It was kind of anti-wrestling, more cleverly using the guard to stand up.

That should not be slept on. That's hard to do. That's really hard to do. That should be acknowledged as a very important skill that a guy like this has. I'm acknowledging it outright. And he's powerful, and he's athletic, and he has good takedowns when he wants to. He can do a good takedown defense. He's got good stuff. But I would like to see it all brought together. And that will come with time. 23 years of age, it will come with time. But what, so that to me is there's lots of promise, a ton of promise, provided that there's a little bit more coordination to integrate and then to, you know, the parts he's not good at, let's get better and then let's integrate everything rather than just kind of

being good at a series of things that may or may not be connected in that way. So if we look at the numbers here, he scored two knockdowns against Fugit, both of which came in the third round. A numerically outstruck Fugit, 83 to 64. Fugit whiffing, only getting one of eight takedowns, total accumulation of control time, just 151. So he got 131 in the first round, eight seconds in the second round, and 12 seconds in the third. But some of that's control time against the fence.

Very close in the striking, 26 to 25. Morales landing, but not quite doing enough. Like still the ring generalship there, like letting Fugit pressure him rather than doing a little bit more pressuring than I think he could have. Morales tied him up again, 32 to 32 in the second round, but in the third round began to take over, 25-7. He's targeting Morales headhunting a bit, 89% to the head, 8% to the body, 2% to the leg. I think some diversification of that would do him well. Fugit did actually a pretty good job

of diversification. Not enough to get the dub, but certainly to be competitive through long stretches of this fight. So this is what I mean about Morales. This dude is one you definitely want to keep your eye on. He's real talented, but there is so much untapped potential with him. So much untapped potential. And that's good and bad, because there's potential, and it hasn't been actualized, but someone's going to have to bring that to bear, including himself, obviously, but the right kind of environment for him, which he might be in, but let's see it all play out.

So there you have it. Not really any other honorable mentions. The other fights on the card were not super money. There were some other good ones, certainly to be sure, but those are the top five that I liked the most. What did you like the most? Let me know in the comments. Thumbs up on the video, hit subscribe. Appreciate y'all watching. MK is back tomorrow live, and until then, enjoy the fights.