MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 279 Results: Nate Diaz vs. Tony Ferguson | UFC 279 Reaction | Morning Kombat Post-Fight Show

Episode Date: September 11, 2022

At UFC 279, Nate Diaz faces Tony Ferguson in a welterweight main event on ESPN+ pay-per-view. In the co-main event, Khamzat Chimaev faces off against Kevin Holland, also a welterweight contest. Daniel Rodriguez faces off against Li Jingliang, Irene Aldana fights Macy Chiasson and Johnny Walker vs. Ion Cutelaba opens the main card. We'll have UFC 279 results, reactions, analysis and more on this UFC 279 Post-Fight Show for Morning Kombat. (2:00) - Nate Diaz vs. Tony Ferguson (26:35) - Khamzat Chimaev vs. Kevin Holland  (38:51) - Daniel Rodriguez vs. Li Jingliang  (43:57) - Irene Aldana vs. Macy chiasson (50:30) - Fan Questions  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

Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. Hi everyone. How are you doing? Let's turn this up just a little bit. It is officially the 11th of September. Wow. 2022. It is 1246 11th of September. Wow. 2022. It is 1246 a.m. East Coast time.

My name is Luke Thomas. I am one half of the hosting duo for Morning Combat. My co-host, Brian Campbell. You can catch him probably in moments on CBS Sports HQ if you're interested in that. But here you are because UFC 279 is in the books. We have the results. This is the official post-fight show. This is the official UFC 279 reactions.

We'll get to your results. We'll get to the reactions. We'll get to some analysis. We'll get to your questions. I put a tweet up. You can check me out at LThomasNews and put a response there. I will look at those in the end.

We have a lot to get to. A lot happened. A lot was weird. A lot was weird, but a lot there. I will look at those in the end. We have a lot to get to. A lot happened. A lot was weird. A lot was weird, but a lot happened. So if you don't want spoilers, standard disclaimer, now is your time to go. Yes? Okay, five, four, three, two, one. All right, I'm assuming if you're sticking around, you're ready for some spoilers. Without further ado, let's get this party started, shall we? Alright, and we are back. As always, if you are new to Morning Combat, we do a live show.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday, live 11am in the East, but a whole lot more beyond that. Thanks to everyone who checked out the Nate Diaz resume review, among other projects that we have. So I appreciate you guys watching. Appreciate you staying up late with me, especially for you European folks out there who are watching. I appreciate you very much. All right, we have a lot to get to, do we not? Wow. Okay.

Let's start. I got my green drink. I got my AG1. Let's do this. All right. Your results are as follows. UFC 279 took place at the T-Mobile Arena, of course, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Your main event.

Nate Diaz. I mean, he's unbelievable, is he not? He wins and defeats Tony Ferguson via guillotine choke 252 of round four heading into round four I was I was um at the time of the stoppage at the time of the choke I think I had 29 28 Ferguson I thought Nate was pretty clearly winning the fourth so if it had continued more or less as such I would have had a tie heading into the fifth Now, the caveat to that is that At least as far as Twitter is concerned

And I don't know if they're going to give us any kind of scorecard I think they will here soon I'll try to get it if we can The caveat to that is I saw scores all over the place I saw some folks who the place. I saw some folks who had it 30-27 Diaz. I saw folks who had it 29-28 Diaz. Again, I had it 29-28 Ferguson. I don't think there was any 30-27 Fergusons. I don't think there could have been, but the point I'm trying to make is it was pretty close rounds. Pretty close rounds all together.

There's so much to get to about this. Let me say something about the stoppage first, and then we'll kind of work backwards. Tony Ferguson shot on Nate Diaz. The first time he did in round four, he gets submitted with a guillotine choke. Boy, this is a pattern. Don't fucking shoot on Nate Diaz. Let's go through this, right? Kurt Pellegrino tries for the takedown anyway against the fence, gets triangled. Jim Miller doesn't

like getting punched, shoots on Nate Diaz, gets guillotined. Conor McGregor doesn't like getting punched, shoots on Nate Diaz. Almost, yeah, eventually got rear naked choked. Nearly got submitted the first time with a guillotine, then rolled out, and then got mounted, and then turned his back, and then got submitted, but again, from the shot, and then here you have this, and I have to go back and check the Tekanori Gomi fight, I believe he tried some shenanigans there as well, but at least four different cases of guys trying to take Nate Diaz down, and then getting immediately, or very closely to immediately submitted from it, he is very good at that, doesn't have great takedown defense, Nate Diaz down and then getting immediately or very closely to immediately submitted from it. He is very good at that.

Doesn't have great takedown defense, Nate Diaz, but boy does he have lights out jiu-jitsu. His guard is deadly. And the funny part about that too was Tony takes him down and it looked to me like Diaz had lost the clamp a little bit and had to kind of sit up to readjust it and then drive the hand through. And then he did essentially what Jon Jones did. Not the same thing, but pretty close to what Jon Jones did to Ryan Bader, where you then take the hand and then you just, you know, there's different names for it. But essentially you're just driving the elbow down and then you're pushing your hand back as far as you can. And then he got the tap.

Dude, Nate Diaz is an unbelievable guy. Fucking 20, however many hours ago it is at this point. Nate Diaz was staring down the barrel of a Hamzat-Shemya fight, right? Manages to avoid it. Gets another tough opponent in Tony Ferguson, but a much more manageable challenge relative to what we saw from Hamzat. Poor Kevin Holland just got mowed down.

We'll talk about that a little bit later. Gets in there, puts up a very good fight. You could have had him winning at a bare minimum. It was very competitive, and then scores a submission finish in his final UFC fight, then gets interviewed by Joe Rogan. And I got to say, I got to give Joe Rogan credit. The commentary duo, him and DC, is not my favorite, if I'm being candid.

But asking Hamzat, pressing him on the weight miss, again, we'll talk about that in just a minute, and then kind of like being very candid with Nate about, but this was the last fight on your contract. Are you going to box? Like not in any way shying away from the kinds of things that UFC, which is, you know, very controlling about the message, typically likes to not talk about. Joe just talked about all of it, which you're supposed to do that, right? That's what the audience is thinking about. That's what the audience is talking about. It's on everyone's mind, all of it, which you're supposed to do that, right? That's what the audience is thinking about. That's what the audience is talking about. It's on everyone's mind, all of these considerations.

But UFC typically doesn't want to give those things oxygen. Joe Rogan asked him about it. So Nate Diaz says, without getting very specific, says, I'm going to go and basically I'm going to take a break from UFC. I'm going to show everyone and other sport. I mean, he sort of says, oh, it could have been jujitsu, kickboxing, boxing, but I think we all know it's probably boxing. Conor McGregor couldn't do it. I'm going to show you how to do it, then come back and win a UFC title. Don't know about the second part of that, but the first part seems inevitable. Nate Diaz is going to be, there's no really such thing as free agency in the way in which we typically understand it in other sports,

but insofar as, you know, not being under direct control and contract of UFC, this is the biggest free agent in MMA history. Dude, 48 hours ago, this guy was staring down the barrel of a Hamzat Shemaev beating. Not just a loss, but a fucking potential beating. And here he is, gets a win in the championship rounds against another legend off into the sunset to then maximize his leverage. And in whatever way he so chooses. Boy, you want to talk about a... For so long, it felt like the MMA gods were not smiling on Nate Diaz, but this week, buddy, they were ear to ear Cheshire Cats

enjoying everything they were looking at with respect to Nate Diaz. A remarkable turn of events. A historic, for many different reasons, not just the wins, because he had plenty of losses too, a remarkable career, a remarkable story, one that ends in triumph, powered entirely by self-belief, determination,

vision for himself, vision for what the fight game is supposed to be about, vision for what his career could look like, even when everyone else around him, including probably many media members and fans as well, we went through this in the resume review, he got booed multiple times in his career. He got booed quite heavily against Marcus Davis. The chance of Diaz sucks, in fact. And he persevered through all of that, persevered through very low purses against Benson Henderson, against Jim Miller, against Michael Johnson, against a lot of different guys, to end up in a point where he beats Conor McGregor in 2016 on late notice, still has some up and down moments subsequent to that, and ends it on this note in the main event. I mean,

I hope he goes and buys some lottery tickets tonight. I really do. I don't know what the Powerball is up to, if there's any kind of national Powerball in play at all, but if there is, Jesus, if I'm Nate Diaz, I'm buying one of those tickets tonight. What an incredible turn of fortune. What serendipity. But really, it's not just serendipity. It's not just luck that he stumbled into. Yes, there were a lot of events this week that helped set up this. But the entire thing has been in motion for a really, really, really long time.

And there was a lot of times where I'm sure it was very difficult to see it ever ending in this kind of a circumstance. It was very difficult to ever find himself in this kind of moment. But dude, he just persevered. And sometimes, man, you just create your own luck as a consequence, right? All he did this week was show up and make weight, right? That's all he did. Show up and make weight. But everything around him kind of switched in such a way where he was able to take advantage of it and end on this note. Dude, whatever he does next, here's what I know. Here's what I know. Whatever Nate Diaz does next, whether he boxes Jake Paul, returns to UFC, whatever.

Motherfucking Nate Diaz is about to get paid. He's about to get paid. Paid in a way that you can't imagine. I mean, he's going to get paid. Paid. And if somehow, I don't think it's likely, but if somehow Jake Paul goes in there and beats Anderson Silva, which again, I don't think is going to happen, but stranger things have happened, certainly. That fight's going to do a million pay-per-view buys or more. Probably more. He has set himself up in the most dramatic of ways. All right, let's talk about the fight here for just a second. We can get to some of these broader questions here a little bit later. What did we see from Nate Diaz? It was about what you would have expected. It was a little bit like all the fights that he's had

in a lot of different ways. Getting back to the guys trying to take him down and then getting submitted. But beyond that, it was a lot like the cowboy fight. Not as one-sided, obviously. But in terms of just a guy kicking him, sticking and moving, kicking him, sticking and moving. And Nate trying to find ways to corner them. He did have a reach advantage in this fight. That was sort of one real big change.

Like in the cowboy fight, in the Gomi fight, in the Jim Miller fight, he had a pretty significant reach advantage. He did not have one here. I think they both have a 76-inch reach. So you could see there were times in the second and third round, I thought, where he was having trouble cornering Tony, finding him, at least for sustained periods of action. But what did you notice were the two ways he was able to get Tony into big trouble?

One, playing like fuck-fuck games, where he would allow to like put his hand on the cage and like just kind of sit there and let Tony walk to him. And then when he did, that would be the range negotiation that he needed because it was hard to chase Tony down in that way. And then there were times he would get Tony being undisciplined with his cage positioning, where he could then get him behind the black line, close to the fence, right? The thing I call the warning track.

And then from there, dude, he could fucking tee off on him. And especially in that fourth round, dude, he was going to work on Tony. It was interesting, dude. Tony has been legendary for a very long time for a lot of reasons. Exciting fight style, sure. But let's talk about brass tacks here. Get down to him anyway. Has had a legendary chin. I realize he got put out by Michael Chandler in his last fight, but historically speaking, he's had an unbelievable rock chin. And the other part you could say was that he hit hard himself as well, but also has great cardio. It was interesting, dude. Nate was landing

on him, and you could see his facial expressions change in ways that I didn't necessarily see when other guys hit him. Nate must have very deceptive power. I know they always talk about it as a thing, but you could really pick up on it here. But those were the two circumstances where Nate had the best work. Nate's not great about getting in front of you, flicking the jab, fainting his way on the inside like a Volkanovski type, right? They can really do that in very clear pattern, but difficult to pick up on patterns. But you know, patterns obviously that Volkanovski knows, really sharp positioning, right? It's a little bit looser. It's a little bit more off balance. It's a little bit wilder. It's a little bit more chaotic. And Tony was doing a good job of clinch breaking, right? Anytime Nate was trying to wrap up over the top of him,

he was doing a good job of stopping that before it ever really got started. So that was a great job by Tony as well. Like Tony was doing a lot of the right things, but I will tell you like, and you know, credit to Nate as well. Nate saying this was all a wrestling game, a game or a fight camp. I believe him. I very much believe him that that's true. And so they had to adapt last second to this kind of, you know, striking fight with Tony Ferguson. Obviously, his jiu-jitsu is going to be on point no matter what. And I'm sure he went for a lot of it.

But I thought Diaz turned in a very admirable, unusual, typical Diaz performance. He got his legs kicked to unbelievable shit. We'll have to deal with that later. That's always been a problem, although he does check a little bit more than folks realize. That cut over Tony's shin that happened early is a testament to that. Folks think that like Diaz, is it true that Nate Diaz gets hit with a lot of leg kicks? Yes. Is it true that he never makes any effort to check them? No. Not true. He might not be consistent enough.

He might not be good enough, or however you wish to assess it. But it's really not true, despite how much he gets kicked in the legs, that he doesn't ever try to combat that. He really does. So you got from Nate what I thought you were probably going to get. To me, the bigger X factor here, while there was some mystery about what to expect from Nate, the bigger X factor here to me was going to be with Tony. These guys had fought four years ago. I don't think I ever would have thought twice. I would be like, oh yeah, Tony's going to

win. This is no brainer. Now you don't know, especially coming off that devastating KO loss. So I thought there was a lot of good from Tony in the sense that he had the right game plan by and large. He was overcommitting and then trying to spin. But the reality is Nate was never really able to take full advantage of that. So I don't see that as that terrible or limiting a factor. The thing that I really take away from this fight was that Tony looked a little slower, right? He's 38 years old. That's to be expected. His durability looked to be a little bit in question here. Again, relative, we're talking about the high standard that he set. Relative to that high standard, his durability appeared to be in question to me a little bit. Cardio looked pretty good, I thought, from Tony.

Again, game plan, good game plan. There was also this question of whether Tony could, like, you know, his game is kind of predicated a little bit on taking damage to roll through it and then find these other opportunities. There was a question of, like, could he dial that back into a more organized way? You're still Tony, but, like, could he dial that back into a more organized way? You're still Tony, but like you're a little bit more careful about the margins. I thought he mostly did that. Mostly did that. You know, not perfectly. Again, there were, I did see scorecards of 30-27 Diaz. I disagree with that, but I did see them. But in general, I thought there was a lot of that. I just felt like, you know, and I said this too,

like in defense of Tony, he just started working with Jackson Wink. Like it might take time for that all to gel. And there were a lot of positives. The only negative I'm going to focus on for the purposes of this conversation and this post-fight show was I thought his durability was a little bit in question.

Again, cardio looks pretty good, but he did seem to be not as, didn't quite have the same zip and pop and fleet of footness that he does at 155, which again, could be a weight function as well. Need to see a little bit more from him. Not a devastating loss in that way, but not the redemption, certainly, that I think he was looking for. Again, though, let's be very clear about this. And this is true for the main event. Didn't really matter in the co-main, obviously, because Hamzat's just a bulldozer, but it was definitely true in the D-Rod and Jingliang fight, you know, these guys were fighting each other on very late notice, when you

have that happen, I remember when Jon Jones fought OSP, and everyone was like, oh, Jon doesn't look all that great, dude, he took that fight on last minute fucking notice, like, it does change everything about what you were planning, you could go from an orthodox to a southpaw opponent. There could be a weight change. There could be all kinds of different changes. It throws these guys off. You don't get the same kind of reactions from them that you ordinarily would. Could Tony beat a guy like Nate with a better game plan or a slightly fine-tuned game plan, but with much more time to prepare for that? Yeah, maybe. Of course, it works in the reverse as well, that Nate would have had maybe an easier time if he had had more time to prepare for a guy like Tony.

But in general, you got a little bit of weirdness through this card, especially in those two places aforementioned by virtue of that. But let's look at the numbers here, if we can, for this card. Oops, hang on. Let's see what we got here. All right. Yeah, Nate doing a little bit more, attempting a little bit more, landing a little bit more, at least in terms of not qualitative totals, but numeric totals, okay? Numeric totals, significant strikes. Nate Diaz landed 101, Tony Ferguson, Tony Ferguson 80 okay so we're going to go Diaz Ferguson here right Diaz Ferguson round 1 22 to 19 round 2 28 to 20 that's interesting but I

thought Diaz excuse me I thought Ferguson did the better work round 3 Ferguson uh 30 26 I thought that was the clearest of the rounds if you you had round two for Diaz, no issue. And then round four, it obviously didn't make it to the final bell, but 25-15 for Nate. He really took over there. In terms of targeting, let's look at this. Yeah, Tony Ferguson to the legs, 42% for Nate, just eight. To the body, 28% for Tony Ferguson to Nate, 20. To the head, Nate Diaz, 70%. Tony

Ferguson, just 28. Just 28. I certainly respect his body work. I certainly thought the leg work was very appropriate. I wonder if there was a case to maybe go for the head hunting a little bit more. One of the things that was really interesting about this contest was that by the end of round two, and it got weird in round three, but by the end of round two, you had the cut for Ferguson on his left leg, and he was cut over his right eye in that eyelid slash eyebrow area. And Nate didn't bleed at all. You would think if you're going to fight Nate Diaz, getting those cuts open, again, all easier said than done. Again, taking the fight on last minute notice. But still, you would imagine that cutting that open would be a fairly big priority. Again, easier said than done. You got to make contact with him. But if you're only targeting him less than 30% of the time to the head

It's going to make it a little bit harder to do So I don't have any issue with the amount he kicked to the leg I think all of that's pretty appropriate And again, the general stick and move-ness that he was showing The clinch breaking that Tony was showing There was a lot of good there, actually But the 28% to the head seems a little bit low, given that Diaz does a lot of standing and then leaning in front.

Granted, he's doing a little bit. So that was probably the other part too, right? Like when someone is heavy on their front foot, and they're leaning and they've got their guard up this high, they are baiting the strike, right? They are baiting you in that way. And so he was probably trying to avoid any of those obvious traps that Diaz was setting.

Nevertheless, there must have been some kind of way to find the Goldilocks scenario where you're not walking right into his traps, but you're also not avoiding head contact in ways that could be more advantageous. Again, hindsight being 20-20, you've got to be very forgiving that these guys took it on last-minute notice. But I've got to tell you, I thought Nate showed that veteran durability, again, good patience, unusual traps. When he's putting his arm on the cage like that, it looks like he's just fucking off. And I thought that Mark Goddard might wave it at one point in the third. I don't know what the hell they were

doing. But in general, all of that is to bring Tony's guard down and bring him to him. That's what that's all about. Come to me. So I don't have to negotiate that distance myself, especially without the reach advantage. That's what that's all about. That's what that all comes down to right there. And I won't say in large part, but enough, it worked. Enough. Tony kind of slowed a little bit in that fourth, and Diaz was having a much better time keeping his back close to the cage,

and then making him pick an angle at which he wanted to escape, and then finding him in the process, beating him up, having him cover up, and then that shot was a little bit desperation-y, you know, because of the pressure that Nate puts on him. Dude, that's class. I mean, here is the story of this fight. Forget about the Hamzat angle. Just by the time he got to take on Tony, Diaz won that in like total Diaz fashion. Getting his legs chewed up,

maybe losing a couple of rounds along the way, again, depending on the scorecard, but then using his boxing to make guys make bad decisions. They make bad decisions, in this case with the wrestling, and then using his jiu-jitsu prowess to make them pay for it. Dude, Nate Diaz has been doing that for 15 fucking years. He's been doing that for 15 fucking years, man. And he did it tonight against not some wet- the ears, nobody, right? Like never been

in a big spot before. Dude, Tony Ferguson's been in big fucking fights. He's been in big venues against big name opponents. He's done it. And Nate still got him. It's incredible. It's incredible. This night could not have gone better. I mean, I suppose Nate could have gone there and did what he did to Gomi where it was just, you know, one-sided ass kicking.. I mean, I suppose Nate could have gone there and did what he did to Gomi, where it was just, you know, one-sided ass-kicking. But, I mean, in general, the poetic nature of the victory and how it's so representative of this entire journey he's been on and how it looked like the journey he's been on.

Like, Nate didn't have to change a whole lot to win in this circumstance. He had to be very good. He had to be very tough. But he didn't have to do anything this circumstance. He had to be very good. He had to be very tough, but he didn't have to do anything radically new. He did the same thing he's been doing to these guys since 2007. That's what he did tonight. It's just insane, man. It's just insane. And I have to tell you, as a guy who's been covering the sport for a fairly long time, I remember his UFC debut. I remember the Ultimate Fighter Season 5. I remember exactly where I was. I was at my friend's apartment in Greenwich Village in New York City.

He had, it was, I did a lot of drinking there. I remember vividly watching it. I had a show on like some bullshit podcast on Blog Talk Radio. I don't know if you guys even remember that, where you have to call in from your phone and like host your show from your phone. I was trying whatever I could at that point to get ahead. And I remember covering that live, dude. I did that.

I remember this distinctly. He's been doing the same shit, more polished, difficult versions of it as his career has escalated. But not anything radically new. It was very, very much a Nate Diaz performance. It was a Nate Diaz night performance It was a Nate Diaz night It was a Nate Diaz event And he walks out of here into a place

That is going to be reserved for The biggest names in combat sports His next fight Wherever the hell that is Is going to be huge Huge And if it's in boxing And if it's against Jake Paul

He is going to get My man is going to get... My man's going to have a lot of money. Good for him. Making $15,000 to fight RDA, to going from that to potentially fighting a guy who got famous off YouTube, who is trying hard at boxing,

and technically a pro, but has not really shown any pro level proficiency. Pretty, pretty remarkable journey. So would you like to see more from Tony? I think he has earned the right certainly to keep going. I did not get like, you know, I didn't get the sense, someone was asking me this week, like, do you think Tony could put together a run in this weight class? No. Like a title run. No, he's 38 years old. I just don't see that as a reasonable assumption at this point. One never knows, certainly, but I would bet against it. Nevertheless, though, does he have enough life left in him to beat potentially good fighters or be in interesting contests that folks like you want to see where he could do well.

Yes, I do think that is certainly a possibility. I think that's very much in play. There was enough there to look at there again, especially with a late minute change of opponent, first time working with a new camp, coming off of a devastating knockout loss. There was a lot of ways that could have gone much worse for him, candidly. And the fact that he looked as good as he did, all things considered, I think gives us enough reason to say, hey, if Tony wants to keep going, this is not one of the situations where you feel, like, really uncomfortable with the amount of damage he keeps taking. You feel really uncomfortable with their inability to throw back. I didn't really get that sense. I do think he's not the same guy since the Gaethje fight. Certainly, I don't even know if he's going

to be the same since the Chandler fight, but good enough to still be in relevant contests that fans want to pay money to see and that he could potentially be enriched by. Yes, sure. I do What a night. That is very crazy. Very crazy. Holy smokes. And again, that third round, him and his brother Nick, what they just do, crazy-ass shit. By the way, Tony briefly laid down. I don't know if y'all saw that in that third round when Nate was doing his antics. Tony got in on the action as well.

Pretty remarkable. All right, let's talk about the co-main here for just a second. Again, if you have questions, put them on Twitter. I will get to them. Here's how it goes. Remember, this was not a welterweight fight per se. It was a catchweight bout of 180 pounds. Hamzat Shemaev defeats Kevin Holland via darts choke at 213 of round number one.

Jesus Christ, dude, he got run over. I give Kevin Holland all the credit in the world for accepting this contest. I give him all the credit in the world for trying his best. He did what he could. It was a terrible matchup. He had acknowledged to the media yesterday it's a terrible matchup, but it'll be fun is what he said. I don't know how much fun he had. Hamzat Shemaev comes out there and he just, you know, he has a fire in his belly, the likes of which you may not see very often. You know, I see fighters get excited and like, woo! His woo is different.

You know, his expression of rage feels much more, I don't know what the word is. Get too close to you, you're going to get burned. His shot and level change is like fucking lightning. Like lightning. Like lightning. He makes that look a lot easier than it is. I mean, fearless, first of all. But then the speed with which he can get his level low

and then get in on his opponent's hips and legs is just remarkable. And Kevin Holland did his goddamn best to avoid it. Granby rolling as much as he could and then Hamzat matching it by re-rolling on top, bringing his hips up the back end, and then getting it on top was just shockingly amazing.

Credits to Kevin Holland for even putting up that much resistance. But for then Hamzat to match it without missing a beat. You're like, okay, this is going to go bad. Finally locks up the darts choke. And doesn't get it. And he did the right thing, right? Which was loosen it a little bit, create motion, and then use that controlled motion to then reapply it wherever that may be. And he did that.

He did that quite well. Finally gets the D'Arce choke and then puts him out. Took, I think, I don't know how many attempts. Let's see. Let's see what the stats on that are. I think there was like three or four attempts there. I don't know if they have sub attempts to they credit him with two submission attempts. It felt like it was a little bit more than that. But you get the idea. Wow, I think. So you do you guys know what the term punked is not the one that the Urban Dictionary colloquial sense. Colloquial.

Fight metric has a term called punked. Where if you lose in a fight and you don't even throw. I think it's either throw or land a single punch. And then you lose. It's called getting punked because it's what happened to CM Punk. I don't think he landed a single punch in his loss to Mickey Gall. It looks like in that sense Holland got punked. He didn't throw a single significant strike, didn't have any takedowns, didn't have any sub-attempts or reversals or control time, nothing. His stat line is zero across the board. Holy shit.

Wow. I don't think I've ever seen that before. Hamzat, for his point, got in two significant strikes or attempted to, landed one is credited with two of five takedown attempts I guess because of how many times you could see Holland either stuff it or Granby roll out of it to create a scramble and then the two sub-attempts and then he is credited with 1 minute and 56 seconds of control time. Understand something. Hamzat is credited with 1 minute and 56

seconds of control time in a fight that went 2 minutes and 13 seconds. I mean, my man basically had control time for the duration of the bout, and he blanked the stat sheet of Kevin Holland. So let's go back here and review for just a second. Ready for this? Significant strikes absorbed in his UFC debut against John Phillips, one. Significant strikes absorbed in his second fight against Riz Maki, zero. Against Gerald Mearshort, zero. The Leech, zero. Of course, Gilbert Burns put it on him for a little bit. Kevin Holland, zero. My man has had one, two, three, four, five fights. He's had five, a total six.

But of those six, he's had five UFC fights where he has absorbed a whopping total of one significant strike. One. I know that there was a lot of chatter pre-fight today after yesterday's weigh-ins, even before that, like starting fights with Paulo Costa. Clearly, Hamzat Shumayev does have some issues about managing and regulating his emotions and how he interacts with them. I don't know what the full story is with the weight cutting any more than you do, certainly at this point. He says he could have kept going. I have seen situations.

A buddy of mine was not allowed to fight one time for Bellator because he had an elevated heart rate that they didn't want him to cut weight. He said he felt fine. He could have easily done it and had done it previously. So there could have been that. He could have had some elevated heart rate that they found, well, you can't cut weight anymore, so he had to stop. Who knows?

We know he can make welterweight. He has done it a number of times. His last fight was at welterweight. He made it, no problem. But I'll say this, dude. Hamzat Chumaev, he definitely turned into a bit of a villain for the fans this week. And there are some larger issues, again, about how he can manage his affairs more, I think, prudently. But if you were thinking,

and I was kind of contemplating it, if you were thinking that like, oh, he is going to just sort of descend into madness, he will fight so undisciplined because he has such an inability to regulate everything that he will get himself into trouble. Boy, today is a reminder that that is probably not in play. Hamzat Shumayev is a fucking steamroller, and I realize that this week was not his best showcase of professionalism. Quite fair. Very fair. I don't see any way he doesn't get a weight class belt at some point. It doesn't seem logical that he wouldn't get one, whether it's against Kamaru,

whether it's against Leon Edwards, whether it's against somebody else. Don't know how long he'll keep it. Don't know how that's going to go. That guy's going to wear a UFC belt, and probably within short order. Now, Kevin Holland took this fight on last minute notice. He had a completely blank stat sheet, so I don't know how much there is to say about this fight. You got the Hamzat experience. The question is what is next? We know that Kamaru is going to fight Leon right away. Winner of that, you could say, gets Chemayev.

I will tell you what I would like to see. It's been discussed before, but now I think it's very relevant, especially if he wants to stay busy. Show of hands, who's interested in a Hamzat Shemya versus Colby Covington fight? You can count me in on that. Would love to see Shemya tested. Here's the problem with a fight like this one. I'm glad the UFC was able to pull a rabbit out of their hat and that the fighters were as accommodating as they were. But he didn't really get tested here, Hamzat Chemaev.

He didn't get tested. And there is at least something to be said about the Gilbert Burns fight where Burns was very good about stuffing takedowns. How many did he stuff in that fight, old Burns? Chemaev ended up getting two of three takedowns, but not a whole lot of control time altogether, being that what it was. But, you know, he had to make them work for it. He was able to delay them and stuff them, and he just couldn't get it. Even if he got the takedown, he couldn't do a whole lot with it. And then what you saw was that by the third round, Chimaev started to slow down a little bit. Like, dude, in the first round, Chimaev might be unbeatable, at least by any of the current guys at welterweight.

Like, who's going to beat that guy in the first round? Of course, he could, you know, run face first into someone's knee and anything could happen. I get that. But, like, who's going to go out there and just put it on him in the first round? Nobody. No one's going to do that, right? The question is, what does he look like in the third, maybe the fourth or the fifth, but you have to have the skills and the readiness to weather any kind of storm and then begin to reapply it late. Colby Covington, you would imagine, would be a good candidate to have that theory, that idea tested.

He's got phenomenal cardio. He can wrestle his ass off. Obviously, he would make it a big fight. There's some question about like, hey, where does Colby actually rank in terms of beating relevant competition? And to the point of Chemaev, of course you could give him a title shot now. I don't think it would be any kind of crime or, you know, the winner of Edwards and Kamaru there for their trilogy fight. You could just give Hamzat a title fight now,

but I really believe that if he beats Colby, then there's just no question about it, right? Or conversely, if Colby wins, then he's right back in the thick of things. Now, of course, Colby is probably going to want no part of this fight. I can understand that, but I'm just telling you where my head is at. I think that would be far and away the best fight. Dude, who else on the rankings makes sense at 170? You could say 185, fine. But at 170, here's the top fighters, Kamar Usman and obviously Leon. Then it's Colby. Then it's Hamzat. Then it's Gilbert. Then it's Bilal. Then it's Jeff Neal. Then it's Wonderboy. That's the only fight that makes sense. That's

the only fight that makes sense. You could have done Gilbert Burns if they hadn't already fought. They already fought. That's the only fight that makes sense. Book it. Book them, Dano. That's the one you want, for sure. I want to see Hamzat tested a little bit, and it looks like only the most senior, only the most advanced fighters in that division even have a chance. At 185, maybe a different ballgame. I'd be curious to see how he would do against a Derek Brunson of a Torrey, a Cannoneer, a Whitaker. I'd be curious to see how that goes. Don't really know. I suspect he'd win some of those. He might win all of them. Who's to say? But if you were ready to bury, if you wanted to bury Hamzat as a guy you don't care about,

fine. I mean, I don't, you know, like who you like, dislike who you dislike. I don't care. But if you were ready to bury him as a threat, oh, you might want to put the shovel away or, or start using that shovel to dig someone else's grave. Hamza Chemaev is about to fuck everyone up. The intensity with which he competes, the overwhelming force of nature that he offers is basically unlike anything I've ever seen. Basically. I remember when BJ Penn first came to the UFC and he knocked out Dean Thomas and that was the thing. And then he immediately would walk out and that would be amazing. But he couldn't sustain it. Jens Pulver obviously had something to say about that, at least early on.

Maybe Colby does too. But if Colby can't do it, we shall see. You guys know I'm high on Shavkat Rachmanov. Maybe he's the guy eventually to do it at some point. Maybe Sean Brady. Maybe Sean Brady's that guy. But someone has to weather what he offers in that first round. Like, who's the best first round fighter in the UFC?

It's Hamzat Shumayev. It's Hamzat Shumayev by a million miles. I don't care how many first-round stoppages somebody else has. No one is that untouchable in the way that he is. No one is that untouchable. So it's going to take something. It's going to take an extraordinary effort and an extraordinary fighter to pull that away from him.

Truly. I'm going to remind you one more time. If you've got a question about this fight, put it on Twitter and we'll get to it. I can't believe that stat sheet. That is fucking insane. He blanked Kevin Holland. Wow. Straight up blanked him. That is crazy. All right. Also on this card, how about D-Rod taking on Daniel Rodriguez at 180 defeating Li Jingliang split decision 29-28 for two of them for Rodriguez 129-28 for the leech this fight was close could have gone either way I don't really mind that D-Rod win I the thing that was weird was none of the judges scorecards were unanimous in one any round. So obviously two are going to pick

any one round, but there was no round where all three picked one guy. So I thought for sure D-Rod won the third. I thought Leach won the first, although some people thought D-Rod won the first, and so the second ends up becoming the swing round. I guess that speaks to the fact that it was pretty close. Again, people bitching about how this fight wasn't all that exciting. What the fuck do y'all want? Every second of that fight was bonus time. Every second of it was bonus time. That fight shouldn't have even happened. The fact that it did, you were lucky you got it. You're welcome That's what you should be saying. Or thank you rather to them. They should be saying you're welcome.

I thought Rodriguez's jab was pretty good. I thought the leech. The problem was they were both kind of really far away. And they were both trying to like counter each one as they missed. But only with like single strikes. Not really combinations. And so it just kind of created a sort of a minimally interesting fight by itself. I mean, I'm not going to sit here and say the fight was amazing.

But the fact that it happened at all is the only thing that is the relevant consideration. Look at some of these numbers. Yeah, not super high. Daniel Rodriguez landing 89 significant strikes to the leeches, 78. Round one, the leech had 27 to D- rods, 20 round two, it flipped, uh, 24 for the leech, 24, 34 for Rodriguez. And then in round three, 27 for the leech, 34 for Rodriguez. Again, I thought, and by the way, the leech is credited with a takedown in round two, although you had only two, two seconds of control time, so hardly any value.

Both guys mixed it up really well. The Leech, 32% to the head, 29% to the body, 38% to the leg. I thought his leg kicks were one of his more dynamic weapons. For Rodriguez, again, 61% to the head. Or 61% to the head, that's right, for targeting. The jab was a big part of it, obviously. 19% to the body, 19% to the leg. Not a super memorable fight, but let me just say one thing about the Leech. Of all the six guys

who had to rearrange their fight, all of them had to give up something and engage in a difficult scenario. So all six in that sense. You can be mad at Hamzat for other stuff, but at least in that sense, all six had to do something unusual. The Leech was the only one

who had to give up weight by virtue of this and position on the card. So he was supposed to be in the co-main. He gets bumped to feature. And he was supposed to have Tony Ferguson, who weighed in at the welterweight limit, and instead he gets a guy who, not D-Rod's fault, because he was fighting someone else,

and that was just the catchweight. But the leech had to give up. He was the only one of the six who had to give up it was the only one of the six who had to give up weight to an opponent by virtue of the switch he's the only one and then to get booed and it was great the crowd was booing both of them but to get booed for that i was like you got to be fucking kidding me with this i mean utterly disrespectful, you know, just absolute peasant behavior. You know, booing guys who aren't even supposed to be there, engaging in a very difficult contest that they're utterly unprepared for, basically.

And they're giving you their best. I'm sure they were. And then you're fucking, I mean, that crowd is not my favorite tonight. I will be very clear about that. But where do they go from here? Well, the Leech was ranked 14th before tonight's fight. Obviously, they haven't updated him yet. D-Rod might find himself inside the top 15.

I don't think the Leech takes a huge hit here because, again, you could make the case that he won, and he didn't look bad. And, by the way, his opponent looked much bigger than him. You could tell there was a weight difference. You could tell. So I don't think the Leach takes a huge hit from there, but obviously it's not a great outcome for him. The whole week, everything got fucked for him, being unable to have his moment at the press conference, switching up opponents, then losing. By the way, now as a consequence of that, he loses his win bonus. You would imagine UFC would have hopefully taken care of him so that that offsets any potential loss.

But he doesn't get his full purse now. I mean, the whole thing is fucked. The whole thing is fucked. So I really feel bad for him. Nice win by Daniel Rodriguez, who I think is really coming into his own. He looked pretty good. The jab was his best weapon by far.

But not an overwhelming display, but again, what could you really expect as a consequence, right? So there you have it. All right, let's talk about this very quickly if we can. At catchweight of 140, Irene Aldana taking on Macy Chasson with a first-ever UFC upkick liver shot KO. Never seen that before.

Unbelievable. First round, Aldana is boxing her up. Macy shoots. In the process, nearly gets armbarred, where you see that Aldana is able to advance and then capture the arm with the shin across the back of the neck and then turn her over. The far side leg is supposed to come over the face as a consequence

when you do that so they can't sit up. For folks who are wondering why one leg, because sometimes you'll see them take the leg and they'll put it on their neck or put it behind their head or away from their face. The leg is over the face to keep them from sitting up. That's the entire purpose of it, right? You also want to bring your heels to your rear end, everything that needs to be tight. the leg is over the face to keep them from sitting up. That's the entire purpose of it, right? You also want to bring your heels to your rear end,

everything that needs to be tight. But the whole point of that is so they can't sit up. She looked like she was kind of delayed on it, so she ended up having like a go-go plata almost, at least to hold her in place, and then a couple of flare-out positions to maintain top. But like, Aldana looked amazing in round one. There's also a question about whether Macy tapped. Doesn't matter in the end because she lost,

but there looked like there may have been a tap along the way in transition of one of those arm bars. She was able to fully execute it eventually anyway. Round two, different story. Macy gets the takedown and basically works from top position the entire time. Now, there was a couple of moments where Aldana's trying to escape and not give up her back and was doing a good job of blocking a lot of the ground to pound,

but a clear round for Macy. So then they go to round three. Macy, I thought, got back on top. I believe that's correct. She got the takedown again. And then I want you to pay attention to something about what Aldana did. Aldana did not have her hips on the ground, right? In jujitsu, a lot of times what you want to have is you want to have, you don't just want to ever lay flat on

your back. If you're going to be on your back, you won't actually want to crunch. So you can put as little surface tension with your back on the ground as possible, which will enable you to spin more easily. That's one thing that you can do. But the other part is you want to get your hips engaged. And if you notice, Aldana had her hips way off the ground. So it's not an up kick like that. Because her hips were off the ground, she could bring her leg back and it was the heel driving into, almost like an axe kick off of your shoulders. But the reason why that could land, the only the reason why that could land, the only real reason why that could land with the authority that it did

is because her hips were up off the ground and she could get the angle and the space to karate chop it essentially with her feet. Dude, that's just being, putting yourself in a position to do damage and then executing. Is that a scalable, high probability technique you can use all the time? Probably not. Probably not. But if you put yourself in a position to do damage and damage occurs,

it's proof of concept about why you're in these positions. If you're flat on your back like that, you can't do it. She was engaged using the full length of her body and putting it in mechanically advantageous positions to get the most out of it. Dude, what more do you want from her? What more do you want from her? She had great boxing. She had good resiliency in the second round. She had great top control and nearly had that arm bar. Well, again, and arguably maybe even got the tap. And then in the third had an unusual, almost like ax kick off of her back. The first person in UFC to ever do something like that. What a remarkable, remarkable win for Aldana, who now, by the way, sits in the rankings in the women's bantamweight division, right? So she is sitting, where is she currently ranked? Four. The ones in front of her are Holm, Vieira, and Peña.

Dude, she might get the title shot next off this. I don't know if she will, but again, she also looks smaller than Macy. She had to take this fight at 140 pounds because Macy couldn't make weight for whatever reason. So she accommodated it, bumped up five pounds, and weathered a difficult opponent, weathered a very difficult second round, and came out there and put her away with a liver shot off of her back, always looking for strikes, always looking for opportunities to score, and putting herself in position to do that. You gotta love it. You gotta love it. What is there to not like about that? Just insane.

And then last but not least on that main card, Johnny Walker getting the weird naked choke victory. By the way, three submissions on the main card. Interesting. Only one decision. 437 of round number one. He got the back of Kutaylaba and basically had neutralized him for most of the fight. Only one decision. 437 of round number one. He got the back of Kutaylaba.

And basically had neutralized him for most of the fight. I thought Kutaylaba fought a much more reasonable approach. But lacking that ferocity a little bit. Walker ends up on the back. Has to fight for the rear naked choke for a while. It took a while for him to get it. But eventually he got it, locked it up, and then he gets the win. So to neutralize an opponent like that, to come off of a series, he's been in a really bad spot in his career. Doesn't really tell you a whole lot about the striking, doesn't tell you a whole lot about some of the other issues that

could still be plaguing him, but it's nice to get in the win column. He gets in the win column via stoppage. It was exciting. And he did it in a very... He coordinated the process. That's what you want out of him. That's everything you're looking for is that. So, doesn't tell you the full totality of everything you need to know. But a really nice performance from him. There's going to be a lot to get to for extra credit, man. The Arosa fight, the Almeida fight, the Chris Barnett fight. How about that fight? Unbelievable. Even, yeah, probably those three and maybe some other ones,

some interesting ones. All right. Let's see what some of your questions here are for the show. As a reminder, hit that subscribe button. Let's do this. All right. As I get... Oops, hang on. As I get a drink of my... AG1, hoes. All right.

If the UFC books anything other than Shemaya vs. Covington to headline the next ABC card, would you consider it promotional malpractice? Yes. I mean, remember, they can't make these guys take the fights. They're independent contractors. They do have at least some legal leverage. But that's the fight to make. I understand why short notice fights get hype, but they often disappoint. Felder versus RDA.

Leach has an awkward style and him and D-Rod had zero prep. Yeah. I don't know if this is fair, but this person writes, but I got annoyed at Nate playing possum trying to land cheap shots when his opponents, Tony and Leon, dropped their hands trying to play along. Yeah, it's just you. I don't get annoyed. Someone says, I would have thought Tony would have gone unconscious before he tapped to a choke. Nah,

but when you're beat, you're beat. You know. Maybe he didn't want to go out in front of his kid or something. Who the hell knows? Who the hell knows? How close would you say Nate looked to his best tonight? I thought he looked like he had all the same strengths and weaknesses as he usually does.

Except he didn't get cut, which seems insane. I think relative inactivity has kept him from aging out like Tony. Yes. I agree with all of that. We went over this. He won in very Diaz-like fashion. He performed in very Diaz-like fashion. But he kept himself in the fight,

didn't get too beat up, presence of mind to go for the choke, skill to finish it off. That's Diaz. That's vintage Diaz right there. Let's talk about Tony five losses in a row three by stoppage

he has changed weight teams at 38 years old none of this has worked for him do you think that's it for the legend again one more time I don't think that's necessarily it for him I do think that any kind of impression you might have about him

being able to go for the title should be significantly your expectations should be managed that's what I would say. Do you think Tony had too much respect for Nate? He didn't want to win. No, I don't see that at all. What did you think of Tony at 170?

He seemed uncomfortable, unable to apply his signature pressure. I don't know if that has anything to do with 170 as much as it does damage and a difficult game plan where you have to constantly be on it. He likes to run into guys. He couldn't really do that all that well with Nate.

I do think he better be better at 155. Yes. With the bad weight cut miss, does the UFC give Hamza a pass or make him fight at middleweight? I don't like if the UFC I don't. Does the UFC punish I don't, is the, does the UFC punish their fighters anymore? It's a serious question. Like, like, like for example, um, I asked

this question on Twitter, like when was the last time they actually punished a guy? They stripped John Jones of his title not too long ago. What was that? 2015 or so something like that. And they cut, for example, Luis Pena recently when he had the domestic violence incident. But like, I'm not talking, even talking about about cutting a guy. They just got rid of him. Who have they kept on the roster and also punished? I can't remember the last time that happened. I'm not even saying that they should.

You're asking about it. I'm just asking when does it happen? And you can't even count the fines for missing weight because that comes from the commission, not UFC. So does the UFC even punish their fighters anymore? I don't think that they do. I don't think they're going to do jack fucking shit to Hamzat. Now, they might make him jump through certain hoops to take a welterweight fight or something like that

just to make sure his weight's on point or something. But short of that, nah, nothing. Is Li Jingliang still a good fight for Ferguson now? yeah, probably I don't think it's a terrible fight I feel like Nate gets slept by Jake he looked slow and sloppy

he could but I would I think this idea that Jake Paul is a wrecking machine needs to be dialed back a little bit. With the egregious weight loss, would it make commercial sense to force Hamzat to move to 185? They might try that. They might try that. We'll see. Who is the best matchup technically for Chimaeva at 170?

Colby or Kamaru? Maybe Shafkat, we'll see. And a 185, the other guys that we had mentioned. Did Tony's friendliness towards Nate hurt him? Maybe, because Nate, excuse me, Tony in previous fights was not like very playful, like, you know, I'm your friend. Like, I think has at times resisted touching gloves and stuff like that.

Like a real in-your-face attitude. He seemed to be a little bit calmer this time. Which, by the way, makes him a more centered human being. But I don't know if that, like you need a little bit of that meanness to win. Is that missing? Yeah, that might be. Someone says, I'm glad they didn't put Poirier in there. Both guys looked old.

I think Poirier would have KO'd Diaz. Probably. He's fresher. Probably. Next person says, Diaz looked great, but Ferguson beat Ferguson everywhere, I thought. Yet another fight where Ferg ends up looking like what he used to make people look like. And Diaz's face looked clean. This person writes,

I don't want Ferguson down the same path as BJ Penn. This has to end, right? I get your point about the five losses in a row. That's bad. It's bad. I still think I don't have quite the same feeling that it's like the train has completely departed the tracks. I realize that it's close.

I don't know. I'm a little bit uncomfortable being like, time to call it a day. But yeah, that's where I'm at. Does Tony at 170 make the perfect opponent for McGregor's comeback? Certainly makes him a good one. Yes. And by the way, Tony can win that fight too, I think, depending on how Conor looks. But yeah, I like that fight. Guess on pay-per-view numbers. Hard to say. Probably between 500,000 and 750,000, something like that. With now two non-title pay-per-views in the books this year, do you think UFC will try to make even more with the difficulties this event had?

Probably, yes. Do you think Nate could have subbed Hamzat if he would have taken him down? Probably not. Hamzat's very good about body locks and then mat returns. For example, why didn't Dong Hyun Kim get subbed? Now, Dong Hyun Kim was in Diaz's guard at various points, but like Rory McDonald, same thing. It's because they spent the majority of the time attacking Diaz from behind,

not facing him head on. Hamzat's very good at that. Very good at that. Boy, you guys are either like, Diaz looked great, or, and this person writes, Diaz and Tony both looked extremely old. And they're lucky they were matched up together. Because both would get smashed by any young up-and-comers. That's part of the fight game.

I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean. Doesn't Tony have a good jab? He used it a little bit. I swear Tony showed good boxing against Justin and Chandler. Yeah, but Nate's a little bit different. Thoughts on Johnny Walker being kicked out of the venue. I didn't hear about that. Any chance Hamzat gets a title shot at middleweight?

Not right away. Not right away. No. Thoughts on Walker and his team getting removed from the stadium after his fight? I don't fucking know. I don't know. What happens next for the Leach? They should do him a solid, man.

They should pay him a lot extra, and he deserves a big fight on a big card. He got the rawest deal of anyone and still performed, I thought, quite ably. Judges didn't do him any favors. I think he's owed a little bit. You know it's bad when Nate is looking fresh with no cuts and you're bleeding

like the Trevi Fountain. Sad to say, I think Tony should retire or make big money fighting YouTubers. Nick and Nate were the same age based on skills and personality. Who would be the bigger star?

I mean, Nick... Nate seems to be better at facilitating it. Nate plays the game a little bit more. So maybe Nate. What are the chances for Jake to get out of Silva's fight and box Nate instead? Zero. He has a contract. Well, never zero, but it would take an act of God, basically, to get some force majeure like that. Do you think this is the ultimate karma for Nate? He invested so much into the UFC and

finally got some kind of retribution. Your thoughts as a longtime fan. Yeah, I kind of addressed that at the top of the show. You know, he said he had a love-hate relationship with UFC. It's not all hate. You know, it's a lot of hate, but it's not all hate. There's a lot of love there too. But I just think that like, dude, man, you know what? Let me just say something about this. And this is true for my career too. A lot of people's career, sounds very glamorous and aspirational to say things like, I'm going to bet on myself to win. But the reality is, man, that's a lonely road. That's a difficult road. And that's a road that is not supposed to work.

Why do you bet on yourself? You bet on yourself because other people don't. Someone else, somebody powerful, some organization didn't bet on you. You know, they did the opposite. So you decide to take matters into your own hands and go and bet on yourself. And maybe you had a good case to do it,

maybe you didn't. But I want to be very clear about this. Most people who actually do bet on themselves end up losing in the end. They actually don't accomplish the things that they wanted. Not because maybe they were wrong for betting on themselves, but because just achieving any kind of success is difficult. And when you have your own vision for yourself and you're the one who is required to see it brought to life, to manifest it, it's very difficult.

It's very difficult. And for Nate to bet on himself and believe in it and then to have a night like tonight after all the turmoil, folks, you just may never see anything like this again.

You know, I know it's like, it's all cliche and the grind culture is always like, bet on yourself. Listen, I did it too. And I'm glad I did it. You know, my career is much smaller and insignificant relative to what Nate is doing. But just to be candid with the audience here, like I did it, but it's fucking hard.

It's really hard. Here I am, you know, two in the morning, and I know there's European people watching who are not giving a shit, but like 43 years old, two in the morning up here talking to you guys on YouTube, trying to foster something, trying to build a community, trying to grow the YouTube channel, constantly swinging the axe, constantly doing everything I can to get ahead. My daughter was crying today because I could hardly spend any time with her because I was busy working, you know? And these are not things I say for sympathy. These are just things I say because I want you to take a little bit of a moment to reflect on the fact that like,

dude, you know, this is the fucking squid games, man. And this, you know, Nate getting out is, it just doesn't happen. It just doesn't happen. People who bet on themselves more often than not fall flat on their face. It's not, it sounds great. It sounds, you know, oof. You know, what a go-getter. It's a really lonely, difficult path to walk. And he walked it and he ended up here.

I hope he makes stupid money after this. Someone says, your hair looks amazing. Beer needs a bit of trimming. Yes, it's true. I appreciate it. All right. Is that it? Did we go for about an hour? Yeah, we did. Went for about an hour. All right. Let us call that a day. And what a day it has been. Unbelievable. Let me see if there's anything else here. I don't know anything about the Johnny Walker thing, so I guess I'll have to look into that later.

Yeah. Anyway, thank you guys so much for watching. I greatly appreciate it. Thumbs up on the video hit subscribe I gotta catch a bird tomorrow to get out of here because I have to go to the Jake Paul Anderson Silver Press Conference in LA which will be Monday we will have an MK

we will have an RSD that we're doing with someone there which will be a lot of fun and I hope you enjoyed this what a crazy night what a crazy week what a very unusual turn of events. But thank you for joining me. Catch us on MK on Monday. And I appreciate you tuning in.

Until next time, bitches. Stay frosty.