MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - 🚨 UFC 280: Charles Oliveira vs. Islam Makhachev Results | UFC 280 Instant Reaction

Episode Date: October 22, 2022

At UFC 280, Charles Oliveira and Islam Makhachev battle for the UFC lightweight title. In the co-main event, Aljamain Sterling will attempt to defend his title against former champion T.J. Dillashaw. Also on the ESPN+ pay-per-view card from Abu Dhabi, UAE is a bantamweight clash between former champion Petr Yan and rising contender Sean O'Malley. We'll go over the results of these bouts plus the rest of the main card. This is the Morning Kombat UFC 280 post-fight reaction show. (2:15) - Makhachev Defeats Oliveira (29:45) - Sterling Defeats Dillashaw (47:15) - O'Malley Defeats Yan (61:20) - Dariush Defeats Gamrot (64:05) - 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

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We are live. Welcome. My name is Luke Thomas. I am one half of the Morning Combat hosting duo. This is our UFC 280 post-fight show, our instant reaction. Hope you are doing well. UFC 280 is in the books and for the next hour and some change, we'll get to all of the results, all of the analysis, some of your questions, and a whole lot more. I have a lot to talk about. Wow, that was in some ways phenomenal, in some ways anticlimactic, in some ways quite beautiful. There's a lot to enjoy. All right, so if you're watching now on YouTube, thumbs up, ladies and gentlemen. If you are new here, please consider hitting that subscribe button.

We do this Monday, Wednesday, Friday, live 11 a.m. in the East for our regular shows, plus all kinds of extras like this one. As a standard disclaimer, and yes, I have to say it because people are a little bit silly, if you don't want spoilers, this would be your time to go. Alright? Alright, so with that in mind, let's get this party started, shall we? We have a lot to get to. Alright. Volume should be good. Everything should be pretty good. Okay, so here's the order of business. We'll go from the main event down. We'll focus on the three main fights, most especially.

And then we'll go from there, some of the other pieces I want to talk about. But that's basically the general idea. Okay, UFC 280 is officially in the books. Let's go through with this. This was, of course, in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, at the Etihad Arena. In your main event, Islam Makachev defeats Charles Oliveira via arm triangle choke at 316 of round two. Let me pull up some notes that I have that are a little bit cleaner so I can see that a little bit more easily with my blind ass. There we go. Okay.

What do we want to say about that? Folks, let's be very, very honest about that. That was barely competitive. That was barely competitive. Islam Makachev had a harder time. Granted, he was a different fighter at that time because I think he really had a level up moment here but he had a harder time with Thiago Moises I'm not going to say he ran through Charles Oliveira because that's not quite true but he more or less did everything he wanted to more or less that was certainly dominant

clear cut no controversy. Islam was just better. He was just better. And he was better everywhere it kind of counted, too. Mostly because what he did was he found a way to fight the fight on his terms and not Olivera's. Now, if you follow my personal YouTube channel, which, quick plug, you can get at youtube.com slash Luke Thomas, I did an hour-long breakdown of Oliveira's game so folks would have a better understanding of it. But if you watched Friday's MK, I picked Makachev.

The reality about this matchup is that Charles Oliveira has, from an offensive standpoint, significantly more tools. Significantly more tools. He has way more dynamic striking, although some of that wasn't quite present this time based on some of the choices Islam was making. But certainly he has a phenomenal offensive submission game and from a lot of different areas from the back. He can certainly threaten from his own back and other places as well. And he can wrestle a little bit too. He can find himself on top. He can scramble when he needs to. I wouldn't call that the strongest part of his game.

But offensively he can do a lot. He's powerful in the clinch. Islam is a much more defensively sound fighter. The stats speak to this, but the tape speaks to this as well. That first loss, and his only loss in MMA, notwithstanding, I think that was a very big learning experience from him. He makes very good calculated decisions about how to manage risk. Now, he also does have really strong abilities, which you saw some of that here. But why do I bring this up to start this conversation? I bring it up because that really is the story of this fight. Islam found

his opportunities when they presented themselves, took advantage of them, but never really, it was a couple times he lost his balance throwing big punches, but in general, never really over committed positionally, never got caught up playing one of Charles' games, just clearly defined the terms of the fight as best he could once the opportunity was presented to him to then take advantage of it. I'll give you a perfect example. So they're in the clinch and they're along the fence line. How did Islam get that haraigoshi, which is a throw where sort of the two throws you'll see a lot of in MMA from judo are your Harai

Goshi and your Uchi Mata. The basic way to explain this to me would be Harai Goshi is one leg in front of both of theirs and Uchi Mata is one leg in between both of theirs. This was Harai Goshi. It was in front. The reason why that worked is because Islam had kind of turned himself a little bit, got hit in the ribs, and then waited for the foot to come down of Oliveira, stepped across, and sent him. He was waiting for it the whole time.

He was waiting for it the whole time. He knew he was going to arrive. He knew Charles was going to do that. People might be saying, well, what's up with Charles's jumping switch knees and jumping switch kicks? Guys, he's been throwing that for years successfully. He landed it on Nick Lentz to his face. He landed it to the head and face of Kevin Lee. He does it as a distance closing thing. He does it as a way to corral fighters. Islam knew it was coming and knew exactly what he wanted to do, which was to either, there's different angles he was taking to counter it and then stepping away from it at certain times. He knew it was coming.

He knew it was coming. Guys, that team is excellent. The Habib team, whatever you want to call it, they are, and of course it's Javier Mendez and AKA and a lot of guys there, I don't want to exclude them, but they are excellent at game plans. And a guy like Islam, who is so defensively sound, doesn't ever really compromise what he is trying to do or where his balance is or how far the distance should be given what the operation or the task is at hand.

He waits for a guy like Charles, who is very offensive, but not very defensively sound i mean that's part of the reason why you guys me too we all like charles olivera is because he has this brilliant offense where he's taking the back and and he's he can strike people and he was putting chandler's lights out but the reality is he gets hit a lot he got dropped in the second round with a right hand from islam makachev now candidly i didn't even see that one coming and and I thought Islam was going to win, but it just sort of shows you, if your positioning is right, and your game planning is right,

and your defensive soundness is in a good place, a guy like Oliveira is going to give you a million openings. That is exactly what he did. That is exactly what he did. They knew what they were up against, and they had the right game plan for it, and they clearly had the right guy for it. Not going to say that Charles got his ass beat or something. I don't think that's quite right. But as electrifying and as much of a fan favorite as Charles Oliveira is, and to be clear, I don't

think any of that changes with this today. The guy's had setbacks before, and all he ever does is seem to get better from them. But the thing to me that will not prevent him from necessarily finding himself back here, because look who else he's beaten. He beat Chandler and Poirier and Lee and all these guys, and he finished them off. He may find himself back here relatively soon,

but the thing that I think will be an issue for him is, guys, he's got all the offense he needs. He's got offense for days. What he doesn't have is defensive soundness. And that is a big problem for him. Now, heading into this contest, you knew that there was going to be a couple of things you wanted to watch. If you watched my tape study, one of them was the left-hand collar tie. He was never really able to make it a thing. You saw a couple times he was able to use the left-hand frame, which is part of that sort of lead left-hand work, but it did not play a significant role. The other one that you

knew, and I think a lot of people had pointed to this, it's hardly exclusive to my tape study, but just to bring it up, would be the clinch, right? And he who wins the clinch, excuse me, wins the fight. Well, who won the clinch? Islam won the clinch. How did he win the clinch? One, he didn't spend a lot of time there. Some of the clinch time was in open space. That's true. But the majority of the clinch time, or I should say some of the more important moments in the clinch time at a bare minimum, were against the fence, which Islam was waiting for, even if Islam was pressed up against it. Do you know who else does the exact same kind of thing, where he lets himself get pressed up against the fence and then waits for an opponent to positionally overcommit, sometimes with the way they're stepping, sometimes with the way their weight is balanced,

sometimes with the way, depending on what they want. Shavkat Rachmanov does this all the time. Go back and look at all the trips and throws from an underhook or an overhook that he has along the fence line. And they look almost identical to this. They look almost identical to this. Right? So he knew what he was waiting for. He knew it.

He knew exactly what to give to Charles. What positions to occupy. What to wait for. And then it. He knew exactly what to give to Charles, what positions to occupy, what to wait for, and then they took him for a ride. This is another part to the Islam game that's so important, right? If you level change, and DC was talking about it off the single leg in particular, that's what got, for example, Kevin Lee in trouble, and also Clay Guida. They caught a single leg, tried to run it down, and Oliveira sent them packing with guillotine chokes. Islam has choices, right? He can go for the single legs if that's what makes sense for that opponent. He can go for the double legs if that's what makes sense for that opponent.

But when he needs to, he can maintain upright posture like a judoka, like other folks in the grappling world, to get maximum different opportunities and looks to exercise takedown control. Right? He was able to keep his posture upright. He had to kind of give into that clinch space a little bit, but he never had to lower his level significantly. And even with a head inside single, whatever it may have been, risked getting guillotined that way. He has takedown options by virtue of the versatility of his takedown game. There are trips and throws in wrestling. There are double legs in judo, but they tend to emphasize different things. They tend to emphasize

more of the leg and hip attacks in wrestling, and they tend to emphasize more of the trips and the throws in judo. A guy like Habib, and now certainly a guy like Islam Makachev, what makes them so special is they have a deep arsenal in both directions. So if the opponent is one where they have a unique susceptibility to single leg attacks, that's an avenue. If on the other hand, what they need to do is merely trip and throw, depending on how they can set it up, it was there as well. And at a bare minimum, Islam Makachev did two really important things in this fight. One, in catching that throw, the Harai Goshi off the fence, right? He then put him on notice that this clinch space is not going to

be a comfortable space for you, number one. And then how about going into Oliveira's guard for long portions of the first round? We said it over and over and over and over on MK. Again, I said it on my tape study that I did on Oliveira, his guard is certainly formidable. There can be no question about it. And what makes him very, very interesting about that guard is he does one thing really special from there, which is De La Riva guard. De La Riva guard, if you're just imagining, imagine someone standing over you, you are on your back. You take your leg, let's just say it's your left leg,

and you weave it around the back of their knee and to the inside of their thigh. That's a De La Riva guard. It comes from the guy De La Riva, who's a, well, he's now sort of an embattled trainer, but a guy who was a, you know, jujitsu coach and competitor for a time. He goes even far and goes like far side De La Riva, like he did to Kevin Lee, like he did to Michael Chandler. Why do I bring this up? Because that's the way he creates leg entanglements. The other one that he'll do is from guard. He'll go and spin behind the lead arm of his opponent, right? And then he'll create a leg entanglement. Islam saw it coming and just got out of the way, right? That was the first thing he did. Never let him get to De La Riva guard. Never,

never give into the leg entanglement where you're trying to fight it and maintain top position over the guy. Just go away. Chandler, for example, tried to maintain top position in that space with the leg entanglements, and that literally keeps Charles closer to you. Islam knew not to do that. And then getting in guard, going back to it, you see what Charles always does. He throws up the triangle. What that does is it slows down ground and pound. It has a certain kind of value, to be clear.

It's not like it's not nothing. And again, he does have submissions from guard, where it was begun from guard. Pulling guard from standing when you have a guillotine choke is not quite the same thing. Over Andy Ogle and Darren Elkins, but that's a long time ago. The elite guys, he doesn't have wins from where his submission generation begins from the back. He can threaten there, and he can force entanglements, and he can get top position, and then he can find the back. But in terms of the actual submissions from that space, they don't really happen against the elite guys.

If you ever watch Jiu-Jitsu Worlds, the black belt division, you almost never see someone get submitted from guard. It's very, very, very difficult to submit someone from guard when they're very, very good, even if both players are very good. I bring this all up to say, Islam knew that if he could stay in guard, not that he was necessarily going to get a ton of ground and pound, but he could just stay there safely.

He could ride it out for as long as he needed to. He could get some ground and pound through. Some of those elbows were real nice, especially when he had Charles' head pressed up against the fence at one point for a little while there. Dude, and then also he was stacking him where the sort of the back of the knees were sitting on almost the thighs or like I should say the hip of Islam. And he's pressing Charles as his head is in the back. So he's getting moved like that.

Dude, they knew. They had a fucking phenomenal game plan for Charles Oliveira, and they did it off the back of a guy who doesn't have the same amount of offense in all the different scenarios that Islam does. But if you have a good game plan, you're a good athlete, and you are as defensively sound with those wrestling options where he can go from standing judo-type throws, or he can level change into wrestling if that's what he wants to do. And then how about the finish itself? Floors him with the right hand, immediately jumps, tries to go to side control, I think ends up in half, locks up the choke,

and then moves. Guys, he essentially Charles Oliveira'd Charles Oliveira. What do I mean by that? One of the things that stands out about Charles Olivera's game, and one reason why he is so formidable, is when he can get those leg entanglements, he can then begin to force transitions. And when those transitions happen, that's where he finds either the back or submissions outright, right? It's through he attacks transitions. So it's much harder to get a submission on someone if you wait for the position to be settled and then you start going for it. That's true of almost any position. Back, mount, guard, side, you name it. You can do it, it's just a lot harder to do it once you get to the position and you're like, okay, now I'm inside, now let's go. Uh-uh. He locked it up from half guard, that choke,

which by itself probably is not going to be enough, and then when he was able to free himself, then when he went to the full position, it was already on. It was already on. He didn't wait to get to side and then try it. He locked it up first, then moved. Do it before you move or do it while you're moving. Those are the kinds of things

that you're looking for. That's a very, very accomplished grappler to have the presence of mind. In that particular case, the offensive soundness to do it. It's a great one to try early into the fight or relatively early into the fight. Man, I mean, listen, I think the criticisms of some of the parts of Islam's resume, they were very fair. They were very fair. Prior to tonight, if you compared Islam's resume to Charles's, and even still, I know he's got the win over Charles, but like, who has more elite wins? It's still fucking Charles. Like, Charles's resume at 155, you know, it's like that Grim Reaper meme that's going from door to door. You guys have seen that one. But the reality is styles make fights. And what you saw on the tape from Charles, as I mentioned, was first that defensive soundness,

but more a certain kind of refined skill level that, you know, did I know how, was I super confident he was going to go in there and just whip his ass? No, no. I thought it was going to be tougher than it was. But, um, he just did everything he was supposed to. He met every assignment. He knew exactly when to press the gas, when to press the brakes, what to do in each particular position, what kind of territory to give, what kind of balance to achieve, what takedowns to look for. You know, that's a lifetime of hitting Harai Goshi's on people from the clinch. That's what you saw tonight.

That's a lifetime of that. And the head and arm triangle, you know, he's probably been hitting that on guys for 15 years, you know, however old he is. Right? He just has a very good squeeze, very good positioning, good passing, good everything. All aided by the fact that Charles got ate up with, I think it was a left hand in the first round. He got dropped with a right hand in the second. You can clown that jumping switch knee if you want.

You can clown that jumping switch kick. It has been a key, noticeable, documented part of Charles' offense for years. And it largely has worked for him. People cheerlead it when it works. And now I saw some consternation on Twitter with folks kind of being like, why the fuck was he doing that? Well, where have you been? He always does that. He always does that he always does that so um he was just overmatched he was just overmatched Charles's resume is better uh in many ways but but the level of refinement and you know there's a there's a quote in football right in other places too I mean it's not just football but I remember when the Baltimore Ravens were good when Ray Lewis played for them in their prime, I think there was like,

didn't the Ravens beat the Giants in Super Bowl, whatever the fuck, 2001 or 2002? Dude, defense wins championships. When I say defense wins championships, what I mean is not that Islam was super, you know, just kind of just covering up and moving away. It was knowing when to go, knowing when not to go, having a good game plan, shutting down the parts of the offense where he begins to like put things together, right? Getting out of the way, hitting angles or attacking the jumping switch, throwing him from the clinch, getting into his guard and controlling him at all of these intervals. They knew exactly what to do to take away Charles' offense and when that happens and

there isn't that requisite defense to back it up, there she goes. There she goes. Simple as that. That was brilliant. That was brilliant. That was brilliant. I feel bad for Charles Oliveira. You know, I know he got pay-per-view points for this, which I'm very glad to hear. So that's nice. I do think he's going to keep winning, you know, because he's just too good not to. I don't know exactly who they'll pair him up against with. Maybe Dariush. We'll see.

Because obviously it looks like they're going to make... We know that Volkanovski, the existing featherweight champ, is going up to 155 to challenge. They brought him into the cage. And so it seems like that's next. Maybe you could do... By the way, Charles versus Dariush. We'll talk about Dariush in just a minute.

It's a phenomenal fight. It's a phenomenal fight. It's a phenomenal fight. Let's look at some of the numbers. As you guys know, I like to do. Okay, from Charles and Islam. Islam had a total of five minutes and five seconds of control time in a bout that only lasted eight minutes and 16 seconds. Yep.

He was credited with one sub-attempt, which was all he really needed. He got two of three takedowns. He got two in the first round. I guess both of them whiffed on one in the second. And then, of course, Islam got a knockdown in the second. In terms of strikes landed, Jesus, not a lot of offense in that way. Just six significant strikes in round number one for Charles Oliveira. Wow. Just six. 12 for Makachev, 13 for Oliveira in the second, but 18 for Islam in the second. I thought Islam, I was kind of half expecting him to maybe go back to guard and be safe. I will say that dropping him like that and then going right for the sub, not looking...

He would want to go for an advantageous position, but I thought that once he dropped him and then he followed him to the ground, he would elect to go for more ground and pound to kind of soften Charles up a little bit. But he went for the sub. I'm talking about his defensive soundness. Not that that was irresponsible, hardly,

but that it was a little bit more offensively purposeful than he sometimes can be. But even with the striking, I thought a little bit of that was there. I will say there were times where he was kind of falling over his punches or kind of throwing it and then having to catch his balance afterwards. There was a little bit of that from him, so that maybe could have cost him somewhat. But Charles was never in a position to,

or I should say Oliveira was never in a position to find a meaningful counterattack. There just wasn't one there. So he ends up winning there. Let's look at the way in which they targeted strikes. I don't think you're going to get much out of this. Charles Oliveira went 63% to the body, nothing to the leg, 36% to the head. Okay.

And Makachev the exact opposite, 83% to the head and 16% to the body. That makes some sense. You would want to be targeting the head of a guy who leaves those kinds of openings. And he did. And there you have it. I'm looking at some of these other numbers here. Yeah. Mach, excuse me, Oliveira having a total of 42 seconds of control time, the vast majority of it coming from the round number one, the 38 seconds, but of course that's where he got thrown.

And so it didn't really matter. You know, he wasn't able to do a whole lot with it. Again, if you see somebody who is either good at judo or sambo and they're being real cool and comfortable and someone's pressing them into the fence and they've got an overhook or an underhook, whatever, and they're kind of both upright and they're maybe, you know, one guy's kneeing the other one, one guy's kneeing the other one, the dude who is the judo or sambo guy is about to send that other bubba for a ride. Mark this down on tape and go back and look at my Shavkat Rachmanov tape study.

He does it all the time, all the time. And so you had an idea about what this fight was going to be, and I think this was about as close to best-case scenario for Islam as he honestly could have expected. Won the clinch battle in large part, in large part. Obviously, there was a couple of shots that sneaked through for Charles. Frankly, one on the feet at distance, which I can't believe I'm saying. That part is surprising, certainly.

But then once he dropped him, while guys like Chandler, you know, didn't want to necessarily get in their guard and they wanted to get away, or Justin Gaethje, for example. A guy like Islam has no problems following him down there and did it in a way where he could advance position carefully. He didn't try to advance position. What's another reason why you would go for the head and arm triangle without necessarily having your, why you wouldn't start from side?

The other part is, of course, as I just mentioned, you don't want to wait to get to a position and then do it. But the other part is one of the benefits of that particular attack, which he did, which remember he's locked in half guard and he's going for the head and arm triangle, right? The head, excuse me, the arm that comes under the head is the one palm down. So here he is. The reason why you want to do that is because you can control their head

before you make that final move. John Danaher talks about what's one of the benefits of half guard. There's pluses and there's minuses, but one of the benefits of half guard passing can be that you can control the head in ways where if you're just mobile Torriando passing, for example, you cannot, right? You don't have access to it. So he had a situation where he was able to lock up the head and the arm, but certainly to control. Why would you want the head controlled? For folks who may not know, it's one end of the spine, right? So if their hips are flat on the ground, you've got control of their head by virtue of whatever you're doing. You are at least putting and exerting some control at both ends of the spine that will limit their movement.

And so he goes to half guard, locks it up there, and then moves. So we're already talking about the fact that he set up the sub before he even moved to the final position to secure it. And then the other part is, of course, that he had control of Charles's head and neck, which enabled him to safely move to that position. And all it did was just steal the choke once he got there. Yeah, dude, that's a good fucking fighter. Islam Makhachev is a very good fighter. I still think he looked a little vulnerable on the feet. They keep talking about his stand-up like it's just as good as his ground game. I'm still skeptical of that. I don't really buy that, to be quite

honest with you. I don't see much evidence of it currently, but be that as it may, everything else about his game looked pretty magnificent. Let me see if I have some other notes here from what happened. Yeah, it was the left straight in the first round, and it was the Haraigoshi that he got, the right-hand floor to him in the second round, and then that's the rest of the game. Defensive soundness is key. Defense wins championships, right? I don't know if I finished my Ray Lewis thing, but that's what they said about the Ravens at the time. Defense wins championships.

Doesn't mean you're just shelling up all the time. It just means you don't give the same kind, in this particular context anyway, you don't give the same kinds of offensive, easy offensive opportunities. Dude, Charles, this is what you kind of have to admit. Charles gave him a lot of easy opportunities, right? With some of the ways in which he attacks. It's for a guy which he was going up against. You know, here's the other part, like Islam looked

like he was fighting a game plan for Charles. I did not see a ton of evidence that Charles was fighting a game plan for Islam. And I don't know if that's just because of what Makachev was able to do and then diffuse it and it just looked that way and that's not really true. Or if it's a function of that Charles just kind of has one way to fight and then because he has so many offensive tools, he just lets those come to life and then eventually they just overtake the opponent. It's hard to say, but that's the story of that fight, folks. When you see a guy who barely gets hit, who has lights out takedown defense, is good at wrestling, relatively young, and has a great team, you should be careful about picking against that guy. You should be very, very careful. And against Volkanovski,

I'd have to think about it. I haven't given that fight much consideration. But if Volkanovski wrestles with him, that could be bad. Although I think Volkanovski is strong enough. I don't think he's got the same level of technique in a lot of those spaces. So that could be kind of interesting. I do think he'll have, you know what? Volkanovski could knock his ass out on the feet. He's got big power. Well, that's not quite true.

I think he'll have more power at 155. Let me correct the record there. And with his fainting and whatnot, he should be able to confuse him. The question is, if Islam is able to make contact, how easily could Volkanovski fight him off? That's the part we haven't really seen. Because Max Holloway couldn't really get takedowns established, but he was able to make contact. And if he can make contact, you would imagine a guy like Islam could as well. But if they do that fight in Australia, that'd be huge.

So I guess we'll have to see. We'll talk about that more at a later date. Pretty remarkable. Let me turn this on here real quick as I ask for subscriptions. Subscribe, subscribe, subscribe if you haven't already, okay? We do these for free. Let me take a look at the feed. Everything looking good. Yes, we are. Okay. All right. I am not sure. We'll come back to this with your questions. So I'm not done with the main event, but I'm done for just the moment. Let's talk about that co-main. There's actually more to the story than you might imagine. Okay. Aljamain Sterling retains his title and defeats TJ Dillashaw. Now, technically what goes into the record books would be that he won via TKO.

He had him from the back, I believe, at 344 of round two. Here's the real story of this fight. Guys, okay, TJ Dillashaw basically had his arm dislocated off the first takedown attempt and was a one-winged fighter for the rest of that fight. They were able to roll his shoulder, his fight, or excuse me, they were able to roll his arm back into the socket relatively easily, it looked like, between the first and second rounds, but then it just came right back out. Ladies and gentlemen, if you've been following me for a long time, then you already know what I'm about to say, which is that I had labrum surgery on this left shoulder in May of 2009. I am left-handed, so this was something

that I was very concerned about. I tore my labrum lifting weights like a moron. And so it was so bad that my shoulder was kind of, not all the way, but it was kind of popping out a little bit in my sleep. And it did pop out one or two times in different circumstances before I was able to get surgery. It's excruciatingly painful. We talked about this with the Aaron Pico fight, which, by the way, they referenced on the broadcast. I thought that was amazing. I cannot overstate this to you.

When they repaired my labrum, they did something very purposefully, and the guy who did it was a surgeon at the time for the then Washington Redskins, the local NFL team. They're now the Washington Commanders. It's a different story. But we're talking about a very accomplished orthopedic surgeon. And I want you to pay attention to something right here. I'm going to put my – I'll see if I can back up a little bit. And you can – well, I've got to keep the mic in front of me.

But watch this. They purposely told me that when – once your joint integrity is compromised, for whatever reason, mine was the labrum being torn, that the shoulder is never the same afterwards. So what they do is when they repair it, they stitch it even tighter so that it stays in place. Because otherwise, if they tried to just repeat the level of security that you had before, it will just go out again. So if you watch, when I turn my hands up, this is the arm I had the surgery on. I can go about that far, right?

I can't, I don't have any more mobility. So I've got like this much, that much mobility. This is my other arm, watch this. Okay, they purposely sew this one so tight that you lose mobility, but I have not had any subsequent issues. It doesn't work quite the same as it once did, but it can do basically whatever I want it to. All right? He said in the post-fight speech after this disaster of a fight was stopped, and it should have been stopped between rounds. He said that in the camp, his shoulder had popped out probably close to 20 times.

When I heard that, I was like, oh, okay. Now, as you may or may not have ascertained by this point, I am not a medical professional. So what I'm about to tell you is my conjecture. My conjecture is that he is fucked. Okay? If you have ground that shoulder to dust to the point where it falls out as easily as it has been and you can roll it back in that easily and then it pops out again that easily,

there is a very good case to be made. Your shoulder will never be the same again. Okay? Surgery appears to be a foregone conclusion. By the way, he already had both shoulders surgically repaired, which was something he was saying was the benefit of the suspension from USADA, not that it was a good thing, but that if there was some silver lining,

it was that he finally had some time to address some long-standing issues. Dude, that shoulder of his, that left shoulder of his, is fucked. It's fucked. Super fucked. Very good chance it won't be the same again. And more to that point, there could be some long-term quality of life issues associated with it. You cannot do that to your... I mean, you understand the shoulder is a very complex joint.

Look how many different directions your elbow can move. Mine's a little bit limited here. I can't go much further than that relative to that. But you get the idea. Like, it's designed to go up. It's designed to go laterally. It can even go back a little bit. It's a very complex joint and all of the pieces have to be in place for that to work. If your shoulder is that fucked and that loose, dude, I hope he has a very, very, very good orthopedic surgeon because he's going to be 37 at a bare minimum by the time he comes back. And by the way, look at TJ Dillashaw's, let me finish the point.

He'll be 37 by the time he comes back with a badly fucked up shoulder in the bantamweight division at 135 pounds. To this point, I want to make about TJ. Listen to how inconsistent he has been just in terms of his point, I want to make about TJ. Listen to how inconsistent he has been just in terms of his ability to make it to the octagon, right? Now, he did fight three times in 2016. That's great. Fought once in 2017, fought once in 2018, fought once in 2019, then got popped, missed two years, fought once in 2021, and now will have fought once in 2022. He might fight again in 2023, but probably in the third or fourth quarter.

That was a bad decision. Okay. I'm not a manager for these guys. I'm not a coach for these guys. And so my opinion is not what they're asking for. I'm telling you, my opinion, for whatever that is worth, is they made a mistake sending him out there. They made a mistake.

If your shoulder is that fucked, you need to get it medically addressed right away. Right away, excuse me. Because I'm going to say it one more time. And I know folks don't ever think about this, but look at my gray hair. I didn't have gray hair when I started this job. I started doing this job in my 20s. I'm now 43. There will be a time in your life when all that fun athletic shit is over.

Not that I was some kind of, I never had that career. But I'm saying, at 43, you're not going to be a bantamweight elite guy. We can all agree there. And that's going to be behind you. And now you have to live the next part of your life with fucked up knees, fucked up back, fucked up, who knows what happens to your brain from all of this. And now your shoulder on top is going to be a disaster. They should have pulled him from that fight. Here's another reason why they should have pulled him from the fight. He apologized, which I appreciated after the fight,

saying, you know, I held a spot and, you know, if your shoulder was that damaged, you were never going to beat Aljamain Sterling. It was never going to happen. One in a hundred billion chances that that happens. And what did you see? By the way, by the way, before his shoulder was even fucked, what did you know was going to happen? TJ has amazing kicks, right, to control space. But dude, what is the number one fucking takedown setup for Aljamain Sterling? It's the single leg. I put out multiple videos on this for MK on this particular issue and how TJ has a problem getting his kicks caught and Aljamain Sterling is good at catching them and loves the single leg. It's the first fucking thing that happened.

They sent him out there unable to win. They sent him out there unable to win. He never had a realistic shot at that. Never. If that's how bad it was where you can't even hit mitts, they said he couldn't even hit mitts in the uh dressing room you can't even hit mitts what the fuck are you doing in a fight like that you don't you don't have a prayer at his best could he have beaten aljo sure the odds were close

he might have been the favorite at some point i don't remember how it was but at a bare minimum he was like either the slight favorite or a slight underdog. Sure, sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. He's a high-quality fighter. No doubt about it. But with your shoulder like that, you know, you don't have a prayer.

You cannot beat Aljamain Sterling with one arm. And not just one arm. Pain that it's causing you and how it messes up your posture and everything. And they sent him out there. They sent him out there. Oh, because I don't know if we'll be back here again. Dude, at some point, this career is going to end. It's going to end for all of them. No one fights forever. It's not possible. And by the way, two rules about fighting. Number one, the end is inevitable. And two, it might happen sooner than you think. Okay. And once that's over, once that's over, you now have the rest of your

life that you have to live. And I know that people, when they're 23, they're like, yeah, I would give anything so that I could achieve the most athletic glory. That all sounds nice when you're in your twenties. Repeat that shit to me when you're 45, that you don't regret some of those decisions. Repeat that shit to me when you're 40. Oh, yeah, you know, I'm so glad that I can't raise my hand over my head because I pursued these athletic dreams. Like, you know, and for what? Like, there was never, if there was like a reasonable chance at victory despite the injury, then fine. But you go back to Tiago Santos as well, fucks up both of his knees in the John Jones fight. They should have pulled it. They didn't. He has, I think one win or whatever it was after that, but it's basically not the same guy ever since. Right? Like what the,

you should, again, my opinion, I'm not an MMA coach. I'm not an MMA manager. I'm none of those things. But in my opinion, having watched this shit for a very long time, if your guy doesn't have a reasonable chance at victory, do not send him out there. 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 and you know all he ended up doing was just taking a bit of a beating from aljo it wasn't a tremendous one but all of it was unnecessary all of it and it got dislocated a fucking gen you know and then it brings up these questions like the UFC knew this and they just let it go. Remember, I believe they're self-regulating Abu Dhabi. I would need to double check that. But also, it just shows you how worthless these pre-fight medical examinations are. Now, I'll defend the doctors there a little bit, which is that if you aren't honest with your doctor,

it's very difficult for them to know what to do with you. Imagine you had some kind of ailment, but I said, go into the ER and pretend you have no problem. Let them screen you, and if you make it out, I'll give you a million dollars. You could probably do it, unless you had super elevated blood pressure or there's blood shooting out of your head. But if it's some kind of internal injury that you can kind of camouflage or just pretend is not there for five to ten minutes yeah like what what is the doctor really going to do so i

understand and i'm sympathetic with that so this is where it falls back on the people around him and then tj himself like dude what are you thinking you're gonna fight a five-round fight against the bantamweight champion with one arm? Like, what? What? What do you think? No, no. Of course, that's not going to happen at all. And it still did. And it still did. Just a travesty. That was a waste of the fans' time. That was a waste of the fans' money. That was a waste of Aljamain Sterling's time. That was, frankly, a waste of TJ Dillashaw's time. And he got yet more damage to the shoulder as a consequence for it. That was just a disaster all the way around.

People didn't pay for that. There should be some kind of a partial refund, to be quite honest with you. How you can just let this happen. You know. Oh, we'll just, you know, we'll dig through and we'll find a way. No, the fuck. You won't. No, you won't.

No, you won't. No, you won't. You have to have the ability, the reasonable ability to be able to win. Contrast that with what Eric Nixick told me on Friday, which was that they thought they were going to have to pull out Francis from the Cyril Ghosn fight. And then once they took the brace off, he actually fought really well and was pretty good to go. And he may have been in pain during the fight, but he never had the knee fully compromised. He was still able to move somewhat off of it. That's still a slim chance, but I can kind of squint and see that one.

This? You can't even hit pads in the dressing room? I mean, these are not the ingredients for success. These are not the ingredients for success. And the fans and Aljamain and everyone else deserves better than that, quite honestly. If you're not prepared for this contest, don't waste anyone's fucking time. And I get it. Like, I may never come back here. I have to take advantage of every opportunity, blah, blah, blah. You're not taking advantage of anything in those circumstances. You're using the opportunity, but you're not taking advantage of anything. There's nothing to take advantage of. You are so hobbled as to make any probable chance of success virtually zero.

What chance are you taking advantage of? The one in 800 billion chance? It's like Jim Carrey from Dumb and Dumber. So you're telling me there's a chance. No, fuck no, I'm not telling you that. That's the opposite of what I'm telling you. So I certainly feel bad for, I mean, Aljo seems pretty happy he got the win and he did what he was supposed to.

And you heard old Ray Longo in that corner. Boy, they don't fuck around there, huh? No mercy. No mercy from old Ray. Dude, Ray Longo's a savage, dude. Don't think he's not. Ray Longo is a savage. No mercy.

No mercy the whole time. That's exactly the right attitude. That's what you have to do. Your job is to go in there and annihilate this guy. And if he's injured, that's his fucking problem. And he did exactly what he was supposed to. I tend to think the fact that he caught the kick off of the first one, basically, and then ran it down for a takedown,

I think that's exactly how the fight would have gone. But we, of course, don't know that. I can't in any way prove that. You knew that that was going to be one of the central tensions of the fight, but I just can't believe that they went out there this physically. I mean, you're just rolling out whoever at that point. You could have rolled out a, this is true, you could have rolled out an unranked bantamweight and they would have fought better. Probably, right?

I mean, maybe Sterling finishes them in the first, but you know what I'm saying? Like, you could have rolled out someone way less as good as TJ, but fully healthy. They would have given a much better account. That tells you how much that injury hobbled him. Now, what a waste. What a waste. All I can say is, and I saw people being like, good, yo, fuck that cheater. Guys, how fucking old are all of us here? I mean, I'm old as shit,

so that's different. How old are some of y'all? He got caught. He got suspended. That's the punishment. And by the way, a severe one from age 33 to age 35 at 135 pounds he lost two of the last very good years he had okay a very severe punishment he got fucked up in the cory sandhagen fight he found himself here but he served his punishment every day of it punishment's over now whether or not he should have been in a title fight based on meritocracy up to this point, fine, you can have a debate about that. But to wish injury upon him because he one time, we know of, got caught, or cheated anyway.

He one time got caught. I'll put it that way. Like you're some kind of sadist. Like, fuck this guy. Like, this guy's going to have a life after this. He did what was asked of him. He took the suspension. He came back. He re-entered the testing pool. You can check how many times he's been tested on USADA's

stupid-ass website. And by the way, if you think T.J. Dillashaw is the only person who either has or is using at this present time, you're a child. You're a child. I guarantee you it is way more common than you imagine. And I have other pieces of bad news for you. Santa Claus is also not real. This is just a common thing that I think happens in all of sports, including in more seriously tested ones like MMA through USADA. And certainly it's common in places that don't even, just commission testing or whatever, which is just close to non-existent.

And then people still watch. It's a total joke. But just wishing him to be maimed because he already served his punishment. Dude, you're a child. You're a child. And a maladapted one at that. If you want to be mad at him because he wasted all of our time, which he did, fine.

No issue. Take it to him. Because he did. He wasted your time and mine. You know? But just being glad that he got maimed or, you know, that he's had this ongoing maiming that he hasn't treated. And, like, that's justice for this or some shit. It's, like, the most backward sense of justice ever.

He already filled the fucking punishment. He already did it. What do you want, just keep getting punished over and over and over and over again? Like who the fuck, do you hear how crazy that sounds? I mean, only people who are like truly dead or sad inside say something like that. Like, fuck that guy, even though he already got his punishment, right? Something has to be wrong with you. All right. Now, we'll come back to that with your questions. How about Sean O'Malley taking on Piotr Jan? This is not how I scored it, but these are the results.

Sean O'Malley defeats Piotr Jan via split decision. There are two 29-28s for O'Malley. There is one 29-28 for Jan. I'm going to look at the numbers here in just a second, but here's the first thing I want to say. I do not agree. I do not agree I do not agree I think that second round Clearly for Jan, even though he got rocked He went right back and rocked Sean for it

And then In the third round It's pretty clear to me that that was O'Malley's First round Is the toss up By the way, I saw some people had 30-27 Jan. I think that's a little generous, but I've seen them. So really it comes down to round one.

Let's look at the numbers which are, by definition, quantitative in total, not qualitative. But let's look at them here to see if the first round is truly egregious. First round, Jan landed 19 significant strikes, O'Malley 23. Peter Jan, excuse me, had one takedown in round one, which he had a control time for one minute and 10 seconds. I do not know how many of those 19 strikes he landed came from ground and pound, but keep that in mind. So here we have a situation where he was able to get the takedown and some top control time,

and he doesn't get the round. Now, let me explain to you something. Ben Cartlidge is one of the guys that scored it 29-28 O'Malley. While I do not agree that it is 29-28 O'Malley I do know Ben And have had the pleasure of talking with him at times Throughout the course of my career To just pick up his brain and hear what he has to say And blah blah blah

And I certainly don't want to speak for him But let me just tell you, he is a very competent judge You can say you don't like the scorecard, fine That's not a bad judge. It's a good judge. It's a very good judge, as a matter of fact. He is very, very competent. So the first point I want to make is you cannot claim it's bad judges giving it a 29-28 to Sean O'Malley because it's not. And you cannot claim it's some kind of robbery when it comes down to one round that was pretty close. I thought Jan won it, but it's pretty close.

That's the nature of judging. We don't know exactly how it looked to Ben or any of the, who was the other judge? I don't have it in front of me. The two of the judges that had it. You don't know what those strikes looked or sounded like in that particular position where they were seated. You don't know exactly what they saw, what they didn't see, how they absorbed it, how they felt it, how they were able to ascertain it. You don't know any of those things. Maybe they thought that the striking wasn't equal. It was slightly favoring Sean, but then he had the one takedown, but he didn't do a

lot of ground and pound with it, so they still favored Sean for the win. I don't know. I've not talked to the two judges who scored it that way, but can I see, based on the scoring criteria, why that's the case? Yes, of course I can. Here is, to me, the bigger culprit. The bigger culprit. The bigger culprit to me, and I've been saying this for a long time, I think that the new way that judges are asked to interpret the rules, massively, massively massively massively overcorrected for a problem a problem that they were trying to solve was that hey what happens if a guy like a logan storley mvp type fight it gets a takedown it rides on top and just doesn't do shit and the

other guy on bottom is kind of threatening subs or threatening sweeps and you know he's tacking underneath where like yeah he's being controlled or whatever but the guy on bottom is kind of threatening subs or threatening sweeps and he's tacking underneath. Where like, yeah, he's being controlled or whatever, but the guy on bottom is the one who just seems to be just doing more. They wanted to find a space for that. Good. So far, so good. But what has ended up happening is, remember, the judges can't follow. I'm going to just pick on based who I like the most. No. The judges are asked to follow the criteria that is presented to them. Whether they like that criteria, whether they hate that criteria, whether they're neutral about that criteria, this is the criteria, fucking apply it, end of argument. That's the job of the judge. So anyone who here is telling you this is a robbery

or the judges don't know what they're talking about, I don't agree with the decision, but the people saying this was a robbery are idiots. And you can take this snippet and you can send it to whoever is doing it. These are people who are reacting way too emotionally and not thinking about the problem. The real problem to me is that if you don't get the back with heavy ground and pound, or you don't lock up an arm bar right away, they basically want to, the scoring criteria, wants grappling to basically have no value. Now there can be some other ways it could have value,

where if you're constantly getting someone down, it's a big slam that could count. Or if you've got so much control time that you're wearing them out, that can be kind of an accumulative effect. But basically, the takedown that he had, where in round one, he had one minute and 10 seconds of control time from it, essentially, that doesn't mean much under the current criteria. And to me, that is fucking insane. To me, I don't think that makes even the slightest degree of sense. I don't want to overvalue stuff. What they want is for the grappling to matter to such an extent that it either leads to or is part of what would be a fight-ending kind of scenario, right? Where

you're going for the armbar, the choke is on, or from a ground-to-pound standpoint, you're really just fucking hammering them where you control them, right? That's what they're looking for. He didn't get that, but how disruptive it can be, how even if it's just for a minute and 10, how draining it can be, I do think it had an effect on Sean O'Malley, especially in the second round when he got two minutes and 42 seconds. I mean, dude, listen to this. Fucking Jan had five minutes and 44 seconds of control time overall. Round 1, 110. Round 2, 242. Round 3, 152.

Now, he went for 2 of 7 takedowns there and didn't do a whole lot with it. And here's the difference. Round 1, again, quantitatively, 19 strikes to O'Malley's 23. Okay, I thought that Jan did enough to get it. Round 3 is a different scenario. 15 strikes for Jan, significant, to O'Malley's 40. Plus, I think he cut him open in that round, or maybe it was the second round, I can't remember anymore. But, you know, a massive difference, despite a roughly equal-ish amount of time in control positions. Fine, I can see that. If one

guy is clearly outlanding the other one in a lot of significant ways or with significant strikes, and even though he's given up some control time across two takedowns, I can get that. But I thought that Jan's leg kicks were harder in general in the first round. I thought that that control time of disrupting his balance, taking him off, forcing him to work back to his feet, right? Threatening him in that way. I think that that matters. The scoring criteria doesn't make it matter.

And so here we are. Here we are. We're in a situation where I thought Jan should have won. But he didn't. Now, let me say this in defense of Sean O'Malley. And I tweeted just this. Sean O'Malley is a worthy adversary. I mean, he gave Jan a tough fight. A very tough fight. Even if you think Jan was going to win, which I did. And even if you think Jan did win, which I do, Sean O'Malley put it on him a little bit. I mean, he stung him with that right hand in the second round. Now, okay, Jan got it back,

but some of his linear punches through the middle were catching him. Some of his own body kicks were catching him. That knee caught him. Like, dude, he was pot-shotting and finding it. I think the limit to Sean O'Malley is the things that we knew he was good at, he's very good at. Although he did gas a little bit, and so his movement was compromised somewhat, again, from part of the fucking wrestling that he's doing. I mean, just think about how ludicrous this sounds. It's like he had the wrestling and it counted effectively by virtue of something like the grounded pound or whatever

he was able to get in the second round. But the reason why he's gassed partly in the second round is not just because of the wrestling from the second round. It's the accumulative wrestling that came from the first as well and not just a little bit, a minute and ten seconds off of it. That's over

20% of the round where Jan had control time. This is why it's like, well, it wasn't leading to a fight ending scenario. It's like, well, who gives a shit? This is still very much effective grappling. Anyway, neither here nor there on that. But for O'Malley, I thought we knew his boxing was good. We knew his timing was good. We knew his feints were good. His lateral movement for a time was good. The big issue was, and we did see this play out, which was, okay, but what happens when someone can wrestle him? I asked this on Friday or even Wednesday's MK.

No, I asked it, or maybe it was of Chuck. No, no, no, sorry. It was of BC. It was Wednesday's MK, which was, tell me who the last very good dogged wrestler O'Malley has fought prior to tonight. Doesn't really exist. This was the first time he fought, certainly in the UFC, anyone who was like a really, who, yes, Jan can strike as well, obviously, very well. Some of his counter-striking in that second and especially in the third round,

where he had his hands up and he would roll, so he was already in a position to come over the top and crack him, which he did. But Sean O'Malley has a good chin. The issue was just the wrestling. It was the wrestling. So it's like you can give O'Malley a title shot, and he might be able to knock out Aljamain Sterling. That could happen. But given the grappling weaknesses, and I don't think O'Malley has a bad ground game. I

don't think that's true. But it's clearly not nearly as strong as his striking game. There is a lopsidedness to it. A guy like Sterling, I would, you know, again, he could get knocked out because O'Malley is a dangerous striker. But if I'm O'Malley, I'm taking another fight. I'm taking another fight. You know, I'm not sure against who, Corey Sanhagen or whoever or somebody. But I would elect to take the Alexa Grasso system, right, where you inch your way knowing that some of your vulnerabilities are going to be a problem going forward. Also, like just getting back to the decision, did you see

his body language and his team's body language heading into the decision? It didn't look like any of them thought they had won. Talking about Team O'Malley. So not a robbery, not at all. Let me look at some of my notes that I made. Jan came out early in that first round with good forward pressure, right? Really getting into O'Malley's face. I thought that was pretty interesting. He found back exposure and a takedown, right? In round one. He had a high guard, was using leg kicks, but O'Malley had the good linear boxing. I thought that was what you got. Round two, both of them rocked each other. And then round three, Jan's counter-striking was big, but he was still behind the gun in terms of what...

It was O'Malley dealing and then Jan responding. Jan was responding very well, but he was still a little bit behind in that regard. You know? Let me look at the overall numbers here, if I may. Jan targeted the head 41% of the time, targeted the body 22% and the leg 36%. O'Malley, much more of a headhunter, 75% to the head, just 7% to the body, and then 17% to the leg. That makes sense.

But numerically, O'Malley outstruck him in round one. Numerically, O'Malley outstruck him in round three. Numerically, Jan outstruck him in round two, plus had the three takedowns and the almost three minutes of control time. So yeah, round three is the one where, excuse me, round two is the one that's clearly Jan's, like no doubt about it. And round three, it's like probably the better argument is for O'Malley. It's round one that I just don't think belongs to O'Malley. I don't.

But he's a worthy adversary. I think he really had a moment tonight where he realized, you know, I am good enough to compete at this level, but I hope he also takes from this that the other portions of his game, they're going to get audited. Like in the Bantamweight division, man, you've got to be very well-rounded. Very well-rounded. And of course, you could say the champ

doesn't have a super well-rounded game in the same sense. But grappling as your base, and especially in the way that he does, where he can find the back so nimbly, it's a little bit more of a defensively sound one, I would argue, getting back sort of to the Makachev argument, right? It's just a little bit more of a place where you can define the terms of the fight a little bit more easily and control the variables of chaos that tend to exist in an MMA fight. He should be a striker first, no doubt about it.

But we go back to the champ at middleweight, Izzy. He has very good takedown defense, and he has, at this point, a very good ability to get up off the ground. They can barely hold him down, and when they do, they can't do much to him. Certainly, O'Malley has good takedown defense and wasn't getting his ass whipped completely on the ground, but you would just imagine if this is a problem, there's going to be other guys in this division, including Aljamain Sterling,

that are going to have something to say about it. If I'm Jan, I'm looking for maybe one more. Now, he might just take the title shot because, again, you don't know if that's ever going to come around again, but you get the idea. Also on this main card, Benil Dariush defeating Mateusz Gamrot. 30-27, 30-27, 29-28. Crazy, crazy fight. Here's the thing about Gamrot. Now, Gamrot's on his way. How old is he, old Mateusz? 31. 31 years of age. And Benil is 33. Yeah. Wow. You knew Gamrot was probably the better wrestler, and you knew that his offense really comes from his wrestling. Getting the takedown, establishing top control, ground and pound,

wearing guys out, mat returning them, putting their hands back on the mat, taking the back, getting tight waist around them, whatever you wanted to. Your hands, you know, clasped hands, the whole nine yards, locked hands as they say in wrestling. So if he couldn't get that, is his striking good enough to make up the difference? Like the reason why he was able to beat Saryukian was because Saryukian's striking is also not quite far along. But Benil Dariush has pretty good striking, right? As we saw, he has the ability to protect himself in jiu-jitsu context and was able to, over the course of time, just nullify Gamrot's wrestling. So it's like Gamrot, through his wrestling, is a force to be reckoned with.

But if you take away the wrestling's potency, what's left? Not a whole lot. And Dariush is crazy well-rounded. Dariush gets a knockdown in this fight, which they awarded him to win the third round. That was a big shot that he dropped him with. That was phenomenal. Striking numbers, nine for nine in round one, both of them. Round two, Dariush, 31 to 15. Round three, 19 to 9, both in favor of Dariush. Dariush also gets, excuse me, Gamrock got two takedowns with control time of 122 in round one. He got one takedown in round two with just 10 seconds of control time, and he got one takedown in the third round with 35 seconds of control time, but Dariush had 26 himself. That was really the story of this fight, is Dariush defensively sound against the most important weapon of his opponent, and then has

more offensive tools on top of it, right? See how the pieces began to get put together? That's how that one goes. Let me see the targeting. Targeting is fairly similar. Not a whole lot of difference there. But anyway. And then the card opened with Menon, Fiaro defeating Caitlin Chukagin. That fight was terrible. So I'm not going to sit here and say a whole lot about it. I will say a whole lot about Bilal Muhammad and Sean Brady on Monday. On Monday.

On Monday's show. Because it involved BC. He is now spared from getting a tattoo. On Monday. On Monday. On Monday show. Because it involved BC. He is now spared from getting a tattoo. But. Alright. Let's take a look at your questions. Let's see what you got.

Let's see what you got. Alright. Peter Jan. Peter Jan has for. What? All right. Peter Jan... Peter Jan has for... What? I read that he lost the first Magomedov fight by a point deduction, then his knee, then a fight where he couldn't get Sterling off his back, and now a robbery.

Oh. Doing the Brian Campbell test. Have I ever seen this fighter lose? Yes. Have you ever seen Jan lose? I've seen him lose twice, but you know what Brian's talking about there. Considering what we know about typical bodybuilding exercise being potentially detrimental for MMA,

and that Sam Calavita has a stable of fighters practicing these exercises, does he know what he's doing? I've not reviewed Calavita's methods, but forget all that. They let a guy get his shoulder ground into dust and send him out there to fight Aljamain Sterling. I mean, what the fuck are y'all thinking? Listen, TJ is a highly accomplished fighter. His coaches are highly accomplished. His team is highly accomplished.

But these MMA fighters, man, their sense of risk is so off. Dude, think about that. He literally thought, like, okay, probably don't have a great chance. But however little it is, I'm just going to ride it out. Dude, you don't have a chance. This is like buying one scratch off at your local 7-Eleven for not just a local lottery, but for that, you know, Powerball thing. Like, it's not, no, you're not going to win. No, no, no, no, no. And of course, you could do more damage. And by the way, you've already done all this damage. Like, imagine just draining your bank account to buy the fucking scratch off

versus feeding your kid. I don't know what the analogy would be, but the metaphor rather, but no, you don't have a chance at all. Honestly, I take my chance in the Powerball more than I would with that. Totally, totally not understanding the importance of, not respecting, I should say, the importance of health and safety by, like this is what I talk, okay, this is why, there wasn't enough regulation. But this is why MMA has to be regulated by the government.

This is why fighters have to be saved from themselves. This, right here. A guy will go out woefully unprepared due to significant injury to one of the most important joints in the human body and be like, yeah, you know, I might have a chance. I'm like, no, you don't. Weird card. Illegal knees.

Krylov is allergic to decisions but gets one. Bilal KO, right? TJ shoulder. 11 versus 1 upset. Yeah, it was a strange card. Not a bad argument. Corey needs more wins. Marav needs one more and won't fight anyways. Not a bad argument. Not a bad. There's one from one guy here. Let me go to somebody else. Main was barely competitive. Co-main was a farce with one athlete being injured since April. And Sean Jan was a bad call by the judges. If you ponder a moment, how anticlimactic was this? I still think that the main event was pretty it wasn't competitive but it was still pretty cool to see and sean versus our uh yan versus o'malley was tremendous fun tremendous fun sean matching or even slightly edging yan on the feet was super impressive this person writes yan didn't seem to respect the striking of Sanhagen, Aljo or Aldo nearly as much. Sugar

belongs. Yeah, I'd agree with that. I'd agree with that. Stylistically, who is the next contender for Makachev at lightweight? Am I right in thinking Saryukin is the dark horse threat to Islam if he can get some wins together? Yeah, he has a lot more work to do in his game. His style and having already shared the octagon with Makachev could be advantages over the rest of the division. It'll be interesting to see Dariush if he gets it. Well, who'd you pick? Makachev or Volkanovski? I'd probably pick Makachev, but I don't know. I have to think about that. At 155, I would probably say Dariush has an interesting chance, maybe. I fear, this person writes,

Islam might ragdoll Volk. The size disadvantage and the physical style will be very tough to navigate. Yeah, that's the real key there is. If Islam can routinely get his hands on him and then win those exchanges with wrestling, I don't know how Volkanovski wins. Is Benil Dariush the Jan Blachowicz of 155? No, because Blachowicz...

You guys remember Dariush was a very good jiu-jitsu competitor. So when he came over, I was like, oh, right, he might be able to do some things. He had some loss, like the Barboza loss was real bad. He got viciously KO'd with a flying knee. But I always thought pretty highly of him. Yes, in the sense that a kind of guy who had to take the long way to get somewhere and then eventually just became this undeniable force, maybe in that sense.

But I don't feel like their trajectories are exactly the same in that way. If Brian Campbell were a ring horn, would he be the one used in the arena tonight? Dude, what was up with the a ring horn, would he be the one used in the arena tonight? Dude, what was up with the shitty ring horn? Her, her. It sounded like some, like, you know, like some depressed frat guy farting out his Taco Bell. Just the saddest little shitty farts, you know?

Just, just total, not even trying in my life anymore. Still wearing sweatpants at 5 p.m. That kind of thing. Will Aljo ever be able to have an uncontroversial championship win? Well, this one ain't his fault. I mean, holy fuck. Right? Whatever you want to say about the first Jan fight, fine. Say it. I don't even care to relitigate it anymore. Say what you want to say. This one ain't his fault. And you're like, oh, he's happy. Yeah, no shit, he's happy. He just got through a very difficult experience. He's going to get a lot of money for it. He's still the champion. He gets to carry that into the next fight. Yeah, you'd be fucking happy too. On MMA decisions, not one media card for O'Malley. On paper, this is one of the biggest bad decisions. Right, but we don't watch it. Well, I guess some of the media guys are cage side,

but you still don't watch it in the same position that a judge does. A judge is right on the ring apron. Luke, how do you deal with the fact that fighters get screwed out of fights and not have it turn you off to the sport? Probably because I have compartmentalized identity. I don't know. What is the path to victory for Volkanovski? It has to be avoiding contact and then confusing him on the feet. On the feet, Volkanovski is better. Very confident in saying that.

On the ground is where it's like I don't know what the path to victory would be there. We'll have to see. Aljo has done what is asked of him, this person writes. He takes heat because of the illegal knee from Jan and a dislocated shoulder from TJ. Why the disrespect? Well, listen. He said something

like, you know, I'm the human backpack and I'm going to make something up. But he's like, when I get my arm around your throat, it's a rap rap. I heard that when I was in my bathroom here because I'm in my old bedroom. This is where my studio is. And I was like, oh, they're going to kill him for that on social media. I knew right away. I was like, oh, man, they're going to fucking murder him.

They're going to murder him on social media for that. You know, he doesn't necessarily listen. He doesn't connect with broad swaths of the fan base. As someone who also doesn't connect with broad swaths of the fan base, I sort of understand that. You know, he is who he is. He's his own guy. He's his own guy.

And, you know, that thing he said, well, it's a rap rap, to me is corny as shit. But not everyone is at ease with an audience. Not everyone has that magnetizing ability. And some people try and they are good at it. Some people try and they fail at it. Some people just naturally are good at it. Some people are just naturally bad at it. There's all kinds of ways in which people aren't necessarily the best vehicle for widespread adoration, but you better respect his fucking abilities, man. You better respect his abilities. Why was Darius so effective

against Gamrot? Kind of went over that. Crazy how pound for pound number one Volk is going to be like a plus 300 next fight He might be Is Islam versus Chemayev at 170 Potentially the best fight in history Fuck no Is it wrong to say that Dariush Is the only threat to Islam in the lightweight division As things stand

Let's see Let's look at So here are your ranked contenders at 155 pounds olivera dustin poirier justin gaethje islam michael chandler dory ush fazee fazee is an interesting one dos anjos gamrot saryukian ismogulov m McGregor, Turner, Dan Hooker, Tony Ferguson. Dariush is a good one. Fazeev's an interesting one. He's got lights out takedown defense. He could be interesting.

I think if Armin can really work on his game, you'd put him there. Ismogulov is quietly a guy you should pay attention to as well. He's got a fight with Armin coming coming up and he might win that bitch too. Ismagulov has very good takedown defense and maybe the best jab in MMA. Like a phenomenal jab. No one ever talks about him because I don't think he does English speaking media. And he doesn't have a boring fight style but he he doesn't exactly, again, command a presence. We'll have to see what happens there.

Let's see here. I got a funny question. Someone just DM'd me. I'm not going to look at that one. Hold on. Let's go back to your questions here. Let's go to the bottom here. We're start our way back up. Okay. Why is Islam so good defensively? He's good about getting out of the way of strikes. He's good about blocking with them. He doesn't stand in the pocket for very long.

And then a lot of times he spends in dominant grappling positions where guys can't really land on him. He has good control on the ground to avoid a lot of reversals. He has good submission defense. He threatens with submission. So the point I'm trying to make is he's constantly putting the fight on his terms. Does this mean Habib is the lightweight goat? I think he's the best lightweight I've ever seen. But can you argue that Charles' resume in certain ways is better? You could argue that in certain ways. Does this finally prove that Sambo wrestling is a superior martial art in MMA

and that jiu-jitsu isn't effective? That's not really the right takeaway here. Yeah, that's not the right takeaway. People mean Bilal all the time for decisions, but I would say he has heavier hands than Colby, who acts like he's a killer. That was a nice win from Bilal. I'll say that for him. I have a lot to say about it because he should be really proud of himself. Thought the stoppage was a little early. Wouldn't argue too much about it. Not going to go to the mat for it. I don't care about it that much.

But to not really even wrestle Sean Brady and then punch his lights out, that's extremely impressive. Really impressive. Do you think Charles Oliveira really showed up? Yeah, sure do. Matching Justin Poirier versus Makachev is understandable, but the new tide is here They should be bringing in the youngs

Islam would kick their canes out I can't believe how dominant Islam was I can Should or does TJ hang it up? I think the end of his career is probably pretty close To be honest with you 37 years of age before he even returns Maybe even 38 depending on how things go And surgeries. His left shoulder will never be the same. I don't give a fuck what

he says. It will never be the same. And he probably wants one or two more. I doubt he wants to go out like this. But yeah, he doesn't have much time left in the game. Did Islam's performance dampen your hype for a potential Volk super fight? A little. A little. He's just like, I don't know how I'm going to get that fucking guy off you, you know? Let's see. Is Islam the first lightweight champion where we don't have to talk about Conor jumping the line to fight for the belt? I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

Oh, did you guys see this? Old Hamzat trying to beef with Habib's people? I heard about this. Oh, they got video footage? That's crazy. Who do you want to see O'Malley fight next? I could see a... I mean, if they give it to Chito, to Sterling...

Let me look at the Bantamweight division to answer that question. Marab? Someone's got to fight Marab Someone's gotta fight Marab right Someone's gotta fight that fucking guy Um Was that fucking Kadyrov in the cage after the main event No I don't think so I don't think he was there or in the cage How much of a chance do you give Alex against Islam

I would favor Islam But, but Alex is crafty. All right. There you go. That's my show. That's it. What have we done here? An hour and 20 minutes, roughly. Not quite.

That's how long the stream's been going on my end, but that's not how long it's been on your end. Hey, man. What a night, huh? Didn't end up how you wanted, but you got some results. You certainly did. We will see what happens with TJ Dillashaw's arm. We will see what happens with Sterling's next title defense.

We will see what happens where Jan goes from here. Certainly see what happens with Sean O'Mashaw's arm. We will see what happens with Sterling's next title defense. We will see what happens where Jan goes from here. Certainly see what happens with Sean O'Malley. He might get a title shot. I don't think he should take it, but we'll see. And Islam Makachev is the best lightweight in the world. That's a fact, folks. That's a fact. It's also a fact that you, ladies and gentlemen, should subscribe to this show.

Morning Combat. It's the best motherfucking podcast in combat sports. I don't care what anybody says. This is the number one. El numero uno. And we love what we do. We would love it if you joined us when we do it. So, thank you so much for who has been here. I greatly appreciate it. Back

on Monday, Monday, Monday with a show to react to everything with Brian Campbell and then that'll be that. Alright?? So for everyone on staff and CBS Sports and Showtime, I'm Luke Thomas. I'm out of here. Until next time, get some sleep.