MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 283 Results: Glover Teixeira vs. Jamahal Hill | UFC 283 Reaction | MK UFC Post-Fight Show

Episode Date: January 22, 2023

At UFC 283, Glover Teixeira and Jamahal Hill will battle for the vacant UFC light heavyweight title. The UFC flyweight belt is also up for grabs when Deiveson Figueiredo and Brandon Moreno. We'll get to all of the UFC 283 results, reaction, analysis and more. Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher 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

Hey, how are you doing everybody? It is, let's see, we turn this off so there's no overlap. There we go. Hi everyone, my name is Luke Thomas. This is the official UFC 283 Morning Combat post-fight show. Instant reaction. Yes, we're going to get to the results, the analysis, the you name it. We're going to get to it. So thumbs up if you're watching. Here, I got a couple of things for that. There you go. A couple of old good tricks there. Subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. If you're new here, join us.

We do this show, it's me and Brian Campbell. We do it Monday, Wednesday, Friday, live 11 a.m. in the East. And then we do stuff like this, post-fight show. Yes. So we're going to get to all of the results from UFC 283 without a moment to waste beyond what I've already wasted. Let's get this party started, shall we? And we're back. All right. Hope you're doing well. Let's pull up. I got a bunch of notes for this one. This is going to be a fun one.

All right, ladies and gentlemen. So here's what we'll do. We'll go for about an hour today and we have some questions. So you can get at me at LThomasNews on Twitter. I have a post where I said, put your questions. We'll get to those at the end. Let me turn this up just a little bit for you because I know some people are going to complain. Let me be a little bit higher, a little bit higher.

How about that? A little bit better. Okay, let's get to the results, shall we? playing. Let me be a little bit higher, a little bit higher. How about that? A little bit better. Okay, let's get to the results, shall we? So, in your main event, in your main event, this, by the way, UFC 283 took place at the, I'm sure my pronunciation is going to be terrible, Junesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. And in your main event, in the light heavyweight division, Jamal Hill defeats Glover Teixeira 50-44 on all three judges' scorecards. Jamal Hill is now your UFC light heavyweight champion. He kicked Glover's ass.

They're really high. Yeah, man, this was not close. There were moments of inspired, actually a lot of moments of really inspired fighting from Glover Teixeira, who by the way, retired tonight in the cage. He's not the only guy who retired in the cage, but he is certainly one of them. We'll talk about Shogun Hua either tonight or certainly on Monday's show. But he retired. I think it's a good idea. He's my age. I mean, just look at me. Can you imagine going out there and trying to duking it out with, I'm not sure how old Jamal Hill is. How old is Jamal Hill?

He is 31. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's, it's time, but he got his ass kicked. I don't, I wish I, not to be against Jamal Hill, but I think there's a couple of guys in the game, uh, on this card, certainly who you, I think a lot of people were like, it'd just be nice if something good happened to them. It'd be nice if Shogun could get a win. It'd be nice if Glover could go out in the nice way that we all hope for him. He's a figure of adoration in the sport, but it just wasn't to be. The MMA gods, they don't play that game. The only game that

they do play with a fair degree of reliability is that the longer you stay and the older you get, the worse it fucking goes when it's time to go. And it's true for like Frankie Edgar, we saw this past year in 2022. It's true for Shogun, who got clipped and really couldn't do a whole lot with it. And then Glover, who was not in that case. Glover did not look fragile, right? Actually, there's a big difference. He looked like quite the opposite, actually. I mean, Glover Teixeira looked like the Terminator tonight. The Terminator on the losing end of a battle, but the relentlessness with which he pursued losing efforts and just trying to find something, even into the fifth round. I think there was like 30 seconds left in the fifth round, Jamal Hill is, you know, in cruise control, and then Glover's doing one of these numbers, you know, like Neo in the Matrix

in the third one, where, you know, he's fighting all the Smiths when the world has become the Smiths. So Glover Teixeira showed relentless pursuit of the fight. There's a term that comes from dogfighting. You sometimes see it applied to MMA, which is gameness. And gameness is defined as pursuit of the fight despite the physical consequences. So Glover Teixeira tonight showed outrageous gameness. Outrageous. For any age, what he showed was remarkable in terms of gameness but in terms of being game for Jamal Hill he just wasn't tonight and I will tell you I uh I did sports radio uh in

DC on Monday and they asked me who was going to win and I was like yeah from a betting perspective I would stay away from it because it's just too volatile I didn't really know but I did say gun to my head I thought Teixeira would win. And I knew that on the feet, I think we ever, all of us knew on the feet that Glover was probably going to be overmatched. And so the question really came down to, could he weather early storms? Um, you know, could he, you know, do enough on the feet to keep himself in the fight, you know, but then really it was going to come down to the ground game. I will just be honest. I completely did not think, and really let's be honest as well, the history did not show that Jamal Hill had this level of defensive wrestling, defensive grappling, the ability not just to defend things,

but in certain cases, and this was limited, but in certain cases turning defensive reactions into offensive wrestling or offensive top control, right? I mean, that's the mark of somebody who's really well studied for the positions that he was being put in. His takedown defense today was the best I've ever seen, and statistically speaking, it's the best you've ever seen it. That's far and away, far and away, the best defensive grappling slash wrestling performance of Jamal Hill's career. And certainly the way in which he was tested by Glover. Glover getting him down for fairly long periods for two different moments in that fight. One of which was early in the fifth.

And Glover was able to make a little bit with it, getting to mount, I think at least in one time. He was able to hold position, pass a couple times. He got in some ground and pound on there. He wasn't wasting it, but he couldn't really do a whole lot with it. That's really a testament to Jamal Hill. He was tireless underneath. He went the full five rounds. I mean, that was just a really clean, well-earned, hard-fought, skillful victory from Jamal Hill. I didn't see it. Again, on the feet, that was not much of a surprise necessarily, but the way in which he was able to defend the takedowns,

and man, Glover had him going a lot of different directions. He would stutter step to get to a body lock or an overhand right to get to a body lock, an overhand right to get to a body lock, and he couldn't get that. There were times he was trying to get a double against the fence, and he couldn't get his hands locked. Like a lot of, I won't say a lot, but several different entries, several different kinds of takedowns, leg attacks, upper body attacks,

all of those different kinds of attacks, he was trying, and none of it really worked, except, you know, again, a couple times, but even then Jamal was really able, in large part, to able to get to get to his feet without terrible things happening to him. The other sort of thing that really stood out to me in this fight was that Glover had a hard time with the distance. I thought Jamal Hill's teeps up the middle were great. Obviously, the head kicks were tremendous, but I think I'm talking about broad strokes for why Glover was really at the end of the punches. Obviously, a guy like Hill is going to be, he is rangy. He uses his range really well. His jab was just tearing Glover to pieces.

That was a great part. So one of the things you saw from Glover that he was really trying was a standing southpaw. He was trying to come... Actually, that's not quite right. But in any case, he was trying to finish with the left hook. He'd be lunging in with the right, knowing he was too far, hoping that when he carried the left,

it would finally get across and land on Hill. And it was, sometimes it landed, especially later as Hill got a little bit more flat-footed, you know, or invited some of the contact. But what that was is a testament to the fact that he could not really negotiate that range effectively. He couldn't really slip and go. And there was times where he would time some of the forward, this is in a part two, like he would time some of the forward pressure of a guy like Hill and pick up a leg. And he would do it from orthodox. He would do it from southpaw. And there were times he'd pick up the leg and then turn him, pick up the leg and run him in a different direction. Like man, single legs, double legs, body locks. Glover just really

couldn't get it. I'd love to pull up the numbers on this one. I bet they're going to be highly informative. Let's see here. This is definitely, excuse me, going to be a great showing for Hill statistically. Wow. Yeah. Significant strike totals. Hill landed 232 clever to share just 75 that is i mean he had him you know three to one or more than three to one um in significant strike landing a significant strike percentage for jamal hill 57 funnily enough control time overall they both shared three minutes and 26 seconds. They had the exact same amount of control time on the ground. I guess a lot of that came from that end of that fifth that he got.

Let's look at some of that per round if we can. So the 2 of 17, Glover Teixeira. That is just an excellent job from Hill. An excellent job. Wow. I just did not think he was going to be able to do that. I thought he'd be able to stuff some of them. His takedown defense was not atrocious historically,

but it was not enough to, again, statistically speaking, it was not enough to... He was averaging giving up three per 15 minutes. So he was averaging giving up one a round. Think about that here. He was less than half of that this time. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. He took a baseline of statistical performance and vastly outperformed it. The two takedowns came one in round one, which, you know, overall, this includes fence time, so it's not just on the ground,

a minute and 16 of control time, and then in round five, he got one, which he was able to hold Glover for, again, this is also pressing against the fence, a minute and 44 of control time, but again, Hill had 142 in that round, and outstruck him 12 to 7 in significant strikes, although Glover had, like, pity patch shots, so he overall outscored him in terms of that. In terms of the targeting, this is interesting, Jamal Hill 77% to the head, a lot of that was the jab to the body, 18%, not a ton of body work from him, and then 4% to the leg. This was the other part that was kind of interesting, Glover Teixeira 69% to the head, 25% to the body, that's about right, 5% to the leg. There was a couple times through the first two rounds where you saw Glover really kind of effectively landing the calf kick,

and he didn't go back to it. In part because some of the stance switching was a bit of a problem. He's not a huge leg kicker, I don't believe. A guy like Glover, I have to look at that statistically speaking to see how true that is. Let's look at this one. Where was he targeting the leg? Yeah, Glover Teixeira, just two leg kicks on the first, two in the second, zero in the third, zero in the fourth, zero in the fifth. Got away from those.

He got away from those. I wonder if that would have done him a little bit more good. Hindsight being 20-20, it doesn't really matter. And by the way, even if he had gone back to them, that isn't to say that Hill wouldn't have come up with some other answer to counteract them, but it was one of the more notable things that had happened to him early. I would also give Glover some credit. You heard the broadcast team talking about it, his ability to roll with the punches where it lands, but if you kind of move with it, it's not a big deal. By the way, that was one of the problems that happened to Robocop on this card.

If you don't see the punch coming and it just lands on you clean, like, it's going to do damage. If you can see it coming and you can roll with it, your body's ability to brace is just vastly better. But the story of this fight to me is very much not that Glover looked bad. I thought Glover had a... Glover looked bad because he got his ass kicked. But Glover didn't look bad in the sense that like, oh, I've seen Glover be able to do things. You can see him doing better against overmatched opposition.

But I'm sort of going through. It's like he was able to try. He had all of these tools in his toolbox, and he tried every one of them. They just came up short. Hill was just better. He was just better. And, you know, maybe there's a couple things that could have gone better one way or the other, but to me, the story was Hill had massively leveled up. Massively. What are Hill's now numbers totaled? This would include this fight in creating his statistical baseline. Now they've got him at, let's see, takedown defense didn't move yet. 65%. Yeah, I don't know if they've factored that into

his full-on career stats just yet. In terms of takedowns, yeah, I mean, Tiago Santos got six takedowns against him in less time, in about three and a half rounds. Consider that. He got six takedowns. Who else got takedowns on him? Darko Stosic got six takedowns on him as well.

And, yeah, actually, Paul Craig has a win over him, but didn't get credited with six takedowns on him as well. And, yeah, actually Paul Craig has a winner for him, but didn't get credited with a takedown, although three subattempts. Yeah, you get the idea there. In the subattempts, too, there was a head and arm triangle. He just was really, really, really well studied in terms of all of what he needed to do for all the things. Glover likes to move to the mount from half. He was ready for half.

He was ready for the mount. He was ready to get underneath. He fought with purpose. He fought with intensity. He fought with smarts. Dude just put on a really, really strong performance tonight. Now there's a question in all of this about like where does this rank him among actual light heavyweights. So if with this belt you now rank him number one in the UFC,

there would be a number one contender. But I'm saying if you were actually asking who's the best at light heavyweight, this would confer status upon him, I think, fair enough to say. You might say Magomed Ankhalaev will beat him, but until that happens, this guy is, he's the one with the appropriate stature at this point. And you can put Onkalayev right after that or, you know, however you want to arrange it. I would still submit to you, I think a guy like Vadim Nemkov is probably going to be, you know, better suited as

the number one guy at light heavyweight. There's really no way to know that. I cannot prove that to you. It is very much a hunch, but just in terms of his athletic ability overall, his well-roundedness, maybe Hall would beat, excuse me, maybe Hill would beat him. One never knows. But in any case, I would say that at a bare minimum, the status of who is the number one light heavyweight in the sport is disputed. Disputed, certainly. It's not an open and shut case. As good as this performance was, and it was very, very good. Again, it wasn't just his, I mean, here's who he had fought to this point to get here, right? So he had fought, I'm not even going to name the guys that don't even really count. So Ovin St. Preux, he beat, he did lose to Paul

Craig all the way back in 2021, so not that long ago. And then he beat Jimmy Crute, he finished him off. He beat Johnny Walker, he finished him off. Then he beat Tiago Santos, he finished him off. And then he beat Glover, he couldn't finish him off, but certainly he put in 50-44 on all three judges' scorecards in Brazil. It just doesn't get, I mean, that's about as good as it's going to get, short of obviously closing the show. That's just insanely dominant. But if you actually look at the rankings today, who's in them in the top 15? Walker's in there. I'm not even sure. Kroot's in there. Craig's in there, but he hasn't lost to Craig. So this is only, as far as I can tell, this is his only second win over someone currently ranked in the UFC's light heavyweight division, but he turned in that kind of performance. So it's not like, again, if you're like me,

and you knew he was dangerous on the feet, but you had skepticism about his grappling, you need to update like I do. You need to update the overall picture that we have of what his existing liabilities are with this kind of performance. And at age 31, he's only 31 years of age um hard to say if he's going to run the table on the division right he was supposed to fight Anthony Smith you would figure that this version of Jamal Hill probably would have gotten the win

right that seems fair to say and then would he beat an Ankaliev I guess we're probably going to find out Ankaliev is probably going to be next would he beat Oblohov, would he beat an Ankaliev? I guess we're probably going to find out. Ankaliev is probably going to be next. Would he beat a Blachowicz? Would he beat any of these other guys? One never knows. It's going to be a fun thing to say. But again, this is why I feel like the status that Hill has conferred upon himself by grabbing the title, I'm happy to give it to him ceremonially or otherwise. But there's a big open question about who's the best light heavyweight in the UFC. And again, I guess we can give it to Hill tonight, but I don't know. Will he have a long title reign? Almost no one does. It's very hard to hold onto it, but it's hard to declare that he would with, I think, a ton of confidence.

It sounds like I'm a little bit, I've got mixed reviews. I don't. I just mean to say, beating the guys he's beaten and the way he's done it is extremely impressive. And the way in which he was able to just completely shut down Glover is extremely impressive. But Glover did retire tonight. Glover is 43. Durable in insane ways,

but, you know, I do think athletically he's lost a little bit of a step and whatnot, so I would be curious to see how Hill does against Ankhalaev, who's another guy, you know, in a similar age range, another guy with, doesn't have the same amount of miles on him, you know, another guy who's not literally in his 40s. I do think that is at least fair to say that while as good as he'll look tonight, which was an A-plus performance, I just would be very loathe to suggest that a long title reign is likely. In part because it's not really likely for anyone else, and in other parts, I just feel like Ankhalaev could find himself at the end of the punching range of Hill too, but I do wonder about what he could possibly do, and obviously a fight with

Nemkov is really not going to be in the cards, but would be a fuller test of, I think, what Jamal Hill has to offer. A few words, if we can, on the career of Glover Teixeira, which has apparently come to a close today. He finishes with, let me pull up his record. So with this loss, he finishes with a record of, let's see, 33-9, losing the last two, finishing the one before that, although nearly in a fight of a year contender. But before that, putting wins over Karl Roberson, Ayan Kutaylaba, Nikita Krylov, Anthony Smith, Thiago Santos, and then, of course, finishing off Jan Blachowicz. I guess we'll never get the rematch with Blachowicz, which is kind of unfortunate, but probably for the best in terms of Glover's health and safety. But what can we say

about the career of Glover Teixeira? There's a lot of things I'd like to say. And one, he was part of that vanguard of the 2.0 guys out of Brazil. What I mean by that is, obviously, there was the early stage guys who came out, the Royce Gracies and the Waleed Ishmael's and the Marco Huas's. And there was a second generation that came after that even. I guess you had to say he's early part of that one. Part two, part three of MMA is sort of where he really came up. But he never really got a chance to get going for all the reasons aforementioned. I remember, I think we tweeted about this this week,

that Sukuju was a guy who had two great wins in Pride. I think he knocked out Little Nog and he knocked out Arona back to back. And off of that, he got a UFC contract. But those two wins in Pride came after Glover had knocked him out. And Glover couldn't really follow up on it. We had him on Room Service Diaries because he was here illegally, so he had to go back to Brazil. And it took him a really long time to be able to get a visa

to come back here in a legal way. And that slowed down and kind of delayed his career too a bit. And the other part too, it's kind of interesting to me about Glover, what really is the true testament is he was, again, part of just another wave, historically speaking, of just insane Brazilian talent, especially in that light heavyweight division, right, where you had, for a time, you had Arona, Silva, Shogun, Glover,

even for a little bit, obviously Anderson Silva going up to 205, a little nog at 205. I mean, between Chutebox and Brazilian top team and all the other guys, they produced Renato Sobral so much talent at 205 in the area in which he came up. But the other part about the Glover Teixeira story is that he was very, very good. He made it all the way to Jon Jones. He came up very short in that contest. Jon was just way better, although Jon didn't kick his ass like this.

And then Glover had other tough losses after that. He got stopped by Gustafson. He got viciously KO'd by Rumble Johnson. He had problems. Corey Anderson blanked him for a little while. And I think a lot of guys thought, well, he had his shot against John. He was a really good light heavyweight, and that's really the end of it. And then, again, right around 2019, he just had this, I won't call it a second wind, but like a last wind in his career

where he pushed through all of these other guys that I think a lot of us, I mean, I wasn't sure who he was going to beat when he was on that run to the Krilovs and the Smiths and everybody else. And he took some tough shots against all those guys and nearly got hurt. I mean, Anthony Smith was dealing on him in the first round when they fought, and yet still found a way to come back and then capture a title in his 40s. He is a mark of, not just a marker, I should say, of not merely perseverance and delayed gratification, but he's just sort of a really great reminder that in MMA, some guys burst early, you know, some guys never burst at all. Some guys are, have long reigns of dominance and some guys

don't quite get it until it's just at the very end window and they actually grab it. They grab it when statistically speaking, they should not be able to. When the game should have passed them by. He was always, always, always, always a student of the game. And I think that constant investment in technical improvement, constant investment in specificity, sharpening skills, staying in the gym, just making it a habit of his life and living that way. He lives a simple life in Connecticut, right? You saw his house on some of these shoulder programming work that UFC has put out. He doesn't live ostentatiously. He lives comfortably, but not ostentatiously. And he has just made it in the most blue-collar way of putting together skills very slowly over

time. And there's always this expression, right? The wheels of justice grind slowly. They ground slowly for him, but sure enough, it worked. It worked. He could not get the storybook ending in MMA. Dude, just, it doesn't, like, you know, when St. Pierre comes back from five-year absences, and he captures a middleweight title against Michael Bisping, and then ultimately calls it a day, yeah, that is a sort of a storybook ending in its own way, but, like, dude, like, the only guys who can do that are, like, the St. Pierres, right? I mean, the St. Pierres, or, you know, Demetrius Johnson is doing really well and won. He's still obviously very viable as a champion. But you know what I mean?

Like the guys and Habib winning and then just calling it a day. Just calling it a fucking day. Other than that, the exit from the game is brutal. It's just brutal. You're going to go out there on your hands and knees. And obviously, a guy like Glover today didn't do that literally, but metaphorically, that was terrible. I'm not even sure they needed a fifth round in that fight. You knew they weren't going to stop it unless the doctor really stopped it, and the doctor didn't.

And if it's his last fight, I'm not going to cry about sending him back out there, even though he just took a shitload of abuse. But if it's really the way he hangs it up, then yeah, I guess you do send him back out there and hello, it's a title fight. But I just really hope that a lot of folks, you can learn a lot of lessons from the career of Glover Teixeira. You can learn a lot of lessons from what it means to, oh, never give up. What does that mean, never give up? How does one do that amidst setback after setback? It's easy to say, but the psychological and social weight of it all, it breaks the best of us. And Glover just never cared about that. He just never cared about that.

He just cared about, I love doing this. I'm just going to slowly get better. And when the timing is right, boom, he made a push and got a belt. And it's a credit to his career. It's a credit to his character. And tonight wasn't his night. Tonight was the night of Jamal Hill, but you're not going to see many guys push through late and get belts. Obviously, the higher in weight you go, it becomes a little bit more likely. Even in this division, we've seen other guys get it. Couture, obviously getting it quite late, as well as the heavyweight belt as well. But these are very, very outlier type guys, and that's the kind of company I think, you know, they didn't have identical careers,

but that's the kind of company that a guy like Glover keeps in my mind. Truly a joy to cover his career. Never got in trouble. Never talked shit about people. You never saw his name on a police blotter. You just never saw him doing stupid things. He lives a very just ordinary life. And he's happy about it.

And he does extraordinary things with it. So we'll see what happens with Jamal Hill. I don't know when the US people plan to have him out next. I don't know how long it's going to take for him to recover. But I understood his rage in his post-fight interview with Daniel Cormier. Being like, what are you going to say now? Yeah, fair enough, man. Fair enough.

I underestimated him. He proved us all wrong. If you were like me, he proved you wrong. You know? All right. Let's go to this co-main event if we can. Brandon Moreno defeating Devis and Figueiredo via TKO doctor stoppage. Basically, after the third round

finishes, and they go back to their corners, and the doctor inspects his eye. It was, I believe, his right eye, that of Figueiredo, and he couldn't see out of it, and then that was it. That was the long story short. I'll tell you what, let's go through the record here, shall we? for Brandon Moreno so he fights Deveson Figueredo, UFC 256 it's a draw, right? then he submits him the second time lost fair and square the third time

I thought then comes out and beats him the tonight, right? so he's got two wins, one loss, and one draw. And I would argue that that draw, some people have argued that that should have gone to Moreno.

I think part of it was, didn't he get, there was the groin strike, so he lost points on it. Otherwise he might have won. I believe that's right. No, Figueiredo was deducted the point. In any case Two wins, one loss, one draw

As far as I'm concerned The rivalry is over And Figueiredo said after the fight He's going to be going up to 135 I got to tell you He's 135 Or wants to be 135 And he's 35 years of age

That's a tough transition. You know, good luck. You got Umar Nurmagomedov. You got Chito Veras, Sanhagens. You've got Ricky Simones. You've got, I mean, Marab Diwalishwili. I mean, you got a murderer's fucking row in that division at 35 years of age. You know, one only knows what will happen.

I don't like his chances. I'll just be very honest about that. That's not a great place to be at 35 years of age, especially coming up from flyweight, although I do think that the lack of a weight cut will be better for him. But what was the story of this fight? Number one, I think the rivalry's over

for all the reasons aforementioned, but two, Moreno's just better. He was way better tonight. Now I thought Figueiredo in the third fight had made the better adjustments. Not scrambling with the guy too much. Keeping him at range. Not letting him blitz. Not letting him flurry.

Just really kind of slowing everything down. Letting Moreno make mistakes. But what they figured out this time was, right, if Figueiredo is going to take a back seat, so to speak, into this fight and kind of let Moreno rage out, well then yeah, Figueiredo is going to win. But if Figueiredo goes back to that game plan where he's trying to take a bit of a back seat, so to speak, slowing the fight down, whatnot, you're just allowing, Moreno to now take the lead, which he did with a couple of different weapons. I thought this was really interesting for

me here. So what did I take from it? First of all, I got a takedown off the top. We have talked about this a number of times. Takedowns off the top, and again, they work to varying degrees. They work based on everything else you do. They work based on the opponent. They work better or worse, depending on the weight class. But getting a takedown right off the top, I thought it set the tone right away offensively to an extent it can drain the opponent, right? Where we go back to Habib versus McGregor round one. People will say what they want to say about it. Habib won that round, but they're like, well, Conor resisted everything, right, but Habib was just draining him. Habib was just draining him, forcing him to work, forcing him to work. You didn't get as much

of that this time. I don't think he had the requisite control time early, but offensively setting the tone. So one, he was able to get takedowns in very well-timed scenarios and in other situations, able to do some good top control damage with it. The big thing, though, was the right hand of Moreno. And the right hand was landing a couple of different ways. One, just based on pure speed. Figueiredo hangs his lead hand real low. He's not like this.

And he's not even really like here with his eyes above his gloves or like you know whatever his hand is real low down here he's doing what actually excuse me he's doing one of these numbers right with his hand down low and so with that hand low if you believe you have a speed advantage and you can cover distance and Moreno already likes to blitz anyway he was popping him with that overhand right constantly. Constantly popping him with the overhand right, with that lead low hand. The other thing he was doing was then slipping the punch. By the way, you saw Gervonta Davis do this to Hector Luis Garcia.

It's one of my favorite punches. Here comes the jab. You slip the jab. The jab goes by. You go left to the body, right, and then right overhand. And he was crushing him with that. So he was able to take the lead from an offensive wrestling standpoint. He was able to take the lead from,

if not so much positioning all the time, certainly with getting off first, right? Just being the guy who goes first. Using speed to your advantage, which he did. So going first to your advantage, combining that with speed to your advantage, mixing up as you draw reactions to then go back to those same weapons because they have the same defensive liabilities, but then using different setups and then beginning to pile things on top of it.

It was just incredible. And then it leads us to this third round where I had Moreno winning the first one cleanly I had Moreno winning the second one cleanly it turns out the judges all gave Figgy the second round we'll talk about that in a second and then the third round I thought Moreno had won but what does he do he throws this gazelle punch where he kind of fakes low and then leaps out like this uh if you guys don't know, look up Marvin Hagler. Marvin Hagler is famous for something called the gazelle punch. This isn't quite that, but it's a similar kind of idea.

Although Hagler was better about using it as guys moved into it at times. But in any case, he goes low and then leaps and then lands this left. Now, my knuckles are all beat up, but he doesn't land the left like knuckles to, here's my phone. He doesn't land it. So imagine this black surface here, which is my phone, is the side of Figueredo's head. The punch doesn't land flush with the knuckles on the face. It almost lands to the side like that, right? Where the side of the hand, you know, do you guys ever see South Park where they make fun of J-Lo and the guy does the talking with a hand? It's almost like that part of the hand kind of just went to the side of the face of Figueiredo. But the hand, the left hand of Moreno was closed. And it stayed closed.

He didn't hit him and then open it and then yank it out. He didn't do that. It just kind of hit and then naturally kind of fell off. Now, the right hand does come out and touch the face of Figueiredo. But when you see Figueiredo retreat and cover up like he got poked, it's only on that other side. Well, the only damage that happened to that side was from a clean punch now the when i say clean i mean or i should say a legal punch wasn't very clean right because it landed flush but not not with the two knuckles i mean these this is where you want to hit right on when you punch you want to punch with these two knuckles these are the ones you want to. And you want to turn your punch over to the extent possible.

He landed it like this on the side. So it landed without obstruction. And it was well-timed, all of that. But it didn't land with the full force that it could have. Because he was kind of leaping out and trying to catch him at range. Rather than him being a little bit shorter and then bringing the hook around. Doesn't matter. It's a legal punch. It's a legal punch. It's a legal punch, right?

Totally above board, clean as a whistle, absolutely fair, nothing controversial about it, and his eye completely blew up. They go back to the round, go back to the corners after the round ends, can't see shit, fights over. Dude, Brandon Moreno wasn't just better in that moment with the presence of mind to throw that. He was better the entire time tonight.

He was better the entire time. He had great defense. He had well-timed takedowns. He never got out in front of his skis. He had great hand speed. He had great shot selection. He just did everything he was supposed to correctly, or just nearly. Let's look at some of the numbers on this fight if we can. And Figge, by the way, coming out, trying to get a takedown at the beginning of

round two and got one. That was nice, but wasn't able to do a whole lot with it, trying to switch it up in the way that he was. Let's look at some of these numbers if we can here. So for Brandon Moreno, let's see, he lands 48 to Figueredo's 19 significant strikes. He was just, Figueredo just couldn't get going. Just couldn't get going. He got, Devin Figueredo was credited with one of two takedowns. Brandon Moreno credited with three. Three of six. Very good. How about this? Brandon Moreno's control time, six minutes and 52 seconds. Very, very impressive that he was able to do that. Again, that's not the thing that ultimately matters by itself, but as part of a larger stats profile, that's really great.

First round, Brandon Moreno, 17 strikes. Significant to Figueiredo's five. Round two, a little bit closer, 17 to 10, still in Moreno's favor. Round three, 14 to four. He had two rounds where he, so this is something that Volkanovsky is good at in a different way. Volkanovsky does all this fainting and moving and faking where guys just don't know what the fuck is coming. And so they end up not throwing as much because they just don't know how to make a read. It ends up having this suppressive effect on his opponent's offense it's not just the opponent is throwing he's getting out of the way or catching it they're just not throwing as much

because they can't see shit and they all or they just don't know what to expect they either as he calls it he scrambles their brains you didn't get exactly that he wasn't doing all this kind of faking and fainting but that he was so clever with what he was doing, Figueiredo was a little bit confused out there. He just wasn't really sure what to do. In terms of targeting, Brandon Moreno, 77% to the head, 14% to the body, 8% to the legs. Figueiredo going to the body heavily, heavily, but it didn't seem to do a lot, did it? Right? That was the weird part. He was landing some good body kicks at times, but couldn't do a whole lot with it. 42% to the head, 42% to the body. So he split it evenly between the two, 15% to the leg. It just didn't matter. In terms of some of the other pieces here, let's look at the leg kicks. Figueredo landed one in round one, two in round two, and nothing in round three. Not much more for Moreno. Two, one, and one. Let's look at the head. Yeah, I mean, Brandon Moreno targeting 13 strikes to the head in the first, 13 to the head in the second,

11. So he was really touching him up with that. He was catching him, constantly able to do that. In the second round, let's see, the second round, statistically speaking, how the fuck did they give that to Figueiredo? I get that it was close, and he did have some damaging strikes, but statistically, he got beat everywhere. He got one takedown, Moreno matched it. Moreno outlanded him in total strikes, he outlanded him in significant strikes. Oh, the sub-attempt that he tried to get, that Figueredo tried to get, but the ankle. Was it the ankle or the guillotine?

Excuse me, the guillotine. Here's why I didn't give him the guillotine as all that big a deal. Now, there's going to be a million exceptions to what I'm about to say. There's always caveats. There's always this. But on guillotines,

especially if they're arm-in guillotines, this is very true in general, in general, okay? If you see someone in MMA and they have an arm-in guillotine, right? A good arm-in guillotine, the arm that's choking, you should not necessarily be able to see the elbow. It should be buried underneath a little bit, beneath the other opponent's shoulder line, or at least very close to it. And again, you may not have to go all that deep to get it, but that's just sort of a good rule of thumb.

And you should be on that same side driving it, right? Turning, yes? Pulling. You didn't see that. What did you see from Moreno? Moreno got him to the other side. So here's the choking arm of Figueiredo. Not only is the elbow visible, but he's not on the same side.

He's on the other side. So now what do you notice about the elbow? When I'm on here, I'm neutral, right? Now watch my elbow when I get put to my other hip. It comes up. If you see someone going for a guillotine and they are on the opposite hip of the arm that's choking and that elbow is super high in the air, like very visible, it's not to say that the choke could never work there. But that's a very low percentage way that it's going to happen. And in general, it will fail.

And sure enough enough it did a good arm and guillotine is on this either depending on how they want to do it but typically they should be on the same side as the choking arm and that elbow should be buried beneath the opponent's shoulder line and you just didn't see that so I recognized that it was tight and it took a moment for Moreno to extricate himself from it but I didn't take it all that seriously. That, to me, was a thing that, I'm not going to say Figueredo was stalling. I don't think that's true, but it had a stalling effect because Moreno was, you know, it was tight. Like, it wasn't like a thing you could just easily squirm right out of, but it wasn't a real genuine threat, right? Just mechanically,

it can't be. The reason why submissions work in these very specific ways, generally speaking, that I'm talking to you about is because you need them. You need that mechanical advantage. You need that mechanical setup for it to function properly. If my elbow is back and up and I'm on my opposite hip, it's just, where's the force? 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. Are you crushing your bills? Defeating your monthly payments? Sounds like you're at the top of your financial game.

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It's that the mechanics of it no longer make sense. So when I see an elbow like that up, and then I see him turning his chin to the inside, yes, it's still tight around his head, but he's not in danger. Not really. He is if he doesn't mind his P's and Q's. But in general, he's not really in trouble.

So I just don't. I have a hard time giving him that second round because of that. I recognize that it was something he had to take seriously. It was a threat for at least a second or two. But once he got him to the opposite hip, elbow raised, chin inside, there's no choke there. What's doing the actual choking? Nothing. So for me, he won that one clean sweep.

Danny Segura had a tweet before the fight started tonight, and he noted he had four Mexican fighters in the tweet. He had the pictures of them. It was Irene Aldana. It was Alexa Grasso. It was Yair Rodriguez. And it was Brandon Moreno. And all four of them are going to be fighting for titles this year. Moreno obviously just did, so he's one of four. I think it's going to be Valentina Shevchenko taking on Grosso, and Aldana's going to take it on Nunez. And Rodriguez is fighting for an interim title against Josh Emmett. So, you know, winner of that, we'll have to see Volkanovski,

unless Volkanovski wins and drops 145. But, you know, that fight against Emmett is a, you know, it's a legitimate, very difficult fight. And, you know, can you say a deserving interim champ? I don't know if such a thing exists, but you know what I'm trying to get at. Like, that's a championship level opportunity in a moment there. This is a moment, it's been happening for a while, it's been in place for a while, but this is a moment, 2023, where you could see a genuine, enormous ascendancy of Mexican MMA. Of its abilities.

And again, this has been something that's been in the process of developing to this point for a long time. Now all the other three fighters I mentioned may lose. Moreno won tonight, but the other ones might lose. But that you could have a possibility of having four UFC Mexican champions was, even ten years ago, unthinkable. Unthinkable. And now Mexico is on the precipice of something truly historic. Long way to go. Long way to go. But truly, truly historic. And the growth of Mexican MMA only makes MMA richer. We're talking the Mexican fucking people, man. These are the most rock-ribbed fight fans maybe on earth.

Puerto Rico might have something to say about that, or the UK too when it comes to boxing, or the Irish MMA groups. I mean, you get the idea, but that's who we're talking about here, a storied history of contributors to combat sports greatness. And now look at what they're doing in MMA. It is fucking unbelievable. It is unbelievable. I'm telling you, when I started covering MMA in 2007, the idea of a Mexican fighter beating

like a Brazilian champion was just, what? That doesn't happen. Like who? Who the fuck's going to do that? Who was the Peruvian guy who fought in UFC a long time ago? Long time ago. He was, like, all into, oh, God, what the fuck was his name? He's, like, the first ever Peruvian guy. This was a long, long, long, long, long, long time ago. I'll find his name. But, like, you know, he was the only Spanish-speaking

South American guy you'd really ever heard of in the UFC. There just wasn't many of them, and now you could have four champs within a year. It's amazing. Something else to also think about between these two that really stood out to me was maybe they'll admit it, maybe they won't, I don't know. I feel like this rivalry made both of them dramatically better. Now, it also happens that Figueiredo got a little bit older through the whole thing, right? He's 35 years of age. And so I think that you may color your perspective perhaps in a different way, but it does seem to me that he and especially Moreno, this whole quadrilogy lifted them both. Moreno, from where he was before all of this got started

to where he is now, especially having his whole camp fucked up because of what happened with James Krause and everything else, is miraculous. His development is amazing to watch. And Figueiredo, I think before, was much more of a sort of balls-out wild man who, you know, could scramble with the best of them and had big hard punch. He is much cleaner today than he used to be. Much, much. Even if today there wasn't enough to get it done against Brandon Moreno. But I think both of them, and also we should say this

too, man. This was a division that was on the fucking chopping block not too long ago. And now it is a division of kings. Dude, Devison Figueredo, he couldn't hold on to the title tonight, but he is a very worthy, you know, just championship level guy. And he found a rival in this totally upstart guy who I think was, you know, not considered to be championship caliber when he started. Look at what he's turned into. And they lifted the division after the departure of Henry Cejudo and Demetrius Johnson and the UFC letting half the guys go, and maybe we're going to cut it, maybe we're not.

And they built, they helped, it wasn't just them alone, but they helped rebuild this division with their amazing rivalry. They built themselves, they built back up flyweight, they built back, I think they set the bar for flyweight excellence going forward. Obviously, I'm sure Henry Cejudo has something to say about that, but I really believe these guys have done that as well, showing you what it looks like to be a dominant puncher, to be an absolutely limitless cardio, to scramble the way they can and lock on submissions and find the back and get the takedown and kickbox at range. I mean, all of the various things they're so very, very good at.

These guys made the night better. They made that division better. They made themselves better. They made the rivalry better. We are lucky to have witnessed something like this tonight. Even if you're a Brazilian and you really want to figure out who to win and you were chucking popcorn at Moreno, I think a more sober evaluation will tell you that it didn't go the Brazilian guy's way tonight. But I think there's a lot to be very happy about between them.

So we'll do the fights on this card and we'll get to some of your questions. Gilbert Burns, Neil Magny. So what did he do? Switch stance. So he was this way. Stutter steps. Throws a right. And as he does, he steps forward with the

right so now the right shoulder is first and then uses that to go behind him and get a body lock does that gets on top and um you know takes him down why is the body lock a good way to get a takedown especially on someone like that if you want to launch a submission into it um obviously because if you go just and do leg tackle, they can use their hands to apply a submission to keep you off of their hips. Once you get the takedown from the upper body and then you drop them down, you already have negated so many of the other weapons they get from a typical leg takedown, right? So it's just very advantageous. You can pin them from there. You can land into a

side pin or even a top pin. It's just a very, very effective way in MMA to take someone down, especially when you want to keep them down and you want to start from a relatively advantageous position to get around some of the other complicating factors. A body lock takedown is an excellent choice to switch stance into it to get it. And then once Gilbert Burns' jiu-jitsu got going downhill, that dude's a four-time world champion in the black belt division. Like, I don't know what to tell you, man. If you've never rolled with a black belt world champion, I've rolled with a guy who was a no-gi world champion.

I don't know how to explain it to you. Like, you can't do anything to them. It's like it's shocking. Like, you can't do anything to them. And, you know, Magni is talented, man. And Magni, I'll say this for him, never runs from a challenge. His record would be better if he was a little bit more careful, you know. Never, ever, ever says no to a difficult challenge. His record would be better if he was a little bit more careful. Never, ever,

ever says no to a difficult challenge. Never says no to getting better. Never says no to not being a student. Never says no to hard work. You have to admire that. But from a skill standpoint, Gilbert Burns is a fucking hammer. Hammer. Hammer. And tonight he let everyone know he is not done at welterweight making noise whatsoever. I know some people believe that he beat Hamzat in their fight. I didn't score it that way, but I can understand how someone might, candidly. And he called out Colby Covington after the fight. I would love to see that. I don't know what the hell Colby Covington's up to. I don't know what he's doing. I don't know what he wants to do. I don't know any of that shit. But I would love to see that contest. I would truly, truly love to see that contest. I would truly, truly love to see that contest.

And I think he's earned an opportunity like that and this was clinical. I mean, he didn't even want to take this fight and I can see why. Right? He took it because he wanted to stay busy. You know, Neil is a tough opponent. But, dude, they weren't on the same level. You know, there's not many guys who't on the same level.

There's not many guys who are on Gilbert's level. Gilbert is a tough, tough, tough out, man. Maybe he can't beat the best guys. We'll see. So far, he hasn't been able to, but if you're not one of them, it's going to be a rough night for you against a dude like that. Jesus, man.

What do we say about this Jessica Andrade and Lauren Murphy fight, man? There was a tweet from our guy, Aaron Bronstetter. Let me read this to you. This one shocked me. I guess it didn't shock me, but saddened me. Quote, Lauren Murphy officially absorbed 161 significant head strikes in her loss to Jessica Andrade.

Okay, 161 significant head strikes. Three-round fight. By comparison, in Zhong Wai Li versus Joanna Wan, which was arguably the best women's fight ever, they absorbed a combined 192 significant head strikes over five rounds. So you have one fighter who took 161 significant head strikes in three rounds, and you have two who combined took slightly more over the course of five. Dude, what?

Osiris, the referee, and I defended him earlier in the night because I've seen him do some work that I didn't think was all that bad, but referee Osiris Maia had a bad night. He had a real bad night. He fucked up this fight and not stopping it. And in the Terrence McKinney fight, he had the mouthpiece and he wasn't getting it back in on time. So he has two obvious pretty bad errors. And this one was fucking egregious if you ask me.

How do I get into this? Daniel Cormier said something on the broadcast, not that he was agreeing with it, but it's something that you hear all the time. And you've heard me talk about this. If you're new to me, this will be new. If you're not, then you're aware of what I'm about to say, which is you hear this argument all the time, which is, well, the corner knows them better, so they're in the best position to make a decision. Dude, this is obviously not true. It's obviously not true. Now, understand what I'm saying. It's an if, well, it's not an

if-then, but there are two parts to the statement about the corners, right? The corners know them better, that's statement one. And then the argument is because they know them better, therefore they're better off, they're the ones who should be making these decisions. And it's like, dude, the fact that you know them better in no way makes you capable of making a rational, fair, important medical decision. And in fact, it might impede you. It might impede you. And in fact, it routinely does. What ends up actually happening,

when you see these guys get, in this case, this lady, Lauren Murphy is tough as nails to do what she did. Jessica Andrade puts people out with those punches. Lauren Murphy took all of them. She is an absolute, I mean, anvil. Okay. Credits are her for being, she is a fucking anvil. But, but the reality is this, and it happens when you see a lot of father son combos, her husband was in the corner. And again, you know, that's the, I'm sure that if you asked them, they would say, we feel like what we did was great. But respectfully speaking, Lauren Murphy didn't need to take that abuse in the third round. It didn't do any good.

It didn't change any fortunes. All she did was take up more abuse that didn't have to happen. And what actually you see from corners in situations like this, when they get their back up against the wall and they say well we know them better it's like i'm not challenging that you know them better what i'm saying to you is because you know them so well and because it's not just how well you know them it's how much you love them or how much you believe in them and how much you believe in the possibility of doing anything because these guys all of them the corners to a lot of former fighters and trainers, they all have this push through limits mentality.

Push through limits mentality. Don't stop. Keep going. I know this person. I've seen them reach these difficult heights in practice. I've seen them overcome it. They then have, the corner has an irrational belief in their ability, their fighter's ability to overcome the beating that they're

taking. That's what ends up happening. It actually makes it worse for their fighter because they're like, no, no, no, no, no matter how bad it gets, I know they can overcome that. Dude, you think that because you love them. You don't think that because you're making an honest evaluation of the evidence. The fact that they like them so much, the fact that they believe in them, the fact that they also have a lot of the same worldviews about overcoming adversity, all that does is actually get more people hurt. There is a different calculation that goes into whether or not a fight should continue that can have some overlap with how well you know them yes but i think has a whole different set of considerations that have to get made that have

fuck all to do with how well you know them if how well you knew a corner prevented people from getting hurt we wouldn't be in this situation to begin with. We're here because that idea is obviously not fucking true. It is not true. It is not true. Of course, someone's going to say, it was true in this case, it was true in that case. Fine. You can find individual cases where someone was hands-off

and they miraculously got it done. But anytime you see someone take a beating like this, it is because it is not true. It only happens because the corner... By the way, I have to go back in here. I'm not even sure what the corner said. By the way, I like Lauren Murphy a lot, man. I don't wish any of this on her. She's been, to me, I think, one of these fighters whose ability has been very much unheralded.

You didn't get a great glimpse of that tonight. She had a very tough bout. But in general, you know, the win over Misha Tate was legit. She's got a few of them too, and she got sorted late. Like, I love her story. I love the story of Lauren Murphy. But what I just don't want to hear anymore, because it's just so blatantly not true, is that the corner are the people that are best equipped to

make these decisions because they know them so well get the fuck out of here with that get out of here with that it all that does is make it worse sometimes does it doesn't fix anything it's the root of the problem not the antidote so So I hated that. I hated that. And you know, Murphy did everything she could. You couldn't have asked anything else from her. You couldn't have asked anything else from her. She tried everything she had. She withstood everything Jessica threw at her. I take my hat off to Lauren Murphy, but she didn't need to take beating in the third round. It didn't need to happen. And the referee failed her, and I really think that the corner, and I know that they're her loved ones, so I'm not

going to bash them, but I really really really strongly encourage them to rethink the decision making that went into letting her go out there for that third. That's my personal opinion. By the way, do you notice one reason why Murphy couldn't get the takedown and hold it? She got the takedown a couple times early, but she couldn't hold it.

Dude, did you notice how well Andrade was hand fighting and breaking the grip apart? That's really the key to it is you have to break that. If the hands can stay locked, they can do a lot with it. So you have to break it. So she was leaning back into it, pushing down. Jose Aldo was very good at this. Just amazing hand fighting. Really, really good hand fighting. And then last but not least, how about Paul Craig and Johnny Walker? How did he set it up? Dude, this was clever from Johnny Walker. People who are, you might see Paul Craig shoot for doubles on occasion or whatever. He does go

for takedowns. It does happen. But he also likes to catch kicks and then run people down. That way he can be on top at times. And I think that they knew he was going to try to catch a kick. So what you actually see is you actually see Walker faint Craig backwards, throw the push kick. And it could have been bait, by the way, just to get to see if he would catch it. I mean, throw it with some intention, but to see if he'll catch it. But either way, he catches it with two hands, which, yeah, there's nothing wrong with that.

I mean, if you can catch it with one, do it. But when they come straight, you kind of have to clamp down with two. But because his hands were down, he immediately recognized it. Just fantastic presence of mind from Johnny Walker. And he came in with a right hand that landed flush. No defense at all. And Craig simply couldn't recover. He simply couldn't recover.

That was it. So, great win from Johnny Walker. Great win. And then he does the fucking worm, which messed him up before. But, you know, old habits die hard, I guess. Shogun Hua retired tonight after losing. By the way, let me just read the results here because I didn't get them all out. I just want to make sure that I didn't mess it all up. So just to be very clear, your main card,

Gilbert Burns defeating Neil Magny, arm triangle choke at 415 round one. Jessica Andrade defeating Lauren Murphy. How about this? 230-25s, 130-26. How the fuck? Okay. If you see a card go to your decision with two 30-25s and a 30-26, and no one lost a point because of, you know, eye pokes or whatever. So that's just from getting at your ass kick. Nothing to do with any penalties. That fight should never have do with any penalties. That fight should never have gone to a decision. That fight should never have gone to a decision. Should have been stopped. That's the end of it. And then Johnny Walker defeating Paul Craig via TKO at 216 of round one. Overall, pretty good card. Your preliminary card, main event, of course, Ihor Potiaria defeating

Mauricio Shogun Hua, 40-0-5 of round one. I think he landed one really, really good left hook that kind of got Potieria's attention, but he couldn't do much after that. He gets clipped with a punch, I think on the side, almost like the back of the head, temple area, and he couldn't recover, and he was finished off. He needed to go.

I mean, Shogun Hua should not have been fighting this late into his career, but I'll say this for Shogun. I mean, we could just heap praise on him all day long. But the best thing I could say is, or I mean, I could say many things. Tournaments are a big thing in combat sports and wrestling and kickboxing and in MMA and jujitsu too. In MMA, they've changed over time. They all used to be one-night tournaments and now they can go over the course of a year. But Pride did them where they would have two of the, if you made it through all four, the first two would be in different nights and then the last two would be on the same night.

And I'll just tell you this, Shogun Hua's run through the Pride Grand Prix 2005 middleweight tourney, right? The Pride 2005 middleweight Grand Prix. And that middleweight is 205. That's what Pride called their middleweight, 205. So the 205 tourney, basically. That run, which I think in the... So let me go back. Who did he beat the whole time? So he KO'd Arona and was it Little Nog on the same night? No, he decisioned Little Nog. It was Arona and who else on the same night? Listen to this run. This was his run in that tournament in 2005. Oh yeah, here we go. So here we go. Ready? Round one. He finished off Rampage in 447 of round one from the knees inside the clinch. Then like, you know, brutal soccer kicks and shit. Amazing.

Then he comes back. That was in April of that year. He comes back in June and decisions Lil Nog, which was a shoot-to-box Brazilian top team rivalry. That was a huge rivalry at that time. And that was a great, great fight. Then on the same night in August, he comes back and TKO's Alistair Overeem at 6.42 of round one. Remember, 10-minute first round.

And then the same night comes back and KOs Arona at 2.54 of round one. Folks, that is the fucking best performance any MMA fighter has ever had in a major tournament. Period. I've seen some other, I've seen more dominant ones like Bader's run to the heavyweight grand prix

that Bellator put together. Yeah, he barely got a punch put on him. But in terms of the quality of opposition and how he performed, that was absolutely, in every way, magisterial. Incredible, incredible job. And he had other heights beyond that. He got robbed against Machida the first time

and then just blew the doors of him the second time. The win over Chuck Liddell, the fight with Dan Henderson, even if he lost that one or it was a draw, whatever. He's just had many, many, many great nights. But that 2005, someone mentioned this to me as well. His 2005 and Jon Jones' 2011, someone tweeted me this and they were right. Those are like the two best calendar years any mma fighters ever had so you know we're talking about one of the very best to ever do it at certainly certain points of his career should have hung it up a long time ago but there you have it also jose aldo getting into the uh hall of fame jose aldo was announced as part of the 2023 class for the hall of fame and um you know the hall of the 2023 class for the Hall of Fame.

The Hall of Fame is run by the UFC. It's not run by an independent organization. So guys are going to get in perhaps without the traditional waiting periods or whatever the case may be. But Aldo is one of the best fighters any of us has ever seen. He was a pioneer for the lighter weight guys. He was just a dynamic athlete at a time when guys were very heavy, lopsided skill sets. He was this kid out of Rio who could strike his ass off. He had ridiculous jujitsu. Remember Gray Maynard, the first time he trained with him, came back and was like, holy shit. His defensive wrestling is incredible. He advanced the game. He advanced the division. He advanced virtually any cause in terms of fighting that he

was a part of. Just one of the very best to ever do it in any weight class. One of the best win streaks you'll ever see. Just a complete marriage of athleticism and skill. A Puma who just had all of the hunting tricks. He was that guy. And he had one of the most dynamic skill sets ever. And some of the best wins ever. And of course his time came too. But it's great to see the UFC put him into the Hall of Fame. And it's like, where's Anderson? Shouldn't Anderson still be in that Hall of Fame too? But you know, you take it as you get it. All right, let's see what kind of questions you have,

and then we shall call it a day. I'm sure I've missed whatever has happened at the post-fight presser, but that's what happens. All right. Did Anthony Smith just earn a title shot? Maybe Maybe But I think it's going to go to Ankalayev There seemed to be a passing of the guard In Brazilian MMA tonight

What impact have athletes like Yeah We've got to kind of go to that one Gilbert Burns is a problem How surprising was Hill's takedown defense? Yeah it was crazy Who would make sense for an ideal matchup For Figge at 135?

So if we pull up the rankings at 135... Jack Shore? I mean, Umar Nurmagomedov is sitting at 11. Good luck with that shit. Good luck with that. Let's see. This person writes, I'm surprised most people are saying Moreno dominated Figueiredo.

In my opinion, rounds one and two were super close. They were close. They were close. With Figue's subs arguably being the biggest moment. See, I just didn't. The ankle lock wasn't close and neither was the guillotine. They were not close. Which bomb fiend brother were you more impressed by?

Ishmael. Ishmael. How do you say it? He was the first one. That KO of his on Terrence McKinney was... How terrible is Hill's chest tattoo? It's not great tattoo it's not great it's not great

it's fairly bad okay out of Yuri, Izzy, and Pineda who do you think would win the most fights if they all had to fight the other three out of Hill that's a tough one Pineda I guess better career Shogun or Glover probably Shogun That's a tough one. Pineda, I guess.

Better career, Shogun or Glover? Probably Shogun. But they're different careers too, right? If Pineda defeats Izzy on their matchup, do you think the UFC will pump him up for a double weight? They might. Yeah, that's not a bad thought. That could absolutely happen. Could Walker contend for a title?

I'm skeptical he could put together enough of a win streak. And there's a few other ones. All right. They're mostly all the same. That is it for me today. We got you about an hour and 15 here, roughly, I think, of it. Monday.

Monday, Monday, Monday. We're going to be covering the whole card. Me, Brian Campbell, you, Morning Combat. Thumbs up on the video. Hit subscribe. Check us out on Monday. Appreciate you guys tuning in. I know it's late as balls,

but here you guys are, and we love you for it. So let me know what you thought of the card. You can shoot me an email, lukethomasnews at gmail.com. And yeah, we're back on Monday. So thank you guys so much for watching. Until next time, get some sleep. Yay.