MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - 🚨UFC 284 Results: Islam Makhachev vs. Alexander Volkanovski | UFC 284 Reaction

Episode Date: February 12, 2023

At UFC 284, Islam Makhachev faces Alexander Volkanovski - the featherweight champ - for the lightweight crown from Perth, Australia. Volkanovski is trying to become the fifth champ champ in UFC history while the Khabib Nurmagomedov protoge in Makhachev seeks to hold onto his title. In the co-main event, Yair Rodriguez battles Josh Emmett for the interim featherweight strap. Also on the ESPN+ pay-per-view fight card is Jack Della Madalena fighting Randy Brown. We'll have UFC 284 reactions, results, analysis and more. This is the official UFC 284 Post-Fight Show with Luke Thomas for Morning Kombat. 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

you hear that oh paid and done that's the sound of bills being paid on time but with the bimo eclipse rise visa card paying your bills could sound like this earn rewards for paying your bill in full and on time each month rise to rewards with the bimo Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Hi, everybody. How are you doing? It is the 12th of February, 2023. My name is Luke Thomas. This is your official Morning Combat UFC 284 post-fight show.

UFC 284 instant reaction. UFC 284, you name it. This is where we're going to get to all the results how are you doing I'm fresh off the bird from the other side of the Atlantic called some boxing fights earlier today and here we are to get to some of the UFC stuff so thumbs up on the video if you are watching please hit subscribe if you haven't done it yet already we're going to get to all of the UFC 284 results, analysis results. I've already said that before.

Reactions. All the good stuff you want to get to about the fights, which have now officially concluded. All right? All right. So without further ado, let's get this party started, shall we? And we're back. As a reminder, subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. All right, so it's what?

It's about 1 a.m., not quite. We'll go for approximately an hour or so, give or take. So let's get to it now. Not a moment to waste. Let me pull up my notes here. All right, let's talk some it now. Not a moment to waste. Let me pull up my notes here. All right. Let's talk some results here. I'll turn this off. Very good. Everyone's subscribed by now. Yes. Very good. Okay, good. All right. UFC 284 took place at the, I'm going to guess it's pronounced RAC Arena. This is in Perth, Australia, out in Western Australia. And of course, it took place February 12th there.

It's February 12th now, but remember, they're ahead in the time calendar, so to speak. So they're first. So it's February 12th for them. But either way, February 11th, February 12th, doesn't really matter. Let's get to these results. I used to give warnings about spoilers. I'm really not going to do that anymore. So if you're here, it's because you want to be here. All right.

In getting to these results, let's start where the party starts. Ready? Here goes. Islam Makhachev defeats Alexander Volkanovski via unanimous decision. He wins 48-47 on two of the judges' scorecards. He wins 49-46 on the other one. I had it 48-47 for Makachev, but I want to be very, very clear about something. Number one, Volkanovski ended that fight with authority. He easily took the fifth round, the best round of that fight for him. You could even argue the best round in terms

of clear offense for either fighter. Makachev had the back for a lot of different times, but in terms of how threatening or punishing it was, I don't know that it matches up to getting dropped like he was by Volkanovski in the fifth and then that grounded pound from full guard. Debatable, but certainly, by far, Volkanovski's best round. There is a very defensible scorecard for 3-2 Volkanovski. If you had it 3-2 Volkanovski, I really don't have a problem with that at all. I think at worst,

he won two. I don't think you could find four for him, but I do think you can definitely find three. I think it's two, three, and five, I believe. Or maybe it's one, two, and five. I have to go look and double check. I had rounds two and five for him. And I think the third round was also very, very close. I noticed scores began to diverge right around that point. So it was either 2-2 heading into the fifth or 3-1 Islam.

And so under the 3-1 Islam view, Volkanovski would have needed a finish, but he still would have won the fifth, making it a bare minimum two rounds that he won. The 49-46, the four rounds for Islam, here's the thing. So which one would you give Volkanovski? You'd give him the fifth. That means that person didn't give him one, two, or three. Four was not very close, right? And the first one I didn't think was super close either.

So you didn't give him two or three. I mean, both of those were close. And if you're granting that it's close, then both of those can be under the scoring criteria, or at least if you had to defend your actions as a judge to a commissioner, you could defend it saying the argument is if it's close, then what you're saying is it can go either way. And if it can go either way,

then some kind of scorecard where it goes the way of Islam for the first four, under that argument, it would be defensible, right, under that idea. But the point is it sort of it sort of misses something about what volkanovsky turned in right you're not going to give him any credit for his effort beyond just the fifth so to me the 49 46 for islam is a um i understand the scorecard in the most technical sense but it's not it's not evidence of like great judgment I think I think 3-2 either way is fine 4-1 Makachev you know I can squint but I really don't think it's fair I think Volkanovsky won two of

those rounds and did not give him two of those rounds at least one of the two that was denied anyway by that third judge is uh totally unfair all. We'll talk more about the scoring in just a second, but let's talk broad strokes of this. And then as you guys know, I like to look at some of the data, so we will. You heard him say it. I almost tweeted it, but I couldn't find a clever way to say it in real time quick enough because I'm trying to watch the fight and tweet and it can get disruptive. But I was like, dude, Islam is way outperforming on the feet than I thought he would, even after he had a great performance against Oliveira. And I didn't think that Volkanovski was going to have a lot of problems.

Outrests are defending. Okay, so cards on the table. Heading into this contest, my basic problem with the Volkanovski case, as it was made in the public was not that I found the idea of him defending enough of the takedowns or separation or submissions to either neutralize that or take a lot of that away. I never thought Volk couldn't do that. In fact, I was pretty sure he was going to do that. It was just I didn't know where the rest of the offense was going to come from. Most of the arguments that were made pre-fight in Volkanovski's favor, the vast majority of them were like,

look how close this can actually be when you think about it, which to me is totally reasonable. That's fine. But there wasn't a very strong case about what the offense was going to look like. There was a lot of reasons why you thought he could neutralize the offense of Islam, but you have to turn it on to the other side. And you got, in this case, in terms of the offense that I thought Volkanovsky was able to get in, I want to be clear, the defense he had, the hand fighting, the scrambling to get your hips turned over into your base, the hardcore whizzering you saw um the single leg defense um the get-ups that you saw i mean there was just lots of different things that volkanovsky was doing where they clearly had him well prepared

obviously craig jones saying a lot of insane shit to the media um you know about he was going to leg lock islam and all that shit none of that really none of that was really in play um but i thought defensively like it was weird how islam over performed on the striking relative to expectations and i think to some people volkanovsky overperformed in the grappling um but that made the fight really really close obviously volkanovsky did much i was gonna say uh islam did much better on the feet than i thought he was going to volkanovsky certainly made a strong account of himself defensively in the grappling world or the grappling world,

or the grappling dimension, although it should be noted, obviously, Islam had, I think, almost the entirety of the fourth round. He had the back, and then I think in the first round, some other portions maybe as well, he had the back too. So it wasn't like he didn't take his... He was able to execute on some level in a very dominant way. Like he got the entire fourth round basically off of that body triangle. But in general, I thought Bukhanovsky made a very strong account of himself defensively on the wrestling and grappling end. Like really, really, really strong stuff. About as best as you could actually ask maybe even any 155-er in the world, much less a natural 145-er. Extremely impressive.

On the feet though, I got to tell you you man islam was way better way better than i thought he was going to be that part really did take me by surprise and i know he's coming off the olivera fight where he also did really really well but part of that was olivera like running into things and like jumping into range in these like very predictable ways you know you do that against the elite fighter they're going to eat you alive and that's what you saw so i thought some of it was that or like for example everyone talks about that final submission that islam got and it's like oh wasn't it so great that he did it to a bjj black belt when that whole when craig jones was saying stuff and you know didn't he disprove it but the reality was how did he set that up

he set it up because he hit him with a left hook. I believe it was a left hook. And he got Oliveira to then raise his arm and then give him the submission. We talked about it on my personal YouTube channel. I did a whole breakdown on it. It was set up with punches. That's a very, very MMA-specific kind of thing.

But the point I'm trying to make here is, in this case, in this fight, the striking of Islam, the timing on it was good the choice about which ones to use were good he doesn't put everything in combinations he's not out there flowing like jack de la maddalena who we'll talk about a little bit later he had a just a fucking amazing night so we'll talk about him later it's not like that but it's very useful, including like intercepting Volkanovski. Numerous times Volkanovski's trying to blitz. Volkanovski's trying to blitz and switch stance. He's trying to take an angle. He's trying to set up something and Islam would catch him

at the right time coming in, at the right angle coming in uh when he when he wasn't mindful with his jab defense islam would make him pay i was blown away by some of that stuff and then uh in certain ways to countering up the middle he would get clinched there were knees up the middle you saw islam throwing he was catching him like that intercepting him that was something max did i think in the second fight that he had that's the closest you could argue between Max and Volk right is the second one right because Max was really strong in the first two and then Volk stormed back in the latter half of that contest um so that was like a great read from Islam as well I was like holy shit now it wasn't enough for him to not get hit and dropped in the fifth when he clearly

had faded he clearly had gotten tired um you know it wasn't like it was perfectly lights out he is defensively pretty sound that's the other part too like again the fifth round notwithstanding hello he's fighting volkanovski like volkanovski is going to get through eventually he's too good not to but in general we've talked about this before with islam in particular in the olivera fight like the dude doesn't get hit a lot, he doesn't get taken down a lot, he doesn't Adriano Martins fight notwithstanding, he doesn't make a ton of mistakes he doesn't overexpose himself to bad situations in general

he got tired I think a little bit worn down in the fifth and that made him a little bit stationary and it made him a little bit more predictable and so he got dropped and you're going up against the elite fighter, they're going to hello, he's a pro fighter too. He's going to squeeze through, and he did. So that was pretty impressive.

All of that really I thought was kind of amazing. I'm not surprised that it was close. I really don't think a fair pre-fight reading of Volk's capabilities should have told you this was going to be a massacre. That did not ever seem to me like a very likely outcome here. Possible, yes, of course, it's always possible, but highly unlikely. The other thing about this fight that was sort of noteworthy to me was, man, some of Islam's, boy, Islam's got tricks,

but what's interesting is how much I think Volkanovski's cardiovascular conditioning. And, dude, he came in with a ton of confidence. So much confidence. It's interesting. Like, for example, Islam had this trick where he almost pulled Volkanovski in the first round almost like on top of him. Almost like a sacrifice throw. Only so that he could turn and almost like on top of him, almost like a sacrifice throw, only so that he could turn and then get on top at the last instant. Volkanovski managed to find ways around that later.

But like, you know, selling out tricks like that, and I'm calling it a trick. It's really just an incredible skill. What I'm saying a trick is like, you can't go back to the well on that very often. But what I think he does with other guys is he gets stuff like that. He begins to put in their head, oh my God, this guy is really, really good. And they begin to wilt under that pressure. Volkanovsky never did. He never wilted under that pressure at all. There were times he had to ultimately, you know, once the body triangle was on, you have to kind of acknowledge that it's not quite checkmate, but it's check, and it's a bad position, and he did.

But in general, he was able to nullify just about everything else, and a big part of that was the aforementioned. So that was really a job well done by Volkanovsky there. I thought that was pretty excellent. The first round, he dropped Volkanovsky, hit him in the chest. He dropped, Makachev hit him in the chest. That never amounted to much that way. Also what's kind of noteworthy was Makachev had his best success when he could really, really crowd and corner Volkanovski.

When Volkanovski is roaming, there's space to blitz, space to turn, pivot, the whole bit. Man, he's just hard to find. He's hard to land on. He's hard to blitz space to turn pivot the whole bit man he's just hard to find he's hard to land on he's hard to time it's just just a lot going on there right but if you can back him up behind the it used to be two black lines it's now one black line which is where the advertising sort of separates i call it the warning track when he got him behind there it was a different ball game big punches landed. He could force him at a certain exit. He could threaten with a takedown.

He could do a lot. He could do a lot. And it's hard to get Volkanovsky backing up that way. But again, surprisingly, Makachev's cornering footwork at times was pretty good. And some of his pressure at times was really good. He couldn't sustain it that well. But Volkanovski's a tough nut to crack, man. That dude's defense is sustaining, right?

And then the only issue with his offense is that against A-level guys, like really, truly A-level guys, it usually takes him a round or two to figure it out. You know, fully anyway, fully. And you saw that here as well. It took him about three, maybe even more than that rounds to fully figure it out. Although also Islam kind of faded. But there's a little bit of an adjustment period.

You didn't see it against Korean Zombie because there was a big skill gap. And he didn't see it so much in the third Holloway fight. But by that point, he had really kind of figured him out. But this is what I mean. It takes time for him to do that. And when he does it, he can make incredible adjustments that guys just can't follow. But that does

sort of... It was interesting that he came out like a bat out of hell. Like, ah, ready to go. Because A, it got him hurt in the first round. There was a time Volkanovski was not even at a bladed stance at all, totally square, just fucking exchanging. And Islam hit him and dropped him. So that wasn't great for him. but in any case speaking of Volkanovski behind the black lines

essentially along the fence line is sort of what we're talking about here I thought Makachev's capacity to do that while somewhat fleeting as the fight went on was pretty interesting the back control was pretty interesting I don't have a problem with giving... There might be people who have a problem with giving Makachev the fourth round

because there wasn't a lot of ground to pound with it. But to me, if you have a body triangle on, you have created an incredible amount of asymmetry between yourself and your opponent. And you have locked them into it. You have also locked yourself into something a little bit. But the degree of asymmetry and the degree of being trapped to me is even if there's not much offense behind it that to me is sufficient to win a round and I think I could even justify that within the scoring criteria itself um so I don't

really know what he could have done about that man Volk was right there he was right there man he was right there he was just if he could have gotten offense going a little bit earlier, found a way to knock at the back, losing, getting his back taken in the fourth round was a bit of a back breaker. Because without that, if he has to, if Islam really has to strike it out on the feet, I mean, he got a breather there, right? He got a breather through that. If he really had to strike it out on the feet, would he have gotten it? I don't know. Look at how he faded in the fifth, you know? Hard to say. That was a really crucial, crucial, and frankly, you know, veteran, like, must-have kind of moment for Islam. I guess, based on the scorecards, it's harder to justify

that opinion because he was winning 4-1 on one of them. But still, it's worth thinking about if he was forced to really strike it out on the fourth, what would that have done to Volk's fortunes and would it meaningfully have changed them? I'd argue that maybe it did. Or I'd argue it would have. Let's take a look at some of the numbers if we can here. I'd love to go through them as you know. All right, these come to us from 3027, formerly known as Fight Metric. I got this shit in my teeth. All right.

So, boy, not a ton of offense in the striking department. Makachev goes four for nine on takedowns, seven minutes and 37 seconds of control time. Some of that is going to be just pressing Volkanovski into the fence and not from the back, but that's still a fair amount. Makachev scores 95 of 135 attempted total strikes. 57 of 95 significant. Volkanovski, 164 of 255 total. 70 of 143 significant, so he was certainly busier. 0 for 4 on takedowns. He has 2 minutes and 55 seconds of control time.

Let's see here. Leg kicks, that was a big part of Volkanovski's game. He got 12 of 14. two in the first round four in the second three in the third just one obviously in the fourth and then two more again in the fifth that was a big part of what he was doing body attacks were big volkanovsky was pretty consistent with those as well the biggest ones were islam to the head in round two. That was his biggest source of damage, and it was to the head for Volkanovsky in round five. In terms of targeting, Makachev, 63% to the head, 31% to the body, 5% to the leg, barely went there. Let's see about Volkanovsky, 52% to the head, 30% to the body, 17% to the leg.

I wonder how that matches up with the third Holloway fight. No, not hardly at all. 76% to the head, 9% to the body, 14% to the leg. So he really switched it up for this one, and this time 30% to the body. So he went triple with that, triple with that. And then to the leg, he really reduced head strikes in this one as well to make it more attainable of a striking opportunity. A lot of Volkanovsky standing tricks didn't work, man.

A lot of him trying to pull guys into position with a sort of stance change and like a pivot. The blitzing didn't really work. He was getting timed on the blitz. There were times where you saw him try to set up stuff from opposite side stance the leg kicks got through a little bit but the punches never really got all that close um so he had to

go a little bit longer range with it i thought that was kind of interesting as well um yeah most of it was from distance but nevertheless i'm trying to see if there's anything else here in the numbers that's kind of interesting they don't credit Makachev with any submission attempts, which is fine. I mean, yeah, it went across the jaw, right, but it wasn't super tight. Nothing else super noteworthy in terms of that. Volkanovski in his last five-round fight had attempted 1007 total strikes, landing 199 significant ones. So he was teeing off on Max Holloway before that. Prior to that, against Brian Ortega, 377. He landed 229 total, 214 significant strikes.

Remember, he landed just 70 in this one. So his output was massively reduced. Which is kind of funny that they didn't have super high output relative to previous fights. And this was more interesting and better than most of them. I saw some people doing like, you know, instant classic. I don't know if it's instant classic. But it's certainly very, very, very good. Highly enjoyable.

A ton of fun. And not dripping, so to speak speak with offense in the way you might imagine not utterly overwhelmed so there's a question here it's like does islam become the pound for pound number one fighter in the sport it's like i get the argument that you that if you beat um the number one guy and he's in your weight class, which technically in a sense he was, at least for the night, then why wouldn't it make you the pound for pound guy? But it's like, are we really going to give it to a guy where it's like his best win was like Bobby Green and Tiago Morissette and he's got two super solid wins, right? The Oliveira win, unimpeachable. And

this one is disputed, again i had it three two makachev three two volkanovski totally justified but makachev wins so now he's got wins over volkanovski and olivera now that's pretty goddamn impressive that's the featherweight champ and the lightweight champ and that's i'm not saying that's not worthy of like serious consideration but just those two wins alone making him number one pound for pound, you know, pound for pound is so nebulous as an idea. And as a, in terms of criteria that really the only debate is what you include as criteria and what you don't. But for me, your record within your division matters unless you're constantly jumping divisions and beating a guy who came up

to your division, even if he is exceptional in talent and then taking the belt from the existing guy this was his first title defense i mean that's an amazing first title defense if you wanted to have makachev pound for pound number one i really wouldn't i wouldn't argue um heavily against the idea i don't think that's the craziest thing in the world but i if i think if you it, the problem is, the problem is not, now that I'm talking it out in real time, the problem is not that. The problem is if you don't have Islam,

who do you have? Right, because you can't give it to Usman. You can't give it to now Volkanovsky, he just lost. I mean, I guess you could still give it to Volkanovsky based on your criteria, but now it becomes more difficult, especially if Islam was already sitting at two.

You can't give it to Stylebender. You canender. I mean, there's a lot of guys you ordinarily would have been able to give it to. You no longer can. And so if Islam wins this contest, I suppose you have to. Anyway, there's just not a doubt in my mind he's going to end up there. But if you have a feeling like me that these two wins by themselves are extremely, extremely commendable, but not by themselves enough to be number one pound for pound, I guess we can die on that hill together, but it really isn't worth it. The question is what Makachev does next. I don't really know what he's going to do next. We're waiting to see what happens between Gaethje and Fazeev. That is going to be interesting. We're waiting to see what happens with Poirier next. Obviously Chandler and Conor, who the hell knows. I know that fight's

going to be at 170, but if Conor wins, if Conor McGregor beats Michael Chandler and then calls for a title shot against Islam at 155, we all know what's going to happen, right? Like, he's going to get it. So it's at least, whether we like it or don't like it, whether we accept it or don't, whether we're happy about it or not, you at least have to acknowledge the reality of what is very possible. I think that's a good way to put it.

So, I guess we'll have to see about that. For Volkanovski, he goes back down to 145, which I think is good. And I guess he'll fight Yair, which we'll talk about in just a second as well. But for Volkanovski, man, what a ridiculous competitor he is. He's a special breed of competitor. I'm sure he's down that he lost, but he didn't sound down to me in the sense of, he seemed lifted by the experience. I think this was the right moment to press that button.

He can make a very clear argument that he won. Yeah, I'm not sure what the problem is. Right? Like that wasn't... Let me explain what I mean. Sometimes fights like this, okay, why was this fight made? Like, why was this fight made? I mean, a few different reasons. Probably the UFC wanted to take a big fight to Australia. They didn't have to pick Volkanovski for that. They could have picked Whitaker or something else,

but you know, maybe that's one of the contributing factors. Volkanovski has been beating the shit out of everyone at 145. He really wanted to step up. That's a factor. There's also not really a super obvious contender at 155 right now. I mean, yes, you could say Dariush, but against a guy like Volkanovski, given what he had been doing, they're never going to go that direction. So those are all reasons going to go that direction. So, you know, those are all reasons why they made that fight.

But the point I'm trying to make here is a big reason is that they got lobbied into it. Right? They got, there was external pressure to make it. It wasn't like it was this organic thing that everyone just kind of had to see. Like, for, you know, for years on end, we have to see these two match up, or you could see it coming a mile away that these two special guys were connected on some journey where they were clashing into each other. It ended up being a place where they ended up clashing, but it didn't have these narratives, these overarching ways of describing the fight. They were pressured, so to speak.

They were lobbied, in a sense, into making it happen. And the reason why they had done that is because a guy like Volkanovsky had not only just achieved a lot, but was willing to take risks. And what you'll just find is like it's very, you know, people are going to say, oh, well, yeah, he lobbied himself into becoming a champ champ just because that's what everyone does now in the sense that this is some kind of ordinary thing that's no longer special. First of all, becoming champ champ is insanely fucking difficult. Volkanovski couldn't do it tonight. That tells you a lot about how hard that must be, right? And the best of fight sports takes place when people like Alexander Volkanovski lean on their courage, right? When they lean on their vision

and their courage and their willingness to see that through, despite the difficulties and how long it might take, that makes the fight game better, right? What you need are fighters internally willing to push the envelope and then bring you along for the ride. It's very, very hard. It can be happening. It happens that the fans can pressure fighters into taking certain things or that the promotion can strong arm. That does happen, right? But the real best stuff in the fight game, the true big time shit is not typically promoter driven.

It's not typically, yeah, the fans can define, they can play a huge role. Please don't misunderstand me because, of course, they're the customers and what they can sell. But the historic shit is what I'm talking about. Right? This kind of stuff. This kind of stuff only happens when both parties, and in particular one party, is willing to actually put it out there. And lose if they lose, but to force promoters into recognizing moments. Force fans and skeptics and onlookers and fans, whoever, into this particular vision.

They have to get out there and seek it. And yes, by the way, Islam deserves credit for that too. They wanted Volkanovski. They wanted that fight in Australia, right? In the first title defense, out of the frying pan and right into the fire. They wanted that too. But this is just sort of proves my point. It's that great fighters with vision and the discipline to see that vision through. And, of course, they already have to be great. They can't just be average. They have to be great.

That is what creates the biggest stuff in the fight game. That is the stardust of that's why they're great. But that is the engine. That is the catalyst. It has to come from those guys. And not every great fighter wants to do that. Again, what makes them great, what makes them not? Okay, I should say, there are many, many very talented fighters who don't want to do that.

And I understand that part too. They have a different risk calculus. So just be grateful to guys like Volkanovski tonight. Whether you thought he won or he didn't, that vision and that willingness to believe that his courage can take him places. It's not automatic. It's not easy. And tonight it wasn't really fully rewarded.

But when it becomes just a mode of living, these guys can push the fight game into incredible places. And that's what we got here tonight. I don't know, you know, are they going to's what we got here tonight. I don't know. Are they going to do a rematch of it? I don't know. It doesn't seem that way because these fights can be disruptive to divisions. And I think they've got an interim one at 145 and everything else.

So probably not. But that was exceptional truly exceptional from him Islam was getting booed by the way by the Aussies and I get that I get not drinking at 6am in the morning and then your guy puts in a hell of a performance

and he doesn't come away with it and numerically he got he was the better numerically he was the more active striker anyway um and by the way volkanovsky credited with a knockdown that's pretty great got a great knockdown um i i get i get that but i really hope that islam's stock doesn't suffer from this i mean he wasn't able to like lord his wrestling over volkanovsky like he was other people but i think most critics might have said,

well, if Makachev can't get the takedown in any kind of meaningful sense, he can't win. Not really true. Not really true. All right, let's talk about this co-main. Holy smokes, what a co-main this was. I mean, jebus Christ. All right.

Whew. Yair Rodriguez defeats Josh Emmett via triangle choke at 419 of round number two. I scored round one for... Let me look at my phone as I descend it to CBS Sports. I've got all kinds of fucking hairs on me. I think I scored round one for Emmett. Yeah, but Rodriguez was doing really well in the first round. He just got dropped at the end of that first, remember? Kind of like what happened to Makachev in the fifth. He got dropped at the end of the first, and Emmett, who just has nuclear power.

I mean, crippling power. Dropped him. Had good ground and pound. Kind of stole the round back a little bit because they were kind of far apart and I'll get to Rodriguez's kicks. He was landing a bunch and then in the second round Emmett was just getting

torn up from the word go and ate a bunch of body kicks he eventually let me see if I can go back in my mind so he eventually gets on top I think Rodriguez had slipped or he had scored oh he landed a knee and he caught the knee and then turned him over to get him down and then he eventually gets ground and pound from underneath if you can believe such a thing and then gets tried to get the arm bar he misses it goes to the triangle choke and i thought for sure emmett was going to pull out of it and just kind of stood there i guess he was hurt and he couldn't really move all that well and then get triangled and that was all she wrote now you'll

notice that there so two arms in two arms out you. It's one arm in. That's where all the problems start with submissions, right? So he's got one arm in. The arm that was in and going across, if you notice, Rodriguez had it under wrist control. He was pulling it across. So that does two things. One, it cinches the choke tighter. That's one thing that it does, right? It brings the shoulder into the carotid artery. So that's what changes part of it. The other part is it kind of holds you in position. So you might be saying, oh, well, Luke, if he's holding him in position, then how could he have escaped? Because even with that, you should be able to move a little bit more than he was.

Like if I just hold your arm, I don't have control over your hips. You know, he didn't stand. He didn't try to pull. He didn't try to get the leg over on the other side. Like he didn't really react, which tells me that, yes He didn't try to get the leg over on the other side. He didn't really react, which tells me that, yes, that grip was probably pulling him down a little bit, but also he must have been real banged up by the time that even happened.

Incredible job by Yair Rodriguez. Absolutely, truly phenomenal. But the story of the fight to me was, I mean, it played out kind of how you thought it might, I think. Which was you knew that if Emmett landed, it was going to do damage. Sure enough, that was true. But you didn't know if he was going to land enough. Because he was going to have trouble getting through the distance and the long range and short range weapons of Rodriguez. And that was definitely true.

The commentary team said something that I thought was really important, actually. long-range and short-range weapons of Rodriguez, and that was definitely true. The commentary team said something that I thought was really important, actually, which was he doesn't just throw these big-ass kicks to land the big-ass kick, although that happens. The body kicks from Rodriguez, the open stance body kicks, were tearing Emmett's guts to pieces. It was like he made him swallow piranhas or something that was just shredding the inside. I mean, destroying him. I couldn't believe how hard some of those were. So he's devastating at long range with all of those weapons. That was phenomenal. And then in close range, he was connecting with elbows or from the wrist control, just surprising offense. But more than that,

he'd land the body kick and then switch stance and then come with the punch right over the top, right behind it. Something similar to what you might have seen from like Johnny Walker and Paul Craig. And what you noticed was the body kicks from Yair were so fast and so hard, they would land on Emmett and he would kind of catch it and absorb it and it would freeze him for a moment. Just a second. Just a second. Just a split second. But dude, in prize fighting, a second. I mean, just think about it. One, two. Dude, that is a fucking eternity in the fight game. That's an eternity. So it only

freezes him for a moment. But a moment is all you need if you're Jair Rodriguez. So he gets hit with the body kick. He kind of freezes. Bow! The punch is right behind it, man. He's not waiting on it too long, man. The timing on these are perfect. And he's catching them. And so the point the commentary booth made was they're not just throwing these big strikes to land.

Although, yes, sometimes they get through. It's a lot of times they're throwing that to set up a whole lot of other things that come behind it with his, you know, you think the flashy kicks are all like, oh, well, he must be trying to land that flashy kick. Well, how else would you throw a flashy kick? And yes, of course, if it lands, great. But the whole point is it leads to really a whole constant array of other free offense that Emmitt was able to give him. Emmitt just couldn't find a place to stay dry in the rain. There was just too much offense from too many ranges catching him all the time, especially to the body.

He's got this kind of hunched over stance or whatever. And what's amazing about that is he was like, you know, listen, Emmitt's a good wrestler. Rodriguez wasn't at all fearful that he was going to get kicked or he was going to kick and then get taken down. But, oh, I'm not going to kick. I'm not going to throw., or he was going to kick, and then get taken down. Right? Oh, I'm not going to kick. I'm not going to throw.

You see it a lot. A striker against a grappler. I'm not going to throw too many kicks for fear of getting taken down. How does that change their game? Dude, it doesn't change your game fucking at all. At all. You wrestle, don't wrestle. Doesn't matter to him.

And of course, he's got all different kinds of varieties, right? It's hard to detect which one's what. The inside cut kick, the outside leg kick, the body kick, head kicks, question mark kicks, teeps, you name it. And he can kind of chamber them all and make them look a little similar, or he could change the timing up and the angle and everything else. So he's got a lot going on with that. And Emmitt was just too well, you know,

we, we did it. Um, we did a room service diaries with Emmitt and in that room service diaries, we talked about his game plan. He definitely comes up with one, but a lot of it is just kind of making reads on the fly. And the other part too,

he says something to me, which was like, if you look at the numbers on Emmitt, he kind of takes a lot of punches. He eats a lot of strikes, but he's just been willing to, he said something to me, which was, like, if you look at the numbers on Emmett, he kind of takes a lot of punches. He eats a lot of strikes. But he's just been willing to do that in a way where, okay, the Jeremy Stephens fight he lost. But in general, like, it's just part of the game. And I know every fighter says that.

But I mean, like, his acceptance of getting hit is an acceptance of getting hit a lot. It's not just that he gets hit. It's that he has a tolerance for a fairly high amount of it as a strategic necessity. Right? Like this is just what has to happen in order for my game to thrive. So I'm totally okay with it. That's the way he would look at it. And, you know, through most of his career,

that's probably been a really useful way to look at it. Like, you can take big punches. They're going to cut you. They're not going to hurt you. You're not going to get stopped. You know, obviously you don't want to take the biggest ones if you can avoid it. But, you know, if you get banged around, like, really, you just get banged around. And he probably just thought that was, like, I can do that against guys my size and not have

to worry about it. But Rodriguez shows you that that is really not the case. And also, I feel like Rodriguez may have aged. So here's the thing. So Max's win over Aguirre to me looks even more impressive. But to me, that fight he shouldn't have taken. Because he was, that fight I think fucked Max up. I mean, Max won. Max did the majority of the fucking up. But he got fucked up in that one too. I don't think he would tell you otherwise.

And then he went right from that fight into the Volk fight which was you know we'll see what kind of condition Max comes back in against Arnold Allen but it may be the case that that Rodriguez fight was the actual turning point you know where he he like took a shitload of abuse even though he got the dub but he took a shitload of abuse, even though he got the dub, but he took a shit ton of abuse. But getting back to Josh Emmett, his calculation of how much damage his peers could unleash on him was just, and how much he was capable of tolerating, it was useful up until it wasn't.

He was right up until he got to Yair, and then all that shit was out the window. Yair is an incredibly special fighter and I made this point here was a guy who I think was a 2018 or so UFC briefly released him you know and then brought him back and he gets he gets to the point where he now has a belt around his waist as a consequence I know it's the interim championship and nevertheless to me like even that is very very hard to get it's like, people act like the UFC's interim champions are all bullshit fighters. They're not.

They're all real good. Like, all the guys who are interim champions, like, you know, these are fucking very good fighters. Like, it's, you know, people acting like it's some Mickey Mouse rinky-dink thing. It's like, okay, it's not the real thing. Fair enough. But, bro, you got to be yair rodriguez good to get one like that's hard to do um and uh you know danny segura has been talking about this like those guys i think like 10 years ago these are two him and brandon moreno

two poor kids out of mexico who were part of the ufc's talent development program both of them eventually got kicked out of the UFC. Both of them, through different ways, made their way back. And now both of them, Mexico has two simultaneous UFC champions. That's never happened before. First time in UFC history. There's never been two, I don't think so, right? There's never been two simultaneous Mexican champions?

I don't think so. Pretty big deal. Pretty big deal. And Rodriguez is such like, you know, I've said this before, like his style, it gets lauded for its acrobatic, uh, characteristics and how wild and crazy it is. Dude. It's Rodriguez is striking as fucking mean. It's mean. The toes dig in and it whips to the body to break all your ribs and it finds you. It just feel his strikes feel like they're like the bullies of strikes. Like they just find you in the worst ways.

They land in the hardest and most hurtful spots. They, it, it, you know, it has this like devastating effect on these guys and it changes who they are. ways, they land in the hardest and most hurtful spots. It has this devastating effect on these guys and it changes who they are in other dimensions. This kind of reminds me of the way, kind of getting hurt, he got taken down so it's not ... it's similar. It kind of reminds me of it.

It reminds me a little bit of the second fight between Anthony Pettis and Benson Henderson, where Benson Henderson gets hit with a body kick and eventually gets armbarred when he takes down Anthony Pettis, I think either off that kick or like a subsequent one. And I think later on, like the sub kind of came out of nowhere, and it even, I think it was Henderson later being just like, yeah, yeah, I couldn't breathe or I was hurt or something. Like he just wasn't in his right mind defending the arm bar so he got he got beaten up like but you know to to sub an elite

fighter off of your back um we've talked about how the guard can be useful but like against the highest level most submissions don't come from guard against a very again at the highest highest level they're just the majority of them don't come guard. But you can make that a little bit of a generality when you add in, well, what if you punish them really bad first? And again, in the case of the second Pettis-Henderson fight and now Rodriguez-Emmett, you have a similar kind of arc 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. For Emmett, who turns 38, I believe. Yeah, he'll be 38 next month. Um, you know, I don't suspect that he'll be able to make another run at one 45 title could be wrong. Um, he gave it everything he had again, another guy like trying to just do great by himself, do great by the sport, take on the toughest guys, never asking for anything

easy, never getting anything easy. And, you know, not a talker, I think it's pretty fair to say, but an extremely impressive fighter, and the way Rodriguez was able to get dropped and not change his own style, stick to how just devastating and mean that shit is. Really highly commendable shit. Let's look at the fight here in a little bit more detail. Emmett is credited with one takedown. That takedown came in the second, correct?

Yeah, that's the one he caught, the double knee. Rodriguez landing 62 to Emmett's 22. Significant strikes. God, total strikes. Rodriguez, 98. Emmett, just 35. Just 35. He did have three minutes and one second of control time,

which came a minute 27 in the first round, a minute 34 in the second. But, like, you know, if you're getting beaten up. And, by the way, how about Yair's ground and pound from underneath where he extends his back all the way, brings his elbow up, and then drives it down as he kind of, like, does a crunch. And he's so long, he can get great separation and then bring it back. It's kind of crazy I was able to do that.

So that's pretty impressive. Let's see about targeting to the body. Rodriguez, 29% to the body here. So I want to see how much he normally targets. Let's see how much. So he had 29% to the body here. So against Brian Ortega, which didn't go very long, he was 13% to the body. Against Holloway, he was just 15% to the body against Holloway. He was just, excuse me, 15% to the body against Jeremy Stevens. He was 14% to the body. So he's usually in the mid to high teens. And in this one,

he was nearly 30% to the body. So I think he also just knew that like a guy like Emmett is going to be at range. Um, it's going to be hard, not hard to hit his head per se, but we're going to get his defense to be in trouble by how much we're going to light him up. And by the way, a guy who moves like that, how do you slow him down?

Body attacks, right? Same thing as you would in boxing. You've got a bit of a mover. You've got a bit of a pressure guy. How do you slow him down, take his body away? That's what you see here. Similar kind of idea. And, boy, he executed that fucking amazingly.

26 to 12 strikes landed in the first round for Yair. 36 to 10 in round two. Holy smokes. He won that one. He got dropped in the first round, but the overall effort is very impressive I mean the guy who got beaten up by Frankie Edgar you know that dude doesn't exist anymore

he doesn't exist his takedown defense looked excellent in this fight sorry I got thirsty like all of a sudden so phenomenal job by him. How would a fight between Yair and Volk go? Right? I'll say this. I think that's a pretty interesting fight.

I like that fight. I like it a lot. I think it's probably better than the Emmett fight would have been. Personally speaking. I like that fight because um i think it's a much more interesting puzzle for either guy to solve for rodriguez to be able to land on a guy who's going to be you know moving in and out, not there, playing with range, setting traps, being confusing. That's a tough guy to beat if you're Rodriguez.

And conversely, if you're Volkanovski, if you're not careful, the guy can just damage you in fight-ending, fight-altering ways quickly. He can do it from a lot of different ranges, even if you're the one playing with them. He's resilient. He has pretty good cardio. His takedown defense is massively improved. He's taking them down. He's damaging from underneath. He's just damaging in every respect. Man, you really, really, really have to be on your game to beat a guy like that. And even if you do, you might take some serious fucking abuse the whole way. Dude, Rodriguez changes these guys, man. He changes these guys.

I mean, looking at his opponents here, we'll see what happens with Ortega, but he got his shoulder all jacked up. Max Holloway beat him, but Max got super fucked up. Stevens not in the UFC anymore Chan Sung Jung he was winning but he wasn't and now we're getting into 2018 which was not that long ago but I don't know man more recently

everything about Yair's style has gelled and everything's come together and it's working and his defense is much better and his timing and precision and just like knowing what works for him as really like is just next level at this point with a guy like Rodriguez he really really is shining and um it just seems like everything is really coming together for him I had mentioned uh that the UFC had put a bunch of money into him

and Brandon Moreno in around 2013 and 2013 and that had really worked out. That was a very, very smart investment by UFC. You can see why they want to put performance centers in China, Africa. They got this one they're going to finish in Mexico City. Why they want to put these places in strategic markets for long-term future growth. Because the PI by itself doesn't get it done. But having established recruitment and development programs in these countries through the almost like the Trojan horse of the PI, look what it's doing to Mexican MMA. It has

fast forwarded the growth of Mexican MMA probably by a decade, right? It probably had a fast-tracking effect. Like, you guys know I criticize UFC all the time, and they're not trying to develop these markets so that all of their competitors can win. They're trying to do it so that they can get the best of that, which you would understand. But in terms of what it does for the sport overall and how it fast-tracks it, I don't know how you can deny it.

I don't know how you can deny it. It clearly has a noteworthy and demonstrative effect. How about Jack De La Maddalena defeating Randy Brown via rear naked choke at 213 of round one? This was supposed to be Jack De La Maddalena toughest test, and he breezed right through it. He breezed right through it. Randy Brown is a very talented fighter. He's a fighter, I think, who's on a four-fight win streak heading into this contest. We all knew that DeLaMetalena had phenomenal boxing, but this was a step up. Randy Brown has fought good competition, and he's beaten some good competition. Tall, rangy, much more experienced. DeLa Maddalena had a good, strong guard right here, right?

Bringing his hands up. Had great reads early about what was happening. Didn't pressure early. Slowly began to kind of corral with good footwork. Randy Brown close to the fence line. And from there, under shortened range, forced an exit to his own right. At which point he caught him exiting to that space. Randy Brown goes face first into the mat.

Tries to roll and recover. De La Maddalena is just beating on him with hammer fists And I think eventually he rolled And De La Maddalena Got the choke And Closed the show Made it look effortless

Made it look like he could have done that 100 times out of 100 Not saying that that's the best that Randy Brown can do I don't know But on this night that's what it looked like. It looked like Jack Dilla Maddalena could have done that a hundred times out of a hundred without it being different that many times. That was extremely impressive. His boxing is already some of the best in the UFC's welterweight division. I think a fight between he and Vicente Luque would be chef's kiss. That's the company he's keeping now. Jack Taylor Madalena, how old is this guy? 27, they said on the broadcast? 26. Holy shit. This dude is 26 years old. He'll be 27 in September. In September.

And he looks phenomenal. His record is 14-2. Do you know which two fights he lost? His first two. His first two. He got knocked out and finished off in the first fight. He got submitted in the second and then hasn't looked back since. All of those were in the same year, 2016.

And he just kept working and working and working. And here he is. He gets on a contender series, he wins. And then he's had a first round stoppage over Pete Rodriguez. First round stoppage, this was impressive, over Ramazan Amiv. First round stoppage over Danny Roberts. And now a first round stoppage of Randy Brown. All three of the last ones earned him a performance of the night bonus. Dude, they can't find a guy in UFC to take him to the fucking second round. He's 26. These guys like this, different fighter, but you know, very young in the same way, but already very advanced like an Ilya Toporia, guys like that. Dude, they are terrifyingly good. To be that young and that good, brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is remarkable. And again, he's not going in there and then just, I'm going to wing

a heavy punch and it's going to rattle a guy and then I'm just going to overwhelm him with force. No, I'm going to overwhelm him with force only after I have corralled and trapped him into a space where he can no longer do anything but that. I'm not just going to Hulk smash. I'm going to very strategically guide him to a place where he exits one direction, and I'm going to hit him on the exit, and then that's going to be all that we need. I mean, I don't know what else. He's good. Very, very, very, very good.

I know they wanted a night where all the Aussies could win. It wasn't in the cards, although the Aussies all made a pretty strong account of themselves. But while Volk was unable to get his hand raised in the main event, boy, Australia should not... I'm not going to weep too much for Australia tonight. I'll tell you that. Because I know their guy didn't win in the main event.

But to see what's coming down, you know, the pike from... what the next generation of their time i mean their their next generation guys are monsters and i can't think of many in the sport who are as exciting and this good and this just like technically clean in the ways that jack dylan madalena is he. He's so clean. You ever notice he never is out in front of his punches, leaning over. He's always got his feet under him. You ever notice that? Just watch Jack DeLaMantellana move around.

Just watch him move around. Do you ever notice how he's got his feet always underneath him? He's always balanced. Even when he's kind of leaping, he's still got his feet underneath him a little bit, right? He's always in motion, like with his feet, setting up angles, you know, never setting a stationary target for his opponent to hit. He's using that to corral. He can switch stances in order to not just like mesmerize you but like but to anticipate

where guys are going and then meet them as a consequence like there's just so much he can do with it being technically precise technically advanced very foundational with everything and just again just watch daily metal in a move everything flows in exactly the way that it's supposed to forward back side to side switching throwing receiving it's just always balanced and always moving and always you know always having some kind of function he has footwork with purpose right everything has purpose it has balance it has motion everything is like working the way it's supposed to and look at the result and you might be saying like why don't more fighters do that yeah it's fucking hard to do that it's like really hard to do that

but if you can if you can be one of those guys and then you're also a great athlete and you can punch hard like i'm sure he can punch hard right but the fact that he can put himself in great range the fact that he can do so without putting himself at risk and having to absorb a bunch of punishment. And he's been hit before too. He's made mistakes. But in general, in this case, it was nearly flawless to be able to do that, to have your feet under you whenever you throw all the time

so you can root for power, so you can move for defense. It's just crazy how much he's able to do that. A very different kind of striker than Robert Whitaker,aker for example but just he's just he's a joy to watch compete he's a joy to watch compete um i'm gonna guess he gets a top 10 guy next i'm gonna guess hard to say with any certainty, but certainly top 15. Where was Randy Brown ranked? Let me see. Let's see the old rankings, shall we? So this is obviously not updated for tonight's results.

But where was, I guess they didn't have him inside that top 15, but yeah, okay, so top 15 at 170 would be, well, I should say 11 through 15, Jorge Masvidal, Michael Chiesa, Neil Magny, Michelle Pineda, Li Zhenglang, he'll get someone in there, he'll get someone in there, not Jorge, obviously, I don't think, but Chiesa, he's got a fight coming up, so not him. Maybe Neil Magny coming off that loss? Maybe? We'll see. Or the Leach?

Something like that. Solid win, though, to be quite clear. Let me look at, also, the numbers on this one, if I can, very quickly. Jack Dillon, Atlanta, credited with a knockdown. He landed just 14 strikes. That's all he needed out of 31. And where was he throwing? 64% to the head, 28% to the leg.

That's interesting. What is his usual breakdown? So his breakdown was head 64, body 7, leg 28. So head and the leg account for the 93% of everything. Let's see what he did on other ones. So against Danny Roberts, same for the head, 69, but then 27% to the body, 3% to the leg. That's interesting. So he definitely wanted to cut out the legs of Randy Brown, right? Slow him down. Against Ramazan and Meve, let's see.

How did he target? 61-38, yeah. So he tends to be 60-plus to the head. Yeah, 88% against Pete Rodriguez. Yeah, but he'll mix up a little bit the rest of the body or leg depending on what he's trying to do. Trying to transfer defense, trying to whatever he wants out of that. So amazing job by him. Jesus Christ, listen to this. Strikes landed permitted 8.45, strikes absorbed 4.22 the guy has a positive differential of over

4 integers or 4 integers plus I should say, like that is crazy crazy, crazy high I was credited with a sub attempt obviously in this one as well pretty amazing job by him

the rest of that car was not that money. Can I just be honest about that? Justin Taffa defeating Parker Porter, he hit him with the left hook when he was switching stances. Did you guys notice that? So he was trying to go from orthodox to southpaw.

He takes a big ass step with his right foot to cut the angle, right? But it was kind of telegraphed and then tries to come over the top with the right fucking top of just, if the punch is coming here, all you have to do is get it on the inside. And he does, he just gets it to the inside before he could get them and just, you know, good timing. Um, yeah, that was, I don't know what that was. Jimmy Crute and Alonzo Minifield fighting to a, to a majority draw.

So what ends up happening? Mennefield wins the first two rounds, loses the third, plus gets a point deducted, I think for a fence grab, something like that. And it ended up being 228-28 as a majority decision. So what are you going to do? Modestus Bukowskis getting a hard-fought win over Tyson Pedro, 30-27 and then 229-28s. Joshua Kulabow defeating Milsik Bagdasarian.

That was a great one. They had some bad blood at the weigh-ins and everything too. That was a great job by him just jumping on the back the way he did. Extremely impressive. Claydson Rodriguez just running over Shannon Ross. Jamie Malarkey defeating Francisco Prado, 30-27 across the board.

Then called out, by the way, Patty Pimblett, Jack Jenkins defeating Don Shanus. Loma Luke Boone getting, I think, her first submission in UFC via rear naked choke and then a couple other ones. Zubair Tugugov losing, by the way, although there's some dispute about that decision. I don't know if I put a thing up for questions. Let's see. Let's see. Coming into today's fight, this is from Fight Metric.

Alexander Volkanovsky averages 6.97 significant strikes landed per minute. Over the course of 25 minutes versus Islam, he averaged just 2.8. Whoa. Makhachev entered today's bout absorbing just.9 significant strikes per minute, the best rate in UFC history. That's crazy. That's crazy. Let's see if we got any questions.

I don't know if we did. Maybe I got a little bit here. I watched that fight in an Uber with the volume off and I thought Islam won a close 3-2. Okay, well that's really a great way to judge fights. Ah yes, MMA Volk wins easy on the feet and Islam drowns him on the ground. Volk's defense was amazing, but Islam outstruck him, all right? Surely this makes a potential Dariush versus Makachev matchup far more intriguing. It does, actually it's a great point, because if Dariush could stuff the takedowns,

Makachev is certainly much more of a creative customer on the feet than we had originally realized. But Dariush is a hammer on the feet. So that could be really interesting. Volk won the fourth round. Is that the round he got his back taken? Because if he did, then he didn't

win that round. I hate to be the bearer of bad news. Let me double check that. Was that the round he got his back taken? Yeah, that was the one with three minutes and 25 seconds. No, Volk did not win round four. Sorry. Sorry. Everyone brought up how size would give Volk difficulties,

but did it prove to be a bit of a double-edged sword for Islam, struggling to control a fighter of close to equal strength and a lower center of gravity, unable to wrap Volk's legs with his own in round three, for example? Yeah, it did prove to be, I think, a slightly confusing thing for him. Is the Islam is better than Habib narrative dead? I mean, I'm old enough to remember when Islam got, excuse me, when Habib got slandered for wins as well, right?

Oh, he barely beat Al Iaquinto on late notice. And the Gleason-Tibau fight is certainly a controversial one. But I'm not saying that the Islam is as good as Habib thing has always been somewhat overplayed. So yes, like should that narrative, should that narrative be dead? Yes, probably. But at the same time, like we should be very clear. The idea that Habib didn't get routinely undermined during his career,

not every time, not against Gaethje, not against Poirier. I mean, there's times where it was less so true, but certainly at other times where he had close or unimpressive wins, or just not as what you thought they would be at a bare minimum. He got killed for it all the time. That was the thing that happened, so let's not forget that it didn't. How did you feel about the Yair fight after that performance? Volk will do terrible things to him. I would say Volk will win, but I think that Yair is clever and

again, a punishing fighter to go up against. We need a second fight. You're not going to get it. Someone writes, coming in, I thought Islam was going to slaughter Volk. Now, I believe that if Volk had taken it closer to a year to build a 155 frame, he'd probably have come away with a win tonight. Because of this, I don't think Volk should lose his number one pound-for-pound ranking. I mean, I'm not sure how you can lose a fight and keep your status.

Someone says, embarrassing decision. Volk landed more damage while stuck in a body triangle. This isn't a wrestling match. Well, you can't do body triangles like that In wrestling I don't think not in the way he Was doing it anyway Volk just Ran out of time to an extent that's true This is why

Styles make fights this was tailor made for A draw I don't know about that We finally got to see how impressive Islam striking is at length is there any lightweight outside of Saryukian who can deal with his complete game Dariusha is going to give him some problems yeah should have been on ESPN Plus someone says I recognize Islam won across five rounds

And was so good defensively and with his jab But Volk finished so strong I might still think he's a better skilled fighter Yeah Yeah I think you can think that I don't think it's crazy to think that Volk has more skills I don't think that's insane The question is

Did he use enough of them to win tonight's contest Here's my Water the question is, did he use enough of them to win tonight's contest? Here's my water. Okay, I think that's pretty good. Yeah, I think that's it for the evening here. I'm exhausted as shit, and tonight's fights were crazy. We'll talk more about these Brian Campbells. Can you believe Brian Campbell, first time ever in Europe, flies back to Dallas, not even to Connecticut where he lives,

so he could go do Tonight's Card in San Antonio. He has a layover in Dallas that was like crazy long. He didn't get to San Antonio until late last night, and then he has to fly back home to Connecticut tomorrow, and then he has to go back to Topeka on Kansas on Wednesday. So he might die, but he's going to be on Monday's show and he's going to give us his views on everything. So it would be good to hear it. Thank you guys so much for watching. I greatly appreciate it. I am tired as balls, so I'm going to get going. But yeah, that's been this tonight's fights. Catch us on

Monday for more. I love you guys. So, until next time, thank you so much for watching. Yeah. Stay frosty, bitches.