MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 287: Adesanya KOs Pereira | Burns Defeats Masvidal | Raul Rosas Jr. | Ep. 428

Episode Date: April 10, 2023

On episode 428 of Morning Kombat Luke Thomas is joined by Aaron Bronsteter to break down UFC 287. Israel Adesanya finally got his revenge on Alex Pereira but what's next for each fighter? Gilbert Burns defeated Jorge Masvidal but was it enough to get him the backup slot for Edwards-Covington? The guys also discuss Rob Font's win and Raul Rosas Jr's loss before recapping the weekend in boxing. (5:00) - Israel Adesanya KOs Alex Pereira (30:00) - Gilbert Burns Def. Jorge Masvidal (42:00) - Rob Font KOs Adrian Yanez (53:30) - Raul Rosas Jr. (75:30) - Weekend Boxing Recap (83:00) - Dm's from Donks 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

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I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. Oh, it's the 10th of April. You ain't got no job. You ain't got nothing to do. And it's time, ladies and gentlemen, for Morning Combat. Hello, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm one half of your hosting duo. I join you from the capital of Estadio San Diego. It's right here in Washington, D.C. We do have a co-host. I'll bring him in in

just a moment. I want to set the table for you here if we can. So what are we going to talk about today? You guys know the drill. We're fresh off of UFC 287, a great pay-per-view main event, a great overall event. We'll talk about all the ins and outs, the city of Miami, the main event, some of the other stuff all around it. It'll be fun. Plus, we're going to talk a little bit of a boxing roundup. We have, obviously, Fundora Mendoza. We have, obviously, Shakur Stevenson looking amazing.

We've got a lot of things to get to there, plus DMs and a whole lot more. So thumbs up. If you're watching on YouTube, please hit subscribe if you'd be so kind. And, of course, want to remind everyone if we are uh able to do so we had a live post fight show if you want to check that out youtube.com slash morning combat plus tons of great other content as well we do this live 11 a.m in the east monday wednesday and friday two more notes first things first if you want to try showtime and why wouldn't you you can get showtime right now go to showtime.com get a 30-day free trial if you like it you, you can keep it. And of course,

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To make it easy, AG1 is going to give you a free one-year supply of immune-supporting vitamin D and five free travel packs for your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com slash morningcombat, athleticgreens.com slash morningcombat to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. Now, we have to get to the show, but first things first, before that, let's bring in our friend in the great white north you know him very well he rivals and maybe exceeds in fact bc's vinyl collection he's my friend in yours he may have given kevin holland a contact high it's aaron bronstetter hi aaron bronstetter what's up luke yeah my vinyl collection absolutely exceeds that of brian campbell he's a relative newbie in the space

where I've been collecting for 20 years. So take that, BC. You've got a lot of catching up to do. Hey, how was Miami? I know you were just there, right? Yeah. That event, Luke, felt as big as any event I've covered. Honestly, it felt like an international fight week or MSG card. I can understand why they want to come back to Miami. It's a great city. It's hot. They've really cleaned the city up. I hadn't been to downtown Miami in a long time.

And it's really different from the last time I was there, which was probably like 20 years ago, to be honest. But I had a great time. I think it was an amazing card. And I'm really happy to get to break it down with you because the vibe there was just electric. And my backstage position was right in the middle of everything. So maybe that's why it felt bigger because you have every fighter that's based in Florida

just coming through there. And it felt like an all-star team just at all times was walking by you. So I'm blessed to be able to have covered an event like that, honestly. Do you remember what the gate was? It was like 10.5 or 11.5 million? No, it was 11.9. It was higher than an msg gate it was just astronomical number uh you said there was like an all-star vibe real quickly what was it about it on the ground that made it feel so

different because it felt electric at home was it just the stakes of the main event and like sort of the celebrity of it all or was there something else, I think it was just the vibe of being in South Florida, to be honest. Like a lot of the fighters are all based there. And it also started off slow. Like I was there on Wednesday for Media Day and it didn't seem like there was a ton of media there. And then as the week went on, more and more and more people just kept piling in and it started to feel bigger and bigger and bigger

until it culminated with the main card where, like you saw how many different people were in the building. You have an ex-president. You have all of these different musicians and celebrities from all over the space. And all the different fighters that were there. You saw GSP sitting with Usman. It just felt like a who's who was in the building that night. And that's why I think it had such a big feel.

All right. Well, with that in mind, we need to kick things off here with our top five. So let's get going if we can. Topic number one, you know exactly what we're going to start for the folks out there. Israel Adesanya made history, really, at UFC 287. What an incredible win. Truly just an iconic moment, which I want to talk more about. But of course, he knocks out his longtime rival in the boogeyman, Alex Pineda, in the second round.

First question to you aaron to what extent and how does this change adesanya's career legacy well if you look at it both ways so let's say he would have lost it would have damaged his legacy i wouldn't say irreparably but but massively right like now you can start talking about him starting to look at being the greatest middleweight of all time behind Anderson Silva, which he already is, but I mean, he's starting to nip at the heels a little bit. If you can get a win like that, in that sort of fashion, against the guy who is continuously beating you, I mean, it does wonders for his legacy. Because, let's face it, there's not a whole lot for him to gain from here by facing Alex Pereira next. I mean, it's a possibility,

but he's settled the score in terms of MMA. He's not going to kickbox with him again. So this was the moment that he needed in his career because it shows that he was able to overcome something that we really haven't seen other fighters overcome. Like, is there another fighter that has lost to somebody, I guess maybe when Tito beat Chocoladela, the golden boy, but I mean, who's counting that, right? There's just not a whole lot of moments where you see somebody who's lost so many times

to one person that's kind of their kryptonite, where, you know, when both guys are still in their prime, they get that bounce back performance, especially with that sort of emphatic finish, in order to really bring them back to where they were. Now he's the middleweight champion of the world. He's overcome that hurdle. He's shown that he's mentally strong enough and talented enough to beat somebody that was able to beat him three different times. I think it just does wonders for his legacy.

Man, I got to tell you, this to me was like, you're right, there's no real historical antecedent you can point to we've talked a little bit on this show with Brian about Juan Manuel Marquez having the draws and then some of the losses to Manny Pacquiao then in their fourth meeting just absolutely flatlined him and then the best KO frankly of his career in terms of like what it did to his opponent and also kind of what it did to that rivalry and his legacy a little bit so in some some sense, there's a little bit of that there, but that doesn't quite make sense either because Izzy had lost via TKO last time. He had lost via KO one time previously in kickboxing.

So even that doesn't really account for it at all. I will tell you, this felt to me, I don't know, like, for example, when Anderson Silva lost his title to Chris Weidman, he never got it back. Now, he lost it much later into his run, but he was never able to get it back. Most guys, when they lose the title, are not able to get it back. Certainly not in immediate rematches. This was not the same thing as GSP versus Sarah. I want to be very clear about that.

That was a shocking upset the first time. They had no previous meetings. But St. Pierre was obviously able to go back there and then get the title in Canada when he needed it to. But Sarah was not favored to win the first time, wasn't favored to win the second time, but by a wide margin. This one with Izzy and Pereira was obviously very, very close.

But to come back and to beat your nemesis this way, to reclaim the title, to reassert yourself in this division. It's just historically almost standing by itself. And something else really occurred to me about this win. And I don't know if you feel this way either, Aaron. This felt to me like Izzy's true breakout star moment. There's been times where I have kind of asserted, and Chuck Mendenhall and BC disagreed with me, that I was like, you know, I think Izzy's one of the bigger stars not that he was on par with you know the the Connors and like that in

terms of sales or overall celebrity really nobody is or he sort of stands alone but you know I really thought that he had captured the fans imagination and adoration and both of them kind of said yeah but not really I feel like this time he did I think he earned a lot of respect by being able to come back and beat the guy yes but. But more to the point, this KO felt historic. This KO felt really big, reasserting himself in this way, defying people. And by the way, every time Izzy's back is really up against the wall, like in the Paulo Costa fight, people thought Costa coming off of the Romero win was going to just dust him. That didn't happen. And then here we go, like he can't beat the boogeyman that he does. To me, man, you're talking about nipping at the heels of Anderson Silva. And I agree,

although that's going to be a very difficult thing to overcome in general, but more to the point, this was me. This was from my vantage point. This was Izzy asserting himself in the public space, in the public consciousness, in the sport,

and in that middleweight division in almost a way he hadn't done previously. I wonder if you agree with that. I a hundred percent agree with that. I 100% agree with that. And I think it's a great way of putting it. Because if you go back and look at the longtime champions that lose their title, very rare that they get them back. I mean, Aldo's an exception because Conor relinquished the title. But you go and you look at Max Holloway, hasn't been able to win it back from Volkanovski. You mentioned the Anderson Silva-Weidman example.

You don't see a lot of these champions with a legendary run just come back and win it at some point in time. It just rarely happens. And further to that, if you look at this particular win, now what, right? Like, Israel's kind of cleaned up the division. It's one of these situations where people are kind of grasping at straws, myself included, to try to figure out what's next for Israel

because there's always the trilogy match, although it seemed like immediately after the fight, Israel kind of poo-pooed that idea, and Dana White said that Alex is probably going to move up to light heavyweight. And then you look at Whitaker, he's beaten him twice, beaten Vittori twice. There really hasn't been a contender that's risen through the ranks of middleweight that's really earned the title shot. The two kind of wild cards are Hamza Shemaev, who, when I put that out there, people were furious because, oh, he's never beaten a middleweight star. It's like, well, you do understand this is a combat sports promotion that's trying to make a lot of money, right? I mean, it seems like a lot of people don't tend to understand that concept, where it doesn't really matter that he hasn't

beaten a top middleweight in order to get a title shot because the options are so sparse right now. And then there's Drakis Duplessis, who Israel kind of alluded to in his post-fight press conference. But none of those are obvious choices, right? Like we're kind of reaching here. And that's why Israel kind of stands atop of the middleweight division right now as the king once more. And there's not a whole lot of suitors right now for the crown.

And also like the, now that he has beaten Pereira, he has wins over everyone inside the top five, including some of those multiple times. I was saying this in the post fight show for the UFC. I'm not saying it would have been better if Pereira had won, but it does create fresh matchups, right?

Those are fresh matchups. Had he won that, assuming he wasn't going to relinquish and go to 205. I want to put a pin in that part of the conversation because I want to come back to it. But I want to go say one more thing if I can. It's something I failed to say on Saturday night. And again, I don't know if you had a chance to talk to Eugene Behrman this week or anyone else from Izzy's camp. But I want to point out something.

You had Volkanovski who had the two disputed wins over Holloway. And then he goes and then really just stuck it to him in the third fight. And then you had this situation, of course, the two in kickboxing and then the one previous, and then heading into Saturday night. Boy, I'll tell you what, those guys at CKB, everyone knows I ride for them probably more than most, but it is worth pointing out here, their level of game planning, especially when they get multiple chances at it, their level of game planning is extraordinary. To dummy Max Holloway the way Volkanovsky did is

just virtually impossible to do. I mean, even Dustin Poirier, who beat him up, took his own licks in that fight. Volkanovsky came out looking clean as a whistle. And here in this case, and I have a video coming out about this later, some of the strategic adjustments that they made for this contest were absolutely brilliant. And what I love about it, Aaron, is not just that it worked better, right? Sort of instead of clinching, punching his way through and then using the fence to his own benefit, right? The fence before was almost this place to be avoided.

And this time he used it to his effect as Pareda came closer. Dude, these guys from New Zealand, and of course it's a lot of different teams. There's some Australian guys built in there too, but that team down there, dude, they are some of the very best game planners the sport

has to offer. You give them multiple chances, chances are they're going to get their hand raised at the end. Yeah, and they made those adjustments, but the thing about the adjustments is, I'm not that certain what they are. It's such a high level of striker versus striker

that like the adjustments are so nuanced and so minute that you really have to have a keen eye to be able to really point out exactly what they were. And one thing I noticed on the Pereira side is he had his hands up as opposed to down this time. And I don't know why they made that adjustment, but his strategy was very clear. Whenever Israel was switching stances,

calf kick, calf kick, calf kick. And then whenever he went back to orthodox, that's when they started to throw punches. So I think that's what the strategy was, was to kind of take away his balance, try to take his back leg away from him on his strong side. But in terms of Israel's adjustments, like you said, City Kickboxing knows what they're doing and they were able to sort it out. But when it came down to it, they got into that firefight situation where they were, you know, again, very close up to each other in the cage.

They were, you know, at a very close range. And Israel just looked like he summoned the hammer of Thor when he reached back and threw that right hand, which would have put any human being on the planet out because it's a match of power plus the trademark precision that he has that, again, I don't think human being on the planet out because it's a match of power plus the trademark precision that he has that, again, I don't think any chin on this planet could have withstood.

Maybe a Marvin Vittori, whose chin just seems to be made out of absolute granite. But I mean, just that punch was just, it seemed like it came from like the netherworlds of his brain. Like it's hard to even explain the force that he put into that thing. So a couple things I'd like to point out.

Maybe I'll see what you think about this. Here is a big difference. Actually, Pareda had a different strategy too. I think a lot of the reasons why a lot of folks might be like, was there a lot of difference between the, so I'm going to say first MMA fight and second MMA fight. Obviously, those are the two most relevant comparisons. There was a big change in Pareda, a huge one.

In fact, what you end up going looking at is, you mentioned the leg kicks, that was a big part of it, but he also did a ton of body jabs, and I have evidence to prove that just in terms of the math. So in terms of his targeting, so this is Pareda's targeting in the first fight, 46% to the head, 29% to the body, 24% to the legs. Now, we have less sample size. We only had about two rounds as opposed to four plus. But in this particular fight on Saturday, very different. Just 16% to the head. The body was about the same, 30%.

53% to the legs. That means almost 85% of what he was targeting for Alex Pereira was Izzy's body and Izzy's legs. That, to me, seems quite intentional, right? How do you get a guy who's moving a lot and who's nimble a lot? How do you slow him down? How do you make him much more trappable? You kick his legs out and you go to his body and you drain his gas tank.

So that was one sort of concerted effort to me on the Pareda side. But the Izzy side, to me, is much more interesting. Namely, there were two big changes that he made in this fight. And number one is a lot of times in the, in the first MMA fight, when Pineda was getting close, you would see Izzy fire right under hook, clinch, and then turn him. Sometimes he would go for a takedown. Sometimes they would battle in that space, but he would almost resist the idea to punch his way through. Let's clinch. Let's slow this down. Let's make this more of my fight, but it didn't really work all that well for him obviously he got finished in the end couldn't really get the body lock

takedown all that well and so i think he decided to abandon that this time what they did was they allowed pineda to get close and one thing that's really interesting about it is if you look in open space when izzy is trying to throw the one or the two from orthodox position dude pineda's hard to hit he leans back he's got all he commands range well heira's hard to hit. He leans back. He commands range well. He's really hard to hit. So when he shelled up against the fence, dude, just notice how much closer Pereira gets to him. He's right on top of him. Now he's hittable. And the other part is there would be times in the first MMA fight where they would also be close. Sometimes Izzy would clinch, and then sometimes he would punch, and then Pereira would back out. They'd be single shotting each other real close. Izzy waited until he fired in combination

because then not only are his hands low, he's really just in that space wide open, very, very close. Then he can counter because he can't back out anymore. He's way too pot committed. So rather than single shotting him or clinching him in that space, he waited for him to throw in combination, move close, and then he closed the show with it. These are slight, very minor adjustments, but in my view, Aaron, in high-level MMA, slight adjustments carry massive consequences all the way through. But it's also an adjustment that you need to really mentally commit to, because you talk about the first fight in MMA, which was a very risk-averse approach, whereas this was a very risk-heavy approach, right? Like, you're going to let you talk about the first fight in MMA which was a very risk averse approach whereas this was a very risk heavy approach right like you're going to let a guy

with the power of Alex Pereira stand in front of you and try to take your head off with that canoness if that's a real word is canoness a real word I just well you know what I'm talking about canon of a left hook but if canoness is not in the dictionary feel free to add it because it's like you know canon like that's a BC word that's a BC

that's a BC word yeah so because I'm filling for him, I have to come up with words on the fly like he does in order to fit the trademark of the show. But just an absolute canon of a left-handed. You have to, and that thing comes out of nowhere. But again, I was very surprised by Alex keeping his hands up so high. That was the thing I really noticed about him when he was walking forward was that the hands were very high. And like you mentioned before, the targeting of the legs, I think that it was just an adjustment that I'm not sure he needed to make. But I guess sometimes it's, you know, paralysis by analysis when you're trying to figure out what your opponent is going to try to do this time around and what you have to try to do

this time around as well. Listen, this is the thing about a fight like this and why when the fight was over, I was like, I would love to see a trilogy. In fact, I'd love to see these guys fight every weekend. At this high of a level of striking, the smallest of errors and the smallest of adjustments can mean the absolute world in a fight like this, because mistakes and errors, I mean, it'll put you into a dire situation immediately. And we don't get to see, in MMA, strikers of this caliber go against each other. This is probably the first time ever that we've gotten to see strikers at this high a level face each other, especially on two occasions. And that's what made this such a remarkable rivalry and why my immediate thought after the fight was trilogy.

And again, I know that since then, that has kind of been quashed, and we'll see what happens but I just love watching these guys do their thing so let's talk about what will be next I was like you on Saturday night people were asking me what do you think is next for Izzy again because if Pineda had stuck around as champ you got all these fresh matchups you can make now that that's really not in play what direction do you go so we had tweets from Jan Blachowicz saying he he would go to 185 okay that's interesting

then you have robert whittaker being like see you soon you had hamza chamayev saying see you soon and is he kind of poo-pooed the a subsequent fight with pareda but like we we do go back to the same problem which is as we just indicated is he's already beaten everyone in the top five including in some cases multiple times. If they're not going to do that, if they're not going to go with another fight with Pereira, and maybe he does go to 205, what should be next for Izzy?

Because I don't really have a good answer. Well, that's why I think you kind of need to think outside the box here. Because, you know, I keep mentioning Shemaev. And to me, if you want to make a lot of money, that's the fight to make. And anybody who's going to question the credentials of Hamza Shemaev, you can just show them the Kevin Holland fight or the Gilbert Burns fight. We saw what Gilbert Burns did on Saturday

and who he's been beating and how he's been beating them. Like, Hamza Shemaev went to absolute war with that guy. He's been tested. We've seen him be tested. And then he went and ran through Kevin Holland like a freight train. Why are people questioning this guy's credentials? Oh, he's only beaten John Phillips

and Gerald Mearshardt at 185. He needs to earn it. Did we see how Alex Pereira got to the championship? He did fight Sean Strickland, though. He did have to fight Sean Strickland. He beat a guy that was, I guess, in the top seven at the time. Yeah.

Maybe you have Shumayev do that, but let's keep in mind, Kevin Holland was a ranked middleweight for a time. So it's not like he's beating guys that haven't had success at middleweight. I just think that a lot of people are too hung up on things like that when you have a guy that clearly has the talent to beat top five middleweights. Like, I mean, do we need to see it? Maybe. But again, if I'm coming up with the main event for International Fight Week. And we heard Dana White say that Jon Jones has kind of disappeared since his win over Cyril Gunn.

Yeah, let's take a pause on that. What do you make of that? I don't really know what to make of it. But I think it probably comes down to money. Right? Like, it probably just comes down to dollars and cents. That's what my guess would be. Because if you want to read between the lines, you know, John's been going on social media being like, you know,

oh, Stipe, I thought we were going to do this. But then when Dana White was asked about John Jones' comments on social media and Stipe, Dana's response was, when has Stipe ever turned down a fight? And you can read between the lines on that one. So, and then, of course, Dana's saying that John Jones has disappeared. Estipe ever turned down a fight? And you can read between the lines on that one. And then, of course, Dana saying that Jon Jones has disappeared. I don't know if they're trying to haggle for more money. We did have reports

that from this past week, I think Ariel Helwani was the first to report it, that it's done for 290 in terms of Volk versus Yair Rodriguez. Would they want to headline International Fight Week with that? I mean, they headlined with Kananir versus Israel last year, which isn't exactly a massive fight.

But they could always do that. To me, if you want to make the biggest fight possible right now, it's Adesanya versus Shemaev. Because the intrigue would be through the roof. And if you really want to test Israel, that's the fight to make. Now, whether Israel is interested in that fight, I don't know. Maybe he wants to see Shemaev get a win or two, because when I brought up Shemaev to him this week, that seemed to be the indication was, well, let's see him beat somebody.

But I just don't think right now there's a very good suitor for Israel if it's not going to be Pereira. To me, that seems like the best option if Pereira does want to stay at middleweight. But at the same time, I see the flip side of that, where Israel says, well, I got that win. Like, I don't know if he needs to fight him again. Do you need to sort it out and say, well, you know, you need to make a 2-1 and emphatically prove that you're the better mixed martial artist? I think on Saturday, Israel did that well enough. And if Pereira is interested in moving up to 205, I think that's a better division for him anyways. So, you know, I'm just very curious to see where things go from here. But I'm sure Israel wants to get back in there.

If he does want to take a prolonged break, I think that's going to be interesting. And then there's another question that hasn't really been answered, which is what's Shemaev's visa status right now for fighting in the U.S.? Because everybody keeps saying he's not going to fight till October. Why? Seems like he's ready to fight. Seems like he wants to fight. Why October?

Well, I mean, the thing that stands out to me is it's not in the U.S. So, I mean, and I mean, of course, he is popular in Abu Dhabi, but that's the other question that I think is a little bit unsettled. And I don't have an answer to that. I don't know what his visa status is, but I just find it curious that he's never being rumored for any of these cards in the U.S. Yeah. All right. Well, how about this, though? And again, this doesn't really do it for me, but I have seen it brought up. It is worth having at least a little bit of a conversation about it. What about the idea of Izzy Whitaker 3?

Where are you on that idea as plausible, interesting, good, worthwhile? What? I'm not super interested in it personally. I don't think we need to see a third fight between them. It's 2-0. Was the last one close? I think it was close, but I thought that Israel did need to see a third fight between them. It's 2-0. Was the last one close? I think it was close, but I thought that Israel did enough to win that fight. I think that whenever you put those two guys in the cage, it's going to be a great fight.

I think those are the two best middleweights on the planet right now, and that they've established themselves as such. So I wouldn't say no to that fight. I think it's interesting, but is it necessary? I don't know. But again, the options are very thin right now for israel there aren't a whole lot of them so i think it ultimately depends on when he wants to get back in there if he's like i'll fight on international fight would you find an opponent

for him and then the other the idea what about the idea where he could do what silva did before he lost the title where for example he took a 205 fight against force griffin he took a 205 fight against stephen bonner we're not talking about the championship but you're staying busy it's a where, for example, he took a 205 fight against Forrest Griffin. He took a 205 fight against Stefan Bonner. We're not talking about the championship, but you're staying busy. It's a fight people would care about. I don't know exactly what name a 205 would fulfill that because that was a different time at 205, but let's just sort of imagine that someone came up with a name at 205

people were reasonably excited about. It's not for the title, but it's stay busy while they figure out what's happening at middleweight. Does that excite you? Not really. It would excite me if it was him versus Jamal Hill or him versus Yuri Prokhozhka for the title, but it's stay busy while they figure out what's happening at middleweight. Does that excite you? Not really. It would excite me if it was him versus Jamal Hill or him versus Yuri Prokhozhka for the title. But I don't know if he needs a keep busy fight at 205. And I also think that he's very small for the division.

I don't think that the risk is worth the reward for that one. Like, I think that it's a massive risk for him to go and fight a non-title fight against, I don't know, like, Uncle Iev or something at 205 just to keep busy. I don't see the upside for him there. They might do champ-champ. You know, everyone was talking about Pineda versus Hill at 205, which they still might do. I mean, that still seems potentially on the table, but

Izzy could try another crack at Jamal Hill and then do a champ-champ fight. That seems possible as well, I suppose. I mean, I don't know if they want to really play with that with 205, given that there's some uncertainty at the top, or at least I should say parity at the top, where anyone could just take it from anybody else. But speaking of Pareda, 205, right?

I mean, here's the thing. If he stays at 185, I'm not mad at it, but he's 36 years old. His ability to make it is already, if not merely, it's not impossible, but his capacity to make it is diminished. I think merely, it's not impossible, but his capacity to make it is diminished. I think Dana White said he had two pounds left and there was an hour left in total weigh-in. So like he made it barely under the limit. 205 seems like the right move at this stage of his career. Yes or no?

If Israel is not an option, then it absolutely is the best option for him because the better fights and the more competitive fights are there for him. And the fights that will annoy him less and we get to see the best out for him, because the better fights and the more competitive fights are there for him. And the fights that will annoy him less, and we get to see the best out of him, right? Like, I don't want to see guys trying to clinch with him and then hold him up against the cage at middleweight and try to take him down. I want to see him do his thing. I want to see him strike. Him versus Jamal Hill is a fight that would really excite me, to be perfectly honest, if Yuri Prokhajka is not ready to go. Obviously, Yuri deserves the next shot at Hill when he is ready. I don't think he should be rushed back. And we saw what happened with Dillashaw with

the shoulder. We saw what happened with Aaron Pico over in Bellator with the shoulder. If that thing's not ready to go, it could pop out in the first second round. Then we get a nothing burger of a fight. And I think that's the last thing that anybody wants to see. So if you can book Jamal Hill against Pereira, I know for Jamal Hill it's probably not as exciting of a fight because Pereira is no longer the middleweight champion. But that's a fight that I think would be a lot of fun to watch. And I think, again, with Pereira being 36, you got to look at his shelf life in the UFC and what he has left to accomplish while he's still in the UFC. Because to me, if you're not going to give him the fight with Israel again, he has much better championship prospects at 205.

Yeah, I would agree with that. I would certainly agree with that. It'll be interesting to see where they go with this one because the knockout was spectacular, but it does create some future matchmaking problems that they're going to have to solve. All right, let's talk about that co-main event if we can. Jorge Masvidal loses, retiring following the loss to Gilbert Burns on Saturday that co-main event if we can Jorge Masvidal loses retiring following the loss to Gilbert Burns on Saturday's co-main event of course we are going to talk about Burns but I think with the bigger story coming out of this at least a little bit of course is Jorge Masvidal

for two reasons one obviously we don't really know what's next for Gilbert that remains to be seen but the other part here is Aaron Gilbert excuse me Jorge Masvidal has a sort of unique place in the sport. I asked you about what this win did for Izzy's legacy. Different question. Not so much what the loss does that I don't really care about at this point. But in general, someone asked me after the fight, what is Jorge Masvidal's legacy in mixed martial arts? I did not have a great answer. I'd be curious to get yours.

I do have a great answer, Luke. And here it is. It's never too late. That's his legacy. Because he was a guy, they call them Journeyman George now and all of that. And I won't call him a journeyman, but he was an up and down fighter. He was a guy who alternated wins and losses. He was a guy that seemed to have a real ceiling as kind of a mid card fighter. And he came away from taking what what was it, two years away from the sport where he was kind of isolated and alone with his thoughts and was able to come up with the mental

fortitude to have three incredible wins in a row. The Ben Ask, well, starting off with the Darren Till win. Darren Till was still a very hot fighter at the time, and I still think has the potential to be a, you know, regain form at some point in his career. And again, if this is the message, it's never too late, then hey, maybe he can. Then Ben Askren, who was undefeated at the time, who was coming into the UFC as this, you know, being basically fast-tracked to a championship, beats him in five seconds, probably the greatest, or up there with the greatest knockouts in UFC history. And then they create a championship belt for him to headline at Madison Square Garden

against Nate Diaz and he wins that fight. It's never too late to turn your career around if you have the combination of fighting acumen, charisma, and the ability to make people care about you. The sky is the limit for you in mixed martial arts

at any point in time in your career if you can catch lightning in a bottle. And I think that ultimately is Jorge Masvidal's legacy, that he was able to take a career that was very middling and turn it into a superstar, turn himself into a superstar that made a ton of money in this sport by just being himself and winning.

And I think that there are a lot of fighters that if the right thing happens to them, like let's say had Cowboy Cerrone beaten Conor McGregor when they fought each other, like what could his career have turned into at that point in time? It was already pretty hot. But if he was able to do that and then find consistency, he might have been able to find another title shot opportunity late in his career. Obviously, that's not how it turned out. and I'm not saying necessarily that he would have won the next fight after that, but if you can catch lightning in a bottle at the right time in your career, you can elevate yourself to really, really high levels of superstardom.

I also think that there's this cadre of guys you'll see, and they have different results when it hits them but there are guys who are like good in their 20s you know as you mentioned up and down they give good fighters good fights but they lose you know and then they hit like 30s then they hit like early to mid 30s 32 33 somewhere around there and all of it just begins to come together for them because they were never like the dynamic guys who were just going to take over right away but they were pretty close and then you learn over time they get better and better and better as they put more and more time in on the mats. They get more experience.

And then they understand the promotion. Like everything makes sense to them at that point. And then they put it all together. Jorge had to do it in this more celebrated way where he was gone on this reality show. And then he comes back. And then, as you indicated, he had the breakout 2019. And it was just kind of amazing for him but like you you know it's very easy to dismiss guys who just don't turn out to be big big stars in their 20s you're like oh well they're 30 now and then it's over for them but

it's actually not quite true in MMA and MMA you can see some late bloomers like this that Jorge is the most exaggerated example of that but he is part of it too like other guys like Diego Fajeda kind of had a bit of a rebound right around 33 34 right when they were much better than they were when they were 24 they just weren't really ready for it there's that as well also like you know I said this to BC all the time you know listen for me the most interesting part of MMA is its higher end you know like obviously the main event just you know undercard guys can have very very exciting fights but it's just hard to match everything that a big really important main event for a title brings it's just not the same kind of thing but if you just isolate yourself to only the higher

end you actually miss a lot you miss a lot of really interesting mma you miss a lot of really good fighters who are not quite at that exalted level, but very much worthy of your respect, who can do incredible things that you never imagined. Right? So there's a lesson in MMA where it's like, you can like whatever portions of it you like, but just don't be one of these guys who only pays. I only watch the main events and I only care about the title fights. Man, there is so much more beyond that.

And Jorge Masvidal's overall career, but then certainly to your point, that late surge is just living proof that yes, there are the better ends of things, but the middle portion or the upper end of the middle portion. Anyway, that's really interesting too. Don't lose sight of it.

Yeah. And another good example is the guy who is now going to be inducted into the hall of fame and Robbie Lawler, like Robbie Lawler had a very similar trajectory in his career where he was kind of up and down going from promotion to promotion. And then he managed to, again, kind of catch lightning in a bottle and work his way up to becoming the champion at the welterweight division. You know, when George St. Pierre had kind of stepped away from the sport and really showed how high of a level he was able to get to in his career. And then at some point in time, it kind of ends. And I think Robbie still can put on some fun fights.

But I just think it's a good example of where you just shouldn't count people out just because maybe they have a rough go or a rough patch in their career. You can always kind of bounce back if you get just the perfect sequence of wins against the perfect opponents. It's rare, but it happens. All right, but for Gilbert Burns, he got the job done. He wins, I think, 29-28 or rare, but it happens. All right. But for Gilbert Burns, he got the job done. He wins, I think, 29-28 or so, whatever it was. How did he look to you? I thought he looked good. I wouldn't say it was his best performance, but I still think that Gilbert sometimes needs

somebody to bring the best out of him. And I'm not sure Jorge Masvidal did that. I think that when you look at the Hamza Shamaya fight, that's where I think you got the best brought out of Gilbert Burns. And then we also came to learn recently that when he fought Magni, he made it, I think he said it after he beat Magni, actually. He promised his wife that he was just going to take Magni down and submit him. He just has the ability to do that, right? Like, he's such a good, well-rounded fighter. But I think that he is now realizing that if he wants to be a champion and he doesn't want to just be a guy who's fighting in big fights and making money that way,

that he kind of needs to hit the pause button and wait for his opportunity. It's a similar thing that Tyron Woodley did, even Leon Edwards to an extent did, where you know that you're up there with the best in your division and you don't need to keep proving it over and over again, like he has been doing.

If you look at Gilbert Burns' resume at Welterweight, like, you have the loss to Kamaru and the loss to Hamzat in a very close fight. Those are, like, when you hit the absolute ceiling of that division, and I still think he was beating people that are getting close to that ceiling as well. I think what he's saying right now, like, let me be the backup. He's like, I'm demanding it. I want to be the backup for Edwards and Covington. And Dana White was like, okay, he'll be the backup. You know, and we saw what happened when Covington was recently the backup. He got the title shot. I feel really bad for Bilal Muhammad in this situation, because it seems like he continues to be the odd man out, and they're going to have him fight Shavkat Rahmanov, which is not great. But I think with Gilbert Burns,

now he's just kind of putting his foot down and saying, I'm at the stage in my career where it's championship or bust for me. I don't need to keep fighting these guys and proving myself over and over again. Which he's totally right about. I thought so too. I thought he looked pretty good. I thought he looked pretty good. I wasn't blown away.

But he told us during the early part of the week Aaron that he thought Jorge was going to come storming at him you know so I think the fact that Jorge was kind of reserved in the first round and counter punching kind of like made him have to readjust a little bit but he did and he got the job done and I thought he he really got he looked overall pretty good and to your point as well you know like what is the point of fighting other guys at this? He doesn't have anything left to do except fight for a title and see what happens there. Folks forget, Jorge was 38 on Saturday night. Gilbert's 36, like at 36 at 170 pounds. That is not young either.

He did look obviously up to the task, but I think the clock is ticking for him. So, okay, if he's going to be in the backup role backup role right so then you have Colby versus well hold on is it confirmed with Colby yet because you see Leon tweeting afterwards oh Jorge fumbled the bag blah blah blah and that could all just be social media nonsense bluster we're just sort of assuming Colby is it but it does sound like Leon still isn't on board with it. Have you heard anything different? Well, what's Leon? What are Leon's options now? I mean, if Masvidal would have won... He can say no. Okay, but then what? Then you're fighting Gilbert Burns? Or you're fighting Shemayev

if Shemayev decides to stay at 170 for whatever reason? Like, Leon does not have good options right now. Leon was probably sitting on the couch saying like, oh man, I really need Masvidal to win this fight because that would have been an easier opponent for him than what's in front of him. But right now you're the champion of 170 pounds and the options in front of you are Bilal Mohamed, Gilbert Burns, Colby Covington. You got Shavkat Rahmanov coming up. Like he doesn't really have a whole lot of easy options here. And if they're going to have him headlining this pay-per-view in London, which is looking the way that it's trending for July, like, sign the contract, dude. You got to defend the title. And it doesn't matter if it's against Covington or Burns or Bilal Muhammad. It's not going to be an easy fight. The thing that Dana

White always has to fall back on here, when you look at the welterweight rankings, is Colby Covington is ranked number one. They don't come up with the rankings. It's voted on by a panel of, you know, people that are kind of on the fringe of the media. I hate to say it that way, but that's kind of the truth of it. No, that's true. They're on the fringe of the media. That's true.

But either way, all Dana White has to do is say, hey, look at the rankings. Who's the number one guy behind Usman? Sorry, I said that Colby's the number one guy. Colby's the number one guy that Leon hasn't beaten twice. That's all he has to do. Point to that and say, like, listen, these rankings are determined by people who are watching week in and week out and deciding where people are going to be. Now, if the media wants to do something about it,

the media members that rank the welterweight division, rank Bilal ahead of Colby. Rank Burns ahead of Colby, if you think that they deserve it, right? But for now, the highest ranked guy behind Usman is Colby Covington. That's the reality of the situation. It's not something that I'm saying to defend the decision, but it's what I'm saying to point out that if the UFC wants to say, hey, we're a meritocracy-based promotion, he's the next guy in line behind Usman. They can do that. All right, so then you have Usman next. Burns doing backup.

Bilal's going to fight Rachmanov, we think. By the way, was Colby in attendance in Miami? As far as I could see, he was not. I didn't see him there. I never heard anything about him being there. I didn't see any pictures of him there. And he trains closer to that arena than anybody else, really. I mean, MMA Masters is in Hialeah,

which is pretty close to the arena, whereas these guys over at Team Killcliffe and American Top Team train out where you and BC were staying last week. So, I was kind of surprised, but when Colby was asked if he was going to be in attendance for UFC 287, he always said, ah, I might be, I might not be.

Interesting. Alright, well, I might be, I might not be. Interesting. All right. Well, just the same. I'll be curious to see what happens with Burns beyond just the backup role. All right. Point number three. Let's talk about something further down that card if we can, which was really kind of interesting.

Rob Font. Boy, what a... Talk about making a splash on Saturday night. He upped his stock dramatically, beating Adrian Yanez on the main card. So let's talk each one. We'll start with how this affects their stock, both for Adrian, both for Rob. We'll start with Rob. Huge boost, right, Aaron?

But how much of a boost? Well, first off, I'll start off by saying it's Yanez. We're going to go with it because... Okay, I'm fine with it. I'm fine with it. I'm fine with it. People get bitter. You're the guy who turned me on to it. And the reason why I'm saying we're going to go with it is I spoke to Adrian.

I said, like, you know, Luke says it's Yanez. Is that true? And like, why do people call you Yanez? And he said, well, people have just always pronounced it wrong. And here's the thing. Adrian's father passed away. He loved his dad dearly. And the one thing that we get in this life is our name. And him to honor his father i think we should honor his father by saying it

properly saying yan yes fair enough for me at least for here on out it's yanez um but you know i saw tyson chartier uh at the end of 2022 i think it was december he was uh there cornering somebody at a uni unified event that I called. And I said to him, I really like this matchup for Rob. And I think Yanez is an incredible fighter. You know, but this sport is matchups. And I just thought that if Font caught him once, and we've seen Adrian get caught before,

I didn't think that Adrian was going to be able to process it as quickly as he needed to, because Font is so fast. Like, when Font has you hurt, and he stings you, he is like white on rice. Like, he is going to come after you, he's going to keep stinging you, and keep stinging you, and keep stinging you, and see if you can take it. And that's what he did against Yanez. I didn't think it was going to end in the first round. I thought it was going to probably be a prolonged decision, but I did not like this matchup for Adrian. I think there are a lot of better matchups up the rankings for Adrian. And I said to Adrian when I spoke to him on Wednesday, I said, right now you're at that stage where if you get a win here against Rob Font,

like, you are going to be entering murderer's row. Like, there's just nothing easy from here on out. And even if you don't beat Rob, like, you are in the bantamweight division, and you are swimming with the Sharks. And we learned that from Raul Rosas Jr., who we're going to talk about a little bit later on. But the bantamweight division, there are no soft landings here. And I thought that, you know, Adrian, I think, can hang with a lot of these guys ranked at bantamweight.

But again, I just thought that matchup for him was not a great one. And it was good to see Rob Font rebound after that year off because he's been in that pressure cooker of the Bantamweight division as well. And I think he's as good as anybody in this division. It's just from matchup to matchup, the volatility is different. Oh, man. We were talking about the main event, right, where basically the first person to make a mistake is going to lose. That's really the way it goes with those two fucking guys, Izzy

and Pereira. It was fairly similar here, right? At Bantamweight, anyone in that top five or even top ten, man, you make a mistake against those dudes, it's going to be real bad for you. But we're talking about his stock. I will say this, Aaron, this might be his best win

now let me explain why I mean by that partly it's just a the celebration of it and because Yanez was riding this massive hot streak right like the next big thing 5-0 in the UFC like all these uh finishes all of these bonuses the whole nine yards right he's riding in hot you were at the media day where the champion well not the now champion is he was asked about him and he gave this like effusive praise of yanez and so partly rob just spoiled the party and that gets you a lot of attention that was one of it but i'm looking at some of his other wins here aaron okay he had the win over cody garbrandt but this is in 2021 it doesn't mean the same thing plus it was a decision marlon marais the one before

that okay god bless marlon Marais, but he's certainly seen better days. Ricky Simone's a good one, but he decisioned him. Sergio Pettis is a good one, but he decisioned him. And now we're all the way back four years ago in 2019, and now even before that, 2018. He does have a win over Thomas Almeida, but Almeida had

lost two of three heading into that one. And then there's Matt Schnell and some other ones. Dude, you can say he beat some other guys like the Simone win or Pettis win that maybe those guys are better or something like that. You can say that. But the wins weren't as impressive. They didn't stand out. This win stood out.

This win stands out big time. Off for a while, coming against a young, hot prospect, and he blew the doors off of him. I think this is Rob Font's best win. I don't know exactly what he's going to get from it. And also Aaron, I wonder about this part too. I think he'll get a nice matchup from this. He has earned one. He wants one. He knows, I think 35, 36 himself, he knows the clock is ticking. Did it change your view of his upside though? Did it change your view about whether he could hold a title in this weight class?

Well, in terms of holding a title in this weight class, I mean, I think that anybody in this weight class on the right night can win a title because the level is just so high. But for me, what I needed to see from Rob Font was that he wasn't going the way of Marlon Marais. When you have those were devastating losses that he faced. Like that loss to Chito was a beating. When you take that year off, now is the time where you find out where you're at and where the people find out where you're at. And a loss to Yanez, to me, would have kind of, you know,

kind of been the nail in the coffin of the career of Rob Font in terms of his upward trajectory. I think he really needed this win as a confidence boost he was so hyped this week going into that fight like if you watch my interview with him on Friday he's holding an iced coffee and he's smiling and he's like I saw yeah he's like his eyes are popping out of his head and he is just like I've never seen Rob Font like that before. But when I saw him on Friday, I was like, wow, I didn't know Rob Font had that, like that he just had that energy about him. It's not that he's not an energetic guy to begin with, but he was like, it was like you were talking to a guy where like, you know, like every now and then

you walk into like a barbershop or you walk into a place and somebody starts talking to you and they just start like, you can see their minds kind of moving a million miles a minute. And they just start talking about stuff. And they have this intensity about them. It felt like that talking to Rob Font on Friday. And I loved it. And I just thought it was a tremendous performance. I still think Yanez can bounce back.

He needs to make some adjustments. People also need to realize his coach, Saul Solis, passed away. And Saul Solis was like another father to him. So he lost his father and he lost Saul Solis over the course of a couple years. That's a hard thing to overcome, man. And to have to learn a whole new style and train with all new guys. He's training with really good guys.

He's training with Ralphion Stotts. And a young prospect, last name I think is Cameron Smotherman. This guy is going to be something big in the UFC one day, in my opinion. But I think that Rob Font, like, sorry, that Yanyas kind of needed something like this to happen as kind of a wake-up call for him.

And I think that he's just going to get better, man. Like, I think that he's got all the skills. He just needs to put it all together. He needs to shore up his defense a little bit. And I he'll still he'll be back like he'll be back in that top 10 in no time yeah I mean that was the thing for me is like you look at them on skill someone was asking me last week like hey what are the differences in their boxing styles just their boxing styles and man in many ways like they're not a hugely different fighters in that sense right I mean there are obviously some differences no one's an identical twin but you know they do a

lot of the same kind of broad stroke things but if you look at the stats before the fight Aaron man Yanez takes a lot of damage man I think upwards of um I think either five plus or six plus strikes a minute dude that's just that's just way too much at this level way too much now the way he did it obviously with those collar ties and then bringing the right hand around, I think that caught him by surprise. I didn't see that coming, and God bless Rob Font for being so clever and so devastating. But for me, Rob Font, in terms of the scale of it

and the celebrity of it, best win. Probably going to get him a great fight. We'll see. For Yanez, I agree with you. This definitely hurts, but he just seems way too good and and by the way still 29 to not really get much better from this I think he absolutely will this was a painful lesson for him he seemed devastated after the fact which was obviously hard to see but if you just look at how good he is how hard he works and how young he is

relatively speaking anyway I think there's still a lot of belief in him. But there's work to be done, man. You just can't take abuse like that, statistically speaking, or in this particular case anyway, and then expect to move to the top of that division. It's just way, way, way too much of a liability. Yeah, I agree. And credit to Rob Font who said, you know,

when I was in Adrian's spot, Marlon Marais gave me the fight. So he was okay kind of fighting down to prove that he still had it. And I thought this was the perfect fight for him. Not just the fight itself, but in terms of matchup, I thought it was the perfect fight for him at this stage of his career

because if Yanez beats him, again, I think that kind of limits his upward trajectory from here on out. But he needed to prove to himself that he could still beat Adrian Yanez. And like you said, Adrian has taken a lot of damage. He gets hit a lot. And that's why, again, I just thought from a matchup standpoint,

Rob Font was something of a nightmare matchup for him because Rob Font hits you a lot, right? Like, there's one thing that's consistent about Rob Font. It's his volume. If you look at the amount of strikes he landed against Aldo and Chido Vera, in which were both kind of lopsided losses for him, he landed way more than both those guys, right? So if there's one thing that's certain, it's that Rob Font is going to land on you. And it's just about how much of that you can take.

And it just seemed in that situation, he just got stung over and over again. Yeah. And by the way, his jab, man, he's got one of the best jabs in the sport. Rob Font's jab is just excellent. It's hard and, you know, it's powerful and he can use other things to set it up. Like, he's just really, really gifted in that way. And also, last thing on this one, Rob Font took a year off. And listen, we all know about it. Like, does ring rust affect everyone? You know, listen, it affects most fighters most of the time, but it doesn't affect every fighter every time.

That year off did the exact opposite of rust. affects most fighters most of the time but it doesn't affect every fighter every time that that year off did the exact opposite of rust it rejuvenated him to your point about his energy and he didn't look like lost in there at all or he needed to make adjustments at all man he was ready to go from the word uh from the opening bell so a little bit of lesson there if you're an experienced fighter and you know yourself really well, taking a break can honestly be a great thing for you, not a bad thing. Yeah, it's rust versus recovery, right? Because if you're doing it for recovery, you're not sitting out, right? Like, you're still practicing.

You're still learning. And one thing that he told me that I thought was really cool was we've seen, of course, Calvin Cater got badly injured in his last fight. A lot of this camp was Calvin kind of on the sidelines watching Rob and rather than being in there with Rob, because they're, you know, of course, trained together a lot and have, you know, it's been an iron sharpens iron situation for them. But he's been able to kind of sit on the outside looking in and give Rob all of these little pointers along the way that he wasn't able to give him when he was in there sparring with him all the

time. And I think that did wonders for him as well, because Calvin, I think, is one of the brightest minds in the game. Calvin's an amazing guy, for sure. Shouts to the New England cartel. All right, so let's get to this one, where I appear to disagree with just about everybody else on it. So we'll put that as the disclaimer up front. So Raul Rosas Jr., he loses his first UFC fight.

He's had two of them. He was one-on-one in his UFC fights. Not counting Contender Series, obviously. In fairly convincing fashion, I would argue, against Christian Rodriguez. So let's pitch it to you, Aaron. Let's see where you're at on this. Probably not where I'm at. But what does this mean for the teenager's future?

Well, we talked about this before. It's bantamweight and there are no soft landings. And do people grow from wins? Yes, they do. But first off, this matchup was terrible for him from the outset. When they announced this, I was like, what are they doing to this kid, right? Like, there's not a whole lot of bantamweights that you can put him up against where he can shine and look great like he did in that last fight against Jay Perrin.

But Christian Rodriguez, if you've spoken to anybody around Christian Rodriguez, they've told me for years, this guy is an uber prospect. He's incredible in the gym. This guy's the next guy. If you saw him on Contender Series where he didn't get the contract because he missed weight, he smoked the guy that he faced. And I thought it was criminal that they didn't give him a contract, even though he did miss weight, because I was like, this guy's got like championship potential. I think Christian Rodriguez was a terrible matchup for him. I think that's first. Second, when you match him up with a guy like that, you're relying on a kid who thinks that he's completely untouchable to actually be untouchable, which that's great in fantasy land. But here in the realities of the UFC bantamweight division,

if he gets crushed, that can do a lot for his self-esteem, for his self-belief, and for his growth at 18 years of age. Because at 18 years of age, you feel invincible, and he was invincible to that point. And that's the problem. Because when you learn you're not invincible, that can be a crushing blow to you. And I think that Raul Rosas Jr. has the mental fortitude to overcome this and get better and better but being 18 years old in the UFC like I don't know if we're ever going to see somebody that young save for like a prodigy like Max Holloway who at age 20 I think it was 19 he actually came into the UFC that became a champion like we'll see it from time to time and maybe Raul Rosas Jr. is that guy because we saw Holloway have some early losses as well.

But the guy landed zero strikes through two rounds, and he won that first round. He needs a lot of polishing, a lot of work. I think he's uber talented. I think he's got great skills, tremendous skills. But at 18 years of age, like, again, when you're in the UFC, I think this can be a devastating blow for his career. We've seen people like Sage Northcutt get the push, Paige Van Zandt get the push, and fall on their face. And I'm not saying that that happens to Raul Rosas Jr. He can definitely overcome this. He can definitely look good in his next fight and get right back on the tracks.

But a loss like this is going to be a very tough pill for him to swallow, and he's got a lot of work to do to be able to face a lot of these killers in the bantamweight division, even at the of these killers in the bantamweight division, even at the lower rungs of the bantamweight division. Yeah, to me, this is all bad. Now, it could have been worse in the following sense, right, where let's say Christian Rodriguez really put a beating on him. That didn't happen.

He didn't get beat up real bad. So I think in that sense, he actually got a little bit lucky, if I'm being honest, because that would have been really bad. But he didn't get that, okay that's that's fine I have so many problems with him being in the UFC man and it's a couple of things everyone talks about his skills and let's be clear on the grappling side certainly positionally and the wrestling and the way he's able to like chain things together he looks pretty good to me he looks like that part of his game looks UFC ready to me and again not the top of the division but he can get the Christian Rodriguez's of the world and you can see in that

first round he was actually able to positionally anyway either dominate or to bare minimum lead the charge so if he could you know apportion that better which is also going to be a learning experience which I do think he can do that part looks ready made to me but he tries to force submissions there's virtually no ground and pound which is a problem and dude his stand-up you know i'm not gonna bag on the kid and say like i've got better stand-up or i i'm an old washed pathetic piece of shit but like 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.

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bill payer to reward slayer. Terms and conditions apply. That stand up is not ready for this level. It's just not even close to being ready for this level. He's going to get chewed the fuck up if he has to stand on the feet at any amount of time with anyone even bordering

on Christian Rodriguez's level like it was worrisomely bad and when I say worrisomely bad not as like the critic from on high who gives you his opinion more like dude if that's the tools you have to take into a fight you're gonna get hurt you're gonna get hurt doing shit like that that's the first thing I'd say beyond everything else the The second part I would say is, man, this kid was saying shit like, I'm going to be champion in a year or less. In a year or less. It's one thing to have confidence in yourself. It's another one to be completely delusional about where you stand amongst grown men

who've been doing this, in certain cases cases almost as long as you've been alive. It's just profoundly out of his depth in terms of understanding everything. And also, I don't know who manages him, but whoever manages this kid, putting him in there, man, that's a real questionable call because he easily could have had a developmental deal like other fighters have had where they exist on the LFAs of the world and everything else

and they get the requisite experience because man like this didn't used to be the case but now with the way regional MMA is set up you can get a lot of really good experience there you know you can get five round fights you can get guys who are d1 wrestlers you can get all kinds of different stuff in ways that just wasn't as accessible 10 or 15 years ago for up-and-coming prospects and now just rushing to the UFC this is what I always tell people man it's like everyone at UFC gains experience there and learns from it and gets better fair enough and he's no different and I think he'll benefit like from that as every other athlete would but this is not the place to get formative experience where

it's the first time you have to do x or it's the first time you have to do Y in these very mundane scenarios not like the champion where you know it's a very specific kind of thing that only happens in very narrow circumstances I'm talking about formative experience formative building blocks to me Aaron here's what it looks like his skill set is basically not ready at all for this level they rushed him out here he does seem to have some things that are very very good and we'll see how you know mentally resolute he is but i if you want to get the kind of building block experience to contend to the ufc don't do it in the ufc do it before because the process can get fucked up real badly from here i very much think this is a whole... I cannot guarantee disaster, and I hope we avoid it.

But Aaron, I got to tell you, I'm worried that we're headed to something approximating that. Well, I'm not taking as much of a nuclear option on this as you are. You know, I mentioned Max Holloway, and I think the difference with Max is that he was... I think he became a champion at the regional level before he came to the UFC. If you look at Raul Rosas, before he fought in Contender Series, I don't know if he beat anybody with a winning record, right? So you're not getting the experience where you're being tested, where you're being put into deep water and you have to swim out of it. He never really experienced that. He was always the hammer and eventually you're going to be the nail in the UFC. And a loss in MMA is not a big deal.

You can bounce back from it and you can show that you belong there. And I think against Jay Perrin, he showed that he was able to fight kind of, again, the lower rungs of the bantamweight division and do well. So I'm going to take a wait and see approach on this because I knew going into this fight how good Christian Rodriguez was. I don't think people knew about him or knew his name or unless you really follow the sport closely, I don't think a lot of people were tuned in to how good Christian Rodriguez was. So I've got to learn about whether this was more Christian Rodriguez, because again, when I saw my contender series, I thought to myself, this guy could be a champion one day.

He's that good. So I've got to figure out, is this more about Christian Rodriguez, or is this more about Raul Rosas Jr.? Because if Raul Rosas Jr. comes back and is able to win two, three fights in the UFC, again, the train's right back on the rails. I'm not willing to write him off. And I also, even though he's 18, I think he does have that it factor to him. You mentioned that he said he was going to be a champion in a year. And while there are levels to delusion involved in that, fighters tend to have to be delusional. Like, it's not that they, whether they are or not delusional. A lot of the times, you'll see fighters go into fights with bad injuries. Like, there's a level of delusion there that you have to have in order to win, right?

Like, you have to tell yourself, dude, I'm the best in the world. I can beat somebody with one hand tonight. Like, my shoulder might pop out, and it might not pop out during the fight. Like, maybe. It's popped out 30 times in practice, but maybe tonight.

Tonight's going to be the night where my shoulder doesn't pop out and everything's going to be fine. Because if you go into a fight and you're TJ Dillashaw and you're fighting for the championship and you say, my shoulder's probably going to pop out tonight.

In fact, he told the official backstage. But TJ Dillashaw is built differently. He has, his career has, I think, benefited from a degree of delusion. And that's okay. Like, I'm not going to fault Raul Rosa Jr. for saying he's one of the 10 people in the year. I agree and I don't.

Like, yes, like for sure. Anybody who's ever talked to a high-level MMA fighter, they have said things to you about what they're going to do that always sounded like ludicrous. And sometimes it was ludicrous. Sometimes it wasn't. Sometimes it was right on the money. Here's what I mean.

It's one thing for a guy who's 25, who's got good good to decent experience on the regional scene maybe has a loss or two has fought tough guys you know has made maybe some money not a lot or whatever but they've got a certain amount of experience and then they're still delusional it's one thing to be delusional when you haven't even touched the world right to your point not having hardly any guys with a winning record i looked at his record too i think there may have been one guy on it and the guy he beat on contender series was pretty good you know relatively speaking yeah and so you know it's not to say that he never beat yeah he didn't face any adversity but he didn't really get any kind of

good taste it's yes i can have delusions coming out of high school about what kind of life i'm going to lead but then life smacks the fuck out of you in the face. Do you have delusions after that? That's the question. Once you've got a little bit of experience in the world and you're like, whoa, this might be a little bit tougher. Do you still have it up here to dream big and then go for it? Which all people should on some level. I'm just saying I'll take someone who's 26, 27, who has seen the world a little bit, got

their ass kicked sometimes and still wants to drive forward versus just some 18 year old kid who's 26, 27 who has seen the world a little bit got their ass kicked sometimes and still wants to drive forward versus just some 18 year old kid who's wet behind the ears I mean this is my biggest issue with Raul Rosas he seems like a nice kid he wants to do great things for himself he does have some ability that I very much respect

but he is green he is green he is very much underdeveloped. He's the green banana at the grocery store. We're not talking plantains. He's just underdeveloped. He's not really ready for this. And now he has to be something to get to the next level in the UFC.

Hard to do. Hard to do. I'm glad you clarified that they weren't plantains. I love a good plantain, but you know what I'm saying. But listen, there are a lot of different samples that we can look at here of fighters that start really young. There are always going to be the Sage Northcuts and the Paige Van Zandt of the world. But then there's also the Macy Barbers of the world, who says she's going to be the youngest champion in UFC history. And then she faces some adversity and she's able to bounce back and win some good fights.

And then you've got Kelvin Gastelum, for example, who's still only 31 years old, who is able to, again, have some ups and downs and get to a championship level and not win the championship and still get pretty far. And then, like I mentioned, there's the Max Holloway example. So I think it's going to come down to how skilled he is. I think it's going to come down to his development and how well he is able to develop. You mentioned the striking is quite a bit behind. And then there's also like another example is Chase Hooper, who has phenomenal grappling. But, you know, it took a little bit of time for the striking to catch up. And he still is being beaten by like a Steve Garcia in his last fight, and is then taking another kind of prolonged time off to go back to the drawing

board and figure out when he, you know, what he's going to be able to do from here. There's bumps in the road and in MMA for everybody. And I think that, again, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one, because I do think Christian Rodriguez is really good. So I'm taking a wait and see approach. I'm not as concerned as you are, perhaps. But I also understand what you're saying and believe that what you're saying certainly could come to fruition. It's just there are a lot of different examples that we can point to, and I don't know if we can necessarily point to how Raul Rosas Jr.'s career is going to go from here. I think he's in one of the toughest divisions in the sport.

I think he faced a really tough kid who not a lot of people knew about, and that Rosas was a favorite based on his popularity and based on his hype and trajectory. I get that, but I'm willing to write this off as him just facing a better fighter on saturday yeah i don't think that's crazy and just to clarify i'm not making a prediction about how it's going to go the future is very unknowable right i just mean to say that i'll put it this way if i was his management i would not have put him in the ufc

this early that's all i just think that was a mistake um Not to say he can't overcome it, but I think that was a mistake. Now, before we move on to the boxing here, real quickly, if I may, two pieces I want to get to. Number one, what can you tell us about the UFC's return to Canada? I saw you break some of this news. For folks who may not have heard, very quickly tell us what you know. Yeah, so

a couple weeks ago, the thought was that the UFC was going to either go to Vancouver or Calgary. And then it shifted pretty dramatically to Calgary. And then it turned out that there was some sort of scheduling conflict with the arena. And I don't know if that was necessarily...

Dana White said there was a minor hockey team that had it booked. I don't believe that is the case. I think that they were probably holding the arena in case the Flames make it to the playoffs and could get to the Stanley Cup. Like, if you're, you know, an arena, you have to have it planned that you are going to be in the Stanley Cup or whatever sport, if you're going to be in the NBA Finals. The arena has to be on hold. So a lot of people were like, oh, the Flames aren't

going to make it to the Finals. So it's like, it doesn't matter. The city of Calgary is not going to, or like, the arena is not going to come out and be like, we're going to hold this UFC event here because we don't think the Flames are going to make it to the Stanley Cup. Like, it doesn't matter. The city of Calgary is not going to, or like the arena is not going to come out and be like, we're going to hold this UFC event here because we don't think the Flames are going to make it to the Stanley Cup. Like, what does that say to the team, right? Like, it's just not something that you can do. So I think the tides last week, about midweek last week, really shifted towards Vancouver.

And they were going away from Calgary, and the Calgary was basically out. Because they wanted to get the announcement out there by this weekend. They were hoping, I think, that the Flames were going to be out by then so that they could go forward with that announcement. That wasn't the case. The earliest the Flames could be eliminated, I believe, is Monday, today. So they had to go with their backup plan, which was Vancouver. And I think that Vancouver is a great spot for the UFC, especially in June. In June, there's no better place to be than Vancouver.

Vancouver in June is like one of the most beautiful places in the world. And then I was hearing rumblings that Nunes was likely going to headline the event. Weren't sure if it was going to be against Aldana or Peña. It was kind of a discussion. And then very swiftly, it was apparent that it was going to be Peña. So I kind of knew that that was where they were going with the main event. I didn't know if it was done or not. Then when I interviewed Dana White I said, you know, do you have a main event for this?

And he said yes and volunteered the information. So, you know, good news for me. But that's basically what the situation was. It just kind of pivoted from Calgary to Vancouver. Why were they so interested in going to Calgary and like what's so great? I mean, I'm not being dismissive of Calgary. I'm just saying, why was that their number one target, I guess is what I'm asking.

I'm not too sure. They haven't had a pay-per-view in Calgary since, I think it was UFC 149, where the event just absolutely fell on its face and was terrible. And then they said they were going to make it up to Calgary one day. And some people, for whatever reason, completely forget that Dana White had his 50th birthday in Calgary, headlined by Eddie Alvarez and Dustin Poirier. I think they made it up to Calgary. I think Calgary is good now. Yolanda and JTIC was on that card. They made it up to Calgary. I don't think they need to hold a pay-per-view there, but I think they just wanted to hold a pay-per-view there. The last event they did in Canada was in Vancouver. So maybe they just wanted to go to another city.

And as much as people are going to dislike me for saying this, there's basically only five viable pay-per-view cities in Canada. You've got Vancouver, you've got Toronto, you've got Edmonton, and you've got Montreal. Is that four? Oh, sorry. Four. There's five. So Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, and Montreal. So those are the five. I must have missed one on that first count. They're not really going to do a pay-per-view in Ottawa, I don't think. So those are kind of the five cities.

So any given year, that's where the pay-per-view is going to be. They haven't done one in Montreal in, it's got to be close to 10 years now. But yeah, Calgary is a good choice for a pay-per-view. It's a good city. The province of Alberta has a ton of rampant fight fans. It's a massive, you know, when they went to Edmonton, fans were in the arena for the very first fight. Like, it was probably 75% full

for the very first fight. They eat it up there. So, I think that Calgary would have been a good option, too. But Vancouver is just such a beautiful city in June, and I think that event will do very well. You know what's so weird, as I go back to the Ultimate Fighter Nations, Bisping versus Canada, and they had that in Quebec City at the,

again, I'm sure that my pronunciation is going to be terrible, the Pepsi Coliseum for 5,000 people. And I was like, why is this fucking event here of all places? And then they just stopped going to Canada, by and large, not too long after this. It's really weird. They used to be there so much more regularly, including in Quebec City, of all places.

And now it's like, we're down to five cities for a pay-per-view. Yeah, I suppose it's true, you know? It's just kind of weird. Yeah. There are a lot of options for fight nights. But, yeah, I think that, in terms of pay-per-views, I don't think they've done a pay-per-view outside of those cities in general. So I don't see pay-per-views going anywhere outside of those cities,

to be perfectly honest. Like, those are the big metropolitans in Canada. So I don't see pay-per-views going anywhere outside of those cities, to be perfectly honest. Like those are the big metropolitans in Canada. Yeah. I went to the Shields GSP card in Toronto, whatever, 129, whatever one that was. I was there too. Dude, Toronto's great. I love Toronto.

What a great city that is, you know? Yeah. I wish they'd go back. As someone who lives here, I agree. Right. What am I? I'm sitting here telling you this shit. All right. Last but not least,

UFC President Dana White afterwards suggested they might make an annual stop in Miami. I want to know if that's a good idea, but I want to ask it in this way. Certainly that event was a success. Certainly I watched at home. I felt like I got my money on pay-per-view. You were there.

We're all talking about how great it was. But one thing I'm beginning to notice that I'm a little bit concerned about, or you mentioned the gate was astronomical. Right, it was. You talk to like the London fans and here's what they say. They're like, yeah, man, listen, you can be in London. You can throw up a big event and charge outrageous ticket prices and people will pay for it because that's just London,

Saturday night out, blah, blah, blah. But you're pricing out all of the, basically the middle-class and every working class fans who can't afford the tickets. It sounds like something else happened like that in Miami. Now, is this just, they do this on occasion in certain cities, Aaron, is this the new way the UFC is going to be doing these big events? Because I like the idea of going to South Florida. It'd be great for me because we obviously have a CBS office in Fort Lauderdale,

but I'm a little bit concerned about these like huge gates that are great for UFC, but are pricing out everyone who's not there for the show, like in London or in Miami. Yeah, they will price everybody out. If you know how much Florida has grown in the last, basically since the pandemic, the amount of people that have moved down to Florida?

And it's just such a booming economy there right now. And the level of affluence is just unreal. Like I was staying in a part of Miami called Brickle, and apparently the condos there cost like $12 million for a condo or something along those lines. I was walking, I'm seeing Bentleys left and right. Like the amount of affluence in Miami and South Florida right now is through the roof. If they did a card in January there every year in Miami, with the amount of people that come, you know, the snowbirds that come down and spend time in South Florida every single year, they're going to do a gate like that

every year. Like it almost doesn't matter what they headline with because the level of affluence in that area right now is just absolutely unbelievable it's it's unbelievable like there's no really other way to describe it yeah by the way our producer here saying that the newark tickets for just the nosebleeds on the pre-sale were 200 plus so like the worst seats were i mean if you go it goes back to something i've been saying for a while like number one go to regional mma because it's cheap you support your local fighters smaller venue smaller venue you can get you can get much better seats that way sometimes the action's pretty good and then on top of it go to the fight nights if now the ufc obviously has been the apex for a long time and they're still that still plays a big

role but they are doing more fight like they did the fight night with Yair and Brian Ortega in Long Island, and obviously the main event didn't work out, but that people don't have. To your point, absolutely true. There's tons of money down there. There are also a lot of people who don't have tons of money who pretend to, who rent the Bentleys on the weekends and then turn them back in on Sunday. You know what I'm saying? I guess I do. I don't know, though.

I can't tell them apart. I can't tell them apart. Oh, trust me. It's a big thing. It's a huge thing down there. I'm not looking for it. It's not of interest to me, but I see what you're saying. But yeah, I mean, hey, Vancouver is probably the most affluent city in Canada, too. So they're going to places where

they can sell tickets for big money. Abu Dhabi is known for being an opulent place. So like you said, if you really are a diehard MMA fan and you want to experience MMA, regional events are awesome. They're smaller venues. It's worth supporting your local fighters and helping grow your grassroots community. And fight nights, you can also get pretty good seats. But I also think the fight night tickets are going to start going up too, right? Like the UFC have really figured out a way to maximize their gate potential for these events. And I don't know if it's because of the pandemic, but I do think that the growth of the sport during the pandemic

certainly makes more people interested in going to their live events than ever before. Yeah, that I think is absolutely true. Let's talk a little bit. I know you're not the biggest boxing fan, but topic number five, let's do a quick boxing roundup if we can. Let's go first for the Showtime side of things. I had to call the prelims solo because

bc's on vacation but i did it it was kind of fun and in the main event i don't know you must have seen this right aaron the main event just the final sequence there brian mendoza i think we must have the footage please roll it if we do brian mendoza look at this left hook I mean you gotta be absolutely shitting me with that shot what a brilliant shot and I want to tell this story if I can about Brian Mendoza because it doesn't matter if you're a boxing fan and it doesn't matter if you're an MMA fan or one of the other what a story this guy has about a year ago a little bit longer but about a year ago Aaron this guy was on swing bouts at the end of cards where people are leaving and the lights are coming on and you're just they're fitting you in at the end he had a

loss to Jesus Ramos who was really really good who just beat Joey Spencer on the benefit of plant cards so you know it's like he was in these like uh on these these situations that don't go anywhere he did get a better fight but then he lost last year, or actually not even long ago, like six or eight months ago, he gets a short notice fight, less than two weeks, to take on former two-division champ or two-belt holder Jason Rosario, up a weight class at 160. Ices him with one of the most insane uppercuts

you'll ever see. One punch. Rosario, at age 27 27 retired from the sport after that then it gets him this fight against Sebastian Fundora who by the way is six foot six 154 pounds and has a longer reach than Oleksandr Usyk who has three of the four heavyweight titles so let's back up a step about a year or so ago he's on swing bouts he gets a short notice call up a weight class wins it in dramatic fashion gets an interim title shot against this kid and ices him with a single shot look at this left hook he's about to throw right here i mean just fucking

phenomenal as he steps in bang right over the top catches him what a story for brian mendoza you were just talking about how it's never too late. Don't count guys out. Brian Mendoza, living proof that what you're saying is true. Well, if Showtime were looking to do Fundora versus Charlo, they're all like McBain now. Mendoza!

This guy comes and spoils the party. I mean, what a left hook, just from the absolute depths to take him out. I mean, absolutely unbelievable. And like, yeah, like we talked about, you look at Jorge Masvidal, it's never too late, man. Like, the stories of a lot of these combat sports athletes that just hit lightning in a bottle at the right time. And it looks like Mendoza certainly fits that mold.

You know, who do you think is next for him? Because I think that a win like that starts to get him into these really... I mean, this was already a big fight, but into the really upper echelon of big fights in boxing. Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, here's the problem. This is why this fight came to be. Mendoza was looking for a win after beating Rosario. Or looking for a fight, excuse me.

After beating Rosario, wanted to go back to 154. So, okay, that sets him up. Dude, Fundora beat Lubin a while ago, Erickson Lubin. That made him the mandatory for Charlo. But Charlo was supposed to take on Zu. That was supposed to happen. It couldn't happen. So Zu fights Tony Harrison in Australia.

He wins that one. And now they're supposed to make it. But the hand of Charlo is all messed up. So it's still Zu who's going to be fighting him. So the winner of this didn't really get a title shot, even though it makes them the mandatory for Charlo. But it's less about that, right? Because even Fundora was asked, like, if you win this, do you think you'll fight Charlo next?

And he's like, probably not, right? Like, I have no fucking idea how this is going to go. So I'm just trying to stay busy. Fair enough. And he took on a tough guy like this. So it doesn't really set him up right away for anything. He's going to have to defend this interim strap maybe once or twice if he can. Maybe they give him Tony Harrison.

Maybe he comes back around. It's really hard to say what they're going to do with him. But I just love fucking stories like this. I love guys who, in boxing, man, it's really hard to get a good opportunity. You have to take it on short notice. You have to take it against someone else in their hometown. You have to take it on short notice. You have to take it against someone else in their hometown. You have to take it when the other guy is the network favorite. Whatever. There's all

different kind of circumstances that can crop up in different fights where you just have to negotiate a great degree of unfairness, and he did. And by the way, back-to-back lightning and thunderous, both of them, KOs for Brian Mendoza.

101.69, 154. You got to love it. Just real quickly, I want to mention this. We don't have to dig into the details at all. Shakur Stevenson in Newark, by the way, where he is from, defeated Shuichiro Yoshina at KO 135 of round number six. I don't know to what extent you saw any of this fight or the highlights. Here's the deal, right?

Stevenson, one of these like prodigies in the sport, but missed weight on the scales at 130. So he loses all his belts, goes up to 135, takes on Yoshino and beat this dude from pillar to post. I mean, it wasn't even close at all. So it sets up a potential fight between him and the winner of Devin Haney and Lomachenko so uh for folks who've been kind of waiting on Stevenson to get the right weight class and he's always been good defensively and slick and sharp and out pointing but this time man he beat the fuck out of Yoshino um really really a dominant performance by Shakur Stevenson the future I think honestly of American boxing if I can be honest yeah this is what I'm talking about. Like, this is what we need to see in boxing. Because he loses

the belts at 130 on the scales, and that's never a good thing. And he says, I'm never doing that again. Goes up to 35 where there's better competition, has a performance like this. It's like, no, we're looking ahead to some great matchups, which we always see fall apart in boxing. But now we can see Shakur Stevenson versus Loma or versus Haney. It's like, sign me up, man. Now we're getting to see the best of the best in fights that are just going to be awesome and will absolutely deliver because it's just the absolute highest level. And Shakur Stevenson is certainly in that echelon and is moving his way up.

This is somebody that everybody should be excited to watch. And also, Tank Davis and Ryan Garcia in 12 days. This is at 136. Tank fights at 135 too. Dude, the names at 135. So many great fights you can make over there. Yeah, man. I mean, there's

no better time to be a fan of the smaller fighters in boxing. There are so many good ones. I think, inevitably, as long as people can figure out the red tape and the politics that always waters boxing down, we're going to get to see a lot of great fights. And I think that that's, you know, it's an exciting time to be a boxing fan because, you know, as Dana White has always said in the past, you know, it's always a going out of business sale and the big fights always fall apart. It seems like we're starting to trend towards the big fights happening more often than not,

which I just love to see. Yeah, and the other part too is, you know, we don't know, Brian and I don't know anything, but there've been some rumblings for a June matchup between Spencer Crawford, which I know has fallen through a million times. So I think people are rightly waiting for that to be like fully official and everything.

But, you know, just getting Tank and Ryan out there and it was it was sad we didn't get usic and fury but to your point yeah yeah there's still time and also like just these young and also he got injured but steven fulton jr taking on noah in a way is you know it's the young guys in boxing that are leading the charge it's the young guys who are taking on risk and like signing up for shit that some of the older ones aren't doing. So I really appreciate that. Also, one last note on the boxing side, if I may. Bam Bam Rodriguez won, broke his jaw in the sixth round, and then fought six

more rounds with a broken jaw and won. So, put some respect on his name. Also, Mirajan Akhmedaliev, who was supposed to be the other guy across Stephen Fulton, who was the hammer of all hammers, he lost via decision, which is interesting as well. Okay, that is it for our top five. With that in mind, let's do DMs from the diggity dogs, shall we?

All right, you guys know the drill. We put up posts on social media. Y'all fill them up with questions. The producers pick them, and then we answer them here. Aaron, I will go to you first. From Dolan M. Johnson, I will go to you first. From Dallin M. Johnson. What were your thoughts?

Oh, good question. What were your thoughts on Izzy taunting Pareda's kid after the fight? Classless, or did he have it coming? Now, if you folks haven't seen his son after Pareda knocked Izzy out in the second kickboxing fight. There it is. He falls over and pretends like he's Izzy, just sort of mocking how he fell. And then here knocked Izzy out in the second kickboxing fight. There it is. He falls over and pretends like he's Izzy just sort of mocking how he fell. And then here comes Izzy. He points at the kids,

walks over to him and then collapses like they did to him back in his second kickboxing fight. There it is right there. You can see him doing it. All right, Aaron classless or did he have it coming? All right. Dolan M. Johnson.

Here's my take on this. When you look at that situation, it's very, very petty for him to do that. And what did he say in the post-fight interview? I'm a petty guy. And that's the explanation that you need, because it was a very petty thing to do. But Israel keeps receipts. We've known this about Israel. This should not come as a surprise to anybody. And this is, people are going to hate me for saying this, because, yeah, I'm a father of three. So I have the credentials to say this. Sportsmanship is important in life. It's really important to show good sportsmanship. What his son did to Israel is, of course, bad sportsmanship. And he's just a kid and I get it.

He's just like, he's just playing around and he doesn't know any better. But several years down the line, Israel does this to him and he learns a lesson from it as a kid, where it's like, you got to be a good sport because what goes around comes around. And it's like, listen, it's a kid. I know it. Believe me, I get it. It's a kid. But do you not think that the kid learned a lesson from that? Like, it's not the end of the world for him. And I'm sure he's sad at the time that his dad got hurt and was knocked out. But it was probably really sad for Israel at the time that he got knocked out, right? Like, that probably hurt Israel's feelings. And if you hurt someone's feelings, and they have a chance to hurt your feelings back and teach you a lesson, that's one of those lessons you learn in life coming up. And listen, I don't want to see an adult pick on

children. I understand that that's not the right thing to do and that it's a petty move. But Israel acknowledged that it was a petty move. And I don't think that it's going to be that damaging for the kid to see that and be like, well, listen, now I've learned that when I do something like this to hurt someone's feelings, they can hurt my feelings back. It's a very, it's something that you teach kids in school and as kids. Like, I teach my children this.

Don't hurt your sister's feelings because you're going to be in trouble and you're going to have to go to your room and then your feelings are going to be hurt. That's how we teach children lessons. And it's not Israel's responsibility

to teach Alex Pereira's kid a lesson, it's Alex's responsibility. But, that's how I feel about it. It's, everybody's saying it's classless and he's not a good sportsman and all that. And, again, I agree that it was a's saying it's classless and he's not a good sportsman and all that.

And again, I agree that it was a petty thing to do. But Israel acknowledged that, and I think we just move on. I kind of feel like I don't like it. I didn't love it, and I still don't love it. But I'm at this stage where, like, for example, remember the big brouhaha like a week or two ago, whatever it was when I think it was, what's her name?

Caitlin Clark in the women's, she plays for Iowa basketball and she did the, you can't see me bit. And then, uh, I think her name was Angela Reese did it to her later. And there was this big controversy about this. I gotta tell you,

I didn't like either of them doing that. I don't, there's, I, I don't mind like a little bit of trash talk this. I got to tell you, I didn't like either of them doing that. I don't mind a little bit of trash talk, but I have to tell you, in sports, I don't really thrive off of it. I mean, there are times when it's really good and there's times when it counts. But it just seems like we're living in an age where sports athletes are almost expected to be really, really shitty to one another. And then there's a whole group of people who really get off on it. I'm not saying you do. I'm just saying that there does appear to be people who really like it.

So I don't really love it. But it just seems like the toothpaste is out of the tube on this one where everyone just decides in sports, you know, this is kind of part of it. And I think that what I don't love what Izzy did at all, to be quite clear, but like, I just don't know what to say anymore. It just seems like this is where we're at with professional sports today where we just,

I think people are drawing a line because he wasn't a competitor, so that's a little bit different, but then he inserted himself into the equation as a child. I don't love it is the short answer. But I also just have to say, in general, I don't love our overall. I don't love the place we're at in professional sports with trash talk and like stunting on an opponent after a loss.

I'm just not. It doesn't do much for me. I would like it a lot less if Israel didn't say he was being petty. The fact that he acknowledges that he was being petty. And that was like his first instinct was to't say he was being petty. The fact that he acknowledges that he was being petty, and that was like his first instinct was to acknowledge that he was being petty, I think I can accept that a little bit more because he's being honest about it. Listen,

he dunked on a kid. At the end of the day, that's not the classiest thing to do. Like MJ said, Aaron, fuck them kids, right? Exactly. I took that personally. He went into full MJ mode. I saw that kid fall to the? Exactly. I took that personally. He went into full MJ mode. I saw that kid fall to the ground and I took that personally.

I took that personally. But yeah, Israel is known to keep receipts. And I mean, he did the bow and arrow thing with Alex. I mean, that's just how Israel... Has Israel not shown in the past that he's a brash individual, that when he's got his emotions going, he does all kinds of wacky things?

That's who Israel is. And listen, if you don't like israel you're certainly not going to like him more for doing that and if you love israel and you love the way that he's done these kind of histrionics in the past you're going to love israel more that's just the way it is and that's why we live in a society that is completely divided right now the only time i ever got mad at someone the only time and folks may not remember this and he's obviously a very different person right now also i will say I'm a little bit more sympathetic to what guys do immediately after a fight

than I am like a week later, you know, when their brains have calmed down a little bit. But Michael Bisping had a really contentious rivalry with Jorge Rivera. And then after the fight, he went and spat on their corner. Now, again, I want to be clear. I like Michael a lot, and I think he has calmed down significantly. And I don't condone that.

But it's pretty clear that these guys, right after fights, their brains are hopped up on all kinds of chemicals, quite literally. And they're just not themselves sometimes. Now, he doubled down on it afterwards on social media, as he did. But I am at least a little bit forgiving in the aftermath. Yeah, and from what I remember with Bisping and Rivera, leveled down on an afterwards on social media as he did, but I am at least a little bit forgiving in the aftermath. Yeah. And from what I remember with Bisping and Rivera, Rivera's team was doing all kinds of wacky stuff to him that whole week in the

league. It doesn't necessarily forgive it. And like you said, in that moment, you're just running on pure adrenaline and your brain is like, do this. And it's like, yeah,

okay, I'll do that. Like you don't really have that filter in that moment. All right. From at dog dot stone this is a fun question after witnessing the quadrilogies between figueredo and moreno and now uh izzy and poetan has mma math possibly found its greatest equation namely nerd who can fight plus scary brazilian dude equals dynamite rivalry what do you think of the math? Well, it adds up.

I like it. But what happens if Kyle Boraglio, the fight nerd, ends up coming up and he's like a scary Brazilian guy who's also a nerd. He's that fight as one human being. So we're going to get really meta on that.

But yeah, listen, certain matchups in this sport are always going to be cool and are always going to deliver. And I think that, uh, both those rivalries certainly did that. I don't know if it's a coincidence that one guy is a super nerdy guy and the other one is like a scary Brazilian guy.

But, um, yeah, I don't know if there's other examples. I'd have to really think about that, but you know what he's really saying. And these guys are in the same weight class, right?

Like a figure eight on Moreno. And then, and then obviously the two middleweight guys, it's just David versus Goliath, at least in people's minds. It's one guy who's super fucking scary and one guy who's definitely not, at least relative to the opponent. And there's that fun little interplay between these images of might and then what are supposed to be sometimes the opposite.

Obviously, we really know these guys are all pretty dangerous. That David and Goliath kind of idea seems to be permeating here. I think this one's a little bit different than a lot of these other rivalries. Because to me, this was more of a David versus Goliath thing. Like this was, can a guy overcome all of these mental hurdles? At the time, I'm sure he feels like David. He's smaller than this guy. And in his mind, this is his Goliath.

This massive guy that's been able to beat him on three occasions. Like, I don't know if we've really seen any examples of someone, and we talked about this earlier, that's been able to really overcome those kind of odds and the kind of mountainous thought process that goes into having to beat somebody who has consistently beat you over time. I think that's what made this particular rivalry special. From NateTheGreatLux, who revived their career more, Gastelum or Font? Ooh, great question. I'm going to go Gastelum. I think people have really written Gastelum.

Oh, I disagree with that. I don't think people wrote Rob Font off. Like, if you watch the commentary of that Gastelum. I think people have really written Gastelum. Oh, I disagree with that. I don't think people wrote Rob Font off. Like, if you watch the commentary of that Gastelum fight, when Gastelum's landing good shots, they're like, oh my god, Calvin Gastelum knows how to punch and kick still and can still hurt people. Like, it seemed like they thought Chris Curtis was going to destroy him. The whole fight, they're talking about how great Gastelum, Gastelum looks great, Gastelum looks great, in what was a really close fight.

Like, a fight that I think you could argue Chris Curtis, if you would have given him rounds two and three, like, I don't think you could have had a massive problem with that, but, like, I just thought they were talking about Gastelum, like, they expected him to just get completely face planted and obliterated, not to mention that Gastelum has had all sorts of health issues, he had to pull out of all these fights. I think the expectations were very low for Kelvin going into this fight, and he really exceeded them. Whereas with Rob Font,

I think people knew that was going to be a close fight. I don't think people have written Rob Font off. I think, you know, from an optics standpoint, it looks like this young up-and-comer is being set up to beat the veteran. But I think that Gastelum, in my opinion, you know, got back a lot more that he had lost prior to this fight than Rob Font did got back a lot more than he had lost

prior to this fight than Rob Font. I don't think Rob Font had lost that much steam. I will agree. Here's the problem. To your point, Gastelum had way more... His stock had dropped so far. He had to change teams, health issues, all kinds of shit.

And so, given that the expectations were so low and he performed ably there was this like wow he looked really great the problem for me is and to your point about font font he wasn't written off he was just kind of there over there but he wasn't really in the mix of where people had certainly their bantamweight attention i think is a fair way to put that so in that sense i think you're right but the problem for me is I think that Gastelum won it two rounds to one but that headbutt in the second made it so dicey like yeah I spoke a little bit over the weekend to Chris Curtis and he's just beside himself about the headbutt because he did get knocked out he told me he got knocked out and then he came to like in the middle of just getting hit from the head

butt and then had to kind of rebound and still was only like a couple of strikes short numerically anyway in the second round that he won the third round i thought pretty cleanly although one judge gave him 30 27 whatever the point being is it was really close like it wasn't like a dominant performance whereas font came in there and just you know what i mean like he just blew the fucking doors off of him. And so Gaslam had further to go. And so I think in that sense, maybe he revived it more. But Font put the stamp on the evening. That's all.

Yeah, Chris Curtis possibly wins that fight if the referee calls timeout for that clashing of heads. Because then the judges know that that's why he ended up on the ground. The result of that fight continuing, and that really did, I think, cost Chris Curtis the fight because prior to getting dropped by the clashing of heads, he landed some real stinging shots against Gastelum in that second round.

So I think that really was the turning point there. And it's tough. I mean, these things happen so fast that, you know, sometimes in real time, a referee just doesn't see it. And it happens. I mean, the commentary can talk about it and say doesn't see it, and it happens. I mean, the commentary can talk about it and say that they saw it, and they're showing it on the replay.

They have that luxury. The officials don't have that luxury. The judges, the referee, none of them have that luxury. So I think that's a fair point by Chris Curtis. The other thing, too, last thing I'd say on this is for Chris Curtis, I love the way he fights. I love that he is such a sort of boxer in MMA, but he does a lot of body work. I really, I wonder if that hurts him in some level where if someone hits someone else with a body shot and there's a visible reaction,

that will work really great for you. But Kelvin just kind of no-sold all the body shots, and I don't want to sit here and say that judges don't count body shots, but depending on your angle and in the heat of the moment, if they don't have a visible reaction versus popping someone's head back, I wonder if that's hurting him a little bit. You've taken judging courses. Do you feel like, again, not a bias against body shots,

but a natural inability to properly inventory the effect they are having in real time. Yeah, for sure. And I think that the first round of Israel and Pereira is a good example, because I thought that Pereira won that round from just landing consistent calf kick after calf kick after calf kick. And the thing is, judges don't often gauge it based on strike position. They gauge it based on visible damage. And I think that that's a bit of an issue for sure. And something I would like to see cleaned up. But I do think that Chris Curtis was attacking the body of Kelvin by design specifically for that opponent. I think that Kelvin has kind of a bigger, lower body. And you know, he's not he's not in the best shape for a guy that's in the middleweight division. I think that when you when you have fighters that are built that way the body shots tend to impact

them more down the stretch and you could see that kelvin was sort of slowing down down the stretch so i don't necessarily know if that's something that he i'd have to go back and watch his previous fights and see his his um target i guess percentages for those fights to really determine that but i thought that that might have been by design for kelvin to kind of open up the headlight late in the fight when he had gassed out all right from at m porter 440 was it just me or were there more ads than ever in the octagon this weekend who's d do you have to ask aaron bronstetter to get an mk ad in the cage what do you make of all the advertising they're just plastering it everywhere these days? Look at that, man. Yeah, and they did the one where you could put your name in the octagon.

So I think it's $1,000 if you want to just get Morning Combat written in there. So there's your answer to the question. If you go to the UFC website, you can buy a position on the mat now. So it's $1,000 to advertise Morning Combat. If any of the rabid fans of the show want to do that, I think that would be a really cool gift for you guys if one of the fans ponied up $1,000. If somebody's really wealthy, you can put my name on there too.

I think that would be kind of a weak move, to be honest, to see a journalist's name in the cage. If it's not me paying for it, I guess there's nothing I can do about it. Throw up that picture one more time for the folks in the back there. I just want to point out something. You've got the can in the middle. That's fine. At each of the eight sides there's an ad on either side of the black line

right so there's that so it's inside the black line at all eight stops outside the black line at all eight stops and then at each sort of frame i should say each position like where is he is standing there's some kind of ad and then then in certain corners, they have ads as well. Plus on the corner itself and on the top padding at the very top end of the octagon, then outside of it for DraftKings as well. You know, listen, I'm not mad at the UFC for making money. And I went back and I watched some of the initial reebok uh announcements you know why they were doing this and whatnot and obviously a lot of stuff just doesn't really

apply anymore but they weren't like super big on making the it looks cleaner comment i think that's more something that kind of happened in the community more generally like hey it looks cleaner that uh these fighters are wearing kits as opposed to that but i just gotta say dude they just littered the octagon with ads. They got the condom thing for getting your hand wrapped. They're just monetizing every fucking space of this in a way that is, I guess we're used to it. But it does destroy the argument to the extent anyone has made it that this really cleans up the looks of the fighters. It's like it might, but they just dirtied everything else.

If there's inventory to sell, they're going to to sell it how many press releases have you got from the ufc it's like we're announcing that this is the official cucumber flavored vodka of the ufc like they just have always come up with every every different like sub genre of every different thing in order to get uh value out of their yeah like how many of those have you seen it's like yeah this is the official like coconut spiced rum of the ufc like they have every different type of liquor on the planet um that they can get sponsorship money from and hey i mean we saw the valuation 12.3 billion dollars or whatever it was compared to the wwe maybe the wwe should start putting ads in their ring i don't watch so maybe they already have that but maybe you should just should just use the WWE ring as a place to put inventory.

Yeah, I don't know what they do. The last thing I'd say on this, too, is also that I lived through and worked through the days when the UFC really struggled getting advertising money. We joke about it, and I remember corn nuts to the core. Dude, I remember when they were doing Get Mickey's, Mickey's Malt Liquor, Get Stung. That was the fucking thing in the middle of the octagon. Like, they've gone from Mickey's Malt Liquor to, you know, some bigger brands. They still, you know, one thing they haven't really overcome,

they don't have, like, a high-end telecom sponsor, and they don't have a high-end, like, not high-end, but they don't have a major. Is Boost Mobile not high-end? I don't know a high-end, like, not high-end, but they don't have a major. Is Boost Mobile not high-end? I don't know that your telecom. Yeah, when I say telecom, I mean like Verizon or AT&T. Yeah, okay. Or T-Mobile even.

But they also, this is another thing they've struggled with. They briefly had a deal with Dodge. And I know they obviously had some deals with Ultimate Fighter with Harley Davidson. But I know two of the things that I've alluded to are Telecom and a real good car manufacturer as their advertiser. Other than that, though, they've made significant headway. Well, they need to do sub-genres of cars, like the official hybrid crossover of the UFC, the official hatchback of the UFC.

Just get every different type of car sponsored. Or in BC's case, the official orange Subaru. Yeah, absolutely. In case you need to go off-roading like BC does every weekend. Last but not least, at underscore, I think it's Kate LW or K8 LW, what should be next for Fundora? Should he move up? As I mentioned here, 6'6", 154 pounds.

He has an 80-inch fucking understand that'd be an 80 and that's only four inches less than john jones and he basically fights at the mma equivalent of lightweight like just a completely absurd total uh uh body frame he should go up to 160 right right uh aaron but here's the other part too you can go up to 160 that right, Aaron? But here's the other part too. You can go up to 160, that's fine. But dude, he's got to learn to fight tall, right? He's got to be having a better jab. When guys can just punch in like that, like Brian Mendoza did,

like dude, the punching only gets heavier at 160 or 168. So I'm okay with him moving up, but it needs to be moving up in conjunction with, I think, some other adjustments, right? Dude, what's next for him is a damn meal. Eat some food. Remember Kendall Grove's nickname

was Goliath. He was like 6'6", but he was 185. That was Goliath in MMA. This guy's 55 with an 80-inch reach? Dude, go to Shake Shack or something. That's the next move. Kendall Grove. Hold on he is you're right he's 6 6 185 so let i want to see his reach if we can let me pull up his typology typology profile his reach 79 yeah so like sebastian

fundora has a taller or longer reach than fucking kendall grove yeah who is goliath kendall goliath grove that is that is absolutely fucking insane so yeah he should move up he should taller or longer reach than fucking Kendall Grove. Yeah, who is Goliath. Kendall Goliath Grove. That is absolutely fucking insane. So yeah, he should move up. He should go to 160, but... You go to 175, you're fighting some fucking punishing

punchers, but your point stands just the same. Aaron, that is it for us today. Anything you'd like to plug or let the folks know about you're doing or where they can find you and all the other good stuff? I make it easy on everybody. www.aaron.report has all of my links, so just go there. Instead of me having to plug all kinds of stuff, I bought a domain name to help make your lives easier. Hey, I know Twitter changed a bunch of stuff since Musk took over. Did they take away something from you? I thought they did, right? No.

Everything's good here on mine. You have all the same tools? Yeah, I've got everything going. You know, that's good. You can put those long-form videos out. Actually, I got the Twitter blue subscription so I can edit stuff because I consistently make mistakes.

Yeah, I know. To me, it was worth me paying whatever it is, $10 a month, so that I don't have the immediate remorse of having to delete and then copy and paste and do all that. The edit function for me alone is worth the money. So if you want to put that meme on my account, this MF-er paid for Twitter blue, I mean, by all means, knock yourself out. But for me, it actually has real value as opposed to buying myself a blue checkmark. Listen, my rule on this is, you know i think musk's takeover of twitter has been

oh it's been a colossal disaster yeah it's not it's not been great it's not been great but i think there is value to twitter blue not so much the verification part i don't really care about that but i can post videos up to 10 minutes long whereas otherwise it'd be 220 like i want the nimbleness to be able to do that. The edit function on top of it, I still produce errors, but it does save even more. So it's worth it. It's value to me.

I like it. So I kept it. Like there was a guy who was verified who called me a beta male over the weekend that clearly bought Twitter blue. And to me that just, I won't even respond to that because like, dude,

like if there's one thing that shows the insecurity there, like, first off, just using that term in general. But then to have the blue checkmark with, like, 30 followers is, like, dude, like, I mean, if there's anybody that's less secure on the planet than this individual, like, I'm yet to find them. Dude, they all do the same thing. Not all of them, but a lot of the Twitter blue guys, the new ones, you can always tell because, again, they'll have like, it'll be like, what's their bio? It's like, Pat's fan for life. Like, all right, here we go.

And then you look at their feed, and then like half of it is like pro crypto shit. Yeah, crypto hippos. Buy one today. So, you know, for that, I was like, I don't know about all that shit, but I need longer videos, so fuck it, I'm going to pay for it. But to everybody who's stuck with Twitter and continues to follow me and has a positive influence on the space, please stick around. Please. We need you. Yeah.

Last thing. What's the next show you're going to? The next show I'm going to might surprise you. It's a Ryzen show in Japan that I'm going to in a couple weeks. So I'm going to be in Tokyo on vacation. And I happen to just, I was like, I wonder if Ryzen's doing a show while I'm going. And they happen to be doing a show, so that's the next show I'm going to is, I forget what the

full name of the show is, but it's the Ryzen show on, I think it's April the 29th. So that's where I'm going to be. That's the next MMA show that I'm going to. As a, like, basically just to go down and cover it and see what it's like to cover a Japanese MMA event, because the

period where I was getting into MMA most was when Dream was really killing it, and were doing awesome events. And I would PVR all the Dream events and watch those and stay up late and watch. This was before I had kids and had the ability to stay up at 3am

and watch Dream events. That has a real spot in my heart because when i first started watching pride was kind of winding down so like the the pageantry of japanese mma is something i've always wanted to just enjoy in person i'm really looking forward to that man i'm jealous like of all the years i've been around i've never even well i've been to japan as a as a baby but not really as a kid, but not really as an adult. Certainly not since I became involved in MMA. So take a lot of pictures.

Send me some. I'm very jealous, man. And the next one after that, I'm going to Unified in Calgary. So I'm looking forward to that show. I'll be doing commentary for them. So shout out to Unified. They call him Mr. Canada around these parts. We call him Aaron Bronstetter.

Give him a follow if you are so inclined strongly recommend it thank you so much my friend for taking part here you can see his social there below give us a follow give him a follow and follow morning combat everywhere you get your social media fun aaron thank you so much great work as always both over the weekend and on today's show we'll see you guys next time. I want to thank Showtime. I want to thank CBS Sports, Mikey, the whole crew. We got Luke Nosedo there. We got Gaff.

We got the whole gang. Thanks to everyone as well beyond who watched. We're back on Wednesday. And until next time, may all of your gains be loyal. Gervonta Tank Davis. King Ryan Garcia The power of Davis The flash, the handspeak

Two undefeated stars Two journeys One mega fight to make history It doesn't get any better than this Gervonta Davis vs. Ryan Garcia. Saturday, April 22nd. Live on Pay-Per-View. Lightning Lee Murray wanted to be world champion in the UFC.

He just happens to be involved in the largest cash fraud group in the world. This is the sort of thing you see in Hollywood films. Heists. Armed gang. Huge amounts of money. The Policeman. Shorty. Hoodie. Mr. Average, High Viz, Driver, and Stopwatch. A fiendishly clever plan, which up to the moment

they drove away, had worked flawlessly. Catching Lightning. Only on Showtime. Streaming with Paramount+. you you you you you