MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 288 Results: Aljamain Sterling vs. Henry Cejudo | UFC 288 Reactions | UFC Post-Fight Show

Episode Date: May 7, 2023

At UFC 288, Aljamain Sterling battles Henry Cejudo for the UFC bantamweight championship in Newark, New Jersey at the Prudential Center. In the co-main event, Gilbert Burns fights Belal Muhammad for a number-one contender's spot in the welterweight division. Also on the fight card is Jessica Andrade vs. Yan Xiaonan, Movsar Evloev vs. Diego Lopes, Kron Gracie vs. Charles Jourdain and much more. Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi everybody, how are you doing? Let me turn this off. There we go. Hi, my name is Luke Thomas. Welcome. UFC 288 is in the books. It is done. It is over. We have results and I'm here to talk about them. This is the official UFC 288 post-fight show, as I mentioned, or maybe I didn't. Either way, my name is Luke Thomas. I am the one half of the hosting duo for Morning Combat. Brian Campbell usually joins me. We are a tandem, a duo. But just for tonight, it'll be me getting to the results of UFC 288. So if you're joining me now, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thumbs up. Yeah. Hit subscribe. Do all the fun stuff that you normally do. Yeah.

Let's get to it. I mean, I give usually, you know, warnings about spoilers and shit, but do we really got to do that? I don't think we really got to do that. You know what's about to happen. Results, reactions, analysis, everything, everything. Let's get to it without further ado, shall we? and we're back let's do this part hey there we go i helped my family members move today so i if i look like shit i mean i normally look like shit but if i look extra special like shit, it's because I was like, I literally moved boxes and furniture all day. And then I came basically right here. So what you're going to

do? That's life. All right. So UFC 288 is over. Let's get to the results. I'll turn this little window off here. Okay. I just knew this was going to happen. I did think Sterling was going to win, so I got that part right. I'll get to the results here in just a second. You just knew the result was going to be the kind that got the most people pissed off. I don't know. I had a weird feeling. These two together were going to make a good fight. And I do think in the end, it actually was not a great fight by any stretch,

but a good one. Definitely a high-level one. Definitely tactical. Competitive. Very competitive. But in the end, here's the result. Aljamain Sterling retains his UFC Bantamweight Championship,

defeating Henry Cejudo via split decision. One judge had it 48-47 for Cejudo. Two other judges had it 48-47 for Aljamain Sterling. Cards on the table, I had it 48-47, basically three rounds to that, you know, you could give, uh, two, I think I gave him, I think two maybe and five. I think that's about it. Uh, he was thinking that he won two, four and five, four. No, four. He didn't win at all. Four was not close. I think three might've been close. I'll three might have been close. I'll look at some of the numbers here in just a second. But my initial point to start this post-fight show was,

I just had a feeling these two were going to combine for like, whoever won in the end, people were going to be pissed about it, or there was going to be like a weird controversy. Sterling is often in fights that, you know, this one didn't end weird in the sense of the fight itself, but that the scoring controversy followed him afterwards, I think his bantamweight run has not been filled with, short of the second Jan fight, these like high watermarks of consensus about how well he's done. Okay, so a couple of high-level takeaways.

Father Time is mostly undefeated, pretty undefeated. I put out a stat before the fight. We've been over this a million times. From 125 to 170, if we're looking at the age of UFC fighters in title fights, 35 and older, what was their record? Their record was 228, and 185 and up, it's like 50-50. It's pretty close. So obviously, it's incredibly unforgiving. Bantamweight has never had someone 36 years of age in a UFC title fight win. And that continued to this day. Now, he got pretty close. He got pretty close. But in the end, he didn't win. It's just tough to be off for three years, even if you're training in the gym and coaching and around high-level stuff and all that kind of thing.

You've got to remember, man, like, Henry didn't look bad tonight. I actually thought he looked pretty good. But he just looked... A guy like Aljamain Sterling, especially on the feet, can win large stretches of a round and then the fight itself, really never getting out of third gear. He doesn't really need to get into something beyond that. That's actually a pretty suitable gear for him. Touching and going, finishing a combo, throwing one more extra strike at the end of it, that kind of a thing. And never really trying to land super hard and get positionally overcommitted.

Although there were certain times he was getting to that. He was getting a little bit undisciplined. But in general, his striking can kind of stay there, and it does pretty well for him, and especially pretty good early on, maintaining distance, maintaining range, really giving Suhudo some problems in that regard. He did have some success in the wrestling. Again, I'll pull up some of the numbers here in just a minute. Able to get to the back.

Never really threatening with the chokes. Henry Cejudo did a really good job of stuffing takedowns in open space. Against the fence, it was a little bit more difficult. And then you saw a lot of kind of vintage Cejudo in the sense that, like, even if you look at his early fights against, like, Dustin Kimura, he was able to get takedowns relatively easily. in the sense that even if you look at his early fights against Dustin Kimura, he was able to get takedowns relatively easily, but then he kind of had to hold three-quarter stacks or cowcatcher positions to hold guys,

which really didn't put him in a great position for ground and pound. In fact, Sterling's, once he gets the takedown, his wrapping, shelving, holding of the legs gives him much more ability to wrist capture, ground and pound. Standing up in open space, I thought Cejudo did better in the clinch. Up against the fence in wrestling clinches, I thought Sterling was much better there. Both guys had a pretty dynamic kicking game, but Sterling's was a little bit more, at times, up the middle, a little bit linear. Which enabled him to have, again, going back to a better command of range, better command of distance. That's sort of the overview of how this went. Neither guy did really a lot with grounded pound. Neither guy did a lot with, again, there were, at times, on the clinch breaks,

once Cejudo fought off the takedown and they were back to their feet and they were separating, you would see Aljo kind of spin for stuff. There was a little bit of that. Some of that got through. But again, nothing too super significant. It's a lot of touch and go with Aljamain Sterling. Amazingly, couldn't get the Newark crowd to back him, which I was, I want to say somewhat surprised by, because New Jersey, people think New Jersey and New York are not distinct. They are quite distinct.

And although in certain ways, New Jersey doesn't mind being like the little brother, in some ways they love to assert how much better they are, which they're not. But Long Island, I guess, is a little bit further away for the Jersey crowd than they're willing to accommodate. But it also kind of showed that Cejudo was really riding a pretty big wave of momentum, not from active competition, but from, I think, popular growth of his name. I think in the last three years, he's kind of buttressed his resume and burnished his image by some of this coaching success that he's had. And the YouTube stuff as well, I think, has really opened up a lot of people's eyes about his insight and his vision and everything else. And I think people had warmed to the cringe thing finally over time. They had really gotten behind it. And even in New Jersey, despite its relative proximity to Long Island, the crowd was not pro Sterling at all.

I want to circle back. I want to get to these numbers here in just a minute, but I want to say something before we move into that space. Namely, man, I was really hoping for Sterling's sake that if he won, like obviously what you want is for the right guy to win, the better guy to win. I'm sure some people think that's the hood. Again, it's not a crazy thought at all. It was very close, but it's also not crazy in any way to think that Sterling won. It's a very reasonable position. It's not hard to find three rounds for him. I think you can find three rounds for Henry, but I think it's easier to find three rounds for him. I think you can find three rounds for Henry, but I think it's easier to find three rounds for Sterling. And I had kind of hoped for his sake

that a win over Cejudo, even if it was coming off of a three-year layoff and everything else, that it would finally be this moment for Sterling to kind of turn the corner in getting the fans to recognize this is like really his peak moment. 33 years of age. Yeah, the Dillashaw fight was weird and the first Jan fight didn't go

that great, but the second Jan fight was a triumphant moment and this, this would be his chance. This would be his moment to kind of get to the next place. And I just don't feel like we got, or he is going to get that out of tonight now from me personally i have a great deal of respect for sterling again on friday's mk for okay bet segment i picked him to win which you know i get him wrong i get him right but my read on this one was i just felt like because his game is um excuse me because he is not a popular attraction or a popular entity that people are less willing to examine the merits and depths of his game. You even heard Henry post-fight being like, yeah, you know, like you watch him on TV, you think he's X, Y, but then he gets in there and he kind of, it's a little more difficult

than you thought. Yeah. I mean like the overall track record on what he's able to do at this point, what he's become, he's a really, really difficult guy to deal with. He can command range. He has good cardio for five rounds. Obviously, in the grappling department, especially with the aid of the fence, his ability to, we all know, his backpacking skills are absolutely tremendous. But again, on the feet, the stance switching, the lateral movement, he can go forward, he can back up, he can go linear, he can go around the corner,

he can go in combination, he can go first, he can go forward. He can back up. He can go linear. He can go around the corner. He can go in combination. He can go first. He can go second. And a lot of it is not super heavy handed, but it counts. It pops people's heads back. The calf kicking was good. The leg kicking was good. It was active. It was relatively consistent. He's Chinese water torture, man. It's just a steady... Each one doesn't necessarily change the momentum of the round or, you know, stand out as like super memorable, but it has this like really accumulative effect where after time you begin to notice just how impactful it's been over time. You begin to realize like he's landing, the judges are going to see that. Then you look at some of the volume stats, which the judges don't see, but for the purpose of going to see that then you look at some of the volume stats which the judges don't see but for the purpose of the broadcast we get a look at and

those stats are always preliminary until they've got a chance over at Fightmetrics to go through them with a fine-tooth comb but you know for most of the rounds he had a pretty substantial lead from a volume standpoint he's a tough guy to deal with. And I kind of thought, man, if he can go in there and really shine, even in a difficult fight against Henry Cejudo, surely that would be the thing to wake people up. But it was a difficult fight. I don't think he got, I don't think this is going to be the kind of performance that gets folks to be like, wow, Adjeman Sterling really proved to me that, you know that he's far and away. For people who would identify as Aljamain Sterling haters or skeptics, did they leave tonight more or less convinced about his prowess? I have a feeling that they left just as convinced, if not more,

about whatever perceived weaknesses that they see in him. I would imagine that they would carry that forward given how close it was, given that you didn't see some of the new from Sterling except a little bit more reliance on his stand-up, but he couldn't really go to the takedowns in any kind of consistent way, especially not in open space,

but even in general, again, we talked about how there wasn't much ground to pound. There was that one sequence maybe in the third where he had Cejudo doing the splits or tried to take the back off a single hook and couldn't quite get it. There was that one sequence maybe in the third where he had Cejudo doing the splits or coming, tried to take the back off a single hook and couldn't quite get it. Again, Henry was just really, really, really good with that kind of thing. I feel like Sterling is going to head into the Sean O'Malley fight.

And honestly, even if he wins that, what are people going to say? They're going to say, what? O'Malley can't wrestle. Of course Sterling won with the backpack thing. Like, they're going to say that, you know. He just seems to be unable to, I think, a certain portion of the audience, certainly the one in attendance tonight and perhaps more generally outside of that. He just hasn't really put together a title campaign.

I think that has captured the fan base's imagination. Now, that being said, let's look at some of these numbers. Because, you know, in the end, it's like, how much does he really care about that? Also, I thought the thing with Sean O'Malley was a little bit weird, right? Like, they brought in Sean O'Malley to set up a future fight, and they only do that if the champion really calls them in. And even then, sometimes they don't do it, because the security can get weird. Marab taking his jacket, which was bizarre.

Oh, nice jacket, which was bizarre. Nice jacket too. But they bring him in and they have this kind of shouting match, but everyone's still kind of bitter about how, or at least in attendance, everyone's bitter about how the fight went. So they ended up having a bit of a shouting match. I guess it's fine for future hype packages if that's the direction they're going to go. But it didn't do a lot for me in the moment. Your mileage certainly may vary. It didn't feel all that compelling, but okay, let's get to some of these numbers here, can we? Shall we? All right, let's do that. So for this fight, let's see. Yeah, Sterling just much more active.

Sterling attempted a total of 261... Excuse me. Aljamain Sterling attempted a total of 261 strikes. 210 significant strikes. He landed 135 of them. Cejudo attempted a total of 219 strikes. Just 174 significant and landed only 99 of them. He was 3 for 8 on takedowns for a successful rate of 37%. He had a total of 5 minutes and 6 seconds of control time,

but a lot of that is going to be spent along the fence, not just on top on the ground. And then conversely, Sterling getting 4 of 15 takedowns with a total of four minutes of control time. But again, how much of that has been against the fence versus just on top? There was some of that, obviously, by virtue of the... So not in terms of the successful percentage, which would put him at 26%, but he got four takedowns on Henry. Henry got three on him. Again, not really in the end.

For a bout with seven takedowns, the takedowns, I wonder, they might have mattered in scoring in close rounds, maybe. Again, not saying that they should, but we have to at least posit that they might have played that role. But in terms of the pragmatic realities of what scored and what didn't, what was very effective and what wasn't, for about with seven takedowns over five rounds, I didn't feel like they were super, super impactful. Sterling getting two of them in round one, Cejudo one of them.

Both of them getting one in round three. Round four, Sterling got one, and then in round five, Cejudo got one. Couldn't hold it for a minute, neither could Sterling in round four. Let's look at targeting, because I think that's going to be much more interesting. Yeah, boy, their numbers are nearly, not close to identical, but very similar. This is interesting. This is shots landed by target. They both targeted the head, 37% for Aljamain Sterling, 35% for Cejudo to the body 37 percent for Sterling 30 percent for Cejudo and then the leg 25 percent for Sterling 34 percent uh yeah 34 percent for um Cejudo and of course most of the distance a little bit in the clinch and then here landed by position for Sterling, 5% on the ground. Cejudo, 1%. 1%.

Numbers by round. Again, these are quantitative, not qualitative. Sterling to Cejudo, 20 to 7 in round one. 29 to 31, so Cejudo probably may have edged out that round. Round three, yeah, these are numeric totals. Round three, 26 to 15 in favor of Sterling. Round four three 26 to 15 in favor of sterling round four 36 to 19 in favor of sterling round five 27 to 24 in favor of suhudo suhudo at least numerically outstruck him more in round two and round five um some of the interesting parts of the stand-up were for, I mentioned in general,

like there's a gear that Sterling can get to where he's popping and going, right? He's landing, maybe he's pot-shotting like a one, a one-two, a one-two-three, and then he's off again. When he sticks to that rhythm, he's actually quite effective. There were times you would see he would kind of bait low, do the whole John Jones, reach for the ankle, excuse me, reach for the ankle pick, and then come around the back. You saw a couple of that. You saw a couple times he would throw a right hand, and he couldn't roll back the other way.

So he does what's called a slip in, where if you, usually if I throw this hand, I want to wait and then roll underneath to the opposite side. But sometimes you have to keep going based on momentum. Again, it's called a slip in, not a slip, but a slip in, and so he throws it and then keeps going that direction. There were times Cejudo almost greeted him there, got pretty close. You could see him trying to sort of reset and get back to where he wanted to go. It was a classic kind of in certain ways, again, in terms of the stand-up department, it was kind of a classic kind of in certain ways. Again, in terms of the stand-up department,

it was kind of a classic kind of Sterling Victor. We were talking about Cejudo. I thought his leg kicking was pretty good. Some of his checking was pretty good. Just wasn't quite active enough. I mean, again, I also think the distancing, that seven, what was it, seven or eight-inch reach disadvantage, also a height disadvantage where he has to kind of, he doesn't punch level, he has to punch up.

I think that can hurt you, or at least it can make landing a little bit more difficult over time. I think some of that played a role as well. I think he was a little bit surprised by Sterling's grappling prowess along the fence, even if he was a worthwhile competitor in terms of nullifying most of that. I think that was definitely in play. He was definitely the harder hitter. His body kick, I thought, was pretty excellent.

It just felt like, to me, again, Sterling is just kind of like a little bit of a light rain, man. It just has this effect where it's just, it almost mesmerizes is a strong word, but you can get caught up where several minutes can pass, and he's landed really well on you. There's good diversity to it, both in terms of stance and timing and setup, and the feinting's pretty good as well. Again, combining the takedowns with the striking, what that does for him and how it opens it up. But in the end, I think a lot of it really just came down to the fact that Sterling, able to throw more in volume, able to throw more in a linear fashion, and able to throw through the course of five rounds.

That set up a lot of different things. You add in the additional takedown threat, and it put him in that position. There was some interesting analysis, I thought, from Dean Thomas on this bout where he discussed the high kind of stance that Suhudo had early. He got away from that a little bit later, because he kind of thought it put him in a disadvantageous position to return fire. And he let go of that a little bit over time, I think to make himself a little bit more mobile.

That wider stance kind of reduced his mobility a little bit. I think he needed it to keep up with, to corner Sterling. And so by using that to corner Sterling, he had to kind of get away from, I think, what makes him a little bit more of a nimble striker than the sort of stand-up, more boxer-wrestler stance a little bit. Even though it makes him more mobile, I think he kind of likes that lowered, wide stance, center of gravity, karate kind of bladed stance. I think he gets a likes that lowered, wide stance, center of gravity, karate kind of bladed stance. I think he gets a little bit more out of it. So he kind of had to go to a different

place to keep up with the movement and the range and the distance and the timing. And he was still pretty damn effective with it in general. But I don't know if he was fighting for the most part in his comfort zone. I mean, I guess that's really the thing that Sterling does, right? He doesn't, I mean, yes, for guys like Sandhagen, he just ran over him. And there's guys where he's able to get really forms of dominant control. But against some of these very top guys, like these close rounds with Jan, these close rounds with Cejudo,

he brings them out of their comfort zone a lot. In the case of Jan, I thought he had more direct attacks on his weaknesses. In this fight, I felt that Cejudo got caught up playing a little bit more of Sterling's game. As long as Sterling is able to move that freely, even if you're pressuring him, he can pull you into traps. He can switch stance into traps. There's just a lot he can do with that motion to weaponize it. It's not just defensive motion. A lot of it is very defensive. It's not solely defensive. And of course, if he's the one that has to walk down Henry, he's kind of giving up some of his reach. But if Henry's the one pressuring him, which he did much more later, yeah, there were times he was able to leap into range and get some good stuff.

So Henry did land on that account a couple of times. But in general, he's bringing himself into range for Aljo. And Aljo was just able to sort of pump the jab over time. And again, teeps up the middle. You get it along with all the other stuff, the rounded attacks. And it was just a tough way to go through the fight. Did Henry look old to you? I don't think he looked old to me. I thought he looked, like I said, kind of stuck in,

and for the striking standpoint, stuck in that third gear. But overall, if you just look at his preparation, what he was trying to do, what adjustments he made, what he was ready for in terms of Sterling's particular strengths. I think it's wrong to conclude that Henry looked bad. I don't think he looked bad at all, really. But guys, here's just the reality of Bantamweight at 36 years of age. Again, especially with three years off.

Here's the fucking reality. We're not talking about falling off a cliff. I never imagined he would come back and look terrible. I mean, maybe I thought he would look noticeably different, but I never thought he was going to come back and look awful. And he didn't. I didn't think he looked... I thought he looked pretty good.

Again, you can make an argument he won the fight. But we're talking about relative to his peak, if you want to call it that, against Cruz three years ago when he was 33. All that has to happen is that's a different opponent, different challenge, the whole nine yards. But on top of that, we're talking about a minor change in physical readiness. Not quite as fast, not quite as strong, not quite as explosive. Don't have quite as much work capacity through five rounds, even if you're not necessarily as tired, the two can be a little bit different.

All you're talking about is a slight change. Dude, a slight change at 135 at the very, very top, the results of fights are going to start changing. I mean, just think of it this way. What is your margin of error at the very, very highest level of bantamweight? Man, it is close to fucking zero. First one to make a major mistake. No one really made a huge mistake here tonight. That was the other part too. You had two fighters who they did some things better than others, but they didn't make any like boneheaded errors. Sterling kind of shooting from far out didn't end up costing him. It could have, but in terms of how the fight played out, they weren't making costly errors. So we're talking about the margin of error is fucking thin. Add in any slight athletic change, again, work capacity, the whole nine yards, it's going to have an impact.

It's going to have an impact. So I didn't think he looked physically over the hill. It's going to have an impact. It's going to have an impact. So I didn't think he looked physically over the hill. It's not my argument. But he didn't have the same zip and pop that I felt like he had three years ago. And again, you might be saying, oh, three years off the whole nine yards. Sure, sure.

But at 36, you can't take three years off and then expect to beat the guy at 33 who's uniquely good in weird ways and has been competitive basically this whole time absent some injury recovery time. It's just too, at 135, it's just way, way, way too unforgiving. Super unforgiving division. So I know that this is not going to be the fight

that I'm going to try to convince the world that Aljo deserves his flowers. And I'm telling you that there are structural reasons to have had some reason to believe that Suhudo might struggle in parts. I understand all that. But he's fucking good, folks. Aljamain Sterling is very, very good. He's very good. He's not going to wow you with his KO power. Obviously, his grappling prowess is rather significant.

You didn't see much evidence of it tonight, but I don't really need to prove that point. But his overall skill set and what he does in fights, again, combining wrestling threats with back taking threats combining the both of them to set up striking very good lateral movement he can go first he can go second he can pull into traps he can he can lead um good work capacity accurate good variation dynamic kicker when he needs to be, good use of range. I mean, dude, that's a very difficult thing to fucking beat.

Like with Dominic Cruz, there was a lot of resetting he was able to take advantage of. He was able to much better time the motion, both in terms of the final knee that landed, as well as some of the leg kicking he was able to do. It was just a much more available, predictable target. Sterling makes himself an unpredictable, difficult to find target over time. When you can narrow the options where he's up against the fence or you can narrow the movement, sure, that equation gets a little bit different. But over the course of five rounds, three rounds, whatever it ends up being,

that overall body of work, no one individual piece except for some of the back control might wow you. But the other pieces working in conjunction, he's difficult to beat. He's really difficult to beat. It's not like he's got a huge lead on the division. It's not like he's so much better than these other guys. Again, the fight with Jan was really close. The one with Dillashaw was just a disaster, but that's not his fault.

And this one was really, really close. It's not like he's got a major distance between himself and the rest of the Bantamweights, but however much you like him, however much you don't like him, I don't think that his ability to stay on top these last few years, relatively speaking, is in any way accidental. Like, yes, there are other guys nipping at his heels,

but that overall, again, the last thing I'll say on that, that overall body of work, it is a lot to deal with. It's really, really a very, very dynamic problem. He is a tall fighter for that weight class who fights tall. And when he grapples, he grapples in terms of positional, with purpose, verve, and with asymmetry, to put himself in strongest possible asymmetrical terms with his opponent. It's a lot to deal with, man. It's a lot.

So even guys like Yotarian and Henry Cejudo, they can get five rounds and they cannot convince judges to get them that. Also, it's worth sort of saying, I wish we could talk to these judges. They clearly,

just look at the second Jan fight, look at this one. They clearly love something about his fight style. I honestly believe it's the amount of activity, even some of the stuff that doesn't necessarily land.

That's going to sound like ludicrous to certain people, but you just go back and you watch the Martin Kampmann-Diego Sanchez fight. We're talking Sanchez get the crowd roaring and then you go back and look at the replays and he's missing on five punches. Then Kampmann would land a super hard one and they'd be real quiet

about it and he lost it. That was one of those fights that was a real wake up call that even shots that missed depending on how it can be perceived by the crowd or the judges can sometimes actually weigh as if it almost did land. Partly because

they can be confused at times. Anyway I'm just sort of pointing out the volume of Sterling by the way I do think is effective but even when it's, I wonder if it's counting for him. I wonder if he's got a inherently judge-pleasing style and to what extent that makes a difference. By the way, I saw people complaining about like, oh, the UFC, you know, they've been having some dud main events. Well, this was a fight that kind of needed to happen like no one was bitching about it that much when they made it people were bitching about the card and fair enough the card overall had some good parts had some duds but this fine was this fight was fine and it's the new jersey state

athletic control board which is their commission who judges this so if you're mad at the judging you should be mad at them and by the way i think I think the UFC would have been all too happy to welcome back Henry Cejudo as a champion. So it's like, oh, the UFC, because how did the conspiracy theories go, right? I'm trying to put myself in the mind of a mouth breather. It's very hard for me to do, but let's try. They would say something like, the typical complaint that I see is that, oh, the UFC is setting up their people to do well. You know, they're going to set up their guy that they want to win. Guys, I have a feeling they would much rather have seen Henry Cejudo win. But he didn't.

Not tonight. All right. Let's look at some of the other results from this fight card if we can. They called me an event. Again, I'm not really sure what to say about that. Bilal Muhammad defeats Gilbert Burns 50-45, 49-46, 49-46. So in the first round, Bilal Muhammad stuffs a takedown from Gilbert Burns, where I think Burns' body and head were on the same side, right? Because you want him to be on the opposite side.

And he ended up like crashing on his left shoulder. Now it didn't look like that Aaron Pico shit where it's like all hanging down, but it didn't look great because he couldn't really use it. He didn't really throw it hardly at all after that. Certainly not the last three rounds at all. I'd have to go back and look to see if there were some other ones, but in general, he didn't throw it. And that's really important because one way you can get a guy who's moving in the way in which Bilal Muhammad was with the constant stance switching and trying to angle change is jabbing him. It's jabbing him.

And that was his jab hand. He couldn't jab for shit. He had to throw and fake takedowns and then throw overhand rights. He could barely land anything. He was able to land some decent kicks. Really, here's the reality. The two guys who won in the main and the co-main, they are not the fan favorites in attendance. Gilbert Burns, I think, was a little bit more widely liked than Bilal Muhammad was tonight,

and certainly Cejudo was more well-liked than Sterling. And I get that a performance of the kind that Bilal Muhammad turned in, which was a good performance, but against an injured foe, like a visibly injured foe. I think it was after the third round, Gilbert Burns told his corner he couldn't throw his arm at all. He couldn't throw his left at all anymore. I mean, you can't throw your jab hand in a fight where the jab would have been incredibly effective. By the way, Sterling was actually pretty good with the jab.

He was jabbing to the body, using that as fake level changes, and then using that to then jab to the head. It was actually pretty effective. Burns couldn't do any of that. So again, I don't look at this performance as the kind that Bilal Muhammad is going to be able to take to his critics and be like, aha, you see? But I also think if we're just going to be fair to Bilal Muhammad, it's so clear he's gotten much, much better, particularly in the stand-up.

Like, it's very apparent at this point. I mean, let's talk about his win streak here for just a second, if we can. Okay, so he lost to Jeff Neal. He's got three losses in the UFC one to Alan Joban, that was his UFC debut a decision he got KO'd in the first round at UFC 205 by Vicente Luque then he went on a four fight win streak he lost to Jeff Neal via decision in January of 2019, he hasn't lost since since then he beat Curtis Millender

Curtis Millender, Takashi Sato Lyman Good, Diego Lima he had the no contest weird thing against Leon Edwards. Then he beats Demian Maia. Then he beats Wonderboy. Then he rebounds and beats Vicente Luque. Then he stops Sean Brady inside of two. And then he did what he did to Gilbert Burns tonight. I mean, I don't know how you can look at his movement, how he shut down the takedown. He's physical for a welterweight. In this particular case, on the defensive end, not even on the offensive end, I don't know if he even got a single takedown. I have to look at the numbers. Did he even attempt a single takedown on Gilbert Burns? I don't think he did. Nope,

he sure didn't. I mean, okay, Gilbert Burns has got nasty jiu-jitsu, but I'm just pointing out that was his bread and butter. That was the only way he could win previously. And look at him now. And again, oh, but Gilbert was injured. Yes, Gilbert was injured. But between the last two fights, really the win streak he's been on since January of 2019, it is so evident to me and so very much not up for debate that his movement is better. He's got better setups.

He can set traps. His cardio looks pretty good. He took this fight after Ramadan on three weeks notice. Didn't look to me like his cardio was really impacted in any kind of super noticeable way. Gilbert Burns is a fucking demon who called him out for this fight. I don't think he... Remember, he wanted to make it at 185 and he still accepted it at 170. Still made weight and still looked the way that he did.

I know there were some videos that were circulating pre-fight being like oh it's Bilal injured and he didn't look great I will admit I saw them like he was it was him like getting on and off the scale or walking up steps and he'd be like I don't know my man looks a little bit banged up didn't matter in the end man he had everything he needed and then some to get this win tonight. Now, the reality about this is, it's hard to know exactly what kind of inference you can draw from beating a guy this injured, number one. And number two, we all kind of wonder, well, if you have a really strong showing tonight, is there a chance you could leapfrog Colby Covington? And I just don't think that's in the cards, man. I just, I don't think that's in the cards, man. I just, I don't think that in any way.

If he'd gone out there and like even with an injured Gilbert Burns still beat the living fuck out of him and stopped him, maybe you could say something. There would still be debate because folks would, again, point out how injured he is. But you would still, you know, there'd be something to it. There's not even, given the UFC or Dana White or whoever's affinity for Colby it would take something miraculous or at a bare minimum very impressive to overturn the apple cart and I don't think you got that tonight but I do think that there's now enough evidence to conclude that Bilal Muhammad and the success that he's had in no way,

again, I'm going to say it one more time, in no way accidental, in no way easy to attribute to a run of weak opponents, a run of totally good fortune. I mean, yes, his opponent in this particular case getting injured was good fortune, but the other wins he got were all, by and large, hard scrabble, very difficult opponents. I wonder what this does to Gilbert Burns. So Burns is 36, I believe. You know, I thought Daniel Cormier made a really good point on the broadcast. And on the broadcast he said,

this is why the champions are deserving of respect. And his argument was, yes, of course they're the champion, but think about this for a second. You not only have to be an incredibly high achiever, but you also have to just get really lucky. Like shit has to go your way in all of the right ways to get yourself to that end of the line spot where you can hoist a belt either over your head or around your waist. And at 36, you're just not going to be as injury resilient as you normally would be.

Now, who knows? Maybe this is something that would have been messed up no matter what. We don't have any real medical diagnoses upon which to make any broader conclusions, so I don't really know. I don't really know. But what I do know is maybe this isn't the end of the line for him as a genuine title contender, but this complicates his plan. What I think he really wanted to do, because, you know, we saw him in South Florida before the Hamzat fight. Brian and I, my co-host, Brian Campbell, we went down to Florida about a month ago for UFC 287, and we spoke to him there before the Jorge Masvidal fight. And, you know, he didn't say this exactly, but we were talking to him afterwards, and just we both got the sense of sense of like what he wants is to win that one against Jorge. This is again a month ago.

Win. Okay, we thought he wanted to win that one and maybe jump the line with that. It was a good performance but not enough to get it. So he took this one I think being like, okay, I can stay with my weight down. I can stay lean. I can stay ready. Just got to extend this by a few weeks and I'm going to be right back there against a guy who I should be faster than and a better striker than.

I guarantee you that's what their calculations were or something approximating that anyway. And in the end, who knows how much extra wear and tear he got because he didn't get a chance to fully recover. Who knows if it was just bad luck, blah, blah, blah. But now it puts him in a really weird space where it's like, is he going to get, what does he have to do to get back to where he was? Because again, sorry, I didn't finish the point. I think he wanted to win the one against Jorge, either get a title shot from that or do whatever,

again, to fill in as the guy in London in case they needed someone to be a weight replacement. And I think he wanted to fight for a title, and then I think he wanted to call it a day. I really do. I don't think he wanted to keep going much longer. I don't know what he wants to do now. God only knows.

I mean, he's had a pretty amazing career, but I think in MMA he has fallen a little bit short of what he wanted to do. So it puts him in a really difficult spot about who he has to beat and how ready the UFC is going to be to give him a title shot and everything else. Colby's going to get it, then Bilal's going to get it, and he's going to have to take someone else and win. I'm not even sure who's at the top of the division,

who he could fight that would make sense at this point. I mean, I guess a Komaru rematch they could do unless Komaru goes to 185 to fight Hamza which they might do but it's hard to draw very broad conclusions or really go into the X's and O's about the fights when one guy is banged up like that

there's not a whole lot you can really say. Okay. How about this one? Women's strawweight bout. Jan Schaunan defeats Jessica Andrade at 220 of round number one via TKO. Man, the instant I saw it, you can look at my timeline, I tweeted it. It just had Fabrizio Verdum versus Stipe Miocic

all over it, man. And how do you know that? Dude, when they run you back to the fence, that's one thing. That's one problem. You shouldn't back up straight, but they shouldn't follow straight either, yeah? But if you back up to the fence and then you turn at an angle, and then they follow you where you both have at least one shoulder to the fence. So they're following you almost like in an L shape. They're going to get knocked the fuck out. They're going to get knocked the fuck out. That's what's going to happen.

You cannot chase a world class fighter that amount of distance in a straight line and not pay for it. Does it require, I mean, yes, there's more significant analysis to it than that. You can go over there and look at the fact that, for example, Shaonan, or Yan anyway, caught her on the half beat. So everyone fights on a rhythm and it sometimes has to do exactly with how they're stepping. And so you can see Andrade was stepping forward like this. And so you don't hit them at those moments. You hit them right there, in between, in between spots. Anybody who has seen any of my breakdowns knows I talk about the half beat all the time.

That's when they're open. That's when they're defenseless. That's when they're vulnerable. And sure enough, Shonan stepped out. So she had her head off the center line, threw a punch over the top. And it's always worse, of course. Everyone I'm sure watching knows this. When you walk into a punch, it only accentuates the effect.

So it was perfectly timed. Got her when she was off balance. Got her when she was defenseless. Got her when she was moving into it. Because she's fucking chasing a world-class fighter in straight lines you're gonna get knocked the fuck out like you're gonna get stretched doing that it doesn't you can do that against shitty fighters on the regional scene and you may not even pay for it dude you cannot do that against steep amy ochich he will light your ass on fire. And it turns out you cannot do that

against Jan Schottenhout. This version of Jan Schottenhout, who by the way, is easily one of the most improved strawweights, if not the most improved among top-ranked strawweights in the last like two, three years. Look at her record, man. She has really come a long way. She had good numbers and had some good wins. She beat Angela Hill. She beat Karolina Kovalkevic in the Gedalia win. You're like, okay, through 2020, she's on her way. And then she had the back-to-back losses to Esparza and Rodriguez. I think that really lit a fire on her competitively. And so she has the Mackenzie Dern win, which she looked pretty good in, although there were some tough moments. and then just absolutely blowing the doors off Jessica Andrade she's 33 so right now she's really coming into her own

now I will say Andrade has had a habit of like overrunning opponents and getting hurt as a consequence or just you know being a little bit reckless in it and paying for it for example against the other Chinese fighter that they may set up with this one, Zhong Wai Li. So not the same kind of circumstance, but sort of similar-ish principles about striking. She ended up here. But Yan Xiaonan, I think, has really, really sharpened up, man. She used to be kind of like a volume striker, I think,

because she needed to be. She just had to put something out into the fight and then build on it if it worked to win. Less so understanding what works for her, what works for her in X circumstance, what works for her in Y circumstance. Part of the reason I believe, for example, that Aljamain Sterling has really risen to the top of the bantamweight division is because he understands and has a fight style that works for him. It really has. He took something where he was just kind of throwing shit at the wall a few years ago to see what stuck, but then he got a chance to see that and now he has sharpened it and refined it and he's got a

whole system built in where it works. It seems to me like on the striking side anyway, Yan Xiao Nan has something like that. Yan Xiao Nan has just much better decision making, much better timing, better setups, better vision. She's seeing the field, so to speak, much more clearly. Now, again, Andrade is making it easy for her in a case like this. Just following along the... I'm telling you, you follow someone along the fence line

at a high level fight in UFC, and dude, you follow someone along the fence line at a high-level fight in UFC, and dude, you're going to get cracked. You absolutely cannot do that shit. I think she was trying to double up on her outside hooks. So she was, I'd have to go back and look, double check. Is it still up on my feed? Let's see. I tweeted about it.

Well, I want to see it if I can. Where was that? Canelo won tonight. I don't know if y'all saw that. Nah, it's gone now. Dagger. In any case, I saw there was a couple times she was trying to catch her by doubling or tripling

up on her hooks, trying to get Xiaonan moving into that position, and then I think overran, and then maybe, yeah, I think that's what happened. She was trying to throw multiple hooks on the same side and then follow with the right as she was stepping through, but she was doing it in straight. Guys, you cannot attack in straight lines, and you cannot retreat in straight lines.

Anyone good is going to set you on fire for it boxing i don't know enough about kickboxing really say but certainly in mma like dude you back up in straight lines defensively they're going to eat you alive you go forward in straight lines offensively they're going to eat you alive like you just it's so it's the most predictable thing you can do from a motion and attack line standpoint you know you just can't do shit like that um but i think to me to land a shot that cleanly yeah the other person has to make mistakes that's true it's true but the person doing the attacking has to have good timing good commitment pocket presence and for her to get out of the way so she avoided trouble while throwing her own just a very very good performance from yan shan on a short one

but a good one just the same now that where does that lead us that leads us to a place where could we have an all-female chinese fight between zhong wiley and Yan Xiaonan. Boy, the UFC would fucking love that, wouldn't they? Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only. At participating McDonald's in Canada.

They would love that. That would be huge, I think. I mean, I don't... When I say it would be huge, what am I really saying? Do I really know a lot about the Chinese MMA market? I suppose that I really don't. So I'm very much speaking out of turn. However, it would seem to me that to have two Chinese nationals

legitimately at the top of the weight class, because you could argue that they are. Obviously, with Zhong Wai Li, there's no argument. She is. But Yuan Shannan, a very deserving contender at this point, or a pretty high-level one.

You could have what would seem to me as the kind of event you would want to have if you were building any market. Maybe you would want a different weight class. Maybe you want a different kind of makeup. Or you want a big superstar like a Conor McGregor. But having a burgeoning market that has significant future potential to have already two world-class fighters in the same weight class legitimately earning a spot to compete against one another. This is a promoter's dream for developing a market. This is a promoter's happy place when they're thinking about what we can do, what things could go right for us that could set us up to win in these markets. That's exactly it. That's exactly it. It's a huge,

huge, huge, huge potential opportunity, I think. We'll have to see, I guess, how it plays out over time and if UFC even goes in that direction. But those are significant, significant stakes for them. Also, weirdly, about Jessica Andrade, I know I was willing to write off the Erin Blanchfield performance because she took it on short notice. And Erin Blanchfield's a fucking hammer, right? She's a hammer. But I don't know, man. Let me look at her record. The thing is, Andrade is so hot and cold. There's just times where you're like, my God, she looks like she can beat anyone in the world. And there's times where dude how the fuck does she lose this way so she's had two of these in

a row now two losses one in the first round one in the second round to Blanchfield the win of Lauren Murphy also came this year and she looked phenomenal in that contest and then the win of her Lemos came about a year ago and she looked phenomenal in that contest and then of course she has some wins prior to that in 2021 and she has a loss against Shevchenko in that same year so it wasn't like she's been on like some obvious decline she looked good against some top

contenders at 125 the fight against Lemos was at 115 so she's back there so yeah like I don't know if it's really fair to say there's a pattern here not so much 115. So she's back there. So yeah, I don't know if it's really fair to say there's a pattern here. Not so much in terms of his...

Over the course of her career, there might be some patterns. What I'm trying to say is, is she on some... She's currently in the slump with two losses in a row. And it does look to me like certain fights, I think she makes a more concerted effort to have better boxing. She seemed a little bit too willingly reckless here.

And it cost her, obviously. I guess I'm pointing out, these two losses are bad because they both come by way of stoppage. But it just seems maybe a little premature to... How old is she? How old is Jessica Andrade? Yeah, 31. I was going to say that I was worried about her progression but I you know she didn't look good after losing to Zhong Wai Li and what happened after that she did lose to Rose but then she finished off Caitlin Shukagian inside of a round

you know she's just got we all know the story she's got significant punching power absurd strength I will say though that like do you feel that we're at a point in her development where we We all know the story. She's got significant punching power, absurd strength. I will say, though, that do you feel that we're at a point in her development where we should see more weapons complement that rather than her continuously just using that to win when it's available? I do feel that way a little bit. I do feel a little bit like, okay, these things are so potent that she'll still win with them eventually no matter what, right? Are we seeing enough complementary technical growth alongside it

to give you confidence about other things? I don't know. I don't know if I do. Certainly not in the last two fights. She's been able to rebound before after bad losses. Let's see what her 2024 looks like. Because she's already fought three times this year. Are they really going to give her another fight? I guess they might. She might get four this year, but unlikely. Pardon me, y'all. It's late. I apologize. Alright. Very quickly, Movzar Evloyev, is kind of how they were saying it, defeats Diego Lopez. Diego Lopez has both a fade and bangs.

I mean, my man came ready with like three or four haircuts at the same time. But okay, dude. There was one 30-27, which didn't make any sense. 29-28 for Evloyev is fine. Dude, Diego Lopez nearly had an arm bar. Did you see how Evloyev got out of it? He actually had to get his...

He rolled over so his arm was extended. He brought his other topside knee inside the hamstring of Diego Lopez. So the knee is here. And he can kind of pull his arm back as a consequence by shoving his knee in. And then pulling his arm out. That was clever. I'd actually never seen that before.

So that was clever. Very, very clever. And then the ground and pound, so to speak, from underneath. The submission attempts from underneath. Like Diego Lopez taking this fight on extremely short notice. Well, he came to fight today. Salute to that gentleman. He was overmatched. You know, we're talking about a guy who's undefeated and a top 10 in the world in this weight class. But Diego Lopez showed up big time. In the end, the difference was, one, he was a bat out of hell in round one. He could not sustain that level of attack strategically in rounds two or three. And more to the point,

Evloiev has just got real good ways to manage a round. He's got crisp boxing, a very good jab. He can do that for long periods of time where he kind of eats off the clock, where he's landing, landing, landing. Nothing huge. Again, kind of like Sterling. Nothing huge, but he's landing. And then he goes for the takedown, maybe halfway through. His finishing on top is excellent. And his ground and pound, by the way, just slowly eats at you. There's no torrential downpour, but it's just kind of steady drumbeat that was beginning to work.

Lopez tried to have a bit of a surge in the third. It didn't get him a whole lot. Evloev's top control and balance is really good as well. He's just a really, really difficult guy to beat. He's got a lot of things that enables him to control fighters, control position, control rounds, dictate range, and you saw most of that. But Diego Lopez earning, absolutely, I think a lot of people's respect tonight. And I think the admiration of the UFC brass as well. I don't really know what to say about Charles Jourdan taking on Krohn Gracie. 30-27 across the board. Gracie's lucky to get those.

Probably his worst performance ever in MMA. Probably. Probably. The guy's been gone for what? When was his last fight against Cub? Excuse me, I'm going to pull up the record here. His fight against Cub was in 2019, so pre-pandemic.

And here he is in 2013. Four years later, he comes back. And people I had tweeted that I had seen what I thought were some improvements in his boxing. There was a little bit of shoulder rolling. There was a little bit of trunk movement.

But, I don't know, he looked disinterested all week. He didn't want to be at any of the media events, which, fine, I can understand that. But, you know, he had the weird issue with Henry Cejudo where they were signing posters at the same time. He just seemed checked out and disinterested. You know, he did pull guard, which you can accept from Krohn Gracie, one of the few fighters who can pull guard. And I think it's very much understandable and forgivable. So, fine. I didn't mind that, but he couldn't really do a whole lot with it.

Jordan was able to nullify basically everything. He never got swept, never even got close. I think there was a couple of submission attempts. Let me look up the thing from Fightmetric. Let's see. What do they credit him with? By the way, they credit Diego Lopez with four submission attempts. It's pretty amazing.

Evoy of getting four of seven takedowns. But in the case of Krohn, Gracie, and Charles Jordan, he had no subattempts. I mean, he never even got really close. Listen to this, 80 strikes from Charles Jourdan to 32 from Krohn. I can't remember even 32, to be honest with you. That's just insane. Jourdan accumulating six minutes and 48 seconds of control time for what it's worth. Chrome Gracie, dude, he's just ride or die. Listen, when you first got into MMA, the Gracies were the royal family.

And in many ways, maybe they still are of MMA, right? It's them with a number of made-offs, like these people that have these incredible legacies and broad families that have numerous family members competing and winning at a high level. The Gracies had this moment in time where they were winning, kicking everyone's ass at the time, NHB. And then also in submission grappling, remember Hoyler won.

What ADCC did Hoyler win? 99? He won four of them. But, you know, late 90s, early 2000s, Hoyler was kicking everyone's ass in ADCC. And so they had this moment where they were just like this dominant brand of everything you could ever imagine. But we are in a, I mean, we're 20 years since then. And, you know, having a Gracie on a card just doesn't in any way mean what it used to. I mean, I'm not saying this pejoratively. I'm just giving an accurate reflection of the state of things. I did live in an era of

MMA where that was not the case. And now I live in one where, you know, Hoyce's son, I think Conry or Honry, however you pronounce it, he's like just barely hanging on in Bellator. Krohn obviously has incredible jiu-jitsu. He has, you know, virtually every accolade one could want from a life spent competing in that sport. But his style is not old school in a good way. It's old school in a very like,

you can't do anything to anyone at this level. You can't really wrestle. You don't have great boxing. You don't have great, the head is just on a post the whole time. Hardly any movement with it. Slow. I just don't know what about that.

If the other guy has good submission defense and a good game plan, what does Krohn have that's going to enable him to beat them? It's just way, way, way, way too antiquated. You just can't beat people like that, man. It's not going to work. And Jordan had him studied. Jordan knew exactly what his assignments were when his hands were on the ground. If his arm ever got separated, it was one time where it got moved out again. Obviously, you don't want your arm fully extended.

You want to kind of have T-Rex. You don't want to have your arm on the other side of the center line. That's a problem. He was always real good about keeping his arms and his hands where they needed to be when he was on the ground and he stayed out of trouble and eventually over time landed some decent ground and pound or just got away and was forcing Krohn to stand up. And listen, I remember Krohn as an active competitor 10 years ago when he was doing that. Was it the 2011 ADCC in China? Like, dude, Krohn's amazing. You know, he's amazing in that particular sport. But he is just, that was a waste of, that

was a waste of everyone's time today, to be quite honest. I mean, I appreciate what Charles Jordan was able to do, but that should not have been on the main card that he's, you know, if this is the way he's going to compete, then he doesn't have a future in UFC. I mean, maybe they give him another fight, maybe they don't, but like if after four years, that's the way you look. Dude, this is not going to work. It's not going to work, man. It wasn't a very fun pay-per-view, huh? I mean, the Jan Schau Non win was great. Diego Lopez made that fight really fun, but the co-main kind of sucked. The main opener, this one was no fun. And I did think, again, I thought the main event was good, not great. But people seemed very dissatisfied with the result, which is inevitable.

So not the best UFC pay-per-view. The last one, 287, was amazing. We'll see how 289 does, but not that amazing. All right. I have got questions that you guys have filled up. So let's get to them and see what you guys have to say.

Oops, excuse me. Here we go. Yeah. Alright. Is Aljo doomed to suffer the same fate as Tyron Woodley? He's clearly an all-time great in his division, yet the fans just refuse to get behind him. Yeah, there might be something to that.

Who wins in an MMA fight between Ryan Hall and Krohn Gracie? Everyone thinks Ryan would go to the ground with him. No, he wouldn't. Ryan would strike with him on the feet. I guarantee it. I guarantee it. Henry has done so much in his three years of his hiatus, training with the likes of Zhang and

Figge, but he wasted three years to fight what should have been his next contender as champ. Yeah, you're right. Does Aljo's ability to get traditional takedowns on Cejudo make a fight with Volk a bit more interesting? I didn't walk away from tonight's Bantamweight title fight thinking anyone had a shot against Volk. Boy, let's talk about that for a second. I distinctly recall having a bunch of zeros hit me up when I said, when he was on retirement, he was like, I want to fight Volkanovski. And I'm like, is everyone fucking high? This fight makes no sense. Volkanovski's not a huge featherweight, but in terms of strength and physicality, he's way bigger

than Cejudo. He's got just as high fight IQ, if not higher. He's going to hit a lot harder. He's going to be much more resistant to punching power from a guy like this. What the fuck are we people talking about? And then what I said was, okay, if he goes back in there and he beats Aljo and gets the title, all right, we can talk then. Let's see him do that. He got close. He got close. But even with it, did you see a guy that was going to beat Alexander Volkanovsky tonight? I didn't see that. I didn't see that anywhere. I didn't see that in Krohn versus Jordan. I didn't see it in Lopez and Evloy. I mean, I didn't

really see anyone who I thought was like, wow, this guy's got Volkanovski's number. No, dude. Like, Islam Makachev is one of the best fighters in the world up a weight class, and that and Volkanovski gave that fucker everything he could handle.

Like, come on, man. Like, people are just. You gotta be fucking kidding me with this. Has there been a fighter fans didn't want to be championed more than Bilal? Boy, you guys did not live through the Tim Sylvia era. I did. If you think people don't want Bilal to be championed, boy, do I have news for you. This person writes,

I DM'd BC exactly how Aljo was likely to win. Edge out rounds by landing at range and burn the clock grappling. Knew he'd struggle to get takedowns with wooden sub Henry. Knew Henry might struggle with reach. Congrats. What's more interesting, Aljo versus Sugar Sean or Mar Marab versus Sugar, or Aljo versus Volk, okay, you can get Aljo versus Volk off the screen, what's more interesting, Marab versus Sugar, no, Aljo versus Sugar, to me is more interesting, do you think Gilbert and Andrade regret taking fights so close together, maybe, because I think Andrade fought, what, three months ago? You know, and she got kind of stopped, basically, in that one. I mean, she

did get stopped. What to make of Aljo being booed so close to his hometown? I mean, it's Newark, New Jersey. Folks, I have spent a lot of time in Newark, New Jersey. I worked in Newark, New Jersey for two years. Okay? When I was living in Manhattan because I refused to live in Newark.

First of all, that's the first thing I want to say. And the second thing I want to say is, you know, I have to spend an inordinate amount of time in the Newark train station. Dealing with the local beauties who hang out there. And let me tell you, Newark sucks. Newark sucks. Getting booed in Newark is, you know, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I got booed in like, you know, my own hometown or, you know, a place that I respected, New York City or Madrid or something, you know, world-class cities. Getting booed in Newark, it's like, I mean, who could give a shit, you know? Who could possibly

care? But, yeah, I think it does speak to some of that distance that Aljo has between himself and the fans and how Henry had kind of really remade himself in the last couple of years. Considering Gilbert was considerably down on the scorecards and being compromised, thoughts

on letting him continue in the fifth and accumulate more unnecessary damage. Yes, true. Wouldn't have minded if they had stopped it for that reason, but I didn't think he was taking a beating. And for that reason, I don't really mind that they let it continue, especially since you don't really know exactly what kind of future opportunities Gilbert might get. If he was getting his ass kicked in a serious way, I would say differently. I have a hard time thinking Aljo won't get Sean's back. Why wouldn't he? Because he could get

knocked, sparked the fuck out trying to do it. How much blame should we give Cejudo's corner for telling him he was up on the scorecards pretty much the whole time? Yeah, I didn't hear that. I'm not saying it's not true. I'm saying I must have the volume too low. I didn't hear it. But if that's true, that's a real problem. Did Henry Cejudo waste the last years of his prime by being retired? I'm going to argue yes. I'm going to argue yes. After we did the resume review and I saw how he was just really beginning to peak, I mean, you saw it in real time, but then when you go back and you watch someone's catalog and you should try it sometime. Like, for example, an easy one to do would be Conor McGregor,

because so many of his fights are either short or end in stoppages or whatever. Go through and watch his rise. You can begin to see these moments where they really begin to become different people. I thought at that Cruz fight that he had really just turned into something else altogether. And then he just stopped. And I understand why he stopped. I get it. You got to make the decisions for yourself the best way you can, but they all come with trade-offs. And the trade-off here quite clearly was he gave away several years, I think, left of what he had in his prime where he could have

really beaten these guys and done something special. He already did something very special, but I mean even more than what he already did. Do you believe Aljo dips and weaves too much to avoid strikes? Yes, sometimes. It seems prima facie that it could leave him vulnerable to kicks. Yes, or punches too. Also, I wonder if the large movements are more taxing on the cardio. They can be, yes.

Is there more method to the madness than it seems? He seems to have worked it into what he does and so he has a tolerance for it. How would a fight between Teporia and Evloev go? Or Evloev? I would love to see it. The question is, Teporia, bad out of hell.

He's got good takedown defense. Would he be able to last against a guy like this conversely I think he would give Evloy a lot of problems could he tolerate the firepower we'll have to see what do you think about Derek clearly giving round 5 the most clear round of the whole fight to Aljo

yeah that sucks I don't agree with that at all scale of 1-10 how embarrassing and cringeworthy are these stupid post fightfight face-offs? 2 or 3? Oh no, I guess well, is 10 the most cringe? Then it'd be a 7 or an 8. This person writes, Al Jermaine's boring

ass the only person who can get all the O'Malley haters to cheer for Sean. Yeah, like I said, I didn't think this was going to be one of those opportunities where Al Jermaine was going to really convince the skeptics. He is a talented guy. You have to reconcile and reckon with that fact. But I get that if he's not your favorite, I can understand how he has arrived in this position.

But you should very much have respect for Aljamain Sterling. He is an excellent fighter. And these guys aren't having a hard time by accident. Whether he's your favorite, that's a different story. All right. Let's remind everyone. Yo, hit that subscribe button. Hit that subscribe button.

If you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, give me a nice review. Morning Combat is back on Monday. We'll react to this from Brian Campbell. We'll both react to Canelo's win over John Ryder, who went the distance. He did get dropped twice, but they went the distance. So what does that mean? We'll talk about that and a whole lot more. So thank you guys so much for watching.

I greatly appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed our Morning Combat UFC 288 post-fight show. And until next time, get some sleep. Let's go. Let's do it.