MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - 🚨UFC 289 Results: Amanda Nunes Retires | Oliveira Stops Dariush

Episode Date: June 11, 2023

At UFC 289, Amanda Nunes and Irene Aldana will battle for the women's bantamweight title. In the co-main event, former UFC lightweight champion Charles Oliveira faces off against Beneil Dariush. Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, look at that. We're live, boys and girls. How are you doing? With my stupid-ass face, mouth-breathing here. Hello, hello, hello. It is, uh, what time is it? It is 1.10 in the morning. A.M. Here on the 11th of June, 2023. This is the official UFC 289 post-fight show right here by Morning Combat. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm merely one half of the hosting duo of normal Morning Combat, but this is not a normal Morning

Combat. This is just us reacting to the fights, which are now over. UFC 289 is in the books. Yeah, and everything is, well, just moving along all dandy. So thumbs up if here you're watching, yeah? Do me a good there, do me a solid there. That would be dandy. So thumbs up if here you're watching, yeah? Do me a good there, do me a solid there. That would be so appreciated. So thumbs up if you're watching. Please hit subscribe if you're new here. We'll go for about an hour on some of these results, and we've got plenty more programming for you both tomorrow and Monday as well.

Monday live show at 11 a.m. We'll get to all of UFC 289 plus Teofimo Lopez winning plus everything else that happened in the world of combat sports. Yes? Alright. Let's see if I can get this going. Without further ado, let's get this party started, shall we? Yes?

And we're back. Let's also do this. Hey, look at that. Got the animation going for the subscription. Okay. Let's get this going. So, I will pull this up here. Let's talk about these results.

Alright, so there's the fights to get to, and then there's some news coming off of the main event. And then obviously, if you don't want spoilers, you should be gone. All right, so here's how this is going to go. Two pieces of news from the main event. Number one, Amanda Nunes wins via unanimous decision. She had two 50-44s and one 50-43. I'm almost tempted to say that this fight was a waste of everyone's time.

I don't think it's quite true, but I'll get to that in just a second. That's the first piece of news. The second piece of news is subsequent to having the decision read by Bruce Buffer in the Octagon, Amanda Nunes announced her retirement from the sport. She is apparently done. She listed a bunch of reasons. Funnily enough, she mentioned that obviously she has this family now with Nina. They have a kid or kids. They will have kids here soon. They've got property in Brazil. They're in a different financial place than they have been previously.

This is all, you know, she's in a different place in her life. But it was funny. She cited her mother as also being a reason, her mother begging her to stop. And funnily enough, that's exactly what Habib said. Different kinds of ways in which their mom apparently played a role. But, you know, when mom says stop, you know, people listen, I suppose. So, okay. So, here's what I would like to do.

Obviously, this news with Amanda is big I just want to talk about the fight first because candidly I don't have a lot to say about the fight it was the main event it did go five rounds but this was this was a gigantically awful fight I mean that's not really a word that's not really the great way to describe it, but this was bad. This was really, really bad. Man, Aldana just didn't look like she wanted to be there. I can't say that she didn't. I haven't spoken to her. I don't know her. And maybe this opportunity meant a lot for her. And this is really just a different kind of scenario where an athlete just freezes on the big stage. They did want to be there, but they couldn't find a way to make it work. You can decide whatever version of that or whatever metaphor makes sense to you. But Aldana looked mentally beat before the fight really ever got going.

And we didn't really fully know that at first because she was inherently defensive. And that makes sense to a point because you've got a heavy hitter, an experienced fighter, and Amanda Nunes certainly getting clipped early would be a bad idea and you wouldn't want to get into that kind of fight. Okay, fine. But the thing she was doing was, and this is, again, there's nothing necessarily wrong with one technique or another. It's just the way in which you employ them more often than not and then how often you employ it. Aldana had a high guard like this. That kind of high guard can do a lot of things, but it is most typically associated with getting into closer range where

you're willing to just catch the shots on the arms as they come in, right? It's different from sort of being way outside. Maybe you're using a long guard or something else where you can have, you know, or just a more natural kind of guard. Maybe you have your hands up here, closer to eye level, depending. You guys have all seen the different ones. But when you're like this, that's got typically a more direct purpose with a direct range in mind. What ended up happening was that Aldana just kept her hands here only to bring them down for the very occasional punch, which was for the first two rounds, hardly ever there, or to like parry a shot or something. So it was just parrying, catching,

and then barely anything going. So for a person who's like, like Aldana can strike from kickboxing range, but I think all of us would agree her best striking has historically been predominantly inside boxing range. How are you going to get into that range? Also, there was some stance switching from Nunez, but how would you get into that range if your hands are up here and you can't really get going with your fakes and feints? You can do some faking and fainting from here. You don't necessarily have to not use this guard. What I'm saying is minute after minute of keeping up and up here, yes, you are going to limit what kind of fakes you have, how convincing they'll be, especially when you're biting on everything that's being thrown at you, whether it's a fake or faint or a real strike. It was just a really bad performance from Aldana. I'll pull the numbers up here in just a minute,

but in the championship rounds, she began to stuff some of the shots, although obviously in the fifth round, she basically got taken down and then, you know, top control win basically for Amanda Nunes the rest of that round. But again, end of the third or certainly the fourth round, some parts of the fifth, there was some down blocking that was happening.

In the first two, three rounds, Amanda Nunes was almost like, you ever seen that Yoel Romero highlight where he, I forget which fight it was. It wasn't a UFC fight. It long predated that. But he grabs the guy's heel on an ankle pick and just one-handed just lifts him and throws him in the air. It's one of the most insane fucking things you'll ever see. Typically, you'll see Romero, but you know what I mean. It was almost like that.

Like, Aldana went down so quickly, dude. She was, it appeared to be quite nervous, appeared to be quite taken by the moment, appeared to be quite overwhelmed competitively. She's going to want this night back, I suspect. Um, just, she wasn't in any way going to win that fight with that game plan. It was never going to happen. There was one big shot. She landed on Nunez in the first, when she got overzealous chasing along the fence line and she got hit with a big hook. Fair enough. You know, again, Aldana, if you, if you give her some openings, she does have some skill.

But the reason why I kind of said at the beginning of the broadcast when I was describing this main event that it felt like or should maybe be considered a waste of time, and that's a little bit strong, is, you know, you don't want to deny that the challenger could be overwhelmed but has a right to have an opportunity like this and that the champion has an obligation to defend their title, even in cases where one party was just simply not up to the task. But let's just be very clear about it. One party was simply not up to the task.

And it wasn't just that she was kind of overwhelmed competitively because towards the end there, when Aldana was on the feet and she was jabbing, I wrote it, she was just jousting. Again, her hands are up here. So there's not a lot of moving. There's not a lot of pre-slipping and then rolling. There was none of that. It was just hands up here, high and tight.

And so she would just go from here to then jab. And Amanda Nunes saw all of them coming. She saw all of them coming. And would just, you know, counter or get out of the way or whatever jab with her you know just whatever she could do to just make it miserable for her she did uh it was it the the performance reminded me of like i mean if you're psychologically overwhelmed that's one thing that's meaningfully different but in terms of just like the strategy behind this at all times, even when you're far away, like even at kickboxing range, you're holding this, like

that's probably not an optimal guard minute over minute in kickboxing range. Like it's just not, you know. Again, I'm not talking this, I'm talking where your hands are you know essentially your knuckles are by your eyes like up here I'm not talking this where you can look over your hands which is not exactly what we saw so it was this combination of like do you remember the performance BJ Penn had against Frankie Edgar I forget which one of the rematches it was i think it was the or one of the which one of the fights i guess i think it was the i don't think it was a rematch i think it was the third fight where penn was on like his tippy toes he was on the balls of his feet like you know what i mean and he was just walking around like that we're like what the fuck is that like what are we

you can't you can't derive power or really speed doing that and just staying up there. What does that do? And it didn't do shit for him. It was just strategically really weird. That's what this commitment felt like to me. Mixed with the Pat Berry performance against Cro Cop where he, a couple times Pat Berry was able to really hurt Cro Cop, but he had such admiration for him

and that was more like as a fan this was more of just I think a competitor being overwhelmed but like the point I'm trying to make here is you know it had this had this mix of like Penn's strategy on being on his tippy toes on the balls of his feet mixed with the adoration ultimately that Pat Berry had that limited what he could what he could do in that fight against Crow Cop. And so, dude, that's a lethal combination for winning, man. You know, your strategy is like really off, again, by virtue of some psychological factors, but your strategy is really off, mixed with your high-fiving this person, you know, after three or four rounds still,

down as far, I mean, it just was like, dude, that was never, you know, unless she could, cards on the table on this one, I think all my pre-fight picks were, like, devastatingly horrible, which should not be new to you, I don't like doing them for this reason, I'm not very good at them, decidedly average is, I think, the best you could say for me. But even if you were like me and you thought, well, there could be some ways if Amanda is slipping and Aldana's really on fire, where some of that boxing range could get a little bit interesting, we saw a tiny little window of that when she got clipped,

when Nunez got clipped. But the way she went into this fight, she was never going to win. You can't have that many things working against you before the bell even rings to get the fight going. You can't win that way. You were never going to win that way. Amanda Nunes, is she at the very top of her game relative to her peak? Probably not.

We'll talk about some of that in just a second. But you're going to need a lot more than that. at the very top of her game relative to her peak? Probably not. We'll talk about some of that in just a second. But you're going to need a lot more than that. You're going to need to not have several different kinds of self-inflicted strategic and psychological hang-ups just to have a good chance, or just to have any chance. And I think Aldana had both of those. It's just not going to work that way. I think there was a stat from, was it Rodrigo Del Campo,

who had said the only other fight that Aldana had landed that few amount of significant strikes was, I think, the Kittlin-Viera fight, which was obviously much shorter, the Kittlin-Viera fight, which, you know, was obviously much shorter. You know, nothing even like that. I have to double-check some of these stats, but just a disaster. Disaster for Aldana. And, you know, the hopes of Mexico kind of clean-sweeping their way

to four titles and four different opportunities. Now, Jair is still the interim, but there was a UFC title on the line. He won it. Then, of course, we know about the other two with Moreno and then Grasso. That didn't go anywhere. That was never going to. I mean, in the condition that that was in, that was never going to go anywhere.

I just want to see some of these final numbers, if I can, from Fightmetric for this fight. And I want to talk about Amanda Nunes retiring, because that's a pretty big component. Jesus Christ, man. Are you kidding me? Aldana landed a total of 41 significant strikes in the whole fucking fight. Golly, dude. Golly. What is her strikes landed per minute?

So strikes landed per minute, dude. Dude. Okay. golly what is her strikes landed per minute so strikes landed per minute dude dude okay right she's averaging her strikes landed per minute average average is 5.39 which means it was higher than this going into this fight so let's just say let's just even dock her some and just say five so i mean she should be averaging 25 strikes landed per round and then obviously for a five round fight 125 right that's where that's the that's the average she should be at and then that and again i'm even knocking it down a peg right that it should be even higher than this she landed 41. She landed 41. Dude, that's less. I mean, that's a third, less than a third of what, where she should be. You got,

I mean, you gotta be fucking kidding me. Your, your overall average essentially declined 66% basically more than that, really closer to 70. Jesus, Jesus, you'll never win that way. Uh, she had 37 fights in her 37 strikes landed in her last one, which was only, uh, less than three rounds. It was two and a half rounds. She had 37 in the fight before that, but that was four minutes and 35 seconds of one round. She had 69 before that in a five round fight. Excuse me. Yeah, she had 69 in the home fight, in the home fight she had 69. So she was well below her output there as well. Even then that was better than this one. She only had a 26, excuse me, it was under 30 for the Ketlin Vieira. So she had 26 in the Ketlin Vieira fight, which landed, which was only four minutes and 51 seconds. Anyway, I'm not going to read through all of these. You can go,

oh, by the way, she had 125 last one. She had 125 against Vanessa Melo in a three round contest. So like, obviously you have seen higher thresholds, even when they've been lower than this, the numbers per minute make much better sense. Dude, her numbers for this fight were terrible. Lastly, on top of that, I would just add one more note. 6 for 13, Amanda Nunes on takedowns with 7 minutes of control time. And you would see there was a big portion of that. Some of that was pressing, I think, against the fence.

But the majority of that on top and top control. Even on the ground, Aldana's guard was good. She was good for getting a knee shield in. She was good about getting a knee shield, creating separation, then getting the feet in instead of going back to full guard at times. Although, obviously, in the fifth round, she got shut down. But there were some other parts where her guard was, again, her guard was, for the most part, defensively sound.

But between, you know, survive, defend, attack, where was this? Everything was between survive and just defend. There was just no attack. There was no attack. All right, I don't know what else to say about it. I mean, it was dissecting every part of it beyond what I've already said doesn't really get you to a place where you understand anything more that matters at all. With that being said, Amanda Nunes retires and calls it a day. So heading into this contest, man, what a resume she had. So her only losses under Zufa-backed promotion, so that could be

Pride, which she never fought in, obviously, but in this particular case strike force and ufc so she's been with zufa since january of 2011 um she has losses to alexis davis who i don't think anyone would think she would lose to today cats and gano she would i think pretty much hammer and destroy uh and then juliana pena which she did eventually end up hammering and destroying so she didn't get a chance to do the GSP thing where they get to rematch all the people that you lost to, but it would not take a great imagination to imagine that she could get those other two if she needed to at some point. Even though, you know, I don't think this is the best of Amanda Nunes, it would only be worse for Kat or Alexis if they were to do it like 2016 or 2017 version. She carries wins over Julia Budd, who of course is now at 145 in Bellator.

Sheila Gaff, who was pretty good for a while. Jermaine Durand-Ami, she has two wins over her. Shayna Baszler, a legend in the game. Sarah McMahon, Shevchenko, Tate, Rousey, Shevchenko again. Raquel Pennington, Cyborg, Holly Holm, as I mentioned. The second win over her Jermaine Duran to me, Felicia Spencer, up at, of course, 145, Megan Anderson, same thing, she had the loss to Pena, and then she comes back and finishes by beating the shit out of Pena in the rematch, and then just really running over a totally overmatched Aldana, boy, that is one of the best resumes you'll ever see, irrespective of gender. It is

certainly the best women's resume I've ever seen. She has a veritable who's who on that and then cleaned out that division to a point where even after she was done, they tried to find a contender as far back as they could, and they were left rather wanting. Is there any doubt that they're, I mean, who at 135 i mean let me pull up this right now in the rankings before i just start jibber-jabbering about this but who in these rankings so we look at the the women's bantamweight division so again one is pena she beat her two is pennington beater three is home beater Vieira, they never fought. Five, Aldana, beat her. Yannick Kuniskaya didn't fight. Pani Kianzad at seven. Macy Chastain at eight. Carol Rosa at nine. Maria Buenasilva at

ten. Misha Tate, who she beat, at eleven. Julia Avila at twelve. I don't know if that's Julia or Julia. Norma Dumont at thirteen. And blah, blah, blah on down from there. Does anyone think that any of those women you would favor at this point to beat Amanda Nunes? I mean, yeah, I gave Aldana a chance. Okay, fine, but, you know, she's sitting at five. Would you really give Ketlyn Vieira a chance? I mean, maybe a better one than what Aldana had, but probably short of that, you just really wouldn't imagine. So there's a couple of factors at play. Her resume and what she has done has been absolutely sealed into the history books,

no doubt about it. I mean, that run she went on after Rousey was just, or Rousey, excuse me, was truly remarkable, and then beating Cyborg at her own game, outsmarting at distance Holly Holm, and then obviously Shevchenko, who was a dynamite fighter, getting her hand, well, she beat her the first time in a three-round contest, but then getting her hand raised in that one. She's had a few of these very, very, very consequential moments where she not only passed the test, you know, in the case of like the second Shevchenko fight, but in the case of the Cyborg fight, passed it with flying colors.

She, I think, changed the game for how we perceive what is actually possible in the women's game. You know that sort of weird thing where it's like if you see a woman dunk in basketball, you're like, that's a respectable kind of achievement. Amanda had punching power,

I don't know, in a way like that. She had the kind of punching power that anybody who watches fight sports in an intelligent way has to respect. All of her peers certainly respected it. Her coaches marveled at it. She really shook up what was, you know, in an era where, you know, there were certainly some devastating fighters in the women's divisions.

I don't want to suggest that there weren't to you. But she had just sort of a consistent level of physicality that made her sort of not a bankable star, but a memorable and important and, you know, menacing figure in the women's side in a way where yes, Cyborg had some of that too, but I think, you know, a lot of her, I think a lot of that has changed over the years. I think Cyborg's become something of a different fighter. Also, Cyborg's got these high-amplitude throws. There's a little bit more of a physicality to her. And Cyborg also built her name beating some very good fighters.

She's obviously still around, but some of the early stage against Gina Carano is like hammer-fisting from these really dominant positions and stuff. Anyway, I'm just sort of pointing out to you, I think for a lot of people, I think maybe is a better way to say that Amanda Nunes, you know, was a, was a, was a marvel of skill, but also that really raw physicality that was electrifying on that run. She was in after 2016, you know, Darren Revelle, you guys remember the Darren Revevel controversy where he really thought the UFC aired in

trying to get behind Amanda Nunes however late they may have done it trying to get behind Amanda Nunes rather than really riding with the more bankable stars in home and Ronda and something else but you know the true reality is and this is is why Darren Revelle is right when he talks about how much was she able to meaningfully pull as a market entity. No, she was not a significant draw ever in that regard. But dude, this is what Amanda Nunes did that Revelle just never seemed to appreciate. She gave the UFC no choice. She gave them no choice, dude. Somebody, like, Ronda storming through the division in the way that she did was insane.

But, but, a lot of it was like, you know, this taking it by storm and just kind of bulldozing people and, you know, these quick fights and blah, blah, blah. But, like, Amanda was, she was built to do much more than that and built to go much longer and the way she fucking pasted ronda in the way that she did just absolutely remarkable uh job and then building off that with these like again marrying this very technically sophisticated thing with this menacing physicality and the name she was beating sorry the name she was beating and the way in which she was beating them with such regularity

dude she gave the UFC no choice by the I know there was a lot of complaints in the run-up to the in the Ronda fight and I remember because remember Ronda didn't want to do any media, which was fucking weird, that whole thing. And if you look at the trailers, there was just no footage of Ronda even losing. Or if it was, it was like the least offensive parts of it. They had to like tiptoe around that. And it was hard, I think, for them to pivot.

But in the end, this is what they don't understand, dude. In the end, she could not be denied. She could not be denied. They had to get on board with her. They had to like find a way to work with Modelo to put her in those commercials. They had to, dude, they had to. They had someone on their hands that was so unique and so special, it would be fucking criminal to not know what she was up to. She was icing all of the prom queens one after the other. Just when you thought she couldn't top it, there she went again. You know, Ravel wanted the UFC to ignore that. Ravel wanted them to be like, well,

the market dictates this. The reality about Amanda is I don't think she ever grew into any kind of a a noteworthy box office star uh but on the credible side of what matters as an athlete there's just nothing else she could have done short of just you know obviously going 100 undefeated um which is you know basically basically basically no one does that i mean habib did i get that but you know it's extremely across two-way classes although we kind of know that the 145 thing was not super real but the ufc created for dude amanda was amanda was you know the most um you know again cyborgs had some longevity that is i mean Cyborg was beating up women on CBS before

Amanda Nunes was ever in Strike Force you know what I mean like she and then again Cyborg is still in Bellator doing what she's doing so she's had some incredible longevity but let me just go back to that run one more time so yeah so she beats

Jesus Shayna Baszler she beat the fuck out she ko shana baszler in a round she submits sarah mcmahon inside of a round she has that tough fight against shevchenko which we didn't know what it meant at the time but now we're like yeah it's still pretty good she ices misha tate to win the title at UFC 200. I mean, absolutely just demolished her. Dude, I spoke to Misha about that fight several times. I've had several conversations with Misha about that fight. Misha has been unequivocal to me that she has absolutely 100% never been hit that hard in her life in a fight. The only time she ever got hit that hard was by another man

who was going like full bore in sparring she was like she was like you don't understand i've like in all the time she's been hit and remember she's been hit by like with some big shots like misha tate has got a ridiculous chin and misha was unequivocal she hadn't she even said like uh she was so shocked she wasn't even sure that it came from her like she didn't know if something was unequivocal. She even said, like, she was so shocked, she wasn't even sure that it came from her. Like, she didn't know if something was wrong with her in the fight because she couldn't believe what she had to process with that power. So she does that.

Then she ices Ronda inside of a round. Then she gets the rematch against Valentina, and she wins that one, which is pretty incredible. Now, that wasn't a thrilling fight, but that was a difficult puzzle to solve. Then she goes back to there and just destroys Raquel Pennington. Remember, Pennington didn't even want to go out to the fifth round. That was a big controversy at the time. Goes there and then ices Cyborg inside of a minute.

Then goes in and ices Holly Holm inside of a round. Then gets the rematch against a random me who was beating her on the feet and amanda had to resort to going to the ground and then on and on felicia and megan and you all know the story against juliana even against juliana juliana sort of working on that southpaw stance to get around some of the problems that she was encountering man she has um she has to me been i think for our generation you know i came up and there was a debate about like who are some of the bigger women's or some of the better women fighters in the sport and uh megumi fujii was a big one at the time she a lot of the better women fighters were coming out of japan at that time they just had a lot more going on there There was Jules that was running. There was a promotion. Smack Girl was another promotion that

was running out of there, but not just those two. There were some other ones as well. So there was just a lot more going on. And then Cyborg held the title for a real long time, which I thought was pretty fair. And then Amanda just came and just ran that over. So again, sort of it goes back to this, like the cyborg question of longevity versus not. But in a UFC career and in a Strikeforce career, this is what basically, basically, this is what maximum achievement looks like. Like on the boards. Who among your contemporaries did you face? Right? Did you win? Okay. And if you did win, how authoritatively, you know, like, dude, again, even fighters like Shevchenko getting a second crack, Jermaine Durandamy getting a second crack,

and still getting closer in the second fights, both cases, still not able to get it done. Second fight with Peña, Peña didn't just lose, she got whooped, right? I mean, it was just really, really hard for her to, she had cardio issues early, I think, in her fight, in her career. You saw some of that in the first Shevchenko fight. You saw some of that, I think, in her fight, in her career. You saw some of that in the first Shevchenko fight. You saw some of that, I think, in the Kat Zingano fight as well, even though that fight didn't go the full distance. I think Amanda just didn't really know who she was at that time. But she took that remarkable power, that remarkable skill,

and then really rounded out her game. She gave herself the technical latitude to hold on to her belt and do the kinds of things that she wanted to do right so like if she had just had to strike her way out of the durandami fight it wouldn't have worked but she had another gear she could go to and durandami had all that time in between to get better and it still didn't really matter in the end she just came out possessed i always felt like i mean do amanda always looked at her opponents like with this kind of like jokery smile like why so serious kind of thing and and then we go in there and just be terrifying but to me she's been the standard bearer in my in our era of mma she's been the standard bearer of excellence in women's mma she has i think

redefined and and shaped people's perception about what excellence at the highest level in women's MMA. She has, I think, redefined and shaped people's perception about what excellence at the highest level in women's MMA looks like, what a bantamweight fighter can actually achieve, what kind of physicality, again, I go back to it all the time, that they can bring. She just was a really unique and up to this point frankly historic combination of those factors all working together and um i will be sad that we didn't get certain fights that maybe could have happened a third shevchenko fight you know obviously a kayla harrison fight i think with with amanda retiring and like you know those kayla not really having fought since losing at the end of last season, I don't know what, I mean, if there was any hope to bring her to the UFC,

this might close that door completely because, again, she can only get down to 145 anyway. So there's a few other things you would have liked to have seen. But Amanda Nunes was always kind of pegged. I remember, you guys may not remember this, she briefly trained, I think when she first came to the States. I'm almost certain this is true. I had this conversation with him. So, okay, so pulling back the curtain here. I tried out for a television show a long, long time ago for Fuel TV. And it was

right when Fuel TV was right before he got picked up and turned into Fox Sports 2. And to do that, we actually went out and trained with the Miller Brothers Jiu Jitsu coach at the time. And some of the other folks in that gym, and they were telling me that Amanda had come through there early, early, early in her UFC, or I say her run, her move into America. And even then they were telling me that Amanda had come through there early early early in her UFC or I say her run era her move into America and even then they were telling me she was ferocious she was ferocious she would not be denied but that she was really wild and kind of unrefined she took all of that like ability and energy and focus she had and then just proceeded to skill development her way to combine the two. If you can combine those two things, like high-level skill with the kind of ferocity

that comes from the tough people that come from difficult upbringings, if you can marry those two, dude, you can do a lot with that. But again, getting back to the Darren Revelle thing, it kind of tells the story because all the focus was on all of these other darlings, all of these other bells at the ball, with some good reason. They were doing some interesting work as well. Holm, Tate, you name it. Cyborg, you name it. She just went through and took everything that she could from them in those moments, even though she was never going to be the naturally popular figure, the one that the promoter always favored. But I get back to it again, dude.

The Darren Revelle failure on that is he just couldn't... You couldn't in any way be taken seriously as a promotion. Having someone in your ranks that is historically significant and not even been to that will. At the end of the day, dude, watching her do what she does, if you're a fight fan, it's humbling. It's humbling to watch that.

Like, holy fucking shit. Like, that is terrifying. It's humbling. It's humbling to watch that. Like, holy fucking shit. Like, that is terrifying. It's alluring, but it gives you a sense of, like, ability and purpose that she has. It's terrifying to watch that. And also, like, motivating and, frankly, inspiring. And I think any fight fan, and I think the people who work at the UFC are in large part fight fans, any fight fan just has to recognize that in the end.

She just never gave him a choice. So what a career she's had. I think she has maximized every opportunity essentially that was available to her. People will hold the fact that she never turned into a big star against her. Not everyone's really built for that. Not everyone's a good candidate for that.

And I don't think that was the way she was going to best contribute to the sport. But a Hall of Famer, first ballot, easy call. Easy call. What a career she's had. We'll talk more about that on Monday's MK. All right. Let's get to this co-main. Jesus, man.

Whew. all right let's get to this uh co-main jesus man who charles olivera defeats benil dariush via i don't know if they ruled it ko or tko 410 of round number one fuck me man charles ol Oliveira is a beast. Charles Oliveira is an absolute hammer. My God. I didn't love what I was hearing out of him. Saying things like he hadn't really watched the fight and what lesson do you take from that? And those can always mean two things. They can mean on the bad side,

I am just not going to listen to this because I know better, even though they don't necessarily know better. Like just rejection of any notion that they need to do something different. On the other hand, they already know that they can be different in some very significant ways, and they don't need to watch it because what what would be the point in an instance like that right where you fully accept aha i know i know exactly what it is and now i'm going to do it turned out it was more the latter than the former um that was amazing that was amazing and a fight like his can be completely chaotic it can go to some places that aren't advantageous

and they don't necessarily look the best for him and he can still come out right on top and i think it's exactly what he did man did you guys notice that head kick he had he blocked it high like high on the elbow uh sorry high on the wrist do guys notice that? And when he brings it up here, when Darius brings it up here, it actually knocks him back and off balance. Like rather than kind of like, you know, sort of whipping around the side or whatnot, you kind of throw it at the end of the lever, right? This is where the lever is. It actually puts you off balance when you get hit like that, which is kind of an interesting thing to watch. But more than that, dude, Darius, I mean, fucking... Dude, Charles Oliveira's resume is absurd.

It's absurd. I think in all UFC, WEC pride, any kind of fighter who fought in there, he doesn't have the most stoppages in that history, but he's only one behind. In UFC, he's got the most stoppages ever with 20. I think the next highest up is three. Argument for greatest set of resume, greatest resume in terms of who's on there of any lightweight ever now he's

got losses as well so it kind of complicates the debate but dude benil dariush is a very skilled skilled opponent man a guy there's such thing it's called the dariush guard that's actually that's a real thing i talk about this all the time. A guy who was very high level in jiu-jitsu, in the gi, obviously, before. And I think some of his better stuff happened in the gi than no gi. But, you know, sort of an old school guy in that sense. Who learned how to really wrestle coming off the Gamrot fight. Like, no doubt about it there.

Under Rafael Cordero had turned into a nightmare of a striker. Fully experienced against the top. hard painful lessons before and can sometimes have been shown to be baited into you know exchanges or kind of wild moments but more often than not had really come out the better end of that you know obviously the Edson Barbosa fight notwithstanding he did lose to you know Alexander Hernandez in a fight that he probably should not have. And some others as well. But, you know, we're talking about an extremely high-skilled operator. You know, this is someone who's going to give anyone in that division a very difficult fight. Irrespective of where it takes place. You want to fight Benil Dariush on the ground?

Good luck. You're going to fucking need it. Right? You want to fight him on the feet? Okay. Good luck. You're going to fucking need it and sure enough there were times where i thought dariush was taking a really you know not

conservative but pragmatic approach where you had um oliveric almost kind of like go for a takedown whiff on it and then kind of just pull guard off of a frame but dude Darius is not going to be in any way afraid of laying the ground and pound on you at all he has very very good submission defense and I will say this too there was two different instances where you'll see this all the time you saw this in the Chandler fight the Kevin Lee fight one thing that Charles does is when their opponents stand because why would you want to stand? Obviously, you can stand and move away. You can stand and get more potential force with a strike. But also, like, your best bet to passing is almost always going to be on your feet

rather than on your knees. It's always going to be, again, not always, but the vast majority of time, you're going to want to be on your feet. But as soon as guys come up, what does Charles Oliveira do? He shoots the two legs through and begins to work any number of inversions.

He'll go De La Riva. he'll go reverse de la jiva i've never seen x guard exactly although maybe i have maybe i have seen one from him but he'll he'll do any number of inversions he'll try and work to the back he'll try and grab an ankle he'll try and do you know whatever he can to you know get you a balance and then go for a heel create heel exposure you name it there was two different times one a little bit more successful than the other the second of those but neither of them were very close i mean they were talking about like oh he's got a heel isolated while benil is standing it's like he's really not gonna get that not against a guy this skilled, you know, like dude, Benil Darius. And by the way, he got kicked at the end of the lever point. What does he do? He fires a shot right back, you know, not afraid, not afraid for all of the faults that

Aldana had against Nunez. Darius had none of that. None of that. He did. He's not going to show up intimidated. He's not going to show up, not in shape. He's not going to show up intimidated. He's not going to show up not in shape. He's not going to show up not ready to go. He was all of those things and then some. But dude, fucking Charles Oliveira, he is on fights like this. And this one looked not quite like the Poirier fight. This to me looked kind of funny for very different... How do I say this? These fights where he gets rolling downhill.

He's the toughest guy in the sport to beat when he's doing that. Certainly in that division, he's the toughest guy to beat. When he's moving downhill on you, it's a wrap, man. He lands a head kick, not fully, and then continues to pressure Darius,

forces him to exit on the same side that he wants to get him on. Right? And then throws a one, which kind of partially landed. Then he gets another one. And the second of those lands, it drops him. He goes for a single. Works his way out to getting to the back, which doesn't work.

But Dariush ends up in a bad position and ends up just finishing him off with strikes on top and Dariush having no answer for it the dude has offense everywhere one of the most hyper offensive fighters I've ever seen he can make sub-optimal

choices at times, we've talked about his willingness to go to the back at times can sometimes get him in trouble but he can get away with it because he's typically got a great guard. Even against a guy like Dariush, like, you know, Dustin Poirier is a black belt in jiu-jitsu, and I'm sure he earned it, but he is just not on the grappling level in the wider array of all the skills involved as Dariush. Like, you can see how well he stood up to some of the submission might. And, dude, Dariush's, like, striking has come such a long. as Darius. You can see how well he stood up to some of the submission might.

And dude, Darius' striking has come such a long... He's devastating on the feet too. But Oliveira just... It is every single time and every single fight, once more into the breach. Once more into the breach and he just goes right

back into the maelstrom. Driving guys back, forcing them to exit forcing them to make mistakes and then just really never giving them a lot of time to breathe you can see why islam makachev you know took the game plan that he took which was a lot of keep the fuck away from this guy counter him when he gets desperate and makes mistakes by the way charles not doing a lot of that running jumping jumping shit. So he cut that out. I never liked it. It worked at times.

Sometimes it gets guys to cover up. Sometimes it gets guys to cover up and run away in a way that you want them to. Sometimes it gets guys to retreat to the fence line. It's a common tactic that he uses it for. So it has some value in certain cases. But it was never going to work against a guy like Darius. So don't use it. And he didn't.

He cut all that bullshit out. But he nevertheless just stays on top of you. There were times that they had clinched. There were times that there was a little bit of jockeying for position in some of that. And you could see Dariush at times was wanting to keep it close, like Makachev did, where if you give space to Charles Oliveira on the ground or in the clinch, if you give him space, that's when the problems begin to emerge. You have to close off those avenues, and when you break, you break on your terms and everything else. He was not able to get a lot of that.

He was able to get some of that going, but not really enough. But, dude, he was very much his adversary, if not, you know, defensively. Yeah, I thought, dude, up until the round was over, the round was headed Darius's way. Right? I mean, you know, I realized that sort of like a weird way to put it, like, but he was winning that fight until just he wasn't. But this is what I mean about Charles. Charles has the ability to not really be offensive in all the different phases, but he can be offensive in sort of like

unpredictable times of disengagement. He can put a pace on you like out of nowhere, right? Out of nowhere, you're making a desperate choice on the move. And all of a sudden, there's just like these massive stakes attached to it. And they also kind of talked about this in the broadcast. And it's worth pointing out, like Charles Oliveiveric and thump man and i know we know that he's dropped guys before but like he and he has any number again 20 finishes not all

those certainly by submission um but the point of being is like we know he can do those things but like do we put him in the group reputationally of guys who are big power punchers at 155? If you haven't, it's worth putting him in there. And I've got to tell you too, a lot of folks wanted an immediate rematch. I think if you lose your belt as thoroughly as he lost his, I mean he lost bad to Islam Makachev. I did think he needed to get one more win, but dude, he gets the win via stoppage inside the first round over a, I cannot overstate this, a high quality opponent.

He makes these guys look like they're not high quality. Dude, yes, they are. These guys, when they fight anyone else, man, the depth of what they can do on the tape study is like, you have to stop and take all these notes because it's like, shit. Like the levels to what they can pull off together is remarkable. Dude, he did that to that guy. To me, he should get a title shot off this. Run that one back, sure.

And I know what is happening out there. You have this Michael Chandler-McGregor situation and it remains unresolved, I think is putting it lightly. Are they even going to fight? Who the hell knows? Who the hell knows, right? So there's that. Then, next month, great great fight I'm not complaining

it's a great fight the rematch between Dustin Poirier and Justin Gaethje for the BMF title no less you might imagine that the winner of that is going to be the number one contender and I certainly cannot tell you that they don't deserve it but dude Charles Oliveira finished off both of those guys like we don't need to run those back do we so to me it would be a travesty as much respect as I have for Dustin and as much respect as I have for Justin Gaethje gonna be hard to top as an audition to be like not only not only for not only for oliver to audition kind of like an i'm back performance but audition to be like okay who actually is the the guy most deserving of a title shot forget my long run with the one loss of coming off that forget forget my wins over those

guys just like who's got the most credible win dude it's going to be hard in either direction for those guys to top how just unstoppable Oliveira is to the overwhelming majority of that division. Unstoppable. To Benito Ariush, he's got good defense. He takes less than three significant strikes per minute on average. His SAPM is, I think, two and a half. That's low.

That's low. Elite Jiu-Jitsu, very good wrestling. Again, you guys all saw the Gamrot fight. And doesn't take a lot of damage on the feet. Again, the overall stats, I think, paint that picture. And he got dusted. He got dusted, even after winning the majority of the round. You can win so much. He just needs the tiniest window. He just needs the tiniest window.

And it all just quickly shifts, boom, right over there. There's no place to hide with him. There's no place to hide. Makachev played a keep away game for as long as he could and then attacked off some of those mistakes. But going back to it, I want to point it out one more time. No jumping, blah, blah, blah bullshit from Charles. He kept his feet under him, dude. And that's what you need for power. Your feet rooted into the floor and he got it. He got it. Amazing job by him, dude. Really amazing job. Just great purpose. You know that they've done that attack a million times, pressing into him, force him to a side, and then intercept him on the side.

You know they've worked on that a million times. And they worked to perfection. His ability to find the back or the mount in all kinds of scrambles, right? Where he rocks Darius, Darius goes for the leg, he then works his way to the back, Darius inverts underneath to save himself, but then gets finished off as a process. But like you see what I'm saying, like he had to threaten the back, Darius tried to answer which was pretty interesting but his ability to I mean it's just so insane so insane what he can do

in so many different places in high tension situations where mistakes happen frequently it's funny he does he is error prone but in those moments he's like he just flows so naturally from one position to the next from one position plus technique to the next his his his his trees of where uh his route trees of where things are supposed to go depending on what the opponent does or what situation that he's in he goes through them so quickly he uh he makes his reads his progression so to speak they say in american football he made he worked through his progressions before he made his reads, his progressions, so to speak, they say in American football. He worked through his progressions before he made his call. He does them so fast. So fast.

He is... He is... I didn't think he could get it done. I wondered how... Islam beat him so easily. You wondered. It's like, oh, right. Did he just write the blueprint on him? Yeah yeah good luck following

it maybe Islam can do that right because he's Islam but doesn't look like like you know the distance between Benil and Islam the results in the fight were very different between what Olivera had with Benil and what

Olivera had with Makachev like vastly different vastly different results but the difference in fighter between Makachev with Benil and what Oliveira had with Makachev. Like vastly different results. But the difference in fighter between Makachev and Benil is not so significant. It's not as pronounced as the results were with Oliveira as them as opponents. He did that, dude. He is something else. Listen to this fucking guy's resume. It's just...

You just can't believe it. He's got a win over Benil Darius via stoppage in the first round. He's got a win over Justin Gaethje in the first round. Got a win via stoppage over Justin Poirier in round three. Has a win over Michael Chandler in round two. Tony went the distance in the three-round fight,

which was... But, you know, he got murked in that one, too. Kevin Lee made it to the third round before he got finished. Jared Gordon got stopped in the first round. Nick Lance got stopped in the second round. David Tamer got stopped in the second round. Jim Miller, hello, Jim Miller got stopped in the first round. Christos Kiagos got stopped in round two. Will Brooks, who by the way is knocking on the door looking to get a UFC return. He got stopped in round one. Nick Lance before that round three.

Jeremy Stevens took an L. Hatsu Hiyoki, you guys can't even imagine how cool that win was when he got it all the way back in 2014. Hatsu Hiyoki was a beast coming out of Japan. Boy, he got dummied in that one. Andy Ogle got tied up as well. And Jonathan Brookins and on and on. It goes on there.

Darren Elkins, Efrain Escudero before that. Dude, this guy's resume is fucking bananas. Bananas who's on this one, man. Can you imagine a fight between him and Conor? That'd be a bad fight for Conor, right? I mean, Conor can thump and this dude takes punishment a little bit, but I wouldn't like that for him, you know? How many guys would you actually pick to straight up beat Charles Oliveira on the UFC roster at 155? Like just Makachev, right? Like, I don't know who else you would straight up pick on that roster to like, like who else? What lightweight would you pick generally?

Besides Makachev, would you pick? I mean, who's active anyway? That is nuts. And you know, it was interesting that, what did he call it? Because he had finished Chandler, he had finished Alvarez, and he had finished Gaethje. Poirier wanted to be like, you know, the captain of the all-violence team. Yeah, fair enough. I mean, you beat that, you beat those guys.

You deserve a special title. But what about the guy who finished those other two dudes, didn't get a chance to fight Eddie? I mean, you would imagine you would pick Oliver over Eddie at this point. Eddie, obviously, is not in the UFC. But, dude, the amount of high – it goes back to the Armando Nunez thing. Like the amount of high-quality names on there that are just like round one, round two, round one, round three, one, two, just getting, just getting pieced up.

It's insane. It's insane. Uh, how long have I been going on in this one? How long have we been running? 57. All right. Let's talk about a little bit of this, uh, rest of this card, which was fights were fine. They were not really... They were fine. They were fine. Not a lot of star power on the card. I'm not going to rehash that.

They were okay. Mike Malott defeating Adam Fuggett, or... Is it Fuggett? No, it's Fuge. Fuggett? I don't know. Fuggett is how they said it, right? Fugit? No, it's Fuge. Fugit? I don't know. Fugit is how they said it, right? Fugit? Mike Malott hits him with a body kick to open the fight

and you can see it. It is one of these numbers to him and he hangs on, but he kept getting cracked over and over again. He gets finally in the second round. He got cracked with a stance switch. I believe a left hand that sits him. I believe that's right.

In any case, he then jumps on a guillotine and then has to readjust it once. But once they turn to mount, he gets it and puts him away. Mike Malott looks like an interesting character. Looks like he's done well for himself down there at Team Alpha Male. He's relatively young. Canada needs some faces. He looks like he could be useful for the

UFC if they want to go back to Canada more often. So nice win by him. Dan Ige defeating Nate Landwehr. Dan Ige was just a step ahead basically the whole time. Landwehr had some interesting attacks up the middle. Some of the teeps were getting through. That was kind of interesting. He was showing him a little uppercut action as well. But Dan Ige's ability to shift, drop shift, aka stance switch, was just too much for him. He was able to find a lot of openings himself with the left hand as well. I think he dropped Landwehr in the first round with the left hand, badly dropped him in the second round with the left hand, and more or less either outclassed him or, you know, did enough to, obviously, hung on and got the win. Ige afterwards said he was not really

happy, you know it's kind of funny, Ige to me is really, you heard Paul Filder kind of talk about it, Ige is like to me the most advanced probably best version of the Nick Sick theory of fighting so obviously like Francis

was not the UFC champion anymore but has a claim to be the number one heavyweight in the world and so in that sense Francis has obviously done you know gone further in the sport but Ige in terms of all the things that he does to me more closely represents like what Nixick is trying to do

and he looked good for the most part he looked good took a little bit of punishment in the third as I mentioned and he looked good for the most part. He looked good. Took a little bit of punishment in the third, as I mentioned, but in general, he was the one busier. He was the one landing heavier shots. He was the one who was more accurate. He avoided long brawls with Landwehr. Good job. And then to open the card, Marc-Andre Berriot defeating Eric Anders, 30-27,

which seemed a little off to me, but right guy won. Basically, when they were close together, Anders or Anders was a little bit stronger, more dominant in that position. And then at range, Berriot was clearly better. And then the long story short is that at range, Berrio was able to just do better work. They were open stance for the majority of that contest, I believe. And so he was able

to work the outside angle when he needed it at times. Fun fight. It was fine. Nothing particularly interesting. There's more on the prelim card that I want to talk about. We have to save that for a different time. I didn't really solicit for tweets, but if we have any, I will take a look at it. Let's see.

Real quickly. Not really. I didn't put a whole lot out. This person writes, didn't like Charles closing his guard, staying on his back, going for subs. I didn't mind that. But he showed improvement by getting up and striking. Sure.

Islam has better defense than Benildo and handles pressure better. Well, definitely handles pressure better. But I don't know if he's got better defense. Like pure submission defense. I don't think that's quite right. Did you see anything new in the fight against Dariush that the rematch against Islam goes differently? One, again, the jumping switch thing.

Stopping all that bullshit. That's a big one. I didn't. I'd rather see the Islam versus Volkanovski 2 or BMF winner. I just screw with that a little bit. Okay. So that is it. That is it. There's more that happened, but we'll have more for this at a later day. Not the greatest UFC card of all time, but here I am at two in the morning still talking about it. So it's got to be worth something.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I greatly appreciate it. Reminder, Monday, live, 11 a.m. in the east, right? Here we go. LTBCMK, be there, fuckfaces. Be there for us. Do that kind of shit. We love it when you do. Get some sleep if you're up late like me. Don't drink and drive. And yeah, that'll be that, boys and girls. Until next time, stay frosty and all that good shit out there. Yay. Bye.