MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - 🚨UFC 292 Instant Reaction | Sterling-O'Malley | Weili-Lemos | Magny-Garry | Morning Kombat

Episode Date: August 20, 2023

Brian Campbell has you covered with an instant reaction to UFC 292. BC breaks down Aljamain Sterling vs. Sean O'Malley, Weili Zhang vs. Amanda Lemos, Neil Magny vs. Ian Garry and more. Get MORNING KOMBAT merchandise now: https://morningkombat.store/ Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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morning combats ufc 292 instant reaction welcome in you better believe it's just i don't know a few minutes after midnight here where we let it all hang out and the ufc pay-per-view emanating from td garden in boston is over wow a shake-up at the top and some interesting events up and down welcome on in my name is brian campbell one half of course of your award-winning morning combat duo i know what you say and you know i i'm here for Luke Thomas, right? It's MMA talk, BC. I mean, you know, how many bits and skits and white belts you got? Hey, let's be professional here.

I'm fresh off the set of CBS Sports HQ, and I'm ready to bring it. Luke Thomas on vacation. He'll be back next week. So if you want spoilers, I mean, if you're really going to tune into a YouTube post fight show expecting not to get spoilers immediately after a pay-per-view once again uh you're going to have to examine your own uh misfortunes heck of a turnaround at the top the bantamweight division the deepest in the sport just as al jermaine sterling was looking to extend his win streak to

10 looking to extend his record for most Bantamweight wins in company history, and looking to pass Dominick Cruz for sole possession of most title defenses. Well, that reign was shipped up to Boston and on out by 28-year-old Sugar Sean O'Malley. Question all you want, whether his resume was decorated enough with big names to get to this point or whether his game was well-rounded enough. It's funny. I had said all throughout the build that O'Malley going for this title amid still some, you know, honest, critical. I mean, look, he O'Malley rightfully got his flowers from the split decision over former champion Pierre Rion to get to this point. But the comparison to a rising Conor McGregor heading into the Jose Aldo fight were legitimate in my eyes, just from the standpoint of not comparing their games, but comparing the fact

that you can get to the title level, even if you're deemed a one-dimensional fighter. Although, as we saw in this victory for O'Malley, a second round TKO and a stunning one under in that, that it wasn't just one dimensional, but the whole idea of wait till he fights this type of fighter, right? We said that about McGregor when he fought Chad Mendes with a short training camp going into the Jose Aldo fight, wait till he fights a real, well, you know, in that fight, 13 seconds in, we didn't find out what it could have looked like because McGregor ended it. This time it was different on how we got here, but with 50 seconds to go in round two on this evening,

Sugar Sean O'Malley waited for that one single mistake, as he talked about afterwards, and Aljamain Sterling's title reign over right there. Wow. Here's what's interesting is you want to say this fight was won in the second round on an absolutely beautiful, I mean, just perfect, fast, accurate, and hard counter right hand as Aljamain Sterling did make a mistake, squared up, overextended on a lead left jab. And as he's sort of switching stances and crossing up, looking like he was trying to crowd O'Malley and force a clinch

and eventually a takedown, he ate an absolutely beautiful counter right hand that leads to the stoppage. And I'll talk about the stoppage in a second. But the fight wasn't won on that point. I really think this fight was won midway through the first round because the first round ended up being kind of a flip-flopper where you could have scored it either way. There were a lot of different types of kicks and strikes and feints, but no one really offensively seemed to secure it. The UFC announced team felt like Aljo by getting a very brief

takedown in the final minute and scoring some strikes from the clinch may have done enough there. I felt like O'Malley kind of just barely won it. Either way on that debate, halfway through that round, I think we saw a frustrated Aljamain Sterling. Because what happened was it really only took a little over two minutes for O'Malley to force Sterling to fight on his terms. And that's the interesting thing we said coming in. We expected Sterling, who's fresh off of taking Olympic gold medalist

Henry Cejudo down four times, to have had success in that area. And the question was going to be, how many times could O'Malley get up and how much of his gas tank would be compromised in there? But this wasn't just about Sterling's inability to take O'Malley down and really just some excellent takedown defense from O'Malley. I really think this fight was won in the middle of that first round because everything that Sterling does offensively to be funky, to be different, to be unorthodox, to be hard to pick up his rhythms, O'Malley didn't sell for any of it. So what you saw was O'Malley dictating his space in the center of the cage, moving with Sterling and really forcing him to come after him, forcing Sterling to sort of take the lead. And it really didn't matter even for O'Malley as the Boston crowd at the end of that first round, which was a pro O'Malley crowd, kind of turned on both of them and started booing the lack of action.

That boo was a victory, at least in my opinion, for O'Malley, who really frustrated. Look, Sterling jumped all over Cejudo, rightfully so, with the former champion Henry coming off that big layoff to do this type of stuff that makes Sterling hard to look good against. The constant switch of stances, the legitimate threat of a lot of those jumping kicks and really Sterling mixing in, even in this fight, a lot of very intelligent inside leg kicks. Just little pecs here and there to keep you off base and to force you to reset. That has worked at the highest level, but that really works when the threat of the takedown or the success of the takedown can be packaged with that. Then suddenly, not only do you have to keep from, from being taken down to your back, cause you know how quickly Sterling could adjust and take your back and submit you just like he did in less than 90 seconds to Corey Sanhagen a few years back. But I think, you know, on top of that, it's that threat of that takedown, which just opens up his offense so much. And with his constant movement, it's hard

for you to get into any type of rhythm. How about the poi shown by O'Malley to just basically be like, I'm not going for any of that. This fight is going to play out on my terms. If you cannot get me down, you're going to have to play chess with me in my ball game and in my strength. And that's exactly what happened. And what led to the finish in this fight was a mistake from Sterling. I felt like he was getting a little frustrated. He came out to start round two and was as busy as he was up to any point in the fight. A lot of kick attempts, a lot of targeting the body with his sidekicks, but really just trying to push some type of pace,

trying to see what he can get out of O'Malley. But it was interesting. It was the poise of the largely unproven challenger that forced this champion, rightfully so, finally receiving his flowers, right? Where we talked all week about it. It's not just the wrestling. It's the evolution of his striking. It's the IQ, it's the points, all those things

that allowed Sterling to cleanly beat Peo de Llanos in the rematch to take that big step forward and defend that title and sort of cement his reign. And while we can't take a lot, obviously, from what happened against Dillashaw, this win streak in totality, and really particularly what he did against Henry Cejudo in a close fight doing enough in key moments to get the edge rightfully so Sterling was the guy who was winning these fights against fellow elites where it comes down to just one tiny little separation between two fighters by leaning on those intangibles and I know sometimes you say oh BC you don't know anything about you know you don't know a wrist lock from a wrist watch so all you can do is come out and talk about their intangibles.

But championship intangibles ultimately is what separate two great fighters and create separation between them enough for one to come over the top and win the championship. And how about these intangibles from O'Malley? We always knew that he's got like sort of the combination of the unshakable confidence mixed with just that poise to stand in front of the bright lights and raise his game to a higher level but forcing sterling to to chase and suddenly fight his fight is exactly what led to the opening and the creation of that mistake and when you have the striking that o'malley does and the timing and the speed and the power you can do exactly what he did right there. And I wanted to finish what I was trying to say earlier. I'm excitedly talking in circles because

it's 1.41 a.m. Eastern time here. But the comparisons to McGregor, I don't think were ridiculous from breakout star, from the criticism against him. But the way it finished, man, it just really felt like McGregor Aldo in that regard, just like shocking in front of your eyes. No, not much where you can, you know, argue back at that. The only argument here I felt like was the stoppage from referee Kevin McDonald. And I wonder if opinions do vary because I was just coming off of a CBS Sports HQ hit with my good friend Hakeem Dermish, who Hakeem thought the stoppage was actually too long and it could have been stopped pretty soon after that right hand that drop him. I disagreed with that. And I really feel like I echoed some of the

hinting there on the broadcast from Joe Rogan, that it was actually somewhat of a quick stoppage. I don't think O'Malley was landing as cleanly or as violently as maybe it looked as he's standing over a drop Sterling trying to land clean shots i think you got to let the champion go a little bit more you got to let the champion early in this fight in the second round work his way out of that grab a leg try to you know i mean if he's getting clean hit clean he's getting hit clean i just didn't see it in the spot i felt like it was a quick stoppage does that take away from what we saw no because that that giant mistake from Sterling and the way O'Malley just popped in and calmly landed the key blow to end that fight, I mean, that's championship medal and poise

and an ability as an artist to deliver when the pressure is the most. This is a guy who thrives on this. This is a guy in O'Malley who is unnaturally confident and has been since he showed up at the Dana White Contender Series in 2017 and was already talking about being the next big star and a future champion. I know a lot of guys talk that junk, but we got to give O'Malley credit whether you think he was, you know, an overrated hype job coming in or not, in that he's dealt with setbacks or pushback in his career very well not just the

two-year usada hiccup not just the loss slash injury to chito vera which you know was was was creatively removed from from the storytelling of ufc ahead of this fight but really opened up a lot of questions heck we had questions about O'Malley when he took that stance against the UFC, basically saying, I'm not going to fight ranked fighters unless you pay me, you know, sort of a star level. And eventually he got the contract that he wanted. And then suddenly we saw him stepping up his game. But through that, we saw consistently the same O'Malley who was always talking a big game, but each time given the chance with the exception of that Cheeto fight, stepping up and delivering. And it was going to be inevitable with his star

that he was going to get to this point, even with this division being so deep and dominant and really historically deep. But how can you deny after that Piotr Jan win? But even with that win, did I expect this? No, I picked Sterling because at the end of the day i thought this was going to be a competitive five-round fight in which sterling would have success bringing the fight to the ground and then we would have to see right like connor against habib see can he save enough of that gas tank can he get himself off the back and obviously sterling isn't the same grounded pounder uh that habib is where once he gets you down uh i mean well no once he gets you down you can be taken out of

their submission wise for sure but would you have thought around and a half in that sterling wouldn't get him down at all or if he did like at the end of that first round like i mentioned very quick um and really no clean top you know extended ground and pound or anything that could put the cementing down on round one for sterling this is all credit to o'malley you're gonna keep you know that's what we said coming in well what if he does keep his back off there what if this is a kickboxing match suddenly how much will that favor o'malley well it favored him enough that he created this opening for this perfect happening and mistake and finish and counter shot and it was clean and it almost as if again re-watch it beginning from right around the

mid of the first round you saw frazzled sterling and he's only going to get frazzled with all that championship experience in a well-rounded game when he's unable to to get o'malley to to move to show his tell to overextend to look i mean there was a lot of fainting coming out of aljo and i really like that patience of O'Malley. That's like, heck, if I have to punt this first round, I will, but you're going to fight on my terms. Just a breakthrough win. That's why there's no sudden flash knockout against a great fighter.

We've got to run it back. No, we don't have to run it back, and certainly not with the depth in this division. And you did get O'Malley afterwards trying to kind of call his shots and saying, I heard Cheeto. Did Cheeto win? Was it boring? Well, I wouldn't say boring, but he did. There was some elements of survive and advance against a very tough Pedro Munoz on the same card, but you heard O'Malley say afterwards, he wants Cheeto certainly something we're going to debate on Monday's morning

combat with the great hall of famer Rashad Evans, by the way, back on the scene, Luke to return on Wednesday, in terms of that direction, whether it in fact instead should be Murab Davalish-Willie, provided he's healthy enough, or even Corey Sanhagen, who's still in the bullpen and still in a very good spot coming off of that Rob Fontwin, but he has a cast on his arm as well. So it's interesting. Timing is everything in this division. They could go the direction of Cheeto, but I didn't even see O'Malley. It's funny. This is where, again, the intangibles matter when somebody has, you know, championship elite ones. And O'Malley, you know,

you didn't see the over the top celebration afterwards, like you'd seen in the past and the, you know, fade away and all that. You didn't see, you know, I mean, he did kind of throw a shot at Cheeto, but not over aggressively yelling into the microphone or doing it. It was as if all along he knew this was going to happen, but yet I actually liked, and look, I've never been huge on O'Malley's presentation and character. I've always said I'm an old, washed 45-year-old dad,

and he's not speaking to me, right? He's speaking to a younger generation with the hair, the tattoos, the video game culture, the growth. I mean, everything, you know, but. The humility afterwards to be like, yeah, I was facing arguably the greatest band in history. I was really nervous, you know, didn't show it, didn't show it in the cage at all. Didn't show it in the, in the, in the celebration afterwards.

It was like, matter of fact, I knew it was't show it in the cage at all didn't show it in the in the in the celebration afterwards it was like matter of fact i knew it was going to happen in december if you want it ufc if you want to bring cheeto out we'll do it again uh in some ways it's like if marab's ready i want marab next because he's coming on but if he's not or if you just want to it's the last guy and the only guy on this level, you know, in the UFC to have beaten O'Malley. That is the right fight to run back in that regard. Style-wise, it would be very interesting. But this was arguably the worst style on paper, meaning Sterling.

And look at what O'Malley was able to do. The reason why I said off the top that it wasn't one-dimensional because obviously the takedown defense turned out to be a big part of it. But, you know, we didn't even have to find out, does O'Malley have legitimate five-run stand? Well, we did find out a lot of that against Jan, so I guess that wasn't the key. But, you know, how would he do against submission threats and all this?

We never got to that point. Just an incredible read reaction in the moment, and he got a new champion just like that. We'll see how big his star can be, of course, and how much the UFC is going to put the PR machine behind him. It's weird. It's different, right? I mean, journalism, you know, sports journalism is in a much different place

than it was three years ago, five years ago. We talk a lot about UFC in this ESPN era. They're not overly committed to doing the same type of promotion and investment into that because of that deal. It's not as much as it used to be the value of, oh, we got a new fighter. Like, oh, Weidman beat Sanderson Silverman. We got to get him to ESPN as many times as we can, do the car wash, get the exposure. But it's a new time in social media and the control fighters

have and O'Malley is already one of the the best at getting that exposure but as much as it means in 2023 to put the rocket pack on somebody it'll be interesting for me to see how aggressive UFC will be in trying to push O'Malley to become really a face you know one of the faces uh along with the fading star of Connoror, along with Jon Jones, along with Volkanovski and Adesanya of this organization at the moment. They put him in the pressure car and he delivered. And you got to give him his props, man. Absolutely.

The Poise Show, the Cool Calm delivery, absolute breakthrough performance. And I was happy to be wrong. It's one of those situations. You, you are happy to have seen that type of magic deliver just like that. It's gotta be tough for Sterling though, who talked afterwards and suddenly seemed like he's potentially changing his tune. When Joe Rogan said, I thought you said you were moving up to featherweight. And then suddenly it's like Aljo who was being humble and I'll give him that not only the humble comment, he said, look, if O'Malley can do this to me as easily,

then what can Volkanovski do? But, you know, Aljo seemed like he was kind of aggressively trying to do a slight baby face turn in some ways of, of given the inspirational advice in the post-fight losing interview about chasing your dreams, everybody out in the crowd. Maybe I'm a sucker for wholesimity just as much as I'm the other extreme and a sucker for aggressive trash talk. But I really like that.

I really like that about out of Aljo. But it will be interesting to see. Will he try to reload at 45 in hopes eventually of getting a rematch against O'Malley? Or is this way cut too hard? And is this move up to feather? He did take, you know, the better move for him. In terms of delivering, he took a step back tonight. Not just the loss, but the mistake that led to that, certainly.

So back to the drawing board for Sterling. But, man, you know, the real area where the McGregor comparison fails is obviously O'Malley is not at that same star level. And it didn't feel like the world shook like it did when McGregor knocked out Aldo, like when home upset Rousey. I mean, it literally fit, you know,

even like when, when Penny upset Nunez, it felt like the world shook. This didn't necessarily have that, but it was a clean, it was a clean enough passing of the torch that it was like, okay, there's no doubt now let's see what the sugar show is.

And against these line of killers that are going to be lining up behind him, let's see if he sugar show is and against these line of killers that are going to be lining up behind him let's see if he can keep this going and stay on top what a what a what an exclamation point on a pay-per-view that like we said we had was was better on paper originally coming in than the last minute injuries led it to and it was a little up and down on the overall delivery tonight in terms of i mean you know you roll the dice you don't know what's gonna happen with the fights but what an exclamation point to close it. But in that co-main event before that is where you had some of this extended, um, well, it

was an extended one-sided beating from Zhang Weili, but a lack of buzz up to that point because of this fight in many ways. And then, you know, that pushing the end time and the start of the main event after 1 a.m. Eastern time, which is, is really getting, I mean, I don't, I don't mean to be, you know, that pushing the end time and the start of the main event after 1 a.m. Eastern time, which is is really getting. I mean, I don't I don't mean to be, you know, East Coast bias and an old POS. And I know we got MK fans listening right now from all sides of the globe. And you all have your own issues based on the timing of the fights. But can we not have East Coast main events starting after 1 a.m., please. Either way, Zhongwei Li with a

historical title defense, her first title defense in reign number two as strawweight champion against the puncher's chance that Amanda Lemos brought in at age 36. This one only went the distance in the end because Lemos just has an absurd chin and willingness to absorb to get to this point. But save for a very scary darts choke attempt in the final minute of round one, just as it seemed way Lee was ready to finish Lemos on the ground. This is like, Oh,

I mean, almost Holloway cater level of dominance. When you talk about the statistics, it goes down as an absolutely ridiculously wide, unanimous decision for young way. Lee 50 to 43, 50 to 44 and for Zhang Weili, 50-43, 50-44, and 49-45. In the 49 there, because let's give Lemos credit, outside of getting historically dominated, which I'll talk about the stats in a second, she had the near submission attempt at the end of round one.

She did open round two by landing some clean, hard right hands, which led to Weili taking her down again and doing the long, firm dominance to end that round. And I thought she won round four. You saw that the stamina, I don't want to say issues, but if you're going to wrestle as aggressively as Whaley did in the first three rounds trying to finish Limosh, even Habib against Al Iaquinto, we found this out. To do 25 minutes, maybe Merab can do 25 minutes of grappling at that pace with that aggression,

but very few humans can. And that opened up a door and let's give Lemos credit. I mean, she had to be kind of nervous there that Whaley seemed to have the fight in hand at the end of round four and almost looked like she was close to running into something.

But we talk about championship medal. At 34, I think Whaley was already the pound for pound queen coming in and this just doubled down and cemented it. But what she did to come out round five, very aggressive, scared to take down lead to the mauling. I thought it was a 10,

eight final round. Whaley is who we thought she was. And when we're talking about these statistics, now six takedowns to zero for, for young Whaley is impressive enough. On top of that, she had nearly 15 minutes of ground control over the 25 minutes of the fight. And when she had it, it wasn't wasting time, right?

It was aggressive passing, side control, taking the back, and constant ground and pound. In fact, a heavy, almost Brock Lesnar, Frank Mir rematch level of ground and pound when you're both kneeling and you're on the back of your opponent and you're landing those big shots from underneath. uh it was enough for dominance in that regard but how about the striking in total 288 to 21 288 strikes landed for whaley 21 for lame osh the most one sided disparency in total strikes landed in uf in ufc female history that's it's borderline holloway cater in that regard uh different because limos like i said had more moments where it was like holy crap i mean literally at the end of round one with that dars choke uh you know it wasn't

just oh crap she almost did it was like i was waiting for the tap it seemed you know remember belfort and john jones it was like she was like too close for comfort in that regard. A little bit crazy. Or take a Volkanovski on that level too, where you're like a second and a half felt like an eternity and you're like, she's going to tap. She's really going to tap. She didn't tap. Whaley overall really showed you how great she is.

And it's not that Lemos is great. She has very good power. Yes, she had two stoppage wins, Watterson and a much more valuable one over Marina Rodriguez to get to this point. But, you know, she got submitted in the first round by Jessica Andrade just two fights ago. And look where Andrade is now.

Andrade doesn't have this great history of submission wins at a very high level. But she showed championship toughness. and she nearly created a couple of crazy. Oh shit moments. I'll give her that credit. It did feel as they were walking to the cage, excuse me, disrespectful to say, it felt like a boxing mandatory title defense. It did. It did feel a little bit like that.

Lemos though, she showed out. She showed out in ways that Irine Aldana didn't, right? She unfortunately, you know, laid a Cyril Gansai's egg there in that fight with Amanda Nunes. At the very least, Lemos had her moments, came close. But it was pretty consistent that if Wei Li was going to... Wei Li was good striking, but it was all about using the striking to set up the takedowns. And then when she got her down, it was pretty consistent ground and pound. She's on top of this division. Let's see who's coming next.

She both Jan Sean on and Suarez touch out of Suarez were in the crowd. I think either one could get the next shot. It's going to be interesting where we go right there, but just absolute dominance. In fact, after round three, which was that three consecutive dominant wrestling rounds for Whaley, her strike total was 157 to nine. Yikes. Yikes.

At least Lemos was able to make those single strikes count. He had some moments, but there you go. But let's look up and down this card. I mentioned that, you know, all or nothing. I like really good humility and I like over the top badassery and trash talk and, and, you know, look at me type of behavior. Ian Machado, Gary, he takes a wide unanimous decision from Neil Magny. In fact, he beat the crap out of him. 30 to 26, 30 to 26 and 30 to 24. Damn. But there's a few butts here for as much as I like freshness. You know, I got, we all got behind Conor McGregor's rise. It was fun as heck. He talked ridiculous stuff and actually backed it up.

I didn't love afterwards, Gary who was unable to finish Magni and probably should have finished Magni, you know, putting the middle finger right in his ear and just really going overboard on being a dick. I get the original comments that Magny made at the media day about hitting his own child that led to Gary kind of using that as fuel to get himself fired up. And when you look at this in totality, did Gary dominate? Dude, he dominated like hell. He hurt both legs of Magny, it seemed, and really targeted that lead left leg and had him in hell. And Gary talked up a big game about himself afterwards,

about the poise he showed and all that. And look, I didn't like that he just basically stole Conor McGregor's mannerisms and one-liners and delivery this week at the press conference. It was a little bit too much like, dude, figure out your own flavor. Figure out your own lane. His performance in this regard was dynamic, next level as a striker.

They talked about on the broadcast, him never showing the tell, never showing, never leaving Magny in a spot where he knew what was coming. So you didn't get to see Magny be that stingy counter puncher and be difficult to hit and switch in stances and all the stuff he does.

He was under fire the whole time. So when Gary talks about his own poise of saying, look, it went 15 minutes, but look, I dominated every second. He did. You can't disrespect that. This was a, uh, you know, a heat check type of fight. We're gonna find out exactly who you are. This is a guy that nobody looks good against. This is a guy who can be stingy and can kind of grind you out. And that didn't happen. He kicked the shit out of him. With that said, it's not that I want to make the argument here

that Gary should have gotten the stoppage. And I do believe he should have. I don't believe he went for it aggressively enough. I believe in that regard, he showed Magni too much respect. When he had him that badly hurt, I know he was trying to land that one single strike that was going to spectacularly end it, and he came close to that leading front kick with the right leg, did land flush at the end, wasn't enough to stop him. But when you've got an opponent who can barely stand, take him down and put some ground upon him

and get him the frick out of there. Even if it's just the illusion of nonstop hammer fists and strikes to an injured down opponent. This was not in a similar situation, right? Brad Tavares against Chris Weidman, which I'll get to. At the very least, Weidman showed this rabid energy and this counter striking that, hey, if you mess around too much, Tavares, it might be a disaster for you. Magny was not showing that. He's in complete survival mode. And what I saw from Gary is finally taking him down with 30 seconds to go, but not being effective at all in landing strikes from top position. So as dominant as this was for Gary, and as much as he absolutely cemented the

idea that striking wise, he is next level, the ability to come out with kicks and, and, and flashy strikes and just barely miss and put that threat on you and land clean punches as he walks you down. He's dynamic as hell. He's got incredible belief in himself. He looks ready to make the leap. Like we talk about these, these guys who just look so badly, like they have next, you know, it goes all the way from Tremaya of the bone nickel. I'm Dell and Madeline. I mean, even DDP is recent rise where it's like, damn, I keep having to readjust how good they might be.

Gary's in that conversation. He's in that conversation, but as dominant as it was, didn't love the other side of it. It's not just not getting the finish where are the takedown attempts you know it's different when john jones i thought was too passive against tiago santos when meheda it was clear was operating on two bum legs with the blown out knees and just trying to grind it out and bite down but somehow still remaining a counter shot, devastating strike threat. I was caged side for that fight and just going like, why would Jones linger with a guy that dangerous for one shot strikes when he barely has two legs to stand on?

Take him down, ground and pound him, maul him, just get him the hell out of there. That's what I wanted from Gary. And 15 incredible minutes of striking. Show us that you can do that on the ground. Take him down. Show us that. Don't wait till the final 30 seconds.

And then when you have him in a good position, just unable to land anything. Those are the parts of Gary's game that need to evolve. The takeout of D-Rod mixed with this dominant effort. Offensively, absolutely dynamic and where he needs to be. A future threat to the title level, no question. But within that dominance, when you got a guy hurt that badly and you are just outshining and outclassing him and he's not a threat in return in terms of counterfire, finish him.

You know, show us the shark in you. You smell the blood, get him out of there. That regard, I was left wanting a little bit more, which is, it's certainly me being a little greedy here as an analyst and being extra critical. And, you know, again, I didn't love the middle finger and the push in his face afterwards. You know, Magni proved that he can go the distance with you, at least give him that respect, please, you know, drop the, lay down the arms, so to speak. So is that clouding my judgment?

I don't think so. I just think that for a guy in his spot in that situation, man. You got you got to splash the pot. You got to dunk. You got to hang on the rim. Get him out of there. Let's keep on going up and down this card. Mario Batista gets the unanimous division decision.

Excuse me, over Demond Blackshear on one week notice, fresh off the twister in his UFC debut. It goes down 29-28 on two scorecards, 30-27 on the third, which I thought was absolutely ridiculous. And on top of that, look, I'm not afraid to score fights and stand by it and let's have a healthy debate in boxing and in mma and if you don't like my scoring that's fine i think there's an argument for black shirt have won this fight and i think he the argument is rounds one and two third round yeah give it to batista but that constant threat on the ground from black sheer and there were stretches offensively with you know some very athletic and dangerous attempts and combinations that he was throwing. I thought he was in this fight more certainly than,

certainly than that wide third scorecard indicates, but a good win from Bautista against opponent that was new to the scene. They didn't have a lot of time to prepare for after Cody Gargant pulled out. I think both ultimately get elevated from this. Blackshirt's not going to lose by this. He wasn't dominated. He wasn't, you know, hurt badly in there or anything. And the quick turnaround is the quickest way to Dana's heart in that regard to take big chances. But I don't know, I felt like at that

decision, it could have easily been split. And I felt like there should have been maybe a little bit more argument on the side of had Blackshirt done enough in those first two rounds being very close. But Bautista takes advantage, gets it it done he's a teammate of O'Malley and certainly uh continues his recent ride at rise at Bantamweight definitely a guy to watch a tough out no doubt uh we mentioned Vera he was the lead off portion of this pay-per-view card against Pedro Munoz 30 to 27 on two scorecards 29 28 on the third um again on the scoring a little bit wider than i actually saw it i thought munoz had done enough in that close first round and i think there is an argument for munoz based on his volume in that second round my scorecard in the end goes two rounds to one uh chito vera rounds two and three three he absolutely put it together bloodying uh continuing to bloody munoz

his nose and really i thought vera did what does a lot, which can be detrimental to him at times, is give away that first round to really take that long extended snapshot. Now, he didn't give it away fully where you couldn't have scored it to him. In fact, two of the judges gave it three to nothing for him in that regard. But it was a low enough amount of volume where you did have questions if he had done enough in that round. And I think he just needed to sort of pick up the speed and the, and the aggressiveness and the constant movement of Munoz.

And certainly once he was able to use that jab as a weapon around two, and he slowed Munoz down a bit, and then you saw in round three, he could pick you apart with heavy shots and Munoz showed a hell of a chin and he ate some single big shots very well. And look, he's a tough out against everybody. He's sort of perpetually perpetually in this spot right he's going to lose when he steps up at a higher level but always going to be a tough out for these guys and he was in this i just felt like he had done a little bit more this wasn't a spectacular win for vera but i don't think it was a a step back i really don't and there was there was pressure on him to survive in advance. Now you didn't want to look overly boring, like Jan Blachowicz against, uh, against, um, uh,

Jacare in that five round main event where he ended up still continuing up the ladder and getting the title shot and San Hagen who had an injury leaned on the wrestling against Rob Font in the last minute situation, just a couple of weeks back to kind of do this thing, just hold serve in his spot atop the division. That was the job for Mar, just hold serve in his spot atop the division. That was the job for Marlon Vera. Hold serve in case Sean O'Malley won. He did his job. It was close, as I'm mentioning, but he was the bigger striker,

landed the bigger shots, two rounds to one, in my opinion. I just felt like three to nothing on two scorecards. I don't know, a little disrespectful toward Munoz, but again, it's not about disrespect. It's about scoring each round individually. I mentioned the leg kick battle that we also saw in that preliminary feature about, and that was Brad Tavares, Chris Weidman, the former middleweight champ coming back from two years away after the devastating leg break against Uriah Hall. Let's talk about a few things, honestly. Okay. First and foremost, what do we take away from here?

Let's really give Chris Weidman has just do on this, this regard, coming back from two years when most people in his spot, 39 years old, you lost six of your last eight. And there's a lot of stoppages in there. Two years away, all that just to get back to this point. He's a badass. We already knew that, right? But he's a badass we already knew that right but he's a badass yes the heart he showed in here on two absolutely chewed up legs and give Tavares credit for doing that to him um yeah he was there to fight to the finish it was very similar to Luke Rockhold against Paulo Costa and in it we didn't have as much as that fu sort of response from Rockhold and I think that's what Matt Serra in the corner Joe Rogan Costa. And we didn't have as much as that FU sort of response from Rockhold.

And I think that's what Matt Sarah in the corner, Joe Rogan, had referenced it. We didn't see it because they had gone to commercial since this was airing on ESPN2 and ESPN+. But apparently Sarah had gotten his air and was like, be disrespectful, be nasty. There was a brief moment where it looked like Weidman was close to being finished to the legs where he started to point at Tavares and make him back

up. And it was almost like Rockhold against Costa all over again. So I'm going to give Weidman that credit overall for just being a hard-nosed badass. With that said, he's 39 and he's washed. And I don't say that to be disrespectful. But I say that because it's the truth. And I can't believe he finished this fight i do think in some levels tavaris had mercy for him but that was mixed with weidman

to his credit landing some big counter punches at just the right time where it looked like he was about to get finished to the legs he did just enough to show tavaris that like i can make i can end this here i can make it really bad for you. So yeah, the x-rays came back. He's a dog, but I guess the reason why I do have a bad taste in my mouth is the whole presentation that led up to that. I'm not against, I said it this week with Shaq on Friday's MK show. I'm not against Weidman doing anything to motivate himself.

I'm not against Weidman in an interview saying, I still believe I could be a champion. Maybe that's what he needs to get out of bed and keep getting through what was not an easy recovery, right? He had multiple surgeries, infections. I mean, it was a horrific experience. And this guy, I mean, the same thing that led him to initially winning the championship

and twice beating the great Anderson Silva. Although, did he beat him or did Silva lose the debate for a future podcast? Or maybe we're just haters, but his pre-fight interview had like five mentions of like, I'm going to be a champion again. This is the beginning of another run to being a champion. And it's not that I want them to come on the air and drop a doogie on that and be like, well, Chris, you know, you know, it's, you know, good, good to dream, Chris, right?

You know, there's an old sound drop. I used to play on my old CBS sports boxing podcast with Ralph Bartholomew of Jeff Horn's wife. They did a doc. Remember when Jeff Ford upset Manny Pacquiao for the what's the way title. And they did this documentary on him in Australia. And they had Jeff Horn's wife, Jo, who, you know, it sounded like wasn't giving her husband a chance in this, just like most of the boxing world, where she did this thing where she was like, yeah, before the fight, Jeffrey was talking about, you know, he's going to be a champion. He's going to beat Manny Pacquiao. And she's like, we were all like yeah right jeffrey you know keep dreaming it's not that i want dc to come out and be like hey weidman man you know you lost six of a you got knocked the hell out you've been out a long time you're 39 you're actually lucky if seriously if you can go 15 minutes here and walk off on your own power seriously based on the leg injuries you've had that would be extreme that would be rude that would be being disrespectful and dc being disrespectful but what did dc and the broadcast do they put a horrific taste in my mouth with

this propaganda in which they didn't just entertain the idea of weidman coming back and beating tavaris and going on a run and it wouldn't it's not like it's impossible right but dc's like yeah you know if you're out of sonia you DC's like, yeah, you know, if you're Adesanya, you're probably watching this at home, you know, hoping Weidman wins because, you know, to be fair, Chris Weidman is the biggest fight Adesanya has available to him potentially. What? I mean, what?

What? What? What? what? I mean, I mean, what, what, what, what? I remember like a couple of years ago where Luke Rockhold was threatening a comeback. And, you know, he's like, I think I have the game to beat out of Sonia. Even Rockhold hadn't lost as many times. Now there was some devastating knockout losses for Rockhold, just the same in there, but it wasn't as bad. And we were like, you know what? Rockhold still might have something

left in the tank more than the age would tell you maybe maybe he could maybe because izzy's cleaned out this division multiple times which is by the way allowing sean strickland to slide in for a title defense that you know title opportunity that none of us necessarily thought he would get ddp's injury opened up the door and and again is he had beaten everybody but you know dc's like oh, this would be the biggest fight available. What? Like, no one's going to check that? No one's going to, like, you know, it's like the video editors.

Maybe we shouldn't have played five references of Weidman saying, I'm about to go on a title run. All right, enough of BC being a dick. It just really had a bad taste in my mouth. To the fight, though. Once Weidman could not take Tavares down, you knew it had the potential to be a long night for him. His timing was understandably off.

You have to wonder how much was in his head about the potential strength of his leg. And once Tavares really started to hammer on those legs, I mean, look, there was a point there in that second round where you're like, oh, man, I'm not sure. Not only does Weidman look like he's one calf strike, like maybe from never walking again. I mean, he was getting brutalized on the other leg, not the surgically repaired one, the other one.

And then he was forced to switch stances, and Tavares started tapping on the bad leg too, and suddenly he's on two bad wheels, and you're like, okay, one more strike. While I get, as I mentioned, Weidman through enough sort of rabid desperation strikes actually landed we were like oh shit like rockhold against suze uh against costa where you're like he you know he might be able to do something here i felt like tavaris should have stepped in and taken him out really committed considering again maybe shoot on him maybe shoot and take weidman down and and you and, you know, you're saying, okay, wasn't that, wasn't that, but the strength back in Weidman,

who's the better wrestler. I mean, no, not necessarily. I mean, his wheels were broken. You got to rush him and put on some offense. It really, you look like one giant wind up big leg strike again, may have been enough to take him out of there. I'm shocked Weidman was able to make the finish, not because he isn't a dog. He absolutely is. But it did feel particularly right after Weidman was really hurt the first time where it's like, oh, I'm not sure you can even stand again.

You know, Tavares, I would like him to bite down and try to get rid of him there. You've got a wounded, dangerous, you know, opponent. Don't let him linger. Do you have to? Do you try to get rid of him there you've got a wounded dangerous uh you know opponent don't let him linger do you have to do you have to let it linger um it's not going to be a type of breakthrough huge opportunity win for Tavares who's an aging fighter himself and more of a journeyman but we have a lot of respect for him god he's been there since 2010 so uh it's easy for me to stay in my basement as as Tavares has taken a couple right crosses from Weidman that are waking him up. But those were two fights there where you got a guy hurt and he can barely stink. Get him out of there. Don't mess around. Take care of it. That became tough to watch. I don't know what Weidman's future is.

Could he talk himself into believing because of the heart he showed that if he can just get healthy no no he can't uh he can't him getting to here that's the victory he got back here and he gutted it out i don't know i mean we saw a video if you watch on social media afterwards of weidman in a wheelchair and he could barely stand rightfully so um i hope this is the end but i hope weidman's also able to take solace in the fact that he came out and showed a a next level dog in that regard um wow a couple other worthy of notes for talking about hobo cop is back as as bronstetter called gregory hodriguez robocop and he sent dennis to lillian to hell now were these elbows ko one minute 43 into round one to the

back of the head yeah they kind of looked at it like it upon replay i saw some people on social media saying should have been a no contest there's some if you watch that back slowly it seems to make sense but this for robocop coming off of a knockout loss of his own last time out uh where you know he was a hot commodity. It looks like he's like 54 years old. He's only 31 from Brazil. But he was a rising fun, hot commodity. Bruno Fajeda got him in less than round one.

To see RoboCop adjust to that, be more selective and patient, and still be this nasty once he was able to lift up and slam down to L lulian who trains with fedor it looked pretty pretty exciting and dominant we want to always see more of robocop but this was a return to form and and you love it when people learn from defeat you absolutely love it they talked a lot about it on the broadcast rogan dc making the rightful comparisons to boxing which over inflates the the value of an unbeaten record.

And sometimes that certainly can lead to matchmaking that is designed more to protect those records because everybody's looking for that one defining super fight in their career that can change them financially. I get it. You get it. You understand it. But in this regard, nice breakthrough performance for him quickly also i want to mention brazilian women are coming on these two opening fights in the flyweight division 125 which is turning around so it's better than the strawweight division right now i mean especially when you're adding rose namunas to the mix right these like, and you've got Blanchfield, Tyler Santos and Manon Ferro, like ready for their title opportunity.

You got the new champion Grasso defending in September against Shevchenko. I mean, you got risers like Macy Barber. There's so many fun potential names. How about two of them from Brazil named Silva? Natalia Silva, who we always talked about a lot and now extends to another victory here with just so much, so dominant over Andrea Lee that Andrea Lee's boyfriend, who's also her trainer and forgive me for not remembering the name here or writing it down.

I mean, he's pleading with her, but he's almost like berating her. I didn't like that at all. His advice in theory was right. Bite down on the moth guard, go behind the high guard, and get Natalia out of her flow and put on, you know, go for broke. You're down on the scorecards, go for it. Lee couldn't do that. There was a, you know, Silva was too dominant with switching stances and constantly throwing fakes with the kicks and too dangerous where KGB was sort of like, there was sort of this built-in unspoken, I'm going to go for survival here. And I'm not going to hold that against her,

but I don't like when the trainer is also the significant other. And in this regard, man, that was some, I mean, I know you gotta, you gotta light a fire and get in that ass, but it was almost like some berating going on in the way he was talking to her. She didn't respond. I get why considering the talent across from her, but this is a breakthrough win for Natalia Silva and another advancement, but Karini Silva who opened against Marina Morose, who's usually a very tough out herself, very technical first round submission by guillotine.

Karini Silva had that, like as much as Natalia Silva looks like this finished product striking-wise, so early in her career, we were like, wow, you know, this is one to watch for the title level. Karini Silva looked like a breakthrough athlete who can, you know, be a finisher both on the feet and on the ground. Love it on the undercard when there's breakthrough moments. And the Ultimate Fighter finale, we had two of them, but how about that Bantamweight one, Brad Katona and Cody Gibson? Yeah, kind of a poor man's Griffin Bonner one.

And you heard Joe Rogan make that comparison, but so much heart shown between them. Brad Katona now the first two-time tough champion and to do it in this season, which was about Conor McGregor, but it was also about second chances here. It was good to see. It looked like Cody Gibson had his number in that first round round Katona turned it on down the stretch like an absolute badass that was a street fight not a not an MMA fight but uh you know what top to bottom pretty pretty damn good entertaining card just a couple tough moments to watch the extended play out of Weidman

and and the extended beat down of Whaley over Lamos. But you know what? Top to bottom, I think like this over delivered in the end, maybe I should wake up and realize that, but we're going to have so much more for you on morning combat this Monday, sugar, Rashad Evans will be here. Luke Thomas back next Wednesday. What a time to be alive. Maybe you got something out of this, or maybe this was just a free click and you hated this and Luke can't come

back fast enough. Either way, me and my new 1988 haircut. Couldn't care less, but I do love you anyway, because this is morning combat. It's just the, I mean,

it's a bunch of old wash dads talking about their lives. And sometimes we talk, I'm a main boxing old washed dads talking about their lives. And sometimes we talk MMA and boxing too. But if you know the artwork that's coming across into your face hole right now, then you understand what this is all about. Yeah, we're going for three in a row. World MMA Awards, Best MMA Program. You may have heard of it. We're up against all the heavy hitters like Ariel and all those people.

Let's see if we can win it again here. Maybe we took too many vacations and we deserve to lose this year. But, you know, at this point, I think I'm just talking to myself, to be very fair. It's 221 a.m. on the Eastern time. Maybe you were entertained. Did I make you laugh? Did I make you cry? Did I make you feel something?

That's what it's all about here. Mikey Mormont on the ones and twos from CBS Sports. Thank you very much. back from vacation himself and bc is going to pack it up pack it in and let me begin to bring this on home um it's been great talking to you 292 in the books the sugar show uh you know when when def leopard wrote that song right they were talking about ejaculation did that demonetize us mikey i hope not but. But I mean, it's true. It is true. You know, most rap songs, I think, are about that, too. You ever like hear your wife talk, you know, singing some hip hop song and you're sort of like, do you know what lyrics you're

actually saying? All right. You know, we've certainly reached a point of no return where, yeah, where I'm delirious and maybe we should just wrap this up but sean o'malley is the new bantamweight king and uh i'm a wash dad and it's been great talking to you tip your ushers on the way out uh thank you for watching morning combat um yeah i don't know you know i mean you know you hope you hope it works out well in the end you hope you did a good job but you know inevitably you're falling asleep in the chair. You know what I mean? It's just, you know, I mean, Mikey, what are we doing here? I mean, you know what I'm saying?