MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 298 Results: Alexander Volkanovski vs. Ilia Topuria | UFC 298 Reaction and Post-Fight Show

Episode Date: February 18, 2024

At UFC 298, Alexander Volkanovski attempts to defend the UFC featherweight title against Ilia Topuria in the ESPN+ pay-per-view main event. Robert Whittaker and Paulo Costa battle in the co-main event in the middleweight division. Elsewhere on the fight card, Ian Garry faces Geoff Neal, Henry Cejudo squares off against Merab Dvalishvili and Anthony Hernandez fights Roman Kopylov. MEgaphone:  Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts 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

Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only. At participating McDonald's in Canada. Ahem. Ahem. Well, well, well. Well, well, well. This is going to be a fun one. Well, well, well. Hmm. This is going to be a fun one.

This is going to be a fun one. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome everyone to my humble abode. It is currently 101, excuse me, as we would say in the military, 106 in the morning. This is the 18th of February, 2024. UFC 298 has concluded. It is in the morning. This is the 18th of February 2024. UFC 298 has concluded. It is in the books. We are done with it, but there's a lot to get to. So thank you so much for joining me. I greatly appreciate it. A couple of housekeeping notes. First of all, please give this video a thumbs up. Welcome back to MK. We're not ready to relaunch everything, but we wanted to check in with you and make sure you're doing all right. We appreciate you being here.

Thank you very much. Second of all, please subscribe. We still have many things to do in the MK universe. We hope you come along for the ride. This is going to be a fun post-fight show. I'm so excited to do this show right now. I've got so much to say that I just can't fucking wait to do so we're going to get to all the results

we're going to get to all of your questions we're going to get to all the stuff that matters all of the results, all of the analysis and everything in between if you don't want spoilers, boy now is the time to go I would imagine that you don't really care at this point but you know, warnings being what they are. All right?

All right. With that out of the way, with that preamble done, oh, let's get this party started, shall we? Let's do that. And we're back. All right, let me make sure everything sounds all right. Let's see all the folks on the other end. Let's see.

BC is sending me hilarious texts about Zuckerberg. Yeah, guys, don't walk out with Zuckerberg. Don't do that. I mean, I realize he's at the star, Vogue's at a star level where he's like hob-dobbing with billionaires. But leave, you ever seen that meme? You ever seen that meme where it's like a star level where he's like hob-dobbing with billionaires. But you ever seen that meme? You ever seen that meme where it's like a bunch of soldiers and then they're all like outside of a door

ready to do some kind of like forced entry? And then there's like five of them. Then one of them's like a clown, like obviously like dressed up like a clown. That was that meme. Like, you know, Joe Lopez, soldier. Volkanovski, soldier. Eugene Berman, soldier.

Zuck, clown. Okay, but neither here nor there. Let's talk about something. First of all, let's read these results, shall we? UFC 298 took place at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. In your main event, Ilya Teporia, just as he predicted, defeats Alexander Volkanovsky inside of two rounds, specifically at the 332 mark of round number two via KO punches. I want to talk about the fight and the complexion and everything else that went into it, but for just a moment, let's review two things that I think really need to, we really should get out there.

Number one, a lot was made of this rule of 35, which again is not even my rule. I'm just a guy that appears to have popularized it. Anik mentioned it briefly before the fight had started, but didn't really say a whole lot about it. But the entire week was about this. Not just the week, the entire promotion around this. I mean, Volkanovsky did this commercial with the sports betting company out of Australia dressing like the old man Volk. Shows up to the press conference like old man Volk, right?

This sort of character. You had fans in attendance dressing up like old man Volk. And while that's all heartwarming to see because Volkanovski is absolutely one of the good guys in the game, it all gave me a real bad game, it all gave me a real bad vibe. It all gave me a real bad vibe because, of course, we already know the stat, right? And again, the numbers can differ depending on how you want to look at it. If you're going to add in the women's game, you're going to add in the men's game. But here's what you can say unimpeachably, and it's still true today. There is no one in UFC history over the age of 35 who has won a title fight in the men's division.

If it went 55 and down, it's never happened. It's never happened. There's a really good reason for that. It's not, as I've said 8 million times, it is not that there is some magic demarcation line in the universe where once you get to this side of it, there's no good. But there is a pattern that I have seen go on in fight sports, having watched several life cycles of fighters now as an adult who has covered this sport. And it's a painful cycle, and I actually hate it, but it's so inevitable that you just can't

not notice it anymore. There are going to be exceptions to this, especially in the higher weight classes, right? Jon Jones coming back at age 36 and then winning the title against Cyril Ghosn, but you know, dude, that Ilya Teporia ain't Cyril Ghosn, like with the ground game. That's not who that is. You're talking about a hammer. I mean, Volkanovski wasn't fighting some chump tonight. He was fighting a very good

fighter. Okay. But the point I want to make is this. Folks are late to catch on to some of these guys, 170, 155, and down. They're late to catch on to how good they are. And by the time that these guys actually do get celebrated, it is almost always at the end of their reign. We talk about the EA curse. I've talked about it on my live chat. I've talked about it here on Morning Combat in various places. There is no EA curse. The reality is it is so hard to get good enough

where by the time you have developed your career and you've beaten all the right people and you finally maybe you got a belt and not obviously everyone's worn a belt but you've really achieved some status in the fight game. it takes so long for even the very best guys to do that that by the time they get up there that the peak is actually either you know right around the corner or it's already even passed that's the reality and I hate it for them because this is when they actually get to their peak earning potential this is when they get to their peak popularity.

Dude, Volk was not in Australia tonight, and he had the crowd in the palm of his hand. And he should have. He earned that. I think we can all say that very clearly. Again, one of the good guys, one of the innovators, one of the best champions we've ever seen. Certainly in the featherweight division, but I would say independent of weight class. But he was attempting to do something in the fight game that is exceedingly difficult to do.

And it's not just a 35-year-old thing. It's coming back from the KO loss to Islam. Now, you know, Ilya is such a hard puncher. I don't know what difference that would have made in the end. I don't know. It's hard to say, but you add in that factor. I mean, I will tell you what happened when Islam knocked him out. There was something that happened in the pit of my stomach,

and I was like, we have seen the peak. And I believe that's true. I believe we have seen the peak. I am not arguing that Volkanovski won't get to another title fight. He might. I'm not even saying he won't necessarily win it, although if he does that, that would be a pretty big thing. I don't think he'll actually win. I don't think it'll work that way. Also, I think if you get slept this way, you don't deserve an immediate rematch. I'm not going to cry if they give him one. It'd be fine, but I don't think

it's the best thing to do. I actually think Max is a bit of a tougher matchup for Ilya, but we'll talk about that in a minute. But it breaks my heart because by the time these guys get these big contracts and they get these big audiences and then these buffoon billionaires want to walk them out for their, you know, so they can just be, you know, hey, I'm walking around inside the lion cage with all these lions and tigers and shit. That's what they really want. The peak is already over. If you didn't notice when Volkanovsky was hammering people like Chad Mendes, if you didn't notice the quiet but very compelling victory he had years ago at this point over Jose Aldo,

that was the real beginning of his surge. But by the time Islam beat him and now he turns 35, the peak is probably already over. It's a brutal, brutal, brutal fucking reality. It's a brutal, unforgiving sport. It is so difficult to succeed. It is so difficult to accumulate wins. It is so difficult to beat the guys that Volkanovski has beaten in the way in which he has beaten them. All of these things are impossible to do, but you only have so many rabbits in your hat. And when you cross a certain age, you just don't take proper inventory of your reflexes slowing, of any kind of psychological holdover effects you might have from God only knows what,

about the competitive pressures that are involved, any previous damage you might have taken. It creeps up on you in a way that, to this point, has proven impossible to get over. Of course, it is not actually impossible. I'm sure somebody will break this rule eventually in the UFC. I know some other people have been out there chirping about how they've done it in other organizations. That's cool. And those are legitimate achievements, but that's not what we're talking about here. That's not what the stat comes back to. That stat, it's just a reflection of observed reality.

It's not a universal law, but it tells you a lot, a lot about the fight game. When you really think about how many good fighters from 155 and 145 and 135, 125 even, that have tried to succeed and just cannot in that space. It wasn't for a lack of effort. And it wasn't for a lack of ability. It's what they are attempting is to beat Father Time. And you just cannot do that. You just cannot do that.

That's the first thing I want to say. The second thing I want to say, and this is just a personal thing that kind of drives me nuts. This is to all of the fuckos who all week were like trying to, I mean, here's what's happened, right? We've turned the press conference into mini pro wrestling. That's really what it's become. I mean, people are literally showing up in costume at this point, right? That's what it is. And then people grading the person's ability to do sketch comedy on the fly

for either a booing or a cheering audience as like some kind of indication about how a fight would go. You have to be a fucking idiot to do that. You, you, you genuinely have to be someone who's like mom drank a bunch when you were in utero or you ate a bunch of paint chips or someone hit you in the head with a hammer or like get a terrible car accident. It has fuck all to do with actually what good fighters end up doing in the cage. It has nothing to do with it. I mean, yeah, there could be times where like the one time with Aldo and McGregor, it's a big case, obviously, but it was more than just a presser.

I mean, that was the whole tour. There was this entire thing. But in general, in general, it means nothing. By the way, Teporia was trying to do that in what, his third or fourth language? How good are you at playing the dozens with somebody who is, you know, obviously Volkanovski was at ease with all of that stuff. How good are you in your third language in doing all of that? It's not so easy. It's not so easy.

And someone wrote to me earlier this week. I don't know if y'all are going to be able to hear this. Someone wrote to me earlier this week being like, yeah, you know, I don't know if y'all are going to be able to hear this. Someone wrote to me earlier this week being like, yeah, you know, I don't know if, uh, I don't know if, I don't know if Teporia sounded like himself. And I'm like, you should hear him in Spanish. I'm going to play you something. If you speak Spanish, you'll know what he's going to say here.

I want to play this for you so you can hear it. Don't take my word for it. I'll translate when this is done. I want you to listen to this man. And I want you to understand whatever you think you know about him, when he speaks English, you don't know shit. I'm going to play this for you. Hang on. This is what he said.

Hold on. Hold on. I'm going to play this for you. Okay. He basically says, you know, he goes through the list of it. I'm not Korean Zombie. I'm not Brian Ortega's package. I'm not sure exactly what he means by that. I'm not Max Holloway's crooked nose.

I'm Ilya Teporia. And if you have even the slightest doubt, you know, then I'm going to go in there and I have to go back and listen to the word. But he doesn't say demolish, but that I'm going to win spectacularly, you know,

fuck you. And he delivers it with authority. You want to understand him. You got to hear him in his native languages. So all of this fucking chirping about who wins press events. Here's my question to all those folks. Who gives a fuck?

How about that? How about that? Who gives a fuck about any of that? It doesn't mean dick at the end of the day. It's just pro wrestling for MMA fans who just need a little bit of pro wrestling during fight week. And that's fine if you enjoy it on those terms. But this whole thing like, oh, Volk's in his head. Volk's going to teach him a lesson.

Volk's in his head. Volk's going to teach him a lesson. Did he? Is that what happened? What lesson was that? Hmm? Okay. Let's talk about the fight. I saw some people give Ilya the first round.

I did not. I gave Volkanovski the first round, which should not be much of a surprise that he won the first round anyway. This is a guy who is going to have more ring craft in general. He's going to have, you know, a game plan. You knew he was going to be doing it based on movement, right? You knew he was going to be going side to side. I tried to see if he was, if you go back to the third Max fight, it was the same direction he was going the entire time

because he was trying to solve for Max's jab. You did not get that this time. You got, you know, lateral movement in both directions. But what you saw from Volk was a lot of hesitation to exchange in mid-range, which you can understand. I actually thought that was a great game plan. A lot of Teporia getting low and trying to jab. So then Volk trying to hit him with a middle kick as like a counter to it, which I thought was pretty good. Not just when he lowered level, but when he jabbed in general. I thought that was pretty good. Obviously, inside leg kicks, outside cut kicks, calf kicks.

The whole nine yards. Really kind, trying to destabilize him, turn him, make him move, make him hesitant, disrupt his base, disrupt his balance. You know, not show a sitting target. There was a little bit of clinching that happened. I think towards the end of the first, a little bit in the second, before things went south. But I don't think that played. I thought Volk did pretty well.

Volk's strong. So I thought he and Teporia, I thought Volk actually got slightly the better of the stuff in the clinch. But there wasn't necessarily a whole lot of it. But what ended up happening in the second, basically, is you saw Volkanovsky. I thought Teporia was having a little bit more of a hard time solving when Volk was at southpaw with him. I'll have to review the footage to see exactly how it all went down. But he was having a little bit of trouble. But then he gets cornered. He gets pushed back. Again, I have to go see where the geography was on the ring itself. And then he goes back to orthodox. You see Teporia does this a lot. He'll

go low, come high. And then what you notice from Teporia is he doesn't go low and then come high like he's touching and then back out. He actually destabilizes the entire thing by pushing into Volkanovski. Volkanovski actually did really well to kind of roll with it. And the first one bounced over his shoulder, but he stayed on top of it. So then he came with the left. And then, by the way, he framed off of this hand, slid to the side, and then came from this side when he ultimately fired the right hand. So he semi-disguised it, changing the angle of it, putting it a little bit at a place where Volkanovski was kind of expecting this and he got hit kind of from this angle. But this way, which I mean, it's not the same thing he did to Jai Herbert, but it's similar. If you go back and you watch the Jai Herbert thing, he had trouble with the distance, and so he goes body-head to kind of close, and then it's the combination punching they're in. And dude, once he's got you trapped up against that space, it's fucking curtains for you.

I mean, the margin of error that you have with a guy like that, who can punch like that, and is durable like that, is youthful like this, has all of his energy underneath him, has all of the self-belief that he needs. But just speaking strategically and tactically, once he collapses your position and then he's able to frame and hold you against the fence, as he changes angles and then comes on the side, it's curtains for you. It's curtains. There's no one in that division who can stand up to that.

Not even Max Holloway, who has a fucking legendary chance. I mean, maybe Max wouldn't go completely to sleep, but Max is going to be in a world of hurt when something like that lands. Nobody's going to stand up to something like that. This is what he does. He takes his time. He was getting touched up. I thought the jab of Volkanovsky was touching him up. Obviously, we talked about any number of the different kicks, throwing him high to occupy Ilya's backhand. I mean, some of that I thought was great. I thought all of that was working. It's not like Volkanovski showed up with some shitbag game plan.

He didn't. He showed up with a great game plan, I thought. A little bit, you know, people are going to say, oh, he was trying to keep too much distance. Well, dude, I mean, just think about your options here a little bit. It's true he was doing that, but the reality is, what are your alternatives? If you're trying to then, let's say, okay, what would be the other option? You cannot exchange with him in mid-range.

I think we can all agree with that now. So what are your options? You could go to the clinch, and he had some success there, but there wasn't meaningful offense, and that can go bad depending if you hang out there too long. So that's not really an option or not a great one. You could go for the takedown, and I think that would have been disruptive, but Ilya's got great takedown defense, and I'm just going to be honest,

on the ground itself, he's better than Volkanovsky. Black belt in jiu-jitsu, has been training forever. His pure ground skills are going to be better. I'm not saying he could have held Volk down and beaten him up, but I can understand why Volk didn't lean on that as a forward part of the strategy either. I also get that. So look, here's the thing. Volkanovsky did not look bad, right?

I mean, relatively speaking, he did not look bad. He did not look like physically in the second Islam fight. I got some hair here. In the second Islam fight, he had what Stephen Bredman Edwards calls a little bit of loose change. Granted, it was upper weight class at 155, but, you know, he had a little bit of extra weight on him in a way that you could tell he wasn't quite training. You didn't see that this time. Obviously, again, you're down to 145, but I thought he came in great shape. Dude, he's got Joe Lopez and Eugene Behrman in his corner. Do you think that they lacked for a good game plan? Of course not. They had a great game

plan, or at least a very good one that was as workable as the conditions would allow. And, you know, he was doing well to avoid most of what Ilya was throwing at him. Again, I thought he won the first round and was probably on his way to winning the second, although there was plenty of time left, so it's hard to say. But the margin of error, that guy can shut your lights off like that. That guy can choke you out like that. That guy is physical at all times. You just don't have the ability to take a punch from him and then just eat it. Volkanovski, excuse me, Teporia does. Teporia did have that luxury. So the trade-off that Teporia was making was that I'm going to lose probably longer portions

of the fight or at least longer portions of the round, and that's going to be okay because all I need are just a couple of opportunities to connect and then boom goes the dynamite. To borrow the boom word again, he lowered the boom and that was all she wrote. Simple as that. He is very, very good at cornering. He's very, very good at being patient. He's very, very good at using an entry to come up on top and he's very good at maintaining

and collapsing that space so that you kind of have to reshuffle backwards. By that point, you're up against the fence. He has framed. He has reset the angle. And then it's, dude, it's Armageddon when he balls up the fist. It is Armageddon. By the way, little note, remember there were people saying Teporia should fight Patty Pimblitt? I mean, I've said this before, if you like Patty, you would get him killed with something like that.

You'd get him killed. Teporia, there was one argument that everyone made pre-fight that is a true argument, but also the wrong argument. And what everybody said was, or not everybody, but everyone who thought that Tepori was going to get washed, what they all said was, well, look. Look at what Volk has done. Volk beat Holloway three times. I know some of that's controversial, but he did. He beat him three times.

And certainly in the last one, ain't nothing controversial about that one. He beat him three times. He beat Korean Zombie. He beat Jose Aldo. He beat him three times. Certainly in the last one, ain't nothing controversial about that one. He beat him three times. He beat Korean Zombie. He beat Jose Aldo. He beat Chad Mendez. He beat Brian Ortega. He beat Yair Rodriguez. He beat all these guys. The styles he had solved for, the difficulties he had solved for, Teporia hadn't shown anything like that. That is true. Now there's a little bit more to add to his resume, but prior to tonight, that is true. But guys, that doesn't mean anything. When, for example, when Jon Jones beat Shogun, do you think that Jon Jones had anything on his resume that was even approximating

the 2005 Grand Prix run in Pride, the middleweight Grand Prix run. That's the greatest tournament run in MMA history. Jon Jones didn't have anything like that on his resume, and he had some nice scalps. He didn't have that. When Chris Weidman beat Anderson Silva, do you think that Chris Weidman, was his win over Mark Munoz, which was devastating, but was that on par with what a guy like Anderson Silva had produced? No,

of course not. That's not the point. The point is you're not fighting the guy who beat those guys. You're fighting a later version, which could be bad depending on the circumstances, or if they're older, it could be quite advantageous for you, even at middleweight. But this idea that if you haven't proven what the champion has proven, oh, well, you can just calmly assert that the champion is going to win, that is not how MMA works at all. And I hope you can see that now today. Again, when you watch a few of these life cycles, when you're an old gray piece of shit like me, and you've been around this game a little bit, and you've watched fighters balloon and then collapse the whole life cycle, and and then they retire then they get old and they go on GoFundMe to get their health care paid for the whole nine yards when you've seen that patterns begin to emerge and you kind of have to be a little bit silly to not notice some of these patterns contenders often do not have

resumes that match the champions that they beat but But they still beat them just the same. So what does that tell you? It is not a reliable indicator about how the matchup itself is going to go. Matter of factly. Let's look at some of these numbers. By the way, I will say this. Volk walking out to Men at Work is, in my judgment, an all-time classic now like that.

When guys come out to music that Work is, in my judgment, an all-time classic now. Like that, you know, when guys come out to music that's like cultural, and I realize that like, you know, I don't know how cultural that is, but it's certainly like a point of national pride that they have this like, you know, very visibly and notably Aussie song, and he's walking out to it, and it's like, it's amazing to watch. It's one of the best walkouts. Like Max's Hawaiian kickboxer, stuff's one of the best walkouts like max's hawaiian kickboxer stuff like that like really cultural stuff like that um cancion del mariachi is not mariachi is not quite like that but i thought it was a cool thing that um to pour you came out to all right let's look at these numbers if we can here and see what we can deduce from them

to pour you moves to 15-0 at this point. Yeah, Volkanovski outlanded him numerically. This doesn't count for shit, but he did outland him numerically. He outlanded him in total strikes, 107-78, and then in strikes landed total. Again, these are quantitative

totals, not qualitative totals. He outlanded him 47-36, and then significant strikes landed 47 to 35. That would be Volkanovski to Teporia. Teporia is credited with a knockdown and I guess three seconds of control time. Let's look at the targeting. Targeting by Volkanovski. Well, that's interesting. Targeting by Volkanovski, 44% to the head, 23% to the body, 31% to the leg. Toporia, 48% to the head, 34% to the body. That made sense. And then 17% to the head. He went to

the leg kicking a little bit, turned him with it in the first round, Toporia did. But it wasn't like a huge part of his game, but some of the body punching. Again, that is like a number one distance closer for him. Down to the body, up, collapse position, go again. Not in the same combination, but you know, something like that. Let's look at Volkanovsky in his last, not the Makachev fight, let's look at it in the Rodriguez fight. I can't do it very well here at two in the morning. Okay, targeting, yeah. Head, 72%. Body, just 6. 21% to the leg.

Let's go to his previous title defense, which would be, before that, the third Max Holloway fight. Look at his targeting. Yeah, again, 76% to the head, 9% to the body, 14. So he seems to be like 70, 75 to the head, single digits, close to 10% for the body, and then around 15% to the leg. That seems to be his normal breakup, right? That's his normal breakup. And then one more time, for this fight, it was 44-23-31.

So he had to really play with his offense in a way that I'm not sure he was fully comfortable with. Maybe that explains getting positionally overrun in the way that he was. That could be part of it, certainly. Again, 93% of distance versus Teporia's 80%. He got 11% in the clinch, I guess. I don't have to go back and look at it. He had to change his offense enough where it just wasn't potent to really deter Ilya and then all he needed was a little bit of a window and then it was Armageddon.

And then it was Armageddon, and then it was Armageddon for him. I will say that I did not like Teporia pre-fight arguing that, like, hey, I'm not going to give Max Holloway a title shot. I'm not going to give Brian Ortega a title shot. I'm not going to give Yair a title shot. I'm like, well, dude, if you're going to be the champion of the weight class, you need to defend the title. I mean, this is very ridiculous, to be perfectly honest, to even say something like that. So I don't think that will last.

I don't think the UFC is going to really stand for that. He did call out Conor McGregor after the fight was over, which I think is kind of an interesting thing that he sort of sees himself. I know he was getting, again, Tabori was getting shit for it this week, comparing himself to Conor and doing things that seemed reminiscent of Conor. And some of it, it's like, I don't know what you want from these guys. It's like, Conor, hey, here's a blueprint of an enormously successful guy who does it. Maybe we should copy some things. Oh, no, you should get your own path. Right, dude, everybody copies everybody else.

You know, yes, on some level, having a little bit of originality, a little bit of spice of it is kind of a good thing. But in general, people copy other people and fighters are going to copy other fighters, especially very successful one. It makes, you know, the least surprising thing you could have told me was like, that was the issue. I will say in the, I guess it was this morning, I saw it or maybe yesterday or yesterday morning, I saw it, that there was this incredible video that, I mean, it was, or maybe it was two days ago whenever it was it was all of these Spanish or Spain centric I'll explain that in a minute celebrities like Rafael Nadal obviously the tennis player Iker Casillas it was Valverde Rafael Valverde from who's technically Uruguayan

but he plays in Spain he plays for Real, and it was just all of these celebrities. Koke was on there from Atletico Madrid. Sergio Ramos today put out a big old statement about it, or a video in support of him. Dude, these are titans of Europe, titans of one of the bigger economies in Europe. I am telling you, man, I cannot, dude, Iker, Casillas, or Casillas, however you want to say it, Iker is widely... The first guy was Nadal. The second guy in the video was Iker, who has like 21 million followers on Instagram and is widely considered to be one of the very best goalkeepers of all time in the sport

of soccer slash football that that's and and iniesta was on there one of like one of the guys who was part of the barcelona dream team along with shavi and messi and all these guys like dude people who were like the best representatives of the biggest cultural items in world sport in spanish sport all of these dudes and ladies were rallying behind this guy. I don't think folks understand how big he can be in Europe. He can be a monster star. And of course, he can open up other countries as well. Georgia is a small economy, but you never know what kind of network effects it could have.

He's just 27 years of age. It is remarkable what he might be able to do for the UFC, for his own brand, for MMA. This is the brutal ass welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the brutal life cycle of MMA where it is very hard to have somebody that you really like as a fight fan. Not because they're not good, but because they can be as good as Alexander Volkanovsky is. They can be that good. You know, 1% of 1% of 1% of 1%. They can be that good and it's still not enough. And the rain on the top, to borrow the words of the notorious B.I.G., was short like leprechauns. Even for guys like that.

Even for guys like that. It's just insanely difficult. But I think folks may not really understand. So getting back to the contender thing. Dude, Ilya versus Yair, huge fight. And you guys, if you don't know this, they have been squabbling in the media. Ilya versus Brian Ortega, huge fight. And you guys, if you don't know this, they have been squabbling in the media. Ilya versus Brian Ortega. Huge fight.

Ilya versus Max is a phenomenal, phenomenal fight. I don't know if they're going to go those directions. My hunch is that even though this was one-sided, it's not the word, even though the finish is without any kind of dispute and the winner is quite clear, I think that because of Volkanovski's status, they might try and give him another automatic rematch. Maybe he goes to Spain to do it. That'd be kind of cool, I think, for all of UFC.

I don't think they're actually going to put that in Spain, but one never knows. I think that they could do that. That'd be kind of interesting, for sure. And of course, it raises a question about what's next for Volkanovski, right? So let's talk about him for just a second here. When is, let's see, let's see, old Volk. So he is 35. Obviously, he just turned it in September. They'll probably fight before that. So, I mean, just you go back to his last fights. He's lost three of his last four. Now, granted, two of those up a weight class,

one of those on short notice, all three of those were title fights. The guy who beat him twice is probably the best pound-for-pound fighter in the sport, and then we already know the story about here today. So it's not like he's fighting chumps. It's not like he won't win again. That's really not my belief. I think he'll win again for sure. But I do think this is an inflection point. I do think this is an inflection point in his career. I don't think you can look at three losses at age 35 in

this division and then say, oh, a rebound is really possible. Some kind of a rebound is really possible. That's true. Yes. Some kind of a rebound is definitely very possible. But are you going to pick him to beat Ilya next time? I'm not. I'm not. You have to be super, super, super durable to beat a guy like Teporia. You have to be super durable. You have to be well-rounded. And you have to be active. For that reason, I think Holloway kind of makes it an interesting matchup in a way that maybe Volkanovski is not, even though Volkanovski has obviously gotten the better of Max three different times.

But styles make fights, ladies and gentlemen. They certainly do. So, one more reminder to everyone. The rule of 35, boys and girls. I didn't make it. I didn't come up with it. But I certainly popularized it. And it caught my attention for a very good reason. It's one of the few stats where everybody in mma everybody lots of people in mma constantly want to ignore the role of age because they want to believe in heroic tales and they want to believe in the the fighter male or female that they that they really adore and they want to believe in these stories that are possible.

And up at 185 and 205 and heavyweight, hey, that is possible. Very possible. Like, you don't have to worry about those fuckers aging at all. Just let them get to 40. I mean, you know, who cares? But the business at 155 and below, it's a different sport. It's a different sport. 155 and down is just a a different sport. It's a different sport. 155 and down is just a different sport.

At the elite, elite level, it's a different sport. You're not, you have the worldwide participatory talent pool is so much bigger. The level of refined skill is so much greater. All of these guys have knockout power. Not all of them, but you know, it's a constant threat if you're going to fight at the elite. So many black belts in jiu-jitsu, so many people who can wrestle, so much youth. I mean, it's just a fucking murderer's row. And God bless Volkanovski, he did better than just about almost anyone else you'll ever see. But on this night, given these circumstances, it was too much to ask. It was simply too much to ask.

So if they had to do a different game plan, what would Volk do differently? I mean, there would have, you know what he might do? He might clinch a little bit more rather than retreating. I bet that they'll look at this and say that the retreating was a bad idea, that like actually going head into Toporia and locking up with him would make more sense that also carries risk it's not like that's not without problems but you know going into like if he's coming into blitzing meeting fire with fire rather than trying to retreat Izzy can do that stuff for the most part right like that practice head movement where you're kind of on the other end they can do that but Volkanovski is not necessarily that guy. Not against someone

who is this kind of controlling and dominant a puncher in the way that Toporia is. So, I don't know what they're going to do. By the way, if, you know, I need to see, I want to text to see if there's been any announcement for UFC 300. Let's see. What? What? Pineda versus Jamal Hill is going to headline UFC 300? Okay. I mean, I don't hate it. Okay.

We'll get to that a little bit later. That's a strange one. That's a strange one. I don't quite get that. All right. Well, whatever. So there you have it, folks. Can't say I didn't warn you.

Folks were all week, all week, badgering me the whole time. Teporia is going to get taught a lesson, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I just sat there being like, I wouldn't have been surprised if Volkanovsky had won. I'd be a little surprised if Volkanovsky had won. I would have been a little surprised, but not totally. I wouldn't have been like shocked or something like that. But like he was going to go in there and teach Teporia a lesson. I don't think you guys knew who you were dealing with.

Teporia is that guy. He's been that guy for some time. He just needed the right opportunity to show it. Your margin of error against somebody like that at this stage of his career is infinitesimally small. You have, you cannot fuck up with him at all. He just has, he just needs the littlest and his ability to find, he's not some brawler who's out there swinging, right? This is not, sorry, I got something in my eye. This is not Paulo Costa. This is not Paulo Costa. Just, you know, kind of, ah, no, no, this guy is surgical and has a system and is, and is disciplined. You just have no room for error. You have no room for

error. So I hope everyone can understands that now it's dude, it's, it Dude, it's hard to be an MMA fan, man. It really is. It's hard to be an MMA fighter for any number of reasons. It's hard to be a champion. It's so difficult to get the title, and it's so incredibly hard to have a successful title reign that lasts as long as you hope. There are, I mean, here is, here is a certainty

in the fight game that I hope everybody understands. And every fighter should understand this too. And I know it's like, oh, who are you, Luke? You didn't fight. Fair enough. Fair enough. I didn't, but I have been around long enough to have seen this movie over and over and over and over again. And the lesson goes like this. Your career is going to end eventually. This is true for every fighter, Ilya too. And it might happen sooner than you think. Or you can think of it as your peak is going to end and that also might be sooner than you think.

These guys, they can't fathom the idea, especially in the smaller weight classes of age limiting. We'll talk about it in a minute. You had Henry Cejudo at age 37 trying what he tried against Murab. Dude, at 135 pounds, good luck. You're going to have to be way, way, way better than those guys, which is going to be really difficult to do at age 37 at 135 pounds. But okay, if you have questions about the main event, we can come back to it. But let's talk about some of the other fights on this card. Because by the way, the fights tonight, I thought were excellent. I know some folks didn't like the Gary and Neil fight. I didn't hate it as much as y'all did. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it as much as y'all

did. But in general, in general, I thought it was a very, very, very good night of fights. The main card was superb. The matchmaking was excellent. As I mentioned before, you had two fighters on this card. Not one, but two. Two fighters on this card who averaged more than six takedowns per 15 minutes. Murab and then Anthony Hernandez. We'll talk about him in just a second as well because he fucking balled out like a beast on top of it.

All right, but let's talk about Robert Whittaker. Robert Whittaker defeats Polo Costa Bojashina 29-28 on two of the judges' scorecards, 30-27 on the other one. Boy, I gotta say, I don't understand that one. And I know what folks are gonna respond with. Well, he was winning most of the round before he got rocked. That's true, dot, dot, dot, but he got rocked. He got rocked quite badly.

That is by far, I mean, who took someone, who did the most significant damage in that round? It is clearly Polo Costa. Costa not only landed a shot that was the most damaging of any shot relative to what Robert Whitaker had landed, but on top of it, who took the other guy closest to the precipice of defeat? Costa. Costa should win that round every single time. I don't quite get that.

However, he couldn't keep it up in rounds two and three. Here was a guy who had difficulty cornering Robert Whitaker, who had real difficulty trying to counter him. His jab, I thought, was for Polo Costa pretty good. I thought his jab was pretty good, but not as good as Rob's. Rob's was better. I thought his leg kicking was good, but I thought Rob had just the right answer for it in general. Again, we're talking after round one. And more to the point, the combination punching of Robert Whitaker off of those blitzes, you just had Costa chasing ghosts. He couldn't find him. He couldn't do anything about it. No wrestling involved that I can recall in that one at all. This was at distance. And dude, this was a gutsy win for Robert Whitaker. I mean, he was in a bad

way at the end of round one. He had not much time after that. He does get the break of the first round and then comes out in the second round driven, but not reckless, focused, sticking to the game plan and having enough offense, not being there to get hit for the most part. Again, obviously Costa got his licks in, but nothing truly substantive after that. And he was dealing on him at times, again, with a combination punching, some of his own jabbing, the blitzing that we know about. This was like, it's kind of funny. It was in many ways somewhat vintage Robert Whittaker. I'd actually say what makes it the most impressive to me is even though Costa is limited as a fighter

and he is not on Rob's level, he is dangerous, number one. And this was the most mature performance I had ever seen from him. I'd actually never seen him fight this maturely before where he wasn't, you know, there was a little bit of recklessness the whole time, and, you know, he's jabbing and then bringing it back the knockout, excuse me, not knockout, the big shot he landed, he didn't do it from punching a guy at mid-range

while the other guy was up against the fence, which is where most of his other best work, where he's just bombing on a guy. You didn't see that this time. He actually set that spinning heel kick up and landed it quite nicely, I thought. So Rob had to deal with the best version of Costa to date. Now, maybe not the best one in terms of fan entertainment, maybe not the best one in terms

of landing the big power shot, but in terms of a focused and precise attack, a guy who, again, for skill relative to Rob is limited, but this was the best version that he had to offer. Let me look at some of the stats in this particular contest if we can. Yeah, Whitaker just overall outlanding him. These are going to go round by round. Whitaker in the first round, 38 to 27. These are numeric totals again, but he did get rocked real badly. 32 to 26, Whitaker landed in the second, and then 25 to 14.

He had Costa chasing ghosts in that third round. And then Whitaker failed on one takedown. That's right, he did try and just really turn him with that one. He didn't really try and take him down. And then you look at the targeting. This is very obvious from Robert Whitaker. 29% to the leg, 66% to the head, just 4% to the body, right? He goes to the leg and to the head, not a whole lot else.

Costa, 58% to the head, didn't headhunt nearly as much, just 58% in terms of targeting, 11% to the body, and 29% to the leg. That's actually pretty, I mean, that's what I mean. He's not on Rob's level, right? But not many people are. And for him to put together, I thought, again, for him, a reasonably well-mixed offense, it made the job difficult for Rob. He's a heavy puncher as well. He's a heavy kicker. He's a heavy striker. That's not an easy task to accomplish, but he absolutely got it done,

and he got it done basically having to work out of a deficit that he got himself into in the first round. That is all-time shit from Robert Whitaker. Dude, Robert Whitaker, man, every time someone tries to count him out, every time someone says, oh, he's finally, you know, okay, well, he got the rematch against Izzy and it didn't go well. Then he got knocked out by DDP and it's probably going to be curtains for him there. Remember, he's fighting. He's only 33 and he's fighting up at 185 pounds. He has a lot of life left in him.

He has a lot of life left in him, and the resolve that he has to come back from these bad defeats and get back on the horse and apply his game and continue to improve and really stay committed to the process is extremely admirable from him. Extremely. I don't think a lot of people understand the mental resolve you have to have to have gone through two wars with Yoel Romero

and everything he did during his title reign, and then to lose to Izzy, and then to go back, and you're fighting Cannoneer, and you're fighting Vittori, and you're fighting Till, and all this stuff. Then you get the rematch, and it doesn't go your way, and then you end up with DDP, and that doesn't go your way. And then you end up with DDP and that doesn't go your way. And then you come back here and you get this win after getting badly rocked in the first round.

Dude, that is, he is, he is a, the Aussies, man, they keep sending us their best guys, it seems like, right? In terms of like people and sportsmen. Volkanovski, good person, good sportsman. Rob Whitaker, good person, good sportsman. They keep sending us their best like this. And at least in this particular case, he got his hand raised. Extremely, extremely difficult to do what he's done to this point.

Let me see if there's anything I've missed from that run up to this point. Yeah, no, I get the Marvin Vittori win in the Gastelum. Yeah, all that stuff. Till, Cannoneer. Yeah, I forgot about the Gastelum fight. That was another one. That was the fight of the night. You know?

So he's got three losses since 2019. Two to Izzy and one to Drikus. And these were all title fights. Other than that, bro, he's beaten these guys. Polo Costa, how old is he? He is currently 32. I mean, he's missed a lot of time, man. I mean, obviously, again, you know, it's 185 and 32 is hardly old.

But he's missed a lot of time. He didn't fight all of, again, it's 185 and 32 is hardly old, but he's missed a lot of time. He didn't fight all of, what, 2023? Now we're here in 2024. He was gone for like a year and a half after the Luke Rockhold fight. I thought that he showed some signs of life in this fight to a degree, but I think there needs to be steadier rotation of competition. Competing this infrequently cannot benefit him the most long term. So what would be next for him? I don't know if they're going to, I mean, well, I don't know what the hell they're going to do. So is Izzy going to fight Drikus?

Are they going to give it to Rob? Is Izzy going to have to fight Rob before they fight Drikus? I don't really know what they're going to do. I guess Rob could fight Sean Strickland. That's an interesting one. Dude, Rob fight Sean Strickland. That's an interesting one. Dude, Rob versus Sean Strickland. How does that go? Jesus. That's a hell of a fight, right? Very good timing, blitzing offense against shut down kind of Philly shell, MMA style guard. When

I say guard, I don't mean the legs, but this kind of standing guard. That's a hell of a fight. I would love to see that. Winner gets a title shot. I'd be all right with that. I'd be all right with that. So I guess we'll see what happens with him. But that seems like a reasonable inference about how that's going to go.

All right. Going further down the list, if we can. Okay. So everyone hated this dude. Everyone hates this guy. Ian Machado Gary defeats Jeff Neal. Split decision. So two judges had it 30-27 for Gary, and then one had it 29-28.

And people are like, oh, if you had it 30-27 for Gary, you're out of your mind. I don't think so. I did not. I had it 29-28 for Gary. But I can understand how you would get one. You would give him the first round, even though I don't think so. I did not. I had it 29-28 for Gary. But I can understand how you would get one. You would give him the first round, even though I don't think you should. I think Neil should get the first one. But then the second and the third round, to me, belong to Neil.

Sorry, belong to Gary. I'm sorry. And so he would get, that's how he won on my scorecard, 29-28. He got those two. But I could see how he would get all three. People think that a 30-27 scorecard, because it's not the most correct card, that it can't be a correct card. And I have bad news for you about MMA judging. There is not one scorecard in many, many cases that is acceptable. There is not one. There is usually a range of them. And here's the problem, dude.

Everyone and their brother hates this guy. I don't have any feelings negatively towards him at all. I think a lot of the shit he's been through is real stupid, but I don't know him as a person. Maybe he does suck. I don't know. So I don't really care one way or the other. But what I can say is that

you're not going to convince me that the assessment of the fight is made independent of the feelings people have about Ian Gary. Because if you think this is the first time Ian Gary fought like this, what the fuck have you been watching? I mean, he didn't have as much offense this time. Okay, fair enough. But a guy who fights long range on his horse and avoids the offense of his opponents

when they kind of charge in or try to corner him. This is what he does. Like, none of what he did today should in any way be surprising. And I wasn't sure he was going to pass this test, but he did. Although, again, if you got... By the way, can you have a fight where one judge scores at 30-27 for one guy, and another judge scores at 29-28 for the other guy, and for that to make sense, I know this is going to make people's head explode.

Yes, it can. This is, to me, a problem with the judging system, but as the judging system is constructed, is that kind of thing possible? Yes, it is. It is very possible. Listen, Gary didn't blow me away on this one. I thought what he did was, I thought for sure

Neal was going to be able to get, I thought Neal was going to do something like what Teporia was going to do or what Teporia did to Volk. I thought he was going to get something like that where he was going to corner him, land a big shot, and it was going to be curtains. And that's really not exactly how it went. First of all, Gary's defense in terms of avoiding the blitz and rolling out to exit was much better as the fight wore on. By the time the third round happened, Neal didn't have much to offer him really at all in that particular context. More to the point, dude, those knees that he landed up the middle as the blitz from Neal would take place, I thought were superb. I was shocked he was throwing those.

I was like, I didn't know he had it in him, to be perfectly honest with you. So those were phenomenal. Some of the stuff long range I thought was also pretty good. Some of the leg kicking he was doing was, I thought, pretty good, you know, back and forth. But the knees up the middle were tremendous. The timing on them was excellent. His takedown defense or his ability to, like, not get overwhelmed in the clinch his ability to break up off the clinch uh was very respectable as well neil had a hard time underhooking head on the

opposite side keeping him there he i was actually able to get same side underhooking and then and then circle out off the fence he did that very well and people are like oh you know he ran the whole time guys it's name of the game hit and don don't get hit. People are going to do this. And I know people are going to hate this because, again, everybody wants to fucking dunk on this guy. And again, I don't give a shit. Dunk on him or don't. I don't care. But I'm not judging him based off like what has happened in his marriage.

I just don't care even a little bit or what's happened in his house. Don't care even a little bit. I'm just judging what's happened in his house. Don't care even a little bit. I'm just judging what's happening in the cage. Guys, if you don't want him to do that, cheer for the fighter who takes that away from him. What he is doing is perfectly legal. What he is doing is perfectly strategic. It's not like thrilling or fun, but it's perfectly strategic. And it's the same answer that you're always going to get in fighting, which is if you don't like it when someone's doing it, make them stop. Take it away from him.

Did Neal go for takedowns? No. Or not very effectively. I mean, they were clinching along the fence line and then up against the cage itself and then he couldn't get anything from that. Is he even credited with one? Let's see. Did they even credit him with a takedown attempt? No. He's not even credited statistically with a takedown attempt. And not a lot of offense. 67 total significant strikes

landed to the 46 of Jeff Neal. Let's look at the overall numbers per round. Gary, 20 to 18 in round one. Gary, 23 to 17 in round two. Gary, third round, obviously much better for him, 24 to 11. So he got better as the fight wore on as well. Dude, he's a good fighter. I was actually impressed as the strong word because he didn't show dynamic skill per se, but I wasn't sure he was going to pass this test. I mean, beating Neil Magny is one thing who's relatively speaking very old. Jeff Neal is still pretty young, big power in his hands, battle tested. You know, I don't know. I don't know how that one's going to go.

And he had trouble finding him. He had trouble landing on him. Again, just 11 significant strikes landing for him in the third round. And his targeting was about the same as actually as Ian's, 54 to 58, 21 to 26, 23 to 14. That's interesting. He couldn't find him. But the name of the game is to hit and not get hit. So here's my point.

I'm not telling you you have to like that. You don't have to like that. I'm not even telling you you have to like him. I don't care if you like him or not. I don't know the guy. I've never interviewed him. Don't know him. You know what I mean?

Your call. I find some of this shit to be obviously high school nonsense, but whatever. Like who you like and dislike who you want to dislike. But if you're just evaluating him as a fighter, this was not a super dynamic performance. I wouldn't give this an A or an A-. But a B or a B+, yeah, I'd give it one of those, sure. Not for excitement, but for sticking to a game plan, for avoiding the worst that you're... I mean, did you see the best of Jeff Neal today? No. Who took that away from him? Ian did. All that movement gave him a lot of problems. All the stabbing knees up the middle gave him problems. All of the paw to make him cover in a

clinch and then come over with the elbow, all of that was him. He made him second guess. He made him not be able to get found. He made him do all that stuff. You have to respect it. You don't have to like it. You don't have to cheer for it, but you have to respect it. Or, you cannot respect it, and then he can fight someone else that you maybe wanted to beat, and he'll beat that guy, and you can just be continuously frustrated again. That's an option as well. You're allowed to have that one. I can't make you feel any other different ways about it, but my recommendation is you don't have to like the person but you should respect the skill that they show in beating an opponent like Jeff Nealon

when he's only 26 years old um Ian Gary so not a dynamic fight not you know not a thriller certainly on the rest of this card it would be the worst fight on the main card by a million miles but I saw people being like that's the worst fight I've ever seen. I'm like, guys, we just came off of Raquel Pennington and Myra Bueno Silva. Please be fucking serious. You can't be serious. I mean, Ryan Clark was out there being like, they should just, you know, and that was a bad take, but Ryan Clark was out there being like, we should just shut down women's MMA. I mean, Gary's fight wasn't fun. It wasn't fun, but you know, there's just so much analysis of this fight that is laundered through everyone's everyone decided they don't like him and then they're using that as like oh that's what the actual fight analysis is no it's not you can separate how you feel about him and

then the fight analysis and then inside the fight, there's plenty to dislike in there too. It's not like we give it a rave review, but like people being like, oh, this was a horrific fight. Eh, it was all right. It was whatever. But he performed pretty ably, I think, given the circumstances.

Let's talk about this one. Murad Diwalishwili defeating Henry Cejudo, 29-28 across the board. So he loses the first round. He gets rocked in that round. He also gets taken down in that round. I can't wait to see the stats on this one because Marab is a fucking animal. Jesus, what? No way. He held Cejudo to 29 total significant strikes. He landed five. Marab did. He landed five of 11 takedowns. Cejudo, one of seven.

Are you shitting me? Wow. Actually, Cejudo got the takedown in the second round. Excuse me. But he did have, oh, he had control time on top because I guess there was, I forget exactly how he got on bottom. But you get the idea. Dude, listen to these numbers. 16 to 11 for significant strikes in round one, but Henry had the big punch that rocked him. I think overall controlled the round's offense for the most part. Round two, he fell off a cliff. 34 significant strikes to Henry's nine. 34-9. And then around 3, 24-9, Merab gets two of four takedowns

in round two, and then two of five takedowns in round three. Henry goes one for five in round two, and then 0 for two in takedowns in round three itself. Going heavy to the leg, Henry did. That was very successful. Maybe that's what it was. I forget how he got him down. He was very successful with that early, but then, dude, he slipped. When he was in that first round, and he was bouncing Henry, and he was going side to side,

and he was fainting, and he was seeing everything that was coming, Marab was in trouble then. When Marab was coming, he was throwing a shot and then getting square with him, and that's when he was getting tagged. He eventually kind of corrected for that a little bit.

He would roll out a little bit to the side to avoid it. But when he was in that space, it was not going well for him. But dude, dude, it's 135 pounds. Murab is 32 years of age and independent of that, might have the best gas tank I've ever seen in all of my years in mixed martial arts. People are like, oh, he should teach a conditioning class. How did he not go win the CrossFit Games already?

I mean I just never even understand. I don't know how strong his pressing or his snatch or his clean and jerk is, but good lord dude. I mean the guy has just the most insane gas tank I've ever seen in my whole fucking life. By the time the second round came around, at 37 years of age, at 135 pounds, Henry's energy fell off a cliff. Because of course it did. You're just not allowed to age gracefully in this weight class.

You're not. You're not. You're not allowed to. It's not going to happen for you. It is unforgiving. We feed the bones of the elderly to the young in this sport. They're not going to allow it. A five-year gap and you're over the age of 35? Oh, it's curtains for you, bro. It's curtains for you. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen at all. And he slowed down. And dude, once he slowed down, the ball game was totally different. The punches were labored. He was not

nearly as active. The takedowns were much more ready. And by the way, he would get the tight waist, whatever grip he had. He had a C grip. I don't think he had a butterfly grip, but he had a C grip or a gable grip. And he would get the tight waist and he would start throwing Henry around. And dude, what you notice from that is this is one of the arguments I always make about the value of grappling. The second round ground and pound such that he had any marab,

it was not devastating. There were some decent shots here or there, but it wasn't devastating. But what it was was soul sucking, right? He was riding his hips, turking a leg, doing whatever he could to just hang on the guy, make him carry the weight, force him to like kind of, you know, but there was times where he was like sitting on his own knees, I mean, it was on his knees, but like sitting on his own ankles, like, and if you've ever done that and when

someone's put weight on top of you, when you stand up, your knees feel weird for a little while because they've been compressed the whole time. And it's fatiguing and it's draining and it all goes to your neck and your lower back. He was wearing on a guy. Dude, that to me really kind of matters. It doesn't come with ground to pound. You don't get a close submission attempt from it. You don't get any of that shit. But it really can have an effect on a person's demeanor. It can have an effect on their ability to fight the next round. It really has a dramatic impact. And sure enough, it was already a problem

for him in round two. By the time round three came along, I thought Marab was just in cruise control. He looked like he could have fought. He said he wants to fight ten rounds. Well, you know, that's not legal, Marab, but you could understand his enthusiasm. His skill is much better than people realize, but it's not the kind of skill that's going to

knock you out right away. He's not going to sub you out and, you know, methodically move to mount or from the back, do that kind of stuff. That's not who Murab is. But Murab has a gas tank that is extraordinary. He does have very good skill overall in terms of wrestling and control. He's a little bit happy feet. He kind of bounces a little bit too much and then kind of hops into position, which is not the stablest way to get into position, which is sometimes why I think also with some angle mistakes he can get hit or he doesn't have as much success early retreating. He has to kind of get calm and then step and slide rather than bounce.

It can be a bit of a problem for him, but he is extremely durable. And because he can use grappling as a way to absolutely just, it's like a bloodletting with him dude. Just a stab and let the blood go and watch these people just become half versions of themselves. That is what Merab does. It's extraordinary, man. Very, very special. And it's weird because it's not like, you know, again,

what do we consider exciting? Knockouts are exciting. Submissions are exciting. You know, big slams. Although, dude, what am I even saying? He Hughes versus Trigg toot him. In the rematch between Matt Hughes and Frank Trigg, Matt Hughes gets hit in the balls and he's getting bombed on.

And the referee doesn't see it. And finally, Matt Hughes rallies and he picks up Frank Trigg. And he runs across the octagon while Trigg, by the way, who was a referee in a couple of the bouts tonight, was draped over his shoulder and runs across and then dive bombs him on the other corner. Well, you had Merab do that and take him over to Zuck's stupid face and then just fucking, you know, flatten him right to the canvas. I think this was the third round.

I was like, dude, he is the most delightfully insane person in MMA, and I'm 100% here for it. 100% here for it. He'll just put a work rate on you that unless you can match that intensity for as long as the bout goes, you have to either hurt him or you have to match his intensity. And Henry did that in the first round. He hurt him and had pretty good intensity where I think Murat was a little bit on the back foot. But that was it.

That was it. And I got to say, dude, I actually feel pretty bad for Henry. I don't understand why he sat out his prime. Only he knows the answer to that. But he did. He sat out a big portion of his prime. And he only made $150,000 for this fight tonight,

according to the figures that the UFC gave to the California Athletic Commission. It was $150,000 to show, $150,000 to win. He didn't win, so it would just be $150. Dude, after taxes and paying out your folks, what are you going to get from that? $60K? $65K maybe? Something like that?

For all of that? Sucks, dude. It's hard. Hard way to fight, hard way to make a living. So I totally get why he would, I think before this fight, was saying, if I win, I'll go to a title. And if I lose, that's probably going to be it for me. Yeah, I understand that. I wouldn't want to fight these guys for 150K either at this age, at age 37. Marab should probably get

a title shot, right? We're talking about Marab. Marab's beaten three former champions at this point. What was the stat that I saw? I forget. I have to go find it. But Marab, here, hold on. Let me see if I can find it. Marab. Yeah, Marab has beaten three former champions.

He's tied Aljamain Sterling for the longest bantamweight win streak with nine wins. He moved to number three all time for takedowns landed. And then extended his win streak to 10 straight. Dude, he's a beast. He should get the title shot. He should get the winner of Chito and Sean O'Malley. I don't see how anyone could disagree with that. I don't know who else would be more deserving of the number one contender spot than him at this point. It's him. And I think for Henry, it's probably it. All right. Last but not least for this main card, Anthony Hernandez

defeats Roman Kapilov. Rear naked choke, 323 of round number one. Dude, Roman Kapilov does everything violent. Everything, dude. He doesn't do anything that's just not scary to watch. First round, Hernandez lands

20 strikes to Kapilov's 16, and he did get one takedown just at the end, but he didn't get much for it. But by the second round, Hernandez lands 20 strikes to the copulov's 16. And he did get one takedown just at the end, but he didn't get much for it. But by the second round, he got two of three takedowns for two minutes of control time. And copulov still had more numeric totals, but that doesn't really count in terms of strikes. Story of this fight. Hernandez, first of all, the down blocking from copulov was great. The takedown defense along the fence itself was great.

But I noticed something at the end of the first. If you notice, he brings his outside leg forward like he was trying to exit. You know how the guys split their stances? If they bring the leg that's on the outside, that typically doesn't always have to be, but typically it should be behind them. So if they have a split stance, if you're on this side of the cage, then this leg should be going back. The other one should be going forward. And the reason why is so you can press into the fence so you can cover that, right? So they can't take the back and there's all kinds of stuff you can do from there. Anyway, I saw that he switched that up. You can

do that if you're going to then make an escape for it, but he didn't. And then he gets pushed to his, I think he got pushed forward. Hernandez was able to get kind of behind him a little bit. And I was like, aha, he got him to make a mistake here. He got him to get the positioning off. And sure enough, he was able to use right hooks to kind of keep Kapilov occupied here. And one of the things about shooting, like bending over at the waist like that, Craig Jones has talked about this. Normally when you shoot in wrestling, you want to have your back straight, head up, big tall posture using your head, right?

If I go on a head outside single like this, I'm not bent over like this at the waist. I'm over here, high, big tall chest, the whole nine yards, right? Big posture. You don't have to do that in MMA. You can actually bend over the waist as long as you're just going to run him back to the fence. The fence changes that dynamic. And sure enough, it was right hooks up top.

And he actually had to was right hooks up top. And he actually had to jab a little bit too. And then he gets underneath, pushes him back, and then the whole sequence started. He was able to get his hands together underneath, pulls him out. And from there, it was a wrap. Goes for the rear naked choke, and it was so close. And you can see he had the palm-to-palm initially, and he was trying to hide it behind him,

kind of like what Nate Diaz did a little bit with Conor at first when he was snaking it behind him but it was just palm to palm it wasn't hand to hand uh maybe I guess that was a huge trig one or two I forget which one that was but anyway pulling him behind pulling him behind but Kapilov resisted and then righted his posture and Hernandez basically just let go a little bit and then re-sank it into the bicep grip and then was smiling like like I like, once it was underneath the chin, he knew he got it and Kapilov tapped. I thought Kapilov did a great job to turn him off the cage. Again, the down blocking was good. The head kicking was amazing. He gave Hernandez

a lot of problems, but Hernandez at 185 pounds averages nearly seven takedowns per 15 minutes. The guy is, they call him the machine that is such, I mean, Merab too, Merab's the machine. No, well, they call him Fluffy. Excuse me, Merab's the machine. They call him Fluffy. Either fucking way, he could be the machine as well. He has dynamite offense, just in terms of the volume of it and how quickly he can figure things out. And if you can't keep up with him playing speed chess with you, it will be curtains for you as well. Again, targeting by Anthony Hernandez, 82% to the head. 82%.

82%. 11% to the body. 5% to the leg. Remarkable. Truly remarkable. That guy is so special. But here's the best part about it. Kopylov didn't look bad.

He didn't look bad at all. He looked great for as long as the fight lasted. I mean, you know, except for the very end. But he was game, dude. He was a game opponent. But Hernandez is just an overwhelming force. He needs to be fighting ranked guys. He needs to be fighting in fight nights, main events, something like that.

Let's get that guy in a five-rounder, right? Let's get him in a five-rounder for sure. Anthony Hernandez, beast. Beast. All right. Let's see what some of your questions are. Let's see what we got here. Okay.

Do we have to keep going with the immediate rematches? If anyone deserves it, it's Volk. But this result makes the division so interesting again. I just think that they probably will. I don't know that they need to. This person writes, Does Bobby Knuckles fight Izzy for number one contender or winner of DDP vs. Izzy? Or, again, or Sean Strickland.

Ilya vs. Islam at some point. I'm not interested in that right now. I mean, maybe in the future. I don't know, but not right now. Not right now. How do fighters like Roberto Duran maintain their career at the top for so long? Man defeated Iran Barkley at 38. It's insane what he managed to accomplish.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know exactly how some of those... I mean, he was also talking about one of the greatest to ever do it as well in his particular sport, but... Manos de piedra. But... I don't know how to answer that. It's a good question. I don't know how to answer that.

Is Ilya versus Max instantly one of the most exciting potential fights of 2024? One billion percent. Iron chin versus unbelievable power. A lot more than that. Is Ilya versus Max instantly one of the most exciting potential fights of 2024? 1 billion percent. Iron chin versus unbelievable power. A lot more than that. Skill. Skill on both sides too. Will the UFC go to Spain with a small event? Probably. At some point, probably. This person writes, I notice Volk switches to southpaw a lot and almost never throws from that southpaw. That's not quite true. Lately, he's been getting caught in transition sometimes. Do you think him fighting switch actually was a liability?

No, that's not really what caught him this time, I don't think. Thoughts on their Pereira Hill versus for main event for 300? I mean, look, 300 is a great card, right? UFC 300 is a phenomenal card. That's not, to me, the most exciting main event, but it's not a bad one, as a main event goes, I think. The card is too good to really complain, is what I would say. That's not a crown jewel.

You know, that's not Brock versus Mir. It's not Jon versus Mir. It's not Jon Jones versus DC or what ended up being Amanda and Misha. It's not those. But it's a...

The card itself is too good to complain about, I think. What are the chances that Moreno and Figueiredo fight a fifth time? I don't know. I don't know how to answer that. With Volk and Izzy losing their belts, Hooker not being anywhere near title contention, and Ulberg maybe not being champ material, do you even

believe the glory days of CKB are over? I'd be very cautious about that. Part of any good gym is going to be developing talent and also recruiting it. So let's see who enters their gym in the next five years.

There's a lot that can go right for them there. This person writes, I think this guy's a black belt in jiu-jitsu too. He writes, Been watching for over a decade now. It never gets any easier watching a pound-for-pound fighter's time at the top come to an end. And these reigns at the top get shorter and shorter. I'm telling you, folks.

Gone are the days of GSP, Silva, and DJ. And it never gets easier. No. No, it does not. It is a very difficult thing to do. Which stadium in Spain is better suited for a fight night? Bernabéu? Camp Nou? What is the one that Atletico plays in? very difficult thing to do. Which stadium in Spain is better suited for a fight night? Bernabeu, Camp Nou? What is the one that Atletico plays in? The Wanda Metropolitano? That's a big ass one too.

Camp Nou is a dump. Okay, don't let anyone else tell you. I know they're remodeling it, but just so you know, Camp Nou is a piece of shit. Like Barcelona, the city, is a beautiful place. It's an amazing place. The city itself is tremendous. Camp New is a dump. Like, don't let anyone tell you it's anything other than a dump. It fucking sucks. I've been there three times. It's a dump, just so you know. Everyone I wanted to win tonight lost. Dude, I don't know what to tell you. Now that I officially hate MMA, what sports do you suggest I get into? Dude, you'll be all right. You'll be all right, dude. This is the life cycle. You just got to learn to live with it. Favorites were 11-0 until the

main event. Ilya was literally the ultimate underdog tonight. Yeah, true. What is Ilya's next fight? Again, probably going to be a rematch, but if not, the Max fight makes sense. I love that fight. Probability of Teporia fighting Conor in Spain? Probably zero, right? Because it's going to be a pay-per-view fight. Will Ilya be the one to finally crack Max's chin?

I'll tell you this much. I would not want to be... I would not want Max to test that. Could go real bad for him. Looking at the 35 and over club stat, do you think finishing ability is the linchpin of being able to hold a title into later stages? P.S. DJ beat Adriano over 35. Not UFC, but still worth mentioning. Yes, it is a very valuable achievement, but DJ was 31 or 32 when he lost to Cejudo in his last fight in the UFC.

He does not qualify. Was there any warning from Volkanovski's corner about circling going into his direction of Teporia's power side? I think he was more just trying to go side to side and not just constantly circle away from it because that can cause you problems as well. I don't think his corner failed him like that, no.

Someone says, lift the godforsaken curse, Luke. It's not a curse. It's observed reality. It's the world in which you live. If it was just magic, we could just undo the magic. It's not magic, man. It's fucking... It's a difficult sport.

It's a difficult, difficult sport. Who hits harder at 145, Emmett or Ilya? Pound for pound? They might hit equally hard, but Ilya is going to be much more accurate. How long until Teporia becomes the biggest active star in the sport? Well, he's got to win fights. He has to keep winning fights. Otherwise, it's not going to go well for him.

His reign at the top will be short as well. And he has deficiencies too. Let's be very clear about that. So before we start talking about how big he will be, let's recognize he needs to keep winning. You lose the title after one or two of these fights, who cares? How can someone get a title shot when they haven't finished a fight in nearly three years? I'm not sure what that's referring to.

In an alternate timeline where Volk didn't take the rematch with Islam and we get Volk coming into his peak, does it go differently? I don't think so. I don't think so. I think that was just a reminder that the end was upon us. Regarding Volk's comments

about his mental health after Islam 2, do you ever truly worry about a fighter's life once the end of their career is near when it doesn't end how they would have hoped? Yeah, sure. Tony Ferguson was there tonight. I've been kind of concerned, but he appeared to be in good spirits. I guess we'll see how it goes. But yeah, dude, absolutely. I worry about it all the time.

I mean, that's not even that's not even that's not even counting like the CTE. This person asks, are you going to be insufferable about Ilya's win or are you going to be cool? asks, are you going to be insufferable about Ilya's win, or are you going to be cool? No, I'm going to be insufferable. I'm going to be super insufferable.

And I mean that with absolute sincerity. I intend to be insufferable about it. I intend to remind everyone, like, told you. And not just the 35 and over thing. Like, picked him on CBS Sports HQ. Picked him on MK. Picked him on the live.

I mean, I never ever wavered. And I had to hear all of this chirping about who got 10-7'd at the, what do they call it? The Upright Citizens Brigade Sketch Comedy Tour. Yes, he got 10-7'd at the Upright Citizens Brigade Sketch Comedy Tour. Yeah, it turns out Elliot Teporia is not that great at sketch comedy. It's true. Quite bad at it. Especially when he's doing that in his third language.

But he can fight. He can do that. And I was focused on that the whole time. So yes, I intend to be very insufferable. But the good news is, is no more insufferable than everyone else was about how Teporia sucked, about how Teporia was never going to win, how he was going to get taught a lesson, about how all of the most meaningless, totally wrong shit that everyone floated this week. I'll be no more insufferable than that.

But I do intend to be insufferable than that, but I do intend to be insufferable, yes. That's part of what I intend to do, absolutely. Where are we on this? Jesus, my Twitter feed has blown the fuck up. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's it, boys and girls.

I think that's it for tonight. Tried to warn you. Tried to warn you. It's not magic. It's not a curse. It's not some special voodoo. It is observed reality. And that makes it, frankly, the most, to me, terrifying thing about it.

Is that we know, it won't happen every time, but we know for the vast majority of these guys, especially 155 and below, when they hit 35 and they're trying to defend or win titles, the universe is going to pull the emergency brake on it. One more time, I'm going to remind them, the prime or the career, it will end and it might happen sooner than you think. It's hard to inventory your decline when you're feeling the middle of the approval. It's hard to inventory all the things that aren't going right when so many other things are finally going right. I hate it for them, dude. I hate it for them. I really do. I hate it for them. It's so unfair that these guys take so long to get paid, so long to get adulation, so long to get respect, and it gets taken from him so quickly. But you should have some heart if you're a Volkanovski fan, because all he is is maybe

the best featherweight of all time. He's one of the very best fighters of all time. Losing tonight doesn't change that. Doesn't change a thing about that. If he had won tonight, that would have been, frankly, like a huge feather in his cap. Obviously, it's not great that he lost, but he is one of the most talented fighters, one of the best champions we've ever had, one of the best sportsmen that we've ever had, changed the game for MMA in Australia, probably to New Zealand to some extent as well, I'm sure.

And we're all richer for what Volkanovski has contributed to the fight game, but his peak is probably past us. It's probably past us. So I don't make the rules, but I do observe them. All right? All right. Thank you guys so much for watching. Like the video, hit subscribe, do all that fun shit, and we'll have some extra stuff for you guys this week. We've already got some stuff planned. Some fun post-298 stuff and a whole lot more. Okay? I love you.

I'm glad you watched. I hope you got something out of it. We appreciate you. Hit the subscribe button one more time. And until next time, boys and girls, get some sleep. Peace. Love you.