MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 299 Results: Sean O'Malley vs. Chito Vera 2 | UFC 299 Reactions | Poirier-BSD | Morning Kombat

Episode Date: March 10, 2024

At UFC 299, Sean O'Malley attempts to defend his bantamweight title against Marlon "Chito" Vera. In the co-main event, Dustin Poirer faces Benoit Saint Denis. The rest of the UFC fight card features Gilbert Burns vs. Jack Della Maddalena, Kevin Holland vs. Michael "Venom" Page and Petr Yan vs. Song Yadong. This is the UFC 299 reaction and results post-fight show for Morning Kombat. 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

All right, all right, all right, about to get this party started. Mm, mm, mm. Ooh, let me turn that down, Jesus. Oh, let's turn this down. Where's that coming from? Oh, I know where that's coming from. There we go. Okay, all right, let's get this party started. Let's get this moving. Let's get this show on the road. Um, there we go. Okay. All right.

Let's get this party started. Let's get this moving. Let's get this show on the road. Hi, everybody. How are you doing? It is currently, uh, 1 32 in the morning, uh, on the 10th of March, 2024. My name is Luke Thomas. This is the official morning combat UFC 2 99 post fight show. Thank you for joining me.

I greatly appreciate it. A couple of housekeeping notes. Please give a thumbs up on this if you would be so kind. You may as well. What else can you do? Yeah, you can subscribe. You can leave a thumbs up. You can do all kinds of fun stuff.

Glad you're here. Here to talk about all the results from what we just saw, UFC 299 is in the books. We have a fair amount to get to. If you want to leave a question, you may do so. I just put up a Twitter thread about it. You can get to it there. I'm at LThomasNews, and I will get to it at the end of this. We're going to go through the main card and answer any questions you might have. All right, so UFC 299 in the books, and without further ado, let's get this party started.

All right. And then as I mentioned before, let me see if I can get this one. Hold on. There. Getting a little good subscription going. All right. What did you think about UFC 299? I thought that, I thought it was good. I thought it was very good. I thought it was very good. I thought it was very good. Please don't misunderstand me. I thought it was very good. I give it high marks. I don't think for me it quite matched what I had in anticipation, but maybe that's just a personal thing because I can't really criticize the card, nor am I trying to. But I thought there was a bit of a disparity between what I had hoped it could have been and then what ultimately it ended up being a little bit. And I'm going to get to some of those reasons why. But in the end, you know, an A-, potentially even A-plus card on your, I mean, at worst, A-, right? Like, it was a good card. All right, let's get to some of these

results here, if we can. As I mentioned, I'm at LThomasNews. If you've got a question, put it up there. We'll get to that at the end of the main card analysis. All right, here we are, off and running. Let's do this. UFC 299 took place at the Kaseya Center, Kaseya Center, I'm not sure how you pronounce that, in Miami, Florida. I don't have the attendance figures, but it was a sellout. You know, I'll say this about UFC ticket prices. I see a lot of bellyaching about UFC ticket prices online, and they do appear to be quite high, especially when they go to like some of these bigger markets like New York or whatever. Like obviously the ticket prices are pretty they do appear to be quite high especially when they go to like some of these bigger markets like new york or whatever like obviously the ticket prices are pretty extravagant but y'all motherfuckers keep paying for it so i'm not sure what to tell you y'all

keep buying them they're gonna keep charging you that i mean i'm not telling you how to spend your money to do it or to not do it i'm just saying it's weird to see all the belly aching and then they're like, yes, another record set at yet another venue. It's like they keep setting records off of all y'all's complaints. I mean, how serious are these complaints? Not very is the answer, but okay, let's get to the fight results itself of themselves. I should say in your main event, Sean O'Malley defeats Marlon Chitovera via unanimous decision. The scores are 50-45, 50-45, and then 50-44. What round did he get the knee? Second or third round that he scored that knee?

This was an excellent performance by Sean O'Malley. Just a fantastic performance. If not flawless, and I'm not saying it's flawless but it was thorough i think is perhaps a good way to put it i hope um chito vera got maimed in there he got maimed that was his face was fucked up in a way that i hadn't seen it before i mean we talked about the we talked about the a few things pre-. One of them was the durability of Cheeto. I don't think most people felt like Cheeto was technically on the level of Sean. Maybe some people did.

But I don't think that was the prevailing thought. But there were some hopes or beliefs anyway. Obviously, there was a very pro-Cheeto crowd, by the way, down there in Miami, which makes some sense, but nevertheless deserves to be pointed out. But there was some belief that Cheeto's durability could potentially carry him to victory. He could weather a storm and then begin to potentially take over in the championship rounds. He did have a decent round four, but he had a pretty terrible round five. And when I say decent round four, as I mentioned, he didn't win a single round

on any of the judges' scorecards. There were either bad rounds or rounds that were better, but there were never any great rounds for him at all. They were all good rounds at a bare minimum or great rounds for Sean O'Malley. There was a gigantic gap in skill. And it is true that Chito Vera's durability, I actually think, carried him farther than people might realize. I think some of the punishment that O'Malley dealt in a fight like this would have stopped most bantamweights. That knee he landed, it probably

did break Chito's face because at the end of the night when Joe Rogan stuck a microphone in his face, he looked like he'd been stung by a bee. It looked like he was suffering from some serious medical issues at the end of that contest. I'm going to imagine that he'll be transported to the hospital tonight. Sean O'Malley's face got bloodied a little bit. He took a big body shot at the end of the fight. But in general, this was almost exclusively, in terms of that which is memorable, it was one-way traffic. It was one-way traffic. In the first fight between them, Sean O'Malley's skill gap on Chito was not as big. I think he still had one at the time, but it was not as big. And one of the other storylines heading into the first fight,

we talked about this on Morning Combat, was about whether or not he was brittle. Sean O'Malley was brittle. I mean, those accusations didn't really follow him past that fight. And here we are. He just did 25 minutes of beating the shit, basically, out of Chito Vera. And no one is questioning whether he can take leg kicks. No one is questioning whether or not he can take body shots. No one is really questioning his chin overall. There were a couple times where Chito landed a good shot. There were a couple times where he had Sean O'Malley, you know, certainly moving around a little bit more or, you know, evading, retreating to an extent. But there was never any kind of sustained offense. There was never any kind of full minute or something like that

where Chita was really putting it on him. And he had to resort to these desperate measures of kind of charging in or leaping in with a knee or just kind of out there reaching at certain times to get O'Malley to bring him with him. And O'Malley was very good about breaking, getting away, the whole nine yards. It was a big beating. Whatever differences between them that there may have been, both in terms of Sean's readiness for elite opposition

or whatever skill differential there may have been, any of the lingering problems from that have been, at least on the O'Malley side, largely answered for. And then on the skill differential side just a gigantic a massive whatever whatever descriptor you'd like to use O'Malley just having significantly more skill pot shotting Chito for 25 minutes uh and doing it whether he was leading doing it whether he was retreating doing it whether he was retreating, able to set angles, able to go through the middle if Chito was blocking out here. If Chito brought his guard to the inside,

then the punches would whip around to the extent that his head was out of the way. It would go to the body. To the extent that the body was covered, he would get clipped up top. The jab was working for Sean O'Malley. The push kick, the oblique kick was working for Sean O'Malley. Also a little bit to an extent for Chito. Both guys were kind of disrupting the base of the other guy, but it was really only Sean O'Malley who was able to take full advantage of that.

And I'm mentioning how he would go linear or that he would go hooked. And all of that is true. He'd go high, he'd go low. The other part, too, was he would be able to reset the angle, then attack from this side, and then retreat, and then go back from this angle, and then reset over here, and then pivot out and turn, and then force Chito to kind of turn and follow him,

and then start the process all over again. Pot shotting to the body, up top to the hook to the, you know, upstairs. He comes closer, teep to the gut. He tries to turn him again, oblique kick, and then on and on and on. And then there were certain rounds where he was able to just accumulate really damaging shots, like some of the shots really begin to get through. And again, I'll look it up here in just a second. I'll get the fight metric numbers, but I think it was either the second or the third round

where he landed that step through knee. And I fully believe, fully, no doubt about it, fully believe that would have crushed and stopped just about any other bantamweight. You really have to appreciate Chito Vera's chin and durability and character and fighting spirit is fairly unique even among elite MMA fighters. He is very, very hard to hurt. He is very hard to deter. And, dude, it was hard for me to watch. I mean, this is the guy that went three rounds with Lineker. Go watch the Chito Vera

Lineker fight. Lineker wins the fight, but like Chito takes his best shot and just kind of keeps coming. Like, I'm not going to say no issue, but without much. And it looked to me like tonight, whatever durability Chito has, and it is significant, he got pushed to the limit of what that was. He got pushed to the limit. I've never seen him retreat in a way where he was like, you know, where you could visibly see duress on his face. And we talk about all the time, like what is the difference between people who are able to take punches versus not? Again, there are some physiological components. But the other component is just having mental bearing.

You're able to keep your bearing. You're able to keep your wits about you. And that's usually what Chito does all the time. He could not really do this in this fight down the stretch. And for those who were hoping for a fourth or fifth round surge from him, Sean O'Malley slammed the door on that one pretty effectively, no doubt about it. Honestly, I'm trying to think, what did Sean O'Malley try to do

other than knock him out? But in terms of individual techniques, what was he throwing that just didn't work? Everything worked. I don't think that there was anything that didn't actually work. I think it all worked really well for the most part. As I mentioned, southpaw, he was able to get it done.

Orthodoxy was able to get it done. Orthodox, he was able to get it done. Attacks to the body. Attacks over the top of the glove and then around it when the hands were raised. Able to put shots in combination. Able to catch Vera on pursuit. Able to catch him on retreat. Able to to trap him, I should say trick him into following him into retreat and then cracking him as soon as he gets into place. Hand and foot combinations, powerful shots. Again, the knee one more time. Like dude, he did, he styled on Chito tonight.

You don't get 50-44s on Chito Rivera unless you're doing something pretty dramatic. And he did. Let's take a look at some of the numbers if we can. And then I want to talk about what he said afterwards and what this all kind of means. Actually, you know what? I'll say something right up front. You know, it's kind of interesting. If you listen to the crowd, it was very clear that it was a pro-Chito or largely pro-Chito

crowd. I guess they all liked Sean O'Malley's walkout song, The Superstar. I guess it's Lupe Fiasco or whatever the fuck his name is. I don't even know anymore. I'm fucking old. Nobody cares. But in any case, the audience was singing along to it, right? There was a little bit of, I don't know.

They liked that to some extent. Oh my God, these numbers are fucking brutal. Jesus Christ. like that to some extent oh my god these numbers are fucking brutal jesus christ um but the there was this question about like oh well you know the media is making sean o'malley out to be a bigger star than he once was and that's not altogether unfair i think it's somewhat overstated but not altogether unfair because there were there there was a time early in his run when he had like a raul rosas jr kind of boost going where it's like, well, this young kid who's really doing things differently. And, you know, I'm not to say that they were equivalent,

but there was a something of a similar kind of feel and that kind of petered out. And now here he is arriving in this position where he's a defending champion in the weight class. And I don't think there's been a commensurate rise in popularity to match the moment. And so there's a lot of people sort of saying, hey, why are we pushing this guy like a big celebrity if, yeah, he's got a bigger name, but he's not like this incredible star in the way that people present him as. There is some kind of market correction that's owed there.

But boy, I will tell you what, you put on performances like that, he won't be, he won't be, we won't be having these conversations for very long. It won't even matter if you like him. It won't even matter. It will simply be if you have a figure who can be that dominant, it eventually has this way of just kind of paving over all of these differences.

I'm not telling you to like him or hate him. Feel how you want to feel about him in either direction. Like, I love the way he fights. I can't stand the way he dresses. Maybe you feel in a similar way. how you want to feel about him in either direction. Like, I love the way he fights. I can't stand the way he dresses. Maybe you feel in a similar way. But he's got this weird thing going where there's a little bit of tension with the fan base and he's almost kind of becoming a little bit of a villain,

but kind of like a begrudging respect villain. What's going to be interesting is he's going to turn big time into a villain if they give him the Marab fight. Marab Dvalishvili has turned into a hero in the fight game, a hero to the media, a hero to the fans. I don't know anybody who dislikes Marab, save for potentially Sean O'Malley and his team. He is quite well-liked. That is going to really drive the contrast in a very interesting way. And the results of that fight could,

if Sean O'Malley shines, that might be that catalyst that really gets people to actually finally convert to him if they've been holdouts. Or depending on how it goes, they could even solidify feelings. It would be really interesting to see what happens. but that fight is going to draw a contrast between them. The beloved figure in Merab and someone who I think there are accusations that O'Malley is somewhat propped up by the media. Again, it's not altogether unfair, but I think it's somewhat overstated, but nevertheless, there will be that tension if and when they fight. It'll be an interesting moment. I don't know when that's going to happen, probably later this year. Sean O'Malley calling for a fight with Ilya Teporia next. Not saying I wouldn't want to see it, but he needs to fight Marab first. Nice win tonight,

really nice win. But we all kind of knew Chito was not selected because he had the best resume as a candidate for number one contender. He has a good resume, but he had been beaten in 2023 by Corey Sanhagen. You couldn't actually make the argument. He was the most deserving guy, but he had a rivalry with Sean O'Malley. And you thought, well, that durability could play some role. The Chito Vera fight and the rivalry that he has is kind of like one last, let's kind of fraud check this guy a little bit just to make sure. Just to make sure he doesn't cripple

under the weight of pressure. Just to make sure if it actually does go long and he can match the moment. If there really is intensity that he can answer for it. It really is what it comes down to because Chito Vera sort of presents interesting questions in that way. Or I should say interesting challenges in that way. And I don't think you can make those arguments about Sean O'Malley anymore.

I don't think you really can. I mean, you can try, I suppose. You're talking like a fucking idiot. But yeah, I think any kind of lingering doubt, maybe you don't think he's the best bantamweight in the world, and that's fine. But any kind of lingering doubt about he'll fall apart in some kind of way. I think all of that itself fell apart a little bit here tonight.

Dude, listen to these numbers. Jesus. Titty fucking Christ. I mean, this is unbelievable. Okay. Sean O'Malley, significant strikes, 230. To Marlon Vera's 89. Jesus. Round one, 27 to nine. This is again, quantitative totals, Jesus Round 1 27-9 This is again quantitative totals Not qualitative

Round 2 Fuck me 51-16 Round 3 35-17 A little bit closer Still 2x 2x plus actually

Round 4 56-26 And then listen to round 5 61 2X plus, actually. Round four, 56 to 26. And then listen to round five, 61 to 21. Dude, he was doing 2 or 3X per round what Chito was doing in terms of numeric totals. If you look at targeting, Sean O'Malley, 65% to the head, 26% to the body, 8% to the leg. That sounds about right. Chito Vera, 46% to the head.

That sounds about right. Body, 15%. And then the leg, 38%. That was really the most available target. That was the one that he landed the most. Obviously, most of these strikes landed at distance. But this was a fucking drubbing. Jesus Christ, man, that is

fucking brutal. Oh my God. I guess I've seen worse, but for a title fight, you don't tend to see them that bad. Now, what I will say is there was a moment where I was thinking where if you actually go back and you watch Rich Franklin's win over David the Crow Loaizo, it was one of these fights that just kind of went on and on and on. And Loaizo just got beat on. And he was never the same after that. I don't think that's going to happen to Chito. I don't.

Because he had a lot of life left in him still in the fifth round. Even though he was, again, 61-21. He was up against it. But nevertheless, he still had a little bit more of a... He didn't look as defeated until the very, very end where he was really kind of covering up and his eye was closed and he couldn't really see. He was kind of blinking it out.

He looked a little bit defeated there, but up until that point, he really didn't. And usually when a guy gets messed up is when they look defeated and they're getting beaten on for a long period of time. So I actually don't think that's going to be the case with Chido. And there he was after the fight being like, I'm going to get better. I'm going to get back. But he needs to take some time off after this.

That was a bad beating. Again, God only knows what's going on in his face after all of this. I mean, there's really no way to... I'm sure it's fucking horrendous the way everything has gone for him in that regard. No takedown attempts at all. No knockdowns. Although, Chido took a knee once. Like the way that Volkanovski took a knee in the second Max fight where he kind of got clipped.

And then the knee touched and then he bounced up. But my lord, dude, that was an ass kicking. That was an ass kicking. Um, I've seen worse ass kickings, but that was thorough. That was complete. That was exhaustive. Um, he just didn't have much for him tonight. I'm actually sitting here trying to think like, how am I going to do a video breaking down the main event it's like um there's like so many things that Sean O'Malley did they all basically worked over time Chito's game really never got out of third-ish gear except for a couple of moments into the fifth a little bit in the maybe a little bit in the third to an extent, maybe the fourth depending on your perspective.

But that's really about it. He was technically overmatched. He was not physically overmatched. Chito's, I think, physically a good-sized bantamweight, so it's really not that. But you heard Dean Thomas talk about the footwork, moving Sean O'Malley into position to land, out of position to get around it,

and everything else in between. And Chito just was a little bit more flat footed, a little bit having to follow, turn angles to chase, all that stuff. And that was that, man. That was that. So I'd be curious to see how everyone else feels about that Sean O'Malley win. I'd be very curious to see what you guys have to say in terms of what you want to see next from him. I'm going to guess everyone wants to see the Murab fight. And the Murab fight is super interesting because we saw him get dropped

and rocked by Henry Cejudo. Somebody else did it too. I'm trying to remember who exactly rocked Murab as well. Was it Simone? Somebody else. I can't remember. But he is hittable. At the same time, over the course of five rounds, his output is unlike anything we've ever seen. He will wrestle until the bell fucking rings. He'll do it for 25 minutes if he has to. He has the most remarkable gas tank I've ever seen. And so you've got somebody who not, I don't think O'Malley has in any way a bad gas tank, but what really makes him shine is this accuracy. It is the timing. It is the distance management. It is the diversity of his strikes. It's the diversity of his targeting, all of those things, but he's not necessarily, I think, again,

I think he has, I think he is a prepared fighter. Please don't misunderstand me. But he doesn't have cardio like Murab does. I don't think that's all that crazy to say. He does not have cardio like Murab does. And Murab is going to just try and tidal wave everything he can right on top of Sean O'Malley. As many takedown attempts as he can, as much riding time as he can, anything he can do to get a hold of him, slow him down. Because obviously, if Sean O'Malley and Murab are fighting at distance, it would take a very charitable view

to believe that Murab could win under those conditions. I think most people can look at this now and be like, yeah, you stand at range with Sean O'Malley. It's going to go probably real bad for you in all likelihood. I will say that I thought the commentary team was right to note that under pressure, O'Malley, when he's moving backwards, is much more, he just doesn't have the same kind of offense. It's constrained. But he's hard to keep on that back foot for a very long amount of time. So such that he is on the back foot, you get the results that you get.

But he's very, very hard to keep there as time goes on. So it looks like it's going to be Merab next. I'm going to guess later on this year. I'm going to guess that that's going to really launch O'Malley into that space of being a villain, a heel, shall we say, in the industry. But I also think if he goes in there and wins that one and he shines in that one like he shined tonight, there will be some reluctant skeptics who kind of get brought over in the end about his ability. He has exciting boxing. He has exciting striking. He can create openings for himself. He can do it in so many different ways with so many

different targets and so many different weapons. And he did not wilt under pressure against a foe, bright lights, main event, you name it. Dude, he delivered. I don't know if he delivered at the pay-per-view box office. I don't know if he delivered at the pay-per-view box office. I don't know if he delivered to any of you watching in any kind of emotional sense or whatever, but he delivered. That was an outstanding performance by an elite fighter in a big stakes contest showing, again, because they had fought in 2020, you had the elapse of time, and so you're able to make a judgment call about who really

has made the most amount of progress in that time. Did he really answer that question very authoritatively? This was an excellent performance by him. It's not as good as what Ilya did to Volk, and everyone's like, oh, you're bringing up Ilya again? Sure. Yes. Deal with it.

You'll be okay. I promise. If you need a pacifier, your local pharmacy will probably have one for you. But for everybody else, you can deal. But it was still nevertheless extremely impressive. Really, really good stuff from him. I'm not really sure what else to say about it. He just kind of dealt in the way that he did. I think the biggest question will simply be how the fan base receives this performance

and how they receive him heading into any kind of Marab fight and what that fight looks like and ultimately what it might mean. But that could be a real corner-turning situation where you go, if you were to lose to Murab, it would be devastating for him, I think. But if you were to win and to look good, it could be really one of those sort of galvanizing moments in a fighter's career. Outstanding performance by Sean O'Malley. We'll come back to that a little bit later as well. All right, let's get to this other one. Co-main event. Jesus Christ. Dustin Poirier defeats Benoit Saint-Denis. 232 of round two.

He dropped him with a right hook and then finished him off on the ground, but had rocked him previously with a left hand before that. Dude, let me pull up the numbers on this fucking crazy ass fight. So here's what's kind of interesting. I'm wondering about this. So I, I had a feeling that Sean O'Malley was going to win. I did think that Benoit Saint-Denis was going to win. He did not, obviously, although he got fairly close-ish kind of at times.

I mean, he was just overwhelming in the way that you imagine him to be, but he was too reckless this time. He was not nearly as polished as I had seen him in more recent fights. He kind of let it all hang out, and that cost him in the end. But I mean, listen to some of these stats from Benoit Saint-Denis. First of all, three takedowns with total amount of basically, they call it control time at 4.53. He gets credited with a sub-attempt.

They credit Dustin Poirier with four sub-attempts. That's four jumping of the guillotines, all of which fucking failed. I mean, I don't know if it was actually four. Maybe there's another one. I don't remember. Did he go for like a triangle or some shit? I don't know. But in any case, he jumped guillotine 80 million times.

None of it worked. Mike Brown tells him between rounds, yo, fucking stop jumping guillotine. And he does it like immediately at the beginning of the second round. But it didn't matter because he gets the win. I was not convinced he was going to get this. St. Denis is 28. Dustin Poirier, 35. But coming off of also a head kick KO loss, basically.

Granted, some time had expired since then. That was in July. That was the same day as Spence Crawford. But I just didn't know. I did not like the situation. But, you know, it was kind of interesting. Benoit Saint-Denis came in. It looked like someone had put out a cigarette on his forehead.

And people had theorized that perhaps he had had staff. It looked like staff to me. I don't know if it was, but like, raise your hand if you've seen UFC fighters compete with staff. I mean, I've seen it a million times. There was that card recently where there was like four fighters on the card who all had staff. So it could very much be true. The question is if he did in fact have staff, I mean, what do you think the Florida commission is going to stop him? I mean, the Florida commission was out there just playing fucking Tetris on their phones probably the whole time, but more to the point, if he did have staff and he was on antibiotics that would drain him, but you couldn't really attribute that to the

loss. I don't think he had plenty of energy to do the things that he wanted to do. He was kind of reckless about it. Dustin Poirier's got big power. He stood at range with him at times, kind of just walked forward literally at times. So I don't think that if he did have staff and if he was on antibiotics, didn't do him any favors. I think that's pretty fair to say, but I don't think that's really the great explanation for anything that happened to him. I just, I would not, I would not buy that. I would not accept that. I think his tactical and strategic decisions

are the ones that really got him in big trouble there. But dude, he gave it to Dustin Poirier big time. First round, 38 significant strikes landed to Poirier's 12. I mean, he was all over him, like wide on rice. He had two takedowns in that round. He had three minutes and 20 seconds of control time. There was various points in either the first or second round where he would have the back for long stretches. He had, I think, a body triangle. Certainly, he had both hooks in.

He had mount in the second round. I mean, he had a lot of stuff going on. He had, I mean, I thought the fight was close to being over when he had Poirier on his belly, bellied out, wrist ride. Then I think there's another one right around the neck or wherever it was. But he had him, the bit where you have to, Ivan Salivary, you have to drive into their hips.

And then when you do, you flatten them out. I thought that might have been curtains for him right there. But Dustin Poirier, fucking experienced, did not panic, found a way out, found a way to create a scramble, got out of it, and got back to his feet, and then fucking Benoit Saint-Denis just like, you know, lurch from the Adams family walking forward like, and you just can't do that against a puncher like Dustin Poirier. You just can't do that.

You cannot do that. He's accurate. He's powerful. Um, you know, he has good timing. You know, he, he throws punches in combination when he needs to. Um, he's got devastating series of different punches. He doesn't just have to land the left. The right hook is a monster punch too. Like he can, he isin poirier is a motherfucker man you really really really got to take your hat off to him because 35 years of age as i mentioned taking on this like fucking juggernaut an unrefined juggernaut but a drug or not just the same again at 28 years old dustin poirier i'm going to say it one more time, the only guy to finish Max Holloway, the only guy, I think, to submit Michael Chandler, finished Michael Chandler, finished Justin Gaethje,

finished Eddie Alvarez, beat Conor twice, and finished him as well. I mean, I can go on and on down the list of all the things he's done, had the interim belt, never the full weight class title. Dude, I know he doesn't have that full weight class title, and that does affect the resume. It has to. But what he's accomplished in mixed martial arts is absolutely extraordinary. And tonight might be one of the more impressive wins, if we're being

honest. This guy, Saint Denis, was outside the top 10. I think he was ranked 11. And this was a huge step up, right? He was going from Matt Favola, who's a good fighter, fighter to Dustin Poirier he's one of the best guys to ever do it in the weight class that's a monster jump and he gave it to him for a little while but then ultimately his recklessness uh did him in usually he's kind of able to just power through it not so much this time but getting back to Dustin for him to have this many challenges where you're coming off the head kick KO, you're saying it could be your last fight, you don't even know. 35 years of age, granted that stat doesn't really apply, the 35 stat, because we're not talking about a championship fight, so the numbers will be a little bit different. But if you actually look at the overall numbers about the rates of fighters 155 and below, the decline actually does start mathematically around 34 years of age. So, you know, that checks out

given where he was in his last fight. So all of those things, all the doubt, all of the uncertainty, all of the questions, the whole card was filled with these old generation versus new generation fights. This one potentially with the biggest stakes. Dude, with a win like this, you kind of already knew what some of Dustin Poirier's weaknesses are. He's not a bad wrestler. He doesn't have bad jiu-jitsu. In fact, his defensive jiu-jitsu,

even when he had his back taken, was quite good. But you know, you've seen the Habib fight. You've seen some of these other fights where the Charles Oliveira fight, where he got overwhelmed in some of these positions. And so you saw more of that today. But you also saw this mental resilience. You also saw that if you fuck around with a guy who's got punishing ability like that, dude, it will go poorly for you. It will go poorly for you. And sure enough, he fucked around way too much. I admire the guts of Ben

Washington, but if he really wants to maximize that fire in the belly that he has, right, he's got incredible competitor spirit. I think everybody would agree with that, but he's so unrefined. He's so willing to just, you know, walk forward no matter what. You just can't do that against a guy like this. You really shouldn't be doing that in the UFC at all, but you really, really can't do it against Dustin Poirier. You cannot. And it's interesting. We saw Gilbert Burns, and I know he lost.

We'll talk about that in a second. We saw Rafael dos Anjos, and he lost. But we're talking about people who, I think, 39, 37, for 39 for dos Anjos, 37 for Gilbert. We're talking about guys who had very graduated declines. And I think what we're seeing at Dustin Poirier is I don't know how much longer he's going to stick around. But if he does, he might have a more graduated...

Listen, because Father Time will get everybody. But this was a great rejuvenating win. I don't know if he gets him a title shot, but it's a very rejuvenating win. But he might be one of those guys where if he sticks around, he would have not a precipitous decline, but a more graduated one, which would be interesting to see. Getting back to the previous point,

I don't know if this puts him in a position to go for the title. Do you want to see Islam versus Dustin? I don't hate that fight. I would still rather see the winner of Armin Saryukian and Charles Oliveira. I think those guys are the ones to do it. But could Dustin fight the winner of Gaethje and Max, or the loser of that one? I don't know, because Max might go back to 145. I'm not really sure. I don't know how they're going to play that. He could fight McGregor again. Maybe, I don't know. I don't know

how they're going to play it, but he certainly, with this win tonight, earned himself a big fight, a big opportunity, big card, whole nine yards, and you heard the adulation from the audience for him. There is just deep reverence in mixed martial arts fandom for a guy like Dustin Poirier. So what he really showed me was things you had seen before. He doesn't have the best wrestling in that division. He doesn't have the best jiu-jitsu, although he does have some of the best power at 155 and certainly some of the best boxing. But he's got great veteran experience. He doesn't panic. He does have good defense. I think in general, or certainly last stage defense, where everything goes totally overwhelmed. He's got an ability to stop a lot of attacks from there. And stayed calm, waited for his moment, didn't need a whole lot, dropped Saint

Denis with the left hand. They scramble again. They exchange. He walks forward, gets hit with the right hook, and sat him down. That was all she wrote after that little bit of ground and pound. Unbelievable. Really incredible, incredible to keep the barbarians of the youth movement at 155 at the gate. We've seen this a lot. Who said this to me? I forget who it was. Someone said this to me that this one, I cannot take credit for this.

This is someone else's thought. Who was it? Was it one of the guys at Submission Radio? Was it Mike Owens? I don't remember. Somebody said it to me this week that they felt that this was a lot like Gaethje and Fazeev, right? Where Gaethje was kind of at the bad end of things with Fazeev for a while

and then turned it around and ultimately got the stoppage. This was not the same level of beating. I mean, Gaethje was, I think, up against it in terms of the damage he was taking in that fight before it got stopped. I think also that one went to the third, if memory serves. This one didn't, but there is a parallel there. Dude, these guys who formed the last 10 years, almost 15 to an extent, of 155, not quite 15, but the last 10 years of 155, these guys, man, they are holding on,

and the next crop is having a real hard time putting them away and really kind of asserting themselves. It's a few different reasons. They're not quite there yet. It is remarkable to see that class, the McGregors. He wasn't so much there at 155, but certainly your Gaethje. Alvarez is now doing something else, but Poirier is still there. Chandler, to an extent. That class of 155ers, man, they are hard to get out of the driver's seat.

Very, very difficult. Very difficult. I'm trying to see if there's anything else in these numbers that kind of stands out. Benoit Saint-Denis, 50% to the head in terms of targeting, 30% to the body, 14% to the leg. Poirier, 85% to the head. He's a bit of a headhunter. 10% to the body, just 3% to the leg. Not ever been a really big leg kicker.

We kind of already knew that. So I'd be curious to know what you guys want to see the UFC do 3% to the leg. Not ever been a really big leg kicker. We kind of already knew that. So I'd be curious to know what you guys want to see the UFC do with Poirier next. Definitely deserves a big fight. Definitely deserves a big name. But how that goes, I don't quite know how they want to play that one exactly. So I guess we'll have to see. Elsewhere on this card, Michael Page defeating Kevin Holland. So this fight was fucking weird, wasn't it?

Michael Page wins, I think, 29-28 on all three judges' scorecards. Just a weird one. So basically, what do I have to say about this? Page did what he normally does. Hands down, he calls his style the 630 because his hands are down. Hands down style. And he was able to just bomb on Kevin Holland with these blitzing right hands kind of coming over the top. And it was almost like they would have this weird trajectory

where they would come over like in an arc almost as he would blitz and cover distance. He would be super far apart to cover all this distance. Dude, in the end, he was able to pot shot Kevin, knock him off of his feet at times, nullify him in the clinch, resist for the most part. I'll pull up some of the numbers here. Resist for the most part any concerted takedown attempts.

I'm going to pull them here. They credited Holland with two of five take downs with some control time. But for the most part, again, nullified most of the take downs. Nullified most of the subsequent damage that could have come from that. Didn't take...

I mean, there was some ground and pound. There was an elbow that got through. He had some decent ground and pound at times. But just not enough in the end. And dude, by the end of the third round or sort of the second half of it, I've never seen, like, Kevin Holland look like he was, even when Kevin Holland is losing fights,

he tends to look like he's having fun. Right? Did you see that? I didn't see that. I didn't see that at all. I did not see a guy who was having fun. I did not see a guy who was happy to be there or in the zone or just kind of flowing with everything. I didn't see that shit at all.

I did not. I did not get that impression. He looked to me bewildered, confused, frustrated, didn't want to be there anymore. And it just got worse and worse for him for the most part as it went on. You look at some of these numbers per round. They were close. Michael Page, 17 to 11. Again, quantitative, not qualitative totals. Kevin Holland kind of turned the page back a little bit there. Gets a takedown, two minutes of control time, 16 to 10 in significant strikes. But then round three, dude, pop quiz. How many significant strikes did Kevin Holland land in round three the answer is two

two he did get a takedown a minute and some change with control time but Michael Page landed 14 you look at the sub attempts one sub attempt by Kevin Holland in the second round that was the rear naked choke he almost got but then you saw shoulder, the inside shoulder kind of slip past. And so he was able to go from chest to back to chest to chest. And that prevented it. But in terms of targeting, Kevin Holland, 48% to the leg. He couldn't get a whole lot going. Just 12% to the leg for MVP.

68% to the head. Just 37% for Kevin Holland. It just looked like, dude, Kevin Holland has this tendency. He's a very good fighter, but he has this tendency to fight on other people's terms. And sometimes that matters. And sometimes it doesn't, sometimes he wins and sometimes he doesn't, but this one looked like he was fighting on MVP's terms and he didn't like it. And he didn't look like himself. And also also I just don't know what his game plan was I just don't quite know I can't get a clear sense of what he wanted to do like there's you can lose a fight but I can at least see hey what was the like what were the what was this guy

and his team thinking was their best plan to get the win and sometimes they're right like sometimes that would have been your best plan it didn't work but it was your best plan and it's sort of identifiable. I just can't make heads or tails of what Holland's game plan was supposed to be here. I don't quite know. I don't understand exactly what he was attempting necessarily with all of this. It was a strange one. So MVP wins his debut. When the fight ended, the crowd was kind of quiet. They didn't seem all that jazzed about it, but there was a couple of moments where they kind of liked it. Michael Venom Page coming out, doing a lot of antics, playing the Undertaker's theme music or whatever. I would not call this in any way a bad debut. I would not call it the best debut I've

seen for a Bellator fighter. Although Eddie Alvarez, when he fought, dude, actually, you know what? I mean, that's, no. Because Michael Chandler's debut against Dan Hooker was the best. Because I'm trying to think. Hector Lombard against Tim Boach, right, was not that great. And then Will Brooks, I can't remember what his debut fight was. I don't really remember there.

I'm not sure. And there's been some other ones as well. Eddie Alvarez had a tough fight against Donald Cerrone. He lost that one. He got leg kicked into, you know, big time. So this was one of the better ones, I would say, but maybe not the best one because obviously Michael Chandler would hold that position.

But a good start. A good start for MVP. I don't know really what he's going to do in this organization. It's hard to say what it will all look like. His anti-grappling for the most part was pretty good. His clinch work for the most part was nullifying. He was able to get double underhooks as well. I know what he was trying to do.

I just can't really tell you exactly what Kevin Holland was trying to do. He looked confused. I think he had something of an incoherent kind of performance because he just didn't seem to have any thoughts about what attacks would get him where he needed to be and what he needed to do to even launch those attacks to begin with. Jack de la Madalena defeating Gilbert Burns This was a 37 year old in Gilbert Burns Taking on Jack de la Madalena at 27 A monster, monster, monster Fight of generational clash

In the end, Jack de la Madalena wins At 343 of round 3 Via KO slash TKO Dude, Gilbert Burns was 343 of round three via KO slash TKO. Dude, Gilbert Burns was a minute and a half or so from winning this fight, I think. I thought Jack Dillon-Mantellana won the first and then I think got out-wrestled or so in the second and really needed to put his... It was anybody's fight heading into the third. And what you've noticed with Jack Dillon-Mantellana

is he has good, like where does his wrestling fall apart? He has good defensive wrestling. He knows what the assignment is, but he can be baited into making mistakes by forcing him to make a series of different reactions when the takedowns are going in different directions. Right?

So we've gone from, we're in one scenario, he'll know what to do. We've now transitioned to another one very quickly and then another one very quickly. And then the more you transition the position, the more you move, the more that like a little error begins to sneak in and he can get out.

He used basically like a reverse Z guard to ultimately flip Burns over, but he also did it with the assist of the fence. Dude, whether it's Craig Jones doing the flying triangle at Karate Combat, or you name it. We saw the bulldog choke, where someone was using the fence on the bulldog choke to almost like a clock choke to kind of like...

A clock choke would happen with the gi, but there could be a similar kind of mechanics um with parts of the body and they were using the fence to crawl up to like really get the bulldog choke and here he's using the fence to use basically like a reverse z guard to then roll through and roll over create the scramble here Burns. Just gets intercepted with a fucking brutal knee. He goes crashing to the canvas. Bah, bah, bah. I thought Gilbert had a good game plan.

He wanted to use speed. He wanted to use evasion. Get in, get out. They wanted to make wrestling a key part of everything that he did. As you can see, he's got very good wrestling. Let's look at some of these numbers on this one if we can. For old Gilbert Burns. Where are we on this one? Yeah, let me look at these numbers. He was 18 to 18 significant strikes in the first round for both. Then Jack de la Belaida, 21 to 9 in the second, and then 28 to fucking zero in the third. Jesus. So maybe I'm

getting this backwards. Burns had three takedowns on the first. So I think Burns may have won the first. JDM won the second. And then Gilbert was on his way to winning the third before ultimately losing it with that kind of last second. Or not last second, but surprising scramble towards the end of the third frame. So first of all, Jack de la Maddalena afterwards gets out and says he wants to fight Shavkat Rachmaninoff. I was like, dude, you got to have balls the size of hippity hops to want to fucking call out a guy like that. That is unbelievable to me. So shouts to Jack de

la Maddalena for being a fucking G. That's incredible. I don't know if they're going to make that fight, but that would be fucking awesome. But as it relates to this fight, what it showed me was that at 27 years of age, Burns did have enough grappling prowess to win. He ultimately did not, but he did have enough ability to win. He was very, very close to pulling that off. And we already saw Dustin pull it off in the co-main. However, what I would say is for JDM supporters, I'm not going to say he got lucky tonight, but he certainly rescued that a little bit. But what I am going to say is,

for all of his limits that he might have, and those are real, I think he's going to smooth those out in the next year or two, where they will be largely indetectable. And he's going to smooth those out in the next year or two where they will be largely indetectable and he's going to get real dude he there was a moment he was using no that was a different fight sorry that's excuse me that's a different one but certainly what we can say is his i mean if you're using like reverse Z guard shit to get off from underneath, by the

way, like Craig Jones is the man with reverse Z guard stuff. He's the man. Uh, in fact, if you have his tutorial, I think it's in the, the, I think it's in the, um, power bottom, the power bottom. Uh, that's the fucking name of it. What do you want me to do? He it's, uh, it's in that Powerbottom. The Powerbottom. That's the fucking name of it. What do you want me to do? It's in that tutorial. And he goes through it. And I know he worked with JDM a little bit for this fight.

And it showed. It showed. What I'm saying is. I was hoping JDM's grappling would be already at the point. In this fight. Where I'd be like, wow, he's ready to go off. I think he's just a little bit short of that, but I think it's an inevitability. I think it's an inevitability that he's going to have all of the grappling he needs to then let his boxing do the talking for him. And you can see he is super formidable when it comes to that.

Very, very formidable. He can put combinations together. He also can go linear, then hook. He can make you move and transfer your defense and then put things around it. He can follow you. He can switch stance through combination and make everything look different. I mean, he can do so many different things in the striking department

that are all just A+, A+, A+. His grappling to me is like a solid B+, maybe A. Yeah, a solid B+, is what I would give it. I think it's going to be in A territory in the next year or two. For MMA purposes, obviously, is what we're discussing. I'm not saying he's going to go win the fucking world championships. But in MMA, he's going to have very, very good grappling in such a way where, I mean, Gilbert Burns, people are like, oh, his jiu-jitsu is bad.

Gilbert doesn't go for submissions all that often, but his positional jiu-jitsu is very, very strong. It's extremely good. And he was able to resist that with a little bit of like, you know, low percentage shit at the end, but it did work. He made it work. He willed his way to victory with that. And that's skillful as well. He got it done. So hell of a performance by him. We're coming off what the last UFC event where Steve Erseg looked tremendous knocking people out. So like, I know that, you know, people are sad in Australia about the state of Vulcan and it's totally normal and totally understandable, but dude, just like look around like the crop that's here now. and then the next crop of Aussie fighters,

they're very fucking good. Very, very, very, very good fighters. Dude, JDM, I would be very surprised if he's not in a title fight. Whether he wins it, I don't know. But I'd be very surprised if he goes his whole career never fighting for a UFC title. He seems destined to be fighting for one. Whether that's with

Shafkat now or later, I don't know. But he is going to be a force to be reckoned with at the championship level before he's 30. I feel like I can say that with a strong degree of confidence. An amazing talent. And I feel terrible for Gilbert Burns. He had that loss to Bilal Muhammad. He got injured, didn't want to do surgery, did the stem cell thing, but that just took a lot longer to get back out there, I think. Or, you know, it depends on how you view the shoulder surgery. But it certainly delayed effective use of his time. And now you're late 30s at 170 this was a tough loss he was so close i'm not sure where he goes from here i'm not i i'm not saying retirement is imminent inevitable but i am saying um you know i know he wanted a title fight i know he wanted that kind of placement on a card, and I don't think

that is in his future, probably at this point, right? And then last but not least on this main card, before we get to some of your questions, Peter Yan, Peter Yan, defeating Song Yedong. Song Yedong looking real good in the first round. I thought he took it, and then Yan, we all know he takes forever to get make adjustments make some downloads he had a real long guard and it wasn't working at first and like why would you use the long guard you can use the long guard for any number of reasons it's a little bit better like you see it in boxing but it's better in like MMA or Muay Thai or whatever where you can then throw elbows because your hand is already extended but and for Jan what he was doing is he was kind of

raising it up and then catching things that were like bumping him on the outside that's kind of what he was doing he's also like putting his hand up and then like deflecting and the the fucking with the vision of song and also just kind of like putting traffic out here he was doing it as well that was working really well and then as the fight wore on he was getting takedowns at the end of the second takedown at the end of the third. Perfect timing. He had some decent ground and pound when he was down there. He had excellent scrambles to the extent that he needed to. Even in the first, he had good scrambles for the most part. Song Yudong kind of brought it to him early, but he looked to me overmatched a little bit here. Dude, I said this on MK. This one I feel

very strongly about, and I think the facts bore this out. People were like, oh, Jan's on this terrible losing streak. He's doing so bad. I'm like, this is not a Tony Ferguson losing streak. Okay, he lost the second Aljo fight, I thought, fair and square. People thought it was controversial. I didn't, but it was close. It was certainly close.

But he lost it, fine. And he lost the Murab fight, fine. But I thought he beat Sean O'Malley. I know he didn't, but I felt like he deserved that. And he was certainly beating Aljo before he stupidly kneed him in the face. He had the win over Corey Sandhagen. It's like, dude, if you fight all those fucking guys and you only lose via decision to two of them, and one of them was very close in the case of the second Aljo fight, is that some kind of epic losing streak? That's not an epic losing streak to me.

That's just an insane schedule. You're just not going to get out of that unscathed, and then you got that. And again, he made some boneheaded errors in some of those fights, not just the foul. There's things you can nitpick. But people were like, oh, he's on this terrible decline. And I'm like, that's not quite right. This is not a great moment. And there could be psychological impacts from all of the losing. That's true. But he doesn't look bad in the way that people were suggesting. And so sure enough, first round doesn't quite go his way, but he wasn't getting his ass kicked. And in the second round, he really begins to turn things around. The jab started working for him.

The switch dance combinations began to work for him. The body kicks began to work for him. As I mentioned, the takedowns at the end of the round. And then by the third round, he was fucking styling on Song Yedong. Like, dude, that was a good performance from him, especially to get right, get back in there. He says he wants to go on a rematch tour. I'd be all in favor of it.

Marab and Sean O'Malley is who he wants. Obviously, he's not due for a title shot, but that was a very, very strong performance from him. And, dude, here's the thing about Song Yedong. He falls to 21-8, but he's just 26 years old. I still think there's a couple more gears he could hit to really improve, to really round out his game and take him to the next level. And he has plenty of time to get there.

He does do some things well, but he doesn't quite throw in combination the way I would hope. He doesn't seem to... I never seem to have a clear sense of exactly what he's trying as well. Whereas with Jan, Jan tends to have a very signature kind of style. Song Yedong is a little too reserved, especially as the fight wears on, for me to say that that's the case with him. So there's still some things to work out, but he's got plenty of time to do it. And this was, again, a super redemptive win by Jan.

So just one of those lessons where you look at someone's record, and again, it doesn't look great at the end there, those four or five fights, where he was kind of up or mostly down, just a little bit up. But you've got to pay attention to the details. It really wasn't true that he was looking bad in those fights. He was looking like they were tough fights in an insanely fucking tough division. And he did what he could. Also, a couple notes from the prelim card here very quickly.

Curtis Blades defeating Jelton Almeida. Jelton Almeida, they called it nine takedowns. Guys, those are not nine takedowns. I'm not sure how many takedowns there were. But if you take someone down and then they get to a knee and you've got a tight waist on them and you both stand and then I pick you up and then bring you back to the mat, that's a mat return. Or I trip you and run you into the mat and my hands are locked the whole time. That's a mat return. It's not a takedown. So I know they're like, oh, it's a record nine takedowns. Don't get me wrong.

Almeida won the first round and was out grappling him a billion percent. But he didn't get nine takedowns. What was it, two or three maybe? But not nine. Like, no. Those are Matt returns. And there's a fucking difference between them. I'm sorry there is.

So that's a little bit weird. But then he goes for another takedown. And then Curtis Blades just fucking hammer fists him until he just doesn't move. And then he rolls over, and then he eats more ground and pound, and then that was it. Dude, they were like, oh, Almeida's winning the position battle. He's not doing enough damage. Guys, if your hands are locked, how do you punch?

If your hands are locked, how are you going to punch? And there was one time Rogan was like, oh, Song Yedong let up Yan. Well, no, he had a tight waist. He kept it with one hand and then was kind of punching with the other one. But if they don't have locked hands, you can just break the hands and go, which is exactly what he did. I mean, it's not like, it's like he kind of let him up in the sense that he'd like let go of the locked hands, but that's not the same thing as like, I just let him go.

It's like he just made a choice to throw punches. And in the case of Almeida, he did not make a choice to throw punches. Dude, I've just not, I've been impressed with him in the sense that he looks like a physical freak and a guy with that kind of jiu-jitsu can do well in the heavyweight division. But there's just not nearly enough well-roundedness, not nearly enough damaging offense from him. He didn't do shit to Curtis Blades in that first round. And it was like a little bit of like Josh Barnett and Travis Brown. Now that was with the elbow that came down. This was just hammer fists. But he just kind of sat there and taken it without really adjusting, so Curtis Blades just kept going and then finished him off.

Good for Curtis Blades. He can be fluky at times, but he's a very talented guy and that was a good win. Macy Barber wins, Mateusz Gameran wins a horribly boring fight. Kyler Phillips got the best win of his career. And then, did you guys see Robelis the spain beating josh parisian guy is backing up completely off balance and then still tags him and uh knocks him out it's like holy shit dude heavyweight is a different fucking i said it 185 and up 155 and down different sports bro different fucking sports they are not the same fucking sport at all.

All right, let's see what kind of questions y'all got for me here. One more time on this. Get that subscription going. Sorry, yeah. Get that subscription go one player. Alright, here we go. Questions. Someone says,

Luke, you told me it would be okay after Volk lost and Ganu lost, Chido got Moutinhoed. This isn't okay. Actual question. Were people underrating MVP or was Kevin overrated? I think it's more a question of people underrating MVP personally, but I think Kevin's got some issues to figure out as well. Would you prefer Shafkat JDM or Shofcott Colby? Shofcott Colby and then after that Shofcott JDM. Will there ever be strict champion parameters in place? So three title defenses equals this, five equals this.

No, they're never going to do that. But I do think it's a generally good rule, like a rule of thumb, I should say. Three title defenses and you can go up. But you've got some work to do for Sean O'Malley. Do you think the UFC will make Sean versus Ilya or Sean versus Marab? They're going to make Marab next for sure. I don't have any doubt about that. Is it time we start recognizing Sean O'Malley as one of the best strikers in MMA?

Dude, the time for that was a while ago. Guys, I have tattoos. I would never get a tattoo on my face. I think it's fucking stupid. I don't know why he has his hair the way he has. Or dresses the way. I thought he looked ridiculous at the UFC press conference. But it doesn't matter what I think.

And it really doesn't matter what you think about those things either. I mean you're entitled to think what you want. But they have no actual fucking bearing on his ability. And there's this weird thing that happens where it's like. I don't like this guy's personality or the way he dresses or what he says. And so therefore I'm going to underrate him. It's the same thing people did. I'm going to bring it up one more time. Cause I know it just triggers the fuck out of people when I do, but you know, Ilya, oh, he got, he got 10 seven at that press conference. Yeah. You mean doing a fucking comedy routine in his third or fourth language? You mean that that was, you mean to tell me that was not actually indicative of how

well he fights? Wow. How am I going to sleep through the night? It's the same thing with Sean, dude. I don't know what the fuck he's wearing at these things. He looks absurd, but the guy can fight his ass off. He can fight like a motherfucker, dude. He is very, very, very fucking skilled. And you have to take that seriously. Just wanted to point out, Dustin has never lost two in a row. I think that's just outstanding. He's got an unbelievable Hall of Fame fucking resume.

Period. He's got a fucking Hall of Fame resume. Does current RDA beat current Tony Ferguson? Not a doubt in my mind. Yes. The new guard at lightweight still on hold? Yes. Just mentioned it. Great point. What level of undress was BC during the Barbara Chukagian fight? I wasn't with him. I was texting him, but I wasn't with him. And why was it birthday suit during the Hall of Fame announcement? Yes. You want to get a J check. Goes into the Hall of Fame. Congrats. Has O'Malley cemented himself as one of the best strikers in the country? Yes, no doubt about it.

What do you think the odds would be on JDM versus Shavkat going the distance? Not high. Especially if it's a five-round fight, right? I mean, Shavkat has nothing but finishes. Why are fighters like Chito and Jan slow starters? Is there anything specific that determines if a fighter is a fast or slow starter? It really is just a function of their sort of strategic mind. It's a function of like

sometimes physical, not readiness, but it takes them a little bit of duress to get them... Do you have to prime the pumps with some people? People have different psychological and competitive makeups. Did you expect a Candace Owens shout out?

Yeah. Guys, hey, quick question for you. Was Trump in attendance tonight? I could not tell from the broadcast. They never made that clear. It's like we're just going to show this motherfucker 50 times gratuitously just because we want to just because hey uh we're all just supposed to not notice that we're just doing hardcore right-wing politics now on ufc broadcast explicitly not just it would like causes but with

actual politicians all the time and people be like i like, I know what they're going to say. Oh, cope, seethe. And it's like, dude, can you imagine how many fucking bedwetters there would be if they had Bernie Sanders all rolling up and they were doing this shit? Or even, God forbid, Joe Biden, they were doing that with him. You know how many people would be wetting their fucking bed over this? And we're just supposed to be like, yeah, this is totally fucking normal. Every sport does this.

It's the most insane shit ever, but whatever uh it doesn't really matter in the end okay bigger insult to chandler the connor fight being delayed constantly or the camera showing a random guy in the crowd with michael chandler under him um the delay the delay by the way you see connor did like a media event? No, he was at South by Southwest with Jake Gyllenhaal and was like, hey, Hunter Campbell, let's fucking get this show. I mean, I'm paraphrasing. Like, let's get this fucking show on the road.

Like, he did that. How do you think Corey Sandhagen fares against O'Malley? I think he's got a really good chance, but he doesn't hit with the same kind of authority O'Malley does. I think he might mix it up good chance, but he doesn't hit with the same kind of authority O'Malley does. I think he might mix it up, though, a little bit more. So the question is, could he really test the takedown defense in a sustained way of Sean O'Malley? Do you think Jan versus Sanhagen should be next? I'm okay with Jan.

No, Sanhagen, Umar. MVP versus Wonderboy. You could do that one. I don't think you have to. Should we really have to watch Shawn versus Marab and Ilya versus Ortega before Shawn versus Ilya? Yes. Yes, we should. Dude, you have an obligation to defend your title. You can't just go be fucking around. Ilya just won it. Shawn at least has now one title defense. He got one title defense between the two of them? No. They got to go defend their titles. Why did Jan fall so much? You mean his down blocking? How big would the Teporia-O'Malley fight be if they made it? I

think it'd be big, but I think it'd be even bigger if they waited a little bit. Good for Sean's brand, Sean O'Malley, but kind of a waste of a title shot. I agree to an extent. This was basically the same, except Sean has more power relative to Corey. That's not unfair. How about Michelle Pareda? By the way, looking great in his weight class. No doubt about it. He looked awesome. And personnel feelings aside, do you think Ioanni Jacek induction to the Hall of Fame was nice? Yes, congrats.

Next for Poirier, again, big fight. We already talked about that one a little bit. Will Murat be the betting favorite against Sean O'Malley? No, he will not be the betting favorite. It will be close, but it will be Sean O'Malley. Dustin stole the show. I think he did to an extent. Okay, let's see. Would you rather see Wonderboy versus MVP or JDM versus Shavkat? What kind of a fucking question is that? I'd want to see JDM versus Shavkat over almost any other fight.

Like, Jesus Christ, how is that even a contest? All right. Sugar, better hope. Sugar, better hope he doesn't get a plane to Spain. He dances and strikes. He is most in danger when a good to Spain. He dances and strikes. He is most in danger when a good boxer stands in the pocket and can land a solid strike. Yes and no.

Have you checked on BC after the roasting he got on the weigh-in show? Yeah, I talk to BC like every single day. Yeah, he's fine. We laughed about it. Should Marlon's corner have thrown in the towel? I was wondering about that a little bit as well. The answer is probably, but it's not one of those urgent cases. You know, it's not one of those ones where you're like, oh my God, dude, get the fucking towel. You know, it was, it just wasn't one of those, but like looking back on it, what would they have saved him?

They would have saved him some, you know, he didn't need to take all that punishment. Like, this was a big, there was a big difference in skill. So they would have been within their right to do it. But I understand not necessarily doing it. Why did Sean call out the number six fighter? Ducking Murab? Yeah, probably. I mean, I just don't think... Not ducking him.

I just don't think he really wants to fight Murab. It's like, it's super interesting to him. But it's the most important fight to make for that division. So you kind of have to accept it in that way. All right. Well, it's nearly 4 a.m., boys and girls. So I'm going to call it a day. One more time.

Subscribe. I waited to say this at the end of the program here and let you know. I get questions all the time about, hey, when's MK coming back? Hey, who's got some MK news? We're going to have some real good MK news for you. I mean, when I say super soon, I mean super soon. Super, super, super soon. Luke, are you guys still planning to come back this month? Yes. In fact, it's a guarantee. I mean, unless I get struck by lightning or some shit, but it's a guarantee. So to the MK faithful who have hung on and waited and been like, what the fuck? And like trying to figure it all out. Um, we appreciate it. We're sorry it took as long as it did. Uh, but there is, there is a light at the end of the tunnel headed this way. I promise you that I can say that with great confidence. So get ready. Get ready.

We are revving the engine. And we're going to get going here very soon. Okay? So love to each of you. Thank you guys so much for joining me today. I greatly appreciate it. Subscribe. All that good shit.

Get some sleep. It's been fun. Until next time, enjoy the fights. Peace, y'all.