MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Fight Night: Islam Makhachev vs. Bobby Green Results | UFC Vegas 49 Post-Fight Show

Episode Date: February 27, 2022

At UFC Vegas 49, Islam Makhachev battled Bobby Green in the lightweight division. In the co-main event, Wellington Turman fought Misha Cirkunov. Arman Tsarukyan battled Joel Alvarez on the ESPN+ fight card as well. Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn 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. You hear that? Ugh. Paid.

And... done. That's the sound of bills being paid on time. But with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card, paying your bills could sound like this. Yes! Earn rewards for paying your bill in full and on time each month. Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Hi, everybody. I am late, but I am here.

It is the 26th of February 2022. My name is Luke Thomas and this is the UFC Vegas 49 Morning Combat Post Fight Show. So if you're watching this on YouTube, thumbs up on the video, hit subscribe. We're going to get into, let's see, the main event results and some other fights on the card, but not a whole lot because obviously we have to get to Monday's show where Brian Campbell and I will do it together, the whole nine yards. So if you're listening to this on podcast platform, thank you so much for doing that. Please eventually give us a nice review, blah, blah, blah. We have to get this started, so let's get this party started, shall we?

Yes, I'm still vaping like a jackass. I know it's stupid. I shouldn't do it. If you're watching at this point, aside from me using the, what did Chiesa call it? The douche flute? Very funny joke, actually. If you're watching this, though, we will get to spoilers. So I'm imagining you don't care at this point, but I have to say it because, believe it or not, I've been getting emails for years. I mean, what's the point of the video? But okay, neither here nor there. Let's turn this part off. And let's get to it, shall we? By the way, I know I have to eat shit for my terrible prediction on the Bellator main event, which I will do on Monday. But for today's purposes, you can kill me on Monday.

For today's purposes, let's just talk UFC Vegas 49. Okay, let's do it here. Your main event in the lightweight division, although this, I guess, was a 160-pound catchweight fight, given the short notice of it, but essentially for all intents and purposes, it is Bobby Green getting... He just didn't have much for him.

He didn't have much for him. Islam Makachev defeats him via TKO punches at 323 of the first round. This was a tough assignment for Bobby. You know, coming in on, what was it, two weeks notice, basically, and via TKO punches at 323 of the first round. This was a tough assignment for Bobby. You know, coming in on, what was it, two weeks notice, basically, there were claims that he was reaching as high as, and I can't find my glasses, by the way, so I'm going to have a little bit of difficulty reading,

but the basic gist is he came in on short notice. As we all know, he's an unranked fighter, although he is seasoned and quite good. That lack of a ranking doesn't fully speak to his abilities, and I think that's a pretty fair thing to say. But again, short notice, he may have been as high as 190, 195 off camp. Now, I did a little thing on Twitter yesterday. It is not at all uncommon for an elite with lightweight to get into the 190s or higher. I remember the first time someone told me that, it was actually Michael Chandler when he was still in Bellator years and years and years ago. Like he was still very early in his Bellator run. I was like, Jesus Christ, you're in the 190s

when you're off camp. But you know, it takes time to balloon to that high. So did he get as high as 190, 195? I don't know. But clearly he was, you know, he probably ballooned probably sure well into the 80s at some point, right? So between that and the cut and everything else, it was a lot to ask him to come down and do this. And, you know, you saw evidence of that. The commentators were quite correct. Bobby Green didn't have the, you know, he just didn't have the same freedom, the same latitude to do his game in the way that he did against Hackperest, because Makachev certainly can strike with you, but is just an absolutely enormous takedown threat. And dude, he can do them any number of ways. Foot sweeps from the clinch. Obviously, they've got Harai

Goshi, Uchimata's. They've got Taitoshi's. They've got Sasais. They've got Osorogaris. They've got, I mean, they can do everything from that position. Plus, the stuff in the clinch didn't really work this time in terms of ultimately getting Bobby Green on the floor. And this is where I think some of the people lose sight of what these Sambo guys can do. They've got a lot of the real high percentage, let's say, Judo stuff. And then they can go right to, I mean, of course,

there's the Morote Gari is what they would call it in judo, but judo has formerly outlawed that particular technique. So I'm just pointing out they can go to that wrestling, the more, I'll say this, the more wrestling-centric kind of attacks, these leg attacks. I think it's fair to say at this point that's a more wrestling-centric kind of attack. That's not true through the totality of judo or certainly the history of judo. But I remember Roddy Ferguson, who is a high-level black belt and an Olympian, was telling me quite clearly that these are not really part of competition judo. They haven't been for some time.

Anyway, long story short. So he gets the double off the fence, picks him up, takes him down, immediately is passing, and you've got to give it to these Dagestani guys. Not all of them do it the same way, but Habib did it a lot, or at least threatened it a lot, and Islam loves to go from there. These Dagestani guys, they are making the mount position great again. They don't always finish from mount, but they actively push to mount. These are not guys, they don't necessarily have the same kinds of progression attacks that

traditional jiu-jitsu guys do. Now, that's a little bit not true, which is to say they'll take side control. If they can get it, they'll move to half and side. If it's there, they understand that side, clearly they understand that side control is a superior position to being in someone's guard. But when they go for takedowns and then they're a second order offense building from that, they don't look to secure side control.

They're immediately looking to pass to mount. They want to go right to mount from whatever kind of transition position that they're in. And that's usually like, you know, maybe like one butterfly hook in there. They're going to leg drag. They're going from leg drag to, um, to dope mount. They go to dope. They, they, these guys are the Kings of dope mount. It's hard to explain here over the, the course of just talking into a microphone, but suffice to say, actually, actually dope mount and

leg drag look pretty similar, but one leg drag, when the person tries to go essentially from having their hips on the side to straight up, you move to side from dope mount. You can just sort of, as they move their legs, you can just cruise right into mount. These guys are the Kings of dope mount man. And they threaten it constantly. And sometimes they don't get it. Sometimes they don't get it in the guy's turtle. Sometimes they don't get it. And, you know, so some other kind of offensive sequence then takes place, but it just shows you the power. If you can marry, you know, athletic, diverse takedowns where you can go from trips, you can go to throws, you can go to knee picks, you can go to doubles,

you can run the pipe on a single. All the different universes of takedowns, you have strong command of them. You can just do so much with it. And then from there, you've got these immediate attacks that are not designed just to hold an opponent down from a modestly superior position, but not one with a ton of firepower, they're immediately pressing the attack to mount, which is a very consequential move, right? If they move into mount, the fight goes from 0 to 60 in an instant. And even if they don't get it, because that threat is looming and so significant, it forces a lot of desperate action on the part of their opponents.

So, man, they just have so much going for them with the way in which they play this game. And I mean, you saw that here tonight. There's not a whole lot more to say about it than that. Bobby Green did his best given the circumstances, and I really don't judge him for it. What was really going to happen? This is what Islam Makhachev and some of these better guys out of this part of the world, this is just what they do. Here is the part of the argument that I think gets lost a little bit about the significance of this win. Look, Bobby Green had, I think even recently, two losses back-to-back. Let me pull up his resume just to be fair and certain here. So he had the two wins, the Iaquinta and the Hackperast wins back-to-back,

which I think has really helped his momentum. Prior to that, he had back-to-back losses to Thiago Moises and Rafael Fazeev. So, you know, you look at his losses, Dustin Poirier, Itzen Barboza, I'm skipping a couple, but mentioning some other names, Moises, Fazeev, and Makachev. You know, you can see sort of here there's a limit that he bumps up against. But the point here is he's a talented guy. He's a well-rounded guy. He's a very skilled guy. Sure, he can't quite get it done against the very, very best. At least he hasn't to date. But he's beaten good fighters.

And he's given other fighters a hard time. The Moises fight went to a decision. Or at least had a sturdy amount of offense back. The Fazeev fight went to a decision. Trinaldo went to a decision. Jakar close. A decision. The Rashid-Makomedov fight was a split.

Now Poirier put his lights out pretty quickly. But the Barboza fight was a decision. So you go back into all of his UFC losses, only Poirier and Makachev were the only ones to finish him. And we know their quality, right? Poirier was an interim title winner and a multiple-time title challenger. In the case of Makachev, I assume he will be.

So I bring all of this up to say, one, the argument for Makachev getting a title shot, it's not ironclad. It's not like it's like... I mean, his talent screams that he's more than ready. But in terms of what he has turned in, it's not like the biggest slam dunk I've ever seen, because here he was supposed to fight Benil Dariush, a top five guy, not just a top five guy,

a very well-rounded, experienced, super talented dude on his own right. But for the case for Makachev, it's that, I mean, maybe they could run that back if people want to see. But dude, I mean, just look at the tape. Between his resume, which again is not ironclad, but pretty good, but really good actually. Then you add to that, like, yes, he beat an unranked guy, but he beat a very talented, experienced unranked guy, probably the best that version of that guy's ever been. And he did it effortlessly. Like if you're going to beat an unranked guy, it shouldn't be close. It should be a beat down. It's what you got. You got a beatdown. Who looks at Makhachev and goes, well, you can say he should beat somebody else in order to fully meritocratically

climb the ladder. I think that's probably an okay thing to say. But from a talent perspective, and then logistically, we really got to make sure. It seems silly to put another fighter in front of him before a title fight. So if that happens for one reason or another, I suppose you couldn't cry about it. But I just don't know how you can watch that fight tonight and look at this dude's resume and be like, well, the discovery process has not been complete, okay, but we really just can't say exactly how good he is. No, no, he's fucking amazing is what he is.

He's really, really good. Whether he'll beat Justin Gaethje or these other guys at the top of the division, that's why they have to fight the fights, I don't know. Your guess is certainly as good, probably better than mine. But the argument about, well, we're just going to give him a title shot off of an unranked fighter, that's not the argument. No one seriously is claiming that. They're claiming he beat an unranked guy effortlessly and everything else he has done has looked something, you know, approximate to that. Maybe a little bit slower with a Moises win or whatever. Weird. Took his time. In this fight, he didn't take his time. He was putting, like, Makachev, I'm not going to say,

like, he always uses the first round for a feel-out period. That's not quite true. But against the better guys, he doesn't rush into things. He didn't, you know, he went at exactly the pace he wanted to here. There was no stopping him. He was on his way from basically the word go. That's how it's supposed to look when a super elite guy goes against a very talented but overmatched guy, an unranked guy. That's what it's supposed to look like. And again, the fact that Bobby is unranked, I don't think is fair. He's better than the non-ranking, so to speak, that goes next to his name. And I think most fans who are being honest with themselves can say that. So I don't know what will happen. It is certainly possible that Makachev will have to face some other kind of test. Let me see exactly what they are in the rankings. I have not kept up with that.

Let's see. All right. So they've got Makachev, again, this is prior to tonight, sitting at four. At one is Gaethje, so Gaethje's going to fight Oliveira. So the only two guys in front of him are Poirier and Dariush. Now Poirier himself, coming off of the loss in his last fight, I guess you could do that if you wanted to. And you could run back the Dariush fight. I don't know that there's a ton of commercial need or appeal for that. The Poirier one is interesting, but then if Poirier wins, he's right back in the title fight.

Although, if you beat Makhachev, you should be. But you get my point. I mean, I guess you could feed on one of those, and it wouldn't be any kind of crime. But it seems a little silly to wait. It seems a little silly. It seems a little pedantic to be... I a little silly. It seems a little, like, pedantic to be... I mean, you look at his wins, Jesus Christ. So he had the one loss to Adriano Martins,

and since then, Chris Wade, Nick Lentz, Lisa Thibault, Cajun Johnson, Armin Saryukian, who we're going to talk about tonight, Davi Hamos, Drew Dober, Thiago Moises, Dan Hooker, Bobby Green. Okay, you could sprinkle in another elite win in there to really kind of send it home. That's fine. Seems a little silly, if you ask me. Seems a little silly at this point,

especially if Dariush may have, and I don't know what his timeline is for a return, so please don't hold me to this, but if he doesn't have an immediate timetable return, and perhaps, you know, does Dustin really want to fight Mokachev? I'm in no position to speak for him, but maybe he does. Maybe he does. He certainly is a guy who has chased big opportunities, and he says he doesn't want Conor anymore, but does he want a Nate Diaz?

Does he want something else like that? Hard to say. I would love to see a fight between Mokachev and Poirier. I think it would tell you certainly a lot more with real definitive clarity, but we'll have to see. I don't know. I think you just look at the tape on this guy and the way in which he fights. The winning is not accidental. The domination is not accidental.

I want to point out something about his numbers too. This guy's numbers in terms of strikes absorbed is a fucking joke. They can't land a glove on him, bro. They can't do shit to this guy. And by the way, I brought it up many times. I'll give you guys one more recommendation about it. Jack Slack had a video on Makachev striking and how it's improved and also kind of weaved into the way in which he pursues clinches, takedown opportunities, anything. Dude, all he is waiting for, and Jack Slack made a great argument for this, all he's waiting for is, yes, he'll take an underhook if he can get it. If you try to underhook him, he's going to wrap an overhook. You saw that against the fence.

That is all he needs. That is all he needs. All he needs is an underhook from you. And you're like, oh, that's a great superior position. Not by the time he's done with it, it's not. Makachev's strikes absorbed per minute. And this wouldn't include this fight where he absorbed a whopping nine significant strikes. 0.79.

0.79. His striking defense is 70%. Let's talk about another good striker. Strikers are going to get hit more because they're going to put themselves in harm's way where the numbers won't accurately reflect exactly how good their defense is by virtue of how much more danger they incur by virtue of their choices. But pick another good... Let's look at Anderson Silva's all-time strikes of sword per minute. Where would he be at? All-time for his UFC run. He's at 2.05. Still pretty low,

actually, but a full integer and then some greater. What about Adesanya? Where is he at? Strikes absorbed per minute, right? He is at 2.56. Let's pick another one. Who's another great striker in the UFC? How about, I could go Fazeev, but with somebody a little bit longer in the tooth. Robert Whitaker, he's more than a striker, obviously. All these guys are more than strikers, but you know what I mean. Let's just see where he's at. He doesn't get hit a lot, right? He's at 3.32. Remember, Makachev is 0.79. Now let's go to Habib. What are Habib's lifetime UFC stats in terms of strikes absorbed per minute? He is 1.75. Now I want to point out that's still crazy low, crazy low. And Makhachev is less than that. Now, now granted, granted, we're going to have to,

oh, you know what, I'm going to put my keyboard in here just a minute. I'm not sure what I did with that shit. Oh, you know what? No, I can't do that one. I'll figure something out here in just a second. Long story short, you get the idea. They can't lay a glove on this guy. Standing on the ground, he just doesn't take abuse, ever. It just doesn't work that way.

So I'm going to imagine that if he took on a Dustin Poirier on the ground, he just doesn't take abuse, ever. It just doesn't work that way. So I'm going to imagine that if he took on a Dustin Poirier or a Gaethje or certainly an Oliveira, those numbers are going to go up. They will not stay this low. But you get the idea. Up to this point, one of the hallmarks to this is they're just not doing anything to him. These are merely questions of how dominant or quick are the victories, not like what damage did he incur along the way. I mean, and listen to these striking numbers here

in terms of what his offense, what his opponents can do. And I'll move on to the fights after this. I realize I'm belaboring the point here, but just lastly on Makachev, you know, how many significant strikes did Dan Hooker land in their fight? Four. How many did Tiago Moises land? And that fight went to the fourth round. He landed 13 over the course of four rounds. Ten for Drew Dober. Seven for Davi Hamos.

And that was a three-round fight. He landed seven fucking significant strikes on him. Saryukian landed 13. Saryukian and Moises are tied for the most, and Moises had an extra round to get that in. Saryukian's was only for three, three-round fight. Gleason Tebell landed two. Cajun Johnson Johnson landed 7 Nick Lentz at 13 as well Chris Wade 5 Martins 1 at 3 And then Leo Kuntz at 7

They can't land a glove on him They can't take down defense 88% Take down accuracy is extremely high He is going to be difficult for anyone to beat For anybody to beat The one that is kind of interesting to me would be Gaethje, because of takedown defense.

Because on the feet, you know he's a hammer. And then the one that's really interesting would be Charles Oliveira, because on the feet, he's much better than Makachev. And on the ground, certainly you would imagine a threat, but I would imagine that Makachev would pursue the kind of takedowns that would limit exposure that way, like getting behind him and forcing a turtle position, for example, where, yes, there were offensive opportunities for Olivera in that space, but they'd be constrained

and a little bit telegraphed, especially with someone that's skilled in that position and holding turtle and then raining down offense from there. Anyway, you get the idea. Makachev is a fucking animal. He's an animal. He's going to give people a ton of problems. Okay, we go back to the card here just a little bit. Wellington Turman defeating Misha Surkinov. What a crazy fight this was. Second round, 129. This is a middleweight fight. Misha Surkinov had dropped down, I said this, from 205 to 185. Dude, he was strong as shit at 205. He broke Alex Nicholson's jaw with a rear naked choke crank. Right? Just shattered it with his arm.

Like, just from this part, the constricting pressure here to here. Just that. He broke his, and it was around his jaw. He broke it. You know, if you've never had someone put you in that position, it's unbelievably painful. This dude went right through the pain threshold and just broke his jaw. Like, if you have that kind of a grip at 205, you know5, obviously strength and conditioning play a much more significant role than what grip strength alone will tell you, but just saying, I did not think being undersized or something was his issue at 205, but okay, he goes down to 185.

Now, granted, he's going to be bigger and stronger there, but he's also going to give up some of his relative absolute strength gains, right? Whatever you bench when you're 300 pounds, if you lose 100 pounds, even if you're ripped, your bench probably won't be as high as it was when you were three. Again, everyone's going to be a little bit different and circumstances can vary significantly, but that's a relatively, I think, fair and true statement. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make here is I just didn't know what good it was doing him. Now, he looked pretty good at times here early. Wellington Turman, I thought Wellington Turman had an amazing finger. He did what Demetrius Johnson does.

Did you guys see how he got the back? He had a tight waist, gable grip, behind, standing. Both of them were standing, circling off. He picks him up and then takes him down. But when he takes him down, he spins him, right? Basically, what he's doing is he's him up and then takes him down. But when he takes him down, he spins him. Basically, what he's doing is he's lifting him up and dropping him down to create a scramble, which is exactly what it did. But as Surkinov goes to scramble, if someone picks you up and then drops you,

especially if they drop you hard to one side, the initial reaction that a person might have would be, okay, I'm on my base. I'm not going to let this guy take me down. I'm going to get right up and get away. But that's actually what they're expecting. They're expecting you to try to go. Because as you try to walk your way out of it,

you create a structure for them to climb. Go back to Habib taking on Justin Gaethje. He didn't actually get Gaethje's hips to turn over. Think about getting a takedown. If your hips are facing the mat, yes, there are circumstances where it can be a takedown, but as a useful thing to think about, you want their hips to turn over, right? And so that their hips are facing the sky. Again, there's going to be plenty of circumstances where that's not true, but as a general rule, think about it that way. So Habib goes to take down Justin Gaethje.

Can't get him down, but doesn't need to. Just tries to get him in that last sequence to plant his hands and feet on the mat. And then uses that to climb and take the back. Because he had planted his weight in a stable structure that enabled Habib to climb it. Wellington Turman did the exact same thing. He just threw him up in the air, pulled him down, waiting for that reaction. And then took his back. That's nice, dude. That's nice. That's a lot of energy to spend if it doesn't work, but it did. At least he got to the back, right? So he puts the arm in. Dude, you can absolutely finish with that. It's hard to do.

It's hard to do if someone has this arm and you're trying to snake this one around, but it can be done. A lot of people, what they'll do is they'll just walk their hand back, and they'll look to grab the trap here sometimes, or they'll look to grab the clavicle, then the trap, and then they'll try and seal it as if their chin is the other arm, and they'll put their chin on top of it. It can be done. It's just hard to get that same kind of squeeze.

Now, I'm left-handed, so I'm going to put the right bicep around. It's much better if I can just squeeze the bicep and then come around like this. That's what you're looking for. And then if the elbow is centered, particularly under the chin, as opposed to being cranked out to the side, and I'm demonstrating on the microphone, this is deadly. I think he even had something like this. And I thought Surkinov was going to tap. And dude, he fought out of it. I was like, yeah, man, there he goes. That's another gear. Maybe the athleticism and the size helped there. And then he nearly scores a north-south choke on Wellington Turman. It was close, dude. He couldn't quite get the lat. He had the one side of the neck. He did have that. He couldn't quite get the lat or however he was pushing it. Some guys use their lat muscle right into the other side. He couldn't quite get it.

So Terman gets out of it, but I was like, okay, dude, this is all right. And then the second round, he had the foot sweep and then he gets on top. But dude, Terman just timed the left hand and then swung his hips right into it. You do not see... I had a high-level black belt explain this to me once because it's true in MMA and it's true in sport jiu-jitsu. You do not see... I'll make an example out of the jiu-jitsu side. Although, one determinism... Actually, both these guys are black belts.

There you go. Two black belts. Turman and, I think, Serkanov. Serkanov is certainly a black belt in judo. I think he's a black belt in jiu-jitsu as well. He's a high-level grappler at a bare minimum. Let's put it that way. Two high-level grapplers.

You don't see a lot of arm bars from the guard at the black belt level ever. Gi or no gi. It almost never happens. You will see it in women's MMA time to time. There is a bit of a gap. I'm going to say, maybe this is controversial. I really don't think it is. I think this is pretty well understood. There could be some different pieces of the metagame that make it just a

difference without a quality signifier. What I would argue is there is a quality signifier there though. The reason, like arm bars from the guard do happen in high level MMA. Give you a great example. Benson Henderson losing to Anthony Pettis. But how did Pettis do it? Pettis hit him with a liver kick, and then he shot in for it, and then soon thereafter, Pettis has always had a very quick turn and frame for the armbar from the guard. He's always been real. He'd always threaten with it.

He got it there. He got it there, but he kind of hurt him first. In this case, Serkanov, I mean, maybe he was hurt. It was hard to say. But it looked to me Moore just didn't anticipate it. And if you notice, Turman actually puts his right foot on the left hip just before Surkinov goes for that armbar. Now, he lets it go, but then Surkinov throws the left hand,

and then he went to that same side for the armbar. Why would putting your right foot on the left hip matter if you want to attack the left arm? You don't necessarily need it for an arm bar, right? But a lot of people, me included, a lot of big dudes do it. These guys are, you know, 200 pounds plus. They will put a foot on the hip and then use that to turn them so that they can then face the arm directly, right? And if you're going to turn, you're going to put your right foot on the hip and then turn to your left and you're going to attack the left arm of Misha Surkinov he puts it up there and and I

think was anticipating it so that he could go for the armbar brings it back to guard and then as soon as he throws it switches right into it just fires right into it knowing knowing it would be there I don't know exactly what other things he might have done from the setup. I was watching on my phone, putting my daughter down, who, by the way, Violetta can say hello. There she is. This is the baby monitor. I didn't see anything else beyond that. I have to go back and review. There might have been some other setups, or maybe he had a certain feel because it was chest to chest on top, which, by the way, is where you either want to be all the way down or all the way up. But he, I guess, was kind of down and threw his arm over, but it must have felt a little loose,

a little lazy. He read it a million miles away and then Serkanov tapped immediately. Serkanov even stepped over the head to try and give himself a little bit of elbow room to pull back. Couldn't do it. Couldn't do it. It was already on too tight. You got to respect it. Once it's on, I had a high level black belt guy explain this to me one time as well. He's like, dude, if a white belt guy has a full-on arm bar on you and a full-on choke, and maybe they don't know shit else about jiu-jitsu, but that arm bar is tight and that choke is tight, it doesn't matter what belt they have on. The choke is on. The arm bar is on.

You have to respect it. And he did. Now, of course, Terman has a black belt, but you get the idea. If the technique is on, the technique is on. You have to respect it. And he did. Now, of course, Terman has a black belt. But you get the idea. If the technique is on, the technique is on, man. So I thought Serkanov showed some resiliency in that first round. That was nice. I like the attack there.

He can do certain things. He just can't seem to put all the different pieces together throughout the course of a fight when he needs to. I'm going to skip a couple of these. But I'm going to talk about this guy because I've just been high on him, and I'm going to continue to be high on him because this dude has title implications written all over him. How about Armin Saryukian turning Joel Alvarez into a fucking crime scene out there? Jesus Christ. 157 of the second round via TKO punches.

First of all, that went on a little too long, if you ask me. A little too long. Referee was a little bit, could have called that one a little earlier. Saryukian, we knew a couple things about him. We knew he was an excellent athlete. We knew he was a great wrestler. And by that I mean athletic, quick, but on top of that, clean technique and can chain them together. We knew Alvarez was tall, had a big reach advantage, kind of struggled a little bit to make weight, but did do it.

He is big for the weight class. We knew that that height differential could be a problem for Soyukin with the knees. We knew that Alvarez is just a much better striker. And you saw Saryukian take his time in the first round, gets the takedown. For most of that first round, doesn't do a whole lot with it, but he's staying busy, staying busy and in full guard. Towards the end of the first thing, he starts putting some elbows down. And then there is one elbow he puts down when Alvarez just didn't execute proper, you know, either overhooking or collar tying underneath. He just didn't deter, he didn't properly control for space,

however you want to control for that. And Saryukin leans over and then throws an absolute elbow. I think it was around the eye or the forehead of Joel Alvarez that cuts him to fucking fish bait. And he is bleeding at that point all over the octagon like a stuck pig. To the point where he's leaning over and it's just pouring out the side of his face onto the canvas. Now, they let it go.

Cutman had an unenviable job between rounds, man. Shouts to that corner man, or the cut man. Not like he stopped the bleeding, but fuck, what was he going to do? I mean, that thing was a geyser. Comes out the second round, and you know, this is the difference. We always talk about it oh who you know fighters don't like to get hit or certain fighters don't like to get hit and everyone's like well no one likes to get hit it's not the point the point is not of course pain is terrible and it is distracting and it is hard to work around but there were guys like nogara who it didn't matter what you did to them

it didn't dissuade them. They never lost focus. They kept their bearing. Stop sitting on your Aeroplan points and get big savings so you can be somewhere you actually want to be, like on a beach. Right now, you can save up to 25% in Aeroplan points when you book a trip to one of 180-plus Air Canada destinations worldwide. So stop sitting on your next trip and start saving on one. Don't miss out.

Your chance to save in points ends February 23rd. Book at aircanada.com. Conditions apply. You know, I remember one time I got chewed out by one of my superiors in the military because I was at the position of attention and a fly fly landed on my face, and I used my hand. This was very early on. I was a private at the time. I would never have done this later, but I used my hand to, like, swipe away the fly.

Dude, they reamed me for that. You know, and their whole point was, like, it doesn't matter if flies are crawling on your face. Have the fucking discipline to just ignore it. I bring all this up to say, a fly on your face is one thing, blood coming out of your face when this savage Armenian-Russian is coming after you is quite another. But what I mean to say is certain fighters can get cut and not only do they not lose focus,

it can actually energize them and propel them towards victory. But a lot of guys, it can be a real anchor for them. And I think Alvarez looked like he was a little bit dissuaded from the fight by the time the second round even started. So you can immediately get the takedown. This time he's already on the move passing. And this point, he just starts beating the bejesus out of Alvarez, taking dominant position. And Alvarez is trying to scramble, and he's moving.

He's moving, but everything he's doing is kind of in slow motion, and, like, wherever he is moving, Saryukian knows where he's going and so can readjust wrist rides or however he needs to to keep punching. Eventually puts him away. So now you have Saryukian who didn't have a UFC finish to the point of the previous fight, and then the last two, he has absolutely dominated these guys. And then the last fight before this, he has done it on his feet. Now, I want to point out something.

He fights Makachev in his debut and comes up short because he didn't have enough offensive potency. Armin Saryukyan is still only 25 years old and turned in October. He is still very green. Very green. Would have liked to have seen more pressing and pressure and passing, frankly, in the first round than what we did. You know, his stand-up game is still somewhat rudimentary.

But the other pieces of his game are fucking electric. And the fact that he is strong and fast and already has the wrestling, like his wrestling is already good enough not to win a championship, but like if he had his other qualities where his wrestling was a couple of years ago, he'd already be at the top of this division, right?

It's that advanced. It's that good. It's the other pieces he's trying to build around. Now, not to say his wrestling is perfect. There's a lot of things that could change along with it as well. But Armin Saryukian, folks, Armin Saryukian, that dude is going to beat a lot of people's favorite fighters. He's going to break a lot of people's hearts along the way.

Now, I don't know when he will ascend in the division. I do think that beating these dudes out of Spain aren't heralded all that much, like, you had over in Bellator, Hassan Magomed-Sherapov fighting Jose Sanchez, people are like, oh, Sanchez isn't that good, and I thought Magomed-Sherapov was going to run the table on him easier than he did, but then you go up and look at Alvarez's record, I think it was like 10-1, 11-1 out of Spain, and that was his Bellator debut, but like, he'd done some good work on the regional scene, Alvarez is a very good striker, and I do think probably needs to go up a weight class. At least will eventually. But he's good too. He's good too.

But I recognize as good as the victories that Saryukin is now getting are, there are significantly greater challenges ahead. And so having excited, but perhaps somewhat modest expectations about how fast they'll get to the top. I think is probably important Let me see anything else on this card that is tickles my fancy Armin Petrosyan getting a tough but hard-fought win over Rodriguez this dude, I think's out of Chile, right? Yeah. He's young as shit too.

24 years old. How about Nacho? Ignacio Bahamondes. My only criticism of him. He is so exciting. He seems like such a nice kid. You know what? And let me verify this before I before I

even say anything remotely critical. Because it was a nice win. He beat the balls off his opponent and then just subbed him late. Now, he's only got four UFC fights. In those four UFC fights, though, here's my criticism and the numbers speak to it. We just talked about Makachev. How many strikes absorbed per minute? Does he absorb?

0.79. 0.79. Bahamondes, through four four fights is at 5.32. That is very high. That is very, very high. Now he's dishing it, right? Strikes landed per minute. He's at 7.56.

He's dishing it. But he's taking a lot too. So at 24, he's obviously just crazy talented. So nice to see. You know, I don't have any particular affiliation or special love for Chile. I mean, it's a wonderful place, I'm sure. But I mean, I don't know anyone there.

I don't have any family there. I don't, I've never been there. But you always want to see countries represented. Dude, the bigger MMA gets, the broader it moves away, the more it spreads, just more talent that's going to get recruited, more interesting fight styles, more interesting people. And I don't know exactly that Ignacio Bahamondes is the vanguard of a wave of Chilean fighters, but it's just nice to see that you've got good fighters from all over the place,

although I recognize he does a lot of training here. I think he lives here now. But that would be my one criticism. The dude can dish. I mean, he can dish it out. He's so fluid with his offense. He's so aggressive, you know, and doesn't get deterred. I love that about him. He's a talented, talented guy. He does take a little too much damage.

Takes a little bit too much damage for my liking. Be my only complaint. And then elsewhere on the card, Ramiz Brahimaj. Brahimaj, however you say his last name, please forgive me. He looked amazing. He ran right through his opponent. And there were some other good wins as well. All right, I put up a tweet asking for your questions.

I will get to them now. All right, let's see what you guys have to say. Thoughts on Taylor Catterall. I'll save it for the show. I know it sounds crazy, but does Conor and his devastating power striking stand the best chance against Islam? No. I think that's a terrible fight for Conor. We're talking about a guy who doesn't get hit.

Who has lights out takedowns from above the waist, below the waist, from the clinch, one leg, two legs, head inside, head outside, trips. I mean, no, I don't like that fight for Conor at all. Thoughts on Oliveira's technique versus Islam's strength when it comes to BJJ? I just think the difference is going to be, if they went right into Oliveira's guard, you could see that might be a problem, although they might, you know, Paul Felder pounded him out from there too. But I think what they'll do is they'll pursue more like turtle wrestling ride positions rather than straight grappling as such positions.

What do you rate tonight's card on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of showing of talent? I don't know, 5 or a 6? I mean, overall levels, yeah, there was some really high-level guys on there. Obviously Islam, and I do give Bobby that credit as well,

and some other ones along the way, but a lot of these guys are good, but very junior fighters. Who you got, Barbosa versus Mitchell? Dude, that's such an interesting fight. You know, Bryce Mitchell is a fucking hammer, man. He is good. He's one of the best.

I don't think it's unfair to say he's got, he does not have bad striking, but he does have limited striking. But on the ground, dude. Here's another guy, by the way. Hunts for the back. Hunts for the mount. Puts you, like, aggressive passing. You've got to love Bryce Mitchell's game. You've got to love it.

And he did get it done against Andre Feely. So Andre Feely got run over in the first round of their fight. I don't know if it was 10-8 or not, but it was a bad round for Andre Feely. Second round was much better. Third round was close, but you could see why Bryce was able to edge it. He had just another gear left late. And he too has, by the way, a very diverse array of takedowns. Head inside, head outside.

And, you know, the instant you get down, he is all over you. So, dude, if Barboza gets wrapped up and taken down, he's in trouble. On the other hand, one of the things that I think Barboza can offer that Andre Feely didn't would be just a certain level of physicality. He's got phenomenal takedown defense. He can scoot to the fence and get up pretty quickly. And, dude, on the feet, dude, he's going to hit with a lot more authority, I think. I don't know about that. Well, certainly with his kicking.

But how much would the kicking be inhibited? I think it'll be Bryce's fight early. But I am curious to see if Barboza can hang on. And, you know, he's... Barboza knows what these guys are going to do, too. That's the other part. Like, he's got one style of fighting, which kind of limits him. But at the same time, it kind of narrows the options about what they're going to do.

Plus, Bryce, you know, I don't think anyone would say he could win a fight on the feet with Barboza. He's not likely. And not likely Barboza's going to win a fight on the ground with Bryce. Bryce is likely going to win that. So it presents some stern challenges

but some clarity of purpose as well. You kind of know what you're up against. Dude, that's a great job by the matchmakers on that. That's a great job by them, because I honestly couldn't tell you. I have a high opinion of the game of both of them, and their polar opposites. The one thing that gets me to maybe lean... I'll just say this. Barboza has fought guys not exactly like Mitchell, but kind of like that. Or he has fought guys who are going to want to do to him what Mitchell is going to try.

I don't know if Mitchell has fought a guy like Barboza. But that don't mean shit. He might run through him too. You know? Dude, Mitchell, I'll say this, dude. He is not, I think he's undefeated, right? Bryce Mitchell's undefeated. I'm pretty sure that's true. I don't think anyone's gotten the best of him yet, right? Yeah, undefeated. Dude, not an accident. 14-0, not an accident. Bobby Moffitt, okay,

it's a nice win. Matt Sales, nice win. Charles Rosa is a grinder and he had nothing for Bryce. Feely made it tough, but was still just mostly on the defensive. So the question is, is Barboza the guy to round that corner or is he going to run into the exact same kind of problems? What a fight. What a fight. Can't wait to see it. Super interesting fight. How many lightweights would be favored versus Saryukin? Okay, here's the thing. I think Saryukin could beat a lot of guys, but I think he would eventually get to a level where he can't, and that would stunt his development. So the question is not how many guys could he beat right now. The question is, what is the proper path to get someone this talented to their full potential? And then of course, if they can win or

lose, that's up to them. But how do we make sure we give them the proper matchmaking to guide that process? What is uglier, that catch where a fight or BC's toes? The catch where a fight. I can't talk shit about BC's toes. That dumbass took his socks off and just let the cameraman I fight. I can't talk shit about BC's toes. That dumbass took his socks off and just let the cameraman film him. I know better. My toes look just as bad as BC's. I just had the good sense to wear socks and shoes before I went over there.

Did you think... Can't read that one because it's a joke. How did you get your kid to fall asleep? Read to her a couple more times and eventually she went out. I usually have to read the books like, I usually have to read three to five books, but it takes a while to put her out. Um, should Islam fight for the title next? I think so. I think so. Is it taboo to discuss MMA's politics thinking about Tito and Mira, that horrendous event? Oh, you mean CPAC?

I don't really care about that. I did, I don't, I gotta say, like, I don't know why people are, okay, I know why people are booing Russian fighters, but it seems a little shitty, dude. Like, I don't know what's, who the hell knows what the ultimate truth is of everything that's happening, but I see a lot of Russians not super happy about this. I see a lot of Ukrainians not super happy about this. Like, Vladimir Putin isn't doing whatever he's doing because he put it to a vote with the Russian people and they gave him the mandate to go do this.

He's just doing it. I think there's a lot of Russian people who are not especially happy with it. I don't know exactly what Makhachev's politics are, his worldview, but just negatively or outright booing Russian people because someone who they have no control over is doing something sinister seems a little unfair.

The grappling sequence that ultimately led to the finish began because Bobby Green decided to throw a body kick against the best wrestler in the division. Honestly, what was he thinking? He's using the weapons that he had on short notice. Never forget Islam telling DC how he would beat Jordan Burrows in a wrestling

match if it happened at AKA. I love the even DC is like, no. No. You gotta love the enthusiasm, but no. Do you think BC is fumbling the bag when it comes to hosting the show on Fridays? Old mate loves a pointless rant. Nah, he's doing a good job.

Can you see Charles giving Islam problems on the ground? I could. Some people don't see it that easily. I think it could happen, but I really think it just depends on what kind of strategy, again, going back to it one more time, Islam pursues. How many, okay. Many of the unanswered strikes from Islam were glancing off of Bobby's delts and he took very little damage. I know he wasn't going to win, but did you like the stoppage?

Also, he was holding the fence a little bit, which I didn't love. But like, dude, no one ever seems to enforce. I don't even know what the fuck is it. I know it's legal and illegal. I have no idea what's on it. i had a philosophy professor one time and he made a point to me he was like it doesn't matter what the law says and it doesn't matter what the signage says what makes a law a law is merely its enforcement so thinking about speeding laws the law can be that on a certain stretch of highway,

it's for people who are on the metric system, 60 kilometers an hour, and then whatever the equivalent would be in miles per hour. The sign can say whatever it wants. But if the cops don't enforce it, it doesn't mean anything. In a similar manner, what makes a rule a rule in MMA?

If it's enforced. I know on paper that not grabbing the fence is a rule. As it relates to what is a rule in actuality, it's not really a rule, is it? It's not really a rule. It's a guideline. It's a suggestion. It's a sometimes rule. It's not really a suggestion. It's a sometimes rule. It's not really a rule.

If it's enforced as infrequently as it's enforced, which is to say almost never, it's not really a rule. If Islam, excuse me, if Bobby Green swells up to 195, what do you think Makhachev weighs? Probably around that, around the same thing. I don't know. Michael Chiesa was saying he said he didn't want to say how Green swells up to 195, what do you think Mokachev weighs? Probably around that, around the same thing. I don't know. Michael Chiesa was saying he said he didn't want to say how much he got up to. I have heard of 155ers being above 200, but that is extremely rare. Extremely rare. So I don't think he gets up to two.

Does Islam grabbing the fence to maintain position matter? Apparently not. I mean, it should, according to the rules. It just doesn't. What do you think's next for Bobby? I think Bobby did the UFC a solid. And I think because he did the UFC a solid, he should be rewarded with another fight night main event and a full camp. Simple as that. And against somebody ranked too, right? Like, let's put him in there against somebody who he can start climbing the ladder with. Now, how easy that is to make, I don't know, but seems like that'd be the fair or reasonable thing to do. I think that's it. I think that's it.

I think that's it. So let me turn this back on. There you go. Thumbs up on the video. Hit subscribe. Sorry it was a little bit late. I did my best given the circumstances. As a reminder, we will be back on Monday with a full show, Brian Campbell and me.

I will eat a ton of crow about my awful Bellator pick. And we'll talk about this card. We'll talk about some of the boxing. You want to talk about robberies. There was a real robbery in boxing today over in the Taylor and Catterall fight. We'll talk about that as well. And yeah, everything else. So, thank you guys so much for watching.

I appreciate it. Hope you enjoyed the fights. Have a great rest of your weekend. And until next time.