MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC on ABC 3 Results: Brian Ortega vs. Yair Rodriguez | UFC Long Island Post-Fight Show

Episode Date: July 16, 2022

At UFC on ABC 3, Brian Ortega faces Yair Rodriguez in the main event. The fight card - also known as UFC Long Island - also features a co-main event between strawweights Michelle Waterson and Amanda Lemos plus bouts like Shane Burgos vs. Charles Jourdain, Lauren Murphy vs. Miesha Tate and much more. This is the UFC Long Island Post-Fight Show. 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

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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. at post fight show sorry for the no audio in the beginning i have to switch between computer systems and it ends up being a bit of a pain in the ass every single time but here we are we should have it fixed if you don't want results or spoilers now is the time to go i know you might be saying luke who wouldn't want spoilers on a post fight show you would be surprised you would be surprised a lot of people actually get mad about that but this is your fair warning now is the time to go sorry about the intro we fixed it relatively quickly. One more reminder. Please, if you're new here, give me a thumbs up.

I'd be so appreciative if you did. That would be quite great. And yeah, a like on the video, a thumbs up, the whole nine yards. We are very close to, I think, the next thousand mile marker in the subscription count. So any help is appreciated, right? Okay, let's get things going. This will go for about 30 to 45 minutes

or so. Let's start with the main event, which is, actually, let me take a step back because it's going to sound like I'm going to be on a sour note because of the way the main event ended, but really, we should take a step back here. The UFC's fight night cards that take place on the road, right? So your Austins, your Long Islands, I believe next week is UFC London. These might be the best things the UFC has going. Like, for years I've been saying this, like for folks who want to go to a UFC show, you know, what's the best bet? And I've always been like, the fight night is probably going to be the best bang for your buck. And that really appears to be true. Listen, I was one of

the guys that when the pandemic happened and they moved everything to the apex, I was happy with it. And I actually love the apex a lot more than most folks do. But if you've just noticed this, it's not so much a function of crowd versus no crowd, although that could be the deciding factor for you and the way in which you consume MMA. not here to take it from you but what's happening now is there's a slight kind of bifurcation that's happening where before during the pandemic if it wasn't on fight island like everything went to the apex you had like sick quality up and down now it's a little bit different now you're getting the pay-per-view cards which are could be in vegas or whatever but they're not at the apex then you're getting these kinds of fight nights

card fight night cards which are kind of seldomly put together but they do exist and i i would argue that because they're on the road and they're trying to sell out crowds there is a little bit more emphasis put on them to be fan friendly interesting matchups relevant matchups you know action oriented people and then the apex is getting still some great fights like for example we just certainly interesting matchups, relevant matchups, action-oriented people. And then the Apex is getting still some great fights. Like, for example, we just saw Sarukian versus Gamrot there. It's not like it's getting nothing, but it's getting a little bit of the leftovers, relatively speaking, from what you're getting with these pay-per-views and everything else.

And again, when I say best product that the UFC might have, of course, like Alexander Volkanovsky is not going to fight on a fight night card, and he may be the best fighter in the sport. Same with Kamaru Usman, they're going to fight on pay-per-view. In that sense, the pay-per-view is the preeminent product, but for your money, for your time, and in terms of just like all action up and down the card, these fight night cards that they've taken on the road have delivered and then some. Overall, with the noteworthy exception of the main event kind of being, overall, these on-the-road fight night cards have been the very best thing that I've seen the UFC do. UFC 276 had amazing talent on it and some great action, but top to bottom it didn't deliver like this.

It didn't deliver like Austin. And I suspect London next week is going to be bananas as well. So just something to think about here. This card was fantastic, nearly top to bottom. There was only, let's see, one, two, three, four decisions. And, you know, the Stoltzfus-Grant fight wasn't bad. Ducati-Penny wasn't bad. Murphy-Tate wasn't bad.

Burgess versus Jordan was great. And these are the decisions on there. The rest of them were all finishes. It was incredible. A really, really incredible card. Now, with that out of the way, let's talk about the results themselves. This was at the UBS Arena in Elmont, New York. They did apparently, I must have missed it. They did apparently show Long Island on the B-roll, on the broadcast, but the vast majority of the B-roll shots were all like Manhattan. I was like, there's a big difference between Manhattan and Long Island,

just so folks who may not be from that area don't know. They're all kind of connected, but there's a big difference. Anyway, neither here nor there. In your main event, Yair Rodriguez defeats Brian Ortega via TKO shoulder injury at 4-11 of round number one. So this is the kind of sour note, which is why I wanted to give a little bit of that preamble before. Because the fight was just getting going when this happened. Basically, there was a scramble. Brian Ortega was on top.

Yair was trying for an armbar. The armbar appeared to be threatening, but not close. And I say not close because he didn't have real solid control over Brian Ortega's balance or body. He did have some decent limb extension, but it actually wasn't the elbow that got affected, which is typically where most injuries happen in the armbar. It happened on his shoulder. And what you saw in the replay was as Yair kind of cinched his hamstrings a little bit closer to that neck area where he could control a little bit greater and was pulling on the arm because obviously in arm bar, yes, you are trying to force their elbow.

Think of any submission. How does any submission that's a limb extension or a limb variety work? How does it work? The body can only be contorted in one way or the limb has a maximum safe rotation about how far it could go. You can only put your arm so far behind your back. So how does a Kimura work? It takes you past that. That's sort of a simple way of thinking about it.

The ankle has some flexibility. How does a heel hook work? It takes you past that, right? That's sort of a simple way of thinking about it. The ankle has some flexibility. How does a heel hook work? It takes you past that. Same with a knee bar, same with an arm bar. So it's not just this, but obviously if you're underneath in an arm bar and your opponent is standing over you or has some kind of, you know, weighted top position where he's got his base under him, you're also going to want to be pulling the arm closer to you because I don't think he had a proper alignment with the hip line and where the elbow was to get maximum torque on it. So he was doing a lot of pulling down. And between the pressure over and down, it just kind of separated his... It pulled his arm out of the socket, basically, is the answer.

So it was sort of like a pulling motion out and a pulling motion down at the same time. And it dislocated it at 411 of the first round. Now Ortega was, you know, the arm bar itself, the attacking of the elbow, the arm bar was not close. But you heard Ortega say he's already had surgery on that shoulder socket twice. I got to tell you, that's a red flag. That's a red flag. I don't know exactly what kind of surgery he's had, so that should temper what we have to say about it. But I've had shoulder surgery. I've had shoulder problems all my life.

And this one, everyone's like, obviously I'm not a pro athlete or anything like that. But this was a weight training related injury. And I tore my labrum pretty bad. My shoulder was falling out of my socket in my sleep at times it was really bad and what they end up doing with a shoulder surgery this is sort of a thing you think about like the shoulder is a very complicated joint it can move in a lot of different ways and it can do a lot of different things one of the things that they do with the shoulder surgery is once you begin to get injuries to it the integrity of of, like, it's like any other injury. Like, once you get heat exhaustion, your ability, your body's capacity for getting heat exhaustion

in subsequent moments is actually higher after that point, right? Same with your shoulder. Once you start getting it dislocated, it becomes easier and easier to dislocate it. So for my surgery, and you can see it here, you can totally tell, but, like, this is the shoulder I had surgery on. For this arm, I can rotate out pretty far, but this one, I can only go there, like compare the two. It's hard to see from this angle, but I can go much further with an arm where I've not had surgery. And the reason why is because they purposely make it tighter. They purposely limit

range of motion. They purposely limit the kinds of sort of mobility that the joint enjoys under normal circumstances in order to prevent future injury. Because once you have that degradation in there, it's hard to undo. If after two surgeries, it's still coming out what I would call relatively easily. That kind of pressure should not produce that kind of result under the vast majority of normal conditions. You have some, we'll have to see. I mean, certainly none of us are, maybe you are watching if you're a medical doctor.

I am not one. But if you've had multiple shoulder surgeries and your arm is coming out of the socket that easily still, that's a problem. That's a problem that I don't know surgery can fix, right? And that means it's a problem you'll have for the rest of your career and it could continue to get worse and worse and worse beyond what you saw there. Obviously, this is not a medical diagnosis that I am making. This is not anything other than conjecture. And I hope everyone understands that

I'm merely giving you conjecture. It's just my opinion based on a very limited but somewhat relevant kind of life experience. But I do know a little bit about the shoulder integrity and I do know a little bit about the pain and the struggles that come with rehabilitation of it and everything else. And that should not be happening. That should not be happening. That's a bad sign about the success long term Because I've never had any shoulder issues since then I have to do tons of extra work To keep them in good health And obviously I'm not doing the kind of shit That Brian Ortega is doing

Fair enough These are meaningfully different situations But it does concern me a little bit About what this might mean for his future We'll talk about the fighting future in just a second But that kind of injury multiple times Through dislocation It's a bad sign A sign. Obviously, if it's dislocating and something went wrong, that doesn't take a genius to figure out. But I'm saying if that's

what happened subsequent to two surgeries, I don't know what surgery can really do for him. We'll have to see. It'll be interesting. Now, what was happening before that? Because, hello, there was, in fact, a fight before that. I would say Ortega was landing some decent strikes, but the reality was I thought Jair was doing most of the better work, to be honest. Now, the numbers are pretty similar. Ortega was a little bit less busy, only attempting 39 strikes. Jair Rodriguez attempting 76. So it speaks to some of that.

And in terms of the total strikes landed, there is a pretty wide disparity. 48 strikes to the 26 of Brian Ortega. However, if we focus on just significant strikes, the number is nearly identical. 22 for Brian Ortega, 23 for Yair Rodriguez. Let's take a look at some of the targeting. Yair Rodriguez, again, take a look at some of the targeting. Yair Rodriguez, again, fairly similar with one big difference. They both targeted the head roughly the same amount, 78% for Rodriguez, excuse me, 81% for Brian Ortega. The difference is in the body and the leg. Rodriguez going 21% to the leg, a lot of times it would have some kind of boxing exchange,

and then you would see Yair Rodriguez chop at the lead leg at the end of the boxing exchange to get like a free shot in there. But conversely, Brian Ortega only went to the leg 4%, went to the body 13%. So, Rodriguez didn't target the body at all in this very short fight. Brian Ortega did to a decent amount. Brian Ortega barely landed or even targeted the leg. Yair Rodriguez to a fairly substantial amount, more than one in five of them, as a matter of fact.

But I thought Rodriguez was getting the better of him, largely on the feet, rocking his head back. There were several times where he liked to. We've always known Brian Ortega has a ridiculously good chin. I think you saw evidence of that in this particular fight, although obviously under the right eye of Rodriguez, you also saw that he had a little bit of a swelling and then a cut. So again, Brian Ortega was doing some decent work landing on him. And then the other big part of it was that Ortega managed to get double underhooks and then basically walk

Rodriguez to the fence. And he was trying to do the bit where he could throw him by, but Rodriguez never really... What you want to make them do is essentially give up on the whizzer because as long as they have the whizzer, if you don't know what a whizzer is, a whizzer is an overhook of an underhook. So if you've got an overhook and then someone comes over the top of the underhook

with your overhook, that overhook is called, in that particular circumstance, that overhook is called a whizzer. So the point of the whizzer in this particular case was to prevent Ortega from, or excuse me, from, yes, from Ortega from moving to the back. And you saw him on this body lock trying to throw him by, but Rodriguez never gave up on the whizzer,

never gave up on the whizzer, never gave up on the whizzer. And so they were eventually able to separate. And then there was this, later there was a scramble off another level change, I believe that's right, from Ortega. And there was then the reversal, and then Rodriguez went for the armbar, and then he ended up there. So there was some, I mean, here was the problem with Ortega. This is one of the problems heading into the fight, and it evidenced itself here. I don't know what the number is now, probably a little bit lower, actually. But heading into the fight, okay, so heading into the fight, Ortega's takedown accuracy,

right, like of all the attempts he makes, what percentage of them are actually successful? Before the fight, it was 24%. Now it's still, okay, 24%, right? Because I guess overall the volume didn't affect the... And he landed at 20% here, one out of five. So it stayed about what it was. 24%. Now, that stat can be misleading because you look at Habib and he's like sub 50%.

But there's no question about his wrestling or his domination. But I would say when you get sub 40 and especially sub 30 there is actually a fairly decent question you can ask about how successful is their offensive wrestling it's amazing that Ortega's Jiu Jitsu is as good as it is because

he can't relatively speaking control the grappling situations in such a way through his wrestling to set up the moments that he wants. He usually has to react to them. In fact, this armbar retraction was a reaction to the scramble that Yair had been part of and then the armbar attempt subsequently. So that's sort of the, it's amazing that Ortega has so many submission wins given the relative

inability to control the wrestling department against upper tier opposition. And that's really the fight itself. There wasn't a whole lot more to say about it from there. We didn't get a really clear look. I mean, it kind of played out like you might have thought it would. Who's the better striker of the two? Yair.

Who's the more dynamic of them? Yair. But Ortega has a very good chin. He does tend to land at a decent clip on his own and who knows what would have happened if the fight had gone on and he was able to get a little bit more success in the grappling slash wrestling department.

Even if Yair slipped on a whatever, on a kick and he got on top and then could do his magic. It played out for the short amount of time kind of like that. The injury at the end, while folks are asking like, does Jair get credit for it? Yes, absolutely.

He absolutely gets credit for it. I think it is unfair to not recognize that there might be clear joint integrity issue in the shoulder of Brian Ortega. I think just pretending that that doesn't exist is just medically disingenuous. It's a real thing. If you've had multiple surgeries on it and it's still coming out, there's a real, real problem you have there. On the other hand, that's not Yair's fault. And what did Yair do? Did he pull and then extend, looking for something and cause an injury? That's fighting. That's fighting. That's the way it goes. Yes, he should get credit for that. Folks are saying it should be a submission. Well, I mean, what would you call it? A technical submission? I mean, a TKOV injury is a reasonably good way to classify that given the circumstances.

So I don't have too much of an issue with that, which is the way in which it was kind of considered there. But yes, I think Rodriguez gets credit for it. He tried to apply an arm bar, and even if he didn't actually attack the elbow of the arm, he was still putting... That shoulder didn't pop out because everything on the inside was already cut, and he just took the slightest bit of pressure to pull it. He leaned into it.

Even then, the shoulder should not come out, but it doesn't... Yeah, he did that to him. That's the fight game. You can like it, you can dislike it, but that's the fight game. So I certainly give Rodriguez full credit for that win. And again, I thought he was winning on the feet prior to that, even if some of the significant strike totals are relatively equal. In terms of where they go from here, Rodriguez wants a shot at the belt. This was the permutation you wanted to see

in order for a fresh piece of contendership to arrive for Volkanovski, right? Because if Ortega had won, Ortega had already lost to Holloway, had already lost to Volkanovski, it would have presented some kind of a weird dynamic about what to do. Now that you have Yair and he's popular and the fans like him, I suppose he'll get it. Now, the thing that's kind of funny about this is folks have been like,

well, Emmett didn't really beat Cater. Well, first of all, yes, he did, right? Because I can go to his record and I can look it up and there's a W next to him. So you can like that or you can dislike that. But it did happen. He did, in fact, beat him. And I don't have any problem giving Emmett that W. I thought Cater kind of did enough in the end, but it doesn't matter what I think. So what matters is what actually happened according to the judges who were tasked with that particular fight. And their decision is entirely justifiable,

even if you or I may not personally agree. I saw folks being like, well, he didn't really beat him. Well, you're going to deny Emmett what he turned in in that fight, but you'll quickly say that this injury that, yes, Yair caused, is a better, like, coming off of a loss, and then this is better than the five-fight win streak that Emmett has. Certainly you can make that argument. I find it deeply unpersuasive. I think the actual argument you want to make is that Yair is a young, dynamic talent, no doubt about it.

He is clearly a top-tier featherweight. I mean, no matter what position you arrive at, that's a very, very easy position to understand and I think agree with. He's a fresh challenge in the division, and it'd be popular for him to do well for the Mexican market and the fans love him. That's the argument. And that's how the fight game works. The fight game works with, you've got a very good fighter who does have, for the most part, very good results. And fans like him, geographically relevant in terms of the market he represents. And he's kind of right there, be an interesting challenge and whatever that's the argument to make the argument to make

is not that the win the overall winning resume that he has certainly within the last five fights is commensurate to Emmett's I don't think you can't really make that with a straight face or I mean I guess you could try but you would look very foolish trying to do that so the argument for Emmett would be, well, from a meritocratic standpoint, this resume

is relatively speaking stronger than the other one within the more recent body of work. That would be the argument on that side. But that's not really how the fight game totally works either unless that resume is overwhelming. And I can certainly grant that that resume is strong, but it's not overwhelming. He didn't finish all five in the first round. He didn't, you know, that kind of a thing. It doesn't work like that either. So there's knocks on his resume too, to be very clear.

But you can't really be like resume for resume within the last five fights. Who did better? Emmett did better. That's not very difficult. In fact, I think prior to this, the highest ranked opponent that Rodriguez had beaten was Korean Zombie. When he had beaten Korean Zombie, he was ranked 10th. So this would be the highest ranked opponent he's defeated. So in that sense, you could say, well, he beat a higher ranked opponent.

But it's like, if you're going to cast doubt on the viability of that win over Cater, you have to, I mean, you know, this one barely got started before an injury derailed it. Anyway, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. What I suspect will happen is that because Rodriguez is very talented, he is very good, he is well-liked,

he is relevant, I think all those factors in conjunction are going to work in his favor. He will probably get it. So he's probably going to be next for Volkanovski, assuming Volkanovski can heal at a reasonable timeline and they'll go. I tend to think that Volkanovski is a bad fight for anyone. I think he's a bad fight for Emmett.

And I think he's a bad fight for Yair. But that also doesn't matter. The champion has a responsibility to defend that title. And if this is the guy that ends up being the number one contender, then he has to defend it against him. And it would be an exciting fight for sure. For sure. I mean, Rodriguez brings danger.

There's no denying it, man. He brings serious danger to the fight. He's got incredible speed. He's got a lot of tricks up his sleeve to find damage in all these little corners of the fight. All these little moments that no one weaponizes, he weaponizes. We're talking about those chopping kicks at the end of the boxing combinations. He just has all, and they're not pitter-patter shots either, man. He sneaks in some decent ones all the time. He really is, he just finds offense everywhere. In fact, his significant strike percentage

was 62% in this fight. 62%, that's very high. Excuse me, that's Brian Ortega. I apologize. That's also really high, but Rodriguez at 50 Ortega. I apologize. That's also really high. But Rodriguez at 50%, which is about industry standards. That's good. Either way, the point I'm trying to make is he's active. He fights with intensity. And certainly, if Volkanovski is not careful, he's a devastating knockout threat. And it should be mentioned as well, one thing about Volkanovski that folks,

the problem is no one can really follow up and make use of it. But Volkanovski was dropped by Mendez, he was dropped by Ortega, and he was dropped by Max. Now they didn't count the ones for Max, but we all saw him happen. He got dropped. Volkanovski can be hit. He can be hit. He can be hurt. The problem is that none of those guys were ever able to follow up

and fully finish the job really take that round second base into third kind of situation they could never do that they always hit stand up doubles maybe Rodriguez might be a little bit different in that sense he's a very clear threat I would favor Volkanovski to win

but he is certainly a force to be reckoned with no denying it I really hope that to wrap up conversation here on Ortega, I really, really hope that he can get the medical help available. Well, frankly, I don't even know what is available. I don't even know what is available, but I am hoping that there is a medical solution that can bring about joint integrity to his shoulder. Because fuck fighting, man. Like eventually this will all be over and he'll be done. And he might still have a really bummed out shoulder, which will have arthritic problems very early in life.

Will have all kinds of other physical issues in terms of what activities you can do. Can you even do push-ups? Like, dude, if your arm is getting pulled out like that and you turn 10 years older, it might start falling out when you do push-ups. I mean, think about that. Think about the long-term consequences of having a shoulder with this kind of an issue. Dude, it's bad. It could be real, real bad, man.

So I hope, I very, very, very much hope that he has some, not merely medical assistance, but some meaningful medical help that can change the situation so it's not so potentially dire. All right. I don't have a whole lot to say about the co-main. Amanda Lemos defeating Michelle Watterson Gomez, I guess is what the name she goes by now, taking, I believe, her husband's last name. This happened at 148 of the second round via guillotine choke. You know, you kind of got what you were expecting with Watterson Gomez, which was a lot of strikes at range, right?

Hitting a lot of air, taking her time, moving in and out. Let me pull the stats on this one too, if I may. So not a whole lot happening in that first round. In fact, let me look at the striking totals. Yeah, you got it. There was a takedown, which she got about 53 seconds of control time with Waterston Gomez. Her wrestling did look pretty good.

It was close to the end of the round, if memory serves. 16 significant strikes landed for her, too. Lemos is 13. So, you know, you might be able to give the first round to Watterson Gomez. I thought Lamos' shots had much more authority on them, but I, again, whenever I tell you I can understand scoring, it's not that I necessarily agree. I try to only weigh in like when I think scoring is egregious or important to talk about, I can see how judges might get it that way. But whatever the case, it didn't really matter. By round two, it was opening

up as well. Watterson whiffed on a takedown attempt, and then Lemos scores the guillotine. And this happened again for the timing on this at 148 of round number two. This was just real smart from Lemos. By the way, appeared to be the much stronger athlete of the two. You know, Watterson, again, can make 115 more naturally now than she ever could before, but I still think that, you know, she's a little bit outgunned physically in the weight class.

And Lemos, not only stuffed the takedown with good down blocking, but hit the angle on the down blocking, and a lot of times, off of a failed shot, you know, wrestling coaches will tell you, reshot, either you or you shoot on them. Like there's this natural instinct that happens when you go for a shot and it gets stuffed

and both people know that it's not going to go anywhere. There's almost like this moment, like, what do we do? And a lot of the natural instinct, and a lot of like, not just more than natural instinct, a lot of what you might drill, a lot of what you might practice might be disengagement and there's different ways to disengage based on the circumstances sometimes that might mean going to your back to protect yourself sometimes it might just mean getting the hell out of there whatever but disengagement is

a real part of how those situations end and what you saw there was watterson gomez disengaging and then lemos disengaging for a second before re-engaging on the guillotine. And it was that turning defensive situations into offense that made all the difference. Because once she got that clamp, and again, for a head and arm triangle, what you're looking for is on the choking, not head and arm triangle, I'm sorry, guillotine, arm in guillotine. What you're looking for is that choking arm. How far do they bury the elbow on the turn? That's what you're going for is that choking arm how far do they bury the elbow on the turn that's what you're going to look for they don't have to get it all the way under but the further they can

go and of course if they're rolling to mount what she was about to because she had it from guard and she was about to turn her uh and you saw dc correctly note she actually jumped it standing and then watterson went to the ground to then fight it which is like international sign for holy shit this is tight i need to fight this out and so what's the way you fight it, which is like international sign for, holy shit, this is tight, I need to fight this out. And so what's the way you fight it? You try to bring your hips as far as you can, because think about it, if you can compress the neck, and then you control the base of the spine,

that's all you need for the constriction. So what's the way to fight it? You can't really fight this right away, but you can get your hips in the air, which brings alignment back to your spine and makes the choke a little harder to do. So you saw her trying to push on the knee to get her hips in the air, which brings alignment back to your spine and makes the choke a little harder to do. So you saw her trying to push on the knee to get her hips as high as she could to create realignment on the spine.

But the problem is when you bring your base in the air like that and then your feet are together, you can be turned. And so she begins to get turned. And it was in that turn, she must have really began to drive into it. And she got the tap. And that was all she wrote from there have really began to drive into it, and she got the tap, and that was all she wrote from there. The referee didn't see it. It was on the other side. I guess I have to go back and look at his positioning, but he didn't see it, and the crowd didn't really react to it, which is unfortunate because it's actually a really nice

win, but I suppose that kind of thing happens. I wasn't expecting a whole lot. I think these two were ranked, if memory serves, 10th and 11th in the division. Let me go back and check. Yes, Amanda, excuse me, Michelle Watterson Gomez sitting at 10 currently. Of course, the new rankings are not out yet, so this only reflects voting prior to today's contest. And then Lamo sitting at 11. I suspect that they will swap places. She could potentially even leapfrog Amanda Hibas, although I don't know. I don't know how they're going to vote, but you would expect that to switch. See, now this is a big moment for Michelle Watterson Gomez and not in a great way. And the reason why, we had made this point on Morning Combat previously, if you didn't see it,

but prior to today, she had lost to Rose Namajunas in UFC. She had lost to Rose Namajunas, Tisha Torres, Ioana Njacek, Carla Esparza, and Marina Rodriguez. Now these are all, obviously Tisha Torres had a bit of a bottoming out, but I think this was in 2017. I don't know offhand the ranking position she occupies, but you know, between Rose and Ioana and Carla and Marina, you're talking about either champions or, you know, right at number one contenders, like people who are destined for the top of that division. Tisha might fit into this narrative more cleanly or not. But you can understand, okay, maybe you're not Rose, maybe you're not Joanna, maybe you're not Carla, maybe you're not Rodriguez,

but you could still be inside the top ten in that six to ten space and do something with it. Now she has lost to somebody outside of that space, and she has lost to somebody outside of that space, and she has lost to somebody outside of that space, let's see, at age 36, which I'm going to guess is fairly old, all things considered, for that weight class. She's lost four of her last five, although that goes back to 2019 because there's been a lot of off time. She obviously did have a flyweight bout against Rodriguez. So, you know, keep that in mind. Let me pull this up here one more time. Oh, I think this was the flyweight. No, strawweight. What am I saying? It was a strawweight bout as well. So yes,

the points still stands about 115. But this would represent a, it's not like she lost to some scrub. Hardly, hardly. She lost to somebody good. And you could say, well like she lost to some scrub. Hardly. Hardly. She lost to somebody good. And you could say, well, she lost to Rose when Rose was ranked lower. She lost to Carla when Carla was ranked lower. Yeah, fair enough. But it does look to me... I would argue that it does look to me a little bit more

the case of she is still losing to good fighters, but now she is losing to fighters closer to that top 15 range rather than top five. And potentially, we'll have to see what happens next,

but it just isn't trending in the right direction. It is trending in a direction where you can forgive losses to folks who held belts, but, you know, and you can forgive any loss. Obviously, these are all very difficult fighters to beat, right? You're fighting at the highest level. But I'm just pointing out there is a quality difference between what we know about this version of a Mendeley motion

and what we know about many of the other fighters who Watterson has lost to. And, you know, by the way, she was more competitive against Ioana in certain respects than she even was in this contest. You know, Ioana was the clear winner. I'm just pointing out she had moments. And, you know, I think that fight went the distance. If I'm not, let's see. Did that fight go the distance? Yes, it did.

So, you know, and she had a split decision with Carla Esparza as well. Like, you know, she gave them a tough fight. Like, she gave them something to think about. This was not that. You about. This was not that. You know, this was not that. She was fine for the first round. Arguably won it, depending on your perspective. And then the first real threatening offense Lemos had in the second closed the whole thing.

Not a great sign at age 36, losing four of your last five. We'll see what happens with Lemos. She enters the top ten. She had that terrible loss, obviously, to – terrible in the sense of how it looked on TV, but the only really bad loss was – well, I guess she lost to Smith, too, but Jessica Andrade was the one I'm talking about,

the standing arm triangle. But, you know, other than that, she has wins over Olivia Renato Souza, Mizuki Inoue, Monserrat Ruiz, Angela Hill, and now Michelle Watterson. She's putting something pretty special together there. So, it was kind of boring in the first round. Not that great. But a very solid win for Lemos and perhaps an inflection point for Michelle Watterson Gomez. All right, that

takes us now down to, how about this one at welterweight? Li Jiang Lang taking on Muslim Salikov. He wins at 438 of round two. Again, I want to see the stats on this. I do like looking at the stats, as y'all know. Interesting. That's interesting. They had the exact same amount of significant strikes In round one, 11 each Although Muslim Salikov Not nearly as busy as Li Jiangling And that makes sense, he was doing a lot of the moving And fainting and high lowing

And all that kind of stuff Salikov did get one takedown, he has about a minute of control time Awarded to him in the first Li Jiangling, the leech Attempted one in the first round and got nowhere. He did get one in the second, and Salikov whiffed on three of them in the second. But the real story was just the old right hands he was putting on him. Li Zhenglang is an interesting guy. He kind of got run over by Kamzat Shumayev. It wasn't the best demonstration of who he is.

But he now, I think, is second most striking stoppage wins in welterweight history, right behind Matt Brown. Second or third? Something like that? He's way up there on that list. He's funny, dude. He's really still very, very

good. Still very much a threat. And it was not so much in open space. You saw some of those spinning attacks from Salikov, the king of kung fu. They kind of got close at times. There was one that whiffed him right in the face. But other than that, they weren't all that close. So he did a pretty good job of disengaging, keeping his hands up. That was the thing that you saw Salikov looking for,

is they would exchange, break, and separate, disengage, right? There's that natural resetting moment. And then he would try to hit him there or if he was moving in a certain direction, he would try to nail him on that. And for the most part, they didn't have an effect. It was actually by the time Salikov got backed up close to the fence. And again, I'm telling you, man, whoever wrote me it was maybe a year or so ago when I was trying to ask, what was the biggest explanation for why fighters' defense changes so dramatically

against defense? Now, you would understand why it would, right? You now have a wall behind you. It limits your literal movement and your directions about where you can go, but my point was they don't seem to be accounting for that. They just seem to be kind of letting that take over their game rather than, for example,

everyone can hate on the champ if they want, but Izzy doesn't do that like he has a whole series of defensive moves along the fence line to account for the lack of movement accordingly right so he doesn't get trapped there or beat up there hardly at all like if people land on Izzy it's when he's moving forward into them for the most part actually right not when he is retreating and on the fence line because he has a whole system of defense in that space. Salikov got backed up there, and then the right hands began to, these long right hands from the leech began to find their way. And he set one in motion.

I think it was, let's see if I can remember. It was off of a feint, a trick, and then he came high and then over the top, and Salikov never saw it coming. Hit him clean. Then he gets put on skates and gets backed up. And then a right hand, a long right hand, I think, sat him down. And then he got finished off. There was some question about the finish. There was some question about the finish.

About, you know, could Dan have let it go a little bit longer? Yeah, I suppose he could have. I wouldn't begrudge him so much that he didn't, to be honest with you. But a nice win for him. So where does that put him in the rankings? Let's see. At old welterweight. He's sitting at 14, and Salikov was not in there.

So I don't know how much this will meaningfully improve his position. I guess we're going to have to see Jeff Neal sitting at 13, Neal Magny sitting at 12, Michael Chiesa sitting at 11 or so, and then Rachmanov now in the 10, Brady at 9. Boy, can't wait to see what they do as they move up the food chain Anyway, a very good win by him Like I said, this was one of those fights Where on the card you were just like, damn, here's another one Here's another one, here's another one It's just a very good first round

Nothing spectacular, but a very good first round And then the second round, he had him on skates Let me look at the stats on the second round Yeah, second round, 27 significant strikes for the leech. To Muslim Salikov's, 12. As I mentioned in the takedown, he already got one. He had control time for 30 seconds. Let me look at the targeting.

Boy, you don't see this very often. That's interesting. Li Zhengleng, here's his targeting. 34% to the head, 31% to the body, 34% to the leg. A nearly even distribution everywhere. Salikov, 78% to the head, 13% to the body, 34% to the leg. A nearly even distribution everywhere. Salikov, 78% to the head, 13% to the body, 8% to the leg. Now, I'm not here to tell you that everyone should strive for an even distribution. That's not my argument.

Sometimes you don't need to do that at all. Sometimes it wouldn't make sense to do that. It would actually be the wrong thing. But it is kind of interesting when you get a fighter in a winning circumstance, especially against another striker. And part of what the story here is that that diversification of location, the diversification of his weapons, the fainting, the trickery, the going high and going low, going low, then going high, all of that working together paid dividends in this contest. Salikov has a little bit more of a game

that he needs to stick to for his striking. Leg kicking is not a pretty big part of that. So you don't necessarily see anything like that with him. And that's fine. In general, it works for him quite well. But it is nice to see a guy like Li Zhenglang who is, I would say, less a specialist that's converted and more sort of an overall

kind of well put together fighter. Really using maximum targeting, maximum target diversification to bring the rest of his game to life. To make all the parts of it work better. It really is more than the sum of its parts. That's what these stats kind of tell me here. Great job by him. Nice win. How about this one?

We got to talk about this one. Matt Schnell defeating Sumidarji. Technical submission triangle choke at 424 of round number two. Ladies and gentlemen, round two of Schnell versus Sumidarji is very easily the round of the year, arguably so far. Bare minimum on the short list for round of the year. And let me just say something about Matt Schnell. I had him several times on my radio show, and every time I had him on, I always walked away thinking I was just very impressed by him, very thoughtful guy. And I know what some folks might say, oh, didn't he have that take

that he was justifying low fighter pay, which is unfortunate but true. But actually, I might be drawing too tenuous a connection, but let me make an argument for you. I actually feel like that helps explain this fight a little bit. These guys who have this kind of dog in them, there's not many of them, but you can add Matt Schnell to that list if you didn't already have it on.

These guys who have this incredible devotion to their craft, to their profession, to their life goals, and a certain just they can't even contemplate the notion of giving up in these sorts of difficult circumstances. And not just difficult for average idiots like you or me, but high-level fighters. I don't think most high-level fighters would have made their way through what he made his way through. And so what I mean to say is,

if you look at their arguments, and I've made this before about fighter pay, they really have nothing to do with the economics of the situation, which I think is where the conversation should be had. What they do is they bring this like ultimate style and worldview of extreme accountability that they use to guide their training, guide themselves in their profession, guide their successes and their failures too.

But that's their worldview is this extreme ownership of everything. And I would argue that worldview doesn't take into account how many things you actually can't control in your life neither here nor there but if you really think about it that's what's driving them to say those things about fighter pay you can actually see that that extreme

ownership when it's actually applied to the fight game you can see why it's alluring to them you can see why it's noturing to them. You can see why it's not really practical, but aspirational to them. Because for them, in those situations where I think it's more appropriately applied, it works. It works. It actually makes a lot of sense that that kind of comeback is a very rare type of comeback. This type of comeback is not possible but for the most driven. Like the most driven.

I didn't say necessarily the most talented. I don't know if Schnell is going to win a title before his career is done. Maybe he will. Who's to say? But right now, he does have losses on his record. I think he has six of them. And some of them, the other guys were just better that night. Better by a considerable mile in certain cases.

But in terms of the dog inside of him, and he's a skilled fighter too. I mean, he was doing things really well in certain ways. But that hunger, that drive that's within him, he's got more than 99% of high-level pros you will ever see them show. That was extraordinary. Extraordinary what he pulled off. Dude, Sumidarji from the left-handed stance was eating Schnell alive in two different ways. One, obviously, you saw him reach for the elbows like that. He reached for the wrists, excuse me, and then he would roll the elbow on top. That was one way he was just annihilating him him but even that long left that was coming down the pike

that was hitting him too like everything he wanted to throw was hitting him and i thought dc actually had a good way of describing it which was it was freezing him it was he would kind of like get hit on pause as he tried to collect himself and then he would go right back to it and the funny thing about it was the thing that saved him in it was his head movement and his slipping timed with his level changing. That actually was what enabled him to save himself, to get a takedown in the first round, I think ultimately save himself a little bit in this contest.

But he was getting worked like a summer job. And by the way, folks, this is what I mean about some of that just being luck. There's a lot of other referees, a lot of other referees who probably would have called that off before you ever got that Schnell comeback, before he ever hits Sumidarji,

and then a grappling, well, he rocks him, right? And then he basically moves to mount. I'm trying to remember if I did that right. and then he gets rolled and then goes for the triangle i believe that's right i have to go back and double check um most pro fighters wouldn't be able to do what he did the over over over over overwhelming majority, to take that kind of abuse. Let me look up the numbers on this one. To take that kind of abuse and then to stick it out.

And then have the wherewithal and a little bit of the gas tank and the skill left to finish. Because how did he finish? He had the triangle, but if you look at the triangle. I don't have something. I need something to show you. You know what? I'm going to start bringing an iPad and drawing it. I think that might help this a little bit.

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The basic idea is this. Ryan Hall once showed me this. One of the most illuminating things ever. This was years ago he showed me this. You can get a, if you've never trained, just follow me here. I cannot, I can sort of get an, I mean you can't really get an armbar facing someone head on. You kind of can if they're just total jackasses. But the real way to get an armbar is you have to create an angle on them of

some kind to get the arm to go this way across or this way across and then you want to break it, right? Or put some pressure on it. That's really the way to do it. You can kind of do it this way but it'd be a little bit difficult. P's possible, but that's not best practices. The triangle is not exactly like that. You actually can get the triangle heading someone squarely facing them, especially if you bring their arm across their body versus here, if their hands are here, right? It's a little bit harder, but if you can bring their arm across, let me just listen to my voice as I bring my arm across, right? Now, you can see it's cutting into the side of your carotid artery. So that's one way you can do it. The other one is pulling down on the head.

But Ryan Hall showed me something years ago. This was back in the aughts, and I never forgot it, which was what he does is when he goes for a triangle, let's say the right leg is the one clamping over the neck, and then the left leg is the one sort of sealing the sealing the triangle right so you have their right arm against you what he likes to do is to then spin at a right angle like to scoop underneath that leg and go this way so now like an armbar you have a similar kind of an angle on him why does he want that because when you do that and his view will view is one it just

kind of cinches the choke mechanically but the other thing that it does is it you brings your hamstrings to bear on the back of their neck it makes the choke that much tighter right because you can really draw your hamstrings are strong especially if you work them out like you know you're supposed to like an athlete would when you bring your heel to your butt like that that's a strong, your legs are huge and powerful. And so it really controls posture. It really sinks everything in and it tightens the angle. And then the other leg can still do just as much cinching as it needs to. Plus the arm bar would be there because you're already, you've already gone to a right angle. He doesn't get quite that

far, but what he does is you see that the triangle is almost kind of behind the shoulder blade. It gets a little bit closer as he does that Ryan Hall movement. Now, he does come back a little bit centered, but once he does, the choke is still a little bit tighter that way, and then he puts two hands on the head and pulls it down. And once he does, show closes, folks. He did all of that after getting rocked so many times that when they interviewed him, he couldn't remember any of it. So what does that tell you? That dude's muscle memory was still highly technical because that's all he's running

off of. I've seen guys get just completely rocked like Tim Sylvia and then just kind of keep their dukes up and then there's just one, two in it. This wasn't a guy on just one, two in you know kind of on his feet like a baby giraffe no man he applied science to the triangle choke to get the finish after all that damage and he's you know he had sliced up sumid argy before that dude that was incredible that's up there with like it's not it didn't have the same quite back and forth but to me that's sort of i put that on a similar level of pat barry versus czech congo in terms of sort of crazy comebacks again this was a little bit different because it

was one way and then one way again actually there was a little bit of a back and forth in certain spots but in general was a little bit one-way each and then the show was over. You will not see that very often. I don't mean just the way the fight looked. I mean the kind of athletic character that someone like Matt Schnell has to show to win that. You won't see that very often. Referees may not let you. Doctors may not let you. Most fighters just can't do that. Most elite prize fighters can't do that. He did that. He did that on this day. And I know a lot of folks were laughing like, you know, this was the division the UFC wanted to get rid of. What the hell were they thinking? I still think there was a decent argument to get rid of it at the time, but fair enough. Like,

it has paid dividends keeping it around. So, Mudarchi credited with a knockdown in round two, landed 19 to Schnell's 13. Again, this was quantitative, not qualitative. Significant strikes in round number one. And then pretty similar striking numbers in round two, believe it or not. I guess they each kind of caught up with each other on these various blitzes that they had. 39 to Sumidarji to 34 from Matt Schnell. So he was numerically outstruck on both rounds.

Schnell gets credited with a sub-attempt and a reversal in round number two, which is what you saw. And then he gets credited with a sub-attempt and a reversal in round number one, but also a reversal from... Excuse me, what am I saying? Schnell gets a sub-attempt. Sumidarji gets a reversal from round number two. And then Schnell gets a sub-attempt

and a reversal in round number one. Sumidarji won a reversal himself. There was a fair amount of control time in this. Not all that relevant. Look at the targeting by Sumidharji to the head. 63%. 17% to the body. 18% to the leg.

A little bit more lopsided with Matt Schnell. 76% to the head. 10% to the body. 12%. I do think that Matt Schnell's head movement was either on and it worked worked perfectly or it was not on and he was getting popped pretty continuously for it. And in the clinch, you got to man, you can't grips. I say it all the time, man. You cannot ever let people make grips on you. You cannot, of course, easier said than done. Yes, I grant, I understand. But as a rule, someone who knows what they're doing with a grip, you're in trouble, bro.

You're in trouble. Especially if people always associate grips with like Gi Jiu Jitsu. Nope. Here's one. Bop. Going to grab the wrist. Why? Because he knows how to roll that elbow right over the top of it.

That's why. Grips. Grips. If someone makes a grip on you, you have to let, you have, you cannot let them have it. You cannot, especially,

especially somebody stronger than you, if that's the case, or in this case, if somebody is very skilled with various grips that they can make. Gripping is the beginning of the end. It's like, in grappling,

it's the most important thing because nothing else can happen after, unless gripping is in place. Gripping is the beginning of everything. In this case, it's the most important thing because nothing else can happen unless gripping is in place. Gripping is the beginning of everything. In this case, it was not the beginning of everything, but the beginning of devastating offense that Schnell was able to withstand. Let me look at Schnell's record here. So Schnell has wins now over Tyson Nam. He had the... Hagerio Bontarine missed weight. Originally a decision for Bontarine overturned

after he tested positive for some kind of PED. He lost to Brandon Royville, but you can understand that. And then he beat Sumadarji. He has wins over Jordan Espinosa, Louis Smolka, Naoki Inoue, and Marco Beltran. And then that's it. He's got losses to Rob Font, Hector Sandoval, Alessandre Pantoja.

Those are good fighters. And Brandon Roy. I mean, listen, he's got some good wins. You know, he doesn't have the wins like at the very top of the division, but he's got some very good ones. And by the way, he's got a triangle choke win on his record. Actually, he's got two of them now before this one. The Smolka win and then the Espinosa win were triangles.

So that's something of a trademark for him. He's got that locked up. He had an inverted triangle win all the way back in 2014 on the regional scene as well. He's a talented kid, man. He's a talented kid. I know a lot of folks, I don't even know if they associate it with MTV anymore, but when he first got into the sport, they kind of did. I'm telling you, you should hear his interviews, you know, fighter pay notwithstanding, smart guy. And he's, listen, that argument he makes is to me, in me in my opinion has nothing to do with how that conversation should go and if you just listen to the way in which he talks about other things

I think you would come away with the impression that this is a you know a thoughtful and driven guy that really is the the view that I've had and I'm telling you you're not going to see comebacks like that very often to be that hurt that many times and then to be that technical in response it wasn't like he winged some like you know drunken burr you know like nothing off balance terrible shot nope nope he had to finish that technically and with bodily harm, and he did all of it. Impressive. Super impressive. Shane Burgos defeating Charles Jourdain. He wins via 29-28 on both scorecards and then a 28-28. Here's what I just didn't get about this one very quickly. I'm not going to go through these very long. We'll save a lot of this for another time. But very quickly, I mean, they're mowing their yard at 6. Who the fuck mows their yard at 6?

But okay. Burgos got a 10-8 on one of the judges' scorecards, and then Jordan got a 10-9 for round 3. If round 2 is a 10-8, I kind of feel like round three is a 10-8, but not a robbery. Everyone wants this to be a robbery because they're like, oh, Jordan won. I thought Jordan won, but it was close. And if it was close and one judge going one way and one judge going another is all that it has to happen for someone to lose then it can't really be a robbery now can it it's not it's not it's not at all inconceivable that Burgos won

the first two and then lost the third again I a draw I don't mind so much either I'm not sure exactly what math they came to with that I have to go back and look I think they gave I think in that case they gave the first two rounds to Burgos and then round three, 10-8, right? That's how they must have gotten that to Jordan. You know, I thought Jordan looked amazing in this fight. I really did. I thought his boxing was on point. I couldn't believe he was out boxing Burgos in round three.

Now, Burgos had pointed out that his legs were burnt from the body triangle, but his grappling looked pretty good. Bouncing off the wall, pushing off the wall to fully take the back, then lock in the body triangle, and he was trying to get those chokes. Dude, he looked good. That was an impressive performance, but dude, Charles Jourdan, it was almost like he didn't fully believe at first he could do it, and by round three, you could tell he knew he could do it. So, you know, I know that this doesn't get him the rankings position that he probably wants, but it seems inevitable he'll get there. He's very, very talented. And for Burgos, you know, another fan favorite, skilled guy himself showing a lot, by the way,

showing a lot of skills he hasn't previously shown. Like, I don't know if I've seen this much grappling from him in a contest where he won. This is, this was great. And he was getting lit up in the third, so he showed a good chin as well. Phenomenal fight. Nothing quite like Schnell versus Sumidarji, but you get the idea. All right, last but not least, Lorne Murphy defeating Misha Tate. This was not surprising to me. 30-27 across the board. How did they have this one? Do I recall on Friday's MK that someone told me that, yeah, Tate was a minus 205. Boy, I don't get that at all. This was not surprising. Could not call this one surprising, even a little bit. Lauren Murphy is physical for that weight class. She has a ton of abilities in a ton of different

spaces and ranges. She is durable. She's experienced. And I thought in general, she was able to physically control Tate. Let me look at the numbers on this one as well, just so I can be consistent with this as much as I can be. Let's look at this. Yeah, Misha Tate didn't get a single takedown. 0 for 3 in round 1, 0 for 1 in round 2, 0 for 3 in round 3. By contrast, Lauren Murphy got 1 in round 2, and she got 1 in round 3. Didn't have a lot of control time for the 1 in round 3, but she had 41 seconds of control time in the second. On top of that, 102 significant strikes landed for Murphy.

Just 85 landed for Tate. Murphy had higher numbers in all three rounds, 26 to 25, 38 to 32, 38 to 28. Again, these are numerical totals, but they sort of paint an overall picture. And again, the overall, it's funny, Lauren Murphy not really doing a lot of leg attacks, 75% targeting to the head, 23% to the body. Misha Tate just 7% to the leg, 71% to the head, and 21% to the body. Dude, she was just basically, basically, she was better everywhere. That's the basic idea.

She was better everywhere. Misha Tate, since her comeback, it's not been, I think, as easy a road. I'm sure she's trained hard. Don't misunderstand me. She's a champion, or she was a champion. I'm sure she knows what it takes to succeed, but it's not been all that easy. So she came back against Marion Reneau, who I think was either retired in that bout or retired subsequent to it or very, very soon thereafter.

Then Ketlin Vieira, and it's like, okay, Ketlin Vieira is very, very tough, and I think that fight was at bantamweight, and then this one was at flyweight. So she made the weight, I thought, nicely. She didn't look gassed, so that's the good news. And it's only one loss in this division, but she's technically lost four of her last five. The last really significant win she had was in March of 2016 when she beat Holly Holm.

I certainly wouldn't say that retirement is eminent or something like that, but how old is Misha Tate? She is 35. No, there's still some some time but it's like I'm just I'm not exactly seeing perhaps you have a different opinion, I'm not exactly seeing right now

right now certainly since her return I'm not exactly seeing the kind of overwhelming force she once was able to execute over in that case Bantamweights are her rivals, when she was beating Karmush and Rin Nikai and Sarah McMahon and Jessica Ai and Holly Holm back to back to back to back to back.

And obviously Holm was winning the majority of that bout until she turned the tide, but that she turned the tide is sort of the point I'm trying to make here. We didn't really, that was a five-round contest, but I hope you understand what I'm saying. I'm just not seeing, like, there used to be a gap between her and the division. I do not see that now. Perhaps it will take a little bit more time for her to settle into that position, so we can't write her off. And I would very much encourage you not to do that. But people have been writing Lauren Murphy off for a while.

Yeah, okay, she didn't fight that great against Shevchenko. Not many people do. You know, Tyler Santos got pretty close. Jennifer Maya had some moments. But in general, no one goes in there and just mugs her. You know, no one goes in there and just beats her up on the feet. Like, you know, I guess you could say Amanda Nunes did in their first fight, and even then, Amanda Nunes faded real bad down the stretch. You get the point I'm trying to make, dude. Murphy's good. She's been good for a while. That's a good fighter, man. And she just doesn't get the credit or the acclaim, I think, that a lot of other fighters

do. And I'm hoping that it's an event like this that folks begin to realize she actually can do a lot. Physical for the weight class, good offensive striking, good movement, good technical jiu-jitsu when she needs it a lot of really good decision making to bring that all together as well she was just better everywhere this time

that was a clean solid win for her man so I take my hat off to her now there's a lot that has gone on on the prelim card we're going to get to all of that with a very special extra credit on Monday stick around we are going to have an in-studio MK on Monday, plus, plus, plus, plus. BC is going to be here later tonight to get you all the results from the Ryan Garcia versus Javier Fortuna fight. Let me look at any of your questions that you might have here. Let's see. Do you think Jair would have ended that fight

on the feet eventually with some of the shots he was landing on Ortega? Certainly, that's the way it was headed, but remember, Ortega's ability to find submissions like that is legendary, and he does have a good chin. Let's say Josh Emmett versus Yair Rodriguez next, winner against Volkanovski. I think that's the fair thing to do. I think that's the fair thing to do. What do you think UFC will... Oh, do you think UFC will make Yair versus Emmitt considering Volk is out? I'd be okay with that. I was kind of assuming that it was either going to be Emmitt or it was going to be Yair, but if they put them together because the champ's not ready, I'd be totally okay with that. A lot of questions about that.

Okay, assuming Yair gets the title shot against Volkanovski, if you were responsible for Yair's game plan against Alex, what would your game plan then be? Leg and body kicking. Leg and body kicking. Leg and body kicking. Heavy, heavy, heavy distance. Tons of keeping the distance. Tons of that is what I would do.

But we'll cross that bridge when we get there. Alright, I went a lot longer than I said I was going to. Sorry about the early part of this. My bad. But at least we got it worked out. Yes, we got it worked out. Okay. Here we go. Watch this. Hey, look

at that. Subscribe. Put us over the edge if you would. I'd be very much appreciative of that. Thank you so much for watching. Join us on Monday for a regular MK. Join us on Monday for extra credit and some other fun stuff as well. Stay tuned for

Brian Campbell's live post-fight show for the Ryan Garcia fight. Yeah? Thank you guys so much for watching. I appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed the fights. Until next time,

stay... Oh, no. Enjoy the fights.