MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Vegas 47: Jack Hermansson vs. Sean Strickland Results | UFC Fight Night Post-Fight Show

Episode Date: February 6, 2022

Luke Thomas will break down all of the results, provide analysis and answer your question right here on the UFC Fight Night: Hermansson vs. Strickland Post-Fight Show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Alrighty then, alrighty then, alrighty then. It is the 5th of February, about 10, 15 p.m. here on the East Coast, like New York City time. My name is Luke Thomas. I am one half of the Morning Combat duo. Brian Campbell is watching the current Keith Thurman vs. Mario Barrios fight. He'll have a reaction for that later today. But this is my live UFC Vegas 47 post-fight show.

That event is in the books. So, if you would like some results, some analysis, some answers to your question, well, you have come to the right place. If you don't want spoilers, now is your time to bounce. Get out of here. You got five, four, three, two, one. I'm assuming if you're sticking around, you would like some spoilers. You would like some results. You would like some analysis. So without further ado, thank you so much for watching Let us get this party started All right

How is everybody doing apparently a lot of you fucking hated that fight We'll talk about the main event here in just a second. First things first, before we get to that, please do me the courtesy. You can see below. Subscribe now, ladies and gentlemen. If you have not subscribed to Morning Combat, please don't wait any longer. We would love to have you around. We have big plans for this year. Many of you have already contributed with your time and attention.

And in some cases, dollars. And we love every one of you, even if you have or haven't. We just want you guys to stick around and be a part of this community please like the video of course but hit subscribe be a part of the mk army we um we just love having you all right without further ado let's get this uh results discussed here boy that was a uh that was an interesting fight card, huh? The prelims had some gems on it, I thought. And there were some other things about it that we'll get to that I thought were really quite good. But the main event did not wow everyone. As a matter of disclosure, and in fact I tweeted this because I really do believe it, which is...

Hold on, let weeks and some change. So this was the first time sitting down and watching them. And I'm not going to sit here and tell you that the main event was some kind of thrilling adventure. I don't think that it was, but I didn't hate it personally. Just personally speaking, I'm not asking anybody else to like it or to agree. I'm just telling you personally, it didn't bother me as much as it bothered some of you. So I sort of put that out there. But I recognize it was not the most thrilling fight.

And the way it was kind of presented was like, you know, this was somewhat oversold. But what they were trying to suggest was that the winner here could be at the cusp of a title shot. I really disagree with that, in part because no matter who won, they would probably, probably, you never know. You couldn't say it was wrong that the winner was going to get a title shot, but it seemed unlikely because Strickland had never been inside the top five. A win here may put him there, but there would still be some other names to potentially clear to get a title shot, you would think. I need to look up the exact rankings to see who is there. Let's see at middleweight who is in front of him. This is prior to the reorganization of today. Yeah, you've got Costa, Brunson, Kananir, Vittori, and Whitaker. Hermansen already fought

Vittori and found himself lacking. So, you know, even if he had bumped back into the top five, the point being is there's other names they're going to have to figure out what to do with before the winner ever got up there. Now, it could be a case where someone ahead of him gets the title shot and then they fall out and then the winner of this bout was in a position to fill in on that case or something. But it would be hard to argue unless they had the most incredibly impressive performance. Like they just ran over the other guy.

GSP over Trigg. That this one by itself would result in a title shot. So that was something of an oversold kind of thing by the media, or it's going to be by the broadcast. I don't know if the media was hyping that up per se. But certainly by the broadcast. Okay, the judges have it as five. By the broadcast. I don't know if the media was hyping that up per se. But certainly by the broadcast. Okay. The judges have it as follows.

Okay. This is fucking hilarious. 49-46 for Sean Strickland. Which is I think what I had. 47-48. So that would be for Hermansen. Or 48-47 for him. And then another 49-46 for Strickland. I don't know how the fuck you can find three rounds for Jack Hermansen.

It's not to say that you couldn't find, I think, certainly one, for sure one. I think I gave him the first. Maybe you could give him the fifth if you're feeling generous. That would not be, I think, the worst thing in the world. But even then, you're kind of having to squint to give him that. The third round, I don't even know where that would come from. I don't know. That is abysmal judging in every way. In fact, I thought there was some bad judging in the second fight, or the co-main event rather, even though that one is a little bit more

defensible. Okay. What was the lesson in this fight? Richard Mann, who is an employee at 3027, that's the company formerly known as FightMetric, I tweet his stuff out every week because it's just consistently excellent. He's not right every time. Who could be? But he's right pretty consistently. And he has sort of noted, if you look at the numbers here, they told a pretty clear story. If you look at significant strikes landed by both guys heading into this contest, they had pretty comparable numbers. Strickland's were better, but they weren't in that raw data

form significantly better. But when you begin to dig into them, then there was a big difference, namely that there are, I think, half of the significant strikes that are accounted for in those numbers from Strickland only take place when he is in a dominant grappling position, right? So if you're forced to stand on the feet, now the significant strike landing percentage and the overall volume of work goes down a lot. And for Sean Strickland, that is where he tends, as we all know, whether you find him boring or even exciting, that is where he would do his best work. Now, so the question was going to be, A, could Hermansen get the takedown, or B, not consistently find himself where he's doing ground and pound on top, but introduce a takedown element or

threat such that Strickland was forced to counteract it and having to answer for it, and that limited what he could do, right? Could you upset the balance in that way? And even on that, he couldn't. And in fact, what Richard Mann had noted in his, he has a sub stack. What he had noted was, yes, you can look at the takedown defense of Sean Strickland and find him wanting in a couple of scenarios. The Kamaru Usman fight would be one, certainly. Although that would be obviously at Walter Waite.

But the idea would be in his last seven fights heading into this contest, he hadn't given up any of them. Tonight, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, let's see what old 3027 slash fight metric has to say. Yeah, Jack Hermanson went 0 for 8 on takedowns. He whiffed on all eight attempts. That is pretty interesting. Do they have full stats in? Yeah, it looks like they

have full stats in now at this point. Sometimes it takes them a minute. Hermansen went 0-2 on takedowns in the first, 0-2 in the second, 0-1 in the third, 0-1 in the fourth, 0-2 in the fifth. Sean Strickland showed excellent takedown defense, great composure. Man, those things never got close, and you could just sort of see the way in which Strickland's strong positioning and excellent defense would have the body of Hermansen all contorted and pushed away. So there'd be a lot of times where the spine of Hermansen would be curved. It's not to say you can't get a takedown when your spine is curved, but you're not putting, you're not, it's a weak position. You're not using maximum full

strength if your back muscles and your lats and your erectors are not fully engaged in that kind of a way. And so you saw him constantly pushing, constantly breaking the posture, causing misalignment with the neck and the head, and was able to extricate himself. Very, very good, Sean Strickland. Very good at down blocking, MMA style. Down blocking typically means when you have either a hand or two and your feet behind you in regular wrestling. But in the MMA case, what I mean to say is when you would see Hermansen shoot, you may not see Strickland get both. He doesn't drop his hands and then sprawl too real hard

and then come out the side. What you might see is him catch an arm underneath as Hermansen makes contact so every time Hermansen makes contact he's not making contact you know uh around the waist and then her uh Strickland is always fighting out of double underhooks he may have gotten to there at one point or another I had to go back and look but it didn't matter he couldn't get a takedown but the majority of the time that Hermansen was even pressing the attack, and he let go of that attack for a long time, I think to his own detriment. He was probably trying to see how much he could get done early,

save himself if he could in the middle to late portions, and then make a late fifth-round push. It didn't end up changing his fortunes. Not the worst strategy, but you would have liked to have seen a more concerted attack. The point being is Strickland did a really good job. Watch every time he absorbs that pressure. He fires an underhook to catch Hermansen as he is trying to attack him, trying to press into him. And then from there, he's got good hip positioning. He spreads his base. And you can see him, dude, he's real good at re-pummeling in both hands and then finding a way

to get himself off the fence. We talk about it all the time. It's the Paul Daly syndrome. Paul Daly was actually pretty good, especially in the end because everybody was trying to take him down. But there was a period in Paul Daly's career where he was just knocking people the fuck out. He was just an incredible force. Strike force period was the one that comes to mind. And what you saw in the Woodley fight with Daly was that he was able to get pressed against the fence and Woodley couldn't necessarily do a whole lot with him in that scenario but the problem was that Semtex would just be stuck against the fence maybe he was getting taken out at certain times maybe he wasn't but there was long portions where he's just glued up against the wall Sean Strickland doesn't have that problem not in this fight he was able to

catch it in a position so he doesn't have to fight out of a huge deficit, and he sets himself up for subsequent levels of defense that he can introduce to now get back to an even better scenario. So the numbers tell the story of the success itself, but I want everyone to note he had really good anticipation about what to expect. He put himself in a position to not get overwhelmed. You could see him kind of operating in the way he needed to, closed mouth, think you could see him logically working through the problems. He did a really good job, well-trained fighter. It was interesting to note too, man, you know, Eric Nixick, if you go and watch his work, the coach at Extreme Couture in the last fight that I watched prior to tonight, the Francis Ngannou fight, what you

notice in there is they don't overload him with instructions. They give him just enough, and then Dewey Cooper gives a little bit, and then you can only give your fighter, no matter the championship level or whatever, you can only give him just enough, and then you send him on his way. They dialed that back even more with Shawn, which seems obviously quite intentional. It must be what he's thriving off of. Wasn't like he was making a lot of mistakes either. Wasn't turning on the gas. Okay, we'll talk about that, which he even admitted post-fight. But it wasn't like he was making hardly any errors.

Eric Nixon comes back to the corner, you know, double up on the jab. He's pairing with the rear hand, fake it, and then come across, you know, through with the cross. And, you know, keep your feet with you when you go through the double jab instead of just reaching a little bit and then he left him alone that was it like you know tighten this up tighten that up see ya you know and then he let him wander around like it was fucking hilarious you know so eric nixick doing a really good job with the corner that's a talented fighter man i know everyone was bored with the result i get it i'm not trying to talk you into saying everyone should love it and it was the most entertaining thing ever and who could ever think of a better fight like the the fighting the fight on the opening of the main card between

erosa and um who is his opponent please forgive me julian erosa and uh uh was it peterson i forget now but whoever oh let me look at this up before i fuck all this up yes peterson that fight was significantly more entertaining but sean strickland showing showing really good stout takedown defense, really good corner work. In terms of the striking, it was kind of interesting. I would like to know what was happening. He was very intentional about it. Did you guys notice he wasn't trying to pressure Hermansen straight back? A lot of times, and of course, you're never trying to go directly straight.

You might cut an angle to push, slide another angle to to push but you're definitely trying to get them in a I want them I want their back up against the fence as much as possible with pressure kind of or at least behind the two black lines of the black line right some kind of concerted effort to directionally push them in a more or less let's say backwards, if it's not quite just so, you know, I'm the juggernaut bitch, linear kind of process. That was not what Sean Strickland was trying to do, and sometimes it is quite intentional. We often hear fighters can wilt under pressure,

and that's certainly true. Not always, but there's a million examples of whether it's true. But sometimes what they can do is, rather than cage cutting, which is what the phenomenon is known as, rather like sort of strict cage cutting where you can either hover or you can really limit uh exits and access where they're kind of right in front of you now they're forced to engage on you and your terms you can do what like for example what anthony pettis did against wonder boy where you're actively trying to turn them in a circle perhaps one because that turning could make them defensively on the reaction side of them in a circle, perhaps. One, because that turning could make them defensively

on the reaction side of things in a way that you would want them. Two, it could force them to reset their feet, which means they don't have access to the same kind of attacks. It could force them to retreat a certain punch in a way, depending on how you do it. I always talk about this. When Max Holloway fought Jose Aldo, he pushed into him one direction consistently one time, and then the rematch, he went the opposite direction to do it. It's a similar kind of strategy where you're pushing to turn them, right? You would want to get Jose Aldo turning because to the extent that he has his feet under him, he's a fucking nightmare, but you can imagine if you're turning him and he's playing catch up he can't quite get the same level of power and and accessible shots off you didn't exactly see that from Sean Strickland this time

but what you did notice was constantly shifting to his left shifting to his left a lot on the jab he would shift left and pop as he was as he was moving obviously in part you're creating a lane where it's now open and you don't exist anymore. So if they fire back, you have moved. But then he began to try and build on it a little bit with that rear parry. Did you guys notice Nixick talking about that? So then he would throw to the body and then as he shifted left, now he's lined up. Excuse me, I'm doing it backwards. I'm doing it here.

Yeah, actually like this. He's orthodox. He would throw here and then come up here and then throw the cross as he's shifting over, creating a lane for it. Something similar to what Edgar tried a little bit. Edgar had a different setup to Aldo at UFC 200. Didn't really work in that scenario either, but you get the idea. Shifting over, lining up a punch when you need it. And it worked a lot. And what it also did was it got out of the way of that kind of, I call it an overhand, but looking back on it, that's incorrect,

the sort of check hook or that final hook from the left side from Hermansen. Dude, they knew that was coming. The Extreme Couture team, they knew it was coming a mile away. I don't know if it landed one time. I don't know if it landed one time. I don't know if it landed one time. You would see either, you would see Strickland block it, you would see him parry it, or you would see him kind of catch and then throw something right behind it.

He wouldn't catch and then throw from the same side. But, you know, it's a sort of a, rather than sort of slipping and throwing, he would catch and then throw from the same side. But, you know, it's a sort of a, rather than sort of slipping and throwing, he would catch and throw. It has a similar kind of property in terms of creating offense off of defense. And it worked to a charm. Like Hermansen couldn't really get shit going. He had some decent leg kicks, especially that last round that I thought were doing a little bit of something. He had certainly muted some of the kicking offense that Strickland typically tries to employ. That's true. But he could never really get it going. I thought Strickland did a really good job of, they knew what they were up against. They really had a very strong sense of, they knew what Hermansen was likely to try. Hermansen tried a lot of it, and they had an answer for it.

This is a bit of a problem for Jack Hermansen, who's quite talented. I like Jack Hermansen a lot. He's fun to watch. I think on the ground when he's operating, he is a dynamic threat, certainly inside the top 5 to 10 space of that middleweight division. I don't think he can be counted out by anybody. But I think what age is Jack Hermanson? I want to say 33. Yep, 33. He turns 34 in June. He's got some time. I just mean to say

this is a bit of a wake-up call for him where if he's going to get back to the space that he wants to inside that top five, if an opponent, it's not that Sean Strickland is some gimme opponent, far from it, or he trains at some bullshit camp, far from it. He trains at a good camp. He's a very talented fighter. He's literally going to be the top five by monday probably in the rankings but what i do mean to say is they were able to make a very they didn't have to make a lot of adjustments in the fight did they right based on what the initial game plan was and what it was executed as a couple of adjustments here there, but those are fairly minor ones in the grand scheme of things. And they were more or less able to execute.

That's a bit of a problem for Hermansen. It means that they've got the better parts of his game he couldn't bring to life and the rest of the well-roundedness that he brings, because certainly he was a threat that I think Strickland had to take seriously. It wasn't enough to get over the hump. Yes, I realize that one judge is blind, but short of that, he didn't really ever get close.

You have to ask yourself at 33 what can reasonably be added at this age that's going to get him over the hump. I would be foolish to suggest that there is nothing, but it would be equally foolish to suggest that it's going to be, that's an easy thing to fix. That's a very hard thing to fix. When you're barreling down on 35 and you have opponents who don't have to make a ton of adjustments through a five round fight because the way they game plan work to a T, granted, styles make fights, so it was a situation that in many ways uniquely helped what Strickland does well to be brought to life, but it's a problem. It's going to be a problem for him. In the case of Sean Strickland, he was beating himself up over it. It was not very exciting for a guy who talks about, you know, quite literally raping his opponents, which is disturbing to be quite, I think that's a euphemistic way to put it. But, you know,

I try to, on this post-fight show, I try to just discuss the fights and not a whole lot else if we can avoid it. That's a good performance. It's a solid pre-beat, a really good fighter, pretty cleanly if you ask me. I don't give a shit what the judges say. That was Sean Strickland's fight without a hint of controversy. I don't really buy that that was close at all, quite frankly. I mean, you could say, oh yeah, three rounds to two would be kind of close. Yeah, but like, did y'all ever really feel like Strickland was losing or in danger? I guess I never felt like Hermansen was in danger per se, but I definitely felt like he was losing for very long stretches of that fight. But title shot or not, did Strickland turn in with this particular performance, the kind of confidence, the kind of, was this the kind of audition,

not for the title shot, like did you do enough to get there, but that makes you believe that he's going to be a handful for the top five. I do think he will be, but I think I understand fans who look at this and are like, yeah, I don't know what I saw in there that makes me think he's going to beat Robert Whitaker or Israel Adesanya. Yeah, fair enough. I didn't see anything in this particular contest that tells me that as well. However, in defense of Sean Strickland, whereas Hermansen had been inside the top five and had kind of been bounced, this is his initial foray. So he is now still kind of in the process of building himself to a point where he gets to be challenged by some of those larger, broader questions.

I guess we'll have to see ultimately what happens there. It was a nice win. It was a nice win. I realize it bored a bunch of you to tears. Here's the good news, which will make you all so happy. I hope at least provide some context. If this was still the Fox Sports deal, I'm not bullshitting. The card would have just started. The card would have just started and we'd have to do this in three hours. Like I'll take a bad fight for a way as that way, if that's what you want to call it, a boring fight or whatever.

I'll take that ending at 10, 15 or whatever it was versus the alternative any day of the week. This is a very easy thing for me to do. So I recognize that that may not make you happy about what you saw, but it should make you happy about the fact that it's 1030 and even on the East Coast, if you party animals still want to go out, you can. Beyond that, I'm not really sure what to say. Let's look at some of the numbers here if we can. Jack Hermanson attempting 353 significant strikes, only landing 38% of them. 330 attempted by Sean Strickland landing 46 percent of them significantly more

efficient again stuffing eight takedowns Sean Strickland did that is extremely impressive and they kind of fought at the same pace except for maybe yeah more or less Hermansen in round 126 Hermansen around 232 these are how many significant strikes he landed. In round three, 26. Round four, 27. And then round five, 26. He landed either 26, 27, or 32. He landed 26 twice.

27, excuse me, he landed 26 one, two, three times. 27 once and 32 once. Four, Sean Strickland, 22 in the first round, 32 in the second round. 27 in the third, 34 in the fourth, and then 38 in the fifth. In terms of targeting, in terms of targeting, Jack Hermanson targeting the head just 16% of the time. That is interesting. Wow. Body 46, leg 37. Sean Strickland, interestingly, only going to the leg 2%. That part is not in any way remarkable. You would imagine against a takedown threat, those are going to be pretty offensively limited, especially when you are targeting the leg, right? Not what you're throwing, but what you're targeting. You're going to have

to be very judicious about any leg attacks. Body 15%. The body shot was a nice thing he was doing. He would throw the jab or maybe throw, let's see, what would he throw? Would he throw overhand jab and then to the body or jab then? I think he would do jab and then as Hermanson would lean away, you saw hooks and straights to the body, a lot more hooks from Strickland. Now, he got away from those as I think the head cleared up a little bit more and his jab got cooking, but he was investing in that a little bit early. Didn't really slow Hermansen down a ton, but again, nice work as well. And we talk about it all the time. If you have an opponent who's sort of ducking and dodging and leaning,

a great way to make sure you keep tabs on them is to go to the body. Plus, it brought the head down for subsequent attacks elsewhere. And that's all she wrote. Not a spectacular main event, not a hugely remarkable one. A clear one in my mind for Sean Strickland. Again, this should move him into the top five. I thought he showed really well-rounded work. Not a ton of offensive urgency, which again, he copped to in the post-fight interview. Not a ton of power, which we know. Not a ton of, oh, here was one thing. He was threatening knees early. Did you guys notice that? He would throw the knee and then he would put punches behind it. And it worked a little bit. Then he kind of got away from it. Sometimes he would throw the knee or show the knee rather, and then there'd be push kicks behind it I was surprised there weren't any uppercuts there was a lot of time where you saw

Hermanson like kind of like hunched over looking down moving into range I thought for sure he I guess maybe maybe he didn't want to throw a a lead uppercut because that wouldn't be enough and he didn't want to throw a rear uppercut because if he missed on it, he didn't want to get timed where Hermansen could get underneath it. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. But I thought there were ample opportunities, especially starting from like the third round on, where Hermansen was just kind of hunched over like that,

and he could have been eaten up. But Strickland,land i thought fought a pretty smart capable safe-ish safe-ish um kind of fight i don't know if he did it intentionally like oh i gotta make sure i get into the top five sometimes it happens sometimes it happens he gets into a certain mode i think he had a lot of respect for the ground ability of Jack Hermanson, which one would want to. So it's a good performance by him. It's just not one that's going to get the fans to be like,

hey, we should push this guy to the front of the line. I don't have, frankly, a ton to say about the co-main. Nick Maximov, forgive me if I'm pronouncing it wrong, defeats Punahele Soriano via split. First judge has it 28-29. Then one judge had it 29-28 for Soriano, 30-27 for Maximov. And then 29-28. Here's the thing. You can't complain about the win if you're a Soriano fan. Because he, to me, won the third round without too much issue. And then the second round, I can grant, is close. However, here's the problem.

One, the second round is close. Like, definitely Maximov was doing the dominant grappling later right in terms of position but there was hardly any ground and pound or any real submission attempts at all and well i don't think soriano kicked his ass per se in the first part of the second round he was doing the damage so if we're really caring about damage as the chief operating and measurable concern about what should decide fights first before we get to everything else assuming that they're not equal and we can grant that however much damage was done the second round it was it was not equal. Soriano doing, frankly, all of it, whatever much there was.

To me, it was 2-0 heading into the third. I grant that he kind of gassed out and had a knee injury in the third. Or maybe he didn't gas out. Maybe it was just a knee injury. Whatever. He didn't have a strong performance in the third round. I think that's fair to say. But he clearly won the first, as far as I could tell. And the second was was you can make a case for Maximoff. So for that reason, you cannot cry robbery, but a 3027 scorecard is fucking

stupid. It's not, it's not real. Like that's, I mean, I don't, was he, I, you know, I don't know what the judge was looking at there. Doug Crosby is a bit of a... He can be a silly goose, I think. Okay, let me shout this out to everybody. Chuck Mendenhall, when he was at MMA Fighting, did a long feature on Doug Crosby. I believe that's who had the 30-27 scorecard there. If you've never read the feature on Doug Crosby,

you need to. You need to. Proper weirdo would be a good way to get you in the door there, and that's underselling it in a big direction. He's not a normal judge by any stretch of the imagination. And that 3027 scorecard is only possible to justify in the absence of giving a fuck about what you're supposed to be looking at. So, I don't mind in any way that Maximov won. I disagree, but I don't really mind. You can argue that two rounds is par for the course given how things went. Fine. Fine. you know, par for the course, given how things went fine, fine. But, um, 30, 27 is like, you know, you just pin the tail on the donkey. You know, you just, you guys know that game.

I don't know how many people from other parts of the world are watching this. And maybe that's just an American thing. I don't know, but I don't know. I don't know where the fucking thing comes from, but you get the idea. You're just out there groping in the dark for some kind of normalcy, and you just end up in the middle of nowhere. 327 is an absurd scorecard. I thought Soriano's first round was maybe his most disciplined round ever. Obviously, he's got some first-round wins, I believe, right? Some big-ass ones, if I'm not mistaken, in terms of how vicious they were.

Yeah, he's got a ton of them. But I thought this time he needed to show a little bit more restraint. And he did. But Maximoff was kind of all over him. The Diaz thing is kind of weird, right? It's like the guy comes out to Deftones. It's like, do you all like Deftones? And it's never even like original, or I should say, older era Deftones. I don't know what song they came out to.

I think that was Maven from White Pony, in which case I guess it is. But, like, you ever notice, like, no one ever comes out to Bored from the debut album? Or, like, you know, stuff like Around the Fur or whatever? It's always from White Pony later, which I guess is a different era of their sound. I'm just pointing out, they all seem, I'm not saying that they, well, I don't know. It seems like some of them borrow their personality from the Diaz's. Now, not his fighting style. I thought his fighting style was actually quite the opposite in many ways, but, you know, the way that their mannerisms and then the way they dress and then

the music they listen to, it all seems quite derivative to a degree but but he got the win again you can't argue robbery you can you can argue that yeah i disagree i think things should have been seen differently um that's fine but you can't argue robbery if there was two 3027s i'd be like okay well that's a robbery but uh 29 28 for maximov is a justifiable scorecard. The one sort of word of caution I would have is that he is obviously a talented grappler, right? Obviously. Obviously that if he gets his hands on you from that standing back control, I don't mean having the hooks in, but having the waist in some kind of capacity or another,

he's devastating there. He's very, very good there. And, uh, and you know, he's going to cause problems for a lot of people, but like, dude, look at the stats on his ground and pound, man. Let me pull these up here. You know, listen to the number of strikes he throws. This, these are the number of significant strikes he landed per round. Round one, five. Five. They credited him with three of seven takedown attempts, but they might have counted, but they didn't, in the sense that he achieved a takedown position,

again, by Fight Metrics' own calculation. And there was the sort of one sub-attempt, which they credited him with, but I don't know, it wasn't, It didn't feel like to me super dominant. Round two, 13 strikes. Round three, 11. He's got the positional game, I won't say locked up, but he's clearly quite gifted at that. But there's not enough ground and pound.

There's not. There's not enough ground and pound. That's a solid win that he got today, and he should be proud of it. And, again, we can debate be proud of it. And again, we can debate it, but it's not a crazy scorecard. And some of you might feel like it's entirely justified, in which case, fine. There's no controversy for you at all. It's great. But I'm just pointing out, as the abilities of opponents rise, it's good to have these skills. There's nothing bad about those skills, but they have to be complemented by something that gets you closer to that damage threshold

because you can't be in these long, grueling fights. A, you get out of fights quicker. B, it makes the judges' decisions easier. Of course, it's easier for me to sit here and just say you should get better. I realize that means absolutely nothing to prize fighters who actually have the task of learning to do it, but as somebody who watches the game

and has at least you guys are the same as me, you recognize that the very best guys who employ that style, the reason why they're the very best is because they can make it a really damaging, threatening, fight-ending place to be. It does seem like once he gets there, he can do a lot of forms of control and scramble and really be on you like a white on rice. But, and, you know, there are submission attempts you have to take seriously, but he never really takes an opponent that I've seen at the UFC level anyway to that threshold very dangerously, very often.

Whereas the sort of the very best guys with that style, they really, they make their presence felt from a damaging perspective right away. So that's going to be a challenge for him as he gets older and develops. Although it's a nice win. And obviously his grappling skills, what was this, his eighth fight? I mean, let's have a hold. Is he, let's see here.

He is, let's see, he is let's see according to sure dog he's he's 24 i mean this was his eighth fight so let's be very very in the interest of fairness here let's be let's dial back the criticism including even mine to a significant degree. He doesn't even have double-digit fights. He's 24 years old. This is a nice start for him, no doubt about it. It's actually a really nice start for him, candidly. Very good.

But, to get to where I think he's obviously going to want to go, the young man is going to have to do some work as it relates to ground and pound. But he's got plenty, plenty of time. 24 years of age. That's very young, very young. So good for him. All right. This is the one I had the most interest in, frankly, heading into the contest and coming out of it. Shavkat Rachmanov defeats Carlston Harris via KO spinning hook kick and punches. Now the hook kick, it turned out, didn't land super flush. But, and by the way, this was 4-10 of the very first round, which I'll get to in just a second.

The spinning hook kick by itself didn't land all that cleanly, but it landed enough to take Harris off of his feet. And then, dude, Shavkat Raghmanov is interesting. This happens a lot in his fights. He is very good at standing ground and pound, right? A lot of guys, like Khabib, they want to tie you up, and then from there, they just sort of lay into you, or they'll control one wrist and blah, blah, blah.

And, of course, he has some of those skills, too. But, you know, he's very good on the feet. He drops a lot of opponents. He hurts them a lot. He finds himself in these situations where he's on top looking over his prey, basically. And he is so good at getting guys to kind of acquiesce to the position. Because I guess they don't think... There's not a lot of guys who excel at standing ground and pound.

I'm on my feet. And I'm bending over at the waist. And I'm finding unique, clever ways to drill the target. He does. He's actually good at that. And then, of course, if he has to transition to the grappling where he's now trying to go for a pass or leg drag, if he wants to put you in leg drag or whatever, whatever he's trying to do, he can do that as well. He can play those levels. But he often will drop a person, and then before he even has to engage with them on the mat or chooses to engage with them on the mat, sometimes he can just sort of stand over them,

and he sneaks through several, and then when they block, he's got an answer for that. Anyway, just, dude, Shavkat Rachmanov is a motherfucking problem for everybody. And I understand that there is a ton of hype over Hamzat Shumayev. I'm not in any way suggesting that you have to think Rachmaninoff is better. I'm not suggesting to you that this guy will never lose. I'm not suggesting to you, I don't know. Here's what, all I can tell you is the following He is undefeated He has nothing but finishes Before this fight it was split down the middle Half submissions

Half striking stoppages He added another one here Dude He's not even trying He's not even trying You He's not even trying. You talk to the people around him. You talk to the people who recruited him and sort of discovered him. And they all talk about him like he's the next coming of Jesus or something.

And I know everyone's like, oh, everybody's corner and camp and management do this. Yeah, not like they do for this guy. I'm telling you, I don't know how far he will go. I cannot predict the future. I cannot tell you that I think I can declare to you he's going to beat Hamzat Shemaev. Hamzat Shemaev might fight him and beat him. That would be a thing that would not necessarily surprise me. What I can tell you is this guy is going to mow through some of your favorite fighters and he's going to contend for a title at some point. And he might just fucking win it too. This, he can block, he's got phenomenal submissions, he can wrestle, he makes good decisions all the time, he's patient with

his offense, he is clinical with his finishes. He's, how old is he? 26? Shavkat Rukmanov? 27. Just turned 27 in, well, not just, but in October. So he's 27 years old. 27 years old, and he looks like that. Now, I know what everyone is saying. Well, who are the guys he's beaten? Okay, let's read out their names, because I agree that this is not the best resume among prospects in the welterweight division. Hamzat has beaten better guys to this point, although it wasn't always the case, but now it is. And I would actually argue Sean Brady in his win over Michael Chiesa actually has a better win than, to this point, Shavkat Rachmanov does.

But he's got a win over Alex Oliveira, which he finished in the first round with a guillotine choke. Then, in the next one, Michel Prezerich, which I know a lot of you guys don't know who that was because he had the USADA suspension. You know, you can call him like one of these middling Brazil guys. That's not quite true. He was one of these aggressive, like if your ground game wasn't locked on, he was going to give you major problems with being the sort of stout, low-to-the-ground, wrestle grappler, position control type. Who, by the way, a guy like Mizell Prezeris has wins over Mads Brunel, Josh Berkman, Desmond Green, Zach Cummings. Good fighters. Marbek Taisimov, like he has wins over solid guys.

Shavkat Rachmanov went through him like a hot knife through butter. Took his time in the first round to just sort of see what he was looking at and then just dispatched with him in the second round like he was the buzzing of flies. Carlton Harris came to this fight undefeated. He had two wins in the UFC. He had a win over Christian Aguilera. He had an anaconda choke, which was a really nice one. The guy reached for a single and tried to dump him and instead Carlton turned him and then as he did locked up the anaconda in the process. It was fucking slick. And then he beat Impa Kasanganai and stopped him inside the first round. By the way, he beat

Christian Aguilera in the first round. He had two first round stoppages. Now, he was very loose with his striking, which we knew, but he's long. He was lanky. He had big power, and he was strong in the clinch. Shavkat Rakhinoff took all of that away. Like that. Did you notice how he was waiting for Harris to throw big strikes? He was just kind of getting out of the way of him, taking a look at it, sometimes counteracting him with it, watching his loose positioning, forcing him into direction changes and then catching him with those kicks.

Always out of range for big shots, never afraid to engage, taking his time, finding the openings, going low, landing high, causing a sniper-like fucking standing ground and pound, and then polishing him off from there. Dude, I had someone tweet, which they're totally correct. They're like, well, yeah, you can beat guys like this, and what does that mean by the time you get to the top five? You're going to have a much harder time. Dude, that's true for everyone. Maybe Kamzat Tramayev is the next champion. Who could in any way be surprised if he was the guy that did that? I mean, it'd be crazy, but at the same time, kind of believable, right? But do I really think he's going to beat, if it ends up happening this way, do I think he's going to beat Kamaru Usman the same kind of way

he's going to beat the Leech? No, of course not, dude. By the time you get to the top five, you're dealing, I don't care what division you're in, you're dealing with bad motherfuckers, man. You're talking about the top five guys for the most part in the world. There's a couple guys in Bellator here and there that have some claims obviously around that, but dude, yeah, of course, of course. You get to the top five, it's going to be significantly harder, dude. That's true for anybody. That's true for Shavkat Rachmanov. That's true for literally any fighter going up. I don't know who you could say that about who actually has been through the top five of division, and they beat them with the same ease as they did number 20 through 25.

Yeah, like, of course, that's much harder. And I cannot predict the future to you. What I'm trying to tell you is the guy is 27. He has, I'm not saying he's perfect at everything, but he's got command of seemingly every part of the game. We'll see how his takedown defense looks against more dedicated, active, frequent wrestler types. That much is still not totally known. But dude, that's a super smart fighter who just makes excellent choices, is well-rounded, calm as a bomb, and he walks into the fucking octagon with wolf pelts on his head and back.

Dude, this is a guy from a different part of the world that, you know, and I think he's at Sanford MMA now, or at least part of the time, and great, because, you know, what a great place to be for a guy that talented. But I'm telling you, I'm telling you, the prospects this early in their career don't look this good this often. This is very, very rare. Hard to know exactly what that means when they finally, as everyone rightly notes, when they finally ascend to the top of that division. What does that mean? I don't know.

He's going to ascend to that top five. He is going to ascend to them. And he's going to beat some of your favorite fighters, probably pretty fucking bad in certain cases along the way. Where it all ends up in that mix with the Bradys of the world and the Chemayevs of the world and whoever else ends up being up there when it all gets mixed, we'll have to see. I can't tell you. I don't know. I don't know how you can look at that and not think that that guy has title potential written all over him. Written all over him, dude. You don't see fighters, you know, and by the way, you talk to the people around him, this contract he's on, he's just trying to fight these guys so he can get through this contract. He wants the next contract, as I understand it, to be the one where he really begins to make more of a serious push. So the argument that he's not beating the very best,

it's incontestably true. It's quite obviously true. But he's dispatching them in the way that he's supposed to. And then the skills he's showing, they're remarkable. They're rare. They're special. He is a special fighter. He's a very special fighter. Hamzat Shumayev is a special fighter as well. And for some of you, and maybe the world in general, he might be even more special. Fine, fine, fine.

One does not necessarily preclude the other. But Shavkat Rachmanov, if you have not paid attention at this point, you got to start. You got to start. He's going to start mowing through very good fighters, and he is going to make a shitload of noise in this division. And if he ends up wearing gold, should not be a surprise at any point whatsoever. He is that talented. But whether he can get it done against other guys who are beasts in their own right, like a Tremayev and some other ones who I'm sure we'll see as the months and years move on, let's see. But if they can keep that kid in rotation, I'm telling you, man, I'm telling you, that dude is a fucking hammer He is a hammer

He is going to hurt Welterweights on his way through And he beat Oliveira when Oliveira missed weight Got a performance of the night bonus here Who are the bonus winners? Let's see if I can tell you I don't know that I have it in front of me. I'd have to look.

Elsewhere on the card. Oh, you know what? Let me look up Shavkat Rachmanov's numbers here very quickly. I want to see his overall stats. It's only through three fights, so it doesn't tell you a whole lot. So what do we have for Rachmanov? Yeah, very judicious. Take down defense 100%, but obviously he's not been tested by somebody very good in that regard.

Like super good. Striking defense 53%, that's pretty good. Sub-average, averaging 2.5 per 15 minutes, that's very high. Strikes landed, he's judicious with it. 2.87, strikes absorbed, 1.27, so he has a very high positive differential. Takedown accuracy, they have him at 33%. But again, that's not indicative of exactly how hard he's going. And then they take down average 1.27.

Yeah, these are hard to read exactly. How will these numbers compare to what he does in the top five? Yeah, it will look different. But that's true of everybody. Everyone's going to look a little bit different when they get to that top five. So I can't wait to see what happens with him. Get this guy through his first contract and let's get him to the next one because

he's about to start. He's about to start absolutely fucking terrorizing people. He is good. Really, really, really, really good. Really good. Elsewhere on that main card, Brendan Allen stepping in. I guess he got the call on Tuesday.

Fought at light heavyweight and submits with no... It wasn't quite a bulldog because a bulldog... It was still a rear naked choke grip versus a, you know, where the head's popping out and the body's behind. Also, kind of like with a clock choke, with a bulldog choke, you can kind of lean your hips back and into it. And it'll make the choke even worse. You can't really do that when you're behind them. But he didn't have any hooks in. He was kind of off to the side, but it didn't matter.

That choke was in so deep. What could a guy like Alvey do? He got dropped with a vicious left hook. So Allen disguised it, coming in low to the body with a right, coming up top with a left, drills him, drops him, and then he's got six submission skills. I've always had a high opinion of Brendan Allen. I think he's a very good fighter. Stumbled a couple of times along the way.

I guess against Chris Curtis, he lost, and against Sean Strickland, he lost. But, you know, those are two good fighters themselves, certainly in the case of Sean Strickland, who was headlining the card tonight. And Chris Curtis, who I thought deserved to be in the UFC a long time ago, learning experiences. We'll see how far he goes. How old is Brendan Allen? He is only 26. 26. Young guy. For 26, he's very, very talented as well. Really talented. Super well-rounded. Trains with a good team. So, dude, to come in and land that left hook was brilliant. The choke was nice. And you did it getting the call on Tuesday.

I take my hat off to Brendan Allen. Very, very, very solid performance. Good pressure. Good presence of mind. Calm. Executed. That's a great job. Brian battle defeating Treshawn Gore.

Unanimous decision. 29-28 across the board. Gore having his moments when he could firmly get battle right up along the fence line. And there he was absolutely doing sick work. I think especially it was the second or third round where he nearly dropped him a couple of times. He had hammers.

But otherwise, he was waiting around. And battle was the one that had to do more work. And obviously didn't have the same kind of power. But it didn't matter. The amount of damage he was able to do ultimately had an effect. But more to the point, Gore was constantly having to block and then reset and then find new positioning and then start it over again and blah, blah, blah.

Meanwhile, he's just getting picked apart and picked apart and picked apart. He had success, extraordinary success in that one very specific range. But if that's going to be the context in which you do your best work, there has to be a little bit more urgency heading into the third to put them there. Easier said than done. I realize, you know, oh, let's see you do it. No, I obviously could not do it. I would fail miserably. Brian Battle would knock me the fuck out in all likelihood. But you get the idea. If that's your mechanism to win, you have to have it more accessible than what it was in this performance. I think that's a pretty reasonable way to put it. So Brian Battle had to work for it.

He had his eye closed. I was surprised Gore didn't try to jab him up a little bit as the fight went on. But Brian Battle stayed composed, stayed to what he does best, and outworked the other guy. Simple as that. Outworked him. And it was a harder thing for him to do, but he got it done. I commend him. And then the opening bout, people got bitter at me for some tweet I don't really understand why but let's talk about it Julian Arosa defeating Steven Peterson via split decision this was a fucking war I mean

Jesus Christ these two I had tweeted that like you know if you look at the spinning back fist that knocked down Peterson and then Peterson throwing three right hands against Arosa on the fence and nearly dropping him. Arosa looking good early, but then not really having defense on his left side, so the right hand of Peterson was finding it over and over and over once they made that adjustment. Saif Saoud

at a 4-7 MA giving Peterson all the life he needed. That was a winnable fight for Peterson. He was in that one. Had to make some adjustments out of the first and got in the second and third, but these two absolutely took it to each other in the best way possible. I want to look at some of the stats here very quickly, if I may. And I had tweeted, I don't think this is in any way controversial. In fact, I would kind of judge the palate of somebody who disagreed as a fight fan. Irosa getting three of five takedowns, Peterson whiffing on zero of two.

Neither was credited with a knockdown, which is kind of interesting. I wonder why that went the way they did. But, you know, look at the volume of strikes. For example, we're talking about Strickland and Hermanson being mid to high 20s, low 30s at most, for the most part. Erosa, significant strikes, 45, 48, 62. Peterson, 39, 59, 50. He really came alive in that second round.

And both guys targeting the head. For Irosa, 77%. For Peterson, 76%. Two fucking dogs. That was a dog fight. Anyway, I had tweeted that that fight was better than Bonner-Griffin. This does not mean that Bonner-Griffin loses its historical significance or that in the year in which it aired, 2005, by the way, I watched that fight fucking live.

I don't know how many people can say that. It was brilliant. It was, you know, did it change the game in the way everyone says it did? It's overstated in that sense. But it was a really significant fight. It was a viral moment. It was one of these early slobber knockers that kind of validated the Ultimate Fighter, at least as an entertainment franchise. And it launched the careers of, at the time, Forrest Griffin and Stephen Bonner, more so for Griffin than the

other way. But dude, I remember the aftermath of that. I remember all that explicitly. If you go back and you watch that fight, it doesn't hold up to modern scrutiny. I said it doesn't age well. It doesn't lose any of the sentimentality we associate with it or to some degree its historical relevance. But as a viewing fight, it doesn't hold up all that well. And my whole point is MMA has advanced to such a degree that you can get a fight like this and and to me, is significantly more entertaining and frankly better than that one. Now, of course, mileage will vary. I can't always speak to everyone's tastes being a matter of, or everyone's preferences lining up with the objective reality. I'm sure that I'm importing my own personal preferences on here in a way that even I can't possibly detect. I get that. We've got our own epistemic limits, but I don't feel like it's very controversial, dude. Like, don't take my word for

it. I tweeted it. Go look at that fight. It doesn't hold up in the sense of the magic that it meant at the time. Not really the relevance for what it meant for MMA, but like as an entertaining MMA fight, you will routinely see fights much, much better than that. I think most educated fight fans understand that, but you know, Twitter is a place where people like to pretend they don't understand anything. So there's that. So congratulations to both of those guys, two fucking dogs. All right, let's get to your questions. If we can, again, thumbs up on the video. If you're watching on YouTube, hit subscribe, excuse me, if you are watching on YouTube. And let's get to your questions. Okay, let's see what you got.

Not many. Leech or G. Neal next for Rachmaninoff? I've seen, I wouldn't mind either of those. I've also seen Neil Magny thrown around. I think any of those fights are good. I don't think that's going to happen because, again, I think he's trying to get through this contract. But once he gets through this contract, then I think those names will make a lot of sense. Satin's person writes, sad seeing

lesser named fighters, excuse me, Irosa and Peterson going to war while on smaller contracts. Peterson missed weight, so Irosa should get an extra 30% and both 50k Friday Night bonuses. Worthwhile for Irosa, but Peterson gets peanuts. Yeah, I mean, I think you guys know how I feel about fighter pay. Will that performance help or hinder Sean Strickland's chances of fighting for the title? When you move up the ladder, it doesn't meaningfully hinder it, right? Like, just the proximity alone is significant enough to wear off a promoter having maybe something of a bad taste. But what it would mean is that you won't get any of the extra benefits that come with being in that space. They couldn't deny you the value of what it means to be 5.

I guess they could do that too, but they typically don't. Like, you will still get other fights against relevantly positioned fighters. Like, that still is a thing that's good for you. And then again, you win that, you just keep escalating. But it doesn't, you can't, you don't enjoy the buoy of excitement. And that actually can be quite powerful for promoters and fans alike. Do you think Jack could have just tried to hold Shawn against the fence and win without rabbit punching and control?

No A lot of grapplers seem to abandon any form of grappling If they get takedowns denied Or is Sean's jab that big of a deterrent That Jack's forced to just lose a striking match I think the jab was big Also it's fucking exhausting to wrestle a guy like that Dude those takedown attempts

Were not close Sean Strickland did a good job Sean Strickland had to reconcile with the fact that there was going to be a moment where a leg was grabbed and he was off balance and he was going to have to fight for underhooks. But that was the most he was inconvenienced. You never saw him extensively wrestle off of his hands. Right?

He never had to worry about that. That's what I'm talking about. How do the people that score the fight for Hermansen remain judges? NFL refs are bad, but if any NFL judge made a mistake that egregious, they'd never ref the game again. We've been over this a few times. You do have to acknowledge, if you've never experienced it, it's impossible to explain.

But if you've sat cage or ringside, and then you go back and you watch that same thing on video they look different i know that sounds insane you're like how could it be it's the exact same fight right but the way in which you interpret it is different because of the nature of well reality it's either in front of you and you can see facial expressions you can hear things differently certain things land for you that you may not be able to detect on screen or vice versa the screen actually gives you an angle into the grappling that you couldn't see for example just being ringside especially if you're in a state that doesn't have monitors there's a lot of ways in which looking at a fight just in front of you and then going back and watching on film it sounds like the most incredibly stupid thing

you've ever heard in your life but it really really, really is true. And I didn't believe it until it happened to me. And I was like, fuck. And it happens. Not, I won't say it. I won't say it's true every time I've done that. Uh, but it's been true a lot. It's been true enough where I was like, you have to acknowledge it. That being said, you know, three rounds for Hermanson, I would just, I would just need to hear what the judge was looking at. Like, what would be the reason you would do that? Because I don't think you can make a strong argument for that. I really don't. Do you think Alvey should consider calling it a day since he hasn't won since 2018

in his 2-7-1 in his last 10? Whether or not he should retire, I think, is a a separate question I don't know if he's taking enough damage for that a lot of times those losses have been boring fights that he did not incur a lot of damage in but I don't know how much longer the UFC will retain his services which is certainly not my call I don't wish bad on him but I think we all sort of know if I think he's I think he's oh and eight right right or maybe 0-7-1 in his last eight or something like that. But I think today he tied the longest losing streak in UFC history with BJ Penn, which would probably indicate he might have to find employment

elsewhere. Which again, that doesn't help me. I don't take any pride in that. But just looking at the reality. Go into your head. Who do you think wins? Shavkat, Rachmaninoff, or Chimaev? See, I just don't know, man. Because Chimaev comes out like a bat out of hell. And he's so fucking good. And he's so overwhelming.

But I just don't know what Chimaev looks like in round two and round three and round four. Like what if Rachmaninoff gets run over for two rounds but survives? And then Chimaev's just not the same guy. Like John Danaher had this post recently on Instagram where he just talked about, everyone knows people get tired as fights go along. But if you're a competitor and you go out there, and if you've ever done this in sparring or if you've ever competed at a local grappling tournament, there's been times where you see people get paired up and the guy across looks like fucking Hercules.

You're like, how does anyone beat this guy? And then you see people beat him and you're like, right. They don't really try to beat him in the first minute. They try to beat him in the 10th. They just wait until even the guy that comes out like Hercules, like a bat out of hell, if you are sturdy in your defense, you have to kind of remind yourself when this gets later, whatever I'm feeling now, it will not be that way at that time.

Now, of course, that's easier said than done. And you could just get your ass kicked before all that happens. But my number one rule, man, let me, I don't want my number one, but one of my major rules, one of my major, major rules about prospects, even ones as good as Rachmanov and even ones as good as Chermayev, their resumes don't necessarily totally speak to this. Chermayev's does a little bit more. But I can't tell you how many times I have seen, I have seen someone come off the regional scene and they look like fucking

world beaters and they got sick power and they've got like 10 wins all by first round KO or TKO or some kind of stoppage. And you're like, damn man, that guy's probably pretty good. But here's the deal folks. You just have to remember this. And Habib avoided this because he got out early enough, but I maintain that if Habib had stuck

around, you would have seen this. To an extent, you can argue he got this in the T-Bowl fight, to an extent. Eventually, in high-level MMA, and this is true for basically everyone, including Jon Jones, including George St. Pierre, including Anderson Silva, including Demetrius Johnson, including you name it. Dude, eventually in MMA, someone is going to put it on them. Someone's going to put it on them. And then the question is, how do they react? Jon Jones had Alexander Gustafson put it on him in the first fight pretty early, and then he was able to at least rally. And he had that spinning back elbow that landed on the head of Gustafson, which kind of turned that fight a little bit late. Now, again, there's some judging controversy, but you could at a bare minimum, Jones rallied, right? Fedor got rocked by Fujita. Fujita put it on him, but what happened?

Fedor held on, got back to his feet, body kick, left hook and dropped him. Pick Anderson Silva against Chael Sonnen. Dude Chael Sonnen. Put it fucking on him. You can go St. Pierre. We can do this all the time. We can do this all the time. Eventually, someone is going to put it on him. I don't know who that's going to be. And I don't know when that's going to be.

The big thing for me about Tremayev is, is he talented? Immensely. He is inarguably very talented. Does he have a weakness in the second or third or fourth round? I have no fucking idea. And that's my point. I don't know. I don't know. And I have no idea if Rachmanov is that guy. Way too early to tell. Rachmanov could be a guy who's more well-rounded than Shumayev, but Shumayev might compete with so much intensity, doesn't matter. Runs his ass over too. Would that surprise you? Wouldn't surprise me.

The dude is shot out of a cannon. I just mean to say, you don't really know about these guys. You don't really, really, really, really know until somebody puts it on them. Until somebody really puts it on them. Dude, someone's going to line up all the champions. If they stick around, if Kamaru Usman sticks around long enough, and he may not, but someone's going to put it on them. Eventually, they're going to have a round or a moment. Or you can even argue Gilbert Burns kind of, you know, touched them up early. Although, that's not quite putting it on him, but you get the idea. Most guys, most of the time, have someone

really, really push them at some point. And the really good ones, sometimes they lose. Like for example, St. Pierre lost to Hughes the first time, but then, you know, found his way back and that was what it was. So gun to my head, who's more well-rounded? Shavkat Rachmaninoff is significantly more well-rounded. But Chumaev is insanely special. He is much more intense. He is much more driven. And I think when you combine that with his skill,

that's why you get the results from him that you do. He is an absolute fucking tsunami. And I don't think even very, very, very, very good fighters are going to have the ability to deal with that. Only the very best will. We'll see how that looks. But again, who the hell knows? Let's see. And I think that's it. I think that's it I think that's it I don't see a whole lot else So anyway

Like the video Hit subscribe Stick around for Brian Campbell He's going to have you a Mario Barrios And Keith Thurman wrap up And I love you guys I'm back Let's do this

Good fun Had by all I appreciate it. Shoot me an email if you have any questions or further thoughts. LukeThomasNews at gmail.com and until then,

ladies and gents, I appreciate you watching. It's 11.20 at night. Get some sleep.