MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC: Vettori Beats Holland | McGregor-Poirier Drama | Bellator 256 Recap | Ep 142

Episode Date: April 12, 2021

With BC out on vaction, Luke is joined by Rashad Evans to recap a packed weekend of combat sports. Marvin Vettori impressed in a win over Kevin Holland in the UFC. Whats next for both guys? Plus, Ryan Bader dominated Lyoto Machida at Bellator 256 to kick off the Light Heavyweight World Grand Prix. Also, Jaron Ennis knocked out Sergey Lipinets. How impressive was the young welterweight star? --------------------------- '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: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You hear that? Ugh, paid. And done. That's the sound of bills being paid on time. But with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card, paying your bills could sound like this. Yes! Earn rewards for paying your bill in full and on time each month.

Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Reveille, reveille, donks. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell.

This is Morning Combat. who looks a little bit different. Of course, because it's not BC. He's on vacation. It is my friend and yours, UFC Hall of Famer, CBS Sports commentator for Combat Sports and Analysis, and a whole lot more. It's Rashad Evans. Hi, Mr. Evans. How are you? What's going on, LT? Man, I am just chilling, enjoying a beautiful day in South Florida.

How are you? I am okay. It's a, what kind of weather is it? It's a little bit over. It's like England today in the nation's capital, so it's of weather is it? It's a little bit over. It's like England today in the nation's capital, so it's not so great, but we had a pretty good weekend. A lot of combat sports over the weekend. Did you watch everything live or did you just catch it all later? What'd you do this weekend? I watched everything live, man. I had a treat and it's very rare that

I get to sit back and be a true fan and watch everything as it airs live but i got lucky and watched everything live where are you on fans versus no fans as a fan when you're watching do you like the fans being there or not being there i like the fans being there i really do man it just adds a different kind of energy to just watching a live event you know it just kind of it just put a little punctuation i guess on the energy level. And I miss it, man. I really do. Yeah. I'm so glad they're gone. I'm the exact opposite.

I'm like, here's the thing. It's like someone was trying to make a point. They were saying that if you watched, and I think this is true, a 12-round boxing fight without the audience pretty clearly is missing something because it's so long it's like you know it's like 36 minutes or so when you add up all of the different rounds plus hello there's a minute in between so it's actually more than that so it ends up being you know quite a long time without some kind of conversation with the audience but like for example when they did Poirier versus Hooker at the apex and you could hear those two rams you know just crashing into each other all

the time i gotta tell you i feel like yeah the fans would have made that better in a different way but it was also good in a different way that they weren't there it's my two cents yeah yeah i hear that man um and having had experience you know firsthand being in the arena at the apex center when there's no fans in there, it does add just a different kind of respect to what these guys are doing in there. Because when you hear the impact and you see the guys still standing after they got clocked with that crazy shot, then it just adds like, okay, these guys are really, really hitting. All right.

We got a lot to get to today. Let's see. We've got UFC from the weekend, Rashad. We've got Bellator from the weekend. We've got a little Jerron En lot to get to today let's see we've got a UFC from the weekend Rashad we've got Bellator from the weekend we got a little Jerron Ennis to get to we got your questions and a whole lot more so let's start things off give the video a thumbs up hit that subscribe button if you're new to MK welcome we appreciate it let's see we've got if you want to try Showtime you certainly can oh yeah here's our social by the way you can see it's all underneath. Sugar Rashad Evans is smart enough to keep his name the same between Twitter and Instagram. I am not, so I've got a little bit of a difference there. But Morning Combat is the same across both as well.

If you'd like to try Showtime, you certainly can. You can go to Showtime.com, get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can pound sand. And if you want to take the plunge, can see the url right there show.com slash bellator mma if you sign up you get the first six months for 4.99 a month for the entirety of the showtime experience whatever is live on the air plus all of the on-demand library uh there uh we got to get rashad evans some merch i feel like do you have any mk merch man i have no

mk merch man i i normally wear a combat shirt but because this is morning combat i didn't want to get the confusion going normally the fans like hey where is this shirt and i don't want to point that out make it you know more obvious that i don't have any gear yet but uh yeah i need some i need some mk gear okay i'm gonna have a conversation with some folks after the show we got to get some head in your way. We'll see if we can figure that out. But for you other folks out there who are like Rashad, maybe you're not a UFC Hall of Famer,

but you ain't got no MK clothes, you can go to store.show.com and of course we've got a whole series of merch items on the way here pretty soon. Rashad, anything you want to plug? Nah, no plugs for me, man. No plugs. Alright, well let's get things started., no plugs for me, man. No plugs. All right, well, let's get things started.

We got a lot of show to get to. Let's kick it off here on this Monday edition. Let's start with the biggest story in the MMA world from the weekend. It, of course, was UFC on ABC2. And in that main event, UFC middleweight Marvin Vittori defeated Kevin Holland via unanimous decision. Frankly, it was never close. I think all the scores were 50-44 across the board, so he had at least one 10-8 round in the course of that.

And you saw it as well as I did, Rashad. Marvin Vittori basically following the Derek Brunson game plan. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. So let's start here. Number one, what was your biggest takeaway from that victory and then second part of the question which we'll get to in a minute did it earn him a title shot but let's start with the first biggest takeaway uh biggest takeaway you know it was smart fight by Marvin uh you know Kevin Holland's very dangerous

on his feet and he mitigated all uh any any dangers by taking him down but his chain grappling was really really impressed me you know he was able to not only hold kevin down but you know advance his position going from one uh position to the next and really not allowing it to get in that position where the referee could stand it up because the action got stale um i would have liked to see more ground and pound in certain positions, but for the most part, he did enough to get the job done. Now, does this warrant a title shot? I don't think so. I mean, just because of the fact that, you know, I mean, Kevin Holland is a tough out and, you know, especially taking on short notice, but at the

same time, I just didn't see that punctuation on the fight to show that you know the show that marvin is is in that conversation of being a title contender i think you know when you're going for the title i think there needs to be that that that hype around it at first there needs to be a performance where the fans are like yo this guy needs to be in there i don't know what the ufc is thinking for not having him in there i think guy needs to be in there. I don't know what the UFC is thinking for not having him in there. I think that needs to be in order to have somebody, you know, to challenge a guy like Israel Adesanya because Israel is much CTV and you want to see him get a dance partner as such. We don't want to just continuously just feed him to feed him, but we want to make it interesting. We want to make it, you know, a blockbuster if we can or close to as a blockbuster

as we can. So I think there's a little bit more heavy lifting on Marvin's part in order to get that. And with one more impressive win, I think he does get that. Yeah, I think he's one win away, too. We'll get to that in just a second. Let me say this. On Friday's show, Rashad, what I had argued was, because at that point, obviously, we had known that Darren Till

was going to be out. That was the originally scheduled opponent, and Kevin Holland was going to fill in. And I thought to myself, if you're Marvin Vittori, this is something of an IQ test. You just saw Derek Brunson do what he did to Kevin Holland. I'm not saying that I think Marvin Vittori is Derek Brunson, Rashad. What I'm saying is, if you're Marvin Vittori and you saw what Derek Brunson did, you had to like your chances

to be able to follow a similar kind of game plan if you needed to. Why would you strike with this guy on the feet for any pronounced amount of time if that's not a choice you needed to take? And Marvin Vittori, he's a bit aggro. He's a bit kind of bro dude, screaming. And I don't know, in a different world,

he'd be eating beer cans and I don't know, doing crazy stunts or something. He decided to do MMA. My point being is he gets a bit of a reputation for a guy who doesn't make rational choices and he's kind of aggro. I don't know. He showed me five rounds of rational choices. Was it the most exciting rational choices?

Okay, maybe not. But there's a lot of ways that could have gone wrong. You've come all this way. It's a last minute switch. Darren Till is not Kevin Holland. Someone set it up for you. I don't know. I kind of feel like people should be like, yeah, was I blown away? No, I was not blown away. But was I impressed that this guy was able to follow a disciplined game plan for 25 minutes on a short notice opponent in the main event on ABC? Yeah, Rashad, I guess I am. Yeah, I mean, you know, I think for the most part, yeah, you're right.

You know, he went in there and he definitely did what he needed to do and he definitely got his IQ points for being able to follow that solid game plan that Derek Brunson laid out. But I felt like it was kind of a miss for Kevin Holland in the sense that with Marvin Vittori, he's someone that you can definitely engage with in a verbal banter and get a reaction from. Vittori is not going to shy away from trash talking or getting in that kind of confrontation. You can emotionally engage him all day. And I don't really see that from Kevin Holland. And I think he would have been able to, I guess, I can't even say,

it's hard to say what he would have been able to do, but it may have made the fight take a different kind of complexion if Vittori would have fought on that emotional uh that emotional sense you know when it comes to decision making you know if you're not too emotionally engaged then it's easier to make the smarter choice and it was easier for marvin to make the smart choice over and over again with that takedown uh yeah i think yes that sounds that sounds absolutely right to me and uh one thing i've kind of noticed with him a little bit too, Rashad, I wonder how you feel about this because I saw you were planning your training slash coaching

schedule for the day before the show started. Vittori's got pretty good takedowns along the fence. We saw it in the Adesanya fight. We saw it here too. He'll press people into the fence, Rashad, but he won't spend a whole lot of time there. He's got takedowns on the fence where he'll

press you there to restart the position or hold it in place for a second, and then he pulls you off of it and then sends you in a series of chain directions to get you to pick one way, and then he goes the opposite. It's pretty effective. Yeah, it was really effective. He really showed that his IQ with grappling and wrestling is at a higher level because, you know, the way he pulled off the cage and how he was able to drop the level and kind of just beat Kevin Holland to the angle,

even before securing a takedown, which allowed him to fall, fall into position to be on top in the takedown position. It was a really slick way of getting a takedown. it was one that was a low cost energy uh takedown and when you're looking at you know the takedowns in mma one thing that makes them so uh a dreaded thing to go for over and over again because it is is the the energy that you have to get on those takedowns but if you know vittoria's showing he's able to get these takedowns without expending too much effort and too much energy, then some of the guys like the Israel, the Zion, the guys who have a hard time or may have a hard time getting up could be in trouble because if you

don't got to spend too much energy, then the effort that you can put on top is that much more. A couple things I would say also about Vittori that I like and things that I'm a little bit worried about. We have seen Rashad's situations. I'm trying to think worried about. We have seen Rashad situations. I'm trying to think if there was a situation.

Yeah, I think it's true for you too. When you fought Tiago Silva, that wasn't your originally scheduled opponent, was it? No, it wasn't. It wasn't. So let me ask you about this. People are like, oh, he should have finished Kevin Holland. But it's like Derek Brunson couldn't finish him.

Kevin Holland, his takedown defense, not great great we'll talk about him in just a second but like if you look at the numbers he doesn't take a ton of abuse underneath right when he gets taken down he's pretty good about for the most part staying out of trouble he doesn't advance the fight really but he doesn't get like you know run over or something uh so I I appreciate that you know Vittorio's able to get the takedown, although he didn't do much with it. But here's my point. A lot of times, headliners, when they get a last-minute opponent change, you don't necessarily see the best of them. They get the job done, but they get real different about the risk calculus there. There's probably a lot of factors in play.

When you fought Tiago Silva, I think you headlined that car. I think it was a UC 103 or something, something like that. Did you feel that way? Yeah, I wanted to get the finish, but at the same time, I really wanted to get the win more than anything. I think when a guy's coming in and you have a short notice fight, you know that you're going to go out there and you're going to put the pressure on him. You're going to try to do what you need to do, but for the most part,

you're not going to try to do what you need to do but for the most part you're not going to you're not going to try to you know uh take too many chances for the most part because you know that this all these guys have is that chance so you're going to keep the pressure on you and keep it steady now if this fight is going to take any kind of different look it's up until the guy who's coming in to challenge to make it so that okay now i have to change up the level in which i was fighting and then now i can raise the bar on you but for the most part if i got you and um and and it's a last minute fight i'm gonna go put that pressure on and if there's a position or if there's there's something that i see that you're not doing then i'm gonna put then i'm gonna

put more pressure on you in that area but if if you're not going to show me that glaring hole, then I'm going to keep it status quo and just get the W. Okay, so let's talk about the second part of this real quickly if we can, Rashad, which is to earn him a title shot. See, I'm of the position, Rashad, that I'll give Vittori credit for making the smart, rational choices to get his hand raised when facing a dangerous, if somewhat limited opponent, in a short notice main event situation.

I think he made the right call. At the same time, if you're going to make that call, which is something of a safer choice, if you're going to do that, you can't go out there and say, I've done everything I possibly could to earn a title shot. To me, this was just evidence that his win over jack her manson was no fluke that's not that people thought it was but i'm saying yes this big dude can go 25 minutes he can make smart rational choices to get his hand raised but has he done enough to get a title shot it's like dude robert whittaker fights this weekend a you could already give it to him b if he beats kelvin gastelum how do you not give the title shot to Robert Whitaker?

I think that's where I come down. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, I totally agree. You know, Marvin's had two great fights back-to-back, but at the end of the day, it's not with that punctuation that you really feel you need to see. I mean, you have some worthy contenders ahead of him that are definitely more deserving. And it will take that punctuation.

That's what it means about that punctuation. When you have that punctuation, then you have the ability to leapfrog over the worthy contenders who might be more deserving than you. You know what I'm saying? So that's what Marvin really needs to consider, the fact that, yeah, with the knockout, he could have leapfrogged past those guys and got a title shot. But without it, now he needs to have another solid win against a top guy. And then from there, he definitely earned a title shot. But I think he has one more title shot. And I don't really

believe that he should even rush to try to get a title shot. If think he has one more title shot and I don't really believe that you know he should even rush and try to get a title shot if he wants to be champion he wants to hold that belt for a while take your time knock off another top contender and then go for the belt that's the other part too it's like okay he didn't finish Holland because I'll give him the short notice exception but also it's like if you look at his last few fights it's a lot of decisions he's gotten a lot better rashad he's got a lot better but that that i wonder if you could speak to this there's ways to like get parts of your game where you don't make the same mistakes or you really improve certain parts of it but i also feel like there's another gear separate from that

that fighters can either sometimes get into or develop where they get much better at finishing. He hasn't quite gotten there yet, has he? No, he hasn't. And that's when a guy is close to his mastery level. When you see guys close to their mastery level, and by mastery level, I mean, there's always a skill set that we all learn. But it's when I start to separate in my skill set is when I start to get my skill set to the point where it becomes automatic, where I can land my overhand right. Like I landed on Chuck and it's and it's known for knocking people out or something like that. You know, something along those lines where you just see like it's almost like a finishing move and it doesn't you know they can hit it on anybody you know and i i just don't see that kind of uh that kind of technique out of marvin yet out of out of any technique you know not even i can't say oh yeah but he needs to watch

out for this for marvin he needs to watch out for marvin's left hook or something you know there's not that one thing and because there's not that one thing he needs to definitely not that one thing. And because there's not that one thing, he needs to definitely develop that one thing or multiple things so that way it is a conversation for whoever he has to fight and they have to prepare for that. All right, so let's talk about Kevin Holland here real briefly. Then we have to call an audible. There's something of a breaking story we'll get to here. But first, Kevin Holland.

I didn't like this gamble, Rashad. And it's funny. I'll see decisions that fighters make before fights like should I take it should I not or or an organization should we attempt this business effort should we not and those are revealing because I've found that through that I'm a little bit more risk hesitant than some other players in the space which fine you know there's both positives and negatives to that. I don't present that to you as like a better alternative. It's, you know, it's got strength and weaknesses like any position. But what I mean to say is I didn't like this gamble because you had to ask yourself, can Marvin, does Marvin Vittori have enough of the skills of what Brunson was able to do over Kevin Holland to follow a similar game plan,

you had to know the answer was yes. And I appreciated that Kevin Holland showed a little bit more fire here, a little bit more working off of his back, a little less trash talk, a little more focus. But why would you go and get audited against Derek Brunson and then go up against the guy who can do most of that auditing himself without the time in between to fix the reasons why you got audited I didn't like this gamble at all what do you make of the choice he made and what should he do next well it's it's the old saying right the same things that make you laugh will make you cry in 2020 he blessed us all right he blessed us all with great uh fights by taking

them short notice sometimes. And, you know, he's had some great performances in 2020. And, you know, I thought that this is a good way for him to kind of right that wrong that happened in a Derek Brunson. And I was thinking that, you know what, there's a possibility that that takedown and him being held on doesn't happen in this fight. Because, you know, if There's a possibility that, that, that, that takedown and him being held on doesn't happen in this fight because, you know, if, if you look at the fight where he fought Jacare, Jacare took him, taking him down. And we knew at that point, okay, it was, might've been a rat for Kevin Holland because if anybody gets him down, especially Jacare, you know, he's going to do his thing. But when Kevin knocked him out, we were thinking, okay, well, this guy, you know,

has, has some confidence. He has some game off his back to be able to do something like that for Jacare. So I thought that maybe, maybe there was a little bit of fool's gold in that Derek Brunson. So, but, but it really wasn't, it really wasn't. And, um, that's, that's the thing with, with, with this whole Kevin Holland situation is the fact that he needs to seriously take some time and get better and develop the area of his game. All right. Let's – last question on this. How long should he sit out? If you're Kevin Holland, you're sitting on three weeks.

It was a bad last three weeks for you. How long do you wait before you come back? He's got to wait at least, uh, at least a few months, at least, I would say probably about, I'll say probably about five, six months. And I, and I, and I say that because not only does he have to grow in this area area, but he's got to get back that same mindset that he had before. Like he's taken a bit of a mental step back, you know, like, like mentally speaking, he's not sounding the same as he was. I met this guy, I met him, uh, at, at the fighters hotel and he was fiery. He was so fiery. Uh, he almost got in a fight with Israel Adesanya when I tried to introduce him you know

just just uh you know uh back you know when when we were at the hotel like they almost got into it and he was just that fiery you know what I'm saying he wanted to fight everybody I want to see that guy again I want to see the guy who wanted to fight everybody again and he's just not there now he's kind of conceding to the fact that he's getting beat if you're the number one in the world you don't you never concede to you never concede to losing you never do and i'm seeing him concede to it and i think more more or less than his skill level with the wrestling i think mentally he needs a reset yeah when he gets wrapped up and someone presses him into the cage so let's say it's a 50 50 one overhook one underhook you know and the person's trying to

fit the person taking him down trying to figure out the next steps to get to the legs or you know whatever they're doing he's not real urgent is he he's not really like i you know not that you want to freak out but that you want to take real concerted steps to stop and separate what's happening here and you look at his messages on social media afterwards it's like you know i got humped well jorge masvidal complains about getting humped too, but then he brings in Bo Nickel in practice. You know what I mean? He's bringing in like three-time national champions from Penn State

to get him ready. So he does the jibber-jabbering about it, but he also does the work. To me, Kevin Holland sort of feels like, oh, you took me down and, you know, you held me there. It's like that's a part of the game I don't really care about. So to me it doesn't mean anything. Now I'm putting words in his mouth. I don't really care about. So to me, it doesn't mean anything. Now I'm putting words in his mouth. I don't know if he feels that way,

but it doesn't look that way. You got to do the Jorge Masvidal bit. You can insult them all you want for all that stuff, but you got to at least try to maximize your chances via defensive wrestling. And until he does that, I don't know what he's going to do.

You're absolutely right. I mean, this is a fight game. And to win a fight means that I impose my will over you. And my will is whatever I choose that will to be. You know what I'm saying? It doesn't matter what I choose that will to be. If I'm beating you and I do that over you, then you lost to me no matter what. And you should take a look and see where you're deficient at.

And this is what I mean about the mindset. and see what where you're deficient at um the fact that and this is what i mean about the mindset you know what i'm saying the mindset after you lose and get dominated in one facet of the sport is not to say oh well you know you dry hump me and stuff like that and and to not take it serious is that you gotta be like hey i gotta i gotta work on this you know what i'm saying i think i think the world of kevin of Kevin Holland, I think that Kevin is one of the toughest guys and has a lot of potential to rise to the next level and be one of those guys. But he's got to get it together here. He's got to really start to turn it around from a skill set standpoint

and look at those areas where he needs to focus on and get better at without the reservation in it and just do what needs to be done. Let's call an audible here, Rashad. So during the course of our wonderful discussion around Kevin Holland's defensive wrestling and everything else in between, Conor McGregor has been tweeting Dustin Poirier. Now let's back up a step here just a second. Did you follow what happened last night with Dustin on social media towards Conor?

No, I did not. All right, so I'll set it up for you in the audience who may have missed it as well. So I guess Conor did a prediction video or some kind of video where he predicted a fourth round stoppage of Dustin in their third fight, which is supposed to be on July 10th.

Okay, and it was some kind of special maneuver. Maybe it was a kick, maybe it was a punch, but it was a fourth round, you know, striking stoppage. Dustin last night took to Twitter, and on Twitter he, I'm going to, here it is, you can see it on the screen. That's a fun prediction, Conor McGregor. You also predicted a donation to my foundation,

The Good Fight, and you and your team stopped responding after the fight in January. See you soon. prediction conor mcgregor you also predicted a donation to my foundation the good fight uh and you and your team stopped responding after the fight in january see you soon july 10th paid in full okay well you can imagine this did not necessarily sit all that well with he and his team audio tar came out and made some kind of weird statement calling it low and it's like well i'm not sure which one's low is it low to say you're going to donate money and then not do it or is it low to bring that up i don't know but okay conor mcgregor has a different idea about things uh he's basically saying you know we i don't just give people money i want to know where it's going so he put out one tweet to that

effect but now they're just going back and forth Let me read the ones that came out while we were talking. This is Conor McGregor to Dustin Poirier. You're ripped, you inbred hillbilly. Why do you wink with your ears, you fucking brain-dead hillbilly? 500K with no plan in place? Ye hang tight, fool. You must be new to money. Well, sorry, you, Conor, but okay.

The fight is off, by the way i'm gonna fight someone else on the 10th good luck with your old contract kid and there's one more let's see if we can get it my team does their due diligence to make sure every donation meets the mark my generosity is known you will pay with your brain for this attempt at smearing my name shooting ass shelling ass bitch little bitch kicks from a shell good luck when you're caught you're fucked okay okay rashad okay your your response to boy connor's pissed huh hey listen i love it because this is the connor that we need we need connor to be pissed we need con to be pissed. I don't want to see Conor shaking. I don't, I don't, I didn't, listen, I like

sportsmanship. I really do. Don't get me wrong, but I don't want to see Conor McGregor do it. I mean, I like to see Conor in the state that he's in because that's when we get the best fights out of Conor. Now, Dustin and Diamond Poirier, I mean, that was a great call out because the truth of the matter is, you know, he did say that he was going to donate, you know, to his foundation. And they were all buddy-buddy in the last fight and all those kind of things. So out of respect and the word of your man, you do have to, you know, do exactly as you say you were going to do as a man.

As a man, you have to, you know, just on the strength. But I love this action back and forth, and I hope it carries over to the fight because the truth of the matter is I don't want to see Conor McGregor in another fight like that. I don't want to see it because he's missing a part of what made him great. You know what I'm saying? And what makes him great is the fact that he does talk himself into the corner. And when he's backed into the corner, that's when he fights. I got to tell you, Rash rashad i like you a lot i'm not donating 500 000 to your foundation i want you to know that i'm never gonna do that i'm never gonna offer you that kind of money to

your foundation i gotta tell you when the last fight came around the rematch and people were asking me like casual fans like yeah but connor's like he's real nice now i aren't i honestly believed and maybe you did at the time i don't know but at the time i was like well okay it's the the pre-fight stuff is not as fun now but you know he's rich he's older he's a dad he doesn't necessarily need to go to those places to get that out of himself he's a mature fighter he's developed in his skill set i don't know if i believe that anymore in fact i'm pretty sure that i don't i don't know that he needs to be like raging mad either to your point you got to be able to make some you know calculated decisions in a in the heat of the moment but dude when he's a little

bit like you got to just be who you are perfect example if george saint pierre tried to do the thing where it was like fuck you bitch i'm gonna kill you you'd be like i don't know if this works for me even when he tried to matt hughes uh you know this does not impress me with your performance that kind of a thing you were like jesus george this is terrible what are you doing so you got him being sportsman, to your point, Rashad, that's who he is. Let's leave him that. Conor is a troll.

Conor is a jerk. Conor's in your face, and he's loud, and he's kind of annoying. But that is the guy that produces, I think, the magic. It at least gives him some spark for observers to believe him. Yeah, I totally agree with that, man. I mean, I think agree with that, man. I mean, I think that's what was missing in his last fight was just that spark that just, you know,

I can't lose because I talked this much trash. And now that he's luring us back in. And here's the thing about it. Like, when this fight was getting talked about over again, I'm just like, oh, my God, I don't want to see this. This is a foregone conclusion. You know, Conor's done. I just didn't want to see it. It just didn't have that interest to me. Now I'm interested. I'm interested because, you know, it takes a different kind of complexion when you have Conor McGregor talking like this to Dustin, because for the most part, I didn't feel

like Dustin did. I mean, he didn't do well at all last time. You know, last time he lost a fight before it even happened with the trash talk in. So now we'll see what this does to him. But having that devastating win over Conor last time, this trash talk might just be a drop in a bucket to Dustin. He might just be like, say what you want to, kid. I'm going to own you. Well, here's what I also can't decide he's like fuck you fights off you know you're gonna get you're gonna you're

gonna pay for this do you think the fight's off or no no the fight's not off it can't be off i mean it's it's he needs a fight you know i'm saying he needs it he here it is dustin dustin's allowing him back in the conversation by even having this fight what is the angriest you ever were but like you could channel it is there a fight where you were like you could just feel maybe not even anger is the word but just a readiness to get the job done but at the same time it wasn't in control of you you were in control of it it was the rampage fight i was just seething that fight that fight was just one that it it took very little to just set me off and normally i like to stay in a nice playful mood and joke

around and laugh but there was no laughs about it like when it came fight week i was just locked in super intense not laughing too much just uh i need i needed to get this fight i needed to get this w you know i felt i felt as if like rampage was humiliating me and need i needed to get this fight i needed to get this w you know i felt i felt as if like rampage was humiliating me and i just needed to just shut them up that's interesting yeah i hope they make it on uh on july 10th the last thing i'd say about this is what do you make of this idea like can you regain a lost fire you and i have probably seen a lot of fighters come and go and they kind of just burn out and sometimes they burn out for like good reasons let me give you an example I don't want

to say people's names but I've seen fighters and by the way this is very like you know I've seen fighters experience similar circumstances and it does nothing to them one way or the other but I'm saying I've seen people like get right with religion I've seen people become dads I've seen people like I don't know how to say it and they come into the game with like this anger from their life and then as their life gets a little bit sorted and things begin to find order and the reasons why they were angry no longer apply to the world i've seen them get calmer but then not as good as a fighter as they used to be and I don't know if you can recapture that. Now, I'm not saying that's happened to Conor, but his life has come together in pretty

positive ways. Financial stability, familial stability. Obviously, there's trappings that come with being a celebrity and he has his own problems with the law. But what do you make of this hypothesis? That's a great hypothesis. I think you just kind of, you know, without even knowing it, describe what happened to me. You know, that's the truth of the matter. You know, when I first started fighting, I had like this residual anger that I had from my life. And there was no putting it out. There was no quenching it. There was no satisfying it.

And, you know, I just needed to fight. It was almost therapy for me. And as life happened, you know, and, you know, I've been able to get successful in life and just, just living, it changed a lot of those things and it allowed me to heal. And I healed in those areas that were, were raw and was, was a big part of, you know, was a big fuel to why I fought. And as I moved to that place of healing, I just was like, why am I doing this anymore? So can you get that fire back? You can get that fire back because what I'm talking about is perspective.

You know what I'm saying? At one perspective, I fought like that because I had that mindset, you know, from the perspective I was dealing with. But once I was healed, I was, you know, still thinking from that perspective. What I needed to do was I needed just to shift my thinking, you know, change the game up. It's all a mental game anyways, right? But if you're able to change up the game, change up the why you're doing it, then you can definitely refuel yourself and change the why you're fighting. And if Conor has done that, then we can see a devastating Conor in there. But it's just a matter of just changing that why.

But you have to have that conversation with yourself. Right. It won't happen by itself. It's not automatic. No. We'll come back to this if there's more developments on it. Team, I don't know if there's any other things that I'm missing. I don't think so. I think I got to the majority of it. Let me move the show along if I can. Bellator 256

Rashad took place on Friday on Showtime. Alright, so a couple of your former best friends there Rashad. Ryan Bader defeating Lyoto Machida in the first bout in the light heavyweight Grand Prix. Let's talk about it here for just a second, then we'll get to some of the other pieces from the card itself. How did Bader look to you, Rashad? He looked good.

One thing I've always been a critic about Bader is, you know, get off his game plan a little bit, you know what I'm saying? Sometimes he can be, be, I guess, coaxed off his game plan, and he stayed very consistent, you know, and, and the most part, he was able to close the distance with his hands, and take some really good, powerful shots, and just keep Machida on his heels. I mean, that was a tough fight going against Machida because Machida was burying in those heavy leg kicks. And that's what Machida does really well. And he sets these traps. Machida does a really good job of setting traps. And Machida's traps are this. He throws really blistering leg kicks, right? And he just throws them out of nowhere. So you on the outside, you get kind of panicked and scared because when

somebody throw heat at you, throwing like a baseball at your hand, you're like, okay, I need to hurry up. And it forces you to take a bad shot or take a bad punch or just kind of forces your action when you don't need to, when you're not ready. And then that's when Machida capitalizes. Now, Ryan Bader did a really good job of absorbing those big shots and then still staying calculated and then still setting up his takedowns and getting a takedown. That's something that we wouldn't have seen in Bader a couple years ago, but that just shows the development in Bader. It does.

For me, I came away with two things here from this, Rashad. One was I think Bader might be your favorite to win that side of the bracket because it was Lyoto, Bader, then it was Corey Anderson. Obviously, he's still very much a player. And then Davlits Don Yagshimuradov, who is something of an unknown or at least we don't know how he's going to do at this level kind of a thing. So you would imagine it's probably going to be Bader versus Anderson, although it may not necessarily be.

I'm like, he might win the whole bracket. He is the heavyweight champion. He still has a lot of skills to compete and get wins, but I don't, know it was he 37 i didn't learn it 36 something like that i didn't learn anything new to me what i definitely learned was that like machina did really well in that first round in fact i thought he won it and then he fell off of a cliff i think he's 43 years old he might be 42 but soon father time's caught up with him i know he's smart i know that um you know he's well liked uh he's been in the fight game a long time he's done some big things

i don't know how you can watch this and say yeah it's got to be hard to have a big ryan bader barreling down on you okay fine but also you know that's the guy from 10 years ago that would have done that i i don't think that's true, Rashad. Yeah, you're right in that respect because I've seen when that fight, Machida just kind of trailed off in the energy perspective. And the thing that, to your point, what made it seem as if like, you know, maybe he's a little bit, you know, getting to that point where he needs to think about is this what he needs still wants to do. It's a recovery, right? When you're getting tired like that and you can't recover and just don't seem to be able to do it, then it's like the reserve isn't there.

And it might be time in the legs, too. The legs is what I look at. The legs didn't look as strong as they need to. Early on, they did, but just after the fight got going, his legs were kind of getting stuck in the mud when when he needed to be moving and the old machida would have been out of there and that's how he was able to catch people in those traps was his legs so yeah you're right about that and um when you say when you say legs just to clarify to clarify do you mean like

his footwork or do you mean that the legs themselves were a little bit wobbly? Well, yeah, his footwork and he looked a little bit wobbly. Like, you know, there was times where because early on in the fight when he was fresh, he was, you know, using those leg kicks to kick and then move out of the way when Bader was closing in. But then after a while, you've seen Bader just come and press the action and then Machida not being able to get his legs out and then even off the jab where Machida was recognizing that the next motion that Bader was going to do was a level change for the takedown he stopped even recognizing that motion and really just getting his plant his foot planted for the defense with a punch and getting just blown over with the takedown so his legs were getting stuck a little bit.

Interesting. Okay, so elsewhere on the – actually, you know what? Let me ask you. Do you share my opinion that Bader is the – in your mind, is he the favorite to win that side of the bracket again? He already beat Liotta, so the other two would be Anderson and Yakshamurdov. I think that Yakshamuradov is a bit small, so I think that he's going to get beat by Corey Anderson. But I think the pace that Corey Anderson has

is going to be something that challenges Ryan Bader. And the fact that he's... I mean, Ryan Bader has a really good rolling left hook and some power in those hands, but those are combinations that sometimes he kind of jumps into. And with a guy like Corey Anderson Anderson who has great straight linear punches and at the same time has really good level changes with a good pace that might be a big challenge for him Bader's got a big punch though you know I know that's that's the thing that's the thing and Corey and Corey sometimes has trouble taking

that big punch right it should be kind of interesting all right the last part of the bellator 256 storylines here kat zingano versus the winner of cyborg smith now they they already fought cyborg and smith in the ufc at 140 pound catch weight cyborg you know made short work around i don't know what else to say she made short work of her so that is gonna they're gonna run that back but this time of course at the at the 145 pounds um It'll be for the title. Let's say it ends up being Cyborg, okay? Which I suspect it will be, but let's see. You think Kat Zingano can out-wrestle her for five rounds? Yes. Yes, I think she can out-wrestle her.

Whoa, okay. I think she can because here's the thing about it. I don't necessarily think that Cyborg has the best wrestling in the world. I think she makes a lot of mistakes in a grappling i think if any if you're gonna beat her anywhere it will be in the grappling department you know so i think she definitely has a chance in that capacity but she she can't be afraid and that's one thing that that that stopped her in the last fight and that's the thing that stops a lot of people from being cyborg is just the fear factor alone um i i'm skeptical of

her chances to be honest with you because here's the thing about i was having this debate with bc as well and everyone's like oh cyborg's in the twilight of her career which okay fine that's probably true it's definitely true uh she ain't showing a lot of signs of slipping though man like she's pretty she's still pretty much the same. I mean, there's some differences, but she's more or less the same Cyborg than she has been the last few years. She's a little bit more disciplined.

She's not as wild as she once was. And while I do think that Kat is probably the better wrestler of the two overall, I don't know. Cyborg, this is what you were getting at earlier, dude. She competes with a certain level of intensity uh throughout the course of a fight that i don't know i see zingano do yeah well lc here's the thing like like you said i i i agree in that respect and i and i and

i think that yeah overall i think that her her that her chances are slim to none and slim left town. But at the same time, I think that if she can get the fights in the areas where she can contest with the physical aspect, with the grappling, I think that can be a bit challenging for Cyborg. But it's all about the stand-up. How is that standup exchange gonna go? What is, how is Kat feeling comfortable with the transition right before she goes for the shot? Because the shot is one thing, but being able to get the shot on a consistent basis

where she's able to make Cyborg have to really dig deep to defend it, that's another thing. And that really only happens when you can get Cyborg to engage blocking some of these punches up here where she can penetrate deep off a takedown. other thing and that really only happens when you can get cyborg to engage blocking somebody's punches up here where she can penetrate deep off a takedown all right so we'll come back to the ufc card as well i want to point i forgot to mention that earlier um let's go to something else that happened on showtime all over the weekend so bellator was on friday boxing showtime

championship boxing was back on saturday and we had told everyone about I said to everyone I listen I'm not some kind of boxing expert but I think about it I don't know about a year ago or so uh BC was like you gotta see this guy Jerron Ennis and I watched him and I was like holy smokes he is he is good he was 21 22 at the time he's now 23 years old and he he faced Sergey Lipinets in the main event on Saturday, I think at 147 pounds, pure welterweight. And he beat him easily. I mean, it was, he did whatever he wanted to. I remember watching it. BC is on vacation, Rashad, and he hit me up, and he goes, how did Ennis look?

And I told him, I said, dude, Lipinets was, he was never in this fight. He landed a couple of decent shots, you decent shots through the course of whatever it was, five rounds and some change, but not really much. Jerron Ennis does and did almost whatever he wanted to. Rashad, you've been around a lot of fighters and a lot of kickboxers, a lot of boxers too. For 23 years old, can you tell me and tell the audience just how good Jeraron Ennis is

absolutely phenomenal and listen his ability to change stances and fight effectively out of both stances is what I was most impressed in like most people when they change stances there are some holes when they change to the side they're not familiar with defensively speaking but you couldn't find any of those holes at all in Joran he just looks super fluid and super fast with those combinations in the power that he threw with those combinations was crazy and I love the fact that he's able to change up speeds the fact that he changed up speeds the way that he does on his combinations makes him that much more effective I haven't seen a guy fight like this meaning from left to right, changing up stances,

in boxing since marvelous Marvin Hagler. I mean, rest his soul, one of the greatest fighters at fighting from that switch stance. But you look at Ennis, 23 years old, with great punching power, being able to switch stances like that, and with a great punching vocabulary and great angle selection, the sky's the limit for this guy.

Why don't you see boxers change stance as much? Well, because with boxing, you know, they're so much more technical and they're only hitting from the waist up, you know. So when you switch up the stance, defensively speaking, you're more vulnerable. So a lot of guys don't perfect the defense on that side enough where they feel comfortable enough to switch stances. And that's why they don't do it as like they would do because when they're in boxing, these guys are just so efficient on their feet. And if you're going with a guy who's really efficient, you don't got a chance if you switch stance and you're not defensively put together.

When you talk about him switching the tempo and his punches, do you mean like let's say he throws a three punch combination he'll go slow slow fast like he'll change tempo in the middle of a combination like what do you mean yeah yeah by that i mean yeah he'll start off making his punches look one way and then as you're seeing his hands go one way then he changes on another speed on you and it makes it really hard to uh to even stop that if you're if you're on a defensive side because you're looking at it one way and your speed is for another way and then he comes and just brings it that much harder it's hard because you don't really see it you don't really see it at all you just feel it you're just like

man i didn't even know what hit me with you honestly feel like the referee jumped in and hit you with something the referee's uh also against you you have to fight the opponent and the referee yeah uh in terms of in terms of being 23 years old he doesn't look 23 right he looks i mean he does look 23 he's a young guy but what i mean in terms of his skill set um people have been talking about who he should fight, and I saw some people throw out the name Keith Thurman. You don't believe Keith Thurman will take this fight. Why not? Nah, Keith Thurman better not take this fight. I mean, Keith Thurman's been out.

Hey, Keith Thurman, he's 32 years old, so he's still in his prime, and he's going into a stronger year. I think those years between 30 to maybe like 34 is sometimes your strongest times. But, you know, Keith Thurman's been out for two years and he's coming off a loss with Manny Pacquiao and just, you know, haven't been active. When you haven't been active, you don't want to step in there with the guy who has been active and who's younger and who's surging and who, you know, hasn't had their chance to be at the top.

So for them, you know, they're looking at, you know, being up there as a champion. And if you're not willing to match that with that mindset, then you can get chewed up. And for Keith Thurman, it won't be a good fight for him. Oh, it's just one note about Jerron Ennis, if I can. This is a conversation, obviously, I wish BC was here for, because he would probably be full of delight and glee. But I've said something to BC about Jaron,

and I said the same thing about Teofimo. I've said about MMA fighters, too, Teofimo Lopez, about MMA fighters as well, which is that sometimes when I watch a guy, let's say he's up and coming, right? So let's say for the MMA side, he's either brand new to UFC, Contender Series, or LFA, that kind of a level. Sometimes you'll see a prospect coming up, and I use the words, their talent jumps off the screen.

They move in ways that a neophyte doesn't. They have a certain sophistication, slickness, efficiency, smarts, well-roundedness. And I thought Teofimo lopez before the lima limachenko fight was that way ennis is that way have you can you think of a time when you saw someone and it was like immediately clear to you uh in their early stage that they were going to do something special because their talent jumped off you know the the page or the screen or whatever was in front of you yeah the last time i time I felt that way, I was in China, and I met this guy who reminded me of Jon Jones.

And I even said, man, you remind me of Jon Jones. He said, I'm not. I'm Adesanya. Oh, shit. And he went out there, and he put on a beautiful performance. And it was just kickboxing. And after watching him perform, was like wow i was like i was calling the ufc like yo there's this kid that you guys got to take a look at he was just phenomenal to me so how was china where were you in china

oh man i forget i was in one of those uh crazy cities man it was it was a big city uh of course uh being in china but uh china china was uh china was i don't want to talk trash but china's like one of the one it was like one of the dirtiest places i've been man it was dirty it was dirty this is true do do and again i do not know if this is true but someone who lived there told me it's true do they in certain in certain places, do they spit a lot? Is that true? Yeah, in certain places. In certain places, it's a different culture.

It's just so, so different. It honestly felt like I was in a different world, man. Just a different world. Like, they honestly don't even see you sometimes they like almost walk right through you you know what i'm saying and it's a different environment in china but uh it was a good time though it was definitely a good time i went i went running on the streets in china and they seen me they were looking at me like what is this big old black man doing running around it was trippy my friend is persian right so he's from iran so you know he's all hairy and

whatnot he's a small dude but he's all hairy he told me um he told me he lives in new york right and he told me that uh he went to japan not china and he couldn't believe how racist they were in japan uh he says he went to get on a bus there in tokyo and uh it was crowded and he said everywhere he went everyone gave him a two foot radius like he sat down on the bus and everyone who was sitting there next to him got up and moved uh down to the end of the bus but rather than be next to him i was like well that's because you're you know you're ugly and no one likes you but uh yeah i mean it's it's it's like that in asia though it's like that in asia when i was running around they were looking at me they were just like amazed like they would stop and take

pictures some people would come and touch me the kids were running from me they didn't know what to think they never seen a black dude in real life man it was crazy you know why because it's crazy for me to see somebody who's never seen nobody black and it just their reaction to me was funny that is yeah that's interesting obviously i've just their reaction to me was funny that is yeah that's interesting obviously i've never thought of it that way but that is that is true that's crazy um all right let's get back on the ufc side of things if we can here i want to phrase the question in a bit of a different way so let's go back to ufc on abc2 for just a second if we can rashad now both of the names i'm about to say did amazingly well.

Okay, really, really well. There's no wrong here. But let me ask you this. Who improved their stock more? Mackenzie Dern with a win over Nina Nunez, formerly Nina Ansaroff, or Arnold Allen with a win over Sadiq Youssef in the co-main event? Oh, man, I got to say Mackenzie Dern. You know, with four in a row and just looking so good since she's come back from having a baby and just kind of showing that she's closed the area and the gaps

that you know that we've seen with the stand-up you know with the stand-up with mackenzie dern it has gotten so much better and it just adds to her jiu-jitsu she's really looking like a world beater at strawweight, man. She is. We'll start with her. You know what's interesting about her? First of all, she's making the weight no problem. Remember when she came in like 7 or 8 pounds over in a 10-pound? I mean, she was closer to the next weight class than she was her own.

You didn't see any of that. She made weight. I think 115 is the right weight class for her, not 125. And, yeah, Nina was coming in on short notice, but we saw what she'd done to Tatiana Suarez, stuffing a lot of takedowns. She's a good power puncher. is the right weight class for her, not 125. And yeah, Nina was coming in on short notice, but we had saw what she'd done to Tatiana Suarez, stuffing a lot of takedowns. She's a good power puncher. And here's what I like about Dern.

I think Dern was getting a little bit too comfortable in the striking. Like, it's weird, Rashada. Sometimes you see these grapplers, the high-level ones, right? The ones who win medals at IBJJF and ADCC, that kind of a thing. And they come over,

and sometimes they have a lot of difficulty with getting used to the striking. And then sometimes they kind of want to prove that they have no difficulty. And then they end up taking a lot of punches, but they're really comfortable with it. And she was kind of getting towards that territory where you're overcompensating for how much you have to learn and deal with in that particular environment.

Here, I am certain, certain she is still working on her striking. And to your point, those transitions to close close the distance she has gotten really better at but she's also just going back to like dude where do you have the advantage in these contests clearly on the ground clearly they can train the rest of their lives and they're not going to get as good as you they're not not even remotely close so've got to find a way until your striking comes along. Even if you're comfortable there or in your mind you're comfortable, just dance with the one that brought you here until you don't need it anymore. Which is not currently the case right now.

It's an efficient, simple. It's like Khabib. By the time Khabib was done, Rashad, you know better than me, I don't think he was the world's best striker, but he was competent. He was perfectly competent on his feet. And that gets you far if your ace in the hole is Habib-level wrestling. Well, with Mackenzie Dern, you don't need to be, you know, Yolani and Jaycheck.

You just need to be somebody who is, use your jiu-jitsu, and then build the pieces along. And when you need to lean on them, they'll be there. I think that's a much smarter approach. I totally agree. And, you know, it goes back to what we're talking about you know when we're talking about marvin vittori you know what i'm saying not having that one skill to really be like oh you need to watch out for what with mckenzie dern she has that skill and and with the striking that she has now you know now she knows that she can get the fight down to the ground and just you know make it short work.

And what I've seen in her in this last performance was kind of like Ronda Rousey-esque type of poise and control and just that foregone conclusion as if this fight hits the ground. It's a wrap. I'm going to take the arm, and it's going to be a short night. You know what I'm going to take the arm and it's going to be a short night. You know what I'm saying? And that's the kind of level that I see that Mackenzie Dern can continue to be at. She can continue to solidify herself in this weight class and just be that efficient. I'm going to strike with you, but if I get you down on the ground, it's over. Yeah, and I love there was one moment there where she was, I think, either sitting or – answer off for Nunez – was on her back, and I think she was looking to get up.

And you had, I think, an overhook on the right side from Dern. And so she was – it wasn't sunk down on the ankle, but she could have easily slid back for it. And she was trying to pass. She did the bit where she stepped to her left, put her right knee in the center line and was trying to knee cut She did the bit where she stepped to her left, put her right knee in the center line and was trying to knee cut right through the middle. And you had Nina coming up to stop it, but that's when she grabbed the leg. So essentially Dern was saying, look, here's your choice. You're

either going to give up the pass or you're going to give me the leg lock, decide which one you would like to do. And she gave up the pass as a consequence. Now you can go back and debate whether or not that was the smart call, but I'm just pointing out dern doing stuff like that and the ease with which she can do it like there are a lot of good grapplers that positionally just get to a position and they hold it they can't do a whole lot with it they can take the back but they're not like a threat from the back like think about how long kevin lee had like ally acquintice back and he just could not get close to finishing it dude when dern gets on the ground, the finish is a-coming. It ain't far behind, and it's because she gives all these pick-your-poison scenarios.

That is, I mean, who else in your mind on the ground in MMA is even close to that, that kind of a level for the women's side? No one, to be honest. I mean, I'm thinking... There's some good grapplers, but not like that. Yeah, there's some good grapplers, but, I mean, just not that clutch like McKenzie. I mean, that's why I brought up Ronda Rousey because that's what it kind of reminded me of, just the efficiency of her skill.

And once she got her down to the ground, I mean, the armbar was there, but she was set up for so many other things. And when you have someone so efficient in grappling, you know, they can take you down, and then at that point, you're in a different world where they look like they're going for one submission, but they have, like, two or three right in front of them. Right. And the other one, too, was there was a moment there.

I forget. I think Ansaroff was leaning on her side. She was already – you had a dern on top, and she had like a knee on the ribs and then a knee on the face. And it looked like an unstable position, but for anyone who's ever rolled with like a high-level black belt, they can hold those positions. They can control and balance.

They can control you and balance themselves at every little stage of it you can roll and buck you'll just end up in a a similar but ultimately just as bad a position you're not going anywhere and that kind of a skill it's like dude if you're that good fucking use it you know what i mean it's like jesus christ i can't believe we had to ask her this but she she seems to have come along now i don't want to forget Arnold Allen he has not fought a lot Rashad and so as a consequence he hasn't really made a bunch of noise but I tell you what Sadiq Yusuf who's out of this part of the the country from Nigeria but he lives in the DC area he is a handful young aggressive powerful he makes pretty good. But it looked to me that Allen just, you know, Allen's not a bad athlete.

But maybe he's not the athlete that Sadiq Yusuf is. He can hit hard, but he's not going to be the power puncher that Sadiq is. And I do think Sadiq is a very talented Thai striker. But this was my takeaway, Rashad. See what you think. Allen just had a little bit more weapons to play with. A little bit more of a range to go to, and that was enough to make the difference.

Yeah, I agree with that assessment. And also to add to that, Allen had a smoothness, you know, and that smoothness allowed him to make Sadiq miss a lot of punches and make him work a lot harder. You know, when uh um you know uh Alan was getting to these angles and just sliding off you know the slides that he was using was just so impressive and just really made it uh so that Sadiq was so out of position and being out of position like that allowed the Connors for Alan to come back in and Alan does such a good job of

fighting in so many different ranges he can fight long he can fight in close and and if you forget that he can fight long you know he'll remind you and he'll drop you from the outside like he did Sadiq with that big right hand so he has a lot of different tools a lot of flow his flow is amazing you know with his striking and he goes to for the takedowns and even how he even gets the takedowns he's not really working a lot to drive the takedown down take to drive the takedown he's getting it in position his position is so flawless and so good on the entry he was beating Sadiq and Sadiq was getting takedown just off the position alone so this kid is a special talent yeah he

really is in terms of Sadiq Youssef, he's still got time. I think he's 28 or so, 27, something like that. What do you say about his development? When he fights on his terms, he's a handful. But I wonder if he... He's one of these guys where it's like, oh, you should see my grappling. It's underrated.

And I'm like, right, I bet that it is. I bet it's actually pretty good. This sort of youthful mentality of like, on the one hand you know rashad we're saying if you're this good if you're mckenzie dern you should use it and yet here we are at least i am saying about sadiq it's like maybe there's ways to mix in a little bit more or or what would you assess from him in terms of like what he needs to get to that next stage well he needs to start to being able to take the fight where um where he where he can you know what i'm saying starting to pose more of his will and start like you said mixing in his takedowns or even uh mixing in the effort for the takedowns you know uh what i believe

happened to sadiq was you know he he was he was landing the more the busier the fighter landing, the more the most shots. But when it came to land those key shots, he just wasn't able to land a key shots that scored a judge's mind. So at that point, he needed to adjust his game plan and he didn't adjust his game plan. So that's that's what he's going to have to learn that, you know, sometimes you're in a dogfight and and the guys just got you know edging you out at that point you have to be able to say okay i need to uh you know take some recon and see what i need to do the next round and then come a little bit different and we didn't see sadiq change anything from round one to the end of the fight even when he was losing can you think of a fight where you went back to your corner they gave you some advice that maybe maybe you had thought of maybe maybe you hadn't, but you're like, okay, I'm going to implement that.

And then you did, and then the fight changed. Yeah, my Forrest Griffin fight. My Forrest Griffin fight, Forrest was chopping me down the first couple rounds, and then the third round, Coach Winklejohn was like, hey, what are you doing? You know that's not what you're doing. You're staying on the outside. And when he's throwing that leg kick, we step in. We don't stay on the outside. We step in. When he told me to step in, that's exactly what I did. He threw a leg kick the next round. I stepped in and I stepped in with a punch and I was able to get Forrest down.

Right away, if you're able to make those changes or hit that switch. Even in that fight, I almost didn't even it could have went you know five rounds and me just getting outstruck by force like that and me trying to figure out or me trying to to uh get into my rhythm before i realized that if my coach had not said something you know what i'm saying so uh sadiq has to be able to make those adjustments in a fight you have to well i think he's young enough where this went. And again, A, Sadiq Yusuf is young.

Two, he didn't get blown out by any stretch of the imagination. And then three, Arnold Allen's really good. He's really good. So I think that, you know, not a great day for Sadiq Yusuf, but I'm still pretty high on his upside. Yeah, absolutely. I think that Sadiq, you know, I think this is the first fight that he's dropped in the UFC.

Yes. You need fights like this when you're in the UFC and your main goal is to be champion. You need fights like this because these are the fights where you learn the most. And he's going to go back and he's going to learn a lot from this fight and come back better.

I called one of his amateur fights. Did I ever tell you that? No. Yeah mean i don't here's what's funny i people i had this conversation with a friend a couple of years ago it's like let me ask you a shot you ever forget mma and forget combat sports have you ever seen somebody who eventually went on to like high level pro athletics but when they they were in high school, so basketball, football, something like that. They were trash? There he is. Go ahead.

You said, have I ever seen anybody go pro? Yeah, I've seen. Let me ask the question again. Here's the point I'm trying to make. I saw Grant Hill when Grant Hill was in high school, and watching him compete with other high schoolers was comical. You know what I mean? Or watching Zion, his last year, Zion Williamson,

when he was just dunking on five-foot-nothing white guys in the middle of South Carolina. It was a fucking joke, right? I'm not saying Sadiq was on that level, but let's just say he made short fucking work of his opponents. I mean, it was not long. They were not long for this world. Yeah, so he was a man playing among boys pretty much, huh?

Yeah. I mean, he fucked those guys up. Have you ever seen anybody who went on to do big things and stick in ball sports, but when they were younger? Oh, yeah, yeah. And they just looked like they were just like, the competition would take years and years to catch up to them. Did you ever, what year did LeBron graduate high school?

Like 2003 or something? Something like that? Yeah, I think it was 2003. Something like that. Did you ever watch LeBron with his high school team? Oh, yeah, yeah. I followed him coming up, man. i followed him i followed him uh coming up man i follow him coming up i mean i mean it's a joke it's a joke what he was doing and those

other dudes were all like trying to pretend like they were all part of something special i'm like you fuckers have you know a superhero as an as a teammate and you think you're talented fuck off all right right. See that? Last but not least, Rashad, we go to a question here that is, I don't take delight in asking it. I never take delight in the suffering or the misfortune of the guys in which we cover, unless they richly deserve it for some kind of reason. But even then, as controversial as Mike Perry has been, a favorite of a certain word that starts with the letter N unjustifiably.

But forget all that for just a second. He goes in there this weekend, and he not only loses Rashad, he looked lifeless. I mean, there was really... Not only that, he got on social media afterwards and said i used to be great so i was like you know what am i misremembering things so i went back and i watched some of his losses and some of his wins i watched the felder win the jake ellenberger win which was a really nice one and i saw some of his other ones he was very much unrefined and unpolished but there was a certain verve and pop and step that he had when he was competing dude he looks not interested what

would you say about mike perry what's gone wrong you know he's let what's going on the on on the outside of his life you know finally you know sleeping to the cage and uh it's this mma game this MMA game is tough, man. It's really tough because there's so many different things that can bring you off your game. And what you don't really see a lot of the time is how your personal life starts to erode what you've built into the cage. And that's what we see happening right now with Mike Perry. His outside of life and not

being able to focus and not being able to put in that professional effort, you know, from, you know, having the right people in his corner to being able to go to camp, to all the different things that a professional athlete needs to compete at this level. You know, Mike Perry has been able to be very fortunate and just ride off some of the skill levels that he has and stay in a lot of these fights and to be remembered as one of the toughest guys in his weight class.

But when you're not refining yourself and you consistently do it fight after fight, then you continue to erode your skills. And that's what we're seeing in Mike Perry, just skill erosion. All the skills that he may have picked up and he fine-tuned in Orlando and those kind of things, Now you're starting to see that fade because it's the discipline. It's like Mike Tyson when he left Custom Auto. For a residual, he had it for a while, but then after a while, you've seen him stumbling over the basics of his style, and that's what you see in Mike Perry.

Can he get it back? He can get it back. He can definitely get it back, but that all takes him being all that all takes, you know, him being honest with himself. He's got to be honest with himself. He's got to be able to have that hard conversation with himself. You know, he has, you know, Ms. Latore corner him and him and everything. And it's all fun and games, but it's all fun and games until it's not fun and games. You know what I'm saying? And I think he needs to really start to think about things like, okay, I need to do the things I need to do

in order to approach the next fight as if it's my last because I think it might be. I think it might be his last on the contract. It is his last on the contract. And by the way, they could cut him after this because it was a loss. I don't know that they will. But Dana was asked, I think it was either, maybe it was the Tim Means fight,

maybe it was the Jeff Neal fight. I don't really remember. He had lost, and someone was asking him, do you want to keep Mike around? Because he hasn't put two wins together since 2017. He's lost four of his last five, and the one he won was against Mickey Gall with wrestling. And I forget which one it was, but someone asked him the question, and Dana's answer was, you know, it's fun to keep Mike around.

And it's like, okay, it was, but if you're fighting like that, there was nothing about that performance that was electric. Like win or lose, okay, fine. You go out in your shield and you can have it. Like the Melvin Manhoff style. You can have a situation where you're going to lose fights that maybe you should have won if you had fought more carefully but you know melvin manhoff is like it was in his prime like this force of nature who just came in like the tasmanian devil that's a

thing you can do but if you're not going to do that and then substitute it with something else you're just going to do that at a less level it's not even fun anymore like the thing that dana was saying it's not even manifesting itself. It's just lifeless losses in a way. Yeah, you're right, man. I mean, he's fighting as if he doesn't want to be in there. And that's when it's time for them to make the decision of should they have him in there. When you fight like you don't want to be in there, they will make that decision for you. And I think a big part of that is just Mike don't even know where to even look for the black box that was his career. He doesn't even know where to look for it. He doesn't know where to

look and see where things go wrong. And that's how it happens sometimes. Sometimes your failure and your downfall is so subtle in your mind that you don't even see where things went wrong. So you don't even know what to say. OK, I'm going to change this in order to get myself right again. You know what I'm saying? I mean, you know, sometimes you got to you got to figure out what's going on because you got you got to know you got to get right before you get left. You know what I'm saying? And that's just the truth of the matter. He has to get right before he get left. And it looks as if like now he's about to get left. I would love to work with a Mike Perry.

I would love to work with a Mike Perry and kind of see if he can get it back on a mental level. You can see physically he still looks the part, right? He doesn't come in out of shape, which I think is a good thing. Well, I don't know what happened against Tim Means. I forget if Perry missed weight for that one. But certainly in this one, he came in on weight. Okay, so you can do those parts, but there's a zip and a pop missing, man, and it is costing him quite badly.

All right, so those are our six topics, I guess. Connor is now trending on Twitter, by the way, for folks who care. Let's get to where you get to ask us some questions. It's time now for DMs from dogs. There's our donkey. All right, so every Sunday, we put up a post on Instagram, there's our donkey, alright, so every Sunday,

we put up a post on Instagram, and we solicit questions, you guys fill them up, and then the producers pick five of those, five of those for us, to answer, alright, let's kick things off here Mr. Evans,

this is from, either Mr. Simon UK, or Mrs. Iman UK, I'm going to guess it's Mr. Simon, would Till have beaten, the Marvin that showed up Saturday night, Either Mr. Simon UK or Mrs. Iman UK. I'm going to guess it's Mr. Simon. Would Till have beaten the Marvin that showed up Saturday night? What do you think? You said, will who have beaten Chael?

No, no, no. Darren Till. The originally scheduled opponent. Oh, Till. Till. Would Till have beaten? Geez. I don't know. Because here's why I say I don't know.

I know that Marvin would have fought differently against a darren till you know darren till is is so dangerous with his striking and the fact that he fights very big and he has a lot of pop on his punches too so i could have seen marvin grappling a bit but i don't see see him being able to have that kind of control, being able to hold Darren Till down or anything like that. So it would have been a much different fight. I think it would have been largely contested on the feet, though. Yeah, it's like, here's the thing. I don't know.

I tend to think that Till might have, at least early, put up a much more difficult challenge, just in the takedown defense alone. Not that he's like some expert wizard in takedown defense, but relative to Kevin Holland, he probably is. Late, I don't know. But I'll say this. Because I don't know, I would still like to see that fight.

And because Marvin Vittori still needs another win, in my judgment, before he can be really in that space where you're like, okay, man, we got to get this guy a title shot. I say run it back. I say run it back i say run it back if till can heal i've never broken a clavicle so that fucking sucks i'm sure um but if they can get on a similar timeline do you still want to see it i do yeah i still want to see if it can happen but healing from a clavicle is is is a tough one i think have you broken a clavicle no but i know somebody who did uh break a clavicle is a tough one, I think. Have you broken a clavicle? No, but I know somebody who did break a clavicle, and it took a while for him to get right just because he didn't feel as if it was strong enough.

Man, I'll tell you what. Forget about anything related to the brain. Just from the neck down, right? Do you have an injury every day that you're reminded you have does that make sense like every day i open the fridge and i can feel it in my shoulder or every day i stretch and i can feel it when i wake up do you have one injury like that yeah my shoulder my shoulders like that my left shoulder is like that did you have it repaired no i didn't have it repaired i should have had it repaired and i might still have it repaired but it's like one of those things where it's just it like some

days is good some days is it takes a while to get warmed up what did you do to it do you know oh i don't even know man just years and years of just beating the hell out of it i uh so i'm the king of shoulder injuries i've torn my rotator cuff in this one and I tore my labrum in this one and I had to get this one repaired. Um, I actually, I'm reminded of the injury because what they did was, uh, so I had torn my labrum so thoroughly Rashad that here's how I knew it was a problem. A, I could feel it pop, but, uh, I was falling asleep falling asleep, and then my shoulder would fall out of the socket in my sleep, and it would wake me up,

and it would be super fucking painful, as you can imagine. Oh, man. So they had to sew it up. The guy who did my surgery was the previous surgeon for the Washington, at the time, the Washington Redskins. So he told me, I'm going to stitch you up in such a way where you're going to lose just a little bit of mobility. But to do that, we're going to keep it safe.

So we're actually going to tighten it so much that there's no possible way, sort of a traumatic car accident, to get back to where you were. But I actually don't have the same mobility in my... Dude, shoulders are complicated things. I mean, it's not like an elbow that just goes one, bends in in one direction they go all over the place and you fuck those up you're fucking up a lot of different life functions you know yeah so so he tightened it up though like

does it feel a little like over tightened now or what yeah it does actually so i when i stretch i have to take it i have to do special on this side i don't know if it can show up on camera. I'll do a little test here. You may not be able to tell. So if I put my elbows to my side and I just rotate out, it's about as far as I can go. Okay. You can't really see much. Okay. Now this is the one that's, I tore the rotator cuff, but I did not like to get surgery.

So this is the one that's not been repaired. If I open this up, I can go all the way here. You can't quite see, but it's like I can go well past my side. Here I can only go 45 degrees, you know? So I can go 90 versus 45. Yeah. See, that's the thing about it, though. You have a recommendation,

and you have what the doctors say is going to happen after you have your surgery and you heal. But you never know how it's going to heal. Like, I've always found, like, my body never heals exactly how the doctors say it's going to heal. And then the doctor says, well, you know, your rehab was a little, nah, doc. It just wasn't like how you say. It wasn't how you sold me. Yeah, I was just, I didn't get surgery on this one because I felt like I didn't need it. I had to get it here.

Like, I didn't have a choice. It was so fucked up, I had to do it. So, you know, that it's not what it once was, I'm like, well, it was kind of better than it was at its worst. So, we'll just leave it, I guess. Yeah. All right. From atangrystudy, has bottom game defense evolved rashad there has been a lot less solid ground and pound or elbows in full mount in recent history i've said this before i

think i said it to you as a matter of fact mount is a lost art passing is a lost art and in particular mounting and taking them out and then holding them, there are not many guys you could say are like, whoa, they're really good at holding mount. Yeah, I mean, yeah. Yeah, the bottom game is definitely involved. I mean, you know, it's really hard to hold the guy down now. It's really hard to even hold him in position where you can even land some consistent ground upon.

And that's what made Habib so amazing at what he was able to do because um being able to consistently get guys down and grind them out and and have the kind of pop that you hear in a hubby fight you know that that's kind of hard to do uh and being able to do the wash and repeat take the guys down and consistently hold them down at the same time punching them it's hard because now so many people, like, you know, in order to just be at a decent enough level to be in the UFC, you're going to be at a level where you can, you know, mount a pretty good defense to get back up to your feet.

So it's hard to hold guys down nowadays. It really is. Yeah, I know. The days of Tito Ortiz taking someone down and beating them up inside their guard while pressing the back of their head into the fence. That was a real thing when you came up.

That was a real way to win. You couldn't imagine it anymore, you know? Nah, you can't, man. The game has evolved. Alright, let's go to at GTM, I guess. Gin and Tonic uh something do you think john jones made a mistake in vacating the 205 belt while trying to negotiate with the ufc wouldn't he have had more leverage if he had held on to the belt keeping 205 on hold i don't know rashad they

can just strip his ass i mean i i agree with that that was my biggest assessment from the beginning when when the whole like uh after the fight was over he texted and showed me the money i was just kind of just surprised by that text i mean i thought the money was talked about before we gave up the belt john that's what we do we're not just giving up our belt we're not just giving up our belt. We're not just giving up. We're not just taking the step off the throne without having any guarantees. I just knew that was the case, but I was wrong. I was wrong about it. I think that would have been the smartest thing to do, but now he puts himself in a position where he has to prove that he deserves that. And, you know, to me, John Jones does deserve that kind of money all day. You know what I'm saying? When you're talking about John Jones,

you're talking about arguably one of the best fighters to ever do it, but this is not what this game's about. You know what I'm saying? This game is not about who deserves what this, the game is about who can actually generate that kind of money, that kind of attention. Can this fight generate that kind of attention between Francis and John Jones? Potentially. Potentially it can be. It can. But that also has to do with how the fight is still sold in the stretch. You know, Francis is not much of a talker and John Jones is not much of a talker at times. So, you know, what is the other thing that's going to make people get really excited about this fight?

And does that equal the UFC open up their pocketbook, you know? Do you think they'll make it in the end that'll happen in 2021? Not 2021. Maybe 2022. uh i i not 2021 maybe 2022 because i think 2021 i think it'll go to derrick lewis and i think that would probably be it for for that fight or it could if it does happen it may happen at the end end of 2021 okay but you're not giving up hope for it just yet. No, I think, I think it has to happen. I mean, you know, um, that's, that's the fight to make, you know, that, that is the fight to make that it'd be, it'd be a true shame to not see that fight happen, especially seeing how big John Jones is. John Jones looks big. And I think it's a mistake for John Jones to be like, I want

to get as big as him. Wow. No, no, you don't want to be as big as him. And I say that because like, there's gotta be different. Like if I was John Jones, I would want to be in there to be the smaller one, to be the lighter one, to be, you know, to bring in some of those attributes, attributes that, that, uh, a 205 ponder can bring you know being a faster pace um being more elusive and being a lighter guy see i have mixed feelings rashad obviously you know better than i do but let me let me just say this like watching that adesanya fight with blachowicz i've watched that fight a bunch now because i got a tape study coming out on blachowicz because you know i i missed his rise completely so I wanted to go back and figure out what I got wrong.

But in watching that Adesanya fight, it's like, okay, you can make an argument. We're talking about the fourth and fifth rounds where he got the takedown, right, and held it. To me, you can make an argument, certainly on the feet, that him being nimble is going to be way more advantageous, even if he's giving up a little bit in terms of the strength department for like clinching or something like that. But it did seem to me, and I haven't talked to him or his team, but once he was on his back on the ground,

that the weight differential between a Gastelum and a Blachowicz, it showed up to me. Not substantially, but enough where like, if you go out to the Gastelum fight, feet in the hips from Adesanya, pushing Gastelum off, firing underhook, doing a technical get-up, like, the whole thing, you know? He was able to physically match the intensity of a Gastelum. I don't think he was able to get very close with Oblohovich.

Now, you might be saying, well, is Francis going to do that to John? Yeah, probably not. But I guess what I want to say is there's got to be some kind of a needle where you can thread where, okay, I still keep the speed advantage, but I also want to make sure that if I get into a compromised situation, I'm not going to just be overwhelmed by muscle.

Yeah. But here's the thing, though. I think unlike the Adesanya and Blahowicz fight, I think that Jon Jones' understanding of how to get up is so far more supreme than Adesanya. I don't think he can get up with a guy who's physically stronger and heavier than him just off of the technical aspect of knowing how to move his body. Can he do it on a consistent basis? I don't know, you know, but I don't think that Francis would be able to get him down if he did get him down on a consistent basis. So I don't think we'd have to worry about that too much. I just worry about this. I worry

about a John Jones who's a bit slower, who doesn't have the ability to move his feet. You know, those kinds of things can spell disaster against a guy like Francis Ngannou, who hits like he does, you know what I'm saying? And for the most part, the last few fights of Jon Jones that we've seen, you know, it was kind of close, and these guys were able to land some shots. And, you know, Jon didn't finish these fights, and they were very close fights. And some would even argue the fact that John kind of pulled off the gas a little bit

when it comes to striking because he felt the power and the strikes coming back from his opponents. Now, if he pulled back because he felt the power from his opponents at the 205 division, what is he going to do with the heavyweight division when he feels the power of Francis Ngannou?

Does John need the extra weight to take Francisis down we know he's got the technique but what i'm sorry let me let me phrase what i think what that means it's not to say if he was the same kind of 205 ish you know without weight cutting frame so let's say 215 220 something like that that he couldn't get francis down what i saying is, does he need a little bit of extra muscle over time for a three, four round fight, let's say? Does he need that little bit of extra heft to get Francis down, considering big fucking Francis is enormous

and athletic as we've seen, getting pretty talented too? Yeah, he might need a little bit extra muscle for that, but I think his weight gain and wanting to get bigger is just for his mindset. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know, not to bring in anything ugly or to try to, you know, not allow him to get past his past mistakes. But a guy doesn't use performance enhancing supplements because, you know, they're confident in how strong they are. You know what I'm saying? So if we take that mindset, then we know that he needs to mentally feel stronger than his opponents to feel comfortable in the fight. You know, and that's not to not to throw any shade on John. That's just to be, you know, give a fair assessment. And is he going to overcompensate for that mental deficiency?

You know what I'm saying? Because it can be a mental deficiency. I'm not saying that is a fact, but it could be a possibility. That's why he needs to or feel he needs to get that exercise. From JM Pepito, 23, Boots Ennis displayed an interesting style more seen in MMA than in boxing where instead of the traditional boxing style with your guard up, he allowed his hands to flow freely to accommodate a more wide open stance that allows him to move and punch from different angles.

Do you think young boxers will adopt this technique or stick with a bit of a more traditional fundamental? Rashad, you would know better than I, I just mean this. It's like, you see this in MMA too. It's like, oh, you know, I'm not comparing them to exactly, but it's something like, oh, BJ Penn, let's say Prime BJ Penn, bj primes flexibility or blah blah blah blah or bj pens certain this or that it's like dude boots ennis does a lot of shit that i would not recommend unless you're boots ennis or you know you're much more senior as a fighter it's like do i think if

you could do what boots ennis does at scale would good? Yes. I just don't think a lot of different people, even when they train young, are going to – you just can't do what that kid does. No, you can't, and especially something like that. Like something like that is something that's so fundamentally based and it's like, you know, he had a really good coach in his early development that really drilled him doing it over and over again. And unless you're going to be able to have that kind of discipline from a coach,

then you may not be able to develop that in your consistent, uh, you know, in your consistent style, you know what I'm saying? So it's just something that's unique to him and that he's been able to perfect and look good. I think it's great. And I think a lot of fighters can get a lot of benefit out of that kind of stance or using that kind of hands up striking style. But at the same time, some people may not feel comfortable with it. And that's what the game's about.

Everybody feeling comfortable in just doing their skill. And then last but not least, Rashad, this one's for you. I did not pick these so don't get mad at me if you don't like the question i think it'll be all right from taekwon dude memes that's the name of the uh account for rashad if you could do hallucinogens with any person living or dead who would it be and why and don't you dare say brian campbell you're dead to me who would it be and why oh man

i i would say uh man who would it be and why um i would pick somebody like dana white that is such a great answer tell me why because um i've hung out with dana a couple times in a party situation and uh he's super fun to hang out and party with but it would be very interesting to see his his introspective side you know what i'm saying to see how how how deep he gets and just being able to feel that um that that magnificence of of this existence that we are part of. When the psychedelics get in your body, you just start feeling and talking a certain kind of way. You start feeling this interconnectedness, and I would love to hear Dana White start

talking on that level the way he talks. All right. We're a little bit low on time here. By the way, in a different conversation, I want to talk to you about what they're doing in Oregon with psychedelic use for legalizing it, basically, for therapeutic purposes. I would love to have a conversation with you about that

at a different time. We're a little bit short, so let's just wrap things up here if we can. Time for the show, Rashad, where we do odds and ends. You are my esteemed co-host. So please go first, good sir. What do you have for odds and ends today? Odds and ends.

You know, I was looking to see, you know, Mike Tyson in Holyfield. But Tyson is, I mean, Holyfield is fighting McBride. And I think that's kind of a mess right now. You know, I mean, Mike Tyson's coming off hot of that fight with Rory Jones. And, you know, being close with Mike Tyson, Mike is still training. Mike is training with Rafael Cordero, you know, consistently based now. And, you know, he's looking so good. And he's feeling so good.

And his mindset is around fighting. And Holyfield has always been one of those guys who's, I guess, been his Achilles heel when it comes to competing in professional life. So it would be good to see him and Holyfield get a chance to fight. I mean, this is the fight everybody wants to see. I do not wish to see it. I will be candid. I'm a born hater.

That is what I am. We're going to talk on Wednesday about Triller and the Paul brothers and Ben Askren, you and I. But, yes, we'll see what happens with this one. Listen, there's a market for it. There's a market for it. So I understand that. Last but not least, for me, I was not on my radar.

Brian Campbell put it on my radar, so I watched it. It was phenomenal over the weekend. Joe Smith Jr. capturing the vacant WBO light heavyweight title over Maxim Vlasov on ESPN. It was tremendous. This dude, Joe Jr., Joe Smith Jr., excuse me, out of Long Island, I think. Power puncher. It's just one of these fights, fights Rashad where you just really couldn't tell who won well there was one part where Vlasov took a knee but the ref counted as a slip even though he took a knee from the body punches so at that point you're like I don't know and in fact the first

score that they read was 114 114 I'm like here we go. But Joe Smith got it done. Just an absolute war. A war. Really grinding affair. The kind where when they ask the winner how they feel, the very first thing that they say is, all the credit goes to my opponent. What a man. What a warrior.

What a thing. That's the first order of business. And not because he's being polite, but because it's on top of mind. Do you know what I mean, Rashad? Yeah, like an old-fashioned slobber knocker, like a Mickey Ward type of fight, right? One of those classic, instant classics, huh? It was something like that.

And it was just hard. One of those fights where both guys were taking tremendous amounts of abuse and then finding ways to gut it out. But Joe Smith Jr. got it done. So shouts to Brian Campbell for putting that on my radar and shouts to the American, Joe Smith Jr., for getting his hand raised. All right, so for us today, that is it, Rashad.

Let me remind the viewers to give the video a thumbs up, hit that subscribe button. If you want to try Showtime, you certainly can. Go to Showtime.com, 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can go pound sand. If you want to take the plunge, there it is, show.com slash bellator mma first six months for 4.99 a month if you're so inclined uh you can follow all of us on social you can follow rashad sugar rashad evans on twitter

and on instagram morning combat same kind of thing uh me my names differ slightly between instagram and twitter i don't even really use Instagram. Dude, my life is fucking boring. What am I going to share on Instagram that people, you know? I'm not documenting my boring life for audiences. But anyway, okay, you can go follow me if you want. Hey, LT, at least you know that. A lot of people don't know that their life is boring. They document it anyways.

You're just like, why am I following this person? I know who I am. I'm a boring dad. That's fine. It's okay. And last but not least person? I know who I am. I'm a boring dad. It's fine. It's okay. And last but not least, morningcombat at gmail.com if you would like to send in something for Dead Wrong

or fan submissions. morningcombat at gmail.com is the place to be. Okay? All right. Rashad, it was wonderful talking with you. Enjoy the rest of your day. I appreciate your time. And we'll talk on Wednesday.

Thank you, Luke Thomas. Talk to you soon, my friend. All right. For Rashad, for CBS, for Malka, for Showtime, I'm Luke Thomas. That's Rashad Evans. Until Wednesday, may all of your gains be loyal.