MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - What Demetrious Johnson vs. Rodtang PROVED | Morning Kombat Extra Credit Ep. 18

Episode Date: March 29, 2022

Luke Thomas is back with Episode 18 of Morning Kombat Extra Credit. Luke breaks down a couple fights from UFC Fight Night: Blaydes vs. Daukaus and One X that he didn't get to on episode 282 of Morning Kombat. (1:45) - Demetrious Johnson vs. Rodtang (9:13) - Adriano Moraes vs. Yuya WakaMatsu (13:00) - Yoshihiro Akiyama vs. Shinya Aoki (17:05) - Alexa Grasso vs. Joanne Wood (20:32) - Chris Gutierrez vs. Danaa Batgerel (24:40) - Honorable Mentions Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It is the 28th of March 2022 and it is time for episode 18 of Morning Combat. Extra credit. This is the podcast that we do within the podcast where we get to the fights we did not have time for on regular Morning Combat. Hello everyone, my name is Luke Thomas. Of course for regular Morning Combat I am one half of your hosting duo. Brian Campbell joins me on that, but this is a bit of a solo project, and we have no time to waste. Two events that we're going to get to from the weekend.

We'll have the UFC event over the weekend, as well as, of course, One's event, 1X, Grand Finale or whatever, that took place as well on Saturday. So, first things first, thumbs up on the video, hit subscribe if you're new here or you haven't done it yet. And yeah, let's get to some of the fights that we have not talked about yet. Okay, so here's how it's going to go. We'll start with some of the one fights and then we'll talk about a couple of fights on the UFC side. Okay, for the one side of things, we'll talk about three fights. We usually cover five fights total. I'm going to save a couple for the UFC. Over on the one side, we'll talk about Demetrius Johnson fighting Rod Tang.

I'm not even going to try to pronounce his last name. Please forgive me. We'll talk about Adriano Moraes taking on Yuya Wakamatsu, as well as Yoshihiro Akiyama taking on Shinya Aoki. For the UFC side of things, we'll go a little bit different. We will go Alexa Grasso taking on Joanne Wood. I'll also talk about Chris Gutierrez taking on Dana Batgarell, and I probably will get a little bit of an honorable mention at the end

for Manon Fioro and Jennifer Maya. But first things first, let's talk about the one event. Okay, so 1X Grand Finale. I believe this took place over in Singapore. I don't have the exact information for the, oh yeah, here we go. Singapore Indoor Stadium. Now, Demetrius Johnson taking on Rod Tang, this of course was a mixed rules fight. At least for the two rounds that it existed, there was a three minute round of kickboxing rules with four ounce gloves and then they did an MMA rules in the next round, in the subsequent round. And it didn't make it out of there.

The fight ended at 213 of round number two in a special rules bout. Now, I found the reaction to this one a little bit interesting. It's not to say that I did not enjoy the fight. I actually did, or that Demetrius Johnson didn't prove himself to be what we kind of already knew. Which was just supremely talented and well-rounded. All of those things are quite accurate. Like, please don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy it.

Because I did enjoy it. And I'm not suggesting that you should not find it interesting. I think based on where you are in your fandom, though, you might have a slightly different response. Namely, in Asian MMA, in the aughts, and even a little bit before, well yeah, around the aughts, a little bit past it maybe, I'm not saying there's been a ton of mixed rules fights, but I've seen a few of them. This is hardly the first one. And they tend to go, as I mentioned, I think I said this on the last either extra credit, or I think I said it on Morning Combat Regular, that you know And they tend to go, as I mentioned, I think I said this on the last either extra credit

or I think I said it on Morning Combat Regular, that they tend to go exactly how you think they're going to go. A couple times there's been some upsets. Aoki got viciously KO'd in one, I think even in the MMA rules portion of it back in years ago. Although he was in a real MMA bout on Saturday. But the point I'm trying to make here is, it went about how you'd expect. Now, obviously, I don't know one kickboxing rules in totality, especially when they have the four-ounce gloves, but their MMA fights are judged as a whole. So even if you win round one,

it doesn't matter if the subsequent two show a greater overall effort. The point I'm trying to make, though, is if you were scoring it on the 10-9 must system, Rod Tang wins 10-9, no sweat, And then Demetrius throws a body kick, ducks under a left hook, gets to the back, goes for the takedown against the fence, takes the back fully, and has to hand fight with the choke one time. Rod Tang pulls it off, but he's able to get it right back and then he secures the choke. It's fun to watch those, especially for Demetrius, who had to really deal with some adversity up

front with Rateng, who appears to be just a tank, is the best way to describe him. And I want to be clear, Demetrius showed considerable skill to get the win, but some of the people being like, this was super experimental, I'd never seen anything like this before, and it blew my mind. I think you'll find when you see another mixed rules bout that it will more or less follow along the most probable path, which is when it gets to the MMA grappling side of things, it tends to go south. Now, you might be like, well, why didn't he get KO'd in the first round? Well, one, Demetrius has good striking. In fact, there was a couple times where Oteng was reaching and Demetrius would light him up with hook hooks over the top.

That was nice to see. But the point I'm trying to make here is, for example, take Mehta Morris. Mehta Morris was sort of one of the first ones to do, not one of the first ones, but had a big profile, big splash early on, getting some MMA guys to do battle with some jiu-jitsu guys under jiu-jitsu rules. And a lot of times the jiu-jitsu guys would lose, especially when they introduced judges into that. But a lot of times, they would just go to a draw. If it went to the full 20 minutes, it would go to a full draw. Why? Because what you end up seeing when

you put, and this was, obviously, Demetrius is an elite MMA fighter. But when you put in a good, or in this case, an elite MMA fighter into one of those scenarios, A, they're going to have some measure of success, and B, it was three minutes, not five. C, this is just kind of the way it goes. For example, I remember when we watched Metamorris, if you go back and look at, who did Rory McDonald go up against? I forget his name. But one of the big things Roy McDonald would do is he lost the match

on pure jiu-jitsu but he was able to stuff takedowns and stand right that was the thing a lot of jiu-jitsu guys are not used to because usually

either there will be a double guard pull or one will sit and one will go on top and they are accommodating one another in that way guys stuffing takedowns and standing up

is a little bit unusual for jiu-jitsu guys because it nullifies what they're doing nullifies what the guy standing up wants to do because he a little bit unusual for jiu-jitsu guys because it nullifies what they're doing. It nullifies what the guy standing up wants to do because he's no longer engaging in jiu-jitsu, but at least he's not getting run over. So they have this capacity. Demetrius is super experienced in addition to being quite good. The idea that he survived three rounds is important, but not miraculous. And I know some folks will be like,

well, look how Rod Tang changed how everything, how he was striking when the second round started under the MMA rules, which is true. You saw him being, he was walking Demetrius down in the first, and then the second round, he was the one way backed up. And he had a lead jab, he was trying to keep a lot of distance, and you know, it completely changed the tenor. So I think if this was a new experience for you, this must have been super cool to watch. I think over time, the special rules-ness of it all, when you have these kickboxing MMA rules go back and forth, they more or less play out kind of as you'd expect. There isn't necessarily a lot of mystery, and again, dot, dot, dot, with repeated

exposure to these sorts of things. So I really appreciate the risk that Demetrius was taking. I appreciate the risk that Rod Tang was showing. Rod Tang doing a pretty decent job hand fighting. And Demetrius, I thought, made a very good account of himself in the first round. He lost it again under a 10-9 system, which they do not typically employ for their MMA bouts. But it was a good showing in a couple of ways by all. And again, I actually commend one. You guys know I'm not the biggest fan of the guy who runs the organization,

but at the same time, I do like their product. I like that they are experimenting with this. I know some folks are going to hear this and be like, oh, you're poo-pooing it. I'm only poo-pooing the idea that this was some novel experiment that revealed something brand new that we didn't know. I very much challenged that idea. I think Jack Slack had a very snarky tweet about it,

but he was right. Like if GSP had fought, I don't know, whoever, I think he said Bulkow, if I'm even pronouncing it correctly, and imagine he survives a round and then takes him down and chokes him out in a second, would this have been some grand revelation? No, that's about what is supposed to happen,

more or less. It's easier for Demetrius to hang in Rod Tang's world, given the amount of exposure. Although, you could tell he was not as good kickboxing, under kickboxing rules, as Rod Tang. And Rod Tang is going to absolutely have a huge gulf in grappling ability that will be basically, you can't make up for it otherwise. And that's why I was smart of Demetrius not to try and take him down head on. He got unhitted. His level change was brilliant. He got under that left hook and then went to the back and then ran the takedown down.

That was the smart way to do it rather than getting hit with something linear up the front like that, throwing a knee or an uppercut. Remember how Derek Lewis knocked out Curtis Blades? Or every time you've seen someone level change and then get hit with a knee. He was trying to avoid all of that quite wisely. So definitely a cool bout, definitely a fun little thing. But I have seen some of the takes being like, oh my God, I've never seen anything like this. This was a grand revelation of martial arts truth. Not really. It's not really that. It's fun. It's cool. I commend both fighters. But that was more or less pretty much how they go.

And that was more or less quite predictable. Adriano Moraes taking on Yuya Wakamatsu. He wins via a guillotine choke at 358 of round number three. The bout was kind of interesting. Wakamatsu had several takedowns early on. And the referee was busy warning them for a lot of stalled action Morais is maybe one of the most underrated fighters in MMA

I know for the insiders who know that he has obviously beaten DJ and they know that Wakamatsu is probably more of a challenge than is otherwise presented by the average MMA media outlet but nevertheless Morais is he's a talent, man. He's very good. Super athletic. That finish he had, if you guys didn't see it,

he actually locks up an arm in guillotine on his left hip. So his left leg is on the inside, his right leg is on the top. And Wakamatsu is trying to fight it off a little bit, hand fighting. And actually, Moraes brings his leg out in front, and Wakamatsu is trying to fight it off a little bit, hand fighting, and actually Morais brings his leg out in front and so he ends up finishing it like a bit of a triangle, a triangle guillotine, a triangle arm in guillotine. So he has the choke, excuse me, on this side, right, this side with the arm, trying to remember, he had it this side? Yeah, he had it this side, and so he's leaning on his left hip. And then he brings, he kind of sits up a little

bit and then brings the leg around. And I guess what that ends up doing is, I've actually, I've seen it in like the practice room, but I've never tried it. So I don't fully understand, but it looks like, obviously, one, it might give a little bit of extra torque. And then two, it could prevent some hand fighting scenarios as well. It makes it a little bit more difficult. But brilliant finish by him. Wakamatsu, I thought, had a decent game plan. He wasn't... The takedowns were good. He had one takedown where then you see Marais is near the fence and he tries to sit up and Wakamatsu drills him with the knee. Again, I think one's rule set and their judging criteria is superior to the 10-9-month system.

I know a lot of folks might agree or disagree with that. That's cool. But for me, again, I like one's product. I think in the end, they actually deliver a pretty good product. And part of that is a function of the rule set that they use and some of the experimentation that they employ, like Rod Tang versus DJ, allowing knees to the head of a grounded opponent. And that was a pretty clever use of it. He basically got Marais sitting like an L. so here's his lower body, here's his upper body, and the fence is behind it, so he's sitting like a normal person would, and then he brought, as he drove his chest, like he was pushing Marais into it, he just brings his right knee around and drills him right in the face with it.

That was fantastic. Fantastic. That kid is good, man. How old is Marais? Marais currently sits at 32. I call him a kid. He's 32 years old, so he's a lot older. He's a black belt.

Obviously, he trains at ATT. But I think he's finally getting some of the recognition. I hope he's getting some of the recognition anyway that he deserves because that finish was great. He's a little bit raw with his movement. And they say he has a capoeira background. You can kind of see it a little bit. His feet get crossed when he walks a lot. Now, I'm sure you can see how athletic he is. So there's parts of his movement that I would say are raw,

but his athleticism to throw knees from the middle of nowhere and how strong he is. And there was one time he got thrown, or he thrown thrown and Wakamatsu tried to roll through it and he was able to roll through it on top. There was just a lot he's able to do athletically and on the grappling department. So his movement on the feet's a little bit raw, but that makes him sometimes quite hard to read. And then when he becomes so hard to read, then in the end, a lot of folks get kind of frozen.

He's good about faking and fainting as well, changing directions side to side, which by the way, DJ was doing that. He was back double on the fence line, but you could at least see he was trying to move side to side. So there's a lot of that going on, which I thought was pretty cool. So again, not the most exciting bout beginning to end, but that finish spectacular and some of the little moments intervening were great as well. That was of course for the flyweight title and Morais retains. How about at 77 kilo? They call it lightweight. Yoshihiro Akiyama taking on Shinya Aoki. They call this a Japanese MMA legends fight.

It's weird. Akiyama once fought Bisping, and Aoki once fought Gilbert Melendez. I mean, these are, you know, I realize that they both were in roughly the same weight here, allegedly, but they did not look it. Yoshihiro Akiyama, by the way, and everyone calls him Sexyama. I'm like, he's a little too wrinkled to be Sexyama.

Y'all can downvote me if you want for that. I don't really care. He's 46. I don't think I've ever seen a 46-year-old outside of bodybuilding with a physique like his. I don't know what he did to get that way, but I would like some. Either way, did not go his way in the first round. Akiyama got after it pretty quickly, ends up getting him along the fence line, and then weaves his way to the back, climbs to the back, locks up a body triangle, and then basically holds it

for the entirety of the first round. And again, they don't judge it on 10-9, but they do at least have five-minute intervals for regular MMA bouts. So Akiyama, again, they don't judge it by that, but he clearly is losing, let's say, after the first round. Then they come out. Akiyama goes for a single, and Akiyama, excuse me, Aoki goes for a single, and Akiyama kind of defends it, bouncing on one leg, and then just fires a series of shots with the other hand, all of which seem to land, and they kind of stun Aoki. He eventually gets to separate, but at that point, now Akiyama is dealing with an Aoki up against the fence, and he just lands a right hand I don't think Aoki was expecting.

It drills him and kind of freezes him in space. And then at that point, Akiyama sort of just follows up, follows up, follows up, and you can see there's a moment where Aoki has a knee on the ground, and he's just eating punch after punch after punch, and you can see him grinning his teeth or you know like this trying to just deal with the punishment which must have sucked because he was eating him clean and Akiyama's always had at least respectable punching power plus he just looked to be like the incredible Hulk I mean the way he I mean you could see the definition in where his lats attached to his whatever however however far it goes down to like the lower back or the hip,

all the way at the bottom of the lat. Not like the top of the lat where you see a lot of musculature up around here-ish or whatever where the lat is here. But I mean like sort of mid-back and the lat to the sort of middle side. He had it all the way down to the back where it attaches at the bottom of the anatomy. And for a 46-year-old, don't know if I've ever seen that. So it's a solid win by him. Anyway, the ref eventually intervenes because Aki just sits there and eats punishment

up until 150 of the second round. I'm not sure what it's supposed to mean, to be quite candid with you. Nice win by Akiyama, but he's 46. Aki is certainly no spring chicken himself. What does he sit at? He currently sits at 38. And he was on a good, nice win streak before this, beating Edward Fulian, who was also on this card out of the Philippines in the event prior to this,

back in 2021, a one on TNT4. But it just sort of goes to show that, and this has been a problem for Aoki over time. Granted, Aoki, I think, is naturally a much bigger guy. But Aoki has been sort of the guy who initially comes out bad out of hell with his grappling. And then if it gets shut down or otherwise doesn't work, and then he begins to eat punishment subsequently,

he kind of falls apart. At 38, that's basically what you could expect here. Nice win by Akiyama, all things considered. And that guy, you know, because he has a Korean background, he took a lot of abuse in Japan, even though he was Japanese as well. And I think he changed his name and everything.

But yeah, they did what they could with the fight and I think it's okay. Edward Foleyang defeating of John Wayne Parr. John Wayne Parr then retiring. It was a Muay Thai rules bout and then there was some great kickboxing on the card as well. Okay, let's switch to the UFC. Okay, on the UFC side of things, we go to UFC Columbus. This was at the Nationwide Arena in, of course, Columbus, Ohio. Pretty nice gate, by the way, two million almost. We'll talk here about Alexa Grasso and Joanne Wood, which, by the way, Grasso wins at Rear Naked Choke

at 357 of round number one. This was a weird fight. It's like, I actually thought Joanne Wood for as long... Okay, so they had a moment on the ground where Wood kind of slipped or whatever, and Grasso gets on top. But she was in Wood's guard, and neither was really trying a whole lot there,

and nothing really happened happened and they stand and it wasn't until later that something actually happened but i'm saying before the the second takedown basically um introducing the new mcspicy from mcdonald's it looks like a regular chicken, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy, consider yourself warned. Limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. I thought that Wood was doing like a decent job on her feet. Like Grasso seemed a little bit, she didn't quite move with the same amount of urgency as I thought she would or has in previous bouts.

But once they locked up, it was the exact opposite. She spun Wood one way, then she spun her the other way. So she's going bop, bop, two different directions. And then that inevitably gets her to then put Wood to the canvas. And then she fires over that right hand like Askarov used to try when he was trying to get the back. So she fires over the choking arm. And then, of course, you know course is trying to lock it up. And then from there she just ran.

Wood's defense fell apart. It fell apart. She tried to get the choke in, I think either this way or that way, but it was only just one switch. You go back between Askar Askarov and Kaikara France, he's constantly switching sides of his attacking arm.

With this one it was on one side and then switched to the other, and that was all she wrote. Now, granted, that's a credit to Alexa Grasso, but I just wonder what condition Wood was in heading into this fight. Maybe it was perfect. I don't know. I really don't know. Obviously, she's a little bit older at this point. She's 35. She'll be 36 in December, so she's got some time. But she has lost four of her last five, and three of those have been by way of submission, two by rear naked choke. In fact, it's two rear naked choke defeats back-to-back.

So clearly there's a hand-fighting issue or something about that position isn't strong for her. But for Alexa Grasso, take what the fight gives you. And we all know that when she's cooking with her boxing, she's dealing. It's great. And we all know that when she's cooking with her boxing, she's dealing. It's great. She does phenomenal work that way. But this was nice to see because now she's beginning to put other pieces of her game together.

I think this is her first submission win in the UFC, as a matter of fact. And she does that all the way at age 28. She's only 28 years old, dude. Alexa Grass has been in the UFC for some time. Only 28 years old and is already doing stuff like this. I mean, she is, you know, I don't know exactly how far she's going to go with this because we'll talk about Monofi Oro in just a minute. But I didn't feel like I learned anything new about Grasso with the boxing. I did feel like I learned a lot about certainly the state of Joanne Wood's career and what she can offer from

a grappling perspective against elite opposition, or at least pretty elite opposition. And then Alexa Grasso showing this other wrinkle, taking the back, pulling her backwards, finding a way to get both hooks in, switching sides on the, again, it wasn't a super complicated process, but it was something. Switching side to side and then getting it. It's nice work, man. It's nice work. I think where is she ranked? If I pull up the rankings here, that would tell me she is currently Alexa Grasso. This is probably not updated fully. She was sitting at nine and Joanne Wood was sitting at seven. So she'll probably bump up to around there. But remember, Tyler Santos is getting a title shot sitting in the fifth position. So she'll have some opportunities there herself.

We talk about now Chris Gutierrez at bantamweight, taking on Dana Batgarell. He wins via spinning backfist and elbows at 234 of the second round. Now, a lot of the spinning he was trying in the first round wasn't really going all that well, but there was a lot that really was going well. In fact, he had spun in the first round, and it caused him a bit of a problem,

because at the last minute or so, Bat-Gorrel basically used it as an opportunity to, I think, either got the takedown. Let me look at this up. In any case, he ended the last minute dishing out punishment to Gutierrez, who I think had fallen to the ground off of a failed spitting attempt. But the problem with what Batgirle was doing was that it's one thing to cage cut. It's another one to follow. And they can be kind of distinct because there's actually ways to cage cut that are different from one another. There's actually different kinds of cage cutting strategies. But what you don't want to do is get lured into a trap. The reason why a guy like Gutierrez can land a spinning backfist is because he moves side to side a lot. And if you

notice, there's right before, first of all, how does he score it? He scores it on the half beat, right? He gets a lead step from back girl. The second foot is coming up and in the middle of it, he's already moving and going. But the real reason why is if you look at it, he's actually walking like this. I mean, I'm exaggerating my arms, but he takes a step with his left foot and in this, Batgirall just kind of moves forward and into him. It's less about I'm going to corner you and more than I'm just going to be like right on top of you. And when you follow like that and the other person is clever and they're a couple of steps ahead, even just one step ahead, they can set traps for you when you follow like that and the other person is clever and they're a couple of steps ahead even just one step ahead they can set traps for you when you follow them side to side like that so he takes that step that girl comes with it and he just comes around the side and pops them with it

and that was all she wrote i mean he followed up with ground and pound thereafter uh but but it was taking advantage of trap setting people always say, what do you mean by setting traps? Usually, well, not usually, often I'll say, often, setting traps can be a situation where you're on the back foot, defensively or quite literally, and you're using lateral movement to get them to, by the way, you can do it where if they attack in a straight line, you can set that up, you can feint, get a reaction,

then you can go to the side, then now you can escape, and then go back to center. I mean, there's lots of different ways in which you can use that. But in this particular case, he knew that Batgiril by that point in the fight was following him. I mean, yes, he was cornering him in a certain way. It wasn't like he was giving him room, but he was a little bit too, while he was aggressive with his positioning, he was a little bit too undisciplined with it as well and follows him

right where he needs to and then just gets drilled. That's it. You see it when Molly McCann throws it, their lead leg swings through and steps to the outside of their opponents, which is what you see. But then Batgirall keeps going. So he had to kind of spin, I think maybe a little bit further than normal, or at least actually he got a little bit closer. That's why it ended up landing like right near the elbow. But that's even a harder part. Like normal. Actually, he got a little bit closer. That's why it ended up landing right near the elbow. But that's even a harder part. You land here. I mean, there's bone here.

And of course, we've seen people get knocked out. But man, that bone on the elbow and then right next to it, that can be really, really, really hard stuff. So he got drilled with that. But he was following. He was following. That was the problem. And Gutierrez lit him up for it.

But Gutierrez is good, man. He was in good shape. We're talking about how good his shape is. Well coached out of Mark Montoya at Factory X. On top of that, he's good with the leg kicks. He peppers up until that failed spinning attack where he then got banged on at the end of the first. Other than that, I thought Gutierrez was in pretty much great control the whole time. It was what you would expect from him.

The bigger cage, by the way, might allow him to set traps a little more easily. I think that was the bigger cage that they were using, something to keep in mind as well in terms of the kind of results that it produces. But yeah, that was good stuff. That was really good stuff from Chris Gutierrez who at Bantamweight, I think,

got one of the better wins of his career and I think showed what he can do and rather, I would say, earned the right for a major step up in competition. We'll make one note of the women's flyweight bout between Manon Fiorot and Jennifer Maia. By the way, Fiorot wins 30-27 across the board and looked impressive doing it,

landing a couple of her own takedowns, stuffing a bunch from Jennifer Maia, getting on top of Jennifer Maia And looked impressive doing it. Landing a couple of her own takedowns. Stuffing a bunch from Jennifer Maya. Getting on top of Jennifer Maya and not getting submitted. Constantly, what did she do? She was hitting her with a sidekick from the southpaw position. And then coming over the top with the right hand at times as well. At that same side, going low, then coming high, going low, then coming high. She got hit clean, I think, in the second round with a headkick.

Fierro did on a clinch break. But in general, dude, that was a shutdown performance. Jennifer Maya, not too long ago. What was the title fight she had against Valentina Shevchenko? That was at 2020. So that wasn't too, too long ago. Rebounded against Jessica Aina. Lost against Kaitlyn Shukagian.

Now Manon Fierro. But, I mean, these are the fights that she's lost in the UFC. Two to Kaitlyn Shukagian, one to Valentina Shevchenko, and now Manon Fierro. That tells you what you're dealing with here. Fierro, physically strong, good judge of distance, good mix of strikes. That sidekick, not a lot of people do it as well as she does it, where it's almost like a jab and like it's a punch to the gut, or it can at least push on the hip and it can redirect them or slow them down.

There's a lot you can do with that strike in the hands, or I should say with the legs, of somebody as talented as she is. And that's exactly what you saw. I think she has a purple belt in jiu-jitsu, so she has some skills there, although obviously Maya on the ground has a little bit more. And again, there was a couple moments where she tried to take the back, but she got too far over. I'd say this thing about Fiorot. In the clinch and a lot of other positions, you can see her balance is good.

She's strong as shit. And you see that in these scrambles, she consistently finds a way to come out on top. Now, sometimes it's because she had initiated the scramble, and so of course she's going to be in a more advantageous position, but not every time. And there was a time where she got, I think, tripped or was taken to the ground and then used a butterfly hook to keep it alive, but she had kept the body lock with her. So by elevating with the hook and keeping the body lock, she could come up with it at a certain point and stand. And so she didn't get the separation from Maya, but she was able to not get overwhelmed with

it. So very strong, very strong upper body takedowns, very strong understanding of position, and very good balance, really good balance. And some of the kicks she was throwing, I don't even know what they were. She was whipping them side to side in the same, you know, she would throw like a crescent kick. No, I'm not even sure what they are. She would throw all kinds of kicks where she was waving with the heel one way and then it would miss and then she would come right back with the instep the next way and it would totally have Maya off guard. So Maya didn't know exactly where to place her hands. And then of course, she'd go back to the side push kick where she's stabbing the body of Maya. I mean, there's a lot that was really, really good about that.

Now, she didn't exactly ever have Maya in trouble, so she's built to win rounds. It's going to be hard to do as she moves up without some other kind of finishing opportunity. I think pot-shotting people and then sticking and moving, I know that's supposed to be the name of the game, but it may not be enough ultimately. But still, hell of a win by Fioro if ever there was one.

Amazing. All right, so what did you like? What did you not like from the weekend's fights? Thumbs up on the video. Hit subscribe. Let me know in the comments. We'll be back either next week or the week after. I've got to see what's up with the schedule,

but happy to do this one, hopefully error-free. Appreciate you all watching. Until next time, enjoy the comments. We'll be back next, either next week or the week after. I got to see what's up with the schedule, but happy to do this one, hopefully error-free. Appreciate y'all watching. Until next time, enjoy the fights.