BTG 109 - Who is the Baddest man on the planet?

[Music] hello and welcome to Breaking the guard on today's episode we're going to talk about who's the baddest man in the planet right now and that is obviously something that's always under contention starting off in the MMA World spoiler alerts here we had a pfl Battle of Giants where you had um Ferrera who has been on a streak knocking people out left and right finally face up with Francis nagu and their match was pretty short as one would expect but it was a dominant victory for Francis he used really good leg kicks to approach Ferrera and was able to slip his punches go into a double leg off the fence pull him down and just Dev with the ground pound at one point forer got to his fours and trying to stand up and nag is showing good ground control used kind of like a crab ride where he had his feet inside the ankles of Ferrera kind of spreading him out and then being heavy on those knees so that per couldn't stand up and then just started pelting him with heavy shots and I think after two punches he had one that was like a right uppercut then he started unloading with the left Hooks and it looked like after two or three punches Ferrer was out and uh big Dan mcal let that go for a little bit long because he would knock him out and then he would hit him wake him up hit him again knock him out so I mean Ferrero was probably in and out of Consciousness multiple times before they finally he flatten out completely and then they stopped it but uh pretty vicious normally ground on pound from you know fours is not the strongest punching because normally you're covering up a bit you're not in the ideal position you know leverage wise to throw good power punches but clearly Nagano is built different right obviously you could see it and uh the the sound of the shots is even brutal so he clearly is a very dangerous animal and uh his combination of skills now now as far as being able to bring the fight to the ground makes him particularly lethal now because not only is he incredibly powerful from his feet but he can apply that power on the ground and he can take people to the ground seemingly quite easily it will be interesting to see what happens now because I think in pfl there's kind of Nothing Left for him there even though that was his first fight Ferrera was like the boogeyman of that thing and he just steamrolled him on the other side we have Aspen who is the interim champion who also looked very good but the UFC snubbed him to give Jon Jones uh a title fight with Stipe miic which honestly stiz was a good champ at his peak of his career I think it's fair to say he is not at that Peak anymore you know um Jon Jones was a champ then vacated or I think legal problem I forgot what the issue I think he hurt himself is what it was right I think he had a peck hair so then he was sidelined Aspen fought for the interim belt but then the interim belt became useless because normally when you get an interim belt you're supposed to defend it immediately against the returning champ that you know was injured or whatnot that's the whole point of it so Dana White kind of snubbing Aspen by going Jones with miic seemed pretty weird right and it's once again you've heard me say this CES of many times what's the point of a ranking system if we're going to disregard it what's the point of an interim belt if you're going to disregard it because right now Aspen's interim Bel is worthless the champion who Jon Jones is supposed to unify the belts and they didn't let it happen it's messed up it's completely unfair to Aspen because mind you remember there's Championship money that's made right like the Champions get paid more than everyone else so uh aspino is losing that paycheck which is messed up right and miic just stepping out to fight Jones seemingly out of nowhere is a weird fight selection right so if we had to consider the baddest heavyweights in my opinion we're looking at Jones Aspen miic just because he is in a title fight whether I agree with it or not and of course nagu right I think neic is probably at the bottom of the list no disrespect but like I said I feel like he's kind of past his prime Jones I would say is in a similar situation where he's not is I don't think he's still youngish though but at least by the amount of time he's been in the game and his physical condition that he seems to portray doesn't look Peak right um I think he's still by one of the baddest people on the planet for sure at least in the top three right uh but in his FR in his fight was U what's his name the Frenchman that he beat San right uh didn't look great as far as like conditioning and physical uh status even his takedown look kind of weird is just I feel like Siro is just so not versed on ground game that he made that look easy I don't think that plays out the same if he's fighting Tom Aspen or Francis Nagano you're I don't think you're going to score a taked down that easily on those two gentlemen so it's hard to really pick how that's going to happen right like who's going to come out on top so so what would be nice in an Ideal World which we obviously don't live in fourman tournament between those four guys and see who comes out on top because those matchups would be very interesting matchups Aspen with Jones Aspen with nanu Nagano with um Francis right and I mean throwing miic in there why not right um although I feel like he he he might not I I could totally be wrong maybe I'm underestimating miic significantly uh I just don't feel like he's going to be able to hang with those guys uh but again I could be totally wrong but those are the three guys I see at the top of the list and right now just out of recency bias I think Nagano has to be the the top of the list there you know he never lost his UFC belt he basically vacated it and then went to pfl took over that belt uh I think he's a pretty hard guy to beat an MMA just because of his power and now that he's got wrestling on top of that that he's able to use effectively to land devastating ground pound he's going to be a scary guy to Face Off with but the thing about heavyweights is that they all have that type of power on their feet usually so anyone could knock anyone like I said fer could have won that fight with Nano if he would have landed a good combination right like it just all depends with Jones that's the one area I feel like he doesn't have he has not really scored one punch knockouts I think with the exception of the Cormier rematch where he head kicked him um at least as far as my memory serves he of course can get tkoos and get submissions but he doesn't have in my opinion that heavyweight knockout power that a guy like Nagano or Aspen has so I feel if Jones is going to win fights against these guys is going to be from conditioning wins and from a technical standpoint taking people down getting submissions or just outworking them on the ground out wrestling them out pointing them on the feet perhaps but it's not going to be he he has more ways to lose I would say as far as he has to be perfect as far as not getting hit by any of these big shots from these monsters and uh has to be able to put them away which he sure he can so he can submit people so uh I feel probably a harder game plan to execute in the sense that if you're going against a massive guy who cuts to 265 has good wrestling has incredibly dangerous striking and you have to take that guy down that's tricky right that's not that easy so I feel like Jones it's probably lower on the list as a result of of that again also I just think because of his time in the in the UFC and also like the things happening in his life right he always getting into trouble you know that's to me doesn't really signify like someone's in a good place right um but Jones has yet to suffer defeat so he could always win I just think that that his likelihood has decreased over the years and uh him moving up to heavyweight also it's not like a natural transition right it's more like he's bulking up to get there whereas these guys like asol and Nano are just massive people you know uh as far as Aspen I mean he poses a very similar threat to as Nagano he can work on the ground dangerous on his feet so that one's a tossup right um I haven't watched a lot of his fights I've seen a few of them so I just have more history studying Francis but it's I feel pretty close so like if there's a fight that I would want to see it probably between those two guys Aspen and nanu that would be a very interesting matchup those like I I think two guys are are are closely matched in both size and skills would be a very interesting match aspino already hinted that he wants that match uh and he also respects Nano saying that he knows it's a it's a scary guy right so uh would definitely be interesting but I would first like to see Aspen be able to unify the belt right he deserves that uh hopefully after this Jones miic fight if Jones doesn't retire which it seems like some people have hinted that that he might then Aspen can unify and that would be a a cool fight to see so yeah those are my takes on uh MMA baddest man on the planet I didn't mention other organizations like 1fc just because I don't really follow them too well and I haven't seen somebody onefc that seems to stay on the top like they're moving around quite a bit I and personally I just don't think they're at the level of uh what we have in the US right now at least for heavyweight stature in grappling the conversation is much easier it's Gordon Ryan Kanan DTE and Nikki Rod you these are the three guys that have made a name for themselves Gordon obviously has won everything there is to win in noge he's got a ridiculous record a submission ratio over 80% as a black belt and he's got like 100 plus matches as a black belt just insane output right and although now he's kind of you know stepped back as far as being able to compete as much to the health issues his technique his conditioning his his will is undeniable that he's obviously number one seed but uh behind them Kanan now replicated a similar feat in his last ACC run where he got double gold seven submissions out of eight matches very impressive run and uh clearly show that Kanan stock has gone up now Gordon and Kanan has faced before Gordon got the better of him but you know things have changed he's obviously gotten better so that's a super fight that will happen in the next 80s to see I assume which would be Gordon and Kanan which would be it'll be interesting to see how things change I personally think as long as Gordon you know can compete he'll win I think he's Superior in the ground game his technique is just superb but who knows uh it would be a good matchup to see you also have Nikki Rod who technically I don't think he's as good as the other two all around however where he's good he's better than the other two in that case his wrestling game takedown game I believe he's a better wrestler than Gordon and Kanan uh he's probably the best wrestler in grappling at the moment his guard passing is very good his byock passing he does excellent and from just about every match I've seen him go in he's able to do it to everybody so he's clearly got that system down pat uh his back taking skills have improved dramatically where he's able to finish everybody from the back I think all his matches lately have been reene good choke finishes off the back Mount so he has found a way of imposing a game plan and getting everyone into the the places he wants to be he can wrestle them to the ground he can pass their guard he can force the back Mount and he can force every naked choke so that's a level of Mastery in that I imagine everyone that's going against Nikki Rod knows that's what he's going to do but he's still able to do it so that's impressive right now I think the rest of his game is not that great at least I mean I make an assumption we don't see it right that's kind of the the problem with The Specialist is that we don't know what he doesn't show so maybe he has a great butterfly guard or whatever but never has to use it right no one is sweeping him right now no one is taking him down so he's able to protect potential weak areas and he's able to focus on his strengths when we talk about matching up these different people together the I think the issue is the rule set in MMA our rule sets are pretty much the same right there's smaller exceptions you know like no down kicks and you know in Western MMA and UFC and pfl Bellator but for the most part they're all about the same grappling all the rules are very different and the strategy changes completely you know you're if you're doing ADCC the rule set and strategy you're going to use for that is very different than a ebi or even a ipgf all completely different rules all very different strategies so it would depend on what rule set we're competing in right or we mentioned cji is another wild card also right so it's hard to say if I was to pick I think Gordon wins in a rule sets and uh ebi R sets pretty well he's done a now he's got more gold medals than you but else he has so much experience in there he knows how to avoid getting scored on and being able to score in ACC so I think it's really hard for anybody to beat Gordon in ACC roles similar in ebi since it's a patience game Gordon's great that right like those slower longer matches favor Gordon right because he's got great conditioning and pacing and if you let him start in the back mound man that's a rough that's a rough time right uh he can usually have good ride time there and he'll win by that on a ibjjf now it's a little bit different takedowns come to play right although you can pull guard Gordon's obviously won quite a few igfs so he's familiar with those rule sets uh and if he can pull guard you know he can probably win those matches against uh Nikki Kanan he might wrestle with probably would wrestle with a little bit use a similar strategy that he has adopted and a lot of the new wave guys have lots of heavy collar ties wear down the neck and people get a little more tired start going for takedowns depending on the length of the time of the round though that strategy might not be as viable if it's like a 8 Minute round it could be enough time usually I would say it takes like at least five minutes to cook somebody enough where you can start setting up effective takedowns of attrition but against guys like kanan's caliber it might take longer so would kind of depend on the round I I feel like when the rounds are longer it's going to favor Gordon uh when there's like start positions you get to work on that's going to favor Gordon I think the rule said that uh would favor someone like Nikki Rod would would be the cji and uh made by you know his teammate Craig I think that particular rule set would favor Niki rod more CU they are scoring aggression more than anything else uh takedowns there's no and there's periods so it favors more explosive action versus long sustained uh output so in those role sets Nikki Rod gets more of an advantage but even then I don't know if that's enough for him to get the w i I think Gordon is definitely at the top of the list there I think the number two spot is more In Contention between Kanan and Nikki I think that will be a stylistic challenge of how well can Kanan play off his back against Nikki's uh wrestling my gut instinct would be that Nikki would come out on top and I think he would win so if I had to rate these guys based on their current uh skill levels in my opinion Gordon Nikki Kanan and that's just like I said I think Nikki can since he can control where the match goes he's going to get on top I don't think kanan's going to sweep him so either he wins by a Tak down or just by passing pressure pressure and I I could see a back exposure happening and if that happens it would be Nikki can finish that pretty quickly so I think he's got the edge now I wouldn't surpris me kany was able to beat him but I think Nikki Rob would have the the odds would be in his favor so that's how I see it if I'm looking at MMA you know I feel like Francis Aspen all Jones is if I'm going grappling Gordon Nikki Kanan those are my takes you guys can disagree with me like I said I I don't pretend to be uh Clairvoyant this is just my Impressions right uh so no disrespect to any of those guys are obviously all super talented uh but that's just how I see these things breaking down anyhow I'm going to be going to Japan uh in well a couple days from now so if you guys want to hit me up I still have internet there I still have content being posted every day while I'm gone and uh I I'll be doing podcasts I pre-recorded a few podcasts uh covering certain topics I think will be useful for you guys hopefully you enjoy all that and uh I guess I'll see you guys in a few weeks but I'll be posting daily so you'll still be getting my stuff all right and as always you know if you guys like what you see here feel free to comment on it share it with a friend uh I I enjoy helping people it's one of the main reasons I do this so uh the more people I can reach out to uh the better it is for me and hopefully for them too