BTG 137 - Monday Morning Quarterback

[Music] Hello and welcome to another episode of Breaking the Guard. On today's episode, I'm going to be talking about the UFC that just happened on Saturday, which we had Sanhagen versus Figerto. This was going to be setting up the next top contender. Of course, spoiler alerts all about. I actually watched most of this card as uh I was just a little bit under the weather. Uh not sure from what though. Still don't know. But nevertheless, I did get to watch most of this car. A lot of finishes, a lot of good fights. Uh I'm going to be a crit a major critic of a lot of fights though. And no offense to the fighters here, but if we start from the bottom, some fights that caught my attention. One, Gaston Balanos and Quang Lee. Quang Lee dispatched Bologanos fairly handedly which again very surprising like he just took him out like he was nobody you know took him down got his back Rene choked him you know put him to sleep in the process so props to him and then we had Azamat Beckov versus Ryan Loader and uh I didn't know anything about Azamat and I learned he's a bad dude He also dispatched Ryan Loader like he was nothing. Just knocked him out. Crazy finish there. Uh Misha Tate and Yana Santos. This is I think like Jana is number 10 and Misha is number 12 in the rankings for the women's uh 135 pound division. Not a particularly great fight. Jana did just enough to to win. She won the first two rounds pretty much by outstriking Misha. Misha kept trying to score takedown but could not get anywhere close to one. She would shoot for the legs a lot and Jana did a great job of just pulling her up to a body lock and then uh Misha wasn't able to work anything from a overunder body lock type of situation. break away and she was just getting clipped on the outside. The one round that Misha won was a third round where she did secure a taked down and was much more dominant in that round that Jana was in any round. But the big problem here, I'm like, man, like we needed a finish and Misha was fighting like she was going to win a decision. I don't know because like she got to the mount and then immediately switched to the back. Didn't look like she was really fighting hard to get chokes. Like maybe like once or twice she like kind of snuck a hand to her shoulder and then just didn't really fight hard to get it. Didn't switch off to an arm bar with the last 30 seconds, you know. And she had the back for I think at least three minutes. like it was a major portion of the round that she had in the back. Um, and just didn't have that urgency. In my opinion, again, Monday morning quarterback in this, if you had the taked down, you should have tried ground and pounded this for the finish. Uh, going back mount with yourself on the back, you're not going to do any substantial damage. She was trying to like pepper her with shots. It's like you're not hurting her there. You're behind her. gravity's working against you and you're trying to loop around where you're only going to be hitting or guard, right? Um, I know you have to do that sometimes to try to open up a choke or whatnot, but you weren't going for the chokes. So, seemed like a poor strategy that was executed there. Like I the the strategy as far as taking Jana down was sound. She was better than you in the feet. She's a little faster but and on the ground clearly Jana didn't really have any ground game. She, you know, gave up her guard almost immediately. Got side control, mounted. I think trying to play against her on the back mount with you in the back, not a great idea. Like especially if you're not strong at finishing your negative chokes or you're not motivated to, which it seemed like that was the case. Should have been better off staying on mount this ground and pounding, you know? Uh, and if there's less than a minute left and you know you're going to lose by decision, which I imagine you would have, you need to go for the arm lock, then that's the easy one that everybody could catch. You know, it's better than nothing because what? You're going to lose anyways. So, you might as well try to get something on the way out. So, I was a little upset at that because I was like, "Oh, it was such a close uh run to the to the finish, but just didn't seem to have a good idea of maybe she thought she was winning one of the the the first rounds. Maybe I mean, honestly, it the the I guess you could have made an argument for maybe round one. Misha was jabbing and stuff. It just wasn't very effective. And I mean Jana either I mean it wasn't a big loss in my opinion, but it doesn't like it wasn't a good showing in my opinion for either of the ladies. Like Jana is showing that she has clear holes in the ground. Like if anybody takes her down, she's in a lot of trouble. And Misha is still having the same struggle which her stand up is not super great. And she's struggling to be able to take people down to work her strong, which is her grappling. Anyhow, uh the next match, Mason Jones and Jeremy Stevens. This one I was interested in just because I like Jeremy Stevens. He's a very violent guy, a good good knockout artist. I didn't know anything about Mason Jones. When they started the fight, I'm like, Jesus, Mason is a lot bigger than Jeremy. Probably like 20 pounds from the looks of it. Like, he is filled out. Uh Jeremy Stevens looks like he may have just walked in on weight uh by comparison. So there was a big size advantage for Mason, but when the fight got rolling, Mason looked like he initially had a upper hand on the striking. Jeremy looked a little slower than he he did back in his prime, but uh there's I think one point where Mason had Jeremy hurt, but then Jeremy started firing back and was connecting pretty good, doing some good damage. busted up both of Mason's eyes and especially going into round two looked like Jeremy was getting the better now of the striking. There was a point in round I think if I'm correct it was round two Mason ragd doll Jeremy on a takedown just quarter turn lifted him put him right down but uh round was almost over so it didn't really matter for much and it might have been a one a piece round there like I think Mason might have won round one Jeremy might have won round two if my memory serves round three Mason wasted no time took down Jeremy immediately. And although he wasn't able to really do anything to Jeremy because Jeremy kept trying to come up, Jeremy did not seem to have any capability of separating himself from Mason. Like he was able to stand up each time, but he would get Matt returned immediately. And I'm not sure if it's just a the size advantage was too much, which I can appreciate. If you're going against a guy who's much bigger than you, it's very easy for them to matt return you. Just quarter turn lift, quarter turn lift. Like you're, you know, you can try like sinking your legs in, but you're definitely at a disadvantage, right? But I forgot to mention, I think Jeremy got taken he I I believe in fact he did get taken down at the end of both the first round and second round. I think in the first round he had his back taken with a rear naked choke in place and the time saved him and then round two same thing happened. U so Jeremy's takedown defense was pretty absent and his ground game was also very absent. He was good at working back up to his feet but that was about it. So from my assessment Jeremy should stick to bare knuckle fighting, right? It looks like he's lost a good amount of his speed, his wrestling skills, his ground skills. If this was a purely standup fight, Jeremy would have won it. But it's an MMA fight and it looks like his MMA skills have gone rusty. And you know, he's for a fighter, he's an older fighter now, right? So, I think bare knuckle fighting suits him better because that was always his strong suit anyways was throwing hands and he still got that heat and the dudes in bare knuckle fighting are not at the prime of their game. Most of these guys have kind of phased out so like it's the right place for him. I think fighting the UFC I know I think this is a hometown crowd for him so he probably wanted that. He didn't announce a retirement though, which would have made sense from the UFC at least. But, uh, yeah, I don't think he should be doing MMA based off his wrestling and his ground game. It was just not there. And anybody who watches this is going to see, I need to exploit this immediately, and he's going to have to work on trying to get up the whole fight and not being able to strike. I missed the next fight. Uh, the next couple fights actually. I saw the Kain and oh, I'm sorry. The last three fights, Santiago, Ponzanibio, and Daniel Rodriguez. Um, this one I picked wrong. I thought uh Santiago was going to pull it out, but he did not. He looked like he was landing, but had like very little effect on Daniel. And when Daniel landed, it seemed to have a much bigger effect striking wise. And at one point, Daniel was able to catch him with a three-piece followed by a two-piece on the feet. And that's all she wrote. They It looked a little early, but it was a little understandable because when he got knocked down from his feet, he dropped hands out. He came up a little bit, got hit once, and his arm went straight again. And that's as the ref started jumping in. He recovered after that, but a little understandable. I don't think it would have changed the result. Early stop, yeah, but uh probably better in this case cuz that wasn't going to get any better for Pontanibio in my opinion. Uh next fight was an interesting one. Reneer, De Ritter, and uh Bone Nickel. This is one that I felt was very poorly picked by the bookies. They had Bone Nickel as a big favorite and RDR as the underdog, forgetting that RDR was a double champ and won and I think held three different titles at one point. He is a very good judo guy, very good jiu-jitsu guy, good wrestling guy, you know, he has striking knockouts to his thing. So, like he's a very well-rounded fighter where Bo, although he did score a knockout, you know, I mean, he's very new to the game and uh is pretty much a grappler, right? In my mind, unless Bo was scoring a knockout, I'm not sure how he was gonna win this fight because on the ground, he's going to be outmatched. And he can take down RDR, but he's going to be in now a dangerous area. So, to me, it felt like he was going to have to use a standup to win, which is not obviously his strong suit. He's got power, but that's why I thought the the bookies had it wrong. And when the fight came to pass, RDR went immediately to try to take down Blue Nickel. Uh he didn't score the takedown, but he instead ended up pulling guard or getting taken down himself, which again, like that's fine for him. You know, he can work off his back. And at one point, I'm not sure when, there was a reversal scored. So then, uh, RDR or maybe he took him down. I can't recall exactly, but RDR was on top. Looked like he was chasing an arm triangle, couldn't get it, and was just able to do some ground and pound from top if I remember correctly. Yeah, my my memor is always terrible with these, but yeah, I went to round two, right? But in round two, there was more striking in RDR. Started landing more and particularly landing some body shots, which was kind of a foreshadowing of what was to come. At one point, he lands a good combination. You could see bone nickels hurt and then he lands a brutal knee to the liver. just left knee liver or it might have been a right knee that I can't recall now but it folded bow nickel like a cheap chair and he was out immediately. So another great uh victory for him and now he's got a hell of a streak. Three wins against uh Gerald Mirart. He submitted him which is not an easy thing to do. Um he submitted a big mouth. His name's Slipping Me. Uh but uh he's another guy that's tough. And then he just knocked out or body knocked out uh Bone Nickel in less than six months. Hell of a win streak that RDR has put together as a UFC newcomer. That should launch him into uh the top 10 at the very least and get him ready to to start fighting. I mean, he's got the skills, you know, and he he called a shot. He wanted Strickland, I believe, because he said he just took out the best American wrestler. Now he wants the best American striker in Strickland. That's a a interesting fight. Uh, I'm not sure how that one really goes. Uh, Strickland's a awkward guy to strike against. He's also very good at wrestling. Uh, and he's a good jiu-jitsu guy, even though he says jiu-jitsu is gay. He doesn't like it. He trains it all the time and, uh, he trains wrestling all the time. So, he's a hard guy to take down, hard guy to hold down. So, I think that becomes a striking battle. And uh I guess I'm not sure if Strickland's unorthodox striking plays a big role in that fight or if RDR can use some of his as he put Dutch inheritance to to score knockouts. In any case, uh that was an interesting call out. the final fight, the main event, you know, we have um Cory Sanhagen and Davidson Figerto. Now, both of these guys are very well-rounded. They could fight everywhere. So, I was very interested in this fight to see how it would play out. And honestly very surprised at the the direction it took because if I remember correctly, Figeredto tried to take down Sanhagen, couldn't do it, pulled or got taken down himself and ended up in his guard. Goes into Asharami with Corey standing above him, but doesn't have any lock in place. So he just has the leg weave, right? And the ankle, it was San Hagen's right ankle on this side. And he was just kind of here. He He didn't have a heel hook, didn't have a straight ankle lock grip, no real control. He was just hanging out there. And Cory just started beating the crap out of him. And he didn't seem particularly motivated to move, Davidson did. And you know, you could hear Bisping going ballistic. And Bisping is wrong about a lot of things and commentating with grappling, but he wasn't about this. And it's like, yeah, like playing leg locks in MMA is risky, especially when the guy is standing. Like that's a big no no. I tell people all the time, you're not leg locking someone when they're standing over you. 99 out of 100. You have to sweep them first. And if you're not even trying to sweep them, you're going to get clobbered, right? And because most of the time, your head's kind of pinned on the mat. So now they got gravity working with them as they're punching you and your head's grounded. You're not getting any give on the punch. You're not able to move with it. It's bad, right? But Davidson was just happy to take punishment there. And didn't seem really seem to care. And from most of that I remember about round one was just Davidson trying to play leg locks, not getting any traction. At one point he did switch to a heel hook, but uh Sanhagen just spun with it a little bit and then would go to back fists and then they would go back. And he was pretty relentless about keeping this ashy because he had a very deep leg cross like it wasn't just the ankle over the hip. He had triangled it. So like his leg was all the way over. So almost hard for him to extract himself in the position you could say. but didn't seem like he was motivated to get out, which was very perplexing. So, he easily gave a way around and took a good amount of punishment for Sanhagen. And round two comes around and it's the same game plan. They end up back on the ground. I think Sanhagen took him down this time if I remember correctly. And then Figerto goes into 50/50. Now, mind you, San Hagen is training at the 5050 Academy with Ryan Hall, okay? One of the the major forces of the 50/50. His school is named 50/50. Okay? Like, this guy lives and breathes this. He's not a stranger to leglocks. So playing a leg lock heavy game in MMA, which is already kind of silly, very risky against a guy who in MMA is Ryan Hall is probably the most technical leg locker in MMA, right? Uh it wasn't a great MMA fighter just because he was very one-dimensional, but you know, he did score lots of leg lock finishes. So that's your corner man, your coach, and your opponent is going to try to beat you at your own game. Seems kind of silly. And it turns out it is cuz uh at one point Figared Edoto almost got 50 50 heel hooked himself, but then he would just get stuck there and Cory San still beating on them. You know, Cory ended up always being the top guy in the 50/50 and not the bottom guy, right? And at one point, Davidson did sweep him from the 50/50. And then Corey was working back up to sweep him. And Davidson was trying to counter that sweep. Now, I can tell you that puts a lot of pressure on your knee when you're trying to resist their 50/50, particularly when your knee's out of position, right? Like you're more sideway like this versus being like stronger where the knee's built in. and he ended up getting swept and his knee blown out at the same time and he started tapping out and it wasn't from grown pound it was because his knee blew out and again this is where some people had critique which was valid which I was saying I guess in the post bisping was saying oh it's unfortunate the fight ended in you know with this accidental injury and it's like it wasn't accidental you were playing 50/50 and you didn't know what you were doing you're going to blow your knees out right It's a dangerous position. That's why I always thought in in IBF when they wouldn't allow he hooks, but they allow 50/50. I'm like, dude, 50/50, you can easily blow out your knee. I blew out mean my well, I didn't blow it out, but I did pop my knee in a 50/50 in IBJF just because a guy kept trying to turn me and I was resisting. I already had a bad knee to begin with and my knee popped, you know, and I thought it's like you guys are worried about knee popping, but you allow 50/50 all day. like it's a bad position for your knee if you're if you're not careful. So again, that one of the dumber game plans I've seen pulled off on a main event, trying to beat somebody at something that there are coaches worldrenowned for. That would be like someone trying to outstrike Alex Potan, which people have tried, right? Like you can't underestimate sometimes how silly people are. Like your goal as a fighter is to win as efficiently as possible. Taking minimal damage, taking minimal amount of time, and executing where you are strongest and they are weakest. The greatest differential, right? not necessarily what your best game at is the biggest differential. And I've used this analogy many times, but I'll use it again. Imagine we have somebody who is the number one striker in the world and he is maybe bottom 100,000 in grappling, terrible grappling. On the other hand, we have the number two striker in the world and he's also a top 100 grappler, right? So, he's a better striker than he is a grappler. So, when he fights this opponent who's a number one striker, does he go where he's best at and try to beat him strike for strike or does he realize our striking gap is minimal? And even though this is where I feel the most comfortable, he is a terrible grappler, bottom th 100,000, I'm top 100, there's a huge gap between our grappling skill. I'll easily be able to win the fight if I go there. So, I should become a grappler in this fight. That is what I would urge you to do, right? You you have to find that gap of the biggest differential. And it's not always where you're best at. I feel like Figarettto clearly underestimated his opponent thinking that he was going to outplay him on the ground. The one thing that I thought might have been dangerous for Sanhagen was back takes, but then again, we have seen Sanhagen has incredible back escapes. He's gotten out of of quite a few back mounts from very dangerous people. So, I'm like, that's something that Figerto is good at finishing from, but it's also something Sane Hagen is very good at escaping from. So, I didn't think the ground game would be in Figerto's favor. So, I'm not sure what the calculation was from his coaches to say like we need to make this a ground game and particularly a leglock game. That seems totally bananas. It seems very divorced from reality. It's easier to say now that we've seen the fight, but even before the fight, I can understand like working top position and then looking for ground and balance. That makes sense to me, right? Or just working for top position in general. You get pins like a crucifix, so you get a good half guard, Dagistani handcuff, you can do some good damage there. But the strategy of playing leg locks and being the bottom guy, man, that's really, really, really far-fetched, right? San Hagen is a is a is a real deal, you know, and uh I mean, he's been functioning as a highlevel gatekeeper, but like the guy's got all the skills. He can stand up, he can wrestle, he can grapple, he's legit, you know? I mean, it's just it's a very tough division, but I think he's going to be knocking for that title shot pretty soon, especially after a win like this. He probably needs just one more big win and he's in title territory. He's a very good fighter. So, like seems like, man, like how did you think that? And yeah, I was saying the bookies had this wrong as far as like they're making Figarettto such a big dog. I'm like, Figarettto is really good. like it's going to be a closer fight, but you know, I thought San Him was going to win. But looking back on, maybe the bookies knew the strategy and like, man, he's like figured out he's going to play his stupid strategy, so he's going to lose this pretty handily, you know? Uh because yeah, he the he played the odds the way the bookies called it, right? But like it shouldn't have been that much of a blowout. I felt like if Figaretta would have fought with a much better game plan that it would have been a closer fight. Although seeing the stand up, it seemed like San Higin was going to get the better of the standup. I think the reach and the speed was going to be a bit much for Davidson to figure out. Uh Davidson is older and he is moving up way. Uh so it's going to be tougher, you know, and if he's trying to break into that title picture at 135, I think he's going to have a rough go of it, especially if he's picking poor strategy and game plans like this. Like I believe he was saying this was like a new coach he was working with. I'm like not a good look for that new coach if he they convinced you this was the game plan. And I feel as a fighter you got to have a little bit of fight IQ and know yourself like I'm working with a new coach. He's telling me some crazy stuff and uh maybe I'm with the wrong guy, right? Uh, especially if you're somebody who's already been a USC champ, you kind of know what works and what not. I can't imagine telling somebody to play bottom leg locks in MMA in a main event against a very a guy who's training with one of the best leg lockers arguably in the world and thinking that's going to be the winning strategy. Like, it's crazy. just so bad. Yeah. I mean, I I'm all about loyalty and whatnot. I again, I think this was a new coach for at least from what I understood. I would not be working with that coach anymore. That was a bad game plan. Bad. Like really, really bad. one thing like you make a bad call out and it's happened I think to anybody who's coached long enough where you you advise your athlete to do one thing like in the spur of the moment and then they do it and it backfires like oh like damn right that's not something you want to see but this wasn't a call out this was what at least appears to be the whole game plan was a disaster Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Davis and Figerettto went off script. He went rogue and decided that he was going to become a leg locker and his coaches were just, you know, beating themselves up like frustrated. Uh but if that wasn't the case, then yeah, there's a lot of egg on your face and maybe you should really reconsider coaching because how would you do that? I it I I know I've talked about it already for probably too long, but as a coach is just beyond me how I could make a decision to make a game plan like that against an opponent like that with coaches like that. It's just like no, this is terrible. Attacking the back is a much more sound strategy. At least even if you don't choke them, it's control time, you know. But when you have a leg lock and you're not submitting, you're getting beat up and you're bottom. So anyhow, enough about that. That's all I got for you guys for this week. I will see you all next