BTG 138 - It's okay to just be a champion

[Music] Hello and welcome to another episode of Breaking the Guard. On today's episode, I want to talk about the idea that being just a champion in one division is enough. You do not have to be a double champ. You don't have to be a triple champ. You know, this idea that we have to chase after every possible title is ridiculous. And I'll make an argument that it hurts the sport rather than, you know, quoteunquote saving the sport or making it more exciting. If we go back to the earlier times before Conor McGregor stepped in, you had guys like GSP, Jon Jones, Anderson Silva. These are three guys that dominated their divisions for years. Jon Jones to this day hasn't really lost a fight. Uh GSP, the two fights he lost, he avenged, right? So these were legendary streaks that they had. And I wouldn't say anybody was being bored to watch them fight, right? I mean, GSP now is in the axe and he's a celebrity. You know, Jon Jones is still fighting as a celebrity. Anderson Silva, I mean, they're all doing great. It's not like, oh, you know, they didn't make it. Like, no, they did well in life, right? Like, they have a legacy they can stand on. People consider them goats, right? The greatest of all time, uh, for good reason. So I feel like they did it the right way and they built up the visions because there is excitement in seeing somebody reign right and there's a story line like man this guy he came from here you know he lost to this guy then he beat him and then he won the belt you know he lost it quickly then he regained it you know now he's been having tough fights and people are trying to figure him out and there's people that want to see him continue to win there's people that want to see him lose There is excitement there. On the other hand, when Conor McGregor stepped into the picture and he made the quest of having the double champ status to be the first guy to be double champion, there was a lot of excitement because it was a first ever type of thing, right? And since he had risen so quickly, he had at the moment like, man, this guy's unstoppable. But then it kind of faltered a bit, I feel like, because he got the double champ thing, but then he lost all this the the consequent fights that mattered, even though he was making a crazy fortune doing so. I feel like he hurt his legacy, right? No one considers Conor McGregor one of the greatest of all time. At least anyone that I know, right? He's the richest MMA fighter. I would think so. Right? Like the guy's made a silly amount of money. One of the most famous guys, yes. But one of the best guys ever? No. Right. And there's reasons for that, right? One, it's not that simple to change your weight class, right? Like people think like, oh, you just eat more. Like, no, that we're talking about elite fighters, right? Champions, not like I'm just going to be good in this division. No, I'm going to be the best. So, at that level, 0.5 percentile improvement can be the cost of winning or losing, right? So, when you're talking about I'm going to change my weight by 10 pounds, that is a huge change, especially for someone who's fighting 145 to go up to 155. I'm I can't do the math clearly, but it's got to be probably somewhere around what 7% body mass change, maybe more because you're factoring in you're going to cut weight and you can cut a little bit more weight if you have more muscle mass. So, we're doing a big shift in biology here, and that's going to change things. One, it's going to take effort to put on mass, right? If you're not just fat, but like you're going to have to eat good, and you're going to have to overshoot because then you're going to, no matter how, you know, how much you eat and how clean you are, you're going to put on some fat. And fat's not good for cutting weight, right? You want lean mass. Lean muscle mass holds water, which is easier to expel when you're cutting weight. Fat doesn't. Fat's hydrophobic actually repels water. So, you're going to but in eating a caloric surplus to put on mass, you're going to end up having some extra fat on you. You're going to have to diet that off, right? So, you're going to have to bulk up and slim down and then get used to that new set point. By the way, like your body doesn't really like changing sizes that often, right? Uh because it has to change its metabolism and you know your caloric demands. So, it's not like, oh, I can do this in three months and I'm dialed in. Like, no. It's going to be a significant change if you're going to be doing it right. It's not that easy. So, you might be investing the next three, six, nine, 12 months building a new version of yourself and getting used to that new version of yourself. And mind you, you're going to lose certain things that you had that were peak, right? your your speed, your stamina, your reaction time, all those are going to change when you move up. And maybe sometimes it's better, maybe it's worse. It's hard to say. So, it's problematic because as a champion fighter, what I would want to see them doing is dialing in even more to what made them the champion in the first place, right? Like, keep getting better, right? Keep building up your skills because all of your competition is trying to climb that ladder behind you and they have an advantage because you are as a champion, the target, the focal point. Your fights are televised. Everyone's watching them. Everyone's studying them. And nowadays with all the cameras everywhere, people are probably spying on you and trying to figure out what's the secret sauce. So you as a focal point of the division have the most pressure and the only way you're going to stay on top long enough to become a legend is to continue to evolve and improve your skill set because people will figure out what you're doing. So if you don't continue to grow as a martial artist, you will eventually get surpassed. But if you're continuing to add skills to yourself, you know, as people learn one part of the game, you actually moved up here. So now they have to catch it here, but now you moved over here, right? So you keep evolving, right? But if you're having to shift weight classes, you know, because you're trying to become a double champ and then now I want to try to become a triple champ or now like I defended my belt here, now I got to cut back down to the lower division belt. you're just hanging up all these divisions now. And as we've seen happen repeatedly, what usually ends up happening is that, you know, the double champ moves to a new way, then he abandons the old weight class, which is like a un fulfilled story, right? There was a challenger there that wanted to win that belt. Instead, now there he has to fight another challenger for a vacant belt. Story-wise, it sucks, right? It's like what the hell is this? You know, it's like a weird ending. We want to see the handoff, right? Or the guy retiring, you know, into the sunset, right? Either way, but just coming in and giving up belts because you moved up a division or worse where like you're double champ and now you forget about the other division and you just stay here and you're like, "Oh, wait. I'm going to go come back down and defend this one." Like come on, man. Just give it up. You know, it's to me it's a very annoying process. Just dominate one division and if you want to be legendary, just defend it frequently, right? Rather than fighting once a year. If you want to be like, you know, look at Alex Pereira, man. He was fighting a lot, right? And you know he lost the belt recently but dude you exciting and like he was jumping on every opportunity to fight you know for a champion that's unusual right and I think that's why he rose to fame very quickly because the guy was a gamer uh so I think that as a champion you just need to stay in your division win dominate and if you want to break a record break the record for the amount defenses that you've had or the time that you've defended it or the amount of finishes or you there's lots of records to break nowadays if you're really into this oh break record-breaking thing. There are many ways to break records right now. Being a double champ means nothing in my eyes because there's so many of them now. Everybody's done it and it doesn't mean anything because it's like, oh, okay, yeah, you double champ and then you just jump back into one division. Who cares, right? just defend the one and do it exceptionally well. I think in my opinion, better for the fighter because they're not going to have to worry about changing their mass all the time and better for the fans because now there's a storyline to follow this, you know, division's champion is so and so and he's been defending it for a year now and he's got these guys coming up and he's been beating them down but like they're starting to gain him, right? That's an important story, right? But if we just swap them off, there's no legacy, you know, and I think it's also important for the fighters because like they want they want a bullseye to go after. Who's the number one guy? But if the number one guy just keeps switching to another division, it's like, well, I don't know who I'm shooting for. I'm just going to focus on myself. Which is fine, but I don't know. It kind of sucks, right? It's good to know who the top hot dog is so I can go after them, right? That's the guy that I need to be able to beat at the end of the day. It would be like playing a video game and you have no idea who the the the final boss is. There's no buildup. It's just like some random monster at the end. It's like somebody dropped the ball in this story, right? Like this game kind of sucked if we don't have a arch nemesis, right? Like no, no. There's got to be this overarching figure that is dominating the scene and like it's you're building up towards having the skills to beat that guy finally, right? But that only happens if we have a dominant champion that sticks around, right? You can't be the the champion that says you're going for a gallon of milk and just never come home, right? Like that's messed up, man. You're you're doing the division wrong. You're doing the fans wrong. just stay where you're at, you know? So, there's one guy that I want to give a a high five to, which is Pantoa, right? They wanted him to move up a weight class to so he could fight Morab. And he says, "No, why would I do that? I feel great in this division, you know? I want to stay here." And now people, oh, he's a coward. It's like, no, he's the only one who knows what he's [ __ ] doing, man. Like, let him stay there. He looks awesome at, you know, at his division. let him be awesome there. He moves up, he's going to be moving up a weight class. He's going to have to add weight. You know, he's not going to do as well. And then when he loses, oh, he's not that good. No, that's he's fighting out of his division. Of course, he's not going to do that well. Like, let him stay where he's dominated at, right? So, in my mind, just stay there. And PTOA could become a legend by dominating that division for years. And people like, "Oh, but it's going to be boring." No, it's not. Was Mighty Mouse boring when he suplexed somebody and then armbar them on the way down? No. You can look spectac Anderson Silva boring when he was knocking out people with front kicks and, you know, doing all sorts of crazy stuff. No, they were awesome. That's why we love them. So, you don't have to go around chasing all these stupid belts. Just stick with one. Every time I hear somebody like Bal's like, "Oh, I'm gonna go up to, you know, this next division next." Like, "Shut up, man. Just stay in your division." And, you know, uh, spoiler alerts, right? So, the UFC 315 just passed. And this is what it got me talking because there's actually a few implications of double belling here, right? Uh, again, spoiler, Bella lost handedly to Mother Lena, right? And he was one of the guys, oh, I'm going to move up to 185 and beat Strickland. Like, no, you're not. Right. And you talking all this crap and thinking that you're going to look past people, in my opinion, is what caused you to fight, right? Uh you're psychologically not dialed in. You're thinking about all these other fights. No, stay your lane. Figure out where you're supposed to be fighting and stay there. He's a great fighter, mind you. like he lost, but uh he's not like people like, "Oh, he's overrated." No, he isn't. He's good. Okay. But I think the problem is a little bit too much ego. He tried to strike with a guy that's predominantly a striker and got out struck. Like, no surprise. He should have tried to take this fight to the ground more uh and made that his focus, which he kind of tried to do late in the game, but it's already a bit late when you've taken a lot of damage and the guys got in their timing. uh at least in my opinion. But now even though that's one double chant thing that we squashed now Islam's like okay now there was a there's an implication for Islam. He said like if um Bal retained the belt, he would defend his belt against another guy going for double champ status, right? The Matador, right? Who's moving up weight to fight him, right? He's going from 145 to 155. But if Bal lost, he would instead go from 155, you know, to 170. in this case fighting the winner Malena right Jack. So we're not spared of double champs. Uh sadly, right? Like there's basically three people that want to do it or wanted to do it. Balal, he lost his chance. And now you have Islam who's going to do it. And then we still have um Ilia who wants to do it also, but he's going to lose his opportunity. And people are now frustrated. They're like, "Oh, the fight between Ilia and Islam would have been epic, right? But now when I get Islam versus Jack, right? And people are are not as excited about that." And I can understand why because Jack's more of a striker, solid boxer, but he's not a ground guy. Although in this fight, he did get taken down a couple times, but he was able to get up. Didn't get in any trouble on the ground. Islam is not silly in the way that I think Bal was, which is he's not going to try to outstrike the striker. He's going to focus on bringing the guy to the ground using the striking to set that up. So to me, Islam is in a better position to try to win that double champ status, but it remains to be seen if he can actually do that. Right. And again, it's one thing to say I can be a double champ is another thing to actually do it and to move up a weight. And that's a significant weight jump. Going from 155 to 170, that's 15 lbs. But really, it's probably going to be like 20 25 lbs. That's a lot of weight to put on. Um, so again, not ideal. you know the the weight jump on the other hand I felt like if he was smarter Islam I would say I'm going to stay the weight I am at 55 and let someone else get the handicap in this case the matador moving up to 155 right and having to learn that new weight my take anyways like if I was his coach that's what I'm thinking even though I mean skill-wise if we look the Ador Ilia is a very well-rounded fighter. He's dangerous everywhere, so he might pose a bigger threat skill-wise, but he's going to be a smaller guy. They keep saying he's like walking around 180 or whatnot. I don't know. Maybe. It's hard. I've never seen him in person. I couldn't judge. But the pictures are deceiving. I feel like I've seen lots of people on pictures that they look huge and in person they're not that big. Uh, so I don't know if he's really walking around 180. If he is, then maybe he would be a solid 55. Who knows? Either way, him moving up is annoying, too. I I don't like, as you guys can tell, I don't like any of these people jumping belts, right? Just stay your freaking lane. You did something exceptional winning a title. Just stay there. Because then you have Morab saying, "Oh, he's gonna move up to 145." It's like, "Fuck, man." Just like, "Can we have one guy that just stays in the division?" I mean, we have one. Can we have two? Maybe because we have Pantoa, you know, he's going to stick to 125, right? Let's just get people, you know, Morav stays at 135, Ilia 145, you got Islam 155, and then, you know, like there's other people there. Give them a chance, right? and fight and defend your belt, right? Whoever the number one contender is, take them out and do it impressively, right? If you're just decisioning people, in my eyes, you're not showing complete dominance, especially if it's like a three to two rounds, like you won, but it's not like you clean house with this guy, right? The I mean, that's what Jon Jones did really well for the most part. Like I said the fights that he had very close like split decision people like right but like the fights he won he destroyed people like clearly right like when he slept Macha you know um knockouts that he've had with other people you know Anderson Silva was also really good at cleaning people out right like making no mistake like he was the best so uh I feel as a champion keep taking people out you know like dominate them just focus on that focus on the record of being the best to ever be a champion in your division rather than winning multiple divisions because it's already been done, right? There's already been a double champ. I think there might have even been a triple champ already. You're not going to do any breaking new ground. And if you just, oh, I want to be the next guy to be a double champ, whatever. Right? The way this is going, that's going to be like a dime dozen type of thing, right? Like who cares? Be one of the few people that can actually hang on to your division for as long as possible. Get a long win streak. Try to break the the record for the longest defending title defense streak in your division of all the divisions. That is something that's noteworthy. That's not easy to do because it takes time. Apparently in the UFC, it's easy to become a double champ because they just let you do whatever you want and let you fight up weight and go immediately to a title shot, right? Do the hard thing. Stay where your division's at. Dominate it. Make and let everybody know there's no mistake in who's the best and the greatest of all time in that division. I think that is going to stand the test of time more than just this bell chasing game that's going