BTG 142 - I'm the crazy one

[Music] Hey guys, what's going on? Welcome to another episode of Breaking the Guard. On today's episode, it turns out I'm the crazy one. All right, if you watch my news clip, I did a preview of UFC 316 Morab versus Shaun Mali and I had made picks and if um you watch the fights, spoiler alerts, right? If you don't want to hear the results, tune it tune out now. But I got four to five wrong. Not great. It looks like the bookies knew they were doing better than I did. Although they did get one wrong. But uh let's get into it. The first one was uh Kevin Holland versus Vicente Luke. I thought Vicente being the dog was somewhat disrespectful considering he was a ranked 10 fighter and Kevin was not even ranked. Uh I felt Vizenta's record was a lot more solid in recent fights, but apparently they knew something I didn't because round one was pretty even to be honest. Although it looked like Kevin had a bit of the edge. Vicento tried to go for one takedown and got really punished for it. He went for a single on his feet and Kevin just started beating him up with one hand for about a good 15 seconds until Lucid decided, "Okay, enough. I got to let go of this." Um, but on the feet they were exchanging pretty well. And in round two, it looked a little more the same, but it looked like Vicente was getting a little more desperate to try to uh either land a bigger shot or try to score a takedown, but like the takedowns weren't there for him. It seemed like at one point he did I I can't recall the order of the events, but he did try to close the gap, shoot in, got sprawled on, and then Kevin launched into an anaconda choke. Really nice. Nice and tight. Sealed the deal and got the tap. I mean, good scalp for Kevin. Now, this is two top guys he's taken out. Um, so I mean, two good wins back to back. He's maybe he can make a good run here and if he's starting to take it seriously. I always called that Kevin a dumb fighter, but he wasn't fighting dumb this time. He fought smart. Uh, so kudos to him. Um, the next fight, Mario Batista versus Patchy Mix. There was a lot of hype coming into Patchy. I trained with him. I know how good he is on the ground. Uh, he's shown that he can knock people out as well and stand up. But Mario Batista was a difficult test and it was very apparent early in the fight, this is going to be a big problem. Now, the bookies had Patchy as a favorite and I was rooting for Patchy, of course. But Bautista pretty much put that to bed after round one because he was just dancing around Patchy. I'm not sure if it was, you know, UFC jitters or whatnot, but Patchy was really flatfooted. He was barely moving and his head wasn't moving at all and he was getting popped with right hands consistently. But I don't think uh Batista throws particularly hard. It looks like he's like an endurance fighter. Uh, and he likes to pressure more because he was landing pretty freely. And Patchy didn't really react too much to be honest. He just took him. But, uh, strange. He didn't go for a takedown at all in round one. And I think maybe he went for like one or two takedowns at round two and three, which mostly went the same. Although round two went better for Patchy. U, he definitely landed more. And round three, he opened up a little bit more. Again, I don't know if it was enough to win a round, but he busted up uh Mario's lip, but it was just a really odd style. Uh I haven't watched many Apache fights, you know, despite him training with us. I've seen like his quick finishes. Uh so I'm not sure if that's like more typical of him or it's just like first time in the big show. This was his biggest layoff his career. Maybe he's got a little ring rust, but uh yeah, he needs to move more. He needs the head movement to move more. He needs to actually level change and pressure the takedowns. If you're a great grappler, but you never show it, your opponent doesn't have to worry about it. As a result, they lose any anxiety or strategic uh advantage that you may have had by having them have to lower stance and worry about getting taken down goes away. if even if you want to be a striker, you have to pressure your takedowns so that your opponent has to change their levels themselves, which sets them up for better strikes. So, uh, uh, Mario won that one by decision, making me down 0 and2. The third one was Kelvin Gastelum and Joe Feifer. Uh, I was going for Kev Kelvin, and I knew he was a long shot on this one, but he's a dog and he's been in there with some of the best and given them hell. And uh I haven't watched Joe Feifer besides highlights and he looks like a scary guy. Really big strong hitter, also a finisher. And uh when I tuned into the fight, it looked like it was almost done before it started because he the first punch Joe Lance drops Kelvin on his butt and I think that was the first time he was knocked down in the UFC. Uh but Kelvin has good resilience. He managed to come back. uh got rocked a couple times, got hit with a solid headkick in that same round and just ate it. Like his chin is just really tough. So, he clearly lost that first round and uh then they went in. But I'll say this, Joe was very patient, maybe too patient because Kelvin got back in the game round two. You could even argue that Kelvin won. I'm not sure he did. Uh, but he could have, right? Like a judge may have seen it that way because Joe wasn't putting as much pressure on him. He was kind of like letting him up and uh not really digging in and he was letting Kelvin wing punches at him. It looked like if he would have put together some combinations or just kept the pressure that he could have uh put him away because he's got some incredible power and accuracy because Kelvin's moving around a lot too. Uh third round, Kelvin probably won that round in my opinion. He was definitely landing more. Although he got taken down early in the round, it was in response to him landing a solid shot and he got up right away. It wasn't a takedown of consequence, but uh either case, Joe ended up weighing the decision. Uh showing he was really tough and he had said afterwards he respected the chin too much. He was worried about uh he was he felt like he was headhunting going for the one punch killed in round one and then afterwards not being able to put him away kind of got on his head and he tried to play more conservative. He didn't want to get fatigued and then get beat later in the round which almost did happen. So, uh, he played it smart. You know, he's definitely a promising talent. Then we, so now down 03 in my picks. Then we go to Juliana Pena and Kayla Harrison. And this one was I know another one that on the odds was the biggest dog. I think she was 5 plus 550. I thought that was a little harsh given that she's the champ. She's beaten some bigger girls like Amanda Nunes. So, it's not like she's never faced a big girl before and she's a big girl herself. But, uh, turns out Kayla was very imposing with her game plan, very smart. She did strike a bit, just enough to be able to close the distance and scored an early taked down in round one, but and she landed right inside control. So, it looked like, well, this is not going to last too long. But Pena, to her credit, recovered a guard and was able to keep her in a guard, not letting any real damage happened. So, she played it smart. But, uh, round two, more of the same. Uh, Kayla was able to pressure her, get to a clinch, take her down. Uh once again, Pena went to her guard, but uh as the round wore on, Kayla was putting more and more pressure, threatening arm triangles, working into half guard. At a certain point, it was like maybe like 15 seconds left. She gets a kimora from the half guard. For whatever reason, Pena kind of like freaked out in those last moments. Like all she had to do like it was clear the round was lost. just don't get finished. But like it looked like she was trying to bail out, stand up or whatnot because she opened up which gave the Kimura and then Kayla passed and cranked it really fast and I think there was like 5 seconds left and and Pena was forced to tap and validly otherwise her arm would have been torn off because she was already flat on her back and her elbow was 90° down like you see I can't even move there. her arm was on this plane here, uh, I would have been already destroyed. So, uh, great win for Kayla. She proved that the hype was valid. She was very competent on her feet, didn't take any shots really, and was able to close the distance using a grappling. Didn't forget what she had she is, which is she's a grappler, and she imposed the game. That's what you want to see from a grappler, right? they're they have enough striking, enough head movement, enough pressure where they can close the gap, make their opponents fight short and uh stifle them that way. So, kudos uh to her on becoming the new champion. She calls out now Amanda Nunees for our super fight title. Not a big fan of this in my opinion because again, Amanda was retired and currently unranked and I'm presuming there's other women out there that could be fighting for a number one spot or who have the number one or number two spot I guess because Kayla was the number one spot. But bringing her out of retirement, I I guess it makes sense. Amanda was one of the most dominant champions before Pena unseated her. Uh she is big. I don't know if she was wearing platform shoes or whatnot, but when they had a face off in the cage and Pena was like two or three inches taller than Kayla, who's tall herself, I think she's like 5'8. Uh so I'm imagining there's some lift in the shoes. But either way, like it's another big girl and she's also another one who's heavy-handed. She might be able to play better. They they also seem to have some inside baseball because they're both an American Top Team. So, I'm sure uh that's going to be interesting. Although, American Top Team is such a big gym that there's multiple coaches that they I'm sure they can split off to. So, it's not like they're training against each other, but kind of weird. Um but they were amicable and looks like they both wanted that fight to happen. So, it'll be interesting, I guess, to see that. But for me, if I was a fighter on the roster, I'm like, "What the hell, dude?" And someone could just pop out of retirement and jump in line. I feel like if I'm the number two guy, like, I'm next, right? Or at least I should be fighting for the next spot against the number three or four. Uh, this is kind of what I was saying, like the WWE aspect where like just because you have some name and clout, you can skip lines and go straight into a title shot. Well, with that said, I'm down 0 and4. Final fight, Morab and Ali. The rematch. The fight starts off very similar to previous fights where Marabs is putting a lot of pressure, but Omali is doing a good job keeping distance. Morab is landing him and actually out landing him from the feet. Uh, scoring shots here and there. Ali defends some early takedowns and looks like his takedown defense improved but he eventually gets dragged into the ground although Ali gets back up and but like I told you before the problem with Morab he doesn't care you get back up because you use a lot of energy to get up and he's hitting you the whole time you're getting up so it's not really a big deal to him and he's good on his feet now like his striking keeps getting better he was landing good shots I think he dropped yeah he dropped uh Ali in that first round. I'm not sure if it was offbalance that he got clipped or like he actually rocked them and dropped them. But uh he's dangerous everywhere. But the most dangerous thing about Morab is just the gas tank is just insane and is such a weapon because he knows it and he uses it to that maximum. He's beling at you constantly, attacking you constantly. You have no rest. Ali does a good job of being dangerous though and and keeps Morab at bay. But they go into round two and round two starts coming out the same where he starts dragging Shawn into the ground early and starts punishing him. Sean's trying to play Gar, but Morabis all over him, punching elbows, coming up, hitting him. And at a certain point, Shawn tries to come up. And I think that was the mistake because he just used a lot of gas trying to get up. Morab was just wrist riding him, punching him, punching him, wrist riding him, crossfacing him, doing that head overhead pressure. If you guys seen me talk about, uh, at a certain point, he goes to his fours and then now he's riding him even more, punching, punching. He gets up to his feet, trips him, gets up to his feet, trips him, gets up, and it's just brutal. Like, like if I'm a guy that's not a grappler fighting someone like Morab, it's almost better to concede that round. you know, you're in a five fight thing. I I'm down too because me trying to get up is gonna be so hard that I'm gonna if I don't like knock him out as I get up, I'm probably going to lose the next three rounds the same way. Um because at a certain point he gets dragged down and there's maybe like 30 seconds left in the round. Morab goes front headlock. Looks like he's trying to lock a power guilt. It's not a dar because there's no arms inside. It's just neck here. But it's a very shallow power guillotine, right? Cuz it's just like the arm behind under the neck grabbing the mid forearm, hand over the shoulder, but the chin of Shan is down. So like he's kind of like this. So it's not a clean choke, but he's able to drive it enough and he must be like putting enormous pressure on the chin where Shawn had to roll to his back. And when he rolled to his back, his chin kind of lifted. So now the choke got inside but it also got kind of inverted because then it went to like a north south position where like Ali's legs were here and let's say if I was barab I have here and now to me it looked like a Ezekiel but like inverted right rather than being like you know head overhead on the Ezekiel uh legs you know and hips align they were now flipped over cuz it wasn't a north south choke. You had the pretty much the it was like a power guillotine, but since Shawn rolled in a 180, it kind of became an inverted Ezekiel or reverse Ezekiel, whatever you want to call it. And he finished it there cuz he just drove into it playing that north south position force Ali, retaining the belt and just cementing his position as one of the toughest bantamweights in UFC history. a very dominant victory, won by submission, which a lot of people wouldn't have picked. And in the postfight interview, he's talking about how he's adding more weapons into his game, like the submissions that we should expect to see more of that. They also set up the fight now with u Sanhagen which is going to be interesting fight because the I imagine the height must be similar to Armalia or Sanhagen might be a little taller but Sanhagen is a bit more well-versed in my opinion better at wrestling up uh escaping back positions so he might fare better than Morav I mean than Shawn on. But in any case, I went four and one for the night. The only right pick I got was Morab, which wasn't a hard pick. Uh, so yeah, I guess I picked poorly. Uh, I think it's the first time in a long time that was been so long. I usually get most of them right. Uh, I really went against the bookies here thinking that I could have some edges. So, uh, in any case, it was fun, uh, to to watch. Uh, the undercard was pretty good, too. There there are some good scraps in the undercard here. Uh, but overall, it was a fun, uh, UFC. Like I said, I was motivated to watch this one, to see Morab do it. I I love people who use cardio as a weapon. It's the ultimate power of will when you're able to impose your your pace and your pressure on somebody and just have them wilt because that's pretty much what happened. Sean wilted. He was doing fine round one and then round two the pressure just became too much. Got desperate, made a mistake and then got broken. And it could be that fast when you can put somebody in a position they're not very comfortable in. Especially when someone I think Shawn was not trying to survive. He was trying to win and perhaps he realized he could have stayed down on round two, but then his chances of winning are going to diminish and he needed to try to get up to his feet trying to score a knockout while he was still fresh before he got too worn down. Uh so yeah, I'm a Morab fan. I I like that he's funny. He's well spirited. He's very well-rounded, but I it's reminiscent for me of of my brother and I early in our grappling and wrestling career. We were conditioning machines. U we would generally be losing earlier in the match and come back winning just because of the pace and the pressure we're able to put. So I always like seeing someone who utilizes that weapon of conditioning. Although I don't think my conditioning was at the level of my Rob's, it is really something to behold. And what's interesting, he did an interview and what he was saying is he doesn't do strength and conditioning. Not that well, I shouldn't say that he doesn't do it, but it's just for fun. Like that's not his main workout. His main workout is training. He just trains a lot. And uh I saw one of my fighters, Shabonis, he was commenting, "Oh, my because my brother Marcus has always said that like my brother doesn't believe in strength and conditioning." He's like, "It it works, but you know what works better is doing what you do in your fight more consistently, right?" Like I think the trickier part about it is that most people don't know how to do training without sparring or being very harsh. And as a result, you just hurt yourself a lot. So like you use I tell people that the strength and conditioning is good in those situations because it's a lower risk of injury and you can still get cardio in you can build strength. So it has utility but the ideal form of conditioning would be just doing your sport more. If I'm a runner I'm not going to start doing jumping jacks and swimming to become better stamina at running more. Right? Fighting is one of those rare sports where it's like, oh, we do something else other than fighting and it's because fighting is so uh fatiguing and it can be very damaging in the bing. That's why I believe sparring seldomly is better. You don't have to be especially I've see some guys that spar like three times a week and they're sparring like to knock each other out. It's like you're not going to last long and your recovery is going to be kind of shot because you're just using all your recovery to recover between sparring sessions. Um I feel like you don't have to spar hard very often and especially later in your career. Early in the career when you're younger, you can bounce back faster. You do want to build some toughness in the gym. Uh, it's a bit harder to prove your toughness in the arena for the first time being in your first war. It's good to have a few gym wars, but I feel that's young guy early in your career when your recovery is at your maximum. Once you're a veteran, gym wars should be uh very seldom if at that. And you should be saving the wars for competition if they do arise. Uh, we want a long career, not a short one. So the more wars you get into is not great, but you want to be ready for them. So there is a a place for hard training, but it shouldn't be constantly. If you're always showing up to the gym beat up and hurt as a young guy, that's not a good sign, right? When you're older, that's usually what it feels for me. I was joking with one of the guys that you know the normal level of pain is supposed to be zero but me now almost 44 it's like the normal level of pain for me realistically is at least a two or one like I'm never at a zero and my pain scale I say it's extreme where to me a tenant pain is the maximum perceivable amount of pain you could have before you fall unconscious the moment afterwards just like red line and boom, you're gone. Uh, and I was telling him I think in my life the most pain I've ever felt maybe was an eight and it would have been when P Harris got the the knee bar in me after the heel hook knee bar combo. There was a brief moment when the break happened. Well, it wasn't really a break, but like I I I think I tore some hamstring there. like it was just like and like I just heard like a almost like a beeping in my ears like and then I came back and I was like ah but afterwards the pain drops and now it's maybe like a three or a four it's just dull pain and you know it's spiking when I try to move around but that low level of pain even over a period of time is like torture. I know like when I did the knee surgery, I had like five days where I didn't I didn't I wasn't able to fall asleep because I had a paradoxical reaction to the the pain medication they were giving me, which I think was oxytocin. And I wasn't able to fall asleep, but I I was at a baseline level at three for, you know, 72 hours. It wasn't five days I was awake. I think it was 3 to four, my memory is a little fuzzy, but was like 3 to 4 days of not of not an ounce of sleep, just staring at the ceiling and just feeling non-stop pain. And it's it's rough, right? It's even at a low level pain. So, I think older like I want to I want to be as low on that scale as possible, but it's usually like a one. It's never zero, unfortunately. Hopefully one day it will I can get bring it back down to zero. But as I try to tell people, there's a difference between being sore and being hurt. And I think a lot of people confuse those lines, right? Being sore, like I lifted hard one day, next day I feel sore. That's not the same as I got brutally leg kicked by my partner and now the next day I'm limping and like I get sharp pains when I move my leg. Those are two very different sensations that I feel like the untrained don't understand the difference of. Right? Being sore is usually alleviated by training. Why? Because you get more blood flowing. Blood flowing helps circulate more nutrients to your muscles and your body. helping them to heal and recover. Versus when you're hurt, you're feeling sharp pain, not like a dull achy pain. It's like stabbing pain. That's your body sending you a signal saying, "Hey, stop moving that dummy because it's getting worse, right?" So, these two things are different and shouldn't be treated equally. So, to be fair, like sometimes the soreness is really high that you perceive And those type of situations you have to play with caution because if you're extremely sore sometimes that means you've overtrained to the point where if you start trying to train you're more likely to injure yourself because you're just completely wrecked. But if you're just a bit sore, it's always a good idea first just start moving around because when you start moving around, you'll know right away like, is this hurt or is this just sore? Because a lot of times I'll go into the gym like, man, I I don't feel great today, but I I'm just sore, right? But then after training, I feel better. I'm like, oh, okay, I'm good now. Right? It was just soreness versus uh when I'm hurt, you know, like, oh, my my shoulder's like I I got like a knot here and every time I move it hurts, like that's a different thing. That's something that, in my opinion, you shouldn't be trying to train through. You have to respect that. But if it's just like, you know, like a a dull achy pain, I would say at least do some mobility work. Even if you don't have to spar or whatnot, but move around a bit. It's probably going to help you feel a lot better. Again, I'm not a doctor, but uh my advice, you know, uh this week I got in five training sessions, uh which is probably the most I've done in a while because I've been traveling a lot. So, I feel pretty good. I'm sore every day. I'm sore. But every time I I do my yoga warmup, you know, which my bed yoga as I call it, I feel pretty good after doing that. And then once I start training, I feel even better as I start sweating and moving. So there is value to doing that. But all the training doesn't have to be intense, right? Not every day for me is not the same intensity. Like today was like a lighter day. It was like me, Alvin, Jake, and we did a few rounds. Not many, I think, like three or four rounds. Uh, and moved around a bit. Doesn't have to, you don't have to kill yourself every time you train. But if you're trying to build the type of conditioning that Morab has, it does require pushing down more on the throttle. I would really be interested to see his his way of doing it because if you can't play at pace you're comfortable with in training, that's easy. It has to be hard for you. So like I but he fights at such a high pace. I I wonder like man how brutal is his training? Like is there anything hard for this guy to do? Like does he breathe hard in any moment in his life? Because he's not fighting like oh you know good pace but like he has more to push. He's like he's fighting perceivably as hard as someone can push realistically in an MMA fight. And uh he doesn't seem to be short of breath or you know you don't couch him slouching or anything. He's just always on. It's just unreal. Uh it's amazing to me because that's a that's a superpower right there. Anyhow, that's all I have for you guys. Uh so long story short, yeah, I was crazy. Bookies had it mostly right. nailing got the patchy fight wrong. Uh, glad I don't make my living as a gambler. It's always better just to pick up without stakes. Uh, in any case, I hope you guys have a wonderful rest of your day. I'm going to be in Florida tomorrow. I'm going to be visiting my home gym with the Freestyle Fighting Academy in Miami, Florida. Um, it's going to be on Tuesday the 11th. I'm gonna be teaching at the Freestyle Fighting Academy, which is again Miami, Florida. FreestylefightingAcademy.com. It's on 8th Street and one 117th Avenue right in front of FIU. I'm going to do Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, 6:00 p.m. to about 7:30. and I'm going to be teaching like pretty much seminar style for those three days. So, if you want to come up, just send me a message so that we can hold you a spot there. I think it's like $35 or maybe $40 per session. Uh, if you want to jump in, if you can't, no worries. I am going to be filming everything. I am going to throw everything up online on my website and also an FFA coach. So, uh, if you're on any of those websites, you'll be able to catch those videos there as well.