BTG 159: UFC 320 was a great showcase for MMA

[Music] Hello and welcome to another episode of Breaking the Guard. On today's episode, I'm going to review UFC 320 and talk about some of the things that happened in that thing. Uh, again, spoiler alert here. So, if you haven't watched it yet, I would definitely recommend watching it. probably the one of the best pay-per-views I got to watch this year so far. I think in the last seven matches there were six finishes. So very high finishing rate and not all those finishes were like first round first 10 seconds like some of them came in late by the person who was losing the whole fight. So it was a very exciting fight card. I'm going to start from Patchy Mix just because he was talked big coming into the UFC and really uh has failed to perform at the level of expectation that we had. And I've trained with Patchy. He trains at extreme. Really tough guy, very good chokes. Just seems to be a little uh stuck on his feet. Although in this fight he did better than he did in the first one and by most people's scorecards he should have won the fight but he ended up losing by decision and it seems like he's kind of been cursed with the the luck of the UFC as it happens. So unfortunate for him I don't think he's really lived up to his potential quite yet. Hopefully they give him another chance to show what he has. Uh but his opponent was very game. It's a Polish name like Jacob W Chilski whatever. So he came in with very strong grappling. He actually had Patchy in a guillotine and forced him to give up top position to escape it. So, as a newcomer, he was a very strong competitor. I think some people are trying to trash Patchy, saying, "Oh, he couldn't even handle a new guy." Like, well, the new guy's really good, right? He came from the Polish circuit and he was the champion there. So, uh, he wasn't some like nobody. Anyhow, moving forward, we had Daniel Santos and Juang Yu. This was a catchweight match at 153. I'm guessing someone, you know, a fight dropped out and both of them agreed on it. But As Santos, very impressive, scored a knockout in round number two. Uh, first round was pretty good back and forth. Um, Jang was really talking a lot of crap in the fight. Lots of taunting and showboating. Um, Santos was throwing lots of wheel kicks, you know, which didn't look great, uh, because he was just whiffing them all. So, Santos was kind of clowning on him. I mean, not Santos, Juang was clowning on him for that. But when round two came, the clowning ended. He got caught, knocked out cold. So, uh, good on on Santos there. Then we have Aiba Gautier and Trust in Vines. This looked like such a mismatch. Uh my god. Uh Gautier, another Cameroonian like uh what's his name? Huge heavyweight Neano, right? And looks like from the same lineage just shredded, you know, huge. Not sure how he's making the weight because he looked like a whole weight class at least above Vines and Vines was a last minute replacement. What a terrible assignment to have because this guy got here is scary. He just powered through Vines. vines, to his credit, try to survive. At one point, tried to clinch with Gautier and Gatier literally just snapped him down and like ragd dollled him to the floor and just pounded him out. Uh just a scary dude there like that he he was the main or the last fight of the prelims. I'm guessing he's probably going to get main event spot next time he shows up because he's just been knocking everybody out. I think he's got like eight knockouts out of nine fights. So, guy's a killer. We then move into the main card and we had Joe Feifer with Abus Magdov. This was an interesting fight. Uh, from my understanding, Maggomedov was a grappler primarily, but Joe tried to grapple him right away and gets a nice clinch, gets an inside uh lace and goes to trick and looks like he's going to be successful because he takes him down, but then gets stuck on his back and is not able to turn his hips over and Abus was able to reverse get top position and controlled most of the the round from top just out grappling Joe. So on one hand, you know, everybody's watching like, man, why did you try to grapple the grappler? Although to his credit, Joe held his own off his back. He didn't get into any any real trouble. Uh but he definitely lost the round. When round two came though, he went into striking mode and was able to clip Abus, get him hurt, ends up going to the ground. This time he's on top and if I remember correctly, he ends up securing the win with a arm. It might have been a rear naked choke. I know he had an arm triangle at one point and Abus might I think Aboose gave his back and then he got the rear naked if I if I recall. So, a good win for Joe Feifer. Uh, and tactically, you know, not the worst thing because Joe's a good grappler himself. So, maybe he thought try to distract Aboose with the grappling and then when we restart, I'll go all striking and that tempo will mess him up. And I think it did. So, that was good on him. We then had Josh EMTT with Yousef Zal. And Yousef is a newcomer. He's been getting a lot of hype. He's doing doing been doing well. I haven't seen much of him. So, I wasn't sure what to expect. I saw the record and I looked like, well, he's definitely got a finisher attitude. We know Josh kind of aging out. He's 40, you know, in a young man's division in the young man's sport, but he still has that power. And I was curious to see how this was going to line up. Not well for Josh, unfortunately. He got taken down right away. He looked like he was too eager to try to blitz and he made a few rushes like just, you know, moving in to try to close distance. And uh Yousef was able to read it and get out of range each time, but it looked like on the final blitz, Yousef timed it with a shot and just got clean double, took him down and was able to get top position. He I believe he passed guard if I remember. Went for a armbar, ends up going on his back, has like a Oh, no. He went for the back. Looked like he was going for a triangle then off the back cuz he kind of spilled off, switched into an armbar and then was able to complete the armbar off his back. I will tell you, great from him. shouldn't have got Josh shouldn't have got an arm bar there. It was pretty easy to read. Uh there was a point where when Yousef kind of slid off, he was in a quasi triangle. It wasn't really locked in, you know. What I mean locked in, he didn't have the figure four. He had the shoulder in and it was kind of like the diamond, you know, and he he had enough space where he could have pushed both arms in and forced into like a closed guard, but instead he tried to pull out and that's what gave the armbar access cuz once he started trying to get his arms out, Yousef switched uh and went over the head rather than around the head. And then even there, if Josh would have been stacking, instead of trying to pull out, he went to stand up, trying to deadlift his way out of the arm bar, which obviously makes arm bar stronger on the pull out. So Josh kind of showing that uh grappling is not that wasn't that fine-tuned in that match. And uh yeah, not looking good for the the future for him, unfortunately. But, uh, Ysef looks solid. Good grappling. You know, I'm not sure about his striking. He didn't really get hit. Didn't try to get or throw anything significant on his feet, but grappling wise looked pretty good. Uh, then we had these three fights could have been main events on their own. The first one, Jerry Porchasca with Khalil Brown. I had a hard time picking who I would want to win this fight. because they're both awesome guys like and uh I think they truly encapsulate that warrior spirit both of them do but I lean towards Jerry Jessica he's such he's a little bit more of a character uh but I would have been happy with them winning the fight starts and Jerry's doing his Jerry stuff hands down in and out it's kind of like a mixup of the karate style of Leoto, but then he has a lot of chaos thrown in where he just throws wild stuff. U so it's a it's a definitely a unique striking style, whereas Khalil very disciplined with his stance, very fast, and controlled the first couple rounds. Uh was winning pretty handedly on the scorecards. I say handily, but he won 10 nights, right? He didn't do any serious damage. He he, you know, he he caught shots in Jerry and one of them in the second round, Jerry had caught him and tried to blitz him and then I forget what was the strike, but Khalil landed a solid shot counter and you could see Jerry was visibly frustrated. He's like, "Ah, he couldn't believe, but he got caught by the shot." All right. Uh, but surprisingly Jerry never seemed to be hurt and he got clipped a few times by Khalil. And I mean, we've seen Khalil land on people and it's not good. But Jerry seemed to be eating them quite well. Even the leg kicks, Jerry never seemed to be phased at all. When the third round came in, Jerry started being very aggressive, like more than usual. And it looked like Khalil has started to fade a little bit as Jerry started putting all this pressure on him. And at a certain point, Jerry lands a couple gut kicks, just like teeps, but more like like really strong front kicks that oh, they look brutal cuz it landed like just on the belt line, you know, where it's like a terrible place for the body shack. Like you rather take a body shot a little bit more towards the center than like right, you know, at the bottom of it. I feel that's that's like a weaker part of your abdomen. And then he starts unloading. And to his credit, Khalil stayed on his feet as long as he could. He fought hard trying to defend himself, but he was visibly hurt. I'm I'm wondering what was hurting him more. Was it fatigue? Was it body shots? Or was it he was just dazed and confused? Probably a mix of all three. U because he wasn't able to throw the heat he was before. like he was hurt. This he was backed up against a cage and Jerry was just going to town until he finally found the left hook that slept Cleo out cold. Uh amazing fight for both those guys. They won fight of the night for that fight. Jerry again is a wild man. The first of all stamina wise did fantastic. never looked tired at at the pace that he was trying to push with all the jumping and springing around that he does. Pretty impressive as a light heavyweight. He also has incredible durability. Never seemed to get really rocked. He got hit and he he emoted a bit more than you would like. Like he would be visibly frustrated. So, I feel on the scorecards that makes it easy for the judges to go, "Oh, yeah, that hurt. That hurt. That hurt." Like, I think he should have worked the poker face better because he doesn't seem like he's actually hurt. He seems like he's fine. Uh, I think he's just more frustrated that he's not getting the range that he was looking for or he's not getting the the the right reads. But, uh, amazing way to win this fight. third round, you know, last couple minutes getting the the win there. A third fight with Alex, honestly, he's probably not going to go any better. I don't know cuz Jerry just fights so open and chaotic. And I think the problem is Alex has that one-touch power that you really can't make that mistake with him. But it's a fight they want to set up. He that he wants for sure. But well, we'll move forward cuz that might not happen. Next up, you got the machine Marab Bashali with Cory Sanhagen. This was an entertaining fight because round one, Cory won. He outpointed him. Uh he was able to defend all the takedowns. I think he might have gotten taken down for like a split second. And Corey did a fantastic job of just getting up every time. Uh and it was a clear 109 for Corey round one. Then round two came and Corey still able to pop up quickly off takedown attempts. Uh, still looking sharper on his feet, but towards the middle, no, I would say towards the end. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I would say the middle of the round, Morab gets in tight in his face and starts landing a salvo of punches and that rocks Sanhagen. I believe at one point he dropped it, but he popped back up really quickly. And I'll tell you, Corey tough because I think most people would have been done. He was rocked really bad. And somehow, not only did Cory survive, but he survived up on his feet. So, his ability to get up is phenomenal and not to get finished. And especially against someone like Morab because, you know, he doesn't get tired. So, like there's no chance of him like, you know, emptying the gas tank and like, oh, now he's screwed. Like, no. Rob could the gas tank never gets empty. He just kept blitzing him and throwing hands left and right and Cory just weathered that storm. But it was an obvious 108 going to Morab on round two. Then they go into round three and at this point Morab just takes over and it just becomes takedown fast. He's not really able to hold Cory down though. So it's a credit to Cory because he keeps getting up to his feet. And I don't mean like oh after being held for a minute he gets up. instantly like Morab just gets him on his butt on his knees and then Cory just pots back up every time. Uh so this happened in the third round. This also happened in the fourth round and even in the fifth round. Cory has phenomenal stamina and durability. It has to be mentioned because he was able to not get dogged out. Like Umar when we saw him go through this treatment, handled it very poorly. You know, after like one round, Umar fell apart and was getting dominated. While Cory got dominated, he did not concede. He kept coming up. He kept trying to find ways to win the fight. He just didn't have the tools. Uh he did get a very good strike at the end of round five like in the last 15 20 seconds. You could tell he kind of rocked Morab and then Morab put on his running shoes and just made a lot of space and uh Morab wins the decision in the entertaining five rounder and he even said at the end or they had like a backstage scene and him and Cory were talking to each other. They were being very polite. Cory's like, "Thank you for the opportunity. I'm gonna get you back eventually." And then Morab goes, "Oh, you know, you you really hurt me in that that final part of round five." He's like, "Oh, you messed me up in round two." And they just kind of laughed. So, I love to see the sportman sportsmanship between them. Not sure Cory could get the job done, right? Obviously, he has enough of the striking where he could hurt Morab. is just a question of how does he stop the takedowns and not necessarily even getting put on his back because he wasn't really held down. I think maybe once or twice he was held down for a few seconds but for the most part he was just kept popping up. But it's just the interruption of the fight because I can't really get into a striking if I have to defend a clinch or a takedown every time. It's still a puzzle. Corey is the only one I can recall recently that's had the stamina to at least keep up. But he needs some way of managing the distance better and not allowing the takedown to even start cuz once the takedown starts now you're already in a problem because you have to defend it. And uh it was clear that it wasn't in the game plan to try to play off your back and try to win on the ground. It was just don't stay on the back. I'm not sure if that's the way to go. Maybe you need to be crazy submission oriented and deincentivize the his takedown ability. I just don't know that's a good strategy either. It's I mean imagine someone like Morab is probably a pretty good grappler. I know he's here in Vegas. He trains other guys at 10th Planet like Andy all the time. So pretty sure that he's training his ground game pretty well. So, it's probably not going to be an easy catch. It might be in worse waters trying to grapple with him, but I don't know. I haven't seen anybody really try to work the ground with him. I'm just trying to think like how I would do it. And obviously for me, I would try to work the submission game on him because otherwise, if I'm his size, I'm just going to get taken down over and over and over and over again. It's just crazy. Really tough guy to to fight. Like I said, that's a nightmare of a fight. Final fight, you have an off with the in the rematch with Alex Pereira. And uh this is one that I didn't watch the first one. I just heard about it. I thought Alex is probably going to win this rematch. uh just because the way he is, he's dangerous, very powerful, one-touch power. And to go five rounds with him is not an easy thing to do. And while he may have been beat in that first one, I think he would probably learn and come back. And I was right. Took 25 seconds to put him away. Uh, Alex showed zero respect for Michael Medov. Just rushed right into him, got in his face, started putting heavy pressure and landed a big overhand right that kind of clipped him behind the ear, which is obviously the worst spot to get hit. You can see Magdov forces a guard pull, which when the Russians are pulling guard, it's usually not a good thing, right? And then Alex got on top and just dropped consecutive 12 to six elbows which are now legal and uh the ref was forced to stop it. Pretty destructive for Mromedoff. Honestly, that was one of the most one-sided title fights I can recall seeing in recent time. And mind you, from the champion to lose that way. We've seen the champion Ragd Doll a challenger, but for a champion to get this completely destroyed, like there's no rematch for this, right? Like, and I guess now the Pereira camp was saying that he was sick before that first fight. He had to hurt something or other. So, there was some excuses they layered out. And you know, in the fight game when people throw excuses, people like, "Yeah, whatever, dude. lost. Uh, but maybe it was real because he destroyed this guy. It didn't look like he even belonged in there. And now that puts the question, well, who who's next for Alex? Well, Jerry, but like I said, man, I don't know how good Jerry's going to do. I like Jerry, but I don't think he has what it takes to take out Alex with the way he fights. He's just too open, like I said, and he's going to eat some shots. And the problem is with these other guys, he can eat their shots, which is amazing cuz Khalil is not like a pillow puncher, man. That guy, you know, kills people. So, it's impressive that he can eat a shot, multiple shots from Khalil and not be phased. But we've seen Potan is next level, right? Like there's no one that's just casually eating his bunches, right? When people get hit by Potan, they're on the floor. And I feel like with the amount of punishment that Jerry has to take for his chaos to get in is just a problem. He's going to have to fight very differently. And I don't know if he has that in him. You then have Carlos Olberg who has moved up the ranks quite a bit. Another dangerous striker. Comes from the camp uh what's it sports or city fight in New Zealand that Israel Adisagna came from. So it is a kind of an interesting story now because now it's like the protege if you will of Israel Adisagna coming up to get revenge on well actually I mean Israel won the last one but nevertheless the next generation challenging Alex. Alex also mentioned though that he might have a hard time making weight for 205 again and maybe this was the last one. We don't know. He did come in 28 lbs heavier fight day, which is insane. That's a lot of weight. From 205 to 28 lbs, you're talking about what? Uh 233. Jesus, man. That's a mind you, people cut, like I I told you in this modern generation, people do cut, you know, 20 plus pounds now, especially in the heavier weight classes. But to regain that back is insane. I I don't know how they do it, honestly. That's That's a lot of weight. 28 pounds. Listen, like putting on 16 pounds is an achievement in itself. Cuz understand, it's a gallon of water for every 8 pounds you put on. So two gallons of water, if you drink it in one day, it's a lot. Right now, not only do you have to drink it, but you have to hold that, which normally doesn't happen. What's going to happen? You're peeing out a lot of it because the faster you take it in, the faster it's going to leave you. So, you also have to be taking in hydration, salts, and normally when you eat food, and salts and stuff like that, it'll help retain some weight. You can't really put on that much weight with food, right? Like if you're eating like a, you know, like crazy. Maybe you can get like two or three pounds in a day of food in you. You could probably do more for these heavy weights. Maybe 4 lbs, whatever. But you're not putting on 20 lbs of food weight, right? Most of the weight is going to be water. So to put on 28 lbs, you're talking about 3 and 12 gallons of water. uh in a 24-hour period that you would have to fully absorb, which you can't. So, he's intaking more than that. Now, this leads me to like, well, obviously he didn't drink it. It was IV. I'm not sure if they're allowed to do IVs anymore. I mean, they can't really stop you. There's no way of them really knowing if you're getting IV hydrated. I think they're not supposed to from my understanding. But that's the only way I can explain it because there's no way you're I mean otherwise he would probably have to be drinking like at least 5 gallons of water to hope to hold 28 lb. And mind you, 5 gallons of water is 40 lbs of water you're taking. It's just silly. So it's to me unless proven otherwise it's IV, right? Because in the IV you could put in bags and you will maintain that cuz it's going to be saline water. So it's already uh going to help maintain your hydration levels and salt level, sodium levels and whatnot. And it's going straight into the into your body. So it's going to hold better. So, I feel like that's probably how it's being done because you can just I mean, if you have all day, which they do, you can just have bags and bags of IV fluid just pumping through you cuz I can't imagine somebody taking 28 pounds of water in 24 hours and feeling fine to compete. It's just a crazy amount of water. And like I said, that would be in the best case scenario. Realistically, you'd probably have to be drinking closer to like 40 pounds of water to end up with 28. That's a little sidetracked there, but there is a definite concern if he can stay at 205. Otherwise, he's going to have to bump back up to heavyweight, which I think is the plan because he had said that he had an idea to give a speech, but because of the passing of Jon Jones's brother Arthur, he wanted just to give a moment of silence, which was a nice gesture, but it also kind of signals where his mind is at in my opinion, which is he wanted to fight Jon Jones, see if he can get another heavyweight matchup with him. but didn't want to be disrespectful because this just happened like a day or two ago. So, he's like, I'm just going to show my respects, which is classy move and at the same time strategic because it lets it signals to Jon Jones, hey, I'm thinking of this title match once you're over your family tragedy. Let me know. And Jon Jones has obviously expressed a high level of interest of fighting in the UFC White House card. So that might be a match in the making then where the heavyweight matchup would be Alex Pereira, Jon Jones. That would be a huge seller for sure. There's one problem though. Neither of them are the heavyweight champion. So I don't think that would bar it from being a main event. Especially if it's a White House card. you could kind of make it like a special fight, but a super fight if you will. However, there is a lot of time between them because that's supposed to happen, I think, in October next year or if I understand correctly. But obviously, Pereira didn't take really any damage here. So he can probably get back into fighting pretty soon after Aspenol fights Ghana, which I think Aspenol is going to run over. If Alex wanted to go for that heavyweight title, he definitely could. and against Aspenol would be an interesting and this would actually be Jon Jones ideal scenario because I don't think Jon Jones wants to deal with Aspenol. I think he knows it's a bad matchup for him and it doesn't have anything to prove for him. Like he beats Aspenol, nobody cares because Aspenol really hasn't gotten through and gotten the rep of being this, you know, destroyer, best heavyweight ever. He's unfortunately been sheld and now he's been kind of given the title in a weird way. So, it sucks for him. He's been given such a raw deal, which doesn't make sense, but I guess it's just the UK has been getting trashed in more ways than one recently. But if Aspenol fights with Alex and Alex beats Aspenol, I think that's the dream scenario for Jon Jones. I I would imagine we're going to see Jon Jones, I'm back in the testing pool. I'm ready to fight. I want the White House guard for America to get the belt from Alex because I believe he thinks that's the fight that's easier to win. And Alex already has all the notoriety and fame. So even if he did lose, he lost to another legend Hall of Famer in the making, right? And he's like, "Well, I'm older, whatever." He can make all these excuses, so it won't be as big as a deal. And I imagine the payday for a fight like that would be tremendous where, like I said, even if he lost, he wouldn't really care too much. But losing to Tom right now would be terrible for him. It wouldn't be a big payday and it would be it would be a big blemish on his record, which to me is kind of blemished already with all the cheating stuff he's done. But if Aspenol did win and beat Pereira, I wonder what Jon Jones response to that would be because that would be very telling. Would he then say, "Okay, you know what? I'll fight Aspenol now because he's actually beaten one of the guys that has destroyed many of the top UFC fighters. So, he's obviously legit. He's defended his belt now. I'll take the challenge. Or would he be like, "Nah, I'm good." Cuz to me, if he goes, "Nah, I'm good." Then it was clearly what everybody was critiquing was that he was ducking. He just didn't like the matchup. Not good for him. Not going to do it. If he does take the match, then it might be what what we were saying where it just wasn't the right money, which we know wasn't true because he was offered like a crazy amount of money. It was more that the risk wasn't worth the reward for him, which is the risk of losing his reputation of never really losing a fight before against a relatively unknown or not really famous fighter. It would really suck for him per for his ego. But if he's able to, now he's the actual UFC heavyweight champion, which he should have been, and he beats Garnet, then he beats uh Alex. Now it's going to be hard to say, oh well, this guy's not a real champion. It's like, dude, the guy just beat Alex Pereira, who's been the boogeyman of this division now. So, I wonder how they will play that one out. uh if that comes to be. Like I said, like this is a lot of uh speculating, but I think that's probably what is that makes the most sense from a promoter standpoint. All right, if we can get Pereira in there in the heavyweight belt, that's going to draw out Jon Jones. And if we get Jon Jones in the White House against Pereira in a main event, that's going to be one of the craziest main events in UFC history. And it may never happen again that the type of sales they could do with that. Although they don't have a pay-per-view anymore, so I don't know what it means, if it even matters anymore, like how many people are watching. So, it's it's weird all around, but it's fun to speculate. It would have been an interesting matchup. Although I personally feel for Aspenol because I feel like he's been, you know, disregarded and I think he's a legit good fighter. So I would like to see him be able to defend his belt against Gan who I think is not going to be up to task and see who they put him up with afterwards. I think Aspenol has to try to get really busy, especially since he's been very unus to make up for lost time and to cement his status, right? Because right now he's just a paper champion. Uh he needs to become a real champion. So he defends his belt against Garnet. Now he's a real champion. And if he can face another challenger after that, it will really cement the status of saying, "Hey, I'm I'm the real deal. I'm the heavyweight champion. If you want this strap, you have to come through me. Anyhow, that's all I have for you guys for today. I'll see you all next