BTG 165 - Dominance can be boring

Hello and welcome to another episode of Breaking the Guard. On today's episode, I'm going to talk about UFC 322. Big card, one of the best or biggest cards of the year. A lot of great matchups. I'm going to give obviously spoilers here. I will say the main and co-ming event were real stinkers, but the rest of the fights uh were very entertaining fights. And I actually started from watching from the prelims. Uh and there were some good matchups there. What was interesting, there was a match between Eric McConico and Biscer Serskov. I can't pronounce the names. I've never seen either of them come in before. The harder name to pronounce by Sanger apparently undefeated, you know, had a lot of hype behind him. And Meccanico was a a new gun, few losses. He I think he had three losses to a record. They were all by knockouts. And the guy he was fighting had 10 wins and nine knockouts. So that this was the biggest underdog of the card. But surprisingly, the fight was very competitive right from the get-go. Now, the favorite ended up winning, but he didn't run over him like he was supposed to, but it made for an interesting fight. The other fight that was interesting was Pat Sabatini. Uh, he had to deal with Jose Marus call. And while Sabatini was winning a lot of the grappling exchanges, he was he did sustain a cut pretty early uh multiple cuts on his eyes, which you know sometimes can end a fight. So you saw Sabatini really have to lean in on the grappling more to try to stay away from uh getting the cut opened. And at one point it looked like Maruskov was trying to like even use his hands to try to spread the the cut and Sabatini wasn't pleased with that. Uh yeah, that's pretty foul play. You know, it's one thing if you're punching the guy purposely on the cut, that's fair play, but it's another thing if you're just getting fingers to try to spread them open. That's pretty messed up. I'm not saying he did it. That was the accusation at least. Uh we had some other well one of the other fights that again people were sleeping on and myself included Ethan E-wing and Malcolm Wellmaker. Wellmaker undefeated I think he was another guy that had like a 10-0 record or something like that. Very good striker. And E-wing is a 48 hour notice two days and apparently he had fought the week before scored a knockout felt good. They gave him the call and he jumped on it made and pretty much the moment that he called you he had to start making weight. So you got to understand for a UFC debut that's a huge ask, right? But obviously this guy was hungry and you know the fight sound like his previous fight went really well. So he's like, "Okay, I'll I'll just jump it." So it might have been great as far as he was already in camp in essence. So, uh, a week away, you're still in good shape. He took it to Wellmaker and in a department that you wouldn't I wouldn't have suspected because this guy was a wrestler, so you thought, okay, he's going to try to wrestle him out. But his striking was superb. Great footwork, hand combinations, very crisp. uh had a good chin because he did eat one check hook that clapped like poof and didn't phase him. And that was pretty much the last significant shot that Wellmaker landed. And the rest of the fight was all um e-wing. And looked great. He did get some wrestling exchanges, although he didn't really lean heavy on the wrestling. He was mostly just outboxing Wellmaker. and to the surprise of just about everybody and won all three rounds on the scorecards. Again, another guy who was an underdog. Very impressive debut. Honestly, probably one of the most impressive debuts that I can recall seeing just because for their short notice and the ask of fighting somebody who's being built as the next big thing in the division and just to run through him like that. Mental composure is incredible and not to mention his fight skills were also incredible. He looked very polished like he's already ready to get ranked at this point the way he was fighting. Uh so well done by uh E-wing. We also had Kyle Dawis and Gerald Mirshart. And unfortunately this was a short fight. Uh Kyle was able to drop Mirart really quickly and then got on I believe it was a darst choke that secured the finish. You know Mirart has been fighting Father Time for a while. I think this is kind of the signal of the end here. You know, at some point you got to hang your hat. And realistically, there's not a lot of upside in continuing to fight. You're just looking to sustain more damage. You're probably not I mean, you're a very big long shot to getting to a UFC title at this point. So, why are we fighting then? Is it for paychecks? If it is, that sucks. You know, like he's been fighting for so long in the UFC, you would think he would have been taken care of better or that perhaps if he would have managed to finances better. Either way, like, yeah, we got to start talking about hanging them up. Uh, we had Aaron Blanchfield and Tracy Cortez. Blanchfield had a great performance. Uh, where was I? I lost my Yeah, she won round one pretty convincingly. Stepped into round two, dominated, was able to secure takedown and got a renegade choke. Not bad. She She's got two big wins under her belt. Uh Rose Nemo her previous fight, so she's ready to make a title run again. So, good job on Aaron on that fight. Then we had a Roman Copilof and Gregory Rodriguez aka Robocop. Robocop is so big. My god, you know, and he he looks like he's at least a weight class above uh Copilafu. Isn't a small heavy uh you know, middleweight either, but god, he's just a big dude. Hits hard and uh throwing lots of kicks, and those kicks are just heavy. It looks like Roman really couldn't get into a rhythm. Uh didn't normally he's able to outstrike people and and do well there, but really couldn't find the range or the rhythm against Robocop and Robocop is just chopping him the whole time. Lots of good kicks. Uh clean striking wins. Uh easy decision. Uh so good job for him. Then we had the main or the featured bout to the prelims which was Bo Nickel and Riddle Vieiraa. And Bo Nickel once again came out showing that he can throw hands. He's got and throw feet because I believe this would be his first headkick knockout which um obviously was set up from the rest of the striking but dropped him with a headkick. I think it was a lead left if I recall correctly and that was all she wrote. So good job on Bo. Then uh main event starts we have Benil Derush and Benois St. Denise and I didn't know this before but Derush missed weight by two pounds which is not great and this was another really short fight. Benois was able to score. I believe it was a straight right that instantly floored Darush and uh it was a quick end to the fight. I think it was like a 20 second fight. Not looking great. This is another time that Darius suffered a pretty bad knockout. another guy where I know he's not as old as he looks because he looks old because he's got all the gray. I think he's still in his 30s, but he's been suffering quite a few concussions now. So, it's another one of those that we have have that talk, you know, like what are we doing here because you don't want to have a traumatic brain injury that's going to have uh long-term consequences, you know? So, yeah, it's unfortunate. I mean, he's served up quite a few knockouts. He had a good streak at one point, but now the streak's going the other way. Not looking great. You know, looked fantastic. You know, there's not much to say. He he scored very early in so, you know, good for him to coming back into winning form. Next fight here, Leon Edwards and Carlos Pratz. And this was a interesting matchup. Striker versus striker. We're gonna see like who is gonna come out on top. Leon uh showed great grappling in round one. And it's funny because Leon's known as a striker, but whenever he gets into good wrestling clinches, he really dominates. He pretty much controlled all round one with takedowns and was on Carlos's back for a good portion of the end of the fight but or end of the round rather but he couldn't really do anything with it. Carlos was pretty dismissive of the threats from his back. At one point he was standing up with Leon behind him. Leon was punching him and he just like played to the cameras, you know, smirking. uh not really trying to escape either, but I guess he knew it was short time, so he was just working to wait for the round to end. When the second round came though, poof, yeah, his moment uh was pretty furious. He landed just I think this was another one that was just a straight right down the middle that just floored Leon Edwards and scored himself another knockout. And that's the first time I think Lyn Edwards has been knocked out and it's just unreal, you know. And that's another guy like, and this is something I've noticed, and you're going to hear me saying the same thing again, but some of these guys are just so big for the division. Now, Carlos doesn't seem like he's very heavy. He's just got a weird body type. He's like all legs. Like his like I'm like a lot of torso and short legs. He's got the opposite thing going on. His legs like are like just so long. It must make fighting him awkward just because from range. But this wasn't even a kick. This was just a good, you know, uh, cross down the middle that went through the guard of Leon that just floored him, you know. Uh, one guy in the fighting nerds has been keeping the win streak going, right? Uh, so that's going to make some interesting matchups because we have we had three big fights. This is one of the big fights at 170. Then the next one coming up, we have Shawn Brady with Michael Morales. And then of course there's Jack Magdalena with Islam Makachev. Uh so there's quite a few fights here where we have uh some interesting matchups we can make. So we just went over the first one. The second one, Sean Brady, Michael Morales. Michael Morales. Now this is got one of the guys that's just humongous at 170. He looks like he could be fighting 205. The guy is huge. Significantly bigger than Shawn Brady. Uh I don't know how he makes a weight. The guy is massive. And like not just like in girth, but tall. And you could really see it because when he's fighting Brady, he's really lowering his level and bringing his hips back. and he's so tall that it looks funky to me because he's like really crouched over and knees bent. Uh obviously being prepared for the shot because Brady is known to be a very good grappler and against somebody like uh Morales who is more known for the striking uh the the threat of the takedown was a big component of this fight. So, we see Morales is kind of crunched over for most of the fight, throwing uh some shots and everything's coming out pretty heavy. Brady is not able to get this fight to the ground and uh Morales and lands just a very clean strike. Drops Brady. I'm trying to remember if it was the first round. Yep. It was in the first round and u it's just a it's just crazy, you know. I'm looking at the time here. 3 minutes 27 seconds, you know, and started with punches. He he scored a TKO, but it was pretty much a done deal after that first punch lands. And that's a big 170 pounder. Uh he's got some good defensive wrestling and obviously he's got a lot of power. He's going to be a problem. That guy is going to be a problem. I just like man I'm looking at like he's one of the guys like I was tell people all the time man like if I was fighting in this era I walk around now like 197 and 198. Uh, but I'm like 15% body fat probably, maybe more or less somewhere around there. I would have to get down to 10% which for me would mean like what losing another 10 pounds of if I'd be walking around like 186. 170 would be the highest I could fight and I would be tiny for 170 now compared to someone like Morales. Like if I was going to be a serious contender, I would have to be fighting at 155, which would just be brutal for me. I've never cut that much weight before. Like we're talking about like the 40 pound weight cuts. It's like Jesus Christ. But that's what these guys are doing. Like Morales had to be cutting 40 something pounds at least to be able to be at that division, which is just insane. Anyhow, uh we then move into the co-main Dante Stfenko and Wheelie Zang. And like I said at the start, these fights were not too entertaining to me. Uh I wanted Chachenko to win, but it was a boring win. She just dominated from start to finish. She was able to keep her range very counterfighter oriented like she normally does, but whenever uh Wheelie tried to clash with her or get close, she would get clinched and tossed immediately. Pretty much like zero resistance in the takedown game. And I'm not saying because she doesn't have it. She obviously does. I think it's just that Valentina's wrestling is so good and she's not doing double legs or singles. Everything is just like body locks and overunders, but she's just so strong in those clinches that she just tosses her every single time. I think she landed four out of five takedowns that were attempted. I think it was only the second or maybe third round that were on the feet for the whole round, but every other round she was able to secure a takedown strike. The one thing I wish Tjenko would have worked harder more for a finish. She looked like she played pretty conservative on top. She was landing some striking. She was trying to look to pass, but nothing really too heavy. She did say she respected Wheelie a lot for her power and didn't want to play around with it, but it's just boring as a spectator to watch someone get, you know, wet wet blanketed for 25 minutes straight. So if you thought that was boring, then we go into the main event. We're getting more of the same treatment because Islam Makachev just wet blanketed Jack Dea Madelena as well, but in worse fashion in the sense that Jack's striking was non-existent in this fight. Islam won the whole fight, start to finish, standing, wrestling, takedowns, jiu-jitsu, everything. And it started really early. I believe Islam landed the first strike, low calf kick. Boom. And then landed a second one. And I think that's all it took. And that's what DC was saying, and that's my thinking as well. I think after those first couple of calf kicks, he destroyed the calf. And sometimes it hits you harder than others. It looked like Jack didn't take it well because he wasn't able to fight from his southpaw stance because every time he would stay there, he would just get chopped and everything was exclusively cat kicks. And you guys, uh, if you've never eaten a solid calf kick before, I can tell you firsthand, it's miserable. The effects of it are almost immediate. I know the first one I recall I took it from a really small guy too, probably like a 125 pounder Kuita and u I was kickboxing with him and at that time this was like maybe early 2000s. I hadn't ever seen someone throw a calf kick before. I've never taken one before. And this little guy just calf kicked me in sparring. And my calf instantly locked up. And I was so stiff for the rest of the sparring round. I could barely move. And I was like, "What the hell, man?" Uh, and I was fighting conventional stands and I'm not a switch stance fighter, so I wasn't able to guard it. And I didn't I don't think I even took that many more calf kicks, but it's just the first one was enough to ruin my day. And this was with a shin protector, shin pads, mind you. And you know, he still was able to dig in deep enough. And I probably also because I was unfamiliar, I didn't even realize the threat of it. But no shin pads, full power, you know, a guy your size and he's lands a couple of them back to back. Yeah, that will mess you up in a severe way, you know. So uh if people are wondering what the hell happened to Jack striking, that could have been it. He just could have got his leg chewed up extremely early and had no way of coming back from the fight because the rest of the fight doesn't make a lot of sense either. He's been preparing with Craig Jones and I'm I'm sure that he also had Vul and Vulk arguably did one had one of the best performances against Islam. So, you would think, okay, they would have an excellent game plan and this guy's bigger, but on the ground, he was helpless. Uh, he was just keeping half guard the whole time, but like not using it to get up to his feet or not trying to work from it. It was just like survival half guard. And most of the fight, you see him grimacing the entire time like like he's in a lot of pain. So, this is where DC was complaining, oh, like it might be that calf like the pressure from trying to hold this is getting him. Or maybe it's a shoulder pressure from the cross face. I don't think I mean if it's a shoulder pressure from the cross face, then he's he's done early because I don't know. I've eaten shoulder pressure from a lot of people and it could be miserable, but you wouldn't be wincing like that. Like he was wincing from like it felt like stabbing pain, you know? So, I would agree with DC. I think it's probably the leg or maybe he popped a rib or something happened that we don't fully know because he was fighting like he was severely hurt. Islam did what he was supposed to do which is you know he took him down and held him again. Another guy I wish he would have worked harder for the finish. He did a good job of controlling. didn't take any risks uh as far as finishing. Didn't also let loose like we didn't see any heavy hands or heavy elbows, you know, it was just more of a grappling match, which is funny. Um but, uh this was slightly better than the title defense of Driscus, but not by much, just marginally better. Uh but he got dominated in a similar fashion. Didn't really and never really made a concerted effort to try to win the fight. It looked like he was just trying to survive. Like he got into survival mode within, you know, the first minute of the fight. Again, in a 25minute fight really sucks for the spectators. I was hoping for some more fireworks. Uh especially coming from the training camp that he was he was coming from. I expected a much better fight. Uh it's going to be interesting because it doesn't leave a lot to be asked of who can challenge Islam. Islam obviously came up in weight. He looked good for the size. He didn't look small. Uh he looked about the same, maybe slightly smaller than Madelena. And I'm sure he'll get bigger over time, but uh solid performance by him. Although, like I said, wish I would have seen a finish from him. Now, Bal is out of the question for a title shot because, you know, he obviously got beat pretty bad by Jack. So, the MMA math doesn't really add up to make sense for him to get a shot. They're trying to say, "Oh, Camaro Usman title shot," which is ridiculous. The guy's one and three. He's aging out. I don't think he needs to prove himself with a big win to be able to get a title shot. He can't just jump the line. And you know, Dana White saying that Kamar Usman's the greatest of all time ever, which is that's a hard thing for me to take. I'm like, "No, I think if we're going if we're going to say, especially in that weight class, welterweight, it's obviously GSP. Obviously, like there's no one else who's done what he's done." He lost what, twice in his career. Both losses avenged. He lost to Mat Hughes, he avenged it. Uh, and he lost to Matt Sarah and he avenged it. That's it. and he's won all those other fights. Although, you know, some of them are really close, you know. I know the Johnny Hendricks one people uh catch grief about, but hey, he he stayed on top, you know, and there's no foul play on his there's no like accusations of cheating or playing dirty. So, to me, GSP is the easy goat, especially when if we're talking about exclusively welterweight to say now that's not to take away from Usman. Usman had a great run. I just don't think Usman beats GSP. I don't I don't think so. Uh he's shown he could be I mean Leon Edwards took him down. Leon Edwards knocked him out. U these are things I don't see a GS GSP suffering from. I think he's probably one of the best welterweights we've seen, but not the best. And he doesn't merit a line skip to fight Islam. I think you you would have to match him up with one of these new guys. Now, Carlos Prates, it's a bad matchup. He would lose pretty badly. He gets taken down not to def not not with not that much struggle and he's not gonna be able to rest out of those with Islam. So although he might have earned it, he's not going to win that fight. Morales, it's an interesting one. He's a little bit to me a little I mean this was a big step up taking out Shawn Brady like he did and he's definitely got size and power but I again I'm not sure about the wrestling. Is he going to be able to stay on his feet? I don't know. I think it might be good to see him get one more test. Although I mean Brady was a big level jump up and I think Brady was ranked number two. So yeah, I guess he's kind of ready for it. He's just going to have to see. But that would be an interesting one. I mean either of those two would be interesting. Although with Pratz, I feel like he's going to have a hard time. He's just going to get taken down. We also have Shavcat. I don't know where he is in the mix of things. He would be an interesting one because obviously he can grapple. I don't know to the extent that Islam can, but it's a guy who's got a good all-around base and it's another big 170 because I I I feel like if you're going to try to take on someone Islam or you you at least want to have some strength size advantage going into it in your favor and someone like Shvkcat or Morales would have that size advantage and presumably the striking advantage, but you know, people sleep with the striking of Islam. But like I said, you want all the striking here now. He started with a calf kick, but he is sound. You know, he's he's got good hands. He doesn't get too stupid. I mean, obviously, he doesn't want to get in a drawn out striking battle. And that is the one thing I do like about these Dagasanis, they don't forget where they came from. Some guys they become, you know, you have guys who are really good wrestlers and they score a knockout and then they fall in love with striking and knockouts and they change their whole style to accommodate to that, forgetting what got them there in the first place. In my opinion, if you're a fantastic grappler, don't try to reinvent yourself into becoming a fantastic striker. I'm not saying don't get better air striking. Absolutely get better air striking. And if you can score knockouts, score knockouts. But don't forget your wrestling. You should always go towards where the fight will be the easiest. So if you're fighting somebody who's a terrible ground guy, don't become, you know, a K1 striker. Take the guy to the ground and finish him on the ground. Now, if you're fighting someone who's a great grappler, okay, now you can use your striking to your advantage. And then the striking is also going to set up your takedowns because once he starts worrying about strikes, takedowns become easier and vice versa. But some of these guys, they get, you know, you know, they get fixated on the striking and they forget about wrestling and grappling. And I know the UFC kind of rewards that type of behavior, but obviously someone like Islam doesn't forget, right? I I think he could have probably beat Jack on the feet based on how he was doing, but he didn't play games. He's like, I'm here to win fights, not to um entertain the crowd in a way that makes sense, like at high risk to myself, and I'm here to win the fight in the easiest way possible, which is what he did. I would just argue get the finish. He could He tried a couple kimuras, but didn't really seem to go hard on them. I I think he was content just staying on top. But that's my critique. In any case, yeah, that that picture now will be interesting to see how it develops. Are they going to try to throw Morales in there or they're going to try to throw Protest? I imagine they might throw a practice because he's a little more proven. But that would be an easier fight for Islam, I think. are not easier, but I I think for me the conclusion is more obvious. I'm not sure about the Morales. I haven't seen enough of it yet to be able to know. I mean, this fight was only a one round fight, so really didn't get to see the wrestling game develop enough. I'd be curious if him against like a shot would be an interesting fight. Although shot could be another guy that could jump into a title picture. But um yeah, that's the UFC 322. So, we got one more pay-per-view for this year. Uh like I said, I like this card. I just didn't like the last two fights. Every other fight was very entertaining. So, if you didn't watch it, you can if you can watch the prelims and stuff, that will give you most of the juice cuz the other fights were all quick. The Shawn Bra fight was quick, the Lana Edwards was quick, the Banil de Rouge was quick. You don't need to pay for the pay-per-view. Like, I could have gone without for that pay-per-view on this one. I could have just watched the undercard and been happy with it. Anyhow, uh we do have a ACC trials going on. I actually have it going on my screen behind here. Uh they're on the I think they're on the finals now. Yeah. The some of the familiar names on here. We have Achillesa, Brandon Reed, uh who else? Dorian Olivarez, John Combmes. Yeah, so there's some uh some of the familiar names in the finals here. I'll have to tune in to see how they they finish up and I'll probably talk about it later in the week. But uh that's all I have for you guys. I'll catch you all next week.