BTG 166 - Lighter divisions taking the spotlight

Hello and welcome to an episode of Breaking the Guard. I'm going to talk about the UFC's lightweight and welterweight divisions after this last UFC fight night in Qatar or Qar as I have learned. Apparently that's how you pronounce it. Uh it was a good fight card. The main event, I mean the main card was solid. Uh, I believe five out of six finishes and obviously spoilers are are coming. So, starting off the the top, I'm just have to refer to my my phone here. I think it was uh Horochi with Teier William Beckov. Now, Horoji Horochi should be familiar. He was in the UFC nine years ago. I believe one of his last fights was for a title shot against uh DJ. That's how far back it was since he was in the UFC. He's been fighting in Asia in Ryzen where he was a champion there. I think he was a he fought in Bellator. He fought in he may have fought in PFL. He's fought in all sorts of different promotions. But on the he's not old, but he's getting there. He's 35 and he came in fighting I believe the guy was ranked number 11 in the 125 pound division and before he was fighting 135 and he just steamrolled through who is not like some scrub. He's a guy from Normma's team obviously a tough dude and just rolled right through him. Very dominant fight. It was uh chopped them up pretty good on the legs and then started switching from leg kicks to head kicks and connected quite a few of those. Uh I think in the end, if I remember correctly, he did finish him. Let me make sure I got that right. Yeah, that's what I thought. He finished him with a renegade choke after he knocked him down. He knocked him down several times, but the the final knockdown got a back exposure, was able to get a renegade choke. So, uh, some people are like the the the take that they got from it, which is valid, is that everyone says like, "Oh, the fighters of this generation are way better than anyone in the past." And then meanwhile, someone that DJ beat nine years ago just rolled through a top a guy who was in the top six earlier. My answer to that I and I think I expressed this before. If we looked at all the fighters in the UFC and we average them out, I would say the skill set has probably gone down a little bit. I would say athleticism has gone up. weight cutting skills, if we can call it that, or just the ability to cut lots of weight has gone up significantly. I think the discipline as far as staying in shape year round and being very lean has gone up. That's also a function of weight cutting because the leaner you are, the more weight you can cut. I also think it's a function of the UFC demanding that their fighters be ready at any short notice opportunity. So you can't afford to have an off season. You're just on. So I would say those things are true if we look on all the fighters in the roster as an average. And when I say diminished skill sets specifically with groundwork and I believe it's just because the UFC has pushed more striking be more exciting and to the UFC that means striking. So we don't see a lot of groundwork. I think it's also the most complicated thing to learn. So, when we're prioritizing how to train an athlete, it's like, well, UC hates this part of the fight and it's going to take you the most time to learn how to get there. So, instead, we're going to focus on developing your striking game, which the UFC loves, and developing your wrestling so that you don't end up on the ground. It's a shorter path uh to success, and it works out quite well for a lot of people. It's a valid one, but the overall skill set declines because now you're not a a true mixed martial artist in my opinion. You've you've mixed a few styles that work for this sport and the rule set and have stuck to them. However, there's always outliers and there's quite a few of them and we look at all the current champions and even in this fight, well, for example, Arukian is not a champion, but he could be. [laughter] Guy's really good. He's got great striking. He's got great wrestling. He's got great groundwork. He knows how to blend the styles all well together. He's dangerous everywhere. You have Morab. He's also great everywhere, right? Uh I mean him especially is just the cardio that's insane. But obviously the guy can wrestle, he can strike, and he can grapple. Is he the best grappler ever? No. But he makes it work with his weapon of cardio. Uh we look at the next division, uh Pantoa, right? Amazing fighter, good everywhere. Uh we move up another weight class. We have Alexander Vulcanowski obviously great everywhere, you know. So all of our champions and we it keep going going Islam. Even though he's a grappling specialist, he I think he won his last fight by the cath kicks which was striking and he won all the striking exchanges. You know, he knocked out Vulcanowski. So like clearly he can strike too. uh you know, all because you're a specialist in grappling doesn't mean that you can't be able to strike a little bit to set up your grappling or vice versa. And we got Ilia is another great fighter. So, uh and then Kamza. So, these guys all have very high level skills. In any era of fighting, they would pose a problem, right? So uh the champions I feel definitely uh have evolved overall skill set is very solid. I think if we look at the challengers not so much we go back like Kamzadrriscus pretty embarrassing for Driskus. He was totally outclassed belong in there by watching the fight. Dan Hooker with Armen. Kind of the same deal. He got out struck, he got out wrestled, he got outgrappled. Uh, didn't really belong in there either. We moved to Morab. Well, he does the same thing to everybody. He does cardio is a hell of a but like no one has a skill set strong enough to overcome that, right? Like they can't overcome the wrestling. they can't out, you know, and if you can't out wrestle him, you're in a lot of trouble. And nobody's been able to strike him significantly better or well enough to get around that. Uh, Islam pretty much just mops everybody in the ground. I think the last guy to really give him a tough fight was Dustin Porier, who was another guy who's very well-rounded and a high level skill set. And we I could keep doing this. Pantoa same thing. He destroyed the last two guys he fought. So like the champs right now and I I made a podcast about this. I think we're in an era where we have some of the most dominant champions that we've ever had uh all at the same time. Even if you look at the women's divisions like Valentina, it's another example. So it's interesting and all those people high level skills in all the areas of the game. Everyone's a specialist, of course, but they have high skills. They've done their homework. They haven't like cut corners to try to get to the top. They did all the work, at least from my point of view. What's going to be interesting now is that we do have some challengers coming up particularly in lightweight and welterweight that could rattle that right cuz if we look at lightweight and I'm skipping ahead from the other fights that's okay. Ilia Armen is definitely the fight to make, right? And let me just run through the fights real quick and I'll get back to this point because otherwise it won't make sense. Um, after Horochi, that's how we got there. Waldo Cortez Aosta fought Shamil Gazoff. This was a short notice fight and this is classic heavyweight style. This each guy clocking each other. Aasta obviously hits hard. [laughter] He scored a knockout. Then we had Jack Hermanson with MCbeck Olite. Guy looks like a [laughter] prehistoric Kman. Uh, and he knocked out Herman Manson, another guy with rising potential in the 170 division. And then we had Alonzo Manifil and Vulcan Ozamir and uh, Vulcan scored a knockout first round. So like I'm telling you all these fights finish finish. The finishing stopped right here with Ian Garry and Bal Muhammad and this was an all striking affair. Belal tried to make it a ground game. Could never take Gary to the ground. And this is what I noticed when he fought uh Cam uh not not Cam. Sorry, the the other one, Shaftcat. Ian Garry's wrestling is very good. At least his counter wrestling. He's able to stay in his feet. Never got put in his back in this fight, but I'll tried a bunch of times, never really got close. Uh so, and Gary was able to outstrike him pretty convincingly, although it it went to a decision. I thought he won all three rounds. Not by Oh. major strikes, but like he outpointed him, you know, and he did what he could. So Ian now is going to put himself close to that title picture. And then the final fight, Armis Rookie and Dan Hooker. Uh Sukian out struck him, out wrestled him. It it Dan Hooker had a couple moments where you're like, is he actually going to do this? which was guillotine attempts and Surukian would get inside on the shot and Hooker drops for a guillotine and in my head's like, "What are you doing? You're going to try to grapple the grappler?" But it looked like it was a decent bite, but Sirian had the same counter both times where he does a little gator roll uh through the guillotine to spin his head up. Clearly his neck and his back are fine. [laughter] I think that would cause me some major back problems if I did what he did. But he was able to evade those chokes pretty easily. And then once Hooker was on his back, he never got up. Hooker had a better I think the first one actually was Serukian was going a little crazy trying to score a taked down. gave a back exposure and Hooker had a rear naked for a second and then Serukian spun turned into a guillotine and then Hooker dropped for the guillotine. But either case he got beat up pretty bad on the ground lot of ground and pound uh good elbows and ultimately I think it was in the second round or maybe third round third round I think he advanced into the mount and was able to get an arm triangle to get the tap. All right. So, that sums up all the fights there. Now, what I was talking about, Armen Ilia is a great match to make. We were supposed to get Armen Islam, but we lost that. That's fine. Armen Ilia is an interesting fight. I think Armen is going to have better grappling than Ilia. So then the question is, is Ilia's striking and anti- wrestling gonna be strong enough to take care of Armen or not allow him to get to the ground? Is he going to McGregor? Armen, the classic McGregor, you know, catch him with a leaping hook and put him out or is Armen gonna be able to outstrike him or at least get him to the ground where I feel that Armen has a significant advantage. Armen to me is a complete fighter. He strikes really well. He closes distance. He can wrestle. He can grapple. He's the whole package. Um, and at that weight class, he's I mean, he's shorter, right? He's 5'7, so he can't move up in weight classes like these other guys can. I think he's got to stay right where he where he is. But I mean, Den Hooker is 6 feet, so he he was suffering a 5 foot reach advantage. Didn't make a difference. He out struck him, right? He knew how to use his tools to his advantage. So, I don't know. I would probably think Armen would win that fight. Call me crazy, but I think Armen could win that fight with Ilia. That's the fight that definitely needs to happen because I don't think there's anyone else in that division that's going to give either of those guys significant problems at the moment. So, that's a great fight. And assuming that fight goes well, it could probably make a rematch. It'll keep interest in that division for some time. Now, moving to the 170s, there's a few options now after the outcome of the Ian Gary fight, right? Ingary now has two wins in the past year against uh tough competition. So, he is active, he's winning, you know, he's in that top 10. You could make a a bid for a title shot against Islam. My opinion, Islam will probably be able to chew through him. I think Islam would score takedowns and give him problems. I don't know. I could be wrong though. Maybe his wrestling is better than I give him credit for and he won't get taken down, which would make a difficult fight for Islam. It's possible. I'm just not sure. Ian does get taken to the fence a lot. He does seem to know how to use it. I'm just wondering. It's one thing if you could hold someone like Bal, but it's another thing for an Islam, right? I think Islam's very good at finishing those fence takedowns offensively, so it would be a problem. It it I mean, it's interesting. I'm not going to be upset if they make that fight. I think it's an interesting fight. I'm just trying to calculate odds. I think it's going to definitely favor uh Islam on that match. So then we move into the next potential fight which is going to be Shvkcat. Now the only problem is that Shavcat hasn't had a fight now since his fight with Gary. I think Shavecat poses the biggest threat to Islam because he can strike, he can wrestle, he can grapple. He's another guy who's a full package. Now, can he do those things at the same level that Islam can? I'm not sure. My instinct is probably not. I think Shabcat could probably strike better. I don't think he's going to grapple better. The wrestling, I don't think he's better either. He does have a much bigger frame though like Ian does and who knows, right? I think that's a more interesting fight because the the gaps in the skills are not as big in my opinion. But that's another fight. And then the third fight you could potentially make that would make sense would be with Michael Morales, right? undefeated guy obviously major striker but the there's going to be a huge gap on the ground I feel so if Morales gets taken down it's over Morales is going to probably have the biggest size advantage and I know they keep saying he's six feet it's like I don't know that he looked huge and like just com not just compared to Shawn Brady who's not tiny, you know. I think he's probably my height, but if you look at Morales when he's standing against the cage, his head's way over the cage. I'm pretty sure you have to be over 6 feet for that to happen. I think the cage is 6 feet tall. I could be wrong. In any case, he's a big man. And again, his level of anti- wrestling to me is not well known lately. No one's really gotten a good bite of a takedown. I think the last time he got taken down was like a couple years ago and it was a brief moment. So, hard to know what his wrestling level is and how it's going to hold up to someone like Islam. Who knows? But those are three matches there, right? You have Ian Gary, Shapat, Morales. To me, those three make sense. Either one of those I'm not going to be disappointed with. They're all fair, right? They all earned it in a in a unique way, right? The fight that they're trying to push is Camaro Usman, which makes no sense. The guy is one and three if I recall correctly in his last four. He's kind of aging out. He's lost to some of the guys that ended up losing to the other three I've named, notably Leon Edwards. Uh, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to me like why would he skip the line? Doesn't make sense. I know he used to be one of the best walter rates, but much like I used to weigh 170 pounds, that doesn't mean anything now. It's like what are you at now? You don't get title shots based off what you did, you know, 5 10 years ago. I know it wasn't that long for him, but in the fight world, he's it's like dog ears, you know, like he's moved quite a bit from where he was at his peak. And that's not to say that he isn't a threat to anybody. He just doesn't have the credentials, in my opinion, at this point to skip the line. Those other three deserve those shots, right? I think Morales has probably the best claim considering he's undefeated. However, Morales hasn't fought either of those two guys, right? Those two have fought. Shotcut won. The only thing that makes Shotkat not a shoein is that he was injured. So, he's been gone for the past year since his fight with Ian. Otherwise, it would have been him. But, you know, activity is important. So, it's unfortunate because now it it blurs that picture. Like I said, any of those three guys they could rotate from or they could even have one of them fight the other one while one of them fights, you know. So maybe they throw Shathot in there and then Morales fights Ian Garry or you know Ian Gary fights well Shaot wouldn't make sense to fight maybe Shkat fights Morales you know and Ian fights for the the title I don't know but they could make that fight man needs to fight at least one of those three in my opinion if he wants to get a title shot right he it would be ridiculous to to me if he jumped right into the title picture. So, I would reject that outright. And if that happens, I'll be pretty disappointed. It's pretty messed up. And it's funny because they're both managed by the same matchmaker, Ali, and he's the one that wants to fight. I'm like, well, of course he does. It's a double payday. You get two guys fighting for the title. Whoever wins is going to win the title money. You're getting a piece of it. Yeah. Who doesn't like double dipping? Uh, so yeah, I don't think that's obviously and then they both want the fight. Islam says he wants it. I think he wants it because it's an easier matchup for him. Um, and I think obviously Usman wants it. Like it's the legacy thing and it's money. Now, [sighs] maybe I'm selling Usuzman short here. He He obviously has great at his prime, great takedowns, knockout power, and he could ground and pound people. Not really a grappler, but he knew how to use the ground for for damage. But we've seen that, you know, the his knees are totally trashed. Although people like, well, has it ever affected him? I don't know. The last couple fights against Leon Edwards, he got taken down by Leon a bunch of times, who is not known as a strike. He's a striker. Um, so, and maybe it's because it's unexpected that Leon would work his wrestling and that's how he scored these takedowns. He I've seen him take him down other people. He's pretty good at scoring takedowns actually. He's got kind of like a Valentino style, which is like when people crash into him, he gets a body lock clinch and he's able to toss him. U so yeah, I'm not sure if Usman now has the chops to be able to wrestle with Islam. It would be interesting. I just think it's un like I'm not going to be h I got to watch this fight. Like I don't know. I'll be c I'm curious. Does this guy still hold up? I just don't think it's deserved. I think he has to fight his way up. Like again, if you're on a one and three or I could be maybe he's one and two. I don't know. I would have to look it up. But it's not like a title shot worthy activity record, right? Especially against someone like Gary or Shacat or Morales who's, you know, undefeated. These guys have been doing all the right things. It makes more sense for them to get title shots versus someone like Usuzman who just wants that one last shot at glory. I don't fault him for it. Like, understand me. Like, I don't argue like when a a guy wants to get more for himself. Like, he's that's what he's supposed to do. So, I don't blame Usman for taking the the the call out or making the call out rather. I more blame the UFC and the matchmaking because like you have a ranking system. They're supposed to be in order. The rankings are supposed to matter. And whenever you like, in my opinion, on the rankings by skipping the line, you're penalizing everyone else who's like playing the rules. So, I don't like that. I think it's unprofessional to do that. In any case, those two divisions have a interesting fights coming up and hopefully they make one of those fights. Like I said, Harmonia, I think, is the fight to make. There's no other fight really that screams out as loudly as that one in my opinion. And then in the welterweight division, like I said, there's like four potential or three potential title fights that make sense to me. The Morales versus Islam, the Sha Islam, and then finally um Ian Islam. All of them make sense. If I was a betting man, I would probably think they're going to put Ian in there. Just from marketing perspective, it's going to be better. Shavecat, I don't think he's a big enough draw. He hasn't been fighting recently. I forget which country he comes from. I'm guessing it's not a big uh pay-per-view nation. Although pay-per-view models ending, so I don't know if that matters anymore, but I don't think he's got the star power yet. He's got the skills, but he doesn't have the the star power. Ian has some star power behind him, for sure. Moral is another one where I feel like he's he's good, but he doesn't have the star power either. So, if I was a betting man, I'm saying Ian's probably going to be the guy who's next. And I those two might end up fighting each other. And that's another interesting fight. I'm down for it. So, those would be good. the other divisions now. Well, we have Morab defending his belt. Uh man, what's the name of this? The Russian Peter Yan. So, that's coming up. So, that should be a good fight. And one of the things that's a little disappointing uh is that Kamzat now is gone until April next year. Apparently, he hurt his foot and he's getting surgery. And so people are already complaining like, "Man, this guy is so inactive now. Like, we're going to get one title defense in April and then he's going to be gone for another year." I guess that's the critique that I had on Cams that ever since he came into the UFC like full steam, right? He fought twice in the span of like two weeks when he got in and then he fought another couple times. He had a lot of activity early and a lot of quick finishes, but then once he got settled in, he kind of relaxed a bit and then he took his foot off the the the gas and now he's won all the fights he's supposed to win, but now he's got the title. I mean, he hasn't been champ for that long, so it's not unreasonable for him to take some time to address health issues. So, I don't fault him for that. I think the fans are being a little unrealistic here. It's like, yeah, you know, maybe he and that's normal in the beginning. You are very hungry and also you have to prove a lot especially to the UFC. They love people who they say jump off that bridge and you jump, right? like they want that and he did that jump many times. So, in my opinion, I feel like he kind of earned not having to do that every single moment and especially now that he's the champion and I don't want to see a guy injured fighting. So, if he's got a foot surgery he's got to do, then do it. his next fight in 85. I don't know who they put him up against cuz he's good enough on his feet where he can exchange for a bit before scoring a takedown and he has shown that he's quite good at getting those takedowns. To my memory, the biggest test that he's had was Gilbert Burns. That was a a dog fight and he came out on top, but man, he got he got hit good a bunch of times and he was able to recover. It's unfortunate Gilbert didn't get the title. He was such a good mixed martial artist, but it it looked like around that time that was like the peak and then he never came back from that fight in my opinion. Like that fight also cost him quite a bit. That was a tough fight for both of those dudes. Uh that was a war. But you need someone like that who's wellrounded and got good skills everywhere to be able to bring a fight to someone like Kamza. I don't know who else cuz a lot of these other guys are very grappling oriented. So, they're going to have a hard time. I mean, not grappling, they're very striking oriented. So, they're going to have a hard time with the grappling at uh 185. Now, I feel Strickland could do it, but it would require him not to fight dumb. And what I mean by that is that he tends to fight macho, which is like, "Oh, I'm going to stand with you. I'm going to strike the whole time. I'm not going to go for takedowns." Which to me is It's absolutely because you're giving up one whole aspect of the mixed martial arts. So, you've lost a huge weapon. And not only does that affect your ability to do ground work, which is you can't, it also affects your striking now because your opponent doesn't have to worry about sprawling. So, they're going to stand tall and they're going to be at their best striking range. Whereas, whenever you threaten takedowns, a guy has to lower the level, their hips are going to bend a little more, knees are going to bend a little more. They're not going to be in an optimal striking position. And they always are looking up. I got to watch every time this guy level changes, there's a takedown threat I got to get ready for, which makes setting up faints very easy. But when you dismiss that entirely, it makes it a much easier fight and it makes your striking a whole lot less effective. Like I know guys that will say I they have stats like never I think uh Chris Curtis is one of those guys where it's like I've never done a takedown in his entire career or at least in the UFC career that I understand. That's in my opinion. It's like why [snorts] [laughter] it's it's not smart, you know? Like you should be sprinkling in takedowns. Now, I'm not saying like shoot and then get sprawled on. No, no. But like every so often, you should threaten it a little bit. One, the first guy you do it to, you're going to surprise the hell out of them and probably score, but then after that, everyone else is going to have to, oh crap, he he's now doing takedowns. I got to look out for that. And it makes your striking work a lot better. So, that's what I mean. Like somebody's like a guy like Strickland's a lot of ego. So that he can't fight dumb and I know he can wrestle and I know he can grapple. So he has the tools it would take to fight someone like Kamzad. Now is he good in I've never grappled with Kamat so I don't know how good on the ground he is. He looks like he's pretty good. I can't do that MMA math. [laughter] So, I'm not sure like, oh, is he good enough on top to give someone like Strickland a lot of problems or is Strickland good enough on top where he can give someone that comes out problems? I don't know. But I know it would be a lot better of a fight than the Driskus one is. But then again, I guess Driskus took down Stricklin. So, this is what I mean with the MMA math. It doesn't make a lot of sense. But at least on paper, he's got the skills. But the thing is, he still has to fight his way back into that title picture because of the suspension. He's been gone for a bit. So, he's going to have to fight one of the other guys. Um, yeah. And that picture is blurry because I don't know where Driscus is now in getting a obviously he's not getting a rematch because he got this freaking ragd doll. But where does it put him? Like what does he have to do to be able to get back on the title picture? Is it just one big win or he going to need a couple wins? He definitely needs to work the the ground game. And it's funny because I saw in an interview recently he's like oh yeah you know these guys are doing stuff in the ground that you know we got to catch up to. It's like, man, that's old, dude. This is not like what Kamza did to him is nothing new, right? It's a take down and a crucifix. Matt Hughes was doing this back in the early 2000s, right? And crucifixes have been around since UFC like four or five, right? Gary Goodri had the back crucifix, you know, that scored that notable vertical elbow down knockout. It's decades old. So don't go, "Oh, like there's new stuff we got to work on." They're not. It's not new at all. This is very old. The problem is, in my opinion, you're one of the guys that shortcuted your way to the top, which is you skipped working a lot of the groundwork. You learned how to be a good striker, decent wrestling. Well, at least to an extent. The wrestling was non-existent against Kamza. That fight was weird. He has shown he had some wrestling ability. But in any case, yeah, incomplete skill set, right? Like he needs to round out the rest of the game. So if I was just kids, I'd be working a lot of jiu-jitsu, a lot of wrestling. Anyhow, yeah. So that 185 picture, not as clear. I'm not sure which fights I would be excited about in that division currently. I guess we'll have to see. But I do have a lot of hope for those the lightweight divisions, the well lightweight welterweight. Those are two really good divisions that have some solid contenders uh that should make interesting fights. So, I'll leave you guys with that and uh I'll catch you all next week.