BTG 168 - Revenge

Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Breaking the Guard. I just got back from my holiday travels. I was in Florida for Thanksgiving, spending it with my family, which is really nice. Uh my nephews have really grown up quite a bit now. Uh so pretty certainly they're going to grow taller than my brother and I. So that's that's great. Um but I also got to teach at my academy. I did a seminar on Thanksgiving Day on the morning. So, that was a lot of fun, too. Covering something that I haven't taught before, which you guys should be seeing posting up soon. Uh, covered a concept called yielding where if you on my social media, you probably seen it. I posted it on Instagram. Um, and that's covering a concept where when you're in a bad position that is about to be lost. For example, the guy has a back body lock on you and he's getting ready to lift. You know, you're already on the way out, right? So, the idea is rather than letting him decide the outcome and you ending up in a bad spot while fighting to the bitter end, you yield and drop into the position first. So, in this case, get got you in a back body lock. I'll dive to both knees on the ground and hand fight on the way down. Most people do not expect this to happen and it usually results in you getting a upper hand in the next position because now I'm on both knees, back straight, I got both hands fighting his hands. You have to imagine if a guy has a back body lock when you stretch them down, they're going to be stretched out and they're going to probably still be on their feet. So, their grip's going to be really weak. And I usually am able to pop grips there. But if not, at the very least, I'm in a much better defensive position because I'm upright and I have their hands low. So, I don't have to worry about chokes, don't have to worry about punches. Uh, if you're good in switches or hip heists, it's a great position to go into it. And I could stand up again from there. Kimora from there. So like lots of attack options. Whereas if I'm fighting the back body lock and the guy Matt returns me, I'm going to be on my hands and my knees. I may have suffered some slam damage. And now I have to worry about punches because my hands are on the ground since I didn't let my face slam and I can't hand fight as well because now my hands are on the ground or my elbows on the ground. So I'm trying to do this. It becomes a lot trickier. So that that's one example of yielding. And we could do this from guard pass situations, people mounting uh and other things like that. And it's something that I've used quite a bit now because I've been doing lots of situational drills where we start in a really compromised position. And for me, some of these positions are really hard to fight just because like my the way my back is set up. Uh I it reminds me that Kevin Hart joke when he's like b he's partying with millionaire friends and they're spending money left and right you know he's like you know the way my bank account set up right I feel like that's how I feel like when I say the way my back is set up you know it's like certain positions not great back lock uh and front bologs are some of those positions where it puts a lot of stress on the lower back so I I've learned yielding there because I'm able to more often than not reverse people from the yield or at the very least organize myself in a much better position where I'm going to be able to counterattack effectively. So you guys will see that in a few weeks on davidmma.com and if you want to see it now you can go on the Instagram and you can see it on my Instagram channel. Other than that, then I went to Bonire. Uh went scuba diving for about a week, got 18 dives in. A lot of fun. I wasn't sure how my weight situation would be, although I was optimistic that I would be uh leaner when I came back. Now, most of you think, well, you normally in the holidays and on vacations, people get fat, you know, but I, as I told you, I've been staying with an animal-based diet the whole time. So, Thanksgiving was all meat. Uh, I had my flowerless chocolate cake. I made it for my family there uh for dessert. But other than that, uh, I stuck to the diet, you know, eating ribe eyes and whatnot. at everybody's steak also for for Thanksgiving. And when I travel, same thing. So, I left at 198. I was actually kind of getting heavier here because I was doing a lot of work anticipating this trip, not as much training. and two weeks basically no real physical training other than me teaching a seminar, walking around and scuba diving. Now the scuba diving, it's interesting because we were diving three times a day for six days. So it's 18 dives, 18 hours in the water. And on one hand, it doesn't feel like a lot of work on most particularly on this trip. There wasn't really any current. Uh last trip there was current in a few of them which can be a pain in the ass because you really had to swim through. But uh on this trip the seas were calm so it was pretty easy tranquil and the waters are relatively warm. They were like 85° so you're not really that cold. But there is a factor that there is heat leaking from your body that the ocean's absorbing. Uh, and setting up the tanks is a pain in the ass because, uh, we're doing shore dives, so you have to grab a 40 lb tank and you can only really grip it between your two fingers. So, I was just grabbing two tanks because my wife's not doing that. So, grabbing those two tanks, throwing them on the the truck, bringing them out, and then you have to rock your way into the the thing. So, it's a little bit of physical effort. Long story short, came back 193. Uh, it's the leanest I've been in over a year. And, uh, the day I got back, I trained, open mat, did seven, five minute rounds, felt great, didn't feel like I lost a beat, so that was nice. Uh I'm a little sore today, but uh expected sore. I'm going to lift after after this as well. I did catch the playbyplays [snorts] for UFC uh 322. Didn't watch the live broadcast. did see some of the clips and uh my predictions of dominant champions ended [laughter] at the end of the year. Big spoiler there. Uh I'll start from the top because uh Yan had a great game plan and executed beautifully against Morab. And the one thing that Morab always has is the relentless cardio. combined with the persistent takedowns. And normally he breaks people down over time with his takedown ability and the fatigue just starts to build. But Yan didn't really allow the takedowns to happen. I think they said the stat was two out of 29 takedowns is what Morab scored. It's got to be like the worst ratio he has in his career. And he the two takedowns that Morab did score didn't last very long. They were like he got him on the mat, Matt returned him and then Yan was able to break hands and get up. So kudos to Yan for one, for excellent takedown defense and also staying power because he won every round and just through better boxing. And there's a couple points I've seen that he hurt Morab one with a I think it was a hook to the head and then one was a kick to the body. And uh Barab was bloodied up pretty early in the fight. I think after round one if I remember the clips correctly. So now the the question is did Morab's strength of schedule uh become too much for him? He did fight four times in a year, which is a good amount for it's the most a champion's ever fought in a year if I remember the stats correctly. And if he would have won it, it would have been the most wins in a year. But he didn't win this fight for a champion. And his last fight was not very long ago either. So, you have to wonder, man, that's a lot of weight cutting to jam in in a year, especially the way these guys cut weight. Like I said, like 30, 40 pounds. I wonder why he felt like he had to jump on this early, like the management coaching, I may have counseledled against it. Now, that might have been a total non-factor. I don't know. Maybe he's just built like that and he could do it. It just seems like it's not a great idea. Uh the other thing is was Yan's takedown defense what prevented him from getting tired? Meaning that since he didn't get taken down, he didn't build the fatigue of constantly getting up. I'm not sure. But he won a very dominant fight against a guy that was very dominant. So impressive. And it makes it hard to call for the rematch just because it was so one-sided. But that's not to say that Morab didn't score anything, but he just got beat all around. And in fact, Yan took him down several times as well. I think he took him down twice in the first round. So, pretty impressive uh turnaround for Yan. Didn't see that one coming. So, great job by him. The the next fight that we had here got look. Oh, this one sucked. And uh this was Pantoa with Joshua Van. Now, this fight off the gate was a banger. They were throwing and I thought Pantoa was getting the better of some of these. He landed a head kick, some square shots to the head, but they were both bringing the heat. It looked like it was going to be a hell of a fight. And I think it was in the head kick that connected, but it wasn't, you know, a knockout kick, but it did connect. What's his name? Uh, Van held the kick and went to trip Pantoa. Pantoa fell and when he went to brace his arm completely messed it up. I'm not sure if it was a dislocation. Some people were saying it was a break and a dislocation, but the moment he fell, you knew the arm was done and he himself, Van went to get on top and he waved that the fight off himself. He was like, "No, no, no. I'm done." and the arm was just completely a wreck. It's It's a win, but it's just a shitty way to win, you know, because it wasn't like I don't know. That's just unfortunate. Hopefully, if it's just a dislocation, from my understanding, that shouldn't be too bad. If it's a break and a dislocation, then I I don't know. But that's unfortunate way for that fight to end. That was a round one, too. So, it was really quick. H just that was a fight that could have that was looking like it was going to be an amazing fight, but it is a it is a win. Some people are saying, "Oh, it should be a no contest." No, no, [laughter] it's fighting, you know, and uh he ate a headkick and caught it in order to make that happen, right? And I'll be honest, I wanted Pantoa to win, but fair is fair, you know, Van caught the kick, went for the trip. This guy fell. He didn't land well. He was trying to stay on his feet by posting on his hand. And this is one of the dangers sometimes when you reach back and post. You can get this uh this is when yielding would have saved him, right? Well, of course, this is just a freak situation there, but uh yeah, it's a win. Now, I think they should set up a rematch for sure. Uh, there's still a lot to be answered here, but congrats to Van. He's now one I think he's the second youngest champion in UFC history and a hell of a run he's had in the UFC. So, kudos. But, they need to run that back as soon as possible once he's healed up. We then had Brandon Moreno and Turu Tira and uh a very interesting match that was uh mostly grappling and Moreno was able to score or I think Tatsu was able to score a takedown but then Moreno switched it on him got to his back had and held his back for the remainder of round for most of round one if I remember and then was just uh trying to find the choke, couldn't find the choke. Round two, it was the opposite. Then I think Brandon went to take him down. I think Tatsu was able to switch reverse, get his back, but he didn't waste the opportunity. He got a really deep uh body triangle, flattened out Moreno, and then just started throwing bombs rather than trying to find the choke. Just went on the attack and was able to get him completely flat. Ref came in, stopped the fight, and got himself the win. So, good win for Tatsu. And this is a it's it's interesting how people sometimes just give their backup very early in the fight like that. And in MMA, you know, it's very popular to always trying to stand up immediately, never stay on your back, but it comes with that risk of the back exposure. And if your back defense game is not really strong, you have to question, is it worth risking my back on a guy who's a very good grappler? Or should I just work my guard more and try to do a technical standup or some type of reversal instead of going straight to giving my back? You have to know the situations in my opinion of when to do that, right? Because giving your back is a form of yielding, right? If you think about it, because you got taken down, but rather than staying in your guard, you're like, I'm going to try to come up. But by coming up, you're yielding your back to them. And usually when you do it, especially in somebody who's a good back attacker, they're going to have the upper hand in getting hooks in. So, it's very risky. You have to know how to play it. And this is coming from somebody like I said, I I give my back and yield pretty often. So you have to know when it makes sense to do it and when it doesn't. Certain situations like I think standing back locks when you drop it makes it easier to perform versus if you got taken down on a double leg where we're like chest to chest and then now you're trying to you're on the four you're well you're on your guard and then you're turning from your guard that's a disaster in my opinion. If if you're in your guard turning to your fours, not great, right? It's same thing. Half guard, not great. You know, you're mounted, you turn to your fors, not great. Side mount, same thing. Like when you're grounded and you're resting on your back in any fashion, turning to give your back is going to be very slow. Especially if you're trying to do it in a stand-up fashion, you're gonna run into some problems if you don't have the proper upper body controls, like some frames in or wrist controls. So, at the very least, I know like he can't run up to my neck real quick. Uh, it's problematic to give that type of back exposure. You might say, "Oh, David, you do that all the time." But I do it with a kimora, so it's it's different because, like I said, I have some arm control. I have grip control, right? I have the upper hand, the grip. So even though I'm exposing my back, there's no submission or strike threat, you know, because he can't submit me with one hand. If he tries to punch me, that means the kimor is going to be flying out and he's going to get his shoulder ripped. So that's what I mean. Like you can't you just can't bail to your force. It's dangerous to do that. It's different from your feet. on your feet. I can expose my back and it's not as risky because normally what that usually means his hands are either wrapped around my waist or wrapped around my legs. They're not a strike threat, not a submission threat, you know? So, I have a moment to compose myself. And plus, it's harder to get the hooks in from standing. Not impossible. Obviously people jump and whatnot, but if you have your hands free and you expose your back, your hands are in a much better position to work off hooks. And uh that's my take on it anyways. But especially in a lightweight divisions, I wouldn't be so afraid to play off my back at least for like a few seconds, right? Like let's work a technical standup versus immediately back exposure. Anyhow, uh we'll move on from that fight. Next one here, Jan Blackowitz and Bogdan Goskov. Uh this was another one that went back and forth. The first round was pretty even from my understanding. Jan just had a a bit of an edge and took that round. Round two was a a dominant round for Bden who was able to score a knockdown and then was bludgeoning um Jan quite a bit. Some of the judges scored it a 108. So very big win round for Bogdan. And then round three, Jan came storming back in with urgency, knowing that he needed something big to win this round and to win this fight and was able to drop Bogdan towards the end of the round and was trying to flurry on him but ran out of time. Ends up becoming a majority draw. The judges saw it basically two rounds for Jan and then one 108 for Bogdan making a majority draw. We don't see those too often, but it seems like nobody was contesting that decision. So that's fair. But what's interesting, those are four championship fights, right? Jan was a former champion. You had Oh, I actually missed one. Well, let me cover that one because you had Henry Cejudo and Payton Talbot. Now, this was an interesting matchup because, you know, Payton, a lot of people feel like he was kind of propped up. Doesn't really belong there. So, Hudo was at one point, you know, the double champ and unstoppable, but decided to take a moment away from fighting, I guess, overvaluing his himself. and took a little hiatus, came back in, but was never the same coming back in. He should have just, in my opinion, he should have stayed out, you know, and uh he came back in and now this was he said was going to be his retirement fight and it proved to be so. Although he did fight with a lot of spirit because he was getting beat up pretty bad and Talabet was able to outbox him and just stick him from the range. Although he was landing a good amount of leg kicks, he wasn't able to secure u the positions that he needed to win the fight. Payton even scored a takedown on him at some point. He did get Payton to the ground but couldn't hold him or do anything significant and he ended up losing a 3027 decision to Payton and he announced there he goes okay I'm done. So, I think uh this is something that a lot of fighters struggle with knowing when to to to quit. And I'll tell you this, if you are on a championship level run like he was, he was on an incredible run, don't stop. If you stop, you stay stopped. You have to understand that to develop the type of aura and mystique that allows you to dominate foe after foe is something that is cultivated and it's perishable. If you take a year off and now it's an early retirement or you just have a hiatus, you're not going to be the same guy that you left as. It's not I I can't think of somebody who's pulled that off. Well, the other one that is prime in my mind is Fedor. Fedor had an incredible run in pride, but his management team goofed. They dropped the ball because they wanted to get the M1 aligned with UFC to co-promote an event in Russia to promote M1 and Fedor. UFC was never going to do it. And they left Fedor on his shelf for a few years. This collecting dust. When they finally brought him back in, he was not the same guy. And now the impression of Fedor was a guy who was like overrated. It's like no, you just he collected too much dust. You can't let someone get ring rust that way. They're not going to be the same dude. And I think with Henry, that's the same thing. you know, he wasn't out for that long, but it was long enough when you say you retired and now you're kind of goofing off and you're now trying to reclaim something that isn't there anymore. You have to create like a new identity. It's very tricky. That's why in my opinion, if you're going to retire on top, that's fine. Just remember once you're out, you're out. Don't go like, "Okay, I'm out, then I'm back in, I'm out." Like, man, you're going to have such weird results. Like, just if you're striking while the iron's hot, keep striking, you know? And then if you feel like, man, you know what? I've done enough. I feel accomplished. I'm going to retire. That's fine. But just stay retired. I don't It seems to me it would be bittersweet to go out performing at a level that you know is well below what you're capable of, but it's just that now you're not the same guy, right? Like that's why people ask me all the time, "Oh, why don't you compete? Compete." Like, man, like am I stronger than I've been? Yes. Am I more technical? Yes. Conditioning, it's not going to be as great as it was before. Just physically, I can't get myself there. I I'm not able to put the amount of time in that would require that level of conditioning that I had. Uh and that's the biggest disadvantage I have because conditioning for me was always a weapon and now it would be one of a liability. Although I'm very good at controlling pace, I just know that well if somebody is able to control the pace on me now it's going to be a problem. Point of the story is I'm not going to be able to compete at the level that I know I'm capable of or that I was capable of. So what's the point? Remember I I believe competition for me is about proving. And that's the other thing like I felt like I already proved what I needed to prove to myself. So I'm good. I I think a lot of these guys they feel like they want to see if they still got it. It's like I don't know. It doesn't resonate with me. But in any case, that now actually brings five those the whole main card was former champions or former champions or new champions, right? You had Jan, you had Henry Cejudo, Brandon Moreno, you had Pantoa, you had both Yan and Morab. So very high stakes card but we saw that well the Morab champ lost, Pa lost, Moreno lost, Sudo lost, Jan did the best in getting a a draw, but the the old guard [laughter] has fallen, you know, which is uh which is interesting. And this makes things a little spicy. Although to be fair to Pentoa, I feel like we need to see that one again. It wasn't like he got knocked out or he just got dominated. He had kind of a freak accident. That that sucks. We need to see that one again. Hopefully he heals up well and they can rematch it. But it it makes it draws some more interesting matchups now because obviously with Yan now he can fight a lot of people that might think they can do better, you know, like uh Numedov might think he can do better and challenge Yan or some of the other maybe Ali, right? And you know the MMA math doesn't always work out the way you would think it would. So all because ABB doesn't mean ABC, right? Uh, so that that makes it fun. We also had uh a who's number one that had a couple consequential matches. The the one that comes to mind the most was Filipe Penna and Luke Griffith. This was their third matchup and pretty much these guys have beaten everybody that they needed to beat. Well, I mean obviously Penna has been on top for a bit now. and he beat Luke at ACC and he beat him at that previous who's number one. So he had all the momentum and the experience edge but in this matchup Luke took control and forced a scramble. Pana was a little slow in the scramble. Luke was quick to take the back lock in a face crank and that's all she wrote. And people like, oh, you know, [laughter] face cranks don't work. Like, dude, they 100% work. And I would rather be choked than face cranked, right? And I have trained with Luke a few times and uh that guy's crank and squeeze is very strong. You would not want that guy squeezing on your face full blast. Uh, so I I say this because after he got the win, uh, Penna was very upset because Luke held the the crank until the referee stopped it, which is what you're supposed to do. The problem is the referee was slow in stopping it. He, for some reason, did not see the tap, which on camera was very obvious. So, like Penna had to tap with both hands multiple times until the ref came in. He's upset because like, man, I got my face cranked a lot more than I needed it to [laughter] and he was taking it out on Luke. [sighs] I can't blame him for it. You know, if you're the competitor and you really want out of the match, verbal tap is always the way to go. I don't know why people do like this like shy tap. It's like, who are we trying to hide it? You know, it's like in the training room sometimes people like don't want someone to know like, oh, I got tapped by this guy. I'm just going to like subtly tap them and hopefully nobody notices that we stopped and we restarted. It's like, are you [ __ ] Like, this is the easiest way to get hurt, you know, because that shy tap might not get felt and then next thing you know, you're waking up because your opponent choked you out or you get your arm broken because the guy kept cranking. Like the submission is supposed to be very obvious. Tap tap, right? I always say it verbally. I'm going to go tap. That's it. So, Felipe shouldn't be mad at Luke because he got cranked. He should be mad at the referee. Like, what the [ __ ] took you so long? Um, but nevertheless, great win for Luke. He's now two and one in that series. Now, people on Filipe's corner want to see it again, which is fair. He did give Luke two chances to rematch. So, it would make sense to give him back uh and let a runner back. or I think he might have three losses. I'm not sure. I forget how many times they faced each other, but it was quite a bit. Now, I will say that for Luke, it's a great win. Not because he's now the who's number one heavyweight champion and he beat an accomplished guy like Philip Penna, who is has a great legacy on him. Beating someone who's beat you two times in a row is not the easiest thing to do. And it's in fact it's one of the harder things to do a lot of times there's a psychological block that you have because and especially with Luke because I believe did he get choked out? I know he got renecc match. I'm not sure if he also got rene who's number one or he might have just lost on points. I I can't remember. But either way, when someone beats you one time, it's one thing. And if it was a close match or there was like a big mistake you made, you could kind of justify it in your head like, "Oh, okay. I just made this one goof. I won't make that mistake again." But when they beat you twice in a row, you're like, "Damn, I knew the mistakes I made in the first one, and I still couldn't overcome them." So now there's like this, well, what do I make of that? It it kind of might mean that this guy's better than me. So now it's almost expected that I'm supposed to lose to this guy. That's a hard thing to overcome psychologically, that's not easy. So, when you can come back from losing to the same guy twice and then come out and not only win, but win definitively like Luke did, that's major growth, right? Not just from a technical perspective, but from an ego perspective to be able to overcome that type of uh loss. You know, another guy that did this really well, Pablo Popovich, although you know, some people, oh, he grabbed the shorts or Marcel, whatever. I I don't think that was substantial. He beat Marcelo after losing to him twice. And I mean, one of them was really bad. It was just side control, you know, chest compression, wrist lock. That's man, that's that's a hard way to lose in my opinion. So, like he had two uh bad losses to Marcelo, but came back and won in the championship match when it mattered uh with a guard pass. That's impressive, right? From an eagle perspective. That's hard to do. Uh so, when I saw Luke do that, I'm like, man, that's great. That's showing growth. Not only did he get better technically, but he knows that and he knows that he wasn't good enough maybe in the first two matches, but he is no longer that guy anymore. He is elevated himself technically and now from a emotional level he has elevated himself. Uh, now he has to keep it though [laughter] because Filipe now is going to go back. Oh, this guy beat me. You know, he now he has a thing where he might say like, "Oh, he got lucky this time or I made a big mistake here. I'm not going to do that again." And all other things being equal, I'm going to win. So, it'll be interesting to see a fourth or I'm not sure this is a fourth or fifth matchup, but um they should match him up again. Maybe not immediately, but in I'm sure it'll happen regardless because those two seem to be the best of that division. They're the biggest guys and they both have great body types for heavyweight jiu-jitsu, which is they're long and and strong and very technical and both have similar strongers, which is they're both very good at attacking the back, right? Like Phipe is known for being a great back attacker and so is u Luke. It's why it's an interesting matchup because it's pretty much whoever gets it back, you're going to be in trouble, you know. Uh anyhow, that's all I have for you guys for today. I will catch you all next week.