BTG 175 - UFC on Paramount Delivers

Hello and welcome to another episode of Breaking the Guard. UFC 324. Uh just finished on Saturday. Pretty good card. Early card was a lot of knockouts and we had some banger fights on the main card. Uh, I'll go ahead and recap it. I'm just gonna look at my trusty phone here just to remind me because there were some notables. I I didn't watch the the early prelims. I did see a highlight though of one fight which was Denzel Freeman and Josh Hockett. Now, Hockett was a heavyweight that came in. He's doing a little bit of the WWE routine. I think paying homage also to Chel Sonnen quite a bit in the way that he talks up post and pre-fight, but He had perhaps one of the craziest finishes I've seen in UFC history or in MMA history, which has been coined as winning by middlefinger. And [laughter] what happened was I'm not sure what happened to Freeman because he got completely shut out. He didn't land one single strike and Hocket just pounded him, obliterated him. But at one point after an exchange, Freeman just kind of spun around and nose dived and Hak just gave him the middle finger and walked off. And it wasn't a KO, mind you. It looked like Freeman was just, you know, fatigued, exhausted, but he just spilled out and then the referee came in and stopped the fight. So to me, [laughter] like I said, anything isn't wrong. He just kind of g the middle finger and I was like, "Yep, that was enough. That was enough to end the fight." So pretty crazy uh way to win. The guy's got a good wrestling. He's got some, you know, striking prowess. So he could become a problem for heavyweight, although he looks a little on the smaller side. And uh moving up the card will we get to more of the main well some of the picss like uh I talked about Gotautier uh he ended up winning by decision though. Some people said he was fraud check because he didn't knock the guy out. I'm like I don't know like he was still won dominantly. Uh it doesn't mean the other guy was no good. He was probably a great fighter and just got beat by a better fighter. But uh anyhow, Umar Numedov with Davidson Figaredto. This was pretty lackluster. Not the fireworks that I was hoping for. It looked like Davidson was very guarded and Umar was just lighting him up uh both on the feet and then when he took him down, he kind of wet blanketed him. Not a lot going on. Uh not an entertaining fight. Umar won by decision. Um, but yeah, it is what it is. Then Arnold Allen versus Jean Silva. Uh, this was more entertaining. Although Jean, well, I think it was two rounds to one at the end. Arnold was out sniping him initially. Like I I think Arnold won round one, but then in rounds two and three, if I remember correctly, Silva was just landing with so much more authority. Like Arnold was peppering him with jabs and, you know, hitting him with some taps and some low kicks, but whenever Silva hit him, you can tell like it hurt. And I mean, everybody knows that Silva has some serious power, so it's not a surprise. And it looked like Silva got more comfortable as the fight got on and started getting a lot more flamboyant, a lot more flashy. It was a close fight though. So, this was a, like I said, it was a well-matched fight. Silva came out on top. Uh, yeah, and it was a pretty, like I said, entertaining fight. It looked like they had some bad blood and then like most things after a good fight, you know, you can shake it off. Um, then we had Rose Namahunas with Natalyia Silva. I wasn't paying too close attention to this fight. Um, it seemed to me that Silva was winning the fight, but uh, at the end they gave it to Rose on a decision, but I don't know. Like I said, I wasn't really watching it too closely. I might have I think I started tuning in like the third round and maybe that's the round that Silva won and Rose won the first two. Could have been, but uh I didn't watch it. I'll be honest like with the women's MMA like some of it I like when I see a a fighter that's like a dominant finisher or a style that I like like I like Valentina Chachenko. I think she fights great, good game plan, solid. Uh but a lot of them it's not that entertaining to me. Uh in any case, moving along. Waldo Cortez Aosta versus Derek Lewis. Another uh solid fight. And I picked Aosta because I felt he was young blood. He's got a lot more agility and he's also dangerous in his feet. It proved to be correct. Uh he ended up knocking down all Well, I'm not sure they called it. It was a TKO at the end, but he was out striking uh Derek. And at one point, it looks like Derek slipped. It might have been like he got hit, but he, you know, he slipped, but it wasn't a knockdown, per se, but then he just stayed on his force. And that was a big mistake because once Akasa got on top of him, he just drilled him a bunch of times and it caused the TKO and he was hurt. He was like face down. Um, so on my picks, I did pretty well because I Where did I start? I started with Aiva. I had Umar. I had Silva. I had a Rose. I had Acasta. The two well the last two fights. Yeah. Shaam Ali versus Yolang. Uh this one pretty tactical. Although Song was a lot more aggressive here and Ali didn't really seem to be able to put together the strikes or be able to out snipe Song and Song ended up winning the decision but a good scrappy uh tactical fight on the feet and then the final fight Justin Gatey Patty Pimblet this is the one I want to talk about this was a lot of fun. These two guys came out to fight Justin Gachi, no surprise, wants a slugfest and he came out throwing heat pretty early and uh Patty was taking some serious shots towards the end of round one. And if anybody questioned his heart or his toughness, this fight ended the question. Patty is very tough. Patty has a heck of a chin, too, because he ate some serious shots and never was out. He obviously at some points, you know, dropped or, you know, he kind of like receded a little bit. but he stayed in the fight the whole time and it's that this fight's a true testament to his toughness. Hopefully it doesn't affect him long term because it was a pretty savage beating in certain aspects, but he also had his moments. Like round one was obviously a big round for for Justin Gachi. And in round two, it looked like he kind of took a breather and if I remember the rounds right and then Patty I I felt like took over that round. Had some moments where it looked like he had Justin in trouble and I thought, "Oh, maybe Justin punched himself out." But then round three came in and then Justin came back in control and started laying some big shots. And it was a little back and forth, but it was mostly in Justin's favor. Uh he clearly had the bigger power. And uh I think that Patty absorbed too much to be able to fight a composed like tactical game plan. You know, he had a little bit of it. I think in round two, he was out jabbing him. He was landing some low kicks. Uh it it was starting to look like, oh, you know, he's going to turn this around. But then in the later rounds, Justin came back and man, he was just throwing some wild haymakers. He's not a guy that fights pretty. He's fighting like a berserker. in my mind was just like throwing big overhands and sometimes slipping off his overhands and like [laughter] not a pretty fight, but and to Patty's credit, he would step in there and throw some in exchange with Justin, sometimes catch him with good knees or or uppercuts that he was landing really nice. Just a really really fun fight. Justin ends up winning the decision, but it doesn't lower Patty's stock, right? Like this was a real test for Pimpblelet. And although he didn't win the fight, he definitely passed the test. And I think if he allows himself to grow from this experience, I guess no one's ever put him through the the the chopper here like uh Justin did. I mean, he was taking a beating and uh like I said, he survived it. Came through, had his moments, you know, he was exchanging on the last 10 seconds. So, it was a solid performance. You know, sometimes with a hammer, sometimes with a nail, you know, he was a nail on this one, but he didn't bend. You know, he he he stayed in there the whole time. So, it's very respectable. You know, great showing of warrior spirit by both of these guys. And I think it will serve Patty well in the future. He'll know now what it's like to have to dig deep. And mind you, they fought like this for five rounds. And I thought maybe in round two, Justin kind of, you know, spent the tank trying to finish Patty on round one and he was going to fade out. He just needed a little rest round and then he was just throwing haymakers the rest of the time. And at certain points, you thought, man, Patty just taking too much punishment. He's not going to be able to keep up. But no, he was still in there. You know, he had moments, like I said, every round there was a moment where he would land a good combo, a good uppercut or a good knee, and you would think, "Oh crap," you know, like that might be the moment. But they both fed well off each other. So, uh, great fight there. I think Justin did a great job of making the fight a brawl, and that's not where Patty should have gotten into the fight. He made it fun by doing so, but he needed to make it more tactical. When you're gonna, you know, out jab him or get the fight to the ground and make it more of a grappling fight, it would have favored Patty a lot more. But going into the brawl was a mistake in my opinion. And it it I mean, it's good to see that he could do it, right? And I like I say, Guy's tough. got a real chin. I think most guys in the division would have been flatlined after the amount of punishment that he absorbed. Uh but to win the fight, he needed to be more tactical. But that's easy to say uh from my couch. Harder when you get clobbered a few times and now like half your brain's missing and you're just now fighting a warrior spirit. So I'm not faulting him for, you know, getting to a slugfest. I'm just saying uh in retrospect like yeah, we needed to try to keep this fight tactical. You could see like Justin really doesn't fight technically on the ground, right? Like he had a he would get into a front headlock several times, never really attempt to choke, never really used the position. I I felt it was more resting for him and draining Patty, which tactically is sound, but I would be looking to try to put someone away, right? I don't want to stay in a fight for five rounds if I don't have to. And he had some really nice front headlocks that if he had worked the skill on finishing them, I feel he had opportunities to. Now, I won't the ragging him too much. He knows he doesn't so he doesn't waste the energy. So that's wise in the fight. But if you know you're someone who does have a good friend headlock, it would behoove you to build the skill necessary to become lethal there, not just use it as a resting and you know a little bit of attrition on the opponent. So that would be my critique on him. I feel like he has a lot of tools that if he sharpened them could be even more dangerous than he is because obviously he hits very hard. He's got a good chin himself. So, he's very difficult to deal with. But he would be even more difficult to deal with if he could actually be a submission threat in certain positions. Uh but he poses zero submission threat. So, not as dangerous. That's just my opinion. And like I said, I I feel Patty needed to avoid the the brawl. Needed to make this a bit more tactical. But regardless, great fight from both of them. I'm sure they both won bonuses and all sorts of stuff there. And they deserve all the the praise that they got. They made a very entertaining fight. And again, overall, the card had a lot of finishes for the first UFC on Paramount. I think that's you got to be pretty happy with what you put out. And uh regarding the experience, I got the Paramount Plus thing, so I got to watch it. I liked it. There was no commercials. It's just fights the whole time. And they they do the little commercial break every so often where they just pause it, I guess, on Paramount, which is better than being blasted with some dumb commercial. So smoother experience and didn't have any technical glitches like ESPN gave frequently. So Paramount did a good job on their first event. Uh I have no complaints about that. And considering that now I I think to get the Paramount Plus thing that I did without the commercials, it was like 120 bucks for the year or something like that or maybe 140 bucks. I'm not sure. That's less than two events pay-per-view. That's pretty awesome. So, I'm pretty happy with that deal. And if they can keep stacking the cards like they had, like I said, a lot of people were sleeping on this card. They had a lot of good fights. I mean, I might have skipped over some of them, but they were all well matched. So, if they're able to keep up with the volume and the good matchmaking, UFC and Paramount is going to be a great great thing for UFC. I would imagine it's got to get a lot more viewers. If you were a UFC fan and you bought two pay-per-views, it's a no-brainer to get the year up front, right? you know, two pay-per-views were $160 last year, and now you can get the whole year with no commercials or anything like that for, like I said, I think it's 120, 140. And that's I think you can get get it for 80 bucks if you get the commercials. So, I mean, it's a no-brainer deal. And you know, I would say I don't I don't give a lot of praise to Dana White in recent times, but this one, bravo. I I salute you, sir. This was good. Right. At least the fans win out of this. And the other thing that they did, they doubled the bonuses. Now the the performance bonus and fight night bonus is 100,000. That's a big jump. And now anybody who gets a finish gets a $25,000 bonus regardless of whether they Well, no. If they don't win the fight on night bonus, the performance bonus, but they do score a knockout or a submission, it's a $25,000 bonus if you made weight. And I say that because two people didn't make weight and one of them, I think it was Alex Perez, got a knockout, but he didn't get the bonus because he missed weight. And as as a result of losing weight, he loses that 40% cut bear. Uh sucks for him, but like make the weight at the same time. There was a big uh well there was a controversy, let's say, and the weigh-ins. The timing of it was amazing. You have Michael Bisping talking with the other commentators about uh fighters with weight issues and he was saying how it's not difficult, you know, you just got to make the weight uh be a professional. And as he's saying that, a fighter made weight, walks off, and then passes out, lands face first into the floor convulsing. ends up having to get stitches on his chin because he split himself uh hitting the floor. Not a great moment for the UFC on their first Paramount uh weigh-ins, right? And especially for Bisping, you know, saying, "Oh, not a big deal, not difficult." Then a guy pretty much drops dead there. They really need to that to me for the fighters for the health and just to end this craziness. Stop the weight cutting. Two day weigh-ins. It's all you need. You do weighins two days in a row. No one's going to be doing 40 pound weight cuts. It's going to be very simple. I know I've said this many times. I'll keep saying it until hopefully somebody who matters listens and and gets the thing changed. All these guys are showing up into the fights a week before at least anyways. It's not a big deal to ask them to weigh in twice, especially when they're not going to be able to cut 40 lbs because you're not going to survive holding 40 lb weight cut or a 30 lb weight cut for two days. That guy who passed out is probably doing a 20 30 lb weight cut couldn't last one day. You think he could do that for two? Absolutely not. They're going to have to cut a lot less. And by a lot less, you're probably talking about like maybe five 10 lbs tops. That is going to be sustainable for two days. That's not that big a deal, right? That's not going to be the massive shift in like uh like strategic tactics. It's going to make an impact if somebody cuts 10 pounds and someone doesn't, but not a huge margin. And more importantly, it's not going to be a dramatic health consequence like it is now, right? Like even if you you have no issues with people, you know, gaining this part of the fight, you know, being a weight bully or whatever, like you don't care about that. Like honestly, I don't really care too much about that to be honest. It's the health part that bothers me. These people can die doing this and we're very lucky that it really hasn't happened at the UFC level yet. Although, we have seen people like this poor gentleman who suffered serious health consequences from it. Uh we're not con also thinking about the fact that these people who cut massive amount of weight are more likely to get concussions because there's not enough water in their brain surrounding the the brain because that's the first place to lose fluids, the last place to regain it. So, when you're doing these massive cuts, those guys are much more likely to suffer a concussion than if they didn't do the weight cut, which should be a huge health concern that the boxing commissions shouldn't be allowing, but they do. So, it would be great if somebody can get out there and, you know, champion this effort because it's low tech and everyone would prefer it. Trust me, no fighter in their right mind wants to cut 40 lbs. It's a nightmare, man. It's uh you have to realize like the whole camp revolves around doing that. There's a huge level of anxiety going into it and you're just really doing a number on your body. It's so much easier if you just say, "Hey, you know what? You have to weigh in two days in a row. The amount of weight you're going to cut is going to be very little now, right?" Especially to guys who were doing 40 lb cuts, a 510 lb cut is a joke, right? That's nothing. That's pretty much you don't really have to even prepare that much to do a 5 10 lb cut. Honestly, uh you just wear a sauna suit, you know, go in the sauna for like 30 minutes and an hour and you'll be there if you're not doing a crazy cut. you only have to go through like extreme measures and protocols when you're cutting you know 15 20 plus pounds. So I think in my mind if I was given that choice even in the grappling context like 100% put me on I rather not have to cut weight. I'd rather be able to focus on optimal performance my entire fight camp than worry about okay I got to time this weight cut. I gota, you know, water load. I gotta, you know, uh, worry about my sodium levels and I have to not eat certain days. That's just miserable, man. That doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. And again, just from a real world world context, if I'm going to fight some random dude in the street, I'm not going to say, "Hey, let's cut 30 lbs and then we'll reabsorb the weight and fight the day after." No, I'm just going to fight you as you are, man. Like, you're close enough to my size. Yeah. within 5 10 lbs. That's good. Then we can make that compromise and that would be a winning thing for all people and for the health of the fighters. I would also argue the fights are going to be better because a lot of times when people are are really going through a hard cut, the last couple weeks of the fight camp, they're not performing well because they're in the beginning stages of the cut. So now they're malnourished. So, it's just about sweating and, you know, doing some work, but they're not really able to output at 100%. And they you kind of just have to have faith like, okay, when the time comes, everything's going to come together and I'll be fine, which is not great. It's not optimal in my opinion, especially for health. If there's one thing I could wish for for the fighters, it would be for that. Mind you, I don't fight anymore. So, it's not for my for my benefit. I think it's for like I I just don't want people to have to go through that. It doesn't make sense and it's needless, right? And you would also get rid of a lot of this BS of, you know, people not making way and then people losing fights and stuff like just get rid of the game. It's been around long enough. Let's kill it. Replace it with a better system. And like I said, to me, the two-day weighin, very simple, easy to do, low tech, uh, and it would work. Anyhow, that's all I have for you guys. I'll catch you all next