BTG 186 - Show No Mercy

Hello and welcome to Breaking the Guard. As you might notice, uh, we changed things up a little bit here. I'm in another room at the moment because I managed to do something really stupid the other day and flood one of my rooms. And uh unfortunately the room I flooded, my cold plunge room is adjacent to my studio office room. And uh long story short, I had about at least half an inch of standing water in my office and I had to get it cleared up. Uh big mess. Looks like I might have be able to get away with it though because I caught it really early and um we already have it drying, but I have to let it dry for another few days. There's all sorts of dehumidifiers and fans blowing. But anyhow, just in case someone asked me why is the room different, that's why. But on to the podcast, we had UFC 327, which was a great card. Lots of uh memorable fights here. And I'll start just with the main card. There were some notable things in the prelims, but uh one of them being Kevin Gastelum's fight with man, I keep forgetting the Brazilian's name, the Silent Assassin Lent Luke. Uh, I told you I thought that was a banger of a fight on the pre and to my surprise again spoilers obviously, Lucas submitted Kevin Kelvin Gastelum with a Anaconda if I'm remembering correctly. I think that's the first time he's been caught by a submission. So that's unexpected in my opinion, but it just shows that Luca is a still dangerous. Kelvin on the other hand is like I don't know, he's on and off. It's a you know, the career trajectory is not looking great, right? And there were other good finishes, but like I said, I'm just going to jump to the main card. Um Cub Swanson with Nate Lanir. I expected this was going to be a lot tighter of a fight, but Cub came out angry, looked very sharp, very fast, and just beat the bricks out of Nate, putting him away really early in round one. Uh, he also put his gloves down. He retired. Great way to retire. He's not obviously he just kicked the crap out of a good guy, so he still could fight, but he doesn't have to fight. And going out while you can show that to me is a great way to go. Like, yeah, you know, maybe you didn't get the the big dream of becoming the UFC champion, but hey, you had a great career. You finished really strong looking like you could still fight if you wanted to, but you don't have to. And I I I think that's a good way to go. So, congrats to him on his career. Moving forward, we had Dominic Reyes and Johnny Walker. This was a fight that could have potentially positioned somebody to be in a title fight. Dominic Reyes just fought Carlos Goldberg and he lost and Oldberg is now in the fighting for the title. So you see these two guys, well this could have been like a way back up. However, this fight was so bad that it arguably sets them both lower uh because of this fight. They both were very gunshy, not a lot of engagement. I think there were rounds where there's like 10 strikes to like 11 strikes, you know, of significant strikes. really hard to score. Honestly, they could have called it a draw. That might have been the best uh decision. Although, it was a split decision win for Dominic Reyes. Nobody's really arguing because it's just such a crap fight. Nobody nobody really cares too much. Uh even if you won this fight, it didn't really do. It didn't help your career, right? So, unfortunate because these are both really talented guys. I think just a little too much respect shown both. They both have suffered losses recently, so maybe they were a little scared about opening up a bit. Uh it it would have been a really frustrating fight to be a corner for. I could tell you that because, you know, the corners were asking for more. You could hear Eric Nick and Johnny uh Walker's corner telling him to push the throttle and like the throttle was never pushed. the last 10 seconds, nothing really happened. I mean, yeah, the urgency wasn't there. And especially when a fight's really close, you got to empty the tank. It seems like they were just idling the whole way through the fight. It's unfortunate. It happens sometimes. However, the next fight more than made up for it. Josh Hockett and Curtis Blades. Uh, instant legendary heavyweight fight, especially in this era where heavyweight fights have kind of been lame for years now. And mind you, I told you I think the Josh Hooket like stick is really a corny, but the guy can entertain and he can fight. Uh he went right at Curtis Blades who's much bigger than him. I think at least 20 lbs heavier if not more. But he went up to him, beat the bricks out of him in the early part of round one. And it looked like the fight was going to be over. Curtis was, you know, on rolling roller skates just rolling around all over the place. But then Josh looked like he spent all the energy he had. And then Curtis started tagging him. And then it looked like Josh was going to be out of that fight. And he was pretty much just hanging on against the fence, getting uppercuted, looking in pretty bad shape. It was questionable if either man could get out of round one, but they did. And then round two is a little bit more the same. They were just both beating that like they would take turns. Although it looked like after that first round, they both realized, okay, I can't try to go all out for the finish because I won't have anything left. Because I think Curtis suffered from that a bit. It looked like he had the same response after going all out trying to finish Josh and not being able to. Then they both went into round two like, "Oh crap." Like we we used a lot of energy on that finish. Josh, curiously enough, never even sat down between rounds, which to me seems nuts. Uh, after a slugfest like that, like letting your regs legs rest, get some ice on your back. Like, these are things that got to help you out. They didn't do any of that, but didn't look like he I guess he didn't need it because he still fought really well. Uh, I think the man I'm having a hard time remember, but round two it went a little bit towards his favor if I'm not mistaken. Round one, I think went to Curtis just because he stole it with his finishing salvo. And then round three went to Josh. But nonstop like slugfest, not clean, pretty sloppy, but uh for Josh, his right hands were what was landing really well. Another interesting note, he never went for any takedowns. He got taken down himself a few times, but got up immediately. There weren't any takedowns of real consequence. But on the round one, it did lead to a good control time because every time he stood up, he got pinned against the cage like facing the cage and Curtis was just behind him throwing uppercuts, but uh he ends up winning a split decision. Josh does and just a crazy performance and uh sets himself up now for lots of entertaining fights. He does have one thing I tell you. He does have a chin because he ate a lot of punishment, stayed on his feet. He had wobbly legs on a few occasions, but that for a guy who's a undersized heavyweight, that's very impressive. The other thing is he's got Sey he's got some power in him too because he was rocking Curtis multiple times. Now, can he continue to he arguably could fight at 205 if he cut. However, I would probably dis I wouldn't encourage that for him just because I think he has an advantage of being just big enough to hurt a heavyweight but much faster than your average heavyweight. If he drops a 205, excuse me, if he drops a 205, he's gonna lose that. He's not going to be that fast compared to those guys in my opinion. And um yeah, against other 205ers, I don't think his skill set is going to line up too well. But in heavyweight, which right now is a shallow pool, he can do really well. He can kind of be like that Fedor type figure. a small heavyweight, but one that could do a lot of damage. So, he's like right in that sweet spot. I think he could probably benefit from a little bit more mass and obviously more training and skills, but he's got the heart and he's got the toughness. So, uh, and he's got Mike skills. They're not the ones that I would like, but that partly works for him. Like, he's the heel. Everyone wants to hate him, and that works really well. So, he's doing a good job of that. But definitely made an instant classic uh heavyweight fight. Like that's one of the top heavyweight fights for sure just by the craziness. You It looked like every moment what could be the last moment. So well done. He hyped up fight up well and he lived up to the hype. That's all you can ask from somebody. Moving on. Then we have Pablo Costa with Azame Mun Munav. I'm butchering it. Sorry. This was another fight uh that I was interested to see. And round one looked to me a good tactical fight. Paulo definitely in my book was winning that fight, landing a lot of solid kicks, some good body shots. It looked like Azamat was trying to find his range and he was trying to corner Paulo, but didn't really get any good tags in my opinion. like he landed some jabs but Paulo was backing up at the same time. They weren't really of any consequence whereas everything Paulo threw if it was a inside leg kick or a body kick landed. So that to me was an easy round one. Paulo round two was starting to turn and it was looking good for Azimat. He was starting to land a lot more and uh he had Paulo in trouble a few times. It looked like he rocked him at one point. uh that led to a takedown, but then Paulo got back up, but uh he he looked like he found his range and Paulo was struggling to adapt. Round three came in and Paulo quickly reversed it. And it's funny because you could hear the commentator saying, "Oh, you know, he's going to fade. He's getting tired." Round three starts. Paulo goes into kill mode or eraser mode, if you will, and starts off with a really powerful headkick. Now, it was blocked, but you could hear that kick like a baseball bat. And if you've ever ate a hard head kick, even if you have your hand up, it doesn't do it doesn't protect you 100%. Maybe you get like 50 or 60% out, but a leg a head kick against someone like Paulo, who by the way looked huge. Uh he's fighting at 205, but he looks massive. Uh his trunk is a lot thicker. He's definitely put on some mass, you know, uh and and it showed because he was generating tremendous power. That kick changed the fight. You could see at that point it looked like he was a little wobbled, but the I think the bigger impact was I think he broke his arm because he started letting the arm down instead of holding it up. And uh it was pretty much blood in the water at that point. Paulo put a lot of pressure on him, landed another solid shot that knocked him out. Ends up with a round three KO for Po Costa who looked great in that fight and he did have some trouble and and again Azamat was undefeated. I think he was 15 or 16 and0 and my while this was Azimat's biggest test he wasn't a walk in the park either. And Paulo showed that after a significant layoff and some of the doubts that I had about him that he has risen to the occasion, he's back to be a serious contender. And that's going to be a big problem for a lot of people because he's a dangerous dude as he just showed. Then we go to the main event, Carlosberg and Jiri Prochowski. And this is going to be where I dial in because there was a fundamental error here in this fight. If you've already seen the fight, then you know what I'm talking about where it started off both fighters were very measured again trying to find their range. I imagine Jiri is an awkward guy to begin with. So hard to find that guy's range and you know the way he moves and the stance is all unusual. But Jerry lands the first significant strikes, gets some good kicks in. Uh, and I forget the combination that happened, but it's very clear that Carlos messes up his knees or his legs in some way cuz he wobbles, trips over, pops back up, and at that point, there's clearly something wrong with his right leg. He's not able to stand on it well. And instead of capitalizing on the opportunity, Jerry like points on the ground and like hammers his chest like he's getting psyched up. And this happens a few times where you could see Carlos is struggling to maintain the leg and instead of pouncing, Jerry's kind of just standing at a distance. Now, he's still like leg kicking and stuff like that, but whenever there's a stumble, he kind of just lets back. I don't know what's going on with Jerry psychology. I don't think anybody does. He's kind of a crazy dude. But this was a real forced error on his side. when you're fighting and you damage your opponent or they damage themselves. I in my opinion it looked like it was Jerry's doing because it was off a combination and then he stumbled. Um but in regardless you don't show mercy in an MMA fight. You have to finish the guy once you know if you want to show mercy after he's knocked out or he taps out. that makes more sense. But before that, what are you doing? Uh it's showmanship in in the worst way possible. And it bit him in the ass because towards the end, Carlos would kind of back up and it almost looked like he was using a cage kind of as like support. And as Jiri's somewhat pressuring, he lands this check hook, catches Jiri right on the chin, drops him, gets a quick TKO, round one finish, and you have everybody like, man, why did you let off the the the gas on this guy when he was hurt? Like, you should have been going for the kill. You know, he exposes the neck, you go for the throw. And uh it's confusing, but it's not unusual for for Jerry, unfortunately. I love the the character that he is. I think he's a great fighter. I think if he had a little better psychology, he could be one of the best. But he's self-sabotaging a lot. And this was definitely to me another case of self-sabotage where he just I'm not sure if he thinks it's honorable to like let someone get back up. Like I don't know what rules are we following here. These are not the MMA roles, right? So, if it would be frustrating to be a hardcore Jimmy fan because you're just seeing him making these fumbles, these like unforced errors, especially when you can see the potential. And uh it's unfortunate. Carlos showed though he was smart. You know, he knew he was hurt really badly. He didn't give up. he just like figured out how can I survive this fight and he did exactly what he had to do. So congratulations to him. Uh that's a tough spot to be in with your knee blown out and then trying to fight against a guy as dangerous as Jerry and uh he managed to make it work and still get the win. If that fight would have went another round or two, it would have probably been over just because it wasn't getting better. His knee was buckling continuously. That's why to me it's crazy how you can lose a fight like this. Even if you were just being patient, time would have done the damage. But just by him having to move, he was hurting himself. So yeah, again, very frustrating time to be in the jury corner. And I I think this is where I want to talk about this uh misguided sense of honor because he I think he mentioned it at some point. It's not being honorable letting someone who's trying to kill you get a second chance to kill you. That's being stupid, right? Uh and this is fighting. If and you you guys probably know my psychology on this. I'm doing everything I can to end somebody and waiting until the referee stops to intervene from what would be a murder. So why would I give my opponent another chance to do that to me? It doesn't make any sense. This is a serious sport with serious repercussions. And for example, Jerry just suffered another concussion. It's not great for your mental health. your brain is taking serious damage. So, you allow that to happen to yourself by being merciful. You're kind of doing like uh in the modern rendition of of of Troy where, you know, Achilles thrusts into Hector and Hector stumbles over the rock and then instead of killing him on the ground, he lets him get up. It worked out for Achilles in that one. didn't work out for Jerry, right? Like, no, you don't play with your food. You kill it, right? You eat it. Don't let it get a second chance to get out and escape or come back to get you. You finish the job that you're there to start. If I see somebody with a, you know, I see their leg buckling, I'm going to start beating the crap out of leg or I'm going to force them to move a lot. Uh, so it's going to really impair them. It's like if I saw somebody, you know, uh I hit them with a body shot and I saw them flinch. I'm not going to be like, "Oh, let me not hit you in the body anymore because you're hurt." Like, "No, I'm going to now focus a lot of my damage on your body or use it so I can take your head out instead, but I'm not going to ignore it or allow you to recover from it." This is kind of like the same thing when I I hear this a lot in grappling where it's like, "Oh, you know, you have a strong submission on somebody and they don't tap. what do you do? And and a lot of people, oh, we just let go of it. I'm not going to break someone's arm for my ego. And I'm like, well, guess what's going to happen when the roles are reversed? Hope you better hope he's as merciful as you are because he might break your arm and then you're going to be like, well, I could have had you and I didn't. And then when you had your chance, you took mine away. It's not smart, right? You're going to put your life in the hands of a stranger is very unwise. And to me, there's nothing honorable about that. is just foolish. You have to defend yourself when you're fighting. You You can't pretend that your morals are mirrored in someone else's. It's very seldomly the case. So, you need to fight by the rules. And the rules don't tell you, "Oh, my opponent's weak or or injured. I should back off of them." That's a referee's job. the referee feels like a fighter can't continue and you know their safety is in peril, he can step in to save them. That's not your job because now you're trying to do two jobs instead of one job. And the one job is already really hard enough, right? So to me, I give the same advice in grappling I would in MMA I would in any competitive sport where especially where your health is in jeopardy. Fight to the best of your ability. You're not there to show mercy. You're there to do the best that you can. And in fighting, it's about ending the opponent, stopping the threat. Because the moment that you get locked in the cage with somebody, they are the threat. And you have to do everything you can to stop it. Once the referee intervenes, then you can back off. You don't have to throw extra punches. You don't have to try to crank harder. It's over. You step out. But not a moment before in my book would I stop. Because now you're allowing somebody to get an edge on you. And in the case of Jurian, it cost him dearly. Cost him a title, cost him some additional brain cells, right? And uh he needs all them that he can save it, man, because he's making some silly moves. And like I said, I am a Jerry fan. So it hurts to say that, but it's the truth, right? Like he's making some bad decisions here. Uh, I think the sense of honor is very misguided right there. And I would say the same for grappling. If you catch someone with submission, you better be prepared to go all the way with it. Don't let go. Oh, you know, if you're going to just get close and let go, man, you really better hope it doesn't bite you in the ass because I think it probably will. Because if you weren't able to finish the guy one time, that means you're never going to be able to finish him more than likely. And now he's going to be able to be in a better position to catch you. If somebody refuses to tap and you end up breaking their arm or the leg because of it, that's not your fault. That's their fault. It only becomes your fault if the referee comes in and says stop and then you continue to break it. Now you're being an But if he's not tapping and you end up hurting him because he refused to tap, that's on him. And it doesn't matter how preventable it was. That's not your job. Your job is to get out of there safely. And the easiest way to doing that is by putting them away. And if you don't like the reality of that, then maybe combat sports, particularly for competition purposes, is not for you. Because I you're creating a large liability in yourself by not having finishing intent. You in my opinion must have that ability to finish somebody which to the outsider might seem ruthless or you know oh it's ego driven. It's nothing about ego. It's it's called like to me it's about safety. Like the longer I let you hang around here with me the more danger I'm in. I'm giving you more opportunities. So if I can put you away that's protecting me. That's easiest way I can describe it to somebody, right? Like it doesn't I mean, yeah, getting the wind's nice, but what I really want is not to have to give you a chance to try to break my arm or break my leg. So if you're not prepared to do that, to me I would tell you man the question the idea of competing because maybe if you're fighting somebody else who's also a hobbyist who doesn't really care and doesn't have the ego and maybe you know them well and you do a gentleman's agreement beforehand, okay, play like that. But there's a lot of hobbyists are also they're using this, you know, weekend naga to get some aggression out and and they're going to go all out. And if you're going to halfass your way through a submission, you're going to be for rude awakening. And I don't want somebody who's being well-intentioned to get hurt. So I rather you just don't compete. I tell everybody that I've ever coached, you go for kills. You go for breaks. You know, it's not your job to protect them. That's the refereese's job, right? Your job is to end this fight in the best way that you can and come out safely as you can. Don't take on any additional responsibility. This is not the other competitor's safety is not your concern. That is the referee's concern and their own concern. I've talked about this before, but this just brings it back. And to me, for this to happen in a title fight is also crazy, right? Doesn't make any sense to me. Like, that shouldn't be happening in a title fight. But it goes to show you that it's not just a hobbyist that might have this because you see this in grappling circles all the time. People talk about that and they always attribute it, oh, my ego is big enough to absorb, you know, not getting a tap. And I I feel like well that's good for your ego but not great for your health in my opinion. This is very different now than training. In training I let go of stuff all the time. There's especially when I'm working now there's like I'm training with people who are professionals. They're UFC fighters and stuff like that. And there are some of these guys that you'll have them in a really strong submission. They don't want to tap. And then now to me it's like well I don't get anything out of this, right? And plus, I don't care if they catch me later and you know, I tap because who cares? It's just training. But I don't want to break someone in training. Uh, and since I'm also not competing, you know, I'm there to help other people. And sometimes, you know, just the way athletes are, they do have an ego issue or maybe they just feel like they don't understand that they're at a breaking point or whatnot. Or maybe I'm over estimating my submission skill. Uh I don't think so. But but in any case, uh in training, I let go of stuff all the time. But in competition, it's a very different story. See, that's why to me training, if I just want to have, you know, fun rolls and stuff, yeah, I could just train. And that's why I I train. I I don't compete now because I'm not willing to to make those risks. I don't personally I don't mind if I got locked in with somebody and broke their arm. Like, that's on them. I'm just not willing to have it done to me anymore, especially at this age. So, it's just a very different uh vibe. So comparing what you do to the training room to what you do in the comp competition room is very different in my opinion. And that's why also like training stories about oh I got this guy and then this guy it doesn't mean a lot. It means something sure but it doesn't mean a whole lot because competition is very different from training. At least for me it is like the intensity levels are not comparable. Like the level and intensity I have in training is at least 30 40 maybe 50% lower than it would be in competition. So it's not even close to it. Now when I was in my prime it was much closer probably in the 80% range. But now that I'm not like actively, it's significantly lower. Uh, but even when I was, you know, dialed in and, you know, young and all that, it was still 80%, it wasn't all like the me in training would get whooped by competition me because the level of intensity is a lot different. I'm a lot rougher. I'm a lot more aggressive. there's a lot more uh headbutts and and hard clubs, you know, and yolks, right? Hard pulls. So, yeah, judging your performance on somebody else on training is different. Now, I know that's me and some people, they actually train better than they compete, right? Like they train at 100% and then they compete at like 70%. Uh that's not a great paradigm by the way because that means like under pressure you fold. You don't want that. You want the reverse. You want to perform better than you do in training. And for me in most of my competitions that has been the case. You want to rise to the occasion enough uh fall under it. But anyhow that's all I have for you guys. Um, thank you for tuning in and I'll catch you all next