BTG 69 - Words Matter

Hello and welcome to the Breaking the Guard podcast. I'm David Avalon and let's get into the news. So, we just had UFC Fight Night, the first one for the year, and it was pretty good. Some some bangers of of fights in that card. The notable fights that I can recall, well, first main event, you have Magame Ankleov versus Johnny Walker. And again, spoiler alert for anybody who hasn't seen it and wants to see it, you might want to tune out right now. Otherwise, uh, Ankalo gets a KO, a vicious strikes. Uh, I think he clipped him with a kind of a loopy right hand and then followed up with an uppercut. And that was all she wrote. And that that was in the second round. Johnny Walker was looking pretty good. You know, in the first round, he actually uh had set the pace early and was pushing him around a bit, but uh it looked like in the second round he lost that control of distance and range and Ankalof was able to walk him down and get that finish, which now sets him up for a lot of potential fights. I believe Ankalof is looking to get a match up with Pereira which would be a very interesting matchup. Um so that look that's interesting. Uh Jim Miller and Gabriel Bernitez. Jim Miller is 40 years old. He has every time he fights he sets a new record for the UFC because he's got the most fights in uh in UFC history. He also has the most wins in UFC history. And he managed to score a submission. I think it was Rene Kachchoke crank at the end of the third round to to close off that fight. So perhaps he can even get most submissions if he keeps it up, you know. Uh I think it's just phenomenal. He looked good, you know, and he wasn't fighting an easy guy. It was a guy was game, but uh it was clear that Miller was getting the upper hand and controlling most of that fight. Um, I guess Jim Miller is hoping to fight in UFC 300. Obviously, that's like a big card to be on, and I guess he's trying to stick around long enough at least to be in there. So, as long as he's feeling good and he's healthy, why not, you know? Uh, Ricky Simone and Mario Batista was another fight that was a banger. Uh Ricky Simone ended up winning that fight, but uh a real good display of MMA on that fight for sure. And I had a couple of my friends on that card um or and guys that I train with. Jake Shields has cornered a few guys in there like Farad Basherat against Taylor Lipilus, which won he won a decision. Again, another very technical fight. It was on the prelim card. Uh, Farret's undefeated now. I think he's 12-0 after that win. His brother's Jav is also undefeated. So, a pretty impressive record for both of these guys being brothers. I think that's really cool coming from a martial arts background where my brother also and was competing with me. So, it's cool they're doing so well and uh very well verssed. you know, his opponent was known more as a striker, but Far was able to um edge him out on the striking and he did manage to score a few takedowns, but his opponent had really good takedown defense. Normally, he's able to keep people on the ground and uh Lapo was able to pop up repeatedly. Never settled for being on the bottom like only I think in the final round. He stayed on his back for a little bit. So, it was a good um fight for him. We also had Nicholas Mada who won by KO in the first round against Tom Nolan. That was a good win as well. Um yeah, so good fights, good way to start the year. And then we got next week um big car with Sean Sean Strickland and Driscus Duplace or however you say his last name. That should be a very good fight card for sure. So that'll be one I'll be tuning into as well. Moving on to grappling news. Gordon Ryan says that fight pay, or maybe I shouldn't say fight, but the pay and grappling has to move up substantially, saying that ECC needs to move up significantly. I believe he said $250,000 purse. I'm not sure if he was saying uh for the whole payout, the prize money bag or per champion or or per division. Either way, I would echo that sentiment uh for ADCC in particular as if they're able to sell out arenas now and they're doing like pay-per-views and stuff, there's got to be and a lot of sponsors, there's got to be more money flowing in there. And they've been paying the ADCC grapplers the same amount since the inception in 1998, which if you're not versed, absolute division winner is 40k. Uh if you're winning your regular division is 10k, uh they pay for your flights and your coach's flight and your lodging and all that. If your second place is 5,000, third place is 3,000 and fourth place is 1,000. Not a lot of money for a tournament that comes by once every two years. So, and if you consider the amount of inflation that we've had since 1998 and now we're 2023, it should use a substantial bump in pay. Uh, I never competed for the pay. I always competed for the, you know, for myself really, just for pride and for to prove something. But I never got into the martial arts for pay, right? So my incentives were very different and now that we have a lot of people are professional athletes, it would make a lot more sense to pay them like professionals and you conceivably couldn't be pursuing this ADCC title if the pay isn't substantially bumped to make it a lot more attractive, especially now that there's other grappling shows that are even paying more than ADCC and they're just oneoffs, right? So, I feel like they definitely need to bump up the pay. How much? I can't say for certain. I would like to see it as much as it's financially possible for them while still making a profit because some people like, "Oh, pay them $100,000 per winner or whatever." Yeah. But then if the tournament goes broke, then what's the point, right? Now, obviously they they're backed by the chic from my understanding. So, it's not like they're going to run out of money. But if we want to make this something that's sustainable, it has to have a reasonable uh compensation that is fair to the athlete but is also makes a fair profit for the promoter and everything else that goes into it. The good news is the promoter Mojim agreed and said that they are due for a pay bump. So does that mean at this ADCC coming up there's going to be a pay bump? And if so, how much is it going to be? We're left to wonder the mysteries of that, but uh hopefully they do it this year, especially since they're going big and they're going to be in Vegas once again. I'm going to be there rings or uh at the front uh because I really want to be able to partake in this historic event. So, uh hopefully they can bump the pay for these athletes and get them the pay that they deserve and hopefully it makes sense for everybody involved. The last thing I'll cover for today, I'll keep this one a little bit on the shorter side, but it's something that's been popping around the news, is Mikey Musamesi. I actually was able to train alongside him at the UFC PI with Jake Shields. They were doing uh some training there and he was one of the guys on the training session. He also showcased some moves and the guy's a wizard, you know, no doubt about it. He had some very like stuff that I know but technical adjustments that I never considered that were really uh interesting. So his uh you know his technical knowledge for the amount he's training is phenomenal and I think he's been training since he's been four years old and he's you know 20some. So, uh, I might have more experience than him by a few years, but effectively he's got a lot more actual time on the mats. At this point, I would get bet if he's training as much as he says he is, which I wouldn't doubt it. Um, anyhow, he got into a little uh argument online. Some YouTube influencer or I guess used to be YouTube, now he's banned or whatever. this guy called Sneo uh was watching a video of Mikey grappling and he started talking crap saying, "Oh, this guy, you know, to be a grappler, you have to be autistic or you're gay or and the usual like stupid slander things that people who are ignorant of martial arts would say. It didn't seem like he was being very serious and it was more of like some light-hearted, you know, talk." But uh nonetheless, he did say it and he did mention Mikey in as Mikey was like the the feature on the video that he was breaking down. And Mikey was quick to respond, called him out to a cage fight, which is interesting because Mikey doesn't do MMA as far as I know. He's known purely as a jiu-jitsu guy. And furthermore, he's not even a wrestler and takedown guy. He's a, you know, he's known for pulling guard and scooting on his butt, which is one of the things the guy was making fun of him for, but Mike didn't hesitate to call him out to an MMA fight. Now, uh, I saw Keenan Cornelius, a lot of people were weighing in this, but Kenan was one of the guys who actually went had a different take. Most of the people who are supporting Mikey and into MMA were saying, you know, kudos to him. Hopefully, they make it happen so that Mikey could kick his ass. This and that. Keenan was on the other side saying that it's Mikey that's being the bully because he is antagonizing or not antagonizing but he's picking on this guy who was just making a joke and now wanting to fight him and the skill disparity would be so massive that Mikey could seriously hurt this guy if he wanted to. My take on this, which also goes into the motto of the day, is I'm stealing this from the four agreements, which is the first agreement. Be impeccable with your word. Right now, this guy Sneo, he went out there. Maybe he was trying to be funny and, you know, talk crap about somebody, but regardless of what his intentions were, you did say things and those things have consequences. words nowadays are treated very treated very cheaply because we're able to say them in so many different mediums and particularly when we're doing it online where we don't have to face anybody. It's very easy to be brave. Similar to how people get road rage and they're very brave behind their wheel and they can, you know, they'll yell out things, they'll honk their horns, they'll get the finger and all that stuff because they feel very brave inside their car. Not as many of those people actually step out of the car when things get serious. It's even worse when you're online and you can say whatever you want without having to face your accuser, without even having to know your accuser or not your accuser, but the accus so to speak, right? Whoever you're insulting, right? Um, so this guy again called out Mikey by name, made fun of him, you know, he was saying he's gay or artistic or stupid, a mix of those things, is the intent that I gathered from what the clip I saw. Now, Mikey's response, while I I would see it in two ways. Like one, if you're going to get offended by what people say to you online or in person that are not really threatening physical violence, you're going to be offended all day long, right? You go online, you share any opinion that you have, there's going to be tons of people that have the opposite opinion and they might not be very mature and they're just going to make fun of you. They're going to, you know, tarnish your name and say all sorts of bad things, right? So, you have to have some thicker skin and realize, you know, there's always going to be someone who doesn't agree with me and it doesn't matter, right? What matters is what I think about it and the people that I trust, that are my friends or the people that I love, that are my my family, that's what matters. On the other hand, if he wants to take this seriously and challenge somebody, in my opinion, he's well within his right to, right? someone called him out and you know he is a fighter. So if you're going to say that he's you know weak or stupid or whatnot, you're kind of selling his name and fighters have a name. He's a celebrity to an extent. So he's got a reputation to protect and you're an online personality. This guy at least that was insulting him was. So, you have a reputation as well and you're using that to try to make fun of somebody. Now, I don't think this was bullying, but it definitely was insulting, right? So, if someone insults you, I feel like you have a you have grounds to respond to it. And it's not like Mikey is going to his house and going to beat him up or see him on the street. He's challenging him to, you know, a formal competition. So, of course, the guy could reject it if he wanted to and that would be the end of it. So, I don't see this as a as an overstep. I do think it's overstepped in the sense that calling this bullying. I don't really think this is bullying, right? This is just people talking right? Happens all the time. U I would have if I would have been Mikey, I would have not said the the bullying part and made this about bullying. I know he's more susceptible to it. And maybe for him it feels like bullying because uh I I know a little bit about the the background, but you know, he's a smaller guy. Uh and I'm sure growing up he got bullied quite a bit. So anytime someone's going to challenge him that way, he might see it or related to being bullied and, you know, champion that cause as a reason for him getting in there, right? or this could just be a whole marketing event, which would be great because it worked well. Everybody's, you know, on the grappling side of things are talking about this and his name's being flown around everywhere. So, it did work. So, it was just a chance to to market himself, you know, he took it. Either way, I feel if you're going to use your words like that and you're going to taunt people, you're going to insult people, make fun of people, you always have to be prepared for the guy who's going to call you up on it, right? And if you're not ready to accept that challenge, either one, be ready to apologize right away, or two, get ready to scrap, right? Get ready to back up those words. That was that's what was good about guys like uh Conor McGregor and Chaos Sonnen. Yes, they talked a lot of crap, but they were ready to back it up. They didn't back down from challenges, right? So if you're going to be big and boastful, you got to be ready to back it up. So you can't play the victim card when you start challenging people, you start making fun of people, you know, and then they come back and defend themselves and you're like, "Oh, oh, oh, you're overreacting." No, no. Like you said the things you said and whether you intend to or not, you're responsible for whatever the outcome of those words are. So I feel like you have to be especially when you have a big medium and nowadays everybody has a very big medium because they can get on the internet and conceivably you have the whole world as your audience and your words travel in milliseconds across the whole world. So you have to weigh that with the the responsibility that it carries. If you're gonna be real hateful or you're gonna spout out lies and stuff like that, it's gonna come back quickly, right? So, I feel like the as far as I'm concerned, I'm down to see the m the Mikey versus Sneo matchup, which would be a col if the guy doesn't know how to fight, he's going to get destroyed, you know. Uh, rest in peace to his legs if Mikey really wants to go after his legs, you know. So, I think it's uh you know, I commented it because I I just find that people are a little bit too brave online, right? There's most people who say lots of things like that who would never say that to your face, right? So, I don't like that. I like I want to be as real as I can wherever I'm going to be communicating because I want to imagine that you're right in front of me. Like I'm talking to the camera right now, but conceivably you could be right in front of me and I should be able to say the same things right in your face about you or about whatever I feel that I need to communicate to you without being hesitant or shy or maybe think, oh, you know what, that's not a good idea to say because if it isn't, then you shouldn't say it to begin with. You shouldn't type it. You shouldn't write it down. Right? If you don't have the courage to stand by your words, don't utter them. Right? keep them to yourself or develop the courage that you need before you utter them. Right? And particularly when you're saying things that are challenging somebody or if you're going to be, you know, you know, insulting somebody or saying that they're wrong or anything like that where it's a challenge, you better have the the receipts, right? You better be ready to back up what you're saying because not everybody responds to a challenge the same way. You know, you might think, "Oh, you know, I have some friendly banter and he's just going to come back at me with banter." But then you run into some people who they don't have those same rules of civility. And your little light-hearted banter is taken like a mortal threat and they're going to come after you. And you might say, "Hey, that wasn't my intention. You know, I was just being lighthearted." Like, well, you should know your audience better. And you got to watch out with what you say, right? Be accountable for your words. I I feel if more people were like that, we would have much less problems, right? There wouldn't be so many posters and people that just talk crap incessantly and add no value to the global conversation, right? I do my best to I'm not perfect obviously, so but I do my best to try to stay authentic and true to what I'm saying. And if I do misstep, I would apologize. I'm not too proud not to say sorry if I messed up, right? Or if I have a different belief that challenges you, well, that's just the way it works. But yeah, I don't think in this situation anybody could be playing victim. And uh you know, the guy Sneo said stuff that he probably shouldn't have said if he wasn't ready to back it up. Although, from my understanding, he said he would step in there and fight him. although he seemed to admit that he would lose. So I'm not sure what he's looking to gain besides getting a lot more eyeballs in them. That's why to me this seems like it could be more more likely than that a choreographed event for you know engagement farming because everybody loves drama. So when they post it there, everybody starts talking about it and they make their money off, you know, likes or shares or whatever engagement numbers that they're they're making their money off of. But the my point about all this is there's a book called the four agreements by Domig. And the the premise of that book is basically that when you grow up and go through life, you start off life and again I'm doing this roughly so I apologize if it's not perfect to what he was saying that you start off life with every possibility available to you. You do not know what you can or cannot do. You learn as you grow up by people teaching you like your parents or school or your friends things that are possible or that are not possible. And these become agreements with yourself, right? Where you're saying, uh, I tried to play the piano and I didn't play it well. So, you might create the agreement to yourself that, oh, you know what? I don't know how to play the piano or I can't play the piano. And that becomes a limiting belief that sticks with you, right? And as you grow up and you grow older, you get more and more agreements and many of them will be limiting. And the idea behind this book is that you want to try to remove as many limiting beliefs as possible. And in his whole premise is you remove everything and you start with four. And the first one is the one that I talked about which is be impeccable with your word. Which means you don't lie, you don't hurt, you don't insult, you don't deceive. You use your word for good and to build, not to destroy or to bring down. And many people think that the word is weak. It's just letters on a paper, right? or a sound that someone makes. But if you think about it, words have started every war in history. You know, words are how we uh profess our love to somebody that we we care about or how we share information or knowledge. So the word is probably the most powerful thing that we can wield, right? So we should be responsible with how we we use it. And I feel in this case, this is a a situation of people misusing their words, right? And uh if you if you like this sentiment, I would definitely recommend you check out The Four Agreements by Domies. It's a fantastic book. It's a short read and very very good. I I I've said this before and I'll say it again. If there was one book that I would make everyone in the planet read, that's one of them. The other book is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. If I had two books I had to pick, those would be the two books. No question about it. I feel with uh the four agreements, it's a great book for managing stress because if you learn how to to follow his teachings there, you're going to lower your stress level substantially. At least for me, it made a big difference in how I perceive stress in life. And then think and grow rich by Napoleon Hill is a book about success. Don't get eluded by the name Think and Go Rich. You might be thinking, "Oh, it's about money." You're not going to learn anything about, you know, how to invest your money through that book. It's talking about how to create plans to become successful. Now, he was a, you know, studying a lot of people in business, so a lot of it was about making money, but that's irrelevant to the actual content of the book. whether you're an athlete or you know you're a businessman or maybe you just want to be successful in relationships and making friendships that book will help you tremendously. So again, two tips there. Hopefully those uh come in handy. If you haven't heard me say that before I would definitely check them out. Other than that, thank you guys for tuning in and I will see you all next