BTG 89 - The Mind Killer

Hello and welcome to another episode of Breaking the Guard. Let's go over some of the news items that I wanted to cover for today. One was UFC 302, Makachev versus Porier. That was a very good card. I didn't watch all the fights. I'll just touch on the fights that I did watch and just some comments I made on them. One of them, it was the first fight of the night, Andre Lima versus Mitch Raposo. This is an interesting striker versus wrestler matchup where the wrestler only went for two takedowns in the third round. Bastri strategy in my opinion. He did well in his feet like he looked like he had some good boxing, but uh Lima was very sharp with the kickboxing and had a notable size advantage. He did miss weight. So, he had that going in and he was able to chop the legs pretty good, but uh Mitch is I believe a like a high level college wrestler and just never really showed it. I don't know if he was gunshy about trying to go for a takedown, get a knee or or what, but he never used it until the very end and it was already too late to make a difference anyways. So, it's just unfortunate uh that played out that way. Uh Joselyn Edwards, Ailen Perez was another prelim. This one was a uh pretty sloppy fight. Uh both the ladies uh on the ground were just rolling each other back and forth. Didn't really seem to understand a lot of ground positioning basics. Um they both had moments where they could have really done some serious damage, but neither really did. Although Perez uh edged out and won I think it was two rounds to one or maybe even she won all three rounds but no big moments in the fight really kind of a not a what I would consider a UFC level fight in my opinion. Uh anyhow next fight Basil Hath and Mickey Gal. This was a this was like to me the first real fight of the night. These guys really went at it. Uh, initially, uh, Basil was really going gungho and he looks like a tank and he was just starting to score really early and then Mickey started taking over with the jab and started landing his strikes. But Basil proved uh he was a lot more resilient than he looked. they had a more of a tank and was able to score some takedowns that I think helped sway the the judge's opinion and he ended up taking that fight, but that was a nice scrap, a good fight for sure. Uh then saw Jalin Amda versus Alexander Romangh. This uh is scary. Uh Jatin has been a problem for everybody choking everybody and he did the same thing. He made Romangh look pretty easy and light work. Just immediately got to the takedown. And Jton's another guy that's built like a tank. But uh Romanov is huge. He like cuts to make 265. I think Almeida is like 240ish but like shredded. But Yelton make it look really easy. Took him down, got to his back, got a power crank and just finished him from the back again. Very impressive. He's going to be a difficult heavyweight. It'll be I mean, he's shown that he could handle a big uh grappler. It'll be interesting to see how he handles like one of the top level strikers in that division. Uh next fight, I missed a few in the middle. Uh I did see Kevin Holland and Mitchell Oly. I don't know how I can't really pronounce that last name. Um this was interesting. It was very quick. Mitchell landed a bomb of overhand right right in the chin. Dropped Holland. I don't think he knocked him out per se, but he definitely offbalanced him good and he rushed in for the finish. Uh, initially Kevin's position was kind of like an inverted guard just to try to keep space and then he saw an opportunity for an arm bar, went for it, and then put him on his back. So now they're both flat. He's like a mounted arm bar type position. and the arm is fully extended and Mitchell is refusing to tap and Kevin being the big mouth starts saying something. I don't know if he's saying I'm going to break your arm or or something to that effect or warning the referee but then he proceeds just to really really really crank and you see the arm just bend and it appeared that he may have broken a bone or two. I'm not sure uh they released X-rays or whatnot, but like the arm that they that looked like something came out from here kind of like the Frank Mir armbar, but uh Mitchell then did one tap and the referee jumped, stopped it, and he protested and he's saying he wasn't tapping. It's a kind of a difficult situation there because again the referee is there for the fighter safety and when your arm is visibly broken and you tap even if it was once they're going to air in the side of safety and stop it. And he may have phantom tapped you know you feel your arm break and you you're going to tap and you might not consciously made that decision but it it was a really bad arm bar. I get his point. If he broke his arm already and then you're gonna stop it, that's kind of messed up. He He would have not broken the arm because he obviously was willing to go as far as it needed to to to win this match. Um, they should really respect the three tap rule in my opinion. I'm on the side of let them, you know, let them bang, right? If he wants to let his arm break, that's his problem, not your problem, you know? But uh we also have like verbal taps and usually three taps is what we considered a tap out. So the single tap in my opinion shouldn't have counted. Uh I don't think this guy would have stopped. Now what would he have been effective in the fight? Probably not. Could he have had some serious injuries particularly if there's a fracture and now the bones like running around there cutting stuff? Yeah, could be a serious issue. But uh people who are hardcore, they'll accept that damage, you know, at least at the moment. But regardless, big win for Kevin Holland. Good way to get himself back in in the W column. The next fight is the one I really tuned in for was Paul Costa and Sean Strickland. This was a very interesting matchup. Uh not quite what I expected. I thought there was going to be a bit more fireworks, but Paulo was backing up the whole time because Sean was moving forward the whole time and mainly working leg kicks. And he was pretty effective very early. landed two solid calf kicks and Shawn had to switch stance a bunch of times to protect the leg, but it didn't really stop Shawn's game plan of just moving forward and, you know, putting that jab on him, occasionally mixing a right hand in there. And uh he out struck Paulo in the first four rounds. And I think Paulo had a small edge in the final round, but uh optically Shawn was winning this fight by punch stats and by aggression. And he was only one that really landed combinations. Uh particularly even though he lost the punch count, uh the strike count at the fifth round, he finished the last 30 seconds backing up Paulo and knocking him down. It was a trip, but he still he he fell off a headcake. Nonetheless, it looked he finished the final 10 seconds the way you would want, you know. So, he probably and the judges scorecards, I believe he won uh the all five rounds. There was only it was a split decision match, believe it or not, because one judge had it four rounds to one Paulo and people were up in arms. There were also some of the fights I didn't watch had some wonky decisions. This was in New Jersey. Uh so they had some Jersey refs and Jersey judges doing some funny stuff as well. Uh but the right person won in my opinion, Sean Strickland. Uh so now he cements his status as the number one contender and he's looking for a title fight. Now final fight Islam Makachev and Dustin Porier th this was another good fight. It looked like it was going to be a short night because Islam dropped Porier pretty bad and then swarmed him was at his back and the whole first round on his back getting really close to chokes but uh Dustin doing good submission defense didn't let anything get in and was able to survive the round. And then moving into round two, he was able to stuff a bunch of takedowns and stay in his feet for the most part and able to land some shots and bloody uh Islam's nose and his face. And this went it looked to me like Islam was getting the better because he would eventually score a takedown and then ground out a bit. He was also still landing strikes too. Um, but Dustin was in this fight right all the way until the fifth round. In the fifth round, uh, Islam, and by the way, he's doing such fantastic snatch single legs. Makes it look easy. Uh, it's from the outside you're watching, it's like, how is he getting this without the guy defending? Because he's not dropping to his knees. just a little hip tilt and grabbing the leg and snagging it out. Um, and he had a snatch single. Dustin defended it a little bit, turned away and Islam just had his foot. And if you've ever wrestled no ghee with without wrestling shoes, normally that's game over there because the foot just slides out and you can't really chase him from that far out and go to the back. Especially when the guy's standing. Is something beautiful though? He grabbed the foot and then did a big swing and that caused Dustin to fall. Now, he wasn't able to keep him, but the fall allowed him to pounce on him, get a front headlock, and then uh swarm him that way and get him grounded. And ultimately, he went from guillotine to a partial dar. And I say partial dar because he didn't have it fully locked in here. He was midarm, but he was doing it. I got to watch it again to be sure, but he had the choke in element of the for arm right in the perfect spot. So even though, you know, he didn't get all the way in here, he was like kind of midway, it was still enough. Dustin tapped and then fell unconscious right afterwards. So, uh, impressive finish for Islam. Uh, showed that he has a bit of everything. It was dangerous striking, dangerous wrestling, very dangerous on the ground and he did overcome adversity. He did get beat up a little bit uh quite a bit and did go almost the full five rounds. Uh so he's definitely cementing his status now, you know, following his mentor Kabib as being one of the best um I guess welterweights or lightweights on on the planet. And again, I would like to see more from him, too, because again, he he's dangerous everywhere, you know, he's and he's got explosive power, which is something that uh makes you both a wrestling threat and a striking threat. So, that was really cool to see. Um we also had this just happened now this taping on Sunday. Um the EBI 10 year anniversary and this was an absolute division that had the likes of John Ker Bodoni, Ryan Aken, um there was Big Damasui uh and uh a few others as well from the EBI circuit. Now, I'll tell you up front, I was for sure thinking it was going to be either Bodoni or Big Dan that was going to be able to take the the gold, but that's not what ended up happening. They had actually three New Wave guys in the same bracket. So, um, but I believe there was only one that matched up, which was Big Dan ankle locked all the way to the finals. He scored two quick straight ankle locks. Then against Bodoni, uh, they went into like a shootoff where Bodoni went for a tow hold, he went for inverted heel hook. He ended up getting the win. And then he ended up matching up with Ryan Aken in the final. And this is where I I I really want Big Dan to be able to make that next level jump of being a a killer, but he seems to be struggling mentally because he was right there. Uh the regulation totally dominated, passed Ryan's gar multiple times, but he didn't really press the advantage too much. He would pass and Ryan would be framing so that there wasn't no easy submission attempt there, but he would just back away and then let Ryan recompose, stand up, he would pull guard, and there was no pressure from Big Dan to score the finish, which is confusing to me because anybody going against a guy who can dominate them wants the overtime opportunity cuz that's your best chance because you know you can't beat him face to face when there's no um special rules. So if I'm that guy, I'm trying to find the finish early. But Big Dan seemed he was very comfortable coasting into overtime. And once they got into overtime, Ryan managed to escape really quickly, 18 seconds off the back mount. And then when it was uh Big Dan's turn to escape, he ended up getting stuck and Ryan was working a lot of power cranks. Eventually then slipped under and had a short choke and uh Big Dan tapped. And to me, I'm like, man, how can this happen? You know, and it's just uh I I had to remind myself that one, he he's a young dude. He's 22. So even though he looks like a monster of a man, doesn't have a lot of experience, um, and he was kind of shoved into the forefront of competition in the world scene very quickly because of his stature and his natural abilities and his technical ability as well. But as I've mentioned before, although you can be the biggest guy, strongest guy, most technical, intelligent, if you don't have that kill or be killed mentality and the mindset, you can still get beat. And that's that to me is the only reason really that Big Dan should be losing any of these matchups. Uh is just mentally. It's not because the people are more technical than him or they're bigger than him or stronger than him. Not even endurance because you can watch him there. He's not tired because he's very relaxed. Maybe he's too relaxed. Um but it's simply because he's getting broken. He's facing some adversity and then he's just breaking, you know, from the pressure of it. And um it's tricky because how do you fix that? Right? That might be a question. You know, a long time ago, I remember there was a slogan from some company that says you can't teach heart. And I always took uh offense to that because that's like saying you're only you're born tough and that's it. And at least that's the way I think most people look at it because they see, oh, you know, like I'm tough. Oh, because I was special. I was born tough and not everybody's born this way. It's like that's nothing to do with it. In my opinion, no human being's born tough. You're made tough. Right now, it's true to a sense. You can't teach somebody to be tough much like you can't teach somebody uh to have discipline. Right? I can read you the definition of discipline, describe how it looks like, just like I can explain to you what heart means and uh what it looks like in battle. But that doesn't mean that you're going to be able to absorb that, right? You just understand what it is. To actually become that, to have heart, you have to go through experiences that develop heart. And in particular with heart, it's not an easy thing to develop. It's basically your will to to win, to fight, to struggle has to overcome your will to self-preservation and protecting yourself. You are going to allow yourself to be hurt, to be injured be because the goal is more important, right? Getting that goal is more important than your arm breaking, right? or being put through a lot of pain and suffering is more important. Uh because what you need to get from this experience is more valuable to you that the pride the honor or maybe the prize money whatever the incentive is. Now uh this is something that you can only earn through experience and normally we will want to try to get this in training right where you know like shark bait rounds are a good way of doing that or just keeping one guy in the middle. I know most people when they do shark bait, they might do it for a set amount of rounds, right? Like, oh, it's like, you know, 10 minutes, one minute, new people, and that's tough. And that when I was doing them, I would do them until I got tapped. Uh so I feel that is significantly harder because there's no surviving um you know like oh I just got to stall out for 10 minutes and I'll be okay. It's like, "No, you're going to keep going until someone gets you, you know, and uh eventually they do." And it's not going to be the best guy in the world because you're going to be so tired after doing like 15 20 rounds uh with different people every time. Uh and you're just going to get fatigued and then someone's going to catch you, you know? Uh, but that is going to build out more character from you. Especially when like you really go to the bitter end. Like I've been put out in training like four or five times. Not purposely, mind you. I just I'm always fighting so hard to escape positions. I forget that there's an there's a clock, right? Like you got to tap at a certain point. But my mind is so focused on the battle that tapping is not really an option that's at the forefront, right? Um, and that's the type of mindset you have to have if you're trying to become a champion that's unstoppable and unbreakable, right? If tapping is an early option for you, it's going to be convenient and you're going to do it regularly, right? Um, now saying all that, you could do all that stuff and I've seen some of the drills and stuff that they do with the guys at New Ape and they definitely do a lot of situational drills. So, they definitely work a lot of bad spots. Maybe not exactly what I was describing, but something that's similar. But there also has to be some mental training as well, sports psychology stuff that has to happen outside of the mats. I did lots of journals and lots of visualizations and all sorts of uh little uh sports psychology tricks and tactics in order to maximize my ability to compete and to increase the desire to overcome self-preservation. And mind you, if you are a professional athlete, in my opinion, you have to have that. Otherwise, to me, you're just um you're a sportsman, right? You're not somebody that's gonna die in in battle, right? And there's a lot of people there's fewer people who I would consider like are warriors, like people who transcend uh physical um damage for victory, right? Right? Like I feel like an athlete can transcend physical limits of fatigue that most human beings can't. All right. The warrior is a step above that which is they'll take damage up to the point of death in order to continue fighting to try to do their best and win. And if you're an athlete or hobbyist fighting against a warrior, you're at a huge disadvantage mentally right now. If you are have more tactics and you're a lot more technical, you can overcome that, right? Because it won't get to that point. But if you're pretty even and he's got that mindset over you, you're at a at a big you have a big problem now, right? Because if you're even with technical ability, strength, and with stamina, now mindset's going to take over. And if your mindset's a little weaker, that's going to be a huge difference, especially if they know it and they can exploit it. So uh again there's nothing sexy about training your mind and doing sports psychology and writing journals and you know working with a a sports psychologist or whatnot but it does work and it does make a difference and particularly now I mean some people maybe never had the issue like I never worked with the sports psychologist per se I read lots of books and stuff like that but uh if you know you're having problems in the mindset part of your mentality of combat, you definitely need to invest time into developing that part of your your game more so than the techniques and the skills and everything else. I've made this metaphor many times, but if we suppose we had a machine that could do brain transplants and we got the average Joe in the street to go with Jon Jones and do a brain swap, right? So now Jon Jones was in the body of an average human and the average human took over Jon Jones's physical body. The guy that took over Jon Jones physical body is probably going to suck. They're not even if they have all the technical knowledge without the mindset, they're going to be very weak and they're going to wilt. Okay. So, it's just going to be maybe a naturally talented guy now because they absorbed, you know, they took over this body of Jon Jones, but they don't have the brains and the mind and the heart to back it up. Whereas Jon Jones and the average dude's body probably won't be the world champion that he was, but he's going to be a problem, right? Especially once he can train that body to become more tuned and in tune with his mental abilities. Um, and that is, I think, pretty obvious to most people, right? But if it's obvious, then why do people spend more time conditioning and running and focusing on their diet stuff and not training their mind, right? I think it's because it's hard. Just like most people don't like drilling because it's hard. They're like, "Oh, let's just roll around and go to open mats all the time. That's fun. That's easy." Nobody wants to do the hard stuff. So, in my opinion, you want to get an edge over your competition, do the hard stuff. And there's guys who like doing the hard stuff like drilling because they get a reward after the drilling, which is like the endorphin rush and, you know, the satisfaction of accomplishing something difficult. When you're doing mindset training, you don't really get that, right? It's, I think, in my opinion, harder because it's just reading and doing drills. But the reward that you're going to get is more long-term which is resiliency uh mentally. And I believe every I mean all the people I know who are highly successful in the sport that are champions do this. They don't talk about it a lot but they do it. Um, so if you want to take your game to the next level, instead of just buying all sorts of DVDs and instructionals about new techniques, focus on the mind. And you can buy basic sports psychology books very easily. If you guys are on the website, black belt psychology is a course made by my brother that uh really does a great job of summarizing my approach as well because I learned a lot from him and um my approach to sports psychology and particular to combat, right? because you might find a lot of sports psychology stuff that's more specific to like football or basketball, but uh my brother's again this is on the site davidmma.com under the courses. Uh black belt psychology was developed with combat in mind. So does a great job and I would highly recommend that to anybody who's serious about elevating their mentality. All right, that's all I got for you guys for today. I'll see you all next