BTG 90 - Dropping Bombs

Hello and welcome to Breaking the Guard. Let's talk about the news. And we have quite a few events that went on this weekend. The first one I wanted to talk about was 1FC FC. Uh, this is one that I was interested in seeing because we had a good uh, grappling match that had a lot more drama than I even realized, which it was uh, Mikey Musamesi and Gabriel Sosa. Now, for those of you that haven't followed it, Gabriel Sosa was the last person to beat Mikey in competition, which I guess was a couple years ago. And unbeknownst to me, Gabriel was talking a lot of smack, saying that he was going to finish Mikey again and blah blah blah blah whatever. I didn't know about this. I just knew that this is a matchup that would be interesting because in my opinion, this was going to be the first real challenge highle competitor that Mikey has been given at 1FC. Well, it turns out I was wrong because Mikey ran over him. Incredibly, he did what he usually does. He pulled guard right away, went closed guard. Then the moment he opened his guard, he inverted, went into a leg lock, and initially it looked like it was going to be like a knee bar type situation, but then Gabriel tried to pull out and then he put himself in a capsizer, but it was a backmounted capsizer, so very hard defensible position. To his credit, Gabriel defended for a while by trying to tow hold the free leg, which I guess kind of loosened up the grip a little bit and ultimately he ended up losing that and then Mikey got the tap and Mikey lost it after he won. Apparently there was a lot of words exchanged between the two guys. They Mikey looked pretty upset. Uh and then once he got the mic uh like someone put there, which I thought was funny. It's like a kid that learned a curse word. He was just non-stop dropping fbombs, you know, non-stop cursing, very out of character for him. And clearly, he made it well known that he was very upset. He felt people were disrespecting him. And again, a lot of cursing. It looked very immature. Uh, and he keeps going on about everyone bullying him. And I I'll talk about that later, uh, because I have some comments on that. But let's keep going because the other key matchup that was interesting was Kertolo MMA debut going against Blake Cooper who comes from a lineage of the C the Cooper brothers and I think there a dad as well. So, it wasn't just anybody. Uh and uh he did very well debut fight. He exchanged some strikes. Uh landed some decent body kicks. He didn't freak out, you know, like a grappler can at times when they start getting in striking exchanges. He held his own pretty well, but ultimately he got the fight to the ground. And uh Cooper defended good initially, but uh Kade just put too much pressure and ultimately was able to secure the submission finish. Uh rear naked choke. So again, great job by Kade coming out on top. Uh, making an MMA debut is always very difficult, especially when you have a name and, you know, you've established yourself in one sport and you're trying to cross over to the next, let alone doing it in a huge crowd in a in a major production. So, kudos to him. Uh, and uh, apparently he is going to be having a match up with Mikey Musameshi later on, which is crazy because I mean he fought at 155, which is a significant cut. I I maybe I I'm mixing up the brothers who fought what weight class, but I thought he did 88 kilos. He might have done 77 in which case 155 is reasonable, but uh either way he's going to be much bigger than Mikey. And Mikey got on stage with him or Cade got on stage with him after their fights to promote the fight. and he had dropped all the animosity that he had earlier and he was nothing but friendly and respectful and saying being very humble and saying that he wants to fight the best and Cad's the best. So he returned to his usual self which is a little more lowkey, right? So that was nice uh to see. Uh we also had Raw Tang uh the Muay Thai or his kickboxing rules fight against Dennis Perrick. This was a very fun matchup. If you guys I I don't watch a lot of 1FC, but whenever I do, the kickboxing fights and the Muay Thai fights are very entertaining because they're always slugfest because I think a lot of these guys come for the Muay Thai background. So in Muay Thai, it's typical to bang, you know, like normally now in the first round, you normally ease into it and the later rounds just becomes like exchanges, but these guys went toe-to-toe pretty much from the opening bell. Like initially Rotten was a little more technical but then they became they started getting really into slugfest and uh he won that fight um but again a good battle and then the main event Taiwan Chai versus Nawat. I don't really know these two. I do know they can fight though and Taiwan Chai retained his belt. Uh again a bit contested. It was a very close fight. Um, but yeah, just some really good matchups and again for if you guys got Amazon Prime, it's a free card to watch. So that's a nice entertainment to have, right? So we had that. Then we had the UFC and I didn't watch the undercard, which uh I learned later was probably a good thing because it was all decisions and the main card heated up pretty fast. lots of finishes and that's what I got to see most of. Uh I'll start from where I started watching which is Ral Rosa Jr. versus Vector. It wasn't Oh, no. Ricky Tersios. And uh Ra Rosas is the 19-year-old. He was like the I think one of the youngest guys to enter the UFC, Mexican kid, big chin, you know, and he has great submission game, big hands, too. And he fought Ricky Tersios, who won the Ultimate Fighter uh I think the previous season. And uh interesting, uh matchup. Ricky came in with uh Raul came in to a to a glove touch and Ricky looked like he faked the glove touch and didn't try to throw a kick didn't land but instantly the crowd hated him right away and you had a crowd that was chanting America USA going all for and not so much that I think they wanted to win as much as they wanted Ricky to lose after that the poor display of sportsmanship where there was literally a chant that was saying you know f Ricky Right. So that's not a good way to win the crowd. Right. So um I think as far as he's concerned he he really torched his stock there by that bad display partsmanship and it looked like Ro once he took him to the d to the ground was going to do well but things got really crazy in that fight and um at one point Ro lost the back then gave his own back and Ricky had his back renegot choke fully locked in well I wouldn't say fully but it was pretty locked in right hand was behind behind the back and Raul did not use his hands to defend the choke. He just kept his hands down and just ate the choke on his enormous chin and his neck and just I was dumbfounded because he's a good grappler normally, at least in MMA terms, and he used no hands to defend the choke. He just ate it. And uh I thought he looked like in the he lost a scramble which is why he got his back taken. But it looked like he kind of broke for a period. So when the rear naked choke landed and the guy starts squeezing it, I'm like, "Ah man, this kid broke and he's ready to let the match end because he's not even trying to defend the choke." But after like 10 15 seconds of eating the choke, uh, he managed just to wiggle his way out without using his hands. And I think Ricky got tired and let go of it. And then he ended up getting back on in control and getting the back again. And then the time ran out there, but ultimately in the second round, he started having a better showing, got to the back again, and this time was able to finish uh the renegoke. Just a a wacky fight. And again, he's still so young. I mean, he's 19 and uh I think he's got like two or three fights in the UFC. So, I mean, it's going to be great experience for him. I would just say use your hands, dude. Like, if I was his coach, I'd have been freaking out. What's going on? Why is he not defending the choke? I don't know if it's like a poker face type thing or what, but it it was impressive. Um, another fight that we had here, uh, Dominic Reyes. Um, he had, uh, he was fighting, um, a new upandcomer Jacobe and derailed that guy's hype train and got himself back in the win column after five years without registering a win. That is a tough thing to do because if you got five years of not having he wasn't losing for five years straight. I think he had layoffs here and there, but nevertheless, that's a long stretch without a W for a guy who almost beat Jon Jones at one point, you know. So, it's crazy how MMA career can just turn on a dime, you know, like this. have a couple of bad matchups and all of a sudden you're just on a massive losing streak or just a long losing streak. Uh so it's good to see that he turned it around. He looked very humble and very grateful for the opportunity. Love to see that. That to me registers growth as a character, not just as the fighter. Uh so that was nice to see. And then we had the main event Jared Kennanir versus Nessarin Nesserin Imaboth. And this was a very uh technical striking matchup. Both guys were exchanging uh good shots on each other. I think what by going by at least a commentator perspective, which looked about right, they were pretty even on the cards going into the fourth round. Although it looked like to me that Imov was starting to take over, particularly because he was starting to land better shots. And that fight ended up ending ending in a rough stoppage. Immov landed a really good shot. Uh Jared got wobbly lead and started rolling around all over the place on his feet. You know, he was just moving everywhere. He had to run a little bit and I was chasing him, landing good strikes. But to his credit, Jared stayed on his feet and he tried to use the best defense possible. And I think this is where the referee Jason Herszog jumped in a bit too early because he jumped in and the moment he stepped in to stop the match, it looked like Jared got his feet back under him. I'm not sure why they decided to stop it right there because he wasn't getting hit at that point. He was moving around a lot, but of course he was. You know, he was getting hurt. He wanted to get out of range. It It made sense. it would to to me it was intelligent defense right now was it the best defense possible obviously not but it was for the tool set that he had it was intelligent defense I know the they the air on the side of safety but at the same time main event five round fight and this is high stakes you got to let them go a little more you know so uh now if I was a oddsmaker I think is probably going finish. That's what it looked like. But you never know. And it wasn't like there was a lot of time left in the round either. Maybe a minute. So, you know, he still would have had to weather a storm, but like I said, he looked like he was on the better end of it. And initially, again, wobbly legged and he was, you know, going one way, going the other way. So, it was looking pretty bad, but he started recovering in my opinion and at least what it looked like. So, it felt like an early stop, you know, uh could have let it go a little bit more and it's a shame because, you know, uh otherwise they they stopped what was a very good striking contest, you know. Anyhow, um yeah, those were the the key matchups that I watched there that that were quite entertaining for me. Uh the last thing I wanted to comment on before we close here was just the whole uh Mikey Musameshi situation because uh I mean he's a young dude. I think he's probably a little bit on the spectrum. That's no surprise to anybody who's seen him and the amount of training volume that he he claims he has. Um, but the way he handled this just it kind of rubbed me the wrong way. It was very cringe to put it as the kids say nowadays, right? You can't claim that everybody's bullying you just because they are talking smack about you and probably trying to promote a fight, right? Um, again, I can't be a 100% sure on this. You know, maybe if Mikey has like, you know, voicemails and text messages and emails from this guy non-stop just berating him. Okay, maybe now we're getting into some cyber bullying territory, but like they don't live next to each other. So, the idea of a physical bullying, you know, I don't think exists, especially since Mikey manhandled him. So, like I mean that doesn't seem to be a thing and I I think he's probably just not used to people calling him out and that's probably new to him because he wasn't the number one 1FC champion, you know, his whole career. So, of course, when you're at the top of the podium, everybody's got a clear shot at you and they're going to take it because they know if they can get a rise out of you, they're going to be able to possibly get a matchup or at least get some press time and raise their profile a bit. So for the character that he's been trying to establish for himself, you know, as a humble martial artist, his display was very inongruent with that. To me, like I say, it rire like an emotional child that was lashing out. Um, so we all have moments of weakness and I'm sure after a match your emotions are all riled up, but I would compel him to like really dig in and like fix that, you know, that character flaw because if that is genuinely how he felt, a lot of people can be able to use that against him and just constantly berate him and know that they can have a psychological you know, advantage on him. Now, maybe he like in this case, it seemed like it worked to his favor, like he got riled up and he used it to his advantage as far as incentive to train, but I feel like long-term that type of emotional uh outlet might not be the best, right? I feel like the guys that look unfasable are much more intimidating. I mean, look at a guy like Fedor in his prime. There was nothing you could do to that guy that would get any emotion, like even a smirk. You know, he was just stone cold. I feel most people, especially people who like to talk smack, have a harder time dealing with that because it's so alien to them. Like that person doesn't appear to be human, let alone a victim of your psychological attacks, right? Like they're just totally unaffected. They don't care that they don't even acknowledge your existence until they touch gloves with you. And I feel as a fighter that's probably the easiest way to get into a fight. It doesn't do great marketing initially because you're going to have to have your hands do all the talking. And in Feder's case, he did a great job of doing that. He didn't need to talk a lot of smack. He let his hands and his handywork do all the talking. And everybody who was an MMA fan knew Fedor at in his era. Uh is it a harder path? For sure. I think a more rewarding path. And when you again we I I always look to the same people as role models like GSP or Damian Maya, people who are much more balanced. They seem to have much better lives inside and outside of the cage, right? Because their their lifestyle is congruent, their their ego is congruent with the fighter and the person because they are the martial artist. It's one and the same. Whereas when you had to create this giant persona for the camera and then have another persona outside of the camera, you basically have split yourself into two. And while initially it's easy to juggle those two people because you probably are doing less camera time, as you become successful, there's going to be more camera time and less of the other person. And I feel this is where some people get lost and they forget who they really are and they become, you know, the overinflated ego that was used as a marketing ploy. It has become who they are now. And that is not as appealing longterm for most people in my opinion. Anyhow, that's my take on it. I hope you guys have enjoyed this and I'll see you all next