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00:00welcome back to against the cage your mma home for all the fight previews recaps and exclusive
00:14interviews that i know you're looking for my name is jake aria joined here by scott fontana
00:20my esteemed co-host and our other esteemed co-host eric richter will be back next week i know we said
00:25he's going to be back this week but he's out today we lied we lied exactly uh but scott listen there's
00:32no no beating around the bush uh this past weekend ufc 321 ended in disaster tom aspinall the champion
00:39gets double eye poked by surreal gone we don't get any conclusion no closure about that fight we're
00:48kind of left in limbo what was going through your head when you saw that happen in the main event
00:52i mean it's awful you know on so many levels you know from from let's say the lesser perspective of
01:01we don't get a result we get a no contest it's very unfulfilling you know everybody wants a result
01:07right uh unfortunately this is kind of just the way referees tend to handle this type of situation
01:14even in the case of a foul like this uh we often get a no contest here because unless the referee can
01:22very much clearly say hey you weren't listening to my commands you did something illegal uh or
01:28intentional which you know how do we ever really come up with that you're not going to get them to
01:34do a lot more in this situation they give a no contest very unsatisfying and of course we feel
01:39uh pain uh you know we feel the pain of tom aspinall too who's obviously dealing with uh some
01:46really serious issues with his eye uh still yeah absolutely and he's kind of left in limbo this
01:52heavyweight division is kind of left in limbo uh that same day though mr alex pareda who has been
02:00calling for a heavyweight move he he tweeted something he tweeted his reaction to the fight
02:05in a video and in the uh caption of that he said let's make the heavyweight division great again along
02:11with an easter island head emoji and a bone emoji and a house emoji so i'll let you do the math on
02:19what that means and then john jones tweeted back alex i'd be down to bring the highest skill level to
02:25the white house i appreciate the respect you showed let's dance with this uncertainty at heavyweight could
02:32we be seeing alex pareda and john jones saving the heavyweight division what do you think scott
02:38so as far as the fact that it could save the heavyweight division i i don't know and and it
02:46kind of depends on the way that could even shake out in this hypothetical scenario where these two
02:50actually do throw down right uh you'd have to think that if jones wins this is a one-off fight
02:58there's not really anything to be gained from it so it's not going to help the health of the heavy
03:02division but obviously it helps the ufc it's a giant fight it's a massive fight so for them they
03:08should be salivating at making this happen whether it's the white house i don't know i mean dana has
03:12been very uh extremely against the idea of john dones fighting at the white house he's unreliable
03:18all this all that um i don't know and i wonder if that would be an impediment to this fight happening
03:26is is john jones so dead set against it being anywhere but the white house against alex pareda at
03:34this point i don't know you never know uh how do you feel about this i mean do you feel like this
03:40is like the fight that saves it or where do you feel mr jake so yes i i see what you're saying and
03:46and i feel like we keep saying like there's a narrow path here for john i i do agree with you in the sense
03:51that like there is a bit of a problem with that he seems pretty dead set on it being at the white
03:57house and if that's the case like that's over six months away it's in in june right that's that's a
04:04long time this and as dana has said we're worrying about that in february we're not starting to build
04:09that car till february exactly so i i mean taking taking tom uh out of the equation and you know we
04:17obviously hope that he's able to fight as soon as possible uh but let's just talk about john and
04:22alex there i don't know if he's taking this fight not at the white house and if that's the case and
04:27we do have to wait that long i don't know how much it does do for the heavyweight division it's
04:31still more waiting around which we've been kind of doing for a very long time at heavyweight right
04:37so yeah i it would be a great fight though i mean i i it's grown on me question now sorry
04:46i said no question absolutely and it's grown on me more uh i mean prior to the the weekend i i would
04:54say um it's grown on me more because john is no longer the champion there's no hold up you know
04:59you could make those fun fights if you want now that he's not champion right but i i guess let's
05:04talk would hold up another belt but you know there there is that yeah but also i you know what i want
05:10to throw something out here though jake too and not only not only this but let's let's let's look at
05:15the other way let's say if john wins this it's a one-off i think that's how we look at it there's no he
05:20has no interest in fighting tom aspinall um even though he could certainly just poke him in the eye
05:25and make his money too which i saw someone else had floated on social media and that would that
05:29certainly has happened to john jones before right um but let's go the other way let's just let's do
05:36the hypothetical let's get egregiously ahead of ourselves here let's say alex panetta wins the fight
05:41against john jones then let's say he fights for the heavyweight title and he wins that heavyweight title
05:47i mean that that is the birth of an incredible run of the heavyweight title in the heavyweight
05:54division because not only do you have the easily the biggest star uh above what lightweight uh the
06:02biggest star above lightweight would be your heavyweight champion now a three division historic
06:07heavyweight champion but he would already have all of these brand new fights and nobody in in the way
06:14we're not we don't have any friends that we don't want to fight he's not fought anybody else except
06:19for in this scenario probably it would be john jones and and tom aspinall or potentially a surreal gone
06:26right um that's it everything else is wide open it makes it so fascinating so there's potential for it
06:32to down the road be kind of the the thing that sets off the heavyweight division to a giant mega mega
06:40attraction for the ufc but that's pretty far down the line and a lot of ifs and ands and all that
06:45i 100 but it is it is probably one of the more fun things you could do is you know speculate get ahead
06:51of ourselves and perera as a heavyweight champion would be so entertaining because i mean let's be
06:58real here heavyweights aren't necessarily known for their you know scrambles and grappling exchanges
07:04it's a lot of standing on the feet and i mean while we've seen unless you're jelton almeida unless
07:09you're jelton almeida right we'll talk about that we'll get to that later but you know alex already
07:15has fought uh someone on like magomed ankulayev who you know he's touted as a dagestani wrestler he
07:21was able to fend off those takedowns in in their first fight so i feel like it would be a fun time
07:27seeing him as champion watching him stand and bang with those other heavyweights and uh i mean he has no
07:33trouble getting knockouts already imagine what it's like at heavyweight so that'd be very very
07:38entertaining um what do you think well i mean does the power carry that's the only question i have off
07:44of that but it's true yeah i mean he's got power like obviously he has amazing power right yeah i
07:49don't want to i don't want to be like whoa we're underestimating uh both times power no absolutely not
07:54but because it is heavyweight these guys can you know obviously you can take a bigger punch when
08:01you're 260 pounds yeah in theory you can but also probably not i mean the guy hits like a truck i
08:07think i think he'll be all right he has devastation in his hands um but yeah we'll see what happens
08:12there i guess the first thing that we kind of have to figure out though is what is going on with tom
08:18aspinall and we received a not great update from his father andy aspinall on tom's youtube channel uh
08:26andy gave a update about tom's eyes so let's hear what andy had to say it's bad it's not good
08:34but his eye is a little bit more closed than it was his right eye can't still can't see anything
08:41said it's just gray uh and he's tested him on words and he just couldn't see anything
08:47his left eye 50 he went down about four letters and then just couldn't see the letters so one's
08:53really really blurry and one's still not working so not good stuff it's not the news that either of
08:58us or anyone wanted to hear uh for that matter how how worried after hearing uh that update from
09:04his father andy how worried do you think we should be about the future of tom i don't want to get too
09:09doom and gloom right because there's still a lot we don't know we we have an update from you know
09:14three days out is is kind of a long time i i'm not an expert on the eye right and eye injuries i'm not
09:20spoken to a doctor i didn't get the chance to kind of get word on kind of how what we should be
09:24expecting this far out from such an injury right for context but having said that uh this is not
09:30great i mean you don't you don't want to hear that and and frankly if he can't see very well and if he's
09:37not interested in fighting um heavily compromised if if that is what comes of this you know someone
09:43like a michael whispering obviously literally fought with uh one of his eyes gone uh that was insane
09:48that it even happened and that commissions allowed it to happen and probably you'd have to think some
09:55commissions will have put things in place to avoid stuff like that in the future especially when we
09:59now have a very documented and public eye injury i think it's gonna be hard for anybody to skirt that
10:05right not that we know what he would do in that scenario but the point is um it's really really rough
10:12and we really need to be kind of hoping not only for tom's fight career but you know out of the cage
10:19too i mean man's a father and and he's obviously still a promising young man and young athlete so
10:24you'd hate to see uh his career be affected negatively by this long term and realistically
10:32there's going to be some long term fallout from this you'd have to think hopefully it's not enough
10:38that it hinders his ability to be that prime athlete that we know him to be yeah i'm a little
10:43nervous i am 100 me as well like you mentioned i am also not an eye doctor um i i feel like once we
10:51start once we start getting like honestly past like a week and maybe two weeks if things are like not
11:00looking better i again not an eye doctor i'm getting very very very worried like i'm not not
11:08over the moon right now with how it's going in terms of uh that update um and you've heard a lot
11:14of people like you mentioned uh you know there could be long-term effects this we've heard a lot
11:18of people uh talk about the situation it's all anyone's been talking about for for the past few
11:22days jim miller um our our old friend he went on helwani and he was talking about as well as his own
11:28social media he was talking about the stuff that he's experienced from his own eye poke injuries
11:33little things you know he said he couldn't like quite properly aim his bow anymore and stuff like
11:38that and you don't want to see that either for anyone just like things affecting their daily life
11:43it's it's it's really quite horrible but yeah injuries like i think these fighters know that
11:49there's a certain level of risk in the career that they have chosen right they i think they know
11:53that their backs their joints their their knees all of these things could have major issues as they
11:59get older but the eyes are supposed to be off limits right that's supposed to be protected to get by the
12:05rules um and when that's where the issue comes in it's like okay now this is beyond what you really
12:11should have signed up for a hundred percent so i i will ask you this in terms of in cage problems
12:19because there's a lot of problems outside the cage that we have talked about and we'll continue to
12:24talk about weight cutting fighter pay what have you right let's talk about the in cage stuff do you
12:29think that eye pokes are currently the biggest in cage problem in mixed martial arts i i i would say
12:37pretty much yes yeah i mean honestly eye pokes extended fingers uh they're two fouls with the most need
12:44for better policing more more regular and enforced policing by the referees in the cages here and it's
12:51it's industry-wide right the aversion for officials uh to inject themselves into these fights they don't
12:57want to do that they don't want to take a point because of how much a point deduction even just one
13:02in a three-round fight it puts the offending fighter at a disadvantage if it gets the scorecards but
13:07frankly what always gets overlooked when i when i've heard that from either you know officials speaking
13:14on it in broad terms or from people in general who who will talk about that kind of thing um they're
13:20always negating the fact that the other side the fighter who got fouled not only are they going to
13:26be damaged by one of the uh most important to one of the most important things that they have in fight
13:32their eyes um they they don't even have any sort of like repercussion there's no balancing act they just
13:40have to deal with it and frankly then you get everybody outside the cage if they don't want to
13:45deal with it in a way that people are satisfied then they face blowback and it's ridiculous like
13:51i i think when we have something like this injury you have to treat it more seriously like if they don't
13:58want to take a point for every groin strike or every cage grab i get it but i think we really need to
14:05start getting to a point where officials are very strenuously taking away points for eye pokes
14:12that jim miller nailed it right like we were at his house a year and a half ago and we did that that
14:18story on him uh head of usc 300 um we did that video we followed him around for a day and this
14:24wasn't in the video but he was telling us exactly the same thing that he's been talking about on social
14:28media really ever since then about the eye pokes that you gotta you gotta take points
14:32find the fighters you gotta do find the fighters it was his big one too that one's gonna take a lot
14:38more work to get done because i imagine they're gonna need legislative work and that kind of thing
14:42to be able to get to that point i don't think that a commission can just step in and do that if i'm not
14:47mistaken that's my understanding but the referees they can do that right now in fact the fact that
14:53they're not goes against in theory what we're supposed to be having them there for which is to enforce
14:59the rules 100 and i i think where i stand on this is because you've been hearing a lot of people
15:07talk about what is to be done um you know should it just be an automatic dq if the person can't
15:14continue the fight because there's there's been a lot of kerfuffle on whether or not the ref made the
15:17right call being a no contest this discussion of intentional and unintentional and let's let's
15:23definitely talk about that but for me i think one thing that i see as a potential solution is
15:30you'll hear refs warning fighters and this is a good thing of course when they are you know gauging
15:36distance and they're extending their fingers like that i think it's good that they you know give them
15:40warnings but honestly i'd like to see points taken away from that like that's not something you see
15:45i know it's not a foul because they haven't fouled them yet you know it is a foul no it is a foul
15:51because it's listed as something you can't do they changed that in i forget how long ago at this
15:55point but yes it's actually a foul so then extend your fingers like this as i'm doing to the camera
16:01right now watch out um that's what some people see as fighters that's a foul yeah watch out look
16:07so i think that that's a solution right there um and if you i'm with you i think that would help
16:13you know because it is a habit for people like people have been saying this all week fighters you
16:17know uh demetrius johnson um on on his channel probably most notably is talking about like
16:22with techniques like it's a habit that fighters have and i understand that but you could break
16:27habits right and i think that that's one way to break this house yeah absolutely we have to break
16:32this habit jake you can't have this anymore just sorry bad habit you can't see anymore like that's not
16:39okay yeah it's ridiculous i i like the idea of taking points of that here's here's how i would do it
16:45i say anytime you have an eye poke two points gone two immediately two points gone i don't care if
16:52it's a three-round fight you start doing that i think people will do exactly what jim was saying
16:57they're gonna stop having these fouls and people are gonna understand i cannot do this i absolutely
17:02cannot do this because there are fighters who don't do it jim was even saying like listen if you
17:06look at all the guys with the most fights most cage time and i can't fact check them on that but
17:10in my mind it actually sounds accurate enough the guys who have the most cage time don't have a lot
17:16of eye pokes that i can really remember they're not known for it and in theory accumulation of
17:20knowledge would say hey we would know gosh jim miller he pokes people in the eye a lot well no he's had
17:2450 fights and he's done it like seven times in 50 fights that's not even the case i don't think
17:29but i so i'd say two points for an eye poke i would say i think that you can warn a fighter
17:34for the extended fingers because no harm no foul yet right i'm okay with that one time once they
17:40do it again after a warning in the cage which again follows what you get in the back they still know
17:46the rule everyone knows the rule once you warn them the one time they do it again take a point
17:51that is what it is you can't do it it'll teach them not to and frankly from if you're the type of
17:58person who's like man i really want these fights to be finishes you know what's going to make someone
18:02want to finish and they know they can't win on the cards yeah there you go oh yeah watch what
18:07you saw what happened with drew dober he got a point taken for a low blow and immediately he just
18:12got like he went into like hulk mode he was like whole smash he got angry he just finished the fight
18:16like 30 seconds later it was crazy and not every fighter is going to do that and that's not why you
18:21do it but i think that would be a nice little hey that's a benefit now we get that too i think that's
18:27how you do it you take the two points for a poke you do the warning and then a foul one one
18:32point foul for extended fingers and really quickly i think that'll go away you don't even think you
18:38need the fines if you could do it i'm cool with it but i don't think you'd need them yeah i agree and
18:43so i want to ask you about saturday specifically um i could be mistaken but i i'm pretty sure that
18:50when that fight finished and it ended in a no contest we were talking and you said that that was the
18:55right call have you changed your mind or do you still believe that a no contest was the right
19:01way to go for the referee so it's not necessarily that it was the right call but this is just the
19:07way they do it it's it's literally the way things are and i'm not saying it's right but that is what
19:14they have done yeah in situations like this unless again kind of like i said earlier in the show
19:19if they're warning them hey don't do that don't do that and then they keep doing it and then you
19:25got to stop it for it and and that's it that's often where we see the dq come in you know we did
19:31have a disqualification in the uh the peter yawn fight against aljamain sterling who weirdly enough
19:38was a little critical of this kind of he's walked it back a little bit too um but he was he was he had
19:43some very strange peculiar comments directed at tom aspinall and that kind of thing and i was like
19:48why would you do i was puzzled yeah that was very strange i thought it was a little weird um i i do
19:54think he's thought about that not the point the to get back to it here yes there was a dq in that
20:00scenario and no it wasn't like a repeated warning thing i believe he was kind of told like don't do
20:06it from there or something that but then he threw the knee i'm trying to remember it off the top of
20:09my head and i'm not but um i'm cool with dq there i i think i am but i don't think it it's not
20:18like we need a result you know it's not so much that like someone needs to suffer for this right
20:23um but i don't i don't know when when do they start doing that when do they start taking points and doing
20:29all that stuff i i don't know um i understand yes where he was winning the fight right it's very
20:35tricky yeah um it's not necessarily like a um because like you mentioned it's already a foul to
20:41keep extending your fingers it's not necessarily a changing of the rules it's a changing in how referees
20:47are applying the rules right i think that again it comes down to referees really don't like to
20:53inject themselves if they can avoid to they they want the fighters to settle things and that's
20:58admirable in in some ways but also you know sometimes you just have to do it if the protocol
21:04was in a situation like this where somebody cannot continue because a foul whether it was intentional
21:11or not which you're never going to really assess yeah um does anyone sit there and really think
21:16surreal gone was trying to poke him in the eye no i don't think so he's not a nefarious person
21:22i'm sure he wasn't trying to do that because frankly it only cost him at the end of the day well
21:26cost tom massimo too you could make an argument cost him an opportunity cost him an opportunity
21:31sure doing well um neither here nor there i i'm okay with them switching to making a dq but you
21:39just kind of have to start doing that more when we have negative fouls like this a hundred percent
21:45like like you said serial's not you know it was not intentional but it was you should penalize fighters
21:51for being you should penalize fighters for being reckless you know if you're reckless which it is it is
21:57a it is a bad habit like we said habits can be broken that's not it doesn't justify it it's reckless
22:01reckless is a great word for it i think that that's something that should be thrown around a little bit
22:07more if you're recklessly fouling you know that's where the problem comes in right you're not in
22:13control of your weapons which you have to be and it's not about intent or or malintent right it's
22:21it's about your control versus how reckless you are and if you are reckless with those fingers
22:27you deserve to be punished for it and if that means a disqualification i could accept that but we
22:32got to start doing it and we got to do it regularly yeah and i think this is a good transition into
22:36my next question this is sort of what i was uh alluding to when you and i were talking on on
22:40saturday we've seen a lot more fights get uh not dq'd you know they're sorry dq rather than no
22:48contest when it is a knee to the head you mentioned the one with aljamain sterling and piotr jan one that
22:54i immediately think of which is one of the first big fights that i watched was anthony smith and john
22:59jones although it didn't happen he knew that if he said he could not continue that fight he was he was
23:05going to become the champion from that and i didn't want it that way probably a terrible decision
23:10for his family but a great decision as a fighter that we like respect and that yes very respectable
23:15but i want to clarify the distinction does this have to do with intentional and not intentional
23:21simply because like you can't say that like when someone needs someone in the head that it was
23:25unintentional what's the distinction there on why so many because they're both fouls right and you see
23:31that a lot less with groin strikes and with eye pokes and you see them way more often with knees
23:37to the head the fighting uh the fighter who committed the foul being dq'd is that an intent
23:41thing or how does this work if you could enlighten you know what that's one of those things that
23:47unfortunately is probably going to be referee to referee yeah i don't know if there's a distinct
23:52broad answer for that i think there's a very broad answer for some of the things that i am talking
23:55about the fact that they generally do not want to take points that is that is true just about
23:59every 100 um but but as far as the knees and and that kind of thing whether they're punishing and
24:04that kind of thing i think if i was to surmise anything i think it would probably just be like
24:08look we're throwing a strike that you know is illegal um it takes a lot to throw a knee and uh
24:15you know they're very devastating to the fight in in a way that you can see much more easily than
24:22you can even an eye poke frankly um so i think there's probably just aesthetics that play into it
24:28stupidly uh that's how i kind of feel yeah yeah because i mean an eye poke also does look way more
24:34accidental than a knee to the head like you said it takes quite a bit of effort to throw a knee to
24:39someone you still got to accurately get it there right yeah exactly that's true that's true john
24:44jones knows something too about that um is there anything else that you want to talk about just the
24:50the logistics of eye pokes and what you would like to see changed or do you think you've gotten it
24:54all off your chest man i think i said everything except for one thing here is the fact that it is
25:00it is gross to me just how much of the blowback has gone toward tom aspinall on this and the way
25:06he reacted or maybe didn't want to fight or was looking for a way out there tj jillisaw of all
25:12people who's you know famous for as probably as famous for popping for epo as he is for a two-time
25:18bantamweight champion uh saying that he took the easier way out right like this is ridiculous i think at
25:23least again we mentioned algerene sterling i think he kind of understood okay maybe maybe i went a
25:27too far i wasn't i wasn't expressing myself in the way i wanted to or maybe i shouldn't have said what
25:32i said i don't know what it was but uh it's just it's ludicrous to me that that is the direction it
25:37goes in um whereas we have someone like again uh no not not again but specifically matt brown
25:45yossi veteran he is like always the voice of reason nowadays he came to tom aspinall's defense i mean
25:50pretty much everything matt brown says when it when it comes to the the in cage stuff it makes a
25:55lot of sense to me so hats off to the immortal one um and the other thing too i mean i don't and i
26:01don't want to demonize surreal gone right because i don't think he was trying to hurt tom aspinall in
26:07this particular way i think he wanted to jab him in the face i think he was happy to do that kick him
26:12in the legs and hey that's great but uh i don't i don't think he deserves to be demonized but frankly if
26:18there's any position uh who should be facing backlash from this it's the man in surreal gone's
26:25shoes and not the one in tom aspinall's shoes when fight when situations like this happen that's how
26:31it should be and it's backwards yeah 100 and i completely agree with you on all that in terms of
26:36the blowback it's insane how some people are like he took the easy way out and like he could have even
26:43the assessment that he could have continued fighting with people citing like you mentioned
26:48earlier like oh bisping didn't did it can you imagine what first off bisping that happened he had
26:54a lot of time and it's insane that he did it in the first place he had a lot and it wasn't an eye
26:59poke yeah it wasn't it was not an eye kick right but let's just for you know devil's advocate or what
27:05have you he had a lot of time to let that settle in that he had one eye it wasn't you have one eye
27:12in the middle of a fight go do it again tom is is a uh he's at the top of the level in the sport as an
27:20mma fighter he's pretty mentally tough he was in a state of panic as anyone would be when not only
27:27one eye but both of your eyes are completely yeah exactly both eyes some people just ludicrous yeah
27:33yeah they can't put themselves in someone else's shoes in that sort of scenario it's it's absolutely
27:38empathy's become a dirty word these days and it kind of bothers me but uh that's a whole nother
27:43conversation yeah it's it's ridiculous but i'm glad we got that off our chest talking about all this
27:49this eye poke stuff let's talk about the actual fight itself which albeit as short-lived as it was
27:55let's let's see what we could take away from it and let's let's talk about cyril gone he i feel like
28:01shut a lot of people up or at least he he did a lot better than people were expecting in that first
28:07round what did you think scott as short as it was what do we learn about him did we underestimate him
28:12we definitely underestimated him i i think as a collective you know um look he he worked his game
28:18plan to perfection i i saw a very narrow path for him to kind of win i really think he needed to do
28:23exactly what he was doing more or less and that's i mean he he had no real trouble at least in those
28:29first couple minutes executing that we don't know what the fight looks like as it goes forward but
28:33you know tom espinal as much as he was able to land he was finding finding a home for his offense
28:38here and there as well but he was not winning that fight not for the first couple minutes and i'm
28:42again we still don't know what a later round tom espinal looks like so would he have made those
28:47adjustments maybe i don't know but as far as cyril gone man he looked great i mean again the jab is a
28:53serious weapon in mma especially at heavyweight and it was working to perfection with him um keeping
28:59tom espinal at bay and you know i think we were reminded just how much of a standout gone is when
29:06the fight goes like this which it often does when he wins right um frankly i can see him having this
29:13similar success in the rematch i'm sure tom will make some adjustments and gone will have to make some
29:18adjustments as well as part of his hand was tipped right he doesn't have a result but his hand was
29:22tipped a little bit again i think we knew he fought like this and this is it just worked really
29:27well so there's a lot more questions now about tom espinal even aside of the eye injury and all of
29:34that right there are more questions about tom espinal going into the next time they these two fight which
29:39we certainly hope will happen uh then there are about gone it's changed a hundred percent and one thing
29:45that i do want to bring up though is like i was saying in in our last episode i feel like tom's
29:52clear path to victory was going to the grappling the one thing is like that's like stuck in my mind
29:58from that first round is like the takedown attempt and i'm sure you've heard people talk about this is
30:03an apparent eye poke i don't know if it actually did go into the eye because you know we didn't see
30:09much of a reaction from tom or at least it wasn't stopped in the action it wasn't obvious in the moment
30:14i don't know he's looking for a way out probably though yeah exactly come on man ridiculous some
30:19people but yeah i i'm not sure if it was an eye poke or not it it did seem like it wasn't like a
30:26fully committed one you know following through with it so i'm not terribly sure but we'll put
30:33in a little asterisk on that in terms of the striking and on the feet yeah serial gone looked
30:37fantastic and we'll like you said we don't know what a uh a later round tom espinal looks like but he's
30:43got some amazing people in his corner and he all he was has been doing for the past 15 months has been
30:50training striking so we'll see if there's things that you know he didn't expect to implement to
30:55his game plan or about cyril's uh game plan um it's very interesting and i i wholeheartedly agree
31:01there's more questions about tom than there are about cyril so very very excited uh about that one is
31:08there anything uh about tom that you think that we learned about that in this fight or mostly just
31:14uh about cyril and and you know how he kind of outperformed what people were gonna think
31:19no i'm sure we learned a little bit here you know and certainly both camps will have some data to
31:26download here i think we just didn't we i think we learned a little bit here that hey this style is a
31:32little bit of a problem for tom he's got to figure out a way to get inside you know that he's not good
31:37on the outside against this particular opponent um from what we the limited amount we saw so my
31:44thoughts would be he's got to figure out the better way to get inside because what he was doing wasn't
31:48quite working other than that i don't know i mean it's hard to take too much away as just an observer
31:53i haven't broken down film or anything yeah it is interesting though because this is something we
31:57were talking about uh last week just to round out this fight it was like there's two sides of this
32:02point of cyril gone it's like either his deficiency in in the grappling is going to be what we're seeing
32:08or it's going to be his ability to take the fight longer which is that sort of seems like the game
32:14plan that he implemented and and it was working out well and that's that's not the one that people
32:18were expecting to happen so that was very very interesting to see anything that uh you have left
32:23on uh cyril and tom but i think we gotta move on yeah let's move on all righty uh let's keep it with
32:28the heavyweights we got volkov and almeida and this one was a very interesting one for me as a uh person
32:35who's trying to get better with the judging right uh i watched this one in full disclosure i was not
32:41watching it from a judging mindset so when the judges read out that uh volkov had won this fight i was
32:48like wait what sorry i that didn't seem like got that from the text you sent me yeah yes yeah i was
32:54like scott did you help me understand help what happened here and you're like well tell me what
33:01you said i i don't remember exactly what i said to you but let me tell you this i'll tell you why
33:07this was the right call why alexander volkov won this fight effective striking and grappling
33:11are they're always what have won when i say always i guess i mean in the last eight nine years or so
33:17ever since they did reconfiguration of the scoring wording criteria nine years ago right in that
33:23time this has been the thing effective striking and grappling it's very rare that we get a fight
33:28like this that comes along where you get this fighter who gets on top and they do so little
33:33effectively with that top position that they still could not earn two judges for that round right
33:41it the only fight that i can think of that comes to mind in that time there's probably a more
33:46this is the main one that i think of is uh yana santos uh it beat ketlin viera it was about five
33:53years ago and there was kind of similar circumstances it was round three just like volkov and uh and
33:58almeida here and viera did so little with her top position whereas in the last 30 seconds santos was
34:06able to land some pretty good offense and that was how she got the job done she was able to get two
34:11out of the three scores on that one at the end of the day though almeida just can't be an anti-fighter
34:18which is what he was doing in this fight there were so many times he's just hanging on or he's just
34:22sitting on top and he's not throwing things if you just land two or three bombs from the top he might
34:28win that fight that's it that's probably all he needed to do and he still didn't do it he just
34:31didn't try uh we need to be thankful by the way that he didn't win this fight because can you just
34:38imagine he gets a title shut off in this fight and it's just there's there's no fighting going on he
34:43goes his style needs to include more violence from aesthetics and frankly from a competitive standpoint
34:49he can't win a fight like this we now saw it yeah damage keyword in the judging criteria and it
34:56doesn't seem like there was a whole lot of that coming from jelton almeida so like you said they got
35:01it right and we should be very thankful that the judges did get it right because there's a lot of
35:06kerfuffle with judges and scoring in mma and it's nice to see that even with a one that would be
35:11judges know this though this there are there's judges input in making the scoring like the wording
35:17as it is and and they're trained to know that yes we still need to be landing effectively or
35:21completing effective grappling you know uh attacks and that kind of thing and that just isn't what
35:27was happening and i think we have enough judges who've been around the sport for a very long time
35:31and have been working very hard over the last bunch of years to get on the same page that they
35:34understand that obviously it was a split decision still so i want judge going the other way but uh
35:39yeah yeah it generally speaking i think we're seeing more of that right right all righty so i
35:45think that covers the heavyweights also by the way i believe that uh you had a stat about how many
35:50heavyweight heavyweight fights were on this card and how much uh impact it had on the heavyweight
35:55division what's what's the deal with so i don't know if you guys are aware of this but
35:58one quarter of the ufc heavyweight roster was in action in abu dhabi the other day they don't
36:07have a giant heavyweight roster we have four heavyweight fights going on you do the math
36:11that's eight out of 32 that's a quarter uh obviously we're not counting alex pareda because
36:17he's at 205 we're not counting john jones he is retired um but yeah we we we had quite a few in
36:24action this time this is what our heavyweight division looks like guys that's what we need
36:30to save unfortunately and then this main event as much as we hoped it would and eric seemed to
36:35believe that we were going to get not a good fight here and he knew he was the one who knew
36:39but let's move on to uh the strawweight title which we did get some closure on and we did get a final
36:48result mckenzie durn winning the strawweight title over however many ufc fights that she's had over
36:55an illustrious career veteran of the sport at this point she finally gets to that gold what do you and
37:00by the way probably who the ufc wanted to to get that by you know over virna janja doba uh what do
37:09you think that mckenzie durn's era at strawweight looks like i think it looks wide open i i think
37:16competitively speaking we're looking at an era where now there's quite a few names we could see
37:21kind of rising to the top and that's not because mckenzie durn isn't a fantastic fighter she is a
37:25champion for a reason she was there at the body who beat the number one probably the number one
37:30contender realistically was virna janja doba so getting the winner for her you know you beat the
37:34woman you become the woman right um but i said that i i still stand by what i said last week i think
37:40she is going to need to beat tatiana suarez to put a real stamp and be that true number one
37:45now that jung weili is heading up in weight but otherwise i mean there's a few women i could see
37:50kind of getting to the top and maybe winning that title i mean there's there's yan shaonan
37:54there's amanda lamosh um even further down i could see somebody like uh tabitha ricci going on a run
38:00and that kind of thing and honestly the the division there's no way to go in confidently
38:05to the next year and say yes mckenzie durn is going to have this belt for 12 months from now i just i
38:10don't think we can say that with confidence it can happen absolutely but i also think too let's
38:15another underestimated part of this is mckenzie durn is a fun fighter to watch this was a pretty
38:21solid scrap i think we had a good time watching it it wasn't like fight of the night where we're
38:25like man that was wild but it was fun we were engaged i think the whole time um she throws with
38:31intention she takes damage and keeps going she doesn't fade she's obviously an incredible grappler
38:37who has the chance to put anybody in danger and you know even rena genja dobo she she took it down
38:42a bunch of times but it's not like she really engaged with her very much down there she was not
38:47in control of those grappling scenarios down there by a whole lot so and that's probably one of the
38:54best people down there maybe um tatiana suarez as well being a strong wrestler with a good base up top
39:00you never know but other than that yeah i think she's the type of violence fighter that this division
39:05actually needs to make it interesting so if she goes on a good run maybe maybe maybe we're talking
39:11about a reinvigorated 115 yeah i i love it i think that we we i was impressed i was impressed by mckenzie
39:17durn uh in this fight i mean i think that i would have said beforehand that i favored her but um i feel
39:25i just feel like she had a really good performance over a contender like virna and i definitely like
39:30those shouts about those other contenders i would say impressed but not surprised for mckenzie durn yes
39:35i think i i totally saw a path for this to be a solid fight that's why i gave it a three on the
39:40entertainment rating i think i did right or is it two maybe i gave it a two i don't know i i didn't
39:44see it as doom and gloom i i thought we had something yes yeah i think that's a good way of
39:49putting it um let's talk about the bantam weights uh on that main card umar nirmaga made off and
39:55mario bautista umar coming away with the win not just a win though 30 27 sweep on the scorecards that was
40:02another pretty fun fight in my opinion but what do you think he gained from that fight uh going to
40:08a decision with uh mario albeit a dominant one on the scorecards you could say on the scorecards is
40:13the key here because you watched that fight yeah so did i and so did most of these people listening
40:17and frankly the 30 27 was the right score but it also isn't quite representative if you just say oh he
40:2430 27 with all three judges it doesn't say oh he dominated him every round he had to fight for yes
40:31and frankly the best shot of the round of the excuse me of the entire fight was when mario
40:36bautista dropped him very briefly but umar immediately was back at it so how badly was
40:42here i don't know but he got caught a bit was it twice i mean there was definitely that one
40:46i could be wrong that one at least so he dropped him and immediately goes after him right he just
40:51keeps going because then he he is a fighter through and through he just knew how to fight through it he
40:55did a really great job there um and recovered very well but yeah so he had to earn it so frankly
41:00as far as what umar gets out of this i think it keeps him fresh in that contender mix for for
41:06certain gets him potentially on track for another crack at a champion in uh marabu alishwili who is
41:12already in that rerun phase right he's got a rematch against yeah ryan in december after dominating
41:18him the first time they fought a couple years back um umar is certainly back in that mix i think we did
41:24get reminded of how vulnerable he can be you know if he gets caught with the right shots there this
41:30is not like he is not khabib and khabib even took some punishment at times but he he knew how to
41:36fight through it as well similarly but i think it all it does is keeps him fresh i hope that they get
41:42him one more fight between them though i don't want this to be the one that gets him a title shot i would
41:46love to see i think you'll like this umar normaga manov against sonya dong the winner of that one
41:52no brainer to fight marab for the title if he still has it i i like it i don't think that you
41:59could do anything else if uh if you did want to give marab one more fight so that's why i like it
42:04i just feel like i mean no you can do something else with marab because you can have your flyweight
42:10champion alishandre pantoja should he emerge unscathed against joshua van you've got a super
42:16fight that frankly marab is interested in i think you can make alishandre pantoja interested enough
42:23in it he's he's sort of not interested he kind of wants to do the same thing marab does he wants to
42:27dominate his own weight class and i respect that but i think at a certain point he might start saying
42:32to himself too it's like you know what this is a good fight maybe we should just do this let's just
42:35see how we do i like so i think you can do it i think you can do it i like it i would say if no
42:40pantoja then i would i would argue put umar in but if pantoja's down for it make the song fight i
42:46like that a lot i just i don't want sonya don to get skipped over too much i think he's got some good
42:51momentum and i think we don't need to keep rerunning and i want to see how he does against
42:55someone like umar i think that's a really intriguing matchup it is it definitely is uh but let's get to
43:01this weekend's card ufc fight night uh taking place in the warehouse the apex we got steve garcia
43:08taking on david onama um we'll get to the event rating in a little bit but as far as it just
43:15looking at the card who do you think this one is for we don't have like big headline names in uh
43:21in the headliner right so who's this card for scott this is for the diehards who just do not care what
43:28name is on top of the is on the poster next to those three capital letters right we're just if you
43:33just want to watch people fight and you're a ufc bro or a ufc fan or whatever and you're just you're
43:40in for a penny in for a pound every time the ufc puts on programming this is for you and it may sound
43:46like an insult but frankly i just don't see how there's a lot of people who are going to take time
43:51out of their saturday other than that particular group to watch this card because there is zero q score
43:58for steve garcia and david onama i'm not saying they're not fun this will be a fun fight i think
44:04it's extremely fun fight they're going to be rewarded if they tune in but who's this for it is
44:09for you who cannot do anything but watch ufc every saturday and if you are one of those people the
44:15prelims start at 4 p.m eastern time the main card starts at 7 p.m and all those fights are on espn
44:22plus and scott i 100 agree how much longer we're getting near the end of that i'm counting down the
44:28days um wallet is going to it's going to put a little less pressure on the wallet which is nice
44:33um but let's talk about some of these other fights to watch and like i said we'll get to the event
44:38rating in a second we could just we could see how how much that holds up uh in terms of the diehards
44:43uh scott what do you got for your fight to watch i'm gonna go with the co-main here waldo cortez
44:48acosta against ante delia uh delia is obviously a very intriguing figure because of his involvement and
44:55and friendship with um when i say involvement he trains with yes and he is friends with
45:00tom aspinall let's get that very clear um i think it's really intriguing here because if delia wins
45:06this that he really starts to look like he's potentially a next man up or close to it um and
45:14that's just a whole nother wrinkle on this whole tom aspinall unfortunate situation here because tom as
45:19we as we now has said if it looked like he would be standing in the way of ante delia potentially
45:24winning the championship he would abdicate he would move away he would give up the belt god i don't
45:29know what a mess but it's interesting i i i'm intrigued to see how he does against cortez acosta
45:34who has you know he's performed pretty well in the cage you know he's he's got some good results he's
45:39in that top six or seven uh range for a reason but also i i've not looked at him yet as a true title
45:47threat maybe i start needing to after this fight we'll see so there's there's some intrigue here on both
45:51sides i think absolutely i i couldn't have said it better myself and uh for eric uh in his absence
45:56i will give you his fight fembo garimbo versus jeremiah wells um fembo garimbo uh from zimbabwe
46:03like my mom so i i always like to see him fight got some uh national pride there but for my fight we
46:11got alan nasmiento and cody durden and this one's a flyweight fight so i feel like i don't need to sell
46:17it too much because like we look at heavyweight fights maybe in a certain aspect i feel like fly
46:22weights are the polar opposite um nasmiento technique man they got the best technique down
46:28they got the cardio they have the pace um cody durden on a little bit of a skid he's uh
46:35one for five in his last five uh one win four losses but four out of those have been by finish so
46:43for flyweights you don't see it you know decisions may be a little bit more likely because they don't
46:48have so much of the power but if this one's by finish could be fun i feel like this is a this is
46:53uh this could be a fun one so that's my fight to watch scott what do you got for the event rating
46:57this i don't know this is going to surprise people or not because again it's not it's not the sexiest
47:03names up at the top but we've got a 38 this is a really strong this might actually be if i'm not
47:08mistaken it might be the strongest event rating for an apex card this year and potentially even
47:13for the last couple years i'd have to double check uh it's look not the snazziest main event
47:18in terms of ranking right i think there's a lot of reasons why we would enjoy watching it but
47:22ranking wise they're both outside the top 10 um we're not really looking at something that's
47:27distinct in when i'm referring to rankings i'm talking about fight matrix here i don't care what
47:31the ufc's rankings are um in this particular aspect but you know solid co-main like i said um down
47:37way down card we have a very impactful uh women's bantamweight fight katelyn viera mentioned her
47:43earlier she's fighting norma dumont and the winner of that one realistically looks like they're on deck
47:47for whoever comes out of kayla harrison and amanda nunez whenever that happens white house card i would
47:53guess 18 out of 26 fighters on this card this weekend jake they're in the top 100 so most of these
48:01fights feel like they're what we ought to think of as ufc caliber uh even if there's not a whole
48:06there's no star power it's not even there's a whole lot there is an absence of star power
48:10but it's still a cool card and i i think it those diehards they're gonna have fun i think it's worth
48:15it all right all right all right i love it i i will be watching as a diehard um there you go yes sir
48:22yes sir uh casuals no casuals here um eric is not with us so we will not be having any free bets in
48:30three minutes call it a cleanse if you will you know he'll be back next week and uh he'll he'll
48:35have some bets for you guys who if that's your thing but put your money in your mattress yeah there
48:40you go um scott it is uh almost coming up for ufc 322 uh right in our neck of the woods and the main
48:48card has been revealed over the weekend uh i believe you have those fights in front of us could you uh let
48:54us know what those are yeah so obviously the two title fights welterweight with jack de la madalena
48:59against this i'm a hot chef and that uh women's flyweight dalzia shevchenko in that super fight
49:05against shangwei lee who we said was coming up there's also under that we've got sean brady
49:09versus michael morales at welterweight bow nickels on this one against adolfo viera
49:14at middleweight and then opening the card as it stands is uh leon edwards against carlos
49:21process that is also a welterweight fight that's your five and honestly i think they nailed it from
49:26a from about order perspective in terms of the banter um in terms of the main card thing here you
49:31know four four biggest fights are on this portion of the card which is what you really ought to see
49:36in my mind in my mind a lot of time and then bow nickel he's got too much star power i think for
49:41him to be on this card to be down on the prelims there's not a fight where i would say he has to go
49:47above it star power wise he's still very intriguing to people so he earned a place on this pay-per-view
49:54portion as well i love that they have as the curtain or not the curtain jerker but the um the
50:00feature prelim yes the nil dariush virtue versus bimo sandini this is a more important fight a hundred
50:06percent than bow nickel and and hudolfo viera but this is the type of fight that the ufc used to
50:13really think of as like maybe it'll ignite some pay-per-view buys last minute people are gonna get
50:17so excited watching it on free tv or on whatever it is is espn plus i don't know um maybe it's on
50:25espn proper i don't remember but or fx it's been on fx lately right um if they can you know if they
50:30can squeeze a couple more buys out of it because people are excited off of this fight that's what i
50:34could see happening here in this one of these last pay-per-views before the uh new world order
50:39on paramount press i think it's a good order what do you think yeah i would agree with you i think uh
50:44i was a little conflicted on whether or not benoit and banil is like such a good fight i was like oh
50:49god like how could that not be on the main card you know but like because it's still serving a
50:55purpose it is serving a purpose and i think that your explanation that that makes a lot of sense but
51:00really really excited for ufc 322 and we'll have some good content for you guys no doubt and i really
51:07hope you guys checked out the uh interview that scott did with aaron blanchfield and fatima klein
51:11um i thought it was really interesting having two of them uh at the same time so we had a good sit
51:17down if you haven't watched it we spoke for about 25 30 minutes and and you know hopefully you learned
51:23something about these fighters and and these individuals their friendship um the fact that
51:28they're fighting on the same card that they're locals that they're coming into very interesting
51:31circumstances in and of themselves in their careers their young careers that are really starting to
51:36take off so yeah i hope you check it out absolutely and uh scott with that why don't
51:41you take it away for quick hits yeah so i'm gonna try and limit this a little bit here we got larisa
51:46pacheco she is now a free agent after parting ways with the pfl she has made it clear she wants to
51:53return to the ufc where she fought very early in her career despite mainly fighting above 135 pounds
51:58over these last bunch of years they don't do that anymore in the ufc so i'm curious to see how that
52:04plays out i've got one more ufc 322 bout that we learned about in the last week or so pat sabatini
52:11versus chepe mariscal that's a featherweight matchup that's being reported by multiple outlets
52:16unfortunate news for jake matthews in his appeal after there was that unfortunate stoppage non-stoppage
52:23circumstances against uh neil magni in perth australia back in september his appeal was denied
52:30so no uh no retribution for jake matthews here and the lastly unfortunate news for someone who
52:37otherwise has a lot to celebrate walter walker who just won his fourth consecutive heel hook
52:42in the ufc which is amazing but true i don't know how this is this is actually a thing he's every every
52:48ufc win that he has he's four and one is a heel hook all in a row wild um but he broke his figula in
52:56that fight at ufc 321 of course the victory over uh louis sutherland so very ironic that he
53:03fractured a leg in uh in doing a move that uh affects someone else's every action has an equal
53:09and uh opposite reaction i'm not sure isaac newton was a big fight fan though no i don't think he was
53:16who knows i mean i'll do some research and get back to you on that one but yeah we'll read some we'll
53:21read some history books exactly all right with that let's get into the final round scott uh i did
53:27my homework this week oh we got miguel torres versus takeya mizugaki and this was for the wec
53:35bantamweight title um great which at the time was pretty much the most prestigious bantamweight title
53:42that we have this was before it was bought by the ufc or maybe it was no the ufc owned wec at this
53:47point but they the long the long story short they purchased wec in about 2006 2007 and that was so
53:54that they could have a tv foothold on what was then known as the versus network and that prevented
53:59other i believe it was ifl from getting over to there and having a tv deal so they had two operations
54:05that they were running separately so they could kind of just keep the tv market set that was that
54:09was at least all the talk and everything like that i you know oh you don't put me on trial for that
54:13kind of thing but and look and they ended up buying for themselves an incredible uh host of
54:19lighter weight classes which you now come to uh love but anyway so that's your setup so this fight
54:24though i want to know what you thought it was fantastic there was there was something happening
54:28literally all the time like they were just always going after one another torres i i've really liked
54:35what the commentator said um i can't remember who was uh sitting uh at the booth was it frank
54:40mir was he saying um it was about him having his mouth closed he was like he's not even mouth
54:45breathing like and we're at the end of the first round i can't remember that particular line
54:50i watched my homework two weeks ago okay fair enough fair enough it was it was a great observation
54:57because i didn't notice it he was like miguel torres is mouth breathing at the end of this round
55:01which is like a crazy round there's a lot of output and he was or not not mouth breathing rather
55:06he was just like nose breathing the entire time which you would know if you're doing any sort of
55:11physical activity you know he's in like zone two the whole time it's ridiculous um meanwhile
55:16takaya he was you know i think he put up a good fight but my gosh it was it was just a good five round
55:24fight in terms of fights this is a really good representation of miguel torres so if you liked what
55:29you had of miguel torres you should go find more miguel torres yeah absolutely and so with that what do
55:34we have for our next homework assignment your next homework is possibly the i believe at the time it
55:40was the biggest fight in ufc history and and i mean that in terms of quantifiable and qualifiable ways
55:46chuck liddell against tito ortiz the second time they fought that was uh a pay-per-view at the close
55:52out 2006 it was so big that my college professor in my mass comm class was talking about it in class
55:58like i can't wait for this fight and so this was even before i was really watching fights this is
56:03it was starting to get on my radar at this point this was a fight that i was kind of like oh
56:06interesting i guess it's a big deal oh wow and it was i love it i mean yeah these guys are two of the
56:12like ogs at light heavyweight like if i think of og light heavyweight i think chuck is probably the
56:18first person that comes to mind this is chuck at the height of his powers too like this was him as
56:23the box office draw of the ufc at a time where the box office was starting to take off through the roof
56:30before brock lesnar took it to a no level with his own box office draw that he brought in with him
56:36a hundred percent and then tito i i don't know if i've actually watched a full tito ortiz fight so
56:41this is gonna be this is gonna be a fun one i i appreciate this one all righty and what happened
56:47this week in mma and we'll get to our one more fight 50 years ago tomorrow on halloween
56:53keith jardine was born happy almost 50th birthday to keith uh the dean of mean jardine who was another
57:00og who has a victory over chuck liddell uh i should remind you that was a surprising when nobody really
57:05saw that coming that that that caught a lot of people by surprise um so happy birthday to him he's
57:10doing very well as i understand it in hollywood he's an actor he's i think he was doing the the stuntman
57:15route and then he actually moved into acting and he's doing very well so again happy 50th to uh
57:21one of the most fun fighters that i enjoyed watching at the time when i was getting into
57:25the sport keith jardine i have to do some more homework on on keith jardine but happy birthday
57:31he's fun yeah all righty and then what is our one more fight if people have one more fight that
57:37they're able to catch this weekend what do you got i'll give you one more fight and that is at
57:42ryzen landmark 12 which uh according to their website ryzen.tv begins uh sunday eastern time 11 p.m this
57:50is in japan uh and the fight in particular this is not the main event i they don't really have it
57:56structured as the main event but this is the number one atom weight fighter in the world seka izawa
58:02is defending her atom weight title against saori oshima that is a fight to watch if you care about
58:09the world structure of women's mma in particular this is a literal number one fighter in the world
58:14in her weight class all right all right there we go scott i might have to watch that one now although
58:20sunday sunday at 11 p.m eastern it's a little late but you know what you're you're selling it for me
58:26are you a casual no are you a diehard i'm not i watch all the rise and fights no um thank you so much
58:34scott for joining me i feel like we got a lot of off of our chest this was a therapeutic session for us
58:39which is nice so well we should be certainly hopeful positive vibes to tom aspin i'll hope he
58:44can get back uh get back his vision as as best as normal as possible have that normal life with his
58:50family and everything like that and then resume uh fighting for us too and for our entertainment and
58:54for his uh his his love of the game enriching his family yes no enriching his family he needs to make
58:59money for the family that is true he does need to do that all righty scott it's been a pleasure i will
59:04see you next week when eric rejoins us and uh yeah have a great one yes maybe we'll see all right
59:11take care everybody adios
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