Fight Study 164 – UFC 317 (Uncut + Transcript) (Patreon)

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Jason and Sam analyze some notable fights from UFC 317. Fight Study is essential listening for thoughtful martial arts fans.

Transcript

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Coach Jason and I are back with Fight Study to discuss UFC 317. We don't do as many Fight Studies because the UFC puts together so many cards and Most of them aren't good or interesting, but we decided to come back for this one because it has some seasoned vets we've

talked a lot about and enjoy watching and kind of have seen evolve over the years, like Charles Oliveira, Alexandre Pantoja, along with a newer main carter in Joshua Vann and a new star in Ilia Toporia. Now with Oliveira, you have a vet who surprised us all by making a late career title run and doing his

best work late. The question is, how long will that last? He already lost two of his last four, and his most recent win was against Michael Chandler, someone he's beaten before and whose most recent win was against Tony Ferguson. In Toporia, you have an undefeated champion who KO'd two all-time featherweight greats in Max Holloway and Alexander Volkanovsky,

who's now moving up in weight to be a two-division champion. Jason, Taporia is someone who's impressed you as soon as he got to the UFC. You saw something. So what were your thoughts going into this fight? And how did that play out in the actual fight?

Well, to be 100% honest, this fight made me a little bit nervous, even though I was sure that Ilya Tapiria is pound for pound the best fighter in the world. And anyone who doesn't believe that is either a Max Holloway fan, a Volkanovski fan, and now, unfortunately, would have been a Charles Oliveira fan.

But the kids got the goods. And my biggest concern was fighting... someone as big in season as Charles Oliveira and the pressure that he likes to bring. But that pressure turned out to be a bit of an Achilles heel as he kept walking into stuff. And it showed that the size didn't matter in this one.

It really didn't. So I saw a fighter who had the makings of a superstar really proved that he's worth every bit of that label.

And what were some of the things or the thing that you saw when he first came in where you thought this kid has the goods?

Well, the first thing I saw was where other fighters look confident, He demonstrated confidence when he walked into the cage as a 20-something. Was he 21 years old, 22 years old? He comported himself so well and had a sense of composure that there was this quiet confidence that when other fighters are trying to look confident,

he just exuded confidence. and so you sort of wondered what this guy knew then whenever you heard that he was a jujitsu black belt and you saw how well he punched and you heard that he was also a very very strong wrestler you saw how well he moved and kicked in his vision and

in timing in the striking disciplines just what he brought to the table if the kid could take a punch and had some cardio the sky would be the limit, but he can really take a punch. He has seemingly outstanding cardio and the ability to find shots in the muddy waters where other fighters tend to flail.

He stays really tight. And you give the commentators, which I fucking find so disappointing most of the time, they did a pretty good job in this one because while they were working with some really, really, really, really good source material. So these fights were outstanding, especially these last three.

And what Topuriya does better than anybody is stays disciplined when that fight gets wild. And it doesn't mean he lacks aggression. It means he just keeps his technique and wits about him when shit's getting wild. When he hits someone so hard that they're all asses and elbows and they're all over the place.

And these guys are world championship caliber because that's who he's fighting now. And they're coming back with some heat, though they're clipped a little bit. And some of their stuff gets a little wild and he still got that vision. He still dialed in and he's throwing long jab, short jab, throwaway jab in that two, three.

And even if we, that two and three seems to put you into the, the nether region, he just sends that extra punch with, which everyone are praying to the, you pray to whichever God you choose that it misses. Cause you know, something fucking bad is coming if it lands.

And then he follows up with two very, very, um, Two very, very accurate hammer fists. And he just seems to find big shots when other fighters seem to fall in to big shots or the laws of big numbers or the laws of averages show themselves.

If you're wild and aggressive with small gloves and the other guys punching back, that some shit tends to stick no matter how bad the spaghetti or how slippery the wall, some of that shit lands every once in a while. And that's been the majority of the UFC's long term business development plan.

you're starting to see skilled fighters really really show themselves in an entertaining way especially when you put other skilled fighters in front of them it's truly an example of the cream does rise to the top and you get an outstanding product and it even elevates what is the most hackneyed and undisciplined

commentary team of all fucking time and i apologize to john annick who's very good but Joe Hogan, for a very seasoned podcaster, is a mess behind the mic. And DC is so unprepared and unstudied that he's lucky. He's a very, very affable and ingenious personality type that a lot of people like.

But they're just all over the place. But they were really dialed in because they were seeing some great shit unfold. And I wish that they were able to discuss it a little bit better. And they stole my word of the day. I was going to say discipline. Discipline ruled the day in these three fights.

And when we go into greater detail, I'll explain to you the nuances of discipline, even when it looks a little bit sloppy or a little bit labored.

Something I wondered about was how Oliveira's clinch would play out against a smaller fighter. But something Toporia said before the fight, which was a great read, was that Oliveira's willingness to get close to grab you is what will bring him within Toporia's punching range. He said he doesn't have to try to close the distance.

He said he doesn't have to try to find Oliveira like he does against other taller fighters. Oliveira will do that for him. And that's when he'll find his shots. So long as he doesn't get excited, he doesn't lose his cool. He remains composed. He sees the shots. He takes the shots. And it seemed like that worked.

Well, he's 100% correct, right? In that the taller, longer fighter was the one continuously crashing distance. And, uh, the shorter fighter was the one establishing a jab and fighting a little bit long. And then whenever the addition distance was crashed, he was able to really turn on some short punches and only just bash Olivera's fucking head in.

And every time Olivera would reach for him, when he would crash that distance, uh, to period, didn't want to be there. And he would, he would push or exit. Or when he wasn't able to, he was strong enough to counter the wrestling. I always talk about Olivera's body lock,

which I said I feel like he's probably very strong, though I have nothing to base on because I've never wrestled him. But his body lock is so effective, but it's a little bit sloppy. And I'd like to get Gold Rosen or other wrestling types on the show to discuss it. And when he got a little sloppy,

someone who I think is a better technical wrestler in Diperia was able to to sort of counter and then beat him to like, to position and land on top. And then you just saw how good, um, you know, everyone knows how good Charles is off his back. We got to see really, um, how, how impressive, uh,

Elliot Tapiria is at passing one of the best guards in all of MMA. Yeah.

So you already brought this up, but I was curious about the clinch early on in the fight. Olivera got the clinch and then he tried to throw and he ended up on bottom. So what was he trying there? What was the throw he would have liked to have completed? And you said sloppy.

So what happened there and why couldn't he complete that throw?

So there's body locks you can hit from an over-under position or a true pummel position, which is more 50-50, one overhook, one underhook. You can hit it from double unders. You can even hit versions of it from double over, but that tends to be more of like a soup where you fall back and throw.

But I learned a little Polish hop step where you did this little slide step and you would jump around and you'd get your hip perpendicular your two hips perpendicular to your opponent's one hip and i always hit mine to the overhook side and i don't remember exactly how charles tried to

jump it but he was really really high up on the body against a much shorter opponent and that's too high So he needed to not rush it. He needed to be a little more patient, get a little lower. And also, you can get him stepping one way, and when he steps one way,

you can jump it to the other side, or you can show it and then jump it. You don't have to force it. And I think Oliveira, because he is so goddamn physical, has gotten used to forcing some things. And even against guys who are supposedly better wrestlers, at least by pedigree, collegiately, he's been able to out-wrestle.

So something I noticed was like, okay, you got the double unders. You got the position you wanted. But then in his first attempt to pick up and throw, Toporia got one of his arms in. So he ideally would have liked to have done it with double unders, and he lost the double unders.

But he went for it anyway. So is that what you mean by he just tried to force it? He didn't have the ideal position he wanted, but he was like, you know what? I get away with this anyway. I'm just going to go for it.

That's exactly what happened. The question is, if you do that and you still get it 80% of the time against the top 10 in the world, who's Jason Sargas to sit here and armchair quarterback? I've wrestled enough. I've wrestled collegiately. I'm very good at the body lock.

I've thrown out Jermaine Sterling with it a couple times in practice. I'm a 200-pounder and he's not, but still. He even talked about it. He said it was a pretty good body lock. I can speak on this a little bit and everyone can hate me for it, but I'm going to say when you get in those positions,

the more disciplined you are with them, even if you have a 70 or 80 percent takedown completion rate with that position, it doesn't mean you're going to get it against world class competition. And when you miss it, those 20 or 25 percent of the time, small margin of error.

is what separates good, good fighters or even great fighters from elite fighters. So taking your time in those positions Because you know you're in there with an elite fighter and finding those knees to the body that Dobronks is so good at landing. Being just a little more meticulous and a little bit less of a bully, I think,

would have been necessary against someone like Iliad DiPuria. But I think the thought process was, this is a little guy. Little guys are going to do little guys. I'm a big guy. I'm going to come in here and I'm going to bully him. And I got news for everybody.

El Matador stayed true, his name, and he managed to mitigate that threat and then land on top. And then everyone talked about how good, including me, how good Olivera's ground game is. And you could put him on the ground all day with Iliad DiPirio, and Iliad DiPirio will come out no worse for the wearer.

He's that good at jiu-jitsu.

And something you've already mentioned is how Taporia used his jabs, especially towards the end. So were they unrelated or did those jabs lead to that finish?

They 100% led to the finish. And you'll also see in one of the first exchanges, in the first 10 seconds, he throws like a little, Ilya throws a little throwaway hook. to just sort of get that close guard, that tight binocular style guard down, or at least to able to punch around it.

And so that when you start punching around it, even with throwaway shots or decoy shots, those hands tend to move and create openings. So you're going to punch to where the hands aren't. And when he throws that throwaway hook, he puts that two right down the middle.

And when he started landing that jab down the middle and those hands started to creep closer, he would start to punch around and you would find those shots. And you see him throw a couple of jabs, a couple of straight shots.

He threw one to the body too, right?

Yeah. So he went body, head, and then he went jab, throw away. What looked like a jab, but his elbow was a little bit flared out. And then he threw his right hand, which wasn't a true straight right. It wasn't an overhand, right?

It was just like a nice short, choppy right hand and put that left hook immediately behind it. And almost at the mechanics of the left hook were already started because of how correctly he throws that right hand and his shoulder rotates through and his hips are underneath his knees and his knees are underneath his feet.

He's in good position and he's able to just turn and whip that left hook. And he's able to hit those two shots. And even when that left hook lands, he's still in position just by correcting his stance to throw half of that right hand again. And he's continuing to put himself in proper punching position.

proper power punching position without punching himself out of position with the appropriate setups and what i'm seeing from him is a fighter who's able to see things in real time while putting just just incredible power behind those shots with that disciplined hand position foot position and proper punching mechanics

which i haven't seen at this level in multiple mma fights on a ufc card back to back to back i don't fucking think ever There's just been so much slop in just lead that I was really, really impressed at one, how, and I'll say it again, how the commentary actually improved when you didn't just hear,

oh my God, these guys are crazy. Oh my God, these stats are crazy. You're hearing, they were actually crazy. Their lexicon and vernacular for describing fight sport is very, very elementary, very, very rudimentary for people who have been doing it as long as they have. But the word of the day was discipline.

And you're seeing someone as physically skilled athletically with a technical acumen of just a superior, superior boxer, puncher. who also has a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt and is really fucking good at wrestling. That's a problem. That is a significant problem,

the tune of which no one has been able to solve or dance to for more than a round or two.

So if I'm following you correctly, he set up some responses. He was drawing stuff out with the jabs. He's even showing variety with that singular punch. He already threw a hook before just to get a response. He saw that, hey, I could get a response with this hook.

So he throws a non-committed left hook to draw out an attack from Dobronks, which he was already then planning to counter. And then he creates such good rotation, it lows up also the left hook because none of that energy bled away. And that's why he was in sync with Dobronks falling and was still able to crack him

before he fell down.

Yeah, and then land two perfectly placed hammer fists because he's maintaining proper position. That is balance, vision, mechanics, and proper drilling.

So he drew out the attack to counter it.

Oh, that's exactly what he did. Because that's one thing that Oliveira does is when he gets hit, he hits back. But the ability to punch between punches while being a very, very strong offensive lead puncher and an excellent counter puncher, That's Ilya Tapiria, and he has no equal in this martial arts. He really doesn't.

So if you take too much time, he's going to start piecing you up. If you want to crash distance and try to overly engage with too much aggression, he's going to fucking destroy you. And he's done that time and time again. And I love Max Holloway.

I think Max Holloway is probably like the fourth or fifth best flight fighter on the planet. I love Wokanowski. He's always in my top two or three. And you're just seeing what Ilya Tapiria brings to the table. And he doesn't use nouveau footwork or neo footwork or whatever the fuck people are calling it these days.

He's bringing tried and true striking fundamentals.

Accuracy and timing.

Accuracy, timing, strong footwork. He's showing feints while not over committing to feints. He's able to dip down low. Risk eating a knee. He ate a knee against Herbert that one time. And then he just course corrected in mid-fight. And he does that as well as anybody. Most fighters, good fighters are able to adapt in between fights.

This motherfucker can adapt in between rounds or during rounds. And that is very rare. And that's something world championship fighters have. And I just haven't seen that much of it in the UFC because everyone is fighting. It's keeping poor and hungry. If you're fighting for a $50,000 paycheck, like, hey,

you'll risk getting knocked out for an extra 50 G's because that probably doubles what you're fucking making anyway. If you're making 25 grand, hell yeah, getting knocked out for a 50 grand show bonus is just going out on your fucking shield. Or you can get really, really, really good at fighting if you have the goods.

If you don't, good for you, man. Be that paycheck, baby, and keep fighting for it. But if you really have the skill and you learn how to punch, punch with some stink on it, learn how to create some torque and some rotational force, learn that power is generated from the feet up, understand some of those principles,

drill them, own them, and try being a great fighter first. And when that doesn't work out or you understand where your ceiling is, then really fight for that paycheck and keep kowtowing to your corporate fucking overlords. Because if I ever hear a fucking Expedian or Credit Karma commercial or any of

these predatory fucking credit assholes in the middle of the fucking round, that's terrible. Did I hear Experian? I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

They said Experian is your new BFF. Yeah.

And if my shoulders weren't so bad, I would have thrown my computer.

Sticking with that, sticking to Oliveira, some of his habits, Oliveira loves to get to clinch, right? That's why I brought it up. But I also feel like it's double-edged because he does good work there. But I also feel like his attempts to get to clinch are why he gets hurt so often.

So what's your read of his clinch attempts? Does he expose himself or is getting hit just a baked in risk to clinching? Or should he come in lower like a shot and move up to a higher clinch, an upper body clinch?

I mean, you've thrown a multiple choice question where I think like four out of the five are correct. So he does expose himself and he does take that risk. And when he does, when you clinch just in general, there is a tendency to fight more square. Right.

I mean, it's hard to reach with both arms if you're not reaching with both arms. Right. Sometimes he'll throw a hook. and he'll turn on it and he'll turn it in that little collar tie. But a lot of times he's reaching more Muay Thai style. And with that, he's squaring up a little bit.

And I think, I think he's just as strong as he's ever been. He may be not, he may not be quite as fast as he's always been. And against a smaller fighter that's coming up in weight, that is just sort of built on speed and explosiveness. I, I worried that, um,

Hyperion's ability to find shots within the dirty fighting, the dirty boxing, would be too much, and his ability to fight uphill would be problematic for Oliveira. As much as I like being correct on Ilya Tipuria, Charles Oliveira is still one of my favorite fighters, so I never want to see him lose.

If Ilya was going to be humbled in a test at 155, I would have liked to see it, though I didn't want to see it. I think it would have been acceptable for me, or more palatable, to see him fall to Dobrox. If I was putting money down,

I can't call a guy the best in the world and expect not to back my play with a little bit of cash on the money line. And he really put up in, what was it, two and a half minutes, maybe a little bit less, maybe three. And he showed the world just how good he is.

Now let's talk about Alexandre Pantoja versus Kaikar France. Pantoja is my favorite fighter to watch right now because in a sport full of Rockies, he's the Rockiest of them all.

He really is.

He really is. But Kaikar France came into this fight with a plan to out Rocky Rocky. And that didn't really pan out. So Jason, what happened in this fight?

I mean, I started to see Pantoja sort of make up a fighting style where he threw a running calf kick into a lunging trip with the same leg and just out-wrestle a very game opponent, out-stripe a very game opponent. And When we talk about one thing Rocky did well, like real Rocky in all the movies,

when he was exhausted and he was really beat, he would just slow down his punches, but he would still find the big shot and it was accurate. He wasn't throwing wild or spammy shots. And you started to see sort of the same thing. It was an inspired game plan. When Pantoja was getting fatigued,

He was still throwing his power shots, but he wasn't lunging. He was letting them be a little slower and just letting that lack of speed be a little more accurate. And he was pot-shotting little know-nothing uppercuts, but that he was throwing from the hip and then turning on a hook and then falling

into a right hand into a single leg position. And Carl France, as game as he was, was happy to engage. And when he did, he sort of got beat to the punch almost every time, even though everything he threw looked a little prettier. And when you realize that Pantoja could eat a shot,

and he ate some good right-hands with Cara France early, he sort of knew that it was going to be a problem, and it stayed that way the entire fight.

Something I saw Cara France do over and over, and I didn't know if that was something that happened at the fight where it was just an unexpected behavior, or if it was... part of the game plan, which was ducking. He kept ducking down low. And I was like, is it because Pantoja is hitting you so hard?

You're just like, I don't even want to block it. I'm just going to duck it. But then after a while, it felt like, no, I think that's the game plan. So what was happening there with that constant ducking?

I'm not really sure because it didn't put him in good punching position. And like Pantoja, even though he loves to wrestle, can still I don't want to say... How can I say it? He's like the best bad puncher I've ever seen. His shots land and... If you slow it down,

it's because he's throwing punches when he shouldn't be throwing punches, but the punches that do land are because he's in decent position. And yet, when he falls out of position, he'll throw a wild kick, which always seems to land too. So is it wild anymore,

or is he just fighting for his body style and he has a certain rhythm and tempo that he's able to find those shots? But as to why Car France continued to duck like that, I just don't know. I don't know if it was overly committing,

to try to time a takedown attempt or to stay low to time a counter to Pantoja's takedown attempts? I'm not really sure. I tried watching it and figuring it out. And I also saw that listening to the play-by-play, I think Cormier brought it up that he kept getting real low while he was punching.

I really don't know what that was. And trying to make sense of it, I think it took away really his best shot at winning, which would be to stay a little more upright, which is where you want to be. But Pantoja is that fucking dog, man. The second you try to engage him or even counterpunch him,

he just beats you to your hips and just beats the shit out of you. Takes your back and bullies you and roughs you up. And when you do get back to your feet, he's game to punch the shit out of you. And then when you try to fade off and exit correctly, he's going to kick the body.

It leaves a footprint on it. What are you going to do? And you would never, and we said this in multiple podcasts, you wouldn't be like, hey, here's Alejandro Pantoja. We want him to teach our striking class, but His style of striking really, really works for him. And Kai Carr, France, is an excellent offensive and defensive striker.

And he got outstruck constantly throughout the fight. And that's one thing I'd like to touch on, again, is that when grapplers learn to strike, They have a puncher's chance when elite strikers learn to grapple a little bit or even like a pretty good amount. They're high level purple or brown belts.

They still don't really have that much of that submission chance. And you got a puncher's chance. You don't have that really grappler's chance of landing a calf slicer. You're not going to fucking hit it. But. You can teach a striker how to punch, I think,

a little bit better than you can teach some of these strikers how to grapple in two and three years' time.

Because Pantoja has such a will to win, such a dog in him, as you say, it casts a shadow over his actual technical and physical skills. But in how Oliveira fought and how Pantoja fought, it feels like they had similar strategies, obviously different opponents.

But even with that said, Pantoja was a bit more complete about it, in my opinion. Pantoja pressures and tries to get into some sort of entanglement. But I feel like he's much more agnostic about it. It doesn't have to be these ideal strategies. positions, situations, right?

Because he's, like you said, willing to strike from the least ideal positions. He's not married to like, oh, I have to be in this perfect position. He just is like, let me just get the ball rolling. Let me just get a starting point, right? Even if these strikes aren't from the ideal position,

Let me just get the ball rolling so I could get the pressure rolling, right? And it's like, I could work from any position to get to eventually the takedown in the back, right? Maybe I grab your legs. Maybe I get a body lock. Maybe I grab here.

So I think that kind of threat was different and, in my opinion, more complete, right? He's not a perfectionist when it comes to striking or takedown. I think that's to your point about why you might not want him to be a striking teacher, right? Yet he's extremely effective, right?

It's not about being perfect, but yet it is still effective, right? You don't land heaps and intercepting knees on accident, right? You don't land that by losing the striking battle. And also... when Carl France was ducking, what did he do? Because all your weight is down.

He saw that you're not going to be able to check his low kick or his body kick. So he made that read in the fight. That wasn't part of the game plan. He didn't know the guy was going to come and duck you. But then in the fight, I don't even know if it's like

Teporia, where he makes a read. It might be just like intuition or instinct, right? He might not even remember what he did in the fight, but he does the right thing, right? So there is some kind of secret sauce there. Jason, do you have any idea what that sauce is?

I do not, but he seems to be able to find shots as a non-striker or someone who wasn't a polished striker early on in his career. And they're all well-rounded these days, but you can see that it's just not the most natural of technique. And sometimes you can say he's,

he's very creative when people are trying to avoid, um, his grappling range or even his punching range and finding kicks. And he found kicks on the right side and kicks on the left side. And, you know, uh, When you watch him initiate the technique, it seems perfunctory at best.

A little hurried, a little bit wild all over the place. And then it lands. Almost like to your point, he's able to interpolate where his opponent will be. Because it seems like all his sparring partners are probably trying to fucking keep so much distance.

And then he knows eventually you've got to fade or else it looks like you're sprinting or you're going to end up in the wall to the wall or to the cage or wherever you're sparring. And if you try to take an angle, well, I'm going to run after you.

And instead of trying to sprint and grapple you against the cage, if you're close enough to me, I'm going to throw a kick. And he seems to find that. And he always gets a little bit of stink on it too. He's got some good, some good kicks. Um, and it, it,

When you have the wrestling and the grappling ability of an Alejandro Pantoja, people have to account for that and you realize how easy it is to start scoring with some of your some of your striking sequences or some of your striking techniques and those are fun to throw anyone who's ever fought and who's ever

competed or sparred like grappling is really hard and really tiring it's great to be good at it but sometimes it's fun just to punch the shit out of somebody you know or to kick a motherfucker in the stomach like and then you just see him go yeah That feels kind of cool.

Or intercepts someone with a nice teeth. And he did that. I think he has the presence of mind and the timing to find some of the stuff.

I think he also has good leg reach.

I think so too. I don't know what his dimensions are because he doesn't look disproportionate. And his hair is looking better. I feel like he might have had some work done. But anyway, I feel like... I think you're right in that he does have some good leg reach or if he's getting a

little bit of a like an angled lean back and able to extend a little bit further than you would normally think.

I also think he doesn't care if he breaks his foot or leg.

No, he doesn't care if he gets accidentally headbutt. The fact that he doesn't walk out with six or seven scars just from random elbows from someone just trying to defend themselves from what is just a hurricane of offense from Pantoja is unreal. Like you ever spar with someone who's a little flinchy and they accidentally elbow

you in the face like six times.

Yeah.

That happens a lot. And the more offensive or aggressive fighters are, the more it tends to happen. He seems to be the one who inflicts all the damage and doesn't run into anything, even though nine out of 10, um, sequence is where he crashes that distance or truly engages, uh, He nearly headbutts his opponent.

And I think sometimes he takes a headbutt to the side of the face and just like grapples through and lands on your hip and is in a single leg position. Next thing you know, you're getting strangled.

He's like the Marvel character Wolverine. He just keeps going through everything. Kind of fights wild, but like super durable.

He has amazing durability, and he got crushed with a couple right hands. And I think that was sort of the... In the first two fights leading up to the main event, we saw a ton of durability. Some great offense that was met with just really, really impressive chins and durability and the ability to counterpunch and find

sequences in... The difference between Hoi Vau... Uh, in van and Pantoja and, uh, and Kaikara France couldn't be more stark, right? Those two, all they want to do, the first two, all they want to do is punch the shit out of each other. That was constant. Eventually they started throwing some kicks in this one. You saw, um,

Pantoja really want to grapple, but when that grappling seemed a little bit forced, he was fine with just kicking and he was able to mix it in nicely. And I think that's what made Pantoja striking more effective. And when he did get fatigued, you saw him take a little bit off,

but still throw power punches from odd angles. And he was sort of pot shot with his fatigue and those shots for landing. And he wasn't putting himself in bad position. And I think the labored strike and gave Carl France some confidence and that he'd be able to counter.

And when he started to counter and connect and some of those punches just slid off Pantoja's head, he just was able to fall into that distance and decreasing that distance and then start to wrestle from there. And whenever Carl France was game enough to create more space,

Pantoja brought off the appropriate counteroffense and, you know, was game the entire way.

Now that Davidson Figueredo is gone from flyweight along with Demetrius Johnson and Henry Cejudo, is Pantoja now the physically strongest fighter in the division? Because it just seems different when he grabs you.

There doesn't seem to be anyone that can defend his takedowns, right? Like he gets a hold of your hip. and it doesn't matter what you do that he's going to get you on the ground and when you do the right thing to create some height and create some space and get some

distance and separation from his hips to yours he does a little bit of funky like where he's kicking you in the back of the knees he's doing some good mat returns um he's finding that that figure four body lock or that body triangle immediately and he's just he's exceptional with it and

You're starting to see some of these guys really, really learn how to wrestle, not necessarily wrestling in space, but how to wrestle when there's a cage behind you. And you brought up strength. So technique is incredibly important when you're wrestling in open space. When there's a cage behind you,

that fuck you kind of strength where you can just lift and elevate your opponent, even though he's got a nice wide base, slippery legs, good hips, good dexterity in his knees, doesn't matter. You lock behind both hips or you lock behind both knees and you just lift and you have that, that deadlift kind of fuck you strength.

There's not a whole lot these guys can do because they can't get separation on the cage. And Pantoja is able to keep his head in good enough position where if you even try to throw some nice little elbows, Allah Felder or, or some of these good Muay Thai practitioners or, or call it Muay Thai for MMA practitioners,

get long, have a good whizzer, push that head and start chopping you or chipping you with some elbows. You can maybe land one of those on Pantoja and that break in or that lapse in wrestling consideration for a minute or even for a second gets you elevated or dragged down to your ass.

And then you immediately got to try to improve position and he's all over you.

He reminds me a bit of like Aljamain Sterling, where once he gets the rear body lock, it's almost a wrap.

Yeah. I mean, what do you do? It's the most difficult position for both of those guys. It's probably the most dominant I've seen once they backpack a human being. And I think Pantoja shows a little bit more of a tendency to let you try to work a little bit where Alge will just lock you down.

And he embraces the hate. That's one thing I'll say about Alge. One thing I really liked about him, he just embraces the hate and eats it for breakfast. He doesn't give a shit. Pantoja is almost like has this want to be a little more, show a little more gamesmanship and let you try to scramble.

And he's just going to like, regain position and do it again and again and again showing you just doesn't fucking matter

Yeah, he loosens his grip sometimes to let you move, and then he does the sequence all over again, right?

Well, he understands his own hip position, and he understands wrist control and how to lock down other scrambles. And it's really, really good top position folk style wrestling combined with jujitsu awareness. And he's able to marry the two. And he's locking, but then the second you allow locked hands, which you're not allowed to do in folk style,

but which gives folk style wrestlers greater mat control. once they're allowed to lock hands like holy shit man this jujitsu thing's not so goddamn hard like i'm not i'm not losing a point every time i lock my hands um and the things you get called for potentially dangerous are actually the goal here so

you start to create a little more torque um a little more of a choking hazard and the sport is is geared in my opinion not so humble opinion towards those who can combine um the wrestling game with the jiu-jitsu game. And you understand how many punching and striking opportunities and ground and

pound opportunities present themselves when you become well-versed in both. And really how many really, really good jiu-jitsu opportunities are born of excellent, and I don't mean to say this like pro-America, but American-style, folk-style wrestling.

Now let's talk about Joshua Vann versus Brandon Royval, which was for the next shot against Pantoja. Roy Val isn't the young prospect he once was anymore, and Van is only 23. We talked about discipline. So let's talk about this fight. What did you think of this fight and both of their performances?

It was a lot of fun, but was it skillful?

It was incredibly skillful. It was probably one of the more skillful slugfests.

Skillful slugfest. I like that.

Well, I mean, if they wanted to have a better game plan and mix some things up, I think Oyval could have had a better shot. But Oyval hates losing so much that when he was losing the striking sequences, he was hellbent on winning them. rather than winning the fight. And I think that was a little problematic.

But when he did catch Van staying on center line and a little bit less disciplined with his angle or his foot position, he was able to piece him up at times. But then this want to come back big in the striking game just put, in my opinion, the better striker. I mean, I think it's...

Anyone who has an idea of striking and understands the game would understand the better technical striker out of the two, at least in the punching game, is Van. And Van was able to find those big shots punching uphill. Again, it was the bigger, longer fighter. punching at distance, not establishing a jab at first.

Roy Val started to do that in the second round, and when he did establish a jab, he was a much more disciplined fighter and so much more effective. But when he got hit hard, because Van would time some of those jabs after he would eat a few,

Roy Val would throw away the things that were working for him and just get hit hard and think that that makes for must-see TV. I mean, it does, and I enjoyed it, but I think a little bit more discipline on his end and a little bit more technical

acumen and game following his corners game plan where he said, Hey, give me the, that foot, that feet, feet faint, give them something to look at and disappear a little bit, create some space and then find your shots rather than just constant pressure and random aggression and And when he was doing that, he had success.

And I thought at times he would have success in big enough chunks that Roy Val would run away with it. But every time he did, he sort of got complacent with the success he was having and didn't think he had Joshua Vann in front of him anymore. And Joshua Vann was like, fuck this, man.

I can punch too. And would level him. And one fighter stayed a little bit truer and a little bit more disciplined. And the other one, I think at times, was attempting to be a little bit more that dog and a little bit more entertaining.

And he ended up coming out on the wrong side of things because of it.

Now, I mentioned Van is only 23. Is Van taking too much damage too early? 100%.

That's the first thing I said. I said, this kid's 23, and he can take a shot, and he will. And that's my concern for him. He actually has good defensive instincts, excellent vision, excellent timing, great counter punches, good hands, good hand position. I really like him as a fighter.

But I had a coach, Ken Han, once tell me, hey, man, sorry, you can take a pretty good punch. But just because you can doesn't mean you fucking have to. So put your hands up. I fought with my hands down. My hands up in my chest felt really high to me because I wrestled for so long.

I just felt sort of naked there. Ben has excellent hand position. But he just is, I think he's so zeroed in on beating you with a counterpunch that after you hit him, he hits you with two and three or eat that jab or even that straight left and punch

uphill so well and find that overhand right and put that huge left hook behind it and stay in another fighter who has very good presence of mind to keep his feet underneath him. And to keep his feet underneath him and walk with his punches or step with his

punches and keep an appropriate stance so he doesn't lunge or doesn't punch himself out of position. But there were times when Royval was the longer puncher and a very disciplined puncher punching at length. But then he got a little creative and would throw an elbow that would sort of land.

And then he'd be standing very square and eat two or three and then like do the tongue out. That didn't hurt bullshit. And then he'd get dropped right after for it. And so I think like two things can be true. You can be an incredibly entertaining fighter and still have disciplined techniques and techniques.

really good shit will show itself and also you can have a chin and really be entertaining because both these fighters displayed very very good grit incredible grit and really really really strong durability both have great chins but when you have a fighter's 23 years old eating i don't know what he ate significant strikes

at one point or 80 strikes in a round that's a lot yeah and I don't think you want to win a fight and still be the guy where records are broken in terms of punches landed or strikes landed upon. Not at 23 years old.

So champions, especially at lighter divisions, have to be well-rounded. Joshua Van has only been training five years. And I think he said in some recent interviews, he's only been wrestling the last two. And now when he says he's been fighting or training five years, I don't know if he meant MMA. Maybe he was a boxer before.

I would totally believe he was a boxer before. But yeah, wrestling is newer for him. So he's going to be limited. And right now, the way he fights, because of that, he's mostly a boxer. He doesn't even kick that much. And that makes a lot of sense if he even got to kicking just a few years ago.

And he hits hard, but he actually doesn't finish a lot of his fights. He doesn't have that taporia power. So he's limited, yet he wins a lot. So he must be doing something right, even though he's limited. So what's he doing well?

He's able to punch in combination. He's able to land big power shots. He has good vision. He keeps, like I said before, he doesn't punch himself out of position. He's able to land so much also because he's willing to risk staying on center line.

And I'd like to see him move a little bit more or create some angles with his punches. Not everything has to be Lomachenko footwork, but you should be able to throw a right hand check left hook, and just create a little bit of a better angle.

Or you can step through on your jab and pivot off and have your opponent's weak side perpendicular to you, and you can be able to get your shit off. Not everything has to be that kind of phone booth fight. I think Van does incredibly well there,

but he would be better versed to mix some things up when he gets... I almost said to the higher levels of the game, he just knocked off the number one contender in the one ranked opponent, probably the best fighter in the division that isn't champ or Brandon Moreno. And still that's questionable, right? I can go away.

But to beat some of these better guys, I think you're going to need to be more complete. And I think that if, I think if Roy Vow had 500 grand bet on himself, he probably would have wrestled a little more. I think Roy Vout is that good.

I think he's a tough opponent for Van if he brings an MMA game to a boxing match or an MMA game to a boxing match with the occasional sidekick to the knee. You know, it's a very, very violent, chaotic and dynamic sport mixed martial arts is you might want to mix a few things

in every fucking once in a while and see what happens rather than just look at the camera and say, fuck it. Yeah, we all get it. And you're a dog. Everyone wants to win. Everyone wants to be entertaining when things aren't going your way rather than just show the world how tough you are.

How about you show the world how good you are? While being tough, they don't have to be mutually exclusive. And when you have a three round fight and the second round was as close as it was. And I had Roy Val down. I had him winning the second round until I watched the second time.

And then I realized in the last 40 seconds, the last 20 of the last 40 seconds or the first 20 of the last 40 seconds, excuse me. um van landed some really really good shots and i think turned that that round um

for him so if you're fighting in what you think could be a one round a piece fight with the second round being that close why are you fighting like like defense doesn't matter and that the guy in front of you can't punch either you know i a little bit of game planning could have gone a long way.

And as good as these guys are technically, and they both are very, very good strikers technically, you might be able to find that game-changing shot if you're just a little more patient. And when you do find those shots and it wobbles somebody, then you can find that really entertaining shit because elbowing a really hurt

person in the face, unfortunately for society, is really entertaining to us.

I kind of feel like the recipe for possibly Van's future demise might be why he's doing so well now. So here's what I mean. If Van was the number two ranked fighter, would Roy Val fought him like this? I don't think so. I think part of the reason why he fought him like this

is because he's number 12.

Yeah, right?

He wasn't in the top 10 yet. But now everybody going to fight him in the future are not going to fight him like that anymore because they're not going to underestimate him. They're not going to think of him as a can, right? And he looks undersized, right?

But now they're going to be like, I don't care if he's undersized. I'm going to treat him like he's the biggest guy in the division. They're going to fight him differently. So I think there's a little bit of that where people were fighting him like they didn't know he was good yet.

And so now that they know he's good, they're going to fight him differently. Secondly, when they fight him, they could touch him. Everybody can touch him. He's been dropped a bunch of times already. He's also been finished and KO'd, right? Yeah. So you're fighting him, even though you know you could probably take him down.

You're like, but I'm touching this guy. And then you're taking his shots. Like I said, he doesn't have that toporia power. So you're like, yeah, he hits stiff, but man, I've taken 80 of his punches. He doesn't hit that hard. I'm not that scared of him. So the fact that he doesn't hit hard enough

And the fact that you can find him and touch him and the fact that he was ranked so low is why people get that kind of like arrogance to play into the striking battle, this boxing battle and try to beat him. And then they lose. Right. Yes. But in the future. Right.

I don't think people are going to do that.

No, I think he's lost the Clark Kent glasses. He's not fooling anybody anymore.

He's not coming out of nowhere anymore.

No, no.

Now there's tape.

Yeah, there's tape. You know how good he is. You know what he brings. You know his durability. Sure, anyone can get knocked out. He did. He's had it put on him. He showed a very, very good chin. Yeah. but also a willingness to take those shots. You start to think if you have success with those shots,

do you want to be there for his counter right hand and his whipping left hook? Or do you want to beat him with a shot or two, establish a jab? He wings one at you. You duck and double and put him on his back and elbow the shit out of him for a round.

And you realize how difficult it is to get up off your back when there's another human being being the shit out of you. You've only been doing this sport for five years. Those are considerations as a coach that I would make, and there didn't seem to be any of that. And I get it.

No one wants to be a grappler anymore, but you want to be a winner, right? I don't see anyone saying Pantoja's boring. If you say that, you're just an asshole. Find another sport, like there is kickboxing. But what Pantoja does is really, really fun to watch.

And I think if you start to incorporate, this is my speech almost every fight study, right? If you start to incorporate the skill sets and approach them with a want for skill acquisition, skill refinement, and skill ownership, You will learn how to best mix them for you and for your fight style.

And hopefully it is as crowd friendly as it needs to be. Hopefully it's not boring to where you're going to get shelved by Dana White or whatever powers that be. But figure out who you are as a fighter before you figure out how to be entertaining as a fighter,

because you're leaving a lot of wins on the fucking shelf. I promise you, Brandon Roy Vow did. There are a lot of wins that are available to these fighters. Should they separate from this need to be marketable and be good first? Because if you're mediocre and marketable, no one gives a shit.

And I'm not saying that Brandon Royval is. This is just the rant that I like to throw out there every once in a while. So I want to apologize, Royval, because he's really good. But I think this is a point where someone who was really, really good wanted to be really entertaining and just show everyone that dog,

you know, and just let raw dog be raw dog. Take him down. Out grapple him. You've hung in there grappling and even bested some really, really good puncher grapplers in this game. To think that you wouldn't have been able to do that against Van, I think was a tragic miscalculation in this one.

This actually reminds me why it's so hard to stay a champion, because when you're a champion, everybody already knows you're good. But when you're on the come up, you can take a lot of people by surprise. That's why the fighters, the champs who like have been successful in those title fights on their runs,

that's what makes them so great. And so talking about Teporia, he's getting there. Talking about Van, we don't know if he has that yet, right? He has a little bit of that mystique that like, I don't know much about this guy, but now people are going to know him and they're going to study him.

Pantoja, what's impressed me so much is he's been in that title contender slot for years. Everybody knows what this guy is about and he still was able to get the title, defend the title multiple times. That's also what was so impressive about Oliveira.

Everybody also knew he had the goods and then he still was able to keep winning, get the title. So it's much harder to win when everybody knows how good you are.

Without a doubt. Heavy is the head, right? Heavy is the head that wears the crown. But what you see and what we saw in Ilya Tapiria and in Pantoja are two champions that didn't seem unnerved for a second. It didn't seem that the pressure got to them at all.

It almost seemed as if the pressure calmed them down a bit. as if they were built for that moment. And some people just are. And I say some people are calm under pressure and other people are just a lot of pressure underneath a bunch of calm. And all they want to do is fight you.

And that sort of thing that coupled with the ability to compose yourself under duress and really be surgical in your application of your skills. When another person is trying to hurt you in front of, I don't know how many pay-per-view, uh, viewers, piraters, next day YouTubers, whatever. There's a lot of fucking eyes on you, man.

And to be able to compartmentalize that and just go about what it is that you do surgically is so impressive. And that was the look on the face of Alejandro Pintoja and Elias Peria. Both of that sort of quiet storm where nothing seemed to really bother them.

And they're former training partners.

Really?

At American Top Team. But a lot of these kind of guys, they know each other, they find each other, train with each other. So they had a nice little moment leading into both their title fights.

Yeah, well, I mean, everyone says iron sharpens iron. Well, a lot of times iron or dull iron, too, if you just sit there and beat the shit out of each other. But if you start to really test each other's metal and you start to really

understand that you can fire and pressure will really forge iron and really turn it into something impressive and something sharp, you start to see how it's done. And there are little things you take from working out and training with other world-class guys. The first thing is you understand you have it, too.

And that's what I wanted to tell some of my guys. Like, I told Felder when I had him, he's like, when Cowboy lost to, to DeSanyos, he's like, I think he's done, man. And he, Paul was just sullen, almost like if he can't make it in this biz, what am I going to do?

I'm like, dude, you're fucking better than him. Can we sit down and watch like the 30 seconds of sparring footage you have against him and get rid of your big brother complex and just go beat the shit out of everyone else in the world, not named Cowboy Cerrone? Can we just do that?

And once you understand how good you are, that's a very dangerous thing. And I think that is the best part about up and coming young talent training with some of these world-class guys that they put on the pedestal in this twisted bullshit hero worship. When you realize these guys are human too.

And you say to yourself, I'm pretty good at my fucking job. If I can hang with him, I can hang with anyone. And then a good coach is going to tell you, you can't just hang with him. On a good day, you'll beat him. And the second you understand the difference between those two is the second you

become a better fighter capable of greatness.

Yeah, so much of it comes down to composure and self-belief.

That's the majority of this game. You know, you got to put in the time. But if you do, if you put in the time, you get the proper reputation, the proper exposure to technique, good coaching, a strong understanding of fight concepts, fight dynamics. And you approach this thing as a true student of the sport.

Then you start to understand how good you are. And just like you said, that self-belief, that's all of it, man. If you have the goods and you have the self-belief, people will start talking upsets at first, and then they'll start to realize just how good you really are. And then they'll pretend they knew it all along.

But I fucking did. I caught this years ago. I'm just saying. I caught the period like four years ago.

We got it on tape.

Good, good.

All right. That's all the fights we're going to cover for this fight study. As always, thank you for your insight, Jason.

Absolutely. And thank you to the Southpaw fans.

And thank you all for listening.

Thank you, Sam.