Uncut: Fight Study 154 – UFC 296 (Plus Transcript) (Patreon)

In this episode of Fight Study, Coach Jason and Sam talk about UFC 296. Fight Study is essential listening for thoughtful martial arts fans.

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Transcript

[Note: Transcripts are autogenerated and may contain errors.]

Hi, this is Sam and I have a personal message for our listeners.

Over the past year, my family and I have faced numerous health challenges, creating both a physical and financial strain.

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This is Sam.

This is Jason.

And this is Fight Study.

Coach Jason and I are back to discuss UFC 296 or what Dan Tom likes to call the UFC Republican National Convention.

Despite all that, if we look purely at the fights, it was a fun card from the prelims to the main event.

In the prelims, you had Andre Feely beating Lucas Almeida.

Feely is far from a contender at featherweight but he has fun fights and some solid skills.

It's also featherweight.

Even the bad fighters have more well-rounded skills than the top 10 of middleweight and above.

Tagir Ulambekov looked great against Cody Durden in a flyweight fight in a division that's finally coming together since the UFC has gradually been adding more fighters.

The reason flyweight looked worse than some of the heavier divisions for so long was because the UFC cut everyone.

Former bantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt beat Brian Kelleher, which now has Garbrandt with two consecutive wins, something he hasn't strung together since 2016.

For Kelleher, if you can't beat post prime Garbrandt, man, your ceiling is really limited.

For Keleher also this is his third consecutive loss and I don't know if the UFC will be as forgiving with him as they've been with Garbrandt or Tony Ferguson.

Irene Aldana and Karol Hossa put on a classic fight.

I have a question for you, Jason, as a coach who's analyzed fighters for game plans.

Hosuh was doing really well in round one.

In fact, overall, she outlanded Aldana, but obviously Aldana did more damage to the face and body.

If you've battered your opponent's leg that badly in round one, even if your opponent comes in with a different game plan or adapts in the next round, you're still 80% to the win because you've seriously compromised your opponent.

So how do you compromise your opponent and then lose the fight, especially the third round?

Well, we could take this whole podcast a different direction with this question, right?

For mixed martial arts, it's becoming more and more watered down, more and more commoditized.

And I don't mean in any specific division, I'm saying just across the board.

So I think that the need to stand out creates an entertaining yet undisciplined approach to the sport.

And that's a lot of what I see from so many fighters.

Critical thinking in real time problem solving are so difficult to do under duress.

And if you aren't disciplined, or your camp is not disciplined enough to instill that aspect of skill development, I think that's a recipe for a lot of missed opportunities and more and more we're seeing that.

Normally, right, why compromising a fighter is critical to winning a fight or is so helpful to winning a fight is because now that they're compromised, you can set them up for even more damaging attacks or finishing shots, right?

Fight Study 154

Look at Islam and how Islam landed those body shots those leg kicks those kicks to the body and then it looks like it's coming from the same trajectory but because you got to respect those shots coming hard from the left coming heavy from the left because that's your liver sides on your right side and boom he clips the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world and sleeps him.

Yeah, that's championship level shit like we talked about before.

Whereas with Hosa, I think she showed a lot of potential, but even to the very end, to the third round, she was just still setting her up.

She's just like, I'm going to beat this leg, but I'm not going to do anything else with it.

Stringing together, like bigger and better things.

What's the term that they use?

Layered approaches, what Dan Tom said.

or what you call the progression of offense.

Absolutely, and you need to see that.

You chain things together.

You learn chain wrestling in middle school.

You start to string together moves that set up other moves.

And when the hips go one way, then the other, unless they're always backing up, the other hip's gotta come.

So you can fake one side or you go to get a reaction, you go to the other.

You go and you go again, you go and you go again.

Heavy on the head, they correct head position, bang, you go, you shoot, you take the hips.

That kind of approach to fighting combat sports is tried and true and it's never going away, ever.

but somehow I think in a sport that and you'll hear me say this probably multiple times in a sport that's like mostly aggression and PEDs that the problem-solving aspect of it has been fucking thrown away and I think that's sad and you'll hear me say a recipe for missed opportunities over and over because that's that's what we're starting to see and I'd rather see entertaining fights based on great shit

not entertaining fights based on huge mistakes or unforced errors or poor cardio of the opposition.

You don't want to see a classic fight that was a classic because both were fumbling the ball.

Right.

You don't want that.

You want to see people, you want to see fighters at their best.

You want to see high level skill that that's why it's entertaining because you couldn't do it.

But when you watch these and you're like, I feel like I could fucking do that.

I could get hit in the face a lot too.

And if we're talking about nothing but my toughness or my ability to endure a beating, well, that's not really a, I mean, some durability is important, but fuck, some skill to go with it would be great.

Next, let's talk about Alonzo Mennefield beating Dustin Jacoby in another fun fight, right?

Fun as in not super technical, but fun as in it got close and it ended the way it did because there were missed opportunities.

It's a similar situation as what we just talked about before.

Jacoby was landing his jabs at will.

Usually that means you're going to win the fight.

If I was a coach and someone I was coaching was lighting someone up with jabs, I'd be very confused if this fighter lost.

So how do you do an important thing so well and still lose?

As coaches, right?

You always talk about the jab, how important the jab is.

Okay, this person is doing that.

This person is accomplishing that part of it.

But not only

Do they lose but get nearly finished on multiple occasions?

So how do you do that primary offensive thing well and then lose the fight and almost get finished multiple times?

Defense is 50% of fighting, right?

There's offense and then there's defense.

And it's strange when Jacobi is at certain points looking masterful with the jab and he's a very accomplished striker.

He's very skilled.

but then whenever he gets some pushback, his hands are at his hips and he's eating punches.

You've watched him for a long time, you've said, right?

So has he always fought kind of like that with his hands by his hips?

Well, he was, I mean, he was just physically and technically better than, than some really even good guys.

I think he fought Tim Williams in CFFC, Ducobi beat him by TKO in round one.

And I think they fought twice.

So I think they brought, they even brought him back.

But you saw a guy with a ton of physical tools against another UFC caliber guy young in his career.

Why something as boilerplate as getting your hands up when you're getting hit would be problematic to anyone at the UFC level is just really strange.

And so there's things that it's easy to armchair quarterback.

You don't know if one of those shots snuck through and

I mean, there's been times where I've been hit, I've been hitting mitts.

And like, I have my boxing coach smack me in the face one time, and I wanted to murder him.

Because he like, he kept telling me to keep my hands up.

I'm like, my hands are up.

But I'm a wrestler who's used to having his hands at his knees.

And in my head, my hands were so high.

But on film, my hands are like chest level.

And he keeps smacking me in the face.

His name was Jeff Williams.

I just wanted to joke him So like you could think that you're making the adjustments and you're not so I don't want to and I've like I said I've seen Jacoby compete.

I know I know how good he is So sometimes those things don't necessarily register after you've been hit in the face by someone who can crack a bit and

So, so I don't know, but I would like to think that if, if fighters take a more, a more disciplined approach, that they can make those adjustments.

And, you know, sometimes corners have to be more than just, you know, moral support in the corner and

Glorified, glorified hype men.

You don't need Flava Flav in your corner.

You need Chuck D. You need a guy coming with some real shit.

And like I said, I couldn't hear the audio that well in that fight, but you got to communicate to your fighter about what is working.

You got to be disciplined in camp and you got to have the ability to switch to a plan B if plan A isn't working.

And then another fight I wanted to talk about was Josh Emmett versus Bryce Mitchell, which became one of the scariest KOs in UFC history.

And this wasn't heavyweight, but featherweight.

But since this was a late replacement fight, I have to think the weight cut and dehydration was a factor and how devastating it was.

But Jason, how did that shot happen?

And what's behind the power?

Because Emmett is probably the scariest puncher in the UFC right now.

I think so.

I think you're right there.

I mean, there's, we can approach this from a couple of different directions, right?

We can discuss force production,

UFC 296

I'm

Josh Emmett can fucking punch.

That's it.

Yeah, and, and I'm not sure that the universe could deliver us a more punch worthy human being than Bryce Mitchell, but they did.

And sometimes things unfold as they should.

But look, in seriousness, a good friend of mine and my former boxing coach Billy Briscoe said, great boxers are built, not born.

But great punchers are born.

And yeah, you can improve punching power, especially if there are technical weaknesses or a lack of neuromuscular recruitment, strength, explosiveness, etc.

But there is no substitute for being blessed by the fight gods.

And so when I say that, we got to look at like Josh Emmett is what five foot six.

So that's 66 inches with a 70 inch reach.

And it was just four inches longer than his height.

And his back is so ridiculously broad.

It looks like a fucking silverback gorilla.

Yeah, I was gonna say he's just as wide as he is tall.

Exactly.

With some lengths in those arms to generate that sort of leverage.

We don't have a DEXA scan, but with the amount of muscle hypertrophy and overall muscle mass that the guy's walking around with, we can assume he's got some pretty good bone density from the years of resistance training.

But some key takeaways

um how he steps into his overhand right while rotating his hips and if you watch him throw that shot he shifts his his right shoulder and his head right his head goes from center line to about three and a half maybe even four feet to the opposite direction so it goes from from his right to his left from right to left as he throws that punch

So you see it shifting his head three and a half, maybe four feet on that shot.

And if you look even back to the right hook he hit Jeremy Stevens with back in the day, you see all the links in the kinetic chain from the fist to the elbow, to the shoulder, to the hip, to the knee, to the toe.

They are all aligned to maximize punching power and minimize energy loss.

So here's the Cliff Notes Too Long Didn't Read version.

Josh Emmett is a punching machine, and his athleticism and body awareness, or if you want to call it proprioceptive awareness, allows him to find that punching alignment.

And the fact that he can do it coming forward or giving ground like he did against Jeremy Stevens is really a testament to his skill, as well as his athleticism, and not just punching power gifted from the fight gods.

And this might be an obvious question, but I want you to explain it to our listeners.

Because if you look at that final sequence, Bryce Mitchell, who is normally a Southpaw was standing orthodox.

So he had his left foot forward.

And so many KOs happen when somebody switches their stances or while they're switching their stance.

So for the layman, can you explain why that's such a vulnerable position, either being in your less dominant stance or in that transition of switching?

So in the less dominant stance, you tend to have weaker defense because that's just it's not your natural side or not your most practiced side.

You see a ton of fighters that look fantastic when their offense comes

um with their their dominant hand forward but you know now they're not they're not protecting well or their defense is sort of lacking from that stance what i think fighters tend to do when they shift stances and they're not a natural they're not they're not as well versed in their non-natural stance is they have to take that beat to reset and then they become easier to time

they're not fighting in that shift.

They're just sort of stepping and resetting.

And with that pause, they become easier to hit.

And like one of the things when again, when we talk about mass times acceleration, or force times velocity, we're talking about Josh Emmett for a big

And at 5'6", he's like the biggest 5'6 guy you ever see, right?

He's like a bowling ball coming at you.

He really is.

And he's got speed and he can accelerate very, very quickly.

And his athleticism and body awareness, like I said, are really, really impressive.

So you can't hesitate.

you know, we can telegraph punches, but we can also telegraph or reset and we can become easy to time.

And if you don't have some sort of disruptive rhythm, and you just sort of reset in front of another human being who knows pitching fastballs at you, you're gonna fuck you up.

And that's exactly what we saw.

Yeah, I thought he killed him.

And I was like, Oh, no.

What?

Huh?

Yeah.

And then the commentary talking about him twitching.

Again, I don't really care for Bryce Mitchell, but I thought it was in pretty poor taste that the camera would focus in on him and then they would look at him twitching multiple times.

It's becoming more and more of a spectacle and closer and closer to the bloodsport that

I guess John McCain back in the day said it was.

And if you're trying to pander to the lowest common denominator, then I guess that's how you sell it.

But, you know, I've got no love lost for for Bryce Mitchell.

And I still thought that was in pretty fucking poor taste.

We also had Patti Pimblitt beating Tony Ferguson, which is Ferguson's seventh loss in a row.

This was a win-win match for me because I'm happy if Pimblet loses, and I'm happy if anything associated with David Goggins loses.

And though I'd love to blame everything on Goggins, and I don't even know why he hired Goggins because you could clearly see sometimes just the grit isn't enough.

Grit's not going to overcome being a shot fighter.

Now,

This problem with Ferguson started before Goggins and Ferguson has kept looking worse and worse with each loss.

And the other problem is he keeps taking more damage in each loss.

So he comes back more of a shell of himself than last time.

He can't take a shot.

He's as slow as molasses, which used to be one of his strengths, right?

His speed.

He used to be also known as Mr. Dexterity.

His hips, his movements, he was just so mobile.

But now he's so stiff.

He moves like a zombie.

He almost moves like somebody who's already been stiffened up by a shot.

And his shots, when they do land, they have no power anymore.

So he can't take a shot and his punches have nothing behind them.

His ground game is awful.

And that might also be because his ground game was always never good.

I think because he was a 10th planet product, Joe Rogan always hyped it up.

But even if you're like older and like losing a step, your grappling can still be very good, right?

People can grapple.

It's their later years.

And often with veterans, their grappling is what saves them.

But I think with Tony Ferguson, his grappling was always overrated.

He looks like a shot late stage Evander Holyfield when Holyfield kept fighting.

Would you agree?

I absolutely would.

And I think the Holyfield comparison is a pretty good one.

And for MMA fans who may not be in the know, watch Holyfield versus Riddick Bowe, any of them.

And then watch Holyfield versus fucking Vitor Belfort, and you'll get it.

Who Tony Ferguson is now,

is not who he was.

Newer fans have to look up his old fights.

You have to.

And the funky freestyle shit that won him fights and entertained us for years is gone.

It's fucking gone.

Like, fuck, if you tried rubber guard, he'd blow out his own knee.

You brought up Tenth Planet.

If you tried Mission Control and tried the Meat Hawk, he'd blow out his own knee.

He'd probably tear a hip.

I think his grappling is underrated because he was a good wrestler.

Wait, what happened to Snap Down City then?

I don't know.

I just know if he tried a fucking Eminari roll, he'd herniate a disc.

All that stuff is gone.

But I think you're right that also his grappling might have been a little overrated because

The rubber guard was a bit of a novelty back then and people had to figure it out and once you figured it out you realize it was just sort of a hyper hip mobility and the possibility of getting slammed on your neck, right?

He would also grapple people that he had already previously beat the shit out of and exhausted, right?

So he would grapple, exhaust the people that he had already beat the shit out of.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

And I don't think he was ever a super, super clean striker.

You know, he was never super clean with his striking technique, but it was his durability and conditioning that made him a real striking threat.

So with those attributes in such a massive decline, such a steep decline, like

UFC 296

I think he's unaware of what it takes to win at this level of mixed martial arts anymore.

Whether it's hubris, which is always a fucking fighter's problem, cognitive dissonance, or cognitive impairment, it's time for Tony Ferguson to call it a career.

And I say that with the utmost respect and appreciation for the body of work and all that he has done in his career.

You know, there were moments where I got hyped, where Tony landed clean on Patty.

which shows you how bad Patty is, right?

He landed clean and you're like, oh shit.

And then it did nothing to Patty.

And you realize, oh, there's nothing behind those punches now.

Yeah.

And I just can't understand why fighters fight with their shin in the air, the air like that.

In the year 2023, it's just still strange to me.

But yeah, you used to, there were, even when I say that Tony Ferguson wasn't the cleanest puncher, he was still a real stiff puncher.

Yes, there was a stiffness to like his shots, his elbows, his kicks.

Yeah, well, think about the beating he put on Cowboy Cerrone, right?

Broke his face.

And I think Cerrone would absolutely fucking dog walk Patty, probably still at his age right now.

So we're talking about a substantial decline.

And what should be,

and understanding between him, his loved ones, friends, family, coaches, whatever.

They should have a sit down and it should be unanimous across the board, even with Tony, that he's done enough and that he can walk away and now hold your head up high, not in the middle of the fucking octagon.

That's when you want your chin down for fuck's sake.

He's probably going to get cut and let's pray that as soon as he gets cut, he does not sign with BKFC.

Oh, God damn.

That'd be the worst news ever.

Yeah.

I mean, those fights are pretty brutal.

They really are.

Yeah, that's that's fucking terrible.

I don't even want to think of that.

Let's let's move on.

Shavkat Rachmanov.

becomes the first person to submit Steven Thompson.

Now, Rachmaninoff is 18 wins and 18 finishes.

Nobody has that in the UFC.

He also did this on one leg.

Apparently, he went into this fight needing ankle surgery.

He was close to pulling out of the fight, but he didn't, which explains how kind of lumbering he was in the first round, why he didn't throw any kicks, why he couldn't like really push off on his punches.

But even with that, I only noticed that in hindsight.

When I watched it, I was just like, this guy is scary dominant.

Jason, what do you think about Rachmanov?

What do you think is his ceiling?

And what, if anything, gives you pause?

Oh, Rachmanov, Jesus.

What can you say?

It looks like he's an all-American, just dog walking junior varsity backups.

in whatever sport you choose.

It doesn't matter.

I truly hate that he fought a 40-year-old Wonderboy, which is just a crazy oxymoron thing to say, right?

A 40-year-old Wonderboy.

But because that's what the critics will focus on mostly, right?

But I see him handling Usman or even Burns.

Like shit Burns is pushing 38 and Usman's what 36 with 100-year-old fucking knees.

So I think

Rockman off is he's a goddamn supernova in a division with a bunch of dying stars and And he's he's the type of fighter that would even make Bilal Muhammad exciting You can't have a boring fight with him.

If you try to pressure him, he can wrestle.

He's physically strong.

He hits so goddamn hard He's the type of fighter that

that will make any fight that he's in there with, any fighter that he's in there with, entertaining.

He will make that fight must-see television, so.

I mean, 18 fights, 18 finishes, right?

He made every one of those fights interesting.

He can find shots that don't look like he should be landing them with the power and authority that they're connecting with.

And that is, I mean, we talk about punching power and how punchers are born or punchers are made,

Some people just have that fuck you in their fists and he does.

And he just turns on those shots, little shots with like density, stiffness, rigidity that just sort of like shifts another person's body.

And good fighters with good shins just sort of start to crumble and then they start to make mistakes.

I think

In beating Wonderboy, he just eliminated one of his toughest style matchups.

So I think it actually gets a lot easier for him until he meets somebody like Leon.

Yeah.

And you were touching upon something I wanted to ask you about.

is how Rachmaninoff has this ability to wilt people without throwing that many shots.

You look at his stats and it's pretty low volume, but you wouldn't know because of the way he melts people.

So what do you attribute that to?

So this is speculation and conjecture on my end, of course, right?

But that's what we're here to do.

I think it's his physical strength and punching power.

And he makes his opponents feel it early and fucking feel it they do.

then like their reaction like his opponent's reaction are that they're either hyper concerned and hesitant which isn't any good or they engage which hasn't been much fucking better like so you're sort of damned if you do you're damned if you don't with them with him you you again in a sport where you're where aggression and entertainment value

is what you're really trying to do to separate yourself from marketability standpoint.

It's probably the worst way to fight him.

I just can't think of a shittier way and he's going to chew that shit up probably on his way to a world title.

No one submitted Wonderboy before and I think the reason why Rachmanov did what even BJJ aces and black belts couldn't do is because by the time he choked him, it looked like Wonderboy's neck and shoulders were exhausted.

I mean, there was the previous choke attempts, but I think it's just like also like head pressure, you know, that nasty wrestling where there's constantly like just pushing the head and you're just trying to wear down their neck.

Oh, yeah.

I think by the end when he got that choke like Wonderboy is fighting fighting fighting and finally his neck just gave out he just had no more strength there.

And that's why even though like people like Woodley and Burns and all these people like

Put all their strength in the chokes.

It was different what Rachmanov did it because it wasn't just a final squeeze.

It was just all the stuff he did to him before that it reminded me a lot of how Habib Nurmagomedov would just constantly push down on the head and just constantly like wear out your neck and then he would finally go for the choke later on and by that time your neck is exhausted.

For sure head position is key head hanging heavy heavy hands not just punch but heavy hands

grappling, grabbing, grappling and controlling position, head position is crucial.

One thing that I think separates Rachmaninoff from like Woodley or Burns is he's just as strong as them, but he has greater length.

So he's positionally more problematic.

And he's just as physically strong, but he's able to reach deep and long against other like a tall,

Wonderboy is not a short fighter at all.

So he's able to get that, uh, that handcuff.

He's able to reach and grapple.

And there's sometimes you just like fighters are fighters and like nothing really intimidates you.

But I say this all the time.

You don't get intimidated by how physically strong someone is.

You just sort of wish they weren't so fucking strong.

It happens when you're grappling.

It happens when you're fighting.

You're just like, oh shit, like one of these guys.

And fighters have to start to make decisions based on that sort of risk assessment, the assessment of threat.

And so when you start thinking too much, you back up a little bit and you try to, like, lace them with that straight left hand or straight right hand, depending on whatever stance Wonderboy's in.

All of a sudden, you run out of real estate.

That straight shot misses.

You're used to landing it, but you're 40 years old now.

Maybe your timing's not what it once was.

And now you have this monster in at your hips.

and it feels like he's going to break your jaw with his head position.

So they have a lot of things you have to think about.

And he got him to the cage barely throwing any shots.

Yeah, and that's what I mean.

You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.

So if you are hyper concerned and hesitant, like I said, then he's just going to keep walking forward and you're going to run out of real estate and you don't want to be against the cage against him.

You don't.

if you come back like Jeff Neal did and try to like attack him you might land a few because like let's be honest I think you asked me like what I thought might be um a vulnerability like he's a little bit hittable and he has this like chin in the air thing that he does um and but and Jeff Neal can really crack so maybe relying on your chin as much as he does at 29 isn't great but if it's I don't know if he's trying to draw out some more offense

Then there's Alexandre Pantoja defending his flyweight title for the first time against Brandon Royval and it was a complete shoutout on two judges cards and that's how I had it also.

Pantoja is becoming one of my favorite fighters to watch because of his attitude, how he completely disrespects his opponent's space, disregards pace, fights like it's a one round fight, and despite gassing himself out, he has a will to win that I've seen in few fighters in any combat sport.

He will not be denied.

He has that championship medal.

If you were creating a video game fighter,

When it comes to heart, you pick Pantoja.

You give him Pantoja's heart.

But Jason, how are his other skills and what's up with his cardio?

Speaking of his cardio, first, let's reference the Fight Gods one more time.

Think of this.

How ridiculously unfair would it be if Pantoja was blessed with excellent cardio?

And it's his fatigue-induced, for lack of a better word, vulnerability

that takes a fight of the year candidate type performance and turns it into what's become a Rocky movie type performance.

So he's an absolute throwback, just an amazing competitor.

His fights are fucking epic just because he looks like he could pass out from exhaustion at any minute and then he just laces you with a right hand and then eats a 3-2 counter combination and then he just

right hand into a double leg and runs you against a kid and lands on top.

It's fun because it's a complete shutout yet every round it looks like he might lose.

Because you said he gives no shit about pace.

None.

He doesn't consider it and he probably should but like it wouldn't be as much fun from my view and pleasure like to watch what he does when he's that tired and that kind of fatigue isn't just like you're going to close your eyes and fall asleep.

lactic acid is just pumping through your body, everything burns, you feel like your body's on fucking fire.

And at any moment, if you just pulled back, you would start to feel better immediately.

But he pushes through that pain, he pushes through that burn, he doesn't care, he cares about winning.

And it's truly amazing.

You know, we can talk about

We talked about his skills because he's got he's got tons of skill.

He's a masterful scrambler, you know, and like as awkward, I guess, for lack of a better word, probably more accurate to say unconventional as his striking is, he sort of scrambles there to sort of an improvisation and finding balance and rhythm when you think there isn't any left.

I'm just like his cardio.

So, I think that his mindset and will to win, and fighters say that all the time, my will to win, my will to win.

Yeah, I mean, but then there's your will to win and then having your body say, I will do that too.

They have to connect.

I could want to win as much as anyone else in the world, but if my body is like, fuck you, we're going to sit this one out, there's not a whole lot I can do.

His body is like, all right, man, but I'm really tired.

Fight Study 154 UFC

Oh, and seeing that shit, it's fucking brilliant.

And there's a beauty to that sort of thing, because you couldn't replicate it no matter how badly you wanted it.

It's like a perfect storm of a mishmash of attributes, both good and bad, that makes him the fighter that he is.

How do you rate his wrestling?

His wrestling's pretty good.

right we can get Gold Rosen on here and he'll break down some of the the technical deficits and problems uh technically but when he makes it a dog fight and he gets you to come back he just lowers his level and runs through your hips and he he's so good at running through that double leg that the the other things like the scrambles

induced from that in scramblings where he truly excels.

So, the more he gets you thinking, he'll string together things and we talk about this all the time, setups and chain, like combining the skills in a sequential chain, make you more and more problematic.

And if you are a little unpolished in certain areas,

That chain and ability to string together different techniques from different disciplines make those weaknesses a little more palatable, a little less problematic.

And if you do clean them up, then you become even better.

Now, what's up with Roy Val?

Because he has one of the worst takedown defenses in the UFC.

Why is he so easy to take down and keep down?

It looks like he's doing the right things, but something is happening, right?

Well, I think it's a combination of things, right?

It's a little bit of the Diaz Brothers, I believe in my jiu-jitsu off my back bullshit, coupled with

Roy Val is good with his forward pressure and pace.

That's a hard thing for most fighters in that weight class to deal with.

But unfortunately for Brandon, the fighters like

Pantoja, Moreno, fuck Figge when he was at 125.

They're all too physical.

They're all too well-rounded and they all wrestle better and scramble almost as well, if not better.

And they're just horrible style matchups for Roy Val.

So if he decides to push forward with that pace walking forward, I love skinny fighters who can

who can punch a bit and create some some good stuff and work within their body type but he doesn't have that sort of um that that skinny man power like Alexis Arguello or someone he just a little too much pitter-pat and he's a great scrambler and has underrated athleticism but I just think those guys those matchups I named between Pantoja Moreno and even Figgy they're tailor-made for him

Now let's talk about Leon Edwards defending his welterweight title for the second time by basically shutting out Colby Covington.

The commentators kept asking what happened to Covington's pace, but completely missed one of the most important points about fighting made by Leon Edwards.

Listen to Leon Edwards if you are somebody who goes to the gym and trains the martial arts, especially striking.

Edwards said that Covington can't control the pace if he controls the range.

So think about that.

Sit on that.

Especially if let's say I'm the smaller fighter and the worst striker.

I cannot control the pace if I cannot get to the range to use my pace.

Edwards seems to control the range against all his opponents.

So Jason, tell me about Edwards' performance and his team's game planning.

Well, his performance was technically brilliant, right?

And if the casual fan can't see or they can't understand that, they should just fuck off.

That's the end of it.

Also, Edwards is physically an exceptional fighter with excellent fight IQ.

in a sport, as I said earlier, in a sport that is made up of a lot of PED and aggression type fight strategy.

I think technical brilliance and fight IQ take a lot longer to develop.

So when you take a disciplined and long-term approach to developing as a fighter and an athlete, you become really capable of some world-class fight shit.

And that does include taking down multiple time division one All-Americans.

And so that being said, he's, Edwards is incredibly physical.

And he does a great job pummeling against wrestlers.

And that physicality allows him like we were talking about before with Chakma to win that head position battle against the cage.

And you're seeing Edwards do that against everyone.

And he's been doing that going all the way back to his fight against Cerrone.

and it's nuanced positional stuff.

Everyone sees how he performs in so many problems he creates at distance, but he'll punch himself into the clinch and he'll just wreck you with elbows on the exit.

And if you try to stay at range, he's just going to kick you and piece you up at distance.

So he does things inside, outside and against the cage that

If you're a young fighter, you want to watch Leon Edwards and you want to watch how he continues to improve.

It's nuanced, but it is exceptionally important to understand those things.

I think Leon Edwards is developing into one of the all-time best technical mixed martial artists in the world.

ever.

Unlike the strikers we see at the weight division right above, right?

Like we saw Alex Pereira, Izzy Adesanya, great strikers, but they're not well-rounded like Leon is, right?

Leon is the total package.

He is.

If he had to just beat somebody with wrestling because they were equal to him in striking, he could do that.

He could.

The wrestling that you saw between Adesanya and Pele was, it

It was a fucking joke.

It was bad.

It was it was piss poor at best.

And if you watch what what Leon Edwards is able to do, because he is taking a holistic approach at developing as a mixed martial artist, it's going to make him harder and harder to fight.

And the only thing people are going to come back with, well, he's boring, or it's lack of finishes.

Well, if, if you weren't so afraid to strike with a mix, mix it up, then come forward, what's gonna happen, you're gonna wreck you stay at range, watch him

Watch him bust up your legs.

He'll crash the distance every once in a while and he'll create a clinch in the elbow.

He has everyone else so cautious and the fighters who are notorious for coming forward and push a pace.

Hey, was it me or did I didn't see Covington pushing much of a pace.

He wasn't coming forward.

No, and it's not like Covington has the goods to fight a fighter like Leon Edwards at range.

So he's able to make some good fighters worse.

And if those fighters don't want to take a chance and get finished, it's hard to finish a fighter.

And I'm stealing this from someone I read off Twitter, and I didn't want to read anything about the fights.

So I tried to see what someone said.

It's really hard to finish a fighter that doesn't want to get finished.

It is.

So that's what you get.

And that's what you got.

Every once in a while, you're going to have to blame the person who's fighting to not get finished.

as opposed to just Leon Edwards because you find them so hateable.

Now, there were many points where Edwards, who is not the wrestler, was out wrestling Covington, to your point.

But then as the wrestling continued, eventually Covington found moments where he could get on top.

It's like Edwards understands 80% of the wrestling and is probably now better than Covington at some of the big things because of his size and strength and just being that good at learning things.

But that last 20% you can't just gain overnight.

You can't gain without those years of experience wrestling.

And I think that got him into a little bit of trouble.

To be precise, several times Edwards tried to step over Covington and that's how he lost position.

It felt a bit like a middle school wrestler's bully move.

So was Edwards trying to get away with some non-championship level wrestling at the championship level?

It's a good point and it's a great question.

And how do I explain this?

There are nuanced aspects of wrestling and position that Edwards is not necessarily lacking, but a little bit behind.

You can speak a language, but you can't speak it fluently, and it might take you a second.

You can get there, but you got to hesitate again.

You got to hesitate for a second.

So part of wrestling is knowing how to use your physical advantages combined with your technique.

If you're not fast, you might not be able to hit that duck under.

It's just not your shit.

If you're not quick,

So understanding like who you are and what your physical attributes are.

So you combine your physical advantages combined with your technique.

So some of the bully wizard and bear hug techniques might seem a little middle school.

But if you watch the fight, it was a flat backed double leg against the cage that took Covington down.

And that's not good position and he was still able to take him down with that.

So that being said like I'm with you on this Cleaning it up will only make a great fighter even more formidable So I would expect his camps to take the same developmental approach with those wrestling aspects of his game And I would expect us to see an even more complete Leon Edwards with even better wrestling

Before the fight,

I posted that Edwards would find a lot of success with his left straight and with his left body kick.

The reason I said this is because the way Covington punches, he flares his elbows before every punch, which is why his punches look so weird.

Basically, whether it's a jab or a rear straight, he throws them all like an up jab because he brings his elbow up first.

Now, whenever you punch, you leave an opening on that side.

But for Covington, he has an extended window because he flares his elbows so early in the movement, which not only makes it easier to see, but leaves you open.

But also your punch will travel so much slower because of the way you're flaring and how long it takes.

So because of that lack of speed, the other person will also land their punch first.

So we've talked about weird things fighters do that may not look pretty or clean, but it works and doesn't cause any harm.

So why change it?

But with something like this, it actually is causing problems.

So how would you fix something like that?

And I'm asking this not for Covington, but because I know a lot of amateurs and hobbyists in boxing and Muay Thai and in MMA gyms who have this exact problem.

This is a very common problem that you see if you spend any time in the gym, this flaring of the elbow before you even punch.

Yeah, it's a common problem in boxing and I think it's in all combat sports because people have some success doing it wrong, they still do it.

So when I was working with Matt Frivola, he had and still has a tendency to flare and telegraph his punches.

So I would put his right shoulder and I put him against the wall, right side against the wall,

And we would just have him take a little jab step and then throw that too.

You can't flare your elbow out.

You just have to piston like throw it.

Because it would hit the wall.

It would hit the wall.

Exactly.

So you really start to start to become very aware of how much you do it when you take it away.

And every fighter and even the hobbyist will tell you, I feel like I don't have any power there.

Well, you start getting the power on that hip.

and if that hip and this is when we were talking about Josh Emmett the links in the kinetic chain if your hip is in line with your elbow and your elbow is in line with your shoulder and they all start to rotate and that kinetic chain is all locked out so that you don't have any energy loss

You can generate good power.

Now, if you have a little more room and you get to step and open up, there's a difference between throwing a straight right and an overhand right, and you can generate greater rotation.

But again, some of that rotation will be with a little bit of a flare, but the majority of it is going from right shoulder to center line to left shoulder, and then your head ends up from center line over to where your left shoulder was, and your left shoulder is about a foot and a half

even further to the left.

So you get that rotation when you need it.

But if you fight solely with flare and over rotation, it'll look like you're fucking swimming and you're not going to be hitting anything.

So you're saying people unconsciously flare their elbows because they're searching for power?

Definitely.

Definitely.

It's a hitch.

And they do it with their jab too because they think it's generating more power.

Even good boxers do it.

and sometimes you want to stiffen that up sometimes you can go with a shotgun jab sometimes you can go with you can just double that jab up sometimes you can do a little up jab or a little poke jab we can talk about positional changes of where your hand is and what you're trying to draw out in response you're trying to elicit

But again, an adherence to fundamentals while you're learning some things, and then we learn the rules before we break them.

Then we can break them after we have a solid fundamental base.

And because we've learned the rules, we've learned the correct way to do it, if we ever have to go back to it, we can.

Rather than having never buried those fundamentals and really etched them into our synapses or etched them into our gray matter,

So that we can we can fight correctly, that when we start to get tired, when we start to get adrenaline really pumping through, and we are fighting under duress, if you have to think about how to dial it in, or how to be fundamental or how to be clean with your striking or your defense, you're fucked.

You're too far gone, that has got to be sort of innate and built in, right, or embedded

and etched into your fighter DNA.

And yeah, you can freestyle but if that's all you have, well, I mean, the higher levels to attain will start from a strong foundation.

And that has to be remembered in any athletic endeavor.

The higher levels will start off of a strong foundation.

I think a key takeaway is

Just like with flaring of the elbow, you mentioned it's because the fighter wants to hit hard.

So they're unconsciously doing it, right?

So basically, whenever you're looking to hit hard, whenever you're trying to hit hard, it often turns into a tell versus just doing it to your point naturally without thought.

Because for you to try to hit hard, that means you're thinking about hitting hard, right?

So that also causes a delay and like creates weird hitches and weird ticks.

it does and there's something to be said and I always give the Diaz brothers shit because um well they're the Diaz brothers but there's something to be said about how they double and triple up on their power hand and they punch you out of position and when you try to correct position when you're doing that volume then

they put a little more stink on it.

They'll hit you with that half jab or the true jab, half jab, double jab.

And then when you try to come back, they put that two behind it and then they'll double up on that two and they'll walk it through because you're sort of all over the place and they've punched you out of position.

While you're trying to improve position or recover position and balance, they'll put a little more stink on that shot.

And it doesn't have to be super hard.

and they'll wobble you and then you know they're killers once they got you a little bit hurt if you have the right if you have the aerobic capacity if you have the endurance to be able to do that multiple times well then your pace is leading somewhere like you're building off of what it is that you're doing and it's just not random aggression if you just calculate an effective aggression it can build

you can truly layer it.

If it's random, again, sometimes you're going to look fantastic.

Sometimes you're going to be someone else's highlight reel knockout.

All right.

I think that's it for this fight study.

Thank you, Jason, for all your insight.

Thanks to all of you for listening.

Always a pleasure.