UFC 293 Results: Israel Adesanya vs. Sean Strickland | UFC 293 Reaction & Post-Fight Show | MK

Oh, buddy. Oh, buddy. What a show. What a show I have today. How about it, ladies and gentlemen? Welcome. It is 1237 in the morning here on the 10th of September 2023. This is official morning combat UFC 293 post fight show instant reaction whatever you’d like to call it so UFC 293 is in the books surprisingly pretty good card in terms of fun fights at least the main card prelim card a little less so but the main card certainly delivered in terms of good action and the main event just ended and there’s a lot to get to there a lot to get to okay so if you’re watching first of all thank you so much i really appreciate it number two give the video a thumbs up if you’d be so kind. That’d be awesome. And then on top of it, what else can we say here? Hit that subscribe button, right? It’s free. Doesn’t cost you a thing. Would help us out a lot here. All right. So all the results, all the analysis, all the spoilers, I have a tweet up right now where you can leave questions. We’ll get to it. Well, obviously we’ll start with the main event and then work everything there backwards, but we got a lot to get to. So without further ado let’s get this party started shall we let’s go let’s see here oh for crying out loud here we go all right so let’s get to it Um, where do we go with this one? So let’s just read the results and then we will go from there. Um, pretty amazing night, pretty amazing night. You know, I love three, the result and we’ll get to it here. Okay. So in the main event, Sean Strickland defeats Israel, Adesanya, Adesanya, whatever over the course of five rounds. He did it on all three judges scorecards, 49, 46. I had it 48-47 for Strickland, but I thought he was the winner. Ladies and gentlemen, you know, listen, a couple of things. I got to put cards on the table right away. You know, I’ve been a long time supporter of the career and the fighting ability of Izzy and that’s one and number two, I thought he was going to win. And, and then three, you know, when asked like, what could Strickland do to win? I didn’t really, I didn’t have a good answer. I, in fact, I couldn’t come up with one. I didn’t think that a guy with the style that he has, which we’ll get into in a minute, could win. And it’s like, dude, none of that. This was this was the best Sean Strickland I’d ever seen by far by far Okay, but I’ve got to say something about Sean Strickland Number one, this was the performance of his lifetime not in terms of like Overwhelming force although he did rock and drop is he and nearly closed the show in the first round But that’s not it to me, you know, like when Rhonda got beat up by Holly She got overwhelmed and she got finished and was this amazing thing like when when rock hold over committed Bissping caught him and it was this amazing thing although obviously Rockhold had already fought him before so there are some meaningful differences But I have to tell you man. This was you know, not that there was any like flukiness about the win over with Rhonda and Holly But I just want to make this point. This was 25 minutes went the full distance, right? The judges didn’t turn in any bullshit scoring cards like is a 4-1 card for Sean Strickland justified Yep, sure is. Very justified. Easy to see that one. You may have it slightly different or whatever but that’s not an unfair scorecard. Again, all three of them had it. So the judges didn’t mess it up. Okay, so we went the full distance. Judges didn’t mess it up. There was no, you know, crazy refing that either it was a bad stoppage or otherwise intervened and changed the course of everything. Nope. didn’t get any of that right so no 25 minutes not one single auto I haven’t looked at the fight metric data but from what I know not a single takedown attempt ladies and gentlemen whatever your preference is as a fan watching and we’ve all got them in one direction or the other the only thing I think I have my true north star in the fight game is just one thing it’s like the right guy should win on fight night the sport is too dangerous, a lot of these guys are underpaid, circumstances of getting a title fight or any kind of opportunity are hard to come by. You just want the right guy to win. Ladies and gentlemen, there can just be no debate about it. The right guy won. The right guy won, period. No question. did it with like maximum time on the scoreboard but the clock right didn’t didn’t get some like oh it was a short turnaround three round fight like you know no there’s nothing there was no fluky circumstance took the final relatively short notice anyway like this was by far to me the not just because he beat Izzy but more than that just actually what he showed was super impressive from Shawn Strickland and he earned this one fair and square. No two ways about it. You have to credit him. You have to give it up for him as a competitor and what he turned in tonight and I certainly have every intention of doing that. Dude he earned it. He earned it. That’s all you could ever ask is did the guy who really deserve to win and by the way remember you know Izzy wasn’t the hometown guy in the sense that he’s Kiwi and this was in Australia but you Could the judges have had some hometown cooking or be influenced by this and the other? Nope, none of that. The right guy won. You have to give him his credit. Whatever you think about him as a person and as a person, I get that a lot of the fans love him. He’s not for me. But as a fighter, what did he turn in tonight? He turned in a championship winning performance over the, at worst, the second best middle weight of all time and did it in that guy’s best domain. I mean you can’t say shit about that. You can’t say shit about that He earned that one completely and like I said dropping him in the first round I was I wasn’t sure that if I was gonna make it out of the first I Was I was watching that one like what what are we MMA? Dude, this is what I’m trying to tell you man. Like, you know certain things will shock me time to time You know, this was certainly a surprise. I wouldn’t call the shocking although So, sort of on that, maybe on that one, it’s close. Not quite shocking, but very surprising. Maybe slightly below shocking, but surprising. But like, dude, this is MMA. Crazy shit happens all the time. And for guys like Izzy, I tell you what this, I think this win symbolizes for me a little bit. The idea that Izzy has been like completely figured out, I don’t think is true. But I do think that Eric Nixik has had some trial an error at this and got this one right. Now, of course, Sean deserves 99.9% of the credit, but I’m saying those two have been together for a long time and really worked it out. Man, man, there’s a lot to say. All right, let me get a swig of this water here because that was crazy. What was different about Sean this time? What was different? A couple of things, one, one of the big takeaways for me from this fight was the cage cutting. If you watch the parede fight, he follows him, right, he follows him. So wherever parede is going, Sean’s just kind of circling and following him in whatever direction that is. That’s not the same as cage cutting, where I’m trying to keep your back pinned or close to, not pinned is a strong word, but keep you very close to the cage and you can’t kind get out in the exit, get back to the center, get back into the open. He was cage cutting this time. Man, that made a big difference. But the real thing was the pressure game. Izzy usually is able to command more distance between himself and his opponent as a way to, you know, with the feints, with shot selection, whatever. And so guys are much more hesitant to kind of walk into him. Sean wasn’t. And it was, I can’t claim that I saw this coming. I certainly did not. But like, having now reviewed the fight, I’m trying to see what he did differently. The cage cutting made a big difference because when you follow, it’s much easier to walk into stuff. When you cage cut, they have to be much more defensively aware of their footwork and where they are. And again, the end of the first round notwithstanding, Izzy had… I mean, he got hit more in this fight than he did in other ones, but I wouldn’t call what he had poor defense. I mean, there was a lot of movement but the point being was he could never get anything going right it’s sort of like how do you fight a kicker like edson barboza this is not quite the same but the point being is you kind of just pressure into him now cage cutting is a little bit different but you really kind of pressure into him so he can’t set and if you can’t set he can’t throw the way that he wants you got a lot of that as well so one the cage cutting really made izzy much more defensively um back footed like he just had to spend more time doing it, you know, changing directions, changing stances, throwing and then getting out. The other thing that was kind of amazing was Sean’s style of like throwing up, like he throws up like a crossing guard at times, not like this kind of crossing guard but more like an X, and then kind of catching and rolling away from it. Izzy really had no answer for it. There’s a lot of the kind of stuff that Izzy does where like he’ll from, even from from South Barbara Orthodox, he’ll throw like a left hand and then try and come over with the right and Sean read it all the time or was able to roll and get out of the way. But then not so far out of the way where Izzy was off the hook, he could then get right back on him and then pressure him. So he was able to connect with some of the leg kicks. I think the second round was maybe Izzy’s best round. The rhythm disruption leg kicks where he’s kind of adding up, he backs a guy up with something else and as soon as they move into him, he tags him with a leg kick. You saw a lot of that. But dude, I will tell you what, Izzy was throwing a lot of looping shots, man. A lot of looping shots. He wasn’t throwing stuff down the middle. You know who was throwing stuff down the middle? Sean Strickland. Sean Strickland was happy to throw stuff, linear shots, right down the middle, and dude, that was connecting. His jab was one of his best punches. Dude, the two best punches, this is true. Now, that right hand, okay, the right hand at the end of the first was good for Sean Strickland, but I’m talking over the full 25 minutes. What were the two best punches, the two type of punches that were the best for Shawn Strickland. His jab, let me move this, his jab and his left hook, right? And the left hook is able to land in part because Izzy wasn’t moving out of the way but also because there’s this linear punch coming around and now Izzy’s kind of confused about what look he’s getting from this shoulder about what Shawn’s doing. So dude, it’s like, it was incredible to watch that this guy was using much more of a basic style of striking, but patient, cornering this guy. Now he was giving away, earlier in the fight anyway, he was giving away longer stretches of the fight, which is why Nixik was kind of on him with that 90 second like let’s go, let’s do something with this. But at the same time, he was hurrying Izzy. Izzy couldn’t set, Izzy couldn’t get anything going. And I will tell you what, man, it looked to me like he just was out of ideas. He couldn’t find Sean. Sean also, how about this about Sean Strickland, dude? So Sean Strickland was the one landing the linear shots up the middle and then the left hook when Izzy wouldn’t move his head and all kinds of stuff like that at the end. But the other part too was how good was Sean at kind of rolling and catching and kind of blocking shots and then Izzy couldn’t really find him. That was the other part. It wasn’t like it was a back and forth battle where both guys were like landing heavy shots and it was this war of attrition. I mean, they were throwing a lot and a lot of it, by the way that Sean Threw didn’t land on Izzy either. But as the fight wore on, I thought he had, by the third round on, he had kind of taken it. Maybe you could say Izzy took the fourth, depending on your scorecard. Again, the judges didn’t see it that way. But the point I’m trying to make is, dude, his ability to roll, catch, not so much slip, but kind of just absorb out of the way, catching, blocking, moving out of the way, and Izzy had absolutely no answer for it whatsoever. And then he would throw the looping shots and you would see Sean kind of get out of the way and catch it and roll with it. Dude, he was just better. He was just matter-of-factly better. And you had Izzy going in as, what did they say on the broadcast, a minus 675 favorite? A minus 675 favorite? I mean, just bonkers, you know? So, I mean, he was better basically everywhere. everywhere I mean he didn’t wrestle so we didn’t get like the full sense of the game but you know whatever irrelevant on the feet is he has this kind of thing where he backs people up he hits him with the leg kick you know he gets them one thing that is he got that Sean just or usually gets that Sean just would not give him is is he gets guys to be deferential to him right oh I don’t want to get too close I don’t want to make a mistake blah blah blah I’m gonna stay out here and I might eat a leg kick or not kind of like what Joel Romero would do you know Rob Whitaker not so much because Rob comes charging in a little bit on that jab but yeah he gets him deferential. Sean was just not deferential and wouldn’t he would kind of bite on the feints a little bit but then Izzy was fainting more than he was throwing and so by the time he was throwing he was predictable and then Sean could see it coming block and get out of the way They’re looping shots. They’re not straight to the target dude. He He gave it to him. He beat him. I mean he beat him fair and Absolutely square make no mistake about it. Nothing not a damn thing fluky about it Izzy was out of ideas He was out of space and by the time the fight was over He was out of time and and honestly if that fight had I mean you see Sean at the end of the fight It was like going bananas because he knew he knew he had him beat and in between rounds standing not sitting Look at the look at the energy in the corner of of Izzy and Eugene bareman. It was kind of like Little bit more blah blah blah and in the corner of Nick sick and Sean it was like let’s go you could do this blah blah blah There was just this complete difference between them like I’m not gonna say maybe you believe it is it’s hard to ever ever know who wanted it more but Sean wanted it badly badly and dude he even admitted walking into the cage or I’m sorry he even said after the fight that you know all fight week and kind of walking to the ground he was kind of doubting himself look at the face-offs they weren’t he wouldn’t even make eye contact with Izzy barely barely and then kind of like deflecting with jokes he admitted he was a little bit shook you know but then that first round cracks him with a right hand and what was Izzy doing when he got hit with the right hand? Coming with a wide shot, right? Coming with a wide shot, trying to come around and Sean was just like nope bop bop, one two, hit him right down the middle, crushed him, crushed him, absolutely crushed him with it. I will say remarkable, you got to give him credit for where the credit is due, remarkable resilience by Izzy to stand up and then even tell Mark Goddard, you can back and hear it that he was fine and then you know to make it out of the round because Sean was unloading on him in that moment. I want to get some of these fight metric numbers up because man people are asking like you know where does that rank among upsets? That’s a huge fucking upset, huge fucking upset but like I said if you’re a Sean Strickland fan or you’re whoever there’s just no denying dude he I mean he’s like you know I mean he was he was better he was just matter of factly better all right let’s take a look at some of these numbers because this is to me what’s gonna tell the story here a little bit all right I mean dude listen look at this shit look at this I don’t know I can’t throw it to you listen to this scoring line this is crazy if I told you that that that one fighter was gonna have a knockdown in this fight before it was over. Would you have said it was gonna be only Shawn Strickland? Shawn Strickland credited with a knockdown. Izzy not. Izzy landed 94 significant strikes. Shawn Strickland 137. Dude let’s look at the other five round fights this guy has been in. Okay Izzy in five round fights Izzy in five round fights okay so he He landed 94 significant strikes after 25 minutes against Pereira, which did not go the full five. He was at 86, but of course Pereira was at 91. But for ones that went the distance, so Cannoneer went the distance, Izzy was at 116. Whitaker went the distance. Only 79. Whitaker was just at 59. Jesus, that was not a lot. Marvin Vittori, 96. But I’ve never seen numbers like this. I’ve never seen someone have 137 and Izzy at 94. Matter of factly, qualitatively outstruck, numerically outstruck. Okay, let’s look at some of the other numbers. Sean Strickland’s significant strikes of his total strike percentage, 52, for Izzy, just 34. Holy shit, holy shit. And then total strikes attempted, actually Izzy attempted more, 271 to Sean’s 259, but look at how totally inefficient he was. Let’s look at the targeting percentage. This one makes a lot more sense. This one’s not super surprising. Head strikes, and this is gonna be, I mean, this is gonna be a big reason why it won. Izzy, he targeted the head 23% of the time. Sean Strickland, 62, 62, more than double. Body was not too different, 40% for Izzy, 32 for Sean Strickland, and then 36 to the leg, 5%. Let’s talk about the leg kicks. The leg kicks are often, for Izzy, the difference maker. was the difference maker, for example, in the Yoel Romero fight. Even if you can’t quite get the hands going, usually the kicks do a lot. They land so they add up, so like whatever total offense is in the round. A lot of times he’s usually landing with impunity or very frequently, so they add up for a lot. And then they usually deter guys or they make them switch things up or whatever. Dude, they didn’t do shit to Shawn Strickland. They didn’t do shit. Did he ever slow down once with his cage cutting? Did he ever slow down with his cornering footwork? There were times he might have been backed up. You know, again, it’s a fist fight. Guys are gonna, you know, each side’s gonna give and take even if it’s semi, in this particular case, kind of one-sided. I mean, it was, every round was close, but kind of one-sided, except for the first round. First round could have been a 10-8 too, by the way. First round could have been a 10-8. Yeah, in fact, was it 49-46 on all three? Or was it 49-47? Let me go back to my, because then it was a 10-8, hold on, let me see here. 49-46, so no, there was no 10-8s, I apologize. Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is those leg kicks are huge for Izzy, huge. But here, against Sean, Sean kind of lifting, kind of walking but not walking too far, right? When you’re going against Pereira and you’re just pushing into him, pushing into him, pushing into him, he’s jabbing to the body, jabbing to the body, he’s leg kicking, turning and you’re following you’re just walking into shit he didn’t walk into shit this time he walked right up to it and then no further and then when Izzy’s doing all of his stuff and then coming wide he’s going right up the middle dude he just walked him down patient with range didn’t rush anything waited for the guy to throw you know typically there was a couple times he was you know he was biting and moving or whatever but not not not in not enough for the champ to or the former champ anyway to land and so then he comes around and pops him he just he just was just was on he just was on beat his ass i mean i mean it is what it is you can like these facts or you can hate these facts but they’re facts they’re facts i just just didn’t see it coming. Just didn’t see it coming. Can’t sit here and pretend that I did. Can’t sit here and pretend for two seconds that I thought over the course of five, I mean maybe for a round or two or something like that that I thought he could do it but not for five. Not for five rounds. He was basically better except for the second round. You know it was a good rally round for Izzy and then that’s about it. Let me take a look at those second round numbers. Yeah. Dude listen to these fourth, no Izzy didn’t win in the fourth, what am I even saying? Fourth round, listen to these numbers, 38 for Strickland, just 20 for Izzy, most of those being leg kicks anyway. Right, how many leg kicks did he land in the fourth? Yeah, he attempted six. Fifth round, 36 to 21. And then the first round, 27 to 12, bare minimum, bare minimum, the lowest score card you could come up with is 48-47. That’s the lowest for Sean Strickland. There is no case for Izzy. There is no, well, what about 48-47? What about that? No, it doesn’t exist. There’s no, there is, you cannot find three rounds for him. You can find one round and you could maybe squint and find two. That’s it. You cannot find three. And again, Again, you could also argue, it would be hard to argue a 10-8 round one but you get my point. The dominance was just basically all in one direction. Sean Strickland had the performance of a lifetime and I got a little bit of pushback. I think on, what was it, Friday show when I said that Eric Nixik is one of the greatest coaches in MMA history, I don’t know why that’s controversial to some people. You’re like, oh well it’s premature. Well let’s see what he did. He’s got two champions that have come through his tutelage. One guy Sean Strickland has been with for a long time, Francis, left MMA Factory, came to him and became a UFC champion as well. I seriously doubt this is the last champion that he ever has. And for folks who don’t realize, what happened before Nixxik got there, Extreme Couture was in dire straits. They had a big roar of popularity when Randy first established it and blah, blah, blah. But then the gym kind of fell on hard times, a lot of fighters left, they weren’t really known for having anybody big, and under, it’s not just Nixik, of course, but under his leadership and his time and effort, that gym has come fucking roaring, roaring back, roaring back. And is he, you know, to the point of what Strickland himself said, has beaten a few of his friends and, you know, was kind of in his head, but look at what they were able to turn in tonight. This is a team that they don’t win championships by accident. They don’t luck their way into belts. You know what I mean? They don’t get gifted this shit. It doesn’t just fall in their lap. They go out there and grind their way into getting it and they have a consistent level of excellence throughout it. Again, I know there’s other coaches and there’s lots of other guys there. It’s not just him and on some level anyone who works with them, they all deserve credit. like you know the number of coaches in MMA that ever even get to a UFC title fight you can count very few and however many has champions however many have multiple champions now I know there was a time when aka had three champions at once I mean that’s gonna be tough to beat but okay no one’s taking away Javier Mendez’s place you know if you can take a program that was like failing basically as a gym program turn it into one of the best gyms in the world and create two UFC champions and and several other highly ranked fighters some of Some of which are homegrown, some of which are recruited, but nevertheless a consistent level of excellence. Dude, you’re doing something that a handful of coaches in MMA history have ever done. Put some fucking respect on Eric Nixik’s name if that statement to you was in any way controversial because it shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be. He’s a fantastic coach. Whatever my … I’m not part of the Sean Strickland fan club, but whatever my reservation’s there, I’ve always heaped praise on Eric Nixik. Dude, I know Eric Nixik well. I talk to him all the time, I’ve been able to pick his brain, you’re just dealing with a different level of operator there. You’re dealing with a very different level of operator there. What was the record tonight for CKB? Was it like two and four? Or three and three? I think it was like two and four for who won tonight. Let’s see, let’s go through this here very quickly. Kevin Giuseppe won, so that’s one. Shane Young lost, that’s one and one. Blood Diamond lost, one and two. Let’s see, Jack Jenkins lost, so that’d be one and three. Olberg won, so that’d be two and three. Or no, I don’t think Jack Jenkins is, but then Tyson Pedro, no, Tyson Pedro, is he? I think he is. So maybe they’re, yeah, so wait, so. Or is Kevin Giuseppe, is he with City Kidby? I know he’s like adopted Kiwi. No, yeah, he’s City Kickboxing, yeah. So maybe three and three, I’m not sure. Nevertheless, you know, tough night. Tough night at the office for them, especially with their biggest star losing there in that way. Everyone’s end comes and sometimes the only part I got right was the general disclaimer that in title fights, the guy I couldn’t think of, I did a live chat last week, I couldn’t remember his name. It was Tim Elliott. Now Tim Elliott did not beat Demetrius Johnson and it was a bit of a weight bully issue there. Nevertheless, you’re like, oh, what’s Tim Elliott going to do to Demetrius Johnson? Dude, he gave him a tough fight. He gave him a very tough fight. People always think that there’s this destined contender who’s going to rise up and wins, and sometimes that’s true, right? I remember when St. Pierre made his … fought Matt Hughes and lost the first time, but he had already beaten Caro, and I think he beat after that, or even around that time he beat Jay Huron and like Dave Strasser and all this shit and he’s rising. Yeah and then when he beat Frank Trigg you’re like oh Matt Hughes might be in trouble now. Like you could see that coming but a lot of times that’s not the way it goes. It’s the same kind of situation with Shevchenko. Dude there’s a lot of tape on Izzy at this point and a lot of his fainting game it hasn’t not that it hasn’t changed obviously it slightly alters over time but guys have picked up on a lot of the different stuff that he does to get you off to change angles the the shot selection that comes with it, the question mark kicks and all this stuff. The setups for this, a lot of it is much more readable than it once was. And Nyxtec having a couple of goes at this got much better at reading it. Sean Strickland, much better at prepping for it and practicing for it. And it worked. It worked. It worked beautifully. It all worked. So this idea, well, could Izzy get a rematch? We’ll talk about that in a second. Could he go to 205? One issue I think he’s facing is that the unpredictability of what his striking game used to represent has plummeted. It’s not what it once was. And you know, when guys go after him, like Pereira or Brunson or Gastelum, they’re more hittable. They’re way more, or Costa, like they’re more hittable. But when you’re reserved and you’re backing a guy up and you’re not throwing and you’re putting pressure on him and you’re making a move and he can’t settle and he can’t throw and then some of his reads and some of his options are much more diagnosable. Brand new ball game, brand new ball game. And Sean cleaning up the stuff that got him into trouble previously. Remember there’s like kind of two guys he can be. He can kind of be like the backwards guy and he’s not very offensively potent and he can be the come forward guy. He was able to be the come forward guy and more offensively potent but he threaded a needle by not making some of those previous mistakes of not cage cutting, of walking into range at times, right? Like bullying guys in that way. Couple more aspects about this. The Submission Radio boys asked me if there are any advantages that Sean had had, and one thing that they had said that Eugene Bearman had pointed out was like, you know, this guy fought recently. That Abus-Magomedov fight, and I did say this on the MK-293 pregame special, special. Dude, that was a tune-up fight. That was a tune-up fight. Spence Crawford, Tank Garcia. In both cases, the guys who won, respectively Spence and Tank, the one difference was many, but one of the big differences between them and their opponents was you had the Avadicean fight as a tune-up fight for Crawford, and then you had the Hector Garcia fight that he had here in DC before taking on Ryan Garcia. They got tune-up fights and they were much fresher and they were much more ready. Dude, look at what he got. Everyone was clowning that fight because they go, oh, should this be a UFC main event? No, it shouldn’t be a UFC main event, you know, and Sean fighting in the apex forever, like okay, all that stuff. But that’s not what we’re talking about in this context. What purpose did that fight serve for Sean? He was able to take a UFC fight, had to weather an early storm against that guy, got to walk him down, and it was a guy that was relative to Shawn’s skill level, very beatable. Dude, that’s a tune-up fight. He got a tune-up fight. I mean, that’s not what they called it. That’s not what it was designed to be. You don’t really get tune-up fights in the UFC by matchmaking design, but he got one. Look what good it did. It made this guy so much readier than maybe he would have otherwise been. Certainly, he looked very ready to me. So you know, people can laugh like, oh, what was the value of that win? That guy shouldn’t have been in the main event. Not that anyone was like clowning Sean for, but like, oh, the win didn’t mean anything. Bullshit. That win was super valuable. Super valuable. All the sparring that goes with it, then getting ready, getting to get a little bit of the test, but it’s very beatable, and you get to work it all out. Now, no, Mega Man Off doesn’t fight like Izzy, so you have to make some of those changes there, but staying fresh, staying ready, making the walk the whole nine yards and getting a relatively unbeatable guy, dude, you just don’t get opportunities like that. You don’t get opportunities like that. You really don’t. So pretty impressive. Pretty goddamn impressive. Now, the folks that asked me on my live chat, is there going to be a rematch? I don’t know. I will tell you candidly, even as someone like me who’s been an Izzy fan of his game for a long time, I don’t think he’s entitled to one. I don’t. He got beat fair and square. And you know, this is what, two losses in the last three fights? Like no, I don’t think he’s entitled to one. That of course does not mean he won’t get one. That in no way means that. absolutely might do that because you know Izzy versus Drikus is gonna be you know a lot bigger than Sean Strickland versus Drikus it just is you know I mean there I don’t think I have to tell you all that you know that win that Izzy had over Pareta the the the redemptive one I was like all that sentiment to a new atmosphere and you know the Drikus one was gonna be the one you thought was gonna like make all the sense it just wouldn’t be as big you know Sean Strickland so I have a feeling that they’re going to maybe run this one back I don’t know I don’t unless Izzy goes to 205 right away or something I don’t know I don’t know how that’s gonna go but the rematch or no rematch will be interesting here also it will be I think the UFC might I think there’s gonna be Sean Strickland fans who are very happy obviously but then there’s a question of should they have done the Drikus fight? Like if you were gonna have Izzy lose, did you wanna lose in like a bigger fight that you could have made this like all African storyline or whatever? Your mileage may vary on that one, but this is certainly one of the biggest upsets in UFC history. So no matter one’s other preference, it feels like the Drikus-Izzy fight, like you could still do it, but it probably went up in smoke. Because I suspect, even though I do not, I think if you lose two title fights in three goes, you’re not entitled to a rematch. That’s just my personal opinion, but I think they probably are gonna run this one back unless he’s going to 205, or unless he’s got other designs, but man, man, man, what a win for Sean Strickland tonight. God damn, took away the leg kicks, caught, rolled, blocked the vast majority of what he threw, Dropped him in the first, nearly finished him, and outstruck him in the final three. Fuckin’ A, fuckin’ A, dude. What are you gonna say? What are you gonna say? He did it, he did it. Absolutely, absolutely fairly, absolutely squarely, absolutely deserving to hoist the belt tonight. No doubt about it. How old is Sean Strickland? I think he’s older than Izzy, if I’m not mistaken, right? So he’s, no, he’s much younger. What am I saying? 32. Um, so yeah, man, he had losses last year to Jared Kenaneer. He got knocked out by Pereira and, you know, he’s got a stoppage loss. These are the losses that he’s got. He’s got a loss to Santiago Ponsonibio, um, Sean Strickland does. He’s got a loss to Kamaru Usman. I was there for that one, right? I think I was there for that. No, not for that one. Uh, Eliza Zalesky Dos Santos stopped him. Um, and then he beat Jack Hermanson via split, Pineda knocked him out and then Cannonier beat him. It’s like, you know, I guess Pineda has the win over Izzy, but then Izzy knocked him out. And the rest of those guys are all welterweights, you know, sometimes it’s the one you see coming and sometimes it isn’t, man. It’s just that MMA, these guys, you know, at 30, I, I think I misunderstood. I thought Sean was much older than that at 32. that’s when you’re sort of really becoming and moving into your own that way, you know, you’re really beginning to everything’s beginning to gel. And for a guy who spars a lot of rounds for a guy who, you know, tries to stay reasonably active. Everything worked for just about everything worked for him tonight. Let me look at his defensive performance. I want to see some of that for Sean Strickland. Oh man, yeah dude, Izzy couldn’t land shit on him man. Unbelievable. Shawn Strickland, 11 of 14 strikes in the clinch. Just 7 of 11 leg kicks, 34 for Izzy, 34 total leg kicks. But listen to this difference, 22 punches or strikes landed to the head. Most of those are gonna be punches for Izzy, 85 for Shawn Strickland. 85. 85. I just thought Izzy looked like he was out of ideas. All of the tricks he uses, all of the shoulder feints and hip feints and everything, most of those, not most of those, many of those he couldn’t really get going because he was under pressure to move. So that was part of it. And like I said man, he’s been around a long time. Look how many times I’ve broken down his game. Look how many times other people have broken down his game. You don’t think those guys over extreme couture haven’t done that? They’ve done that and there’s a lot of tape on him and that shit doesn’t work like it used to man and that is the nature of the fight game there’s nothing ignoble about that it happens for everyone if Sean ends up winning and defending this time you want it but I’m saying he ends up defending the title many times that day will come for him too and it will come for the one who replaces him and replaces him and replaces him and replaces him this is the inevitable cycle of the fight game the question is only when will it catch up to someone will it catch up to them at what year and what fight and blah blah blah that’s the only really part that you have a difficulty kind of deciphering you know but it happened here tonight in Australia. It happened to Izzy like he just he didn’t look to me like he wasn’t ready. He didn’t look to me like he wasn’t focused. Uh maybe he’s got some injury that we don’t know about or something. I don’t know. You know, I don’t know but um you gotta give Sean his flowers as a competitor. You don’t have to give him his flowers as a person if you don’t want to or you know whatever your choice. Uh I’m not making any commentary about that because I feel like it’d be a distraction I’m not making that but I’m just trying to say as a fighter as a fighter as a competitor you simply have to give him his flowers tonight you have to he has there can just be it’s not ambiguous there’s nothing like how do we feel about all of this like there’s no he did it he did it in dramatic and important and frankly historic fashion boy what is it about Australia forcing huge UFC upsets, Ronda and Holly, and now this one. Different kinds of upsets, but upsets dramatic, just the same. Australia, the land where the golden children go to die, right? If you are a UFC star and you want to defend your title in Australia, boy, you do so at your own peril. I think the the Rousey fight was in Melbourne. Maybe I don’t think it was Sydney. Was it in Sydney? It might have been Sydney No, I need to look hold on. Let’s see Just to double check i’m sure you guys know that off the top of your head very quickly And then we’ll move on to some other details here Uh, yeah that lost to holly home ufc 193 was in the etihad stadium in Melbourne, yeah melbourne Doesn’t matter where you are in australia It’s where the golden children get, they get slaughtered. They get slaughtered there. Pretty remarkable. People have asked, is it the biggest upset in UFC history? By the odds, it would not be, certainly. That one would be bigger, this other one. There’s been some other ones that I think that might be bigger as well. But this is, I mean, to go into a fight where you’re a plus 400 underdog, your competitor is nearly minus 700, you traveled all the way across the earth on short notice against a guy your own coach had failed against any previous time that one of his fighters had gone up against him and uh you even admitted that you were doubting yourself and your chances about this um to then go and then outperform that guy uh and against all those circumstances without shooting a single takedown we went over this 25 minutes blah blah blah that’s That’s just one of the most impressive exchanging of the titles that I’ve ever seen. Not in terms of like, oh my God, he went in there and just beat the shit out of him and like showed how superior he was and it was this passing of the torch. But given all of that uphill climbing he had to do, including right here, including right here in his head, for the people who will listen to this on the audio podcast platform later through all of that and he still was better in four or five rounds you just if you watch MMA long enough dude you see so much competitive injustice right people not getting opportunities or they get opportunities and someone else fucks them or you know whatever the how many time how much fuckery is there the fight game where just things are just they don’t go someone’s way and they’re not destined for greatness and they’re never this that and the other you know um and then to competitively you know win all of this uh the way that he did up against it even though yes I know that the the Aussies had kind of treated him like the hometown favorite I understand that so that what the wind was at his back in certain ways but for all the other parts of this all the competitive task that he and his team had was extraordinary and they passed it a plus or at the worst a minus you know. He earned it. Sean Strickland is your UFC middleweight champion and one of the most historic upsets in UFC history and there’s not a damn thing fluky about it and that’s just the the reality. Pretty amazing. Now I’ve asked for questions on Twitter, so we’ll get to those here in just a minute. Let me do this very quickly. Alright, so then let’s switch here just a second. Let’s do, if we can, not that one, sorry boys and girls, let’s do this one. Quickly let’s talk about the co-main because I want to get to your questions, but Let’s get to these results here, if we can, at UFC 293. Your co-main event, Alexander Volkov defeating Taito Iwasa, he does so at 437 of round two via Ezekiel choke. All right, so here is the difference, as far as I could tell. Volkov’s, again, linear punches. Volkov’s jab was dynamite. his flurrying as the round war arm was even better. His lead leg is so crafty, where he’s able to like inside cut kick, then go high inside, outside leg kick, go to the body. Like he’s just, you know, constant disruption, constant landing, keeping you at range, keeping you defensively transferring, like all kinds of stuff. Very, very gifted with that. And he was, I knew he was gonna be technically superior to Ty, but the question was could Ty keep up long enough to have superior speed and power and explosivity to maybe close that gap a little bit, and the answer was pretty clearly no. Now, I was pretty impressed with Ty’s leg kicks. Those were damaging, and you could see that Volkov was wearing it for a little while, but I will tell you that the big thing to me is look how much Tuivasa got his timing split. Right, so you’re moving on a, you guys know I do this all the time, you’re moving like this, right? You’re constantly doing this, and then someone catches you in between. So you would see Tuivasa try and set this up and then come leaping in and then bop. You know, you’d see Volkov just hit him. Hit him with a shot coming in and it would stop it or impact it or just nullify it or whatever. And then sometimes it would drop him. In fact, I think the final time he did get dropped was from that. It’s because he was predictable, he could be red. And Volkov just was like, waiting, waiting, waiting, go. Right? So to me, it was like the devil was in the details on the setups. The distance closing of Tuivasa was way too readable. And then even with it, he just wasn’t employing defense. If you’re gonna leg kick, you gotta like really get off and like get your head off the center line. He wasn’t really doing a lot of that, you know? So he was kinda eating punishment even when he was delivering. He was, I mean, don’t get me wrong, Tuivasa was delivering with those leg kicks some good punishment, especially at the early parts of round two. Like you could tell Volkov was hurting a little bit. He was kind of trying to shake it out and ollie shuffle a little bit. So there was those moments. But the technical details of distance closing, of finding that range, which is not easy against a 6’7 guy with a long reach, I’m not making it to be like some simple task, but what we were looking for out of this fight, what we were looking for was an opportunity to see if Tuivasa could progress. Now the good news was, I did think that this was much more like the gone fight for him than it was the Pavlovich fight. Now the Pavlovich fight didn’t last very long, obviously, but you could see Ty had a game plan. He was trying to stick to it. He was trying to maintain composure. He was trying to do what they had set up to do. The issue is, as aforementioned, he’s just technically overmatched by a guy like Volkov. Volkov has slow feet. He doesn’t move a lot and move very quickly, but he’s very technical. He has good reads. He has good timing, timing beat speed, and and it was too much for Tuivasa. Nearly got finished at the end of the first and he got dropped at the second and Volkov got on first, did a very good job to maintain mount. There was a couple times where you saw Tuivasa kind of rolling side to side and nearly got out on his left hip and then Volkov kind of slid his knee over. I mean, you know, for a dude that big to be on top of you, it’s gotta be a fucking nightmare to get them off of you. It can be the case, depending on who they are, that if they have long legs, that if they go wide, they can leave space between the thigh and the floor. But he had a nice sort of like constrained knee forward mount, which kept him, and he could grapevine the legs. And because he’s so big, he can grapevine and then still get some distance down. Typically, if you’re gonna grapevine someone, you’re gonna attach your hips to them and flatten them. It kind of flattens your ability to, you know, create distance to pop. But he’s so big, he was kind of actually able to do it a little bit, which was very impressive. So people were like, oh, well, Volkov can’t wrestle. Well, he might have defensive wrestling issues, that could be true, but his offensive grappling against Taito Iwasa, once he moves into a dominant position, it’s gonna be very tough to get a guy like that out and off of you. So I thought that Taito did, you know, not, I don’t really fault him too much, but again, technically overmatched. And then he finished him with the Ezekiel Choke. The Ezekiel Choke is much easier to do in the gi. I should have had a long-sleeved shirt. But the basic idea, let me see myself here so I can do this a little bit more correctly. The basic idea would be as follows. You go like this. So if this is the person’s neck, the stem of this microphone holder, you come around the back of it, and then with a gi you would grab the inside of your sleeve and then you roll this over the top. and then you kind of like exit out a little bit, right? And so that’s the way you do it. With Nogi, they end up making like a fist into one side, and then they kind of catch the top of the arm on the other, like kind of like this. That’s sort of the way they do it, but it takes practice. Now, shouts to Joe Gilpin over at Flow Grappling, he had pointed out, if you actually look at it, partly it was the Ezekiel choke, partly he was kind of covering Tuivasa’s mouth, It was almost like a suffocation mixed with a choke scenario, which is, you know, devastating, fucking devastating, hard to deal with. It’s just if you’ve got a big, strong guy like that on top of you and you’re that technically outmatched, like, dude, once someone gets to mount, it’s like, DC’s like, you got to push on the hips and stuff, dude, that guy’s, you know, what did he weigh in at? Probably close to 265. He’s got good balance. He’s got a heavy base. Yes, of course. You can put your hands on their hips and everyone knows the basic shrimp escapes to get it back. You’re going to just get fucking pounded doing that. You could see one thing that Tuivasa was trying to do was step over with his outside leg to collect the ankle of Volkov, then bring that in and then come out the other side. He was trying that, but he couldn’t even get that going. That’s when Volkov would grapevine and kind of hold him there. So Volkov’s jab was on point, lead-like attacks were on point, timing was great, ground to pound was good, top control was good, maintaining mount was good. Tai-Chu Iwasa was simply technically overwhelmed. He was technically overwhelmed and of course that led to him being physically overwhelmed. I still think that at 28 or however old I think Tai is right around, I think he’s right around that. just to be very sure. 30, I’m not so young anymore. Still, 30 at heavyweight is young. I still think that there’s a lot of room for improvement but they have to dial back the level of competition, right? They need to dial that back. It’s pretty clear it’s time to, okay, he’s got some ability, he’s got some ability but we can’t be giving him this guy top five guys right now. He’s not really ready for top five guys. So let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water and declare that the Taito Iwasa experiment has failed far from it but the Taito Iwasa fighting top five guys and even like top seven where I’m not sure where Volkov is ranked but he needs someone I would say outside the top 10 that’s really who he needs you’re like oh that’s kind of a waste of time I don’t think it is first would be a get right win which he kind of needs at this point and then on top of it it would be um work another opportunity to work out his game, develop it. So that’s pretty important. As for Volkov, I’m not really sure what it does. Let me pull up the rankings, which I do not contribute to. The heavyweight rankings have, let’s see, they’ve got Volkov at 7. Yeah, he should be fighting, Ty should be fighting the marching tiburas and rosentrucks, or strucks of the world. Not the Aspinal and You know, but you’ve got Volkov sitting at seven Ty was sitting at six. I don’t think that’s fair anymore I’m not sure which direction they’re gonna go But five is Curtis blades for his Aspen all and then I’ll see it’s it’s me Oh chitcha Pavlovich and gone from there I don’t really know what this will do for him because you’ve got Gone and Pavlovich and Aspen all kind of waiting in the wings to see what happens Could they run another one back with Curtis blades? He’s got the gelatin. I’ll made a fight coming up I guess the winner of that. Maybe you could do if Almeda wins you could do Almeda versus Volkov I don’t know. It’s a little hard to say but it’s a good win for him. It’s a solid win I think it puts him probably not inside the top five But just outside of it and he has 47 fights in dude. He’s still getting better Remarkable that’s that’s not easy to do a lot of guys kind of get stuck in their ways and they sort of live by the Sword die by the sword mentality. He’s had a much better one the whole way through, you know Okay Manel cop defeats Felipe dos Santos three rounds 15 minutes the scores were Let me see here the scores were For fuck’s sake do I have them here Pulled them up. I think it was 29 28. I mean there was maybe one 30 27 something like that I’ll get them here in just a second. I I apologize the service I’m using didn’t have the scorecards listed Okay. Yeah, so he wins this one at UFC 293 3027 that’s right. And then 229 28 said dude Felipe dos Santos kept taking this fight Basically on short notice after Kai car France fell out. I thought he performed super ably He he could not deal with some of the counter striking. He could not deal with the speed He could not deal again with the linear punches another nyxic trained fighter and Manel cop He could not really deal with that very well, but his mental composure was a phenomenal He was landing in those sometimes those back-and-forth exchanges. He was landing great work. He rattled cop in the second round He bloodied him. I think he swore up one of his eyes. He Performed for given the circumstances very ably very ably. Manel Kopp showing you what makes him special as a fighter. Hand speed, angles, combination punching, accuracy, fantastic. His timing was good. The chin on Dos Santos, I mean he was getting lit up by Kopp. Kopp dropping him in the first round. He’s knocked down at Flyway. He’s knocked down his last four opponents. I was shocked that one went to a decision. I couldn’t believe that that one had gone all the way to a decision. I thought for sure he was going get stopped but no and he even took a round in the process as well doesn’t really change the flyweight landscape it’s a big even through a loss it’s a big boost for dos Santos for cop I think that the rivalry now between him and kikara France has reached a fever pitch like people really want to see it cop the night that Sean Strickland wins of course he and who was the other gentleman who did this uh Charlie Radke uh the fight being over and then dropping the old uh anti gay slur the old uh six letter f word i’m not gonna go on about it because i know this community thinks that you know that that’s 1993 and that’s totally cool uh you know it’s like only the most unenlightened people think that that’s okay but all right neither here nor there uh so i you know not not a great look in that sense but great look as a fighter He looked tremendous as a talent. And I don’t see any other way that they go to any other place other than Cop versus Kikar France, which by the way, like that rivalry building up and Kikar France was in attendance tonight and they were still like, F you, F you. And Kikar France doing a thing like, you know. Like it was, I mean, they’ve done a good, even Kikar France not even like having a microphone, just being in attendance with everything and then Cop like going crazy about it. They’ve done a good job building up that fight. Like, they’ve done a good job building up that fight. I can’t wait to see that one. So, tremendous flyweight action, tremendous flyweight contest, marred by the very stupid post-fight comments, but other than that, a lot of good work. Justin Taffa, fucking demolishing, in the words of Laura Senko, bodying Austin Lane at 122 of round number one. I mean, holy fuck, dude. Dropped him with a, I think he hit him with the right hand. Again, splitting his timing, moving himself to center line, then catching him, but then coming a little bit low, hitting him up high, dropping him, and then hitting him with vicious, almost looked like it was personal ground and pound thereafter. Taffa getting poked in the eye one more time, luckily it didn’t have much of an impact this time, but I’m like, fuck dude, are you shitting me? Another eye poke, really, word? But okay, he wins, amazing, amazing performance by Ham. Some of the best tattoos I’ve seen in the UFC were some of these Simone guys, right? So that’s a great job he did. And then Tyson Pedro sent the Pleasure Man packing, defeating Anton Tercali via KO at 2-12 of round number one. I think it was his right hand that couldn’t miss a series of right hands, and then finally he went left hand, a right hook, so a left straight right hook, and that dropped him, and then he hit him with one of these fucking coffin nail hammer fists that closed the show. Dramatic, dramatic finish. Phenomenal win for Tyson Pedro, phenomenal win. So, there was your main card. Quickly, about Laura Senko. I’ve been saying she’s the best color commentator that they’ve got, and I don’t know how you could disagree listening tonight. I mean, everyone’s gonna have their, I like this person, I like that person, fine. But just as an example, during the fight, she was talking about how Shawn Strickland kind of uses, so Shawn Strickland’s right-handed. So he’ll keep this hand up here and he’ll kind of put, let me see so I can see myself. He’ll keep this hand up, and I should have changed the lower third, god damn it. Hold on. She’ll put her, excuse me, Shawn Strickland will put his hand up here and then he’ll kind of have this hand here a little bit. And what she was talking about was he’ll kind of shoulder roll a little bit, kind of filly shell it. But if you’re filly shell, in the words of Laura Senko, you’re typically bladed, right? So you’re presenting, what’s the difference between being square and being bladed? If you’re bladed, it’s a much smaller target. So when Floyd uses this guard right here, you know, you’re catching stuff off the shoulder, right behind the shoulder, right? And you’re presenting a much smaller target. What makes Sean a little bit weird is he kind of rolls with it, Yeah, like this. He kind of rolls with it, but he’s almost much more square. Guys, guys, you can say whatever you want. Oh, that’s not that big of a deal. She’s the only one who’s gonna point something like that out, a trenchant, helpful observation to the audience like that. You know, Joe Rogan’s a legend. I think we all know that. He doesn’t deliver analysis like that. I’m sorry, he just doesn’t. He doesn’t. It’s not an insult. He brings other things to the broadcast. Many people like him for any other reasons. This is not an argument about whether or not you should like Joe Rogan as a commentator or not, right? That’s not my argument. My argument is the level of detail and precision and thoughtfulness that Senko puts into the broadcast is in my judgment a level above all the rest of them. All the rest of them. And again, I know that there are just some absolute mouth breathing cavemen who are like, no she ain’t that good you’re in denial you’re in denial she is that good she’s probably gonna be here for a long time doing this so you might as well just get comfortable with it she’s better than the other men on that panel and in certain cases by a considerable distance so I thought her debut went swimmingly to be quite honest with you yeah all right let’s see here let’s take some of your questions god damn all right let’s take some of the let’s take some of those questions finally all right here we go how is the UFC PR machine going to correct for Shaw Strickland’s new age masculinity I don’t know I don’t know I they’ve got their hands full and yeah Yeah, you know, this is the world they’ve created, like, you know, they don’t want to do anything. I mean, they’re independent contractors, so there’s a debate about whether they can meaningfully, you know, in the workplace, direct forms of speech, but they choose not to. So welcome to the world you’ve created. Can you remember a time when you’ve seen the basics use this effectively? Shit dude, that’s a great question. Not like this. To travel this far, be the guy that good, win a world title? No, not like this. What’s next for Izzy? Probably time off. Again, I think he’s probably going to get a rematch. I don’t think he deserves one, candidly. I don’t say that as a hater. I’m just saying you lose two title fights out of three. No, it’s time to not get one, but he probably will. This person writes, Izzy’s behavior was so weird, didn’t take a step forward for five rounds, raised Sean’s hand and said how great he was, ran out of the cage to dap people in the crowd up and left. Something feels off. Maybe? First title defense for Strickland, probably going to be Izzy. Okay, I mean just another idiot here. What kind of PR push do you anticipate the UFC putting behind Strickland? He writes, there’s definitely a market that they should try to exploit but it’s going to be tricky. could put him on Kimmel or Fallon. There’s a whole independent podcast circuit that he can and probably will do probably along political lines but not necessarily just that that I suspect will boost his profile. Not so much the Colby Covington route per se but something like that. This person’s asking how do you think Laura did tonight? I thought she did like she did miss a beat, did miss a beat. With that win did Sean Strickland just have one of the biggest babyface turns in in MMA history he was already having one during the week right it wasn’t even just the win like even if he had lost tonight I thought he had had one so the win only sends that one into overdrive does this feel like turnover for the division with both Izzy and Rob losing dominantly it gives the fee it gives the feeling things are moving in new direction yep their time is you can tell kind of passing them by the lack of body punching was horrific game planning and a really bad sign for Izzy’s ability to make reads he was doing a little bit of But yeah, in the last 15 months, we’ve seen two fighters beat Shawn through the body jabs So for him and his team to not pick it up as bad. He was doing some of it He just couldn’t quite get it going Also, this Shawn was different the body jab that parede had to use was a guy who was marching into him constantly Even as he circled away that guy would circle so it’s much more direct like stumbling into shit This was a much more strategic pressure Has Izzy’s extensive fight history cut up with him? Yes. Do you think Shawn’s first? Will you be doing a breakdown of what Sean did to disarm Izzy? 100%. 100%. For as important as the overhand right is in MMA, why doesn’t Izzy ever try to throw it? He did. He couldn’t find it. He didn’t throw it a lot, but even then he couldn’t get it going. Shocking upset of all time? No. Could it be that we simply didn’t see how favorable stylistic magic this could have been and was for Strickland? Well, we definitely, I certainly missed a shit ton, I can say that. A stand up fighter, Izzy, I’m more than willing to be backed up and not much explosive punching power to discourage her from playing this game. Yeah, it’s more than that though. This was the right pressure game. As I mentioned, taking the leg kicks away, like kind of walking in and lifting, not letting Izzy settle, making his offense limited and therefore by being limited more readable and more hasty and kind of like forced. just he just he took off you know he put him on a shot clock is really what he did he put Izzy on a shot clock and a fast one too not 35 seconds or whatever or 30 seconds but whatever the fucking shot clock is these days but he had him on an MMA shot clock and he it hurried up the game and he had a hard time with it let’s see Izzy’s demeanor in that occasion skipping on the press he skipped the presser oh that’s interesting do you think there’s something going on with that spurred this dead of a fight from him. Maybe. Again, I haven’t talked to him since the first MMA parede fight, so I don’t know. For a team who is so good at game planning, luckily they had nothing for Strickland. Yeah, they had nothing for him. That’s very true. What do you make of both corners during the fight? Nick’s corner is very understandable. the Behrman Corner and the Izzy Corner, I’d have to go back and listen more closely. I’d be kind of making up that I heard it very clearly. I really didn’t. But clearly not enough. Who do you think of Strickland’s MMA version of the Philly Shell working on one of the scariest… What do you think? Shocking. Is it a testament to the Philly Shell or boxing? necessarily. It’s the right guy using it, it’s the right thing, you know. Where does this put Eric Nixic among all active coaches in the game today? If not at the top, right near it. Do you feel like there’s value in the corner’s honesty early in the match? Seems like a lot of perspective was left out in Izzy’s corner that Sean’s corner didn’t hold back. Yes, but also like closely dissecting a corner like that when you don’t know their interpersonal relationship in that way it can be you can get in front of your skis in that one over out in front of your skis do you how do you think this impacts Izzy in the middleweight goat conversation he is guys you you know how much I like Izzy’s game you know he can’t he doesn’t it’s still Anderson Silva it’s still Anderson Silva is Sean Strickland the best boxer ever made no didn’t you say that Sean couldn’t win tonight couldn’t win no highly unlikely that it wouldn’t win, yes. Anybody can win. Let’s see. Did Sean just break the Izzy code, didn’t bite on a single faint Harley? He did bite, but he didn’t bite. He bit at a safe distance and it really felt like without those Izzy was neutered. Yes. Yes. It seems like his strike, but it’s not just that. It’s that you got to pressure him so that everything becomes more readable, becomes hastier, becomes less set up, becomes less confident, less powerful, all that stuff. It’s all working together there. Is he still in the Goat Conversation? No. I mean, dude, he’s still second best. I mean, he’s second best with a bullet, you know? Like, the distance between Izzy and the other middleweights vying for number two is pretty far. But, you know, do I put him in the, like, above what Anderson Silva did? I watched Anderson Silva’s reign. No, it’s not the same. Is the six-letter F word back? It is on UFC broadcasts apparently. At 34, are we witnessing Izzy on the decline? Maybe. Maybe. Not so much physically, not so much physically, but maybe the competitive advantage that he enjoyed early in his UFC run, the difference is clear now that the rest of the, and I guess I guess it has been for some time. You know, Cannonier got kind of close and other guys got kind of close. The competitive distance between himself and his peers, that distance has collapsed dramatically. Why didn’t Izzy push more in the final round? I don’t know. Was Izzy overconfident coming in? Probably a little bit, a little bit. Not much. I still think he had focus. But he was like, you know, I’m going to go kill your king and stuff like that on social media. But I mean, like, you know, a fighter being confident that they’re going to win is like, they’re kind of supposed to be like psychotically confident, but okay. Does this put the whole MMA science in question means analysis still have a lot to discover? Yes, of course. But also, analysts are always working with incomplete information, you know. We are working with what they have showed, not what they can show the next time. And as a result, there’s going to be a gap between that, you know. And this was a big one. Is that the best defensive performance you can remember? That’s a pretty god damn good one. It’s a pretty god damn good one. Will 2023 be known as the year of the Shawns? Hey man, the Shawns and MMA are having a great year. Wow. Is this bigger than Sarah beating GSP? I don’t think by odds it is. I don’t think it is. Let’s see. Do you think Sean won every round but the second? Probably. Probably. Would you say that Izzy’s striking has not evolved enough at this level or is it just a competition catching up? Definitely competition catching up. Definitely. 100%. 100%. Someone wrote, obligatory question, did Strickland win or did Izzy lose? as Izzy’s number one media cheerleader, Sean Strickland won. Sean Strickland won. Sean Strickland won. Izzy didn’t lose in the way you’re framing it. Sean Strickland won. You have to acknowledge it. You have to. You have to. You cannot take that away from him. He fucking earned that thing fair and square. No two ways about it. No two ways about it. Okay, most of these are the same kind of questions. Does Johnny Eblen have a serious claim to be the best middleweight in the world? Yes. not going to want to say that because he fights for Bellator but yes yes he does did Drake lose two oh Drake Drake put it on him 220 000 all right here we go do I think is he properly prepared yes All right. That’s it. Hey, I’m gonna do extra credit here in just a minute. So that’s that. Was it a weird performance from Izzy in the sense that all week there was like a weird media environment and everything? I don’t know. I don’t know what to make of him leaving. I don’t know what to make of any of that stuff. I guess we’re gonna have to wait and see what the information will be. But tonight belongs to Sean Strickland. No doubt about it. Tonight belongs to Shawn Strickland, belongs to a lesser degree, but also to Eric Nixic and Extreme Couture and guys who flew all the way to fucking Australia and got the goddamn job done in the most, if not the most, one of the most improbable circumstances that any of us have ever seen. But the night belongs to Shawn Strickland and there are simply no two ways about it. So I want to thank you folks for watching here tonight. I really appreciate it. Thumbs up on the video, hit subscribe and uh boy we got a lot to talk about on monday’s morning combat do we not so join us on monday monday monday monday live at 11 a.m me and bc shawn strickland wins a fucking one-sided affair basically over izzy and is the new ufc middleweight champion welcome to the shawn strickland era didn’t think i’d be saying that tonight but you you got to call balls and strikes and that was that was the that was the pitching performance of a lifetime congratulations to him I’m out of here y’all peace thank you so much for watching