Jimmy Smith was let go by the UFC, which is a huge mistake. We talk about why, why not, and what we would like to see happen in the future with the organization. We also talk about his career as a broadcaster and what it's like to be a former UFC fighter and broadcaster. We also get into a little bit of everything else, including his time in the UFC and what he's up to now in his new job as a mixed martial arts broadcaster. We finish off the episode with some of our favorite moments from the past and talk about the future of the UFC. If you like what you hear, please HIT SUBSCRIBE and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Subscribe, Like, and Share on whatever platform you're listening to the podcast! Cheers, Jon & Matt! -Jon Soriano Jon Soriano is a long time friend of the MMA community. He has been in the sport for over 30 years and has been a long-time member of The Ultimate Fighter, UFC and Bellator. He is also a good friend of mine and I really respect his passion for the sport. I hope you enjoy this episode, it's a great listen. - Jon and Matt are having a great conversation. Jon is a great human being and a very humble human being. - Thank you for coming on the show. - JJ & Matt - Cheers! - Jon is one of the most genuine people I've ever had a chance to get to know and talk to and have a lot of great people in the MMA industry. - - thank you for being a good human being in the industry. Thank you so much for your support of the sport, thank you Jon and I appreciate your support and support the sport and your support. - Your support is greatly appreciated. - Jon's support is so much appreciated. Thank you Jon's passion and support is truly appreciated. I appreciate you, Jon's hard work and support you're a lot more than you can do so much in this podcast. - Kombucha and I'm looking forward to seeing you. XOXO - Thank yoooooo! Jon's back in the next episode! - Tom's back! - Matt's back from the UFC! - Joe's back with a new podcast! - YUH! - John's back next week! - JUICY! - ROSE THUGS!
00:01:17.000And when I was in Verona, New York, doing the Verona show, my boss sat me down and he said, we're not going to renew 2018. We want a different deal.
00:01:27.000And when they come to you and say, we want a different deal.
00:02:00.000So it's kind of an amicable, comparatively amicable.
00:02:03.000It's fascinating to me that in the world of mixed martial arts, professional mixed martial arts, there haven't been that many people that have done what you and I both do.
00:04:53.000It's our job to tell that story a little bit.
00:04:54.000Well, especially when it comes to results that we think happen and why they happen in certain fights and corrections that were made, which is on the technical side of things, right?
00:05:16.000You've got to understand when someone's doing the right thing and then the percentages of them getting sub, drop substantially with each move.
00:06:55.000When King Mo fought Rampage, King Mo was 218. He stepped on scale at 218. So the night of the fight, Douglas Lehman was there, and I walk up to him and I go, you've walked at 218. And he goes, yeah!
00:07:53.000Yeah, as far as I know, it's still state for us.
00:07:55.000And so for people who don't know what we're talking about, what that means is, and this is up for debate, because Joe Silva claimed that there had been tests done, this is what he was telling me, and I believe him, that showed that the correct way of rehydrating orally actually led to better results over a 24-hour period.
00:08:14.000Yeah, that the IV thing was good for short-term recovery from severe dehydration, but to actually go from like a weight-cutting weight to go back.
00:09:38.000When he fought, when Tito Ortiz and Frank Shamrock fought, it was one of the very first displays of defense and cardio and how critical it was in victory.
00:10:09.000One of the things about fighting in general, and this goes too with other aspects of the sport, you're asking people who already take a huge risk, fighting is just a huge risk, period, to not take another huge risk.
00:10:21.000Just the mentality of, if I have to do this to win, I'm going to do it.
00:10:26.000You're saying, oh, they can't take that risk.
00:10:28.000Well, you already have the personality of, I don't care what I have to do, I'm getting in that fight and I'm making it.
00:13:51.000Well, one of the things, you know, once again, going back to storytelling for us is when someone doesn't make it, they don't make weight.
00:13:57.000Is it advantage the heavier guy or is it advantage the guy who, if you don't make weight, maybe something happened that last couple weeks of camp that maybe a little injury kept you from losing the weight or is it advantage the bigger guy?
00:14:40.000That was, it's really weird sometimes when you, in any sport, I don't care what it is, when you see somebody, you know, Jordan in his prime, you just can't cover the guy.
00:14:50.000It's almost like he's the only one on the court.
00:15:55.000He was still trying to win after a horrendous mauling for eight-plus minutes.
00:16:00.000You know when I really look at fighters, when I really focus on them, especially the face, in between rounds, I look for that breaking moment of like, you know...
00:16:10.000Vitor Belfort, Randy Couture, and he's sitting on the ground.
00:16:12.000Just, like, didn't even sit on a stool.
00:16:22.000That's when you know, you know, the men from the boys, mentally speaking.
00:16:27.000And, you know, in Bellator, Patricio Pitbull, I remember when he fought Daniel Strauss, he was getting beat up for like four rounds, and every round he looked like Lemmy Adam.
00:16:38.000And he won toward the end of the fourth round with a rear naked choke.
00:16:42.000He just never quits, and I always look for that breaking moment, man.
00:16:45.000That's what really separates the guys who are mentally 100% there on those who aren't.
00:16:51.000I think Barboza got beaten, but I don't think he got broken.
00:17:49.000So, for people who don't know, the new rules make it easier to make distinctions between a 10-9 round, 10-8 round, 10-7 round, which I agree.
00:18:01.000There were some ridiculous scorecards that seemed to indicate to some of us that even though the new rules are better and the states haven't adopted them, the judges have decided to adopt them in some sort of a weird, non-declared way.
00:18:14.000Because it just definitely seemed there was a much larger disparity in the numbers and the scorecards.
00:18:49.000What's really funny, it's almost to me like a throwback kind of fighter.
00:18:52.000If you remember back in the day, guys that didn't have a real solid wrestling or jiu-jitsu background, when they felt that pressure, they kind of went, They didn't have any experience with it.
00:19:02.000They were just like, holy crap, like a truck rolling over you.
00:19:06.000Like, oh, like I've never felt anything like this in life.
00:19:09.000And for someone training at Barboza's level, who you know he's training with high-level guys, he's training with all kinds of outstanding wrestlers and jiu-jitsu guys, to have that look like this is some crazy pressure, that's insane because no one has secret techniques anymore.
00:19:23.000I mean, you have great guys in every camp.
00:19:25.000And the fact that You see on someone's eye, and I say this to fighters, you don't want the first time you experience something to be in the cage.
00:19:31.000You want to experience this in training, and then you can deal with it in the cage.
00:19:35.000Barbosa had a look in his eye like, I have never felt anything like this in my life.
00:19:38.000And that's incredible, considering modern techniques.
00:19:41.000Well, it seems to me that everything right now is next level in comparison to a year and a half, two years ago.
00:19:47.000Like, Dos Anjos beat Robbie Lawler recently in just a fucking tour de force performance.
00:19:54.000Watched that fight, I was like, this is as good as Dos Anjos has ever looked, if not better.
00:19:59.000Fucking amazing at 170, but more importantly, the output, the amount of shots that he landed, the amount of shots that he fired, the endurance that he's showing, everybody is on this complete different performance level right now.
00:20:14.000What I loved about that performance, One thing that generally doesn't change weight class as well when you move up is power.
00:20:20.000Meaning, Robbie Law, if you remember, at 170, he was knocking everybody out.
00:20:41.000And when I got to volume guys at 170, I'm not going to knock anybody out with one shot like I did at 55. I have to throw more at 70. I have to be more accurate at 70. I have to slice them up with elbows a little more.
00:20:51.000So I like all the adjustments he made for the new weight class.
00:20:54.000He didn't try to fight like he did at 55. He's like, I got to throw more against these guys.
00:20:57.000I can't go one punch for one punch with Robbie Lawler.
00:21:00.000He has a huge 170. So I like the way his style modified with the weight class change.
00:22:21.000I mean, it would still sell like crazy.
00:22:22.000I mean, I wonder if Nick Diaz, if he wanted to come back, would only want to come back for a title fight.
00:22:27.000I wonder if he's like that kind of money fight guy where he's like, yeah, obviously he's got some money and obviously he's not beating down anybody's door to fight.
00:22:35.000He's not, you know, he's doing whatever the fuck he wants to do, but if you could get him back for a big money fight, I wonder if it would only be like a title fight.
00:22:42.000That's increasing what's happening these days.
00:22:44.000I mean, guys are like, ah, I'm not getting paid.
00:22:45.000Like GSP. Yeah, he came back for a huge money fight and that's it, you know?
00:22:50.000It's funny, Dana White said something crazy like, yeah, he's just going to pack up his money and head back to Canada.
00:23:44.000It would be hard for Conor to look good in that fight, is the way I say it.
00:23:47.000It would be hard for Conor to look good unless he caught him coming in, which no one's been able to really do against GSP. They would have to do some sort of a catch weight.
00:24:16.000You know, fought in the Ultimate Fighter at 155. That's his weight.
00:24:19.000And that was another one of those, when he came up from 45 to 55, I think he was still in that one-shot mode.
00:24:24.000And if you watch that fight again, Conor hits him and goes, shit.
00:24:28.000He's still here, because I'm at 55, and not only does Diaz have a great chin, he's a big 55-er, he's well hydrated, and especially when they fought, the first time it was at 170, he's hydrated.
00:24:37.000He hasn't cut at all, he can take a shot.
00:24:40.000And that one-shot ability he had at 45, oh shit, it's not here anymore.
00:24:44.000I think he was a little bit more prepared.
00:24:46.000Nate fought at least twice at 70 in the UFC before Cod.
00:26:29.000The worst thing that ever happened to BJ Penn was when he knocked on Matt Hughes and thought, I can fight at 70. He was 1-5-1 at 70. Right.
00:26:36.000We choked him out once, then he knocked him out.
00:26:38.000I mean, initially when he went to 170 pounds, it was the only fighter he ever beat at 170 was Matt Hughes in the UFC. So what that did is that, I think he fought at 185 when he took on Gracie.
00:27:37.000I was talking to Josh Thompson recently backstage in New York and he used to train with Frank Shamrock and BJ Penn and said they were sitting there with an exercise ball and they'd already been training for a while and they said we're trying to stand on this exercise ball and we're trying and trying and falling and falling and BJ walks in like an hour late for practice And he says, what are you guys doing?
00:27:57.000And he says, oh, we're trying to stand on the exercise ball.
00:30:45.000I think maybe in his prime, Vitor Shaolin might be the best 55er in the world in his prime, but he was in Shuto, he would move around a lot in Japan, and just was off the U.S. radar.
00:30:58.000Back in the day, people were saying he was the best 155-pounder alive.
00:31:01.000A lot of the guys had trained with him.
00:31:02.000By the time he came to the States, it was just a little bit further past it.
00:31:06.000Yeah, there's been a few of those cases, right?
00:31:08.000Like Josh Thompson, who we're talking about, at one point in time was the best lightweight in the world, or one of them, and then had some of his best fights with Gilbert, who was also at the same time in the same bracket, and they fought in Strikeforce while they were peaking.
00:31:39.000It was, you know, oh, I fought here a couple times and here a couple times.
00:31:41.000They weren't as restrictive with talent as it is now where it's, you know, Belter fighters don't move over and UFC fighters don't move over until they're done with their contracts.
00:38:32.000There's so much happening right now, with RDA just dominating Robbie Lawler like that, and people clamoring for a title fight for him, and now Tyron had to get shoulder surgery, so Tyron had a torred labrum, apparently tried to rehab it, and eventually wound up getting surgery, so he's out for several months, you know, where he can't do shit.
00:38:52.000A tough thing whenever, you know, I'm about to order this year or wherever, whenever you have that backlog, Whenever you have a champ who can't defend a title or something like that or he's out for a little bit...
00:39:02.000The piranhas, I mean, they eat each other.
00:39:41.000And those would also be like highlight fights.
00:39:43.000Because, you know, you'd tee off on some guy that was below him and everybody would get super excited about this guy that Tyson's about to fight.
00:41:41.000After this performance, Habib has set it up to a place where he's the most terrifying, lightweight contender in the world.
00:41:50.000Then you have Tony Ferguson, who's a motherfucker, who's the interim champion.
00:41:55.000And then you have Conor, who knows what's going to happen with him.
00:41:58.000And I think the UFC is going to give him a little while.
00:42:01.000I'm going to give them some time, you know, hey, let the holidays pass, see what the fuck happens, and then they're going to have to make some moves.
00:43:22.000And anyway, they interview one of his friends, his long friends, lifelong friends, named Dr. Anthony Sadie.
00:43:31.000And their last conversation before Bobby cut him off, he said, Bobby, if you don't play chess, eventually there'll come a time where no one will ask you to play chess.
00:47:36.000We were having a good fucking time, though.
00:47:38.000That was before anybody knew who Rampage was.
00:47:41.000I misunderstood him, because he was going by this, once again, like 99, 2000. I had finished at UCLA, where I... First, I got my taste of jiu-jitsu at UCLA, and then I graduated, and I went to Team Punishment, and I get on the mat, and Fabiano Iha was a coach there at the time.
00:52:58.000But then he's doing the podcast, he's joking around, he's self-deprecating, he's super honest about, like, what happens to him when he trains too much, you know, he breaks down.
00:53:42.000When he choked out Shogun, he said something to the effect of, he goes, if you think I'm going to sit here and listen to a middle-aged comedian tell me what to do, I just choked out a world champion.
00:54:53.000People go, oh, you guys are always touching the fighter.
00:54:55.000If they start moving, all the cameras move, guys, and it ruins the shot.
00:54:59.000We're trying to keep them in one place.
00:55:01.000When I put my hand on a guy, what I'm trying to do, or gal, whatever, I'm trying to keep them in one place so the two cameras get a shot of them.
00:56:33.000Well, the thing to me, too, is when I left Bellator, when it came out, whatever it was, the 26th, The response, like, kind of blew me away.
00:56:41.000I mean, I was hearing from people that I didn't even know, they knew who I was.
00:56:43.000Just, you know, everybody was just, it was a huge deal.
00:57:05.000But the support you get when you really need it's really amazing from MMA fans.
00:57:07.000Well, if you're a fan of the sport and you enjoy watching it, you want a commentator who appreciates it and knows what he's talking about and is entertaining.
00:57:16.000Like, you take good paths, you know, when you describe things.
00:57:34.000And Big John, if you're listening, I would love to hear an explanation of this because this is one of the funniest moments I've ever had commentating.
00:57:41.000It was Marlon Sandro versus Frodo Hospeliev at 145 in Bellator.
00:57:47.000And I forget who got a cup shot, but somebody got a cup shot.
00:58:43.000The good thing about the UFC is you bring in Mark Ratner, and Mark Ratner goes over the actual law, or the rules, rather, and how it's set up.
00:58:51.000One of the things that's interesting, we did a show in Detroit, And I believe it was in Detroit and Michigan, they make use of the replay, but when they use the replay, the fight is over.
00:59:23.000That's the only way it could really work.
00:59:24.000Well, the only way they can go to, once they go to a replay, so if the referee makes his call, and then they request some sort of a going to the instant replay, the fight is over.
00:59:33.000There's no fighting after the instant replay is played.
01:01:33.000You know, Steve Farhood, like I said, I just finished talking to you, who does it for Strikeforce, he's like, oh yeah, you can't make a scorecard that everyone agrees with.
01:02:14.000And there have to be moments where I go, this should be stopped.
01:02:17.000And there were a couple of those moments in every round in the Khabib fight.
01:02:22.000We talked about in between rounds, Dominic Cruz and I, after the fourth round, or the second round rather, we said, do you think that this is a good argument for a stoppage right here?
01:02:32.000That the corner could be really within their best judgment to say, hey, this is enough.
01:02:37.000The people I was with turned to me and they said, what do you tell your guy at this point?
01:03:05.000He's the kind of guy who could maybe throw that kind of thing.
01:03:07.000It just didn't seem like it was going to work on Khabib.
01:03:10.000He was mauling him to an extent where he was draining his energy to the point where Edson would get up And he was trying to be mobile, but you could see the wobble in his step.
01:03:46.000Yeah, know what kind of guy you have, in a sense.
01:03:49.000Once again, Patricio Pitbull and Beltor, that dude's just heavy-handed.
01:03:52.000He can hit you with anything that's going to hurt you.
01:03:53.000So, if your guy is that kind of guy, maybe he wins it last 30 seconds the last round.
01:03:58.000But if you're a kicking guy who needs accuracy and timing and a guy is coming forward like Khabib was coming forward, You don't have a ton of options.
01:04:10.000In a lot of ways, it was a giant test for Khabib because we wanted to see what he looked like against one of the most elite strikers in the division.
01:05:31.000Have you ever thought about, like, alternative venues?
01:05:35.000Like, what would be a good alternative venue for everybody?
01:05:37.000We talked about it on the podcast with the fight companions all the time where I think like a football field or a basketball court.
01:05:43.000I think like something where you fight in the center and you have plenty of room where you never go outside of it and you duke it out there.
01:05:56.000We show fights in the same arenas where they have basketball games, right?
01:06:01.000We've got all these dudes running around in this area, but then when the fight takes place, all of a sudden we've got to put up a cage.
01:06:07.000How about you just keep that same size area, the guy standing in the center, And there's a warning track where people are waiting on the outside edges to tell them to go back in.
01:06:15.000But there's never a time we can press someone up against the cage to try to get a takedown.
01:08:47.000So what happens is, when they start out with the ring, they have the ring set up, and all they have to do is change the mat, and they take out the ropes, and then the cage comes from the ceiling.
01:08:58.000They have it suspended up there with the lights.
01:09:00.000And it comes down, and they play 2001, and they latch it in, and then MMA starts.
01:09:09.000Bellator, whether intentionally or not, they nailed the correct shape for a platform in which a ring sits on.
01:09:17.000Because the Bernard Hopkins fight, when he fought Joe Smith Jr. and he got knocked out, he went flying through the ropes and fell and hit his head.
01:09:25.000How do they not have that figured out?
01:09:27.000Well, the way to have figured it out would be to have more space on the outside of the ring.
01:09:31.000The idea that you could just fall right through the ring and there's nothing there to catch you, all you would need is an extra four or five feet.
01:12:41.000You know, a sanctioning body outside of the UFC. It seems like the momentum is so strong in the fact of the UFC being the dominant organization.
01:15:05.000Remember when Vince blew his quad out?
01:15:07.000He, like, jumped into the ring and slammed his muscle on the edge of the ring accidentally and just literally separated his fucking quad muscle from the bone and just sat there on his ass and kept going?
01:18:52.000It's like we were talking about earlier, like...
01:18:55.000It's very difficult to find someone who's a play-by-play guy who is also a martial artist and also really, really invested in the sport.
01:19:03.000Whereas a guy like you, a color guy, those guys, there's more chance that you're going to have a Technical understanding of the sport and also be able to be entertaining about it.
01:19:30.000Play-by-play, and he could do either or, but it would be different because Brian Stan has, in my opinion, he has the voice and the personality and the delivery, the strength in the way he forms sentences in an entertaining but powerful way.
01:19:46.000He could be a really good, believable play-by-play guy who's also a super legit martial artist, so he'd be the only guy that's doing it that way.
01:20:08.000They start doing color as they're doing play-by-play.
01:20:09.000I think that's okay as long as it's...
01:20:13.000As long as everybody is aware, not one person talks too much and everybody kind of lets everybody get in.
01:20:21.000One of the things that I like to do when we have DC or when we have Dominic Cruz or whoever sits next to me sometimes, I like to ask them questions.
01:20:40.000Dominic was amazing too this weekend about breaking down clinch work and what someone's doing wrong or why this is a stagnant position for them.
01:20:50.000I think if you had a guy who is a play-by-play guy, just as long as he knows, as long as everybody's cool with everybody's flow.
01:20:59.000But that is one of the things that came in really well with me and Goldie.
01:21:03.000Because we'd worked together for so long.
01:21:43.000You know, he just gave me advice and, you know, having things to say and planning things out and, you know, how to, you know, how to word things.
01:21:52.000You know, I didn't know what the fuck I was doing.
01:21:53.000Matt Mitrione, when they hired him to do belter kickboxing, we were in Turin, Italy.
01:21:58.000And Matt Matreon, I think he was with Bruce Beck, actually, at that time.
01:24:44.000When you're anticipating things happening, and they're happening, or something's different than you thought was going to happen, and you're trying to put the words to it correctly, in the moment, live on TV... It doesn't always work out.
01:25:25.000I've just come to accept that weird feeling, you know, and use it and go, all right, whatever that shit feeling is where I flubbed that word or forgot that guy's name or whatever it is, and I conflated the two people, whatever it is.
01:26:35.000And the problem is that a lot of times it's, you know, when I'm out in Backerville or something, or I'm out in like Mulvane, Kansas, and you're at a smoky casino and there's one place to eat, and a fight just let out, and you're like, oh my god.
01:26:49.000You know, it's like a real decision I have to make a lot of times is, am I too hungry to sleep or am I too tired to eat?
01:26:56.000Which one of those am I? I almost always choose sleep if I have to.
01:28:05.000Yeah, a buddy of mine makes olive oil in his yard.
01:28:08.000He's got a shit ton of olive trees in his yard, and he set this whole thing up with the hopes of eventually making his own olive oil from his own yard.
01:29:37.000I listen to people, and I'm sure you're the same way, that they're uncomfortable or clunky doing commentary, and it makes for an awkward experience for you watching it.
01:30:07.000You know, especially for someone who's called and seen as many fights as you have, your idea of what's clunky is like the data chunking that you're doing is very different.
01:30:16.000It's very much more high level than the average person.
01:30:18.000There's just not a lot of people doing it, which is weird.
01:31:45.000I beat Jason with a reverse heel hook, and you know how dangerous those are.
01:31:48.000And Jason really held out, and it tore pretty good.
01:31:52.000And anyway, a couple days later, I get a call from, I forget who, and they said, yeah, they're doing this show, and give this producer a call in New York.
01:32:53.000And so then I found out, and then I realized they were on different shows, and it was so funny because people have said since then, That I was chosen because they beat Jason.
01:33:00.000That's their assumption, which makes sense, but they had no idea.
01:33:04.000The producers of the show, once I got the gig and we're talking, they said, yeah, there's another show on History Channel.
01:35:45.000Wrestlers just had no outlet to make money back then.
01:35:47.000And this billionaire says, I'll put you up and make this amazing team, and they jump on it.
01:35:51.000And isn't it kind of stunning that wrestling never had a real actual professional, not that there's anything wrong with pro wrestling, but pro wrestling obviously is a show.
01:35:59.000There's never been like, you think about how many people love wrestling, how many wrestling fans there are, how many people wrestle in high school and college, and how many people like to watch it in the Olympics.
01:37:06.000It was always what I was doing kind of while I was fighting.
01:37:10.000But anyway, I had a teacher tell me one time, he said, If there's a sign at the zoo that says, please don't throw tangerines at the elephants, it may not make any sense to you.
01:37:21.000All it means is one time somebody threw a tangerine at an elephant, something really bad happened.
01:37:26.000And I thought about that a lot when...
01:37:30.000Whenever you think about, you know, why is pro wrestling pro wrestling?
01:37:33.000Well, there was a time when it was real, and it was too boring, so they started scripting the endings to it, and so it became pro wrestling.
01:37:39.000There were catch wrestling matches, and they lasted three hours.
01:38:24.000Wrestling now, people really follow a lot.
01:38:26.000You had to be a real geek to follow college wrestling.
01:38:29.000Well, when you see a guy like Nurmagomedov smash Edson Barboza using essentially just wrestling and vicious ground and pound, you realize like, okay, that is so fucking important to have.
01:38:40.000It is the cornerstone, or rather the foundation of MMA. And I think that fight really highlighted it.
01:38:47.000It really showed the dominant, super dominant wrestler over the dominant striker.
01:38:52.000If the dominant wrestler can get a hold of the dominant striker, Unless the striker's close!
01:38:58.000Like, that's one of the things that was most impressive about Mirko, was that when Mirko started fighting for pride, his takedown defense got really good really quick.
01:39:09.000He fought some fucking tough guys, but figured out a way to keep the fight standing a lot.
01:39:14.000What I liked about him so much when you watch him is not only was he a southpaw, he was so good with the range of his footwork that he never lost his distance while throwing.
01:39:23.000He was always really good at picking you apart from long range.
01:39:36.000So his explosion was a big part of his fight style when he was a kickboxer.
01:39:40.000So unlike maybe Peter Ertz or Ernesto Hust, who had more of a methodical, technical style of striking, Krokop would throw those one big shots all the time.
01:39:51.000And that really works well in MMA. And he was able to use that explosion, that fucking left high kick, and the one to the body that he hit Heath Herring with.
01:40:43.000And I think, Khabib, what he knew is, long range is dangerous against Edson.
01:40:47.000So if I keep moving forward, I keep putting pressure on him and take away that spinning range, he's not going to knock me out with his hands.
01:40:53.000And that's why he was pushing forward so incredibly hard as he didn't worry about that second wall.
01:40:59.000Yeah, and Chuck would make you fight him, because Chuck was a very good wrestler himself.
01:41:05.000The thing that made Chuck so unique is that Chuck was a striker, you know, Hackleman trained, Kempo, karate, all that stuff, in a traditional sense, but also had very good boxing skills and serious fucking power in his hands and kicks.
01:41:18.000But he also knew how to wrestle, so good luck taking him down.
01:41:21.000So now you're forced to stand up with this long, powerful striker who has an iron chin and just had this psychotic desire to move forward and land bombs.
01:41:45.000So he had the wrestling skills, great taketown defense, very good at getting back up off the ground when he got down to the ground, but also destroyer on his feet.
01:41:54.000So that's the kind of guy that we're going to need to test Khabib.
01:41:57.000We're going to need a guy who can keep the fight standing, who can test Khabib on the feet, some guy who's going to be able to stuff some of those takedowns.
01:42:13.000There's a timeline of Dos Anjos' dominance, right?
01:42:16.000That's a strong 70. Dos Anjos is a strong 70. But this was a different time in Dos Anjos' training, and I think Dos Anjos made some giant leaps when he started doing strength and conditioning with Nick Curzon.
01:42:27.000He just had way more output inside the cage, but...
01:42:33.000The crazy thing was that Dos Anjos is one of the best grapplers in the division.
01:42:38.000And you see what he was able to do with Neil Magny.
01:42:41.000Leg kicks Neil Magny, gets him to the ground, smushes him.
01:42:43.000You know, I mean, his fucking ground game is really legit.
01:42:47.000So to see him get ragdolled by Khabib, you're like, how's he doing that to RDA, you know?
01:45:36.000And we're sitting there with our boss and everything, and the guy who runs this ship, this big heavy in St. Petersburg, who's affiliated with M1, serves us this borscht, which is like a beet stew, basically.
01:45:49.000And he goes, man, we're really proud of our borscht.
01:46:19.000The guy who was all proud of his borscht Turns around and is heading back to us and my boss looks at me and goes, points to Sean's food and I grabbed it and I drank an entire bowl of that shit and threw it down before the guy came back.
01:46:33.000And he saw it and said, oh, thank you so much.
01:47:01.000I know there's been some talk about doing a UFC in Russia, and I think a lot of it is probably based on the idea that Khabib at 25-0 is most likely somewhere along the line going to fight for the title.
01:47:12.000I mean, if everything continues to go well as long as there's no injuries or something.
01:48:09.000Yeah, it's interesting to see a guy from that really hard part of the world coming over and just dominating in MMA. With Khabib, you know that a lot of it is technique.
01:48:20.000A lot of it is being trained by his father.
01:48:38.000I mean, the Russian fighters that I've dealt with, you can know them and call a ton of fights with them and they'll still kind of look at you like, they want to fight you or something.
01:48:47.000You know, I know, hey, how's it going?
01:48:49.000And they kind of like break character.
01:49:14.000And Korshkov, in my opinion, in a lot of ways, was one of the first guys to validate Bellator's 170-pound division from the performance he put against Henderson.
01:49:21.000He shot Henderson down and beat him up.
01:49:23.000Teed off on him and let him know, like, this is, I'm a real welterweight.
01:49:27.000And then Lima made him look like, maybe he's not.
01:49:30.000You know, like, maybe Lima's, that's a real welterweight.
01:49:35.000And then, you know, it's one of those things where that was a, that was, there was a big disparity between what people within the organization and people out of the organization thought.
01:49:43.000Because a lot of people thought Henderson was going to come in and clean house and have two belts.
01:52:44.000Fucking monstrous fighter, but he fought at 40. And just, other than the Alexis Arguello fight, there weren't many stars at 40. You've got to go to 47 to get paid.
01:53:00.000If you've ever met him, he's not a big dude.
01:53:02.000He had to go to 47 to get the big money fights.
01:53:05.000That's why Roberto Duran went from 35 to 47, because he just couldn't make money at 35. Yeah, guys get tired of making the weight class, but they also realize you've got to chase the cash.
01:53:35.000So if you added a bunch of weight classes, guys who won it at 160 for a while would be seen as, oh, the guys who couldn't make it at 55 and 70. So it would take a while, maybe a star in that division, before it would become a legit division.
01:53:50.000When you'd go, oh, the 180-pound champ is just the guy who couldn't do it at 70. It's almost like there's too many fighters now and too many events.
01:53:59.000It's almost like you couldn't have enough UFC events.
01:54:01.000You would literally have to have UFC fights every week.
01:54:04.000Like, maybe that would be the future model, where they have fights every week on television, and then they have pay-per-views, like, rarely.
01:54:10.000Like, every four weeks or something like that.
01:54:12.000It would take a lot to fill up four or five extra divisions.
01:55:06.000They have all these different things that monitor your body composition, your hydration levels, all these different modalities for healing and recovery.
01:55:20.000They have all these video systems that are around the octagon constantly with their monitoring, sparring from like a bunch of different angles.
01:55:30.000Well, they can watch you spar from any angle.
01:55:32.000Your coaches could point out little weird things that you might be doing that you're not aware of, but pointed out they always have the angle.
01:57:29.000Someone sees him in a gym and goes, hey, you should be in MMA. And he's like, okay.
01:57:34.000So he goes into MMA. Goes to the UFC, in two years he's fighting for the title, and he's a big favorite over the champion, who is, if the champion wins, breaks the longest-running title fight streak, winning title fights in the heavyweight division, which is only two.
01:58:18.000Yeah, him versus Stipe is very, very interesting.
01:58:22.000I want to see if Stipe can figure out a way to avoid the big shots, close the distance, get a hold of him, and if he can take him to the ground.
01:58:29.000Here's my advice for anybody calling that fight.
01:58:34.000In terms of who's got the better footwork, who's moving their head a little bit more, who's got a little more defense, because, man, that's going to be, I think, tell the story, is one who avoids getting hit.
01:58:43.000Because they can both knock you the fuck out, man.
01:58:45.000They both certainly can knock you the fuck out, but...
01:58:56.000It's like he's trying to rip your soul out of your body, man.
01:58:58.000The Alistair left hook, uppercut, combination punch, that shovel hook was just one of the most terrifying things I've ever seen anybody get hit with in all my years of calling sports.
02:03:35.000He just kind of like, you know, stalled out for like two minutes and won the fucking match against the greatest of all time with a broken arm.
02:05:14.000That's kind of like my, you know, I'm a Carlson guy, and, you know, my instructor's a guy named Hediogo, and he's always telling me, he goes, Jimmy, he always uses the old people metaphors.
02:05:21.000He's like, Jimmy, he's like, he goes, then Mario passed your guard, Jimmy, you'll finish.