Full Transcript for Ryan Bader vs. Fedor 2 Results | Bellator 290 Reaction and Results

myriad reasons why they want to prove to themselves something or whatever. Faed Or seemed to be ready to be done with it, So I don't think he had anything to prove left to himself. He had nothing left to prove Tonight would have been great if he had won in terms of all the fields, but he didn't have anything to prove. But anyway, it's just, you know, it's depressing. But anyway, Bader didn't really want to take the fight, and he did anyway, and it's a good win in the sense that he stays relevant. It was on CBS, but you know, it's significant value. 00:06:04 Speaker 1: I don't really know anymore. 00:06:05 Speaker 2: But getting back to the point about sticking the landing, Like Habib stuck the landing right, and you could say, well, he got out early, is that really sticking the landing? What I mean is you're just not crawling out in a diminished state relative to what you were, right, That's what I mean. Like you could add on a loss and it wouldn't necessarily be some kind of tragic thing. And this isn't tragic necessarily. Either it wasn't some like prolonged beating or something like that. 00:06:28 Speaker 1: It wasn't that. 00:06:29 Speaker 2: But the point being is Fador went out in this kind of a state, which was not terrible. And by the way, like Scott Cooker doing that thing where there's Josh Burnett and Katore and Frank Shamrock and Henzo and like all these Mark Coleman's and all these other guys up there, that was a cool scene for him to retire like that. But to point out like in terms of the how the fight went, it didn't go wit great for Fad Or in terms of how the fight went for Silva in MMA, it didn't really go the way he wanted to. It wasn't some kind of beating, but it was just, you know, felt so unnecessary after the fact, like why do we have to go through that? That seemed pointless to a degree. And then of course they're the ones I've already mentioned, like it's very very difficult to stick the landing. The very very best prize fighters don't get it right. Habib got it right, and GSP got it right, and GSP almost got it wrong. I mean he got it right in the sense that he walked away after the Hendricks fight, which I thought he lost that fight, But either way, he wins it and then gives a title back. That was pretty good coming back, and then win the title against Bissing. That's crazy, next level amazing. But what did he also do? He got right back the fuck out. He got right out again. You know he didn't. He didn't waste any time. You can't beat the clock in this game. You just can't. You have to get out early. You ha had some some version of early, some version of you know, GSP did the thief in the night bit, but in general, you have to get out early. And he didn't, and tonight Faeder didn't and he and you know, this is the this is what you're gonna get. I mean, there's a few thoughts I had about the whole thing. There's not really a big fight to break down in this case, but it's more about the career of fad Or. You know, is he the best heavyweight of all time? I think that he is, at least at a bare minimum. I think he's got the most distinguished record. Let me just say a couple things about fad Or beyond just the fact of either he is the best heavyweight of all time, or he's certainly like at worst number two. He used to be in much more of a contention for best fighter of all time. I think that has slipped through his grasp a little bit, But at the heavyweight division, I think it stays. But there's something else that really occurs to me beyond just how difficult it is to stick the landing and fad or status, which is that Tonight felt for me, as someone who's been watching MMA quite a while at this point and then covering it professionally for also a pretty long time. Tonight to me felt more like the end of Pride than I'd felt in a long time. Mike Bond had a tweet recently where with the retirement of Shogun, he was the last guy on the existing UFC roster to fight in Pride in Japan. You have Nick Diaz and Robbi Lawler, who by the way, are not going to be in the promotion much longer. They did fight in Pride, but never in Japan. They fought in the Las Vegas show. Uh, and so that doesn't really I mean, it's not that doesn't count. That was that was real Pride, But it wasn't real Pride in Japan fade or excuse me, Shogun was the last. So that means that there's no one on the UFC roster's done that. I don't think there's anyone on the bill to ur roster who did that, either fad or like like he was the guy at Pride. He was the most important guy there, I mean. And from the Japanese perspective, maybe a't soakar Raba. I'm not sure, don't. I don't know how historically they view that. Certainly he was a massive figure for folks who may not know soakar Aba Kauzushi saka Raba was like the best way to explain because sushi saka raba is what someone once told me was imagine if Hulk Hogan in his prime could fight like actually really well in Mma and did both, You'd be like, you know, like what, like it's hard to even fathom what that would mean, Like that's what he was. So maybe to the Japanese that's different, but at least to them, to I think to fans like me at the time, you know, and in North America he's he's the most important figure out of that organization. Again, a guy who had acclaimed to be the best ever at a certain point, certainly the best heavyweight out of that crop, no doubt about it. And you know, again arguably in the in the overall scope of MMA history. Man, if you have, we did it for resume review and it like, honestly, I took my breath away when I did it. If you have a fight Pass of subscription, someone once asked me who it was. I forget who it was, Like, what's the value of a fight passers subscription? I don't watch anything live on fight Pass. I pay just for the library, and to me, it's worth every penny. It's so valuable to have a resource like that, to be able to go and look stuff up. If you've never seen like the three four five version of fad Or and

really kind of closer to three to four. If you've never seen that, dude, you just never seen fad Or like what you saw tonight. I mean, this is the you know, I don't want to diminish the man. He is obviously a figure of adoration and we revere him all but the version that was there tonight, that's not even a pimple on the ass of the guy who fought in Pride. It's they're not they barely, it's barely the same guy at all. If you go back and watch like the fights against Shilt Hearing, the first Nogara fight obviously, the crow Cop fight is a fucking technical masterpiece, you know, the Mark Hunt fight. And I could go on and on and on through even like when shitty noia O Gabwa refused to shake his hands and he went in there and just fucking drop bombs on him, the Fujia fight where he got hurt. Dude, you have to go see what at a prime Fataleka looked like. I did a totally unscientific but kind of fun little thread on Twitter today. I asked, what was the first time you ever saw fad Or compete live? Right, Not like I caught a DVD. I caught a clip, like, sat down and watched a live fatal for what was the first one? And the vast majority of them quite understandably, given who I was polling, we're giving basically giving answers like strike force or affliction or you know, whenever MMA had made its way to US airwaves basically, which tells you that they've the vast majority. Yes, you could have gotten Pride, but that most of them were like post Pride, Bodog and after that, Like, it's kind of crazy that Pride and all its illustrious splendor never got noticed and Bodog did. But and what that tells me is that the vast majority of people who watched Fador today barely understand who he actually was. Even by the time he got to Strike Force, he was a diminished version of himself a little bits still very good, but not not the guy that he once was. And so this is he like he should have retired in my judgment, quite a long while ago, just to you know, well, you know what he got Timothy Johnson. The Timothy Johnson win should have been probably the end, right because that was in Russia. He gets this incredible win of a ranked top guy in this organization. He puts his lights out like that was tremendous. And to do that at forty five or whatever he was forty six potentially even its just it's insane. It's insane that he was able to do that. So that's great, that probably should have been the end. But you know, he retired several times before this, and then he had the terrible Fabio Maldonado fight, which was a. 00:13:26 Speaker 1: Disaster for him. 00:13:27 Speaker 2: He's had a series of these where he kind of thought like he could have hung it up a little bit earlier. 00:13:32 Speaker 1: But either way, man. 00:13:33 Speaker 2: If you just if you've never taken the time to do it, you're only hurting yourself if you've never taken the time to go through fight pass and actually sit down and watch that run. That run he was on when he was like the top guy in his twenties as the Pride Heavyweight champion. You've just never you've never seen Fator and you've never seen another fighter quite like that. Kane Velaska's was an overwhelming force of nature, but in a very different way. Right, brock Lesner was an over wing force of nature, but in a very different kind of way. And they were just you know, this was a middleweight who was up there competing with heavyweights basically, and he was throwing them around, and he was catching it with punches from angles and with timing that they never saw and blending the game and putting a blueprint, blueprint to ground dude, he wrote the fucking blueprint on you know how to beat No garap basically at the time that was you know, considered impossibly difficult. He did it like it was nothing. So, you know, I don't know how much these entreaties ever actually work and get people to go do it, But let me just just say, like if you do it, if you actually sit down and really go and watch, you will be so rewarded with an additional perspective on what like greatness looks like and how early he was achieving it and in what ways he was so vastly ahead. 00:14:51 Speaker 1: Of the game. 00:14:51 Speaker 2: But like this was the other part too, Like I remember when I was doing research for the resume review that we did for Morning Combat, I remember that I was watching him, like, you know, for example, like tonight he gets underneath bat or Bader, goes behind the back and again gets that risk control and then sucks that wrist out. You know, guys just weren't doing that in the era in which he was great. Like there's parts of the game that have just technically evolved past what he really knows how to do. And that's that's sports, right, Like the game is just different as it moves on. But the other part about the reality of him is that like he never spent a lot of time underneath like guys would take him down and they need to get armbard, like Mark Coleman got armboard, for example, a very similar kind of way. You know, even Hongman Choi was a similar kind of situation. But like you know, that would happen fairly regularly, or you know, he would at least threaten from underneath, or he would get reversals, he would end up back on top, and with like the modern wrestler, he would kind of get trapped. But the other part is when you just look at how athletic he was in his prime, you can tell that, like, it's not like he didn't have things him technically advanced he was was, but there was also a reality that his game was very much lifted and affected the style that he brought by at the time. He was really benefited by extraordinary athleticism and explosive athletic ability, Like he really had it in spades during his late twenties. But as that faded, so too did his game. And again, he was so great that he was able to make it work for in other ways for a long period of time. 00:16:24 Speaker 1: But you know, that was always going to be a thing. I heard him in at forty six. That was

just. 00:16:31 Speaker 2: You know, I mean that's the fight game, Like you can't. You can't fight at these ages and beat guys. Vader's not young, but he's still in his thirties, you know, thirty nine barely so he's still barely there, but you know he's still got I mean, imagine fad or seven years ago. Right, that's what we're talking about here, So kind kind of a real bookend moment for Pride f Sea tonight, kind of a real bookend moment. It's a new sport, it's a new era, it's a new day. And that's that's the way that it goes. Kind of sad that there's a lot of people who never saw fade or there are familiar with Pride and got to enjoy it while it was around. It was when I tell you that there's been absolutely not a single thing like it, since I'm not exaggerating it. 00:17:20 Speaker 1: It really is. 00:17:21 Speaker 2: And I know people hate to hear this sometimes it's like, ah, you know, why are you tellings about things we can enjoy? I don't know, It's it's still a living part of our experiences in a way, right, Like I can go back and watch them. I remember where I was when I watched some of these in real time and how I felt and who I was with and anyway. You know, it's kind of old man reminiscing, but that's what you got tonight. Before we move on to the Coleman, I do want to talk about the broader, like the overall broadcast and then the like how this event went. Obviously, I have no idea how the ratings are going to go. I don't know what something like this can pull in modern television. I also aired on Paramount Plus. I don't know what that's gonna do to viewership. I really have no idea. I will say I wasn't I didn't think it was a heavily promoted card. I didn't think it was crazily promoted. I thought it was promoted okay, but not like overwhelmingly. I thought that was a bit of an issue. I don't know how much of the promos aired at all on CBS, because I don't really watch linear TV hardly at Also, maybe you guys can speak better to that, so that'd be curious to see. In terms of the broadcast itself, I thought that they did a good job with fad Or and making it feel big and like being reverential towards him. I thought that was great, But I thought there's a couple of missed opportunities. One, why did they not show the Lorenz Larkin fight. The whole thing was a minute in forty one seconds. They had a minute in forty one seconds to sneak into that broadcast to show that, which I thought would have been just great for the viewers at home and really added to the overall enjoyment actor of the evening. And again we're only talking about a minute and forty one seconds, you know a little bit more than that, because they have to show a few things, but not a substantial amount of time in the broadcast. And I feel like there's so many things that they throw to in the broadcast that it doesn't give them the leeway to add things like that. This is just my personal opinion. I don't speak on my behalf of I am a CBS employee, so you know, I'm just telling you how I felt as a viewer. I would have preferred to have seen the Red's Larkin versus Burkhamov or Berkhmaalf Harvey pronounced it a Berhamov. I'm not sure how they pronounced it on the broadcast. I would have preferred to have seen that for sure, versus not on that broadcast. I think it would have been great for them. So that was interesting. What else did I notice about the broadcast? The crowd seemed very silent. I don't know if that's I don't know what that was. I don't know how many numbers on the attendance. It seemed well attended, but the crowds, you know, they would perk up when actually what happened, but they weren't otherwise super we're engaged, So that kind of got my attention. I'm trying to think of other things that sort of stood out on the broadcast and I thought were kind of interesting. Yeah, aside from the Larkin thing and then the crowd being silent, I I overall enjoyed the broadcast. It was pretty quick in the sense that, like you know, it was two hours, you got three fights, it's about what you want. 00:20:21 Speaker 1: One of them was five rounder. 00:20:23 Speaker 2: That was fine, But in terms of like the impact it had, like I don't even know if it's trending. 00:20:30 Speaker 1: Let me see if it's trending on Twitter. I don't even know if it is. 00:20:37 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean UFC Vegas sixty eight is trending on mine and I don't see. Let me pull up is it trending in sports? Even Alicia Bumgardner, Ryan Bater is Ryan Bater is surprise fad Or is not. That's amazing that right? Oh yeah, Fader kind of is, yeah, a little bit. But you know, the vet by name isn't. So you know, I don't know how this one's gonna do. Candidly, I don't know it might do well. I really I don't know what the benchmarks are internally for success either, Like what do they consider success. 00:21:12 Speaker 1: I don't know. 00:21:12 Speaker 2: They don't share these memos with me, but I think they made a mistake not showing the lark and fight and crowd was a little weird. Crowd was a little weird. I don't really know what to make of that. But okay, moving down the card, your comin event, Johnny Eblin defeats anatotally Tokov fifty forty five and then two forty nine forty six is unanimous decision. Johnny Eblin is the most unheralded champion among major MMA organizations today in any way, class, I don't that's not me telling you that I can declare with total confidence that he's the very best middleweight. I don't know that. I don't know if he's the very best middleweight. This is not me declare to you he's gonna beat all of your favorite fighters at the UFC ever signs him. It's not what I'm suggesting either. What I am saying is relative to what he can do and relative to what he's accomplished, matched against the acclaim he gets for it. I mean, there's just a yawning gap in between. I got news for you. Like, I don't know if Johnny Evelin is the best middleweight on earth. I tend to think probably not at He's not right now, not right

now, but he probably gives Pata a hard time, real hard time, just stylistically, he gives him a hard time and might just beat his ass, like it could actually be ugly like that. I'm not declarant to you like that would happen, but that you could add not dismiss that at all. I mean, let's talk about what makes him good. 00:22:47 Speaker 1: Right. 00:22:48 Speaker 2: He has striking that still is in development. I think you can see that. But he's got the ability to He's got good linear punches, right, I mean, what was the punch that was giving Tokov so many problems. The one too, the one too. He could not miss with that one too. That right hand was sticking to call flush over and over and over again. I was like, holy smoke, that thing is just dynamite. And you know, he had a lot of winging punches off balance and then try and switch through stances like that stuff needs a little bit of work. You know that that's not like his strong suit. But he's got good, respectable power. I would call his striking more than functional, like valuable, like he can he can stand with it and do with it. 00:23:36 Speaker 1: He can win. 00:23:37 Speaker 2: But what really sort of set him apart is that his striking is not the best, but it's good and he's got good power. He's got great cardio, and that that dude can just wrestle you until until he's for forever. He's a perpetual motion machine. And that's at that's side one hundred and eighty five pounds. He reminds me a little bit, a little bit, this is not quite the right thing, because the guy I'm about to as much better as a at weaving in the Submission Threat. But like when Chris Widman was on his game. It was a little bit like this again. Wideman had a little bit more slickness with the boxing, a little more slickness with the submission game. But it felt a little bit like what you're getting out of this, Like a big, strong middleweight who has the gas tank to go forever. He can push the pace if he needs to. He's got good power, he can push you back with his striking, he can land on you, he can he has, you know, reasonable striking defense, and when he mixes all of it together, it just becomes overwhelming. Like that's the kind of game that he's got, and it's I don't know who in that organization. 00:24:39 Speaker 1: Can beat him. 00:24:41 Speaker 2: He will only get beat if he makes some kind of error or one in a million shot lands, or he doesn't prepare right. But if he's healthy, and if he prepares and if you know, Father Time doesn't whip his ass, he's gonna hold onto that belt for some time. Let me pull up to bellatore Middleway rankings. I don't do the rankings for Bellatour, so I couldn't tell you. 00:25:01 Speaker 1: Who they have up here. Let's see so current middleweight. Here's your middleweights. 00:25:10 Speaker 2: Fabian Edwards probably the next one, Tokov was the one sitting in that same space. Psalter, who he already beat Ross has only got eight fights, eight or nine fights. Then Aaron Jeffrey Austin, Vanderford, Lorenz Larkin was an interesting one, and then Romero Cotton. So does a couple of names in there, you know, and Larkin is obviously a much better a much better striker than Johnny Eblin. But overall game in terms of just the amount of effort that guy can apply to you and what it can result in, that's a lot to deal with. That's a lot to deal with. So early I thought I thought Tokov took maybe the first or second round. I think the first round, I thought Eblin made a strong comeback. In the second had to push through like the tide like. I think he kind of squeaked it out. And in the third round I thought Tokov was really taking it to him. But then Eblin ended strong, dropping him with that elbow. I believe that's right. Fourth round, he just wrestled him to death. Fifth round, more or less the same thing. Tokoff couldn't get him off. Tokoff's gas tank heard him. That's something that like you've noticed in the past. We've seen Tokoff fights. His gas tank is not terrible, but I don't know that it's suited well for five rounds. He can usually be much more of a force through three, so your gas tank was a bit of a problem. He had good punching power, he a good striking but I think that once he became a little flat footed and not able to be as reactive. In that third round, when he got stung with some of those hard rights, everything just began to slow and he couldn't really ever get get back out into another gear. He couldn't catch his breath, really, he couldn't. He couldn't put uh, he couldn't put Eblin on the back foot enough. And he was on the back foot metaphorically and literally constantly after that. 00:27:02 Speaker 1: You know, he just could never look back. 00:27:04 Speaker 2: So I think stealing that second round and the third, dash say, taking the second round, stealing the third, and then just mopping him up after that, and then in that fifth round get out of here with the souplex, with the release no less, I mean no, I don't. I think he held on to him, don't think there was a release, but drove him, I mean right into the canvas, amazing, amazing flare. So I would like to see Evelin continue to work on his overall game, in particular the striking. I think obviously the wrestling is pretty far advanced, so bringing other parts of his game up overall fight IQ working on all the pieces of his game with a particular focus on striking. The other part two is like getting to dominant ground positions for ground upound. He's good at setting up positions to stifle and ride, not so much for maximum punishment, which is understandable because there's a trade off inherent there, but you know, getting that equation right and better. And dude, he's off to the he's off to the races. He's absolutely i think, top five middleweight in the world, bare minimum, bare minimum. And you know you're gonna look a part of his game and be like, it's a little there's nothing super flashy about it, right, there's no part of it that's

super flashy. It's the combo of everything. It's a and and it's a deceptive too. It's deceptive to watch a guy that big who doesn't have super flashy striking or like crazy submission ability still kind of take it to these guys. Uh, and I just I it's a it's it's this. It's this combination of having his ace in the hole is the cardio and the wrestling combined. But but dude, he didn't even really use that until much of Like I don't recall that being a huge part of the first two rounds, even where that really didn't get going until as like a real thing he could hold onto. I think he got to take down in the second. I don't have any stats because Belatore doesn't offer stats. There's another thing that about BELITOI that drives me a little bit crazy, if I can be honest, Like they don't have stats that they compile and share, and it drives me up the wall. But here we are, so I don't I don't have any stats. But he got to take that. Really didn't do a whole lot with them. But really the takedowns didn't get to become a meaningful part I think until the third a little bit, and maybe even the second half of. 00:29:25 Speaker 1: The third something like that. 00:29:27 Speaker 2: So but even before that, you know, also he has to make adjustments, Like, dude, he got beat up a little bit early. You know, his initial read, his initial way of doing it. He had had to kind of deal with it. His eye was swollen shut. He had to persevere and throw. And then once he found his reins and once he found i think some of the timing and then what the setups were that worked better, he just went back to them and that was it. And again that right hand off the one two, And it was the timing too, because though the looping hands, they take longer to travel, so you can kind of get out of the way of the them and you can anticipate them coming or whatever. You can roll and make big motions. But the one too, bob bob, And it's not like a one two like dot dot. It's not dot, it's like right behind it, switching that switching that timing up like George Foreman on Mark Michael Moore. Go watch the timing on Foreman's one two that sits him done. It is bobop, it's right behind each other. He pops them not quite with the same speed, but an off speed kind of rhythm, and it catches them constantly, constantly in that fight. So that was supposed to be in that Cobine event role. That was supposed to be a deem Nemkov taken on Uel Romero, but it all fell through. This was the kind of substitute for a substitute fight given the circumstances. 00:30:47 Speaker 1: I don't mind it. I thought it was fine. 00:30:49 Speaker 2: And Eblin getting some promotion I think is what you want, and him ending with a little bit of a dramatic flare is great. But I believe that there is work to be done to make sure that that guy gets the credit that he deserves. Quite frankly, sore more should be done to that effect. How about we talk about very quickly if we can, the opening bout at welterweight, Brendan Ward

taken on Sabajo Massi. He stops Sabaja Masi at one thirty four of round two via tk O head kick and then punches dude. Sobajo Massi was tearing Brendan Ward up in that first round. Punches he was walking into, he was getting leg kicked to death, and a lot of the stuff that Ward was throwing was missing. Now towards the end he had Ward had a nice flurry and he was able to slow things down because Homasi would throw these wild strikes, slip and then try and like you know, scramble out of it, and then Ward would get his back and he couldn't do a whole lot with it, you know, in terms of like getting actual chokes, but it slowed Homasi down. It slowed the fight down. And then he gets a little a little bit of a flurry to like a more tired Homasi. Second round comes out, Ward lands big punches again and a headkick that drops Homasi at least hurts him. He kind of falls over and then finishes him off with punches, tries to get a choke, couldn't get it, and then fallows up with more punches and elbows and everything else than Holmasi is a bloody mess. So, first of all, Ward versus Homasi is your first fight to return to CBS since what the Strike Force brawl basically in Nashville. First fight back is a bloodfest. I mean, it wasn't the bladest fight you've ever seen, but it was pretty bloody. Loved it perfect. That's exactly what EMMA should be doing. So that was great. And then for Ward, man, this is a guy at thirty four years of age who just punted on basically five plus years of his career. Even before that, he wasn't taking great care of himself in the way that he should have been. He lost all that time with jail and rehab and everything else, and was losing this fight. Early Homasi was landing the heavier, cleaner strikes. He was the one who had great takedown defense early, great ability to cause separation. Like he was doing great stuff. And then the game we talked about Ward getting the back, taking advantage of the mistakes, put some punches together, finding a range, keep walking hom Asi down, slow him down a little bit. And then once he slowed down, the big punches from Ward. Ward's always been a big puncher. They caught up with him, they landed, he lands a head kick, he follows up. Just a great, great job by Brendan ward Man. And I even said this on Friday, like, I don't know how far he's gonna go. Man, the guy missed a lot of time, you know. And I'll tell you that he missed a lot of time there. That's there. Some cost has to be paid there, there always is. There's no such thing as a free lunch in this life. But you know, I know that he has put himself in the best place he could possibly be to get something out of it. And the two guys he had beaten since he got back to his career to resume things. You know, they weren't great names. And so bajo MASSI you know the is he the number one welterweight in the world. No, but he's a tough guy. He was certainly a much tougher guy than who Ward had been fighting. And he comes from a good camp and he was sticking it to Ward early for Ward to overcome all of that and then come back and get the stoppage win man and then bring in Jean Claude van Dam for a very awkward hug. But the guy he brought in Mighty Matt who he was talking about. That's the guy who founded high Rollers. BJJ shouts to Mighty Matt. 00:34:07 Speaker 1: That dude is super cool, super cool. 00:34:11 Speaker 2: He invited us out to his high Rollers place out in Vegas, so BBC in a couple of the Showtime guys. We all went out, some of the Showtime producers. We all went out there and he treated us like fucking kings man. So that dude is just, you know, a cool person, tries to do right by everybody. I think he's also involved. I think He's like he runs you know Nick and Adas have that game up nutrition thing. I think he runs that. So you know, some cool people all the way around. So that was cool to see as well. But great, great win by Brendan Ward. Let's talk very briefly if we can, about some of the highlights from the preliminary card. I won't get into too many of these, but we have to talk about it. I mean, I was killing CBS. We're not putting on the broadcast, so we got to mention it here. Lorenz Larkin, are you kidding me? Apparently was a welterweight fight against They got him ranked a middleweight, so it's thing against Muhammad. I'm gonna say Berkhamov. I don't know the proper pronunciation via ko with a fucking elbow. Did y'all see this? First of all, want to point out something about Lorenz Larkin. He got signed by UFC. I think, excuse me, he got signed by Belatore. I believe his last win in UFC was against It was the back to back wins over Jorge Masvidal and then he stops Neil Magni. Then he goes to Bellatore and fights Douglas Lima and loses. Then he fights Paul Day and gets knocked out. 00:35:32 Speaker 1: Terrible. 00:35:33 Speaker 2: I mean, his start to Bellatore could not have gone worse, and he was like a prized acquisition. They brought him out there for that Bellatore NYC Deis and everything like this was a big deal. That Yes, of course Larkin had fought in Strikeforce under Scott Cooker, but this was a huge deal for him to go back home. This was twenty sixteen, only two years after Scott took over Belatore, still trying to do big things, and he just it just didn't work, like none of it worked, or at least early. So then he fights Fernando Gonzalez, doesn't look right, and he fights Ion pascued. Looks okay. He barely beats koresh Karov, but that's a tough win. He beats kait Nakamora, who's an underrated name, a little bit long in the tooth, but a good one. He barely beats Raphael Carvalio. He beats Kyle Stewart in Paris, but Kyle Stewart like took that fight on short notice. And then he has the illegal excuse me was the no contest the illegal elbow from his fight with McCaw Berkhamov at BULTWO twenty three back in July. 00:36:25 Speaker 1: So this was like the rematch. I'm just pointing out this. 00:36:29 Speaker 2: Guy has slowly he dug himself a huge hole

after the Magni fight and has slowly kind of clawed out and then had this performance. How did he set it up? He goes for a punch, it misses, but he ends up overshooting it, and then as he retracts his hand he pulls the collar tie and then he had the outside elbow. 00:36:47 Speaker 1: So what does he do? 00:36:47 Speaker 2: He fucking snaps that that dude down and turns him. He turns him. So what does Burt Berkhamov or Berkmov do. He takes his foot, his right foot and plants it on the ground to stop getting turned and to balance himself. Well, dude, if someone is turning you and you plant to stop, you are setting up I If I turn you from here from my left to my right and then you stop and plant so I can't turn you. I'm gonna keep coming with this left bah and you are driving yourself back into it. You are driving yourself back into it. That's exactly what he did. He fucking snaps and turns this dude who plants his weight to stop, and fucking Larkin just whips that elbow. As soon as the guy plants, he keeps going, whips that elbow. Actually, wait, he waits a beat on him, so he gets him on the half beat. Actually, but then still same same physics. Supply the guy stops, he's going into it. It's you know, almost two forces essentially colliding, brings that elbow over the top and fucking smokes this dude, I mean somemoked him goes flat. He actually did like the Rick Flair where he kind of like took a step and then fell. But once he fell, eyes wide open, like you know, completely out, like light saw on No One's Home. One of the best knockouts from a standing elbow you'll ever see. I know it's only February, but that's you can add that at least to the list of like Knockouts of the Year content contenders or knock out of the ear contenders. 00:38:18 Speaker 1: I should say amazing. 00:38:22 Speaker 2: And he, by the way, was the underdog. Lorenz Larkin was in this fight. Like I'm telling you, his stock has dropped to a dramatic degree, When was the last time you saw like a Lorenz Larkin interview? What was the last time he was part of something like in the news cycle? You just his name has just almost been forgotten to a degree, and that's been a part because of like the way the billet or run has gone it. He had signed with all his hype and went and he just had this slow, weird, kind of quiet climb back. Well, dude, if this is the announcement that he's back and ready to start fighting other elite top guys, I can't think of a better commercial than the one he started in today. Phenomenal, phenomenal. And you know another thing about it is, you know, keep your hands up on the clinch break. But the way he does it, he turns him and he gets the guy. Dude, Larkin is waiting for the guy to do that. It's the same thing in wrestling. If I snap a guy down. What's the reaction gonna be if I snap you down? What's the reaction gonna be from a call from an elbow tie and a collar tie? Ah, snap you down? The reaction is gonna be from the normal person is gonna want

to if I'm pulling you down? What are they gonna want to do. They're gonna want to go up, and when they go up, you hit him. You just time the double, so you snap him down waiting for the rebound, and then you pop the double in between. That's the same thing he does here. He pulls the guy waiting for him to step and all that does is boom, set him up for the elbow, and. 00:39:50 Speaker 1: He smoked him. He smoked him. 00:39:52 Speaker 2: He completely shut the lights off with one shot. It was brutal, very very job well done. Kudos all of that to Lorenz Larkin. Tonight just an absolutely massive, massive win that should have been shown on the main broadcast. Henry Carrals gets a nice win Aliiev and then Steve Mallory had a weird fight where Isiav kind of wins the first round, gets demolished in the second round, and then wins the third kind of like in a very body of Hohme top control Lamprey kind of way. So it ends up being a draw because the second round was an easy ten eight. 00:40:29 Speaker 1: Anyway. 00:40:30 Speaker 2: Chris Gonzalez defeating Max Roskoff. I might save that one, you know what, else, that's the last one. 00:40:34 Speaker 1: I'll go on. 00:40:35 Speaker 2: I'll save the rest. Yeah, okay. I remember when Usmin Nimerga madeff beat Chris Gonzalez. I had people being like, dude, nimer goa made's not beating anybody good, and I'm like, you're out of your fucking mind. Gonzalez is a team ALFA Milk guy, you know, NCAA, All American, the whole nine yards, great athlete. Yeah, like, it's hard to look good against usman Nimerga made off, Okay, but that doesn't mean you're not a good fighter. And he goes in here against Max Roschkoff, who, by the way, hit an amazing like turning inside arm throw he hit. He hit an amazing duck under to get the back. But Chris Gonzalez is a great striker. I think he was able to connect and think with the right hand. I have to go back and look that also kind of landed. It was legal, but kind of landed in the back of the head, and then just polished him off, and dude Gonzalez was his down blocking was excellent in this contest, Like Roschkoff had to really dig to get any takedowns and couldn't do a whole lot with him when he got him and dude, that's a very good grappler. He's very much reborn. I still think highly of his future over extreme guitur. But this is my point. It's like everyone was like, oh, Gonzalez is a tomato. Can get the fuck out of here with that, dude, Chris Gonzalez is a very good fighter. Here's what happens, man. There's a lot of people who actually don't watch Belatour. They kind of half assed watch Belatore, and then they make these grand proclamations about who is there and how good it is. No Bellatore is not any organization to the UFC, not even close. But you can't let that get in the way of identifying what our actual like, good fighters like if you have to give them their due if they are owed it, and of course how that matches across any kind of aisle one or UFC or PFL. We can get into those debates. But if you see a good fighter doing good things, you should say as much. Chris Gonzales is a good fighter, is a very good fighter, and this was a very good win that he was able to get. All right, I don't have anything else there's I don't know if there's any bonuses. I mean, Beltmore does that, But overall, I guess we'll see how things go for I'll say this, you know, it's almost kind of ho hum that Mma returned to CBS. This was a big counterculture thing when it happened the last time. Let me tell you, it was a huge deal. It was a shake up in sports, and today it was just another day, which I think is kind of a good thing, right, success, Like we don't have to constantly fight for every inch of space to be treated as a sport, worth celebrating, worth broadcasting, worth being a part of. So that's really kind of nice. And last time, like they would have weird cruise for like the CBS shows, like Gus Johnson was doing them, It's like, why is he here here? They stuck with, you know, the reliable people who do all of their broadcasts, which is probably the right call. I was glad to see that too. Like they didn't try to go too crazy with it. They wanted it to look nice, it seems to me, but not be like over the top. They didn't want to They didn't want to have like the grandest show ever. They just want to have a good, solid, meaningful, impactful show. I think they got that. Whether or not they got the viewership for it very much remains to be seen. You know, I don't know. I don't know how that's. 00:43:42 Speaker 1: Going to go. 00:43:42 Speaker 2: So we'll see that. Is it for me tonight? I think yeah, it's it for me tonight. We'll call it an early one here back on Monday and they were off to London. Yeah, that's it. So we got a lot of stuff going on. So thank you guys so much for watching, thumbs up, hit, subscribe, all that good stuff. And yeah, I'll see you guys on Monday with the wonderful Bryan Campbell and until then, enjoy the fights. 00:44:10 Speaker 1: Oh, get some sleep, do that? How about that? Bye, guys, see y'all later.