The Fight #74 LNT

In MMA, we recap UFC Houston, where Sean Strickland stopped Anthony Hernandez by third-round TKO in the main event, plus key results up and down the card including Uros Medic’s first-round KO of Geoff Neal and Melquizael Costa’s first-round TKO of Dan Ige. In boxing, we react to Ryan Garcia’s dominant unanimous decision win over Mario Barrios to claim the WBC welterweight title, and discuss the co-main where Gary Antuanne Russell retained his WBA super lightweight belt via unanimous decision over Andy Hiraoka

Transcript

Opening And Card Overview

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Uh Leighton LA. The fight, episode 74. Let's get into it. We got Papa Boxing and UFC in Houston. Let's start off with boxing. Let's start off with the UK card, Wood versus Lee. It was an action-packed card. The UK cards are always action-packed. They have great matchmaking there. It is great rivalries there. And I love the British scene where they have local and state belts, which gives people national pride, which intensifies the rivalries. Speaking of rivalries, we talk about Wood and Warranton fighting for the second time in the main event. But let's also talk about other things on that card because it was a lot going on. We had Dave Allen get a KO win, I believe, in the first round after losing his belt. So it's good to see him get a bounce back when the guy that beat him is about to go fight Tyson Fury. So we'll see how that goes. There is a lot going on in the boxing UK scene. We get Ishmael Davis versus Balal. They both have crazy interesting hard-fought stories in how they got their belts. It was a great clash of styles, boxing, personality. Both fighters had great moments, but Bilau got to take home the win for being more consistent. I believe the ruling was correct. Sometimes we have close fights. Sometimes we don't. We're going to talk about the main event in the UK card. It was not close at all. Lehigh would watch him from the beginning to the end at 37. He was outboxing them, outpunching them, outworking them. He used his angles correctly. He used the ring correctly, and he boxed correctly. And that's what you have to do at high levels. You can't always like the higher, the higher level of fighter you go up in in boxing, especially in all striking sports, the harder it is to get a knockout. A lot of people are conflating the striking in UFC to the striking in boxing. It's entirely different. You can't just go in there throwing punches or you will get knocked out. We have seen this when boxers have fought MMA guys. A lot of MMA guys striking is amplified by what they uh what other things they can do or what other things they can cover up with. And if they don't have that, say you have a pure striker like Izzy or Anderson Silva, sooner or later you're gonna get caught. You're gonna get on the ground, you're gonna get choked out, like they both did. So you can't just be a pure striker. MMA is a multifaceted combat sport with the other elements allowing you to become a champion even if you're not an expert or as high-level or as high skilled as someone else. Like an Olympic gold medalist in boxing can go to MMA and lose to Derek Lewis because they don't know how to deal with pressure in the MMA cage, the ring size versus the cage size versus the ring versus even the gloves as well. So like there's so many different factors when it comes to striking and striking responsibility. And we will see that when we talk about MMA striking and we get into the EOC card, but a lot of people are comparing these two cards, and it's very hard to do so because boxing, the better you are, the harder you are to knock out. Gary Antony Russell learned that with Andy Haraka. It was a tough fight, tough fight, close fight, but I do see him with the UD. He did do more work. He did, he did not respect his opponent. I don't think him or his team did. And his coach got on his ass, and his coach was correct. He had to pick it up, and that's how he won the fight, to me, in my eyes. Now we can get to the Frank Martin and Nahir Albright. Nahir is from Philly, so we got the Philly bias. It was a draw, and he had an MD against Keyshawn Davis. This guy is extremely talented. He's not a pushover. We should be paying attention to this guy. It's a reason things happen, and it's hard to beat this guy or put him away. I draw it, it's a draw in my eyes. Frank Martin did great. They both did great. This is a high-action fight. This wasn't any like nobody could say that they were running from each other. It was just back and forth. At this level, especially in the striking with boxers, especially, it is very hard to knock off somebody that's also trying to preserve themselves as they do damage. It's the art of getting hit. It's hitting without getting hit. Now, great, great, great card as far as the undercard to the main event. Ryan Garcia versus Mario Barrios. Ryan Garcia gets the UD. He also drops him in round one. Listen, if he didn't beat Mario Barrios, this would be the fourth gift he couldn't unwrap. Since Ryan Garcia's Ryan Garcia has been in boxing, he has been getting gifts from the system, from the setup. He popped for drugs and nobody cares. You couldn't find a single person who cares or brings it up. If Devin Haney missed weight, if Devin, if Shakur Stevenson missed weight, we're looking at Richardson, who just lost weight, and look at the fallout in the narratives that are coming out from him. Right? Like people are on his ass, right? So like I don't understand how Ryan Garcia could escape all that. And it's very, very disheartening. He was supposed to win this fight. If he lost, like he lost against Rowley, they were like, oh shit, he's fucking up. And what can we do with Ryan Garcia? He wants to fight Shakur. They're gonna do it at a catch weight. Is he gonna come in overweight again? Is he gonna come in on drugs again when he has to fight another elite fighter? Because if you need to take drugs, if you're coming in overweight, there are things in your mind telling you you cannot compete on an even playing field with these talents. I question Ryan Garcia going forward. Congratulations on the win you should have won. Like, I like I don't know why people are so hype on this win. He should have won this. There have been more questions if he didn't. Now let's get into MMA. The UC card starting with Michael Pierra is a crazy, crazy, crazy card. UFC outdone themselves with the matchmaking. Michael Pereira gets the split decision one in the first fight. He drops his opponent. And listen, guys, damage does everything. He did more damage than his opponent. That's why I was leaning his way. Jacoby Smith KOs Josiah in round one. Vicious ground and pound. If you can't deal with his hands, and you can't deal with his wrestling, you can't deal with him. He's going to knock you out. And he has a crazy, crazy athleticism, and he's very, very young. And it's striking, it's catching up to his wrestling. Rapidly. He's going to be a contender for sure. Keep your eyes on Jacoby Smith. Dan Ige gets knocked out by Costa in round one. TKO. Listen, man, when he put that war paint on, I knew he was going to be on some shit. I knew he wanted that highlight. Since Dana set up the 25K win bonus on a finish, everybody's hunting for the KOs. Even Sean Strickland is hunting for the KO. He gets a TKO over Anthony Hernandez. Listen, man, Sean Strickland, Sean Strickland has the most polished striking in the UFC that we have seen consistently work against MMA fighters. Right? He has success against Izzy because Izzy was used to striking against people at an MMA level. Strickland has world-class striking. So this is Alex Pereira. If he, I think if he if Izzy took him as a fighter with skill set as strong and as powerful as Alex Pereira or another striking specialist in the MMA, I think that fight would be different. But look at Sean Strickland now. He is in contention for the belt. Cosmont is listen, the fans think he's boring. People don't want to see his fights. They would rather see Sean Strickland versus DDP3. Cosmont's talking about moving up anyway. Don't know why we gave him the belt. If he's going to move up anyway, that's some Dana shit. But hey, Sean Strickland's end contention for the middleweight belt. I want to see who's next. They still gotta figure out. Like Cosmont is like best friends with his competitor, Immanov. So like I don't know how that's gonna go. Is he gonna release the belt, give it to that guy? Now Sean Strickland versus him again. They have history. It'd be great to see that there's a lot of people that Imanoff has beaten with eye-poke stipulations. Before he finished Izzy, it was an eye-poke combo. Like it, there's a lot of eye-pokes in his career. And we see what eye-pokes could do with a career with Tom Aspinoff. Look at the shit that's going on here, man. And listen, on another tip, far as the UFC fighters, shout out to the UFC. Great card, but you guys weren't paid like the boxers. And Dana has found a boxer that he has signed to his Zoo for boxing on 10 mil. And if you are a UFC fighter playing, this game paid show money, you should have some questions for your boss. How you got money for this new sport that you're breaking into, but you haven't invested in the fighters. This whole car is all KOs. None of the guys on the UFC Houston card is gonna be walking away with the same amount of money on the Garcia Barrios card. Unless it's a top guy. Sean Strickland probably made the same amount of money as Frank Martin. Like, make it make sense. Dana spent the entirety of the budget for his spiders three to four X over when he got the acquisition of buying Connor Benn to be in his boxing league for Zufa. And it's only a one-fight deal. So he can renegotiate that. You know, we see all the tension between Buckley and Crawford. I don't understand how we're not directing that towards Dana. It doesn't make any sense. If boxing is not this or that, why do you want to do anything with Zufa? If boxing's not a real fight, why is your boss invested in Zufa? Boxing. You're discrediting a product that your boss is investing into, then backtracking and saying, never mind, and then posting clout chase videos. And then backpedaling even more and then saying you want to do Zofa boxing and that boxers need to respect fighters. Listen, boxers are going to promote their sport over everybody's sport. You will do the same in your position. People are talking about how Buckley started talking about street shit. But here's the thing. Well, not Buckley, Crawford, he's talking about street shit because Buckley said he will kill him in his initial video. Like we don't talk about that. Crawford doesn't come from a place where you can say that, and I'm not going to be prepared to kill you, too. That's why he said what he said. So, like, a lot of things be culture, and people don't understand the culture that people both come back from. Like, Crawford got shot in the head. He drove himself to the hospital. If you think a guy like that's going to take lightly, lightly to a threat against his life online from some dude trying to profess how much better his sport is by saying he can kill him on the street, that's a legitimate threat. And let's not forget people like on a real tip. If you don't come from a background where you've seen street fights, and I'm not talking about an argument and a disagreement, I'm talking about a fight, and the police are not coming, and people bring weapons, and people will leave you on the street. I've seen a guy get hit with a left hook, hit the cement like plaque. And then they kicked him in his head and took the money out of his wallet and left him there. Right? I've seen a guy have a knife and the other guy be like 6'5, 6'3, and he's poking holes in them like it's cheese. Street fights are not, you get into your stance, and you can do your perfect MMA or boxing combo. It is a chaotic fight for survival. Stop talking about a street fight if you haven't been in them and talking about what works in the street. Nothing works in the street because everything's up for grabs. You can have a guy in the perfect chokehold, his buddy kick you in the head. You can have a guy in the perfect wrestling position, he bites you. These things aren't taught in any school. You can think you're about to throw a two-piece, he just shoot. Do not get into street fights. Stop talking about street fights. Avoid street fights. The best thing to do in a street fight is run away unless you absolutely have to fight back. I see a lot of commentary from people like you can look at their profiles. And that's okay. I'm not telling people to go look for street cred, but don't talk about street shit if you haven't lived it and you don't understand the ramifications of it. Like, you can't, like, I see a lot of people like in this intersectionality with internet culture in real cultures, like, there's consequences in these cultures. Here's kids saying slide for Vaughn to Lil Dirk. This is the same thing. Like, these guys don't understand what they're talking about. Like, half the time I see people talking about a street fight. Like, they will write a paragraph about a street fight, and they're a father or two. They're not getting into street fights. You shouldn't be looking for them either. It's uh it's a crazy thing to not just sit back and enjoy all these sports. All of them. In every sport that you are diss, you know, people are dissing sports that MMA fighters base, they're MMA style in. There's boxing in MMA. There's boxers who came from MMA. There's MMA fighters who came from boxing. Let's just work it out together and figure out what's going on as a collective union with all fighters in all disciplines. This is the episode 74 the fight tapped.