← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
THE W.A.D.E. Concept - WEEK IN REVIEW - TOM ASPINALL FIGHT WEEK MADNESS, GERVONTA DAVIS PREPERATIONS FOR JAKE PAUL AND FABIO WARDLEY PULLS OFF THE UPSET?!?
01:33:22
Loading summary
Transcript55 lines
- [00:00]
Wade
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:04]
PayPal Sponsor
This podcast is sponsored by PayPal. Okay, let's talk holiday shopping. When you want to make the most of your Money, head to PayPal's app before you check out. They give you the flexibility to pay in four no fees, no interest. And this is big. Bigger than the 12 foot snowman on your lawn right now. You can get 5% cash back when you pay later with PayPal. So whether it's the must have merch or for that signed jersey you've been eyeing, PayPal helps you make the most of your money this holiday. Save this offer in the PayPal app.
- [00:37]
Lego Star Wars Sponsor
Expires 1231 see paypal.com promoterms subject to approval.
- [00:43]
Wade
Learn more at paypal.com payin4paypal inc.nmls910457 ever go to McNachos on game day and realize the cheese is missing? Or the chips? Or both? It happens all the time, but check it out. Walmart Express Delivery gets what's needed in as fast as one hour. One hour, people. And it's not just food. It's phone chargers, pet supplies, toilet paper. Try it now and get free delivery on a first order with promo code Express Walmart Express delivery in as fast as 1 hour. Promotion valid for first express delivery order $50 men subject to availability restrictions apply.
- [01:21]
Lego Star Wars Sponsor
Today's episode is brought to you by Ascent that's made a legendary comeback degree Original Cool Rush the OG is back and better than ever. Cool Rush isn't just a scent, it's a movement, the kind of fragrance that millions of guys ask for by name. It's bold, fresh and delivers all day sweat protection with that cool, crisp vibe that made it a legend. Whether you're heading to the gym, the office, or just trying to stay fresh on a long day, Cool Rush has your back. So if you haven't tried it yet, head to your local Walmart and grab degree Cool Rush, the fan favorite scent from the world's number one antiperspirant brand.
- [01:55]
Total Wireless Sponsor
This podcast is sponsored by Total Wireless, the official wireless partner of ufc. When you're streaming the fight or sharing those takedown highlights, you need a wireless provider that keeps you close to the action. With Total Wireless, you're covered by the Verizon 5G network, so you don't have to worry about your connection being knocked out at the biggest moments. It's not something you can usually say about a wireless provider, but Total Wireless really does have your back. They're in your corner every second of the day, so you never miss a thing. Visit totalwireless.com or visit your local Total Wireless store to learn more about how Total Wireless can be in your corner. 5G access requires a 5G capable device and a 5G service area. Additional terms apply. See website for details.
- [02:46]
Wade
All right folks, we are back on the way concept presented by the Ring and today we are taking a look at something I am finding more and more interesting about the Jake Paul Tank Davis fight. It's the way Tank Davis is preparing and potentially the way Tank Davis could. I can't believe that I'm even thinking this. And potentially the way that Tank Davis could knock Jake Paul out. This is changing my mind on a lot of the things around this fight and how it potentially will go. I'm seeing Tank Davis in the gym and I'm seeing bits and pieces of what they want to do and I'm not necessarily convinced that this is going to go completely differently than I already thought. But I am starting to flip on what I think can happen here. Tank Davis is taking Jake Paul more seriously than potentially I thought he would. And usually that's the downfall of everyone that fights Jake. But there's a reason why. It's not just because the money he's guaranteed. But it seems like there's a little bit extra going on that I need to explain. But before we start, before I break this all down, guys, I, I am going to be alive for this fight on November 14th, probably 12 plus hours. We're going to have an insane live stream. We're going to do a rewatch together of all the fights that we can on YouTube from Jake, from Tank. It's going to be unbelievable. And we're going to have guests live on the show making their picks for the fight. We're going to have insane games, maybe some giveaways in chat, all types of crazy things leading up to to this fight. And then we may even stay live all the way through the next day or maybe we'll break up the streams. But we're back the very next day for Connor, Ben, Chris Eubank Jr. Number two, the rematch and UFC 322 that same day. Don't miss it. But with that being said, it's time to expose what do I mean and what is the thing that I see the breakdown. Let's go. But before we get into that, folks want to say a big thank you to the sponsor of today's video, First Form. That is right. You guys know your boy's a first form athlete, I guess you could say. And what I like to do is tell you guys, why I choose to supplement with first form on a daily basis, whether it's the creatine, whether it's the Optigreens 50, whether it is the first form Formula One. Your boy is getting older. And that means I have to work harder to keep myself in shape. But when I work harder, I also want to work smarter using supplementation that's going to keep me the best shape possible without all the crashes, without all the soreness, without all the negative things that come from working out when you don't take care of yourself outside of the gym. I do that every day using my first form products. And, and yes, they, they sell supplements, but they're not just a supplement company. They care about me, the individual and what I need to keep myself going. Not only when I'm working out, but when I'm doing all this for you guys because it's a full time job. I don't work 9 to 5, I work 24 7. And thanks to First Phorm, I'm able to do that, keep my energy up, keep myself healthy, ready to go and continuing to work out. Because when I feel like crap or I eat like crap, or when I don't supplement correctly, everything falls apart. Now why do I choose stuff specifically from First Form? Well, their products are HFS certified, meaning everything that you ingest from this company is tested and certified healthy for you to use. But most of all, like I said, I trust them because they've given me every reason to. When I take this way isolate from First Form, I feel better, I work out better, and ultimately I want you guys to feel the same. So click the link in the description and try first form today. And when you spend over $100, they're going to send you all of your products with no shipping costs and you can try it for 30 days. Let's say you're just for whatever reason didn't work out, you couldn't find a reason to love a product like this, which I don't think you will. But if you did send it back within 30 days, you're going to get 110% refund. That's right, 110% refund. And if you don't like it, that's not going to happen though, because First Phorm is the spot to be for all your supplement needs. Thank you to First Phorm for sponsoring this video. And now let's get back into the breakdown. All right, so first off, I haven't seen much out of what's going on with Jake's side of things and we'll keep breaking this down. I think we're about three and a half weeks away from the fight. The only thing that I've seen out of Jake Paul's training as of right now is this clip right here. Jake Paul doing some work with Ray for Ray Ford, an 1811 super featherweight. Only lost to Nick Ball. High level guy. And this is what. The only thing that I've really seen is just an interaction from them potentially after sparring where, you know, I, there's music playing, so I can't really put it out there, but I'm not exactly sure what they're going over. Jake looks to his team, he's like, you know, maybe I got to get my head off center line more. Maybe that's what he's looking at his team and saying, you know, hey, I need to slip more punches. And then Ray puts like the, the, the high guard up. Like, hey, when you're here. Yeah, yeah, when you're here, don't even do that and go to the body. I can't really read his lips here. And then, you know, that's where your body's open. Something. I don't, I'm not sure exactly what they're talking about, but it seems like Ray has given him some pointers on like something he did wrong or something that Jake was not super happy with the way he performed in their spar. But this is literally the only thing I have seen out of Jake Paul's camp in regards to this fight specifically. There's been a lid on basically everything they're doing right now in Jake's camp. I'm sure there'll be more videos and more training come out as we get closer and closer to the fight. But it seems like maybe in this session Ray probably put it on Jake a little bit. Not that again. It matters because they're not fighting each other and sparring is sparring. It's how you get better. But Jake's, you know, obviously sparring smaller guys, seeing not only what weapons they bring to a sparring session because, you know, they're not as big in stature. There's going to be a 60 pound weight difference probably actually a little bit update on that today as well. Tank's looking a little bigger than I've normally seen him. We'll talk about that in a second. But obviously Jake is going to work with some of the better guys in the smaller weight classes to get prepared for what Tank could potentially bring. Now Tank is a, is a one of one in that respect. So it's difficult sometimes to, to prepare yourself in that same way. But on that same note, we have a couple new things out from Tank Davis. Number one, it's not necessarily new, but the last kind of work we've seen from Tank, you know, just in general is this video, right? Just chopping the bag, turning over shots, chop into the body, every shot to the midsection. Now again, not to read too much into things, but we go back to this video and I don't know what's being said here between Ray and Jake, but he's telling him, you know something with the high guard, don't even do that. I'm trying to draw a parallel between potentially what Ray Ford did to Jake in this bar and what could potentially be going down in Tanks camp that can line up the dots. Again, we don't have a lot to go off of. What we generally think may happen in this fight is that Jake Paul will probably use his size, his frame and his power to try to land big shots, not throw a ton of punches and not gas himself out against Tank, who again this is an exhibition. Yes, there'll be judges and someone I guess will win is what they're saying. But does that mean that someone actually has a win loss on the record? No, because you can't sanction something like this in a pro fight. Tank on the other hand, who already is a low output puncher, is going to look to utilize his speed, his head movement, his quickness, his agility, his angles, his footwork, his defense, his defense to offense, transition and vice versa to catch Jake when he does eventually open up with bigger punches and make him pay. Also, he's going to look to slow Jake down and potentially work him into those later rounds to where Tank can still be explosive. And when I look at this little exchange from Jake and Ray Ford again I could be completely missing the read here. Ray is either telling him this is what you need to do or this is what I was able to do to you because of we go back here because of this high guard, I was able to, to get to your body, something like that maybe. Or it could be, again I could be just completely missing it. And then you see this from Tank. All body work, just hammers to the body level changes, head off, center angle, switch, all that work in the bag. That was one of the more recent videos we saw. One thing that we didn't really look at when watching this video the first time is how much bigger Tank looks now. Again, he is a small sleight of frame statured individual to begin with. Tank is a very small guy. If you blinked, you might think this young man right here is Tank. David. No, I'm playing. But Tank is, you know, he's smaller. And this is why this fight is an exhibition and why it's a bit of a shot in the dark as to, you know, why you even do something like this. But we all know it's a lot of money being involved in xyz. Both guys, they're big time prize fighters. The big time prize on this one, again, we can talk about the, the legitimacy of it. We could talk about how it helps the sport, how it hurts the sport to the cows come home. The bottom line is these two guys pull better numbers than anybody in the sport right now in the US and regardless of the, the, the circus nature of it, people are gonna watch. I'm gonna watch, you guys are gonna watch. And that's just the state of boxing where we're at. I think it's entertaining as long as we all know what it is, which is a money fight. I don't. I wish that Tank would relinquish his belt. I wish the WBA would strip him because I don't think this is very fair to people that are supposed to be the actual contenders in his weight class for his belt. And that is what the actual sanctity of the sport argument should be about, is that if Tank is the sitting champion, either he gives his belt up or he shouldn't be doing this and fighting challengers, that's really it. But as long as we're all on the same page, that Tank can no longer say he's one of the pound for pounds whilst doing these things and whilst holding a belt when others are contending or someone to contend for it, then that's fine. I still think Tank's one of the most talented boxers in the world, but you can't hold that title if you're not actually defending your title anyway. But when we look at Tank in this, in this, like, look at the shoulder definition, not the. Tank is like ever really been, you know, crazy out of shape, but I thought maybe coming into this Tank would be a little bit skinnier, a little bit smaller, and that's just not the case. I mean, look at, I know this is on impact, the shoulder definition, but he's, he looks thicker. Pause. He does, though. He, he looks like he's put weight on. And I saw Showbiz did a video about this a couple of days ago and he looked at Tank's you know, figure for the, for the photo shoots which we'll take a look at now as well. So here is Tank and Jake looking at each other's posters right in the dick man, he's. You look at the actual poster now again, they obviously may take a lot bigger than he is here in the poster, but you're not seeing him one as cut up as you would normally see him. Obviously to fight at his weight class, 135 is still a little bit, a little bit of a cut finally for Tank. But you see even here he is a little bit more broad, a little bit more filled out in the back, shoulders, arms. The entire point I'm making here is that Tank is loading up, making himself bigger, not too much, but making himself more around his walk around weight, maybe 150, maybe 160 pounds for this fight because he needs that power to knock Jake out. He still has speed, still has ability, still has quickness, agility, all of that. But this type of power he will need to try to even knock a 200 and probably on the night, 210, 215 pound man out. But it won't just be the size difference, it won't just be him sitting down in his punches, it won't just be the shots to the body from Tank, all that stuff. I'm painting a picture for you guys as to how Tank can potentially do this because I think Tank is the more skilled guy, but I just think Jake is so much bigger and he is more skilled than people give him credit for and he does possess a bit of box boxing IQ for his level that can keep him safe in this kind of scenario. Because Hank is 135 pounder, it's not like he's a big guy and Jake is a big guy and he can still, like I said, keep things somewhat safe for himself if need be and if he does want to go for it. And there is moments where Jake wants to use his weight and use his size, which is probably what they want to do the entirety of the fight. There are ways that Gervonta can counter it. Now bear with me as I do a little bit of a walk down memory lane. Do we all remember the floor Floyd Mayweather, Logan Paul exhibition from way back now? It's been years and years. Do we remember one of the moments that went super viral and people said Floyd knocked Logan out, then helped him up? That didn't happen. Logan never was knocked out by a Floyd Mayweather punch and then held up, but this was one of the Keys to the exhibition, to the fight was Logan using his size and frame to smother Floyd even when he got hit with punches. So that Floyd either couldn't follow up or that Logan can just put his weight on him, make Floyd hold his weight, tire him out, and Logan could take a rest. Remember this clip from way back? Right hand, Logan falls in. This happened a lot during their fight. And no, Logan is not knocked out here. But this is something that happened so much in their fight where Logan using his frame, using his size, was able to wear on Floyd, was able to frustrate him. Floyd couldn't get to him with the jab. Logan's job was better than Floyd anticipated. Now, one thing I want to show you about this clip, maybe you missed it. Floyd landed a punch here and yes, it may have hurt Logan, but he wasn't as accurate as he wanted to be. And this is where I think Gervontae in some ways is even more accurate than Floyd. I know it sounds crazy, but you think about Gervonta's punch output versus his punch landing and what that punch does to people. No one at this point expected Floyd to knock Logan out. He was too old, too small, hands too brittle, right? And I don't mean that disrespectfully. I just mean Logan's £200. Let's watch this clip again. You know, Logan again leans on Floyd. Floyd holds him there. But you see Logan try to go to the lead hand, upper cut, off the level change, big swing and a miss with the right hand. Look at Floyd load on his back foot and just, I mean, just barely miss. What was a step in, counter uppercut, lean bang, which is the right punch to go to because Floyd has the best boxing IQ maybe of anyone ever. He just barely misses it. And even with a barely miss, he still hits him with the punch. It's just not as clean as he wanted. Again, we're drawing all these lines of comparison and what potentially could happen. What if I told you that exact sequence is what Gervonte Davis is working right now in? Cam, here is a recent clip from Gervonte Davis's Instagram. And I think this is exactly the type of thing you do to a guy that's a little bit more green than you are, is nowhere near the level of boxing that Gervonte has. Not the same experience or ability, in my opinion. How do you take advantage of his weight usually? What would be his strength? How do you take advantage of it? Well, you make yourself bigger like Gervonta seems to be doing, doesn't have to cut weight, so he'll probably walk in there a little bit bigger than his walking around weight. It's a risk because you're still going a good amount of rounds. How do you hold that weight? Still a risk because you're still going. I don't know if it's eight or ten rounds, but you got to hold that weight, especially against a guy that's 200 pounds. But it also allows you to sit down on heavy punches when this same scenario, think Logan Floyd happens in their fight. Look at this training. You see this? You see Jake, They're. They're already. I love this. They're anticipating Jake in the clinch, looking to again put his body weight on Tank. Bigger man. Use his size. Lean on you, way on you. You see the post in the frame from Tank. Post, frame. Hold, hold, bang. Lead hand uppercut. And again. Something that's key here is if they want to be in this position, they have Jake laying on Tank. They don't have Jake's hands overhooking Tank's hands. Look at. It's a very, very subtle little nuance in this back and forth. The difference between this Tank's hands over the top and this Logan's hands over the top. Logan has his in an overhook. Floyd has the underhook. He can't punch with the underhook. He has to kind of stay there until he can get his hand free, then go. But Hank Davis, he has learned from Floyd and he has learned in multiple different situations where he's been the smaller man. He's going to overhook your hands. You go ahead and try to clinch me. I'm getting that overhook because I'm going to hold your hands down. I'm going to pin your arms to where you can't punch. And then when I'm ready, I'm going to release. Boom. With the uppercut, up the middle. Release, bang. Boom. Underneath, left hand. Love that. Here's the over. Look at that overhook again. Right there until I'm ready. Off the lead foot.
- [19:32]
Total Wireless Sponsor
Boom.
- [19:33]
Wade
Pop the head up. And again. Here comes Jake. Okay, we're in a tussle. We're in a tussle. Lean on my lead foot. Uppercut, left hand roll and hook. Left hand down the middle. That is good stuff. Again. One of the things that we have seen Jake struggle with even in the Mike Tyson fight, if we go back, one of the things Jake has struggled with so much is his feet. His feet get so wide and he gets a little flat footed at times and especially when he throws a big power punch, his feet get a little scattered. We see here even the, the jab and the retreat off the jab. He stabs him with the jab, but look at how wide his feet are. If Jake tries to even potentially throw a right hand here, there's no leverage on it, so he has to, to get out of range and come back. Now this time when he throws it, step throw. But look, look where he throws that from. Look at the off balance nature of this. Like that's still a good right hand. And honestly if he lands it, that would probably knock Tank out just because he's that big a dude. But he's so out of position here that if there is a follow up to any of these punches, Jake's either gonna have to go straight back or he's gonna be hit with something. Now imagine same scenario, we get this exchange right here, same spot, bang, bang. Jake's overthrown the right hand slip, bang, bang. I'm not saying it's likely, I'm just saying it's possible. There are things that if you look at Jake's game, and I'm not saying that these two sequences are everything in Jake's game in this Mike Tyson fight. It's not what I'm saying. But this is a pattern that you recognize with Jake, is that when you do see him load up on shots, he becomes very off balance. Plant, throw, hit or miss. We're foot off the ground, all our weight on our lead foot, and now we're having to push back off that lead foot and almost jump back out of range just to save ourselves from being in bad, bad spots. That's the thing I'm saying and this is why when you talk about the green, kind of newer to boxing nature of Jake, when things need to be regulated, when he needs to go to something to get himself out of trouble, he will revert back to the things that have got him to the dance, which is the jab, overhand, jab to the body overhand, or step back overhand. And he will throw everything he has behind it. Trust me, I've seen it too many times. It will happen if we get to a point where Jake's jab has been broken, the range has been taken, and he's being pushed backward. I don't know if I see that happening a lot, especially early, but it could if we see Tank at a bigger size utilizing the body shots and frustrating Jake by not being where he expects him to be and making him overthrow and miss. Still, it's hard for me to believe a guy Tank size is going to be able to knock out Jake. But if there's a way they're working on the right ones, they have learned from what happened in the Logan and Floyd fight. And we'll do breakdowns on all this stuff as we lead up. But I thought this was special. I thought it was interesting to see Tank. I mean he's kind of exposing how he wants to knock out Jake and he's also kind of exposing the blueprint to do it. If you're going to hurt Jake, you have to catch him off guard. You have to lull him to sleep with your timing and your power. And you have to clip him when he's overextended or when he tries to use his power, size and frame to lay way and prey on the little guy. And Tank also in this fight has to be a bit bigger than the little guy. I think I'm seeing all those things happen right now, but maybe I'm making too much of a big deal over nothing. Maybe these little clips that I'm seeing and the things they're working on, they don't mean as much. And I think a guy like Tank who seems to be able to bring his skill from the gym into the ring is going to be able to capitalize on stuff like this. Where Jake does make a lot of mistakes, there are moments where he can be capitalized on. Tank, by the way, made some mistakes in the Lamont Roach fight. I was wondering about his headspace, but I'm starting to believe he's taking this more serious than I thought. And for Jake Paul, that's very dangerous. So what do you guys think? I'm starting to look and lean like Tank might be able to have some opportunities to actually hurt Jake, knock him out. I don't know about. I am still to rack my brain and think 135 pound or 150, 160 pounder can knock out a guy with experience, with some skill and some ability in the boxing ring that's 210, 15 pounds. I still don't know. I'm still not ready to make that leap. But I'm saying it's possible. If there's a guy to do it at that lower weight class is probably Tank Davis. Let me know what you guys think down below. We're about three and a half weeks away. What happens in this fight on November 14th can take actually knock Jake out. I don't have those answers but guess we'll find out. All right, folks, we are back on the way. Concept presented by the Ring Magazine Today I wanted to talk about the UFC 321 main event. Tom Aspinall. Surreal. Gone. And I'm particularly excited about this this fight because unlike the rest of the Internet, I still want to see how good Tom Aspinall is. Yes, he is the heavyweight champion. Yes, he should have been fighting Jon Jones. Jon Jones ducked. There's no debating that. It was clear Jon wanted no part of it. And now that the White House card is in play, maybe Jon does. I don't know. But I'm still not necessarily convinced that Tom Aspinall will be the greatest heavyweight we've ever seen, or that he's as good as people are telling me he is. Because I want to see more of what he brings in a fight that doesn't just go one round. And I'm not saying that's his fault. You fight the people that are in front of you, and in about 10 days from now, that'll be Cyril Gane, who presents an interesting matchup that there's.
- [24:55]
Washable Sofas Sponsor
Nothing like Sinking into luxury. At washablesofas.com, you'll find the Annabe sofa which combines ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price. And get this, it's the only sofa that's fully machine washable from top to bottom. Starting at only $699. The stain resistant performance fabric slipcovers and cloud like frame duvet can go straight into your wash. Perfect for anyone with kids, pets or anyone who loves an easy to clean spotless sofa. With a modular design and changeable slipcovers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style. Whether you need a sofa, single chair, loveseat or a luxuriously large sectional, Annabe has you covered. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home. Right now you can shop up to 60% off store wide with a 30 day money back guarantee. Shop now@washablesofas.com Add a little to your life. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.
- [25:54]
PayPal Sponsor
This podcast is sponsored by PayPal. Okay, let's talk holiday shopping. When you want to make the most of your Money, head to PayPal's app before you check out. They give you the flexibility to pay in four no fees, no interest. And this is big. Bigger than the 12 foot snowman on your lawn right now. You can get 5% cash back when you pay later with PayPal. So whether it's the must have merch or for that signed jersey you've been eyeing. PayPal helps you make the most of your money this holiday. Save this offer in the PayPal app expires 1231.
- [26:29]
Lego Star Wars Sponsor
See paypal.com promoterms subject to approval.
- [26:33]
PayPal Sponsor
Learn more at paypal.com payinfor paypal inc.nmls910457.
- [26:39]
Total Wireless Sponsor
This podcast is sponsored by Total Wireless, the official wireless partner of ufc. When you're streaming the fight or sharing those takedown highlights, you need a wireless provider that keeps you close to the action. With Total Wireless, you're covered by the Verizon 5G network, so you don't have to worry about your connection being knocked out at the biggest moments. It's not something you can usually say about a wireless provider, but Total Wireless really does have your back. They're in your corner every second of the day, so you never miss a thing. Visit totalwireless.com or visit your local Total Wireless store to learn more about how Total Wireless can be in your corner. 5G access requires a 5G capable device and a 5G service area. Additional terms apply. See website for details.
- [27:30]
Lego Star Wars Sponsor
When you say Lego Star wars, the first thing you think of is imagination or action.
- [27:35]
Total Wireless Sponsor
Or both.
- [27:36]
Lego Star Wars Sponsor
Definitely both. Like with Jango Fett's Starship. I mean, with Stud Blasters, seismic charges and three minifigures, your kid is going to be creating stories until the Banthas come home. And for yourself, there's the Jango Fett's Firespray Class Starship LEGO set from the Ultimate Collector series. Enjoy some Jedi Master level mindfulness during your building time. Shop now for Star wars lego sets on lego.com or in lego.
- [28:02]
Wade
Retail stores may have Tom Aspinall in some danger. What do I mean? The breakdown. But before we keep going guys, real quick, this message is sponsored by Raycon. It's Raycon's anniversary and what better way to celebrate than with a deal on the everyday earbuds classic. They're now 20% off, so this is the perfect time to get your hands on these reliable, super comfy and easy to take anywhere. You'll see why they've been the fan favorite since day one. And by the way, these new colors are awesome. Personally, I'm into the cool mint. I've never seen earbuds in this shade or shape before and they feel like an accessory that's a little bit different. It's kind of cool. And here's the kicker. Raycon delivers the same premium audio quality as the big brands, but at half the price. You add in over 3 million happy customers and a 30 day happiness guarantee. And there's zero reason to overpay. And just in case you didn't have enough information, there's up to 32 hours of battery life here. There's a quick charge function that gives you 10 minutes of charge for 90 minutes of playtime and an awareness mode when you're walking around running errands that let you hear what's happening outside as well as what's going on in your earbud. And really quickly, guys, I just want to show you how easy it is to use these Raycons Everyday Earbuds Classics. All you do, you pop open your case, obviously connected to Bluetooth, to your phone, whatever device you pop in those earbuds. Now you not only have a noise canceling experience for you to work, listen to music, whatever, but with one tap you can activate awareness mode and keep focused on what you're doing while being aware of your surroundings. I use this product, I think you guys should too. So click the link in the description or go to buyraycon.com wade once again, that is buyraycon.com wADE to get 20% off the everyday Earbuds classic. Thank you to Raycon for sponsoring this video. And now let's get back into the breakdown. All right, so everywhere you turn on the Internet right now, everyone is, I don't want to. It is glazing to a degree, but everyone is on the Tom Aspinall hype train. And I understand why, because Tom Aspinall, since he's gotten to the ufc, has pretty much made light work of every fight fighter he's ever stood in front of, outside of the. The weird kind of knee injury, TKO loss to Curtis Blades, which he then came back and beat Curtis Blades very dominantly in their second fight. So it's hard, it's hard to look at Tom Aspinall strength of schedule here for using college football terms and believe there's anybody on there that would have been threatening to Tom. So, yeah, I mean, it is a bit of a difficult thing to look at anybody on Tom's record as we, as we take a look here and act like any of it was really a challenge to Tom Aspinall. Maybe, maybe, you know, Sergey would have been. Papavich was a big puncher and potentially could have given Tom some problems, but stood right in the pocket with him and got dropped. I mean, yeah, I mean, I just don't see any. I mean, the heavyweight division is, is rough right now. It is awful. And outside of two or Three big names that you could mention right now in that division. A Sergey Papalovich, Curtis Blades, Alexander Volkov, a surreal guy, and a Tom Aspinall. There really isn't anyone that's there that either gets people excited or presents an opportunity for Tom Aspinall to potentially have a tough matchup. Now, with all that being said, this strength of schedule doesn't really tell me a lot about Tom Aspinall and what his capabilities are when he goes to that next level. Do I think Cyril Gane is that next level? No, I don't. I think the Surreal Gane is this level, the level of guys that he's already beaten, which is why I am picking Tom Aspinall to win this fight. I know Wade Curse is in effect, it is what it is. But I do see some dangerous elements to this fight and I'm very interested to see what happens when Tom fights. Probably the best striker he's ever seen in Surreal Gone. But the problem is this isn't kickboxing, it's not boxing, it's mma. So Tom has more well rounded skills than Cyril Gone. And again, I think you'll see that in about 10 days. But let's, let's break the fight down and kind of go step by step as to why this will probably be the toughest fight that Tom has had, or maybe it won't be. Maybe Tom will do what he does in all these different fights and walk out in the first round and knock a motherfucker dead. His entire fight history is incredible. It's first round, second round and nothing else. I mean, predominantly of the. How many fights he had 18 fights? 1, 2, 3? Is it just three? So 15 of his 18 fights have finished in the first round and of the 15 that have finished, he's finished 14 of them. And again, the Curtis Blades weird, you know, fluky knee injury thing that you can't really hold that against him, but this is a strength and potentially a weakness of Tom Aspinall. I know you guys have heard it from every MMA channel on the Internet over the last couple of months that Tom Aspinall still is yet to prove what he can do over five rounds. And it's not his fault if you go out and merc a motherfucker in three minutes. That's what happens. But it is going to be interesting to see because Cyril Gone has gone, no pun intended, five rounds, a couple of different times now. And when you look at Cyril Gone's record, yes, it's a bit of an up and down when it comes to how he gets fights done. But the only two actual losses, even though you can argue that Alexander Volkov beat him, the only two losses that he has are to Jon Jones and Francis Ngannou, two former champions, right? So he's. This is his technically his third actual title opportunity, even though he won the interim title off Derek Lewis. But look at the different varieties in which Cyril Gan can fight and win, right? He wins by TKO early in his career, obviously not so much as he's gotten into his later part. Not known as a massive power striker, but a guy that can overwhelm you. But five rounds, five rounds, five rounds. He's gone the distance three times and gone past the second round, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 times. So he understands what it means to go late into fights and find victory. But these numbers, these names, this win loss, doesn't tell the whole story of this fight. We have Cyril Gane, who is predominantly a, I wouldn't say kickboxer, but a striker on the feet. A guy that can use his elbows, knees, feet, hands, the art of the eight limbs. Cyril Gane is very good. He stands bladed and in both stances. He can hit you again with his kicks upstairs as well. And in this fight he will present a reach advantage on Tom Aspinall, who is I think the same height as Cyril Gane. I think they're both around 6, 4. But Tom Aspinall's reaches 78 inches, Cyril 81. So if you are looking at ways that Cyril Gone can present problems for Tom Aspel, number one, I think everything has to do with his takedown defense or his grappling defense versus Tom Aspinall's grappling offense. Now, Tom, not really known as a big time offensive wrestler, but will do it in spurts. The beautiful takedowns he had of Alexander Volkov and the submissions there. I do think that he is better known for his black belt and Brazilian Jiu jitsu. Been grappling for forever. But it's the offensive grappling that I want to see how legit it is versus someone that is now seen that Tom is dangerous with his grappling, right? I want to see what Cyril Gone, who has been in there with Jon Jones and got completely obliterated, who was out grappled by Francis. And again, you see a common theme here. The guys that out grapple Cyril Gone usually beat him. That doesn't sound good for Cyril Gone when he's fighting a guy like Tom Aspinall, who is way more well rounded and I think especially in this fight, Cyril Gone might be the better and probably is the better, better striker out of the two of them, he probably is the better striker with all eight contact points than Tom Aspinall. Does that mean that he was going to win this fight by knockout? No, and in fact, I would. If somebody was going to get knocked out, I'd favor Tom Aspinall to knock Cyril Gone out, because one Tom goes for, it will stand there in the pocket with you, sometimes even trade with his chin up, which is dangerous. We'll get back to that. But he commits to his punches and he has real knockout power. One punch, knockout power. Whereas Sorrel Gane does tend to have to overwhelm you. And I know it's heavyweight and anybody can get knocked out. I'm just showing you the differences. So if Sorrel is going to do this and if Tom is going to be in legitimate danger, it will be because Surreal has either established a distance that Tom can't shoot from with his kicks eating up the legs, the push kicks, the teeps. There's a lot of techniques that Surreal throws that do keep the distance and keep him in the outside range to where he can circle the cage. And if you notice in a lot of his fights, including the Francis Ngannou fight, where, yes, Francis had some knee issues and, and wasn't necessarily as mobile as he needed to be, that's all Cyril did, was poke at him from the outside and was winning that fight until Francis Ngannou decided to grapple. And it wasn't necessarily a super damaging level of grappling, it was just control. He was able to control Cyril Gane and it wasn't really hard for him to do it. And that's another big problem if you're Cyrille, if you get pushed up against the fence and Cyril loves to fight off his back foot, he loves to kind of invite the pressure and then circle around it and tag you from the outside and then blitz you with the combinations and switch and stance. And there's just a lot of things he likes to do off your forward movement that again, put him in really bad spots, especially with a guy like Tom, who is looking to get to boxing range. And if he isn't in boxing range or if he's not having success where he's at, he will potentially initiate that grappling, then come upstairs with the striking and it's a whole mess. So Surreal has to keep his distance, I think, at least early, and see if he can start to win this fight on a point scale system. By using his reach, by using his kicks, by being more calculated and technical with his striking versus being super aggressive. Because we've seen how that works out for anybody that wants to be super aggressive with Tom Aspinall. They get dealt a Swift Hand of Nyquil and the fight's over in, you know, 30 seconds. So that can't happen. And that's not who Cyril Gone is. So I think that is at least how you want to start the fight. On the other side, Tom Aspinall, I'll be interested to see how he approaches this fight because he has made a statement running through this heavyweight division. And I'll be honest, heavyweight in the UFC is probably the worst technical division in the sport. It has no names that anyone recognizes. It doesn't have a ton of fighters with a massive skill set and an ability to hang with a fighter as well rounded as Tom Aspinall. And this is why you've seen virtually nobody ascend through the ranks of this new era of heavyweight. What's his name? Jonathan Almeida. We'll see what he does. But there's not a ton of big name heavyweights and there's not a ton of guys that look like they can challenge Tom Aspinall right now. If, if Tom goes in there and just demolishes a real Gone, he will reign over this heavyweight division for a, a very long time. Unless Jon Jones comes back. And I know people aren't giving John a chance there, but I think Jon still possesses the fight IQ skill, maybe not the speed and youthfulness that he had, but I think it could be an interesting fight regardless if, if Tom takes this fight and doesn't get overzealous with the let me walk in there and knock this guy out in one round and dip. But fights his fight, stays aggressive and is patient, this could be an all time performance for Tom Aspinall. I, I, I don't doubt that. But there is something about fighting a striker is dangerous and is varied and has more variety. Like a surreal Gone does that. Maybe you do underestimate a bit of his grappling defense and oh, I can just take him down, whatever. So let's start with the hands and get caught with something early. I don't know if you're Tom Aspinall. I think either being in close proximity to Cyril Gone, being inside that, that kick range punch and in clinch range is perfect for Tom, or being completely out, either one of those things is good for Tom Aspinall because if you're in the mid range where he can kick you and you can't kick him or he can touch you and you can't touch him, then it becomes a point fight. And in a point fight with a point fighter like Cyril gone, you're going to lose that. At least you're going to lose rounds because of that. And I want to see what happens if Tom is having to use more of his grappling and isn't as successful with it right off the bat. Right. What we've seen right now is Tom Aspen. I'll be massively successful with his grappling and striking and pretty much everything he wants to do right now at heavyweight. This is like a, you know, watching Mike Tyson just run through the heavyweight division in his early 20s and knocking motherfuckers down dead and just wondering, okay, does this guy have any weakness? And you weren't able to see it because the fights were lasting 40 seconds, 20 seconds, 15, you know, and you didn't get to know if what's his gas tank look like, what happens when he does fight. Someone that is able to move their head or can get inside and work him to the body and then touch him up upstairs and they've got a nasty hook as well. And Tyson isn't able to get off center line or his rhythms interrupted. All those things came to fruition later in Tyson's career when people weren't scared of him or whatever. There's a sense of, okay, what does Tom do if he doesn't knock a guy out in the first round or he doesn't take him down and submit him right away? And I know that's, that's like the worst way to analyze a fight. What happens if he isn't a good fighter? You know, that's not realistic, but you do have to ask those questions because can you keep that same intensity later into the fight? And it is a lot about Tom's gas tank. If things don't work out early or if things become predictable, then what do you have? Do you have another layer past that? And again, I think Tom is more well rounded than Surreal. But even if you are more well rounded, you still have to be able to get to the positions where you're better. If surreal is just working take down defense like a madman and is able to hold Tom just at bay for a couple of rounds, then cardio does become a factor. For, for a, what I look at when I see Tom Aspinall, I know Cyrille is cut up and, and he is fast twitch I think as well. And he slows down as fights goes on A little bit as well. But when I look at Tom Aspital, everything he does, it looks like his fast twitch, very explosive, a lot of movement, he's very quick, he's very fast. Everything you'll hear leading into fight week next week about Tom Aspinall is agility, explosivity, power. That's what you're going to hear and, and that's true. But when it comes down to what happens if that goes, that's where we will get into the wild, wild west. I, I don't know what happened if Tom suddenly is in round three, maybe banked a couple of rounds, but is starting to feel the effects of fatigue. And that's really the only way I see Tom losing this fight is if he does gas himself out or if he takes stupid risks and decides he wants to kickbox. With Cyril gone, which I don't see happening, I think Tom is a smart enough, well rounded MMA fighter, not put himself at a disadvantage round after round or to blow his wad early for lack of a better term. But that is where the danger lies. And let me be clear, Cyril Gane can win this fight. I know he's like a plus 270 underdog, but he has the ability, striking on the feet. And even in the Francis Ngannou fight, at least at the early part of the fight, Cyril Gane did a decent enough job of keeping himself. When he put his back on the cage, he was able to get out, he was able to fight through, grab underhooks, pivot out and reset. And then later in the fight, Francis eventually found his grappling ability and ended up dumping Cyril Gone on his head. But it also took Francis an unsuccessful five round fight versus a younger Stipe Miocic and then beating Stipe to understand that experience level. If you guys remember when Francis had to go five rounds for the first time after he had knocked everybody out in the division, and again, I'm not saying Francis is Tom Aspinall, completely different fighters, but after he was knocking dead, sent Alistair Overeem's head to the moon and he had to go five rounds with Stipe. You saw the gas tank deplete like this and that was without grappling, that was just with striking, that was just with explosive, high level, massive movements. Now Tom is a bit more efficient with his striking and again, I am assuming he is more prepared to be more well rounded than Francis ever could have at that point or ever thought of, because Tom's been doing this a little bit longer. But when I talk about the danger of this fight for Tom Aspinall, it's a couple of things. Number one, Tom is pretty much the last hope right now of heavyweight to create a new star for a while. I mean, maybe I'm wrong, maybe there's other heavyweights coming through and they're going to be the next big thing. But as of right now, Tom Aspinall is the biggest thing the UFC has seen at heavyweight since Francis Ngannou and since Jon Jones. Right, Jon, since he's retired and has not really been looked at the same way by the MMA community. He doesn't seem to have the same cachet right now as a Tom Aspinall, at least for the hardcore fan base. I still think as a casual viewer, Tom Aspinall is nowhere near Jon Jones, Jones's name, legacy, any of that. But losing this would be. I mean, it wouldn't be catastrophic for Tom Aspinall, but it would set back a lot of the good work he's done at heavyweight to gain this, this massive fan base. So I think there is a lot of pressure there. And let's not forget, again, so Real Gone has essentially four or this will be his fourth with one interim title fight. Right? This will be his fourth title fight, which gives you a lot more experience for Tom, however, you want to look at some of these, you know, fights. He's had two, essentially title fights, and he's done well in both of those. But this one feels like a lot more pressure. This one feels like there are things that Tom Aspinall is going to have to deal with this time around that he hasn't in opportunities past. Not just out striking Curtis Blades, who on the feet doesn't really have it even then. Curtis Blades caught him with something right before he was caught. Sergey catching Tom Aspinall with something right before he was caught. But both guys not having the. The technical ability of a surreal gone to stand and actually see what's what on the feet. Now, again, I'm not saying that's what happens, but this is a dangerous fight for many reasons, outside of the cage and inside it for Tom Aspinall's aura of invincibility, which right now the entire MMA community thinks he's going to walk through Suril gone in one round, and if he does that, then, yeah, start the parade, hit the fireworks. This guy is on a. A trajectory upward that we haven't seen in a long time at heavyweight, but you also have to have someone to put him in there with, and we'll get to that when we get to it. Hopefully that's Jon Jones, maybe it's Alex Pereira, I don't know. But I'm telling you guys, this is a dangerous fight. I would say it's a dangerous fight based on what happens in the first round. If Tom is not as successful as he normally used to in that first into mid second round, then this thing becomes a very dangerous fight. Hit the panic button moment. If we get into round three and it's a 1:1 fight, or it's not going Tom's way. But conversely, we haven't seen Tom Aspinall quit, at least not in the ufc. We haven't seen him in really any trouble. And we've seen, on the other side, Cyril Gane. When things get a little tough, the grit, the grind, I wonder if it's there. I'd hope so. This is his third title opportunity. But there is something to be said for a guy that's never tasted defeat really in the ufc. I know he's had some losses outside of the ufc, got ankle hooked or heel hooked by somebody before he got there. And I don't know what happened in his other. I guess he had illegal elbows to a guy that he got DQ'd for. So Tom hasn't had real defeat in this level of competition. And with this amount of exposure, I think that's going to serve him well. The confidence level, walking in there, never having been defeated with that belt around his waist and on his shoulder, versus a real Gone who already knows what it's like to lose and lose in terrible fashion. That can be a motivator or that could be something you become comfortable with anyway. I do think there's danger in this fight for Tom Aspinall, not because he's overlooking, not because he should be, but because Cyril Gone is a bit of a wild card, especially on the feet. And if Tom Aspinall is not successful early, what does plan B look like? What happens when we need. I know he said he's preparing for five rounds and that's great. I think Tom should prepare for five rounds. I don't think that any fighter should be preparing to walk in there and knock a guy out and dip. And if that doesn't happen, what do we do? But it is a real thing when you get in there, no matter how much you prepared for five, how much did you anticipate not being successful in one or two if that's the case, and you can't find your range striking, and because you can't find your range striking, you can't find Your takedowns or you can't find your grappling, then what happens? These are all things that we need to consider when talking about this fight. Now, with all that being said, I've thrown at you a couple of different scenarios. One, being Tom Aspinall walks in there, knocks out Cyril Gane in the first one or two rounds. Two being Cyril Gan handles himself very well on the feet, frustrates Tom Aspinall. Tom overextends, gets hit with something. Sorrel potentially follows up. Tko. Cyril Gone. Or Cyril controls the fight from the outside using his kick, kicks, his teeps. Tom can't get rhythm, starts to gas, and Cyrille wins a decision because Tom just can't put it together late. Or we see something we've never seen before, which is Tom Aspinall thriving into the later rounds. If that happens, I would be more, I mean, I'll be impressed with whatever happens, but if Tom were to find a way to, to be fresh in the later rounds and dominating this fight, 50, 44, 5045 type stuff, I would honestly, I would probably be not more impressed because a knockout is still a knockout, but, but I'd be very impressed with that performance as well. And having said it all, I think this, like I said, I keep going back to it. I think Cyril Gone being slept on the way he is is absolutely insane. I think he's got a very good chance of at least pushing Tom to a place he's never been. But I, I still, at least right now, I still have to think that Tom Aspinall is going to get this fight done. I just don't see the places that Cyril Gone is better being good enough for him to stop what's in front of him. Right? Just being a good striker, in my opinion, is not enough to stop Tom Aspinall from beating you because again, he is so varied in his offense. He doesn't necessarily get hit a ton. He's lost in the ufc, but not really. He got hurt versus Curtis Blades. Both men have their chin exposed, leaning back when they strike sometimes. So that's a toss up. But if this fight is to ever change from feet to ground, it will be because Tom got a hold of Cyril Gone. And let's not forget, it wasn't just Jon Jones that out grappled Cyril Gan. It wasn't even just Francis Ngannou that did, but Alexander Volkov slung him around as well. And again, we could argue that it, Volkov should have won that fight. And I just think when it comes to the, the well Rounded nature of mma. Tom is better. He is. And if he's able to prove that in this fight. And again, the sky is the limit for Tom when it comes to a potential matchup at the White House with, I would hope, Jon Jones or Alex Pereira, either one. But if you're overlooking as a fan, not Tom, but if you're overlooking Cyril gone, you're making a mistake. He will at least be ready. Cardio wise, striking wise. Have no idea how he's going to deal with Tom's takedowns. I don't know how Tom is going to deal with Surreal's, maybe improve takedown defense. But like I said, every fight's a dangerous one. But this one particularly more, in my opinion, for Tom Aspinall because Cyril Gane is a better striker than everyone Tom has ever fought. Heavyweight. One kick, one punch, one elbow, one knee can change the entire fight. And I don't know if I've seen Tom Aspinall under more pressure than he will be on Saturday, October 25th, and that's a big, big deal. Yeah, there was pressure for Curtis Blades, yes, there was pressure for Sergey Papovich, but this one's different. Everyone thinks Tom Aspinall is going to win this fight. Everyone is already looking toward the White House card. Everyone's already talking about Tom Aspinall, Alex Pereira or Tom Aspinall, Jon Jones at the White House. There's all these plans lined up and here's Cyril. God, who's no one is really thinking about, no one's talking about. And no one gives a chance to win. I would say this is the least pressure he's been under, maybe even less pressure than the Jon Jones fight because Jones was looked at as, you know, potentially a little older and slower coming up to heavyweight. This is a freaking Cadillac of heavyweights. People are telling me about Tom Aspinall. So Cyril gone under almost. No. No pressure. Can he get it done? Like I said, I think it's dangerous, but ultimately, no. I think Tom Aspinall is going to do this and when he does, he will get all due credit from me and I hope the rest of people for beating a really good fighter, in my opinion, in surreal gun. That's what I think. You guys let me know.
- [50:25]
Washable Sofas Sponsor
Life's messy. We're talking spills, stains, pets and kids. But with Annabe, you never have to stress it about Messes again. @washablesofas.com Discover Anabe Sofas, the only fully machine washable sofas inside and out, starting at just $699. Made with liquid and stain resistant fabrics. That means fewer stains and more peace of mind. Designed for real life, Our sofas feature changeable fabric covers allowing you to refresh your style anytime. Need flexibility? Our Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly. Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes. Plus, they're earth friendly and built to last. That's why over 200,000 happy customers have made the switch. Upgrade your space today. Visit washablesofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life. That's washablesofas.com offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.
- [51:25]
PayPal Sponsor
This podcast is sponsored by PayPal. Okay, let's talk holiday shopping. When you want to make the most of your Money, head to PayPal's app before you check out. They give you the flexibility to pay in four no fees, no interest. And this is big. Bigger than the 12 foot snowman on your lawn right now. You can get 5% cash back when you pay later with PayPal. So whether it's the must have merch or for that signed jersey you've been eyeing, PayPal helps you make the most of your money this holiday. Save this offer in the PayPal app.
- [51:57]
Lego Star Wars Sponsor
Expires 1231 see paypal.com promoterms subject to approval.
- [52:03]
Wade
Learn more at paypal.com payin4paypal inc.nmls910457 this.
- [52:09]
Total Wireless Sponsor
Podcast is sponsored by Total Wireless, the official wireless partner of ufc. When you're streaming the fight or sharing those takedown highlights, you need a wireless provider that keeps you close to the action. With Total Wireless, you're covered by the Verizon 5G network, so you don't have to worry about your connection being knocked out at the biggest moments. It's not something you can usually say about a wireless provider, but Total Wireless really does have your back. They're in your corner every second of the day, so you never miss a thing. Visit totalwireless.com or visit your local Total Wireless Store to learn more about how Total Wireless can be in your corner. 5G access requires a 5G capable device and a 5G service area. Additional terms apply. See website for details.
- [53:00]
Lego Star Wars Sponsor
When you say Lego Star wars, the first thing you think of is imagination or action.
- [53:06]
Total Wireless Sponsor
Or both.
- [53:07]
Lego Star Wars Sponsor
Definitely both. Like with Jango Fett's Starship. I mean, with Stud Blasters, seismic charges, and three minifigures, your kid is going to be creating stories until the Banthas come home. And for yourself, there's the Jango Fett's Fire Spray Class Starship Lego set from the Ultimate Collector series. Enjoy some Jedi Master level mindfulness during your building time. Shop now for Star wars lego sets on lego.com or in lego retail stores.
- [53:34]
Wade
In the comments below, does Tom Aspinall slip on the banana peel here? Does Cyril Gon shop everyone? What happens on October 25th UFC 321 Main Event? Tom Aspen also real gone. Don't have those answers. More videos coming up on this obviously, so I guess we'll find out. All right, so we are back on the way Concept presented by the Ring Magazine and folks, we just had one of the craziest heavyweight fights I've seen in a While. Joseph Parker vs. Fabio Wardley for the WBO interim title. It was an absolute banger that is going to be marred in conspiracy as Fabio Wardley stops Joseph Parker in the 11th round. The improbable insane run for Wardley continues, but it wasn't without question what do I mean the breakdown. Let's go. All right, so like I said, WBO Interim Heavyweight championship winner to face Alexander Usyk. You have Joseph Barker, who is probably rightfully earned the opportunity to fight Alexander Usyk should have gotten it before Dubois got his rematch because Dubois Parker were supposed to fight Dubois didn't fight him. We still don't know really the reason why. Reason why it was alleged sickness. Then Parker should have had his second opportunity after Usyk beat Dubois. But Usyk gets injured so therefore he can't defend in time. They give it him extension and Parker takes the Wardley fight. So a risky move from Joseph Parker to take the Fabio Wardley fight. But he does. And because he does, this opportunity may have just slipped away from him. On the other side, Fabio Wardley, a man, this is incredible to say, but just started boxing 10 years ago at the age of 20. Of 20. He's now 30. He only had, I think they said, four white collar boxing fights. That's right, the misfit style boxing fights before he turned pro and then started an improbable run that has led him to the top of the heavyweight mountain. At this point he is the number one contender for the heavyweight championship of the wbo. And this opportunity versus Joseph Parker comes after an improbable win versus Justice Huni, where he is losing damn near every round of that fight and Huni is is doing his thing. And then right hand on the button, Wardley hits him and stops him. You could say it was a quick 10 count, but I'm saying to you it was insane to see. And Wardley ends Up in this fight and from the rip, the idea that Joseph Parker and even in my mind was going to stop Fabio Wardley, it almost happened in the first round. That was the reality we almost saw as Joseph Parker tagged Wardley with big time shots. And I thought, oh, this is going to be the moment where Joseph Parker stops Wardley and and rightfully finally gets his shot against Alexander Usyk. Turns out Fabio Wardley's got a chin of steel just like Joseph Parker, dude. Who by the way, Parker came into this fight at 260 plus pounds. That was the same weight that Tyson Fury weighed the first time he fought Alexander Usyk. Anyway, round one looked like Parker made it may stop. Wardley hit him with some big shots, had him wobbled a bit, had him on the ropes. And then in round two, Wardley comes out and damn near stops Joseph Parker hits him with some big punches. And again, I don't want to undersell this. Joe Parker looked, looks great in this fight. He looks stout, he looked like an experienced heavyweight. He looked like what he has done on this Boogeyman style run, that he was gonna overwhelm Wardley, that he was in this first round especially going to be the better, more experienced fighter. But he also had big time power. He was bringing in with this 260 pound frame. But on the other side of it you had Fabio Wardley who did not shy away at any point in this fight. Wardley looked fast, he looked explosive, he looked technical and he looked sound. Yes, there were things that he was doing that you could still say, yes, Fabio Wardley is very green, moving straight back. His hands were very low. Pretty much the majority of the fight he was getting hit with stuff. Thank God his again his chin is made of animanium. Both guys were for the most part, but he was having a hard time dealing with the power of Joseph Parker while still having his own power. I mean he again, he was just landing really quick, punctual, technical jab, right hand, uppercut underneath it, hook right hand. When he wanted to let him go, you could see he belonged at the top level of heavyweight, which was a question we had coming into this thing. And Fabio Wardley definitively answered even before he got the win that he belonged at the top level of this. So from that second round it's a bit of a back and forth. Third I thought Wardley won, the fourth I thought Parker won. Could argue either way on that. And then it started to become a Joseph Parker fight where he was again taking over in close rounds. He would finish strong he would land big power, he would have the bigger moments, and he would. Would back Wardley up. Wardley fighting off the back foot for most of the fight. Rounds 5, 6, 7, and 8, again, close rounds, you could go more so to toward Lee and some, and more so to Parker and others. But I had this going into round 10, I had this, a 6 to 3 favored fight for Joseph Parker. And then in round 10, after Parker had hit Wardley with stuff and wobbled him and hurt him, and you thought, man, okay, maybe Parker's gonna get him out this round. Maybe he's gonna get him out this round. And. And Wardley just kept hanging in. And even when he was hurt, he was able to counter off while being on the ropes and throw big shots to stop a little bit of that momentum from Joseph Parker, who I thought when he had Wardley hurt in certain moments and he wanted to finish and he wanted to go in for the kill, really couldn't do that because of the power and the fire coming back from Wardley. Those were the moments where I thought, if Parker could have taken advantage, where he had Wardley hurt in several of the rounds, then we may have seen a different outcome in this fight. But instead, he wasn't able to. Wardley was able to land one shot, clinch him, referee would separate him, do something to where Joseph Parker would have to stop his onslaught and reset. And that was a big problem that I think eventually left the opening for Wardley to come back into this fight. And it happened in round 10, just as Parker had in the previous, you know, two or three rounds. I thought he was. He was finding a good groove of things, and he was really a locomotive moving forward. These later rounds, these championship rounds, where Fabio Wardley was not as experienced, where he didn't have this level of pressure and wherewithal and experience and grit and gas tank and fatigue management, all these things you didn't know the answer to that you did for Joseph Parker. Fabio Wardley stepped up. When I thought there were moments he got hit with punches in this 10th round where it looked like he just didn't have the answer. He was frustrated, and his hands would go down, his face would kind of be like, damn, I just can't figure this thing out. He's just. He's more powerful than me. I can hit him with stuff, and he hits me, and it hurts me more. There was a moment in this 10th round where it clicked over and Wardley kind of gave him the, you know, okay, come on. Got some confidence back in himself and fired Off, I think it was a right hand, something that hurt Joseph Parker and he started teeing off at him toward the end of the round. And I thought he was going to get a stoppage there. And he's got Parker on the ropes and Parker's making him miss and trying to move his head. And the round goes. And all of a sudden what looked like a fight, Joseph Parker was starting to run away with a little bit. Starting to get ahead and starting to push and push again. Close fight. You judge it either way. I just looked at it like this was a. Again going into round 10, 6 to 3 fight for Joseph Parker probably was going to be 7 to 3, but Wardley turns it around and wins the round at the end, making it 6, 4 going into the 11th round. We have a live fight on our hands. And Wardley, just as he finished the 10th round, came out in the 11th on fire. This is what you want to see out of a relatively still at, at 30 years old, young heavyweight. No, he's not Mike Tyson in his 20s. No, he's not a guy that trained this Sport from age 10, but he's still only 30. And heavyweights do last a little longer. And he came out for a guy that hadn't been there, for a guy that didn't understand that level of depth before. It felt like he'd been there. It felt like a championship round for Wardley, who came out and put it on Joseph Parker in this round to a degree where it was one way traffic. This wasn't him winning rounds back. This was him going bulldozer flatline. And Parker was trying, he was trying to come back. But. But there was a beautiful sequence when Parker went jab and Wardley slipped outside the jab, bang, the uppercut. And it hurt. Parker put him on wobbly legs, backed him up. He had his back on the ropes. Here comes Wardley and he's firing off. And Parker had nothing for him. And here is where the controversy came. Wardley was firing off. Parker was not answering. Were all the shots landing? No, but Parker clearly was hurt. He wasn't out on his feet. He wasn't stumbling to the point where he didn't have his balance. He was on wobbly legs, no doubt about it. But he was still in the fight, moving his head. He was trying to hold his gu. He was getting hit with shots and he was not answering with shots. But the referee, instead of what I think would have been appropriate at the time, which is maybe separate them and start a standing eight or Joseph Parker maybe again it's playing Monday morning quarterback. You can't tell him to take a knee if he doesn't feel like he needs to. But I think there should have been an eight count here. The referee steps in and stops the fight. And Joseph Parker deserved a little better than that. It was, it was early. It was such a good fight. It was such a big moment for both fighters and for Parker, how much was on the line for him after being turned away, turned away, not getting his opportunity, being the boogeyman at heavyweight, he deserved longer. He deserved a better opportunity than the referee gave him. And for Wardley, a guy that, again, shouldn't even be at this level. He started boxing at 20 years old, been in this game 10 years. Started with white collar. No amateur experience comes in. And he's doing this to the boogeyman of the heavyweight scene right now. He's doing this to the guy that is supposed to be fighting Alexander Usyk. And Wardley's a massive underdog. And here he is having his moment and the referee, yeah, he waves it off and Wardley gets the win. And what a moment. But he kind of robs him of that moment because you let that thing go for 10 more seconds, you let Parker get the standing eight or whatever, and you still might have a Wardley knockout on your hands, who knows? But we won't ever know because the referee did step in early. And that's the only thing that leaves a sour taste in my mouth is Joseph Parker deserved better than that. And this is not to take away from Fabio war Wardley, because what a moment for the young man. What I mean, just an incredible showing from him. Never quit, was down in this fight. Came back and stops Joseph Parker. I don't like the stoppage. I don't like it. I've watched it over and over and it's clearly early. To me, you even see Joseph Parker look at the referee like, no, like he's not out of it. Sure, he was hurt, but he deserves the right to go through that moment and try to will himself back. Because Wardley had been hurt many times in this fight and Parker too early on. But that's what a back and forth fight is. You let these two warriors find out who is willing to go to hell and back. And they were doing that. And it's just one of the things that puts a sour taste in your mouth in boxing is when a referee takes that liberty and takes that moment from both fighters. And again, if you're on the side of things where Parker wasn't answering Shots. He was getting 20 unanswered shots put on him. I get it. I still think it was a little early. I still think Parker had his wits about him, but he deserved the eight count. If you were going to, going to look to stop that fight, you give him that opportunity to regather himself and go for it. But that's just my opinion. I thought it was early and it does take a bit away from the moment, but man, still, what a moment for Fabio Wardley. Again, I, I, I can't help but be excited for the kid. It was, it was just an incredible night, man, because he, he shouldn't have looked as good as he did and Parker looked great. This is not taking anything away from Joseph Parker. Was he a tad bit too heavy coming in? Maybe didn't look as agile in those later rounds as I thought. Potentially he would, like he did against, against Wilder and others. But he still looked fantastic and he had fucking dynamite in his hands. When he connected on Wardley, it was like he had never felt some of that stuff before. He probably hadn't. But Wardley, the, the, the, the heart to stay in there, the will to keep going when he's down some of these rounds and he's frustrated, you could see it on his face. He just keeps going and he digs and he shows championship mentality. And again, it just comes down to that moment in the 11th round where the referee steps in prematurely. I hate it, I hate it for Joseph Parker. It is what it is. Fabio Wardley. Here's the thing, as a fan, it doesn't take away from Joseph Parker to me, but as a selfish way of looking at it, because it does take away, it does take away his potential shot at Alexander Usyk. Let's say he survives there and wins the 12th. This is going to be a Joseph Parker win, probably. But he doesn't get that now. He doesn't get that big payday and Fabio Wardley does fair play. That's how the cookie crumbles. And at the end of the day, it's fight, it's combat sports. But man, it's just a, an unfortunate moment. Very controversial. I think it was a bad stoppage, I think it was an early stoppage, but I do think Fabio Wardley, he may not be the most technically sound, he may not be the most crisp, but damn, he's talented. And I wish he would have started boxing five years earlier, even because he has made such a close in the gap of what it takes to be an experienced boxer. His athleticism, his speed, the guy that moves like that at 240, at his size, Whoa. I'm, I, I liked that. He was very impressive to me, me in this fight. Parker as well. And again, it's an unfortunate ending, but now we look to, to what's next. And I saw people saying, you know, do a Wardley and Moses Atoma title eliminator. All that Wardley deserves now the shot to fight Alexander Usyk. He just does. That's what you get for winning the interim WBO Championship of the world. Usyk is the title holder now. Do I think Fabio Wardley has what it takes to be Usyk? I, I don't know. And if I'm looking at it right away, no know Alexander Usyk is the best in the world and it seems like by a great margin. I didn't think that Parker was going to be Alexander Usyk. I don't think Wardley will. That doesn't mean he shouldn't get his opportunity to try. It's the same thing we were arguing and fighting about for Joseph Parker. He didn't get his shot. This, this is what this young man deserves. And who knows? It is still heavyweight boxing at the end of the day. And Worley is now two fights in a row shown no matter how far he's down in a fight, he's still looking for that one shot. You better be perfect. What did he say for 36 minutes? Minutes. And he just needs to be perfect for one moment. What an entertaining fight. What an entertaining night of fights. It's unfortunate. Clear early stoppage and it really, really is, is, is a disservice to Joseph Parker to do that. Can't speak into that enough. It was, it was such a bad early stoppage to me, but I have to give it up for, for Fabio Wordley. For both fighters, it's just an unfortunate way to end. But Fabio Wardley wins by tko. Referee stoppage. What do you guys think in the comments? Let me know down below. And what happens in a Wardley Usyk fight? What's next for Joseph Parker? I don't have any of those answers, but guess we'll find out. All right, so we are back on the way. Concept presented by the Ring magazine and today we are here to talk about the controversy that was the eye poke of doom. That's right. Captain Insano in the form of Cyril Gone taking two fingers and shoving them into Tom Aspinall's eyes. It was clearly on purpose. It was, was clearly intentional. It clearly has gotten out of hand. People are losing their minds over this and acting as though Soril Gon is an ultimate evil villain in a movie, when in reality, guys, this is fighting. And yes, UFC 321 could have been a massive moment. Almost was. And yes, it was a let down. And we're going to cover all the conspiracy theories, but none of this was on purpose and it was handled kind of in the most perfect way you can. I know that's not the sensational headline, that's not the clickbait thumbnail, whatever, but it's just unfortunate. What do I mean? Tom Aspen, also real gone ends in a no contest. And we didn't really learn anything we didn't already know. Or maybe we did. Let's break the whole thing down. But before we do, I want to say a big thank you to the sponsor of today's video, First Form. That's right, guys. First form is the best supplement provider on the planet. And they have hooked me up with a ton of goodies to tell you guys about. Starting with with the First Form Power Pro Bars. These bad boys are great meal replacements to get me through the day when I'm having to record a lot of videos like this, when I'm on a live stream with you guys for six, seven plus hours, when I have to try to break down one of the most controversial things going on in MMA right now in the heavyweight division, it's whole food, it's HSF certified, and that means these things are safe for your body. And because first form cares more about people than it does products, they put extra care into each one of their supplements. Supplements to leave you feeling not only refreshed, happy, healthy, but it's better for your body. And speaking for better for your body, how about First Forms Micro Factor? This is their daily multivitamin. I take one of these every day. It comes equipped with CoQ10 3 multivitamins, an antioxidant, probiotic, fish oils, veggies and etc. This is something that I use. Once again, if I'm sitting in the office all day and I don't have the vitamins to go outside and ground myself on the earth, I'm using this stuff. I'm using a lot of products from first form and I'm feeling a lot better because that if you guys didn't know, I just turned 33. Your boy's trying to keep himself as young as possible while his age gets a little higher. If you guys want to do the same, make sure you click the link in the description and get your products from first form today. And if you Spend a hundred dollars or more, you're going to get those products with free shipping. Once again, click the link in the description. Get your hands on the Power Pro bars. Get your hands on the multi factor. Get your hands on the Formula one protein, whatever you desire at first form. And if you are not completely satisfied, which I think you will be, try it for 30 days, send it back, and First form will give you a 110 refund on your order. Thank you to First form for sponsoring this video. And now let's get back into the breakdown. All right, so UFC 321, we're gonna quickly run through the rest of the card after I talk about the main event, but we have to spend the majority of this video talking about the main event. Main event, it's the most controversial thing that happened today. And. And the fallout from this will be one of the biggest things that happens in mma. Tom Aspinall, Cyril Gone. Okay, I told you guys coming into this fight that there was a real possibility that Cyril Gone was going to be a problem for Tom Aspinall. As much as everyone had spoken about this being Tom Aspinall cutting through Suril Gon like a hot knife through butter throughout the entire lead up. And they did that because the MMA world so badly wants Tom Aspinall to be better than Jon Jones. Not just now, potentially ever was because of the narratives that have now developed about the people that Jon Jones fought when he fought them. I've been hearing for the last couple of years that John never fought a good fighter. John never had a great resume. He just fought a bunch of bloated. It used to be bloated middleweights, then it was bloated welterweights. Now I'm hearing bloated lightweights. Like, are we just gonna continue this bullshit? And of course, the PED usage from Jon Jones, that does disqualify him from a lot of people considering him the greatest of all time. But this fight was about more than that. It was a direct comparison, which is unfair completely. And MMA doesn't work like remedial school math where one plus one equals two. But it was a direct line comparison. What will Tom Aspinall do against the guy that Jon Jones made his debut at heavyweight against and made look like easy work? Jon Jones walked into a fight with Cyril Gone, his first fight at heavyweight, and submitted him in under two minutes. It was easy, didn't get hit, he dunked under a left hand, body lock, took him down. So the question was, how does Tom Aspinall fight this version of Cyril Gone arguably lost his last fight to Alexander Volkov, even though he got the win there. And he'd already lost two title fights versus Jon Jones and Francis Ngannou. If you want to be amongst the greats there, you have to beat Cyril Gone because he's kind of the heavyweight gatekeeper. That's what he's become now. But I told you guys, if Cyril Gone is able to control the pace and distance of this fight, using his reach advantage, using his kick, and keeping away from the big power of Tom Aspen, all stuff and takedowns when timely and necessary, this could become a problem for Aspinall, because as much as we know he's a devastating puncher, as much as we know he is youthful, fast, agile. I've been told he moves like a welterweight. This was the fight where you were gonna fight arguably a better athlete. Not even arguably. I think Sorrelgan is clearly a better athlete than most MMA fighters. So how do you do deal with that level of heavyweight? Not the guys that you're better than, faster than, more powerful than that you can use your athleticism to be better than. But there's another athlete that's better than you. What do you do technically to beat him? Fight starts and we're finding out right away this is going to be, like I said, a different fight than a lot of people. That said Tom Aspinall by however he wants, he's going to take his chin off. So real Gone was peppering Tom Aspinall with his jab and touching him to the body with his it going upstairs bloody in the nose, keeping him at range with kicks. And by the way, I'm not going to sit here and do the narrative stuff where you're going to hear from most creators on this. You're going to hear that Tom Aspinall was getting worked, Tom Aspinall was getting dominated. Tom Aspinall wasn't in the fight. It's not true. This was a great back and forth fight. It was a great first round. This was one of those fights that started to have a big fight field as they walked to the cage because it's the heavyweight title, for Christ's sakes. It should be the biggest fight in the ufc. It was very disappointing to see how it was promoted. It didn't feel like it until about five minutes before the fight started. That, oh yeah, this is a massive important fight for the UFC right now. It felt like an afterthought in the fight build up whether it was Tom Aspinall talking about how he wouldn't fight his friend. Whether it was Dana White not really giving a about promoting this thing and the press conference being 20 minutes long, whether it was Tom Aspinall's dad saying, hey, listen, we're gonna leave the sport in three fights again, can't blame him if he wants to go get his bag somewhere else, but it doesn't make somebody want to watch a head heavyweight championship fight when the champ's like, I'm going to be here for like three more fights, give me a year and a half and I'm gone. That doesn't really compute with greatness. That means you're going to be here for a little bit and Gone tomorrow, regardless. It started to feel that way. And in the first round you got a great heavyweight matchup. Two guys looking to strike, two guys looking to go back and forth. A bit of a technical kind of battle between the two, where Tom Aspinall had to slow things down a little bit. And he couldn't just be explosive and twitchy and fast because he, I think, like a lot of people, underestimated Sorel Gone. He did not. He knew he was going to have to be in this fight for more than just one round, and it looked like he was starting to work himself into it. But also, Cyril Gone was prepared for pretty much everything in that first round that Tom Aspinall had. Like I said, Sorrel was, was early and often with his jab out of the southpaw stance. He was peppering Tom with it. He was bloody in the nose, he was snapping the head back. There was a nice short left hand that Cyrille landed early on in the fight as well. That kind of set the tone to. To show Tom that it wasn't just going to be, you know, a bulldozing, one way traffic type of fight. And Tom, on the other hand, mixed a lot more stuff in this first round than you normally would have to see him. Most guys want to stand in the pocket with him. You trade right hands and Tom Aspinall usually wins that. Matter of fact, he damn near always wins that. But surreal. God. Circling to his right, getting away from the power, jabbing, teeping, made Tom kick. He had some low kicks that were effective. We'll take a look at some of the stats in a second, but it was a more variety. Tom Aspinall, help. There are multiple times where Aspinall would change levels and use his feints and change levels and actually try to take Cyril down. A couple times. I think one surreal. We'll get to it. People are saying he poked him in the eye when he was. Yes, his hand happened to hit Tom in the face because he was framing, which is something that's very normal in mma. And there's really no way to get rid of it unless you want guys to walk around with closed fists. And if that's the case, just put boxing gloves on them and call yourselves the markets of Queensberry or Muay Thai or kickboxing or whatever else. This is mma. The gloves are open. We're going to have the debate in a second. Another time, Sorrel did a great job of again, getting his hands lower, getting his level lower, getting his underhook, not letting Tom take him down, shucking him off and circling. This was a better surreal gone than you had seen against Alexander Volkovs. Clearly, he was more prepared. Clearly he was better versed in his takedown defense. And also, again, it's a different scenario, but hear me out. Tom Aspinall as an offensive wrestler isn't as good as Jon Jones is. And again, I don't mean this to be a Tom vs John comparison, but it should show you how good Jon Jones is with his timing, with his level change, with the understanding of the body lock. They were two completely different takedowns. Tom tried to athletically kind of get into his double leg. Jon slipped outside of the left hand, got to the body lock and then a trip. But still, it shows you a bit more of the setup and execution of Jon Jones and his takedown versus Tom Aspinall. I'm going to be athletic now, and it didn't work the same way because it's not the same setup and it takes a little bit more nuance and technique and timing and an opportunity. Right. Sorrell didn't overextend and give Tom the opportunity, so he shot anyway. Worked that way. I'm hyping Sorel up here because I thought he did a really good job in this first round. I thought he was winning the first round, but again, this was not some dominant first round. Tom Aspinall not just had moments, he was feeling his way into this fight. He was getting himself back into the groove of his thing. Again, he's been out for freaking, what, two years? This is a terrible situation. More so for Tom Aspinall when we get into to, you know, the eye poke and everything else. This is way worse for him because he's been out for two years. It's four minutes in the cage, he's going to be out for another extended period. Doesn't get a win, doesn't get the reps, doesn't get the experience that he is missing out on so badly. And you saw some of that especially early in the fight. He was tagged, the head was on the center line. He was he wasn't able to make Sorrel miss as much and make him pay, but he was able to without making him miss, sometimes make him pay. He was able to sneak the right hand through. He caught Sorrel with a couple good right hands upstairs. In fact, he was the more dominant puncher upstairs. The head strikes went to Tom Aspinall. As we take a look at the numbers, this is why I say it wasn't a dominant fight in the first round. Towards surreal. God, he was winning the first round in my opinion. But it wasn't some domination, bulldozing look at Tom. He's a fraud type of thing. So real landed three more punches or I should say strikes than Tom Aspinall did in the first round. And the way it breaks down is Aspinall went to the head more 14 to 25. Sorrel was 8 of 16. To the body sorrel was 9 of 11, Tom was 5 of 6 and to the legs Tom was 8 Tired.
- [78:38]
Washable Sofas Sponsor
Of spills and stains on your sofa? Washablesofas.com has your back Featuring the Annabe Collection, the only designer sofa that's machine washed inside and out. Where designer quality meets budget friendly prices. That's right, sofas start at just $699. Enjoy a no risk experience with pet friendly stain resistant and changeable slipcovers made with performance fabrics. Experience cloud like comfort with high resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing. The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime. Check out washablesofas.com and get up to 60% off your Anna Bay sofa backed by a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund. No return shipping or restocking fees. Every penny back. Upgrade now@washablesofas.com Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.
- [79:38]
PayPal Sponsor
This podcast is sponsored by PayPal. Okay, let's talk holiday shopping. When you want to make the most of your Money, head to PayPal's app before you check out. They give you the flexibility to pay in four no fees, no interest. And this is big. Bigger than the 12 foot snowman on your lawn right now. You can get 5% cash back when you pay later with PayPal. So whether it's the must have merch or for that signed jersey you've been eyeing, PayPal helps you make the most of your money this holiday. Save this offer in the PayPal app expires 1231.
- [80:12]
Lego Star Wars Sponsor
See paypal.com promoterms Subject to approval.
- [80:16]
Wade
Learn more at paypal.com payin4paypal inc.nmls910457 this.
- [80:23]
Total Wireless Sponsor
Podcast is sponsored by Total Wireless, the official wireless partner of ufc. When you're streaming the fight or sharing those takedown highlights, you need a wireless provider that keeps you close to the action. With Total Wireless, you're covered by the Verizon 5G network, so you don't have to worry about your connection being knocked out at the biggest moments. It's not something you can usually say about a wireless provider, but Total Wireless really does have your back. They're in your corner every second of the day, so you never miss a thing. Visit totalwireless.com or visit your local Total Wireless store to learn more about how Total Wireless can be in your corner. 5G access requires a 5G capable device and a 5G service area. Additional terms apply. See website for details.
- [81:13]
Lego Star Wars Sponsor
Does anything go better than Lego and Star Wars? I don't think so. Kids will love becoming a part of the galactic action while playing out their favorite adventures like with Jango Fett Starship. I mean, this LEGO set is fantastic. It features a detailed recreation of Jango Fett's starship with four stud shooters, a seismic charge dropping function and wings that rotate with gravity. Plus it has three Jango Fett with two blasters and a jetpack. Young Boba Fett and Llama Su perfect for endless play. Now for the big fans, there's Jango Fett's Firespray class Starship from the Ultimate Collector series. Packed with details and surprises for fans, this large scale set is perfect for anyone hunting for a mindful building escape. Plus you end up with a fantastic display piece. You can build this while your little ones build the kid set. You'll be like Django and Boba building an adventure shop. Now for Star wars lego sets on lego.com or in lego retail stores.
- [82:14]
Wade
And sorrow was 13 of 13. Again, a close first round. That was showing the way this fight was probably going to play out. Was going to be a bit more technical, was going to be a bit more strategic, was going to have to be utilized in adjustments, and that's what you wanted to see from Tom Aspinall and Cyril for surreal. He had come off a stretch of oh man, you know the not great performance versus Volkov and, you know, the Jon Jones performance and he's dropped by, tied to Ivasa and he comes off a close fight with Francis Ngannou. You wanted to see him, him get back to those, those, you know, dynamic ways when he was a bit younger. So both guys were having their moments. This was shaping up to be a good one. And then we get to the eye poke. The moment in question happens. I don't remember the time. Probably about 25 seconds left in the round. There's they're both in the center of the octagon. There's an exchange where Cyril goes back foot out of southpaw body kick and he doesn't quite commit to it. And Tom at the same time wants to throw his left hook. So he steps in to throw his left hook. He kind of leans it as he throws it and Cyril Gane throws the body kick. But also as he throws his body kick, he wants to post with his backhand, right, because he's coming out of southpaw. Here comes the left kick. He's going to post with his backhand because he's put himself out there, hasn't quite committed to it. And now you have to find a way to frame, use that post and get back out of range. Right? Now, when that happens, he not only gets one, he gets both of Tom Aspinall's eyes, gets his fingers directly into the eyes. And both Tom's eyes are kind of closed, luckily. I think for him, if they were open, he probably, I mean, definitely would have scratched a cornea or something. It would have been some sort of abrasion. He may still have that. I haven't had an update on what's going on with Tom Aspinall's eyeballs when that happens. And here's where the controversy comes into play. He also is pushing right. He's. And I'm going to try to explain this in a way that's unbiased, so just, just bear with me if you can. Sorrel gets him and it's a bad eye poke. We can look at it here. So you can see here, Sorrel has his middle and index finger in Tom's eye for sure. No doubt about it. He's in the eyes now, as people are going to say on the Internet digs in, which is not what happens. He's trying first off to post. You see the hand come in. He's not fingers outstretched purposely. I'm going to stab you in the eyes now, Captain Insano style. That's not what's happening. He's trying to post with his palm. The problem is he doesn't get his post. Instead he gets under Tom's chin. And when you happen to go from there to under the chin, look where the eyes can go. The fingers are going to go into the eyeballs. That's just a natural thing that's gonna happen when you press away. And also, there's no one really framing like this. You know, no one really frames this way. When they're fighting, it is mostly here. And your hands are naturally in a C shape to catch and parry. So yes, if he's posting, there's gonna be a little bit of that still there. So again, boom, into the eyes. Not great. A hundred percent. Tom gets poked here and again they go deeper into the eyes. But this is not, in my opinion, this is not because of a purposeful dig and rake. This is because I need to get out of range because you've gotten too close. And I'm trying to push and catch my frame and my post. Right. But again, it's not great. And honestly, the one on the left of Tom's body looks like it gets the worst end of it, but it's actually the one on Tom's right that I think he ends up being more worried about, which is crazy. Now, this is why I say it's not on purpose or anything else. The things I've already told you on top of the fact that Surreal is winning the fight, at least on paper, he's winning the round. He has no reason to purposely poke Tom in the eyeballs and risk the fight being called off when he's winning the round, when he's having success, that doesn't make any sense to him, me. But also, when his hands leave Tom's face, you don't see a raking. You see them coming down the center of his face. You don't see them digging and scratching. You see them coming down the center of his face. Now, again, when we look at Tom in the post fight interview, he is holding a rag up to his right eye and squinting with his right eye. So the middle finger must have gotten Tom worse. And this is where the I want to dispel a lot of the narratives stuff. I don't think that Cyrille did this on purpose. I think that again, he's using a post, much like I've been linked the picture of him trying to stop Tom's takedown. And I let me see if I can find it really quickly. So, I mean, this isn't a Great picture. But this is again a situation where Gon gets caught in an orthodox stance. And Tom level changes, doesn't really fully commit to the takedown here, but he level changes in reaches like he's going to take him down, maybe to come upstairs or something and gone thinking a strike is coming, answers the phone with his backhand and looks to post again with his lead hand, which is something that is taught. So normally in boxing and kickboxing in most combat sports is a long guard. Especially in mma where you don't have boxing gloves to be able to sit here in a high guard, a long guard will save you a lot of the time where you can go out and catch stuff before it gets to you. And this is what a lot of MMA fighters do when you see them trying to catch kicks and swipe away, or you see them again with a long guard that tries to catch punches on the arm versus Let me just do my high guard and hope these four ouncers can take a fucking 260 pound man's right hand. It's not going to work. So when I saw people saying he's in doing this intentionally, it makes me think that a lot of the MMA community doesn't actually understand fighting. They just understand narrative, they just understand conspiracy. And that's not what happened, at least again in my opinion. So no, I don't think Cyrille did this on purpose. He is at fault because he did poke Tom Aspinall. And here's the thing that made me the most mad is people saying Tom Aspinall quit, right? Because I, I've defended Sorel. I don't think he did it on purpose. It's still his fault because he did it. But I don't think he did it on purpose. Which is why the fight was a no contest. One, because enough time and fighting hadn't happened yet. And two, there wasn't a definitive declaration of like intent behind the ipo. But the thing that made me more mad was seeing everyone say Tom Aspinall quit. Tom Aspinall was looking for a way out. He, he couldn't out athletic Sorrell. He was getting busted up, he was getting dominated. So he needed a way out of there. Are you fucking kidding me? Just as bad as this conspiracy of surreal is such a dirty fighter. How dare he. He did this on purpose. What a piece of shit. The people on the other side of this, Tom Aspinall, after two years off, came into this fight with every opportunity in front of him. You win, you get either Alex Pereira or you get Jon Jones at the White House. That's the guy you think quit after everything that he had to go through just to get a fight. He quit in the biggest moment of his career. Get the fuck of out out of here. And by the way, I said this same thing when Henry Cejudo was called a quitter by a lot of people online on YouTube and people in the comments called him a quitter when he didn't want to continue after getting double poked in his eyes and saying he couldn't see. Tom Aspinall did the same here. And all of a sudden it seems to happen again. You guys can't do this kind of stuff, calling fighters quitters because they've been blinded in an eye or two. Not how it goes, man. Tom tells the, the, the outside physician he can't see. What is he supposed to do? Fight with no vision, Fight with one eye compromised when a foul has occurred? I don't think that's the answer. I think Tom was well within his right to not fight here, and he's absolutely not a quitter. I even saw Chael Sonnen say, oh, you sometimes you have to fight with one eye. Yeah, if you get punched in the eye, that makes sense. When Anthony Smith and Chael are like, oh, you know, it looked like Tom didn't want to be in there. I've quit before and I know, I was like, if you get punched in the eye and it's not a foul, then, yeah, you gotta keep fighting on. But if you get fingers into your eyeballs and it's a clear foul, you don't have to keep fighting and you shouldn't keep fighting, because what is that doesn't matter if you're the heavyweight champion of the world. There isn't some code that comes with heavyweight championships that says you must fight through injury because of foul. You want to represent your belt for sure. And yes, it's a tough man sport, but you want to do that under a fair rule set and under a fair fight. And again, I'm not saying Surreal did it on purpose, but he was going to be at an inherent disadvantage because of a foul and he couldn't see. How do we expect him to do anything else? I have no problem with Tom Aspinall saying, I'm not continuing. I can't, I can't see. Which I don't think he said, I'm not continuing. He just kept saying, I can't see. Which is essentially him being like, I can't fight, I can't see. It's a terrible look for this fight, I mean, yeah, this was the big moment for the heavyweight division to finally get going again and not just be so stagnant and held up. And Jon doesn't want to fight, or maybe he does and now he doesn't, and then he's retired. Maybe he'll come back. And then you have again Tom defending an interim belt in the same challengers, the Cyril, the Alexander Volkovs, those type of guys, guys being in that top scene, you need to get the cogs and the wheels out and get it going again. And this just didn't help things. This is for the ufc. This is the worst thing that could have happened in this fight. Like, you had really two scenarios. You had Cyril gone wins and Jon Jones in the mind of, of himself. And maybe the, the, the, the fan of the UFC that goes, see, Tom should have never fought this Tom Aspinall guy because he was never on that level. I don't believe that. But people would have said that had sore reality equal one, because again, one plus one doesn't equal two in this sport. If Tom Aspinall wins, you have your next great heavyweight and you can have him challenge John at the White House, or you can have him challenge Alex Pereira, who, by the way, was watching this fight and when it went to the no contest, he kind of threw his hands up like. And that was kind of the feeling like, ah, there goes another opportunity, man. Again, it's not just people on the Internet that, that are like, accusing Tom of like, quitting or not wanting to fight is Dana White. And this video told me a lot about how Dana White looks at Tom Aspinall.
- [91:37]
Dana White
Listen, at this rate, showing shitty ending. You know, I think that after the, after the Jones fight, a lot of people wrote Cyril gone off. He looked damn good tonight.
- [91:49]
Wade
Would you like to just rebook these guys as soon as Tom is able to get. By the way, I agree with Dana on that part, 1,000%. The MMA community kind of. Well, the, the. The Tom Aspen, all super die hard fans kind of box themselves into a corner because on one hand they said that Jon Jones beating Cyril Gone was not a great win and that Jon was washed up and over the hill, but on the other said that Tom was also smoked Cyril gone. So if he didn't do it, they kind of put themselves in this position where, well, if the old man, Jon Jones got it done in under two minutes and your boy couldn't get it done, what's that say? Right? Like, they kind of played into exactly what Jon Jones wanted them to do and by doing that, underestimated how good Cyril Gane is with purely his striking and if he got better with his takedown defense, how he would potentially be a problem. And he was, again, my opinion, he was winning this fight, it would have been a very interesting second, third, fourth, fifth. But Tom is going to have to make adjustments and so was surreal. But this is two years off off. How was Tom going to do not only making adjustments, but also with the gas tank and not being as exploit. There was a lot of things at play here. So I agree with Dana there back in the.
- [92:50]
Dana White
Yeah, total pain in the ass. But yes, as soon as possible. It's unfortunate that it ended the way that it did. And yes, I think that there probably will be a lot more interest in the rematch after they saw, you know, I mean, he had Tom bloodied up and, you know, Tom didn't, didn't want to continue in the fight. So the rematch is very interesting.
- [93:14]
Wade
That's a very, very specific way of wording things from Dana White. Tom didn't want to continue the fight. Now, again, I think Dana White might hate Tom Aspinall. I think he might hate him, and I think there's a couple of reasons for it. So here is the interview from TNT Sports Box Office. Dana White sitting down, and he's asked about what Tom Aspinall said about his friend Auntie Delijah, who I think is ran ranked number 10 right now in the UFC. And essentially he was like, I am not going to fight him if he were to ever fight for the belt. Listen to this. This is, I think, part of why Dana White, again, I think he hates Tom Aspinall. He's already said that the guy that's Currently ranked number 10 is his friend anted Elijah, and he would vacate the title if Delijah got to a point where he was going to fight for the title. So my friend and training partner has just got to the ufc, so like, he's potentially like two or three wins away from like a title shot. So the thing is, if I didn't, if I'd never won a title, I'd never touched gold before. I was like, we would have to fight. But now I've done it, I would be like, I'll vacate it and he can have his time. Firstly, what do you think about that?
- [94:16]
Dana White
You know what I think about that. Before you ask me, I hate that. You know, many friends, relatives, name it, have all fought each other before. You know, it doesn't determine whether you, you, you are friends with somebody or you hate somebody, you're competing against them to see who the best is. But that's his decision. You know, the. To even think about vacating it because you don't want to compete against somebody is absolutely insane. But he's a grown man. That's up to him.
- [94:47]
Wade
Okay, that's number one. That's strike one. Strike two, obviously, is that Dana White does believe that Jon Jones is the greatest of all time. And obviously, you know, this probably certified that today. But also there was the interview from Tom Aspinall's dad that came out. Wasn't really an interview, kind of a backstage thing before the fight, talking about Tom Aspinall's future plans that are probably not going to be with the ufc. You said that you wanted a boxing champion. You're okay with an MMA champion, but you wanted a boxing champion.
- [95:15]
Total Wireless Sponsor
Boxing for sure. More money.
- [95:20]
Wade
Why not? Would that be an outcome for him?
- [95:22]
Total Wireless Sponsor
No.
- [95:23]
Wade
He's three more fights on the contract now. Okay.
- [95:25]
Total Wireless Sponsor
So I don't want to sign a new contract.
- [95:27]
Wade
Okay. Personally, so not good. Again, it's not necessarily a bad thing to have future plans or whatever, but it's like, probably shouldn't be talking about that when you're the heavyweight champion of the world out in public before your title defenses. That, combined with this performance, combined with Dana's probably already slight bias against Tom, is making for a terrible situation for Tom, Aspen and all, because this isn't the worst thing that could have happened to Tom. He could have gotten knocked out flat out cold, and it would have been even worse. But this is not good when the boss thinks of you like that, especially when the boss determines what happens next. But I think Dana's wrong. I think he's wrong for. For going after Tom. And again, I think those were pointed words on purpose, like saying he didn't want to fight versus he couldn't fight versus he couldn't see, like whatever you wanted to say. Dana could have easily come to his defense there, and he chose not to. I think that was on purpose. Now, with all of that being said, that was also asked about Tom's condition. And here was D.C. after the fight, talking about what he had heard. He's there in Abu Dhabi. This is what he had to say.
- [96:26]
Total Wireless Sponsor
I saw Tom Aspinall. His right eye is covered in a bandage because he cannot open it still. We're 20 minutes past the fight ending, and what's crazy about that is his other eye was the one where. Where his hand went knuckle deep. The right side was Scraped down more. The left side was the one that went knuckle deep and really would have been hard to deal with if not for the pain he was seen on the other side. Tom was very upset that people were booing and then people saw the replay and were like, wait a minute, maybe we should be booing the other guy. Then they booed Cyril. Gone.
- [97:00]
Wade
Interestingly enough, I wonder what is worse, right? I mean, going into someone's eye like in there has got to be worse, you would think because of the structural damage it can cause. But raking against, you know, the, the, the, the eyeball, the iris probably would do more damage in the, in the, in the short term with the burning and the, in the cut and whatever else that could get in there. So, I mean, either way, again, I, I'm still of the full belief that Tom Aspinall could not fight. And it's like I said, it's an unfortunate thing, but here's the silver lining. I say all that to say this. Here is the silver lining. Tom Aspinall and Cyril Gon get another shot at this. And like Dana White said, he kind of snuck it in there. There will be more interest and intrigue in this rematch match now, and I think you do have to do it right away. I don't think you can sit on this and give it time and. Oh, we'll see. Maybe we don't. Maybe. No, I think this is the time because you already have another fight lined up at heavyweight, one that I think is the right fight to do at heavyweight that doesn't involve Tom Aspinall or Cyril gone. I think you do this rematch, I think both guys have an opportunity with more eyes, no pun intended, on their rematch to put on a great performance. And how about this? The last time Tom Aspinall got into a situation with the knee injury with coach Curtis Blades, what happened in the comeback fight, he absolutely smoked Curtis. So he has an opportunity now with a little bit of, of in Octagon experience recently to get this thing. Hopefully his eye is okay, get this thing turned around quickly, hopefully by the end of the year, maybe a December fight, who knows, depending on how long the eye takes the heal. Maybe January Paramount, I don't know. But you get to go in and you, you get to, to to try this again and learn from that first round. There's still a lot to learn from both guys in that first round. Tom, maybe he knew Cyril was going to be that difficult to deal with early on and he was pacing himself and that second fight would go Anyway, but you can still take some stuff away. Okay, I got here, I got hit here. Maybe I can do something different. I got stuffed on this takedown. Why is that? And for surreal, okay, he hit me with a couple of right hands. I felt his power. Is there something else I can do to mitigate that? Can I be better with my hand placement or whatever it is, not poking and, you know, framing a different way? Again, I think it was completely accidental. I'm just saying you get to download information and come back. But while that's going on and while you're planning for the next big heavyweight fight, you have that one set in the rematch. Now. Now gets pushed back and it gives time for what I think is the right fight at heavyweight for a Jon Jones return. It's Jon Jones and Alex Pereira. It is. And Jon had this to say on Twitter. First off, this is a little petty, but Jon Jones is known to be a little petty after the guys that either he fights or he is supposed to fight go out and don't have the greatest performance. He says, you know, I, I told you once again, it's kind of the Conor McGregor effect. After the fight ends, here come the Twitter fingers. He put an eye patch over the duck emoji, which he was being called a duck for not fighting Tom Aspinall. There you go. But then he tweeted and he said, alex, I'd be down to bring the highest skill level to the White House. I appreciate the respect you showed. Let's dance again. A little shot there at Tom Aspinall with the highest skill level. Essentially, John is saying, alex Pereira, you're the guy I want. And Pereira said the same thing. He posted a video watching this go down and it says, let's make the heavyweight division great again. Again with the Pon stone face emoji and the Bones Jones at the White House. So they're on the same page. They're pushing for the same thing. I like the fight. I'm sorry, I know you guys don't. And you think that Tom should be the, the. The rightful, I don't know, flag bearer for the heavyweight division. He should be the one taking on Pereira as he moves to heavyweight for the three belts, or should be the one taking on Jones because that was his fight. But here's the problem. When you go to a no contest like this, you can't leave that story unfinished. Tom and Sorrel have to run this back because Sorrel was winning the fight and Tom was still there and he was still close. And it was a good back and forth, but he's the champ, so he's got to go and finish that now. And even if he is going to do it in January, February, you could book this for June, summertime. Tom fights the winner at the end of next year or whatever. I don't know, but I just think this is the way you do it and it's. It, it made sense when they were first talking about John versus Alex Barrera and it makes sense now. So, yeah, I know that's a long winded way of saying, listen, you're going to see a lot of narratives, narrative on MMA YouTube and it's going to be built on emotion and it's going to be built on bias and it's going to be built on want and frustration and despair. But the reality of this fight is simply there was a awful, unfortunate mistake from Cyril gone. That happens when fighting with open hand gloves. The eye pokes are not just exclusive to Cyril, they're not just exclusive to Jon Jones. It happens, and it happens a lot in mma. People act like it doesn't, but it does. And until the UFC do a Trevor Whitman hybrid glove that makes the fingers bend in and even when you're framing, there's that cover over them, or the pride glove hybrid something, you're always going to run into this. It's just a matter of fact, until you, or you make guys try to do their frames like this, which is nonsensical. Guys are going to fight loose, their hands are going to be here. They're naturally in that C shape anyway. Just a reality of fighting. It sucks, but that's the sport. If you want closed fists, watch boxing, Muay Thai or kick kickboxing, if you. If you want free hand movement for posts and grabs and wrist control and underhooks and overhooks, you're gonna get hands free. That's how it's gonna be. But that's the reality of this, is it's a massive mistake. It's, it's, yes, technically the fault of Cyril Gane for having his hands go into the eyes of Tom Aspinall, but it was not intentional. And a no contest is the right call. There was no mal intent. No matter how many conspiracies and arrows and circles you're gonna see on people's YouTube videos. It's just the reality of fighting. Things like this happen, happen. It really sucks. But the only three words that matter are run it back, do it soon, and we can move past this. Anyway, real quick, wrap up before we get out of here. Verna Yonderova versus Mackenzie Dern. I'm happy for Mackenzie Dern. The fight wasn't the greatest thing in the world. But you know what? Mackenzie Dern gets her championship. She is the new straw weight world champion in the ufc. Good back and forth. I didn't think it was worthy of the co main but it's a championship fight so fair play, play. Mackenzie Duran gets the victory. Umar Nurmagomedov versus Mario Bautista. Bautista almost stopped him, hit him with a knee on a high kick and almost stopped Umar. I will say this, I was ready before this fight started. I was ready to say Umar next title shot. Things could be different this time around versus Murab and maybe they still can be because Umar has a ton of variety and he's a great wrestler and he's a great striker. But what I saw here was a tired Umar, a guy that if this is a five round fight with Merab again is going to get tired again win and Marab is just a machine. I did not see even with this victory it was a very good win because Mario Bautista is a, I didn't see enough to make me change my mind that if they rematch I'm still picking Mara because that guy doesn't have any fatigue in him. It doesn't show it. His fights don't slow down. He is just a machine. Still have to make the fight happen. But I, I, I, I thought I'd see more out of Umar here. Alexander Volkov and Jonson Almeida. This one was fun because Almeida essentially did the, the, the, the recent Almeida style fight where it's the lay and pray, you know, he get, he lands a takedown, there's not much action, he controls you and then the round ends go again and again. Except this time Alexander Volkov even with the most minimal striking from the bottom, I mean literally laying on his back and throwing baby hammer fists. That was enough to win this fight. And you know it was more than that. But you get those were the difference makers. Off his back he was landing elbows, hammer fish when they stood up, he was landing knees in the clinch and there was not a ton of action in this fight. There just wasn't. But the action and the damage, if there was any, was coming from Alexander Volkov and he wins a split decision whilst being controlled for damn near most of the fight. Good for him. After the Cyril gone robbery he gets one back. So good for Volkov, man. Azimut Mirzakhanov with a jab knocks out Alexander Rakic in the first round of their fight. It was insane to see. That was a massive win. He remains undefeated, directly jumping into the top echelon of light heavyweight. I couldn't even believe he, he knocked him out with a step in like power stiff jab. He didn't even retract the punch just and that was a shock to, to me. But hey, Mirza Khan off is for real. I'm, I'm super pumped to see him next. My my unsung hero and one of the nastiest, cleanest head kicks I've ever seen. Quillen Sal killed. Who is this guy? I know I'm the casual concept, but I want to see more of him. He knocked out Nazareth hack Perez breast with a head kick that was picture perfect and, and thank God Nazareth is okay. He laid there face down on the floor twitching for like two minutes. It was nasty. I want to see Quillen a lot more. His name is Sal killed and he damn near Sal killed a man, dude. Valter Walker with another heel hook in the first round. That's crazy. But yeah, good fight, good card. Terrible ending for the ufc, but a silver lining for both Tom Aspinall and Cyril gone. If everybody is healthy and we can turn this thing around quickly and learn a little bit about each other. Yes, it was unfortunate. Yes, it fucking sucks. But learned a little bit about each other. What happens in the rematch? I don't have those answers, but guess we'll find out.
- [106:04]
Total Wireless Sponsor
This podcast is sponsored by Total Wireless, the official wireless partner of ufc. When you're streaming the fight or sharing those takedown highlights, you need a wireless provider that keeps you close to the action. With Total Wireless, you're covered by the Verizon 5G network, so you don't have to worry about your connection being knocked out at the biggest moments. It's not something you can usually say about a wireless provider, but Total Wireless really does have your back. They're in your corner every second of the day, so you never miss a thing. Visit totalwireless.com or visit your local Total Wireless store to learn more about how Total Wireless can be in your corner. 5G access requires a 5G cable device and a 5G service area. Additional terms apply. See website for details.
- [106:55]
Lego Star Wars Sponsor
At Hill's Pet Nutrition, we know that pet parent guilt is real. Leaving too long, playing too little. New homes, new babies. Waking them up when they look so comfy. Running out of paper, running out of treats.
- [107:09]
Wade
Running the vacuum.
- [107:11]
Lego Star Wars Sponsor
You can only do so much. That's why there's Hills Science led nutrition to help you give more love than humanly possible because you're only human. There's hills. Find the right food@hillspet.com Science does more when you say LEGO Star wars, the first thing you think of is imagination.
- [107:30]
Wade
Or action. Or both.
- [107:32]
Lego Star Wars Sponsor
Definitely both. Like with Jango Fett's Starship. I mean, with Stud Blasters, Seismic charges and three minifigures, your kid is gonna be creating stories until the Banthas come home. And for yourself, there's the Jango Fett's Firespray Class Starship LEGO set from the Ultimate Collector series. Enjoy some Jedi Master level mindfulness during your building time. Shop now for Star wars lego sets on lego.com or in lego retail stores.
- [108:00]
Wade
This October, you can earn up to 2% back when you deposit $1,000 or more on Kraken, the crypto platform with over 400 assets to buy and trade. The bonus is uncapped, so if you deposit $50,000, you could earn up to $1,000 back. Download the Kraken app in the App Store or Google Play and deposit by October 31st. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss and is offered to US customers through PayWord Interactive Incorporated. Terms apply. This is an iHeart podcast.