The W.A.D.E Concept - Volk DOMINATES Lopes, Pimblett DESTROYS Chandler, & Silva DEMOLISHES Mitchell

Wade recaps a massive weekend in the UFC that saw Volkanovski dominate and Paddy Pimblett handle his business in the Octagon. #Volume

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
UFC three fourteen just wrapped up, and I am here
to tell you guys all about it, what just happened
and why Alexander Volkanowski is undisputed, not even questionable. He
is the greatest one hundred and forty five pound fighter
that has ever lived. He has regained his belt and knew,

(00:21):
but really and again the featherweight champion of the world
in the UFC, and he did it in some ways
that I expected, in others that I did. But that's
not the only impressive performance this entire card. Guy reminded
me and I think is going to remind you guys
of why you loved MMA in the first place. I've
heard some rumblings across the last six months to a
year about the sport maybe falling off or having a

(00:43):
bad run or having a reset, or people are checked out.
This was why you fell in love in the first place.
Top to bottom, big time fights, from the prelimbs to
the main event. Let's go through it all. UFC three fourteen,
The breakdown, Let's go. Let's start it off with the
fight to begin the preliminary card, Julian A Rosa versus

(01:04):
Darren The Damage Elkins now Darren Elkins forty one years old.
This one was a little rough going into it thinking
that Darren really had any sort of a chance to
win in the first place, and Julian Rosa. Honestly, it
took a lot longer than I even expected, because Arosa
was pretty much doing whatever he wanted from the start
of this fight until the eventual and disparagingly bad and

(01:27):
almost saddeningly difficult end, Like Darren Elkins looked like he
should not only be in a UFC octagon, he shouldn't
be fighting at all, he should barely be out and
about the way he looked. And I don't mean that disparagingly,
I just mean forty one years old. They called him
the Damage because not only was he willing to give
but also receive damage throughout his career. His moniker was

(01:49):
him winning fights by just surviving until another guy either
gassed themselves out or they just punched themselves out, and
he was able to make a big comeback. But he
made a career off doing that to what I would
hope is its bitter end here because Arosa kicked him
from his back on the upkick, and it made Darren
Elkins stumble for like the next four minutes. And I
have great respect obviously for Darren Elkins, but it's just

(02:11):
time now to completely in my opinions, hang the glove up. Next,
we moved to Chase Hooper and Jim Miller. Now, I
got a little squirrely in this fight, and I'm gonna
be honest, I did it a lot later in the
card as well, But I was thinking Chase Hooper would
win this fight. I picked him to win, but I
was thinking, you know, Jim Miller might have a chance
by knockout. Listen, he's forty one or something like that
as well, and his hands have never lied, and they

(02:32):
still don't lie. They're still dangerous as all hell. They're
like Shakira's hips. They don't lie so much so when
you get clipped by one, it's a dangerous night. And
I thought potentially Jim Miller could present a dangerous problem
for Chase Hooper. And also, let's not forget Jim Miller
is a high level submission grappler has submitted the likes
of Charles Lavera, who is considered the best submission artist

(02:52):
in UFC history. I think he has the most submission
wins in UFC history, so I didn't think it was.
It was necessarily all but done for even though again
forty one years old Chase twenty five. What I saw
in this fight was a more crisp on the feet
Chase Hooper, even though he got touched, he got caught
with some big shots from Jim. I saw a very
slick and almost octopus like Chase Hooper that we've seen

(03:12):
for a long time now. When he gets a hold
of you, the dude sticks to you like glue. He
had two separate instances where he got the backpack position
while standing and ripped the body lock and it looked
like he was gonna shear Jim Miller's stomach off how
tight it was, and a couple of times he got
you know, he threatened leg submissions. Jim Miller's just too
high level to really get be caught with anything at
this point in his career on the ground, but ultimately

(03:35):
a decision win for Chase. Then the Dan Egay Sean
Woodson fight, This one is peculiar to me for a
lot of reasons. Number one, Sewn Woodson's bill get straight
out of the Alien movies, like he's built like a
comic book villain, and I saw some tweets tonight that
were just downright disrespectful about the man's bill and from Guru,
who I'm pretty sure said someone needed to get rid

(03:55):
of Sean Woodson before he laid eggs. But anyway, as
far as the fight was concerned, this was a good
back and forth fight. Honestly, when I watched it, it
looked like Sean Woodson was winning the fight. He was
controlling a lot of the striking exchanges with just again
his freakish build and his length, and he was able
to keep Danny Gay, who wants to get inside and
throw big power punches, he was keeping him at bay

(04:16):
for the most part, and honestly, I could have seen
Sean Woodson being up two rounds to zero heading into
the third round. Cparently, the judges did not see it
that way and had Dan e. Gay. All three of
the judges Danny Gay up two to zero heading into
the third round, even though he was being outstruck on
the feet, he wasn't landing any takedowns, and again, the
fight was really controlled at the distance that Sean Woodson

(04:38):
wanted to fight, so the scoring going into the third
round was already bizarre. Something even more bizarre happened after
as Danny Gay landed a nuclear bomb and rocked Sean
Woodson and started to swarm him. And honestly, I think
that Danny Gay probably could have and maybe would have
stopped Sean Woodson had something not happened that was just agregious,

(04:59):
and that is the stoppage on the referee at the
mid part of this exchange that was going down. Sean
Woodson was hurt, Egay was swarming him, Sean Woodson was tired,
and because he was not only hurt, but it looked
like a little bit tired, he shot on Dany Gay,
which is number one ipso facto. You are desperate, things
are getting bad. You have to do something to change

(05:19):
what's about to happen, and he Gay is probably gonna
finish it. He doesn't complete the takedown. Ega starts hammer
fist to the side of the head, Woodson starts to
rise to his feet and the referee waves the fight,
completely premature in my opinion, not even close to warranting
the stoppage at that point, and immediately Sean Woodson, who's
not out of the fight in any way. He was hurt, yes,
but it's still intelligently there and he's not like out

(05:41):
on his feet or anything like that. Immediately throws his
hands up like what the hell was that? And he's
right to do it because it was a completely premature stoppage.
And I like Dany Gay and again he probably would
have stopped Shawn Woodson here, but I just felt it
was premature and it's a little bit of a buzzkill
when that fight was a good fight, but again super
just bizarre. And then we had the resurgence of dominic Reis. Yes,

(06:02):
I Pickednikita cryle Off here. Yes, this is going to
be the start of the complete and utter buffoonery. That
is my picks for this card. So lock in. But
dominic Rais and Nikita cryle Off. This was again one
of those fights where you looked at Nikita cryl Off,
long layoff. Dominic Reis not necessarily the highest level of
competition since the John Jones loss and then the kind

(06:23):
of spiral with the Eery loss as well, but he's
come back to the UFC and he's come back looking sharp.
This fight was over just as it began because Rays
right away took just a confident, commanding control of this
fight again. There wasn't a ton of strikes given back
and forth, but both guys knew that they were walking
on eggshells because in any moment, when you hit the

(06:45):
freaking welterweight division, it up, people can in the fight
like this, And you could even argue that for lightweight,
but especially at light heavyweight. And Reyes performed. After a
couple of minutes of back and forth and some good
strikes from both guys, I thought Reys was getting the
better of it. V does a little bit of a blitz,
tries to flurry while coming forward, throw the right hands,
the left hooks while leaning into range and running into range,

(07:08):
dominic Reis performed his best Connor McGregor impression. Not to
Connor McGregor, we see today that's out doing this and
accused of that and whatever else is going on with
the man outside of the octagon. I mean, the man
that made you fall in love with the mystic mac
who said he was gonna knock out Joseyaldo in one round.
He did so, stepping back and dropping the left hand

(07:28):
on him. Dominic Reyis performed the same exact movement. I
kid you not go back and watch it. It looked
exactly like Connor McGregor, step back left hand versus Joseialdo.
He lands it on the button. Rylov goes down a
couple more hammer fists and it's over. Dominic Reis allows
himself to be reintroduced to the light heavyweight division in
the UFC. Honestly, everybody gets a little bit over excited

(07:50):
when these things happen, and talk about Reyes versus Uncle IAV,
you know, like Rayes versus Poetson. I don't know. I
don't know that we go there yet, but he's thirty
five years old, and yeah, there's probably gonna be a
rush to push him back to the top of the
division the way he won this one, especially, and the
people were going nuts in the arena, they were going
nuts online. And great for him because what a story

(08:11):
to be at the top of the UFC light heavyweight rankings,
to then find himself outside of the UFC, to then
come back and win in this fashion. Again, He's ranked
number eleven before this. I'm sure he's gonna be in
the top ten, potentially close to the top five, and
who knows, who knows what his next fight is like.
Could it be an Alexander Rackitch Could it be a
Yuri pro Hot, could it be a Blahovich, I don't know. Regardless,

(08:32):
great win for Dominic Rays. Next we have while people
called the Patty and Chandler the people's main event on
the night, I think this one was probably right there
with it. Bryce Mitchell and John Silvia. This fight was
so interesting because you could have hit your winner based
on emotion. A lot of people siding with Bryce Mitchell
because of the cold one liners he was putting on
John Silva before the fight. People siding with John Silva

(08:54):
because of his backstory and his commitment to just again
being himself in all facets. When it came to this
back and forth with Bryce with building it and just
with the Vans and the media themself. Obviously he got
the fighting nerds as well who were behind John Silva,
and I think the record's like nineteen and one or
something crazy. And then you had that argument of Bryce's experience,
you know, fighting some of the top names in the Vision,

(09:14):
and John Silva not having that experience, So those two
things went into account as well. Ultimately, none of it
mattered the experience the way you thought emotionally, none of
it mattered. All it mattered is that John Silva is
for real, ladies and gentlemen. I'm gonna tell you right
now and say it again twice so you hear me correctly.
He's for real. We knew he had the explosive hands,
we knew he liked to be a little bit more

(09:35):
of a showman in the octagon, and we knew he
had big time potential. We did not know that he
was gonna walk in there and play with Bryce Mitchell
like he was puppet. He played with him like a
child like he literally played with him like a dog,
no joke. He was barking and going crazy, and he
had no fear, no threat of anything that Bryce could

(09:56):
do to him. Bryce in this fight was just mesmeriz
by the amount of thing that John Silva was able
to do to Bryce. Try to take him down. He
was one for fourteen. It was like nothing, but John
Silva would just shuck him off, like, get off me, child,
you're not built for this. And in the striking department,
Bryce had some moments where he would land some things
and a nice hook here and a you know, a
kick to the body there or whatever, but it just

(10:17):
didn't affect John at all, and he would look over
at Bryce's corner and laugh with him, like, is this
guy all you got? You better bring somebody else, And
then he would try to touch gloves with Bryce, and
Bryce was just not having it. And then he John
Silva would look over to like the President of the
United States who was in attendance and talk to him
for a little bit, or Dana was on there. Just
he was just in complete control while just being so

(10:38):
loose and free, and he was landing big shots. But
then I thought at first it was a standing dars.
It wasn't. It was more so just an inverted grip
gillottine that he locked in. And Bryce went to sleep
for a second, and John Silva in the second round
wins by some mission, stands over and starts barking in
his fucking face, and you just, you know, you thought

(10:58):
with a win, Bryce Mitchell was was gonna catapult himself
into a you know, a bit of a cult following
superstardom because of all this stuff, you know, with the
Arkinsanity podcast and the Hitler talk. And I think that
groundswell of support that Bryce had immediately got siphoned and
fed into John Silva because he had that crowd on
its feet. They were barking, and that to me is crazy.

(11:20):
So he's gonna get a fast track at featherweight. I
don't know what's next for him. I forgot who he
said he potentially called out, but there's so many names,
there's so many matchups for him at that weight class.
So I couldn't care less give me John Silva and yeah,
you're Rodriguez. At this point, I don't know that that's
anywhere possible or near happening, but I'm just thinking of
stuff off the top of the dome based on what
happened next. And speaking of what happened next, Yeah, Rodriguez

(11:42):
a Patricio pit Bull side Patreco pit Bull, debuting in
the UFC after being a multiple time multiple division world
champion in Bellator, who yes, has never been thought of
as the same level as the UFC, but does potentially
have fighters and has in the past and even currently
had that have come over and done well in the UFC.
You're Michael Chandler's good debut, Michael vinam Page good debut,

(12:06):
and Patrico thought him to be better than both of
those guys combined, like he was a staple of Beelatore
and potentially looked at as one of the greatest featherweights
in lightweights walking the planet. Now he is a little
bit older now at thirty seven, but it was mainly
to me when I picked Patricio. I wasn't sure about
what Yeah year we would get because Yez in the
striking department has the potential to be the nastiest striker

(12:29):
on planet Earth in my opinion. And it's not even
singing super high praise for a guy that doesn't deserve it.
Just go and look at the game tape when he
is on. He has some of the most deadly techniques
known to man, and I think he threw all of
that in this fight. He threw spinning wheel kicks, he
threw the stomp kick, he threw the teeth to the stomach,
he threw the sidekick to the stomach, he threw the
hands upstairs, he threw the elbows as well. He had

(12:51):
everything going and he just looked like he was on
a different level than Patricio Pitbull tonight. And I hope
that you guys understand how how ridiculous that sounds. But
Yeah made it effortless almost in this fight. He was
deadly at range, he was devastating in close and he
just shut Patricio down completely. There were moments where Patricio
could grapple and I thought maybe more of that would

(13:12):
give him a better chance, but it was just shut
down city from Yeah Year. And what I really liked
was the yahyar gun on the mic afterward, and this
is such an underrated thing for fighters to do, and
he does it so well. He asked directly for what
he wanted next. He said, there's a UFC card coming
up in Mexico. I want to fight the winner of
the main event for the belt in Mexico in my backyard.

(13:33):
And it was such a great thing because, as you
guys remember, him and Diego Lopez already had be going
into this fight, so potentially you're thinking about a Yeah
Year and Diego Lopez should he win the main event
match up for the belt. I know that Mobzar is
waiting in the wings that he's gonna get the next shot,
and he does deserve the next shot. I'm just saying
for the for the context of what we're talking about
here in the call out nature, it was a good

(13:54):
idea for Yeah Year to do that off of that perform,
and we'll get to another reason that's probably not gonna
be a good idea to make next for year and
four the UFC in a little bit. Then we had
the co main event, and just as impressive to this
point as I thought the John Silva fight was. I
thought that was gonna be the most impressive performance we'd
see all night. I mean, Dominic grayis though there were
so many good ones, but I thought John Silva was

(14:15):
going to steal the show with that perform and I
was wrong fucking twice because the co main event featured
Michael Chandler and Patty Pimblett and yes, end up I
got it wrong. What's new? The wade curses real, the
casual concept is here, thank you, and you're welcome just
bet against me at this. But everybody and their mother
seemed to ride with Michael Chandler for this fight for
a couple of reasons. One the experience of Michael Chandler's

(14:38):
high level losses. And I think now is where I
stopped putting stock into consistently losing to high level fighters,
because yes, it does prove that you're worth that level,
but may not be worth the next level. So gate
keeper status potentially for Mike Chandler, and I think that's
kind of where he's lived without us really thinking it
over the last couple of years. But also just because
you don't have the experience level of a guy like

(14:59):
Mike Chandler, of a guy like Bryce Mitchell, and their
experience level is losing doesn't mean you're not ready for
the left. John Silva told us this. Patty Pimblet tonight
told us this. Hell Iliot Tuporia told us this against
a winner in Alex Volkanowski, against the champion. He was
ready before we knew he was. Patty Pimblet was ready,
ladies and gentlemen. I was on the boat of saying,

(15:20):
you know, I don't know if Paddy will ever be
top ten, top five championship material. I'm off that bandwagon now.
I'm jumping off with no parachute because I believe now, Patty,
I'm sorry, you are championship material in the UFC. I
am fully invested at this point. The weight cuts, I'm there, fat, Patty,
I think is gone. But even still, he looked fucking

(15:40):
massive in this fight, and he did exactly what he
said he was gonna do to Michael Chandler. I thought
early Michael would be dangerous and as the fight went on,
By the way a five round Comaine event they do this,
I'm not exactly sure why they do this. I know
that the fans like five round fights, but like in
a comin event with no belt, I don't know something
the UFC does baffling to me. I hope that both
guys got paid more because it was five rounds. But

(16:02):
we'll see. But Patty on the feet, while being awkward,
while having his hands super low, was tagging Mike with
jabs with Ryan hands with hooks. He was standing there
doing exactly what he said. He goes, listen, Mike's gonna
have an over and he's gonna have a jab. It's
not gonna be enough. I'm gonna pepper him with jabs.
I'm gonna hurt him. I'm gonna crack him, I'm gonna
take him down. I'm gonna hurt him there and eventually
in the fight. And that's what he did. I thought
Mike looked old. I'm sorry I thought he did. I

(16:23):
thought he looked lost a little bit. At one point
between rounds, Michael Chandler looked at Henry Hoof. Can't remember
what Hoof said to him, but essentially it was like,
I want you to step over, step over, and I
think he was trying to get him to step into
a right hand, the overhands that Mike wants to throw,
and he just looked at him and said, he's too
far away. I can't get to him. Patty was doing
a great job with his kicks as well, the teeps
up the middle, keeping Chandler at a distance that Patty

(16:45):
felt comfortable even while you know, showing some of that
awkward kind of low hand dance that he does. It
was effective, and it was effective continuously to the point
where finally when Mike decided, okay, like I'm getting beat
here pretty bad, he started to see it way on
him a lot more in this one, where he would
survive into later rounds and fights with Charles Olavera and others.

(17:06):
He he did look a bit weathered here, and it
did look like his gas tank was shot after about
a round and a half, and even here Patty Pimblet's
corner talking about it like that he's gassing quickly. Here
patt didn't even take the stool, sitting there like he
was barely tired at all. It didn't look like he
was tired out. And again in the second round, where
Mike was starting to tail off, Patty was starting to
get going more, especially with his striking. I thought he

(17:26):
won that round going away. And then we had the
third round where Mike was was at that point it
looked like grasping his straws a little bit. He was frustrated,
couldn't get to Paddy, couldn't land his significant strikes, couldn't
land the big shots. And because of all that, and
you heard the corner work talking about we gotta you know,
we gotta look for the overhand. I need you to
step over step in. He did that. He over exerted,
and Patty caught it with a big time knee and
drove Mike backwards. He got cut on the eye. It

(17:49):
was brutal, It was gruesome. Had he started walking forward
and found Mike on the cage, picked him up, threw
him down the ground. He just looked so much bigger
and stronger than Mike Chandler. Imagine saying that someone looked
stronger than Mike Chandler. Patty did. He got on top
of him. He started hammering, just twelve to six, just
big time elbows from the top and eventually gets to stop,
and a performance that I did not expect if anybody

(18:11):
would have told you, Patty by Ko, fair play to him,
because I did not have that on my beano card.
That was a performance that shut up a lot of
MMA online about not just this fight, but about Patty
in general, about his trajectory, about his ability to rise
as a contender, a real contender at one fifty five,
because before this, it's been the controversy with Jerry Gordon.
It's been the lackluster performance versus Tony Ferguson, and the

(18:33):
pleasantly surprising performance versus Bobby Green. But this right here,
this performance versus Mike Chandler, who yeah, okay, Charles the
first time did that to Mike Chandler after, you know,
Mike hurt him, but he didn't dominate Mike that way.
Yachi took him to a decision Lavera again with the
decision the second time around. But I don't know, it
just felt like you put Patty Pimblet in the pantheon
of big time fighters at fifty five right away, and

(18:55):
on the mic again, fair play to Patty called him
all out again. He said, yeah, you know, me versus
Charles is the fight. He's got the most submission wins
in UFC history. I consider myself a great grappler. Let's
run it. He called for Justin and Dustin and even
as he said, posh boy, armand Serukian, which again I
love all the fight, but it seemed like there was
a little bit of extra venom there for armand so sure,

(19:17):
even though I don't think they're gonna I think Armin's
probably gonna get, you know, a shot at the belt
at some point, but still I would like it. Dustin Pourier,
even though I've heard he's rumored to fight Max Holloway
in a retirement fight. And then you have Justin Gaateche,
who's also potentially looking at a title fight regardless whoever
they don't pick. Set him up with Patty. He's ready
for this moment. And honestly, again, I didn't think I
would be saying this about Patty Pimblett, but I'm starting

(19:38):
to believe that Patty is ascending the championship level. Does
he win the belt off Islam, I'm not gonna go
that far to say that, but I'm not ruling out
a championship appearance from Patty pimblet in the early part
of twenty twenty six. If he keeps going like this,
he's gonna need one more big win. If he beats
Charles Lavera, I think you put him in a title fight,
he beats Justin Gache, I think you gotta put him
in a title fight. He beats Dustin Poier, he may

(19:59):
need more after that. But if he beats Armin Tzarouki
and you put him in a title fight, so one more,
Paddy can get it done. We could be looking at
a Paddy Pimlet title run in early twenty twenty six.
And then we get two our main events of the evening,
and again I will own up to it. I picked
against the main event. The Wade Curse exists, YadA, YadA,
casual concept. Let me know in the comments. But Diego
Lopez taken on Alexander Volkanovs. That's right, Alexander the Great

(20:22):
Volkanovski widely considered to be already the best one hundred
and forty five pound fighter ever, already multiple title defenses
at one forty five. You know the story. Three wins
over Max Holloway, you get it. But coming off two
bad losses, two bad KOs, one at one forty five,
one at one fifty five to be fair against Eliot
Taporia and it's on Makichev. But again there's that idea

(20:44):
of losing versus the best as you get older. Does
that equate not having the experience at the highest level
for a game fighter like Diego Lopez. Well we found
out this time it did because this fight started and
you got vintage Alexander Volkanovsky. You got him circling away
from the power and of Diego Lopez. You got the
low kicks, you got the teeps, you got the jab,
you got the feints, you got the movement, and then

(21:07):
he got a little bit of the nasty Alexander Volkanovsky.
Because you knew in this fight, Diego Lopez's best chance
to win was to push forward and rough Alexander Volkanovsky
up and get him to exchange. That was the goal,
I assume from everybody's outside view and also his corner.
You're gonna have to get Vulk to exchange instead of
allowing him to pick you apart. Because if he's able
to pick you apart, he's gonna beat guys that got

(21:29):
him to exchange and made him pay for it to
Pouria and Islam. Even though Islam with the head kick
that was just a nasty head kick, they made him
pay for it, and they be Diego Lopez had to
do the same with maybe not necessarily the level of
skill and experience to do that. And that's what we
saw in this fight. Even though Diego Lopez, let me
tell you something, that chin is made of metals that
aren't discovered here on Earth. I'm telling you right now
because Volkanovsky, like I said he was, he was picking him,

(21:51):
poking from the outside, but then he decided to get
a little nasty and step into some shots and in
the pocket they would trade and Alexander Volkanovsky would win.
He would win exchanges overhands, left hooks. He was battering
Diego Lopez, and as soon as Diego would get hit,
he would just go, yeah, bring that shit. And I
was like, oh my god, the man's chin is made

(22:12):
of adamantium. Because he was taking overhands to the jaw
and just like cool jabs walk through it. Left hook.
I will say, early in the fight, a left hook
clipped Diego and it almost felt like that moment became
a little too big when he got clipped with the
left hook, he went, oh, okay, I'm not invincible, but
then regained that invincibility throughout the fight, because while Alexander
was winning the first round, we'd go to the second

(22:35):
and he's winning the entirety of the second round, battering
Diego Lopez. I mean, the significant strike difference already in
the second round was widening. The gap was whiter than
your mother's. Never mind Jego just taking shots walking into range.
Finally decides to push forward with a double jab right
hand and cracks Alexander Volkanowski not only off his shoulder
to the temple, but partially blocked by the shoulder to

(22:56):
the temple, and he puts Volkanovsky on the mat. This
was one of the those moments you went, oh my god,
as he's just gonna steam roll through all this work,
that Vulk has done the great performance to start the
fight and be able to walk him down and put
power on him like iliot Seforia did. Fair play to Volkanowski.
He pops back to his feet, He survives a bit
of a flurry there from Lopez. He even starts to

(23:18):
swing with him again, and the round ends and the
next couple of rounds while Diego Lopez he put on
a great performance for him, I just you know, he
got hit way too much here. His head was on
the center line. He was almost inviting punches, which again
is a strategy in its own right to say, listen,
this is the only way I can win skill for skill.
I'm not gonna beat this guy on the outside, so
I have to invite him, goat him in to exchanging
with me. But even in the exchanges, he was getting

(23:40):
pieced up three, four and five. Honestly, I had this
as a four to one win. You can even say
five zero skunk for Alexander Volkanowski and I called it
a masterclass on Twitter because that's what it was. The
Only part of the fight I thought he lost, or
part of the fight I thought he lost, were a
couple of the exchanges, like the one where Diego Lopez
knocked him down. There was another where cracked him, hit

(24:00):
him with a jab, kind of blinded alex in the
lead eye. He ducked and Diego Lopez cracked him with
an uppercut as Volkanovski landed an over him and pushed
him into the cage and tried to follow up. But
even in those moments, Volkanowski found a way to circle,
get back to where he was comfortable and get the
fight back on his terms. But the exchanges were won
by Alexander Volkanovski and what shots landed more cleanly, more often.

(24:23):
Diego Lopez would trade like six or seven punches for one,
which is in his nature right. His strikes given versus
strikes taken per minute is a four to four even rate,
where Volkanovski's like six to three. So that made sense.
I will say again, Diego Lopez stuffed damn near every
takedown from Volk, kept the fight on its feet and
tried to walk alex down in moments. I just I
felt he needed a little more volume. I felt he

(24:45):
needed a little bit more forward pace versus just waiting
on Vulk to start the action and then trying to counter.
I hope that Diego will take from this fight that
he can't just get it punched in the face continuously
and expect that to allow him to gain range, does
need to implement some head movement and start the exchanges
with his jab and potentially some kicks as well in there.
But again, a solid showing for Diego Lopez. He was

(25:07):
gained the entire fight, and outside of that, you know,
potential devastation based on the fact that Diego was willing
to take punches to get to rain. Volkanovski controlled this fight.
He landed almost one hundred more significant strikes, which is
insane to say, but it's true, and showed me and
a lot of people that Volks still got a lot
left in the tank. Maybe the first fighter under one
hundred and seventy pounds to win a belt after the

(25:29):
age of thirty five. That's super impressive in its own right.
His post fight speech was amazing, talking about how adversity
is a blessing and how to overcome something like that.
You you don't get that feeling anywhere else in life,
when people count you out and you're able to overcome
it and prove a lot of people wrong. He did
that here And you know what's next for Volkanovski again,
you have MOVs are weighted and ready for that title

(25:51):
shot and probably, you know, if you look back on
this after you know, beating Diego Lopez rightfully probably should
have gotten the title shot next. So Volkanovski and and
MOVs are next up. I'm with it. I'm down for
Yaya Rodriguez creeping his way back to the title again.
That fight went Vulk's way almost entirely the first time around,
but we know with things happening the way I have

(26:12):
and how Yayer is back on a winning street. His
offense is so fucking deadly. It's just more about ken
Yayer protect himself from the grappling exchanges because Vulk is
a complete MMA fighter. I don't care if he's thirty
five seventy five lakers in five. That man can still
fight at an elite level, not just with the hands,
but he's got the takedowns, he's got the grappling. He

(26:33):
switches them up beautifully and just what a performance and
what a night of fighting. This card is what you
love about the UFC when they can stack a card
like this and they had the Who's who let me
tell you, Trump was there that looked like the whole
freaking Republican Party was there. All the celebs were out,
and this card delivered the names, the fights, the performances.
This is why we fell in love with the UFC,

(26:55):
and this is why I am back to covering it,
because damn I love this shit. Thank you guys for watching.
Let me know in the comments what you thought about
UFC three fourteen, and I will see you on the
next one, because what happens next for Alexander Volkanowski, for
Patty Pember, Yeah you're Rodriguez for Dominic Rays, for John Silva,
for Marco Tulio. I don't have those answers, but UFC
feels back, so I guess we'll find out