Cold Streak Chronicles

Jack discusses the fights from UFC 327 as well as how his parlays turned out. Listen to this weeks episode to see whether or not he'll be able to pay rent this month...

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome back to the Brain Bash Podcast. Thank you for joining me. We got a lot to talk about today from the events of this past Saturday night with UFC 327. So we're going to be talking about every fight from that, actually. I took notes on all of it. We're going to talk about every fight. We haven't done that in a while. The past few, we've just been talking about the main cards. But this was stacked from beginning to end, and I just wanted to cover the whole thing, so I made sure to watch from the beginning in the early prelims on. Feeling good. Feeling good. Ready for a great pod today. I just watch oh my gosh. I'll get into the end of it later. I don't want to talk about that right now, but we'll start with the beginning, the early prelims. Charles Radke and Francisco Prado. A really cool fight to start the night. Very entertaining opening boat. A very dominant performance from Charles in this fight, pretty much all around. He had great top control in the first round, and he was super active the whole time. He was never boring to watch. He was always trying to find that Kimura. And he was always when he wasn't trying to, he was striking to just keep Prado uncomfortable and try to keep him from, you know, trying to get out of the position. So he had ground control for like those first four minutes. Uh, but he did take a few big shots early. But besides that, it was pretty much just Charles Round. He definitely took that first. And then round two, you could definitely tell that Prado was a lot more tired because he was getting dominated on the ground. And so he was a lot more cautious with with what he was throwing because he didn't want to get taken down again. And because he was slower and more cautious, all of his his strikes were just so much more telegraphed. Um but yeah, because of that, Radke just read him like a book, and he got to his hips pretty easily, uh, found a takedown, and he got back control pretty quick right after that. I think Prado was just dog tired at this point. And he was kind of just le resting on the ground a little bit, trying to conserve his energy, because then he had a big burst, Prado did, uh, and switched position on Radke towards halfway through that second. But I mean, even while Radke was on bottom, he was still so active and just throwing so many elbows, and he actually cut Prado pretty bad from on the ground. So honestly, that second round definitely goes to Radke as well. He had that control time, but he also landed the more significant strikes and opened them up from the bottom, which was crazy. But definitely that second round going to him, I think, as well. After that, I actually don't know what the judges said on the scorecard, but um by this third round, the the there was so much blood getting into Prado's eye that I thought it would slow him down a lot, but he really didn't. He's he was pushing the pace early in the f the third round, and he found some huge body shots pretty early on, and he he was moving with intention, like he knew he needed a knockout and couldn't mess around. But with all that tenacity and you know that sense of urgency, he he landed a nasty eye poke. It was so bad. It almost looked like he did it on purpose, and I remember Joe Rogan said at one point, it looked like the three Stooges when they eye poked each other like curly, and it really didn't look like that. He stuffed, I would say half his index finger went into Radke's eye socket. It was right in the corner, it was disgusting. But I was really glad to see that Goddard took a point for that. Mark Goddard is probably one of my favorite refs right now, if not my favorite. And uh uh DC and Rogan and Annik were all talking about this. Like, if we just automatically take away a point for eye pokes from now on, no one's gonna do it anymore. Eve um I know it's kind of severe, but i if you start taking them away indefinitely, people aren't gonna be sticking those hands out, extending their fingers anymore. They're gonna keep it tight and play by the rules a little bit more. Because they've you know, they've always had that debate whether they should change the gloves or not, but I think that would be too much. It would be prohibiting ground game or like grappling and things like that. But I love that Goddard took that point away. Um I think that was a great decision. And then um after that, Radke was definitely tight. His eye was pretty messy, and he was able to get out at the Prado at the top of the control, but at the very last second, halfway through it was reversed again, and Prado got a couple more shots in, but I didn't I mean obviously not enough to win him that whole fight. So Prado his closest round was round three, but even that was we don't know if he even got that one. It was a close one. So Charles Radke ended up winning via decision. Uh great opening fight for the for the card. Very stacked early prelims, like all of these fights were really good in the beginning. The second one uh we had after that was Kelvin Gastorum and Vincent Vincente Luque. And this fight seemed like it was going completely one way from the beginning with ca uh Gastroom just put up a ton of pressure right from the start, and landed some massive shots, got a takedown early on, and with um two m uh I think it was around two minutes left in the first round, Luque just landed an absolute bomb and put Kelvin right onto his ass, and then Vincente just he capitalized immediately, went for the Darce, which is in his resume one of his best chokes, and he got that finish in the first. And I was about to bet on this fight too, uh, on Kelvin, and I backed out last second because I wasn't so dis I wasn't so sure as I was before, and I'm really glad that I did. Uh so just some really entertaining first two fights to start the night. And then this next fight, there was a lot of controversy with this one, and it really pissed me off. I'm actually still extremely upset about this fight for a few reasons. Um so first of all, Chris Padilla won this fight, and they he so I he won this fight, and then about two or three fights later, they said the draw the scorecard was messed up and the fight the fight was actually a draw. And this made absolutely no sense to me, because first of all, that's embarrassing for an organization as big as this to make a mistake that severe. That's first of all, that's embarrassing. But second of all, um, we're gonna get into it in a second, but there was a massive eye poke at the end of this the third in this by Markel Maderos that uh he ended up having a point deducted for. And even before that point deduction, Chris Padilla was had twice as many significant strikes throughout the fight than him. He was wholeheartedly whooping on him, he was beating the brakes off of him, and I will say Maderos was landing some huge elbows getting out of the clinch, and he was doing a lot, but um, I don't think it was enough to give him any of the rounds. I think that Padilla wholeheartedly won the first two rounds, and then in the third, might have won that third round as well, but definitely won after Madeiros got that point deducted. So when they go into the decision afterwards, I can't remember if it was a split decision or what have you, but I was uh wholeheartedly expecting Chris Padilla to win. I thought it was so cut and dry. I thought he won the fight without the point deduction, and then they said it, they announced that he won and went on with their way, and when they came out those few fights later to say that they made a mistake and it was a draw, I was beyond baffled. And it immediately made me think to Bruce Buffer during that Crispadia fight, after he talked to the judges, they said he seemed disgruntled, and they said like somebody over there was making a face like that can't be right. So that's why I was a little nervous when they were coming up to decision. I thought they were gonna say that somehow Madeiros had won. But maybe there was a miscommunication and he was confused as to how it was a tie, and then it s told somebody that it wasn't a tie. I don't know. Obviously, there was some sort of miscommunication between the judges, Bruce, and whoever else is involved with that situation, but it was just really, really weird all around, and it seemed like almost foul play type weird, where it's like, why he Chris Padilla so obviously won this fight. Why are we coming out multiple fights later to say that it was a tie? Like what happened to where like who told what did Dana whisper to somebody? Who in Madaros' family paid Dana to go over and say, hey, you gotta fix this, you gotta change that? That's that was a really weird portion of the night for me. I the and that pissed me off a lot because I had a bet I needed Chris Padilla. Well, it didn't end up coming to fruition because I needed Azamat to get a knockout at the end of the night, but I had a bet with Chris Padilla and then uh the Charles Radke fight as well, and they both went how I needed them to, and then it got nulled because of that. I wouldn't have won anyways, so I guess it doesn't matter, but that was a really weird fight. Chris Padilla definitely won. I felt terrible for him. Uh another parlay buster for me. I had Tatiana Suarez going the distance on this and winning by decision uh versus Lupi Godinez. But instead, uh Tatiana ended up getting that finish. She got the rear naked choke submission, but I mean Lupi came into it with some great strikes. It's not like she was behind from the whole the from the beginning. She came out guns ablazing, dropped Suarez pretty early and landed some huge shots. But when they were on the ground, Tatiana was just absolutely crushing her. And she got her back in that second round and she found that rear naked choke, which that it screwed over one of my parlays. Um yeah, that was the one that I had Charles Radke needed Tatiana to take it to the decision, and then I had Cub Swanson winning. Uh I'm not gonna be able to pay rent this month, probably. I was so close. I had three parlays that should have hit, and they were all off by one. And the last one, which we'll talk about at the end of the episode, really still haunts me today. It's messing with me bad. But this is a very action-packed card, so I can't I can't complain about a finish. It was a very fun fight. And so was the one after it. Speaking of finishes, we had Matush Gamron, Nesteban Ribovics, and Gamrot was um he was super dominant in round one, and he got a few different takedowns, and when he would get them, he was super active, getting back control both times, and didn't r just was so active, in fact, that he didn't really give Esteban much of a chance to do really anything. He landed some huge strikes on top towards the the end uh of the first round, excuse me. He's landed some big ones at the end of the first round and definitely took that. And it only took Gamrot about a minute and a half to get it back to the ground at the beginning of the second round. Bruh Rib uh Ribovics got up for a second, but then just immediately Gamrot took him down again, rushed for that back, and he was just completely outclassing him and throwing him around and doing whatever he wanted with him. He was he was just stronger, smarter, and more skilled in this fight. Flipped him around eventually after having back control for a while, secured the top, and he just smothered him. He was literally all over him, just not letting him do anything, and got that arm triangle. He did that at the last minute of the second round, I believe it was, and ended up getting that submission. So back-to-back submissions and the trend continued for this card just being ex extremely exciting in every aspect. And sometimes I get a I I'll admit, sometimes the lady fights I don't love watching as much because they're just um I always feel there's less of a risk of a knockout just because they're so much lighter and everything, and they usually go to decision. But when you see uh uh women's fight submission, and then into another submission right after that, at the beginning of the card, it's like, oh my god, you know it's gonna be a good night. So this was a really fun card right from the beginning. And then right after that, we go into Kevin Holland and Randy Brown, and Kevin Holland did a really good job in this fight. He did a really good job really chopping down at that lead leg of Randy Brown, and he got him to the ground fairly easily, but not before Brown landed some nice shots of his own on the feet, too. At the end of the first round, while Randy was on his back as well, he did land some nice head kicks from below, but Kevin was definitely the dominant one of the first. And um Randy Brown had a lot of heart in this second round, man. He really looked like he was unbelievably close to submission and the sh the heart that he displayed to survive this was absolutely phenomenal, but it was kind of all for naught because when he did get back to his feet, his that lead leg was just so decimated. He was just having the hardest time moving around. And because he was so slow, Holland was just kind of whooping him around however he wanted to. He was just slapping him in the face at the end of the round while they were up against the cage, completely disrespecting him. But Holland was Kevin Holland was so relaxed and dominant in this fight, and just so all around, well-rounded, and Randy was trying to hold Kevin in the clinch against the fence at the end because he was so exhausted, but it just it stunk because he he really needed to do a lot more at the end of that fight, and he just really had nothing left in the tank between that lead leg being worn out and being uh just completely fatigued from the non-stop onslaught of Kevin. He was just he couldn't do anything else but clinch and he couldn't really put up much of an effort to try to come back and win that fight. So Kevin Holland ended up getting that one in a very dominant performance. Next we had Aaron Pico and Patricio Pitbull, and this was a pretty big moment for Pico in his career. It was just a different Aaron Pico than I feel we've seen in the past, where he was just looking much more well-rounded. He was a lot faster and sharper, and most importantly, he was very composed in this fight. Uh he was just super patient and he didn't rush constantly like he has in the past. He was doing a good job picking and choosing shots, and he remained in complete control for the most part through all three rounds. And that's not to say that Patricio didn't have his moments as well. He definitely did. Um it just seemed that he was waiting a little too long to find openings instead of really creating them himself. And Pico was landing just clean shots early and had a huge advantage in speed. I think that was the biggest thing. And he got the momentum early and kept it going throughout the fight, and just almost seemed like a a younger version of Pitbull, honestly. Just that's that's the thing, younger and faster. So sometimes being seasoned and having all that experience can only help you so much when uh the young generation is in their prime and at their top speed. But then there's other situations where the old heads will still prevail, and that experience does come through, just like Cub Swanson, baby. Cub Swanson retirement fight versus Nate Landware was right after that. And uh Cub, shout out to you, man. He put out an absolute master class in his final performance, landed some crazy strikes and just j similar to the Kevin Holland fight, was just wearing on that lead leg of Nate and had him injured like easily into the beginning of the first. He made Nate look like a deer in headlights, man, and finally got that knockout with just the picture perfect final performance for Cub. I mean, a knockout in the first round. I don't know if it gets much better than that, and then they had obviously had a beautiful tribute for him afterwards. That's how you go out on top. After that, we had probably the most boring fight of the night, most certainly. It was a snooze fest for for sure. I really was not happy with this fight. It was Dominic Reyes and Johnny Walker. This is one that I really thought Dominic Reyes was going to completely dominate. I had him in my parlay as well. A parlay that was still alive at this point, so this was a parlay for so the parlays I still had alive at this point were Chris Padilla to win, which they just nulled that. They voided it because of the miss the mex up. And I had needed Charles Radke to win by decision, but then I needed Azamat Mirzakanov to win by KO, which didn't end up happening, but the other one that I still had alive was Dominic Reyes to win, needed Josh Hokett to win, and Yuri Prohoshka to win, which at this point had just started, so obviously he was still alive, so I needed Reyes in this fight, and it was a fairly close first round between these two, but Johnny definitely had more significant strikes, but uh damage-wise, fairly even between the two fighters. Dominic landed a huge left hand that really rattled Johnny, and he started on the offensive a little bit. You know, he landed a few back-to-back significant shots that gave Johnny some big reactions, but really outside of that, the f the second round was just as boring as the first. Uh Walker did land a big shot and towards the end and went for a takedown that was unsuccessful, but really not a lot of highlights in this fight for the most part. And uh the third round was pretty much just a twin to that second. Very boring, not a lot of action. I was just really bummed out by this because, you know, two guys that kind of pride themselves in being able to knock people out put up a very lacklustered performance, and um despite losing to Carlos Olberg in his last fight, I think Reyes has been doing really well lately, and I was really expecting him to have a dominant performance in this one, so I was a little surprised. But while that one was very boring, the fight after blows it out of the water and really makes up for that snooze fest. And this was the one that I was probably looking forward to the most, Curtis Blades and Josh Hokett. I friggin' love Josh Hokett, man. I know he's a lot, but he's so entertaining and he's what the UFC needs right now. I mean, in in this fight, both fighters showed such an incredible amount of heart just to stay in this. This was one of the craziest heavyweight heavyweight fights I've ever seen. And I mean, Joe and DC and Annik were all saying the same thing. This was just balls to the wall, insane from start to finish. It was so entertaining, so fun. Uh Hokit throughout this, I mean, it started out, he had a huge speed advantage, but with that speed advantage, he was also wicked reckless, and he came out flying from the beginning and had Curtis on wobbly legs right from the start, and it was just an all-out assault from the beginning from Hokit. His game plan was definitely to take Blades out early because he knows Curtis Blades has that incredible knockout power and he doesn't want to stand toe-to-toe with him longer than he has to. But that plan from Hokit did not end up coming to fruition at all. Cause I think that Curtis was a little bit more tough than he had anticipated, and while Josh did have him bleeding really bad in the first round, Curtis was able to recover and got some much needed takedowns. But when he did, Josh was able to get up both times fairly easily, but it gave Blades that time to recover from just getting absolutely rocked. After that, Curtis just started throwing from his ass and landed some huge shots that looked like he was about to put Hoket out, but he stayed on his feet. That was the thing about this fight. There was really no knockdowns. If I remember correctly, I don't think there was any knockdowns. Uh these guys were just throwing haymakers and landing bombs, but none of them went down. It was unbelievable. For sure, one of the most insane starts to a heavyweight fight I've ever seen, or a fight in general. Both of them were extremely hurt at different times throughout that first, but found a way to survive, unbelievably. Josh Hokit was scaring the The hell out of me though. He's just such a psycho the way he first of all, he was flipping the Curtis off the whole fight, in between all the exchanges, flipping him off the literally the entire time. And while he's while he's getting his shit rocked and he's completely exhausted. But then not only that, but in between rounds, he just refuses to sit on the stool, doesn't have any water in between round in in between the first and second rounds. It was unbelievable. They didn't like give him ice or anything. And you know, Curtis looked like he was f a little bit more fresh and ready for round two, while Hokit looked like a drunk uncle on Thanksgiving. It was absolutely insane. He was on wobbly legs coming out. I don't know why he didn't just sit down. But despite that, he landed some huge right hands in the second, and his takedown defense, despite being so exhausted, was amazing. He opened up blades even more and just had blades against the fence, gassed out of his mind. And honestly, both of them were gassed out of their minds. They both seemed like they were on the verge of passing out from exhaustion. But Hokit, with about two minutes left, landed an extraordinary combo. He not only was Blades still on his feet after eating this combo, after being exhausted after two rounds, but he retaliated and had a huge combo himself and sent Josh flying back on his heels, trying to escape. And from there in the clinch, Curtis just started landing some huge body shots, which when you're in a fight like that, you know, a war between heavyweights where you're both that exhausted, those body shots really pay a toll. They're you know, they're very taxing rather. I think that Hokit really f agreed with that, and he took a page from Curtis's book and started landing some huge body shots himself, some knees in there too, and he started piecing him up with left jabs, just picture perfect left jabs right on the chin of Curtis, and was picking him apart on the scorecard for a while at the end of the second there. But I'll give it to Curtis Blades. He wasn't backing down at all, and he refused to go down despite all of the elbows that Josh was hitting him with in the clinch. Josh, I mean, that's not to say Josh wasn't on the verge of getting knocked out himself, like over and over and over. Or excuse me, I I guess it shouldn't say knocked out, but like passing out, rather. He was literally on the verge of passing out, but he was always so close to finding that knockout on Curtis, but every time he would get that combo where he would start landing, he was just too tired to finish it and find that final shot. But overall, very little complaints. This was one of the best, if not the best, heavyweight fight of all time. And if you told me after I watched that first round, you said, hey, that fight went the distance, by the way. I would never believe you. So unbelievable. Uh shout out Josh Hokett. Also, crazy announcement after that. I I'm so excited to see Josh Hokett and Derek Lewis at the White House card. They're gonna make that horrible, horrible card just a little bit better. And for the co-main event of the evening, we had Azimot, Mirzakanov, and Paulo Costa. And this is another fight that was a parlay breaker for me. Mirzakanov, I had him winning this fight, and this would have been a $90 win for me, so I would have been able to get a couple Domino's pizzas, make that last a couple days, and then maybe I'd be close to paying rent, but probably not. This is a tough last month, guys. I'm really on the home stretch here. I gotta make a Patreon, so all of my five subscribers can subscribe to that. Yeah, that didn't come to fruition. But Mirzakanov, he did do a good job pushing the pace from the beginning. But Kosta was just really picking apart that lead leg and throwing some nasty leg kicks and mixing in a few body kicks as well that were just super effective throughout the whole fight, not just the first. Costa was so efficient in this first round and just looked he looked really comfortable in his body. He threw 88% on strikes in the first while the whole time defending against Azimat's non-stop assault where he was just pushing the pace the whole time. I think moving up in weight is going to be a really good thing for Paulo Costa. I think uh middleweight's just too too small for him, and light heavyweight is it really fits his figure more. And even as a light heavyweight, he looks absolutely massive. Cardio has been kind of an issue for him as of late, so moving up in weight, he won't have to cut as much, and it'll be a lot better for him. His body will be more natural, and I think this is gonna be better, and we're gonna see a a very skilled Paulo Costa coming forward. He landed some Costa landed some huge elbows when he eventually got Azamat to the ground, and he oh man, he did have him looking wobbly for a while. But while he did have him looking wobbly, Costa was also looking pretty tired in that second round, and I I can imagine it's hard not to be when you have someone like Azamat who's rushing at you the whole time, but Costa was breathing really heavy, throwing a lot less than he did in that first round, but he was still landing those massive body kicks. He was definitely visibly gassed. I saw him with two and a half minutes left, he was looking up at the clock, which is not a good sign when you have that much time left. Mirzakanov, he had him hurt pretty good with two minutes, and Kosa went to the clinch, but you know, Azamat was able to throw him off, get out of it, and at the end of the round, Costa was able to f turn it around a little bit again, and he got into a scrappy exchange on top where he busted Azimat's nose real good, and it was he kind of evened it up at the end where it was sort of a one-sided round before that. So a good finish for the round from Paulo Costa. He came into the third, somehow looking so much more fresh than he did in the second. I guess he conserved energy from not throwing as much, but he was looking a lot like a lot newer than he did coming into the second round in the third. Uh he landed two huge head kicks and a few left hands that looked s uh just crisp and picture perfect. Azumat partially blocked one of them, but he definitely ate one of them pretty good. But he's a tough guy. He ate it all pretty well, kept going, but certainly didn't have that bounciness that he had before. And I think when he partially blocked one of those kicks, um he used his left arm to do so, and it seemed like he injured it pretty badly because he backed up, and when Paulo rushed at him, kind of just fell to the ground and gave up. And I think that you could see him for a while trying to fight with that left arm, but it was kind of sagging in front of him, and he couldn't do much with it. He couldn't throw anything with it. So I think he just understood the situation and went down and cut his losses. A really, really good performance from Paulo Costa, and I think that he should definitely stick with this because I think he should stick with this light heavyweight weight class because I heard him talking about it in the post interview, and he was like, We're you know, me and my my team we're trying to figure out what's the best for me to fight at right now. I don't think it's a question, dude. Like uh his cardio has always been a problem, so that second round didn't really surprise me, but the way he got his second wind in the third round, and he's in a natural, more natural state of his body, I think this is the place that he should be, and I think he's gonna perform really well here. And speaking of the light heavyweight division, we have a new champion, ladies and gentlemen, in one of the crazier finishes I've seen in a while. I can't believe this. I mean, Olberg, as pissed as I was, I would have won 150 bucks if Yuri won this fight from the Dominic Reyes Josh Hoket Yuri bet that I placed. But I have all the respect in the world for Olberg. He came out and he started punishing Yuri's left his uh lead calf from the beginning. And but Yuri responded to this pretty well, I think, because he kind of turned that around and started dominating the lead leg of Olberg himself, and enough so that uh Olberg had to switch stances and ended up injuring that leg later in the fight. And Yuri was able to get a takedown at the beginning there as well. Or excuse me, not a takedown, uh knockdown. And he was able to kick that lead leg, get him to switch stances, injure it, and it was just it seemed like the fight was completely over after that. Olberg couldn't even stand. He would go to throw a kick, and then he couldn't stand on that leg, and just he would collapse. It had no stability, seemingly no chance, but that really did not matter for Mr. Carlos Olberg, and he was able to find just when Yuri came in, he smelled blood, he went after him. Olberg found the perfect left counter that it was just a perfect left hook that went right onto Yuri's jaw, and it looked like Yuri was knocked out going on the way down. It was unbelievable. I literally won the fight with one leg. If they went into the second round, I bet they would have called it and they it would have had to be over because he would have I mean his calf looks like it exploded. Something in his leg exploded. And he survived the round, not only survived, but found the knockout to become the new light heavyweight champion of the world. So congratulations, Carlos Olberg, and to my friend Yuri Prohashka. I know you're gonna be back to find that title again soon, so don't be down, man. I know you're listening to this probably. But honestly, one of my favorite cards I've seen in a long time. It was really from start to finish unbelievably entertaining. Lots of finishes, but all the ones that weren't finishes were complete wars from start to finish. We had a new heavyweight classic in Josh Hokett versus Curtis Blades, and if he didn't sustain too much brain damage, we might have a new face of the heavyweight franchise someday in Josh Hokett. That is, if uh Alex Pereira retires anytime soon after he takes that title. But that's all. I wanted, like I said, guys, I like to keep it short from now on. So about 45 minutes maximum for episodes. Try to keep it around 30 to 40. So we're just gonna keep it to that for today. And then next week, we're going to get into the next card we have, which is Gilbert Burns and Mike Mallet for the next fight night. So thank you very much for joining me on this episode of Brain Bash, and we'll see you next week. Thank you.