MMA Hangout: UFC 309 Preview
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All right, fight fans, welcome in. UFC 309 is on the table for this Saturday. This is the MMA Hangout presented by Coyvron. I had to bring in the big guns. I had to bring Luke Thomas in. The monumentous occasion of a Jon Jones fight. Does that still have the same luster, Luke, that it once did?

It will still be very, very big. It is Madison Square Garden. John's not headlining by accident. The heavyweight title for the UFC is on the line. But no, it doesn't quite represent what it once was, in part because he's been gone for quite some time. This fight was supposed to happen a year ago. He got injured. So just on that level, it's been delayed. He had basically a three-year absence from the sport before the Cyril Ghosn fight. So time away doesn't really help keep the fire stoked or even help the newer fans who have come along since the pandemic-ish kind of time

to really know you so it's weird right like on the one hand you cannot call this some like minimal affair that would hardly be correct but there was all the time off aforementioned the guy who was fighting steve bimiochich another guy who was massively accomplished arguably the most accomplished ufc heavyweight of all time but he hasn't won a fight in five years and we haven't seen him in four there are a lot of people who are not necessarily as hyped for this as we could have

been or would otherwise be given different circumstances. And I think it's totally understandable. Can you make the case for it? Why this is a big fight and why this is something that people who, if they did come around during the pandemic, don't know the lore of John Jones. They only know him from the headlines of him doing things that are probably not great for the promotion, not great for his own marketing. And then you kind of have Stipe who, if you're a casual or if you're somebody that came in during the pandemic, you know him from like beer commercials. You don't know Stipe as probably the greatest heavyweight of all time.

Well, I mean, I kind of agree with where they're at. I mean, everyone's going to have a slightly different perspective, so I don't know where everyone is. But if people have not necessarily the most amount of hype, I kind of understand that. I mean, listen, if we're talking about Jon Jones at light heavyweight, I don't think I've ever seen a fighter dominate a weight class so much.

the way that he did. Anderson Silva eventually went out on his shield against Chris Weidman. That never happened against Jon Jones. Demetrius Johnson lost to Henry Cejudo. Close fight, but you just didn't ever see that against Jon Jones. And even Habib Nurmagomedov, who was even more dominant in fights, just didn't have as long of a reign. GSP was finished twice at welterweight. These are just things that did not happen to Jon Jones. You've just never seen a guy with that amount of ability and that amount of dominance over that amount of

time. It's unusual. But in reality, everything in heavyweight has been the opposite of that. Now, when he fought Cyril Ghosn, that wasn't necessarily his fault that the fight kind of fell flat. He did his work very quickly and Ghosn fought very terribly, but it just wasn't a huge declaration of where he was. Plus, I already mentioned the time off. What they're trying to sell you is they're trying to sell you, hey, it's the greatest light heavyweight of all time who is currently the heavyweight champion fighting the greatest UFC heavyweight of all time.

And on some level, that is true. But because these guys are older, because Stipe is so far removed, and of course, John has said that he's basically not going to try and unify against the interim champion no matter what happens on Saturday, it's leaving something of a bad taste in everyone's mouth. I'm not here to declare it's some irrelevant fight. By virtue of the fact that the title is on the line and John Jones is fighting, it is worth paying attention to, certainly. But if people feel a little bit differently about this or they're not all the way hyped

I'm actually not in a position to lecture them about it. John's been the, the promotion around the fight has been interesting because it hasn't really been about John versus steep. It's been about John. Why won't he fight Tommy Aspinall? Right. And you talk about the unification of the belt and it's like,

Tom right now is on a different stratosphere than everybody feels like in the heavyweight division. It's like his division to win. The problem is if he never gets the chance to unify the belt against the champion, how does this work? How does Dana like fuse these two guys together when John, his like most prized possession in the UFC is not going to fight probably the most hyped heavyweight we've seen in a while. Yeah.

I don't know what to say. Like, what do we do? What are we doing? Yeah, we, here's what is likely to happen. I suspect John will win this weekend and either he'll retire or he's going to hunt for a fight against Alex, but a, the existing two Oh five champ. Now, whether that will happen, I don't know that that part's a little harder to say, but I do suspect he'll win. And if he does, and he wants to get the fight against Poetan, that's Alex for folks who may not know, uh,

He has claimed he'll just drop the belt, in which case they will just make Tom Aspinall the champion. Something similar happened a few years ago in 2017 when St. Pierre came out of retirement, beat Michael Bisping up a weight class at middleweight, and then no longer fought again. They just made Robert Whitaker the champion at that point, right? But Robert Whitaker never got a chance to...

to use the existing celebrity and the star power of GSP and a potential victory over him to boost his profile. And this is ultimately not great for the fans, to be honest with you, in part because you're being robbed of a very good fight. But aside from that...

We are living in an age where folks are kind of complaining, like, where's the next set of stars in the UFC supposed to come from? Like, where are they? Particularly at heavyweight. And here you've got a guy in Tom Aspinall who's like a freight train coming through. And again, if he fought Jones and lost, well, of course, all of this is for naught. But if he fought Jones and won, it would

be an enormous boost to his profile, be an enormous boost to his fortunes. And it would be this kind of transference of star power. Now, John's not stupid. He doesn't want to allow that to happen. But in order to make that not happen, he's having to go a couple of, shall we say, circuitous routes around what he should be doing. And it's creating for some bad taste in people's mouths.

The fight with him in post, I was surprised to see that he said flat out, no, I'm not going to fight Tom Aspinall. I want to fight Alex Pareda. And I was like, well, you know, things kind of follow a linear path when you're in your division. You don't talk about somebody else unless you're the king of that division, right?

And it just seems to me like he's been ducking. Right. And I feel like everybody's kind of have that same. The sentiment has been echoed where, John, you're the greatest of all time, pound for pound king, whatever. But you don't want to fight this guy. And I get it. It's just like, like you said, bad taste in everybody's mouth. And then you fight a guy who this fight should have happened a year ago. And now both guys are older. Both guys are further removed from their last fights.

and I saw somewhere John Jones had to fight in 500 and some odd days, and then Stipe's been, what, since 2001 and gotten flattened him. How do you technically see this fight going? The fight with John and Stipe? John and Stipe, yeah. It's a little hard to say, right? In part because what you mentioned about Stipe, he's been gone for so long, and it's like, well, what does the guy look like after four years since we've seen him, basically, and then five since he won a fight? It's hard to say, but he's 42. Okay, heavyweights don't age quite as much.

quite as quickly as every other division. So that's not necessarily as determinative a factor as you might imagine, although I do think it will play a role. The issue is for Stipe, he's going to want to box. He's going to want to be in boxing range. He does have good wrestling, both offensive and defensive. But you got to remember, John's got an enormous reach. He's going to have a reach advantage here. He has very good wrestling himself, although I do think

Over time, his skill set has deteriorated. We just haven't really seen it because he's been gone. But still, you know, I do suspect he'll have very good wrestling. So what I think is probably going to happen is John is going to keep the fight at distance. He's going to keep Stipe from being able to get into that close boxing range. He's going to stay off the fence, right? Either the one being...

or at a bare minimum using lateral movement to avoid the fence contact unless it's on his terms. And then I suspect he's going to look for a takedown, either from turtle position, right, where you could drag the guy down to his hands and knees and then you can work from there, or ultimately putting him flat on his back and then a finish with ground and pound. But I suspect it'll be some kind of control position through transition where he's not fully down, he's not fully up, but he can't really move. He's somewhat immobilized. And I suspect from there, John will finish him off

probably third ish round. I will say power is the last thing to go. A steep Amy Ochoa twin is not insane to consider. MMA is volatile and there are some questions on both sides, but all things being what they were and are, I suspect John gets his hand raised on Saturday, a fight that should have been last year. If not for an injury, it's going to be exciting to watch just because it's a spectacle of John Jones. We don't know how many of these we're going to get. So obviously we're going to be locked in on the MMA hangout. Uh,

what feels to me like the people's main event, Charles Lavera versus Michael Chandler, another guy who has not seen action in, what is it, two years for Michael Chandler? Yeah, two years. Two full years he sat out for this. For this McGregor fight that never materialized, that's still kind of a carrot dangling in the wind somewhere. But when you look at these guys who have already fought, Dubronx won, you know, was part of...

Kind of a really good run for Charles as the champion. How do you see this fight part two now with Michael Chandler being off? We haven't seen Charles in a little bit. Is this a fight that you're excited for?

It is very I'm very excited for this. And I think most hardcores would tell you that this is the fight that they are really kind of excited about five round fight, by the way, not just the three round, even though it's non title. So that's kind of important. First fight. I mean, Connor, excuse me, Connor McGregor, Michael Chandler came within a hair's breadth of stopping Charles Oliveira viciously hurt him couldn't quite finish him off, but got very, very close. And of course, he himself got polished off in the second round.

Because Charles Oliveira is that dude. And to the point you were making on that run he was on, it was just an electric run through the lightweight division.

I suspect, I mean, this one to me is much more volatile. Like this one to me, I don't know what the odds are. I haven't even looked at them, but I suspect that it's going to be a lot closer. Charles Oliveira has offense everywhere. He has offense standing. He has offense in the clinch. He has attacks from the back. He obviously can pass guard on top and has good ground and pound. And then when he gets knocked down, a lot of guys have trepidation about following him to the ground because his guard is so nasty. We did see, however, that,

that Charles Oliveira in his last fight against Armin Saryukian kind of got out wrestled through, that was only a three round fight, but he did get out wrestled and semi close, but kind of when you can remain chest to chest with an opponent and they can't posture and they can't use their hips or their shoulders to create angles in space, they can be nullified.

And Michael Chandler is nothing if not a great and fantastic athletic wrestler. You could see something like that. He did that to Dustin Poirier. Also a fight Michael Chandler lost, but nevertheless, you saw some rounds look that way. I still think that skills win fights and offense wins fights. So Charles Oliveira by a hair in my margin. But this one, much more of a coin flip, much more chaotic. Should be a lot more fun. DraftKings has it at Charles Oliveira minus 258. So...

A little high in my judgment. But again, Chandler's been off for two years. What has he been up to? What kind of shape is he in? I'm sure he'll be in good shape, but ready to take on Charles Oliveira again. It's a tough assignment no matter what. And the last time we saw him, I think it was at Madison Square Garden in 2022 when Poirier got him in a ghillie, didn't he?

Or was it a rear naked choke? Rear naked choke, but yes. A blood and guts kind of affair, which Chandler was doing well in, but that late kind of inability to polish the guy off, or same thing he did with Oliveira, not quite closing the show against some of these tough guys has hurt him a little bit. It's going to be a super fun fight, and then we've got really quickly Bo Nickel versus Paul Craig. The...

The skyrocketing of Bo Nickel. It feels like they've been giving him guys that he's been able to kind of do away with pretty easily. Paul Craig, obviously very good on the ground. Bo Nickel minus 1100 favorite. Is there anybody that they can give to Bo Nickel right now that he's not going to beat?

Yes, but I don't know if that's a good idea. I mean, you need to move through the ranks. Some guys can go quicker. Some guys will go slower. It's not like there's one speed, but the development has to be appropriate relative to your level of readiness. Otherwise, your development can get messed up. You push guys too soon. Pride used to take these guys who were, for example, like Olympic gold medalist in judo or Olympic gold medalist in wrestling, and they would just

feed them to the wolves. They would feed them to the top guys in MMA and it would totally destroy them. So you're like, oh, well, this guy's a gold medalist and he's got combat sports experience of the highest order. Surely he'll be able to take on our MMA champion and then they would get wrecked. It's a very bad idea. They're not doing anything like that. In fact, it's kind of the opposite to the point you raised about the odds. Paul Craig is fun because he's got a really dynamic guard. Mm-hmm.

Not a lot of head movement. He's not the same athlete that Bo Nickel is, a three-time national champion Division I wrestler out of Penn State. I mean, he's going to blow the doors off of this guy unless he makes a cataclysmic mistake. However, up the food chain at 85, I do think it could get interesting. We'll see what happens with Hamzat, if he gets a title shot or not. But I think there's some guys further up that line that are going to give him a run for his money. However, to your point, he's got what seems like

he's the real deal Holyfield he just has to prove it on Saturday and beyond 309 is going to be fun at Madison Square Garden last question here are we worried about 310 Shafqat Rahman I was supposed to fight Bilal Muhammad Bilal Muhammad now out with a toe infection nasty I saw it on social media a couple weeks ago are they talking about Kamaru Usman like what's the what because this is the end of the year fight in Vegas for December it would have been fun to see Bilal and Shafqat what are we looking at now

The latest that I've seen is a potential fight between Shavkat Rakhmanov and Kamaru Usman. There's one direction they could go. Nothing is solidified. I'll be honest with you. I don't think it really matters who they put up against Shavkat Rakhmanov. I think he smokes them. Yeah. I mean, again, for folks who don't know, not only is he undefeated, I think, what is he, 17-0 at this point? All of his wins in MMA come via finish, including all of the wins in the UFC.

a hammer among hammers if ever there was one. His ascendancy, in my judgment, is a foregone conclusion, but they still need to give him somebody who can be a good test. Usman seems to fit that bill. There's a couple other directions you could go. Some folks saying Jack De La Maddalena, but I don't think they want to cannibalize their contenders. So I think it probably will end up being someone older, maybe a Colby Covington, maybe a Kamaru Usman. But again, if you've never heard the name Shavkat Rachmaninoff,

It's a mouthful. Remember it. That dude's going to be on top for a while. He's like if Hamzat was reliable.

Yes. And, and, and, you know, you get to your point shows up, doesn't cause controversy. And then when it gets time for fisticuffs, I mean, he is sending people to the land of wind and ghosts, a terrifying fighter. Luke Thomas. Thank you so much, brother. Plug your stuff on the way out. Morning combat, all your YouTube channels do everything. Yeah. I got a podcast morning combat, youtube.com slash morning combat two times a week. And if you want to get to me on YouTube, youtube.com slash Luke Thomas, follow me. Luke. Thank you, brother.