UFC 306 PREVIEW: Sean O'Malley /Merab Dvalishvili, Diego Lopez/Brian Ortega, Grasso/Shevchenko!

all right guys we're officially in the fight week of what's going to be one of the craziest looking UFC events ever on top of that we've got some big fights with two titles and a huge fight for the featherweight Division coming up as well to break it all down is our close personal friend one of the best in the game you know him from all his videos breakdowns of course morning combat the one the only Luke Thomas Thanks to join me on submission radio man anytime buddy thank you for having me here I appreciate it well dude I'll tell you first off before we even get into talking about the fight I saw you spoke about this a little bit so I'd love to get your thoughts to for the people that haven't seen it yet a lot of negativity about this one right like from the very get-go uh people be negative about the card people have been kind of negative about the prices to do with the tickets uh obviously this whole Canela competition on the same weekend which the UFC don't really have much to do with what have you made of sort of the general negativity from uh the MMA Community when it comes to this sphere card which started off as kind of like everyone was really pumped hey it would be amazing if there was a here and now it feels like every sort of week There's a new little thing that gets brought up on Twitter or social media about why you know this thing isn't any good you know it's funny years ago one of the things that Dana White was very much praised for is they would go and do pressers or fan events City to City when they were really trying to press this thing let's say you know um past 2007 but well past 2010 to to an extent as well and they would go to these different cities and they would just you know people would come up to Dana be like Dana I'm a big fan of UFC can I have tickets and he would just hand out tickets tickets you know this kind of largest that you would see from him really trying to make sure that the fans were taken care of and had a good experience and I think fans can individually decide for themselves whether they feel like that's happening but it does seem like there is a little bit of two basic problems that have intersected at the same time with this card even before this card was announced fans were have been I think a little bit upset like Jesus Christ these ticket prices are high of course it is not just the UFC the industry generally has changed for the live event business but the UFC certainly has been cashing in on what is you know inflation greed inflation whatever you want to call it it's just a lot and they they're making money hand over fist by that the second problem of course is card quality not to say there haven't been good cards this year USC 300 was a lot of fun 298 299 also a lot of fun but all the Apex cards are not that fun for the most part exceptions here are there and the pay-per-views also could have been a little bit better some of that is injury wo as we know but you know the final product that you're asked to pay for at the end of the day what are you getting there's a lot of malays and it felt like rather than UFC trying to make something that would specifically cater to those two complaints they went the opposite direction they made the most expensive event with not a bad card I don't think anyone would say the card is awful but relative to what people were feeling about pay-per-view cards needing to be better and then this one charging so much it was a significant let down in terms of card quality all for a weirdly branded show that's UFC sphere UFC UFC 306 Riad season noce UFC and I think all three of those things the two main ones are the ones I would really home in on but all three of those issues are kind of working against the UFC but this is what you were asking me about I don't think I don't think any of that is really all that unfair except for two things one you know I I saw a lot of people being like you know canelo's fighting across town like that's going to be a much more attractive fight guys please be serious Canelo Alvarez is a first ballot Hall of Famer no one would question otherwise and he has been generous with his time in my career which I appreciate that fight should not be happening and Edgar banga the only way he wins is if Canelo is like Mega washed otherwise this is a foregone conclusion sha Ali is the king of the very best division the UFC has and morab is the number one Contender by several orders of magnitude that's a better fight certainly a more legitimate fight at a bare minimum so that's the first thing I'd push back on and the last thing I would say and this is kind of the most important part dude every major MMA organization this is not so true for like some of the bigger shows in Europe but like you know your pfls and your Bellator I know they got subsumed and then one in UFC to get a big TV deal what they end up having to do is just make a lot of content right we're going to give you 40 shows a year and that causes some Downstream problems but one of the things that never really allows any of these promoters to do not UFC not one not not pfl is to really reintroduce pageantry back into the show it used to be part and parcel of the biggest MMA experiences that you had during the pride era and of course other UFC events like the when when GSP fought Jake Shields when they went to this gigantic new Arena not new Arena but uh for the scale of the event it was 50,000 plus that was really big and new at the time and it really leaned into it and the point I'm trying to make to people is you can be mad about the ticket prices you certainly have somewhat of a gripe with that card but the sphere who where I've been seen a show OB MMA show but I've seen a show is so unlike literally any other venue in the world this is exactly not for the ticket prices but this is exactly what the UFC should be doing trying to reimagine how we bring to life in MMA show you're you're worth billions of dollars that they rake in every year yeah yeah I expect more than Apex shows so I know it's a lot to throw back at you but that's the general worldview that I bring to this particular matter yeah dude it's great to see them trying something new and I'm really excited to see what it looks like the previews have been really cool what about this whole situation we've had it a couple of times now where Dana White's kind of been like hey I'm you almost promising a big card and I feel like a part of people's uh disappointment sometimes is the expectation that comes from Dana White obviously he's trying his best to put the best cards on at all possible times there's a lot of variables but do you think it's a mistake like should should he just wait and see and announce what he's got first first before saying stuff around UFC 300 or now this card I feel like it builds people's expectations to a level that can't really be met a lot of the time and at at a minimum um if if if you're in the situation like you are now like you're just kind of setting up situations where people get disappointed so this is something I've definitely seen people say so for example I've seen people say you know it's just like fight Island right then it comes out and says we're GNA we got an island we're going to stay twice there and it was just like it was like some territory that the Emirates owned you're like okay all right I guess that's fight Island but you know and of course that wasn't the point the point was that they had a place that they could stage shows during the pandemic Beyond whatever we we remember the whole thing but that definitely is something that people brought up and like I have to tell you I don't have much sympathy for this for this particular argument it's not that I don't think Dana says things and then those things end up being not true with a fair degree of regularity that's really not my point my point is like guys he's a fight promoter what is it that you [ __ ] expected like which of your favorite fight promoters are known for their uh incredible fty to the truth it's not what they do that that's not what Bob arum does it's not what it's not what when he was working Strike Force in The Bu it's not what Scott Coker does it's not what Don Davis does it's not what chatri does go over to boxing it's not what Eddie Hearn does it's not what Bob arum does it's not what they do that job doesn't allow it in fact it often asks you to do the exact opposite and so my point would be is people like well Dana promised this and didn't deliver this you should be skeptical about any fight promoter's promise like I wasn't disappointed that fight Island was a territory in the Emirates because it always seemed [ __ ] ludicrous to me that there was people imagining they were going to fly to the island in you know uh Bruce Lee what was it the last dragon the the the last movie he made you know what I mean and it was going to be this like you know Incredible Kung Fu tournament out in the open for the Evil Genius like what the [ __ ] are y'all talking about so my I understand that again these are these are a bunch of problems all intersecting together and I'm not saying that fans should never be feel hyped for a fight but I am saying Express or I should say rather exercise a little discretion when fight promoters make claims to you about what's going to happen it will save you in emotional issues on the front end and the back end you can only be pleasantly surprised if you do that I recommend it I love it perfect life advice I thought it was going to be like an MMA Hunger Games there only one person was gonna survive and it's just like you know different uh divisions have to step up another interesting thing here is right and let's get straight into the fights because I know you're short on time uh morab and shown a Mali right morab leading into this fight has been an interesting has done some interesting things first off he posted that video of of his cut then he uh cut it out with some kind of huge blunt scissors then we saw him in an event where he had there was a fan heckling him he jumped over the barricade and confronted that guy almost died by the way as was leaping over the barricades it's like oh my god dude what are you doing there and then uh puts up a photo with a suspicious looking thing on his arm that looks like a staff right leading into a fight when you're watching this happened what is your reaction it's certainly not something you would expect from someone going into the biggest fight of their career in the end I think here's what I would say I ultimately am not sure any of those things will matter but that doesn't mean they're not worth at least keeping an eye on so somebody through the grapevine told me like for example the I think you mentioned it the drinking the beer and doing like the dances you know uh I'm told there was actually no beer in that glass now again this could just be nonsense uh damag PR control but that they're you know they're not so foolish as to do that that these are people that that morab is actually living a monastic lifestyle in advance of this fight and that was just for social media so keep that in mind the staff thing I'm not really sure what to say because I saw a follow-up interview he did where it looked to be somewhat cleared up and there are topical creams that can treat it you don't have to have necessarily oral depending how fast you catch it you don't have to have oral antibiotics NE to automatically to treat it um so you know again can't dismiss it wouldn't hang my hat on it I think honestly this is one of those fights where even if morab is hobbled a little little bit right by he he in my judgment in general accepts too much risk but that's why he's also a really good MMA fighter right it's sort of part and parcel of what makes him who he is personality wise as well as a very uh skilled professional but what I would say is even if he's hobbled a little bit the guy's cardio Advantage is so outrageous that you're still gonna basically have to beat him the same way right you're still going to have to have an outrageous amount of un usual cardio just to keep Pace with him you're going to have to hurt him in all the ways you would have to even if you imagined he was at full strength in other words like even him at a disadvantage is still going to be at a big Advantage I think over just about every other bant weight in terms of his capacity to do work to go for takedowns to scramble to you know any anything that just requires tons of Labor he can do all of that I I think it's a little bit Mis Mis not not the right idea to just focus on it so heavily but let's see how the week prog addes things could change what okay so with a cut you know Cuts better than maybe a lot of other people you're in the boxing game you know what a bad cut looks like from my perspective you know over the eye there not a great spot to show someone you've got a cut obviously it's he healed up he's got the stitches but surely shaal is going to be targeting that area as the fight goes on how much recovery time does a cut like that need to not be an issue in this fight because you open up uppercut in that area bad enough the commission can come in and stop the fight right yeah I mean I'm not I'm not I'm not a technician when it comes to yes you are Dam it I put you in this as a cut technician no I can't I mean I you know I've SE I've had stitches and I've seen other people get stitches but I I don't know plenty of stitches in talking to coaches they'll say about 30 days you know give them give someone about a month and then after that they tend to be healed enough where it's not going to pop open instantly it's not to say it's fully healed but for a fight purposes it crosses a threshold of kind of holding together um I do think that's a legitimate concern not just because he could get hit in a general sense but because he is going against a guy who is very very pinpoint accurate with his timing and obviously his location as well he can place shots where he needs to place them whether that will play a role we shall see but if I was if I was morab in his team I would have to count on what do we do if that opens up like they have to have some kind of thought process about that it's it's that's a that's a re let's call that one a clear and present danger it just doesn't any sense I don't know why you would put it out there now here's the other thing right Tim Welch him and Tim Welch have had an interesting relationship it seems like morab really got annoyed when he saw that video of Tim uh sort of making calls to aljo during that fight between aljo and Shawn we saw like uh morab tell sha in that uh promo shoot that he wanted to beat up Tim Tim Welch is a guy he's got his own channel he's he's a smart coach he's not a troll but he's clever when it comes to mind games surely during the week or at least in the fight he'll be throwing out cols to morab he'll be there um what are you expecting from that whole dynamic there like it's it's an it's kind of like an interesting side angle that's going on that's probably going to play at during this fight we in some capacity uh distraction and media fodder I don't really don't think too much about it to be candid with you I think when when I look at this fight what I think about it are just the ex's and no of it which you know okay biases that's what I look at for the most part anyway but it just says it's one of these fights where like sometimes we have these big fights and you guys can be known quantities with a lot of experience but you still not exactly sure how they're going to match up like it's just a little bit hard to know you know which way it's going to go even the fight we had over the weekend Gilbert and Brady you knew there were going to be some observable fault lines but exactly how that was going to go and and in fact you saw the scrambles they were actually pretty back and forth obviously Brady getting the better of it in the end but the point I'm trying to make is that's really not the case here I mean at all like morab is going to try to get either the double leg but if you go back to the cejudo fight he's going to be working for the single and different finishes off the single the the the inside trips the outside trips um head outside High crotch finishes you name it running back to the fence into a double like that's what he is going to be trying to do and he cannot stand with sha Ali for very long periods of time without being totally disengaged because otherwise he's going to get lit on fire and so you just kind of know what the game comes down to and how that's going to play how the coaches interact with the fighter and vice versa or coaches coaches it's interesting fun for fight we stuff but I just think when it comes time to fight this is a not a easy problem to solve but a fairly straightforward one for either guy we shall see hey fellas do you want your grooming routine to be a oneandone deal while the days of using the same trimmer for your face and your private parts are over thanks to our friends at manscape they're coming up with the ultimate package to keep your hairs trimmed from 12 to 6 introducing the beard bows bundle featuring the lawnmower 5.0 and the beard hedger trimmer for the money maker and another one for the boys downstairs get 20% off and free shipping now with the code word submission manscape.com that's 20% off plus free shipping with a code word submission manscape.com and fellas real talk I'm about to talk to you out there the guys that are about to go on their dates or the guys that are about to go in the gym or the guys that are about to just go into work or do whatever live things you need to do there are certain things you need to do to take care of yourself manscape as you sorted if you know what I mean with the 20% off with the code word submission and free shipping today the ball and beard bundle will make sure you accomplish whatever it is you're trying to do out there what about nordvpn it is the ultimate VPN out there to get the best discount off your nordvpn plan you can go to nordvpn.com slss submission now a link will give you an extra 4 months on the 2-year plan that's right an extra 4 months and there's absolutely no risk with the nord's 30-day money back guarantee the link is down below or of course you go to nordvpn.com submission what about nordvpn you can watch your sporting events TV shows films which aren't available by your region by switching your virtual location you can protect your private data like Bank details passwords and online identity you can switch your location anywhere to save money by purchasing cheaper flights hotels subscriptions and what about the threat protection feature that protects you from viruses malicious malware and fishing sites it's the fastest VPN in the world with no buff or lagging premium cyber security for the price of a cup of coffee per month and one nordvpn account can be used up to 10 devices that's right 10 devices go to nordvpn.com submission now get the deal try it risk-free it's one of the best apps in the game as well nordvpn.com submission support the show so we can provide more interviews for you throughout the next few months with nordvpn.com and manscape now now back to the program yeah it's a fascinating puzzle I'm just going to I just can't wait to see him start yelling coals to morab during the fight and seeing what happens there man cuz I don't know we'll see I mean he's jumping barricades at other events um just quickly from your perspective who do you think is going to win and also when it comes to morab he's almost like an uncrowned Champion right like he could afford for the belt a number of times how hard of a challenge do you think he is to Sean compared to the Past ones I think he's probably right up there man he's not as dangerous as some other Fighters that Shawn could fight in terms of pure like what kind of punishment can this guy deal you and how quickly can he turn a fight from bad to worse to over he's not as dangerous in that sense as some others but in other ways he's maybe the most difficult fight for anybody in that division because of his cardio that is truly like I mean I'm not saying it's the best cardio out MMA history but you'd have to probably put like if you have to figure out who who's who would you put on that list he has to be on the short list for it it's remarkable what he can do and it really overpowers some of his technical deficiencies although he's gotten better as as well so I don't want to say that's the only dynamic in play here um but I think Shaun Ali this is his fight to lose now in the Yan fight you saw him huffing wind here's what I'm gonna say about Shaun Al's takedown defense it is it is um it's not quick right but it is competent he fights the hands he builds height he builds hip height he puts his weight onto the fence he you know he'll fire underhooks and spin into people collar ties I mean he works methodically into the place is that he needs to go to get free it takes him a little bit of time but he's able to do it he even got a take down they don't count It On fight metric but he even got a Tak down on on P Yan as well I'm not saying he'll do that in morab the point I'm trying to make is this the difference is that Yan could like have a firefight with him I don't know if morab can have a firefight with him and I think for that reason between Shawn's Improvement and the firefighting being so one-sided in one guy's favor it's a close fight I get why people might think Mor Rob's going to run away with it that who would that surprise sha Al's fight to lose is best I can tell Dude another fight that I'm super excited about is is Brian OTA Diego Lopez fight obviously they had to fight they were going to fight each other and Orga had to pull out I wonder when you look at this matchup what does Diego Lopez has have to do to be able to secure this one and get it in the bag um he's got to make the fight at his Pace like you know people say that they have the similar games but they don't like it's true Ortega kind of clamp on things you know he can he has like the guillotine on vinoski for example but that's really not what makes his game what it is I me he can find those finishes very quickly but in general I tend to think certainly on the feet he tends to work a little bit more methodically um it's just if you make technical errors he can make you pay for them very quickly whereas Diego Lopez just has offense everywhere and is going all the time and so I think if you can make Brian Ortega fight at that pace he will make mistakes uh and then you can take advantage of him by contrast I think if Ortega is able to control the fight under his terms like he's the one initiating the grappling sequences he's the one finding the back he can maintain position that's going to work really well for him the question is of course who can do that I that one I seems to me like maybe Lopez but I I really don't know I don't have a strong feeling about it I mean Lopez is an exciting guy in the division right and it's a division with a lot of interesting fights to make how far do you actually think he can go in this thing do you think he could go all the way to a title shot oh yeah there's no question in my mind I mean if he goes and beats Brian Ortega and let's say he finishes him right again How likely is that I have no idea but let's just say that he does you know depending on how things go between Ilia and Max you know again I'm I'm positing a set of scenarios here that may never come to life but if Ilia goes in there and gives Max Holloway the business they're gonna be wanting fresh contenders to keep that guy in rotation I he'll take a dramatic star turn at that point and so will Diego Lopez and remember like how do you beat a guy like Ilia who is Crafty and dangerous and Powerful you get someone in his face who can just do constant danger all the time that is a hell of a fight should those two find them M themselves in that position and either way like who versus Diego Lopez is going to suck at this point if he fights volkanovski sweet if he fights Holloway also awesome right you know what I mean like it's not going to be a bad or somehow low quality fight no matter what we shall see and what kind of questions do you have from Brian OTA at this stage of his career obviously he's always been a guy that's been able to go out there show is hot but it was you know as as Fighters with his kind of skill set get a little bit older you know they do digress a little bit quicker what are you what are you sort of looking to see from him here I mean I would over Diego Lopez just puts him straight back into uh a great spot in the division yeah I would say what am I saying looking for him good wrestling uh just making you know what I would say making calculated decisions that's what I'm going to say you saw some of that in the Korean zombie fight you know we love Brian Ortega when he doesn't or when he makes you know reactive decisions and sometimes those are his best ones in the muyano fight in the Klay Guida fight in the in the uh the um the re some the rematch between him and Yaya Rodriguez some some sometimes those are his best ones but at the same time if those are just your muscle memory keep that in your holster and in the time in between you be the one that dictates the terms you be the one that uh makes good decisions about who's initiating offense and under what scenarios rather than just kind of like Biting Down on the mouthpiece and accepting the terms that the opponent has engaged him with I think doing something like that given what else he can do that the marriage of the two would make him a very very potent title Contender before we wrap up man finally you know Grasso and chevchenko uh they've been at it for a while now they did The Ultimate Fighter um that that Ultimate Fighter by the way that one kind of snuck under the radar a little bit I don't know how many people quite watched it and they had the finale I was like wow they already had the finale for it but now that they match up again in this pivotal Cod what do you think Chef Chena has to do here to actually get this one done get a better judge that's for sure you know because I certainly she lost the first one and then I thought she would should have won it had that last round not been a 108 right remember that uh and it was and it was and that just I mean I like grao I think it'd be good for the division for it to be hers but that's not fair you know that's just not there's just no two ways about it so that's one thing would say this one of the things that the lesson she learned from the first to the second fight was less spinning attacks because that's ultimately how she got her back taken that that takes away some of uh her offense and so what she has to resort to is more wrestling and that actually works out pretty well for her in general but I'm G to say this like Grasso's crafty off of her back she has to find a way to neutralize some of the submissions maybe going to half guards to the full uh a lot of times she spends it in full being able to hold position from the back and keep them wrestling to their hands being able to build base and height and get up right being more aggressive with leg rides from there heavier ground in pound like you got to make use of the wrestling a little bit more so that if the rounds are close or you know what you've banked has to count you've done the work uh to me I think you know she made enough mod mod modifications on the feet that are pretty comfortable with and again going to the wrestling was also a smart call put a little bit more Steam on it and I think close the show is is a possibility but age is also catching up to her as well and grao is probably going to be better on top of it it should be a that that one no one's really talking about it because of all the other issues around the card but that's actually pretty intriguing fight and dude it's going to be great to see it in the in the sphere as well um as we wrap up dude uh I just want to finish on this we had a legend in the game uh retire Demetrius Johnson man what a ride he's had both been able to witness so many great Demetrius Johnson fights and moments and it's just funny how his career played out right he went from the UFC to one but seemingly he really benefited from being at one like we've seen a lot of Fighters kind of struggle going going one but he really embraced it and made it his own um he announced his retirement ultimately how do you look back on Demetrius Johnson and what he was able to achieve in the game what was your reaction when you saw that he said that was it and he was uh retiring from MMA I think it's a good idea he it's not to say he couldn't still win but he's won just about everything that he could and what's the point in risking health as he is closer to 40 at this point um certainly than 30 it makes complete sense I mean he has talk about a guy who makes good decisions he makes good decisions right or at least fruitful ones I think for himself um this is a guy who um I would say one of the handful of Fighters who's got a legitimate claim to being the best to ever do it I'm not I'm not suggesting to you that he is number one but if you rank him that way there are good there are good reasons for that I mean that's the kind of talent that we're talking about here right and people know the various accolades 15 wins and title fights and whatnot it is funny though you know like so much is hard to explain to to sometimes to very very current MMA fans because they've just not been around very long and it is really weird I will tell you it is weird to have lived through the era where Demetrius was actually doing all this stuff right and then arguing with fans at the time they're like yo this guy's really good and fans and fans at the time be like [ __ ] you he's boring we don't want to watch this [ __ ] I'm like okay am I am I in the [ __ ] Twilight Zone here like what is happening and now we're in a place where it's like you know let's clap for our hero I'm not mad at it at all of course but it's like how did we get from there to here and there was no meetings about it we' like like we're just like we've just decided to to celebrate okay better late than never better late than never 100% better late than never it it's just fascinating that he ever had to endure that to begin with and yes there is something to it the rating for his fights often were were relatively speaking quite low when he fought Ali bagov I you know I think it was even on TV they they gave it away for free it wasn't even on Pay-per-view you know there there were reasons to feel that way and flyweight wasn't quite you know it was still new I think to a lot of the American uh fight fans and North American uh MMA Community more generally so there were some reasons to feel a little bit different at the time but uh it's just weird it's just weird Jones was widely regarded as like a top guy when it was happening GSP Ariel I'm saying Ariel what am I saying GSP Anderson Silva right so so all these different these different uh guys at the time like when they were coming up you like that guy could be that Fedor or something right and then DJ put himself in that conversation because of how well he did but he had to fight way more friction John brought friction on himself I'm talking about just the fight resume just the fight resume he had to fight so much more friction than all those other guys often not for very good reasons like I said better late than never he's getting his Just Desserts yeah man well you were saying it back in the day but it's good to see he gets a little bit of rations to Demetrius on that as we wrap up Luke what's happening for fight week what do people need to look out for you had that great video with Ben Davis the people can check out to follow you on socials at Luke Thomas news for all the latest stuff that's happening yeah yeah no doubt so uh thank you for having me unfortunately I cannot go to we were all supposed to go to the sphere and Canelo shows I Brian Campbell is going from morning combat so he's going to be going so keep it tuned to morning combat Brian Camp's gonna have you covered all the smoke fight they're going to be there Andre Ward and some other folks are going to be doing some broadcast with BC from home we're definitely going to have a live show a post fight show you guys know I'm gonna have a great post fight show I'm looking forward to that plus we're gonna have some technique breakdowns like how does Shawn Ali defend some of these takedowns what about what are ways Mor Rob can close a distance without getting completely nuked so we're going to have some fun stuff live chat on Thursday you know where to go youtube.com luk Thomas or the Luke Thomas I think and if you become a member you could check out Luke's well you could if you become a member you could check out Luke Thomas's Gladiator review which I can't wait to uh sign let me be very clear about this I don't care what anybody says a good movie not a great movie and I think if you think it's a great movie you're probably a dard I just want to point that out all right follow there man now and check out us cont thank you so much luk I really appreciate you man anytime fell appreciate you n