June 15, 2025 • 18 mins
Wade BREAKS DOWN the latest UFC Fight Night event and explains how Kamaru Usman beating Joaquin Buckley sets up his next BIG fight..
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
He was and still is the boogeyman of the one
hundred and seventy pound division of the UFC, and folks
I'm talking about camarow Ousman, bad.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Knees and all.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
He says, y'all need to shut the f up because
he can still do what he does, and he did
just that in the main event of UFC Fight Night
in Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
But Kamara Usman also.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Rewound the clock showed you that thirty eight is just
a number that happens to be his age but does
not affect that he is one of the greatest one
hundred and seventy pound fighters of all time, still potentially
bouncing a comeback for that ghost status.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
What happened in the main event and throughout the.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Entire card of UFC Fight Night Atlanta the breakdown, let's
go all right, so main event we'll get to, but
let's let's talk about this card in general. The UFC
Fight Night Atlanta card was a bit of an odd one.
Started out really well. I'm not going to talk about
every fight on the prelim card, but there were some
good ones. Philip Rowe came back from the brink of
death pretty much in his fight, and one by Tko stoppage.
(01:01):
Malcolm well Maker, who is at the tender age of
thirty two, yet somehow is still a prospect in the
sport of MMA. That's kind of where we're at. He
was nine to zero coming into this thing, and he
fought a familiar face to USC fans. Well, maybe not
because his face was so battered the last time we
saw him. Chris Mautino, that's right, the man that Sean
O'Malley gave a ten piece chicken nugget to and Sean
(01:23):
beat the shit out of him, but he found a
way to hang in. Didn't go so well for him tonight, though,
because Malcolm well Maker, who again is thirty two but
I consider a prospect, gave him a right hook to
the jaw off a feint of a front kick and
absolutely sent him to the shadow round. That was something
I did not expect to happen, But I also didn't
know much about Malcolm well Maker and what a performance,
(01:43):
what a moment, probably should have if he didn't get
knockout or performance of the night ose Ochoa big time
win versus Cody Durdin. Nasty punches there put him out
like he was on a stretcher, and then as we
got closer to the main card, listen this Paul Craig
Judolfo Blato was insane. Bellotto was seemingly winning the fight
(02:04):
and then put on an Oscar worthy performance by flailing
about after yes getting hit with an illegal upkick that
kind of hit him in the jaw, kind of hit
him in the shoulder. But he looks at the referee
as he's falling down, almost again Oscar worthy cinematics, and
he's like, ref you're gonna do anything about this, hits
the ground, looses his eyes, thinks for a second, and
then starts spasming and flailing about like a fish out
(02:27):
of water. And then suddenly, almost as if it was scripted,
he wakes up and starts defending takedowns against the referee
and starts to act as though the referees trying to
get into his half guard.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
He's gotta get frames on him. It was a joke.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
I mean, if you could see the pictures online, maybe
there is some that we can find really quick. I mean,
this is the best way to describe it. You see
him looking at the referee while falling, and then all
of a sudden he's dead. He faked being seriously injured
by a head kick. And usually I'm not the guy
to say all fighters are faking things to try to
get away or try to get out of a fight,
but that one was pretty clear that it did not
(03:03):
affect him in the way that he put on that
it did.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
I hope that I am, but that looked clearly a
bit a bit stagey. But anyway, that was just kind
of the weird part of the card and it kind
of started to snowball from there because then Alonzo Minifield,
as a plus five hundred or plus five fifty underdog,
beat omar Ci, who was undefeated in a three round
not very much going on decision. This was one of
(03:26):
the slowest fights maybe I've ever seen, and I don't
know why it happened to go that way, but it
just did. And Alonzo Menifield cash for all the underdogs.
I should have put money on him, I didn't. Man
Sore i'bdu him Elik versus Cody Brundris was next, and
again this was a weird one because Cody Brundridge could
have been up two to zero in this fight going
into the third round. It could have been a one
to one back and forth kind of, you know, lackluster fight.
(03:48):
And then the third round starts and we got fireworks.
Brundage moving forward, throwing big time punches, swinging for the bleachers,
Mansers swinging back, and all of a sudden, we got
a firefight on our hands. And somewhere in the middle
of the firefight, separate and come back together, and there's
a head clash and the head clash from Mansor to Cody.
Brundage puts Brundage down, a legitimate head clash, and then
(04:09):
Mansur files up with ground and pound and wins. But
it was really because the head clash in a fight
that otherwise would have been a draw. Thirty six seconds
into the third round, the referee gives a technical decision
victory to Mansur for reasons I don't really understand. The
damage that happened to cause Brundage to fall down and
to clasp at its head was a clear head clash,
(04:29):
and you're only thirty six seconds into the round. How
do you determine who won that round?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Very odd?
Speaker 1 (04:34):
But you know, I thought we could have seen a
draw there or no contest, but that's not what happened.
And then a fight that I thought was going to
be the start of the resurgence of the once again
reminder that Cody Garbrant is yet to make his second
title run, unfortunately, was not meant to be. Raoni Barcelos
comes in and uh, you know what. He beats Cody
(04:56):
Garbrant in a decision. But this was a typical Cody
Garbrandt fight. He rocked Barcellos in the first round, put
him down, and instead of capitalizing on it, he pulled
out a hand sniper and kind of pointed it at
him and then did like a Fond's double click in
finger guns and danced for a little bit. And Barcellos
got to his feet and recovered, and Cody got tired.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
He started getting hit to the body.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
In the second round, he saw some of the bad
habits of Cody Garbrant creep back in, which I say
creep back in, but they never really left. His head
never moves off the center line. He ducks into uppercuts
and knees, and his striking just hasn't gotten better from
the kind of short arm, furious punching blitz that we
saw all the way back when Cody was making his
run in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
It just that's what it feels like.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
It feels like Cody Garbrandt has never gotten better from
his peak of twenty sixteen twenty seventeen, going from unranked
winning the world championship. He has some swagger, Yes he
has some ability, Yes he's got fast hands, he's got power,
Buddy Fence, his variety, his thought prom and his decision
making just have not gotten better as UFC fighter. And
(06:04):
you know what, grass to Marcellos for the win. It
really does show you how good umar Nu mcgamedov is
for how nasty he treated Barcelos, but he is my
goat of just complete chaos and hopium that sometow he
will be better than he previously was. It's never the case,
it never works out that way, but I hate it
for Cody.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Congrats to Barcelo.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
And then we had our comin event random Maverick versus
Rose nomin units, another fight that at its moments Rose
landed a nasty left hook and dropped Maverick. And at
one point you could argue that Miranda Maverick won the
first round and the second, which is why I wasn't
really understanding of a thirty twenty seven decision for Rose.
But regardless she did have the one knockdown, she did
land two takedowns. You know, the striking department did go
(06:46):
Miranda's way. All in all, a somewhat close fight, one
that you could argue Miranda should have potentially won with
the first couple of rounds.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
But I'm fine with Rose winning that.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
What she does next, I have no idea, but thug
Rose is clearly back.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Can she make a run back at the belt? Can
she get the belt back? Can she find that I'm
the best form once again? We'll see.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
But then you had the main event, and on a
night where things were just a little bit off and
a little bit weird, especially leading into the main event
where Woking Buckley was having trouble even entering the venue.
Security would not let him in for a moment for
his main event spot. You figured this main event might
be a little bit odd, it might get a little hairy,
you might get a little sketchy, And that just didn't
happen unless you're a Woking Buckley fan, and a lot
(07:27):
of people in the MMA scene did pick Woking Buckley.
I actually didn't make a prediction video, so I'm not
going to toot my own horn when I just flippantly
threw out there yesterday that I thought Kamara Ousman would
win this fight, because that's not really fair to do
for people that actually did breakdowns and predictions, even if
they got it wrong. I'm not gonna claim I got
it right. And also, who gives a fuck if you
got it wrong or if you got it right. You
guys are out there claiming MMA expertise because you picked
(07:49):
a fight right. You have dumb Tomorrow Usman walking Buckley
five round main event, and this one right here was
a reminder, even for a guy like me who has
seen Kamara Usman come up through the ranks this sport
right after he started being called Marty Usman, but after
he was Marty Usman from Nebraska, but before he was
close to a world title, when he was smoking people
(08:10):
like Emil Meek and John Strickland and others at one
hundred and seventy pounds and getting on the microphone after
performances that some people didn't like and some people did
talking about that's only thirty percent. Watching his rise and
eventual championship run where he was least you forget lapping
the division. That means beating contenders over and over in rematches.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
In three matches. There was no three matches, but it
sounded fun to say.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Anyway, Tomorrow had fallen on some hard times, recently lost
the Hamza Schamaya fight, obviously lost both the Leon Edwards fights,
and you thought, Okay, thirty eight years old, maybe he's
done for you know, maybe it's it's time to go
ahead and say, hey, it has been a legendary career,
but just like every other legend, your time ends at
a certain point. And especially off those three losses and
(08:56):
a six hundred day layoff, what was it going to
look like at thirty eight years old for kamara uz
And on the other side of it, Joaquim Buckley was
riding a however many fight winning streak.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Let's take a look. He had five fight.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Winning streak coming into this fight, with the most recent
two being a nasty ko over Steven wonder Boy Thompson
and a ko tko over Colby Covington. Now, what he
did to Joaquin Buckley tonight, ladies and gentlemen was pure
domination of the highest order. And no, it wasn't the
most flashy and it wasn't the most intricate game plan
in the world. He walked forward, looked for Joaquem Buckley
(09:32):
to throw big, powerful, fast punches, level change, got underneath it,
took him down, used his ground and pound, used his
wrestling control, and Joaquin Buckley up off the top position
on the ground. That's what happened round after round. His control, time,
his elbows, his punches, his maneuvering, his experience, and his
(09:54):
ability won him this fight. Nasty elbows in the first
round cut up Joaqum Buckley's eye from that point. Wasn't
a ton of like eye opening devastating damage coming from
tomorrow in those top positions. No, but he was landing,
he was scoring, and he was keeping Joaquin Buckley on
the ground while he was able to land. And also
he was taking him down time after time. In the
(10:15):
second round, he shot a takedown from what felt like
a mile away and landed.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
It on Joaquin Buckley.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And that'll probably be the most frustrating part for Joaquin
Buckley fans tonight. Is like, how going into a fight
with Kamara Usman, had you not worked on more wrestling
or is it just that kamara Usman had great timing
tonight he got to Joaquin Buckley's hips, he was able
to get ends class and he was able to turn
the corner on him multiple times before Buckley.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Was able to even try to defend.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
There were multiple moments on the feet where Joaquin Buckley
was clearly the more dangerous fighter. Tomorrow did a good
job of not committing too much. There were times where
he got a little recklet's but been not committing too much
to the exchanges on the feet, stayed behind his jab,
which is still I think a very good job for Hima.
He tried to frame and circle out a lot, but
moments where he got a little greedy and showed some
(11:00):
of the big holes in Kamara Usman's game, which are
you know, his combination striking him standing in the pocket
looking to exchange with a guy like Joaquin Buckley, who
was a very good combination striker. Usman would dip his
head kind of do the old fucking' chuck and it
didn't look great, and even sometimes duck the head and
looked for the way ty clinch and you'd see Buckley
looked for the lead head uppercuts or the flying knees
(11:21):
and they were the right ideas they just weren't landing
as clean in the first.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
I would say two rounds. You could say.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Buckley potentially took the third because he did land some
nasty punches in the third round. I think one of
the right hands that he had from the south pop
position clipped tomorrow and as soon as Kamara got clipped
with a big shot immediately single leg take down, I'm
taking this fight back over.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
We're not doing that show.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Those were the moments where Kamara Usman started to win
back the fight. Those were the moments where Joaquin Buckley's
striking ability didn't matter anymore. As good as he was
on his feet and as good as he could have
been in this fight, Like if Joaquin Buckley had better
takedown de fence, this fight was going to be a
problem for Kamara Usman, absolutely, but he just didn't have it.
He just did not until the fifth round. And it
(12:03):
wasn't a matter of Joaquing Buckley all of a sudden
learning takedown defense, but he stuffed I want to say
five or six takedowns in the fifth round, which shockingly
enough was his most successful round because he didn't have
to get up off his back. He did have to
use some effort to defend takedowns, but surely it's less
effort than trying to get up off your flat back
on the ground. And once he was able to sprawl,
(12:24):
and once he was able to defend takedowns, he was
able to get more shots off and in turn allowed
him to land some big, heavy, significant strikes.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Fair play to Kamorrow.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
He had a chin because he was getting tagged with
some of that stuff in the fifth round.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
I saw something online.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
People are like, he just learned how to do takedown
defense in the fifth round. No, I mean yeah, definitely.
He started to find patterns in what Kamara Usman wanted
to do. When especially Kamara started just looking for a
single leg and not going power double legs tiring to do,
and that's another part of it. But Buckley saw patterns,
he was able to use that muscle memory to start
(12:57):
to get his underhooks.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
That was another thing.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
He started to actually use under hooks. More of what
I think happened in the fifth round was that Ousman
had shot a ton of takedowns. He had used a
lot of energy to control Buckley on the ground and
they were both sweating profusely, and the takedowns became more difficult,
and Buckley got some confidence. He had not had any
confidence outside of that third round where he landed some
big time punches, but it had no confidence in stopping
(13:21):
Kamara Ousman from doing whatever he wanted, and it was
fading round by round. But the more he defended takedowns
and the more he was able to start sensing patterns,
he started to develop a little bit more confidence, a
little bit more swagger, and that all turned to him
being more successful on the feet. I think there's a
lesson to be learned. That's the famous quote right from
Connor McGregor and now kind of used pretty much everywhere
(13:43):
in fighting. You don't it's win or learn, not win
or lose. And I think for Buckley he's humble enough
as a guy to be able to go.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
You know what.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Mar Ousman's still that guy at the top of the
vision and this was a dominating performance for at least
three of those rounds, potentially four. But Joachim Buckley is
by no means done at seventies thirty one years yars old,
he can definitely get better. For everybody online talking about,
oh he's never getting better, He'll be just fine. This
is the first time he's experienced this kind of wrestling domination.
But he'll be just fine. I think he'll come back
(14:12):
and be just as devastating. You look at the numbers
here too, by the way, it's not like the numbers
show a crazy dominant fight or Kamara Ousman outside of
obviously the total strikes, but you look at significant strikes,
and Buckley had a lot. He defended nine takedowns, like
that's not on paper as dominant as it actually was.
But there's there's moments there of hope or joking Buckley
(14:33):
to go. You know what I can in if they
do put him in there with another grappler like a
Sean Brady or someone like that, that he has an
ability the stuff takedowns and when he's on his feet,
he's fucking dangerous. And so Kamara Usman got on the
mic afterward, very emotional. I think some of it has
got to do with personal stuff that he's going through,
(14:53):
but some of it's got to do with us, the
MMA online community talking crazy shit to him, talking about
he has no knees and he can't do it, and
he's washed up and he's old, and yeah, you know,
all those things for the most part as a general
consistus when you're thirty eight and you're coming off three
losses and you haven't fought in six hundred days, and
that stuff wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Lead you to believe that the show is probably over.
Pack it up.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Let's go home once again, Kamorrow. Usman is not your
regular UFC fighter. He's not even your regular UFC former champion.
He is one of the greatest one and seventy pound
fighters that's ever lived. And it is time to just
shut the fuck up and say respect.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Legend.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
You just did the damn thing once again and reminded
everybody who.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
The fuck you are. That's it. That's all you can
really say about that performance. Now, as far as what's.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Next, well as Tomorrow is going to tell you what
he thinks is not necessarily a great matchup, but what
I think is the only match to make for him
right now.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Blow Mohammed quickly tweeted, see you soon. I know your
eyes are on a title fight, but if fews he
comes to you, that's also a pretty big fight. Former
champ for former champ. A lot of backstory. Is that
something you would end entertained if the UFC, you know,
came to about it. Who's it? Uh below Mohammad who's
a former welterweight champion, below Mohammed. Next, I forgot it.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Next, thanks Champing remember the name, but he forgot it now.
I don't know if that's very clever like fight set
up from kamaraw Usman. I have a feeling he genuinely
is like, I don't really give a shit about fighting Malal.
But here's the thing, Maaro Usman and bal Mohammad have
a brewing.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Rivalry right now. They have a rivalry based on the
fact they keep chirping each other.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
You heard it there, there's this apparent missing podcast footage
of Balal and Tomorrow legitimately getting into a fight on
tomorrow and Henry Shudo's podcast a message from tonight's card.
It was an odd one. It was a bit of
a clunker. It had some moments, it had some bright spots,
and it had some lull but at the end of
the day, it had a reminder that Kamara Usman is
(16:56):
the exception to the rule when it comes to former
chanampions aging out of the division, aging out of the sport,
and going on a downhill slide to eventual despair and
unfortunate retirement. That is not his story. It's history he's
trying to make. But that's not his story. His story.
Ironically enough, he'll be history in the making. I think
(17:17):
that Kamorrow has much left to offer this sport. And
I've seen some people say that I didn't show me
he can beat anybody in the top four.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Maybe not.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
I'm not going to doubt Kamorrow anymore. Most recent losses
he has are to Leon Edwards and jam Zat Chamaiyev,
one of which is not in the division. And at
the time he lost to Leon, it was challenging for
the belt, and then he was defending the belt and
then trying to re challenge for it. And also the
first fight he was dominating Leon Edwards and then got headkicks.
So I think there's a lot more parody still left
for kamara Usman. I think it needs to be Belall
(17:44):
Mohammed so he can either forget or remember the name next.
But regardless, what a win, what a performance for Kamara Usman.
And I think Joaquem Buckley's gonna be just fine. I
think I still think he's super dangerous. I think he's
just got power and speed and ridiculous timing in his hands.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
He needs to get some wrestling defense, some takedown defense,
and get his.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Back to the cage, get under hooks, and find ways
to circle back to the middle of the octagon where
he can really do damage. I think he can still
do that, but you guys, let me know what you
think down in the comments below. This is my recap
review or UFC Fight Night Atlanta. I guess I'm I'm
doing this MMA thing again, man, I am. I'm still
doing the ring magazine content. We still have Oxen cards
that I'm gonna commentate coming up, and I'm kind of
(18:25):
bouncing back and forth. Call me combat sports concept at
this point, because I'm all over the place with this ship. Yes,
you guys, let me know what you think down below.
What'd you think of the card? Would you think of
the main event? What happens next for all the fighters?
I don't have those answers, but as we'll find out,
He was and still is the boogeyman of the one
hundred and seventy pound division of the UFC, and folks
I'm talking about camarow Ousman, bad.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Knees and all.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
He says, y'all need to shut the f up because
he can still do what he does, and he did
just that in the main event of UFC Fight Night
in Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
But Kamara Usman also.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Rewound the clock showed you that thirty eight is just
a number that happens to be his age but does
not affect that he is one of the greatest one
hundred and seventy pound fighters of all time, still potentially
bouncing a comeback for that ghost status.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
What happened in the main event and throughout the.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Entire card of UFC Fight Night Atlanta the breakdown, let's
go all right, so main event we'll get to, but
let's let's talk about this card in general. The UFC
Fight Night Atlanta card was a bit of an odd one.
Started out really well. I'm not going to talk about
every fight on the prelim card, but there were some
good ones. Philip Rowe came back from the brink of
death pretty much in his fight, and one by Tko stoppage.
(01:01):
Malcolm well Maker, who is at the tender age of
thirty two, yet somehow is still a prospect in the
sport of MMA. That's kind of where we're at. He
was nine to zero coming into this thing, and he
fought a familiar face to USC fans. Well, maybe not
because his face was so battered the last time we
saw him. Chris Mautino, that's right, the man that Sean
O'Malley gave a ten piece chicken nugget to and Sean
(01:23):
beat the shit out of him, but he found a
way to hang in. Didn't go so well for him tonight, though,
because Malcolm well Maker, who again is thirty two but
I consider a prospect, gave him a right hook to
the jaw off a feint of a front kick and
absolutely sent him to the shadow round. That was something
I did not expect to happen, But I also didn't
know much about Malcolm well Maker and what a performance,
(01:43):
what a moment, probably should have if he didn't get
knockout or performance of the night ose Ochoa big time
win versus Cody Durdin. Nasty punches there put him out
like he was on a stretcher, and then as we
got closer to the main card, listen this Paul Craig
Judolfo Blato was insane. Bellotto was seemingly winning the fight
(02:04):
and then put on an Oscar worthy performance by flailing
about after yes getting hit with an illegal upkick that
kind of hit him in the jaw, kind of hit
him in the shoulder. But he looks at the referee
as he's falling down, almost again Oscar worthy cinematics, and
he's like, ref you're gonna do anything about this, hits
the ground, looses his eyes, thinks for a second, and
then starts spasming and flailing about like a fish out
(02:27):
of water. And then suddenly, almost as if it was scripted,
he wakes up and starts defending takedowns against the referee
and starts to act as though the referees trying to
get into his half guard.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
He's gotta get frames on him. It was a joke.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
I mean, if you could see the pictures online, maybe
there is some that we can find really quick. I mean,
this is the best way to describe it. You see
him looking at the referee while falling, and then all
of a sudden he's dead. He faked being seriously injured
by a head kick. And usually I'm not the guy
to say all fighters are faking things to try to
get away or try to get out of a fight,
but that one was pretty clear that it did not
(03:03):
affect him in the way that he put on that
it did.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
I hope that I am, but that looked clearly a
bit a bit stagey. But anyway, that was just kind
of the weird part of the card and it kind
of started to snowball from there because then Alonzo Minifield,
as a plus five hundred or plus five fifty underdog,
beat omar Ci, who was undefeated in a three round
not very much going on decision. This was one of
(03:26):
the slowest fights maybe I've ever seen, and I don't
know why it happened to go that way, but it
just did. And Alonzo Menifield cash for all the underdogs.
I should have put money on him, I didn't. Man
Sore i'bdu him Elik versus Cody Brundris was next, and
again this was a weird one because Cody Brundridge could
have been up two to zero in this fight going
into the third round. It could have been a one
to one back and forth kind of, you know, lackluster fight.
(03:48):
And then the third round starts and we got fireworks.
Brundage moving forward, throwing big time punches, swinging for the bleachers,
Mansers swinging back, and all of a sudden, we got
a firefight on our hands. And somewhere in the middle
of the firefight, separate and come back together, and there's
a head clash and the head clash from Mansor to Cody.
Brundage puts Brundage down, a legitimate head clash, and then
(04:09):
Mansur files up with ground and pound and wins. But
it was really because the head clash in a fight
that otherwise would have been a draw. Thirty six seconds
into the third round, the referee gives a technical decision
victory to Mansur for reasons I don't really understand. The
damage that happened to cause Brundage to fall down and
to clasp at its head was a clear head clash,
(04:29):
and you're only thirty six seconds into the round. How
do you determine who won that round?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Very odd?
Speaker 1 (04:34):
But you know, I thought we could have seen a
draw there or no contest, but that's not what happened.
And then a fight that I thought was going to
be the start of the resurgence of the once again
reminder that Cody Garbrant is yet to make his second
title run, unfortunately, was not meant to be. Raoni Barcelos
comes in and uh, you know what. He beats Cody
(04:56):
Garbrant in a decision. But this was a typical Cody
Garbrandt fight. He rocked Barcellos in the first round, put
him down, and instead of capitalizing on it, he pulled
out a hand sniper and kind of pointed it at
him and then did like a Fond's double click in
finger guns and danced for a little bit. And Barcellos
got to his feet and recovered, and Cody got tired.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
He started getting hit to the body.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
In the second round, he saw some of the bad
habits of Cody Garbrant creep back in, which I say
creep back in, but they never really left. His head
never moves off the center line. He ducks into uppercuts
and knees, and his striking just hasn't gotten better from
the kind of short arm, furious punching blitz that we
saw all the way back when Cody was making his
run in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
It just that's what it feels like.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
It feels like Cody Garbrandt has never gotten better from
his peak of twenty sixteen twenty seventeen, going from unranked
winning the world championship. He has some swagger, Yes he
has some ability, Yes he's got fast hands, he's got power,
Buddy Fence, his variety, his thought prom and his decision
making just have not gotten better as UFC fighter. And
(06:04):
you know what, grass to Marcellos for the win. It
really does show you how good umar Nu mcgamedov is
for how nasty he treated Barcelos, but he is my
goat of just complete chaos and hopium that sometow he
will be better than he previously was. It's never the case,
it never works out that way, but I hate it
for Cody.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Congrats to Barcelo.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
And then we had our comin event random Maverick versus
Rose nomin units, another fight that at its moments Rose
landed a nasty left hook and dropped Maverick. And at
one point you could argue that Miranda Maverick won the
first round and the second, which is why I wasn't
really understanding of a thirty twenty seven decision for Rose.
But regardless she did have the one knockdown, she did
land two takedowns. You know, the striking department did go
(06:46):
Miranda's way. All in all, a somewhat close fight, one
that you could argue Miranda should have potentially won with
the first couple of rounds.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
But I'm fine with Rose winning that.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
What she does next, I have no idea, but thug
Rose is clearly back.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Can she make a run back at the belt? Can
she get the belt back? Can she find that I'm
the best form once again? We'll see.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
But then you had the main event, and on a
night where things were just a little bit off and
a little bit weird, especially leading into the main event
where Woking Buckley was having trouble even entering the venue.
Security would not let him in for a moment for
his main event spot. You figured this main event might
be a little bit odd, it might get a little hairy,
you might get a little sketchy, And that just didn't
happen unless you're a Woking Buckley fan, and a lot
(07:27):
of people in the MMA scene did pick Woking Buckley.
I actually didn't make a prediction video, so I'm not
going to toot my own horn when I just flippantly
threw out there yesterday that I thought Kamara Ousman would
win this fight, because that's not really fair to do
for people that actually did breakdowns and predictions, even if
they got it wrong. I'm not gonna claim I got
it right. And also, who gives a fuck if you
got it wrong or if you got it right. You
guys are out there claiming MMA expertise because you picked
(07:49):
a fight right. You have dumb Tomorrow Usman walking Buckley
five round main event, and this one right here was
a reminder, even for a guy like me who has
seen Kamara Usman come up through the ranks this sport
right after he started being called Marty Usman, but after
he was Marty Usman from Nebraska, but before he was
close to a world title, when he was smoking people
(08:10):
like Emil Meek and John Strickland and others at one
hundred and seventy pounds and getting on the microphone after
performances that some people didn't like and some people did
talking about that's only thirty percent. Watching his rise and
eventual championship run where he was least you forget lapping
the division. That means beating contenders over and over in rematches.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
In three matches. There was no three matches, but it
sounded fun to say.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Anyway, Tomorrow had fallen on some hard times, recently lost
the Hamza Schamaya fight, obviously lost both the Leon Edwards fights,
and you thought, Okay, thirty eight years old, maybe he's
done for you know, maybe it's it's time to go
ahead and say, hey, it has been a legendary career,
but just like every other legend, your time ends at
a certain point. And especially off those three losses and
(08:56):
a six hundred day layoff, what was it going to
look like at thirty eight years old for kamara uz
And on the other side of it, Joaquim Buckley was
riding a however many fight winning streak.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Let's take a look. He had five fight.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Winning streak coming into this fight, with the most recent
two being a nasty ko over Steven wonder Boy Thompson
and a ko tko over Colby Covington. Now, what he
did to Joaquin Buckley tonight, ladies and gentlemen was pure
domination of the highest order. And no, it wasn't the
most flashy and it wasn't the most intricate game plan
in the world. He walked forward, looked for Joaquem Buckley
(09:32):
to throw big, powerful, fast punches, level change, got underneath it,
took him down, used his ground and pound, used his
wrestling control, and Joaquin Buckley up off the top position
on the ground. That's what happened round after round. His control, time,
his elbows, his punches, his maneuvering, his experience, and his
(09:54):
ability won him this fight. Nasty elbows in the first
round cut up Joaqum Buckley's eye from that point. Wasn't
a ton of like eye opening devastating damage coming from
tomorrow in those top positions. No, but he was landing,
he was scoring, and he was keeping Joaquin Buckley on
the ground while he was able to land. And also
he was taking him down time after time. In the
(10:15):
second round, he shot a takedown from what felt like
a mile away and landed.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
It on Joaquin Buckley.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And that'll probably be the most frustrating part for Joaquin
Buckley fans tonight. Is like, how going into a fight
with Kamara Usman, had you not worked on more wrestling
or is it just that kamara Usman had great timing
tonight he got to Joaquin Buckley's hips, he was able
to get ends class and he was able to turn
the corner on him multiple times before Buckley.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Was able to even try to defend.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
There were multiple moments on the feet where Joaquin Buckley
was clearly the more dangerous fighter. Tomorrow did a good
job of not committing too much. There were times where
he got a little recklet's but been not committing too much
to the exchanges on the feet, stayed behind his jab,
which is still I think a very good job for Hima.
He tried to frame and circle out a lot, but
moments where he got a little greedy and showed some
(11:00):
of the big holes in Kamara Usman's game, which are
you know, his combination striking him standing in the pocket
looking to exchange with a guy like Joaquin Buckley, who
was a very good combination striker. Usman would dip his
head kind of do the old fucking' chuck and it
didn't look great, and even sometimes duck the head and
looked for the way ty clinch and you'd see Buckley
looked for the lead head uppercuts or the flying knees
(11:21):
and they were the right ideas they just weren't landing
as clean in the first.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
I would say two rounds. You could say.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Buckley potentially took the third because he did land some
nasty punches in the third round. I think one of
the right hands that he had from the south pop
position clipped tomorrow and as soon as Kamara got clipped
with a big shot immediately single leg take down, I'm
taking this fight back over.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
We're not doing that show.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Those were the moments where Kamara Usman started to win
back the fight. Those were the moments where Joaquin Buckley's
striking ability didn't matter anymore. As good as he was
on his feet and as good as he could have
been in this fight, Like if Joaquin Buckley had better
takedown de fence, this fight was going to be a
problem for Kamara Usman, absolutely, but he just didn't have it.
He just did not until the fifth round. And it
(12:03):
wasn't a matter of Joaquing Buckley all of a sudden
learning takedown defense, but he stuffed I want to say
five or six takedowns in the fifth round, which shockingly
enough was his most successful round because he didn't have
to get up off his back. He did have to
use some effort to defend takedowns, but surely it's less
effort than trying to get up off your flat back
on the ground. And once he was able to sprawl,
(12:24):
and once he was able to defend takedowns, he was
able to get more shots off and in turn allowed
him to land some big, heavy, significant strikes.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Fair play to Kamorrow.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
He had a chin because he was getting tagged with
some of that stuff in the fifth round.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
I saw something online.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
People are like, he just learned how to do takedown
defense in the fifth round. No, I mean yeah, definitely.
He started to find patterns in what Kamara Usman wanted
to do. When especially Kamara started just looking for a
single leg and not going power double legs tiring to do,
and that's another part of it. But Buckley saw patterns,
he was able to use that muscle memory to start
(12:57):
to get his underhooks.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
That was another thing.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
He started to actually use under hooks. More of what
I think happened in the fifth round was that Ousman
had shot a ton of takedowns. He had used a
lot of energy to control Buckley on the ground and
they were both sweating profusely, and the takedowns became more difficult,
and Buckley got some confidence. He had not had any
confidence outside of that third round where he landed some
big time punches, but it had no confidence in stopping
(13:21):
Kamara Ousman from doing whatever he wanted, and it was
fading round by round. But the more he defended takedowns
and the more he was able to start sensing patterns,
he started to develop a little bit more confidence, a
little bit more swagger, and that all turned to him
being more successful on the feet. I think there's a
lesson to be learned. That's the famous quote right from
Connor McGregor and now kind of used pretty much everywhere
(13:43):
in fighting. You don't it's win or learn, not win
or lose. And I think for Buckley he's humble enough
as a guy to be able to go.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
You know what.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Mar Ousman's still that guy at the top of the
vision and this was a dominating performance for at least
three of those rounds, potentially four. But Joachim Buckley is
by no means done at seventies thirty one years yars old,
he can definitely get better. For everybody online talking about,
oh he's never getting better, He'll be just fine. This
is the first time he's experienced this kind of wrestling domination.
But he'll be just fine. I think he'll come back
(14:12):
and be just as devastating. You look at the numbers
here too, by the way, it's not like the numbers
show a crazy dominant fight or Kamara Ousman outside of
obviously the total strikes, but you look at significant strikes,
and Buckley had a lot. He defended nine takedowns, like
that's not on paper as dominant as it actually was.
But there's there's moments there of hope or joking Buckley
(14:33):
to go. You know what I can in if they
do put him in there with another grappler like a
Sean Brady or someone like that, that he has an
ability the stuff takedowns and when he's on his feet,
he's fucking dangerous. And so Kamara Usman got on the
mic afterward, very emotional. I think some of it has
got to do with personal stuff that he's going through,
(14:53):
but some of it's got to do with us, the
MMA online community talking crazy shit to him, talking about
he has no knees and he can't do it, and
he's washed up and he's old, and yeah, you know,
all those things for the most part as a general
consistus when you're thirty eight and you're coming off three
losses and you haven't fought in six hundred days, and
that stuff wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Lead you to believe that the show is probably over.
Pack it up.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Let's go home once again, Kamorrow. Usman is not your
regular UFC fighter. He's not even your regular UFC former champion.
He is one of the greatest one and seventy pound
fighters that's ever lived. And it is time to just
shut the fuck up and say respect.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Legend.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
You just did the damn thing once again and reminded
everybody who.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
The fuck you are. That's it. That's all you can
really say about that performance. Now, as far as what's.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Next, well as Tomorrow is going to tell you what
he thinks is not necessarily a great matchup, but what
I think is the only match to make for him
right now.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Blow Mohammed quickly tweeted, see you soon. I know your
eyes are on a title fight, but if fews he
comes to you, that's also a pretty big fight. Former
champ for former champ. A lot of backstory. Is that
something you would end entertained if the UFC, you know,
came to about it. Who's it? Uh below Mohammad who's
a former welterweight champion, below Mohammed. Next, I forgot it.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Next, thanks Champing remember the name, but he forgot it now.
I don't know if that's very clever like fight set
up from kamaraw Usman. I have a feeling he genuinely
is like, I don't really give a shit about fighting Malal.
But here's the thing, Maaro Usman and bal Mohammad have
a brewing.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Rivalry right now. They have a rivalry based on the
fact they keep chirping each other.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
You heard it there, there's this apparent missing podcast footage
of Balal and Tomorrow legitimately getting into a fight on
tomorrow and Henry Shudo's podcast a message from tonight's card.
It was an odd one. It was a bit of
a clunker. It had some moments, it had some bright spots,
and it had some lull but at the end of
the day, it had a reminder that Kamara Usman is
(16:56):
the exception to the rule when it comes to former
chanampions aging out of the division, aging out of the sport,
and going on a downhill slide to eventual despair and
unfortunate retirement. That is not his story. It's history he's
trying to make. But that's not his story. His story.
Ironically enough, he'll be history in the making. I think
(17:17):
that Kamorrow has much left to offer this sport. And
I've seen some people say that I didn't show me
he can beat anybody in the top four.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Maybe not.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
I'm not going to doubt Kamorrow anymore. Most recent losses
he has are to Leon Edwards and jam Zat Chamaiyev,
one of which is not in the division. And at
the time he lost to Leon, it was challenging for
the belt, and then he was defending the belt and
then trying to re challenge for it. And also the
first fight he was dominating Leon Edwards and then got headkicks.
So I think there's a lot more parody still left
for kamara Usman. I think it needs to be Belall
(17:44):
Mohammed so he can either forget or remember the name next.
But regardless, what a win, what a performance for Kamara Usman.
And I think Joaquem Buckley's gonna be just fine. I
think I still think he's super dangerous. I think he's
just got power and speed and ridiculous timing in his hands.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
He needs to get some wrestling defense, some takedown defense,
and get his.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Back to the cage, get under hooks, and find ways
to circle back to the middle of the octagon where
he can really do damage. I think he can still
do that, but you guys, let me know what you
think down in the comments below. This is my recap
review or UFC Fight Night Atlanta. I guess I'm I'm
doing this MMA thing again, man, I am. I'm still
doing the ring magazine content. We still have Oxen cards
that I'm gonna commentate coming up, and I'm kind of
(18:25):
bouncing back and forth. Call me combat sports concept at
this point, because I'm all over the place with this ship. Yes,
you guys, let me know what you think down below.
What'd you think of the card? Would you think of
the main event? What happens next for all the fighters?
I don't have those answers, but as we'll find out,
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