JRE MMA Show #182 — Protect Ya Neck

>> It's kind of amazing when you realize that before 1993, jiu-jitsu had no schools, and now they're everywhere. Every corner. The Gracie family — the world owes them. Like when I first found out about it, I didn't watch it until it was UFC 2 cuz I would only watch it on videotape. I got the video tape, brought it home and I was like, oh my god, they did it. They did the thing that we always wanted. So when I first started style — I first started taking karate and I thought karate was good until I stumbled into a really good taekwondo school. Then I started boxing, I'm like, oh my god I can't box. Then kickboxing, oh my god you kick my legs. Then jiu-jitsu, oh my god I'm helpless. All these steps along the way — it would have been nice if we knew what style was real, and this is what Bruce Lee tried.

>> But that's all I know, and every time I do a real scrap, I go back to my season of eighth grade wrestling. >> That's the case. But I also think that Wing Chun would work if you knew all the other stuff — Anderson Silva can use Wing Chun, a lot of hand trapping. There's stuff that does work if you know all the other things, it's an added element. It's just not gonna work on Terence Crawford — not a boxing match against Terence Crawford. No one has figured out what works against him. But if you already are doing other stuff and you could train with a guy who can show you some of it, you'd be like "oh, I see value in this."

>> You know what I think is the number one thing that people should be doing? Point fighting karate. Not obviously number one over wrestling and all that, but number one thing to add — don't add Wing Chun, add point fighting karate. But it's such a physical thing that a lot of people probably can't do, especially if you come from a wrestling background where you're so used to being heavy and square, to be able to turn sideways and jump in and out like that. But if you can do it, that advantage is so huge — when you watch MVP in his prime. I fought this one guy when I was a kid doing taekwondo, his name was Mafia Holloway. I couldn't even touch him. I was like, we're playing totally different games — I'm playing continuous fighting, he's playing this thing where you stop every time they hit you, and he keeps hitting you and it's just stop, stop.

>> That's why when I trained Tyron to fight Steven Thompson, Wonderboy, I knew the mistake that everybody was making — they were using regular tall kickboxers. I went to karate schools and got just karate kids for him to spar with, and I said don't worry about takedowns, just be able to deal with this movement and his length. >> Serial gone [Sergio Pettis?] is not a point fighting karate guy, he's Muay Thai, but he's a basketball player — what better sport to develop plyometrics and the ability to change direction than basketball? Then why can't basketball players fight? They're the worst fighters on the planet cuz they don't train. >> Travis Brown, when he was in his prime, he was a bad dude, he moved light, he was knocking people out with elbows from the clinch, and I think it was cuz he played basketball.

>> Do you guys watch ONE? Did you see Jonathan Haggerty and Yodsanklai? He won, he figured him out by continuous movement and switching stances. It was a really technical fight — he never gave him the same look, and knees to the body, a lot of knees to the body, brilliant fight. >> Dana said to me people don't like kickboxing cuz they think of PKA karate from ESPN from the 1980s. I'm like, that's old people, young people love martial arts, young people love knockouts, young people boo when fights go to the ground. MMA is the best, no doubt about it, but if you're going to have value in another combat sport, it's Muay Thai. Do you think Rico Verhoeven's boxing success will bring eyes to kickboxing? He was up like eight to one rounds against Usyk. Usyk is not a real heavyweight — he's the greatest heavyweight of all time, which is crazy, but he's not a real heavyweight.

Non-MMA tangent — briefly condensed.

>> Hey House of Dragon, now look, I love Game of Thrones, but House of Dragons out of all of them is the one I like the least because it's a lot of just gloom and doom, all the characters are pricks. >> No one's noble. >> Here's one I'm going to recommend — Widow's Bay on Apple TV, about an island that's cursed. And The Beast in Me on Netflix — Claire Danes can act her ass off, it got 98% on Rotten Tomatoes.

>> Rising, Red Rising, have you ever heard of this? My black belt Jedi Joey Beans told me about it. It's set in the future on Mars, Red Rising is a 2014 dystopian science fiction novel — it's like Game of Thrones in space.

>> Now, it's a combination of Mad Max and Escape from New York — in the future, Rowdy Roddy Piper is the only guy who's not sterile, everybody else is sterile, so he has to go to this frog's town and impregnate everybody or else they're going to blow him up. Hell Comes to Frogtown, it's amazing, you can't unsee it. >> The budget was 1.5 million back then in 1988, released direct to VHS in '93 before even DVD.

>> There's movies from the 80s and the 90s that become comedies — like Roadhouse. Roadhouse is such a bad movie, everything is bad except for Patrick Swayze's hair.

>> He did five with him and got battered and stood up to great shots, and he's going to come out of that fight better. He'll know okay, there's more work to be done, there's holes in my game, there's places where I got caught. Each time out he gets a little better. My favorite fighter, always insane, especially after you rewatch that second round — those livers, how does he come back from this? So beautiful though, the way he delivers those shots, man, just clean. You know who else does it like that? Aaron Pico. >> Great body work. He looked great his last fight. He was fighting Pitbull, a real legend, but the way he mixed the striking and wrestling together was really good. He got crazy in his debut, got too hyped up against a guy who's way too skilled. That was a great comeback fight — you get worried when they get their lights put out like that, are they ever going to be the same? And then when you see him come back and have a fight like that being so intelligent, that's a good sign.

>> What better guy — wrestling strong like animal — featherweight that was the king for so many years, won the crown again, right? Stick around with that guy, he'll show you how to get up, how to not get taken down. >> And Volkanowski, he don't have much left in him, so he's going to want to coach, want to pass it on, and you got the perfect guy to pass it on to [Evloev]. He's got a great fight IQ, very well-rounded too. The dude I got my eyes on the most is Carlos Prates. That JDM knockout was crazy, Jack is so good and so tough, and to watch Carlos just tee off on him like target practice against such a high level — he was having fun.

>> He has a wrestling background, and if there's a way he's going to get Prates, it's going to be a combination of those things, cuz Prates just wants to stand. And he's so accurate — he had his best round, the fifth round versus Ian Machado Garry, and he came back like a bat out of hell and really had him hurt bad. He might get outpointed but he's calm in bad positions and always dangerous. When he KO'd Leon, I was like — I know Leon's good, he's a good striker, to KO Leon like that clean was crazy. So how many Muay Thai fights did Carlos Prates have? 29 wins, 5 losses, 34 fights, high level, man. You watch him fight and you're like, okay this guy knows where to be, where not to be, knows how to piece people up.

>> His squeeze when he got Drew Dober in half guard, that arm triangle from half guard, is like — there ain't no half guard here, this is just smush. Incredible squeeze, like he just cuts off the blood, there's nothing you could do about it. Islam smooshed him — he was tapping like immediately, he was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I ain't getting out of this, I'm going night night." That's how good he is. >> Did you see his interaction that time with Kamzat? There was a little too much of a pat on the back — Kamzat wasn't wrong. There's a hug and then there's a slap slap, like a little aggressive, some male dominance there. I felt bad for Hamzat trying to make 185 — from all that I heard before the Strickland fight he almost died to make 185, he was apparently thinking he was gonna go up to light heavyweight.

>> I don't know why people don't like him, I love him [Ian Garry]. He also almost finished Shavkat with a rear naked choke if I remember correctly — he had his back. He also hurt Shavkat's knee with that oblique kick, that's the reason Shavkat had to get surgery, he's had two surgeries since. It's a legal technique and he's really good at it, the way he throws it sideways to the knee is devastating. His IQ is so high, he's beating guys like MVP and the guys that other people can't beat.

>> I did used to like the Japanese necktie for the same reason, cuz we're short armed. When you're funneling under for the under hook on the left arm and you get it behind the head, you cinch down like this, and then instead of trying to go all the way through and cinch it up as a darce, you take it from this position with this lever on the back of the neck and you tuck the neck into your chest. And then you grab a leg and do this — you lean on this shoulder, so once you cinch it up, as soon as you get this forearm behind the neck, the first thing to do is put your left shoulder to the mat. Usually they think they're going to spin out of it, but you're trapping the head and the chest with your shoulder to the floor.

>> Once the head's in the chest, you're in a terrible position to defend because it puts your head at this nasty angle. I like my grip better — well, it's not my grip, it's Eddie Bravo's grip, but I like it better because you got the lever, there's a lot of power that way. You don't want him spinning out because then his head's going to get free. It's nasty, but I don't see it in MMA and I don't know why, because it's available when guys are trying to get the darce and can't get it — the legs are tangled up and it's horrible because you have this lever. You remember when Khabib tapped Connor and everybody's like, "Oh, that wasn't even in the choke." He was doing that same thing but across the neck on the back — horrible, it's going to break your neck, man. But that's even worse cuz it's sideways and you got your body on it.

>> But the worst that I've never seen in the UFC is the executioner. I don't think I've ever seen anybody get that — you're in the back mount and you reach over, you go guillotine from the back. >> The Scottish twister is a little different, still nasty. That's you leaning back, right? Horrible on your neck, anything that attacks the spine. >> The executioner is the worst cuz you've got rear naked hooks and you've got the head back this way. That sort of started popping up at 10th Planet at least, in the 2000s, like 2003 or four. Eddie Bravo likes to call it the executioner, but he wasn't the only guy doing it. So you're in north south — when you're in rear naked choke position but you have the arm wrapped like that, the amount of pressure on the spine is just crazy, about 100%. Look how nasty this is — it's such a bad position to defend, you have no strength to defend it.

>> Bro, do you remember when Henzo fought Ben Rikers, and it showed if you're allowed to elbow the back of the head in rear mount — when Henzo was dropping bombs on him and then put him to sleep with his jacket, with his — I remember the beating he gave him before he choked him to sleep. The guy was being a prick before the fight, calling his room all night long, harassing Henzo, being a dick. And he said, "Oh, you have eyes like my girlfriend, but they're prettier," so Henzo went from a smile to a boha in two seconds, 0 to 100 real quick — well, only if you're a dick, if you're not a dick he's the nicest guy in the world.

>> I think they're getting a little better about warning people for fouls but not better about taking points. The new rule should be — you poke, one point, don't poke eyes, you jab someone in the eyes, one point right away, you know not to do it. Nut shot, one point, unintentional nut shot, it's a warning. >> The rough one is the back of the head when you're trying to put a guy away cuz he's moving his head, you're trying to hit him. And that spot is a lot smaller than what most people think.

>> This is not just simply he's like behind you — and this is inherently dangerous, is it that much more dangerous? What we're doing is already dangerous, right, and it's also very effective — so are we removing a very effective technique to protect the fighter? If so, why are we allowing a lot of other stuff — why are we allowing flying knees, side kicks to the knees, wheel kicks to the head, heels to the head? There's a certain amount of things we already allow that are so bad for you. Why don't you allow a shot to the back of the head? I need it explained to me like I'm a child — why is it okay to slam your elbow full blast into someone's temple, you could drive your elbow down into their eye socket, that's okay, but the back of the head is bad.

>> How many times has Ernesto [Hoost] knocked dudes out with back of the head head kicks in kickboxing? A lot for sure, I think that's how he knocked out Maurice Smith — he snuck it around over the shoulder and hit him in the back of the head. Anatomy is going to dictate that, that's what you're supposed to do, so that's legal, no one says that's an illegal blow. If that's legal and you land in the back of the head, that's always happened, that's happened a hundred times. But those there's some rules I'm like, okay, but now you're getting an unrealistic understanding of a position — like when someone's in a turtle and you can't knee the head. To me that one should be eliminated right away, you should be able to knee a guy in the head. Watch this Ernesto Hoost KO — right at the back of the head. You know, so if that happened in the UFC, everybody would cheer, you couldn't say that's an illegal blow.

>> You two together, I swear to god it should be a show, follow you guys around. If you get one of them Keeping Up with the Kardashians people who know how to do a reality show, film the two of you hanging out, drinking coffee, talking training fighters — think about how many guys you've worked with, super high level guys, and being with them at the UFCs. Who's best to have mics on in the corner? Those two, come on.

>> These comedians are now funding it themselves — like Theo Vaughn and David Spade did Busboys, Tom Segura is doing a bunch. I like that they're just doing it where they don't have to get okay by anybody, and nobody's telling them what to do. It's a good time for comedy cuz this is like pushback — when there's pushback, people get excited when someone doesn't give into it. If you want to try to make a comedy movie with a studio, you have to deal with so many people telling you what you can and can't say, you're way better off doing it on your own.

>> The Tom Brady Roast I think cracked the egg because that thing got like 55 million views on Netflix alone within the first week. >> Are people still getting cancelled though? >> I think it doesn't work anymore, cuz everybody could just — people get mad, you can put your own stuff on. What's also — when people get cancelled, people just flock to those people now, it makes them more popular. Look at Kanye, he's selling out the biggest places in the world doing popup shows — Miami, San Antonio, Tampa. Tony Hinchcliffe went to the one in Tampa, said it was insane, the greatest show he's ever seen — he's standing on top of a globe while it's spinning, doing two and a half hours of bangers. Every aspect of the show he produced, every sound has a purpose, every lighting effect coordinated.

>> Prince was like that too — all the hits he had and wrote for people. When that Freddie Gray thing happened in Baltimore, he called the city and wanted to do a benefit concert, and I was able to go. At one point on stage he's doing all these songs and goes, "God damn, I forgot all the good I did." The best story was soundcheck — everything's got to be the way he wants it, and Jay-Z, Beyoncé, and someone else were going to come be part of it. When they came out on stage for soundcheck, Prince said, "What are you doing up on the stage? You want to come and be a part of it, fine, if not, get the — off the stage." They walked in and left.

>> Did you watch that Michael Jackson movie? >> I thought it was good, the guy who played it, his nephew, nailed it. My family loved it, my wife and kids loved it. It's a cautionary tale — the Michael Jackson story is like when kids get that famous, no one can handle it, that's what that is.