Miguel Class

We have an exciting new addition to the welterweight addition, but Roberto Soldic's debut didn't go as smoothy as many expected. Khaos Williams dropped the Croatian KSW double champ twice in the first round. Undeterred, Soldic outpaced and outboxed Williams in the latter rounds and I broke down how

I figured there's a good chance subscribers would prefer a breakdown of something other than Natalia Silva vs Wang Cong, but it's also fine if that's the poll winner! Last time I did this I made the decision a little early and the results shifted after I had already started making the video, so this

The flyweights delivered yet again! Joshua Van continues to be everything we hoped he could be and more while Pantoja, at 19 years into his career, is an absolute dog. I made a concerted effort to make this video shorter! I know, probably not the fight to do that on, but I know most of you (like me)

If you listened to the last one you know that Ryan and I were already planning the next. We covered the rest of the male divisions with our discussion here, talking about how Fedor, Khabib, Anderson Silva, and Jon Jones each developed from nascet prospects to all-time greats.

It was about as weird of a fight as we could've expected and that's in large part due to Ian Garry being a particularly effective neutralizer at welterweight. Despite limiting the champs offense down to almost nothing, Garry still wasn't able to put enough of a stamp on the fight with his own offens

For this episode I'm joined by Ryan Wagner to talk about some of the greatest MMA fighters of all time, but before they were great. We look at 4 different fighters before their prime and explain how they developed their game to get and stay ahead of their competition. There were many other fighters

The "Fight of the Century" was a lot better than you might remember. Boxing historian and endless well of combat sports knowledge Kyle McLachlan and I provide alternate commentary over the highest grossing fight of all time and one of the biggest fight of our lifetimes.

Flyweight always delivers. There's so much parity in this division and it makes for scrappy, tightly contested fights between contenders, prospects, and veterans. Royval came prepared with the perfect game plan and despite a dicey moment in the second, executed it perfectly. I know, I know. This was

We've got another situation where the main event isn't worth breaking down so let me know what you'd rather see instead! And as a quick life update, my wife and I have a new baby girl as of 12 days ago and that could create some delays in getting stuff out. Please don't feel obligated to stay as a p

It was supposed to be a routine title defense. Instead, we got a massive upset and a career-best performance from Justin Gaethje, who looked better prepared and fought more intelligently and consistently than we had ever seen before. If you listened to our roundtable discussion you'll recall that we

This is a roundtable preview podcast for UFC Freedom 250, based off the old roundtable discussions on the Sherdog Radio Network. I'm joined by Dan Tom, Ryan Wager, Dan Albert, and Feno to breakdown and give our picks for each fight on the card.

24 year old versus 26 year old. We're finally getting quality young fighters at the championship level again and it resulted in a spectacular display of skill, will, and violence. Joshua Van wielded a smart gameplan to nullify Taira's best offensive positions on the ground and punish him every minut

I just wanted to give you guys a heads up that my breakdown for Van vs Taira will be delayed. I always post my breakdowns the week after the numbered events, but I wont have time to get it done this week. Apologies for that. I've also been working to schedule a new guest series podcast but the new g

We got a Bellator title fight on a UFC undercard and it was one of the more interesting fights from a technical perspective at UFC 327. While a Pitbull KO seemed like a real possibility prefight, what we got was a standout performance by Aaron Pico that thankfully ushers him into the Top 15 for some

UFC 327 was a weird event. We lost the best fight on the card and the one I was planning on breaking down. There's not really a clear fight from last night that deserves a full breakdown so here's a poll for you to vote on you want to see from me. I can still break down one of the fights from UFC 32

I wanted to try something different with this video. Rather than breaking down the entire fight (which takes an ungodly amount of time), I made this video just talking about and highlighting some of what I liked about Ethyn Ewing's dominant win over Rafael Estevam. Sorry to the free subscribers who

We sometimes label fighters derisively as "athletic cheaters" in MMA, but all the greatest fighters off all time have intelligently built coherent games around their most absurd physical traits. Whether it's Holloways ungodly combination of chin and endurance or Topuria's hands of stone, just having

Sorry for the delay in getting another guest series episode out. I was planning to record something with Connor Ruebusch, but we haven't been able to make it happen yet. So, while I'm here to apologize I figured I would see if you all have some suggestions for topics and guests for the podcast. Let

An expectedly dominant performance and one that I think helps solidify Charles Oliveira as an all-time great. It wasn't the brawl many expected, but I'm not going to complain about a strategically and tactically perfect fight.

It was a pointless rematch on paper and it played out that way in actuality too, but Lopes did try to make some adjustments (even if they were just the classic MMA gimmicks). Still, any fight with Volkanovksi in it is worth digging into because we have to enjoy him while we have him.

A brutal, gritty, and foul-filled war that also happened to have some notable strategic details and a few in-fight adjustments worth discussing. Overall this left almost everyone feeling like neither of these guys have much to offer Topuria in a future fight, but since the interim title should all b

We've had a lot of time in between fights to dive into some topical discussions so Dan Albert graciously volunteered to come on and discuss the chaotic and complex nature of matchups in MMA. This discussion was spurred on by Dan's fantastic writeup after Petr Yan's electrifying win over Merab Dvalis

Jesse (@JDillaThaKilla on Twitter) joined me to break down the state of MMA wrestling. We give a brief overview of the history of wrestlers in MMA and then talk more extensively about what JDK calls the golden age of MMA wrestling where we had numerous NCAA standouts transitioning directly into MMA

After getting 50-45d less than three years ago, Petr Yan completely flipped the script and surprised everyone by dominating Merab Dvalishvili to regain his title. A commitment to his jab, stalwart takedown defense, and a renewed confidence all played pivotal roles in this all-time great performance.

The always lovely Dan Tom joined me for a brief recap of Petr Yan vs Merab Dvalishvili and to discuss the increasingly important topic of southpaws in MMA. We talk why fighting southpaws is difficult, the common pitfalls orthodox fighters fall into, our favorite southpaws in MMA, and much more.

I've got two new guest series podcasts in the works with some very interesting topics, but they're both going to be in the first half of December. The goal has been to do one a month and this will be the first month that I haven't managed to squeeze one in, but I'm trying to make up for it with two

We have a new double champ and he made it look easy. Despite the uncompetitive nature of the fight, JDM was always looking for an escape from bottom. The problem was just that he was dealing with the best top half player in the sport. Sorry for the lack of a breakdown video after the previous PPV bu

Feño (patreon.com/fightsite) joins me to discuss some specific issues of punch mechanics that have been a debate in our replies lately. This episode is a little different because I shared my screen so we could talk over the clips because it's hard to discuss mechanics without visual aid. Let me know

Merab continues to all-time great run through the bantamweight elite by clearly besting one of the few contenders remaining. I was impressed with Sandhagen's resilience and ability to take a championship round against the Georgian with endless cardio, but ultimately he never found a way to seriously

The incredibly insightful @HaXxorIzed joined me to discuss the failure of MMA's institutions to reliably scout, develop, and manage athletes. We compare MMA to other, better functioning sports and do our best to explain how we got here and where we think the sport is heading if things don't change.

You probably didn't expect me to actually spend the time breaking this one down, but I figured it would be helpful to condense the fight down into a video that quickly covers some of the lessons we can learn from this middleweight title fight that nobody will be rewatching in full anytime soon. Even

There's been a lot of discussion recently about the fantasy matchup between Muhammad Ali vs Oleksandr Usyk, so Kyle McLachlan (patreon.com/CombatChronicles) and I decided to rewatch Ali's biggest three fights against lefties to help add much needed context to that discussion. As usual, Kyle came pre

I didn't what the recent stream of Apex events to cause us to forget that a legend of the sport just retired. Dustin Poirier is a bona fide all-time great and I got Blaine Henry to provide some local Louisiana love for the Diamond.

This was an incredible fight. Violent, high-paced, with both fighters nearly finishing the other. I break down the key dynamics and what made this fight playout so differently than their second fight.

This was a boxing masterclass, as we've come to expect from Usyk. He quickly took away and punished Dubois' limited weapons, looking like a defensive wizard and masterful ring general in the process.

I talk to Ghost about the incredibly comprehensive scouting he does for Weili Zhang's camp, how that feeds into gameplanning, and how those reads have played out in fights. Ghost outlines all the questions he asks when breaking down an opponent's game, which serves as a great guide for those that wa

It was a very short and very violent fight, but we got enough interesting exchanges that I thought it still was worthy of a proper breakdown. Topuria is on the greatest three-fight win streak in MMA history and is undoubtedly the best puncher the sport has ever seen. Charles turned out to be a forgi

I said in the picks article for The MMA Draw that I thought Merab was the fighter who had more room for improvement in the rematch, and that proved to be true. By not overly respecting O'Malley's counters and instead just getting after him, Merab was able to snowball his own offensive game sooner wh

I spoke with Sriram Muralidaran (@tanthiram) about being an outfighter in MMA and more broadly about how some fighters have bucked the trend of being high-volume pressure fighters. We used Raphael Assunção as our prime example of how a fighter can keep a lid on their opponents and control the initia

Feño and I have been noticing a trend on Twitter where guys with seemingly only a few boxing classes under their belt have come to realize that MMA is actually terrible. "His hands are down" "He always drops his left hand after jabbing" "Shifting is terrible, you should never do it" While I've been

While Cro Cop is mostly known for his graveyard-filling left high kicks, his open-side body kicks were an integral part of his southpaw double attack. I discuss some of the tactics he used to set up his devastating liver kicks, including some important notes about his flexible stance.

Jack Della Maddalena has arrived but Belal Muhammad proved himself to be a crafty veteran who made numerous very smart adjustments, even if it was his mechanics that ended up failing him more than anything else. JDM showed incredible poise and proved his championship mettle in the last round while p

I know it's been a few weeks since I've posted anything. After making the George Foreman documentary, I decided it's time to finally learn a professional video editor to try to increase the quality of my videos. I've been working hard to learn DaVinci Resolve, which should allow me to take my breakd

Boxing historian Kyle McLachlan joins me to talk about the recently passed George Foreman. He came armed with primary source material to hel Boxing historian Kyle McLachlan joins me to talk about the recently passed George Foreman. He came armed with primary source material to help dig into the monu

While Volk is definitely past his best, he put in a terrific veteran performance, leaning on his jab to outclass a dangerous but limited opponent. Lopes was there to win and made the whole fight tense and even made some adjustments late to try to close down the elusive champion.

I'm very grateful for every one of you. Patreon is the only place where I can post whatever I want without worrying about DMCA takedowns. It's allowed me to create different kinds of content that I wasn't able to previously. Recently I've lost a handful of subscribers, and that's perfectly fine. I k

Roga had to drop down from maegashira 8 all the way to juryo due to an injury that left him winless in the January basho. But his 11-4 record in March was his best record ever as a sekitori, giving me hope for his future in Makuuchi.

I had a fun time talking with Marcelo Garcia brown belt Ben Kohn about the state of grappling in MMA right now. We also broke down the recent match between Leon Edwards and Sean Brady.

How Belal Muhammad was able to overcome numerous obstacles with a very intelligent approach.

Ankalaev had a clever approach that effectively kept a lid on Pereira's best offense, but his inability to build on that to really put his stamp on the fight left me feeling uninspired by the performance.