When I talked to you guys on Wednesday, we did know that Derrick Lewis was going to be
fighting Daniel Cormier.
What I did not know, whether this—I think this broke while I was recording because the
second I got done I thought, “Oh my goodness, I'm going to be leaving the listeners without
some information.”
So, Eubanks was pulled out of the fight with Bullet.
The Bullet is now going to be fighting Joanna Jedrzejczyk down the road.
I think that's in December.
But to remind you guys how that worked, the Bullet was signed to fight Joanna Jedrzejczyk.
MSG ends up in a debacle of a mess when Jon Jones refuses to come in and fight Gustafsson.
There's a big panic going on.
All of a sudden, you've got Yoel Romero and Gustafsson.
I mean, you got all these ideas that are being floated out, but what happened?
What happened was you guys didn't like those matches.
So, the UFC kept going to work till finally found something that you want, which is Daniel
Cormier versus Derrick Lewis.
Awesome.
Didn't see that one coming.
Interesting fight.
Not the most compelling matchup.
That's fine.
But boy, did that satisfy the masses.
Great, but what was the fallout from that?
Okay, go back to the girls.
Eubanks versus the Bullet was put as the main event and major pushback came, okay?
So they're now off the card completely.
Now, I didn't see that coming.
I thought they would go on with it but just add Daniel and Derrick Lewis.
So, got to go back.
Got to go back and correct this part.
They scrapped that match completely.
Eubanks is now out.
It's going to go back to Joanna Jedrzejczyk versus the Bullet.
In fairness, that sucks what happened to Eubanks.
She did everything right while so many athletes were saying no, while so many athletes for
whatever reason were refusing to fight – at Madison Square Garden!
Hard for me to even say this a lot.
I cannot believe somebody would turn down that opportunity.
She did everything right and her dreams were about to be made, all because she did everything
right and said yes.
But when that match got scrapped or when that match was no longer needed to headline, instead
of keeping it on the card they’ve removed Eubanks and they went back to Joanna Jedrzejczyk
versus the Bullet, which was already signed.
That got disrupted because Joanna Jedrzejczyk didn't want to fight earlier.
Do I say that right, Joanna Jedrzejczyk?
I don’t—that's a tough one for me.
But, Joanna didn't want to fight on that date.
So I thought she was going to miss her opportunity.
No, everything has been made right with the world in terms of that, but not totally with
Eubanks.
I can't really tell you guys the story without saying that I do feel bad for her.
She was told something, right?
Joanna was told something, too, but what do we know about this sport?
We know that things can change and we know that you have to be adaptable, and we know
that if you've got a fight coming up on December 8th and all of a sudden that same fight except
it's going to be November 3rd you've got to say yes.
She didn't.
She had it taken away from her.
Rewind all of that.
Just pretend none of that happened because that's the world we're living in now.
Eubanks is now out.
The Bullet will fight Joanna Jedrzejczyk but down the road in December.
Oh, my goodness, and then we lose the co-main event!
Poirier suffers an injury at the time that I am recording this and things could change
very quickly.
It was an undisclosed injury, so I don't know what it is.
We will find out, we will hear more, but it was an undisclosed injury.
So Poirier’s out, which means the Diaz fight is off.
Okay, fine.
We still got it.
Everything’s on pace.
Now we got Daniel versus The Black Beast.
Very interesting that that fight came about and how it came about, and yes, it was largely
because of happenstance and because of timing and because they needed somebody, but guys,
don’t lose the lesson in this.
I beg you, don’t lose the lesson in this.
This is what dreams are made of and this is how this sport and this industry runs.
There is nothing inappropriate or wrong about this.
This is consistent with how mixed martial arts, a sport that goes 52 weeks a year, 365
days.
There is no season.
There is no set schedule like other sports.
This is consistent, and a lot of guys have been put in the same spot and those guys now
go down as legends.
Don’t look any further than the career of Michael Bisping, who was more than willing
to say yes on extremely short notice and win and then stop the world champion and took
his title away.
People forget that Bisping took that fight.
I think it was eight days’ notice.
They forget that.
They forget it because it doesn’t matter.
Doesn’t matter how the fight was made or how long you had to train.
It is insignificant to it.
It always seems to make headlines but those headlines always go away, and the record books
will reflect that Michael Bisping was a champion of the world.
I offer you that because this is the way that the sport goes, and yeah, it's a quick turnaround
for Derrick Lewis.
There's already a storyline there though, isn't there?
Derrick Lewis just came out of a training camp.
Derrick Lewis is already going to be in shape.
Daniel Cormier is at home thinking that his next fight isn't until January of next year.
Is that completely relevant?
No.
A little bit more will be made of that than is rightfully due, okay?
There is time for a two-division world champion to spruce himself into shape.
I don’t see any reason why Daniel Cormier would come in there less than at his best.
But you can start to see where things get real interesting.
Derrick Lewis showed a [00:05:53] to be taken down in his last fight by a guy in Volkov
who is not near the wrestler of Daniel Cormier, but the other side of that coin is he got
his ass right back up, didn't he?
There's also a power there.
There's also a different kind of wrestling that Volkov was doing versus what Daniel Cormier
does.
Look, it's very hard for me to package this up and present to you this in some way other
than Daniel Cormier being an overwhelming favorite for this fight.
I get it.
But Lewis is noticeably bigger.
Be a good experience for Daniel to get in there with somebody that big, something he
has done before with Bigfoot Silva, something that he has done before with Roy Nelson, but
something that he's going to need to remember how to do if he's going to get in there with
Brock Lesnar.
There’s also a power struggle there and there's also a different level of wrestling
when you're in there with somebody that big.
Daniel had a very hard time just going out and outwrestling Roy Nelson, by example.
Roy was just such a big guy.
I only suggest these things to you because, if nothing else, and we don’t need to competitively
make believe that this is a fantastically hard matchup and that we're likely to get
a new champion—I'm not going to play along with some of those things—but there is a
need to see this fight.
If you want to see Daniel versus Brock and you want to know how he's going to do with
size and power, there is a need to see this specific fight and see, how does he deal with
that?
And then you start to gauge and guess, how is he going to deal with that same size and
power but now Brock’s got a national championship in wrestling?
I think that it's interesting, I think it's compelling, and I like how it came about.
I like the fact that Derrick Lewis took his pants off and now is fighting for a world
championship.
I like the fact that Derrick Lewis cut a good promo and won a fight at the last second and
is now fighting for a world championship.
I like the fact that Derrick Lewis told Joe Rogan on the spot less than a week ago, “I'm
not ready to fight for a world championship,” and is now fighting for a world championship.
I guess I just like Derrick Lewis.
If it was just to come down to it, I must admit to you, I guess I just like Derrick
Lewis and I do trust in the competitor of Derrick Lewis.
I think his skills are still forming.
In fairness, I think his skills are still forming.
I think in the world of mixed martial arts, which we do not have any kind of a belt system
other than a gold one that goes to the #1 guy, I do not think if we did have a belt
system he would be a black belt in mixed martial arts, but I do think he's a damn good cage
fighter and I do think he's a tough guy with a big heart and I do think he got a good opportunity
here, and I do want to see him stand in that ring with Daniel Cormier because I do want
to see that match and I do want to be able to start to hypothesize and guess how Daniel
is going to do with a big powerful man, which is in his future should he get by Derrick
Lewis—which I expect that he will do quite handily—and have to go in there and deal
with Brock, which I think he can also pass with flying colors.
But I like the speculation and so do you guys and I think that it's fun, and you're going
to see this turn.
You're going to have very interesting psychology.
I imagine when this fight was announced for you guys you had the same reaction as I did,
which is, “Oh, fun fight!
Beats the hell out of anything else you had going on the card.
Thanks for giving us that match.
I will tune in.
I will also bet heavily on Daniel Cormier.”
I'm sure that was your reaction.
I will just share with you, as the weeks go by that dialogue in your own heads will change.
They will win you over.
You will start to say, “Well, you know, Derrick’s got a puncher’s chance and,
yeah, remember that time that Anthony Johnson sent Cormier head over teakettle?
And if Derrick connects with him, we could see a new champion there.”
You'll just do this.
This is just how human nature works.
But guys, this is fun.
You don’t need to put yourself in check when you do that.
Sit back and enjoy.
Enjoy being a mark for the business.
Enjoy that you can mark out, enjoy that you can fall for the commentary, and enjoy the
fact that every single Saturday you can sit down and be compelled by the matchups put
in front of you.
That is what makes you a fan!
That’s a good thing.