So for me, the MSG card has never been fumbled, for me the MSG card has never been in jeopardy
and for me the MSG card has never been out of order.
The only thing that’s been out of order is the emphasis put on which fight in which
order.
Let me tell you what I mean.
Derek Brunson versus Israel Adesanya is a main event of any non-pay-per-view of 2018.
For a pay-per-view, that's a co-main event.
These guys are damn near jerking the curtain for the main card.
The main event all along, particularly because we’re in New York, the main event all along
has been there.
It's Chris Weidman, the former world champion, fighting in New York.
The last time he fought in New York at Nassau Coliseum against Kelvin Gastelum was a total
sellout.
He is a proven draw particularly in this geographical location.
He was going to rematch maybe the best middleweight to have ever done it in Luke Rockhold.
Luke Rockhold’s out, Jacare’s in.
Guess what?
Jacare and Weidman were supposed to fight three years ago.
This fight is three years in the making.
There's your main event and that's the way this deck should have been stacked from jump
street.
You now have the world heavyweight championship.
I consider this an encore.
The world heavyweight championship at Madison Square Garden, the same venue that Muhammad
Ali fought in, the same venue that Joe Frasier fought in the same venue that George Foreman
has fought in, the same venue that Hulk Hogan has leg-dropped in, okay, it's Madison Square
Garden.
It's the heavyweight championship.
Now, when you look at this match, there are a lot of moving parts.
First off, Daniel Cormier weighed in at 251 pounds.
That is three pounds heavier than he's ever weighed in before.
His heaviest was the Stipe fight where he weighed in at 248 pounds.
From a boxing standpoint, that is dire news for your athlete – wrong on Daniel Cormier.
Totally different scenario on Daniel Cormier.
Listen, I don’t actually know how long I've known Daniel but it goes back to the nineties.
I have personally seen—and I know you guys haven't because you didn't follow his amateur
wrestling career—I have personally seen Daniel Cormier compete and win at 184 pounds,
compete and win at 197 pounds, compete and win at 205 pounds, compete and win at 211
pounds.
I've then seen him compete and win at 228 pounds, 248 pounds, and now for the first
time I will see him at 251 pounds.
The point that I'm trying to make for you guys, he is an anomaly in this regard and
we have yet to find out the optimal competitive weight of Daniel Cormier.
Hear me out on that because I don't know it myself.
I do not know this.
Does he do his best work at 228 pounds or does he do it in 248 pounds?
Because I've seen him do both and I watched him win a grand prix in Strikeforce at 228,
I watched him win a UFC world heavyweight championship at 248, and I have a more than
sneaky suspicion that I'm going to see him defend the world heavyweight championship
at 251 pounds.
I think his coaches would like to see him—I think I've heard Coach Javier talk about this—I
think they would like to see him at about 243 pounds.
I'm not positive it's not more like 255.
I don’t offer for you guys that he should balloon up to 255.
I'm just telling you we do not know the optimal weight of Daniel Cormier.
To go back to his amateur wrestling days when he was competing for Olympic and world teams
and medals, he did that at a weight class known as 96 kilograms, which converts to 211
pounds, okay?
But he spent a season outside of world and Olympic competition at heavyweight and he
went completely undefeated.
So there was a lot of talk even within this country of, “Hey, this should be our heavyweight,
but we're not going to encourage it because we have a really great heavyweight that can
also win a medal and Daniel can be top three,” meaning win a medal, “at the 96 kilograms,
211 pounds.”
So all I'm offering for you is we don’t actually know where his optimal weight is.
And I personally did a workout with him a number of weeks ago, I've never felt him so
good – not even close have I felt him so good.
I could not believe how strong he was.
If you saw him at the weigh-ins today, you saw his legs and you saw his hips and you
saw his ass – listen, that's where the power comes from.
You will see guys get punched in this sport, it's not the arms.
It's coming from the hips.
It's coming from the legs as you turn.
It's coming from the hips.
It's coming from the legs as you turn.
I've never seen him look so strong.
But there's another piece to this fight, okay?
Daniel Cormier had a bad hand.
Now, I'm not disclosing inside information and, yes, when I went to work out with him
his hand was wrapped up and I saw this firsthand, but this has become public.
So I'm not speaking out of school here.
This went all the way to the New York State Athletic Commission who said, “Hey, we're
going to need to investigate this hand a little bit.”
They did.
They ruled that it was hurt, not injured.
Great distinction.
Just like you guys, you're all allowed to go to work maybe not feeling your best, okay?
Commission looked at it and goes, “It's not broken.
He says he can do it, he passed a little test of squeeze this, do that, game on.”
Well, when we know about the hand, then we can very easily deduce that this is going
to be a grappling-heavy contest should Daniel have his way, that Daniel’s going to want
to come out there and not do as much boxing as we've seen in the past, look to get to
that takedown right away.
Now, when you talk about a takedown with Daniel Cormier, he will also wrestle while still
on his feet.
He's one guy that can wrestle from this position.
He'll get into the body and he'll come to what we call an underhook.
He'll push you, use that leverage because he's a little shorter, get you into the fence,
start to wear you down from there, maybe drag you down after that, dirty box a little bit.
Daniel Cormier isn't, say, a Georges-St-Pierre-style wrestler where he's going to come out from
the open, blast you with that double and all of a sudden you're here.
So, the relevance being, and I'm quite sure that I will be correct on his game plan, but
the relevance being if Derrick Lewis’ big puncher’s chance is to stay on his feet
and land a punch, Derrick Lewis needs to be able to stop and defend that early takedown
because if he can, as tall of an order as it may be, guys, if he can, what that will
make a fighter do oftentimes is wrestler-heavy and this is coming straight from a guy that
would prefer to wrestle out there.
If you can stop that early one, you can make the wrestler, you can make the athlete, you
can make the Daniel Cormier go, “Okay, listen, plan A didn't work.
Let's go to plan B. You come at me and I'll come at you and it's going to look more like
a kickboxing or Queensbury match.”
The reason I suggest that for you, if Derrick Lewis wants to spend as much time on his feet
as possible so that he gives himself as much opportunity to land that big shot that we
would be led to believe is going to be Derrick’s greatest path to success, he just needs to
stop that early takedown.
He needs to stop that early onslaught.
He needs to understand this is going to be grappling- and wrestling-heavy by comparison
to other Daniel Cormier matches because of the hand.