MMA On Point - Podcast

Who is fighting Alexandre Pantoja in the main event of UFC 310 this weekend? Kai Asakura is extremely well known to Rizin/hardcore MMA fans in the west, but the level of superstar he is in Japan is not well understood among more casual fans. This weekend everyone gets to see who is in the cage. Who wins?

You would think after a fight all the bad vibes would chill a bit and the two fighters would come to terms. Well.... that's not always the case. No better example than Ronda Rousey vs Miesha Tate. How about Dana White for some reason giving you crap for a great fight? Or not even signing you? Fans aren't exempt in this either with the Glover Teixeira situation. We'll show you it all in this video.

Everyone's 0 has to go at some point and if we're lucky it's at the best possible moment between two undefeated fighters. In this video it's all the most hyped fighters just like Ian Garry and Shavkat Rakhmonov at the height of their popularity. Who wins?.... is the only question left.

You never wanna stick around too long in this sport, cause those can just lead to some very miserable losses. And for that reason, usually leaving early is a good thing. But in this video, it's where something went wrong or distractions almost entirely wiped away a fighter's prime years.

Time to be thankful. It's that time of year again, so we broke down our favorite moments of the year and honestly just having a laugh on a big holiday. Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Hope it's a fun one!

Kinda crazy to think that someone who has nothing to do with a major MMA event can overshadow the whole thing, but that's exactly what's happened in these cases. What a better example than what just happened at UFC 309 when Tom Aspinall vs Jon Jones became a much bigger story than the actual main event vs Stipe Miocic.

Was this the end of their careers? Turns out not, but it certainly looked like it. In the case of Bisping or Aldo as pictured in the thumbnails, it was about as far down the line a loss could take you. How did they bounce back?

If you guys were watching around the time Werdum beat Fedor, you'd remember how much Dana White gloated that Werdum was a reject and that's how bad Strikeforce was. Fast forward a couple years and yeah, Werdum became UFC champion. That's what today's video is about; those who were kicked out of the UFC and became champions around the world and not just in the UFC.

Ahead of UFC 310, Kai Asakura is getting an immediate title shot at Alexandre Pantoja after being Rizin champion. Makes sense right? Champ vs champ is a fun idea. Well the UFC is pretty inconsistent about this. Actually, it's way more common for the UFC to deny a title shot for champions coming directly over even when it's made a ton of sense.

Jon Jones just thoroughly dominated a 42 year old Stipe Miocic who look every bit his age after 4 years off and basically semi-retired. What did this prove? What did this do for Jones' legacy that he keeps going on about? And more importantly, why did this have to happen instead of the Aspinall fight?

Most of the time fights get called off for pretty mundane reasons right? A fighter gets sick or injured? PED failures aren't great but are fairly common. In these cases though, it's almost like an act of god prevented them from going forward. Think of the last Tony vs Khabib booking? A Pandemic? What? That's the kind of thing you can expect to see on this list.

There's no doubt about it at this point. Jon Jones is ducking Tom Aspinall and he clearly wants to fight everyone, but Tom Aspinall - including Stipe Miocic this weekend at UFC 309 and in the future with Alex Pereira. But what about the other times fans have accused champions of doing this? Turns out there are a fair few more.

One big win can mean a massive amount in MMA and in this video that's exactly what catapulted these fighters from obscurity to stardom, but what happens when the fighter can't win after that? The two big examples we've highlighted are Kron Gracie and Houston Alexander who just couldn't keep the wins going after blowing up from that initial victory.

Going into Jon Jones' first title defense against Stipe Miocic at UFC 309, it's easy to forget how big a challenge Ciryl Gane was meant to be when he first won the title, because well... Jones just made it look so easy. That's what this list today is about. Those who were perceived as huge challenges, that just got immediately dealt with in the cage.

There is nothing like a first defense in MMA and just like Ilia Topuria's shocking KO of Max Holloway, the only question left is where does something like this rank among the best of all time? We answer that for you today.

It doesn't matter how much evidence you throw at some people, they just can't accept it. Whether like Ronda Rousey or Luke Rockhold, to this day, they just can't let it go.

Ilia Topuria just did the unthinkable to Max Holloway. No one has even dropped Max Holloway at featherweight before and the time against Gaethje was a flash knockdown. Ilia's abilities have barely even been tested.

The writing was on the wall when it came to the Zuffa sale to Endeavor, the sale of Strikeforce, several people's careers with Tito Ortiz and Ben Askren.... yeah when you look back there is a ton of foreshadowing that you would have never realized in the moment.

This weekend there is a massive title fight between Ilia Topuria and Max Holloway at UFC 308. Can you imagine if either guy pretty much just admitted they think they'll lose? Well, that's exactly what's happened in this video with the likes of Chael Sonnen and many others. Sometimes, you just know it's not going your way.

Everyone puts their foot in their mouth from time to time, but some definitely do it more than others. In the case of Julianna Pena or Jamahal Hill, sad to say, it happens quite frequently. That's what today's video is about, when the fighters just had no idea what they were saying and it was completely out of line with everyone else in MMA.

Even the best commentators make mistakes. In these cases, they definitely did. Whether it was Jon Anik getting a 209 tattoo cause he was so sure McGregor would be Diaz or Joe Rogan welcoming us all to the Machida era, they are perfect examples of commentators eating their own words.

It's hard to believe now but the UFC's lightweight division, you know a division that's featured the likes of Conor McGregor, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Tony Ferguson, Justin Gaethje, Max Holloway, BJ Penn and a litany of others actually got booted from the UFC at one point. Following a series of unfortunate events, the UFC got rid of the whole division. So what happened? And how did it get back to the...

Khamzat Chimaev has had a rough past couple years hasn't he? Well he's not the only one. This list is all about those times fighters have had to pull out of fights and the fans....well, let's just say they were pretty skeptical as to the reasons why.

Doesn't matter who you are in MMA, at some point you are going to get tested and that included the pound for pound greatest fighters ever. So that's what we look into today, the entire timeline of all of these greats when they were on top, in or outside the UFC and dive through it all.

There a few that did pick Khalil Rountree to beat Alex Pereira last night, but most did pick Poatan considering the gap in opponents and even still, this fight managed to over deliver. Massive respect to both fighters, but what Pereira did was nothing short of a terminator like performance. He never took a back step the whole fight even after being rocked.