We began this podcast with an introduction to breakdown the fight card from the Las Vegas Apex headlined by Curtis "Razor" Blaydes vs Alex "Drago" Volkov. Blaydes won a unanimous decision and set a heavyweight record by taking Volkov down 15 times. Scott started by saying that it was a great performance by Blaydes and his wrestling was outstanding and his striking looked really good as well. He said it was a bit surprising how good his striking looked going up against such a big striker like Volkov. His only negative that he saw was how the Razor's cardio did not look good. To us that was the most surprising part as he trains at altitude in Colorado with the Elevation Fight Team. Dana White made some comments that Blaydes better stay busy as he will not move further in his career against tougher competition with cardio like he displayed in this fight. Holburn pointed out that he will not out wrestle the champ Stipe Miocic or his next challenger Daniel "DC" Cormier. On August 15th those two will have a much anticipated trilogy fight to finally prove who is the best Heavyweight of all time! Francis Ngannou has been told he gets the next title shot but there have been a lot of talk that this will be DC's last fight and that Stipe might retire as well after this fight. Blaydes has lost twice to Ngannou both to TKO's so the UFC is reluctant to schedule a third fight between two fighters. The heavyweight division is taking shape with these four guys at the top. Scott also talked about the exciting upcoming fight as Alex Gustafsson is moving up to heavyweight to face former champ Fabricio Werdum on July 25th on Fight Island. There have also been a lot of rumors that light heavyweight champ Jon Jones is also considering a move up to the heavyweight division. Nice quote here "You put those two guys(Gustafsson and Jones) in the conversation things can change real quick!".
We had a great discussion about the Co-main event which had Josh Emmett winning a decision over Shane Burgos. This was an excellent fight that was highly entertaining. Emmett blew out his knee by full tear of his ACL in the first few seconds of the fight and it limited his ability. Emmett gritted out a great win but both fighters both impressed and should be starting to be in the mix to get big fights and eventually one of a handful to be considered for a title shot. The Champ of this featherweight division is Alexander Volkanovski who is scheduled for a rematch with Max Holloway July 11th.
We had to address the controversial first fight of the card between Austin Hubbard vs Max Rohskopf. The two fighters had a very even first round and then Hubbard really displayed some dominance in the second round. When Max Rohskopf went to his corner after the second round he started to say to his coach and cornerman Robert Drysdale to call it. He wanted Drysdale to end the fight and his coach kept trying to encourage him to continue. He implored his corner to "call it" over and over and said he didn't have it. Finally when the minute rest period between round ended the athletic commission asked him if he wanted to continue and he said no. Since this encounter was filmed and the audio heard on the telecast there has been a lot of controversy. There was a lot of criticism leveled against Drysdale for not stopping the fight and Rohskopf for quitting. We at Complete Sports Media have had quite a few interactions with Robert Drysdale who has won multiple World Championships in Jiu Jitsu. He has been called the most accomplished American Grappler of his generation. Drysdale has coached numerous world champion UFC fighters like Randy Couture, Forrest Griffin, Joana Jedrzejczyk, Frank Mir, Vitor Belfort, Wanderlei Silva, Dan Hardy to name just a handful. We think Drysdale should be given the benefit of the doubt!
