Stipe Miocic

Mm-hmm.

Because we waited a long time for Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic.

And then look at Tom Aspinall.

He's closing in on a year.

And now look at the whole state of this division

and where it's at.

I feel, you know, if you're Stipe Miocic, what do you care, right? You're getting a paycheck out of it.

He's probably happy, but man, it did not.

I don't think I'm overvaluing the difficulty of that challenge, but one lesson or one idea that's lingering in my mind is, are we overvaluing it to such a degree that we're actually ruining the product? damaging it or hurting it or minimizing it maybe that maybe maybe whatever the right word is and what i mean by that is in an era of fighters where they're competing all the time and they're competing you know they're they're real offensive dynamos and let's say like it's in boxing and you're moving up maybe just seven pounds and i realize some of the better ones have moved up much more than that and even had some success like putting guys away late Or higher in weight.

But the point I'm trying to make is, you know, a lot of times these guys go up in weight, and unless it's like a Jones versus the corpse of Stipe Miocic, you know, it's a really difficult climb.

Like, everyone is doing a lot of think pieces on how good Islam is and blah, blah, blah.

And I'm like, guys, he's fucking awesome.

Even in the Antonio Silva fight, he kind of had to fight out of deficits in ways that was, you know.

Not that great.

And again, running Stipe Miocic down along the fence line like he did, like a fucking idiot, and then just getting chinned for it, that was not great.

But dude, Verdum, he could strike with you.

Right? The same thing that happened with Cyril Garn.

Same thing that happened with Stipe Miocic.

He'd come out and done it.

No, because there's

He's not a very big guy now.

Uh, uh, Stipe Miocic was considered a, a small heavyweight, and Stipe weighed around 240.

Daniel Cormier was considered a, a light heavyweight, weighed around 240.

Jon Jones is considered a small heavyweight, weighs just under 240.

... is absolutely absurd.

When I fought Stipe Miocic, I knocked him out and I jumped on the cage, because if you play out 100 scenarios, most times you don't get to that one.

You can't ask a fighter-

Correct

You just can't, because when something like that...

When I fought Stipe Miocic, I knocked him out, and I jumped on the cage.

Because if you play out 100 scenarios, most times you don't get to that one, so when you get to that one, you get excited.

You can't ask a fighter to have the awareness to not go and do that because they're so filled with joy, but also reset their mind and celebrate.

I was fined and put on probation for Jon Jones and I fighting in the MGM Grand.

You guys remember that.

I was not fined, though, for jumping on the octagon side when I knocked out Stipe Miocic.

I don't know if this is something that they changed recently, but if they did, it's absurd.

Werdum got his shit rocked constantly.

He chased down Stipe Miocic and just got, you know, wrecked.

You can't ...

Like, Islam doesn't do that.

Dude, other MMA fighters haven't done that.

They have title defenses up a weight class.

I mean, look at what Jon Jones did against Stipe Miocic.

Like what, what, what would Islam have done against Is- uh, let's say Ian Garry was bordering 40 and off for three years, and the last time you had seen him he had been bodied by, who was it? Uh, Francis, right? And that was, that was the last fight that Stipe had before that one.