Joe Previews Israel Adesanya vs. Jared Cannonier

Izzie is just the most sophisticated of the strikers. He's the... If you watch striking, if you're a person who likes striking, and you like set ups and stuff, he is doing something very different because he's getting guys to move a certain way. He's reading you. Like you see when Izzie is moving around, he's reading you. He's seeing if he can come forward with the right hand. He's seeing if you're looking at that right hand, he kicks your leg. He's going to move out of the range of your power. He's thinking in 4D or something. He's downloading all your data. He can see weaknesses in people. A great example is Paulo Costa. Paulo Costa, steamrolled everybody. He was just smashing people. He's a giant dude. They called him the eraser. He would just move forward and just fuck a... And Izzie just picked him apart. He made him look foolish. By the end of the first round, you could see he was baffled. He was fucked. Because he knew, like, I can't hit this dude, and he's standing right in front of me. He would swing at Izzie, and Izzie would be just out of range, and then he'd make him pay. Just out of range and make him pay. And then after he stopped him, he humped him. Yeah, you know where I learned a lot. But I watched those... You see that? You see that after he stopped him, he humps him? Watch this. Yeah, because he was talking all that shit. Yeah, he was talking all that shit. But watch this. One, two. That's why I love Izzie, man, because he don't play that shit. Well, he's just so slick, man. For a guy like me who's been interested in striking his whole life, seeing a guy like this that was a top flight kickboxer make his way into MMA... I reached out to Izzie before he ever fought in the UFC. I saw him fight in kickboxing matches, and I reached out to him on Instagram way back in the day. And he was telling me that he's taken some fights in China, and that he's kind of come to the UFC, but he's going to do it the right way. He did it the right way. He was smart. Some guys jump in, but they don't have a ground game yet. They jump in. They don't have defense yet, but they just feel like, oh, I'm going to learn a few things. I'm just going to use my kickboxing. Then you fight some fucking wrestler, some dude who hits you with that power double, and boom, and you feel that weight and pressure, like, oh, shit. I don't know how to handle this. Yeah. A lot of guys get fucked up that way. You run into a Khabib and get fired. Exactly. You run into some Dagestani assassin, and you're fucked. But Izzie did it the right way. I like watching the morning combat guys. Yes. Yeah. Luke Thomas and who's the other dude? Luke's been on the podcast before. He's got that dude with him. He made me understand just how much on another level is he is from everybody else. He'll have a two, three-hour video where he's telling you the- Brian Campbell. Yeah, Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell. Yeah, they broke it down one time, and I was like, oh, wow, this motherfucker is ... because I don't have the experience in fighting that you have, right? So I was like, there needs to be a John Madden of MMA, you know? Yeah. Because at first, I mean, I always liked watching Izzie, but I didn't get the chess match that he's playing, that other people just aren't ... They're not even aware that there's another game being played other than swinging and kicking, right? He's on some other shit, man. Well, the way he describes it is like a lot of people are just button smashers. Like, if you're playing a game, you're like, eh. Oh, yeah. Trying to make something happen. He's like, he's setting things up. He's setting things up. And there's other guys that set things up, and that's one of the things that makes this weekend so interesting is because he's on the same card as Alex Pereira. And Alex Pereira is- Beat him. He knocked him out. He KO'd him with a left hook in a kickboxing match. That's where I heard that. He's won once by unanimous decision and then the rematch he KO'd Izzie. He's only fought twice in the UFC, but he's won both fights, and now he's fighting the number four ranked Sean Strickland this weekend. It's very interesting because they're basically trying to fast track him and feel a fight with Izzie. I'm sorry, man. You know what? You got to show me somebody to beat him. Well, let me show you somebody. I'm not saying that he could beat him, but Alex Pereira is one of the scariest fucking strikers on planet Earth. He's this dude from Brazil. He's a bad motherfucker. And this is when he fought Izzie. I think this is- I don't know if this is the first fight or the second fight, but it was a real good fight back and forth, but then this. Oh, wow. Yeah. I mean, he's got that kind of power. But go to Alex Pereira's highlights. That said, the Izzie from back then is not the Izzie of today. He's way better now, way better now. Alex Pereira, who was primarily a kickboxer, two division world champion in glory, now he's made his way over to MMA. And he's just so- this dude, here's- this dude fucks people up. And these are with big gloves on. He's one of the most vicious knockout artists in glory history, like unusual power. Like, almost everybody gets starched. And the dude's crazy durable too. Like he gets into wars with people and- Can they not throw kicks? Oh, they can, but he's- Yeah. I mean, he's got kick knockouts too, but there's a left hand, a KO, Dustin Jacobi. I mean, he's a bad motherfucker.