TAKEDOWNS & BREAKDOWNS: UGP 43
[As the video starts playing, we find Isaac Cohen and Kayla Chapman at their commentary desk, looking over the Little Caesars Arena. There’s a second or two of both just smiling to the camera, before Isaac introduces the segment.]
ISAAC COHEN: “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the UGP 43 post-show that we like to call Takedowns and Breakdowns; Isaac Cohen here, alongside Kayla Chapman, and Kayla, certainly an eventful card tonight.”
KAYLA CHAPMAN: “Yeah, absolutely. We have a new Middleweight Champion, a slew of new contenders making names for themselves, a couple surprising results if the two of us are honest about things, and…this being MMA, maybe a couple questionable judging decisions! A lot to talk about, certainly.”
ISAAC COHEN: “Well, let’s get started with the main event: the Heavyweight Champion, Gauge Lattimore, making his first defense of this reign against Billy Tweeds, and what an impressive performance from the Champ.”
[Kayla nods in agreement, exhaling a long breath as she always does when thinking about what the Heavyweights do to each other.]
KAYLA CHAPMAN: “Nobody should be surprised whenever Gauge gets in there and puts on a show-stealing performance, and tonight was no different; for three rounds, he was surgical as he picked Billy Tweeds apart, and…yanno, we gotta say a lot about Billy’s toughness, too, because honestly some of those shots he took were bombs. But it just wasn’t his night, the Heavyweight Champion still reigns supreme with a really emphatic victory over a dangerous opponent.”
ISAAC COHEN: “Definitely, Gauge was immensely impressive tonight, not only offensively, but he neutralized Billy Tweeds’ offense when Billy was able to press the action. Gauge got a taste of Billy Tweeds’ power, got stunned a bit early in round one, but that was enough for him to really focus on his footwork, wear Tweeds down and make him swing and miss. I don’t think we can count Billy out, but tonight, the better man was the hometown boy, who…basically welcomed any challenger who wanted to step up, so it’ll be really interesting to see who Dante lines up across from the Heavyweight Champion next.”
KAYLA CHAPMAN: “Absolutely. Now, the co-main event–my favorite fight on this card heading into tonight by a long, long way. This one, we both said going in we had our picks, but it was entirely possible we were going to be wrong, and, despite the statline, this fight turned out to be super, super close–but in the end, we have a new Middleweight Champion, in Noah Vanderkaay!”
ISAAC COHEN: “Noah’s been on the rise ever since he hit the big stage of Union GP, and…I gotta hand it to you, Kayla, you said tonight was the night Noah punctuates that rise with a championship, and you were dead on with this one. A crazy pace, from start to finish, both LSC and Noah landed some big shots on each other, but just look at that output from Noah; almost 250 significant strikes thrown, and a significant chunk of them landed!”
KAYLA CHAPMAN: “Yeah, so, let’s start with the now former champion–don’t take anything away from LSC tonight, ladies and gentlemen, he was a warrior tonight. Noah Vanderkaay was just on another level tonight, but I’ve watched LSC since Everest, he’s going to come back even hungrier than before, I don’t think this is the last time we see these two in the cage with that Middleweight belt on the line.”
[Isaac shakes his head negatively, even while Kayla’s still talking.]
ISAAC COHEN: “Definitely not, this fight will almost certainly happen again somewhere down the road.”
KAYLA CHAPMAN: “I wanted to make that clear, before I say this: I think this fight could’ve been stopped in the third round, Noah was unloading on LSC. I appreciate refs wanting to let the fighters fight, but at some point, he’s just getting bombarded, and it’s for the fighter’s own health that you stop the fight. But, that’s coming from someone who doesn’t fight, so…maybe I have a different perspective. Nonetheless, a truly incredible night for Noah Vanderkaay and the Twin Cities camp; congrats on the win, and congrats on becoming Middleweight Champion!”
ISAAC COHEN: “I think the entire building was on pins and needles from the second round and on. The cut Saint-Cyr had to battle with didn’t do him any favors and it felt like at some point a ringside physician was going to come in and put a stop to it. But I’ll say this, kudos to the officials for allowing it to continue, Saint-Cyr came back, looked better in the fourth round and won the fifth round and with two judges scoring the fight three rounds for Vanderkaay and two rounds for Saint-Cyr, it gives you enough reason to run it back in my opinion. Speaking of Twin Cities, let’s move to the Lightweight Division next: after some early difficulties, Abbie Peterson had a truly dominant display against Silvio Gotti, stunning the Austrian multiple times in the course of the fight with knees, punches, and kicks.”
KAYLA CHAPMAN: “Honestly, all I can really say about this one is to reiterate that one scorecard: 30-25. If you have a fight that ends 30-25, there’s no question what happened.”
[For a second, that’s…all Kayla really has to say about the situation, as if that was the end of the discussion; eventually, though, she manages to collect her thoughts and continue her piece.]
KAYLA CHAPMAN: “You have to give credit to Silvio, though–most people wouldn’t have stood up to what Abbie was throwing at him, but he gritted his teeth and made it to the horn. If those early submission attacks were a little more precise, we might be having a very different conversation, Isaac–but Abbie was able to get out of them, and completely take control of the fight.”
ISAAC COHEN: “Silvio had his moments, and as you said, if he was a little more disciplined with those submissions, who knows what would’ve happened. I think he may have been a little surprised by Abbie’s power. She generates a lot of force with those rangy limbs. Nonetheless, Abbie gets back in the winning column tonight, and that raises a conundrum for her–she’s already got a loss to the current champion, but she’s ranked #3, just beat #4, so where does she go from here?”
KAYLA CHAPMAN: “Time will tell, there’s certainly some interesting matchups at 155 lbs if she can’t get a chance to make up for that loss against 2Face. Now, we go back to Heavyweight, and…being completely honest, Isaac, this fight is exactly what I expected from these two–brutal, powerful shots from the moment the fight began, to the moment one of them fell down. Byrne started off hot, landing some big shots that put Dominic in trouble early, but as Dax Levandrier learned in Everest: never, ever count Dominic out. He got that clinch, and it was all over but the singing at that point.
ISAAC COHEN: “We knew both men could throw big punches from in space, but I don’t know how many people expected Dominic Donaldson to have that kind of power from in tight like that. Uppercuts and body punches just sapped the life out of Byrne, and left him relatively easy prey for that massive uppercut that won Dominic the fight. Not quite the Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots we might have expected from these two, but a devastating few minutes nonetheless. You could clearly see that Donaldson is under the tutelage of Hall of Famer Delaney Donovan with that impressive Thai clinch work that’s for sure. Very dangerous technique, especially at heavyweight.”
KAYLA CHAPMAN: “And now, the main card opener–and Isaac, what can you say about this one? Eagle Mondalvi came out like a man possessed, and for a minute and a half or however long this fight lasted, he just throw big, winging bombs to try to put Bodhi Bottoms down. Eagle Mondalvi was not playing around tonight, and he might have just made a statement that every single Middleweight will want to pay attention to.”
ISAAC COHEN: “Yeah, we can’t do a lot of analytical breakdown on this one, because it really was over as soon as it started; Eagle nearly put Bodhi down in the first few seconds, and just never let up, at all, after that. An incredible performance by Eagle Mondalvi. If he keeps putting up performances like this, we’ll be seeing him in the title picture before the end of the year.”
KAYLA CHAPMAN: “Alright, let’s go through the prelims really fast–first, Erick Costa with an utterly astonishing performance against D’Ante Jackson, completely neutralizing the former Everest champion both on the feet, and in his takedown attempts, before pinning D’Ante up against the cage and unloading shots on him.”
ISAAC COHEN: “What a way to break a rough patch for Erick Costa, almost a flawless performance against a really game competitor, and maybe a glimpse into what we all kind of expected him to be in the past–and, maybe, what he could still be in the future. Don’t let his slightly above .500 record fool you, look at the losses: Byron McCall, Delaney Donovan, Paige Holloway, Abbie Peterson, and 2Face Rodríguez. Those are current or future Hall of Famers and champions. Costa is the litmus test at 155 pounds, and I think with some adjustments, he could vault himself in that category.”
KAYLA CHAPMAN: “Staying at 155, a tough, grinding 15 minute fight–that’s basically what you expect when Catherine Harris is in there, and true to form, that’s what this fight was. Isaac, you were scoring the prelims, you gave round 2 to Harris, but I have to ask why? Other than stopping the takedown, I thought Moss had the better round overall.”
ISAAC COHEN: “ Hah. I’ll never claim to be an expert on judging. I think in the first round, Moss scored two takedowns and it looked like his ground and pound was really doing a number on Harris. His shots looked like they were inflicting much more damage, but in between rounds one and two, Harris adjusted properly and pointed her way to another gritty decision win. Positioning matters a lot, Kayla, and Cat controlled the positioning. What little advantage Cameron Moss was able to get, Harris neutralized until she could improve her position, and on the feet it was just Cameron desperately trying–and failing, in most cases–to take her down. It wasn’t effective, so I gave her the next two round.”
[Kayla actually looks surprised by that, as if maybe Isaac’s opinion might’ve changed in the following couple hours–but when he holds fast, she shrugs her shoulders.]
KAYLA CHAPMAN: “Well, the judges must have agreed with you, a unanimous decision win for Catherine The Great to get her back in the win column. Finally, the opening fight of the evening, and this fight went similar to how we thought it would go–on the feet, especially early on, Cortez Gaines had the advantage more often than not, landing some big shots in the clinch especially, but whenever Ardan Kelly was able to take him down, it wasn’t particularly competitive–it was Cortez Gaines trying to survive an onslaught of submissions.”
ISAAC COHEN: “Maybe not the result Ardan Kelly might’ve liked, especially with all those submissions as you said, but a win is a win in Union, sometimes you have to take it where you can get it. I did think Cortez got the better of round one, so seeing 30-27s across the board took me by surprise, but I don’t think there was any doubt about who won that fight in the end.”
KAYLA CHAPMAN: “They all count the same, they all get you one step closer to a number by your name, or a shot at the title, or…whatever the current goal is, a win is a win, for sure.”
[Isaac nods and sets his notes aside, glancing down the table at Kayla.]
ISAAC COHEN: “Alright, like last time, let’s get some predictions–what do we see next for some of our fighters tonight?”
KAYLA CHAPMAN: “Well, a lot of it will depend on who else is doing what, of course, but some fights seem like locks–Gauge Lattimore vs. Owen Barnes seems like the obvious match to make at Heavyweight, while I’d be interested in seeing Kennard Rozier take on Dominic Donaldson. At Middleweight, I think we gotta see Noah defend against Derrius Webb, I’d like to see Eagle Mondalvi take on someone like a Jose Melendez or Deebo Briggs. At Lightweight, I think Erick Costa and Catherine Harris makes sense, while the top 3 or so sort each other out–if she doesn’t get the rematch right away, Paige facing Abbie would be a striker’s dream, but I suspect we’ll have to wait on that one.”
ISAAC COHEN: “I’d be interested to see Silvio Gotti Jr against another grappler, maybe a rematch with D’Ante Jackson or a fight against someone like Maddox Moon. I love the idea of Pluggz vs. Dominic Donaldson, that sounds like fireworks from bell to bell. I’d probably expect a rematch between Noah and LSC, match up Derrius Webb and Travis Decker to determine the next contender. I don’t even want to speculate about Lightweight, there’s too much to figure out at 155 lbs right now. People moving up and down the rankings, no telling who actually gets the next shot, 155 is too up in the air for me to even try to play matchmaker for.”
[Kayla chuckles and nods, away from the mic admitting she’d probably agree, as Isaac turns to the camera.]
ISAAC COHEN: “Nonetheless, thank you so much for joining us in the UGP 43 edition of Takedowns and Breakdowns, I’m Isaac Cohen, she’s Kayla Chapman, we’ll see you all at the next show!”
