UFC 226 preview, and farewell Dr. Wyman (Heavy Hands #218)

UFC 226 feels like a bright beginning. A true superfight between current light heavyweight and heavyweight champions is enough to get any fight fan’s blood pumping. Add to that a title defense, in which one of the best pound-for-pound fighters on earth faces a creative challenger who has finished every one of his last seven opponents. And then there is the undercard, a worthy appetizer.

We couldn’t ask for a better event to preview for Dr. Patrick Wyman’s final episode as co-host of this podcast. Pat has been a regular part of the show for nearly four years, and his insightful analysis, good humor, and passionate fury will all be missed. We are joined once again by new co-host Phil Mackenzie, and since this is a landmark episode, I didn’t try to hard to edit it down. That’s right, prepare yourselves for an hour and a half of the analysis you crave, including such topics as:

• Stipe Miocic vs Daniel Cormier: can DC still take heavyweight power, and can Stipe wrestle with the crotch lift king?
• Max Holloway vs Brian Ortega: holy hell, this fight
• But really, Ortega could’ve gotten three times better since his last fight, in which he was markedly better than the fight before that
• And that still might not be enough against the combat genius of Holloway. THIS FIGHT.
• Francis Ngannou looks into a funhouse mirror and sees a chubbier version of himself. Who wins?
• Israel Adesanya, and the gentle-as-can-be test that is Brad Tavares
• Gokhan Saki and Khalil Rountree: two incredible athletes with skillsets no deeper than a sidewalk puddle–for Pat

To download this episode directly, just right-click and save this link.

You can also find Heavy Hands on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher, where you can subscribe and check out all our past episodes.

And if you’re up for even more fight analysis, you ought to check out the Heavy Hands Patreon, where $3 a month gets you access to plenty of bonus content. In addition to bonus episodes, we have a bustling Slack chat for all patrons of the show to talk about face-punching.