Din Thomas, Former MMA Fighter

Alright, and we continue. This is Zach Gelb's show on CBS Sports Radio. What a card that was over the weekend. UFC 290 out there in Las Vegas. Let's go out to the guest line right now and talk to someone that knows what it's like to not only talk about the UFC, but also be in the octagon. And that of course is Dean Thomas, kind enough to join us.

Dean, appreciate the time as always. How are you? I'm great, man. How are you doing?

Listen, I'm more than great. Coming back after a card like that one over the weekend has got me all excited. I'm pumped up.

It was fantastic. I don't know if we've had a card like that in a while with so many different storylines. Yeah, I'm a casual fan, but I've become more and more of a fan really the last year or two. And it just seems like each and every card keeps on getting better and better, Dean.

Yeah, I mean, every card gets better. And when you look into the crowd and in the audience, it's just like celebrities. And it's like a big party. It's more than just a fight. It's an event now. And I think that the more and more this thing grows, goodbye football. I'm sorry.

You could pump the brakes with that. Nothing will ever take out football. Come on, I love hockey, Dean.

What are you doing here? I'll give you squash. You can take away squash.

Let me get to Volkonovsky. So after the fight, he says he needs surgery on his arm. That's incredible how dominant he was in the octagon. And now he needs surgery. He knew that going into the fight. Listen, we're looking at a very special talent here.

What we're looking at and what you guys are getting to witness is what we've seen back with GSP, you know, 5, 10 years ago. Volkonovsky is a special, special athlete. He's not just beating guys, but he's beating different type of guys in different type of ways. And his ability to adapt the situation is just absolutely miraculous. We're looking at a special talent, one of the generation type talent, and we're lucky to have a guy like Volkonovsky at our disposal. And Daniel Cormier, after the fight, said he's the best pound for pound fighter in the UFC right now. I'm assuming you agree with that?

Oh, there's no doubt about it. There's, without a doubt, the best pound for pound fighter in the UFC currently, and probably in the last while. Let's get to Pantoja, because I love the emotion after the fight that he showed, telling us his story. And then today, I saw he did an interview with Ariel Helani, and two fights ago, he was driving for Uber Eats.

What's not to like with this guy? Yeah, you know, I mean, I spoke with him today with Matt Serra, and Pantoja was talking about how he worked so hard for this moment, and everybody was booing him. And Matt said that he couldn't even, he had to turn it off, because he was so emotional watching Pantoja just spill his emotion out, and watching his kids cry, and just the whole scene was just so emotional.

And I used to work with Pantoja a little bit. He's a good guy, a good human being, but the problem was, he was going up against a guy that everybody loved, Brandon Moreno. Brandon Moreno was the guy that everyone loved, everyone wanted to see win. But to watch Pantoja take that from him, it was kind of hard. But I think at the end of it all, Pantoja won the crowd over. He did, and there's one thing to win the fight, there's another thing to talk your way on the microphone, and when he was getting booed, I go, ah, this absolutely stinks, but then when he starts to say that his mom raised him, and then dad, are you proud of me now? I thought a lot of people understood the human side of that, which started to turn some of those boos into a round of applause. Well, if you notice, the first thing that he said was, if you knew my story, you wouldn't boo me. And from that moment on, that kind of grabbed everybody's attention. It was almost like a well-thought-out plan, but you could tell he didn't think that out, because English is his second language. So he's like, if you knew my story, you wouldn't boo me. And then when he gets into that human element, that element of I should be a failure, but look at me, and my father abandoned me, but are you proud of me now? I mean, the whole place had to stop and pay attention to that.

Dean Thomas here with us. So Duplessis gets another victory, then Israel Adesanya takes over the octagon, and you had that exchange. What did you make of what Israel Adesanya did after the Duplessis won? I couldn't have laughed harder. I'll tell you what, I'm fortunate enough to sit cage side, and I was sitting side with David Goggins, and he was in a ball of laughter. We couldn't just stop laughing, because for whatever reason, it's just funny to us. It's just really funny to us, what he was doing.

I know it's very insensitive and almost kind of cringy, I would say, but it was just kind of funny to us. But I will say this, Drikas handled that like a professional. Drikas is an absolute professional. He shut a lot of people up, myself included. I have to swallow my words, but Drikas handled that like a professional.

He did exactly what he should have did. But Izzy, he just doesn't care. You got to respect that about him. Whether you like him or not, you got to respect that he doesn't care. The thing that I was laughing about was he couldn't even deliver his punchline.

He went from 36 of me to 26 of me when he went 23 of me. That was the funny part to me, Dean. Yeah, that was kind of funny, too, because when he first said that, I thought maybe there was a different one. Apparently, he probably had that all planned out. That's the thing.

He probably had that planned out and messed up. That was definitely kind of funny. You said that Du Plessis has won you over. Would you pick him whenever that fight does happen against Adesanya?

You still rock and roll with Adesanya? I'm not sure. I'll tell you this, Zach. I pride myself on being one of the best in the world at what I do, but I am terrible at picking fights. I can tell you what happens afterwards, but in terms of watching these guys on film and then seeing what's going to happen when they fight each other, I'm terrible at that.

This weekend, I think a lot of people busted this weekend, but I went 1 for 11 this weekend. I can't pick them right. I don't know how to pick that fight as of right now.

I'm still thinking that Izzy should win, but the way Drikas looked, he's so durable and he's so hard to hurt that it just seems like he might be able to just run through everybody. Dee Thomas, you know this. No one could ever really decide how their career is going to end, but to get that moment for Robbie Lawler, that was something really special. Oh, man. You couldn't have scripted that any better. I've known Robbie's entire career. In fact, I remember watching Robbie do his thing way back in the day and just we've trained together.

We've been on the same team together. He actually did an episode of the Dean Diaries and he never does media, so he allowed me to come into his house and film it and talk to him, so I'm always in Robbie's good graces. But to see him go out the way he did in a fight in which he was the underdog, but I said, you know, this is a winnable fight for Robbie. This is not a bad matchup for Robbie and Robbie went out there, didn't take any damage, didn't take any punishment. Got it over with and the UFC gave him a proper sendoff. I'll send off that he deserved and he should be happy. He is happy. I know that I spoke to him afterwards, but it's just it's just great to see Robbie get the recognition that he deserves, especially for a guy who didn't have to talk trash in order to get fans. You watching Bo nickel.

What should you have? See fans know about him and his future in the sport. You know, the thing is, he's a he's a four time, you know, national champ, all American or whatever he is in wrestling. But what he understands more than anything else is combat. He understands how the body works and he understands. And I remember speaking to Johnny Evelyn about him a while ago and he was just saying that his wrestling is like doing jitsu with a guy because he's so different.

He's so unique and that's really what it is with him. He's got the work ethic of wrestling, but he understands fighting and combat in a different way that most people do. So he's long. He's got a good body for fighting.

He's long. He's got a good reach and he's not going to make dumb mistakes. Did a lot of fighters do because he understands fighting. He really does have a bright future ahead of him. I'm sold on him completely. I wasn't completely sold on him until this weekend and how he handled that situation. And just his vision and awareness when he was throwing those punches.

That showed me a lot. Wrap it up with Dean Thomas. Do you think we'll ever see McGregor against Chandler? I sure do hope so.

I hope so. Because if not, then this whole Tough 31 was all just a big infomercial for Conor McGregor's brands. And that's unfair to Chandler. It's unfair to the viewers.

It's unfair to everybody. So I hope Michael Chandler gets the opportunity to fight Conor. Conor, on the show when he's with the guys, he seems very enthusiastic about coming back. So we are all praying and got our fingers crossed that Conor comes back and fights Michael Chandler. I just have no expectations for Conor moving forward. He's lost three out of his last four fights and we haven't seen him in the Octagon fighting since July of 2021. I said this to Dana White last time I saw Dana at the Super Bowl.

I don't even think that fight would be close. You know, it's weird because when you hear Conor talk, if you watch the show and you hear him talk, he's brilliant. He's got a brilliant mind for fighting. He understands it. He's great at it. It's just execution. Is he willing to execute and go through the training camp and be a fighter?

And that's something that I question because when you're as rich as he is, he doesn't have to do it. So I question whether he's going to be willing to put himself through a training camp to fight a guy like Michael Chandler. And then we found out over the weekend that we're going to get Stipe and Jon Jones at November at the world's most famous arena, MSG. That's going to be unbelievable. Yeah, that's unbelievable. We get to see Jon Jones come back and see Stipe's probably last fight.

I think it's kind of a mismatch, but on paper it sounds great. But at least we're getting the big fights. I mean, that's the thing is that UFC will always deliver the big fights or at least they'll do what they have to do to try to make the big fights happen.

And this year was indicative of that. So whenever there's a law of action, you know, the UFC's got something up the sleeve with a big fight. Well, Dean, always appreciate the time. Keep up the great work. Thanks so much for doing this today. Thank you, my friend. I appreciate you. There you go. Dean Thomas joining us on the Zach Gelb show on CBS Sports Radio.