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00:09:50.000All right, ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, Ensign Inouye is here.
00:10:15.000You armbarred Royce Alger, and Royce Alger was one of the latest and greatest of the wrestlers that was entering into the UFC, and they were going to take the place.
00:10:25.000There was a Mark Coleman era, when Mark Coleman was smashing everybody, and he was 255 pounds of solid muscle.
00:10:32.000I think Kevin Jackson beat John Lewis then, too.
00:10:34.000Yeah, put that thing closer to your face so you can move it around a little bit.
00:11:03.000Yeah, there was a lot of that going on, man.
00:11:05.000All these high-level wrestlers were just starting to find their way into MMA. They're like, oh, this is finally an opportunity to use their wrestling skills.
00:11:15.000Every time I saw the wrestlers fight, I always...
00:11:18.000I always said it, they don't understand arm bars.
00:11:23.000You're one of the few guys to ever submit Randy Couture.
00:11:26.000You submitted Randy Couture with an arm bar, and before you caught him with that arm bar, man, you landed some of the most devastating kicks from the butt scoot position I've ever seen.
00:11:35.000Because everybody used to just throw straight kicks to kick guys off from the butt scoot.
00:11:40.000But you figured out a way to torque your hips from the ground.
00:11:48.000It's kind of interesting because you don't see that from other dudes.
00:11:51.000And even to this day, that's a rare technique.
00:11:54.000I think that fight, your fight with Randy Couture, might have been the most effective application of those low leg kicks from the ground I've ever seen.
00:12:02.000My whole objective in that fight was just to keep pressing forward.
00:12:58.000You were doing something totally different.
00:13:00.000Because you snuck up on him like you scooted forward, Randy was standing right in front of you, but you were blasting him with these leg kicks.
00:13:08.000Yeah, you know my ankles, my shins, I had like a whole roll of tape on each shin.
00:13:24.000They used to kick guys in the face with wrestling shoes, which I thought, maybe okay with the top of the wrestling shoe, but if you do shit like wheel kicks and sidekicks to the face, you could scratch the fuck out of someone's eye.
00:13:36.000Like, with the bottom, the textured rubber part of the shoe.
00:13:41.000That's a weird thing, the transitionary time of MMA, when they were sort of first sorting out the rules.
00:13:49.000But this was a big fight, because Randy had left the UFC, and Randy was one of the elite guys in the UFC. This is after he had beat Vitor.
00:13:58.000Yeah, and Randy was known as one of the best guys in the world, but John Powell slapped on that armbar, son.
00:14:32.000For everybody here, you know, you hear a lot of hysteria and you hear everyone's kind of scared because they're afraid the radiation is getting into the water.
00:14:42.000What I've read from scientists that have actually been off the coast of Fukushima who have analyzed the fish is that it's not something to worry about yet.
00:14:51.000They've caught fish directly off the coast that live there that are like not migrating fish and they say those fish are safe to eat.
00:14:58.000It depends where you're talking about.
00:14:59.000If you're talking about the power plant...
00:15:03.000As of right now, there's not much of a worry, but it all depends on what's going to happen with that because they're getting too much radioactive waste storage.
00:15:11.000Yeah, they're doing this crazy thing when they have a pit and they're surrounding the pit with frozen rods.
00:15:17.000So they're gonna freeze the ground and turn this pit into this like temporary housing for all this radioactive water and But they're getting too much.
00:15:29.000They got these big bins that they're holding them in and they're cracking now.
00:15:34.000So as far as up by the plant, it's a lot of radiation.
00:15:37.000But as far as the people who were displaced from the tsunami or from the radiation, they're in a real hopeless situation because they have temporary housing, which is boxes smaller than this room.
00:15:50.000And they have to live there with their families.
00:15:52.000And through the winter, it's like just a small wall that you can hear the rain hit the roofs.
00:17:05.000Like, you have to keep them going to keep them cool?
00:17:07.000And if you don't, they burn through the containment and they, you know, they melt down and go into the earth and they don't know what the fuck happened to them.
00:17:15.000I think in Fukushima it was just the size of the earthquake and then the Timing of the tsunami coming in so fast.
00:17:23.000But it's weird that that's also one of the things that they do with nuclear power plants is they put them near the ocean to keep them cool so they could use the water.
00:17:36.000I learned a lot about nuclear power plants from that, from just paying attention to it, because before that, I didn't even know what they did.
00:17:43.000I thought that nuclear energy somehow or another made electricity, but it really just makes steam.
00:18:36.000Well, see, the thing is they have a 20-kilometer radius now that is an exclusion zone where people can't go in and out because of the radiation, but...
00:18:45.000In actuality, it's supposed to be 30. Because when I went in there with my Geiger counter, I found hotspots higher than 10 kilometers from the plant and 30 kilometers.
00:18:58.000One day they said they won't do that because they can't displace that much more people.
00:21:06.000He had rainwater that they collected in a bin because it rains up there.
00:21:12.000If you've been to the Big Island, the Big Island, I'm sure you have, but for folks who haven't, The Big Island has like a bunch of different ecosystems.
00:21:19.000It's like desert, like arid, dry climate.
00:22:36.000And also on the Big Island, they have all these areas where you can see photos of houses that were lost when the lava came down and just wiped out certain towns that were just a little too close.
00:22:45.000Is it that freaky thing that you have a house and you see the lava coming at about, what, like a mile per hour?
00:27:05.000Well, I'm supposed to be like, yeah, I know.
00:27:07.000But then, for me, it's still new to me, so I'm like, no way, really!
00:27:11.000I'm super skeptical at this point in my life because I've just seen so much bullshit.
00:27:16.000But I think that if you tell someone that a rock can help some part of their life, then it actually can.
00:27:23.000The placebo effect is real, and I don't understand it, but you can give people sugar pills and tell them that it's medicine, and their body, thinking that it's medicine, starts to relax and concentrate on healing.
00:27:37.000Yeah, a lot of it is just people were...
00:27:40.000I think there's a lot of ailments that fall upon people because of stress and because they're imbalanced, and they can be somewhat alleviated by placebos.
00:27:49.000We just don't understand how the mind works.
00:27:51.000What frequency are you tuning into when you're taking in a placebo that you think is medicine that allows you to get better?
00:30:16.000And it doesn't necessarily mean that what they believe in is real, but the fact that they believe in it and they give themselves to it can actually benefit them, so it becomes real.
00:31:16.000Well, especially if you're too religious in a hypocritical sort of a way, which is a lot of times people, they pick and choose what they believe in when it comes to religion.
00:31:27.000There's a lot of Christians that are angry people.
00:31:30.000They're angry about people that are non-Christians or angry about people that don't follow aspects of the Bible that they believe in.
00:31:43.000But the nature of it, I think, I think the nature of all religions, the best aspects of all religions that aren't tainted by man, Are the lessons that people learn over a life of trial and error and wisdom and sharing ideas and you kind of learn that to be a good person you have to do good things and to be a happy person you have to help others and you know when you treat each other like they're your brothers and sisters out there in the world you truly have a better life and you live We're
00:34:06.000Yeah, they said that they've started catching tuna that show a 3% increase in radiation, and everybody started freaking out, but they say that that's still negligible.
00:34:36.000But I read a thing recently about Grand Central Station in New York City is radioactive because it's made out of granite.
00:34:44.000And granite has natural radioactive properties.
00:34:47.000So in actuality, when you're walking through Grand Central Station, it is more radioactive than is required for a nuclear power plant to be below.
00:34:57.000Like nuclear power plants have, like when you're working at a power plant, it has to be below a certain amount of radiation.
00:35:02.000Grand Central Station is higher than that.
00:35:38.000Yeah, well, that's what they say about cell phones, right?
00:35:41.000Like that we're going to see a bunch of people that have brain tumors later on because they're holding phones up to their ears all the time.
00:35:46.000So, you know, it's something that's really misunderstood right now, yeah.
00:36:42.000I wonder if there's some, like, if the iodine thing protects you from thyroid cancer, if there's other shit that protects you from other cancers.
00:36:48.000It probably is, but we don't know about it yet, huh?
00:36:50.000It's probably antioxidants, green leafy vegetables, things like that.
00:36:56.000I don't truly, totally understand the process of evolution, but from what I understand, a lot of it is from random mutations that are caused by radiation.
00:38:36.000I know there was some kid who had figured out some sort of a way to take radioactive waste and to reprocess it and turn it into fuel again.
00:39:19.000But this kid who has invented this process believes that in the future that they'll be able to take all of this radioactive quote-unquote waste and that it's not waste.
00:39:31.000It's just that they don't completely understand the process of converting it back to fuel yet.
00:39:34.000But once that process is understood, there will be no radioactive waste anymore.
00:39:38.000They'll be able to convert that back to fuel.
00:40:07.000There's an area in the ocean, enormous area, bigger than the size of Texas.
00:40:12.000That is all plastic from the world, from all over the countries of the world, people that have littered, things that have fallen off of boats, things that have got picked up from the beach, and they've all swirled.
00:40:23.000Because, you know, there's currents in the ocean, and these currents create these paths, and inside, yeah, inside these paths, in these areas where all this stuff is sort of congealed and congested, those aren't the right words, but...
00:40:39.000It's formed this floating patch of garbage.
00:40:43.000And it's really fucked up because it's in the water.
00:40:51.000Missions to go out and try to figure out how big it exactly is.
00:40:55.000The problem is a lot of it is suspended underneath the water and it's being broken down slowly by the water.
00:41:01.000So fish are eating it, ingesting it and getting sick.
00:41:04.000Birds are taking the plastic back and feeding it to their children, to their babies, because the birds don't understand what the fuck it is.
00:41:11.000So there's islands that they find where these birds, these baby birds are dead and their stomachs are filled with plastic bits that their mothers have given them because their mothers don't know what the fuck they are.
00:41:22.000Their mothers think that it's fish or food or something like that.
00:41:27.000So this kid has figured out a way to take this gigantic, this machine, it skims the ocean, and it's going to suck all the plastic out of the ocean and clean the whole thing.
00:41:41.000And then they've also said, well, you know, hey, we've got all these problems with the ocean, and there's these dead zones, there's lack of oxygen and pollution in the ocean.
00:41:50.000They've figured out a way to throw iron, to take iron scrap into And pour it into the ocean.
00:41:55.000And that iron scrap will create algae and create different environments for fish to live in.
00:42:25.000But within a few years time, he did a TED talk on it, within a few years time they're going to be able to clean up that patch if this invention pans out.
00:42:34.000Yeah, that's the weird thing about people.
00:42:36.000We fuck everything up, but when we fuck everything up, someone smarter comes along and goes, okay, okay, okay, let's figure this shit out.
00:42:42.000It's amazing what some people have invented, huh?
00:43:43.000And then the world has to sort of scramble.
00:43:46.000And right now, I'm sure there's people far more intelligent than you or I. And they're trying to figure out a way to fix things like Fukushima.
00:44:36.000If you're gonna take a land and a house away, From a family who's worked hard to work for it all their lives because a company that's run by the government, which is TEPCO, the nuclear plant,
00:44:53.000If your plant is going to fuck up, you're going to take responsibility and relocate them to an equal amount of things that they had instead of putting them in a little box.
00:45:38.000But when I was in Japan, what was fascinating, because it was only about a year after the Fukushima incident, and I was talking to this guy, and he was very reluctant to talk negatively about the government.
00:47:16.000But because of the fact that he keeps the place so small and he doesn't have that many people working for him, he's not really concerned with...
00:47:41.000He had to quit smoking cigarettes because he had a heart attack, but healed back up, stopped smoking cigarettes, jumped right back in, still working 16 hours a day.
00:48:06.000In the way of thinking, in the way of doing things, yeah.
00:48:09.000Well, that's where you're known for...
00:48:14.000Not just being one of the pioneers of MMA, but you're known for that expression, Yamato Damashi, that you've always promoted that ideal, this samurai spirit and this spirit of Japan,
00:48:32.000this way of doing things wholeheartedly, and you've talked openly that you freely give yourself, like when you would go to fight, you would be ready to die.
00:49:22.000I'm accepting the fact that I might die there.
00:49:25.000But I know that the better I can be is the less chance of me dying in the ring.
00:49:31.000So, you know, I'm not going to get up in the morning because I'm sore.
00:49:34.000I'm not going to miss training because I'm tired or I'm lazy because It might be the difference in me living and dying in the ring.
00:49:43.000So, you know, it helped me out a lot in the training aspect and, you know, the dieting.
00:49:48.000I mean, I want to drink a Coke, but I'm trying to eat only good things before my fight, and it's a lot easier to do that when you're to that level.
00:49:59.000To plan to die in the ring, to believe that and to train and to walk that life for that three months while training for the fight, it can't hurt you.
00:50:07.000Is it difficult for you, because you earnestly embraced that thought process, is it difficult for you when you see guys that are kind of dabbling in MMA? They're kind of like half-assing it, not training hard enough.
00:50:21.000Maybe they have some talent, but they don't really put their will and heart into it.
00:50:35.000Being cut by the UFC, you know, that kind of stuff didn't, because there was all these little associations, we're fighting for so little bit money.
00:50:42.000The objective and the whole movement of that era was different, yeah?
00:50:47.000So, you know, when fighters start getting lazy, you know, or they don't fight as hard, or they tap out a little sooner, you know, I understand that, because it's a whole new era, because you're fighting for a different reason, though.
00:53:08.000And if he stopped it like a second earlier when Jason High got dropped and was kind of a little bit out of it after the flurry, it would have been a good stoppage.
00:53:17.000But he waited and Jason High actually got his posture and started coming up again.
00:53:36.000Today's MMA. You gotta stop the fights.
00:53:37.000Yeah, you can't let the guys getting hurt.
00:53:39.000But the MMA of your era, pride was such a completely different animal because there was stomps and soccer kicks and the rule system was completely different.
00:53:51.000It was just a completely different kind of fighting.
00:53:53.000Well, it depends what you're fighting for.
00:54:17.000But back in the day when you're fighting for honor, no.
00:54:20.000I mean, if that fight was not televised and you didn't need to worry about sponsors and people getting hurt and suits and everything, In my day, I would prefer the fight not to have stoppages.
00:54:34.000A perfect example, in my opinion, is Frankie Edgar.
00:55:23.000You know, the thing I think about that is, you know, if the stoppages weren't so soon, you know how many unbelievable inspirational moments we'd have in fighting?
00:55:32.000But that's the sacrifice we make for it to be such a big sport now.
00:55:58.000I mean, I wouldn't say I could be the same fighter if I fought today.
00:56:02.000Now, when you say that, like, when you say that you would have three losses in a row, like, what would be the difference between the way you fought and the way, like, say, modern MMA fighters fight?
00:56:12.000Well, I don't, I, I'm, for me, the win isn't getting my hand raised yet.
00:56:17.000The win is hitting the fears that I have head-on and growing as a person.
00:56:27.000Sometimes it really counteracts each other because for Igor Vovachanchi, when I fought him, the best thing for me to do was to take him down and get on top.
00:56:37.000But the best thing for me to grow as a man, as a person, is to hit that fearful stage of throwing toe-to-toe with Igor.
00:56:49.000For folks who don't know, when you were fighting him was one of the most devastating strikers in the sport.
00:56:54.000He was a brutal knockout artist, and he was a small guy, but he fucked up Mark Kerr when Mark Kerr was big.
00:57:01.000Remember, he caught Mark Kerr with a BOMB standing up.
00:57:04.000I mean, Igor was only like 5'10", right?
00:57:06.000He looked like A guy that should have probably been way bigger and longer, but someone like chopped his arms off at the end and put these knots for fists like in the middle of us and he was just this ball of muscle and bone.
00:58:10.000He just went in there, bit down on that mouthpiece, and that was one of the wildest opening exchanges I can remember from the days of pride.
00:58:19.000Well, you know what's the most ironic thing about that fight is...
00:58:23.000It was my worst beating that I ever took, but it was the best fight for me.
00:58:28.000I've learned so much about myself in that fight.
00:58:34.000And that actually solidified that, you know, living the Yamath Laomashi way.
00:58:39.000A lot of people, you know, you can say it, you can have these kind of sort of hard fights, but that fight kind of showed that I'm actually living it.
00:58:49.000The worst beating, physically, as far as getting the results, as far as a victory, that was probably the worst fight in my career.
00:58:57.000But as far as me growing as a person, and as far as something that was a reputation that would save me forever, it was the best fight.
00:59:04.000Do you have a fight that you look back and you remember as a proud moment or one of your proudest moments?
00:59:11.000Well, that fight would probably be it, but not at the moment, yeah.
00:59:15.000Because at the moment, I didn't think I was that bad.
00:59:18.000At the moment, when I was getting hit, I remember getting hit some shots that really rocked me, and I remember thinking in my head, the thing that I thought was, I can't let them know it hurt.
00:59:30.000And I remember looking at my corner and looking at him and just saying, I'm okay.
00:59:34.000They didn't ask me, but I just did it on purpose because I knew he'd be seeing me doing it.
00:59:37.000Like, what the fuck's wrong with this guy?
01:01:10.000See, what the doctor explained to me was when your muscles get any type of trauma, even if it's just one area of your body, your muscles all act together as a team and they'll put off toxins.
01:02:39.000That devastation was something like, well, can you imagine stepping in that zone knowing that that could happen to you at any moment, but standing there in that zone fighting that.
01:02:50.000When I fought Mark Kerr, it was right after he beat up Hugo Doherty.
01:02:54.000So I was looking at fights to grow as a person, not to get a win-loss record.
01:03:02.000That's why I'm saying Anthony Noy of today wouldn't make it.
01:03:59.000He was one of the first guys to throw the way Fedor was known for throwing those punches, where it's almost like your hand is perpendicular with the ground instead of horizontal with it.
01:04:10.000He would throw a lot of his punches like this, in a very unorthodox way, casting punches is the way they call it.
01:05:36.000But these pride gloves, Tim Kennedy believes are superior to the UFC gloves because they naturally promote a curved fist, whereas the UFC gloves have much more of a straight line to them.
01:05:48.000Everlast has a new glove that they're using with Bellator and it's a much more curved fist and it's also there's more padding across the top to reinforce the metacarpals when you're hitting and they apparently stopped a lot of bone breaks because of that.
01:06:06.000But I almost feel like the same thing I feel like with football.
01:06:10.000That, like, everybody is concerned about head trauma in football, but no one wants to look at...
01:06:17.000There's a lot of people who have analyzed football, they say, well, the best way to stop this head trauma is probably to make people play football with no helmets.
01:06:29.000Because if you play football with no helmets, you're going to play totally different.
01:06:32.000You cannot go head-to-head and clash into each other if you have no fucking helmet.
01:06:36.000And the only real way to control the way these guys do this is to make it so that it's impossible to...
01:06:42.000I mean, they're spiking each other with helmets on and shoulder pads and shit.
01:06:45.000They're saying if you really want to do it, look at rugby and look at Australian rules football.
01:06:49.000Less head trauma, less instances of traumatic brain injury, and they're fighting with no pads.
01:09:51.000I wonder how much it'll affect the grappling, though, yeah?
01:09:54.000I wonder if it's a small, like, a thin piece of, like, a thin leather that it maybe even enhance the grappling because it'll give you more grip.
01:10:02.000Like, when your hands are sweaty, you know, and you...
01:10:05.000As we speak, someone's working on it right now, probably, huh?
01:10:13.000See, the Bellator glove is on the left, whereas the UFC-style glove is on the right, and the Bellator glove has more padding on the metacarpal, and it's curved more.
01:10:30.000But then again, it goes back to the football thing.
01:10:33.000Like, maybe you're better off knowing that you can't just tee off on someone's head without breaking your hand.
01:10:39.000I mean, if guys had to be more conservative with their punches, maybe we would see more kicks, maybe we'd see more grappling, and maybe MMA would be more realistic.
01:12:31.000Well, again, it goes to that question, you know, The reason why MMA is being changed in the way it is is for the sponsors and for the audience.
01:12:44.000Depending on the fighter, can you imagine...
01:12:46.000You know you have those boring fights where they get to the ground and you just want them to stand up, but they're doing enough that they don't get broken up, and you're like, damn, five minutes is not that bad, but you can imagine that happening for ten minutes.
01:13:12.000I think if the guy's on the bottom and you don't like the fact that the guy's holding you down, you got to get better at getting up.
01:13:18.000You got to get better at sweeping them.
01:13:19.000You got to get better at trying to attack from the bottom, attacking to try to get a better position to stand back up or to try to finish them from your back.
01:13:28.000I just don't think it's realistic for a guy just to hang on and let the referee stand him back up again, which is a strategy.
01:19:54.000I don't know if we talked about it before, but the middle line is to die when everyone thinks that's the end.
01:20:03.000So everyone thinks that the normal reading would be to live as a man, become a man, and die as a man.
01:20:09.000But I believe that until you face that most fearful test of dying, you don't know how strong you actually are.
01:20:17.000So you live your life with all these little tests in life, all the little trials that you have to build your strength and build your heart to the last test of dying.
01:20:27.000And the way you die is going to determine whether you've passed that test or not.
01:20:33.000So that's why I like that title, yeah.
01:20:36.000That's a, in today's day and age, this strange, soft, pussified society that we live in.
01:20:43.000You know, and there's a lot of good things about the pussified society.
01:20:47.000There's a lot of good things about people being civil with each other and about having laws and about having, you know, being able to get your food from a grocery store.
01:20:56.000But what's bad about all these things, and it's not bad about these things, but the The repercussions of them is that men don't develop character.
01:21:06.000And a lot of men fold under pressure because they've never experienced pressure.
01:21:56.000The book starts off with this story about My friend that was little, like 12 years old, I watched a friend get beat up by bigger guys, and I didn't do anything about it.
01:22:15.000And I was afraid of getting involved and getting hurt, physically hurt, you know, beaten up, possibly going to hospital, possibly a broken bone.
01:22:28.000The thing about that now is, if I did something about it, say I got a broken arm, broken leg, they broke my orbital, I'd be here today probably healed up because the body heals.
01:22:41.000But to this day, even if that episode was 30 something years ago, I still hurt from that inside.
01:22:47.000Thinking about that, wishing I could rewind and do something about it.
01:22:51.000Wishing I could see that my friend again and tell him I'm sorry.
01:22:54.000But we're seeing my friend and telling him, man, fuck, I don't know why I didn't help you, you know.
01:22:58.000I never saw the guy again after that day.
01:23:26.000Because when something comes up in the future, you've experienced the pain of the wrong decision, and then the right decision becomes the only decision.
01:23:35.000Yeah, that's probably the best way to learn.
01:23:38.000It's the only way, I think, to really truly understand it.
01:23:41.000You can learn a little bit from other people's mistakes.
01:23:44.000You know, you sort of internalize their mistakes and you put them into your category or your catalog, rather, of knowledge.
01:23:51.000But I think to truly have a real lesson in your head, you almost have to fuck it up yourself.
01:23:58.000Well, that one experience has helped me make the right decisions and a lot of other things that came later in my life, but still just that one, that one just still hurts, man.
01:24:29.000Those losses and that awful feeling of those losses are so fucking important for the growing process.
01:24:35.000If you don't realize what it's like to drop your hands and get cracked by a counter shot, you don't realize how important it is to really keep your hands up, you won't know.
01:25:27.000There's oftentimes wins that fuck a fighter up more than a loss does.
01:25:31.000Because, like, say maybe you catch a guy with one punch and you knock him out, and then you just decide that you're a knockout puncher now.
01:25:37.000Instead of being technical, instead of using a comprehensive game, you're just going to come...
01:25:51.000And it was so frustrating for me to watch.
01:25:53.000Like, I understand that you like to strike.
01:25:56.000However, you're a fucking wizard on the ground and you're not even attempting to use these skills because you had success in this one thing.
01:26:04.000So they decide that they're a striker.
01:26:09.000The book covers every fight exactly how I was thinking from when I got the fight.
01:26:15.000To when I was preparing for the fight during the fight.
01:26:18.000It's going to be interesting because a lot of people think that I'm this Yamato Damashi guy that has no fears and just comes out and has this iron type of thinking.
01:26:27.000But it kind of tells you exactly what I'm thinking during the fight.
01:26:32.000What happened what I thought after the fight and it's it's it's straight-up real stuff I mean well, you know custom motto the guy the longtime trainer Mike Tyson famous guy who was really but what his His take wasn't just the technical aspects of boxing but also the psychology behind Boxing and one of the things that he ingrained in Mike Tyson He said that a coward and hero feel the exact same thing It's just that the hero chooses to
01:27:21.000Your impressive performances are more impressive, knowing that you were scared, knowing that you had all the fears that everybody else has, but you decided anyway to still clamp down your mouthpiece and fucking throw lead at Igor Vovchanchin.
01:27:39.000This Yamato Dimash and, you know, Eastern philosophy, which is very different in a lot of ways than Western philosophy, the philosophy that a lot of people associate with martial arts, the respect and honor, integrity and warrior spirit, a lot of that is kind of missing in some MMA camps.
01:27:58.000And it's almost like they've become jocks and athletes and not as much martial artists.
01:28:18.000Because what happens when you run your gym and you fight in that mentality, once you're done with MMA, you can't fight forever.
01:28:27.000When you're done with MMA, it will carry on with you as a person.
01:28:32.000If you're just being a jock and doing this MMA and you're just doing that, once you're done with that, you're going to You're going to go into the real world the person that you were when you started fighting.
01:28:42.000Not only that, you'll probably be one of those motherfuckers of those boring-ass Glory Days stories.
01:28:51.000Back when you won the Olympic trials for wrestling and, you know, I was doing great until I blew that disc, you know.
01:28:56.000Yeah, but if you train with that honor and discipline and you develop that during your fighting career, you're going to definitely be a better man when you finish your fighting career.
01:29:04.000Well, I got real lucky when I first started doing martial arts is that my Taekwondo instructor was very into the aspects of martial arts that we consider, like the philosophy and the mindset and the warrior code,
01:29:19.000indomitable spirit, like all these different things.
01:29:26.000One of the big ones was that martial arts are just a vehicle for developing your human potential.
01:29:32.000Even when you can't kick and even when you can't punch and even when your body is old, you're still doing martial arts.
01:29:39.000Because this path that you are on, this path of learning, this path of Testing yourself, this path of trying to overcome resistance, this will stay with you forever in life.
01:30:47.000You're always going to have gym wars where one guy elevates a little bit and the young guy catches up to him and then the other guy takes it to another level.
01:30:53.000Next thing you know, they're in a full-on fight.
01:30:57.000When you were training for MMA fights, how did you structure your training?
01:31:04.000Say if you were about to fight Mark Kerr, for example, and you have eight weeks to prepare for your fight, how did you structure your training camp?
01:32:52.000He was an interesting case, because he was one of those guys that sort of tested this...
01:32:57.000In the beginning of MMA, when people would watch the various styles and the various strategies that people would be successful with inside the Octagon, They would try to figure out, what is the best way?
01:33:11.000Is it the best way to be a big wrestler?
01:33:13.000Well, no, if you fight Maurice Smith, because Maurice Smith figured out how to be a smaller guy, chip away at the legs of Mark Coleman, take it into the later rounds, and that's how he won the title.
01:33:22.000He won the title with stamina and with his striking.
01:33:24.000But then you see a guy like Mark Kerr, who was as far as you could go with the big, steroided-up, muscular frame and wrestling.
01:34:55.000He did a few fights afterwards, but after the Smashing Machine documentary came out, and the folks have never seen that documentary, that is...
01:35:03.000He's got an incredible amount of courage for letting people into that world because Mark had a significant problem with painkillers and with drugs and showed it all in all of its...
01:35:16.000They started that documentary wanting to...
01:35:19.000Do a documentary to follow one of the best mixed martial arts fighters in the world, the Smashing Machine, the guy who a lot of people thought was the heavyweight to watch.
01:35:27.000And along the way, they caught it at the perfect time where he was starting to unravel, and they got to see a guy whose life was just sort of falling apart.
01:42:12.000Do you think that MMA in its current form right now, if you could change any of the rules and still keep it a sport, I think that, first of all, 12-6 elbows, that's got to come back.
01:42:25.000I think 12-6 elbows is a ridiculous thing to have banned.
01:42:28.000But I think knees to a grounded opponent would change a lot of shit too.
01:42:33.000Even soccer ball kicks I think is okay.
01:42:41.000The only thing I have a problem with the soccer kicks is the cage.
01:42:43.000I like the soccer kicks in a ring because you can move your head away, but the fact that you're trapped and you can get kicked and stomped when you're trapped up against the cage, that's the only time that I think that it would be a problem because the guy can't really defend himself because of the environment as opposed to because he's out.
01:43:00.000That would be just one more danger in the cage.
01:43:34.000And when you look back at that, and now you see the guys of today, you see like the Demetrius Mighty Mouse Johnsons, and you see the John Joneses, the high-level guys, the pound-for-pound best guys of today, man.
01:43:47.000It's just like a totally different thing.
01:46:02.000Do you have pride when you look back and you think that you were like, I mean, you were one of the real pioneers of the fastest growing sport the world has ever seen.
01:46:11.000There's never been a time in my lifetime, there's never been a time where a sport was introduced and became this gigantic thing over a matter of a decade, two decades, and grew.
01:46:50.000Not really, because I don't feel like I'm the one who did all this.
01:46:55.000I just feel I was a lucky person to be The person that was actually there in the beginning to see what it was like when it was banned in states.
01:47:06.000Whenever someone heard you were a mixed martial arts fighter, they said, oh, so you beat people up for a living.
01:47:22.000When I first was working on a sitcom, I was on a sitcom news radio, and it was when I first started doing the post-fight interviews back when I interviewed you.
01:49:41.000You know, I think that you came at that time, you came as a sport was just exponentially expanding and you were starting to see like real world-class athletes.
01:49:50.000I think when time, when we look in the future and they look back at this era, like the era between 1993 and 2008. Not only around today, but still fighting at the highest level.
01:50:33.000I guess I don't know the real effects to it.
01:50:37.000And I feel like I could get in shape enough to fight without it.
01:50:43.000John Fitch said something really interesting once.
01:50:46.000I talked to him about it, and he said, when I get older, he said I would definitely take hormone replacement therapy, but not when I'm fighting.
01:50:51.000He said, I want to know that everything I did, I did because I did it.
01:50:56.000I did with my hard work, and I did with my mind.
01:50:59.000You know, and that was Fitch's attitude.
01:53:26.000But you know the thing is, as much as people are against it, isn't it kind of cool to see him, all the fights he put out because he's on it?
01:53:35.000People are like, fuck steroids and stuff, but when they go to watch bodybuilding, they ooh and ah at the muscle tone and the size, and it's like, I'm against steroids, but you go there and you love the bodybuilding.
01:54:53.000They were trying to get him to fight in Pride, and they wanted him to fight at 185. And he was like, but I weigh 170. And I was like, yeah.
01:56:00.000Your dog is the most obedient dog to you, but then when your friend takes care of him, he's pissing all over the place and barking and shit.
01:58:02.000And if you see the video, I'm shaking his hand.
01:58:05.000And he's telling me that I was shaking his hand, and I'm like, I don't let go of his hand, and we're like, I'm guiding him into the corner, like, what do you mean?
01:58:25.000I said, don't fucking do it if you don't want to do it.
01:58:27.000And then I realized that the way Pride plays that shit with the fighters, and I realized, you know, Guy was in this position that, you know, he really couldn't do anything about.
01:58:37.000And so I was like, you know, it's not Guy's deal.
01:59:02.000Those fighters all saw this happen, but I went on a rampage calling for the president of Pride to come in and see me right now because that's bullshit.
02:00:05.000Because I talked to him a week before that and he told me that, I remember he telling me that he likes the way I fight and he wants fighters to fight more like me.
02:00:46.000What was it like in that day, like dealing with that aspect of mixed martial arts?
02:00:53.000Like it wasn't just mixed martial arts like it is in the UFC where it's a business and there's promoters and there's, you know, they have an agenda to try to promote to the fans and try to make money.
02:01:02.000But you were dealing with a very intense organized crime aspect to it.
02:09:15.000Yeah, I mean, Hickson got on top of him, and remember he gift-wrapped that arm across, and he was holding onto his arm and just beat him down, then took his back and choked him to sleep.
02:11:07.000Fascinating watching him break down fights, too.
02:11:10.000Watching him fight, watching him watch fights with top guys like Mario Sperry and stuff like that, but just showing all the holes in their game.
02:12:15.000Yeah, that's what I heard he used to do every year.
02:12:17.000I don't know about now, but back in the day, he used to go to Brazil and line up all the black belts and actually submit everyone one by one.
02:14:22.000Well, he still rolls with all those guys.
02:14:23.000You know, he's the co-founder and the head instructor at American Top Team, so, you know, he's always there on a regular basis, but he still rolls with all those guys.
02:14:32.000I think they had a super fight, a grappling super fight planned between him and Mario Sperry, but I don't know if that's still going to take place.
02:15:08.000When I was first starting out, I started out at Carlson's place in 1996, and Mario Sperry was there.
02:15:15.000And Mario Sperry was talking about how he got really good at triangles by making his girlfriend sit in his guard, and he would just slap a triangle on each side over and over again.
02:15:25.000She's like, I don't want to do this anymore.
02:15:59.000It's interesting how there was a lot of dudes that were heavy favorites, like, going into MMA. And everybody thought that, wow, this is going to be the next motherfucker in MMA. And, like, Salo Hibero.
02:16:13.000Salo Hibero, a lot of people thought, like, he was going to be the next Hickson.
02:16:16.000He was going to go into MMA and dominate because he was so good at jiu-jitsu.
02:16:19.000But it never quite panned out, you know?
02:19:48.000Yeah, but I think that you're seeing now, like, I watch the Ultimate Fighter sometimes, you see guys gas out really quick, you see kind of low-level striking in jiu-jitsu.
02:19:57.000I think the talent pool is kind of dry in a lot of ways.
02:20:01.000I mean, every now and then, a new guy comes up, like a Uriah Hall...
02:20:05.000Who got on the Ultimate Fighter and is just knocking everybody out and looks sensational.
02:21:17.000I think when we look back at history, they look at the history and the growth of mixed martial arts, of martial arts period, they'll see that martial arts grew more in 20 years than it did in 20,000 years.
02:21:30.000They really figured out what works and what doesn't work.
02:21:33.000You know what tripped me out is when I first went to watch the UFC in Vegas and I saw the fighters' pictures on the billboards, I couldn't believe that.
02:21:43.000I mean, back in the day when I used to go to Vegas, we'd see Donna Summers and Kenny Rogers doing a concert, but man, the MMA fighters up on the billboards, it's like a whole different level.
02:22:21.000The relief work is always going to continue up north.
02:22:24.000And I'm writing another book, second part.
02:22:27.000Do you think that you're going to be involved in martial arts?
02:22:31.000I'm not someone that's going to try and promote or someone that's going to try and get involved, but if there's anything that I can do, like when people ask me to do seminars or to come and be involved in something, I'm more than willing.
02:22:43.000There's some kind of big tournament, the Yuji, right?
02:23:34.000Yeah, so I'm doing that kind of stuff and I think I still have a lot to offer.
02:23:40.000To the fighters, but I don't know about doing it every day, you know, and teaching every day, and being stuck at a gym at, you know, 9 to 5, or even, like, every day at 6 to 8, you're going to teach a class.
02:23:51.000I don't know if I'll ever be able to limit myself to that.
02:25:10.000And a lot of times people, spectators think it's because of pain, because it hurts.
02:25:16.000But a lot of times, you know, arm burn doesn't really hurt.
02:25:18.000I mean, you can feel like, ah, you know, ah, fuck, my arm, my ligaments are going to start stretching, ah, fuck, you know, but it's not to that pain level where you're like, ah, fuck, it's so sore, I got to tap, you know, even chokes.
02:25:29.000It's not like, you know, it's just anticipating what's going to happen, you know?
02:25:32.000And I kind of develop on that kind of stuff, like, you know, that kind of mindset, yeah.
02:25:36.000That there's a brief window where you can pull victory out of the jaws of defeat by not having the mindset to tap.
02:25:46.000How many of those moments happen where a fighter has that door opens and either you can tap or you can push forward and occasionally the guys push forward and wind up winning?
02:26:01.000That's that weird moment, the do-or-die moment that you feel like with a Jason High-type situation that the fighters aren't allowed to express.
02:27:55.000I mean, maybe you were too in a sense, but those things and those moments define you in a lot of ways.
02:28:03.000There's a lot of fighters from that era, but when people talk about guys with a ferocious mindset, you're one of the ones who always comes up.
02:28:11.000And that's one of the reasons why people want to see you at a seminar, want to talk to you, want to hear you on this podcast.
02:28:45.000And I always live my life thinking that if I get punished for something that I've done and I did it and it's the right thing and I get punished for it, then let it be because that's what's supposed to happen.
02:28:55.000So if I get into trouble with stuff that I wrote in the book, I'm not bullshitting.