Justin Renn is back from Africa and back in the United States. Justin talks about his trip to Africa and how he got sick in the bush and how they treated him. He also talks about what it's like to live in the jungles of Africa and what it was like to be infected with some sort of funky jungle virus. He talks about how he managed to get over it and is now back at home in the States. Justin also shares some amazing stories from his time in Africa and talks about some of the hardships he went through to make it back to the States and getting back on track with his recovery. He is back to being a full time paramedic in the US and back to his old job with the U.S. Army Medical Center in Dayton, Ohio. He has been deployed to Africa for the past month and a half and is back on his way home. He shares some stories about his time there and what he's been up to since he got back and what has been going on in the past few months. He also gives some great advice on how to deal with malaria and other tropical diseases and how to stay healthy in the jungle. We hope you enjoy this episode, it's a must listen! Thank you for listening and stay tuned for more episodes like this one! -Joe Rogan Experience. -The Joe Rogan Show - The Joe Rogans Experience (featuring: Justin Renn and the crew at the Podcast . . . , is a production of the . and podcast in this week's episode of was produced by the , and , is a podcast. . , and is a show based on the work of , produced by , written and produced by Justin Rogan . , edited by & the crew. and produced and produced in partnership with . and . ( ) from , from on , brought to you, with , in comes to you by . Thank you, Justin, , thanks to , & , , , ( ) and ( ) . & etc., this week sis, and ) and his amazing music is , which is ! has been coming to you from Africa, and we are of course.
00:01:41.000Yeah, I had this guy on the sci-fi show that I did who told me that everyone who lives in South American or jungle climates, everyone has parasites.
00:03:12.000It was actually a good experience for me in the end because I got to share in the suffering that they're going through because they don't even have all the antibiotics and all the medicine to pump your body with to get healed from it.
00:03:24.000So I had to be evac'd out of the Congo and into Uganda.
00:03:47.000And then whenever I finally did urinate in Uganda, it was after I got the right medicine, they took my blood out and saw that I had over 70% of my bloodstream was parasites.
00:04:42.000I mean, the pilot that flew me out, it was actually on Thanksgiving of 2013, and he flew me out, just me and him on the plane, and he found out that they're misdiagnosing me, that my buddy there was like, the doctors don't know what's going on with him.
00:04:58.000He's going to die if we don't get him out of here to a good hospital.
00:05:01.000So they took me out of the jungle, flew me to Uganda.
00:05:03.000And when I landed, an ambulance came and picked me up because my vomit had turned to blood and bile.
00:05:08.000So it was literally, I could smell, you know, like in the fight game, you can smell the blood.
00:05:13.000So I could smell the iron, I think, in my blood.
00:09:00.000They also said that even mentally, taking them for a full year, they could give you night terrors and terrible dreams, but then also like people have moments of psychosis from taking them and stuff.
00:09:12.000So I was like, well, I don't want to be dealing with that.
00:10:11.000And then all of a sudden it started getting darker.
00:10:13.000And so it didn't start closing, like if you're getting choked or something.
00:10:17.000It didn't do that, but it kind of stopped.
00:10:19.000And I think it just prevented my peripheral vision from really functioning or working.
00:10:23.000And then the thing that sucks is you get these crazy back and forth between shivering uncontrollably and your teeth chattering to then you all of a sudden just like on a dime it switches and all of a sudden you're incredibly hot,
00:10:40.000sweating and you're throwing everything off and you're grabbing a fan and it just goes back and forth.
00:10:45.000It goes back and forth for maybe 30 minutes or something.
00:11:38.000And so they thought that I had gotten that.
00:11:41.000So they said just let him ride it out and he'll get better.
00:11:44.000And then kind of the head kind of doctor that was overseeing it came and I was in my room but she wouldn't even enter into the room because she was looking at me through the screen door saying I'm not coming in there.
00:11:58.000I'm not risking me getting sick with that.
00:12:29.000I think even if you go back and look at Congolese history, James Jameson, I think is his name, but he's one of the Jameson guys that founded the whiskey in Ireland.
00:15:32.000It's like people get infected by whatever's around them.
00:15:35.000They sort of imitate their atmosphere.
00:15:37.000Yeah, in Congo, in Uganda I saw it once, but they have something called mob justice.
00:15:42.000And so that's a crazy thing, kind of like with riots, where if something happens, someone just has to accuse somebody, and then everyone comes.
00:15:49.000And in some cases, it's okay, because if a thief is there and they yell thief, then the whole community surrounds the thief.
00:15:57.000But the danger happens whenever someone wants to take justice into their own hands.
00:16:02.000And instead of turning that thief over to the authorities, what they do is they beat him and kill him.
00:16:06.000So me and my buddy Benjamin, he was my translator, we were walking down a center street of, like, basically Main Street in one of these big towns.
00:16:15.000And in Bunia, they have a big past for lots of different struggles and even, like, I think smaller kind of genocides.
00:16:24.000Well, I say smaller, but I think 50,000 people were killed there, just in that one town.
00:16:28.00050,000 people killed by different rebel groups, machetes, all this different stuff.
00:16:33.000But we were walking down the street, And someone yelled thief, and nobody even confirmed it.
00:16:38.000They grabbed the guy, started beating him, and then whenever we got up there, Benz grabbed me and said, you don't want to be around this because I'm the only outsider there.
00:16:46.000And so, but at first, my instinct was like, instinct, I didn't know that they were saying thief, thief.
00:16:51.000My instinct was like, there's 30 guys pounding on this guy.
00:16:54.000Like, someone's got to, you know, give this guy some rooms, give him some space.
00:17:28.000It's like these people have these ancient ideas that are based on just one person who's ignorant telling another person who's ignorant and becomes doctrine.
00:17:38.000And they just pass it down through generation to generation.
00:18:11.000And that's with the pygmies while we're there celebrating on our first water well that we accomplished there.
00:18:17.000Some of the government officials came and said that this is the first ever clean water source among the Pygmy people, the Mabuti Pygmies in Eastern Congo.
00:18:25.000Because the Pygmies are in many different countries, but in there, that country, this is the first water source for them.
00:18:32.000And so, but on that day, a rebel leader named Morgan of the Mai Mai, it's a terrible rebel group there, they had been confirmed in 2012 Of killing, cooking, and eating pygmies, thinking that it makes them invincible going into battle.
00:18:48.000But while we're there celebrating, all of a sudden, all the Congolese army is driving by us.
00:18:53.000And basically, the Congolese army is just a bunch of rebel groups that defected and came together to be the Congolese army.
00:19:01.000But they're all driving by, you know, where we are celebrating.
00:19:05.000And I guess what turns out, these guys have RPGs and machine guns and all sorts of crazy stuff.
00:19:11.000And I guess I had Morgan, the main leader in the back, and they had killed him.
00:19:15.000But he came to peacefully turn himself in, but anyways, they killed him.
00:19:24.000The rest of the rebels now don't want to turn themselves in, because if they turn themselves in peacefully, then they might be killed or executed, you know?
00:19:32.000So they went back and started killing more, raping more, attacking more gold mines, stuff like that.
00:19:38.000And then some of the people there from the UN that were studying the conflict and stuff said, be careful in that area where you're going, don't go, for a little bit.
00:19:48.000So we stayed for maybe three weeks and then we went back out.
00:19:50.000But they were saying that the Myanmar were walking around drinking from all the pygmy skulls, just drinking out of their skulls.
00:20:01.000You've seen some crazy shit in the few years that you've been down there.
00:20:05.000I mean, what a wild transformation your life has taken from going from the ultimate fighter, fighting in the UFC, experiencing The initial trip when you went and you met those people and you became incredibly committed to helping them,
00:20:22.000you just felt like you were overcome with this almost like a calling, right?
00:21:15.000Meet some people that really had some real plans, because the first time I went with people that we didn't have plans to actually help or anything, like sustainability, it was just kind of a learning trip, going and seeing what their problems were.
00:21:27.000Second time it was the university there, their school of community development, and they had dreams of giving them water, giving them land, giving them food, but they didn't have any way to do it really.
00:21:38.000They had the plan and everything in place.
00:21:39.000But they didn't have funding behind it.
00:21:41.000They didn't have the technology behind it.
00:21:43.000And so the third time was whenever I came back and I had studied how to build those ecodomes and I partnered with an organization.
00:21:51.000It's a great organization called Water 4. And their big thing is what I was searching for, was how to put the The tools are basically the power in the hands of the people there.
00:22:03.000Instead of having to have outside help, how could we actually help them to continue to do it, continue the process?
00:22:10.000And so Water 4 puts the tools in the people's hands, and then they teach them how to do it, and then now they can do it for themselves.
00:22:16.000It can be a sustainable business for them.
00:22:18.000They can use whatever model they want, if it's a nonprofit model, if it's a business model, to make it sustainable there.
00:22:25.000So that way, Yeah, where I'm at, Congolese can help Congolese, and that way I can hopefully, you know, fan the flame, go over there, teach them more, bring over the right people.
00:22:36.000Water4 really supported and sent over, you know, their director of implementation to come, really sit down with us for two weeks, teach us.
00:22:45.000Now he's gone over since I've been back already.
00:22:48.000He's been back over teaching our team and more, you know, strategies of how to dig these water wells.
00:22:52.000No, we had a bunch of people donate to your cause, which is, it's fight for the forgotten.
00:22:58.000We had a bunch of people donate Bitcoin, and I matched the Bitcoin, whatever people donated, I matched it.
00:23:04.000But Bitcoin's kind of weird, like it's fluctuating up and back, and although I'm a big believer and supporter, and I think it'd probably be better if people donate cash, so we know exactly what the fuck we're dealing with.
00:23:14.000What's the best way they can donate to your cause?
00:23:19.000Well, they could go to fightfortheforgotten.com and they could just click donate and do it there.
00:23:23.000We're going to be updating the site real soon.
00:23:25.000But yeah, that's straight to the non-profit 501c3 bank account.
00:23:31.000They could go to Water 4 if they want to fund the water projects there.
00:23:49.000And since coming on the podcast and people becoming aware of what you're doing, are you getting other organizations that are reaching out to you to try to help you and contribute as well?
00:23:59.000Yeah, that's been a cool thing, but it's trying to be selective in the process because, I mean, funding is something that, yeah, we definitely need, but at the same time, we want to do it in a way that's going to be practical for the people there.
00:24:11.000So sometimes you have to, it sucks, but...
00:24:15.000Sometimes you've got to say no to good opportunities or chunks of money if they're going to tell you how to use it, when to use it, and kind of control.
00:24:24.000If they give it to you with strings attached, instead of saying like, well, culturally, it might not work here, doing it that way.
00:24:31.000You know, instead of going and just, I don't know if that, does that make sense?
00:25:32.000Well, I don't want to knock them, but I think it's a great organization.
00:25:36.000And I didn't turn the organization down.
00:25:39.000I turned a private person that wanted to say, hey, I'm doing this, and you run with it.
00:25:43.000And I said, thank you, but I think a water well will support them better.
00:25:47.000Because I've had one of those, it's called a life straw.
00:25:50.000And I think the way it's marketed is that it's going to save the third world.
00:25:54.000But then if you think about it, how many times does someone in the third world, every single time they want to get a clean drink of water, do they want to have a straw wrapped around their neck and then put their face in the water?
00:27:50.000At the time, though, it was like even getting it over to Congo.
00:27:53.000Some people are really gung-ho, and I love it.
00:27:55.000Like, please, you know, help us, support us, things like that.
00:27:58.000But then if you're going to donate and say, this is what it's for, and then we have to find a way to get it there, ship it, you know, 5,000 of these straws or something like that.
00:28:30.000The Congolese government there, and the Border Patrol, They're absolutely crazy, man.
00:28:36.000There was $3,000 worth of mattresses donated to this hospital, and these people sent it on a truck and paid for the shipping and everything.
00:28:45.000Then whenever they got there, the government wanted $5,000 so that they could bring it into the country.
00:28:54.000$3,000 of donated mattresses for their beds, but now they have no way to get it in there because they don't have the funds to pay $5,000 to the corrupt government officials just to get their beds released across the border, all that other stuff.
00:29:09.000That's gotta be insanely frustrating for you, trying to make a change and running time and time again into all this corruption and all these devious people.
00:29:18.000It sounds like, if you go back to the Jameson thing, it's like this long history of horrible things that have been happening in this area, and there's kind of like a momentum attached to that.
00:29:28.000It's almost like this is just the way it is.
00:29:30.000This is a fucked up part of the world.
00:29:37.000Every single time I've gone across the border, there's been some kind of problem where they want to arrest me and my team.
00:29:45.000They want to find someone that they can single out, find something that they can get a bribe for, and they just waste so much of your time.
00:30:09.000And this is a university vehicle that's going to be used for humanitarian aid.
00:30:12.000But then whenever we get to the border, the head guys, the absolute head guys of customs were saying, yeah, but how's that going to feed my family?
00:30:22.000And it's like, well, isn't your job a government job?
00:30:42.000So after three and a half weeks, how did you resolve it?
00:30:45.000Yeah, they came back to us with a long list of new fees, of processing fees, and we had to go do this to get it, and go do this to get it, and go do this to get it.
00:30:57.000And by that time, we just decided that, I think we ended up paying like $750 to get our truck released, but it was going to be $500 anyways, so I think they got an extra $250.
00:31:10.000Fuck, but you lost three and a half years.
00:31:12.000Yeah, but they were first asking for $7,000 or $8,000.
00:31:16.000They were looking for 50% of the purchase price of the vehicle.
00:31:25.000It's gotta drive you nuts when you're dealing with something that's, you know, you're trying to help.
00:31:30.000You're going over there, you're essentially dedicating your life, a huge part of your life, you're going over there and helping these people, being, you know, completely humanitarian in your actions, and then you run into this kind of shit.
00:31:43.000It's gotta be really, really frustrating.
00:34:09.000There's other kinds of sicknesses that attribute to it, but most of them, the little kids, they run around with these huge bellies, and it's just full of tapeworms, other kinds of bacterias and things like that.
00:34:21.000And if you can just give them clean water, I think the stat from the United Nations Human Development Report is 85% of sickness just disappears.
00:34:30.000Once you have clean water in your system.
00:34:32.000But once you're constantly getting sick from that, not only that, but it's diarrhea.
00:34:36.000Whenever you have waterborne illness and drinking dirty water, now these people that don't have a lot of food, that are either slaves to get their food, which a whole family can work, you know, a mother, father, and their two or three children can go work for their masters, and they get two small bananas at the end of the day.
00:34:53.000And they have to split that within their whole family.
00:34:55.000But now if you have diarrhea added on top of that, Now you don't absorb any of the nutrients from that banana you just ate.
00:35:04.000And so it's real tough to be like, man, first we got them land while we were there, which was a huge thing.
00:35:11.000We negotiated and petitioned and lobbied for them and their rights with the government there, but also the local slave masters, the chiefs of that area, and said, you know, these are the first citizens of Congo.
00:35:25.000Why has all their land been stolen from them?
00:35:27.000Why is the land that they're on now all of a sudden legally in the name of somebody else?
00:35:32.000And so where's some land that we could get and purchase on behalf of them?
00:35:36.000And the university did a great job in that.
00:35:39.000I was kind of in the background for that, for sure, because just being an NGO, a nonprofit, something like that, the local government officials, again, will see dollar signs.
00:35:49.000And so if we were going to buy the land, it was going to be astronomical.
00:36:47.000Do you have any concern that with all this added publicity and all this attention that's in that area that people will come in and try to exploit that because they know the resources are in that area now?
00:37:00.000I think what's been great for me is being able to kind of dive in as part of the university and have their covering because now they say I'm a teacher of appropriate technologies.
00:37:17.000And so I'm teaching Congolese how to dig wells, farm, and build new homes.
00:37:25.000I'll come back here, learn it, and I'll come and I'll either teach it or I'll bring someone with me that really can, you know.
00:37:30.000Even if I don't know everything about it, I'll get someone there that will.
00:37:34.000And so the university there is kind of just, they're able to really negotiate and show everybody on both sides, like, hey, this is in everyone's best interest.
00:37:45.000Which is something cool, because whenever we go in and we drill water wells, we're not just drilling them for my pygmy family.
00:37:51.000We're drilling them for the people that oppressed them, too.
00:37:53.000And that way we can show them that the project isn't just...
00:37:56.000For the pygmies and just going to benefit them.
00:37:58.000If you can sell us their land, which sometimes the land prices that we're buying them for are three years, five years, ten years salary for the people that either enslaved them or that own that land.
00:38:09.000And then we come in and we say, we're also going to give you a water well.
00:38:12.000Well, their kids are dying of the same stuff too.
00:38:14.000And they've been struggling with diarrhea their whole life or parasites or whatever it is.
00:38:18.000Now we're going to give you guys both water wells.
00:38:21.000And when we start our farming project, We're bringing in an agriculturalist to teach both sides better farming practices.
00:38:52.000Because they've been so prejudiced against the pygmies for so long.
00:38:56.000Is there any resistance to the pygmies having equal treatment?
00:39:01.000I'm sure that there is questions and things like that, but we haven't seen...
00:39:07.000And what we do also is we go in there with the university, like, dean of the Department of Development, and we sit down with them, we explain everything, and it all becomes, like, agreeable and written down on paper before we ever take action.
00:39:20.000And so that way we can always show them, hey, we all agreed to this, you know?
00:39:23.000And so it's been a great process for me.
00:39:26.000Do they all speak the same language, these people that you're communicating with, the Pygmies and their oppressors?
00:39:31.000They kind of have their own dialects also, but most people have...
00:39:35.000Congo has so many languages, there's about 200. Wow!
00:39:39.000Yeah, 200 of their local tribe languages.
00:39:45.000Some of them do, for sure, especially ones that border each other, but then there's always a common thread.
00:39:49.000I think there's five national languages of Congo, and one's French, so that's kind of the government language and the language spoken schools.
00:39:58.000Another is Swahili, and that's on the eastern side, so that's what I've been trying to learn.
00:40:03.000I can pick it up pretty good, but speaking it, I'm still kind of far behind, so I always have a translator right beside me.
00:40:08.000But they have Lingala, and they have, I think it's called Bannacongo or something like that.
00:40:13.000So kind of in each region, the north, the south, the east, the west, all that, they have their own kind of language that everybody speaks.
00:40:20.000And then as a nation, everybody speaks French.
00:41:07.000And so there's a big break between that pure, proper Tanzanian Swahili and the Swahili spoken in Congo because they mix in local language and they mix in French and all that other stuff.
00:41:20.000So I just try to immerse myself in there and learn it that way.
00:41:24.000I'm able to talk a little bit, but really just having a translator there is helping me.
00:41:27.000It's amazing how many variations there are in languages.
00:41:30.000I went to Northern Ireland once for the UFC and spoke to people in Belfast.
00:41:36.000You can't understand a fucking word they're saying.
00:41:39.000I mean, they're speaking English, and you'll pick out like one out of every four or five words that you're pretty sure that's what the word is.
00:42:09.000It's like being in this, like, weird starport.
00:42:12.000But they're speaking English, you know?
00:42:14.000Yeah, and my best friend there, Ben, he used to be a translator for the United Nations, so he speaks fluently seven languages, but he knows more than that.
00:42:26.000We're side-by-side all the time, and he's helping me out.
00:42:27.000You have to, like, if you speak fluently seven languages, you have to kind of practice those languages all the time, right, to keep them fluent?
00:42:33.000I'm pretty sure, but that's what he was doing where...
00:42:35.000I mean, yes, but that's what he was doing when he was at the United Nations for the Russians, because he speaks...
00:42:40.000I mean, he's a Congolese guy that's speaking Russian.
00:42:56.000It's like that story from the Bible about the Tower of Babel, you know, that the idea being that this was all like some sort of a plan to keep people from being able to communicate with each other.
00:43:05.000I mean, it's probably indicative of like how frustrating it must be to realize that there are, I mean, I don't know how many languages there are worldwide, but I think it's over a thousand, right?
00:43:48.000Incredibly frustrated for people to communicate without some sort of a universal translator, whether it's a program or something, but even then, without a universal language.
00:43:58.000It's it's it's gonna be really hard for people to relate to each other and to to not like it's it's easy to Look at someone who's speaking some crazy language like people in Afghanistan or people in Saudi Arabia and think of them as like not us Because they don't they don't speak the way we speak if we heard someone in Afghanistan speaking total Fluent English,
00:44:23.000we would think of them way different than if you hear them in some crazy Arabic language.
00:44:32.000Language is something that I wish I had a gift at.
00:44:36.000I really wish I could just grasp it and speak it so well, but I really think just immersion into it is the way that you really start to pick it up.
00:44:46.000Because I found myself just able to Start learning Swahili, and then someone's over to the side, and they make a little joke, and I would be able to start laughing with them.
00:48:00.000Do you have to give them medicine to get rid of that belly, or does it go away just with clean water?
00:48:06.000It doesn't go away just with clean water, but the sickness drops about 85%.
00:48:11.000But what we do is we have different nurses and things that are partnered with the university, and we send them out, and the pills are like, I mean, a dollar for like 10 of them, and you can give one pill to each of them.
00:48:59.000I think as they get older, I mean, I'm not 100% sure, but I think their body just starts learning to fight it better.
00:49:05.000And some of them have had the medicine, and so they'll be smarter and try not to drink dirty water just from anywhere.
00:49:12.000When these little guys are walking around, now they're being taught, you have a clean source of water, this is where you get your water from.
00:49:19.000And they can carry little containers or bottles and take those around with them.
00:49:23.000And they do most of their hunting with spears?
00:50:42.000She came to visit and it was just really fun because she wanted to experience their culture and whenever you show them interest in the culture, they get really, really excited.
00:51:13.000And then they'll even do like turtles.
00:51:17.000They'll go out and they'll make backpacks out of turtles.
00:51:21.000That sounds crazy, but they'll go out and they'll look for the antelope or something like that.
00:51:25.000And then if they come across a turtle, they'll make out of, I don't know, these little vines, literally just backpacks where they tie it onto the legs of the turtle and they walk around with it.
00:51:36.000And if they find a big thing of meat, then they let the turtle go.
00:51:39.000But if they don't, if they come back empty-handed, they're going to come back with the turtle.
00:51:43.000And these arrows that they use, what do they use for the feathers, for the fletchings and all that stuff?
00:52:04.000If they find scrap metal somewhere, they can beat it down and turn it into a very, very sharp.
00:52:10.000But then sometimes they have these wicked barbs on them too.
00:52:13.000And then what they use most though, they would use They would use the metal on smaller game, but on bigger game, they use their poison-tipped arrows.
00:52:21.000So they just have it in wood, and they sharpen it down, and they kind of do the spiral at the tip of the arrow, and then what they do is they take roots and berries, and I think that's pretty much it, but they get basically a poisonous cocktail that they make,
00:52:38.000and it turns black, and then they dip the tip of the arrow right in it, and that's what they use for something they really want to get, a monkey or an antelope or anything like that.
00:52:46.000And when they do that, doesn't that poison the meat?
00:53:28.000I got hiking boots on or whatever, but they're just fast and quiet.
00:53:31.000So I've tried to go out on a couple of hunts with them, but I knew they were just kind of humbly being nice, letting me experience their culture.
00:53:41.000But then I realized, these guys are quick, they're quiet, and I'm not.
00:53:45.000And so I better just let them go off on their own and do their thing.
00:53:53.000If they can find, like, most of the things that they're wearing on their body is because they've worked for someone or been a slave for someone, and that was part of their payment was clothing.
00:54:11.000It's pretty cool to see, like, just their feet, the structure of their feet.
00:54:15.000They don't have the real high arches, and it's not real soft skin, you know, but they can just book it through the forest and step on stuff that I'm feeling through my boots, but they just keep going.
00:54:26.000Yeah, did you ever see that show, Dual Survivor?
00:55:12.000But it's kind of funny, like, you know from martial arts, but, like, the bottom of your heel, you could fucking pound on things with your heel.
00:55:20.000But, like, that same impact on your shin would be very painful.
00:55:26.000You know, it's kind of interesting how that works.
00:55:28.000Even on the Ultimate Fighter, Wes Sims, when I fought him, I mean, it was like a minute and a half fight.
00:57:26.000I mean, that's a little trick that everyone...
00:57:28.000Well, guys use that to submit guys, too.
00:57:31.000I've seen guys get chokes and guillotines where they'll hook their own glove and use it to finish a choke because it's like you can get some mad leverage along with grabbing it.
00:57:41.000Yeah, and that guy's not going to be able to hand fight it very easily.
00:58:00.000It's just kind of squirrely, you know?
00:58:03.000But it's a frustrating thing, too, when you see two guys grapple, and one guy's trying for a takedown, and the other guy's grabbing the guy's shorts, and the referee will say, stop, and they will stop.
00:58:13.000But that brief moment where they held on might have been just enough for them to scoot their hips out and defend.
00:59:25.000That was even the thing I would do to joke around with guys was wear mantis at Wayans because they couldn't look into my eye serious if I had these leopard man panties on with sequins and things like that.
00:59:35.000That kept guys from looking into your eyes?
00:59:37.000Well, they would grin or something like that, you know?
00:59:39.000They wouldn't really do the deep stare down, if that makes sense.
00:59:43.000You made a post, like, recently, like, within the last six months, saying that you were considering coming back to fighting.
01:01:46.000You know, and if I just went to the jungle, because I would love, I mean, I feel like I could be completely content with living in a twig and leaf hut for, I don't know, maybe the rest of my life, at least for a while.
01:01:57.000But if I just did that, then, you know, nobody's going to know about it, nobody's going to support it.
01:02:04.000And so if I could use this as just a tool, a platform, I would have to take it super serious.
01:02:09.000There's no way I could just, you know, lackadaisically come back into fighting.
01:02:40.000Whenever you walk in, he's got the flat screens all around the cage, and he's got his Mac.
01:02:47.000And if he's showing you a move, he'll show you three, four, five fights that this move has been finished in in the UFC or other promotions.
01:02:54.000And so if you doubt him, he's going to say, hey, pull up to his assistant.
01:02:58.000He'll say, hey, pull this fight up this much into it.
01:03:02.000And then he'll start breaking down the fight, breaking down the move, the setup, and how to finish.
01:04:29.000Is it just because of the gravity, just carrying the extra weight, the pressure on the joints?
01:04:35.000Why do you think that a heavyweight can only train five days a week?
01:04:38.000I don't think they can only train five days a week, but I think it's a smart move for Rochelt, and I think it would be a smart move for me to do, too.
01:05:02.000But sometimes they're just not the same weight.
01:05:04.000And power behind their punches, behind their takedowns, behind everything.
01:05:08.000I mean, it goes from, you know, 255 pounders equal almost one of us, you know, or a little more than one of us.
01:05:16.000And then now you have 500 pounds colliding into the mat whenever you're taking someone down or punching.
01:05:22.000There's just all this stuff that I think you take a lot more of a beating on your body.
01:05:26.000Well, certainly cardio-wise, it's very difficult.
01:05:28.000That's what makes Kane so unique is that he can keep up a pace that's usually reserved for people that are like 170. He can do at 240. He's so unique in that way.
01:05:46.000Because the way that we were doing it at Grudge, and that's a world-class gym.
01:05:51.000But something I look back and see from assessing, just my opinion, is, man, we were, you know, three days a week training and sparring hard.
01:07:50.000And in a way, I kind of understand because I think that referees sometimes will look at a guy who's older And judge it slightly differently than a guy who's younger.
01:08:46.000Maquan Americana, who is a bad motherfucker.
01:08:48.000This kid, first of all, this kid goes into the octagon and does these perfect flips, like, and you could, like, right away, you could say, like, whoa, this kid is like a serious gymnast, and then hits Andy Ogle with this ridiculous flying knee, like, launched across the ring, tags him with this flying knee,
01:09:04.000and then tags him with an upper guard.
01:09:06.000And then the referee stopped the fight.
01:09:07.000And I even said, I probably shouldn't have said that I thought it was a premature stoppage.
01:09:11.000The referee could see better than I can, obviously, whether or not a guy's eyes rolled behind his head.
01:10:40.000But I think with that Dan Henderson fight, I think maybe the angle, because I watched a couple times, and I think maybe the angle of the ref, he was kind of maybe behind kind of Musashi whenever he hit him, and then whenever Hendo's head kind of hit the back of the cage,
01:10:56.000That scared the ref and prompted him to stop it early.
01:10:59.000I always wonder when you go to new places, too, whether or not commissions are more sensitive, you know, because, like, maybe Sweden has, like, less sensitive or referees are more sensitive to fighters getting injured.
01:11:59.000Dude, absolutely a beast on the ground.
01:12:01.000He was like a, I don't know, like a spider.
01:12:04.000His legs and everything were nuts how they could wrap around you.
01:12:08.000But he was from Norway, and there, MMA, they were very, very resistant.
01:12:13.000And this was when I was training with him back in 2008, I think.
01:12:15.000But they were very, very resistant to it.
01:12:17.000I thought it was a brutal, barbaric sport, all that.
01:12:19.000But then in Finland, just a couple countries away, you could still headbutt, and that's where he was getting some of his first fights, I think.
01:13:33.000I'm just reacting to things, you know?
01:13:36.000The only time it becomes an issue is things like if I'm critical of a stoppage or if I'm critical of judging, and then it becomes a point of debate.
01:13:45.000Especially subjective controversy, whether it's you can agree or disagree, I think it's important because it starts the discussion of what should be legal, what shouldn't be legal, what should happen, what shouldn't happen.
01:13:58.000There's a lot of people that have some really strong feelings about the shape of the gloves right now.
01:14:03.000And that they're contributing to eye pokes.
01:14:05.000And that's something I've had some recent conversations with Dana and with Lorenzo.
01:14:10.000And they're of the opinion, I think, that the fighters need to be penalized more.
01:14:14.000Because their gloves have been the same for a long time.
01:14:16.000But back in the day, it wasn't nearly as much of an issue.
01:14:20.000If you go back to UFC 37.5 or UFC 40, you don't see a lot of eye pokes.
01:14:27.000But now it's hard to go one fight or one event, rather, without a couple of fights.
01:15:02.000And when you see a guy like Bisping, he's got one eye that looks completely different from his other eye now because of surgery, detached retina surgery, and then they have to put oil inside his retina.
01:15:13.000And I don't even know how much he can see out of his right eye.
01:15:16.000But when you look at him in the eyes, his one eye looks very different than the other eye.
01:15:55.000This is kind of hypocritical because I think they shouldn't be wearing gloves at all, but I wonder if there's a way to Like, put some sort of a soft leather over the tips of the fingers.
01:16:06.000You know those old-school Everlast boxing gloves, those bag gloves?
01:17:12.000Yeah, I never had a problem poking a guy in the eye.
01:17:14.000I got poked in the eye once and it absolutely sucks because for the whole round my vision was like it would double and it would turn black and it just jacked with me the entire round.
01:18:33.000I just feel like there's a better way.
01:18:35.000And I feel like if you do, you know, that's that expression, like, what's the definition of insanity?
01:18:40.000Do the same thing over and over again, expect a different result.
01:18:43.000You know, it's just, it seems like the gloves that we have now, everyone says the same thing.
01:18:48.000Every fighter that I've talked to, that it actually, they make your hands straighten out, especially as your hands fatigue as the rounds go on.
01:18:54.000They literally make your hands straighten out.
01:18:58.000But the Bellator gloves that they're using that Everlast designed are far more curved.
01:19:03.000So Everlast has like their own sort of patented technology, their patented design.
01:19:09.000And they're also having less hand breaks too.
01:20:14.000But if they do fit, see if you get a large or probably extra large, whatever the bigger ones are, but Diamond's figured out a way to make this compression short with all these straps and this cup that is like sort of, it's got a rubberized outside but it's hard as fuck around it and the compression shorts keep the cup right over your junk and you could take full blast shots and you're,
01:20:37.000it's not gonna feel good, but it feels way better than anything else I've ever used.
01:23:47.000Like, there's guys who wear, like, the standard jockstrap with, like, the little silly cup inside of it.
01:23:52.000That's just fine if you're playing softball, you know, but, goddammit, when you're getting kicked, we really need, like, a better design when it comes to that.
01:24:04.000Man, yeah, thank you so much for this.
01:24:06.000And I also want to thank you, man, for coming in here because the village of Bobofi is the village that you guys sponsored, and they got a water well.
01:24:14.000So I'm just thankful you're giving me this.
01:24:16.000You sponsored my family getting water.
01:24:18.000We even had, I mean, if it's okay, I could show you a picture.
01:24:55.000I'm not sure if that works, but there's some expensive equipment that you can get, but we're really there for the things that they're going to do and where they are in the rainforest.
01:25:09.000And so most people don't know how to get to it, so we show them how to get down there to it.
01:25:12.000And so once it's below 6 meters or 20 feet, the Water 4 system has been approved by USAID and the UN and all these places saying it's just as safe as a lot of mechanicalized rigs.
01:25:30.000And so what they do is they drill it down there and once you get to a certain depth, you can put a cement pad that protects it at the top, but you also put like a clay sanitary seal up from six meters and above.
01:26:17.000And so if you can put that down there, then it takes a long time.
01:26:20.000So any ground contaminants that are trying to pass through that, first you have the cement pad that we put on, and then you have the clay sanitary seal beyond that.
01:26:28.000And then it's not going to let the ground contaminants and other kinds of waterborne disease get down into our clean aquifer.
01:26:35.000So we try to find a good aquifer that's going to keep refilling.
01:27:56.000We didn't want to waste our tools, so what we'd do is we'd pick up and we'd move.
01:28:01.000Because we can't make those tools yet in Congo, so we're bringing them from the States and it's high-quality stuff.
01:28:08.000Hopefully one day we do have a metal shop there that we can start trying to produce things that will just blast through softer layers.
01:28:15.000And so you're doing this not just in the pygmy villages, but in also these neighboring villages, too, to try to help these people out so that they don't get angry at the pygmies for having this stuff?
01:28:48.000If you go down, this is the chief's wife, and she took one of our well-driller sunglasses, and she was the second one to pump, and so she loved it.
01:31:01.000I mean, I got it from two different sources.
01:31:03.000I obviously had dirty water or someone cooked with dirty water and ingested the typhoid fever.
01:31:11.000So cooking with dirty water, even if you boil the water, you still get some of those illnesses?
01:31:17.000You can if you don't cook it correctly right, if you don't get it really, really hot.
01:31:21.000And sometimes out here, you're just cooking over a fire, and it just sticks, and you put on a bowl over it, and it has to get to that boiling point and stuff.
01:31:32.000And if they don't cook it right, or if they add some water to it a little later to add some more, you can still get sick from that.
01:31:39.000Do they have metal pots and pans and stainless steel or cast iron?
01:33:56.000Well, it stopped raining, and then you're thinking that it's raining, but it's actually, or that's sprinkling, but it's actually the legs of the roaches running on the leaves.
01:34:20.000But after that, she embraced it and really fell in love with the people.
01:34:25.000And then there was another crazy story with this gigantic spider, or at least to me, you'll know why I thought it was gigantic in a minute.
01:34:35.000It was on her, what we'd do is we'd put up a little tent, almost like a mosquito net tent inside of the huts, so that she could be protected from all the mosquitoes and stuff like that.
01:34:43.000But Ben and I would sleep next to that and we didn't have a mosquito net over us.
01:34:48.000And all of a sudden she saw this gigantic spider crawling on the mesh.
01:34:52.000And she freaked out and called for me.
01:35:54.000It used to be clothing that they would wear like in traditional ceremonies, but it would be bark that they would beat down and it would kind of be like these fibers that would stick together and it would actually be like a bark cloth.
01:36:07.000You know, I'll have Emily bring you some of it.
01:36:09.000She's coming out here and we got you a knife because they can bang down these knives into, or bang down these nails into knives.
01:36:19.000Super wicked looking and sharp, but they can make nails into knives.
01:36:28.000How big are these nails that they can turn them into a knife?
01:36:30.000They're normally pretty big, like from the lumber guys and stuff, whatever they're doing, if they're building ladders and things like that.
01:36:40.000And so she was out there watching them paint on this bark cloth.
01:36:44.000I think if you just Google bark cloth, they'll show it too.
01:36:48.000And then I step out of the hut, and Ben's standing there, and when Ben's standing there, he looks at me, and all of a sudden, he goes, don't move.
01:36:57.000And I said, my eyes got big, and I said, why?
01:37:00.000And whenever I said why, all of a sudden, I saw that big spider from the night before, that tarantula.
01:37:06.000It was in my, at the time, gigantic, you know, chest-length beard, and its legs were just coming up right on my face.
01:37:33.000And Ben's still, you know, moving his foot back and forth, squashing the thing, killing it, making sure it's dead.
01:37:38.000But there's just crazy stuff out there.
01:37:40.000Like, I've been able to pull out, I think Emily and I counted five times in one night that I pulled these little roaches out of my beard.
01:37:47.000Because I guess they think it's like a nest or something like that.
01:37:50.000Why are you growing that crazy beard out there, man?
01:37:53.000Well, I didn't take any beard trimmers with me or anything like that, but also I wanted to see how long it would get in a year.
01:37:59.000And it's kind of an icebreaker for me.
01:38:01.000It's kind of funny or crazy, but for me, they've never seen something like it.
01:38:06.000I look like an animal to them a lot of times walking through.
01:38:09.000They have these jokes that I wouldn't want to come across him in a dark forest, you know, on a dark path.
01:38:17.000And I've come into the village, actually Bobofy, that one, whenever I first walked in, people grabbed their kids, jumped in their huts or...
01:38:23.000We're literally just booked it and disappeared through the forest because they didn't know...
01:38:27.000They've never seen anything like you before.
01:38:28.000Yeah, they've never seen a white dude.
01:38:29.000They've never seen someone with white skin.
01:39:06.000My hairy, hairy, enormously hairy arms and beard and long hair can be an icebreaker.
01:39:12.000So I can first scare them, then it can be an icebreaker, and then it can be kind of entertainment for them.
01:39:18.000They braid my hair, they play with my beard, all that.
01:39:20.000Well, there's some great videos of you that have gone online that people have actually tweeted to me, not even knowing that I know you, of them seeing you for the first time, of pygmies touching you and touching your beard and seeing your white skin for the first time.
01:39:35.000Some of the rumors that happened, too, is there was a neighboring village, and he had sprinted from Bobofi back to Bahaha.
01:39:44.000And he was visiting there, got terrified, ran away, and basically said that there was a big white ape that had walked into the village.
01:39:53.000And basically, I was a great white Sasquatch or vanilla gorilla, and it made him terrified.
01:40:00.000And so then he found out that we had been there, we'd gotten them land, we'd dug a well, we started farming yams and potatoes and beans and corn now there.
01:41:08.000Sometimes they're walking with two of those, or one about half that size.
01:41:12.000But the other people from the other tribes that are bigger and stronger, they're walking with one on top of their head and one over their back.
01:41:20.000And one of those villages that said, what I really come there to do was study their streams, their creeks, and then I left behind my half fish, half woman, and stationed them at each little creek and each little stream that I was going and investigating.
01:41:39.000So basically they were saying that I had brought mermaids to leave at every village.
01:41:46.000And I'm like, where did that come from?
01:41:48.000Like, where did you guys think I'm coming up with a mermaid to come bring and leave here?
01:41:54.000And they didn't say it was evil or anything, but they said I was bringing mermaids.
01:41:59.000It's like you're living in the 21st century, but it's almost like you're going into this land that hasn't changed much in thousands of years, and they still have the same sort of mythologies and folklore that you'd expect from people that lived Before education,
01:42:16.000before the internet, even before books.
01:42:19.000Yeah, I mean, it's like you're going back in time.
01:42:22.000Because people don't have cell phones.
01:42:26.000A lot of times, what I would do is, yeah, we'd take pictures together.
01:42:31.000But then I'd come and I would go into town and I brought with me, I think it's called a selfie.
01:42:55.000So how do they see themselves besides their reflection?
01:42:58.000But what we would do is, I mean, there's been other people that have come into some of the villages and take pictures, and they leave, and then they never get to see them.
01:43:05.000But we would go print them, and we'd come back, and we'd give them family photos.
01:43:09.000We'd give them like a family portrait.
01:43:11.000But we would either put it in like almost a Ziploc bag or kind of do...
01:43:16.000One time we did like this laminate kind of stuff on it because in their living conditions, in their huts, with the rain coming through it, with their ground sometimes turning to mud that they're sleeping on, you know, we wanted to protect the pictures that we were giving them.
01:43:31.000But just something like that, it's a small gift to us.
01:43:34.000But to them, it just blows their mind that you can take a picture of them, a moment in time, you can go print it, and then you can give it back to them, and now they can have it forever if they keep it right.
01:43:53.000Now, in other places like populated areas in Congo and Uganda and Rwanda, anywhere that there's been conflict, that then brings in a lot of reporters and other people.
01:44:05.000Like, they come and they take pictures, and the locals will say, oh, they're coming and taking our pictures, and then they're going and making money off of us.
01:44:13.000We don't get to see those pictures or anything like that, so you have to be, like, I'm not going around like a tourist and taking pictures.
01:44:19.000I'm When I get into the village, you know, sometimes I pull it out for entertainment and show them themselves where they can, you know, in the iPhone where you can actually see yourself on the screen at that time and their eyes just light up and it's like a mirror but it's, you know, it's on a screen.
01:44:40.000I know Loretta Hunt, who's sitting over here to our right, to your right, who you've written a bunch of books, Loretta, and she's writing a book about you right now.
01:44:48.000I want to read that book, man, because I think it's really fascinating.
01:44:51.000But I think a documentary is really what we need to see, too.
01:44:57.000Gotta have some bad motherfuckers that go with a camera crew to the Congo, too.
01:45:01.000Yeah, well, we did something for Water 4, and it's on Vimeo, but it's called Freedom in the Congo, and it's a very, very well-done seven-minute documentary of kind of the work we were doing.
01:45:14.000So yeah, it's called Freedom in the Congo on Vimeo.
01:45:17.000And what was so cool was this guy that came to film it, his name's Derek Watson, and he's done stuff for National Geographic and PBS, and he's done like full documentaries and got a woman named Sister Rosemary that was helping girls that were abducted by the LRA and made quote-unquote wives of them,
01:46:49.000They just need to be given a few fish, a few bananas, something small so that they can come back and work the next day, so that they're hungry enough that they have to come back and work the next day.
01:47:10.000Let's leave this for people to wash the full things so they don't...
01:47:45.000We don't want to hurt them in the process.
01:47:48.000But we want to educate them that, hey, we're both equals and how can we do this in the best way?
01:47:54.000Possible so we're changing that just so that there's no like Nothing nothing seemed like we're trying to To to point them out because they're the biggest people group in a in all of Africa and they're there most of them live where there aren't even pygmies But where there are pygmies most of it most of the time the pygmies are being enslaved do these guys know these these pygmy folks do they know that you Fought in the UFC. Do they understand what the UFC is?
01:48:51.000Anyways, yeah, they were being real corrupt and everything and I showed them it and ended up signing it and just giving it to them and they let us go.
01:49:33.000And just gave him the UFC Tops card and talked to him and played around with him.
01:49:40.000Sometimes when they're asking you to give them something, Matt actually taught it to me, the guy in the video from Water 4. If they ask for you to give them something, sometimes you just got to give them anything and they'll let you go.
01:49:52.000It can be a bottle of water, it can be a passion fruit, it can be a banana.
01:49:57.000One time a guy said, you got to give me something or I'm not going to let you go.
01:50:01.000So I just wrapped him up in a big bear hug.
01:50:04.000Afterwards, I said, there, I gave you a hug.
01:51:50.000I mean, it doesn't matter what's going on.
01:51:52.000I'm going to be going there my entire life.
01:51:55.000What I hope is just to add to their life.
01:51:58.000Like for me, whenever I sit back and I say, okay, what does a perfect world look like?
01:52:04.000And how can I try to take action to see that the good comes into the world instead of the bad, instead of the evil?
01:52:12.000Instead of the kids dying of dirty water, what can I do as a person to see that that is alleviated at least a little bit?
01:52:23.000Even just for one person, if I can do that.
01:52:26.000For me and my pygmy family, I don't want to see that same kind of suffering.
01:52:30.000We've actually seen them set free now, and we've seen them get clean water and seen them have food, and that's hopefully just the beginning of different things that will be a lifelong way to To sustain them and the people in that region.
01:52:45.000When you're there and you hang out with these people, especially when they know that you've done the UFC and they understand that you participate in professional conflict, as it were, do you teach them things?
01:54:21.000When you are planning, I mean, have you committed to this plan of fighting again, or is this still something that you have in your head?
01:54:29.000I haven't announced it or formally made a plan with anybody yet, but for me, my family, my wife, and the Takedown guys know that I'm going to make a real stab at it.
01:54:44.000So when you do that, how much time will you spend here, and how much time will you spend there, and how much time do you spend here and there right now?
01:54:51.000Yeah, well, I've been going since 2011, and I've taken, you know, month-long trips there until this last one, which was a one-year trip.
01:55:01.000And if I go back into fighting, it would only allow me probably to go there one, two, or max three times a year for anywhere from two to four weeks at a time.
01:55:12.000So I would love to train hard, to fight hard.
01:55:18.000I'll never have more motivation to beat a dude.
01:55:20.000To go in there, to get my hand raised, not just for me, but for starting my family with my wife, but also for the family there in Congo, that more is going to be added to them and to alleviate what's going on there.
01:55:33.000Now, were you released by the UFC, or did you just stop fighting?
01:56:32.000Then I went to the Olympic Training Center.
01:56:34.000So something I think, if you ask Brendan or anyone that's trained with me, they'll say that I'm a competitor and that my heart or spirit is a competitor.
01:56:43.000Spirit of a fighter, heart of a fighter.
01:56:45.000And Kenny Mundy's that team takedown, too, which is great.
01:56:47.000Yeah, that's something that is, you know, is a light bulb moment.
01:56:49.000I was amazed that they let him go with the Black Zillions.
01:56:54.000Do you know what a wealth of knowledge that guy has when it comes to wrestling?
01:56:57.000I mean, I guess it was a personality conflict or something like that, but man, what a great coach that guy is and a great wrestler.
01:57:02.000Yeah, with me, high school, and then ever since then, and then even now, whenever I stepped away, he fully 100% supported everything and said that he loves what I'm doing.
01:57:12.000But what's so great about Coach Money is he really will invest into people and really teach them Slick stuff that you're not going to find from a high school or college program.
01:57:24.000This is Olympic-level stuff that's coming from all over the world, and it's the little things that matter.
01:57:29.000So he's able to teach us those things.
01:57:45.000I haven't really stepped in there yet.
01:57:46.000I think for me, right now, I'm out of shape.
01:57:49.000I'm out of shape, and I want to come back in.
01:57:52.000My problem was that I would come back too soon, and then injuries would happen, so I'm going to get my core and all that back before I step in there with those guys.
01:58:06.000Yeah, and so I'll have to get back down.
01:58:08.000I'll probably be around 255, around fight time, 250. That's me coming back from Congo, having no food, coming back and having all the food at my disposal.
01:58:29.000You're living an incredible life, man.
01:58:31.000I think it would be really fascinating if you did come back and what a story that would be.
01:58:35.000I mean, it would generate an incredible amount of press and an incredible amount of attention towards what you're trying to do in the Congo.
01:58:42.000Well, that's humbling to hear because I respect your opinion so much of being in the fight game for so long.
01:58:51.000I want to be realistic about it and say right now I'm not looking at the world champion level.
01:58:58.000I'm not aiming at that right now, but that could be a future goal once I get back into it, get in shape, and really start Start just knocking some dudes down.
01:59:08.000Do you know how crazy it would be if you got to the point where you're fighting for the title?
01:59:12.000Do you know how fucking bananas that would be?
01:59:41.000I feel like in my heart, that's one of my deepest desires is to fight and contend for the highest possible good in every circumstance.
01:59:50.000Like, it doesn't matter if it's there or here, whatever it is, whenever I'm meeting somebody, like, what can I do to add to the lives of another?
01:59:58.000And if I can do that through fighting, something that I'm very passionate about, I mean, I think, yeah, I mean, it's humbling.
02:00:30.000But yeah, that's what's so motivating about me getting back into it is I see a huge opportunity.
02:00:37.000To fulfill that first promise I gave him, man, I was standing at the grave of Andy Bo, and I had held him in my hands and had his blood on me.
02:00:45.000And I had buried him, and it was so tough, so hard.
02:00:51.000And then one of the chiefs came to me and said, nobody knows.
02:03:26.000It's really cool hearing that about the Swedish fans, though.
02:03:29.000I mean, that's a reason why I loved Pride, was that the fans were so educated.
02:03:34.000And they would sit there, you know, quiet and polite, and then whenever they would appreciate even the moves of grappling, you know, passing full guard to half guard, and they would clap, you know?
02:04:16.000And there's always going to be people that beat you.
02:04:19.000Like, you could train your hardest, and you run into somebody who's just far better than you, and there's just nothing you can do about it.
02:05:05.000Some, you know, I don't want to call them fans, just douchebags that torment people after they lose.
02:05:12.000And I've read some of the tweets and it's just fucking appalling.
02:05:15.000It's appalling that these anonymous shitheads who go on these guys' pages after they've spent, you know, eight...
02:05:25.000Weeks plus camps every day preparing for this moment and then they get trounced and then people just go off on them and they make memes about them and they mock them.
02:05:37.000That's a very unfortunate aspect of our culture.
02:05:41.000They put so much emphasis on the winner only.
02:05:46.000But on the other hand, it's like that cruelty and that intense pressure, it's also why the baddest motherfuckers come out of that culture.
02:05:55.000It's like people that can withstand that.
02:05:58.000There's a yin and a yang, and the yin is harder and the yang is harder.
02:06:38.000A win bonus, the fact that you can make 50% more if you win than you do if you lose, it's kind of crazy.
02:06:45.000Yeah, it's kind of crazy because once you get to a certain level at least, once you get to a certain level, man, I don't think it does make you fight harder.
02:07:42.000In order to to use your skills to the best of your ability, you know, and people don't understand that and this idea that like they're Trying to leave it in the hands of the judges.
02:07:51.000I mean occasionally you'll see a guy fight safe Yeah, you know you see a guy that goofy fight Where the goofy ending Nate Corey versus who was it where he's walking?
02:08:02.000Yeah, I'm sure they wouldn't want to beat him the same amount I'm sure they were happy that they paid him 50% Yes, that's that's the worst example of all time.
02:08:10.000Yeah And I don't know what was wrong with Caleb Starnes in that fight, but yeah, those memes exist.
02:08:20.000But I think, yeah, once you get to a certain level, and if you're a real competitor that does have the eye on the top prize, then you're going to fight your heart out every single time.
02:10:03.000But at the same time, like, it was just nuts to me that I'm like, whoa, how are these the judges in Vegas?
02:10:09.000Not that, I mean, but I think that judges should at least have had to have trained or fought before or really had to have gone through some deep training to become a judge.
02:10:19.000Yeah, there's no way you understand it any other way.
02:10:24.000You know, there's a judge, I don't want to say his name, but he told me that he was watching a fight once, and there was a woman who was also judging, and the guy was going for a Kimura, and the woman said, what's he doing?
02:10:40.000See, for my fight, it was nuts, because I'm like, this woman, I don't know that she's ever, I mean, maybe she had really watched MMA and studied it, but...
02:11:18.000There's so many incredibly knowledgeable fans of MMA that if they held open casting calls for new judges, you would get incredibly qualified people who have either...
02:11:29.000Trained their whole lives or competed multiple times that enjoy the sport love the sport like you if you decided to never like Ricardo Almeida He's a judge in in New Jersey.
02:11:41.000Yeah, he judges in New Jersey I would trust yeah fucking without a doubt or even if it was a girl if it was one of the women that had fought for a train before a Rose or Rhonda or someone like that like I could trust their judgment Yeah, and I think you should be like, God, you've got to have some grappling experience.
02:11:57.000Because grappling seems to be the most confusing.
02:12:00.000It seems like if someone is hitting the other guy more, and the other guy gets stunned, it's kind of obvious, oh, that guy's winning the fight.
02:12:07.000But if you're watching, say, a guy who's really slick on the ground, like fill-in-the-blank, some guy who's got a nasty guard, and he's putting this guy in all sorts of bad positions, but the other guy's on top, Like Charles Oliveira,
02:12:25.000a perfect example when he fought Jeremy Stephens.
02:12:27.000I mean, he was catching Jeremy Stephens and all kinds of shit, but Jeremy's a beast and he kept pulling out of it.
02:12:33.000But for my money, he's winning the exchanges.
02:12:36.000I mean, he had him threatened with arm bars.
02:12:39.000He's threatening with all this sort of shit off of his back.
02:12:41.000If you don't know what the fuck is going on and you're watching that...
02:12:53.000Like, just deeply, deeply, deeply unfair for a professional fighter who's taken eight weeks out of his life and just every morning got up sore and did his road work and, you know, hitting the pads and sparring.
02:13:06.000Doing constant drills and strength and conditioning.
02:13:36.000I mean, there's a lot of local athletic commissions where they do a better job than the bigger athletic commissions, really, because the people that are involved are dedicated mixed martial artists.
02:13:47.000In Boston, I know Joe Esposito was part of the commission, and Joe Esposito was my first karate instructor.
02:13:54.000I mean, he's a guy who's a lifelong martial artist, so he is a very credible source of martial arts knowledge.
02:14:00.000I mean, he's a guy who's been involved his whole life.
02:14:02.000Whereas, you've got people in Nevada that came from boxing.
02:14:05.000They were boxing judges, and then someone said, you know, we need judges for MMA, you know, we'll just take these boxing people and, you know, we'll use them to judge MMA fights.
02:14:35.000They just see bodies moving, you know, and they just, they don't, you know, see guys reversing positions back and forth and they really don't understand what's happening.
02:14:43.000It's a real shame because the sport is growing in such a huge way.
02:14:49.000I mean, it's exploding all over the world in leaps and bounds, but then you're hampered by these bad judge calls, you know?
02:15:43.000A process of really getting my lungs back, getting my core, you know, tightened up so it prevents injuries.
02:15:48.000Getting the timing back of the striking, you know, and timing back of even the transitions on the ground, that chain wrestling or just flowing and grappling.
02:15:57.000So are you starting that process right now?
02:15:59.000So you've already, like, tightened up your diet and started to train harder and started, you're just slowly ramping it up?
02:16:08.000One thing that I'm getting done before I really maybe start sparring, before I start, yeah, before I start sparring, things like that, is I'm getting my knee checked.
02:17:46.000That's what fucked Kane up in the rematch or the fight with Verdum, his meniscus.
02:17:49.000He blew his meniscus out earlier and then, you know, sort of rest and rehabbed and then tried to go back again without getting the operation and then wound up having to get an operation.
02:17:58.000It's the same knee injury that he had when the first fight with Junior Dos Santos.
02:18:02.000For me, before I want to actually hard spar, I know it might sound kind of goofy to some, but I think there's truth to it.
02:18:11.000My wife was a swimmer in high school, and so getting into swimming, something that's low impact, but also that's going to be great on my lungs, cardio.
02:18:18.000You don't even notice that you're sweating, you know?
02:18:21.000So swimming, we'd do that at the Olympic Training Center.
02:18:23.000We'd play underwater hockey 12 foot deep.
02:18:25.000We'd go down and just have teams and have to score a goal.
02:18:32.000Yeah, swimming and yoga is what I'm going to get into hard just to get my body back in shape.
02:18:38.000In a way that my core starts to catch up and develop before I go in there and get put in these funky positions sparring or picking a guy up.
02:18:48.000Sometimes I'm slamming a guy or something and that's when I get hurt because I came back from a back injury and then I slam him and then I re-hurt that back injury and I should have rehabbed it better, should have taken the time to really build my core back up.
02:19:01.000So that's going to be not my focus, I'm going to be doing everything else, but that's going to be a priority of mine at the beginning is swimming and yoga.
02:19:08.000Well, listen, dude, we're behind you 100% and your website.