John Wayne Parr is a multiple Muay Thai champion, multiple world champion in the lower weight classes, and a world-renowned mixed martial arts coach. He has worked with some of the biggest names in the world, including George St. Pierre and Dana White, and is one of the most well-respected martial arts coaches in the history of the sport. In this episode, John talks about how he got started in the sport, what it's like being in the UFC, and what he thinks about the current state of Muay Thai and Mixed Martial Arts in general. He also talks about the importance of a good coach and how important it is to have a coach who can teach you how to be the best at what you do. John also shares some of his favorite memories of growing up in the Netherlands, and talks about his early days as a martial arts fighter and how he became the first white person to beat the Thai Thais in Thailand, and why it's important to have someone who can do that in the modern era. You won't want to miss this episode! This is a must-listen episode, especially if you don't know who he is, or don't miss it! Enjoy! -Jon's iPhone 6, the one and only one! (Sorry about the audio quality, it's not the best in this episode. Sorry about the background noise in the background) - Jon's phone decided to decide not to work well enough for the audio in this week, but it'll be better next week. - he's getting a new one next week, I promise you'll get it back in the next week! Jon's iPhone 7 - Tom's phone finally decided to work out so he can get a new speaker so he won't be able to get a good quality audio quality for the podcast, so don't worry, he'll get that back in a better quality next week... (sorry about that, he's trying to be more consistent with the quality of the audio, but he's not getting any more consistent, he knows he'll be more reliable, right? - sorry about that) - he'll figure it out soon, he will get it out in a week or not, he just had to get that right, right he'll know it will be better in the future, he won t be having a good enough, will he knows that? Jon & I will be back next week?
00:00:32.000John Wayne Parr, for those who don't know, multiple time Muay Thai champion, very famous in the world of combat sports, both for your accomplishments in Muay Thai.
00:00:41.000And a lot of people in the UFC know about you for your work with George St. Pierre.
00:00:46.000You did a lot of training with George St. For some of his MMA fights and got to show him some of your Muay Thai techniques, which I really learned a lot today watching you explain how you do things.
00:00:58.000You have a very specific style that is very uniquely your own.
00:01:03.000Yeah, I was lucky enough to go to Thailand to live for four years.
00:01:06.000So I took the Thai concept and then I retired from Muay Thai and went to boxing for a year.
00:01:11.000And then I just concentrated on my hands and then I liked boxing but then it sort of got a bit stale because the crowd's a little bit older and the Muay Thai crowd really pumps you up so I decided to come back to Muay Thai again and I sort of blended the two together with the top half of the boxing and the bottom half of the Muay Thai.
00:01:26.000And then I just sort of created my own concept, and yeah, it's been very cool.
00:01:33.000It seems like you also, like we were talking today, you incorporated a lot of the way Ramon Deckers used to throw combinations, who was a Dutch guy who became probably one of the most famous ever foreigners to fight in Thailand, one of the most successful in the lower weight classes especially.
00:01:49.000And then because he was the first white person to beat the Thais, he was such a role model and I wanted to follow in his footsteps.
00:01:55.000Still to this day, I still try and emulate everything that he's done.
00:02:00.000And just to be that guy that went to Thailand and beat the Thais at the Marine Sport, it's something that I look up to him even though he's passed.
00:02:34.000It's because America, like, kickboxing, for whatever reason, never really caught on.
00:02:40.000And Dana White has a really good theory.
00:02:42.000And he thinks it's because that in, like, the 1980s and the early 19...
00:02:47.000I guess it wasn't even the 90s, like, mostly the 80s, they had that PKA kickboxing on TV. Which is where Rick Rufus came from, who turned out to be a great fighter.
00:02:57.000But a lot of those guys were sloppy boxers who had to throw a certain amount of kicks per round.
00:03:02.000They would make you throw six, seven kicks per round.
00:04:08.000Because of MMA? Yeah, well, UFCs, they're doing the pay-per-views, and they're doing the roads to the UFC, and they're showing all the replays.
00:04:17.000So every time you put the Fox Sports on, it's just saturated the market, and there's no real...
00:04:21.000If I was a young fighter now, and they said, what would you want to do?
00:04:25.000Do you want a kickboxer and UFC? It's like, UFC for sure, because look at the superstars.
00:05:35.000For the Joe Shillings, for example, we need to go to his house and see what he is like a person instead of just seeing the bell ring, have his fight, put his hand up, and then he disappears.
00:05:47.000Whereas the UFC, I know everything about George St. Pierre without even meeting him.
00:05:51.000I know everything about John Jones without meeting him.
00:05:54.000And then when they fight, I feel I have that emotional connection.
00:05:57.000And I really want to cheer for that guy because I feel like I'm emotionally involved.
00:06:03.000Whereas the Glory guy is like, I can't tell you who's who and how many daughters he has or what kind of pets he has at home.
00:06:11.000One of the things that I really love about just striking, I'm obviously a big fan of the MMA, but when you've got to think about takedowns and when you have to think about submissions and There's so many different things that a fighter has to consider.
00:06:25.000They're not as open with their striking.
00:06:28.000They don't have as many moments to just freely exchange without worried about being taken down.
00:06:35.000When you watch real high-level Muay Thai, real high-level kickboxing, you get to see this next-level fluidity and this next-level technique.
00:06:49.000I've had conversations with people that say boxing is better.
00:06:52.000You never see people land those combinations in the UFC. And I'm like, well, it's because they're going to take you down.
00:06:57.000You can't stand sideways with your shoulders like that against a really good wrestler because they're just going to shoot in and take you down.
00:07:04.000That style against someone, if you make that agreement, like it's only going to be stand-up, it's only going to be hands, you get to see the really high-level, the Manny Pacquiao's, the Floyd Mayweather's, you get to see this just next-level technique.
00:07:17.000And I feel the same way with kickboxing.
00:07:20.000I feel like with Muay Thai and with kickboxing, you don't get to see the real high-level stuff unless it's just two straight, pure strikers in a Muay Thai match.
00:07:29.000When I got the opportunity to work with George, for instance, the first time that we sparred, I think George is so used to throwing one-twos, one-two-threes, and then I was literally chasing him from one side of the cage to the other, doing a U-turn and then going straight back at him again.
00:07:43.000And then after the spar, he told me, it felt like I was sparring four guys at once because it was just relentless.
00:07:54.000Because there's no fear of being taken down.
00:07:56.000So I can stand in the pocket and just keep punching and punching and punching and punching.
00:08:01.000I've always equated it to like a conversation.
00:08:04.000Like if you have a very crude grasp of the language and you try to have a conversation with someone, it can be very frustrating because you're searching for the words.
00:08:30.000You're so used to it that the combinations just flow like water.
00:08:34.000Whereas, like, you were trying to teach me some things today about the really unique style that you have of, like, when you were trying to teach me that crazy power jab and then the setups to those knees.
00:08:45.000Like, you have a very specific way of moving that I was trying to emulate.
00:08:55.000That's why I can't go to MMA, because I've spent my whole life learning stand-up, and I'm in fear that I have to spend another lifetime on my back if I want to reach the same sort of level.
00:09:05.000And I wouldn't do it unless I had that perfection on the floor, too.
00:10:14.000So I thought, well, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it properly and I'm going to wear the MMA gloves just to show that I'm just as a warrior as the MMA guys are.
00:10:22.000So, so far, we've done five shows and it's amazing.
00:10:27.000That's interesting that you say that because I can't imagine you would have to feel like you, at this stage of your life, with all your accomplishments, that you still feel like you have to prove yourself.
00:11:08.000And I guess when you see guys fighting with striking with little gloves and you see that you're using the larger gloves, maybe that just makes you feel like you have to show that you're capable of doing that as well.
00:12:10.000K1 Max, World Final 8, WKBA, K1 World Welterweight Champion, K1 World Max, World Final 8, Thai Boxing World Middleweight Tournament Champion.
00:12:22.000Australian Boxing Middleweight Champion, King's Cup Tournament Champion.
00:12:24.000It's like over and over and over and over and over the fact that after all these accomplishments, You still feel like you have to prove yourself.
00:12:50.000It's it's crazy because if you watch it I've always said this it's not like the product isn't there I'll give you watch high-level Muay Thai and I watched a lot of your fights last night after we did the podcast together I went back and this morning I watched the documentary on your life, which was amazing and I watched some of your fights and You know,
00:13:13.000It's like, it's a dynamic, exciting product.
00:13:15.000I'm a boxing fan, but if you give me a chance between watching, a choice rather, between watching high-level boxing and watching high-level Muay Thai, I'll take high-level Muay Thai all the time, because the possibilities are more.
00:13:27.000The knees, the elbows, the high kicks, the leg kicks, all those things together, it's more dynamic.
00:14:03.000It's exactly where the UFC was at one point in time.
00:14:06.000There was a time in the 90s when the UFC was banned from cable, when the UFC was only, you could only get it on direct TV. And fucking nobody knew who it was.
00:14:17.000I mean, I was on news radio, which was a sitcom in America, and I was starting to do the interviews, the post-fight interviews.
00:14:24.000I would tell them that I would do it and people would look at me like I'm ruining my life by being involved in this nefarious Adventure to go and watch people fight in a cage like I was gonna go watch Lions fight to the death or something.
00:14:36.000It was just it was weird It was like like you were talking about porn or even worse than porn.
00:14:41.000It was like animal porn or something It was strange, but now it's a normal like you tell people the UFC Oh, I've seen that even if the casual person is aware of it's it's Gotten into the public's eye enough where the casual person is, you know,
00:14:59.000I had the opportunity to fight in Thailand, and it was an eight-man tournament.
00:15:04.000I had to fight three times in two hours, and it was live on Thai TV, and it smashes build up, and I fought three times, and I beat the Russian, the French, I beat a Thai in the final.
00:15:16.000I won a world title, a million baht, which is about 35,000, and I won a trophy from the Prime Minister of Thailand.
00:15:23.000I got back to Australia, and I rang the Brisbane newspaper.
00:17:26.000It was okay, and then they've just come around and they've banned it.
00:17:29.000I have a cage in my gym, and it's like, just step into a cage to realize how safe and protected it is compared to a ring.
00:17:36.000Once you step into it and appreciate what it is for what it is, You'll understand that it's so much better than falling out of a ring that's a meter and a half high.
00:17:45.000Yeah, the ring is not the best for MMA, for sure.
00:18:31.000So as he's fallen out of the ring, he puts his hands out, the brace he's for, he puts a hand on a chair, and each hand, the chair's split, and it falls straight on his neck.
00:18:44.000I think he was in a coma for like a month or two.
00:18:47.000Because he fell from about two metres high.
00:18:49.000He fell over the top rope, so incorporate that from the ring to the concrete floor.
00:18:54.000Do you remember back in the day, they used to run events because the cage was banned in New South Wales.
00:19:01.000And I think it was Tony Bonello's show.
00:19:04.000And then they used to have not had a cage.
00:19:06.000So what they did is they had the platform and they had all the big boys like Tama Tahuna and Jamie Tahuna and all those boys standing around with the kick shields.
00:19:51.000That stop, start, stop, start, drag you back in the center, and hang on, your arm was here, this is, and go.
00:19:56.000I've been talking about this for a while, that if they can have a big room for basketball, a big flat surface, why can't they have a big flat surface for fighting, where everyone can see what the fuck's going on?
00:20:08.000Because you don't see what's going on a lot of times with the cage, even me.
00:20:12.000Like, I'm right there when I'm calling UFC fights, but sometimes a post is in the way, or it's around, they're like sideways, like I have to lean up to try to see, because it's kind of like I'm looking sideways through the cage.
00:20:24.000I think that a flat surface would eliminate a lot of the stalling and a lot of the pressing, the clenching up against the cage.
00:20:32.000Clenching in the center is a totally different animal than when you're leaning on someone, pressing someone against the cage.
00:21:05.000So when you take that guy down, it's no fucking picnic.
00:21:08.000You know, he's constantly threatening your arm, your neck.
00:21:11.000And those guys are gonna excel in a world where you can't just, you know, you can't just hold a guy against a cage, or if you take a guy down, he can't just wall walk.
00:21:21.000A guy's gonna have to fight off of his back.
00:21:22.000I feel like that's more honest, you know?
00:21:26.000I mean, the cage is a real element of MMA, and guys train for it, and therefore you should be able to utilize it.
00:21:31.000If you're a professional, you should understand it.
00:21:33.000But it also puts a weird taste in people's mouths, like, oh, they're fighting in cages.
00:21:43.000Even for what we do with the CMT, the cage stuff, as soon as they close the door, it just seems like it's you and your opponent and the black of the fence just makes it like a black wall so you can't see the crowd, you can't see the judges, and then it just feels like the arena.
00:22:31.000Did you ever do kickboxing where there's no elbows like glory style, no elbows, no knees, no clinch?
00:22:36.000I fought K1 for a couple years in Japan and then when I first started out was an amateur of course and I just started babies and baby steps.
00:22:44.000I did the eight count rule back in the day.
00:22:47.000We had to do eight kicks above the waist.
00:23:01.000There were so many guys that were doing karate that changed over the kickboxing, boxing that changed over the kickboxing, so they wanted to eliminate the hands and make more guys kick more.
00:23:09.000So it had to be at least eight kicks above the waist.
00:23:42.000And then, so the very next year, they said, okay, we've got a new rule, one hand, one knee, and then that gives the guys that are proper, more boxing-orientated, an opportunity to fight guys like Borcal, where they had no chance before.
00:23:55.000Well, Alistair Overeem, too, used to just clinch guys with those gigantic fucking tree-trunk arms.
00:24:00.000Just hold on to your neck, and you're Dunsville.
00:24:04.000You ever seen that fight that he fought, I forget who it was, Teixeira, where he hit him, he clenched with both hands behind the neck and hit him with a knee and it looked like he got shot, like someone hit him with a sniper bullet.
00:25:21.000That's one of the things that drives me nuts about modern MMA is stand-ups when when guys get taken down and they're fighting on the ground and then they get stood back up I mean, I just I just think it's ridiculous like if you only have five minutes especially me coming from a jujitsu background if you have five minutes and you take a guy down It's a lot of times is a slow progression to a submission and you know you you can't be like you're like come on guys Let's work.
00:25:45.000Let's work like they're fucking working.
00:25:46.000Okay, but sometimes when guys are working, it's a stalemate and Like sometimes you're trying to pass the guys trying to stop you from passing you try to advance the other side the guy tries to stop you from the other side like there's there's a lot of shit going on there's a lot of shit going on and Unexperienced referees or referees that are unexperienced in grappling or referees that are easily influenced by the crowd like sometimes they'll hear booing and you know you just What are you gonna is this show for assholes?
00:26:12.000You know people who don't understand fighting you?
00:26:31.000They had like a 15-second thing, where if you went to the ground, if something didn't happen in 15 seconds, they stood you up.
00:26:36.000Yeah, sometimes with the UFC as well, when they press against the cage and there's this stalemate where absolutely nothing's happening at all.
00:26:44.000I think that's the same as the Muay Thai.
00:26:46.000If you push someone against the ropes and you're holding, holding, and you're not throwing anything, alright, then you've got to do it.
00:26:50.000But if they're busy, for sure, let it go, keep it going.
00:27:23.000Like five minutes is a small amount of time for a grappler.
00:27:26.000And sometimes guys just are trying to work techniques and they're getting stalled out or someone's using good defense and the referee just standing them up.
00:27:37.000Like, that's what jujitsu is all about.
00:27:39.000It's all about the guy defends, and you try a different way.
00:27:42.000Dai defends, you need to try to keep hammering at him until he can't keep the rhythm up.
00:27:46.000And then you advance, and then eventually you catch him.
00:27:49.000But sometimes you'll be, a guy will be defending like a wizard.
00:27:52.000Like, if you watch two guys roll, two high-level guys, like, it is like we were expressing before.
00:27:58.000They're arguing about shit, and they're trying to find holes in each other's game, and it'll go on where it looks like it's a stalemate for five minutes, but...
00:28:07.000Save like it's like a Marcelo Garcia character He's fighting a guy who's really athletic and you think you go man is how long can this guy hold Marcelo off and that's really what the question is It's not a matter of all this guy's just as good as Marcelo not really no Eventually he's gonna figure out the right combination of things to do to this guy And he's gonna have his back and then once he has his back that guy's fucked But it's like how long does it take to get him there and in an MMA? Halfway there,
00:28:54.000Even in Thailand, say we kick three rounds on the pads or five rounds on the pads, that's 15, 20 minutes.
00:29:00.000But then every afternoon you're spending half an hour on the clinch, just working the knees nonstop for half an hour.
00:29:05.000So they're spending more time working on that than they are actually kicking and punching things.
00:29:09.000And then when it's time to come to a...
00:29:11.000when the Thais go to Europe and stuff, all of a sudden it's like a...
00:29:13.000A one-knee combination before they break it up, so they're taking away 90% of their tools.
00:29:19.000That's an interesting thing you were talking about last night about Muay Thai scoring, that the clinching is like a big part of the scoring, whereas we look at clinching as stalling out or like, you know, something that they're doing where they're trying to like wait,
00:29:35.000buy their time, figure out what to do next.
00:29:38.000Like in Thailand, it's a big aspect of the fighting.
00:29:41.000Yeah, this morning we mentioned it as well.
00:29:44.000Round one, if they don't get in the clinch, no one bets.
00:29:47.000No one bets until halfway through round two, all of a sudden they get into a clinch, and then it's like, boom!
00:29:52.000You see the hands go crazy, because everyone's their own bookmaker in Thailand, so everyone's doing their own odds, and they won't bet until they know the other guy's got a solid base or a solid knee game.
00:30:35.000Because it's so easy to throw a leg kick, anyone can throw a leg kick, but it takes a high level to land a solid, even if it kicks the arms, that's considered a point as well.
00:33:26.000They did a story on it because as he put his check up, he put his instep of his foot on his knee so there was no give instead of having the leg floppy and then he's locked it into his other leg and then as he's kicked through it, it's like kicking through a baseball bat.
00:34:07.000Dude, back on the day when Dennis Alexio was a young man, he wasn't schooled in the ways of the low kick and he fought Don the Dragon Wilson and Don Wilson fucked him up with low kicks.
00:34:57.000Did you want to wear the foot cushions?
00:34:58.000My first fight was the shin pads with the foot cushions.
00:35:01.000And we used to spar with the foot cushions too, so they were in back then.
00:35:05.000When Chuck Norris had that World Combat League, and he was doing a very similar thing that we were talking about, where they fight kind of in a small bowl, like a saucer.
00:35:15.000Like, they didn't have a ring and they didn't have a cage.
00:35:17.000They had just this sort of slightly elevated platform that had a lip to it.
00:35:21.000So when they get to the outside edge, you know, the referee would bring them back in.
00:35:25.000I thought it was a very smart way to do it.
00:35:26.000Did you think about fighting in that at all?
00:36:45.000The fights, the classics, the Peter Ertz fights, the Andy Hoog, the Mike Bernardo, those fights, those fucking Jerome LeBanner, those were crazy fights.
00:36:56.000I mean, if you look at that product, I couldn't imagine anybody not wanting to put on those fights.
00:37:02.000Everything was high definition, the slow-mos, the highlight packages that make up, you couldn't help but feel like this was the I was lucky enough to fight there in 2004, 2005, and we were pulling 40,000 people every show.
00:37:19.000Yeah, and you'd walk out to the arena, and then you'd check out the stage, and sometimes you'd come up through the floor for your walkout, or it was just unbelievable.
00:37:28.000Oh, they had like some elevator that would make you rise up through the floor?
00:37:31.000I remember in the back room once, I was trying to find the stairs, and I've asked a lady, where do I go?
00:37:35.000And she goes, oh, stand on that thing.
00:38:31.000I was lucky to fight on that four years in a row.
00:38:34.000So the first time I went on the ring, it was the first time that my knees went weak, because as far as I could see was an ocean of heads, and I started trembling, and then I've come out in the first round, I've tried to finish him, and then by the fifth round I sort of spit my pennies, I fell over a couple of times.
00:40:16.000If you go out there and fight as hard as you can, win, lose, or joy, even if you lose but you fight like you're a man possessed, they love you.
00:40:34.000If you go out there and give it your all, and you go out in a stretcher, they prefer you go out in a stretcher than you lay down from a knee and say, oh, it hurts.
00:40:42.000Well, that's one of the major complaints from a lot of fighters, like Rampage said that many times about the difference between fighting in Japan and fighting in America, is that in Japan, they appreciate effort.
00:40:54.000And if you fight your best, sometimes you fight someone who's better than you and you lose and that's just the way of fighting and it's a way of learning and that's how guys get better.
00:41:02.000That adversity from loss and going back and regrouping and watching films and realizing where you have to step your game up, that's what creates champions.
00:41:10.000I mean that is what creates a real champion is you have to be able to fight people who are better than you or as good as you or it's got to be a really high level that you're aspiring to and along the way sometimes you lose but in Japan They treat the losers in those really high-level fights where it's just incredible action and heart.
00:41:30.000They treat the losers the same way they treat the winners.
00:42:17.000As long as you fight hard and if you get knocked out, going out in your shield, they're still going to be next time to support you.
00:42:22.000Well, there's a few fighters that still have that kind of support just because they're so exciting.
00:42:26.000Like Vanderlei Silva is a perfect example.
00:42:28.000Vanderlei has been knocked out quite a few times, but he still has a gigantic following because there's no such thing as a boring Vanderlei Silva fight.
00:42:42.000Fucking mad violence until that guy's last heartbeat.
00:42:46.000I mean, every time he fights, he fights like a man possessed, which is why he has so many people that love him.
00:42:52.000But a lot of guys, they felt like Quentin, Rampage especially, I hate to keep bringing him up, but he experienced a lot of hate after beating Chuck Liddell.
00:43:02.000And he was like, I can't believe people are upset at me for being good.
00:46:56.000If he had strong hands, if his hands didn't break all the time, you know, like Floyd, he's had quite a few, like, broken hands.
00:47:02.000He's had a serious problem with hand breaks.
00:47:04.000If he didn't have that man, god damn, you know, if he had punching power as well as that insane defensive technique, he's, in my opinion, he's the most masterful of all the boxers I've ever watched.
00:47:30.000And he's so different, too, because Andre Ward fights different styles for different fighters.
00:47:36.000Like, some fighters, he'll fight on the outside, he'll fight long range, and he'll box them.
00:47:42.000And then on other fighters, he just fucking gets right up in your grill and he's throwing these combinations and cutting angles on you and never letting you breathe.
00:48:03.000They're sort of, I don't want to fight you because you might beat me, or I got that zero that might disappear if you beat me, so I don't want that happening.
00:48:09.000Do you think a guy like Floyd Mayweather, because he's 47-0, that it contributes to that because he makes so much fucking money?
00:48:14.000Him being 47-0, I mean, that guy, the money team, and rolls around and Rolls Royce, does that drive you crazy?
00:48:20.000Why hasn't it taken it so long for Mr. Pacquiao to get this fight to be done in this five-year-old fight that should have been done ages ago?
00:48:29.000Well, probably because Floyd is smart, which is why he's 47-0, and he wants to fight him when he knows he can beat him.
00:49:02.000I don't know what the fuck was going on, but that's one of the things that Floyd always was saying, and a lot of other fighters have said it too.
00:49:10.000I don't know if it's true, but if it is true, and Floyd wasn't doing those same things, and they did fight and Pacquiao did have that unnatural advantage, you know, a few years ago, like back when he fought Margarito or, you know, back before Marquez knocked him out.
00:49:26.000You gotta wonder like maybe it's intelligent to not fight a guy like that at that time If you know something that that you and I and the regular people that aren't involved in the deep deep in the boxing world Maybe smart might be smart.
00:49:39.000Just you know, nobody wants to see a guy cheat his way to victory That's like that's something that drives everyone crazy.
00:49:45.000There's no doubt about There's no doubt in the fact that Pacquiao works hard.
00:49:51.000I mean, Pacquiao's discipline, he's focused, he's an amazing fighter.
00:49:56.000But, man, there's a lot of fucking allegations connected to his camp.
00:50:00.000That Alex Ariza guy, the guy that left and was, who the fuck was he training with?
00:50:05.000He was training with one of Pacquiao's opponents.
00:50:08.000I forgot which fight it was, but that guy's got a lot of weird shit attached to him.
00:50:13.000There's a lot of these guys that have a lot of weird allegations that may or may not be true, but if you're smart and you're a guy like Floyd Mayweather, why not avoid those guys?
00:50:22.000And that's something that we were talking about earlier today because George, when he was talking about, when he left the UFC, And when he said, I'm gonna take a break and I'm gonna relinquish my title, one of the things that he talked about was the problem with PEDs.
00:50:36.000He talked, he said, this is a huge problem in MMA. And a lot of people poo-pooed him.
00:57:31.000And then from then on, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards.
00:57:33.000And then the year 2000, I got to rematch the Orono again.
00:57:38.000And this time was on the King's birthday in front of 100,000 people live on Thai TV. And then I schooled him every round and won his world title in front of all his Thais.
00:57:47.000And then from that moment on, all of a sudden, I started becoming a...
00:59:04.000I don't have to worry about a manager or someone telling me what to do.
00:59:08.000And I push myself in my training to a high standard where I'm, I guess, doing okay because I've won another eight world titles by myself.
00:59:18.000And I've been lucky enough to travel the world too, going all over Europe and fighting in Japan 16 times and, yeah, beating everybody in Australia already set for my last one.
01:01:07.000Bernard Hopkins is 50. He was supposed to retire when he was 40. He promised his mom he was going to give it up when he was 40 and he's lasted another 10 years and he's still fighting the elite and still winning world titles.
01:03:17.000The amount of respect that I show him after he's passed away for the last couple of years, I want people to look at me in exactly the same light, hopefully one day.
01:03:25.000He died of a heart attack while riding a bike, right?
01:07:24.000It's like this drive to attack and succeed oftentimes forces their body to just, like, their body says, listen, dude, you're being crazy here.
01:08:05.000And then I thought, I thought, I'll go in on top.
01:08:08.000I've had, I was on a five or six fight winning streak.
01:08:12.000But then in six months, it was driving me insane.
01:08:15.000Just that not being that, the famous guy anymore, not being in the magazines, not being on TV, not people coming up and not giving that recognition anymore.
01:08:23.000And then I came back and I went on another five fight winning streak.
01:08:27.000And it was so good to be back amongst the mix and to be in front of that crowd again.
01:08:34.000I understand why people can't give it up and they keep coming back out of retirement because it is the most exciting thing that you could possibly do on earth is to stand in front of someone and try and knock each other out.
01:08:46.000When you're done, do you think that you will become a trainer?
01:08:49.000I mean, do you think you already have a gym?
01:08:52.000I've got my gym for the last 15 years, and I've been lucky enough to tour the world doing seminars and teaching, which I get a kick out of.
01:09:35.000And then so many people that I've met that I know I don't respect and I call someone on crew, I'll call them the crew crew Mark or crew this.
01:10:58.000So you have this bowl and then every morning you walk this track and then there's Thai people on the side of the road giving you offerings.
01:11:05.000So they give you rice, they give you meat, they give you this, they give you that.
01:11:08.000And then you say a chant to them and that's helped to give them good karma for either that day or that week or maybe in a future life.
01:11:16.000And then every morning we had a blind lady, and her sister would come out, hold her hand, put the spoon into her bowl, would say this chant, and it just was so special that every day we said this thing to her to help her have this good energy because life must be shit,
01:12:02.000And then Christianity took those and they added a few things to them as well.
01:12:07.000But the best thing about Buddhism, there's no supernatural guy.
01:12:11.000It's just an old prince that was stuck in a kingdom and then he didn't see the real outside world, didn't see poor people, didn't see sickness.
01:12:19.000And then one day he went out of the kingdom and he realized that his whole life was a lie.
01:12:25.000So he went out into the forest and started doing meditation, and that's when all these different things come in, different aspects.
01:12:34.000And then from the meditation, that's when he made these five basic principles.
01:12:38.000If you don't drink, you're not going to tell lies, and you're not going to get in trouble, and you're not going to kill anybody.
01:12:44.000So if you stay away from those things, life should be okay.
01:13:08.000So, did you have a desire to do it for longer than seven days, or did you do it just because you lived in Thailand and you did it out of respect?
01:13:14.000My Thai sponsor, his two boys were doing it, and they said, they're going for seven days.
01:13:41.000So after we have breakfast in the morning, we do Buddhist studies for about an hour, two hours after that, and then we're either sweeping around the temple, keeping everything clean, and then afternoon we do Buddhist studies again for another hour or a half and two hours, and then we sleep in the temple and try not to get attacked by ghosts.
01:14:57.000And then if the ghost doesn't like you, the ghost puts his hand across your mouth and nose and suffocates you in your dream, in your sleep.
01:15:43.00019. 19. 19 to 23. So, if I had to guess, you're a young man, you're in Thailand for the first time, you're experiencing this incredible culture shock, you're also experiencing the anxiety of preparing for fights, this whole new world that you're living in.
01:15:59.000And you probably have a lot of questions and doubts about life and, you know, there's anxiety, a lot of built-up stuff.
01:16:05.000And then you're hanging around a bunch of people that are telling you that ghosts are trying to kill you.
01:18:01.000So say your house looks this nice, and they have a little house in front of their house, and they decorate it more so it's more attractive for the ghost to live in there.
01:18:10.000And then they put food, little bits of rice, little bits of drink, and then little bits of whiskey sometimes.
01:18:15.000And then before you fight, you pray to the ghost house that the ghost will hopefully give you good inner strength for when you go into battle.
01:18:23.000It's easy to ridicule and it's easy to make fun of, but I think that when you look at things like the power of suggestion and the placebo effect, what that means, what it really means is that the mind has incredible capabilities.
01:18:35.000The mind has the ability to heal you if you're sick.
01:18:38.000The mind has the ability to do all sorts of things that you think you need a drug or medication to fix.
01:18:59.000But everyone I know that has, like, studied it, there's two types of people.
01:19:05.000There's either, and maybe I haven't met enough of them, but there's charlatans who, like, you know, they're just the guys who do those shows where they've got, like, night vision, they're in a basement somewhere, and they're like, did you hear that?
01:19:17.000You know, never hear shit like those ghost hunting shows like you want to talk about a show like a genre with the least amount of success It's like it might be ghost hunting shows those motherfuckers have never seen a ghost like there's never a goat like you see it you go.
01:19:31.000That's a ghost I got held down in Australia once.
01:20:04.000And then, boom, I'm held down as hard as I can into the mattress, and I've got enough energy to open my eyes, and there was nothing there, but I could hear the breathing, the ha, ha.
01:20:20.000I felt the pressure come off my chest.
01:20:22.000And then as soon as it let me go, I grabbed my towel and my blanket and I went and slept in the Tyrus bedroom for two weeks on this floor because I was too petrified to sleep by myself for about two weeks.
01:20:33.000I shitted myself so bad because I had my eyes and I could hear it.
01:20:38.000Again, if I had to guess, one of the things that I would say is not only are you young and the power of suggestion, all these things are a factor, but also the fact that these things are happening to you while you're sleeping.
01:20:49.000When you're sleeping, your mind produces all sorts of crazy psychedelic chemicals.
01:20:53.000It's very possible that what you're experiencing is some semi-dream state.
01:20:57.000And that in this semi-dream state, especially if you're convinced that ghosts are real, your brain starts, your imagination starts flooding your consciousness with all sorts of physical experiences, all sorts of physical sensations.
01:21:16.000It's there's so much fuckery and ghosts You know when you when you look at the people that are telling you about them and the people that say that they've seen them It's just it's so it's such a weird subject.
01:21:27.000It's a big big part of Thailand though Like you know work for the rescue team like we spoke about last time And it's actually quite nice hearing you say this stuff because I'm like, oh my god, I'm not crazy.
01:21:36.000Like, one of my heroes, John White, had this too.
01:21:39.000But, yeah, I mean, like, everyone I know in Thailand has had something, and they're so superstitious.
01:21:55.000So then there's certain poles that might be a bit more crazy, more powerful.
01:22:02.000Even the ring, the ring's made out of wood.
01:22:04.000So we used to decorate the ring with ribbons and powder and perfume, and then we'd pray to the ring just before a fight because it helped get us fit for that six weeks, eight week prep.
01:22:15.000And then we'd decorate with flowers, we'd buy flowers just the day before the fight to say, thank you for my preparation.
01:22:22.000So just little, tied to traditions more so than anything, I guess.
01:22:32.000I really don't know if ghosts are real.
01:22:33.000But even if they're not real, there's something to be said for eliminating a certain amount of anxiety just by having this ritual, having this process that you go through in your mind where you believe you've appeased the ghosts.
01:22:46.000So you believe that you will have good luck.
01:22:50.000Yeah, you have good karma, you have good spirits with you.
01:22:52.000I mean, if you believe in ghosts and you're worried about the unknown and you find a ritual that appeases that and then settles that fear, I mean, there's a benefit in that.
01:23:02.000There's a benefit in a lot of crazy beliefs.
01:23:22.000And it doesn't exist in any other combat sport.
01:23:25.000Most combat sports, the most you get is someone walks around and touches each corner of the ring and maybe bows or puts their hands up.
01:23:34.000In Thailand, it's a live Thai band too, so they have a guy on the drums, a guy on the cymbals, a guy on the flute, and then while you're dancing, you might be 100,000 people there, and then you just turn it all off, and then you're just praying for your, asking permission from the earth,
01:23:50.000the wind, the fire, the water, from God to give you all this inner strength.
01:23:57.000Myself, I think for my mother, my father, my grandfathers, my grandmothers, Past, present, future, former trainers.
01:24:06.000Every single person that helped you get to that present point in that particular second that you're thanking for helping you get right there in that time.
01:24:16.000And then you take a big breath and all that energy just fills up your whole body.
01:24:20.000And you get pins and needles in the hair stands on the back of your neck.
01:24:24.000And then once you finish the dance, it feels like you're invincible.
01:26:18.000The way you're praying at the start, that's my biggest thing, is getting connected to the universe and trying to get good energy.
01:26:27.000And then the rest of the stuff that they're doing now, it's more so of a limber.
01:26:30.000So as you're going from rope to rope, you're warming up your body, you're stretching out the shoulders, you're stretching out your legs.
01:26:36.000A guy explained to me once also that when he did it, he would relax because he was sort of performing in front of all these people as he was doing it and it helped him perform better in his fighting because it wasn't just like, are you ready?
01:27:08.000This was way back in the days, before 2002, which is when I started commentating for the UFC. I was the post-fight interview guy in like 97 to 98, and then I commentated from 2002 on.
01:27:20.000In between then, I was working at, not working, I was working out at John Jock Machado's and me and Richard Norton.
01:27:29.000You know, Rich, he's an Australian guy.
01:28:02.000It must have been an amazing experience for you just I mean what Just to go there as a young man as a teenager and just get immersed in this life It's so different than just like taking a Muay Thai class at a gym or even getting obsessed with Muay Thai in Australia or in America where you know You're working out all the time and you love Muay Thai but to be living there in Thailand the best part that I look back one upon is not just the The training and the fighting but the ghosts becoming a white tie and Oh,
01:28:41.000And then I'd go to the shops and every single person would stare at me and I'd love it.
01:28:45.000And then I could speak Thai, so I'd start talking to them and they'd freak out.
01:28:48.000And then I'd start going to the nightclubs and, for instance, sometimes I'd have a live band and then I'd go up to the band and say, hey, do you know this song?
01:28:58.000And then they'd give me the microphone and I'd sing Thai songs to the crowd and the crowd would bounce.
01:29:17.000Wow, this must have been such a whole new universe.
01:29:21.000Yeah, you come back to Australia and you just blend in with everyone else and then you go back to Thailand and you're back to being that special person in the suburb again.
01:29:30.000And then I used to run on the road and everyone used to flash their lights at me and toot their horn because I was the fighter kid, the Aussie guy.
01:31:15.000So as I walked down the street, in my head, and then from there, I worked, okay, if instead of saying ice, and then I started getting sentences,
01:31:31.000and then I'd start asking questions, okay, what's this?
01:31:57.000I stopped thinking English, and I started thinking in Thai.
01:32:01.000That's when it got scary because I came back to Australia and I start my sentences in English and I finish them in Thai, but I wouldn't know that I was finishing them in Thai.
01:32:09.000And people were looking at me going, what the hell did you just say?
01:32:12.000And then I started to speak in pidgin because the Thai, I started, me hungry?
01:34:08.000You can only kind of keep those things in your head if you're practicing it on a regular basis, right?
01:34:14.000Yeah, and because I live with kids as well, there was kids in the camp, and then you could joke around with them, and if you said something wrong, they'd laugh and go, no, stupid, you say it like this, but if you said it to an adult, you'd feel a little bit sort of shy and embarrassed, but to a kid, you just slap them in the back of the head, and they don't laugh anymore.
01:34:48.000So if they're not training hard, it's nothing for them to get a slap across the face or a kick in the leg or a punch in the mouth.
01:34:56.000Yeah, they want their boxers to exceed everything else, so the child cruelty is still pretty normal.
01:35:03.000So child cruelty meaning, that's one thing that maybe people aren't aware of, they start fighting very young.
01:35:09.000Yeah, so if you fight and you're afraid of your opponent, they have a thing called round six, and then that might include you getting bashed by one of the trainers after you get home, and then it's like, okay, Round six, meaning you fight five rounds, and then you come back and they kick your ass.
01:36:01.000It's weird because they don't get a chance or like they don't get a choice rather.
01:36:05.000Whereas like if you have a young kid and they really aspire, there's some young kids that they aspire to fight at a very young age and that's what they're driven to.
01:36:13.000These kids, a lot of them don't get a chance to decide.
01:36:16.000They're just kind of pushed into these camps.
01:36:18.000Imagine the average salary is $500 a week.
01:36:23.000If you're a famous boxer, you might make $5,000 a week.
01:36:27.000So there's this drive that if I can be just a normal Joe Bloggs cooking rice on the side of the road, or if I'm a famous boxer, all of a sudden I could be the next Thai version of Floyd Mayweather.
01:36:38.000Like Sanchai or Yotsin Klai or Borkha or somebody.
01:36:41.000So there is a chance to get out of poverty through fighting.
01:36:46.000A guy like Yotsin Klai, how much does that guy make?
01:39:00.000You're seeing crazy matches, and then once you've got your bet on too, now you're cheering this guy home like the last final couple hundred meters for a horse race.
01:39:59.000So if you're losing and then someone says, I'll give you 50,000 if you win by knockout this next round, all of a sudden you're tired, you're losing, and then 50,000.
01:40:09.000Yeah, all of a sudden you've got this second win and you want to go out there and hurt him and then you knock him out and then the guy comes up and he's your 50,000.
01:41:35.000There's no way no one you don't know how to throw a jab.
01:41:37.000This fight is now considered a no contest.
01:41:40.000This will go to the Tribunal, and you're looking at six months.
01:41:44.000And that could be the worst possible thing for any Thai boxing camp, because now you've brought dishonesty and distrust, and your camp's name is now Mud.
01:42:20.000Where you've got two, there's so many Thais in Thailand that there's so many guys in the waiting line that know they can, like Yod-Sing-Guys, that haven't got a name that is just machines.
01:43:01.000And then if I won, all of a sudden, yeah, it's crazy.
01:43:05.000So for fighters like that, is it super critical to be involved in a very influential camp so that you don't get asked to lay down?
01:43:13.000Yeah, if you're one of the big gyms, let's pretend TriStar, and all of a sudden George goes down from fighting someone that he shouldn't, and then all of a sudden TriStar, and I don't want to put TriStar guys on my shows anymore.
01:43:27.000Because they're obviously mafia influence, so we don't want to deal with them anymore.
01:43:52.000Without saying any names or any camps, I know of a camp in Thailand that two of the guys did happen to lay down and brought disrespect to the camp, and they might have passed away.
01:44:06.000And then for a certain amount of money to the Thai police, that file goes missing.
01:44:13.000And then it's just a warning to the other boxers that it's not a good idea to lay down from my gym, otherwise you could also go missing.
01:46:01.000I mean, all throughout the casinos here in America, we see a lot of people from Asia, a lot of Asian people gambling there.
01:46:09.000And in Macau, obviously, they have that.
01:46:12.000Macau, they say, is like way bigger than Vegas.
01:46:14.000They say the gambling there is just off the charts and people who are just stupid wealthy gambling ridiculous amounts of money.
01:46:22.000Well, they have a Muay Thai paper that comes out every day, and they'll tell you what the odds are for each fighter tonight, what the odds are tomorrow, who won big last night.
01:46:43.000If you're playing poker at home with six of your mates from next door, one of the other neighbours could look through the window, ring the police, and then they'll come in with six SWAT cars and race everyone in the house from the kids to the grandparents for playing poker indoors in their own lounge room.
01:47:26.000So that, to me, has always been one of the most bizarre parts of Muay Thai is watching all those people screaming and betting and throwing their hands up in the air.
01:47:34.000And me, as someone who's never been over there, I never understood what was going on.
01:47:38.000But it's crazy that you being over there didn't know what was going on either.
01:47:42.000You're still trying to figure it out after all these years.
01:47:45.000When I fought my first fight at Lumpini, I was losing the first two rounds, and then I started landing a few kicks.
01:47:51.000I must have been like 10 for 1, 20 for 1 even.
01:47:54.000And then I started landing a few punches, and then the crowd just changed.
01:48:43.000But the tyres will come into the change room and instead of looking at it, they'll come and feel your arms like a horse, see how fit you are, look you up and down like you're just a piece of meat.
01:51:53.000She was making main events in Japan but she stopped fighting in Thailand because she didn't want to fight other Thai boys.
01:51:59.000And they were paying like thousands of dollars just to have dinner with her because she was such a freak, or he was such a freak.
01:52:05.000And then eventually after, they said, we've got to give you injections, grow the boobs, make sure you want a sex change first before we chop your doodle off.
01:52:12.000And then they eventually chopped the doodle off, and now she fights chicks.
01:52:15.000But because she's had all the hormones, now she doesn't hit as hard.
01:53:56.000The wrestler come and charged me across.
01:53:57.000The transgender grabbed her by the back of the neck, elbowed her three times in the face, and then knocked her out unconscious for about two or three minutes.
01:56:02.000Some dudes, if their eye gets, their orbital gets so shattered that they have to repair it and do reconstructive surgery on it, whatever you're doing is picking up on the microphone over there, fella.
01:58:12.000I got to fight their 16th home, so yeah, it was awesome.
01:58:16.000Well, the culture is very bizarre when you're walking around there.
01:58:18.000When you just walk around Tokyo, it doesn't feel like any other city anywhere else.
01:58:22.000It's very modern, it's very advanced, very technologically advanced, like everything is like neon and big screens and high def this and that.
02:00:04.000Yeah, and then the Bob Satin, the Ernest Hoos, and the Peter Ertz's, they'd be on all the game shows, and then they'd be on all the Wheel of Fortune Japan sort of style, and they were just celebrities.
02:00:16.000They were not just fighters, but celebrities.
02:00:18.000And then that's all just vanished now.
02:01:11.000They're like, what the fuck is going on with these guys?
02:01:13.000Like, they say they're gonna sell, and they don't sell.
02:01:15.000But what they were doing was, I mean, they had Vandelay Silva come over, and he got in the cage with Chocolatel, and they mean-mugged each other.
02:01:22.000And what they did was they hyped up Pride through the UFC. And they made Pride more exciting by pretending that they were going to sell Pride to the UFC. By pretending they were going to bring fighters over and fighters were going to fight in Pride.
02:01:35.000And they had Chuck Liddell go over and fight in Pride.
02:01:50.000The UFC got it and once they went through all the paperwork, all the money's exchanged hands, they realized they'd bought bullshit because all the contracts were invalid.
02:03:36.000Is it all in cash, like they do with the MMA fighters?
02:03:39.000Oh, it's one of those ones where it was a month waiting in between pages.
02:03:42.000Yeah, you'd fight, and okay, where is it, where is it, where is it, where is it?
02:03:46.000Well, that's one of the things that fucked Bob Sapp over.
02:03:49.000Bob Sapp was, they had some sort of a contract dispute, and they tried to get him to fight without a contract in the main event of one of their events.
02:04:00.000He walked out of one of the events in Holland, and Peter Ertz was in the crowd after a few beers, and he ended up putting his hand up and saying, oh, fine, I'll save the show.
02:04:24.000God, that guy's had some crazy fights.
02:04:26.000I watched a highlight reel of his the other night on YouTube, and you forget.
02:04:30.000You forget how many high-kick KOs that guy had.
02:04:33.000I was going to better say the same thing, because Crow Cop's got the reputation for the head kicks, but then you look back at Peter Ertz, there's Well, Crow Cop has a reputation for head kicks in MMA. Yep.
02:04:43.000But in kickboxing, I mean, there's no comparison between Crow Cop and Peter Ertz.
02:04:48.000But it's also, Crow Cop had a really good style for MMA because he's like this Explosive sprinter type dude like his style for kickboxing He might have not had the best style to compete against like the Ernesto who's or the the best kickboxer guys Like they were like a little bit more technical than him.
02:05:07.000They had a little bit more classic kickboxing training You know, he's over in Croatia, but he's just a savage You know, and just had lightning-fast kicks.
02:05:18.000He was a good guy for when he went to Pride because we had someone that we could relate to that was doing so well in MMA. It's like, yes, everyone cheered for Crow Cop because he was one of us prior to going over.
02:05:29.000With Krokop, what happens when you get a really high-level kickboxer and they learn how to sprawl and they learn how to stay on their feet?
02:05:38.000I mean, there was a period of time when Krokop was in his prime where, I mean, before he lost to Fedor, I mean, he was just lighting people on fire.
02:05:49.000You know, you look at some of his head kick victories in Prime.
02:05:52.000These dudes had no business standing up with him.
02:06:06.000It's sort of like what we were talking about earlier, where when you're fighting, when you see guys that are fighting in kickboxing or in Muay Thai, you're seeing the highest level expression of that art, of striking art.
02:06:18.000Like the Yotsin Kalais, the Bull Cows, John Wayne Pars.
02:06:23.000Who was, do you think, your toughest opponent that you ever fought?
02:06:31.000The first time I fought him, he kicked me in the head the second round.
02:06:36.000And then, like last night, when I talked to Brendan, I couldn't remember the rest of the fight.
02:06:40.000I went the distance, but I have no idea what happened after the head kick.
02:06:43.000And then the second time we fought was the final of the Contender Asia reality TV show.
02:06:48.000He dropped me round one and then dropped me again round two.
02:06:51.000I did okay three, four and five, but yeah, he's a beast.
02:06:55.000And then the third time we fought was down in Melbourne.
02:06:57.000And I was just lucky enough to the punches with the Australian judges scored a little bit higher than the round kicks.
02:07:05.000If it was in Thailand, I think I would have lost, but because it was in Australia, I was lucky to get the single victory over him too.
02:07:10.000That's interesting though because it's kind of arbitrary like that they decide that the punches don't score as much in Thailand like the only way you can score I don't think you mentioned on this podcast but you talked about it yesterday in the fight pass that a guy could like box the shit out of a Thai fighter and And if the tie was kicking his arms,
02:07:29.000I fought Borkow in Jamaica, and they had three Lumpini judges there.
02:07:33.000And then everyone that watches the fight, I get a lot of emails to this day that just watch it on YouTube and say, I think you beat Borkow that time.
02:07:40.000But because it was the tie influence of the judges and the tie scoring, that's how I lost.
02:07:45.000It would have been nice to have that one victory over Borcao as well.
02:09:18.000Because he got ripped off by his old manager.
02:09:20.000He had about 200 fights for Popomuk, and then he won the K1 two or three times, two times, won $50,000, $100,000 both times, and then he kept asking his trainer, so how's my money going?
02:09:36.000Oh, don't worry, I've put it in a bank, I'm investing it for you, and he went out and bought five houses for himself.
02:10:38.000He made a statement, remember, at the fight night and he brought the king in and said, you know, I fight for my country, I fight for the king.
02:12:43.000Just for instance, like we were talking about before, how if you can do a promotion outside, people will drive for hours to be amongst the promotion.
02:12:51.000And then I think he's on tight commercials.
02:12:53.000He might even be on the side of buses and billboards.
02:13:12.000Damn, because those are the two big names that people talk about in Muay Thai in America.
02:13:16.000I mean, I don't know what it's like over there, but...
02:13:18.000When you talk to people who train Muay Thai that are fans of the sport, those are the two big names.
02:13:24.000Yeah, Borkao had the opportunity to fight for K1, which blew his career up before that, and he was just fighting on Channel 7, just a small time, and then got in front of the K1 walled scene, and then he blew up, and then Yad Singlai never had the same opportunities as Borkao did.
02:13:39.000Well, Yad Singlai's fighting for lion fights, right?
02:15:00.000How did you guys make this connection?
02:15:02.000So I had the opportunity to come to Canada and I did seven seminars all around Canada and there was about three days left on my schedule before I had to fly back to Australia.
02:15:11.000And then the gentleman that brought me over said, hey, would you like to travel to Montreal and go to TriStar and meet George?
02:15:18.000I said, holy shit, that'd be pretty cool.
02:15:19.000Get a photo with George and Facebook status and that'd be amazing.
02:15:23.000So we drove to Montreal and I said, hey, Ferez was so nice.
02:21:52.000I'd rather punch someone in the face really hard with a jab than I would a spinning back key, if that makes sense.
02:21:58.000I keep everything low-key so I can win instead of risking it.
02:22:02.000Well, you have a real power-based style, which is really unusual.
02:22:06.000I've worked with a lot of different guys over the years that are training MMA fighters or train Muay Thai, and your style is completely unique.
02:22:15.000Your style of standing, that power jab you have is ridiculous, man.
02:22:21.000It's really the only guy who I've ever talked to that had a similar philosophy but slightly different was Bas Rutten.
02:22:28.000Bas Rutten also believes that your jab should be as hard as your left as your right hand.
02:23:26.000If you didn't know who I was, I introduced myself, but he's just a polite smile, took the photo, wished me on my way, and then he came to Australia, and then he did seminars here, and the guy that organized the seminars got him to give me a call.
02:23:38.000Hey, talk to John Wayne, and then I told him the story, and it was pretty funny.
02:24:33.000He took a few years off and decided to fight one more time.
02:24:36.000And that was MMA? Yeah, MMA. He fought some dude who had no business.
02:24:42.000By the way, you know, but I mean, hey, I mean, he's 50. You don't know, you know, I mean, there's guys that have come back after all those years and, you know, but Maurice was in great shape.
02:25:27.000That disgusting baseball bat to meat sound.
02:25:32.000Yeah, it's been very interesting to see the evolution of the stand-up striking in MMA. Now for a guy like you standing on the outside and watching this, it's got to be really interesting for you too, you know, coming from that pure striking background and seeing all the things that MMA fighters and,
02:25:52.000you know, in the stand-up aspect, what they do wrong.
02:25:56.000Yeah, what works in my sport doesn't work in MMA either.
02:26:00.000You can't throw body kicks really in MMA, otherwise they can catch it and take you straight down.
02:26:04.000There's a lot of guys winning by body kick now.
02:26:06.000A lot of guys are stopping guys, especially with that left kick to the liver.
02:26:10.000Man, that left kick to the body, when they're standing in the southpaw position, you're seeing Liotta Machida won by that.
02:26:15.000A lot of guys are winning by that kick.
02:26:24.000Teeps very rarely knock anybody out in Muay Thai.
02:26:26.000No one teeps in MMA. Well, a few guys do, but we were talking about it last night that the stance is so different in MMA and you're still worried about the takedowns and the grappling aspect.
02:26:37.000You might open the door to front kicks and things along those lines.
02:28:15.000So we start, and I'm moving around, inside kick, jab, and then Josh throws something, I'm like out, and then I'm in, boom, boom, boom, and I'm going again.
02:29:07.000I just want to let you know that we blame you on Josh's loss because he was fine right up until he spired you, and then some kid that he'd never seen before owned him in the sparring and took away all his confidence.
02:29:19.000So when he got to Japan, he was a mess.
02:30:12.000I mean, imagine you're expecting just some average guy in the gym that's smaller than you, and then you just run into some multiple-time world Muay Thai champion who just happens to be in town.
02:30:22.000I think, sorry, the day before might have been Jiu-Jitsu Day.
02:30:24.000So the day before, there was my first ever Jiu-Jitsu Day.
02:30:27.000This is not the day I broke my finger, but it's like...
02:30:57.000That's one of the things that a lot of fighters who are really good at one style have a huge issue with is learning.
02:31:04.000Like a lot of wrestlers, they never really developed the ability to strike because they would start sparring and they would get fucked up and they'd be like, I hate this.
02:31:14.000Or a lot of jujitsu guys, they didn't want to learn how to kickbox.
02:31:17.000Or a lot of strikers, they just didn't want to learn jujitsu.
02:31:19.000It's just like you were saying, you're a world champion and then you would go in there and you wouldn't know what to do and you didn't like it.
02:32:31.000Yeah, well that's the thing about MMA as opposed to like we said like boxing like their camps are incredibly organized and they bring in people to mimic a very specific opponent.
02:32:42.000They would never have a situation where they just have a class and a world-class fighters is taking a class with a bunch of strangers.
02:32:50.000That still exists in MMA. You know, and some people think it's a good thing.
02:32:53.000You know, some people think it's cute.
02:32:56.000But I just think, you know, what you were saying before about George preparing for Johnny Hendricks, very specific style, and this is the things that will work best against this very specific stance and style.
02:33:07.000I think when you're dealing with the highest level athletes in combat sports in MMA, you're going to have to have these really meticulously designed training camps.
02:33:17.000For me, I watch the Rotor UFCs and they're coming up and they spend so much time hitting the tire with the hammer.
02:33:27.000They've got the ropes on this and they're doing all the sprints with the parachute but they can't throw a straight jab.
02:33:34.000It's like all those hours spending getting fit when you could have spent in the gym just perfecting that style.
02:33:40.000And then I go back to Thailand and the Thais don't lift weights.
02:33:43.000All they do is hit pads, run, kick back, like cavemen.
02:33:46.000And it's been for 2,000 years, but everything's so perfect.
02:33:53.000And I think to myself, I'd rather look like a Thai fully ripped and fit than a half-bodybuilder trying to pretend I'm a rock-on-one wrestler with the...
02:34:03.000Well, there's a lot of fighters that believe that there's sort of a point of diminishing returns when it comes to strength and conditioning, but there's a balance that has to be achieved.
02:34:11.000When you're dealing with grappling and you're dealing with takedowns and the ability to explode and shoot a double...
02:34:21.000It's like, I think a certain amount of strength and conditioning is necessary.
02:34:24.000I think it's different though with striking.
02:34:26.000I think with striking, efficiency of movement, you know, also your body becomes accustomed to those techniques, so you have, with more efficiency of movement, you have more, you use less energy.
02:35:02.000Whereas if you're watching like, you know, like Yotsin Klai or like you or like Bula Khao, you're seeing like a really relaxed, like the execution is very relaxed.
02:35:21.000But then you got these motherfuckers that take you down, you know, and you can't get back up and you get exhausted from the takedowns and, you know, the grappling is a different...
02:35:30.000It's so different when you add the grappling.
02:35:33.000Because the way George beat BJ Penn was so clever.
02:36:09.000The best BJ Penn, though, was BJ Penn, who went through that Mark Marinovich strength and conditioning program, because it was just unbelievably brutal.
02:36:19.000They would show it on, you know, the countdown shows.
02:36:21.000You just see all the shit that he was doing.
02:36:23.000And he was talking about he couldn't even hold his kid at night.
02:36:29.000But Marv Brnovich put him in like this insane...
02:36:33.000He was famous as like a strength and conditioning guy because his son was like his prodigy and his son kind of went crazy because he disciplined him so hard.
02:36:42.000Into training, but his son was like a football prodigy from his dad's strength and conditioning programs, and he instilled this program on BJ Penn that he just was fucking unbelievable.
02:36:55.000But what happened out of it was you got this BJ who didn't get tired, and BJ Penn had so much skill.
02:37:01.000He had so much talent and so much heart and determination, but all of a sudden he has this never-ending gas tank, which you never saw from BJ Penn before.
02:37:09.000So in MMA, man, it's like sometimes it's necessary, and sometimes it's like trying to find that balance, though, of how much skill training and how much strength and conditioning.
02:37:20.000Because all the skill training in the world, if you get exhausted because you're wrestling with a guy who's just shooting on you and taking you down all the time, it's just...
02:37:32.000It looks like that on the road of UFC shows.
02:37:35.000It looks like someone's training here, then they're jumping in a car for four hours and doing something over there, then they're back over here for two hours from in a pool.
02:40:17.000I really enjoy working with everyone and moving around, training different people, and then meeting celebrities like yourself, and then doing stuff with you even.
02:40:32.000It was a short amount of time, but especially that style of punching and movement in combination with kicks and knees.
02:40:39.000Yeah, I believe I've got a lot to offer when it comes to just broadening people's idea of how to execute different strikes.
02:40:49.000I want to try and maximize the power out of every single thing that I throw.
02:40:53.000Whether it be a hook, uppercut, a knee or a head kick, I want to try and destroy anything that I land on.
02:41:03.000Let it be forearm, thigh, nose, face, neck.
02:41:06.000That's a very different approach than, say, a modern boxing approach.
02:41:09.000Whereas you're seeing guys in corners, they'll come back to the corner and the corner will say, just touch them, touch them with the jab, touch them with this, touch them with that.
02:41:16.000There's a lot of guys, maybe like Nick Diaz is a good example, who's throwing a lot of punches, he's just touching you.
02:41:44.000Is there a different approach to fighting in a Muay Thai fight where it's three rounds with no grappling as opposed to MMA which is five rounds with grappling and then maybe that sort of style of like so much fucking energy and hard to maintain conditioning for that?
02:42:10.000Last night was probably his most impressive performance because Edson Barboza is a very good striker and he just attacked, attacked, like right from the beginning.
02:45:23.000I can't thank them enough for making the documentary.
02:45:26.000But now it's on YouTube for free, so if anyone wants to watch it, it's called Blessed with Venom, and it's going to Thailand, visiting my old camp, interviewing Yod-Sing Lai and other Thai opponents, Sanchai, the traditions about going to fighting at Lumpini Stadium, and lots of highlights of old fights.
02:46:12.000One of those things where you pinch yourself and you can't believe this is happening.
02:46:15.000But now it's on YouTube, so it's pretty cool.
02:46:17.000And then if you don't know much about Muay Thai and you want to find out about the culture, this is the perfect documentary to realize that we're not bad guys, we're not thugs, we're just everyday guys trying to make it in a sport where it involves punching other people in the face.
02:46:30.000Well, you're people that are involved in a very unusual quest, you know, the quest to get excellent at using your limbs to fuck up other dudes who are really good at using their limbs to fuck up other dudes.
02:46:43.000I mean, it's about as exciting a sport and as exciting an endeavor as you could participate in, you know?
02:47:25.000I've traveled all the way from Australia to arrive here yesterday to actually sit across from you and to be in this room is so surreal and so amazing.