In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Joe and John Rocha discuss the return of The Ultimate Fighter: Aftermath, the UFC return of UFC 246, and what it's like being on the Alex Jones Show. Joe also talks about his recent trip to Las Vegas to shoot UFC 246 and what he's looking forward to for UFC Fight Night in the future. Joe also gives us his thoughts on the UFC's return to the UFC and why he thinks it's a good thing it's been 3 years since the show has been on the air. And, of course, we get into the latest in UFC news, including who's getting in on the fight night action and who's not! Also, we talk about the UFC 246 after-fight press conference and what the future holds for the UFC s return to UFC 246. We also get into some of the craziness that's going on in the UFC, including what's going to happen at UFC 246 this weekend and what we can expect from the UFC Hall of Fame and the upcoming UFC event in Las Vegas. Finally, we wrap up the episode with a quick Q&A from the guys and a little bit of news and notes from the past week in the world of the UFC. Enjoy! -Joe Rogan -John Rochas -J.R. -Jon Sorrentino -Craig Jones -Kiramitsu -The Ultimate Fighter -Alex Vans -Eddie Bravo -Bobby -Sergio -Logan -Rocha -Von -Davids -Manny -AJ -Curtis -Jake -Gynn & much more! We hope you enjoy this episode, folks! . Thank you so much for tuning in, we really appreciate all the love, support, support and support, and stay tuned for the next episode, we appreciate the support, we ve gotten in the coming from the community! Cheers, Cheers! -Your support is so much love, bye, bye! -Jon & Rory - Cheers - - Rory <3 - Jake and Cheers. -Sue ( ) Mikey , Cheers - Thanks, Jon & Jake - Tom AND AJ Love, ~
00:01:36.000I think I'm actually trying to convince him.
00:01:38.000I believe he's going to come to the grappling show this Friday night, and I'm going to persuade him to jump in the corner, so I'm going to have Alex Jones and John Danahoe.
00:03:21.000They're all actually pretty good dudes from both shows.
00:03:25.000Obviously, a little bit gets heated here and there, but some good fights as well.
00:03:30.000If you look back at The Ultimate Fighter and you see over the years, it's amazing the level of talent just keeps getting better and better and better.
00:03:39.000You know, in the beginning days, the guys were, you know, you had guys from, like, smaller circuits and, you know, guys who are maybe some were veterans, maybe some were beginners.
00:03:48.000But now, like, if you watch Dana White's Tuesday Night Contender Series, it's like so many of those guys are really talented.
00:04:17.000Obviously, it was a little bit different, I guess, but obviously the knowledge is more out there now and everyone's sharing that knowledge in big gyms and all that type of stuff.
00:04:25.000I feel like I've noticed that a lot, the level in this.
00:04:29.000Even though they're all entertaining, they know exactly what they're doing in there as well.
00:04:32.000It only makes sense that you bring in a fellow Aussie to be a grappling coach.
00:04:36.000Yeah, I mean, when Alex gave me the call to come in...
00:05:11.000Had you done a lot of striking training before?
00:05:15.000I mean 10 years ago when I was sort of getting into Jiu Jitsu I would just put on the MMA gloves and me and my buddies would just beat the shit out of each other.
00:05:22.000We'd go home with headaches and stuff but really I would say no formal training.
00:05:26.000I wouldn't have put gloves on for 10 years but really I created an OnlyFans account for a bit of a laugh and I wanted to put Alex on but I figured it would only be fair so we do 10 minutes of grappling Ten minutes of wool work, because I guess wool work is sort of like the intermediary, but then five minutes of kickboxing.
00:05:41.000I was only meant to do kickboxing, but he beat the shit out of me so bad, I had to shoot a takedown.
00:05:56.000I think it was very fair, because it was just kickboxing.
00:05:59.000You've never had any itch at all to do MMA? A little bit, but I used to go to university and study psychology, and I remember all it took was one section on traumatic brain injury, and I was like, what do they get paid?
00:06:32.000I mean, so obviously we were talking before the show about the Gabby Garcia thing, and I always say I would definitely take an MMA fight with Gabby Garcia because obviously we both can't fight either.
00:09:41.000It's funny, because you say that, but I know, because I remember we looked into it, and someone said that, oh, you must be, because they explained it to me.
00:09:47.000I didn't even know what shadow banning was.
00:13:20.000The term swastika is often used to distinguish the left-facing from the right-facing swastika symbols, a meaning which developed in 19th century scholarship.
00:13:27.000Both the right-facing and the left-facing variants are employed in Hinduism and Buddhism.
00:13:32.000However, the left-facing is more commonly used in Buddhism than Hinduism and the right-facing is more commonly used in Hinduism than Buddhism.
00:14:23.000And there's actually a Hindu temple near my house, my old house in California, that had all these swastikas with the dots like that all around the outside of it, and they had explained.
00:14:54.000So if it's inverted, if it's facing the other direction, that becomes a Nazi symbol?
00:14:59.000It's just nuts that a weird design that's been around for thousands of years has become connected so horribly to this one point in history with the Nazis that all these people that had it forever can't use it anymore.
00:15:58.000ESPN. This is the first time they've aired on ESPN. So the return of the Ultimate Fighter will be on ESPN. I don't think they've ever had the Ultimate Fighter.
00:19:17.000Now, you guys were supposed to, you were scheduled to fight, but then you got COVID. And when you got COVID, when you got tested, initially, when you got tested, you didn't feel sick, right?
00:19:27.000Man, before, because we got tested a fair bit.
00:19:29.000So I'm guessing before we went into the bubble, I must have got it from someone or whatever.
00:19:35.000And then, you know, a few days later, we got tested a couple of times.
00:19:38.000But then we got tested, yeah, one of the days.
00:19:41.000And that was like right at the end of my camp because I went there a bit early for Brad Riddell to corner or be with him because he fought the week before me.
00:19:50.000So I did my last week of training, hard training, in Vegas after traveling and doing all that.
00:19:54.000And then I got COVID. I must have had it trained like hard.
00:20:00.000So I did back-to-back because the schedule got tightened up because we arrived a bit later in the week.
00:20:05.000So back-to-back really, really solid sessions while I probably had COVID. But I mean, I sort of had started getting headaches and that before.
00:20:12.000I was like, man, I'm getting headaches.
00:20:13.000It's Vegas, maybe, you know, just dehydrated and whatnot.
00:20:17.000But yeah, then I tested positive and then I started getting the symptoms after that.
00:20:21.000And when you say, like, your schedule tightened up, so you guys have a very rigid program that you follow no matter what?
00:21:17.000What made the decision to do high-back-to-back?
00:21:20.000Again, it was just more the fact that we just need to do a couple.
00:21:25.000I still don't think it was that, but I felt fine while I was doing that.
00:21:28.000I didn't think nothing of it, but because I end up getting pretty rattled from the COVID, that's why I was like, man, maybe my immune system was down at the end of camp, obviously dieting and all that type of stuff.
00:21:41.000I felt fine, but I'm pretty sure I started feeling some of the symptoms before I was getting into them hard sessions as well.
00:21:48.000Yeah, all the fighters that I know that got it bad, it was all the same sort of situation when they were in camp, really beaten up.
00:22:54.00010 days or something maybe like seven or ten days did they do ivy vitamins or anything like that uh yeah once once i was in the hospital they were doing that you know but i mean as soon as i got on the medication um you know for dexamethasone like my largest improvements like straight away yeah yeah and you got it a while ago right you got covered a while back yeah so i had it probably august last year so we were training obviously during the lockdown in new york and uh I believe one of the Gracies,
00:23:22.000I won't say which one, had come back into the gym and I believe he had COVID. Son of a gun.
00:24:08.000Obviously, I had the standard side effects of fever, cold sweats, a lot of exhaustion, headaches.
00:24:15.000But then my lymph nodes started to swell up and I started to get some crazy pregnant looking stomach and actually had to pull out of a grappling match for it.
00:26:04.000I mean, I was worried, to be honest, because, like, I remember the medic on Tough, he's like, man, that's just lymphatic fluid, it should drain, but it just, it would slowly, getting bigger and bigger, and when I would walk, it would be, I wouldn't say it was too painful, but it was quite uncomfortable.
00:26:17.000So I'd walk around holding my stomach and stuff, and I was just like, at the point it started to drain, I was like, I'll give it one more day, and then we'll investigate.
00:26:24.000But yeah, I was peeing out some crazy colors, so, like, very strong colors.
00:26:51.000What was funny, actually, was when I brought those symptoms to him, he's like, well, man, it's a vaccine.
00:26:56.000He's like, we're in sort of unknown territory here.
00:26:58.000He himself even said, he's like, I had Johnson& Johnson and he said he was the sickest he's ever been in his life for 12 hours and then he snapped out of it.
00:27:06.000So nothing he told me was reassuring at all, unfortunately.
00:27:11.000So you're supposed to get a second shot though, right?
00:27:25.000Because you knew you were competing as well, didn't you?
00:27:29.000I knew I'd be competing because I'd pulled out of that match and we were looking to reschedule that for mid-June and I was just like, man, I don't want to miss another week of training potentially.
00:27:38.000Then obviously this comp, I hadn't known when I was going to compete.
00:27:41.000It was real last minute, this one, this Friday.
00:27:43.000But yeah, so I really just didn't get it again because I was worried about potentially missing more training.
00:27:49.000But yeah, after talking to some people, probably for the best, I don't get it.
00:27:54.000Obviously, I'm not a medical expert, but what I'm reading is that people that have already had COVID that get vaccinated are more likely to have issues than just regular people.
00:28:33.000You know, I wish I could tell you, you're going to be fine.
00:28:35.000Like, go ahead and take that second shot.
00:28:38.000Yeah, there's no assurance of that, really.
00:28:41.000So it stopped, it affected your training for how many days?
00:28:45.000I would say I probably missed a good seven days of training, I think.
00:28:48.000I mean, they came to a point where the fluid was almost gone, but I was just like, man, I don't know if I should be grappling and squashing this around.
00:28:55.000Just didn't want to grapple me, that was all it was.
00:28:58.000The fluid was gone and it was just like, nah, you know what I mean?
00:30:10.000If you looked at the John Donaher origin story, it's like a Marvel Comics, you know, like some sort of a mentor in Doctor Strange or something like that.
00:31:17.000And Dean was one of the few guys It was like a few other guys, but he was one of the real top-level guys who was winning by heel hook and even ankle locks and stuff, knee bars.
00:31:29.000And then John and him have this one conversation, one time, where he says to John, why would you ignore 50% of the body?
00:32:15.000I would say around 2015. I mean, indirectly, I guess Eddie Bravo is sort of responsible for this in a way because he gave the guys the platform to demonstrate this.
00:32:25.000In jiu-jitsu at the time, apart from ADCC, you couldn't really do heel hooks in any tournaments.
00:32:30.000So a lot of people didn't put any energy into it because they were like, why am I going to become a master in this skill set when there's no platform for me to use them on?
00:34:17.000Pow Harris gets up, celebrates, walks, he does a circle, comes back to shake David Avalon's hand, and David doesn't shake it, and then Pow Harris is like, shocked.
00:34:24.000He's like, why would he not shake my hand?
00:34:29.000One of the most boring matches in history, but we signed a contract for a 190-pound match, and he shows up the day before with a note from his doctor, and he's 220 pounds, and he says, I will die if I cut any weight.
00:37:24.000So when we had the match, and I came out with John Danner, because I was like, well, we're going to do the camp against the scariest leg locker in the world.
00:38:04.000Because if you get your legs locked and you get heel hooked or something like that, you're tearing your meniscus and that shit never gets better.
00:38:11.000Could it be an ego thing where he's like, I can't get my legs out, I don't want to submit from a leg lock, but I'm just not going to go there.
00:38:24.000Have you seen the clip of him with the toehold?
00:38:26.000Well, I've seen the clip of him with a knee bar where his knee is like bent the other way.
00:38:30.000It's like some, whoever he's grappling with, full on like hips down, like the knee is like completely hyperextended, like many degrees the wrong direction.
00:38:44.000And you watch it like, and the guy never taps.
00:38:46.000Yeah, it's crazy as well, because obviously in MMA, you guys, for the most part, are making quite good money.
00:38:52.000But you'll see grappling tournaments all the time where, oh, watch your guy let his leg break for no money.
00:39:02.000A lot of Brazilians just don't believe in leg locks.
00:39:05.000There's guys like Leandro Lowe, when I had a match with him, just completely let his leg snap because he always said, I'm never going to tap to a lower body submission.
00:40:24.000You shouldn't do that because, I mean, eventually, even if you're flexible, like for him, his knee and ankles were flexible, but the weakest link was his fibula.
00:40:31.000So his fibula snapped and disconnected from his ankle.
00:40:42.000Surprisingly, I think the tib-fib breaks actually come back a little quicker than the knee, except for obviously the PTSD from looking at your broken leg.
00:40:49.000But at the time, when I spoke to Vinny after the match, he seemed like he was most worried about what his wife was going to say.
00:40:55.000That seemed like the priority number one for him.
00:40:57.000Why was he worried about what his wife was going to say?
00:40:59.000Because I think at the time, she didn't want him to go compete because it was during COVID and stuff.
00:41:04.000And he was like, I think he was like, no, I gotta do it.
00:41:05.000And then he went and he broke his leg and it's like, oh, all these things at once, eh?
00:41:10.000But honestly, that's the craziest, one of the craziest moments in grappling where I was just like, I was like, how much is Chael paying you?
00:41:17.000He's not paying me enough to fucking let my leg break.
00:41:19.000Like, what's going on behind the scenes there?
00:46:23.000And the attention to detail with everything, even, again, I didn't know that, but I could still tell that, you know, the way you would study fights and break things down, which is, it works.
00:46:32.000You know, you get the right philosophies and, you know, the attention to detail can really capitalize on that.
00:46:40.000There's a lot of, like, a lot of in training jiu-jitsu, there's a lot of, like, you know, just kind of rolling and learning things and figuring things out, and you get tapped with something, and then your teammate says, you left your leg here, and if you do this, you're okay, but if you do that, you're fucked.
00:46:58.000The process of learning is shortened radically because he cuts out all the nonsense and just gets you to the points that you need to focus on.
00:47:07.000When I watch you guys train under him and I watch him coach, I was like, this is very interesting because he's completely eliminated guesswork.
00:48:22.000So fight study and all that type of stuff, because we did a lot of it in the house, Honestly, you start watching and your thought process around things, I felt like it made me understand things even a little bit more.
00:48:36.000I thought I already had a good understanding, but watching other people and then capitalize, oh, he does this, and then you start learning figures, oh, let's nullify that by doing this.
00:48:45.000You can go real deep, and that's why I'm watching.
00:48:47.000Again, a lot of people do things that they probably don't even know.
00:48:51.000It's just more instinctively, oh, this happened, so he done this.
00:48:54.000It was the right reaction, and we can capitalize on that just from watching.
00:50:21.000So I'm doing every session, every drilling session is structured for that fight.
00:50:26.000You know, obviously a lot of it's cardio and getting yourself ready for the fight.
00:50:30.000But then when you're not fighting, say after the fight, like, alright, just doing a heap of drilling with Craig or like with the coaches, just doing a heap of striking and just working on other things.
00:50:41.000And get a real understanding of things that, yeah, I don't need in the next fight, but I've got time to evolve and expand the brain.
00:51:07.000Now when you say structured towards the fight, so do you guys have With City Kickboxing, do you have it mapped out like in advance where you have like here's your eight-week camp This is what we're gonna do on Monday.
00:51:19.000This is what we're gonna do on Tuesday.
00:51:23.000So everything's and again like as I was saying earlier about having you know the high sessions and low sessions you need to have the you know the sessions in between and Like the chill sessions where you are going to drill certain things that you're going to need in that fight or a pad session or something like that, game planning.
00:51:38.000So we have everything from eight weeks structured specifically for the fight.
00:51:43.000So we even do sessions exactly the time we're going to fight.
00:52:03.000So we will train seven days a week, but there's three days where you've got high sessions, but they're going to be nothing the rest of the day.
00:53:54.000We wanted to be up a few hours before we fight.
00:53:57.000So that's why we had a pattern like that.
00:53:59.000I think a lot of people were doing that.
00:54:00.000But that's why, you know, and then, you know, fight night, you know, I'm trying to sleep in and that's when like USADA come in and woke me up and like I had to do the piss test and I had to skull water.
00:55:53.000Well, the fight dietician, Geordi, usually has us on melatonin.
00:55:56.000But again, I won't do that fight night because I feel like sometimes in the morning it can make you that little bit.
00:56:00.000Like, you know, like you're alright, you're there, but like just a little bit maybe drowsy, yeah.
00:56:05.000So like you're still in that sleep sort of pattern.
00:56:07.000But yeah, like we usually, I would, you know, especially when we come, we usually go overnight.
00:56:12.000So I'll try and get as much sleep as I can, you know, on the plane as hard.
00:56:15.000But I'll make sure I stay awake till the time I want to go to bed.
00:56:20.000I don't care how tired I am, I just hold out and then usually I'll get to sleep and by the time I'm ready to wake up, I'm hitting my time zone anyway back home.
00:56:31.000I've got it now every time I'm in Vegas to be honest.
00:56:33.000My sleeping pattern is on point every time I get in.
00:56:36.000Do you adjust your meals like when you eat to facilitate that as well?
00:57:05.000I just adjust it to how I'll do it here in Vegas.
00:57:08.000Do they have you on a specific meal plan so you're eating like every x amount of hours and you're eating everything's portioned out for you?
00:57:51.000Obviously the science behind it is amazing.
00:57:54.000It is amazing when you get experts behind your camp and get experts behind your training that a lot of the problems that you were having previously, they get fixed.
00:58:02.000Like your back issue that you were having with your back would blow out every now and then.
00:58:07.000And then since you've been working with the strength and conditioning guys, it never happened again, right?
00:58:11.000Yeah, so Baymed performance we talked about last time.
00:58:16.000Even when I do get a little bit of a spasm, Just like what I know now is like, mate, within a day or two, I'm like, you know, I'm back to grappling 100% like within a day or two.
00:58:26.000You know, where before it'd be like two weeks.
00:58:27.000I wouldn't be training and then I'll try and get back into it because I wasn't doing much.
00:59:02.000I'm not going to be flexible because I'm doing this, but my body's going to move right for that session.
00:59:07.000And they're just on point with that sort of stuff, and it helps a lot.
00:59:10.000Craig, when you compare the way someone has to prepare when they're a professional grappler like yourself versus someone who's doing all these different disciplines smashed in together in MMA, do you look at it and go, fuck that?
00:59:22.000Well, I'm just listening to the professionalism of his gamps and stuff.
01:00:31.000Well, some people can just take leg locks and take joint locks.
01:00:35.000I remember when Hoyler Gracie fought Eddie, the second time he fought him, and Eddie put him this terrible leg lock that he calls the vaporizer.
01:01:22.000See if you can find Eddie Bravo vaporize Hoyler Gracie.
01:01:29.000Even when you watch the folk style wrestling and that, and then you see the way their legs are positioned, and I'm like, mate, that fucking something's got to go there.
01:03:23.000He's crazy flexible, because these guys were all elite breakdancers.
01:03:28.000And they could do, like, where they would stand, they would do handstands, and then they would put their legs into a lotus position in a handstand and hop around on the handstand with their legs crisscrossed above their head.
01:04:46.000I remember watching the first Metamorris, and when they dropped the trailer to announce that, I still remember Eddie being like, everybody said it was a fluke.
01:05:54.000It goes both ways in the gi because although there's so much friction and you can easily pop a guy's leg, they can also reach back and hold onto your sleeve.
01:06:03.000So when you're trying to twist, they can hang onto the sleeve and take a bit of the mobility out of it.
01:06:08.000But would you think that it's easier to get somebody with the gi pants on?
01:06:14.000I would say once you've got it, it's easier.
01:06:17.000But just based on the nature of how people pass in the gi, they can use more distance passing.
01:06:23.000But again, like you said, once you're in there, the amount of friction, like even when I roll with 10th Planet guys and they're wearing gi pants, it's always a nightmare when they put me in half guard.
01:06:30.000I want that sweat to slip out of there a little bit.
01:07:24.000But, I mean, Gordon talked about it the last time I had him on the podcast.
01:07:27.000It seems like that argument has kind of gone away.
01:07:30.000The argument used to be that it's better to train in the gi for no gi.
01:07:33.000But now, you don't hear that argument at all anymore.
01:07:36.000Everybody who's an elite no gi grappler essentially trains in the gi, or trains with no gi.
01:07:41.000For sure, because I think if we go historically and we look at the ADCC champions, they were mostly gi guys.
01:07:46.000But that's because there was no avenue for no gi competition.
01:07:50.000So there were very few no gi only guys.
01:07:53.000So all the champions in the Gi, every second year would just be like, we'll take the Gi off, we'll do ADCC. And because that population was so much bigger, the talent was so much bigger, they could easily translate to no Gi.
01:08:04.000But as no Gi grew, again, thanks to things like Meta Morris and Eddie Bravo, and even like Submission Underground, obviously who's number one today, guys saw an avenue where they could do no Gi all the time.
01:08:14.000And then now we see that really it's like the Gi's not really going to help you in no Gi at all.
01:08:19.000No, well, Eddie learned from John-Jacques Machado, right?
01:08:22.000And John-Jacques Machado only has one hand.
01:08:24.000And because John-Jacques had one hand, his jiu-jitsu is never based on holding on to collars and sleeves.
01:08:30.000His jiu-jitsu is more like Greco-Roman underhooks and overhooks and things along those lines.
01:08:52.000I still remember watching Jean-Jacques back in the day being so impressed with how he would play guard.
01:08:56.000It would be a very innovative way to play guard.
01:08:58.000Yeah, he was one of the first guys that went over to Abu Dhabi that was finishing everybody and just showing everybody that his jiu-jitsu directly applies.
01:09:08.000Some guys would come over and they'd compete in the UFC and they would be these elite jiu-jitsu guys, but you take away their gi and they lost like 50-60% of their game because they couldn't grab collars and everybody was slippery and then their takedowns weren't that good.
01:09:22.000The cage, you could use the cage and the cage blocking certain things there.
01:09:50.000I'm like, Moe, at the rules meeting, can you please just stand in front of everyone and be like, I would like to announce we are drug testing this year, just to see the crowd reactions.
01:10:57.000I do strength and conditioning for injury prevention, but obviously if you've seen some of the guys on my team, like we've got Nicky Rod, even Nicky Ryan, Ethan, even Gordon.
01:11:04.000These guys are doing some crazy bodybuilding workouts.
01:11:06.000And I'm like, I'm not sure the sports science behind it, but I know they just want to look fucking jacked.
01:12:28.000The time he injured his elbow the worst was when he was rolling gently with a girl that was visiting the blue basement and he gave her an armbar and she just ripped it on him.
01:12:35.000All these crazy moments in comp where he just almost looks like he's going to let his arm break and he was telling me that was the one that got him.
01:13:00.000Gary, I'm not sure what he does in terms of workouts.
01:13:02.000I think he does a lot of bodyweight style stuff.
01:13:04.000But yeah, the other guys, man, I've done some workouts and watched them do workouts, and I'm just like, man, jiu-jitsu's bad enough on the body, let alone we throw in bodybuilding-style workouts as well.
01:13:13.000Like, I don't want the wheels to fall off after this career too soon, you know?
01:13:17.000Yeah, I mean, I wonder, like, how do you find the line between too much and not enough?
01:13:22.000And I would say the same thing to you, because, like, obviously your coaching staff, they've got it boiled down to a science.
01:13:29.000But how do you know when it's too much?
01:13:33.000How do you know when you're being lazy versus how do you know when you're overtraining, when you're going too far and you're not giving your joints and your muscles and everything a chance to recover?
01:13:58.000Well, that's what's great about having such a professional camp with high-level guys and world champions.
01:14:04.000I'll be honest, and this shows you, like, when I'm overseas, you know, say I'm in a city kickboxing, and we're training there, so we're busting our ass doing that, but I don't have my team that I do, like, Baymeda Performance, where I go do my strength and conditioning and my physio and all that,
01:14:21.000My body, like, recovery and all that's way worse in New Zealand.
01:14:25.000Because I'm doing the maintenance and even the strength and conditioning and things like that, when I'm in Australia, where my body, my recovery, everything, I feel like my body doesn't lock up nowhere near as much as it would when I'm away, where I don't really have that treatment.
01:14:42.000Where I will, I'll wait until I'm like...
01:14:44.000I can't move or I'm going to go see someone.
01:14:46.000Where I'm just constantly, you know, even the strength and conditioning we do, it's more about injury prevention and obviously getting your strong as well.
01:14:58.000But I mean, at the same time, they can't give me a bodybuilding exercise, like, you know, sort of session when I've got to go bust my ass in the MMA training, like, you know, the next hour.
01:15:07.000So it's all, you know, it's all got to work together.
01:15:10.000So again, they, the guys at Baymed, they make sure that I'm getting what I need to keep me strong and keep my body moving right, but I can still do all my MMA, my striking, my wrestling.
01:15:21.000Because if they bust my ass, and I'm doing the workouts we're doing, it's just too much.
01:15:27.000Are you guys in Puerto Rico, do you have a good massage therapist?
01:15:59.000There's a lot of different schools of thought, but Pavel Tatsulin, you know, the guy from Russia, the godfather of kettlebells, He believes that you should never, when you train, you should never go to failure and that you should have long periods of rest in between sets.
01:16:37.000Again, I'm not necessarily saying that he's correct, but I work out this way a lot when I lift weights, when I'm not working with a trainer.
01:16:45.000My trainer doesn't let me do this kind of shit, but when I work out by myself, I take these big-ass fucking times.
01:16:58.000If I'm doing like cleans with like a heavy kettlebell, like a 90-pound kettlebell or something like that, if I can do 10, I don't do 10, I do 5, and then I sit it down, and then I wait a long ass time, and then I do another 5, and then I wait a long ass time, and then I'll do another 5, and then a long ass time,
01:17:13.000And that way, I'm getting every rep, I'm not exhausted.
01:17:18.000Whereas if I was doing a set of ten, and I could only do like two sets of ten, and then I'm fucking broken down, and the third set I could only get to like five or six, and then I'm like completely exhausted.
01:17:29.000Well, then I would have done 26 reps, but I've done 26 reps where the last ones are kind of shitty and my muscles are all blown out.
01:17:37.000The other way, I might do five sets of five.
01:17:42.000I'm doing 25 reps, but every one of them is...
01:17:46.000Like full, clean, clear, like great technique, not exhausted.
01:17:57.000Like going to failure, and many people believe 100% in going to failure, and that that's the only way to do it.
01:18:04.000And again, I'm not, by any stretch of the imagination, a weightlifting expert.
01:18:08.000But Pavel's, his recommendation is never go to failure and do big breaks in between the sets and stretch out your weightlifting sessions and think of it as a skill.
01:18:20.000Don't think of it as trying to wear yourself out.
01:20:06.000The difference between a guy who fades and a guy who doesn't fade, it's so big.
01:20:10.000Because so many guys, especially when you see guys that are coming up in the ranks, they're kind of contenders, they're doing really well.
01:20:15.000You'll see them do real well in a fight for the first two rounds, and then you'll see a substantial drop-off in the third round.
01:20:21.000And that seems to be the difference between the really elite guys.
01:20:25.000And I know a lot of it is energy management for sure, but a lot of it is just that work that you do in the gym to make sure that you can push that crazy pace.
01:20:33.000Well, like you said, you want to be able to hold that energy, but then you've got sessions like your sparring and all that type of stuff where you can do that.
01:20:40.000You need to have sessions that's going to get you ready for a fucking war.
01:21:22.000So I'm just going to pick up the pace again.
01:21:23.000So I literally, we do that in some of these sessions where, I'll be honest, a lot of people don't.
01:21:29.000There's sessions that we were doing in our, sort of like during the tough series and that, and I don't know if they're probably like, fuck, you know what I mean?
01:21:40.000I'll do another two or three of these types of sessions.
01:21:42.000I'll just bring one for you guys, you know what I mean?
01:21:43.000And I'm like, man, a lot of people just won't go to that.
01:21:46.000Obviously, some of them aren't full-time fighters and whatnot, but again, I want to be...
01:21:52.000I'm expecting to go out there and the fight not be that hard, but I'm going to be prepared for however hard it gets.
01:21:58.000That's a thing too about being a part of an elite camp, right?
01:22:04.000Everyone knows that they're going to do that and everyone knows how to do that.
01:22:08.000They know how to push literally past your limit.
01:22:12.000Whereas you see guys where they're kind of the king of their domain and they run the whole camp and they're kind of in control of everything.
01:22:19.000It's very hard to force yourself to go through hell.
01:22:22.000You know, some people can do it, but you really kind of want a bunch of people going through hell with you, and you want someone who's the general.
01:22:29.000You can't have yes, man, and just be like, oh, yeah, I'm just going to chill, and you just chill the whole way through.
01:22:34.000You can have guys go, no, fucking get it, and get that session done.
01:22:37.000When Conor fought Dustin Poirier the last time, one of my friends was watching one of the interviews where they were talking about how Conor can basically just train himself now, and my friend goes, the fuck he can.
01:23:32.000And maybe, obviously, the training, you know, Mike, with Joe Lopez, the way, like, we've been training, he's always put me in, like, these sort of positions.
01:24:43.000Now, when you see a guy who does get tired early, like a guy who's real fast-twitched and explosive and get tired early, do you ever think, is it just a cardio issue,
01:24:58.000like they haven't pushed themselves hard enough?
01:24:59.000Do you think it's an energy management issue?
01:25:06.000Again, if you're always trying to be in a position where you're comfortable and all that type of stuff, as soon as it gets uncomfortable, you're not thinking right, you're struggling, you're like, oh no, you're starting to doubt yourself.
01:25:16.000Again, that's why we put ourselves in that sort of position.
01:25:20.000I notice it, especially when you're fighting or even sparring.
01:25:24.000Everyone's fucking good for the first minute.
01:25:43.000Yeah, wear them out and then be on them and then you just start to see like their reactions from the first minute to even the second, completely different.
01:26:06.000Like some people just don't have the will to push themselves in that way.
01:26:09.000Or maybe they don't think they have to or maybe they're deluding themselves and they think they're pushing themselves harder than they really are.
01:26:16.000Like maybe, like if someone like Connor came and trained with you and saw how you prepare, maybe you'd be like, oh fuck.
01:26:25.000Like obviously the guy's super fucking talented.
01:27:25.000And the opportunity, like, you know, again, I'm in his face because he's the type of fighter he gets in your face, makes you panic punch and just capitalizes every time.
01:27:31.000So he wants to be there in the heat of, you know, he wants to be in the fire because he knows people are going to make bad decisions and he capitalizes on it.
01:27:37.000But I mean, again, that's putting himself in a position where he needs to go a lot harder, especially when he's trying to go for the kill at the same time.
01:27:44.000Maybe there's a balance that he needs to, I don't know what it is, but Again, but going back to when we're talking about adversities in the gym and all that type of stuff, that's why I love this sport so much.
01:27:56.000I feel like there's a lot of gyms, obviously.
01:28:06.000That you do in our gym and what I've always done with freestyle and even city kickboxing, I feel like that just helps when you're under the pressure outside of MMA or whatever.
01:28:17.000You just deal with things a lot better just because, again, you've been in uncomfortable positions and you've had to adapt.
01:28:24.000And be able to move forward and look forward.
01:28:26.000And, you know, again, you see that with a lot of people that, you know, they're good under pressure and all that type of stuff.
01:28:31.000And then you get people that aren't and can't.
01:28:34.000That's really one of the best things about martial arts as it applies to life, is that it makes regular life easy.
01:28:40.000You know, even just jujitsu, you know, without the kickboxing and the striking and all that stuff, just the struggle of jujitsu, for the most part, is so much more difficult than the struggle of everyday life.
01:28:51.000It makes everyday life seem kind of relaxing.
01:28:54.000Like, problems seem minuscule in comparison to, I'm sure, like having Gordon Ryan on your back.
01:29:02.000I mean, that's the way we train for the rolling portion is we'll basically do 60 minutes straight with no rest, but we always do bad positions first.
01:29:10.000So your first round of the day is under mount.
01:29:12.000Then we'll go turtle, close guard, potentially even start on an armbar for that fourth round.
01:29:42.000So it forced me to really become an expert at how to stay calm in those bad positions and use technique to get out.
01:29:48.000Because again, what's the use of getting out if you've got no energy afterwards?
01:29:52.000Yeah, that seems to be one of the most important things about jujitsu is your defense.
01:29:57.000And it's one of the things that people neglect.
01:29:59.000And one of the things that Hickson always emphasized, like Hickson, who's always considered one of the greatest of all time, if not the greatest, when you would talk to him, he would always say, it's all about defense.
01:30:10.000Like he goes, in any position, I remember talking to him about this, he goes, I am safe.
01:30:20.000And then it's always, he's like, we start from a neutral position, and then, I'll never forget this, it was kind of spooky, because you know how good Hickson is.
01:30:29.000I can listen to a guy who is just dominant over everyone that he competed against, and all the people he trained with.
01:30:35.000He goes, I move from zero to number one, and when I go from number one, I'm going to two, and I'm not going back to one.
01:30:45.000And the way he's explaining it, like, super intense about his, like, his philosophy about just having perfect position and perfect technique.
01:30:54.000And his thing was always have excellent defense.
01:30:57.000You could never just rely only on offense.
01:30:59.000And we've all seen guys like that that have this fantastic offense, but then they get stuck in a bad situation.
01:31:05.000You see them flail and spaz and, you know, explode and they get tired and then they wind up getting caught.
01:31:11.000Well, good defense gives you the confidence to be more offensive.
01:31:15.000It's probably like with an MMA. If you know if that guy takes you down, the fight's over.
01:31:19.000You're probably going to be pretty nervous and not be as offensive.
01:31:22.000Whereas if you know you're going to get back up if he puts you down, it probably gives you more ability and confidence in your striking.
01:31:28.000It opens up strikes for grapplers in a way that, like, one of the great examples is Kevin Randall when he fought Mirko Krokop.
01:31:38.000Because Mirko Krokop at the time was, and still is, one of the most legendary strikers to ever compete in MMA. Just terrifying kickboxer.
01:31:46.000But Randleman had him so scared of the takedown, he faked a shot and hit him with a left hook and knocked him out.
01:31:52.000You know, dropped him and then finished him off.
01:32:05.000It was literally like he had an armpit on the side of his body where you could look in and see all the muscles, you could see all the tissue, everything.
01:33:23.000When a guy trains seven days a week, he's literally one of the top three best grapplers on planet Earth, and you say how lazy you are, it's kind of hilarious.
01:33:30.000He's fucking in-and-out burger every fucking meal.
01:35:41.000Yeah, there's a place called Fuddruckers, a cheeseburger place, and me and Eddie Bravo, we used to lift weights at 24 Hour Fitness, and we'd go get Fuddrucker ostrich burgers.
01:36:10.000Mate, like, you go, you start going out west and, like, just every 10, 15 meters on the side of the road, like, obviously, I mean, being hit by cars.
01:36:20.000There's a lot of damage to cars, deaths and everything from just driving on roads and kangaroos.
01:40:13.000They come out and they staunch you like this.
01:40:15.000Like, literally, have you seen the one?
01:40:16.000There's one that you go on, like, I think it's a window, like, comes up to a house, and they're on the other side of the window, so the kangaroo can't see him, but he's seeing himself in the window, and he starts shaping up, just like, shoulder charging it like this, like, what, you want to fucking go like that?
01:41:56.000So, obviously, some of the boys have got a lot more.
01:41:58.000Gordon's probably got an arsenal at home.
01:42:02.000It's got to be a trip to train with a guy like that who's, you know, Gordon's only 25 years old, and he's already known as the greatest ground fighter of all time.
01:42:13.000Like, if you ask people, who's the greatest jiu-jitsu practitioner ever, Most people today that are in the know will say Gordon Ryan, which is crazy because he's 25 years old.
01:42:23.000But if you look at his accomplishments, the guy hasn't lost in 39 fights.
01:42:27.000Like, who the fuck can say that in grappling?
01:42:31.000I mean, he just took it to another level of dominance.
01:42:33.000There's been guys that have been dominant, like obviously Hodgie Gracie and stuff, but for the most part, a lot of the dominant grapplers didn't finish everyone.
01:42:40.000And he just goes out and just finishes people.
01:42:42.000But it's good for my confidence because even if I have a bad day in the gym with him, I'm like, well, it can't get any worse.
01:43:11.000We just thought it'd be good to have him on the show because again, we get along and the type of crowd, the crew we have has good banter and we're like shit-stirring each other and all that.
01:44:15.000When you're approaching a fight and you have this real wide array of skills, How do you decide, like, do you do based on strategy and game plan before the fight, how to approach a specific fighter, or do you flow?
01:44:33.000Obviously, the game plan goes a long way, but, I mean, you need to play what's in front of you as well.
01:44:38.000Like, with that last fight, you had Max, who changed his whole...
01:44:44.000Fucking, you know, he's been successful for a long time in this certain style.
01:44:48.000And then he went to, we call him Muay Thai Max.
01:44:50.000He went Muay Thai Max in the last fight, which we just did not expect him to change his whole game.
01:44:54.000More upright, legs are closer together, and, you know, didn't care too much about getting out, you know, like making you miss and then countering.
01:45:03.000It was more just, I'm going to let you run it.
01:45:24.000And then again, just being able to use certain tools, even knowing that that tool ain't going to work, but I'm going to get him thinking about that tool and I'm going to use this tool and just constantly mixing it up.
01:45:34.000So if I don't get them takedowns, I'm not too fussed because that's still a piece of the puzzle he's trying to figure out or he's committing to stopping that takedown.
01:45:41.000Once he's committing, I capitalise somewhere else.
01:45:43.000But that's somewhere where I feel like I could always take it.
01:45:49.000Before, if you look at five fights ago, five, six fights ago, everyone just thought I was a wrestler grappler.
01:45:56.000Now, people just think I'm just a striker.
01:45:58.000From the last few fights, they just look at me as a striker.
01:46:01.000But it just shows you where, obviously, we did a lot more training with City Kickboxing and that.
01:46:07.000So I've always had that wrestling background and that gritty, hard-working sort of mentality.
01:46:13.000We knew a lot about going to City and the fine details.
01:46:16.000We had details on the wall and all that type of stuff.
01:46:18.000But going over there and they have just some attention to detail with striking.
01:46:24.000And you've seen it in my last fights where people don't even know I've got wrestling or grappling.
01:46:34.000I don't need to grapple him anymore, so I'm just going to talk a heap of shit.
01:46:37.000I want to see him and Ortega after the fire actually have a grappling match because people obviously ride very, very high on Ortega's grappling, but I think, yeah, very underrated.
01:48:24.000You don't want to be cocky, but I'm definitely confident.
01:48:26.000But a lot of these opponents that I see, even with this next fight, there's a lot of different challenges that I need to be aware of, but I still feel like it's just more about him landing a certain shot or him maybe in a submission.
01:48:43.000Without any disrespect to him, I just feel like that's his go-to.
01:48:47.000But again, we're in MMA where that could definitely happen.
01:48:50.000But I'm pretty defensively sound and working with him.
01:48:54.000Now I feel like my jiu-jitsu is at a whole other level, especially defensively.
01:48:59.000When you've had matches with a guy like Holloway, you've had these two epic fights with Max Holloway, and you have two victories over him, but real close fights.
01:49:09.000How important is that for a guy like you to have a foil like that, to have...
01:49:31.000But I think, obviously, it's like someone I was talking to when they talk about having teams.
01:49:36.000You can go and then You've got two teams, and then just because of the jersey you're wearing, you're going to have millions of people hate you and pick on absolutely everything you do.
01:50:03.000Even in the first fight and the second fight, the adjustments he made in between, the adjustments I made mid-fight, even in the first fight, if I go into detail, there's times where he wanted to just catch me.
01:50:16.000Every time I feel a kick or something, he just wanted to get me and just come forward.
01:50:19.000So once he did that, I was just making him run into things because I knew he was going to come in.
01:50:23.000Then he realized, oh, he's trying to catch me coming in.
01:50:25.000So I'm going to pretend to go in and then catch him after he tries to catch me coming in.
01:50:31.000And then I caught on to that, then I end up, you know what I mean?
01:50:33.000So it was like, it was this, little tiny adjustments.
01:50:35.000This was happening, like, I can show you sequences, oh, this is where this happened, and little chess matches the people are going to miss, you know what I mean?
01:50:41.000And obviously I can't give away too much of what was going on in there, but there were so many things that we had to just, a lot of it was the fact that I just kept changing things up as well to make it harder for him to get a read on me.
01:50:52.000But, you know, but again, there was a chess match where he would make, you know, great little adjustments, and it would work, and then I'll catch on to that, then I'll change it up, and he would do that, and you know what I mean?
01:51:03.000But people are going to miss that, because they're just going to be like, you know, going to carry on how they do, which I get, you know, and I respect people, yeah, for obviously being that emotional about it, you know, because that's what we write off.
01:51:16.000Mate, there was 10 rounds, and again, you talk about it, and obviously, you're going to get people to say whatever they want, that's fine, but I think they're just missing the point of how competitive, yeah, it was very competitive, even though I've got the two wins,
01:51:32.000but the chess match we're having in there, I just think is missed by too many people.
01:51:39.000The people that don't appreciate it just think it's a great fight.
01:51:44.000But the people that appreciate it and have seen a lot of fights and understand the high-level aspects of it, were like, wow, this is pretty special.
01:51:54.000And I think it's just so impressive that you have these two victories over Max when you look at how Max has performed with everybody else in the division.
01:52:02.000Like the last fight with Calvin Cater, who is a fucking beast.
01:52:23.000But then obviously afterwards, I go, yeah, you're hitting them numbers on these guys, but you ain't hitting them numbers when I'm in front of you.
01:52:28.000But again, you're obviously going to say that, and people aren't going to be happy with that.
01:52:33.000But at the same time, again, you know what I mean?
01:52:37.000He's got a high fighter IQ. You have certain habits.
01:52:41.000Their team's going to pick up on it, and Max is going to pick up on it.
01:52:44.000You exit a certain way and that's the only exit.
01:52:47.000He's going to fucking piece you up if you keep doing that.
01:52:49.000And again, like, you know, there was, and I know no disrespect to Takeda, but there were certain things that, you know, Max caught on and just fucking made him pay.
01:52:57.000He was being first and then fucking stayed on him.
01:56:50.000Well, I mean, I did have some ideas for some COVID pranks, because obviously we're trying to get them, but they did tell me because they spent so much money on COVID testing, they were like, that's a line we can't cross.
01:57:18.000The whole pranks and stuff like shits through each other.
01:57:21.000And the more conflict there is, the better the ratings are, the better the show does, the better it is for everybody when you guys have a big fight.
01:57:29.000I mean, financially, it's hard because a lot of people think of martial arts, they think of honor and respect and commitment and discipline and all that, which is all real.
01:57:38.000But this is a business, and it's an entertainment business.
01:57:42.000And one of the reasons why Conor McGregor's worth a half a billion dollars is because that motherfucker knows how to stir some shit.
01:57:49.000The fight with Jose Aldo, where they went on this world tour for months at a time, by the end of that tour, he had a whole apartment complex under Jose Aldo's skin.
01:58:01.000I mean, he wasn't just under his skin.
01:58:03.000He had fucking camped out, led sewer lines, electrical.
01:58:58.000Do you anticipate staying at 45 for the remainder of your career?
01:59:01.000Look, I can see myself going to lightweight, but again, I want to just stay in the division and win the next couple of fights and cement myself as the man of the goat of the featherweight division and all that type of stuff.
01:59:16.000I mean, there's going to be a time where I'm going to be waiting to find the next number one contender and things like that, and I want to move up.
02:00:55.000So if you want to go up and fight that guy, you either have to be a rock-solid 240, Or if you're going to really try to get to the 260 range.
02:01:04.000I mean, I've talked to pro powerlifters and bodybuilders and people who do stack a lot of weight on and put muscle mass on.
02:01:31.000So we're still going to the PI and things like that because we're getting tested and the latest test was all good.
02:01:36.000And then the morning I fired – sorry, the day that we found out we had COVID because there was a few of us – We were sitting in the sauna, shaking hands with Nagano, and he was fighting the next day, and we're like...
02:01:50.000And then we're here, we're watching ads of Nagano's fighting, and we're looking at each other like, I fucking hope so, you know what I mean?
02:01:57.000We started shitting ourselves, like, please don't tell me we gave him the COVID and things like that.
02:03:01.000I did better through this trip being at the UFC PI. We got into the recovery room, and I got into the ice bath a fair bit, so I was happy with that, but I fucking hate it.
02:03:12.000But I mean, I love the hot baths, and I feel like whenever I do that, I feel like my body feels unreal.
02:03:17.000I feel like it really does help with my...
02:04:18.000The guy broke his ankle and never did anything about it, just kept walking around on it, so his ankles fused, and it's like the size of this fucking coffee pot.
02:05:30.000My fingers used to kinda be like that when I would train ki every day, like they were heading to that point, and I remember the relief in my hands when I switched full-time to nogi.
02:05:37.000It was just like, I noticed it basically overnight.
02:05:42.000It's that kind of gripping that people do all the time like that.
02:05:45.000I mean that's got to have like some long-term Consequences and the grip breaks like all the time my finger would just swell up I'd be like like it gets stuck off a grip breaks I'm gonna kick out of a grip and it would just be like fuck But you have to train again the next day Did you do anything to try to mitigate that, like ice?
02:07:04.000You know, like, if we were any other animal in the woods, you would see, like, this is one, you know, like, gorillas are basically the same size, right?
02:07:12.000They're all, they all get pretty big, you know, but he's this fucking enormous super athlete dude.
02:07:30.000I remember asking him about that, too, because with his match with Yuri, I was like, the fucking hip mobility that he has is crazy.
02:07:38.000Like, his ability to move, his flexibility, like, you usually see a big, giant guy like that, and they're all weighed down from squats and deadlifts and everything stiff.
02:07:58.000I remember one time he had staff and it exploded on an airplane, but then by the time he landed the flight back to America, it had somehow started to heal up, and he was like, it's just mindset, bro.
02:09:57.000And I went in, the doctor's like, oh yeah, we're going to get you on antibiotics right away.
02:10:00.000We're going to do a culture test, but I'm pretty sure it's staph.
02:10:04.000And so he put me on those antibiotics and I was feeling fine.
02:10:06.000And then that night I was just like...
02:10:09.000And I was thinking, and I tried training, not like rolling, but I tried lifting weights and shit, and I felt so weak.
02:10:16.000And I was like, how the fuck does anybody fight like this?
02:10:19.000Because I remember Luke Rockhold, when he beat Chris Weidman, he had staph.
02:10:23.000He was on antibiotics while he beat him, which is crazy.
02:10:27.000I feel like some people, yeah, like me, I was taking antibiotics every month for staph, so I was like, I just don't think there's any good bacteria left to kill, so I just didn't notice the...
02:10:36.000You were taking it every month for how long?
02:10:38.000When I was in New York, I had staph every month for 12 months, so I do a week of antibiotics every month.
02:10:47.000Obviously, we've got the meat, it's around the meat, but that gets under the second layer of skin and gets near the bone, and you get infections through there.
02:10:55.000My friend Brian Callen, his friend's wife died from staph.
02:10:58.000They tried to use some sort of holistic methods to heal it, and her fucking gums were bleeding.
02:11:05.000And he came over the house and he's like, bro, you got to get her to a hospital.
02:17:32.000Like, you go there and then like, you go, I'm like, every time I've seen someone, I'm like putting fucking, what do you call it, like the alcohol wipes in my eyes and shit like that, just trying to make sure I didn't get it and I'll just see it just go through that many people.
02:19:09.000When we moved to Puerto Rico, I just stopped getting staffed.
02:19:13.000I don't know if it just happened to be the Blue Basement, the particular strain that was going around there, maybe I was very vulnerable to, but the second we moved to Puerto Rico, started getting more sun, started getting in the ocean, felt like it actually helped.
02:19:26.000I was worried though, because Puerto Rico's humidity, like Thailand's staff's wild.
02:19:30.000I was thinking, fuck, maybe it's going to be worse in Puerto Rico.
02:22:26.000And that's typically the guys that I would say train the hardest, probably the juniors, like the up and coming guys, because I feel like they've got ground to catch up.
02:22:33.000So those are the guys that really never miss any sessions.
02:22:36.000Gary was probably the most infamous for training, like just a crazy person.
02:22:40.000Like he would just be there all day, every day.
02:22:54.000So it's like, it's easier for me, even me, like obviously I'm not as big as Gordon or Nicky Rod, but it is easier for me to be like, oh, just pick, I'll pick a smaller guy, I have an easier round.
02:23:04.000Whereas a guy like Gary, you know what I mean?
02:23:06.000Most of the training partners are either the same size or bigger.
02:25:17.000Was he going for, someone got him in a guillotine?
02:25:20.000I think it was like the guy hip-tossed him against the cage and he landed fully vertical, like spiked into the cage and immediately couldn't move.
02:25:33.000Because even last camp, again, I had to get a cortisone shot in my neck for the last camp because that, I don't know what happened, I think it was a punch or something, then my whole arm just like went dead and my whole shoulder and everything just started burning.
02:26:41.000And if you're training, if you're doing jujitsu, every day it's just a little bit of squish and everything's getting compressed and all that stuff is...
02:28:25.000That's what's funny, I told you last time, the guy, when I first went to Bayman, telling him about my back and that, and he's like, oh look, I wanted to show him my discs, and he goes, look at that.
02:28:37.000Once you can't control your bowels, and you've got the foot drop, then we'll look at it, you'll be right.
02:28:41.000So they just went, let's see how we go with a bit of maintenance and all that, and then sure enough, I was moving.
02:28:47.000I do know that they are doing some work now where they're actually injecting stem cells directly into discs.
02:29:59.000I need to warm up because I'll eventually do that.
02:30:03.000What you've done is interesting because what you've figured out is whatever issues you were having with your discs and your back Strengthening all the muscles around and preventing it is the best way to go about it.
02:30:14.000By getting on a program where you really put a lot of rigidity into your back and made it all strong and supported, you've prevented all the problems.
02:30:22.000A lot of movement at the hips before training and that again.
02:30:25.000Let's try and get the load off the back.
02:30:26.000If your hips aren't moving right, where's all the movement?
02:30:47.000That's how much I would use other muscles, back muscles and things like that, where they're like, no, you should be using your fucking glutes here.
02:31:27.000And then they end up saying it's just all ugly in there.
02:31:31.000They look at it and they go, yeah, they're just like, you could tell you played fucking rugby league and you're an MMA fighter, put it that way.
02:31:37.000But I mean, sometimes they don't like looking at them because they know it's going to look fucked up, especially guys that have been in sport their whole life.
02:31:44.000But he goes, and they could see where the problem was, so that's why they put the cortisone.
02:31:47.000Because it happened a couple of times, and they would have to have a few days off.
02:31:50.000I was like, well, we can't do this all camp.
02:33:37.000Yeah, I feel like very stiff, and then when I'm on the mats and they're stretching me out and stuff, I feel like that's when I start to loosen up.
02:33:44.000But yeah, it'd be good to be a bit looser all the time, I think.
02:34:01.000Sort out the diet, sort out the stretch.
02:34:02.000But in saying that, hanging with him and that, maybe didn't do them types of things, but he's constantly on YouTube and studying things, looking up wrestling and all that, and goes and watches and get breakdowns of certain things.
02:34:17.000So, like, obviously you can see, again, you can still see what separates some people from the rest of them.
02:34:23.000Like, yeah, maybe he doesn't pay as much detail or attention to maybe the mobility side of things, but you see a lot of energy towards film studies and all that type of stuff and obviously train it.
02:34:34.000Yeah, and you, well, your history of learning, like, watching a lot of the submissions that the Donaher crew was doing before you joined them and learning them from YouTube videos than just applying it to your own game.
02:34:48.000When I started training jiu-jitsu, my original coach was my cousin, Matt Jones, and he was a four-stripe white belt at the time because the city we were from wasn't much jiu-jitsu going on.
02:34:58.000So even from day one, I never really had a really, I guess, experienced coach.
02:35:03.000So I would just be trying to figure things out.
02:35:06.000I'd watch the UFCs and see a submission and be like, fuck, I'm going to try that, try that in the next class.
02:35:12.000I didn't even train with a black belt until I was well into my purple belt.
02:35:18.000So I was just forced to try and reverse engineer everything I saw.
02:35:23.000I really had the assumption that I'm behind the eight ball, so I've got to try and find little tricks to get ahead.
02:35:27.000And that's where the heel hook stuff really took off.
02:35:30.000Well, once you started competing though and started traveling and doing that, it's really interesting that you did have this very limited exposure to top-level talent, but you just decided to throw yourself into the fire and go out there and literally travel the world and compete.
02:35:45.000Yeah, I would literally just go on a seminar tour and use the seminar portion, Rolling With Strangers, to keep myself fit.
02:35:52.000And when I'd show up to an event like EBI here in Austin, I remember I just put up an Instagram post.
02:35:58.000I was like, who wants to be in my corner?
02:36:59.000We're there for a week and then they end up doing MRIs and then found out from me having my legs up and being in that position so much, my lungs were like right up in my chest so I couldn't get on the plane so that we had to like do certain things to bring my lungs back down so I could get back onto an airplane.
02:37:17.000As hard as you can to get my lungs back down to the normal spot because if I flew the way it was, not because of the staff, but just from the position I was in.
02:40:36.000They used to think people with testosterone, like they thought that men had bad COVID responses.
02:40:40.000They thought it might have been connected to testosterone.
02:40:42.000But now they found that people with higher levels of testosterone, they have lower COVID symptoms, less severe COVID symptoms.
02:40:51.000And they think it's like, like naturally, like if your body's natural production of testosterone, it depends on your sleeping habits, how you're eating, taking care of yourself.
02:41:01.000But if you're on testosterone replacement, it's the same level, no matter what.
02:41:07.000Like, so it's actually like a better level of testosterone than you would have Normally, just due to your endocrine system.
02:41:14.000Apparently, that helps with people that have COVID. So that was one time that I was around it and everybody got it and I didn't get it.
02:41:20.000Another time was my whole family got it.
02:42:59.000Maybe I'm just a little bitch with lower testosterone.
02:43:02.000For you, for sure, it has to do with the training.
02:43:04.000I mean, the thing is, like, people would think that someone who's training for a fight would be in excellent shape and you would ward off all sort of sicknesses and injuries.
02:43:13.000But what they don't realize is you're far past working out and you're in this area of This fine line between breaking your body down too much and breaking it down just enough so that your body is forced to reach,
02:43:28.000like, hyperhuman levels of conditioning.
02:43:32.000This is the thing that people don't understand about strength and conditioning training in regards to a fight camp, is that when a fighter's peaking for a fight, you cannot just stay there.
02:43:42.000It's not like you can just keep pushing that level up.
02:43:45.000Your body, like, there's super physiological levels that your body can achieve During a small window, whether that is like 8 weeks, 10 weeks, whatever it is, where you ramp up and you get to this fucking BAM! Where you're just ready to go.
02:44:40.00035. And I started freaking out because I started doing the old Google search and Google doctor.
02:44:45.000And I'm looking and I'm like, yeah, it can be if it gets into your heart, the infection gets into your heart, your heart rate will go lower or hurt more.
02:47:39.000They said, obviously, in the past we've picked some crazy people to try to stir up the reality aspect, but they said this time they really wanted to pick proper fighters, serious fighters.
02:48:05.000There's some real amazing thing about being a part of that show because that show is what launched the sport.
02:48:11.000You know, in 2005, when they had the very first season of The Ultimate Fighter, The Fertittas had already dumped, they were like $40 million in the hole.
02:48:20.000And they were like, Jesus Christ, we're losing money.
02:48:23.000We can't burn out all of our money on this thing that we're trying to make happen.
02:48:27.000And they fortunately were very wealthy.
02:48:30.000What it was is like, when Eddie Bravo and I would go to the fights way back in the day, we used to always joke around, like, you know what the sport needs?
02:48:37.000Some fucking crazy billionaire who loves the sport that's just going to dump a bunch of money in it and let everybody else know how great it is.
02:49:14.000Turn on the Spike TV. Turn on Spike TV. And then it became what it is today.
02:49:19.000And then Chuck Liddell and his fights and the chaos that he would bring to the octagon sort of embodied what people wanted to see in the sport.
02:49:27.000This hard-nosed savage with a fucking head tattoo just coming out trying to murder people.
02:49:52.000I mean, when it comes down to this sport, the Ultimate Fighter is really synonymous with the beginning of the public awareness of MMA. 100%.
02:50:22.000If I have a five minute grappling match, it's fucking hard to take someone down or pull guard and submit them when they're trying to grapple you.
02:50:28.000Let alone, I have to not get knocked out, take them down, not get stood up, hold them down, and submit them.
02:50:34.000It's really that five minute thing that I'm like, fuck, that doesn't favor jiu-jitsu guys.
02:50:46.000Even with the weight difference here, if I'm on top of Vox and he's like, he doesn't want to engage, it's hard to submit someone like that.
02:51:20.000Especially a guy like you who's a pressure fighter who likes to come forward and put a lot of pressure and see guys break.
02:51:25.000You get more of an opportunity for that.
02:51:29.000Round one, when it's seven minutes in, you have three more to go.
02:51:32.000I'll be honest with you, when we do sparring and that, I'll get a couple of guys, they'll probably do two and a half minutes each sometimes.
02:51:40.000And these guys are probably fit, but when I'm fit, in the two and a half minutes, They start.
02:51:45.000Again, everyone's on point at the start, but the next minute, they've slowed down, and by the end of the two and a half minutes, I'm going with them.
02:51:52.000They're like, ugh, and the next one in, and you do the same thing.
02:51:55.000But to have ten minutes with someone, one whole round, because again, I just get better and better as the rounds go, especially as later the round goes.
02:53:54.000What they're doing is they're recognizing that there's some real elite talent that's in these negotiating situations with the UFC. Guys like Gegard Mousasi.
02:55:35.000The UFC is the UFC, and that's, you know, it's the NFL of the sport.
02:55:42.000It's like if you think about MMA, you think about who's the UFC champ, and then you think, well, there's some great fighters in other organizations too, but the UFC is without a doubt the number one.
02:55:53.000But I think that's good for everybody.
02:55:56.000I don't think there's anything wrong with recognizing all these other elite fighters in the rest of the sport.
02:56:41.000And because of guys like you and Max and Usman and all these fucking elite guys and Oliveira, all these elite guys, like everybody's getting better.
02:56:51.000It's like the level of the sport is just rising.
02:56:53.000I love it because that's motivating, right?