Former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Joe Namajunas talks about his retirement from the sport at the age of 33 years old and what it's like stepping away from the UFC. He also talks about why he decided to hang up his gloves for good and what he's looking forward to in the future, and why he thinks he should return to the UFC at some point in the near future. He also discusses the importance of having a good relationship with your heart and ability, and how important it is in order to be the 1% of the 1%. This episode is brought to you by OneFights, the UFC's official media relations and social media team. To learn more about UFC President Dana White, visit josephcrane.co/thefufc and use the hashtag , and on social media to help spread the word about UFC 246. UFC 246 is a multi-state UFC event taking place on Nov. 28 at UFC 246 in Toronto, Canada. Tickets go on sale soon. Thanks for listening and share the podcast with your fellow UFC fans! Tweet me and let us know what you thought of this episode! Timestamps: 3:00 - What do you think of it? 4:30 - What is your favorite part of UFC 246? 5:40 - What does it mean to you? 6:10 - How does it feel like to be a champion? 7:15 - How do you feel about the UFC? 8:35 - What would you would you like to see the UFC return in 2020? 9: What is the future of the UFC in the next 5 years? 11:00 12:10 13: What do I look forward to the future? 15:30 16:40 17:00 | What are you looking for in the UFC moving forward? 18:30 | What s your biggest challenge? 19:40 | Can you see the future in MMA? 21: What are your goals for the UFC next? 22:15 | What is a good day? 27:00 // 21:00 Is there a dream fight? 26: What s the biggest thing you're looking for? ? 25:00 What s a dream UFC fight you would like to have in UFC 28:00 Do you have a dream or a dream that you re going to fight for in UFC in UFC next year?
00:00:26.000And I can compare myself a little bit to Daniel.
00:00:29.000If Daniel would have beat Stipe Miocic and he would have retired on top, he could almost say retired as a two-division world champ.
00:00:37.000And I don't feel like I have that chip on my shoulder.
00:00:40.000As a wrestler, I retired from the Olympics at a very young age.
00:00:44.000I decided to come back three years later, but it was already done.
00:00:48.000I retired at the age of 21. And then now at the age of 33, I'm truly calling it quits unless there's a couple fights that if I do come back.
00:01:20.000At 45. If they were to give me an opportunity to go up and obviously be compensated, then that would be a fight that would really wake me up in the morning and be like, hey man, this is a challenge.
00:03:14.000I'm sorry, I'm sorry, the heart or the ability because to be the 1% of the 1% is like both of these things have to match.
00:03:21.000What happens is a lot of people have heart, but their ability is like way down here.
00:03:26.000You know, their ability doesn't match their heart or their abilities up here and they're just a little lazy and can't really put the, you know, because there is a separation between mind and body and your job is to connect them both.
00:03:56.000So what separated me, I'd say that, I think is being gifted through the ability and then just having a passion, a will that's just second to none.
00:04:06.000There's a lot of other factors, though, isn't there?
00:04:10.000Not just ability, it's also you have to be coached by someone who really knows what they're doing.
00:04:16.000There's so many guys out there that are really tough, and they have will, and they work out hard, and they're in shape, but they just make technical mistakes, and they've never corrected those mistakes.
00:04:27.000Well, I think that also goes back on the ability.
00:04:29.000I would put that into the ability portion.
00:04:32.000The reason why is because you got to put yourself in the right situations.
00:04:36.000Like, I didn't start winning until I let go of my coaches.
00:04:40.000The first time I lost to Demetrius Johnson, it was...
00:04:43.000Man, it was hard, and this sounds very crazy and cynical, but it was kind of hard to blame myself.
00:04:50.000Even though I was training, because I knew, coming from the Olympic sport, that I had a coach that could take me to the top, and there was no ifs or whats.
00:05:47.000Young and healthy, and you can do anything you want, man.
00:05:49.000I really believe a guy who can accomplish what you accomplished inside the octagon and also winning an Olympic gold medalist.
00:05:55.000You're winning an Olympic gold medal in wrestling at 21 years old, retiring from the sport, then getting into MMA, becoming a two-division world champion in MMA, and then stepping away while you're still healthy and at the peak of your abilities.
00:06:09.000I love the fact that you did what you wanted to do and then you step away.
00:06:12.000But part of me looks back Like say when you fought Benavidez or say when you fought Demetrius the first time and then looks at you now like you're a completely different animal Nobody had been able to shut down Dominic Cruz's footwork game But you came in and just chopped the shit out of his legs just right off the bat you you Whatever advantage we thought that he would have with his footwork and movement was actually becoming a disadvantage because you you were using that Against him.
00:06:43.000You found the angles, and you found the perfect times to attack his legs, and then you put him away, which is also something no one's ever done before except Uriah caught him in a submission and finished him.
00:06:54.000But no one's ever put him away the way you did.
00:06:57.000Yeah, and I think it's all about game planning.
00:06:59.000I think the ability that I have, too, that separates me, too, is the fact that I'm Watch all my fights, man.
00:07:30.000Yeah, and I think with Dominic, too, just to get back to him, In order for you to understand the funk, you have to train for the funk.
00:07:40.000If you don't train for Dominic, if you think you can just go out there and just fight or train the way you train and try to fight Dominic, you're gonna be missing.
00:07:49.000So throughout my training camps, I treated almost like a wrestler, like a boxer.
00:07:53.000My training camp, I build a team around me.
00:07:56.000A mentor, actually, who's here, Dave Zowan, who's been helping me to shape.
00:08:01.000He's a businessman, but he's been able to help me to form, obviously, the perfect storm.
00:08:06.000We brought guys in from California that mimic just like Dominic, that were just a little faster than Dominic.
00:08:11.000And I knew that I wasn't even trying to touch his face because I knew that he was a hard hit.
00:08:16.000But I also knew that he would leave his legs a lot.
00:08:19.000You can push your body backwards, but your legs will always be in that same position.
00:08:24.000So the whole game plan since the beginning, this is why I felt so confident in that fight.
00:08:29.000Through training was to continue just keep taking his legs out as much as I can.
00:08:33.000Did the first round of your fight with Marlon Marais sort of open your eyes to like how effective that can be in a fight?
00:09:06.000Because Benson Henderson was the first guy to really bring it to MMA. But for whatever reason, it wasn't as devastating when he was doing it.
00:09:13.000I don't know if he was doing it differently, but there was no moment in a fight where he kicked someone's calf and you saw immediately them buckling.
00:09:19.000But you're seeing that now with these guys.
00:09:21.000Like, immediately one, two kicks, and their leg is semi-useless.
00:09:26.000Yeah, you look at somebody like Justin Gaethje.
00:10:01.000And actually, right before I even fought Dominic, Like I went on YouTube, like this is like maybe an hour before I went to the arena, and I just put like some Justin Gaethje highlights.
00:10:52.000It's crazy how prominent that technique has become.
00:10:56.000It has, it has, and I think we're going to start seeing more of it.
00:11:00.000So people are going to have to start adjusting, man, because there's, what was it, there's two stoppages within, there's a stoppage before Alex Perez recently that came out.
00:11:41.000It was like the first round was like, damn, this is not going well for Henry.
00:11:44.000And then going into the second round, like damn, this is not going well for Marlon.
00:11:47.000Like you, it was a totally different fight.
00:11:49.000It's like you figured the adjustment out, figured out what you needed to do, you stepped in further, you were closer, and you started attacking.
00:11:55.000Yeah, and I think a lot of that too, Joe, and if I was...
00:12:00.000I know when to fight and when to compete.
00:12:05.000First, I went in there with a sprained ankle.
00:12:36.000You know, so anyway, so, you know, I went in there, hurt or whatnot, but I knew that that first round, and you said, you mentioned it too during the fight, you said, I think this might be a survival round for Henry, and it absolutely was.
00:12:47.000So I knew when to fight and when to compete, but I also knew that Marlon Merlin was throwing so much power And I've gone against some of the best in the world, and I was like, dude, there's no way he's going to be able to maintain all that power for five rounds.
00:13:02.000And I don't think this kid has any idea, as a wrestler, because he's never wrestled before, how much pain a guy like me can endure.
00:13:09.000So he can say he was tired, he can say that something happened, but in reality, it's a mixture of two things.
00:13:15.000He blew his wad, and this guy here could...
00:13:20.000Which is me, could take a lot of pain.
00:13:23.000I was with Mike not too long ago and I asked him, I was like, hey Mike, this is Mike Tyson.
00:13:28.000I'm like, how would you describe Muhammad Ali, man?
00:13:32.000What was the difference between him and everybody else?
00:13:35.000And he sat there and he thought about it and he's like...
00:13:38.000Which was cool to hear, man, because I can put myself in those shoes and he's like, he's like, man, Muhammad Ali was a guy that I've never seen before because he could just endure so much pain.
00:13:51.000Like the dude could just endure so much pain that it's almost like the average guy would fold, the average guy would probably get killed, but Ali just had a certain will to him that separated him from everybody else.
00:14:05.000It was the fact that he was able to endure pain.
00:16:41.000I'm one of seven kids, Joe, raised by a single mother.
00:16:46.000I was the youngest, man, so I was a kid that was picked on.
00:16:51.000It's different when you're the smallest in an immigrant family.
00:16:55.000It's like, dude, you're the last one to eat.
00:16:56.000You're going to get beat up pretty much the majority of your childhood.
00:17:00.000You start getting to that age where you can kind of fight back.
00:17:03.000So, a lot of it, I guess, you owe through the nature and nurture, obviously genetics, your mother and father, but also through the nature side of it.
00:20:35.000He should go back to his native country.
00:20:36.000My mother came here illegally, paid her fine, paid her taxes and whatnot, and then she was granted her citizenship in 2008. 2011, man.
00:20:49.000So, I've been able to speak on this on behalf of Congress and kind of share my story to the world, man, because, man, it's almost like I've become neutral.
00:21:07.000Yeah, it's a very frustrating thing for people who do want to have a better life for their family and they realize how difficult it is to come here.
00:21:19.000I fully understand wanting to keep out people that are criminals and people that are murderers and people that are in the drug trade.
00:21:26.000But if I was a person who was struggling to feed my family in South America or in Mexico or wherever, and I found out that I could sneak in and that I could do better, I would sneak in.
00:21:43.000If you found out there was a place across the border where you could make five times as much and you could send money back and all you had to do is grind, this place where literally anybody can go from being completely impoverished to being on top of the world,
00:22:24.000But what I'm saying is he's been able to come out of, you know, obviously he was a murderer, but he was able to somewhat make it in the sport that he desired to be at that time.
00:22:34.000I'm not, you know, obviously I think we all know he's a crook.
00:22:38.000But, man, it lets you know what America's able to do, man.
00:22:41.000It doesn't matter what you've done in life.
00:22:43.000You really do get only a second, a third, but a fourth and a thousand opportunities.
00:23:03.000A faulty version of it, but yeah, in many ways, yeah.
00:23:06.000I think the other person that I would- Actually, probably not the version of the American dream because his dad was rich and he gave him money.
00:23:12.000Like, he started off, his dad gave him millions of dollars to start businesses.
00:23:16.000Right, but he turned that into billions, too.
00:23:19.000He did, but he also went bankrupt a bunch of times, too.
00:23:24.000You can't deny the fact that the guy's been remarkably successful.
00:23:28.000But the extenuating circumstances that led to that success is very different than your mother sneaking over here because she wanted to do better for her family.
00:23:36.000That's the raw version of the American dream.
00:23:40.000I mean, the American dream is really immigration.
00:24:53.000But the bottom line is you talk to guys like Justin Gagey, guys like yourself, you know, many fighters that have had come in here that are repped by him and they love the guy.
00:25:03.000Yeah, Khabib, Frankie, all these dudes, Cody, Verdum, and he's been able to, and I've been there and I've never seen this before, but he's kind of like the glue with all of us.
00:25:13.000Dude, I was eating lunch and dinner with Marlon.
00:26:53.000But the fatigue that it'd bring to me, like, I think the psychology side, too, of cutting weight, like, going down is not always the answer.
00:27:02.000I mean, I started having my best success when I decided, like, hey, man, I'm just sick of cutting weight, man.
00:27:08.000I'm getting ready to go up and, you know, challenge myself at 135 pounds.
00:27:12.000What you hear from the naysayers, it's like, man, you're too small, man.
00:27:16.000You're not ready for some power like that.
00:27:17.000I'm just like, no, I don't think so, man.
00:27:19.000I think there's an advantage in me for me to feel well.
00:27:22.000If I feel well and I feel healthy with my speed, you know, I'm a short, compact fighter.
00:27:27.000It's like, man, trust me, I don't need that much.
00:27:29.000As long as I land, I'm going to hurt you, man.
00:29:31.000You know, the judges, I conveyed enough for the judges to give it to me.
00:29:35.000And the reason why I was able to beat him was because I nullified a lot of his team with my wrestling, my inside trips, my takedowns.
00:29:42.000So I completely dismantled this dude, you know what I mean?
00:29:45.000I took him out of his rhythm when he was used to kind of catching people and then being able to take people down.
00:29:51.000So I feel like if a guy like Kyle Snyder gets in the game and he's able to kind of go through the process that I've gone through, That's the only guy that I could see beating somebody like Jon Jones.
00:31:19.000He was delivering things, and he just decided, I'm going to get into boxing, and just had Unbelievable, God-given talent and just ferocious punching power.
00:31:33.000His punching power is like nothing I've ever seen before.
00:31:35.000I mean, you look at Deontay Wilder's knockouts, they don't even make sense.
00:31:39.000He sends people flying across the ring and when he fought Tyson Fury, the first fight, when he dropped him and knocked him down twice, he only weighed 209 pounds.
00:32:48.000So that's where the original goal came from, but I just saw, like, it just wasn't realistic for me at that time, like, especially at my weight class.
00:32:56.000Like, these dudes have been doing this since they were four years old.
00:33:25.000I feel like boxing in particular is one of those sports that's very difficult to learn properly as you get older.
00:33:31.000There's something about muscle memory and your body being ingrained, like developed to move a certain way and to strike a certain way and to be able to react on openings, like instinctually.
00:33:44.000It's almost like once you hit like 25, 26 years old and you start then, like, ooh, it's real hard to ever get to an elite level.
00:33:51.000Yeah, your body starts to change, and that happened to me.
00:34:26.000And my brother was, you know, thank God for him.
00:34:29.000My brother Alonzo, and he's like, you need to be a man and you got to go and talk to Sean Shelby and tell him thank you and let him know that you're retired, man.
00:34:38.000And I was, man, it took everything in my heart because I was so embarrassed, Joe.
00:34:42.000This was when TJ fought, when he was supposed to fight Burrell, I think the second time.
00:34:48.000And this is when we fought Joe Soto, so I was supposed to be on that card.
00:34:51.000I was supposed to fight Scott Jorgensen.
00:34:54.000And I went down there, didn't make the weight, and I'll never forget it.
00:35:33.000And the only reason why I was doing something like that was because I felt when you come from the sport of wrestling, like to me, making weight and doing everything that the MMA fighters were doing, I was like, man, these dudes are spoiled.
00:35:45.000These dudes get 24, these dudes get close to about 30 hours before they fight.
00:35:51.000I says, man, that's a lot of recovery time.
00:35:53.000So this is how stupid, this is the way I saw it.
00:36:24.000So was your thought process that because of the fact that these MMA guys get more time to recover, it's not like they have to weigh in the day of the wrestling match.
00:36:32.000They're weighing in the day before the fight in the daytime.
00:40:21.000But what I'm trying to get to is guys that lose, if you don't recover from your defeat, from your loss, if you don't get therapy, if you don't understand the reasons why you lost...
00:40:38.000But for me, it was more like a realization when the first time I lost to Demetrius Johnson and getting knocked out in 2 minutes and 36 seconds, man.
00:40:46.000It's like, to me, the worst thing that could happen to a fighter and the worst scenario that something could happen to somebody and get stopped is getting kneed to the body.
00:42:36.000Once you face it, this is when you start to create, man, freaking overflowing success.
00:42:41.000Did you know like when you fought him and First of all you fought the best version of Demetrius Johnson ever though the guy to this day I think is the best Example of a mixed martial arts.
00:42:53.000Oh, yeah, I think Demetrius in his prime He was so fucking good man.
00:42:58.000He was so fast and he was so technical and he made such good decisions He set his footwork his movement like everything was so precise Did you say, okay, I see the gap.
00:43:10.000I see these holes, and I know where he hit me.
00:44:07.000He was just off to the side, then he was kneeing you in the body and punching you in the face and kicking your leg on the way out.
00:44:12.000And we should even say in the second fight, the fight that you won, he got you with that low calf kick and your leg went numb.
00:44:19.000Yeah, it hit the peronial nerve, which numbs all the nerves to your feet, so it sleeps it, and then when you try to lay your foot down, your foot's still awake, so I even sprained it in the first round.
00:44:48.000I said, man, this is going to make my story, whatever I desired in my life, that much better because I went through adversity with this fucking dude again.
00:45:22.000I says, I need you guys to trust me and have faith in me.
00:45:26.000The key plan to being this dude, like I know this is the greatest of all time, but I know what I've done in wrestling, I can replicate that what I've done in mixed martial arts, man.
00:45:33.000The only thing I'm gonna ask from you guys is for you guys to be composed.
00:45:41.000Don't over yell, stay calm, like whatever happens in a fight, man, I just need you guys to bear with me and have faith in me because I'm gonna...
00:49:05.000This type of toad, I forget the name of the toad, but they get it excited and excrete this stuff from its skin onto glass, and then they leave that glass out in the sun, and it dries, that excretion dries, and then you scrape it up with a razor blade,
00:51:04.000When I was a kid, Mike Tyson was the fucking man.
00:51:09.000I mean, in a way that it's hard for people to convey today to understand what a cultural figure Mike Tyson was in like 1986. It's hard to convey.
00:53:22.000I'm over here, I'm almost tripping out, but at the same time, intrigued.
00:53:29.000So then I go up and I do it, and man, it took me to, especially out of retirement here, man, I almost kind of somewhat wanted answers.
00:53:38.000I was hoping that it would give me, okay, man, this is like the path and whatnot.
00:53:42.000And it took me to my mom's first love, man.
00:53:49.000You know, and it showed me like in a story, almost like in a movie, you know, how I was born, how my mom had me, how by the time I was eight years old, like I had my sister, so I was no longer the youngest, how my mom kind of like, you know, in all fairness, kind of somewhat pushed to the side.
00:54:06.000Leaving home at the age of 17 and substituting my mom's love for self-fulfillment, wrestling.
00:54:14.000It makes martial arts and it brought me back to a little kid when I was maybe four or five when I would cry to my mom because I remember as a kid we would go we would go from LA to New Mexico like in Greyhounds and I remember stopping at McDonald's and things like that but to me You know,
00:55:59.000It's one of the reasons why it's such a quick trip.
00:56:01.000Your body knows how to bring that stuff back to baseline very quickly.
00:56:05.000That's why it's only like a 15 minute trip.
00:56:08.000But it's not it's not bad for you all the time I think it's like many it's a really powerful thing that it's got to be respected it could fuck you up if you're not ready if you have some Distorted versions of the world that you're operating under for me one of the things that made me feel like right away one of the first things was Realizing how much of like the way I talk about things is like calculated I was like,
00:56:37.000I was trying to figure out, like, I would say things in a way that I wanted people to say, ooh, he phrased that cool.
00:56:45.000Like, I would try hard to impress people with the way I was saying things.
00:56:50.000And I was realizing that as I was trying to describe the trip after it was over.
00:58:00.000Smoking it gets you, you vaporize it, and it gets you right to the center of the universe immediately.
00:58:07.000And all those things, you know, I think, man, one of the cool things about life...
00:58:15.000Like what you're talking about in your journey, your journey as a man, your journey as a champion, your journey to become better and to show what you're capable of.
00:58:26.000All of this is because no one gets it right.
00:58:31.000Like, you fuck it up, and you try to do better, and you fail, and then you figure out what went wrong.
00:58:39.000And you just constantly analyze whatever you're doing and obsess on it, and you can become better at that thing, and through that you can understand that you can be better at anything.
00:58:51.000And I think when you, any kind of psychedelic, Where you have an opportunity to look at yourself just really look at yourself accurately You're not gonna like it But it's gonna give you great benefit because it's gonna give you you're gonna be able to see yourself Honestly and see whatever those flaws don't get mad that you have all these flaws Just fix them Just fix them.
00:59:58.000We all know those guys that were really good in the gym and they had one or two matches or one or two fights and they just couldn't handle the pressure for whatever reason.
01:00:06.000They couldn't handle the things that went wrong and they just didn't want to do it anymore.
01:00:11.000But they could have been like a world-beater.
01:01:38.000I think a lot of diseases of addiction are diseases of despair, right?
01:01:45.000It's like disease of the mind and wanting to squash those demons and drown them out.
01:01:49.000The anxiety, the fear, the depression, you know, just the...
01:01:56.000Terrible feelings you have about who you are, you know?
01:02:00.000Maybe you're homeless, maybe your life's falling apart, but you're alive right now and you can't handle it.
01:02:06.000You can't handle where you're at, you can't handle who you are, you can't handle what people have done to you, so you just throw drugs in there, throw drugs in there.
01:02:14.000And something like DMT or, you know, there's a bunch of different sort of psychedelics that can do it.
01:03:09.000One doctor reported a 70-80% success rate with effective aftercare.
01:03:13.000He added that when people recovering from meth addiction took Ibogaine but returned to the same environment where they had originally abused meth, there was a 90% relapse rate.
01:04:10.000Having any sort of a psychedelic experience it just makes you realize how you how badly you're fucking up and for some people that's enough like the whole reason why they would do a psychedelic if they were addicted also is because they realize they were fucking up and they're looking for some way to change You know those good feelings that you have man like when when you beat Dominic Cruz and you raised your hands at the end of that fight and you knew it was gonna be over.
01:06:55.000And you study these guys and you see what their mindset is and where their holes are going to be.
01:07:00.000They asked Sean O'Malley, who do you want to fight next?
01:07:04.000And he's like, you know, I just want to fight the best strikers.
01:07:07.000He never mentioned about, I'll take anybody out, I'll take anybody in the top 10 or 15 or whatever.
01:07:12.000Because in my opinion, he hasn't really beat somebody that's like, okay man, you're the real deal.
01:07:16.000Even though he did be Weiland and he was a contender, but it's been a long time.
01:07:21.000Well, he's a young kid that's learning the sport while we're watching him on the UFC. That's what's crazy about him.
01:07:28.000I mean, you go back to Dana White's Contender Show, and he was looser, wilder, you know, fun to watch, but not nearly as sharp.
01:07:37.000Like, now he's on a completely different level.
01:07:39.000Knocking out Wineland like that, faking the uppercut, and then just following over the top with a straight right hand and catching him slipping?
01:07:55.000There is a whole other aspect, and that's called wrestling and jiu-jitsu.
01:07:59.000That phone I've heard, he has developed pretty good jiu-jitsu, but there's that other art that I want to see when you're really good testing, you're taking it to deep waters, then I'll see your real colors.
01:08:09.000Then I'll be like, okay, man, you are ready to take on...
01:08:13.000I'm gonna give you a good example that Yair Rodriguez when he fought Frankie Edgar That was a good example that Frankie Edgar was just that wrestling was too strong that ground-to-pound was too strong He couldn't keep him off him.
01:08:28.000He just couldn't do anything about it And that was a great example because Yair was this super flashy kicker.
01:08:35.000I mean, Yair, to me, has some of the best kicks I've ever seen inside the octagon.
01:09:32.000And beat him up, and then we don't know what would happen with O'Malley when it comes to that, but I know who he is as a person, and he's working.
01:10:34.000I'm really excited about that Jose Aldo-Piotr Jan fight, but it's fascinating to me that they decided to give the fight to Aldo even though Marais won the decision.
01:10:45.000That's a real interesting choice, isn't it?
01:10:48.000Because although I agree with the decision, I think, or excuse me, I agree with Aldo.
01:11:00.000But the fact that the judges gave it to Marlon and then the UFC is like, nah, player, we're going to have Aldo fight Piotr.
01:11:07.000And part of it is because Aldo is obviously a huge draw and one of the greatest of all time, particularly greatest featherweights of all time.
01:11:15.000Well, remember, I'm actually going to change your mind on that.
01:15:21.000I mean, even though you kind of knew that Chael was in over his head in some of those fights, like with Jon Jones, I had a real deep feeling he was in over his head with Anderson Silva in the second fight in particular.
01:15:34.000You know, I just had a feeling he was in over his head, but he would still talk so much shit.
01:18:58.000And then when you found out that he is taking EPO, and then he said that he was taking EPO because he just didn't have any energy from cutting that weight.
01:19:09.000My brother and I were talking about that yesterday.
01:19:11.000I'm not sure what it was, but I felt sick inside when I found out, Joe.
01:19:16.000It's like a sadness that it brings to you because, dude, it's like, yeah, we may talk stuff to each other, but it doesn't get that personal.
01:19:26.000Oh, I shouldn't get that personal for somebody to take an EPO, man.
01:20:57.000We all know there's a certain point in time where you shouldn't lose any more weight.
01:21:02.000But we also know there's a dark land where most people don't want to travel through, where you can make it through, where you can get to that point where you don't want to do it anymore.
01:21:11.000You're fucking dying inside, but you stay in there an extra 20 minutes and you make the weight.
01:22:08.000Without having people go back and listen to that podcast, give me this rundown of what they did in terms of your reaction times and all that sports specific neuro shit they were doing with you.
01:22:21.000I say neuro shit because I'm a I don't know what the term is.
01:22:24.000But it's fascinating listening to them talk about how they used real science and data to mark your performance.
01:22:31.000Yeah, I think everything from like the morning by the time I wake up, I have the Omega wave.
01:22:35.000And a lot of the credit that I do O2 is out at the US CPI with Roman.
01:22:41.000The physiologist down there, and it was, you know, I wake up every morning, I use Omega Wave, which tells me, like, which gives me my heart rate ability.
01:22:55.000Yeah, it suggests that when you wake up, the first thing you do before you brush your teeth or anything is you put this strap on it, and, you know, it's...
01:23:03.000It's taking levels of your heart rate.
01:23:07.000So it allows you and lets you know, according to your heart rate, how hard you're able to train that day.
01:23:12.000So it gives it into like, you got your windows of trainability, like how hard you should go.
01:23:17.000And it kind of measures a lot of your training.
01:23:45.000Because it's all according, because it's about you understanding your threshold.
01:23:49.000And I think where a lot of fighters don't succeed is they exert that and then they want to fight that and then next you know they're on the ground or they're losing.
01:23:56.000So they're not optimizing their performance by giving themselves an ample amount of recovery.
01:24:28.000It's crazy how powerful and how strong you become just through doing mobility and understanding posture.
01:24:35.000So, you know, big shout out to my strength coach Andre Hicks and Kevin Longoria, Kareem Amin, and everybody down there because they're revolutionizing, man.
01:24:46.000I feel like I'm ahead on the curve when it comes to understanding how to do a proper camp for MMA. Where I'm not extremely killing myself, I'm loving the sport through the process like it doesn't always have to be a crazy battle.
01:24:59.000That's a big revelation for a lot of people.
01:25:02.000They're hearing this from you and they're like, oh shit, that's crazy.
01:25:06.000This might literally shift the way people train because so many guys are out there leaving it all in the gym.
01:25:11.000They're so tough and they're trying to condition themselves, but there's a...
01:25:17.000Just like a tipping point where you're working too hard and you're always sore and your body doesn't have a chance to recover and you don't grow.
01:26:39.000I'm in there play sparring, seeing where I'm doing good in play sparring and then adjusting what I saw in play sparring with the coaches individually.
01:26:48.000And then I'm giving 20 minutes to that and then I give 20 minutes to my striking with pad work or it could be with the partner.
01:27:42.000I am giving a lot of knowledge here, man, but that's who I am and I want to share what I have.
01:27:47.000I've never heard anybody break it down that way, particularly the fact that I don't think I've ever heard anybody doing that where you have your opponent's walkout music, you have your walkout music.
01:32:05.000So you give yourself like five, six hours...
01:32:07.000Yeah, because your nerves, like if for some reason, like your nerves, it's hard to digest your food when you're nervous, you know what I'm saying, when you're anxious to do something.
01:32:15.000What kind of food do you eat before you fight?
01:32:19.000Eggs, pancakes, and obviously I need the carbs and whatnot.
01:33:40.000So, it's almost like there's a team of...
01:33:43.000And shout out to them too, my friend's kitchen.
01:33:45.000There's a team of men, maybe 12 people, man.
01:33:51.000There's a guy that goes in there every time I fight and he's monitoring my heart rate every time like he's a slow down slow down and he'll tell the coach and the coaches will tell me like it's all there's a dude in there warming me up before I go train like at my gym like a personal trainer every single day do they give you anything specifically right after you're done training to sort of recovery anything for like replenish glycogen yeah Yeah,
01:34:44.000I think being a coach is probably the hardest job, man.
01:34:47.000Because you've got to deal with pride and sometimes they leave you or not.
01:34:50.000But anyways, if there's one thing that I could do and help people with, if I was a coach, would it be game planning and actually putting a game plan together and understanding...
01:35:15.000So as soon as I lost to Benavidez, I fought Wilson Hayes and then since there and then it got a little more serious when I fought Demetrius and then so forth.
01:35:22.000We just got better, better through all camps.
01:35:23.000So that was when you decided, okay, we're going to make some wholesale changes.
01:36:59.000Not just that, but even for me, it's like stem cells.
01:37:03.000I did stem cells in Columbia with BioAccelerator out in Columbia.
01:37:08.000Six months ago, right after my fighting, man, I felt so good for this.
01:37:11.000If I used to have a jacked up neck, stem cells, like they did a whole, you know, they did all the scans you could think of, you know, from x-rays to MRIs and whatnot.
01:37:21.000And, you know, they would pinpoint, like, where my body was an ache.
01:37:27.000And they started injecting stem cells on me, man, all over my neck.
01:37:31.000Parts of my body that I've never experienced before.
01:38:36.000Yeah, I don't know if it's the same level, because when I was explaining it to or talking to one of my friends about it, they said, what's the difference between that and what they're doing in Panama?
01:38:48.000Like Dr. Neil Reardon, he has this clinic down there in Panama.
01:38:51.000They send a lot of fighters down there as well.
01:38:53.000I think they're allowed to do anything.
01:39:29.000It didn't happen for two years, and two years later, people start growing hair, weird hair, on their chest and shit.
01:39:37.000I mean, I don't think that's going to happen, but I think along the lines of all this medical experimentation, we're going to get some pretty spectacular results, and some of them are going to be bad.
01:40:17.000From the invention of the cell phone to social media.
01:40:23.000To the ability to share videos and for people to get information, for people to find out about world events, for people to get together and try to make change.
01:40:43.000There's a lot of things about this life that are really weird.
01:40:48.000Do you think our world's getting better?
01:40:50.000I have hope man when I see like yesterday there was Part of the George Floyd protest in downtown LA had filled this it's a craziest picture man You see the picture of the street filled with people all nonviolent so all the the looting and all that shit seems to have stopped and now the people that remain seems to be they seem to be dedicated to change in a way that I can't remember anything like this in my life.
01:41:15.000I think this man's murder has a real chance of changing the world and changing America, for sure.
01:41:36.000I mean, it's It had the real bad parts in the beginning with the looting, but I don't think there's the same people.
01:41:45.000I think those are people that are broke because COVID kept them locked up in their fucking house for a month at a time without any ability to make any money.
01:41:52.000And I think people saw free shit and then everything got wild and it was jumping off and people were smashing windows and a lot of people just stole shit.
01:41:59.000But I don't think that's the same thing that's happening.
01:42:02.000I think that's happening along with This protest, but the protest is pretty fucking amazing.
01:42:10.000When you think that this, in our time, we've never had a moment like this where literally the whole country is getting together and saying things have to change and stop.
01:42:21.000They're defunding the Minneapolis Police Department, man.
01:42:27.000I was too young, so I would ask you for this.
01:44:14.000That are marching, they're doing it very peacefully in these enormous groups.
01:44:20.000I think it's got a real chance of being something that changes the way cops interact with people.
01:44:28.000It's got a real chance, because it's so big.
01:44:31.000Yeah, I guess as a fighter, like, you don't, you don't, like, you ever, like, rough play with your friends when you're a little kid, and then all of a sudden there's, like, a mosh pit next to you, you know, you're freaking, you're, you know, you're, you're being suffocated by everybody's weight, like, that feeling?
01:44:46.000Like, these cops, they think, you know, sometimes the people that are being arrested, they're fighting, man, because, dude, that's a lot of pressure on the neck, or that's a lot of pressure on the stomach, and things like that.
01:45:05.000And also, the way the guy was lying down when he had a shin on his neck, he was lying with his neck against, like, this drain.
01:45:12.000So this is like this like cement drain area and his neck is right there So his shin is on the top of his neck and then the drain area is the bottom.
01:45:19.000It's fucking horrible It's horrible to watch man.
01:45:22.000It's like you're watching a guy getting tortured to death Something has to be done.
01:45:27.000Now, I don't think it's defund the police.
01:45:30.000I think it's definitely get rid of anybody like that guy.
01:45:45.000Being a police officer is incredible responsibility.
01:45:49.000And it takes an incredibly powerful person to do it and not abuse the power that you have.
01:45:56.000Because people have a tendency when someone says why do I have to do that because I fucking told you I'm the cops like That's what they're doing when they have that kind of power.
01:46:04.000They just go to it right away It's you you get you need exceptional people and there's a lot of people that aren't exceptional and Some of those become cops and you see these non-exceptional people who are cops who abuse the fuck out of the power that they're they've been given and That's the problem.
01:46:19.000I don't think the problem is that we don't need cops.
01:46:22.000Like, Jesus Christ, if someone's breaking into your house, you want to be able to call the cops.
01:46:25.000If you've got a real problem in your life and, you know, there's something going wrong, you want to be able to call the cops.
01:46:30.000But the cops have to have a better relationship with the people in their communities.
01:47:26.000Like you have a good day and then a bad day and then another bad day and then another bad day and another bad day and a bad week and a bad month.
01:48:16.000If I look at you completely objectively, even if I didn't know you and you're a great guy, and I always enjoy talking to you, but if I didn't know you, I'd be like, that motherfucker, name someone who's done more.
01:48:27.000Name someone who won two world titles and a fucking gold medal in the Olympics in wrestling and did it all in the most technical of divisions.
01:49:41.000I mean, whether you were joking around about it or not, you're in the conversation as one of the greatest combat sports athletes of all time.
01:49:48.000And there's a real good argument that when you beat the guys who you beat, particularly beating Demetrius Johnson, who is untouchable, You know, beating Dominic Cruz the way you did, which is Dominic Cruz is always known for not getting hit.
01:50:01.000And, you know, you hit him and you hit him a lot.
01:50:03.000And then coming back from the Marlon Marais fight, holy shit, after that first round, to come back and dominate him and just glue yourself to him in the second and then put him away.
01:51:05.000Yeah, it does get dangerous, man, at 45. Yeah, those 45ers, some of them are enormous, you know?
01:51:10.000Yeah, but the other one is, and there's actually, you know, potentially in the talks, like Ali's going to talk with Ryan Garcia's manager, possibly making a fight with...
01:53:07.000Yeah, well even with PK karate was all the kicks were above the waist like a lot of the PK that's one of the one of the things that really defined really woke everyone's eyes up to the power of leg kicks was when Rick Rufus fought this Thai legend God damn it.
01:53:25.000I'm gonna fuck up his name if I don't see it written out.
01:53:29.000But this Thai guy, Rick was fucking him up in the beginning.
01:53:33.000He's real fast and long and hitting him with spinning kicks and shit.
01:53:52.000And Rick Rufus was lighting him up with his hands.
01:53:54.000Rick was really slick, and he was probably one of the most talented of all the kickboxers back then that were doing the above-the-waist style, but this dude just kept chopping at his legs, man, and chopping at his legs, and he hurt him.
01:54:08.000That's what Rick hurt him at one point in time.
01:54:09.000He caught him with the right hand, it looked like.
01:54:16.000Now, this is the first ever, like, mixed or televised?
01:54:20.000Yeah, it was, well, one of the first ever.
01:54:22.000This is 1988. And this is actually when I had, oh, we heard him again, dropped him.
01:54:28.000Did he kick him in the face on the way down, too?
01:54:31.000I mean, he had him fucked up in that first round.
01:54:33.000Then the fight goes on, the dude survives.
01:54:36.000And this was like right around the time I was introduced to Muay Thai by this friend of mine that I was training with that was friends with this other dude who was, even back in 1988, was taking trips over to Thailand.
01:54:48.000And he was learning from the Thais and fighting over there.
01:54:52.000And he would come back with these like crazy gashes on his head from getting elbowed.
01:54:57.000But I remember that was the first time anybody had ever kicked me in the leg.
01:55:01.000And I was like, oh my god, it's so painful.
01:55:05.000And so this is what happens with Rick Rufus.
01:55:07.000Rick Rufus had this dude in all kinds of trouble.
02:00:39.000Like from the top of his hip all the way down to his knee and they had to open his leg up because after the fight his leg was just destroyed.
02:03:44.000Or I could return depending on the art that I really got to develop so I could go back to just a two-hour class in boxing or an hour and a half of boxing, an hour of just pure wrestling.
02:03:54.000So you have the ability to do that, but there comes a time where you just gotta get in, maybe within eight to nine weeks, okay, you gotta transition.
02:04:01.000Everything's just MMA specific and then having your partner.
02:04:05.000Jose Aldo had a different style than Dominic.
02:04:52.000I mean, have you trained with them previously when they make it to a camp, or this is the first time you've ever trained with them?
02:04:56.000Yes, the first time you've ever trained with them.
02:04:58.000So it becomes a very, it's a relationship, but it talks to a very business-like, you know what I'm saying?
02:05:02.000It's like, hey man, you're so focused and you'll be compensated to do such and such, you know what I'm saying?
02:05:07.000And when you say that, like say if you're fighting someone who has like an unusual southpaw style, they have to, when they spar with you, they should be sparring from a southpaw style.
02:05:15.000Yeah, southpaw style and always, even from the height, like I don't, when I fought Dominic, everybody had to be exactly Dominic's size.
02:05:22.000And they had to be able to move like him or try to move like him the best as possible.
02:05:26.000So I'm not sparring with the guys about my size.
02:07:13.000Without having to take a picture or a fan wants to see you, I'm giving back to the people that have been here the last, I don't know, what, five, six years?
02:07:20.000Was it more or less relaxed when there's no audience?
02:09:12.000No, just have it— Make it real right, a big wave on the other side.
02:09:15.000And I could argue that—look, it's a dumb argument, because I also think that it's better to have a 25-foot octagon than it is to have a 30-foot octagon.
02:09:23.000I think it's better to have it smaller so you can't get away.
02:09:26.000If you're going to have a thing where someone can press someone against it, I think it should be smaller.
02:10:42.000Think about this team that you put together.
02:10:44.000Think about this scientific approach that you guys put together for formulating your camps, whether from nutrition and training and recovery and all that stuff.
02:10:52.000Now imagine doing the same sort of work with bringing you disciples.
02:10:58.000Someone who puts the same amount of effort into finding fighters that are worthy of your kind of coaching.
02:12:33.000I mean, you know, very few people have put their body to the kind of strain that you have in all those 33 years, but you can do anything, man.
02:14:31.000One of the coolest things about being a fan of the UFC and then being able to be a commentator is, like, I know I've experienced history.
02:14:39.000You know, I've been there and I've, you know, I've had this incredible...
02:14:45.000Where I get to talk during some of the greatest fights of all time and try to do justice to those fights and try to let people know how insanely impressive some of these performances that you've accomplished have been to me as a person who's been watching fights my whole life.
02:15:02.000So as a fan and as a person who gets to do it professionally, it's been an honor.
02:15:13.000Like, I haven't really, you know, shared a lot of things that I've shared today, and there's no other platform here than the Joe Rogan Show.