The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #1605 - Mark Smith

00:00:03.000 The Joe Rogan Experience.

00:00:15.000 Welcome.

00:00:15.000 Thank you.

00:00:16.000 Thanks for doing this, man.

00:00:17.000 Great to be here.

00:00:17.000 Appreciate it.

00:00:18.000 You have, first of all, as a referee, you have one of the most difficult jobs in MMA, and you're one of the rarest guys because no one complains about you.

00:00:27.000 Do you know that?

00:00:28.000 Like, I have heard zero complaints about you.

00:00:30.000 Maybe there's somebody out there that's complained.

00:00:32.000 I've never heard it, which is crazy.

00:00:35.000 It's weird.

00:00:38.000 You want your name to be called one time.

00:00:40.000 And that's when the announcer says, referee in this fight is such and such.

00:00:43.000 You don't want any complaints other than that.

00:00:44.000 Because we know it's a lifetime opportunity for these fighters.

00:00:47.000 We don't want to do anything negatively to affect them.

00:00:49.000 So that's a good thing.

00:00:51.000 Well, it's such a difficult job because you have an impulse.

00:00:55.000 You don't know when to stop.

00:00:56.000 Like, is it now?

00:00:58.000 Is he okay?

00:00:59.000 Is he going to be okay?

00:01:00.000 Like, sometimes fights get stopped early and it is the worst feeling when a guy is kind of rocked, but then someone stops the fight and then the guy complains and the crowd's like, boo! 1.00

00:01:11.000 And you're like, shit! 0.99

00:01:13.000 You know, it's weird. 1.00

00:01:14.000 Because our philosophy, and I primarily work with two of the commissions, Nevada State Athletic Commission in California, two of the top commissions in the world.

00:01:22.000 You don't want to fight to go too long to risk long-term injury for the fighter.

00:01:26.000 So there's that philosophy of maybe stopping a fight one punch too early versus one punch too late.

00:01:30.000 Your goal is to stop it right on time.

00:01:32.000 But it takes a lot of hard work to get to that point.

00:01:35.000 Depending upon the history of the fighter, you know, their ability to come back and, you know, you got to make that subjective determination right away.

00:01:41.000 When is the time to stop that fight?

00:01:42.000 But man, it's the worst feeling in the world if you think you get to that point, you let it go too long, or if you mistakenly stop it too early.

00:01:49.000 God, it's a hard feeling.

00:01:50.000 Trust me.

00:01:51.000 It's such a difficult job.

00:01:52.000 It's so much harder than anything other than fighting.

00:01:55.000 Everybody else's judging is kind of hard, but they can hide.

00:02:00.000 You're on TV. That's right.

00:02:01.000 You're right there.

00:02:02.000 If it happens and if it's you that makes a bad call, all the hate comes your way.

00:02:08.000 You've got to kind of stay away from some of the social media criticism because you've got someone there that may not understand the detailed specifics of how we officiate and what we do.

00:02:18.000 And you're going to have critics.

00:02:19.000 Not tell everybody going into a fight.

00:02:21.000 Fans are going to hate you or love you.

00:02:23.000 Half of the fans are counting for a fighter in the red corner.

00:02:25.000 Half are counting for fighters in the blue corner.

00:02:27.000 And depending upon the call you make, it may be the referee's fault.

00:02:30.000 It may be the judge's fault.

00:02:31.000 But your goal is to go in there and be as objective as possible.

00:02:34.000 And fighter safety is always number one.

00:02:36.000 Yeah, and some guys just want to see people get beaten almost to death.

00:02:40.000 They don't want to be stopped.

00:02:42.000 Even if the guy is covering up in a turtle, they think they shouldn't stop the fight.

00:02:48.000 If you stop a fight while somebody is standing up, you're just going to get crucified for that.

00:02:53.000 Well, there was a call like with Max Holloway and Calvin Cater.

00:02:57.000 There was a lot of people thought you could have stopped that fight standing up.

00:03:01.000 But Herb was like, not quite.

00:03:03.000 And I think it was the right call.

00:03:05.000 I think he gave them, but it was touch and go.

00:03:08.000 You could tell he was looking at Calvin very carefully.

00:03:11.000 And there's that, you know, you obviously go to, there's no one better than John McCarthy and Herb Dean.

00:03:15.000 Right.

00:03:16.000 They've been doing this for so long.

00:03:17.000 That's the gold standard.

00:03:18.000 Of what they're looking at, and it comes down to intelligent defense.

00:03:23.000 And that's not just holding your hands up.

00:03:25.000 That needs to translate into doing something offensive.

00:03:28.000 And if you could tell that a guy's listening to your verbal commands and he's doing something to fight back, as long as he's showing some good cognitive skills and showing something offensive where he's not looking at long-term injury, there's a possibility of him letting that fight go.

00:03:41.000 But man, if it's starting to stem on a 10-7 round where the fighters just get destroyed and they're going to get hurt, now it's our responsibility to step in with fighter safety.

00:03:48.000 Yeah, like I said, it's a very difficult job, but you do it well.

00:03:53.000 You do it excellent.

00:03:54.000 I try.

00:03:54.000 You're one of the best.

00:03:55.000 And what's crazy is I got a text from Pete Spratt, the OG. That's my buddy.

00:03:59.000 And Pete Spratt let me know about your background.

00:04:03.000 Like, I did not know.

00:04:04.000 You were a fighter pilot.

00:04:06.000 I did not know that you...

00:04:08.000 Did you work at Area 51?

00:04:09.000 Yeah.

00:04:10.000 I cannot confirm or deny that.

00:04:12.000 I worked at Nellis Air Force Base, which is in that general vicinity. 0.97

00:04:17.000 So you can't talk about experimental shit or anything like that? 0.95

00:04:21.000 You know what I did? 0.98

00:04:22.000 The first thing I did at Nellis was when I flew into Thunderbirds.

00:04:25.000 And then I went away for a couple assignments, and then when I came back, I was an aggressor.

00:04:25.000 Right.

00:04:29.000 And if you remember in the movie Top Gun, Viper and all those guys that were in the camouflage planes, they acted as the enemy forces and trained blue forces before they go off to combat.

00:04:37.000 That's what I did the second time around.

00:04:39.000 The Nellis Ranges are probably up in that general vicinity.

00:04:43.000 But as far as being someone that worked at that, no, I worked at Nellis Air Force Base.

00:04:47.000 We flew in that general area.

00:04:49.000 I don't believe you.

00:04:50.000 I think you're lying now.

00:04:52.000 Now I think you're holding back.

00:04:53.000 Did you feel it, Jamie?

00:04:55.000 All of a sudden he's like smiling.

00:04:57.000 Listen to the answers to the questions.

00:04:58.000 You guys don't want guys in dark suits and shades to come in here and be like, Mr. Smith, we need it.

00:05:02.000 I already talked to those dudes.

00:05:04.000 They're good guys.

00:05:05.000 They're just trying to protect us from the aliens.

00:05:06.000 You know, the crazy thing is in that area when people used to think they would see UFOs and stuff like that.

00:05:12.000 You know, there's a book that came out a couple years ago called Red Eagles that explained a lot of that stuff going on and what they thought were UFOs or, you know, transportation planes that were landing at some of the bases and stuff up there. 0.98

00:05:23.000 Yeah, a lot of people see wacky shit. 0.86

00:05:25.000 The first time I ever saw a stealth bomber, I was filming Fear Factor in... 0.99

00:05:32.000 Palmdale, which is near, was it Edwards?

00:05:35.000 Right by Edwards, yeah.

00:05:36.000 Yeah.

00:05:37.000 And I saw a stealth bomber flying overhead.

00:05:40.000 I swear to God, I thought it was Darth Vader.

00:05:42.000 When you see one of those things in real life, you would think, especially if you didn't know that the United States was developing one of those, like when they were first developing them and flying them before they made it public, that thing looks like it's from another world.

00:05:56.000 So it's funny you say that.

00:05:58.000 So when I was on Thunderbirds, we do incentive riots for like media personalities and other people.

00:06:01.000 And I was out at our training area, which is over Death Valley.

00:06:05.000 And we're talking to the Navy controllers.

00:06:07.000 And they come over and say, you know, I was Thunderbird 2. T-bird 2, I need you to fly straight and level for five minutes.

00:06:13.000 There's going to be an aircraft off your nose.

00:06:14.000 I need you to, you know, diverge to the right and stay away from it.

00:06:17.000 And I'm like, what in the world is this?

00:06:19.000 So I threw my radar out there, which should snag anything out there.

00:06:23.000 And I'm getting these intermittent hits.

00:06:25.000 And I go, I don't see anything on the radar. 0.99

00:06:26.000 Next thing you know, I look up and I go, what the shit has happened? 0.95

00:06:29.000 And I look up and it's a B-2 that has, you know, an escort plane right next to it that comes right next to it. 0.99

00:06:34.000 I looked at it for the first time and I go, there are aliens out here.

00:06:38.000 This is some kind of spaceship.

00:06:39.000 Yeah, look at that thing. 0.99

00:06:40.000 I mean, look at that.

00:06:41.000 That does not look like it's from here.

00:06:44.000 That absolutely looks like it's from another world.

00:06:46.000 Yeah.

00:06:47.000 Like all those when people talk about seeing those triangular spacecrafts in the sky.

00:06:51.000 I mean, maybe some of them are from another planet.

00:06:55.000 So if you've never seen one of those, and like for me as a pilot perspective, I've never seen anything like that.

00:07:00.000 You know, you hear about the F-117 from the Gulf War, and then you see this big thing coming towards you.

00:07:04.000 And that's what everybody always reports, too.

00:07:06.000 A triangular object with like a light on each corner.

00:07:10.000 I mean, that is a stealth bomber.

00:07:11.000 Yep.

00:07:12.000 That's a crazy looking aircraft, man.

00:07:14.000 Yeah, so I had somebody in my backseat that was like, oh my god, what is that?

00:07:17.000 What is that thing coming by in?

00:07:18.000 I mean, if we thought that we were being invaded and then you saw things like that flying overhead, that is what I would imagine they would be flying.

00:07:25.000 They came from another planet.

00:07:26.000 That thing is out at Whiteman Air Force Base.

00:07:28.000 You know, you see it flying out there all the time.

00:07:29.000 So there are folks here in a local area that'll see it taking off.

00:07:32.000 Are there some new ones that they haven't released yet?

00:07:34.000 I don't know.

00:07:35.000 So I retired about eight years ago.

00:07:37.000 I heard a crazy story one day that someone was hunting up in Montana and saw something similar to that that he had never seen before that came out of the ground in a vertical type thing and then took off.

00:07:37.000 Right.

00:07:49.000 Which, you know, the F-35 and planes like that will take off some of them in a vertical stance and then go forward.

00:07:54.000 But to see something that size and that scale do something like that, it kind of makes me wish I was still in the military.

00:08:00.000 Just so you could be in the know?

00:08:02.000 That's right.

00:08:03.000 So which one can do that and take off?

00:08:06.000 The F-35?

00:08:07.000 Yeah, so there are a couple variants.

00:08:08.000 So the Air Force one does traditional rolling takeoff, but the Marine one, You know, it's almost like a Harrier.

00:08:14.000 So the back engine will rotate so it'll take off vertical.

00:08:18.000 And then as it's going forward, the engine will rotate back the other way to give it forward propulsion.

00:08:23.000 But man, just technology-wise, the stuff that we're flying now...

00:08:26.000 So I will tell you this.

00:08:27.000 The first time I fought on the range against the F-22 Raptor, and I fought against everything in the world.

00:08:33.000 So out at Nellis with the aggressors, everybody comes there to train, to get prepared for combat.

00:08:38.000 There's no better plane in the world than the F-22.

00:08:40.000 When that thing passed me and some of the stuff that I saw it could do, I go, there's no better plane in the world.

00:08:45.000 So as far as air superiority, F-22 is at the top of the food chain.

00:08:48.000 What is the difference?

00:08:50.000 F-22 is primarily air superiority, you know, so like air-to-air dogfighting, long-range, short-range missiles.

00:08:55.000 F-35 is, you know, command and control platform.

00:08:58.000 It still has weapons on it, can drop bombs, shoot missiles, etc.

00:09:01.000 But the role is a little bit different.

00:09:03.000 So yeah, that's F-22.

00:09:04.000 You go to an air show and see that thing, you're like, is that a plane or a helicopter with some of the stuff that it does?

00:09:09.000 But fighting against that?

00:09:11.000 As a fighter pilot, your average fighter pilot is the cockiest person that you will ever meet in the world.

00:09:15.000 Just like Top Gun, like the movie.

00:09:16.000 That's all real.

00:09:17.000 We're better than everybody.

00:09:18.000 That's our philosophy.

00:09:20.000 You kind of have to have that philosophy, right?

00:09:22.000 I mean, look at that.

00:09:23.000 Look at that.

00:09:23.000 That's insane!

00:09:25.000 Oh my god, that's insane!

00:09:27.000 It just shoots straight up in the sky.

00:09:30.000 Oh my god.

00:09:32.000 I mean, it doesn't even look like a real plane.

00:09:34.000 That is a mean machine right there.

00:09:36.000 So I got friends that fly that plane, and you see it.

00:09:39.000 A, it's designed in combat.

00:09:41.000 The United States is still going to be at the top of the food chain as far as the personnel that we have, the men and women that fly these airplanes, and then the equipment that we're flying.

00:09:50.000 You're not going to find anything to match it.

00:09:51.000 That's incredible, that turn that it just made in the sky.

00:09:54.000 So is that the maneuverability of it?

00:09:57.000 Is that what's superior? 0.99

00:09:58.000 What the fuck? 0.99

00:10:00.000 How does it do that? 1.00

00:10:01.000 That's insane!

00:10:02.000 So thrust vectoring on the back, you know, plus the flight controls.

00:10:05.000 I mean, look, he just flat-plated that.

00:10:07.000 And the amount of thrust is coming out of it.

00:10:09.000 So, you know, internal avionics, the stealth capability, and the maneuverability of it, nothing in the world is going to beat that.

00:10:16.000 But they can't fly very long, right?

00:10:19.000 You know, it's a total package.

00:10:22.000 So whenever you go to combat or something, you're going to have tanker support out there.

00:10:25.000 So you're going to meet an air refueler up at 20,000 feet and get gas.

00:10:29.000 And that thing can carry external fuel tanks. 0.99

00:10:32.000 But the goal is to be able to plan a mission to...

00:10:34.000 Be able to go in, escort, have guys drop your bombs or do whatever and get back out with tanker support.

00:10:40.000 You know, there's always that philosophy without the gas, you know, no one is going to go.

00:10:44.000 So like when I was in Iraq and stuff, we take off in Saudi Arabia.

00:10:47.000 We're good to go.

00:10:50.000 We're good to go.

00:11:10.000 Or it could be quicker than that.

00:11:12.000 Now the goal is endurance.

00:11:13.000 You obviously want to be able to stay out there to maintain and go the length of your mission.

00:11:19.000 But you look at the length of the mission and fuel capacity and the goal is obviously to have somebody there as a backup because you never want to be out there by yourself.

00:11:27.000 You always want to have that support.

00:11:29.000 You know, so you may have guys that are sitting back here in a cap waiting for their turn to come in.

00:11:34.000 You run out of gas up front.

00:11:35.000 Now you swap out.

00:11:36.000 Those guys come back in.

00:11:37.000 So total protection.

00:11:38.000 So until they come up with something superior to internal combustion engines, we're always going to be limited by the amount of fuel that they can carry just because of the weight, right?

00:11:47.000 So as far as endurance, yes.

00:11:50.000 Now, capabilities of the plane...

00:11:52.000 Most fighter planes have a G capability of 9 Gs, and as you know, time's a force of gravity.

00:11:57.000 Do you wear a G suit when you're in there?

00:11:59.000 We did wear a G suit.

00:12:00.000 So in a fourth generation, like an F-15, F-16 is a fourth generation fighter, we wore G suits on the abdomen and down on the legs.

00:12:07.000 And basically what that does, as you pull G's, you're going against gravity, and blood starts to drain from your brain down into your lower extremities.

00:12:15.000 So the G-Suit is just a capability to help counter it.

00:12:18.000 It's really a tightening restriction of your muscles, starting with your calves, hamstrings, buttocks, all the way up.

00:12:24.000 And we do the...

00:12:24.000 Hooking?

00:12:25.000 Yeah, the hook.

00:12:26.000 You know, you hook.

00:12:27.000 And that's really to hold the oxygen in.

00:12:29.000 And what that does is lock everything down to hopefully hold the blood up in your brain as long as possible.

00:12:35.000 I told you I flew with the Blue Angels once, and when I did that, I got to seven and a half G's before I couldn't take it anymore.

00:12:42.000 So did you start to gray out, or did you start to tunnel vision?

00:12:45.000 Yeah, it was like an elevator door was closing.

00:12:47.000 And, you know, I'm doing that hoot, hoot, hoot.

00:12:49.000 So it's weird, because people think it's, you know, two G's would be one greater than one.

00:12:57.000 Three G's is one greater than two.

00:12:59.000 But when you start to get above five, it's not a plus one, it's exponential.

00:13:04.000 So when you start to get to seven...

00:13:06.000 So six is ten.

00:13:07.000 That's what it feels like.

00:13:08.000 And you can't explain how it feels, but nine G's is absolutely...

00:13:14.000 I mean, you get back home that night from straining and everything, you know, measles, what it looks like little...

00:13:19.000 We call them G'sles, where your blood vessels will actually start to pop.

00:13:23.000 And you get these little specks from straining so hard that you're popping blood vessels.

00:13:23.000 Oh, wow.

00:13:27.000 But the goal is obviously not to fall asleep.

00:13:29.000 We call it fall asleep in an airplane.

00:13:30.000 G-Loss of consciousness. 0.97

00:13:33.000 G-Lock is what it's called.

00:13:34.000 If you do that and you're in the air, it may take you 30 seconds to a minute to be able to come back to any kind of capacity.

00:13:40.000 And if that happens, you know, the majority of the time it's going to be catastrophic.

00:13:45.000 I made it through that, and then I blacked out on the way back.

00:13:47.000 Because I didn't hook on the way back, because I got cocky.

00:13:51.000 I thought, we're good, and we made a hard turn.

00:13:53.000 And I think I blacked out at like five.

00:13:55.000 Like four and a half or five.

00:13:57.000 It wasn't even that much compared to seven and a half.

00:13:59.000 Yeah, if you're not ready at four, and you know, people are like, oh, I can do Gs.

00:14:02.000 You get on a roller coaster, that's like a half a G or one G. I blacked out, and I threw up.

00:14:07.000 It was double embarrassing.

00:14:08.000 Did they make you wear a G suit?

00:14:09.000 No, no G suit.

00:14:10.000 See, the reason they don't wear a G suit is because...

00:14:14.000 In close formation, if you wear a G-Suit, the G-Suit is going to fill with air to help with that restriction on your legs.

00:14:20.000 And in the F-18, they have a center control stick, and they rest their arm on their right leg.

00:14:26.000 And if that G-Suit is moving up and down, it's going to move your control stick.

00:14:31.000 So the F-16 has a side stick controller.

00:14:34.000 Where it doesn't touch your leg at all.

00:14:35.000 I mean, it's like, you're reclined back in the seat in the side stick controller.

00:14:38.000 So we can wear a G suit so it won't affect precision, you know, moving your arm back and forth.

00:14:43.000 Is there any other technology that they've invented to deal with gravity?

00:14:47.000 Like, just the sheer force of the acceleration?

00:14:49.000 So not just a g-suit, but you will have induced pressure breathing.

00:14:54.000 So you wear a specific kind of oxygen mask, and that's going to force air into your system.

00:14:58.000 Because the one thing you would hate to do is just hold your breath.

00:15:01.000 It's like a three-second count.

00:15:02.000 You do that hook, and then it's a three-second count.

00:15:04.000 Exhale, inhale right quick.

00:15:06.000 And as part of that pressure breathing, when you exhale and open your mouth, it's going to force air back in with that pressure breathing system.

00:15:12.000 So with the two of those together, And then we combine it with, you've got to be in shape.

00:15:17.000 You've got to lift weights.

00:15:18.000 You've got to have some kind of cardio conditioning to be able to last.

00:15:20.000 Because it's one thing to be strong enough to hold that G position.

00:15:24.000 But then you do a 45 minute dog fighting mission.

00:15:29.000 Your body's going to get tired, so you've got to be able to sustain that the entire time.

00:15:32.000 So most fighter pilots are going to lift weights.

00:15:34.000 They're going to do extreme cardio exercises to be able to sustain.

00:15:37.000 But anything else other than that?

00:15:40.000 It's kind of weird.

00:15:41.000 Back in the day, it would be, go drink a Coke and a bag of Doritos and get that sugar rush for that 45-minute flight and be able to sustain through it.

00:15:48.000 Really?

00:15:48.000 It's more of a health-conscious thing now.

00:15:50.000 You know the total pack is staying in shape.

00:15:51.000 I guess they're just smarter now about it.

00:15:54.000 The Blue Angel guy that I flew with was a tank.

00:15:54.000 Probably a lot.

00:15:56.000 And the dude was swole. 0.99

00:15:58.000 He was like Yoel Romero. 0.94

00:15:59.000 He was jacked.

00:16:00.000 You know, that was philosophy.

00:16:01.000 Because when I was on the team, I'm 6'1".

00:16:03.000 I probably weighed 230, 235. That's large for a fighter pilot, right?

00:16:07.000 The cockpit was extremely tight.

00:16:09.000 Usually they're smaller guys because is that a thing with the gravity?

00:16:13.000 It's easier to sustain gravity?

00:16:15.000 It's a height limitation.

00:16:17.000 So you can't be so tall where your head is up against the top of the canopy.

00:16:21.000 Oh, that's all it is?

00:16:22.000 But you also can't be that short where you can't see over the dashboard.

00:16:24.000 But there's a weight limitation too.

00:16:26.000 You know, you can't be below a minimum weight because if you ever had to eject...

00:16:32.000 We're good to go.

00:16:48.000 That they take the gun out and they put a smoke barrel in it, but it's the same basic avionics, the same basic controls, and it's just painted red, white, and blue.

00:16:57.000 And all the professionals that are the maintenance guys for the Thunderbirds, the best in the world, the finest in the world, and I had four of the finest when I was on the team, they take them off of active duty lines and bring them to Nellis Air Force Base and do all the stuff on the planes, but...

00:17:09.000 There hasn't been a real horrible air show collision in a long time.

00:17:17.000 I remember there was one in 1988 when I first started doing comedy.

00:17:20.000 I remember watching it on TV. I think it was in Italy.

00:17:25.000 Yeah.

00:17:26.000 So we try to cover for that.

00:17:29.000 You will notice there's never any energy coming towards the crowd.

00:17:33.000 That's the first thing.

00:17:34.000 Because those air shows and those happen, the planes crash and they went into the crowd, which is catastrophic.

00:17:38.000 Catastrophic and an accident in the same sense.

00:17:40.000 But then if you go into the crowd, it's just horrific.

00:17:43.000 So there's never any energy coming towards the crowd.

00:17:45.000 So if we hit each other, You'd go into the crowd.

00:17:48.000 Now, on the Thunderbirds, we have trim.

00:17:50.000 So the plane is trim to fly level.

00:17:52.000 But like in the Diamond where I was, we would fly full nose down trim.

00:17:56.000 So I'm flying there for some reason.

00:17:58.000 What does that mean, full nose down trim?

00:18:00.000 So at level trim, the plane, I could take my hands off and it's going to fly straight and level.

00:18:04.000 Okay.

00:18:05.000 Full nose down trim, I have to hold back pressure the entire flight.

00:18:09.000 It's about 30 pounds of back pressure the entire flight.

00:18:11.000 So it's like doing a bicep curl for 30 minutes.

00:18:14.000 And if I were to pass out, With that full nose down trim, instead of possibly bumping into one of the other planes and making it more catastrophic, my plane is going to go straight down into the ground and it'll be at a minimum loss.

00:18:25.000 So, you know, you'll see when guys and gals apply for the team, they'll put them through strength tests. 0.60

00:18:31.000 They'll sit there on a, you know, a shoulder pull machine and they'll have to hold this 25 to 30 pounds in this little range like this for 15, 20 minutes.

00:18:39.000 They have to sit there and hold that like that.

00:18:41.000 Are there women that can do that? 1.00

00:18:42.000 Yeah, so the Thunderbirds have had five females on the team, and I was on the team that selected the first female Thunderbird.

00:18:47.000 Do they all look like Chris Hyborg?

00:18:50.000 There are variations that are going to be on there. 0.99

00:18:52.000 They have to be strong as fuck, though, right? 0.98

00:18:54.000 You got to be, and I mean, that's the standard for all fighter pilots. 0.99

00:18:57.000 Nicole Fifi is her call sign.

00:18:59.000 Malachowski was the first Air Force female Thunderbird.

00:19:02.000 And she was outstanding.

00:19:03.000 You know, she was an F-15 Strike Eagle pilot prior to that, so she was a combat pilot prior to getting there.

00:19:08.000 Wow.

00:19:08.000 And she had an amazing tour on the team.

00:19:10.000 A good friend of mine, you know, gone through some great things.

00:19:12.000 She worked at the White House a couple years after I worked there.

00:19:15.000 Probably more difficult for someone like that to train for that, right?

00:19:19.000 Like, what kind of weight training does she have to do to prepare for that kind of physical training? 1.00

00:19:24.000 Everybody does their own program.

00:19:25.000 Oh, so there's no, like, program that's assigned by...

00:19:29.000 You do have to do an Air Force fitness test, which is, you know, so they do waist circumference, and then you have to do sit-ups, push-ups, and a mile-and-a-half run.

00:19:38.000 What's a weight circumference?

00:19:39.000 Waste.

00:19:40.000 Like, you know, I can't have a size 45 waist. 0.83

00:19:43.000 Right, you can't be fat.

00:19:44.000 And it's really...

00:19:45.000 You know, a combination of standards that they do for that.

00:19:48.000 You have to do that and get scoring on it and based upon your age, the minimum numbers that you have to get.

00:19:54.000 But honestly, if you're someone that's in shape and you work out regularly, like if you go out to Las Vegas and go to the base, their gym out there looks like one of the best gyms that you've ever seen in the world.

00:20:04.000 Like the UFC performances.

00:20:05.000 Like that kind of stuff.

00:20:05.000 Exactly.

00:20:06.000 Yeah, so you'll have that kind of high level stuff and everyone is encouraged.

00:20:09.000 And it can be to the point that if you don't pass that fitness test, and that's not just pilots, that's everyone across the board.

00:20:14.000 You don't pass that fitness test, you get another opportunity to do it.

00:20:18.000 If it gets to the point where you can't pass it, they'll say so long.

00:20:21.000 You don't meet the standards.

00:20:22.000 You're no longer in the Air Force.

00:20:23.000 I would imagine that has to be that way.

00:20:25.000 I mean, you're flying, how much is one of those costs?

00:20:25.000 Yeah.

00:20:28.000 Like, like the F-22, how much is that?

00:20:30.000 That's, I don't know the exact cost to that, but like when I was on the team, those F-16s are, you know, 30, 40 million dollars a piece.

00:20:36.000 So, you know, if something happens to one.

00:20:38.000 You know, if, so I was on the team in 2002 to 2005. Is that accurate?

00:20:43.000 Oh my God!

00:20:44.000 That's a lot.

00:20:45.000 F-22 is an estimated...

00:20:47.000 What?

00:20:48.000 $334 million?

00:20:49.000 Yeah.

00:20:50.000 Now, that cost is based upon how many you buy.

00:20:54.000 Obviously, you buy more of them.

00:20:55.000 The cost per is going to go down.

00:20:57.000 How many does anybody have?

00:21:00.000 Who's buying these things?

00:21:01.000 I mean, it's obviously just the Air Force.

00:21:03.000 Yeah, the F-22 is only a United States Air Force platform.

00:21:06.000 Now, the F-35 is...

00:21:09.000 Navy, Air Force, Marine, and we do have some joint partners in that one.

00:21:13.000 That plane's been sold around the world as well.

00:21:15.000 Yeah, that's what I was going to get to.

00:21:16.000 They sell those to other countries?

00:21:18.000 The F-22, they don't.

00:21:19.000 Good.

00:21:20.000 F-35, they do. 0.84

00:21:21.000 It may have limited capabilities on it, so it may not have all the bells and whistles that our planes have, but...

00:21:26.000 Does anyone have something that's similar to an F-22 in other countries?

00:21:29.000 I think Russia has a... 0.79

00:21:32.000 Stealth-ish looking fighter, and China has one.

00:21:36.000 But I don't think the capabilities are anywhere near F-22.

00:21:39.000 I would imagine that there's got to be a lot of pressure on them to design something that's competitive with that.

00:21:45.000 It may look good on the outside, but it comes down to the question of, you know, is it stealth and what kind of capabilities that it has?

00:21:52.000 We've never had a...

00:21:55.000 A war or any kind of combat where those types of planes have fought against each other.

00:22:00.000 You know, there hadn't been a shooting war really, you know, in a number of years since Iraq and, you know, maybe some stuff in Kosovo and like that.

00:22:07.000 But there's, as far as dogfighting, enemy versus enemy in the sky, you haven't had that in a number of years.

00:22:12.000 What do you think about all this Space Force talk?

00:22:15.000 It's kind of weird because You had those capabilities within the Air Force already.

00:22:21.000 And to split it off into a separate force, you're essentially just pulling entities out of branches of service that were already there doing the same thing.

00:22:29.000 And there are a lot of people that, you know, we got some great folks that work, you know, do all the space stuff, you know, working with NASA and international space entities doing all that.

00:22:37.000 But was it necessary?

00:22:39.000 I don't quite know. 0.99

00:22:40.000 Well, you're in the know, so you have to tell us because we don't know shit. 0.98

00:22:44.000 I didn't personally think it was necessary. 0.97

00:22:47.000 So is the idea that they're preparing for one day when wars are going to be fought in space?

00:22:54.000 Is that the idea behind it?

00:22:55.000 I don't think it's just wars.

00:22:56.000 You know, it's communication capabilities.

00:22:58.000 So like when I worked at NASA, we were finishing the space shuttle and it's like, what's going to be the next generation of going into space?

00:23:06.000 And the goal was eventually to get to Mars.

00:23:09.000 And so my daughter at the time was six, seven years old.

00:23:12.000 And my boss, the NASA administrator, he looked at her because my daughter wanted to be an astronaut.

00:23:15.000 He's like, you're the perfect age of someone that's going to go to Mars.

00:23:19.000 And the goal was to be able to go back to the moon.

00:23:36.000 We're good to go.

00:23:47.000 How much money would it cost to set up a base on the moon?

00:23:50.000 A lot.

00:23:50.000 And that's the question.

00:23:51.000 It's like, you know, priorities as far as financial budget, what we need right now.

00:23:56.000 You got some incredibly smart people that work at NASA and, you know, some of the other international space entities.

00:24:02.000 But I think the truth of it that came down to, and, you know, you saw those movies, Hidden Figures, and they talked about launching to the moon and stuff.

00:24:10.000 Some of the knowledge and capability to get to the moon was lost.

00:24:15.000 Because a lot of these professionals that did all their mathematics and calculations to get us there, they had that stuff up here.

00:24:22.000 They go to a chalkboard and they write it down and say, okay, this math formula, this calculation, this projection, this will get us to the moon.

00:24:28.000 But as they started to age off, guess what?

00:24:30.000 We didn't have that technology written down.

00:24:32.000 So with our capabilities today... 0.76

00:24:33.000 That seems so ridiculous. 0.64

00:24:34.000 It does. 0.79

00:24:35.000 With our capabilities today, you would think, oh, we can go back to the moon today.

00:24:49.000 Oh.

00:25:02.000 Oh, man.

00:25:04.000 So NASA's obviously changed a little bit.

00:25:05.000 You know, it was a sad day with the cancellation of the space shuttle, but we had to.

00:25:08.000 That thing was starting to age out.

00:25:10.000 As we look at the next phase of what's going to, you know, take us up into space.

00:25:10.000 Yeah.

00:25:14.000 But working there for a year, I got to go down there and see all that stuff, you know, with the...

00:25:18.000 Yeah, look at that. 0.99

00:25:19.000 Look at those whack monitors and shit. 0.99

00:25:21.000 Everything. 0.99

00:25:22.000 It seems so weird.

00:25:24.000 The way everybody dressed.

00:25:26.000 The green computers like in the bottom left down there.

00:25:28.000 All that stuff.

00:25:29.000 It still looks like that.

00:25:30.000 I wonder how many of those guys died of cancer because they all smoked.

00:25:33.000 Right?

00:25:34.000 They were all smoking.

00:25:35.000 In the movies they were.

00:25:36.000 I'm looking for cigarettes in the photos.

00:25:38.000 Ah, come on.

00:25:39.000 These guys are smoking.

00:25:39.000 They just put their cigarettes away before the photos.

00:25:42.000 It's the craziest thing.

00:25:43.000 When I was working down there, I had some friends down there in the space industry, and I was talking to one of my friends down there, and I had on this little band that said, you know, failure's not an option.

00:25:52.000 There you go.

00:25:54.000 Yeah, look, he's got a cigar.

00:25:55.000 Well, that's because they...

00:25:56.000 I think that's, yeah.

00:25:57.000 That's when they made it.

00:25:58.000 And the lady that I was talking to, she worked in one of the space industries, and she's like, oh, that's nice. 0.79

00:26:02.000 You got my dad's band on.

00:26:04.000 And I go, what?

00:26:05.000 She goes, yeah, my dad's Gene Krantz.

00:26:06.000 He said that.

00:26:07.000 I was like, oh, look out.

00:26:08.000 He's over here.

00:26:09.000 You want to go meet him?

00:26:10.000 Oh, wow.

00:26:11.000 All those guys, you know.

00:26:12.000 Tell everybody who that is.

00:26:13.000 So the basically the philosophical head of, you know, all the launches down there, when we had some of the Apollo missions that were not successful, you know, launches that went off that weren't able to do everything or, you know, not able to get to our destinations.

00:26:28.000 He basically threw down with a NASA philosophy that said failure is not an option.

00:26:32.000 That's him right there with the vest, right?

00:26:33.000 Yeah, we're going to make it to the moon.

00:26:35.000 We're going to do this.

00:26:36.000 And as you know, it was a race, a race to space against Russia. 0.67

00:26:41.000 And we were able to, you know, they had Sputnik that went off first, but we were able to successfully make it to the moon first.

00:26:45.000 It's weird.

00:26:46.000 A lot of people believe that was in a studio somewhere.

00:26:49.000 But man, as you work at NASA and get to see all this stuff, you go, nah.

00:26:51.000 Well, Sputnik might not have been in a studio, but the film footage...

00:26:56.000 Have you ever seen the film footage of Yuri Gagarin?

00:26:59.000 That's his name, right?

00:27:00.000 Yeah, I haven't seen it.

00:27:01.000 It's kind of crazy, because they faked the footage.

00:27:04.000 Like, they recreated it, because the actual thing that he was in...

00:27:09.000 What would you call what the Russians had?

00:27:11.000 The first man in space.

00:27:12.000 What was his...

00:27:13.000 What was the...

00:27:15.000 Oh, the actual module?

00:27:16.000 The actual module.

00:27:17.000 Do they have a name for it?

00:27:18.000 I don't know.

00:27:18.000 The one now is called the Soyuz, which is on top of the Roman candle when they shoot you off.

00:27:24.000 Yeah.

00:27:24.000 Well, they recreated it, but it's kind of obvious because he looks like he's acting and there's a light here and a light here because the shadows are in different directions and he's sitting there.

00:27:35.000 You can tell it's fake.

00:27:36.000 It's kind of weird, but they had to have footage of it just to kind of show that they did it.

00:27:41.000 But then...

00:27:43.000 You know, actual experts analyze this thing like this is probably not the real footage of the actual module being in space.

00:27:52.000 You know what's weird?

00:27:53.000 Is everyone depicts Russia and the United States as being so adversarial.

00:27:58.000 So when the space shuttle ended, to get to the International Space Station, there was one way to do it.

00:28:05.000 You had to go to Russia.

00:28:05.000 Yeah.

00:28:06.000 Yeah.

00:28:07.000 So we had, you know, Russia and the United States are going head to head.

00:28:09.000 No.

00:28:10.000 If I were an astronaut and were selected to go to the space station, I'd go live in Star City outside of Moscow.

00:28:16.000 And they got, you know, U.S., Canada, all international forces there.

00:28:20.000 You'd live there and do all of your training.

00:28:22.000 And you'd launch on the Russian Soyuz to be able to get up there.

00:28:25.000 That's pretty wild.

00:28:26.000 So I got to visit.

00:28:26.000 It is wild.

00:28:27.000 And, you know, people bring their families and stuff over there.

00:28:30.000 And there's a row of, like, 10, 15 townhomes.

00:28:33.000 You live in year one, so it's three stories.

00:28:35.000 Top two stories are yours.

00:28:36.000 You know, kitchen and stuff in the middle, bedrooms up top.

00:28:39.000 And then downstairs, everything is joint.

00:28:41.000 So there's a weight room, there's a game room, there's a TV room, there's a movie room that everybody shares together.

00:28:46.000 But it's at this place called Star City on the outside of Russia.

00:28:49.000 Yeah, I've been there a couple times.

00:28:49.000 Have you been?

00:28:51.000 What was it like hanging out with the Russians?

00:28:54.000 A, the food there is incredible.

00:28:55.000 Really?

00:28:56.000 What do they eat?

00:28:57.000 So we would have barbecue meals.

00:29:01.000 So I was told, you've got to get your system ready because they're going to toast to every kind of success that they could think.

00:29:08.000 Oh, no.

00:29:09.000 And I'm not a heavy drinker.

00:29:11.000 So my boss was like, you can tip it back, but just don't get drunk.

00:29:15.000 Don't do anything like that.

00:29:16.000 But it was like every two minutes, cheers!

00:29:18.000 Cheers!

00:29:19.000 You know, to this, to that.

00:29:20.000 And it's like, God, man, I'm going to...

00:29:21.000 Is it vodka mostly?

00:29:23.000 It was a lot of vodka.

00:29:24.000 Yeah, vodka is easy to get carried away with because it doesn't seem like you're drinking much.

00:29:28.000 So here you are at their space station thing, their headquarters, and they're celebrating a successful launch.

00:29:33.000 They're celebrating going to stage two, stage three, et cetera.

00:29:37.000 And there was a lot of celebration, a lot of caviar and stuff like that.

00:29:40.000 But I kind of looked at it like, the base, could my kids live here for a year or two?

00:29:47.000 Now, obviously, they're going to take care of you.

00:29:49.000 The weirdest thing for me, when we travel around, you'd have security and stuff with you.

00:29:53.000 But when we went to Russia, because there may be some forces that, you know, are anti-government or other things that you want to deal with, we would have, like, we'd be walking in our group, and there would be Russian soldiers surrounding us, like, in a circle.

00:30:06.000 They would have, you know, like, their AK-47s and stuff, and if anybody thought they were going to interact and get in the middle of this, you know, those guys are hard, the way they keep their security, protecting their VIPs and stuff, but...

00:30:17.000 It is interesting the relationship between the United States and Russia when it comes to space travel, that the United States needs the Russians.

00:30:24.000 They just need them.

00:30:25.000 Yeah, because we had a design to have the constellation, what was going to be our new rocket system, etc.

00:30:30.000 But once again, because of budgetary constraints and what Congress is going to approve, If there was another means to be able to do that, we said, we're just going to send our folks to Russia for right now.

00:30:40.000 So when I left the White House, the boss was like, what do you want to go do?

00:30:44.000 And he said, narrow down to three places.

00:30:45.000 I was either going to go fly to the F-22, I was going to apply to be an astronaut, or as I did, I was going to go back to Nellis Air Force Base.

00:30:52.000 The astronaut program would have been a dream come true.

00:30:55.000 But since we had already selected the last crew for flying the space shuttle, I said, I don't know if I'm going to get the chance to go up in the space or not.

00:31:01.000 What if they talked to you about going to the moon and putting a base up there?

00:31:05.000 Would you have done that?

00:31:06.000 I probably would have done that.

00:31:08.000 Jesus, Mark.

00:31:10.000 Why do you want to go do that?

00:31:11.000 As long as I can get back, it's all good.

00:31:13.000 You know what freaks me out the most about a base in the moon?

00:31:15.000 There's no atmosphere. 0.97

00:31:17.000 So, like, shit that comes flying out of the sky that we see that's just shooting stars, that stuff lands on the moon. 0.99

00:31:24.000 It just slams right in there. 0.99

00:31:27.000 So you could be chilling in your little space station that you spent six months to develop and set up, and then boom, you get hit with a rock.

00:31:34.000 Going out with a bang, though.

00:31:35.000 It's that, you know, I've always had the goal of, you know, achieving something incredible in life.

00:31:40.000 Guys going, paying money to go.

00:31:40.000 What is this, Jamie?

00:31:42.000 Oh my god.

00:31:44.000 Oh, to the ISS. For now.

00:31:47.000 Axiom, oh, for now?

00:31:48.000 I mean, it's the first.

00:31:49.000 Not the very first, but this is big news, I think.

00:31:52.000 The first private crew.

00:31:54.000 Wasn't it Martha Stewart's?

00:31:55.000 You know, a former boyfriend of somebody?

00:31:58.000 I think he went up on the Soyuz.

00:31:59.000 He might be going there just to get away from her.

00:32:01.000 I think he already did it, though.

00:32:03.000 A few people have already done it, but this was like a new trip.

00:32:05.000 They're all paying $55 million apiece.

00:32:07.000 Jesus.

00:32:09.000 To go hang out for eight days, there's no room for them to sleep on the ISS, so they just grab a sleeping bag and float, I guess?

00:32:14.000 Yeah.

00:32:15.000 The third guy from the left makes sense. 1.00

00:32:16.000 He's like, fuck it. 1.00

00:32:18.000 I do that. 1.00

00:32:18.000 I ain't got much time left. 1.00

00:32:19.000 In a heartbeat, if I were to get the phone call to say, hey, do you want to come join the current space program to go do it?

00:32:26.000 I'd ask my bosses over in Dallas for a little hiatus.

00:32:30.000 I'd go do it.

00:32:31.000 What is the highest you've ever been in a fighter jet?

00:32:33.000 Possibly over 50,000 feet.

00:32:35.000 Possibly.

00:32:36.000 You don't want to confirm or deny.

00:32:37.000 I understand.

00:32:38.000 That seems like the edge of space.

00:32:41.000 You can start to see some pretty interesting stuff up there.

00:32:43.000 The plane is rated to go to 50,000 feet, and that's really for pressurization and some other stuff.

00:32:48.000 But maybe to expedite, get from point A to point B, we may have...

00:32:54.000 May have gotten up there.

00:32:55.000 May have gotten over that once or twice.

00:32:57.000 So what does it look like up there?

00:32:59.000 So all the flat earthers out there, you can actually start to see the curvature of the earth.

00:33:04.000 Don't you want to take those dummies up there? 1.00

00:33:06.000 Just get in the plane, bitch. 1.00

00:33:07.000 So I made a bet. 1.00

00:33:08.000 Some guy was arguing with me on social media, which was smart on my part, right?

00:33:11.000 You were arguing about the flat earth?

00:33:13.000 I put it to him.

00:33:14.000 I said, you go find the point on earth where it ends and you can fall off.

00:33:20.000 And I said, I will pay for college tuition for all of your children.

00:33:23.000 I didn't hear another thing from him ever.

00:33:26.000 When I fly now, our plane will go up into the low 40s.

00:33:32.000 Most of the time, we're going to fly in the high 39,000, something like that.

00:33:35.000 You can start to see the curvature of the earth when you get up there, especially at dusk and dawn.

00:33:40.000 So when you get up at 49,000, 50,000 feet, you can see the good curvature.

00:33:44.000 Yeah, the view from the space station, just the images that I've seen from there, it seems like that would just change your life.

00:33:54.000 The relationship that you have to the Earth, the way you look at living on Earth, Being above it and looking down on it, like, oh, down there is home?

00:34:05.000 It must be a complete paradigm shifter.

00:34:09.000 You know what's amazing?

00:34:10.000 So whenever I go fly, we can't do anything below 10,000 feet.

00:34:13.000 But once you get above that, you can take pictures and stuff.

00:34:16.000 And taking off out of Vegas...

00:34:17.000 At 6 o'clock in the morning at sunrise, you get some pretty amazing sunrise photos if we're going eastbound.

00:34:22.000 So I will post stuff to my social media all the time.

00:34:25.000 If there's a big thunderstorm right next to us, I'll film it and post it.

00:34:28.000 And people go crazy over that kind of stuff.

00:34:31.000 I'm sure.

00:34:31.000 Beautiful day over the Gulf of Mexico and I'm snapping pictures and posting on social media and stuff.

00:34:35.000 There's no restrictions on, like, using your phone while you're up there?

00:34:38.000 You can't be on Wi-Fi.

00:34:41.000 You know, you can't be...

00:34:42.000 We don't sit up there and, you know, watch the game on Super Bowl.

00:34:44.000 You can't be arguing with people on Twitter while you're flying.

00:34:46.000 You don't do any of that stuff.

00:34:48.000 So in the back, you can.

00:34:49.000 But as far as the limitations up front, one thing I will say is we are a very disciplined group.

00:34:54.000 So below 10,000 feet, unless it has to deal with specific flying, there can't be any casual conversation.

00:35:00.000 And that's the FAA mandate.

00:35:01.000 We adhere to that 100%.

00:35:02.000 Once you get above 10,000 feet...

00:35:05.000 We do have Wi-Fi up there, but we simply use it for navigation and looking at weather and stuff like that.

00:35:10.000 Is it a satellite link?

00:35:13.000 It is a satellite link.

00:35:15.000 So we have a couple of communications.

00:35:17.000 There's a satellite link on the back of the plane and hopefully it's working because that's our communication as far as back and forth, talking to the company, looking at weather and folks in the back as far as being able to socialize, internet, social media, stuff like that.

00:35:31.000 There are capabilities.

00:35:33.000 Is it whack?

00:35:34.000 Is it like airplane Wi-Fi where it's real slow and you can't really watch YouTube?

00:35:40.000 Actually, I use it coming out here yesterday and I think it's pretty good.

00:35:43.000 Now, some of the expanded things that come with it, you may have to pay for that.

00:35:47.000 But as far as basic capabilities, you can't connect to it and be able to use it.

00:35:51.000 Are you talking about on a fighter jet, or are you talking about on a regular passenger?

00:35:55.000 Commercial airliner.

00:35:56.000 So it's gotten better?

00:35:57.000 Oh, yeah.

00:35:58.000 Oh.

00:35:58.000 I don't even bother anymore.

00:35:58.000 Yeah.

00:36:00.000 If I fly, I just watch a movie on my laptop or something.

00:36:04.000 You know, I do that, and things have changed over the years.

00:36:07.000 I used to get on the plane and sit in the back, and I would be asleep before we pushed off the gate.

00:36:12.000 And that makes that trip.

00:36:13.000 But now I'm so conscious of everything going around me.

00:36:16.000 Because of sitting up front, we have to be, you know, our flight attendants are amazing, everything they have to deal with in the back.

00:36:22.000 But because of security procedures and stuff like that, so I had an incident on the plane about five years ago that I'll never sleep on the plane again.

00:36:30.000 What happened?

00:36:31.000 So it's very secure when we come out of the cockpit.

00:36:36.000 You know, you don't want any kind of cockpit intrusion.

00:36:40.000 And you'll notice when we come out of the cockpit, pastors cannot use the front restroom and there'll be security procedures in place.

00:36:49.000 So I came out of the cockpit, and this gentleman got up and started to walk towards me, and the flight attendant was like, you've got to sit down.

00:36:54.000 And the guy just stood there, and it turned into a Texas standoff, like, who's going to win here?

00:36:58.000 The guy wouldn't sit down.

00:37:00.000 So I leaned around the flight attendant, very aggressively.

00:37:02.000 I was like, hey, sir, you've got to sit down.

00:37:04.000 And he didn't.

00:37:05.000 He had this mean mug on his face.

00:37:07.000 About five feet away from the flight attendant, wouldn't sit down.

00:37:11.000 So what I did now is I picked up the P.A., Got on it and said, hey sir, pilot's out of the cockpit, you need to sit down right now.

00:37:18.000 And now what that did is that got other passengers involved and everybody's looking around in their seat to see what's going to happen.

00:37:23.000 I thought he aggressively was going to try to come up and do something.

00:37:27.000 So what I did is I put my hand on the back of the flight attendant and I said, if he comes forward, I just need you to lean about five feet to the left.

00:37:35.000 If he aggressively postures and tries to attack, I'm going to put his jaw on the floor.

00:37:40.000 You hate for it to come down to that.

00:37:42.000 You never want to be able to do that.

00:37:43.000 But I thought the guy was going to...

00:37:44.000 Was he drunk?

00:37:44.000 I don't think he was.

00:37:46.000 I think it was probably something more to it.

00:37:48.000 But, you know, our goal is safety of you as a passenger.

00:37:52.000 There was something more to it.

00:37:53.000 So he was thinking about going to the cockpit.

00:37:55.000 You never know what someone...

00:37:57.000 You just don't know, right?

00:37:58.000 There have been cockpit intrusions.

00:37:59.000 You know, the doors are really enforced.

00:38:01.000 But, you know, there have been people that have...

00:38:03.000 You know, before the safety seal at the bottom that have busted that out and tried to get into the cockpit and, you know, other crazy things that have happened over the years.

00:38:11.000 My goal is to get you from point A to point B as safely and smoothly as possible.

00:38:15.000 And if somebody tries to get into our cockpit, I'm going to defend that as much as I can.

00:38:19.000 What happened to the guy?

00:38:20.000 Did authorities meet him at the gate when he landed?

00:38:22.000 We don't...

00:38:24.000 Get involved in any of that.

00:38:25.000 If there is a potential law enforcement engagement, we may call them.

00:38:29.000 But if there was an incident, what we did is we just kept the door closed.

00:38:32.000 So they may have met him, but we won't get involved in that at all unless there's actual interaction, physical contact.

00:38:36.000 Did he eventually sit down?

00:38:37.000 He did sit down because one thing I noticed after 9-11, a lot of people like, not happening on my plane today.

00:38:44.000 So when I picked up the PA and said that, I had a lot of other passengers turn around. 0.99

00:38:49.000 I was like, you better sit the fuck down right now. 0.99

00:38:50.000 You're not going to do this. 0.99

00:38:51.000 And, you know, you got other people starting to get involved with it.

00:38:54.000 They made him sit down.

00:38:55.000 He very angrily sat down.

00:38:56.000 How weird.

00:38:57.000 But now you got other passengers that are, you know, conscious of it.

00:39:00.000 And that's one thing we would probably ask.

00:39:01.000 You don't want people to engage in it.

00:39:03.000 But if something gets out of control, everybody better step up and do our part to, you know, we never want a 9-11 to happen again.

00:39:10.000 We don't want to ever experience that again.

00:39:12.000 It's just, some people are just, if there's any sort of pushback against them at all, they're almost ready for conflict.

00:39:19.000 There's certain people that, you know, you tell them you have to sit down, like, or what? 0.96

00:39:24.000 Or what happens if I don't fucking sit down?

00:39:26.000 We're gonna land and you're gonna get a nice greeting at the gate. 0.96

00:39:28.000 So like now, the big thing is the mask.

00:39:30.000 Right.

00:39:31.000 You gotta have the mask on.

00:39:32.000 Yeah.

00:39:32.000 So if we're taxing out, you don't have the mask on, they will.

00:39:36.000 Our flight attendants will do everything impossible. 0.99

00:39:38.000 I saw a thing where a lady got kicked off a flight because her baby wouldn't keep the mask on, which is kind of fucking crazy. 0.96

00:39:42.000 We were just talking about that. 0.92

00:39:42.000 That's kind of tough. 0.92

00:39:43.000 What age do you, you know, if it's a two-year-old... 1.00

00:39:47.000 Two-year-olds can't have a fucking mask. 1.00

00:39:49.000 And by the way, if they get sick, it's like nothing. 1.00

00:39:52.000 It just goes in and out of their system.

00:39:54.000 I mean, the flu is actually very dangerous for them.

00:39:57.000 Nobody ever did anything about that.

00:39:59.000 But coronavirus for little kids is not, statistically speaking, it's not a big danger.

00:40:05.000 It takes some, you know, that's how I go back to our flight attendants.

00:40:08.000 One of my flight attendants, Frank, you know, we talk about that all the time.

00:40:12.000 They are amazing with what they have to, you know, deal with.

00:40:15.000 So one, customer service, safety, et cetera.

00:40:16.000 And when you start to deal with issues like that, man, it takes a lot of, you know, patience and discretion to do the right thing.

00:40:23.000 But if it's an adult that simply does not want to comply, they'll do everything they can.

00:40:28.000 To get that person to comply to the point of having to call up front and tell the captain that we have an issue.

00:40:34.000 And then even when it comes to that, because it's about safety and customer service, we're going to get on the PA and say, ladies and gentlemen, we have compliance things that you need to follow.

00:40:41.000 Please do this.

00:40:42.000 If you don't do it, now we have to go to the next step.

00:40:44.000 Some people just don't like following orders, man.

00:40:47.000 It's so weird.

00:40:48.000 You can see it in their face.

00:40:49.000 It's like maybe something they grew up with or whatever. 1.00

00:40:52.000 They're like, no, fuck this. 1.00

00:40:53.000 There's an easy fix to that. 1.00

00:40:54.000 We'll land and be like, have a good day.

00:40:56.000 You said that flying over here to do the show was the first time you sat in the back in a long time.

00:41:00.000 In a long time, yeah.

00:41:01.000 Was it weird?

00:41:02.000 It was weird, one, because the lady next to me was coughing. 1.00

00:41:04.000 Oh no!

00:41:06.000 Oh no!

00:41:08.000 It was funny.

00:41:09.000 Everybody around her, every time she coughed, everybody would look at her like, that's not Dorona, is it?

00:41:13.000 So I casually reached down in my bag and I pulled out another mask.

00:41:17.000 A double mask.

00:41:18.000 With my hat on and my shades and I'm kind of sitting in the corner like this.

00:41:22.000 My friend Reggie Watts has this helmet that he's going to wear when he comes here.

00:41:25.000 It's the most preposterous thing.

00:41:27.000 It's a HEPA filter.

00:41:28.000 It looks like a space suit. 1.00

00:41:31.000 Pull that stupid thing up. 1.00

00:41:32.000 Oh, you got it right here. 1.00

00:41:33.000 We have it.

00:41:34.000 We actually have it.

00:41:35.000 Oh, wow.

00:41:36.000 We bought a couple of them.

00:41:37.000 That's incredible.

00:41:40.000 I haven't put it on.

00:41:42.000 Jamie put it on. 0.89

00:41:43.000 But this, it's kind of ridiculous. 0.97

00:41:45.000 Very ridiculous. 0.96

00:41:46.000 Kinda. 0.97

00:41:47.000 Yeah, very ridiculous, right? 0.99

00:41:49.000 Yeah. 0.96

00:41:49.000 You can't hear anything when you've got that on. 0.96

00:41:51.000 Which one's the top?

00:41:52.000 That's it.

00:41:52.000 There's only one way to put it on.

00:41:53.000 Oh, okay.

00:41:53.000 Like this?

00:41:54.000 Yep.

00:41:56.000 Yep.

00:41:58.000 So Reggie's going to fly like this.

00:42:00.000 There are aliens. 0.99

00:42:01.000 And I guess if you seal this bitch up, though... 1.00

00:42:04.000 Yeah, there's a fan you've got to turn on, though. 0.99

00:42:06.000 Just a fan on the side.

00:42:06.000 Huh?

00:42:07.000 Where's the fan?

00:42:08.000 There's a slit where...

00:42:10.000 Like, we were right here by your jaw.

00:42:12.000 I don't know where to go.

00:42:13.000 Where's the turn on?

00:42:16.000 He's fogging up.

00:42:18.000 There's a thing right under there.

00:42:19.000 But the fan will...

00:42:20.000 How do I turn it off?

00:42:21.000 It's in there.

00:42:22.000 Come.

00:42:23.000 Help me out.

00:42:26.000 That's like an astronaut helmet.

00:42:30.000 Oh, there it goes.

00:42:31.000 So it's got a fan, and it apparently clears the air too, right?

00:42:35.000 Oh, man.

00:42:36.000 It's like a HEPA filter.

00:42:37.000 Sure.

00:42:38.000 So Reggie's out there flying like this.

00:42:42.000 People would freak out if they saw that.

00:42:44.000 Follow him on Instagram.

00:42:44.000 He's a great follow.

00:42:46.000 But he's actually flying with one of these things.

00:42:48.000 They'll make you take it off at TSA. Really?

00:42:50.000 Because they've got to see your true face, yeah.

00:42:51.000 Like you come up with a mask and stuff?

00:42:53.000 They make you pull it down.

00:42:53.000 Yeah.

00:42:54.000 But then once you're on the plane, can you wear this?

00:42:56.000 I don't see why not.

00:42:58.000 It's better than a mask.

00:43:00.000 There was a guy that had a Boba Fett helmet on in the airport yesterday.

00:43:06.000 Did they let him?

00:43:07.000 Nah, they'll make you take it off because they've got to make a determination if you have a true mask on.

00:43:11.000 Yeah.

00:43:12.000 A true mask.

00:43:14.000 You know, because you can't wear the ones with the vents in it anymore.

00:43:18.000 Right, right, right.

00:43:19.000 I never understood those vents.

00:43:20.000 Like, a guy came to the studio once and he had a mask and he had two vents on each side.

00:43:25.000 I'm like, what are you doing?

00:43:26.000 You have a hole in your mask.

00:43:28.000 This is not a real mask.

00:43:29.000 That, and you know the little, like the plastic face shield that sits about, you can't wear anything like that either. 0.96

00:43:34.000 Those are ridiculous too.

00:43:35.000 There's a whole, you can grab up and grab your face. 0.98

00:43:37.000 Yeah, I'll just, the Rona will come out on the top or bottom.

00:43:40.000 Oh, it's just so strange because nobody knows what's really working and what doesn't work.

00:43:44.000 And then there's these anti-mask people who think that nothing works and there's no evidence.

00:43:48.000 Some of them are actually intelligent.

00:43:50.000 That's what the real problem is.

00:43:51.000 Like Alex Berenson, who used to write for the New York Times, was on this podcast.

00:43:56.000 He said, there's very little evidence that shows that masks work.

00:44:00.000 I wear a double mask.

00:44:01.000 So I got my mask and then I put one of the medical masks on the inside.

00:44:05.000 That's what Tom Cruise does.

00:44:06.000 And I kind of look at it like if I can't smell anything, that's at least a start. 0.98

00:44:10.000 I would imagine if someone's coughing, there's stuff that's in the air, and if you have a mask, it's got to stop some of that shit. 0.97

00:44:18.000 Yeah. 0.87

00:44:19.000 That's been the goal, to stay as safe as possible.

00:44:23.000 Now, explain to me how you go from being a fighter pilot to being an MMA referee.

00:44:31.000 Alright, so it's weird.

00:44:32.000 When I was in Vegas the first time, 2002, 2005, part of my physical fitness regime was, like, everyone has to box.

00:44:41.000 I went to the Air Force Academy, everyone has to box there. 0.94

00:44:43.000 Everyone has to box at the Air Force Academy?

00:44:43.000 Really?

00:44:45.000 Yeah, part of the PE programs is you go through a boxing program.

00:44:48.000 Really?

00:44:49.000 Yeah, so for a semester, you've got to box.

00:44:51.000 You know, it's part of the self-defense skills.

00:44:53.000 There are other things that they do.

00:44:54.000 They make you spar?

00:44:56.000 Yeah, you got a full-up spar.

00:44:57.000 And then, you know, we got boxing teams at the academy.

00:44:59.000 And I will say that for years, the academy boxing team was, you know, the best in the world.

00:45:03.000 Hey, Ray Mercer won a gold medal in the Olympics when he was fighting for the Army.

00:45:07.000 There are a lot of, you know, a lot of my classmates.

00:45:08.000 Pretty sure that's the case.

00:45:09.000 Yeah.

00:45:10.000 All Americans that, you know, boxed throughout the years. 1.00

00:45:12.000 Randy Couture boxed in the Army, too.

00:45:14.000 Yep.

00:45:15.000 So that's kind of tied in.

00:45:17.000 That's how it started.

00:45:17.000 When I went back to Vegas, I went to a gym called JSEC, which is now Fight Capital.

00:45:22.000 Sure.

00:45:23.000 And JSEC, you know, with Skipper Kelt, John Lewis.

00:45:25.000 That's the first gym that I went back to.

00:45:25.000 Yeah.

00:45:26.000 Shout out to John Lewis and Skipper.

00:45:28.000 Skipper Kelt, all those guys are amazing.

00:45:30.000 Skipper's awesome.

00:45:31.000 Back in the day, that's where Randy Couture would train, Marvin Eastman, Tito Ortiz, Chuck Liddell.

00:45:36.000 I went in there, and that's where I started doing all my boxing, my jiu-jitsu, and everything else.

00:45:40.000 So, I was already doing some stuff with the UFC. You probably don't remember, but some of the old school UFC fights, like when Randy Couture fought in Columbus, Ohio, they would have me come out to the fights and go to a local VA hospital there in the area,

00:45:57.000 and I'd bring a group of like 5 or 10 vets out to every single UFC fight.

00:46:01.000 Is Columbus when he fought for the title against Tim Sylvia?

00:46:04.000 Against Tim Sylvia.

00:46:05.000 You know, that and some of the other UFC fights, I bring these guys out.

00:46:05.000 Yeah, I remember that.

00:46:08.000 So I already had a rapport and a relationship with a bunch of those guys.

00:46:11.000 And here I am doing this training, boxing stuff at JSEC. And we had a couple guys coming there that wanted to spar one day.

00:46:18.000 And I was like, wow, that looks interesting.

00:46:21.000 I think I'd like to get in that referee with him.

00:46:23.000 And Skip was like, practice with some of the other guys first while they're doing their live sparring.

00:46:28.000 And then when these pros come back, I want you to get in the ring and move around with them and see what you think.

00:46:33.000 And it was weird because Dana came in there one day.

00:46:37.000 And I was like, man, can I have a picture with you?

00:46:38.000 We took a picture and he's like, what the hell are you doing in there?

00:46:40.000 I was like, I'll just practice refereeing a little bit.

00:46:42.000 So he's like, is that something that you're interested in?

00:46:45.000 And I said, yeah.

00:46:46.000 So him or, you know, somebody that worked for him told me, I want you to contact these guys.

00:46:52.000 I want you to contact Barry Meyer, God rest his soul, and the folks over at Tough Enough, Jeff, his younger brother.

00:46:57.000 Yeah.

00:46:58.000 One of the top amateur promotions there in Las Vegas across the world, you know, MMA, fighting, et cetera.

00:47:03.000 So they had me go to their fight the next day, and I sat there next to Barry, and he's like, is this something that you want to do?

00:47:09.000 And I would practice scoring fights.

00:47:11.000 I did that for a little bit, and the ISKA folks brought me on as a judge, and I did the judging for about six months.

00:47:16.000 While the whole time I'm still going to these gyms, Extreme Couture, Syndicate, JSEC, getting in the ring, and I'm practicing with these guys, and I go, you know what, I love this refereeing stuff.

00:47:26.000 So I decided to take a formal course.

00:47:28.000 So I went and took Herb's course, and I realized how much I didn't know.

00:47:31.000 So I took Herb's course, and I did really well there.

00:47:34.000 Where does Herb teach his course out of?

00:47:35.000 You know, he was teaching out like in the Glendale area at one of his gyms out there.

00:47:40.000 Yeah.

00:47:40.000 Okay, California?

00:47:40.000 So how long is the course, like if you wanted to learn how to referee?

00:47:43.000 It seems like it would be very extensive.

00:47:45.000 Yeah, so you have to be qualified to get to that point to accept it.

00:47:49.000 You know, so Herb's course is over two days.

00:47:52.000 So you already have to have some experience as an amateur?

00:47:55.000 If you want to pass.

00:47:57.000 If you want to pass.

00:47:58.000 If you want to come there and just show up and learn some stuff, you're probably not going to pass.

00:48:02.000 You've got to be proficient when you get there.

00:48:03.000 So I took Herb's course and I did really well.

00:48:06.000 Herb calls it his dean's list as one of his top officials.

00:48:09.000 And then I switched over to refereeing.

00:48:11.000 So here I am judging amateur fights and then refereeing amateur fights.

00:48:16.000 Bill Brady, who was the chairman of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, was coming to the fights.

00:48:20.000 And then he knew I was military also.

00:48:22.000 He knew I'd done some stuff with the veterans coming to the fights.

00:48:25.000 He talked to me one day and he's like, how far do you want to progress with this?

00:48:29.000 And at the time I didn't know because I was still active duty military.

00:48:32.000 So he came and he watched me do a bunch of fights and he would look at my scores and watch me refereeing.

00:48:36.000 And then I got this phone call one day that says, we want you to come to the commission meeting on Tuesday.

00:48:42.000 And I was like, oh man, it's either good or bad.

00:48:43.000 Either I did something wrong or about to get suspended.

00:48:45.000 Well, I went in and, you know, you stand up in front of them and they ask you these series of questions.

00:48:50.000 And I was very lucky.

00:48:51.000 So I got licensed in Nevada, which is obviously the biggest state for the biggest fights in the world.

00:48:56.000 They brought me on as first a judge with Keith Kaiser.

00:48:59.000 You know, he brought me on for a judge a little bit.

00:49:00.000 And I'm still refereeing amateurs and getting more proficient.

00:49:04.000 I started to try this again, so I went and took Big John's course.

00:49:07.000 And Herb's course is hard.

00:49:10.000 Big John's course is extremely hard.

00:49:13.000 Three days.

00:49:15.000 To get to that level of proficiency.

00:49:17.000 And Big John has a, you know, pass rate is extremely rare.

00:49:21.000 You got to really, yeah.

00:49:22.000 And you know, they work together, you know, with the commissions and the Association of Boxing Commissions to get proficiency across the board.

00:49:29.000 Well, I took John's course and I was like, God, man, this is really challenging.

00:49:32.000 Is he still doing that now that he's doing a commentary?

00:49:34.000 I don't know if he's doing it just because of all the virus stuff.

00:49:37.000 But one thing I will say is we still do training.

00:49:39.000 Like, so tomorrow, The state of Nevada has training.

00:49:43.000 I run all the training for the state of Nevada.

00:49:45.000 We're doing that via Zoom.

00:49:46.000 California did training last week, and John and Herb and all the top officials in the world, everybody participates.

00:49:52.000 So John is still doing that while he's doing commentary for Bellator?

00:49:56.000 I don't know if John's course is still active or not.

00:49:58.000 And he also does that podcast with Josh Thompson.

00:50:00.000 Yeah, he does a podcast.

00:50:01.000 But although he's You know, doing the stuff with Bellator, he's still, you know, very much involved in the game.

00:50:08.000 With that knowledge base, you know, he essentially wrote the Unified Rules of MMA. He's become a very good commentator, too.

00:50:14.000 Yes.

00:50:14.000 He's excellent.

00:50:15.000 Yeah, so you can imagine me now having my two mentors in the game are Herb Dean and John McCarthy.

00:50:21.000 And, you know, for folks that say, oh, these referees, they mess up, or these judges mess up.

00:50:24.000 No, it's not like that at all.

00:50:25.000 If I mess up something, I hear from both of them.

00:50:27.000 Because, again, the goal is to not affect the outcome of a fight.

00:50:30.000 Yeah.

00:50:30.000 So I do that for a little bit, and then the Athletic Commission goes, we think we want you to be a referee as well.

00:50:36.000 So at the time, there was no one that was doing both.

00:50:38.000 They want you to concentrate on one of your expertise.

00:50:41.000 So if you go back and look at it, for a while there, I was the only person that was refereeing and judging, eventually worked my way up to UFC fights.

00:50:50.000 Now, I made a transition so I could focus more on refereeing, and then my fights have progressively gotten bigger and bigger as my proficiency has gotten better.

00:50:57.000 If you look at that last card that we did, I think I had three of the biggest fights of any UFC card.

00:51:02.000 I did the Cub Swanson fight.

00:51:03.000 What a fight that was. 0.99

00:51:05.000 Holy shit. 1.00

00:51:05.000 It was. 1.00

00:51:06.000 I get about a 20 minute break and then I do Kevin Holland versus Jacare.

00:51:10.000 Woo! 0.99

00:51:11.000 And then I finish my night with Tony Ferguson and Olivera.

00:51:16.000 That was crazy, too.

00:51:17.000 Three crazy fights.

00:51:17.000 So it's like, man.

00:51:18.000 Three crazy fights, so.

00:51:19.000 Yeah.

00:51:19.000 God, that's a great card.

00:51:21.000 That Kevin Holland KO was bananas.

00:51:24.000 I think I've done...

00:51:25.000 And, you know, we don't have anything to do with the assignments.

00:51:27.000 The Athletic Commission gives us our fights.

00:51:30.000 I've done Kevin Holland's, like, last four fights.

00:51:32.000 And, you know, I tell folks I got the greatest seat in the world sitting there in the octagon with these, you know, men and women who go in there and do that stuff.

00:51:38.000 But I fortunately have, with great mentors and guidance and opportunities from the UFC and some of the organizations, have gotten some of the biggest and best fights in the world.

00:51:47.000 I'm very high on Kevin Holland.

00:51:49.000 He's something special.

00:51:50.000 He's good.

00:51:51.000 He's got crazy power.

00:51:52.000 And it's weird.

00:51:53.000 Like, to knock out Jacare off your back with a punch?

00:51:56.000 Like, what?

00:51:58.000 And we sit there, and you look at both fighters and see what's happening.

00:52:01.000 And I go, it went down to the ground, and you have to know your fighters to know where their expertise is going to happen.

00:52:06.000 Well, he's a Travis Luter-trained jiu-jitsu practitioner.

00:52:10.000 Travis Luter, one of the best American jiu-jitsu practitioners really ever.

00:52:15.000 Travis Luter, you know, he comes from a different era, but... 0.97

00:52:20.000 Back in his day, the guys that I know that trained with him were like, holy fuck is he good. 0.50

00:52:25.000 And it's great to see him there in the corner. 0.90

00:52:27.000 You get some time to chat with these guys and hear all the stories.

00:52:29.000 He's out of Dallas, right?

00:52:30.000 Yeah.

00:52:31.000 When that fight happened, he's on his back and he throws that first punch.

00:52:36.000 And I go, okay, this is going to be a transition.

00:52:38.000 Now look at Jacare.

00:52:39.000 And if you go back and watch the fight, he's actually rocked when that first happened.

00:52:42.000 We'll step a little bit closer.

00:52:44.000 And by the time he throws the next three punches and I'm stepping in to try and stop it, Jacare is out.

00:52:49.000 Out.

00:52:50.000 And they'll concentrate on the fighter that wins.

00:52:53.000 But, you know, one, you don't want a fighter to come back conscious and take you down to start to do something.

00:52:58.000 Right.

00:52:58.000 That does happen.

00:52:59.000 And if there's a language barrier, you know, so I'm sitting there telling Jacare, the fight's over, the fight's over.

00:53:03.000 You know, I say, stop, stop, stop.

00:53:05.000 So there's no misunderstanding about what's going on.

00:53:07.000 And I'm holding Jacare and holding the fence because he's starting to, you know, come back coherent again.

00:53:12.000 And I want him to understand that he's been knocked out.

00:53:12.000 Right.

00:53:14.000 And, you know, he's like, no, no, I'm good.

00:53:16.000 Nah, man, you got knocked out.

00:53:16.000 I'm good.

00:53:18.000 You've been out for, you know, a minute or two.

00:53:20.000 Isn't that crazy?

00:53:21.000 Everybody eventually starts to come back.

00:53:22.000 They all think they're fine.

00:53:24.000 People think that fighters, they're trying to cheat or something like that.

00:53:28.000 You don't understand what it's like when you get knocked out.

00:53:30.000 Especially fighters, when they come back, they think they're in the fight.

00:53:33.000 Exactly.

00:53:34.000 They'll try to take a referee down. 1.00

00:53:35.000 They're holding on to pants legs.

00:53:37.000 They don't even think that it's a pants leg.

00:53:38.000 And then eventually they go, why is this?

00:53:40.000 These are black pants.

00:53:41.000 It's always what happens.

00:53:43.000 Yeah, what happened?

00:53:44.000 They always say what happened.

00:53:45.000 Or they get the bright light of the doctor shining a flashlight in our eyes of what happened.

00:53:49.000 And one thing we've tried to transition doing, you know, I've had some fighters get really hurt really bad.

00:53:55.000 We normally keep everybody out of the octagon.

00:53:57.000 But one thing we're doing is we're allowing a coach to come in.

00:54:02.000 With the doctor, with the inspectors, with myself, and give them a familiar voice.

00:54:06.000 You know, you get knocked out, you come back, and here's Mark telling you, no, the fight's over, you may not recognize.

00:54:10.000 But if your coach is there in the corner saying, hey, such and such, you got knocked out, calm down, it's fine, this is coach, such and such, I'm here.

00:54:17.000 We're finding that's calming the fighter down just a little bit.

00:54:19.000 Obviously, medical protocols and safety, we've got to do all that.

00:54:21.000 But I like doing that.

00:54:22.000 I like asking one of the coaches to come in, stand off to my side, and kind of give them a familiar voice.

00:54:29.000 When Olivera had Tony Ferguson in that arm bar and he had his arm completely hyperextended and it looked like his arm was breaking, like what was your thought there?

00:54:38.000 Because some guys have stopped fights when a guy has a fully locked out arm bar and it's very controversial.

00:54:45.000 Like some people think you should just let it keep going.

00:54:47.000 Other people think like that one of the best examples was Herb Dean with Tim Sylvia versus Frank Mir.

00:54:53.000 That went through my mind.

00:54:54.000 Yeah.

00:54:55.000 And see, what a lot of people didn't understand at first is Herb is looking directly at his arm and sees his snap.

00:55:00.000 He heard it.

00:55:00.000 And heard it, too.

00:55:01.000 He heard the crack.

00:55:02.000 Yeah.

00:55:02.000 Now, he caught a lot of flack for that.

00:55:04.000 He only did for a couple seconds.

00:55:06.000 Once I got in the octagon and I explained it, and I explained it to the audience, because people were booing like crazy because the fight was stopped. 0.99

00:55:13.000 Tim Sylvie was like, What the fuck? 1.00

00:55:14.000 What the fuck? 1.00

00:55:15.000 Meanwhile, his arm was trashed. 1.00

00:55:16.000 He had that adrenaline going, too.

00:55:18.000 Well, his arm was gone.

00:55:19.000 I mean, it was, and then I explained it on TV, and then when I got into the octagon, and I said, I want you to look at something.

00:55:19.000 Yeah.

00:55:26.000 Watch this.

00:55:27.000 Watch this.

00:55:27.000 And then you hear everybody go, oh!

00:55:29.000 When you see his forearm bend in half, and then everybody's like, oh.

00:55:34.000 So at that level, with the choke, I'll tell guys in a room meeting in the back, I'm not going to stop unless you go out.

00:55:40.000 You could have someone in a fully compromised position.

00:55:44.000 You know, who was it?

00:55:45.000 The Chiesa fight. 0.93

00:55:46.000 You know, he was fully compromised, but how good could it be?

00:55:46.000 Yes.

00:55:50.000 How long can he hold that?

00:55:51.000 Can he turn his chin to the side and get out of it?

00:55:52.000 Yeah, you gotta let him go out.

00:55:53.000 You gotta let him go out.

00:55:54.000 So we tell guys.

00:55:55.000 But Kevin Lee has a nasty rear naked choke and he had Chiesa fully locked in. 1.00

00:55:59.000 But even in that position.

00:56:00.000 You gotta let him go out.

00:56:01.000 So I tell guys, and we learn as we progress watching fights.

00:56:04.000 You know, we talk daily, weekly about stuff that we gotta do.

00:56:07.000 So I tell them in the back of the rules meeting.

00:56:08.000 For a choke, at this level, I'm not going to stop it unless the fighter goes out.

00:56:12.000 If it's any kind of other submission, I've got to see a dislocation, separation, or it has to break.

00:56:17.000 Or, if you scream, and there's a difference between a scream and a grunt to get out of something, if you scream, it's a verbal submission and we're going to stop it.

00:56:24.000 That's a weird one, right?

00:56:25.000 The scream, verbal submission thing is weird.

00:56:27.000 Tony will...

00:56:28.000 Man, that was... 1.00

00:56:29.000 You could saw his leg off with a rusty fucking axe. 1.00

00:56:32.000 That was beyond human. 1.00

00:56:33.000 He will not tap.

00:56:35.000 When Charles transitioned from across the chest to under the underarm, Tony grunted.

00:56:40.000 Yeah.

00:56:41.000 And he bared through it.

00:56:42.000 Look at the hyperextension.

00:56:45.000 I don't know what happened to his elbow.

00:56:47.000 You can see my foot there.

00:56:48.000 Look how close I am.

00:56:49.000 So I'm doing two things.

00:56:50.000 One, I'm looking for a dislocation separation or break.

00:56:53.000 But I'm also listening to see if it's going to be...

00:56:56.000 Crack.

00:56:56.000 A verbal.

00:56:57.000 No, the crack in the arm or verbal submission.

00:56:59.000 He did not.

00:57:00.000 He battled through that.

00:57:02.000 And we've got to be conscious of the time.

00:57:05.000 So the 10-second clapper had already gone off, so I'm counting down in my head.

00:57:09.000 And the goal is to, right when that horn goes off, you'll see when we stop a submission from that, we go right to the pressure point, push back the opposite way, and take off the pivot point.

00:57:26.000 I'm pushing on it and stopping it, also verbally telling the guy to stop, because you don't want any extra damage after the bail.

00:57:32.000 You remember Husamar Pajares?

00:57:34.000 Yeah.

00:57:34.000 Yes.

00:57:35.000 Yeah, so we saw, I think he did a fight, Jake Shields or somebody like that.

00:57:40.000 What's that loud noise all of a sudden?

00:57:42.000 That thing? 0.97

00:57:44.000 Oh, great.

00:57:46.000 I think when he fought Jake Shields, you know, there was some extracurricular activity.

00:57:49.000 That was with Kimura, and that was in the PFL, right?

00:57:54.000 Yeah, he held on to a Kimura, tapped Jake, but then held it long, and then afterwards there was a brawl inside the octagon, but...

00:58:02.000 Yeah, and I think I'd referee the fight right before that.

00:58:04.000 And, you know, it's our responsibility as a referee to know your fighter.

00:58:08.000 You gotta, you know, we do, what I do is I look at the entire card and I'll go back and try to look at their fights or whatever I get assigned.

00:58:15.000 And I don't know what I get assigned until I get there.

00:58:17.000 To know if anyone has any tendencies.

00:58:19.000 You know, are they great on the stand-up?

00:58:20.000 Are they great on the ground?

00:58:21.000 Do they have a tendency to foul?

00:58:23.000 Because we got some guys that like to fight with their fingers extended a lot.

00:58:26.000 And I put that into my rules meeting of, you know, wash fingers, just what it's going to be, fingers straight to the sky or make a fist.

00:58:32.000 Or if someone has a propensity to foul a lot, that may be something I'm going to watch out for.

00:58:37.000 Now, when you see something like that, if you saw the arm break, you would have stopped it?

00:58:42.000 I would have stopped it.

00:58:42.000 You have to.

00:58:43.000 But look how bad it looks.

00:58:45.000 It's so crazy how hyperextended that thing is.

00:58:45.000 Yeah.

00:58:48.000 Yeah.

00:58:49.000 Now, you got some folks that are super double-jointed, and they will tell you ahead of time, hey, I'm flexibility, I'm double-jointed.

00:58:56.000 Do you remember Hoyler Gracie vs.

00:58:58.000 Sakuraba?

00:59:00.000 Was that with the...

00:59:01.000 He got him in a Kimura as well.

00:59:03.000 And he got his arm way wrapped up behind his back.

00:59:06.000 But Hoyler has crazy joint flexibility.

00:59:09.000 It's really nuts.

00:59:10.000 And he was like, I'm fine, I'm fine.

00:59:12.000 And they stopped the fight and he was furious.

00:59:14.000 Because his arm was like...

00:59:16.000 Sakurabo's a catch wrestling guy.

00:59:18.000 So he's got a lot of those old school double wrist lock techniques that are really brutal in the joints.

00:59:23.000 And he's got his arm deep up high on his back.

00:59:27.000 And he's twisting it.

00:59:28.000 But Hoyler was like, I'm fine.

00:59:30.000 I'm not tapping.

00:59:31.000 And he won't tap, which is crazy.

00:59:33.000 And it depends on the level.

00:59:34.000 So can we do Tough Enough, the amateur feisty?

00:59:37.000 Yeah, if he keeps going, you can see that's only the beginning of it.

00:59:41.000 It got a lot worse.

00:59:42.000 If you see Hoyler versus...

00:59:44.000 No, that's the beginning of it.

00:59:49.000 Yeah, like at the amateur level, somebody could be in a choke, and if it's compromised, we may stop the fight.

00:59:54.000 Or if they get stuck in the armbar or something, don't demonstrate the capability.

00:59:57.000 Right, right, in the amateurs, yeah.

00:59:59.000 So, this is Hoist, buddy.

01:00:01.000 That's Hoist. 0.97

01:00:02.000 That's Hoist. 0.97

01:00:03.000 This is a different guy.

01:00:05.000 Hoiler is much smaller.

01:00:07.000 That's the problem with Sakuraba.

01:00:09.000 Sakuraba is a big guy, and Hoiler is fairly small.

01:00:13.000 Hoiler is like...

01:00:14.000 I mean, it might be like 160, maybe.

01:00:16.000 You know, it's different now because they're not fans in the UFC Apex or, you know, wherever some of these other people are doing.

01:00:22.000 But if it's like the T-Mobile or something, and you may hear something, you may hear a snap, or someone may verbally submit, and if you stop it, man, the crowd will go crazy.

01:00:30.000 They'll be ballistic.

01:00:31.000 So we, you know, we count on.

01:00:32.000 And one thing I've learned, so I did a UFC fight a couple years ago, and I had a fighter bite somebody.

01:00:40.000 Who was it?

01:00:42.000 Mowgli, I think, Benitez.

01:00:43.000 He was fighting somebody and the guy bit him.

01:00:45.000 He's trying to pull his chin up.

01:00:47.000 Oh, I remember that.

01:00:48.000 I stopped and I called time and the fans went ballistic.

01:00:52.000 And what I learned from that is the best thing to do is to Include you guys as to what happened.

01:00:58.000 Lean over to you or DC or Antic or somebody and say, he bit him.

01:01:03.000 Or you guys may be able to hear it.

01:01:04.000 The audience doesn't hear that though, right?

01:01:07.000 That part, yeah, they don't hear that.

01:01:09.000 Unless at some of the PFL and other stuff like that, when they mic us up, that mic may go out to the crowd.

01:01:15.000 That would be nice if it did, right?

01:01:17.000 In some senses, because some stuff you don't want them to be able to hear because you can overwhelm them with referee feedback.

01:01:23.000 The goal, I really don't want to say anything to them a lot during the fight.

01:01:27.000 I want to interact as least as possible.

01:01:29.000 You know, you say some stuff, you know, some fans are like, oh, he's in the middle of the fight, he's interacting too much.

01:01:33.000 But to help the TV audience, the pay-per-view audience, etc., what I've learned I need to do is, you know, either say it in the microphone where you guys can hear me or to come over to the table and, you know, kind of tell you what's going on.

01:01:43.000 It would help, but I think maybe you should have the ability to, like, press a button and broadcast to the crowd, too.

01:01:49.000 Like, he just bit his opponent and have the place go...

01:01:52.000 You know, so we're doing some different things right now.

01:01:55.000 You know, we just started the instant replay in Nevada.

01:01:57.000 Yes, which I'm a giant fan of.

01:01:59.000 So it's huge.

01:02:00.000 That's so important.

01:02:01.000 They assigned myself, Jason Herzog, Jared Villal, and Herb Dean as a committee to build that.

01:02:06.000 And we took what the boxing guys had and we developed it into MMA. And then we had kind of an approval board that we had to present it to.

01:02:14.000 So we had to present it to Big John McCarthy and Mark Ratner.

01:02:18.000 And what we did is we took the platform, told them how we were going to do it, and then we actually got their blessing to be able to do it.

01:02:24.000 Well, those are two very reasonable, intelligent guys that have a tremendous amount of experience.

01:02:28.000 And then once we were done with that, we took it to the ABC Rules Committee, you know, who looks at what's going to be fouls, what's not going to be fouls, and then we presented it to them about two months ago.

01:02:38.000 Everybody there, you know, we gave some feedback.

01:02:39.000 We're still trying to refine it.

01:02:41.000 It used to be...

01:02:43.000 You could use instant replay, but then once you did it, the fight had to be over.

01:02:47.000 It had to be for a fight-ending sequence.

01:02:48.000 I could not restart the fight.

01:02:50.000 It needed to progress past that.

01:02:52.000 So I can call time now.

01:02:53.000 We have a dedicated instant replay officer that's sitting there at the table, and that's all he's looking at.

01:02:58.000 He's only looking at potential fouls.

01:03:00.000 He's working with the production truck.

01:03:02.000 The views that you guys get for instant replay and stuff, he has a capability to, you'll see, they'll put that yellow light on the catwalk of the octagon.

01:03:10.000 That's telling me it's going to be an instant replay.

01:03:12.000 Or, if you see the referee, Do like this?

01:03:14.000 That means something just happened where I need an instant replay.

01:03:17.000 I think enough people don't understand that now, what's going on with the instant replay.

01:03:20.000 Because for the longest time, it stopped the fight.

01:03:23.000 Even if it was an illegal move and someone was going to get a point deducted, once you instituted the instant replay to find, for whatever strange reason, the fight was automatically stopped.

01:03:32.000 Had to stop.

01:03:33.000 I don't understand that.

01:03:34.000 Why was that?

01:03:35.000 We don't know why.

01:03:36.000 But we decided we had to progress past that.

01:03:39.000 Because we had a couple fouls in the UFC fights earlier that could have constituted the fight continuing to make a determination.

01:03:45.000 Was it a foul or not?

01:03:47.000 And then you can get to the point that we find that if someone is faking an injury, if we find that through instant replay, there can be point deductions.

01:03:54.000 I was just going to ask you about that.

01:03:55.000 What do you do if a guy pretends he got kicked low and then you see in the instant replay that he got kicked in the liver?

01:04:01.000 So if we call timeout, I want to see the instant replay.

01:04:04.000 If I miss it, if I make a mistake, I got to man up.

01:04:07.000 You know, no ego, no pride or anything.

01:04:09.000 But if a guy's really badly hurt with a body shot and then you go to instant replay, you're talking about a minute, two minutes, three minutes.

01:04:15.000 He's got, you know, that feeling is gone now.

01:04:19.000 Now he's been able to recover and he can actually keep fighting.

01:04:22.000 You as a referee have to make a subjective call there.

01:04:25.000 So at the time when you call a timeout, if you feel that the injury warranted enough to be a TKO, I can't stop the fight.

01:04:30.000 If that time has gone by...

01:04:33.000 And I think the fight can continue.

01:04:35.000 I have to put the fighter back in that same position. 0.80

01:04:38.000 You know, if he's down on the ground, yeah, there's going to be a level of recovery there, so you are going to lose something.

01:04:43.000 But I'm going to put the fighters back in that, you know, whatever the dominant position is.

01:04:46.000 Oh, so if a fighter kicks a guy to the body, and the fighter is down, said he got kicked low, and you determine that he did not get kicked low, you'll make him down on the ground again?

01:04:56.000 Wherever he fell, so you gotta take that snapshot.

01:04:58.000 You know, if someone's in guard and there's a foul, I call stop time, and if I need to have a doctor look at them, before I bring that doctor in, I'm gonna take a snapshot of where they are.

01:05:08.000 So let's say the bottom guy commits the foul.

01:05:11.000 I wanna put him back in that same, if it's a dominant position, you know, at least 51% dominant position, I'm gonna put him back in that.

01:05:18.000 So in that case of if someone fakes an injury, I can't get it back to that point where he's 100% hurt.

01:05:25.000 But I can put him back as close to I can in a dominant position.

01:05:28.000 Now, if I determine that a guy is intentionally faking an injury or something, and I can't put him back in that dominant position, I can fix it by saying unsportsmanlike conduct, and it can be up to a point deduction.

01:05:41.000 Or if I determine that, nope, he would have been done at that point, get up and fight right now.

01:05:45.000 Nah, I'm still recovering.

01:05:46.000 Okay, fight's over TKO. Right. 0.98

01:05:48.000 So, it's a tough position.

01:05:50.000 Yeah.

01:05:51.000 Because, you know, some of them are razor thin.

01:05:53.000 Was the knee down or was the knee not down?

01:05:55.000 Yeah, those are really thin, right?

01:05:57.000 And, you know, as a referee, you got to have, you know, a little bit of lobster eye going on to, A, look at the strike.

01:05:57.000 It's tough.

01:06:02.000 I had a fight, I don't know, two or three months ago where the guy was transitioning. 1.00

01:06:06.000 What a lot of fans don't understand, it's a grounded opponent.

01:06:08.000 So, anything other than the soles of your feet touching the ground.

01:06:11.000 It could be a knee down.

01:06:12.000 It could be a hand down.

01:06:14.000 But what we do is the hand down has to be flat palm or flat fist.

01:06:18.000 It can't just be a finger.

01:06:19.000 It can't be fingers anymore.

01:06:21.000 You know, it has to be weight bearing.

01:06:22.000 And the way we determine weight bearing, I can't determine weight bearing if he just has his fingers down, even though there may be some bending in it.

01:06:29.000 So we alleviate it and we say flat palm or flat fist.

01:06:32.000 If that fighter is flat palm and they're transitioning, coming up, and you catch that person, you know, if the hand is that close, man, it's a tough call.

01:06:40.000 That's what they pay us for, to be able to make that high-level subjective call, though.

01:06:43.000 And a fighter is legally allowed to lift a guy up slightly, just enough to get his hand off and then land a knee to the face. 0.98

01:06:51.000 You know, I tell them in the back, if they got him down and you got that flat palm, you can lift him back up.

01:06:51.000 Yeah.

01:06:56.000 I think it was a Gegard Mousasi fight a couple years back.

01:06:58.000 He lifted somebody up and threw the knee and said, oh, he was grounded.

01:07:01.000 He was grounded.

01:07:02.000 That was Chris Weidman, right?

01:07:02.000 Right.

01:07:03.000 Yeah, Chris Weidman.

01:07:04.000 He was transitioning, but his hand was up when that happened.

01:07:04.000 Yeah.

01:07:07.000 Was that your fight?

01:07:08.000 No, I think they were in New Jersey or something like that.

01:07:11.000 I think so too.

01:07:12.000 The referee, you know, we got some great referees.

01:07:14.000 You think about in Vegas.

01:07:15.000 Herb Dean, Jason Herzog, Keith Peterson, Mark Goddard, Dan Migliata.

01:07:19.000 Oh yeah, man.

01:07:20.000 That's the best.

01:07:21.000 We all work together.

01:07:22.000 We got some great guys there.

01:07:22.000 Yeah.

01:07:23.000 You know, it's teamwork.

01:07:25.000 Because the fans don't see it.

01:07:27.000 They may see us potentially make a mistake. 1.00

01:07:29.000 Oh, that guy's an idiot. 1.00

01:07:31.000 He's this and that. 1.00

01:07:32.000 Man, we get out of the ring, out of the cage, and we all talk to each other.

01:07:35.000 I'll go over to Herb, I'll go over to Goddard and say, you know, what did you think about this?

01:07:39.000 And it's really an education process for us to get better.

01:07:42.000 Because again, the last thing you want to do is affect the outcome of a fight.

01:07:46.000 And we know what this means to you, what it means to Dana and everybody else.

01:07:50.000 Me as a referee, go back to that, I want Bruce to call my name at the beginning of the fight and never have to say anything again.

01:07:55.000 Yeah.

01:07:56.000 Herb is such an open-minded guy, too.

01:07:58.000 He's come up to us before, after a stoppage, and come up and go, what did you think about that?

01:08:05.000 He'll ask questions.

01:08:07.000 I almost always agree with him.

01:08:09.000 It has to be that way.

01:08:11.000 We've got to be consummate professionals, but there's no pride and ego.

01:08:16.000 The worst feeling in the world is as a referee to know that you just made a mistake in front of however many millions of people that just watched that pay-per-view.

01:08:24.000 Yeah, I mean, listen, if you do enough fights, you're going to make a mistake.

01:08:27.000 There's no way around it.

01:08:29.000 It's just being a human being.

01:08:30.000 But the job is so tough.

01:08:33.000 I mean, it's so difficult.

01:08:35.000 And, you know, kudos to you for never getting your name mentioned other than...

01:08:39.000 Don't jinx me.

01:08:40.000 We got fights on Saturday.

01:08:40.000 No!

01:08:41.000 Let's knock on wood. 0.74

01:08:42.000 Yeah, we do.

01:08:42.000 Are you doing those?

01:08:44.000 I'm very fortunate.

01:08:45.000 It's Alistair Overeem and Volkov, right?

01:08:47.000 Yeah, I don't know which fights I got, but, you know, I've been assigned to all the fights for the rest of this month.

01:08:51.000 Do you find out when you get there?

01:08:52.000 What fights you're assigned to?

01:08:54.000 The only ones you know ahead of time is if it's a big title fight.

01:08:58.000 When the Athletic Commission gets together, they will give a selection of potential referees for the title fight.

01:09:04.000 And each camp has an opportunity to object or oppose anyone that's going to be one of those choices.

01:09:10.000 So your name for the title fight for the referee and the judges may come out ahead of time.

01:09:15.000 Otherwise, when we get there, we have a pre-meeting where we talk about anything that we learned from the last show.

01:09:20.000 Jeff Mullen, who's our lead there in Nevada, he hands out our assignments with our executive director, Bob Bennett.

01:09:26.000 They make the assignments, and you go in there and do your thing.

01:09:29.000 We do our pre-fight meeting before the fighters come out to the Octagon and talk about any potential issues.

01:09:35.000 We've been very lucky having the facilities there at the Apex.

01:09:38.000 We can have the closed environment, be in a bubble.

01:09:40.000 We used to have the fans there for the Tuesday night fights, and hopefully we get back to that eventually.

01:09:44.000 But man, what a great venue to have those fights in.

01:09:46.000 You know, there's something about the venue with no audience that's really special, though.

01:09:50.000 It's weird.

01:09:51.000 So, I did the Travis Brown-Andre Olofsky fight.

01:09:56.000 Oh, my God.

01:09:56.000 Fighting the most fun fight I've ever had in my life.

01:09:59.000 That was a wild fight, man.

01:10:00.000 You know what scared me in that fight?

01:10:01.000 What?

01:10:02.000 I mean, you remember, it was so loud in that arena.

01:10:04.000 I can hear the coaches coaching back and forth.

01:10:08.000 I can hear you guys at the table talking.

01:10:10.000 But if I can't hear that, that tells me I'm not going to hear the horn or the bell.

01:10:13.000 I was so worried because, man, these guys are slugfest back and forth.

01:10:17.000 I go, I was so much into it, I didn't have track of how much time was left.

01:10:24.000 So I go, that horn is going to go off and I'm not going to be able to hear it.

01:10:28.000 But the great thing right now is, A, you can hear the horn with no fans in there.

01:10:31.000 But it is so incredible because we can hear you guys with all your commentating and you can hear the coaches.

01:10:36.000 And then you can hear the fighters talking back and forth to their coaches.

01:10:39.000 They can hear all the specific instruction.

01:10:41.000 And as you know, this whole season, you know, back from like March or April, whenever we started, man, we got some hungry fighters in there that, you know, with the teamwork, with the coaches and stuff, that closed environment, you could hear the punches and the kicks.

01:10:52.000 It's pretty wild.

01:10:53.000 And it's just a great venue to be in.

01:10:53.000 The impact.

01:10:55.000 Well, the first one I did without any audience was Justin Gaethje and Tony Ferguson, which was in Florida, which was just wild just to be there and to see a fight with no audience.

01:11:06.000 I mean, you really feel, first of all, you feel very fortunate because there's so few people that are going to get to be there live.

01:11:13.000 But also, there's a dynamic to the fight.

01:11:16.000 There's a purity to it.

01:11:18.000 Where there's no audience and you're just seeing the competitive drive of these fighters.

01:11:23.000 Just the two fighters in there.

01:11:24.000 You're hearing them breathe.

01:11:25.000 You hear the footsteps.

01:11:27.000 You hear the impact of shins. 1.00

01:11:30.000 You hear everything.

01:11:31.000 You hear every punch.

01:11:32.000 You know, the fans get to hear things they normally wouldn't hear.

01:11:35.000 Like, you know, I had the fighter that kind of quit on the stool a couple months back.

01:11:40.000 And the fans, with the microphone that we have on...

01:11:44.000 They get the chance to hear me actually talking to the fighter.

01:11:46.000 I went over to him and said, hey, do you want to continue to fight?

01:11:49.000 And he had the interaction back and forth with his corner a couple times.

01:11:52.000 In the normal, in the T-Mobile, which is a phenomenal arena, I may not be able to hear that because you've got 20-some thousand fans in there yet.

01:11:59.000 But as I go back to the corner, I can hear everything that the coaches are saying.

01:12:03.000 And if a fighter's giving an indication that they no longer want to continue, now I can put that back into my equation on how the fight's going to go, my interaction with the doctor, etc., We're good to go.

01:12:43.000 You know, I go back to Nigel Benn vs.

01:12:49.000 Gerald McClellan, which was a tragic boxing fight where Gerald McClellan was one of the best fighters on the planet Earth and just a destroyer.

01:12:58.000 And he knocked Nigel Benn out of the ring in the first round.

01:13:02.000 Just had him badly, badly hurt.

01:13:03.000 But Nigel Benn was a warrior and survived.

01:13:06.000 And then later on in the fight, Jerry McClellan gets hurt, takes a knee, and winds up stopping.

01:13:13.000 And people were going crazy.

01:13:15.000 They were booing.

01:13:16.000 They were pissed at him.

01:13:18.000 Commentators were upset that he was quitting.

01:13:21.000 And then it turns out the guy collapses in the ring and winds up having...

01:13:25.000 Bleeding on the brain has never been the same again.

01:13:27.000 Gerald McClellan is basically, I believe he's blind. 0.55

01:13:33.000 He's partially deaf.

01:13:34.000 He can't walk correctly.

01:13:36.000 I mean, it was a severe injury.

01:13:38.000 But at the moment, people were criticizing him for quitting. 1.00

01:13:42.000 The fighter knows how fucked up they are. 0.99

01:13:45.000 You've got to imagine the kind of courage that it takes to get into that octagon. 1.00

01:13:50.000 If they're in a world-class environment like the UFC, they're bad motherfuckers. 0.99

01:13:56.000 And they know. 1.00

01:13:56.000 I agree. 1.00

01:13:57.000 They know when something's wrong.

01:13:58.000 And sometimes you just got to live to fight another day.

01:14:01.000 Yeah, and you count on having a great corner.

01:14:04.000 It's a team concept.

01:14:06.000 Yes.

01:14:06.000 So the preparation, the matchmakers, matching somebody up with a good fight, having a proper preparation, training, et cetera, to be able to get to that point.

01:14:15.000 But you know this.

01:14:16.000 The first time...

01:14:18.000 I've done hundreds of fights.

01:14:19.000 The first time I stepped inside of an octagon, it's like, man, this is surreal.

01:14:24.000 And I'm just, I'm refereeing it.

01:14:26.000 What was your first fight in the UFC? It was actually Robert Drysdale.

01:14:26.000 Can you imagine?

01:14:30.000 Really?

01:14:31.000 Yeah, I did.

01:14:32.000 My first fight was a Robert Drysdale fight.

01:14:34.000 He wound up winning.

01:14:35.000 Who was he fighting?

01:14:36.000 I don't remember who he fought against.

01:14:37.000 He only fought a couple times in the UFC, right?

01:14:39.000 Yeah, I think there were some issues that happened after that, but it was that card that I did my first fight.

01:14:43.000 With the bomba.

01:14:44.000 So my first big fight was at UFC 200. Whoa!

01:14:49.000 I was the first referee to go in and step on that yellow floor.

01:14:52.000 Oh no!

01:14:53.000 And I think that was...

01:14:55.000 So that night...

01:14:55.000 Let's see.

01:14:56.000 I can't even remember who I did that fight, but...

01:14:59.000 Was that the Brock Lesnar-Frank Muir rematch?

01:15:02.000 No, I think that was the...

01:15:06.000 Lesnar Hunt.

01:15:07.000 Oh, that's right.

01:15:08.000 Why did I think it was a rematch?

01:15:09.000 That's so much earlier.

01:15:12.000 Yeah, so, you know, you stepping there, and for me it was preparation ahead of time.

01:15:17.000 And what helped me out is Big John pulled me off to the side, and he said some crazy stuff to you to prepare you.

01:15:26.000 He said one thing to me when you get in there. 0.77

01:15:28.000 He said, Mark, don't fuck it up. 0.99

01:15:32.000 Yes sir, I want one. 0.97

01:15:34.000 And you know, that may seem very harsh to say that, but it's a simple thing of, hey, we've prepared you, you've prepared to get to this point, go in there and do your thing. 0.98

01:15:43.000 Oh, so he's kind of fucking around too. 0.92

01:15:44.000 Yeah, it's to loosen you up a little bit. 0.99

01:15:46.000 Now, when we got to that...

01:15:48.000 My first pay-per-view fight was Travis Brown and Arlovsky.

01:15:52.000 So here I am with these two giants.

01:15:54.000 That's your first trap?

01:15:55.000 Oh my god.

01:15:56.000 That was my first pay-per-view.

01:15:57.000 That's so crazy that that was your first pay-per-view fight.

01:16:00.000 He pulled me to the side, and I didn't know it ahead of time, but when I got there, he said, hey, we're going to step it up a little bit tonight.

01:16:05.000 This is what you're going to do.

01:16:06.000 And I know you knew it.

01:16:07.000 The production team knew it, but a lot of people didn't know about Arlovsky's injury.

01:16:11.000 Prior to that fight.

01:16:12.000 Remember, he had the potentially torn calf muscle.

01:16:15.000 So here we are in the back with the Athletic Commission.

01:16:17.000 They weren't even sure if he was going to fight.

01:16:18.000 They weren't sure.

01:16:19.000 So we had to take him through a series of medical tests in the back.

01:16:21.000 Mr. Ratner was back there, you know, the Athletic Commission was back there, a couple of the doctors from the UFC. And they were like, Mark, if he demonstrates that he tears that muscle even more, if he's hurt, you got to stop the fight.

01:16:34.000 So can you imagine in that Orlovsky fight with Travis Brown, If I see that calf muscle tear, I have to step in the middle of that fight and stop it.

01:16:44.000 I mean, I'm nervous.

01:16:45.000 That was one of the best one-round heavyweight fights of all time.

01:16:48.000 It was.

01:16:49.000 Of all time.

01:16:49.000 It was so wild.

01:16:51.000 That was a fight that was fought at such a pace that you knew this fight could not go the distance.

01:16:56.000 And they had a history together training at Jackson's, and Arlovsky...

01:17:04.000 We're good to go.

01:17:16.000 He was one of the most athletic heavyweights I think I've ever seen.

01:17:21.000 He kind of changed his style at one point, and he started fighting more flat-footed and slugging.

01:17:28.000 But when he knocked out Semmy Schilt with a Superman punch, I was like, that guy is the dark horse of the heavyweight division.

01:17:34.000 Because he's a huge heavyweight, but he would move really light on his feet.

01:17:39.000 You can see his legs are gone right here.

01:17:41.000 And, you know, remember, he has him up against the fence here, and I step in and I say, Travis, fight back, and I need to see something.

01:17:47.000 And then he caught Oloski and rocked him and dropped him.

01:17:50.000 And you see me start to step in.

01:17:52.000 You know, because you think about previous fights from the guys, like when Oloski fought Fedor, you know, was it that kind of shot?

01:17:57.000 But he was able to get right back.

01:17:59.000 But I can tell that...

01:18:00.000 Ooh, these guys, he caught him with a back fist there and hurt him.

01:18:04.000 We thought the fight was almost over, and why, in the middle of all this slugging, Travis catches him and drops him.

01:18:10.000 Yeah, it's coming up right here.

01:18:11.000 I just told him to fight back, and he's going to catch him.

01:18:16.000 This fight was so crazy.

01:18:17.000 Right there.

01:18:18.000 Oh my god!

01:18:19.000 I mean, he literally spun his head around.

01:18:21.000 And it looked like it was over.

01:18:22.000 And you gotta remember, Travis came back against Alistair Overeem, right?

01:18:27.000 I mean, Alistair Overeem had him battered.

01:18:30.000 Alistair Overeem had him up against the cage in deep, deep, deep trouble. 0.88

01:18:35.000 Hit him with some nasty body shots. 1.00

01:18:37.000 Really had him fucked up. 0.96

01:18:38.000 And Travis weathered the storm and came back and KO'd It's about right here that I'm thinking the fight's over because he's going to miss him with the punch and he's right there and he staggers so much that I'm already at the mind frame that this fight's going to be over. 0.98

01:18:52.000 And then he catches him here and then he turns away without any intelligence.

01:18:56.000 Now see that's the kind of...

01:18:57.000 The fans may get mad at you for stopping it standing but everybody knows.

01:18:57.000 Perfect.

01:19:01.000 He folded.

01:19:02.000 When you see his body...

01:19:04.000 Even like that, like, his body was barely conscious.

01:19:06.000 Let's see it again.

01:19:07.000 Like, when he hit him with the uppercut, like, right there in the right hand, like, he's done.

01:19:11.000 He covered up.

01:19:12.000 I mean, it was a good stoppage.

01:19:13.000 You saved him in a way.

01:19:15.000 And my goal is to never get hit by some 260-pound heavyweight.

01:19:18.000 I've been hit before.

01:19:19.000 You gotta worry about that, right?

01:19:21.000 You know, you try to step in.

01:19:23.000 It's always protect the fighter, fighter safety.

01:19:25.000 Yeah.

01:19:25.000 But I will step in.

01:19:26.000 So...

01:19:27.000 Guys get on me because I yell, stop, stop, stop.

01:19:30.000 There is no confusion if the referee is yelling, stop, stop, stop.

01:19:33.000 But I also step in definitively to protect myself and the fighter.

01:19:37.000 And then sometimes you may have to aggressively push someone off.

01:19:41.000 Have you been hit with a straight punch before?

01:19:42.000 I've been hit behind the ear before from a heavyweight.

01:19:45.000 I went in to stop it right as he's throwing a fight and he hit me.

01:19:48.000 Now I was lucky I saw it coming and I turned away.

01:19:50.000 Because can you imagine me as a UFC referee getting knocked out?

01:19:53.000 I turned my head away from it and I was able to soak up most of the punch.

01:19:58.000 Who was it?

01:19:59.000 It was actually an amateur fight, a guy named Chucky Williams.

01:20:02.000 You know, great fighter, a lot of power.

01:20:04.000 I went in to stop his fight and he's throwing a punch right as he's doing it and he caught me.

01:20:09.000 And what I tell the guys, if you know the fighter is done, show some professionalism.

01:20:14.000 You don't have to sit there and keep punching and, you know, fighting to the referee tells you to stop.

01:20:19.000 But if you can tell that a fighter is out and done.

01:20:21.000 Right, if someone's unconscious.

01:20:23.000 You know, do the walk off and make sure they're done.

01:20:25.000 Yeah, that's a weird one, right?

01:20:27.000 You're taught to keep fighting until the referee pulls you off.

01:20:30.000 But when you see guys get KO'd and they're out cold and the guy jumps on them and pounds them a couple more times, that's unfortunate.

01:20:38.000 Was it the Chaos Williams fight?

01:20:40.000 Yes.

01:20:40.000 I was like, whoever catches first here is going to win this fight.

01:20:44.000 He catches them and he goes down and he's going in to finish the fight and I dive in and stop it.

01:20:48.000 You know, that kind of stuff you have to do.

01:20:50.000 It's fighter safety.

01:20:51.000 You got to protect the guy that's been out.

01:20:52.000 And he was, you know, he was out before he even hit the ground.

01:20:54.000 Yes.

01:20:55.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:20:55.000 Chaos has got some serious power and he fights like a fucking demon, man. 1.00

01:20:59.000 There's a few of these guys coming up right now that are just so talented. 0.99

01:21:03.000 They're hungry.

01:21:04.000 Yes, well, they've realized, they see these, you know, the Conor McGregors, the stylebenders, they see these guys that are becoming these gigantic superstars, the Dustin Poiriers, and they realize, like, wow, like, you know, fortune favors the brave.

01:21:19.000 Like, you gotta go in there guns blazing.

01:21:21.000 We see it with the Tuesday night fights, and then also the Saturday venue there at the Apex.

01:21:25.000 You know, some people may not realize the impact of what the UFC did.

01:21:30.000 In the middle of this pandemic, you know, Bellator did it in their bubble as well, but, you know, UFC kind of led the sports world for everybody.

01:21:36.000 You know, folks are getting burned down on social media and it's like, what else do we do?

01:21:39.000 And sitting on the couch doing a thing that gave an outlet, you know, not just for us as officials, but athletes and teams and everybody have something exciting to be able to watch.

01:21:48.000 You know, you know how passionate Dana is about it.

01:21:50.000 And we all kind of follow that lead.

01:21:52.000 So we as officials, whatever commission you're working for, very, you know, very fortunate that he's given us opportunities to do that.

01:21:58.000 Well, listen, as fans, we're all very fortunate because the UFC led the way for the return of live sports.

01:22:05.000 They really did.

01:22:06.000 I mean, Dana stuck his neck out there and led the way for the return of live sports. 0.95

01:22:11.000 And they did it in as safe a way as possible.

01:22:14.000 And when we're talking about the athletes, there was a lot of crazy hyperbole.

01:22:18.000 Like, you're risking their lives.

01:22:19.000 Listen, man, those guys are not dying from Coronavirus.

01:22:23.000 Maybe we thought maybe they were risking their lives at the beginning of the pandemic because we didn't really know what the virus was.

01:22:29.000 But now the argument that they're risking their lives now is preposterous.

01:22:32.000 You're not gonna kill elite athletes with this virus.

01:22:36.000 They may not know the safety protocols that we go through, you know, no, you know, the testing, you know, you test and you go in the bubble and you isolate and Also, they're alerting the fighters about vitamin supplementation, how to strengthen your immune system, and how to check.

01:22:50.000 If they're paying attention, they're monitoring their resting heart rate.

01:22:54.000 If you wear something like a whoop strap, it'll show where you're cardiovascular, how your body is recovering for things, and it can actually give you indications that you might be suffering from this virus.

01:23:06.000 Exactly.

01:23:06.000 For me, it's preparation.

01:23:09.000 One, we study fights and get all the understanding in there, but proper nutrition.

01:23:13.000 You know, rest and recovery.

01:23:15.000 You know, I go through a routine every single time before we do a fight to get myself ready for it.

01:23:19.000 And I do that religiously to get ready for it.

01:23:21.000 What's your routine?

01:23:22.000 So, one, we do our Zoom training.

01:23:26.000 And that's all the top officials in the world.

01:23:29.000 You know, Herb gets on there, Jason, Sal D'Amato, Chris Lee, you know, Derek Cleary with the Athletic Commissioners.

01:23:34.000 We do our training and we go over fights and we watch them.

01:23:36.000 And then there's phone calls back and forth of, you know, hey Herzog, what did you think about this fight the other day?

01:23:41.000 Give me feedback.

01:23:42.000 And then what we're doing there in Vegas is we go into the bubble.

01:23:45.000 So we go to our hotel facility, they test us, and you go into isolation.

01:23:48.000 And you have to stay in the hotel, right?

01:23:50.000 You have to stay in the hotel.

01:23:51.000 That's annoying.

01:23:51.000 So you've got to bring all your food and stuff like that and prep for it.

01:23:53.000 And I've kind of gotten used to it, you know, and to prep us to be able to do that, you have to do it.

01:23:59.000 They may look at some rapid testing and stuff, but for right now, this is the way we do it.

01:24:03.000 How long do you stay in the hotel for?

01:24:05.000 It depends.

01:24:05.000 Some people get there the night prior on Friday, and then, you know, we go to the arena like at 1 o'clock or 2 o'clock, or, like, since I live there local, I'll go over Saturday morning at 7 o'clock, test and isolate, and then go to the What do you bring like a Yeti cooler with you or something?

01:24:17.000 I bring a food bag.

01:24:18.000 And, you know, I do my meal prep at home.

01:24:21.000 So I do my stuff there.

01:24:23.000 Like I work with, you know, some folks like the Honest Plant Company, and they give me protein supplement and immune booster.

01:24:28.000 You know, I've heard you talk about the vitamin C, the vitamin D, the zinc, and then I take one of their immune boosters.

01:24:33.000 And that helps me out.

01:24:34.000 So like, for me, I had my thyroid removed a couple years ago.

01:24:37.000 So, you know, proper nutrition, did you have cancer?

01:24:40.000 No, it was, I had a hypothyroidism.

01:24:42.000 I have that.

01:24:43.000 Yeah.

01:24:44.000 And then what happened for me is my, my neck started to get bigger and my thyroid actually died.

01:24:49.000 Yeah, it was, it was like nine and a half centimeters and we decided to have a surgery to take it out.

01:24:54.000 Oh Jesus.

01:24:55.000 The crazy thing about that is when I had the surgery, The anesthesiologist made a little mistake and I wasn't completely anesthetized yet when they put the intubation tube in and I hit my vocal cords.

01:25:05.000 So you go back to that Arlovsky and Travis Brown fight.

01:25:09.000 I took a little hiatus right after that because when they hit my vocal cords I couldn't talk for about six months.

01:25:17.000 So he damaged my left vocal cord and then he stretched my right vocal cord.

01:25:21.000 You know, your vocal cords essentially touch together to make the tones.

01:25:25.000 I couldn't talk for about six months.

01:25:26.000 So here I am, an airline pilot and a UFC referee, and I got to be able to talk.

01:25:31.000 Or, you know, an MMA referee, got to be able to talk for both of them.

01:25:34.000 As a single dad...

01:25:36.000 Primary income from my kids.

01:25:37.000 I was like, what do I do?

01:25:39.000 I can't talk.

01:25:39.000 So I had to go through voice and speech therapy and I eventually got all that back.

01:25:43.000 For six months?

01:25:44.000 It was about six months it took my voice to get back.

01:25:46.000 Did they give you any kind of medication or something to help heal the vocal cords?

01:25:49.000 There wasn't really anything they could do.

01:25:50.000 I would do the voice therapy.

01:25:51.000 You know, I'd go through a speech therapist and you know, they, they, she'd do stuff like she, you know, had me go over certain tones to be able to get it back and you know, never raise my voice.

01:26:00.000 They don't even want you to whisper because I guess the whispering would still have, you know, effects on the vocal cords being able to heal.

01:26:05.000 Oh my God.

01:26:06.000 And my voice has changed a little bit now because I'm still not back to 100% recovery.

01:26:11.000 How long ago was this?

01:26:13.000 This was, shoot, 2015. You're not 100% recovered?

01:26:18.000 My voice will never be the same.

01:26:20.000 Sounds good.

01:26:21.000 I appreciate that.

01:26:22.000 I mean, if this is your voice from now on, that's a good voice.

01:26:25.000 Right?

01:26:25.000 You can't be hating it.

01:26:26.000 No, I'm very fortunate that I got it.

01:26:28.000 How is it not recovered, though?

01:26:29.000 In what way?

01:26:31.000 So my voice is a little bit scratchier.

01:26:33.000 Oh, it just sounds different.

01:26:34.000 Yeah.

01:26:34.000 But you can talk no problem.

01:26:36.000 I can talk no problem.

01:26:37.000 The only place I notice it, if I do a lot of fights where I have to yell a lot, at the end of the night, my throat can be sore and I sound like I lose my voice just a little bit.

01:26:47.000 Oh, okay.

01:26:47.000 So in that preparation thing...

01:26:50.000 I take caution to all of that.

01:26:52.000 So I bring my food bag with all my supplements and stuff.

01:26:55.000 I do a lot of...

01:26:56.000 Do you know who Norm Turner is?

01:26:57.000 No, I don't know.

01:26:57.000 Norm Turner, he's a strength and conditioning coach at Syndicate.

01:27:00.000 He's worked with Gina Carano.

01:27:01.000 Okay.

01:27:01.000 I've trained at Syndicate before.

01:27:03.000 John Wood's place.

01:27:03.000 John Wood.

01:27:04.000 He works with a lot of fighters there.

01:27:06.000 A lot of good fighters there.

01:27:07.000 Vinny Magalish.

01:27:08.000 So he's my strength and conditioning coach.

01:27:09.000 He helps me do all that stuff.

01:27:10.000 And in the hotel, I do a lot of prepping.

01:27:14.000 Stretching and other stuff.

01:27:15.000 But I gotta tell you, the one thing that religiously, whether I'm doing it with the UFC or whether I'm doing my flying, I got into Tim Tamming.

01:27:22.000 Oh! 0.60

01:27:23.000 That thing is incredible.

01:27:24.000 I was in the gym one day.

01:27:26.000 And it just so happens, I got a gift for you.

01:27:30.000 What is this?

01:27:30.000 That is one of their newest products.

01:27:33.000 That's their portable.

01:27:34.000 That's their menu.

01:27:34.000 Oh, a pocket massager.

01:27:35.000 That's the pocket one.

01:27:36.000 So, Joe, I gotta tell you.

01:27:37.000 Probably should change the name of that.

01:27:39.000 I know.

01:27:40.000 You know, it's people.

01:27:41.000 But I got into...

01:27:43.000 Tim Tam.

01:27:44.000 I was in the gym one day and I was, you know, lower back soreness and some other stuff.

01:27:47.000 And I saw this guy, he's doing this massager thing.

01:27:50.000 I go, what is that?

01:27:50.000 He goes, man, it's my Tim Tam.

01:27:52.000 I go, let me try that.

01:27:53.000 And he said, take it home for a couple days.

01:27:55.000 And then I didn't realize how magical that thing was as far as, you know, pressure points and, you know, active release and stuff like that.

01:28:02.000 So I take that thing with me whenever I go fly a trip for the airlines or when I do that preparation for the UFC. That's good because it's small.

01:28:09.000 Well, you know, they got the traditional ones that have the heated tips and the pressure points and stuff like that.

01:28:14.000 That is part of my everyday routine and I absolutely love it.

01:28:18.000 So I do that.

01:28:20.000 And then I sit there and I will call up.

01:28:21.000 I got UFC Fight Pass.

01:28:23.000 I got some of the other stuff.

01:28:24.000 I will sit there and watch fights.

01:28:25.000 If I know it's someone that's going to be on the card, I will sit there and I will shut my phone off.

01:28:29.000 I'll put it on Do Not Disturb and I'll get myself in the mind frame of, okay, this is serious business.

01:28:35.000 The world is watching us right now.

01:28:37.000 Again, go back to that philosophy of I don't want to have any negative impact on the fight.

01:28:41.000 And I'll sit there and I'll watch fights and then I'll make sure my body is all warmed up and stretched, ready to go.

01:28:45.000 And we'll go over to the arena.

01:28:47.000 As soon as we step in that door, it's game time.

01:28:49.000 You really do have to be warmed up, right?

01:28:51.000 Because you've got to sprint sometimes.

01:28:53.000 People don't realize the lateral movement back and forth.

01:28:56.000 I am sore when I'm done with the fight with all the side-to-side movement.

01:29:00.000 And if you have to step in and pull somebody off, it can be exerting on the body.

01:29:05.000 So I lift weights and do other preparation and stuff like that.

01:29:07.000 And just the mental fatigue from, you know, you go back to that last card with the three big fights that I had.

01:29:13.000 All huge fights.

01:29:15.000 Every fight is important, whether it's the first fight on the card or whether it's the 12th fight on the card.

01:29:19.000 But when you have a night like that, just a mental preparation and a letdown when you get done with that, you know, you realize it's a little bit fatiguing, tough on the body, etc.

01:29:27.000 So, man, there's so many elements that you've got to come into to be ready for that.

01:29:30.000 Do you train by...

01:29:32.000 Do you do side-to-side movements in training?

01:29:34.000 Like, do you run sideways or anything like that?

01:29:37.000 So when you see me warming up...

01:29:38.000 You know, I learned a lesson.

01:29:40.000 I watched Bruce Buffer warm up.

01:29:42.000 Ha ha ha!

01:29:43.000 What an incredible person.

01:29:44.000 I watch him warm up.

01:29:45.000 Nobody gets the fights more pumped up than that guy.

01:29:48.000 Pumped up.

01:29:48.000 But I said, I'm in great shape.

01:29:50.000 I can go in there and do this.

01:29:51.000 And I realized I'm not doing this good enough.

01:29:53.000 So I watched Bruce warm up, and I had to come up with a routine to make sure I'm prepared.

01:29:57.000 So I go in the back, behind the curtains and stuff, and I'll do some forward-backward sprints.

01:30:01.000 I'll do a lot of side-to-side movement, stretch hamstrings, quads, and stuff like that.

01:30:07.000 You don't want a referee going in and popping a hamstring or something in the middle of a fight.

01:30:10.000 He blew his ACL out in a fight.

01:30:11.000 Yeah, I remember that.

01:30:12.000 We've had some referees that have gotten hurt before during fights and it affects the rest of the fight.

01:30:16.000 What do you do?

01:30:17.000 You call a timeout and you bring in another referee or what exactly do you do?

01:30:21.000 That's a good question.

01:30:22.000 What do you do?

01:30:23.000 What do you do if someone accidentally gets KO'd?

01:30:25.000 I saw a referee get punched accidentally in the nose before and he's leaking from the nose.

01:30:33.000 And he wasn't able to call timeout.

01:30:35.000 So one of us ran up and said, stop timeout.

01:30:38.000 And then the doctor's going to give attention.

01:30:39.000 You got to make determination.

01:30:40.000 Is he or she good enough to continue the fight?

01:30:43.000 He put some, you know, stitch or one of those guys, you know, they do their thing.

01:30:48.000 A cut guy went in there and put some stuff in his nose.

01:30:50.000 Doctor made a determination that he was able to continue the fight.

01:30:52.000 For the fighter, I imagine like that sort of momentum stopping for something outside of the actual fight itself has got to be very annoying.

01:31:00.000 I have never seen, knock on wood, a UFC fight or Bellator fight or anything like that have to be stopped because of that.

01:31:07.000 You see all the stuff on YouTube and everything if a referee gets hurt.

01:31:11.000 Most of the fighters, you're going to hope at this level they're professional enough, they're going to stop.

01:31:14.000 It's pretty rare.

01:31:15.000 You're going to let them come in and get the proper medical attention, but we don't want that to happen.

01:31:19.000 But I would imagine, like, flyweights or something like that, like, man, you've got to be in shape.

01:31:24.000 Right?

01:31:24.000 I call it getting on my bicycle.

01:31:26.000 Yeah.

01:31:26.000 You know, some of the, like, you know, Benavidez, guys like that, that are, you know, hustling, moving around the whole time.

01:31:31.000 Man, you've got to.

01:31:32.000 And folks don't know it, but we're in a slightly smaller octagon inside the apex right now.

01:31:37.000 So there's not a lot of room to run.

01:31:37.000 Yeah.

01:31:39.000 Right.

01:31:39.000 You've got to get away from those dudes.

01:31:40.000 You've got to stay away from them.

01:31:41.000 Yeah.

01:31:41.000 And the last thing you want to do is get pent in a corner.

01:31:44.000 And have the fight come into you.

01:31:45.000 So we try to maintain that, you know, 90 degrees off where the fighters directly on your left and right and keep a constant movement with them.

01:31:52.000 You look for eye pokes and groin shots and stuff like that.

01:31:55.000 But you sit there and watch us, you know, we're usually sweating by the end of the fight.

01:31:58.000 Oh, yeah, for sure.

01:32:00.000 I mean, you have to be in great shape to referee a fight, especially with small guys that move a lot.

01:32:06.000 And I try to, you know, so in addition to the strength and conditioning stuff, you know, I've done some classroom stuff like, you know, people talk about what they do during the pandemic.

01:32:14.000 I was actually crazy enough.

01:32:15.000 I went back to grad school during the pandemic and I got master's number three.

01:32:19.000 And I went and got a master's in exercise, wellness, fitness, and nutrition.

01:32:23.000 And that helps me understand, you know, do I really know how to meal prep?

01:32:27.000 Do I really know what proper proteins and supplements and stuff to put in my body?

01:32:31.000 So I wanted to learn that side of it.

01:32:33.000 And then I'm planning on taking that back to share it with the other officials that work with us and doing some corporate wellness and fitness too.

01:32:40.000 I got grand plans and stuff that's coming out there.

01:32:42.000 Well, that's cool.

01:32:42.000 That's cool.

01:32:43.000 I would think that it would benefit you to get to a field and just do some sideways running.

01:32:49.000 Just do some sideways, that kind of stuff.

01:32:51.000 I do.

01:32:53.000 The octagon surface is one thing to be able to do it.

01:32:56.000 But what I do for preparation in the back, I do a lot of side-to-side movement to the left and back to the right, and then shuffling back and shuffling forward to try to mimic the actual movements that I'm going to do inside the octagon.

01:33:07.000 I've got to be able to practice with the application I'm going to use it for.

01:33:11.000 I try to put myself in that scenario.

01:33:14.000 Where we stand.

01:33:15.000 When guys are fighting, what am I looking at?

01:33:17.000 When they go to the ground and certain submissions come up, what position am I going to be able to go in to look at the pressure point to be able to hear and see what the fighter is saying?

01:33:25.000 So it's a lot that goes into it.

01:33:26.000 It's a lot of preparation and getting ready for it.

01:33:28.000 Is there a fight that stands out for you as the most difficult fight you ever had a referee?

01:33:33.000 I would say that Travis Brown and Arlovsky, because of knowing of Arlovsky's injury ahead of time, The impact of that, the number of fans that were there, how loud it got.

01:33:46.000 And first pay-per-view.

01:33:48.000 First pay-per-view.

01:33:49.000 The expectations of my two mentors, John McCarthy and Herb Dean.

01:33:53.000 But, you know, one, it takes a great message like that from a mentor. 0.98

01:33:59.000 Don't fuck it up. 0.83

01:34:00.000 You know how John's personality is. 0.95

01:34:02.000 He's a great teacher, but there's no one more knowledgeable about the sport than him.

01:34:06.000 But knowing that you've got the trust...

01:34:09.000 Because, you know, the athletic commissions are going to talk to the senior referees as to where to start to put people.

01:34:15.000 And to make it to a UFC slash Bellator level of fight, you've got to be really, hopefully, a good judge, a good referee, or a great judge, great referee, because of the impact that it could have.

01:34:27.000 And then to have that on a pay-per-view, to have the expectations of the Athletic Commission and Dana and the rest of the UFC staff there, because the last thing you want is to have a fight get messed up and catch the criticism of the promotion, the fans, you know, fellow referees, etc.

01:34:43.000 And then because of how loud it got in there.

01:34:45.000 But what I try to do is I try to say, Regardless of it's, you know, amateur fighter, A, B, professional fighter, fighting for a title, contender, etc.

01:34:54.000 Once that door closes, I try to treat everybody the same.

01:34:56.000 My routine is the same.

01:34:57.000 How I talk to the fighters, how I treat them is the same.

01:34:59.000 But, man, just going in and having a good time.

01:35:02.000 I may smile a little bit every now and then when I'm in there because I'm like, man, this is an incredible fight.

01:35:05.000 Now, you box, but have you trained in any ground fighting?

01:35:09.000 You've done any jiu-jitsu or anything?

01:35:10.000 I do.

01:35:11.000 You know, so we have to be careful how we do that.

01:35:14.000 You know, do you want to go train with someone who could potentially do their fight?

01:35:18.000 So there is a fine line between how you do that.

01:35:21.000 But I've had the best of both worlds.

01:35:22.000 You know, when I started there at JSEC, you had John Lewis and stuff.

01:35:25.000 And then when I went back to D.C., I belonged to Lloyd Irvin's school.

01:35:30.000 Another great school.

01:35:31.000 Lloyd Irvin, he teaches you.

01:35:33.000 You know, my first interaction, he coming in and spar with us, you know, I had 230 pounds, and he slammed me down to the ground.

01:35:38.000 But just the amount of learning.

01:35:40.000 Well, that doesn't seem fair.

01:35:42.000 I didn't let it happen again, though.

01:35:44.000 I'm not sparring with you again.

01:35:45.000 But, you know, you get the best stuff there.

01:35:47.000 When I came back to Vegas, you know, I go to a couple of different gyms there and trying to keep that balance of professionalism with training with the guys.

01:35:53.000 I go to Coutures and I go to Syndicate.

01:35:55.000 And then, you know, I was at one point there.

01:35:57.000 We had Vinny and Fredson and Mike Powell, all those guys in the same gym.

01:36:03.000 Now, I train for application.

01:36:05.000 A lot of people train, you know, to get the belts or to go do a tournament and stuff like that.

01:36:08.000 That's not my focus is, one, because I don't have the time.

01:36:11.000 I try to learn how I can apply that back to me refereeing, knowing the details of a specific submission or hold or something like that, and at what level amateurs, am I going to stop it when the guy's in a good choke and he can't get out of it, versus at the next level, knowing how somebody's going to transition from one position to the other.

01:36:28.000 That's where my focus is going.

01:36:29.000 There's a benefit to a guy like Lloyd Irvin throwing you around, though, and that is that you recognize the levels.

01:36:36.000 Because sometimes people get a very distorted sense of what they could physically do to a large black belt.

01:36:43.000 You get the guy sitting at home eating wings with the beer in his hands.

01:36:47.000 I can get in there, and you hear it at the T-Mobile. 1.00

01:36:49.000 I could get in there and kick his ass, you know, this, whatever. 0.99

01:36:52.000 And they don't realize the level of professionalism, proficiency some of these fighters have. 0.99

01:36:57.000 You know, to watch a Vinny Magales, you know, do a stand-up fight and then transition to the ground, you're like, man, you're about to see something incredible.

01:37:03.000 Oh, his ground game is insane.

01:37:04.000 And to train with a guy like him, I've never trained with Vinny, but he's one of the best in the world.

01:37:08.000 And his ground game is just preposterous.

01:37:11.000 And then, you know, the...

01:37:13.000 You know, you're fighters across the roster in the UFC. They may think someone is a stand-up expert and they go to the ground and you see something amazing right there.

01:37:20.000 So that's why us as referees, you got to be proficient at it.

01:37:24.000 You got to have an understanding of how that's going to apply.

01:37:28.000 Really, our judges as well.

01:37:29.000 You know, the judges are like, they think they just sit there and score the fight.

01:37:33.000 But our judge has to be able to determine Is that more of a position? 0.71

01:37:38.000 Or is that a scoring type?

01:37:39.000 Right, you have to understand what's going on.

01:37:40.000 You have to understand.

01:37:41.000 So that's where our training comes into play.

01:37:42.000 And we talk about stuff like that.

01:37:44.000 Well, there's a judge I will not name, but he told me that he was in the middle of a fight once judging a fight and one of the other judges asked him what the person was doing.

01:37:54.000 Oh, God.

01:37:56.000 It was something simple, too, like an Americana.

01:37:59.000 And the person was like, what is he doing?

01:38:02.000 You won't get that now.

01:38:03.000 You've got the Derek Cleary's and all these guys.

01:38:05.000 This is back in the day.

01:38:07.000 We're talking about more than 10 years ago.

01:38:08.000 But it was weird back then because you had a lot of people that were refereeing fights that didn't really even understand what they were judging fights.

01:38:17.000 They really didn't understand what they were judging.

01:38:18.000 They didn't understand what they were looking at.

01:38:20.000 And, you know, we, you see that criticism out there, you know, these judges in this jurisdiction are their boxing judges and stuff like that.

01:38:26.000 Now, you got folks that have been doing this for, you know, 15, 20 years, that they may not be proficient on the ground themselves, but they have an understanding of it.

01:38:37.000 You know, some of the judges may be in whatever, you know, their 60s.

01:38:40.000 The issue is when you go to some smaller commissions that don't have the kind of experience, obviously, Nevada and California are the top of the heap.

01:38:48.000 But there's places we've gone to where you've seen judging that you're like, oh, this is just insanity.

01:38:53.000 Like, this is not a person that really understands what they're talking about.

01:38:57.000 And it's really incumbent upon every referee and judge that wants to get into the game.

01:39:01.000 Like, I had somebody call me yesterday, a former fighter at Fortis MMA. You know, great guys down there.

01:39:08.000 Incredible team.

01:39:08.000 Great gym.

01:39:09.000 That wants to transition into refereeing, and we talk about how to start it from step one.

01:39:16.000 Knowing which one you want to do.

01:39:17.000 You want a referee or judge.

01:39:18.000 Got to understand the unified rules of MMA. You got to get proficient at it.

01:39:22.000 You got to start from the bottom.

01:39:24.000 Go find an amateur organization.

01:39:27.000 Sit there and watch and start a shadow program with them.

01:39:30.000 So we do that now.

01:39:31.000 I don't know if you're new or not, but Jake Ellenberger is making the transition over to officiating.

01:39:36.000 Frank Trigg did it a couple years ago.

01:39:38.000 Is Jake going to referee or is he going to judge?

01:39:41.000 I think he's going to look at judging.

01:39:43.000 Like when we do our training tomorrow, I started a process with the training with him, so he's going to participate with us from tomorrow.

01:39:50.000 Being a consummate professional, he understands where he has to start.

01:39:53.000 So we need amateur fights to come back.

01:39:55.000 We need to be in a position where we can do amateur fights because that's really where they got to start.

01:39:59.000 No one is ready from day one to step in the seat and do a UFC. So that's a thing now with the pandemic that makes it difficult, correct?

01:40:06.000 It's tough because we can't do in-person training.

01:40:10.000 So what I would do before the pandemic is I would go to these gyms, just like how I got started in this.

01:40:15.000 So in Vegas, you know, you've got a lot of gyms.

01:40:17.000 I'd go in the Yikes. 0.99

01:40:34.000 I get in Randy's octagon with him and practice refereeing.

01:40:37.000 I mean, can you imagine?

01:40:38.000 Just a Saturday casual sparring.

01:40:40.000 Well, I guess no casual sparring with those two. 0.98

01:40:42.000 You got Ngannou and Roy Nelson sparring against each other.

01:40:46.000 I couldn't get any better proficiency than that.

01:40:48.000 And I treat it just like a fight.

01:40:50.000 I treat it as a professional.

01:40:51.000 There's no BSing with them on the side because who knows I could get one of their fights one day.

01:40:55.000 But what I started doing is, A, you got to get the permission of the commissions.

01:40:58.000 I bring one or two judges in with me while they're doing their rounds for sparring.

01:41:02.000 And I say, go sit as you're an A or B judge.

01:41:05.000 Come out, and I want you to score.

01:41:07.000 It's a little bit different because they're not going in 100%.

01:41:09.000 Of course.

01:41:10.000 You know, some of the places go at 50%, 75%.

01:41:12.000 But they're still getting hands-on proficiency.

01:41:15.000 When you've got two high-level guys like that that are doing it, you may see some things that you may not get at a lower level.

01:41:20.000 But it's upon each person.

01:41:22.000 The commission is not going to force you to go do this training.

01:41:25.000 They're not going to make you take Herb's course or John's course like I teach as well.

01:41:29.000 They're going to encourage you to do it.

01:41:30.000 And if you want to get the top-level assignments, you want to get these opportunities, you've got to show proficiency.

01:41:35.000 You've got to be consistent.

01:41:36.000 Like our executive director in Nevada, Bob Bennett and Jeff Mullen, they're going to make the selections for the top referees and judges in the world.

01:41:44.000 They're going to give those opportunities.

01:41:46.000 Yeah, those are great guys, and it's a welcome change from the past administration.

01:41:50.000 Now, when you're talking about fighters, you can't really get close to these guys, huh?

01:41:57.000 It's kind of a tricky situation for you.

01:41:59.000 It is.

01:42:00.000 If you train with these guys and you're friendly with these guys, do you excuse yourself from a fight, or do you just keep it professional with everybody?

01:42:08.000 You try to keep it professional with everybody.

01:42:10.000 That's kind of annoying, though.

01:42:11.000 What if someone's cool and you want to be their friend?

01:42:13.000 It is.

01:42:14.000 And like I will tell you, Mike Powell is one of my best friends.

01:42:17.000 Oh, I love Mike Powell.

01:42:18.000 Mike's an awesome guy, and we've been friends for a while.

01:42:20.000 I have a fight.

01:42:21.000 I can pick up the phone afterwards and get honest feedback from him.

01:42:26.000 It's a little bit easier right now that Mike's not fighting, and I can get that kind of feedback.

01:42:30.000 Is he training guys now?

01:42:31.000 What is he doing?

01:42:31.000 Yeah, I think he's out at Syndicate.

01:42:33.000 He's doing some of the movie things, but he's...

01:42:35.000 Still rocking the mullet?

01:42:36.000 Off and on.

01:42:37.000 I think it depends on what day of the week it is.

01:42:39.000 He's such a skillful guy, you know, just such a really intelligent, well-rounded game when he was fighting, like just a consummate professional.

01:42:48.000 And, you know, for me, so like when I started at JSEC Fight Capital back in the day, he was in there with Randy and Marvin Eastman and all those guys.

01:42:55.000 So, you know, I've taken this transition with him the entire time.

01:42:59.000 It would be really tough for me to go in there and do a Mike Powell fight.

01:43:02.000 So what I do is like to, you know, two primary commissions, Nevada and California, I'll call them ahead of time and say, you know, Hey, Mr. Foster, I've trained with Mike Powell before I did this kind of training with him.

01:43:14.000 And I'll leave it at that.

01:43:15.000 And that's something that Herb and Big John taught me back in the day, present it to the commission and tell them and let them make determination.

01:43:20.000 Yeah, that guy, Andy Foster, is one of my favorites.

01:43:22.000 He's really so ahead of a lot of other commissions.

01:43:27.000 They're so proactive in implementing more weight classes and weight cutting in a lot of the things that they do.

01:43:34.000 I'm a big fan of.

01:43:35.000 There are a lot of great commissions around the world, but you can't get any better than California and Nevada.

01:43:40.000 No, you can't.

01:43:41.000 For me to have the opportunity to be licensed in both, I'm very fortunate.

01:43:44.000 Do you have any championship fights under your belt?

01:43:47.000 So I have not done a UFC title fight yet.

01:43:51.000 I did some in PFL and some of the other organizations.

01:43:55.000 What did you call in PFL? Which title fight?

01:43:58.000 I don't remember.

01:43:59.000 I've done like 1,500 fights.

01:44:02.000 I can't tell you the name of the fight that I did last time.

01:44:04.000 So you lose track of that.

01:44:05.000 And because I try to treat every fight as the same, it's a level of confidence.

01:44:10.000 You know, so the UFC has to have confidence in who they're going to put in the main event.

01:44:14.000 And it's not a matter of, we're not confident in Mark Smith, but the household names of, you know, Herb Dean, John McCarthy, Mark Goddard.

01:44:22.000 Well, John's now stepped aside.

01:44:24.000 Yeah, John's stepped aside.

01:44:24.000 Mark Goddard, Dan Mergliata.

01:44:27.000 Those guys, Mark Goddard and Herb Dean, are going to be the, you know, top tier guys.

01:44:31.000 Yeah.

01:44:32.000 Guys are getting more and more of a name, the more big fights that they get.

01:44:36.000 But yeah, those guys get the championship fights. 0.99

01:44:37.000 And it's about proficiency.

01:44:38.000 I think, you know, John Morgan and the MMA Junkie guys did the article a couple months ago, and they talked about, you know, the numbers of fights of the year for 2020. And I think Herb was at the top.

01:44:47.000 And then, like, he had 80-some fights, and Jason had 60 fights.

01:44:51.000 I didn't realize I had 57 fights.

01:44:53.000 Wow.

01:44:54.000 And then within those, the confidence and the commission and obviously the promotion...

01:45:00.000 We're good to go.

01:45:18.000 You gotta be mentally prepared for it.

01:45:19.000 There's something to be said about, you know, the, the Blachovitch and Adesanya fight coming up.

01:45:22.000 You gotta be mentally and physically prepared for that one.

01:45:24.000 That one, you gotta be really, really ready.

01:45:26.000 That card has three title fights on it.

01:45:28.000 Yeah, that's a crazy, is that gonna be on Fight Island?

01:45:30.000 No, I think the next like eight to ten weeks are projected to be in Vegas.

01:45:34.000 Oh, Jesus Louisa.

01:45:35.000 Yeah, so that fight, you got those two, you got Amanda Nunez fighting and then you got the 135 guys. 0.95

01:45:41.000 That's March, correct?

01:45:43.000 March what?

01:45:43.000 Do we know?

01:45:44.000 I don't remember the exact date.

01:45:45.000 I usually look at, you know, the UFC fight or, you know, shared dog or one of those.

01:45:49.000 Stylebenders, he's special.

01:45:52.000 March 6th.

01:45:53.000 Stylebender, he's something...

01:45:55.000 When you see how he picked apart Paulo Costa, that's a special athlete.

01:46:00.000 Because Paulo Costa literally had wrecked everyone they put in front of him.

01:46:04.000 Yeah, I did Paulo's fight against Uriah Hall.

01:46:07.000 Two great fighters that came down to that last round where he caught him with the body shot and hurt him.

01:46:13.000 But folks don't understand.

01:46:16.000 I'm 6'1", I walk around like...

01:46:18.000 220, you get in there with these giants.

01:46:20.000 And even if these guys weigh less than me, just, you know, the...

01:46:22.000 They weigh less than you for about five minutes.

01:46:25.000 Paulo Costa, he makes 185 by the skin of his teeth.

01:46:29.000 This is the big one, baby.

01:46:31.000 This is the big one.

01:46:32.000 My God, I'm excited about this fight.

01:46:34.000 That's going to be a great fight.

01:46:35.000 That whole card.

01:46:36.000 And, you know, kudos to the Sean Shelby and the matchmakers over at UFC. This entire season, There have been some great fights the entire time.

01:46:44.000 Look at that.

01:46:44.000 Aljo versus Piotr Jan is a crazy fight.

01:46:47.000 That's going to be wild.

01:46:49.000 That is a wild fight right there.

01:46:51.000 Amanda Nunes is in a tough position, you know, right? 1.00

01:46:53.000 Because she's a two-division champion. 1.00

01:46:55.000 And there's not much competition for her at 145. And, you know, Megan Anderson is long and tall and she's got very good strikes. 0.99

01:47:06.000 But, you know, Holly Holm kind of exposed her on the ground. 0.95

01:47:09.000 I'm sure she's gotten much better than that.

01:47:11.000 But there's no, like, compelling, like, this is the fight for her.

01:47:15.000 You know, she's just so terrifying.

01:47:17.000 I'm just so dominant.

01:47:18.000 I'm excited that, you know, we took a little break.

01:47:20.000 I think December 19th was our last fight there in Vegas.

01:47:23.000 And we had the holidays and then they did the three fights over Fight Island.

01:47:26.000 But now they're coming back.

01:47:27.000 Oh my god, yeah.

01:47:28.000 Ten weeks coming up.

01:47:29.000 And that's, you know, in addition to doing the Tuesday night fights, and then we're going to do the Ultimate Fighter again.

01:47:34.000 Well, there's so many UFC cards.

01:47:35.000 Yeah.

01:47:36.000 If you're a UFC fan, it is the best sport to follow.

01:47:39.000 Because first of all, there's no season.

01:47:40.000 It goes all year round.

01:47:43.000 Oh my goodness, Woodley!

01:47:45.000 Oh! 0.60

01:47:46.000 Usman and Burns is the fight.

01:47:48.000 That is the fight right there.

01:47:52.000 And I'm excited to see...

01:47:55.000 You know, these guys train together.

01:47:57.000 Yeah.

01:47:57.000 So they're both training down in South Florida under Henry Hooft.

01:48:01.000 And now Usman has moved to Trevor Whitman.

01:48:05.000 And he's training with Justin Gaethje.

01:48:07.000 Yep.

01:48:08.000 You look at the number of top-tier fights that we've got coming up.

01:48:12.000 I think they said the number of champions that we have, like 70% of them, are going to be in title fights coming up in the next couple months.

01:48:19.000 Yeah.

01:48:19.000 And, you know, both guys dominated Tyron Woodley, which is crazy to think about that Tyron Woodley was literally at the top of the heap destroying everybody.

01:48:31.000 And then two guys come along and dominate them back to back.

01:48:35.000 And those two guys are now fighting for the title.

01:48:37.000 And both guys can do everything.

01:48:40.000 I mean, both Usman and...

01:48:42.000 When you look at Gilbert Burns, you're talking about a guy who's a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt, top of the food chain grappling game, and learned how to strike while he was fighting.

01:48:54.000 Started training in MMA and didn't know how to strike.

01:48:57.000 Now he's one of the scariest strikers in the sport.

01:48:59.000 Yeah, he dominated that fight with striking.

01:49:01.000 Dropped Woodley in the first round, which is crazy.

01:49:04.000 You would have thought, if anybody has an advantage in the striking, it's going to be Woodley.

01:49:08.000 I mean, so well-rounded, both of those guys.

01:49:12.000 And Usman is just such a destroyer.

01:49:14.000 And you find out that Usman fought Jorge Masvidal with a shattered nose.

01:49:17.000 That's right.

01:49:18.000 Which is crazy.

01:49:19.000 Yeah, that just came out recently, didn't it?

01:49:20.000 He just announced that.

01:49:21.000 That guy's mind is a steel vault.

01:49:24.000 It really is.

01:49:25.000 And I think fans don't understand.

01:49:27.000 We see the fighters afterwards with the physical impact that it has on them.

01:49:32.000 The fans have their favorites, and they watch, and they want this and that to happen.

01:49:35.000 They don't understand the physical impact on the fighters during the fight and after the fight.

01:49:38.000 Well, that's why, you know, a guy like, bring up a guy like Tyron Woodley, you know, who was on top of the heat for so long, and then you go through three brutal fights in a row.

01:49:47.000 He has those two fights, and then the Colby Covington fight. 0.96

01:49:50.000 It's like, you, you, you, it's such a fucking hard, scrabble game.

01:49:56.000 Like, you're on top, and then you're not, and then you look at a guy like Anderson Silva, who was on top forever, and then just lost, like... 0.70

01:50:03.000 Eight fights in a row.

01:50:04.000 Yeah.

01:50:05.000 I mean, he won one fight.

01:50:07.000 Who did he beat?

01:50:09.000 Derrick Brunson?

01:50:10.000 Beat Derrick Brunson by decision.

01:50:12.000 Every other fight he lost, which is crazy.

01:50:15.000 Yeah, and I got to do the inspection of the pit for his last fight with Uriah Holland.

01:50:20.000 What did you think of that fight?

01:50:23.000 He looked good for the first couple rounds, and then when he got caught and went down, that's when you go, ah, the skills have depleted a little bit.

01:50:32.000 It's crazy to watch, you know, Uriah Hall put it up on his Instagram.

01:50:36.000 He said, when I said I learned from this man, I learned from this man.

01:50:39.000 And it shows the difference between, it shows a contrast in Anderson Silva's fight with Forrest Griffin.

01:50:46.000 When Forrest Griffin comes charging at him, he picks his spot and lands a right hand.

01:50:52.000 And that is exactly the same thing that Uriah Hall did to Anderson Silva.

01:50:56.000 The exact same move.

01:50:57.000 Like literally the same punch.

01:50:59.000 You know what impacted me the most was the interaction after the fight.

01:51:03.000 He realized this is probably the transition point and really the emotion and thankfulness that Uriah showed for it.

01:51:11.000 That, as officials, that touched everybody.

01:51:14.000 Well, it's interesting to me that Anderson's not going to hang it up, but the UFC doesn't want him anymore.

01:51:20.000 They don't want him fighting in the UFC anymore.

01:51:22.000 So where does a guy go?

01:51:26.000 This is just being honest.

01:51:29.000 It's probably better if he does go to another organization.

01:51:33.000 Not that there's not high-level talent in another organization, but they don't have high-level testing.

01:51:38.000 Mm-hmm.

01:51:39.000 And I think when you get these older fighters, the fighters that are able to sustain their careers outside of the UFC are clearly using hormones.

01:51:48.000 You know, and so there's protocols, obviously, for that, that, you know, from the USADA... In some places.

01:51:53.000 Yeah, some places.

01:51:54.000 But what we do is if a fighter has aged or something, the commission will talk to you about that ahead of time.

01:52:00.000 You know, you have two fighters where there's a higher propensity for a knockout.

01:52:03.000 You have fighters that are a little bit aged and they have to go through different testing if they're above a certain age.

01:52:08.000 Right.

01:52:08.000 We are cognizant of that as officials, that we may have to watch someone a little bit closer.

01:52:13.000 If you really count on, regardless of organization, the officials knowing and understanding that, that someone's a little bit older and it's going to have an impact, you better do your part as a referee.

01:52:23.000 Yeah, it's...

01:52:25.000 You have to look at each fight differently, don't you?

01:52:28.000 You do.

01:52:29.000 You see two 22-year-old guys, you look at them very differently than two 39-year-old guys.

01:52:34.000 Or a 39-year-old guy versus a 22-year-old guy.

01:52:37.000 You do.

01:52:37.000 You have to treat each one differently.

01:52:39.000 Every round is looked at differently.

01:52:41.000 Every impact is looked at differently.

01:52:44.000 But you have to have an understanding of the fighter before you step in there.

01:52:46.000 You know, someone has gotten knocked out a couple times.

01:52:49.000 Right.

01:52:49.000 And, you know, we have to do, you know, brain trauma protocols in courses, you know, because you want, like, your high school coaches and stuff like that to understand that for their athletes.

01:53:00.000 But we as officials have to go through those protocols as well, you know, to take these courses and understand, you know, the impact of brain injuries.

01:53:07.000 Because, once again, fighter safety is always a top priority.

01:53:11.000 I would never want to be part of a fight that someone had a long-term impact injury because of brain trauma or something else because I didn't intervene.

01:53:18.000 Yeah.

01:53:19.000 What is your thought?

01:53:21.000 How do you feel when you see guys that are fighting, like they have these 20-plus year careers, like guys like Diego Sanchez.

01:53:29.000 I mean, he won the Ultimate Fighter Season 1 in 2005, which is really crazy when you think of the fact that 16 years later he's still fighting in the UFC. And then his actual career, fighting career, goes back a couple years before that.

01:53:46.000 You know, he's been fighting a long time.

01:53:48.000 You know, it's tough because I think at UFC 200 he fought against Joe Lozon.

01:53:53.000 Yeah.

01:53:53.000 And you remember up against the cage he was taking some pretty hard shots.

01:53:57.000 And you have to delineate as an official, do I step in and stop this?

01:54:03.000 Or do I know this fighter's history of being able to come back?

01:54:06.000 Man, that was probably one of the tougher fights I had to do.

01:54:09.000 And then looking back at it, that was probably a lesson learned for me that I probably should have or could have stopped that fight a little bit earlier.

01:54:16.000 You think so?

01:54:16.000 You know, I let him take the shots, and then he threw some punches back, and then finally when he punched him and he went down, I stepped in.

01:54:24.000 And Diego actually, excuse me, he thanked me afterwards for when I stopped it.

01:54:29.000 You know, he came to realization that he could not have come back.

01:54:32.000 But you think of a guy's resilience, you know, and then I did this fight several years later against Chiesa, I mean, you know how Diego's one of the all-time great fighters when he does stuff.

01:54:41.000 His ability to be able to come back.

01:54:43.000 So subjectively, as a referee, there's that fine line balance of Do I make this decision, my decision, in the best interest of the fighter?

01:54:53.000 Or do I think about the impact, you know, the capabilities of this fighter to be able to come back?

01:54:58.000 So one, you got to know who it is in there fighting with you.

01:55:00.000 You also kind of have to look at where they are now.

01:55:03.000 Because if you go back to the Diego that fought Marvin Campman, I mean, he was like indestructible.

01:55:08.000 Like Diego is responsible for some of the greatest third rounds in the history of the sport.

01:55:14.000 Oh, my God.

01:55:15.000 Oh, my God.

01:55:16.000 Well, that was from the jump, from the opening round.

01:55:18.000 I mean, he won the opening round, and Clay won the second.

01:55:21.000 But, like, another one is a Jake Ellenberger fight.

01:55:23.000 He was losing that fight.

01:55:25.000 That was a 170 fight.

01:55:26.000 Ellenberger was a destroyer at the time.

01:55:28.000 He was knocking everybody out, right?

01:55:30.000 He literally gets hit with all these big shots from Ellenberger.

01:55:36.000 In the third round, Diego starts coming on.

01:55:39.000 And Diego actually had his back when the fight ended.

01:55:42.000 And you've got to think about those kind of things.

01:55:45.000 It's one of the worst feelings in the world.

01:55:47.000 You're going to stop a fight and you stop it too early and the guy gets up and he's fine.

01:55:51.000 A lot of fighters instinctively are going to go, I was fine, I was good. 0.98

01:55:54.000 But if you do make a mistake like that, you feel like crap.

01:55:57.000 So what's that balance between where are they at in their career? 0.86

01:56:01.000 How's the fight going?

01:56:02.000 How are their last couple fights going?

01:56:03.000 Did they take a knockout blow in their previous fight?

01:56:06.000 Are they still suffering from...

01:56:07.000 You really kind of have to be a historian of the sport.

01:56:10.000 You've got to study it.

01:56:11.000 You can't step in a fight and not do your pre-fight studying.

01:56:14.000 Look at the fighters that are on the card.

01:56:16.000 You can't know every single thing about all the fighters, but it's your responsibility as an official to know as much as you can.

01:56:22.000 Yeah, to know what a guy's capable of, whether or not a guy's a big shot lander or whether he's not.

01:56:27.000 It's such a complex sport.

01:56:29.000 There's so many different things going on because of when you're combining the wrestling and the jujitsu and the striking and then powerful guys versus endurance guys.

01:56:39.000 I mean, even, like, I get in my head, like, oh, this is the way to do it.

01:56:43.000 And then I see another guy who does it differently. 0.54

01:56:45.000 I'm like, well, that way is pretty goddamn good, too.

01:56:48.000 Like, it changes. 0.68

01:56:49.000 Like, there's trends that happen in this sport.

01:56:52.000 Like, some guys are just big-time power shot guys.

01:56:56.000 And then other guys, they hit you with, like, 50%, 60%.

01:56:58.000 Guys like Colby Covington or guys like Nick Diaz, they don't really throw 100% shots.

01:57:04.000 They just pepper you and stay on you.

01:57:06.000 Guys like Neil Magny.

01:57:08.000 They just stay on you and overwhelm you with volume.

01:57:11.000 You know, one thing I try to do in completely different worlds, but I try to treat it just like I did, you know, as a fighter pilot.

01:57:18.000 And if you're in a dogfight against someone, you know, knowing possibly what could happen here, think about the predictions.

01:57:24.000 So if I'm fighting against a certain type of plane, know what their capabilities are.

01:57:28.000 I got a certain type of fighter here, knowing what their capabilities are.

01:57:31.000 Is this fighter going to be more apt to want to go to the ground than going to throw a power shot?

01:57:35.000 And doing your study, Of what the fighter traditionally does.

01:57:38.000 You know, some people go back to their bread and butter, regardless of what's going on.

01:57:41.000 A guy's going to want to fall down and pull guard or something like that, or he's going to go up against a cage and do this.

01:57:47.000 But just going with the flow of the fight.

01:57:48.000 As we move with the fighters, look and see what's happening.

01:57:51.000 If it's time to stop the fight, it's our responsibility to step in and stop it.

01:57:55.000 When you train, if you're training jiu-jitsu or what have you, are you training just to get better as a referee or do you actually enjoy it?

01:58:03.000 I do enjoy it.

01:58:05.000 I would say my foundation is more in stand-up.

01:58:09.000 One of my best friends in the world is Chaz Mulkey, one of the great Muay Thai fighters in the world.

01:58:14.000 So that's probably where the basis is.

01:58:16.000 So I do twofold.

01:58:17.000 One, you got to be in a position.

01:58:18.000 Do you train Muay Thai?

01:58:19.000 Oh, yeah.

01:58:19.000 Yeah, that's where my foundation was.

01:58:20.000 I started with Marvin Eastman.

01:58:22.000 Oh, no kidding.

01:58:23.000 Yes, I moved up a little bit more, you know, started training with Chaz and, you know, a couple other folks in town.

01:58:28.000 So I would say that would be more of my foundation.

01:58:30.000 But to fully understand, you know, with the jujitsu, you know, taking a shin-to-shin kick, you got to do it at least one time to know what it feels like to see what these fighters are going through.

01:58:38.000 With the positions, you know, to train to get an understanding of, yeah, that's a good choke right there.

01:58:43.000 You know, that's a good pressure point submission right there.

01:58:46.000 But what I also do in conjunction to getting on the mat and actually doing that is I will have two guys get on the mat and roll, and it may be a step-by-step process.

01:58:55.000 Okay, put on a Kimura.

01:58:57.000 And I want you to flex it to the point of knowing when you're going to tap to be able to equate that to, I got a fighter in the cage right now, knowing what to look for.

01:59:04.000 And when you got Vinny and Fredson and those guys out there showing you the different types of things.

01:59:08.000 So I do a little bit two-fold.

01:59:09.000 You're going to get on the mat and roll, but I also want to stand there next to Vinny and say, that's a pressure point right there.

01:59:15.000 That's where the guy's going to tap.

01:59:16.000 So my methods may be a little bit different, but me as a referee, I got to understand fully what I'm looking at there from the outside perspective of knowing.

01:59:23.000 Yeah, there's some that are really confusing, right?

01:59:25.000 Like a Von Flu choke?

01:59:27.000 Yes.

01:59:27.000 That's a weird one, because it doesn't seem like a choke unless someone puts it on you, and then you go, oh, Jesus.

01:59:33.000 And you've seen some crazy ones.

01:59:35.000 Yeah.

01:59:35.000 I think I had one on a Tuesday night fight.

01:59:37.000 You remember when Snoop was announcing with Uriah Faber?

01:59:41.000 And what's unique about that sometimes is a guy will go to sleep with their eyes open.

01:59:46.000 Yes, and you don't know they're out.

01:59:47.000 So the first time I saw one of those was an MA fight.

01:59:50.000 The guy's looking at me.

01:59:52.000 And he stopped moving, and he stopped like this, and I realized he was out.

01:59:56.000 Now you put that into your memory bank and go, okay, fighters have their app to go to sleep with their eyes open based on this very unique choke.

02:00:03.000 That's one of the only ones that they're going to do that.

02:00:05.000 I had a Tuesday night fight that the guy's on the ground, and he gets put in the Von Flu, and he's looking at me.

02:00:10.000 They really should rename it to the OSP choke.

02:00:12.000 Yes.

02:00:13.000 Right?

02:00:13.000 He has more than anybody.

02:00:14.000 That's right.

02:00:14.000 But that Tuesday night fight, this guy goes out from it, and everybody's like, what is he?

02:00:19.000 He's still, his eyes are open, he's awake.

02:00:20.000 I go, no, his eyes are open, but he's not awake.

02:00:22.000 And then when a fighter lets go of the hole and then you realize that he's out, that's the kind of thing you've got to train for to be able to not understand.

02:00:28.000 Well, OSP, he moves the guy's arm to the guillotine position.

02:00:32.000 It's so interesting.

02:00:33.000 Like, he'll force a guy, like, he'll say, why don't you try to choke me?

02:00:38.000 He'll, like, force a guy to try it, yeah.

02:00:41.000 And then he'll tie it up, and then he'll sit back and put people to sleep.

02:00:45.000 And it's weird because they're in Apex...

02:00:47.000 Everybody can see it, and you'll hear the coaches saying, no, don't do that, don't do that, because they know what's going to happen, and he'll put you in it.

02:00:53.000 The thing is, it's like if a guy's neck is there and your arm's here, it's like an instinct.

02:00:57.000 There he is.

02:00:58.000 See the way he...

02:00:59.000 And look at his eyes.

02:01:00.000 Yep.

02:01:01.000 See, he's out.

02:01:01.000 His eyes are wide open.

02:01:02.000 Out cold.

02:01:04.000 Show the setup again, because the way Ovens sets it up, it's really interesting.

02:01:08.000 Yeah, because Ovens...

02:01:10.000 Well, they're not going to show the whole setup, but the way he clamps it down, he does it better than Von Flew.

02:01:14.000 He does it better than anybody.

02:01:16.000 It's amazing.

02:01:17.000 It's such a good choke.

02:01:18.000 It's just weird.

02:01:19.000 Fans and stuff that don't understand it, they'll yell at you for stopping the fight and they'll go, his eyes are open.

02:01:24.000 He's still awakening. 1.00

02:01:26.000 Fuck those people. 1.00

02:01:26.000 Stand them up. 1.00

02:01:27.000 They don't know jack shit. 1.00

02:01:29.000 But that's a great example. 0.99

02:01:32.000 The Von Fluchoke's a great example of a situation where it's hard to figure out what's going on if you've never been put in that position before.

02:01:40.000 Do you ever let anybody do that to you?

02:01:42.000 I have and I've actually...

02:01:44.000 You get it in training and stuff all the time.

02:01:46.000 I try to You know, you never, from a flying perspective, a pilot perspective, you don't ever want to get knocked out or passed out.

02:01:52.000 So there are limitations there.

02:01:53.000 You know, that could affect your medicals and other stuff like that.

02:01:56.000 If you get choked out, it could affect your medicals?

02:01:58.000 You know, they'll ask the question.

02:02:00.000 That's a little bit different versus getting knocked out, you know, if you've got any kind of brain injury.

02:02:04.000 But I mean, we've got a lot of pilots that we work with, you know, that, you know, they do train, you know, for one, cockpit defense and, you know, physical preparedness and stuff.

02:02:12.000 I think to fully understand it, you got to be put in those situations.

02:02:16.000 Like I will tell you, for me, one of the most painful things I've ever been in was a toe hole. 0.99

02:02:20.000 I mean, I thought I was going to, you know, break the damn mat. 0.95

02:02:22.000 I got put in a toe hole before. 0.87

02:02:24.000 And some of the other, you know, submissions and stuff like that may not be as effective on you, but...

02:02:28.000 What about like heel hooks and stuff like that?

02:02:30.000 Do they show you where it's dangerous?

02:02:33.000 Yeah, I try to get into the fine details of, you know, what can potentially break or dislocate or separate, what's going to be the pressure point.

02:02:42.000 And it's a multi-process.

02:02:44.000 You've got to look at that to see how deep it's in.

02:02:47.000 Right.

02:02:47.000 But you've also got to be able to look at the fighter to see how much agony they're in and be able to hear.

02:02:52.000 Yeah.

02:02:52.000 You know, somebody goes, ah, you know, they scream.

02:02:56.000 You've got to stop the fight.

02:02:57.000 So you have to, even if they're in pain and they want to keep going, you have to stop the fight.

02:03:00.000 It depends on what they do.

02:03:02.000 A grunt versus a scream.

02:03:03.000 And I tell them in the back.

02:03:04.000 But if they scream and they're trying to get out.

02:03:06.000 If you scream, it's a verbal submission.

02:03:08.000 God, that's so weird because a lot of guys just want to scream because it hurts, but they still want to keep fighting.

02:03:13.000 And I'll explain to them in the back.

02:03:14.000 There's a difference between a grunt to get out of something and a scream.

02:03:17.000 If I make determination, I say, please don't put me in that position.

02:03:20.000 Wasn't there a fight recently where someone did make a scream and they said it wasn't a verbal submission?

02:03:25.000 I thought it was one of the...

02:03:29.000 Yeah, something like that.

02:03:31.000 I think it was a Bellator fight, if I remember correctly.

02:03:33.000 Yeah, one of those guys, he screamed at, I think it was a knee bar or something, and he screamed out of it, and the referee stopped it, and he yelled, and he said, no, you verbally submitted it.

02:03:41.000 People do that, though, right?

02:03:43.000 What's your opinion on the low calf kick?

02:03:45.000 Uh, it is becoming prevalent.

02:03:48.000 You know, there are certain camps that everybody- Isn't it crazy?

02:03:52.000 They don't see, people don't realize the physical impact of it.

02:03:54.000 When you get hit with that thing a couple times and it starts to swell.

02:03:57.000 And because of where it is, that swelling, you know, the blood doesn't have room to expand.

02:04:02.000 Like maybe if it's the quad or something like that, it can expand out a little bit more, but in the calf, With the restricted limitation there, that swelling and the blood compact is going to stay there in that area.

02:04:13.000 And if you don't learn how to properly check, you get hit with that thing a couple times.

02:04:16.000 Let me ask you this, though, as a Muay Thai practitioner, because I haven't really gotten a good answer.

02:04:21.000 Why isn't that prevalent in Muay Thai?

02:04:25.000 Isn't it interesting?

02:04:26.000 That's not very common in Muay Thai, that guys get stopped with low calf kicks.

02:04:30.000 Don't you think it's because of the capability to check?

02:04:32.000 I would imagine so.

02:04:34.000 I would imagine so.

02:04:35.000 You think about the fights where...

02:04:37.000 The kicker has gotten hurt.

02:04:39.000 You know, Anderson Silva fight.

02:04:40.000 Yes.

02:04:41.000 Corey, whatever his last name, when he broke his leg on that one.

02:04:44.000 Yeah, Corey Hill.

02:04:44.000 You got people that are proficient in checking.

02:04:47.000 Like, you know, what Chris Weidman did against Anderson Silva was a simple turn of the leg and he tried to catch it right on the top.

02:04:54.000 Yeah.

02:04:54.000 And if you do that shin to shin, it could hurt the kicker more often than the person that is getting kicked.

02:04:59.000 So if there's proficiency in defending against it, guys are going to be apt to not do that.

02:05:03.000 Yeah, but it seems to me that, like, guys are trying to check them, but maybe it's in MMA the stance is different.

02:05:11.000 I was gonna say the stance.

02:05:12.000 If it's a, you know, a wider type of stance, where that front leg is open to it.

02:05:16.000 Right.

02:05:17.000 And, you know, you could tell people, you know, with the fight that happened, you know, with Connor and Dustin, that camp is practicing that a lot.

02:05:26.000 Oh my god.

02:05:26.000 And, you know, we as referees look at what people may be more apt to do during the fight.

02:05:32.000 Also, specifically in that fight, because Conor has that wide stance, and he puts a lot of heavy weight on that front leg, and they're also southpaw to southpaw, so it opens up that back left leg kick to that front leg of Conor's.

02:05:46.000 And we can tell.

02:05:47.000 That if somebody gets kicked like there a couple times and then they change their stance, you know, that's going to alert us on what we've got to start to look for.

02:05:54.000 And if I think someone's hurt from that, we may not interact with them.

02:05:58.000 But, you know, I'll bring the doctor in a couple times and the doctor will sit there and they'll watch them stand up and they'll look at it.

02:06:03.000 If it gets to the point, like the...

02:06:06.000 Who was it?

02:06:07.000 What's the kid's name?

02:06:07.000 Sean?

02:06:08.000 You know, the...

02:06:10.000 Oh, Sugar. 0.99

02:06:12.000 You know, it's Sugar Time, baby.

02:06:13.000 Sean O'Malley.

02:06:14.000 O'Malley.

02:06:14.000 You remember when he fought that kid and he hurt his foot or his knee?

02:06:19.000 If he could not...

02:06:21.000 His opponent's mistake was that he went down to the ground with him.

02:06:25.000 If he stepped back...

02:06:27.000 And Sean couldn't step back up to get into a fighter stance.

02:06:29.000 I would have had to stop that fight.

02:06:31.000 So I don't know if you could hear, but the corner was yelling at him.

02:06:33.000 And you refereed that fight, right?

02:06:35.000 I refereed that fight.

02:06:35.000 Yeah.

02:06:36.000 Marlon Vera put him out, right?

02:06:37.000 He put him out with an elbow.

02:06:39.000 No, I don't think it was a Marlon Vera fight.

02:06:41.000 This was...

02:06:41.000 Wasn't it Cheeto Vera?

02:06:42.000 No, no.

02:06:43.000 This was a couple years back.

02:06:44.000 Oh, different fight.

02:06:45.000 So that was the second time he hurt his foot.

02:06:46.000 Remember, this was when we were over at the MGM or T-Mobile.

02:06:50.000 That he hurt his foot.

02:06:51.000 And he went down to the ground.

02:06:52.000 Oh, that's right.

02:06:53.000 And he won the fight.

02:06:54.000 He won the fight.

02:06:55.000 That's right.

02:06:56.000 And I interviewed him when he was down.

02:06:58.000 That's right.

02:06:58.000 Yeah.

02:06:59.000 So remember, he got hurt.

02:07:01.000 He threw a high kick and it hurt his foot.

02:07:05.000 And he went down to the ground.

02:07:06.000 Yes.

02:07:07.000 If he had not been able to stand back up and maintain a standing fighter posture, I would have had to stop that fight.

02:07:11.000 Right.

02:07:12.000 So his opponent went down to the ground with him.

02:07:14.000 His corner is yelling, let him back up, let him.

02:07:15.000 And he never did.

02:07:16.000 And he stayed on the ground.

02:07:17.000 He's able to finish the fight.

02:07:18.000 Well, you know, that happened in Bellator.

02:07:20.000 In Bellator, Michael Chandler got hit with a low leg kick, and he got hit with that calf kick, and his foot went numb.

02:07:26.000 You know, sometimes that does happen, and his foot just gave out.

02:07:30.000 And when his foot gave out, they stopped the fight.

02:07:32.000 Yeah, and who was it?

02:07:34.000 Jamie Varner had the same thing happen in the UFC fight years ago?

02:07:37.000 Yes.

02:07:37.000 So we as referees had the discussion and the debate, what does a fighter have to be able to demonstrate to continue to fight?

02:07:43.000 Yeah.

02:07:43.000 And it's, you know...

02:07:46.000 They're down posture and they're standing posture, but a guy has to be able to start or continue to fight up in the standing posture.

02:07:53.000 So if your ankle keeps giving out and you fall down, we have to step in and stop the fight.

02:07:57.000 Well, interesting enough, Dustin Poirier was in that same situation with Jim Miller.

02:08:01.000 Jim Miller had his leg destroyed, but Dustin got the fight to the ground.

02:08:06.000 Jim was like one kick away from ending the fight.

02:08:09.000 Justin's leg is just trashed.

02:08:10.000 Get on the ground and keep it.

02:08:10.000 Keep it there.

02:08:11.000 You can continue.

02:08:12.000 Yes, and that's what he did.

02:08:13.000 But if there's a stand-up and he can't stand up, then you've got to step in and stop the fight.

02:08:16.000 It is just bananas to me how that one technique has dominated the sport over the last several years.

02:08:22.000 Sometimes a technique comes around and a lot of fighters start doing it, but it's very rare that a technique that's been around forever, just they change the location of the impact.

02:08:34.000 And by the way, Benson Henderson was doing that way back in the day.

02:08:37.000 And for whatever reason, it didn't have the same impact.

02:08:40.000 And you have people that don't know how to defend it.

02:08:41.000 Yeah.

02:08:42.000 Because some people simply think lifting your leg.

02:08:44.000 No.

02:08:44.000 But you're still catching that impact.

02:08:46.000 Right.

02:08:46.000 You got to turn it.

02:08:47.000 You got to turn it out.

02:08:48.000 Yeah.

02:08:48.000 It's just weird that it's not working with MMA fighters.

02:08:53.000 But with Muay Thai, it's not a factor.

02:08:56.000 It's not a factor.

02:08:57.000 Because with Muay Thai fights, a lot of fights get stopped because of leg kicks.

02:09:02.000 Mm-hmm.

02:09:02.000 You know, like Liam Harrison, how many fights does that guy have stopped from leg kicks?

02:09:07.000 A lot.

02:09:08.000 You know, he's got like highlights all over his Instagram of him stopping guys just chopping at their legs.

02:09:14.000 And if someone's proficient.

02:09:16.000 They chop that enough. 0.92

02:09:17.000 One, a guy's going to probably change their stance, which is going to have impact.

02:09:20.000 If you fight traditional and you now have to switch to southpaw, your whole game plan may be going out the window.

02:09:25.000 Yeah.

02:09:26.000 Well, Liam is very good at hiding.

02:09:29.000 His kick comes out so quick.

02:09:31.000 He doesn't have a pivot, a step.

02:09:34.000 There's no telegraph.

02:09:36.000 He's in the middle, and he's showing you hands, and he just chops at the legs before you even know it, but not targeting the calf.

02:09:43.000 It's interesting because he can land that shot to the thigh like that.

02:09:47.000 It just seems to me that he should be able to land it to the calf.

02:09:50.000 And other Muay Thai fighters should be able to as well, but they're just not doing it that way.

02:09:54.000 Does this make sense?

02:09:55.000 I'm reading it because the Muay Thai stance to your front leg is usually off the ground, so like weight-bearing?

02:10:01.000 Sort of.

02:10:01.000 This is an argument I'm reading online.

02:10:02.000 It's a decent argument.

02:10:04.000 It's a decent argument.

02:10:05.000 The problem is that that argument applies to the thigh kick as well.

02:10:07.000 But thigh kicks in Muay Thai are, of course, one of the most prevalent techniques.

02:10:11.000 Mm-hmm.

02:10:12.000 It's just such a devastating technique.

02:10:14.000 It really is a devastating technique.

02:10:17.000 When that shin slams into that calf, you've got a few of those. 0.99

02:10:20.000 You've got a few of those.

02:10:21.000 And with some guys, look, Khabib said that he was in trouble.

02:10:25.000 Like his leg was in trouble in that fight.

02:10:27.000 And then Justin Gaethje, that was as hard as he's ever been hit. 0.91

02:10:30.000 But he's just so fucking tough that he figured out a way to get through it and get Justin to the ground and finish him. 0.88

02:10:36.000 And people may not understand the impact. 0.95

02:10:38.000 So it's like, you know, you got Chaz that comes out there and Kevin Ross that trained with you.

02:10:42.000 If they see you not checking it right, they may target it a couple times.

02:10:45.000 Yes.

02:10:46.000 You realize, I'm tough.

02:10:46.000 I'm tough through it.

02:10:48.000 And then you realize after the second or third, we're like, uh-oh, that was a mistake.

02:10:50.000 There's no toughing through that calf kick, man.

02:10:52.000 Especially not the way Dustin was showing it to Carr.

02:10:55.000 And he took what?

02:10:55.000 Like, you know, he threw two of them?

02:10:57.000 And that changed the whole impact of the fight.

02:10:58.000 Yeah, it really did.

02:10:59.000 Well, because you could see Connor was moving funny.

02:11:02.000 Like, even though he's trying to pretend everything's fine, when he would get hit, you would see that little...

02:11:07.000 Because the pain is just...

02:11:09.000 It's a weird pain.

02:11:10.000 It's nerve pain.

02:11:11.000 There's not enough muscle there to absorb it.

02:11:13.000 We have to recognize that.

02:11:14.000 Yeah.

02:11:15.000 You know, if we see a fighter change in their traditional game plan because of an impact or injury...

02:11:20.000 Now that changes.

02:11:21.000 So, you know, I may stand about 7 to 10 feet away from a fighter.

02:11:25.000 If I see that somebody's hurt like that, I may move a little bit closer so I can get a, you know, a better feel, look at their face and, you know, see what kind of impact.

02:11:32.000 Or if he changes his stance, now I know we could be stepping down the ground to a stoppage of this fight.

02:11:37.000 So as a referee, you got to build all that stuff into it.

02:11:39.000 You got to understand what the guy just threw, the impact, that calf kick, impact that it could have on it.

02:11:44.000 And honestly, go back to that fighter safety again.

02:11:46.000 If a guy doesn't know better and he keeps taking all those shots, it's our responsibility to help him out.

02:11:49.000 What do you do if you think a guy's got a broken hand?

02:11:54.000 So I won't make a medical assessment.

02:11:56.000 I'll make an observation.

02:11:59.000 I'll look and see if he or she is stopping to throw it.

02:12:01.000 And then what I'll do, we got the best doctors in the world, you know, Nevada and California.

02:12:05.000 And I try to never take away time from, if it's during the round, there's no injury timeout.

02:12:11.000 But how do you decide what to do?

02:12:13.000 Like, say if a guy like Tony Ferguson, who his hand could be broken in a million different places, and I'm going to let you know, he'll still keep swinging it.

02:12:20.000 Like, how do you know?

02:12:21.000 Like, if you notice that someone did something like that, they pulled their hand back or shook it, like, how do you make that distinction?

02:12:28.000 I'll look at whether to continue to throw it, and you've got to look at the look on their face or if they make any sounds after they throw it.

02:12:34.000 And it's really my responsibility.

02:12:36.000 In between the round, I'm going to give the coach their full minute.

02:12:38.000 I'll let the timekeepers know I'm going to call a timeout, and I'll bring a doctor in.

02:12:41.000 But if it's broken, do you stop the fight, or do you allow them to keep swaying?

02:12:45.000 It depends on the severity of it, because you've got guys that may be hurt that are going to continue fighting.

02:12:50.000 They'll just change their game plan.

02:12:52.000 But if the doctor makes a determination for the long-term longevity, their health, etc., You know, you'll see the doctor and I walk off to the side and, you know, we'll cover the microphone up to, you know, you still can hear what we're saying, but, you know, we want to be able to have a discreet conversation right there.

02:13:08.000 In our jurisdiction, in Nevada, it's up to the referee to make the decision with the consultation of the doctor.

02:13:13.000 In other places, California, et cetera, the doctor can stop fights.

02:13:16.000 But we work together as a team.

02:13:18.000 So if the doctor says, you know, Mark, his hand is messed up, we need to stop this fight.

02:13:23.000 I'll go back, we'll make decision, and we'll pass it, you know, under the advice of the, you know, medical staff, Nevada State Athletic Commission, or whatever commission, referee such and such is going to stop this fight.

02:13:34.000 I know corners have stopped fights before because of broken hands, but I can't remember a time that a referee stopped to fight for a broken hand.

02:13:40.000 I have only stopped fights if I see, like, compound fractures, you know, bones and stuff sticking out.

02:13:46.000 Oh, something sticking out.

02:13:47.000 Have you seen that?

02:13:48.000 Yeah.

02:13:49.000 You know, we've had, you know, at the amateur, tough enough where you get some of the best competition.

02:13:54.000 We've had fighters that have had, you know, leg breaks and bones coming out and, you know, other stuff like that.

02:13:59.000 You know, we've had fighters get teeth knocked out and, you know, if a fighter says a tooth came out, you know, they swallowed a tooth or something like that, that's an automatic stoppage.

02:14:06.000 You know, stuff like that.

02:14:08.000 I've seen some crazy stuff.

02:14:09.000 We've had...

02:14:10.000 Fighters that have gotten knocked out and defecated on themselves or peed on themselves or something.

02:14:18.000 That causes bigger problems.

02:14:19.000 Now you've got to sanitize the ring and stuff like that.

02:14:21.000 How can you sanitize poop once it's there?

02:14:24.000 You call it a night and wait for the next show to come up.

02:14:27.000 Yeah, it seems like if that's in the early fights, you've got a real problem.

02:14:31.000 Some diarrhea is all over the octagon.

02:14:32.000 We've seen it before, though.

02:14:34.000 You haven't?

02:14:34.000 Try to do what you can.

02:14:35.000 We haven't seen it in the UFC. Well, Tim Sylvia shit his pants once in the middle of a fight, but I think he didn't get knocked out.

02:14:42.000 He just had diarrhea.

02:14:43.000 I think there was a female fighter that Had some... 1.00

02:14:46.000 Yeah, there was an issue, right?

02:14:47.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:14:47.000 Michael Chiesa almost shit himself. 1.00

02:14:49.000 He was in the middle of... 0.99

02:14:51.000 He came up to me at cage side. 0.99

02:14:53.000 He goes, dude, I'm about to shit myself. 0.99

02:14:55.000 Oh, God. 0.99

02:14:55.000 I go, no! 0.99

02:14:57.000 And he's like, yeah, this is before he fought.

02:14:59.000 And he was fine. 0.99

02:15:01.000 He kept it together, but he's like, dude, I am about to shit myself. 0.94

02:15:03.000 So, out of respect for the fight, we had a UFC fight during this season that somebody probably used the bathroom on themselves. 0.91

02:15:10.000 Oh, okay.

02:15:12.000 Well, unfortunately.

02:15:13.000 I'd say don't wear white shorts inside the cage.

02:15:15.000 Yeah, that's right.

02:15:17.000 When you've had this incredible military career and been a fighter jet pilot, and I would imagine that the thrills and the physical demands of that, it's probably pretty hard to top.

02:15:34.000 So I've been very lucky with getting to do some great things.

02:15:36.000 You know, so first I attribute it back to my parents, Norris and Shirley Smith, who, you know, an older brother, Norris.

02:15:41.000 Don't you have like three masters too?

02:15:43.000 I graduated from the Air Force Academy.

02:15:45.000 Everybody from the Air Force Academy gets a Bachelor of Science because of the amount of math, science, and engineering that you do.

02:15:51.000 I did political science there, but I focused on legal studies and pre-law.

02:15:55.000 I got a Master's in Computer Systems Management.

02:15:58.000 I got a Master's in International Security and Strategic Studies, which is like State Department stuff, and then this last one with health and wellness, nutrition, physiology, etc.

02:16:09.000 Then you fly for Southwest.

02:16:11.000 That's outrageous.

02:16:12.000 I fly for a airline in Dallas that...

02:16:14.000 I believe it might be Southwest.

02:16:17.000 That's what I heard.

02:16:19.000 So, I'll tell you what it comes down to.

02:16:22.000 One, my parents always pushed me to do something amazing.

02:16:24.000 But you've got to have motivating factors to go do stuff.

02:16:27.000 One, I wanted to be successful.

02:16:28.000 And it's kind of an analogy for me.

02:16:31.000 My parents worked too hard for me to not keep making them proud of my accomplishments every day. 0.99

02:16:37.000 But I had somebody years and years ago that looked at me and they said, you're never going to amount to be shit. 0.99

02:16:44.000 Oh, one of those guys. 0.99

02:16:46.000 Okay, that's a bet.

02:16:48.000 Isn't it amazing how haters can motivate some people?

02:16:52.000 Who is the person?

02:16:53.000 This was a, so when I went to the Air Force Academy, you know, we got enlisted instructors, you know, along with the officer and instructors that help us do stuff.

02:17:00.000 And it was someone I guess didn't like my, the way I talked and my persona. 0.98

02:17:03.000 And, you know, she pulled me to the side and gave me the, you ain't gonna ever mount to be shit. 1.00

02:17:08.000 Oh, one of those. 0.99

02:17:10.000 Okay, we'll see how this is going to go. 0.99

02:17:12.000 Isn't it funny how the people that do that usually ain't shit? 0.99

02:17:15.000 You know... 0.99

02:17:15.000 Nobody who's, like, very accomplished pulls someone aside and says, you're never going to accomplish shit. 0.99

02:17:21.000 And it was funny because I saw them years later. 0.98

02:17:24.000 It was a pretty big accomplishment.

02:17:25.000 It was a childhood dream.

02:17:26.000 I dreamt of being a Thunderbird.

02:17:27.000 And when I made it back, you know, we always do this show at the Air Force Academy.

02:17:31.000 It was a stroke of luck that I saw this same person.

02:17:34.000 I think she's like, I know you from somewhere.

02:17:35.000 And I went up to her and I said, thank you for what you said to me years ago.

02:17:38.000 Look where I am right now.

02:17:40.000 But it's one of those...

02:17:41.000 You told her what she said?

02:17:42.000 I did.

02:17:42.000 What did she say back?

02:17:43.000 Oh, I don't believe I said that.

02:17:44.000 Why would I say something like that to you?

02:17:46.000 It's like, okay, I'm not going to worry about it.

02:17:48.000 But I'm never...

02:17:50.000 I love being able to accomplish stuff, but it's like, what challenge can I take next?

02:17:56.000 And one of my friends said, man, you have about three or four or five lifetime dreams all of one lifetime.

02:18:01.000 You really do.

02:18:02.000 Thunderbirds and being an airline pilot and then, you know, people call it UFC referee. 0.52

02:18:07.000 It's an MMA referee and Your academic career, just the academic accomplishments are pretty goddamn impressive on top of that.

02:18:14.000 I've been very lucky.

02:18:15.000 Dude, that's more than luck.

02:18:16.000 Come on.

02:18:17.000 That's the thing that I love about military vets is that when you become very accomplished in that, in the military, like the amount of discipline that's required, they just develop superior human beings.

02:18:29.000 I've run into so many guys that are accomplished military vets, and they have more character, they have more discipline.

02:18:37.000 It's standard.

02:18:39.000 Some cars have a V8 with a lot of horsepower.

02:18:43.000 Military vets, accomplished military vets, they just have more character.

02:18:46.000 You know, so you kind of related to the fight game.

02:18:48.000 I had a mentor tell me, you know, you get championship fights.

02:18:51.000 It takes a lot to be able to get there.

02:18:53.000 And he said, you think about your career, military, academics, you know, refereeing fights.

02:18:57.000 And he said, you begin to hang around champions enough.

02:18:59.000 You start to get that championship mentality.

02:19:01.000 And I try to look at it on everything.

02:19:03.000 You hang around Herb Dean, Big John McCarthy, all these guys enough.

02:19:07.000 That stuff starts to rub off.

02:19:08.000 You want your level of proficiency to be that good.

02:19:11.000 At Nellis Air Force Base, where, you know, it's the home of the fighter pilot, the best of the best hang out there.

02:19:16.000 You begin to increase your level of proficiency.

02:19:19.000 You become one of the best in the world.

02:19:21.000 You know, you've got to have that, is it cockiness?

02:19:23.000 I'd rather call it, you know, confidence, yet unassuming.

02:19:27.000 You don't want to be too cocky to the point of thinking you're, you know, you're indestructible, but you want to be good enough to be able to declare and know that you're the best in the world.

02:19:36.000 And if I achieve something, yeah, I'm satisfied with it, but it's like, okay, what else can I go do now?

02:19:41.000 You know, I finish at the Air Force Academy.

02:19:43.000 Let's go get a master's.

02:19:44.000 Go to pilot training.

02:19:46.000 Let's not just go to pilot training.

02:19:47.000 Let's finish in the top so I can choose which plane I get.

02:19:49.000 And I chose to get an F-16.

02:19:51.000 So here I am, this kid from southeast Washington, D.C. that, you know, grew up with my parents taking me down by Reagan Airport and watching planes take off.

02:19:59.000 And then I saw an air show, Thunderbirds, and I said, I think I want to do that one day.

02:20:04.000 And here we are, years later, I stand out and the greatest accomplishment, greatest thing I think I've ever had.

02:20:09.000 I was in the gym at the base in Arizona working out one day and I get paged to the front desk.

02:20:14.000 I go, what is this about?

02:20:15.000 On the phone, it's a four-star general that's in charge of, you know, all of air combat command.

02:20:19.000 And he goes, what are you doing six months from now?

02:20:21.000 Why don't you come out to Nellis and be one of my Thunderbirds.

02:20:23.000 I fell on the floor.

02:20:24.000 Wow.

02:20:25.000 And then my parents were on vacation somewhere and I called them and I said, what are you guys doing in about three months?

02:20:31.000 I don't know, boy, what's going on with you?

02:20:33.000 And I said, why don't y'all come to one of my airshows and I'm a Thunderbird.

02:20:35.000 And my parents started crying, you know, to know that that type of dream has come true for all of us.

02:20:41.000 And as we get to do these other things, you know, my parents are in their eighties, And I get them watching UFC fights on Saturdays.

02:20:48.000 Really?

02:20:48.000 You know, the joy and respect the fighters, but also get to see their son, you know, smile about this.

02:20:53.000 And I guess I don't smile enough inside the octagon.

02:20:55.000 That's what my mom tells me, but...

02:20:56.000 He doesn't smile.

02:20:58.000 You better smile in there, boy.

02:20:59.000 That sounds like something a mom would say. 0.96

02:21:01.000 You just smile more in there.

02:21:03.000 That's funny.

02:21:04.000 You look mean in there.

02:21:04.000 Why you look so mean in there?

02:21:05.000 I'm serious.

02:21:06.000 I'm concentrating on what's going on.

02:21:07.000 But, man, and, you know, like I told you, when I got that message from you about stuff like this is, you know, We believe in the adage of good things happen to good people and a lot of dreams that keep coming true.

02:21:18.000 And I try to impress this upon my children as a single dad.

02:21:20.000 And I will tell you, above all else, anything else I've done, I'm most proud of being a single dad.

02:21:25.000 That's beautiful.

02:21:26.000 That's beautiful.

02:21:27.000 You should be proud of a lot of things that you've done, man.

02:21:30.000 You've accomplished a lot.

02:21:31.000 I'm trying.

02:21:32.000 I'm trying.

02:21:33.000 Keep doing some good things.

02:21:34.000 Yeah, no, you certainly have.

02:21:35.000 Now, tell me what, like, to be a Thunderbird, when they have those crazy air shows, I mean, there's so much danger and so much coordination between all the jets.

02:21:46.000 Like, how long does it take to prepare for one of those shows?

02:21:50.000 So, the training season is about five to six months.

02:21:54.000 Pull up a video of one of them Thunderbird airships because they're so crazy.

02:21:58.000 They give me anxiety.

02:21:59.000 I was on the team probably doing one of the most unfortunate.

02:22:05.000 If you look at the Thunderbird ejection at Mountain Home.

02:22:11.000 Don't give me that.

02:22:11.000 You're barely touching.

02:22:14.000 I think if you do Thunderbird, Ejection, and Mountain Home in 2003, and everyone has seen this video.

02:22:21.000 This is one of my teammates.

02:22:23.000 So I was in the Diamond.

02:22:24.000 Yeah, that's it right there.

02:22:26.000 I was in the Diamond, which is the four planes that stay together.

02:22:28.000 We had just taken off, and we go behind the show line and come back around.

02:22:33.000 The two solos do their takeoff.

02:22:38.000 You're using an ad blocker.

02:22:41.000 The two solos take off and do their thing.

02:22:43.000 So this second guy that takes off, he's going to go do a max climb to get up to about 5,000 feet and then roll and then do a split ass back and front.

02:22:53.000 And he actually winds up rolling too low.

02:22:56.000 And that picture that you see right there is the result of it.

02:23:00.000 So he actually crashes right in front of us.

02:23:02.000 So that's the video from this little cockpit camera that sits right here that looks at it.

02:23:08.000 So he rolled too low.

02:23:10.000 And then he ejected.

02:23:11.000 And we're a half a mile away.

02:23:13.000 Can you explain what that means?

02:23:14.000 He rolled too low?

02:23:15.000 So when he rolls inverted to come back the other direction, he needs so many thousand feet to be able to make it on the backside of it without impacting the ground.

02:23:26.000 So how does he make that incorrect?

02:23:29.000 So the F-16 has a radar altimeter on it, which tells you you're above ground, how many feet you are.

02:23:36.000 And let's say on this maneuver he had to be 3,000 feet above ground.

02:23:39.000 But the antennas are on the bottom of the plane.

02:23:41.000 So when you roll inverted, the only thing you can look at is your altitude calculation inside the cockpit.

02:23:48.000 And there's above ground level and there's mean sea level.

02:23:50.000 So you know, like...

02:23:52.000 Like Las Vegas is, you know, 2000 mean sea level, whereas Washington DC will be like at sea level.

02:23:58.000 So you have to make a calculation based on being in Mount Holm.

02:24:02.000 He had to add 2000 feet to his above ground level to be able to read it properly inside the cockpit.

02:24:09.000 So it makes it it makes a transition determination of how he had a math problem.

02:24:14.000 It was a miscalculation versus where we practice at home versus where we are stationed at home.

02:24:21.000 And when he rolled, he didn't have enough altitude to come around the backside.

02:24:26.000 Is this a cockpit camera?

02:24:27.000 Yeah, this is in 4K. Yeah, that's gaming, but that's exactly what it looks like.

02:24:31.000 Okay, okay, okay.

02:24:32.000 That's way too fake then.

02:24:33.000 All right.

02:24:34.000 But that's a true depiction of what an F-16 cockpit is going to look like.

02:24:38.000 So your airspeed will be on one side and your altitude is going to be on the other side.

02:24:43.000 Do you use one of these simulation machines and practice in it?

02:24:47.000 So, at the bases, they have actual simulators that you can get in.

02:24:52.000 Does it seem like you're actually...

02:24:54.000 Is it all HD and...

02:24:56.000 Yeah, it's high-level stuff.

02:24:57.000 You may sit in a bubble.

02:24:59.000 Some of them may not be motion, but this is exactly...

02:25:02.000 Some of them are motion, though.

02:25:04.000 Some of them will sway side to side and the whole deal.

02:25:06.000 Oh, wow.

02:25:07.000 Yeah, so...

02:25:08.000 So you really do feel like you're flying.

02:25:11.000 You don't have the three dimensions, the XYZ axis, so you don't get that part of it.

02:25:17.000 But as far as the ocular stimulation, you're going to get all that.

02:25:21.000 You're going to see everything that you would actually see.

02:25:23.000 And it's more of a hand-eye coordination.

02:25:26.000 So athletes tend to do very well when we fly.

02:25:29.000 Because it's a lot of look outside.

02:25:31.000 It's not a lot of looking down at your instruments inside the cockpit.

02:25:34.000 With the heads-up displays, it's designed to very rarely look inside the cockpit.

02:25:39.000 And then your control stick is going to be on your right hand, and then your throttle and everything on your left hand with anywhere between 5 and 10 buttons on either one.

02:25:48.000 So we used to call it the piccolo drill.

02:25:50.000 You know, you do all this stuff and you'd have to manipulate doing shooting missiles and turning the gun on and turning your radar and doing all this stuff with your hands.

02:25:57.000 So it's like your musical instrument almost.

02:25:58.000 Exactly.

02:25:59.000 Wow.

02:25:59.000 And then the whole time you're fighting against the G-forces and you're looking outside.

02:26:03.000 So what's unique about this, the solos demonstrate the performance capabilities of the F-16, etc.

02:26:08.000 The diamond, which I was in, we demonstrate proficiency close in flying.

02:26:14.000 So in a diamond, we may be doing 450 miles an hour.

02:26:17.000 We're doing a loop upside down.

02:26:19.000 We may be 18 inches apart from each other.

02:26:21.000 So our wings are overlapped and then 18 inches apart.

02:26:24.000 And the goal is to do everything in unison.

02:26:28.000 Oh, my God.

02:26:30.000 It's a step-by-step process.

02:26:32.000 So go out and learn how to fly a loop.

02:26:34.000 Get proficient in that.

02:26:35.000 Then put another plane next to you.

02:26:36.000 We start off at about seven feet apart.

02:26:39.000 And then as you get more proficient, we go into what's called the diamond position.

02:26:43.000 So the closest plane there on the left is the position that I would fly.

02:26:47.000 And that's about seven feet apart right there.

02:26:50.000 We eventually get to the part where your wings are overlapped and the slot is going to fall down into the slot position in the bottom of the diamond. 1.00

02:26:57.000 Oh, fuck that. 0.99

02:26:58.000 And we get closer. 1.00

02:26:59.000 Your wings are overlapped and you're about 18 inches apart.

02:27:02.000 So that's the first solo.

02:27:03.000 He may do something like an aileron roll.

02:27:05.000 How do you know exactly where they are?

02:27:09.000 So, in the diamond, there are two positions that I would look at to put my plane in the right position.

02:27:16.000 So the back of his wing, I would always line up and I would take the front of the missile rail.

02:27:20.000 It has United, US Air Force painted on the side.

02:27:23.000 I put the front of the missile rail on the A in Air Force.

02:27:27.000 And then, you know, for two years, my neck would be turned 45 degrees to the right.

02:27:32.000 I mean, you can see right there how close you are.

02:27:34.000 And everyone is going off of the movements and the cadence of the lead plane.

02:27:38.000 And he's saying, you know, something like, you know, left turn and the T in turn is when he's starting to move the stick to turn to the left.

02:27:45.000 Or, you know, back in with the pull to start pulling back.

02:27:49.000 You practice that hundreds and hundreds of times before we ever get out in front of a crowd.

02:27:53.000 Is there video of you doing this?

02:27:56.000 I don't know if you'll be able to find specifically to me because, I mean, should we be in 69 years of the Thunderbirds doing stuff?

02:28:04.000 So you'd have to find it.

02:28:04.000 But anything between 2003 and 2005, you know, that team is the team that I was on.

02:28:09.000 Is it an important method of recruiting?

02:28:14.000 Like, what is the purpose of the air show other than being awesome?

02:28:17.000 It's a primary recruiting tool.

02:28:18.000 You know, for us, the United States Air Force, we're the spokespersons for the Air Force, Department of Defense, etc., But it's also instill, you know, faith and confidence in your military.

02:28:27.000 It's a little bit different than out there dropping bombs and shooting missiles.

02:28:30.000 But it's the, you know, to show the performance capabilities of the men and women in the Air Force, the personnel, as far as the performance capabilities of the equipment that we fly.

02:28:39.000 You know, the F-16 is a fourth generation fighter.

02:28:42.000 The best of the best will be the fifth generation plus F-22s, F-35s.

02:28:47.000 But that's also to have a little bit of fun and go out and do an air show, you know, as fans.

02:28:52.000 You're living the life of a rock star.

02:28:53.000 I mean, there's no doubt about that.

02:28:54.000 The Blue Angels, Thunderbirds, you know, we did shows in Fort Lauderdale, like over spring break, where there are, you know, a million plus people out there on the beach watching us.

02:29:03.000 Oh my gosh!

02:29:05.000 That's so crazy!

02:29:05.000 So, you know, you imagine, you get back on the ground, and your picture and everything is in the paper.

02:29:11.000 You may not be able to, you think, you know, UFC fighter is popular.

02:29:14.000 It's the same sense.

02:29:15.000 You go to a restaurant and you can't even eat because everybody recognizes who you are.

02:29:19.000 A million people watch.

02:29:20.000 Over Spring Break and Fort Lauderdale.

02:29:22.000 We fly shows over the water.

02:29:24.000 You're going to have that many people there.

02:29:25.000 So to prepare for that kind of a show, how long do you train?

02:29:30.000 Uh, so the training, uh, so we practice in Las Vegas at the ranges just up north and you start basically right after Thanksgiving.

02:29:38.000 So the last show of the year is going to be the second week of November.

02:29:41.000 They take Thanksgiving off and then they get cranking from there.

02:29:44.000 And from end of November, all the way up into March, Monday through Friday, sometimes on Saturdays, you fly two to three times a day, every single day.

02:29:53.000 So it's about a hundred, you know, anywhere 120, 150 rides, flights to get you prepared for that.

02:30:00.000 Wow.

02:30:01.000 And then it's, you start off as a two ship, bring in the third plane, bring in the fourth plane.

02:30:06.000 So the diamond goes and does their thing.

02:30:08.000 The solos go and do their thing.

02:30:09.000 When they get proficiency up to like 50% of the flights, everybody comes back together.

02:30:14.000 And the goal is always perfection in an air show.

02:30:16.000 We honestly believe we never achieve perfection.

02:30:19.000 You know, the crowd may be sitting there loving it and crying out.

02:30:21.000 That was incredible.

02:30:22.000 You've never seen a debrief to talk about a flight until you watched a Thunderbird or a Blue Angel debrief.

02:30:28.000 We could be in there for hours talking about you taxied out and you were, you know, six inches off to the right or you were taxiing five knots too fast.

02:30:36.000 We want perfection. 0.52

02:30:37.000 You know, the way we salute, the way your uniform look, you can't be fat, dumpy and sloppy in your Thunderbird uniform.

02:30:43.000 It was that goal of perfection because, you know, you as an American citizen want to have faith and confidence in your military.

02:30:50.000 And that's one of the greatest tools that we can have to be able to demonstrate that.

02:30:53.000 You know, it's fun for people to go to air shows.

02:30:55.000 We want to recruit.

02:30:56.000 We want to have that next generation come in and follow in our footsteps.

02:30:59.000 You know, it's all voluntary force, so we've got to get people to join.

02:31:02.000 But we also want you to have a little bit of fun and, you know, see something amazing when you come to an air show.

02:31:06.000 When there's a disaster, like the Mountain Home crash or some other crashes, what is that like?

02:31:12.000 Is there a complete revamping of how things are done?

02:31:17.000 What happens?

02:31:21.000 So the first thing is, we hope, and there's video to it out there and audio sometimes.

02:31:27.000 The first question that came out was, did he get out of the jet?

02:31:30.000 And that's what scares everybody.

02:31:31.000 Our hearts sank.

02:31:33.000 And you can't see it at first because there's so much smoke and the engine goes flying, you know, down the side of the runway.

02:31:39.000 But we would practice for stuff like that in off-season.

02:31:42.000 We say, if you ever eject out of the plane, we wear red show suits so everybody can see you.

02:31:47.000 Physically capable, if you can, stand up, wave to the audience, and then take care of yourself.

02:31:51.000 And that's exactly what he did.

02:31:52.000 Is there a way you can move?

02:31:54.000 Like, the horrible thing would be if the plane crashed and then they parachuted down to the fires.

02:32:00.000 Can they maneuver the parachute in any way?

02:32:03.000 You have drawstrings on it, but so when he ejected there, so when you watched a video inside the cockpit, He's going down like this, and he has his hand on the right stick, and you can see his left hand move three times.

02:32:17.000 He's thinking about ejecting.

02:32:19.000 Had he ejected the first time, he would have gone right into the fireball.

02:32:24.000 Second time, he's starting to flat plate the plane a little bit, he still would have gone to the fireball.

02:32:28.000 So he waited to the perfect time, and he's actually below the ejection envelope.

02:32:32.000 It's a zero-zero seat, meaning sitting on the ground, no airspeed, I can eject out of it and it's going to give me a parachute.

02:32:39.000 He steps on the rudder, which turns the nose of the plane about 10 degrees to the left, because he's over the runway.

02:32:47.000 When he ejects, the drogue chute comes out, which slows him down, and he separates from the seat, but he does not get a full parachute.

02:32:54.000 So you go, how does somebody survive without getting a full parachute?

02:32:57.000 Well, the drogue chute pulls him out enough.

02:32:58.000 Is this him doing?

02:32:59.000 Yeah, so you can see his hand move right there?

02:33:02.000 He's actually reaching for the ejection handle, and there he ejects.

02:33:06.000 And you see him, and that's the camera turns off when he ejects.

02:33:09.000 Wow.

02:33:10.000 But because he stepped on the rudder and moved a little bit to the left, he actually misses the runway when he hits the ground.

02:33:17.000 He lands on the side where it had rained a day or so before, and he lands in some soft dirt right there, and that kind of is what saves him.

02:33:26.000 But if you're high enough, you can grab the strings and you can manipulate the parachute.

02:33:29.000 But he was not even close to being high enough right there.

02:33:32.000 So there was no other way for him to pull out of that.

02:33:35.000 He had to go eject.

02:33:37.000 Yeah, he's full aft stick and full power trying to get out of it.

02:33:40.000 There was no way he was going to make it.

02:33:41.000 He would have missed it.

02:33:42.000 I think they did the calculation.

02:33:43.000 He missed it by like, you know, 900 feet, 1,000 feet.

02:33:46.000 Oh, my God.

02:33:47.000 And they roll out at the bottom.

02:33:48.000 They're at, you know, the solos are low.

02:33:51.000 They're, you know, 150 feet above the ground when they finish the maneuver.

02:33:53.000 Is this it right here?

02:33:55.000 Oh, I'm scared to watch this, even though I know he's okay.

02:33:58.000 Oh, wow.

02:33:59.000 He's like right before the ground.

02:34:01.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:34:02.000 Holy shit. 0.99

02:34:03.000 And this, there was a... 0.99

02:34:04.000 So that picture, there was an Air Force photographer that was on a catwalk of the tower.

02:34:08.000 That's when digital cameras first start coming out.

02:34:11.000 He's sitting there, click, click, click, getting everything.

02:34:12.000 And that's how that picture...

02:34:14.000 Now, does that dude get in trouble after something like this?

02:34:17.000 He was...

02:34:19.000 They'll make a determination of cause.

02:34:22.000 And, you know, unfortunately, in this one, it was deemed to be pilot error, and he was removed from the team.

02:34:27.000 So that was towards the beginning of the show season.

02:34:30.000 So it's always six airplanes, and there are six demonstration pilots.

02:34:34.000 There are eight pilots on the team, but one is the narrator and the other is the safety officer.

02:34:38.000 We don't have any backups.

02:34:39.000 So if I wake up Tuesday morning and I got a cold, there's no backup for me.

02:34:43.000 So he got removed from the team, and then, you know, unique for us, we finished the season as a five-ship.

02:34:48.000 So we changed around some of our formations.

02:34:50.000 Instead of having a six-ship formation, we did five-ship formations.

02:34:53.000 We had to do some, you know, downtime there in Idaho, and then we got a waiver to fly back to Vegas, and then we sat for a little bit until they made a determination there was not actually something wrong with the plane, you know.

02:35:07.000 Because if there's determination there's something wrong with the plane, everybody has to be grounded.

02:35:11.000 When they determined all that was fine, we started training again and made a transition to a five-ship show and we finished the season as a five-ship.

02:35:17.000 And then they hire odds and evens every year.

02:35:21.000 So 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 will stay on the team while they hire 2, 4, 6, 8. And that's to keep consistency on the team every year.

02:35:28.000 So that next year when 1, 3, 5, 7 are done, They'll hire a new 1, 3, 5, 7. And now you've got your 2, 4, 6s, and 8s that are second year consistency and will be the instructors for the team.

02:35:41.000 Wow.

02:35:42.000 But it's, again, at Nellis Air Force Base, the home of the fighter pilot out in Vegas.

02:35:47.000 You know, you got the best of the best that are out there.

02:35:49.000 And, you know, to be a Thunderbird, it's a multi-step process.

02:35:52.000 You know, you got to have great flying capabilities, letters of recommendation from a lot of people, and you got to look good in uniform.

02:35:58.000 You got to look fit.

02:35:59.000 You can't be out of shape.

02:36:00.000 And you got to be, you know, have the nerves to be able to do this, to It's one thing to go out and fly a fighter plane.

02:36:06.000 All the basic maneuvers that we're doing are the same as every Air Force pilot learns.

02:36:11.000 But now you're doing this in tune to music, you know, sitting 18 inches away from another plane, you know, in front of a crowd of however many hundreds of thousands of people.

02:36:19.000 It was fun, though.

02:36:20.000 You know, it's high stress.

02:36:21.000 You know, my instructor was like, wiggle your fingers and wiggle your toes because you start to tense up and you do that, you're going to relax a little bit.

02:36:28.000 But, you know, my neck was stuck like this for about two and a half years because that's...

02:36:33.000 They were like, oh, we're going past Mount Rushmore.

02:36:34.000 How did it look?

02:36:35.000 And I go, it looked like 132 bolts on the left side of Thunderbird 1. That's all I can see all the time.

02:36:40.000 That's all you can concentrate on.

02:36:41.000 Yeah.

02:36:42.000 How many different jets have you piloted?

02:36:45.000 So I started in gliders at the Air Force Academy, and then we flew.

02:36:50.000 So they teach you how to do it in a plane with no engine?

02:36:53.000 Yeah.

02:36:53.000 Yeah, yeah.

02:36:54.000 So you, a tow plane, you're being pulled behind another plane and they take you up to 5,000, 10,000 feet and you start off on a glider.

02:37:00.000 Wow.

02:37:00.000 Very capable.

02:37:01.000 And then we went to...

02:37:02.000 Why do they do that?

02:37:03.000 You start with the basics.

02:37:04.000 You know, see, it's a two-seater, you know.

02:37:07.000 You've got the instructor sitting behind you, you know, so it's safe.

02:37:11.000 But you want to start with the basics and learning the concepts of flight, you know, aerodynamics of flight.

02:37:16.000 And then from there you move into, it's a little bit different now, but when I did it, they had a, you know, a single-engine Cessna.

02:37:21.000 And then when I went to Air Force pilot training, we went into a T-37 Tweet.

02:37:25.000 And then from there we tracked based upon how well you did.

02:37:29.000 So we went fighter-bomber track or tanker transport.

02:37:33.000 I went fighter-bomber, so I flew the T-38, and that was the first, you know, Really sleek, fast training type of airplane.

02:37:39.000 How many years into training is this?

02:37:41.000 Uh, so you do the T37 for, so at the academy, you flew the glider for, I don't know, 10 rides and then the T41, uh, for, you know, 10, 20 rides until you solo, you know, they put you in a plane where you're proficient, you go out and solo.

02:37:54.000 And then in pilot training, this is a formal, after you graduated ROTC, the academy, you do six months in the T37, decide what track you go on and then you do six months in the T38. And then I did well enough in the T-38 that I was able to pick.

02:38:08.000 I selected F-16s and then I went to Luke Air Force Base out in Arizona and became proficient in F-16s.

02:38:14.000 And then from there, I went to combat squadrons all around the world, South Carolina, Korea, you know, back to Arizona, Nellis.

02:38:20.000 So I've flown, I think, six different versions of the F-16 and then flew to Thunderbirds where they fly F-16s, went away to do the tour at the White House, and then came back and finished up on F-16s again.

02:38:32.000 And the tour of the White House, were you Secret Service?

02:38:34.000 What were you doing?

02:38:35.000 No, so I was actually a White House Fellow.

02:38:37.000 So in 1964, President Johnson formed a program called the White House Fellowship, where the, it's actually the President of the United States will select anywhere between 12 and 15 young Americans, doesn't matter military, civilian, anything, to come and serve in their administration.

02:38:52.000 And what it is, it's the highest level mentorship, leadership program that you can be a part of in our country.

02:38:59.000 And the president places you somewhere in their cabinet to be a senior advisor to like a cabinet secretary, or like for me, I was a senior white house advisor at NASA. So I worked directly for the NASA administrator and you're a, you know, essentially a senior white house,

02:39:14.000 you know, advisor or consultant, whatever task that cabinet secretary wants to have from you at NASA. And what I did for, uh, you know, NASA administrator, Mike Griffin, one of the smartest guys you'll ever meet in your life.

02:39:25.000 Like he had seven degrees, a couple of doctorates in there.

02:39:28.000 I was in a lot of capacities his right-hand man, so he would have me do all the programming for stuff at NASA. He would take me on trips with him to Russia, you know, discussions about the International Space Station.

02:39:38.000 And I prepared a budgetary book for Congress 2007 that was presented to Congress to talk about the, you know, the compartmental programs for NASA moving forward with the cancellation of the space shuttle.

02:39:49.000 Where is NASA's budget going to go?

02:39:52.000 So that was my, you know, kind of summary project for working at NASA for the year.

02:39:56.000 And then I got to interact with all the agencies that work with NASA, you know, the International Space Station, working on the Soyuz, going to fly, and essentially getting to see things at that level.

02:40:07.000 Now, part two of it What's back on the White House side?

02:40:10.000 They bring us in a couple days a week and we'd have, you know, one-on-one private meetings with cabinet secretaries or, you know, chief of staff of the Air Force and folks like that.

02:40:19.000 What is that like?

02:40:19.000 What's it like just being in the White House?

02:40:21.000 How bizarre does that feel?

02:40:22.000 So I grew up in Washington, D.C. And you get these tours of the East Wing of the White.

02:40:27.000 You know, you can walk through and see all the stuff on the East side.

02:40:29.000 But it's surreal to be in the West Wing.

02:40:32.000 Because you, they meet outside, and you know, you got to do all the safety protocols and everything, and then they take you in, and you take the elevator up to that.

02:40:38.000 Like, what are the safety protocols?

02:40:39.000 They check you for weapons?

02:40:40.000 Yeah, you got to do all that.

02:40:41.000 You know, you can't bring cell phones and all that kind of stuff in there.

02:40:43.000 You can't, you know, just all the protection stuff are going in.

02:40:46.000 They take you in the elevator, and you go up, and you're like, man, this is the floor right here.

02:40:50.000 And they walk you down the hallway, and they open up that door into the Oval Office, and you're like, wow.

02:40:54.000 God, man, I've seen this on all the movies.

02:40:56.000 I heard it's small.

02:40:57.000 Um...

02:40:59.000 I think it's not really huge, but it depends on how much furniture and stuff that they have in there.

02:41:03.000 But I mean, I heard it feels small, maybe because it's just so grand, the idea of being in the Oval Office where the president sits.

02:41:11.000 It's so crazy.

02:41:12.000 But when you're actually in there, you're like, oh, it's like a regular room.

02:41:15.000 Yeah, I mean, it's obviously circular.

02:41:18.000 I guess oval in shape.

02:41:19.000 So I work for President Bush.

02:41:21.000 I would say the best part of it is that program is a bipartisan position.

02:41:26.000 So you don't have to deal with the partisan politics and all the nonsense in D.C. But I work for President George W. Bush.

02:41:33.000 And what an incredible person.

02:41:35.000 Because your perception...

02:41:36.000 Is he a nice guy?

02:41:37.000 What an awesome guy.

02:41:38.000 Really?

02:41:39.000 Outside of politics, everyone has their opinion there.

02:41:41.000 Right.

02:41:42.000 A lot of times, regardless of whatever administration, they only know what we see on the news media.

02:41:48.000 Also, 50% of the country is going to hate you.

02:41:51.000 Exactly.

02:41:52.000 No matter who you are.

02:41:52.000 But as a husband, as a father, how passionate he was about his incredible spouse and his children, to see that side of a person.

02:42:01.000 A lot of stuff we can't disclose just because it's private conversation, it's non-disclosure, but to see the emotion You know, of a father talking about his daughters, you know, who are in college and, you know, his hopes and dreams for them.

02:42:13.000 And to be able to really respectfully ask any question, you know, that you want.

02:42:16.000 We'd have these sessions, like with the president.

02:42:20.000 We'd meet in the Roosevelt Room in the Oval Office, and it's tough as a cabinet secretary to get 5, 10, 15 minutes with the president.

02:42:27.000 We'd sit in there with him for an hour and a half and talk about stuff.

02:42:31.000 You know, ask, is the country ready for a female president? 1.00

02:42:36.000 What did he think?

02:42:38.000 He had people that he looked at, leadership, that he thought would be candidates for presidency.

02:42:48.000 Condoleezza Rice was on his administration, and obviously Hillary Clinton was there. 1.00

02:42:54.000 So the level of people that were out there to have these discussions of, these are the type of people that we think, regardless of political affiliation, that could be looked at for leadership in our country.

02:43:06.000 And with us, the people that they select to be in that program to be future leaders, military, non-military, you're sitting around some of the finest people in the world, people that I still talk to and associate with and have discussions with today.

02:43:21.000 So here we are, years later, that these are still some of my best friends in the world.

02:43:25.000 That you talk about goals and dreams and, you know, you think about stepping into politics and stuff like that and, you know, you get some sound advice to these people.

02:43:32.000 But I'd already seen and been around the president before because when we did some of the air shows, you know, the president or vice president, someone comes, you know, they come and speak.

02:43:42.000 And we did a show at the Air Force Academy.

02:43:44.000 President Bush is there.

02:43:45.000 So I got, you know, pictures and stuff with him and, you know, getting to talk to him.

02:43:49.000 And it's weird.

02:43:51.000 Because we have military call signs, you know, like Maverick and Goose.

02:43:55.000 My military call sign was Chappie.

02:43:58.000 Chappie?

02:43:58.000 Chappie.

02:43:59.000 After General Chappie James, the first black four-star in the Air Force.

02:44:02.000 So we go back and do this White House stuff, and we're at a Christmas party, and there's a formal greeting line to go and meet the President and the First Lady.

02:44:12.000 And the aide is standing there, and he says, you know, Major Mark Smith.

02:44:16.000 And he goes, Chappie, come on in.

02:44:19.000 Meet the wife.

02:44:20.000 And I was like, how the heck did he remember, you know, what my military call sign was?

02:44:24.000 But that's the type of personal relationship in that ultra-professional environment that you get.

02:44:29.000 So, you know, so here I am growing up in southeast Washington, D.C. Go away to school.

02:44:35.000 And the proudest moment I think I've ever had is we would get to give tours and stuff of the White House.

02:44:40.000 So I get to bring my parents down and give them a tour of the West Wing of the White House.

02:44:45.000 So, you know, people talk about dreams come true, hard work and stuff like that, man.

02:44:48.000 I've had a lifetime.

02:44:49.000 You've had a wild life, man.

02:44:51.000 It's been good, so.

02:44:52.000 And it's still going.

02:44:53.000 I should say it like it's over.

02:44:54.000 I didn't mean it that way.

02:44:56.000 No, no.

02:44:56.000 We don't want that to happen.

02:44:57.000 No, it's amazing.

02:44:57.000 I got a lot of stuff I'm still trying to accomplish, so.

02:45:00.000 Now, you were talking about all the various jets that you flew.

02:45:05.000 Did you ever test fly anything?

02:45:09.000 What do they do when they're testing out new vehicles?

02:45:12.000 So we do have test pilots.

02:45:15.000 Edwards Air Force Base out there in California does a lot of testing with current inventory and potential future inventory.

02:45:21.000 And then we do have test and evaluation there at Nellis Air Force Base.

02:45:26.000 Testing planes and weapons and stuff like that.

02:45:28.000 I never did that.

02:45:29.000 I traditionally stayed in Combat roles at combat coded squadrons or training.

02:45:35.000 I was an instructor teaching kids how to fly F-16s at Luke Air Force Base.

02:45:39.000 The reason why I brought it up is I've always been curious.

02:45:42.000 When they develop a new vehicle, they must have to talk to pilots, right?

02:45:47.000 I mean, that has to be an integral part of the design of it.

02:45:51.000 You have to talk to someone who has a lot of experience flying a fighter jet.

02:45:55.000 What is missing?

02:45:57.000 What could be done better?

02:45:59.000 How do they do that?

02:46:00.000 So as part of the design program, we have pilots that will be coded as test pilots.

02:46:05.000 You know, so they may be stationed at Edwards or they may be stationed there at Nellis Air Force Base.

02:46:10.000 That's their active role.

02:46:11.000 You know, they look at development of it based on historical platforms.

02:46:14.000 You know, you go from the F-16, F-15 to the F-22 to the F-35, you get all that kind of input.

02:46:21.000 So they're guys that, instead of being in a combat-coded squadron, they're actually in a test and evaluation squadron that get to do all that stuff.

02:46:27.000 And they go out and test, what are the capabilities of this missile?

02:46:30.000 Ah, it's not doing exactly what we want it to do.

02:46:32.000 And they take all that feedback.

02:46:35.000 To the design folks like Lockheed Martin or General Dynamics back in the day when they're building stuff.

02:46:40.000 You know, for the longest time, the F-15s and the F-16s, for us, that production line was done.

02:46:46.000 But you go to St. Louis, and you look on the opposite side of the runway, they're building F-15s there again.

02:46:52.000 And we just announced that the Air Force is going to start buying the next block of F-16s, the block 70s, which is, man, that's a really advanced plane.

02:47:03.000 And guys that are active duty, they get to go out and fly that thing and test it.

02:47:06.000 Now, you said the F-22 is the most capable.

02:47:11.000 It depends on what it is.

02:47:12.000 Between the F-22 and the F-35, those are probably the most...

02:47:16.000 What does the F-35 do better than the F-22?

02:47:19.000 Command and control.

02:47:20.000 So, you know, like maybe communications with other systems.

02:47:22.000 The F-22 is by far the air superiority.

02:47:25.000 Dogfighting, air-to-air, is the most advanced plane in the world.

02:47:28.000 So why don't they just make only F-22s?

02:47:31.000 Budgetary constraints.

02:47:32.000 Oh, is that what it means?

02:47:33.000 So the amount that it cost, you know, when the agreement came down to how many we were going to buy, I think it's probably in the hundreds now, you know, that we have, Congress was going to allocate a certain amount of funds to, okay, you can have this much money to buy this money.

02:47:46.000 F-22s. 1.00

02:47:47.000 And the more you buy, the, you know, per price may go down, but because we have a limited amount, budgetary-wise, that's what we stop with.

02:47:55.000 And then we got congressional approval for the F-35.

02:47:57.000 And, you know, their competitions, the F-22 versus the, you know, the YF-22 back in the day versus the YF-23, which company makes it, they're going to have, you know, fly-offs and make a determination of which one we're going to get.

02:48:09.000 So it's only communication that makes the F-35, that the F-35 does better than the F-22?

02:48:15.000 It probably has a lot more than that, but I can tell you I've never flown it.

02:48:17.000 I haven't had a chance to fly it, but advanced avionics, weapon systems, stealth capability, all that stuff is probably encompassed in the package.

02:48:25.000 Don't you want to fly one?

02:48:26.000 I would, but they're going to have to make some concessions and things to allow me to go back into the Air Force.

02:48:32.000 Man, I would feel like someone like you, that would drive me crazy if I never flew one of those things.

02:48:39.000 Yeah, but...

02:48:40.000 That thing looks insane.

02:48:41.000 I'm living a pretty good life as an airline pilot right now.

02:48:44.000 MMA referee, so I got a pretty good right now.

02:48:46.000 No, you do have a pretty good.

02:48:48.000 I'm not saying you don't.

02:48:49.000 I'm just saying that out of all the jets, watching that thing maneuver, I didn't know it could do all that.

02:48:56.000 Yeah, it's insane.

02:48:57.000 It doesn't make sense.

02:48:58.000 It's not a plane or a helicopter.

02:49:00.000 First time I fought against it in the air, I was like...

02:49:02.000 I'll sit there.

02:49:02.000 I probably got lost for a second.

02:49:03.000 Like, is that a plane or a helicopter with some of the stuff that it's doing?

02:49:06.000 But is there a way to improve upon that?

02:49:09.000 I think with, there are probably limitations in the capability of the pilot that's flying it.

02:49:15.000 You know, like, I think the most I've ever pulled is 10.3 G's.

02:49:19.000 The plane is designed at, yeah, so if you think about the concept of a G, If you're...

02:49:25.000 The amount of G that you pull, you take the body weight or whatever it is and multiply it times that.

02:49:30.000 So if my hand weighs 10 pounds, I'm pulling, you know, 7 Gs, my hand feels like it weighs 70 pounds.

02:49:36.000 So if it's a 200-pound guy...

02:49:39.000 You pull 9Gs, your body feels like it weighs 1,800 pounds.

02:49:42.000 And you're trying to maneuver the plane, keep sight of the other plane, maybe deploy weapons, control avionics, control your radar and stuff like that as you're doing all that.

02:49:52.000 So there are physical limitations of the person that's flying the plane.

02:49:56.000 That's why they looked at pilotless aircraft.

02:49:59.000 I think some of the cargo companies have talked about that.

02:50:04.000 There's a human element that I believe you always have to have there because of unknown conditions, you know, emergencies and stuff like that.

02:50:10.000 They've looked at single pilot, you know, cargo airplanes and stuff like that.

02:50:14.000 But I can tell you, when you have emergencies up there, it's nothing like having a person sitting in the seat next to you where somebody can handle the emergency while the other person's flying the plane.

02:50:22.000 You can't get around that.

02:50:24.000 Right.

02:50:27.000 We've got drones and stuff that are out there, and you may have a pilot or controller that's on the ground that's controlling a single drone or multiple drones.

02:50:34.000 So yeah, we're probably going to advance to that because...

02:50:38.000 The physical limitations of the human body?

02:50:39.000 The limitations of the human body.

02:50:40.000 Because watching that thing, the way it just changes direction and shoots straight up in the air, you're like, what is that like on a human body?

02:50:48.000 Yeah, you've got to get over the air sickness and the fear of moving in the third dimension and really combating against the G-forces, but...

02:50:57.000 In a dogfight scenario, you may get maneuvers like that, but in a long-range fight, you're going to be flying straight and level and maybe shoot a missile.

02:51:05.000 You may not do stuff like that.

02:51:07.000 My body eventually got used to it.

02:51:08.000 It was tough at first, you know, fighting against, because I'd never experienced anything like that before.

02:51:12.000 You get on a roller coaster, it's like one or two Gs.

02:51:14.000 I'm like, that's nothing.

02:51:15.000 When you get up to nine, you're like, oh my God, this is, you know, sinking down into the scene.

02:51:20.000 And you've seen like a footage of, they call it the, like the G chamber where guys go and do their stuff.

02:51:29.000 When they spin like that, you can see the physical toll that it has on the body.

02:51:33.000 And what it does to you.

02:51:34.000 Now you put that up in the air, moving in three dimensions, while you've got the G-forces on you.

02:51:38.000 Do they do that with you, that spin thing?

02:51:40.000 Yeah, you have to go through training for that.

02:51:42.000 You know, when I finished pilot training, it's down at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.

02:51:46.000 You've got to do that to be able to go into your fighter, and then once you're done, to be able to prove that you're combat ready, you've got to go down there and you do that.

02:51:53.000 You sit in a seat, and you've got to be able to pull 9Gs or whatever it is for a certain amount of time.

02:51:57.000 If you don't pass it, see you.

02:51:59.000 How much time do you have to do 9Gs for?

02:52:02.000 You got to do like a series of different exercises.

02:52:05.000 I think the longest one was off and on anywhere between 30 and 45 seconds.

02:52:10.000 They have you looking over the shoulder to do it, to look at a plane back behind you.

02:52:14.000 They put a plane out in front of you on the screen and you're like, you got to stay with him.

02:52:18.000 You got to keep him in that pocket, which means you got to pull back on the stick a certain amount.

02:52:22.000 And that determines the amount of G that you got to pull.

02:52:24.000 You got on your G-suit and everything like that, but if you don't pass it...

02:52:27.000 45 seconds sounds so crazy.

02:52:29.000 It's an eternity when you're sitting there in the seat.

02:52:31.000 And the weird thing is, in the centrifuge, because you're at the end of a pendulum, it doesn't feel the same as it does in a plane.

02:52:40.000 Because the shorter the pendulum, the higher the force is going to feel.

02:52:44.000 If you're sitting at the end of a 50-foot pendulum, it's going to feel a little bit different.

02:52:48.000 But a shorter pendulum, it's going to be exponential.

02:52:51.000 So guys hate going to the centrifuge.

02:52:54.000 Guys and gals hate doing that just because it's so tough.

02:52:56.000 When you make it through the centrifuge, there's probably going to be a little bit of partying and celebration after that.

02:53:02.000 Well, listen, man, I appreciate you.

02:53:04.000 I respect you tremendously.

02:53:06.000 You're a great referee, and your accomplishments are incredible, and it was fun talking to you, brother.

02:53:10.000 Thank you, Joe.

02:53:11.000 I appreciate you.

02:53:11.000 I'll see you in, like, two weeks, right?

02:53:13.000 Which one are you coming back for?

02:53:14.000 Are you coming on the 6th or the 13th?

02:53:16.000 The 13th.

02:53:16.000 I think I'm there for both of them, but I'm there for the 13th for sure.

02:53:20.000 Absolutely.

02:53:20.000 I'll be there all month, so just a little incredible opportunity.

02:53:23.000 Thank you very much.

02:53:24.000 I appreciate you very much.

02:53:25.000 Bye, everybody.

The Joe Rogan Experience - February 02, 2021

Joe Rogan Experience #1605 - Mark Smith

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