The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #649 - Jonathan Gottschall

00:00:02.000 Okay, good, good, good.

00:00:04.000 All right, man.

00:00:05.000 John Gottschall.

00:00:05.000 What's up, buddy?

00:00:06.000 Did I say it right?

00:00:07.000 Gottschall?

00:00:07.000 Gottschall.

00:00:08.000 You got it.

00:00:08.000 It's not that difficult.

00:00:10.000 It just looks difficult.

00:00:11.000 Right.

00:00:11.000 Right?

00:00:12.000 Right.

00:00:12.000 The Fighter in the Cage.

00:00:14.000 So, Professor, rather, in the cage.

00:00:16.000 I got your book right here, and I was fascinated when I heard the concept, and even more fascinated to talk to you about this.

00:00:23.000 You decided to...

00:00:26.000 Write a book about taking up mixed martial arts and competing.

00:00:30.000 Yeah.

00:00:31.000 What caused this bug?

00:00:33.000 Well, I was working as an English instructor at a small liberal arts college in western Pennsylvania, just outside Pittsburgh.

00:00:40.000 And I was pushing up on middle-age.

00:00:42.000 I think I was 38 and a half at the time.

00:00:45.000 A half?

00:00:46.000 Yeah.

00:00:47.000 I don't know why I did that.

00:00:48.000 That's like five-year-old talk.

00:00:49.000 I know.

00:00:50.000 I don't know why I did that.

00:00:50.000 Yeah, I have some little kids in my house.

00:00:52.000 Maybe that's why.

00:00:52.000 Me too.

00:00:53.000 So I was 38 and a half at the time.

00:00:56.000 And I was sort of, I don't know, the career wasn't going that well.

00:01:00.000 I had never made it onto the tenure track, and it looked like I was never going to.

00:01:03.000 So I sort of needed something new in life.

00:01:05.000 And one day I'm at my office hours, and I happen to look out the front window.

00:01:09.000 There used to be this auto parts store across the street about as far away as, you know, I could hit it with a snowball if I threw it.

00:01:15.000 And this new business had moved in, and it was called Mark Schrader's Academy of Mixed Martial Arts.

00:01:21.000 And I stood there at the window and I could see the guys in the cage.

00:01:26.000 I could see them dancing, hitting, tackling, rolling.

00:01:28.000 And I had this unexpected emotion, and the emotion was envy.

00:01:31.000 I envied them.

00:01:32.000 They seemed so alive over there, so courageous.

00:01:35.000 I felt like I was sort of rotting away, you know, in my life, in my cubicle.

00:01:40.000 And so I had this sort of funny thought into my head, and the thought was just a joke at my own expense.

00:01:44.000 And the joke was, wouldn't it be funny if I went across the street and joined them?

00:01:48.000 You know, me, because I have this incredibly civilized job.

00:01:51.000 I've literally never been in a fight before.

00:01:53.000 I'm almost 40. I'm not in very good shape.

00:01:56.000 And then my next thought was, you know, maybe there's a book in that, a sort of nonfiction version of Fight Club.

00:02:01.000 I go across the street.

00:02:02.000 I try to learn how to fight.

00:02:03.000 And along the way though, I'd be asking these sort of big deep eternal questions about the role that violence has played in human life.

00:02:10.000 Now, there's a difference between violence in terms of, like, people perceive violence as being a victim.

00:02:18.000 Yes.

00:02:18.000 And that's the violence that I think that everybody has a problem with.

00:02:21.000 What you're engaging in is martial arts, and although violent action happens in martial arts, overall, it sounds contradictory, but it's not necessarily about violence.

00:02:33.000 Yeah, I think that's exactly right.

00:02:36.000 I think that's exactly right.

00:02:36.000 And that was my journey.

00:02:37.000 So I go, you know, when I'm first looking at the cage from across the street, I'm looking at it with all the stereotypes that most outsiders have about the spore.

00:02:46.000 And to me, it looks really, really violent.

00:02:47.000 I assume that the guys over there must be of a screw loose. 0.97

00:02:50.000 They must be savages. 0.90

00:02:52.000 And so I went over there to test a theory.

00:02:55.000 And the theory was, well, you know, There's a darkness at the core of human nature.

00:03:01.000 And mixed martial arts is a perfect metaphor for it, for this violence at the heart of human nature.

00:03:06.000 Then I go over there and I find that my theory isn't very good.

00:03:10.000 And what's happening over there is rough.

00:03:13.000 It's often bloody and painful, but it's not really quite even violence.

00:03:17.000 I agree, you know, because the emotions behind it are not angry emotions.

00:03:21.000 They're not the emotions of violence or rage.

00:03:26.000 You know, they're the basic competitive emotions.

00:03:30.000 And it's also, in order to achieve a very high level, you have to achieve something of a Zen state. 0.95

00:03:36.000 And that Zen state can be fucked up by emotion. 0.90

00:03:40.000 It can be tripped up. 0.99

00:03:41.000 Your training can be tripped up.

00:03:42.000 Decisions made under the duress of emotion are the worst decisions.

00:03:47.000 Right, yeah, that's one of the things that the instructor, the main instructor, a guy named Mark Schrader, warns us about all the time.

00:03:52.000 Because guys that get mad, they get hit, and they get mad, you know?

00:03:54.000 It's like, don't get mad.

00:03:55.000 It ruins everything.

00:03:57.000 You know, you make bad decisions, you also get tired.

00:03:59.000 It tires you out to get mad.

00:04:00.000 Yeah, you also really get mad when you chase someone to try to get back at them.

00:04:05.000 Right.

00:04:06.000 Then you have bad management of energy.

00:04:09.000 Yeah.

00:04:10.000 There's so much involved in any sort of martial arts competition, any sort of martial arts training.

00:04:16.000 That you don't see unless you engage in it.

00:04:19.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:04:20.000 It was tremendously valuable to me to do this.

00:04:23.000 Because at times I thought, well, you know, I'm not the first writer who had the idea to go and get in a fight and write about it.

00:04:29.000 You know, George Plimpton did it.

00:04:30.000 Sam Sheridan did it.

00:04:31.000 I know you've had Sheridan on your show.

00:04:32.000 He wrote a great book about it.

00:04:34.000 Yeah.

00:04:34.000 And a couple other guys.

00:04:35.000 So I wasn't the first to do it.

00:04:37.000 And so as a sort of...

00:04:39.000 Publicity stunt, that's not really why I did it.

00:04:41.000 I did it because you really don't know anything about it unless you've done it.

00:04:45.000 Unless you've gone over there and gotten into the cage and been sort of locked up inside there.

00:04:50.000 They literally lock you up in there half naked, you know, and you're with this other guy and this other guy's really scary, you know, he's a savage killer.

00:04:56.000 And the only way to get out of that cage is to somehow survive these next few minutes you're going to spend with this guy.

00:05:03.000 So there's an intensity to that thing that you know is there when you watch it from the outside But it's much different to actually feel it to feel what's actually happening to you to feel what it's like to get punched in the face really hard It was a tremendously educational experience to actually do it Did it change the way like did you watch martial arts before that or were you like really an outsider when you did you watch any UFC matches?

00:05:26.000 Dude, I've been a fan forever Forever.

00:05:28.000 But you still had, like, some preconceived notions when you saw the cage.

00:05:32.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:05:33.000 I wanted to figure things out about it.

00:05:35.000 Like, why do I watch this?

00:05:36.000 You know, because when I first started watching it, I had a really good excuse.

00:05:40.000 I was in my early 20s, it was about 1995, and I was a committed but basically inept karate student.

00:05:48.000 And the UFC was a tremendous education about what worked in a fight and what absolutely did not.

00:05:55.000 And most of the stuff that I was learning in my karate classes absolutely did not work.

00:06:00.000 You know what I mean?

00:06:01.000 And so I was not new to the UFC, I was not new to cage fighting, but I had a very much of an outsider's perspective on it.

00:06:10.000 And I was confused about what draws people to these kinds of spectacles.

00:06:14.000 What draws people not only to compete in the cage, that's an interesting question, But also, what draws people to watch combat sports or watch other forms of violent spectacle?

00:06:23.000 People who are decent, civilized human beings.

00:06:25.000 Why do we want to watch this stuff?

00:06:27.000 Now, when you were practicing karate, like, how long did you practice for?

00:06:31.000 I was, like, maybe two years.

00:06:32.000 And I gave it up because of the UFC. Really?

00:06:34.000 I gave it up because of the UFC. Yeah, I went...

00:06:36.000 You missed the boat when Machida came along, then all of a sudden people started practicing karate again.

00:06:40.000 Well, yeah, it's true.

00:06:42.000 It's true.

00:06:42.000 Some of it works.

00:06:44.000 Absolutely.

00:06:45.000 As long as it's...

00:06:46.000 As long as you're mixing it into a system, rather than sticking with karate, which is what I had.

00:06:52.000 And so my school was very purist.

00:06:55.000 And when I went to my sensei and said, hey, you know, sensei, very carefully, you know, there's authority in these dojos, there's tradition that you question at your peril.

00:07:06.000 And so I went in and said, yeah, you know, sensei Bill, you know, I've been watching these tapes.

00:07:10.000 I watched them on Blockbuster, you know, Blockbuster tapes of these UFC fights.

00:07:15.000 And long story short is guys like us, they're not just losing.

00:07:19.000 They're getting slaughtered.

00:07:20.000 They're getting massacred. 0.89

00:07:21.000 You know, they get a couple of feeble punches off, they get tackled to the ground, beaten half to death.

00:07:26.000 And so I'd say to him, you know, what do we do?

00:07:28.000 What do you do if you're taken down in a fight?

00:07:30.000 And he'd be like, and he'd look at me and be like, it's obvious, just don't get taken down.

00:07:35.000 It's that easy.

00:07:36.000 And right then it hit me that he didn't know anything about fighting.

00:07:40.000 He didn't know how often fights go to the ground.

00:07:43.000 He didn't know that not getting taken down is a martial art.

00:07:47.000 Yes.

00:07:48.000 And he didn't know that if you're not training for that, if you're not drilling, you're going to get taken down.

00:07:53.000 If you haven't drilled ways to stand back up again, you're going to stay down.

00:07:58.000 I realized then that we were...

00:08:02.000 We were like LARPers, live-action role-playing.

00:08:04.000 You know what I mean?

00:08:05.000 You know what LARPing is?

00:08:06.000 No, but I do now.

00:08:07.000 Well, it's live D&D. You go off into the woods with your friends and you play D&D live.

00:08:13.000 Yeah, it's pretty awesome.

00:08:14.000 That's awful.

00:08:14.000 But that's what we were doing, basically.

00:08:15.000 We were LARPing as, you know, samurai.

00:08:19.000 And so after that, I was pretty disillusioned and I gave it up.

00:08:22.000 I would have gone into it earlier, but it took a long time for MMA and BJJ to make it to my neck of the woods.

00:08:29.000 It's been out here in LA and in New York City for a long time, but I've always kind of lived in podunk towns.

00:08:34.000 And it's only, again, not until 2010 or 2011 that I had the option to do this.

00:08:40.000 Really?

00:08:41.000 Yeah.

00:08:41.000 So you had no jujitsu until 2010 or 2011?

00:08:44.000 You're still in the same place outside of Pittsburgh?

00:08:46.000 Yeah.

00:08:47.000 How far is Pittsburgh from you?

00:08:48.000 Pittsburgh is about a half hour, but even Pittsburgh had one BJJ school.

00:08:54.000 But that was all.

00:08:56.000 There was a fight club that had gone out of business, an MMA club, that had gone out of business.

00:09:01.000 They're back now.

00:09:02.000 Henzo Gracie has a school there now.

00:09:04.000 So there is good stuff there now.

00:09:05.000 It's very difficult to make money teaching MMA. Very difficult.

00:09:09.000 You can do much better teaching jiu-jitsu or teaching taekwondo even or karate.

00:09:14.000 I think that's right.

00:09:15.000 I had a similar martial arts upbringing.

00:09:18.000 I started out in Taekwondo, but dedicated my entire life to it.

00:09:23.000 And then when I started kickboxing, that was my eye-opening.

00:09:26.000 It was before even grappling.

00:09:28.000 Grappling was my second eye-opening.

00:09:30.000 My first eye-opening was kickboxing.

00:09:33.000 And then also just training straight boxing.

00:09:35.000 I realized how terrible my hands were.

00:09:37.000 Because Taekwondo was so kick-centric.

00:09:40.000 So feet-heavy, yeah.

00:09:40.000 It was just all about kicking, and when guys are only kicking you, there's a lot of things you can get away with that you can't get away with when they're punching you.

00:09:47.000 And I had this, like, big enlightenment moment, like, man, I've been wasting my time.

00:09:51.000 Not really, it turned out in the long run, because I learned a lot of things, and I developed dexterity that's very unusual.

00:09:59.000 Flexibility.

00:10:00.000 Yeah, flexibility, but anybody can develop flexibility, is the dexterity is unusual.

00:10:04.000 Like the ability to throw kicks in positions in ways that a lot of other people can't.

00:10:08.000 And it's just because that's all you do.

00:10:10.000 You're throwing a lot of kicks.

00:10:11.000 And so there's a lot of guys that took that style, like Anderson Silva's one of them, and started out as a Taekwondo guy, and then eventually developed all the martial arts skills, takedown defense, wrestling.

00:10:22.000 Right.

00:10:22.000 Jiu-jitsu and whatnot.

00:10:24.000 But yeah, when the UFC came around, most people who are on the outside, they'll look at it like I've had so many people say that it's not martial arts, it's a sport, it's a martial sport, and there's all this silliness attached to it.

00:10:37.000 But what they need to know is that no one knew.

00:10:40.000 When I was a kid, no one knew.

00:10:42.000 Until 93, no one knew.

00:10:44.000 Yeah.

00:10:45.000 They didn't know that it was so easy to take you down, and when they did take you down, they would just break your arm.

00:10:50.000 Like, they'd strangle you in seconds.

00:10:51.000 Like, no one had any idea how vulnerable they were.

00:10:54.000 I know, I know.

00:10:55.000 It was a shock, right?

00:10:56.000 Wasn't it a shock?

00:10:57.000 Total shock.

00:10:57.000 When I watched, I mean, I remember seeing the first couple of them, and I watched them religiously at first.

00:11:03.000 I'd pause, I'd slow down, I'd rewind, I'd watch the movie, try to etch it, you know, into my memory banks.

00:11:08.000 But I watched with a sinking feeling, like, oh my gosh, this is not at all...

00:11:16.000 I started jiu-jitsu almost immediately after discovering it.

00:11:19.000 I found out about it in 94 or 5. I think I found out, it started out in 93 and I think I came out to LA in 94 and somewhere in mid 94 I found out about the UFC. Yeah.

00:11:30.000 And I didn't see the first one, I saw like the second one and I watched it on video.

00:11:35.000 That's what I did too, yeah.

00:11:36.000 Like a VHS tape.

00:11:37.000 Blockbuster video, exactly.

00:11:38.000 Yeah, I used to hang out in that section video store, I still remember it.

00:11:41.000 I would lurk there dangerously, like guiltily.

00:11:43.000 Lurking LARP? Well, I'd be lurking there like you're in the porno section or something. 0.73

00:11:47.000 Right.

00:11:48.000 Because it was like UFC videos, WWF videos.

00:11:51.000 Faces of Death.

00:11:52.000 And Faces of Death was in that section.

00:11:55.000 They were all lumped in together.

00:11:56.000 That's what it was with.

00:11:57.000 Yeah.

00:11:58.000 Yeah, I remember I was training at the Jet Center, which is a famous kickboxing gym in Van Nuys.

00:12:03.000 It was right before it went under, because they had gotten damaged in the earthquake, and then once rain came after the earthquake, they got massive flood damage, and they eventually went under.

00:12:13.000 But before they went under, that was where, when I first moved to California, I started working out.

00:12:17.000 And Benny the Jet Orquidez is like one of the pioneers.

00:12:20.000 Of not just kickboxing, but incorporating low kicks and fighting against the Thais and the Japanese with their low kicks, and then fighting in sort of no-holds-barred tournaments back then.

00:12:32.000 And Benny had this, and his brother-in-law, I guess, Blinky Rodriguez, who's a famous kickboxer as well, would teach classes there, and It was a crazy environment, because Blinky had some family tragedy involving gang violence,

00:12:48.000 so he had a lot of gang members that would train there and work out there.

00:12:53.000 So you'd have these guys... 0.99

00:12:54.000 I remember this one guy had this really shitty prison tattoo on his back that said whatever his gang member was, La Plata's, and then underneath it it said, Fuck the rest. 0.98

00:13:04.000 Like, tattooed big on his back like a 12-year-old drew it in there. 0.99

00:13:08.000 I was like, oh, Christ.

00:13:10.000 Like, this is where I'm working out.

00:13:11.000 And, you know, when we take classes with those guys and spar with those guys, it was just very disconcerting.

00:13:17.000 Like, you didn't want to beat up a gang member and then get shot in the parking lot.

00:13:20.000 But the place was abuzz.

00:13:23.000 About these tapes. 1.00

00:13:25.000 Like, people had found out about them and everybody was like, you see this shit? 1.00

00:13:28.000 Everybody's like, damn, this motherfucker just grabs people and drags them to the ground and chokes them. 1.00

00:13:31.000 And everybody wanted to talk about it and it was just... 1.00

00:13:33.000 It made no sense.

00:13:34.000 It didn't, it not only didn't make any sense, everybody was like, what are we doing here?

00:13:37.000 What are we doing with our skill set? 0.99

00:13:39.000 Like, is this shit gonna work? 0.99

00:13:40.000 Like, what if we went into one of those dudes? 0.99

00:13:42.000 And so I went to Carlson Gracie's, which was...

00:13:46.000 How'd you even know about it?

00:13:47.000 I found out about the gym from, there was a show called, I think it was called Extreme Fighting Championships.

00:13:53.000 There was a very small, John Peretti was the matchmaker and he was producing it.

00:13:59.000 I think it's called Extreme Combat.

00:14:02.000 Stream?

00:14:03.000 Something extreme.

00:14:04.000 I don't remember.

00:14:05.000 There was a lot of extreme promotions.

00:14:07.000 Yeah, but they had a montage, like a training montage thing for one of the fighters, and he was training at Carlson Gracie's.

00:14:15.000 And I knew that Mario Sperry trained there, and he was like one of the big guys at the time.

00:14:20.000 Murillo Bustamante was there and Vitor Belfort was there before he made his UFC debut I came in there right when he was making his debut he had just I got there when he was about to fight John Hess in Hawaii and he fought John Hess in Hawaii who had fought in the UFC and beat the fuck out of him in about 10 seconds it was like one of the craziest fights ever he got on top of him and just I think he went knee to the belly on him and just uncorked about 50 punches to his face like Nobody had seen anybody like Vitor.

00:14:49.000 He was a horrible monster. 1.00

00:14:50.000 He's still fighting this fucking weekend, which is so crazy. 1.00

00:14:53.000 Vitor is fighting this weekend for the title. 0.99

00:14:56.000 Madness.

00:15:00.000 Immediately upon going to Carlson Gracie's, I was just manhandled and thrown around like a little baby and strangled left and right. 0.99

00:15:10.000 I was like, Jesus Christ, I'm fucking helpless. 0.99

00:15:12.000 I had this delusional idea that I could defend myself. 0.99

00:15:16.000 But as a white belt in jiu-jitsu, even with a year of high school wrestling, I kind of knew how to wrestle a little. 0.89

00:15:21.000 I knew how to get on top of guys, and then I'd get triangled or armbarred or guillotined, and they'd take my back, and I didn't know what the fuck to do with the gi. 1.00

00:15:30.000 The gi was ridiculous. 0.99

00:15:32.000 Oh, it's crazy. 0.99

00:15:32.000 Wrapping me up in that thing, and just, ugh. 0.99

00:15:35.000 It was so humiliating.

00:15:37.000 Yeah.

00:15:37.000 I'll never forget it.

00:15:38.000 Yeah.

00:15:39.000 But also so enlightening.

00:15:42.000 Oh, yeah.

00:15:42.000 And for you, going from this karate background to then entering into mixed martial arts training, like, what was...

00:15:52.000 Well, I'd never been punched in the face for one thing.

00:15:54.000 In all your karate training?

00:15:56.000 No one punched you in the face?

00:15:58.000 Mm-mm.

00:15:58.000 We always threw punches to the chest.

00:16:00.000 Because it's Kyokushin. 0.82

00:16:01.000 Kyokushin, yeah. 0.99

00:16:02.000 Wow, so you never put boxing gloves on and fucked around? 0.99

00:16:06.000 Maybe we did, but not for real. 0.99

00:16:08.000 I mean, the intensity of sparring at the MMA gym was so much more intense.

00:16:13.000 So maybe we put boxing gloves on and threw some punches, but very soft.

00:16:17.000 Wow.

00:16:18.000 And there's days at the MMA gym where it's very, very close to being a real fight in there.

00:16:25.000 Often is a real fight.

00:16:26.000 Yeah, it's pretty close to being a real fight.

00:16:28.000 Cain Velasquez and Daniel Cormier, who's also fighting this weekend, Cormier said, sometimes me and Cain spar and sometimes we fight.

00:16:37.000 Yeah.

00:16:38.000 Well, I think he actually said that in the old days we fought.

00:16:41.000 We always fought.

00:16:42.000 Now sometimes we spar.

00:16:44.000 Yeah.

00:16:45.000 Well, that's a big concern today.

00:16:48.000 The big concern is, like, how much do you take out of yourself in the gym?

00:16:52.000 It's tough.

00:16:52.000 How much is it necessary, though?

00:16:54.000 Like, in order to prepare to be comfortable in the cage and to fight at your best, how much do you have to take out of your system?

00:17:01.000 Man, it is a tough decision.

00:17:03.000 Because if they go easy, they're afraid that their guy's going really hard all the time.

00:17:07.000 If they go hard, it's practically a coin flip that they're going to get through to the fight without getting injured in some way.

00:17:14.000 Well, one of the best gyms, American Kickboxing Academy, Dana White was just talking about how they train like cavemen, like they've got to get out of Stone Age.

00:17:24.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:17:25.000 And they kind of said, look, you kind of don't realize what's necessary to prepare for fights.

00:17:30.000 But then you look at the amount of guys that get hurt there.

00:17:33.000 It is pretty crazy.

00:17:35.000 But you look at the amount of guys that are really good there.

00:17:38.000 Luke Rockhold, Daniel Cormier, Cain Velasquez. 0.99

00:17:41.000 It's like, fuck, you can't argue with that success. 0.99

00:17:43.000 And it seems to me like there is no easy way out of this. 0.99

00:17:47.000 I don't think you can train light.

00:17:49.000 The problem is, like, other sports would have this problem, except they have an authority that governs it and makes everyone behave the same way.

00:17:59.000 So the NFL, for instance, or the NCAA, like football teams, for instance, they're allowed to practice so many hours a week, and that's it.

00:18:05.000 Really?

00:18:06.000 Yeah, it's by rule.

00:18:08.000 You know, you're not allowed, you put in your 20 or 30 hours a week, and then that's it.

00:18:11.000 You're not allowed to train on your own?

00:18:13.000 Well, I guess you could.

00:18:14.000 That's the problem.

00:18:15.000 And guys will cheat and go, yeah.

00:18:16.000 Well, that's the problem with fighting.

00:18:18.000 Fighting is a team sport?

00:18:19.000 No, no.

00:18:20.000 Fighting's an individual sport. 0.98

00:18:21.000 Because anytime anybody goes, well, the people in the NFL, well, people in the NFL, first of all, that fucking whistle blows, and you get a nice, juicy break. 0.94

00:18:29.000 You know, you get to catch your breath, walk around offsides, you get that guy talks, and he says a bunch of shit that went wrong, and everybody complains, and it's a joke. 0.67

00:18:39.000 If you compare the amount of effort you have to put forth in an NFL, sure, the collisions are horrific, sure, I mean, you've got to work out hard to be that fucking big and strong, there's no doubt about it, but As for, like, the life and death experience of being in the cage, 1.00

00:18:56.000 fuck, man. 0.99

00:18:57.000 No, I don't think anything compares to that. 1.00

00:18:58.000 There's nothing.

00:18:59.000 There's nothing.

00:19:01.000 Now, how did you start off with beginner classes?

00:19:04.000 Like, how did you enter into this?

00:19:07.000 No.

00:19:08.000 I mean, basically, this gym, it's a small gym.

00:19:10.000 You know, it's a small town gym.

00:19:12.000 How many students are there?

00:19:14.000 It would vary.

00:19:15.000 You know, like you said, MMA is a tough business.

00:19:17.000 MMA gym is a tough business.

00:19:19.000 And so it might be booming in popularity as a spectator sport.

00:19:22.000 Doesn't mean most guys want to get in there and start training.

00:19:25.000 Right.

00:19:26.000 Yeah.

00:19:26.000 Because it doesn't look like all that much fun.

00:19:28.000 Opening up a base jumping school.

00:19:30.000 Yeah, pretty much, yeah.

00:19:32.000 So I think he expected, as a lot of guys who opened those gyms did, that the level of popularity as a spectator sport would track with the level of participation.

00:19:44.000 So maybe most nights would be 15 guys there, something like that.

00:19:47.000 That's not too bad.

00:19:48.000 That's not too bad, yeah.

00:19:49.000 And did you ever have an issue with the guys who were more experienced beating up on the guys who weren't?

00:19:55.000 I mean, honestly, sometimes, but honestly not for the most part.

00:19:58.000 You know, there's a very clear pecking order emerges in an MMA gym, or any kind of martial arts gym, almost from day one. 0.94

00:20:06.000 People have a very good sense, a very, very good sense, of who would kick whose ass if it came down to a real fight.

00:20:12.000 And so for the most part, the big guys don't bully or oppress the little guys. 0.85

00:20:16.000 There's no glory in it.

00:20:18.000 And the little guys also know not to antagonize the big guys.

00:20:22.000 You know, they give them respect.

00:20:24.000 They give them submissive body language.

00:20:27.000 You know, one time I was going to fight or spar this big heavyweight in my gym.

00:20:31.000 And we often had to spar out of our weight class because it is a smaller gym.

00:20:34.000 So this guy weighs like 270 pounds.

00:20:35.000 He's a competition fighter.

00:20:37.000 I'm terrified.

00:20:38.000 And in the moment before the bell rings, I go right up to him and I hug him.

00:20:41.000 And I bury my head right in his fragrant, meaty cleavage. 1.00

00:20:47.000 And I say, come on, Clark, I got a family.

00:20:50.000 That's all I said.

00:20:52.000 And after that, he didn't exactly go easy on me, but he let me live.

00:20:57.000 And that happens, I was pretty explicit about it, but I think that kind of language, that kind of communication is going on a lot at a gym.

00:21:04.000 Yeah, it certainly is.

00:21:06.000 It does in jujitsu as well.

00:21:08.000 Like, you'll see some guys that, like, as they're rolling, they're just more submissive to other guys.

00:21:12.000 You know, like, when someone is more dominant, it's like certain things you don't even try.

00:21:18.000 Yeah.

00:21:18.000 Like, you'll automatically go in defensive mode, which is also very dangerous for the guy who's the best guy in the gym because you can get a very inflated sense of your abilities if you're always...

00:21:30.000 There's certain fighters that fought in lower-level organizations and then came over to the UFC. And as they came over to the UFC, one of the first things that was clear was that they had never faced another killer.

00:21:41.000 Like, they might be a killer themselves, but they had never faced another killer.

00:21:44.000 And then when faced a killer in the UFC, they'd be like, oh, this is what it's like to fight me. 0.99

00:21:49.000 This sucks. 0.90

00:21:51.000 And you would often find out, like, who's got it and who doesn't have it. 0.99

00:21:56.000 That's true.

00:21:56.000 At my gym, that's definitely true.

00:21:57.000 The better guys there, I don't hit those guys hard in the face.

00:22:01.000 No way.

00:22:02.000 No way. 1.00

00:22:03.000 Then you authorize them to hit you hard in the face. 0.95

00:22:06.000 Carlos Condit said that once.

00:22:08.000 He did this thing for the military and did some sparring and stuff with some military guys.

00:22:15.000 He's real clear.

00:22:16.000 He goes, hey man, we can have some fun here. 0.99

00:22:19.000 Just hit me as hard as you want to get hit. 0.99

00:22:21.000 Exactly. 1.00

00:22:22.000 When you're that good and you can say, just hit me as hard as you want to get hit. 0.99

00:22:26.000 Don't hit that guy hard! 0.99

00:22:27.000 Trust me!

00:22:30.000 But that's, you know, it's finding that perfect balance of competition, but of also, you know, like, you've got to figure out how to not kill each other inside the gym.

00:22:42.000 You've got to compete and push each other.

00:22:44.000 And oftentimes it's just a matter of just pulling back on shots of not trying to knock each other out because the guys who try to knock each other out man that fucking that style of sparring that just cannot cannot maintain No,

00:22:59.000 I think it's really dominant there are guys in my gym like that guys who apparently can't pull the punch either by either by lack of athleticism and You know what I mean?

00:23:08.000 It's kind of actually a hard thing to throw the punch as hard as you can.

00:23:10.000 There are a few guys like that.

00:23:11.000 And then pull at the very last second.

00:23:13.000 That's kind of an athletic thing to be able to pull off.

00:23:15.000 Yeah.

00:23:16.000 And I hated sparring with those guys.

00:23:19.000 Yeah, there's always a guy like that.

00:23:20.000 There's guys like that in jujitsu, too, that guys would never spar with.

00:23:24.000 There was this one dude, no need to name names, but at John Jack Machado's, we'd all just get away from this guy. 0.99

00:23:30.000 Because if you sparred with him, if he caught you in anything, he's going to fuck your arm up or fuck your neck up. 0.97

00:23:35.000 Like, he just would not let go, and he didn't know how to not yank on things. 0.98

00:23:40.000 And then there's other guys that were way better than him that you never worried about.

00:23:44.000 Like, you might get dominated, you might get tapped.

00:23:46.000 Like, if you roll with Jean-Jacques Machado, even if you get tapped, it's so controlled.

00:23:51.000 Like, you never get hurt.

00:23:53.000 You know, like, if he wraps you up in a triangle or takes your back or something like that, He's in control the entire time. 0.76

00:24:00.000 There's no yanking or weird shit or twisting that you didn't expect. 0.95

00:24:04.000 Those are like the dangerous guys, like the really strong blue belts. 1.00

00:24:07.000 Yeah, that's true.

00:24:08.000 That's true.

00:24:09.000 Yeah, those are the guys at my gym, too.

00:24:11.000 There's guys that can't quite spar, that you have to fight them.

00:24:16.000 You know what I mean?

00:24:16.000 They're going to come so hard that you almost have to fight them.

00:24:18.000 Yeah.

00:24:19.000 And I don't want to do that.

00:24:21.000 Are you still doing it?

00:24:22.000 Are you still, after you wrote the book?

00:24:23.000 I did, you know, this was a big thing that, this was the big surprise for me about doing this whole project was, again, I look at it from across the street.

00:24:30.000 I'd always been a fan, but I never really wanted to do it myself.

00:24:33.000 I wanted to do jujitsu, but I didn't really want to be a cage fighter.

00:24:38.000 It didn't look like fun to me.

00:24:39.000 It looked like about as much fun as torture.

00:24:41.000 You know what I mean?

00:24:42.000 It looked scary and painful.

00:24:44.000 And the biggest shock for me was that I loved it.

00:24:47.000 I loved it.

00:24:49.000 So I expected to do it for a year and then to quit the absolute second my fight was over.

00:24:54.000 You know, that's it.

00:24:55.000 I'm retired.

00:24:56.000 I'll go write the book.

00:24:58.000 But I kept doing it for a couple years longer because I really loved it.

00:25:03.000 I love the camaraderie.

00:25:04.000 I love the challenge of it.

00:25:05.000 I love the way it made me feel.

00:25:06.000 I love the way it, you know, gave me this ability to live A sort of headlong life, you know, for a couple hours a week is all.

00:25:14.000 What do you mean by headlong?

00:25:15.000 I don't know.

00:25:15.000 I have this restraint in my life.

00:25:17.000 I'm a professor, you know.

00:25:19.000 I have this really dull life in a lot of ways.

00:25:23.000 And then for a few hours a week, I go in and I take these risks in the gym and I experience these big emotions and these big highs, you know.

00:25:32.000 And then about a year ago, I got so beat up that I really just couldn't continue anymore.

00:25:37.000 And giving up was one of the hardest things I've ever done.

00:25:39.000 It was like, you know, I kind of felt like this romance in my life had come to an end.

00:25:44.000 And I was too brittle and too old, you know, to recapture it.

00:25:49.000 What was the issue, like, physically?

00:25:52.000 I always expected for it to end badly.

00:25:54.000 You know, I knew I was kind of pushing my luck, and I figured I'd go out on my shield at some point, you know, go out on a stretcher after some horrible head injury or blow up my knee or something like that.

00:26:01.000 It wasn't like that, though.

00:26:03.000 It was more like an accumulation of little things.

00:26:07.000 Rickety old man stuff, you know?

00:26:09.000 You just get older and you start picking up these little injuries and they don't go away.

00:26:12.000 So I got, you know, I kept getting turf toe from kicks and from getting stuck on the mat.

00:26:18.000 And that turned into arthritis at some point.

00:26:21.000 And I pulled my groin bad.

00:26:22.000 And that's been bad.

00:26:24.000 And I messed up my neck one time.

00:26:25.000 And it's never been quite the same.

00:26:27.000 Just got rickety.

00:26:29.000 And part of the reason I started going to hot yoga, as we said before, is in hopes of...

00:26:36.000 Curing all this stuff, you know, getting physically healthy, getting my flexibility better so I can get back in the gym.

00:26:42.000 I don't ever want to do the hardcore MMA sparring anymore.

00:26:44.000 I don't want to get hit in the head anymore.

00:26:46.000 But I do want to get back into the grappling elements of it.

00:26:49.000 Yeah, we were talking about it before the podcast started that I've become addicted the last few weeks to yoga.

00:26:53.000 Yeah, me too.

00:26:54.000 Yeah, I've got this reoccurring issue. 0.96

00:26:59.000 I have a pulled muscle in my butt. 0.90

00:27:02.000 Very uncomfortable to talk about it.

00:27:05.000 But it's aggravated when I throw kicks, and so I wasn't throwing kicks for a while.

00:27:10.000 But there's certain punches when I just push off of it.

00:27:13.000 There's something about exploding.

00:27:15.000 So I was like, man, I gotta stretch out. 0.99

00:27:17.000 My back's always fucked up. 0.92

00:27:18.000 And so I started taking hot yoga about a week and a half ago. 0.97

00:27:23.000 And almost immediately, I found out that it calmed me down.

00:27:27.000 Almost immediately.

00:27:29.000 My stress level just dropped tremendously.

00:27:32.000 I mean, I had done it before, but I've been real inconsistent about it.

00:27:36.000 So I'm trying to do four days a week for a year.

00:27:39.000 That's my goal, too.

00:27:41.000 Yeah.

00:27:41.000 Can you do it on back-to-back days?

00:27:43.000 Yeah, you can, sure.

00:27:44.000 I often feel so tired from it on the second day, like muscularly tired.

00:27:47.000 I mean, the thing that I didn't expect about yoga is how difficult it is.

00:27:50.000 Yeah.

00:27:50.000 I mean, I knew it was like, I thought it was me in a hot room stretching.

00:27:53.000 That's what I thought it was.

00:27:54.000 You know what I mean?

00:27:55.000 But it is, I mean, the level of exertion is really extraordinary.

00:27:58.000 It's harder than a lot of jujitsu classes. 0.93

00:28:01.000 And people are going to say, get the fuck out of here. 0.82

00:28:03.000 If I have to roll with five blue belts that are my size or do a class in hot yoga, I guarantee you it's harder to do yoga. 0.98

00:28:11.000 Because if a guy's under my level, I can pretty much control what happens.

00:28:15.000 I can hold positions.

00:28:17.000 I can choose to take breaks.

00:28:20.000 I can mount them and just relax.

00:28:23.000 Yeah, you can't do that, obviously, if you're fighting for your life against someone good.

00:28:28.000 If you're grappling with someone really good, jujitsu's harder, because it's fighting to the death.

00:28:33.000 If there's someone who's just a little bit better than you, or a solid notch better than you, and they're trying to kill you, but they're not good enough that you're in total defensive mode, you're still in the game.

00:28:46.000 You get to heart attack stages where you're like, this might end right here. 0.98

00:28:50.000 This whole fucking life on this planet might end right here for me. 1.00

00:28:53.000 It'd be a good death for you. 1.00

00:28:55.000 It's not the worst death, but yoga is almost as difficult. 0.98

00:29:01.000 It's really hard.

00:29:02.000 I mean, I was going to write something about it.

00:29:04.000 I might write it still like a blog entry about it.

00:29:07.000 How there's this life or death struggle that's going on in these hot rooms all over the country and no one knows how difficult it really is.

00:29:15.000 Everybody thinks it's like really easy because a bunch of women are doing it. 1.00

00:29:18.000 Exactly.

00:29:19.000 Exactly.

00:29:19.000 I think guys don't get it at all because I'm always there and I kind of like the female environment of it.

00:29:24.000 I like that it's such a big transition from the gym, you know, where like it's non-competitive and the whole, even if there's a male teacher, The whole culture is still female. 0.57

00:29:34.000 It's a feminine culture. 1.00

00:29:37.000 None of the macho stuff is going on there.

00:29:40.000 You're not trying to vanquish the room at hot yoga like you would be possibly if you were at the gym.

00:29:46.000 I just dig it.

00:29:47.000 I think it's the main thing that people don't get about it.

00:29:49.000 I would have had the same stereotypes I think a lot of people have that's kind of a sissy thing to do.

00:29:54.000 There's nothing sissy about it. 0.99

00:29:55.000 It's really a hard thing.

00:29:57.000 Yeah, it just has a weird connotation for some reason.

00:30:00.000 We have this weird perception of it because we see girls in tights. 1.00

00:30:04.000 Yeah.

00:30:05.000 You know, we say, how hard could they be working?

00:30:07.000 Exactly. 0.99

00:30:07.000 That's ridiculous. 0.99

00:30:08.000 I wonder if they're not... 0.89

00:30:10.000 I do get the feeling that I am working harder.

00:30:13.000 Because I'm newer and I have to work really hard to get into these positions because my flexibility sucks.

00:30:19.000 And with these women, a lot of them are super flexible and they seem to get into those positions pretty effortlessly and hold them with less vibration. 1.00

00:30:28.000 Then I'm holding them.

00:30:28.000 Well, some for sure.

00:30:31.000 But some, I mean, there's this one lady that I go to this class, and she's got to take a break like every other pose. 1.00

00:30:37.000 She's barely getting through it.

00:30:38.000 You know, she's very out of shape, and she's attempting to do this very difficult class. 0.98

00:30:42.000 And there's certain things when I do it where I'm like, fucking, I could barely hang in here until this guy calls it. 0.96

00:30:50.000 I know, me too. 0.96

00:30:51.000 But in other ones, it's a breeze, where other people are really struggling.

00:30:54.000 It depends on the instructor, you mean?

00:30:56.000 No, no, no.

00:30:57.000 Oh, the poses.

00:30:58.000 The flexibility.

00:30:58.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:30:58.000 Like, I have a lot of flexibility in my legs.

00:31:01.000 Yeah.

00:31:01.000 Like, kicking flexibility.

00:31:02.000 And so there's certain poses where everybody else is struggling and I'm taking a break.

00:31:06.000 I'm like, woo, I can relax here.

00:31:08.000 Can you get your arms back?

00:31:09.000 Yeah.

00:31:09.000 I can do all that.

00:31:10.000 But the big one is, like, stretching my legs out, putting my body forward.

00:31:15.000 Or with a lot of people, they're holding it, holding it.

00:31:17.000 I'm like, I can go to sleep here.

00:31:18.000 Yeah.

00:31:19.000 So it's nice.

00:31:19.000 I get little breaks.

00:31:20.000 No, for me, I'm fighting for my life in that position.

00:31:23.000 Yeah.

00:31:23.000 And having that voice in my head is, you know, like...

00:31:26.000 You can do it, pussy. 1.00

00:31:27.000 Don't be a pussy. 1.00

00:31:28.000 But then there's other ones where I'm just fucking dying, you know? 1.00

00:31:32.000 It's really difficult. 0.98

00:31:34.000 But, you know, again, I think there's a balance issue.

00:31:37.000 And I think when you're all the time just... 0.99

00:31:39.000 All the explosion, lifting weights, kettlebells, and fucking... 0.97

00:31:44.000 I think it's good to do, like, static tension-relieving, long-holding those poses, stretching, elongating the muscles, stretching out all the tissue, stretching out all the hamstrings and the back muscles, and there's so much stretching going on, 0.98

00:32:01.000 I realize what I'm doing, and I'm like, I don't ever do this.

00:32:04.000 I never lengthen everything out.

00:32:07.000 Everything is just getting compressed.

00:32:08.000 Everything is... 0.98

00:32:11.000 Everything is explosion and all this fucking heavy weight. 0.97

00:32:15.000 I think you need balance. 0.96

00:32:17.000 I don't think you should have only yoga.

00:32:19.000 I think it's good to put weight on your body and your muscles because it's good for your density of your bones, it maintains mass, it keeps you from getting frail, especially as you get older.

00:32:31.000 Stretching and yoga positions should be almost mandatory for people to get their shit together You know, it's it's it makes you way calmer.

00:32:38.000 I don't know why I mean, I wish I wonder if it's just physical tension being released or if just Stretching itself if there's something in the act of doing so that just when it's over Everything else just seems like calm and relaxed like the difficulty of those poses.

00:32:57.000 Yeah I always felt like it burns so much energy.

00:33:03.000 You don't have anything left to torture yourself with afterwards.

00:33:07.000 The anxiety is kind of burnt through.

00:33:09.000 I had the same sense you do.

00:33:10.000 The first time I did, I was like, oh my god, this is the healthiest thing I've ever done in my life.

00:33:14.000 How long have you been doing it?

00:33:15.000 I've done like 10 classes.

00:33:16.000 So I'm still at that stage of like, you know, converts zeal, you know.

00:33:20.000 Oh yeah, the blue belt disease. 0.80

00:33:23.000 Like just before you get a blue belt, jujitsu guys just don't want to talk about anything but jujitsu.

00:33:28.000 So you want to do it to a point where you get healthy enough to go back to grappling.

00:33:33.000 Yeah, I'd like to get back into the gym.

00:33:34.000 I miss the guys.

00:33:36.000 It was a good thing for me.

00:33:37.000 You know, Anthony Bourdain just kind of did jujitsu.

00:33:40.000 Do you know this?

00:33:40.000 I did that.

00:33:41.000 Yeah, I did know that.

00:33:41.000 Yeah.

00:33:42.000 Yeah, it's amazing.

00:33:43.000 At 58?

00:33:44.000 I know.

00:33:44.000 He loves it, too.

00:33:45.000 Dude, I met him. 1.00

00:33:46.000 That fucking guy. 1.00

00:33:46.000 He's got a blue belt disease. 1.00

00:33:48.000 He still smoked a few cigarettes when I met him. 0.53

00:33:50.000 Drank crazily.

00:33:51.000 Has he quit smoking?

00:33:52.000 Yeah, he quit smoking.

00:33:53.000 He quit smoking when he had his daughter.

00:33:57.000 Which was just right around when I was meeting him. 0.96

00:34:00.000 And was just eating whatever the fuck he wanted to, getting a belly and drinking all the time and traveling around the world. 1.00

00:34:09.000 And his wife is a maniac. 1.00

00:34:11.000 His wife is a jiu-jitsu fiend. 0.99

00:34:13.000 But I see a guy like that.

00:34:14.000 I'm like, at 58 years old, how much can his body take?

00:34:18.000 He's doing it twice a day.

00:34:20.000 I wonder if he's doing any yoga or anything to counteract just age-related degeneration.

00:34:26.000 Yeah, I don't know.

00:34:28.000 I often wonder about that myself.

00:34:30.000 I wonder if like the fact that he wasn't athletic for most of his life means that he hadn't put a lot of hard miles on himself.

00:34:36.000 That could be true.

00:34:37.000 Like by now you've got a lot of hard miles on yourself.

00:34:39.000 I got quite a few hard miles on myself, you know? 0.98

00:34:41.000 Yeah, I have a lot of fucking hard miles on this body. 0.73

00:34:46.000 It's a lot of surgeries and a lot of injuries and but works amazingly well, but a lot of that is because I don't have a conventional job. 0.96

00:34:53.000 I was thinking that today when I did that class I was like, how many fucking people have an hour and a half, you know? 0.90

00:34:59.000 The middle of the day. 0.99

00:34:59.000 Yeah, or at nine o'clock in the morning to go in there and, you know, stretch out in a fucking sweat box for an hour and a half. 0.99

00:35:06.000 Most people just don't have that time. 0.88

00:35:08.000 And then when you get home, you have, you know, your family and bills and blah, [... 0.99

00:35:14.000 And you have all this shit to do with. 0.98

00:35:16.000 Most people don't have the time to put in for body maintenance, for the proper body maintenance. 0.99

00:35:21.000 It's very true.

00:35:22.000 I was having a conversation with a friend about nutrition.

00:35:25.000 They were asking me, which kind of supplements should I get?

00:35:28.000 What should I do?

00:35:29.000 And I said, well, one of the first things you should do is find a qualified doctor and get your blood work done.

00:35:34.000 Find out where your nutrition levels are at, what your vitamin levels are.

00:35:37.000 Let's find out.

00:35:38.000 Eat what you normally eat.

00:35:39.000 You don't have to get crazy and try to fix it, but eat what you normally eat, and then let's find out what do you need.

00:35:46.000 Most people are like, oh, that's so much time.

00:35:48.000 Yeah, they don't have the energy and time for it.

00:35:50.000 I don't have time to go to the doctor.

00:35:50.000 Do the research.

00:35:52.000 Yeah, it's a lot of work. 1.00

00:35:54.000 Jobs are bullshit. 1.00

00:35:55.000 That's the real problem. 1.00

00:35:57.000 They're bullshit. 1.00

00:35:58.000 I mean, part of what you were feeling when you saw those guys across the street and they were living their life, you realize that you were contained. 1.00

00:36:06.000 Yeah, I was literally in a box.

00:36:08.000 And the professor in the cage, the cage is the cage.

00:36:10.000 It's a fighting cage.

00:36:11.000 But it's also my office, you know, my cubicle where I worked.

00:36:15.000 And so the book is about getting out of that cubicle, you know.

00:36:18.000 I was, you know, getting out of my academic cage.

00:36:21.000 If this thing sold like crazy, would you be willing to write the professor in the mat and enter into jiu-jitsu tournaments?

00:36:27.000 Yeah, for sure, man.

00:36:28.000 The professor in the yoga room?

00:36:30.000 Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

00:36:32.000 Adventures as a wannabe yogi?

00:36:34.000 Start a franchise, yeah.

00:36:36.000 Yeah, definitely.

00:36:38.000 Now, what is boring about teaching English?

00:36:41.000 It wasn't that it was boring.

00:36:43.000 I don't know.

00:36:43.000 You know, I was teaching a lot of writing classes, especially freshman writing.

00:36:47.000 And freshman writing at my college was mandatory, which means that everyone there is a captive.

00:36:53.000 You know, at most college courses, you get to take whatever you want to take.

00:36:56.000 There's electives.

00:36:57.000 You're not forced to be anywhere.

00:36:58.000 This is a class you're forced to be in.

00:37:00.000 And so I was teaching freshman composition over and over and over again to students who just couldn't care less, you know.

00:37:07.000 And so that was lame.

00:37:08.000 The main problem, though, was I was an adjunct.

00:37:10.000 Do you know what an adjunct is?

00:37:11.000 Yeah.

00:37:12.000 An adjunct is like not a full-time faculty member.

00:37:15.000 So, you know, for like almost 10 years, I've been making about 16 grand a year, you know, just kind of chasing this dream of being a boyhood dream, really, of being a college professor, of being a scholar.

00:37:28.000 I wanted to be that guy, like the guy who makes some small but Meaningful contribution to knowledge and I've been chasing that dream for a long time and writing books and doing the articles and doing all kinds of stuff but it just wasn't my research was a little bit non-conventional and it just wasn't I wasn't making it you know what I mean and so and I just didn't have the courage to quit it wasn't I don't know if it was a courage thing or if it was a A desire thing.

00:37:58.000 I don't like quitting on something I've invested in.

00:38:00.000 It's hard.

00:38:01.000 You know, it's like if you're gambling, you know, you throw money in the pot. 0.73

00:38:03.000 You don't want to fucking fold, even though you know you should fold. 0.71

00:38:07.000 And so when I started, when I went across the street that first time, I made that joke at my own expense. 0.97

00:38:13.000 It wouldn't be funny if I went over there.

00:38:14.000 Part of it, part of what was driving me to cross over there was a career suicide fantasy.

00:38:19.000 I was thinking to myself, well, you apparently don't have the courage to quit your job and move on to something else.

00:38:23.000 Maybe you can do something offensive enough to people in your profession that will get you fired.

00:38:29.000 And so if I showed up in the cage, everybody in my department would be able to, honest to God, like look up from the poems they were reading, you know, reading their poems, they look up and they'd be able to see me right across the street, you know, engaged in blood sport.

00:38:43.000 And they don't really approve of blood sport in English departments.

00:38:46.000 What has the reaction been amongst your peers?

00:38:49.000 Okay, career suicide fantasy, right?

00:38:53.000 So I went over there thinking, I can't quit, maybe I can get myself fired.

00:38:57.000 On my campus, people were much more tolerant and open-minded than I had hoped.

00:39:04.000 You know?

00:39:06.000 They didn't get furious with me.

00:39:08.000 They didn't try to fire me.

00:39:10.000 It's because they know me.

00:39:11.000 They know I'm not a savage animal.

00:39:13.000 They know I'm a decent human being.

00:39:16.000 The bigger question is what effect will it have within the larger profession?

00:39:21.000 Will it be an effective career suicide strategy once other people in the profession get a hold of the book?

00:39:26.000 And I do think probably it'll be a success as a career suicide strategy.

00:39:32.000 About two weeks after the book came out, this article came out about me and about the book in this magazine that no one reads in the real world called The Chronicle of Higher Education.

00:39:41.000 But it's the main trade magazine for academia.

00:39:45.000 And the book comes off pretty much as a...

00:39:49.000 Glorification of macho barbarism in their thinking. 0.97

00:39:53.000 You know, a dumb glorification of butchery and barbarism. 0.98

00:39:58.000 You know what I mean? 0.99

00:39:59.000 Butchery even?

00:40:00.000 Well...

00:40:00.000 Were you just using that word and didn't use that word?

00:40:02.000 Savagery.

00:40:03.000 Savagery and barbarism. 1.00

00:40:05.000 Sounds like it was written by a pussy. 1.00

00:40:07.000 Just saying. 1.00

00:40:11.000 There's a lot of...

00:40:12.000 So that could be effective in ending my career, because that's a guy, like I read about that, and I read the article, I said to my wife, like, okay, that ends it.

00:40:20.000 There it is.

00:40:21.000 Really?

00:40:21.000 Yeah.

00:40:22.000 Is he well-written?

00:40:23.000 Yeah.

00:40:23.000 Did the guy have any points?

00:40:25.000 No.

00:40:26.000 I mean, no, I mean...

00:40:27.000 I thought it sounded good to be well-written.

00:40:28.000 Well, it's funny, it's like...

00:40:29.000 And they didn't have points.

00:40:29.000 Because he's a good writer.

00:40:30.000 Okay.

00:40:31.000 You know what I mean?

00:40:31.000 But I don't think it's good journalism.

00:40:34.000 But it's good writing.

00:40:35.000 Well, it's editorial.

00:40:36.000 I mean, whenever you...

00:40:38.000 Yeah.

00:40:38.000 It was a feature, a sort of portrait.

00:40:41.000 And instead of making an actual portrait, he sort of drew a caricature, in my opinion.

00:40:45.000 A caricature of you or of what...

00:40:47.000 Me and the book.

00:40:48.000 Of what you're trying to accomplish or of the sport itself?

00:40:53.000 Let me give you one example.

00:40:54.000 So, one example he quotes in the book is, like, we're at lunch.

00:40:58.000 You know, and we're having a nice time, and at some point, I lean across the table toward him, and I say to him, like this, you know, across the table in an intimidating fashion, what would it take?

00:41:11.000 What would I have to say to get you to punch me in the face?

00:41:14.000 Is that what you said to him? 0.95

00:41:15.000 Really?

00:41:15.000 Yeah, I said it to him.

00:41:16.000 But if you strip out all the damn context. 0.99

00:41:19.000 So in context, that statement is about me saying how hard it is to get guys to punch you in the face. 0.98

00:41:25.000 That men are fairly peaceable.

00:41:27.000 Men avoid conflict.

00:41:29.000 They're fairly prudent about throwing their fists around.

00:41:33.000 Most guys will go to great lengths to find a face-saving way out of a violent confrontation.

00:41:38.000 So within context, the statement was almost the opposite of what it made it seem like.

00:41:44.000 Right.

00:41:45.000 So, in his words, you were intimidating him?

00:41:49.000 Pretty much, yeah.

00:41:50.000 Well, maybe that's just how he took it.

00:41:53.000 Some people are super uncomfortable with any idea, like any form of conflict, you know, and they would like to categorize any kind of violent interaction, even voluntary violent interaction, like a mixed martial arts competition, as being barbaric,

00:42:09.000 as having no virtue, as having no...

00:42:11.000 there's no nobility.

00:42:13.000 I get that, too.

00:42:15.000 And I think, I don't know if it's harder for you to get into that mind space, but it's not hard for me to get into that mind space.

00:42:20.000 The mind space of?

00:42:21.000 Of a person who looks at that and sees no redemption in it, sees nothing good about it.

00:42:25.000 I don't have a hard time.

00:42:27.000 It's easy for me to get into that.

00:42:28.000 It sounds crazy because I... It's my job.

00:42:32.000 I mean, I'm a mixed martial arts commentator for the UFC, but I have a problem with damage.

00:42:38.000 I live a very contradictory existence.

00:42:42.000 I was gonna ask you about this.

00:42:43.000 Yeah, I mean, I love watching fights.

00:42:46.000 I have always loved watching fights.

00:42:49.000 I love...

00:42:50.000 That people have this burning desire in them to do what I think is the most difficult sport in the world.

00:42:57.000 I don't think there's anything even close.

00:42:59.000 I think as far as the emotions that are invested in trying to win and the devastating effect of a loss...

00:43:08.000 And then the actual physical damage that you take along the way.

00:43:11.000 Your vehicle that you're racing is your own body.

00:43:15.000 And unlike a race car, your body will respond only if you push it in training.

00:43:21.000 You have to elevate its capacity.

00:43:23.000 You have to elevate its tolerances.

00:43:26.000 And you have to do that intelligently, and it has to be done in the watchful eye.

00:43:30.000 of trainers and along the way there's all these variables you have to take into account strength and conditioning what kind of a body type are you dealing with what you know what skill set do you have what needs to be improved objectivity objectively and analyzing your strengths and weaknesses looking at your skill set looking at the weapons that you have that you need to keep sharp and looking at ones that you need to acquire there's so many variables to me it's the ultimate Problem-solving,

00:43:58.000 high-level competition.

00:44:00.000 I don't think there's anything like it. 1.00

00:44:02.000 But I have a problem with a lot of the assholes. 1.00

00:44:06.000 I have a problem with a lot of the thuggish behavior. 0.99

00:44:08.000 I have a problem with, I mean, even though I know a lot of it is psychological warfare and trying to intimidate each other, I have a problem with some of that.

00:44:15.000 I have a problem with the damage that guys take.

00:44:17.000 I have a real problem with that.

00:44:20.000 I have a real problem with guys not knowing when to get out, with their friends telling them, listen man, just gotta put together one hard camp. 0.99

00:44:26.000 You're like, no, no, he's been knocked out seven fucking times. 0.98

00:44:29.000 Like, no, he needs to preserve his brain for the rest of his life. 0.98

00:44:33.000 Have you ever met an old man that used to fight? 1.00

00:44:36.000 I have.

00:44:37.000 It's not fun.

00:44:38.000 It's not fun at all. 0.99

00:44:39.000 It's very uncomfortable to talk to a guy who tells the same fucking story over and over and over and over and over and over. 0.98

00:44:46.000 Do you know why UFC fighters like that? 0.99

00:44:47.000 Yes.

00:44:48.000 Yes, I do.

00:44:49.000 And I know UFC fighters who didn't used to be like that, who are like that now.

00:44:53.000 And they're some of my all-time favorites.

00:44:55.000 Well, this is the big question for me.

00:44:57.000 Let me ask one more question.

00:44:58.000 The other day on the podcast, you mentioned Howard Cosell giving up that work after seeing a particularly gruesome fight.

00:45:05.000 Larry Holmes, Tex Cobb.

00:45:07.000 You ever think that could happen to you?

00:45:12.000 It's possible.

00:45:13.000 Yeah, it's possible that there'll come a day where I can't do it anymore, that I don't want to do it anymore.

00:45:18.000 I'll probably always be a fan to some extent.

00:45:22.000 But like my favorite guy is Mighty Mouse.

00:45:24.000 You know, people think like my all-time favorite guys Some of the craziest like Vanderlei Silva is one of my all-time favorites because his fights were fucking chaos You knew if you're gonna watch a Vanderlei Silva fight that dude across the ring and he's wiggling his wrists back in the pride days doing this shit He was probably one of the best middleweights ever You know,

00:45:47.000 or light heavyweight in that division is 203, but they called it middleweight.

00:45:51.000 They called the 185 pound division was Walter weight, I think.

00:45:58.000 But Vanderlei, who was just the opposite of like...

00:46:03.000 Mighty Mouse. 0.96

00:46:03.000 Like, Mighty Mouse is my favorite currently because he fights so fucking intelligently. 0.96

00:46:09.000 Everything he does, his movement, his footwork, his positioning, he's always in condition. 0.88

00:46:14.000 His conditioning is insane.

00:46:15.000 They can just push guys to the point where they just cannot keep up with him.

00:46:19.000 And his technical superiority over all the competition is just so obvious.

00:46:25.000 And his work ethic, his intelligence, he's a great role model.

00:46:29.000 When you hear him talk, he's a very intelligent young man, but also humble and friendly.

00:46:34.000 I mean, you see him.

00:46:36.000 The only thing that tells you that guy's a martial arts fighter is his ears.

00:46:39.000 Yeah.

00:46:39.000 You look at him, he seems so friendly and so nice, but then he gets in there.

00:46:42.000 He's the baddest motherfucker in the world, pound for pound, in my opinion. 1.00

00:46:46.000 He's just 125 pounds. 1.00

00:46:47.000 He doesn't get the attention because of that.

00:46:50.000 No, but other than that, Fedor, who was just violence, every one of his fights was violence, but intelligence, and Anderson, who was just a wizard.

00:46:58.000 Anderson in his prime was the wizard of all wizards.

00:47:01.000 He would pull off things where you'd just go, get the fuck out of here, what did I just see?

00:47:06.000 I like... 0.97

00:47:06.000 My favorite has always been Machida. 0.97

00:47:09.000 Machida's great, too.

00:47:10.000 I just like...

00:47:10.000 There's something...

00:47:11.000 There's a beauty and grace to the way he fights.

00:47:14.000 He reminds me of a matador.

00:47:15.000 He kind of looks like a matador.

00:47:17.000 You know, he's got that kind of dark complexion and dark hair.

00:47:20.000 I think Machida spent too much of his career fighting at 205. I totally agree.

00:47:25.000 He's too small for 185. Which is crazy.

00:47:27.000 Rockhold dwarfs him.

00:47:28.000 Rockhold's a giant.

00:47:29.000 And, you know...

00:47:32.000 Weidman is way bigger, too.

00:47:34.000 I just don't know how...

00:47:35.000 And he's about to fight Romero, who's gonna dwarf him, too.

00:47:37.000 Romero's huge.

00:47:38.000 Romero's huge.

00:47:39.000 So he's taking abuse from these huge guys.

00:47:42.000 Yeah.

00:47:42.000 I just don't know how he fought at 205 for so long.

00:47:47.000 He would weigh in at 203 and, like, not cut any weight at all and then fight Tito Ortiz.

00:47:52.000 He weighed 230 or something, right?

00:47:53.000 He's a big, giant dude.

00:47:54.000 Yeah.

00:47:55.000 I mean, he fought...

00:47:56.000 Tiago Silva was huge at 205. He fought some big-ass fucking dudes. 1.00

00:48:01.000 But he fought very brilliantly. 0.99

00:48:03.000 But he's also...

00:48:03.000 He's in his late 30s.

00:48:05.000 I think he's 37 or 38. And your body just...

00:48:09.000 You only have so many miles.

00:48:10.000 You don't get to change the tires.

00:48:14.000 You don't get to upgrade the suspension.

00:48:16.000 He's taken some abuse.

00:48:18.000 Well, the Rockhold fight was the most abuse he's ever taken.

00:48:21.000 Yeah, I didn't like that fight.

00:48:22.000 I mean, Jon Jones choked him out.

00:48:24.000 Yeah.

00:48:25.000 And when a guy chokes you out like that, that's not nearly as bad.

00:48:29.000 Shogun KO'd him essentially with one punch.

00:48:31.000 Yeah. 0.99

00:48:31.000 So those were like two big losses before, but this Rockhold fight was a fucking molestation. 0.99

00:48:37.000 It was a brutal... 0.99

00:48:38.000 I mean, I shouldn't say that word.

00:48:40.000 I should say it was an assault.

00:48:41.000 Yeah.

00:48:42.000 That's what it was.

00:48:42.000 It was brutal.

00:48:44.000 That's what I didn't like about that fight.

00:48:46.000 By the end, it was an assault on a helpless victim.

00:48:49.000 And I feel like, you were saying this too, that that's a fight that should have been ended probably on the stool.

00:48:56.000 I agree.

00:48:56.000 You know, his corner should have ended it.

00:48:57.000 Well, they didn't even put his mouthpiece in for the second round.

00:49:00.000 We didn't know about it.

00:49:01.000 He was saying something to the referee and pointing at his mouth, and I was trying to figure out what he was saying.

00:49:04.000 While they were squaring off?

00:49:06.000 When he was on the bottom and Rockhold was beating him up, he said to the referee something and pointed to his mouth that he didn't have a mouthpiece in, and the referee didn't pick it up.

00:49:16.000 I mean, you gotta check that. 0.99

00:49:18.000 The corners, it's ultimately their fault, but the referee fucked up too. 0.99

00:49:21.000 You can't let a guy fight and get the shit beat out of him with no mouthpiece in. 0.99

00:49:25.000 Well, can we go back to that question about the conflict you feel between being a fan of this sport, a massive fan of this sport. 0.99

00:49:32.000 No one's a bigger fan than you.

00:49:33.000 I'm a huge fan of this sport, too.

00:49:35.000 But also that sense of, you know, dividedness, you know, that you know, I mean, here's how I feel about it.

00:49:44.000 It's like, I feel like We're trapped in this kind of devil's bargain.

00:49:48.000 You know, we love this sport.

00:49:50.000 We admire the athletes, too, and worship them.

00:49:52.000 We admire their heroism, their courage, their skill, their stamina, all of it.

00:49:57.000 And we love the drama of it.

00:49:59.000 We love the savagery of it.

00:50:01.000 We love the technique of it.

00:50:03.000 But at the same time, we know it costs these guys too much.

00:50:07.000 I guess my question is, is there any way out of this devil's bargain?

00:50:10.000 Is there a way that we can make these sports safer than it is?

00:50:17.000 Well, I think you and I are both in agreement with the gloves issue and you wrote something about it and I discussed it with Sam Harris.

00:50:25.000 I've discussed it with a bunch of people.

00:50:26.000 I feel like This would kind of be contradictory for people who don't train in martial arts, but I'll try to explain it visually for people who watch this, which is a much smaller percentage of the population.

00:50:39.000 If you look at someone's wrist, your wrist, when you hit things, Your wrist tends to wiggle around.

00:50:46.000 It flexes.

00:50:47.000 It's very hard to keep your wrist stiff and hit things hard, especially repeatedly when you're bouncing your wrist off of elbows and shoulders and even foreheads.

00:50:58.000 You tend to break your hands much easier if you don't have wraps.

00:51:02.000 And when you see a fighter in the UFC and they have those gloves on, those gloves aren't really protecting the other opponent, the opponent, the person you're punching, nearly as much as they're protecting the person who's punching the opponent.

00:51:13.000 But the big thing to me is not just the gloves, it's the wraps.

00:51:17.000 I feel like when you tape up your wrist...

00:51:20.000 You cast it. 1.00

00:51:21.000 Yeah, you tape up your wrist, you tape up your hands, you make that thing hard as fuck. 0.99

00:51:26.000 Before I work out, before I hit the bag or hit the pads or anything like that, I tape this fucking bitch down, I go in between my knuckles, I have these pads that I put over my knuckles, and I tape over them, and then I go everything with athletic tape, and at the end of it, 1.00

00:51:41.000 that fucking thing... 0.99

00:51:43.000 You can slam things with it, and it just, it's unnatural. 1.00

00:51:47.000 You have an unnatural situation with your hands, and when people say, well, it looks barbaric if you bare knuckle, let me tell you something, you would be way better off with me bare knuckle punching you than you would with me kicking you with my shin.

00:52:02.000 And that's totally legal. 0.99

00:52:04.000 Head kicks, heel, like, when you see, like, Terry Edom versus Edson Barbosa, and Edson Barbosa wheel kicks him in the head, there is not a fucking punch that's ever been thrown by a human being, ever, that has the kind of power that a fucking wheel kick has. 0.83

00:52:20.000 Your legs are, I mean, especially not that weight class, you'd have to have, like, the biggest, most giant heavyweight boxer, and still, I don't think they could probably punch as hard as a world-class kickboxer can throw a kick like that. 0.89

00:52:32.000 Those kicks are rare, though.

00:52:33.000 I mean, one of the things that was interesting to me is there's a paper out in some journal, like the Canadian Journal of Criminology, not Criminology, sorry, Sports Medicine or something like that, went through all the UFC fights over, like, I'd say a decade, and saw how they ended.

00:52:50.000 And when it came to KOs and TKOs, 85% of them were from the hands.

00:52:56.000 So my feeling is, you know, again, people have the wrong idea about these gloves.

00:53:00.000 They really have the wrong idea.

00:53:01.000 They think it makes the sport safer.

00:53:04.000 And they think it can make it safer, safer.

00:53:06.000 And it does make it safer for the guy's hands.

00:53:09.000 And the cost of that is making it exponentially more dangerous for the other guy's brain.

00:53:13.000 You take those gloves off.

00:53:15.000 Those guys cannot throw their hands around like that.

00:53:17.000 No.

00:53:17.000 If you glove it up, tape it up, you turn that fragile, vulnerable fist into a brutally dangerous cudgel.

00:53:25.000 You can throw around from all these different angles.

00:53:27.000 You can throw Roy Nelson style overhand rights.

00:53:30.000 You can't throw that punch without gloves on.

00:53:33.000 You'll break your hand.

00:53:34.000 Instantly, you KO yourself. 0.99

00:53:36.000 If you punch the skull with a bare hand, the skull punches you back.

00:53:41.000 Yeah, if you hit someone, if someone just ducks down and you hit them with a straight punch on the forehead, it's like punching a wall.

00:53:48.000 So to me, there was this tragedy that happened.

00:53:51.000 And it happened in boxing.

00:53:52.000 It happened in boxing in 1867. You know, boxing was on the verge of getting outlawed, basically, for being savage.

00:53:59.000 And they said, okay, we'll change the rules.

00:54:01.000 We'll add these different elements.

00:54:03.000 We'll make it possible for the referees to stop fight. 0.99

00:54:05.000 And we'll put pillows on the guy's fists. 1.00

00:54:08.000 So it was a well-intended thing.

00:54:10.000 It's a well-intended thing where a well-intended humanitarian gesture will make the sport safer by putting these pillows on these guys' hands.

00:54:18.000 And the UFC made exactly the same mistake 130 years later or something.

00:54:24.000 They were on the verge of getting outlawed.

00:54:27.000 They were having all kinds of political problems.

00:54:29.000 And so they reformed.

00:54:30.000 They said, we're going to outlaw these really brutal-looking techniques, and we are also going to take away the prime symbol In the public's mind of the savagery of cage fighting, which is bare-fisted fighting.

00:54:43.000 It's even in our language.

00:54:44.000 When we say, we're going to take the gloves off, that means we're going to resort to a really primitive style of brutality.

00:54:51.000 And so So it was a well-intended gesture that backfired in a tragic way.

00:54:58.000 So people think that the sort of savagery and the damage and the danger, the neurological danger especially, of fighting is intrinsic to the sport and unavoidable.

00:55:10.000 And it's not really true.

00:55:12.000 You could massively decrease the danger, the neurological danger of the sport, just by taking off the gloves.

00:55:19.000 But could you, because a big percentage of the blows that guys receive, they receive in training, and you're very unlikely to train bare and uncle.

00:55:28.000 So you're gonna still get tagged.

00:55:30.000 You're right.

00:55:32.000 You're right.

00:55:33.000 There's also, it impedes grappling in a lot of ways.

00:55:36.000 The gloves do.

00:55:37.000 The gloves do.

00:55:37.000 Yeah, of course, yeah.

00:55:38.000 They get in the way of a lot of chokes. 0.95

00:55:41.000 You can grab them, their handles, you can't get them in, I mean, you close your neck up, you can't get your gloves in.

00:55:47.000 Some guys use them intelligently to actually finish chokes.

00:55:50.000 I've seen Josh Thompson, who's a very clever fella.

00:55:53.000 He's done rear-naked chokes where he reaches under his own gloves and chokes guys and finishes it.

00:56:01.000 It's questionable.

00:56:03.000 I'm not sure.

00:56:04.000 I know you can't reach inside the other guy's glove.

00:56:06.000 You can't reach inside the other guy's glove, but I think you can grab your own glove.

00:56:09.000 You can grab your shorts.

00:56:10.000 You can grab your shorts to defend yourself.

00:56:12.000 You can't grab your shorts to finish a technique, though, I don't think.

00:56:15.000 I don't think.

00:56:16.000 I think if you had, like, there is a position that you could get where you could have your arm wrapped around a guy's neck and grab your own shorts and use your own shorts to aid in the choke.

00:56:27.000 I wonder if you could do that.

00:56:29.000 I wonder if you could do it offense, I probably should know this, seeing as I do it for a living, but I know that you can use it defensively, which is big with Kim Warris.

00:56:37.000 If a guy's going for a shoulder lock and you reach deep into your shorts and you hold on to them, it could be just enough to protect you, to keep you from getting tapped.

00:56:48.000 But I think, you know, if you take the gloves off, too, I've argued with some people about this.

00:56:53.000 They're like, well, if you did that, then guys would just throw more kicks, they'd throw more knees, they'd throw more elbows.

00:56:57.000 They would.

00:56:57.000 It'd be a little more like bare-knuckle Muay Thai.

00:56:59.000 Yeah, but I think, you know, I think, paradoxically, taking the gloves off would also weaken all the other weapons.

00:57:05.000 Because it's really hard to kick somebody in the head.

00:57:08.000 Not if you're Donald Cerrone.

00:57:10.000 Well, but partly it's because they have to respect his fists.

00:57:13.000 They have to have a lot of respect for his fists.

00:57:14.000 Yeah, but it's also like you get close to him, you get kneed, like you get elbowed.

00:57:19.000 You know, I see, I kind of disagree with that because I think it really just depends upon what kind of skill set you get into MMA with.

00:57:26.000 Yeah.

00:57:27.000 If you get a guy who's a really good kicker and you take away the gloves, you just made his kicks better because now he doesn't have to worry nearly as much about the other guy's punches.

00:57:35.000 Oh, he doesn't have to worry.

00:57:35.000 That's true.

00:57:36.000 That's a good point.

00:57:37.000 I was thinking of the other guy.

00:57:39.000 The defender wouldn't be as vulnerable to the kick because he can look for the kick more because he doesn't have to beware of the other guy's fist.

00:57:47.000 But you're right, the kicker doesn't have to worry about it.

00:57:49.000 That's a good point.

00:57:50.000 One of the biggest problems with the gloves is the fact that the fingers are wide open and guys are poking each other in the eye all the time.

00:57:57.000 It's a huge issue.

00:57:58.000 The UFC's tried to figure out a way to do it, to mitigate it, to have the same gloves, but make something where they curve more.

00:58:05.000 I think Bellator came out with this Everlast glove that I think has two opposing benefits.

00:58:13.000 It's more curved, which I think is better to avoid some of the pokes like the old Pride gloves, but also it's got more padding.

00:58:22.000 On the top to protect the knuckles so they have less broken hands.

00:58:25.000 But that means to me that guys can punch harder.

00:58:29.000 So it's like you're more free to punch, but you're less likely to poke.

00:58:33.000 I will take that.

00:58:34.000 I'll take the less likely to get the eye pokes.

00:58:36.000 Because I think the eye pokes, that's a huge tragic issue.

00:58:40.000 For people who aren't familiar with the sport, Muay Thai, the art of Thai boxing, they have a very specific style of using the hands.

00:58:53.000 Well, they'll put the hands on the forehead and they'll throw knees. 1.00

00:58:56.000 They'll put the hands up and they'll throw kicks. 1.00

00:58:59.000 They have a lot, especially in different practitioners, they have a lot of ways of using it.

00:59:05.000 But when they're doing it in the gym or in the ring, they're usually wearing big boxing gloves.

00:59:09.000 And the boxing gloves don't have anything free to poke.

00:59:12.000 But fingers, in the MMA gloves, the fingers are completely exposed.

00:59:16.000 And when guys utilize the same techniques to try to keep a guy off them, they oftentimes wind up poking guys right in the eyes, and they cause irreparable damage.

00:59:25.000 Guys like Alan Belcher, he's been out of the UFC for a long time.

00:59:28.000 He had knee eye surgery, like significant eye surgery.

00:59:31.000 Michael Bisping had significant eye surgery.

00:59:33.000 He has oil in his eye, Bisping does.

00:59:35.000 I heard that, yes.

00:59:35.000 Dude, when you look at one of his eyes, it's a different color.

00:59:38.000 It's like you don't see his pupil.

00:59:39.000 Yeah.

00:59:40.000 And it's to protect his retina.

00:59:41.000 Yikes. 1.00

00:59:42.000 But he's such a fucking gangster. 1.00

00:59:44.000 That guy's still in there throwing down with one bum eye. 1.00

00:59:47.000 I know.

00:59:47.000 I wish he could.

00:59:48.000 Again, though, like, when should these guys quit?

00:59:50.000 Well, he's still world-class, clearly, you know.

00:59:53.000 I mean, he's still, he just beat C.B. Dalloway.

00:59:58.000 And he showed, he's still world-class.

01:00:00.000 He's still, you know, one of the best guys in the world.

01:00:02.000 The Kung Lee victory.

01:00:03.000 I mean, that guy has a chance.

01:00:04.000 I mean, he really does have a chance still.

01:00:06.000 He really has a dream, and that dream is to be a world champion. 0.97

01:00:10.000 And that mindset that he has that allows him to fight with one fucked up eye, you know? 0.99

01:00:15.000 And he has got something wrong with his neck. 0.99

01:00:17.000 I mean, he's always, like, banged up.

01:00:18.000 He's been fighting forever.

01:00:20.000 He's also been fighting clean.

01:00:22.000 And a lot of his major losses are from guys who weren't clean.

01:00:25.000 I know.

01:00:26.000 Even if they weren't legally clean, I mean, even if what they were doing was legal, like Henderson and Vitor, they still weren't clean.

01:00:33.000 Chael Sonnen wasn't clean.

01:00:35.000 I mean, all these guys were not clean.

01:00:36.000 Almost everybody who beat him, right?

01:00:37.000 Yeah, almost everybody who beat him, except Rockhold. 0.99

01:00:39.000 Rockhold's just a fucking freak of nature. 0.99

01:00:42.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:00:42.000 Freak of nature and a freak of training with Cain Velasquez and Daniel Cormier every fucking day. 1.00

01:00:48.000 He's just so goddamn good and long and strong. 0.99

01:00:51.000 I couldn't believe how big and strong he was compared to Machida. 0.97

01:00:54.000 You know, Javier Mendez, we were talking about it after the fight. 0.98

01:00:56.000 I was like, goddamn, I was congratulating them. 0.98

01:00:58.000 I was like, that was insane. 1.00

01:00:59.000 And they're like, you know, what people don't realize about him is he's fucking strong. 0.96

01:01:03.000 And it's very rare that you get someone who's real long, but also really strong. 0.97

01:01:07.000 Yeah. 0.97

01:01:07.000 I don't know what the fuck he weighs when he actually gets in there, but it ain't 185. He looked giant. 0.97

01:01:14.000 Dude, he dwarfs me. 0.98

01:01:15.000 I weigh 200 pounds, and I know I'm fat, but when I stand next to him, I'm like, get the fuck out of here. 0.98

01:01:19.000 How are you 185? 0.99

01:01:21.000 He's 6'4", and he looks like he's about 220 when he gets into the cage.

01:01:25.000 It's insane.

01:01:25.000 I don't know how he makes that weight.

01:01:27.000 Yeah, I don't know. 1.00

01:01:28.000 I have no idea how he makes that fucking weight. 0.99

01:01:30.000 But he does it. 0.99

01:01:31.000 And he does it and he can fight hard.

01:01:32.000 That's the other thing.

01:01:33.000 With the gloves, talking about ways of making the sport safer, that's another one.

01:01:37.000 I think that the weight cutting issue is big.

01:01:39.000 How do you stop that?

01:01:40.000 It's impossible to stop probably, but to me, the first guy to die in the UFC is just as likely to die in the sauna.

01:01:49.000 Well, it's come very close.

01:01:50.000 There's been a few guys backstage that fainted.

01:01:53.000 They blacked out, and they pulled out of fights.

01:01:55.000 Yeah, Burrell.

01:01:55.000 Because they couldn't...

01:01:56.000 Yeah, and Burrell was a big one.

01:01:58.000 That was a big one.

01:01:59.000 Because a rematch with TJ Dillashaw, the fight was one of the fights of the year, one of the upsets of the entire history of the UFC, one of the biggest upsets.

01:02:08.000 Spectacular performance by T.J. Dillashaw.

01:02:10.000 Hennenborough trains like a monster ready for this comeback and then passes out in the sauna or the bathtub, I guess, and cracked his head off the wall and they wouldn't let him fight him.

01:02:20.000 He knocked himself out trying to get up out of the tub.

01:02:22.000 I felt like that in yoga today, man.

01:02:24.000 I felt like I was going to black out.

01:02:26.000 Did you really?

01:02:27.000 No.

01:02:27.000 No, but I mean, it's like elevated by a thousand.

01:02:31.000 Do you ever do the headstands?

01:02:31.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:02:31.000 I do feel like I'm going to pass out on the headstands.

01:02:34.000 I've just, I've felt like, I've realized what a bitch I am when I'm grabbing my toes and I'm like, God, I need a break. 0.96

01:02:41.000 It's too hot in here. 0.99

01:02:42.000 You think about what these guys have to do in the fucking sauna to drop 20 pounds of water weight and that they do it every three or four months. 0.94

01:02:51.000 Yeah, I only had one actual fight, but I cut weight twice because the first fight I showed up to and my opponent, fearing the legendary fistic prowess of English professors, He backed out. 0.97

01:03:07.000 He backed out the day of?

01:03:08.000 Day of.

01:03:08.000 I got on the scale and everything.

01:03:10.000 I'm looking around.

01:03:11.000 My guy's not there.

01:03:12.000 I was scared.

01:03:13.000 It's nerve-wracking to fight, but after you've gone through the weight cut, man, you don't want to not fight.

01:03:20.000 What was wrong with him?

01:03:22.000 He just didn't show up.

01:03:23.000 You know, it's small-time, amateur shows, and a lot of guys just say, hey, you know, well, this seemed like a good idea a couple months ago, but, you know, as it got close, he wasn't hurt or anything.

01:03:33.000 We had a guy from our gym that would have panic attacks, and there was a couple fights.

01:03:37.000 One fight where he almost couldn't do it.

01:03:40.000 Like, he was just falling apart backstage, and he went out there and did it, but he lost.

01:03:44.000 He got beat up pretty bad.

01:03:45.000 But then another fight where he just pulled out backstage, day of the fight, Getting prepped, warming up, wrapping the hands the whole day.

01:03:52.000 I can't do this.

01:03:53.000 Holy cow, really?

01:03:54.000 You know, it happens at the UFC. It happens at the UFC and people don't know.

01:03:59.000 You know, there's guys that wind up fighting and there's guys that are pretty highly ranked.

01:04:03.000 I don't want to name any names, but Shaw, Brendan Shaw and I were actually having a conversation about this the other day about guys that were warming up while he was back there. 0.92

01:04:12.000 And they would say to their coach, I don't want to fucking do this anymore. 0.72

01:04:16.000 I'm done. 0.98

01:04:16.000 I don't want to do this anymore. 0.98

01:04:17.000 You've got to fight in an hour.

01:04:20.000 But then they go out.

01:04:20.000 And they go out.

01:04:24.000 That's amazing to me because part of the reason I fought finally was because of the social pressure.

01:04:31.000 Once you've started off down this path, it becomes like this thing where you've told people you're going to do it and everybody at the gym knows you're going to do it.

01:04:39.000 So one time I kind of tried to back out.

01:04:43.000 Months before my actual fight, I said, you know, other riders have done this, and I'm all hurt.

01:04:47.000 There's no reason to do it.

01:04:49.000 And I went in and told one of the guys at the gym that I was kind of leaning away from doing it.

01:04:52.000 He's like, well, so you're pussying out, huh?

01:04:55.000 And then I told another guy, and he said, so you're pussying out, huh?

01:04:59.000 So everybody's kind of said that, and it becomes this huge pressure to do it.

01:05:05.000 And I felt more fear of a failure in courage than I did of the sort of whatever was going to happen to me in the cage, breaking my nose or whatever.

01:05:17.000 I felt much more fear that I would just find a way to chicken out in the end.

01:05:21.000 I'd get cold feet.

01:05:22.000 I'd refuse to climb the steps and get in the cage.

01:05:25.000 Maybe I'd run for it in the cage, just sprinting circles around the outside, jump over the fence, run for home.

01:05:31.000 You know, I honestly thought that could happen, you know?

01:05:33.000 Wow.

01:05:34.000 So, I can relate.

01:05:37.000 It's kind of amazing that I got backed out backstage because there's so much, at that point, your whole...

01:05:42.000 The whole warrior society sees you doing it.

01:05:45.000 You know what I mean?

01:05:46.000 It's a big blow.

01:05:47.000 Maybe it's injured. 0.97

01:05:48.000 You know, sometimes guys are injured and then they get there and they realize, like, I can't fucking do this.

01:05:53.000 I can't move my leg right.

01:05:55.000 There's a lot of guys who fight.

01:05:56.000 That's another thing. 0.99

01:05:57.000 A lot of guys who fight in the UFC that are fucked up. 0.98

01:06:00.000 They're really injured by the time they get in there. 0.97

01:06:02.000 I know guys who have hid...

01:06:04.000 Torn ACLs where their ACLs were completely blown out and they really had no stability like they would they would try to move one way or another and then they would just give right out yeah and there's I mean there's got to be nothing more terrifying than being in the octagon and competing against some highly trained Well-prepared killer,

01:06:25.000 and you can't even move right.

01:06:26.000 If you juke left or right, your leg's going to go boink!

01:06:30.000 Have you blown out a knee before?

01:06:31.000 Do you know that feeling?

01:06:32.000 No, I've never done that.

01:06:33.000 It's the worst.

01:06:35.000 It's not the worst.

01:06:36.000 The worst is obviously way worse, but it's a bad feeling because you just know it's going to give out.

01:06:42.000 You don't know when.

01:06:43.000 And you go to move left or move right, and it just goes boing!

01:06:47.000 And ACL is particularly because that's the big one that goes down the center of the knee that keeps it stable moving forward.

01:06:55.000 It can blow out on a lot of people.

01:06:58.000 It blows out.

01:06:59.000 It's like one of the more common knee injuries.

01:07:02.000 Dominic Cruz, of course, is famously going through his second one, his third operation, second knee, though. 0.99

01:07:10.000 It's fucking crazy. 0.98

01:07:12.000 Yeah, it's awful. 1.00

01:07:12.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:07:13.000 It's real common though.

01:07:14.000 Georges St-Pierre got both his knees done.

01:07:16.000 One of them blew out after his career was over, or after he stepped down for a little bit.

01:07:20.000 Yeah.

01:07:22.000 You know, so many Rondas had her ACL done.

01:07:24.000 A lot of fighters have had their ACLs done.

01:07:27.000 It's probably one of the most common injuries that fighters have in UFC. Any sport, really.

01:07:34.000 ACL seems...

01:07:35.000 Soccer, apparently, is the most common.

01:07:37.000 Oh, football all the time.

01:07:39.000 Basketball all the time.

01:07:39.000 Yeah.

01:07:41.000 Yeah, the human body is designed to get you to age 26, and by then you're almost dead.

01:07:49.000 Saber-toothed tigers are looking for you to show up limping.

01:07:51.000 That's true. 1.00

01:07:53.000 It's just shit design, man. 1.00

01:07:55.000 Well, it's a shit design for playing NFL football. 1.00

01:07:57.000 For punching people in the head is a shit design? 1.00

01:07:59.000 And it's a shit design for fighting for a living. 1.00

01:08:01.000 You know what I mean? 1.00

01:08:03.000 It's not made for that.

01:08:04.000 No.

01:08:05.000 That's a bit much.

01:08:07.000 Well, when you see an NFL player, and I've only met a few of them, but when you meet them, they're like giants from Game of Thrones.

01:08:15.000 You're like, what?

01:08:16.000 That's a real person? 1.00

01:08:17.000 Jesus fucking Christ. 0.99

01:08:19.000 I remember one time I was in Phoenix, and we had just got done with the show. 0.99

01:08:25.000 We did a comedy show at the Tempe Improv, and then we went to a bar.

01:08:28.000 And when we went to a bar, there was this big line of people that were trying to get to this place.

01:08:33.000 We were meeting our friend there.

01:08:35.000 And one of these guys was an NFL player.

01:08:37.000 And he just sort of, it was like a man amongst children.

01:08:40.000 Yeah.

01:08:41.000 He was just like moving through this crowd.

01:08:42.000 He was about six foot seven.

01:08:44.000 Yeah.

01:08:44.000 And he was probably 350 pounds.

01:08:47.000 Yeah. 0.97

01:08:47.000 And he was so fucking big. 0.97

01:08:49.000 I know. 0.99

01:08:49.000 Like you looked at him and you just go, Jesus Christ! 0.99

01:08:51.000 Well, you feel like a girl.

01:08:52.000 You feel like a girl.

01:08:53.000 I was, I had a friend like that, you know, he played big time college football and he was six, seven, 200, high 200s. 0.97

01:09:00.000 And I'd stand with him at the bar, and it was like, and I'd be looking at his tits, you know, and I'd be like, this is how you had to talk to him.

01:09:07.000 I'm like, this is what it feels like for women. 1.00

01:09:09.000 Yeah.

01:09:09.000 All the time, they're looking up over this guy that can just do this.

01:09:12.000 Except they get turned on by them, and they want to fuck them. 1.00

01:09:15.000 That's true. 1.00

01:09:15.000 That's different. 1.00

01:09:16.000 I hope you didn't get turned on.

01:09:17.000 Well, if you did, keep it to yourself.

01:09:19.000 That's fine. 1.00

01:09:20.000 But it's more worrisome, like, is he gonna try to fuck me? 1.00

01:09:23.000 Because I hope he doesn't, because I'll have no choice. 0.99

01:09:26.000 Yeah, there's no equality when it comes to physical attributes.

01:09:30.000 There's certain people that were just given a way better genetic roll of the dice.

01:09:34.000 I mean, that's why we have weight classes.

01:09:36.000 That's why Mighty Mouse can never fight Jon Jones.

01:09:39.000 The argument can take place as to who's better pound for pound, John or Mighty Mouse, and there's a lot of arguments both ways, but as far as like what would happen if they fight, there's no argument.

01:09:50.000 There's no argument at all.

01:09:51.000 I mean, John Jones is talented enough where he probably could fight and beat most of the heavyweights, if not all the heavyweights.

01:09:58.000 I think he, yeah, yeah.

01:10:00.000 This whole thing with him is so tragic.

01:10:02.000 It's so tragic.

01:10:05.000 More tragic for the woman he hit with his car, but so tragic for him because I don't know him well enough to know where his mind's at or who he's talking to.

01:10:14.000 You hear all these bad things, like the people that he's hanging out with and the people that he surrounds himself with.

01:10:19.000 You hear some of them from his coaches, so there's got to be some validity and truth to it.

01:10:24.000 For every guy like that that's super fucking talented, it seems like it's so hard to stay on track.

01:10:32.000 It's like Mike Tyson had Customato. 0.90

01:10:35.000 You know, and Customato was not just a great trainer, but he was also a great mental coach.

01:10:41.000 Like he had instilled lessons in Mike Tyson about fire and fear and all the different aspects of competition that are gonna arise and how the hero and the coward feel the same thing.

01:10:53.000 It's just the hero reacts to it differently.

01:10:55.000 The more you prepare your body, the less, not fear, but the less confusion you have when you get into that ring, the less doubt you have, the more clarity you have.

01:11:09.000 You're 100% confident in your conditioning.

01:11:11.000 You're 100% confident in your training.

01:11:12.000 There will be certain fear, but you can mitigate some of that.

01:11:16.000 And all this was, Customato just was a genius with Tyson.

01:11:20.000 Plus, he was like a father figure.

01:11:21.000 He was like a perfect example.

01:11:22.000 But John Jones had a father.

01:11:24.000 He had a good father, middle class upbringing.

01:11:26.000 He still does.

01:11:27.000 But what I'm saying is, a coach, you don't need that just in a father.

01:11:34.000 I mean, his father's a great guy.

01:11:35.000 But doesn't he have that out in Albuquerque with Jackson?

01:11:38.000 I think he does to a certain extent. 0.98

01:11:40.000 But John Jones is so fucking good. 0.94

01:11:43.000 The guys who train with him, the guys who talk, like if you talk to people, you're like, he's so good. 0.97

01:11:47.000 He's so much better than everybody else in the gym.

01:11:50.000 He's so much better than that. 1.00

01:11:51.000 When you saw him grab ahold of Daniel Cormier and wrestle Cormier to the ground the first round, you're like, listen, this is another fucking level of shit you're dealing with. 0.99

01:11:59.000 You're dealing with like another level of greatness, another level of ability. 0.98

01:12:04.000 And when you, you know, you see a guy like that get involved in...

01:12:07.000 I mean, the cocaine thing, man, that didn't bother me that much.

01:12:10.000 It's like, you know, so he's doing coke three weeks out. 1.00

01:12:13.000 He's a bad motherfucker. 1.00

01:12:13.000 He wants a party. 1.00

01:12:14.000 You know, that's how I look at it.

01:12:16.000 You know why?

01:12:16.000 Because I'm not...

01:12:17.000 I don't look at this as like...

01:12:18.000 No, I don't have any...

01:12:19.000 Some Puritan...

01:12:20.000 No, no, me neither.

01:12:21.000 He's like, let's have fun.

01:12:22.000 Would I get upset if he had a drink three, you know, three months out?

01:12:25.000 No.

01:12:26.000 Or three weeks out?

01:12:27.000 How many weeks was it?

01:12:29.000 How many weeks was it before the fight?

01:12:30.000 About that.

01:12:30.000 That sounds right.

01:12:31.000 Four or five weeks?

01:12:31.000 I don't know what it was.

01:12:32.000 But would I get mad if he had a beer? 0.99

01:12:35.000 Donald Cerrone drinks Budweiser up until the fucking week of his weight cut. 0.99

01:12:38.000 That's a fact. 0.99

01:12:39.000 And he doesn't just drink a little.

01:12:41.000 He drinks a lot.

01:12:42.000 What's worse for you, alcohol or cocaine? 0.96

01:12:44.000 Well, I don't know how much John was doing, but a little line here and there is probably not as bad as the amount of Budweiser that Donald sucks down. 0.97

01:12:50.000 That's true.

01:12:51.000 That's true. 0.98

01:12:51.000 I mean, I don't fucking know, man. 0.98

01:12:53.000 I don't know. 0.96

01:12:54.000 I think part of the issue that people have with a guy like John, who's just so uber-talented, and he's so young, and all these things come handy to him, or come so easy to him, is that when a guy like that professes to be very moral and very religious,

01:13:11.000 and then you see all this craziness, like testing positive for cocaine, and the drunk driving, crashing into the tree with strippers in his car.

01:13:18.000 It's like...

01:13:19.000 Clearly, he likes to have fun, you know, and there's nothing wrong with that.

01:13:23.000 Nothing wrong at all.

01:13:24.000 It's part of the drill. 0.97

01:13:27.000 Yeah, he's being dumb about it, though, you know, so go party, but... 0.97

01:13:30.000 It could be that nobody can control. 0.96

01:13:32.000 I mean, it's also like when you're that kind of good, you don't want to listen to anybody. 1.00

01:13:36.000 You know, you're the fucking man. 0.98

01:13:37.000 Except there's tons of guys in the UFC and other sports who keep it together. 1.00

01:13:41.000 George St. Pierre was awesome.

01:13:43.000 Oh, he was very disciplined. 1.00

01:13:45.000 But George fucked up, too. 1.00

01:13:47.000 George fucked up, too. 1.00

01:13:48.000 Like, George totally underestimated Matt Serra. 0.99

01:13:50.000 Totally underestimated Matt Serra.

01:13:52.000 Got in there with him and got crushed.

01:13:54.000 And that's just, you gotta dot your I's and cross your T's all day, every day.

01:14:00.000 You can't take anyone lightly.

01:14:02.000 I've seen that many times where guys were way favored over their opponent, but they took it lightly because they were favored and their opponent was terrified because they were the underdog.

01:14:12.000 So they trained like a demon and the other guy slacked off and went in there with a false sense of confidence and also a Minimized sense of danger. 0.98

01:14:20.000 Yeah, like nobody likes that fucking feeling man you and you went through it, right? 0.98

01:14:24.000 That feeling of being the locker room. 1.00

01:14:26.000 You're like fuck when is this over? 1.00

01:14:28.000 Get me out there. 0.99

01:14:30.000 Yeah when I stopped competing That was the one thing that I appreciated the most like I didn't have to feel like I was always scared.

01:14:36.000 Yeah, I was always like waiting for the next fight and You know, the book is, I say it's about the duel.

01:14:44.000 The duel, you know, the pistols at dawn, broadly defined, sort of mano a mano.

01:14:48.000 This is for you, man.

01:14:49.000 Keep that, actually.

01:14:50.000 Hey, sweet. 0.99

01:14:50.000 Thank you. 0.99

01:14:51.000 Hey, it's awesome.

01:14:52.000 Think about me when you drink your coffee.

01:14:54.000 That's great, man.

01:14:55.000 I already think about you when I drink my coffee.

01:14:59.000 But it's sort of a mono-a-mono conflict of various kinds.

01:15:05.000 An MMA fight, or any kind of combat sport fight, is kind of a duel.

01:15:09.000 You set it up in advance.

01:15:12.000 You have seconds who negotiate for you, work your corner and all that stuff.

01:15:16.000 And you know weeks out, months out, even longer, that you're going to be in a car crash at such and such a time.

01:15:24.000 And it weighs on you.

01:15:26.000 It weighs on you so heavy.

01:15:29.000 Whereas, if you were to walk out in the parking lot right now and some guy picked a fight with you, That would be bad, but you wouldn't have the same kind of fear, that anxiety, the buildup to it.

01:15:39.000 So, yeah, I was glad to get that out of my life because I lived with that for a long time because it took me a long time to get a fight.

01:15:45.000 It took me a long time because I was old, and the state commission makes it pretty hard for older fighters to allow a certain matchup.

01:15:52.000 And fights kept falling through, or somebody would not show up, or I would get hurt, or the other guy would get hurt.

01:15:57.000 And so I lived with that sense that the fight was right around the corner.

01:16:01.000 For maybe six months. 0.99

01:16:02.000 Did it fuck with your sleep? 0.99

01:16:03.000 Oh, everything. 0.99

01:16:04.000 Yeah, I just lived in...

01:16:05.000 I lived with this mild sense of anxiety punctuated by these stabs of terror.

01:16:10.000 You know what I mean?

01:16:11.000 And that's when I would start negotiating with myself, saying to myself, you know, other writers have done this before.

01:16:15.000 What the hell?

01:16:16.000 What's the point of this? 0.87

01:16:17.000 There's no point in actually fighting.

01:16:19.000 You know, you can train at the gym.

01:16:20.000 You can do a lot of stuff.

01:16:21.000 There's no point in actually having the actual fight.

01:16:23.000 So I was glad to get that out of the way, and I was glad to get out of the weight management, because that was the other hard thing about it.

01:16:29.000 So for those six months, I was staying at a very...

01:16:31.000 Low weight.

01:16:32.000 What were you trying to weigh in at?

01:16:34.000 Well, I started the project at close to 200 pounds.

01:16:37.000 I was heavier.

01:16:38.000 I was kind of fat.

01:16:40.000 And then I, you know, so I could fight at 185. I could fight at 205, you know, bulk up and, you know, fight the huge guys.

01:16:49.000 But I decided to fight all the way down to 170. So I cut down to where I was walking around like 180. Because at the amateurs, you don't have 24 or 30 hours, whatever it is to rehydrate.

01:17:00.000 How much do you have?

01:17:01.000 We weighed in at 10 o'clock in the morning for fights that started at 7. That day?

01:17:09.000 That day, yeah.

01:17:09.000 Whoa, that's dangerous.

01:17:11.000 Well, people don't cut a lot of weight.

01:17:13.000 How much did you cut?

01:17:14.000 I started cutting the week of by starving myself and mild dehydration.

01:17:20.000 And by the night before my fight, I was like 176, I think.

01:17:24.000 And then I got up in the morning and sweated it all out.

01:17:26.000 So you sweat out six pounds?

01:17:29.000 I actually overdid it.

01:17:30.000 I kind of screwed up because I didn't have a scale.

01:17:32.000 I had no idea how much I was actually sweating out.

01:17:34.000 Well, I had a scale, but you have no idea.

01:17:36.000 But you cut weight and then fought the same day.

01:17:39.000 That's illegal in most places.

01:17:41.000 Well, again, how are they going to know?

01:17:43.000 How are they going to know?

01:17:44.000 Did you rehydrate?

01:17:46.000 Oh, yeah.

01:17:46.000 I mean, I was at 168.5 at weigh-in.

01:17:49.000 So I actually lost like seven pounds that morning, or seven and a half pounds.

01:17:53.000 And then I just, well, no IVs.

01:17:57.000 No?

01:17:58.000 No, no, I didn't.

01:17:59.000 I wasn't doing a scientific weight cut.

01:18:01.000 But you're a smart guy.

01:18:03.000 Yeah, but I read up on it, but I didn't know how, how would I get a guy to give me an IV? Oh my God, talk to a fucking doctor. 1.00

01:18:08.000 You went through all this preparation and didn't prepare enough to find a doctor? 1.00

01:18:12.000 Yeah, an IV drip is just water.

01:18:14.000 There's nothing unethical about it.

01:18:16.000 Well, they do it when you're dehydrated.

01:18:17.000 That does not appear to be the culture of the MMA world that I was moving in.

01:18:24.000 What do you mean?

01:18:24.000 I don't know that guys were getting IVs.

01:18:26.000 Well, they're crazy if they're not.

01:18:27.000 If you're cutting weight, you should get an IV. I still put...

01:18:31.000 Every pound of those six pounds back on by the time the fight came out.

01:18:35.000 You know, the issue is not putting the water back on.

01:18:37.000 It's getting the water into your brain.

01:18:39.000 Yeah.

01:18:39.000 That's the real issue.

01:18:40.000 All of the more significant deaths, brain damage, all the big issues in boxing, almost all of them, except for a few isolated events, which were horrible beatings, which is why I think Eric Perez was involved in one.

01:18:54.000 Is it Eric Perez?

01:18:56.000 The heavyweight guy was involved in some horrible beating of this Russian guy, and that guy suffered some pretty significant brain damage, which is a heavyweight bout, which is very rare.

01:19:04.000 It's usually the little guys.

01:19:05.000 It's usually the people that cut weight.

01:19:07.000 It's usually the people that cut weight.

01:19:09.000 The Dukku Kims. 0.99

01:19:10.000 I mean, that's one of the fights where they made the weigh-in the day before the fight.

01:19:16.000 They changed it after that fight.

01:19:18.000 They also changed it from 15 rounds to 12 rounds. 0.97

01:19:20.000 Because, you know, people were realizing, like, hey man, like, this is fucking dangerous. 0.98

01:19:25.000 Losing all this weight, you dehydrate your actual brain. 0.96

01:19:27.000 You make yourself more susceptible to brain trauma and bleeding.

01:19:30.000 Yeah.

01:19:31.000 Gerald McClellan's, another one, who was a notoriously huge guy, would cut a tremendous amount of weight to get down.

01:19:37.000 I think he was fighting at 175. Was he 175 or 168?

01:19:41.000 I forget what he fought at, but Gerald cut a tremendous amount of weight, got down, fought Nigel Benn, and he was bleeding inside the octagon, or inside the ring rather.

01:19:54.000 He had an episode where he had a stroke.

01:19:58.000 Inside the ring like in the middle of his fight.

01:20:01.000 He had to take a knee and then just quit and realize something was way wrong.

01:20:05.000 And people were like, I can't believe he quit.

01:20:06.000 And then he collapsed in his corner and you know, the rest is history. 0.99

01:20:10.000 He's all fucked up now. 0.92

01:20:11.000 And if you went back to the day, if you ever watched that guy fight, have you ever seen Gerald McClellan fight back in the day? 0.99

01:20:18.000 I don't believe so.

01:20:19.000 Well, he was a terrifying fighter, and the big showdown was always going to be him and Roy Jones Jr. That's what everybody was thinking. 0.99

01:20:27.000 Like, one day, him and Roy Jones Jr. are gonna throw down, and Jerry McClellan was a fucking killer. 1.00

01:20:32.000 He was a killer. 1.00

01:20:33.000 But he fought Nigel Benn, and Nigel Benn was just tough as shit, and they went to war. 0.98

01:20:39.000 Gerald had him all but knocked out had him knocked out of the ring like he went through the ring got back into the ring got back and but just Nigel Benn would not quit and there was a period in the fight somewhere where they collided heads and that was one of the big ones Nigel definitely landed some big punches on him but they collided heads and you could tell like after the headbutt like he was all fucking woozy and whacked out and then you know you had to take a knee and then it was over and And he's blind now. 0.95

01:21:06.000 I think he can't hear.

01:21:08.000 He can't move. 1.00

01:21:09.000 He's all fucked up, and it's all just from brain bleeding. 0.99

01:21:12.000 So it's a real issue, the dehydration issue. 1.00

01:21:15.000 It's a real issue, not just...

01:21:17.000 Yeah, and you said, you know, earlier on, you said, you know, how do you stop it?

01:21:20.000 And I think it is one of those things that's really, really hard to stop because, as you've talked about on the show, any kind of new measure you set up, there's a way to beat it.

01:21:30.000 There's still going to be cutting weight.

01:21:32.000 I think amateur wrestling has dealt with this.

01:21:35.000 Little kits by body fat percentage things or maybe hydration measurements, like you can measure how much...

01:21:44.000 Hydration they have, so you can tell when the kid is cutting weight through dehydration.

01:21:49.000 I'm not sure if that would be possible to measure hydration levels.

01:21:53.000 That might be one way to deal with it.

01:21:55.000 But I agree with you.

01:21:57.000 That one's a hard one to fix.

01:21:58.000 That's why I keep going back to the gloves.

01:21:59.000 I'm obsessed with the gloves things right now.

01:22:01.000 Well, you're obsessed with them for a good reason.

01:22:03.000 I mean, if you agree on this after all your study, after all these years, and I agree on it, why do you think it's not happening?

01:22:12.000 Because it's incredibly hard to change once these commissions have these rules and regulations in place.

01:22:18.000 They're very difficult to change.

01:22:20.000 Once they're established, they're insanely difficult to change.

01:22:23.000 Do you think the UFC would be against it or for it?

01:22:26.000 The UFC probably would be against it.

01:22:29.000 In the current state.

01:22:30.000 I mean, even if they listen to me, they rationalize, like, oh, you got some good points, and then there would be a butt, blah, blah, blah, we can't, because blah, blah, blah.

01:22:38.000 What would the blah, blah, blah be?

01:22:39.000 Well, first of all, people would think it's barbaric.

01:22:43.000 Public perception.

01:22:44.000 Yeah, public perception.

01:22:46.000 More cuts, which is probably true.

01:22:48.000 Probably a lot more cuts from knuckles.

01:22:51.000 More hand injuries at first, at least.

01:22:53.000 Much more hand injuries.

01:22:54.000 Shorter careers.

01:22:56.000 It would shorten your careers.

01:22:57.000 I mean, there's certain guys that have had, like, significant hand injuries. 0.96

01:23:00.000 One of the reasons why, when you see Vitor Belfort throw all these kicks recently, his hands have been broken seven fucking times. 0.92

01:23:07.000 He's had seven injuries. 0.97

01:23:09.000 Seven surgeries, rather.

01:23:10.000 I think the major obstacle to it, if you thought it all through, the major obstacle to it would be the upside of this is there would be a lot less neurological damage.

01:23:21.000 The downside to it would be there'd be a lot less neurological damage.

01:23:26.000 There'd be a lot fewer knockouts. 0.99

01:23:28.000 There'd be a lot less heavy, you know, the barrages of heavy punches.

01:23:34.000 They'd have to change their repertoire of punches. 0.62

01:23:37.000 They have to go back towards a bare knuckle style of punching. 0.99

01:23:40.000 Much more straight punches.

01:23:43.000 Trying to throw punches into the fleshy part of the face that you're throwing with more control.

01:23:48.000 Many more punches to the padded torso.

01:23:50.000 Using these two knuckles as well.

01:23:52.000 Using the front two knuckles.

01:23:54.000 I actually read a bare knuckle boxing book.

01:23:58.000 They go back to the techniques of how it was done back then.

01:24:02.000 The two knuckle thing is what I always learn too.

01:24:05.000 That's what boxers teach. 1.00

01:24:06.000 That's what martial artists teach. 0.98

01:24:08.000 It makes some sense.

01:24:11.000 They're saying This is the surface.

01:24:14.000 You turn it that way.

01:24:16.000 So you have more surface area.

01:24:18.000 So you're not putting so much damage here.

01:24:21.000 And I've heard people say you're in alignment there, but you're kind of also in alignment there.

01:24:25.000 It's not so bad either.

01:24:27.000 And they throw them like this, too.

01:24:29.000 Right.

01:24:29.000 The bare knuckle boxing, what you're saying is they would throw it perpendicularly instead of parallel with the ground.

01:24:35.000 Throw a perpendicular punch into a boxing, into a heavy bag, and see what it feels like.

01:24:40.000 You don't get as much power, though.

01:24:41.000 You get not nearly as much power.

01:24:42.000 And it's designed to be that way.

01:24:45.000 To preserve the hand.

01:24:46.000 Yeah, because your fist will just explode on contact.

01:24:50.000 Some people wouldn't have any problem with it.

01:24:52.000 Some people would like big giant hands like Brock Lesnar hands or Shane Carwin hands.

01:24:56.000 Those guys probably wouldn't have nearly as much problem.

01:24:59.000 But if you can go back to the old UFC's and you see when guys fought bare knuckle you very rarely saw like blistering combinations like you'll see like a guy like Vitor throw.

01:25:09.000 You know, barrages of punches.

01:25:11.000 You very rarely see those because you just kind of can't.

01:25:14.000 You kind of can't do those without breaking your hand.

01:25:16.000 And they did break their hands.

01:25:17.000 A lot.

01:25:18.000 So, you know, I start off that article I wrote with a retrospective on, remember this fight, one of the greatest fights in the UFC, Hackney versus Yarborough?

01:25:26.000 Sure. 0.98

01:25:27.000 He bitch slapped him. 1.00

01:25:28.000 You know, so Yarborough was like a 600-pound single wrestler who's 6'8". 0.99

01:25:32.000 Hackney's probably 215, maybe.

01:25:34.000 He weighed in 200. 200?

01:25:36.000 200, karate guy.

01:25:38.000 And this was the early Wild West days of the USC, where they're like, what'll happen?

01:25:43.000 We don't know.

01:25:43.000 Let's see what happens.

01:25:44.000 What happens when a normal-sized man fights a giant...

01:25:48.000 And, you know, long story short, Hackney hits him in the head 41 straight times, I counted, with his right hand.

01:25:57.000 And at some point, you know, he gets Yarbrough turtled up on the ground, and he's hitting him from the back, and he's hooking him from behind.

01:26:05.000 He's coming in the back of the skull.

01:26:06.000 You could do that back then.

01:26:07.000 He's raising his hand up high like a blackjack. 0.79

01:26:10.000 And he's like hammer fisting on one side and then hammer fisting it on the other.

01:26:14.000 And he just screwed up his hand terribly.

01:26:18.000 So, you know, he walks, you know, Yarbrough walks out of the ring.

01:26:20.000 He's fine.

01:26:21.000 He tapped out verbally, but he walked out of the ring looking no worse for wear.

01:26:25.000 Those punches weren't all that effective.

01:26:28.000 Hackney goes out of the ring looking at his fist and it's swelling up and it's bleeding.

01:26:32.000 And that was the end for him.

01:26:33.000 He didn't get to go to the next round because he had broken his hand.

01:26:35.000 And so, to me, it's this great illustration of what would have happened if Hackney had a glove on.

01:26:42.000 He would have beaten him to sleep.

01:26:44.000 Maybe.

01:26:45.000 Probably.

01:26:46.000 Big head.

01:26:47.000 Yarbrough's a big dude.

01:26:49.000 Hackney is a strong guy.

01:26:51.000 Yeah. 0.95

01:26:51.000 And he threw 41 punches at his brain. 0.95

01:26:54.000 And Yarbrough was putting up no defense.

01:26:57.000 He weighed 600 pounds.

01:26:58.000 He couldn't get up.

01:26:59.000 Yeah, literally.

01:26:59.000 He was stuck there on the ground.

01:27:00.000 He's just laying there and getting punched in the head over and over and over again.

01:27:03.000 Yeah, he's probably in the worst shape of any guy who ever fought in the UFC. Yeah.

01:27:07.000 Maybe Aki Bono fought Hoist Gracie.

01:27:10.000 Yeah, and in retrospect, it looked incredibly barbaric because you're like, that guy should never have been in that cage.

01:27:14.000 But people didn't know back then.

01:27:16.000 Well, he was a giant sumo champion.

01:27:18.000 He was giant.

01:27:18.000 He was somewhat athletic.

01:27:20.000 He did some kind of athletic things in that match.

01:27:22.000 Moved.

01:27:22.000 Yeah, he moved.

01:27:23.000 Step left, step right.

01:27:25.000 Well, that was enough, yeah.

01:27:26.000 With 600 pounds.

01:27:27.000 Oh, yeah.

01:27:28.000 He's chasing him like a giant.

01:27:29.000 He's got his arms out.

01:27:30.000 It's like Frankenstein chasing him down.

01:27:31.000 But, you know, he literally threw Hackney through the cage.

01:27:35.000 You know, he threw him out of the cage and down the stairs.

01:27:37.000 You know, broke the gate.

01:27:39.000 Well, what Hackney did was hit him with an open palm, and I think...

01:27:42.000 That was the first knockdown.

01:27:43.000 I think if he stuck with that, he probably wouldn't have broken his hand, which is kind of amazing, but for whatever reason, you can hit things really hard like that with the palm of your hand.

01:27:53.000 Well, it's partly because you can't hit very hard that way.

01:27:57.000 It's the same thing.

01:27:58.000 If you're not turning it over, Have you ever watched Bas Rutten fight in Pancrase?

01:28:02.000 That's true.

01:28:03.000 Bas Rutten figured out how to do it.

01:28:04.000 Yeah.

01:28:04.000 I mean, he was the first guy that really figured out...

01:28:07.000 The Palm Hill.

01:28:08.000 Yeah.

01:28:09.000 Pancrase was an organization, for folks who don't know, in Japan.

01:28:11.000 And they didn't allow gloves.

01:28:13.000 And they also didn't allow punches to the face.

01:28:15.000 You could kick a guy to the face, but you were wearing wrestling shoes.

01:28:18.000 And then on top of those wrestling shoes, you had this big fat shin and instep pad.

01:28:24.000 So there's this big padded-up shin thing, and then you had nothing on your hands, so the guys would kind of slap at each other and try to kick each other.

01:28:33.000 That was the rule, too, right?

01:28:34.000 You couldn't throw closed hands, I believe.

01:28:36.000 You could not throw closed hands, but you could throw closed hands to the body. 0.98

01:28:39.000 But Bas Rutten, who's a Dutch kickboxer and had this fucking power explosion style, he was the first guy that figured out if you just pull your hand way back, you throw that bitch just like a punch. 1.00

01:28:50.000 Just... 0.99

01:28:51.000 And he would uppercut guys and hook guys, and he would beat, like when he fought Funaki, he beat the fucking shit out of him. 0.99

01:28:57.000 And he beat him like a guy who was throwing punches. 0.99

01:29:00.000 I mean, he would come at you with his hands pulled back like that, and instead of doing what everybody else was doing, which is kind of throw these wild bitch slaps, Boss Root was throwing him straight down the pipe, and somehow or another, he had stretched his hand out, where he could pull his hand way back. 1.00

01:29:15.000 So he was just palming your fucking nose into your brain. 1.00

01:29:18.000 He was nasty. 1.00

01:29:20.000 He was the first guy to figure out, like, there's a different approach you could take to this.

01:29:25.000 He was also one of the first real strikers. 0.98

01:29:27.000 Like, you got to see the difference when he kicked guys, that fucking whack, you know, feel it in their arms. 0.99

01:29:33.000 Yeah. 0.98

01:29:36.000 One of the beautiful things about watching the UFC since 1993 all the way up to 2015, where we are today, is the evolution of the understanding of the techniques, of what's effective in certain positions, the distances.

01:29:49.000 Those guys like Bas Rutten were critical for establishing that stuff.

01:29:53.000 You know those real pioneers fucking nobody before him and pancrease they were fighting like that.

01:29:57.000 There's nobody He came along with big power in his kicks and ridiculous punching power and figured out how to do it with the palm You know and then you see him fight in the UFC when he could use punches before his body started failing him like he's had Significant neck injuries and to the point where he has significant atrophy of one of his arms one of his arms he calls baby arm and It's like, 0.65

01:30:20.000 yeah, he's had it fixed and had some stem cell stuff done and some operations and has discs fused in his neck and bad stuff.

01:30:27.000 There's a cost to this, man. 0.99

01:30:28.000 Fuck yeah, there is. 0.99

01:30:29.000 But my point is, you watch him fight against Tioki Kosaka, TK, in the UFC when he won the heavyweight title. 1.00

01:30:36.000 And, you know, he was throwing fucking brutal combinations. 0.99

01:30:40.000 And his neck was so fucked up before that fight, he couldn't even wrestle. 1.00

01:30:43.000 He fought most of that fight or trained most of that fight just kickboxing because his neck was so fucked up. 0.99

01:30:48.000 Yeah. 0.98

01:30:49.000 Don't I remember him wearing red boots and pancreas?

01:30:53.000 Probably.

01:30:54.000 He wore a bunch of different boots.

01:30:55.000 But you could kick with the boots on.

01:30:57.000 Oh yeah.

01:30:57.000 You had these wrestling shoes on with these shin and step guards over the top of the wrestling shoes.

01:31:02.000 I thought he had like...

01:31:04.000 Like, big patent leather red boots on.

01:31:07.000 No.

01:31:08.000 I must be misremembered.

01:31:09.000 They were wrestling shoes.

01:31:10.000 They were?

01:31:10.000 Yeah, they were wrestling shoes.

01:31:11.000 Pancrates had, like, an outfit that they would make you wear.

01:31:14.000 You would wear, like, those little skivvies.

01:31:16.000 Yeah.

01:31:16.000 You weren't wearing, like, those MMA shorts that guys wear today.

01:31:19.000 Everybody wore, like, those little...

01:31:20.000 Speedos.

01:31:21.000 Yeah, those little grape smugglers.

01:31:23.000 And you'd...

01:31:25.000 It's an important time, historically, to watch those fights, to see the difference between the way they fought then and the way they fight now.

01:31:36.000 There's still room to grow, but the problem is you have athletic commissions, you have bureaucracy, and you also have Look, I love the UFC. I love working for the UFC. It's been an honor to work for them all these years, but you're gonna have a certain amount of stagnation when you have one group and one organization that's so dominant over the other ones.

01:31:56.000 I disagree that it's a monopoly because Viacom owns Bellator and Viacom has untold fucking billions of dollars.

01:32:05.000 They have an entire channel. 0.85

01:32:07.000 That they can promote it on.

01:32:08.000 Spike TV has an entire Friday night lineup that's dedicated to combat sports, to boxing, glory kickboxing.

01:32:15.000 There's plenty of eyes on Spike.

01:32:17.000 And they're also getting guys from the UFC now.

01:32:20.000 They have Phil Davis just signed with them.

01:32:22.000 Yeah, it's sort of the senior league for the UFC. And there's also, they picked up this wrestler, this guy who helped Chris Weidman prepare for one of his recent fights.

01:32:32.000 They're starting to get these big-time names, guys that are coming up.

01:32:37.000 And a lot of that is also because of the Reebok deal.

01:32:39.000 The UFC has a Reebok deal that doesn't allow them to get their own sponsors.

01:32:42.000 They have to use the Reebok sponsorship, so some guys are shying away from it because of that.

01:32:46.000 So, like, the concept of a monopoly, I just don't think it's fair.

01:32:50.000 I don't agree that it's a monopoly.

01:32:51.000 I think they're better than the rest of them.

01:32:53.000 There's better competition.

01:32:55.000 They're better organized.

01:32:56.000 I think their production is better.

01:32:58.000 The people that direct it and produce it are better.

01:33:00.000 They're just the best at what they do, because they've been doing it a long time.

01:33:04.000 In having that, like that, there's a certain amount of stagnation.

01:33:08.000 Because if someone came along and had a bare-knuckle UFC-style mixed martial arts event where they fought not in a cage, but in a basketball-sized mat, If you have an arena for basketball, you have this big,

01:33:24.000 gigantic space that you have a wooden floor, this parquet floor on.

01:33:28.000 How about do something like that with mats and have mixed martial arts?

01:33:33.000 And when they go out of bounds, you bring them right back to the center again, and you have them duking it out again.

01:33:36.000 I like that.

01:33:37.000 Because the fence is starting...

01:33:39.000 The fence is...

01:33:40.000 Interesting, but it hurts visually you can't see that good me I can't see that good. 0.97

01:33:44.000 I have the best fucking seat in the house for the UFC I'm touching the floor that they're fighting literally touching the floor.

01:33:51.000 I see you looking at the monitor all the time Yeah, sometimes I have to sometimes when when fighters like to the left or to the right and the backs like they're like up against the cage I have to look at the monitor. 0.97

01:34:01.000 Otherwise, I don't know what's going on if you ever looked at the crowd We're all looking at the monitor, too.

01:34:05.000 A lot of times.

01:34:05.000 I mean, it's amazing to me.

01:34:07.000 People pay for these good seats and everybody's looking up at the screen because it just shows better up there.

01:34:11.000 Less so with boxing.

01:34:13.000 If you watch boxing, people are looking at the ring most of the time.

01:34:16.000 Is it because the ropes are on the way so much?

01:34:18.000 Exactly.

01:34:18.000 In that sense, Pride had the better idea when it came to that.

01:34:22.000 But it was too easy to go flying through the ropes.

01:34:26.000 They had a bunch of Japanese dudes outside that were ready to press, keep you from going out. 1.00

01:34:31.000 They had guys like when...

01:34:32.000 Knocking your hand off the ropes.

01:34:33.000 It was that.

01:34:34.000 It was also like...

01:34:37.000 Thought was Paul Ophelia I think someone used the ropes want to catch a guy on an arm bar like you had the guy like they were trapped inside the ropes The guy's arm was trapped in the rope while I was getting arm barred and I was realizing like whoa He just used the rope to get that submission. 0.64

01:34:52.000 This is kind of fucked like the rope came into play It's almost like what tank Abbott submitted Steve Jenham He had his knee to his head and he grabbed the fence and he was holding on the fence and pulling and smashing him in the face.

01:35:04.000 Yeah You know that using the cage back then like you can't grab the cage Just like you can't grab the ropes and pride. 0.99

01:35:11.000 Yeah, but it did come into play Yeah, too.

01:35:14.000 Oh, yeah, it comes into play still too much to be interesting I'd like that because there's so much of the action now is pushed up against the fence I think if a guy grabs a fence immediate one-point deduction immediate immediate one point and The problem is it's so reflexive.

01:35:28.000 It doesn't matter.

01:35:29.000 Most guys don't mean to do it.

01:35:30.000 But some guys do. 1.00

01:35:32.000 Some guys fucking grab that bitch. 1.00

01:35:34.000 They grab it. 1.00

01:35:35.000 They should know.

01:35:35.000 You should know.

01:35:36.000 That's true.

01:35:37.000 I mean, you gotta know. 0.98

01:35:38.000 You gotta fucking know. 0.98

01:35:39.000 And there's a big difference between a guy grabbing the fence when you're trying to take him down and then being able to stand up and then kicks you in the head and a guy not grabbing the fence and you take him down and you dominate him for the rest of the round. 0.99

01:35:49.000 And they seem like they're never penalized on it.

01:35:51.000 No.

01:35:51.000 They'll get four warnings.

01:35:53.000 They should get an immediate one-point deduction.

01:35:55.000 Same thing for obvious eye pokes.

01:35:58.000 An immediate one-point deduction.

01:36:00.000 And Dana has said this.

01:36:01.000 Dana White has said this.

01:36:02.000 That might be the only way to stop eye pokes, to give them an immediate one-point deduction.

01:36:05.000 I think that might work.

01:36:09.000 I think there's got to be a way to cover the tips of the fingers.

01:36:12.000 I mean, I don't necessarily think that these Bruce Lee-style gloves that were invented in Enter the Dragon are the only way to do it.

01:36:18.000 Well, we have them at our gym.

01:36:19.000 Some guys wear those, though.

01:36:21.000 Mm-hmm the Bruce Lee style gloves.

01:36:23.000 Yeah, those are cool But what I'm saying is something to cover the tips of the fingers because as a jiu-jitsu guy like if I had like Say like you know those Everlast bag gloves.

01:36:33.000 Yeah, you know those style that come over the tips like those aren't really gonna impede my grappling that much because I don't do this and I don't do this and You know, you never, what I'm saying, I'm showing something, obviously, to people who are listening, but interlacing your fingers.

01:36:48.000 You don't interlace your fingers.

01:36:49.000 You grab in, like, an S-grip, or you grab in a gable grip.

01:36:53.000 And these grips that you do, most of the really strong grips, don't ever involve your fingers sliding into the grooves of each other, of the opposing fingers.

01:37:02.000 But I feel like something like that maybe could work, where the tips of the fingers were covered up, and it wouldn't affect you as much if you eye-poke somebody.

01:37:12.000 We're kind of like going into a dark territory here Having this experience and I wanted to get back to your peers because we didn't I don't think we really completely We kind of got off track with that yeah having these people stand outside and watch you do this was there Did the reaction vary or was it pretty uniform? 0.97

01:37:37.000 Or was there extremes on both ends where people were like, what the fuck are you doing? 0.83

01:37:40.000 And other people were like, I want to be like you. 0.99

01:37:43.000 I don't know if anybody was saying I want to be like you.

01:37:45.000 I doubt that.

01:37:46.000 But I don't know what was said behind my back.

01:37:49.000 You know, you hear what Gotchall's doing.

01:37:51.000 Jesus, you know, can you believe this? 0.97

01:37:53.000 What a monster.

01:37:56.000 But for the most part, people were cool about it, you know. 0.97

01:37:59.000 But they knew you.

01:38:00.000 They knew me.

01:38:01.000 They knew me.

01:38:02.000 And they knew, you know, and I made light of it.

01:38:05.000 You know, to me it was always, I always, you know, played it off in sort of a humorous way.

01:38:09.000 You know, basically me being fed to lions.

01:38:11.000 Right.

01:38:12.000 So, but again, the bigger problem is in the wider profession where people don't know me.

01:38:18.000 And that, you know, when those sort of people get a hold of the book, I hope they read it, you know, because the book is, it's not really even about mixed martial arts, you You know, it's about using mixed martial arts as this bridge into big questions about human behavior,

01:38:33.000 especially human male behavior and the nature of masculinity and all the dumb stuff we get up to.

01:38:39.000 And it's one of the reasons, you know, I thought of you as I was writing the book, actually.

01:38:45.000 You know, a lot of people write a book and they don't have anybody in mind for it.

01:38:48.000 They have like a vague, nebulous sense of who the readers are going to be.

01:38:52.000 That never works for me.

01:38:53.000 I always have to think of an actual person.

01:38:55.000 You know, who's going to read this book?

01:38:56.000 Like, who would be the ideal reader for me?

01:38:58.000 And for me, it was you.

01:38:59.000 And I thought of you a lot when I was reading this book.

01:39:01.000 As a person, like, who would be interested in the subject matter, charitable and generous about it, because these are things that you wonder about, too, and also sort of meshes with not only your interest in fighting, but your whole interest in human behavior, and especially your basically evolutionary outlook.

01:39:20.000 On human life and human behavior.

01:39:23.000 That's what the book is really about.

01:39:24.000 It's sort of an evolutionary exploration of the basis of masculinity and manhood.

01:39:30.000 That's a that's a very interesting way of approaching it because I think that's one of the issues that people have when it comes to the idea of mixed martial arts or the idea of any sort of combat sport is that in Embracing that and supporting it or in even just pursuing it Somehow or another we're doing a disservice to the idea of a cultural evolution that we kind of all agree is going on if you compare Society and human beings and our behavior today with what

01:40:00.000 we know about several thousands of years ago We know that we're in a far safer time far more civil time For the most part in most places of the world obviously there's exceptions, but yeah overwhelming but the people that are communicating now we're communicating about We have an understanding about what we would call you know what they the the super progressives like to call toxic masculinity man Part of me understands where they're coming from.

01:40:27.000 And part of me also thinks that they're kind of copping out.

01:40:31.000 And they're denying certain aspects of their own life and their own masculinity that maybe they feel are weak.

01:40:41.000 And maybe they feel like they can't compete in these areas.

01:40:44.000 And they feel intimidated.

01:40:45.000 So they want to demean them.

01:40:47.000 And I don't think that's right either.

01:40:49.000 You know, like there's some...

01:40:50.000 Well, masculinity is complex, you know, and it is, there are things about it.

01:40:54.000 So is femininity, right? 1.00

01:40:55.000 I mean, so is being a human.

01:40:56.000 Yeah, being a human is a complex sort of thing.

01:41:00.000 And there is something, you know, there is a case to be made that masculinity run amok.

01:41:05.000 Is the great problem of history.

01:41:07.000 Oh, no doubt.

01:41:08.000 Yeah.

01:41:08.000 That men's tendencies towards aggression, towards kind of silly forms of competition, towards physical forms of violence.

01:41:16.000 You know, that's what's been the big problem all along.

01:41:19.000 And even though the world has gotten a lot safer, it still may finish us off in the end.

01:41:23.000 Well, that's the ultimate fear, right? 0.99

01:41:25.000 The ultimate fear is that one dick-waving contest will lead to nuclear war and then we'll all be fucking... 0.99

01:41:30.000 It's so plausible. 0.99

01:41:31.000 ...knocking rocks together to start fires.

01:41:33.000 Yeah, so plausible. 0.51

01:41:33.000 Especially if you look at some parts of the world, they're like, they're fucking way closer than we are to Russia. 0.51

01:41:39.000 You look at what North Korea has threatened to do to South Korea, or what Pakistan and India, when they look at each other, and you motherfucker, I've got a missile with your name on it. 0.99

01:41:48.000 All it takes is the wrong guy with the right amount of power, and that can happen. 0.99

01:41:52.000 And it's very likely that we're saying guy for a reason.

01:41:55.000 It's not going to be the wrong woman.

01:41:57.000 And yeah, there's a certain reality to that.

01:42:00.000 But there's also a certain reality to the fact that The reason why we have these thoughts and ideas and we have this quote-unquote toxic masculinity in the first place is because it served our genes well.

01:42:12.000 That's why we got to 2015. That's why we fought off the competition and unfortunately I think there's a yin and a yang to life.

01:42:20.000 There's a give and a take, and there's an action and a reaction when it comes to aggression and when it comes to fear and danger.

01:42:28.000 And that reaction is innovation, reinforcing the safer aspects of society, law enforcement.

01:42:36.000 There's all these different reactions to violence that lead to a better world.

01:42:42.000 Yeah, and that's really what the focus of my book is.

01:42:46.000 Again, I expected to write a book with MMA as a metaphor for this darkness, this blackness, this danger, this nastiness at the core of human nature.

01:42:55.000 That's what I expected.

01:42:56.000 I wrote a very different book than that.

01:42:58.000 The book ended up being a book about something that I call the monkey dance.

01:43:02.000 And if you've ever seen like a nature video of two elephant seals clashing in the surf or two mountain goats cracking skulls on a hillside, biologists call those sorts of contests, they call it ritual combat.

01:43:16.000 And ritual combat is a way that a huge diversity of animal species have developed to figure out who's bigger, who's tougher, who's stronger, who's fitter, without fighting it out to the bitter, bloody end.

01:43:29.000 Like chimps grab sticks and they pull them out of the ground.

01:43:31.000 They beat the shit out of trees with them more than they fight.

01:43:35.000 Exactly. 0.83

01:43:36.000 Yeah.

01:43:36.000 So chimps have, and that's a monkey dance.

01:43:38.000 And so, and humans are animals too.

01:43:41.000 Most people seem to like to forget this, but we're animals too.

01:43:44.000 We're complex animals.

01:43:45.000 We're cultured animals.

01:43:46.000 We're animals still.

01:43:48.000 And the monkey dance is my name for human versions of ritual combat.

01:43:53.000 And it's a broad diversity of things that mainly men get up to.

01:43:56.000 Things like deadly duels and verbal duels, play fights among boys, and especially sports. 0.99

01:44:03.000 And so a lot of these behaviors The key thing is that a lot of these behaviors seem silly, they seem stupid, they seem pathetic. 0.97

01:44:11.000 They're often volatile, and they're in danger of escalating to something truly dangerous. 0.98

01:44:16.000 But on the whole, these monkey dances are a good thing.

01:44:18.000 They're a way that men can work out their problems, thrash out their status hierarchies, in ways that fall short of all-out sorts of violence.

01:44:29.000 So the chimps are a great example of this.

01:44:31.000 And humans do exactly the same thing.

01:44:33.000 If you're at a bar and you knock shoulders with somebody and somebody spills their beer, it's likely to go down like this.

01:44:41.000 There'll be some sort of insult, some sort of challenge.

01:44:43.000 Someone will feel disrespected, dishonored.

01:44:46.000 They'll bluster back and forth, just like those chimps in the jungle.

01:44:50.000 But at some point, one of the guys is like, I don't want to do this.

01:44:53.000 And you'll say sorry, or you'll walk away.

01:44:57.000 And if you don't, it continues to escalate.

01:45:00.000 The guys will close the distance.

01:45:01.000 They'll push, they'll punch, they'll tackle, they'll We're talking about a totally different sort of situation than competition.

01:45:06.000 When you're talking about bars, you're talking about social things.

01:45:12.000 Honestly, no one knows. 0.99

01:45:15.000 When you bump into a guy in a bar, you don't know who the fuck you're dealing with. 0.98

01:45:18.000 You don't know anything about it. 0.99

01:45:20.000 It's a matter of a lot of chest puffing and a lot of posturing.

01:45:24.000 That's usually enough.

01:45:25.000 Yeah, sometimes.

01:45:25.000 But what my take on it is, is that there's a big difference between that and what guys are doing to establish greatness.

01:45:35.000 When you achieve greatness in martial arts, what you're essentially doing by becoming a champion is you're showing a genetic superiority, you're showing a mental superiority, a character superiority.

01:45:49.000 That makes you more preferred for breeding.

01:45:53.000 I mean, that's just the reality situation.

01:45:55.000 Like, I joke around about it, but it's kind of true. 1.00

01:45:57.000 The only reason why anybody gets laid is because Luke Rockhold didn't get there first.

01:46:00.000 I thought that was the greatest line, and it's completely true.

01:46:02.000 It's true.

01:46:03.000 It's so true. 0.84

01:46:03.000 My wife would have little Rockhold babies if she could. 0.84

01:46:06.000 But nobody wants to admit that, you know, because nobody wants to admit that, no, man, my wife is not into that, man.

01:46:13.000 It's not just the way he looks.

01:46:14.000 It's that he is that guy.

01:46:17.000 We have an organic vegan garden together, and we're amazingly connected. 1.00

01:46:21.000 Your wife wants to fuck Goop Rockhold. 1.00

01:46:23.000 Just deal with it. 1.00

01:46:24.000 No, I think that's right.

01:46:25.000 I mean, when it comes right down to it, you walk around the world and you see these differences between men and women, and you see physical differences, you see behavioral differences, and you naturally ask, you know, where does all this stuff come from?

01:46:38.000 Yeah.

01:46:42.000 Yeah.

01:46:53.000 That's not what they do.

01:46:54.000 They're attracted by power and strength and character.

01:46:57.000 And not just strength as far as, like, the ability to oppress other people.

01:47:01.000 Like, we traditionally look at those things, or it's in vogue to look at those masculine characteristics as being negative.

01:47:07.000 Oh, yeah.

01:47:08.000 You know, that you're oppressing others, or the toxic masculinity handle.

01:47:13.000 She's choosing a good hunter. 0.99

01:47:15.000 A good provider but also someone who can deal when the shit goes down some dudes They you know when they'll they'll chirp all around about toxic masculinity or negative male behavior But the reality is they don't have any fucking character and if something happens really bad in their life They start weeping and they fall apart. 1.00

01:47:34.000 That's unattractive and the reason it's unattractive to your friends If you have a friend and every time something goes wrong in his life he starts crying he wants a hug you like Jesus bitch get your fucking shit together and Come on, dude. 1.00

01:47:45.000 And that's how you're supposed to feel. 0.99

01:47:47.000 Because you know that that guy, if anything goes wrong, that guy's not going to be reliable.

01:47:52.000 He's not a good ally.

01:47:53.000 He's not a good ally.

01:47:54.000 He's not good to have in the tribe.

01:47:56.000 And these are unfortunate but realistic aspects of being a human being in the 21st century.

01:48:03.000 It's still there.

01:48:04.000 It's still there.

01:48:05.000 I mean, one day we might come to some point where we have so much control over the world that we live in that masculinity won't be unnecessary.

01:48:12.000 And if that's the case, we'll probably evolve to the point where we look like the aliens that are depicted, you know, in every movie with the giant head, no muscles, and the giant head that uses telekinesis to move things.

01:48:23.000 I mean, that's probably where we're headed.

01:48:25.000 Well, I think, yeah, you're right.

01:48:27.000 I mean, the world has gotten softer and softer and safer and safer, and we're still...

01:48:31.000 Carrying this baggage, this evolutionary baggage of a sort of masculinity that's best suited to a world where, you know, there's barbarians at the gates and bears in the woods and all that stuff.

01:48:44.000 But in this same world, there are avenues to express this masculinity where you can be completely civil, where you can be completely kind, you can be a generous person, but...

01:48:56.000 Get over your own genetics in a way.

01:48:59.000 Give yourself difficult tasks to do. 0.99

01:49:01.000 And even what we were talking about earlier, fucking yoga can do that. 0.99

01:49:04.000 It doesn't have to be beating the shit out of each other in a cage to achieve this. 0.98

01:49:09.000 But the victory over your own self. 0.84

01:49:13.000 That's what it is, yeah.

01:49:14.000 That's what I didn't know going in.

01:49:16.000 That's what I didn't know going in.

01:49:17.000 I figured those guys must like beating people up.

01:49:20.000 Some of them do, though.

01:49:22.000 I think some do.

01:49:22.000 Tank Abbott comes to mind.

01:49:24.000 Yeah, and I think at the UFC level, maybe there's more of those guys.

01:49:27.000 But, you know, I'm doing this very small-time amateur fighters in western Pennsylvania and Ohio.

01:49:34.000 99% of them are amateurs.

01:49:36.000 99% of them have no hope of ever winning any fame or fortune.

01:49:40.000 There is no fame or fortune to be won.

01:49:43.000 So why are they doing it?

01:49:44.000 They're doing it because they want a challenge in their life.

01:49:47.000 They want a quest in their life.

01:49:49.000 And they want to do battle with their own weakness and their own timidity and try to defeat it.

01:49:53.000 They're not dreaming about hurting people.

01:49:56.000 That's the way to express it.

01:49:57.000 Do battle with their own weakness.

01:49:58.000 That's why we have disdain for people that pick on folks that they know that they can beat.

01:50:05.000 If you see a guy, and he's a bully, and he's like a 250-pound guy, and he wants to fight a 100-pound guy, why does he want to do that? 0.97

01:50:11.000 He wants to do that because he's scared of a challenge, because he's a coward. 0.89

01:50:14.000 A 250-pound man would never want...

01:50:17.000 I mean, the only time you would threaten a 100-pound man is if that 100-pound man was threatening a 100-pound woman or something, or another 100-pound man.

01:50:23.000 You're trying to step in and keep the peace.

01:50:26.000 But... 0.91

01:50:26.000 When you see a bully, it's one of the most disgusting characteristics because we know ultimately it's cowardice. 0.91

01:50:32.000 It appears as strength because they're flaunting their superiority, but it's really cowardice.

01:50:38.000 And that's a thing that fires.

01:50:40.000 Otherwise they pick on somebody their own size.

01:50:41.000 Yeah.

01:50:42.000 I mean, here's a perfect example.

01:50:44.000 There was a fighter that fell out of a card because he got injured, and they offered this other fighter a replacement.

01:50:50.000 And he said, no, I don't want to fight that guy.

01:50:52.000 But then he listed off a bunch of guys that he would fight that were like way below him.

01:50:58.000 And his idea was like, hey, I have to change opponents in four weeks.

01:51:02.000 I don't want it to be difficult. 0.61

01:51:05.000 Everybody was like like the mixed martial arts the underground forum was fucking awash with people angry Yeah, and they're right.

01:51:13.000 They are right. 0.98

01:51:14.000 They are right You know either you're willing to fight another top contender who's just as capable of beating you as you are of him Or we're wasting fucking time here. 0.78

01:51:23.000 Yeah, you know, and we don't want to watch that you gotta understand like true What did you sign up to do? 0.99

01:51:28.000 You signed up to be a fucking gladiator, okay? 0.98

01:51:31.000 You signed up to be the most noble of all martial arts combatants of all time. 1.00

01:51:36.000 You're competing at the highest level we've ever achieved in martial arts.

01:51:40.000 Today, make no mistake about it, the fighters of today are the highest skilled, the most competent There's been some great judokas of the past.

01:51:52.000 There's been some great Taekwondo competitors and great Muay Thai fighters.

01:51:56.000 But as far as the overall combination in the form of a mixed martial artist, today, they're the best that they've ever been.

01:52:04.000 No doubt about it.

01:52:05.000 By orders of magnitude.

01:52:07.000 Yeah, I mean, I'm a student of this.

01:52:08.000 I mean, a lifelong student.

01:52:11.000 I've been deeply involved in martial arts since I was 14 years old.

01:52:15.000 So I've seen all the levels.

01:52:17.000 I've seen the difference.

01:52:19.000 There's a difference between someone who is doing it to achieve greatness and a difference to someone who's, like, barely getting by. 0.91

01:52:27.000 And they're really physically talented, and they train really hard, but they're fucking terrified of a real challenge. 0.51

01:52:33.000 And those guys exist. 0.62

01:52:34.000 And they exist even at a very high level.

01:52:36.000 Yeah.

01:52:37.000 Because they come from really good camps, they're really well trained, they have a bunch of success under their belt, but they're always terrified of the one guy who's going to expose them.

01:52:45.000 It's one of the most fascinating aspects about fighting.

01:52:48.000 It's also bad business to lose.

01:52:50.000 Yes.

01:52:50.000 You know, so boxers are notorious for padding their records and fighting tomato cans.

01:52:55.000 There's also some guys that fold under pressure.

01:52:59.000 It's one of the most impressive things about Jon Jones.

01:53:02.000 Is that Jon Jones has overcome adversity in his career in a very, very obvious, character-defining way.

01:53:12.000 Like, a good example is the fight with Gustafson.

01:53:14.000 If you talk to the people that are in Jon's camp, they'll tell you, like, he barely trained for that fight.

01:53:19.000 Barely trained for it, but gutted it out in those last rounds and saved his title.

01:53:25.000 The Vitor Belford fight is another perfect example. 0.98

01:53:27.000 Vitor caught him in a fucking deep arm bar. 0.97

01:53:30.000 His arm was totally hyperextended. 0.99

01:53:32.000 99% of the population on this planet plus would tap.

01:53:38.000 I'm tapping just thinking about it. 1.00

01:53:39.000 Yeah, I mean it was fucked up. 0.99

01:53:40.000 His elbow was fucked up for a long time after that too. 0.99

01:53:43.000 Which is one of the reasons why he had to coach the ultimate fighter and wound up, you know, going through that. 0.96

01:53:48.000 Because he really couldn't compete.

01:53:49.000 It was jacked. 0.99

01:53:50.000 His elbow was fucking jacked. 1.00

01:53:52.000 But he wouldn't tap. 0.99

01:53:53.000 He wouldn't tap and he went on to win that fight and he went on to win it by submission.

01:53:57.000 You know, he submitted a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in Vitor Belfort.

01:54:01.000 I just think that that quality is something that is almost impossible to teach.

01:54:07.000 Like, you either have it or you don't.

01:54:09.000 Or maybe you can gain it.

01:54:11.000 If you didn't have it, maybe you can put up these boundaries in your mind where you won't quit anymore, you won't allow you to anymore.

01:54:21.000 Native element to it, you know, some people are born tough and born with that kind of character.

01:54:27.000 I don't know if it's born.

01:54:27.000 I think it's developed over the course of the adversity that you face in your life.

01:54:31.000 I think that's right.

01:54:32.000 But, you know, and that was one of the big findings for me at the gym is like, You know, you go into the gym and it's like, what's a fighter?

01:54:40.000 And for most people, I think most people think a fighter is like, I don't know, a person who's strong and fit and has developed this toolkit of, you know, all these sophisticated techniques and all that stuff.

01:54:49.000 But you talk to fighters, they don't define a fighter that way.

01:54:52.000 They define a fighter as, you know, a person who's really tough and who will fight.

01:54:56.000 Who's game in a fight?

01:54:58.000 And that was one thing that I found sort of interesting going in.

01:55:03.000 Because one of the things I wondered about was whether I'd be able to do it.

01:55:06.000 Just go in there and square off with people.

01:55:09.000 I didn't think I was ever going to be good at it.

01:55:10.000 But could I compete bravely?

01:55:13.000 And I do think that you do build your character by doing it.

01:55:18.000 You do get stronger and tougher and braver through the process of training.

01:55:25.000 No, I think so too.

01:55:26.000 I think there's no doubt about that.

01:55:28.000 I think there's also, it's curious to me that there's a bunch of people that are fight fans, and even fighters, that don't respect people that don't put themselves at risk.

01:55:42.000 Like a Floyd Mayweather is a perfect example.

01:55:45.000 I don't get that at all.

01:55:46.000 I don't get it at all either.

01:55:47.000 I look at Floyd Mayweather and I see a genius.

01:55:49.000 I see a guy who's obviously troubled in his personal life and his treatment of women is atrocious and all the above.

01:55:57.000 I mean, he's got all these arrests for domestic violence.

01:55:59.000 I mean, where there's smoke, there's fire, right?

01:56:01.000 Spent time in jail for that.

01:56:03.000 Or he's hanging out with chicks that Everyone and anyone would smack.

01:56:06.000 That's a possibility, too, that nobody wants to take into consideration.

01:56:10.000 I mean, you're hanging around with that dude.

01:56:11.000 I mean, why are you hanging around with that dude?

01:56:13.000 I mean, you know, are you attracted to him?

01:56:15.000 Oh, he's rich.

01:56:16.000 Yeah, is that what it is?

01:56:17.000 Who knows?

01:56:18.000 Who knows what the variables are, but it's undeniable.

01:56:22.000 Okay, I don't know him.

01:56:22.000 I don't want to judge his character.

01:56:24.000 What's undeniable about what you can view is inside the ring, he's a fucking genius. 0.99

01:56:30.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:56:30.000 He's brilliant. 0.99

01:56:31.000 The way he gets guys to dance to his tune.

01:56:33.000 He slows punchers down.

01:56:35.000 He slows volume punchers down dramatically.

01:56:38.000 He gets them to second guess what they're doing.

01:56:41.000 He gets them off their game.

01:56:43.000 He lights them up.

01:56:45.000 He tags them.

01:56:46.000 He clinches them.

01:56:47.000 He just fights brilliantly.

01:56:48.000 The whole point of fighting is to do damage without getting damaged.

01:56:51.000 He doesn't do that much damage.

01:56:53.000 That's why people get crazy.

01:56:54.000 He does a little bit of damage, but more than anybody else.

01:56:56.000 He scores.

01:56:57.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:56:58.000 But in doing so, he's beat the fucking game. 1.00

01:57:01.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:57:01.000 I mean, he's 48-0, and he's never been knocked down. 0.99

01:57:06.000 He's never been stopped.

01:57:07.000 He's never been really hurt.

01:57:08.000 Has he been knocked down?

01:57:09.000 Maybe he's been knocked down.

01:57:10.000 He might have been knocked down early in his career.

01:57:13.000 Well, I think people were reacting there not to lack of, you know, carnage.

01:57:17.000 I think they were reacting to a lack of drama.

01:57:18.000 You know, people are attracted to fighting sports, I think, for a lot of reasons.

01:57:22.000 You know, there's probably a creature in us that kind of likes violence.

01:57:26.000 But there's also this sort of...

01:57:30.000 Drama to a fight that's hard.

01:57:31.000 I mean, with that fight you have these two guys.

01:57:33.000 You have the good guy, you have the face, you have the heel squaring off in this incredibly climactic showdown that's going to define the story of their entire careers.

01:57:44.000 And you're expecting some sort of epic battle to go down that's going to be incredibly gripping drama.

01:57:50.000 And then as a sort of dramatic spectacle, I think it sort of fell flat.

01:57:55.000 Which is why that's my sort of theory for why the the reaction to the fight was so negative Yeah, I guess man.

01:58:03.000 I mean just when you're dealing with two of the best boxers of any generation who I think Manny Pacquiao, I think it's safe to say that 95% of them don't know anything about boxing That is a problem, boxing fans.

01:58:18.000 That's what Roger Mayweather always says famously. 0.99

01:58:20.000 It's a quote, most people don't know shit about boxing. 0.96

01:58:22.000 You ever seen anyone say that? 0.98

01:58:23.000 No, but it's true.

01:58:24.000 It's a meme.

01:58:26.000 Anytime there's anything on the underground, every time people talk about boxing.

01:58:30.000 But you're able to appreciate as an aficionado and somebody who's really sophisticated in your knowledge of the sport, whereas most people are just wanting to see an intense drama.

01:58:39.000 Well, I watched it with my wife, who has never been in a fight in her life and doesn't know jack shit about fighting, which is kind of funny, you know, because, you know, if you look at our DVR, it's like two competing philosophies.

01:58:51.000 Reality shows versus... 0.98

01:58:53.000 No, she doesn't watch reality shows, but she's, you know, she's very much into different shit than I'm into. 0.99

01:58:58.000 No, I don't... 0.98

01:58:59.000 I don't mind that.

01:59:00.000 And she doesn't mind.

01:59:01.000 But it's like when our interests cross and she watches what I watch, it becomes hilarious because she doesn't know anything about fighting.

01:59:09.000 She actually said this to me.

01:59:11.000 I've said this a bunch of times in the podcast.

01:59:12.000 I promise the last time I say it to anybody who's listening.

01:59:14.000 She actually says, you should have to get knocked down in order to win.

01:59:17.000 And I go, what are you talking about?

01:59:19.000 She goes, well, that will make them fight more. 0.98

01:59:20.000 I'm like, he's fighting!

01:59:22.000 Do you know... 1.00

01:59:23.000 Goddamn, woman! 1.00

01:59:25.000 You don't understand what's happening here. 1.00

01:59:27.000 This guy is, he's doing what he wants to do. 0.99

01:59:29.000 If he stood in front of Manny Pacquiao and they just went rock'em sock'em robots, fucking anything can happen. 0.97

01:59:35.000 But the way he's doing it, he's controlling all the variables. 0.97

01:59:40.000 He's controlling it, but he's controlling it with his skill and his dedication, his practice and his knowledge, and he's information chunking.

01:59:47.000 That's something that I really, truly appreciate about high-level jujitsu artists, about high-level martial artists in any venue.

01:59:55.000 I love watching people problem-solve in real time much better than anybody else is doing.

02:00:01.000 And that's what he does.

02:00:02.000 Like, he knows, like, he knows how you're gonna react to things.

02:00:05.000 POP! He'll pop you with that jab, and he knows that you're going to look to step to your left, and he's already out of there. 0.69

02:00:10.000 He's already gone.

02:00:11.000 When Manny Pacquiao would step in and throw that right hook, and Floyd would dip to his left and duck and slide right off the ropes, it was genius.

02:00:20.000 Artistic.

02:00:20.000 He planned it perfectly.

02:00:22.000 He knew that Pacquiao was a certain type of blitz style, and Floyd just wasn't there for it.

02:00:27.000 Do you still enjoy watching boxing, or do you find it kind of boring after watching MMA? Um, it's not as fun, but I still love it.

02:00:34.000 Like, I really love watching Canelo Alvarez fight because his fights are fucking chaos. 0.89

02:00:39.000 Gennady Golovkin who fought this weekend. 0.97

02:00:41.000 He's the best. 0.95

02:00:43.000 Golovkin's the best to watch because you know someone's getting knocked the fuck out. 0.65

02:00:46.000 Like, that guy just is a destroyer. 0.80

02:00:49.000 He just seeks and destroys, seeks and destroys, and just slowly chips away at the best of them to the point where they just can't take it anymore, and their body starts giving out.

02:00:57.000 He's amazing.

02:00:58.000 You know he's had 350-something fights when you count his amateur career?

02:01:02.000 He's amazing.

02:01:03.000 That's amazing.

02:01:04.000 Yeah, never been knocked down, never been dropped, never been hurt, and he's knocked out everyone.

02:01:08.000 I mean, and you look at him, he looks like he's in a boy band.

02:01:12.000 He's a little sweetie.

02:01:13.000 Look at his face, he's got a big smile.

02:01:15.000 Even the way he talks, I bring big drama fight.

02:01:18.000 It's amazing.

02:01:19.000 It's always amazing to me in any sport where one person is so much better than everyone else.

02:01:24.000 Like Roger Federer in tennis.

02:01:26.000 It's not necessarily that he is so much better than everyone else.

02:01:29.000 He's so much better than everyone he's fought.

02:01:31.000 He has to fight a Mayweather.

02:01:33.000 Mayweather's a little smaller than him. 0.96

02:01:35.000 His father, the way Floyd Sr. said it, he ain't fighting no damn giant. 0.79

02:01:39.000 He's not a giant. 1.00

02:01:40.000 He's fucking my size. 0.99

02:01:42.000 8 or something, or 5'9". 1.00

02:01:44.000 He's not a big guy.

02:01:46.000 He's just amazing.

02:01:48.000 But he's 160. He fights at 160 and Mayweather is a 147. So I kind of get it.

02:01:54.000 But Canelo Alvarez, I think, is big enough to fight him. 0.97

02:01:57.000 I think that would be a fucking fantastic fight. 0.98

02:01:59.000 God! 0.99

02:02:00.000 Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin would be fucking amazing. 0.99

02:02:03.000 Because Alvarez, I mean, he could knock out anybody. 0.99

02:02:06.000 Anybody.

02:02:07.000 And so can Golovkin.

02:02:08.000 I think Golovkin's a bit more skilled than him.

02:02:11.000 A bit more refined and more technical. 1.00

02:02:14.000 But goddamn, Alvarez is a fucking monster. 1.00

02:02:16.000 He's a monster. 1.00

02:02:17.000 That would be exciting.

02:02:18.000 You know, Sergei Kovalev is another really exciting guy.

02:02:22.000 These Russian dudes are not regular white people.

02:02:25.000 I heard you say that. 0.93

02:02:25.000 They just are not. 0.93

02:02:26.000 It's so true. 0.84

02:02:27.000 We need to get that in our head, folks.

02:02:29.000 Yeah.

02:02:29.000 Eastern Europeans, you know, they're just coming from hardscrabble backgrounds.

02:02:34.000 And how about a fucking thousand years of hardscrabble genetics? 0.99

02:02:38.000 That's right. 0.99

02:02:39.000 That's right. 1.00

02:02:39.000 Yeah, and not these pussy Americans we're dealing with. 1.00

02:02:43.000 Bellator has a bunch of tough Russians. 1.00

02:02:45.000 Fuck yeah, they do. 1.00

02:02:47.000 Who's that little guy? 1.00

02:02:49.000 The Fedor?

02:02:49.000 Not Fedor.

02:02:50.000 What do they call him?

02:02:51.000 The Lord of Frodo.

02:02:52.000 You ever seen him fight?

02:02:53.000 Oh, yeah, yeah. 0.99

02:02:53.000 What the fuck is his name? 0.99

02:02:54.000 He's a little savage. 0.99

02:02:55.000 Well, there's a bunch of really high-level Russian guys that are in the UFC now, too, like Habib Nurmagomedov.

02:03:00.000 Yeah.

02:03:01.000 There's another AKA guy.

02:03:02.000 Sad, man. 0.96

02:03:03.000 But, you know, I watched a video of him wrestling Luke Rockhold, and I'm like, how come a fucking guy who fights at 155 is wrestling the biggest 185 pounder the world has ever known? 0.97

02:03:15.000 What is going on there? 0.92

02:03:17.000 Does he wrestle Kane, too?

02:03:19.000 Because I know that Rockhold I mean, where do you guys end this?

02:03:23.000 Does he spar with DC? I mean, he's 155. What the fuck is going on?

02:03:27.000 So he blew out his knee again. 0.99

02:03:29.000 And, you know, he's supposed to be fighting cowboy in my fight of the year. 0.98

02:03:33.000 I fucking love that fight. 0.98

02:03:35.000 Woo! 0.99

02:03:37.000 That's a stylistic fight.

02:03:38.000 I mean, you got the best grappler, I think, in the division in Habib versus one of the very best strikers in all of the UFC. I mean, Donald is such a good Muay Thai striker.

02:03:50.000 He's so good.

02:03:51.000 He's so good.

02:03:52.000 I mean, when you see him fight a guy that is not at his level, that's when you really understand how good he is.

02:03:57.000 When you see him fight like a Jim Miller and see what he could do to those guys, that's when you kind of get in your head.

02:04:02.000 You're like, well, this guy's on a very high level right now.

02:04:04.000 He's something, yeah.

02:04:05.000 He's also super confident, super prepared.

02:04:09.000 He's been fighting so often, and he's just in the groove right now.

02:04:13.000 This is his time.

02:04:15.000 Some guys are kind of bulletproof.

02:04:16.000 I mean, he fights so much, and he fights so hard. 0.99

02:04:19.000 It's tough as shit, man. 0.99

02:04:20.000 He just holds up. 1.00

02:04:22.000 You know, he's just tough as shit. 1.00

02:04:24.000 That's just, like, who he is. 1.00

02:04:25.000 He's the real deal.

02:04:26.000 I mean, that guy, in his spare time, he rides bulls. 1.00

02:04:29.000 Gets on fucking bulls and rides them. 1.00

02:04:30.000 He jumps. 1.00

02:04:31.000 That's the most dangerous sport in the world, by the way.

02:04:33.000 That's not his bull. 1.00

02:04:34.000 That's just people being assholes. 1.00

02:04:36.000 You can't call that a sport. 1.00

02:04:37.000 This is ridiculous. 0.94

02:04:38.000 There's a great article in the New Yorker about bull riding. 0.97

02:04:41.000 It's amazing.

02:04:42.000 It'd be a sport if the bulls signed up for it. 0.97

02:04:44.000 If the bulls were like, yeah, man, I want to see if I can fucking shake a dude. 0.97

02:04:47.000 They breed these bulls though. 0.97

02:04:48.000 They breed them to shake.

02:04:49.000 They breed them to be violent.

02:04:50.000 They breed them to be dangerous.

02:04:51.000 Of course they do.

02:04:52.000 And it's the highest rate of head injuries, neck injuries.

02:04:56.000 We had a guy on Fear Factor that had his elbow or shoulder rather just destroyed.

02:05:02.000 He was a professional bull rider.

02:05:04.000 And he showed me his scars.

02:05:05.000 I get to go off his shirt and his whole like is is he had like lines Everywhere connecting his shoulder to his his jigsaw puzzle.

02:05:15.000 So I said like how many times you had surgery and he had some fucking ungodly number of shoulders so I don't remember like nine or ten And he goes anything goes wrong.

02:05:23.000 It just pops out Like if he falls wrong, it just pops out and then he needs someone to like yank on it Yeah, I guess you gotta extend it in a pop back in place like yeah, our friend who has that Yeah, and all for what?

02:05:35.000 So you can get that eight seconds on a monster?

02:05:38.000 It's the same thing with MMA. You know, it seems crazy to people from the outside, but there's a certain challenge to it.

02:05:43.000 There's a quest to it.

02:05:44.000 I would hop in a ring.

02:05:46.000 I would agree to three fights in a night before I would agree to ride a bull.

02:05:50.000 No doubt about it.

02:05:51.000 You're good at fighting.

02:05:52.000 You're not very good at riding bulls.

02:05:53.000 Well, I don't think anybody's good at it. 0.99

02:05:54.000 If the best guy could do eight seconds, everybody sucks at riding bulls.

02:05:59.000 If there was a dude out there that was like the Michael Jordan of bull riding, they could just ride bulls for like a half an hour. 1.00

02:06:04.000 They're just kicking them and shit. 0.98

02:06:05.000 And he's like, what? 1.00

02:06:06.000 You know, he's like blowing kisses to his mom in the crowd.

02:06:08.000 Then I would say there's a guy that's good at bull riding. 1.00

02:06:10.000 But everybody sucks. 0.99

02:06:12.000 It's just some guys suck less. 0.99

02:06:14.000 I'm pretty good at it. 0.90

02:06:16.000 Yeah, I was at this fair one time, and they had one of those mechanical bulls, and everybody's riding, you know, doing it right the one-handed way.

02:06:24.000 I'm gonna beat this thing, and I just clench it.

02:06:28.000 I get on, two hands, hold on to it, bury my face into it, and just hold on.

02:06:32.000 How was that?

02:06:33.000 I rode for like two minutes, drove the crowd wild.

02:06:36.000 Half the people booed me for cheating, and the other half were like, that guy's a genius.

02:06:41.000 So you grab it like a rear naked choke?

02:06:43.000 You grab it, yeah, like you're pulling guard as hard as you possibly can.

02:06:47.000 How could you do that?

02:06:47.000 But wait a minute.

02:06:47.000 Okay, let me think.

02:06:48.000 You see a mechanical bull.

02:06:49.000 Right, but where are you grabbing it?

02:06:51.000 You can just kind of grab around.

02:06:52.000 Can you pull a picture of a mechanical bull up, please?

02:06:54.000 A pommel horse in gymnastics.

02:06:56.000 You know the pommel horse in gymnastics?

02:06:58.000 It's kind of like that.

02:06:59.000 Right.

02:06:59.000 You can just kind of get under it with both of your hands.

02:07:01.000 You put your face into it. 0.99

02:07:03.000 I'm very curious now, because I rode one of those things for some stupid MTV thing, and I was shocked at how easy it was for them to fly me off of that fucker. 0.99

02:07:11.000 I don't know if it lasted five seconds. 0.99

02:07:13.000 I rode for like two minutes.

02:07:14.000 That's insane.

02:07:14.000 Okay, let me look at that.

02:07:15.000 Oh, there's a bunch of different kinds, huh?

02:07:17.000 Some of them actually look like bulls.

02:07:19.000 Oh, yeah, I rode real cow.

02:07:19.000 I rode the cow kind.

02:07:20.000 The one that looks like a cow? 0.97

02:07:21.000 Yeah.

02:07:22.000 Did it have horns, or no?

02:07:23.000 I don't think he had horns.

02:07:23.000 Maybe he had rubber horns, but I could get right around his head.

02:07:26.000 I just want to die because it had real horns. 0.99

02:07:28.000 That would suck. 0.98

02:07:31.000 That was the one right there. 0.89

02:07:32.000 You see that one with the fair where they have the bubble around it?

02:07:35.000 That right there?

02:07:36.000 Yeah, that one there.

02:07:37.000 Okay, click on that.

02:07:37.000 That's the one I rode.

02:07:39.000 You can just get them around the neck.

02:07:40.000 You kind of choke them out and you clench real hard.

02:07:43.000 His head was bigger, so I don't know if you could get around his head. 1.00

02:07:46.000 Yeah, that guy's riding it like a moron. 1.00

02:07:47.000 Well, that's like why they call the rear naked choke the lion killer. 1.00

02:07:51.000 They say there's only one way to kill a lion. 0.65

02:07:53.000 You've got to choke it. 0.97

02:07:54.000 You've got to choke it out. 0.96

02:07:54.000 You've got to get its back. 0.96

02:07:55.000 Hard to get its back, I think. 1.00

02:07:57.000 Good luck getting your fucking arms around a lion's neck. 1.00

02:07:59.000 It's hard to get your arms around a big guy's neck. 1.00

02:08:01.000 Oh, I know, yeah.

02:08:02.000 Get your arms around.

02:08:03.000 Yeah, there's guys that I can't choke.

02:08:05.000 Yeah, I mean, you could, but it's not easy. 1.00

02:08:08.000 But a lion is strong as fuck. 0.99

02:08:10.000 They weigh 500 pounds. 1.00

02:08:12.000 And a bull?

02:08:13.000 Okay, so you reach under, and what are you grabbing with your arms?

02:08:16.000 Well, again, his neck is too big, but his neck was a little smaller.

02:08:20.000 You just get your arms around his neck.

02:08:21.000 Did you S-grip it?

02:08:22.000 I think I did.

02:08:23.000 I did something like that, probably.

02:08:24.000 So it was a small mechanical bull. 0.99

02:08:26.000 You might have brought a bitch-ass bull. 1.00

02:08:27.000 No, no, he was killing everybody. 1.00

02:08:29.000 You were riding a mechanical cow, son.

02:08:30.000 Don't say that.

02:08:31.000 Like a calf, maybe a veal.

02:08:32.000 This was one of my best moments.

02:08:34.000 I don't have many moments of victory.

02:08:35.000 So people booed you?

02:08:36.000 Half of them booed me for cheating, you know, because it was obviously, like, counter to the spirit of the activity. 0.99

02:08:41.000 Dummies! 0.95

02:08:41.000 He broke the code, he figured it out. 0.95

02:08:43.000 Good for you, dude.

02:08:44.000 It was a little tough, though.

02:08:45.000 I mean, my face was all, like, burned.

02:08:47.000 Did you get anything out of it, or just pride?

02:08:49.000 I got pride.

02:08:50.000 I got a lot of pride out of it.

02:08:51.000 I'm telling you about it on the air.

02:08:52.000 This is my big moment.

02:08:54.000 Yeah, the idea of riding a giant animal.

02:08:57.000 First of all, I don't like the idea of raising those things to do that.

02:09:02.000 I don't even like zoos, man.

02:09:04.000 I go to zoos and it drives me nuts.

02:09:06.000 Well, it's not bullfighting.

02:09:07.000 I don't know if it's such a bad... 0.99

02:09:09.000 Bullfighting is more fucked up. 0.99

02:09:10.000 Yeah, bullfighting is way more fucked up because I don't think there's anything bad that really happens to the bull. 1.00

02:09:14.000 He doesn't like those people on his back and he bucks them off ferociously and they're only on there for eight seconds. 0.99

02:09:19.000 And some of these bulls are smart and they figure out how to hurt people.

02:09:22.000 Like they know if they buck in just a certain way while throwing their head back at the same time, you know, they can really do damage to people and get these people off their back.

02:09:30.000 Jesus Christ.

02:09:31.000 Yeah, some of them are basically killers and they have to be retired because they get too good at it.

02:09:35.000 It's an article in the New Yorker, man.

02:09:36.000 I'm not telling you.

02:09:37.000 Google it.

02:09:37.000 New Yorker and bullfighting.

02:09:38.000 It's an amazing article.

02:09:43.000 Bullfighting.

02:09:43.000 Bullfighting, I'm hugely opposed to.

02:09:46.000 That drives me crazy.

02:09:48.000 First of all, there's a bunch of people sticking that thing with poison arrows or poison darts or spears.

02:09:53.000 I don't know if it's poisoned.

02:09:54.000 Don't they have poison in them?

02:09:56.000 Really?

02:09:56.000 It's barbaric, but one of the great books about combat sport is Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon.

02:10:02.000 If you haven't read that, I'd really recommend it because almost everything he says about bullfighting is relevant to other forms of combat sport.

02:10:12.000 It's really a great book.

02:10:14.000 I just thought they had some sort of poison.

02:10:16.000 They're using those spears and they jab it into them. 0.99

02:10:18.000 I don't believe so.

02:10:19.000 The spears are basically what they do.

02:10:21.000 They drain energy from the animal and they also force it to put its head down.

02:10:26.000 And that's important because the killing stroke needs to be delivered over the horns. 1.00

02:10:31.000 And so what they want is a very clean, balletic type of kill, which means that they have to get the animal's head arranged in a downward position so they can get the sword to go home.

02:10:45.000 So where are they trying to drive it into?

02:10:47.000 Like a spinal column?

02:10:48.000 No, I think they're going for the heart.

02:10:50.000 Oh, they go through the back.

02:10:52.000 They go in with a two-foot, three-foot sword all the way to the hill.

02:10:56.000 They go right to the hill.

02:10:58.000 It goes in like butter.

02:11:01.000 Jesus Christ.

02:11:02.000 Do they eat the bull after they do that? 0.67

02:11:04.000 Because bulls are not that delicious, right?

02:11:06.000 I have no idea.

02:11:07.000 I have no idea.

02:11:08.000 I imagine they do.

02:11:09.000 These are peasant societies that, you know, develop this custom, and I'm sure they ate the bull. 1.00

02:11:13.000 Well, most people aren't aware that if you buy steak in a market, you're getting an animal that's been neutered.

02:11:19.000 Yeah, you get it.

02:11:20.000 What's called a steer and they take a bull and they cut his balls off when he's young and they let him grow to size and then they kill him.

02:11:27.000 So he has a more tender meat, right?

02:11:29.000 If you eat like I shot a moose in This guy right here in British Columbia.

02:11:34.000 That's him.

02:11:34.000 Yeah this might you boil his face Yeah, well I had a guy do it.

02:11:38.000 I didn't do it myself.

02:11:39.000 I'm busy, dude. 0.82

02:11:40.000 I got shit to do But yeah, it's called a European mount. 0.97

02:11:43.000 It's amazing the structure of the inside of his nose. 0.99

02:11:47.000 Mm-hmm.

02:11:48.000 Oh, yeah.

02:11:49.000 That's his nostrils there?

02:11:50.000 Yeah.

02:11:51.000 Their nostrils are incredible.

02:11:52.000 That's amazing.

02:11:52.000 And that's a deer.

02:11:53.000 It's a little different.

02:11:54.000 They're both deer.

02:11:55.000 That's the largest deer in North America.

02:11:58.000 So how much was your moose?

02:11:59.000 That's a moose?

02:12:00.000 Because that doesn't look like a moose.

02:12:01.000 It's a small moose.

02:12:02.000 That's why.

02:12:03.000 He was only a couple years old, so he was only 900 pounds.

02:12:07.000 Wow.

02:12:07.000 But a big moose.

02:12:09.000 900 pounds is huge.

02:12:11.000 It is, but not for a moose.

02:12:12.000 How big did they get?

02:12:13.000 My friend shot one that was 1,400 pounds.

02:12:16.000 Wow.

02:12:17.000 But my point being that the muscle, like the tissue, is really dense.

02:12:22.000 Like there's some areas like the back, like the tenderloins and the back straps that are more of a tender meat to eat.

02:12:30.000 Right, right.

02:12:30.000 But the tissue of a moose is like...

02:12:33.000 True, right.

02:12:34.000 Muscle! 0.99

02:12:35.000 It's just, it's a fucking unbelievably powerful animal that, I mean, if he got older, he would have these huge fucking saloon doors growing out of his head, and then he would use those to slam into other dudes who also have those things. 0.99

02:12:50.000 And they're just so strong. 0.99

02:12:52.000 So the meat is like really tough.

02:12:55.000 Yeah, they haven't been bred for eons to be hamburgers.

02:12:58.000 Exactly.

02:12:59.000 And my friend shot a water buffalo in Australia, and he said they cooked the back strap, which is like the most tender part, and he said he had a piece of meat in his mouth that he chewed for half an hour.

02:13:10.000 He's not joking.

02:13:11.000 Really?

02:13:11.000 Wow.

02:13:11.000 Yeah, he said he was practicing with his bow and arrow, and he was practicing for a half an hour with one piece of meat in his mouth that he was trying to break down.

02:13:20.000 I mean, we're such pussies. 0.99

02:13:23.000 Yeah, we are. 0.99

02:13:23.000 We're so soft and mushy. 0.99

02:13:24.000 Like, you know, we're talking about, like, cage fighting.

02:13:27.000 Oh, I know.

02:13:28.000 Amazing.

02:13:28.000 We get in there.

02:13:29.000 You're fighting against a person.

02:13:30.000 Oh, I know.

02:13:30.000 I felt embarrassed about it a lot of times about how scared I was when I would think about, like, how much harder, you know, other people have it.

02:13:37.000 You know, I was reading other memoirs of people, like, who did dangerous things, especially, like, war reporters.

02:13:41.000 Oof.

02:13:42.000 Like, Sebastian Younger went over and wrote books about the Afghanistan War.

02:13:45.000 He went into this little platoon way off in the middle of nowhere. 0.99

02:13:48.000 I mean, they're really in the shit. 0.99

02:13:50.000 He got blown up in a Humvee, you know, all kinds of, you know, badass stuff. 0.99

02:13:56.000 And he didn't complain, he didn't bitch and moan about it. 0.99

02:13:59.000 He went back! 0.98

02:13:59.000 He went back, I know. 0.98

02:14:00.000 That guy's nuts. 0.93

02:14:01.000 The bravery of those guys is astonishing. 0.86

02:14:03.000 And so you compare the cage fighters, these guys seem really brave, and they are, but that's a whole other level.

02:14:08.000 Well, and Sebastian Junger is not even shooting back.

02:14:11.000 No.

02:14:12.000 He's writing.

02:14:13.000 Yeah.

02:14:13.000 And he's got his head up.

02:14:14.000 Because he's got his camera.

02:14:16.000 Because he's videotaping all this stuff.

02:14:18.000 He did two documentaries.

02:14:19.000 And, you know, bullets are flying and he's got his head up. 1.00

02:14:23.000 What kind of fucking PTSD does that guy have? 0.99

02:14:25.000 Well, his friend died, you know, like a week after, not a week after, but soon afterwards, his friend, the other cameraman, a guy named Tim Hetherington, was killed, I believe, in Libya. 0.99

02:14:36.000 And so, yeah, I think he's got some pretty severe emotional, psychological damage from it.

02:14:42.000 He said he was not going back.

02:14:44.000 He said he's not going back to war zones anymore.

02:14:46.000 Yeah, I would say that's a good decision.

02:14:48.000 Yeah.

02:14:49.000 He knows when to quit.

02:14:50.000 But if it wasn't for guys like that or the people that filmed like Restrepo or...

02:14:54.000 Yeah, that's who it is.

02:14:56.000 That's who it is.

02:14:57.000 That was Hetherington and Sebastian Younger.

02:14:59.000 And there's a new documentary that...

02:15:03.000 Younger's a fighter, you know, by the way.

02:15:05.000 Was he?

02:15:05.000 Yeah.

02:15:06.000 Sebastian Younger, read my book, please.

02:15:07.000 He looks like it.

02:15:08.000 His nose is kind of jacked. 0.90

02:15:09.000 Yeah, he boxes.

02:15:11.000 Still?

02:15:12.000 I believe so, yeah.

02:15:13.000 I believe so.

02:15:13.000 He's a tough guy.

02:15:14.000 That's one of the things that I really wanted to talk to you about.

02:15:17.000 When I had heard this concept, the professor in the cage, the protecting of essential cognitive function, which is necessary to pursue your career.

02:15:26.000 Yeah.

02:15:27.000 I mean, did you find there was any negative repercussions physically?

02:15:32.000 Did you feel anything?

02:15:34.000 The first time I got punched really hard in the face.

02:15:37.000 It's really educational, you know, because watching from outside the cage, you kind of know, like, you know, this isn't good for these people.

02:15:44.000 You kind of know it's a brain damage contest, but it's different to actually feel it.

02:15:49.000 And the first time I got knocked around pretty good, and afterwards kind of felt concussed, even during the attack, even when I was taking these shots, I was able to think to myself, you know, I make my living trying to think smart thoughts, and I better quit while I still know my alphabet.

02:16:08.000 But I didn't.

02:16:10.000 But what was the negative aspects of it?

02:16:12.000 I don't know.

02:16:13.000 I mean, I don't think...

02:16:15.000 I had a lot of headaches, and occasionally I would be cloudy, you know, for a day or two afterwards.

02:16:21.000 You know, there's a sort of...

02:16:21.000 After sparring?

02:16:22.000 Yeah, I'd be like a little...

02:16:23.000 I felt like it was, you know, I described it as sort of like a translucent blanket.

02:16:26.000 Thrown over my head and slowed my thinking and clouded my perception.

02:16:30.000 Did you ever get that same sort of feeling just from hard training where you're exhausted?

02:16:35.000 No, this was definitely a time where a couple times I got, you know, again, one of these situations you're in sparring and guys hit you too hard.

02:16:41.000 And there was a couple guys who were notorious for it and I got really jacked up by a few guys.

02:16:47.000 One time where, you know, this guy just landed this brutal left hook against me.

02:16:51.000 And he didn't really mean to.

02:16:52.000 Like, he apologized afterwards.

02:16:53.000 I was moving in.

02:16:54.000 You know, he tagged me hard.

02:16:56.000 And, you know, I was almost knocked out.

02:17:00.000 You know, saw stars, the whole world, my perception of the world sort of starts flipping over.

02:17:06.000 The lights are kind of going on and off.

02:17:09.000 But I didn't, you know, with brain damage, it's usually a, you know, a time bomb that goes off sometime in the future, so you don't know.

02:17:16.000 There is and there isn't.

02:17:17.000 There's also, there's an accumulative damage issue, but there's also, I've met guys where I knew them, and then they had one really hard fight, and then they were different.

02:17:27.000 Yeah, so I didn't have anything like that, at least not to my knowledge.

02:17:30.000 I mean, I'd have short term repercussions of it.

02:17:33.000 How often were you sparring?

02:17:36.000 Our gym was not all that enlightened of a place, you know, and the culture of it was pretty intense.

02:17:42.000 So, I don't know, probably twice a week pretty hard sparring, you know.

02:17:49.000 I'm always fascinated by people who know the repercussions and still dive into it and still just say, you know what, it's worth the risk.

02:17:57.000 That's what everybody's doing.

02:17:59.000 Nowadays everybody knows the risks.

02:18:00.000 I mean, MMA fighters, you know, these are smart guys.

02:18:04.000 These are middle class guys.

02:18:05.000 Most of them are college educated.

02:18:07.000 But a guy like you is different because you're not really, I mean, you are an MMA fighter in that you did fight, but that's not like what your pursuit.

02:18:15.000 Yeah, it is my pursuit though.

02:18:16.000 My pursuit is writing books.

02:18:18.000 Right.

02:18:18.000 And I saw a good book in it.

02:18:19.000 So I did it for professional reasons too.

02:18:21.000 I mean, there was a personal reason.

02:18:23.000 I'd never been in a fight before.

02:18:24.000 I was kind of curious about whether I was a coward or not.

02:18:26.000 And I wanted to do this brave thing.

02:18:29.000 For me, it was a brave thing.

02:18:31.000 But there was also a professional thing, just like the fighters have.

02:18:34.000 The fighters are doing it because they need to make a living.

02:18:36.000 I was doing it because I wasn't making much of a living, and I needed to try to do something...

02:18:42.000 Mix it up.

02:18:43.000 Yeah, that would...

02:18:44.000 Shock.

02:18:57.000 We're good to go.

02:19:04.000 We're good to go.

02:19:09.000 There was a level of anxiety that was always there.

02:19:14.000 I was glad, however, that I didn't feel the terror that I felt that I might fear.

02:19:19.000 I was afraid that I'd be so scared that I'd chicken out or just behave in a cowardly fashion.

02:19:27.000 And there was a lot of anxiety, but it wasn't as bad as I expected.

02:19:30.000 And when I got in the cage, one thing that was really interesting to me, because I didn't know this would happen, is all the fear pretty much evaporated.

02:19:37.000 Fear is really, really useful. 0.96

02:19:39.000 You know, it's your body's way of saying to you, dude, this is really dumb. 1.00

02:19:42.000 This is really dumb. 1.00

02:19:44.000 Let's reconsider. 0.99

02:19:45.000 Let's see if there's a different way to do this thing.

02:19:47.000 So it's useful going in, but once you're in the cage and you've been locked inside, fear is no longer very useful.

02:19:54.000 Cowering is not going to save you.

02:19:56.000 You know, you're locked in.

02:19:56.000 There's no getting out of this thing.

02:19:58.000 And my fear just kind of went away.

02:19:59.000 And it was replaced by something that was really cool in retrospect.

02:20:03.000 It was this sense of focus that I'd never felt before.

02:20:06.000 Never felt before.

02:20:07.000 Nothing close to it.

02:20:08.000 Like I was in this arena, a minor league hockey arena.

02:20:10.000 There's people there hooting and howling.

02:20:14.000 I saw nothing.

02:20:15.000 I heard nothing.

02:20:17.000 All I could see was the guy in front of me.

02:20:19.000 All I could hear was him.

02:20:21.000 You know, I had this incredible tunnel vision.

02:20:22.000 So at some point my coach was screaming at me, you know, screaming out instructions, screaming out warnings.

02:20:28.000 And he's a loud guy.

02:20:30.000 He's one of his classic corner men whose voice just fills the whole arena.

02:20:34.000 I never heard it.

02:20:36.000 I never heard it.

02:20:37.000 There was just nothing in the world except for that guy.

02:20:42.000 So yeah, that was...

02:20:43.000 How'd the fight go?

02:20:45.000 You know, I don't want to give too much away about it, but...

02:20:48.000 Why is that?

02:20:48.000 Is it in the book?

02:20:49.000 It's in the book, and I sort of built some suspense to it.

02:20:51.000 So you don't want to tell us what happened?

02:20:52.000 I'll tell you a little bit about what happened.

02:20:55.000 The fight was 47 seconds long.

02:20:57.000 Did you win?

02:20:58.000 I won the first 46 seconds.

02:21:01.000 And then the fight took a nasty turn in the last second.

02:21:05.000 One second?

02:21:06.000 Pretty much, yeah.

02:21:08.000 It was pretty abrupt.

02:21:10.000 For 46 seconds, I was sort of imposing my will, and things were going my way, and I was starting to feel good.

02:21:15.000 And then, you know, things went bad.

02:21:18.000 Yeah, things went really bad, and it was over.

02:21:21.000 It was that fast.

02:21:22.000 It was amazing.

02:21:23.000 Did you want to do it again after it was over?

02:21:26.000 Desperately.

02:21:26.000 Really?

02:21:27.000 Desperately.

02:21:28.000 And it wasn't even sweaty yet.

02:21:30.000 I wasn't even sweaty yet.

02:21:31.000 And I was like, okay, now I know how to do this.

02:21:33.000 Did you get hit or did you get choked?

02:21:34.000 I got armbarred.

02:21:36.000 Oh.

02:21:36.000 That's not a bad way to lose.

02:21:37.000 No, it wasn't.

02:21:38.000 But it wasn't...

02:21:40.000 Part of it, you know, I'm approaching it as a writer, and I wanted like a story that was more epic.

02:21:45.000 You know, more of a...

02:21:46.000 I don't know, just more of a heroic struggle.

02:21:49.000 Something that would make a better story.

02:21:51.000 And part of it was, you know, I really screwed up.

02:21:54.000 I really screwed up in the fight.

02:21:56.000 And afterwards, I was like, okay, now I have this under my belt.

02:22:00.000 I was almost positive that I wouldn't have made that mistake again.

02:22:03.000 I would know how to do it.

02:22:05.000 I kind of made a really bad rookie mistake.

02:22:07.000 What was the mistake?

02:22:08.000 Well...

02:22:09.000 Basically, my strategy going in was I was always a better grappler than I was a striker.

02:22:16.000 It wasn't that I was a great grappler, but I was better at it than striking.

02:22:20.000 And so we didn't know anything about the other guy.

02:22:23.000 We knew nothing.

02:22:24.000 He had no Google presence.

02:22:27.000 We didn't know if he was a striker, a grappler.

02:22:29.000 We didn't know if he was left-handed or right-handed.

02:22:30.000 These are all really bad things not to know.

02:22:32.000 And so the game plan was just we'd take him down and try to make him fight me off his back because that's what I did best.

02:22:39.000 So, you know, right off the bat, you know, within a few seconds I shot, got the takedown, got him down against the fence, was about this close to securing the mount.

02:22:49.000 You know, he kind of had me in a headlock.

02:22:52.000 I got out of it.

02:22:52.000 I swept my foot up and Was almost in the mountain then you know that then was the first clue that I was out of my league and right away He just did this really kind of fancy Sophisticated thing where he drew me effortlessly into the guard and started working on that armbar and I I didn't and I knew something was bad something bad was happening So I got up and I yanked and yanked and yanked and yanked and got out and ran for it Okay,

02:23:16.000 he rolls to his feet and chases me and And at that point, that was when an experienced fighter would have said, okay, it's not a good idea to roll around with this guy on the ground.

02:23:27.000 We need to change the plan.

02:23:29.000 And that's what my coach is screaming at me.

02:23:31.000 You know, he's just screaming at me, you know, you don't want to go to the ground with this guy.

02:23:36.000 And immediately, you know, I couldn't break out of the game plan.

02:23:39.000 It never even occurred to me.

02:23:40.000 So I waited.

02:23:41.000 I sort of set that ambush where you're waiting for the guy to throw a punch, throw a kick, and you shoot.

02:23:45.000 And that happened. 0.71

02:23:47.000 You know, he kicked me in the ribs. 0.83

02:23:49.000 And at the same second, I shot. 0.70

02:23:51.000 And it was this great moment in my life.

02:23:53.000 It was almost better than the bull riding moment.

02:23:55.000 It was this great picture.

02:23:56.000 I got him, you know, a perfect double leg takedown.

02:23:59.000 You know, he's airborne, and we come down hard, smack.

02:24:02.000 And at this point, again, I feel like I'm in control of this fight.

02:24:05.000 I'm winning.

02:24:06.000 Everything's going great.

02:24:08.000 And the next thing I know, I mean, one second, two seconds later, he'd somehow swept me.

02:24:14.000 It was a fancy arm bar.

02:24:16.000 I was a white belt at best.

02:24:19.000 And it was a fancy arm bar where he managed to sort of flip me over like a pancake.

02:24:24.000 And the next thing I know, I'm looking up at the ceiling instead of looking down at him.

02:24:27.000 And it was tight.

02:24:29.000 Did you watch it?

02:24:30.000 I watched it, yeah.

02:24:31.000 But it took me a while to even figure out what he had done.

02:24:33.000 Is it available online?

02:24:35.000 No, I don't think so.

02:24:36.000 I have the video.

02:24:37.000 I could show you.

02:24:38.000 I'd like to see the transition.

02:24:39.000 Yeah, yeah.

02:24:40.000 What he did.

02:24:40.000 I could show you.

02:24:42.000 Like, we could get on the ground here and I could show you.

02:24:44.000 Okay.

02:24:45.000 To you, I'm sure it would be really, really basic.

02:24:47.000 Super basic.

02:24:48.000 But, you know, for me, I'm only a year into this at this point.

02:24:52.000 My jiu-jitsu was pretty rudimentary.

02:24:55.000 One of the things, and this is going to seem weird, that I've been noticing about yoga, is getting into yoga again recently, is the various complexities of each position.

02:25:07.000 It's not as simple as like, put your leg here, stand up.

02:25:11.000 It's like, back has to be straight.

02:25:13.000 Expand your chest, lengthen your back, push down with your heels, you know, push your hips forward.

02:25:19.000 There's all these different variables that you have to take into consideration in every single posture.

02:25:23.000 Well, the same exists in jujitsu, just on a much more complex level.

02:25:27.000 There's so much, because you're attacking someone.

02:25:29.000 And then they're defending.

02:25:31.000 And then you're anticipating the defense and setting up a second attack off of that defense.

02:25:36.000 Oftentimes the first attack is just to gauge how they respond.

02:25:40.000 And then you're chaining all the...

02:25:42.000 Like Helsing Gracie, Steve Maxwell, famous strength and conditioning coach, jujitsu black belt, been on this podcast a few times, described how Helsing Gracie describes jujitsu.

02:25:54.000 And he goes, because he's got kind of a pretty deep accent, he goes, you do this, then I do that, then I do this, then you do that, forever.

02:26:05.000 Yeah, that's good.

02:26:06.000 This is a great way to describe it.

02:26:07.000 And the more you understand about each position, the more you understand about where could things go wrong, where can things go right, what are you trying to achieve?

02:26:18.000 And when you don't know that, like the way you're describing it, like what's happening?

02:26:22.000 I had no idea.

02:26:23.000 There was no this or that.

02:26:24.000 He did this and it was over.

02:26:26.000 And so what happened was like why I wanted to fight again like right then afterwards was because I knew that you know I'd chosen exactly the wrong game plan to fight this guy and afterwards we became Facebook friends and I see all of his pictures on his Facebook page are of him with gold medals on his chest from winning jiu-jitsu competition tournaments.

02:26:45.000 Yeah, so he's a jiu-jitsu wizard.

02:26:47.000 So I was completely out of my league.

02:26:47.000 Is he a black belt?

02:26:48.000 I don't believe so.

02:26:50.000 Close.

02:26:51.000 But yeah, he was up there.

02:26:53.000 Have you considered just really training hard at jiu-jitsu?

02:26:56.000 That's what I'd like to do, yeah.

02:26:58.000 How old are you now?

02:26:59.000 If I can get healthy.

02:26:59.000 I'm 42. It gets tough.

02:27:02.000 I know.

02:27:02.000 It gets tough.

02:27:03.000 Well, the problem with me is, you know, this is why I think I had so many physical problems.

02:27:06.000 It's like, there is a nature and a nurture to flexibility.

02:27:10.000 You know, some people have, you know, some people have really high vertical leap just by nature.

02:27:13.000 You know, some people are really flexible just by nature.

02:27:16.000 I appear to be the guy who's not very flexible by nature.

02:27:19.000 Okay.

02:27:19.000 When I work on it really hard, but boy, I just don't seem to get much more flexible.

02:27:23.000 I oppose that because no one in my family is flexible but me.

02:27:26.000 And the reason why I'm flexible is because my body developed by stretching.

02:27:31.000 I mean, I was stretching from the time I was really young.

02:27:33.000 Well, that could be it.

02:27:35.000 Starting when you're young and supple.

02:27:36.000 But when I was in my early 20s, you know, if you're doing karate, there's a lot of stuff you just can't do if you're not very flexible.

02:27:44.000 And so I worked on it really hard.

02:27:45.000 Well, there was a guy that used to come to our jiu-jitsu gym.

02:27:48.000 This is one of the reasons why I posed it. 0.99

02:27:49.000 And he was this big fucking football player. 0.99

02:27:51.000 And he was like 250 pounds. 0.99

02:27:53.000 And whenever I used to roll with him, I used to literally say, I'm going to go ride the bull.

02:27:56.000 Because that was what was like rolling with him.

02:28:00.000 He wasn't good.

02:28:01.000 I think I was a brown belt, and I think he was a white belt at the time.

02:28:05.000 And so I would always get him, but it would be a while.

02:28:08.000 I mean, it would be like, ah!

02:28:10.000 Like hanging on to this guy for a long time and riding the bull.

02:28:14.000 But this guy was a dedicated athlete and one of the things that he did was he radically improved his flexibility while he was there.

02:28:22.000 When he first started out, you know how you sit there like with your legs in a butterfly position and try to push your knees down to the ground?

02:28:29.000 He couldn't even come close.

02:28:30.000 His knees are like stuck up like this. 0.98

02:28:33.000 He couldn't push him down at all, but that fucking guy would be there after class for 40 minutes longer than anybody else, just stretching, just pushing his soft tissue to the limit every day. 0.94

02:28:45.000 And it's that kind of dedication that led to a year plus later, like my friend Eddie Bravo, my jujitsu instructor as well, He always talks about that guy, this one guy. 0.96

02:28:56.000 He fucking put in the time, put in the numbers, and he got really flexible.

02:29:00.000 I mean, he was almost at a full split after like a year and a half. 0.99

02:29:03.000 But it was the kind of dedication that led him to be a football player.

02:29:07.000 I mean, he was a professional athlete. 0.99

02:29:09.000 And this guy just fucking... 0.99

02:29:11.000 Put on the blinders and went for flexibility. 1.00

02:29:14.000 He knew he was ridiculously strong.

02:29:16.000 He knew he was ridiculously powerful.

02:29:18.000 So he had to learn the technique and he had to get flexible.

02:29:20.000 Yeah.

02:29:21.000 And so I saw him do it, man.

02:29:23.000 I saw it take place.

02:29:24.000 So whenever someone says, they say, oh, you only have certain restrictions.

02:29:29.000 There's only so far you can get.

02:29:30.000 But you say this all the time.

02:29:32.000 Not everyone's given the same genetic gifts.

02:29:35.000 Yes.

02:29:35.000 It's unequal.

02:29:36.000 No doubt about that.

02:29:36.000 And you even said about your friend Eddie Bravo, you know, like, he's just a freakish, he has some freakish flexibility in some areas.

02:29:42.000 He does, but it's also, he's stretched those areas ad nauseum.

02:29:47.000 I mean, that guy, you'd be watching TV with him and he's pulling his foot to his chest.

02:29:50.000 Yeah.

02:29:51.000 Like, seriously.

02:29:51.000 I try it too, though.

02:29:52.000 I watch TV and I stretch the whole time.

02:29:54.000 I don't...

02:29:55.000 I hope you're right.

02:29:57.000 I don't know how much you stretch, but I do know that I watched this guy do it, and I watched this guy get way more flexible, and it was amazing.

02:30:02.000 But my point is, there are unquestionably physical gifts that you can't achieve, like fast twitch muscle fibers, speed and power.

02:30:12.000 Cardio too.

02:30:13.000 Cardio, Cain Velasquez is the one that they always bring up.

02:30:17.000 Size of bones, size of the hands, the width of the shoulders.

02:30:21.000 All those things contribute to power and also like the explosion, like the fast guys.

02:30:27.000 Like a guy like Uriah Hall.

02:30:29.000 Like Uriah Hall, without a doubt, is trained very hard and well prepared and he has excellent technique.

02:30:34.000 But you watch Uriah Hall shoot a straight right hand and you're like, okay, like...

02:30:39.000 I don't know how many guys can do it that fast.

02:30:41.000 He'll be like moving around and all of a sudden, CRAP! He'll like lean in with his right hand.

02:30:47.000 And you see the look on the guy's face after he got hit where he realizes like, whoa!

02:30:52.000 Like this guy's got some next level speed.

02:30:54.000 I was talking to Uriah's coaches after one of his fights. 0.98

02:30:56.000 He's like, he's the fastest fucking guy I've ever seen. 0.97

02:30:58.000 Like the fastest guy like you see him in the gym. 0.98

02:31:01.000 I mean he is so fucking fast and some of that is mean some Some portion of that is unattainable for the average person Yeah.

02:31:11.000 That's just the reality. 0.89

02:31:12.000 Yeah.

02:31:12.000 But it doesn't...

02:31:14.000 Why would you think it would be different for flexibility?

02:31:16.000 Because I think flexibility is something that you can push.

02:31:19.000 Because it's just a matter of how far your soft tissue goes.

02:31:23.000 Well, that's with cardio, too.

02:31:23.000 No, not really.

02:31:23.000 Cardio, you can push like crazy.

02:31:25.000 There's a limit.

02:31:26.000 Capacity, though, is different.

02:31:27.000 The size of the heart is different.

02:31:29.000 Like, that's one of the things they always said about Lance Armstrong.

02:31:31.000 He has an enormous heart.

02:31:32.000 That's part of the training, too, though.

02:31:34.000 Could be.

02:31:35.000 You grow the heart.

02:31:36.000 It's a muscle.

02:31:36.000 It atrophies.

02:31:38.000 It hypertrophies.

02:31:39.000 Mm-hmm. 1.00

02:31:40.000 Plus all the shit that he took. 1.00

02:31:42.000 Yeah, he's also injecting steroids directly into his fucking heart. 1.00

02:31:45.000 And one of those ones from Pulp Fiction, when they revived Uma Thurman, he's fucking right in there! 0.99

02:31:52.000 Who knows, man? 0.96

02:31:53.000 Who knows?

02:31:54.000 I just think that flexibility is a little bit more simple.

02:31:56.000 I don't think you could achieve the flexibility of, say, like...

02:31:59.000 You have an anecdote of your big friend.

02:32:01.000 I'm saying that I think I'm the other anecdote.

02:32:03.000 Might be.

02:32:04.000 I've never seen you stretch, though.

02:32:06.000 We'll do it after.

02:32:06.000 Okay, let's see how hard you push it.

02:32:09.000 Because some people get to a certain point like, okay, okay, okay.

02:32:12.000 But you got to get to that super I can't breathe point. 1.00

02:32:15.000 And you got to push that bitch. 1.00

02:32:17.000 It's just... 1.00

02:32:18.000 It's also like, how do you do it?

02:32:20.000 Do you do it correctly?

02:32:21.000 Do you have someone who's pushing you correctly?

02:32:23.000 And where are you starting out from?

02:32:25.000 You're starting out from 39, 40 years of doing jack shit to stretch out, and then all of a sudden you're trying to take these mature, older muscles and pull them apart. 0.78

02:32:36.000 That's a big part of it. 0.93

02:32:37.000 That's right.

02:32:38.000 I've been sitting at a desk for years and years.

02:32:40.000 Yeah, I mean, if somebody got a hold of you when you were 16...

02:32:42.000 That's very possible.

02:32:44.000 And when you were doing Kyokushin, did your school really emphasize stretching?

02:32:49.000 I did, you know, because I knew...

02:32:51.000 Well, I knew I couldn't kick guys in the head, and I knew I wanted to be able to, you know, because that was a big part of it.

02:32:56.000 There's all kinds of kicks.

02:32:56.000 I had all kinds of cool stuff I couldn't do.

02:32:58.000 Right.

02:32:58.000 So I got a stretching machine, you know.

02:33:00.000 All those Chuck Norris jammies.

02:33:01.000 I don't know if it was Chuck Norris.

02:33:02.000 I think I got the knockoff version because it was cheaper.

02:33:05.000 No crank, no.

02:33:06.000 You didn't have a crank?

02:33:07.000 No.

02:33:07.000 No, mine was different.

02:33:08.000 It was some kind of PVC type thing.

02:33:11.000 Oh, okay.

02:33:11.000 I know that type.

02:33:12.000 It was like a pipe and you pull the pipe and it stretches your legs apart.

02:33:17.000 Those do a little bit, but realistically, you don't need that.

02:33:21.000 What you really need is just someone who can help you and push your back down and then also the ability to withstand pain.

02:33:28.000 That's it.

02:33:29.000 The uncomfortable feeling of pushing your muscles to the limit.

02:33:32.000 Yeah.

02:33:33.000 I don't mind that.

02:33:34.000 It's hard to change your body in many ways.

02:33:38.000 It's hard to develop more muscle because your body doesn't want to.

02:33:42.000 Your body doesn't want to change.

02:33:43.000 Your body just wants to get really sore and then discourage you from continuing to lift.

02:33:49.000 In order to force your body to gain weight.

02:33:51.000 Like if someone would say to me, hey man, I want to put on about five pounds of muscle.

02:33:54.000 Well, you're going to have to work out three days a week like a madman for a year.

02:33:59.000 Good luck.

02:34:00.000 Yeah, yeah.

02:34:01.000 There's one thing if you're a dedicated professional athlete, you've been doing it a long time, and your body knows how to grow, and there's a certain amount of muscle memory that comes into play.

02:34:10.000 When you see someone who is really big, but then they lose the muscle mass, like maybe they'll get into something else and they'll stop lifting, they can get really big way quicker than the average person.

02:34:21.000 Yeah, that seems right.

02:34:22.000 No, it's a fact.

02:34:23.000 Like, say if you used to weigh 230 pounds, you're a big fucking giant dude, and then you drop down to 170, you could gain, like, if you took two dudes that weighed 170, and they were both, you know, reasonably fit, and one of them used to be enormous, he will get bigger quicker.

02:34:39.000 Just muscle memory. 0.60

02:34:40.000 There's no getting around that.

02:34:43.000 But your body doesn't want to do it. 1.00

02:34:45.000 You have to really push that bitch. 1.00

02:34:49.000 And I think the same takes place with flexibility and the same holds true with gains, with size gains. 0.99

02:34:58.000 This is very difficult to do.

02:34:59.000 Yeah.

02:35:00.000 You have to be willing to push your body to this really uncomfortable position, and then you have to fuel it with all sorts of food.

02:35:07.000 It's like I get a kick out of whenever people compare.

02:35:11.000 It's a funny thing.

02:35:12.000 It happens on my message board or my forum sometimes.

02:35:16.000 People start talking about diets and caloric requirements, and then they'll bring up Michael Phelps. 0.99

02:35:20.000 Well, Michael Phelps ate 15 fucking pizzas a day. 0.95

02:35:25.000 Do you have any idea how hard Michael Phelps works out? 1.00

02:35:30.000 Don't ever fucking compare yourself to Michael. 0.99

02:35:33.000 Just stop. 0.99

02:35:34.000 He's the greatest Olympic swimmer the world has ever known.

02:35:39.000 And whatever genetic gifts he has, they were unquestionably accentuated by a barbaric worth ethic.

02:35:46.000 And weed.

02:35:47.000 Those things helped.

02:35:48.000 I think that weed helped him recover.

02:35:50.000 And he's 6'7". 0.99

02:35:51.000 Yeah, he's a big giant fucking long dude. 0.98

02:35:54.000 But also the amount of calories that guy was burning every day. 0.98

02:35:58.000 The average person really can't relate.

02:36:00.000 You just, you can't relate.

02:36:02.000 No.

02:36:02.000 Like, the amount of effort that it takes to be a Chris Weidman.

02:36:06.000 The kind of training camps that Vitor Belfort goes through.

02:36:09.000 What, you know, what John Jones went through when he trained for Daniel Cormier.

02:36:12.000 I guess it would be interesting with the stronger drug testing.

02:36:16.000 See if these guys can get through these kind of camps.

02:36:18.000 You got a very good point.

02:36:20.000 Well, that's the dirty secret.

02:36:22.000 You know, that's sort of being slowly but surely revealed.

02:36:26.000 For the longest time, there are certain things that you couldn't test for, like growth hormone.

02:36:30.000 You couldn't even find it, you know?

02:36:32.000 I had a conversation with Chael Sonnen after he got popped.

02:36:36.000 And, you know, he wanted to talk to me on the phone about, like, how he should approach it.

02:36:40.000 And Chael's a funny guy, man. 0.89

02:36:43.000 He's fucking hilarious. 1.00

02:36:45.000 He's a great shit talker, too. 1.00

02:36:46.000 But he goes, yeah, you know those drug tests? 1.00

02:36:49.000 Turns out they're really good.

02:36:51.000 I don't know. 0.99

02:36:52.000 He got caught for all sorts of shit that he never thought he'd get caught for. 1.00

02:36:56.000 Growth hormone, EPO. He had it all. 1.00

02:36:58.000 Yeah, he had a cocktail going.

02:37:00.000 But, you know, in his mind, I think he had a very small window to achieve something, and he probably was correct in assuming that he wasn't the only one doing it.

02:37:13.000 He's probably correct in assuming that it's almost impossible, not almost impossible, but it's really hard to get to win the belt without it.

02:37:20.000 Well, Jose Aldo had a really interesting thing to say.

02:37:24.000 And Andre Penares as well.

02:37:27.000 They were talking about steroids.

02:37:29.000 And they were like, well, we support testing, but I hope the UFC realizes the fights won't be as exciting.

02:37:37.000 Like, the fighters won't be as good.

02:37:38.000 Well, they're also going to be out of fights more often.

02:37:40.000 They're also not going to be able to make it to Fight Day.

02:37:42.000 They're not going to have the healing benefits of all that testosterone.

02:37:48.000 Yeah, you're redlining your body, going through camp, and then bing, bing, bing, bing. 0.98

02:37:52.000 Things fucking break off and cylinders blow. 0.93

02:37:54.000 I don't think they can work as hard as they're working without some help. 0.99

02:37:58.000 Some can.

02:37:59.000 Some can.

02:37:59.000 Some are clean.

02:38:00.000 Some have always been clean. 1.00

02:38:01.000 Guys like Frankie Edgar, he's clean as fuck. 0.97

02:38:02.000 A lot of guys you think are clean turn out not to be, you know? 0.99

02:38:04.000 That's a problem.

02:38:05.000 I mean, I think Frankie Edgar is almost certainly clean.

02:38:08.000 But who knows if he's not eating EPO. And that's, you know, one of the secrets to his incredible cardio.

02:38:13.000 I don't think that at all.

02:38:14.000 But you wouldn't know, is my point.

02:38:16.000 Well, yeah, I don't know.

02:38:18.000 I mean, John Fitch really surprised me when he turned positive.

02:38:21.000 Tons of people were surprised.

02:38:22.000 Anderson Silva was surprising, right?

02:38:24.000 Yeah.

02:38:24.000 I wish I could tell you, I'll tell you off the air.

02:38:27.000 Yeah.

02:38:27.000 I can't tell you on the air the Anderson Silva situation.

02:38:30.000 It's a bit more complicated.

02:38:31.000 Okay.

02:38:32.000 First of all, he unquestionably took some for his leg.

02:38:36.000 Yeah.

02:38:36.000 To try to heal his leg.

02:38:38.000 38 years old, he had a broken leg.

02:38:39.000 I can see the temptation. 0.71

02:38:40.000 Yeah, there's a lot and there's also I think that there is nothing this is my opinion I think that it is not only is there nothing wrong, but there may be a case for doctors to prescribe Some sort of steroids some controlled amount of some sort of steroids for catastrophic injuries like massive leg breaks or you know the pec tears or there's some Pretty fucking significant injuries.

02:39:06.000 Here's another one.

02:39:08.000 Hector Lombard went through a bulging disc, like a significantly injured disc, and then was fighting, you know, I think he had a fight schedule like six months later.

02:39:19.000 Good luck trying to recover from something like that in six months.

02:39:22.000 I mean, you kind of can, but can you recover enough in three months to go through a three-month camp?

02:39:27.000 Yeah.

02:39:27.000 Most likely not.

02:39:28.000 And then he turned up positive for some designer steroid that most people didn't think they were testing for.

02:39:34.000 You know, like the whole Barry Bonds thing with the clear and all this, you know, there was a lot of that going on, I think.

02:39:41.000 In boxing, there was a lot of that going on.

02:39:43.000 There was tons of it.

02:39:44.000 I mean, the big giveaway is to have all these old guys. 1.00

02:39:47.000 These guys in their 40s still competing as cage fighters.

02:39:51.000 Well, that doesn't really exist anymore.

02:39:53.000 I mean, Randy was like kind of the last one that competed at a super high level.

02:39:57.000 But still just be able to do it at all in that sport, man?

02:39:59.000 In your 40s?

02:40:00.000 Randy's also an undeniable freak of nature because Randy never got hurt.

02:40:05.000 I mean, Randy lost and he got knocked out and stuff like that, but I mean in training.

02:40:08.000 Like, he never had a surgery, never had a broken hand.

02:40:11.000 He got his arm broken in the Gonzaga fight, but that was blocking a kick.

02:40:14.000 He looked awfully good for 50. He's a fucking stud. 1.00

02:40:17.000 He's a goddamn... 1.00

02:40:18.000 I mean, that's the real Captain America. 1.00

02:40:20.000 Randy Couture is a fucking stud. 0.99

02:40:22.000 You have to be to be able to... 0.99

02:40:24.000 But don't you assume that he was on something?

02:40:27.000 In that era?

02:40:29.000 Yes and no.

02:40:30.000 I don't have the evidence.

02:40:32.000 I assume that it's very likely.

02:40:35.000 Well, I've said the same thing about Fedor and people got mad at me.

02:40:38.000 Fedor fought in a dirty league.

02:40:40.000 He fought in Pride.

02:40:41.000 It was a dirty league.

02:40:42.000 I mean, Ensign Inouye sat in the very seat you're sitting in and was laughing about his contract for Pride where they told him that we don't test for steroids.

02:40:52.000 Does that mean that Fedor was not on it?

02:40:54.000 No, it doesn't mean that.

02:40:55.000 But when you have a league where everyone's on it, like Vanderlei was without a doubt.

02:40:59.000 And I said, one of my favorite fighters of all time.

02:41:01.000 It's not my number one favorite.

02:41:02.000 Yeah.

02:41:02.000 Like when I get excited to watch a fight, when Vanderlei was fighting, it was probably the most excited you can get.

02:41:08.000 You know, it's just like you knew it was just going to be chaos.

02:41:10.000 Just such a berserker, you know?

02:41:12.000 He was terrifying. 1.00

02:41:13.000 But he was obviously on some shit. 1.00

02:41:15.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:41:15.000 Obviously. 1.00

02:41:15.000 And the Vanderlei that showed up at the UFC was not the same guy. 1.00

02:41:19.000 He just wasn't.

02:41:20.000 I mean, he still had that warrior's heart, but his body just did not cooperate the same way. 0.94

02:41:24.000 And a lot of it is probably because his endocrine system is all fucked up from years of using stuff. 0.54

02:41:29.000 So, you know, was he? 0.98

02:41:31.000 I don't know.

02:41:32.000 I don't know.

02:41:33.000 You know, I'm just guessing.

02:41:35.000 I'm just all guessing.

02:41:36.000 No, I'm totally guessing. 0.99

02:41:36.000 The Vanderlei one, Vanderlei ran away from a drug test, too, and now is suspended indefinitely, which I think is kind of fucked up. 0.99

02:41:43.000 You know, I think they should have... 0.79

02:41:44.000 The worst they could give you at the time, you tested positive, was like a year.

02:41:49.000 They should have given him a year. 0.99

02:41:50.000 They should have said, look, dude, we know what the fuck is going on. 0.97

02:41:53.000 And then, if that's the case, he'd already be fighting again by now. 0.97

02:41:55.000 Yeah, you could treat it just like that's a concession.

02:41:58.000 I concede that I'm using it.

02:41:59.000 If I run, I concede.

02:42:01.000 Yeah, they wanted to make an example out of him, and they said, you know, we're gonna give you a lifetime ban. 0.98

02:42:05.000 Well, that's fucked up, man, because this guy, this is his life, this is his living. 0.90

02:42:09.000 He essentially took away his living from one violation, the only violation of his entire professional career. 0.99

02:42:17.000 You know, suspicions aside, and there's certainly suspicions of when he was competing in Pride, and even possibly suspicions of when he was competing in the UFC. But the reality is, the guy never got caught except for the one time when he evaded a test.

02:42:32.000 Treat it like it's a positive test.

02:42:34.000 You know? 0.99

02:42:34.000 I mean, I get the whole idea of sending a fucking message, but that message has long been sent. 0.99

02:42:40.000 I mean, everybody knows. 0.98

02:42:41.000 If you test positive, and then you see the new testing rules that they pulled out, the new ones are brutal.

02:42:48.000 The new ones are...

02:42:49.000 Was it three years?

02:42:50.000 Three years.

02:42:50.000 Some of them are lifetime.

02:42:51.000 For first offense.

02:42:52.000 Lifetime, if you have a second, if you try to run away from a test.

02:42:57.000 The second time you try to run away from a test is a lifetime suspension.

02:43:01.000 But three years for a first offense.

02:43:03.000 I don't know if it's three years or two years.

02:43:05.000 I think it's two years, three years for a second offense.

02:43:08.000 That's almost a career under.

02:43:09.000 Not only that, they take 75% of your purse, up to 75% of your purse.

02:43:13.000 There's some big ones.

02:43:14.000 If you take three years out of a guy's prime...

02:43:16.000 Especially a guy in his late 30s, like an Anderson. 0.94

02:43:20.000 Like Anderson.

02:43:21.000 Anderson's going through, I don't know what they give him, a year and a half, and he's fighting against it.

02:43:26.000 We'll talk in about 10 minutes, and I'll give you the whole rundown of what I actually know.

02:43:30.000 You'll go, oh, I wish I could tell you.

02:43:33.000 Here it goes.

02:43:33.000 First offense for testosterone, antibiotic steroids, HGH, 36-month suspension, fine of 50-75%.

02:43:40.000 Second offense for... 0.99

02:43:41.000 Four fucking years. 0.99

02:43:43.000 75 to 100% of fighters' purse. 0.99

02:43:46.000 Third offense, lifetime suspension.

02:43:49.000 Fine of 100%.

02:43:50.000 Avoiding first offense, four years.

02:43:54.000 Fine of 75%.

02:43:55.000 Second offense, lifetime suspension.

02:43:57.000 Fine of 100% of fighters' purse.

02:43:59.000 Well, I wonder if that'll be enough. 0.99

02:44:01.000 I guess the idea is we're gonna hang you. 0.97

02:44:04.000 They're trying to set up a sort of almost a zero tolerance policy in order to scare guys straight.

02:44:09.000 Well, Bronda Rousey had a very good point.

02:44:14.000 And this point is that if someone uses some sort of anabolic steroid and they can hit their opponent more and then that opponent dies...

02:44:25.000 Totally!

02:44:27.000 Is that murder?

02:44:28.000 Or is that manslaughter?

02:44:30.000 That's interesting.

02:44:31.000 Very good point.

02:44:32.000 The guys are already superheroes.

02:44:34.000 Exactly.

02:44:34.000 And you juice them up, and yeah, that's dangerous.

02:44:36.000 You can most certainly, if you're on EPO and human growth hormone and testosterone, you can most certainly hit someone more than you would be able to if you were not on that.

02:44:45.000 Definitely.

02:44:46.000 Especially if, like, these cases where guys are testing with, like, literally superhuman levels.

02:44:52.000 Like Vitor, when they eventually rescinded the testosterone replacement therapy thing for Nevada, when they tested him, he was at 1,475.

02:45:04.000 An average man in his prime is like around 500 to like 800 for some crazy stud.

02:45:10.000 So he was like essentially like double a human being.

02:45:13.000 Wow.

02:45:14.000 The level of testosterone, so it's crazy.

02:45:16.000 Nevada judge overturns Vandele Silva's lifetime ban.

02:45:19.000 Really?

02:45:20.000 This just happened?

02:45:21.000 Today? 1.00

02:45:22.000 Holy shit! 0.99

02:45:23.000 Breaking news, ladies and gentlemen! 1.00

02:45:24.000 Talk about fucking current! 0.99

02:45:26.000 And talk about poignant! 0.99

02:45:28.000 Wow, pull that down! 0.97

02:45:29.000 Let's fucking scroll that! 0.98

02:45:30.000 Good for him! 0.99

02:45:30.000 They broke at 230. Vandele Silva won a major victory in court today with a Nevada district judge throwing out the lifetime ban. 0.99

02:45:37.000 I will applaud!

02:45:38.000 I applaud that!

02:45:41.000 ESPN's Brett Akimoto reported via Twitter that the judge did agree that the Nevada State Athletic Commission had jurisdiction over Silva despite being an unlicensed athlete at the time, but that there was not sufficient evidence to support a lifetime ban.

02:45:56.000 I agree.

02:45:57.000 35-12-1 MMA, 5-7 in the UFC was handed a hefty punishment after he ran from a random drug test.

02:46:06.000 So they overturned the suspension, the lifetime ban, but it doesn't mean that he's been reinstated.

02:46:12.000 It's not reinstated.

02:46:13.000 But what's good is he's still under contract with the UFC. The UFC wouldn't even let him...

02:46:18.000 He made a bunch of really critical videos about the UFC. Which, again, a lot of these guys, man, they need someone to talk to.

02:46:26.000 I would love to be the guy, you know?

02:46:28.000 I'd love to be the guy that talked to a lot of these guys and just go, don't do that.

02:46:32.000 Don't do that.

02:46:33.000 Well, once he was banned for life.

02:46:35.000 Well, also, he was talking about the UFC treating people like slaves.

02:46:38.000 And then, you know, Dana's like, we gave you $9 million.

02:46:42.000 Wow.

02:46:42.000 That's how much he made in the UFC. Really?

02:46:44.000 Yes.

02:46:45.000 It's like, come on, son.

02:46:46.000 That's not slavery.

02:46:47.000 That's not slavery.

02:46:48.000 You fought for seven years.

02:46:49.000 You made nine million bucks.

02:46:50.000 That's good money.

02:46:50.000 That's good money, man.

02:46:51.000 Forever.

02:46:51.000 And you had seminars.

02:46:52.000 You ran a gym.

02:46:53.000 Oh, yeah.

02:46:54.000 You did well. 1.00

02:46:54.000 You're a fucking... 1.00

02:46:55.000 And he's a loved guy. 1.00

02:46:57.000 I just have a soft spot in my heart for Vandalay.

02:47:00.000 Like, as a human being, like, when I know him, when I meet him and see him, I always like to see him.

02:47:04.000 He's a very warm, friendly guy.

02:47:05.000 And I just...

02:47:06.000 Any guy who's willing to fight like that guy...

02:47:08.000 Yeah.

02:47:09.000 That guy.

02:47:09.000 And be a sweet guy out of the cage.

02:47:11.000 That's what's so fascinating about people like him.

02:47:13.000 I had some friends from my gym who trained with Vanderlei's gym.

02:47:17.000 They all love him.

02:47:17.000 Oh, he's a sweet guy.

02:47:19.000 But he spars like it's life or death.

02:47:22.000 Yeah.

02:47:22.000 Like there's videos of him sparring.

02:47:24.000 Yeah, I've heard about that.

02:47:24.000 And I'm like, Jesus.

02:47:26.000 Yeah, that was the real Stone Age.

02:47:27.000 What was that?

02:47:28.000 Shootbox? 0.95

02:47:28.000 Yeah, Shoot the Box. 0.95

02:47:29.000 Shoot the Box. 0.91

02:47:30.000 Well, who'd you are?

02:47:32.000 You know, the guy who ran it.

02:47:33.000 What does Shoot the Box mean?

02:47:34.000 Does it mean shoot and box?

02:47:35.000 What does it mean?

02:47:36.000 That's a good question.

02:47:37.000 I mean, it's obviously a Portuguese version probably of shoot box.

02:47:42.000 That's how John Donaher describes MMA, shoot boxing.

02:47:46.000 You know, shoot box rules, the rules of engagement and the way you approach it and think it.

02:47:51.000 I think that what they did at shoot box was establish the most aggressive, most intimidating team ever.

02:48:01.000 You know, especially at that time, like they were just all berserkers Vanderlei, Shogun, Ninja, Anderson, Pele.

02:48:10.000 There was just one killer after another.

02:48:13.000 In their primes, too.

02:48:14.000 In their primes.

02:48:14.000 And then, you know, Rafael Cordero, a guy who's gone from that gym and now is training like Fabrizio Verdum, radically increased his striking.

02:48:23.000 Rafael Dos Anjos radically increased his striking.

02:48:27.000 Those guys are good.

02:48:28.000 Yeah, it's not just like that attitude and that drive.

02:48:31.000 It's also skill.

02:48:32.000 Like those guys are very skillful. 1.00

02:48:34.000 And they just also know about putting pressure on motherfuckers. 1.00

02:48:38.000 Like Dos Anjos versus Pettis, that was just aggression and pressure. 0.98

02:48:44.000 But again, after that fight, I've got Nick Curzon, the guy who trained him in his strength and conditioning up, I think he's here next week.

02:48:53.000 No, I'm sorry.

02:48:54.000 He's here on Wednesday.

02:48:55.000 And I'm really interested to talk to him about it because his style of training fighters...

02:49:03.000 He learned from the Marinovichs, the same guy that got B.J. Penn in the best shape of his life, back when he fought like Diego Sanchez.

02:49:11.000 That B.J., I think, one of the greatest fighters of all time for sure, B.J. Penn, but I think that B.J. is the prime B.J. So I'm really curious to see what their approach was to get a guy in the kind of condition where he could fight five retarded hard rounds like that. 1.00

02:49:27.000 I don't know how it's possible.

02:49:28.000 I don't know how it's possible.

02:49:29.000 In the amateur divisions, we did two-minute rounds.

02:49:31.000 And if you were in a, you know, in really intense rounds where the striking was heavy and you mix in the grappling with it, all the heavy exertion of grappling, I was more, you talked about having a heart attack doing hot yoga.

02:49:43.000 I felt that way all the time, like I'm gonna die.

02:49:46.000 And I watch these guys on TV doing five minute rounds after five minute rounds and sometimes walking back to their corners after this crazy round with their mouths closed.

02:49:54.000 Breathing calmly through their noses.

02:49:56.000 To me, that's the most freakish thing about these athletes.

02:50:00.000 Did you watch Neil Magny this weekend?

02:50:02.000 Well, I know.

02:50:03.000 I actually listened to the Fight Companion.

02:50:05.000 Oh, dude. 0.99

02:50:06.000 Neil Magny's got insane fucking cardio. 0.99

02:50:09.000 It's insane. 0.99

02:50:10.000 Well, a lot of them do.

02:50:11.000 Yeah.

02:50:11.000 Vincent Henderson.

02:50:12.000 You know, Vincent Henderson has these frenetic fights.

02:50:15.000 Tons of grappling, tons of striking.

02:50:17.000 He's just never tired.

02:50:18.000 They don't know what it's like to be tired of these guys.

02:50:19.000 Work ethic.

02:50:20.000 Just insane work ethic and never getting out of shape and never abusing your body and always Eating the right foods, getting the right rest, putting altitude tents up in your house.

02:50:30.000 Neil actually trains at altitude.

02:50:32.000 He trains in altitude MMA. Actually, that's his gym in Denver.

02:50:37.000 But yeah, there's an advantage in that for sure.

02:50:39.000 There's an advantage in sleeping at altitude is the big one.

02:50:43.000 They actually say that you should go up to Big Bear to sleep and come down to sea level to train.

02:50:50.000 That's what they say.

02:50:51.000 Oh, yeah, I see that.

02:50:52.000 Because that way you could put out more output.

02:50:54.000 More workload.

02:50:54.000 Yeah, more work, but you recover because of the sleeping at altitude.

02:50:59.000 Right.

02:51:01.000 We're almost out of time, but what's the biggest thing that you got out of this whole experiment, other than a great book?

02:51:09.000 Which I've heard nothing but fantastic things about this book, by the way.

02:51:12.000 It's one of the reasons why I wanted to get you in here.

02:51:14.000 Oh, thanks.

02:51:15.000 I'm incredibly honest in this about your fears and the experience and very eloquent. 0.99

02:51:21.000 So, the professor in the cage, go get this book, you fucks. 1.00

02:51:24.000 It's great. 1.00

02:51:25.000 I can't wait to read it.

02:51:27.000 Oh, thanks.

02:51:27.000 I don't even read hardcover books anymore.

02:51:29.000 Well, like I said, you know, when I was writing it, I was thinking to myself, sometimes, like, you know, if Joe Rogan doesn't like this book, I'm fucked. 0.97

02:51:37.000 Because it means I totally whiffed. 0.97

02:51:39.000 I'm gonna kindle it, too.

02:51:41.000 Kindles are so much better to me.

02:51:43.000 I like the paper.

02:51:46.000 You're one of those guys.

02:51:47.000 What are you, like, making your own firewood?

02:51:50.000 What is the big thing that you got out of this?

02:51:53.000 Personally or sort of intellectually?

02:51:55.000 All of the above.

02:51:55.000 I mean, intellectually is personally, right?

02:51:58.000 Personally, you know, I'd been through a sort of lifetime of, I don't know, like, I was a late bloomer as a kid, real small, always sort of the runt of my in school.

02:52:12.000 I'm a sort of average-sized guy now, but I came to my growth really late.

02:52:16.000 And so I sort of have a basic, you know, schoolboy story about getting pushed around and bullied.

02:52:22.000 And there's no heroism in that story.

02:52:25.000 I always backed down.

02:52:26.000 I always ran for it.

02:52:27.000 I always found some way out of it.

02:52:28.000 It wasn't because I was a pacifist.

02:52:31.000 It wasn't like I had some noble, high-minded reasons for avoiding the violence. 0.99

02:52:34.000 It was that I was scared, and I knew I was going to get my ass kicked. 0.97

02:52:37.000 But I've always kind of felt like that's no excuse for not for fighting, you know, that you should stand up to the bully. 0.99

02:52:43.000 I've always felt that way, even though I never did it.

02:52:45.000 So I've So part of what I wanted to do was I wanted to go into that cage and I wanted to sort of stand up to guys who were stronger than me and more skilled than me and sort of take in those beatings that I felt like I should have taken 20 years ago.

02:52:58.000 You know what I mean?

02:52:59.000 Wow.

02:53:00.000 That's deep.

02:53:01.000 Well, yeah.

02:53:02.000 I don't know if you've ever had experience like that as a boy.

02:53:06.000 Where you behaved in a fashion that you define as cowardly.

02:53:11.000 Yes, definitely.

02:53:11.000 And it's amazing to me.

02:53:13.000 I'm 42 years old now.

02:53:15.000 I've had a lot of accomplishments in my life.

02:53:17.000 I have a beautiful wife.

02:53:17.000 I have little children who are wonderful.

02:53:20.000 It's amazing to me how much psychological weight that still carries for me, that I can still make myself blush.

02:53:27.000 Thinking back to those moments.

02:53:29.000 So part of it was a redemption story for me about whether I could do something to redeem myself, at least in my own eyes, for those times when I'd flinched as a kid.

02:53:39.000 That's awesome.

02:53:40.000 I love that.

02:53:40.000 I love that you did that.

02:53:42.000 I don't love that you're still blushing over it. 0.99

02:53:44.000 It's silly. 1.00

02:53:45.000 It's so stupid. 1.00

02:53:45.000 It's so crazy. 1.00

02:53:46.000 But it just means you've got work to do.

02:53:48.000 That's all it is.

02:53:49.000 You've just got work before you realize you're not that guy anymore.

02:53:51.000 Right.

02:53:53.000 I sort of became what I was terrified of.

02:53:56.000 That's to avoid being bullied.

02:53:59.000 I never got in fights.

02:54:02.000 From high school on, I never got in fights.

02:54:04.000 But I didn't get in fights by becoming far stronger than I ever was before.

02:54:09.000 But I still would think back to guys that I was scared of when I was in high school. 0.99

02:54:13.000 But I never feel like I want to go back now and fucking kick their ass. 0.99

02:54:17.000 That was surprising to me that I never wanted to do that. 1.00

02:54:20.000 And I never wanted to go back like, hey dude, you remember when you fucked with me? 0.96

02:54:24.000 I never wanted to do that. 0.78

02:54:26.000 But I also never carried that burden around.

02:54:30.000 Yeah, yeah.

02:54:31.000 One time when I was, I think I was about like 19 or 20, when I was already a black belt and I was working out at my gym where I used to teach in Boston and I was just doing these heavy rounds on the back preparing for this tournament.

02:54:45.000 I looked up, and this guy was watching that used to bully me in junior high school.

02:54:50.000 This guy, not even from my high school, I went to a really rough junior high school in Jamaica Plain, which is kind of gentrified now, but at the time it was a really sketchy area in Massachusetts.

02:54:59.000 And I looked up, and I felt bad for the guy.

02:55:02.000 It was really interesting.

02:55:03.000 Instead of being angry at him, I felt bad for him.

02:55:05.000 No, that's right.

02:55:08.000 All those guys from high school were just kids, too. 0.99

02:55:10.000 You know, they were fuck-ups, too. 0.99

02:55:12.000 They had their own insecurities. 1.00

02:55:13.000 They had their own problems.

02:55:14.000 They're not bad people. 1.00

02:55:15.000 It's stupid to be hung up on it. 0.97

02:55:17.000 And I'm not very hung up on it. 1.00

02:55:18.000 I don't have any fantasies of going back and beating those guys up.

02:55:20.000 But I do hope they'll read the book.

02:55:22.000 And they'll think, boy, he was a cowardly boy, but he grew into a brave man.

02:55:26.000 The Professor in the Cage.

02:55:27.000 You can buy it right now.

02:55:28.000 And it's available on Amazon, right?

02:55:30.000 I can get a Kindle version of it.

02:55:31.000 Oh, yeah.

02:55:31.000 All right.

02:55:32.000 Beautiful.

02:55:32.000 Thank you, John.

02:55:33.000 Really appreciate it.

02:55:34.000 Hey, it was great to come on.

02:55:35.000 I appreciate it, man.

02:55:36.000 Go buy it.

02:55:37.000 Go read it, ladies and gentlemen.

02:55:39.000 The Professor in the Cage.

02:55:40.000 I'll be reading it.

02:55:40.000 I'll be talking about it on a future podcast, I'm sure.

02:55:43.000 Thank you, sir.

02:55:44.000 Appreciate it.

02:55:44.000 Thanks, Joe.

The Joe Rogan Experience - May 18, 2015

Joe Rogan Experience #649 - Jonathan Gottschall

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Transcript