The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #682 - Mark & Chris Bell

00:00:00.000 Alright, we're live, gentlemen.

00:00:01.000 What's up?

00:00:02.000 Hey now.

00:00:02.000 Thanks for doing this.

00:00:03.000 Appreciate it.

00:00:04.000 Thank you.

00:00:04.000 Bigger, Stronger, Faster was a documentary that I could not...

00:00:09.000 There were so many people that were talking about it.

00:00:11.000 You couldn't avoid having a conversation about it, especially in the UFC, because so many fighters have been accused of taking performance-enhancing drugs, and there's so many conversations about that.

00:00:22.000 So I always wanted to talk to you guys.

00:00:24.000 And I watched it again.

00:00:24.000 I watched the first half of it when it first came out, and then I watched it all again this morning.

00:00:30.000 Check it out.

00:00:31.000 Did it bore you the first time, or why didn't you watch it all the way through?

00:00:34.000 I don't remember.

00:00:35.000 I think I was on a plane, and I think the plane probably landed, and I shut my laptop, and I never picked it up again.

00:00:41.000 It was one of those things.

00:00:43.000 What did you think of it?

00:00:44.000 It's great.

00:00:44.000 Great documentary, and interesting and honest.

00:00:46.000 It was really hilarious when you're going over the people that, like, what's the number one reason to go to the hospital, and then they, like, ask Aspirin, fucking vitamin C, and then below that was steroids.

00:00:57.000 And steroids was way down, I think.

00:00:59.000 The amount of deaths, it's like steroid deaths are like slightly above water, drinking water.

00:01:06.000 Yeah, there's no real proof to link anything scientifically.

00:01:10.000 You know, you can have...

00:01:11.000 Anecdotal evidence on a lot of things, but nothing scientifically links steroids to these deaths.

00:01:16.000 This is a real problem with some people.

00:01:18.000 They don't want to hear that.

00:01:19.000 And they don't want to hear it because they don't...

00:01:21.000 There's a narrative that we're being taught in this country or that we're being told to embrace. 0.99

00:01:28.000 That narrative is steroids are for cheaters and cheaters are losers and losers are un-American. 0.99

00:01:33.000 But as you highlighted in your movie... 0.80

00:01:36.000 Over and over and over again, all these examples of different athletes that were caught with performance-enhancing drugs.

00:01:44.000 Whether it's the guy from the Tour de France, whether it was Carl Lewis. 0.86

00:01:46.000 The Carl Lewis thing was fucking hilarious.

00:01:48.000 Because a lot of people don't know, when Ben Johnson got tested positive for steroids, they stripped him of his metal. 0.93

00:01:53.000 Carl Lewis tested positive for amphetamines.

00:01:55.000 Yeah, he wasn't even supposed to run.

00:01:56.000 Yeah, the whole thing's crazy.

00:01:58.000 I mean, they're all doped up.

00:01:59.000 But like you said about the narrative that they want you to believe, the narrative doesn't come from health problems.

00:02:05.000 The narrative comes from, you know, nobody's concerned about the health of the athlete.

00:02:09.000 We say that, but nobody really is concerned about the health of the athlete.

00:02:13.000 They're concerned about an unfair advantage.

00:02:16.000 Yeah, they're concerned about someone being able to do what we suspected the Russians were doing back in the 50s.

00:02:22.000 And that was really enlightening, too, when you were talking to that guy that was saying that they had found out about it from the Russians doing it in the 1950s.

00:02:29.000 And from then on, they were doping.

00:02:31.000 Yeah, over shots of vodka.

00:02:32.000 They were actually hanging out with the Russian strength coach, and he was, you know, a little loose, loosey-goosey, and he sort of slipped up and was like, yeah, we're giving our guys testosterone.

00:02:42.000 So as soon as that got out of the bag, Dr. Ziegler raced home and he created Dianabol, which was even a stronger steroid than was currently available on the market.

00:02:51.000 And they started testing guys with like five milligrams of dianabol.

00:02:54.000 And of course they found other ways to get it through the testing facility or however they were getting their hands on it once it was manufactured.

00:03:01.000 And that's when it became, you know, the Wild West basically.

00:03:04.000 It was like people started taking 20 milligrams and getting way stronger.

00:03:08.000 It's kind of crazy because if you want to get better at something, people don't have a problem with people using certain means or people don't have a problem with someone going to a supplement store and purchasing something that doesn't work.

00:03:19.000 But as soon as you take something that's powerful, people are like, well, wait a second, we don't want you doing that good. 0.88

00:03:23.000 I was always telling people that the strongest shit I ever took, they made illegal, but you used to be able to buy it at GNC. It was called Mag10. 0.97

00:03:30.000 Do you remember that stuff?

00:03:31.000 Oh, yeah.

00:03:32.000 Totally, yeah.

00:03:32.000 Oh, my God.

00:03:33.000 That stuff. 1.00

00:03:34.000 I took that shit for, like, whatever it was, like, six weeks. 1.00

00:03:37.000 I gained, like, ten pounds. 1.00

00:03:38.000 I was jacked up all the time.

00:03:40.000 It was like a bunch of pills.

00:03:41.000 You had to take, like, ten pills. 1.00

00:03:43.000 And after it was over, my dick died like it got hit with a meteor. 1.00

00:03:47.000 My dick was useless. 1.00

00:03:49.000 It was useless. 1.00

00:03:50.000 It took me for my testosterone to come back.

00:03:52.000 I was like, oh, this is steroids.

00:03:54.000 Like, real steroids.

00:03:54.000 You could buy a GNC until they made it illegal.

00:03:57.000 Those drugs are more dangerous than the actual real testosterone.

00:03:59.000 They'll bloat you and all kinds of stuff, too. 0.99

00:04:01.000 I don't know what the fuck was in it either. 0.98

00:04:03.000 I just bought it because it was legal. 0.99

00:04:04.000 Probably a lot of salt.

00:04:05.000 A lot.

00:04:06.000 A lot of those pills, what they do is they'll give you a huge surge of estrogen as well. 0.99

00:04:13.000 Yeah, bad for the tits. 1.00

00:04:14.000 Did your tits grow too? 1.00

00:04:15.000 No, they didn't. 0.99

00:04:15.000 I got lucky. 0.99

00:04:16.000 But, you know, that's what one of the guys was on the U.S. powerlifting team with Bruce Jenner thinks happened to Jenner.

00:04:24.000 He believes that, well, first of all, he said he knows that they had Jenner pumped full of steroids.

00:04:29.000 Sure.

00:04:29.000 He said, we were all on steroids.

00:04:31.000 He goes, Jenner was absolutely pumped full of steroids. 1.00

00:04:33.000 And he said that is what started his transition to want to be alone.

00:04:36.000 Wait a second.

00:04:37.000 Is this where I'm heading?

00:04:38.000 Well, maybe if you drop off a little bit.

00:04:41.000 Just stay on, dude.

00:04:42.000 Relax.

00:04:43.000 Yeah, yeah. 1.00

00:04:43.000 Fuck. 1.00

00:04:44.000 You know, that's interesting, but Mark and I had this talk the other day, and I think that this whole, like, gender issue and transgender and all these different things, like, I don't know how much that's linked to testosterone levels or not. 0.99

00:04:56.000 Like, I don't know if there's that many definitive studies on, like, whether your testosterone, like, if you have a high estrogen level, are you going to be trained and they don't have testosterone levels?

00:05:05.000 Yeah, there's a lot of people that are gay that have very high testosterone levels. 0.99

00:05:08.000 And a lot of people can kick ass, too. 1.00

00:05:09.000 They're gay. 1.00

00:05:10.000 But those are gay. 0.98

00:05:12.000 They don't identify as female. 0.60

00:05:14.000 There is a difference there.

00:05:16.000 I don't know how that actually correlates.

00:05:18.000 I haven't read the studies on that stuff.

00:05:19.000 I think it's probably as difficult for us to understand as to understand what it's like to be a woman.

00:05:24.000 It's like, you don't get it.

00:05:27.000 They probably don't get what it's like to not want to be a woman. 0.98

00:05:31.000 You're like, I'm good.

00:05:32.000 You're like, are you sure you don't want to be a woman? 0.97

00:05:34.000 I'm good.

00:05:35.000 I'm good.

00:05:35.000 For me, it's everything.

00:05:37.000 Alright, well, good luck.

00:05:38.000 In the powerlifting world, in the world of powerlifting, it's been sort of turned on its ear by a guy named Matt Kroc.

00:05:45.000 Is that his name?

00:05:46.000 Yeah, Krocoletsky. 0.99

00:05:47.000 Marks can tell you a little bit more about him.

00:05:50.000 I've been friends with him for about a decade.

00:05:52.000 I've known about his issue for about six or seven years now, and he's actually going to be on my show coming up soon.

00:05:59.000 Yeah.

00:05:59.000 You know, he's transgender, and he's, you know, it's ruined relationships for him many times over.

00:06:05.000 He's got three kids.

00:06:06.000 He's a good father.

00:06:07.000 He's a good person.

00:06:08.000 He's a good dude.

00:06:09.000 Or female.

00:06:11.000 He's a good woman now.

00:06:12.000 Yeah, he's a good woman.

00:06:13.000 But, you know, the issue is really interesting, and that's why I want to, like, you know, talk to him and try to help people just better understand it, because people get so mad.

00:06:22.000 That's the thing that I don't get is... 0.98

00:06:24.000 I do understand voicing your opinion and saying, fuck, man, that's weird. 0.99

00:06:28.000 Like, that makes sense to me. 1.00

00:06:29.000 But people actually getting mad and committing hate crimes and stuff, to me, it's just disgusting.

00:06:33.000 I'm not on board with that. 0.94

00:06:35.000 Yeah, it is disgusting. 1.00

00:06:36.000 And I just, I gotta think that it comes from their family, from the way they're raised, that their parents are ignorant. 1.00

00:06:41.000 It's the only thing that makes any sense. 0.97

00:06:42.000 I just think that we're moving past that.

00:06:45.000 I think there's more awareness and more acceptance for those sort of issues that people have than ever before. 1.00

00:06:50.000 Yeah, this country worries about some fucked up shit. 0.99

00:06:52.000 There's a lot worse things going on. 1.00

00:06:53.000 What about the lion?

00:06:53.000 What about Cecil?

00:06:55.000 You're on steroids.

00:06:56.000 Who cares?

00:06:57.000 Cecil the lion on steroids.

00:06:59.000 Every day another cop's shooting somebody and we're worried about, you know, we concern ourselves so much more with the tabloid media than we do with what's really going on in this country.

00:07:07.000 Well, the cop shooting part is a horrible thing, but cops on steroids is something that people don't talk about too much.

00:07:14.000 It's kind of hilarious when you see cops busting people for steroids, because we all know, anybody who knows people that take steroids knows that cops are on steroids.

00:07:24.000 Absolutely.

00:07:24.000 A giant chunk of them.

00:07:26.000 Cops busted their brother with steroids.

00:07:28.000 And they were probably on it when they were busting them.

00:07:30.000 They confiscated it.

00:07:32.000 And then every cop in Poughkeepsie where we're from got huge.

00:07:38.000 They took like a thousand pills of Dianabol from him, and next thing you know, the cops are walking around all jacked.

00:07:44.000 Well, I had talked to a guy who's a cop I used to work out with, and he had a rational explanation. 0.97

00:07:51.000 He's like, look, man, he goes, it's fucking gross out there. 0.98

00:07:54.000 He goes, it's dangerous as fuck, and you've got to be on top of your game, and you want to have an edge. 0.99

00:07:58.000 Meanwhile, dude was 570, he weighed 250. I'm like, you've got a couple of edges here. 0.98

00:08:03.000 You got edges all over your body, dude. 0.99

00:08:05.000 It's just so fucking jacked. 0.99

00:08:07.000 That's great. 0.99

00:08:08.000 How do you even move like that?

00:08:10.000 Not very well.

00:08:11.000 Yeah.

00:08:11.000 Well, something we have to do is get a hold of them and hang on.

00:08:14.000 All you got to do with a guy like that is ride the bull.

00:08:16.000 He's got about 30 seconds in him.

00:08:18.000 Look, if you taught those guys what you know in jujitsu, they'd be much more effective than taking steroids, but that's probably the easier route, right? 0.93

00:08:25.000 That would help, but the reality is you're dealing with guns and knives and shit like that.

00:08:30.000 Yeah, so no matter how big you are, it doesn't even really matter, right?

00:08:33.000 No.

00:08:33.000 Well, you definitely should know how to defend yourself physically.

00:08:36.000 100%.

00:08:37.000 Every cop should be a black belt in something.

00:08:40.000 You should know what it's like to be in a wild melee with another person who's trying to kill you with their hands.

00:08:45.000 But that's not going to protect you from guns and knives and all that gun defense stuff.

00:08:50.000 That's an art in and of itself. 0.95

00:08:53.000 There's some guys who are experts in taking guns away from people and shit, but... 0.98

00:08:57.000 Good luck with all that. 0.88

00:08:58.000 What do you think the major difference is between UFC and Pride?

00:09:00.000 Pride, I don't think they really had rules, right?

00:09:03.000 They definitely had rules because they had no elbows.

00:09:05.000 No, I just meant testing-wise.

00:09:07.000 Oh, testing-wise.

00:09:08.000 Yeah, no, they didn't have rules at all.

00:09:09.000 In fact, they specifically said on their contracts that there was no testing for steroids.

00:09:16.000 Ensign Inouye, who's one of the fighters from Pride, great guy, fought in the UFC as well.

00:09:20.000 He did this whole thing about it, where he came on the podcast and explained the verbatim contract.

00:09:27.000 It said, we are not going to test you for steroids.

00:09:30.000 Yeah, meaning like, go ahead and do your thing.

00:09:31.000 Yeah, well, they encouraged it.

00:09:33.000 I had a buddy of mine who would fight in America at 170, and they wanted him to fight in Japan.

00:09:38.000 He went over there and had some meetings, like, you're 185. And he's like, but I don't weigh 185. I, like, weigh 180 right now.

00:09:44.000 And he's like, no.

00:09:48.000 They were, like, really sold on him being 185. They wanted big Americans. 0.95

00:09:53.000 They wanted everyone to look like Mark Kerr.

00:09:54.000 Remember Mark Kerr?

00:09:55.000 He was amazing, yeah.

00:09:56.000 The Smashing Machine.

00:09:57.000 Smashing Machine, as a documentary filmmaker, that was my favorite documentary, I think it still is, probably ever.

00:10:03.000 It's an amazing documentary, and for folks who don't know what it's about, it's about Mark Kerr, who was, at the time, one of the most dangerous MMA fighters in the world.

00:10:11.000 A guy who you would look at and you'd say, well, that is what an MMA fighter should look like. 0.98

00:10:16.000 260 pounds, fucking jacked to the tits, just giant, and smashing people. 0.99

00:10:21.000 But they caught him, there he is right there at his prime. 1.00

00:10:24.000 What a fucking garage. 1.00

00:10:26.000 Shit, man. 1.00

00:10:27.000 Yeah, that's a good picture. 1.00

00:10:28.000 They caught him right when he slid. 0.99

00:10:31.000 They literally caught him on top before he'd slipped and then went into this mad fucking painkiller slide. 0.99

00:10:39.000 Absolutely. 0.99

00:10:39.000 It happens to everybody. 0.99

00:10:40.000 I mean, that's what happened in the world of pro wrestling, which we're, like, really closely associated with all these guys.

00:10:46.000 You know, you hear about the wrestlers dying and everything.

00:10:48.000 It's not necessarily the steroids.

00:10:50.000 It's a deadly cocktail that they're all doing, you know.

00:10:52.000 The steroids are a big part of it, but the steroids, it's tiny in comparison to the head injuries they're taking.

00:10:59.000 It is important to point out that they're not safe. 0.98

00:11:02.000 I think sometimes people that take them are like, fuck yeah, man, take steroids. 0.96

00:11:06.000 They definitely have their drawbacks, and it's a drug, and it's an illegal drug. 0.99

00:11:11.000 It's dependent upon dosage as well.

00:11:13.000 There's people that are going to take a little bit and be fine, or there's people that are going to go off the rails.

00:11:18.000 There was a dude that we knew that was Vitor Belfort's trainer.

00:11:21.000 In the 90s and he died real young.

00:11:23.000 He died like 32 or 33. We used to call him garden hoses.

00:11:27.000 Yeah. 0.99

00:11:27.000 Because he would work out, he would be purple and his fucking arms, his veins. 0.99

00:11:31.000 Yeah, Curtis Loeffler. 0.99

00:11:32.000 Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:11:33.000 Big purple.

00:11:34.000 They called him Barney at the gym.

00:11:37.000 They'd call him Barney because he was so purple.

00:11:38.000 He was on so much.

00:11:39.000 Nicest guy.

00:11:41.000 The greatest guy.

00:11:41.000 Really great guy.

00:11:42.000 And Vitor at the time was jacked.

00:11:45.000 He was training at Gold's Venice.

00:11:47.000 He almost got too jacked.

00:11:48.000 Remember, he came in and smoked everybody, and then all of a sudden he got too big.

00:11:52.000 When he fought Randy, he was too big.

00:11:54.000 He was like 240 when he fought Randy.

00:11:56.000 And he had no gas tank.

00:11:57.000 He was a specimen when he was younger, when he was 19. Well, when he was 200 pounds, he was like the perfect size.

00:12:02.000 Yeah.

00:12:02.000 Because Vito has like a size 8 foot.

00:12:05.000 He's not a big guy.

00:12:06.000 Like, his hands are fairly small, too.

00:12:08.000 But he's just a spectacular athlete.

00:12:10.000 Yeah.

00:12:10.000 It's amazing he's done it for so long.

00:12:12.000 It's unbelievable.

00:12:12.000 I know, it is.

00:12:13.000 And he's an interesting point, because Vitor, for the last year and a half, was on testosterone replacement, last like two years, and had the most spectacular results of his career. 0.64

00:12:25.000 It was really crazy to see a guy who'd been fighting since 1997 in the UFC, and he's knocking out Michael Bisping, he's knocking out Luke Rockhold, he's knocking out Dan Henderson, he's wheel-kicking people in the head, and the way he was It was just fucking crazy to watch. 0.98

00:12:41.000 He head kicked three of the best fighters in the world and did it with muscles grown out of his fucking teeth. 0.98

00:12:46.000 I mean, just jacked. 0.99

00:12:47.000 Was that legal in the UFC? It was legal.

00:12:50.000 It's a therapeutic use?

00:12:52.000 Then.

00:12:52.000 Yeah.

00:12:53.000 But now it's not. 0.98

00:12:53.000 Nevada came in and went, whoa, hold the fuck up. 0.98

00:12:56.000 What's going on here? 0.98

00:12:57.000 First of all, they had guys.

00:12:58.000 There were guys that were in their 20s that had been prescribed it.

00:13:02.000 Yeah.

00:13:03.000 And they're like, well, what happened?

00:13:05.000 Why do you have a low test?

00:13:06.000 And most of them, it's because of steroid use.

00:13:08.000 And we all know that there's a way of manipulating those tests, too.

00:13:12.000 Right.

00:13:12.000 And maybe some are overtrained, not sleeping well on top of...

00:13:15.000 100% overtrained.

00:13:16.000 And if you don't think those tests get manipulated by what you need to do, in Bigger, Stronger, Faster, I show you how to get human growth hormone and basically go to your doctor and do this and that.

00:13:25.000 And the way that you take the test...

00:13:27.000 You had to pee in this bag basically all day long, and then you take a sample of that urine.

00:13:33.000 But the way that I did it was I only took the urine from two samples that were taken at night when your growth hormone is the lowest.

00:13:42.000 So my growth hormone looked like it came from a guy who's 125 years old.

00:13:47.000 They're like, oh my god, you have no growth hormone.

00:13:49.000 Well, if you took it in the morning, And balance it out during the day, it would have been normal.

00:13:54.000 But it was really low, so I just wanted the doctor to give me growth hormone to see if they would do it for the movie.

00:14:00.000 Right. 0.99

00:14:00.000 Well, they also, they say if you eat a very large, fatty meal, like cheeseburgers and fries and shit, like a big burger, like right before you take the test, like within an hour of the test, your shit just plummets. 0.99

00:14:10.000 Your test plummets, your growth plummets, everything just goes, oh. 0.99

00:14:15.000 There's ways to beat all these tests, even the guys that are beating the test to compete.

00:14:20.000 Lance Armstrong, all these guys.

00:14:21.000 The Armstrong Lie is a good documentary, too.

00:14:23.000 Amazing. 0.97

00:14:23.000 If you saw that, it was fucking incredible. 0.97

00:14:25.000 Amazing. 0.97

00:14:25.000 Well, Jeff Nowitzki, the guy who busted Lance Armstrong, is going to be on my podcast next week. 0.97

00:14:30.000 Oh, cool. 0.96

00:14:30.000 I fucking can't wait. 0.96

00:14:31.000 That's awesome. 0.98

00:14:31.000 I had a great conversation. 0.98

00:14:32.000 The UFC hired him to try to clean up the sport.

00:14:35.000 I don't know.

00:14:36.000 It's like going to a hoarder's house.

00:14:38.000 No, you need to hire the other guy.

00:14:39.000 I want to be able to eat off.

00:14:46.000 No matter what you do, the cheaters will always be ahead of the guys that are trying to catch them.

00:14:53.000 It's just a cat-and-mouse game.

00:14:54.000 It's been going on forever.

00:14:55.000 Yeah, well, they're kind of ahead now.

00:14:57.000 What they're doing now is they're, you know, the way they make testosterone, apparently they do something with yams.

00:15:02.000 That's how they make it.

00:15:03.000 Do you know the process?

00:15:04.000 Yeah, Mexican wild yams.

00:15:05.000 They don't do that anymore.

00:15:07.000 That's where it's, like, derived from or something.

00:15:09.000 Yeah, well, now they've figured out how to do it with animals.

00:15:12.000 And they've made a bio-identical testosterone that you can't differentiate.

00:15:16.000 There you go.

00:15:17.000 We just spoke about stem cells.

00:15:19.000 Now, stem cells aren't going to make you superhuman, but stem cells are going to allow you a Vitor Belfort, right?

00:15:25.000 Now that he can't do the testosterone replacement, he gets stem cells done to all of his existing injuries.

00:15:31.000 You know, he's basically, you know, got a clean slate and he's back to normal without all these injuries that you built over time.

00:15:38.000 You know, a baseball pitcher could pitch 10 more years.

00:15:40.000 How is that going to affect...

00:15:42.000 The future of sports with the records and all these things, like who can hit the most home runs and who can, you know, play the longest and all.

00:15:49.000 Yeah, it's like there's a word that's a banned word.

00:15:52.000 Steroids is like, you know, it's a negative word.

00:15:56.000 And that word will never be polished up.

00:15:58.000 You know what I mean? 0.98

00:15:59.000 It's like the Barry Bonds shit with Mark McGuire all over Congress. 0.99

00:16:04.000 By the way, that was one of my favorite parts of the documentary, was watching those dummies in Congress. 0.99

00:16:08.000 That was amazing, wasn't it? 1.00

00:16:08.000 Seeing Joe Biden talk about it, man, when I was a good athlete, I thought, what the fuck you were? 1.00

00:16:14.000 The fuck you were good at anything. 1.00

00:16:16.000 You were never a good athlete. 1.00

00:16:18.000 I would like to see some evidence of that, sir.

00:16:20.000 They took it away from me.

00:16:22.000 It wasn't by God-given talent.

00:16:24.000 Like, what?

00:16:25.000 He's a third-string baseball player at community college.

00:16:29.000 Yeah, whatever he was.

00:16:31.000 Save it, buddy.

00:16:32.000 Whatever he was. 0.99

00:16:33.000 Just shut your mouth. 0.99

00:16:34.000 Yeah, exactly. 0.78

00:16:35.000 That's the thing was like they bring up these baseball players and string them up before Congress.

00:16:39.000 It becomes this like huge media circus.

00:16:41.000 Everybody, you know, loves to see that.

00:16:43.000 Oh, look at their, you know, they're pointing out all these guys and they're the bad guys.

00:16:47.000 And you have guys like Mark McGuire up there looking like, Mark McGuire said steroids is bad.

00:16:52.000 It's a bad message.

00:16:53.000 Don't do them. 1.00

00:16:53.000 It's like, this is people, these are these heroes to these kids up there that are, you know, completely looking like idiots. 1.00

00:17:00.000 And there's a better way to handle it, you know? 1.00

00:17:01.000 Well, it just seemed really frivolous that they were in front of Congress.

00:17:06.000 They're getting too good at hitting the ball with the stick.

00:17:09.000 We need to bring in all our leaders.

00:17:12.000 It doesn't even seem real.

00:17:14.000 It seems like a plot in a movie.

00:17:16.000 Even in swimming, they made suits a few years ago.

00:17:19.000 They got rid of them right away.

00:17:20.000 It's a speedo company that made a suit that makes you swim faster.

00:17:23.000 And as soon as they did that, they were like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

00:17:25.000 We don't want you swimming that fast.

00:17:26.000 So they got rid of them.

00:17:27.000 So it was like a bodysuit?

00:17:28.000 Like you would put it in your whole body?

00:17:30.000 Yeah, it's just a bodysuit.

00:17:31.000 So like a wetsuit?

00:17:32.000 Yeah.

00:17:32.000 I think it helped increase buoyancy a little bit and just helped you kind of glide through the pool faster.

00:17:39.000 That's pretty dope.

00:17:40.000 Where do I get one of those?

00:17:41.000 Well, I guess the issue with it was it's expensive, and so they were like, oh, it might price some people out of it or whatever.

00:17:47.000 I was just like, I don't even understand what that means.

00:17:49.000 Yeah.

00:17:50.000 Because all these sports end up being pretty expensive.

00:17:51.000 Come on, man.

00:17:52.000 The amount of money that's involved in training for the Olympics for swimming.

00:17:55.000 The things that are going on now with training are insane.

00:17:59.000 You know, I did my second film.

00:18:00.000 I did a movie called Trophy Kids, and it's about parents that push their kids in sports, and that was on HBO. And the thing that is so crazy now is the way that parents have access to all these things we didn't have.

00:18:12.000 Like you'll go to a, you know, a baseball camp and they have like this, Nike makes this hand-eye coordination thing that you wouldn't believe how it tells you like what position your kid should play.

00:18:23.000 It tells you, you know, and parents are actually going and getting genetic testing on their kid.

00:18:27.000 They swab the inside of their kid's cheek and they send it off to this company and it'll tell the parent what sports the kid will be good at.

00:18:34.000 This is when they're like a An infant. 1.00

00:18:36.000 So there's some crazy stuff going on where technology is far exceeding what we've been able to do before. 0.99

00:18:45.000 That's fucking madness. 0.99

00:18:47.000 Swabbing your kid's cheek to find out what sport they should do. 1.00

00:18:51.000 Well, there's a California cryobank.

00:18:53.000 It's like a sperm bank.

00:18:55.000 And it's at UCLA. Don't get that confused with getting frozen.

00:19:03.000 Jerk off in this cup.

00:19:06.000 Is this part of the therapy? 0.98

00:19:08.000 I have arthritis.

00:19:10.000 Wow, I feel great. 0.98

00:19:11.000 That Joe Rogan was fucking right. 1.00

00:19:13.000 Shit tastes great. 1.00

00:19:15.000 Anyway, you can get... 1.00

00:19:17.000 It actually shows a guy on HBO Real Sports.

00:19:20.000 He goes in, and basically, like, they custom order their kid, and it's like this fat... 0.96

00:19:25.000 What the hell? 1.00

00:19:26.000 It's like this fat Mexican guy. 1.00

00:19:28.000 He goes in, and he says, I want a kid just like me. 0.97

00:19:31.000 Blue eyes, blonde hair, and big calves.

00:19:33.000 And it's like, he looks nothing like the guy.

00:19:36.000 Exactly. 0.93

00:19:36.000 So it's not his sperm. 0.93

00:19:38.000 He's using someone else's sperm.

00:19:39.000 He's using a sperm donor because he couldn't get his wife pregnant.

00:19:42.000 And they decide, well, we want our kid to be...

00:19:44.000 The father's like, you know, similar to me.

00:19:48.000 You know, like athletic and outgoing.

00:19:50.000 So they picked a 6'2", blonde-haired, blue-eyed kid with...

00:19:53.000 And it actually says on the application, huge caps.

00:19:56.000 Huge calves on the application. 1.00

00:19:59.000 What the fuck? 1.00

00:20:00.000 So the California Cryobank goes out and they recruit players. 1.00

00:20:04.000 I went to USC, so I know it goes on at USC. They go out and recruit players to make extra money.

00:20:10.000 You can make $900 a month or something jerking off in a cup and basically selling it to parents.

00:20:17.000 It's a good deal. 0.94

00:20:18.000 Yeah, it's not a bad deal.

00:20:19.000 If you have to rent, you know, you gotta pay it somehow. 0.94

00:20:23.000 My sperm might be tainted. 0.97

00:20:24.000 Probably. 0.86

00:20:25.000 Yeah, they don't need to know that.

00:20:27.000 No.

00:20:28.000 No, but it's amazing.

00:20:29.000 It's an amazing phenomenon to see parents now getting into, like, how am I gonna help my kid cheat?

00:20:34.000 Well, it's getting to the point also where they're, within a few years, have you heard of CRISPR? Do you know what CRISPR is?

00:20:39.000 No.

00:20:40.000 There's a Radiolab documentary that they did on it, or a Radiolab episode, rather.

00:20:45.000 It's all about this new tool that they have for engineering genetics and for splicing genes and for adding traits or subtracting traits.

00:20:52.000 Sure.

00:20:53.000 And, you know, you showed on the documentary the myostatin inhibitors that they're doing with these cows that make these cows grow enormous amounts of muscle.

00:21:00.000 Well, they're going, first of all, they can do it now to pigs, and they're going to be able to do it to people.

00:21:05.000 It's just a matter of when.

00:21:06.000 Jesus Christ.

00:21:06.000 Is it going to be in a year?

00:21:08.000 Is it going to be in a decade?

00:21:09.000 It's going to happen. 0.93

00:21:11.000 If we live another 100 years, if human beings survive 100 years, and asteroids don't blow us up, or we don't get hit by a fucking nuke, we're going to have myostatin-inhibited people that look like the Hulk. 0.99

00:21:23.000 That's fucking craziness. 0.99

00:21:24.000 It's going to be nuts, and they're going to live longer. 1.00

00:21:26.000 That's what's even more fucked up. 0.97

00:21:27.000 What do you think about steroids in the UFC? What's your take on it? 0.98

00:21:30.000 Do you think they should be illegal, or monitored, or...

00:21:32.000 Well, I think it's going to be a moot point once you get to genetic engineering.

00:21:36.000 And I think ultimately what steroids are is it's a form of engineering.

00:21:41.000 It's a form of biological engineering.

00:21:43.000 You're taking these substances and you're adding them to people.

00:21:46.000 But as you pointed out in your documentary, look at the guy who was the Tour de France guy that had this oxygen tent, these hyperbaric or these altitude chambers.

00:21:59.000 Hyperbaric chambers.

00:22:00.000 What I do all the time, the cryogenic freeze tanks. 1.00

00:22:03.000 All that shit is cheating. 0.99

00:22:05.000 I mean, if you really want to look at it, I take TRT, I take human growth hormone. 1.00

00:22:09.000 If I was competing in someone that wouldn't let me take that, that would be considered cheating.

00:22:13.000 But for life, I'm like, if you're 48 years old and you're not taking testosterone, what do you do?

00:22:18.000 You hate life?

00:22:20.000 You hate having energy?

00:22:21.000 Sort of throwing it away. 0.92

00:22:22.000 You like your immune system sucking? 0.95

00:22:24.000 Yeah, you want to feel better, look better. 0.93

00:22:25.000 Yeah.

00:22:26.000 Your body works better.

00:22:27.000 It's that simple.

00:22:28.000 It's all about optimizing what you already are.

00:22:31.000 And I think when people go beyond that, that's when it becomes like, okay, well then it's cheating.

00:22:35.000 I don't know why people think that, but that's what it is.

00:22:37.000 It's like, you know, if you say, well, I'm on TRT, nobody really cares, you know?

00:22:41.000 And the same commercials for TRT, I don't know if you noticed, but during the World Series, the same sport that they condemn for steroids, during the commercial break, the first commercial, do you have low T? You know?

00:22:52.000 That's the very first commercial that comes on.

00:22:54.000 I think that the issue with steroids also for a lot of people is they believe that it's going to get kids into them and that the kids are going to get sick or they're going to get hurt or they're going to commit suicide like the guy in the documentary had.

00:23:05.000 He was convinced that his kid who he had on Lexapro, who was a teenager, you know what I mean?

00:23:10.000 He was convinced it was steroids that made this kid commit suicide.

00:23:13.000 And steroids very well may have played a factor.

00:23:16.000 Abuse of anything is bad, whether it's abuse of alcohol.

00:23:19.000 There's a lot of different drugs, painkillers that you can abuse that'll make you suicidal.

00:23:24.000 Abuse of anything is bad.

00:23:26.000 So to blame it on one thing, that guy had this blanket thought in his mind.

00:23:30.000 He's just gonna throw a blanket over the problem with steroids.

00:23:33.000 I don't even think you can blame it on the Lexapro.

00:23:35.000 There's a deeper issue going on with the child that takes his own life.

00:23:39.000 He certainly had some issues, and he also didn't want to communicate with his parents these issues too much.

00:23:45.000 There's a lot more going on with that story that I put in the movie, and that was to protect...

00:23:50.000 The kid's gone, yeah.

00:23:53.000 Somebody loses a child, I don't want to go into their family history and all these other things that we found out.

00:24:00.000 But yeah, it's definitely hard.

00:24:02.000 Good for you for doing that.

00:24:03.000 And they gave his father a million dollars to go in front to continue this education, to continue lying to people, basically.

00:24:13.000 Well, that makes sense, because that's why he had this thought in his head.

00:24:16.000 Like, he wouldn't even consider the fact that his kid's on psychoactive drugs. 1.00

00:24:21.000 And those had nothing to do with the fact that his brain was fucked up. 1.00

00:24:25.000 Sure. 1.00

00:24:25.000 Like, come on, man. 1.00

00:24:26.000 You don't know.

00:24:27.000 Those drugs are dangerous to anybody.

00:24:31.000 They can be.

00:24:31.000 There's a hundred million people walking around on psych meds, and there's really no proof that they actually work.

00:24:36.000 There's really no scientific proof that they improve any sort of problem.

00:24:42.000 Is that true though?

00:24:43.000 Because they definitely do help some people.

00:24:45.000 I think they definitely help some people, but there's actually nothing.

00:24:48.000 You can look at, like I said, anecdotal evidence for anything.

00:24:52.000 I took this and I got bigger.

00:24:53.000 I took this and I got stronger.

00:24:55.000 Scientific proof?

00:24:56.000 No, because there's no real markers in the brain.

00:24:57.000 There's no test I can give you to see if you feel better.

00:25:00.000 Right, there's no depression test.

00:25:02.000 Exactly, yeah.

00:25:02.000 I think, yeah, that's the issue.

00:25:05.000 But there's a lot of evidence that SSRIs help improve mood, right?

00:25:10.000 And they do.

00:25:11.000 Yeah, yeah, but there's also, you know, while they improve mood in some people, a lot of people commit suicide on them because they are so low down.

00:25:19.000 Like, you'll see a person that's, like, severely, severely depressed. 0.99

00:25:22.000 They can't even get out of bed to kill themselves, and then they put them on SSRIs, and now they have just enough energy to, like, say, fuck it, you know? 1.00

00:25:31.000 Jesus Christ! 1.00

00:25:33.000 That's so crazy.

00:25:34.000 Also with steroids though, that kid, he just stopped cold turkey.

00:25:38.000 He stopped the steroids right away and then went on those other drugs.

00:25:42.000 But stopping him, as you mentioned earlier, like if you're 48 years old, you want to get the energy boost from him.

00:25:47.000 Just like coming off him actually puts you at a lower state than you ever were before.

00:25:52.000 So with that kid coming off him, his testosterone levels were probably low, his estrogen levels probably came up.

00:25:57.000 He's probably just insanely depressed.

00:25:58.000 That does get you depressed and that's a big issue with fighters and football players and people that have had a lot of head injuries.

00:26:05.000 Dr. Mark Gordon, who was in your documentary for a brief amount of time, I saw his face in there, he works with a lot of traumatic brain injury people and one of the things that he finds with them, they almost all have low testosterone.

00:26:15.000 And something about getting the pituitary gland rattled, whether it's through an IED or football collisions or head kicks, whatever the fuck it is, almost all those guys have low testosterone.

00:26:24.000 They're just like super... 1.00

00:26:25.000 It's almost like you're getting kicked in the balls. 0.98

00:26:26.000 You ever pose the question to this, like, you know, Nevada State Athletic Commission, you know, all these guys are getting pounded in the head in the UFC. They get punched a lot, they get kicked a lot. 0.99

00:26:39.000 Head trauma is an on-the-job injury, but you're not allowed to treat an on-the-job injury with something that works like human growth hormone.

00:26:46.000 You'll talk to Mark Gordon.

00:26:47.000 He'll tell you one of the best things they can do to treat these concussions and traumatic brain injuries is to supplement with human growth hormone.

00:26:54.000 So you can't treat those injuries.

00:26:56.000 You can get them, and if you're a normal everyday person, you can be treated, but you can't be treated if you're a fighter or if you're an athlete.

00:27:03.000 And there's a thing with fighters.

00:27:05.000 As well now, they're not allowing them to use IVs to rehydrate.

00:27:09.000 And the reason why is because IVs and use of IVs can mask some of the signs of steroids.

00:27:15.000 So something that was ultimately very beneficial, now you can't use because people can use it to cheat.

00:27:22.000 So even though it's just to rehydrate you, and even though they can prove that it's just rehydrating you, you can't use it because it could be something that you're doing because you're trying to cover up.

00:27:31.000 Probably healthier for the fighter like a day before to have all those electrolytes in them and everything in them, right?

00:27:36.000 I mean rather than fight, fight depleted.

00:27:39.000 Since they're cutting weight, yeah, that's the argument.

00:27:41.000 But there's some arguments, some people, I don't know, I haven't researched it, but there's some people that say that it's actually more effective to rehydrate orally. 0.99

00:27:49.000 I've heard that's bullshit. 0.96

00:27:50.000 I've heard that's true. 1.00

00:27:51.000 I don't know what's right.

00:27:52.000 I'd have to talk to an expert about that.

00:27:54.000 So do a Google article.

00:27:56.000 It's hard to be way on top of all that, though.

00:28:00.000 These fighters, they travel.

00:28:02.000 In powerlifting, we do the same thing.

00:28:04.000 We use IV bags to rehydrate, and guys will do 30-pound weight cuts and stuff like that.

00:28:09.000 So you do 30-pound weight cuts so that you compete at a lower level to powerlift?

00:28:13.000 Yeah, lighter weight class.

00:28:37.000 Right, right, right.

00:28:37.000 There should be.

00:28:38.000 If you can make the weight, you can fight.

00:28:39.000 You just have to make the weight 4 o'clock on Friday and then Saturday, you know, whenever your fight is, the fights don't start until 4. Do you think this IV thing will change the game?

00:28:48.000 I hope it does.

00:28:49.000 I also think the UFC probably is going to have to add more weight classes eventually because there's not enough weight classes.

00:28:55.000 There's some big gaps between like 185 and 205. That's a 20-pound weight class.

00:28:59.000 That's a giant gap.

00:29:00.000 Yeah.

00:29:01.000 You know, I think that for fighters that are like tweeners, you know, there's guys that are like a little bit too big for this weight, but a little bit too small for that weight, they could use a 195. I think every 10 pounds would be pretty reasonable.

00:29:10.000 Seems like it would be an advantage to actual, you know, to the fans and everything.

00:29:14.000 More champions.

00:29:16.000 More championship fights, more of everything.

00:29:18.000 And then also there could be some reasonable like champion versus champion, like 195 versus 205 is pretty reasonable. 0.94

00:29:25.000 Whereas like 185 versus 205, like man, that's a big fucking jump for those guys. 0.89

00:29:29.000 Absolutely, yeah. 0.51

00:29:30.000 I think to answer your question about steroids in the UFC, I think the real problem is what we said earlier, that the word steroid is tainted.

00:29:42.000 It's a dirty word.

00:29:43.000 But if it's as far as supplements, should supplements be legal?

00:29:48.000 Everybody says supplements are legal. 0.99

00:29:50.000 Fuck, we have Muscle Farm that sponsors the UFC. They sell a ton of shit that's supposed to help you recover and protein powders and all this jazz. 1.00

00:29:57.000 Think about creatine, absolutely clinically proven to enhance performance. 0.99

00:30:01.000 There's a lot of stuff that you can get that's legal.

00:30:04.000 Even caffeine.

00:30:05.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:30:06.000 It's all stuff that gives you a very slight bump, a very slight edge.

00:30:09.000 And then taken all together synergistically, it will supplement, like it says, your diet.

00:30:15.000 So if you have a diet where you're not getting enough stuff in it...

00:30:18.000 I was just reading this.

00:30:19.000 I posted something on Facebook the other day, and people went crazy because I posted this thing about fish oil and the effectiveness of fish oil not being really scientifically...

00:30:26.000 Proven.

00:30:27.000 It's like, if you eat fish twice a week, then you don't need it.

00:30:30.000 And everybody goes crazy.

00:30:31.000 No, I need it.

00:30:32.000 People are convinced.

00:30:33.000 The supplement industry is a $24 billion...

00:30:35.000 No, I need to burp up fish oil.

00:30:37.000 I'm convinced of that.

00:30:38.000 I need to have 20 pills a day.

00:30:39.000 It's a $24 billion industry, and people are convinced that they need these things.

00:30:43.000 There is some science behind fish oil and krill oil, though, especially the anti-inflammatory properties of it.

00:30:48.000 The anti-inflammatory at a high dose, yes.

00:30:50.000 Yeah, that's what I do.

00:30:51.000 I take a lot of fish oil.

00:30:52.000 It makes sense for that.

00:30:54.000 If you're trying to prevent heart disease and all these things like that, they're saying that the link isn't there, and if you eat fatty fish, you probably get enough in your diet.

00:31:04.000 Yeah, well, really good fish like salmon that's high in those healthy fats, everybody should eat that once or twice a week. 0.98

00:31:11.000 Have some fucking sushi. 0.99

00:31:13.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:31:13.000 I mean, I believe, you know, I'll read all this shit about supplements, right? 1.00

00:31:18.000 All this stuff. 0.98

00:31:19.000 I'll read, like, okay, this doesn't work, this barely works, and whatever.

00:31:21.000 And the next thing I do, I go open up my cabinet, and I take 20 pills. 0.92

00:31:26.000 Because, like, because it doesn't fucking work, I don't know.

00:31:28.000 I mean, it's like that placebo effect is really, really strong, and, you know, certain things I take, because I, oh, I heard this works for, you know, alpha lipoic acid, when you eat carbs, it'll help shuttle it in your muscles. 0.95

00:31:38.000 Well, do I know that that even works?

00:31:40.000 Like, I don't know.

00:31:40.000 Alpha-lipoic acid is supposed to be clinically proven, isn't it?

00:31:43.000 I think there's studies on alpha-lipoic acid.

00:31:45.000 Yeah, I'm sure.

00:31:45.000 There's studies on everything.

00:31:47.000 Then you get into the whole thing.

00:31:49.000 Oh, it's an antioxidant.

00:31:50.000 And then you're like, well, wait a second. 0.99

00:31:51.000 What the fuck's an antioxidant? 0.98

00:31:52.000 Why do I need it? 0.99

00:31:54.000 You forget even why you need it to a certain point.

00:31:56.000 Right.

00:31:57.000 Well, berries are like the best antioxidant, aren't they?

00:32:00.000 Blueberries and boysenberries.

00:32:01.000 And then they find out, there's studies that say that eating antioxidants in your diet doesn't really matter.

00:32:07.000 It doesn't translate into antioxidants in the bloodstream and all this stuff like that.

00:32:11.000 So you've got to look at it like, they say you need certain precursors to be able to digest these things. 0.93

00:32:16.000 It's too goddamn complicated. 0.91

00:32:18.000 You need to be your only ice cream. 0.99

00:32:19.000 It's too fucking complicated. 1.00

00:32:20.000 You need to be your own doctor. 0.99

00:32:21.000 You need to do your own research.

00:32:23.000 I find I get big benefits when I eat a lot of vegetables.

00:32:27.000 Absolutely.

00:32:27.000 I feel a big benefit when I drink like these kale shakes.

00:32:31.000 Oh no.

00:32:32.000 Get the man a kale salad.

00:32:34.000 I thought you were tough.

00:32:36.000 Dude, it's good stuff for you.

00:32:37.000 It's healthy.

00:32:37.000 No, he just makes fun of kale all the time.

00:32:39.000 I was making fun of one of my friends, because he's like, I went over here and had a kale salad, and he's super skinny.

00:32:43.000 I'm like, dude, a kale salad?

00:32:45.000 Come on, just make up a lie. 1.00

00:32:47.000 Say that you had a fucking 20-ounce ribeye. 1.00

00:32:48.000 Well, you can have both. 1.00

00:32:49.000 I just think, in general, that's the best way to go.

00:32:52.000 Like, you know, we need vitamins and minerals, and we need all these things in our diet.

00:32:58.000 Yeah.

00:32:59.000 And so, vegetables are probably the most abundant source of great nutrients.

00:33:03.000 Vegetables and fruits and things like that.

00:33:05.000 So, like, why wouldn't you eat them?

00:33:06.000 Like, it seems to make sense.

00:33:07.000 All I know is I feel different when I eat them. 0.98

00:33:09.000 When I have one of those kale shakes with giant clumps of fucking ginger in it and four cloves of garlic and an apple and celery. 0.98

00:33:15.000 It's amazing. 0.99

00:33:16.000 Cucumber. 1.00

00:33:16.000 You feel like fucking Superman. 1.00

00:33:18.000 You gotta choke it down. 1.00

00:33:19.000 It tastes like shit. 1.00

00:33:20.000 But when you're choking it down, once you get it in, you're like, whoo! 1.00

00:33:23.000 You feel like you had a double shot of espresso, but you don't feel like jittery. 0.99

00:33:28.000 You just feel like, ah, fucking yeah. 0.95

00:33:30.000 I remember talking to you about, it was kind of amazing, and it was kind of a good example for me, talking to you about, you were talking about going on the road and traveling, and you said, oh man, I need to find a Whole Foods. 0.99

00:33:40.000 I don't eat that processed shit.

00:33:42.000 To me, that was a real eye-opener to find that somebody as busy as yourself goes out of their way to find good, healthy food. 1.00

00:33:49.000 It's important.

00:33:50.000 Yeah. 0.97

00:33:51.000 Well, it's probably more important almost for him because he's on a plane or in a car or some shit all the time. 0.89

00:33:55.000 Yeah. 0.95

00:33:56.000 You can only go so many.

00:33:57.000 I always bring vitamin packs.

00:33:59.000 I have those pure athlete packs I bring with me to supplement when I'm on the road.

00:34:03.000 I always make sure I eat a lot of salads.

00:34:05.000 I get salads before every meal.

00:34:08.000 Whatever I'm eating, I eat salads first. 1.00

00:34:10.000 But it's hard to find, you know, food that's not just full of garbage and bullshit. 0.99

00:34:16.000 Contaminated now it is, yeah. 0.99

00:34:16.000 Yeah, I mean, like, you go to Subway. 0.99

00:34:18.000 I mean, yeah, you get bread and there's meat in there and it kind of can fill you up. 0.98

00:34:22.000 But, like, you know, all the different preservatives and nonsense and processed bullshit. 1.00

00:34:26.000 Fucking kills your stomach. 1.00

00:34:27.000 All the gluten. 1.00

00:34:29.000 Chris's girlfriend eats tons of vegetables and she's super hot. 0.95

00:34:35.000 Maybe that's the formula.

00:34:36.000 We can all be super hot chicks. 1.00

00:34:39.000 If Bruce Jenner had only known about this.

00:34:43.000 The key, like you said, is good nutrition.

00:34:46.000 Good solid things in your diet.

00:34:49.000 I think when you're dealing with things like UFC fighters, you're dealing with a level of performance that they're requiring of their body that's so extreme.

00:34:57.000 Because even boxers, like, the average boxer, they do their boxing workout, they'll spar a couple of times a week depending upon the philosophy of the camp, and in the morning they usually run.

00:35:07.000 Like, maybe they'll have a strength and conditioning session instead of a run, but they're doing two workouts a day and one of them is pretty mild.

00:35:13.000 It's not that big a deal.

00:35:15.000 So, they're, you know, they can get through a six to eight week camp, and most likely, they never pull out of fights.

00:35:21.000 It's very rare that a championship fight, like, Manny Pacquiao almost pulled out of Floyd Mayweather fight because he apparently tore his labrum, but he wound up fighting, and now there's a lawsuit because he pushed through the injury.

00:35:31.000 You hear about all that?

00:35:32.000 No, I didn't hear anything.

00:35:33.000 Five different people are suing him because they bet a lot of money on him. 0.99

00:35:35.000 They didn't know that his right shoulder was fucked up. 0.96

00:35:37.000 He had surgery right after the fight. 0.98

00:35:39.000 Wow.

00:35:39.000 But...

00:35:40.000 For the UFC, fucking 20% of the fights fall apart, at least. 0.99

00:35:44.000 And guys fight injured all the time. 0.98

00:35:47.000 Even Conor McGregor, when he fought against Chad Mendes after Aldo pulled out of the fight, McGregor had been getting stem cell shots in his knee. 0.99

00:35:53.000 He was fucked. 0.98

00:35:54.000 He didn't wrestle the entire camp, because he was thinking there's no way. 1.00

00:35:58.000 He was like, I can't.

00:35:58.000 It'll fall apart.

00:35:59.000 It was a good fight.

00:36:00.000 Great fight.

00:36:01.000 It's got to be the toughest sport.

00:36:02.000 I mean, I say that.

00:36:03.000 I think so.

00:36:03.000 People go like, oh, basketball players are the best athletes, or these guys are the best athletes.

00:36:07.000 I just think that...

00:36:08.000 The amount of, maybe genetically basketball, you know, but the amount of effort it takes to step into the octagon, the amount of mental focus, it's like, to me that's amazing.

00:36:18.000 It's like truly baffled by it.

00:36:20.000 Basketball, I think, has the best six foot six athletes. 0.82

00:36:24.000 Yeah.

00:36:25.000 Well, fighting is not made up.

00:36:27.000 It's something that is like part of us.

00:36:29.000 Everything else is made up.

00:36:30.000 Football, basketball, baseball.

00:36:32.000 Made up sports, you know?

00:36:33.000 When it came along, we were like, this is the only sport to me that makes sense.

00:36:36.000 You know, like, it really makes sense.

00:36:38.000 But the movements and the art are all made up.

00:36:40.000 Yeah, of course.

00:36:40.000 So we had to figure out what's the most effective way of striking and moving and grappling.

00:36:44.000 Yeah, how do I fuck someone up the fastest? 0.63

00:36:45.000 Yeah. 0.76

00:36:46.000 I mean, all of that is where the sport lies.

00:36:48.000 But I think you're right about the level of athlete. 0.99

00:36:50.000 When you see the guys that play for the NFL, I mean, those are fucking super freaks. 0.99

00:36:54.000 Yeah, well, those motherfuckers will be coming to the UFC soon, I'm sure. 1.00

00:36:57.000 Well, if the money becomes right... 0.99

00:36:59.000 Well, that's Jon Jones.

00:37:00.000 Jon Jones could have probably opted to go and play in the NFL. 100%.

00:37:03.000 100%.

00:37:04.000 His brothers both do.

00:37:05.000 He could have.

00:37:06.000 What's crazy is he's not even the toughest one in his family. 1.00

00:37:09.000 Both his brothers say they kick his ass. 1.00

00:37:11.000 His younger brother and his older brother. 1.00

00:37:13.000 That's crazy. 1.00

00:37:14.000 Fucked. 1.00

00:37:14.000 What kind of a fucking family is that? 1.00

00:37:16.000 One of the guys got drafted. 1.00

00:37:17.000 One of his brothers got drafted. 0.99

00:37:18.000 I saw them all jumping on each other and shit. 1.00

00:37:20.000 They're all kicking the shit out of each other. 1.00

00:37:22.000 I was like, Jesus Christ, a lot of shit must have got broken in that house. 1.00

00:37:24.000 Oh, yeah. 0.99

00:37:25.000 I think that's why it happened.

00:37:27.000 And that's why he came out so badass.

00:37:28.000 I'm not afraid of anything.

00:37:29.000 Talk about genetics.

00:37:30.000 I mean, like that family, the Manning family, like there's these families are just incredible.

00:37:34.000 Yeah.

00:37:35.000 Genetics, and that goes a long way.

00:37:36.000 Yeah.

00:37:36.000 Oh, 100%.

00:37:37.000 In everything we're talking about.

00:37:38.000 You know Matt Hughes, former UFC and Baltimore champion?

00:37:41.000 His brother's a twin.

00:37:42.000 Looks exactly like him. 0.97

00:37:44.000 Their entire lives, they beat the fuck out of each other. 0.99

00:37:46.000 So, of course, he gets to the UFC with his fucking steely-eyed gaze. 0.99

00:37:49.000 He's used to facing himself, literally. 0.99

00:37:52.000 Like a mirror version of him beating the fuck out of him his whole life.

00:37:56.000 They're just smashing each other, running through walls like Juggernaut. 0.93

00:38:00.000 The ultimate sparring partner.

00:38:01.000 That's why he used to pick people up and slam them.

00:38:03.000 Yeah, his brother's bigger.

00:38:05.000 Wow, his brother's 265. Jesus Christ.

00:38:08.000 His brother's talking all kinds of shit that he would kick his brother's ass. 1.00

00:38:12.000 Well, I think John Jones could probably get up to that weight, right? 1.00

00:38:15.000 I mean, he's probably fighting his whole life, so...

00:38:17.000 Well, Chandler, I think, is a bigger guy.

00:38:19.000 He's one inch taller.

00:38:20.000 He has two brothers in the NFL, right?

00:38:21.000 Yeah, Arthur, too.

00:38:22.000 His brother Arthur's even bigger than Chandler.

00:38:24.000 His brother Arthur's more than 300 pounds.

00:38:26.000 That's a super athlete family.

00:38:28.000 His dad's a big dude, too.

00:38:30.000 His dad is just naturally very gifted.

00:38:34.000 It's taken a long time for the sport to evolve to where it is.

00:38:38.000 I'm interested to see what will happen with the female division. 0.97

00:38:41.000 Rhonda's just killing everybody, and she's obviously amazing, but I don't think the girls have caught up to where the guys are at.

00:38:47.000 No, not yet, but have you seen Joanna Jacek, the strawweight champion?

00:38:52.000 Dude.

00:38:53.000 You think Ronda's impressive? 1.00

00:38:54.000 This bitch is ruthless. 1.00

00:38:56.000 She's from Poland. 1.00

00:38:58.000 What does she weigh? 0.98

00:38:59.000 115. Six-time world Muay Thai champion.

00:39:02.000 That was a fight companion one, right?

00:39:04.000 We watched that girl get busted up. 1.00

00:39:06.000 Jessica Panay.

00:39:07.000 Oh my god, dude. 0.99

00:39:08.000 She's the ugliest... 1.00

00:39:09.000 Female fight I've ever seen in my life. 1.00

00:39:11.000 This girl's nose was smashed, a giant gash across her nose, and this Joanna chick from Poland was just beating the fuck out of her, literally. 1.00

00:39:20.000 To the point where you're watching and saying, please stop this fight.

00:39:23.000 This fight is a terrible mismatch.

00:39:26.000 That chick is lethal. 1.00

00:39:27.000 Because when Rhonda beats chicks up, she knocked out Betch with one punch, and most of the time she flips chicks on their back and armbars them in the first round. 1.00

00:39:36.000 This bitch beats the fuck out of chicks for like four rounds. 1.00

00:39:39.000 That's gotta be cool calling that stuff because I saw your excitement and it was like so genuine. 1.00

00:39:44.000 You know, you're so pumped to call that fight.

00:39:47.000 Oh, the Ronda fight?

00:39:48.000 Yeah, you're like pumped.

00:39:49.000 You can feel it though when you watch it.

00:39:52.000 It was a piece of history, I felt.

00:39:54.000 It felt like...

00:39:56.000 I feel like where she's at right now, it's just so strange and rare.

00:39:59.000 It's like, it's not just calling a fight.

00:40:01.000 It's like, I feel like I'm calling a piece of, like, human history.

00:40:05.000 Yeah, it's like that modern-day Mike Tyson.

00:40:06.000 Yeah, she's like a real Charlie's Angels character. 0.77

00:40:09.000 Yeah. 0.93

00:40:10.000 Like, there's never been, like, a hot chick that actually can fuck up a lot of dudes. 1.00

00:40:14.000 Yeah, it's like there's been fake in a movie. 0.88

00:40:15.000 Okay, here's Wonder Woman. 0.95

00:40:16.000 Ching-ching! 0.97

00:40:17.000 You know, it's like... 0.99

00:40:17.000 Yeah, like if someone was pounding on your door at like 2 o'clock in the morning, you're like, what the fuck? 0.99

00:40:21.000 And you open up the door and it was Ronda Rousey angry, you'd be like, oh shit. 1.00

00:40:25.000 Your heart would drop. 1.00

00:40:26.000 You're like, this bitch is gonna beat my ass right now. 1.00

00:40:29.000 Yeah, I was like farting in my sleep or something. 1.00

00:40:31.000 If she was outside, she could, you know, and she'd break in your house, she could kick your ass. 1.00

00:40:36.000 Like, that's real. 1.00

00:40:37.000 Man, her confidence is through the roof.

00:40:38.000 I just saw something today where she's like, can you beat Floyd Mayweather in a fight or whatever?

00:40:43.000 She's like, yeah, in a no-rules fight, I could beat anybody. 1.00

00:40:46.000 Well, she said, I'm not in a boxing match.

00:40:48.000 She's like, he's a boxer.

00:40:49.000 I'm sure he would beat me in a boxing match.

00:40:51.000 But I don't have matches.

00:40:53.000 I have fights.

00:40:54.000 And she's just letting him know.

00:40:56.000 She's a badass, man. 1.00

00:40:57.000 She got a hold of him.

00:40:58.000 He's going flying.

00:40:59.000 That's for sure.

00:41:00.000 There's no way he's gonna be able to understand what she's doing.

00:41:02.000 No.

00:41:02.000 If he tied up with her, he'd have so much to think about.

00:41:06.000 I'm sure she trains with guys all the time.

00:41:08.000 A hundred percent.

00:41:08.000 I've seen her.

00:41:09.000 I've been there in the gym with her flipping guys. 1.00

00:41:11.000 I've seen her tap guys.

00:41:12.000 I've seen it with my own eyes.

00:41:13.000 Tap good guys. 0.72

00:41:14.000 Get them in arm bars.

00:41:15.000 There's a video of her with Luke Rockwell.

00:41:17.000 They're like, oh, I wasn't trying. 0.99

00:41:18.000 No, they're fucking trying. 0.98

00:41:19.000 There's a video with her with Luke Rockhold, and, you know, Luke lets her get into a position, but she finishes him. 1.00

00:41:24.000 You know, Luke Rockhold's a fucking giant dude. 0.99

00:41:27.000 Yeah, he's big. 0.99

00:41:27.000 He fights at 185, cuts a lot of weight to get down there, and he's a stud. 0.99

00:41:30.000 He's two-something, yeah.

00:41:30.000 He's strong.

00:41:31.000 He's a stud, and she finished him with an arm bar. 0.84

00:41:33.000 I'm like, whoa.

00:41:34.000 It's not even embarrassing. 0.99

00:41:35.000 She's the fucking best. 1.00

00:41:36.000 She's pretty goddamn wicked. 1.00

00:41:38.000 But there's going to be more girls like her. 1.00

00:41:40.000 What about steroids in that division?

00:41:41.000 That's the issue.

00:41:42.000 You know, they talk about Cyborg.

00:41:44.000 Yeah, that's the issue.

00:41:45.000 You know, you got guys, like, I know you talk about it a lot in your podcast, you get into steroids here and there.

00:41:50.000 And, you know, a lot of guys don't even look like they're doing it.

00:41:54.000 Like Gilbert Melendez or Hoist Gracie.

00:41:56.000 You know, it's like you can't tell anymore.

00:41:58.000 Well, Hoist actually did look like he was doing it when he got popped.

00:42:00.000 When he got popped, we were there for that fight, and I was there with my friend Eddie, Eddie Bravo, and Eddie was like, dude, when was the last time you saw Hoist with traps?

00:42:07.000 Like, he had traps!

00:42:08.000 Like, he was pretty jacked, and he was way heavier than normal.

00:42:11.000 He was like, he usually was around 170-something.

00:42:13.000 He was well over 200 pounds.

00:42:15.000 But I think because the benefit of steroids isn't just with weightlifting.

00:42:18.000 It's like overall recovery, overall energy and health that a lot of people just take.

00:42:25.000 Probably a little growth hormone, a little test, a little EPO. Yes, 100%.

00:42:30.000 I think the EPO is a big thing, too.

00:42:31.000 The vibrancy, just the having energy, just having enthusiasm.

00:42:36.000 They don't test for EPO, do they?

00:42:37.000 Oh, yes, they do.

00:42:38.000 They do now?

00:42:39.000 Ali Bagutinov got popped for it when he fought against Mighty Mouse Johnson for the flyweight title, and he's still suspended because of that.

00:42:45.000 Wow.

00:42:46.000 Yeah, but there's guys who fought on it.

00:42:47.000 Because I know that EPO test is pretty, it's a little wishy-washy.

00:42:51.000 When we did Bigger, Stronger, Faster, we looked heavily into the EPO test, and there's a guy that came up with a definitive EPO test.

00:42:58.000 Definitive like just either you're on it or you're not Synthetically and the he got a letter from the Olympic Committee saying from the US Olympic USOC saying we can't use your test because we'll be at an unfair You know will be it'll be unfair to the Americans because the other foreign countries are Relying on a loosey-goosey test.

00:43:21.000 Yeah, exactly That's hilarious.

00:43:22.000 So what they're saying is we're going to have to allow a certain amount of cheating to win.

00:43:27.000 Exactly.

00:43:28.000 That's really what they're saying.

00:43:28.000 Well, we have to be able to cheat just as much as the rest of them.

00:43:31.000 If you look at the, you know when they do these testosterone ratios, like 99.9% of human beings should be at a 1 to 1 ratio, epitestosterone to testosterone kind of thing.

00:43:42.000 And they allow it to be like 4 to 1 or 6 to 1. They used to allow 6. Now they allow 4. Yeah, now they allow 4, right?

00:43:47.000 So you can take a little bit and be under the radar.

00:43:49.000 We've had guys pop at like 50 to 1. Yeah.

00:43:53.000 I remember when I was doing...

00:43:54.000 That's awesome.

00:43:56.000 That's hilarious.

00:43:57.000 They're like gorillas.

00:43:58.000 I want to see a non-tested UFC and have the guys weigh like over 300 pounds.

00:44:04.000 They go one minute on and five minutes off.

00:44:07.000 Yeah, there you go. 1.00

00:44:08.000 And just let them just kill each other. 1.00

00:44:10.000 Just let him just fucking slug it out. 1.00

00:44:13.000 I like the one minute on, five minutes on. 0.99

00:44:14.000 And also, you can't train.

00:44:16.000 That's the other thing.

00:44:16.000 You can't train for fighting, because that's an unfair advantage, too.

00:44:19.000 Then you know how to fight, and it ruins the fun.

00:44:21.000 Well, the other person's training, too, so it's not an unfair advantage.

00:44:24.000 Well, you can lift weights.

00:44:25.000 That's about it.

00:44:26.000 That's it.

00:44:26.000 Just lifting.

00:44:27.000 I think that there's a benefit to being a certain weight, but there's a negative effect when you get over a certain weight.

00:44:35.000 And I think 240 is around the right weight.

00:44:37.000 I think how lean you are is probably a big thing, too.

00:44:44.000 I think once you get under 10%, I think is when you start to get in trouble, unless you're used to that, unless your body's always under 10%, then you could probably operate at that body, being that lean for a while, you know?

00:44:55.000 I just think if guys have good defensive skills and they can avoid the bum rush for the first couple rounds, guys who are like over 240, they have a real hard time getting into the third, fourth, and fifth rounds.

00:45:05.000 It's just too much mass to carry around.

00:45:07.000 The bones and the muscle and all the blood.

00:45:09.000 It hurts being that big.

00:45:10.000 Yeah, the oxygen requirements.

00:45:12.000 So I think a guy like Cain Velasquez is always about 240. He's known for his spectacular cardio.

00:45:18.000 Fabricio Verdum, same thing.

00:45:19.000 Somewhere in the 230s.

00:45:21.000 That seems to be the right way.

00:45:22.000 Yeah, that was a shocking fight, huh?

00:45:24.000 Yeah, it was crazy. 1.00

00:45:25.000 Kane fucked up. 0.99

00:45:26.000 I mean, Kane is known for his cardio, so I think he just got a little cocky and decided not to go to Mexico City. 0.99

00:45:31.000 But Mexico City is so...

00:45:33.000 I can't believe how high it is.

00:45:34.000 7,000 plus feet above altitude.

00:45:37.000 Did you have trouble breathing now?

00:45:38.000 I did. 0.99

00:45:38.000 I worked out in the gym with a fucking elliptical machine that was breathing heavy. 0.99

00:45:41.000 That's awesome. 0.99

00:45:41.000 I was like, I can't believe these guys are going to fight. 0.99

00:45:43.000 But Fabrizio was real smart.

00:45:45.000 He moved to a place that's 1,000 feet above that for like a month and a half.

00:45:50.000 And Kane was only there for two weeks.

00:45:51.000 And he's improved.

00:45:53.000 Fabricio, I see him all the time at Gold's Gym.

00:45:56.000 He's improved vastly every step of the way, which is nice to see, too.

00:46:01.000 Well, he was such a high-level jiu-jitsu guy.

00:46:03.000 He was one of the best jiu-jitsu fighters in the world.

00:46:05.000 And to get that good at jiu-jitsu, you have to have an intense mind for learning.

00:46:09.000 And so he just took that and applied it to boxing and kickboxing. 0.99

00:46:13.000 Once he figured that out, everybody was fucked. 1.00

00:46:16.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:46:16.000 Yeah, he's dangerous. 1.00

00:46:17.000 You don't want to go to the ground with that dude.

00:46:18.000 Yeah, he's beat some awesome fighters.

00:46:20.000 Yeah.

00:46:21.000 He beat Fedor Mayenko, the first guy, right?

00:46:22.000 He's the first guy to submit Fedor, the first guy to submit Kane. 0.64

00:46:25.000 You know, that's a pretty goddamn spectacular resume.

00:46:28.000 All he has to do is beat a few more guys, and he is arguably one of the greatest heavyweights, if not the greatest of all time. 0.90

00:46:34.000 Sure.

00:46:34.000 It's interesting you bring up those two fighters.

00:46:36.000 It makes me kind of think like maybe there's a upper weight limit of muscle mass that you can carry around because like neither one of those guys is real lean.

00:46:43.000 So maybe around a 200 pound mark is probably almost like the cutoff.

00:46:46.000 If you start being more jacked than that, maybe you can't sustain it for three rounds.

00:46:50.000 Yeah, I think it's a matter of durability.

00:46:52.000 Like, you want to be big enough so that you can take shots, but you can't be too big because you just can't carry it.

00:46:58.000 Especially a guy like Kane.

00:47:00.000 Although Coleman and Kerr were kind of the exception, I guess.

00:47:03.000 Yeah, but they were on everything. 1.00

00:47:05.000 They were on bathtubs full of shit. 1.00

00:47:08.000 Brock Lesnar. 1.00

00:47:09.000 Animal.

00:47:09.000 Just an animal.

00:47:10.000 He's such a freak of nature.

00:47:12.000 I still maintain to this day that if somebody got a hold of Brock Lesnar early on and said, listen to me, and you can be the best heavyweight fighter ever, like a Firas Zahabi or a Matt Hume, like someone who's a real expert in MMA, who Brock listened to, And just said,

00:47:27.000 look, this is what we're going to do.

00:47:28.000 The first thing we're going to do is we're going to do nothing but striking for like a couple of years.

00:47:32.000 And you're not going to get hit.

00:47:34.000 I don't want you to develop any bad habits.

00:47:36.000 You're not hitting anybody either.

00:47:37.000 All you're going to do is you're going to do movement with people.

00:47:40.000 You're going to do pad work.

00:47:42.000 You're going to do technique work. 1.00

00:47:43.000 And we're going to have that shit built into your neurons. 0.99

00:47:46.000 And we're going to have all these movements. 0.99

00:47:49.000 They're going to be a part of your natural movement.

00:47:51.000 And if you're willing to do that, you're going to develop a base.

00:47:54.000 And that base will translate into success.

00:47:57.000 But otherwise, you're going to be scared of getting hit.

00:47:59.000 And that's what his problem always was.

00:48:01.000 He would always get tagged by someone like Shane Carwin or Alistair Overeem.

00:48:05.000 And you could see, he didn't have enough time in there.

00:48:07.000 He doesn't like it either.

00:48:09.000 You've got to spar with guys who barely touch you.

00:48:11.000 They're not hurting you.

00:48:13.000 And you don't hurt them.

00:48:14.000 And in the beginning, that's the most critical thing.

00:48:16.000 Because otherwise, you're going to miss giant chunks of the development. 0.99

00:48:19.000 Because you just get a fucking swing. 0.98

00:48:21.000 It was amazing that he was able to get to where he did during all those years of WWE first. 1.00

00:48:28.000 What a fucking mutant. 0.99

00:48:30.000 What if he had just, like you said, gone straight in? 1.00

00:48:33.000 Oh, he would have been the best ever. 0.99

00:48:34.000 But he's still a heavyweight champion in the fucking world. 0.98

00:48:36.000 He still knocked out Randy Couture. 0.99

00:48:38.000 He's a stud. 0.98

00:48:39.000 Beat the shit out of Frank Mir. 0.99

00:48:40.000 He's a stud. 0.99

00:48:41.000 Yeah, I love watching him.

00:48:43.000 I was kind of bummed but happy when he decided to quit MMA. Recently, he had a moment where he was trying to figure out whether he was going to keep going with the WWE or give one more shot at the UFC. And I know he talked to Dana.

00:48:54.000 He talked to the UFC. He was really thinking about it.

00:48:57.000 But ultimately, he decided for himself.

00:48:58.000 You don't want to see him go down a bad path of being the guy that gets...

00:49:02.000 Concussions, too.

00:49:03.000 I think that was a big one.

00:49:04.000 He was worried about post-concussion syndrome.

00:49:07.000 Like Joseph Valtellini, who's the glory welterweight champion, he just stepped down and relinquished his title because of concussions. 0.99

00:49:13.000 Concussions in MMA are a big fucking issue. 0.97

00:49:16.000 You don't hear about it. 0.99

00:49:17.000 How do you feel about, like, I watch a lot of fights where, you know, you want to see them go on.

00:49:22.000 You just want to see these, you know, some guys will get pounded.

00:49:25.000 Yeah, don't stop it, don't stop it.

00:49:25.000 Some guys will get pounded.

00:49:27.000 And come back.

00:49:28.000 And they come right back, and it's like, oh, well, good thing they didn't call it, you know?

00:49:32.000 Great job, Herb Dean, or whoever the ref is.

00:49:34.000 And then other times, guys get pounded, and they get pounded ten times in a row, and then they're out.

00:49:38.000 And then it's like, well, did they need the ten shots to be out, you know?

00:49:42.000 It's...

00:50:02.000 Mm-hmm.

00:50:05.000 Yeah.

00:50:06.000 How did you get into that?

00:50:07.000 Like, were you fighting before?

00:50:09.000 Way before.

00:50:10.000 You were fighting way before you had a really big interest in it.

00:50:14.000 Yeah.

00:50:15.000 Well, I had stopped competing in, like, 1988. That's when I got into comedy.

00:50:21.000 And maybe 89 was probably, like, my last kickboxing fights.

00:50:25.000 And then I went into stand-up, and then I just trained recreationally.

00:50:30.000 Until, like, around 93, the UFC came around.

00:50:32.000 I think I saw the first tape.

00:50:34.000 I saw a tape of it at 94. Yeah.

00:50:36.000 And then I was like, holy shit, what is this jiu-jitsu stuff? 0.98

00:50:39.000 Yeah, we were there from day one, too. 1.00

00:50:40.000 Fuck. 1.00

00:50:40.000 We fucking loved it. 1.00

00:50:41.000 I watched that first pay-per-view live. 0.99

00:50:42.000 I remember that.

00:50:43.000 It was, like, crazy to watch.

00:50:44.000 Yeah, I didn't get a chance.

00:50:45.000 I saw it on tape.

00:50:46.000 Someone talked about it at the gym, and I was like, what is going on?

00:50:49.000 We couldn't believe it.

00:50:50.000 We saw the commercial for it.

00:50:52.000 We saw the commercial for it.

00:50:53.000 I'm like, oh, my God.

00:50:54.000 I was crazy back in the day.

00:50:55.000 And remember, it used to be in the Faces of Death section at the Video Star?

00:50:58.000 Yeah, yeah. 1.00

00:50:59.000 All the crazy shit. 0.99

00:51:00.000 But it got banned for like a long time. 1.00

00:51:01.000 It went completely away.

00:51:03.000 Well, that's when I came in.

00:51:04.000 I came in while I was banned.

00:51:06.000 I started working in 97. So I started doing the post-fight interviews in 97 while I was on the sitcom, news radio.

00:51:13.000 I would go on the weekends, fly off to fucking bumfuck Alabama. 0.97

00:51:16.000 There's a great book, Blood in the Cage, that outlines all that stuff. 0.99

00:51:20.000 And it outlines how Dana got into it, and they went to an event, and he was like, this just sucks.

00:51:25.000 They don't even sell t-shirts.

00:51:26.000 What's going on?

00:51:27.000 We need to take this over.

00:51:28.000 That kind of thing.

00:51:29.000 It's really cool.

00:51:30.000 Yeah, they bought it in 2001, I think.

00:51:33.000 And I came in in 2002 and started doing the commentary.

00:51:37.000 And remember, when I got in trouble before The Ultimate Fighter, I actually worked for WWE. And Vince McMahon...

00:51:45.000 I remember being in limbo with Vince McMahon being like, dude, it's like they're trying to sell it.

00:51:49.000 You should buy it.

00:51:50.000 And he was like, I don't know.

00:51:52.000 Then years later, they tried to unsuccessfully start some sort of MMA thing.

00:51:57.000 Vince McMahon did?

00:51:59.000 Yeah, they tried to.

00:52:01.000 They never got off the ground.

00:52:02.000 Oh, they were planning on it?

00:52:04.000 Yeah, what happened, though, was Vince, and he had a legitimate concern.

00:52:07.000 He's like, I don't want...

00:52:08.000 It'll take the legitimacy out of it, you know, like if he owned something like that.

00:52:11.000 They might think it's fixed.

00:52:12.000 They'll think it's fake.

00:52:13.000 Well, they didn't think that about the XFL. I guess not, yeah.

00:52:17.000 I think the real problem is the talent pool.

00:52:19.000 There's just not that many good fighters.

00:52:21.000 The UFC owns the contracts for 500 fighters, and they're all the best fighters.

00:52:26.000 There's not one fighter in any weight class outside the UFC that you can make a rational argument that's the best fighter in that weight class.

00:52:32.000 So once they have that, It's like, boy, it's hard to sell a league when you know the UFC. Like, this is our 170-pound world champion.

00:52:40.000 Like, well, is that really? 0.99

00:52:42.000 Because everybody knows Robbie Lawler is the fucking world champion. 0.98

00:52:44.000 It's hard for me to watch any sort of competition. 0.99

00:52:47.000 Yeah.

00:52:47.000 It's hard for me, you know.

00:52:49.000 I get it.

00:52:50.000 Well, there's real good fights in other organizations.

00:52:53.000 World Series of Fighting has some good fights.

00:52:56.000 Bellator has some good fights.

00:52:57.000 But it's just going to be real hard for them to build stars.

00:53:01.000 Because everybody, like a kid coming up, wants to be the best.

00:53:06.000 If he wants to be the best, 135 pounder, he wants to fight TJ Dillashaw.

00:53:09.000 He doesn't want to fight Marty McFuckface from Mike's Hardcore Fighting Championship.

00:53:14.000 You know what I mean?

00:53:15.000 You just want to be the best.

00:53:17.000 So they're always going to recruit the best guys.

00:53:19.000 They're ahead of the game.

00:53:20.000 It's not a lockdown game.

00:53:22.000 Especially if Bellator signs Fedor and maybe somebody gets Gina Carano. 1.00

00:53:27.000 Shit can get weird. 0.99

00:53:28.000 Yeah, I feel like it's all the same with wrestling, though. 0.99

00:53:31.000 If you look at WWE, they've had a monopoly for a while.

00:53:34.000 Then WCW came along and they started getting popular.

00:53:37.000 But now the other league, TNA, it's so lame. 0.97

00:53:42.000 Nobody really gives a fuck about it at all. 0.91

00:53:45.000 And that's the thing, in the end, UFC will be around forever. 0.92

00:53:48.000 It's like the NFL. Unless they sell it.

00:53:50.000 They could get to a point where they're like, look, let's just get the fuck out of here.

00:53:54.000 This is too much work. 0.99

00:53:56.000 Killing us.

00:53:56.000 Because Dana works all day long, every day.

00:53:59.000 He's constantly flying all over the world, and Lorenzo's doing the same thing.

00:54:03.000 It's a lot of work.

00:54:04.000 It's not easy doing what those guys are doing.

00:54:06.000 And when they're gone, everybody's going to miss them.

00:54:08.000 People complain about the UFC, but when they're gone, you realize the alternative...

00:54:12.000 They've created an industry. 1.00

00:54:13.000 People are mad about stupid uniforms. 1.00

00:54:16.000 I mean, that's the last thing to get mad about. 1.00

00:54:17.000 Well, they have some points.

00:54:19.000 I'm on the fighter side when it comes to that.

00:54:21.000 With the sponsorships?

00:54:23.000 Yeah.

00:54:24.000 They lose too much money.

00:54:26.000 I was lucky enough to get in on the last thing before Reebok took over with...

00:54:32.000 With one of the fighters, and it was pretty cool.

00:54:34.000 It's cool to see the logo up there and all that stuff.

00:54:36.000 It was nice.

00:54:36.000 Well, that's a big part of what the fighters get, is what you would say, like, ego sponsorships.

00:54:41.000 Right.

00:54:42.000 Like, Dynamic Fastener is on, like, so many...

00:54:44.000 I don't even know what that is.

00:54:45.000 Right.

00:54:45.000 But it's on so many different t-shirts.

00:54:47.000 How do you...

00:54:48.000 Now, Reebok said that there...

00:54:50.000 I guess it seems like over the...

00:54:53.000 Spread over all the fighters, they'll make more money.

00:54:56.000 The younger fighters, or...

00:54:57.000 Is that just not true?

00:54:58.000 I don't think it's true.

00:54:59.000 Yeah.

00:55:00.000 No, I don't think it's true.

00:55:01.000 I think maybe if the deal changes or they start to make more money and, you know, it becomes something bigger than what it is right now.

00:55:07.000 But if you look at it right now, Tim Kennedy said it best recently.

00:55:10.000 He said on one Strikeforce card he made more money in sponsorships than the Reebok paid out for the entire last UFC card from Brazil.

00:55:19.000 Yeah, gotcha.

00:55:19.000 Wow.

00:55:20.000 So all those people are wearing Reebok gear.

00:55:21.000 He made more money from one fight in Strikeforce!

00:55:24.000 Yeah.

00:55:26.000 Yeah, it looked like Reebok got a pretty good deal, from what I heard.

00:55:29.000 I don't think it's a good deal.

00:55:31.000 No, I mean for Reebok.

00:55:32.000 No, I don't think it's a good deal for Reebok, is what I'm saying.

00:55:34.000 Oh, okay.

00:55:35.000 Because I think it gives them a bad name, in some ways.

00:55:37.000 Yeah, yeah, I understand.

00:55:38.000 All these people complaining about it.

00:55:40.000 Yeah, where is Tap Out?

00:55:41.000 Well, no, no, no, it's not Tap Out.

00:55:43.000 But all these people are complaining, like Tim Kennedy complaining, Stitch Duran complaining, he gets fired, all these fighters are complaining, lots of fighters are complaining, Brendan Shaw complaining, all these different guys complained.

00:55:54.000 That's all negative press towards their brand.

00:55:56.000 I mean, they're not a person, right?

00:55:58.000 They're a brand.

00:55:59.000 If you associate that brand, you can't fire the head guy and change the brand.

00:56:04.000 The brand's still the brand.

00:56:05.000 Right.

00:56:05.000 You know, and everybody's gonna associate that brand with it.

00:56:08.000 Is it a big-name brand?

00:56:09.000 Yeah.

00:56:09.000 Is it good to see a big-name brand attached to a sport like the UFC? Absolutely!

00:56:15.000 I feel like whenever you're in a situation where the fighters are going to lose money, that's always the number one concern that people have.

00:56:23.000 Everybody knows the window of opportunity for a fighter is extremely small.

00:56:26.000 Should have a few years to make some money.

00:56:28.000 So when you take some of that money away from them, in favor of prestige, the prestige, which is inarguable, Reebok's a huge brand.

00:56:37.000 It's great to be in business with a big brand.

00:56:39.000 But if it costs fighters money, boy...

00:56:41.000 That's going to be hot.

00:56:42.000 You can't not see that.

00:56:44.000 It's not like you're going to put blinders on and ignore that.

00:56:46.000 You have to address that.

00:56:47.000 And social media is a huge thing, so the fighters are going to be heard.

00:56:50.000 The hugest. 0.59

00:56:51.000 It's bigger than anything, because if you bitch about something on Twitter and someone says, holy shit, Chris Bell just went off about that, and then some newspaper gets a hold of it, and then boom, it goes viral on Facebook, and people repost it and tweet it. 0.95

00:57:04.000 We live in a different world. 0.97

00:57:05.000 And so anytime someone like Stitch gets fired because he said something about, hey, Reebok, this deal kind of sucks for me because now I'm not making as much money, so they fire him, and then all of a sudden, boom, that becomes a way bigger issue than it was just with him saying that.

00:57:19.000 If he just said that and that was it, it would have been a small issue.

00:57:22.000 But him saying that and then getting fired for it, it compounds the issue.

00:57:26.000 People react quickly, too.

00:57:28.000 Social media makes everything go a lot faster.

00:57:31.000 Yeah, they start wearing Nikes.

00:57:32.000 They start wearing Nikes.

00:57:33.000 I mean, I'm not a business person. 0.99

00:57:36.000 If I was running the UFC, it would have been bankrupt a long fucking time ago.

00:57:41.000 But I think it's real dangerous looking at the bright side of deals like this. 0.94

00:57:48.000 Right.

00:57:48.000 Like, let's look at the bright side.

00:57:50.000 Let's look at the worst case scenario.

00:57:52.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:57:52.000 What's the worst case scenario?

00:57:54.000 Everybody's going to hate Reebok.

00:57:55.000 That's the worst case scenario.

00:57:56.000 People are going to be mad at the UFC and mad at Reebok.

00:57:58.000 So I go, ooh, I don't know, man.

00:58:00.000 Yeah, I was able to sponsor Joseph Benavidez, and that was pretty cool.

00:58:03.000 Which company?

00:58:04.000 What is your company?

00:58:05.000 Slingshot.

00:58:06.000 The Slingshot that I had you throw on earlier.

00:58:09.000 Banged out some push-ups in.

00:58:11.000 Yeah, he's got this cool device that you slide.

00:58:14.000 It's like this heavy-duty rubber thing that you slide up to your biceps.

00:58:19.000 It actually gives you a bit of an assistance when doing push-ups or bench press or something like that.

00:58:24.000 It feels good, man.

00:58:25.000 I like it.

00:58:26.000 Where can people get this when they want to get this?

00:58:27.000 Howmuchyoubench.net?

00:58:29.000 Howmuchyoubench, yo. 1.00

00:58:30.000 There's the fucking plug. 0.99

00:58:31.000 Howmuchyoubench.net. 1.00

00:58:32.000 Don't you bench some retarded number, like 700 pounds? 1.00

00:58:35.000 My best bench press in competition, this is with a bench shirt, which is much more heavy duty than something like the Slingshot. 0.57

00:58:42.000 It's this supportive device that's crazy looking.

00:58:45.000 It looks like a straight jacket, but I did an 854 pound bench press in a 275 pound weight class.

00:58:52.000 And then without a bench shirt, my best bench press is 560 pounds in competition.

00:58:55.000 That's like a Harley Davidson, right?

00:58:58.000 How much do those weigh?

00:58:59.000 Those weigh like 800 pounds. 1.00

00:59:00.000 Fuck. 1.00

00:59:01.000 That's crazy. 1.00

00:59:01.000 That's a lot of goddamn weight, dude. 1.00

00:59:03.000 Yeah, I've been at it for a long time. 0.99

00:59:04.000 I started when I was 12. Two older brothers that are dicks that forced me to lift weights even though I was a pussy and I didn't fucking want to. 1.00

00:59:10.000 Now what are those bench shirts, those vests? 1.00

00:59:14.000 What do those things do?

00:59:16.000 It's like wearing a denim jacket backwards is what it's like.

00:59:19.000 Originally it was designed just to be protective and then people were like wait a second not only is it protective but I can lift more Wait with it.

00:59:27.000 And so then they started making them more and more extreme.

00:59:29.000 They used to be like one layer, then they started making two layers, and they started making them out of a pair of fucking jeans, and they started making them out of a canvas, and all kinds of weird different material.

00:59:37.000 And it got to the point where people revolted against that, and now everybody lifts raw.

00:59:42.000 Everybody lifts without the bench shirt.

00:59:42.000 A lot of people lift raw because you could say, oh, how much do you bench?

00:59:46.000 Oh, five...

00:59:47.000 And raw would just be with just wrist wraps on.

00:59:49.000 What did you do?

00:59:49.000 What did you do raw?

00:59:50.000 Five...

00:59:50.000 Five sixty.

00:59:51.000 Five sixty.

00:59:52.000 That's crazy that you can do 300 pounds more with one of those shirts on it.

00:59:54.000 Yeah, isn't that nuts?

00:59:55.000 That is nuts.

00:59:56.000 And a squat, too.

00:59:57.000 A squat was like 1,000 pounds.

00:59:59.000 Did a 1,080 squat and fell pretty bad with 1,085.

01:00:03.000 You fell? 1.00

01:00:04.000 I fucking fell. 0.99

01:00:05.000 Well, what happened was, is there was a girl... 0.99

01:00:07.000 That was trained in her gym, and she's running the squat rack. 1.00

01:00:11.000 The squat rack is called a monolift, and when you release this lever so that I don't have to walk the weight backwards, you understand that?

01:00:20.000 I don't have to walk the weight backwards, the lever moves out of the way, and I pick the weight up and go.

01:00:25.000 The problem is, the girl's hot, and she's in a sundress. 1.00

01:00:28.000 And I'm trying to I'm trying to fucking concentrate on a lift here and so a midway down on the squat one knee shoots out to left the other knee shoots out the other way and Next thing I know is on the fucking ground. 0.96

01:00:38.000 So was it on your back or in front of you? 0.98

01:00:40.000 Well, luckily I got kind of unloaded from the weight quickly it it fell back behind me and I fell forward I was fucked up for months from that. 0.94

01:00:48.000 That was a that was a pretty bad. 0.99

01:00:50.000 How'd you fuck like what what kind of injury? 1.00

01:00:52.000 Oh You know what? 1.00

01:00:53.000 I never went to the doctor.

01:00:54.000 I'm not a fan.

01:00:55.000 I'm going to the doctor. 0.99

01:00:56.000 So I just rubbed some fucking dirt on it and just lived with pain for a while. 0.99

01:01:00.000 My ankle was like black and blue, right? 0.99

01:01:01.000 My ankle was fucked up. 0.99

01:01:02.000 My knees were fucked up. 0.99

01:01:03.000 But, you know, I did go to, I went to a friend of mine. 0.98

01:01:06.000 He's like, what are they going to compare x-rays and MRIs and stuff to? 0.99

01:01:10.000 He's like, you already know you're all fucked up anyway. 1.00

01:01:13.000 Are you all fucked up from lifting? 1.00

01:01:14.000 No, I'm not that bad. 0.99

01:01:15.000 I'm pretty much okay.

01:01:17.000 So why wouldn't the MRI reveal damage?

01:01:19.000 Well, he was just saying, like, your knees are probably, there's probably slight tears here and there, you know, because I've had knee pain and all kinds of different things for years. 0.99

01:01:28.000 So he was just saying, like, yeah, they're going to tell you that you're fucked up. 0.97

01:01:31.000 He's like, what are you going to do about it? 0.99

01:01:32.000 Well, shoulders are a big one for guys who bench that much, right?

01:01:35.000 The shoulders, pecs.

01:01:37.000 Yeah, people blow off their pecs.

01:01:38.000 That's how I invented the slingshot was I tore my pec three times.

01:01:41.000 I injured myself.

01:01:42.000 Three times?

01:01:43.000 Yeah.

01:01:43.000 So did you get it stitched back in?

01:01:44.000 No, no.

01:01:45.000 You didn't?

01:01:46.000 No, I don't like going to the doctor.

01:01:47.000 So you tore it and you just dealt with it?

01:01:49.000 Just dealt with it.

01:01:50.000 Yeah, I never had a rupture.

01:01:53.000 I never tore it.

01:01:55.000 All the way through. 0.98

01:01:56.000 Yeah, I never tore it all the way through to where it was like bleeding down to the bicep and all that nasty shit that can happen with a torn pec. 0.97

01:02:01.000 I did it with my tricep and it's brutal.

01:02:03.000 Yeah, I've seen a lot of people that get the bicep where it curls up like a golf ball.

01:02:08.000 It looks crazy.

01:02:09.000 You know, like there's some fighters that like getting punched in the face.

01:02:12.000 I kind of like pain.

01:02:14.000 So for me, it's kind of just part of the territory with training.

01:02:19.000 Yeah, the pain guys, those are weird people.

01:02:21.000 You're a weird person. 0.85

01:02:22.000 Yeah.

01:02:23.000 No, I'm weird.

01:02:23.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:02:24.000 Yeah, I don't mind it.

01:02:25.000 I don't mind it.

01:02:25.000 Well, the thing about soreness, it's like it lets you know, like, yeah, I fucking really got a workout.

01:02:30.000 There's a difference between soreness, though, and not being able to get up, you know, out of bed in the morning and stuff like that.

01:02:35.000 That stuff's, you know, brutal.

01:02:36.000 Joint pain especially, right?

01:02:38.000 Muscle pain and joint pain are two different animals.

01:02:40.000 Joint pain's rough.

01:02:41.000 Yeah.

01:02:41.000 Back and back.

01:02:42.000 You know, you get some little shit that for some reason you just can't handle. 0.99

01:02:46.000 It's like the little tiny things that just gnaw away at you. 1.00

01:02:49.000 You're like, motherfucker, why is my elbow hurt so bad? 1.00

01:02:51.000 Goddamn hangnails. 1.00

01:02:53.000 It's the littlest thing. 0.99

01:02:55.000 Just from lifting in general.

01:02:57.000 Pretty much everybody we know has some sort of injury.

01:03:00.000 Everybody's hurt somewhere.

01:03:01.000 Or you're not working out hard.

01:03:03.000 It's one of two things.

01:03:04.000 People look at...

01:03:06.000 Certain forms of exercise, like CrossFit, saying, like, oh, everybody gets hurt in that.

01:03:10.000 I'm like, everybody gets hurt in powerlifting.

01:03:11.000 Everybody I know that's a bodybuilder gets hurt.

01:03:13.000 Like, everybody gets hurt doing this.

01:03:16.000 And that's what we talked about.

01:03:17.000 We were talking about on the way up here is just slowing down in your workouts, just taking time to actually think about what you're doing all the time.

01:03:24.000 There's 1,036 pounds and 1,085 pounds.

01:03:27.000 Oh, yeah.

01:03:28.000 I actually make this one.

01:03:30.000 But see the sundress?

01:03:31.000 Why does it say tumble?

01:03:32.000 Oh, that's the tumble?

01:03:33.000 There we go.

01:03:34.000 That's the girl in the sundress? 1.00

01:03:36.000 She fucked you up. 1.00

01:03:37.000 Yep, look at that. 1.00

01:03:38.000 Look how big his face is.

01:03:39.000 Yeah, I'm about 320 pounds in this video, or 310 pounds. 1.00

01:03:43.000 Damn, dude. 0.99

01:03:44.000 That's a wide-ass stance, too. 1.00

01:03:46.000 You always squat that wide.

01:03:48.000 In a squat suit, I'd squat a little bit wider.

01:03:51.000 It creates some tightness around the hips and kind of gives you some support through your hips.

01:03:55.000 That guy's pretty hot, too.

01:03:57.000 Isn't that the trainer UFC guy? 0.78

01:04:00.000 Oh, yeah, that's Amadeo Novella, who is a trainer of some UFC fighters, Chad Mendes and Joseph Benavidez and a bunch of other small dudes that can fuck people up.

01:04:13.000 Yeah, it's funny that they have a whole camp full of those dudes, isn't it?

01:04:15.000 Yeah.

01:04:16.000 Is this you giving out?

01:04:17.000 Oh, Jesus, dude. 0.99

01:04:19.000 God damn, that's a lot of weight. 0.99

01:04:21.000 Yeah, and so when it happened, when I fell, it didn't hurt that bad initially. 0.99

01:04:28.000 But then as time wore on, it got worse and worse and worse. 0.74

01:04:31.000 The swelling just started getting fucking crazy.

01:04:32.000 I stayed at the competition, and I'm a coach for all the athletes that are in that video, basically.

01:04:38.000 And I stayed the whole time and helped everybody, just like I normally do.

01:04:42.000 And then the next day, when I woke up, by the time I got home, I couldn't even...

01:04:48.000 Couldn't even get upstairs to go to bed. 0.92

01:04:50.000 I just fucking sat on the couch or sat on the chair and just slept in the chair for the night and slept right there for the next, like, two or three days. 0.90

01:04:57.000 You know, one of the interesting aspects of your film was Louis Simmons. 0.99

01:05:00.000 Amazing, yeah.

01:05:01.000 Yeah, Greg, I have one of his reverse hypers in the back.

01:05:04.000 Things are awesome.

01:05:05.000 It's an incredible machine for...

01:05:06.000 For decompressing your lower back and pumping blood into it and everything.

01:05:10.000 Oh, that thing's amazing.

01:05:12.000 But he's a refreshing character, too.

01:05:14.000 Yeah.

01:05:15.000 You know, it was funny when, you know, you were saying that you were going to get off steroids.

01:05:18.000 He's like, he'll be back.

01:05:19.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:05:19.000 Of course.

01:05:21.000 But that's the attitude that all those guys have.

01:05:24.000 It's like, look, you just have to accept the fact that you are now a steroid dude.

01:05:28.000 Yeah, absolutely.

01:05:29.000 And, you know, making a good documentary, I think, it's a lot about casting.

01:05:33.000 It's about who you pick.

01:05:34.000 You know, it's just like any other movie.

01:05:36.000 Who you pick to be in the movie.

01:05:38.000 And Louis Simmons was somebody that inspired me to do things differently, to think differently, use chains and bands.

01:05:44.000 I used to go into Gold's Gym, you know.

01:05:47.000 He's the pioneer of that, by the way.

01:05:48.000 Bands and chains and all that type of training.

01:05:50.000 Using chains on the bar to accommodate resistance.

01:05:52.000 What's the benefit?

01:05:52.000 So the band will...

01:05:53.000 Oh, you can tell them.

01:05:54.000 It gets harder as you get higher.

01:05:56.000 Yeah.

01:05:57.000 It's called accommodating resistance.

01:05:59.000 It basically makes you drive into the bar faster.

01:06:02.000 So if you can picture a bunch of chains on the bar, there's...

01:06:06.000 Let's say 40 pounds of chains on the bar.

01:06:08.000 As you lower those weights, there'll be less and less weight on the bar.

01:06:11.000 And as you go to pick it back up, there'll be more and more weight on the bar.

01:06:14.000 So you have to actually physically move faster.

01:06:17.000 A way that I try to explain it to people is if you were to try to hop up on this podcast table, you can't do it slowly.

01:06:23.000 So when you train with bands and chains, it's a similar thing.

01:06:25.000 You have to do it quickly.

01:06:26.000 You have to try to get a lot of acceleration into it.

01:06:29.000 That makes sense. 0.99

01:06:30.000 So that would probably aid in explosive shit like football or punching people. 0.99

01:06:34.000 And then also a huge benefit of it is that the weight is lighter at the bottom. 0.99

01:06:38.000 Same thing kind of happens with the slingshot.

01:06:39.000 But with the weight being lighter at the bottom, it creates a safer environment because the bottom of a squat and the bottom of a bench press are kind of somewhat dangerous positions to be in.

01:06:49.000 How much does a chain weigh normally?

01:06:51.000 They usually weigh about 20 pounds, the ones that we use.

01:06:53.000 Oh, that's interesting. 0.98

01:06:54.000 They're pretty goddamn thick. 0.98

01:06:55.000 Yeah, like big-ass motorcycle chains from the 70s. 0.97

01:06:58.000 Like a boating type of thing.

01:06:59.000 The thing is, I would read a magazine called Powerlifting USA. We didn't have the internet.

01:07:03.000 Oh, I thought you were going to say inches.

01:07:05.000 Oh, yeah, inches too, yeah.

01:07:07.000 Hey, don't tell them about that.

01:07:08.000 And foot action.

01:07:09.000 Yeah.

01:07:10.000 So we used to look at that magazine.

01:07:12.000 It was the only information on strength training in the entire world that a kid, 15 years old, growing up in Poughkeepsie, New York, could get his hands on. 0.98

01:07:20.000 So I would read that, and I'd go to the gym, and I'd try out all these weird things, and people were like, what the fuck are you doing?

01:07:25.000 And when I was a kid, I was squatting 500 for sets of eight reps, and people were like, what?

01:07:29.000 He squatted 675 pounds in high school. 1.00

01:07:32.000 He was a fucking bull, man. 1.00

01:07:33.000 That's insane. 1.00

01:07:34.000 What the fuck are you on, right? 0.99

01:07:35.000 And I'm like, I'm not on anything. 0.99

01:07:36.000 I'm on Louie Simmons, you know?

01:07:38.000 And so when I started training Mark to just be, you know, an animal, it was... 0.98

01:07:44.000 He had a lifting belt that said, Royds suck. 0.98

01:07:46.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:07:47.000 Really?

01:07:48.000 The director of Bigger, Stronger, Faster, ladies and gentlemen.

01:07:51.000 Yeah. 0.63

01:07:51.000 And it said, Royds suck, and I would go to the gym, and all these guys were all juiced up. 0.63

01:07:56.000 Like, Poughkeepsie, New York, it's like, I don't know what is in the water there, but everybody was on something. 0.64

01:08:01.000 And I just always wanted to sort of deny that, go against that.

01:08:05.000 Like, I'm not doing this.

01:08:06.000 And that was a whole...

01:08:10.000 The whole genesis for that movie was the fact that I always had this weird, moral thing against it.

01:08:18.000 I can't do that. 0.98

01:08:19.000 That's just fucking cheating. 0.99

01:08:20.000 Jamie, can you get some of those caveman, give me some of those nitro cans? 1.00

01:08:24.000 Those fuckers are good. 0.99

01:08:25.000 Yeah, bring a few of those out. 1.00

01:08:27.000 Big China kills? 1.00

01:08:27.000 No, this is the good shit, man. 1.00

01:08:29.000 We're at a regular coffee. 1.00

01:08:30.000 What was it that pushed you over the edge and made you want to try steroids then?

01:08:34.000 Society.

01:08:35.000 Society.

01:08:36.000 You know, I went to USC and there's hot chicks everywhere and I wasn't... 1.00

01:08:38.000 But you were a gorilla. 1.00

01:08:39.000 You were fucking squatting 600 pounds. 0.99

01:08:40.000 But I wasn't really in good shape. 0.99

01:08:42.000 I didn't look good.

01:08:43.000 But all you had to do was, like, clean up your diet.

01:08:45.000 He's always had kind of a conflict with his, like, build.

01:08:48.000 He's always been trying to get in better shape, and so I think that steroids is a quicker and easier route, in some cases, to get in a little bit better shape, you know?

01:08:57.000 I totally understand that, but, I mean, you were...

01:09:00.000 It sounds like...

01:09:02.000 Would you say you squat 675, as you said?

01:09:04.000 Yeah, when I was younger, yeah. 0.99

01:09:05.000 That's a lot of fucking weight. 1.00

01:09:06.000 I mean, you had to be a big fucker to do that. 1.00

01:09:08.000 Yeah, I was a little bit fatter than I am now. 0.99

01:09:12.000 Right now I weigh about 210. I was about 240 maybe.

01:09:15.000 So it was just a matter of you just didn't like the way you looked.

01:09:18.000 Yeah, I didn't like the way I looked and everybody else was in good shape.

01:09:22.000 I was training at Gold's Venice.

01:09:23.000 I'd be in Gold's Gym Venice and the Hulkster would be in there and Macho Man Randy Savage. 0.97

01:09:29.000 What you gonna do when a black guy date your daughter? 0.99

01:09:31.000 Yeah, right. 0.99

01:09:32.000 The Hulkster, yeah. 1.00

01:09:34.000 That was depressing shit, wasn't it? 1.00

01:09:35.000 That's amazing. 1.00

01:09:36.000 You know what?

01:09:37.000 He'll be back.

01:09:38.000 From an N-word rant?

01:09:39.000 He said some bad things.

01:09:41.000 I think with wrestling, the most inexcusable things have been excused, and I think that they'll figure out a way to...

01:09:49.000 Did they fire him from the WWE? They erased him from their website completely, as if he never existed.

01:09:56.000 You can't do that to the Hulkster? 1.00

01:09:57.000 Damn. 0.99

01:09:58.000 Yeah, I mean, it's just like, hey, still pinning Iron Sheik. 0.99

01:10:01.000 I was there.

01:10:02.000 I saw it.

01:10:04.000 That'd be amazing if you were there.

01:10:07.000 Physically?

01:10:07.000 No.

01:10:08.000 I've never been to one of those things.

01:10:09.000 You're not into wrestling, are you?

01:10:11.000 No, I'm not.

01:10:12.000 No, because it's fake. 1.00

01:10:13.000 We were just into all that shit. 1.00

01:10:14.000 We were into wrestling. 1.00

01:10:15.000 You were into martial arts since you were a little kid, too, right?

01:10:18.000 Well, I was into it in high school. 0.98

01:10:19.000 In high school, I loved Jimmy Superfly Snuka and Bob Backlund and all that shit. 0.93

01:10:23.000 I wrestled Jimmy Snuka. 0.92

01:10:24.000 Did you?

01:10:25.000 Listen to where your career goes in wrestling.

01:10:27.000 He pinned Jimmy Superfly Snuka at an Indian casino for like 50 bucks.

01:10:33.000 Yeah, in front of about 40 people.

01:10:35.000 It's awesome.

01:10:35.000 Where was this?

01:10:36.000 Time of my life. 0.99

01:10:37.000 I don't know where the fuck I was. 0.99

01:10:39.000 Where was I? Somewhere in California, somewhere. 0.99

01:10:42.000 Goddamn. 1.00

01:10:42.000 50 bucks. 1.00

01:10:43.000 50 bucks, yeah. 1.00

01:10:45.000 Goddamn. 0.99

01:10:45.000 What does Smucker look like these days? 0.99

01:10:47.000 He looked like a transvestite. 1.00

01:10:49.000 Really? 0.98

01:10:49.000 Yeah. 0.98

01:10:50.000 Really?

01:10:51.000 He was hot.

01:10:53.000 Wow.

01:10:54.000 Actually, Rowdy Roddy Piper just passed away.

01:10:56.000 That was the nemesis.

01:10:59.000 They're actually having, next week, next Monday, at the Comedy Store, there's a tribute to Rowdy Roddy Piper and all the people that knew him are going to come in and talk about him.

01:11:08.000 I never got a chance to meet that guy.

01:11:10.000 It always bummed me out.

01:11:11.000 He was great.

01:11:11.000 He was awesome.

01:11:12.000 That's all I heard.

01:11:13.000 I heard he was such a great guy.

01:11:14.000 That's what we loved about wrestling.

01:11:16.000 We just loved the personalities.

01:11:18.000 If UFC was around when we were little kids, we probably went into that route.

01:11:22.000 Our older brother was always beating somebody up.

01:11:25.000 He went into pro wrestling because that's all existed at the time.

01:11:29.000 If MMA existed at the time, you would have went that way.

01:11:32.000 The thing when you did with Jimmy Snuka, how old was he at the time?

01:11:37.000 He's got to be in his 60s, right?

01:11:38.000 This was probably about 15 years ago.

01:11:42.000 Might have been in his 60s then.

01:11:43.000 But yeah, he was definitely old, definitely out of shape, yeah.

01:11:47.000 It wasn't pretty.

01:11:49.000 Was it weird?

01:11:49.000 Did it feel weird?

01:11:50.000 Oh, it was fucking really weird, yeah. 0.55

01:11:52.000 And the poor guy, like, what does he do for a living now? 0.92

01:11:54.000 Pro wrestling in general is weird.

01:11:55.000 Like, wrestling another dude in, like, tights and stuff.

01:11:57.000 It's really strange.

01:11:57.000 I mean, like, we used to run this small wrestling federation with a guy named Rick Bassman, who's a good friend of ours.

01:12:04.000 And it was called UPW, Ultimate Pro Wrestling.

01:12:07.000 And we put, like, 30 guys into WWE. So a lot of times, like, these young guys had to work with the older guys.

01:12:12.000 Like, John Cena would be working with Greg DeHam or Valentine.

01:12:16.000 Yeah.

01:12:17.000 Like, hey kid, I'm not going to bump for anyone.

01:12:19.000 You know, bump means bump around the ring.

01:12:21.000 I'm never going to hit the mat. 1.00

01:12:22.000 You're just going to beat the shit out of you. 0.99

01:12:24.000 So it's like, that's part of that whole thing. 0.98

01:12:27.000 What does that mean, bump?

01:12:27.000 What are you saying?

01:12:28.000 Just hit the mat.

01:12:29.000 Basically, you know, just like fall for the other guy.

01:12:32.000 Meaning, like, the older guys don't want to do any of the work.

01:12:35.000 You're going to work around them and make them look good, but they're not actually going to do anything.

01:12:39.000 Oh, so they don't fall down anymore because they're all banged out.

01:12:42.000 They're too old.

01:12:43.000 That makes sense. 1.00

01:12:44.000 They're like, fuck you, I'm not falling down. 1.00

01:12:45.000 Did Superfly have that kind of a conversation with you? 1.00

01:12:48.000 A little bit, yeah.

01:12:49.000 How does it go down?

01:12:50.000 Well, he basically just told me the different moves he wanted to do, and I was like, all right, well, it just sounds like I'm not really getting in too many moves.

01:12:58.000 Yeah, but what happened was, he did the superfly move, right?

01:13:03.000 Yeah.

01:13:04.000 And then you flipped him over and pinned him, so you ended up winning.

01:13:06.000 Right.

01:13:06.000 He still does the superfly at his range?

01:13:09.000 Yeah.

01:13:09.000 It's amazing.

01:13:10.000 He wanted me to, like, sit way up, though, you know, like, to catch him, and I did, and it fucking, it hurt like a motherfucker. 0.99

01:13:17.000 I'm sure. 0.99

01:13:18.000 Yeah, these old guys will stiff you. 1.00

01:13:19.000 You ever have another man jump off the top rope on you?

01:13:22.000 No, I have not.

01:13:23.000 Did you ever see the one where Brock Lesnar does the shooting star and lands on his head? 1.00

01:13:27.000 Holy shit. 0.99

01:13:27.000 Yeah, I was actually there. 0.99

01:13:28.000 And he's done that move like hundreds of times when he was younger in a different federation before he got to WWE. That really sucked.

01:13:35.000 I worked at that Wrestlemania.

01:13:36.000 I was up in the skybox.

01:13:38.000 I'm watching.

01:13:38.000 I'm like, oh my god, he's dead.

01:13:40.000 He's dead.

01:13:40.000 Meanwhile, he still completes the pin.

01:13:43.000 Yeah, he just messed up his stiff neck for a week or something.

01:13:46.000 He was messed up a little bit, but he wasn't that bad compared to what he should have been. 0.82

01:13:50.000 He's such a freak.

01:13:51.000 He really is like one of the biggest freak athletes.

01:13:55.000 I think he said in an interview, there's like two years that he just doesn't remember.

01:13:59.000 Because of that?

01:14:00.000 No, because of drugs.

01:14:01.000 Oh, what was he on?

01:14:03.000 I'm not sure.

01:14:04.000 Probably Oxycontin.

01:14:05.000 Well, those guys, they do.

01:14:06.000 That was the other thing that was in this article about Rowdy Roddy Piper.

01:14:09.000 There was an article about Rowdy Roddy Piper where they're talking about the drugs that they do.

01:14:14.000 Here it is right here. 1.00

01:14:15.000 Oh, shit. 0.99

01:14:16.000 Look at this. 1.00

01:14:18.000 Oh my god, dude.

01:14:19.000 A normal person would be dead.

01:14:21.000 And he's 290 right there.

01:14:23.000 That's WrestleMania in Seattle.

01:14:24.000 Look how jacked he is.

01:14:25.000 Yeah, he was giant.

01:14:27.000 What were we just talking about?

01:14:27.000 You were talking about Piper.

01:14:28.000 You heard of the interview?

01:14:29.000 Oh, they were talking about the amount of time that they spend on the road wrestling.

01:14:34.000 And that like any other sport, you get like time off.

01:14:37.000 A break.

01:14:37.000 Like these guys are wrestling 300 nights a year, which is crazy.

01:14:40.000 Like you can't recover.

01:14:41.000 You just can't recover.

01:14:42.000 So they all get hooked on pain pills.

01:14:44.000 I just did a movie called The Resurrection of Jake the Snake.

01:14:47.000 It's about Jake the Snake Roberts, who was an 80s wrestler, you know, and he was a crack addict.

01:14:52.000 So, another wrestler, Diamond Dallas Page, helps him get sober.

01:14:56.000 We just showed that movie at Slamdance.

01:14:58.000 It'll be out pretty soon, but it really shows what these guys go through.

01:15:03.000 You know afterwards it shows it's it's a documentary.

01:15:06.000 That's just like the movie the wrestler It's a real you know real life darker darker though.

01:15:11.000 Yeah pretty much. 0.99

01:15:11.000 It's fucking dark. 0.99

01:15:12.000 Jake the snake Dallas diamond page is doing wrestling or doing yoga now. 0.99

01:15:17.000 Yes big yoga yoga He's fucking crazy fit for an old dude Superman push-ups You know, on his fingertips, he's doing push-ups. 1.00

01:15:26.000 He takes his ankle and puts it up by his fucking face and shit. 0.99

01:15:28.000 I went to his house when we were doing the documentary. 1.00

01:15:32.000 I was an executive producer on the documentary, which I do all the Hollywood stuff.

01:15:35.000 I help get it sold.

01:15:36.000 I help get it to festivals.

01:15:37.000 All that kind of stuff.

01:15:38.000 And I just really believed in it.

01:15:39.000 And I believed in it from the beginning.

01:15:41.000 I knew they were making it.

01:15:42.000 And they asked me to get behind it really early.

01:15:44.000 So when I went down to their house to work on the movie...

01:15:47.000 He's like, I'm going to take you through this yoga thing. 0.99

01:15:49.000 And I'm like, okay, what is this bullshit? 0.99

01:15:51.000 Within 10 minutes, he had a heart rate monitoring. 0.99

01:15:54.000 My heart rate was up to 155. And he's like, okay, we got to slow you down to keep you at like 145. So this is like this constant cardio, flexing, moving, awesome yoga thing.

01:16:06.000 That somebody like me needs for mobility.

01:16:08.000 I think it's actually a really cool thing that he's doing.

01:16:10.000 Well, yoga is great for mobility.

01:16:12.000 It's really hard to do. 0.99

01:16:14.000 It's one of those things where you look at it, you're like, ah, a bunch of fucking soccer moms. 0.99

01:16:17.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:16:17.000 But then you get in there, you're like, holy shit, this is fucking hard. 1.00

01:16:19.000 This is a little bit more digestible for someone like me, because it's a lot based, he sort of bases it around... 0.99

01:16:24.000 Wrestling.

01:16:25.000 Wrestling.

01:16:26.000 Yeah.

01:16:27.000 And then you flex like this, and you hold it, and it's kind of fun, you know?

01:16:30.000 Yeah, I get it.

01:16:32.000 It's kind of, there's no namastes.

01:16:34.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:16:35.000 Now, you had a double hip replacement?

01:16:38.000 Yeah, actually right towards the end of doing bigger, stronger, faster.

01:16:42.000 When we were doing the movie, I was just worn down all the time.

01:16:44.000 I'm like, I don't know what's going on.

01:16:45.000 I can barely walk.

01:16:47.000 I just kept having all these problems with my hips and went and got it checked out.

01:16:51.000 The doctor just said, okay, walk across the room. 0.93

01:16:54.000 I walked across the room.

01:16:55.000 He said, you need two fake, you need two new hips. 1.00

01:16:58.000 I'm like, what?

01:16:59.000 Like, what are you talking about?

01:16:59.000 He's like, you need two new hips.

01:17:00.000 Was this a doctor that sells hips?

01:17:02.000 He was an orthopedic surgeon, you know?

01:17:05.000 Jesus Christ.

01:17:06.000 And what did the MRI reveal?

01:17:08.000 I'm sure they did MRIs on that.

01:17:08.000 Basically, bone on bone.

01:17:10.000 And my bone was completely smashed on both sides.

01:17:14.000 So they were like smashed into the...

01:17:16.000 You know, into your hip socket.

01:17:17.000 And he was in a lot of pain all the time.

01:17:19.000 He could only, I mean, like three or four hours at a time was what you could give to the film usually, and then you were just...

01:17:24.000 From your hips. 0.66

01:17:25.000 You had to sit down a lot.

01:17:27.000 And you said this is a genetic issue?

01:17:30.000 Yeah, my dad has the same thing.

01:17:31.000 My dad has two fake hips now, but he didn't get them until way later.

01:17:34.000 So what happened was, you know, who knows if wearing down to the hips, squatting all that much and whatever, I don't really blame it on powerlifting because I don't think that that's... 0.94

01:17:44.000 Really the cause because there's a million power lifters out there and I'm the one with two fake hips, you know, so It's not like all this happens every power lifter, you know, it doesn't you think it has must have some effect I think everything has everything has an effect, you know, it's like they played football you wrestled shit like that.

01:17:59.000 I mean, yeah, but he's he's He doesn't have two fake hips and he's the same genetics, you know, as you know, you know as me So I got it from my dad, you know, my dad has the same.

01:18:09.000 What do they call what are they classified as?

01:18:12.000 What are they classified as?

01:18:13.000 Just osteoarthritis?

01:18:14.000 It's just so...

01:18:15.000 But you only get it in your hips?

01:18:16.000 No, I have it in my ankles and my knees.

01:18:18.000 Both my knees need to be replaced, but I'm just sort of...

01:18:20.000 Whoa, Jesus Christ.

01:18:21.000 I'm just sort of like putting that off, because like you said, we have new therapies that...

01:18:24.000 You had your knees done when you were a kid, too, right?

01:18:27.000 Yeah, when I was 17 years old, I had double knee surgery, so...

01:18:29.000 What'd you have done?

01:18:30.000 I just had arthroscopic bone chips removed and stuff like that.

01:18:33.000 Bone chips?

01:18:33.000 Yeah, but you know, the thing is...

01:18:35.000 I've been in pain my whole life, you know, and there was a certain point when I got the hip surgery that I wasn't able to handle it anymore.

01:18:44.000 And they started feeding me pills, you know, like crazy.

01:18:48.000 And I got into that really hardcore because that was something that, you know, at first you do it because it helps the pain, and then after a while you do it because it's fun.

01:18:58.000 So this is post Bigger Stronger Faster.

01:19:01.000 Yeah, right after Bigger Stronger Faster.

01:19:02.000 So after Bigger Stronger Faster, you get your double hip replacements, and then you have the pill problem.

01:19:06.000 Yeah, you get hooked on drugs.

01:19:08.000 It's like, you know, you never aspire to become a drug addict, but it happens.

01:19:11.000 And a lot happened to a lot of my friends.

01:19:13.000 It happened to a lot of people.

01:19:15.000 It's happened to a lot of people I know.

01:19:16.000 Do you think a little bit of that had to do with, like, the recovery?

01:19:19.000 Because you had both of them done rather than just, like, one of them done at a time?

01:19:22.000 Yeah, I would always suggest to anybody that has to have double hip replacement surgery, get one done at a time because at least you have one side that's good and the other side that heals.

01:19:30.000 He literally couldn't really move at all.

01:19:32.000 I was sort of like in a point in my life where I'm like, you know what, just do it.

01:19:35.000 Who cares, let's go.

01:19:36.000 And didn't really think it through that.

01:19:38.000 How old were you?

01:19:39.000 33 at the time.

01:19:40.000 And, whew, Jesus Christ, double hip replacement at 33. And if you don't know what a double hip replacement means, they cut off the top of the bone, and they literally have this long screw that they drive into the meat of the bone where the marrow is, and it locks in place this new fake hip.

01:19:59.000 Right. 1.00

01:19:59.000 It's fucking gnarly shit. 1.00

01:20:01.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:20:01.000 My friend Graham Hancock had it done. 1.00

01:20:03.000 He was here six weeks later.

01:20:05.000 He wasn't even walking with a limp.

01:20:06.000 Wow.

01:20:06.000 I was like, this is crazy.

01:20:07.000 You had a hip replacement?

01:20:09.000 Yeah.

01:20:09.000 Yeah, they had complications with mine.

01:20:11.000 So on one of the sides, they had complications getting it in, because they're like, oh, all this muscle from squatting, your ass is like a rock. 0.97

01:20:17.000 So they're trying to, they had to pound it in with a hammer. 0.90

01:20:20.000 It looked like, I saw the surgery, part of the surgery back on camera, and it looked like an auto body shop.

01:20:26.000 It looked like they were fixing a car.

01:20:27.000 Yeah, there's a video of Tito Ortiz getting his disc replaced in his neck.

01:20:31.000 He got his disc fused. 0.93

01:20:34.000 I'm not sure if it was a spacer or disc replaced, but they're fucking hammering on his neck like clink, clink, clink, clink, clink, clink. 0.96

01:20:42.000 I gotta get it in there. 0.99

01:20:43.000 Like, what the fuck? 1.00

01:20:44.000 That's his neck, man. 1.00

01:20:46.000 That is insane.

01:20:48.000 So, what does it feel like now?

01:20:49.000 Now, actually, the hips feel okay if I lift heavy.

01:20:52.000 I still, like, I'll still squat and deadlift.

01:20:54.000 I just can't go as heavy as I used to.

01:20:56.000 You know, I've deadlifted up to 550 with two fake hips.

01:20:59.000 Jesus Christ!

01:21:00.000 You know, not a very good deadlift in Mark's world, but, you know, for having the surgery and everything, it's okay.

01:21:06.000 And they're fine.

01:21:07.000 Like, it doesn't...

01:21:08.000 And they're built... 0.98

01:21:08.000 Did you tell the doctor, like, give me some fucking serious heavy-duty ones? 0.98

01:21:12.000 They're titanium anyway. 0.99

01:21:13.000 Give me some off-road shocks.

01:21:15.000 They're titanium.

01:21:16.000 You know, and a lot of people say, well, why do you have to lift like that?

01:21:19.000 Why do you, you know, like, you know, people always want to concern themselves what you're doing.

01:21:24.000 They go like, why do you feel the need you have to lift like that?

01:21:26.000 It's just something that's ingrained in you.

01:21:28.000 You just like doing it.

01:21:29.000 If you had surgery and somebody told you why you have to fight still, why you have to go, because you have to. 1.00

01:21:33.000 Did you ask the doctor for a bigger dick? 1.00

01:21:36.000 That's an option. 1.00

01:21:38.000 Oh.

01:21:38.000 Now, when they cut you open, where do they cut you?

01:21:41.000 Right on the side of your ass cheek, kind of. 0.97

01:21:44.000 Is it a giant scar? 0.95

01:21:45.000 It's like that big, like three or four inches.

01:21:47.000 Wow, that's amazing.

01:21:48.000 You do all that work with three or four inches.

01:21:50.000 Yeah.

01:21:50.000 Like, I have a buddy who was on the U.S. ski team.

01:21:52.000 I know. 0.92

01:21:54.000 I have a buddy who was on the U.S. ski team and he's had, no bullshit, I think 28 knee surgeries. 0.82

01:22:00.000 Wow.

01:22:01.000 Yeah, he's got, I'll show you the surface of his knees.

01:22:03.000 Skiing is not good for your knees.

01:22:05.000 No, he's had his knees resurfaced.

01:22:08.000 Jesus Christ. 0.99

01:22:09.000 Yeah, it's fucking gnarly. 0.98

01:22:10.000 Let me find this picture real quick and I'll show it to you because it's one of those where I show people and they go, what am I looking at? 0.98

01:22:16.000 He but anyway his scars on his knee it looks like like like you're gutting a fish Yeah, like they go all the way down the side of the knee and they opened it up and this was just in the 80s My dad has that my dad has you know fake knees also and he's got those big scars Man your dad's got it rough.

01:22:36.000 He's a warrior Frankenstein. 0.99

01:22:39.000 That's a lot of fucking surgery, a lot of shit to get done on your body. 1.00

01:22:43.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:22:44.000 Fake knees and fake hips. 1.00

01:22:47.000 So you think that you're going to eventually have to do that too?

01:22:51.000 The knees?

01:22:52.000 Yeah.

01:22:52.000 I'm going to try to hold it off as long as possible and I think that the best way to go is trying new therapies like stem cells, other things that are coming out.

01:23:01.000 I know that certain, there's actually a gel that they can put into your knee to replace cartilage.

01:23:08.000 John Cena had it done.

01:23:10.000 It's a very advanced technique that You know, they're just basically, they use very sparingly.

01:23:15.000 Well, I know that they're doing, they have this new meniscus surgery that they're doing where they are taking this, like a scaffolding, and they implant it inside where your meniscus used to be with these proteins in it.

01:23:29.000 And somehow or another, your body grows meniscus in this scaffolding.

01:23:33.000 Seems to make sense. 0.92

01:23:34.000 It's nuts, man.

01:23:35.000 It's crazy. 1.00

01:23:36.000 The shit that they're able to do now is just amazing. 1.00

01:23:38.000 Let me show you. 1.00

01:23:39.000 This is my buddy's knee.

01:23:43.000 Wow.

01:23:44.000 Yeah, that's the same guy that was on the U.S. ski team.

01:23:47.000 Wow.

01:23:47.000 They cut him.

01:23:47.000 Steve Graham, what's up, brother?

01:23:49.000 They cut him open like a fish.

01:23:51.000 It looks like steak and like two wedding rings. 0.99

01:23:54.000 Yeah, that's fucking gnarly looking. 0.98

01:23:56.000 Yeah, it's pretty hardcore. 0.65

01:23:58.000 I'll send this to you, Jamie, so you can put it up on the...

01:24:01.000 It looks great.

01:24:02.000 Injuries are no joke, you know?

01:24:04.000 Yeah, no, they're no joke. 1.00

01:24:05.000 Well, this guy, too, he's fucking crazy. 1.00

01:24:08.000 He's in his 60s. 1.00

01:24:09.000 He still spars MMA on a regular basis.

01:24:12.000 He's an animal.

01:24:13.000 He's a doctor. 0.68

01:24:14.000 He's an ophthalmologist. 1.00

01:24:15.000 Doesn't give a fuck. 1.00

01:24:17.000 He's always been crazy. 1.00

01:24:18.000 He's just... 0.86

01:24:19.000 I've known this guy forever.

01:24:20.000 He's the guy who talked me into doing stand-up.

01:24:21.000 This guy's always been an animal. 0.80

01:24:24.000 It's just hard to imagine that that's the inside of his legs.

01:24:28.000 I saw you do stand up in Sacramento about two years ago, maybe.

01:24:31.000 Oh, where was it at?

01:24:32.000 Maybe three years ago.

01:24:34.000 I don't know. 0.85

01:24:35.000 It's called a comedy store or some shit like that. 0.67

01:24:37.000 Oh, that cool little upstairs comedy club? 0.81

01:24:40.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:24:40.000 That's a good spot.

01:24:41.000 They have the Punchline, right?

01:24:42.000 Yeah, there you go.

01:24:43.000 Do you live up there?

01:24:45.000 I do.

01:24:46.000 Sacramento?

01:24:46.000 Yeah, I'm in Sacramento.

01:24:46.000 Do you go to Team Alpha Male and watch those...

01:24:49.000 You know, I'm friends with those guys.

01:24:50.000 I haven't been over there a whole lot, but I see Uriah around, and I see those guys around a little bit here and there.

01:24:55.000 He's got a huge, his own gym.

01:24:57.000 Huge gym.

01:24:57.000 Okay, give it a plug.

01:24:58.000 What's the name of the gym?

01:24:59.000 The Super Training Gym, just in West Sacramento.

01:25:02.000 But it doesn't matter because it's free.

01:25:04.000 Yeah, it's kind of weird.

01:25:05.000 It's free?

01:25:06.000 The gym is free.

01:25:07.000 How's that work?

01:25:08.000 It doesn't.

01:25:10.000 Why do you have a free gym?

01:25:11.000 It's not the smartest business model.

01:25:12.000 It's not my brightest idea.

01:25:14.000 The gym is free.

01:25:15.000 It's a way for me to give back to powerlifting.

01:25:18.000 It's predominantly a powerlifting facility.

01:25:20.000 And I think that if other people had the ability to make their gym free, they probably would do it.

01:25:26.000 Really?

01:25:27.000 I'm in a position to make it for free, so I did.

01:25:30.000 Wow, that's crazy.

01:25:31.000 That's a beautiful thing, man.

01:25:33.000 You never hear that.

01:25:34.000 You usually hear the exact opposite.

01:25:35.000 Well, you know what?

01:25:36.000 Everybody asks for him, hey, can you train me?

01:25:38.000 Can you train me?

01:25:39.000 He's like, I don't train people.

01:25:40.000 I even do seminars and stuff a lot for free.

01:25:42.000 I just did one at a Deuces gym in Venice.

01:25:46.000 And a lot of times I'll do some down in downtown LA at Barbell Brigade.

01:25:51.000 But just if I'm in town somewhere, I'll just email the owner of the gym and just say, hey, I'd love to come in and Teach your people how to squat or deadlift, and they're like, okay, well, what does it cost?

01:26:02.000 I'm like, it doesn't cost anything.

01:26:04.000 That's so crazy. 0.99

01:26:05.000 Just coming in to fucking do some work. 0.99

01:26:06.000 What makes you such a generous guy? 0.98

01:26:09.000 I just kind of have a passion for inspiring people and not so much just instructing them, because I think that the main message is to get people moving, get people doing shit, rather than just...

01:26:20.000 Saying, oh, here's how you squat.

01:26:21.000 A lot of this comes from people that we looked up to.

01:26:23.000 Louie Simmons, you know.

01:26:25.000 Pat Miletic has a free gym, you know.

01:26:27.000 I don't know if he still has it, but he had a free gym to help people do what you couldn't do when you were younger, you know.

01:26:34.000 It's great for young folks. 0.98

01:26:36.000 There's the fucking knee and it's all school. 0.99

01:26:38.000 And you know what, too, is what ends up happening is people... 0.99

01:26:42.000 I'll put up a post on Instagram. 0.98

01:26:44.000 It could be of, like, me eating food or some shit. 0.99

01:26:47.000 And somebody would say, oh, I got your slingshot. 0.99

01:26:48.000 I got your wraps.

01:26:49.000 I got your this.

01:26:50.000 I got your that.

01:26:51.000 So it's like people are giving back to me anyway.

01:26:53.000 So it's just another way for me to give back to community.

01:26:57.000 And for, like you said, Reebok is a brand.

01:27:00.000 My company is not.

01:27:02.000 My company is me.

01:27:03.000 And so the brand is growing, and sometimes people don't know that I'm associated with it.

01:27:07.000 But nine times out of ten, they do know I'm associated with it.

01:27:09.000 That's awesome, man.

01:27:10.000 That's a beautiful way of looking at things.

01:27:12.000 I love it.

01:27:13.000 And because of that, we were just actually at the coffee bean next door, and these two guys wanted to take a picture with him.

01:27:18.000 People know who he is.

01:27:19.000 I got SI on YouTube.

01:27:21.000 Yeah, and it's funny.

01:27:22.000 Tons of free videos.

01:27:24.000 YouTube.com backslash supertraining06. 0.99

01:27:26.000 Thousands of free videos on there on how to squat, deadlift, bench, that kind of shit. 0.99

01:27:30.000 Nice. 0.99

01:27:31.000 Now, your new documentary is Prescription Thugs.

01:27:34.000 Absolutely, yeah.

01:27:35.000 And this is based on your experience in getting hooked on pain pills after you had your double hip replacement?

01:27:41.000 Yeah, sort of based on a lot of people's experience.

01:27:42.000 You know, after Bigger, Stronger, Faster, our older brother passed away about eight months after making that movie, and he had a really We're good to go.

01:27:57.000 We're good to go.

01:28:13.000 And helped him get clean for a while.

01:28:16.000 And then, you know, then you go back to it and back and forth and back and forth.

01:28:20.000 And it's just crazy because he, after he got off all the pills, sort of switched to alcohol, you know.

01:28:26.000 And it was like alcohol and a little bit of everything else.

01:28:29.000 A lot of weed, a lot of alcohol, this and that.

01:28:31.000 You know, just things that when you're not in the right state of mind or you're depressed, they're not the best things for you, you know.

01:28:36.000 That's what he seemed like from the doctor.

01:28:39.000 Yeah, he ended up going down like a really bad...

01:28:42.000 Just a bad spiral.

01:28:45.000 He was on some psych meds too for depression and different things like that.

01:28:50.000 He died in a sober living house with no real explanation of how he died.

01:28:55.000 We still don't really know exactly what happened.

01:28:58.000 There was really no drugs found in his system and a toxicology report and stuff like that.

01:29:02.000 So it was just like to me something where You know, this is an epidemic that hit home with me.

01:29:09.000 After I saw my brother die, I was like, I will never go down that path.

01:29:12.000 And there I am on the floor scrambling, looking for, like, another Vicodin, you know, going, I must have dropped one somewhere.

01:29:17.000 And just knowing a lot of other people that went through it, I decided to pick up and make a movie about it.

01:29:22.000 Now, your brother in your Bigger, Stronger, Faster seemed like a very troubled guy.

01:29:26.000 Yeah, Mad Dog, yeah.

01:29:27.000 He struggled with himself more so than anything else.

01:29:29.000 He was bipolar.

01:29:31.000 And so all this stuff sort of just compounded that.

01:29:35.000 Did he get a prescription?

01:29:37.000 I'm sorry to interrupt you, but did he get a prescription for an injury?

01:29:40.000 Yeah, he was wrestling with WWE. He was sort of doing the rounds.

01:29:46.000 I don't know if he got a prescription, but he got drugs.

01:29:48.000 Yeah, and they all got drugs.

01:29:50.000 So when did he start wrestling for the WWE? Back in, like, 1990...

01:29:55.000 Like, early 90s.

01:29:57.000 And he wrestled forever.

01:29:59.000 Like, he was always on TV. 1992 or so?

01:30:00.000 1993?

01:30:01.000 Yeah, he was always on TV. And then he wrestled all the way through.

01:30:05.000 Kind of up until he died.

01:30:06.000 Like, he had still some matches.

01:30:08.000 Not really with WWE, but with other, like, smaller federations and stuff like that.

01:30:12.000 So he kind of wrestled for a real long time, but he never really made it.

01:30:16.000 And that was a really big problem for him.

01:30:18.000 You know, it wasn't good enough to be a good coach.

01:30:21.000 Or a good teacher.

01:30:22.000 He wanted to make it.

01:30:23.000 He wanted to be a big superstar.

01:30:25.000 I also don't know if he knew exactly what he was chasing.

01:30:27.000 So even if he obtained some of that success, I don't think he would have even recognized it.

01:30:31.000 That's a really good point.

01:30:33.000 It's a really good point.

01:30:34.000 I think a lot of people, yeah, it's hard to get satisfied with certain things.

01:30:37.000 He was troubled.

01:30:40.000 The quote that's on the wall in my gym is from the film.

01:30:44.000 It says, I'd rather be dead than average.

01:30:46.000 And that was...

01:30:47.000 Something that he couldn't live without being whatever his ideal for success was.

01:30:53.000 And the problem, I think, that you really just nailed, though, is that they don't know what that is.

01:30:58.000 What's that goal?

01:30:59.000 What is that?

01:31:00.000 And if they don't ever reach it, they never feel satisfied.

01:31:03.000 And the thing is that he, despite all that, he's like the nicest, like, coolest guy in the world and would have our backs, you know, on everything.

01:31:11.000 Did he have good friends?

01:31:12.000 He's crazy emotional.

01:31:14.000 Here's what everybody has, right?

01:31:16.000 They have good friends, and then they get into drugs, and then they don't have good friends, you know? 0.99

01:31:20.000 So you have a lot of enabling people, a lot of people that will allow you to keep doing what you're doing, a lot of people that will put up with your bullshit. 0.99

01:31:27.000 My father wasn't one of them. 0.99

01:31:29.000 My father was somebody who put his foot down and was helping him get clean.

01:31:36.000 Weren't able to catch it in time, you know, and so people are listening to this I think it's really important to talk about these issues It's just you know people want to always try to push these issues under the rug So if you know someone who's struggling try to your best to reach out to them and just see if you can get to the bottom of the problem I know it's the worst fucking thing in the world to try to approach somebody about it But see if you know whatever you think is a good way of going about doing it and try to reach out to the person because You don't know how much longer will be here for It's just so hard to get people to listen to you,

01:32:04.000 though, isn't it?

01:32:05.000 It's brutal.

01:32:05.000 It is.

01:32:06.000 Yeah, but you know when you've been through it, it becomes different.

01:32:09.000 Right.

01:32:09.000 It completely becomes different.

01:32:10.000 For you.

01:32:11.000 So I went through it.

01:32:12.000 I ended up, it's kind of crazy, halfway through this film that I was making, relapsing, and started popping Xanax and all sorts of other stuff.

01:32:22.000 Halfway through the film on prescription drugs, you start relapsing.

01:32:25.000 Yes.

01:32:25.000 Wow.

01:32:26.000 Yeah, what the fuck, right? 1.00

01:32:28.000 How the fuck did that happen? 0.99

01:32:30.000 When did you do this film? 0.99

01:32:31.000 How long ago?

01:32:31.000 We finished it for Tribeca Film Festival, so that was like in May.

01:32:38.000 So you relapsed like a year ago.

01:32:41.000 A year and sober.

01:32:42.000 Five months ago. 1.00

01:32:43.000 Fuck. 1.00

01:32:43.000 And I was popping Xanax and stuff like that. 1.00

01:32:45.000 Because, you know, it's like filmmaking is not an easy business.

01:32:49.000 You know, like if you didn't have all this other stuff going on and you were just a comic and you were trying to make it, it's brutal.

01:32:55.000 You know, the ups and downs.

01:32:57.000 Oh, I have an audition for something.

01:32:58.000 Yeah, I've seen other people be successful, can really beat you down.

01:33:00.000 I've seen other people fly by you that were like way behind you.

01:33:03.000 You know, all these different things that go on in your head.

01:33:06.000 So you feel like that about the documentary world?

01:33:08.000 There's like people that were making some documentaries that would do really well and you get bummed out?

01:33:12.000 I wouldn't really get bummed out so much about other people.

01:33:14.000 I try to always stay in my own lane and think about myself, but I get more bummed out putting the pressure on myself.

01:33:20.000 Right. 0.88

01:33:20.000 So you see someone do real well, and you go, God damn it, why am I not doing really well? 0.88

01:33:24.000 I could have done that. 0.79

01:33:24.000 Or somebody makes a documentary, and then they're off to the races doing all these big movies. 0.79

01:33:29.000 You're like, why didn't somebody pick me for that?

01:33:31.000 My documentary did way better than that documentary.

01:33:34.000 Those kind of things in your eyes.

01:33:36.000 But just the film world in general, Hollywood in general...

01:33:39.000 It gave me this feeling of inadequacy.

01:33:41.000 It gave me a feeling like I wasn't good enough.

01:33:43.000 Like, everything I did, I wasn't making it.

01:33:45.000 And people go, well, you did this hit movie.

01:33:47.000 It was really big.

01:33:48.000 And I'm like, yeah, but it didn't really make money at the box office.

01:33:51.000 Like, it did really...

01:33:52.000 Which is not your original intent.

01:33:53.000 Like, when you made the film, you said, I want a lot of people to see the movie.

01:33:56.000 What's interesting is your language, when you say it gave you this feeling of inadequacy, but isn't that maybe the way you approached it yourself?

01:34:05.000 I mean, it seems like it's not giving you anything, right?

01:34:07.000 Yeah, make that up in its own head.

01:34:09.000 Yeah, make it up in your own head.

01:34:10.000 You feel inadequate.

01:34:12.000 You feel like, oh man, you know, and as many people tell you that you do good, You're still looking for like you said you're still searching for that thing so for me it was all about finding balance so when I Relapsed and realized I need help.

01:34:27.000 That's I reached out I didn't really reach out like but once I once I knew I needed help and everybody sort of figured me out my girlfriend Helped me a lot with it.

01:34:36.000 She sort of found me really fucked up one day Drunk and on on Xanax in the middle of the night and She called me.

01:34:45.000 I don't really answer my phone a whole lot. 0.58

01:34:47.000 I don't respond to it a ton.

01:34:49.000 It rings a lot, and I get a lot of messages and shit, so I'm not really on my phone that much for that kind of stuff.

01:34:55.000 But I noticed the number was odd, and it was probably about midnight, so I was like...

01:35:00.000 That just seems kind of weird.

01:35:02.000 That's not like a telemarketer, you know, like calling at like 7 p.m.

01:35:05.000 or something.

01:35:05.000 This is something different.

01:35:07.000 And for whatever reason, I didn't have her number in my phone.

01:35:11.000 But it was from like Pennsylvania or something, I think, where she's originally from.

01:35:15.000 And it was Lauren.

01:35:16.000 And she said, you know, your brother is blah, blah, blah.

01:35:20.000 And I couldn't understand what she was saying because she was very, very sad and crying and stuff.

01:35:24.000 And so I asked her to kind of calm down and...

01:35:28.000 Kind of assess the situation a little bit.

01:35:30.000 She said, I think your brother's in his apartment.

01:35:33.000 I think he's passed out.

01:35:35.000 I said, well, you're the only one there.

01:35:37.000 You got to kind of go in and, you know, see what's, you know, she's like, I don't know how I'm going to find him.

01:35:42.000 And I was kind of like, whoa, like, what do you mean you don't know how you're going to find him?

01:35:45.000 Because I didn't know how bad the situation was or how serious it was.

01:35:49.000 I did know his friend.

01:35:51.000 His friend called me a few times and said, hey, man, you know, your brother's, you know, he's fucking up with some pills and doing this and that here and there.

01:35:59.000 Then I would communicate with that person again, and I'd find out that he's doing a little bit better, and then he'd be doing a little bit worse. 0.99

01:36:06.000 So it kind of went back and forth, and having my other brother die from it, I was like, fuck, man, I don't have the energy to fucking go down that road again. 0.99

01:36:14.000 I want to reach out to him. 0.99

01:36:16.000 I want to talk to him.

01:36:17.000 I do love him.

01:36:17.000 He's a hero and an idol to me in a lot of ways.

01:36:20.000 And I really did want to reach out to him, but I just didn't know how to fucking bring it up.

01:36:25.000 You know, he was really suffering and I didn't really realize how bad it was until she called. 0.94

01:36:30.000 And then I got off the phone with her.

01:36:32.000 I just said, you know, take his keys away.

01:36:33.000 Make sure he's okay.

01:36:35.000 Talk to my wife. 0.99

01:36:36.000 My wife's fucking awesome. 1.00

01:36:37.000 She's super supportive about all this kind of stuff. 0.97

01:36:39.000 And she said, we need to fly him here tomorrow. 0.97

01:36:41.000 You know, and I said, well, let's fly Lauren here to make sure he gets on the fucking flight that he's not... 0.99

01:36:59.000 It's a nasty path. 0.98

01:37:01.000 You know, it's...

01:37:02.000 Did you document this in the film?

01:37:04.000 I didn't document all the stuff that went down leading up to it, but yeah, it's in the film.

01:37:10.000 We talk about it for sure.

01:37:12.000 But like I said, it's a nasty path that was like a snowball effect.

01:37:16.000 You know what I mean?

01:37:17.000 And looking at it now, it's like...

01:37:20.000 I mean, it's not funny ever, but it's like laughable. 0.98

01:37:22.000 Like, what the fuck was I thinking? 0.89

01:37:24.000 You know, I can see it now from a different point of view. 0.99

01:37:27.000 So, you said you relapsed on Xanax.

01:37:30.000 So, was it just you were having anxiety?

01:37:32.000 No.

01:37:33.000 I mean, you don't have anxiety.

01:37:34.000 It's just...

01:37:35.000 Whatever.

01:37:36.000 You just like to take it because you can't sleep.

01:37:40.000 My mind is always racing.

01:37:42.000 There's always another idea in the head.

01:37:44.000 I can't go to sleep.

01:37:46.000 I've tried the float chambers.

01:37:49.000 I've tried stuff like that.

01:37:50.000 I can't even get my mind to stop racing.

01:37:53.000 Thinking a lot of times, or so I thought.

01:37:56.000 So I always thought that I needed something, whether it was alcohol, whether it was pills, and I realized through the whole journey that all I really needed was to believe in myself again, to believe in who I really was and what I started doing when I started out trying to make films in the first place and tell the truth and be honest.

01:38:13.000 The problem was I couldn't be honest with myself.

01:38:15.000 I had a real hard time being honest with myself, and that's what recovery has brought to me.

01:38:21.000 It's amazing to be able to say...

01:38:23.000 I don't know how much he's allowed to talk about the film, but I'll talk about it a little bit.

01:38:26.000 Yeah, he basically interviewed somebody for the film that ended up helping him.

01:38:32.000 He interviewed this guy, Richard Tate, who owns a treatment center in Malibu.

01:38:37.000 For his film, he researched it and they had like a 95% success rate with people that were there, I think for over 60 days or something like that, correct?

01:38:44.000 90 days.

01:38:45.000 And he was like, what the fuck? 0.99

01:38:47.000 95% success rate? 1.00

01:38:48.000 That's crazy.

01:38:49.000 The whole time I'm interviewing the guy, I'm like, I wish I could come here.

01:38:51.000 I wish I could come here.

01:38:52.000 Because I knew that I still had a problem with alcohol.

01:38:55.000 And I wasn't really doing Xanax at the time.

01:38:57.000 He researched it for himself.

01:38:59.000 He's trying to tell himself he's researching it for the film.

01:39:01.000 But he's researching it for himself.

01:39:02.000 It's a weird thing, man.

01:39:03.000 Did you go to this place?

01:39:05.000 Yeah, I ended up going to Cliffside Malibu for 90 days.

01:39:09.000 So what do they do that's so successful?

01:39:11.000 They just change your life about everything.

01:39:14.000 Well, Richard Tate was a wild man himself, and he came from that background.

01:39:16.000 Yeah, here's the thing. 0.94

01:39:17.000 So when you have a guy tell you, listen, 14 years ago, I was on my couch smoking crack with a hooker on each side.

01:39:23.000 I was oiled up for some reason, smoking cigars, smoking crack, you know, and...

01:39:28.000 Sounds like a good time.

01:39:29.000 Yeah, yeah, and he said, you know, and he tells you...

01:39:32.000 Eight of his friends come and knock on his door and try to get him sober, and he slams the door in his face.

01:39:37.000 And then he's like, you know what?

01:39:39.000 That was rude.

01:39:39.000 He goes back and opens the door.

01:39:40.000 He goes, what day is it?

01:39:41.000 And they said, it's Friday.

01:39:43.000 He goes, come back on a Monday.

01:39:46.000 He slams the door.

01:39:46.000 They come back on Monday.

01:39:48.000 He was at that point just done doing drugs and alcohol, and they took him to treatment.

01:39:53.000 I'm like, man, if this guy can get better.

01:39:55.000 I wasn't that bad. 0.71

01:39:59.000 I didn't have hookers. 1.00

01:40:00.000 At least I didn't have hookers. 1.00

01:40:02.000 What did they do for you, specifically?

01:40:04.000 What is the process of getting someone to get 95% of people staying clean?

01:40:10.000 The first part is separation from the problem.

01:40:13.000 Just being away from drugs and alcohol.

01:40:16.000 I think AA is a great thing, but for me, if I would have went to an AA meeting, I would have went home and drank that night.

01:40:21.000 For me, I needed to be in a place where I couldn't get drugs or alcohol.

01:40:26.000 I needed to be isolated from it for like a little while to get away from it.

01:40:30.000 The main thing was therapy.

01:40:32.000 It's all therapeutic.

01:40:33.000 It's all like group therapy. 0.99

01:40:34.000 You go sit in a group with people that are fucked up and you talk about your problems. 0.98

01:40:39.000 And in a good facility, they had such good counselors there that these people, it was more about being loved again, feeling part of your... 0.98

01:40:50.000 And I was on my own.

01:40:51.000 I moved to LA when I was 19 years old from New York.

01:40:54.000 My whole family was back east.

01:40:55.000 My brother moved out here eventually.

01:40:57.000 My older brother moved out here eventually.

01:40:58.000 And eventually my parents moved out here.

01:40:59.000 And we do have a close family, too.

01:41:01.000 We have a really close family.

01:41:02.000 So to be away from your family and this whole time and not feel like any love from the world is a tough thing.

01:41:09.000 A lot of people don't really express that.

01:41:11.000 It might sound kind of wimpy or something like that, but it's true. 1.00

01:41:14.000 There was no feeling of comfort or safety or security in anything that I did.

01:41:21.000 So regaining that through being around people with like-minded experiences.

01:41:26.000 And there's just some counselors there that will break you. 1.00

01:41:31.000 There's people that go there, hardcore heroin addicts, that will sit there in group therapy and not want to be Analyzed you know and these guys will break them down until they're you know punching pillows and shit saying this is my father and that you fucking piece of shit, 1.00

01:41:48.000 you know That's how it goes. 0.99

01:41:50.000 It's like it's a really intense Therapeutic thing that allows you To see yourself in a different way and it's a very humbling the number one thing is I The number one thing that I had on my side was a desperation to get better It was one of the fucked-up parts of the film bigger stronger faster was your dad saying they knew that your older brother was gonna die that way and To go through that and then to have your brother die that way and then for you to get hooked on pills yourself That

01:42:20.000 that had to been a helpless feeling well, that's why I felt like I couldn't tell anybody So I went to my parents and I was doing an interview with them and I really wanted to tell them But I was like, you know, I don't know if I can tell them so early on in the movie Before I before I had relapsed I said hey listen,

01:42:38.000 I had a problem with this My mom cries and she's like well, why didn't you tell me?

01:42:42.000 I'm like how am I supposed to tell you you just lost a son? 0.97

01:42:44.000 I'm gonna tell you like I'm gonna go you know next or you're gonna worry about me Because I'm not there, you know what is if you can Try to describe what is the feeling like when you want to take that shit when you want to take a pain pill like what what is There's no feeling. 0.95

01:43:01.000 It's not the addict's fault. 0.98

01:43:04.000 You might have friends or people that you know that, why don't they just wake up and stop drinking?

01:43:10.000 Well, you can't.

01:43:10.000 It's not your fault anymore.

01:43:11.000 It's a pathway, a neurological pathway.

01:43:15.000 You just talked about before Brock Lesnar, somebody got a hold of him and built those punches and kicks into his system, right?

01:43:21.000 It becomes ingrained and built in your system.

01:43:23.000 It becomes a neurological pathway in your brain, and you tend to habituate the things that make you feel good.

01:43:30.000 You know, so that's just something that an addict will do more so than other people. 0.98

01:43:35.000 You're saying that like this is a very distinct black and white thing that it's not the addict's fault, but the addict has to be sober first before they can get fucked up, right? 0.96

01:43:45.000 So you're sober. 0.97

01:43:46.000 Sure.

01:43:46.000 So if you're sober, you have a conscious mind, you're aware of your actions, and you decide to take a pain pill.

01:43:53.000 How is that not the addict's fault?

01:43:54.000 If you're already addicted, it's an automatic thing.

01:43:58.000 Your body feels like it needs it.

01:43:59.000 Okay, but you weren't addicted, right?

01:44:01.000 Maybe because you never got actual treatment.

01:44:03.000 How do you get addicted in the first place?

01:44:04.000 No, but you weren't, because you were off of it for a long time, right?

01:44:07.000 Yeah.

01:44:07.000 So it wasn't like you had this mad need, like your bones were aching, you had to get that...

01:44:12.000 I think you switched to alcohol, I think is kind of the part that you're...

01:44:15.000 Yeah, I switched to alcohol, like instead of having pills.

01:44:19.000 So I always had something.

01:44:20.000 So you get the double hip replacement surgery.

01:44:23.000 So you did your documentary, Bigger, Stronger, Faster, it was 2008?

01:44:27.000 Yeah.

01:44:27.000 Right.

01:44:28.000 So, right after that, 2009?

01:44:30.000 When are you talking about getting your hip replaced?

01:44:32.000 Yeah, 2009. Okay, six years ago.

01:44:34.000 And then, you get off the shit. 0.99

01:44:37.000 2007, I actually got it replaced. 0.99

01:44:39.000 I got it done before we finished the movie.

01:44:42.000 Okay, okay.

01:44:42.000 Oh, you did?

01:44:43.000 2007. But then, I didn't mention this.

01:44:46.000 So then, I had my hip.

01:44:48.000 I said they had complications.

01:44:50.000 They had to redo my hip. 0.95

01:44:53.000 So, two years later, they redid it in 2009. They redid my right hip.

01:44:57.000 They completely took it out and put it back together.

01:45:00.000 Oh my god.

01:45:01.000 They unscrew it?

01:45:02.000 Well, there was some messed up parts in there.

01:45:04.000 Did they have to unscrew that thing that digs into the bone? 0.59

01:45:07.000 I think they left that.

01:45:08.000 I think that was fine.

01:45:09.000 I think it's the other part that was messed up.

01:45:11.000 And then a month after I had that hip surgery, my brother died.

01:45:16.000 It's just tough.

01:45:19.000 You can power through that stuff if you have the tools, but I didn't have any tools to stay sober.

01:45:26.000 Let me ask you this.

01:45:27.000 You get the hip replacement surgery the first time, then you get hooked on pills, then you get off pills, but two years later, they want to reopen you up.

01:45:35.000 Do you take pills again?

01:45:36.000 Yeah, I got back on pills.

01:45:38.000 For how long?

01:45:39.000 About another two years.

01:45:41.000 And then what happened was... 1.00

01:45:43.000 Two fucking years? 1.00

01:45:45.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:45:46.000 So then I went back to try to get off the pills.

01:45:49.000 I knew I needed to get off the pills.

01:45:50.000 How long were you on them for the first time?

01:45:52.000 The first time when you had the first problem?

01:45:54.000 I was on them for like a year, and then I got off of them.

01:45:59.000 For how long?

01:45:59.000 But I only got off them for a couple months, and I had the second surgery again.

01:46:03.000 So you had just gotten off of them.

01:46:06.000 Yeah, it's a really up and down thing.

01:46:07.000 So there's a drug called Suboxone, and Suboxone sort of mimics the way that a painkiller will feel in your body, but it doesn't get you high.

01:46:18.000 It'll just basically make you not feel sick.

01:46:20.000 So that's the biggest problem is withdrawals.

01:46:22.000 You feel so bad.

01:46:24.000 It's like the flu times 100. So the thing is that when you're coming off them and you want to get on Suboxone, so my insurance would cover all the pills.

01:46:33.000 So there was 10 bucks a pop, you know, 10 bucks for like 180 pills of Percocet or Vicodin or whatever the drug I was taking.

01:46:41.000 When I wanted to get off of them, I had to consult with a doctor every month for $250 and I had to pay about $225 to $250 for the drug and insurance doesn't cover any of that.

01:46:51.000 They don't cover you getting better.

01:46:53.000 They only cover you doing the dangerous drugs.

01:46:57.000 So that's another brutal thing on top of it, you know, and then suboxone.

01:47:00.000 What do you think that is?

01:47:01.000 Do you think that's built into the system to make sure that they sell more drugs?

01:47:05.000 It's built into the system so that you don't...

01:47:06.000 That's a scary thought if that's true.

01:47:08.000 Yeah.

01:47:08.000 I mean, like, if you look at it, if you want to, it's like, you know, like, yes, if you take painkillers, it's your fault for getting addicted, kind of.

01:47:19.000 But if you actually look at the history of Oxycontin, that drug was designed to hook people on drugs.

01:47:24.000 What's basically very similar to heroin.

01:47:27.000 The drug company that made it, Purdue Pharmaceuticals, they lied.

01:47:35.000 They made $8 billion on this drug.

01:47:38.000 $8 billion.

01:47:40.000 And then they had to pay a fine of $2 billion.

01:47:42.000 So look at the profits.

01:47:43.000 Still $6 billion.

01:47:44.000 They call it the price of doing business.

01:47:46.000 So they lied and said that you will not get addicted using this drug.

01:47:50.000 Well, they got the whole country addicted to this drug.

01:47:53.000 You know?

01:47:54.000 Those people should all be in prison.

01:47:56.000 They got the whole country addicted to a drug that's made for, like, severe cancer patients, you know?

01:48:02.000 And that kind of stuff is just criminal.

01:48:04.000 And people go like, oh, well, you should have known.

01:48:06.000 It's like, most people don't know.

01:48:09.000 That's why we're making a movie, to have awareness for these things.

01:48:12.000 So this is really fresh for you.

01:48:14.000 This is not something that you have overcome a long time ago.

01:48:19.000 No.

01:48:19.000 I still go to meetings and I still stay up on it.

01:48:22.000 I think every day you need to remind yourself that you can go back there.

01:48:25.000 So you're 100% sober now. 0.99

01:48:26.000 You don't fuck with anything. 0.99

01:48:27.000 No, nothing. 1.00

01:48:29.000 Nothing.

01:48:30.000 So, the feeling that you get, like, when you have this relapse with Xanax, the feeling that you get, is it just, do you just feel helpless?

01:48:41.000 Like, do you feel just pulled to it?

01:48:43.000 Like, what's pulling you from?

01:48:45.000 Yeah, like, for example, so Xanax was a drug that would help me.

01:48:50.000 I would drink a lot, you know, like I wasn't because I was an addict.

01:48:56.000 He'd kind of drink to the point where, you know, it was compromising the next day type of thing, and then also you ended up in the hospital a couple times from drinking.

01:49:04.000 I ended up with some serious bouts of drinking, but it wasn't like...

01:49:07.000 Nobody really knows this, but I went to the urgent care or emergency room, I think 10 times within a matter of like 20 days.

01:49:15.000 What?

01:49:16.000 Yeah, because I'd go to urgent care and I'd go get Xanax because I had hangovers so bad because I would drink so much, you know, and it was continuous like every day.

01:49:25.000 So for me, it became a labor.

01:49:28.000 It became like every day I was like, you know, this cat chasing his tail like I would never get better or feel better.

01:49:35.000 At first you weren't drinking that often though, right?

01:49:39.000 It was like every three days or every seven days.

01:49:42.000 We talked about it, powerlifting and everything like that.

01:49:44.000 We were sports guys.

01:49:45.000 We were never into drinking.

01:49:46.000 We were never into drugs.

01:49:47.000 That wasn't something even on my radar when I did Bigger, Stronger, Faster.

01:49:51.000 I would drink here and there, but I should have known back then because when I did drink, it was like binge drinking, and that's when you know That you'll probably have a problem somewhere down the road.

01:50:01.000 If you're the guy that drinks once a month, but you get completely hammered, you know that you might have a problem.

01:50:08.000 I wasn't the guy that could ever put it down.

01:50:10.000 So what does it feel like to make a documentary about prescription drugs while you're hooked on prescription drugs?

01:50:16.000 Guilty.

01:50:18.000 Yeah, really guilty the whole time.

01:50:20.000 I had raised the money to do it.

01:50:21.000 I was moving forward with it. 0.99

01:50:23.000 I had a bunch of people involved, so I'm like, who the fuck do I tell? 0.99

01:50:26.000 You know, you're in this weird situation where you're like, I'm a hypocrite, but I can't stop. 0.99

01:50:32.000 Would I just stop doing this and pull the plug? 0.89

01:50:33.000 And I have people working for me, people editing the film.

01:50:36.000 My partner, Greg Young, was there since the very beginning.

01:50:39.000 And he was, you know, he knew what was going on, but he didn't know.

01:50:43.000 What is he going to do?

01:50:44.000 Like pull the plug on his own job?

01:50:46.000 And like he didn't, he cared about me and wanted to help me, but he didn't know how to help me.

01:50:51.000 So how much of a part of the film does this become?

01:50:55.000 It's sort of towards the end.

01:50:59.000 It's sort of like in the third act of the film.

01:51:02.000 We sort of discuss it and go into it.

01:51:04.000 We didn't go into a whole lot about recovery because the movie isn't really about that.

01:51:09.000 But by the end of the movie, you know I'm okay.

01:51:11.000 But it took you a whole quarter.

01:51:14.000 A whole quarter of a year.

01:51:15.000 You know, that's crazy.

01:51:17.000 They take you away from society for a quarter.

01:51:19.000 Very few people can afford to do that.

01:51:21.000 No, it's crazy, man.

01:51:22.000 What happened was, I feel this.

01:51:25.000 I feel almost everybody.

01:51:27.000 If they could unplug from their life for like 30 days, even like 10 days.

01:51:32.000 Like, you know, people go on vacation.

01:51:34.000 They still bring their phone.

01:51:35.000 There's not a lot of people around them that they know.

01:51:37.000 And it's just to be in that environment of solitude is just like an amazing feeling.

01:51:42.000 Go dark.

01:51:44.000 Yeah, yeah, going dark.

01:51:45.000 What happened to me was in the third, so you asked how they helped me, and I could tell you that I think part of it, a big, huge part of it, they talk about like AA and all these other programs and everything, everybody talks about a spiritual awakening.

01:51:58.000 So like the third day that I was in rehab, I went and took a shower, and it was like, I don't know, four o'clock in the morning or something.

01:52:05.000 I couldn't even, couldn't sleep or anything, and I went in the shower and I just cried for like three hours. 0.99

01:52:11.000 The fuck am I doing? 0.99

01:52:12.000 I went to USC film school. 1.00

01:52:14.000 I did all the right things.

01:52:16.000 I trained my whole life. 0.99

01:52:18.000 I did everything the right way and I'm fucking blowing it. 0.98

01:52:22.000 And that's what got to me. 0.99

01:52:23.000 It was myself that got to me.

01:52:26.000 It wasn't it wasn't anybody else really, you know another thing that happened to him in treatment was Cliffside Malibu is beautiful multi-million dollar facility.

01:52:34.000 It's a It's really nice. 0.96

01:52:36.000 It's in fucking Malibu, California, which is beautiful But I think once you were there for like two weeks they took you away from there and threw in some shithole, right? 0.96

01:52:44.000 Yeah, what happened was so I was there for I personally think it's all part of the plan, but yeah, I was there for ten days and and after ten days I was being helped by the facility. 0.98

01:52:55.000 They were funding it.

01:52:57.000 They were helping me.

01:52:58.000 So since they were helping me out because I was part of this movie and the guy just had compassion for me, Richard Tate, and wanted to see me get better.

01:53:06.000 The guy was suspicious that you had a problem when you came there the first time to interview him anyway, right?

01:53:10.000 Exactly.

01:53:11.000 And so he said to me, we can't afford to keep you here anymore.

01:53:14.000 It's 60 grand a month to go to that place.

01:53:17.000 Jesus Christ.

01:53:18.000 A lot of insurance covers it, you know, and different things like that.

01:53:21.000 What?

01:53:21.000 Insurance covers that?

01:53:22.000 Yep.

01:53:23.000 Depends on your insurance.

01:53:24.000 It's a double scam. 1.00

01:53:25.000 So it's the fucking insurance covers that. 1.00

01:53:27.000 They make a little... 1.00

01:53:28.000 Yeah.

01:53:28.000 It's all part of the system.

01:53:30.000 It's all part of the system.

01:53:31.000 What do you mean suboxone?

01:53:32.000 Oh, I don't have any money for that.

01:53:33.000 Yeah.

01:53:34.000 Sorry, bro.

01:53:35.000 It's hard to come up with that money.

01:53:36.000 I don't have any money for that.

01:53:38.000 Sorry.

01:53:38.000 Yeah, but they have the money for the treatment and everything.

01:53:41.000 So they throw you in this place that's not so good?

01:53:43.000 So what happened was I went to a place called Claire Foundation.

01:53:47.000 It's in Santa Monica and it's like very industrial.

01:53:50.000 It's a...

01:53:51.000 It's a government-run rehab facility.

01:53:55.000 I mean, I walked in there and saw this guy with no teeth, and he's like scratching his nuts, and he's like, you're not gonna like it in here!

01:54:03.000 The pillows are really tough! 0.99

01:54:05.000 And I walk in, and I'm like, where the fuck do you sleep in here? 0.98

01:54:08.000 And I'm looking, and there's all these bunk beds. 0.99

01:54:10.000 I'm like, well, where's my room?

01:54:11.000 And I'm like, no, there is no room.

01:54:13.000 It's one big room with 40 bunk beds and 40 grown men and 39 of them just got out of jail and you're the only one that's normal.

01:54:19.000 Kind of.

01:54:20.000 You know, it was sort of a facility like that where it was just something out of like one flew over the cuckoo's nest.

01:54:25.000 And when they put me in there, that was like... 1.00

01:54:29.000 Fuck this, man. 1.00

01:54:31.000 I know a lot of addicts will say, I'm not like that. 1.00

01:54:35.000 This was something that was so far-fetched from where I would ever find myself in my life. 0.99

01:54:40.000 So far down that I was like, fuck this. 0.99

01:54:43.000 I'm getting out of here and this is it. 1.00

01:54:45.000 I'm never going to drink or do a drug again.

01:54:48.000 Hopefully you can stick to that.

01:54:51.000 But I don't have any urges to anymore.

01:54:53.000 But it was that facility that...

01:54:56.000 That really cemented it.

01:54:58.000 So that's only 10 days.

01:55:00.000 I was in that facility for 19 days.

01:55:03.000 But 10 days in?

01:55:05.000 10 days in, and then 19 days there.

01:55:08.000 And then when they had room for me back at Cliffside, I ended up going back to Malibu and living out the rest of it in Malibu.

01:55:17.000 And what was really nice about that was I was still able to work.

01:55:20.000 So I was going to treatment every day for three hours in the morning, and then I would drive to, like, LA, and I would work on the movie the rest of the time.

01:55:29.000 It's pretty twisted, but it all worked out.

01:55:32.000 But you pretty much feel like you were done after you went to that shithole, right? 0.98

01:55:36.000 Yeah. 0.96

01:55:36.000 But you just felt like you needed more treatment to cement it? 0.96

01:55:39.000 What's the thought process?

01:55:42.000 It's hard to explain to people that haven't been through it.

01:55:46.000 People have been through it.

01:55:47.000 They know what it's like.

01:55:50.000 But addiction is one of the most powerful forces in this universe.

01:55:55.000 It's something that... 0.99

01:55:58.000 Drives people every day to do bad shit, you know, and continued support, right? 0.92

01:56:03.000 Yeah, you basically just need yeah, you know basically like a lot of it's set off by trauma like things that happened in your life a lot of it's You know, but I didn't really have that like one main trauma That like set it off people go. 0.99

01:56:17.000 Oh your brother died.

01:56:18.000 I think well that was it wasn't as traumatic as it sounds like of course it's Traumatic, but but I was I was doing stuff before that so what was before that?

01:56:27.000 I don't even know maybe the hip surgery didn't seem to me I think a big part of it for me Was having the hip surgery took away something that I really loved which was like lifting You know something that like if you couldn't fight anymore you'd fucking hate it You know you'd be like bummed grumpy because it was a part of you just in your everyday life and now it was gone and Yeah,

01:56:45.000 and it might sound stupid, but it's part of it's something that you do, you know?

01:56:48.000 Right. 0.99

01:56:48.000 If I said, hey, Joe, you know what? 0.99

01:56:49.000 No more fighting, bro.

01:56:50.000 You're done.

01:56:51.000 So you just felt like just a giant loss. 0.99

01:56:53.000 You just felt like something was missing from your life, and that's what led you to just start getting fucked up. 0.94

01:56:57.000 Yeah, fill it in with other stuff, you know? 0.98

01:56:59.000 Wow.

01:57:00.000 And you didn't think about maybe, like, trying something healthy and trying to, like, engineer your life in some sort of a way where you do something positive?

01:57:08.000 Okay, so when you take away working out, what's healthy?

01:57:12.000 Well, you couldn't do any working out?

01:57:13.000 Not, I mean, not a whole lot.

01:57:15.000 Not like I used to.

01:57:16.000 For how long?

01:57:18.000 I mean, just for like years, I just felt shitty.

01:57:21.000 You know, I just didn't feel good.

01:57:23.000 Because of the hips? 0.99

01:57:23.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:57:24.000 I think he also felt lonely, too.

01:57:26.000 I mean, you know, he didn't have her until kind of more recently.

01:57:30.000 And even though our family is in California, you know, I have two children.

01:57:34.000 So our parents moved to this side.

01:57:37.000 They were from New York originally.

01:57:38.000 They moved to California, but we all live in Northern California. 0.99

01:57:41.000 And when it came to, like, holidays and some different things, I mean, we'd call him and communicate with him a little bit here and there, but, you know, he kind of just seemed like he didn't give a fuck. 0.98

01:57:49.000 Are you still in upstate New York? 0.98

01:57:51.000 No, he's in L.A. Yeah, he's in L.A., yeah.

01:57:54.000 Yeah, so he was only in L.A., and we were in Sacramento, but it wasn't, you know, not that far.

01:57:58.000 It's a one-hour flight or whatever, but we'd communicate with him here and there and just, you know, even, like, on his birthday or something, call him or whatever the case might be, and then he'd come up to Sacramento or I'd come down here and We'd meet up with each other here or there, but we just didn't really realize how severe the situation was in terms of just his,

01:58:16.000 like, mental health, you know?

01:58:18.000 It's just, like, not a dude thing to do.

01:58:20.000 Like, hey, man, how you doing? 0.99

01:58:22.000 Somebody doesn't just, like, pour out their fucking feelings. 0.99

01:58:24.000 They're like, oh, I'm doing good, you know? 0.99

01:58:26.000 And they just leave it at that, and you kind of move on to the next thing.

01:58:28.000 I have people that are in my film that have relapsed.

01:58:31.000 You know since the film and I have people that I have a guy who I had to get a release for the film like somehow somebody slipped up and didn't didn't get a release for the film and Just like this is like two days ago.

01:58:43.000 I have a guy who who relapsed and he's all fucked up We're trying to get a release of the film.

01:58:47.000 We can't even get in touch with him So I did send somebody to his house and then we found out that he's Relapsed and he's a mess and he needs treatment, too. 0.82

01:58:55.000 So it's like this it's a dangerous powerful And part of the whole program is helping other people.

01:59:03.000 And I think it's beautiful.

01:59:04.000 It's like the thing now is like, how do I help other people?

01:59:07.000 How do I help?

01:59:07.000 People will listen to this show and they will hit me up on Facebook and they'll say, listen, man, I'm an alcoholic.

01:59:13.000 I'm a drug addict.

01:59:14.000 What do I do?

01:59:14.000 And the beauty is I don't have to do it for them.

01:59:18.000 I can just lead them in the right direction and help guide them to treatment and be there for them.

01:59:23.000 The people that run these treatment centers must feel like they're combating vampires or something.

01:59:27.000 It's like everyone is just getting bitten and sick.

01:59:31.000 It's incredible that there's numbers.

01:59:33.000 Sick is a good way of putting it.

01:59:35.000 When somebody has something like that, you kind of feel like they have cancer or something and you don't know how to help them.

01:59:41.000 A lot of people just think, like, oh, I can help him. 0.91

01:59:43.000 Like, hey, if we go, like, work out together, if we hang out together, if we go eat together, like, that shit will be fun and, like, take his mind off it. 0.86

01:59:50.000 But it doesn't work that way. 0.99

01:59:51.000 As soon as you get back home, you turn back into the vampire.

01:59:55.000 Yeah, I mean, and looking at it, people go, oh, it's not a sickness. 1.00

01:59:57.000 It's your own fucking fault. 0.99

01:59:59.000 It's your own personal... 1.00

01:59:59.000 Take all that away. 1.00

02:00:01.000 Well, what's going on? 1.00

02:00:02.000 Someone's got some shit in their veins that they need to keep pumping into their body. 1.00

02:00:06.000 It's like sick. 1.00

02:00:07.000 It is like sick.

02:00:08.000 Yeah.

02:00:08.000 You know what?

02:00:09.000 All those same people that say it's not a sickness, a lot of those people will fall into it, too. 0.95

02:00:15.000 Well, that's what's fucked up about it, how many people fall into it. 0.73

02:00:18.000 I've had a lot of friends get hooked on pills.

02:00:20.000 Chris Lieben's in my movie.

02:00:22.000 Is he?

02:00:22.000 Yeah.

02:00:22.000 Yeah, he's had some issues.

02:00:24.000 And he's had some issues recently.

02:00:25.000 I just spoke to him a couple days ago, and he's back on the Suboxone again. 1.00

02:00:31.000 And it's hard to get off of that shit. 1.00

02:00:33.000 Like, it's really hard to get off. 1.00

02:00:34.000 And it's like, Suboxone is a maintenance drug to keep him going back from doing the oxys.

02:00:40.000 But it's just something that he's going to have to battle and fight every day to get off.

02:00:45.000 What are the numbers?

02:00:47.000 Like, how many people in this country are addicted to pain pills?

02:00:49.000 I think it's like 2 point something million.

02:00:52.000 Jesus. 1.00

02:00:53.000 Holy shit. 1.00

02:00:54.000 Yeah. 0.99

02:00:54.000 Well, and then just how many people are just on pills, period? 0.99

02:00:57.000 I mean, I know some people, obviously some of the pharmaceutical drugs can be beneficial.

02:01:01.000 You want a number?

02:01:02.000 Hold on, that's a real number?

02:01:03.000 You want a number?

02:01:04.000 Two million people are hooked on pain pills?

02:01:05.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:01:06.000 Fucking people walking around like zombies. 1.00

02:01:08.000 Say you had an idea to help people. 1.00

02:01:10.000 Holy shit. 0.99

02:01:10.000 I'm just freaking out. 0.99

02:01:12.000 Give me a second here.

02:01:13.000 I can't believe that's real. 1.00

02:01:14.000 Two million people are hooked on that shit? 1.00

02:01:17.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:01:18.000 That's like a national epidemic.

02:01:19.000 Yeah, absolutely.

02:01:20.000 That's almost 1% of the population of the country.

02:01:23.000 So last year, I think...

02:01:24.000 What's the country?

02:01:25.000 300 million people?

02:01:26.000 I think so, yeah.

02:01:27.000 That's... 0.99

02:01:28.000 God damn it. 1.00

02:01:29.000 2 million fucking people. 1.00

02:01:30.000 3 million people is 1%. 1.00

02:01:32.000 I think it's in 2012, like...

02:01:34.000 That's crazy.

02:01:36.000 254 million prescriptions were written for Vicodin.

02:01:42.000 So that's enough to medicate 254 million prescriptions for Vicodin were written in like last year or the year before.

02:01:53.000 And that's enough drugs, that's enough painkillers to medicate every male or every adult person in America for a month.

02:02:03.000 What?

02:02:04.000 Yeah, 254 million.

02:02:06.000 Here's another step for you.

02:02:08.000 Hold on, 254 million prescriptions were filled?

02:02:11.000 Is that the idea?

02:02:12.000 Yeah, for painkillers.

02:02:13.000 How does that even make sense?

02:02:15.000 Is that in a whole year?

02:02:16.000 In a whole year because people get several.

02:02:18.000 Right, so they get like 90 pills or 100 pills.

02:02:20.000 A lot of times it's like once a month.

02:02:22.000 A lot of times with stuff like that you only get like 10 at a time though too.

02:02:26.000 Well, here's another step for you.

02:02:27.000 If you wanted to do something about it, and you're a congressman, right?

02:02:31.000 And you're like, you know what? 1.00

02:02:32.000 Fuck it. 1.00

02:02:32.000 I'm going to do something about this epidemic. 1.00

02:02:34.000 And then there's $445,000 sitting on your table.

02:02:39.000 I can either take that money from lobbyists, because on average, that's how much money the lobbyists will take.

02:02:45.000 On average, there's a certain number of people in Congress and a certain amount of money that's spent.

02:02:50.000 So if you average it out, it comes out to over $400,000 per congressman that they use for their campaigns and everything else.

02:02:57.000 So you can either take that money and just say, you know what?

02:03:00.000 Everything's cool.

02:03:02.000 Or you can take that money and try to fight them and risk losing that money out of your campaign.

02:03:06.000 So all these special interests and all these different things that people talk about all the time.

02:03:11.000 Pharmaceuticals is one of the biggest ones.

02:03:13.000 They're one of the biggest contributors To these campaigns, so people don't really have a vested interest to stop it.

02:03:19.000 They have no interest, right?

02:03:21.000 I mean, that's an epidemic. 0.98

02:03:22.000 And if they were trying to fight it, if they fought it with that little amount of money, it wouldn't even fucking work. 0.86

02:03:27.000 Well, what amount of money would be effective? 0.86

02:03:30.000 Yeah, billions.

02:03:31.000 It seems like it's so intense. 1.00

02:03:32.000 What's really fucked up is this shit didn't even exist 50 years ago. 1.00

02:03:36.000 Right. 1.00

02:03:37.000 That's what's really fucked up.

02:03:38.000 It didn't really exist 20 years ago. 0.91

02:03:40.000 How nuts is that?

02:03:42.000 20 years ago, they did have Quaaludes.

02:03:46.000 That's the big Bill Cosby drug, right?

02:03:48.000 Isn't that his thing, Quaaludes?

02:03:50.000 Are they as addictive?

02:03:52.000 They were a completely different thing from what I understand.

02:03:55.000 This is just a total new level of addictive properties, right?

02:03:58.000 Yeah, so if you look at...

02:04:03.000 Drugs like morphine, right?

02:04:05.000 Morphine and heroin are like really closely related.

02:04:08.000 You can make one out of the other, right?

02:04:09.000 But on the other side, they now make them synthetically. 0.99

02:04:12.000 So this shit doesn't even require... 0.99

02:04:14.000 It's just chemical upon chemical upon chemical. 1.00

02:04:17.000 It doesn't require any sort of base.

02:04:20.000 You don't need opium to make it.

02:04:23.000 You need opium to make morphine, but you don't need it to make Oxycontin.

02:04:26.000 So they figured out a way to make these things synthetically so that they can just...

02:04:31.000 I don't understand that.

02:04:32.000 How does that work?

02:04:33.000 I don't understand either.

02:04:34.000 Where are they getting the raw properties? 0.93

02:04:36.000 They make it in a lab, but I don't know what the fuck they make it from, but they can't make something out of nothing. 0.86

02:04:41.000 It's impossible, right? 0.96

02:04:42.000 That's why I always did understand.

02:04:44.000 Everyone said, well, yeah, Afghanistan produces 90-whatever percent of the world's opium and heroin.

02:04:50.000 But what about pills?

02:04:52.000 If it's synthetic opium or synthetic heroin, are they getting it from...

02:04:57.000 Afghanistan?

02:04:58.000 Is that what they're doing?

02:04:59.000 I don't know.

02:04:59.000 They figured out ways, special ways to make it out of other things that are like normal bases and change the chemical makeups of them somehow.

02:05:08.000 We're too stupid for this conversation, aren't we? 0.99

02:05:11.000 There's opiates. 1.00

02:05:12.000 People go, oh yeah, he's on opiates.

02:05:14.000 But that's not really true unless he's on morphine.

02:05:16.000 They're on opioids, which are synthetic.

02:05:20.000 Kind of like steroids.

02:05:21.000 Steroids, opioids, see all the bad oids? 1.00

02:05:23.000 All about the oids.

02:05:24.000 Hemorrhoids.

02:05:25.000 How strange, man, that we live in a world where 200 million prescriptions for super highly addictive pain pills get prescribed in a year.

02:05:35.000 And we're supposed to be like an educated country and stuff too.

02:05:37.000 And you think that like that's an epidemic and you look at what we're prescribing to the kids.

02:05:41.000 We're giving kids, you know, Adderall, Ritalin, and that's, you know, five million prescriptions written for that for kids every year, you know.

02:05:49.000 It just keeps going up and up and up. 0.99

02:05:52.000 It seems so easy to get shit, too. 1.00

02:05:54.000 I had a mom. 0.99

02:05:55.000 I have a mom in my film, and she has a daughter that has ADHD, and so she brings her to the, you know, psychiatrist or whatever, and they prescribe her ADHD pills, you know, Adderall, and the mom starts taking it.

02:06:09.000 And then the mom convinces the daughter she doesn't have ADHD and she shouldn't take it.

02:06:13.000 So then the mom starts taking the other kids. 0.66

02:06:15.000 There's three other kids.

02:06:16.000 She took all her kids to the doctor and got like four prescriptions every month and was taking like tons of Adderall. 1.00

02:06:23.000 She would take like ten a day. 1.00

02:06:25.000 I bet that bitch got a lot done. 1.00

02:06:26.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:06:27.000 House is clean.

02:06:28.000 2010, every American adult, every four hours for one month.

02:06:33.000 It says every prescription painkiller were prescribed to medicate every American adult for every four hours.

02:06:39.000 What do you mean?

02:06:40.000 What does that mean?

02:06:40.000 You can't see that line.

02:06:41.000 Well, why don't you make it so I can see it?

02:06:45.000 Oh, it's like, there's a text of it.

02:06:52.000 Okay, in 2010, enough prescription painkillers were prescribed to medicate every American adult every four hours for a month.

02:07:00.000 I wasn't lying.

02:07:01.000 Jesus Christ.

02:07:03.000 Nine million people.

02:07:05.000 So, abusers.

02:07:08.000 That's abusers.

02:07:09.000 That's 2010. Now, has it gotten better or worse in five years?

02:07:13.000 Either way, that number's insane.

02:07:16.000 You know, when I talked about Purdue Pharmaceuticals and OxyContin and how that invaded America and all that stuff like that, if you look at it, the government at some certain point...

02:07:25.000 Got fed up with it and they said, listen, people are dying, right?

02:07:29.000 So it's cool that you guys are selling all these drugs and everything.

02:07:32.000 We'll take your lobby money, but people are dying.

02:07:34.000 So you can't take this drug.

02:07:36.000 You got to make a way that you can't take it and crush it up anymore and inject it or snort it or do other things with it recreationally.

02:07:43.000 So now if you crush Oxycontin, it turns into a gel.

02:07:47.000 It turns into like a mush.

02:07:48.000 So what they did, what happened After they figured out how you couldn't crush it and snort it anymore, once they did that, the sales dropped 80%. 0.99

02:08:00.000 Holy fuck. 0.99

02:08:01.000 So what does that tell you? 1.00

02:08:04.000 80%?

02:08:06.000 It just shows you anything is possible with money, though. 0.95

02:08:08.000 How the fuck did they figure out a way that if you crush it up, it turns into a gel? 0.97

02:08:12.000 I don't know. 0.99

02:08:12.000 The fuck does that even mean? 0.99

02:08:13.000 It's amazing that someone talked them into doing that, and then they dropped 80% of their profits, and they stuck with it. 0.99

02:08:18.000 Yeah. 0.94

02:08:19.000 They're probably fucking scrambling for studies to show that that gel is less effective. 0.98

02:08:24.000 They find other... 0.99

02:08:26.000 We need to go back to the pills.

02:08:27.000 There's no other way.

02:08:28.000 Here's the problem with a study, right?

02:08:31.000 So everybody wants to think that they read the studies and the studies are good and the studies are valid.

02:08:36.000 What happens is you need two studies that prove that your pill is more effective than a placebo.

02:08:43.000 Not more effective than anything that's on the market.

02:08:46.000 Just more effective than a placebo to get your drug passed.

02:08:49.000 So it costs a lot of money and a lot of money through the FDA and a lot of testing and all these things, but it's still not very hard to get a drug passed.

02:08:58.000 They just passed one called Zyhydro, and it's more powerful than OxyContin.

02:09:05.000 So now there's another drug on the market that's more powerful. 1.00

02:09:08.000 Who are these fucking monsters? 1.00

02:09:10.000 How do we get some of that shit? 1.00

02:09:12.000 Who are these monsters that are making this stuff? 1.00

02:09:14.000 Does anybody need something stronger than OxyContin? 1.00

02:09:17.000 Is this some fucking rallying cry? 1.00

02:09:19.000 Stronger pain pills? 1.00

02:09:21.000 You talk about medical marijuana.

02:09:23.000 I talked to a senator about medical marijuana.

02:09:26.000 He's like, medical marijuana is not killing anybody.

02:09:28.000 And I'm like, exactly.

02:09:29.000 So is that something that's good or bad?

02:09:33.000 And we look at it and go, man, it's crazy what we could do with a plant.

02:09:39.000 Compared to what's happening with these pills. 0.99

02:09:44.000 I know maybe one or two people that have ruined their life with pot just because they're fucking lazy. 0.96

02:09:50.000 But beyond that, beyond the scope of that, it seems to be very helpful for so many people. 0.97

02:09:55.000 Yeah, my point of view has always been that if you, pot ruins your life just because pot got there first.

02:10:00.000 Yeah, exactly. 0.99

02:10:00.000 Cheeseburgers or scratch tickets or fucking Jehovah's Witnesses, whoever gets to your house first. 0.99

02:10:05.000 Look man, alcohol is the fucking worst. 1.00

02:10:07.000 Alcohol's the devil if you indulge in it. 1.00

02:10:11.000 Yeah.

02:10:12.000 Or, you know, you don't have the gene for it, or whatever it is, and it's not the worst.

02:10:16.000 You just have a drink, and then you don't want to have a drink anymore.

02:10:18.000 Like, I've never had the urge to drink.

02:10:21.000 I like a drink every now and then, but I've never had the urge.

02:10:23.000 Yeah, he's the same way.

02:10:24.000 But I have friends who have it, and I see it.

02:10:26.000 It hits them, and it's like a blanket goes over their eyelids.

02:10:29.000 It's like they vanish.

02:10:31.000 It's like they're not there anymore.

02:10:32.000 And then some new person's there.

02:10:33.000 And those are the people that you know are gonna eventually have a problem if they don't already.

02:10:38.000 If they don't already.

02:10:38.000 Yeah, I definitely have known a lot of alcoholics, and I know a lot of people, like more than half a dozen people whose lives have been wrecked by pills.

02:10:47.000 Yeah.

02:10:48.000 Usually a back injury, something along those lines, and then they take something, and the next thing you know, they can't get off it.

02:10:54.000 It's very innocent.

02:10:56.000 It's not something that's...

02:10:58.000 But it turns somebody who can be a great person...

02:11:02.000 Into somebody who lies, cheats, and steals.

02:11:04.000 And that's what's wrong with it.

02:11:05.000 You know, the pills...

02:11:06.000 I always just used to think, like, well, if I could just be on these forever, because I still have a lot of pain in my back and my hips, and, like, not in the hips necessarily, but, like, in the lower back because of the hips were messed up and because my knees are messed up and still have a lot of pain.

02:11:20.000 But I know that what happens with the pain pills are it's diminishing returns.

02:11:24.000 Like, after a while, I'll need...

02:11:26.000 You know, for a while, I had to take 12...

02:11:29.000 Percocets a day.

02:11:30.000 What?

02:11:31.000 Just to maintain the pain level that I used to.

02:11:36.000 How many hours do you awake?

02:11:38.000 Yeah, like, well, you know what's the other thing?

02:11:39.000 Keeps you awake all day.

02:11:41.000 Percocets keep you awake?

02:11:42.000 Yeah.

02:11:42.000 Some people will go to sleep and some people stay awake all day.

02:11:45.000 I would stay awake all day.

02:11:45.000 But after a while, I got up to taking like 20, right?

02:11:49.000 20 a day?

02:11:50.000 Okay, so I thought that was bad.

02:11:51.000 It's a PR. Yeah, it's a PR. My friend in the movie, I say to him, he was in the WWE, he's a wrestler, Luther Reigns.

02:11:58.000 I said, how many were you taking a day?

02:12:00.000 He goes, 90. And he would say, I'd get up in the morning, my girlfriend would lay them all out.

02:12:05.000 It'd be like, you know, 10 Vicodin, 10 Soma.

02:12:09.000 You know, so he was taking muscle relaxers, painkillers.

02:12:12.000 He said, I even take Viagra and Cialis every morning with my vitamins.

02:12:16.000 I'm like, what do you take that for?

02:12:17.000 He said, just to be ready.

02:12:19.000 You know, is this because... 1.00

02:12:20.000 Well, it sounds like an asshole. 1.00

02:12:21.000 Well, we're... 1.00

02:12:23.000 He's the coolest fucking guy ever. 0.99

02:12:25.000 He's amazing. 0.99

02:12:27.000 He's got some great stories. 1.00

02:12:29.000 Game pilled up with a giant hard dick. 1.00

02:12:32.000 A vampire with a boner. 1.00

02:12:36.000 At the time he lived in Phoenix.

02:12:37.000 And in Phoenix they have cameras, you know, on the freeway.

02:12:42.000 And he was on, you know, Soma makes you go to sleep.

02:12:45.000 It's a muscle relaxer, makes you go to sleep.

02:12:47.000 So he said he gets a ticket in the mail. 0.99

02:12:48.000 He's like, what the fuck is this ticket? 0.98

02:12:49.000 I never got a ticket. 0.99

02:12:50.000 Driving asleep?

02:12:51.000 He opens up the ticket and there's a plane of his day. 0.99

02:12:54.000 He's fucking passed out. 0.97

02:12:55.000 And he's driving in his Corvette going, you know, 95 in a 65. Asleep. 1.00

02:13:01.000 Asleep.

02:13:02.000 He got the ticket. 1.00

02:13:02.000 Jesus fucking Christ! 1.00

02:13:04.000 I wonder if he'd get a ticket for being asleep, dude. 1.00

02:13:06.000 Oh my God!

02:13:08.000 What's going on with him now?

02:13:10.000 He had a massive, massive stroke.

02:13:13.000 He had a cardiac arrhythmia.

02:13:16.000 I don't know what you call that.

02:13:17.000 He had something wrong with his heart to begin with.

02:13:20.000 All the pills and sort of living the tough life because he did a lot of illegal drugs too.

02:13:26.000 He had a stroke.

02:13:27.000 Illegal drugs?

02:13:28.000 Like what?

02:13:29.000 He did like coke and everything else on top of it.

02:13:33.000 But what happens is he was getting them on the black market.

02:13:37.000 He used to get them a thousand at a time.

02:13:40.000 Big bottles.

02:13:42.000 A thousand?

02:13:44.000 Oh my god.

02:13:45.000 He told me he had a customer that was buying them at $28,000 like a week.

02:13:53.000 Wow.

02:13:54.000 So he had to get massive, massive amounts.

02:13:56.000 So he was like dealing them and selling them.

02:13:59.000 $28,000 worth of pills in a week? 1.00

02:14:01.000 You need a fucking forklift for that shit. 1.00

02:14:02.000 Selling them to guys in the NFL. You know, selling them to the Phoenix Cardinals. 1.00

02:14:05.000 God, that's insane.

02:14:08.000 Wasn't Rush Limbaugh taking like 90 a day?

02:14:10.000 Yeah, I think so, yeah.

02:14:11.000 I was taking a lot.

02:14:12.000 Well, anyway, so my friend, Luther Raines, he ended up, he had a massive stroke.

02:14:17.000 And now he's actually, somehow, so when you have withdrawals from painkillers, it feels like you're gonna die.

02:14:25.000 And so when he had this stroke, they said, get his mother here.

02:14:28.000 He's not gonna make it through this and we can't pump him full of enough drugs for him to get through this.

02:14:35.000 He's probably not gonna make it.

02:14:37.000 Somehow, miraculously, the part of the Like 30% of his brain got killed during the stroke.

02:14:45.000 Part of the brain that got killed was the part that was responsible for feeling withdrawals. 0.99

02:14:51.000 So somehow he fucking dodged a bullet. 0.99

02:14:54.000 We call him the bulletproof bad boy. 1.00

02:14:56.000 Somehow he dodged a bullet.

02:14:58.000 He's alive.

02:14:59.000 He has no more hangovers.

02:15:00.000 He's completely sober.

02:15:01.000 And he goes around and talks to kids and churches and things like that.

02:15:05.000 So he's doing great work.

02:15:06.000 So he lost 30% of his brain.

02:15:09.000 Yeah, but somehow he's still cognitive.

02:15:11.000 He's still there. 0.81

02:15:13.000 He's jacked.

02:15:15.000 So he's on steroids.

02:15:16.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:15:17.000 Jesus fucking Christ. 1.00

02:15:19.000 I don't know. 1.00

02:15:19.000 Maybe. 1.00

02:15:20.000 He might be.

02:15:21.000 He's got to be on something, yeah.

02:15:22.000 So he's off the pain pills, on steroids, and helping out kids.

02:15:26.000 Yeah, there you go. 1.00

02:15:27.000 What the fuck kind of a world we live in. 1.00

02:15:29.000 I love that one day we were eating with him. 1.00

02:15:31.000 We were grabbing a burger or something.

02:15:33.000 He's got this fanny pack on.

02:15:35.000 He's, like, pulling stuff out.

02:15:37.000 He's trying to find his, like, money, you know?

02:15:39.000 He's like, I'll pay for it, bro.

02:15:41.000 And he's, like, moving in slow motion. 0.99

02:15:43.000 He's fucking drooling. 0.99

02:15:44.000 I'm like, this guy's amazing. 0.99

02:15:45.000 What is going on with this guy?

02:15:47.000 He's putting all these, like, different bottles of pills, like, on the table. 0.99

02:15:50.000 He's got, like, Viagra and a bunch of other shit. 0.97

02:15:54.000 He carries a bottle with him? 0.98

02:15:56.000 Yeah, and then he put, like...

02:15:57.000 In his fanny pack.

02:15:58.000 Yeah, well, there's Bob Tulls, the many bottles.

02:16:00.000 And then he puts down, like, a little bag, like a clear bag of something, and he's, like...

02:16:05.000 He looks at it, and he grabs his money clip, and he puts his money on the table, and he looks at the clear bag, and he's like, whoops.

02:16:10.000 And he puts that bag... 0.97

02:16:11.000 Whatever the fuck that was. 0.97

02:16:13.000 That was, like... 0.99

02:16:14.000 That wasn't okay for him to put on the table...

02:16:17.000 Everything else was fine for some reason.

02:16:19.000 He's like, whoops.

02:16:21.000 This big old stack of cash.

02:16:23.000 That's so crazy.

02:16:24.000 Oh, yeah.

02:16:25.000 Oh, my God.

02:16:26.000 I was like, dude, what if you get your pills mixed up? 1.00

02:16:28.000 You're just running a ton of fucking Viagra and shit. 1.00

02:16:33.000 Maybe when he was passed out in the car, maybe he was driving with his dick. 1.00

02:16:37.000 Yeah, maybe his dick was so hard there was no blood in his brain. 1.00

02:16:40.000 It's amazing now, though, because he was dating a porn star for a long time. 1.00

02:16:44.000 He brought porn stars to your fucking movie premiere. 1.00

02:16:47.000 It was amazing. 1.00

02:16:48.000 Bigger, stronger, faster. 0.99

02:16:49.000 He brought two porn stars. 0.98

02:16:50.000 There was two chicks making out right behind my parents. 1.00

02:16:52.000 That was the weirdest thing I've ever seen in my life.

02:16:55.000 What a good guy.

02:16:56.000 Oh, he's awesome.

02:16:57.000 He's a lot of fun.

02:16:58.000 So then he'll be going, now that he's a born-again Christian, he'll be like telling me, look, bro, now that you're sober, now you need God. 0.99

02:17:05.000 And he'll be like, look at this chick's tits that just texted me. 1.00

02:17:07.000 It's like, he's such a walking contradiction. 0.99

02:17:11.000 He's hilarious.

02:17:13.000 So what, if anything, can be done about this crazy prescription drug crisis?

02:17:19.000 Because it seems like when you're talking about millions of people that are on it, what's the number?

02:17:24.000 8 million people abuse it every year?

02:17:26.000 8 million people, what is that?

02:17:28.000 Is that like 3% of the population of the country somewhere around there?

02:17:31.000 That's pretty big.

02:17:32.000 What's the country?

02:17:33.000 300 million people, right?

02:17:35.000 So 9 would be 3%, right?

02:17:39.000 Jesus Christ!

02:17:40.000 8.76 million in 2010. So what is it?

02:17:43.000 Oh, I wonder what percentage of people are adults. 0.99

02:17:46.000 It might literally be 3% of the population of the whole country is fucked up on prescription pain pills. 0.98

02:17:52.000 Well, here's the deal, too. 0.92

02:17:53.000 We only represent 5% of the entire world's population.

02:17:58.000 We consume 75 to 85% of the world's prescription drugs.

02:18:03.000 That's a lot of drugs.

02:18:04.000 Well, that's because we're America and we do it big.

02:18:06.000 Everything we do...

02:18:07.000 America.

02:18:07.000 Yeah, so if you want to see what can be done about it, first of all, just ban advertising on TV for drugs because that just creates an environment where people go into the doctor and tell them what they have.

02:18:20.000 A doctor is a fucking doctor. 0.98

02:18:22.000 A doctor went to school. 1.00

02:18:23.000 All you did was watch a commercial that's advertised.

02:18:26.000 Do you have toenail fungus or... 1.00

02:18:28.000 All these stupid things. 1.00

02:18:30.000 So that creates a drug culture, an idea that there's a pill for everything. 0.99

02:18:34.000 I think that that idea is an idea that needs to just go away.

02:18:38.000 There is a pill for everything, but let's not think that way.

02:18:42.000 Are you tired?

02:18:43.000 Are you sad?

02:18:43.000 Yeah.

02:18:44.000 Yeah, that's talking about me.

02:18:47.000 That's one thing, but I think also education is the most important thing that we can have for anything, whether it's steroids, whether it's prescription drugs.

02:18:55.000 Yeah, but you say that.

02:18:56.000 You say that, but yet you were educated.

02:18:58.000 You knew all the pitfalls.

02:19:00.000 You had a brother who died of it.

02:19:02.000 You had been hooked on it yourself.

02:19:04.000 You've been doing a documentary about all the different components of addiction, of selling these pills, and yet you still got sucked into the web.

02:19:14.000 Yeah, exactly.

02:19:14.000 That's how powerful it is.

02:19:16.000 That's so crazy, but you are about as educated about it as a person can be.

02:19:21.000 I think now I am.

02:19:23.000 But back then when you were making the documentary, don't you think you were way more educated than the average person?

02:19:27.000 Yeah, I was way more educated.

02:19:28.000 I was already susceptible to it.

02:19:31.000 I had already been in, you know what I mean?

02:19:34.000 So that's a tough thing.

02:19:36.000 It's like if you can get somebody before they ever experience it, that's definitely a good thing.

02:19:41.000 Are there other warning signs maybe before you get to that point of reaching for a pill?

02:19:45.000 What do you mean other warning sounds like?

02:19:46.000 Like something that happens before you actually start to take pills or do drugs.

02:19:51.000 You know what I mean?

02:19:51.000 Yeah, there's always sort of gateways, drinking and other things that make it...

02:19:56.000 Mark, what is it like for you to have two brothers that have these poles, but you don't? 1.00

02:20:00.000 My family's fucked up. 0.99

02:20:03.000 But you, you know, I mean, you obviously like steroids, but... 1.00

02:20:07.000 I love them, yeah.

02:20:07.000 They're great.

02:20:08.000 But you don't have, like, this self-destructive thing going on.

02:20:13.000 Like, you seem like a real generous guy.

02:20:14.000 Right.

02:20:15.000 But you are a real generous guy.

02:20:16.000 Just the fact that you have this free gym and these free seminars, and I saw in the documentary that you really love working with kids and helping them out.

02:20:24.000 Like, what is it...

02:20:26.000 Yeah, I think seeing my older brother, like, he just, like, his life was really hard, and he had to, like, evade stuff and lie and, like, go through all these crazy things all the time.

02:20:42.000 Because of the pills.

02:20:43.000 Yeah, because of the pills, and it also put a lot of heartache and stuff on a lot of other people, so it sort of made me go the other direction.

02:20:50.000 You know, like, sometimes people have...

02:20:52.000 A parent that's an alcoholic or a parent that abuses them and it makes that person go the complete opposite way and then other times you have someone who has a parent that's an alcoholic and they end up becoming the same thing.

02:21:04.000 I think for me it just made me steer clear of that.

02:21:06.000 I just remember like seeing my brother like hide alcohol like in bushes and shit like that from my parents and lie to my parents and my parents are About as awesome of parents as you can have.

02:21:18.000 So I was always just like, man, that just seems like a lot of extra work to go through.

02:21:22.000 Even if you told them that you were having a drink, they probably wouldn't care.

02:21:26.000 Not like they would be like, hey, go for it, man.

02:21:28.000 They're not going to be like your buddy and have a drink with you.

02:21:30.000 But at the same time, I don't think our parents would really care, especially if they were in the house. 1.00

02:21:34.000 They'd probably be like, fuck it, man. 1.00

02:21:36.000 I'd rather have you doing it here safe. 1.00

02:21:38.000 I know you're not driving and causing a lot of other problems. 0.99

02:21:40.000 So I just saw a lot of baggage that came with all that shit. 0.99

02:21:45.000 And you didn't see that? 1.00

02:21:46.000 I saw it.

02:21:47.000 I completely saw it.

02:21:49.000 Like I said, getting the hip replacement thing and getting hooked on pills in a way that seemed to me to be Organic.

02:21:59.000 My brother started taking pills because he got hurt in wrestling.

02:22:05.000 I don't know if he ever got a prescription for it.

02:22:07.000 They were just passed around.

02:22:08.000 They were passed around so much in wrestling that it was such a huge problem.

02:22:13.000 So for me, I was like, well, I'm taking them legitimately.

02:22:15.000 And it just was a snowball effect.

02:22:16.000 Legitimately, because the doctor tells you it's okay.

02:22:18.000 Yeah, it was a real snowball effect.

02:22:19.000 What about you when you got hurt from the squat? 0.51

02:22:21.000 When you fucked up your ankle and your knee, when you dropped that weight? 0.93

02:22:26.000 Yeah, I had to take a little bit of stuff, just because it was just unreasonable not to. 0.97

02:22:30.000 Like, I just physically could not get up off the couch.

02:22:33.000 You were just in agony.

02:22:34.000 And then I just talked to one of my buddies at the gym. 0.96

02:22:36.000 I'm like, dude, like, I was like, I need some stuff so I can fucking move around.

02:22:41.000 So you're just getting it from the gym.

02:22:43.000 Yeah, I'm in a lot of, that's where everything comes from.

02:22:45.000 That's so crazy.

02:22:46.000 You guys don't ever go to doctors.

02:22:48.000 Well, I gotta say, like, when I talk about the hip surgery, I mean, it felt like my right side that they botched.

02:22:53.000 For two years, it felt like it was on fire, you know?

02:22:56.000 So, I mean, if you're on fire, you gotta put that out, right?

02:23:00.000 And then by the time you're ready to get off of it, you're just so addicted.

02:23:04.000 I also told my friend, too, I was like, dude, I'm gonna come back to you for more.

02:23:10.000 Don't give me any more.

02:23:11.000 So give me an amount that you think is reasonable.

02:23:15.000 So what did you take?

02:23:17.000 I don't even know.

02:23:18.000 I don't even remember exactly what it was.

02:23:20.000 Whatever it was, it worked pretty good, though.

02:23:22.000 You just don't know.

02:23:24.000 Take two, or how many did you tell?

02:23:25.000 Ah, whatever.

02:23:26.000 Yeah, just take some for a few.

02:23:28.000 Oh my God.

02:23:29.000 What also steered me clear of a lot of stuff, at least as I got a little bit older, is I met my wife.

02:23:36.000 We've been married for almost 15 years now, and been together for about 17 years.

02:23:40.000 And I have children, and I got a lot of responsibilities. 0.96

02:23:42.000 So even if I wanted to get fucked up, I don't have time to go do it, really. 0.98

02:23:47.000 Right. 0.98

02:23:47.000 I got a lot of obligations. 0.98

02:23:49.000 Your brother didn't have any kids.

02:23:51.000 No, he was married.

02:23:52.000 He didn't have any kids.

02:23:53.000 You don't have any kids?

02:23:54.000 Not our kids.

02:23:55.000 I wonder if that's it.

02:23:56.000 I wonder if it's the responsibility of having children.

02:23:59.000 Yeah, it's having somebody else in my life that cares about me, somebody else that's supportive, and she's as much as part of the company's success as I am, so all that definitely plays into it.

02:24:11.000 That's such a scary number of the 8.76 million people that are abusing it and that being 2010 and not knowing what it is in 2015. That's terrifying to me.

02:24:21.000 That's crazy.

02:24:22.000 The idea that we could be in that state and it's sort of like something that flies under the radar for the most part unless you know somebody and then you think of that person as an isolated incident.

02:24:31.000 You think that person's crazy or that person's doing it, like you said, doing it to themselves.

02:24:35.000 There is definitely personal responsibility in all of this, whatever it is.

02:24:41.000 But at a certain point, when things are so addictive that people don't really know about it or the doctors are just handing them out like crazy, for a while, a couple years ago, and they shut these all down, there were pill mills.

02:24:54.000 So they called them pill mills.

02:24:56.000 People would come from West Virginia, drive all the way down to Florida just to get pills.

02:25:01.000 So my friend that we were talking about before, Luther, he just said he'd have seven prescriptions.

02:25:07.000 And he's like, my whole day would be driving around a different...

02:25:10.000 Different pharmacies picking up different prescriptions.

02:25:12.000 Now they have this drug database that if you get a prescription from Walgreens, you can't go to Costco and get that prescription.

02:25:19.000 However, nobody really uses it.

02:25:22.000 So we have to get...

02:25:23.000 That's another way to get...

02:25:24.000 Nobody uses it.

02:25:24.000 Yeah, like they have...

02:25:26.000 Plus, you know, the DEA regulates how many of these drugs are made.

02:25:29.000 And there's way more drugs made than are actually needed.

02:25:32.000 So a lot of those fall off the truck and, you know, different things happen where they're obtained.

02:25:37.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:25:39.000 Is that sort of built into the system?

02:25:41.000 This is a massive, massive, massive money-making system and everybody's on the take. 1.00

02:25:48.000 What the fuck? 0.99

02:25:50.000 A lot of money being made. 1.00

02:25:51.000 And it's killing people, like vampires.

02:25:53.000 Yeah, but we have a war on drugs. 1.00

02:25:55.000 Are there really vampires?

02:25:56.000 That's a vampire to me.

02:25:57.000 That's what I say in the movie, I say in the film, is there really a war on drugs?

02:26:01.000 Like, no.

02:26:02.000 There's a war on some drugs.

02:26:03.000 That's what there's always been.

02:26:05.000 Right.

02:26:05.000 Yeah, while we had Nancy Reagan, you know, up there saying, you know, just say no, her husband's lifting the bans on big business that allowed the pharmaceutical companies to grow so big.

02:26:17.000 Wow, so this documentary, the newest one, what takes place in it that you found was shocking?

02:26:26.000 Going through this journey of putting together this documentary, was there anything that shocked you?

02:26:32.000 Yeah, a lot of the numbers, but also I interviewed this woman, Gwen Olson.

02:26:37.000 Gwen Olson used to be a pharmaceutical sales rep that quit when her daughter killed herself on psych meds.

02:26:45.000 And her story's just insane. 1.00

02:26:48.000 And just meeting somebody who actually worked through the system to know that people in the pharmaceutical companies get pumped up when they have a new drug coming out that can actually fix the side effects of another drug they already have on the market.

02:27:04.000 And they're so excited because they know how much money they're going to make off of this.

02:27:07.000 It's just like sickening. 0.99

02:27:09.000 The whole thing is disgusting and sickening. 0.78

02:27:11.000 And it's not about health.

02:27:13.000 And that's what I really learned.

02:27:14.000 Her story is terrifying. 0.99

02:27:15.000 That was fucking crazy. 0.99

02:27:17.000 How does that ever get stopped? 0.99

02:27:19.000 How is it such a machine that's making so many billions of dollars?

02:27:22.000 How do you stop it and how do you level it out?

02:27:24.000 You know, I think people that stop taking money from pharmaceutical companies, that's a big thing, you know.

02:27:29.000 We have Donald Trump running and half the people are like, oh god, Donald Trump, but you know.

02:27:34.000 That's something that's not going to play into his decision making.

02:27:37.000 So if people like that, I'm not saying him specifically, but people like that to say, you know what, I'm not going to take their money.

02:27:43.000 I don't care what they say.

02:27:44.000 I'm not going to take...

02:27:45.000 You know, it's the same thing with oil or any of these other problems.

02:27:48.000 We...

02:27:49.000 The way we fix problems is not to bribe congressmen.

02:27:52.000 I think that that's a huge thing, and a huge thing is for regular, average, everyday citizens to say no to what's going on and stop and write to their congressmen and make us think.

02:28:03.000 People wanted medical marijuana.

02:28:06.000 Medical marijuana didn't come about because...

02:28:10.000 Some congressman said, you know what, I'm going to make this a long time.

02:28:13.000 It took a long time.

02:28:14.000 It took a massive movement of a massive amount of people to say, we want this.

02:28:19.000 And, you know, if you look at food, for example, everything's sort of going organic.

02:28:24.000 It's easier to find, as hard as it is sometimes to find good food, it's also a lot easier than it used to be.

02:28:30.000 So that's like Costco.

02:28:32.000 Costco is like all going organic now because people want it.

02:28:35.000 So if people want, you know, a drug free society, a society where their kids aren't dying and killing each other over drugs, a society where people can live in peace and harmony and not have their families ruined by these problems, they can they can basically start that front, you know, just like they did with all these other things.

02:28:52.000 It's a groundswell, you know, it's like something that has to start.

02:28:56.000 I just don't know how you would ever stop that amount of money.

02:29:00.000 It seems like the amount of money is so fucking terrifying and that these companies can just live with themselves. 0.95

02:29:05.000 It's so bizarre that they can justify the production of these fucking pills when they know that 9 million people, or whatever the number is, are abusing them just in this country alone. 0.97

02:29:15.000 A massive amount of the drugs on the market, pharmaceuticals, they don't even work. 0.99

02:29:20.000 You know, they're not proven effective.

02:29:23.000 The psych meds that we put our kids on were never tested on kids.

02:29:27.000 So if it's not tested on a kid, don't give it to my kid.

02:29:30.000 That's what people need to start saying.

02:29:32.000 But people say, you know what?

02:29:33.000 It's easier for me to...

02:29:35.000 I put my kid on...

02:29:36.000 Everybody wants to make the exception.

02:29:38.000 Every parent I talk to says, yeah, yeah, but my kid's different because I put him on Adderall and now he's fine rather than to search out all the other options.

02:29:46.000 I think people want to try to solve stuff with money or with a pill rather than with their time.

02:29:51.000 You know, that's a big issue.

02:29:52.000 If your child has trouble in school, maybe your kid just has trouble in school. 1.00

02:29:58.000 I fucking sucked in school. 0.99

02:30:02.000 Each person is going to have their own different thing. 1.00

02:30:04.000 They're going to be good and bad at it.

02:30:05.000 You don't necessarily need a pill to try to solve that problem all the time. 0.99

02:30:08.000 Yeah, and school is fucking gross. 1.00

02:30:10.000 The idea of sitting in a classroom, especially with some fucking teacher that's unmotivated. 1.00

02:30:15.000 You sit there and you're just supposed to absorb these numbers. 1.00

02:30:18.000 For just fucking hours on end, day after day. 0.96

02:30:19.000 There's a lot of people that's just, they're not designed for that, yet they would thrive doing something in life. 0.99

02:30:25.000 They just have to figure out what that something is.

02:30:28.000 They can absolutely contribute and just not care about geometry or not care about history or not care about whatever it is that's uninspired.

02:30:35.000 Sometimes it's the teacher.

02:30:37.000 Some teachers get you excited about anything.

02:30:39.000 They're fun to be around.

02:30:41.000 Yeah, creativity is more important than knowledge.

02:30:43.000 It's like Albert Einstein, right?

02:30:46.000 And that's like with him, you know, he always had trouble in school, learning disabled, diagnosed with all these learning disables, put in a class with the kids that eat glue and all that stuff. 0.80

02:30:55.000 Like, the typical case of that, you know, and he's become, you know, very successful off of passion.

02:31:01.000 If you just find what it is you're really good at.

02:31:04.000 People have different personalities and there's different occupations.

02:31:08.000 You just got to figure out what works for you.

02:31:11.000 All that aside, the sheer numbers of the drugs is what's freaking me out in this conversation.

02:31:19.000 This almost seems like some crazy plague that no one's talking about.

02:31:25.000 Like a disease.

02:31:26.000 A disease is just spreading across the country, and we're all kind of silent about it until it's too late, and there's no vaccine.

02:31:33.000 There's just nothing to fix it.

02:31:34.000 Yeah, that's why he was so excited to come on the show, you know, to be able to talk about it and get more information out there.

02:31:40.000 And then when does your film come out, too?

02:31:42.000 My film will come out in the fall.

02:31:44.000 We haven't announced a release date yet, but Samuel Goldwyn's the one that's putting it out, Samuel Goldwyn Company.

02:31:50.000 So it'll get a theatrical release and it'll get a big digital release, so we're excited about that.

02:31:54.000 Well, let me know when that happens and I'd be happy to tweet about it and let everybody know about it and put it up on Facebook and whatnot.

02:32:00.000 Yeah, absolutely. 0.99

02:32:01.000 Whew, god damn. 0.99

02:32:03.000 So do you do these yourself? 0.99

02:32:05.000 Is this like your own project?

02:32:06.000 Do you storyboard them out?

02:32:08.000 Yeah, it's a little crazy.

02:32:10.000 So I did Bigger Stronger.

02:32:12.000 I went to USC film school when I was trying to make films for years.

02:32:16.000 And we all struggle trying to...

02:32:18.000 You know, make it, you know, in these different endeavors, whether it be acting or filmmaking or anything.

02:32:23.000 So I was struggling for years, writing a bunch of scripts, getting really close.

02:32:27.000 You know how it is.

02:32:28.000 You're really close to getting something made.

02:32:30.000 And, you know, finally, after a while, like nothing was happening.

02:32:33.000 And I said, if anything in life is going to happen for me, I need to make it happen.

02:32:37.000 I can't be sitting here waiting for somebody to go, you know, I really like your script.

02:32:41.000 I'm going to make it or blah, blah, blah, blah.

02:32:42.000 So long story short, Bigger, Stronger, Faster was...

02:32:47.000 The brainchild of me and my partners Alex Buono and Tamsin Buono, they were a couple that had experience with documentaries and stuff like that.

02:32:57.000 And just through conversations with them, we're like, fuck it, let's go make this on our own.

02:33:01.000 So we raised all the money, we went out and we made it on our own. 0.98

02:33:05.000 The second film I did was called Trophy Kids.

02:33:07.000 I did that with Peter Berg, who was the executive producer of that.

02:33:10.000 And that was a film that, because of Bigger, Stronger, Faster, Pete's like, hey, I want to work with you.

02:33:15.000 So we did a movie about crazy sports parents that ended up on HBO. And that'll actually be available on demand November 17th.

02:33:22.000 It'll be coming out.

02:33:25.000 Yeah.

02:33:45.000 Yeah. 0.96

02:33:46.000 Trophy Kids is basically, it's so fucking weird. 0.91

02:33:48.000 We just came here and we have this tennis mom that's in Trophy Kids. 1.00

02:33:54.000 And she's like this really godly, you know, Jesus freak. 0.93

02:33:59.000 And we just saw her at the restaurant. 0.87

02:34:00.000 We just ate that before when we came here.

02:34:02.000 Haven't seen her in like two years since we did the movie.

02:34:04.000 But yeah, that film's really interesting because parents nowadays are really putting the pressure on their kids to succeed.

02:34:10.000 Well, I think they always have, but now there's so much money involved in sports.

02:34:15.000 It's getting scary.

02:34:16.000 You look at kids like investments.

02:34:17.000 And the kids aren't any good.

02:34:19.000 Bottom line is if a kid's good, they're going to make it.

02:34:22.000 No amount of investing in their quarterback skills is going to help some kids get maybe over that hump.

02:34:30.000 They're not going to beat Jon Jones.

02:34:32.000 Yeah, in reality, Jon Jones is going to be Jon Jones coming out of the womb, you know, killing you.

02:34:37.000 Yeah, the thing about the trophy kids or the thing about parents that are really into that that's always disturbing is it seems like they're trying to live their lives, their failures, through the kid.

02:34:47.000 Like they want to sort of reimagine their own life and have some success through the kid's work.

02:34:53.000 I have a basketball dad who's like, you know, he'll say, I say, do you think you're living vicariously through your son?

02:34:59.000 He's like, not vicariously, man, directly.

02:35:02.000 I'm in every shot, in each move, in each go, and that's why the referees make me want to pull my hair out, or in my case, make me pull their hair out. 1.00

02:35:10.000 It's like, you're listening to this going, you're fucking crazy. 1.00

02:35:13.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:35:14.000 You're out of your mind.

02:35:15.000 And it's just normal behavior to these people.

02:35:17.000 It's just everyday behavior.

02:35:18.000 I said, how much did you spend on your son's basketball career?

02:35:24.000 And he goes, I'd say two Lamborghinis easy.

02:35:27.000 And who measures their wealth in Lamborghinis, first of all? 0.99

02:35:30.000 Yeah, that's fucking weird. 0.98

02:35:33.000 Did you see this story on Todd Marinovich? 0.99

02:35:36.000 Yeah, absolutely.

02:35:37.000 Mark and Tom Mernovich, which is another similar story, but to the extreme.

02:35:41.000 It's a great movie that ESPN did as part of 30 for 30, which I actually pitched them that.

02:35:47.000 I pitched them that before they did it, so that somebody else had pitched it, I guess, right around the same time, and they did a great job with it.

02:35:54.000 I thought it was awesome.

02:35:55.000 Yeah, and it's a very disturbing story, but it really highlights the problem because here you've got a guy who's an all-time great NFL strength and conditioning coach, understands the science of strength and conditioning and preparing someone for a sport almost better than anybody,

02:36:14.000 and he has a kid.

02:36:15.000 And he says, you know what? 0.99

02:36:16.000 Listen, I've got a fucking project now. 0.99

02:36:18.000 I turned this kid in, and it worked. 0.98

02:36:20.000 But meanwhile, the kid didn't want to do it.

02:36:22.000 And he became a heroin addict.

02:36:23.000 Yeah, he became an artist.

02:36:24.000 He's like, I don't want to do it!

02:36:26.000 And I think that's what happens when you push kids too much.

02:36:28.000 Like, a kid kind of has to find their own thing.

02:36:31.000 You know how talented Todd Murnovich is?

02:36:33.000 I've spoken with him several times.

02:36:34.000 He's actually a really super cool guy.

02:36:37.000 He told me he went and played an arena football league game. 0.73

02:36:41.000 And he was withdrawing from heroin so bad that he had shit his pants. 1.00

02:36:45.000 And he had thrown 10 touchdown passes with shit in his pants. 1.00

02:36:49.000 That's how fucking good he is. 1.00

02:36:50.000 He's just like, it was just so easy for me. 0.99

02:36:52.000 He's like, football's easy, man.

02:36:53.000 It's just like numbers.

02:36:55.000 He was unbelievable.

02:36:56.000 He won the Heisman Trophy, didn't he?

02:36:58.000 No, he was not up for it, I think. 1.00

02:37:00.000 His dad is a fucking freak, man. 1.00

02:37:03.000 His dad did an amazing job with BJ Penn, too. 1.00

02:37:05.000 Yeah, and his dad's a freak, man.

02:37:07.000 I think they've made amends with all that and stuff.

02:37:09.000 It's just hard to do it to your own kid. 0.99

02:37:11.000 You could do it to somebody else's kid, make him a fucking machine, but you're not the parent. 0.99

02:37:15.000 You also don't know what your kid wants. 0.99

02:37:18.000 At a young age, I think Todd Marinovich said, I want to be in the NFL, but what kid doesn't say that, you know?

02:37:23.000 Right.

02:37:23.000 Well, not only that, what kid doesn't change his mind when he becomes 16 or 18?

02:37:27.000 There's a certain side of it, too, though.

02:37:28.000 Look at the dad.

02:37:29.000 I was influenced heavily by my older brother.

02:37:31.000 I wanted to be in theater, drama.

02:37:36.000 I wanted to do these other things to consider, like, oh, you're a pansy. 1.00

02:37:39.000 What are you?

02:37:40.000 And so those things, through the culture I grew up in, was like, you're not tough if you do those things.

02:37:46.000 Everything we did when we were kids was considered to be gay.

02:37:48.000 Yeah, it was considered gay. 0.93

02:37:49.000 Soccer's gay. 0.98

02:37:50.000 Yeah, that's gay. 0.99

02:37:52.000 Soccer's gay. 0.98

02:37:53.000 When I had a passion to make films and do that stuff, it was sort of hard to tell everybody, like, hey man, I don't really care that much about lifting anymore, I want to go this way, or whatever.

02:38:03.000 That stuff's weird, you know?

02:38:06.000 Well, Bigger Stronger Faster is available.

02:38:08.000 It's been available for a long time.

02:38:11.000 Trophy Kid's available right now on HBO Go.

02:38:13.000 And when is this new one coming out?

02:38:15.000 It should be out in the late fall.

02:38:17.000 We don't have a release date yet.

02:38:18.000 Late fall.

02:38:18.000 Prescription thugs.

02:38:20.000 I'll help you promote it.

02:38:21.000 I'll talk about it on Twitter.

02:38:23.000 And you can get a hold of Mark.

02:38:26.000 Mark Smelly Bell.

02:38:29.000 On Instagram and Twitter.

02:38:30.000 On Twitter and Instagram.

02:38:31.000 And Big Strong Fast is Chris's handle.

02:38:35.000 Do you have an Instagram too?

02:38:36.000 Yeah, I have Big Strong Fast.

02:38:37.000 Big Strong Fast on Instagram as well?

02:38:39.000 Even though I'm not none of them anymore.

02:38:41.000 You're not big, strong, or fast. 0.99

02:38:43.000 I shaved my balls for this interview, so I appreciate it. 0.99

02:38:45.000 I'm glad you do, though. 0.99

02:38:46.000 I shaved mine last night.

02:38:48.000 Oh, good.

02:38:48.000 Awesome.

02:38:48.000 It's a nice feeling.

02:38:49.000 All right.

02:38:50.000 I know that someone else in the room shares my shorn ball.

02:38:54.000 All right.

02:38:54.000 Well, thank you, guys.

02:38:55.000 It was a fun conversation.

02:38:56.000 I really appreciate it.

02:38:57.000 It's been very enlightening and terrifying in a lot of ways, too.

02:38:59.000 Sure.

02:38:59.000 Thank you.

02:39:00.000 Thank you.

02:39:00.000 See you guys tomorrow.

02:39:01.000 Bye-bye.

02:39:05.000 That was fun, man.

The Joe Rogan Experience - August 12, 2015

Joe Rogan Experience #682 - Mark & Chris Bell

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Transcript