In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, we have our first guest on the pod, Bas Rutten. Bas is a former UFC Heavyweight Champion and was one of the first people in the world to learn how to punch with a straight right hand. We talk about his early days in the UFC, how he got started in the sport, and how he went from being a bouncer to being the first person to learn the art of jiu-jitsu. We also talk about how he learned to punch like a champ, and what it takes to be a good jiu jitsu fighter. The show is sponsored by The Fleshlight. Use the code "ROGAN" at checkout to get 15% off the entire product. The podcast is now available on all major podcast directories including Audible, iTunes, and Podcoin. Thanks for listening and share the podcast with your friends and family! Enjoy & spread the word to your friends about this podcast! Cheers, Joe Rogan! XOXO - The J.R. Experience - The Irish Jerks Podcast "The J.O.K.E. Experience" - Featuring: , & . The JOKEROGAN Joe Rogans Experience - and . . This episode was sponsored by the Fleshlight! and The JOE ROGAN Experience! - "The Fleshlight" - "Rogan Experience" Thank you for sponsoring the podcast. - Thank you so much for sponsoring The Joes Rogan Podcast! & "The Jerky Off Podcast! - The Jerkoff Cup" - - The Jerky Cup, The JOYCELLYLLLLY! , "The Real Jerkyoff Cup, the JerkyOff Cup, , The JOBODO BODY PODCAST, "The Boy Who Can Do It All?" - The Boy Who Couldn't Do It? (The Joes' Podcast, , and much more! (featuring the Joes Experience, ) Joes & The JOGAN EXPERIENCE Podcast, featuring the JOE JOY AND THE JOE ROODANCHOR, the JOSHER EXPERIENCES, the JOBOSHER EPISODE, JOB'E Experience, THE JOBO RODAN EPISODER!
00:01:27.000And you, I swear to God, it has a little, like, celery thing on it, you know, so to keep it moist, and there's a little hole in it, and it's actually, you can use it, and then throw away.
00:02:25.000It's not designed for American or Dutch cocks, right?
00:02:30.000For those who don't know who we're talking to, this is a true mixed martial arts legend, a real pioneer.
00:02:37.000Bas Rutten was a former UFC heavyweight champion, and when I first saw Bas fight, I saw you fight back before there was any real good striking in mixed martial arts.
00:02:46.000Mixed martial arts, a lot of it was karate guys that weren't that good.
00:02:50.000There was a few people that were just wild and crazy that were getting in there and trying it.
00:03:11.000Like in Pancras, it was a lot of like, they had these shin pads on for folks who haven't seen it.
00:03:16.000And you weren't allowed to punch to the face, but you could use open palms.
00:03:20.000So what Boss figured out how to do was pull his hand way back So he was punching with his palm where everybody else was doing bitch slaps.
00:03:30.000Boss was blasting guys with straight right palms and knocking them unconscious and body kicks that they just couldn't believe how much pain they were in.
00:03:38.000You were one of the first guys from Holland, that hard Dutch style of kickboxing to enter into mixed martial arts.
00:03:48.000I used that already, palm strikes, when I was a bouncer.
00:03:51.000Because I didn't like to mess up my fists.
00:03:53.000And I always thought, you have a way longer reach.
00:03:56.000Like for instance, a left hook, right, straight.
00:03:58.000That combination is great, but if you connect with the left hook, you're too close for the straight punch.
00:04:03.000And the longer the punch is, the more power it has.
00:04:06.000So I said, why don't I hit with a palm?
00:04:07.000Because then it becomes almost as long as my straight punch, so the straight will have more effect.
00:04:12.000You know, and then people started thinking, and I said, if you hit behind the ear, if you can see when I'm fighting, I'm hitting right here, just behind the ear, at the jaw, where the jaw starts.
00:04:21.000And if you tap it there, yeah, you'll drop.
00:04:51.000And then I promised that the first 300 people were going to get a self-defense book, a small one, a small book, like a 50-page book or something.
00:05:01.000But then this guy screwed me over with the books and...
00:05:04.000And when that all happened, you know, I left this guy, but I came back to him, I said, listen, I told the people that the first 300 were going to get it, and I want to keep my word, but I don't want to do anything with this guy anymore, because, you know, he took too much from me already.
00:05:17.000So anyway, we said, why don't I make a video?
00:05:21.000We do an instructional DVD and then we give that to the first 300 people.
00:08:36.000So, but they, you know, people knew about you from kickboxing and from MMA. You were already famous in the MMA world and the, you know, the...
00:08:43.000Oh yeah, yeah, I was there for a seminar, people knew me, you know, and the bouncers right away when I came in, they say, hey Ruten, stay calm tonight.
00:08:50.000And there was a little alarm bell going off in my mind, you know, maybe I shouldn't go in.
00:08:58.000So I go in with my buddy, crazy friend from Holland, not a house.
00:09:02.000And sure enough, they started, they suddenly asked me, because I'm jumping around and having fun, you know, hey, what's up, hey, what's up, everybody?
00:09:10.000And I tried to make friends with everybody, tried to speak Swedish.
00:12:05.000So they throw me in jail, because apparently one of those bouncers was a cop, and I knocked him out of course also, but he never told me that he was a cop, otherwise I wouldn't have done that.
00:12:18.000Anyway, we're there and this is also, this is actually a funny story because before this all happened, I'm talking to my wife and I'm already tanked, right?
00:15:42.000This is the place where all this shit is going down with WikiLeaks, where they're trying to put that guy in jail for rape because he had sex with a girl and the condom broke and he didn't tell her.
00:15:51.000Sweden is a strange place and they take violence and crime very, very seriously over there.
00:15:57.000The suicide rate is the highest in the world.
00:18:34.000The fact that you got arrested and you went to court and all that, and you were in a jail for a little bit, even if there's no charges that stick, They still have that on your record.
00:18:42.000Like, Eddie Bravo got arrested once for legally having a gun.
00:18:46.000He got pulled over for a traffic violation.
00:18:48.000This was when he was working for a check cashing company and he used to carry around a big bag of cash with him and he had to carry a gun with him.
00:18:54.000And it was totally legal, but he had done something like not stopping on a stop sign or something like that.
00:18:59.000So they pulled him over and he said, I just want to let you know I have a gun, a loaded gun in the car because I do this.
00:19:09.000Every time he goes to Canada, every single time he gets pulled aside and they check his shit and they ask him questions and it takes like an extra hour and a half.
00:19:17.000I got stuck with him the last time I went to Canada.
00:20:08.000The funny thing is you can say that roids are for faggots and he won't say anything because no guy on roids ever wants to admit they're on roids.
00:20:15.000Even the biggest fucking, most gigantic, ridiculous human beings ever.
00:20:20.000They're like, I'm just doing a lot of creatine, I do power lifting, I eat six Six meals a day.
00:22:24.000You know, EPO is what they always accuse cyclists of using.
00:22:28.000And I had a friend who was a professional cyclist, and he was on it.
00:22:31.000And he said that when he was on a tour, they were on a tour, they would ride on a bus, and then they would compete in these tournaments, in these races, rather.
00:22:39.000And you would hear guys in the middle of the night unrack their bikes and go ride.
00:22:44.000If the heart rate goes too down or something, they can die.
00:22:47.000Too much blood builds up in your body because what EPO simulates is it's like artificial altitude.
00:22:54.000You know, like the same effect that happens at altitude where your blood thickens because you need more oxygen because it's a low oxygen environment.
00:23:00.000So these guys, when they take this EPO, they have to exercise.
00:23:03.000They'll wake up at like 3 o'clock in the morning and their parts all fucked up and they've got to get on the bike and go.
00:23:08.000Yeah, otherwise you're going to have a heart attack or something.
00:23:13.000I know mixed martial arts guys that have done it.
00:23:15.000And I know guys that have done it that their trainer found out after the fight.
00:23:19.000And they were like, what the fuck, man?
00:23:21.000You've got to let us know that you're doing this so that if you get knocked out, we can tell the doctor, hey, here's something you should consider.
00:23:28.000This guy's on fucking EPO. Use a pen as a syringe.
00:23:32.000You need a valve like this because it's so thick.
00:24:01.000It's really good for your kidneys, for blood pressure.
00:24:04.000I mean, I read an article in some fitness magazine and it was like raving about it.
00:24:12.000It's a real good medicine apparently, but can you imagine?
00:24:15.000Well, what it does is it increases your nitric oxide and all those supplements that people take, you know, nitric burn, all these different nitric flood, all these different things.
00:25:54.000And if the rider, I would lose weight.
00:25:56.000You know, so when I made that comeback in 2006, six weeks before, it hit it.
00:26:01.000You know, I had nine weeks to prepare.
00:26:03.000I think two times, three times five days I took off.
00:26:08.000That I literally only worked my legs because I had the tendonitis.
00:26:12.000And then, because you lose weight from the pain, and then I start realizing, okay, this is the reason that I stopped, because it's not fun anymore.
00:26:20.000You know, you're on the ground, everything hurts.
00:26:21.000I was rolling in Eddie's class, and with Goliath, you remember the big guy there?
00:26:28.000And I was going to fight Leopoldo and...
00:29:41.000It's like you probably get beat at home, you know?
00:29:44.000And if you start talking like that, hopefully it rings a bell with a bully because otherwise you can't stop this.
00:29:49.000You know, you hear every now and then about guys who are fighters, who are bullies, you know, who you hear about bullying in the gym, guys who are really good fucking other guys up, like young guys.
00:29:58.000You hear a lot about Hector Lombard, you know?
00:30:01.000I don't know if it's true, but you hear a lot of stories about him beating the shit out of young guys and hurting people.
00:30:26.000For a man, it's one of the most important things you could ever learn for developing your character, for being more confident, and getting out aggression so you can think things more clearly.
00:32:46.000Which sounds as a very easy thing to fix, but...
00:32:50.000In reality, it's the worst problem a knee can have.
00:32:53.000I mean, cartilage in between the knees when I bounce, they can do something about that, you know, but cartilage on the kneecap, they can't.
00:35:29.000Like when you win or when you for six or eight weeks you work on like five special combinations, you know, on the ground and standing and then to see if you can land one of those.
00:36:05.000So much of your success is based on how much dedication you have, how much time you put in, how much you can keep your shit together under pressure.
00:36:16.000And what you say, the thing is, can you, I always say, Can you bring the dojo, the way you fight and train there, and spar there, can you bring that game to the ring?
00:36:28.000Because that's a big problem with guys.
00:36:44.000You see all kinds of creepy things about whatever the fuck haunts their subconscious, whatever the fuck is in their personality that they don't like.
00:37:27.000The fear of losing is a tremendous burden that a lot of guys have and it eventually manifests itself in a fight.
00:37:33.000It's like they're so afraid of losing, they're so afraid of fucking up that they make it happen.
00:37:38.000But it's afraid of losing in front of an audience because they have to listen to what those people are going to tell them, well, you should have done this.
00:37:45.000And Chris Lieben said it really funny a long time ago.
00:37:47.000He says, you got knocked out by Silva.
00:37:53.000It's bad if you go to the blockbuster and the guy behind the desk tells you what you should have done, you know, because everybody knows better.
00:38:27.000Now, if it's in front of an audience, you've got to go through all that BS that these other people say who have no clue what it's all about.
00:38:35.000You're fighting for those people, and it's so much pressure.
00:38:38.000That's why stay away from the, I'm going to rip this head off, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, because all that, they will play at the moment you walk through the cage and you hear yourself saying what you're going to do.
00:41:34.000When I got my nose fixed, I got a deviated septum fixed and they squirt lidocaine out there when they're cleaning it out so that it doesn't freak you out because they go up in your nose with a vacuum cleaner.
00:41:43.000It's like, you know when you vacuum your car at the car wash and it gets stuck on the floor mat and goes...
00:41:49.000That happens to the back of your fucking skull, right where your brain is when they're cleaning out blood clots and dried up boogers and shit, and they spray lidocaine up there.
00:41:59.000And I felt fucked up for the whole day.
00:42:31.000I used to many times that I would go to the fight, and then when they, I had my wrestling shoes because we had to wear shoes at Pancras.
00:42:38.000They would be open, like I had an ankle injury, and I would wait until they called my name.
00:42:43.000Because one time I broke my hand, the knuckle, and they said, oh, we put the lidocaine in there and it's going to work for like an hour, but it's not.
00:42:50.000It's like 15 minutes, you know, especially when your heart rate is up, it goes really fast.
00:42:54.000So at the moment I stepped into the ring, I go like, oh no.
00:45:27.000Because, you know, like I said, there's nothing like it.
00:45:29.000But at the moment, the fun is gone out of training.
00:45:33.000Training would be so much fun for me because, you know, somebody, every time, you know, when you roll, every time something pops up, oh, God, that's cool.
00:45:48.000And every time a new little thing, somebody shows you another little thing, like a guillotine choke, do it like this because they can't escape.
00:45:56.000You know, Sergio Pena showed it to me.
00:47:01.000And I... I noticed things like I can brush my teeth harder, push a little bit harder when I brush under my armpit, or I can shave my whole head now with a razor blade, which I couldn't do before.
00:47:31.000Giga Musashi was over, and his brother, and his brother said that nobody could, they could break his grip at an arm bar.
00:47:36.000I have a really weird way of putting an arm bar on, but the way I do it, nobody can escape.
00:47:40.000You know, and I do that, I control the hand, I make sure that the elbow points up, you know, and I control it in such a way that your arm, you can't get out.
00:47:48.000I can just cover your face, the other leg I just can't put away, and you still can't get out.
00:49:22.000Yesterday, I think two days ago, I started running on a treadmill, but only with the incline, so I can roll in the balls of my feet so I don't have my knees shucking.
00:49:33.000And I'm actually feeling okay today, my knees.
00:49:35.000So I figured, okay, if I can do that, then I can at least start doing my sprints again.
00:49:49.000I start stretching while I put the incline all the way up, go to 9 miles an hour, and then I jump on for 45 seconds and off for 30. And I do those 10, 10 of those rounds.
00:49:59.000And after that, I run like 5 minutes, run it out, done, take a 5 minute break, and then I do my power training workout.
00:50:05.000This is when I was at the top of my game, because that's really hard.
00:50:09.000So you would do your sprints first, and then you would do your power training later?
00:51:30.000Yeah, because what happens is those Japanese guys, they're really good on the ground.
00:51:33.000And so they say, okay, and they're striking not so.
00:51:35.000Okay, so let's put them on shin guards.
00:51:37.000Let's put them on knee protection and push shoes because they're good with leg locks and no gloves because then they're good for the rear naked chokes and all.
00:53:02.000So what happened was, this is a long time ago, a long time ago, like four years or something ago, my agent tells me that this woman wants to see me.
00:53:59.000If you buy that thing, that was like our early stages, what you're going to have.
00:54:03.000They're going to flop around, they're going to break, because you need to find a spring that is just right to not be too floppy and not too stiff.
00:54:13.000If it's too stiff, the whole stand will move.
00:54:15.000If it's too floppy, you can't knock it for the second punch because it's still moving.
00:54:21.000Now, the foam in there needs to be just right.
00:54:23.000Now, foam, the density, if it's really tight foam, it's heavier, you know?
00:54:30.000So, if you say, okay, this is a little bit too hard, I want different foam, you put different foam, but now because it's lighter, Then the spring needs to be changed again.
00:54:39.000So every time I got like eight prototypes and I have to train on those things the whole time to see and find out which is what and what's the best weight and the best form with what spring, it took two and a half years.
00:54:51.000Really, two and a half years to find that.
00:54:53.000They hit that thing, I mean, 30,000 times with a machine.
00:54:58.000That thing, when you buy it won't break two guys.
00:56:33.000He hits him with a pinky, whatever, wrong technique.
00:56:36.000Isn't it hard when you're fighting because guys move and sometimes you wanted to hit him with these two knuckles, but you accidentally catch him with the last knuckle?
01:01:08.000So the day of the fight was all wild flash, and we had to tape, you know, and it was like super glue and everything, and my friend says, okay, lidocaine, there it is again, right?
01:01:17.000He says, you know, I said, just put it around.
01:01:19.000He says, no, we'll numb up the whole leg.
01:02:16.000He had his jaw all the way wired, you know, and his mouth was closed.
01:02:20.000So we went to the guys who did it, and we got in a little scuffle there, of course, and they threw me in jail for a couple of days in the jail.
01:04:08.000And we started doing this in like nightclubs.
01:04:11.000And we would like, but really cool, really cool stuff.
01:04:14.000I would kick him in the belly like Bruce Lee and Anthony Dragon, right?
01:04:17.000He would grab my foot, throw me back, and I would make a flying kick in his face and land.
01:04:22.000And, you know, we did all that cool stuff.
01:04:24.000We would come on with like a cartwheel, flick flick, and that's the way we would walk to the place.
01:04:31.000And we had bows, and we did nunchucks, and we did, like, brake tests, the crazy stuff, and little cups on his mouth.
01:04:38.000I would kick, spinning back in here and jump up and jumping, flying back in the cup of his head, you know, so good quality martial arts, but we start putting comedy in there also, like funny things that...
01:04:52.000For instance, I would stand there very seriously with a suit and I'd go, go get the cups.
01:04:57.000And the guy would come back and he had these little cups and I kept looking straight and go, no, the other ones.
01:05:38.000People really started to seem to like that.
01:05:40.000So suddenly we were doing this on bigger shows.
01:05:43.000First in nightclubs, then we started doing it on shows like events, big events.
01:05:47.000Rob Kamen, when he was fighting, I think that when he had the main event one time, we were in the break, you know, showing this to the people.
01:05:55.000And then we were on Dutch TV and then Eurosport saw it and they had an event yearly in France and we went to there and we started traveling now and doing these shows all over the place.
01:06:07.000Once we start doing the comedy, people will know me.
01:06:09.000There's a few of those things on YouTube, actually.
01:06:13.000So, on one of these shows, because we came up with all these flip flicks and somersaults and all that stuff, Chris Dolman was sitting there.
01:06:19.000And Chris Dolman is one of the forefathers in Holland.
01:06:22.000He was a judo champion, tough guy, you know.
01:06:25.000And he called me to him and he says, man, you got some really good abilities, man.
01:06:30.000Did you ever think about free fighting?
01:06:52.000And that was literally like Horace Gracie in the beginning.
01:06:55.000You know, I walk in and they killed me.
01:06:58.000And they will put on these chokes, not blood chokes, but like on my windpipe, you know, and Pulling, pulling, pulling, because a lot of those guys...
01:07:19.000So we're training, and I literally, when I drove back, I had to stop my car next to the road, and I had one of the first Philips cell phones.
01:07:39.000I had to drink liquid food for like three days because my whole throat was messed up because I thought I could hold that.
01:07:46.000You know, so I was just fighting it and they were pulling, pulling till, yeah, at the end I would tap, but it was all crushed up and my wife was already laughing.
01:07:54.000She says, ah, okay, so that's it, right?
01:07:56.000I said, no, no, no, I'm gonna go back and within six months, three, six months, I'm gonna tap everybody there, you know, because I wanna learn this.
01:08:04.000But things started happening and I got an injury here, an injury there, and I had to work and I was a bouncer and you know, once a month I would go over there and it kind of faded away.
01:08:16.000Then my wife looks at me in the beginning of our career and she says, you're going to be a famous fighter in Japan.
01:11:01.000Now, over the years, I've been hearing, of course, and some fights, when you look at fights, it looks really smooth and going over.
01:11:08.000and like Ken Shamrock said he lost also he lost the lost fights were all works you know it's also you go like okay he lost twice by exactly the same combination and he'll look into a knee bar against the same opponent and you go like if it was a not real wouldn't you come up with something else would you really do two times the same you see so that's been also in my head did you ever see Bart Vale versus Ken Shamrock No.
01:12:13.000They really didn't like that, that I was doing that.
01:12:15.000But I go like, that's something again.
01:12:18.000That's why sometimes I get emotional from it when people say, oh, that was fake.
01:12:22.000And then the worst one, what they say is, yeah, but sometimes it was fake and boss didn't know of it.
01:12:27.000So they told the opponent to lose against boss.
01:12:31.000I fought against Funaki, and then one guy said one time, he said, yeah, that wasn't work because he didn't hurt you.
01:12:39.000I said, when did he decide that he was going to lose?
01:12:42.000Was it before or after he tried to break my freaking leg?
01:12:45.000I mean, I know if you see the fight, he pushed me a heel hook, an inverted heel hook, with the toes in his neck, and my heel is 180 degrees there.
01:12:54.000I'm literally looking at my own leg, And I go, oh my god, I don't feel it, you know?
01:14:21.000But I go like, well, dude, I hurt your knee, snap, because we thought it was a knee.
01:14:25.000But apparently it was still like a little stuck on, that leg, so then he kicks with that leg, and I flex my muscle, you see, and then when he puts the foot down, it bends all the way out, you know, it's like that.
01:15:34.000God, so you went and after your fighting career was done, then you started doing the commentary in Japan.
01:15:41.000You had a couple of fights after that, the Ruben Villarreal fight you had in the WFA. What happened was that I would have Mark Kerr and Marco Huas and Pedro Hizo and all these guys that were training with us in the Beverly Hills Jiu-Jitsu Club, and I would train those guys and I would go with them as corner men.
01:15:57.000And in Japan, when you fight, you see the fights are on in the dressing room.
01:16:03.000So I'm sitting, I'm watching there, and Yukino and Hideki, those two guys, the people from Pride who live in America, you know, who are the in-between persons, so to say.
01:19:52.000And that's the cool part, because one time I got a phone call when my big DVDs of Combat come out, and it was at the time when B.J. Ford met Hughes all the way back.
01:20:02.000And BJ called me and I said, hey, boss, it's BJ. I said, BJ Penn?
01:21:47.000And the cool part, and I always say this because I'm very proud of it, and that's why I'm saying it, is you, if you look at the record, in Pancras, that rope escapes, right?
01:21:56.000That means that if you could get in a choke, but you could touch the rope, he had to let you go.
01:25:19.000You know why he's going to When I was in Boston, when I was doing that Zookeeper movie with him, we trained with Mark Dellegrate, and I was like, God damn, dude, his fucking technique is crisp.
01:26:33.000So he would get them, they would send them to Canada, and then he would send them from Canada to me, and then we would watch them at my house.
01:27:17.000And my manager was friends with the same guy who signed Kevin.
01:27:21.000My manager was friends with the guy who was one of the producers of the show, this guy Campbell McLaren, who was also the guy who tried to get me to fight Wesley Snipes one day.
01:27:29.000So they needed someone to do the post-fight interviews.
01:27:33.000And so he just sent me to fucking Alabama out of nowhere.
01:27:37.000And before you know what I'm doing, it was very unorganized, though.
01:28:15.000Yeah, Fear Factor was 2001, I believe it started, and I was already on Fear Factor when I started working for the UFC. I did it as a favor.
01:28:23.000The first, I think, eight shows I did for free.
01:28:26.000I just said, you know, they wanted me to do commentary, and I was like, all right, I'll do it.
01:29:01.000But other than that, all the things that I've ever done in my life, like a fear factor or a news radio, the UFC is the greatest fucking job ever.
01:29:37.000For people who don't know, weren't aware, Pride in the heyday was one of the best, if not the best, organization in the world because they had so many different rules.
01:29:47.000First of all, there are a lot of things that I like.
01:29:48.000They had 10 minutes for the first round.
01:32:13.000Like three years after that, I started training and it started going good and the ground started going good and you know, okay, everything feels good and then I stopped.
01:32:24.000And then, like two years later, two and a half years later, that's when they called me for the WFA, if I was interested.
01:33:23.000So then when we had the photo shoot, I go to the photo shoot and he's there and he's acting all weird, like giving me a hand, but like shying away.
01:33:29.000And I go like, wow, he's taking this fight very serious, right?
01:33:58.000I say, on the day of the fight, I would deliver a letter to him in the dressing room saying exactly what I just said.
01:34:06.000So he would read, like, I knew this already, but I didn't want to tell you because I want you to be 100% before you fight me and full of stamina because you're going to need it.
01:34:15.000I think that would be totally backfiring right away just before you fight.
01:34:37.000Now, when you were over there in Japan, and you were there for all those great fights, like Noguera versus Krokop, and Noguera versus Fedor, and what was that like sitting there ringside?
01:34:50.000I mean, did you want to just fucking jump in there sometimes?
01:34:59.000And nobody gets to take that away from you.
01:35:00.000That's what they said with my fights also.
01:35:02.000I won two fights, the first two fights in Pankers, and one guy in Holland says, he says, boss, everybody was saying, oh, he's going to lose, he's going to lose, he's going to lose.
01:35:07.000You know, like a very negative public country.
01:35:10.000And one guy says, boss, whatever happens, they never take this away from you anymore.
01:36:59.000So when you were over there, though, when you were watching all these classic fights, I mean, like I said, you'd been there for, I mean, you were there for Shogun Mark Coleman, you were there for Shogun versus Rampage, Rampage versus Arona, I mean, some of the greatest fights of all time.
01:37:15.000Rampage, the things that we did with Rampage, how, you know, I remember my first, when he fought Sakuraba, and he lost that fight, I took him to the side, I said, listen, You got it, man.
01:37:29.000I said, make sure this doesn't happen anymore because they actually had to get him out of jail to get there to fight.
01:37:35.000There was a whole stress thing going on because he had a warrant out of him or something and he was at the airport and they got him and they put him in jail.
01:39:39.000I think if they had K-1 over in America, I just think people, you know, Dana White and I had a conversation about this when he was talking about how kickboxing has a negative stigma in America because of PKA karate.
01:42:54.000Man, you were really there for some crazy times.
01:42:56.000What is it like now, going from your very beginnings, where there was no mixed martial arts, where you went over there, you literally had no idea what it was like, to seeing what it's like now.
01:43:06.000You know, with Cain Velasquez and all these guys.
01:44:12.000So I figured, I said, man, if I'm going to fight a guy like Rookie Machado, you know, who can take a lot of punishment, but then come back and I got 28 more minutes to go.
01:45:17.000How crazy is it watching the evolution of the game?
01:45:20.000I mean, literally in America, there has never been a sport like mixed martial arts that has exploded and changed and grown right before our eyes.
01:45:28.000I mean, some sports got famous like skateboarding and BMX riding.
01:45:34.000I mean, some stuff that wasn't a viable way to make a living when I was a kid became one.
01:45:38.000But nothing like mixed martial arts where it was just constantly in the public eye in movies and jammed down your throat on television.
01:46:13.000I knew at that time already that everybody likes to know who's the toughest guy on the planet.
01:46:18.000And this is literally being the toughest guy.
01:46:20.000I was on Inside MMA last week and I was ashamed about a comment that I made against Frank because we had a comment that one guy says, oh, MMA is just like two guys rubbing against each other on the floor.
01:46:32.000And then I told him the story that I was fighting Frank and then I stood up and I said to Frank, come up.
01:46:39.000I said, no, come up, fight like a man.
01:46:41.000And I go, I'm eating those words right now because when I broke that guy's shin bone, because I had no clue how much power that was on that joint, that really started making me think.
01:47:36.000I wrestled in high school, but, you know, I just did it as a sport.
01:47:40.000You know, I got bored with it quick because it just didn't seem like there's anything going on.
01:47:44.000You held a guy down, but it wasn't submitting him.
01:47:47.000And once jiu-jitsu came along, man, it's amazing how much it's evolved.
01:47:51.000You look at, like, MMA. You look at the jiu-jitsu that was in MMA in 93, and look at the jiu-jitsu you see now with, like, Jacare, Damian Maia.
01:47:59.000You know, it's fucking so many levels above it.
01:48:02.000The thing is what I always say, I say all the moves are pretty much invented, right?
01:48:08.000They've found such creative ways to go to a particular move.
01:48:11.000That is the cool part about mixed martial arts style.
01:48:13.000If you have that setup that nobody noticed yet, you see how many times you see, remember the first time the anaconda got introduced in Pride?
01:48:57.000Yeah, I mean, Lister, if Dean Lister was around in the early UFCs, nobody had jiu-jitsu like him in 93. You know, even Hoist Gracie didn't.
01:49:25.000There's just such a high level of jiu-jitsu.
01:49:28.000But overall, the level of jiu-jitsu from the new guys, like the Marcelo Garcia's, you know, these new guys coming along, it's fucking, it's just, it's so high level.
01:49:37.000It's so much more advanced than it was just 10, 15 years ago, you know?
01:49:41.000You know what the cool thing is with Liborio?
01:49:43.000He saw me rolling with Joachim Manson in China and he was watching there and then he started showing me things and I said what he could do with those particular leg locks and how he could do this and make it that stronger and he was sitting looking at me and he was like I said, oh, you thought I was a striker, right?
01:50:24.000It's like chess if you had a million pieces.
01:50:28.000There's so many different submissions and so many different transitions and chains of submissions and new techniques and new counters.
01:50:34.000Yeah, but I believe in it's good to know them all, but for every fight you have to say, okay, I'm going to use this particular move for that guy.
01:51:38.000And my wife, when she predicted that I was going to be a fighter in Japan, and I said, no, because I'm not going to fight, she says, yeah, in Holland, you're going to go to Japan.
01:52:23.000So I would start building sentences and in the middle of the sentence I would stop and then restart it so it looks like I'm a total freak of psycho when I'm talking.
01:52:32.000It's like really weird because it doesn't work.
01:52:36.000And the result, when you see the result, it's one of my final work, man.
01:52:55.000By the way, you and Michael Schiavello, when you did the commentary for Strikeforce for the undercard, It was the fucking best part of the night.
01:53:09.000Somebody really needs to scoop you up and have you guys do more commentary.
01:53:13.000Yeah, you know, I loved doing it, but this right now, you know, this is one of those things that I thought I would never say, but I'm so busy.
01:53:21.000But anytime I have a chance, like for instance now I go to Brussels, you know, and then I do this just like three days before I have to go to Boston to shoot.
01:54:41.000From the half-hour show, we went right away to an hour, and now commercials are there, so that means we're doing a good thing with the hottest show on AGD.net.
01:55:23.000What do you think about Greg Jackson saying that he's gonna get right back in there, they're just gonna fix it, and he did some things wrong, but he's not done, and he's gonna come back, it'll be even sweeter than ever.
01:55:32.000And I'm listening to him talking, I'm like, motherfucker, do you know that this guy's been knocked unconscious four times in a row?
01:58:54.000When I was fighting and I started winning in Japan, when I got that ground game, I looked at my wife and I said, I think I can be a world champion in this thing.
01:59:02.000I truly believe I can beat all these guys now.
02:01:01.000I was there for that fight and then to get to see him, you know, all the way to the end, to the Rich Franklin fight, you know, it's like, wow.
02:01:07.000Seeing guys at the top at their most vibrant when they're just dominating and fall apart.
02:03:27.000But I remember when, you know, there was, like, some words that people were saying, oh, you know, only John McCarthy can say, let's get it on, because every referee's got to figure out a thing to say.
02:03:35.000It's Martin Gay, who's the one that started it.
02:05:31.000And I start, oh wait a minute, there's an infection in your lung pipe, you know, it closes the lung pipe, your lungs have to work really hard to pull that air in.
02:05:39.000Then when the infection is gone, you know, because they work all the time, they're used to pulling hard, air comes in easy.
02:05:46.000I go, so why don't I come up with something that controls the air intake?
02:05:50.000So I started thinking about, like, it's the stupidest thing, man.
02:06:45.000So imagine this week you do all your hard workouts, like only four times also because you don't need to do it every way because you're actually training your muscles.
02:06:52.000They're testing it in Texas right now at the university.
02:06:55.000That guy, in 12 days, he had greater lung volume.
02:06:57.000He said, man, you made something really cool.
02:07:02.000They're going to run tests on them now because he thinks also that because it's a little small biodegradable little compartment that's flexible also, so it can't get hurt, because you re-breathe a little tiny bit of carbon monoxide, which I wanted to stay away from because I don't want people to get dizzy, he says, no, no, you don't get dizzy.