The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #10 with Tyron Woodley

00:00:00.000 And we're live.

00:00:07.000 We're live with the champ.

00:00:08.000 We're live.

00:00:09.000 We're live with the champ.

00:00:10.000 What's up, man?

00:00:10.000 How are you?

00:00:10.000 I'm chilling, man.

00:00:11.000 How you doing, brother?

00:00:12.000 You look better than anybody I've ever seen just a couple weeks out of shoulder surgery.

00:00:15.000 I'm a savage, man.

00:00:16.000 You're walking around like there's nothing going on. 1.00

00:00:18.000 They took my savage stem cells out of my own damn back and they threw them in my shoulder. 0.99

00:00:22.000 Out of your back? 1.00

00:00:23.000 The hip bone, whatever the fuck. 1.00

00:00:25.000 Bone marrow, they got in there, centrifuge, spun them, shot them into my shoulder, and shit. 0.99

00:00:31.000 I should have a sling on, but I'm out Tuesday anyway, so I kind of prematurely decided to come out of the sling. 0.94

00:00:36.000 Oh, so you're supposed to be out of the sling in six days?

00:00:39.000 Yeah.

00:00:39.000 No, no.

00:00:40.000 Is that six days?

00:00:41.000 Five days?

00:00:41.000 Whatever Tuesdays is.

00:00:42.000 Five days.

00:00:42.000 Yeah, it's Thursday.

00:00:43.000 Four or five days, yeah.

00:00:44.000 Wow.

00:00:45.000 So my guy's really aggressive.

00:00:47.000 I went to Dr. Andrews.

00:00:48.000 He's out there in Pensacola.

00:00:50.000 And he said, no, we need you back punching in two months.

00:00:52.000 So the day after surgery, yeah.

00:00:54.000 Hard?

00:00:55.000 He said making contact.

00:00:57.000 So right after surgery, I was doing two-a-days. 0.99

00:01:01.000 Fucking full-ass rehab. 0.99

00:01:03.000 Really? 1.00

00:01:04.000 Yeah, like crazy. 0.99

00:01:05.000 So I'm like, these dudes is nuts.

00:01:06.000 This shoulder, I had this done in 08. I didn't move for like three weeks.

00:01:11.000 What'd you have done with that one?

00:01:12.000 Same thing, labor. 0.98

00:01:13.000 Now, are you hurting this in training?

00:01:16.000 Are you hurting it in fights?

00:01:17.000 A lot of what people don't know about me, they think I just throw my right hand a lot.

00:01:21.000 But I wasn't never really confident with my left hand because I had that left labrum tear.

00:01:25.000 So it felt weird to throw hooks and it felt weird to use my jab a lot, my shoulder fatigue a lot.

00:01:30.000 So I didn't tell a lot of people that, so I just started bombing like hell with my right hand.

00:01:35.000 It wasn't because I was just so right hand heavy.

00:01:37.000 So now that I had the surgery on this one, I'm going to stem cell both shoulders.

00:01:43.000 Rehab the crap out of it and also bought this on the rehab machine called art wave You ever heard of it like a Russian stand is like nuts.

00:01:50.000 No, what is it?

00:01:51.000 It's like a Russian stem machine that has ability to make your muscles contract 500 times a second At its highest setting.

00:02:00.000 So a lot of people use it.

00:02:01.000 The Colts use it.

00:02:01.000 A lot of pro athletes use it.

00:02:03.000 The people that made it in Minnesota, they don't give a lot of information because they don't want their intellectual property stolen.

00:02:09.000 But they charge you like $12,000 to $14,000 for the machine.

00:02:12.000 Then they charge you $5,000 to show you how to use it.

00:02:14.000 Then if you really, really want to know how to use it, they charge you another $5,000.

00:02:19.000 So I was lucky enough. 1.00

00:02:20.000 I hope they ain't watching this shit. 0.99

00:02:22.000 I was lucky enough to get one from my homie Mark Clayton. 1.00

00:02:24.000 They used to play with the Rams.

00:02:25.000 I just bought his from him.

00:02:27.000 And so what is it called again?

00:02:29.000 It's called an ARP Wave.

00:02:30.000 ARP Wave?

00:02:31.000 ARP. A-R-P. ARP Wave.

00:02:33.000 I think that stands for Advanced Recovery Program.

00:02:36.000 Wow.

00:02:36.000 Advanced Recovery Program.

00:02:37.000 So basically if you think about scar tissue, soft tissue, It has ability.

00:02:41.000 It's not like that stem that feels like the needle poking, but it's like intense stem that goes through.

00:02:46.000 It can break that fucking scar tissue up, go through soft tissue and basically increase blood flow, range of motion. 0.96

00:02:52.000 So spraying ankles in one session, that should be healed. 0.99

00:02:56.000 Really?

00:02:56.000 Yeah.

00:02:57.000 I've used it hundreds and hundreds of times.

00:02:59.000 I just didn't have the money to buy it until recently.

00:03:01.000 Wow.

00:03:02.000 I've been using it since college.

00:03:03.000 And so now you put this on your shoulder and what...

00:03:07.000 Well, you put it on your shoulder and they have like this posture.

00:03:10.000 So you hold this posture to this position, right?

00:03:12.000 And then they also do a balance test first because if your back is fucked up, your knee, and your balance is off, then neurologically it's not going to actually send the current to the right spot. 0.58

00:03:23.000 So maybe it's your lower back. 0.96

00:03:25.000 And your shoes are fucked up, so now your shoes are messed up, so it'll make your lower back hurt. 0.99

00:03:28.000 You know how to balance that. 0.98

00:03:30.000 So they do that first, adjust you, make sure you're all balanced out, then they find what they call a hotspot.

00:03:35.000 So they put it at a neutral site, the black pad, which is like your lower back or something.

00:03:40.000 Then wherever you're feeling the pain, if I'm feeling it right here, the pain might not be coming from there. 0.99

00:03:44.000 So they might, they search around and, ooh, this shit jump out. 0.99

00:03:48.000 So now this becomes a hot spot. 0.99

00:03:49.000 So now they take the other pad off and find a spot that when those two connect, you feel like you're about to die.

00:03:55.000 Then they wrap you up and then they do seven minutes on reverse, seven minutes on positive. 0.99

00:04:00.000 And then it's painful as shit. 0.98

00:04:03.000 I've done training camps, had some severe injuries, and nobody would ever know. 0.99

00:04:09.000 Really?

00:04:09.000 Yeah, it's crazy.

00:04:11.000 So you're saying that if you have something that's bothering you, a lot of times there's something that's wrong somewhere else that's causing that to be bothering you, and this somehow or another finds that?

00:04:21.000 No, you do a balance test first.

00:04:24.000 So say like a chiropractor comes in and he say, oh, your hips are off, your legs are longer.

00:04:27.000 He adjusts you.

00:04:28.000 You have to be adjusted and balanced first.

00:04:30.000 Then they put the pads on there and they locate what they call a hot spot.

00:04:33.000 So say my shoulder, right?

00:04:35.000 For some reason, I broke my wrist a long time ago.

00:04:39.000 So I can't do like that.

00:04:41.000 You can't push down on things?

00:04:42.000 Yeah, so see how I can't get my hand to bend?

00:04:45.000 Oh.

00:04:45.000 So if you get down to push-up time, I'm going like this.

00:04:47.000 Because my wrist just doesn't bend.

00:04:49.000 With knuckles, right.

00:04:49.000 So when I'm throwing a punch, especially if I'm throwing just a crazy-ass punch, you can imagine that if I don't distribute the force properly, My forearm's gonna be sore.

00:04:59.000 Probably what's causing my shoulder pain.

00:05:01.000 Also being extended position in wrestling, extended and stretched out over time and time, it caused a shock.

00:05:07.000 Now, just that one punch I hit Damian Maia with, maybe that wasn't a punch. 0.83

00:05:11.000 That might have been the last damn straw that broke the camel back.

00:05:14.000 But I think wearing terror from all those different years just beat my shoulder up. 0.95

00:05:18.000 So you...

00:05:19.000 Oh, so what's this guy doing here?

00:05:21.000 Before and after, best kind of version I think I could find of a good video. 0.90

00:05:25.000 Yeah, range of motion-wise is actually deceiving because sometimes you'll fucking get zapped on this deal, and you couldn't bring your arm up at all, and then all of a sudden now you're like, oh shit, I'm healed. 0.68

00:05:35.000 But you're not really healed. 0.87

00:05:37.000 You gotta continue to do the protocol, continue to do the treatment, and work on that range of motion. 1.00

00:05:41.000 If you do it one time and you feel great, go out there and start shooting threes, your shit gonna be fucked up. 0.98

00:05:47.000 Hmm, yeah, so so in the Damien Maia fight you hurt your your shoulder like with one of the first punches you threw right guys I was I knew it happened because I Knew it I knew it's what they call subplex or dislocated whatever so I threw I saw opening had already lumped his eye up I'm like I'm trying to fuck that that side of his face up So I saw his left eyeball already almost closed. 0.99

00:06:10.000 So I said I'm gonna try to go ham on him Bow, I threw the punch, and I felt my shoulder go down. 0.94

00:06:15.000 And I'm like, oh shit. 0.99

00:06:16.000 So then I was like, I can't lose a fight. 0.99

00:06:18.000 I can't let the dude take my belt.

00:06:20.000 So at this point, I said, I'm going to throw straight punches.

00:06:23.000 And reaction, and I see my power punch, I'm going to throw it.

00:06:27.000 So a couple times, I forgot, and I threw it, and it kind of went out again.

00:06:30.000 And he took some shots, and I lift him up, and it kind of went out again.

00:06:33.000 So three or four times in a fight, I can feel it just go, like a whole five or six light bulbs just crushing on your shoulder.

00:06:39.000 You kind of feel it going, like. 0.99

00:06:41.000 But I had that pain before, and I mean, it sounds stupid. 0.92

00:06:45.000 I'm blessed that I tore this one because I know what it felt like. 0.96

00:06:47.000 Right. 0.99

00:06:48.000 And I know that the only pain that I'm going to feel is when I extend, when I try to go that direction, or any overhand right, that shit was going to be a wrap. 0.99

00:06:56.000 So when I stayed here, I just threw straight punches. 0.98

00:06:59.000 And there was a couple times I blitzed forward, and I wanted to punch, and I didn't punch because I didn't feel confident with my hand.

00:07:06.000 Hmm, so you knew something was wrong, but you just didn't know exactly what it was.

00:07:11.000 I knew it's subplex, so I knew it dislocated for sure.

00:07:14.000 Whether the ligament was torn or not, I was praying that it wasn't.

00:07:17.000 Because you can actually do that, slip it out without it tearing.

00:07:20.000 But most times when you do that, it's a result of these muscles fatiguing, you punching too hard, making contact with your target, and then your whole muscles just kind of feel like, the best way I can explain it, everything just kind of fell down.

00:07:32.000 So you tried to rehab it for a while, right?

00:07:35.000 Yeah.

00:07:35.000 What did you try to do?

00:07:36.000 Man, I did.

00:07:37.000 I did the ARP treatment.

00:07:38.000 I did regular physical therapy.

00:07:41.000 I mean...

00:07:41.000 You got an MRI? MRI. I got two MRIs.

00:07:44.000 I had one doctor tell me that, you know, I didn't have to do it.

00:07:46.000 I could.

00:07:47.000 One doctor can care less.

00:07:49.000 And then finally I went to Dr. Andrews and he was like, you know what, how long do you plan on fighting for?

00:07:54.000 And I hate when people ask me this.

00:07:56.000 I'm like, until I get tired of fighting.

00:07:59.000 And he's like, well, if you think you're going to be done fighting, then don't get it done.

00:08:02.000 But if you want to have a career and you want to be able to confidently punch...

00:08:06.000 He said, I watched your video.

00:08:07.000 He said, you make your money with your right hand.

00:08:09.000 He said, if you want to go out there and punch and be confident...

00:08:12.000 Let me go in there.

00:08:13.000 Let me clean it out.

00:08:14.000 Let me anchor it down.

00:08:15.000 We'll shoot some stem cells, some PRP in there on the way out of the surgery.

00:08:19.000 We'll be aggressive. 0.70

00:08:20.000 We'll make sure you get that range of motion, and you'll be back in there punching. 0.97

00:08:22.000 So I decided that my ass fought four times, four World Titan fights in a year. 0.97

00:08:28.000 If anybody deserves to touch up something they hurt in the fight, it's me. 0.99

00:08:32.000 So I decided to go with it.

00:08:34.000 I was so close, man, even all the way up until the day of surgery. 0.98

00:08:37.000 I was like, man, I don't want to fucking do this. 0.98

00:08:39.000 I don't want to do this. 0.98

00:08:40.000 I just don't want to be down.

00:08:41.000 Now, were you still training?

00:08:42.000 Were you still throwing punches?

00:08:44.000 Yeah, I was training.

00:08:45.000 And what did it feel like when you were throwing punches?

00:08:47.000 I mean, that's the reason why I got it.

00:08:48.000 I mean, uppercuts, straight punches. 0.99

00:08:51.000 If I throw a straight punch and I didn't turn my body over and I was just arm punching, shit would hurt. 0.95

00:08:55.000 If I throw uppercut, it didn't hurt. 0.99

00:08:57.000 I was shadowboxing, hitting pads, hitting the bag.

00:09:00.000 If I throw overhand right...

00:09:02.000 It was not going to happen.

00:09:04.000 Shoulders are such a weird joint.

00:09:06.000 There's so much motion.

00:09:08.000 Even now, like you're doing the rehab now, part of my protocol is with dumbbells.

00:09:12.000 I can light shadow box.

00:09:13.000 But if I come out here, you can just see the way my body is starting to get alarmed.

00:09:18.000 I don't feel comfortable yet.

00:09:19.000 But you're only how many days out of surgery?

00:09:22.000 Two weeks.

00:09:22.000 Two weeks is nothing.

00:09:23.000 Nothing, yeah.

00:09:24.000 It's amazing that you can move it that much.

00:09:26.000 I'll be back training in a couple months.

00:09:28.000 Wow.

00:09:29.000 But with this ARP machine and then with stem cells and PRP, it's like the world's a different place now for injury rehab. 0.99

00:09:37.000 I had this shit in 2008. So I tell you, and I rehabbed myself. 0.98

00:09:41.000 I took a rehab book. 0.63

00:09:43.000 I had all these protocols from these sports medicine people that gave me, and I put my own shit together, and I made my own workout.

00:09:49.000 And I did it religiously twice a day, but it's not the same as somebody...

00:09:53.000 Stretching you every single degree, every direction, every plane, watching your growth, and actually being a specialist.

00:10:00.000 I was just doing shit because I didn't want my shoulder messed up, and I just started fighting. 0.52

00:10:04.000 When I first started, I was a wrestling coach for Tiago Alves, Eve Edwards, Dean Thomas. 0.93

00:10:09.000 I wasn't really a fighter fighter. 0.99

00:10:11.000 I had a couple amateur fights, but I didn't know if I wanted to do this shit or not. 0.98

00:10:14.000 Then, I had to have a shoulder surgery. 1.00

00:10:16.000 I'm like, damn, man. 0.99

00:10:18.000 I don't know how the hell I'm going to pay for this. 0.99

00:10:20.000 So a guy named Weight Room, he was an American Top Team guy. 0.98

00:10:23.000 I didn't know what the fuck American Top Team was. 0.93

00:10:24.000 He brought this satellite school to University of Missouri where I was coaching at. 0.96

00:10:28.000 He came in the gym and he wanted to pay for our Weight Room wrestling team. 0.99

00:10:32.000 And I'm like, well, shit, let me go in there and train in his gym. 0.98

00:10:34.000 And I went and trained in his gym and I worked for him full time so I can get insurance, so I can get the shoulder surgery. 0.99

00:10:40.000 And shit, after that, I said, let me get this fighting thing to try. 0.97

00:10:44.000 I know. 1.00

00:10:45.000 I wasn't even...

00:10:46.000 I was just doing it just to see what it was like.

00:10:49.000 But...

00:10:50.000 That's crazy.

00:10:51.000 Yeah.

00:10:51.000 That's crazy when you think about how successful you've been at it.

00:10:54.000 And I had a lot of chances to quit, too.

00:10:55.000 Broke in debt.

00:10:57.000 50 grand in debt.

00:10:58.000 I'm like... 1.00

00:10:59.000 I told my coach, I said, I can't do this shit anymore. 0.99

00:11:01.000 I said, I'm a full-time coach. 0.99

00:11:03.000 I'm going negative day 15 out of 30 days.

00:11:07.000 Man, I can't even afford...

00:11:08.000 That's when gas...

00:11:09.000 Remember if gas first hit...

00:11:11.000 I was getting 99 cent gas and all of a sudden went to three bucks at the brokest point of my life.

00:11:16.000 I was like, hell with that.

00:11:17.000 So I did that and he said, you know what?

00:11:20.000 You got a future in this, man.

00:11:22.000 He said, take out a student loan.

00:11:24.000 I was in graduate school.

00:11:25.000 He said, take out a student loan.

00:11:27.000 So I took out a student loan in graduate school to fund my MMA training.

00:11:31.000 Wow.

00:11:31.000 And I didn't even finish graduate school.

00:11:34.000 Wow, that's crazy.

00:11:36.000 It's crazy that it all worked out the way it did. 1.00

00:11:38.000 Now I'm a workshop, shit. 1.00

00:11:40.000 Hey, it worked out. 1.00

00:11:43.000 I would complain about it.

00:11:45.000 Dana tried to pay me 50 grand, less known being 50 grand in debt.

00:11:49.000 It's like tables have turned quite a bit.

00:11:52.000 Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it?

00:11:53.000 If you look back 10 years ago...

00:11:55.000 10 years ago.

00:11:57.000 I can't believe I've been fighting for, what is it, 12, 13 years now?

00:12:01.000 2005 was my first fight.

00:12:02.000 Wow.

00:12:06.000 Nuts.

00:12:06.000 Now you're world champ.

00:12:07.000 So with this rehabilitation, they said they'd like you to throw punches inside of two months.

00:12:13.000 Yeah.

00:12:14.000 And then when would you be able to fully resume training?

00:12:17.000 They think three months.

00:12:18.000 They think three months.

00:12:19.000 I mean, granted, with this surgery, you can hear someone say four months, you can hear six months.

00:12:24.000 Some people take a full year.

00:12:25.000 It depends on who the surgeon is, how aggressively they push you forward, and it depends on why you need to get back.

00:12:30.000 I got a belt to defend.

00:12:31.000 I got money to make, and I got people asked to be, so I got to get back. 0.98

00:12:34.000 So with that said, I'm going, I called the UFC, I'm like, this is bullshit. 0.96

00:12:39.000 I'm your world champion. 0.87

00:12:41.000 I need, what am I going to do with three days a week?

00:12:43.000 I'm not a senior citizen.

00:12:44.000 I need physical therapy approved for five days a week.

00:12:47.000 I need this game-ready ice machine.

00:12:49.000 I need to do PRP in six weeks.

00:12:51.000 They should want me to get back.

00:12:53.000 And, you know, they listened to me and said, you know what, he's right.

00:12:58.000 You know, give him whatever you want, give him so he can get back and get in and fight him.

00:13:00.000 Because I was fighting extremely often for them.

00:13:04.000 Now, you're living in St. Louis?

00:13:06.000 Yeah, I got a house in St. Louis.

00:13:08.000 I'm out here every week, though.

00:13:10.000 I'm doing Fox, TMZ. I didn't know you were doing that many different TV things.

00:13:13.000 So, what are you doing on Fox?

00:13:15.000 I'm doing UFC tonight.

00:13:18.000 DC's out in training camp, so anytime DC, Bisping, or whatever, I'm usually the guy that fills in with UFC tonight.

00:13:23.000 And you have to come out here and do that every week?

00:13:26.000 Wow.

00:13:26.000 They don't watch themselves.

00:13:27.000 Hey, biz me.

00:13:28.000 You and DC don't watch yourself. 1.00

00:13:30.000 I'm going to snag your damn job. 1.00

00:13:32.000 I'm going to be a permanent out here. 1.00

00:13:33.000 Because I had a good show yesterday.

00:13:35.000 I didn't want to watch out.

00:13:37.000 Do you like doing it?

00:13:37.000 I love doing it.

00:13:39.000 I love getting out of the box.

00:13:40.000 That's why, you know, I know we're probably going to get into it later.

00:13:42.000 That's why I did stand-up comedy the other day.

00:13:44.000 I did stand-up comedy.

00:13:45.000 I heard about that Adam Hunter had you up at the Dime Bar.

00:13:47.000 Yeah, I went to the Dime Bar because I feel like acting is what I'm gonna do after I get done fighting. 0.94

00:13:53.000 And if you can be okay with being embarrassed, not being uncomfortable, and really not giving a fuck, then you can become a great actor if you have the gift and you're willing to put in the work. 0.74

00:14:03.000 So I've always put in the work. 0.96

00:14:04.000 I'm not worried about that.

00:14:05.000 But if I gotta cry, I gotta be a college douchebag, I gotta be a Something that I'm not used to being.

00:14:11.000 I can be a tough guy all day. 0.91

00:14:12.000 I can be a secret agent.

00:14:14.000 I mean, you've done film.

00:14:16.000 We can watch a film and mimic it.

00:14:19.000 I used to mimic Friday.

00:14:20.000 You could not tell me I wasn't Smokey. 0.99

00:14:22.000 I would sound just like Chris Tucker, like I was really in a fucking movie. 0.98

00:14:25.000 But he didn't have anybody to look at. 0.99

00:14:27.000 He had a fucking script, and he had to bring that to life. 0.98

00:14:30.000 And we're really critical in actors, and I just don't want to be the weakest link ever on a film. 0.99

00:14:36.000 So that's what you want to do when you're done with all this?

00:14:38.000 For sure, for sure.

00:14:39.000 Has that always been an aspiration, or is it something you saw as a way to do it after it's over?

00:14:44.000 I mean, I got a lot of stuff.

00:14:45.000 I don't really even like fighting, to be honest.

00:14:48.000 Really?

00:14:48.000 Yeah, I'm just good at it.

00:14:50.000 What don't you like about it?

00:14:51.000 I don't like the politics behind it.

00:14:53.000 I don't like the martial art aspect that's been taken away from it.

00:14:56.000 I don't like the disrespect to the sport.

00:14:59.000 Guys that are not really training hard...

00:15:01.000 They don't look the part.

00:15:02.000 I think professional athletes should look a certain way.

00:15:05.000 I really just don't like the youth, this generation of fighters that watch and move on TV, on YouTube, and they go and they try to do it.

00:15:13.000 They don't want to drill repetitiously.

00:15:15.000 They don't want to actually put in the work.

00:15:17.000 But why does that affect you, though?

00:15:18.000 It affects me because our sport is also the fans, and the fans actually culture who gets to fight. 0.93

00:15:23.000 And if a guy's gonna talk enough shit and start wearing fly suits, then this day and age, that's good enough for a title shot. 0.95

00:15:30.000 And I think it's disrespectful to everybody that came before. 0.99

00:15:34.000 Remember that you had to go 10-0, then you get the fucking call from the UFC? If Conor wants Artem Lobov in the UFC at a 500 record, he's going to be in the UFC. It's ways that the sport is taking the love out of it, but I just find a way in dominating my opponents, taking all their twos away from them. 0.83

00:15:54.000 Dean, Thomas, shout out to them, and Duke Rufus are fucking masterminds. 0.95

00:15:59.000 So I take pride in that. 0.99

00:16:01.000 I take pride in going in there, not getting hit.

00:16:04.000 Dominating, knocking people out, whatever.

00:16:06.000 But when you say you don't like fighting, you like all those things.

00:16:09.000 You don't like what other people are doing.

00:16:10.000 I love training.

00:16:12.000 I don't like what the sport has become.

00:16:15.000 So, this is an interesting thing to talk about because a lot of people have different points of view on that.

00:16:19.000 On one hand, A lot of people like the traditional martial arts approach of respect for your opponent and just fighting to the best of your abilities and letting the chips fall where they may.

00:16:30.000 Whereas other people say, well listen, to get people to show up, to get asses in seats, to get pay-per-view buys...

00:16:37.000 There's got to be some drama and some entertainment value to it, and that's where someone like Conor comes into play.

00:16:41.000 Conor's the only one that's done it, though.

00:16:43.000 Yeah, well, Ronda a little bit.

00:16:44.000 Ronda did it a little bit.

00:16:46.000 Conor's done it the best, but he actually puts in the work.

00:16:49.000 Right, Chael Sonnen before him.

00:16:50.000 Chael Sonnen did, but his mouth was louder.

00:16:54.000 He's actually probably the best at it.

00:16:56.000 He's better than Conor at it.

00:16:58.000 Conor's very close, but Conor actually delivers on more of what he said he's going to do than Chael did.

00:17:04.000 I would agree.

00:17:05.000 So if you've got to think of anybody who's brought both worlds together best, I would have to say Conor.

00:17:10.000 He knocks a lot of guys out.

00:17:11.000 He's tried to call the round.

00:17:13.000 He's only lost a few fights total.

00:17:15.000 And even those fights, it was risk-matching reward.

00:17:17.000 Fighting a guy, switched opponent, disnoticed, different weight class.

00:17:22.000 You know, he's taking those risks and rewards that if you lose, it's not really that big of a deal.

00:17:26.000 Nobody's going to really, oh my God, drop him down to the bottom of the pack.

00:17:30.000 But these other guys that haven't done it, don't have the skills, ain't put in the work.

00:17:35.000 I mean, they can kind of really just...

00:17:37.000 Well, you see the trend, right?

00:17:38.000 There is a trend right now.

00:17:39.000 Be good at it, at least, though.

00:17:40.000 People being incredibly disrespectful, very rude.

00:17:43.000 And, you know, you saw what happened with Colby Covington and, you know, Fabrizio Verdum hits him with a boomerang.

00:17:49.000 You know what I mean?

00:17:49.000 Now he's pressing charges.

00:17:51.000 I mean...

00:17:52.000 That dude's a queef. 1.00

00:17:53.000 Well, there's... 0.68

00:17:54.000 Coward Queefington. 0.99

00:17:57.000 There's a lot of attention being placed on him, though.

00:18:01.000 I mean, it's slightly effective.

00:18:03.000 Let me see how much attention is being placed on him.

00:18:04.000 But it is effective in the moment, right?

00:18:06.000 I mean, you don't want to go look at his stuff.

00:18:08.000 It's effective in the moment.

00:18:09.000 I'm going to tell you why.

00:18:10.000 Because sometimes our sports...

00:18:11.000 Well, because people like drama.

00:18:13.000 Sometimes our sports is like, you know, there's nothing going on. 1.00

00:18:15.000 It's like, fuck, well, this kid's talking shit. 1.00

00:18:16.000 Let me listen to him. 1.00

00:18:17.000 Right.

00:18:18.000 And right there at that point, Conor wasn't around.

00:18:20.000 Ronda wasn't around.

00:18:21.000 John wasn't around.

00:18:22.000 Who has UFC really projected as a star?

00:18:24.000 Sage Northcutt had a few bumps.

00:18:26.000 Paige Van Zandt had a few bumps. 1.00

00:18:27.000 They're trying to push up Ngannou.

00:18:29.000 But what star did they have?

00:18:31.000 So now if you've got this person that's willing to go crazy, even though we know it's WWE and the person's really not getting slammed, we want to live in that moment anyway.

00:18:39.000 We want to go for the villain.

00:18:40.000 But who has he really beat beyond Damian Maia?

00:18:43.000 What was the other top 15 victory?

00:18:46.000 Well, the Damien Maier was a big one, but that was the one.

00:18:48.000 It was a big one, but he was unmotivated, and he was a guy that already had his title shots, and, you know, he's getting up there in age.

00:18:55.000 What is really his motivation?

00:18:56.000 I wrote the book on how to beat Damien Maier, and he didn't even read the book. 0.99

00:19:00.000 He just skimmed through it because no part of the book said, let the jiu-jitsu guy fuck you up and bloody your face. 0.99

00:19:06.000 Kobe Coffin did that by himself. 0.97

00:19:08.000 I didn't do that, you know, even with my right arm being messed up, so...

00:19:12.000 Yeah, I'm just looking.

00:19:14.000 How many followers do you have?

00:19:19.000 He didn't have a big following before that.

00:19:21.000 That was his biggest fight.

00:19:22.000 That was the big coming out party.

00:19:24.000 I don't want to discredit him.

00:19:25.000 Damian Myers is a G. I don't want to discredit Kobe.

00:19:29.000 You know, for me, have some people on your resume.

00:19:33.000 Have some, you know, I didn't beat Derek Safanine, Paul Daly, Jordan Meehan.

00:19:38.000 This was before I even got into the UFC. My first fight was Jay Heron, who had only been stopped by George St. Pierre.

00:19:44.000 Lost one fight to Ben Ashland that was close and had won every fight after that.

00:19:47.000 So I never had an easy fight.

00:19:49.000 All my guys was either former champions or former contenders or former, you know, people that were interim champions.

00:19:56.000 And when you got a list like that, you still don't get the respect.

00:20:00.000 Koshchek, Condit, Robbie Lawler.

00:20:02.000 Why are you saying you don't get the respect?

00:20:03.000 From who?

00:20:04.000 From him?

00:20:06.000 From Kobe?

00:20:06.000 Oh my god, I can care less.

00:20:08.000 What are you saying you don't get the respect?

00:20:10.000 You definitely get respect.

00:20:11.000 Watch this.

00:20:12.000 When you think of Robbie Lawler.

00:20:14.000 Okay.

00:20:15.000 Carlos Condon, right?

00:20:16.000 Right.

00:20:17.000 They're in a different category.

00:20:18.000 Now, is it weird to you that I'm the champion and I beat both of those guys?

00:20:21.000 Wait a minute.

00:20:22.000 What do you mean by a different category?

00:20:23.000 I see them in a category—and this might just be me—I see them as in the category as if you're talking about guys that are going to enter the Hall of Fame, right?

00:20:32.000 Right.

00:20:33.000 And you think about, oh, Josh Koscheck and Carlos Condit and Robbie Lawler and, you know, this guy, Anderson Silva, all those different guys.

00:20:42.000 But it's funny that I've defeated these guys.

00:20:44.000 Wait a minute. 1.00

00:20:44.000 You're crazy. 1.00

00:20:45.000 You're talking crazy. 1.00

00:20:46.000 I don't think so. 0.97

00:20:47.000 Yeah, no, you're definitely talking crazy.

00:20:48.000 You're the champ. 0.63

00:20:49.000 I know that.

00:20:50.000 You're the current champ.

00:20:50.000 You're acting like people don't respect you as the champ.

00:20:54.000 They respect the people I've defeated more.

00:20:57.000 And you think that people think that Carlos Condit gets more respect or Robbie Lawler gets more respect?

00:21:00.000 That's crazy.

00:21:01.000 Carlos Conant gets more respect than me.

00:21:03.000 Robbie Lawler gets more respect than me.

00:21:05.000 But from who, though?

00:21:05.000 For sure.

00:21:06.000 Even guys that I defeated, like, you know, Stephen Thompson.

00:21:12.000 Stephen Thompson will get more respect than me.

00:21:14.000 I'm not going to say that.

00:21:15.000 But people are willing to be like, oh my God, you know, tell them, Dana said, tell them to get in the cage with Tyron Woodley.

00:21:21.000 He didn't say, hey Tyron, tell them to get in cage with Stephen Thompson on the seven fight win streak, knocking everybody the fuck out with a really super weird style that took me months and a fortune bringing all these fucking crazy Taekwondo, Raymond Daniels, all these, the best of the best to train to beat him.

00:21:38.000 Right.

00:21:38.000 Like nobody gave me that pass.

00:21:40.000 I don't know why you concentrate on that.

00:21:43.000 I don't.

00:21:44.000 But you are, because you're talking about it.

00:21:46.000 I'm not concentrating on it, because my path is pretty easy.

00:21:47.000 You need to call me when you have these nutty thoughts.

00:21:48.000 I'm telling you, man. 1.00

00:21:49.000 I'm going to talk you through this shit. 1.00

00:21:50.000 You're the fucking champ. 1.00

00:21:51.000 I'm telling you. 1.00

00:21:52.000 This is all nonsense.

00:21:52.000 This is wasted energy.

00:21:54.000 When you think about...

00:21:56.000 It doesn't matter to me, because my path is pretty clear what I want to do.

00:21:59.000 I want to be the best welterweight of all time.

00:22:02.000 Reigning, defending, undisputed UFC welterweight champion. 0.98

00:22:06.000 You act like me in 2007, when that was the shit. 1.00

00:22:09.000 But it is the shit. 1.00

00:22:12.000 It's just in the middle of it. 1.00

00:22:13.000 You're in the middle of it.

00:22:14.000 Why is Conor and Nate fighting superfights that are bigger than a world title fight?

00:22:17.000 Because people don't know you as much.

00:22:19.000 They don't know you as much yet.

00:22:21.000 Look, Conor's a weird enigma.

00:22:24.000 And whatever reason why that guy caught fire the way he did, it's a weird combination of personality, results, skill.

00:22:31.000 And Ireland.

00:22:32.000 Ireland's a big factor. 0.99

00:22:33.000 I mean, if Conor was from Nebraska, I guarantee you this shit wouldn't have happened that way. 0.99

00:22:37.000 Ireland's a big fight country, too. 0.99

00:22:38.000 It's not just a big fight country.

00:22:40.000 The loyalty and the love that those people have for the people that fight from Ireland, there's nothing like that. 0.97

00:22:46.000 It's a weird anomaly.

00:22:48.000 So he's just this weird aberration, and he gives people almost like false hope of what's possible.

00:22:55.000 Because I don't know if it's possible with a lot of people.

00:22:58.000 It's lightning in a bottle.

00:23:00.000 For whatever reason, it worked with him.

00:23:02.000 But he started it himself, and then what happened?

00:23:04.000 Here come the jumper cables.

00:23:05.000 Boom! 0.99

00:23:06.000 Yeah.

00:23:07.000 UFC put the machine behind him, right?

00:23:09.000 They definitely put the machine behind him, but without the machine behind him, there was giant hordes of people flying in from Ireland.

00:23:15.000 I remember one of some of his earlier fights, I was like, and I was commenting on it, and I was saying, this is a guy who was on the undercard, and they're acting like this is the main event of a pay-per-view.

00:23:25.000 They've flown from Ireland.

00:23:26.000 The audience is filled with thousands of people that flew from Ireland for this guy.

00:23:33.000 Even back then, it was insane.

00:23:36.000 I didn't know him back then.

00:23:37.000 You know what's funny?

00:23:38.000 My old striking coach was like, Conor McGregor's this huge star.

00:23:43.000 That's when he first got in the UFC. And I'm like, I don't even know who the fuck this kid is. 0.99

00:23:48.000 He was trying to convince me, no, he's a superstar. 0.99

00:23:51.000 And then every time I get a chance, I say, you were right. 0.99

00:23:55.000 He wasn't then, but this motherfucker ended up being a superstar. 0.97

00:23:58.000 And he loves to get that credit because at that moment, I think I was getting ready to fight Duncan Kim and he kept talking about this Conor McGregor. 0.99

00:24:04.000 So I said, let me look at this motherfucker. 0.99

00:24:05.000 Let me look him up because you obviously got a boner for this dude. 1.00

00:24:09.000 And I looked him up.

00:24:10.000 I'm like, all right, he's good.

00:24:11.000 I get it.

00:24:12.000 But let me see him beat a couple people.

00:24:14.000 And then if he can beat Dustin Poirier, then I'm going to give him his props.

00:24:19.000 Knocked out Dustin Poirier.

00:24:21.000 He's 100% legit.

00:24:23.000 He's legit.

00:24:24.000 But it's what else is going on that's so weird.

00:24:27.000 He's not just legit.

00:24:29.000 He's also this unbelievable personality.

00:24:31.000 People are drawn to him.

00:24:34.000 No one can manufacture that.

00:24:37.000 He's rehearsed it.

00:24:37.000 He's practiced it.

00:24:38.000 He's looked in the mirror.

00:24:39.000 He has natural wit. 1.00

00:24:41.000 He's willing to go risky and say some below the bell shit. 0.99

00:24:44.000 And he does his research. 0.99

00:24:45.000 He don't come to a press conference just, you know, smoking you like the front row of a comedy show. 1.00

00:24:50.000 He's looking into some deep shit. 0.99

00:24:52.000 And when you get there, you kind of stumble. 1.00

00:24:54.000 So you're right.

00:24:56.000 He has that.

00:24:57.000 He also has a fight style. 1.00

00:24:59.000 He also has so happened to do 80% of the shit he says he's going to do, so now he's the fucking messiah. 0.98

00:25:03.000 Right, but you can't say that the UFC has not gotten behind you or people don't give you the respect that you deserve. 0.88

00:25:10.000 That's why you're not in the same level as him.

00:25:12.000 I didn't say that, Joe.

00:25:12.000 But you said that him and Conor, or that Conor and Nate are fighting these superfights.

00:25:16.000 I'm saying that he has gotten that.

00:25:18.000 And I'm saying that he has gotten that.

00:25:20.000 And he has lived up to what he said he's going to do.

00:25:23.000 And on top of that, you got to be able to fight.

00:25:26.000 And he can fight.

00:25:27.000 And he's been able to talk.

00:25:28.000 So now not only can he generate the pay-per-view buys and get people interested, he's actually going to deliver a knockout against Jose Aldo, a stoppage against Eddie Alvarez, and the crazy back-to-back fights with Nate Diaz.

00:25:41.000 Don't you think that you're in an unusual situation, first of all, because you win the title by spectacular first-round knockout against Robbie Lawler, right?

00:25:49.000 Unbelievable knockout.

00:25:50.000 But then you have the most...

00:25:53.000 Awkward and difficult guy to defend your title against.

00:25:56.000 Wonderboy Thompson is a very unusual opponent, and it's hard to look good against him.

00:26:01.000 And out of all the people that fought him, you're the only guy that put him in danger not once but twice.

00:26:08.000 And the way you fought him, I've defended the way you fought him many times because I say, look, if you look at tactically, if you look at technique, and you look at the art of fighting, that's the way to fight him.

00:26:19.000 If you're a guy like Tyron Woodley, a powerful puncher, who's a great wrestler, who's got real one-punch knockout ability, you're not going to open yourself up to Wonderboy.

00:26:29.000 You're not going to rush him either.

00:26:30.000 Exactly.

00:26:30.000 Don't get picked apart.

00:26:32.000 You're not going to fight him the way he wants to fight.

00:26:34.000 What you did is you laid back a lot, and people booed a lot because of that.

00:26:38.000 But when you connected, you were the one that hurt him.

00:26:41.000 In those two fights, he was the one that was in big trouble in both of those fights.

00:26:46.000 Not you.

00:26:47.000 With his fight, it was not...

00:26:50.000 For me, I'm never...

00:26:52.000 I got the same thing in the Maya fight, but at the end of the day, if someone's attempting to take you down multiple times, over 20 times, it's very hard to get in any type of exchange.

00:27:01.000 Every time you swing, they want to go in and get the shot to take you down.

00:27:02.000 Well, the Maya fight was tough, too, because of your injury, but...

00:27:05.000 You gotta go back and look at Anderson Silva's dark days.

00:27:08.000 There was a dark days when Anderson Silva fought Damian Maia, where nobody wanted to have anything to do with him after that fight.

00:27:13.000 And Anderson Silva fought, when he fought, there was several fights where he had Just boring results.

00:27:24.000 And people weren't interested in him fighting anymore.

00:27:26.000 One spectacular knockout, and everybody's back on board again.

00:27:30.000 One spectacular knockout to get the belt, and then everybody slowly forget about it moments later.

00:27:36.000 Because at the time, Stephen Thompson said, no, I'd rather fight Robbie, and I think he's going to win anyway, and da-da-da-da-da.

00:27:41.000 And then he'd think, I'm supposed to be just so graciously like, oh, let's fight in honor.

00:27:46.000 No, you wanted to fight Robbie, right?

00:27:48.000 Yeah.

00:27:48.000 You said Robbie was going to win.

00:27:50.000 You said you personally prefer to fight Robbie because I've been waiting around, even though that wasn't the case.

00:27:54.000 So you said this stuff.

00:27:55.000 So don't think that I'm just going to give you my spotlight and say, hey, you know what?

00:27:59.000 Yeah, let's do this.

00:28:00.000 No.

00:28:00.000 If I'm seeing the table being set, I know there's Nate Diaz's out there, Nick Diaz's out there, George St. Pierre's, Michael Bismings, guys that have that name, they have that status that I'm trying to get to.

00:28:11.000 Those are the guys I want to fight.

00:28:13.000 I want to knock those guys down because now I can continually inch myself up.

00:28:17.000 Fighting him, well, he's trying to get the same thing I'm trying to get. 0.96

00:28:21.000 Why the hell am I going to pull you up with me?

00:28:22.000 Right.

00:28:23.000 If that's the fight they wanted me to fight, number one, they never offered me the fight.

00:28:26.000 He said something.

00:28:28.000 Then I think the UFC thought I wouldn't take the fight.

00:28:30.000 The first time they offered me the fight, I accepted it.

00:28:32.000 So when all these people are like, oh my god, he don't want to fight, trying to pick his fights, he's just got the belt.

00:28:37.000 I'm like, man, it's so weird.

00:28:38.000 But you listen to too many people, man.

00:28:40.000 No, I'm talking about...

00:28:41.000 But there's too many people saying things that you're responding to that are irrelevant.

00:28:45.000 I think it's the people that...

00:28:48.000 That are in the organization, I gotta, you know...

00:28:50.000 Okay, you're dealing with people that I don't deal with, then, in that regard.

00:28:53.000 But as far as, like, people that are analysts and experts...

00:28:56.000 As far as, like, the social media, like, I really don't read social media.

00:29:00.000 Good.

00:29:01.000 I post because I want to post, and I leave it alone.

00:29:03.000 That's smart.

00:29:04.000 When I say that, I'm not saying...

00:29:06.000 Without saying who it is, I'm not saying that the fans are making me feel some type of way.

00:29:10.000 Because my path is clear.

00:29:11.000 I want to be the greatest world to win of all time.

00:29:13.000 Right.

00:29:14.000 Whatever it takes.

00:29:15.000 When I get an opportunity, I'm trying to knock you out.

00:29:17.000 Okay?

00:29:18.000 At all times.

00:29:19.000 Stephen Thompson is a different type of fight, as you said before.

00:29:22.000 Look what happened when Robert Whitaker rushed in.

00:29:24.000 Look what happened when this guy rushed in.

00:29:25.000 Those guys, that's what he thought of.

00:29:26.000 People forget he KO'd Whitaker. 1.00

00:29:27.000 They forget all this shit. 0.99

00:29:28.000 And I also realize how tough it is to take him down against the cage. 1.00

00:29:32.000 Remember how fast he pops up.

00:29:33.000 So why not give myself 31 foot that if I want to double-leg him, I got the whole place to stretch across and blast him out. 0.90

00:29:39.000 He don't have one-punch KO power.

00:29:40.000 So even if my back is against the octagon, when I go for a shot, I got the whole entire octagon to take him down.

00:29:46.000 Versus pressing him, go for the takedown.

00:29:48.000 Him and the cage are both defending my shot.

00:29:50.000 And then him trying to, you know, do some razzle-dazzle kick.

00:29:53.000 So I have no issue with the way I follow him.

00:29:56.000 Or Damian Maia.

00:29:57.000 I don't think there's another way to fight him.

00:30:00.000 Look what George Masvidal did.

00:30:02.000 He didn't take Maia serious.

00:30:04.000 He didn't train the way.

00:30:05.000 He didn't bring in the top jiu-jitsu guys.

00:30:08.000 It's easy to spar and kickbox and look good and never have to take a shot.

00:30:12.000 The way I train, I put myself in positions I know I'm never going to be in.

00:30:16.000 You're never going to take me down.

00:30:17.000 You're never going to have my back.

00:30:18.000 I'm never going to be mounted. 0.99

00:30:20.000 But I'm training that shit anyway, just in case I slip on a banana peel, I get clipped with a punch. 0.99

00:30:25.000 So George Masvidal, just from the way I watched him fight, he was surprised. 0.99

00:30:31.000 Even the stuff that Steven Thompson hit me with never surprised me.

00:30:34.000 I got hit with it.

00:30:35.000 He landed some good shots.

00:30:36.000 He's really quick.

00:30:37.000 I mean, I'm fast and explosive, but he's quick.

00:30:40.000 Those punches get to you fast.

00:30:41.000 He's long.

00:30:42.000 And when you start bouncing, you don't even know what the hell he's going to do.

00:30:44.000 And it's kind of like, what are you about to do?

00:30:45.000 What are you about to do?

00:30:47.000 You can watch his performance until he didn't do the proper work.

00:30:50.000 Same thing with Damian Maia.

00:30:51.000 He trained with Kobe, like, try to take me down, I'm going to stop the shot and just knock you out.

00:30:55.000 That's not how it works.

00:30:56.000 You got to bring in guys that know his half guard, how he hooks an ankle, how he sweeps, how he switches from one side to the other.

00:31:02.000 What happens when you grab around your waist?

00:31:03.000 If you give him his back, that's how you're going to lock up.

00:31:05.000 I trained with guys that trained with him, and the guys that are better than Damian Maia on the mat.

00:31:09.000 That way, when I got out there, had he taken me down, I would have been prepared to escape, get away, get back to my feet.

00:31:16.000 Do you think that having a chip on your shoulder in some way helps you?

00:31:19.000 Like, all these people that doubt you in some way, you have to prove yourself?

00:31:23.000 I just know that I'm the best.

00:31:25.000 I just know that I'm the best.

00:31:26.000 Like, you know, me and Dean was training one day, and I stopped practice, and I just had a brain fart, and I just started thinking about Joris St. Pierre, and I started thinking about all his skills, and I started thinking about Robbie, and all the top welterweights. 0.85

00:31:38.000 And I said, I'm the fucking best in the world. 0.80

00:31:40.000 Nobody's faster than me. 0.99

00:31:41.000 Nobody's stronger than me.

00:31:43.000 Nobody works as hard as I do.

00:31:44.000 Nobody has all the skills, the striking, the wrestling, the jiu-jitsu, the defense, the timing, the explosion, the toughness.

00:31:51.000 I've been in wars.

00:31:51.000 I've been in close fights.

00:31:53.000 I've been in fights where I knock people out.

00:31:54.000 I've been in it all.

00:31:55.000 So when I decided that I'm the best, I started carrying myself as if I was already the champion.

00:32:02.000 And that's why I had champ camp before I even had the belt.

00:32:05.000 And when was this around?

00:32:06.000 Like, which fight? 0.99

00:32:07.000 Right, shit, Robbie. 0.99

00:32:09.000 Right before Robbie. 1.00

00:32:10.000 So right before Robbie.

00:32:11.000 Yeah, I was supposed to.

00:32:12.000 No, champ camp actually was supposed to start with Johnny, but Johnny had some complications, didn't make it to the scale.

00:32:17.000 So they told me I was fighting Robbie.

00:32:20.000 Yeah, I remember talking to you backstage one day at one of the weigh-ins, and you were frustrated. 0.81

00:32:26.000 And you were like, when the fuck am I getting my title shot? 0.96

00:32:29.000 Yeah. 0.99

00:32:30.000 Well, you know, this is the thing.

00:32:32.000 We know the game changes, and sometimes they want to see fights play out before they make a call.

00:32:36.000 They never want to be on the line saying, you are definitely getting the title shot.

00:32:40.000 They've done that a couple times, and we've seen what happened, right?

00:32:42.000 And they pulled out of it.

00:32:43.000 So I fought Kelvin Gastelum.

00:32:46.000 Kelvin Gastelum was supposed to be this conditioning freak, and he missed weight by 10 pounds, and... 1.00

00:32:51.000 For me, I don't play that shit. 1.00

00:32:53.000 Don't act like you were so sick. 1.00

00:32:54.000 No, you didn't make weight. 0.99

00:32:56.000 And what happens when you don't make weight, you actually didn't have to go through and suck your body all the way down to scratch weight like I did.

00:33:02.000 So you should actually look better.

00:33:04.000 So I don't want to be like, oh, he was sick and that's why.

00:33:06.000 No, he had a chance.

00:33:08.000 He just is never going to beat me.

00:33:10.000 I fought him.

00:33:11.000 He was the one that was huffing and puffing.

00:33:12.000 He couldn't hit me.

00:33:13.000 He couldn't land.

00:33:13.000 Any significant punch, I landed.

00:33:15.000 And after that fight, you know, it was some scrutiny on the fight.

00:33:19.000 I'm like, okay, you want me to grapple with him so he can try to take my back and do a redneck and choke like he did to everybody else? 0.99

00:33:25.000 You want me to exchange with him and let him get into the fight when I know I'm faster, I know I'm sharper.

00:33:30.000 He can't hit me.

00:33:31.000 I got better defense.

00:33:32.000 The whole time he's pushing me against the cage, I hear his coach say, no, no, no, don't go there, don't go there.

00:33:36.000 He was terrified.

00:33:37.000 The Koshek thing was going to happen to him.

00:33:39.000 So he backed up every time he pushed me to the octagon.

00:33:42.000 Why wouldn't I play on that?

00:33:43.000 You know what I mean?

00:33:43.000 So when people look at that, he said that he was going to get a title shot.

00:33:47.000 I don't know if you remember that.

00:33:48.000 They said if Kelvin Gaston would beat Tyron, he's going to get a title shot.

00:33:52.000 I don't remember people saying that.

00:33:53.000 They were saying that, but they weren't saying that about you.

00:33:56.000 They didn't say that if you beat him.

00:33:57.000 Dana White said if Kelvin Gasolin beats Tyron, he's getting the title shot.

00:34:01.000 Remember, he had already been selected for the coach.

00:34:04.000 He got the coaching job off the loss.

00:34:06.000 Off the missing weight by 10 pounds.

00:34:08.000 And then they told me he would never fight at 185 again if I took the fight.

00:34:12.000 I mean 170 again if I took the fight.

00:34:15.000 So he lost to me in this weight.

00:34:18.000 Still got the tough coaching job.

00:34:19.000 And on top of that...

00:34:21.000 He was going to get a title shot had he beaten me.

00:34:24.000 So again, it comes to this chip on your shoulder thing.

00:34:26.000 You feel like everybody's against you.

00:34:28.000 No.

00:34:29.000 You do a little.

00:34:30.000 I don't.

00:34:30.000 I know you want me to though.

00:34:31.000 No, you do.

00:34:32.000 This is what you're saying.

00:34:33.000 It's the things that you're saying.

00:34:34.000 I'm not saying that.

00:34:35.000 I'm just saying that I know the deck of cards I got.

00:34:38.000 And I know how to play these deck of cards.

00:34:40.000 But what do you think the deck of cards is?

00:34:41.000 The deck of cards is there's going to come a moment where I'm a superstar.

00:34:44.000 And when I get to that moment, I have more leverage.

00:34:46.000 At this time, I'm not at the point where Conor McGregor's at. 0.93

00:34:49.000 So if I've got to fight the number one contender, and I can't vouch out to fight a George St. Pierre or Bisping or Conor or Nate at this moment, I'm going to keep whooping the ass until I get to that point.

00:34:59.000 Well, after George is beaten right now, George is in an amazing position, right?

00:35:03.000 George beats Bisping.

00:35:05.000 And he dropped the title.

00:35:06.000 But if he wanted to come back and fight you...

00:35:09.000 For the welterweight title, that's a legitimate super fight right there.

00:35:13.000 I mean, that makes a lot of sense.

00:35:15.000 You think George won't fight me?

00:35:15.000 Particularly coming off of his big fight.

00:35:17.000 You don't think he does?

00:35:18.000 You tell me.

00:35:19.000 You think George won't fight me?

00:35:20.000 Look at your face!

00:35:23.000 George had the chance to fight me before Bisming.

00:35:26.000 He chose to fight Bisming.

00:35:27.000 Well, maybe he felt like that was a better fight for him to come back with.

00:35:29.000 It was definitely a better fight because if he would have came back against me looking like that, George would have been right back in retirement.

00:35:35.000 He did not look great.

00:35:36.000 Bisming did not look great.

00:35:38.000 One thing that helped George in that fight, his experience.

00:35:41.000 He loosened up.

00:35:41.000 He was a little uptight.

00:35:43.000 He had men in the octagon, what, four years almost?

00:35:46.000 A little over two.

00:35:47.000 Yeah, a little over three, right?

00:35:49.000 It was more than that, right?

00:35:49.000 Was it four?

00:35:50.000 It was almost four.

00:35:51.000 It wasn't quite four.

00:35:51.000 It was almost four.

00:35:53.000 Because I fought November, UFC, it was the 25th anniversary.

00:35:57.000 No, I think you're right.

00:35:58.000 I think it was like four years.

00:35:59.000 Because I fought Koscheck on the card.

00:36:01.000 Yeah.

00:36:02.000 Okay.

00:36:02.000 Yeah, I fought Koscheck on the card.

00:36:03.000 That's a long ass time.

00:36:04.000 So for him to not fight... 0.95

00:36:07.000 I don't care how much you train.

00:36:08.000 You know what I'm saying?

00:36:09.000 In a fight, you don't have to train the camp, focus on a person.

00:36:11.000 It's tough.

00:36:12.000 So when he came back, I saw the experience kick in.

00:36:15.000 He relaxed a little bit.

00:36:16.000 That's when he landed a left hook. 0.89

00:36:19.000 Had he not relaxed, I mean, who knows what would have happened.

00:36:22.000 Right.

00:36:23.000 Yeah.

00:36:24.000 It was interesting because Bisping was tight.

00:36:27.000 And I expected him to be looser.

00:36:30.000 Big, Bisping doesn't have the, I mean, he's not guys out, but he's not a guy that, you know, you're thinking of like a Rumble or Ngannou or myself or somebody.

00:36:38.000 A one-shot guy.

00:36:39.000 Or Stevens, Jeremy Stevens, somebody that's going to touch you and it's over with.

00:36:43.000 So with that said, he's a person that's going to be volume.

00:36:46.000 He's going to be in your face, great conditioning.

00:36:48.000 He's very durable.

00:36:50.000 And...

00:36:51.000 George had to make that adjustment.

00:36:53.000 He said, alright, I'm going to be an athlete on this guy.

00:36:55.000 Let me fake him out.

00:36:56.000 Let me get him thinking about the shot.

00:36:57.000 I took him down twice.

00:36:58.000 Let me get him thinking about it.

00:36:59.000 Level change, come up left hook. 0.99

00:37:00.000 Very smart move.

00:37:01.000 And that's something that the experience of being a champion allowed him to do.

00:37:05.000 Well, there was some talk about him fighting Conor, but I didn't hear any of that from the official people.

00:37:09.000 And him fighting Conor at 170 pounds would have been fascinating.

00:37:12.000 In terms of like, it's a terrible matchup for Conor.

00:37:16.000 You know, in terms of like, just physicality.

00:37:19.000 Once again, risk and reward.

00:37:21.000 What happens if you lose to the greatest welterweight of all time?

00:37:24.000 Yeah.

00:37:24.000 People are going to torture him about it?

00:37:26.000 Yeah, but Conor doesn't want to lose another fight right now.

00:37:28.000 This is not a good time.

00:37:30.000 Especially in his division, there's so much talent.

00:37:32.000 Right now, at 155 pounds...

00:37:33.000 You think he want to see Khabib right now?

00:37:35.000 That's what I'm saying.

00:37:36.000 That's what I want to see.

00:37:37.000 Tony?

00:37:38.000 What about Tony?

00:37:39.000 I mean, Tony, if I was Conor, which I'm not, if I had to pick the fight, they both are going to be, I mean, Habib might be a bigger draw because he got a huge, huge 140-something million people in Russia.

00:37:54.000 Might be a bigger draw, but they both are very annoying fights.

00:37:58.000 Very dangerous fights.

00:38:00.000 Dangerous.

00:38:00.000 Tony Ferguson, you know, it don't take much for him to find a way to get around your neck and choking.

00:38:05.000 He doesn't get tired.

00:38:06.000 He doesn't get tired.

00:38:07.000 He looks like he's losing fights and he don't care.

00:38:09.000 His striking is very awkward.

00:38:11.000 He can really do what Nate Diaz did to Conor.

00:38:13.000 And Nate Diaz, you know, baffled him. 0.99

00:38:15.000 Like, damn, I hit you with everything. 0.99

00:38:17.000 You're still around. 1.00

00:38:18.000 Then Conor went for the damn shot. 1.00

00:38:20.000 The same thing's gonna happen if you do that to Tony. 1.00

00:38:22.000 Tony's gonna submit him.

00:38:23.000 Here's my prediction.

00:38:24.000 My prediction, Conor doesn't fight for a while.

00:38:26.000 He watched those two fights.

00:38:27.000 They strip him.

00:38:27.000 They strip Conor.

00:38:29.000 He comes fight me.

00:38:30.000 Khabib and Tony fight for the world title.

00:38:33.000 For you, you're in a situation.

00:38:35.000 I don't think either one of those guys are in the cars right now for you.

00:38:38.000 But for you, who do you see at 170?

00:38:40.000 Well, what's your dream?

00:38:41.000 Tell me what your dream is.

00:38:42.000 You know what, to be honest, my dream was to really, I wanted to fight George.

00:38:48.000 That's still possible.

00:38:49.000 I feel like if I fight George, I can legitimately say I'm the best welterweight of all time if I beat him.

00:38:53.000 It's still possible.

00:38:55.000 George hasn't retired.

00:38:56.000 Has he said anything about you?

00:38:58.000 He asked one time on a Fox Q&A where he was like, so Tyron, if you fought, what would be your game plan if you fought us?

00:39:07.000 But they got X'd out because they didn't want to get all the fans pumped up that we were fighting.

00:39:11.000 Why wouldn't they?

00:39:13.000 Do you think they're plotting against you?

00:39:15.000 I see it in your face!

00:39:17.000 Joe, he is not going to do that to me. 1.00

00:39:20.000 I am too bright, motherfucker. 0.99

00:39:23.000 You want me to be like the people who are against me? 1.00

00:39:26.000 No, I don't.

00:39:27.000 Listen, I want you to just be focused.

00:39:29.000 You want me to be real?

00:39:30.000 Yeah, sure.

00:39:30.000 You want me to be real?

00:39:31.000 Sure.

00:39:32.000 Do I think that the people want to see me lose?

00:39:34.000 No, I don't think they want to see me lose. 0.99

00:39:35.000 Do I think that sometimes I'm a pain in the ass? 0.99

00:39:38.000 Yeah, I am. 0.99

00:39:39.000 In business, at one point in any business, the person that's doing the business does not want their best interests.

00:39:46.000 So if I'm an athlete and I'm looking out for my best interests and I'm trying to put myself in a position where, you know, I can fight, become a legend, become a Hall of Famer, I should do that.

00:39:58.000 If I want to be paid appropriately, I should do that.

00:40:00.000 In our sport, because of the way the UFC started, we the damn UFC, you do what we say, and that's it. 0.92

00:40:07.000 No questions. 0.95

00:40:08.000 You fight who we want to fight, you get paid who we want to get paid, and that's it.

00:40:11.000 And then what happened?

00:40:13.000 The specialists, the one-trick ponies, stopped.

00:40:16.000 Then, collegiate athletes start getting in there, college wrestlers. 0.98

00:40:20.000 You know, Kenny Florens is the goddamn, almost thinking about being a doctor at one point. 0.93

00:40:24.000 So now you got intelligent people coming into the sport. 0.99

00:40:27.000 They just so happen to be businessmen, entrepreneurs.

00:40:30.000 So now I'm looking at market value. 1.00

00:40:32.000 I'm seeing what these motherfuckers are making. 1.00

00:40:35.000 And guess what? 1.00

00:40:36.000 I should be making this if they're making that.

00:40:38.000 If I'm a champion and this person's doing this, I should do that.

00:40:41.000 Knowing what everybody's making, knowing all the numbers, I want to be at least fair.

00:40:45.000 I don't ask for no crazy, I don't ask for no 15 million and all that other stuff.

00:40:49.000 So if me doing that makes me become difficult, then I guess I'm just a little bit difficult.

00:40:54.000 Okay, but let me look at it from their perspective.

00:40:56.000 What they look at in terms of what an athlete is worth is like how much are they bringing in?

00:41:02.000 Like what kind of pay-per-view buys are you getting?

00:41:04.000 How much was George bringing in when he first started fighting?

00:41:08.000 Well, he wasn't making nearly as much money back then.

00:41:11.000 Everybody has to start a certain way.

00:41:13.000 You can't throw you out and say, okay, fight Wonderboy, UFC, blah, blah, blah.

00:41:19.000 And if you don't do five, oh, well, you did 300,000 buys.

00:41:23.000 You're not a draw.

00:41:24.000 Okay?

00:41:25.000 How was I promoted as a champion?

00:41:29.000 Yeah, this is a long, circuitous sort of a conversation if we continue along this way, but what I'm trying to say is there's a way.

00:41:37.000 It's like a circular sort of a thing.

00:41:39.000 You're going to keep circling back around to it.

00:41:41.000 What I think is there's a way for if you want to make a big super fight, like if George St. Pierre really wanted to make a big super fight and the UFC wanted to make a big superstar out of you, that's the fight.

00:41:53.000 Because one of two things happens.

00:41:54.000 Either he beats you and he's even bigger than ever.

00:41:56.000 Or you beat him and you become bigger than ever.

00:41:59.000 Let's do it.

00:42:00.000 That's what I'm saying.

00:42:01.000 There's no other fight that makes sense.

00:42:02.000 But that makes sense.

00:42:04.000 No one's trying to stop that from happening.

00:42:06.000 When the UFC is not willing to pay a certain amount of money, it's because they don't think they're going to get a certain amount of money.

00:42:12.000 It's not because they're trying to avoid getting paid.

00:42:15.000 If they thought that you could be some enormous superstar and they could make Conor McGregor-type money from you, they would never say, we don't want to do that because we don't want to give Tyron power.

00:42:25.000 They don't think like that.

00:42:27.000 There are numbers people.

00:42:28.000 They're trying to make pay-per-view buys.

00:42:31.000 And if you only sold 300,000 pay-per-view buys because of the Wonderboy fight, there's not much they can do about that.

00:42:37.000 I mean, it's not whether or not you are promoted a certain way as a fighter.

00:42:40.000 It's like that fight for someone like me is fascinating. 0.83

00:42:43.000 But for the average fucking Johnny Lunchbox, I want to see blood type person, that's not... 0.99

00:42:50.000 But the pay-per-views are bought before the fight takes place. 0.98

00:42:54.000 Right, but they knew the style.

00:42:56.000 They knew the style, they knew the matchup, and especially the second time you guys fought.

00:43:00.000 It was the fight of the night on the biggest card of UFC history, UFC 205 in Madison Square Garden.

00:43:06.000 According to them, it was the best fight of the entire card.

00:43:09.000 So if that was the best fight, it was Fight of the Night.

00:43:11.000 Is that because he got the award of Fight of the Night?

00:43:13.000 Yeah.

00:43:14.000 That's just so you can get a bonus though, right?

00:43:16.000 I mean, when you look at the fights in terms of like, you could have a card where there's a lot of fights that aren't entirely significant and that would be the Fight of the Night.

00:43:27.000 I don't think there's anything wrong with that fight.

00:43:29.000 I've told you before, I like that fight.

00:43:30.000 What I'm saying is that if the UFC, the people that are casting the checks, if they deem, because they didn't want to make decisions, right?

00:43:36.000 Dana and whoever.

00:43:37.000 If they say that this fight was a fight of the night, right?

00:43:39.000 Which means you get more money.

00:43:41.000 You get more money.

00:43:42.000 A couple more bucks.

00:43:43.000 But think about this.

00:43:44.000 How different was the second fight?

00:43:46.000 It was really kind of the same fight.

00:43:47.000 Pretty much the same.

00:43:48.000 So how is that fight the fight of the night? 0.98

00:43:50.000 And then the very exact fucking fight a few months later is a boring fight. 0.98

00:43:56.000 I get it. 0.99

00:43:56.000 Well, who said it's boring? 0.99

00:44:02.000 If you said it's boring, the world's gonna say it's boring.

00:44:05.000 If Dana says it's boring, the world's gonna say it's boring.

00:44:08.000 Well, I never said it was boring.

00:44:09.000 No, I'm just saying.

00:44:10.000 I say, if you look at the result after the fact, people might say, if you knew what happened during the fight, you might say, well, it's boring to watch again.

00:44:17.000 But watching it live was not boring at all because the consequences are so grave.

00:44:21.000 It's one of the things that I pointed out. 0.97

00:44:23.000 If Wonderboy fucks up, he's going to sleep. 1.00

00:44:26.000 If you fuck up, you're going to get kicked in the head too. 1.00

00:44:29.000 Anything can go wrong in that fight. 1.00

00:44:31.000 That's a very tactical fight.

00:44:32.000 Dana didn't say it was a boring fight.

00:44:33.000 What he said was, man, the way you let go of him in that period, you know, why don't you just do that every time?

00:44:39.000 I said, Dana, I said...

00:44:43.000 When I let go, it's because I see the opening.

00:44:45.000 When I see the opening, you always know me to go.

00:44:47.000 Tell me one time, I see an opening and not went, and I had somebody hurt, and I not try to finish them.

00:44:51.000 But don't you think that that's just frustration for someone who's not fighting, who says things that aren't logical to you, as a guy who's a champion, who is fighting?

00:44:59.000 These are things that people say that aren't logical.

00:45:02.000 But it's damaging when it's the president.

00:45:04.000 Right.

00:45:05.000 When the president says it, Especially when you got the cultish following, whatever he says is going to go.

00:45:10.000 If they say Damian Maia is boring, everybody...

00:45:12.000 And they're not even going to change the word. 0.99

00:45:13.000 If you say, Tyron Woodley and Damian Maia, oh my God, that fucking fight was boring. 0.99

00:45:19.000 Somebody's going to say, Tyron Woodley, Damian Maia, oh my God, that fucking fight is boring. 0.99

00:45:23.000 They're not even going to change the word. 0.98

00:45:25.000 That's what we have.

00:45:26.000 So as a champion, in a position of being...

00:45:29.000 Supposed to be being promoted...

00:45:31.000 At that pace, it becomes damaging.

00:45:33.000 So now, how are you going to come back and say, okay, Tyron's back.

00:45:36.000 His shoulder's fixed. 0.98

00:45:37.000 He's one of the fucking most devastating guys out there. 1.00

00:45:40.000 Knock your motherfucking head off. 1.00

00:45:42.000 But then five minutes ago, you just say he was born. 1.00

00:45:45.000 You know what I mean?

00:45:45.000 It's very hard.

00:45:47.000 Okay, I see what you're saying.

00:45:47.000 We're talking about two different things.

00:45:49.000 What you're saying is you feel like the way they talked about you after the fight was damaging and disrespectful and also not...

00:45:59.000 Accurate in terms of the consequences of your actions in the fight. 0.97

00:46:02.000 Yeah, and nobody came through and was like, damn, you know what? 0.99

00:46:05.000 I have to find out this motherfucker Toria's goddamn labrum in the first round, and he still didn't give a one damn takedown, didn't hardly get touched at all in the entire fight, maybe punched two or three times total. 0.99

00:46:17.000 That's kind of clutch. 0.99

00:46:18.000 He must have got a strong mind.

00:46:21.000 That's what you would like to hear.

00:46:22.000 No, I don't want to hear anything because I want to fight.

00:46:24.000 But you're saying that.

00:46:26.000 I'm saying that it was a choice made to say one thing.

00:46:29.000 Right.

00:46:29.000 But Jadina flies off the cuff, right?

00:46:31.000 And it's always been the thing about him.

00:46:33.000 But it's also, you can also fly off the cuff in the other direction. 0.99

00:46:37.000 You can also say, hey, this person's the fucking next superstar. 1.00

00:46:40.000 Oh, my God, Ngannou is crazy. 1.00

00:46:41.000 Oh, my God, Cody Garbrandt is fucking the man. 1.00

00:46:43.000 Oh, my God, Paige Van Zandt this. 1.00

00:46:45.000 Oh, my man, Sage York at that.

00:46:46.000 You can say that.

00:46:47.000 And what's what happened?

00:46:48.000 Million followers.

00:46:50.000 Two million followers.

00:46:51.000 And that makes a big difference.

00:46:52.000 But that can happen to you at any moment.

00:46:54.000 You're frustrated by the reaction to three particular fights.

00:46:58.000 I'm not frustrated at all.

00:46:59.000 You're definitely frustrated.

00:46:59.000 You want me to be frustrated?

00:47:00.000 Settle down, fella. 0.98

00:47:01.000 I know what you are.

00:47:01.000 I want to tell you a secret.

00:47:02.000 I'm working like hell right now.

00:47:04.000 I know you are.

00:47:05.000 And I'm not frustrated.

00:47:06.000 I know you are.

00:47:06.000 I'm doing a lot of TV work.

00:47:08.000 But you're obviously unhappy with certain things.

00:47:11.000 And this unhappiness stems from the result of three fights.

00:47:14.000 But if you look at one fight before that, the Robbie Lawler fight, I mean, everybody was talking about you like you were the most devastating thing of all time.

00:47:22.000 The fact that you were able to do that to Robbie Lawler.

00:47:24.000 All you need is one or two more fights like that, and everybody forgets about Damian Maia.

00:47:28.000 That's what happens.

00:47:29.000 You want me to be frustrated so bad.

00:47:31.000 No, I don't.

00:47:33.000 Well, let me tell you this.

00:47:34.000 I definitely don't.

00:47:35.000 I'm really not frustrated, my man.

00:47:36.000 Oh, okay.

00:47:37.000 Now you're playing a cool guy.

00:47:38.000 I see what's up.

00:47:39.000 I'm not frustrated.

00:47:39.000 I just know my deck of cards.

00:47:42.000 And I got a very thick layer of skin, and I'm very cautious of who I am and my brand.

00:47:47.000 Now, when you look at the division, right?

00:47:50.000 You're the champ.

00:47:51.000 You're at the top of the food chain.

00:47:51.000 What do you see in front of you?

00:47:53.000 Like, what threats, what fighters do you think present unique challenges?

00:47:59.000 None.

00:48:00.000 Well, what do you think is next for you?

00:48:01.000 If you just forget about the super fights with Bisping?

00:48:04.000 I think the deck needs to be shuffled.

00:48:05.000 I think when I come back, I think when I come back, I take that back.

00:48:09.000 Karl Usman is dope.

00:48:11.000 He's fighting this weekend too. 0.96

00:48:12.000 Kamar Usman is a bad man. 0.68

00:48:14.000 He's a bad man.

00:48:14.000 And he's a guy that a lot of people are not talking about for some strange reason.

00:48:17.000 For a lot of reasons.

00:48:18.000 And I'm okay to talk about it because, you know, I've always been honest.

00:48:22.000 He's very tough.

00:48:23.000 He's a good style matchup for me to present a lot of challenges.

00:48:27.000 He's a good wrestler.

00:48:28.000 He's very strong.

00:48:29.000 He's starting to come along with his hands. 0.97

00:48:31.000 And if I'm going to fight somebody, And on some number one contender shit, I want to fight somebody I respect. 0.93

00:48:38.000 Somebody like RDA, somebody like Usman, Till, Pontinevio. 0.99

00:48:43.000 These dudes are savages.

00:48:45.000 And, you know, not to sound cocky, but I think my toughest challenges are behind me.

00:48:49.000 I think Carlos Condit and Robbie Lawler, and at the time when Koscheck was almost a few fights away from fighting George.

00:48:56.000 And, you know, those guys at that moment...

00:48:59.000 Those guys presented a lot of problems.

00:49:00.000 Kaushik had the same overhand right, just a little bit different.

00:49:03.000 Wrestling, great chin, great condition, a lot of experience.

00:49:07.000 You know, it was a threat for me.

00:49:08.000 Robbie Lawler was a fighter of the year, back-to-back.

00:49:11.000 You know, had some of the craziest fights we've ever seen. 0.98

00:49:13.000 Fucking lip hanging open. 0.99

00:49:14.000 He's bleeding. 1.00

00:49:15.000 And that's the dude I had to walk in.

00:49:16.000 He was a boogeyman at the time.

00:49:18.000 So, for me to get bubble guts, don't nobody have that power that Nate Marker did when he knocked me the hell out.

00:49:24.000 I'll never be hit that hard again in my life.

00:49:27.000 You think Kobe Covington is going to punch me and make me wince and back up?

00:49:32.000 No.

00:49:33.000 Look at how he was punching Damian Maia.

00:49:34.000 Those are rabbit punches.

00:49:36.000 So if you don't have great wrestling, great wrestling defense, great conditioning, and power in your hand, you're just not going to give me butterflies.

00:49:42.000 Well, I think for sure you've accomplished some great things and fought some amazing fights against some very dangerous challenges.

00:49:48.000 I mean, there's no doubt about that.

00:49:50.000 No one could deny that.

00:49:51.000 And those fights that you did just talk about, Carlos Condit, particularly Robbie Lawler, Josh Koscheck in his prime, amazing fights.

00:49:59.000 Great results.

00:50:00.000 But when you talk about Usman, we talk about RDA, you talk about Darren Till, you're talking about also potential amazing fights.

00:50:08.000 You know, I think there's a lot of outstanding opportunity and I think your division is one of the most talent-rich divisions in the sport.

00:50:15.000 Yeah, I'm not discrediting that.

00:50:16.000 I think that I'm always a forward-thinking dude.

00:50:19.000 So the Till guy didn't sneak up on me.

00:50:22.000 You saw Till in advance?

00:50:24.000 I'm going to tell you how to do this.

00:50:26.000 At one point in time, it was Brandon Thatch, it was Eric Silva, it was Kelvin Gasselum, it was Steven Thompson.

00:50:36.000 Brandon Thatch, Eric Silva, kind of doing it away.

00:50:40.000 Gaslam went up and fought me.

00:50:42.000 Stephen Thompson went up.

00:50:43.000 So now, the Darren Till, the Usman, all those guys, they're in that same pool.

00:50:49.000 So I'm always thinking about training, always thinking about fighting these guys, always game planning for these guys before they even come up.

00:50:54.000 At some point, I don't have to fight everybody because they're going to cancel each other out.

00:50:58.000 If it's five studs, I might walk into three of them.

00:51:01.000 So I got to be ready.

00:51:02.000 Damian Maia wasn't a surprise.

00:51:04.000 I asked for Damian Maia I thought I fought Jake Shields.

00:51:08.000 Or somebody I fought.

00:51:10.000 And my manager was like, dude, why you want to fight Damian Maia, man?

00:51:13.000 He's such a beast.

00:51:14.000 And this, this, and this, and that. 0.97

00:51:16.000 I'm like, I know this.

00:51:17.000 On paper, Rory McDonald's my toughest matchup in the division right now.

00:51:22.000 Even when Ellenberger was a stud and was fucking wrecking people because of his power, his wrestling, and his condition, him and Johnny Hendricks also would have been a threat.

00:51:31.000 What guys were I trying to fight?

00:51:32.000 Let me get Johnny Hendricks, former champion.

00:51:35.000 So I was going up against the guys.

00:51:38.000 Carlos Conant, still today, might be my favorite fighter.

00:51:41.000 So when I watched his video, I was getting bought. 0.99

00:51:43.000 I'm like, this motherfucker's good. 0.99

00:51:44.000 I was stealing his techniques. 0.99

00:51:46.000 But what happened when I fought him?

00:51:48.000 Did he look like the same Carlos County?

00:51:50.000 No, I punched him. 0.66

00:51:51.000 He looked like a ratchet was snatching him across the octagon. 0.84

00:51:55.000 It wasn't like I just kicked him in the knee and, oh my God, he was going to win.

00:51:59.000 No, he was getting dominated in that fight because I did my homework.

00:52:02.000 I respect him that much that I took all his tools and I left him naked out there in the octagon.

00:52:08.000 And he had to deal with my speed.

00:52:09.000 He had to deal with my power.

00:52:10.000 That's what I do to everybody.

00:52:11.000 Nobody sees it. 0.99

00:52:12.000 They think I'm just a strong-ass fucking wrestler with a hard right hand. 0.99

00:52:16.000 But look at the way that Jordan Meehan looked against me. 0.99

00:52:18.000 Look at the way that Tarek Safedine, I outstruck Paul Daly.

00:52:21.000 Kelvin Gaslam has never looked like that against anybody else.

00:52:24.000 Same thing with Steven.

00:52:25.000 Same thing with Maya.

00:52:27.000 Same thing with Condit.

00:52:28.000 Same thing with Robbie.

00:52:29.000 It's not a surprise.

00:52:31.000 That's the way that Duke and Dean and I, we address what we...

00:52:35.000 If I'm fighting me...

00:52:37.000 Fight Tyron this way.

00:52:38.000 Take him to the late round. 1.00

00:52:40.000 Kick his leg. 1.00

00:52:41.000 Stay away from his power. 0.98

00:52:42.000 Circuit his way.

00:52:42.000 So now I'm going to formulate my game plan about what I think you think of me.

00:52:46.000 Then I think about every fucking thing that you do. 0.98

00:52:49.000 Every skill, every talent, every mannerism, what you do when you get tired, what you're going to go to, what's your bread and butter, and I get ready for those. 0.99

00:52:57.000 And sometimes it's like, Robbie took a long time. 0.99

00:52:59.000 It took up until the week of the fight for me to be like, I got this motherfucker. 0.99

00:53:03.000 What was it that was different? 0.99

00:53:04.000 He I think?

00:53:24.000 He will scramble any first shot. 0.77

00:53:25.000 If you shoot a shot, he'll scramble you hard. 0.96

00:53:27.000 You have to shoot two, three, four attempts to get him to the ground.

00:53:30.000 He had one butterfly that he used to sweep to get out the ground.

00:53:33.000 So we just knew all that.

00:53:35.000 And then at any point, he can play rope-a-dope and then he can come off swinging.

00:53:39.000 So that's a lot of things to think about.

00:53:41.000 And then he just can stand here like this and go, boom, and you're knocked out.

00:53:46.000 Not technique, not turning hips.

00:53:48.000 He just had heavy hands naturally.

00:53:50.000 So that's always a threat.

00:53:52.000 We've seen him in wars.

00:53:53.000 He's not going to go away.

00:53:55.000 So I had to formulate a game plan that I can get around all that.

00:53:59.000 Now when you saw the RDA-Robbie Lawler fight, you said that you weren't really impressed with that fight.

00:54:05.000 Because RDA had him against an octagon, and he was teeing off for 30,000 punches, and he didn't knock him down, and he didn't hurt him.

00:54:13.000 He was basically just punching the punch.

00:54:16.000 Anytime you punch the punch, you're wasting your energy.

00:54:19.000 Well, he's going up in weight, and he's more volume now than he was when he was fighting at 155. Yeah, I think he's fighting.

00:54:26.000 He's got more energy.

00:54:28.000 When you get here now, I mean, if you make the jump, you make the jump.

00:54:31.000 You can't be like, I was a lightweight, and...

00:54:35.000 No, he's a welterweight now.

00:54:36.000 Yeah, he's a welterweight now.

00:54:36.000 No doubt.

00:54:37.000 But I mean, his style is different than, especially a guy like you who throws one-shot bombs.

00:54:42.000 This is my thought on Robbie, okay?

00:54:43.000 A lot of people, I pick Robbie apart in the film room before I even fought him.

00:54:49.000 And the fight was over with before the fight started.

00:54:52.000 Robbie starts out the first 30 seconds extremely hard.

00:54:54.000 He ends the first 30 seconds extremely hard.

00:54:57.000 Second and fourth round are kind of close.

00:54:59.000 He's going forward, you're going forward.

00:55:01.000 He'll take something to give something, okay?

00:55:03.000 Third round, he usually takes off.

00:55:05.000 You ever notice that?

00:55:06.000 He gets against a cage.

00:55:07.000 He's confident in his defense.

00:55:08.000 He'll let you punch and he'll block you.

00:55:10.000 He won't waste a lot of energy so he can get into that second gear.

00:55:13.000 It's not that he's so well conditioned.

00:55:16.000 Watch his fight against Carlos.

00:55:17.000 Watch his fight against Rory.

00:55:18.000 Watch his fight against RDA. He spent that same moment against the Octagon where he allowed the opponent to punch at him.

00:55:24.000 The same thing with Johnny.

00:55:25.000 Then he came off trying to get through and burn themselves out.

00:55:27.000 He's very smart, but if everyone acts like he's just a marathon runner, he's not.

00:55:33.000 So when that happened, I said, okay, you got to get on Robbie Hart.

00:55:37.000 You got to get on Robbie quick.

00:55:38.000 He's been punched a lot. 1.00

00:55:39.000 Like I did all, every fucking stash. 0.99

00:55:42.000 You can think I had Reed Kuhn, the fightonomics guy, hit me up saying, Robbie has a flat face. 0.99

00:55:47.000 You punch his fat face, he's used to absorbing those punches. 0.98

00:55:50.000 Go around the side, punch him on the jawline. 1.00

00:55:52.000 What kind of crazy logic is that? 0.99

00:55:54.000 Man, I'll use everything. 0.99

00:55:55.000 I can tell you how many times he stepped to the fucking left during the fight, how many times he threw his right hand versus his left hand. 0.96

00:56:00.000 So, you know, I've been really secretive about a lot of this stuff because most people just see me as an athlete, they just punch hard, as a good wrestler. 0.95

00:56:09.000 That's tough and good game plan, but I really, overly get obsessed with studying my opponents to the point where when Masvidal was fighting Wonderboy, I'm like, he about to do this, he about to do that, he's throwing this, he's setting this up, look, told you, there you go.

00:56:24.000 Oh, he's about to do it. 0.98

00:56:25.000 And everybody's looking at him like, how the fuck do you know that? 1.00

00:56:27.000 I said, you motherfuckers watched that fight that I fought him and you thought it was so easy. 1.00

00:56:32.000 Get your ass in there and let Wonder Boy say, Wonder Boy's a G. And he can take a punch way better than I thought. 1.00

00:56:38.000 I hit his ass hard. 1.00

00:56:39.000 And he went down three or four times. 1.00

00:56:41.000 And he just had the mentality, I'm not going to lose today.

00:56:43.000 I'm not going to lose today.

00:56:44.000 And he was rewarded for that effort of just saying, you know what?

00:56:49.000 I'm gonna give it all I got and he'll forever have my respect.

00:56:52.000 But at the end of the day, you got to be able to be honest with yourself.

00:56:57.000 I'm honest with who I am, what I do well.

00:56:59.000 I'm not the best at elbows.

00:57:02.000 Can I throw elbows?

00:57:03.000 Yes.

00:57:03.000 But am I gonna sit out there and act like I'm, you know, Matt Brown or somebody?

00:57:07.000 No, that's his deal.

00:57:08.000 Matt Brown ain't gonna storm you across the octagon like I will.

00:57:11.000 So once I see what I do well, And I, you know, I can hide my weaknesses behind my strengths.

00:57:16.000 I can allow my opponents never to put me in a spot where they're going to have the advantage.

00:57:21.000 Did Damian Maia ever put me in a position where he had me in his half guard?

00:57:25.000 No.

00:57:25.000 Never did it.

00:57:27.000 But you still, you didn't think that RDA's performance against Robbie Lawler was impressive?

00:57:33.000 Because he overwhelmed Robbie.

00:57:35.000 I mean, he...

00:57:37.000 I don't know.

00:57:38.000 I think he might have.

00:57:39.000 I didn't hear anything about that.

00:57:41.000 From a tactical standpoint, I thought he had some really good successful low kicks.

00:57:46.000 Yeah.

00:57:46.000 And I thought he kind of abandoned that.

00:57:48.000 I was kind of surprised that he didn't do that.

00:57:50.000 And then I saw Robby do the rope-a-dope, but Robby never came off.

00:57:54.000 Normally, like I said, Robby will take some punches, then he'll come off storming you.

00:57:58.000 Never came off storming.

00:57:59.000 Maybe it's because he messed his leg up or whatever.

00:58:01.000 But just from two people that they want to say they're going to fight me next, let me fight somebody.

00:58:06.000 And it's a...

00:58:08.000 Did he turn?

00:58:09.000 Lawler fought RDA seriously injured.

00:58:11.000 Now those injuries have been revealed.

00:58:13.000 Let's see what we got here.

00:58:14.000 What does it say?

00:58:16.000 Meniscus.

00:58:17.000 Destroyed.

00:58:17.000 Blew his ACL and meniscus.

00:58:19.000 In the fight?

00:58:20.000 And every other thing that's in your knee out in the third round.

00:58:24.000 Sid wobbled over to the fence.

00:58:25.000 So it makes sense, though.

00:58:26.000 Yeah.

00:58:27.000 It makes sense because if Robbie is notoriously known for, you know, like, think about when Rory had him against the octagon.

00:58:34.000 When Kyle was kind of, then he comes out and he comes out blasting.

00:58:38.000 That makes a lot of sense.

00:58:39.000 It said he hurt himself before the fight, though?

00:58:42.000 Yeah, I had another article I was going to pull up, but I found that that said, yeah, he was injured going into the fight.

00:58:47.000 So he tore his ACL before the fight?

00:58:48.000 Or during the fight?

00:58:50.000 I didn't find that.

00:58:52.000 The title of that though, go back to that real quick, the title of it said who's seriously injured going into the fight, right?

00:58:57.000 That said injured and then the injuries have been revealed.

00:59:00.000 Oh, okay.

00:59:01.000 Yeah, so...

00:59:02.000 I think that one said the third round, right?

00:59:04.000 Yeah.

00:59:05.000 Which is right where you were saying that he lays off.

00:59:07.000 Makes sense.

00:59:08.000 So he didn't come off...

00:59:12.000 You can't go to a thread on us, brother.

00:59:14.000 Yeah, that's why it's a forum posted, so I don't want to go with it.

00:59:15.000 That's it, sure.

00:59:15.000 You can't go to the thread on us.

00:59:17.000 We don't know where the hell that came from.

00:59:18.000 But yeah, you know, that would make sense because I'm used to Robbie coming off and getting those 30-second bursts.

00:59:24.000 Like, I don't know exactly...

00:59:26.000 I talked to Big John about this for a while, about the judging, right?

00:59:30.000 And, you know, damage being landed.

00:59:32.000 So some of those fights, or even if Robbie wasn't the more active one, he's damaging people more because he punched harder and looked more aggressive.

00:59:40.000 But how can Carlos Condit control the fact that he just don't punch as hard as Robbie?

00:59:45.000 Right.

00:59:45.000 Did you think he beat Robbie in a fight?

00:59:48.000 I'd have to go back and watch that again.

00:59:50.000 I thought it was a very, very close fight.

00:59:51.000 At that time, did you think it?

00:59:52.000 I don't think I did.

00:59:54.000 I think I thought that Robbie did just enough to win.

00:59:59.000 But I'd have to go back and watch it again.

01:00:01.000 See, I thought at that moment that Carlos won.

01:00:04.000 But I wasn't like, oh my god, I can't believe they gave us Robbie.

01:00:07.000 It was extremely close.

01:00:08.000 It was really close.

01:00:09.000 You could make an argument for either guy winning, I think.

01:00:11.000 But Robby, because he landed the more harder punch and it looked scarier, I think that's why he got the nod.

01:00:17.000 That means something though.

01:00:18.000 I mean, someone who hits harder, it has more damage, that damage should be accumulated.

01:00:24.000 I mean, that should be added up.

01:00:26.000 So someone throws punches and it looks like it's affecting a person more, even if the other person throws more and lands more, then the person that's landing the damage and punches you think should win.

01:00:34.000 I think damage should count for more than punches that don't damage.

01:00:39.000 Is that the way that they're supposed to score now, currently?

01:00:42.000 I don't know.

01:00:44.000 What's interesting is Nevada still doesn't accept the new rules.

01:00:47.000 They need to get the old ones right before they try to bring in the new ones.

01:00:50.000 Yeah.

01:00:51.000 Yeah, but what's also interesting is the scores are much wider now.

01:00:55.000 You see a lot more 10-8s now than you ever saw before, which I think is good.

01:00:59.000 I just think that our system, taking a system from boxing that only uses hands and applying that to takedowns, submission attempts, leg kicks, elbows.

01:01:08.000 You would almost have to know this guy is a jiu-jitsu world champion.

01:01:11.000 The fact that this guy swept him, he should score more because this guy, this is his warehouse, but no judge is going to have that insight.

01:01:21.000 I think it should be a much broader system.

01:01:23.000 I don't think it should be 10 points at all.

01:01:24.000 I think you're dealing with extreme amounts of variables.

01:01:27.000 It should be almost like a 100-point system.

01:01:29.000 The guy that refed my fight against the Wonder Boy the first time, the one that was one judge that gave a 10-8 the first round and a 10-9 the fourth round.

01:01:42.000 Fourth round was when I knocked him down three times.

01:01:44.000 Yeah, the 10-8 was when you almost got him in the guillotine.

01:01:46.000 Is that why he...

01:01:47.000 No, no, no.

01:01:48.000 That's what he said.

01:01:50.000 I almost got him in the guillotine in the fourth round, yeah.

01:01:52.000 And he said, well...

01:01:54.000 I thought you...

01:01:54.000 Why did I think you almost got him in the guillotine in the first round?

01:01:58.000 In the first fight?

01:01:59.000 The first fight, the first round, I just ground the hell out of him.

01:02:01.000 I took him down and I just beat him up for the whole round.

01:02:05.000 He gave that round a 10-8.

01:02:07.000 So it was the fourth round where you got him in the guillotine?

01:02:09.000 The fourth round was when I knocked him down, I knocked him down again, I knocked him down again, and then I went for the guillotine.

01:02:15.000 So I knocked him down three times and then I went for the guillotine.

01:02:17.000 The judge told me, he said, you know, I thought it was a 10-8 round, but then you wasted a minute in a guillotine.

01:02:26.000 Wasted a minute.

01:02:27.000 He told me. 1.00

01:02:28.000 I had just got over this shit, right? 1.00

01:02:31.000 He really fucking said that? 1.00

01:02:32.000 He said that. 1.00

01:02:33.000 I had just got over the fact that I felt like it was some bullshit. 0.99

01:02:38.000 I got over that fact. 0.99

01:02:40.000 I said, you know what?

01:02:41.000 Whatever it is what it is, let's do it again. 0.99

01:02:42.000 This time I'm gonna fucking beat him. 1.00

01:02:44.000 This motherfucker walked up to me. 1.00

01:02:46.000 I don't even know who he is. 1.00

01:02:47.000 Say, hey, man, I just want to let you know I judged your fight.

01:02:50.000 And, you know, I'm the one that gave you the 10-8 in the first round and 10-8 in the fourth round.

01:02:55.000 And then all of a sudden my insides just start burning.

01:02:57.000 And he's like, you know, I just want to explain to you why, you know, because I don't have a problem with, you know, facing the fighters afterwards.

01:03:03.000 You know, you did well.

01:03:04.000 I was going to give you a 10-round, you know, it was crazy. 0.90

01:03:07.000 And, you know, but then you wasted a minute in the guillotine. 0.78

01:03:10.000 Oh, that's so crazy. 0.81

01:03:11.000 I said, sir, let me tell you something.

01:03:13.000 I said, the first round, if you would have said 10-9 on that, okay.

01:03:16.000 I ground a pound, I bloodied him up.

01:03:18.000 He didn't show no offense.

01:03:19.000 10-8, 10-9, whatever you want to give it.

01:03:20.000 I'm cool with that.

01:03:21.000 And I said, the fourth round, I knocked him down three times.

01:03:25.000 And I said, I want to tell you, a guillotine choke is not a move that you can say I wasted time in.

01:03:31.000 It's a finishing move.

01:03:32.000 And it was tight.

01:03:34.000 That was a tight guillotine. 0.99

01:03:35.000 Had he fucking tapped out, the fight would have been over with. 0.99

01:03:38.000 So the fact that I tried to knock him out, Then his neck became available to my arms. 1.00

01:03:45.000 Then I grabbed his fucking neck. 1.00

01:03:46.000 Then I tried to choke him out. 1.00

01:03:48.000 Then he popped his head out. 0.99

01:03:50.000 Yes, he's tough for making it through that whole onslaught of me trying to kill him.

01:03:53.000 But does that give him an extra point? 0.73

01:03:56.000 He said, but then he threw some punches.

01:03:57.000 I said, go back and watch the fight. 0.52

01:03:59.000 I said, he threw a few punches from top.

01:04:01.000 How many landed?

01:04:03.000 He said, I don't know.

01:04:04.000 I said, sir.

01:04:07.000 I said, I'm over the fight.

01:04:09.000 I'm glad they didn't say I lost the fight.

01:04:12.000 But the only significant damage that was landed in the fight came from me.

01:04:16.000 The only knockdowns, the only blood drawn, the only jeopardy of the referee getting involved happened when I was on the end of it. 0.99

01:04:24.000 I just think the system sucks.

01:04:26.000 I really think the scoring system needs to be revamped. 0.88

01:04:28.000 Hey, just don't let it go to the judges. 0.86

01:04:30.000 That's ridiculous, right?

01:04:32.000 Because people are going and saying, you know what? 1.00

01:04:35.000 Fuck it. 1.00

01:04:35.000 Today, I'm going to let it go to the judges. 1.00

01:04:37.000 I'm going to let it go to the judges.

01:04:37.000 Hey, you know what?

01:04:38.000 I'm not going to try to knock y'all.

01:04:39.000 No.

01:04:39.000 I trust them three right there look very trustworthy.

01:04:43.000 I'm going to leave it in their hands and all my kids and my family and my belt. 0.98

01:04:46.000 I'm going to just, you know, I'm going to leave it up to them.

01:04:48.000 I always hate that expression. 1.00

01:04:50.000 I hate it because it's so stupid. 1.00

01:04:51.000 Some guys don't want to be finished. 1.00

01:04:52.000 Most guys in Steven's case would have been over with.

01:04:57.000 Some guys are just tough.

01:04:58.000 I mean, I don't want to just be finished.

01:05:00.000 Right.

01:05:00.000 Nobody does.

01:05:01.000 It's a foolish way of looking at it. 0.71

01:05:03.000 The best way to fight is the best way to fight. 0.92

01:05:07.000 And if you see an opening, like you said, that's when you move.

01:05:10.000 The idea that you're supposed to just...

01:05:12.000 Yeah.

01:05:15.000 The fact that people don't know that and that people say things like that and they don't understand what they really shouldn't be talking about fighting.

01:05:22.000 Man.

01:05:23.000 Fighting is a complicated thing.

01:05:25.000 Fighting is a complicated thing.

01:05:26.000 And it's also it's one sport where it's like if the team doesn't run the ball well, they don't run the ball.

01:05:34.000 They pass.

01:05:35.000 So if this is Stephen Thompson, he doesn't have to wrestle.

01:05:39.000 He doesn't have to try to do jiu-jitsu.

01:05:40.000 Right.

01:05:41.000 He just have to stop you from doing it to him.

01:05:43.000 But he's got that style that's impossible to find anywhere else.

01:05:46.000 He's standing completely sideways.

01:05:47.000 He's throwing front leg kicks that can knock you out.

01:05:50.000 He's doing a lot of weird stuff.

01:05:52.000 And he bends at the waist like a snake.

01:05:54.000 He leads all those years of point karate.

01:05:57.000 He's really fast at it, too.

01:05:58.000 It's very good that you brought in Raymond Daniels, too. 0.99

01:06:01.000 Raymond Daniels, which is a pain in the ass. 0.99

01:06:03.000 Oh, yeah. 0.99

01:06:03.000 Sage Northcutt, which actually, in my opinion, sparring-wise, was way harder than Wonderboy. 0.99

01:06:10.000 More MMA experience, for sure.

01:06:11.000 And also sidekicks.

01:06:13.000 Sage is his sidekicks.

01:06:14.000 I had to wear Taekwondo pad to spar Sage.

01:06:18.000 He kicked me through the fence.

01:06:19.000 Oh, my bad, Mr. Woodley. 1.00

01:06:20.000 I'm like, damn, this motherfucker is good. 1.00

01:06:21.000 That front leg sidekick's no joke. 1.00

01:06:23.000 It's no joke.

01:06:24.000 So he was good.

01:06:26.000 I had a kid named Chris Bang from the same background.

01:06:29.000 Then I had another guy named Michael Tang, who's the Taekwondo guy from the East Coast.

01:06:35.000 And then, actually, a lot of people don't know this.

01:06:37.000 Duke, actually, his original base was Taekwondo.

01:06:40.000 So having all those guys, it wasn't fun.

01:06:42.000 I mean, it was many rounds.

01:06:44.000 I did not win. 0.99

01:06:45.000 I mean, Sage North could have kicked my ass for a couple days because I couldn't figure out how the hell to get up on him without getting kicked in the sidekick. 0.99

01:06:52.000 Right. 0.99

01:06:52.000 Then now you've got to think about it. 0.99

01:06:53.000 Like, damn, how close do I get to him before he kicked me in the side? 0.99

01:06:57.000 Yeah. 0.98

01:06:57.000 No, it's a totally different style of movement, and Wonderboy's probably the best in the world at it. 0.98

01:07:02.000 Yeah, he's good.

01:07:03.000 It's a very complicated fight, and that's why it was interesting to me.

01:07:05.000 I almost had an MVP out, too, but his manager was trying to get too much money.

01:07:09.000 Say that again?

01:07:11.000 Michael Venomage.

01:07:12.000 Oh, really?

01:07:12.000 I was going to bring him out, too.

01:07:13.000 He wanted to come out, but his manager wanted me to bring him, bring the manager, bring the friend, paid him all this money, get him all three different separate rental cars.

01:07:23.000 I said, I don't know if the hell y'all think I am what kind of money I got, but...

01:07:28.000 We're not doing that for three days.

01:07:30.000 You made a big change in your life when you started training with Duke, and a lot of people don't know that before that you really didn't have a main trainer, which is pretty impressive.

01:07:40.000 Dean's been with me for a long time, but as far as...

01:07:44.000 A coach coached every day.

01:07:46.000 I put myself through stuff.

01:07:48.000 That was all I was doing.

01:07:49.000 It's crazy.

01:07:50.000 Before Duke, it was just me.

01:07:52.000 I had a gym.

01:07:53.000 I would say, hey guys, we're going to support this time.

01:07:54.000 We're going to do this.

01:07:55.000 I would try to address my weaknesses, and I've been really blessed to have the amount of success I had without having a full-time coach.

01:08:02.000 Then it just got to that point when I told Dean, I said, man...

01:08:06.000 Whatever it costs, man, whatever I gotta pay, I need you the whole time.

01:08:10.000 I said, because I can't do it. 0.99

01:08:11.000 I've been winging this shit. 0.99

01:08:12.000 I can't keep doing that. 0.99

01:08:13.000 But what was interesting, you told me that it was your son's idea.

01:08:16.000 Yeah, you got a good memory.

01:08:17.000 To go to Duke.

01:08:18.000 You been taking some notes. 1.00

01:08:19.000 No, I remember shit. 0.99

01:08:21.000 Yeah, my son, we was doing an embedded thing, and he was like, so where are we going tomorrow? 1.00

01:08:26.000 I was like, damn. 0.97

01:08:28.000 Like, either tomorrow, it's so on a humbug. 0.99

01:08:31.000 I'm like, we're either going to fly to Florida, me and Dean, or we're going to drive to Milwaukee.

01:08:36.000 And then my son, Darren, he said, I think you should go to Florida.

01:08:40.000 Go up there and train with Ben Askren and Anthony Pettis and those guys, and I think you should go up there.

01:08:45.000 You mean Milwaukee?

01:08:46.000 You said Florida.

01:08:46.000 Sorry, Milwaukee, yeah.

01:08:48.000 So I said, we woke up that morning and I said, fuck it, we're going to Milwaukee. 0.97

01:08:52.000 So the embedded guys, they actually had to drive my car. 0.99

01:08:55.000 I was getting tired and falling asleep.

01:08:56.000 So the embedded guys was driving my truck up there and we went up there.

01:09:00.000 It was cold, negative 14 degrees.

01:09:03.000 I was like, man, if this sucks, I'm coming back home in a week.

01:09:06.000 I brought Eve out there who had never been in the cold in his life. 0.95

01:09:10.000 He was going to die.

01:09:11.000 But yeah, I went out there and then Duke has always invited me to come out.

01:09:16.000 He don't invite a lot of guys.

01:09:18.000 But Duke, from Ben, from Anthony, I always saw those guys killing southpaws. 1.00

01:09:25.000 And after I talked to Duke, now I understand.

01:09:27.000 Duke's brother was a southpaw.

01:09:29.000 So his main sparring partner, he learned all the tricks on how to defeat a southpaw.

01:09:33.000 So I'm like, how did Anthony and all these guys, every time they go against somebody in the opposite stance, they did great against him.

01:09:40.000 So if you do the math, everybody I fought, the last seven fights, had been southpawed.

01:09:45.000 Robby, Wonderboy, Maya, you gotta say Wonderboy again, Kelvin Gasolim, Dung Young Kim, all of them at Southpaw.

01:09:54.000 And all difficult guys at Southpaw.

01:09:56.000 And guess what?

01:09:57.000 Everybody else in front of me is Southpaw.

01:10:00.000 RDA, Robby with Southpaw, Kyra Kwefutin in Southpaw.

01:10:05.000 So you got all these guys that are Southpaw.

01:10:08.000 So it made sense for me.

01:10:09.000 Not only that, he made fighting fun again.

01:10:12.000 I wasn't having fun with it.

01:10:13.000 He made it fun to learn.

01:10:15.000 I felt like a kid again.

01:10:17.000 It was a great morale at the gym.

01:10:19.000 I felt very specific to what I was doing.

01:10:22.000 I felt like I wasn't doing any training. 0.99

01:10:24.000 Just pushing, slashing, flipping shit just to say I did it. 0.98

01:10:27.000 Everything had a function. 0.99

01:10:28.000 And I felt better.

01:10:29.000 And I looked better.

01:10:30.000 And, you know, I did all this training. 0.99

01:10:32.000 I was running my fucking self into the ground, doing all this, you know, three, four day trainings and looking all crazy. 0.98

01:10:39.000 And I got into the octagon and it never showed. 1.00

01:10:42.000 People were like, damn, man, Tyron got all those goddamn muscles. 1.00

01:10:44.000 You got all those muscles, then the motherfucker might get tired. 1.00

01:10:47.000 So I'm like, damn, I'm doing all this extra work. 1.00

01:10:50.000 But it ain't showing an octagon. 0.96

01:10:52.000 But then I started training with Duke and Dean and they forced me to say, Tyron, trust us.

01:10:57.000 You're doing too much.

01:10:58.000 And it's not.

01:10:59.000 If your sparring is affected because of your strength and conditioning, it's no longer a supplement. 0.96

01:11:06.000 It's taking the primary and we're not in fucking CrossFit. 0.95

01:11:09.000 We're in fighting. 0.98

01:11:09.000 Your sparring is number one. 0.98

01:11:12.000 Anything it takes for your sparring to be the best, that's what we got to do.

01:11:15.000 So if we got to run more, do less stress conditioning, if we got to actually do none, just spar.

01:11:20.000 If we got to, like, there's been times I go in there and have a shitty sparring day.

01:11:23.000 And I said, I'll see you out in the morning.

01:11:25.000 We're doing this again.

01:11:26.000 And we're running back.

01:11:27.000 Because in the practice room, you can run it back.

01:11:29.000 In real life, you can't.

01:11:31.000 So I take advantage of, you know, the playground of everything in practice.

01:11:35.000 And I think now I just love fighting again.

01:11:38.000 I love training.

01:11:39.000 I love competing.

01:11:40.000 I love winning.

01:11:41.000 Okay.

01:11:41.000 I love that minute when you know you won.

01:11:43.000 Now, how much time do you spend in Milwaukee?

01:11:46.000 Do you just move your whole camp there?

01:11:47.000 Like, how do you do it?

01:11:48.000 Yeah, most of the time.

01:11:49.000 I had to spend some time in Florida because Damian Maia, I'll be a complete idiot if I didn't take part of the, you know, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt at American Top Team.

01:11:59.000 It really depends on the fight.

01:12:00.000 I usually try to get at least four weeks with Duke.

01:12:04.000 The good thing about Duke, Duke doesn't have a huge ego, and he knows what he does well, but he works well with other coaches.

01:12:09.000 That's why him and Dean has been such a great duo.

01:12:12.000 If I need to bring in another striking coach or another training partner or somebody else, he opens up the door for that because at the end of the day, the goal is for me to be the champion, stay the champion, and reach my goal, being the greatest welterweight of all time.

01:12:25.000 Duke has a great attitude.

01:12:26.000 He's such a smart guy.

01:12:27.000 If it was not for that, then it would be a little bit difficult.

01:12:30.000 And also Dan Lambert, you got to realize, I've been an American top team since day one.

01:12:33.000 Dan Lambert has never been in the blue about where I'm training and where I'm going.

01:12:37.000 I've always called him.

01:12:38.000 And for him to give me the ability to go and get stuff from other coaches has also been very helpful.

01:12:44.000 No, he's another amazing guy, too.

01:12:45.000 He's such a valuable guy in MMA. You think about the amount of money that he spent on American Top Team before he made any money.

01:12:51.000 I mean, that guy poured money into mixed martial arts, poured it into it, and created one of the greatest facilities on the planet Earth for MMA, especially the new place.

01:13:00.000 It's insane.

01:13:01.000 He's great, too.

01:13:03.000 I mean, but as a coach, what I really respect about Duke is not just the fact that he's got this incredible wealth of knowledge, but that he's so humble.

01:13:11.000 He's so, like, down-to-earth and chill.

01:13:13.000 Most of the Gs are.

01:13:14.000 The people that really just know it, they don't have to prove it.

01:13:17.000 Dean's like that.

01:13:18.000 Duke's like that.

01:13:20.000 Lambert's like that.

01:13:21.000 Some guys that overly want to show you and stuff, those are the people that are kind of insecure on where they're at as coaches.

01:13:26.000 Striking coaches.

01:13:27.000 I mean, you train with striking coaches.

01:13:28.000 Oh, why are you training with that guy?

01:13:30.000 They, like, get so sensitive.

01:13:31.000 I'm never I haven't seen it before.

01:13:33.000 So I just don't like to deal with it.

01:13:35.000 Yeah, it's unfortunate.

01:13:37.000 My Boston coach likes that too, Eric Brown from Wild Card.

01:13:39.000 I've been training with him since 2007, 2008. So he's the same way.

01:13:44.000 So now when you're out here, sometimes you're home.

01:13:47.000 And when you're home, what kind of stuff do you do if you're not injured, if you're not recovering from a surgery?

01:13:53.000 What stuff do you do at home?

01:13:55.000 I hang out with my kids.

01:13:56.000 Go to football practice, go to wrestling practice, take everybody to school, pick everybody up, play video games, chill out.

01:14:02.000 But what about training?

01:14:03.000 I don't train.

01:14:04.000 You don't train at home?

01:14:05.000 Sometimes, not much.

01:14:07.000 Really?

01:14:07.000 Yeah.

01:14:08.000 You don't do anything?

01:14:09.000 I do strength and conditioning with my guy, Derek Fairchild, and I got an up-and-coming featherweight that's really fast and good boxing, so I play around with him a little bit.

01:14:20.000 I might run, I might hit the bag, might do the versaclimber, but when it's camp time, I'm out.

01:14:24.000 When it's not camp time, I'm with the family.

01:14:26.000 That's interesting.

01:14:27.000 So you're not constantly training?

01:14:30.000 No.

01:14:32.000 Wow.

01:14:32.000 Do you feel like that gives you...

01:14:35.000 I used to.

01:14:35.000 You used to.

01:14:36.000 Why'd you change that?

01:14:37.000 Because I stopped liking MMA. Oh, okay.

01:14:40.000 So now...

01:14:41.000 So you feel like you were kind of burnt out.

01:14:42.000 But I never stopped watching.

01:14:43.000 I'm always watching film.

01:14:44.000 I'm always...

01:14:45.000 I'm obviously working on Fox.

01:14:46.000 I got to break everybody down.

01:14:47.000 I wasn't burnt out.

01:14:48.000 I just... 1.00

01:14:49.000 I want to miss this shit. 1.00

01:14:52.000 I want to get back in there. 1.00

01:14:53.000 I want to hear somebody's name.

01:14:54.000 They're fighting me.

01:14:55.000 I want to get nervous a little bit.

01:14:57.000 Watch some film and see what they do well, and then let's get this together.

01:15:02.000 Let's write everything out.

01:15:03.000 Let's map out the training camp.

01:15:05.000 Let's get our partners. 0.83

01:15:06.000 Let's do what we need to do, and let's get after it.

01:15:08.000 And that takes away the pressure for me.

01:15:10.000 Right.

01:15:11.000 Now, with this injury and the fact that three months in, you should be able to probably start training hard, when are you looking to defend the belt again?

01:15:19.000 You know, I can probably fight.

01:15:24.000 April will be kind of pushing it, but...

01:15:27.000 May, June, July is usually a big card.

01:15:29.000 The 4th, the big July 4th card.

01:15:30.000 I'll probably try to wait till then.

01:15:32.000 That's a good one.

01:15:32.000 Yeah, I'll probably wait till then.

01:15:34.000 And that's probably, like, more conservative.

01:15:36.000 Tyron Wilson, George St. Pierre fighting, main event, July, whatever the hell, weekend.

01:15:41.000 July 4th weekend.

01:15:43.000 It used to be an international fight, yeah.

01:15:44.000 That's the big one.

01:15:45.000 That would be, I mean, that's why I have the biggest chance to get a big fight.

01:15:47.000 That's what I want.

01:15:48.000 If I was your manager, that's what we got to do, Tyron.

01:15:50.000 So, July probably.

01:15:51.000 Hang in there.

01:15:51.000 I mean, there's no fight in between that that's going to make sense for me to do.

01:15:54.000 Has George said he's retired or he's not retired?

01:15:57.000 What did he do?

01:15:57.000 He just gave up the belt, right?

01:16:00.000 George...

01:16:00.000 I don't want to speak for George.

01:16:03.000 Because I like George.

01:16:04.000 I like him too.

01:16:05.000 So I don't want to speak for him.

01:16:06.000 But George is smart.

01:16:08.000 He plays the fact that he don't...

01:16:11.000 Oh, I don't really speak English. 1.00

01:16:13.000 That motherfucker's smart. 1.00

01:16:14.000 He know what he's doing. 0.99

01:16:15.000 Bisping was the right fight.

01:16:17.000 Think about it.

01:16:18.000 Bisping, according to all the middleweights, wasn't really the best middleweight.

01:16:23.000 Everybody wanted to fight Bisping.

01:16:24.000 So if George is going to go up fighting for another belt, another legendary move, fight a guy that does not have the punching power, maybe cannot take him down, maybe cannot stop the takedown, and for once, George probably had a punching power advantage against Bisping.

01:16:42.000 So with that said...

01:16:45.000 It made a lot of sense for him to do that.

01:16:46.000 They also had a lot of history training together.

01:16:48.000 That was a big part of it.

01:16:50.000 Yeah.

01:16:50.000 In George's eyes.

01:16:51.000 He was very successful against him in training.

01:16:53.000 He was kind of worried about the size though.

01:16:56.000 Yeah.

01:16:56.000 He was like, hey, so how much do you think Bisping weigh?

01:16:59.000 I'm like, are you fucking serious? 0.94

01:17:01.000 Are you like really worried about that? 0.93

01:17:03.000 Well, there was talk about you fighting Bisping at one time.

01:17:06.000 I know you guys got back and forth.

01:17:08.000 I weigh like 205 right now.

01:17:09.000 I'm good.

01:17:10.000 I'm good to fight at middleweight.

01:17:11.000 I actually offered to fight George at middleweight And give up my belt at welterweight and just fight him. 0.98

01:17:18.000 If I lose the fucking middleweight title, then I lost my belt and now I'm fucking Sam Sausage. 0.98

01:17:23.000 I get thrown to the bottom of the deck. 0.99

01:17:27.000 But when you make that kind of ballsy, say, hey, I'll fight him at middleweight and I'll give my belt up.

01:17:32.000 If that fight doesn't happen at that point, I kind of feel like somebody might not want to fight.

01:17:38.000 Well, it's hard to say, right?

01:17:40.000 Because he only fought once in four years and there's no timetable in his return and no thought whatsoever.

01:17:47.000 There's a lot of weirdness in this sport right now.

01:17:49.000 And so much rests on January 20th.

01:17:52.000 So much rests on Ngannou versus Stipe.

01:17:55.000 Because I think that fight is going to be gigantic for the sport.

01:17:58.000 It's going to be gigantic for the sport.

01:17:59.000 And then, you know, I think Stipe is used to overly working.

01:18:03.000 You know what I mean?

01:18:03.000 He had that spot where he was like, man, when am I ever going to get my shot?

01:18:06.000 And he finally got it, took advantage of it.

01:18:09.000 You know, I was in a similar situation.

01:18:10.000 I'm like, when am I going to get my shot?

01:18:12.000 Got it, took advantage of it.

01:18:13.000 And Gano has very scary...

01:18:15.000 He's so scary.

01:18:16.000 He don't knock you out regular.

01:18:18.000 That's the thing.

01:18:19.000 He don't hit you and you fall out.

01:18:21.000 He hits you and everybody, oh, shh.

01:18:23.000 They wondering if you're alive still.

01:18:24.000 And it's kind of like...

01:18:26.000 Like, when he hit, like, he hit Overeem.

01:18:28.000 Oh, my God.

01:18:29.000 Do you see the meme when it was, like, the Pez candy?

01:18:31.000 Yeah.

01:18:32.000 And his head, his back of his head almost touched his spine.

01:18:35.000 That was an insane knockout.

01:18:36.000 Yeah, he knocked him the hell out.

01:18:38.000 He's freaky in his speed, his power, and his story is incredible.

01:18:43.000 I mean, you want to talk about a story that's, like, right out of a movie.

01:18:46.000 Yeah.

01:18:47.000 A guy was homeless five years ago, and now all of a sudden, in two years of fighting in the UFC. He's so appreciative and so happy, you know.

01:18:54.000 Fucking hands are, like... 0.99

01:18:56.000 Two times the size of my hand. 1.00

01:18:57.000 You say you shake his hand before?

01:18:58.000 Yeah, they're huge.

01:18:59.000 It feels weird like you're shaking a loaf of bread. 0.99

01:19:02.000 I'm like, damn, this dude. 0.98

01:19:03.000 I told his boxing coach, I'm like, man, I do not envy you, man. 1.00

01:19:06.000 You get punched in that body protector. 1.00

01:19:08.000 I know that shit. 1.00

01:19:08.000 He said, no. 1.00

01:19:09.000 He said, you can put it on.

01:19:10.000 I said, no, I will not.

01:19:12.000 Hell to the, no.

01:19:15.000 I'm not about that life.

01:19:17.000 He's something special.

01:19:18.000 So what do you think will happen in that fight?

01:19:20.000 If I was Stipe, I would want to...

01:19:22.000 Take him down, but he ain't gonna do it.

01:19:23.000 Yeah, he's gonna try.

01:19:24.000 Stipe got a good chin, but I wouldn't test it against him.

01:19:27.000 No, don't test it.

01:19:28.000 I think he's gonna try to close the distance and grab him and try to drag him to the ground.

01:19:31.000 I think he should, but I don't think he is.

01:19:32.000 You don't think he's gonna be able to?

01:19:33.000 I think he wanna show everybody.

01:19:34.000 I stood up with Overeem.

01:19:36.000 I stood up with...

01:19:38.000 JDS. I stood over Fabricio.

01:19:40.000 I stood over all these guys.

01:19:42.000 Totally different thing.

01:19:43.000 Rory Nelson.

01:19:44.000 I know that.

01:19:45.000 Totally different thing.

01:19:45.000 But I ain't on his coaching staff.

01:19:46.000 I don't know what they're thinking. 0.98

01:19:47.000 I think he should punch the takedowns.

01:19:49.000 Take down the ground and pound.

01:19:51.000 Wear his arms out.

01:19:52.000 Make Ngannou fight him to stop getting takedowns and see if he can take some steam off them hands.

01:19:57.000 That's what I think too.

01:19:58.000 And I think that the clinch is going to be critical.

01:20:00.000 Overeem got the clinch on him but couldn't do anything with it.

01:20:03.000 And Stipe was a college wrestler.

01:20:05.000 Stipe has got good wrestling skills.

01:20:07.000 You know, he's known more as being an overall well-rounded MMA fighter, but I think he's got to get that clinch.

01:20:12.000 I think standing in front of Ngannou is just, you're just, you're playing Russian roulette.

01:20:18.000 One of those bullets is going to land.

01:20:20.000 I'm not standing in front of that man. 0.93

01:20:21.000 No.

01:20:22.000 Not even just in the...

01:20:23.000 Even if we do an appearance, I'm like, hey, you too close to me. 0.99

01:20:26.000 Move your big ass over there. 1.00

01:20:28.000 Big old dude. 1.00

01:20:30.000 Yeah, when he connects, it's just something different.

01:20:33.000 So people always ask me this.

01:20:35.000 Do you think they want Ngannou to win?

01:20:38.000 Do you think they're trying to set this up so he can win?

01:20:40.000 Do you think, as far as people ask that...

01:20:43.000 He's an amazing story.

01:20:44.000 If he was the champion, it would be very marketable.

01:20:47.000 And I don't think they want...

01:20:49.000 Even the firefighter with the raspy voice?

01:20:52.000 I think if Stipe can turn Francis back, that's very marketable too.

01:20:57.000 If he wins, he broke the record, right?

01:21:02.000 Yeah, he will break the record.

01:21:04.000 Which is crazy.

01:21:05.000 Two defenses.

01:21:06.000 I know, that's how crazy the heavyweight division is, and always has been.

01:21:09.000 The most anyone has ever done is Kane.

01:21:12.000 Kane's done two defenses, right? 0.99

01:21:13.000 Damn, that's crazy. 0.99

01:21:14.000 It's Kane, right? 1.00

01:21:16.000 I don't know if it's Kane or not.

01:21:19.000 And poor Kane.

01:21:21.000 Kane has so many injuries, man.

01:21:23.000 He's just constantly injured.

01:21:25.000 The poor guy is constantly getting surgery.

01:21:27.000 Did he freaking...

01:21:28.000 I know my man over there.

01:21:31.000 He's checking.

01:21:31.000 I thought you had a St. Louis hat on.

01:21:33.000 You're about to get some stripes over there.

01:21:35.000 LA, LA. LA and from Ohio.

01:21:39.000 What part of Ohio?

01:21:40.000 Columbus.

01:21:41.000 Columbus, all right.

01:21:42.000 Cold as hell out there. 1.00

01:21:44.000 Fuck yeah, it is. 1.00

01:21:45.000 I was just out in Canton not too long ago. 1.00

01:21:46.000 My son played in the Hall of Fame.

01:21:49.000 Why no UFC champion has defended the belt more than twice?

01:21:53.000 Heavyweight champion.

01:21:54.000 So what does it say?

01:21:55.000 Does it say whether it's Kane?

01:21:57.000 Yeah, Kane.

01:21:58.000 Yep, Kane Velasquez.

01:22:00.000 Yeah.

01:22:02.000 This was a while ago.

01:22:03.000 Yeah.

01:22:03.000 I think Stipe is a version of Kane with less injuries.

01:22:07.000 Kane kicks a little bit more, but, you know, just pressure, punching.

01:22:12.000 Endurance.

01:22:12.000 Yeah.

01:22:13.000 Yeah.

01:22:14.000 Stipe's a beast. 0.75

01:22:15.000 He's definitely a beast.

01:22:16.000 Look, this is going to be the toughest fight for sure in Ngannou's career, but what's...

01:22:21.000 I mean, if Stipe can win, it's amazing, and it solidifies his position as the baddest man on the planet, but there's something about Ngannou that is...

01:22:32.000 It's more enticing to people.

01:22:37.000 It's also the fact that Stipe has been in so many wars, and his chin has been touched a lot of times.

01:22:42.000 So he has a great chin, but you don't want to keep testing that, especially against a dude like Ngannou with awkward power.

01:22:50.000 Yeah, the five-round Junior Dos Santos fight was a crazy long fight.

01:22:54.000 He got knocked down.

01:22:59.000 It's a tough one.

01:23:00.000 But the thing is, we know so little about Ngannou's ground game.

01:23:04.000 We know so little about his ability to overcome adversity.

01:23:08.000 He's just been smashing people.

01:23:10.000 I agree.

01:23:10.000 I said that the other day.

01:23:11.000 I think that Stipe's been in the tough fights.

01:23:14.000 He's been knocked down.

01:23:15.000 And he's on a five-fight KO streak as well.

01:23:19.000 You know what I mean?

01:23:20.000 And it's against tougher opponents than Nagano's knocked out.

01:23:23.000 Yeah.

01:23:24.000 Well, the sport is so exciting right now, man.

01:23:27.000 There's so much talent.

01:23:28.000 Who's your favorite fighter right now?

01:23:30.000 Tyron Woodley.

01:23:32.000 It wouldn't happen to be because I'm here.

01:23:35.000 I don't have a favorite fighter.

01:23:37.000 Max Holloway's smashing right now.

01:23:38.000 I love Max Holloway.

01:23:39.000 I like his style too because his style is, he overwhelms you.

01:23:43.000 He's not knocking anybody out with one shot.

01:23:45.000 He's just constantly overwhelming you with conditioning and intelligence and timing and distance.

01:23:50.000 And he can do everything.

01:23:51.000 He can strike.

01:23:52.000 He can take you to the ground.

01:23:53.000 He's got great defense.

01:23:54.000 His submissions are outstanding.

01:23:56.000 And I like that fight with him and Frankie Edgar.

01:23:58.000 That's an interesting fight.

01:23:59.000 I was just talking about this the other day, but Frankie Edgar has fought similar.

01:24:04.000 You know, Cup Swanson or Yair Rodriguez.

01:24:07.000 But Max hasn't really fought anybody like Frankie before.

01:24:12.000 Somebody that's sharp and compact that knows how to get close quick, knows how to get out quick.

01:24:16.000 He'll take you down.

01:24:17.000 Frankie don't give a hell. 1.00

01:24:18.000 He was taking down, who was that?

01:24:19.000 Charlie Oliveira.

01:24:20.000 He didn't give a hell how great he was on the ground.

01:24:22.000 He was in his guard punching.

01:24:23.000 And I think that can present some problems.

01:24:27.000 Absolutely.

01:24:27.000 It's a good fight.

01:24:28.000 That's a really good fight, yeah.

01:24:30.000 That's the March 3rd fight, and Max is a big, big favorite in that fight, which I thought was interesting. 0.94

01:24:35.000 He's fucking tall, too. 0.93

01:24:36.000 He looks like he's in my weight. 1.00

01:24:37.000 Yeah, he's tall.

01:24:40.000 Confident.

01:24:41.000 And in the Aldo fight, especially the second fight, man, you see that confidence just oozing out of him.

01:24:46.000 He's the champ.

01:24:47.000 He's a beast. 0.99

01:24:48.000 Yeah.

01:24:49.000 I think 55 is an amazing weight class right now.

01:24:52.000 We argue on Fox that they try to get under my skin and say, lightweight is the best division.

01:24:58.000 I said, don't play with me.

01:25:00.000 Walter Wade's the best division.

01:25:01.000 Well, it's your division.

01:25:02.000 After Habib, Habib was a beast. 0.92

01:25:06.000 I haven't watched many of his fights.

01:25:08.000 I watched him and said, I need to go back to my math.

01:25:11.000 He fights like that every time?

01:25:12.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:25:13.000 He's a monster.

01:25:14.000 You see the Michael Johnson fight? 0.98

01:25:16.000 He's telling Michael to give up.

01:25:17.000 Give up. 0.92

01:25:18.000 I must be chump. 0.97

01:25:19.000 Give up. 0.98

01:25:20.000 Smashing him.

01:25:21.000 His wrestling and his ground and pound is just so ferocious.

01:25:25.000 It's just on such another level.

01:25:27.000 And when he gets a hold of guys, he's getting a hold of guys that are really good and just ragdolling them.

01:25:32.000 Like what he did to RDA. Did you ever see that fight?

01:25:34.000 Yeah.

01:25:34.000 I haven't seen those fights.

01:25:36.000 I gotta go back and look.

01:25:37.000 Ragdolled RDA. He just beats the shit out of people. 1.00

01:25:40.000 Gets you to the ground. 0.99

01:25:41.000 I was a big fan after that.

01:25:42.000 I'm like, man.

01:25:43.000 He's something special. 0.96

01:25:44.000 This dude is crazy. 0.91

01:25:45.000 He's something special.

01:25:46.000 And the fact that he did that to Barboza, he wants to move up to 72. Shit, no he don't. 0.99

01:25:53.000 Metabolic meals, send my man Habib out a pack. 1.00

01:25:58.000 Nutritionists, anybody out there, I'm picking up the tab. 1.00

01:26:01.000 Stay your psycho ass down there at 55. I'm not trying to see no Habib right now. 1.00

01:26:08.000 Yeah, he's making 55 easy now though, so who knows?

01:26:12.000 I think what I believe is going to happen is, I think Conor's going to vacate.

01:26:16.000 I think they're going to strip him, because Conor's got $100 million in the bank, and I think he's having fun and talking shit, and he's going to keep training, and he's going to make a big fight in the future. 0.97

01:26:25.000 But I think Khabib versus Tony is the big fight, and fuck, they might even do that one in Russia. 0.99

01:26:30.000 They do that one. 0.98

01:26:31.000 They're talking about doing a big fight in Russia.

01:26:33.000 I heard that.

01:26:33.000 Yeah, if that happens, woo!

01:26:35.000 Man, that's a good fight.

01:26:36.000 I mean, everybody's been waiting to see that fight. 0.99

01:26:38.000 Fuck, yeah, that's a good fight. 0.99

01:26:39.000 And it's like, Tony Ferguson, very unorthodox. 0.99

01:26:43.000 How many wins he's got, like 9 or 10 in a row?

01:26:45.000 Yeah, he has the most ever in the lightweight division, and I think it's at 10. I think when he beat Kevin, it was at 10. Who did he lose to?

01:26:54.000 Michael Johnson?

01:26:55.000 He lost to...

01:26:57.000 Boy, you gotta go way back.

01:26:59.000 He lost in a long time.

01:27:01.000 Yeah.

01:27:01.000 Maybe it was Michael Johnson.

01:27:02.000 Was Michael?

01:27:02.000 Yeah.

01:27:03.000 Yeah.

01:27:05.000 I mean, Tony's so unorthodox and awkward.

01:27:07.000 He had a close one against Eve, too.

01:27:08.000 I'll corner you for that fight. 0.73

01:27:09.000 He was a close one against Eve, but man, yeah.

01:27:11.000 He just...

01:27:12.000 Nobody has told Tony that what he's doing is not...

01:27:17.000 Who's Jamie Tony?

01:27:18.000 He lost to Jamie Tony earlier in his career.

01:27:21.000 What is that from?

01:27:22.000 National Fight Alliance.

01:27:24.000 Interesting.

01:27:25.000 At the Hyatt Regency.

01:27:28.000 Oh, Karen Darbidian. 0.99

01:27:29.000 That guy's a very good fucking submission artist. 0.99

01:27:33.000 Interesting. 0.99

01:27:34.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:27:35.000 Well, he done let nine, ten motherfuckers have it since then. 1.00

01:27:39.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:27:40.000 Punch, choke, choke, choke, choke, choke. 0.86

01:27:44.000 Yep.

01:27:45.000 And running over guys, too. 0.98

01:27:47.000 The Edson Barboza fight was fucking fantastic. 0.98

01:27:50.000 That was a fantastic fight. 0.99

01:27:51.000 He was losing that fight, too.

01:27:52.000 I remember that.

01:27:53.000 That's the danger about Tony.

01:27:55.000 It don't really matter if he's losing that fight in the first or second round.

01:27:58.000 He keeps it together.

01:27:59.000 Yeah.

01:28:01.000 And the Dos Anjos fight was amazing, too. 0.89

01:28:04.000 Beat the shit out of Dos Anjos. 0.98

01:28:06.000 I mean, he's a bad man, Tony Ferguson. 0.99

01:28:09.000 You cannot sleep on Tony Ferguson.

01:28:11.000 That fight is amazing.

01:28:13.000 I used to be like, man, this dude striking don't look like it's something that should frighten you that much.

01:28:18.000 But when it's coming so often and so weird angles and then he's going for shots and he does the exact opposite of what you think you should do in grappling and then he's in the position.

01:28:28.000 And then we get there, now he's got like five or six moves from that position. 0.99

01:28:31.000 So he's like swishing it here and there and there before you know it, your ass choked out. 0.99

01:28:35.000 Yeah, he's something special. 0.99

01:28:38.000 He's a real deal.

01:28:38.000 That's an amazing fight.

01:28:40.000 I love that fight.

01:28:41.000 You know what I'm really interested in right now?

01:28:43.000 I'm really interested in T.J. Dillashaw versus Mighty Mouse.

01:28:45.000 There's so much talk about that.

01:28:46.000 I don't know.

01:28:47.000 I want to see it, though.

01:28:48.000 Somebody's got to challenge Mighty Mouse.

01:28:50.000 I would have been more interested to see Garbrandt and Mighty Mouse.

01:28:52.000 Really?

01:28:52.000 Yeah, I don't know why.

01:28:53.000 It just looked on paper like a more interesting fight. 1.00

01:28:58.000 Dumb, man. 1.00

01:28:58.000 I disagree. 1.00

01:28:59.000 I think it's more interesting to see TJ because TJ's got more weapons.

01:29:02.000 TJ does more stuff.

01:29:03.000 He throws more kicks.

01:29:04.000 He's got more...

01:29:05.000 I mean, you saw in the Garbrandt fight.

01:29:07.000 That's where he hurt him.

01:29:08.000 He hurt him with the head kick.

01:29:09.000 I just like Cody's boxing in the pocket and his counters.

01:29:13.000 Anybody that's gonna deal with DJ Speed gotta make DJ miss and not very many people have been able to do it.

01:29:18.000 They both are gonna be tough fights.

01:29:20.000 I mean, it's gonna be tough for TJ. It's gonna be tough for Dillashaw.

01:29:23.000 Mighty Mouse, he just has very few holes.

01:29:25.000 He's like pouring water.

01:29:27.000 Just keep going.

01:29:28.000 He never stopped. 1.00

01:29:30.000 I'm like, damn, dude. 0.99

01:29:30.000 I watched him drill before his fight. 0.99

01:29:34.000 He did the same thing in the drill.

01:29:36.000 He just did it right in the fight.

01:29:37.000 I'm like, dang.

01:29:39.000 No, he's special.

01:29:40.000 He's special.

01:29:41.000 His ability and his ability to not get hit.

01:29:45.000 He's doing something that's on a completely different level.

01:29:46.000 He always thinks in dimensions.

01:29:47.000 So he was trying to take down Dodson, remember?

01:29:50.000 And Dodson wouldn't let him take a down.

01:29:51.000 And he said, forget it. 0.99

01:29:52.000 I'm going to grab the leg and I'm going to keep punching him in the face or elbowing him in the head. 0.90

01:29:55.000 And then finally he got the takedown. 0.99

01:29:57.000 If he thinks he's smart...

01:29:58.000 He's going to keep going.

01:29:59.000 Excuse me.

01:30:00.000 He's not going to get discouraged.

01:30:01.000 He's going to keep going for it.

01:30:02.000 If he was going against, who was the kid?

01:30:04.000 Tim Elliott.

01:30:05.000 They had him in those deep chokes.

01:30:06.000 I'm like, I was freaking out.

01:30:08.000 Because, you know, DJ Mahoney, I'm like, man, is he about to lose to this kid?

01:30:11.000 And he said, no, I'm good.

01:30:12.000 He had me in there deep.

01:30:14.000 Like, he just don't get rattled very hard.

01:30:15.000 No, he doesn't get rattled.

01:30:17.000 He's got the whole package.

01:30:18.000 He's got mental toughness.

01:30:19.000 He's intelligent.

01:30:20.000 His skill level's on another level.

01:30:22.000 I mean, his skill level's off the charts.

01:30:24.000 He does everything.

01:30:25.000 Amazing.

01:30:26.000 He's the master of the stream basics.

01:30:28.000 You know, like that's lift up, return armbar, maybe one of the flashiest things we've ever seen him do.

01:30:34.000 But in general, if you think about it, He comes forward and he does great fast basics from this side.

01:30:39.000 He switch stands.

01:30:40.000 Great fast basics from this side.

01:30:42.000 Very traditional clinch.

01:30:43.000 Super active with it.

01:30:45.000 Hard to take down.

01:30:46.000 Gets up the regular way.

01:30:48.000 He mounts you.

01:30:49.000 He believes, like if a coach teaches you an armbar from the mount, in his mind, it's 100% chance it's going to work.

01:30:55.000 There's no way it can't work. 0.96

01:30:56.000 So when you see him go do a regular armbar on somebody and submit them like, you know, Horiguchi or Jamaraga, like, damn, how you hit him with that armbar?

01:31:04.000 Because he just don't believe in the fact that doubt in his techniques.

01:31:08.000 Yeah.

01:31:08.000 No, it's a it's an amazing time.

01:31:11.000 Amazing time for the sport and I mean it's amazing time It's just amazing time for martial arts period I mean that I think martial arts right now is at the highest level that it's ever been in the history of people fighting each other.

01:31:27.000 You know, it's an exciting moment as well because now you got so many different hopefuls.

01:31:33.000 You know, we got six or seven people that they just need one more.

01:31:36.000 And I don't just need one more.

01:31:37.000 This person just need one more.

01:31:39.000 Then they jump off and, you know, they become superstars because we need more stars right now.

01:31:44.000 We got Conor, but when is Conor going to come back?

01:31:47.000 I think Ronda might do the WWE thing. 1.00

01:31:50.000 She's done, I'm pretty sure.

01:31:52.000 I think the WWE thing is a good look.

01:31:54.000 I know she was at dinner with Triple H and her agent.

01:31:59.000 Slater.

01:31:59.000 So I hope she does that, man, because people can say whatever they want, but Ronda Rousey, she was that girl at one point.

01:32:05.000 She was.

01:32:06.000 And she put us all on the map in a different way and had the old lady, the 75-year-old lady at the airport talking about MMA. Yep.

01:32:15.000 She's a G. She paid our due. 1.00

01:32:16.000 And I think if she want to gracefully walk into a different realm, WWE, film, I think she just produced some type of series that we should support her in that.

01:32:25.000 I agree.

01:32:26.000 I agree 100%.

01:32:28.000 I really don't want to see her fight again.

01:32:31.000 If she wants to fight again, but what I would want to see is her move to a camp that could address the entire game of MMA in a much more comprehensive way.

01:32:42.000 And not tell her that she's great at something if she's really not.

01:32:45.000 I would want her to go to Matt Hume or someone like that. 0.76

01:32:47.000 But who would she actually fight?

01:32:50.000 She's too big of a name to fight somebody. 1.00

01:32:54.000 Who would she fight?

01:32:55.000 Fight someone who's coming up.

01:32:57.000 Fight someone.

01:32:57.000 Get a tune-up fight.

01:32:58.000 I don't even think she wants to fight.

01:33:01.000 I think at a certain point in time, you have enough money in the bank.

01:33:04.000 You have enough notoriety and fame.

01:33:05.000 She's got a lot of aspirations outside the sport.

01:33:08.000 She's married now.

01:33:09.000 Who knows?

01:33:10.000 She might want to start a family. 0.99

01:33:11.000 You're right.

01:33:12.000 You're right.

01:33:13.000 Listen, all I want to see is George St. Pierre versus Tyron Woodley in July.

01:33:18.000 July 4th weekend.

01:33:19.000 I'd say that's my big prediction for 2018. Make it happen.

01:33:22.000 Come on.

01:33:23.000 Big prediction for me is that I'll fight George St. Pierre in my first fight back.

01:33:26.000 I'd like to see it.

01:33:26.000 George, my shoulder's sore.

01:33:28.000 It hurts, right?

01:33:29.000 You can barely move.

01:33:29.000 George, I can't even punch.

01:33:31.000 How do you sleep?

01:33:31.000 I can't punch.

01:33:32.000 It's hard to sleep.

01:33:33.000 I mean, George, if you want to fight me, brother, this is the time, man.

01:33:36.000 This is the time, George.

01:33:37.000 You want to get me, George, right now.

01:33:39.000 Make that money, George.

01:33:40.000 Make that money.

01:33:41.000 And what a fight that would be in terms of just historical significance and how big it would be.

01:33:48.000 I mean, he's coming off of the win of his career, coming back four years off, beats Bisping, chokes him unconscious for the title, vacates the title, steps right in there, fights you at 170. He's a G. It'll be fun.

01:34:01.000 And he would exit the sport.

01:34:03.000 Nobody would give him that much stuff from losing to me.

01:34:07.000 Tyron Woodley, thanks for doing this, man.

01:34:09.000 I appreciate it.

01:34:09.000 I'm glad we finally got in here.

01:34:11.000 We finally did it.

01:34:12.000 Tell people, what's your Twitter handle?

01:34:14.000 Check me out on Twitter.

01:34:15.000 T-W-O-O-D-L-E-Y. Same thing on Instagram.

01:34:19.000 And yeah, we are here.

01:34:20.000 The champ, ladies and gentlemen.

The Joe Rogan Experience - March 03, 2010

JRE MMA Show #10 with Tyron Woodley

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript