The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #100 with Cody Garbrandt

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00:00:04.000 The Joe Rogan Experience.

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00:00:13.000 Hello, Cody.

00:00:15.000 What's going on?

00:00:15.000 Good to see you, brother.

00:00:16.000 What's happening, man?

00:00:17.000 Join Austin.

00:00:18.000 Yeah, so you're coming here.

00:00:20.000 Possibly.

00:00:20.000 Are you letting the people know?

00:00:22.000 Not yet.

00:00:22.000 Did I blow the...

00:00:23.000 Not yet.

00:00:24.000 They're going to know now.

00:00:25.000 Did I let people know?

00:00:26.000 I think so.

00:00:26.000 I mean, it's probably the move we spoke about earlier.

00:00:29.000 Yeah.

00:00:30.000 I've always loved Texas, like we spoke earlier.

00:00:31.000 I got signed here to the UFC, was on it for so many years, came out here during fight camps for a week and kind of just unplugged but focused on training and had a good time out here.

00:00:42.000 It was always a pleasure.

00:00:44.000 Yeah, it's a beautiful place.

00:00:45.000 I'm enjoying the shit out of it.

00:00:47.000 Dude, first of all, congratulations on your comeback.

00:00:51.000 You know, you're a great guy.

00:00:54.000 And when there's someone I like who loses a bunch of fights in a row and you get into this skid, it's hard to watch.

00:01:03.000 I can't imagine what it was like being you, you know, to have a young child and to be dealing with all of this going on.

00:01:11.000 I mean, it's like losing your time.

00:01:13.000 But then to come back the way you did against a really fucking tough guy in a Sun Tso and get...

00:01:20.000 Arguably the KO of the year.

00:01:22.000 I mean, you gotta be feeling pretty fucking good.

00:01:24.000 I feel great, you know.

00:01:25.000 Back from the brink.

00:01:26.000 Back from the brinks.

00:01:27.000 I mean, that time in my life, that time frame period, and going through that, you know, from on top of the world, world champion, to three-fight skid, honestly, it feels like a lifetime ago.

00:01:39.000 I feel like I'm just a different person.

00:01:41.000 Where I was at from there, you know, removed.

00:01:43.000 And the thing is I'm just doing differently, thinking differently, you know, how I was able to approach the game, picking myself back up time and time again.

00:01:50.000 I mean, it's...

00:01:53.000 Internet is a horrible place to get knocked out on, you know.

00:01:56.000 The internet is...

00:01:57.000 Fuck!

00:01:57.000 You got the trolls, this and that, you know.

00:02:00.000 But besides that point, you know...

00:02:02.000 Just coming back to that and having a love for it.

00:02:05.000 A lot of the times I got to the fight, and not to make excuses, I was just...

00:02:08.000 I didn't feel myself.

00:02:10.000 I didn't feel like...

00:02:12.000 In the training and leading up, I felt physically I'm always ready to fight.

00:02:16.000 Like, flip the switch, I'm always physically ready to fight.

00:02:18.000 I think mentally going into those fights, I was just out of body.

00:02:22.000 I wasn't...

00:02:23.000 I felt like I was going through the motions.

00:02:25.000 You know, my passion wasn't there.

00:02:26.000 I wasn't waking up every day like, what's your reason why?

00:02:28.000 I was just trying to find that.

00:02:30.000 I think the reason why I had so many people infiltrated in how I should train or how I should live or what I should do to get back there.

00:02:39.000 And really it wasn't nothing that I needed to learn new.

00:02:42.000 I didn't have to reinvent the wheel.

00:02:43.000 It was just doing the slight edge theory, like getting out of your comfort zone.

00:02:46.000 You're doing your sauna sessions.

00:02:48.000 You're pushing yourself to go in there and just be uncomfortable.

00:02:53.000 So I had to go out there.

00:02:54.000 With that comeback, I moved to Jersey.

00:02:57.000 Did training camp out there.

00:02:58.000 Yeah, I want to talk to you about that.

00:03:00.000 I'm a big fan of Henry.

00:03:01.000 Mark Henry's a bad motherfucker.

00:03:03.000 He's great.

00:03:04.000 I enjoy him so much.

00:03:05.000 His passion for it, his love for it.

00:03:07.000 He's so interesting, too.

00:03:08.000 His crazy codes and the fact that the dude makes pizza on the side.

00:03:12.000 Dude, I was so nervous going out there because I heard of the codes.

00:03:16.000 And like, you know, I was with Lance.

00:03:18.000 Lance kind of gave me a little insight on it, on everything.

00:03:21.000 I'm like, damn, codes.

00:03:22.000 And I just fight, dude.

00:03:23.000 Like, I don't have really said things.

00:03:25.000 I kind of go off of my instincts and game plans.

00:03:28.000 And he was trying to, you know, brief me on it.

00:03:30.000 When I got to the first two weeks, holy shit, we go down to his basement and he has like pizza scrolls from the pizzeria where we have off about 50 things that we're working on before camp.

00:03:40.000 So what does he write them on?

00:03:41.000 Boxes?

00:03:41.000 Pizza boxes?

00:03:42.000 Pizza scrolls, like just basically white paper he rolls down and tapes it there to the wall.

00:03:49.000 You have like Cory's fight camp.

00:03:50.000 You have Frankie's and all these codes.

00:03:53.000 He's working with 14 fighters at one time.

00:03:55.000 He knows all the codes.

00:03:56.000 And all different kinds of fights too.

00:03:58.000 Like he's got Zabit there.

00:04:00.000 He's got Frankie.

00:04:01.000 It's like all these different styles.

00:04:03.000 Yeah, different styles.

00:04:04.000 And we'll kind of, you know, what I like about that is he'll try things that Zabit does.

00:04:08.000 Zabit does these crazy double jump scissor kicks and spinning.

00:04:12.000 You know, the Russians are really good at spinning shit.

00:04:14.000 So we threw that into the game.

00:04:17.000 It was nice to get that kind of stuff that Frankie's done and had success over the years.

00:04:23.000 So we meshed that together.

00:04:24.000 He got to know me really well.

00:04:26.000 We worked extensively with Ricardo Almeida up there as well.

00:04:30.000 But yeah, Coach Henry is just obsessed with winning.

00:04:34.000 But what I loved about him was the first thing that he said to me.

00:04:39.000 Was that his job is, he's competitive, he wants to win at all costs, but his job is to get us back to our family.

00:04:45.000 And I watched your podcast with Andre Ward, and he said the same thing about his trainer.

00:04:49.000 And once he said that to me, and I have a child now, my whole thought process is, Has changed, you know, and transitioned.

00:04:55.000 And they're like, I want to be able to be around for my son's life.

00:04:57.000 I want to have, you know, speak to my grandchildren.

00:05:00.000 I'm not drooling, you know.

00:05:01.000 That's what Coach Mark, I want you drooling when you're, you know, 50, 60 years old.

00:05:05.000 And I kind of, in the style of that fight, I can punch and move.

00:05:08.000 I don't have to brawl with these guys.

00:05:10.000 Right.

00:05:10.000 You know, and just reiterating the defensive part of the technical offensive part with him is I could go in there and hit a 6-7 punch combo.

00:05:19.000 Right.

00:05:20.000 Dude, he would care less.

00:05:21.000 He's like, what did you do after?

00:05:22.000 You moved after.

00:05:23.000 Your head was off.

00:05:24.000 Your hands was up.

00:05:25.000 He was all about defense.

00:05:28.000 I think he just helped me out a lot with saying that.

00:05:31.000 Getting me home to my family safe.

00:05:33.000 That's what I want to do.

00:05:34.000 It's such an important approach to be defensively sound.

00:05:37.000 And yet, there's so many fighters who don't think like that at all.

00:05:41.000 They just think about offense.

00:05:45.000 In Jiu-Jitsu, Hicks and Gracie I had a conversation with him once about jujitsu, and one of the things that he said is that the most important thing is defense.

00:05:56.000 He said, because I'm always safe.

00:05:58.000 This is what he said.

00:05:58.000 He goes, I'm always safe.

00:06:00.000 And he goes, in every position, I'm always safe.

00:06:03.000 Like, he lets guys on his back with a fully locked in rear naked choke, and he'll start rolling like that.

00:06:09.000 Yeah.

00:06:09.000 He's always safe.

00:06:11.000 And that's interesting also, I read that about the Donaher death squad, John Donaher's guys, like Gordon Ryan and all those guys, they'll start in really bad positions all the time.

00:06:21.000 They train constantly in bad positions, so they're always defensively sound.

00:06:25.000 And that makes sense with striking as well.

00:06:28.000 So many guys are so concerned with offense, and you've had so many spectacular knockouts, like the Thomas Almeida fight, that it's just like you probably just want to blast guys.

00:06:39.000 I got to pull the reins back sometimes.

00:06:41.000 I'm like, dude, I'm so amped up just to get in there and get the fight.

00:06:45.000 Forget the walkout.

00:06:47.000 I want to get the first blow.

00:06:49.000 I want to get that exchange.

00:06:51.000 Then that's when the fight unravels.

00:06:52.000 Sometimes I think I get so amped up that...

00:06:54.000 You know, taking it back, you know, doing that, kind of having defensively sound sets up your offense.

00:06:59.000 Yeah.

00:06:59.000 And my uncle's training me my whole entire life, and this is what he said, your offense sets up your defense, and vice versa.

00:07:05.000 But okay, like, my offense was so good, and then you get to this point where people are breaking down your footages and your films and, you know, your speed and power.

00:07:13.000 You know, you have to have that, you have to be defensively sound if you're so offensive.

00:07:16.000 I'm a forward fighter.

00:07:17.000 I can fight going back.

00:07:18.000 A lot of fighters can't go.

00:07:19.000 I can fight positional.

00:07:21.000 Like you said about Danner's guys, Chris Holdsworth has adapted into a phenomenal coach.

00:07:27.000 You know, he's my right-hand guy from martial arts to the T, and he makes us start in horrible positions like that when we're dog-dead tired and then get up and we're shadow sparring each other and then going back to the ground, like, really fight-simulated things to where you're feeling uncomfortable in those positions.

00:07:42.000 Like, yeah, I can go in there and knee-wrestle all day during jiu-jitsu.

00:07:45.000 I didn't get tapped out.

00:07:46.000 I didn't tap anybody, but I was safe.

00:07:47.000 But I didn't put myself in those positions when the fight really happens.

00:07:51.000 You have to see how, you know, your grit.

00:07:53.000 You got to be able to fight off the hands, fight off the body, try and go fight all those bad positions so you're comfortable with whatever the fight goes.

00:07:59.000 And I feel like that's where I'm at now.

00:08:01.000 I've transitioned into that fighter.

00:08:02.000 I was so green when I got to alpha male and a lot of my speed and power...

00:08:07.000 Catapulted me to the top where I have to kind of draw back a little bit and do the correctional errors.

00:08:12.000 Not reinvent things, not do things, but the defensive part of things.

00:08:16.000 I was up in training in Jersey and I knew I had the good head slips and movements, but some of the slips coach was watching me, I would get caught on the At the first or second, I usually would get hit with a fourth punch.

00:08:25.000 It's a combo puncher.

00:08:26.000 I would slip, slip, and then I would slip down this way, and I would get hit with the jab.

00:08:31.000 Every time, I was like, dude, just bring your hand up a little bit when you're slipping to the right.

00:08:34.000 You're moving to the right.

00:08:37.000 He's like, how do you feel after swar?

00:08:38.000 I'm like, dude, I feel great.

00:08:39.000 I don't have a headache.

00:08:39.000 I'm not getting my ass kicked.

00:08:41.000 I'm not getting hit, really.

00:08:42.000 My defense has gotten so solid working with them constantly, and Chris is the same way.

00:08:48.000 My coaches out in Alpha Male are the same.

00:08:50.000 With hands up, hands up, hands up.

00:08:52.000 At that point in my life, I was just so aggressive and angry.

00:08:57.000 We had so much success attacking that way too.

00:09:00.000 At doing that.

00:09:01.000 But this last fight, I was honestly, Joe, when I was doing those feints on the Sun Sound, Coach Henry said, hey, don't feel like these feints aren't going to work.

00:09:10.000 He's defensively sound.

00:09:11.000 He's a great fighter at that respect.

00:09:14.000 Keep doing these feints.

00:09:15.000 They will work.

00:09:16.000 I'm fainting this guy, dude.

00:09:17.000 I'm fainting.

00:09:18.000 He's not really biting.

00:09:19.000 He's not really coming in.

00:09:20.000 But I kept on the feints, and I started catching him with some shots that I saw, and his eyes were hurting him.

00:09:25.000 And then feinted, did the Tyson 2 overhand right, dropped him.

00:09:29.000 And I knew once I had that range and the power and speed and his timing that he would come in with something.

00:09:35.000 The KO, the way you did it where you dropped your hands and looked to the side and waited for him to move.

00:09:40.000 Oh, my God.

00:09:41.000 That was like one of the best walk-off KOs ever.

00:09:44.000 I felt great because the first round, I kind of had myself to the cage.

00:09:47.000 And Coach, man, he...

00:09:49.000 He'd probably kick my ass being on the cage.

00:09:50.000 Like, get off the cage.

00:09:51.000 Get to the, you know, movement more.

00:09:53.000 We're movement fighters.

00:09:53.000 You know, he made me.

00:09:54.000 And I know my back was in his cage, but I saw, and the round was ending, but I saw a sunset.

00:10:00.000 I was like, oh, here's my opening.

00:10:01.000 I saw that in the first round.

00:10:02.000 And the second round, I was staying off.

00:10:04.000 I was moving.

00:10:04.000 I was switching, you know, stances.

00:10:07.000 But towards the end, I heard the clapper.

00:10:08.000 So I'm like, I'm back in the wall.

00:10:10.000 Let him come in.

00:10:10.000 I kind of leaned towards, and he kind of like faded on it.

00:10:13.000 And then he chased me down.

00:10:15.000 When I level changed, I kept my eye on him.

00:10:16.000 And he threw the hook because he was going southpaw.

00:10:19.000 And I knew, like, I had my hand on the cage and know where my distance was.

00:10:23.000 If he was coming with a kick after, I could lean back.

00:10:26.000 I just had my range and my timing.

00:10:27.000 And once I threw it, man, I knew when I felt it from the hip, it was over.

00:10:32.000 And that guy is so fucking durable.

00:10:37.000 That's the thing.

00:10:38.000 I mean, this guy is so tough and so durable.

00:10:41.000 For you to catch him and KO him like this...

00:10:44.000 That had to feel so good.

00:10:46.000 That was good.

00:10:46.000 Back against the wall.

00:10:47.000 That was a pivotal point in my life.

00:10:50.000 But I knew leading up to that...

00:10:52.000 I needed to get an octagon.

00:10:53.000 I kept, like, hey, Sean, Dana, and then, obviously, in the beginning of the year, I had a kidney infection that landed me in the hospital.

00:10:59.000 I had to remove myself from the fight.

00:11:01.000 What happened there?

00:11:02.000 Dude, I had, I guess, a staph or cellulitis that I didn't know.

00:11:06.000 My shin was so sore for weeks.

00:11:08.000 I would tape it with a knee pad, put a knee pad, tape it, and spar, and grapple.

00:11:12.000 But there was no, like, infection, no cut.

00:11:15.000 So you just thought it was a bruise?

00:11:16.000 I kicked...

00:11:17.000 Kicked this dude hella hard and I just thought that my leg was just bruised that bad.

00:11:21.000 Like, you know, sometimes you hit your shins and, you know, kind of elbow, maybe a knee.

00:11:26.000 And I was transitioning back.

00:11:27.000 I was in Jersey for a month and I was back here in California for two weeks and I was going back to Jersey and just training hard, you know, and...

00:11:35.000 It's where my body just started shutting down.

00:11:37.000 I remember telling Coach Mark after training one day, I'm just feeling horrible.

00:11:42.000 And then by that night, I kind of just started feeling really bad and started urinating blood.

00:11:47.000 So I went to the hospital and they checked everything out.

00:11:50.000 I'm like, oh, you're good.

00:11:51.000 The doctor came in and was like, here's the surgeon's number.

00:11:54.000 You're going to have to get your lymph nodes removed because my lymph nodes were swollen so much in my groin.

00:11:58.000 I couldn't even walk.

00:11:59.000 I was crawling in there.

00:12:01.000 And I'm like, everything checked out.

00:12:02.000 They did all these tests.

00:12:03.000 I was there for the majority of the day.

00:12:05.000 Why would they just remove them?

00:12:06.000 That's what he said.

00:12:07.000 I'm like, alright.

00:12:08.000 So I was like, drove home.

00:12:10.000 I drove there the first time and then drove home.

00:12:12.000 Chris is actually flying out for the week to help me train.

00:12:15.000 I was like, Chris, bro, I don't feel good.

00:12:17.000 There's something going on.

00:12:18.000 But I just had everything checked out.

00:12:20.000 I was like, I'm not going to be pussing and go back to the hospital.

00:12:22.000 But progressively during the night, it just became like two hours of straight blood.

00:12:26.000 I was urinating.

00:12:28.000 So I was like, this is not good.

00:12:29.000 I couldn't eat.

00:12:31.000 I had the cold chills.

00:12:32.000 Went back, Ubered back to the hospital, and they admitted me.

00:12:36.000 And I had a really bad kidney infection from...

00:12:40.000 Like a cellulitis that was in my leg.

00:12:42.000 So how do they find out that you have a really bad kidney infection?

00:12:44.000 Do they do it for a blood test?

00:12:45.000 I did blood cultures.

00:12:46.000 I was doing...

00:12:47.000 I did probably 26 labs.

00:12:49.000 I was in the hospital for...

00:12:50.000 They didn't know why I was...

00:12:51.000 What was caused from it.

00:12:53.000 I had a team full...

00:12:54.000 A team of doctors, surgeons, you know...

00:13:00.000 Infected disease doctors like all these like trying to do these tests and like we didn't know what was going on and then they gave me antibiotic I was hooked up the penicillin for six days and IV the whole time like it was the first few days in the hospital I couldn't eat I couldn't even urinate myself the lady had to hold the bucket to where I was just I was just dying I think I was training myself you know it wasn't a diet thing I was eating right correct taking supplements like just training hard and then I guess I just trained my body to Well,

00:13:27.000 that's the thing about people that get sick while they're training.

00:13:31.000 If you're in a fight camp, you're constantly breaking yourself down.

00:13:37.000 That's why guys get sick all the time in training.

00:13:39.000 Because you're so tired.

00:13:40.000 You train so hard.

00:13:42.000 If you get sick bad while that's happening, you can get really fucked up.

00:13:47.000 And there are so many guys out there running around with staph infections that don't know they have them.

00:13:51.000 I've seen guys at the gym, and they have this little thing on their arm, and then someone's got to say, hey, dude, have you got that checked out?

00:13:58.000 That thing looks like a big boil.

00:14:00.000 You got staph, bro.

00:14:01.000 And they're like, is that staph?

00:14:04.000 People don't know.

00:14:05.000 But that shit gets systemic.

00:14:07.000 And then you could die!

00:14:08.000 Yeah, I had to go to a kidney specialist.

00:14:12.000 They went to Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, did all these tests.

00:14:16.000 They wanted to do a biopsy.

00:14:18.000 Staff is fucking scary, man.

00:14:19.000 So I texted Dana, like, man, I had to pull out my fight.

00:14:22.000 And then he was saying that he was going to have the fights.

00:14:24.000 I'm like, well, I need to fight.

00:14:26.000 My soul needs to get in there.

00:14:27.000 I need to turn this around.

00:14:28.000 I'm on three-fight skid.

00:14:30.000 I was excited.

00:14:30.000 I was fighting in Columbus, Ohio, my hometown.

00:14:32.000 I was going to start to come back there and then march on.

00:14:36.000 I was back to my visualization, focusing on fighting.

00:14:39.000 I was so far removed from that.

00:14:41.000 Not because I was losing.

00:14:43.000 Even when I won the title, I was just so far away.

00:14:45.000 You weren't visualizing then?

00:14:47.000 I wasn't.

00:14:47.000 I mean, I ended up injuring myself in the fight with Cruz with my knee, and then I ended up having the back procedure in Germany leading up to the TJ fight.

00:14:55.000 It took me out a whole year.

00:14:56.000 Did you get that Regenikine stuff?

00:14:57.000 Yep, I did.

00:14:58.000 And it worked, and there's shelf lives of it.

00:15:00.000 You know, I still feel...

00:15:01.000 I learned a lot, like, doing obviously yoga, PT. You know, as much as I'm training, I'm still doing five days a week of PT, you know, and mobility work.

00:15:09.000 For your back?

00:15:10.000 Just overall mobility.

00:15:11.000 What was the exact extent of the injury?

00:15:14.000 It was an annual tear.

00:15:15.000 Of the disc?

00:15:16.000 Of the disc, yeah.

00:15:17.000 So it kind of just protruded and it was just hitting that sciatic nerve and just locking up.

00:15:22.000 They're doing stem cells in discs now and they're having great results from that.

00:15:27.000 I know a dude who had severe sciatic pain in a dropped foot.

00:15:32.000 His foot was going numb and he got it completely fixed with stem cells.

00:15:37.000 Wow, that's great.

00:15:38.000 Regenerative medicine is the future, man.

00:15:40.000 It's really fascinating stuff.

00:15:41.000 Part of it's pulling from your own self to heal you and mix with some other things.

00:15:44.000 Yeah, some of it and some of it they're doing from umbilical cords when a young woman gives birth.

00:15:50.000 They take the umbilical cord and they make stem cells out of the umbilical cord.

00:15:54.000 Yeah, that's great.

00:15:55.000 I'm all for it.

00:15:57.000 Dude, it's incredible stuff.

00:16:00.000 Talk to me about the visualization stuff.

00:16:03.000 So this was something that you had concentrated on earlier in your career.

00:16:07.000 Really, my whole entire life, without knowing what law of attraction was and having these people teach me this kind of stuff, I remember writing on my planner in grade school and junior high and high school like I was going to be a state champion.

00:16:22.000 That's what I wanted to be.

00:16:23.000 Our mom always gave us Christmas presents at the Jerome Schottenstein Center to go watch the state wrestling tournament in Ohio.

00:16:29.000 And everybody knows the Ohio State tournament is, you know, you've been a state champion in Ohio, you're You're elite in the nation.

00:16:34.000 It's a tough state.

00:16:36.000 So that's what we were, you know, our first sport we fell in love with was wrestling.

00:16:39.000 We traveled all over once our mom, you know, put us in it and traveled us around the country, packed in our minivans, driving all kinds of, you know, Iowa, Maryland, Florida.

00:16:47.000 Just that's what we did every weekend.

00:16:48.000 You know, that's what we enjoyed to do.

00:16:51.000 So I started visualization there with, you know, I saw the announcer's name, you know, hearing that.

00:16:56.000 So this was just in your, like, you were almost like just daydreaming.

00:16:59.000 Just daydreaming, yeah.

00:17:00.000 Just thinking about what you want.

00:17:01.000 Yeah, not paying attention in school.

00:17:03.000 But not like a, not like a form, like, like a formula, not like a formal style.

00:17:08.000 I didn't really know a formula.

00:17:09.000 Yeah, just, I would write down my weight class, my name, what high school I was representing, and I would just read that when I was in school and read it over and over again.

00:17:18.000 I would hear the The guy, the announcer's name at the Jerome Shantz, he had a distinguished voice.

00:17:24.000 And, you know, freshman, you know, Cody Garber from Uriksville, Claymont, you know, to Matt 2, like, you run out.

00:17:30.000 Like, it's going to wrestle in front of 22,000 people.

00:17:32.000 Think about it in your head.

00:17:33.000 Just, yeah, manifest.

00:17:34.000 So I was like, I'm going to be a state champion my freshman year.

00:17:36.000 And I did it.

00:17:37.000 And I think I feel like anything that I visualize like that and really put myself in those kind of uncomfortable positions now, like, I want to be a world champion now.

00:17:45.000 And to be a world champion, you have to put yourself through some misery, some straight pain to get, you know, your goals to be the top because everyone's going to, everyone's fast, everyone's tough, everyone's strong.

00:17:57.000 It's like that slight edge theory.

00:17:58.000 Like, what are you going to do that they're not going to do?

00:18:01.000 Right.

00:18:01.000 And I think going back to the three-fight skid, going to Jersey, I needed to get out of my comfort zone.

00:18:07.000 I've never been away from my son more than a week.

00:18:10.000 I had to go and reward myself with coming back to my family, coming back to my son after being away and dedicating myself to this life that I chose to do.

00:18:21.000 But, you know, rewarding myself with the wind, coming back, enjoying my son.

00:18:26.000 So every time I was away from him, I'm like, this is my deposit.

00:18:29.000 This is my deposit to get back to my son, to have these good times, make a great future for him, things that I didn't have.

00:18:35.000 You know, I'm fighting for him, you know, and things for his future, good schooling, you know.

00:18:41.000 Things like that.

00:18:42.000 So getting out of that comfort zone, going to Jersey, and then did a winner from California.

00:18:46.000 Yeah.

00:18:46.000 You know what I mean?

00:18:47.000 New training partners.

00:18:49.000 You know what I mean?

00:18:50.000 Dude, I feel like once you're a champion, you have that X on your back.

00:18:53.000 Everyone wants your best, and everyone's going to give you their best.

00:18:56.000 And I'm all for that.

00:18:57.000 I'm...

00:18:57.000 Oh, yeah.

00:18:59.000 Let's do it.

00:19:00.000 And so having those new guys on you, trying to just earn your respect...

00:19:04.000 I had to go out there and have them earn my respect to be, this kid is the real deal.

00:19:09.000 This guy is the real deal.

00:19:10.000 He's a world champion.

00:19:10.000 He's making himself come back.

00:19:12.000 And going out there, like Frankie Edgar, those guys are great.

00:19:15.000 Eddie Alvarez, Ricardo Almeida, Coach Henry.

00:19:17.000 The whole top guys in Jersey are kind of...

00:19:20.000 We laugh and joke, like, they're the Team Alpha Male East Coast, basically.

00:19:25.000 You know, we're such similar styles, wrestlers that are turning into strikers, and just the mentality of the, you know, hard work, kind of, everyone, it's a co-op.

00:19:34.000 Everyone's helping everyone out, like, oh, I'm going to hold some pads with you.

00:19:36.000 Like, Frankie was great.

00:19:37.000 He came in and helped me out when there was only four or five people in the gym.

00:19:41.000 He would give me my sparring rounds, and just a great dude, great camp to be with, and I needed that.

00:19:47.000 I think I... I don't need cheerleaders, you know what I mean?

00:19:50.000 But I need people that I respect that's going to push me the extra round to the next, you know...

00:19:54.000 How did you choose Mark Henry?

00:19:57.000 Did you guys have a conversation?

00:19:58.000 I talked to Coach Henry years before this, and anyone that knows Mark is not...

00:20:02.000 He doesn't give out compliments.

00:20:04.000 Like, you've got to earn his respect.

00:20:05.000 And I remember him telling me, you know, he's like, dude, we really love you and enjoy you.

00:20:09.000 I feel like you're going to be a world champion in a few years.

00:20:11.000 And I was like 1 or 2-0 in the UFC. And I was like, that's a high praise from a guy that's worked with Frankie and built him up and all these other fighters he's worked with.

00:20:18.000 I was like, I appreciate it.

00:20:19.000 And we kept in contact, you know, mutual respect, you know, at the fights and seeing him.

00:20:23.000 But Ali, my manager, was like, hey, like, I'm not, you know, he's giving me some of my best life advice.

00:20:28.000 I know people have this perception of him.

00:20:31.000 But he's honestly helped me out so much and my family.

00:20:33.000 But he was the one that was like, look, I don't want to tell you what to do, but I truly believe that Mark is something that you need in your life.

00:20:41.000 He's a great mentor.

00:20:43.000 He's just a great guy to be around.

00:20:44.000 Happy-go-lucky.

00:20:45.000 He wants to win.

00:20:46.000 He shows you a good life.

00:20:49.000 You know, just things that he's been through in his life.

00:20:52.000 So he's like, I think you should go with Coach Mark.

00:20:54.000 And I'm like, for me, change.

00:20:55.000 I was always...

00:20:57.000 I didn't like change, but some change is growth.

00:21:00.000 You know, I looked at it differently.

00:21:01.000 You know, going out there and battling myself to, you know, get up and...

00:21:06.000 Be out of your comfort zone going out with Coach Mark.

00:21:08.000 So Ollie's kind of one that kind of set the staple to go out there.

00:21:11.000 I reach out to Coach Mark and Frankie.

00:21:13.000 I'm like, hey, I just want to let you guys know.

00:21:14.000 I want to come check you guys out.

00:21:17.000 We'd love to work with you.

00:21:18.000 I'm still going to be here with Team Alpha and my guys that has brought me up.

00:21:21.000 But I just need a head coach, a guy like Coach Henry that showed me a lot about breaking fights down, watching...

00:21:28.000 More fight tapes.

00:21:29.000 My guys, Chris, and my coach out there, they do the same thing.

00:21:34.000 But coach is just more hands-on on that way, breaking it down and repeating it.

00:21:39.000 Here's what we're doing.

00:21:40.000 We're working 10 rounds today, 10 five-minute rounds.

00:21:42.000 We have 50 combos that we're going over.

00:21:45.000 And then that's outside of camp.

00:21:46.000 And inside of camp, we're kind of limited to 30. So that's what we're working on for the whole camp of, you know, getting ready for your adversary, what he's doing and what you need to work with him.

00:21:55.000 So breaking that down and just constantly working was just...

00:21:58.000 He's got a mind that's like no other.

00:22:01.000 I mean, I've never met a coach quite like him, that thinks like him.

00:22:06.000 You know, there's people that are on his level for sure.

00:22:08.000 I feel like Chris is right there on a full spectrum of martial arts with the grappling.

00:22:13.000 I mean, Chris, he's a bad motherfucker.

00:22:15.000 I mean, we do one-on-one private sessions, and it's like...

00:22:18.000 No, Chris is a beast.

00:22:19.000 They're horrible.

00:22:20.000 They're horrible.

00:22:20.000 That dude's like a wet blanket on you, especially when you go from pads to takedowns.

00:22:23.000 Now you're grappling.

00:22:24.000 He's putting you in those bad positions.

00:22:25.000 You've got to fight out of this guy.

00:22:27.000 It's bad.

00:22:28.000 So let me ask you, what was Mark's initial approach?

00:22:33.000 Was it concentrating on defense?

00:22:35.000 Was it feints?

00:22:36.000 What did he want you to do different?

00:22:38.000 Obviously, you're a tremendous offensive fighter, and that's always been the key to your success.

00:22:43.000 But what did he look at?

00:22:46.000 He said, this is what you're lacking, or this is what we can improve upon.

00:22:51.000 Just, obviously, the feints, the defense, you know, timing them.

00:22:55.000 Sometimes my speed is a blessing and a curse.

00:22:58.000 Sometimes I'll feint, feint twice, and they're still, you know, off the first feint, and then I'm hitting the combo, so it's like I have to kind of dub it down a little bit.

00:23:06.000 Read more feints, do more eye feints, just feints with the feet, movement-wise, because the speed is just unreal.

00:23:13.000 For Mark, he was like, you're fast.

00:23:16.000 You're probably the fastest guy I've ever seen in the octagon.

00:23:18.000 No bullshit.

00:23:19.000 Your hands?

00:23:19.000 Oh, I try to be in there.

00:23:20.000 When you hit a sunset, that's one of the things I said.

00:23:22.000 I said, I don't think there's a faster person in the sport.

00:23:25.000 You have crazy fast hand speed.

00:23:27.000 But that is true, right?

00:23:29.000 Power and speed are sometimes people just rely on them so much.

00:23:33.000 I always go back to Roy Jones Jr. The Roy Jones Jr. in his prime was the fastest fucking human being that ever lived.

00:23:39.000 He was so fast.

00:23:41.000 But because of his incredible athleticism and ability, he developed this style that was just so unorthodox that it wasn't fundamentally sound to the point of the way Bernard Hopkins fights or the way some other fighters fight where they didn't have to be as fast.

00:23:58.000 Because Roy's thing relied so much on his speed.

00:24:02.000 Speed and precision, you know, and setting up, being in the right, hitting the quick shots and getting out and then coming with other stuff.

00:24:08.000 So I feel like what Coach helped out a lot, if you look at a lot of my losses, I would load up and put my head first.

00:24:16.000 Why am I going to give you my height?

00:24:18.000 Get back to the TJ fight, right?

00:24:19.000 The two fights.

00:24:21.000 You were more emotionally invested in those fights than any fight you've ever had, right?

00:24:26.000 Definitely, and that's not me.

00:24:27.000 I don't have to.

00:24:28.000 Joe, I love to fight.

00:24:29.000 I can fight in your studio right now.

00:24:31.000 You know what I mean?

00:24:31.000 I'll kick Jamie's ass.

00:24:32.000 You know, I'll make fun of his pants.

00:24:35.000 Making fun of his pants earlier, you know?

00:24:36.000 But, uh...

00:24:38.000 Oh, wait.

00:24:39.000 Same team.

00:24:40.000 Same team.

00:24:41.000 Oh, yeah.

00:24:42.000 So, I never...

00:24:43.000 Like, for me to go in there and kind of have that, you know, just an example of...

00:24:47.000 Right.

00:24:47.000 Oh, yeah.

00:24:48.000 I don't need to do that.

00:24:49.000 Yeah, you know?

00:24:49.000 And, you know, it was great.

00:24:51.000 I was a world champion.

00:24:52.000 Felt like I had to defend it.

00:24:53.000 A lot of other stuff, you know, the backstory of it and the injury coming off the year.

00:24:57.000 I was just so...

00:25:00.000 Like I said, not mentally ready to go in there and fight.

00:25:02.000 That I physically was like overcompensated for it.

00:25:04.000 The emotions that go into a fight with someone you don't like, it's always extremely difficult.

00:25:10.000 But for you to go into a fight with someone you don't like, who you used to be tight with and used to train with, that's got to be like doubly difficult.

00:25:18.000 It's not like saying I didn't like TJ. I didn't agree with a lot of things that happened.

00:25:23.000 But that's so far in the past, you know, past that.

00:25:26.000 But Yeah, definitely taking that in there, my mental state was not what it should have been to go in against a guy like TJ. And we can fast forward to where he got popped and this and that.

00:25:39.000 TJ can be on that stuff.

00:25:40.000 He can be on that stuff and he still can't beat me.

00:25:44.000 When I'm focused and I'm mentally there and I'm in there and I'm excited.

00:25:48.000 I'm glad that he's coming back.

00:25:49.000 He's got to prove to himself.

00:25:51.000 And that's a big fight for me to come back to in the future.

00:25:54.000 That's going to happen.

00:25:55.000 I feel like TJ caught me at a time where mentally I was not in the best state of mind to go in there and be a champion.

00:26:04.000 And that's why I was taken from me.

00:26:06.000 You know, I wasn't doing the right things, you know, the slight edge things.

00:26:08.000 I wasn't doing those.

00:26:09.000 And, you know, he capitalized and I look back on it and I kept going back in those fights and a little bit of insanity.

00:26:16.000 You know, you got to be insane to repeat the same thing, thinking a different outcome.

00:26:19.000 And that's what I was doing in there.

00:26:20.000 I was always trained hard, always prepared, ready, but what was, what was, it wasn't nothing due that I needed to do.

00:26:27.000 It was just the slight, slight edge things.

00:26:29.000 Little work this, work that, like, and looking back on it, it's hindsight's 20-20, always in the fight.

00:26:35.000 But I'm thankful for that.

00:26:37.000 I have to feel like if I would have went off and defended the title, I probably wouldn't have been as hungry and motivated as I am today.

00:26:44.000 And that's going to help me out for the next five years of my career, however long I want to fight for.

00:26:49.000 You know, I always kind of break my life down into five-year increments.

00:26:53.000 But I'm excited for it.

00:26:54.000 I'm more hungry than ever because I know what it takes to get back to the top.

00:26:57.000 So when you said that you stopped visualizing for a long time and now you're doing it again, are you doing it now in, do you have like a rigid format?

00:27:05.000 Do you have like a disciplined format of visualization?

00:27:10.000 Or do you just spend time alone thinking about things?

00:27:13.000 Like how do you do it?

00:27:14.000 Yeah, I do a format, write things out.

00:27:17.000 I write out goals, three months, six months, year, five years, what I want to accomplish, whether it's financial, whether it's athletic, whether it's personal growth, spiritual growth, family growth, things like that.

00:27:27.000 So I try to prioritize what I'm lacking or what's the lower grade that I give myself and try to focus more on that so it's all balanced.

00:27:35.000 I feel like I'm trying to balance my life more as far as being...

00:27:38.000 I grew up in chaos.

00:27:40.000 I feel like I do well in that, but...

00:27:43.000 I'm at a different place in my life and what I want from my son and my future.

00:27:46.000 I want to have that balance of you're not so 100% in this and lacking this.

00:27:51.000 I want to make sure it's balanced across my goals.

00:27:53.000 But I feel like going back to talking about getting out of your comfort zone, doing things that absolutely suck and you've got to mentally put yourself in that position.

00:28:03.000 Were you in your comfort zone when you were a champion?

00:28:06.000 When you say getting out of your comfort zone, I know you trained hard.

00:28:09.000 What is different?

00:28:11.000 I think that I removed myself after winning the world title.

00:28:16.000 I didn't feel like it was everything that I thought I was going to be.

00:28:19.000 In what way?

00:28:20.000 Just the whole prolific, you're a world champion, you're the best in the world.

00:28:25.000 I never expected a lot of things that would happen.

00:28:28.000 What did you think it was going to be like?

00:28:30.000 I don't know.

00:28:31.000 I don't think I had any expectations when I feel like a lot of things change around.

00:28:34.000 Like, oh man, how does it feel?

00:28:36.000 I'm still the same person.

00:28:38.000 I'm just the number one person in the world.

00:28:39.000 What I do.

00:28:41.000 I don't know.

00:28:42.000 It just didn't...

00:28:42.000 Did you think that in achieving such a great goal that you would feel satisfied?

00:28:48.000 That you would feel like you made it?

00:28:48.000 I wasn't satisfied.

00:28:49.000 Maybe.

00:28:50.000 Maybe because that's what...

00:28:51.000 At the light of the tunnel, since I was 12 years old and I was...

00:28:54.000 Man, just through the journey of getting to where I was at, looking back on it, I was like, man, like...

00:29:00.000 You know what's next?

00:29:01.000 I didn't have the what's next Isn't it interesting like this is the thing that gets brought up all the time about fighting is that so much of it is mental Especially at the elite level like at your level so much of it is how you are approaching all aspects of your life How your relationship is going how your friendships are going like what how you what's your relationship with your family and You know, there's so much of how a fighter...

00:29:26.000 And then, what is your focus on?

00:29:28.000 Is your focus on adulation?

00:29:30.000 Is your focus on doing interviews and letting everybody tell you you're the shit?

00:29:34.000 Or is your focus on continual improvement?

00:29:37.000 And then recognize, like, yeah, you might be a world champion, but there's a bunch of hungry lions climbing up that hill to try to get to the king.

00:29:44.000 Yeah, you see it.

00:29:45.000 I have Chris Holdsworth, my coach, my trainer, my good friend.

00:29:49.000 He travels with me.

00:29:50.000 We put through hard workouts.

00:29:51.000 This morning, we're going to go after your podcast.

00:29:54.000 That's the thing, doing those, balancing that.

00:29:56.000 Okay, I might have come on your show, absolute honor.

00:29:59.000 I've got to train.

00:30:00.000 I can't take this week off.

00:30:02.000 We're here looking at homes and doing other things with PNP and my other business partners.

00:30:06.000 Just prioritizing what's important.

00:30:08.000 What's your goals?

00:30:08.000 How are you reaching those goals?

00:30:10.000 What are you working towards?

00:30:11.000 Are you reading help books, self-help books?

00:30:12.000 Are you reading books to help your mental fortitude to strengthen that?

00:30:17.000 Are you doing yoga?

00:30:18.000 There's so much resources.

00:30:20.000 And staying enthusiastic.

00:30:21.000 And staying enthusiastic.

00:30:22.000 I think that's the main thing.

00:30:24.000 I wasn't enthusiastic.

00:30:25.000 I felt like I was just going through the motions.

00:30:27.000 And there's a lot of other things.

00:30:28.000 There's a lot of things that can transpire.

00:30:31.000 But I'm solely putting the blame on myself.

00:30:33.000 Because that's all I can control.

00:30:35.000 What I do.

00:30:35.000 How I react to things.

00:30:37.000 And I wasn't the person that I am during those kinds of You know, tribulations or trials in my life.

00:30:43.000 And I've grown from that.

00:30:45.000 I was 24, 25 years old.

00:30:46.000 I'm 29 years old now.

00:30:48.000 You know, I look at the game just differently.

00:30:52.000 You know, I'm still a savage.

00:30:53.000 I'm still going to go in there and try to kill you.

00:30:56.000 Dana's gonna give us some extra money for a knockout bonus.

00:30:59.000 Sign me the fuck up.

00:31:00.000 Do you like the extra money, the bonus thing?

00:31:03.000 I don't even like win bonuses.

00:31:06.000 It drives me crazy.

00:31:07.000 I feel like a fighter should get paid.

00:31:10.000 I don't think you are trying to win anymore if you get a bonus.

00:31:14.000 You're a professional cage fighter.

00:31:17.000 It doesn't make any sense to me.

00:31:19.000 There's only one time in my professional career that I didn't get my second check.

00:31:22.000 And that shit sucked.

00:31:23.000 I was, man, I was...

00:31:25.000 Because you're banking on it.

00:31:26.000 We make our money through our fights.

00:31:28.000 And luckily we have some good sponsors if you're able to be sponsored by that.

00:31:32.000 But we fight.

00:31:33.000 That's how we make our money.

00:31:34.000 And then there's bad decisions, which is even crazy.

00:31:36.000 So it's not just that a bad decision gives you a loss, but it could cost you half of your paycheck.

00:31:41.000 That's insane.

00:31:42.000 And we don't get to run it back next week.

00:31:43.000 We gotta recover.

00:31:44.000 We might be banged up.

00:31:45.000 Dude, that was my first time after the SunSouth fight since the KMizagaki fight that I didn't get injured.

00:31:50.000 I tore tendons and ligaments and stem cells out for eight weeks.

00:31:55.000 So I was like, man, I was back in the gym Monday, hungry to go, and then fucking COVID. Get COVID. Get the title shot.

00:32:01.000 I'm like, I'm about to fight Figgy at 25. You got COVID bad, right?

00:32:06.000 Did you get COVID? Were you in the middle of training when you got it?

00:32:09.000 Were you worn out?

00:32:10.000 Dude, dead.

00:32:11.000 I was doing one training session, and actually I started the WHOOP. And I was like, man, my recovery score is 1% in the morning.

00:32:17.000 My HRV was like 13. It was 1% for like a week.

00:32:21.000 And I would only do one workout, and then I'd have to cancel on Chris and Malai.

00:32:24.000 1% is dead.

00:32:26.000 Dude, that's crazy.

00:32:27.000 But then I was like, you know, I'm just going to go ride the bike.

00:32:29.000 I was getting on those bikes doing 50 to 100 mile rides and just suffering because I had vertigo really bad, so I couldn't get in those uncompromised positions.

00:32:37.000 When did you start experiencing vertigo?

00:32:39.000 Vertigo was my first symptom of COVID, not knowing.

00:32:41.000 Did you think it was head injury related?

00:32:44.000 My doctor I went and saw, he's like, that's a concussion.

00:32:47.000 I'm like, dude, I didn't get hit hard in sparring, my fights.

00:32:50.000 I've worked on defense a lot.

00:32:52.000 I would know if it was a concussive blow that gave me vertigo.

00:32:58.000 Did you experience it after training?

00:33:00.000 Did you experience it?

00:33:00.000 Honestly, it was during grappling.

00:33:01.000 I was, like, grappling.

00:33:02.000 You didn't, like, collide heads or anything?

00:33:04.000 Nope.

00:33:05.000 Just went into the scramble, and next thing you know, I was just, like, fighting the hands off, and the whole room was spinning.

00:33:10.000 And I was actually training with Uriah, and I was like, man, he's like, you all right?

00:33:13.000 I'm like, what's going on?

00:33:15.000 I was, like, kind of, like, didn't want to end the round, so I just kind of, like, closed my eyes and, like, held onto his hands so he wouldn't choke me, you know?

00:33:21.000 He was taking my back, so I was...

00:33:23.000 Finished around and I was like, man, I just don't feel good.

00:33:24.000 And I was nauseated for a few days.

00:33:26.000 So I went to my doctor.

00:33:27.000 He was giving me like anti-nausea medicine that was making me so much more tired than I was because I was fatigued from training.

00:33:34.000 I was just trying to train through it.

00:33:35.000 I was like, I have a world title coming up in eight weeks.

00:33:37.000 Like I have to get down to 25. And my weight was good.

00:33:40.000 I wasn't restricting any calories or nothing.

00:33:42.000 But you felt something was off with your body besides the vertigo?

00:33:46.000 My body felt like I just was for a three-week period when I was training and I didn't feel like myself at all.

00:33:51.000 Just mental clarity was...

00:33:53.000 So do you think during that time you had COVID the whole time?

00:33:56.000 I think so, you know.

00:33:57.000 That is crazy.

00:33:58.000 And that makes sense that it hit you so hard because you never gave your body a break and you were beating yourself up while you were fighting off COVID. Well, I think what happened was the kidney infection in the beginning of 2020. I was on all those antibiotics.

00:34:13.000 I was on five different antibiotics.

00:34:15.000 People don't even know this.

00:34:16.000 Two weeks before the fight with the Sun Tso, the infection came back.

00:34:19.000 So I had to go to another infectious disease doctor that my doctor Hill found in Sacramento.

00:34:24.000 This lady was amazing.

00:34:25.000 Did two blood cultures.

00:34:26.000 Found out.

00:34:27.000 Got all the reports from the hospital in Jersey.

00:34:30.000 The reports from the specialists in Cleveland.

00:34:32.000 Studied those all in a day.

00:34:34.000 Got a blood culture.

00:34:34.000 I was on the wrong antibiotics.

00:34:36.000 I didn't kill the infection.

00:34:37.000 Just basically put a band-aid over it.

00:34:38.000 So I had to go 10 days to an IV fusion center to get antibiotic drip for 10 days while I'm training.

00:34:44.000 Two weeks before the fight.

00:34:45.000 I didn't let any of the UFC or anybody know.

00:34:48.000 I told Ali what was going on.

00:34:50.000 I just needed to get in that octagon.

00:34:51.000 I was like, dude, just put me in that octagon.

00:34:53.000 I know that it'll happen.

00:34:53.000 Get me there healthy and I'll be good.

00:34:55.000 But that fucks with your endurance in a big way.

00:34:59.000 Yeah.

00:34:59.000 The IV antibiotics are ruthless.

00:35:01.000 It was tough, man.

00:35:03.000 And my strength and conditioning coach, we were having the hardest time.

00:35:06.000 I was hovering around.

00:35:08.000 I was getting my heart rate up 187, and then I couldn't get it below.

00:35:12.000 It was like hover at 150, which I'm fine at staying at 150 and going up and being in that 150 to 180 zone that I can be there for a while.

00:35:19.000 But we're working on the aerobic system to drop it.

00:35:22.000 I just couldn't drop it.

00:35:23.000 It took...

00:35:24.000 About the last week of training before I flew out to the fight week to finally get my heart rate in like 35s like after a hard like a minute 30 push and then drop it down.

00:35:34.000 So I noticed something like that was it but mentally I was like it's good.

00:35:38.000 So two weeks out you did you had to do a 10 day cycle of IV antibiotics?

00:35:44.000 And then a 10 day of oral.

00:35:47.000 What?

00:35:47.000 Yeah, I was on antibiotics for literally five months almost from Jersey.

00:35:51.000 I was on five different antibiotics from the hospital.

00:35:54.000 So from the Assuntau fight, how many days did you have where you weren't on antibiotics before the fight?

00:36:01.000 I mean, I declared that I was on antibiotics all the way up to the fight.

00:36:04.000 Jesus Christ!

00:36:06.000 So you were taking probiotics to counteract the effects of antibiotics in your gut?

00:36:11.000 A lot of probiotics, yeah.

00:36:12.000 What were you taking?

00:36:13.000 Frankie Edgar's wife sent me...

00:36:15.000 They took care of me when I was in Jersey, hooked it up.

00:36:18.000 Coach brought me pizza in the hospital.

00:36:20.000 It was during COVID when it happened.

00:36:22.000 Pizza?

00:36:22.000 But don't you have to cut weight?

00:36:23.000 I don't cut weight to 35. Really?

00:36:25.000 I'm like, right now, I'm probably...

00:36:27.000 144 oh wow like i don't and i stay you know strong and fast and this is what i feel good at to fight 35 yeah i'd have to just diet a little bit like everyone else does for 25 that's why everyone's making this a big deal going to 25 it's not that was a very interesting fight you you going down to 25 was very interesting i'm so excited for especially watching the moreno and figgy fight last fight um great fight you know awesome it was entertaining but a lot of holes are A lot of holes.

00:36:53.000 A lot of things that I can, you know, take away from both fights.

00:36:56.000 Whoever wins this next one.

00:36:57.000 But I'm not going to sit idle.

00:36:58.000 Are they fighting again?

00:36:59.000 Yeah, they're rematching each other.

00:37:00.000 Really?

00:37:00.000 That's why I'm not going to wait.

00:37:01.000 It'd be eight months until I get a title shot.

00:37:03.000 So that's why I'm, you know...

00:37:03.000 Didn't Moreno fuck up his shoulder in that fight?

00:37:05.000 Ah, he did something.

00:37:06.000 Yeah, I knew he had to do some...

00:37:08.000 What a fight, though.

00:37:09.000 What a fight.

00:37:09.000 Yeah, great fight.

00:37:10.000 Yeah, I mean, I thought Moreno did great.

00:37:11.000 I think that if he had more pop to his punches, Figgy would have been in some trouble.

00:37:15.000 You know, the takedowns looked great.

00:37:17.000 You know, I think...

00:37:17.000 Matching that, getting Figgy worn out.

00:37:20.000 I felt like in that fight, Davison really put himself on the line in terms of like...

00:37:26.000 He threw himself into the fire.

00:37:28.000 He didn't fight like he was worried at all about Moreno's firepower.

00:37:33.000 He was just trying to smash.

00:37:35.000 And Moreno is a tough motherfucker.

00:37:38.000 He's tough.

00:37:39.000 He's that dude that's been in the gym for so long getting his ass kicked.

00:37:42.000 Now it's finally like, I'm starting to...

00:37:44.000 You know what I mean?

00:37:44.000 I know what you mean, yeah.

00:37:45.000 He's just one of those dudes that just...

00:37:47.000 He's like a Darren Elkins.

00:37:48.000 That guy gets his ass kicked and he'll kick ass too.

00:37:51.000 But when it comes down to the fight, this dude, he's all in.

00:37:55.000 Like the Mursad Bektik fight.

00:37:57.000 Perfect example.

00:37:58.000 That was one of the greatest comebacks I've ever seen in my life.

00:38:01.000 Yes, definitely.

00:38:01.000 Because Mursad Bektik is so technical, so fast, so precise.

00:38:07.000 The kid looks like a world champion for the beginning of the fight.

00:38:10.000 To hold Elkins down and do that, ground and pound to him.

00:38:13.000 Elkins is the number one fighter in the featherweight division with the most top game percentage per fight.

00:38:17.000 Really?

00:38:18.000 And Massat, you know, was on top of him.

00:38:20.000 I've grappled with, you know, Elkins is not, you know, easy to hold on.

00:38:24.000 He's an Indiana wrestler that's just like gritty and just like, let's go, dude, you know.

00:38:28.000 Isn't that amazing about the sport, though?

00:38:32.000 You've got to know how much gas you've got.

00:38:34.000 You've got to know when you've got to hit the gas and when you've got to back off a little, when you've got to pace yourself.

00:38:40.000 And if you try to empty out, and a guy like Elkins, who's so fucking tough, if he's still there, you've got a real problem.

00:38:48.000 Dude, when you crack someone with some of your best shots and they're just covered in blood coming forward, you're like, fuck.

00:38:55.000 Give me a baseball bat.

00:38:56.000 Let me hit this guy.

00:38:58.000 He's such a savage.

00:38:59.000 Such a savage.

00:38:59.000 Yeah, he's a great guy.

00:39:00.000 I mean, he leads by example.

00:39:02.000 He's not, you know, brash and outlandish talking.

00:39:06.000 He just gets in.

00:39:07.000 Blue-collar guy.

00:39:07.000 He's a pipefitter, you know, comes in.

00:39:09.000 and when he first moved out here he had to go back he was still UFC fighting and then part time he'd have to go back and get his union hours in and then stay for six months and come back and fight wow and so that until he finally retired from pipefitting and moved his whole family out.

00:39:24.000 Just a great guy, great family, tough as hell.

00:39:28.000 But, yeah, that is the kind of guy Marino is.

00:39:31.000 That just blood and guts, gritty guy.

00:39:34.000 And I think Figueredo...

00:39:35.000 I mean, Figueredo's so good.

00:39:37.000 I think he probably thought he was going to get him out of there.

00:39:39.000 He did.

00:39:40.000 I mean, especially with his...

00:39:41.000 Went over Alex Perez that quick.

00:39:43.000 And Benavidez.

00:39:44.000 Two knockouts of Benavidez, which is gigantic.

00:39:46.000 He's flying high.

00:39:48.000 It's good eyes on 125, but...

00:39:50.000 Motherfuck.

00:39:51.000 The Bantamweight division.

00:39:53.000 I can't leave that one yet.

00:39:54.000 There's so much going on in both divisions, though.

00:39:57.000 I'm staying here.

00:39:58.000 I'll cut the weight if you want me to fight this, but...

00:40:01.000 God, that division is stacked at 35. So you basically beat your immune system up while you had COVID and then because of that you got COVID really bad.

00:40:12.000 Yes.

00:40:13.000 So tell me what it was like.

00:40:14.000 It was horrible.

00:40:15.000 Vertigo was the first symptom.

00:40:17.000 When did they test you for COVID? I didn't get tested until I went down to Mike Tyson's ranch.

00:40:23.000 We were working with the Smart Cups company.

00:40:24.000 We're all sponsored by them doing digital videos.

00:40:26.000 It was our first kind of getting athletes together because they started doing fighters, boxers, and some rest.

00:40:32.000 WWE Kurt Angle was there.

00:40:33.000 So I had to do a rapid test like we just did here.

00:40:38.000 I waited, waited a while, and they're like, hey, we want you to do another one.

00:40:41.000 I'm like, all right, cool.

00:40:42.000 We just didn't see some things we liked.

00:40:44.000 I was like, all right.

00:40:45.000 I'm waiting for an hour, do another one.

00:40:47.000 I'm like, what did you guys see?

00:40:48.000 Another test or something.

00:40:49.000 Yeah, what did you guys see?

00:40:50.000 I'm like, oh, you failed the first one.

00:40:52.000 I'm like, well, that's a subtle way of telling it.

00:40:53.000 I want to stay away from everybody.

00:40:55.000 Everyone's coming up to me.

00:40:56.000 So I tested there in August.

00:40:59.000 And then I went, you know, quarantined, went home, did the whole...

00:41:03.000 Did you do any medication?

00:41:05.000 What did you do?

00:41:05.000 I did a Z-Pak.

00:41:07.000 I got on an inhaler because I had pneumonia.

00:41:09.000 I got pneumonia.

00:41:12.000 Vertigo.

00:41:12.000 And then I did like a 21-day because I had it so bad.

00:41:15.000 I kept getting tested like every three weeks.

00:41:16.000 And you kept having it.

00:41:17.000 Kept having it.

00:41:18.000 I did molecular tests, which was like some of the best ones to do.

00:41:22.000 Is that the PCR test?

00:41:23.000 Yes.

00:41:25.000 And just kept negative, negative.

00:41:27.000 My doctor was like, hey, we're going to quit testing you.

00:41:29.000 You mean positive.

00:41:30.000 You kept testing positive.

00:41:31.000 Positive for it.

00:41:33.000 And I'm like, dang, this is crazy.

00:41:35.000 And I had started to have the symptoms going away.

00:41:39.000 Like, pneumonia was fine.

00:41:40.000 My lungs were good.

00:41:41.000 Like, I felt it.

00:41:41.000 That's when I started cycling a lot.

00:41:43.000 So I was out there just pushing the lungs.

00:41:45.000 That's what my doctor said was the best thing to do is...

00:41:47.000 Riding that bike that much is getting those lungs to keep working because you have pneumonia really bad.

00:41:53.000 Jesus Christ.

00:41:53.000 Wow.

00:41:54.000 I felt horrible.

00:41:55.000 I thought cycling was one of the hardest to do.

00:41:57.000 Isn't it funny because you would think, like most people would think that a guy who's a world championship caliber fighter is the type of guy who would get COVID and it would just burn right through his system.

00:42:06.000 But because you were training while you had it and beating yourself up, it just got deep into you.

00:42:12.000 Deep.

00:42:13.000 I mean, it took over my body, but I think, honestly, from the kidney infection being on the antibiotic, my immune system was so weak.

00:42:19.000 How much time was there between the kidney infection, the antibiotics, and then getting COVID? Dude, I literally got out of the hospital and I texted Dana like, hey, I heard you did a press conference about having a fight.

00:42:29.000 My kidney levels are good.

00:42:30.000 I'm waiting for maybe have to do a biopsy, but I want to fight.

00:42:33.000 He's like, all right, work on it.

00:42:35.000 I was like begging Sean.

00:42:35.000 So you got COVID right away?

00:42:37.000 So after the fight, I had June to August.

00:42:42.000 So it was from the kidney infection, the fight, two fight camps basically.

00:42:47.000 One didn't happen.

00:42:49.000 Building myself back up from where I was at, getting ready to fight a Sun Tau the first time in March.

00:42:54.000 Dude, I literally had to start walking on a treadmill for a couple weeks to get my...

00:42:59.000 I was in rough shape.

00:43:00.000 Wow.

00:43:01.000 And I started training at my business partner's house.

00:43:04.000 He had a home gym because everything was closed.

00:43:05.000 Uriah's gym wasn't open.

00:43:06.000 He said, dude, I got a treadmill.

00:43:07.000 I got weights, kettlebells, you know, on a kettlebells.

00:43:10.000 And so I went over there and just started to train and I'm like, I'm getting myself ready.

00:43:15.000 And it was brutal, brutal, brutal training getting back in there.

00:43:18.000 And this is pre-COVID? This is pre-COVID. This is kidney infection.

00:43:22.000 Kidney infection.

00:43:23.000 Jesus Christ.

00:43:24.000 So your body was obviously already compromised.

00:43:26.000 Oh yeah, I was very compromised.

00:43:28.000 Still on antibiotics.

00:43:29.000 They still had me on antibiotics to clean out the infection.

00:43:32.000 I was on it for like a 30-day antibiotic from the hospital.

00:43:35.000 So August you get COVID. How long before it clears your system?

00:43:39.000 How long before you start feeling good?

00:43:42.000 Months like I literally I went to Miami and work with this company called amino wells and they did that kind of injections where we talked about I kind of stem cell injections throughout my body arms And I kind of started feeling a lot better at like the week after then I did a month on the injections with the three milliliters a Week and I felt really good body felt good Clarity went away.

00:44:05.000 I actually had to go to Arizona, the Mayo Clinic.

00:44:08.000 Dana thought I had Meniere's disease, so I went and saw his doctor that did his surgery.

00:44:12.000 They gave him a shot in his ears.

00:44:14.000 Did all these testings, hearing tests.

00:44:17.000 Did you have ringing in your ears?

00:44:19.000 I had ringing bad in my left ear.

00:44:21.000 I have a loss of hearing in this ear, and they don't know why.

00:44:26.000 I think maybe because I'm...

00:44:28.000 This is my lead.

00:44:29.000 And you get hit in the left ear a lot.

00:44:31.000 I get hit.

00:44:31.000 That's all I can say.

00:44:32.000 I'm like, I don't know.

00:44:32.000 I haven't shot a gun without, you know, anything like that.

00:44:35.000 You know, trying to just figure out why it's ringing.

00:44:37.000 It makes like this popping noise.

00:44:39.000 Oh.

00:44:40.000 And I was just getting so like dizzy.

00:44:42.000 I couldn't even do anything.

00:44:44.000 So that probably contributed to the vertigo for sure, right?

00:44:48.000 Usually it's ear things.

00:44:50.000 Yeah, they said crystals.

00:44:51.000 I had vertigo before.

00:44:52.000 I worked with UPMC. I was out for a whole year.

00:44:55.000 My pro debut broke my hand.

00:44:56.000 I had vertigo from crystals being out of the air.

00:44:59.000 I went to the UPMC. Crystals?

00:45:01.000 Crystals, yeah.

00:45:01.000 It was an irregular tube that was throwing my equilibrium off, which basically is positional vertigo.

00:45:06.000 That's the most common one.

00:45:08.000 A lot of people just can sneeze wrong or do something, sleep wrong on their neck, and they have vertigo.

00:45:13.000 And there's a maneuver you do to put it back.

00:45:15.000 Yeah.

00:45:15.000 It wasn't positional vertigo.

00:45:17.000 It was just literally COVID had me so messed up.

00:45:20.000 So your body was so compromised from the antibiotics, the kidney infection, a second kidney infection.

00:45:26.000 So you were just basically getting your health back.

00:45:30.000 Which is crazy that you beat a Sun Tso in that state.

00:45:34.000 Yeah.

00:45:34.000 Because you had to be clearly compromised.

00:45:36.000 There's no way you could have been 100% if you went through that much antibiotics before that fight.

00:45:41.000 But I think that goes back to my mental state where I was at.

00:45:45.000 I knew that I needed to get in that octagon and change this around.

00:45:47.000 I was not living a life like this.

00:45:49.000 I was tired of living on a three-fight skid.

00:45:51.000 I was ready to just get back in there.

00:45:53.000 And when you know, like for me, like we talked about earlier with the TJS fights, I don't have to go in there and be angry and upset and want to rip this head or hate this guy.

00:46:00.000 I have hatred for this guy.

00:46:01.000 It's a flip to switch.

00:46:03.000 Like when you know, you have it in you or you don't.

00:46:05.000 And that's been bred in me.

00:46:07.000 I've had it.

00:46:08.000 So I just needed to get in there.

00:46:10.000 I was like not taking no for an answer.

00:46:11.000 I mean my coaches and stuff like oh I don't know if you're gonna make it you know and coach Mark I'd call him because we basically did I would film my pad work and my sparring rounds and send it to a coach on whatsapp and then he would break everything down do more of this do less of that looking good looking fast on the you know your left toe counter off things like that so we did virtually you know Camp through there so then when he came out I kept working the codes to you know keep working your codes keep working you know and make sure you're doing under nine things like that and

00:46:43.000 then when we came to fight week it was just So, talk me through, you got COVID tested in August at the Tyson Show.

00:46:52.000 You knew that you had it.

00:46:54.000 When are you free of it?

00:46:58.000 This is the first test that I've passed since...

00:47:01.000 Really?

00:47:01.000 Today?

00:47:02.000 My doctor quit testing me.

00:47:03.000 February?

00:47:04.000 February, yeah.

00:47:05.000 Jesus!

00:47:05.000 See how excited I was?

00:47:06.000 I was like, dude, I'm free.

00:47:08.000 I'm free of it.

00:47:09.000 It was literally a couple months of having it, testing it, to where my doctor was like, I'm not going to send out any more tests because there were 72-hour return ones and...

00:47:17.000 Every time you did it, you had it?

00:47:18.000 Every time I did it.

00:47:19.000 And this is for months?

00:47:20.000 Tested my son.

00:47:21.000 He didn't have it.

00:47:22.000 I mean, we were...

00:47:22.000 I was...

00:47:23.000 Your wife didn't get it?

00:47:24.000 She ended up getting it.

00:47:27.000 But it wasn't as severe.

00:47:28.000 It was a couple months ago that she got it.

00:47:31.000 Two months ago, her and her twin got it.

00:47:33.000 And it was kind of, you know, they were sick, but not like what I had.

00:47:35.000 Like, I was just...

00:47:37.000 Yeah, well, you're a perfect example of, you know, obviously you're a super healthy guy and an elite athlete, but when you put yourself through training camp, there's only one way to get in shape.

00:47:48.000 You've got to beat yourself up.

00:47:50.000 There's no other way around it.

00:47:51.000 It's true.

00:47:51.000 And when you are so tough that you push through, even though you had COVID, and you let that shit get deep into your system, there's a lesson in there for people.

00:48:01.000 You know, because there's tough...

00:48:03.000 Tough's important.

00:48:04.000 You don't get where you get without being tough.

00:48:06.000 But there's also, you got to be able to take a step back and go, it's not wise to push sometimes.

00:48:16.000 And I think, honestly, if I got tested before having COVID, then, I mean, before I first had the first, like, I've had this before.

00:48:23.000 You probably never got it.

00:48:24.000 You probably would have had it for a couple of weeks or whatever.

00:48:27.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:48:28.000 It wouldn't be as...

00:48:29.000 Took over my body.

00:48:29.000 Then I came back and I hit pads the first time.

00:48:31.000 I'm like, dude, I'm in great shape because I was cycling 100 miles.

00:48:34.000 We had a hard pace.

00:48:36.000 We were riding four or five times a week, building the legs up.

00:48:40.000 So I started hitting pads again.

00:48:41.000 I was excited.

00:48:42.000 I'm back in the gym.

00:48:42.000 I can be around people.

00:48:43.000 Because on the bike, I was just on the bike trail on the road, just suffering on the bike.

00:48:48.000 Came back, hit pads the first time.

00:48:50.000 Man, my bicep was so sore that I remember going to sleep that night and waking up in excruciating pain.

00:48:56.000 Wow.

00:48:57.000 And my bicep was just filled up with blood like this.

00:48:59.000 I thought I tore my bicep.

00:49:00.000 So I went to my doctor and he ultrasounded it and he thought it was a distinal bicep tear.

00:49:05.000 You know, DM did it.

00:49:06.000 I'm like, fuck, I gotta call Dana and tell him, like, hey, I'm just tore my bicep and then get the MRI. Get the MRI. Nothing's torn.

00:49:13.000 It was a guy that I had to go get an urgent ultrasound.

00:49:17.000 I tore my vein in half.

00:49:19.000 And it ripped in half.

00:49:20.000 Oh, wow.

00:49:21.000 And then I had three blood clots.

00:49:23.000 So immediately they started injecting me with blood thinners.

00:49:26.000 I've been on blood thinners since three months.

00:49:31.000 This is because of COVID as well.

00:49:33.000 That's another thing that happens with people that have severe cases of COVID. They get blood clots.

00:49:37.000 And my business partner, Jeremy...

00:49:40.000 So Perkins, he owns PNP Medical, which they work with COVID, or they work with blood clots.

00:49:45.000 They have, you know, the devices they sell to doctors and hospitals.

00:49:48.000 And the whole time he's like, dude, I think you have a blood clot.

00:49:51.000 I'm like, there's no way I have a blood clot.

00:49:52.000 That's the number one silent killer in the nation is blood clots because people don't know they have it.

00:49:57.000 I had three of them in my arm.

00:49:58.000 Didn't even know.

00:49:59.000 That's crazy.

00:50:00.000 I just had, like, my arm was sore for a while.

00:50:01.000 So you were on blood thinners now?

00:50:03.000 I just finished up my last.

00:50:05.000 I was on blood thinners for almost three months.

00:50:07.000 So how do they know when to get you off them?

00:50:09.000 How do they know that you're okay?

00:50:10.000 So I was going every month after I did a month of blood thinners.

00:50:15.000 I was getting ultrasounds.

00:50:16.000 Re-altrasound me.

00:50:17.000 They were literally going from...

00:50:18.000 Because I literally had my...

00:50:20.000 My vein was like an electric cord, hard, like a rope.

00:50:24.000 I couldn't even set my arm down.

00:50:25.000 It was so sore, like driving the console.

00:50:28.000 And this only manifested itself when you started hitting pads?

00:50:31.000 After I hit pads, like my arm...

00:50:32.000 You didn't feel that before that?

00:50:34.000 No, like it blew the vein.

00:50:36.000 Wow.

00:50:36.000 It ripped the vein in half.

00:50:37.000 So your body must have been...

00:50:38.000 See, that's the thing too, right?

00:50:40.000 Like, I'm sure when you came back, you tried to rip...

00:50:43.000 Oh, dude, I was horny.

00:50:45.000 I was so horny.

00:50:46.000 You wanted to smash those pads.

00:50:47.000 I was feeling good.

00:50:49.000 I was in great shape.

00:50:50.000 My conditioning was on another level.

00:50:51.000 World of class always is.

00:50:53.000 All that cycling.

00:50:54.000 Yeah, and I was not getting tired.

00:50:56.000 Oh, no.

00:50:59.000 And usually my biceps hurt after I hit strikes.

00:51:01.000 I'm just hooking and just...

00:51:04.000 For the first few times if I don't hit pads in a while.

00:51:06.000 But this was another pain.

00:51:08.000 I woke up and my brother just moved in with me.

00:51:11.000 And I woke up in the middle of the night and it was at 6 and I had Chris's class.

00:51:14.000 And I literally hit my arm on the side.

00:51:17.000 I was like, I don't think I can go do jiu-jitsu.

00:51:19.000 I'm like, I got hill sprints.

00:51:20.000 I'll go do hill sprints in the afternoon.

00:51:22.000 Text my doctor, I'm like, hey, can you check my arm out?

00:51:24.000 And he was like, holy shit, man, this is not good.

00:51:27.000 So how long were you on the blood thinners for?

00:51:29.000 It was almost three months.

00:51:30.000 I just got off.

00:51:31.000 When I go back from here, I go to the hospital and get an ultrasound to see if the...

00:51:36.000 Because the one blood clot reabsorbed, but I still had one blood clot since the last one.

00:51:41.000 It has a superficial vein.

00:51:43.000 I learned a lot about health this year from the kidney infection, the blood clots.

00:51:49.000 And now I just did a blood panel.

00:51:51.000 So every camp before, I'm going to get a blood panel of things, checking what I'm low on.

00:51:55.000 Maybe a vitamin or supplement can help me out and not break my body down.

00:51:58.000 Dude, we're training two, three times a day.

00:52:01.000 You understand it.

00:52:02.000 A lot of people don't.

00:52:03.000 Just to get to the fight is amazing.

00:52:06.000 But to be able to peak on that night...

00:52:09.000 It's an art form.

00:52:10.000 It's an art form.

00:52:11.000 Yeah, it's scientific.

00:52:12.000 You have to really know your body and I usually do.

00:52:15.000 When you train with Mark Henry, does he have any different approach to strength and conditioning?

00:52:20.000 Does he leave that to other people?

00:52:21.000 Does he advise you in that or is he just technique oriented?

00:52:24.000 You know what he harps on and brags about and it's so funny from a boxer.

00:52:28.000 All boxers talk shit about wrestlers.

00:52:30.000 Like, oh, you're in those singlets.

00:52:32.000 He's like, get your wrestling.

00:52:34.000 Because he's fucking smart.

00:52:36.000 Dude, he knows.

00:52:37.000 He understands.

00:52:38.000 I mean, Rutgers is right there, so we have the Rutgers in the New Jersey Training Center.

00:52:41.000 So we go to train with those young, hungry college kids who are trying to fuck you up.

00:52:45.000 I'm sure.

00:52:47.000 All Americans, or you have the international wrestlers that are on the training center.

00:52:52.000 And it's just a dogfight, man.

00:52:54.000 You get those kids.

00:52:54.000 You're hand fighting for 10 minutes with these dudes and live wrestling.

00:52:58.000 And we all have wrestling backgrounds.

00:53:00.000 And it's funny, when we get into MMA, we kind of dip away from wrestling so much because we're focused on striking and jiu-jitsu.

00:53:06.000 And what got us there was those grinding wrestling matches when you're just, ah, man, it's miserable.

00:53:12.000 And so he always says, hey, every time I get off the phone with him, we're about to hang up.

00:53:16.000 He's like, hey, get your wrestling in.

00:53:17.000 I'm like, all right, cool.

00:53:18.000 Yeah, for sure.

00:53:19.000 Yeah.

00:53:19.000 It's great.

00:53:20.000 So he harps on that.

00:53:21.000 Obviously strength and conditioning is big as well.

00:53:23.000 But don't...

00:53:25.000 See what I do?

00:53:27.000 I do strength and conditioning outside of camp.

00:53:29.000 That's when I rebuild my body, back, everything that I need to do that's going to get torn down in fights.

00:53:35.000 So I build this armor in camp and then I push the first four weeks outside of camp.

00:53:40.000 And when I get in camp...

00:53:41.000 The first four weeks are brutal.

00:53:42.000 You're sore.

00:53:43.000 You're hurt.

00:53:43.000 And then the last four weeks, you kind of modify your workouts to where you're...

00:53:48.000 So you don't do much actual strength and conditioning while you're in camp?

00:53:51.000 I do.

00:53:51.000 I touch the weight.

00:53:52.000 I touch the weight.

00:53:53.000 It's more for aerobic skill work.

00:53:57.000 I have my coach, Amadeo Novello, has worked with Danny and TJ and Joe.

00:54:03.000 So these guys see new methods that we're doing, and Danny always walks in and is like...

00:54:08.000 Wish I had this when I was a guinea pig, you know, overtrained.

00:54:11.000 He's learned so much and has us peeking at, you know, a strength weight and aerobic and just using all your different systems to formulate an MMA because, you know, like anybody, MMA training is so much different.

00:54:24.000 When you go in an MMA fight, you have to be a conditioned boxer.

00:54:28.000 You throw kicks in with boxing now, you're taking about a whole different cardio.

00:54:31.000 Then you've got to wait for...

00:54:32.000 You've got a guy like Khabib trying to fucking just take you down and be a wet blanket on you.

00:54:37.000 And then you have to get back on your feet and fight him.

00:54:39.000 Yeah.

00:54:41.000 The cardio and the conditioning, I think, it scares me.

00:54:44.000 I get scared before my workouts.

00:54:45.000 I go there an hour before and everyone's like, oh, you're here early.

00:54:48.000 I'm like, well, I have to mentally prepare myself to put my body through that.

00:54:53.000 And I think that, going back to the slight edge there, I see a lot of my teammates, they're walking in, they're late, they have no urgency.

00:54:59.000 I'm like, I just couldn't do it.

00:55:00.000 I have to mentally put myself in there, what I'm going to do.

00:55:02.000 I might pass out.

00:55:03.000 I'm probably going to throw up.

00:55:05.000 I'm going to push my limits to where I'm going to feel like I'm going to pass out or I'm going to be sick after.

00:55:08.000 I feel like that's a slight edge theory you have to do and just getting to that point because, dude, how embarrassing would it be that I'm better than this fighter but my conditioning was worse and that's why he beat me.

00:55:20.000 Dude, being exhausted, having fatigue will make you a coward in any circumstance.

00:55:25.000 Vince Lombardi, right?

00:55:26.000 Fatigue makes cowards of us all.

00:55:28.000 Yeah, that's my favorite quote.

00:55:30.000 We had that in our wrestling room and I didn't even know what fatigue was.

00:55:33.000 As a kid, I'd always see this in our high school wrestling room.

00:55:36.000 We grew up in it.

00:55:37.000 We're homegrown from...

00:55:38.000 I had kids tying shoes on the first time on the mat to, you know, wherever you go to college after, like the same wrestling room.

00:55:44.000 The same coach was there for 30-some years, Eric Tokenan, and he was just old school, old school, and had quotes, and I'm like, fatigue makes cowards.

00:55:52.000 That one stuck in me, and then I figured out what fatigue was.

00:55:54.000 I'm like, well, I'm not going to be a coward.

00:55:56.000 I knew what a coward was.

00:55:57.000 I didn't know what a fatigue was, but...

00:55:58.000 And I'm not going to be tired.

00:55:59.000 I'm not going to be a coward.

00:56:01.000 Talk to me about the cycling, because I think that's really interesting that you developed all this endurance from cycling.

00:56:07.000 I mean, I go back to when Nick Diaz was in his prime, and one of the things that separated Nick from everybody was his elite cardio.

00:56:14.000 Nick has swam from Alcatraz five times.

00:56:18.000 Maybe more since then, because I remember I said twice once, and he corrected me.

00:56:23.000 He goes, five times!

00:56:25.000 I wouldn't do it one time.

00:56:27.000 That's shark infested waters!

00:56:28.000 Dude, I go to the beach and I'm all for it.

00:56:30.000 My son loves the beach, always wants to go.

00:56:33.000 I got to see my feet in the water.

00:56:34.000 I can't be out too far.

00:56:36.000 I got to see my feet.

00:56:37.000 The wife, she's out there.

00:56:38.000 She's Thai, so she's like, oh, I'm out in the deep end.

00:56:40.000 But yeah, that world-class cardio, that's what I think separates it.

00:56:43.000 Like...

00:56:44.000 Yeah, there's something about that, right?

00:56:46.000 The running, the swimming, the riding.

00:56:48.000 And I think because you're so alone in yourself, you're swimming, you're swimming.

00:56:52.000 What are you doing?

00:56:53.000 You're on the bike, you're in your thoughts, you're running, you're in your thoughts, you're pushing yourself.

00:56:57.000 And then you get into that, well, I've done defeated myself, I've done pushed myself past this limits where I want to give in.

00:57:03.000 Now I have another human that might have some will, that might give...

00:57:07.000 A little eye or body language that he doesn't want to be in here, now you start getting that confidence.

00:57:12.000 And I feel like for me, going into a fight is my confidence comes through my hard work, knowing that I left no stone unturned.

00:57:21.000 And I feel like that just, but you have to be smart with it.

00:57:25.000 Are you going to do that in all your future camps now or leading up to it?

00:57:30.000 It's because it seems like it was very effective for you.

00:57:33.000 Yeah, I feel like I just did my VO2 testing, you know, as high as it's ever been.

00:57:37.000 I feel like I have world class cardio, especially when the rounds get deeper.

00:57:42.000 I feel like I get better in the fight.

00:57:43.000 As I get tired, I get sharper, I feel, when I'm, you know, putting the work in great shape, of course.

00:57:50.000 So definitely, I think I have to tailor my cycling.

00:57:52.000 I'm not going to be, because I have back problems, you know, I've had some back issues.

00:57:56.000 Being in that bike for 7 hours riding 100 and some miles in that crouch over position, it locks you up.

00:58:02.000 Have you ever talked to Volkanovski?

00:58:04.000 I haven't, no.

00:58:05.000 He had a pretty severe back injury, and his back would blow out during every camp.

00:58:09.000 But then he got a really good strength and conditioning coach and worked with him on strengthening his back, and he's never had a problem since.

00:58:16.000 Because a lot of what happens with people that have back issues, where sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad, is the muscles around the back aren't conditioned to maintain posture, maintain the training camp, and then they give out.

00:58:29.000 And when the muscles give out, then you hurt your back again.

00:58:32.000 Then the big muscles lock up, yeah.

00:58:33.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:58:34.000 So my strength and conditioning coach, Dale Novella, my PT, Russ, down here from Kind Performance, they've worked with a lot of baseball players who throw a lot like fighters.

00:58:43.000 So I don't do a lot of front-loaded squats, back-loaded squats.

00:58:46.000 I do split stance.

00:58:49.000 Single leg, a lot of single arms, single leg.

00:58:51.000 Lunges, that kind of thing.

00:58:52.000 Just to get the weight evenly distributed so it's not heavy load on one side.

00:58:56.000 I feel like that's been a huge advantage as far as strength where I'm not getting my back locked up.

00:59:02.000 I can still do these deadlifts.

00:59:03.000 I can still touch this heavyweight because you need to build your body in those backs.

00:59:06.000 Have you ever seen that harness system that Louie Simmons from Westside Barbell created?

00:59:10.000 He's in Columbus.

00:59:12.000 Yeah, Marcus Marinelli, a steep base coach, has one we used to train on.

00:59:16.000 That thing is amazing.

00:59:17.000 I got one in my old gym in...

00:59:19.000 What do they call that?

00:59:19.000 It drops down?

00:59:20.000 Belt squat?

00:59:21.000 Belt squat, yeah.

00:59:22.000 We have one at the old gym in California, and now I have one in my house from Sorenix, but it puts all the weight on your hips, so your back doesn't take that load.

00:59:33.000 Yeah, we have one at the gym.

00:59:33.000 It's called a pit shark.

00:59:35.000 And it's, yeah, the same thing.

00:59:37.000 Just puts it on the hips and you can just rip it.

00:59:39.000 So, yeah, we utilize that a lot.

00:59:41.000 Obviously, the machine that you gave me or told me to get reverse hyper.

00:59:45.000 That's another Louis Simmons.

00:59:46.000 That guy's a fucking wizard.

00:59:48.000 And then the machine that you just kind of like lay there and it kind of elongates the other...

00:59:53.000 Oh, yeah, that's the Dex from the company.

01:00:01.000 Dex 2. Yeah, Dex 2 from...

01:00:03.000 Goddammit.

01:00:05.000 It's one of the sponsors.

01:00:06.000 Teeter.

01:00:07.000 Yeah, Teeter.

01:00:08.000 They're the folks that have that...

01:00:10.000 Well, first of all, they have those boots that you can hang from those gravity boots, which are phenomenal.

01:00:16.000 And then that thing is the shit.

01:00:19.000 That Dex...

01:00:21.000 Is that a different one?

01:00:22.000 It looks a little different.

01:00:23.000 It's just a different color, I think.

01:00:24.000 Okay.

01:00:24.000 That thing is the shit.

01:00:27.000 That is my all-time favorite back.

01:00:29.000 You could do those back hyper extensions.

01:00:33.000 But in terms of loosening up your back and having your back decompressed, what I like about that over even the regular teeter is that this one, you're hinging from the hips.

01:00:47.000 Mm-hmm.

01:00:47.000 So you're not supporting yourself at all with your ankles or anything else.

01:00:51.000 Your body weight, in terms of your lower body, is all supported by your thighs so you can completely relax your back.

01:00:58.000 And the decompression is just phenomenal.

01:01:00.000 I love that thing.

01:01:01.000 Yeah, I'm thankful you gave me that or helped me get that.

01:01:04.000 I love it.

01:01:05.000 Because my back, you know, that was when I was on the show three years ago when I had the back problems.

01:01:09.000 I literally get on there and my back starts getting tight from training or riding.

01:01:12.000 I'll lay in there, you know, five minutes at a time, you know, just kind of decompress.

01:01:16.000 The reverse hyper to strengthen it and also active decompression from the reverse hyper and then that thing.

01:01:21.000 Those two together are fucking phenomenal.

01:01:23.000 Yeah, and I feel great.

01:01:24.000 I mean, I'm going to knock on this wood, but...

01:01:25.000 That's good.

01:01:26.000 Do you do any yoga or anything as well?

01:01:29.000 I do.

01:01:29.000 I mean, we spoke about that on a podcast years ago about doing hot yoga.

01:01:33.000 And I started getting into that.

01:01:35.000 But like I said, I do five days a week of PT. I do manual work with cupping and blading and grasping.

01:01:46.000 I've never had cupping done.

01:01:47.000 How is that?

01:01:48.000 What does that do for you?

01:01:49.000 It makes you have weird circles all over your body.

01:01:54.000 I feel like the only problem with that leading up to a fight is when guys see it.

01:01:59.000 Like the Adesanya fight with Paulo Costa.

01:02:03.000 He had them all around his calves.

01:02:06.000 I was just like, that ain't good.

01:02:07.000 If Izzy sees that shit, he's gonna know.

01:02:10.000 Yeah, and I was getting a lot of work done, too, during one of my fights with TJ, the first one in Madison Square.

01:02:16.000 I had Heather from the UFC come in, and I was just pretty banged up my neck and just stiff in my hand.

01:02:24.000 I've found use with cupping as far as my hips, getting hips getting kind of bound up.

01:02:29.000 So what does it feel like?

01:02:30.000 It loosens you up?

01:02:31.000 I feel like when you have a physical trainer and you're in these hips and you're hugging your other knee and these open up your whole exterior line, it just helps get the blood flow reacted there.

01:02:45.000 Traumatize it and then alright, the body's like, oh shit, something's happening here.

01:02:47.000 We gotta hurry up and he'll get the blood flowing there.

01:02:50.000 I think that's what happens a lot.

01:02:52.000 But I started doing dry needling too.

01:02:54.000 And a lot of athletes, like fast twitch athletes, it depletes them.

01:02:59.000 Like it just, and your muscles are just so fatigued and fried.

01:03:02.000 From dry needling?

01:03:03.000 From dry needling.

01:03:04.000 Really?

01:03:05.000 Just hits that nerve and it just spazzes it out and the muscles is like...

01:03:09.000 I don't know what it does.

01:03:11.000 My trainer, he did on some OBJ. Odell Beckham, he said that when he would do it, he would be kind of on rest for two days because his body's so fast twitched.

01:03:24.000 But I feel like when I'm that bound up, I need to do something like that.

01:03:27.000 But going to the PT, doing mobile strength and conditioning together, and just stretching.

01:03:35.000 Honestly, stretching and drinking a ton of water.

01:03:37.000 Like, staying hydrated was a huge thing.

01:03:40.000 Stretching is a funny thing because it's so important for fighters, but so few fighters really stretch.

01:03:45.000 Yeah.

01:03:46.000 They train, they maybe do a little bit of stretching, and then at the end they're done.

01:03:50.000 But it doesn't suck any more than strength and conditioning work, but for whatever reason, people don't like stretching.

01:03:55.000 I think it's the...

01:03:56.000 The middle, like, oh man, I gotta go stretch.

01:03:58.000 It's hard, but it's like, I can go and kill a two hour workout or an hour workout with pads or grappling.

01:04:04.000 Yeah.

01:04:04.000 Cause you express aggression.

01:04:05.000 Yeah.

01:04:05.000 Express aggression.

01:04:06.000 Like you're like, this ain't doing, but it's actually going to help you out in the long run.

01:04:10.000 The one that sucks the most is when you're, um, sitting your legs straight out and you touch your toes and you bring your body down cause you can't breathe.

01:04:17.000 So you're holding on your feet and you stretch it and it's like your hamstrings and your body's like, just stop, just stop doing this.

01:04:23.000 You can't breathe.

01:04:24.000 Come on.

01:04:25.000 You want to quit?

01:04:26.000 Oh yeah.

01:04:26.000 You want to quit.

01:04:26.000 That is, to me, the most annoying stretch.

01:04:29.000 I've done so with my Pedro fight.

01:04:32.000 I tore all my carpius radius flexor tendon in my wrist.

01:04:38.000 How'd you do that?

01:04:39.000 Just fucking wide open slanging shit.

01:04:42.000 Slinging it from my belt waist.

01:04:45.000 Are you sparring hard or are you sparring technically?

01:04:49.000 Nah, I don't really spar.

01:04:50.000 I mean, I'll go in and spar.

01:04:52.000 I don't need to, Joe.

01:04:53.000 I feel like I know how to fight.

01:04:55.000 I feel like you do need to go in and get some shit thrown at you, but more technical sparring.

01:05:00.000 You just need to have someone throwing fast shit at you, like Chris.

01:05:02.000 He'll be throwing kicks and combos and our pad work, and he'll be moving around.

01:05:06.000 But I'm not taking those hard shots.

01:05:09.000 That's very wise.

01:05:09.000 I'm getting comfortable with getting stuff thrown at me and retaliating.

01:05:13.000 When did you shift?

01:05:16.000 I started shifting it probably prior to, you know, right after the Pedro fight, I would say.

01:05:24.000 I started doing that more and more.

01:05:25.000 Did you decide that you were getting beat up too much in training?

01:05:29.000 Honestly, I wasn't.

01:05:29.000 That's the thing.

01:05:30.000 Like, I felt like I was...

01:05:32.000 What made you make the shift?

01:05:34.000 I just wanted to train smart.

01:05:36.000 I didn't know if I was overtraining, over sparring.

01:05:38.000 Because I would get to the fights, Joe, and I would just be like, fuck, I gotta fight.

01:05:42.000 I felt like I was overtrained.

01:05:45.000 Is that also why you started getting the whoop strapped?

01:05:48.000 Yeah, the whoop was huge.

01:05:50.000 I kind of wanted to show you where your recovery is.

01:05:52.000 There's some days like you're not going to go over this strain, but it's sparring day.

01:05:56.000 You know you're going to go over that strain, but it's going to have...

01:05:58.000 Okay, after that sparring day, you're going to maybe take the night off instead of doing a pad session.

01:06:03.000 You're going to let yourself...

01:06:04.000 So I'm pretty much in tune with my body prior to having this.

01:06:08.000 It's just a tool to help me know...

01:06:10.000 Sleep, you know, HRV. I think that's a heart rate variable is great.

01:06:14.000 What your resting heart rate's at.

01:06:15.000 And then obviously, you know, the sleep's the huge thing.

01:06:18.000 Recovery for us is how much can you recover and go the next day?

01:06:21.000 I love the fact that it gives you real data so you don't have to guess.

01:06:23.000 Yeah.

01:06:24.000 You don't have to say, oh, I feel pretty good.

01:06:25.000 You can actually look at the Whoop app and it'll show you exactly where your body's at based on just real, pure feedback.

01:06:34.000 Not intuition, not guesswork.

01:06:37.000 Right, and you wear it for a while, what, 30 or 40 days, and it acclimates to your body, so it has that grace period of, like, get to know your body.

01:06:46.000 Training-wise, you know, like, I'll be done with a training session, and they'll already know that it was a kickboxing workout.

01:06:51.000 Yeah.

01:06:51.000 Because of my heart rate.

01:06:52.000 Are you putting it on with one of those impact straps?

01:06:55.000 I have the impact straps when I grapple, but sometimes when I spar, I think I have it positioned right on my wrist that I wrap it with my hand wrap and then tape it, and it doesn't mess my wrist up.

01:07:05.000 Oh, okay.

01:07:06.000 So the strap's cool.

01:07:09.000 The strap was good, actually.

01:07:11.000 And I think closer to your heart, obviously, is going to get a better reading.

01:07:14.000 Is that real?

01:07:16.000 It sounded awesome.

01:07:18.000 It sounded great.

01:07:20.000 I don't know if that's the case.

01:07:22.000 You should just wear a chest strap.

01:07:23.000 Yeah, because I feel like when I wear the chest strap, but then you have it right in your sternum.

01:07:26.000 When you're sparring, you get front kicked or knee to the sternum.

01:07:28.000 I mean, I got hit there before with that thing.

01:07:30.000 That does not feel good.

01:07:32.000 It's not fun.

01:07:33.000 I'm like, shit.

01:07:33.000 No.

01:07:34.000 It goes flying everywhere.

01:07:36.000 You're trying to catch it in between sparring.

01:07:38.000 But this is nice.

01:07:40.000 It keeps it right in there with that sleeve.

01:07:42.000 And then with this covered up, it doesn't really bother me too much.

01:07:46.000 But I do do the strap when I do cardio and where I can check my phone.

01:07:52.000 Like when I'm doing the strength and conditioning.

01:07:53.000 But grappling, I want to make sure...

01:07:55.000 I want to know what my heart rate's at.

01:07:58.000 The UFC's have started doing punch dialysis.

01:08:02.000 They put the meters in your glove.

01:08:04.000 They cut it out and put this thing in your gloves.

01:08:08.000 Have you done that?

01:08:10.000 So just showing the volume of punches or the impact?

01:08:13.000 Impact.

01:08:14.000 I don't know what's in there.

01:08:16.000 I don't know what they're checking.

01:08:17.000 They're just like, oh, we're taking our gloves and, you know, you pick your gloves and then they give you the fight day.

01:08:22.000 During the fight, there's a little thing in your gloves.

01:08:26.000 Yeah, they literally cut your glove where the UFC logo was at and slide this thing in.

01:08:30.000 They take it out after each fight and put it in.

01:08:31.000 So he has your data.

01:08:33.000 I want to find out what it says with Francis.

01:08:36.000 Yeah, I was smart.

01:08:37.000 I'd always have a pair of gloves.

01:08:39.000 Dude, you get those gloves fight week, they're stiff as hell.

01:08:41.000 You know what I mean?

01:08:42.000 Like, oh, we're going to wrap them up and put it in this bag.

01:08:43.000 They're going to be in this little bag.

01:08:45.000 You get out, they're going to be at work.

01:08:46.000 So I used to always bring a pair of gloves that I would use the last two weeks of training camp so they'd already be broken into my hands.

01:08:52.000 I would just switch it out, and I got so nervous when they were like, oh shit, they got stuff in the gloves, like, we can't use our old gloves now.

01:08:58.000 Do you feel it any different?

01:08:59.000 No, not really.

01:09:00.000 No?

01:09:01.000 I just, slight edge thing, you know?

01:09:02.000 Right.

01:09:03.000 Slight edge thing, so, uh, but yeah, they tore us out, so I was like, I chickened out last fight.

01:09:07.000 I'm like, oh no, we gotta use these ones.

01:09:10.000 What do you mean?

01:09:10.000 So I would always bring in a pair of gloves that I had, and I would just have them in my bag, and I'm like, these are broken in, not these ones that are fresh and stiff as hell.

01:09:18.000 But do they make you wear those stiff, fresh ones?

01:09:21.000 Yeah.

01:09:22.000 I mean, that's what they give you.

01:09:23.000 But you couldn't use the ones that you had?

01:09:25.000 They wouldn't let you?

01:09:26.000 I don't think they would let you.

01:09:28.000 I just always did.

01:09:31.000 You just always would do it?

01:09:32.000 Yeah.

01:09:35.000 The gloves are not the best.

01:09:39.000 It's tough.

01:09:40.000 Eye poking, my thumbs.

01:09:43.000 Trevor Whitman has a phenomenal design.

01:09:47.000 His Onyx gloves, his MMA gloves, first of all, his boxing gloves, all of his gear is top of the food chain.

01:09:55.000 Shout out to Trevor.

01:09:57.000 He's the fucking man.

01:09:59.000 How many times have you been to a gym and you're like, Fuck, I forget my hand wraps.

01:10:02.000 And you can't hit with it.

01:10:03.000 Well, if you heat molded your gloves, you don't really need a hand wrap for that thing.

01:10:07.000 They're just so good.

01:10:08.000 They're just so much better designed.

01:10:09.000 What about his headgear?

01:10:11.000 Everything's great.

01:10:11.000 Everything he makes is great.

01:10:12.000 Shin pads, everything he makes is great.

01:10:14.000 But the thing, to me, is his gloves, his MMA gloves, they're superior.

01:10:20.000 They're a better design.

01:10:21.000 And I don't know what the deal is, why they can't make a deal with the UFC to use those Onyx gloves.

01:10:27.000 They should...

01:10:28.000 Fucking figure out a way to make it happen.

01:10:31.000 They are the best gloves.

01:10:32.000 They're so much better.

01:10:33.000 The hand positioning is better, first of all.

01:10:36.000 It forces your hand into this position.

01:10:38.000 Instead of like this, with MMA gloves, with UFC gloves, your hands want to extend.

01:10:45.000 It wants to open your hand up, and you have to force it closed.

01:10:49.000 Trevor's gloves want your hand closed.

01:10:51.000 They curve at the end.

01:10:53.000 It puts you in a natural curved position.

01:10:55.000 To be able to strike.

01:10:56.000 And they're better in terms of the protection they offer your hands.

01:11:00.000 Knuckles?

01:11:00.000 I'm all for that.

01:11:01.000 I mean, my hand's busted up.

01:11:03.000 Dude, as hard as you hit.

01:11:04.000 Busted.

01:11:05.000 I broke the hand.

01:11:06.000 I always have, you know, I wrap it, tape it.

01:11:08.000 See if you can get a photo of his Onyx glove.

01:11:11.000 What do you love about that?

01:11:12.000 Literally one year ago today is when Rashad was on the podcast to premiere them.

01:11:16.000 Oh, wow.

01:11:17.000 Really?

01:11:17.000 Was it?

01:11:18.000 Those gloves, yeah.

01:11:21.000 Officially, I guess.

01:11:21.000 He measured me and shit and 3D scanned me and he's supposed to send me a bunch of shit.

01:11:26.000 But those are pride gloves, those on the right hand side.

01:11:30.000 Those are boxing gloves.

01:11:31.000 Yeah, those are the boxing gloves.

01:11:32.000 Is those his MMA gloves right there?

01:11:34.000 What is that?

01:11:34.000 Where you were just at?

01:11:35.000 Where you're cursing?

01:11:35.000 Right there.

01:11:36.000 Click on that.

01:11:37.000 Nope, those are boxing gloves as well.

01:11:39.000 He's got...

01:11:40.000 Oh, it's right there, the white ones.

01:11:42.000 That's them.

01:11:43.000 Those are the shit.

01:11:45.000 They are the shit.

01:11:46.000 They are so much better than any...

01:11:48.000 I've fucked with the Pride gloves.

01:11:50.000 I've touched a lot of different people's gloves and put them on different...

01:11:54.000 And a lot of good ones.

01:11:55.000 But those, head and shoulders above everybody else's.

01:11:58.000 They are phenomenal.

01:11:59.000 And they have the best protection for your hands, too.

01:12:04.000 Trevor Whitman, please change the gloves.

01:12:08.000 It's a new year, come on.

01:12:10.000 I know they were working on some sort of a deal, but for some reason they couldn't come to some agreement for whatever reason.

01:12:18.000 How many people get poked an eye in a fight?

01:12:20.000 A lot, man.

01:12:22.000 And it was less in pride.

01:12:23.000 Did you notice?

01:12:24.000 Less people got poked in pride.

01:12:26.000 The gloves were more curved in pride.

01:12:28.000 I'm all for it.

01:12:29.000 Let's start it.

01:12:30.000 Yeah, something needs to change because the eye pokes are...

01:12:34.000 I mean, Nick Lentz, I don't know if it was a poke or what, but he lost 40% of his vision in one of his eyes.

01:12:39.000 And he just retired from that.

01:12:40.000 He just retired, yeah.

01:12:41.000 He said his last fight he was seeing double.

01:12:43.000 I mean, look at...

01:12:43.000 Well, Bisping, I believe, was a kick that fucked his eye up.

01:12:47.000 And then subsequent surgeries and, you know...

01:12:50.000 It's happened to me before I got kicked in the eye in sparring and the toenail raised my eye and cut my eye and...

01:12:56.000 Luckily, I didn't have anything detached or anything bad.

01:12:59.000 That's how Mike Winklejohn lost his eye.

01:13:01.000 Holding pads for somebody.

01:13:02.000 Guy got him with his fucking toenail.

01:13:04.000 That whole camp, I couldn't spar.

01:13:06.000 My eye was bloodshot for like two months.

01:13:09.000 I guess I was just there.

01:13:10.000 I had to fight.

01:13:11.000 The things that people don't know about what fighters go through.

01:13:14.000 The headaches were crazy, man.

01:13:16.000 From that?

01:13:18.000 Intense.

01:13:19.000 From the eye pain?

01:13:20.000 From the eye pain, yeah.

01:13:21.000 I had to get drops in my eyes for two weeks.

01:13:24.000 Jesus Christ.

01:13:26.000 Damn, dude.

01:13:27.000 It's been a journey though, man.

01:13:28.000 It's been fun.

01:13:29.000 I mean, I would love to do it all over again.

01:13:31.000 Now, where are you at now?

01:13:32.000 Do they have anything lined up for you?

01:13:34.000 Obviously, you're clear of COVID now.

01:13:36.000 Clear of COVID. I let Dana and Sean, UFC brass know.

01:13:38.000 When did you start feeling like you felt 100%?

01:13:41.000 I mean, today was the first day you tested negative.

01:13:43.000 But when did you start feeling 100%?

01:13:46.000 I'd say about a month ago.

01:13:47.000 Jesus Christ!

01:13:49.000 About a month ago.

01:13:49.000 A month ago, folks, is January.

01:13:51.000 We're in February now.

01:13:53.000 We're talking about a disease that you caught in August.

01:13:55.000 That is crazy.

01:13:56.000 To where I could feel like I could go and push myself and then the next day be able to, or that night, be able to recover.

01:14:03.000 So you were a good four plus months just wrecked.

01:14:06.000 Horrible, yeah.

01:14:07.000 Trying to just work through it.

01:14:08.000 I still work through it.

01:14:09.000 Third of a year!

01:14:10.000 Still riding the bike, still doing my strength and conditioning individually when I had the COVID. Or you still have the symptoms.

01:14:19.000 You know, they have all kinds of studies that say you're only, you know, contagious the first 48 hours, this and that.

01:14:24.000 What?

01:14:25.000 48 hours?

01:14:26.000 I don't know.

01:14:26.000 I've read up and done so much studies on what it is.

01:14:30.000 Really?

01:14:30.000 I don't think that's true.

01:14:31.000 Yeah.

01:14:31.000 I don't think that they...

01:14:32.000 Maybe they just changed their...

01:14:33.000 In the beginning, they had all these thoughts in the beginning that they thought, you know...

01:14:38.000 Double mask!

01:14:39.000 Yeah.

01:14:39.000 Well, now they're triple-mouthed.

01:14:40.000 Triple-mouthed is safe.

01:14:41.000 Even better.

01:14:42.000 Dude, we flew out here.

01:14:43.000 I saw a lady with a double mask, a shield, and goggles, and gloves.

01:14:47.000 Yeah, I've seen this.

01:14:47.000 My friend Reggie.

01:14:51.000 Sorry.

01:14:53.000 My friend Reggie Watts turned me on to this.

01:14:56.000 Look at this.

01:15:00.000 Come on, son.

01:15:02.000 Am I upside down?

01:15:03.000 No.

01:15:04.000 Is this the right way?

01:15:05.000 Yeah, there's a pad up for the forehead.

01:15:08.000 Come on, son.

01:15:09.000 How about this?

01:15:10.000 Dude, I need one.

01:15:11.000 Where's Reggie at?

01:15:12.000 Let me fly home.

01:15:13.000 I don't want to experience COVID again.

01:15:15.000 I don't think you're going to catch it again, right?

01:15:18.000 You must have mad antibodies.

01:15:23.000 Maynard Keenan from Tool, he got COVID a second time.

01:15:27.000 Bad.

01:15:27.000 He had it bad once and he got it a second time.

01:15:30.000 Yeah, I started cycling, so I started following some of the athletes that were top in the world.

01:15:34.000 The cyclist athlete, he got it twice, you know, back-to-back.

01:15:38.000 That's one of those things where I wonder if it's because they're training so hard.

01:15:43.000 Because when people train so hard, your immune system gets crushed.

01:15:47.000 Yeah, I think so.

01:15:49.000 Everyone said that to me.

01:15:50.000 Like, oh, you're a world-lead athlete.

01:15:52.000 You should be able to get this.

01:15:54.000 And I thought that, too.

01:15:55.000 Because I remember, what, Pedro Munoz, when he was fighting Frankie, tested positive, had to push it back.

01:16:00.000 Like, he's getting ready to fight.

01:16:01.000 Like, he had no symptoms.

01:16:02.000 Like, he was good.

01:16:03.000 Like, he was asymptomatic, maybe.

01:16:05.000 But then he pushes it back, you know, a month or so, and he's still fighting.

01:16:09.000 Gilbert Burns, same thing.

01:16:10.000 Yeah, I guess everyone's different.

01:16:12.000 Somehow, you know, it attacks you differently.

01:16:14.000 But I truly believe that mine stemmed from, you know, the kidney infection breaking my body down with the damp antibiotics.

01:16:20.000 But what was I supposed to do?

01:16:21.000 Did other guys in the gym get it?

01:16:24.000 There's a few.

01:16:25.000 Not like a huge outbreak, you know, outspread of anything.

01:16:28.000 A handful here and there where we closed down for, you know, a week.

01:16:31.000 And how did most guys, what was their cases like?

01:16:34.000 Not what I had.

01:16:36.000 Mild?

01:16:37.000 Mild.

01:16:37.000 I honestly don't know.

01:16:38.000 I mean, I could probably just stem to that, you know, being on the antibiotic and When you're on antibiotics, it's not good.

01:16:44.000 It's not good for you.

01:16:45.000 No.

01:16:45.000 It's terrible for you.

01:16:46.000 I had to do, though.

01:16:47.000 The recovery from that is rough, too, because your body just does not want all that stuff in the system.

01:16:54.000 All those antibiotics, they kill the good bacteria, too.

01:16:58.000 I was feeling horrible.

01:17:00.000 I wasn't even drinking coffee.

01:17:01.000 My stomach was so upset.

01:17:03.000 I couldn't even drink coffee.

01:17:03.000 I love coffee, you know?

01:17:04.000 Dude, I had staph once.

01:17:06.000 The first time I got staph, I had it and they put me on some heavy antibiotics.

01:17:12.000 And boy, did that give me so much respect for people that have fought on antibiotics.

01:17:18.000 Because I never realize how bad it wrecks you.

01:17:22.000 Luke Rockhold won the title.

01:17:24.000 He beat Chris Weidman on antibiotics, which is fucking insane.

01:17:29.000 When you do antibiotics, I felt like my head was filled with cotton.

01:17:34.000 I was like, ugh.

01:17:35.000 Oh, it was horrible.

01:17:36.000 I hope my body was weak.

01:17:37.000 Every punch I got hit in training and just little things, I was like, ah, that shit hurt way more than it should have.

01:17:42.000 You know what I mean?

01:17:43.000 It was all fragile.

01:17:44.000 Terrible.

01:17:44.000 I was like, man, just give me a tampon.

01:17:46.000 I'm getting the fuck out of here.

01:17:47.000 I'm being a bitch right now.

01:17:48.000 So, now you're clear.

01:17:51.000 And now, what is, like, do you contact the UFC and say, hey, I need three months?

01:17:55.000 I need, you know, what do you say?

01:17:57.000 I told Dana that I'm healthy, Sean, Ali.

01:18:00.000 I'm keeping good communication with them.

01:18:02.000 I got a relationship with them outside of, you know...

01:18:05.000 Business and friendship, but when it comes to business, let Ali go in there and do that.

01:18:09.000 So I told him, hey, I'm ready.

01:18:10.000 I'd like to fight Jose Aldo.

01:18:12.000 They told me I had a title shot.

01:18:13.000 I'm not going to wait until eight months and see what the flyweight division is going to do.

01:18:17.000 I'm healthy.

01:18:18.000 I want to get in there and fight.

01:18:19.000 I want to fight two or three times this year.

01:18:21.000 Jose Aldo is a phenomenal legend.

01:18:24.000 A lot of respect for him coming off a big win.

01:18:25.000 He was right there fighting for the title of the fight before.

01:18:29.000 I think that's a great fight stylistically for me.

01:18:32.000 And it gets me up.

01:18:33.000 It gets me hungry, motivated.

01:18:34.000 I'm going to fight a legend.

01:18:35.000 He's at my weight.

01:18:36.000 I get to fight Jose Aldo.

01:18:38.000 I get to stay at 35. Is that the proposed fight?

01:18:41.000 Or is that what you're wanting?

01:18:42.000 That's what I'm wanting.

01:18:44.000 Ali told me that everyone's for it.

01:18:45.000 Dana just has to make the fight.

01:18:47.000 So, how many months would you need now, knowing that you're over the illnesses?

01:18:52.000 I've been saying April.

01:18:53.000 I've been saying April, and Ollie talked to me yesterday and said, you know, maybe May.

01:18:59.000 I said, if it doesn't happen April, May, we've got to move different opponents, and I'm ready to fight.

01:19:04.000 But you want him because he's a big name?

01:19:06.000 Big name, firmware champion.

01:19:07.000 There's a lot at stake.

01:19:08.000 I like the stylistically fight.

01:19:11.000 This is looking not past him.

01:19:13.000 But if I'm going to fight Aldo and I still have the title shot at 25, which they've told me, but obviously a rematch.

01:19:20.000 I'm for it.

01:19:21.000 I want to fight for it.

01:19:22.000 I want to earn my spot like I did in the beginning to be a champion.

01:19:24.000 What would you prefer?

01:19:25.000 What if Marino gets injured and they say Figueiredo wants to fight you?

01:19:30.000 Would you prefer that or would you prefer the Aldo fight?

01:19:33.000 Either fight.

01:19:35.000 I just want to fight.

01:19:35.000 You just want to fight.

01:19:36.000 Any fight, to be honest.

01:19:37.000 Any fight that makes sense to me, makes sense to my career, where I'm going.

01:19:40.000 And if I'm having the title fight after, you know, whoever is declared winner, and say, Moreno's a striker, you know, Figge's a striker, Aldo's a striker.

01:19:49.000 It's not that I have to get ready for a different camp.

01:19:50.000 I don't have to get ready for this jiu-jitsu savant.

01:19:53.000 Well, Figge Reno's a jiu-jitsu savant, too, man.

01:19:56.000 That motherfucker's got a guillotine in the house.

01:19:58.000 100% takedown defense.

01:19:59.000 I would love for him to try to take me down.

01:20:01.000 I'm going to box that fool up.

01:20:02.000 Honestly, I'm so...

01:20:03.000 You know, I'm confident.

01:20:04.000 I'm confident in that.

01:20:05.000 You sound very confident.

01:20:07.000 After watching that fight, I'm telling you what, if I hit him as many times as Moreno hits him, he's going to be face down ass up.

01:20:13.000 He fought almost like Moreno had no business in there with him.

01:20:17.000 And Moreno does...

01:20:19.000 Moreno's tough.

01:20:20.000 He's tough as fuck.

01:20:20.000 He's tough.

01:20:21.000 He's a gritty dude like we talked about earlier.

01:20:22.000 He's going to keep coming.

01:20:23.000 You're going to have to knock that dude out and stop him.

01:20:25.000 But what a fight that was.

01:20:26.000 It was great.

01:20:26.000 Because of the way he fought and, you know, Moreno's style.

01:20:29.000 I think he exploited a lot of weaknesses, the takedowns, the punches on the brakes, the kicks, was really what stood out with me.

01:20:39.000 He was blitzing with the hands and, you know, Figgy goes down with his hands and those kicks were coming.

01:20:43.000 He was catching me caught with the kicks.

01:20:45.000 He got hit with a lot of stuff that's, I feel like I'm better, faster, stronger than, And vice versa, Viggy, if I'm fighting Moreno, he's...

01:20:53.000 Well, it'd be interesting to see you at 25 because you'd be really big.

01:20:57.000 You'd be really big for that weight class.

01:20:59.000 I feel that Figuereda has been at our gym.

01:21:02.000 He's a big dude.

01:21:03.000 He's done two or three camps at our gym, Team Alpha Male, with the Brazilian connections that we have.

01:21:07.000 That fool's bigger than me.

01:21:09.000 Yeah, he's big.

01:21:09.000 He walks around bigger than I do.

01:21:11.000 Well, he is fucking shredded when he gets down to 25. And he's missed it before, you know what I mean?

01:21:17.000 He missed it for the title when he fought Joe Benavidez the first time.

01:21:20.000 I mean, that just shows you where you're at.

01:21:23.000 You're cutting all that much weight.

01:21:24.000 He's just honestly fighting out of his weight class.

01:21:27.000 He cuts out much weight.

01:21:28.000 And that's why I like 35 because I'm not that person.

01:21:30.000 But if I have opportunity to go and help a division and bring awareness and bring attention to it, I'm all for that.

01:21:37.000 That's what we spoke about with Sean and the UFC and Dana and Mick.

01:21:41.000 Yeah, I would love to be able to bounce back and forth, not just win these titles and be like, oh, I'm going to retire.

01:21:45.000 What did you think about TJ trying to get down to 25?

01:21:48.000 I thought that was the scariest I ever saw a fighter look, like, leading up to a weigh-in.

01:21:53.000 I knew he was going to get knocked out.

01:21:54.000 Did you?

01:21:55.000 I knew, uh...

01:21:56.000 Because he was just so depleted.

01:21:57.000 I think Monster sent a video of him doing this.

01:21:59.000 I'm just like, ah, his neck was just too frail.

01:22:02.000 His face.

01:22:02.000 His face, neck.

01:22:03.000 He had no fat.

01:22:05.000 Yeah, no fat at all.

01:22:06.000 And he was clearly, like, eating his muscle tissue.

01:22:10.000 For sure.

01:22:10.000 Like, that was not healthy.

01:22:11.000 And TJ walks around bigger than I do.

01:22:13.000 You know what I mean?

01:22:14.000 About 10 pounds.

01:22:15.000 TJ's probably, you know, 55s, you know?

01:22:17.000 And was cutting down to that...

01:22:18.000 To 35 and then made it all the way down to 25. Exactly.

01:22:22.000 That training lab that he works out with, that...

01:22:25.000 Cavio?

01:22:25.000 Yeah.

01:22:26.000 I'm fascinated by that guy.

01:22:28.000 It's really interesting because they've got it down to a science, like everything from your nutrition to...

01:22:34.000 The cardio, all the different types of workouts that they do.

01:22:38.000 And the guy does everything out of his fucking garage.

01:22:40.000 Out of his garage, that's awesome.

01:22:42.000 It's pretty wild.

01:22:42.000 Yeah, it seems like it's work.

01:22:44.000 I know my buddy Lance Palmer, he trains with Coach Cavia and speaks highly of him.

01:22:49.000 He works out.

01:22:49.000 It's structured for him.

01:22:51.000 He has his program.

01:22:52.000 He's in Jersey.

01:22:53.000 He can do the training at home.

01:22:54.000 He can do it at his house.

01:22:55.000 He's in Ohio.

01:22:57.000 So that's great.

01:22:59.000 Lance is one of those guys.

01:23:00.000 He's a workhorse.

01:23:00.000 You tell him, here's what's on the agenda, you're going to do it.

01:23:03.000 Is he with the PFL now?

01:23:06.000 He's with PFL. Back-to-back champ.

01:23:09.000 The first ever in their organization.

01:23:11.000 He's getting ready, I think, April.

01:23:13.000 The featherweight tournament starts again.

01:23:15.000 So he's getting ready to ship out to camp to Coach Henry as well.

01:23:18.000 PFL is interesting now, right?

01:23:19.000 Because now they just took on Rory McDonald and they got Showtime Pettis.

01:23:24.000 So they're juicing up their roster.

01:23:26.000 They got some new heat.

01:23:28.000 It's nice for a lot of the fighters to have options.

01:23:31.000 Fuck yeah, dude.

01:23:32.000 It's nice to see Rumble and Yoel Romero at Bellator.

01:23:35.000 Holy fuck, they're fighting each other.

01:23:36.000 That's amazing.

01:23:37.000 I'm excited for that.

01:23:38.000 It's a big fight.

01:23:39.000 For both of them, I mean.

01:23:40.000 Yeah.

01:23:41.000 Wow, that's going to be a fight.

01:23:42.000 Look, Bellator's put on some great fucking fights recently.

01:23:45.000 Mousasi versus Douglas Lima was a great fight.

01:23:47.000 They've got a lot of heat there now.

01:23:49.000 They've got that Russian champ that just beat Bader.

01:23:52.000 I mean, that dude's solid.

01:23:53.000 He's a beast.

01:23:54.000 Yeah, oh man, he's huge.

01:23:55.000 They've got great fighters.

01:23:56.000 They've got great fighters.

01:23:57.000 I'm excited for that fight.

01:23:58.000 Yeah, I just don't like the name Bellator.

01:24:00.000 I think it's a dumb name.

01:24:02.000 Bellator, yeah.

01:24:03.000 It doesn't make any sense.

01:24:04.000 What's a Bellator?

01:24:05.000 Yeah, just call it MMA. I mean...

01:24:08.000 Let's go fight in that steel cage.

01:24:10.000 People want a champion.

01:24:13.000 You have an organization.

01:24:14.000 You've got to have a name for your organization.

01:24:16.000 But I felt like with boxing, whether it was the WBO or the WBC or the IBF, here's the lightweight champion of the world.

01:24:25.000 Here's the welterweight champion of the world.

01:24:27.000 This is the WBC welterweight champion.

01:24:29.000 They need something like that.

01:24:30.000 Yeah, for sure.

01:24:31.000 Because a Bellator is like, what is a Bellator?

01:24:33.000 Unification.

01:24:34.000 It means warrior in Latin.

01:24:35.000 That's not the worst name.

01:24:36.000 Get the fuck out of here.

01:24:38.000 Who's speaking Latin?

01:24:39.000 It's a dead language.

01:24:40.000 Who knew that?

01:24:41.000 I did.

01:24:41.000 I knew it.

01:24:42.000 We looked it up before.

01:24:43.000 But it's goofy.

01:24:45.000 Yeah, UFC is nice.

01:24:46.000 It's catchy.

01:24:47.000 It's short and syllable.

01:24:49.000 UFC. It's like Q-tips.

01:24:51.000 They got it locked up.

01:24:53.000 Do you train UFC? I train UFC. Everybody does.

01:24:57.000 Nobody wants cotton swabs.

01:24:58.000 You got any Q-tips?

01:25:00.000 It's a fucking Q-tip.

01:25:01.000 That's right.

01:25:02.000 No one asks for cotton swabs.

01:25:04.000 Do you ask for a tissue or do you ask for a Kleenex?

01:25:07.000 He asked for a fucking Kleenex.

01:25:09.000 Ah, tissue.

01:25:12.000 I don't know.

01:25:15.000 My argument did fall apart, you're right.

01:25:16.000 No, that was great, yeah.

01:25:17.000 I was doing good for a little while.

01:25:18.000 Fucking tissue.

01:25:20.000 Kleenex.

01:25:21.000 Do you ask for petroleum jelly or do you ask for Vaseline?

01:25:25.000 Vaseline.

01:25:26.000 Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

01:25:29.000 It's just the name UFC means so much.

01:25:32.000 You know, it's like, I don't care how big the XFL gets.

01:25:35.000 Yeah.

01:25:35.000 The NFL is the NFL. UFC, NFL. NBA. You grew up watching that shit.

01:25:39.000 It's like UFC, you know.

01:25:41.000 You have yourself there and everybody that's...

01:25:44.000 Liddell's, Latito's, they branded that.

01:25:46.000 This weekend, I'm flying to Vegas for the fights and I'm fucking pumped.

01:25:51.000 Kamaru Usman versus Gilbert Burns.

01:25:53.000 That is a wild fight.

01:25:55.000 I'm pulling in that fight.

01:25:56.000 I'm really pulled at it.

01:25:57.000 I like both dudes.

01:25:58.000 I think both are great assets.

01:26:00.000 I just feel...

01:26:03.000 And then it wavers because now you have Usman working with Trevor fucking Whitman.

01:26:08.000 How great is that?

01:26:09.000 I know when I went to Coach Henry for that time, shorter time, how much I leveled up.

01:26:12.000 Maybe that could have been a difference in Usman striking and opening up his game more, working with a coach at that much knowledge and to give into the game.

01:26:21.000 I mean, look, Gilbert's working with Henry Hoof, too.

01:26:24.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:26:25.000 And there's no weakness there.

01:26:27.000 Look, Gilbert is a monster.

01:26:29.000 He's a terrifying guy, because Gilbert is a guy that was torturing himself to get to 155, moves up to 170, and he's just smashing people.

01:26:37.000 And the way he beat Tyron Woodley, boy, did that open up a lot of fucking people's eyes.

01:26:41.000 That first combination that he threw at him, I was like, holy fuck.

01:26:44.000 when he dropped him you're like oh jesus christ and on top of that world champion in jujitsu i mean gilbert's a phenom on the ground and like what camaro's good at is wrestling you know what i mean like camaro is also good at just mental toughness his mind is as strong as any man that fights in the octagon he's rock solid i mean you're talking about a guy who's never been taken down never been dropped I mean, he's a fucking monster, man.

01:27:10.000 Kamaru is a monster.

01:27:11.000 And then fought in his fight with Masvidal with a broken nose.

01:27:14.000 He shattered his nose before that fight.

01:27:17.000 After the fight, they're testing.

01:27:18.000 They go, you got a broken nose?

01:27:19.000 He's like, yeah, I had that already.

01:27:20.000 I've had that, thanks.

01:27:21.000 I had that coming into the fight.

01:27:22.000 Can we get it fixed now?

01:27:23.000 Yeah.

01:27:24.000 I mean, literally had a shattered nose coming into one of the most high-profile fights of his life.

01:27:28.000 And that shit that, you know...

01:27:30.000 The general public don't understand what you go through to get to the fight.

01:27:33.000 He didn't even talk about it until recently.

01:27:35.000 No one even knew about it until recently.

01:27:38.000 He knew what he was going to do was win at all costs.

01:27:41.000 I'm a big fan of both of those guys.

01:27:43.000 I think that's a wild fight.

01:27:45.000 It's great.

01:27:45.000 And they train together.

01:27:46.000 Yeah, and they train together.

01:27:49.000 I trained with TJ going into those fights.

01:27:52.000 I knew what I did in training, and training is training, though.

01:27:55.000 But you also know tendencies, you know where you have an advantage.

01:27:58.000 Exactly.

01:27:59.000 Training is training, but...

01:28:01.000 Especially fighting, because you're going against TJ, he's not your fucking friend on the mat.

01:28:05.000 That motherfucker wants to win at all costs.

01:28:07.000 So do I. We're competitive.

01:28:09.000 You get us in a room of...

01:28:10.000 Sharks, you want to be the top shark.

01:28:13.000 You want to be the cream rises to the top.

01:28:15.000 I think everyone on our team is so good and we just level up with each other because if you're a guy in the room pushing the pace and you want to be that guy that's the man, the other guys are going to, the room elevates.

01:28:27.000 Do you ever run into him since then?

01:28:30.000 TJ, no I haven't actually.

01:28:33.000 How do you think you guys would talk?

01:28:35.000 Do you think you would or do you have any animosity?

01:28:38.000 No, I don't, man.

01:28:38.000 You know what I mean?

01:28:39.000 Like I said, I feel like it was a lifetime ago and I was just a different person with the approach of everything.

01:28:47.000 I feel like we've both probably hopefully grown from there.

01:28:50.000 I know he's had his...

01:28:53.000 Stuff to come over, you know, with the testing positive for the EPO. Two-year ban.

01:28:57.000 Two-year ban, you know.

01:28:58.000 And all eyes are on him now.

01:29:00.000 Oh, yeah.

01:29:00.000 You can't fuck up now.

01:29:01.000 And then if he falls off, like if his performance is off, or if people think that he's not the same fighter, then they're going to call into question his legacy.

01:29:10.000 Well, same here.

01:29:11.000 Same here.

01:29:11.000 I was the undefeated world champion.

01:29:14.000 Right, but you didn't cheat.

01:29:15.000 I didn't cheat, but I fell off.

01:29:17.000 Right.

01:29:17.000 I started losing fights.

01:29:18.000 But there's a difference.

01:29:18.000 Right.

01:29:19.000 There's a difference.

01:29:19.000 What I'm saying is, like, the real problem with someone getting caught for performance-enhancing drugs is now the public is looking at your next performance and...

01:29:28.000 Look, if a guy takes two years off and comes back, you're assuming there's going to be a certain amount of octagon rust.

01:29:35.000 Maybe.

01:29:36.000 Some guys don't have it, some guys do.

01:29:38.000 But if a guy comes back after a two-year ban, and he was banned because of performance-enhancing drugs, and then there's a drop-off, then people are going to be pointing a finger at you.

01:29:49.000 that'll just be a case rested with knowing that he was on that the whole time you know and just now got tested for you know you saw it as great you know all for testing but we're pissing in a cup yeah you know how hard is a test for EPO like come on I don't know how hard it is because I don't They normally test for it.

01:30:09.000 Yeah, they don't.

01:30:09.000 They don't normally test for it.

01:30:11.000 It's extensive testing.

01:30:12.000 It's expensive testing to do.

01:30:14.000 So why are we getting tested?

01:30:15.000 I remember when USADA first came in, we used to get random drug tests, quarterly whereabouts, we're addressed at 365. They would come in the morning, they would come in Sundays, afternoons, just sporadic to try to catch people, which I'm all for.

01:30:31.000 They used to bring a phlebotomist who would take blood.

01:30:35.000 I was like, oh, this is awesome.

01:30:36.000 You know, we're doing urine and blood.

01:30:37.000 And then it stopped with the phlebotomist coming and giving the blood.

01:30:40.000 It was just urine.

01:30:41.000 I'm like, how easy is this to just...

01:30:44.000 Is it?

01:30:45.000 Because they keep catching people.

01:30:46.000 You got to think, man.

01:30:47.000 If you have a...

01:30:48.000 I don't know.

01:30:48.000 This is my theory.

01:30:49.000 If you have a doctor you're good friends with and you give them like, here's $100,000 to help me get this test and, you know, and check my levels and know that I got a peek at this or I have to be off at this time.

01:31:00.000 You don't think a doctor's out there in the world that's going to help?

01:31:02.000 Well, listen, there's a guy on YouTube.

01:31:04.000 His name's Derek, and he's got a YouTube channel called More Plates, More Dates.

01:31:09.000 And he's a chemist and is, like, involved in bodybuilding.

01:31:13.000 But he talks openly about the benefits of performance-enhancing drugs, whether or not people are natural or not, how people are getting caught.

01:31:21.000 And he has this thing on Paulo Costa, what he thinks Paulo Costa's on.

01:31:25.000 He gets into that, and he also gets into John Jones.

01:31:29.000 And what he thinks was happening and why he thinks that there's giant flaws in the USADA testing protocol.

01:31:37.000 But this guy is super informed.

01:31:40.000 Check him out.

01:31:41.000 Very, very intelligent.

01:31:43.000 Like I sent it to Shob.

01:31:44.000 I go, dude, watch this video.

01:31:45.000 This is fucking crazy.

01:31:46.000 Because he details all the stuff that you can do to skirt the USADA protocols.

01:31:52.000 I bet.

01:31:52.000 And it's pretty weird.

01:31:54.000 Like, I thought it was locked up.

01:31:56.000 I thought, like, there's no way to cheat now.

01:31:57.000 And he's like, no, you fucking 100% for sure can still cheat.

01:32:01.000 Right.

01:32:02.000 And USADA didn't even catch TJ. It was the New York Athletic Commission.

01:32:05.000 Really?

01:32:05.000 That popped him.

01:32:06.000 Was it?

01:32:07.000 Yes, it was the New York Athletic Commission.

01:32:09.000 So they tested him for EPO. They tested him for EPO. No kidding.

01:32:13.000 Blood test.

01:32:13.000 I didn't even get tested in my last fight.

01:32:15.000 At all?

01:32:16.000 Dude, they said, USADA's coming.

01:32:19.000 We're going to test you the fight of the week.

01:32:22.000 Never, never once.

01:32:23.000 I got tested from the Athletic Commission.

01:32:25.000 I'm pretty sure I did blood after and a urine, but I didn't test it from USADA. So why do we have to do these whereabouts where we're like, man, sometimes if I didn't log in and say I'm out here and give an address where I'm staying at, they show up to my house, that's a failed, you fail.

01:32:39.000 You get three of those and you're out for three years.

01:32:41.000 Right.

01:32:42.000 You know, then how are some...

01:32:43.000 Chad, you know, and these guys get these sentences that are three years.

01:32:47.000 TJ took EPO and only got two years.

01:32:50.000 Well, what did Chad get caught?

01:32:52.000 It was like a peptide for his...

01:32:53.000 Peptide and something...

01:32:54.000 He has...

01:32:55.000 What the fuck is it called?

01:32:58.000 The skin...

01:32:58.000 A psoriasis.

01:32:59.000 Psoriasis.

01:33:00.000 Right.

01:33:00.000 Wasn't it for psoriasis?

01:33:02.000 Something tied like that, I'm pretty sure.

01:33:03.000 I didn't really...

01:33:05.000 I felt like that was what he said.

01:33:07.000 He used a peptide cream.

01:33:09.000 But if that was the case, why did he get three years?

01:33:11.000 TJ willingly knew that he was doing EPO. The only way to do EPO is inject it into yourself.

01:33:17.000 Yeah.

01:33:19.000 And he got a two-year sentence.

01:33:21.000 Chad was kind of thinking about moving on anyway, right?

01:33:25.000 Right, so he was probably just like, ah, fuck it.

01:33:26.000 Yeah, I mean, he's got that guide service, fins and feathers.

01:33:29.000 He's doing great.

01:33:30.000 He's got his meals.

01:33:32.000 What is the name of his company again?

01:33:34.000 Find out with Chad Mendez's meal company.

01:33:37.000 Got some jerky, too.

01:33:38.000 Because he sent me some of it, and it's really fucking good.

01:33:40.000 And it's real healthy.

01:33:41.000 Like, a lot of those backpacking meals, they're not that good.

01:33:45.000 They don't taste that good, and they're not designed for athletes.

01:33:47.000 Candy army food from years ago.

01:33:48.000 You fart like crazy, dude.

01:33:50.000 Well, thanks, Chad.

01:33:51.000 Thanks for sending me some.

01:33:51.000 Not his stuff.

01:33:53.000 His stuff is really good, but I've had some of the other stuff, and your body's like, what is this?

01:33:59.000 Get this out of me, yeah.

01:34:00.000 You're out there hunting and blasting horrible farts.

01:34:03.000 There's no oaks or deer coming like that.

01:34:04.000 Adam was like, no, no, no, son.

01:34:06.000 They're downwind of that.

01:34:08.000 They're going to know something's wrong.

01:34:09.000 Joe's back.

01:34:09.000 Joe's trying to store his refrigerator.

01:34:11.000 Oh, he had that fettuccine from that bag.

01:34:14.000 Because, you know, you take those things and they're freeze-dried and then, you know, you add water to them and they're dehydrated.

01:34:19.000 Yes, that's it.

01:34:21.000 Peak refuel.

01:34:22.000 Elk ragu pasta.

01:34:24.000 His stuff is phenomenal.

01:34:25.000 Chad, I've never seen this.

01:34:26.000 Chad Mendes, that's his shit.

01:34:27.000 Yeah, and he's always working on it.

01:34:29.000 He posts it on his Instagram.

01:34:31.000 That's, in my opinion, that's the best out of those backpacking, camping, hunting meals.

01:34:37.000 Is he freeze-dried?

01:34:39.000 Is that what he does?

01:34:39.000 See what it says, whether it's dehydrated or freeze-dried.

01:34:43.000 It says freeze-dried.

01:34:44.000 Yeah, it says there.

01:34:45.000 Awesome.

01:34:46.000 It's phenomenal.

01:34:47.000 Phenomenal stuff.

01:34:47.000 Yeah, that'd be great.

01:34:48.000 Yeah, because he's an athlete.

01:34:49.000 He knows the right foods to put in your body.

01:34:52.000 He eats really clean.

01:34:54.000 I think he fought Conor.

01:34:55.000 He was in New Zealand for a 16-day exploration with his father, hunting and hiking.

01:35:02.000 They're like, oh, I'm going to fight Conor.

01:35:03.000 He comes back.

01:35:05.000 Chad's one of those guys that's been an athlete his whole entire life.

01:35:07.000 Just a fucking animal.

01:35:08.000 This dude would come out of being out of the gym for two months and just look insane on the mid sparring wrestling He would be give me some of my hardest rounds because he's just so explosive Fast technical and just built like a fucking turtle dude again I'm like if we get started those bad positions, you know He just did with a he did a submission grassling tournament with Jeff Glover.

01:35:29.000 Yeah, I choked him out which is crazy Look at him.

01:35:32.000 Just an animal.

01:35:33.000 Great guy, too.

01:35:34.000 Yeah, no, he's awesome.

01:35:35.000 I love that guy.

01:35:36.000 I actually just spoke to him prior to coming out here.

01:35:38.000 He hit me up about doing some kind of podcast with his buddy.

01:35:41.000 He's like, man, I miss you.

01:35:42.000 I miss you, too, man.

01:35:43.000 He goes, I just don't miss getting hit by you.

01:35:46.000 I'm like, me neither.

01:35:47.000 I don't miss having to go around with you, brother.

01:35:49.000 I'm like, thank you.

01:35:50.000 But I did miss training with him.

01:35:51.000 Is he still in that area, the Sacramento area?

01:35:54.000 Yeah.

01:35:54.000 Yeah, I think he's in the Auburn area.

01:35:56.000 Because he travels so much for his guide service.

01:35:58.000 He likes to be out.

01:35:59.000 He likes to be in the country.

01:36:00.000 Yeah.

01:36:01.000 Well, he's always taking people.

01:36:02.000 I've seen him on his Instagram taking people tuna fishing.

01:36:06.000 He's taking people bird hunting.

01:36:09.000 He's always running these guys.

01:36:10.000 I actually ran into him at one of those outdoor expos.

01:36:13.000 Oh, wow.

01:36:13.000 I was there with my buddy Cam Haynes, and we're walking, and I just run.

01:36:17.000 I go, Chad, what are you doing here?

01:36:18.000 And he's like, oh, I've got my guide service, and I'm signing people up for it.

01:36:22.000 I'm like, that is fucking cool.

01:36:24.000 And this was why his career was in full bloom.

01:36:26.000 Yeah, he started doing that.

01:36:26.000 Yeah, it was great, you know, looking for...

01:36:28.000 And he always said, like, he made fighting fun, you know what I mean?

01:36:31.000 He would come and do a six-week camp and go on there and give it a mall and train his ass off.

01:36:35.000 He'd always say that he fights to fund his hunting.

01:36:39.000 That was his goal.

01:36:42.000 He was happy with what he was able to do.

01:36:44.000 And he's selling out like crazy too.

01:36:46.000 His camps or all of his different hunting camps he's got, they're selling out like crazy.

01:36:51.000 It's awesome.

01:36:52.000 Clay Guida's doing the thrills with gills, the fishing.

01:36:56.000 He's always like, dude, let's go fishing, man.

01:36:58.000 Thrills with gills?

01:36:59.000 Yeah, I think that's what it's called.

01:37:00.000 How fucking good did Clay look?

01:37:03.000 Beats Michael Johnson.

01:37:04.000 Scared me.

01:37:05.000 Incredible.

01:37:06.000 I watched it with Chris and my brother.

01:37:08.000 I'm like, man, I'm nervous.

01:37:09.000 I get nervous for my boys to fight.

01:37:10.000 You see him in the gym.

01:37:11.000 He's just a fucking gamer.

01:37:13.000 Oh, forever.

01:37:14.000 He had Michael Johnson hurt.

01:37:16.000 I'm like, wow.

01:37:16.000 You did really well in that fight.

01:37:20.000 Johnson's a slick southpaw.

01:37:22.000 Johnson knocked out Dustin Poirier with one punch.

01:37:24.000 Exactly.

01:37:25.000 Johnson's a beast.

01:37:26.000 Yeah, and he's had over 20 fights in the UFC. That guy's not an easy win.

01:37:30.000 No.

01:37:31.000 But Klay's there still hammering.

01:37:33.000 And then even while he's getting his hand raised, he's bouncing around like he can't stop moving.

01:37:37.000 Yeah, I see him in the morning.

01:37:38.000 I usually get there in the morning too early and he's like, oh, I'm just running.

01:37:42.000 I'm like, oh, cool.

01:37:43.000 He's like, yeah, I usually just run probably five miles a day before practice.

01:37:48.000 And he's just always going.

01:37:50.000 He's in phenomenal shape.

01:37:51.000 It's crazy.

01:37:53.000 It's absolutely crazy.

01:37:54.000 And the guy's still around.

01:37:56.000 I mean, go back to his fight with Diego Sanchez, which was like one of the craziest fucking wars I've ever seen in my life.

01:38:01.000 Some people can take damage and not...

01:38:04.000 It's his mind.

01:38:05.000 Yeah, I mean, just like, you can take damage, and like, some people get, you know, knocked out, and they're fucked up forever on it, or they're, you know, slurring their words, or they're punch drunk, like, this guy, you know, he's articulate, he speaks well, you know, got the good hair, I mean, that hair is holding on, it's holding on, dude, it's there, but it's like...

01:38:22.000 He's got a man-button shit.

01:38:23.000 Yeah, exactly, he's man-button, he's trying to, you know...

01:38:25.000 Throw some shit over here.

01:38:26.000 He's a wild dude.

01:38:27.000 Yeah, he's great.

01:38:29.000 He's a great guy.

01:38:29.000 Good energy is out there.

01:38:30.000 Does he have like a fishing service?

01:38:32.000 Is that what he's doing?

01:38:33.000 Yeah, he's always asked me to go and do it.

01:38:35.000 I'm just like, I don't know if I want to be out in the cold ocean fishing.

01:38:40.000 Last time I did that, I went open sea fishing.

01:38:42.000 Danny is really big into fishing.

01:38:44.000 Is he?

01:38:45.000 My wife, and she loves fishing.

01:38:48.000 And I went out the first time open sea at Dana Point, and we caught a black sea bass fish.

01:38:52.000 Dude, I was so sick on that.

01:38:54.000 I took Dramamine before.

01:38:56.000 I just can't do it.

01:38:56.000 Oh, you get seasick?

01:38:57.000 I was like, let's go back.

01:39:00.000 You know, Clay took a job working in Alaska on one of those crab boats.

01:39:07.000 Like, you see the world's deadliest catch?

01:39:09.000 He did that shit.

01:39:11.000 Don't surprise me.

01:39:11.000 He did it for the adventure.

01:39:13.000 Oh yeah, I remember him speaking about that because we had a couple friends come from Alaska.

01:39:18.000 My buddy's actually stationed up there.

01:39:20.000 Deadliest Catch is a crazy show because they lose people on that show.

01:39:24.000 People die on that show.

01:39:25.000 All the time, yeah.

01:39:26.000 Yeah, I mean, that is a...

01:39:27.000 I mean, crab's delicious.

01:39:30.000 But it ain't that delicious.

01:39:31.000 It's not worth, yeah.

01:39:32.000 It's a mess to open that damn thing up.

01:39:34.000 It's crazy.

01:39:35.000 Those cages and everything.

01:39:36.000 You're constantly wet.

01:39:38.000 But they make a fuckload of money.

01:39:40.000 They go out there for a few months and they make a shit ton of money.

01:39:43.000 Yeah, it's true.

01:39:44.000 I mean, Clay to go out there and just do that for fun, that just speaks of the kind of character he is.

01:39:49.000 He's always looking for those kind of thrills.

01:39:52.000 He's the guy, when he comes to camp, I love it because...

01:39:55.000 He's got a good playlist.

01:39:56.000 He puts the phone jack in.

01:39:58.000 What has he got?

01:40:00.000 Classic rock?

01:40:01.000 Yeah.

01:40:03.000 Honestly, when you don't hear that for a while, we're all listening to rap.

01:40:06.000 When Clay comes in, DJ Clay, it's like, this is some shit, man.

01:40:11.000 This is taking me back.

01:40:13.000 Some Red Hot Chili Peppers in there.

01:40:14.000 Some Nick's Grateful Dead.

01:40:16.000 Nice.

01:40:17.000 It's great to have him in there.

01:40:20.000 Learn from him.

01:40:20.000 He's been all over.

01:40:22.000 He's been with us for quite some time now, and to see him adapt and evolve himself later on in his career.

01:40:28.000 We just have good energies, like I said, at Alpha Male.

01:40:31.000 It seemed like it was a great fit for him coming to you guys.

01:40:34.000 Yeah, it's crazy.

01:40:35.000 You know, them guys, you know, fought each other, Chad and Clay, and they're so much alike.

01:40:39.000 You know what I mean?

01:40:40.000 Like, I remember Chad saying, like, ah, man, I'm going to have to fight Clay.

01:40:43.000 You know, we look up to him, you know, like, things like that.

01:40:46.000 So there are fights that you can go into and just be like, all right, you know, a lot of guys join the gyms now.

01:40:51.000 Does he still live in the tour bus?

01:40:54.000 I think we just spoke about that because I was talking about doing like a spreader van.

01:40:58.000 Me and Chris want to go and start doing seminars at gyms and around just kind of, you know, showing our martial arts and sharing with people and helping them out.

01:41:06.000 And obviously going to see in the world once, you know, COVID opens up.

01:41:09.000 And he was talking about how he had that big RV and he used to drive everywhere.

01:41:12.000 And he's like, well, I had to, you know, I think I'm going to sell it, man.

01:41:16.000 And downsize to something like that because it was...

01:41:19.000 Because you fall asleep at the wheel, you just pull over, things like that.

01:41:23.000 So he said, it's just safer.

01:41:26.000 What's best about that, you just pull it over and you start getting tired.

01:41:28.000 Right.

01:41:29.000 Well, he was living out of that thing and going from camp to camp, and he would drive it to his fights.

01:41:34.000 Florida, yeah.

01:41:35.000 His family, his father and his mother live in Florida, so he's always road tripping and fishing.

01:41:40.000 He's living life, man.

01:41:41.000 I learned a lot from that.

01:41:42.000 I was so just like, oh, I can't do this, I can't do that, I'm just stuck to this training.

01:41:46.000 You have to break it up.

01:41:47.000 You have to break it up.

01:41:48.000 You have to enjoy.

01:41:49.000 I think that you enjoy your wins.

01:41:51.000 You enjoy that time in between camps because the window shuts all the time.

01:41:58.000 There's only a certain amount of time and fights that we have left in our career.

01:42:01.000 Why be so stressed out?

01:42:04.000 Fighting is anxious.

01:42:06.000 Once you get that fight signed, you kind of walk on eggshells like, I don't want to get sick.

01:42:10.000 I don't want to get hurt.

01:42:12.000 The worst thing to do is pull out of a fight.

01:42:14.000 You're motivated.

01:42:15.000 You're hungry.

01:42:16.000 You're training hard.

01:42:16.000 You're going to make some money.

01:42:17.000 You're going to hopefully level up in your life and your career.

01:42:21.000 That's what the opportunity is that is given each fight.

01:42:25.000 Do you have hobbies outside of fighting?

01:42:28.000 Oh man, hobbies.

01:42:31.000 Obviously not.

01:42:33.000 Because it would be like right there.

01:42:35.000 Dude, I just like to train, man.

01:42:36.000 I like to train.

01:42:37.000 Do you think you'll be a coach when you're done?

01:42:40.000 I think more and more that I'm...

01:42:44.000 I'm in the gym and I kind of go and just watch the classes.

01:42:47.000 I like to help out some of the younger guys.

01:42:51.000 I don't know if I have the patience.

01:42:55.000 Not every great fighter is a great trainer.

01:42:57.000 I don't think I can.

01:42:57.000 My uncle is a great trainer, but he's a horrible coach.

01:43:04.000 He's a horrible coach, but he'll train the shit out of you.

01:43:07.000 He'll have you hitting the tire and doing little things.

01:43:09.000 Why is he a bad coach?

01:43:10.000 I don't think he has a...

01:43:11.000 He's like, if you suck, he's like, I don't know how to fucking work with you.

01:43:14.000 Well, he'd be a great trainer for people who don't suck.

01:43:16.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:43:17.000 So he wants to come and work with, you know, like, you know, we're in a small town, so he's trying to...

01:43:20.000 I'm like, you gotta build, you gotta groom these fighters.

01:43:22.000 How many times have we used to work...

01:43:24.000 I used to get so frustrated with him as a kid, 14, 13, 14 years old.

01:43:28.000 He used to make me just work on my jab.

01:43:29.000 He'd tape my fucking hand in my head and just work on my jab.

01:43:32.000 And I got a really good jab, a stiff jab.

01:43:34.000 I have different angles off it.

01:43:36.000 And we'll just get worked through the frustration.

01:43:37.000 You know what I mean?

01:43:38.000 But I was like, dude, we got to this point because we worked through that.

01:43:40.000 Like, you got to do the same thing.

01:43:41.000 And some people just don't have the grit or the tenacity or the, you know, to go in and work through that.

01:43:49.000 So he's just like, if you're not good, like, I just don't want to work with you.

01:43:52.000 I don't want to waste my time.

01:43:53.000 It's so interesting how many different approaches there are to training and how many different trainers have different philosophies and different styles.

01:44:01.000 And you see it sort of accent.

01:44:04.000 You see the different styles in the camps because you see how different groups of people have sort of...

01:44:11.000 You remember like the old shoot-the-box camp?

01:44:13.000 They were just fucking berserkers, just wild people.

01:44:16.000 Come at you like a comic book.

01:44:17.000 Oh, my God.

01:44:18.000 It was like...

01:44:19.000 That camp was known for being savages.

01:44:21.000 It would fucking kill you.

01:44:22.000 And alpha male, right?

01:44:24.000 Alpha male is known for being a wild camp.

01:44:26.000 I mean, you guys are some of the best lighter weight fighters in the world.

01:44:31.000 Some of the best guillotines in the fucking sport.

01:44:33.000 You know what I mean?

01:44:35.000 It's interesting how camps and different groups of people sort of take on a persona.

01:44:41.000 And they have a style that comes out of these places.

01:44:45.000 You have the Jersey guys, you know, with the...

01:44:47.000 Spinning shit.

01:44:48.000 Jersey guys are weird.

01:44:49.000 What Mark Henry's done is really interesting because he's worked with so many different kinds of guys.

01:44:55.000 He's got a fantastic group for sure, but he's worked with so many different kinds of fighters.

01:45:01.000 Usman's been up there.

01:45:03.000 Rashad was the first person.

01:45:05.000 Rashad pulled me aside and he said, man, the guy's a genius.

01:45:08.000 He said he had all these notes, pages and pages of notes, and they would change with every camp.

01:45:13.000 He knows what I'm doing before.

01:45:17.000 I would even throw it or do it.

01:45:19.000 It was crazy, and I was just new on it.

01:45:22.000 I think he would just study my fights and the way I moved.

01:45:25.000 It's funny, I was sparring with Frankie a lot.

01:45:28.000 I feel like me and Frankie are similar.

01:45:30.000 I think Frankie's a little bit more of a combo striker.

01:45:34.000 But we had a lot of the same code, so we're sparring each other.

01:45:36.000 Me and Frankie are just fainting each other, fainting each other.

01:45:38.000 I'm like, is that my code or is that Frankie's code?

01:45:41.000 Because the coach is calling it out.

01:45:43.000 I'm like, You know, and sometimes, you know, coaches...

01:45:46.000 I'm sorry.

01:45:47.000 Are you going to go with him for your next camp?

01:45:49.000 Oh, sure.

01:45:50.000 Yeah.

01:45:51.000 Yeah, we talked about it.

01:45:52.000 I just was, like, waiting to go out there.

01:45:54.000 Frankie had a big fight coming up, you know, this previous weekend and some of the...

01:45:59.000 to more.

01:46:00.000 Was that hard for you to watch, that one?

01:46:02.000 Oh, my God.

01:46:02.000 I was heartbroken.

01:46:04.000 Sanhagen is a motherfucker, man.

01:46:05.000 Yeah, he's good.

01:46:05.000 I remember Sanhagen coming out to Alpha Male when TJ fought Burrell the first time.

01:46:09.000 And I was like, yeah, this kid's tough, you know?

01:46:11.000 He brought him in as a training partner with Dwayne and Sean McFadden and those guys, the Colorado connection.

01:46:18.000 So yeah, I knew that that kid was, you know, tough.

01:46:21.000 I saw a different...

01:46:22.000 I saw, I think, what he went through with the auto fight kind of lit a fire out of him.

01:46:28.000 Like, fuck this, I'm not going to let that happen again.

01:46:29.000 Same thing with me.

01:46:30.000 It just took me a little bit longer to...

01:46:33.000 Get it turned around.

01:46:34.000 Well, Al Jermaine is a monster on the ground.

01:46:37.000 He's a monster.

01:46:38.000 You know what I mean?

01:46:39.000 He's Matt Serratrain, Henzo Gracie, Black Belt, that group of people.

01:46:44.000 The grappling level out of that team, out of New York and that area, all those Donaher, Henzo Gracie guys, fuck that level so high.

01:46:54.000 Yeah, it's great.

01:46:55.000 Those guys are so goddamn good on the ground.

01:46:57.000 There's so many good guys on the ground.

01:46:58.000 And you saw it with Aljamain.

01:47:00.000 When Aljo got him on the ground, man, he just wrapped him up and strangled him quick.

01:47:04.000 I don't think Corey is ready.

01:47:05.000 Ready for that.

01:47:07.000 Not for that.

01:47:07.000 No, not for just his body.

01:47:08.000 You can watch him be a potential fight.

01:47:12.000 I like the kid a lot.

01:47:13.000 He'll be a potential fight.

01:47:15.000 So I'm just watching him backstage.

01:47:16.000 I just don't think that he was ready for that kind of prime spot.

01:47:18.000 Like, holy shit, I win this fight, I can be fighting for the title.

01:47:20.000 And it's...

01:47:21.000 You know, I think they just made a mistake.

01:47:23.000 Aljamain capitalized on it.

01:47:24.000 But if I feel like, stylistically, that's a bad fight for Aljamain if it doesn't get to the ground.

01:47:29.000 You know, Corey, you know, throws long kicks.

01:47:31.000 He stays rangy.

01:47:32.000 And Aljamain kicks a lot.

01:47:35.000 And kicks lots and goes back.

01:47:36.000 And that's the last thing you want to do.

01:47:37.000 Look what happened with Marais.

01:47:38.000 You know, like...

01:47:39.000 Yeah, I mean, he got caught.

01:47:40.000 He's leveled.

01:47:41.000 He got caught.

01:47:42.000 He leveled up.

01:47:42.000 He leveled a lot.

01:47:43.000 Excited for the Jan-Aljamain fight.

01:47:45.000 Yeah, that's a really interesting fight.

01:47:47.000 That's a really interesting fight.

01:47:48.000 Because Jan is so solid.

01:47:50.000 Yeah.

01:47:50.000 We'll see how good his wrestling is.

01:47:51.000 I think Funkmaster is going to try to utilize that as you should.

01:47:55.000 That's something that was not shown in Peter's fights where he does have wrestling.

01:47:59.000 Just like when I fought Cruz.

01:48:01.000 Could I go five rounds?

01:48:02.000 There's these unanswered, unknown questions, unanswered questions that will get solved in the fight.

01:48:07.000 That's a great thing about fighting.

01:48:08.000 We're going to figure it out.

01:48:09.000 Well, that division is so hot right now.

01:48:11.000 That 135-pound division is on fucking fire.

01:48:15.000 It is.

01:48:15.000 And you're right in the heat with this Sun Tau knockout.

01:48:19.000 I mean, you're right there.

01:48:20.000 Back top three.

01:48:21.000 Next win or so puts you right back at a title shot.

01:48:24.000 So Jose Aldo is what you would like next.

01:48:27.000 I would like next.

01:48:27.000 But you're open to any of these possibilities.

01:48:29.000 I'm ready to fight.

01:48:30.000 You know, Joe, when you're feeling it and you have this dry back and...

01:48:35.000 I don't even say motivation because motivation comes and goes.

01:48:38.000 Sometimes you're motivated, sometimes you're not.

01:48:39.000 Just the drive, being driven, a driven person.

01:48:44.000 So that drives back.

01:48:45.000 I'm excited.

01:48:47.000 I'm excited to see what I can do.

01:48:48.000 I have my camp.

01:48:50.000 I have my coach.

01:48:50.000 I have a lot of shit going on in my career that I've worked for and used opportunities and able to travel and be away from the family.

01:49:00.000 I know my son's getting taken care of when I'm away.

01:49:03.000 So that's a huge mind over matter thing.

01:49:06.000 He's good.

01:49:07.000 Go focus on what you need to do.

01:49:08.000 Come back and reorchestrate camp.

01:49:12.000 So I just feel like everything's ready to go.

01:49:14.000 I'm ready to flip the switch, get into that fight camp.

01:49:17.000 I want to be sharp.

01:49:19.000 Outside training camp is great.

01:49:21.000 You work on a lot of things that you might not work in camp, but in camp is where you get sharp, your skill level rises, you train smarter, obviously, because you can overtrain outside of camp.

01:49:31.000 You're like, oh, I'm just going to take this tomorrow off or do a recovery day.

01:49:34.000 Inside of training camp, I love what it means.

01:49:37.000 It's blinders.

01:49:38.000 You're just focused.

01:49:39.000 Focus, focus, focus.

01:49:40.000 That's what I want to be at right now in my life.

01:49:42.000 The sport is so fascinating to me in that it's constantly evolving, different approaches.

01:49:47.000 And one of the big things now, I mean, probably one of the biggest techniques ever is the low calf kick.

01:49:53.000 It is fucking bananas.

01:49:56.000 Yeah, I utilize it a lot.

01:49:57.000 I do a lot of like, I kind of modified it with the sand chai.

01:50:01.000 Sand chai goes down and kind of kicks up.

01:50:03.000 I do a kind of hand plant 360 sweep with the leg.

01:50:09.000 I feel like it gets me out of range.

01:50:11.000 I'm not countered a lot with that kick and it's quick.

01:50:16.000 I feel like I'm really quick in the transitions in case they were trying to come, trying to take me down.

01:50:21.000 And I've utilized that a lot.

01:50:22.000 I think what happened in a lot of the fight, the first fight, I came out and kicked a Sun South right in the leg super hard.

01:50:28.000 It was in the beginning when you guys were talking.

01:50:29.000 And I noticed that hurt him.

01:50:31.000 Like, I noticed that his body language and his movement...

01:50:34.000 If you get kicked and you don't move right away, like, alright, that, you know...

01:50:37.000 Feel the...

01:50:38.000 Oh, yeah.

01:50:39.000 And just the eyes, a lot of things I hit him with, I could tell.

01:50:43.000 But that calf kick is...

01:50:45.000 It's crazy.

01:50:46.000 There's no bone there.

01:50:47.000 There's nothing to help.

01:50:48.000 You can't really check it.

01:50:49.000 Isn't it crazy how long it took for that to be a factor?

01:50:52.000 Yeah.

01:50:52.000 I mean, all of a sudden...

01:50:53.000 I mean, I credit Benson Henderson.

01:50:55.000 I think Benson Henderson was the first guy to start implementing it in fights in the UFC. But he didn't have the same effectiveness.

01:51:01.000 Right.

01:51:01.000 You know, I don't think we really saw how effective it was until...

01:51:07.000 I wonder who was who started using it where they really started making it I don't know I'd have to go and watch some tape right figure out who the guy was but now Jesus Christ I mean it's Justin Gaethje is the master of it you know Dustin Poirier and him had that crazy war and That would a lot of that was low leg kicks and now Dustin fucking Connor up with those low leg kicks.

01:51:30.000 I mean Connor was done.

01:51:31.000 Yeah In that second round, you could see him with that wide stance, heavy on that front leg, and because they're both southpaw to southpaw, that front leg was exposed, and Dustin was just smashing it.

01:51:44.000 It took all his power away, all his motion away, and after a while, he just couldn't take it.

01:51:49.000 And that's what me and Chris were talking about earlier.

01:51:51.000 Throughout the training, he's kind of taken over my kickboxing and flow into the takedowns as well.

01:51:57.000 Working from both stances.

01:51:59.000 Your leg might get chopped up or you're going to have to fight southpaw.

01:52:02.000 And I feel like I'm adapting very well.

01:52:05.000 Speed, kicks, combos with both sides.

01:52:08.000 That's so important.

01:52:09.000 So important.

01:52:09.000 I think that's where the fighting is going.

01:52:11.000 You're going to have to fight both styles because there's going to be some calf kicks.

01:52:15.000 You're a boxing fan.

01:52:16.000 Terrence Crawford is the best in the world at that shit.

01:52:19.000 You get used to him facing you in an orthodox stance and all of a sudden, boop, he's a southpaw.

01:52:25.000 Everything's backwards and he's lighting you up.

01:52:27.000 He wakes up and he's like, that's my title fight.

01:52:28.000 He's like, I'm going to flip a coin.

01:52:30.000 I'm going to fight Southpaw today.

01:52:31.000 That was Marvin Hagler, too.

01:52:33.000 When Marvin Hagler was in his prime, he could fight from any stance.

01:52:35.000 That was one of the beautiful things about his style.

01:52:37.000 He could do whatever the fuck he wanted to.

01:52:39.000 And that's such an advantage.

01:52:42.000 Especially switch stance when you're on an attack and you have an angle so far deep that they have to really...

01:52:47.000 And that's what's great about MMA. It's boxing.

01:52:50.000 It's kickboxing angle.

01:52:51.000 It's takedowns.

01:52:52.000 So you get those angles.

01:52:53.000 You get those people running from those certain ones.

01:52:55.000 You switch stance.

01:52:56.000 You come with the same side kick.

01:52:57.000 They're out of position.

01:52:59.000 It's binding.

01:53:00.000 Also, one of the things that they've shown in studies when they've done athletic skill is that practicing with your non-dominant hand makes your dominant hand better.

01:53:10.000 Because you're more aware of what's off about that side.

01:53:15.000 And as you're drilling and you're really focusing...

01:53:17.000 It's almost like Body mechanics, right?

01:53:19.000 Yeah, I'm sure you see that with Holdsworth or with anybody who teaches.

01:53:23.000 When people teach, there's something about teaching.

01:53:26.000 Your level's higher.

01:53:27.000 Yeah, guys who I would train with these guys and then they would quit their job and start teaching.

01:53:32.000 They got better.

01:53:33.000 And they would be way better.

01:53:34.000 All of a sudden they were fucking me up.

01:53:35.000 I was like, what are you doing?

01:53:37.000 Smallest things.

01:53:38.000 Constantly focused on it.

01:53:39.000 The finer details.

01:53:40.000 Yeah, constantly.

01:53:41.000 So you're kind of doing that when you switch stances.

01:53:44.000 Definitely.

01:53:44.000 Because when you switch stances and you're throwing a straight left, you're like, oh, okay, this feels weird.

01:53:48.000 Weird.

01:53:48.000 Like, this is just automatic, but this is like...

01:53:51.000 Head off, you're making sure, and then now you go to the right head, or your head's off.

01:53:54.000 Yeah, and you go to the right-hand side, and now all of a sudden it's just locked in.

01:53:58.000 Dang it.

01:53:59.000 So they say that with everything.

01:54:00.000 When you practice with your non-dominant hand, it makes your dominant skill better.

01:54:04.000 I should honestly probably be a southpaw fighter.

01:54:07.000 Really?

01:54:08.000 I wrestle with my right foot forward, but I fight with my left foot.

01:54:10.000 So all my shots come from my right side.

01:54:13.000 I remember Matt Hughes did that a lot.

01:54:15.000 Because he was a right-handed forward.

01:54:16.000 Which is great.

01:54:17.000 Sometimes if I'm...

01:54:18.000 I love my right hand.

01:54:19.000 I trust in it.

01:54:20.000 I believe in it.

01:54:21.000 If I'm throwing a right hand that's a little out of range, I get overcompensated, my feet aren't under me, I can roll right into southpaw, boom, takedown.

01:54:27.000 That's what happened with Cruz.

01:54:28.000 I backed up, backed up.

01:54:29.000 I was like, oh shit, I'm southpaw with the right, boom, double leg, open.

01:54:32.000 He's hard to takedown.

01:54:33.000 Dustin Poirier is right-handed as well.

01:54:35.000 Okay.

01:54:35.000 And Dustin will fight with his right hand forward most of the time.

01:54:39.000 But Daniel Cormier has a great series he does on ESPN called Detail.

01:54:44.000 And in that, he broke down.

01:54:46.000 In this most recent episode, he broke down Dustin knocking out Conor.

01:54:49.000 It's a phenomenal breakdown.

01:54:50.000 Yeah, check that out.

01:54:51.000 And he discusses how you can see when he's got a fight or hurt, what's the hand he switches.

01:54:57.000 And he switched to orthodox and blasts him with the right hand.

01:54:59.000 Orthodox inside shot.

01:55:01.000 And that's another thing going back to Coach Mark.

01:55:04.000 He watched all my footage of my fights.

01:55:07.000 He goes, all your knockouts were inside shots.

01:55:09.000 You don't have to wind up.

01:55:10.000 You don't have to.

01:55:11.000 It was inside shots.

01:55:12.000 Catching here inside.

01:55:14.000 Inside hook, rolling it on Almeida.

01:55:16.000 And by the time I ruled off my right hand, it was inside hook, right inside hook.

01:55:19.000 I ruled out.

01:55:20.000 He was already falling to the ground, falling up.

01:55:21.000 It was over with.

01:55:22.000 Well, the Almeida fight was so impressive because Almeida was on a tear.

01:55:25.000 And you guys were both.

01:55:26.000 It was like a meeting, a collision course.

01:55:29.000 You know, Almeida was this guy.

01:55:31.000 He was this guy that was fucking people up, man.

01:55:33.000 He had a really bright future.

01:55:35.000 Get knockout bonuses.

01:55:36.000 I'm sitting there broke as hell trying to get a fight.

01:55:39.000 I'm like, man, 50 bucks going into that fight week.

01:55:42.000 And I was like, man, I know I win this fight.

01:55:44.000 It's going to change my life.

01:55:45.000 And sure as shit as it did, you know what I mean?

01:55:47.000 Obviously, you know, fights, fights, fights.

01:55:49.000 But every fight's your biggest fight.

01:55:50.000 You know, that's the most money I won.

01:55:51.000 I want a knockout bonus.

01:55:53.000 Gotta go see Dana and Lorenzo and the headquarters.

01:55:57.000 Like, hey, what do you guys want?

01:55:58.000 We want to help you out.

01:55:59.000 What's your next fight?

01:56:00.000 I just want to stay busy, stay active.

01:56:02.000 You know what's interesting to me is how fucking good Max Holloway is and how Max Holloway is training on Hawaii.

01:56:11.000 The thought has always been, you have to go to this big camp, you have to go somewhere else, and that's how you get better.

01:56:18.000 But meanwhile, Max Holloway puts in one of the performances of the decade against Calvin Cater.

01:56:24.000 Calvin's a fucking gangster.

01:56:25.000 He's a gangster.

01:56:26.000 I was so excited for that fight because Calvin and the Boston and Massachusetts and what they got going over there.

01:56:31.000 Striking is phenomenal.

01:56:33.000 He's got some of the best boxing in the sport.

01:56:36.000 For sure, 100%.

01:56:37.000 The Ricardo Lamas fight is a perfect example of that.

01:56:40.000 Dude, he was popping, hitting his shots, getting out of range, coming back with combos.

01:56:45.000 Like, man, that's hard to hit.

01:56:47.000 And then for what happened, what Max was able to do to him, and I think what happened that first round, he put so much damage on him.

01:56:54.000 Sometimes it's one shot, and you can be on autopilot.

01:56:57.000 You get hit hard, you can be...

01:56:58.000 But you're just not firing right.

01:57:00.000 You're taking that damage to the brain.

01:57:01.000 Well, that was another fight where Max didn't spar at all.

01:57:05.000 And he said after the second Volkanovski fight, he didn't do any sparring in camp.

01:57:11.000 All of his training is just movement and training for endurance and training for...

01:57:18.000 He's doing drills and he's hitting pads, but he's like, I don't need to take any big shots.

01:57:23.000 Similar to what I am doing.

01:57:25.000 It's not realistic.

01:57:25.000 We're going to get boxing gloves on, shin pads.

01:57:27.000 You're going to throw a kick.

01:57:28.000 I'm going to be able to block it with these big-ass gloves.

01:57:30.000 We have small gloves that are coming over the top, hitting you in the head.

01:57:33.000 That little placement saves you.

01:57:34.000 Well, my friend Kevin Ross had an Instagram post recently about the importance of technical light sparring for Thai boxing.

01:57:42.000 And one of the things that he said is, like, with the Thais, they do a lot of this, like, sort of light tap sparring.

01:57:48.000 And that's where you work on things, because you're not worried that someone's going to take your head off, and that's how you get better skills.

01:57:53.000 Right.

01:57:54.000 No, no impact, or no shin pads, no knuckle pads.

01:57:58.000 So you get a more realistic understanding of placement, of where you're going to be.

01:58:04.000 Yeah, and it's like being able to play until you develop that timing.

01:58:11.000 So many guys think you just have to go to war all the time, and that every time you spar you go to war, but that's not wise.

01:58:20.000 There is time to do that.

01:58:22.000 I think, you know, but smart doing that.

01:58:24.000 You're not going to go in there and just working.

01:58:26.000 What did you get out of sparring?

01:58:27.000 Like, oh, I just went and fought.

01:58:28.000 Like, what did you take away from sparring?

01:58:30.000 Yeah, you might have won, but what did you work on?

01:58:31.000 You went in there and brawled.

01:58:32.000 Like, that's what we did for so long.

01:58:34.000 Like, a technical approach.

01:58:35.000 I think a lot of these young fighters that are coming from wrestling or not a boxing background or striking background, they need to get in there to know what a fist fight feels like.

01:58:44.000 Some of these wrestlers, I'm so surprised.

01:58:46.000 I'm like, they've never been in a fist fight in their life.

01:58:48.000 Some of these fighters...

01:58:49.000 I talked to Lance, my buddy Lance, since I was a kid.

01:58:53.000 And he never really punched someone in the face until he was a professional fighter.

01:58:56.000 You know what I mean?

01:58:57.000 His first professional fight.

01:58:58.000 I'm like, you never grew up and wanted to fight your brother or got in a fight with your brother?

01:59:03.000 He's like, oh no, never.

01:59:03.000 I mean, never in a wrestling room.

01:59:06.000 Well, it didn't hold him back.

01:59:08.000 Exactly.

01:59:08.000 He's a bad motherfucker.

01:59:09.000 But he has that work ethic since he was a kid.

01:59:12.000 And he got in there and thrown to the wolves of sparring.

01:59:16.000 And now it's technical.

01:59:17.000 I think there's people that you do that with.

01:59:20.000 So you have that urgency.

01:59:21.000 Like, dude, I'm getting my ass kicked.

01:59:22.000 I better formulate something and work on something when I need to.

01:59:27.000 And Lance is great.

01:59:27.000 He uses wrestling to take it where he can dominate.

01:59:30.000 And that's where his strong point is.

01:59:32.000 He's got great cardio.

01:59:33.000 He's strong as an ox.

01:59:34.000 He's a beast.

01:59:34.000 Yeah.

01:59:35.000 Yeah.

01:59:36.000 When you look at your career, you were saying that you were thinking about life in five-year increments.

01:59:42.000 Do you think at five years you'll be 34?

01:59:45.000 Is that when you're thinking, like, you'll assess where you're at in your career, whether or not you want to keep going or retire?

01:59:52.000 Hopefully you'll be the champ then.

01:59:54.000 All these variables, but yes.

01:59:56.000 Do you have these goals set in your head or what you'd like to accomplish?

01:59:59.000 I do.

01:59:59.000 I feel like my next three fights are kind of lined up.

02:00:02.000 Obviously, that's kind of out of my control, but in my control with the UFC, you know, works on it like Aldo, then either Peter Yan or whoever wins it.

02:00:12.000 It's kind of optional because I can fight Aldo.

02:00:16.000 Right there I have a claim on two fight, you know, I knock him out.

02:00:18.000 Two fight, win, knockout, streak.

02:00:19.000 I can be next in the line for the title shot.

02:00:21.000 I know Corey's up there.

02:00:22.000 If Corey wants to, you know, get in there for the championship, it's not going to fight until July.

02:00:27.000 Who knows, you know.

02:00:28.000 We can fight in the meantime.

02:00:29.000 I want to stay busy.

02:00:30.000 You know, as long as I'm healthy, I want to stay busy.

02:00:32.000 I fought four times in one year.

02:00:34.000 I went from unranked to world champion.

02:00:36.000 I feel like I can do that better now because I've known what to do, how to pull back, how to train, how to recover.

02:00:44.000 COVID was just a fluke thing that just took over my body that had me sidelined.

02:00:48.000 If I didn't have COVID, I would...

02:00:49.000 Who knows what would happen?

02:00:51.000 It's the past, but we're focused on this.

02:00:53.000 Well, you know, it makes you appreciate your health now, though.

02:00:56.000 Oh my gosh.

02:00:56.000 I literally thank all the first responders and the nurses and the people that work through my stuff in Jersey, and they're just so helpful.

02:01:05.000 And then all my doctors are like, okay, I got this.

02:01:07.000 I'm just making sure that I'm healthy because I know what I'm going to do in camp.

02:01:11.000 I want to...

02:01:13.000 Tear my body down.

02:01:14.000 I want to give myself every opportunity to go in there and fight and level up and better my life better my family's life And I know how to do that and that's through hard work, but working smart.

02:01:24.000 Do you know when you're gonna retire?

02:01:25.000 Do you have it in your head?

02:01:27.000 Dude, I've honestly not even thought about that.

02:01:28.000 You know, I kind of take one flight at a time, but obviously you have your next.

02:01:31.000 I've learned throughout my life, like, when I won a state title, I didn't...

02:01:35.000 I got there and I was like, man, what's my next goal?

02:01:37.000 I won the world championship, what's my next goal?

02:01:39.000 So to have these high goals, but then also have things that you can bounce to next.

02:01:44.000 So...

02:01:45.000 I haven't really thought about retirement.

02:01:47.000 I still feel like I'm just learning in this sport.

02:01:49.000 I feel like I haven't even hit my prime.

02:01:51.000 I feel like I'm just getting my style of fighting together, my coaches and my team.

02:01:57.000 I feel like the next five years are going to be some of my best performances, mentally, physically, emotionally, inside the octagon, growing outside of the octagon.

02:02:05.000 I'm excited for this ride.

02:02:07.000 I'm very, very excited to get back in there.

02:02:10.000 Both divisions are great, so I have options.

02:02:12.000 That's a good thing I'm right.

02:02:14.000 I'm sitting in a good spot.

02:02:15.000 You're sitting in a great spot.

02:02:16.000 I'm excited to watch, brother.

02:02:17.000 I can't wait to call your fights again.

02:02:19.000 All right, me either.

02:02:20.000 Well, thank you very much for being here.

02:02:21.000 Thank you for having me.

02:02:22.000 Welcome.

02:02:22.000 Thank you.

02:02:23.000 And I can't wait to see you again, brother.

02:02:25.000 Thank you very much, man.

02:02:26.000 Always a pleasure.

02:02:27.000 Always a pleasure.

The Joe Rogan Experience - April 19, 2011

JRE MMA Show #100 with Cody Garbrandt

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