The Joe Rogan Experience - June 22, 2021


JRE MMA Show #112 with Don Frye

Topics
UFO observation house in Arizona pro wrestling injuries martial arts in UFC ground and pound weight cutting weight classes in MMA pro wrestling injuries Takayama fight exchange Japanese IRS shenanigans Pride events drinking and pills staph infections
Hosted by
Joe Rogan
Mentioned
Mark Coleman Frank Shamrock Don Fry Oscar De La Hoya Brad Reagans Marvin Hagler Jesus Christ Jeff Blatnick Tom Erickson Dana White Pride Kane Dan Severin Ken Shamrock Steve Nomark Mark Hall Khabib Jeez Rich Kevin Randleman and 100 more
Joe Rogan Experience #1670 - David Sinclair Joe Rogan Experience #1672 - Iliza

Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 55 minutes

Words per minute

157.7

Word count

18,154

Sentence count

2,664

Harmful content

Misogyny

20

sentences flagged

Toxicity

481

sentences flagged

Hate speech

12

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Joe Rogan and Don Fry talk about his early days in the UFC, how he got started in the business, and how he became one of the greatest mixed martial arts fighters of all time. Joe Rogan is a comedian, actor, podcaster, writer, and podcaster. He has been in the entertainment business for a long time and is one of my favorite people in the whole wide world of entertainment. He's funny, smart, and has a great sense of humor. Don's story is a must listen and I hope you enjoy it. Joe is a great friend of mine and I can't wait to have him on the pod again. If you like what you hear, please HIT SUBSCRIBE and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and other podcasting platforms. I'll be picking one lucky winner at random to win a FREE place on the next Shreddin8 program! Thanks again for listening and God bless! -Jon Sorrentino - The Joe Rogans Experience Podcast - is a production of Native Creative Podcasts and is produced by Native Creative in partnership with Native Creative and Native Creative. in this episode we are working on a new ad-free version of the podcast called Native Creative, which will be available on all major podcast directories and social media platforms. Please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the podcast! so we can keep sharing it with your friends, family and family! and share it with them! Thank you for supporting us! Jon Sorrents and supporting us on social media and the Native Creative is a big love and support us on all of our social media! . - Thank you so much love and respect and respect & support us. - Jon and I will be looking out for you, thank you for your support and support you, Jon and all of your support is so much more! -- Thank you, Thank you Jon and his support is much appreciated. -- -- The Rogans Jon is a very much appreciative of the support and appreciation and support is very much appreciated! , and we appreciate it's a lot of love and appreciation is so appreciated! -- thank you, thanks, Jon's appreciation is much more than you can do so much, so much in return, thank you. Thankyou, Jon & his words are so much s

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Joe Rogan Experience" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:03.000 The Joe Rogan Experience.
00:00:06.000 Train by day!
00:00:07.000 Joe Rogan Podcast by night!
00:00:09.000 All day! 0.98
00:00:13.000 Don Fry, it's a goddamn honor and a pleasure. 0.98
00:00:16.000 Hey, partner, thank you. 0.97
00:00:18.000 You know, like I said earlier, first time, first and only time we met, I insulted you.
00:00:24.000 I don't remember that.
00:00:25.000 It was down there in Alabama, right?
00:00:28.000 That was the early days, right?
00:00:29.000 Yeah, number 12. Oh, UFC 12. That was my first one.
00:00:33.000 Yeah.
00:00:33.000 What'd you say?
00:00:34.000 Well, we were backstage, and, you know, they introduced us, and I says, you know, do you know who this guy is? 0.83
00:00:40.000 They said, and I says, yeah, he plays that real dumb guy on the news radio show. 0.60
00:00:46.000 Yeah. 0.92
00:00:46.000 But that's not an insult. 0.92
00:00:48.000 You look so hurt, then I find out your character is really actually part of who you are.
00:00:55.000 That's part of the problem.
00:00:56.000 It's very close to who I am, unfortunately.
00:01:00.000 I've been watching you. 1.00
00:01:01.000 You're a smart bastard, man. 1.00
00:01:03.000 I'm impressed. 1.00
00:01:03.000 I have a good memory. 1.00
00:01:04.000 I'm not that smart.
00:01:05.000 I have a good memory.
00:01:06.000 You know what the hell's going on in a lot of stuff.
00:01:08.000 I know some things.
00:01:09.000 Some things.
00:01:10.000 The Bob Lazar stuff?
00:01:12.000 That's impressive.
00:01:13.000 Are you interested in UFOs?
00:01:14.000 Oh, yeah.
00:01:15.000 A lot of folks in Arizona are interested in UFOs.
00:01:18.000 They visit there quite a bit, it seems like.
00:01:20.000 Yeah, there's a house that I have.
00:01:25.000 It was built, I guess, the guy who built it, built it so his wife could watch the UFOs over at the mountain there.
00:01:34.000 Wow, that's a high-maintenance lady. 1.00
00:01:35.000 Yeah, yeah.
00:01:37.000 Well, they all are, aren't they?
00:01:39.000 But imagine that.
00:01:40.000 What kind of house do you want, honey?
00:01:41.000 I want a house where I watch UFOs.
00:01:43.000 I need an observation deck.
00:01:46.000 That's basically it.
00:01:47.000 It was like a bunker.
00:01:49.000 Was it?
00:01:50.000 Yeah.
00:01:50.000 Half of it's in the ground and then all the block, you know, you got the big 16x8 block and they're all filled with cement.
00:01:58.000 There's a lot of weird houses like that.
00:02:00.000 There's a house for sale in Arizona right now.
00:02:02.000 It used to be Steven Seagal's house.
00:02:04.000 It might still be his house.
00:02:05.000 He's selling it, but it's bulletproof.
00:02:06.000 It's got bulletproof glass.
00:02:08.000 It's like a compound. 1.00
00:02:09.000 That guy's a goof. 0.99
00:02:10.000 Yeah. 1.00
00:02:10.000 He's a silly man. 1.00
00:02:11.000 He's a fucking goof. 1.00
00:02:13.000 Beyond silly. 1.00
00:02:13.000 He's a silly man. 1.00
00:02:14.000 I mean, he believes that shit, you know, who he is. 1.00
00:02:17.000 I don't know what he believes and what he's just bullshitting. 1.00
00:02:20.000 It's hard to tell, you know? 0.99
00:02:21.000 Oh, you can't bullshit that good. 1.00
00:02:23.000 I mean, he's a lousy actor. 1.00
00:02:26.000 He's a lousy actor. 0.99
00:02:27.000 How the hell can you pretend to be that, you know? 0.99
00:02:30.000 I mean, that's his hustle, right?
00:02:32.000 His hustle is that he's this, like, martial arts guy.
00:02:35.000 But, you know, he's really good at Aikido.
00:02:39.000 I'm sure.
00:02:40.000 You watch those demonstrations.
00:02:43.000 You know, if I get a couple pro wrestlers to be my ookies, you know, they make me look like a million dollars.
00:02:52.000 That's true.
00:02:53.000 That is what happens, right?
00:02:54.000 They're all compliant.
00:02:56.000 Don, how did you...
00:02:57.000 When did you...
00:02:58.000 You started out...
00:02:59.000 Was like UFC 8?
00:03:00.000 Was that your first fight?
00:03:02.000 No, it was first in UFC. I fought before...
00:03:05.000 You fought boxing and kickboxing before that, right?
00:03:07.000 No kickboxing.
00:03:08.000 I did boxing.
00:03:10.000 I think I had eight fights, and I think I was 2-6 or 2-5-1.
00:03:18.000 I don't know, because...
00:03:21.000 I fought my first two, Don Frye, and I won those.
00:03:24.000 And then I had an argument with my trainer, and so we split.
00:03:31.000 And then, so then I fought under J.R. Frye.
00:03:35.000 Why'd you change the name?
00:03:37.000 Well, that was my name growing up.
00:03:38.000 I was a junior, so J.R. And that's how I was in, you know, junior high, high school.
00:03:44.000 And then, you know, when my dad and mom called me, and then I think I changed my name because of contractual, you know.
00:03:54.000 Oh, you had some deal with the manager?
00:03:56.000 Yeah, right.
00:03:58.000 There's a lot of those sneaky deals, huh?
00:04:00.000 Yeah, but that was more with the trainer.
00:04:03.000 And, you know, I don't know if that was, because they were really good guys.
00:04:07.000 Art Martori was my money guy who, you know, the two Munos, Mike Munos and his father Al brought me to Art.
00:04:17.000 Art wrestled at ASU back in the late 60s, and Art...
00:04:22.000 He's a billionaire, you know, and so he was interested in, I mean, he basically funds ASU Wrestling.
00:04:30.000 Oh, really?
00:04:31.000 Yeah.
00:04:31.000 Oh, that's nice.
00:04:32.000 Out of his pocket, yeah.
00:04:33.000 And he's done so much for amateur wrestling in the U.S. I mean, he's like the top dog, because he used to have what's called Sunkist Wrestling Team, and so that was his baby, and he steamrolled that.
00:04:52.000 Then, like I said, the Munoz brothers, or Mike and his dad, took me to Art.
00:04:59.000 So let's give it a shot.
00:05:01.000 After he called, geez, the coach at Okie State, Jose, to double check on me, you know.
00:05:14.000 So did you started out wrestling?
00:05:16.000 Did you wrestle as a young boy?
00:05:19.000 No, sir.
00:05:20.000 When did you start wrestling?
00:05:22.000 As a freshman in high school.
00:05:24.000 And then when did you box?
00:05:27.000 When I got out of college.
00:05:29.000 Oh, so most of it was, you know, that's fairly late in life to box, right?
00:05:33.000 Oh, yeah.
00:05:34.000 Oh, yeah.
00:05:35.000 That's why I was two and six.
00:05:39.000 So when did you hear about the UFC? I was a fireman, you know.
00:05:45.000 I did the boxing and then got out and started doing odd jobs for, you know, a year, year and a half.
00:05:53.000 And then my wife at that time, we had a couple of horses.
00:05:59.000 You know, and being a college wrestler, you got a bit of an ego on you.
00:06:04.000 So I look at, well, hell, I could do that.
00:06:06.000 So, uh, still going around with a farrier named Stoney Newfang.
00:06:12.000 And then Stoney got me interested.
00:06:14.000 Then I, um...
00:06:17.000 Got tired of that.
00:06:19.000 Wasn't really making any good money, but you know, for the time, he's giving me five bucks a horse, you know, teach me, you know, pull the shoes, shape the shoe, you know, and all that good stuff.
00:06:30.000 Well, he did the technical work on the hooves.
00:06:33.000 And then...
00:06:36.000 I said, you know, somebody told me about being a fireman, about, you know, working 10 days a month, you know, at a restaurant.
00:06:45.000 I said, hell, that's a job for me, you know?
00:06:49.000 10 days a month, I can do that.
00:06:50.000 You're doing the 24-hour shifts?
00:06:52.000 Yeah.
00:06:52.000 You just stay there at the firehouse?
00:06:53.000 Yeah.
00:06:54.000 Yeah, so I got on the phone, called up all the cities in the state of Arizona.
00:06:59.000 Nobody was hiring.
00:07:00.000 So I called up Santa Fe, New Mexico.
00:07:03.000 They said, yeah, we're going to run a test.
00:07:05.000 And so I went over there and tested and passed the test.
00:07:10.000 And then I went to my buddy, Jerry Peckinpah.
00:07:14.000 He's got me into wrestling when I was in high school.
00:07:18.000 Come over here later, please.
00:07:20.000 Yeah.
00:07:27.000 There you go.
00:07:27.000 I'll leave that over there for you.
00:07:28.000 Thank you, sir.
00:07:30.000 Bring your back.
00:07:33.000 So then I went and stayed at Jerry's house in Santa Fe, and I went through their, I think it was like a six-month or more academy.
00:07:46.000 In the fire department?
00:07:47.000 Yeah.
00:07:48.000 Really?
00:07:49.000 Six months?
00:07:49.000 Yeah.
00:07:50.000 Wow.
00:07:50.000 It was a hell of an academy.
00:07:52.000 It really was.
00:07:53.000 And so from there, you thought about fighting?
00:07:55.000 Mm-hmm.
00:07:56.000 No, I had already fought.
00:07:58.000 No, but I mean in the UFC. Oh, no.
00:08:00.000 From there, we were there a year, year and a half.
00:08:04.000 Couldn't afford to live there.
00:08:06.000 In Santa Fe, you're either real rich or real poor.
00:08:09.000 This was 30 years ago, so I don't know how it is now.
00:08:15.000 Probably similar.
00:08:16.000 Probably.
00:08:16.000 Like the whole country now, right?
00:08:18.000 It's supposed to be nice, though.
00:08:20.000 Santa Fe.
00:08:20.000 A lot of friends from there.
00:08:22.000 Beautiful.
00:08:23.000 You've never been?
00:08:24.000 No, I've never been.
00:08:24.000 Oh, you've got to go.
00:08:25.000 I don't even think I've been to New Mexico except driving through once.
00:08:27.000 Really?
00:08:28.000 Yeah.
00:08:28.000 Where'd you drive through at?
00:08:30.000 I was a kid.
00:08:31.000 I don't remember it.
00:08:33.000 Obviously, you haven't gotten to see John Jones yet, right?
00:08:38.000 No, no.
00:08:39.000 Jackson Winklejohn.
00:08:40.000 I want to go down there and check out the gym, though.
00:08:42.000 How come you haven't?
00:08:43.000 Just a busy man, Don Fry.
00:08:45.000 Just a busy man.
00:08:46.000 There's a lot of places I want to go.
00:08:48.000 Yeah?
00:08:48.000 Never been to North Dakota either.
00:08:50.000 I have.
00:08:51.000 I bet you have.
00:08:52.000 Yeah, it's beautiful.
00:08:53.000 Yeah.
00:08:54.000 I don't know why I said North Dakota.
00:08:55.000 I saw the lights, man.
00:08:57.000 That was cool.
00:08:58.000 Oh, the Northern Lights?
00:08:59.000 Yeah.
00:08:59.000 Ah, I want to see that.
00:09:00.000 Oh, that is so cool, man.
00:09:02.000 Yeah, that's pretty wild.
00:09:03.000 Yeah, I did that. 0.94
00:09:06.000 Shit, after I had my first neck surgery back in 2000, A buddy, me and a couple buddies went and did the Amsterdam thing, you know? 0.96
00:09:17.000 And that was really cool. 0.98
00:09:19.000 Saw the lights up there.
00:09:20.000 What'd you have done on your neck?
00:09:21.000 Did you have it fused?
00:09:22.000 Yeah, I had broken it doing pro wrestling and worked on it for a year and a half not knowing, you know.
00:09:29.000 Oh, Jesus.
00:09:30.000 Yeah, but I'd lost so much muscle in the right arm, you know.
00:09:36.000 And so...
00:09:39.000 They fixed it, and I had a really nice, I can't remember her name, and I'm talking a lot.
00:09:46.000 I never talk this much.
00:09:49.000 That's what a podcast is all about.
00:09:51.000 Joe, I don't talk this much in a month, man.
00:09:53.000 Well, we can take breaks.
00:09:57.000 Must have got the right combination of pain pills today, in a way.
00:10:03.000 So, out of all the injuries that you ever got in your fighting career, was the pro wrestling injuries the worst?
00:10:10.000 Yeah.
00:10:10.000 Yeah, pro wrestling is probably one of the hardest things that a guy can do athletically.
00:10:16.000 Yeah. 0.99
00:10:16.000 Because those guys do it every fucking night. 0.99
00:10:19.000 All the guys that I've had in here, you know, The Undertaker, Diamond Dallas Page, all these guys, like, every one of them, when they tell you their stories, you go, Jesus Christ, Jake the Snake. 0.99
00:10:30.000 Those guys are so banged up.
00:10:32.000 Yeah.
00:10:33.000 I'm trying to get Ric Flair.
00:10:34.000 Oh, I love Rick.
00:10:36.000 I love Rick.
00:10:37.000 He's so funny.
00:10:38.000 Yeah, he's so funny. 1.00
00:10:39.000 Oh, he's a goddamn legend. 0.98
00:10:42.000 So, when you first heard about the UFC, so you were a firefighter then, or... 0.99
00:10:47.000 Well, going back to the...
00:10:50.000 You know, like I said, we were in Santa Fe for a year, year and a half, and then couldn't afford to live there.
00:10:57.000 And so... 0.99
00:10:59.000 I got on the phone and said, well, shit. 0.99
00:11:03.000 You know, we still had horses and still paying farriers. 1.00
00:11:06.000 So, well, shit, I can do that. 0.99
00:11:08.000 So I found Oklahoma Horseshoeing School in Okie City. 0.99
00:11:12.000 And so I moved my wife back home to my parents' house, you know.
00:11:18.000 And I went to Oklahoma Horseshoeing School for their 12-week program.
00:11:23.000 Oh, wow.
00:11:24.000 And so I did that and then when I came back to Arizona, Sierra Vista, I hooked up with a guy named...
00:11:35.000 Oh, Jesus.
00:11:38.000 Tyler Basinger.
00:11:40.000 Tyler is a magician.
00:11:42.000 He's a farrier.
00:11:44.000 Just a magician.
00:11:45.000 And he paid me $5 a horse, you know, and fed me lunch.
00:11:50.000 And, you know, so I was learning how to shoe horses from him, you know, doing an apprenticeship.
00:11:58.000 Starting my own business.
00:11:59.000 I got on as a firefighter reserve, you know, in a place called Fry Fire Department.
00:12:06.000 You know, F-R-Y, no relations. 1.00
00:12:09.000 The old man had an outpost store outside of Fort Huachuca, you know, 150 years ago.
00:12:18.000 And also a whorehouse, you know. 1.00
00:12:21.000 This is like old-school Western shit. 1.00
00:12:23.000 Yeah. 1.00
00:12:24.000 Wow.
00:12:25.000 And so, then I had...
00:12:27.000 Sometime I worked at a psych facility, too, you know?
00:12:33.000 A psych facility?
00:12:35.000 Psychological, yeah.
00:12:36.000 Oh, psychological facility?
00:12:37.000 Yeah.
00:12:37.000 What'd you do there, like restraining patients?
00:12:39.000 Yeah.
00:12:39.000 Yeah.
00:12:40.000 And...
00:12:41.000 What's harder, horseshoeing or restraining patients?
00:12:45.000 Horseshoeing, I broke a kid's arm, so, you know, just a headlock.
00:12:49.000 You know, they...
00:12:51.000 They did a breakout where, you know, 20 or 30 of them run off, and then you got to herd them back in.
00:12:57.000 Really?
00:12:57.000 Well, yeah.
00:12:58.000 A couple of them act out, and one of the guys had the kid restrained.
00:13:03.000 He had him from behind, had his arms pinned.
00:13:06.000 The kid started slamming his head into his face.
00:13:09.000 So I just walked up to the headlock, and we landed, snapped his arm.
00:13:14.000 Oh, no.
00:13:15.000 Yeah, that kind of...
00:13:17.000 Kind of put a damper on things.
00:13:19.000 Was that the end of your restraining patience?
00:13:22.000 Yeah, that was the end of that career.
00:13:26.000 So how does it make its way to the UFC? Do you remember when you found out about the UFC? Yeah, I think that was still a year or two before.
00:13:36.000 So this is like 92, something like that?
00:13:38.000 Yeah, and then I started doing judo, you know, because...
00:13:43.000 I needed, you know, I needed something to do, you know.
00:13:46.000 Right.
00:13:48.000 You know, you're 22, 24 years old.
00:13:53.000 You know, you used to be a college athlete. 0.98
00:13:55.000 You know, you still walk around with an erection, you know. 0.99
00:13:58.000 Right. 0.99
00:13:59.000 I understand.
00:13:59.000 And so I started doing judo and advanced really quickly in that.
00:14:07.000 And...
00:14:09.000 Yeah, so then I got on the Bisbee Fire Department in 94. Bisbee, Arizona?
00:14:17.000 Yeah, yeah.
00:14:18.000 Shout out to Doug Stanhope.
00:14:19.000 He's the king of Bisbee.
00:14:21.000 Yeah.
00:14:21.000 That's what I hear.
00:14:22.000 I met him one time.
00:14:23.000 Did you?
00:14:24.000 Yeah, at the airport.
00:14:26.000 Oh, yeah?
00:14:26.000 Yeah, he says, you're a firefighter.
00:14:29.000 I used to be. 0.99
00:14:29.000 Shit, this was probably 15, 18 years ago. 0.99
00:14:32.000 Oh, wow. 1.00
00:14:35.000 And...
00:14:37.000 Yeah, where the hell are we now?
00:14:39.000 So you were talking about when you first heard about the UFC. Yeah, in 92 I got on with the Bisbee Fire.
00:14:45.000 And then we were sitting there watching something on TV and saw Dan, clip of Dan.
00:14:52.000 Dan Severn?
00:14:53.000 Uh-huh.
00:14:53.000 And then he was doing some kind of bodyguard work with that gal who works with...
00:15:07.000 I'm bad at names sometimes.
00:15:09.000 That's okay.
00:15:09.000 I had a stroke a few years ago.
00:15:11.000 You did?
00:15:12.000 Hemorrhagic stroke, yeah, after surgery. 1.00
00:15:14.000 Oh, shit. 1.00
00:15:15.000 So I get lost sometimes. 1.00
00:15:20.000 Fuck me. 1.00
00:15:22.000 You can edit this. 1.00
00:15:23.000 Yeah, it doesn't matter anyway.
00:15:25.000 So Dan was doing bodyguard work?
00:15:26.000 Yeah, for Robin from...
00:15:30.000 Who's a radio guy in New York City?
00:15:32.000 Robin Quivers?
00:15:33.000 Yeah.
00:15:33.000 Howard Stern?
00:15:34.000 Right, right.
00:15:34.000 Oh, really?
00:15:35.000 No shit! 1.00
00:15:35.000 In his gray t-shirt, yeah. 1.00
00:15:37.000 Wow.
00:15:39.000 Everybody's in suits, and Dan's in his gray t-shirt.
00:15:41.000 And so, you know, then we saw Dan fight, and I called him up. 1.00
00:15:46.000 I said, fuck. 0.99
00:15:47.000 You know, I said, Dan, this is Don Fry. 1.00
00:15:49.000 Remember me?
00:15:50.000 He goes, yeah.
00:15:50.000 What are you doing, Don?
00:15:51.000 I said, playing fireman, playing horseshoe, you know.
00:15:54.000 I said, this UFC stuff, can you get me in on it?
00:15:58.000 And he says, yeah.
00:15:59.000 So he ended up getting me some fights, probably about five or six fights, you know, around the country.
00:16:07.000 And, you know, the check's still in the mail.
00:16:11.000 Was this pre-UFC? Yeah, yeah.
00:16:14.000 Oh, so you fought MMA before the UFC? Oh, it was warehouse fighting.
00:16:19.000 MMA, it was NHP. Right, NHP is what they called it back then.
00:16:23.000 Yeah, no holds barred.
00:16:25.000 Right.
00:16:25.000 So you wear shoes, you do whatever you want.
00:16:27.000 Was it bare knuckle?
00:16:28.000 Yeah, you do whatever you want.
00:16:28.000 Yeah.
00:16:29.000 In your day, and even in the UFC 8, you were still allowed to fight bare knuckle.
00:16:33.000 Yeah.
00:16:34.000 Yeah.
00:16:34.000 But I wore gloves because I hit hard.
00:16:37.000 Yeah.
00:16:37.000 You know?
00:16:38.000 Yeah.
00:16:39.000 Smart.
00:16:39.000 And gloves aren't made to protect your face.
00:16:42.000 Right.
00:16:42.000 They're made to protect my hands.
00:16:44.000 Who's the first guy to wear gloves in the UFC? Tank.
00:16:47.000 Was it Tank?
00:16:47.000 Yeah.
00:16:48.000 Smart.
00:16:48.000 Smart move.
00:16:49.000 He hits hard.
00:16:50.000 He hits hard.
00:16:51.000 Yeah.
00:16:52.000 Yeah. 0.99
00:16:54.000 Holy shit, I remember your fight with Tank. 1.00
00:16:56.000 What a fucking fight that was. 1.00
00:16:58.000 My God. 0.99
00:16:59.000 And it didn't make top ten of the one-round fights.
00:17:03.000 Oh, I have no idea why it doesn't.
00:17:04.000 Well, it's because there's so many great fights.
00:17:06.000 It's arbitrary who makes top ten, but I think it should have been in there.
00:17:09.000 That was a classic.
00:17:10.000 Nobody knows.
00:17:11.000 Nobody knows anything about UFC 100 and be a war.
00:17:15.000 Oh, I do.
00:17:16.000 Well, you do, Joe.
00:17:17.000 You're a student.
00:17:18.000 And you were there.
00:17:19.000 I was there.
00:17:20.000 But the new fans...
00:17:21.000 Yeah, they should go back because that's the history of the sport.
00:17:25.000 I always tell people we knew more about martial arts after four years of the UFC than had been done in 400 years.
00:17:33.000 Right.
00:17:34.000 We knew more.
00:17:34.000 We knew what worked and what didn't work.
00:17:36.000 We saw...
00:17:37.000 So many different things.
00:17:39.000 By the time 97 rolled around, they had figured out, first of all, they realized wrestling is the most important thing.
00:17:48.000 It's like a street fight, two and a half hours every day.
00:17:52.000 It really is.
00:17:53.000 It is, yeah.
00:17:54.000 And it's just the ability to take a guy down.
00:17:57.000 If you look at, somebody posted it.
00:17:59.000 It might have been Adam Hunter on his page.
00:18:01.000 I think it was, on his Instagram page.
00:18:04.000 He posted the amount of champions per discipline.
00:18:08.000 You know, it showed like jujitsu, kickboxing, all the different, and then wrestling.
00:18:13.000 It's number one.
00:18:13.000 Right.
00:18:14.000 Number one out of all the different disciplines.
00:18:16.000 That's the most important discipline.
00:18:18.000 Well, it's the hardest thing to do.
00:18:20.000 Yep.
00:18:22.000 I mean, you're doing it every day in high school, every day in college, and there's no excuses, you know?
00:18:28.000 And the most mentally tough, too.
00:18:30.000 Yeah.
00:18:31.000 Because, first of all, they're cutting weight.
00:18:32.000 They're cutting weight the day of the event.
00:18:34.000 They're competing dehydrated and exhausted.
00:18:37.000 And wrestlers, amongst all athletes that I've ever met, take pride in being miserable.
00:18:42.000 Yeah.
00:18:42.000 They really do.
00:18:44.000 Yeah, here it is.
00:18:44.000 It is Adam.
00:18:45.000 Adam Hunter put it up there.
00:18:46.000 Look at that.
00:18:47.000 28 professional champions from wrestling.
00:18:50.000 The second place is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
00:18:52.000 The third place is boxing and then kickboxing.
00:18:54.000 Below that, Muay Thai.
00:18:56.000 And then two Taekwondo and one karate.
00:18:59.000 It's amazing.
00:19:00.000 Alright, but the Jiu-Jitsu...
00:19:05.000 How many of those champions were in the first few years?
00:19:08.000 Right, right.
00:19:10.000 As soon as we figured it out.
00:19:12.000 Well, now everybody does everything.
00:19:14.000 But I still think that base is the most important base.
00:19:18.000 The wrestling base.
00:19:19.000 Because a dominant wrestler, a guy like a Daniel Cormier, a guy like a John Jones, a guy who's an elite wrestler, they have that advantage over everybody.
00:19:27.000 If shit gets weird, they can take the guy down at any time.
00:19:30.000 Or if they just decide to impose their will, they can take the guy down. 0.98
00:19:32.000 Or if you want to take them down because they're striking, they're outstriking you, you can't because they're wrestling so good.
00:19:38.000 It's such a giant advantage.
00:19:40.000 Sprawl and snap your head into the mat.
00:19:43.000 But you were one of the first guys to enter the UFC that looked like real polished skills.
00:19:50.000 When you came out, guns blazing, you won your first fight by first round knockout. 0.99
00:19:55.000 And I remember watching on TV, I'm like, that motherfucker can fight. 0.98
00:19:58.000 Like, cause you're seeing people that, a lot of times you're seeing folks that probably shouldn't have been there. 0.99
00:20:04.000 Like, there was, back in the day, like, you remember the early days there was guys that were like, they trained in ninjitsu and they were practicing like karate chopping people on the top of the heads and all kinds of wacky shit. 0.96
00:20:14.000 Shit you never heard of, right? 0.93
00:20:15.000 But when I saw you, I was like, okay, that guy's an actual fighter. 0.99
00:20:19.000 And when you see the way you were throwing punches, and your wrestling ability, and you were a good size, too.
00:20:25.000 You weren't too big, you weren't too small.
00:20:27.000 You probably weighed like, what, 210, something like that?
00:20:29.000 Yeah, I was 05, 205, but I said 210, because...
00:20:33.000 Sound better?
00:20:34.000 Well, I knew I was going to gain weight through that year, you know, because...
00:20:38.000 That was the plan?
00:20:39.000 Yeah, I was a fireman, and I was shooing horses in Arizona.
00:20:43.000 Yeah.
00:20:43.000 You know, you're working six, seven days a week.
00:20:47.000 And I knew as soon as I gave it up, you know, 10 pounds was going to come on real fast.
00:20:53.000 Right, right.
00:20:53.000 And everybody was chasing...
00:20:54.000 That was when Mark Coleman in UFC 12 was when Mark Coleman became the champion when he beat Dan Severn.
00:21:01.000 And Mark was 265 pounds.
00:21:05.000 He was a monster. 1.00
00:21:06.000 He was a fucking gorilla. 1.00
00:21:08.000 Like, people forget. 1.00
00:21:09.000 He had everybody gaining weight.
00:21:11.000 Yeah.
00:21:12.000 Everybody gained weight when they saw the hammer. 1.00
00:21:13.000 They're like, fuck! 1.00
00:21:14.000 I ain't got no choice. 1.00
00:21:16.000 Yeah, you had to.
00:21:16.000 They shot that power double.
00:21:18.000 And that was the headbutt days, too.
00:21:19.000 Yeah, yeah.
00:21:20.000 When Mark would get on top of you and get control of you and start smashing his head into your face, those were quick nights.
00:21:26.000 It wasn't fun, yeah.
00:21:27.000 No.
00:21:27.000 Because Dan started that, and then I did it, and then Mark did it.
00:21:32.000 Yep.
00:21:32.000 You know, and somehow Mark became the grandfather of it, so I guess I'm a great-grandfather and Dan's great-great-grandfather.
00:21:39.000 Of ground and pound.
00:21:40.000 Yeah.
00:21:41.000 Yeah.
00:21:41.000 It was a real wake-up call for a lot of people.
00:21:44.000 But so was the jiu-jitsu, right?
00:21:46.000 When Hoist Gracie tapped Dan Severin, that was a wake-up call for a lot of people. 0.98
00:21:49.000 Like, how the fuck is he doing that? 0.99
00:21:51.000 Off his back? 0.99
00:21:51.000 Oh, yeah. 0.99
00:21:52.000 With his legs?
00:21:54.000 That was...
00:21:55.000 The Gracies, they changed martial arts the world over. 1.00
00:22:00.000 Yeah.
00:22:01.000 I think they're the most important family in the history of all martial arts.
00:22:04.000 Yeah.
00:22:05.000 I mean, that was their plan, you know?
00:22:07.000 It was a great plan.
00:22:08.000 The whole thing, what was brilliant about it, it was like...
00:22:13.000 A paid infomercial.
00:22:14.000 Yeah, it was.
00:22:15.000 A you paid for.
00:22:16.000 Yep.
00:22:17.000 You know?
00:22:18.000 Right, right.
00:22:18.000 You paid $20, you know.
00:22:20.000 You laugh at it now.
00:22:22.000 Back then, $20 was a lot of money.
00:22:24.000 Yeah.
00:22:24.000 But, you know, you paid $20 to sit there and watch an infomercial.
00:22:28.000 But it was brilliant.
00:22:31.000 Brilliant.
00:22:31.000 So exciting.
00:22:32.000 When you had your first fight, you had your first fight in the UFC, once it was over, once you won, were you like, okay, this is what I'm doing now?
00:22:39.000 Yeah.
00:22:40.000 Yeah.
00:22:41.000 I won that, and I'm like...
00:22:43.000 You know, I love this.
00:22:44.000 This is fun.
00:22:45.000 Back to being competitive, you know.
00:22:49.000 Because my athletic career was like this, you know.
00:22:55.000 It really was.
00:22:56.000 Ups and downs?
00:22:57.000 Yeah.
00:22:57.000 You know, I'd get burnt out and walk away, you know.
00:23:02.000 And I got a real short attention span, I guess, you know.
00:23:05.000 But when you saw what the UFC was, where you could take guys down or you could stand up with them, strike, it was such a unique thing.
00:23:12.000 Did that just appeal to you?
00:23:13.000 Yeah, because I wasn't afraid to get punched in the face. 0.58
00:23:16.000 Right.
00:23:17.000 That helps.
00:23:18.000 Yeah, it does.
00:23:20.000 For sure.
00:23:21.000 Because there's a lot of wrestlers, they go in there and bam, you get hit in the bridge of the nose, it changes your opinion real fast and everything, don't it?
00:23:31.000 Yeah, your eyes water up.
00:23:33.000 It's an uncomfortable feeling.
00:23:35.000 Now, did you think at that point in time that this was going to be a real sport?
00:23:40.000 Because a lot of people weren't sure if it was going to last back then.
00:23:43.000 Like UFC 8, when you entered, it was still kind of crazy.
00:23:47.000 When I came around, it was UFC 12, and they were banned from pay-per-view on everything except DirecTV.
00:23:55.000 DirecTV was the only people that had them on.
00:23:56.000 You couldn't get it on cable anymore because boxing was in cahoots with John McCain and Budweiser and all that stuff. 0.95
00:24:04.000 That guy's dirty. 0.91
00:24:05.000 Was he dirty? 1.00
00:24:06.000 Yeah, he's dirty. 0.95
00:24:08.000 He's gone now, rest in peace. 0.85
00:24:13.000 You know, he was a paid boxing advisor to Don King. 0.99
00:24:18.000 You know, the guy didn't know what the fuck. 0.99
00:24:20.000 He didn't know. 0.99
00:24:21.000 You know, so when this came around, it was beating boxing, like you said.
00:24:26.000 And so Don King said, hey, put the boots to this, you know.
00:24:30.000 Yep, that's what happened.
00:24:31.000 I mean, his wife, you know, was the head of Henley Distributing, you know.
00:24:36.000 Henley Beer, Budweiser Beer, yeah.
00:24:39.000 Oh, that makes sense.
00:24:40.000 But I knew he did something with Budweiser and that had a big impact on...
00:24:45.000 We married Budweiser, yeah. 0.98
00:24:47.000 That had a big impact on how the UFC was...
00:24:50.000 whether or not it was legal because they started banning it from everywhere.
00:24:54.000 Yeah, that was the big joke is after the fights you can go to the hospital...
00:25:01.000 Or you can go to the after party.
00:25:02.000 But number three is you can go to jail, too.
00:25:06.000 We didn't know.
00:25:07.000 We didn't know if we were going to come out and get slapped in cuffs and hauled away.
00:25:11.000 Or they're going to let us finish the event and then arrest everybody.
00:25:15.000 Do you remember when Dan fought Ken Shamrock?
00:25:18.000 I think it was in Denver.
00:25:20.000 And they told him they couldn't punch in the face and close fists?
00:25:25.000 There was some kind of crazy law where they couldn't punch...
00:25:28.000 No, that was Detroit.
00:25:29.000 Was it Detroit?
00:25:30.000 Yes, sir.
00:25:30.000 Was it Michigan?
00:25:31.000 Oh, okay. 1.00
00:25:33.000 And everybody was going, what the fuck is going on? 0.99
00:25:36.000 Like, they were told before the event that they can't punch with closed fists. 0.99
00:25:40.000 Right.
00:25:40.000 There was so many crazy rules like that.
00:25:42.000 The first event I did was supposed to be in New York.
00:25:45.000 It was supposed to be, I think it was supposed to be in Albany.
00:25:48.000 Albany or Buffalo?
00:25:49.000 I think Albany.
00:25:50.000 Was it Buffalo?
00:25:51.000 Maybe Albany.
00:25:52.000 But it was upstate New York somewhere, and then it got moved last minute to Dothan, Alabama, and that's where I met you.
00:25:57.000 Yeah.
00:25:58.000 Yeah, that was UFC 12. That's when Vitor made his debut, fought Trey Tellegman, and that was when Mark Coleman fought Dan.
00:26:08.000 There was a lot of great fights on the card.
00:26:10.000 You know, Trey Tellegman was tough. 1.00
00:26:11.000 Fuck yeah. 1.00
00:26:13.000 To be missing a breast, you know? 1.00
00:26:15.000 Yeah, missing one peck, built like a tank.
00:26:17.000 A breast, yeah. 0.53
00:26:18.000 A breast. 0.63
00:26:20.000 Sorry, Dre.
00:26:21.000 He fought Scott Ferrozo, too.
00:26:23.000 That was a tournament that night.
00:26:24.000 Vitor won the tournament, 19 years old.
00:26:26.000 Yeah, amazing.
00:26:27.000 Lightning bolt, that guy was.
00:26:29.000 He was amazing.
00:26:30.000 You believe he's going to fight Oscar De La Hoya?
00:26:32.000 Really?
00:26:33.000 Yeah, he's going to have a boxing match September 11th with Oscar De La Hoya.
00:26:36.000 You've got to think, that guy was fighting, I mean, well, so was Oscar.
00:26:41.000 I mean, Oscar was a world champion in 97. And here it is, 97, and Vitor makes his octagon debut.
00:26:48.000 Was he born?
00:26:49.000 What's that?
00:26:49.000 Was he even born in 97?
00:26:51.000 Oscar?
00:26:51.000 Oscar's in his 40s.
00:26:53.000 Vitor?
00:26:53.000 Vitor.
00:26:54.000 Vitor's 19 then.
00:26:55.000 Yeah.
00:26:57.000 So Oscar's a little older than Vitor, I believe.
00:26:59.000 I believe Oscar's like 48 or something like that.
00:27:04.000 It's crazy seeing these guys still getting after it.
00:27:07.000 After all these years.
00:27:09.000 I'd like to.
00:27:11.000 You'd like to?
00:27:11.000 Yeah.
00:27:12.000 If your body would hold up?
00:27:13.000 I'm gonna go down there to Columbia and do the bio-accelerator, you know, and the plan on that is do that and hopefully, you know, make a comeback.
00:27:25.000 Really? 1.00
00:27:25.000 Shit, shit, you know. 1.00
00:27:28.000 I love it. 1.00
00:27:29.000 Shit, yeah, I mean, I'd love to fight Ngannou. 1.00
00:27:33.000 Ngannou? 1.00
00:27:33.000 Yeah. 1.00
00:27:34.000 Really?
00:27:34.000 Yeah, he's amazing, yeah.
00:27:37.000 Wouldn't it be better to fight someone your age?
00:27:40.000 Why?
00:27:40.000 They don't have the belt, do they?
00:27:42.000 No, so you'd want to fight someone with the belt, even at your age.
00:27:46.000 That's why you're Don Fry.
00:27:47.000 Yeah.
00:27:48.000 Because you think like that.
00:27:49.000 If I can get my back fixed up, I'm there, baby.
00:27:52.000 What's going on with your back right now?
00:27:56.000 Hell, I've had...
00:28:00.000 Probably five or six major back surgeries, and then probably related, 15 to 20 related, you know, because infections and things like that.
00:28:11.000 Jesus.
00:28:12.000 And the infections tried to get me a couple of times.
00:28:17.000 Staff, MRSA? Yeah, staff.
00:28:20.000 Scary shit. 1.00
00:28:22.000 One time I had it inside the spinal cord. 1.00
00:28:27.000 Or twice, actually, twice.
00:28:29.000 Is this your back?
00:28:30.000 Yeah.
00:28:31.000 Jesus Christ, Don, that looks like a rollercoaster ride.
00:28:35.000 How many discs do you have fused?
00:28:38.000 I don't know if it's 11 discs or 11 vertebrae.
00:28:45.000 How many vertebrae does a human have?
00:28:48.000 20-some.
00:28:49.000 So you got half of them are fused.
00:28:53.000 Wow.
00:28:54.000 Give me some pictures.
00:28:55.000 Let me see these.
00:28:55.000 Look at that lower left.
00:28:57.000 Oh, Jesus Christ.
00:28:58.000 Look at that lower left one over your back. 1.00
00:29:00.000 Holy fuck, Don. 0.99
00:29:01.000 Yeah, it's gonna put a zipper on it. 1.00
00:29:04.000 Jesus Christ.
00:29:05.000 That is crazy.
00:29:08.000 So they just went in and did the whole back all at once. 1.00
00:29:10.000 That's some wooly shit. 0.99
00:29:12.000 No, what happened is... 1.00
00:29:14.000 Whoa! 0.71
00:29:15.000 So that's the infection.
00:29:16.000 Yeah.
00:29:18.000 That was after the infection.
00:29:20.000 Yeah, they're draining it and they had to leave it open for a week so that the plastic surgeon could figure out how to connect it because I was out of connective tissue.
00:29:32.000 It was all scar tissue.
00:29:34.000 So he left it open for a week.
00:29:36.000 He had to cut it, pull, cut it, pull, cut it, pull.
00:29:42.000 Wow, that is wild.
00:29:45.000 So, is this mostly from pro wrestling, or is it from everything?
00:29:50.000 I would say everything.
00:29:51.000 I mean, you know, as a fireman, as a horseshoer, you know?
00:29:54.000 Jamie, go back to three pictures.
00:29:56.000 The one that shows the neck and the back.
00:29:59.000 That one.
00:29:59.000 Look at that.
00:30:00.000 So, you've got a few that are just hanging in there, and then you've got your neck fused. 0.99
00:30:05.000 That is goddamn wild. 1.00
00:30:07.000 Well, that goes all the way down the crack of my ass. 1.00
00:30:10.000 My ass crack goes from my balls up to my shoulder blades. 1.00
00:30:13.000 Yeah. 1.00
00:30:14.000 Wow, that is crazy.
00:30:16.000 So it's just all scar tissue in there and bolts and screws and plates and...
00:30:21.000 Yeah, so if I can go down there to Columbia and get, you know, the stem cell...
00:30:26.000 You might have to live there for a few years. 0.84
00:30:28.000 Just have them shoot you up every day. 0.86
00:30:30.000 Who knows?
00:30:32.000 I'm a big fan of stem cells. 0.99
00:30:34.000 They can do some wild shit down there. 0.94
00:30:35.000 I know a lot of guys have gone to that bioaccelerator thing, that facility down there, and had a really good result. 0.98
00:30:43.000 Yeah, I'm excited about it.
00:30:44.000 Look at me, I'm giddy.
00:30:45.000 I can hardly sit still.
00:30:46.000 Have you had any stem cells before?
00:30:48.000 No sir.
00:30:49.000 They can do amazing stuff, but that's a lot going on there.
00:30:54.000 Yeah, they're going to do my shoulders too, because I have partial replacements in my shoulders.
00:31:01.000 What do you got going on there?
00:31:02.000 Like resurfaced?
00:31:04.000 No, I just wore them out.
00:31:06.000 You said partial replacements?
00:31:08.000 Yeah.
00:31:08.000 Did they resurface the shoulders?
00:31:10.000 Is that what they did?
00:31:11.000 Yes, sir.
00:31:11.000 Yes, sir.
00:31:12.000 Just, you know, cut the end off, you know, and then stuck the one thing and just with the knob and the other side is all natural bone.
00:31:22.000 Right, yeah.
00:31:23.000 Because they said if they do a full replacement, You can't use them.
00:31:27.000 They're no good.
00:31:28.000 Oh, really?
00:31:29.000 You can't put stress on them?
00:31:30.000 Yeah, so I said, to hell with that.
00:31:32.000 I want to do something.
00:31:33.000 Right.
00:31:34.000 Are you able to work out now?
00:31:35.000 Not yet.
00:31:37.000 I just had this done.
00:31:41.000 This right one was done in 17, I think.
00:31:47.000 December 17. This one just got done last December.
00:31:51.000 When did you get your first surgery after fighting?
00:31:54.000 How many years in were you?
00:31:57.000 After fighting?
00:31:58.000 You mean during fighting, during your career?
00:32:00.000 Oh, during fighting.
00:32:01.000 Yeah.
00:32:03.000 Hell.
00:32:04.000 Because everybody's had a surgery.
00:32:06.000 Right.
00:32:06.000 I've never met a single fighter.
00:32:08.000 Maybe I have and I forgot.
00:32:10.000 But most fighters that I know have had something blowout.
00:32:13.000 Right.
00:32:13.000 You know?
00:32:14.000 Well, let's see.
00:32:17.000 I think in 2001 was when they did my neck.
00:32:21.000 So that was the first one?
00:32:22.000 Yeah.
00:32:23.000 Because I did that from pro wrestling to war.
00:32:26.000 You know, because...
00:32:27.000 I did the UFC in 96, and then in 97 I was hired by Antonio Inoki and Masa Saito to do New Japan Pro Wrestling.
00:32:39.000 And Brad Reagans, he's a cousin of Brock Lesnar, second cousin.
00:32:45.000 So he called up Jeff, you know, because Brad took fourth in the Olympics in 76 in Greco-Roman.
00:32:53.000 And then he was on the team in 80. And he was going to be the gold medal winner.
00:33:00.000 He had beaten the gold medal winner in 76, but they were doing the point system then.
00:33:07.000 So he got screwed out of them.
00:33:09.000 What's the point system?
00:33:12.000 You get so many points for advancing, so many points for a pin, so many points for a point win.
00:33:20.000 So they changed it?
00:33:21.000 Yeah, so they went back to the normal.
00:33:24.000 I mean, amateur wrestling fucks around so much with the rules, and so does judo.
00:33:32.000 Have you paid attention to the PFL at all?
00:33:34.000 No, I have not.
00:33:35.000 I was watching that today.
00:33:36.000 I was watching it in the gym while I was working out.
00:33:39.000 It's interesting.
00:33:40.000 They have real good fighters over there.
00:33:41.000 Some real good fighters.
00:33:42.000 But they have some wacky thing that they do where you get a certain amount of points for a submission, a certain amount of points for a knockout, and then you move ahead.
00:33:50.000 But it's like you're scoring.
00:33:54.000 And they call it the playoffs.
00:33:56.000 And then you're moving towards this eventual million-dollar tournament that they put together.
00:34:01.000 Yeah.
00:34:02.000 That's how they were doing it with judo and with amateur wrestling.
00:34:06.000 Yeah, but their thing is weird.
00:34:08.000 The way they have it set up, like if you win, but if you win in the first round, you get extra points.
00:34:14.000 If you miss weight, you lose a point.
00:34:17.000 It's hard to follow.
00:34:19.000 Even for someone like me who's a big fan of the sport, I can't follow their system. 0.95
00:34:23.000 I'm like, you've got great fighters, but you're confusing the shit out of people with this wacky system. 0.81
00:34:28.000 Yeah. 1.00
00:34:28.000 Well, you miss weight, your ass will be gone. 1.00
00:34:31.000 I think that's a good call. 0.99
00:34:33.000 I think you should not be able to fight or I think there should be some major penalty because a lot of these guys are choosing to miss weight.
00:34:41.000 They're choosing to miss weight. 0.99
00:34:43.000 They're like, I don't want to do this, fuck it. 1.00
00:34:45.000 But you could, but you know it's going to drain you. 1.00
00:34:47.000 And so they choose to come in a pound or two heavy and then they feel a lot better the next day.
00:34:53.000 Right.
00:34:53.000 Because, you know, you know better than anybody.
00:34:55.000 They have a better chance of winning, too.
00:34:56.000 Yeah, a better chance of winning because they're not as drained.
00:34:59.000 A lot of these guys are cutting.
00:35:00.000 I wish there was no weight cutting.
00:35:02.000 That's what I really wish.
00:35:03.000 I wish you got down to a healthy weight and you fought at whatever weight you're at and they just figured out what the weight classes could be to make it so that there's more options, make it every 10 pounds.
00:35:14.000 Something like that, like boxing has it, but I think with MMA, I think the weight classes are too wide.
00:35:20.000 You know, you got 85 and then you got 205. That's crazy.
00:35:23.000 That's 20 pounds. 0.99
00:35:25.000 To have two weight classes separated by 20 pounds is just fucking nuts to me. 0.96
00:35:30.000 I think it should be... 0.96
00:35:31.000 I would love it if it was 5 pounds, but I think 10 pounds is fine.
00:35:36.000 10 pounds is workable.
00:35:37.000 You could adjust your diet, adjust your training habits, do a little extra running, whatever you gotta do.
00:35:42.000 Right.
00:35:42.000 But more than that...
00:35:44.000 But then you get into what happened in pro boxing.
00:35:46.000 You end up having 80 champions, you know?
00:35:48.000 That's what the argument against it is, right?
00:35:51.000 But the thing about pro boxing is, you know, you have all these different organizations. 0.96
00:35:54.000 You got the WBC, WBA, IBO, you know, all that shit.
00:35:59.000 With the UFC, if they just kept it in the UFC, just with the UFC and made all these different weight classes, one every 10 pounds, I think is very doable.
00:36:10.000 Yeah.
00:36:10.000 Yeah.
00:36:11.000 It'd be a lot more opportunities for guys to go up in weight or down in weight and fight, you know, have champion versus champion fights.
00:36:17.000 Like when Israel Adesanya fought Jabovic.
00:36:21.000 You know, you got your middleweight champion fighting your light heavyweight champion.
00:36:24.000 The size difference is so big.
00:36:25.000 Right.
00:36:26.000 It's a giant size difference.
00:36:27.000 Well, that's why they need a super heavyweight. 0.94
00:36:30.000 Yeah.
00:36:30.000 I think so, too.
00:36:31.000 Yeah.
00:36:32.000 I mean, why cut it off at 285?
00:36:35.000 265. Yeah, it's crazy.
00:36:36.000 It's ridiculous. 0.99
00:36:37.000 It is ridiculous. 0.98
00:36:37.000 You have so many good fighters that are heavier. 0.98
00:36:41.000 I mean...
00:36:41.000 Rulon Gardner.
00:36:42.000 Yeah.
00:36:43.000 Like, Rulon Gardner is like a 300-pounder.
00:36:45.000 Oh, Erickson.
00:36:46.000 Tom Erickson.
00:36:46.000 Yeah, Tom Erickson.
00:36:47.000 Yeah, he was like a 300-pounder, right?
00:36:48.000 He was.
00:36:49.000 When in his prime, people forgot about Tom Erickson.
00:36:52.000 He was frightening. 1.00
00:36:53.000 Shit, he was terrifying. 1.00
00:36:54.000 Yeah. 1.00
00:36:55.000 Elite wrestler who could knock you the fuck out, and he was huge. 0.99
00:36:59.000 And he moved like a cat. 0.95
00:37:01.000 In his prime, Tom Erickson was one of the scariest specimens to ever compete in MMA. He was a fucking gigantic man who moved so good. 0.99
00:37:10.000 But he's another one that doesn't like getting punched in the face, though. 1.00
00:37:13.000 Eh, who does?
00:37:15.000 I kind of enjoy it.
00:37:16.000 Well, you're an unusual guy, Don Frye.
00:37:20.000 Yeah.
00:37:21.000 So when you first fought and you decided, okay, this is what I'm going to do.
00:37:26.000 When the UFC was taken off, you stayed in the UFC for a few years and then went over to Pride.
00:37:31.000 When did you find out about Pride?
00:37:33.000 No, I stayed in the UFC one year.
00:37:35.000 Only one year?
00:37:36.000 Yeah, in 96. And then I went to pro wrestling.
00:37:40.000 Oh, really?
00:37:41.000 Yeah, yeah.
00:37:43.000 So all your fights in the UFC were only one year?
00:37:45.000 One year. 0.99
00:37:46.000 Wow, no shit. 1.00
00:37:47.000 Yeah. 1.00
00:37:48.000 And none of them went the distance.
00:37:52.000 That's incredible.
00:37:53.000 And then from New Japan Pro Wrestling, so how'd you find out about that?
00:37:58.000 Then I went to Pride.
00:37:58.000 Did they contact you from the UFC? Yes, sir.
00:38:01.000 They contacted me.
00:38:02.000 Yes, sir.
00:38:05.000 Because...
00:38:07.000 God bless Ken Shamrock, you know, he had the deal.
00:38:12.000 Right, he had a connection over there.
00:38:14.000 Well, no, they signed...
00:38:16.000 They offered him a deal to go over there and be a bad guy American shooter style, you know.
00:38:24.000 And so he took that contract, rented WWE, and showed them, and they matched it or bettered it, you know.
00:38:33.000 And then that left New Japan Pro Wrestling hanging.
00:38:38.000 So that's when Masa Saito called Brad Reagans, Brad Reagans called Jeff Blatnick, What a great guy Jeff Black was.
00:38:52.000 He gave me some great advice when I first started working for the UFC. Just such a sweetheart of a guy.
00:38:59.000 How did he pass?
00:39:01.000 Was it a heart?
00:39:02.000 Was it a heart attack?
00:39:03.000 I think so.
00:39:05.000 Sweetheart of a guy, though.
00:39:06.000 He was a good guy.
00:39:07.000 Really good guy.
00:39:08.000 And an elite wrestler, too.
00:39:10.000 And just fantastic.
00:39:11.000 Gold medal.
00:39:12.000 Yeah.
00:39:12.000 And fantastic doing commentary because of that experience.
00:39:15.000 He was, like you, he was a student of the sport.
00:39:18.000 Yeah, he was.
00:39:18.000 He got hired and studied it and, you know, he was amazing.
00:39:23.000 Yeah, he was an amazing guy.
00:39:25.000 And when, so, you go over to New Japan Pro Wrestling and that's when you were getting most of your injuries, you think?
00:39:32.000 Yes, sir.
00:39:33.000 Because I was trying to be Ric Flair and Terry Funk, you know.
00:39:40.000 And they didn't want that, you know.
00:39:43.000 They wanted more of a Bruiser Brody type thing, you know.
00:39:48.000 He wanted you the badass American cowboy. 0.57
00:39:50.000 Right.
00:39:51.000 And not to take the bumps, you know?
00:39:54.000 I ended up taking bumps that I shouldn't have taken.
00:39:57.000 That's the thing about pro wrestling, right?
00:39:59.000 People think, oh, it's fake.
00:40:01.000 Listen, those slams are not fake.
00:40:03.000 You're really getting slammed, you know?
00:40:05.000 Those picking guys up over your head, slamming them down, them picking you up, all the different collisions that you guys would have with each other night after night after night.
00:40:14.000 And is their circuit over there similar to the circuit here?
00:40:18.000 Would you do a lot of different shows or are they mostly televised?
00:40:21.000 How'd they do it over there?
00:40:22.000 Yeah, he did a lot of dark matches, you know.
00:40:26.000 Absolutely.
00:40:27.000 I mean, that's how they keep the money coming in.
00:40:30.000 Right.
00:40:30.000 They do arenas, just like they do in America.
00:40:32.000 Right.
00:40:33.000 Yeah, people don't know, if you're not a fan of pro wrestling, those guys are working hundreds of nights a week, or a year, rather.
00:40:40.000 They're working, you know, Dallas Page was telling me that he, you know, sometimes did 200 plus shows a year.
00:40:48.000 Some guys do 300, you know.
00:40:50.000 It's incredible.
00:40:50.000 If you stop and think about that.
00:40:53.000 365 days in a year.
00:40:55.000 That's crazy.
00:40:56.000 Yeah, you're getting whacked, you know. 0.54
00:40:57.000 Most of them.
00:40:58.000 Yeah, you're working more days than you're not working.
00:41:01.000 Right.
00:41:02.000 And the travel.
00:41:04.000 Yeah, and the travel.
00:41:04.000 So you're exhausted all the time, you're jet-lagged, and you're getting slammed.
00:41:08.000 Yeah, and you gotta stay in shape, and you gotta eat, you know.
00:41:14.000 It's a work.
00:41:15.000 It's a real, you know, it's a real living thing.
00:41:18.000 You know, when you went over there, did you have to go to pro wrestling school?
00:41:21.000 Did they train you how to do it?
00:41:23.000 Brad Reagans trained me.
00:41:24.000 He did?
00:41:25.000 Yeah, yes sir.
00:41:26.000 And Brad, you know, phenomenal.
00:41:28.000 He's a phenomenal athlete, you know.
00:41:31.000 And like I said, he took fourth in the 76 Olympics in Montreal when he should have won.
00:41:39.000 And then he would have won the 80 Olympics, you know.
00:41:43.000 And then he ended up, he got out, you know, and he trained Jeff Blatnick, you know, because they were tight.
00:41:50.000 And since Brad stepped away, you know, All the concentration was on Jeff.
00:41:58.000 And how did you go from New Japan Pro Wrestling to Pride?
00:42:03.000 Ego.
00:42:04.000 Ego?
00:42:05.000 Yeah.
00:42:07.000 I saw Mark Coleman win, you know.
00:42:10.000 I said, that's nonsense.
00:42:15.000 That should be me. 1.00
00:42:18.000 Stupid. 1.00
00:42:19.000 So what year was that? 1.00
00:42:21.000 What year was your first Pride fight?
00:42:24.000 Well, partner, first, 01. 01?
00:42:29.000 Yeah, it was...
00:42:30.000 That was the glory days.
00:42:31.000 Yeah, it was two weeks after 9-11.
00:42:34.000 I think it was either 23rd or 28th.
00:42:38.000 Wow.
00:42:39.000 Wow.
00:42:40.000 And I went in there, you know, with...
00:42:43.000 I told my parents, find me a flag, you know, give it to the guys when they come over.
00:42:48.000 And my mother-in-law made those shorts for me. 0.98
00:42:52.000 Oh, really?
00:42:52.000 Yeah.
00:42:53.000 All right.
00:42:54.000 Yeah, so, you know, the nicest...
00:42:56.000 You know, I'm going in with the national anthem.
00:42:59.000 Nice.
00:43:00.000 Oh, it was amazing.
00:43:02.000 You know, walking at the flag, having a national anthem, it was cool.
00:43:07.000 Look at you there.
00:43:09.000 Don Fry, 20 years ago.
00:43:11.000 Isn't that wild?
00:43:12.000 Yeah, it's...
00:43:14.000 Jeez.
00:43:15.000 Jeez.
00:43:16.000 Is it...
00:43:18.000 What year is this? 0.96
00:43:19.000 That fight in the lower corner, that Takayama fight, that was one of the craziest fucking moments in the history of mixed martial arts when you and Takayama were just slamming each other in the head over and over and over again. 0.94
00:43:35.000 God bless him, man. 0.94
00:43:36.000 Jesus Christ, that fight.
00:43:38.000 See if you can just pull up that exchange, because in all the history of the sport, that is one of the most iconic exchanges of any two, because you couldn't believe it was happening, and you couldn't believe you guys kept doing it.
00:43:51.000 Yeah, yeah.
00:43:52.000 Well, you should know where I was at. 0.98
00:43:55.000 I mean, this fight was so fucking bananas. 0.99
00:43:59.000 I mean, you just walk towards each other, and this fucking exchange is like a movie exchange. 0.99
00:44:04.000 In the tie-up, you're both hitting each other with right hands. 0.98
00:44:07.000 And it's actual speed. 0.99
00:44:09.000 What in the fuck is that? 0.99
00:44:10.000 How the hell did you guys do that? 1.00
00:44:12.000 Well, if you go back, you see I slip.
00:44:15.000 So I grab him, you know, because I slipped.
00:44:18.000 I had to grab his neck to keep from falling.
00:44:20.000 And so he just stayed there and I stayed there. 0.98
00:44:24.000 Just nuts.
00:44:25.000 I mean, I've never seen anything like that before or since.
00:44:29.000 While that was happening, and you just slamming right hands into each other like that, what was going through your head?
00:44:36.000 I was like, what the hell's keeping this guy up?
00:44:39.000 He was probably thinking the same thing about you.
00:44:41.000 But I hit hard, Joe.
00:44:43.000 I hit hard.
00:44:44.000 Yeah, you do.
00:44:45.000 Yeah. 1.00
00:44:46.000 You hit him with some fucking haymakers. 1.00
00:44:48.000 Oh, man. 1.00
00:44:49.000 And I couldn't believe he was taking them.
00:44:52.000 And I was like, he scared the hell out of me.
00:44:56.000 Was that one of those 80,000 seat shows?
00:44:59.000 One of those gigantic ones they did?
00:45:00.000 Yeah.
00:45:01.000 I think it was only 45. Small show.
00:45:06.000 A medium show.
00:45:07.000 Because they did some Saitama Super Arena shows where it was just insanity.
00:45:13.000 We did Tokyo Dome.
00:45:16.000 I did Antonio Inoki's retirement match.
00:45:20.000 Oh, yeah?
00:45:20.000 Tokyo Dome, $70,000.
00:45:22.000 So they sold that out, and then they sold 5,000 standing tickets, you know?
00:45:27.000 Wow.
00:45:28.000 They got permission from the fire department to do that.
00:45:30.000 So I did that, and then they did the National Soccer Arena, you know, for probably K-1 New Year's Eve.
00:45:39.000 Oh, wow.
00:45:40.000 Wow. 1.00
00:45:41.000 That's when Jerome Labano knocked me on my ass. 0.99
00:45:48.000 Yeah, you had that one kickboxing fight against him. 0.98
00:45:51.000 That's a crazy deal to take, to take a kickboxing fight against one of the great kickboxers of all time.
00:45:59.000 Yeah, yeah.
00:46:01.000 Was that an ego deal, too?
00:46:03.000 Yeah, ego.
00:46:04.000 Well, the thing is, the deal was we were supposed to do an MMA fight, yeah.
00:46:09.000 And then he backed out of that. 0.93
00:46:10.000 I don't know what happened, but there's a lot of things that happened, Joe, that I'm finding out now, you know, 20 years later, that, you know, the two scumbags that were my agent at the time. 0.96
00:46:26.000 Oh, really? 0.88
00:46:27.000 Yeah, yeah.
00:46:28.000 Oh, so they made some backdoor deals?
00:46:30.000 Mm-hmm, yeah.
00:46:32.000 Oh, sorry to hear that.
00:46:33.000 Yeah.
00:46:34.000 That's the sport, right?
00:46:36.000 Yeah, that's...
00:46:36.000 Prize fighting.
00:46:37.000 There's always going to be scumbags. 1.00
00:46:39.000 Prize fighting is full of shit. 1.00
00:46:41.000 I'm watching the Kings documentary on Showtime. 1.00
00:46:45.000 Have you seen it?
00:46:47.000 No, I just found out about it yesterday. 0.99
00:46:51.000 It's fucking amazing. 0.99
00:46:52.000 It's amazing. 0.99
00:46:54.000 It's so good.
00:46:55.000 It's all about Roberta Duran, Sugar Ray Lennon, Thomas Hearns, and Marvin Hagler. 0.98
00:47:00.000 It's fucking incredible. 0.96
00:47:02.000 It's incredible. 0.99
00:47:03.000 It's so good.
00:47:04.000 And it makes you remember, like, man, those days were wild.
00:47:08.000 Well, they had the one Once We Were Kings, you know, about the heavyweight guys.
00:47:13.000 Yeah, this is just about those four guys in the matches that they had with each other.
00:47:20.000 Well, the Once We Were Kings were about Ali, Foreman, Frazier, Norton, and Holmes.
00:47:29.000 Those were some animals there.
00:47:32.000 Yeah, my God.
00:47:33.000 Some amazing fights.
00:47:36.000 I loved Hagler.
00:47:38.000 Oh my god, he's my favorite.
00:47:39.000 Yeah, yeah.
00:47:41.000 I loved Hagler.
00:47:43.000 It broke my heart when I finally freaking passed.
00:47:45.000 Yeah, that was a rough one.
00:47:46.000 I couldn't believe that, man.
00:47:47.000 That was a rough one.
00:47:48.000 That made me real sad.
00:47:49.000 He was, when I was a kid, he was my idol.
00:47:52.000 Yeah.
00:47:53.000 Because he was just like this guy that didn't have any hype behind him.
00:47:56.000 A hardworking guy from Brockton, Massachusetts.
00:47:59.000 Just blue collar.
00:48:00.000 Just always outworked everybody.
00:48:03.000 Yeah.
00:48:03.000 And just...
00:48:04.000 Wouldn't stop.
00:48:05.000 And then when he got to the pinnacle, when he knocked out Thomas Hearns, that fight was just like, that was the fight that made him.
00:48:11.000 And people really understood what kind of greatness that man had in him.
00:48:14.000 I mean, people knew how good he was before that, but you had to see him against another superstar and see him just wade right into the fire to see what, you know, Thomas Hearns was a murderous puncher. 0.95
00:48:24.000 Oh, he's a monster. 0.96
00:48:25.000 Murderous puncher. 0.99
00:48:27.000 And to see Marvin Hagler just take it and keep coming forward.
00:48:30.000 And it was a fight.
00:48:31.000 It was barely a boxing match.
00:48:33.000 It was a fight.
00:48:34.000 I mean, they made it a war.
00:48:37.000 They had that on their hat, right?
00:48:39.000 Yep.
00:48:40.000 That was Hagler.
00:48:41.000 Yeah, he put war on everything.
00:48:43.000 He was something special.
00:48:46.000 He was an inspiration in Massachusetts.
00:48:48.000 Everybody.
00:48:49.000 I still question...
00:48:54.000 The Leonard decision?
00:48:55.000 Yeah.
00:48:55.000 Yeah, I thought he won that fight.
00:48:57.000 Yeah.
00:48:57.000 Yeah, I thought he won that fight.
00:48:58.000 But I did love the fact that he retired.
00:49:00.000 He said, that's it.
00:49:01.000 I'm done. 1.00
00:49:02.000 Fuck this sport. 1.00
00:49:02.000 Yeah. 1.00
00:49:03.000 I'm going to Italy and make martial arts movies.
00:49:06.000 How'd he do?
00:49:07.000 He took good.
00:49:08.000 They were terrible.
00:49:09.000 Terrible movies, but he made a lot of money.
00:49:11.000 You know, he was a superstar over there. 0.99
00:49:13.000 Weren't any worse than dipshit, huh? 1.00
00:49:15.000 Oh, they were worse, believe it or not. 1.00
00:49:17.000 Really?
00:49:18.000 Yeah, they were crazy bad.
00:49:19.000 But they were comically bad. 1.00
00:49:21.000 They were like, you know, like you'd punch people, they'd go flying through the air, that kind of shit. 1.00
00:49:24.000 Yeah. 0.99
00:49:24.000 You've never seen? 0.99
00:49:25.000 No.
00:49:27.000 Jamie's found some clips.
00:49:28.000 They were hilarious movies.
00:49:30.000 But he decided he didn't want to fight anymore and went out at the very top of his game, which is kind of incredible.
00:49:38.000 There's only a few guys that have ever done that.
00:49:40.000 Andre Ward did that.
00:49:41.000 He did that.
00:49:42.000 Only a few guys ever just went out.
00:49:44.000 The guy from UFC... George St. Pierre?
00:49:49.000 No.
00:49:50.000 Khabib.
00:49:51.000 Khabib.
00:49:51.000 Yeah.
00:49:53.000 Khabib did it.
00:49:54.000 Yeah.
00:49:54.000 I mean, Khabib and...
00:49:57.000 I mean, very few guys have ever gotten to the point where Khabib is and decided...
00:50:02.000 I mean, he's in his early 30s.
00:50:04.000 Right.
00:50:04.000 This is Marvin Hagler here.
00:50:07.000 So look at this.
00:50:08.000 Are they shooting the arrows at the airplane?
00:50:13.000 I don't know what he was doing, but these are terrible movies.
00:50:18.000 Indigo, huh?
00:50:20.000 Indigo.
00:50:21.000 Indigo.
00:50:22.000 Oh, Indigo. 0.98
00:50:23.000 There's just these silly movies. 0.96
00:50:27.000 I think he's shooting at the roof. 0.97
00:50:29.000 Yeah, I don't know what he's doing.
00:50:31.000 It's just crazy.
00:50:33.000 They're just Italian movies.
00:50:36.000 But he was a huge star over there.
00:50:38.000 I guess he learned Italian.
00:50:39.000 See, he punches that guy.
00:50:40.000 Wow!
00:50:40.000 That's a hell of a hook.
00:50:43.000 Look at this.
00:50:44.000 Uppercut.
00:50:48.000 Jeez, that's great.
00:50:50.000 But someone has to do something like that on the early days of Pride.
00:50:53.000 They really do.
00:50:54.000 Because Pride was something special.
00:50:57.000 Because for us...
00:50:59.000 The fans that were watching it at home, all the fans, it wasn't known.
00:51:06.000 It wasn't like everybody, like the UFC today, say if Francis Ngannou's fighting or if Stylebender's fighting, everybody knows.
00:51:13.000 It's big.
00:51:14.000 It's a huge sport, you know?
00:51:15.000 You find out the event's coming this weekend.
00:51:18.000 Hundreds of thousands, if not a million, pay-per-view buys.
00:51:20.000 It's a big deal.
00:51:21.000 But back then, Pride was...
00:51:23.000 No one knew over here.
00:51:24.000 Only the martial arts fans knew.
00:51:26.000 It wasn't a big deal.
00:51:28.000 But we knew that we were seeing something special.
00:51:31.000 Well, it was like a Super Bowl every three months.
00:51:35.000 It was.
00:51:36.000 I'll tell you what, Joe.
00:51:37.000 It was...
00:51:39.000 You know, people say, you know, the Noguera brothers came over here and got whooped.
00:51:47.000 They say Mirko came over and got whooped.
00:51:49.000 We were busted up, man.
00:51:51.000 You get in top shape every three months to fight, you know, a top guy.
00:51:57.000 You get busted up and it's hard.
00:51:59.000 It's so hard on the body to do something like that.
00:52:02.000 Yeah, everybody who came over to America had already been past their prime in pride. 1.00
00:52:07.000 They had already had a career.
00:52:09.000 Yeah, a full career.
00:52:11.000 Yeah.
00:52:11.000 Like, think of Noguera's wars, the wars that he had, the war with Fedor, with Crow Cop, with, I mean, so many guys.
00:52:18.000 Big Bob.
00:52:19.000 Bob Sapp!
00:52:20.000 Bob was 375 pounds and pile-drived him.
00:52:23.000 I love Bob, man.
00:52:24.000 He's a good guy. 0.95
00:52:25.000 Apparently, Minotaur's neck was fucked up for the rest of his life after that fight. 0.98
00:52:28.000 Yeah. 0.98
00:52:29.000 I can see that.
00:52:30.000 Of course.
00:52:31.000 God dang.
00:52:32.000 Yeah. 0.99
00:52:32.000 I mean, Bob was 375 with a six-pack, which, what in the fuck was he taking? 0.99
00:52:38.000 Oh, he, you know what, 5% body fat? 0.99
00:52:40.000 He was so big.
00:52:42.000 Yeah.
00:52:42.000 He was so big, it seemed like a boss character in a video game.
00:52:46.000 Yeah.
00:52:47.000 Like the final guy that you had to beat.
00:52:49.000 Ha ha! 0.86
00:52:50.000 You know?
00:52:50.000 I mean Bob was just gigantic.
00:52:53.000 And he had some skills.
00:52:54.000 Yeah, and he's the funniest guy.
00:52:56.000 Was he?
00:52:56.000 Oh my god, he's so funny.
00:52:59.000 You know?
00:53:01.000 And then, somebody told me not to say that to you.
00:53:06.000 That he was funny?
00:53:07.000 Yeah.
00:53:07.000 Bob's funny?
00:53:08.000 Well, his character was hilarious.
00:53:10.000 He put the cape on and everything.
00:53:12.000 And they loved him in Japan, boy.
00:53:14.000 They loved him over there.
00:53:15.000 He was a huge superstar over there, right?
00:53:18.000 Yeah.
00:53:19.000 But I think that time, that period of time from like 2001 to whenever it was that Pride went away, was it like 2006 or something like that?
00:53:28.000 Yeah.
00:53:29.000 Was it 10 years or 8 years?
00:53:31.000 Look at him and Overeem.
00:53:33.000 Look at Overeem, yeah.
00:53:35.000 Horse meat.
00:53:36.000 Did they fight?
00:53:38.000 I don't know.
00:53:39.000 It says Versus behind them.
00:53:41.000 Oh, it is an art wrestling match.
00:53:43.000 Well, Uberim is back.
00:53:46.000 He's going back to glory.
00:53:47.000 So they're going to let him get back on the secret sauce.
00:53:49.000 We're going to see Alistair Overeem.
00:53:51.000 Yeah, good.
00:53:52.000 That's what I say.
00:53:53.000 Yeah.
00:53:54.000 Listen, test all the fighters you have to test.
00:53:56.000 But when a guy's been saucy all throughout the best parts of his career, and then you make him come over here and be natural.
00:54:02.000 I mean, we got a chance to see him against Brock Lesnar when he was saucy.
00:54:06.000 Right.
00:54:07.000 You know?
00:54:07.000 Right.
00:54:08.000 When he was 265, jacked.
00:54:11.000 Built like a superhero.
00:54:12.000 But then, you know, all these pesky USADA tests.
00:54:16.000 You know what? 1.00
00:54:18.000 If every athlete on the planet would tell you something to kiss their fucking ass, you know, they'd go away. 1.00
00:54:25.000 They should go away. 1.00
00:54:25.000 They have too much power. 1.00
00:54:27.000 You know, to bang on somebody's door at 5 o'clock in the morning.
00:54:30.000 How about when they were about to fight?
00:54:31.000 Like, fight day, they did it to Alexander Volkanovski.
00:54:35.000 Really?
00:54:36.000 Wasn't it him?
00:54:36.000 It was him, yeah.
00:54:38.000 Literally fight day. 1.00
00:54:40.000 These motherfuckers wake him up at 6 o'clock in the morning and tell him to take a piss. 1.00
00:54:45.000 I'd unleash the dogs. 1.00
00:54:47.000 That is insanity. 0.92
00:54:49.000 It's insanity that they would even think that would be okay.
00:54:52.000 And it's a huge disadvantage if they don't test his opponent.
00:54:56.000 They should test him at the same time. 0.99
00:54:57.000 First of all, they should leave him the fuck alone. 0.99
00:55:00.000 It's crazy that they did that. 1.00
00:55:02.000 I mean, the psychological fuck that is, you know? 1.00
00:55:06.000 I mean, he was like, are you fucking kidding me? 0.99
00:55:08.000 Are they really here? 0.98
00:55:09.000 Yeah.
00:55:10.000 You know, he couldn't believe it.
00:55:11.000 I mean, he's just trying to stay calm and get ready for a fight.
00:55:16.000 When you were fighting in pride, did they test it all?
00:55:21.000 Sure they tested, yeah. 0.99
00:55:22.000 Yeah, but they didn't give a fuck. 0.99
00:55:23.000 We don't know what happened. 0.99
00:55:25.000 They spilled it on the way to the toilet.
00:55:29.000 Ensign told me that they had in the contract, in all capital letters, we do not test for steroids.
00:55:34.000 Oh, yeah?
00:55:35.000 Yeah.
00:55:35.000 He said they were like, letting you know.
00:55:38.000 Oh, yeah.
00:55:39.000 Yeah.
00:55:39.000 Well, it was like...
00:55:42.000 UFC 9. When McCarthy came in and said, you can't punch, you know, close fist.
00:55:50.000 Or you will be fined somewhere, sometime, some amount down the road, you know?
00:55:57.000 Right.
00:55:57.000 So, go ahead, basically, is what he said.
00:56:00.000 Oh, is that what he said?
00:56:01.000 Oh, okay.
00:56:02.000 You will be fined eventually somewhere, some amount, you know?
00:56:06.000 Oh, so it was one of those deals.
00:56:07.000 Yeah.
00:56:08.000 Yeah. 0.98
00:56:09.000 So, I mean, we're going to enforce this stupid rule, you know, that, you know. 0.98
00:56:16.000 What was it like working in pride? 0.99
00:56:19.000 I liked it until...
00:56:24.000 Until I found out that I had been robbed a couple of times and they were supposed to have paid your taxes.
00:56:34.000 And then I went and did the last show as a favor.
00:56:40.000 I took a tremendous cut, and, you know, then the next day I go in to get paid, and President of Pride's not there. 0.98
00:56:50.000 I said, fuck, something's up. 0.99
00:56:52.000 And they said, you know, uh-huh. 0.99
00:56:56.000 I'm not going to say his name because it's still questionable, everything.
00:57:00.000 So he said, he's not here, he's on the phone. 0.93
00:57:04.000 I go, oh crap.
00:57:05.000 He says, Don's on yesterday, Japanese IRS. Come to our office looking for you. 0.99
00:57:12.000 He said, they're downstairs right now waiting on you.
00:57:15.000 Oh boy.
00:57:16.000 Yeah, so I had to go down there and pay my way out of Japan.
00:57:19.000 Oh Jesus Christ.
00:57:21.000 Yeah.
00:57:22.000 Wow.
00:57:23.000 Wow.
00:57:24.000 Yeah, there was a lot of weird shenanigans with money over there, right?
00:57:26.000 That was why Bob Sapp wound up leaving, right?
00:57:28.000 They told him they wanted him to fight and he didn't have a contract.
00:57:31.000 And the day of the fight, there's still no contract.
00:57:34.000 It's like, look, if I don't have a contract, I'm not going out there.
00:57:37.000 And then they effectively kind of blackballed him and he never really reached those same heights again.
00:57:43.000 They stopped promoting him, stopped, you know...
00:57:45.000 Well, some asswipe over there made the announcement that the Yakuza was involved with Pride.
00:57:55.000 You know, like that's a shocker.
00:57:57.000 I mean, Yakuza's involved with everything.
00:57:59.000 And that killed the business over there, right?
00:58:00.000 Yeah.
00:58:01.000 Was that like the media did that or a journalist did that or something?
00:58:04.000 Yeah, a journalist, yeah.
00:58:05.000 But everybody knew anyway, right?
00:58:07.000 Right, right.
00:58:07.000 But you're not supposed to...
00:58:09.000 Publicly announce it because then advertisers don't want to be involved in it.
00:58:14.000 Right.
00:58:15.000 Yeah.
00:58:15.000 And is that what killed the business over there?
00:58:17.000 Yeah.
00:58:17.000 Yeah, it destroyed it.
00:58:19.000 So how many years did it run for in its heyday?
00:58:23.000 I don't know.
00:58:24.000 I did the last one.
00:58:26.000 I don't know if it was eight or nine.
00:58:28.000 Do you know?
00:58:29.000 We'll find out.
00:58:30.000 So it was like a good solid seven or eight years.
00:58:34.000 No, it's more than that.
00:58:35.000 I'm sorry.
00:58:36.000 Was it?
00:58:36.000 I'm thinking about myself here.
00:58:40.000 Imagine that.
00:58:43.000 Yeah, because I came in at number 19, right?
00:58:46.000 Was it?
00:58:47.000 Yeah.
00:58:48.000 19 or 21. I remember the first one was Hickson.
00:58:52.000 Hickson fought the very first one.
00:58:54.000 And it was Hickson versus Takata, right?
00:58:57.000 Wasn't that number one?
00:58:58.000 I believe so.
00:59:00.000 I think that was.
00:59:01.000 Because I think the way they launched Pride, I do remember that Hickson was the first one.
00:59:06.000 Because the way they launched Pride was by having pro wrestling stars compete in MMA. Right.
00:59:13.000 And that was one of the big attractions to Pride.
00:59:17.000 Because pro wrestling in Japan back then was gigantic, right?
00:59:20.000 Oh, yeah.
00:59:21.000 Well, the UWF. Remember the UWF? Yeah.
00:59:24.000 That was like the first creation of Pride, I guess.
00:59:31.000 I don't know.
00:59:32.000 Yeah.
00:59:32.000 Yeah.
00:59:33.000 Well, you know, they had their guys shooting on each other sometimes.
00:59:42.000 Sometimes.
00:59:43.000 Right.
00:59:43.000 And sometimes not.
00:59:44.000 What that means, for people that don't understand what that means, some of the fights were a work, meaning, like, you knew who was going to win, you'd worked it out in advance, and some of the fights just turned out to be real fights.
00:59:54.000 Mm-hmm.
00:59:54.000 And that was a thing that would happen sometimes in Japan with pro wrestling, right?
00:59:58.000 Right, right.
00:59:58.000 It would just decide that, and sometimes the opponent didn't know.
01:00:02.000 Right, right.
01:00:03.000 And the guy would go out and start throwing haymakers at them and kick them and take them down, stomp them, and you're like, whoa!
01:00:09.000 Well, it happened here, too.
01:00:10.000 I mean, you had Gene LaBelle.
01:00:12.000 Oh, yeah.
01:00:13.000 You know, who was...
01:00:16.000 The muscle for his parents, you know?
01:00:18.000 Yeah.
01:00:19.000 You know, and then Roddy Piper was the muscle for a while.
01:00:22.000 Yeah, yeah.
01:00:23.000 Well, it's a lot of guys who were in pro wrestling were legit combat sports athletes.
01:00:32.000 Right.
01:00:33.000 And some of them were just pro wrestlers.
01:00:35.000 They just got into it just as entertainers.
01:00:37.000 So there was a wide variety.
01:00:39.000 And over in Japan, Takata was kind of, you know, he was a huge superstar over there.
01:00:46.000 But Hickson would not agree to anything other than a real fight.
01:00:50.000 So when you watch that fight, it's very clear.
01:00:54.000 But some of the fights weren't, right?
01:00:56.000 Right.
01:00:56.000 And you kind of had to look at it with a discerning eye.
01:00:59.000 Like you'd see a guy get caught in a heel hook, and you're like, hmm.
01:01:03.000 Like, that looks a little fishy.
01:01:05.000 Like...
01:01:05.000 Well, I remember after Ken Shamrock and I fought, I went to a WWE show here in Tucson, and the Undertaker, he asked me if that was a work.
01:01:19.000 He says, because you both end up in a heel hook. 0.74
01:01:22.000 I'm like, oh fuck yeah, we both ended up being a heel hook. 0.97
01:01:26.000 He had my foot and that was the only thing I grabbed. 0.99
01:01:31.000 That was a shoot, buddy.
01:01:35.000 It looked real.
01:01:36.000 Oh, believe me, it was real.
01:01:37.000 Well, Ken was one of the very first guys to really master heel hooks and use those in the UFC early on.
01:01:43.000 Remember?
01:01:44.000 Yeah.
01:01:45.000 My God. 0.64
01:01:46.000 Well, he, you know, had a hairline fracture on both my freaking ankles. 0.70
01:01:50.000 Did he really? 0.95
01:01:50.000 Yeah. 0.95
01:01:51.000 Yeah, I mean, you should have seen them.
01:01:54.000 You know, my ex-wife and I, we would usually go from Japan to L.A., you know, but that time we stopped in Hawaii, and my ankles were this big, you know.
01:02:08.000 Just going, if I didn't went the whole way, you know, I could barely walk off that plane.
01:02:14.000 Wow.
01:02:15.000 Yeah, it was a little painful.
01:02:17.000 Yeah, I can only imagine.
01:02:19.000 Yeah.
01:02:20.000 How many fights did you have over there in Pride?
01:02:23.000 Not a lot.
01:02:25.000 Not a lot.
01:02:27.000 What, six or...
01:02:28.000 Six or seven?
01:02:29.000 Yeah.
01:02:30.000 Something along those lines.
01:02:31.000 Who do you think was your toughest fight over there?
01:02:35.000 Oh, jeez.
01:02:40.000 Takeyama would have to be my toughest fight.
01:02:43.000 I mean, it wasn't the prettiest thing.
01:02:45.000 But it was the most iconic.
01:02:46.000 Yeah.
01:02:47.000 Yeah.
01:02:48.000 You know, I mean, it wore me out, you know?
01:02:51.000 I can only imagine.
01:02:52.000 I mean, physically and psychologically, I mean, you just, you just, you go, what the hell is going on here?
01:03:02.000 Yeah.
01:03:02.000 Yeah.
01:03:06.000 It was kind of frightening, you know?
01:03:08.000 You said something to me once, I'll never forget this, about the Ken Shamrock fight.
01:03:11.000 You said that if you want to be honest, both of you left a little bit of yourself in that ring and you were never the same afterwards.
01:03:20.000 Oh yeah, oh yeah.
01:03:23.000 Never work.
01:03:24.000 Yeah.
01:03:25.000 There's some of those fights that you think back, and you think back how you were before the fight and how you were after the fight, and they were just so crazy.
01:03:32.000 So much violence, and it's just...
01:03:35.000 Well, just the preparation, too.
01:03:38.000 Yeah.
01:03:39.000 I mean, the psychological preparation sometimes is harder than the physical preparation.
01:03:45.000 Yeah.
01:03:46.000 How so?
01:03:49.000 You've just got to...
01:03:51.000 You have to separate yourself not only from your family, you know, your wife and your kids and your friends, but the whole world.
01:04:03.000 You know, I mean, I completely understand what it's like to come out of prison, you know?
01:04:11.000 I mean, prison, not jail, but prison for a long time.
01:04:15.000 Because you...
01:04:18.000 Like I said, not to be redundant, but I am, but you completely separate yourself from everything.
01:04:27.000 Everything.
01:04:30.000 When you would prepare for these fights, where were you training at the time?
01:04:37.000 There in Tucson, a couple of times I had to leave, you know, for the second Mark Coleman fight, you know, I went over and...
01:04:50.000 I had Frank Shamrock, you know, training.
01:04:53.000 Oh, really?
01:04:54.000 Yeah, and we couldn't train.
01:04:56.000 I was so beat up, you know, at that point in my career.
01:05:01.000 You know, we'd get up, you know, go have breakfast, go get a massage, go to the chiropractor, you know, go get stretched, go to that.
01:05:13.000 There was just hardly anything.
01:05:15.000 Any fighting.
01:05:17.000 Just watch the fight on TV. Mostly just trying to keep your body healthy.
01:05:24.000 Yeah, just to show up.
01:05:25.000 Wow.
01:05:26.000 So what kind of physical training were you able to do when you were that banged up?
01:05:30.000 Not much.
01:05:34.000 Like I said, we would just do stretching and just technique.
01:05:39.000 Basically just technique.
01:05:40.000 Really?
01:05:41.000 Yeah.
01:05:41.000 What'd you do for conditioning?
01:05:44.000 Hell, Joe, I don't even remember anymore.
01:05:47.000 Really?
01:05:47.000 For that fight, yeah.
01:05:49.000 Because Shamrock, Frank in particular, was always a stickler for conditioning.
01:05:52.000 He was always an amazing cardio.
01:05:54.000 Yeah.
01:05:55.000 I mean, that was one of his big weapons, is he would put a pace on guys.
01:05:58.000 That's what he did to Tito.
01:05:59.000 That's what he did to John Loeber in the rematch.
01:06:01.000 Just put a pace on guys they couldn't keep up with.
01:06:04.000 Oh, Frank was amazing.
01:06:06.000 People forgot about Frank.
01:06:07.000 He was a beast.
01:06:08.000 He was an amazing athlete.
01:06:10.000 Yeah.
01:06:11.000 Remember when he armbarred Kevin Jackson?
01:06:13.000 Yeah.
01:06:14.000 Won the title? 0.99
01:06:15.000 No, he was a monster.
01:06:16.000 Yeah, that's one of the things that I use as an example.
01:06:23.000 He was a gold medalist in the hardest discipline.
01:06:28.000 And Frank caught him, what, 30 seconds in the first round?
01:06:31.000 Yeah, it was beautiful.
01:06:31.000 Just beautiful.
01:06:33.000 And Jackson's a stud.
01:06:35.000 Oh, yeah.
01:06:36.000 Real stud.
01:06:37.000 Amazing wrestler.
01:06:37.000 Yeah.
01:06:38.000 Have you ever worked out with him?
01:06:39.000 No.
01:06:40.000 No. 1.00
01:06:40.000 Stronger than a fucking ox. 1.00
01:06:42.000 Oh, I could only imagine. 0.99
01:06:43.000 I mean, all those elite wrestlers, the kind of strength those guys have.
01:06:46.000 Remember when Royce Alger came over to the UFC? Ensign.
01:06:50.000 Ensign arm-barred him.
01:06:52.000 Yeah.
01:06:53.000 Fast, too.
01:06:54.000 Yeah, same thing.
01:06:54.000 Caught him in an arm bar.
01:06:55.000 But so many wrestlers, they just didn't understand what they were getting into.
01:06:59.000 No.
01:06:59.000 Yeah.
01:06:59.000 Yeah.
01:07:00.000 That's the thing.
01:07:03.000 They leave those arms out there, and boom, they're snatched real fast.
01:07:08.000 So when you were training with Frank, how did you hook up with Frank?
01:07:11.000 How did that take place, and where were you guys training?
01:07:16.000 We were at his house.
01:07:18.000 Was he in California at the time?
01:07:20.000 Yes, sir.
01:07:21.000 So you went up there and just trained with him?
01:07:22.000 Yes, sir.
01:07:23.000 Did you camp with him?
01:07:24.000 Because I, you know, my...
01:07:28.000 I like my career going up and down.
01:07:30.000 My marriage had a lot of that.
01:07:32.000 So, you know, I needed to get the hell out of town, you know, because...
01:07:38.000 I get it.
01:07:39.000 Yeah, things weren't going good.
01:07:41.000 And, um...
01:07:43.000 So how did you make that connection with Frank?
01:07:48.000 Hell...
01:07:48.000 Trying to figure that one out.
01:07:52.000 Um...
01:07:55.000 If that was the second Coleman fight, so that was after...
01:08:03.000 Ken, right?
01:08:05.000 But, you know, I don't know how the hell that happened.
01:08:09.000 But he...
01:08:10.000 I called him.
01:08:12.000 I called him.
01:08:13.000 You called him.
01:08:13.000 You need some help.
01:08:14.000 Yeah.
01:08:15.000 And he get out.
01:08:16.000 I think because I had fought the French guy, the first French guy, New Year's Eve. 0.90
01:08:28.000 First French guy, not LeBana. 0.97
01:08:29.000 No.
01:08:30.000 Who was the other French guy?
01:08:33.000 French guy.
01:08:34.000 M&A? Huh?
01:08:36.000 No, he was a kickboxer.
01:08:39.000 And I boogered his eye up real bad, you know.
01:08:44.000 Who was that?
01:08:45.000 I'm trying to remember.
01:08:46.000 I think it was Inoki.
01:08:49.000 I think it was an Inoki show.
01:08:53.000 Nah, that's...
01:08:54.000 It wasn't Dynamite, right?
01:08:57.000 Yeah, it was a Dynamite show, right?
01:08:59.000 Well, that's Nakao.
01:09:01.000 Nakao, Acobono.
01:09:03.000 No, it was a white guy.
01:09:04.000 All the way...
01:09:05.000 Cyril.
01:09:06.000 Oh, Cyril Abidi.
01:09:07.000 Oh, that's right. 0.96
01:09:09.000 And you got him with a rear naked choke. 0.96
01:09:10.000 Yeah, Noki Bumbaya. 0.59
01:09:12.000 Man.
01:09:16.000 So, back then, when you trained with Frank, the Lion's Den was probably the first real mixed martial arts team, where they were, like, really prepared.
01:09:28.000 Them and Miletic Fighting Systems, right?
01:09:31.000 Right.
01:09:31.000 Pat Miletic's place in the Lion's Den.
01:09:33.000 They were two of the very first guys that were really putting together a real, legit MMA team, where they had, like, real, like, for the time, scientific training, real technique training.
01:09:46.000 And real preparing guys for things.
01:09:48.000 Well, you know, like you said, they had a team.
01:09:53.000 Yeah.
01:09:53.000 I had a group of guys, you know.
01:09:59.000 I had a first group of non-white guys.
01:10:01.000 Yeah.
01:10:03.000 All my guys are Mexican except for a couple of white boys.
01:10:07.000 Arizona.
01:10:08.000 Yeah.
01:10:09.000 They're tough, tough guys.
01:10:12.000 One guy was a former sniper in the SEALs.
01:10:16.000 Another couple of guys were former Marines.
01:10:22.000 And what discipline would those guys have martial arts wise?
01:10:25.000 Basically, judo and wrestling.
01:10:26.000 Judo and wrestling.
01:10:27.000 But boxing, too.
01:10:28.000 So, same thing I had.
01:10:30.000 So, when you would prepare for a fight back then, did you have a head trainer?
01:10:35.000 Steve Owen was my head trainer.
01:10:37.000 And he would prepare your camps and the whole deal?
01:10:40.000 Yeah.
01:10:41.000 Steve is amazing.
01:10:43.000 We call him the evil Yoda.
01:10:47.000 He is.
01:10:48.000 He was a great fighter.
01:10:50.000 A judo guy.
01:10:52.000 Several times national judo champion.
01:10:55.000 A couple times world.
01:10:57.000 I mean, just amazing.
01:10:58.000 And he can look at a fight, five minutes of a fight, and boom, have the game plan drawn up.
01:11:09.000 So he was one of the first guys that was in your camp?
01:11:15.000 He was my judo sensei.
01:11:19.000 Oh, okay.
01:11:20.000 My first judo sensei was a guy... 1.00
01:11:23.000 Fuck me, no. 1.00
01:11:30.000 Torres... 1.00
01:11:30.000 What the... 1.00
01:11:32.000 Jeez, I feel like an asshole. 1.00
01:11:36.000 I never remember my sensei's name. 1.00
01:11:39.000 It happens. 0.99
01:11:40.000 What the fuck is his name? 1.00
01:11:42.000 Kiyoki. 1.00
01:11:43.000 Kiyoki Torres.
01:11:45.000 Or George Torres, but he goes by Kiyoki.
01:11:47.000 He lives in Hawaii now.
01:11:50.000 But Kiyoki was my first...
01:11:53.000 He ran...
01:11:56.000 A kid's, um, judo club down there on Fort Wachuca.
01:12:02.000 And, um, so I started going there on Saturday mornings, and Steve would come down, you know, he would work, he'd up at Tucson, it'd be Monday, Tuesday, Thursday nights, and then he'd come down Saturday morning for the kids,
01:12:19.000 you know, but The rest is up in Tucson, so I would drive up there, you know.
01:12:28.000 Monday, Tuesday, Thursday night, I'd go up there and train and jump in the truck and drive home, you know.
01:12:37.000 Get home at midnight, 1 o'clock in the morning, you know.
01:12:40.000 I would always feed my guys, you know.
01:12:44.000 After we worked out, I'd take them out for dinner, you know.
01:12:48.000 A couple of beers for me, you know?
01:12:51.000 Even in training?
01:12:52.000 Yeah.
01:12:53.000 Oh, hell yeah.
01:12:54.000 Up until, like, the fight?
01:12:56.000 Oh, the night before, yeah, yeah.
01:12:58.000 Really?
01:12:58.000 Yeah, yeah.
01:12:59.000 Wow.
01:13:00.000 So you and Cowboy Cerrone.
01:13:01.000 Yeah.
01:13:02.000 Cowboy still does that.
01:13:03.000 He keeps drinking.
01:13:05.000 Yeah.
01:13:07.000 One of the worst... 1.00
01:13:08.000 I lost to a fucking idiot I shouldn't have lost to because my... 1.00
01:13:18.000 My wife at the time decided I was drinking too much and taking too many pills. 1.00
01:13:23.000 So her and a couple of guys took my booze and my pills the night before the fight. 0.99
01:13:31.000 And I was just circling through withdrawals during the fucking fight. 1.00
01:13:35.000 No! 1.00
01:13:36.000 Yeah.
01:13:36.000 Yeah.
01:13:38.000 That was something someone told me the other day that I could not believe.
01:13:42.000 They were telling me, and I don't want to name any names, but big time fighters, particularly kickboxers, that fought on heroin.
01:13:50.000 Really?
01:13:51.000 That fought on pills.
01:13:52.000 That fought on opiates.
01:13:53.000 Yeah, I did that. 1.00
01:13:54.000 That's when my career went to shit. 0.99
01:14:04.000 No, that was a Coleman fight. 1.00
01:14:11.000 Yeah, it was so fucked up. 0.99
01:14:14.000 I met Frank. 0.99
01:14:15.000 Frank had trained Cyril for a fight me, and then I called Frank to train me for the Coleman fight.
01:14:24.000 But you had a lot of fights even after that.
01:14:26.000 Yeah, yeah.
01:14:28.000 I mean, it's kind of crazy. 1.00
01:14:29.000 You rolled that motherfucker till the wheels fell off. 1.00
01:14:31.000 Yeah. 1.00
01:14:33.000 And the frame fell off, man.
01:14:34.000 The frame, yeah.
01:14:35.000 You've seen the frame.
01:14:36.000 Exactly, they had to redo your frame.
01:14:38.000 Yeah, frame of restoration, yeah.
01:14:42.000 Right down to the bare chassis.
01:14:44.000 So when you, your last fight was what, 2011?
01:14:47.000 Somewhere around there?
01:14:48.000 Yes, sir.
01:14:49.000 It was five months after my fifth back surgery.
01:14:55.000 Wow.
01:14:56.000 Five months after your fifth back surgery, you had a fight. 1.00
01:14:59.000 Yeah, stupid. 1.00
01:15:01.000 Fucking stupid. 1.00
01:15:02.000 But you still want to do it right now. 1.00
01:15:05.000 The thing about guys like you, it's like you never lose the itch.
01:15:08.000 It's your body just fails you.
01:15:11.000 And the tougher the guy, the more the body starts to fall apart because you're willing to train through pain.
01:15:16.000 You look at guys like, I mean, Cain Velasquez is a great example.
01:15:22.000 One of the greatest of all times, but his body just couldn't hang in there.
01:15:24.000 His knees blew out, his back blew out, his neck blew out, his shoulders blew out.
01:15:28.000 He had all these surgeries and eventually just stopped being the guy that everybody knew was Kane, you know?
01:15:35.000 His body just wouldn't do what his mind could do.
01:15:37.000 Yeah, you lose.
01:15:39.000 Yeah.
01:15:40.000 You learn that in amateur wrestling, though.
01:15:44.000 You learn to keep going.
01:15:48.000 I think I first broke my neck when I was in college and didn't know it. 0.76
01:15:58.000 I thought I'd fucked up my shoulder. 0.91
01:16:02.000 Because it was shooting down your shoulder? 0.99
01:16:04.000 Yeah.
01:16:06.000 And so...
01:16:08.000 What happened was Dan Severn's little baby brother Rod and I, we were roommates, and we went down to my parents' house for Thanksgiving or something. 0.99
01:16:23.000 Anyways, we were out on those fucking three-wheelers. 0.99
01:16:26.000 Oh, no. 0.99
01:16:27.000 Yeah.
01:16:27.000 That's how you did it?
01:16:28.000 Yeah.
01:16:29.000 Oh, no.
01:16:29.000 Drinking and going over and, you know, last jump of the day.
01:16:35.000 Oh, no.
01:16:36.000 Ended up being the last jump.
01:16:39.000 You know, we've been there for a couple hours, gone through a few cases of beer, and the truck pulls up. 0.70
01:16:48.000 And they get out, you know, look at the little sissies, you know, because they had the shoulder pads, the knee pads, the gloves, you know, all that, and, you know, laughing at them. 1.00
01:16:59.000 And so then I go off, jump, front tire first, boom, boom, boom. 0.91
01:17:04.000 Oh, no.
01:17:05.000 Yeah, so I thought I tore up my shoulder, but 20 years later, when they...
01:17:12.000 Did my neck.
01:17:13.000 I said, when did you break your first time you broke your neck, you know?
01:17:19.000 And you didn't know.
01:17:20.000 You'd ever broken your neck.
01:17:20.000 No, I didn't know.
01:17:21.000 But I wrestled, you know.
01:17:23.000 I kept, that was in 88, 87. 86, 87. And then...
01:17:32.000 I sat out a year in amateur wrestling because of the injury.
01:17:40.000 Because of your neck?
01:17:41.000 Yeah.
01:17:42.000 Wow.
01:17:42.000 I thought it was the shoulder, but it was the neck.
01:17:45.000 And then I rehabbed it, you know, because they redid the shoulder.
01:17:52.000 They cut off the end of my clavicle bone back then. 0.99
01:17:55.000 It was how they would solve shit. 0.99
01:17:57.000 What did they do? 1.00
01:17:58.000 Cut off the end of my clavicle bone.
01:18:00.000 They cut off the end of it?
01:18:01.000 Yeah.
01:18:02.000 Really?
01:18:02.000 Because it was just destroyed, so you just lob it off and throw it away.
01:18:07.000 Wow!
01:18:08.000 Really? 1.00
01:18:09.000 Holy shit. 0.99
01:18:11.000 That's early 90s surgeries? 0.99
01:18:13.000 Yeah, yeah. 1.00
01:18:14.000 Fuck. 1.00
01:18:15.000 80s. 1.00
01:18:16.000 At the end of the 80s.
01:18:20.000 Kurt Angle wrestled in the Olympics with a broken neck, didn't he?
01:18:25.000 Yeah.
01:18:26.000 He won the gold medal with a broken neck.
01:18:28.000 Crazy.
01:18:29.000 Yeah.
01:18:30.000 There's no one tougher than wrestlers.
01:18:31.000 Yeah. 1.00
01:18:34.000 I know I... Fuck. 1.00
01:18:39.000 They cut... 1.00
01:18:39.000 They fixed the shoulder... 1.00
01:18:41.000 Cut off the...
01:18:42.000 It was the right shoulder, I think.
01:18:44.000 Yeah, it was the right shoulder.
01:18:46.000 And, um...
01:18:48.000 So they put me...
01:18:49.000 Bobby Douglas put me on a medical scholarship...
01:18:54.000 So it would open up a scholarship for the team, which is what needed to be done.
01:19:02.000 So then I rehabbed it.
01:19:11.000 I went up to the Las Vegas Southwestern Regional Qualifying Tournament for the Olympics.
01:19:25.000 And I won that in Greco and Freestyle.
01:19:29.000 And then I went to, which qualified you for the national finals, you know. 0.98
01:19:37.000 And so then I went up there for the Greco and got my ass handed to me.
01:19:43.000 You know, I thought, you know, you get lucky every once in a while and you think you're good at it. 0.92
01:19:48.000 But they went and let me go to the freestyle.
01:19:52.000 You know, they said, pick one or the other. 0.99
01:19:53.000 And like a dumbass, I picked the wrong one, you know. 0.99
01:19:57.000 But I ended up taking fifth. 0.99
01:19:59.000 I think I took fifth that year.
01:20:02.000 Fifth or sixth in the national freestyle tournament, you know.
01:20:08.000 Must have been six, because they took the first five.
01:20:13.000 And always a bridesmaid, you know?
01:20:15.000 Right.
01:20:17.000 But yeah, Art Martori was a money guy back then for the Olympic team, almost.
01:20:27.000 Art's a great guy.
01:20:29.000 So with all the injuries, when did you first start taking pain medication? 1.00
01:20:35.000 Oh, fuck. 0.99
01:20:42.000 You know, the first time was in 96, you know. 1.00
01:20:49.000 So this was during the UFC days?
01:20:52.000 Yeah.
01:20:53.000 Because that was...
01:20:53.000 UFC 8 was what?
01:20:55.000 Was that 96?
01:20:56.000 Yeah, that was February 96. And then...
01:21:01.000 Crap, Joe. 1.00
01:21:05.000 What the hell? 1.00
01:21:06.000 Do you remember when you started fighting on them? 0.99
01:21:10.000 No, that was a fucking mistake when that was... 0.98
01:21:13.000 Well, what happened, I did... 0.98
01:21:17.000 I heard something in the UFC. I broke my hand, right?
01:21:23.000 Or Coleman.
01:21:25.000 Coleman beat the hell out of me.
01:21:26.000 Remember when Coleman beat the hell out of me in UFC 10?
01:21:29.000 Yeah.
01:21:30.000 And so then they...
01:21:33.000 You know, he broke my ocular, I think it is, or occipital, I don't know.
01:21:38.000 And then something else happened.
01:21:45.000 Anyways, then I fought...
01:21:50.000 Mark Hall was my first fight that night.
01:21:55.000 And then...
01:22:00.000 I was offered a fight against him in Japan in November, right before, you know, November 96. And Bob Meyerowitz found out that I was going to do that and that Dan was going to do that,
01:22:20.000 you know.
01:22:21.000 And he was pissed because of the opportunity of ruining the Ultimate Ultimate 2. Right.
01:22:28.000 And I says, come on, Bob.
01:22:31.000 It's Mark Hall.
01:22:32.000 You know, come on.
01:22:35.000 Mark Hall was undersized, right?
01:22:37.000 Yes.
01:22:37.000 Smaller guy.
01:22:38.000 Tough guy.
01:22:39.000 Buck 85. Fucking idiot. 1.00
01:22:41.000 Was he? 1.00
01:22:42.000 Yeah, he's an idiot. 1.00
01:22:43.000 I didn't know. 1.00
01:22:45.000 Fucking idiot. 1.00
01:22:45.000 I don't know him at all. 1.00
01:22:47.000 You'd want to slap him upside the head if you did. 1.00
01:22:51.000 The fucking guy's going around saying that, you know, he took a dive. 1.00
01:22:56.000 Oh, did he? 1.00
01:22:57.000 Yeah, against me at the ultimate ultimate, you know?
01:23:01.000 Second round. 1.00
01:23:02.000 You know, fuck him. 1.00
01:23:04.000 Oh. 1.00
01:23:05.000 I already beat him twice.
01:23:07.000 You know, he would be the last person in there wanting to take a dive.
01:23:11.000 You know, but...
01:23:15.000 So I beat Gary Goodridge, you know, in the first round, ultimate, ultimate.
01:23:21.000 And a buddy of mine, Dave Nortz, he had gone with me for the fire department.
01:23:26.000 He was a paramedic, okay?
01:23:29.000 So he hits me up with a line, you know.
01:23:32.000 We put two bags, two or three bags, after the Goodridge fight.
01:23:37.000 Oh, yeah?
01:23:37.000 Yeah.
01:23:38.000 Which, boom, you know.
01:23:39.000 Fired you right back up.
01:23:40.000 Probably right back fresh as a daisy, you know.
01:23:44.000 And so then I beat Hall, boom, you know, fast.
01:23:51.000 I mean, Tank knocks out his guy. 1.00
01:23:55.000 God damn, he's dead. 1.00
01:23:57.000 He broke his neck. 1.00
01:23:58.000 You hear all these Alabama guys.
01:24:01.000 Was that Steve Nomark?
01:24:03.000 Yeah.
01:24:04.000 That was a crazy KO. That was a wild one.
01:24:07.000 Tank could fucking crack. 1.00
01:24:09.000 Oh, man. 1.00
01:24:10.000 It was like one of those puppets.
01:24:13.000 Somebody just cut the strings.
01:24:15.000 We could just fold it back on ourselves.
01:24:17.000 That was one of the great KOs of those days.
01:24:19.000 That was amazing.
01:24:23.000 It was.
01:24:24.000 I didn't see it.
01:24:27.000 And then it was you and Tank in the finals?
01:24:29.000 Yep, Tank and I in the finals.
01:24:31.000 Yeah, and you got his back.
01:24:32.000 It was a crazy war, then you got his back and finished him. 1.00
01:24:35.000 Well, fuck. 1.00
01:24:35.000 I mean, stupid-ass me. 1.00
01:24:38.000 I walk out, lumber out there, and step sideways, heel, heel. 1.00
01:24:43.000 What happens when you stay on your heels, Joe?
01:24:45.000 You get knocked backwards. 1.00
01:24:46.000 You get knocked on your ass, you know. 1.00
01:24:48.000 You shouldn't be. 1.00
01:24:49.000 And stupid ass, I don't know what the hell I was thinking, you know, heel, heel. 1.00
01:24:53.000 But as soon as that second heel landed, he hit me, you know, with a jab. 1.00
01:24:58.000 Yeah.
01:24:59.000 Hard jab, though.
01:25:00.000 Yeah. 1.00
01:25:01.000 That motherfucker. 1.00
01:25:02.000 Everything he did was hard. 1.00
01:25:04.000 Damn right. 0.94
01:25:05.000 You want to talk about a guy who could drink? 0.96
01:25:07.000 Yeah.
01:25:08.000 I made a mistake of drinking with him one night.
01:25:10.000 Him and his buddies at the bar.
01:25:12.000 Tank put him away.
01:25:14.000 I remember one time I was there for, I forget which event it was, but there was a giant brawl that broke out right after I went to bed.
01:25:22.000 I left everybody.
01:25:24.000 Everybody was downstairs in the after-fight area, hanging out, drinking.
01:25:28.000 And it was getting late, so I was like, well, I'm going to go to bed.
01:25:31.000 So I went upstairs to go to bed, and then I heard, like, you just missed it.
01:25:36.000 Apparently, Valid Ishmael and Tank got into a brawl, and there was just chairs flying and all kinds of crazy shit, and I missed it by like 20 minutes.
01:25:46.000 Yeah. 1.00
01:25:47.000 Fucking Brazilians here, they'd fight at the drop of a hat. 1.00
01:25:51.000 I remember over here in Pride having breakfast, you know, a couple of times they almost got right next to my table. 1.00
01:25:59.000 Guys, I'm fucking eating here, you know? 0.99
01:26:01.000 Start brawling. 0.99
01:26:02.000 Well, there were so many brawls back then, right?
01:26:04.000 Charles Crazy Horse Bennett and Vandley Silva brawled backstage.
01:26:09.000 Yeah.
01:26:10.000 Legendary fights backstage.
01:26:12.000 Yeah.
01:26:13.000 Someone should do a documentary on Pride.
01:26:15.000 They really should. 0.98
01:26:17.000 Because it was just a fucking crazy time in martial arts history. 0.97
01:26:21.000 And it was also a time when Fedor was in his prime. 0.98
01:26:24.000 Yeah.
01:26:25.000 And I think it's arguable that Fedor in his prime was the greatest heavyweight of all time.
01:26:29.000 Yeah.
01:26:30.000 In my mind, it's hard to say.
01:26:34.000 Fabricio Verdun beat both him and Kane, right?
01:26:37.000 But I think he caught Fedor when Fedor was battle-worn and was pretty deep into his career.
01:26:44.000 And also there was testing over in America.
01:26:45.000 There wasn't testing in Japan.
01:26:48.000 And then the same thing with Kane.
01:26:51.000 When Fabricio caught Kane, Kane had already gone through...
01:26:55.000 It had been a pretty long, extensive career.
01:26:59.000 But it's arguable that when he fought Krokop, when he fought Noguera, when he fought all those guys over there, it was arguable that Fedor was the greatest.
01:27:09.000 Well, Fedor was the greatest. 0.90
01:27:11.000 There's no reason to even fucking talk about it, you know? 0.96
01:27:15.000 I mean, it's simple. 0.95
01:27:17.000 If you ever watched the man fight live, it was something you'll never forget, you know?
01:27:30.000 I mean, those things over there, they were events.
01:27:33.000 They weren't just a fight, you know, you go to, you know, on a Saturday night, hey, let's go watch the fight, you know. 0.99
01:27:39.000 They were fucking events. 0.98
01:27:41.000 Like I said, Super Bowl every three months. 1.00
01:27:43.000 The women would get dressed up, the men would, you know, I mean, you plan your whole fucking week around it, you know. 0.91
01:27:51.000 They'd go and have their dinner, steak dinner, you know, not beer on the back of the pickup, you know. 0.90
01:27:57.000 Yeah.
01:27:58.000 Yeah, it was a big deal.
01:27:59.000 Yeah.
01:28:00.000 It was a big deal.
01:28:01.000 We used to get up in the morning and watch them because they were live from Japan.
01:28:05.000 So they'd be on here, like, I forget what it was.
01:28:07.000 Five in the morning?
01:28:08.000 Something crazy like that, yeah.
01:28:10.000 And we would watch them live.
01:28:13.000 Yeah, you never went to a Pride?
01:28:17.000 No.
01:28:18.000 They offered me a gig commentating at one point.
01:28:22.000 Yeah, they came to meet me in...
01:28:23.000 I forget where it was.
01:28:26.000 One of the UFC events, back when I was doing the interviews.
01:28:29.000 And they offered me a gig to commentate in Pride.
01:28:33.000 And I was like...
01:28:34.000 Oh, man. 1.00
01:28:35.000 Yeah, fucked up. 1.00
01:28:36.000 I should have done it at least once. 1.00
01:28:38.000 Who owned the UFC, Bob?
01:28:40.000 That was Bob.
01:28:40.000 Bob did back in the day, yeah.
01:28:42.000 Bob was such a good guy, but he did not like you going anywhere or doing anything else, you know.
01:28:50.000 He was a good man, but he was solid on loyalty, you know.
01:29:03.000 Well, there was so much competition.
01:29:07.000 The UFC was the big thing in America, but Pride was way bigger than the UFC back then in terms of size.
01:29:13.000 It wasn't even close.
01:29:15.000 The UFC was doing small places in comparison to what Pride was doing. 1.00
01:29:19.000 Well, it was that fucking McCain. 1.00
01:29:21.000 Yep, yep, yeah. 1.00
01:29:23.000 He was choking him out.
01:29:24.000 And then when Zufa bought the UFC, when the Fertittas and Dana White came along, then they had the business plan, and then they had the money.
01:29:32.000 And even then, I mean, they were real close to bailing.
01:29:35.000 Yeah.
01:29:35.000 At one point in time, they were $40 million in debt.
01:29:38.000 Yeah.
01:29:38.000 Which is just nuts.
01:29:39.000 Crazy.
01:29:40.000 That was right when the Ultimate Fighter came along.
01:29:42.000 And they had actually talked to Dana on the phone and said, let's try to sell it.
01:29:47.000 And Dana was going to sell it.
01:29:49.000 They were going to start putting out offers and try to see, you know, who wanted to buy the UFC. And then, I guess, Fertitta changed his mind.
01:29:56.000 I guess they just decided, listen, we'll wait.
01:30:01.000 We'll wait.
01:30:02.000 We'll wait it out.
01:30:03.000 And then they did the Ultimate Fighter, and then, boom, it takes off.
01:30:07.000 But apparently, they were literally at the...
01:30:11.000 They were thinking about putting out the offers, and he actually made the phone call and decided to, Lorenzo did, to Dana.
01:30:18.000 And Dana was ready to sell it.
01:30:21.000 And then they changed their mind last minute, and then boom!
01:30:24.000 Look what it is now. 0.98
01:30:25.000 It's kind of wild because if they sold it, who the fuck knows what would have happened? 0.99
01:30:29.000 I would have quit for sure. 0.98
01:30:30.000 I would have stopped doing commentary.
01:30:33.000 They probably would have, you know, they would have had to have somebody that had a lot of media savvy that knew how to market the company.
01:30:42.000 And try to rebrand it or something.
01:30:45.000 And they probably would have sold it, and they probably would have lost a lot of money, too.
01:30:47.000 Because before The Ultimate Fighter in 2005, it wasn't really worth that much money.
01:30:52.000 No.
01:30:53.000 But then when The Ultimate Fighter happened, and Stefan Bonner and Forrest Griffin fought live on TV, and they had that crazy fucking brawl, and then it became popular. 0.63
01:31:01.000 That one fight made the sport. 0.93
01:31:03.000 It's wild.
01:31:04.000 In a lot of ways.
01:31:05.000 That was a defining moment.
01:31:07.000 Didn't make the sport, but it was a defining moment for the sport in America.
01:31:12.000 Right.
01:31:13.000 But meanwhile, in Japan, at the same time, they were doing the Saitama Super Arena.
01:31:17.000 Yeah.
01:31:18.000 Huge events.
01:31:19.000 Gigantic, spectacular crowds.
01:31:21.000 50,000, 60,000 people.
01:31:23.000 It was wild.
01:31:25.000 Oh, man.
01:31:25.000 The walk-ins and that crazy pride lady that would introduce everybody.
01:31:30.000 Her introductions were legendary.
01:31:31.000 Yeah. 0.99
01:31:32.000 Oh, fucking funny. 0.98
01:31:33.000 The first time I fought, she called me Dan. 0.99
01:31:35.000 Did she?
01:31:37.000 That's funny.
01:31:38.000 Can I get a cup of coffee?
01:31:39.000 Yeah, yeah, sure.
01:31:40.000 Water. 1.00
01:31:41.000 Oh, fuck. 1.00
01:31:42.000 What do you want? 1.00
01:31:42.000 Coffee. 1.00
01:31:43.000 Here we go.
01:31:44.000 I didn't know that.
01:31:45.000 I'm sorry, gentlemen.
01:31:46.000 No worries.
01:31:47.000 No worries.
01:31:48.000 Thank you.
01:31:48.000 Thank you.
01:31:49.000 I didn't know.
01:31:52.000 Is this my water here?
01:31:53.000 Yeah.
01:31:54.000 Thank you.
01:31:55.000 When you think back, I mean, what a crazy life you've lived.
01:31:59.000 I mean, you lived like a movie life.
01:32:02.000 Yeah, nobody would believe it.
01:32:03.000 It wouldn't believe it.
01:32:05.000 It wasn't a movie.
01:32:05.000 It'd be a crazy, spectacular movie.
01:32:07.000 For you to go from being a guy who's shooing horses and working in a fire department, all of a sudden you decide, ah, I could do that, and you take a fight.
01:32:17.000 The next thing you know, well, I guess I'm fighting now.
01:32:20.000 Yeah.
01:32:20.000 All the way to Japan to kickboxing Jerome LeBanner and fighting in these giant arenas and doing New Japan Pro Wrestling.
01:32:30.000 It's a crazy life you've lived, Don Frye.
01:32:32.000 It was a fun one.
01:32:33.000 It was a fun one.
01:32:38.000 Half the time I'm done, you know?
01:32:41.000 I got my bulldog, Quinn, and if it wasn't for her, I'd have died and went, you know?
01:32:49.000 She's the only reason I'm here now.
01:32:51.000 Your bulldog?
01:32:51.000 Yeah.
01:32:52.000 Really?
01:32:52.000 Yeah, my kids are grown, you know?
01:32:56.000 They don't have time for me, you know?
01:32:58.000 They're good girls.
01:32:59.000 Beautiful, smart, you know?
01:33:02.000 But, you know, they're 20-21.
01:33:04.000 They have their life.
01:33:05.000 Yeah.
01:33:06.000 When you think back on all the damage that it did to your body, if you had to go back and do it all again, would you do it again? 1.00
01:33:15.000 Bitch, you sweet ass. 1.00
01:33:19.000 I knew you were going to say that. 1.00
01:33:21.000 I knew you were going to say that.
01:33:23.000 When I do it now, Columbia works out for me.
01:33:26.000 Yeah, right?
01:33:27.000 When you see the fighters today and you know that you're a gigantic part of the evolution of the sport, I mean, you're a pioneer.
01:33:35.000 You were there in the early days.
01:33:37.000 When you see what it's like now, it's got to be pretty crazy to see and know that you were a vital part of the beginning of this thing.
01:33:46.000 You know, I really don't understand what you're saying about being a vital part.
01:33:52.000 You were one of the legends, man!
01:33:54.000 If you go back and look at the legends of the sport, Don Frye, you're one of the legends, man.
01:34:01.000 Whether you believe it or not. 1.00
01:34:03.000 You're one of the fucking OGs. 1.00
01:34:05.000 When I told my friends that I was having you on the podcast today, people were like, oh shit! 1.00
01:34:09.000 They were so excited. 0.99
01:34:11.000 People were pumped. 0.99
01:34:12.000 People fucking love you, man. 0.99
01:34:13.000 They love you because you are you. 0.99
01:34:15.000 You are 100% authentic.
01:34:17.000 You wear your heart on your sleeve. 0.91
01:34:19.000 You don't bullshit. 1.00
01:34:20.000 You're a fucking real man. 1.00
01:34:22.000 You're the real deal, Don Frye. 0.99
01:34:24.000 Thanks.
01:34:25.000 Thanks, partner.
01:34:26.000 There's not a lot of people like you.
01:34:28.000 Probably a good call.
01:34:31.000 I mean, think about it.
01:34:32.000 What you've done in your life, there's not a lot of humans that would have followed your path.
01:34:37.000 Very few people.
01:34:38.000 No, they go for the easy route.
01:34:40.000 I'm not very smart enough to take the easy route.
01:34:44.000 How many of those fights do you think you fought when you were on the pain pills? 1.00
01:34:49.000 Oh, shit, Joe. 1.00
01:34:51.000 Um... 1.00
01:34:54.000 After Shamrock.
01:34:56.000 Everyone.
01:34:57.000 All of them, huh?
01:34:58.000 Yeah.
01:34:58.000 You just had to?
01:34:59.000 Yeah, I had no choice, you know.
01:35:05.000 Yeah, my body was so beat up. 1.00
01:35:08.000 And then, you know, being a dumbass, you think, okay, I live on these things. 0.99
01:35:13.000 I train on these things, you know. 1.00
01:35:15.000 I can fight on these things.
01:35:16.000 Yeah. 1.00
01:35:17.000 That's stupid. 1.00
01:35:19.000 I think there was a lot of people doing that, though. 1.00
01:35:21.000 That's what my friend was telling me the other night.
01:35:23.000 He was telling me, look, man, you don't know, but I'm telling you, a lot of those guys were fighting on heroin.
01:35:27.000 They were fighting on opiates.
01:35:29.000 I never did the heroin.
01:35:31.000 But opiates, pain pills, it's the same thing.
01:35:33.000 You know, it's opiates.
01:35:35.000 Yeah, I did that. 1.00
01:35:38.000 What was that shit Kerr was on? 1.00
01:35:41.000 Oxycontin? 1.00
01:35:42.000 No.
01:35:43.000 Percocets?
01:35:44.000 The injectable.
01:35:45.000 Oh, injectable.
01:35:46.000 Oh, I don't know what that is.
01:35:47.000 From the smashing machine?
01:35:48.000 Yeah.
01:35:51.000 That movie was a wake-up call for a lot of people, huh?
01:35:53.000 Yeah.
01:35:54.000 I never saw the thing.
01:35:56.000 It's crazy.
01:35:56.000 I saw bits and pieces, but...
01:35:59.000 It's a crazy fucking documentary. 1.00
01:36:01.000 Yeah. 1.00
01:36:01.000 And they caught him. 1.00
01:36:03.000 You know, that wasn't the purpose of that film. 0.98
01:36:05.000 The purpose of that film, when they started making that documentary, was when Mark Kerr was in his prime, and what a fucking specimen that guy was, right? 0.97
01:36:12.000 Right. 0.95
01:36:12.000 And they wanted to document this guy who was this fucking elite super athlete wrestler who was the Smashing Machine. 0.95
01:36:21.000 That's what they nicknamed him over there, and he was just killing everybody. 0.96
01:36:24.000 And during the process of filming it, they realized, like, wow, this guy's addicted to pain medication.
01:36:31.000 Mm-hmm.
01:36:31.000 And he was real open about it.
01:36:33.000 And he showed them everything.
01:36:35.000 And then you got to see...
01:36:36.000 They caught him during the filming right when the wheels were falling off.
01:36:42.000 So it was just complete dumb luck that that documentary became sort of a cautionary tale.
01:36:50.000 Yeah, I know that back then around that time...
01:36:56.000 Some Hollywood producer came out to the house and he wanted to do one of those shows, you know?
01:37:12.000 But I was just, my body was starting to fall apart so bad.
01:37:16.000 And I'm like, I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to keep this going.
01:37:21.000 Yeah.
01:37:21.000 And I, you know, the kids, kids were little, you know, one or two or less than that.
01:37:28.000 And I didn't want, I didn't want these people in my house.
01:37:32.000 Right.
01:37:32.000 You know, because, you know, I just had the kids.
01:37:35.000 And then, like you said, the wheels were falling off, man. 0.98
01:37:39.000 And And I knew things were about to go to shit, you know, but I didn't want to tell anybody that. 0.97
01:37:46.000 Right. 0.78
01:37:47.000 Did anybody know other than your trainers?
01:37:50.000 Yeah.
01:37:51.000 Did your wife know?
01:37:52.000 I don't know.
01:37:52.000 I don't know.
01:37:53.000 Yeah.
01:37:55.000 Were you thinking you weren't going to be able to do this much longer?
01:37:58.000 Were you trying to figure out something else to do with your life?
01:38:00.000 Of course.
01:38:02.000 Of course.
01:38:02.000 It's hard for fighters, especially when you're making that much money, right?
01:38:05.000 Yeah.
01:38:06.000 And that's all you know.
01:38:08.000 Right.
01:38:08.000 I mean, all I've known is physical.
01:38:11.000 You know, fireman, horseshoer, you know, or farrier, you know, fighter.
01:38:19.000 Everything was physical and, you know, you're about to lose it all.
01:38:24.000 Yeah.
01:38:24.000 And you know you're about to lose it all.
01:38:26.000 Right.
01:38:27.000 That's the untold story of fighters before and after their careers.
01:38:33.000 During camps, all you see is the fights.
01:38:36.000 Everybody sees the fights and the fights are amazing.
01:38:38.000 But most people have no idea the kind of pain and injury guys are going through just with almost every camp.
01:38:46.000 Yeah.
01:38:47.000 Just... 1.00
01:38:49.000 Shit, Joe. 1.00
01:38:50.000 You know, I wake up at six in the morning now, and it takes me six hours to get beyond the kitchen, you know? 1.00
01:39:02.000 Does it?
01:39:03.000 Yeah, you know.
01:39:05.000 I'm getting better.
01:39:06.000 I've been outside a couple of times, you know, before noon.
01:39:12.000 Wow.
01:39:14.000 And what kind of medications do they have you on to deal with all this stuff?
01:39:17.000 Now I'm on morphine.
01:39:21.000 Hydromorphone and morphine.
01:39:28.000 It's not enough, but I don't want to go.
01:39:31.000 I haven't had a drink since...
01:39:38.000 September of 2016. Really?
01:39:42.000 Yeah, yeah.
01:39:44.000 And I ain't gonna lie to you, I'd like to have one.
01:39:48.000 So what was the problem with the drinking with the pills?
01:39:51.000 Well, you know, that's what my ex-wife claimed. 1.00
01:39:58.000 But yeah, shit, I didn't think it was that bad, but you know... 1.00
01:40:06.000 You're a fucking animal, though. 1.00
01:40:07.000 I don't remember what happened, you know? 1.00
01:40:10.000 Yeah.
01:40:10.000 When you get to taking the pills and the alcohol...
01:40:16.000 You're not always knowing what you're saying.
01:40:20.000 Right.
01:40:21.000 I insulted a lot of people, you know?
01:40:25.000 But it wasn't my words.
01:40:27.000 It was words that I didn't create. 0.98
01:40:30.000 I was like repeating shit I had heard, you know? 0.99
01:40:34.000 Right. 0.99
01:40:34.000 Because you're just out of it. 0.99
01:40:36.000 Yeah, yeah.
01:40:37.000 Yeah.
01:40:38.000 And, yeah, it wasn't something that was...
01:40:44.000 You know, I don't hate anybody.
01:40:48.000 Right.
01:40:48.000 But, you know, when you're peeled up and you're drunk, you spew a lot of hatred.
01:40:54.000 Right.
01:40:55.000 Especially when you're constantly in pain, too.
01:40:56.000 Yeah. 1.00
01:40:57.000 Oh, fuck, you're miserable. 1.00
01:40:59.000 Just being a miserable prick. 1.00
01:41:00.000 Are you constantly in pain right now? 1.00
01:41:05.000 No, just 90% of the time.
01:41:07.000 Yeah.
01:41:09.000 So not constantly.
01:41:10.000 No, no, there's a good 10% there, yeah.
01:41:13.000 So even sitting here, like this thing that you have on your chest, is this like a back support?
01:41:17.000 Yeah, it's supposed to be with my belly, yeah.
01:41:20.000 What does that thing do?
01:41:22.000 Like a weightlifting belt?
01:41:24.000 Yeah, a heavy-duty belt.
01:41:26.000 It's nice.
01:41:27.000 I mean, it's this big in the back, you know?
01:41:29.000 It looks like Ric Flair's championship belt, you know?
01:41:32.000 And just to keep everything together?
01:41:35.000 Yeah, support it, you know, give it strength, yeah.
01:41:41.000 But even with all the pills, you're still in pain.
01:41:44.000 Oh, yeah.
01:41:45.000 So what do the pills do?
01:41:46.000 Knock the edge off.
01:41:48.000 They talk the edge off so that you can get going. 1.00
01:41:52.000 You know, fuck Joe. 1.00
01:41:53.000 Um... 1.00
01:41:56.000 Like I said, first surgery was May 2010. You know, things went really bad in 08, you know, when my father passed away.
01:42:10.000 I could only walk 40 steps.
01:42:13.000 It would take me half an hour to get out to the barn to feed the horses.
01:42:19.000 I'd go 40 steps, sit down.
01:42:22.000 40 steps, sit down.
01:42:23.000 The crazy thing is, how many times did you fight after that?
01:42:26.000 You fought at least twice after that.
01:42:28.000 Yeah. 1.00
01:42:29.000 Fuck. 1.00
01:42:30.000 I fought. 1.00
01:42:32.000 I don't know.
01:42:33.000 You got the card.
01:42:35.000 You got the record?
01:42:36.000 You fought when you had been in that condition.
01:42:38.000 That's really crazy. 1.00
01:42:40.000 Really stupid. 1.00
01:42:42.000 Well, you're a wild motherfucker, man. 1.00
01:42:44.000 I would expect nothing less. 1.00
01:42:47.000 What are you doing with yourself these days?
01:42:49.000 You gotta feed the family.
01:42:50.000 I understand.
01:42:51.000 I understand.
01:42:52.000 Your toxic masculinity shirt?
01:42:55.000 Yeah.
01:42:56.000 Dan and Don's toxic masculinity?
01:42:59.000 Yeah.
01:43:00.000 Is that you and...
01:43:02.000 Mr. Severin.
01:43:03.000 Severin?
01:43:04.000 Yeah.
01:43:04.000 What are you guys doing with that?
01:43:05.000 What is this shirt?
01:43:08.000 Uh...
01:43:10.000 We have a podcast.
01:43:12.000 Do you really?
01:43:12.000 Yes, sir.
01:43:25.000 Dan's doing great.
01:43:26.000 Dan's amazing, man.
01:43:28.000 He's got some wild stories, too.
01:43:29.000 I want to get him in here as well.
01:43:31.000 You got to.
01:43:32.000 I mean, because he was there at the beginning.
01:43:35.000 The very beginning, yeah.
01:43:37.000 You got to get him.
01:43:38.000 He was UFC 2, right, wasn't he?
01:43:40.000 No, I think 4. 4 or 5. I came in 8. I think that was...
01:43:52.000 Alright, this thing started in 93, but actually 94, because there's only one event in 93. Right.
01:44:00.000 You know.
01:44:00.000 And that one is hard.
01:44:01.000 It was hard to find back in the day.
01:44:03.000 I think there's something going on with the rights to it.
01:44:05.000 So the first one I saw was in 94. I watched a videotape of it.
01:44:09.000 I got it from a videotape store. 0.96
01:44:11.000 Back in the days when you have like Blockbuster video and shit like that. 0.90
01:44:15.000 Yeah.
01:44:15.000 I still got a couple of VHS tapes.
01:44:18.000 Do you?
01:44:18.000 Yeah.
01:44:19.000 I don't know if...
01:44:20.000 I think I might have one or two that's not even opened yet.
01:44:23.000 Wow.
01:44:24.000 They're probably worth a lot of money.
01:44:26.000 You think so? 1.00
01:44:26.000 Yeah, fucking eBay. 1.00
01:44:27.000 Those are classics now. 0.99
01:44:28.000 If they're not even opened?
01:44:30.000 Yeah.
01:44:30.000 I bet you could eBay the shit out of them, especially if you sign it.
01:44:34.000 I got... 0.80
01:44:36.000 I got a couple of my t-shirts.
01:44:38.000 You know, original t-shirts.
01:44:40.000 Oh, really?
01:44:41.000 And then I've got a couple of the programs.
01:44:48.000 Oh, wow.
01:44:49.000 You know, yeah.
01:44:51.000 I'll have to find one.
01:44:53.000 I'll send it to you.
01:44:54.000 Yeah, please do.
01:44:55.000 What was funny was the program from Ultimate Ultimate 2. You know, I mean, back then it was...
01:45:04.000 Like, on paper, you know?
01:45:06.000 Eight and a half by 11 paper.
01:45:08.000 And they just take down the Xerox machine, you know?
01:45:11.000 And then staple it up and hand it out.
01:45:14.000 And that was it.
01:45:16.000 Wow. 0.99
01:45:17.000 Yeah, it was fucking funny. 0.98
01:45:18.000 But, um... 0.95
01:45:20.000 Going back to Ultimate Ultimate 2. See, I didn't want to fight Mark Kerr or Mark Hall, you know, because I had already beaten twice and I knew there would be bullshit involved. 0.78
01:45:33.000 I just knew there would be bullshit involved. 0.95
01:45:35.000 How so? 0.99
01:45:36.000 Because we had the same manager, you know? 0.99
01:45:40.000 And I guess, why fighting three times in a fucking row? 0.99
01:45:45.000 I wanted to fight, there's a black guy whose name was Ty Bowden. 0.99
01:45:52.000 Ty Bowden.
01:45:53.000 Yeah, I don't know if that was really Ty Bo, but Ty Bowden, you know?
01:45:57.000 I don't know if that's his real name or not, but he had a, for his photo, he had a karate gi guy with his head cut out and taped on.
01:46:08.000 They're glued on.
01:46:10.000 I said, I want to fight that guy.
01:46:12.000 And they're like, no, you can't. 1.00
01:46:14.000 You already beat a black guy if you beat two black people who live crazy. 1.00
01:46:18.000 I'm like, come on! 1.00
01:46:19.000 Who said that?
01:46:20.000 Your manager?
01:46:21.000 No, I don't know who said that.
01:46:22.000 Oh, that's hilarious.
01:46:23.000 Yeah.
01:46:24.000 That's hilarious. 1.00
01:46:28.000 It's one of those stupid fucking things that you believe now, but not 20 years ago. 1.00
01:46:33.000 I wish someone was filming all those events back then. 1.00
01:46:36.000 Oh, yeah.
01:46:37.000 Because they were in these weird little rickety arenas.
01:46:40.000 And it was so strange back then.
01:46:42.000 I remember the first one I did, which was in Dothan.
01:46:46.000 I remember even being there while it was happening, I'm like, the fact that I'm even here, this is the craziest thing ever.
01:46:52.000 You had to fly in in propeller planes, you had to do one of these weird towns where they let it happen because it was mostly illegal in most of the states in the country.
01:47:00.000 Well, look what happened to Kevin Randleman.
01:47:03.000 Yeah.
01:47:03.000 He slipped on a pipe.
01:47:06.000 Yeah, and fell and banged his head.
01:47:08.000 Yeah.
01:47:08.000 Yeah.
01:47:09.000 I mean, how dirty is an arena have to be that you fall on pipes?
01:47:15.000 Yeah, he slipped on a pipe and fell and banged the back of his head off the ground and couldn't fight.
01:47:21.000 Yeah.
01:47:21.000 Yeah.
01:47:21.000 I think he knocked himself out, unfortunately.
01:47:23.000 Yeah.
01:47:24.000 And you know how hard it was to knock out Ramon?
01:47:26.000 Yeah, right?
01:47:27.000 I think he was...
01:47:29.000 The most athletic competitor ever began in the UFC. He was a tremendous athlete.
01:47:35.000 Yeah.
01:47:36.000 Tremendous.
01:47:36.000 He was so fast.
01:47:37.000 Remember when he knocked out Krokop in Pride?
01:47:39.000 Yeah.
01:47:39.000 Nobody saw that coming.
01:47:41.000 No.
01:47:41.000 I mean, Krokop was one of the most elite strikers of all time.
01:47:45.000 And Randleman was such a powerful wrestler that he was worried about the shot.
01:47:48.000 He faked the shot and came in with a left hook.
01:47:50.000 Yeah.
01:47:51.000 Yeah.
01:47:53.000 Randleman was an amazing athlete.
01:47:55.000 Amazing.
01:47:55.000 Like I said, I think he was the...
01:47:56.000 The greatest athlete to ever be in the UFC. Do you ever see the holes, the staph infections that guy had?
01:48:04.000 Yeah, but I don't remember.
01:48:05.000 Oh, my God. 0.71
01:48:06.000 They were crazy.
01:48:07.000 He took photos of them and put them online.
01:48:09.000 He had holes in his armpit area where you could see all the muscle tissue.
01:48:14.000 It was wide open.
01:48:15.000 Oh, jeez.
01:48:16.000 So nasty.
01:48:17.000 The staph had gotten through his skin and left these big abscesses.
01:48:22.000 I'm taking three four-inch holes. 0.99
01:48:25.000 Like, Jamie, see if you can find it, because it's one of the most fucked up things. 0.99
01:48:28.000 You have to see it. 0.98
01:48:29.000 A lot of folks don't know how bad staph infections can get.
01:48:32.000 I always show them Kevin Randeman's injuries.
01:48:34.000 Look at that.
01:48:35.000 Look at that hole.
01:48:36.000 Jeez.
01:48:36.000 Look how bad that is.
01:48:38.000 Crazy, right?
01:48:39.000 Hard to believe.
01:48:40.000 Did they ever close up?
01:48:40.000 Yeah, they closed up, but, I mean, he died young.
01:48:43.000 I mean, it had to contribute.
01:48:45.000 Yeah, look at his knee.
01:48:46.000 Is that his knee over there in the bottom?
01:48:48.000 Somebody else's knee.
01:48:49.000 I had somebody else's knee?
01:48:51.000 Yeah.
01:48:52.000 Okay.
01:48:52.000 Another horrible staph infection.
01:48:54.000 Staph is some scary fucking shit. 1.00
01:48:55.000 It is nasty. 1.00
01:48:56.000 It is.
01:48:57.000 I had that.
01:48:58.000 Yeah.
01:49:00.000 Like I said, jeez.
01:49:04.000 I don't know which surgery it was, but I... The back.
01:49:08.000 Yeah.
01:49:09.000 And... 0.93
01:49:12.000 Jeez, what the hell?
01:49:14.000 I know that it had gotten in the surgeon that did my first replacement.
01:49:26.000 He was from South Korea.
01:49:28.000 He was a Harvard graduate, you know, put himself through college, you know, going to Harvard.
01:49:34.000 And he said he almost vomited.
01:49:38.000 Yeah.
01:49:40.000 Wow.
01:49:40.000 You know, during the surgery.
01:49:42.000 Jesus Christ.
01:49:43.000 And then that was in 10 or 11. No, that was 12 or 13. And then the one that was in my spinal cord the second time,
01:49:58.000 that was in 17 or 18, you know, in Tucson.
01:50:03.000 That's one of the biggest problems with surgeries, right?
01:50:05.000 Those infections?
01:50:06.000 Yeah.
01:50:07.000 And they were like, yeah, we got you just in time.
01:50:12.000 You know what's fucked up about the whole thing was that they had put me in...
01:50:21.000 The first doctor didn't believe it. 0.52
01:50:24.000 They couldn't find anything, you know?
01:50:26.000 So they put me in an old folks' home, you know, where you go to die, basically. 0.95
01:50:33.000 Really?
01:50:33.000 Yeah.
01:50:34.000 And, um... 1.00
01:50:37.000 Fuck. 1.00
01:50:40.000 And... 1.00
01:50:40.000 I would wake up at 4 o'clock in the morning just screaming because the pain medication would wear off. 1.00
01:50:49.000 And...
01:50:50.000 I'd wake up screaming, you know, so I need some pain medication.
01:50:54.000 And they go, you're not due for another two hours.
01:50:57.000 Turn off the light, close the door, go down the hall.
01:50:59.000 Oh my God.
01:51:01.000 And I'd be screaming.
01:51:03.000 And I'd call up my buddy Jeff.
01:51:07.000 You've got to get me out of here.
01:51:09.000 You've got to get me out of here.
01:51:11.000 I finally got hold of the fire department.
01:51:14.000 They came down to get me.
01:51:16.000 I'm screaming, this is the infection in my spinal cord. 1.00
01:51:20.000 And I'm like, yeah, fuck. 1.00
01:51:22.000 And the guy's like, you don't quit cussing. 1.00
01:51:25.000 I'm going to decline to take you.
01:51:27.000 Oh, my God.
01:51:29.000 I'm like, what?
01:51:30.000 I look at this captain.
01:51:32.000 I said, you're kidding me, right?
01:51:34.000 And he says, no. 0.98
01:51:36.000 I says, well, the fire department, we put up with all kinds of fucking custody and all that. 0.97
01:51:42.000 He says, things have changed, man. 0.98
01:51:45.000 Jesus.
01:51:46.000 Yeah.
01:51:47.000 I mean, and I was this close to buying the farm.
01:51:51.000 Wow.
01:51:52.000 Yeah.
01:51:52.000 So the doctor just missed the infection.
01:51:54.000 Yeah.
01:51:55.000 And so then they finally get you in.
01:51:57.000 They got in there, and they said, my spinal cord was all lumpy and swollen and all that.
01:52:03.000 And then they just kind of poked it, and all the stuff come out.
01:52:07.000 Oh, Jesus. 1.00
01:52:08.000 So this jackass fucking paramedic, you know, didn't want to take me because I was cussing. 1.00
01:52:16.000 That's hilarious. 1.00
01:52:17.000 Yeah.
01:52:21.000 Yeah.
01:52:23.000 What a life you've had, Don Frye.
01:52:25.000 What a life.
01:52:26.000 If I had the money, I'd get a lawyer to go after him. 1.00
01:52:29.000 Or whoop his ass. 1.00
01:52:33.000 Just give me five minutes in the ring with me, that's all. 0.99
01:52:36.000 So how often are you doing this podcast with Dan now?
01:52:40.000 Excuse me, sir.
01:52:45.000 That, it's gone down to...
01:52:48.000 I think it's been three weeks now.
01:52:51.000 We were supposed to do it every week.
01:52:53.000 And then Dan went back to...
01:53:01.000 Michigan.
01:53:01.000 Dan owns an island.
01:53:03.000 He does?
01:53:04.000 Yeah, one of the lakes there, you know, so he went back there to redo his cabin.
01:53:10.000 Oh, really?
01:53:11.000 Yeah.
01:53:11.000 Oh, that's cool.
01:53:12.000 So he's got a small island that you have to row your boat out to?
01:53:15.000 Yeah, a little one-acre place, yeah.
01:53:18.000 Oh, really?
01:53:18.000 Oh, that's cool.
01:53:19.000 A one-acre island.
01:53:20.000 Yeah, that's sweet.
01:53:21.000 That's pretty badass.
01:53:22.000 Yeah.
01:53:23.000 That's nice.
01:53:25.000 Yeah, I'm envious of him, but I'm happy for him.
01:53:29.000 That guy had how many MMA fights?
01:53:31.000 He must have had 100. He's had over 100, yeah.
01:53:33.000 Crazy.
01:53:34.000 And the thing is, he's got him and there's three guys had over 100 fights.
01:53:39.000 Jeremy Horn.
01:53:39.000 Yeah, him and Jeremy have winning records.
01:53:43.000 Which is pretty crazy.
01:53:44.000 Yeah, the other guy does that.
01:53:45.000 Shannon McCannon.
01:53:46.000 Yeah.
01:53:46.000 Right, yeah.
01:53:47.000 I don't want to say his name.
01:53:48.000 Yeah, I only said one part of it.
01:53:49.000 Yeah.
01:53:50.000 Ha ha ha ha!
01:53:52.000 Well, listen, Don, we got some barbecue for you.
01:53:55.000 I'm tired of talking to me, am I? No, you're great, man.
01:53:58.000 But I know you've got to be hungry.
01:53:59.000 I know you eat every hour. 1.00
01:54:01.000 Yeah, shit. 1.00
01:54:03.000 It's been a pleasure, sir. 0.99
01:54:04.000 I really appreciate it.
01:54:06.000 I'm sorry.
01:54:07.000 You're awesome, man.
01:54:09.000 Rich.
01:54:10.000 I wanted to bring Rich because, you know, when we go to a fight, I get tunnel vision, you know?
01:54:20.000 So I only...
01:54:22.000 You know, concentrate on 25-30% of what's going on.
01:54:26.000 You know, Rich is taking care of the other 70%, you know, Rich or Steve or somebody, you know.
01:54:34.000 So you're missing 70% of the story.
01:54:37.000 No, listen, what I got was gold.
01:54:38.000 What I got was gold. 1.00
01:54:39.000 I'm telling you, though, Rich has got some good shit. 0.99
01:54:42.000 Yeah, well, I'll talk to him sometime, too. 0.99
01:54:43.000 You're going to have to.
01:54:44.000 You're going to have to come out to my house, man.
01:54:45.000 All right, I would love to.
01:54:46.000 Yeah?
01:54:47.000 Which part of Arizona are you at?
01:54:48.000 Tucson.
01:54:49.000 Next time I'm in Tucson, I'll come out.
01:54:50.000 I do gigs out there sometimes.
01:54:52.000 Yeah, I'm in North Tucson, only like an hour away from Phoenix.
01:54:57.000 Okay.
01:54:57.000 Mesa.
01:54:58.000 I'll make that happen.
01:54:58.000 Tempe, yeah.
01:54:59.000 All right.
01:55:00.000 That'd be great. 1.00
01:55:01.000 Don, you're the fucking man. 1.00
01:55:02.000 Thank you, brother. 1.00
01:55:03.000 Thank you.
01:55:03.000 Appreciate you very much, man.
01:55:04.000 Thank you.
01:55:04.000 Thank you.
01:55:05.000 Always a pleasure.
01:55:06.000 Don Fry, ladies and gentlemen.