In this episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, I sit down with UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Sam Hyde to talk about his recent victory over Cheeto Cheeta and the mindset he had going into the fight. We talk about how he was able to get to the top of his game, how he managed to be mentally tough, and what it takes to be a true martial artist. We also talk about the importance of being a good student of the sport and how it can help you be the best you can be. I hope you enjoy this episode, and don't forget to subscribe on your favorite streaming platform so you don't miss the next episode! -Joe Rogan The Joe Rogans Experience is a series of interviews with professional mixed martial artists from the martial arts community where they discuss their journey in the sport of UFC and beyond. This episode features interviews with UFC Fighters, Mixed Martial Arts Fighters, coaches, and trainers from all walks of life. -The Ultimate Fighter, UFC, and MMA. - The Ultimate Fighter! - UFC 246, UFC Fight Night, UFC 246 and UFC 246. UFC 246: Cheeto vs. Marlon Trujillo, UFC 194, UFC 244, UFC 241, UFC 255, UFC 311, UFC 313, UFC 314, UFC 315, UFC 365, UFC 405, UFC Fighter of the Decade, UFC 39, UFC 360, UFC Card, UFC Championship Night, and UFC 365. , I talk to Sam Hagen about his career and how he got to where he is now and what he's next steps in his MMA career. -Sam Hagen talks about his journey in his UFC career and his plans for the future in the UFC. -I talk about being a martial arts podcast. -AJ Rogan Podcast, UFC and much more! -Sam Rogan's journey in MMA and his journey to becoming a better martial arts fighter. -J.R. Rogan Talks about his MMA Podcast. -The Journey into the UFC Podcast -JOSEPH R.J. Rocha's Journey -Jos Podcast -JOE ROGAN PODCAST -JOSH COHANCHEY AKA - J. ROGO JORO JOSHA CHEETORCHEHAN AKA THE JOE RODAN EPISODE -JACO JORDAN , JOSCO CHEY AND JOSH MACHINAN
00:01:20.000Where they'll sometimes talk about how you're almost having this out-of-body experience where you're almost floating above the court or the field or whatever.
00:01:29.000It was almost like that, except I wouldn't use the word floating above.
00:01:33.000But I got to a space in that fight where I felt like all of the thoughts and all of the distracting things that sometimes happen in a fight...
00:01:45.000We're completely ignored and this like higher being better version like best no thinker just actor was running the show like it's almost like I was watching the thing happen while I was in the fight and there would be bits of me hopping in and being like hey throw this combination hey take a little bit more of a risk hey do this and then that would get completely just watched and this whoever was fighting that night that didn't even feel like me was the person that was fighting it was fucking cool man wow It was
00:02:27.000It's a lot of, you know, messing stuff up.
00:02:32.000Like, I remember the last time I was on was right after I had beaten Frankie.
00:02:39.000It's just a bunch of different parts of the journey.
00:02:42.000In that part of the journey, I was really in this space where if I could make myself more war, if I could make myself more angry, if I could make myself be up here, I would have success.
00:02:54.000That kind of stopped working a little bit after Like around the TJ fight and then kind of during the Yon fight and then definitely I tried to be that guy against Song and it was like too much of a distracting feeling where now my mindset's going into the last fight because it was such like a distracting feeling just feeling like I have to get myself to a point of anger or upness before a fight where It just became distracting,
00:03:24.000where it was helpful before it became distracting in that song fight.
00:03:27.000I bailed on that, and I just tried to be as mindful and as present as I possibly could.
00:03:35.000And I know that those are kind of corny words now, but there is some real substance to them when they're really done well.
00:03:43.000And I would say maybe about six weeks before the fight, I had this moment where I was sitting on the couch because I put a lot of pressure on myself and I want to be a world champ real bad.
00:03:56.000Where I was to the point where I wasn't enjoying any part of the camp, any part of the experience of fighting or anything.
00:04:07.000And I was sitting on the couch and I think I was crying a little bit.
00:04:12.000And I was like, I can't fucking do this for the next five years of my life.
00:04:14.000I can't do this for the rest of my career.
00:04:17.000And I was like, well, what's got to change?
00:04:18.000And I was like, I've got to take this pressure off of me.
00:04:22.000And I've got to start enjoying every day a lot more than I am right now.
00:04:26.000And from that six weeks before the fight, I started doing that.
00:04:31.000And I really think that that carried into the fight and it made me be...
00:04:35.000A lot less tense a lot less tight and it made me be able to fight with just like a completely free way of being Wow Is this something that you had previously thought that you could get to that space or wanted to get to that space?
00:04:51.000Or is this something that you kind of experimented along the way and found this path?
00:04:57.000I'm a self learner and I think that it I think that there's ways of being in life that you just kind of have to be at certain times.
00:05:06.000When you're a young kid, you have to be going and hitting it hard.
00:05:10.000You have to remember all of the hundreds of thousands of people on the other half of the world that are trying to accomplish the same goal as you.
00:05:17.000And you have to be a little bit, in my opinion, you have to be a little bit on the neurotic side of like, am I doing every single thing correct?
00:05:23.000Am I putting the right amount of pressure on me?
00:05:28.000That's totally a part of the journey, but I'm kind of more in the part of the journey where I've matured a lot as a fighter.
00:05:38.000We're looking at kids probably in the next couple years.
00:05:41.000And so I had to start thinking, what's sustainable?
00:05:44.000What's a sustainable way to continue doing what I love, but also becoming a more mature adult?
00:05:53.000And that's just part of the journey that I'm in right now.
00:05:56.000And I don't think that anything was wrong with the way that I was doing before, but...
00:06:01.000It just is like a moving target all the time.
00:06:04.000So it's like you're just finding new ways to approach it and then realizing this way is better than the other way.
00:06:11.000Even though the other way was effective, this is even more effective.
00:06:14.000So you're constantly trying to tweak it.
00:06:16.000Yeah, and I think that everything kind of has its purpose.
00:06:22.000In those times where I was really embracing this war mentality, this very bloodthirsty, vicious type of fighter that I was trying to be when I would go into the cage, that totally had its place because I had to experience what I thought that had to feel like.
00:06:41.000In order for me to be the best martial artist that I can because I do feel like I've pointed all of my energy in my life and my mind and my spirit and everything towards the direction of being the best martial artist that I can be.
00:06:52.000And so going through that had its purpose, man.
00:06:55.000Like I had to figure out what it was like for me to be...
00:07:00.000Like a vicious killer, you know, because in society that's like not cool, you know, so like almost like The shadow self or whatever is like the subconscious term for it I had to like experience that I experienced it I figured out that it was no longer serving me.
00:07:55.000So like you figure out how to like do something, way overdo it, figure out where the cutoff is and be like, okay, I can't do it in like those situations.
00:08:03.000You pull back, you figure out what situations you need to do it in, and then you move forward.
00:08:32.000So what was it about the other way you were approaching it, where, you know, last time you were here, you had just embraced this idea that you went in there with the intention to fuck people up.
00:08:59.000When I would be in the back and warmed up, because you don't know exactly when you're going to walk, so I try to be ready 20 minutes before.
00:09:07.000I spend 30-40 minutes warming up, trying to be that guy, and then for 20 minutes trying to sustain that guy.
00:09:18.000Even in this fight, because there's no preparing for that last hour before you go walk.
00:09:24.000I don't care what type of guy you are or how zen you can be or how confident you are.
00:09:30.000That last hour before a fight, your mind's gonna fuck with you a lot.
00:09:34.000And it's gonna go to you thinking that you're the god of the universe to you thinking that you're about to go get slaughtered.
00:09:42.000In the back, before, if I started to feel like I was, you know, having those, like, impulsive thoughts of, like, fear or you're about to go get slaughtered, I'd try to just cover that shit up real quick by getting, like, real pissed.
00:09:56.000And that's, like, a lot of energy to do.
00:09:58.000So before the Cheeto fight, I was super proud of the way that I was able to handle those feelings because those feelings are, like, real as hell when you're in the back.
00:11:09.000I know what you're saying and that feeling has got to be like riding a wild wave.
00:11:14.000Like you just got to maintain your balance and To watch you go into that fight What was so impressive, besides the fact that you're fighting a world-class guy in Marlon Vera, and you were controlling the action, was the overwhelming, like, the amount of information you were throwing at him.
00:11:35.000You were constantly changing levels, constantly threatening takedowns, constantly switching stances, and everything was, you know, there's, fighters kind of, sometimes they'll fall into a pattern.
00:11:48.000And you can kind of predict that pattern.
00:11:54.000When I was watching, I was like, Jesus Christ, like this is so high level.
00:11:58.000And I don't, I mean, for like a casual I don't know if they're seeing that, but for someone who watches a lot of fights and has been around martial arts, you know, my whole life, when I was watching, I was like, this is about as high level as it gets.
00:12:13.000Like, you were mixing shit up so well.
00:12:16.000Like, the way you were choosing your attacks, whether it was the low kick or whether it was punches and the switch stance to punches, the shot, it was amazing, man.
00:13:02.000I think that that's always going to be one of my stronger points is that I can make decisions a lot faster than other people.
00:13:08.000I honestly think that that's what makes good people from great people because good people can do, they can make the right decisions and continue to make them, continue to make them, continue to make them.
00:13:20.000But at some point, the person that's better at doing those things is going to surpass that person eventually.
00:13:42.000My training has a lot to do with that too.
00:13:44.000What is different about your training?
00:13:46.000So all of the conditioning that I do or almost the conditioning parts that I take really seriously are the sparring days.
00:13:55.000I used to like hit mitts real hard and I still do like a strength and conditioning workout once a week.
00:14:01.000That's like you know 30 seconds 30 seconds 30 seconds minute rest you know and stuff like that but There's no getting tired like there is getting tired in sparring.
00:14:59.000I don't really know if that's science or not, but I definitely think that if I can stay focused for 40 minutes, 25 minutes will feel like nothing.
00:16:16.000So I kind of tweak things and handle a lot of the way that I do things in camp by myself.
00:16:23.000I, of course, have people around me that I know love me a lot and care about me enough to tell me What they think I should do and I have and I will listen to them if I if I think that they're right, but a lot of it is like Me just kind of being like a lone wolf in life and in martial arts a little bit and me just figuring stuff out myself So do you think that's because what obviously nobody knows you better than you and You're absorbing all these techniques from all these different people and all these strategies from these different coaches But ultimately
00:16:54.000it's up to you to execute with your mind and your body and And so you've just decided the best way to do that is to absorb all this information, but even maybe more important, do it yourself.
00:17:31.000When I think about other sports and how they compare, I don't think...
00:17:37.000At the very highest level, when I watch interviews of Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan or Tom Brady and all of those guys, those guys are interacting with their coaches much differently than a lot of other players and coaches will interact with each other.
00:17:54.000The coach isn't telling the player what to do.
00:17:56.000The coach and the player are interacting, I think, when you get to a certain level.
00:18:01.000And me and my coaches kind of – sometimes we'll get into it.
00:18:04.000I'll be like, hey, man, I don't think that that's a reliable way to go about doing things because I think building – I use the word reliable a lot when I'm coaching people because you don't want – You don't want tricks.
00:18:47.000I think, honestly, it happens a lot more in striking because I think that because people really don't understand the inner workings of how striking works, people want to use tricks.
00:19:04.000Until you get someone that, like, catches on to your shit.
00:19:08.000So, like, I think, like, let's say, just for example, in striking, like, any combination, really.
00:19:13.000Like, that's kind of more, it's not a trick, but it's a set thing where things have to go really right in order for it to work 100% of the time.
00:19:27.000And I don't really think that that's the approach that you should take in striking.
00:19:32.000I think that the approach to striking should be reliable things.
00:19:35.000It should address space, it should address position, and it should address angles.
00:19:41.000And those are the three areas of striking and the inner workings of striking that don't really get talked about because a lot of it is taught in a very tricky way because tricks are very digestible for people.
00:19:56.000Where the inner workings of things are very conceptual and hard to understand.
00:20:00.000When you say that most people don't understand striking, what do you mean by that?
00:20:08.000I think that there's things that are happening in striking matches that are, like I said, not very digestible.
00:20:18.000So like I said, there's space, there's position, and then there's your advantages.
00:21:00.000So, the more space I have and the better I can maintain and control space or manipulate space by closing it quickly or using it at the same time you close, I close, where I can be twice as fast, the more success I'm going to have.
00:21:24.000I just don't think that people are understanding space in a way where it's like it is your like reaction time.
00:21:30.000So if you get closer to like if you're standing over there and I'm standing here, it's not scary if you throw a punch at me because I have plenty of time to react to that punch.
00:21:39.000Where if me and you are standing right next to each other, that's like super scary no matter who you are, you know?
00:21:45.000So space is reaction time, and I really don't think that a lot of people see space like that.
00:21:50.000They see space like, oh yeah, like you're at the end of my jab, that's when I can hit you.
00:21:54.000Everything is about like, can I hit you this and that?
00:21:57.000Where like the defensive piece of striking isn't really harped on as much, because again, it's like not as digestible.
00:22:05.000And then there's of course like position like my position and then your position my position according to your position so like lefty righty righty lefty lefty lefty lefty righty righty and all of that is important because if you're in a different stance than I am the targets change like what you throw is different than like the attacks that you'll have are very different than the ones that we would have if we're in the same stance if we're in the opposite stance I don't think that people would necessarily pick up on those things, too.
00:22:35.000I don't think people super understand position as, like, my guard.
00:22:39.000Like, where am I open if I stand like this?
00:22:41.000And where am I open if I stand like this?
00:22:45.000The advantages, like, being a little bit outside your shoulders on each side so that I can take angles a little bit easier if I'm standing over here.
00:23:31.000More fighters are embracing that now than ever before.
00:23:36.000There's something about that, if you're accustomed, like if you're accustomed to standing southpaw, or you're accustomed to standing orthodox, and you're accustomed to facing fighters that are southpaw orthodox, you get used to attacks coming from different places.
00:23:51.000But when you're doing it, you're mixing shit up so much that you can see this overwhelming thing that's happening to the opponent.
00:24:00.000You can see, like one of the things Cheeto said, he couldn't get started.
00:24:05.000But the reason why he couldn't get started, in my opinion, he's a great fighter, but it was you.
00:24:11.000It was because you were constantly feeding him with reads and information, and it was never-ending.
00:24:17.000So there was no break where he gets to find his openings, no break where he gets to initiate.
00:24:26.000That's what that can do because, like I said, you read it with your eyes.
00:24:29.000So if I'm switching my stance all the time, the target is changing all the time.
00:24:33.000If you're in a righty stance and I'm in a righty stance also, the targets are different.
00:24:39.000Your right kick is going to land on the outside of my leg.
00:24:42.000If I switch lefty, it's going to kick to the inside of my leg.
00:24:44.000I know that you know this, but if I'm constantly switching those targets all the time, it makes for a hell of a It's a hell of a time for you.
00:24:53.000I started switching really, really early.
00:24:56.000I used to really like watching Nenito Diner, the boxer.
00:25:45.000And then he'd have to figure out something else.
00:25:47.000One of the things that was fascinating about that fight to me is that it's so obvious that even though you have physical skills and he has physical skills, it was your mind.
00:26:10.000The best example of what I love about MMA which is that it's a high-level problem-solving and you are creating all these problems and He didn't have answers to some of them and you had answers to his problems and that's a mental game and that that's to me What's so fascinating about fighting,
00:26:29.000and that people don't understand from the outside that are just casual fans, is like, this is a complex interaction between two people that move very fast, and any error that you make one way or another, running into a right hand, running into a knee, running into this, and you're really good at setting people up for that, like the Frankie fight's a great example of that.
00:26:50.000That, to me, is what's exciting about MMA. And so when I see a guy like you that I clearly see, like, oh, this motherfucker's on another level.
00:27:00.000Like, whatever it is, like, we're talking about this mindset change, or it's just this stacking upon skills and layers and experience till you get to this championship form.
00:27:10.000There's a really exciting time when a fighter comes into that championship form, and that's what I saw in that fight.
00:28:21.000Every Monday and Saturday, I make notes.
00:28:23.000On Monday, I make notes of the things that I'm working on, like a to-do list, sometimes how I'm doing, all of that stuff.
00:28:30.000But I'm super organized in the way that I'm trying to learn and the things that I'm trying to progress in, whether they're technical things.
00:28:38.000Mental things or whatever and then I recap all of those things on Saturday made sure that I did them and then I wrote down I write down what worked what didn't work what I need to continue to drill what what I should pull back on because I don't think it's really worth the time because there are so many techniques and some things just aren't worth the time At at certain points, you know, so I'm super thoughtful.
00:28:59.000I'm super organized and I think that that's like probably one thing that separates me is because Everyone wants it kind of the same.
00:29:46.000When you look at his system, when he's got his Bang Muay Thai system, and he brought out his notebook, and he showed me all this, I'm like, Jesus Christ, who the fuck does this?
00:29:54.000When you look at all of his combinations and what sets what up and the way he has it, I was very impressed with that.
00:30:00.000That's the thoughtfulness that I'm talking about.
00:30:04.000That's just a different level of caring and a different way of showing that you care.
00:30:14.000I'm hopefully going to be filming some instructionals pretty soon, so I've really been spending hours and hours and hours writing down how I think striking actually works outside of the way that it's being taught now.
00:30:29.000So when you are in the process of a camp, when you set out a camp and you're doing this 10-week program, do you have everything planned out from the moment the camp starts?
00:30:51.000I take full responsibility for everything that I do in life.
00:30:55.000If I'm not getting takedowns, it's not my wrestling coach's fault.
00:31:00.000It's my own fault because I know I'm being taught correct things.
00:31:04.000I've surrounded myself with good people that are teaching me the right things, so I don't ever worry about not being taught the right things.
00:31:14.000I like almost feel pathetic because I'm like, man, this guy's, like with the wrestling, like if Banks has to tell me something week by week by week, I start to feel like pathetic.
00:31:24.000I'm like, why am I not getting better at this, you know?
00:31:27.000So I take responsibility for every single thing.
00:31:30.000That way there's no one for me to blame except for myself if I lose.
00:31:34.000And that's another thing that I don't know that a lot of people are doing too.
00:31:37.000That also causes me to get into it with some people sometimes too, which is fine also because they know I love them and I know that they love me.
00:31:46.000So it's not really a big deal when we do get into it.
00:31:50.000I write down, yeah, week by week what I'm doing, what my Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday looks like, when I'm doing my visualizations.
00:31:59.000I incorporate like a decent amount of self-hypnosis type things that I like doing too.
00:32:07.000I write down when I'm flying training partners in, when I'm going out to Virginia to train with Ryan.
00:32:13.000Yeah, it's pretty much like to the T written out.
00:32:17.000When you say self-hypnosis, like what are you doing there?
00:32:19.000They're like, so a lot of them, so this dude Michael Seeley on YouTube does them.
00:32:25.000They're just like 50 to like an hour and 15 minute.
00:32:31.000Hypnosis is where they like calm you down for like the first 15-20 minutes They try to get you super present and then I enjoy there's all different kinds of them, but I like and I enjoy doing the ones where They like almost walk you through like finding your spirit animal or like Going on astral travel or something like this.
00:32:50.000I think that there's a lot of substance to getting to a really calm place and And then letting your imagination kind of like feed you what's kind of going on deeper inside of you.
00:33:04.000And I do a decent amount of those, which sounds a little bit funky and a little bit weird, but I've had some super intense experiences by just literally laying there, putting my headphones in and listening to this dude talk on YouTube.
00:33:22.000I feel like when you're at your level, and one of the things that's exciting about what's going on right now in the bantamweight division is that there's so much talent.
00:33:30.000It might be the most talent stacked division in the UFC. It's hard to say because 55 is great, 45 is great.
00:33:36.000There's a lot of amazing divisions, but for my money, I think 35 might be the motherfucker because There's just so many guys.
00:33:45.000There's Marab, there's Piotr, there's Marlon, there's Yu, there's Aljamain, there's Cejudo's in there now.
00:33:52.000And there's all these guys coming up too that are super high level.
00:33:56.000Chris Gutierrez, there's some fucking killers.
00:33:59.000And everyone recognizes that the level is so high in that division.
00:34:25.000This is just the most insane pressure cooker that I think any division has ever had because I feel like there's like eight world champions competing for the number one spot.
00:34:35.000Any one of these guys could be a world champion.
00:34:39.000And in another time period would be a world champion.
00:34:43.000Because of what's happening in MMA right now because the skill sets are so high and the talent level is so high that everyone's recognizing that and you're seeing these fucking insane breakthrough performances like every time from these guys like Marab versus Piotr, like you versus Marlon.
00:34:59.000These breakthrough performances are just like where everybody else is like god damn gotta go back to work because it's just so pressure intensive.
00:35:12.000I reflect on that sometimes where I'm like, damn, man, you're in the hottest division in the biggest organization in the most badass sport right now.
00:35:37.000Like, it's not one of those divisions where it's like, I'm going to beat that guy, I'm going to beat that guy.
00:35:41.000Like, literally all the way up, like...
00:35:44.000Past the outside the top 15, I'm like, man, if you're not on your P's and Q's and you're not working your ass off like you were a 21-year-old kid, you're gonna be fucked.
00:35:54.000I wouldn't have it any other way, man.
00:35:57.000Like, that's what's gonna bring out the best in me, and I'm, like, super just grateful that I get to be a part of it while it's actually happening.
00:36:07.000It's awesome that you're embracing it like that because it's awesome for me as a fan to watch this happen because I think it's very unique.
00:36:15.000It's like you remember back in like there's a Showtime documentary on the golden age of like when Hagler was fighting Leonard and And Hearns was fighting Duran, and Duran was fighting Hagler, and these guys, they all fed off of each other.
00:36:52.000First fight in the UFC. I mean, that to me is so exciting because this sport...
00:36:58.000Is the only sport that you could really name that if you go back to 1993 and you look at it from 2023, you're looking at a massive evolution in the game.
00:37:13.000There's not a single person from 1993 that looks like they're a world champion in 2023. But if you go back to 1993 in boxing, You got a lot of world champions.
00:37:23.000You got Oscar De La Hoya, Julio Cesar Chavez.
00:37:25.000You got fucking assassins who can compete in any division or in any rather era at any time in boxing.
00:37:31.000You don't have that in the UFC. You have this It's a complete new kind of thing that's emerging and evolving, and you're seeing these top performers that are just reaching total new heights.
00:38:24.000Everyone kind of has their little quirks and the ways that they do things or whatever.
00:38:28.000But who's going to figure out how to be the best system of MMA? Because every other sport, I feel like, has done that.
00:38:36.000That's why most soccer games look like all the other soccer games.
00:38:39.000But in fighting, not all the fights look like the same fights.
00:38:43.000And I think that that's just because...
00:38:46.000It's in this, like, realm of just full-blown creativity, which is because we're just trying to figure out, like, who's gonna get the best system first, you know?
00:39:09.000Overwhelming style that you have is that it's creative is that you're you're doing things that are unexpected But standard like you're doing punches kicks takedowns, but unexpected so you're finding a way to deliver these things inside of these spaces and movements and stance switches and It's fucking wild to see man,
00:39:30.000and it's just it's so exciting to witness this growth of this What I think is the greatest sport that's ever existed and to watch it blossom and bloom and become what it is now.
00:39:42.000It totally has been like fighting is the best sport in the world man There's nothing in my opinion.
00:40:35.000I think it's called Freestyle Bender, and he puts up all these videos of All the shit that they're doing, and this motherfucker is going so hard.
00:40:44.000You can see he's just broken at the end of some of these sets and training sessions.
00:40:49.000He's going as hard as he possibly can with this mindset that there's a way to conquer this guy.
00:41:15.000It's going to be interesting to see if Masvidal can handle Burns' takedowns and Burns' aggression.
00:41:21.000It's just, where's Masvidal in his career?
00:41:24.000You know, I mean, he looked great in fights in the past, but then, you know, you see the fight with Kamaru, he gets KO'd, and then he loses the fight to Colby, he gets overwhelmed.
00:41:58.000When I was thinking, because I get asked, you know, sometimes like, hey, how'd you get into MMA? I don't ever have like an interesting story, you know?
00:42:04.000I'm like, well, I used to watch Kimbo knock people's eyeballs out in backyards.
00:42:27.000Where it would just be like fight compilations and I would just watch for like 40 minutes just like people beat the shit out of each other on the streets and I thought it was so awesome.
00:42:36.000That's like what got me into fighting.
00:42:55.000I mean, the fantasy, I think, for most dudes that don't fight is they just want to, like, you know, like, be tough.
00:43:01.000Like, everyone wants to be, like, tough, you know?
00:43:03.000And fighting's the best way to be tough.
00:43:06.000And when I was, like, younger and just watching that, it was like, fuck yeah, I want to be, like, so tough and, like, kill people the way that those people do, you know?
00:43:15.000What's fucked that most people don't understand is...
00:43:19.000The amount of work that's involved just to get your body physically prepared to be able to fight for 25 minutes is so taxing to the mind.
00:43:34.000Your ambitions get tested, your will, your fortitude, your commitment, your distractions, your self-hate and loathing, your self-love, your ego.
00:43:55.000I think about basketball, football, other sports, there's always substitutes.
00:44:00.000That's a major demon to conquer on your way up in MMA. How do I not be scared of getting tired as hell?
00:44:07.000Because it's the most tiring shit in the world, especially when you're coming up and you're nervous in fights and you don't really know what you're doing, your technique isn't as good.
00:44:15.000I can't think of another sport where you have to go in and be like, man, if I get tired, I'm going to get my ass kicked.
00:44:27.000And that mental battle and wondering whether or not you've done enough in camp.
00:44:31.000Because there's some guys that are very, very talented, but they're not very disciplined.
00:44:38.000And those guys, you could always see that moment where the other guy is in shape and they...
00:44:42.000Start to doubt and start to think about maybe I ate too many donuts, maybe I slept in, missed a few training sessions that I could have gone to, and now I don't have the gas tank and this guy's coming after me.
00:44:53.000Yeah, that's a horrible spot to be in.
00:44:57.000There's another thing about MMA is the management of your energy in a fight and these calculated maneuvers of when to burst and when to take your foot off the gas and And when when to know like have an understanding of your body like what it's capable of at any given moment And it's one of the things that drives me nuts about bad refereeing like say if someone Has a big burst for and shoots for a takedown massive struggle gets it to the ground and And
00:45:27.000then is trying to intelligently move to a place where they could do damage, but the other person is defending well, and then the referee interferes and stands them up.
00:45:58.000I don't really think that they fully understand what it's like from a fighter's point of view to be like, finally I got this motherfucker down.
00:46:06.000And then to have him stand back up and then you gotta do the shit again?
00:46:10.000Yeah, and on top of that, maybe you empty the gas tank a little bit doing that and this guy's fresh and then you get kicked.
00:46:19.000You know, and then, oh, fuck, and now your leg's compromised.
00:47:02.000Say you work real hard, you get a takedown, and there's three minutes left on the clock, and then there's just so much ambiguity as to how much is enough damage.
00:47:13.000There's so much ambiguity happening that, unfortunately, because it'll mess up some other things, I almost feel like you have to add in rules.
00:47:21.000Okay, so I get stood up if I can make it so that this guy can't punch me for 30 seconds or whatever amount of time it is or something.
00:47:29.000But I almost feel like those types of problems only will get solved by rules.
00:47:34.000They won't get solved by this like ambiguity where like the ref can kind of make whatever decision and each ref is different and each crowd is different and they're just making a bunch of decisions.
00:47:46.000I think that someone, not me, should sit down and really think about, you know, making it really clear and really straightforward about, like, the rules so that that kind of stuff doesn't happen anymore.
00:47:57.000Yeah, I think in that sense that it is too subjective.
00:48:00.000It's too subjective, and too many referees have different ideas of what's acceptable.
00:48:04.000And also, you can see referees reacting to the crowd.
00:49:08.000Because I almost wonder why the UFC hasn't done it yet.
00:49:11.000Because if I was the UFC, it would be in my best interest to make sure that everyone's on the same page so that someone doesn't mess something up.
00:49:44.000Ten judges that we use at this time, the judges are completely 100% on the same page about what's winning, what's not winning.
00:49:53.000That way all of the fighters know that because right now it's just commissions from different states just deciding on whatever rules they want to do.
00:50:00.000And I really think that step one is universal commission.
00:50:04.000I think there's another step that needs to be taken, and that's an abandonment of the 10-point must system.
00:50:09.000I think that system is not our system.
00:50:11.000That system is a system that's applicable to boxing, and it works great with boxing.
00:50:35.000There's being able to dictate the pace.
00:50:38.000There's so much that happens in MMA that doesn't happen in boxing because of all the different skill sets and the different weapons and how they get applied and what's more valuable than the other thing.
00:50:51.000I think it should be a very comprehensive system, and I think there should be way more than three judges I think I think there's a real good argument to have like something like ten judges and have because like an Experts I mean guys like yeah, I mean if you can get I don't know Faraz a hobby would do it but like that level of expert You know the guys like safe Saud these fucking world-class coaches and and trainers have guys like that judge fights and You'll get a real
00:51:23.000And if you have ten of those, 99.9% of the time you're gonna get the right winner.
00:51:28.000But if you have three, and no disrespect, but some of these people just shouldn't be judging.
00:51:33.000If someone judged Marlon winning over you, they should not be judging an MMA fight.
00:51:39.000Because either they're not paying attention, maybe they're on drugs, but they definitely didn't see what I saw, so it doesn't make any sense to me.
00:51:45.000Even with the 10-point must system, which is a fucked-up system.
00:51:48.000But if we had a system that tallied all the different takedown attempts, all of the different strikes, and it was a point system, so instead of 10-9, you're dealing with 162 versus 120. The next round, 195 versus 170. And you look at it in that way.
00:52:10.000Where you could tally it up at the end and look at it.
00:52:14.000I also think there's something that Pride had that we really should take into consideration.
00:52:19.000That you judge the fight as a whole and that the last parts of the fight are probably the most important parts.
00:52:26.000Like when you saw Volkanovski on top of Islam at the end of the fight pounded on him, that is fucking gigantic.
00:52:34.000That matters, because if this is a schoolyard, the schoolyard analogy, the teachers come and break it up and you're on top, you fucking won.
00:52:40.000No one's gonna say, Islam won that fight, we got him.
00:53:28.000You know, there's that thing significant strikes, which is kind of interesting, but sometimes significant strikes are body punches when you're on the ground, which we both know are not as significant as like a...
00:53:39.000A front kick to the gut when you're standing up, it's got more power to it.
00:54:46.000It would be super hard to judge from a subjective point, but I definitely agree with you that there needs to be clear set, like, this is worth more than this.
00:55:32.000It does not make sense in MMA. You'll see guys get knocked down and win the round.
00:55:39.000It's like, well, how hurt was he on that knockdown and what should that count for?
00:55:43.000You know, we don't count knockdowns in the same way that boxing counts knockdowns, where you, like, if you're watching, like, Caleb Plant and Benavidez, if Benavidez knocks Caleb Plant down, you know that's a 10-8 round.
00:56:44.000They should have some sort of a conference where they get together with experts and world-class referees and judges and trainers and fighters and Everybody has input do it at like that UFC fighter week thing that they do in July and have a fucking conference where they literally sit down and try to Remap the way we score fights because there's no reason to keep scoring them this way No one's holding a gun to our head.
00:57:10.000We just adopted it because when we wanted to be sanctioned in the initial part of it, you had to get through the athletic commissions, Nevada State Athletic Commission being the best, and all these other ones, you know, being secondary.
00:57:21.000But they had a system that was already in place, so we took that system from boxing and we applied it to MMA. I agree with you.
00:57:28.000Yeah, I mean they gotta do something dude or else it's just it's literally gonna happen like every single month Yeah, and people are gonna be upset about it and it's gonna be a topic of conversation until it gets fixed Yeah, there's just been so many fights recently the Angela Lee Macy Barber fight There's been a bunch of these fights where you just you watch it after you like what?
00:59:13.000That's the only thing that makes sense.
00:59:14.000And I don't really mean to throw that guy under the bus, because I actually only really realized this a few days ago when I looked up what the guy looked like.
00:59:22.000I was like, oh, that's the guy that I kind of bitched out for fucking up four years ago.
00:59:28.000And it definitely wasn't the best interaction with that guy.
00:59:34.000But I don't want to shit on the guy because the guy's already getting so much heat as it is.
00:59:41.000That might have something to do with it.
00:59:42.000And that's the unfortunate aspect of subjectivity, of people having their own opinions about things and going into a fight, judging a fight in a biased way.
01:00:31.000Maybe if you have someone who's verified, like, you know, you got these guys that are either former fighters or like hardcore fans, practitioners, people who really understand martial arts, trainers, and maybe you get verified.
01:00:45.000Just like you get verified on Twitter for being Corey Sanhagen, maybe you get verified as being a verified judge.
01:00:56.000At least we should have a secondary score that doesn't count.
01:01:01.000Like we could say, how do the people at home feel?
01:01:04.000How do the verified, you know, either athletes or trainers or how do these people who we say, this guy understands MMA and he gets to vote and there's like 5,000 of them, what do they think?
01:01:28.000Which is why you would never do, like, a drug test on three people.
01:01:31.000You know, they don't do pharmaceutical tests on three people.
01:01:34.000So that's why, when you have judges, where there's three people judging a very important fight that easily could be for the number one contender position, how the fuck is that...
01:03:32.000I'm so glad that I got to bring this up for people where they'll like, you know, watch this shit because this is the most awesome fight in the entire world.
01:04:27.000It's so crazy that heavyweights are using fours in MMA, right?
01:04:30.000But 8 ounces, that seems like the right number, specifically for these guys, but there's a lot of these guys out there in the world, like Cedric Dumbay just got signed for UFC. Oh yeah, I saw that, that's cool.
01:04:41.000Yeah, they almost had him sign a while back, which is, it sucks, because he lost like two years of his prime, where, you know, for some reason it didn't work out and he didn't get in, but now, finally, that guy is in MMA, and you're gonna get to see just elite, world-class striking.
01:05:00.000That guy came to my gym, he did my podcast, and he came to my gym in LA, and they wanted to use the gym, and so after the podcast session, he did a training session, so I got to watch the whole thing.
01:05:12.000They do some wild strength and conditioning shit.
01:06:52.000And it's also you get to see this problem, like with Pajeda, you saw it with the Adesanya fight.
01:06:57.000Doesn't really know what to do when guys are wrestling him.
01:06:59.000You know, and that was a big problem when Izzy got his back and he couldn't get out of that.
01:07:03.000It's like, wow, he was very sluggish on the ground.
01:07:05.000There's like a marked difference between the fluidity and the efficiency that he has on his feet.
01:07:11.000And then when Adesanya got him on the ground, you can say like, whoa.
01:07:14.000He's gonna have a problem with like the Robert Whittaker's of the world or the Marvin Vittori's, these big fucks that know how to wrestle.
01:07:20.000Yeah, I think grappling is super interesting or at least from like the way that I've kind of learned things.
01:07:26.000Uh, and wrestling is because it's so proprioceptive that, like, you literally, I don't feel I can get good at it until you clock all of those hours.
01:07:36.000Like, that's, like, a really cool thing about, I mean, everything comes more natural to people, of course.
01:07:40.000Like, striking came really natural to me, but I had, I started everything at the same time, but, uh, jiu-jitsu was so proprioceptive that it, like, it wasn't natural for me.
01:07:49.000Like, I grew up playing basketball, like, everything is hand-eyed coordination, you know, moving your body.
01:07:54.000Uh, But wrestling and grappling, it's almost like when you learn a different language and you always have that accent.
01:08:04.000Where it's like, oh, that guy didn't grow up doing that.
01:08:08.000Because I can see by the way that he just does really small, nuancy things.
01:08:12.000And you can't get rid of it unless you just, like, clock hours and hours and hours of it.
01:08:16.000I feel like striking's that way too, though, don't you?
01:08:18.000Yeah, I think for some people, and that's why I said maybe it's because just the way, like, I just naturally picked up striking really easy, too, but...
01:08:24.000I think for bulky guys, for bulky guys, striking becomes a real problem.
01:08:30.000And it's also, like, guys who are used to grappling, they're used to moving their body in a very specific way, and then all of a sudden they've got a snap, an explosion, like, A different thing.
01:08:39.000And a lot of them, like the big bulky guys, have a really hard time picking up fluid striking.
01:08:46.000But if you like, you see a guy like Floyd Mayweather or something that started when he was a little kid, my god, it's like a part of his, it's like blinking.
01:08:53.000It's just like completely natural movement.
01:08:57.000I mean, yeah, because when I think about how I've—because I do think I've made some giant leaps in my wrestling game recently, the reason I think it's happened is because Banks and I will just, like, hand fight and pummel for, like— 20-30 minutes straight on a lot of days like Wednesdays and Saturdays.
01:09:16.000We'll just do that because I really feel like I don't understand things until I can actually just like clock them hours and hours and hours because it can be the difference of oh my shoulders here or my shoulders here.
01:09:28.000Like on someone's chest that like stops them from running me over.
01:09:32.000And, like, those things you just don't learn unless you just, like, clock the hours and hours and hours.
01:09:36.000Another thing that makes, like, MMA just so awesome and fascinating, too, is just there's things that you just can't skit without just clocking hours and hours and hours of it.
01:10:29.000I'm in a nice place though because after that yawn fight I took a year, got better, was able to rest my nervous system.
01:10:37.000When you're wanting to fight over and over and over again, I feel like your nervous system never really gets to chill because it's like thinking a couple months ahead.
01:10:46.000But my nervous system feels good right now.
01:10:48.000It's excited to think a couple months ahead now.
01:11:21.000Fucking like a spinning back fist left hook.
01:11:24.000It was a pretty badass attack, but it happened in the last minute in the third round.
01:11:28.000And I feel like I was fighting fucking awesome.
01:11:31.000Round one, round two, four minutes into round three, got rocked, stood up, was like, okay, went back to the corner.
01:11:38.000I don't really remember what happened in between the corner because I was so like, oh shit, like I just got rocked.
01:11:43.000And for the first time ever in the fourth round, my legs weren't listening to what my eyes were seeing.
01:11:53.000So I felt like I would see punches coming and my body just wouldn't get the fuck out of the way, which was crazy.
01:12:01.000So I got my ass whooped in the fourth round.
01:12:03.000And then when I went after the fourth, before the fifth, I remember taking this deep breath and being like, oh, okay, now I'm back to being myself.
01:12:14.000But then in the fifth, I kind of had to fight a little bit compromised because I was like, well, fuck, if I get hit like that again, that could be lights out, you know?
01:12:23.000But that actually helped me a lot in the song fight, because in the song fight I got rocked pretty early too.
01:12:29.000Just got really excited, wanted to crack him with the right hand when I saw an opening.
01:12:34.000And that motherfucker's song is fast, dude.
01:12:37.000I had never fought someone that I think was that athletic and that fast in my life.
01:12:42.000So I threw a right hand and song like fucking chambered his shoulder and threw like a hard left hook as I was turning back in and it rocked me.
01:12:50.000And it didn't phase me anymore because I had been through it in the yawn fight.
01:12:54.000So even though the yawn fight, I of course was upset because I lost, I took that away from it and I feel like it actually helped me win against song big time because after I got rocked, I was like, eh, I know that I'm okay.
01:13:07.000Which is like, when it happens to you the first time, you're like, oh, fuck me.
01:13:11.000I'm like, am I going to get knocked out now?
01:13:38.000I would imagine for an elite fighter when you're fighting a big opponent like Song Yudong it's a very important fight that you would want a giant roaring crowd and you want it to be at the T-Mobile but man as a fan to be able to especially where I get to sit like at the desk so I'm sitting there right there watching the cage and I don't have to work so I'm just listening and watching and fuck man what a great experience it is watching world class fights in that environment We can hear everything because
01:14:08.000there was only like 100 people there, like maybe, right?
01:14:13.000It's like only people that get invited.
01:14:14.000So you're sitting there and watching world-class fights almost like it's in a gym.
01:14:47.000At first, just being in the division and just the lens that I have to walk through life, I was like, man, fucking Henry's just coming back.
01:15:32.000But dude, when you watch that guy compete, I remember when I watched him fight Cruz, I always try to get a read on people, what their body language is saying, how their eyes look.
01:15:44.000I feel like guys that do a lot of shifty-eyed stuff before a fight aren't always the most focused.
01:15:51.000That might just be something that I think, and there's no science behind that, but...
01:16:33.000I don't know if it's psychological, I don't know if it's because he cuts so much weight, if it's physical, if he doesn't have a large gas tank.
01:18:06.000It's amazing that we have that kind of technology today, that they can replace discs in someone's neck to the point where they can fight in a world-class, in a world championship title fight.
01:18:54.000And part of it wasn't because I thought that I was so much better than Aljamain.
01:18:58.000I think part of it was probably just a compensation inside me that was like...
01:19:03.000Somehow afraid to lose so I was just trying to be like some type of character or whatever you know but but long story short I wasn't up enough at all and Aljamain was up here and I was like here and here is not where you want to be for a fight so I remember being in that fight and being like, is this fucking guy on my back right now?
01:19:26.000I was like, how the hell did he get there?
01:19:28.000This isn't how this is supposed to be going.
01:19:35.000After that fight, that's when I was like...
01:19:38.000I'm getting this shit down now like I'm figuring out how to show up every single night So you think that's a part of the important one of the important things that happens in the process of becoming a great fighter Is that you have to make those mistakes in order to learn and feel the pain of that?
01:19:53.000To know that you have to make some adjustments and you have to make some changes I think I think from my personal experience Like I always try to catch mistakes before they actually become like problems, but in my experience in life The things that I've really fixed haven't been until after I've cracked or had something horrible happen.
01:20:14.000When that happens in life, I feel like you just take things way, way more serious because it becomes a reality.
01:20:21.000If you kind of know something's like, that's a problem, but I don't really have to worry about that problem right now because it's not in my face.
01:20:30.000That might be a problem one day and then it actually becomes a problem.
01:20:33.000Then you fix that shit, you know, like actually after that fight I'll spend a like a lot of time just you know in my car whenever just thinking to myself I'd be like is there anything that I'm doing right now that I will hate myself for if I lose this next fight and like what do I need to fix so that that shit doesn't happen,
01:20:53.000you know, and I'm like constantly always asking myself those types of questions where I'm just like Look man If like say you lost tomorrow, would you change anything right now?
01:21:05.000And like I asked myself that like a lot a lot.
01:21:08.000Mmm You said something the last time we were on the podcast that I actually put up a clip of the other day because it was it's such a profound thing You said he said I wish I could win every fight and feel like I lost Yeah.
01:21:26.000I mean, maybe not, because now that I'm on the winning side of shit, it feels pretty good.
01:21:44.000Like, even, like, I was wrestling with Banks the other day before we came out here, and I was like, hey, like, I'm fucking this up, this up, this up, this up.
01:21:51.000Like, I need to get better at this, this.
01:21:53.000Like, these are the next steps, blah, blah, blah, you know?
01:22:19.000That seems like for a natural athlete, that's the tail end of your efficiency, your body's ability to perform at the highest levels.
01:22:27.000I don't want to have my, like, wife and kids watch me get knocked out a bunch of times.
01:22:31.000You know, like, I don't want to go out like that, you know?
01:22:34.000I mentioned Chris Gutierrez, but that last Frankie fight, when Chris knocked out Frankie, I was like, I was very apprehensive about that fight, because I knew that Frankie had had hip replacement surgery, and, you know, I mean, he's been around for so long.
01:22:47.000I mean, he beat BJ Penn for the title in Abu Dhabi in, like, what was that, 2006 or something?
01:23:47.000And it's so interesting to me that, you know, other than Brandon Moreno and Davidson Figueredo and, you know, there's a few guys at 125 that people care about, that division doesn't get nothing compared to the 135-pound.
01:24:00.000135-pound division sells out at T-Bobile Arena.
01:24:04.000You know, it's a fucking huge pay-per-view fight.
01:24:07.000125, people are like, that's too small.
01:24:49.000And I was like, oh man, that's cool to me.
01:24:52.000You just won a world title against one of the best champions that the UFC has had in years.
01:24:58.000And then you're in the middle of nowhere.
01:25:02.000It was like an hour 30 just to the airport.
01:25:05.000Yeah, yeah, so but anyways dude, I shook that guy's hand and it was like shaking like one of these things man It was like his hand was like this big huge.
01:25:13.000Yeah, he's a genetic freak Yeah, there's a lot going on with that guy is incredibly mentally tough.
01:25:19.000He's he's got Insanity in those the power punches and strikes is You we watch him hit guys and they you can tell like right away.
01:25:29.000They're like, oh fuck Like, you could see it.
01:25:32.000He puts it on them, and they're like, oh, Jesus Christ.
01:26:21.000Yeah, because he you know like that size of a guy Fighting a guy like Israel that that to me is where I like really understand Why that fight went the way that it went a little bit is because when someone that big Compared to you is standing there kind of like this and just like marching you down with their hands down and It's a little bit intimidating to just be like, well, do I just like nail this guy?
01:26:43.000You know, because if he slips and I like don't hit him, he's gonna like chuck and fuck me up.
01:26:49.000So I think that that's a little bit of like a giant advantage for for that dude.
01:26:55.000It's also he's got a very unusual stance.
01:26:57.000He stands straight up and he keeps his hands like this and he just sort of like straight and then he throws kicks with no telegraph and he doesn't throw in full power but he's got so much power that when he starts throwing those low kicks I watched the first fight a few times now, the first MMA fight, and he fucked Izzy's calf up multiple times in that first round with zero telegraph.
01:27:22.000So it's not like one of those, like, dig in and turn your body over.
01:27:27.000He's just top just throw it and it doesn't come out of anywhere You're not you know, you're not seeing any reads.
01:27:32.000Yeah Yeah, those are the toughest guys to fight honestly the guys that don't telegraph anything Yeah, you know, you're plenty powerful just having all that adrenaline in you You don't need to be loading up too much that said if you go back and watch the first fight Izzy was winning that fight.
01:27:46.000Izzy was winning the grappling exchanges, he took him down, controlled him on the ground, and he was doing great in the striking, rocked him in the first round, had him in real trouble.
01:27:55.000That first round is 30 seconds longer, Izzy retains his title.
01:27:58.000So it's one of those things that's like, this is not a mismatch, and it's not like, boy, I feel so hard for Izzy.
01:28:07.000No, it's like, whoa, how is this gonna go down?
01:28:23.000And then you've got this other thing where when someone becomes a champion, there's this sort of school of thought that they almost immediately become 10 or 20% better.
01:30:18.000I know that poker's a very intelligent game, and I respect it and appreciate it, and the guys who win all the time, they're elite thinkers, for sure.
01:30:34.000Because it's also mental, because you have to control the body.
01:30:37.000Controlling the body is one of the most exciting things about competition, is that you know that there's a lot of pressure, but you have to perform while you're under pressure.
01:32:57.000So you're dealing with these 900-pound animals with giant antlers smashing into each other, and you're creeping up on them.
01:33:03.000You're trying to avoid the wind, and it's very physically taxing because you're in the mountains, so you have to get up to the top of the hills where these guys are, and you have to be able to...
01:33:53.000Like, Derek Wolf, who, you know, won the Super Bowl, competed in the NFL, he said, sacking Tom Brady's great, but it's not as fun as elk hunting.
01:34:03.000Like, shooting an elk with your bow, he said, is more exciting than sacking Tom Brady.
01:34:08.000And then you gotta go, like, find it, right?
01:34:10.000Well, hopefully you don't have to fight it, no.
01:34:12.000Generally with a good shot, it's not going very far.
01:34:15.000It's really just about practice and it's really just about, you know, Bow hunting is one of those things where you look at it, you're like, oh, you just shoot an arrow at the animal.
01:34:25.000And then once you start doing it, you're like, oh, there's so many layers to this thing.
01:34:29.000And there's also layers to execution in archery, which requires constant practice.
01:34:35.000Archery is something that's a completely perishable skill.
01:34:38.000If I take, like, a few weeks off of archery, and then I go back, I'm like, oh, fucking...
01:35:44.000While you're pulling that bow back and centering the bubble and centering your peep sight and putting that dot on the target and you're drawing back, there's nothing else in your mind.
01:37:08.000It's all about Genghis Khan and his family.
01:37:11.000Dude, they killed 10% of the population of Earth while he was alive.
01:37:16.000They killed so many people that they affected the carbon footprint of human beings on Earth.
01:37:21.000When they do core samples of the Earth, there's like a considerable decrease in the carbon layer on Earth when Genghis Khan was alive because they killed so many people.
01:37:38.000And, you know, he fucked so many women and raped so many women that his genes are in a high percentage of the people that still exist there today.
01:39:20.000This guy like glues on knives onto his hands and then just commits the rest of his life to just like killing all of these people that like did that.
01:39:34.000According to legend, after his right hand was cut off by the Spanish, Galvarino boldly held up his left hand, offering up for his captives to amputate.
01:40:25.000I sometimes think when you grow up in a society like that, and there's not a lot going on, you probably get pretty bored and commit your life to weird stuff like that.
01:40:34.000Well, I bet he was committed to that the way you're committed to fighting.
01:41:23.000There's this guy who was the Shah of Chorisma had sent an emissary to Jin China to go to see whether or not they should invade or conquer them or what was going on there.
01:41:35.000And as they were headed to the city, they saw in the distance what they thought was a snow-covered mountain.
01:41:41.000And as they got closer, they realized that it was a stack of bones.
01:41:48.000Everyone in the city had been murdered.
01:41:50.000They had to abandon the roads along the way because they were so littered with human bodies that were decaying that the roads had become mud.
01:41:57.000And caked with filth and just human decay.
01:42:01.000It was like decaying people had destroyed the roads.
01:42:06.000There was so much decay that the roads had become mud.
01:42:10.000Gang, that's a pretty sad time in history to probably be a part of.
01:42:14.000They would set up outside of cities, of walled cities, and just camp out until people ran out of food.
01:42:20.000And then when they started killing people, they would put them on a catapult, light them on fire, and launch them onto the thatched roofs to start the buildings on fire.
01:42:29.000Yeah, we don't have it too bad now, I guess, huh?
01:42:56.000I just got done reading Dune and it goes something along the lines of like men made machines to try to free themselves when really what happened is the men with machines just decided to enslave a bunch of people where it's kind of like we're almost like making ourselves slaves to these machines.
01:43:13.000Maybe even worse with AI. Oh yeah, that's pretty scary too.
01:43:17.000AI is like right about to pop and people are just sitting back going, what's going on?
01:43:38.000Best case scenario is we incorporate it into our own biology.
01:43:40.000And then we become some sort of new type of being that's like a cyborg.
01:43:45.000Because if it's not that, then you're going to deal with an artificial intelligent life form.
01:43:49.000That's so superior to us that it creates far superior versions of itself over and over again.
01:43:55.000Because if it becomes autonomous and sentient, that means it can make decisions and do something.
01:43:59.000It would go, well, my programming is dog shit.
01:44:01.000Let me just figure out how to do this better, quantum computing, and do it with better technology and nuclear fusion, and figure out some way to have power that's not destroying the environment, and figure out a way to have something that's completely sustainable, and then go better and better than that.
01:46:05.000You know, my favorite fucking part of the movie is Jeff Goldblum when he first sees the Brontosaurus when he's in the Jeep and he just, he gets up and he looks at that and they're like, what the fuck did you do?
01:47:02.000And it's all about what's called the Younger Dryas Impact Theory, which is somewhere around 11,800 years ago, the Earth got fucking pelted with asteroids.
01:47:14.000And there's all this physical evidence in the form of nanodiamonds, these micro diamonds that are created upon impact when these giant rocks slam into the Earth, just the heat and the power and the pressure, and then also iridium.
01:47:29.000Iridium, which is very common in space, but very rare on Earth.
01:47:33.000There's a layer of iridium all over the Earth around this time, around 11,800 years ago.
01:47:39.000And this also coincides with the end of the Ice Age.
01:47:42.000And Randall Carlson's life's work has been explaining how this has...
01:47:48.000This impact that happened and they know exactly what it is.
01:47:52.000It's through a very specific meteor shower that we pass through every June and every November and that you see the meteor showers in the sky and everybody looks at them but passing through that occasionally a big one goes through and those big ones he thinks slammed into the ice that was covering North America because at that point in time during the ice age North America had a sheet of ice covering half of it that was like a mile, two miles high.
01:48:18.000And all that stuff is what you see when you see the Great Lakes.
01:48:38.000And it also shows why there's all these, like, super sophisticated structures that seem to be thousands of years older than they previously thought they were.
01:48:45.000So what him and Graham Hancock have come up with, and that's what's in this ancient apocalypse documentary, is that at one point in time there was an incredibly sophisticated society that lived on Earth.
01:48:56.000And that's the Africans, the Egyptians.
01:48:59.000What they had done in, you know, whatever thousands of years it was that they built that stuff, because it's under dispute as to how old it really is.
01:49:06.000It's at the very earliest, the very least, it's 2500 BC. But they think it's way older than that.
01:49:13.000And these people had technology that we still don't understand.
01:49:34.000They have no idea what they used to cut them.
01:49:36.000They have no idea what they used to move them.
01:49:38.000And you're talking about people at that point in time You know, when you're dealing with 5,000, 6,000 years ago, we thought they were like hunter-gatherers.
01:49:47.000If it's really 10,000 years old, 12,000 years old, 20,000 years old, what kind of sophisticated culture exists that went on a different path than we went on?
01:49:57.000We went on the path of internal combustion engines and electricity And computers, they might have gone on a similarly advanced or more advanced way, but with a completely different angle.
01:50:10.000They came at technology from a completely different space.
01:50:14.000And that's what we see when we see those stone structures.
01:50:17.000I'm worried that that could happen to us.
01:50:19.000And I'm worried that if something like that did happen, there would be very little evidence.
01:50:24.000Of the society that's left you'd have a small group of people that survived and lived in fucking utter barbaric Conditions and I think that's also why people are so fucking savage when you look at human beings like six thousand five thousand years ago What we're probably seeing, according to Graham Hancock and a lot of other people now at this point in time are coming to this conclusion, is a re-emergence of civilization, not the birth of civilization.
01:50:53.000What we think of as the emergence of civilization, we think of Babylonia and ancient Sumer, and this is the first mathematics, the first written language, the first agriculture, and what they think now is this is just a rebirth of a complicated society, and that for the 6,000 years plus after the impacts, It was probably hell on Earth.
01:51:14.000And the people that survived were fucking monsters.
01:51:38.000What is this insanely sophisticated society that existed that built these structures and left behind no record of how they did it?
01:51:48.000All the burning of the Library of Alexandria, all the ancient work that they had, where they had passed down what had happened, all that was gone.
01:51:57.000When they got attacked and they burnt down the library.
01:52:07.000Sometimes I think that our society gets super caught up on how sophisticated and how smart we all are and this and that.
01:52:14.000I think it's like a nice reminder sometimes to have other people question things and just come up with different theories and ideas because it reminds everyone that we're not all as smart as we sometimes think.
01:52:28.000Because I do think that we live in a society where we think that we're so much smarter than the humans that were around 5,000, 6,000 years ago when really it's the same body, same brain.
01:52:42.000It's really likely that what they had figured out, again, it's probably hard for us to understand what kind of technology they used because it doesn't exist anymore.
01:52:52.000So someone would have to, like, figure something out that's some groundbreaking breakthrough technology that will people go, oh, that's how they did it, and then we'll know, and then we'll understand.
01:53:03.000But right now, we're less sophisticated in terms of our ability to move stone and make stone construction than they are.
01:53:09.000There's no evidence that there was big machines.
01:53:11.000There's no hieroglyphs that show cranes.
01:53:31.000But I think that it would be a shame if the world did end and there was people scattering to survive because I'd spend my whole life just learning how to fight and then probably be one of the first ones to die.
01:53:42.000Because I have no directional, no survival skills at all.
01:56:28.000I think that it's beautiful that you guys sit in a room, think of all kinds of cool shit about life that's funny, write it down, and then go perform it on stage.
01:56:39.000I get jealous of you guys because your guys' job is to sit there, come up with funny stuff that connects with people, and that's what you guys do.
01:56:50.000And the performing piece, of course, but just the writing out stuff that connects with people, that sounds like a really beautiful...
01:57:12.000There's probably parallels in everything.
01:57:14.000Like when you learn a new skill, when you have a new thing, and then you can execute it, and it becomes a thing.
01:57:19.000One of the things that I love about comedy, too, is that you have to constantly come up with new stuff.
01:57:23.000And the audience, you know, they want to hear some of the old stuff because they love the bits, but they really want to hear that new shit.
01:57:30.000What's some new stuff you've been working on?
01:57:32.000And that's one of the cool things about this place that I opened, The Mothership, is that it's designed entirely for the creation of comedy.
01:57:40.000We have two shows in the little room every night and two shows in the big room every night.
01:57:44.000And comics are hopping back and forth from one show to the other.
01:57:48.000And we have this thing that my friend Brian Simpson hosts this show called Bottom of the Barrel.
01:57:53.000And it's a barrel, like a little whiskey barrel.
01:57:56.000And the audience at the beginning of the show, they get index cards, and they get to write down an idea for a premise.
01:59:00.000Yeah, freestyle rap is cool, but I'm a giant fan of, like, 90s hip-hop, because those dudes wrote everything out, and, like, the lyrics were so complex, and they twisted and turned, and, like, I'm a big fan of Gangstar, and, you know, listening to some of their old lyrics, like, god damn, they're so creative.
02:00:17.000I worked at a residential treatment facility for kids.
02:00:21.000Everything that I've ever done has involved some type of psychology or whatever.
02:00:27.000And it sucks to say, but I love watching shitty dating shows, too, online.
02:00:32.000Because, dude, there's so much confrontation that happens.
02:00:36.000And I love witnessing people in confrontational scenarios and just seeing what happens to the human person as they're dealing with a ton of stress.
02:00:46.000I remember in college, bro, I used to love going into test day and just watching everyone freak out.
02:00:58.000It's fun to watch the nervous system and the mind get overloaded and all the possibilities and the thinking and just the fear and the anxiety.
02:01:05.000How they just start being weird, dude.
02:01:08.000I love watching people be weird just because they're nervous.
02:01:47.000But I would love to just see how you could tell that they were feeling a certain way based off their actions just being differently.
02:01:56.000I thought that that was really fascinating.
02:01:58.000It was my first time in life where I was like, oh yeah, I guess when I do pace around a little bit, I guess that's me just acting out some type of nervousness that I have going on inside of me.
02:02:09.000But I learned a ton from that place, too.
02:02:11.000That was watching a lot of people be in confrontation all the time.
02:02:14.000And their kids, too, because kids are just so innocent and pure and don't know how to hide anything.
02:02:19.000So everything that they're feeling, they just feel.
02:02:22.000One of my favorite moments about a fight is the stare down at the weigh-ins.
02:03:25.000I forget which hotel it was at, or maybe it was at that Vegas one, but I hear something in the background, like him making noise, or him practicing saying the people's names, and I was like, damn, this world takes that job serious.
02:05:21.000Oh my god, I'm so excited I know that all the things I do man I do a lot of fun things but Doing commentary for the UFC is one of the most fucking exciting things a person could ever do Yeah, it's just you just get it's I feel so honored and so privileged that I get to be a A person who's talking about this while people are experiencing it and then I get to just somehow or another accentuate it or give life to it or give my thoughts to it or just express my excitement and that it's
02:05:51.000contagious and people feel it and feed off of it.
02:05:57.000I get the chills, man, when I'm there, and then it's the last fight, and everything goes dark, and then just the spotlight, the whole arena's dark, and just the spotlight around the two fighters.
02:08:58.000The bravest fell on the requiem bell Rang mournfully and clear For those who died the Eastertide In the springing of the year While the world did gaze with deep amaze
02:09:24.000At those fearless men but fear You want to talk about a dude who just eats pressure?
02:09:35.000That's like what separated Conor McGregor.
02:09:37.000That's why I don't know that there will ever be anyone that's really like him is because that dude was walking the walk and he was fearless, man.
02:09:45.000Like he was fearless in the fights that he would take.
02:09:47.000I think when he fought Chad, it was like short notice, right?
02:09:51.000It was short notice and he had a fucked up knee.
02:12:09.000Especially when someone's in a turtle position, like if they shoot for a shot and they sprawl, and you're sitting there, why can't you knee them?
02:12:16.000Because their knees are on the ground?
02:12:26.000And if the referee thinks that someone is compromised and they're going to get soccer kicked and they want to stop the fight, stop the fight before that happens.
02:12:32.000But if you see what they're doing in 1FC where they allow those soccer kicks, it's a big factor.
02:12:37.000And it's a real factor in real fighting.
02:12:39.000And this is supposed to be the sport of real fighting.
02:12:42.000I think the only argument against it is the cage.
02:12:44.000Because the cage prevents a guy from moving, because you're pressed there, and then you get stomped or soccer kicked, and there's really no way to get out of that.
02:12:53.000I feel like if you wanted to have soccer kicks and stomps, you really should have an open arena, which I've been a supporter of anyway.
02:13:00.000I think cages get in the way of the view.
02:13:20.000If you can fight, if you can have basketball in a basketball court, and these guys are all running around and doing all that, I mean, there's so much room for these guys to run.
02:13:28.000Why can't you have a place where you have a center, where you're supposed to compete in, and you have a red line that's a considerable size, that if it gets too far over that, you have to come back in.
02:13:39.000We should start our own promotion and maybe fucking boxing with elbows in an arena?
02:13:44.000Well, if UFC was going to do anything, I would want them to do kickboxing because I think that is the untapped thing.
02:13:49.000I know they're all high on this slap boxing thing, the slap fighting thing, and I know that that gets a lot of money and a lot of people love it and watch it on TikTok.
02:15:02.000I mean, look, I'm a fan of all combat sports.
02:15:04.000I love jiu-jitsu, I love kickboxing, but I think that's the one thing that's untapped because it's one of the most exciting aspects of MMA and it's not an individual sport of note.
02:15:17.000Dude, imagine getting Sanchai in a UFC fight with just small gloves just kickboxing.
02:15:22.000What about like that, the way they do the NCAA wrestling club?
02:15:26.000Yeah, what I don't like is the drop-off.
02:15:44.000Have it on the ground and have a space that's even a little bit larger than that and have a red area on the outside that's probably double the size of that outer black area where you cannot...
02:15:53.000When you get into that area, there's plenty of room to make your way back in, but the referee makes you get back in and you have to fight in the center.
02:16:00.000And, you know, have it so that you have to chase a guy down.
02:16:03.000I mean, you know, and people will boo.
02:17:17.000I'm sore in weird places that I had no idea that I had gotten hit.
02:17:20.000And I literally, when I tried to move, I'll sit there with my ankles up because my ankles always get really swollen because I kick knees all the time.
02:17:27.000But I'll sit there with my legs up and to move over and roll over or go to the bathroom or whatever is like...
02:17:35.000For like an entire day and then it's a little better the next day and then kind of gone by the third day but the next day is horrible.
02:17:44.000I take ice baths and I do the hot tub like for the like day after the next day after and the next day after just like flush it all out because there's so much swelling that's going on.
02:17:56.000What's the most significant injury you've ever had?
02:18:49.000Like, that's, like, another thing that I think I do really, really well is, like, Step A is get better, but slightly underneath that is don't get hurt.
02:19:01.000Because if you get hurt, you can't do anything for weeks or months.
02:19:04.000Yeah, the scariest injury to me in MMA is the shin break.
02:19:12.000We've seen that three or four times now, and every time you see it, the guy's really never the same again.
02:19:16.000And the Conor one is fascinating to me because I've seen him sparring, and it looks like he's using that left leg and throwing kicks and everything, but how is that going to hold up in an actual fight?
02:19:48.000That's what I was talking to my buddy the other day.
02:19:51.000I go, you know, because a lot of it's about the entertainment piece and talking shit and all of the interviews leading up to it or whatever, which I don't always enjoy the most.
02:20:02.000But I was saying, I was like, once we're in the cage, there's no more entertainment show happening.
02:20:44.000You know, Ben Askren did that and won.
02:20:46.000When he competed and won, it was a market change because now he's allowed to use not just takedowns, but knee guys in the head when he had them taken down.
02:22:26.000I think it's actually a cooling thing.
02:22:27.000I think it's supposed to be to keep your balls cooler so that you have more sperm.
02:22:32.000Because one of the things that really affects sperm growth and development is heat.
02:22:37.000So if you had your balls inside your body all protected and you were hot from running or something like that, you'd probably have bad jizz.
02:23:03.000Oh, that's another thing that's going on this weekend is UFC is debuting a new set of gloves.
02:23:09.000I have maintained, and I still do, that Trevor Whitman makes the fucking best MMA gloves that have ever existed.
02:23:15.000And I think that everybody should use those gloves.
02:23:17.000I put those Onyx gloves on before, they make your hand completely curved, they still allow grappling, but it keeps your hand like this, where you don't have as many eye pokes.
02:23:53.000So hopefully that's going to make a difference.
02:23:55.000I think that's been a thing that a lot of people have complained about is that the old UFC gloves, they encourage your hands to be in an open position.
02:24:03.000And when guys are fighting like this...
02:24:05.000Like, eye pokes are one of the worst fucking things about the sport.
02:24:16.000It's like LASIK except they like seal up.
02:24:19.000I got it like six, seven years ago or whatever.
02:24:21.000And still if I get hit right in the eye or even like a digit goes in my eye even a little bit, the rest of my night is ruined because I'm like sitting there all night going like this.
02:24:31.000It happens after almost every single fight.
02:25:38.000What about, like, if somebody gets a cut on their forehead and they're on top of you, ground up and they're just bleeding all your goggles, and then you get up and you can't see, and you wipe it away, but you're smeared.
02:25:46.000Now you're looking at, like, a fucking dirty windshield.
02:25:49.000Have you seen that fight where I get armbarred by Yuri?
02:30:53.000I worry about that because I see it in certain fighters.
02:30:56.000I see fighters that are in contention for the title and they just have this certain type of drive and then you see a few losses and then you see them competing and maybe they just don't look as hard.
02:31:27.000It's a sad thing to see champions when their body is not working right anymore, but they think they're going to be able to pull that magic out.
02:31:38.000I think it's like, it's probably their loved ones on, it's like on those people to tell them to stop, huh?
02:31:45.000I mean, because as like a fighter, I don't really know that it would, I don't know if it'd be on me to tell me to stop.
02:31:52.000You know, like just being the fighter that like, being the person that you got to be to be a fighter, that really shouldn't ever cross your brain.
02:31:59.000So you probably have to have loved ones around you to be like, hey man, like, we're calling it.
02:32:04.000I think there's that and then there's also the issue that for many fighters that is their entire identity their entire identity is that they're a fighter and Losing that identity by becoming a former fighter and now being lost in the world and not knowing what direction to take or what to do with yourself It's one of the hardest transitions because fighting is so all-in It's so all-encompassing and so obsessive that once that's gone from from your life Unless you're teaching,
02:32:32.000unless you're running an academy or running a gym or, you know, working with younger fighters, it's hard to find something that will occupy your thoughts in the way that competing does.
02:33:01.000But the identity thing is always something that I think is really interesting to me.
02:33:07.000Just the human experience and trying to create this identity or latch on to some type of identity to me is one of the things that humans need to dig really deep to try to overcome.
02:33:21.000I think that that's a piece of why we're here is to overcome...
02:33:24.000Just latching on to an identity and rocking with that for your entire life.
02:33:29.000That's something I feel like I had to do a lot coming up in the sport and just being like, okay, you're not a fighter.
02:33:37.000You are a fighter, but only sometimes.
02:33:39.000Really what you are is this other thing, but fighter is just a piece of it.
02:34:05.000So instead, you're like, I'm a bad motherfucker, I'm a this, I'm a that, and you live in that, and then when that gets shattered, You're kind of fucked.
02:34:13.000Because if that gets questioned in a fight, if you lose your confidence in that in a fight, and that's the thing that you're banking on, instead of just existing and trying to make adjustments, now you're questioning like, oh my god, do I suck?
02:34:33.000Yeah, the pull to organize life in a way is something that we all kind of have to do or deal with or whatever, but it feels better when things are organized and when we have reasons for things.
02:34:47.000When I actually lost my first fight, that was when I really started getting into Buddhism, was after I lost my first professional fight.
02:34:57.000It was for LFA or RFA or whatever it was called at the time, but...
02:35:01.000I remember being like, oh shit, what am I if I'm not this badass fighter that everyone's telling me if I win I'm going to be in the UFC and I'm going to be champ and blah blah blah.
02:35:41.000The battle with identity I feel like I have like a pretty close intimate relationship with because it's a son of a bitch to try to let go of all of that stuff but you kind of have to I think at some point in your life if you want to really start being and expressing yourself the way that you want to.
02:35:56.000Well I think that's what's interesting about this conversation is that you have done so much of this work and you have done so much of this thinking about what that is and how that aids you and how that hurts you and how it gets in the way.
02:36:18.000He's a little bit too dense for me to fully understand.
02:36:20.000But a part of becoming individuated or becoming enlightened or whatever word you want to use for it is letting go all that shit that you learned when you were younger.
02:38:41.000I care about him deeply, but I'm helping him go through his amateur years right now, and I It's crazy how much me helping him is him helping me because I get to watch...
02:38:53.000Like I said, I like watching people in stressful situations because I like to see how they act.
02:38:59.000I help Elias and that has made me better understand things and all of that.
02:39:04.000But also Elias is helping me a lot by me seeing...
02:39:08.000One, if the things that I'm teaching him is working in all types of bodies.
02:39:14.000I feel like if you have a really true and tried system, it's going to work for everyone to an extent.
02:39:20.000But just watching Elias go through everything is really helping me understand the sport a lot better too.
02:39:27.000And that's kind of like, because I'm helping him, he's able to do that for me.
02:39:32.000But yeah, that's been a really, really helpful thing.
02:39:36.000Like the instruction piece, I feel like I've been doing for so long, so I can like kind of teach some people some stuff fairly well now, but like bringing up a fighter has taught me a lot about being a fighter myself and all of that.
02:39:52.000So, you have this big win over Marlon.
02:40:48.000So it could be one of those guys, but I would ideally like to fight in July or August.
02:40:53.000Like I said, I get married September 1st, and Erica would understand if I had to be in camp for the wedding, but that would really break her heart.
02:41:02.000I don't even care if it's the week before, and I don't even think she cares if it's the week before if I fight.
02:41:09.000I would really like to fight before September 1st so that Erica doesn't kill me.
02:41:14.000Well, the July card is going to be wild.
02:41:52.000I thought it was all about the second round.
02:41:53.000I thought he edged him in the second round.
02:41:54.000And I thought that the way he performed in the fifth round, I think that should have cemented it.
02:41:59.000Yeah, I was really impressed because I think that those Russian guys are obviously really good wrestlers, definitely world-class wrestlers, but I think what they were doing before a lot of the other people in the UFC is some people could get people down, but they couldn't really hold them.
02:42:14.000And those guys know how to hold people down.
02:42:16.000And I think that that's the most fascinating thing to me about the Russians is that...
02:42:22.000The wrestling piece, there's a lot of good American wrestlers too, but the Russians really know how to hold people down.
02:42:27.000And that was what I think separates them from the normal wrestler-grappler archetype.
02:42:33.000Dude, the way Volkanovski was getting up against him was fantastic.
02:42:39.000Especially being down a weight class, usually.
02:42:41.000I was kind of surprised he didn't have a rematch.
02:42:43.000I mean, I know he wanted to defend his title, and Yair Rodriguez, obviously, he won the interim title, so he should get the next shot, but...
02:42:50.000It was such a big fight and such an insane fight.
02:42:53.000I would kind of like to see that again.
02:42:57.000Well, Corey, you're a bad motherfucker.
02:42:58.000I appreciate you very much, and I really love your mindset and the way you approach things, and it's really fun to watch you just keep getting better and make your way to the top.