In this episode, I sit down with former UFC welterweight champion Matt Brown to talk about his return to the octagon after a year and a half hiatus and his upcoming fight with Carlos Condit at UFC 246. We talk about what it's like returning to the UFC after a long break and what he's looking forward to in his next fight. We also talk about the challenges he faced in his first fight back and how he was able to bounce back after being away from the sport for so long. I hope you enjoy this episode and that you enjoy the conversation we had with Matt Brown! We look forward to seeing what he has to say about his upcoming opponent and his mindset going forward. Thanks to Matt for coming on the show and coming back from a year long break. We can't wait to see what he brings to the table in the next fight and what his mindset is going to be going forward in his return. Thank you Matt for being a part of this conversation and for coming back to the Octagon. I can't thank you enough for stepping up to the plate and coming out on the mic. I really appreciate it. I appreciate you, man. I love you, I really really appreciate you. I really do. -Your support is so appreciated and I can t wait for you to come back next week. -MMA Junkies! -Jon Soriano UFC 246 is a must listen episode. -Jon & Jon talk about UFC 246, UFC 246 and UFC 246! -Jon talks about how he's back and what it means to him and how much he loves being back in the UFC. -Jorge vs Cowboy vs. Dana White. -How he's ready to fight again. -What does he's getting back into the UFC? -How does he feel about his new opponent Diego Chisora? -What's his mindset on the UFC 246? -What he's going to do next? -How much he's up for this fight? -Canelo vs. Diego vs. Cowboy vs Diego? -Does he have a chance to get back in a fight next week? - What does he think of his future in UFC? -what does he have to do in the future? -And much more! -What do you think of the future of the UFC vs. -what's the best opponent? -and much more? - and much more. - and what does he really like about his future plans?
00:00:50.000I think Carlos needed to fight back too, that fight with Neil Magny.
00:00:54.000He looked like he was suffering through some ring rust.
00:00:58.000I've talked to a lot of people about that because that's the first thing that always comes up is how he came back and looked in that fight.
00:01:49.000It's different for different people, right?
00:01:51.000Yeah, someone was talking to me about this the other day, ring rust, and I was like, you know, everybody's different, man.
00:01:57.000Every single person is going to react a little differently, and I think also when you have someone, you know, John Danner was talking about the different types of fighters, right?
00:02:05.000I think he just grouped three different types of fighters, like a violence guy, a tactical guy, and something else.
00:02:12.000Well, I think there's more types of fighters than what he went through, but I think it's going to affect every single type of person differently.
00:02:22.000For instance, I fought a much more tactical fight against Diego It wasn't...
00:02:27.000I mean, you could easily go in with Diego and just go to fucking war with him, right?
00:02:40.000And I think that was part of why it helped.
00:02:43.000Now, I think someone that goes in with a more violent style, which I've done many times in my life, I think that's a bit more complicated because...
00:02:54.000There's a lot more timing and reaction in that, whereas the strategy, you have a very clear path to victory.
00:04:23.000Well, I mean, that's what makes it interesting, is that there are different styles.
00:04:26.000There's people that have safety-first styles, where they're just fighting to win, and then there's other people like yourself that just, whatever's inside you that comes out.
00:04:35.000You know, I always said this, like, there's certain dudes, like, because of your history, because of, I mean, you had an overdose where you literally died.
00:05:31.000To be honest, that's something I've sort of struggled with a lot too because it wasn't actually that specific moment The overdose that kind of affected me the way it did.
00:05:41.000It was more a long-term life of Well, I would say I've just been an angry person, honestly, like just since I grew up.
00:05:51.000So it was all about channeling that anger.
00:07:17.000So this rage is coming out in a negative sense and gets expressed through drugs, alcohol, hanging with the wrong people, things like that.
00:07:25.000And then there's a turning point where I'm like, man, this can be a positive thing and I can use this energy directed towards something positive.
00:07:40.000Man, that goes deep, man, because, you know, I grew up in a very, very, very small town, 200 people population.
00:07:49.000I didn't see a skyscraper until I was up in person.
00:07:54.000We drove by it in Dayton, Ohio, which is a big town in itself.
00:07:59.000Until I was like over 18 years old, you know, so I was I always felt like there was so much more out there for me And I was kind of expand grew up in a machine shop.
00:08:08.000My dad was a machinist So I was doing that from like five years old.
00:08:12.000I was sweeping the fucking floor And I was like, man, this is not what I'm meant to be.
00:08:19.000I'm supposed to be something great, but everybody around me is like, no, this is what you do.
00:08:24.000You live in this little town and you follow the rules.
00:08:27.000You're going to be a machinist or a farmer or whatever.
00:08:33.000You know that shit pissed me off you know and I never really found my niche and so I was homeschooled actually for I think two years in junior high so I think that was sort of actually the start because I went back to school and when I went back to school I was now the outsider I didn't have any friends and then going up all of a sudden I'm in high school and I have no friends I have no I can't get laid for shit I think that's what causes anger and a
00:09:08.000Yeah, and at the exact same time I'm starting to experiment with drugs and alcohol So you put the two together, you know, I was supposed to be The prodigal son, you know, I mean like I was very intelligent.
00:09:22.000I was You know, I like I was doing things by time I was 15 years old in the machine shop that that guys You know, they've been working for my father for 10-15 years, couldn't do.
00:10:59.000There's a lot of stuff I... I was actually kind of thinking about, like, so again, you know, on this podcast, I was like, you know, it's probably going to come up on it.
00:15:19.000You know, and we would joke about it, man.
00:15:20.000We would say, I remember specifically sitting there, like, dude, like, you know, we're going to get you a fight in, you know, the local Joe Schmo show, and then, you know, we're going to get you up, and you're going to go to Pride, and then you're going to go to the UFC. And I was like, oh, cool, hell yeah, let's do it.
00:24:00.000Versus like someone who's like super technical versus someone who's just a fucking mad dog and just wants you to just go out and do it and don't be a pussy.
00:24:08.000Your mindset that allowed you to take that fight with no training and then take another fight after that with no training and then take another fight after that with no training.
00:24:17.000Just this mindset of fuck it, let's just do this.
00:24:22.000There's a balance between that and then you realizing, okay, I got to really learn how to do this.
00:24:30.000If I'm going to really be a fighter, I'm going to really define myself, I'm going to really go out and make a mark, I got to learn what the fuck I'm doing.
00:25:36.000Now, when we go in competition, now we're expressing our art.
00:25:39.000And I think this is an important distinction to be made.
00:25:41.000I think it's something that I get so tired of hearing, you know, I train martial arts and, you know, I train martial skills and then I express my art.
00:25:50.000That's a very interesting way of putting it.
00:25:52.000How many years after you initially started seriously training were you on the Ultimate Fighter?
00:26:05.000That's what everybody remembers, yeah.
00:26:06.000Well, I remember that because I remember, like, there's some dudes that, there's some guys that play tough guy, there's some guys that put on a show and puff up their chest and say some shit that they might not necessarily mean, and then there's some guys that say some shit and you go, uh-oh, this dude's fucking serious.
00:26:26.000I remember when they fucked with your Chew.
00:26:27.000I remember watching that and I'd go, this motherfucker's serious.
00:27:02.000I was training a girl, and she was going to Florida to fight.
00:27:07.000And when I got there, we're driving to the weigh-ins, and the promoter, I heard him talking on the phone, and I heard him say, you know, oh, we don't have an opponent for him.
00:27:17.000So I said, hey, you know, what do you need an opponent for?
00:27:20.000And he's like, well, this guy, Matt Arroyo, you know, 170. And I said, dude, I'll fight.
00:28:36.000You know, and then there's guys who just, they just can't keep the pace.
00:28:39.000They just can't keep that, that keeping you off of them.
00:28:42.000Yeah, and I think my goal as a martial artist, as a fighter, martial, you know, whatever you call it, combat guy, you know, I gotta get my skills up to the point where...
00:31:05.000So when, you know, you're utilizing a certain portion of your brain, that's the portion of your brain that's responsible for those actions.
00:31:12.000Either way, our minds are certainly far more unlimited and far more potential than we're tapping into, right?
00:31:18.000Well, I think your mind is a lot like your body.
00:31:20.000And it performs and it does what you ask of it.
00:31:24.000And if you just are a lazy bitch who doesn't do anything but sit around and watch TV and you don't ever challenge your mind, I think your mind is weak and it atrophies.
00:32:59.000But yeah, I do tons and tons of visualization, which is a consistent Marker of high performers, a consistent thing that high performers do.
00:33:28.000I think that's probably the number one thing, is creating habits, right?
00:33:32.000But it holds me accountable for everything, and I think that's probably the biggest key, is just being held accountable for every action that you do.
00:33:40.000Have you ever used a sensory deprivation tank?
00:34:06.000I don't know why it's not coming to my head right now, but he was one of Bruce Lee's guys.
00:34:10.000He's an Indian meditation guy and everything.
00:34:13.000And his form of meditation was to completely clear your mind, which is...
00:34:19.000I guess like it is actually impossible right like there's no way to just have no thought at all But that's sort of what I try to strive for is go Literally no mind at all.
00:34:29.000What I do is think about only my breath That's it.
00:34:32.000I concentrate on my breathing in and breathing out.
00:34:35.000And there's a bunch of other shit that gets in there, but eventually I can kind of overpower it and just think only about breathing in and only about breathing out.
00:34:43.000So that's what I do to get to that state, right?
00:34:46.000To get to a state where I can release everything.
00:34:49.000But at that point, once I'm relaxed, then I go for the no mind.
00:34:54.000Which again, it's impossible, but my personal...
00:34:59.000System of visualization or relaxation is I see the thoughts as clouds and my mind is a sky or space.
00:35:07.000So, you know, my mind becomes this gigantic entity and the thoughts are just clouds that pass by.
00:35:15.000But again, when I start thinking about things like that, now you're not in the no mind.
00:35:18.000If you start thinking about your breath, you're not in the no mind.
00:35:20.000And I want to get as close to that as possible because in a fight, In a combat situation, I want no mind.
00:36:39.000And just so good at understanding how to learn things and teach things.
00:36:43.000I think that mentality, that chess player mentality, because chess is such a complex, cognitive, Demanding game.
00:36:52.000You know, there's so much thinking and planning and so many steps ahead that you have to be and so many moves you have to have cataloged in your head.
00:37:00.000And he goes into beyond just the technical part too when he talks about how he kind of lost his Love for it.
00:41:01.000Ian McCall's broke his hand so much that his right hand, one of his knuckles, like his pinky, or his pointer finger, it never curls past that.
00:41:35.000Chris Weidman's going through some shit like that right now.
00:41:38.000He fucked his thumb up in the Kelvin Gastelum fight and then had to get a ligament from his wrist taken out and attached to his thumb because his thumb's ligament was torn and he still can't fully train, still can't grip or fully punch.
00:41:54.000Yeah, mine they didn't have to do none of that, but they said once they opened it up there was a lot more Stuff in there they had to take out and a lot more that was ripped that they didn't even realize was there.
00:42:11.000Did you ever see Jacare's when they had his elbows cleaned out?
00:42:15.000He had elbow surgery and they found chunks of bone and cartilage in his elbow.
00:42:22.000Like a shot glass filled with like shit that was floating around inside of his elbow just from hitting people with elbows and getting armbarred and not tapping and shit popping and snapping and tearing loose and all of it is just fucking mangled.
00:42:37.000Yeah, because he broke his arm when he's Hodger.
00:42:41.000Hodger broke his arm and he tucked it into his belt and kept going.
00:45:24.000You get a bunch of shit from these small companies, or these companies rather, they get it from China, and they have these bins, and like we had a problem with that with the alpha brain when we first had, not steroids, but vitamins that were in alpha brain that weren't supposed to be in there.
00:45:39.000We have all our stuff independently tested, and when we had it independently tested, it turned out that the mixers, when they were putting all the different ingredients in, they would be putting in these vats, and they had used these vats for other shit and hadn't completely cleaned it out.
00:45:52.000This is a problem with companies that sell steroids and also sell things like creatine.
00:45:58.000This is the big story about Jon Jones.
00:46:03.000This is what they think, is that he was doing coke that had creatine in it.
00:46:07.000It was cut with creatine, and that creatine probably had trace elements of steroids.
00:46:11.000The reason why that makes sense is because he tested negative right before that test, and then tested positive, and then tested negative again a short time after that.
00:46:21.000This is a steroid that takes several months to get out of your system, but it got out of his system very quickly, which would indicate it was a very, very small trace amount.
00:46:30.000Not an amount that you would take if you were actually using it to try to get a performance-enhancing benefit.
00:46:43.000Certainly, there's cases in my world where, okay, first offense, lifetime ban, I think a lot of guys would be a lot more careful with things like that, for one.
00:46:55.000And I think there would be a due process.
00:46:58.000So, say he proved that, or like Tim Means, he comes right back, right?
00:47:04.000I also think, unfortunately, there would be people that would probably have no bad intention and would end up testing positive and having a lifetime ban.
00:47:17.000And there would be martyrs, basically.
00:51:57.000I mean there's so many pictures of Vitor when he fought like Michael Bisping and then you see Vitor after USADA and just he's got that old man bod and he goes in there and his body's kind of like loose and it just your body's not producing hormones anymore.
00:52:12.000Vitor was on that shit when he was 19, man.
00:52:33.000When he was about 205, he was ridiculously fast.
00:52:37.000Yeah, because I wonder if there's any, I was going to say, like, if you slow down when you stop taking that stuff, like if your muscles actually, you know, Your fast twitch muscles go away or something like that.
00:53:17.000So this is, I think, a big problem with the steroids because I say I do steroids when I'm 19. Now my muscles get jacked, and now my muscles remember how to get that jacked again, even though I'm off steroids for 10 years, and then I come back at 30 and redo it.
00:53:39.000And especially if you do it when you're young and then your body has an adequate amount of time to rebuild and you start developing a natural hormone level.
00:53:45.000It also increases your tendon strength.
00:53:57.000And then there's another argument for women.
00:54:00.000Women that have taken steroids, it's an even more intense argument because you're putting supernatural levels of testosterone in a woman's body.
00:54:06.000They develop all this new muscle tissue that never would have been there without it, and a certain amount of that sticks around.
00:54:13.000And, you know, you might not have ever been able to develop that kind of strength without it.
00:55:03.000The guy who was doing it was in this documentary, and he was helping this guy Brian Fogel do a bike race.
00:55:11.000What Brian Fogel did was he did a bike race with nothing, and then he wanted to get juiced up and see what the difference is with the next year, do the same race, but do it on everything.
00:55:21.000And so he contacted this Russian guy who is the head of anti-doping in Russia.
00:55:26.000Well, this guy along the way from doping up Brian Fogle, they all got busted.
00:55:31.000And when they got busted, not Brian Fogle, the Olympics in Russia, the Sochi Olympics, They found out that people had tampered with samples and a bunch of shit started coming out about it and then it became this gigantic scandal.
00:55:46.000He fled Russia, came to the United States and testified and told everything that he did.
00:55:51.000They opened up these supposedly unopenable sample jars and replaced the bad urine with clean urine.
00:55:58.000They had frozen urine and then they had a hole in the wall where they were passing urine back and forth.
00:56:03.000And replacing the old stuff with clean stuff.
00:56:17.000That's the tough thing about everybody goes into the Russian training methods and how they're superior and everything.
00:56:22.000A little bit of that, a little bit of this.
00:56:24.000I mean, there's some great Russian training methods, for sure.
00:56:27.000I mean, the Russians invented the kettlebells.
00:56:29.000Russians have super-technical wrestling instruction.
00:56:33.000There's, without a doubt, some great Russian training methods.
00:56:37.000But it's also because sports mean so much to them on a national level.
00:56:41.000They're also state-sponsored scientists rather than, you know, in America where it's, you know, if you're a professor or something, you just do what you want to do for your athletes or whatever.
00:56:51.000Well, we have to realize that their best athletes are all amateurs.
00:59:02.000There's a side of me that wishes it was the way it was back in the day, and there's a side of me that's like, dude, this is what we all wanted from the beginning.
00:59:10.000We wanted fights every weekend, but again, unfortunately, it does take away from that gigantic fight.
00:59:25.000But if you only have those fights every three or four months, there's no way you're going to have enough fights for all the athletes in the UFC. Absolutely, yeah.
01:00:11.000I love the big events that they have every year, like the 4th of July event, the New Year's event, the Madison Square Garden event, where they just stack it and just have a ton of big-time fights.
01:00:24.000I liked Eric Anders' Leota Machida last week too, you know?
01:00:28.000I mean, I like that too, where it's maybe a fight that not a lot of people are watching, maybe less people are watching, but it's an interesting fight still.
01:01:30.000Yeah, that's a guy I'm going to try to get out here for, you know, like what I'm doing with MusclePharm is some things I could try to help them build a team and everything, and he's one of the guys I want to get out for our seminar and kind of be affiliated with him.
01:04:11.000That's the most facial expression I've ever seen on him right there.
01:04:15.000Yeah, it's probably the end of 150 rounds at the end of the day.
01:04:19.000I mean, guys, constantly training, constantly in the gym, and one of the things that I like about the way the ties spar, too, is that they play.
01:07:00.000Yeah, and man, I've always thought that if they marketed Muay Thai like they do the kickboxing, I think it would blow up a lot better.
01:07:09.000But when you take Muay Thai, like Lion Fights, and they're playing the Snake Charmer music, and they got the Mong Kongs, and they're dancing around Y Cruin and shit, and everybody's like, dude, I don't want to see this garbage.
01:07:21.000Yeah, it's hard for people to appreciate the tradition, but I don't, you know, I respect their tradition.
01:07:27.000You know what someone explained to me?
01:07:28.000They said that what's beautiful about the Mong Kong and the Y crew is that you get relaxed.
01:07:33.000It's like you're out there dancing and then you can put on your best performance because you're already in front of all those people and you kind of loosen up.
01:07:40.000And then doing that, that's one of the benefits of that.
01:09:12.000So to have the ultimate fighter, we got these guys in a house, and they're all competing, and they're going to fight for this six-figure contract on television.
01:09:33.000There's so many reality shows, it's almost oversaturated to the point where if you had a Muay Thai show, it's like, okay, here's another crazy thing people are doing.
01:10:17.000Yeah, it's just, to me, it's one of the great unsung combat sports.
01:10:23.000You know, all these people that are watching boxing, and I love boxing, but, you know, if HBO just really wanted to get down and dirty, come on, HBO, show me some Muay Thai.
01:13:33.000When you see a fight and it's a crazy-ass war like Robbie Lawler, Rafael dos Anjos, where it's just five rounds of chaos.
01:13:44.000To to diminish either one of these guys as a man as a human being based on their performance to mock them or belittle them I just don't think it has any place in that I think it's it's a way more intense and way more personal experience For those guys.
01:14:19.000But you want to make fun of a guy who's literally putting his health on the line in an occupation where you're competing against a motherfucking trained killer.
01:14:28.000And you guys are going to throw bones at each other for five minute rounds.
01:15:05.000Like, you do jujitsu and Muay Thai and shit, and you get such a...
01:15:10.000More in-depth knowledge about what they're truly going through, right?
01:15:14.000And what's happening by just experiencing it a little bit, right?
01:15:18.000There's that, and there's also, I think, if you've never really been punched in the face, and you're talking about guys getting punched in the face, like, you really don't even understand the experience.
01:15:31.000Even worse, you've never been punched in the face and there's nothing you can do about it.
01:15:38.000The worst I ever had, I went down to Cuba for a little while and trained with the Olympic boxing team down there.
01:20:53.000I'm not sure that I can really talk about it in public.
01:20:55.000I wouldn't want to hurt any of those guys.
01:20:59.000His cousin came from Piñar del Rio, which we went out there one day, and that was a good story.
01:21:05.000So we got to Piñar del Rio, it's like two hours from Havana, and we took a donkey cart to a fucking farm in the middle of nowhere.
01:21:13.000We go back, probably five, six acre farm, we walk back through this horse field, walking over shit and everything, and in there's a, I'll show you all these pictures of this too, it's fascinating, and there's a forest, and as soon as you walk through the forest, Now it's a casino in the middle of a forest.
01:22:26.000Anyway, so while I was trying to get it, his cousin saved his money for like a whole year just so he could come train with the national team.
01:22:33.000He came out there, only had money to get there, so LeVon was sharing his meals with him.
01:22:40.000So now he's only eating two meals a day instead of the three or four, maybe three meals instead of the four, something like that.
01:24:21.000And their wrestling room is actually probably about as big as this room.
01:24:25.000It's a dirt floor with the mats are, you know, so if you imagine a mat getting dissolved in water and all the little pieces just spread out, so they sweep up all those pieces, put them in a, it's about as big as this table here, they sweep it all together and stack it up and that's their mat.
01:24:43.000So they just practice, you know, basically take down stuff.
01:24:46.000And that's why they're so hard to take down.
01:25:43.000One kid got kicked off the team because he wasn't keeping up, and they were doing...
01:25:47.000They had to get up at like 5 a.m., do like an 8-mile run or something, and they put, you know, water bottles like this, and they fill it up with sand, and that's their dumbbells, and the kid didn't have any shoes, but he couldn't keep up, and they were doing hill sprints, and he kept falling behind.
01:26:01.000So they would do like a 5 a.m., and then they go to school, and then they do an afternoon workout, and then they go back to school, and then they do an evening workout, and they live in these dorms, and that's literally all they do.
01:27:21.000Now, are you living in Colorado still, or are you here?
01:27:24.000Yeah, so I live in Colorado right now, and then I'm coming back and forth a lot, coming to LA. Yeah, doing a lot of work with the Muscle Farm.
01:27:30.000Because Muscle Farm's opening up their main headquarters now in Burbank, is that what it's going to be?
01:27:37.000Well, the CEO lives here, for one thing, and I think they're going to attract a lot more athletes here, and I think that they're going to be able to do a much bigger thing, and really what they're doing is they're restructuring the entire business.
01:27:48.000They're kind of moving away from just simply being, you know, well, they're changing from MusclePharm to MP, for instance, so it's not just for the bodybuilder-type crowd and the, excuse me,
01:28:04.000for the meatheads and the, you know, and I mean, they'll certainly still be catering to that crowd, but now they want to open it up more as a lifestyle brand, expand it, and they'll be doing a lot more stuff with a lot more athletes, which I think they'll be able to do out here better than in Denver.
01:28:21.000Now, as a guy who's trained at sea level and you lived in Denver, how much of a benefit is it to be at that 5,500 feet altitude?
01:28:43.000You know, I've been a little torn with that because I tell you, when I do my max capacity training, I don't think I've been able to reach the same levels that I was at C-level.
01:31:09.000Well, Denver's just, it's an amazing city because you're in this cool city that's a real city, a legit city, and then right outside is the fucking Rocky Mountains.
01:32:31.000I was up at my friend's house out by Edwards, a little bit past Vail the other day.
01:32:35.000Like you were talking about the elk and the bears and stuff.
01:32:38.000I mean, at nighttime, he said, usually you shine a flashlight out and you see the eyes of the mountain lions.
01:32:44.000He's got dogs and stuff and they're just sitting there waiting.
01:32:47.000He's got a fence now, but he's like, you just see their eyes.
01:32:52.000There was one, a story that I tweeted out today in California where some fucking mountain lion was banging on this green door or this glass door trying to get at this dog in California.
01:34:06.000Are they trying to eliminate hunting or...
01:34:07.000The people that are the most radical wildlife activists would like to eventually eliminate hunting and have all these animals sorted out with themselves in a natural way.
01:34:18.000But they're never going to eliminate people eating meat.
01:34:20.00097% of the people in this country eat meat.
01:34:24.000So this idea that you're going to somehow or another change those 97% based on the desires of the 3%, which fluctuate back and forth, by the way.
01:34:32.000The 3%, there's a lot of those 3% that fall off, and they eventually, for health reasons, go back to eating meat again, or eating some animal products.
01:36:05.000And especially as someone who's killed animals and quartered them up in the field and carried them away and cut them up and wrapped them and vacuum sealed them and put them in my freezer and then thawed them out and ate them.
01:36:16.000I've been there through the whole process, so I look at the whole thing totally different now.
01:37:43.000We have a weird disconnect with food in this country in particular, and especially in this day and age.
01:37:49.000When you have a majority of the people eating meat, and the majority of people have never seen the animal die, and then get chopped up and turned into meat, and then eat it, there's always going to be this weird disconnect.
01:38:32.000You could go to a store down the corner over here and you can get gasoline.
01:38:37.000Some motherfucker had to go to the Middle East, pull oil out of the ground, refine it, put it in tanker trucks, drive it across the country, pump it into a hole in the ground.
01:38:46.000You swipe a piece of plastic through this reader You punch in your area code or your zip code, whatever the fuck it is.
01:38:55.000You put the nozzle in your tank, you fill your tank up with gas, this fucking car that's designed by engineers in a way you would never be able to figure out on your own.
01:39:06.000And you get to turn the key and drive this thing around.
01:39:09.000There's so many steps that have been taken to make our lives way more convenient.
01:39:14.000You don't even have to do all that anymore.
01:39:26.000He shows up with the animal that's been...
01:39:29.000You know, slaughtered and cooked and sterilized and you ain't got to worry about if it's healthy or not.
01:39:35.000Like when I was in Cuba, they had, like I said, the red meat is, you know, I don't know if it's illegal or just very hard to come by or whatever, but so we went to this sort of black market stand and Man, I got a picture of it.
01:39:48.000I mean, it's a table bigger than this table of just red meat sitting out.
01:39:52.000There's flies on it, but people are just like, Dad, yes, I want some.
01:39:58.000You know, it's all the different cuts and everything.
01:40:25.000I think that so much of the Thai skill training is already in America.
01:40:31.000You might get some details or whatever over there, but they're also so traditional and so far behind us in terms of, at least in strength and conditioning and proper ways of training and things like that.
01:40:42.000I don't know how beneficial that is, but I want to go over there and see how they live.
01:40:45.000I mean, they eat spiders and You know, these insects and most people are ultra poor over there and You know, but you know, they're all they're really Buddhist right and then I guess they kind of You know, they drop their kids off at the freaking Thai camp and just leave like yeah, you know, it's very strange to us Yeah, I find it fascinating Yeah, I do too.
01:44:23.000Ended up, you know, still missing weight.
01:44:25.000And that was when I realized my metabolism had changed.
01:44:30.000So I started looking more and more into different types of diets.
01:44:34.000So I've always been my own guinea pig.
01:44:36.000That's sort of a blessing and a curse for my...
01:44:39.000That's why, you know, I want to be a coach because I've...
01:44:43.000I think I'll make a 10 times better coach than I was a fighter because I've experimented on myself.
01:44:48.000That's why I have all these books and everything.
01:44:50.000And the problem with that, right, is that you get a bad info too or you misinterpret it, misunderstand it, and maybe it's for regular people and I'm a high-level athlete, etc., etc.
01:46:40.000Like, our ketones are probably in the three...
01:46:43.000Like, I actually have my blood meter, maybe we'll check, but I'm probably in the three to five millimole range right now.
01:46:51.000I do that, but now I've adjusted it where I'm not as concerned with staying in ketosis because the main concern with that is I want to get the benefits for the brain and the TBI and things like that.
01:47:03.000Now, when I get closer to a fight, it's more about performance.
01:47:13.000Certain starches that don't really affect your ketone levels quite as much.
01:47:19.000So that can bring my performance up a lot better.
01:47:23.000Well, I think there's a real issue with high-level athletes with the amount of work output that you put in that you probably need more carbohydrates than the regular person that's on a ketogenic diet.
01:47:31.000I've been, again, I'm my own guinea pig, right?
01:47:38.000And I've been kind of torn with that, right?
01:47:41.000So one of the things that a lot of people kind of promulgate is that our sport is very anaerobic, and it's really not.
01:47:49.000It's a lot more aerobic, and your aerobic capacity will go up on keto.
01:47:54.000My ability to recover, specifically, even with no carbs, my blood glucose could be in the 70s and 80s.
01:48:01.000Not have carbs for weeks at a time and my ability to recover goes up tremendously like we're talking about tendonitis my tendonitis goes away my injuries my joints just feel better I feel better all the way around my brain feels better and a lot of things like that but the But when you do need to kick in that mass capacity, anaerobic part of things, that's where things suffer.
01:48:27.000And that's where you have to add in the carbs.
01:48:30.000But again, the amount of training that I do, I can add in a lot of carbs and I can still get away with it.
01:48:36.000And I can even stay in ketosis if I want to.
01:48:39.000But I think a lot of people make the mistake that I made originally, again, as my own guinea pig, and I really focused on the blood ketone levels.
01:49:00.000It should be solely performance-based.
01:49:02.000But it did help me cut weight, though.
01:49:04.000I thought it was fascinating what Ben Greenfield was saying, we were talking about it before the podcast, about how he would carb up and then take ketone supplements.
01:49:11.000So he had the benefit of having a lot of carbohydrates in his system, but also having a lot of ketones in his system.
01:49:17.000And he said he felt like a fucking animal.
01:49:19.000Yeah, and that's pretty similar to probably how we feel right now.
01:50:48.000So the keto, I mean, again, it can be used, if used properly, I think it can do a lot of benefits.
01:50:53.000I would recommend to all combat athletes, NFL players over, you know, that have taken concussions, taken hits to the brain, or that are over a certain age where your metabolism changes.
01:51:07.000I mean, that's where my biggest benefit was.
01:51:21.000He was talking to me about long before that was ever talked about.
01:51:26.000But he did some tests on him and found that he's burning all carbohydrate all the time, which can be an issue in long training sessions specifically.
01:51:36.000Yeah, and I don't think he's going full keto, but I think he's doing something similar to what I'm doing where he's doing keto with some carbohydrates still.
01:51:45.000So basically, the only carbohydrates that we need as an athlete is for the workout, right?
01:54:06.000All of us are laying down like we're laying around like we're in the hospital.
01:54:09.000You know, every couple seconds you hear a cough and we're just laying there miserable.
01:54:13.000And I was the only one that did the chaga root.
01:54:16.000I put it in a crock pot, put, you know, 10 little chunks in there and I was the only one that didn't get sick, or didn't stay sick very long.
01:54:33.000I mean, it's an immune system enhancer.
01:54:37.000I heard it from my friend who's a survivalist specialist expert, and he teaches these classes where you go out and live off the land and things like that, right?
01:54:48.000You know, he gets it from, like, Maine or Canada, and it's like his fungus that grows on trees, and it's really, really hard, and they chop it off, and then you grind it up, put it in a tea or something, and supposedly, you know, it's really good for your immune system.
01:55:14.000Obviously that's very anecdotal and it was like one instance and I just got sick a couple weeks ago and I completely forgot about it and I was sick for like two weeks.
01:55:24.000You had a pretty significant back injury at one point, right?
01:59:27.000For one, strength conditioning coaching, martial arts coaching, do some stuff with Muscle Farm, and I want to be able to sell my equipment.
01:59:37.000The hammers, I thought of for a long time.
01:59:44.000I'm sure if you swing a sledgehammer, it just doesn't make sense that you go to Home Depot and you buy a shit-ass 16-pound, 20-pound sledgehammer.
02:01:40.000You know, even like, you know, clinch with someone or whatever.
02:01:42.000Which, I mean, you can do tons of things like that with the Westside belt squat they already have, and there is other belt squats that can do similar things, but...
02:01:49.000Yeah, the Westside one, they were telling me you could hit pads with it.
02:04:53.000I mean, sometimes like they, they might give you like a regular, um, uh, tire also, you know, and you just like bolt it together, you know, drill a hole and bolt two of them together and you got it.
02:07:28.000At the very end, as soon as it hits, because the tire's going to bounce it back, and I'll try to stop it.
02:07:33.000But a lot of times I feel it more in the core, right?
02:07:35.000And sometimes I do, like, you know, over the head, like this, boom, you know, and bring it down that way, and feel it way more in the core.
02:07:45.000I just, it gets a little dangerous, and I think you kind of, which I personally, I would do it, like, I wouldn't recommend other people do it unless they've been swinging hammers for a while.
02:07:54.000I remember, I've just seen people do stupid things.
02:07:59.000Now what other kind of shit do you do for strength and conditioning?
02:08:16.000There's, you know, there's GPP, general physical preparation.
02:08:18.000There's SPP, which is specific physical preparation.
02:08:21.000And then I add in personally my own, which is RSPP, which is what I call like the hammers.
02:08:26.000Like the wheelbarrow would be more, I call it the war wagon, is more general, right?
02:08:32.000So it's just going to build general strength.
02:08:33.000It's going to bring your endurance up, your max capacity up, things like that.
02:08:38.000Getting on the mats and doing 20 double legs, that's SPP, very specific, right?
02:08:44.000Something like a hammer or maybe a lot of band-type stuff, like maybe shooting double legs with a band on it or something, I call that RSPP, which is replicated specific physical preparation.
02:08:57.000I could break down all three of these and just go on forever.
02:09:01.000When you're in the GPP, you're going to build up your max capacity.
02:09:05.000You're going to build up your strength.
02:09:06.000You want to build up your bone density, your ligament strength, your tendon strength.
02:09:10.000Of course, like any weaknesses, I'm big on the neck, back, and posterior chain.
02:09:15.000They say the front's for show, the back's for go.
02:12:39.000That's maybe a good move for you because you've got so much information in your head.
02:12:43.000Like, just talking to you before the podcast, you're rattling off these different training modalities and different recovery methods and techniques and shit like that.
02:12:50.000I was like, Matt Brown's got a lot of information in his head.
02:14:47.000Again, I'm only halfway through the book.
02:14:49.000But I think really what he's getting at is more economic and political.
02:14:52.000It's kind of his long-term thing, but he uses a lot of examples.
02:14:56.000And basically, from what I've gathered so far, it's basically like how stress induces a stress response, which induces strength, which is the closest thing I would say to anti-fragility is strength, right?
02:15:12.000Anti-fragility would make the world a better place, more or less.
02:15:16.000So as a response to stress, like training, basically.
02:17:19.000I think it could bring the world up that way, man.
02:17:21.000People find something they want and it's acting like a goddamn savage.
02:17:25.000Well, when people see someone that does really go for it, it does inspire them to go for it, too.
02:17:30.000They see the excitement in it, they see the response that other people have to that excitement, and it just makes them want to up their own life performance in a lot of various ways, you know, not just in fighting, but they might want to up their performance from watching you fight in whatever the fuck they're doing in life.
02:17:46.000And that's, to me, that means more than anything else.
02:17:49.000That's what a lot of people talk about the meaning of life.
02:19:11.000The way I describe it that way, though, is to enlighten people to this idea that I think people, not enlighten people, but just express my own perspective that I think people spend too much time thinking about what benefits them and that they don't recognize that the more you benefit other people, that is really what benefits not just those other people, but you as well.
02:19:38.000And that they think of like helping people, like yeah, it'd be good to help people, but that's gonna fuck me up because then I'm gonna spend less time on my own self.
02:20:31.000I don't give enough away, that's for sure.
02:20:33.000I've thought about sometimes like I think about the crazy shit sometimes and I was like Like I think the ultimate like coolest thing in life So I have to have money like for my kids unfortunately, right?
02:20:47.000Yeah necessity like that's what the money is about I feel like if I didn't have kids I would just give literally every dime away start from bottom and see how many times because you know, so there's like certain Qualities and people that they're going to succeed no matter what, right?
02:21:03.000And I want to see if I have those qualities, right?
02:21:10.000Listen, man, you can do whatever the fuck you want in this life, but I feel like a guy like you in particular, especially right now when you're on this fighting journey and you're still on it, I think what you give the most is through the best possible performance that you give.
02:21:27.000And when you have these wild, crazy performances like the Diego Sanchez fight, that shit inspires the fuck out of people.
02:21:34.000I mean, how many people watched that fight and just wanted to go run mountains and just get crazy?
02:21:39.000Man, that's cool you bring that up because I never even thought of it that way.
02:21:43.000Again, I always bring it back to myself and I see it as an expression of my own art of myself.
02:21:50.000You're not just an athlete, you're not just a fighter, but you're also a public performer and an inspirational figure.
02:21:56.000And when you are doing your best, that gives a lot to people.
02:22:01.000How many people have watched great athletic performances and it's given them the fuel and the inspiration to do great things in their own life?
02:22:09.000Man, that's cool you say that, yeah, because, man, that might inspire me to fight a little longer, you know?
02:22:15.000You were ready to retire after the Diego fight.
02:22:19.000That was supposed to be your swan song.
02:22:24.000It had nothing to do with the performance, actually.
02:22:27.000So I think when we started the podcast, I was kind of talking about the why and the how a little bit, right?
02:22:31.000And this is where I think I got a little confused, was I think...
02:22:37.000I mean, for one, I was questioning a lot of things.
02:22:39.000I got knocked out by Cowboy viciously.
02:22:43.000I've never been knocked out of my life.
02:22:45.000And it wasn't too long after I just got dropped hard by Ellenberger, which was the first time my life had ever been dropped in sparring or anything.
02:22:59.000And the first thing I went to was how do I not make that happen again?
02:23:05.000So that gets very exhausting when you just like, how, how, how, right?
02:23:10.000And I think through the Diego camp, because again, I announced retirement long, you know, very early in the camp, like 12 weeks out or something like that.
02:23:19.000Through the camp, man, everything went so well.
02:23:22.000I focused more on my own mind, and a lot of these things we're talking about, and I started getting back into the why.
02:23:29.000And I started bringing a lot more clarity to that side of things.
02:23:33.000Now I know why I'm doing what I'm doing.
02:23:56.000Fortunately, I realized once I announced it and then after the fight, just a plethora of opportunities.
02:24:07.000Muscle Farm has probably been my best opportunity and that's why I bring them up a lot because they've helped me so much and I think we're going to do amazing things there whether I retire or not.
02:24:19.000I think it's going to be a big beautiful thing.
02:24:24.000I'm kind of tasked with building the fight team and bringing the athletes and communicating with athletes and You know, just making it a solid program there.
02:24:41.000Whether I'm the coach or not, it doesn't even matter.
02:24:43.000But, you know, I want to make it a great program and make sure that, you know, the facility is being used properly and bringing in different athletes.
02:24:50.000And that would be kind of the first step.
02:24:53.000And then beyond that, I mean, the opportunities are endless.
02:24:55.000I can do a lot of different things with it.
02:25:47.000And I have a term for it now called the unicorn fallacy, where you're constantly chasing the unicorn that doesn't exist, right?
02:25:53.000Or some people, I've heard other people call it like the greener grass syndrome.
02:25:57.000You know, the grass isn't always greener on their side, right?
02:26:00.000And if I had a complaint about myself or if you want to call it a regret, like that's my problem.
02:26:05.000I'm always like, dude, I just need to go over here and I'll get better because I'm always searching that how, right?
02:26:09.000I forgot the why so You know so again, you know, this is I think a lot of fighters probably also go through this where where It's hard what we do.
02:26:22.000There's a lot of pressure on our shoulders.
02:32:51.000I mean, he's always been around doing that.
02:32:54.000He's right about a lot of shit, and that's what's so confusing.
02:32:57.000He is absolutely right about what they call agent provocateurs, where the government will send in people, if they have a peaceful protest that's very inconvenient for them, like the WTO. He did this whole video about how the WTO, was that in Vancouver or Seattle?
02:33:12.000Where was the WTO? I forget where it was.
02:33:15.000It was somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.
02:33:20.000So what happened was they had these peaceful protests against the World Trade Organization.
02:33:25.000And it was very inconvenient because all these world leaders were coming to this area for this meeting.
02:33:32.000agents that were dressed with blast black ski masks and a government issue boots and these people started smashing windows and lighting things on fire they turned into a violent protest which enabled the police to close in and shut down the protests you WTO protest where did say Alex Jones, police state to the takeover.
02:34:52.000Whether it's the Gulf of Tonkin incident, whether it's Operation Northwoods, there's been, and I'm sure there's been a bunch that we don't know about.
02:35:00.000I believe that the government assassinated, or somebody assassinated JFK. I don't think it was Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone.
02:35:06.000I think it's very possible Lee Harvey Oswald was a part of it, but...
02:35:10.000I know too much about bullets to think that that fucking bullet went through two people and wound up on Connelly's gurney in the hospital looking pristine.
02:36:03.000I mean, or, you know, the most criminally insane people in this world are attracted to politics.
02:36:10.000I think what's gonna fix human beings, and this is a radical idea, but I really think the same thing that's gonna fix human beings is what is, in a lot of ways, Disrupting the standards of our culture right now with the internet.
02:36:25.000I think technology is going to fix human beings because I think what technology is going to do is eventually there's going to be a way to absolutely detect whether or not someone's telling the truth.
02:37:07.000It's a thing that people have been able to figure out how to do, where you've been able to say things that aren't accurate to convince someone of a reality that doesn't exist.
02:37:15.000I guess where I think it gets hard, though, is the politicians specifically are so good at not really lying, but they're right on that gray area.
02:37:26.000They're not really lying to you, but they're not...
02:37:49.000But I think that, without a doubt, there's going to be a time in the future, whether it's in our lifetimes or after, where they develop technology that's going to absolutely allow you to detect whether or not someone's telling the truth.
02:38:19.000I think we're real close to embedded chips that you wear in your body.
02:38:22.000And I think those chips are probably going to interface wirelessly, and you're just going to be able to read thoughts and ideas that come from people that are going to come in probably a new language.
02:38:31.000I think we're going to be able to develop a universal language.
02:38:35.000Don't a lot of religious people say that's the mark of the beast, right?
02:38:41.000Isn't that like a birthmark or some shit?
02:39:43.000Thing now these Google earbuds that you use with a pixel to phone So if you were talking to me in Spanish, I would hear the translation what you said in English in my ears That's fucking amazing when I saw that I was like, how is nobody noticing that this is step one?
02:39:57.000This is step one of a universal language.
02:39:59.000Yeah The translation, like, to English is fascinating, but I think ultimately we're going to be able to figure out how to communicate with everybody with a new language.
02:40:11.000And this is not hard to, I mean, it's obviously not easy, but it's not impossible to develop a new language, like a universal language that's accepted by everybody.
02:42:05.000I mean, I'm sure you could bring your kids, but I think anytime you could get a place where you get away, where you can get to nature to see the real stars at night and have a campfire, it's just reinvigorating.
02:42:34.000But we were up in this place in Wyoming where, I mean, there was a million people there that weekend, but I don't think there's probably not 100 people within 100 miles.
02:45:10.000Well, I did Neil deGrasse Tyson's TV show a couple of days ago, and he was telling me that the most likely scenario is that we live in multiverses, and that our universe, which is impossibly large, is one of an infinite number of universes.
02:45:46.000Anytime I talk to astrophysicists, I just...
02:45:48.000Try to probe as much as possible and just trust them.
02:45:51.000Yeah, you can't argue with them about it, right?
02:45:53.000But the idea is that, like how we have a planet, and the planet's part of a solar system, and the solar system is a part of a galaxy, and the galaxy's a part of the universe, the universe is a part of a multiverse.
02:46:04.000And then there's a fractal nature to it all, and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and the idea that it's multiverse is that there's infinite number of different universes.
02:46:15.000Now, did he say that's, you know, Theoretically, the most likely, or there's some sort of evidence or there's some reason to believe it outside.
02:46:24.000Because my biggest thing is we have all these theories for all this shit.
02:46:28.000Big Bang, God, whatever, however far the universe is.
02:46:33.000But can our minds really even wrap around what the reality probably actually is?
02:46:38.000Our minds may not even be able to conceive the reality of this.
02:46:47.000Our imagination is kind of limited to the things we're supposed to be experiencing, what we hear.
02:46:51.000You know, we could abstractly think about things outside of that, but even when someone says to you like a hundred billion stars, you're like, wow, it's a lot.
02:47:00.000But that number's not even getting in my head, even after I've said it.
02:47:12.000I mean, you just look at a jar of sand.
02:47:15.000Yeah, those are giant balls of fire, maybe more than a million times bigger than Earth, just floating in the sky.
02:47:22.000So we could see at the eclipse, they had a little observatory, like all the colleges and stuff were there where we were at, and you could see, you'd come back in like 10 minutes, and every 10 minutes, come back and look through this one telescope, and you could see a star going around a star.
02:47:38.000Yeah, I read something yesterday that Pluto is so far away that when the time they discovered it in 1930, it still hasn't made a complete orbit around the Sun.
02:49:01.000Dude, I thought he sent actual fucking rockets.
02:49:05.000Yeah, there was an actual rocket, and a Tesla Roadster with a mannequin in it was attached to the rocket, so at the very apex of this rocket, as you know, these multi-stage rockets, they pop this bitch out, and it goes flying through space.
02:49:27.000The richest, craziest guy, one of the richest, craziest guys on earth, one of the smartest guys, he just launches cars into space for a goof.
02:49:36.000They're like, these people are assholes.
02:49:38.000You see a lot of rich people that maybe, they just want to get richer.
02:49:43.000They just want to get richer or something, right?
02:49:44.000This dude's, how much money is he blowing on this shit?
02:50:34.000One of the things that makes Eddie so good at jujitsu is he has an idea to get a move on you and he's fucking completely locked on that idea and everything that's trying to shut that down is just like he needs to come up with a defense for that.
02:51:13.000I'll turn the camera on and I'll leave the room.
02:51:15.000I went to his gym a couple weeks ago and I'd always heard that he talks a lot at his gym or kind of goes on about different things like that.
02:52:29.000There's no website, maybe there should be, where you can just go on and say, okay, this is what this side believes about it, this is what this side believes about it, and you make up your own mind.