The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #158 with Tank Abbott

00:00:01.000 Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out!

00:00:04.000 The Joe Rogan Experience.

00:00:06.000 Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

00:00:12.000 All right.

00:00:13.000 What's happening, baby?

00:00:14.000 Good to see you.

00:00:14.000 Likewise.

00:00:15.000 It's been a long road for both of us.

00:00:17.000 It has been a long road, man.

00:00:19.000 I think I first met you in 1997. I don't know the dates, but I remember meeting you officially in my memory in New Orleans or somewhere around there.

00:00:36.000 When I was sitting like in an auditorium and you came in and sat down next to me and at that time people used to bother me all the time and so I was getting some fresh air and away from everyone and you came up and sat down and I was in my head I was like oh no I just want some peas.

00:01:01.000 And you rolled up and you were totally cool, and I was like, oh, that guy's cool.

00:01:06.000 We had a good session rapping.

00:01:08.000 Yeah, I remember first meeting.

00:01:11.000 You know, when you talk about the early days of the UFC, you are one of the real original legends of MMA. I mean, you were one of the very first guys, and you were one of the very first guys, if not the first, to wear gloves, which I always thought was very smart.

00:01:32.000 I know Vitor, I think, was one of the first.

00:01:35.000 No.

00:01:35.000 Who was the very first?

00:01:36.000 Was it you?

00:01:36.000 I don't know.

00:01:37.000 The people out there in...

00:01:40.000 The internet world say this Melton Bowen guy.

00:01:44.000 He was a striker, boxer kind of guy in the early UFCs.

00:01:49.000 I did not get the idea from him at all.

00:01:53.000 And who was the other guy with the one glove?

00:01:55.000 Oh yeah, he just died recently.

00:01:58.000 Damn it.

00:01:59.000 I forgot his name.

00:02:01.000 It was back in the days with Fred Eddish.

00:02:04.000 Art Jimerson.

00:02:04.000 Yes.

00:02:06.000 Fred Eddish.

00:02:07.000 That's right.

00:02:08.000 Fred Eddish.

00:02:09.000 And Harold Howard and all those guys cooking.

00:02:12.000 And at the time, I had just gotten out of jail for beating up a cop's son.

00:02:20.000 And he used his position to...

00:02:25.000 his dad make things go the way for the prosecution even though he deserved to get beat up and I obliged him but I was going back and forth from a halfway house to work from the guy that got me into the show and we stopped off at a Like a Dick's sporting goods store, big box sporting goods store like that.

00:02:55.000 I don't think it was Dick's, but it was something like that.

00:02:57.000 And they were bag gloves.

00:02:59.000 And I put them on and I go, these would be perfect, but they had a post in them.

00:03:05.000 So you couldn't really wrestle with them.

00:03:08.000 And I was like, hmm, I could take the post out.

00:03:12.000 I ended up cutting it off and it was just a clear plastic thick tube that you could hold on to.

00:03:19.000 So I got rid of that and I go, these are perfect.

00:03:23.000 And I think they were Harbinger gloves.

00:03:27.000 And...

00:03:28.000 I knew because I'd been in hundreds of street fights, altercations.

00:03:34.000 That's where I come from, although I've wrestled since I was eight years old.

00:03:39.000 But I used to beat people up on the street.

00:03:43.000 That deserved it.

00:03:44.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:03:45.000 There's not one guy out there that didn't want to do the same thing to me.

00:03:50.000 I was just better at it.

00:03:54.000 So...

00:03:55.000 I knew my hands would get hurt.

00:03:57.000 And I'm like, you can't fight three times in one night without your hands getting busted up.

00:04:05.000 So I cut those out and I go, these are perfect.

00:04:08.000 I could wrestle in them.

00:04:10.000 As I said, I'd wrestled my whole life and they were perfect.

00:04:15.000 Did you have hand wraps on?

00:04:17.000 No, no hand wraps.

00:04:18.000 Just the gloves?

00:04:18.000 Yeah.

00:04:19.000 Did it wrap your wrists or anything?

00:04:21.000 No.

00:04:21.000 Nothing?

00:04:22.000 And what was the law back then?

00:04:23.000 What were the rules, rather?

00:04:24.000 What were the rules inferred?

00:04:26.000 You were allowed to wear wrestling shoes.

00:04:28.000 You were allowed to hit the nuts back then.

00:04:30.000 Your first fights, you were allowed to pull hair, hit the nuts...

00:04:33.000 You could do anything.

00:04:34.000 There wasn't until I came along.

00:04:39.000 Anyways, you just couldn't...

00:04:44.000 I can't even tell you what you couldn't do, but you couldn't bite and you couldn't eye gouge.

00:04:51.000 Those were the only two rules.

00:04:52.000 I think fish hooking, right?

00:04:54.000 No, that was me.

00:04:55.000 Oh, really?

00:04:55.000 You started...

00:04:58.000 I introduced them to fish hooking.

00:05:02.000 And so at the fighters meeting, they have these meetings with all the fighters and they all sit in there and I guess think they're badass, but I guess they are in their own world.

00:05:15.000 So they're all sitting around, and big John McCartney was up there explaining the rules, and I think he was having trouble since there wasn't any.

00:05:27.000 So at the end of that, I asked him, I said, I had the gloves with me, and I said, hey, can I wear these?

00:05:35.000 And in his big...

00:05:40.000 Bellowing, goofy voice.

00:05:42.000 He goes, oh, if you want to wear them, go ahead.

00:05:45.000 Thinking I was some kind of fool when, in fact, I was thinking everybody else were fools.

00:05:53.000 They've never really been in a fight and your hands get busted up, so.

00:05:57.000 Yeah, I thought the first time I saw you wearing them, I'm like, that guy's smart.

00:06:00.000 And when you knocked out, was it John Tua?

00:06:03.000 Matua, yeah.

00:06:04.000 Matua, John Matua.

00:06:05.000 When you knocked him out, I was like, see, you can still generate insane power, but you don't hurt your hands.

00:06:11.000 Absolutely, and I didn't hurt my hands, although at the end of that fight, not that fight, but you fought three times in one night, and I think I busted up my hand.

00:06:23.000 It didn't break it, but it busted up where I had to go to the hospital and get it x-rayed, and I got to go.

00:06:33.000 I didn't want to go, because I was a kid, and no one sends me to the hospital, even myself, you know?

00:06:42.000 My busted up hands, now I'll be alright.

00:06:46.000 But my father talked me into going, so I went there, and all of my opponents were all stretched out.

00:06:55.000 I'm saying, oh well, how you doing?

00:06:57.000 I'm just passing through.

00:06:58.000 So they x-rayed it and said I was alright and went back to the cocktail party and had some fun.

00:07:04.000 Did you have any injuries during your career?

00:07:09.000 Oh, sure.

00:07:10.000 I mean, when I fought when I needed knee surgery against Ferozo, I couldn't run.

00:07:17.000 I couldn't do anything.

00:07:19.000 And I ended up taking the fight.

00:07:24.000 I told them I didn't want to fight.

00:07:26.000 And then back in those days, they had ways of stacking the cards against you.

00:07:32.000 And so...

00:07:36.000 The owner of the show at that time says, hey, show up.

00:07:40.000 You have a boxer your first fight, so that's not going to be a big deal.

00:07:46.000 And he goes, then you got a little guy, like a 200-pound guy that was from Shamrock's camp.

00:07:54.000 What is that, Bolander?

00:07:55.000 Jerry Bolander.

00:07:56.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:07:57.000 And you can fight him.

00:07:58.000 And he's nothing because he's like, you know, 200 pounds.

00:08:02.000 You throw him around like a rag doll.

00:08:04.000 And I'm like, okay.

00:08:06.000 You know, he's talking me into it, realizing he's just trying to sell his show and get it over.

00:08:13.000 And I'm like, yeah, yeah, well...

00:08:16.000 I've never wanted to say no to a fight.

00:08:19.000 And so I said, okay, you talked me into it.

00:08:22.000 I'll show up.

00:08:23.000 But I couldn't run.

00:08:25.000 I couldn't do anything.

00:08:27.000 And like jog one time around the track of 400, I couldn't do it.

00:08:33.000 So I go and take the boxer, make short work of him.

00:08:39.000 And because boxing...

00:08:42.000 It's good if you're going to box and stand up in a ring, but you're not going to go anywhere in a fight just with boxing as a skill.

00:08:51.000 It might help you throw a punch and that kind of thing, but if your main plan of attack is boxing, you're going to get taken down and you can't box from your back.

00:09:05.000 So...

00:09:06.000 Anyways...

00:09:09.000 Back to the show, I take short work of him.

00:09:13.000 And I'm like, alright, so I got this little 90 pounder, 190 pounder, and make short work of him.

00:09:21.000 And I think I was supposed to fight Mark Coleman at that time.

00:09:25.000 And I was like, oh well, we'll just see who's tougher.

00:09:30.000 Not get taken down and we'll just throw punches.

00:09:36.000 And he's not really, at that time, very skilled on his feet.

00:09:42.000 So I had at least a fighter's chance at the whole deal.

00:09:47.000 And so, you know, you have these, like, dressing rooms that are screened off.

00:09:54.000 And there's an opponent, or not an opponent, alternate, big guy, going crazy, making all this noise.

00:10:04.000 He sounded like an elephant running around in a cage.

00:10:12.000 I'm going, what the hell is that guy doing?

00:10:14.000 I go, he's not even fighting.

00:10:16.000 He's just an alternate.

00:10:19.000 Well, it turns out it comes for us to go in with Bolander, and what happens?

00:10:25.000 Oh, he pulls out.

00:10:27.000 Why'd he pull out?

00:10:28.000 Oh, he just, oh, he couldn't make it.

00:10:31.000 And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

00:10:34.000 And I just fell off the turnip truck.

00:10:36.000 And next thing I know, I'm fighting this 300-pound-plus guy who's all jacked up on God's knows what.

00:10:47.000 And I'm going crazy.

00:10:50.000 Who was it?

00:10:51.000 Ferozo.

00:10:52.000 Oh.

00:10:53.000 So I went out there.

00:10:54.000 And this is at the advent of...

00:11:00.000 Referees.

00:11:01.000 And I don't care about winning or losing, never have.

00:11:05.000 I'm always down for the fight and the battle of fighting.

00:11:11.000 And getting bloody, sweaty, getting punched and punching people, man.

00:11:18.000 That's what it's all about for me.

00:11:20.000 And...

00:11:21.000 So I'm like, oh, I'll get in there.

00:11:23.000 And we banged it out, and they had three refs, and they gave him the fight.

00:11:28.000 I've had people say, if you really watch it, you won that fight.

00:11:32.000 Don't care.

00:11:34.000 They suckered me in with a little guy, and then they throw in a 350-pound dude.

00:11:44.000 Ended up kind of ruining the show because Coleman didn't have anybody to fight.

00:11:50.000 So he went out with Randleman and did like a wrestling exhibition.

00:11:55.000 And it was like, why did you do that?

00:11:59.000 You didn't have to pull Shamrock's guy out.

00:12:03.000 It was behind the scenes kind of things that were all prevalent at that point in time.

00:12:10.000 Yeah, there was a lot of shenanigans in the early, early days.

00:12:13.000 Oh, yeah.

00:12:13.000 Well, it was so loosely constructed, you know, people have to realize, like, if you're looking at the UFC now, you're looking at, you know, WME-owned UFC, gigantic money, huge fucking special effects screens.

00:12:29.000 Everything looks amazing.

00:12:30.000 The sound's amazing.

00:12:31.000 Professional wrestling.

00:12:32.000 Back then, I mean, UFC 12 was the first one that I did, which was Scott Ferrozo's debut.

00:12:38.000 And we did it in Dothan, Alabama, and it was like a high school auditorium or something.

00:12:43.000 It wasn't a very big place.

00:12:45.000 I remember the name Dothan.

00:12:47.000 Yeah.

00:12:48.000 What was that?

00:12:50.000 They did an interview with me, and it was supposed to be at a different show somewhere, and they got canceled, so they put it up in Dotham.

00:13:02.000 It was supposed to be in Buffalo, but it got banned from New York.

00:13:05.000 Right.

00:13:05.000 So last minute we had to all fly to Alabama.

00:13:07.000 Right.

00:13:08.000 So I was actually on the plane going to Dotham.

00:13:11.000 Or not Dotham, but to...

00:13:13.000 Buffalo.

00:13:13.000 Right.

00:13:14.000 And they said, hey, there's been a change of plans.

00:13:17.000 You've got to go to Dotham.

00:13:19.000 So I went to Dotham.

00:13:21.000 And I was sitting in the two-story hotel, not really a hotel, but like a motel type thing.

00:13:29.000 And I looked out across the parking lot and there was a bar there.

00:13:34.000 I said, what the hell?

00:13:35.000 Why not?

00:13:36.000 So I ended up walking across the street and I was drinking at the bar with this crazy old country guy.

00:13:43.000 Old school dude who's like a peanut farmer or something like that.

00:13:47.000 We got blasted.

00:13:50.000 And he goes, come on, I'll take you to the arena.

00:13:54.000 And I'm like, okay.

00:13:57.000 So we get in this old pickup truck and he turns the key and it sounds like a dragster.

00:14:02.000 And I got...

00:14:05.000 Hillbilly Hayman or whatever driving this thing.

00:14:09.000 And we drive to the arena and I'm like, no, no, no.

00:14:12.000 I'm supposed to do an interview.

00:14:14.000 He ends up parking on the island, a grassy island.

00:14:17.000 He drove up the curb.

00:14:19.000 I stumbled in there and David Isaacs is like, oh my God, what's going to happen next?

00:14:26.000 They got banned and then I showed up out of my mind.

00:14:32.000 And I think there might be a clip of me all drunk saying stuff.

00:14:36.000 I don't know.

00:14:37.000 There's a bunch of those clips, I'm sure.

00:14:41.000 How old were you with your first UFC fight?

00:14:44.000 30 years old.

00:14:45.000 And did you have any competitive fights other than wrestling matches?

00:14:49.000 Did you do any amateur fights or anything?

00:14:53.000 It kind of wasn't around back then, right?

00:14:55.000 No, there was no real fighting.

00:14:58.000 You only did it in the street.

00:15:00.000 And back in those days, I had wrestled.

00:15:07.000 And then on my 19th birthday...

00:15:12.000 I was hoping to go on.

00:15:15.000 I had one year at wrestling in junior college and a dumb drunk friend of mine drove into a light pole on my birthday.

00:15:26.000 That's why my teeth got all knocked out.

00:15:32.000 It also put a gash right underneath my knee and mangled my knee on my left knee.

00:15:40.000 And so my wrestling...

00:15:43.000 I came back like halfway, maybe a third of the way into the season.

00:15:49.000 And I just could...

00:15:51.000 I didn't have enough time to get whatever.

00:15:53.000 It's all written meaning spiritually.

00:15:58.000 And so...

00:16:00.000 I didn't perform the way I wanted to perform my sophomore year.

00:16:06.000 I did not continue.

00:16:08.000 No one was interested in me.

00:16:11.000 So, the whole time, as a young man, I wanted to box.

00:16:17.000 And my mother said, absolutely not.

00:16:21.000 Not the CTE, and everybody boxes as stupid, and you're not going to do that.

00:16:29.000 And I'm like...

00:16:31.000 Oh man!

00:16:32.000 So I didn't have anything to do.

00:16:34.000 I was 18 years old and I said, you know what?

00:16:37.000 I want to box.

00:16:39.000 And the same guy that, it was back when Mike Tyson was on fire and he was the baddest man on the planet.

00:16:46.000 And I was a young man, I go, not my planet.

00:16:49.000 And so, you know, he would obviously kill me in boxing, but there's not a boxing ring on every corner.

00:16:58.000 And so, I was all fired up with that.

00:17:02.000 So, same guy that I worked for at the clothing company where the cut and sew type thing was for medical clothing.

00:17:13.000 He lived up San Luis Obispo away and he started boxing.

00:17:20.000 And we were at a, you know, just like what you would think, going into a boxing gym and learning how to box.

00:17:28.000 And I go, man, I want to box!

00:17:30.000 And he said, well, come on up, and I'll introduce you to my trainer, and maybe, you know.

00:17:36.000 Anyways, that got the ball started rolling, basically.

00:17:41.000 So...

00:17:41.000 Went up to San Luis Obispo and there was a boxing gym just outside of there.

00:17:47.000 Atascadero or something like that.

00:17:49.000 And so I went to the gym.

00:17:52.000 And it's like you see these reels where these guys all...

00:17:56.000 You learn a skill like boxing.

00:17:59.000 And then somebody that comes in that's a complete novice has no clue...

00:18:05.000 Of what's going on and they take advantage of these people.

00:18:09.000 Oh, you think you're tough?

00:18:10.000 You want to box?

00:18:11.000 Well, if you don't know how to box.

00:18:14.000 So that was the vibe when I went into the boxing gym.

00:18:17.000 I go, hey, yeah, I want to box.

00:18:20.000 Yeah, sure.

00:18:21.000 I'll do this.

00:18:22.000 And he goes, are you sure?

00:18:24.000 I'm like, yeah.

00:18:25.000 So they go, well, you want to spar?

00:18:28.000 And they're all snickering.

00:18:31.000 You want to spar?

00:18:32.000 And I'm like, yeah, isn't that what we're in here for?

00:18:35.000 Isn't that what you do?

00:18:37.000 And they're like, oh, no, you have to learn.

00:18:41.000 And I'm like, okay.

00:18:43.000 So they got all kind of like chuckling, going, uh-huh, he wants to spar.

00:18:50.000 And so they went and got a mouthpiece from a local...

00:18:56.000 What do you call those stores?

00:18:59.000 Sporting goods store.

00:19:01.000 And it comes back and they were trying to melt it in coffee and all that kind of stuff.

00:19:09.000 So...

00:19:12.000 This guy's got a name, a very big name, from the 70s in boxing.

00:19:18.000 And I don't need to talk about it.

00:19:20.000 His family has a big name.

00:19:22.000 Can't say his name?

00:19:23.000 I don't know.

00:19:24.000 There's no point in it.

00:19:26.000 It could, but I was training with this guy and he did this guy.

00:19:33.000 I have it on videotape and all that kind of stuff, so it's not like I'm making up stories.

00:19:38.000 I'm the antithesis of trying to get myself over.

00:19:42.000 I try to just go, no, no, no, you know.

00:19:46.000 So I get in there and they're all like, oh, this is going to be great.

00:19:53.000 And this guy is a heavyweight and he had like eight professional fights and I believe they thought they were going to use his name and push him and get him some money somehow.

00:20:05.000 And so I'm like, okay.

00:20:08.000 I put boxing gloves on and hit the bag and played around and sparred with people, but...

00:20:15.000 I'm like, okay, this is what we're going to do.

00:20:18.000 We're going to do it.

00:20:19.000 Let's see.

00:20:20.000 Yeah, and I knocked the living snot out of him.

00:20:24.000 Really?

00:20:25.000 Yeah, I just said, fuck it.

00:20:28.000 Can you cuss on this or whatever?

00:20:29.000 Yeah, you can cuss.

00:20:30.000 Yeah, but I said, okay.

00:20:33.000 I wasn't.

00:20:35.000 Sparring.

00:20:36.000 Like, skillfully boxing.

00:20:38.000 I was like, let's go.

00:20:41.000 And we went.

00:20:42.000 And you had already had a bunch of street fights.

00:20:44.000 Yes.

00:20:44.000 And you knew how to hit things.

00:20:45.000 Yes.

00:20:46.000 And power is something you either have or you don't have.

00:20:48.000 And you've always had crazy power.

00:20:50.000 Yes.

00:20:51.000 So if someone underestimates you and someone thinks, look at this guy.

00:20:54.000 So they let their guard down, get a little relaxed, think they're just going to tee off on you?

00:21:00.000 No, he thought he was going to hand it to me.

00:21:03.000 Yeah.

00:21:03.000 And I was like, alright, you'll see what's going to happen.

00:21:07.000 And I said, this is going to be a street fight.

00:21:09.000 And I knocked a living daylight.

00:21:11.000 Like I said, I have it on videotape.

00:21:13.000 And that guy was filming at the guy from the clothing store.

00:21:20.000 Anyways, he – Sporting factory.

00:21:23.000 Yeah.

00:21:24.000 But, yeah.

00:21:25.000 And so he's in the back going, oh, my God.

00:21:29.000 Oh, my God.

00:21:31.000 I enlightened him that I didn't need to know the skill of boxing to take out somebody that had eight professional fights in boxing.

00:21:44.000 I pretty much handed it to him.

00:21:48.000 So what did you do?

00:21:49.000 You didn't box them?

00:21:50.000 You just clenched, got close to them, and just started learning?

00:21:53.000 No, it was on.

00:21:53.000 I just started throwing.

00:21:54.000 Boom, boom, boom, boom.

00:21:56.000 Really?

00:21:56.000 Right down the middle.

00:21:57.000 Let's go.

00:21:59.000 So you just always had skill with your hands?

00:22:02.000 I mean, that's pretty impressive for an eight-fighting professional boxer.

00:22:07.000 I put my chin down.

00:22:10.000 I don't tell stories.

00:22:11.000 Like I said, if you want to get a lie detector and a certified guy, I will take any test.

00:22:18.000 Listen, you don't have to tell that to me.

00:22:20.000 I've known you forever, so I'll just tell it to anybody else.

00:22:23.000 Tank says it as it is.

00:22:25.000 Always.

00:22:26.000 You always have.

00:22:26.000 Even when you lost, you were like, that guy fucked me up.

00:22:29.000 That guy kicked my ass.

00:22:30.000 You said you got molested by the lead singer from Queen.

00:22:34.000 Freddie Mercury.

00:22:36.000 He was slapping me.

00:22:38.000 He was bitch slapping me.

00:22:42.000 You had the best attitude about both winning and losing.

00:22:46.000 If you lost, you were very self-deprecating.

00:22:49.000 You always had fun with things.

00:22:50.000 Yes.

00:22:51.000 That's not the end of the world.

00:22:52.000 You were a great guy to be around, man, because it was a goddamn party.

00:22:56.000 I mean, I don't know if you remember, but we got hammered a couple of times.

00:22:59.000 There was a few different times at different hotels where you and I got drunk, and you and your whole crew, they were all a bunch of psychos.

00:23:07.000 It was just like being around like a lot of pit bulls.

00:23:10.000 Like jacked up pitbulls, like ready to go.

00:23:12.000 But it was fun, man.

00:23:14.000 You always brought a party.

00:23:15.000 You were having a good fucking time.

00:23:18.000 You were having a good fucking time fighting.

00:23:20.000 And that's what made you a legend a lot.

00:23:23.000 Because you were...

00:23:25.000 You know, everybody thought that the skilled martial artist was always going to beat the fighter, right?

00:23:30.000 But you were a skilled martial artist, but you were kind of more of a fighter, just a dude who fucks people up.

00:23:36.000 And for you to just be going out there and knocking people out, you became the biggest star of the UFC, even without winning it.

00:23:44.000 Right.

00:23:44.000 I mean, you beat a lot of good guys, but your power and your attitude, like when Matua went out and you did a little fucking dance, like everybody thought martial arts was supposed to be bao and sensei and spirituality and meditating in the river, and you were out there getting wild.

00:24:03.000 Matua was metaphorically martial arts in my head.

00:24:12.000 All these people are running around, and martial arts is martial arts, don't get me wrong.

00:24:18.000 It works.

00:24:19.000 It's a skill.

00:24:21.000 But fighting is...

00:24:24.000 Chaos.

00:24:26.000 Yeah, but I coined this phrase, I believe.

00:24:29.000 Anyways, fighter's fortitude.

00:24:32.000 And that is where it becomes...

00:24:34.000 Fighting is not a skill that you learn and you become tough.

00:24:40.000 Hoyce Gracie is not tough because he knows jiu-jitsu.

00:24:43.000 He's a tough man.

00:24:45.000 And all these guys that fight in the UFC are tough men.

00:24:50.000 Not because they know skill.

00:24:53.000 Like these people, getting an armbar.

00:24:59.000 Who cares?

00:25:01.000 Anybody that sings skill is not a fighter.

00:25:07.000 You're a pussy, frankly.

00:25:09.000 You sit around and go, I can do this and I can do...

00:25:13.000 That doesn't matter.

00:25:14.000 It's how tough you are.

00:25:16.000 You're a fighter's fortitude.

00:25:18.000 When someone's got a thumb in your eye socket or taking a big bite out of your back...

00:25:25.000 And how you react and what you do from that.

00:25:28.000 That's what fighters' fortitude is.

00:25:30.000 Not like, oh, well, he's got his thumb in my eye.

00:25:33.000 Maybe I could armbar him or put him in a triangle.

00:25:37.000 That doesn't save you.

00:25:40.000 Fighting is emotional.

00:25:41.000 It's not about skill.

00:25:43.000 It's what is inside your head, the heart you have.

00:25:48.000 What you need to do to get things done, to beat the opponent, hopefully, that's thinking the same thing you're thinking, and that is, I'm going to get to this point where I can kill this person, or let...

00:26:03.000 Or kill him.

00:26:04.000 But basically, fighting is to a point where, in the street anyways, and everybody that I beat up was trying to do the same thing to me in the street.

00:26:17.000 They were trying to beat me up and get to the point where they could make the decision of killing me.

00:26:23.000 And that's the whole point of a street fight.

00:26:26.000 And it's not about, oh, I got better skill than you.

00:26:30.000 That's the difference between a street fighter and somebody that goes to the gym and learns how to throw a correct punch or a submission hold that's going to save your ass.

00:26:46.000 You can learn those things.

00:26:48.000 You can't be tough by learning those things.

00:26:51.000 You can become tougher by learning those things.

00:26:55.000 And if you're a tough guy and you learn skills, that makes you tougher.

00:27:03.000 Like Hoist Gracie, he's a tough man.

00:27:06.000 But that guy's got skills up the yin-yang in jiu-jitsu.

00:27:11.000 That makes him even tougher.

00:27:13.000 But he has the mental fortitude to keep it together in the chaos.

00:27:19.000 Fighter's fortitude.

00:27:20.000 And some people, even very skillful people, for some reason don't have that.

00:27:24.000 There's moments we've all seen where you get this guy who's like, especially a lot of guys who are gym heroes.

00:27:30.000 There's a bunch of guys that in the gym, they look sensational.

00:27:32.000 They look like, this guy's going to be a world champion.

00:27:34.000 Keep an eye on him.

00:27:35.000 You watch him sparring, you watch him hitting mitts, and you're like, this guy's insane.

00:27:39.000 And then they maybe reach like 30% of their potential when they fight.

00:27:44.000 You can see the panic in them.

00:27:47.000 They don't have it in their head.

00:27:48.000 Yeah, they don't have something, the thing that some guys have, like a Max Holloway has, that he'll fight to the end.

00:27:56.000 Fighters for it.

00:27:57.000 There's zero quit.

00:27:58.000 The quit is not in there.

00:28:00.000 You can go searching around for it forever.

00:28:01.000 You're never going to find it.

00:28:03.000 And then there's some guys, even though they're really talented, you can get to a point where they'll break and they'll just try to survive.

00:28:10.000 And there's a difference.

00:28:11.000 And it's the great ones all, like Jon Jones, like so many of these guys, like they find a way to win and they never give up.

00:28:20.000 No matter how chaotic it gets, no matter how bad they're losing, they find a way.

00:28:25.000 100%.

00:28:26.000 Leon Edwards in the fifth round against Kamaru Usman.

00:28:29.000 Perfect example.

00:28:30.000 He's getting just, he's getting taken down and manhandled and he finally lands a head kick in the fifth round.

00:28:36.000 There you go.

00:28:36.000 And he becomes a hero.

00:28:37.000 And it's all fighter's fortitude.

00:28:40.000 Yeah.

00:28:40.000 It's about being a tough guy.

00:28:42.000 Yeah, and you can see it in that fight.

00:28:44.000 Have you seen that Usman-Leon Edwards fight?

00:28:46.000 I haven't seen it.

00:28:46.000 It's fucking amazing because his coach is sensational.

00:28:50.000 And his coach is screaming, don't let him bully you, son!

00:28:54.000 You know that from England and the Rocky music is playing.

00:28:57.000 There's a clip of it online.

00:28:58.000 You get goosebumps every time.

00:29:00.000 Every time I see it.

00:29:01.000 Every time I see it, I get goosebumps.

00:29:03.000 It's like that thing that is the difference between a fighter and just someone who's skilled.

00:29:09.000 That was something that you, I think, introduced more than anybody in the early days of the sport.

00:29:14.000 This is it.

00:29:14.000 You want to see this?

00:29:15.000 Because this is so fucking good, man.

00:29:17.000 Play this.

00:29:20.000 What, the music?

00:29:33.000 Yeah, but it's part of the fun thing.

00:29:38.000 that his fucking coach is sensational.

00:29:40.000 So they're doing it this way to avoid copyright strikes from the UFC.

00:29:49.000 They're just showing photographs of it, but it's the kind of person who The kind of person who finds a way.

00:29:57.000 It's not just skill.

00:30:00.000 There's another element, and that's what you're talking about.

00:30:02.000 If you put it to UFC 6, that was the awakening of the guillotine choke.

00:30:14.000 You had jiu-jitsu, and then wrestlers came along and started handing it to the submission jiu-jitsu guys.

00:30:23.000 And then...

00:30:28.000 UFC 6 came along, and they came up with the guillotine.

00:30:34.000 Now, Oleg got the guillotine on me twice, and I fought myself out of it.

00:30:40.000 I've never timed it or whatever, but it was a while.

00:30:44.000 I was losing consciousness.

00:30:47.000 I was seeing black, but I pulled myself out.

00:30:50.000 In fact, you brought up the fishhooks.

00:30:53.000 When I finally, the first time, he got it and I pulled my head out and he was laying there and I'm like, what are you going to do now?

00:31:01.000 And then I reached down and fish hooked him and started banging his head on the floor.

00:31:07.000 When you look back at yourself then, does that even seem like you?

00:31:12.000 Yeah, why not?

00:31:14.000 I mean, of course it is you.

00:31:17.000 But I mean, the young, hulking you, smashing guys.

00:31:21.000 This was also just the one round, correct?

00:31:23.000 Yes.

00:31:24.000 A 17-minute round?

00:31:25.000 Yeah, there's no rounds.

00:31:28.000 Did they have a time limit on any of the fights?

00:31:31.000 No.

00:31:32.000 I would have won that fight if Big John McCartney wouldn't have stuck his melon in between us and break us up.

00:31:43.000 You were talking about how they fixed the fights and everything.

00:31:48.000 He broke this fight up.

00:31:50.000 There were no rules.

00:31:54.000 Look, he's breaking us up.

00:31:56.000 Why did he do that?

00:31:57.000 Why did they do that?

00:31:59.000 Yeah.

00:31:59.000 Were people booing?

00:32:00.000 Yeah, that was all John McCartney.

00:32:04.000 Why did he break us up?

00:32:08.000 I don't know.

00:32:09.000 What were the rules back then?

00:32:10.000 There were no rules.

00:32:12.000 All they had to do was give him a track starting gun and he could stand there and go boom.

00:32:19.000 And that's all he needed to do.

00:32:21.000 He just had to start the fight.

00:32:23.000 And so this restart was just completely because of him?

00:32:27.000 Yes.

00:32:28.000 Because of Big John McCarthy?

00:32:29.000 Yes.

00:32:30.000 He's corrupt and he's a crook.

00:32:32.000 His idea of what he thinks fighting is, and he's a full-on Oleg O submission guy because he's all into technique.

00:32:43.000 I don't know this.

00:32:44.000 He's never said it to me.

00:32:46.000 But he's all into skill and everything else.

00:32:49.000 He has no respect for fighter's fortitude or anything like that.

00:32:54.000 You don't think he does?

00:32:54.000 No.

00:32:55.000 I think he does.

00:32:56.000 No.

00:32:56.000 I mean, I think you have a personal dispute with him, but I like Big John.

00:33:01.000 Well, you might like him, but he leveraged his made-up persona, Big John, to get me kicked out of the show.

00:33:13.000 Him and his wife, they got me literally kicked out of the show.

00:33:16.000 They got me kicked out of the UFC? Yeah.

00:33:18.000 Really?

00:33:19.000 Yeah.

00:33:19.000 What year was this?

00:33:21.000 Very early.

00:33:23.000 Why would they want to get you kicked out of the UFC? Because he does not like me.

00:33:28.000 He's a cop.

00:33:29.000 And he doesn't like the fact that I'm probably, in his eyes, a thug.

00:33:35.000 But the point is, he...

00:33:40.000 He has a B in his mind.

00:33:42.000 He's never liked me.

00:33:43.000 You know, he was a jujitsu student before he started in the thing.

00:33:50.000 For the Gracies, they didn't have a ref.

00:33:52.000 So Art Davey goes, hey, what about that big guy, Big John?

00:33:56.000 And then Big John was a cop and everything.

00:34:00.000 And he did background checks on me before I got into the UFC. Like, oh yeah, no, this guy really, he's got a record.

00:34:10.000 I've been arraigned at least seven times for beating people up.

00:34:18.000 And shit was hitting the fan.

00:34:20.000 It was getting bigger and more and more.

00:34:23.000 You're going to get in trouble pretty soon.

00:34:25.000 Thank God I had a great attorney.

00:34:29.000 He was a guy that could point out the truth and people would see that and the DA would go, okay, community service, I'd go do that at the boxing gym.

00:34:43.000 So...

00:34:45.000 Anyway, so John checked into it and he goes, no, this guy really is a street fighting legend like Tank Murdoch.

00:34:53.000 And obviously the guy's dad was a cop.

00:35:00.000 Underlying, it doesn't matter.

00:35:02.000 But he did not like the fact that I came along after the Gracies because he was like a stooge for Gracie Jiu Jitsu and the whole nine yards.

00:35:12.000 And When I came along, I kind of said, no, no, no, no.

00:35:18.000 Fighting is emotional.

00:35:19.000 It's not a skill.

00:35:21.000 It's not a skills match.

00:35:22.000 It's what you have in your head.

00:35:25.000 And he obviously doesn't have anything in his.

00:35:31.000 But so at Puerto Rico...

00:35:36.000 I used to go around to dojos and go in there after I'd cruise around drinking a 12-pack in my van.

00:35:48.000 And we'd pull up to dojos and walk in there and go, does anybody want to fight?

00:35:54.000 And nobody did.

00:35:56.000 And so I lost my train of thought on that.

00:36:01.000 But, oh, this is it.

00:36:03.000 Okay, so...

00:36:05.000 When I was working out with weights, it wasn't a strong day for me.

00:36:13.000 You have to know when to say, no, I'm not lifting today.

00:36:17.000 So I felt compunction and I needed to go do something.

00:36:22.000 I said, let's go check this jiu-jitsu place out.

00:36:28.000 They had flyers at the Westminster Boxing Gym where I was boxing after I left that Bakersfield thing.

00:36:35.000 So we go in there and all the other kung fu and wing chungs and all that stuff, no one ever wanted to fight me.

00:36:43.000 And I go, let's go check out this jujitsu thing, see if it's real or not.

00:36:48.000 And this guy's supposed to be a world champion and all this.

00:36:53.000 And since it's out there, I'll say who it was, but it was Alon Goes.

00:37:00.000 And so he's supposed to be some world champion, this and that.

00:37:05.000 And at this time, we're totally green.

00:37:07.000 They're having really respect for jiu-jitsu or anything like that.

00:37:12.000 And I was with Paul Herrera and Eddie Reese, who are very accomplished wrestlers.

00:37:19.000 And I go, let's go check it out.

00:37:21.000 I'm out lifting.

00:37:22.000 Let's go see if this stuff is for real.

00:37:26.000 So we go into the jiu-jitsu thing.

00:37:29.000 It was a little bit of a drive.

00:37:31.000 We get in there and I say, hey, we want to roll around with you and see if we check this stuff out.

00:37:38.000 And they're Portuguese.

00:37:40.000 Demonstration!

00:37:41.000 Demonstration!

00:37:41.000 And I'm like, oh, what the fuck is this?

00:37:44.000 Anyways, so one of the guys goes in the back.

00:37:48.000 I guess they put cameras up in these little mirrored boxes, the one-way mirror things.

00:37:53.000 And so Eddie gets up there, and he's a little guy.

00:37:59.000 And so it didn't take him very long to tap him out with like an arm thing.

00:38:07.000 And then Paul, who's a...

00:38:12.000 All-American from Nebraska, wrestler, bigger guy, like 190-ish.

00:38:20.000 He gets in there, and I'm like, what the hell's going on?

00:38:23.000 Because they're lasting and lasting, and he's on his back.

00:38:27.000 And at that time, it's like, what are you on your back for?

00:38:31.000 It's stupid.

00:38:32.000 You know?

00:38:33.000 Yeah.

00:38:33.000 Totally ignorant of what was going on.

00:38:36.000 Yeah.

00:38:36.000 And I'm like, holy fuck.

00:38:38.000 He ended up tapping him out.

00:38:40.000 And I'm like, what?

00:38:42.000 Wow, he made short work of Eddie and he tapped out Paul and I had respect for Paul for his wrestling abilities and where he'd gone and trained and wrestled for.

00:38:52.000 And I was like, holy smokes.

00:38:56.000 I'm rather large and very powerful and how long it goes is not.

00:39:02.000 And so I go, okay.

00:39:06.000 They were starting on their knees and all that kind of stuff.

00:39:11.000 And I'm like, whatever.

00:39:13.000 So I get on him and I had a, because the medical place, the cut and sew place, I had a scrub on.

00:39:23.000 So I'm on top of him and he grabs like a nurse's scrub.

00:39:29.000 Because they don't rip or anything like that.

00:39:31.000 And he does like an X on his thing and he starts choking me.

00:39:36.000 And I look at him and I just kind of roll my eyes like, really?

00:39:39.000 Like I went like that, like fists on both sides of his face, you know?

00:39:43.000 And he's like, oh, okay.

00:39:46.000 And so we rolled around, rolled around, rolled around, and then he finally got to an arm lock.

00:39:52.000 And like I said, I was doing curls with like 120-pound dumbbells and stuff like that.

00:39:59.000 And so I picked him up.

00:40:01.000 Basically, he was like a foot off of the mat, and I raised my right hand up and made a fist like, you want me to fall down on you?

00:40:10.000 His eyes got huge as the moon.

00:40:13.000 No, no, no, no, no, no!

00:40:15.000 And I'm like, okay.

00:40:16.000 So I let him down and let it go, and he was like, uh, like I've had enough of this big guy here.

00:40:25.000 And so we left.

00:40:29.000 And whatever goes on in somebody's head, like, oh, who's that guy?

00:40:35.000 Almost in a narcissistic way.

00:40:38.000 Oh, I got him in an arm lock.

00:40:41.000 I would have used him for a...

00:40:44.000 It doesn't matter.

00:40:46.000 Yeah, there would have been a whole bunch of bad for him.

00:40:50.000 Gang slammed.

00:40:51.000 Yeah, so...

00:40:53.000 Puerto Rico, I don't know...

00:40:57.000 Paul was fighting in that show.

00:41:00.000 That show.

00:41:02.000 It was David versus Goliath there.

00:41:05.000 Oh, that's right.

00:41:06.000 That's right.

00:41:06.000 Did he fight Big Daddy?

00:41:08.000 Yeah.

00:41:08.000 And Big Daddy had a videotape of him, so he knew exactly what to do with that high crotch.

00:41:15.000 That was all stage, not stage, but prepare.

00:41:20.000 And so...

00:41:23.000 Alon Goes comes up afterwards.

00:41:25.000 Oh, this is all the way full circle back to John.

00:41:29.000 So Alon Goes comes up after Paul gets elbowed.

00:41:35.000 My big John didn't stop it.

00:41:38.000 Who knows?

00:41:39.000 I know.

00:41:40.000 But anyways, so he starts mouthing off.

00:41:44.000 I mean, he must have had too much alcohol or something.

00:41:49.000 And I'm like, who do you think you're talking to?

00:41:51.000 And, you know, like, really?

00:41:54.000 You were going to go there?

00:41:55.000 Okay.

00:41:56.000 So he had, like, him and all his friends were behind him.

00:42:00.000 So I popped him and was going after him.

00:42:03.000 And me and Eddie were fighting the whole contingency of Brazilian fighters in the audience.

00:42:09.000 And then we go to the back.

00:42:13.000 And I old school warrior.

00:42:16.000 And no one sends you to the hospital.

00:42:18.000 And I'm telling Paul, hey, fuck that.

00:42:21.000 You're not going to the hospital.

00:42:22.000 You don't do that.

00:42:24.000 And he's like, huh?

00:42:26.000 And there was a Dr. Istrago and John McCartney.

00:42:33.000 And his wife, Elaine, who is Karen, I think her name should be Karen.

00:42:41.000 It's Elaine McCartney.

00:42:44.000 Anyways, she comes running up and starts pointing her finger in my face and saying, get the hell out of here, I'm going to kill you.

00:42:54.000 You know, just...

00:42:57.000 Hyperbole in the moment, charged type thing.

00:43:01.000 They try to make a huge move out of that.

00:43:05.000 Oh, so that's how you get kicked out.

00:43:08.000 And then John's like telling Bob, oh, I'm going to quit.

00:43:12.000 And Elaine's going to quit.

00:43:14.000 And if you don't kick him out, that's why I didn't go to the show.

00:43:19.000 And mind you, I was the personality of that whole show at that time.

00:43:24.000 And I think they went to Detroit or something like that after that words.

00:43:29.000 And everybody's like, where's Tank at?

00:43:31.000 There's the show.

00:43:33.000 And Bob's like, we got to fix this.

00:43:36.000 And so somehow a letter came up.

00:43:42.000 Of apology to their leverage of they were going to quit.

00:43:49.000 I'm like, who cares if they quit?

00:43:51.000 He's a referee.

00:43:55.000 He pulls the trigger on a gun and then he affects fights by breaking people up and giving people chances and everything else.

00:44:05.000 He's a corrupt person.

00:44:07.000 And Who cares?

00:44:11.000 But I guess Bob was leaning into the fact like, oh, he's developed a personality for himself.

00:44:22.000 Anyways, we're going to have this letter made.

00:44:27.000 And we'll send it to the McCartneys and then they can be soothed and then I'll be allowed to come back.

00:44:36.000 And that was all around the same time with the Ferozo fight with my knee messed up and Bob being the...

00:44:48.000 Slickster that he is.

00:44:49.000 But don't you think it's also just possible that Jerry Bolander got hurt?

00:44:53.000 Because he fought too, right?

00:44:54.000 He fought a fight first, right?

00:44:55.000 It's possible, but I'm kind of a cynic.

00:44:59.000 A little conspiracy theorist?

00:45:00.000 Yeah.

00:45:01.000 A cynic.

00:45:01.000 I see where you would feel that way.

00:45:04.000 And I think in the early days, one of the things that Dana White does a really good job about is he talks to everybody.

00:45:13.000 Have conversations with people.

00:45:15.000 Sit people down, talk to them, explain, this is great, this is not so great, you know, this is what we think we could do with you.

00:45:22.000 Like, no, back then it was chaos.

00:45:25.000 Yes, absolutely.

00:45:25.000 It was chaos.

00:45:26.000 And a referee today, they're allowed to stand people up.

00:45:30.000 Right.

00:45:31.000 But back then...

00:45:31.000 No, no, no, no.

00:45:32.000 I understand completely what you're saying.

00:45:34.000 Yeah.

00:45:35.000 But back in those days, those guys set up a lot of stuff.

00:45:41.000 What'd they set up?

00:45:43.000 It won't come to me right off, but I will tell you.

00:45:46.000 I want to put you on the spot.

00:45:48.000 So you think that they had people that they wanted to win, so they made things work a particular way?

00:45:56.000 Like the Don Fry fight?

00:45:59.000 Him fighting is...

00:46:02.000 People comment, it's not his friend!

00:46:06.000 Mark Hall, that guy went out and did the job for Frye.

00:46:10.000 It looks like he did.

00:46:11.000 Well, no, he did.

00:46:12.000 Yeah, it looks like it when you watch the fight.

00:46:14.000 Yeah, he did.

00:46:14.000 And they fought before, too.

00:46:16.000 Yeah.

00:46:17.000 He just went out there and fell down.

00:46:19.000 And then, you know, regardless of how easy my fight before is, mentally it's a whole different ball of wax.

00:46:29.000 Yeah, it's a different ball of wax if one guy goes through a war and one guy goes through a real easy fight.

00:46:35.000 Emotionally, though, in your head, you gotta get all ramped up to go.

00:46:39.000 Especially if you had a real close fight and your legs got beat up.

00:46:42.000 There's a lot of things that can happen.

00:46:44.000 One guy can knock a guy.

00:46:45.000 The tournaments are so crazy.

00:46:47.000 Because one guy, it's almost like it's better than not fighting.

00:46:50.000 Because he lands one punch, knocks the guy out.

00:46:52.000 Like, oh my god, I already won.

00:46:53.000 I won a fight.

00:46:54.000 I know I'm performing well.

00:46:56.000 I didn't get hurt at all.

00:46:57.000 And now I'm loose.

00:46:58.000 My brain's loose.

00:46:59.000 And then you could go through three rounds of hell with some fucking psychopath where you're barely surviving both of you.

00:47:06.000 And you get to the final round, or whatever it was back then, it was one round.

00:47:10.000 But you get to the final end of it and you're like, oh Jesus, I gotta do this one more time with a guy who's fresh.

00:47:16.000 Right.

00:47:16.000 Yeah.

00:47:17.000 And if you can rig that, and if you want to set a bracket up, I'm not accusing them of doing that.

00:47:24.000 But you could do it.

00:47:26.000 Same thing with that Anthony Macias guy that fought Oleg before me.

00:47:32.000 Oleg went out and choked out his first opponent with a guillotine choke real fast.

00:47:39.000 And then he fought...

00:47:42.000 Anthony Macias that winks at him right before the fight.

00:47:46.000 They wink.

00:47:47.000 Yeah, you know what I'm talking about?

00:47:48.000 Yeah, like, hey.

00:47:49.000 Is that obvious?

00:47:51.000 Where do you want me to fall down?

00:47:53.000 And I fought the two biggest guys ever fought in the UFC. A 400-pound guy and a 6'5", whatever, 300 or 280, whatever size you want to make.

00:48:07.000 Real fights.

00:48:08.000 Not some guy that's out there laying down going, okay.

00:48:13.000 The early days, it was so loose, and you never knew when it was going to go away, because it was already getting suspended from cable.

00:48:22.000 Cable kicked it off.

00:48:23.000 You could only get it off DirecTV back then.

00:48:29.000 John McCain allegedly was doing something for Bud Light.

00:48:37.000 So he was working with Bud Light and Bud Light wanted boxing.

00:48:41.000 The whole world was conspiring to keep MMA from flourishing back then.

00:48:48.000 I mean, it was a real big deal.

00:48:49.000 They would disparage it.

00:48:50.000 There's a funny video of Bob Arum talking about it.

00:48:54.000 They're rolling around on the ground like homosexuals.

00:48:58.000 I saw that, yes.

00:48:59.000 I was laughing about that, too.

00:49:02.000 It's amazing.

00:49:03.000 It's amazing because he's such an old school guy.

00:49:06.000 Right.

00:49:06.000 For him saying that, it's very funny.

00:49:08.000 Immediately I was like, what's his angle?

00:49:10.000 Why is he saying that?

00:49:11.000 He's boxing.

00:49:12.000 Yeah, he's trying to say boxing.

00:49:14.000 He's just silly because boxing's awesome.

00:49:17.000 I love boxing.

00:49:18.000 Oh yeah, me too.

00:49:18.000 Doesn't mean the UFC's not better.

00:49:20.000 Oh no, it's a skill.

00:49:23.000 Yeah.

00:49:24.000 Yeah, boxing is an amazing skill.

00:49:25.000 It's an amazing skill.

00:49:26.000 And it's a huge part of MMA. I mean, if you can't throw a punch, you really can't win.

00:49:31.000 But it's a different thing.

00:49:33.000 You guys are in...

00:49:34.000 It's a game.

00:49:35.000 It's a fighting game.

00:49:36.000 Whereas MMA is a fight.

00:49:38.000 And boxing can be a fight, too.

00:49:40.000 But the rules are so specific.

00:49:42.000 It's so limited.

00:49:44.000 When I went out and boxed the Tascadero thing, I came back here and...

00:49:51.000 Went to Westminster Boxing Club, I believe it is.

00:49:55.000 Anyways, I was fortunate.

00:49:59.000 I walked in and Tyrell Biggs was boxing.

00:50:02.000 And his trainer, Matt Kierhart, I walked up and I was a heavyweight.

00:50:07.000 And back in those days, I was like, oh, I'll train you, I'll train you.

00:50:12.000 And I'm like, okay.

00:50:13.000 He didn't have time for me.

00:50:15.000 So I... Was like, okay.

00:50:19.000 And I'm slowly learning boxing and his underling was on charge of me.

00:50:24.000 And I go, when are we going to fight?

00:50:28.000 And he's like, no, you don't just fight.

00:50:31.000 You've got to learn how to box.

00:50:32.000 I'm like, no, not me.

00:50:33.000 I'm going to...

00:50:36.000 He goes, well, there's a show in six weeks in here.

00:50:40.000 And I go, perfect, I'll do that then.

00:50:42.000 You can't just do that.

00:50:44.000 And I'm like, no, I can do that.

00:50:46.000 And so this is also on video.

00:50:51.000 I fought some guy that had been boxing for like three years.

00:50:55.000 And I knocked the stuffing out of him.

00:50:57.000 His mouthpiece went flying out of his mouth.

00:51:02.000 At that time, the guy that ran the gym was named Noy Cruz, and he was the trainer for Carlos Palomino.

00:51:11.000 Old-school Mexican six-foot-two guy, but Knew his boxing skills like no tomorrow.

00:51:20.000 And he went up to Mac and he said, hey, that guy's got something you can't train.

00:51:28.000 He goes, you guys can be in here forever, but I want to train that guy.

00:51:33.000 And Mac's all, I don't have time for him.

00:51:35.000 I'm with Tyrell.

00:51:36.000 He goes, we'll split him, you know, whatever.

00:51:40.000 So...

00:51:41.000 From that point on, after that first fight, I started boxing with him.

00:51:50.000 He's the one that got me to sit down on my punches and all Mexican-style hard punches.

00:51:57.000 Inside to the body, uppercuts, all that kind of stuff.

00:52:01.000 He used to swing those big old leather bags when they were hanging from chains.

00:52:08.000 It was like an old warehouse that had been there probably since the early 60s.

00:52:14.000 He'd swing the bag and it'd come back and I would just turn through and the whole gym would shake and his eyes would get all big and go, ah, ah, ah.

00:52:25.000 Noe was a great guy.

00:52:26.000 Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you went and pursued just professional boxing?

00:52:31.000 Yes.

00:52:31.000 A big white heavyweight with knockout power like you?

00:52:34.000 That could have been very marketable.

00:52:36.000 That was the whole idea and they were all into that.

00:52:41.000 And I remember...

00:52:43.000 Because I would show up to the boxing gym with black eyes and cuts on my face after every weekend, pretty much.

00:52:53.000 And in fact, on my trilogy, Street Warrior, that's what he used to call me.

00:53:02.000 Oh, the Street Warrior.

00:53:04.000 And he'd go, oh, what do you do now?

00:53:07.000 And I'd go, no, I... If only, if only, you don't understand, if they only had a fighting show with real fighting, not just boxing stuff.

00:53:20.000 And he would just look at me and shake his big smile and just shake his head like you're crazy.

00:53:26.000 And it happened.

00:53:29.000 It was awesome.

00:53:30.000 How did you find out about it?

00:53:34.000 Well, I was driving...

00:53:37.000 I used to work at a liquor store when I was going to college and supplied my habit.

00:53:45.000 So I was looking through the Playboys and I saw an advertisement for Ultimate Fighting.

00:53:54.000 I don't know what...

00:53:55.000 It was one with the tooth fell out.

00:53:57.000 That was the first one.

00:53:58.000 Yeah.

00:53:59.000 And so...

00:54:03.000 I was living with two other guys.

00:54:06.000 Pirated cable.

00:54:07.000 He climbed up the telephone pole type thing.

00:54:13.000 So I invited my dad over and I said, hey man, you got to check this ultimate fighting.

00:54:18.000 I don't know if it's real or not.

00:54:20.000 I suspect it's not.

00:54:22.000 I think it's probably just an offshoot of professional wrestling.

00:54:27.000 He's like, okay, I'll come over.

00:54:29.000 So he came over and we're sitting there, you know, drinking beers, watching the tube.

00:54:33.000 And he came out with that grass skirt type thing.

00:54:37.000 And I'm like, oh, I see.

00:54:39.000 And then I don't know who it was.

00:54:42.000 Gerard Pardot or whatever.

00:54:44.000 Yeah, Gerard Pardot.

00:54:45.000 Yeah, and he kicked him in the face and his tooth went flat.

00:54:48.000 I go, oh, yes, this is real.

00:54:51.000 Yeah.

00:54:53.000 It's real.

00:54:53.000 Yeah, I can't believe it, man.

00:54:55.000 This is gonna be so awesome.

00:54:57.000 So how did you contact them?

00:54:59.000 Like, how do you wind up getting in?

00:55:00.000 I was in jail for beating up this...

00:55:03.000 Cop son.

00:55:04.000 Right.

00:55:05.000 And I got work release from that, from probation.

00:55:10.000 I did like three weeks in jail in an honor farm, and then I went to like a probation apartment thing to work and came back.

00:55:21.000 And that's when my friend, who worked for his dad at the medical clothing company, goes, You know that guy, Kimo, that works at the bar?

00:55:35.000 And I'm like, eh.

00:55:36.000 He goes, you gotta know him.

00:55:38.000 He wears like that jean thing.

00:55:40.000 And I'm like, yeah.

00:55:43.000 And he goes, you know Joe Son?

00:55:45.000 I knew Joe Son from the boxing gym.

00:55:47.000 He goes, they fought in that show.

00:55:50.000 And I'm like, well, yeah?

00:55:52.000 I go, why is that guy fighting in that show?

00:55:54.000 Because he would always...

00:55:55.000 I had quite the reputation back in those days.

00:55:59.000 He would come find me in the line and go, Mr. Abitzer, this way!

00:56:03.000 And cut me in front of everybody and walked me in.

00:56:06.000 Is this Joseon?

00:56:07.000 No, it was Kimo.

00:56:08.000 This is Kimo.

00:56:08.000 And I was like, hey, thanks, Kimo.

00:56:11.000 That's as much as I knew of him.

00:56:13.000 Like when he was telling me, you know that guy?

00:56:15.000 And I'm like, hmm...

00:56:17.000 Anyway, so it was Kimo, and he goes, this guy, Kimo, if that guy's in it, why can't you be in it?

00:56:24.000 That's what I was saying.

00:56:27.000 Make it happen!

00:56:28.000 And he started calling Art Davey on the phone.

00:56:32.000 And Art's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:56:34.000 And then he goes, no, you don't understand.

00:56:36.000 This guy is the real deal from the streets, man.

00:56:40.000 Everybody knows who he is.

00:56:41.000 And he's like, yeah, yeah, we hear this story all the time.

00:56:46.000 And he's all not from this guy.

00:56:49.000 And then it was back in the day when he had like a table like this with the phone and the speakerphone on it.

00:56:56.000 And so he goes, tell that guy, because I was sitting in the back, he goes, tell him I got some guy that's like 6'8", 300 pounds, that wants to fight him, and we'll see you next week at this time.

00:57:11.000 It was raining, so we ended up going to Art Davies' office in Torrance, right around the corner I heard from the Gracie.

00:57:22.000 Academy, I guess they call it.

00:57:24.000 And so it was raining and I had like a, it was back in the days when they had brown paper bags for grocery bags.

00:57:32.000 So I put my high top basketball shoes in there and like stretchy clothes that you would wear.

00:57:41.000 I had it all folded up.

00:57:43.000 Walked in, sitting here like we are now.

00:57:46.000 He's talking, and he's like, okay.

00:57:49.000 And this is before they came up with the tank idea.

00:57:53.000 I said, I don't know, I'm a wrestler.

00:57:57.000 So he goes, okay, well, what are we getting back to you?

00:58:01.000 And he goes, oh, by the way, what's in that bag?

00:58:06.000 I said, well, you said you had somebody that was like six, eight, 300 pounds that we wanted to fight.

00:58:13.000 And he goes, what?

00:58:15.000 I go, yeah, on the phone, you said that.

00:58:18.000 And he goes, you'd fight somebody?

00:58:20.000 And I go, yeah, then I'll go to jail.

00:58:22.000 And he goes, You're just crazy, man!

00:58:30.000 And I'm like, no, I'm down for fighting any time you want to do it.

00:58:35.000 And he's like, oh, I just shook his head and we walked out.

00:58:40.000 And like I said, see, I... Did we go over the point of going where I got kicked out before even I got in?

00:58:53.000 No, we didn't talk about that.

00:58:55.000 Oh, so...

00:58:56.000 So they found out about your record before you got in?

00:58:58.000 Is that what it was?

00:58:59.000 No, no, no.

00:59:00.000 No, no, no?

00:59:00.000 You did something?

00:59:01.000 Yes.

00:59:02.000 Okay.

00:59:03.000 No, this is...

00:59:03.000 I don't know.

00:59:04.000 I've never talked about this publicly, I don't think.

00:59:10.000 So...

00:59:12.000 This is why I told the Central Casting Mafia wannabe guy that they kicked me out.

00:59:22.000 This is why they kicked me out.

00:59:24.000 They gave me a one-sentence paper that says, David Abbott's going to be in the next show.

00:59:33.000 Whatever.

00:59:35.000 And I didn't realize that it had to be six because the Gracies owned, according to my calculations, the first five shows before Bob took over for six.

00:59:49.000 And so I lost my train of thought for a second.

00:59:55.000 It'll come back.

00:59:57.000 So he gave me a piece of paper, and it says, you're going to be in the show not five, but six.

01:00:04.000 And I'm like, oh, man.

01:00:06.000 And, you know, you're a young man, and your patience is like, I can't wait that long.

01:00:11.000 I need, like, tomorrow, you know?

01:00:14.000 Right.

01:00:15.000 And I was like, whatever.

01:00:17.000 So I go, okay, work with it.

01:00:21.000 Well, you can train.

01:00:23.000 And so...

01:00:29.000 A wrestler that was, you know, wrestling.

01:00:35.000 Everybody knows the world in college wrestling.

01:00:37.000 And this guy worked for a volleyball company, clothing company called Club Sportswear.

01:00:47.000 And they used to sponsor volleyball players.

01:00:50.000 And so Eddie knew him.

01:00:54.000 I think they used to live together.

01:00:56.000 Somebody lived with him that knew him.

01:00:58.000 And he called up and said, hey, Dave's going to be in that UFC show.

01:01:04.000 And so he goes, okay.

01:01:06.000 And he goes, well, do you guys want to sponsor him?

01:01:10.000 And I don't know anything about anything.

01:01:14.000 Sponsor, whatever.

01:01:15.000 And he goes, let me ask my boss.

01:01:17.000 And he goes, yeah, sure.

01:01:18.000 You know, it was new.

01:01:20.000 He goes, yeah, we'll give him some clothes to wear and all that kind of stuff.

01:01:24.000 And he goes, well, he wanted an airplane ticket to go back and watch the show.

01:01:29.000 I think it was UFC 5 in Charlotte.

01:01:33.000 And, uh, so, he sends me a ticket, and I'm like, wow, this is, you know, I'm a kid.

01:01:41.000 In my head I was a kid, but not chronologically.

01:01:45.000 I was a forever college student.

01:01:48.000 And so, uh, I'm flying there and I go, man, this is so cool, these people to do this for me.

01:01:56.000 And they gave me like bags full of clothes.

01:01:58.000 I was like, wow, even socks and everything like that.

01:02:02.000 It was like crazy.

01:02:03.000 You know, that's where I was in that time in life.

01:02:07.000 And so we get there and I had a big club bag and they go, yeah, just try to get on TV, man, just so we can see our stuff.

01:02:18.000 Well, I get to Charlotte, and I walk in, and it was like the lobby of a hotel.

01:02:27.000 It was like a two-story hotel, but it was a nicer, like a sweet kind of hotel.

01:02:32.000 It wasn't dumpy.

01:02:37.000 Everybody in the lobby had their desk out.

01:02:40.000 And at that time, it was martial arts.

01:02:44.000 And it was Kung Fu Frank over there and whomever.

01:02:51.000 Jiu Jitsu Jeff over there.

01:02:55.000 And they're walking around like they're Steven Seagal with their Chip on their shoulder and their chest out.

01:03:04.000 I'm thinking, I'm like, what the heck is this, man?

01:03:08.000 Are you kidding me?

01:03:09.000 It looked like a swap meet for martial art wannabes.

01:03:15.000 I don't know.

01:03:16.000 And all these people are walking around like, this is before UFC even, you know, people knew.

01:03:23.000 They're like, wow.

01:03:26.000 I can remember some guys.

01:03:27.000 I was just like, are you kidding me?

01:03:32.000 This is like insane.

01:03:33.000 These people are like...

01:03:37.000 Just playing the role.

01:03:39.000 And so I just walked on by and I was like, wow, I have a room and I went to the room and I'm like, wow, my first time really being somewhere by myself.

01:03:51.000 And I'm fine with being by myself, but I'm like, what the hell am I going to do?

01:04:00.000 There was a UFC office in the hotel, so that's my first run-in with Karen McCartney.

01:04:08.000 And I walked in there and she's like, who are you?

01:04:11.000 What do you want?

01:04:14.000 Wow!

01:04:14.000 And I was like, hi!

01:04:16.000 You know, whatever.

01:04:17.000 And Dave, the guy that set it up from the clothing company or the medical company, said, oh, you're going to be all set.

01:04:27.000 You're going to have backstage passes.

01:04:29.000 And I go, good, because I want to know what I want to do and the lay of the land, you know.

01:04:35.000 So she's like, oh yeah, whatever.

01:04:39.000 And I'm like, okay.

01:04:42.000 Whatever.

01:04:43.000 Maybe she's having a bad day or something.

01:04:45.000 And so I go, hmm.

01:04:50.000 What do I do?

01:04:51.000 So I walk down the lobby and I say, hey man, is there a bar around here?

01:04:55.000 And he goes, oh yeah, right across the street over there, just down in there and the highway there.

01:05:01.000 I go, perfect.

01:05:02.000 So I walk over there and everybody's partying.

01:05:05.000 I sit at the bar.

01:05:09.000 Everybody's like, oh, what are you here for?

01:05:11.000 And I go, you know, that UFC thing they're having at the Coliseum or something like that.

01:05:15.000 Oh, yeah, that fighting thing.

01:05:18.000 Are you a fighter?

01:05:19.000 And I'm like going, I'm not technically really a fighter.

01:05:23.000 I go, well, I'm not fighting in this show, but I got...

01:05:28.000 A piece of paper saying, you know, a contract saying that I'm going to be in the next one.

01:05:34.000 So I can, you know, you partied with me.

01:05:39.000 I like to have a good time.

01:05:41.000 So it doesn't take long before the whole bar is rocking and rolling around me and we're having fun.

01:05:49.000 Everybody's like, woohoo, man, tank!

01:05:51.000 And I'm like, ooh, cringing, you know, like, ugh, tank.

01:05:56.000 And they're like, yeah!

01:05:58.000 And I'm like, oh yeah, woohoo!

01:06:00.000 And so we partied it up and had a good time.

01:06:04.000 And, uh, so, end up, uh, going back with these guys to this, like a suite hotel.

01:06:17.000 So there was like a room, like a living room.

01:06:21.000 And then you had your bedroom type thing.

01:06:23.000 And we're partying it up.

01:06:25.000 And, um, it doesn't take long before security comes and knocks on doors.

01:06:30.000 And I said, hey, people are complaining about you guys.

01:06:33.000 And God, I'm probably swinging off the couch doing all sorts of crazy stuff.

01:06:37.000 And, um, I'm like, oh.

01:06:39.000 okay.

01:06:39.000 Well, it turns out Meyerowitz is right across the hallway, and I think he called.

01:06:45.000 So that wasn't a good thing.

01:06:49.000 And I'm like, okay, we'll keep it down.

01:06:52.000 I don't even know who Bob was.

01:06:53.000 Art Davey was the guy.

01:06:56.000 That's what he was purporting himself as.

01:06:59.000 So I'm like, oh, whatever.

01:07:01.000 And so, toned it down.

01:07:04.000 So, go back the next day, and it all starts up all over again.

01:07:10.000 And I'm like, yeah, let's go!

01:07:12.000 And they're going, hell yeah, we're going!

01:07:14.000 We're going to the fight!

01:07:16.000 And I go, yeah, let's go!

01:07:17.000 So we end up, I go, I got these backstage passes and stuff, so I don't know if I can sit with you guys.

01:07:24.000 So they got tickets and they were in this little cubicle block of seats just up on the first rail.

01:07:31.000 And they're sitting there and I go, okay.

01:07:33.000 And I go, hey, there's that art guy.

01:07:36.000 I go, hey, art!

01:07:37.000 And he's running around like he's Don King in a tuxedo.

01:07:42.000 And I'm like, hey, art, art, art!

01:07:44.000 Hey, you got my passes and stuff like that.

01:07:47.000 And he's looking at me.

01:07:48.000 He's giving me like the cold shoulder, like not even knowing.

01:07:52.000 He sees me, but like, oh shit, I don't want to talk to that guy.

01:07:57.000 And I'm like, why is he being evasive?

01:08:00.000 And finally, I called him over.

01:08:04.000 And I started putting two and two together.

01:08:07.000 Like you said, I'm kind of cynical, a conspiracy theorist.

01:08:11.000 He would walk around the hotel like he was King Kong, like I'm the man type thing.

01:08:19.000 And right when I went in to get tickets, and Lane and them are all in there, he's giving these two young girls these laminates.

01:08:32.000 And gave me the quick eye, like, what the hell is he looking at?

01:08:36.000 Like, oh, you know, sketchy look.

01:08:39.000 And when I got to the show, they just gave me paper tickets.

01:08:45.000 And those two girls were running around with the laminates in the office.

01:08:50.000 So I went two and two together.

01:08:53.000 He gave them my laminates trying to get over with the girls.

01:08:57.000 And just gave me some tickets.

01:09:02.000 So now, just add a little alcohol, a little conspiracy thoughts going on in my head, and I go, that little worm.

01:09:12.000 I go, oh, I know what's going on.

01:09:16.000 So you were supposed to get laminates.

01:09:19.000 Right, but those girls got the laminates when I went in to get the tickets.

01:09:24.000 And those girls that he had just met?

01:09:25.000 Yes, they were just groupie ring rats kind of thing.

01:09:31.000 Anyways, so I'm like, hey, Art, Art, Art!

01:09:37.000 He finally walked over.

01:09:38.000 I go, what the fuck, dude?

01:09:39.000 Give me these paper tickets.

01:09:42.000 I can't see anything.

01:09:43.000 I just want to walk around.

01:09:45.000 And in the back of my mind, I wanted to get their clothes on camera.

01:09:49.000 I was going to do like a cameo walk-by.

01:09:52.000 I was a kid.

01:09:53.000 Anyways, or young, or ignorant, or whatever.

01:09:58.000 Unwise.

01:09:59.000 And so I'm walking and he's like, I don't tell you, give me the shrug.

01:10:05.000 And he walks off in his little tuxedo and I'm steaming.

01:10:10.000 And so that goes down and the first fights go down and One of the girls, there's like a group of maybe 10 people.

01:10:21.000 She goes, hey Tank!

01:10:23.000 You know, in the southern thing.

01:10:24.000 She goes, I don't know.

01:10:27.000 You know, I was expecting something else.

01:10:30.000 This is kind of boring, to be honest with you.

01:10:33.000 And I'm like, like I was part of the show, you know.

01:10:37.000 And I'm like going, yeah, I understand.

01:10:39.000 I think...

01:10:41.000 I think Gracie or Oleg or somebody fought and they were doing submission and it was boring.

01:10:46.000 And so I go, let me tell you something.

01:10:51.000 I promise you, I promise you, it's not going to be anything like this.

01:10:58.000 It's not going to be laying on the ground, rolling around when I fight.

01:11:02.000 I promise you that you have to believe me.

01:11:05.000 And she goes, well, I hope so, because this, you know, I can't get into my accent.

01:11:10.000 But she goes, I hope so, because this is boring.

01:11:13.000 And I'm like, no, it's not going to be anything like that when I get in there.

01:11:17.000 Trust me.

01:11:19.000 And so, that was the tone that was set.

01:11:25.000 And more beers.

01:11:27.000 I was drinking beer at that time.

01:11:29.000 Eh, maybe I was drinking some vodka then.

01:11:32.000 But, so...

01:11:35.000 We get back after the show, at the bar, and I remembered.

01:11:41.000 Everybody's like sitting around talking about it, you know.

01:11:46.000 And I went, hey.

01:11:49.000 You know what?

01:11:50.000 I forgot.

01:11:51.000 There's a cocktail party going on.

01:11:55.000 And I go, what?

01:11:56.000 I go, yeah, there's a cocktail party going on.

01:12:00.000 My guy told me about it.

01:12:02.000 Like, I had back passes and the whole nine yards.

01:12:07.000 I go, but there's a cocktail party with everybody there.

01:12:13.000 Anyways, so...

01:12:16.000 I go, let's go!

01:12:17.000 And they go, well, we're not.

01:12:19.000 How are we going to get in?

01:12:20.000 I go, you're fucking with me, man.

01:12:22.000 We can get in.

01:12:23.000 Don't worry.

01:12:25.000 So I went over there.

01:12:27.000 I had an entourage by that time, believe it or not.

01:12:30.000 I didn't even fight.

01:12:32.000 And we walked in and, you know, they had typical banquet type stuff with silverware and the roast beef and rolls and cocktails.

01:12:48.000 And so I was drinking and drinking and drinking.

01:12:51.000 And it didn't take long before I started telling them that they were a bunch of pussies and that they didn't know how to fight.

01:13:00.000 They don't even know what the hell's going on.

01:13:01.000 Wait till I get in there.

01:13:03.000 And Jim Brown, the football player, was an announcer then.

01:13:10.000 And I think he came up In a fatherly way.

01:13:16.000 Like, hey, hey, hey, calm down.

01:13:22.000 Tell me what to calm down.

01:13:24.000 I'll tell you what to calm down.

01:13:26.000 I didn't have any respect at that time.

01:13:29.000 And so things went on like that.

01:13:34.000 I ended up taking Jim Brown's What do you call those things?

01:13:40.000 Like a derby?

01:13:41.000 His hat off?

01:13:42.000 Yeah, but what are they called?

01:13:44.000 I don't know.

01:13:44.000 It's like a hat.

01:13:45.000 I don't know what it is.

01:13:46.000 Yeah.

01:13:47.000 The word escapes me right now.

01:13:48.000 His beret.

01:13:50.000 He had a beret that he used to wear all the time.

01:13:53.000 And you took it off his head?

01:13:54.000 I took it off his head.

01:13:57.000 And I started walking off, and I got about five yards away.

01:14:02.000 And he's all, hey, hey, hey, young man!

01:14:06.000 And I turned around, and I threw it at him, and I flung it like a frisbee, and I hit him in his chest.

01:14:14.000 And he caught it.

01:14:15.000 And he looked at me angrily, angrily, and I was...

01:14:27.000 Joking around, having fun, that's all.

01:14:32.000 That might just be the cherry on top, but the whole behavior was that the whole night.

01:14:40.000 And we left because it was closing down and I had my fill of food and we went back to my room and restarted the party up again.

01:14:53.000 And then I left and came back and They never called us back or anything, and I was like going, hey man, what the hell's going on?

01:15:07.000 And he's all, what did you do there?

01:15:09.000 And I'm like, oh, this is me.

01:15:13.000 And I go, oh no.

01:15:15.000 And he was shaking his head.

01:15:17.000 And then that's when Art called him and said, hey, that guy is a maniac.

01:15:25.000 He's not only allowed to fight in the show, he's not allowed to be at the show.

01:15:31.000 No effing way.

01:15:33.000 That guy, he's crazy.

01:15:36.000 And I remember my friend hanging the phone up and looking at me and slowly just shaking his head like, you blew it, dude!

01:15:47.000 So how'd you get back in?

01:15:49.000 I told you from the guy from the bar.

01:15:53.000 Okay, so they discounted all the things that happened in the past?

01:15:57.000 That guy made a phone call.

01:15:59.000 Well, it's a smart thing to do.

01:16:01.000 I mean, regardless if someone's a maniac, it's a maniac sport.

01:16:04.000 You just gotta have better security.

01:16:08.000 Okay, the lead up into meeting that guy that got me in, the professional wrestling guy?

01:16:15.000 Yeah.

01:16:17.000 Okay, so I get this This phone call, you're out, boom.

01:16:25.000 Right.

01:16:26.000 And we go to this bar.

01:16:29.000 And it's not a nice...

01:16:31.000 It's a bar that normal people don't go to.

01:16:36.000 And so...

01:16:38.000 And we're in there, and there's...

01:16:42.000 I told Paul and Eddie that I didn't want to go there.

01:16:49.000 I was a well-oiled and primed machine for beating ass.

01:16:59.000 And I had anger issues from being kicked out of my dream.

01:17:08.000 So, they talked me into it.

01:17:12.000 And I go, okay, listen, if anybody bothers me, you guys have to take care of business.

01:17:19.000 And no problem.

01:17:21.000 And we were supposed to be in a wrestling room training and fighting, but...

01:17:28.000 The wind got knocked out of our sails, my sail, but they were in there for me.

01:17:35.000 And so we're in there and it's a seedy place and seedy things happen.

01:17:44.000 This girl starts in with Paul.

01:17:48.000 Paul disables her, and she falls on the ground.

01:17:54.000 Disables her?

01:17:55.000 Well, he footswept her because she was clawing.

01:17:58.000 It's a dirty, you know, it's a bad place.

01:18:02.000 Anyways, so...

01:18:05.000 So that Paul didn't beat up her boyfriend, I came up behind him and got double underhooks underneath him from behind and was pulling him back.

01:18:15.000 And all of a sudden I hear this loud crack and a light flash across my eyes.

01:18:23.000 I'm like, what the fuck happened, you know?

01:18:25.000 It sounded like the jukebox machine broke, you know, the glass on it.

01:18:29.000 What the hell happened, man?

01:18:31.000 And I let go of Paul from pulling him back and I turn around and there's a guy with a broken pool cue standing there.

01:18:41.000 And obviously I put two and two together.

01:18:45.000 Put two and two together and his eyes were like, oh, that didn't go the way I planned because he's still standing here.

01:18:55.000 And I don't know because I was knocked silly, but I heard that he got hurt really bad.

01:19:05.000 And that's why the bartender or bar owner wanted to extort money from me from having a tape of me beating up those guys.

01:19:18.000 Oh.

01:19:19.000 He's like, yeah, that guy came into my bar and I almost killed somebody and I have it on videotape.

01:19:26.000 Mmm, I see.

01:19:28.000 That's a long roundabout back to the story.

01:19:31.000 Got it.

01:19:32.000 Yeah.

01:19:32.000 So it was a whole lot of fights and a whole lot of chaos.

01:19:35.000 When you were competing, what kind of training were you doing if you were drinking that much?

01:19:41.000 Oh, man.

01:19:42.000 See, you know, I really like to address this.

01:19:45.000 Please.

01:19:46.000 People don't think that I train.

01:19:48.000 I ran a marathon.

01:19:50.000 You think that you just get up someday and go, I'm going to go run a marathon?

01:19:53.000 Well, there's no way you didn't train.

01:19:55.000 Right.

01:19:55.000 Like, you look at you, you were very strong.

01:19:58.000 Right.

01:19:58.000 You were obviously, you know, even though you were a big guy, your cardio wasn't that bad.

01:20:02.000 You were definitely doing something.

01:20:04.000 You try.

01:20:05.000 Yeah.

01:20:05.000 Yeah, no.

01:20:06.000 You try fighting three times.

01:20:08.000 Yeah.

01:20:10.000 That day, the first UFC 6, I believe I could beat any man on earth that day.

01:20:19.000 I was in my prime that day.

01:20:22.000 The only reason why I lost is because of big John McCartney and his breaking up the fights.

01:20:30.000 He should have never broke that fight up.

01:20:32.000 So there was no rule at all about standing people up?

01:20:36.000 No, none.

01:20:37.000 I personally believe, and I've broken this down too many times to repeat it, but I'm gonna anyway, I don't think they should ever stand people up.

01:20:45.000 I think if a person could take you down, a person could take you down and keep you down, tough shit.

01:20:49.000 Even if it's boring.

01:20:50.000 Like, the whole idea is like, what's real?

01:20:53.000 Take it away from me about McCartney affecting fights.

01:20:58.000 The first fight they had, don't quote me on this because I'm not a historian, but I believe it was Boss Rootin and Kevin Randleman.

01:21:08.000 That was the first fight they had with judges.

01:21:12.000 John McCartney got in there and broke that fight up twice so Boss could get back up and come back and fight him.

01:21:22.000 Were there rules back then about stand-ups?

01:21:24.000 I don't know.

01:21:26.000 I don't think so.

01:21:27.000 That was an interesting fight.

01:21:28.000 That was the first fight anybody ever won off their back, really.

01:21:33.000 No, he shouldn't have won.

01:21:34.000 If you watch that fight, and I just watched it recently, Kevin Randleman kicked his ass, beat his ass severely, and John broke it up twice just so he could give Boss an advantage.

01:21:53.000 A chance to get back up to his feet.

01:21:55.000 Yeah, and Boss is nothing more than a charismatic, what, Pancrase?

01:22:01.000 Pancrase is fake.

01:22:03.000 Listen to Ken Shamrock.

01:22:04.000 He said it.

01:22:05.000 It's fake.

01:22:06.000 Well, at worst, at best, it was predetermined, as Ken said it.

01:22:13.000 I think there's some real fights, and I think this is true in all of Japan.

01:22:17.000 There's some real fights, and there's some fixed fights.

01:22:20.000 When Boss fought Funaki, watch that fight.

01:22:23.000 He beat the fuck out of Funaki.

01:22:24.000 That was a real fight.

01:22:25.000 Yeah, I have it.

01:22:27.000 I don't know if you've seen that one, but that is not fake.

01:22:29.000 He beats the fuck out of Funaki.

01:22:31.000 I mean, it's one of the worst beatings anybody's ever taken in Pancreas.

01:22:35.000 Because Boss had figured out, instead of slapping, to throw palms like punches.

01:22:42.000 You know?

01:22:43.000 Well, I'm not going to get into that.

01:22:45.000 I know you discredit a lot of people because that's you.

01:22:48.000 But, like, Bas Rutten was a bad man.

01:22:52.000 I think...

01:22:54.000 Did Bas Rutten beat Teokie Koshaka?

01:22:57.000 Did you ever see that fight?

01:22:57.000 I don't.

01:22:59.000 It's a skills fight, and what have you.

01:23:06.000 Teokie Koshaka was a very good fighter, and that was not...

01:23:09.000 I mean, it was a skillful fight, but it was a brutal fight.

01:23:12.000 But was that Pankrae's?

01:23:14.000 No, that was UFC. UFC. That was his first fight in the UFC. I haven't seen it.

01:23:18.000 He's had two fights in the UFC. I think he had two fights in the UFC. And in my opinion, I just watched it.

01:23:23.000 He lost to Randleman.

01:23:25.000 So he's one and one.

01:23:26.000 Maybe he had more.

01:23:27.000 Did he have more than two fights in the UFC? I can't think of a third.

01:23:30.000 I think he might have fought that Indian guy.

01:23:35.000 Yes, but that was Ruben Villarreal, right?

01:23:37.000 But that wasn't in the UFC. That was in another organization.

01:23:42.000 That was like a later fight.

01:23:44.000 Right.

01:23:45.000 No, I fought that Ruben whatever guy.

01:23:47.000 That was my last fight.

01:23:48.000 I came off of my hotel bed and walked into the octagon.

01:23:54.000 Didn't you have a fight with Scott Ferrozo in a backyard?

01:23:57.000 Yes.

01:23:58.000 That fight's fucking great.

01:24:00.000 We played that fight once on the podcast.

01:24:02.000 We're like, this is so crazy.

01:24:03.000 These guys are so wild.

01:24:05.000 They're just fighting on the lawn.

01:24:06.000 Yeah, no, they called me up and said, I go, yeah, I'd love to fight that guy again.

01:24:11.000 And I flew out there and They wanted to do it in an empty strip club.

01:24:22.000 How is this organized?

01:24:23.000 Like, how does that take place?

01:24:25.000 Some guy named Brian Grooms.

01:24:26.000 Just came up with some money and said, hey, I'll pay you guys to fight on a lawn.

01:24:31.000 Well, he wanted to do it in an abandoned strip club.

01:24:35.000 And I told him, I go, dude, he's like, I'm having trouble.

01:24:39.000 I go, I'm not going to get arrested.

01:24:41.000 I go, I value my freedom.

01:24:43.000 And he's like, yeah?

01:24:45.000 And I go, I'll fight him anywhere.

01:24:47.000 He goes, will you do it in my backyard?

01:24:48.000 I go, hell yeah, I'll do it in my backyard.

01:24:51.000 And so we went there, and I don't know what version you saw.

01:24:55.000 He put some edited version out of it, but he ended up going to the hospital again.

01:25:02.000 I sent him to the hospital the first time, and he went again the second time because of his big mouth.

01:25:10.000 Well, you were punching him on the top, and he was, like, cheering like he was having a good time.

01:25:15.000 It was kind of a crazy fight to watch.

01:25:18.000 Yeah, I don't know if he was cheering.

01:25:22.000 It was something like he was saying, woo, like this is great.

01:25:25.000 Yeah, he's trying to act.

01:25:27.000 Yeah, like he's enjoying it.

01:25:28.000 Yeah.

01:25:29.000 Enjoying getting beat up.

01:25:30.000 Right.

01:25:30.000 Yeah.

01:25:31.000 Only if a girl's doing it to me.

01:25:33.000 How many fights do you think you had total?

01:25:36.000 In all of MMA and in street fights in your life?

01:25:40.000 If you had a guess.

01:25:42.000 I have guessed.

01:25:44.000 You know what?

01:25:45.000 That's like asking Wilt Chamberlain about how many one-night stands he's had.

01:25:51.000 You know?

01:25:52.000 Didn't you say 10,000?

01:25:53.000 Yeah, so like, you know, not 10,000.

01:25:58.000 I kind of dabbled around before I got bored and thinking like, wow, you know, the last couple of years, at least two times a week, at least.

01:26:11.000 That's 100 a year.

01:26:12.000 That's what I'm saying.

01:26:13.000 And that...

01:26:16.000 Two times a week.

01:26:18.000 If you looked at a chart of the average person, how many street fights they get in, the two times a week, that is the smallest percentage of the population that's alive.

01:26:27.000 Yeah, well, I was into it.

01:26:30.000 What did you enjoy so much about it?

01:26:32.000 Because here's the thing, you're not a dumb guy.

01:26:36.000 When someone can get to a conversation with you and you want to really start talking about things, you're a very bright guy.

01:26:42.000 But you liked it.

01:26:43.000 Oh yeah, I loved it.

01:26:44.000 It was like your favorite thing.

01:26:46.000 Well, you know, I broke it down.

01:26:52.000 Recently, not really recently, but after my surgery and all these kind of things, you sit around and talk to yourself all day.

01:27:03.000 I come to realize, you know, there's like a cliche, I'm the bully's bully, that kind of thing.

01:27:12.000 I used to set up Textbook narcissists that come in and Display their narcissism around people.

01:27:34.000 Like, you ever meet somebody that you're like, oh no, those two can't be around each other?

01:27:40.000 Well, I was the kind of guy, and I've never, more of an empath than people know, but...

01:27:49.000 I would...

01:27:50.000 My ears would perk up and my eyes would open up when I saw a narcissist that would try to belittle, put people down.

01:28:03.000 Oh, okay.

01:28:04.000 And I would kind of like be...

01:28:06.000 My brother's five years older than me and I kind of maybe, you know...

01:28:12.000 He's very athletic.

01:28:14.000 I come from like a football...

01:28:16.000 Dad's a football coach, that kind of thing.

01:28:19.000 And so maybe deep-rooted, I was resentful of him being older and able to push me around or what have you.

01:28:30.000 And so when I see these narcissists and I be like, why would that guy be doing that for what?

01:28:36.000 Like, what are you getting yourself over?

01:28:38.000 And so I would put myself in their vicinity.

01:28:42.000 And sooner or later, if you look at me, Even today, when I walk down the street, people give me the eye like, yeah, you want some?

01:28:53.000 Do they really?

01:28:54.000 Oh, hell yeah.

01:28:55.000 How are you looking at them?

01:28:57.000 Well, you don't want to know.

01:29:00.000 Like, hey, do you want some?

01:29:01.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:29:02.000 So they're looking at your back.

01:29:03.000 Yeah, and I just smile.

01:29:05.000 And it's like, are you kidding me?

01:29:08.000 I feel like Billy Jack, you know?

01:29:10.000 Right.

01:29:11.000 Like, you don't know what you're going to get into.

01:29:14.000 Right.

01:29:15.000 Same, same back in the day.

01:29:17.000 And I would go, no, no, no, no.

01:29:20.000 You know, I wrestled 190 pounds.

01:29:22.000 I wasn't like I was when I was fighting.

01:29:26.000 Once I knew I was fighting, I just ate everything and just got as strong and as big as I possibly could.

01:29:36.000 So, sooner or later, I go, no, no, no, no, no.

01:29:39.000 You're going to slow down there.

01:29:42.000 And sooner or later, you're talking to me, one of those kind of back and forths.

01:29:48.000 And like I say, fighting to me is like walking the dogs.

01:29:54.000 Okay, we can go there if you want to.

01:29:59.000 Like I said, I've been in a lot of fights.

01:30:03.000 Talk about fighters' fortitude.

01:30:08.000 Someone's biting my back or sticking their thumb in my eye socket.

01:30:12.000 I was like, alright, just enjoy your time right now because you're going to pay the price.

01:30:18.000 And the more you beat people up in the street and in life, the more jaded and you get used to it.

01:30:30.000 Like, you know, I can remember like maybe in high school or something, early high school, you punch somebody and you give them a black eye and it's like, holy mackerel, wow!

01:30:43.000 If you want me to put my hands on you, you're going to pay the price.

01:30:49.000 Especially nowadays, with my health being so fragile, there's a different kind of beating people.

01:31:00.000 You know when I was a youngster, I used to go to open wrestling rooms all the time and I remember this old warrior coach He said, you know, son, human body can take a lot of pain, a lot of beatings.

01:31:18.000 And it was...

01:31:19.000 I still remember to this day, and I'm, what, 59 now?

01:31:23.000 And it just kind of resonated and ringing in my ears.

01:31:28.000 Like, when you think...

01:31:30.000 You don't think you can hit them again.

01:31:32.000 And the more they are a smartass, and the more they beg for a beating...

01:31:41.000 I give them what they deserve.

01:31:45.000 Did you always feel that you had an ethic for when you would get in fights?

01:31:53.000 Absolutely.

01:31:54.000 Like you'd only get in fights with douchebags?

01:31:58.000 Well, yeah, but they think.

01:32:01.000 They act like, oh, nothing makes me more upset.

01:32:07.000 It doesn't happen so much when I'm older now.

01:32:09.000 But, like, you're going to tell me what to do or talk down to me.

01:32:15.000 I used to go, oh, really?

01:32:17.000 Are we going there?

01:32:21.000 There's a lot of people out there.

01:32:23.000 Everybody thinks they're tough.

01:32:25.000 Well, there's a lot of people out there that are just bluffing.

01:32:28.000 And they just talk crazy because they think that people are going to get scared.

01:32:32.000 Yeah.

01:32:32.000 You see it all the time online.

01:32:34.000 You can watch a hundred videos of them doing it to the wrong person.

01:32:37.000 It happens all the time.

01:32:38.000 You do it to the wrong person.

01:32:39.000 Did you ever see the Joe Schilling one?

01:32:42.000 No.

01:32:43.000 Is one of the greatest of all time.

01:32:45.000 Joe Schilling, who's the man, he's a world champion kickboxer, fucking great guy.

01:32:50.000 Joe Schilling's a nice guy.

01:32:51.000 He doesn't start shit with anybody.

01:32:52.000 He's walking through a bar and there's this really aggressive guy who's drunk and he's talking a lot of shit.

01:32:59.000 And Joe is walking by him.

01:33:01.000 The guy moves and he puts his hands on his shoulders and he, excuse me, he passes by.

01:33:05.000 And the guy talks shit to him as he passes by.

01:33:09.000 And Joe turns around and looks at him, and apparently the guy had been obnoxious all night, and Joe had been seeing him being obnoxious all night.

01:33:15.000 And Joe looks at him and says, what the fuck did you say?

01:33:18.000 And the guy flinches at him, and Joe just, ba-bam!

01:33:20.000 Just two shots, and one as he's on the way down, and he's out cold.

01:33:24.000 Watch this video, because it's a classic.

01:33:27.000 Look at this guy.

01:33:29.000 This guy actually wound up suing him and losing.

01:33:33.000 The guy sued him and lost.

01:33:35.000 So watch, Joe passes him, and then the guy says something.

01:33:38.000 He turns around, like he flinches at him.

01:33:41.000 Yeah.

01:33:42.000 Wrong guy.

01:33:43.000 Those videos, people love those videos.

01:33:45.000 That's the hundreds of people.

01:33:47.000 Wrong guy, yeah.

01:33:47.000 That's the hundreds of people that I've come across.

01:33:50.000 Karma.

01:33:50.000 You're like karma's warrior.

01:33:52.000 Going out to the bar, knock down douchebags.

01:33:55.000 But back in the day before I became Tank...

01:33:59.000 Oh my god.

01:34:00.000 Yeah.

01:34:01.000 All the time.

01:34:01.000 Like, who?

01:34:02.000 Whoa, whoa, whoa.

01:34:04.000 I've never acted that way.

01:34:06.000 I have.

01:34:07.000 Only because I would see them acting that way, I would go and overdo what they were doing.

01:34:15.000 Just to goad them on.

01:34:16.000 Yes.

01:34:17.000 Do you ever wonder what it would be like if you were born in a different timeline and you lived in today's UFC? Do you ever think about it?

01:34:28.000 Like when you see how big it is now, and you see like the different rules, You know, these kids and whatever, I guess they're kids.

01:34:41.000 They're kids to us.

01:34:42.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:34:43.000 They think they put a new spin on the wheel.

01:34:46.000 The wheel's been around for a long time, and you don't understand that just because you learned a leg lock doesn't make you tough.

01:34:57.000 And there's some old bruisers out there that'll take it to you.

01:35:03.000 Yeah, there certainly are.

01:35:04.000 But it's just, it's a different thing now.

01:35:07.000 It's a different thing with the five rounds, with the world championship fight.

01:35:10.000 You know, it's a different thing.

01:35:11.000 It's like more of a skill.

01:35:13.000 I think it would be very...

01:35:15.000 The problem is people wouldn't enjoy the entertainment value as much because people would get tired.

01:35:19.000 You can't really fight for 15 minutes straight.

01:35:22.000 You're going to get exhausted.

01:35:23.000 But you can fight for 15 minutes if you take a break every five minutes.

01:35:26.000 Oh, there's not a problem, I don't think, with rounds.

01:35:32.000 But when somebody like, say, McCartney gets to pick and choose when to break up the fight...

01:35:40.000 Yeah, I don't like that.

01:35:41.000 I don't like that at all.

01:35:43.000 It opens the door for corruption.

01:35:46.000 Even though I'm a hypocrite, so I will say when I'm doing commentary, they should probably break this up because I'm getting bored.

01:35:51.000 But I really do believe that.

01:35:52.000 I mean, I think the thing is they're allowed to break them up now.

01:35:56.000 It's part of the rule set, inactivity.

01:35:58.000 But I don't think that should even be in the rules.

01:36:01.000 I don't...

01:36:02.000 I also have another controversial opinion.

01:36:04.000 I think if you take a guy down and you're on top of him at the end of the first round and you're ground and pounding, I think the second round starts in that exact same position.

01:36:11.000 They have cameras.

01:36:13.000 It's super easy to duplicate.

01:36:14.000 They've done that in Japan.

01:36:16.000 They should do it.

01:36:16.000 They should do that here.

01:36:17.000 Why should you be allowed to start standing up, which is a hugely advantageous position for a striker?

01:36:23.000 Right.

01:36:24.000 Hugely.

01:36:24.000 And you didn't earn it.

01:36:25.000 You did not earn the stand-up.

01:36:27.000 Like, if you got taken down and you got controlled, you never escaped that.

01:36:30.000 And you might not ever escape it if it wasn't for you being stood up and you starting for the next round.

01:36:36.000 Right.

01:36:36.000 Like, who knows?

01:36:37.000 So not only do you get to get up, but you get a whole minute to recover, and then you're started in an advantageous position for yourself.

01:36:47.000 It's like it's imbalanced.

01:36:48.000 It's imbalanced.

01:36:51.000 Grappling is a huge part of fighting.

01:36:53.000 And if you're not a good wrestler, and you're not a good grappler, and some guy can take you down and hold you down for the whole fight, that's the fight.

01:37:01.000 That's how it should be played out.

01:37:02.000 That's reality.

01:37:03.000 The reality is you never earned a stand-up.

01:37:06.000 If you can't figure out a way to sweep that guy, if you can't figure out a way to get an underhook and get back up to your feet, then you stay down.

01:37:11.000 And that should be what fighting is.

01:37:13.000 Even if it's boring.

01:37:14.000 Because at least this way it's realistic.

01:37:17.000 Yeah, absolutely.

01:37:18.000 And like Mark Coleman, ground and pound.

01:37:21.000 I also think that if you're not touching the cage, as long as you're not touching the cage, knees to head to a ground opponent.

01:37:28.000 I don't think you should be allowed to turtle.

01:37:30.000 I don't think you should be allowed to just turtle, and a guy sprawled on you, and he's got a hold of your head and arm, and he's on top.

01:37:39.000 Why wouldn't he knee you in the head?

01:37:41.000 Of course he would knee you in the head.

01:37:43.000 That's a very effective technique that would end fights.

01:37:46.000 That should be legal.

01:37:47.000 As long as you're not touching the cage where you're not stuck somewhere, you gotta fucking move!

01:37:53.000 You can't stay there.

01:37:54.000 You can't allow that guy to hold you in that position.

01:37:56.000 If he does, it's just as legitimate as getting a tie clinch and landing if standing up.

01:38:00.000 It's the same thing.

01:38:01.000 Stalling.

01:38:02.000 Yeah, well, you're not safe there.

01:38:05.000 Also, touching the ground and avoiding knees to the face.

01:38:08.000 Bullshit.

01:38:09.000 You can't do that.

01:38:10.000 They should be able to knee you in the face.

01:38:11.000 You should not touch the ground, because if you touch the ground, your face is wide open.

01:38:16.000 You should be like this.

01:38:17.000 Or you should figure out a way to get out of there, or he's going to win.

01:38:19.000 Or he got the best position.

01:38:22.000 There's too many rules that make it less about...

01:38:26.000 A fight and more about like winning with the rule set.

01:38:31.000 Like the touching the ground thing is so crazy that guys have a guy clinched up against the cage and if the guy touches the ground you can't knee him in the face.

01:38:39.000 Right.

01:38:40.000 That's bananas.

01:38:41.000 It's literally bananas.

01:38:42.000 The guy standing up chooses to touch the ground so that he doesn't get kneed in the face.

01:38:46.000 Right.

01:38:47.000 That's a crazy playing the game part of the rules that doesn't lend itself to realistic fighting.

01:38:53.000 That's not fighting.

01:38:54.000 That's not like an accurate assessment of what would happen in a real fight.

01:38:57.000 If you leave like some of the most effective things other than of course eye gouges and nut shots and shit.

01:39:03.000 But if you leave that stuff out, then you're leaving out like really effective techniques that would definitely work.

01:39:10.000 And probably would end a fight, especially knees to the head to a grounded opponent.

01:39:14.000 Right.

01:39:15.000 12 to 6 elbows.

01:39:16.000 What?

01:39:17.000 How the fuck is that still in there?

01:39:18.000 I think they're taking that out now, right?

01:39:20.000 Isn't that out now?

01:39:23.000 They were just informing me.

01:39:24.000 They're either close to taking that out now, or they're...

01:39:27.000 You know where that came from?

01:39:29.000 They were worried that people break bricks and ice on ESPN. Okay.

01:39:33.000 So they banned the 12 to 6 elbow.

01:39:36.000 It's still...

01:39:37.000 All these years later, 2024, it's still banned.

01:39:40.000 It's fucking crazy.

01:39:42.000 They vote to remove.

01:39:44.000 Nice.

01:39:45.000 Okay.

01:39:46.000 So this is in January.

01:39:47.000 So is it taken to...

01:39:49.000 Is it into effect already?

01:39:50.000 Is that it?

01:39:53.000 I don't know if it's a countrywide, worldwide...

01:40:00.000 If it's ABC, I think it is.

01:40:03.000 I think it is because Hunter Campbell was the one who told me about it.

01:40:06.000 It was either him or Craig Borsari.

01:40:09.000 But do you know the guys who run the UFC now?

01:40:12.000 You ever go?

01:40:13.000 I haven't been.

01:40:14.000 I've been on a medical hiatus for a long time.

01:40:17.000 Yeah, tell me about this.

01:40:18.000 Six years.

01:40:19.000 They told you that you were going to drink yourself to death and they were right.

01:40:25.000 I did that, yeah.

01:40:26.000 You came close.

01:40:27.000 No, I didn't.

01:40:28.000 You came close and you came back.

01:40:29.000 Yes.

01:40:30.000 What happened?

01:40:32.000 Well, you saw what I used to do.

01:40:35.000 I just get done doing it.

01:40:37.000 No, I mean, what happened physically to you?

01:40:38.000 What surgery did you have done?

01:40:40.000 I got a liver transplant and a kidney transplant.

01:40:43.000 Holy shit.

01:40:44.000 Yeah, and I died five times on the table.

01:40:47.000 Holy shit.

01:40:48.000 Did they do both at the same time?

01:40:49.000 No.

01:40:51.000 They did the liver first and wanted to make sure it took hold.

01:40:55.000 And then months later, they did the kidney.

01:40:59.000 How old were you when this was going on?

01:41:02.000 Six years ago.

01:41:04.000 But I had 53. I had five strokes too, so sometimes I struggle.

01:41:15.000 It's hard.

01:41:17.000 I was, for a long time, really, really slow.

01:41:26.000 After the strokes?

01:41:27.000 Yeah, it was all on the table.

01:41:30.000 And so, yeah, it was rough.

01:41:34.000 So do you have to take medication to make sure that your body doesn't reject the organs?

01:41:38.000 Yes.

01:41:39.000 Does that fuck with your immune system?

01:41:42.000 Well, it is about the immune system.

01:41:45.000 Right.

01:41:45.000 But I mean, does it fuck with you?

01:41:45.000 Like, do you get cold?

01:41:46.000 I will always wonder.

01:41:47.000 No.

01:41:48.000 But you know what happened is I almost died from that, too.

01:41:54.000 I was two days away, according to the doctor.

01:41:59.000 I got a roundworm infection that was, they think, hanging around for a long time.

01:42:08.000 And once I got on anti-rejection medicine, it didn't have any...

01:42:15.000 Resistance.

01:42:16.000 Right.

01:42:17.000 So it started flourishing.

01:42:19.000 And they didn't know what was going on.

01:42:21.000 And I was like...

01:42:24.000 No, you don't understand.

01:42:25.000 I'm dying.

01:42:27.000 Not literally, but from pain.

01:42:30.000 And they're like going, we don't know what's wrong with you.

01:42:35.000 Anyways, I couldn't take it anymore.

01:42:36.000 So I ended up doing 30 more days, and this is after a while of being home.

01:42:44.000 And I was actually going to the gym, crawling around on the wrestling mat, doing that kind of stuff.

01:42:52.000 Turns out the doctor that saved me, Dr. Toto, he saved me twice.

01:42:59.000 Two different surgery type things.

01:43:02.000 But he did a biopsy of my bowels and stuff and found that I had roundworm and I was He's like, you know where you got this from?

01:43:15.000 I'm like, I have some guesses.

01:43:22.000 Where do you get roundworm?

01:43:26.000 Well, I don't know.

01:43:27.000 I went to Costa Rica a few times, but I don't know.

01:43:32.000 Is it like a tropical worm?

01:43:35.000 Yeah.

01:43:36.000 Roundworm is like an intestinal thing.

01:43:39.000 Okay, so it's probably from something you ate somewhere.

01:43:42.000 Right.

01:43:42.000 And so now it's just overrunning your body.

01:43:45.000 Yeah, slowly.

01:43:47.000 And I was in the hospital for...

01:43:51.000 I did like four months the first time.

01:43:54.000 The second time, I went to the emergency room.

01:43:56.000 I couldn't take it anymore twice.

01:43:58.000 And I was there for 30 days on morphine.

01:44:04.000 And it was very painful.

01:44:06.000 That's when I developed a...

01:44:08.000 A chant of pain is temporary.

01:44:14.000 Pain is temporary.

01:44:17.000 And, oh my God, for a month, they finally did a And cut me open and did my bowels and found that I had roundworm.

01:44:31.000 And two days of medicine and I was better.

01:44:35.000 Wow.

01:44:35.000 Yeah.

01:44:36.000 I imagine people dying from that must not be very nice.

01:44:43.000 Yeah, I talked to this dude once who told me that like 90% of people that live in tropical climates, 90% have some sort of parasite in their body.

01:44:52.000 Well...

01:44:54.000 It's possible.

01:44:59.000 Want to hear a nutty one?

01:45:00.000 This is what I was going to say.

01:45:02.000 It's going to be funny.

01:45:03.000 Okay, because I didn't say it.

01:45:13.000 So, when we went to Japan for the first time, I was there with a Brazilian fighter, and he was eating a lot of food.

01:45:24.000 A lot of food.

01:45:26.000 And Isaacs, Bob, all of them are like, Jesus Christ, you see how much food that guy eats?

01:45:36.000 But I'm like, who?

01:45:38.000 I don't know.

01:45:38.000 And I go, oh, that's a guy.

01:45:40.000 I'm giving a rat's ass.

01:45:41.000 What are you going to do?

01:45:44.000 And so I said, hey, why are you eating so much?

01:45:47.000 And he's like, oh, oh.

01:45:51.000 I go, are you on the gas?

01:45:53.000 What's going on?

01:45:54.000 And he's like, yeah, on the gas, huh?

01:45:59.000 And he's like, no, no, it's the worm, the worm.

01:46:04.000 I'm like, what the hell is he talking about?

01:46:07.000 Some type of Portuguese thing.

01:46:09.000 And he was in front of everybody.

01:46:12.000 And when I was in the hospital, David Isaacs came and saw me quite a bit.

01:46:18.000 And he's like...

01:46:20.000 Don't you remember that time?

01:46:22.000 He was saying, why are you eating so much?

01:46:24.000 The worm, the worm.

01:46:26.000 He goes, it's a round worm.

01:46:28.000 And I'm like, wow, I never thought of that could be possible.

01:46:32.000 We were always eating dinners with all the Japanese people and everything.

01:46:37.000 Well, you could definitely get worms from food.

01:46:40.000 If you get tapeworms or roundworms, that's a motherfucker.

01:46:44.000 Yeah, well, it almost killed me.

01:46:45.000 The infectious disease doctor came in with his badge and everything.

01:46:50.000 He goes, you know, you're down to like a couple days left.

01:46:55.000 Jesus Christ.

01:46:56.000 Yeah.

01:46:57.000 Especially with the medication you were on, right?

01:46:59.000 Yes.

01:46:59.000 The worms are flourishing.

01:47:00.000 So you get rid of that and they give you medication and now you have to get a kidney transplant after the liver transplant.

01:47:08.000 Piece of cake.

01:47:09.000 That was easy?

01:47:10.000 That was really easy.

01:47:11.000 So the liver one was the bad one?

01:47:13.000 Yeah, I did over 120 days in ICU. Whoa.

01:47:19.000 What is that like?

01:47:22.000 You know, I was laying there and my wife told me, obviously, That they were saying, it's time for you to start thinking about taking them off, unplugging me.

01:47:40.000 It's getting to that time.

01:47:42.000 And she said, this is like the surgical ICU floor.

01:47:47.000 Like they could do surgery right there in your room that you're in.

01:47:51.000 And at Cedars-Sinai, Beverly Hills, yay!

01:47:55.000 Anyways...

01:47:58.000 She's like the doctor, Dr. Toto.

01:48:02.000 He came to her and said, hey, it's time for you to really start thinking about, does he want to live like this?

01:48:10.000 I guess she told me I was just laying there with a tracheotomy with my eyes open and nothing moving.

01:48:18.000 And she was there.

01:48:20.000 Anyway, so David Isaacs came there.

01:48:32.000 And they're going, yeah.

01:48:35.000 He goes, I'm going away for the weekend.

01:48:37.000 I'll be back Monday.

01:48:39.000 And so they were talking about it, holding my hands.

01:48:46.000 And David Isaac said, have you ever seen Awakening?

01:48:49.000 I haven't seen it.

01:48:51.000 He goes, it was like Awakening.

01:48:53.000 He goes, you had our hands.

01:48:55.000 And he goes, you just, you know, like your eyes came open and you started shaking your hands up and down.

01:49:05.000 And so they didn't unplug me and I'm still here.

01:49:11.000 Wow!

01:49:11.000 Was that close?

01:49:14.000 And you died five times.

01:49:16.000 Yeah.

01:49:17.000 Do you have any weird memories of that?

01:49:20.000 You know...

01:49:23.000 When you have cirrhosis, I went to the doctor's hospital and made it out by my house and got a specialty doctor, digestive whatever, GI doctor.

01:49:43.000 So he put me in touch with Cedars-Sinai.

01:49:47.000 You gotta have a sponsor, someone to sponsor you to be allowed into the Oregon They're transplants.

01:50:01.000 And so I went there and it was like a, you know, meetings and association type, you know, we're going to take you on.

01:50:10.000 And then they say, okay, we'll see you in two weeks.

01:50:13.000 You cannot drink anymore.

01:50:15.000 Do not drink.

01:50:16.000 You can't do it.

01:50:18.000 Not even a little bit, nothing.

01:50:21.000 You're done.

01:50:22.000 Not a problem.

01:50:24.000 And so...

01:50:26.000 I'm like, after a year, I'm like, man, what the hell is going on?

01:50:32.000 I mean, they just go there and they take your blood and go, okay, see you later.

01:50:36.000 Well, till the last time I went there, and you go in these little rooms and you get these like Bed-type chairs, almost like dentist chairs, and I'm sitting there.

01:50:52.000 And they walk out, and they take your blood, and then she walks in, the nurses and the doctor assistants.

01:51:02.000 And all of a sudden, they get this panicked look on their face.

01:51:06.000 And mind you, I'd been doing this for like a year, year and a half.

01:51:10.000 And I've met with the doctors, and the doctor said to me, he goes, I'll do surgery on you, but not until you lose weight.

01:51:16.000 He gave me like 50 pounds to lose.

01:51:19.000 I lost like 75. You know, so they knew I was serious about the whole nine yards.

01:51:28.000 I'm sitting there in the chair, kind of like I am right now.

01:51:32.000 And usually it's kind of like, hey, how you doing?

01:51:34.000 What's going on?

01:51:35.000 Right.

01:51:36.000 But they were much more serious.

01:51:37.000 Very serious.

01:51:38.000 And I'm like, looking at my wife like, what's going on here?

01:51:43.000 And she basically died with me during this whole time.

01:51:48.000 I'm like, what's going on?

01:51:50.000 Something's not right.

01:51:53.000 And she's like, I go, go out there and see what's going on.

01:51:58.000 And she comes back and goes, oh, we're not going home.

01:52:03.000 I'm like, what are you talking about?

01:52:05.000 She goes, um, your kidneys aren't working.

01:52:10.000 And I'm like, oh, okay.

01:52:15.000 And.

01:52:15.000 Anyways, so.

01:52:28.000 I'm like looking at it like, what the fuck?

01:52:33.000 You know, what's going on?

01:52:34.000 And it was like the most alone I've ever felt in my life.

01:52:39.000 Except for her.

01:52:42.000 And the doctor and everybody are not making eye contact with me.

01:52:49.000 Not doing anything.

01:52:50.000 And a gurney comes in.

01:52:52.000 And they throw me on a gurney.

01:52:54.000 And I'm like, hey, hey, what's going on?

01:52:58.000 And they're like, they don't hear you.

01:53:00.000 They don't see you.

01:53:02.000 You just become like a log.

01:53:04.000 You know what I mean?

01:53:05.000 You're sensory...

01:53:10.000 You're non-existent.

01:53:13.000 And I remember being pushed out of the transplant centers across the street by the hallway underneath tunnel type thing.

01:53:25.000 I remember laying there and the fluorescent lights Above me looked like freeway lane lights, lines.

01:53:37.000 And I just remember laying there just going, oh man, this is the real deal.

01:53:44.000 You're dying.

01:53:46.000 Consciously, it was like I died.

01:53:50.000 It was like No one talked to me.

01:53:52.000 No one heard me.

01:53:54.000 No one saw me.

01:53:57.000 Except for my wife bouncing back and forth trying to...

01:54:01.000 Hey, hey, what's...

01:54:03.000 You'll be alright, alright, you'll be alright.

01:54:05.000 And I'm like just being pushed down this hallway to the hospital.

01:54:10.000 And I remember getting pushed into this room with all these machines.

01:54:16.000 It looks like the movies.

01:54:18.000 And I'm like, wow.

01:54:21.000 And I remember just laying on the bed there.

01:54:25.000 And...

01:54:28.000 Just going, oh, oh, oh.

01:54:31.000 And then my wife's like, you know, like comforting me.

01:54:34.000 And I'm like, wow.

01:54:36.000 And to me, that's when I died.

01:54:39.000 And then I woke up with Isaacs and my wife there.

01:54:45.000 But I guess I was in that room for six days.

01:54:51.000 On the machines.

01:54:52.000 And they were waiting for a transplant to come in.

01:54:56.000 And one came in and told my wife, we got one.

01:55:02.000 And she's like, oh, thank God, you know.

01:55:05.000 And we're going to do surgery.

01:55:08.000 Well, it turned out somebody else was waiting for one also.

01:55:12.000 And they were a better match.

01:55:14.000 And my wife said, they're a better match.

01:55:17.000 she's an angel.

01:55:18.000 She said, let them have it.

01:55:27.000 All right.

01:55:29.000 So, the doctor came back in, she said, like six hours later.

01:55:37.000 And he said, alright, we're going to go to surgery.

01:55:41.000 And she's all, I think you're messed up.

01:55:47.000 Even though you shouldn't be, but I think you messed up because we gave that other liver to somebody else.

01:55:54.000 Kidney, right?

01:55:55.000 No, liver.

01:55:56.000 Okay.

01:55:57.000 The kidney is later.

01:55:58.000 My kidney stopped working.

01:55:59.000 Okay.

01:56:00.000 So they put me on dialysis, I guess, and waited for six days.

01:56:06.000 And so she's all, no, they gave that liver to the other person that was a better fit.

01:56:14.000 And he's all, this never happens.

01:56:17.000 But we got another one.

01:56:19.000 He goes, never happened, ever.

01:56:22.000 And so they did me.

01:56:24.000 And I was in a catatonic state for weeks and weeks and weeks.

01:56:34.000 And then they were talking about unplugging me.

01:56:37.000 The dialysis machines and all that kind of stuff.

01:56:41.000 And he goes, I'm going to go away for the weekend.

01:56:45.000 This is obviously conveyed to me from my way.

01:56:49.000 And take the weekend to think about what you want to do because, you know, this could be the best he gets right here.

01:56:56.000 And she said the whole floor knew that that was talk happened.

01:57:03.000 And she said everybody...

01:57:05.000 That she would walk down the floor with, their mood changed.

01:57:10.000 It was total darkness.

01:57:12.000 It was like she'd walk down the hall and everybody would usually go, Hi, Sally.

01:57:17.000 Hey, how you doing?

01:57:18.000 Right.

01:57:19.000 And she said they were just like, Oh, poor girl.

01:57:22.000 Right.

01:57:23.000 And then Isaacs came in and she said they were both holding my hands and I woke up.

01:57:32.000 How has this experience changed your perspective about just life, knowing that it almost went away?

01:57:40.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:57:42.000 Now, I'm a totally different person, completely.

01:57:48.000 That's what you were telling me when I first saw you today.

01:57:50.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:57:51.000 I used to be like a...

01:57:58.000 I hate to say it, narcissistic.

01:58:01.000 Like I'm gonna conquer the world and now you can't mess with me and now It doesn't matter.

01:58:11.000 I didn't care.

01:58:12.000 Oh, you have that?

01:58:15.000 Good for you.

01:58:15.000 I'm glad for you.

01:58:19.000 Sometimes, maybe before all this, I'd be like, oh man, I like I do that.

01:58:24.000 Oh man, I gotta do that.

01:58:26.000 I'm better than that.

01:58:27.000 I can do that.

01:58:29.000 Now it's like, good for you, man.

01:58:31.000 Go out and mow down.

01:58:34.000 Isn't that a way better way to interface with life?

01:58:37.000 Absolutely.

01:58:38.000 I wish more people could learn that lesson.

01:58:40.000 It took the hard way for me, but it's so unfortunate that so many people go around angry at other people's lives and thinking that they deserve what that other person has.

01:58:51.000 It's such a waste of time.

01:58:53.000 100%.

01:58:54.000 It's so bad for you, too.

01:58:56.000 You're carrying around just a bunch of extra bullshit for no reason and you're doing it to yourself.

01:59:00.000 Yes.

01:59:01.000 And, you know, with Dana, I... I was in a dark, dark, dark place.

01:59:14.000 There's some medical things about that.

01:59:18.000 When you get ammonia in your blood, it makes you crazy.

01:59:22.000 They had a warning thing around my room.

01:59:26.000 Watch out for this guy.

01:59:28.000 I guess I kicked...

01:59:30.000 A physical therapist in the chest and all this stuff and it was ripping my cords out of me.

01:59:36.000 But it's called encephalopathy.

01:59:42.000 And I would just like to my poor wife, to people that I've known for years.

01:59:53.000 I was just talking crazy nonsense, almost like Alzheimer's type.

01:59:58.000 And they would tell my wife, like, he's got ammonia in his blood and his liver doesn't work and it's poison in his brain and he doesn't know what he's doing.

02:00:11.000 And I believe that I left according to my wife because she would listen to me on the phone.

02:00:19.000 Dana Choice Messages.

02:00:22.000 Dana White?

02:00:24.000 Yeah.

02:00:25.000 It's not funny.

02:00:28.000 It's funny if you realize how sick I was.

02:00:31.000 I thought I was gonna die.

02:00:32.000 I mean, you know, I... I was living the rock and roll lifestyle.

02:00:39.000 I used to joke around.

02:00:41.000 Rock and rollers couldn't even hang with me.

02:00:44.000 Once I got into WCW, there was a whole...

02:00:49.000 Those guys live rock and roll lifestyle.

02:00:53.000 It's like an athletic rock and roll lifestyle.

02:00:57.000 And I, as you can imagine, pushed it to the floor and pedaled to the metal.

02:01:02.000 Man, I was getting down.

02:01:04.000 Was there ever a time where you were realizing that if I keep going, something's gonna...

02:01:09.000 When was that?

02:01:10.000 When did it start feeling like that?

02:01:14.000 I use this...

02:01:19.000 Well, when I was wrestling, I mean, it was the rock and roll lifestyle.

02:01:24.000 Like, you fly on a jet, boom, boom, boom, go for an eight-day loop, fly home, do your laundry, do your thing.

02:01:35.000 That kept me from really taking off crazy.

02:01:39.000 Once WCW got sold and my contract was still valid and I had money coming in and a whole bunch of time.

02:01:54.000 Leaving Las Vegas with Nick Cage He's the agent, and he gets fired from that talent agency.

02:02:08.000 And he's like, Ben Saunderson.

02:02:12.000 And he's like, what am I going to do now?

02:02:15.000 I'm going to go to Vegas.

02:02:18.000 I was Ben Saunderson after WCW was done, and I wasn't leaving every week to go somewhere new.

02:02:26.000 I was like, what am I going to do now?

02:02:28.000 And I go, I guess I'll just drink myself to death.

02:02:31.000 Not consciously, but...

02:02:34.000 But that's what you were doing.

02:02:35.000 I was getting down.

02:02:37.000 So that's when the liver started failing.

02:02:39.000 No.

02:02:40.000 My liver started failing when I went back to the UFC. That's when I held on, man.

02:02:54.000 I pulled physical feet.

02:02:57.000 But when Dana called me to come back to do my comeback thing, I'm like, sure.

02:03:09.000 And I kind of got into shape, shape.

02:03:16.000 But he flew me out to Atlantic City, I believe.

02:03:20.000 And he goes, okay, I need you to be down here tomorrow.

02:03:24.000 We're going to do a shoot.

02:03:26.000 And I pride myself on being responsible.

02:03:31.000 Doing what I'm supposed to do and being there on time.

02:03:35.000 I'm one of those kind of people.

02:03:37.000 And so I go to wake up and this is like, I'm coming back kind of thing.

02:03:47.000 And I was supposed to be at this shoot.

02:03:50.000 I could not.

02:03:51.000 I was like, could not get out of bed.

02:03:54.000 I was that sick.

02:03:55.000 And I almost missed the whole show.

02:03:57.000 I just out of just crawling To get there.

02:04:04.000 And I got there halfway through the show and his agent or his person that worked for him came up to me and goes, oh, here you are.

02:04:11.000 Where were you?

02:04:13.000 And I'm going, oh man, I just didn't feel very good.

02:04:17.000 I was awful, like nauseous, sick all the time.

02:04:24.000 I think that's when your liver was starting to fail.

02:04:26.000 Yeah, there's stages.

02:04:29.000 And that's kind of...

02:04:31.000 It's called a compensated liver, decompensated liver.

02:04:37.000 It was...

02:04:41.000 Compensated liver and it's like all the things where your liver stops working and you get sicker and sicker and that's when you start turning yellow.

02:04:52.000 They would pump my stomach or my cavity, pull out like A couple two-liter things all the time.

02:05:01.000 It was just poison, just running through your body and like encephalopathy, going through your brain.

02:05:10.000 I was a complete crazy...

02:05:14.000 Like, you know, Ben Saunderson is the guy in Leaving Las Vegas.

02:05:18.000 I make him look like a kindergartner.

02:05:23.000 I was that out of control.

02:05:25.000 I was insane.

02:05:26.000 I can look back and just go...

02:05:28.000 Have you thought about writing a book?

02:05:30.000 I have written a book, and I'm glad you brought that up, man.

02:05:34.000 Thank you.

02:05:34.000 Is it out?

02:05:35.000 Yes.

02:05:36.000 It's a trilogy.

02:05:38.000 I wrote a 900-page trilogy.

02:05:41.000 Really?

02:05:41.000 Yeah.

02:05:42.000 Did you bring it?

02:05:43.000 Did you bring the book?

02:05:44.000 Yes, I did.

02:05:44.000 It's in my bag over there.

02:05:47.000 There's three of them.

02:05:48.000 The first one's called Bar Brawler, and it's about 300 plus pages long.

02:05:57.000 It's about how the mid-80s and early 90s, how people used to be, and how there's some really graphic fights in it.

02:06:13.000 Some people think it's an autobiography, but it's written as a novel.

02:06:19.000 Okay.

02:06:20.000 That's a good way to do it.

02:06:21.000 Yes.

02:06:22.000 And the main character is Walter Fox.

02:06:25.000 And Walter Fox, it's how Walter Fox goes through his life beating people up at bars and all that.

02:06:35.000 And ends up fighting in a show called NHB. And they call him Crazy Fox.

02:06:44.000 And it's how Walter Fox, through all these trials and tribulations, ends up as Crazy Fox at the end of it.

02:06:55.000 It's a trilogy, 900 pages long, plus.

02:07:00.000 Did you write all this by yourself?

02:07:01.000 Yes, every single page.

02:07:03.000 I didn't have a ghostwriter, I didn't have anything.

02:07:05.000 Just sit in front of a laptop?

02:07:08.000 You write it out by hand?

02:07:09.000 I scribbled it out on a spiral notebook, a bunch of them, and I hunt and pecked the whole 900 plus pages.

02:07:19.000 Wow.

02:07:20.000 Three books.

02:07:21.000 Why didn't you just learn how to type?

02:07:26.000 Because I'm dumb.

02:07:28.000 Well, you know Hunter S. Thompson?

02:07:29.000 Never really learned how to type?

02:07:30.000 Hunter S. Thompson was hunting and pecking when he was writing Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

02:07:37.000 I'm telling you, especially if you're a fight fan, it's called Before There Are Rules.

02:07:45.000 And it's awesome.

02:07:49.000 I'm pumping myself up.

02:07:51.000 But if you want to know how a real fighter in my eyes...

02:07:56.000 Before there were rules.

02:07:57.000 Yes.

02:07:58.000 That's the third book.

02:08:00.000 The second book is Cage Fighter...

02:08:04.000 And the first book is Bar Brawler.

02:08:07.000 And it goes pretty much the whole what we've been discussing.

02:08:12.000 It goes through all of those things.

02:08:15.000 And where can people get these books?

02:08:17.000 They're on Amazon.

02:08:18.000 Okay.

02:08:19.000 And some people think it's an autobiography.

02:08:23.000 Like I said, it's fiction.

02:08:24.000 Exactly right.

02:08:26.000 It's fiction, folks.

02:08:27.000 It's plausible deniability.

02:08:28.000 Yeah, exactly.

02:08:29.000 Fiction, folks.

02:08:32.000 There's a fighting promoter, matchmaker, and his name is Big Bart Shady.

02:08:49.000 And of that show, the NHB show, the referee's name is Winchell Duncan.

02:09:00.000 And he's a little guy with a big ego.

02:09:07.000 And so...

02:09:12.000 You could draw parallels, but I don't tell you how to think.

02:09:15.000 But it's actually how Walter Fox got all the way through the bar scenes and everything that I discussed.

02:09:24.000 It's how Walter Fox ended up becoming Crazy Fox.

02:09:29.000 Have you done an audiobook for this?

02:09:31.000 Yes.

02:09:32.000 Did you read it?

02:09:34.000 I listened to it.

02:09:35.000 Oh, okay.

02:09:35.000 Somebody else read it.

02:09:36.000 Somebody else read it?

02:09:37.000 No, it's on AI. Oh, AI did it.

02:09:42.000 Yeah, it's pretty good.

02:09:44.000 Wow.

02:09:44.000 I was worried about the inflection and everything.

02:09:47.000 Right.

02:09:48.000 It came out really good.

02:09:50.000 No, they're very sophisticated now.

02:09:51.000 It's pretty incredible what they can do now.

02:09:53.000 It's awesome.

02:09:54.000 David, thank you very much for being here, man.

02:09:57.000 You're an American original.

02:09:58.000 You really are.

02:09:59.000 It's been cool to know you all these years.

02:10:02.000 You made the UFC a very exciting thing in the early days.

02:10:06.000 You were one of the big reasons for its early success.

02:10:08.000 Yes, I believe so.

02:10:09.000 I think so, too.

02:10:10.000 I think everybody thinks so.

02:10:11.000 I appreciate you, brother, and good health to you.

02:10:14.000 I hope you feel better.

02:10:16.000 Thank you very much.

02:10:17.000 Thank you.

02:10:17.000 Your website, anywhere else people can see your stuff?

02:10:20.000 Oh yeah, no, just Amazon, before there are rules.

02:10:25.000 Do you have a website?

02:10:27.000 Yeah, well, what's it called?

02:10:29.000 Instagram?

02:10:30.000 What's the Instagram?

02:10:31.000 Tank.abbott.

02:10:33.000 Okay.

02:10:34.000 Yeah.

02:10:35.000 Alright.

02:10:36.000 Anyways, yeah, like I said, I've had five strokes, so it's amazing that I'm even talking, so...

02:10:42.000 But what was I going to tell you?

02:10:44.000 There's my stress.

02:10:45.000 I don't know.

02:10:46.000 We were talking about website, Instagram, buy the books on Amazon, your Instagram, David, no, tank.avit.

02:10:53.000 Oh, yeah.

02:10:53.000 Before there are rules.

02:10:56.000 The first word, you know, like I said, I wrote every single page of this book.

02:11:02.000 The first word is misspelled.

02:11:05.000 So all you narcissists.

02:11:09.000 Preemptively blocking people getting mad at you for misspelling things.

02:11:12.000 No, no.

02:11:14.000 I put it out there as bait for all those narcissists to tell me how dumb I am.

02:11:20.000 Well, you could have just corrected it.

02:11:22.000 No, no.

02:11:23.000 No?

02:11:24.000 You're just always playing games?

02:11:26.000 Yes.

02:11:27.000 All right.

02:11:28.000 Well, thanks, brother.

02:11:28.000 Thanks for being here, man.

02:11:29.000 It's great to see you again.

02:11:30.000 It's a pleasure.

02:11:31.000 Thank you for having me on.

02:11:32.000 Best of health to you.

02:11:33.000 Thank you.

The Joe Rogan Experience - November 16, 2011

JRE MMA Show #158 with Tank Abbott

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