The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #167 with Cory Sandhagen

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

00:00:03.000 The Joe Rogan experience.

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

00:00:14.000 Good to see you, brother.

00:00:15.000 Good to see you too.

00:00:16.000 We were talking about golf and Jamie, who's a full-blown addict.

00:00:20.000 What's up?

00:00:21.000 What's up?

00:00:22.000 What are you doing up?

00:00:23.000 Good to hear him out.

00:00:24.000 I feel like everyone is now.

00:00:25.000 So you're saying Gage's fully hooked?

00:00:27.000 Oh, fully hooked.

00:00:28.000 It's crazy.

00:00:31.000 Yeah, I don't know.

00:00:31.000 Do you know what Fanatics Fest is?

00:00:33.000 No.

00:00:34.000 So Fanatics Fest is, I was just at it on Sunday, but it's just like kind of like Comic-Con, but for athletes.

00:00:41.000 And Gage got to do like the Fanatics game, which is like a celebrity thing where it's like 50 pro athletes do it, 50 normal people, and they compete in a bunch of sports or whatever.

00:00:50.000 He said he won because he was good at golf, so the fucking guy won a Ferrari because he got second place.

00:00:56.000 Tom Brady got first.

00:00:57.000 He got a million dollars.

00:00:58.000 And then like a normal, like non-professional athlete got third place, got like 200K.

00:01:03.000 Whoa.

00:01:04.000 So it's like a Ferrari?

00:01:05.000 Yeah, dude.

00:01:05.000 Golf got him.

00:01:06.000 Golf got him for this fucking Ferrari.

00:01:09.000 I think he took.

00:01:09.000 Holy shit.

00:01:10.000 So that kind of just enforced his addiction more than...

00:01:17.000 Yeah, he's pretty good.

00:01:18.000 I mean, I don't know shit about golf, but for me.

00:01:20.000 Daniel told me, DC told me that he started off and he was just kind of okay.

00:01:24.000 But over the time, between the Holloway fight and his fight with Fazeev, he didn't do anything but play golf for a year.

00:01:32.000 He played like 260 days in a row, and he said his handicap just kept getting better and better and better and better.

00:01:37.000 He said the next time he played him, he's like, holy shit, he's really good now.

00:01:41.000 Sounds about right.

00:01:42.000 It makes sense, though.

00:01:43.000 He's a psycho.

00:01:44.000 He is a psycho.

00:01:45.000 He's definitely dedicated to something.

00:01:47.000 And he's single.

00:01:49.000 Yeah, he's going to excel.

00:01:51.000 If that guy gets his mind on something, he's going to excel.

00:01:54.000 Yeah, he's a unique dude for sure.

00:01:56.000 I really liked, because obviously, you know, I started working with Whitman not too long ago.

00:02:00.000 I really enjoyed getting to know that crew, like Trevor, Gaiji.

00:02:05.000 Trevor's a unique guy.

00:02:06.000 Yeah, all of those guys are pretty unique in their own way.

00:02:08.000 He makes the best fucking MMA gloves that have ever been made, and the UFC should have bought them out a long time ago.

00:02:15.000 I think he wanted some crazy amount of money or something.

00:02:18.000 I think it was like some nutty deal.

00:02:20.000 Unfortunate.

00:02:22.000 I know.

00:02:23.000 They should have just licensed it.

00:02:24.000 They should have just made some sort of a deal.

00:02:26.000 Like, we'll sell the gloves.

00:02:28.000 You make the money.

00:02:29.000 Let's just get the athletes the best gloves bought. 1.00

00:02:29.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:02:32.000 They're so much better.

00:02:33.000 They're way better.

00:02:33.000 Yeah.

00:02:34.000 The foam in them is really good.

00:02:36.000 The shape is better.

00:02:37.000 The protection of your hands is better.

00:02:39.000 Yeah.

00:02:39.000 Trevor's one of those guys where I'm kind of similar too.

00:02:42.000 Like most things aren't stimulating enough.

00:02:45.000 Like TV, kind of playing on my phone isn't really super stimulating to me.

00:02:49.000 So like he's always like doing something.

00:02:52.000 So he's always like making shit.

00:02:54.000 But he'd be when I would go into Onyx, he'd just be in the back like with this smile, like working on the gloves like every single morning that he's there.

00:03:02.000 And the style that they have is real cool.

00:03:04.000 People keep asking me when they're going to come out with them.

00:03:06.000 And I think he's getting pretty close.

00:03:09.000 I just really wish that him and the UFC could make a deal.

00:03:12.000 Because they spent so much time and money to develop those new gloves.

00:03:12.000 I know.

00:03:16.000 And then they threw them out.

00:03:17.000 I hate that too.

00:03:17.000 Yeah.

00:03:18.000 I liked the new ones.

00:03:19.000 Did you?

00:03:20.000 I have really thin, like my hands aren't massive like some of these guys.

00:03:24.000 The old ones are better for like if you have like a really thick hand, the old ones are way better.

00:03:28.000 But I have a thin hand dude and those things used to fit me like perfectly.

00:03:32.000 Because the old ones, when I would make a fist, they would stick out like this much.

00:03:36.000 But the new ones, they would be like perfect.

00:03:39.000 So I can make a fist and not have this like really awkward big space right there.

00:03:44.000 What's the issue with the new gloves?

00:03:46.000 Like what did they not like about them?

00:03:48.000 I honestly don't know.

00:03:49.000 I think some people were just complaining probably because they were just guys with thicker hands.

00:03:54.000 Because that's what it would come down to.

00:03:55.000 There was no other reason that it was...

00:04:01.000 It can't be that important.

00:04:02.000 And I think the whole idea was it's easier to close your hand, so it was going to eliminate some of the eye pokes.

00:04:07.000 They were a little bit curved, but honestly, I mean, maybe.

00:04:11.000 I mean, even if you bring it down like 10 percentages, I guess that's saving 10% of people's eyes.

00:04:17.000 Yeah.

00:04:19.000 But I mean, honestly, I don't think it was like significant enough to be like, oh, no one's going to poke me in the eyes when they're wearing these things.

00:04:26.000 Well, I think the Whitman gloves would cover that because they're much more curved.

00:04:30.000 Those ones were curved.

00:04:31.000 Yeah, I mean, your hand is in a permanent position like this.

00:04:34.000 So for you to do that, it's an effort.

00:04:37.000 Which, when do you do that?

00:04:38.000 You only do that when you're blocking things or, you know, maybe, you know, when you're sliding an arm under, like you get a choke or something like that.

00:04:46.000 But I don't think they're specific, significantly bulkier.

00:04:50.000 Yeah.

00:04:50.000 Yeah, I'm not too sure, honestly.

00:04:52.000 I don't really recall wearing it.

00:04:53.000 I think that that was a while ago when they were doing all that.

00:04:55.000 So I kind of don't recall super close what the curved ones, how impactful it would have been on grappling.

00:05:01.000 I think the idea of the new gloves was that there weren't as many knockouts, which also doesn't totally make sense.

00:05:09.000 That doesn't make any sense to me.

00:05:10.000 No.

00:05:11.000 They probably ran a number that was from like all of the years of the UFC, and then maybe just when they started using the new ones instead of like just last year, how many knockouts?

00:05:21.000 I don't think they would do that.

00:05:22.000 No?

00:05:23.000 No, I think, but there were a lot of people complaining, said that they weren't hard, as hard as the old gloves.

00:05:29.000 I should have brought you some.

00:05:30.000 Yeah.

00:05:31.000 Yeah.

00:05:31.000 But Whitney gave me some of his, and I was like, these are the best gloves I've ever made.

00:05:34.000 Yeah, for sure.

00:05:35.000 Just fucking A, man.

00:05:37.000 Work it out.

00:05:38.000 I know.

00:05:38.000 They're good to train in, too.

00:05:40.000 Like, you can actually feel like you could hit the person and not be like, sorry.

00:05:45.000 You know, because that's a pain in the ass when you always have to, when you get like a stiff pair of gloves and then you have to hit someone and you're just like, sorry, man, I know that.

00:05:53.000 But with these ones, you can fire away.

00:05:56.000 Yeah, how important is that?

00:05:58.000 And having training partners that are conscientious and that aren't going to fucking blast you?

00:06:03.000 Like the miles that guys take off of the clock when they're training is so big.

00:06:09.000 Yeah, it's big.

00:06:10.000 I think I don't, I mean, we spar, I spar pretty hard still.

00:06:13.000 I know that like not a lot of people are crazy about that.

00:06:16.000 But you don't get hit a lot, though.

00:06:17.000 That's true.

00:06:18.000 That's the thing is you're slick.

00:06:19.000 Yeah, that's true.

00:06:19.000 Like for a guy who's just like a fucking face first.

00:06:23.000 Yeah.

00:06:23.000 You know, there's styles that enhance longevity, and you have a style that enhances longevity.

00:06:30.000 Because not only do you not get hit a lot, but you're also like, you're a puzzle.

00:06:34.000 You know, you're not, it's not like, oh, here he comes.

00:06:36.000 It's like, what's going on here?

00:06:38.000 You know, there's a lot of thinking that a guy has to do when they're interacting.

00:06:41.000 You know, you have so many feints and so many stance switches.

00:06:45.000 Definitely.

00:06:46.000 It's such a smart style, man.

00:06:47.000 I love watching you fight because it's like, it's so, you can see that the fighter, if they don't, and by the way, they're probably not used to training with somebody like you because there's not a lot of guys like you.

00:06:59.000 You could see how there's all these adjustments that they have to make on the fly that makes you think.

00:07:05.000 Yeah.

00:07:05.000 I mean, I always really looked up to all of the defensive guys that I would watch.

00:07:10.000 Like, I know that in boxing, defensive, just winning the defensive battle is a big piece in boxing.

00:07:17.000 And the judges almost even score a little bit for it.

00:07:20.000 But in MMA, it's just only offense scores.

00:07:24.000 So that's not really the way that I grew up thinking was good martial arts, really.

00:07:28.000 Because some of my favorite guys were Mayweather, Purnell Whitaker, Nanito Dinair, like all of these really awesome movers that did a phenomenal job at protecting themselves.

00:07:40.000 But now, man, people, I feel like even more so now people want more blood and more offense.

00:07:45.000 The casuals.

00:07:46.000 Yeah, that shit drives me nuts.

00:07:48.000 It does, man.

00:07:49.000 It just drives me nuts.

00:07:50.000 And catering to the casuals, man.

00:07:52.000 Fuck off.

00:07:53.000 Like, whenever someone booz and then they separate people or stand people up, I go crazy.

00:07:59.000 What are you doing?

00:08:00.000 I know.

00:08:00.000 Fuck the crowd.

00:08:02.000 I think grappling is really hard to understand unless you've done it.

00:08:06.000 Like striking is easy to understand.

00:08:08.000 Like, okay, that guy hit the shit out of that guy more than the other guy hit him.

00:08:12.000 Right.

00:08:13.000 Grappling is like, it's a whole, it's like super proprioceptive.

00:08:17.000 You know, like a lot of what's going on in grappling isn't, it's like hidden to the eye.

00:08:23.000 You know what I mean?

00:08:24.000 It's where am I sitting my weight?

00:08:25.000 Where am I doing this?

00:08:27.000 And, and yeah, so it kind of just, people just don't think it's cool.

00:08:31.000 But when you understand grappling, like it's amazing to watch.

00:08:35.000 You know, like Amarab, for example, who's obviously a guy that I watch a ton, it's amazing.

00:08:35.000 Yes.

00:08:40.000 Yeah.

00:08:41.000 Like he does such a good job with like the little nuancy things in wrestling. 0.99

00:08:45.000 That's just like.

00:08:46.000 Yeah.

00:08:47.000 But it's hard to appreciate unless you really understand it.

00:08:49.000 Well, it's hard to judge too, which is a real problem because there's judges that don't train and never have trained, which is to me fucking crazy.

00:08:58.000 I know.

00:08:59.000 That's like judging a Chinese spelling bee and you don't speak Chinese.

00:09:03.000 Like, who knows who's fucking winning here?

00:09:06.000 I know it.

00:09:06.000 They don't understand it.

00:09:07.000 They understand when someone's on top.

00:09:09.000 Oh, he's on top.

00:09:10.000 I know.

00:09:10.000 But, you know, there's so many near submission attempts that I think should count.

00:09:15.000 Like, I always go to the Oliveira-Armand-Sarukian fight because I think Oliveira won that fight.

00:09:21.000 Because Oliveira came close to finishing him twice.

00:09:25.000 And Sarukian stayed on top and he had a lot of control. 0.76

00:09:28.000 It was a very close fight.

00:09:29.000 But I think those fucking moments where a guy is like at nine, you know, if 10 is checkmate, he's at nine twice.

00:09:37.000 That's big, man.

00:09:39.000 You don't want to be there.

00:09:40.000 That guy got you there.

00:09:42.000 He's got a fucking locked in triangle.

00:09:44.000 Yeah, you got out of it.

00:09:45.000 But still, that's big, man.

00:09:48.000 That should count.

00:09:49.000 And damage leading up to a KO or that doesn't lead to a KO is very significant in the scorecards.

00:09:55.000 But a submission that doesn't lead up to a submission doesn't count.

00:09:59.000 And I don't understand that.

00:10:00.000 You can't just count damage.

00:10:02.000 You have to count like near falls or near subs.

00:10:05.000 I agree.

00:10:06.000 Yeah.

00:10:06.000 I mean, if you want to take, for example, too, like even like a me and a TJ fight, like TJ was limping out of that cage.

00:10:13.000 And I was kind of, you know, like, oh, cool.

00:10:15.000 You know, and I don't think that that should count for everything.

00:10:18.000 But like you're saying, like, the reason that he was limping out of that cage is because I popped his knee really bad.

00:10:23.000 You know, like he had to spend the next 18 months making his knee better so that he could fight again.

00:10:28.000 And I was able to fight, you know, pretty shortly afterwards.

00:10:31.000 So yeah, there's got to be something to that.

00:10:33.000 Like if you pop someone's shit really bad, it should count just as much as a knockdown or something like that.

00:10:38.000 What do you think about the idea of like 10-8 rounds for like things that are known, not just like, okay, this person won by a mile, but like in kickboxing, they do if you get knocked down in a round, it's automatically a 10-8 round.

00:10:53.000 You like that for MNA or no?

00:10:55.000 I do, but if a guy is tuning you up for like the entire round and you clip him and drop him and he gets back up and he's still okay, I don't think that's a 10-8 round.

00:11:07.000 I think MMA should be a completely different scoring system than a 10-point must system.

00:11:11.000 Because I think the 10, we just stole this boxing system, which is a great system for boxing because you only have two weapons and you only have your hands.

00:11:19.000 You don't even have elbows, right?

00:11:20.000 So think about all the different factors in MMA and we're limited to 10 points.

00:11:25.000 To me, that seems silly.

00:11:27.000 I think it should probably be 10 points for each aspect of the sport.

00:11:31.000 Like, okay, who landed more kicks?

00:11:34.000 Who landed more punches?

00:11:36.000 And then calculate all that shit up together.

00:11:38.000 You know, who had more takedowns?

00:11:40.000 Who landed damage from the top?

00:11:42.000 It should be a comprehensive system.

00:11:45.000 And I think there should be more than three judges.

00:11:47.000 You know, when you have a split decision and some of them are so crazy, you see like a five-round split decision and they gave like four judges or two out of the three judges rather give like three out of five rounds and the other person gives them the whole five rounds.

00:12:07.000 Like this is too much variability.

00:12:09.000 There's too much weirdness to it.

00:12:11.000 And if you're a fighter, especially in MMA because of the win bonus, which also drives me crazy, I think if you had three more judges, so if you have sick judges, six judges would balance it out, six good judges.

00:12:24.000 So the ones that fuck up and make mistakes, they'll be canceled out by the better judges.

00:12:29.000 We could do like a submission or knockout only league.

00:12:33.000 That'd be pretty cool.

00:12:34.000 Because then you'd definitely know who was winning that one.

00:12:36.000 What would you think about a no time limit?

00:12:38.000 Yeah, no time limit, submission or knockout only.

00:12:41.000 That would be wild.

00:12:42.000 That'd be pretty sick, actually.

00:12:44.000 You could probably sanction that.

00:12:45.000 Old school UFC.

00:12:46.000 Yeah.

00:12:46.000 Yeah, I mean, it's UFC one.

00:12:48.000 Yeah, it wouldn't really pay off for me, though.

00:12:50.000 I need weight classes in order for me to fucking be good.

00:12:54.000 Yeah, weight classes, sure, but no time limit within the weight classes.

00:12:57.000 Yeah, that'd be sweet.

00:12:59.000 That would be pretty wild.

00:13:00.000 Yeah, that'd be pretty sweet.

00:13:00.000 Because you know, you know, like two guys are facing off each other, like, and they know, like, there's no rescue every five minutes.

00:13:08.000 And you go into it knowing you're either getting knocked down or submitted or you're doing that to the other person.

00:13:13.000 Oh, that would be real.

00:13:14.000 But again, the casuals would have a hard time with it because it would probably be a much more moderate pace unless someone just tries to go for it right off the bat.

00:13:24.000 Yeah.

00:13:25.000 That could be a strategy.

00:13:26.000 Sure.

00:13:27.000 I mean, it does work.

00:13:28.000 It's like there's so many fights where...

00:13:33.000 I didn't watch those ones.

00:13:34.000 No, I watched Curtis's fight and a guy named Mohammed's fight on my team, but no, I didn't watch the other ones.

00:13:39.000 It was, who was it?

00:13:41.000 Mota and the other guy from Azerbaijan.

00:13:44.000 See if you can find his name.

00:13:46.000 Salikov? 0.98

00:13:47.000 Fuck.

00:13:49.000 I hadn't seen him fight before.

00:13:50.000 What weight class was it?

00:13:52.000 I think it was 45.

00:13:56.000 Yeah, no, it was lightweight.

00:13:58.000 Yeah.

00:13:58.000 Sadikov and Nicholas Mota.

00:14:00.000 Nazim Sadikov and Nicholas Mota.

00:14:02.000 Fucking crazy fight, man.

00:14:04.000 It was so good that Dana White gave him double bonuses.

00:14:07.000 Oh, nice, sweet.

00:14:08.000 But Mota landed a 75-punch combination.

00:14:12.000 Like, I'm not kidding, man.

00:14:14.000 He landed, like, and then Sadikov came back and stopped him.

00:14:17.000 Oh, shit.

00:14:18.000 It was wild.

00:14:19.000 Like, it was a wild fight.

00:14:21.000 Like, a fight like that where two guys just fuck, and Mota, like, basically emptied out the tank, but Sadikov had fantastic defense, just kept covering and moving, and just getting bombed onto the body and to the head.

00:14:31.000 But he looked like it was getting close to stop.

00:14:34.000 And all of a sudden he comes back and you see, Mota's taking these big, deep breaths.

00:14:37.000 And it was wild.

00:14:39.000 Yeah.

00:14:40.000 When that strategy works, it works.

00:14:42.000 But when it doesn't, that's the problem.

00:14:45.000 The blitz sprint and very few guys.

00:14:48.000 You know, we were talking about Gai Chi and golf, and I was saying that I'm scared of golf.

00:14:52.000 And, you know, you were like, I don't have time for golf.

00:14:55.000 The thing that happens with golf is it takes so much time and it's so addictive.

00:15:00.000 That it's going to take away time from other stuff, no matter what you do.

00:15:04.000 And when you look at a guy, like I always point to Murab because the day after he beat Sean the first fight, DC went to his house to go talk to him and he was out running the day after.

00:15:15.000 Like that's a guy that does not stop.

00:15:18.000 And that extreme physicality and that extreme endurance because he is just constantly working, that means something.

00:15:25.000 It counts.

00:15:26.000 If you take months off, you take, you know, like, like this was the thing that I was thinking about with John Jones.

00:15:32.000 John Jones said he needed six months to prepare for Aspinol if he's going to fight Aspinol.

00:15:37.000 So they were trying to make a deal and then he decided to retire.

00:15:40.000 But it's six months because he's not training like at all.

00:15:43.000 Like he just doesn't train.

00:15:44.000 Like in between fights, just doesn't train.

00:15:48.000 He used to do that a lot when he was younger too, which I always thought was crazy.

00:15:51.000 That is crazy to me.

00:15:52.000 I always saw guys do that when I was in my 20s and like I would watch these really big fighters just not train unless it was a training camp time.

00:16:01.000 I'd be like, fuck that.

00:16:02.000 I'm never being that way.

00:16:05.000 I don't know, man.

00:16:06.000 That's like a really weird one to me, but I don't want to bash it too bad because I do know a lot of guys that do do that.

00:16:11.000 But look at John, greatest of all time.

00:16:13.000 It's like, how did he do that?

00:16:15.000 I really don't know.

00:16:16.000 I don't know how that works.

00:16:17.000 Like, I want it to make sense in my head that like the harder you work, the more shit you'll get from it, you know, which is like true to an extent.

00:16:23.000 But then you have like these weird outlier guys that maybe have something more figured out than me that I don't have figured out or whatever.

00:16:30.000 But I mean, that to me is like completely unacceptable in my head.

00:16:35.000 Like I think that I really hate when people say that they want to be something and then they don't do any of the actions to like actually do that thing that they're saying that they want to be.

00:16:45.000 So I don't get to walk around being like, yeah, I'm going to be a world champion.

00:16:48.000 I want to be a world champ real bad and then not do any of the fucking actions.

00:16:52.000 Then I'm just a stupid person, you know?

00:16:55.000 Well, I think John is just so fucking talented that he could pull that off.

00:17:00.000 Yeah.

00:17:01.000 That's the outlier.

00:17:02.000 It's like, he was just so good.

00:17:04.000 He was so good.

00:17:06.000 He just, he just, he could do it.

00:17:08.000 He could, he could party and still fuck guys up.

00:17:10.000 Like when he said to Cormier at the press conference for the second fight, I beat you when I was on coach.

00:17:15.000 Okay, I know.

00:17:15.000 I saw that video the other day.

00:17:19.000 This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp.

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00:18:39.000 That's better H-E-L-P dot com slash J-R-E. 0.84

00:18:44.000 This is the thing.

00:18:46.000 When guys are that talented, they're playing with their food, essentially, until, you know, like I always point to with John the first Gustafson fight, which by all accounts, he didn't train.

00:18:59.000 Oh, really?

00:18:59.000 Yeah, by all accounts.

00:19:00.000 Barely trained for that fight.

00:19:02.000 Barely trained.

00:19:03.000 Just partying.

00:19:04.000 Yeah.

00:19:04.000 And beat Gustafson and pulled it off in the last rounds, which was really crazy.

00:19:09.000 But then comes back in the second fight and is like, okay, motherfucker, now we're trained.

00:19:14.000 And just destroys him.

00:19:15.000 Just runs right through him.

00:19:16.000 Which God does he worship?

00:19:19.000 No, right?

00:19:19.000 And then they start going to that church.

00:19:21.000 Well, I think it's just talent, man.

00:19:23.000 And it's also genetics.

00:19:25.000 Like, both of his brothers are super athletes.

00:19:28.000 You know, he's just a phenomenal specimen.

00:19:30.000 And then he's got a great mind for fighting.

00:19:34.000 You can't discount his in-cage IQ because it's fucking phenomenal.

00:19:38.000 I do think two people have different wired brains, too, where some people need like cool down time in order for them to.

00:19:46.000 Yeah, I don't know, man.

00:19:47.000 I really, I don't know how it works.

00:19:48.000 I spent a lot of time thinking about it.

00:19:49.000 I don't, yeah, I'm more on the other end where it's like, I'm going to give every inch of myself to this thing, you know, in hopes that I get it one day.

00:19:58.000 But then I know a lot of guys, man, a lot of guys that are really successful that are just like, nah, man, I need my off time.

00:20:05.000 But that to me is really uncomfortable.

00:20:07.000 But I kind of got a little bit, I don't like chilling, you know, like me and my wife were just in Maui a couple of weeks ago.

00:20:13.000 It's like the first vacation for seven days I've ever taken like since I was a kid, probably.

00:20:18.000 Did you get stir crazy?

00:20:19.000 I got a little stir crazy.

00:20:21.000 I kind of liked it though.

00:20:22.000 Like a piece of me liked just completely being like, oh, my home, my like life doesn't exist back there.

00:20:28.000 So I liked it a little bit in that, but I didn't like the feeling of being completely, like turning my nervous system off completely.

00:20:36.000 That was like weird to me.

00:20:38.000 I like being like a little stressed or having something going a little bit all the time.

00:20:41.000 It kind of just makes me feel like alive or something.

00:20:44.000 I don't know, but I didn't really like that feeling.

00:20:47.000 I was kind of ready to come.

00:20:48.000 I like didn't like that.

00:20:49.000 I liked it too.

00:20:50.000 It'd be like if I started playing golf and I was like, oh shit, this is fun.

00:20:54.000 And then I got to like do that more and more.

00:20:56.000 I don't really want to get addicted to relaxing either.

00:20:58.000 Well, the golf thing is a six-hour plus thing.

00:21:01.000 That's true, too.

00:21:02.000 When you're a guy like Jamie, you know, you're whacking.

00:21:05.000 Like, Jamie's got a simulator out there, so he's whacking balls every day.

00:21:09.000 It gets you.

00:21:09.000 It gets in your blood.

00:21:11.000 But the thing about relaxing, one thing that I do like about vacations is that at the end, I'm ready to go to work.

00:21:17.000 Like when I'm done, when it's like day, if I'm on an eight-day vacation, it's day seven.

00:21:23.000 I'm like, I can't fucking wait to get back to work.

00:21:25.000 I can't wait to get shit going.

00:21:26.000 I don't get that.

00:21:28.000 When I was out there, I was like, I could stay here forever.

00:21:32.000 I was like, fuck home.

00:21:33.000 I was like, can we afford this?

00:21:34.000 I was like, let's just stay here.

00:21:36.000 Isn't that a weird thing about momentum, right?

00:21:39.000 Like when you're training really hard all the time, you have this like constant momentum in your head of improvement.

00:21:46.000 You're like, you're on the path.

00:21:48.000 You're in the process, you know, and you're feeling that.

00:21:51.000 And when that gets disrupted, when guys get injured and they have to come back or they get sick and they have to come back, there's like, you got to like rebuild that momentum.

00:22:01.000 Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

00:22:05.000 And get it going again.

00:22:06.000 So it's like a part of your mind.

00:22:08.000 You wake up, like, time to go.

00:22:10.000 I'm pretty familiar with like the process of like having to kick back into camp, you know?

00:22:15.000 And I do realize that it takes me about two weeks to get like, all right, this is my normal life again, you know, which is why I really like training camp and I really like fighting more than real life is what I say, just because it's like organized.

00:22:28.000 I know what I'm doing.

00:22:29.000 I don't got to think about stuff.

00:22:31.000 I'm not traveling places.

00:22:33.000 People like traveling.

00:22:34.000 I hate traveling.

00:22:35.000 It makes me feel like my life is moving on fast forward, which I don't really like.

00:22:40.000 I feel most alive when I'm in a routine and I have time to myself and I can sit and kind of reflect and all of that shit.

00:22:45.000 But, um, but yeah, I, Like, what is a normal day when you're not in camp for you?

00:22:57.000 It's all the exact same.

00:22:58.000 I'm just less competitive when I'm outside of camp.

00:23:01.000 And I won't, if I'm like beat to shit, dead tired, I'll miss a practice.

00:23:06.000 But that's really the only time that I'll miss a practice.

00:23:08.000 In camp, I won't miss.

00:23:10.000 Unless I have like a two-week rule where if I'm like dragging really bad, I'll make myself go for another week and a half, two weeks until I'm like, okay, I do actually need a rest, you know?

00:23:24.000 And then so I'll do that in camp.

00:23:28.000 But yeah, but outside of camp is pretty much the exact same.

00:23:32.000 I've been traveling a lot, which I really don't like doing.

00:23:35.000 Just because, again, like I don't really feel like I'm alive.

00:23:39.000 I feel like I'm like fast forwarding through a bunch of stuff.

00:23:42.000 But it's been like useful stuff, like seeing family and then like me and my wife going on our honeymoon or whatever.

00:23:47.000 So it's like normal life shit that I guess I got to check in and do every once in a while.

00:23:51.000 But if it were up to me, it would just be like training camp life all of the time.

00:23:56.000 Just because it's easier.

00:23:57.000 It's way easier.

00:23:58.000 It's fun.

00:23:59.000 It's easy.

00:24:00.000 I go to the gym.

00:24:00.000 I do my hard workouts.

00:24:01.000 I'm competitive as fuck.

00:24:02.000 I get to get that out of me.

00:24:04.000 And then I just hang with my friends for an hour afterwards.

00:24:07.000 When you say you're less competitive when you're just normal training, like, is that conscious?

00:24:12.000 Like, do you decide to be less competitive?

00:24:14.000 And why do you do that?

00:24:15.000 I do that because I think that if I'm too competitive, I won't work on stuff.

00:24:21.000 Like, a lot of camp for me is getting better at stuff.

00:24:25.000 And then the last four weeks is figuring out how to win.

00:24:29.000 It's not like, I think that practicing winning is just as important as being able to practice a certain skill.

00:24:34.000 So a lot of my camps will be developing those skills, but then like the last four or five weeks, it's just, I need to focus on winning each round, regardless of who it's against or whatever.

00:24:46.000 I'm not like practicing a certain technique or doing anything like that.

00:24:49.000 It's just win, win, win.

00:24:51.000 Just doing whatever it takes to win that round.

00:24:53.000 Exactly.

00:24:54.000 Because that's an important skill to build.

00:24:56.000 And when you're less competitive, when you're just training and you're not in camp, you'll try things, you'll be a little more playful, try to like sort stuff, try new skills.

00:25:05.000 And I'm definitely not sparring hard as fuck like I do in camp too.

00:25:08.000 Like I won't do that outside of camp unless I got a guy that's been giving me a bunch of rounds in my camps and he has a fight coming up and then I'll like gear up to give him a good one, you know.

00:25:18.000 But no, outside camp, like just less competitive.

00:25:22.000 I don't show up as early and get my mind right before.

00:25:25.000 When I'm in camp, every single sparring session that I do, I try to put myself in the locker room while I'm warming up.

00:25:31.000 I think that that's like, I've had a lot of success doing that.

00:25:36.000 Just making my body make good decisions when I'm in a super elevated, high-intensity state is something you've got to practice too.

00:25:43.000 I definitely won't do that outside of camp because that's a lot of energy.

00:25:46.000 So you visualize the walkout, you visualize like stepping into the octagon, all that?

00:25:51.000 Essentially.

00:25:52.000 It's not as...

00:26:07.000 Or I'll be like, okay, this day, for whatever reason, I'm really distracted.

00:26:11.000 I'll do a little bit more visualization or mindful stuff, or whatever, because every day is different and sparring.

00:26:16.000 As you know, where some days you're good to go right off of the bat, and then other days you're dragging.

00:26:20.000 It's those days that you're dragging that I make sure that I'm like, those ones I'll be like, okay, fucking visualize because your body doesn't want to do this right now.

00:26:28.000 And I'll put myself in that state twice a week, which is has helped a lot, a lot, a lot.

00:26:33.000 I know for a while you were organizing your whole camp, right?

00:26:37.000 Yeah.

00:26:38.000 Are you still doing that?

00:26:39.000 No, I don't do that anymore.

00:26:40.000 That has actually been like a super significant piece in, one, my life getting a lot better.

00:26:45.000 And then, two, I think that like it, I think it's going to transfer over really well into my next few fights.

00:26:52.000 For a really long time, for a lot of reasons, I was like really micromanage-y over my stuff.

00:27:00.000 I don't like when people do things for me.

00:27:02.000 Like, I kind of like live in a way where everything is my responsibility.

00:27:05.000 And if I fuck up, it was like on me regardless of what happens, which is like a fine way to be, but also it's not like crazy realistic either.

00:27:13.000 But that's just kind of the way that I am, just the way that I grew up.

00:27:16.000 Like, it was kind of like take care of me type of thing, you know, and if I'm messing stuff up, it's on me.

00:27:22.000 So, I was like that for a really long time.

00:27:25.000 It was actually after the Umar fight where I realized how in the way I got of myself in that fight.

00:27:33.000 How so?

00:27:35.000 Overdoing it from insecurity a little bit.

00:27:41.000 That was my first camp with Trevor too.

00:27:43.000 And Trevor's a phenomenal coach.

00:27:45.000 I've known him for a lot of years.

00:27:46.000 He has a lot of champions.

00:27:48.000 There's no like, there's no reason to doubt any of what he has going on or my other coach, Carrington Banks, or anyone, really.

00:27:56.000 But because I kind of have this mindset on life, or did used to have this mindset on life, where it was, hey, man, like manage everything, like make sure everyone's doing their work, like blah, blah, blah.

00:28:06.000 Like after that Umar fight, I really got into, I was like, all right, fuck it, guys. 0.98

00:28:13.000 Like, I messed that one up, I felt like, because I was trying to be too micromanagey over this thing.

00:28:18.000 I started getting outside of myself.

00:28:20.000 You guys take over.

00:28:21.000 And the reason that I did that wasn't necessarily because I lost.

00:28:24.000 It's because I'm coaching a couple professionals now.

00:28:27.000 And coaching a professional is different than coaching an amateur.

00:28:31.000 It feels like a lot more responsibility.

00:28:33.000 And I realized what was happening when I would try to help these couple guys that I was trying to help is that they are too close to it.

00:28:42.000 The same way that I'm sure you get too close to your art as well, like in comedy, you're too close to it sometimes where you don't really, you can't see things from a perspective that is like true and real because you're so locked into what it is that you're doing.

00:28:55.000 I really big time realized that that was a thing in my other guys.

00:28:59.000 So when I would try to help them and they'd be like, hey, man, like, I don't know, like they'd kind of get a little bit argumentative.

00:29:05.000 I'd be like, you could keep doing that, but I'm a thousand percent sure that I'm right about this, you know, but do your own thing.

00:29:11.000 And I started to realize like, oh, fuck, that's what I do all the time.

00:29:14.000 Like, I gotta, I was like, fuck, dude, I gotta stop being argumentative and just shut the fuck up and listen if I really trust these guys.

00:29:20.000 And so I started doing that big time, man.

00:29:20.000 Right.

00:29:22.000 And it made my, it changed so much stuff for me.

00:29:25.000 I forgot who you fought your last fight.

00:29:27.000 I fought Figgy last.

00:29:28.000 That's right.

00:29:28.000 Yeah.

00:29:29.000 Figgy blew his knee out.

00:29:30.000 Yeah.

00:29:30.000 So that's essentially the same position that you got in with TJ.

00:29:33.000 Right.

00:29:34.000 Yeah.

00:29:34.000 50-50.

00:29:35.000 And that's like your...

00:29:40.000 Yep.

00:29:41.000 And so you're putting him in a position where if he doesn't know what you're doing and he tries to get out of it, he's going to blow his knee.

00:29:47.000 Yep, essentially.

00:29:48.000 I like 50-50 a lot because, one, I get to learn it from the guy who essentially invented it and is the best at it in the world.

00:29:56.000 The only guys that I feel like can beat me at 50-50 are guys that train at 50-50.

00:30:01.000 And so it's kind of like what it feels like 50-50, the position, and just kind of leg locks in general, if you really know how to do them in MMA, are a spot that you can pull people into and have them be completely lost.

00:30:16.000 Because they have to think, what do I do now?

00:30:18.000 And you're already moving.

00:30:19.000 It's super niche, too.

00:30:21.000 Like understanding the position is super niche.

00:30:23.000 It's like judo almost a little bit in wrestling where it's like, okay, cool.

00:30:27.000 If this guy's going to just wrestle with me, great.

00:30:29.000 But if this guy has good throws, that changes a lot of the way that I have to do things.

00:30:33.000 I can pull people into these really niche spots where I know that I'm going to win them.

00:30:39.000 So 50-50 is one of those.

00:30:40.000 It's kind of like what Jiu-Jitsu used to be a little bit before people have started to understand Jiu-Jitsu.

00:30:45.000 But now people fully understand Jiu-Jitsu.

00:30:48.000 So you don't really get to catch people in guillotines or whatever.

00:30:52.000 But 50-50 and a lot of the leg locks and a lot of stuff that Ryan teaches me and does is so niche that you would need an absolute expert to understand it.

00:31:02.000 And I get the fortune of having that.

00:31:05.000 Yeah, that's awesome.

00:31:06.000 He's so fucking smart, too.

00:31:07.000 That dude is his analysis of jiu-jitsu and the way he's broken down different positions.

00:31:13.000 It's really exciting to watch.

00:31:15.000 Is he fighting?

00:31:16.000 I know he's had like nine surgeries.

00:31:17.000 He's had crazy.

00:31:18.000 Yeah, it's like closer to a thousand.

00:31:22.000 But yeah, I mean, he's doing good.

00:31:24.000 He says he wants to fight again.

00:31:25.000 I hope that he does.

00:31:26.000 Why is he having all these surgeries?

00:31:27.000 Like, what's going on?

00:31:28.000 I think it's just one of those things where you let one thing go and then another thing breaks and then another thing breaks and you kind of like are taping yourself back together and then one day you wake up and you're like, shit, I got to like take care of this.

00:31:42.000 How many, what are the surgeries that he had?

00:31:44.000 I'm not sure specifically.

00:31:46.000 You name it.

00:31:47.000 He's probably had it.

00:31:49.000 I've never heard of anybody having that many surgeries.

00:31:51.000 There's a couple knee ones, a couple shoulder ones.

00:31:54.000 Honestly, I quit asking after a certain point.

00:31:58.000 But yeah, I think that he's kind of coming back.

00:32:00.000 Ryan, more than anything, I'm like a super conceptual thinker.

00:32:04.000 Like, I don't really like details.

00:32:05.000 Like, I don't remember names of stuff.

00:32:07.000 19.

00:32:09.000 General anesthesia.

00:32:11.000 First of all, that is so bad for you.

00:32:13.000 I know.

00:32:14.000 That is really bad.

00:32:14.000 So bad for you to go under general 19.

00:32:17.000 Can you go back up there?

00:32:17.000 What it says there?

00:32:18.000 It says tearing his ACL the following years and many surgeries.

00:32:21.000 Jiu-Jitsu Specialist wasn't out of the woods just yet.

00:32:24.000 That is so crazy.

00:32:27.000 Okay, so he had to fix a planter plate, so that's his Foot, got fallen on again, had to have a tightrope surgery.

00:32:34.000 The one that Pat Mahomes got and a lot of other people have had.

00:32:37.000 I don't know what that one is.

00:32:38.000 Do you know what that is?

00:32:39.000 Tightrope surgery?

00:32:40.000 Nope, no idea.

00:32:41.000 ACL got infected, had to have a couple of septic arthritis.

00:32:47.000 The tightrope is actually allergic to the hardware they put in me.

00:32:50.000 Oh my God.

00:32:51.000 So he had to have that redone.

00:32:53.000 Boy.

00:32:54.000 Came to injuries.

00:32:55.000 He said completely bulletproof for 15 years until his training camp for tiporia, where he tore his hip right before the fight.

00:33:02.000 Tightrope is used to stabilize ankle.

00:33:06.000 Wow.

00:33:07.000 That is crazy.

00:33:08.000 He said more than half the surgeries of ones where, oops, we screwed up.

00:33:08.000 Yeah.

00:33:12.000 Let's do that again.

00:33:13.000 And six elbow surgeries and five knee surgeries.

00:33:16.000 Holy shit.

00:33:19.000 Holy shit.

00:33:20.000 Yeah, I don't like taking any type of medication ever.

00:33:24.000 So that would probably really bother me having to be under that much.

00:33:27.000 It would probably really fuck me up.

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00:35:02.000 General anesthesia is very bad.

00:35:04.000 I know.

00:35:04.000 It's kind of scary, dude.

00:35:05.000 It makes fucking scary buddy.

00:35:07.000 I've only had a couple surgeries.

00:35:08.000 How many surgeries have you had?

00:35:09.000 Like under the knife, like had to go under?

00:35:13.000 Three knee surgeries under the knife.

00:35:18.000 I think those are the only general anesthesia ones that I've had.

00:35:22.000 I get really, I've only had to do it for my elbow when I tore my tricep.

00:35:27.000 You tore that shit off the bone, right?

00:35:28.000 Yeah, it was pretty fucked up.

00:35:30.000 But you still won the fight.

00:35:31.000 I did still win the fight.

00:35:33.000 That was like a whole fucking thing, though.

00:35:35.000 I got bursitis in that elbow because I got a bunch of loose floating bones and shit in there.

00:35:40.000 So then it just swelled up really bad.

00:35:41.000 And every time I've gotten bursitis, I've gotten really bad staph infections in it.

00:35:46.000 Yeah, because I mean, you got to think it's just like sitting pooled fluid in your body.

00:35:50.000 And then when you're still in the gym training and it gets like in your bloodstream or whatever, it just like, it's like a swamp.

00:35:55.000 And then it just.

00:35:56.000 Wasn't that what happened to Ben Askren?

00:35:59.000 Wasn't it a staph infection that turned into a pneumonia?

00:36:02.000 Oh, really?

00:36:03.000 I don't know.

00:36:05.000 Is he doing okay?

00:36:05.000 I never.

00:36:06.000 He's not doing okay, man.

00:36:07.000 He needs a lung transplant.

00:36:09.000 Oh, fuck.

00:36:10.000 Yeah, he had, I think they call it necrotic pneumonia.

00:36:15.000 So essentially, it was rotting holes in his lung tissue.

00:36:19.000 So they had to put him on a ventilator, and apparently one of his lungs is just gone, and they have to replace it, which is that's so crazy because then you have to be on medication for your entire life because your body wants to reject the lung because it's not your lung.

00:36:34.000 So you have to take these immunosuppressant.

00:36:36.000 So now your immune system is severely suppressed because you have to take immunosuppressant drugs in order to have this.

00:36:42.000 Like I have a friend who had a heart transplant and he's all fucked up because of it.

00:36:46.000 You know, it's just like you're always worried about getting sick because your immune system is very compromised.

00:36:51.000 Damn, that's going to change his life.

00:36:52.000 Oh, my God.

00:36:53.000 I mean, he's still in a medically induced coma, I believe.

00:36:56.000 I think he's out of the coma now.

00:36:59.000 Like, he looks at people and he can kind of talk a little bit.

00:37:03.000 But, I mean, this is all going on for many, many weeks now.

00:37:08.000 And I think what happened was he was feeling like shit and he didn't know how bad it was.

00:37:11.000 And he went to a Bitcoin conference.

00:37:13.000 You know, he traveled, and then it got real bad.

00:37:17.000 And then he realized, oh, this is serious.

00:37:19.000 So there's a staph kind of inside of his lungs.

00:37:21.000 Can you see me find that?

00:37:22.000 If it started with a staph infection.

00:37:25.000 That sounds like it would really hurt.

00:37:27.000 Staph infections by themselves hurt really bad.

00:37:29.000 I couldn't imagine having it in your lungs where you're breathing into.

00:37:32.000 I don't think enough people pay attention to staph.

00:37:35.000 I mean, how many guys like fight and they're on antibiotics?

00:37:38.000 It happens all the time.

00:37:39.000 Murab, like when Murab fought Umar, apparently he had staph on his shin and he was on antibiotics when he fought.

00:37:46.000 So did the type of antibiotic that I was on, I forget the name of it, unfortunately, but the reason I tore my tricep was because that antibiotic made my ligaments super shitty, pretty much.

00:37:58.000 Because dude, like I should never tear my tricep.

00:38:00.000 I'm pretty sure it happened when he was Kimura in me.

00:38:03.000 Dude, that shouldn't happen.

00:38:04.000 You know, like maybe something else, but definitely not tear my tricep.

00:38:08.000 Right.

00:38:09.000 So that's when it happened.

00:38:10.000 And then I was like, yo, what the fuck is that about?

00:38:13.000 Like, that shouldn't happen.

00:38:15.000 And then when I read into it a little bit, they told me that that specific antibiotic, it doesn't mess with your respiratory stuff, like your conditioning as much, but it makes your ligaments just really not good.

00:38:27.000 Oh, that's terrible.

00:38:28.000 I know.

00:38:29.000 And you have to fight.

00:38:30.000 Yeah.

00:38:30.000 Which is crazy.

00:38:31.000 I know.

00:38:31.000 Last camp, I didn't get one, dude.

00:38:32.000 I was so happy.

00:38:33.000 I didn't get sick.

00:38:34.000 How many times have you had staff?

00:38:36.000 Not too many times, but man.

00:38:39.000 So this time with my elbow against font, I got it really bad.

00:38:43.000 I was on one round of antibiotics for seven days or something, and then it came back immediately.

00:38:48.000 So then I was on it for two more weeks, and then I got off it the week before the fight.

00:38:51.000 So I was essentially on it for like a month, which sucks.

00:38:57.000 And then against Umar, I got it really bad in my knee.

00:39:01.000 Like super bad.

00:39:04.000 I'm not a crazy anxious person, dude, but I finally got to like experience what it was like to have a panic attack because I was in Virginia training, got it.

00:39:13.000 I was like, something's up with my knee.

00:39:15.000 It hurt really bad.

00:39:17.000 Couldn't put weight on my leg.

00:39:19.000 This was probably like a month before the fight, maybe, maybe a little bit before that five weeks or so.

00:39:24.000 I got a really bad knee infection.

00:39:27.000 I started taking the antibiotics, but they told me like, hey, man, if this doesn't get better, like if you start taking these antibiotics and tomorrow it's not better, we need you to cut it.

00:39:35.000 Come in, we're going to cut your knee open and clean it because that's how they take care of it. 1.00

00:39:39.000 And I was like, sure.

00:39:42.000 I was like, I'm not coming back here, you know, like I'm going to take these antibiotics.

00:39:46.000 Because otherwise you can't fight.

00:39:47.000 And then I can't fight.

00:39:48.000 So, yeah, so that was a shitty situation, but just pretty much really bad, maybe three times.

00:39:57.000 Three times.

00:39:58.000 Yeah, three times.

00:39:59.000 Maybe like pretty bad.

00:40:00.000 Yeah, it's such a scary thing because it fucking kills people.

00:40:03.000 Yeah, it does.

00:40:04.000 Staff gets systemic, gets in your bloodstream, and you can die.

00:40:08.000 Dude, that's why I think I freaked out really bad with my knee is because I remember laying in bed and being like, I called my wife and just set the phone next.

00:40:17.000 I was like, hey, like, until you get home, like, can you just be on the phone?

00:40:21.000 Because I'm kind of afraid I'm about to die a little bit.

00:40:24.000 Yeah, it was really, it got like really scary there.

00:40:27.000 Was it swollen?

00:40:28.000 So it was an external?

00:40:30.000 It was super swollen.

00:40:31.000 Yeah, it was super swollen.

00:40:32.000 No, no, no.

00:40:32.000 It wasn't an abrasion one.

00:40:34.000 It was like inside of my.

00:40:35.000 So it was internal.

00:40:36.000 Wow.

00:40:36.000 Yeah.

00:40:37.000 Yeah, so that really wasn't good.

00:40:38.000 But I remember every time I've taken antibiotics with the staph infection, my experience has been that it gets really painful and a lot worse for like the first few hours when the antibiotics kick in and start killing it.

00:40:50.000 And then it starts to get better.

00:40:52.000 But the first couple of hours is like kind of scary.

00:40:54.000 So when I first started taking the antibiotics, that's when I called my wife because I don't take a lot of medicine.

00:41:00.000 Like if I take an ibuprofen, I will feel that shit working through my entire body.

00:41:05.000 And yeah, so I like took the antibiotics and I started to feel it through my body.

00:41:09.000 And I was like, this is scary.

00:41:12.000 And I was like, hey, like, till you get home, let's be on the phone because I'm afraid I'm about to pass out and die here.

00:41:19.000 That's fucking terrible.

00:41:20.000 But I didn't want to go to the dock and then get cut open and not be able to fight because that fight had already got canceled and shit.

00:41:25.000 So I was like, yeah, I know.

00:41:26.000 We're always put in tough spots.

00:41:28.000 I know, but it's like, sometimes you just got to do that.

00:41:31.000 Sometimes you have to cancel a fight.

00:41:33.000 And I know nobody likes to hear that, but it's so different than boxing.

00:41:38.000 Boxing, you get so few fight cancellations.

00:41:41.000 You know, it's much less.

00:41:43.000 But when you're wrestling, when you're grappling, you're constantly getting kicked and punched and you're doing so many different things.

00:41:51.000 The odds of you getting injured are so much higher.

00:41:53.000 I know.

00:41:54.000 Gordon got staff for a fucking year.

00:41:58.000 That's why his stomach is all fucked up.

00:42:00.000 Gordon Ryan was on antibiotics for a year.

00:42:04.000 And his internal gut bacteria, his flora is just torched.

00:42:08.000 Damn.

00:42:08.000 He's just a mess.

00:42:09.000 Damn.

00:42:10.000 He can't keep food down.

00:42:11.000 He has this constant fight-or-flight reaction in his body where he wants to vomit all the time.

00:42:16.000 And he's going through training camps and beating everybody in grappling matches against the best in the world.

00:42:21.000 That's how good he is.

00:42:23.000 Like with staff for 12 years or excuse me, 12 months.

00:42:27.000 And then on top of that, this lingering stomach thing because of that that no doctor seems to figure out.

00:42:33.000 They can't fix it.

00:42:34.000 He's gone to like every fight.

00:42:35.000 They've given him a bunch of different shit.

00:42:37.000 He's tried peptides and this and that.

00:42:40.000 You get a little bit of improvement.

00:42:41.000 He starts training hard again, comes back.

00:42:44.000 Yeah.

00:42:45.000 There's probably some like old lady in the Amazon jungle that knows how to cure that shit. 1.00

00:42:49.000 He's like, just eat this.

00:42:49.000 I told them.

00:42:50.000 I told him try like a seven-day fast.

00:42:50.000 Stupid.

00:42:53.000 Try something nutty like that.

00:42:55.000 Or like an only avocados diet.

00:42:58.000 I mean, there's got to be something.

00:42:59.000 There's got to be something.

00:43:00.000 There's got to be something.

00:43:01.000 But I would think like a fast where you just feel like you just completely let your gut reset.

00:43:06.000 Yeah.

00:43:07.000 I mean, I don't know.

00:43:08.000 Do you do those?

00:43:09.000 Yeah.

00:43:09.000 No.

00:43:10.000 I've done a day.

00:43:11.000 Yeah.

00:43:11.000 I've never done like the long one.

00:43:12.000 Dana just did a long one. 0.89

00:43:14.000 He did like three days.

00:43:14.000 He said it was awesome.

00:43:15.000 So by the end of it, you feel fucking amazing.

00:43:18.000 Yeah, I did the three-day one.

00:43:19.000 I was like, fuck, dude, I was just hungry for three days.

00:43:21.000 What the fuck?

00:43:23.000 I don't feel like a superhero at all.

00:43:25.000 Yeah, I don't know.

00:43:26.000 I don't know.

00:43:27.000 I mean, maybe it's variable.

00:43:29.000 The one thing that I'm really big on is I like won't fucking like I'm really in touch with what's going on usually with like my body and stuff.

00:43:39.000 I'm really big on, I don't know why it doesn't get talked about more, but like digestive, like things that mess up my digestive system, I don't mess around with at all.

00:43:46.000 All kinds of stuff.

00:43:47.000 Like bread, pizzas, too much cheese, stuff like that.

00:43:51.000 Bread's fucking terrible for you.

00:43:52.000 It is, dude.

00:43:53.000 Every time I eat pizza, I like can't shit the next day.

00:43:56.000 It's not even pizza.

00:43:57.000 It's American pizza.

00:43:59.000 It's our wheat.

00:44:00.000 Our wheat is poisoned.

00:44:01.000 It's sprayed with folic acid, and it's fucking, all the nutrients are pulled out of it.

00:44:01.000 It really is.

00:44:06.000 There's glyphosate in the wheat.

00:44:08.000 It's like, that's what's really going on.

00:44:10.000 It's also a re-engineered wheat, so it's got more glutens, more complex glutens.

00:44:15.000 So it's got a higher yield per acre.

00:44:17.000 So your body's like, whoa, what is this?

00:44:20.000 Causes all this inflammation.

00:44:21.000 When I go to Italy, I eat pizza over there.

00:44:23.000 I eat a whole pizza.

00:44:24.000 I feel great.

00:44:25.000 Oh, really?

00:44:26.000 You could shit nice the next day.

00:44:27.000 I never have a problem shitting.

00:44:27.000 I feel great.

00:44:29.000 But I do feel bloated.

00:44:31.000 Like I get up, my gut swells up.

00:44:34.000 Like, I'll eat a giant bowl of spaghetti or something like that.

00:44:36.000 And then I look like I'm pregnant.

00:44:38.000 It's horrible.

00:44:39.000 Yeah, I don't know.

00:44:40.000 I feel so tired.

00:44:42.000 Just like I got shot with a tranquilizer dart.

00:44:44.000 But I'm so dumb.

00:44:45.000 I keep going back.

00:44:46.000 It's hard not to, dude.

00:44:46.000 I know, dude.

00:44:47.000 You're just like, surely this will work this time.

00:44:49.000 It's just, it's so delicious.

00:44:50.000 Like, I see a plate of lasagna.

00:44:52.000 I'm like, fuck it.

00:44:52.000 We're going in.

00:44:54.000 But I know what I'm getting into when I do it.

00:44:56.000 I know.

00:44:57.000 I actually don't get like that anymore.

00:44:59.000 I have like a weird relationship with food now where that shit is just fuel to me, kind of.

00:45:03.000 When I'm like low in weight, I get cravings.

00:45:06.000 But right now, when I'm like just kind of good, not hungry, not like overdoing it and stuff, I don't really feel like I get too many cravings.

00:45:12.000 Do you have a nutritionist or anything like that?

00:45:14.000 I use a nutritionist inside my camps, yeah.

00:45:16.000 She's great.

00:45:18.000 What's an average meal for you?

00:45:21.000 I wish that I like actually gave a shit so that I could follow and actually be more helpful.

00:45:25.000 There's two things I really don't care about, strength and conditioning and nutrition.

00:45:29.000 I'm like, just like tell me, don't explain it to me.

00:45:31.000 Just make me do it.

00:45:32.000 Yeah, just tell me what to do and I'll just do that thing.

00:45:35.000 But it's actually a lot more food than what you'd think and I can lose a lot of weight when she has me do it.

00:45:41.000 She do it.

00:45:42.000 I'm Trying to think what it is.

00:45:43.000 It's more so a lot of carbs more towards the end of the day.

00:45:48.000 Like before, because I really don't sleep good.

00:45:50.000 Usually, when I'm really training a lot, my nervous system is like not ever down.

00:45:56.000 So at night, I usually won't sleep well.

00:45:58.000 So I'll eat like a big bowl of oatmeal at night.

00:46:00.000 Everyone is kind of different.

00:46:02.000 What I will say, though, that I would big time recommend to fighters and stuff is after hard workouts, drinking dextrose or Gatorade with like some electrolytes.

00:46:12.000 If you have multiple workouts in a day, that's a giant game changer.

00:46:17.000 Like, because there's a little bit of a window from my understanding, I don't really know how this shit works, but there's a little bit of a window where it's like 45, like 20 to 45 minutes after you're done working where your body will just take sugar and put it back into your muscles.

00:46:32.000 And so I'll drink a shitload of sugar after like really hard workouts, like really hard sparring sessions, like 50, 60 grams of sugar, which is insane.

00:46:41.000 But not when you're training that hard.

00:46:42.000 Yeah, not when you're training that hard.

00:46:43.000 Lloyd Mayweather drinks soda.

00:46:45.000 Yeah.

00:46:46.000 He'll drink a Coca-Cola after training.

00:46:48.000 And it's probably good for you.

00:46:52.000 When you're training that hard, like it's not like, you know, people are, oh, soda's bad for you.

00:46:56.000 Well, sure, if you're just drinking soda.

00:46:59.000 But if you're fucking running marathons or something crazy like that, or you're doing something like really exhausting, it's really good for you right after a workout.

00:47:07.000 Yeah, definitely.

00:47:07.000 Especially if you have multiple workouts.

00:47:09.000 Like that's, that's one big thing that she does that I added in.

00:47:15.000 In the morning, it's like a pretty balanced thing, though.

00:47:18.000 It's like not like no fat, no carb.

00:47:20.000 It's like nothing like that.

00:47:21.000 It's like a pretty balanced, it's a lot of protein.

00:47:25.000 What's the sources of protein? 0.92

00:47:26.000 I drink a lot of protein shakes.

00:47:29.000 I get it.

00:47:30.000 I'm like a part owner in this company called Vegan.

00:47:33.000 So I just get like a shitload of protein for free, pretty much.

00:47:36.000 Is it pea protein?

00:47:37.000 So it's vegan protein?

00:47:38.000 It's vegan protein.

00:47:39.000 The other ones kind of mess up my stomach a little bit.

00:47:41.000 Oh, really?

00:47:42.000 Just the ones that are made out of like milk and whey makes you fart like crazy.

00:47:50.000 Those ones, yeah.

00:47:50.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:47:52.000 If I take something, I almost immediately know if it's going to mess with my digestive system, and I can't be having that while I'm rolling around with dudes and chilling.

00:48:00.000 I know, there's certain protein bars, like Peter Attia has this great protein bar called David.

00:48:05.000 They're fucking so delicious.

00:48:07.000 But whenever I eat one, I have to like go outside because my farts are so bad.

00:48:12.000 I don't even want to be in the house.

00:48:13.000 What is it?

00:48:13.000 The fiber or the protein?

00:48:14.000 I don't know what's in them.

00:48:15.000 They're delicious.

00:48:16.000 It's low calorie, high protein.

00:48:18.000 I think it's like a small bar.

00:48:19.000 It's like 30 grams of protein.

00:48:21.000 But whatever it is, your body's just like, fuck this.

00:48:25.000 What is this?

00:48:26.000 It's just, I generally think that anything that does that to you can't be ideal.

00:48:30.000 It just can't be good for you.

00:48:31.000 So I'd rather just eat a piece of steak or something like that.

00:48:34.000 It's not better for you.

00:48:36.000 Yeah.

00:48:38.000 But I also have different cravings in camp too.

00:48:40.000 Like outside of camp, I'll do a little bit, like more fruits and stuff like that instead of a bunch of rice or potatoes or whatever.

00:48:47.000 You don't eat fruits when you're in camp?

00:48:48.000 I still do, but it's not as much as you'd think.

00:48:50.000 Like it's like maybe a cup or two a day.

00:48:55.000 I'll do that.

00:48:56.000 It's not a ton of vegetables, but it's like specific vegetables.

00:48:59.000 Because I've been getting a lot of staff.

00:49:01.000 It's like ones that counteract like staff stuff.

00:49:04.000 Do you like take fermented stuff like kimchi and things along those lines?

00:49:08.000 That's a piece of it.

00:49:11.000 Fermented stuff is good.

00:49:12.000 It's like a decent amount of garlic stuff, like turmeric stuff.

00:49:16.000 Garlic, apparently, there was a study that was done with garlic with like external staph infections, and it's as effective or more effective than antibiotics.

00:49:24.000 Yeah, I believe that.

00:49:26.000 Yeah, garlic fucking kills everything.

00:49:27.000 There's a reason why a lot of people use it in their food.

00:49:31.000 A lot of cultures use it in their food.

00:49:32.000 It's to prevent food poisoning.

00:49:33.000 So dude, when I got that, the knee infection staph, I was like, all right, I'm just going to try to kill this with a bunch of garlic.

00:49:42.000 And dude, I was taking like 10 or 15, dude, I was taking like 10 or 15 garlic pills, like the high potency ones.

00:49:49.000 Dude, after about two days of that, I shit out every single piece of shit inside my body that ever existed.

00:49:56.000 The ones that were up in the attic, just chilling, bro, all of it came out.

00:50:01.000 I was like, oh, a little hack there, you know?

00:50:04.000 Maybe you don't have to fast for three days.

00:50:06.000 You could just fucking eat a bunch of garlic and shit everything out.

00:50:09.000 Why did you go with the pills and not the cloves?

00:50:12.000 Just because it's more convenient?

00:50:14.000 Like just eating garlic cloves?

00:50:15.000 Yeah, eating garlic cloves.

00:50:16.000 I don't know.

00:50:17.000 I don't know if I would do that.

00:50:18.000 I eat garlic cloves sometimes.

00:50:19.000 Yeah.

00:50:20.000 No, I just eat them raw.

00:50:20.000 You cook them?

00:50:22.000 Because it feels like it's doing something.

00:50:22.000 Oh, okay.

00:50:25.000 Like, if I'm not feeling good, I'll eat garlic.

00:50:25.000 All right.

00:50:28.000 I'll eat like raw cloves, like three or four cloves.

00:50:30.000 And your body's like, whoa.

00:50:32.000 Oh, really?

00:50:33.000 Yeah.

00:50:34.000 It don't give you indigestion and stuff?

00:50:36.000 A little bit, maybe.

00:50:37.000 But really, what it does is like it feels like you just took a drug.

00:50:41.000 It feels like you took a medicine.

00:50:43.000 Yeah.

00:50:43.000 Really?

00:50:43.000 All right.

00:50:44.000 Four?

00:50:44.000 How many you eat?

00:50:45.000 Three, four.

00:50:45.000 Four or four?

00:50:46.000 Yeah.

00:50:46.000 I'll try that.

00:50:47.000 Some fat cloves.

00:50:47.000 Just chew them down.

00:50:48.000 They taste nasty.

00:50:49.000 Like while you're eating it, I feel like I've tried that.

00:50:49.000 Okay.

00:50:51.000 Yeah, I've tried that.

00:50:54.000 But I mean, I think there's something to like ancient medicine.

00:50:57.000 Like people have been taking garlic.

00:50:59.000 Obviously, it has something to do with taste.

00:51:01.000 Thousand-year-old onion and garlic eye remedy kills MRSA.

00:51:05.000 Thousand years old.

00:51:06.000 Whoa, look at that cool.

00:51:08.000 That recipe right there?

00:51:10.000 Look at that cool language.

00:51:11.000 What is that language?

00:51:13.000 It's an Anglo-Saxon language.

00:51:15.000 Whoa.

00:51:15.000 Look how wild that language is.

00:51:17.000 Doop used to draw some.

00:51:18.000 Old English, I guess.

00:51:19.000 Wow.

00:51:20.000 You can probably read it out.

00:51:21.000 So astonished to find an almost completely wiped out methicillin-resistant staphylococcus.

00:51:28.000 How do you say that?

00:51:30.000 Staphylococcus?

00:51:32.000 Yeah, I always try to say that.

00:51:33.000 Staphyloccolus.

00:51:34.000 Staphylococcus.

00:51:35.000 Staphylococcus.

00:51:37.000 Aureus, otherwise known as MRSA.

00:51:39.000 Their findings were presented at a national microbiology conference.

00:51:42.000 The remedy was found in Ball's Leech Book, an old English manuscript containing instructions on various treatments held in the British Library.

00:51:50.000 Isn't that wild, man?

00:51:51.000 Like, there's stuff that works that people have been doing for thousands of years, but people dismiss it as being voodoo.

00:51:58.000 You know what else is a cool one, too, is like a tip?

00:52:00.000 Do you cramp up a lot ever?

00:52:02.000 No, I take a lot of electrolytes.

00:52:04.000 I used to.

00:52:05.000 I used to, but then I realized I drink Element every day, basically.

00:52:10.000 My PT a long time ago recommended that, because I used to cramp up a lot.

00:52:16.000 spicy food, I guess, makes you not cramp up as much.

00:52:18.000 Oh, really?

00:52:19.000 So, like, about 10 years ago when he told me that, now I love spicy food and I don't really need to force myself to eat it.

00:52:19.000 Yeah.

00:52:24.000 But when he first told me that, I started eating a bunch of spicy stuff and I stopped cramping up as much.

00:52:30.000 Maybe that's why I don't cramp up.

00:52:31.000 I eat a lot of spicy food.

00:52:33.000 Yeah, that might be why, because they have these little things that the UFC gives us, too, called hot shots, where if you're cutting weight, you're supposed to drink it, and it's pretty much just cinnamon and cayenne and like some other stuff.

00:52:45.000 Yeah, and it's supposed to stop you from cramping.

00:52:46.000 It works, though.

00:52:47.000 No kidding.

00:52:48.000 I wonder what the mechanism is of that.

00:52:50.000 That's interesting.

00:52:51.000 Yeah, I love hot sauce.

00:52:51.000 Yeah.

00:52:53.000 So I have my own kind of hot sauce.

00:52:56.000 Like Senior Lachuga made like a little line of three hot sauces for me.

00:53:00.000 How do spicy foods prevent cramping?

00:53:02.000 Science is simple.

00:53:02.000 Okay.

00:53:04.000 If your neurons are too busy firing off to your mouth, they won't have time to bother cramping up your muscles.

00:53:10.000 What?

00:53:10.000 That sounds pretty.

00:53:11.000 Oh, that's crazy.

00:53:12.000 That sounds pretend.

00:53:13.000 It does.

00:53:17.000 Trick your body.

00:53:18.000 Distract them.

00:53:19.000 Look over here.

00:53:20.000 Found that spicy drinks help prevent these short bursts of muscle cramps.

00:53:23.000 He teamed up with a biotech company to produce a product that can be sold online and found on the shelves at select stores.

00:53:29.000 Hot shot, there it is.

00:53:31.000 A drinkable shot mixed with ginger and cinnamon.

00:53:33.000 Ironman champ Craig Alexander is an avid user of the supplement along with several other Rio Olympic runners.

00:53:39.000 Interesting.

00:53:41.000 It works, dude, because the second I started doing that, I stopped cramping up.

00:53:44.000 I still get one every once in a while.

00:53:45.000 It's not like a hundred percent thing, but it works.

00:53:48.000 Yeah.

00:53:49.000 Muscle cramps must be brutal when you're cutting weight, right?

00:53:52.000 Because you're draining your body of basically everything.

00:53:54.000 Yeah, I don't...

00:54:00.000 I don't really cramp super bad.

00:54:01.000 How much do you cut?

00:54:03.000 A week before, I try to be like 16 to 18 pounds heavy over.

00:54:08.000 And then I'll lose that last bit that week.

00:54:10.000 But I'll walk around if I'm really fat, like on vacation and shit, not giving a, just not caring, I'll be about 162.

00:54:18.000 When I'm training good and like all of that, I'll be about 157, 158, and then I just got to lose until I'm about 52, 51 the week before, and then that week I lose.

00:54:29.000 The week is a calorie restriction in the beginning and then water restriction?

00:54:33.000 How do you do it?

00:54:34.000 It's a decent, so 10 days away I start loading up on water.

00:54:38.000 Like the rule of thumb is however many pounds you got to lose, that's how many pounds of water you'll drink that day.

00:54:43.000 So if I have 16 to lose, I'll have to drink two gallons of water.

00:54:46.000 Also, don't take any of my advice if you're listening to because I don't really fucking know. 0.79

00:54:50.000 I know that like water shit can get really scary.

00:54:52.000 So I don't, you know, like people chugging distilled water have like killed themselves and stuff.

00:54:56.000 Distilled water, is that what you drink?

00:54:57.000 No, no, no, no, no.

00:54:58.000 That's not good for you.

00:54:59.000 Yeah.

00:55:01.000 But yeah, 10 days away, I start loading up on the water.

00:55:04.000 And then on the Tuesday, so we weigh in Friday, so however many days before that is, on Tuesday, you'll do the cut the sodium.

00:55:12.000 And then that pretty much, you lose a lot when you're chugging that much water and cut sodium.

00:55:16.000 So I would say on Tuesday, a lot of it is water.

00:55:20.000 And then it's kind of up to me how crazy I want to go with food.

00:55:22.000 I'm obviously not eating like super huge meals that week, but I don't let myself get too hungry.

00:55:28.000 I'm pretty good about a lot of stuff where now I can kind of be like, if I go to bed like at like an eight amount of hunger instead of like a seven, I'll know almost exactly how much I'll lose the next day, which is like kind of cool.

00:55:43.000 How much of a performance hit do you think you have?

00:55:46.000 I mean, obviously you're in phenomenal condition, but how much of a hit do you think you have in dehydrating yourself 24 hours before a fight?

00:55:54.000 Yeah, I think it depends on how much water you lose, too.

00:55:59.000 I think, just off the top of my head, maybe 15 or 20?

00:56:05.000 15 or 20%.

00:56:06.000 Maybe.

00:56:07.000 So what would you think about if the UFC instituted more weight classes and they eliminated weight cuts?

00:56:14.000 Like, what if they said, like, because it is, for some guys, it is the most dangerous part of the fight because some guys go hard.

00:56:21.000 Some guys are losing 26, 30 pounds within a couple of days, and they just look like hell.

00:56:26.000 Yeah.

00:56:27.000 I think that the way to solve that, because one's tried doing that with like the rehydration test, then everyone that I talked to that's like been involved with that has been like, dude, I could cheat that easy.

00:56:37.000 Oh, really?

00:56:38.000 Yeah.

00:56:40.000 How do they cheat it?

00:56:42.000 I mean, there's just like, if you know that you're going to get like hydrate tested at a certain time, I'm sure that they probably just drink most of their water during that time or something like that.

00:56:51.000 But then your weight would be higher, right?

00:56:54.000 Yeah, your weight would have to be higher, but I don't know that they like test you.

00:56:59.000 Yeah, I guess.

00:57:00.000 I don't really know, honestly.

00:57:01.000 But, I mean, if they're going to test you, do they test you like, hey, your weight has to be this and then your hydration?

00:57:09.000 I think that they just go in and they're like, hey, how yellow is your piss?

00:57:14.000 I'm pretty sure that that's what it might be.

00:57:15.000 If it's like more scientific, then cool.

00:57:17.000 But it might just be like, hey.

00:57:20.000 It's got to be more scientific because sometimes my piss is pretty yellow.

00:57:25.000 It just meant I drank a lot of vitamins.

00:57:28.000 You know, I think there's like an actual test where they test the levels.

00:57:35.000 I think that if you added in more weight classes, that would handle a lot of it.

00:57:39.000 I'd probably just do 140.

00:57:40.000 Would you?

00:57:41.000 Would that be ideal for you?

00:57:42.000 That'd be pretty ideal.

00:57:44.000 I feel like the UFC should have more weight classes, and I've said this for a long time.

00:57:48.000 I just think there's some gaps that are crazy.

00:57:51.000 Like the 85-205 gap is nuts.

00:57:55.000 20 pounds is nuts.

00:57:56.000 That's crazy.

00:57:57.000 That's three weight classes at least.

00:57:59.000 In between fights.

00:58:01.000 In between classes, rather.

00:58:02.000 That's nuts.

00:58:03.000 I just don't understand that.

00:58:04.000 Yeah.

00:58:05.000 I mean, I think that the way that old sports kind of do things, they do things for a reason.

00:58:10.000 So like boxing and wrestling, they all have like, it's every seven pounds or whatever it is.

00:58:14.000 No, but the UFC is like, oh, too many champions that way.

00:58:17.000 It's too confusing.

00:58:17.000 I'm like, what are you talking about?

00:58:19.000 What?

00:58:19.000 It's one UFC champion per weight class.

00:58:22.000 You'd have more champions, and then you could also have more champion versus champion fights.

00:58:26.000 Yeah, for sure.

00:58:27.000 Because it wouldn't be like Ilya going up 10 pounds Is not too crazy.

00:58:31.000 But Alex, when he went from 85 to 205, that was pretty crazy.

00:58:34.000 Yeah, that's a big-ass jump, man.

00:58:37.000 Obviously, he could do it because he's one of the craziest weight cutters of all time.

00:58:41.000 He was fighting 85 and weighing in at 226 the day of the day.

00:58:45.000 What?

00:58:45.000 Really?

00:58:46.000 Oh, yeah.

00:58:46.000 When he fought Adisanya, he was 226 when he got into the cage.

00:58:50.000 Is that 41 pounds or 31 pounds in my 41 pounds?

00:58:54.000 So after 36 hours, he put on that?

00:58:56.000 41 pounds.

00:58:57.000 Yeah.

00:58:58.000 Holy shit.

00:58:59.000 That is crazy.

00:59:00.000 He's also giant.

00:59:01.000 He's an enormous guy.

00:59:02.000 He has like a lot of body mass.

00:59:04.000 Yeah.

00:59:04.000 And apparently it's easier to cut weight like Yoel Romero style, like when you're that muscular because most of the muscles water, which is kind of counterintuitive.

00:59:13.000 You think like a fat guy would you could be able to lose more weight, but no, it's actually to dry out.

00:59:18.000 The big muscular guys can lose more weight.

00:59:20.000 Yeah, definitely.

00:59:20.000 Yeah.

00:59:21.000 I have a theory too, like the more ripped you are, the easier it is to sweat too.

00:59:25.000 Because if your muscle is like muscle, then fat, then skin, and you gotta like, it's gotta travel through the fat.

00:59:31.000 This is how I fucking think.

00:59:34.000 There's no evidence of any of that.

00:59:36.000 Because there are some fat zones that sweat, but I don't know.

00:59:40.000 Sometimes I'm like, I can just see who's going to be a good sweater and who's not, but that's probably me just being.

00:59:46.000 Yeah, I don't know if there's any science to that.

00:59:49.000 Makes sense in your head, though.

00:59:50.000 Kind of.

00:59:51.000 It makes sense in your head.

00:59:52.000 I kind of see what you're saying.

00:59:53.000 I kind of see what you're saying.

00:59:54.000 But you could also, I guess, make argument that fat makes you warmer, too.

00:59:58.000 And maybe that sweats it out, too.

01:00:00.000 Yeah.

01:00:00.000 But I don't think that there would be a problem with doing multiple weight classes because then you would just have like what you do in boxing where you just have like a ton of, you have like one dude with like eight belts.

01:00:09.000 Right.

01:00:10.000 That would be cool.

01:00:10.000 Like look at Pacquiao.

01:00:12.000 Yeah.

01:00:12.000 He just keeps going up in weight classes.

01:00:14.000 Yeah, I think that it'd just be better for the athletes and I think it'd be better for the sport in general.

01:00:19.000 You're still going to have like incredible fights because the level of competition, particularly at the lowest weight classes, is so high right now.

01:00:27.000 Like I think your weight class, feather weight, and lightweight are the most competitive weight classes in the sport.

01:00:34.000 And there's almost too many top contenders where guys are forced to take fights that maybe you really shouldn't take that fight because you're kind of in title contention.

01:00:44.000 And then, oh, you lose a close decision.

01:00:45.000 Fuck, now you're back to the drawing board.

01:00:47.000 Now you got to fight this guy.

01:00:48.000 Oh, you got injured in camp.

01:00:49.000 Fuck, you lose to that guy too.

01:00:51.000 Now you're set back when you could have been a champion.

01:00:54.000 You know, there's a lot of weirdness going on with possibilities and, you know, just luck, bad luck, and good luck.

01:01:02.000 Bad luck and good luck.

01:01:03.000 Timing, I think, is a big thing.

01:01:04.000 Like, I think that I'm pretty...

01:01:09.000 I was like, watch, like, if I go out and finish Figgy, which not a lot of people are able to do, the timing of everything is going to be perfect for me because there will be no one else.

01:01:19.000 And that's me also, you know, coming off of a loss from Umar just a year ago, which anytime you lose is kind of devastating.

01:01:25.000 You're like, oh, it'll never happen for me, you know?

01:01:28.000 But then it's like, oh, wait, no, if I just, if this thing gets timed out right, you know, like it could work out.

01:01:34.000 So a lot of the shit is timed up.

01:01:36.000 It was a competitive, close fight.

01:01:38.000 Yeah, I know.

01:01:38.000 I fucked up.

01:01:39.000 What did you think went wrong?

01:01:40.000 Like, obviously they fucked it up.

01:01:42.000 More than anything, okay.

01:01:43.000 It was, it was like a, it's never just one thing.

01:01:46.000 It's always like things get compiled and then they exponentially get worse.

01:01:49.000 One big thing was I knew I was fighting in the Middle East and I wasn't going to get like a nod if it was a close fight.

01:01:56.000 And Umar's a defensive guy and I'm a defensive guy.

01:01:58.000 And I knew that it would be, there was potential for rounds to be really close.

01:02:04.000 My game plan wasn't going to be to take him down.

01:02:07.000 So anytime you're going to be like, hey, like I'm committing to striking, there is a little bit of a level of rolling the dice because one striking matches in a five minute round are really hard to like hammer down and be like, I won this round against really high level guys.

01:02:23.000 That's my opinion.

01:02:25.000 I thought that I would be able to stuff most of the shots.

01:02:28.000 I was like, okay, most of this thing is going to be done striking.

01:02:31.000 I need to have like big moments in order for me to feel like I'm really winning these rounds so that there can be no argument that I'm losing.

01:02:38.000 And if we just are point scoring each other, which Umar's good at and I'm good at, I'm kind of rolling the dice a little bit and kind of leaving it into the hands of God knows who the judges are.

01:02:48.000 So a piece of it was I didn't want to lose another close split decision.

01:02:51.000 Like a lot of my losses or a couple of my losses are just close split decisions.

01:02:55.000 And I'm like, fucking man, I'm not, I'd rather just go for it than lose.

01:03:00.000 But that pulled me out of my game plan and just the way that I typically fight.

01:03:05.000 Like I'm not the guy that hunts for knockouts.

01:03:07.000 You know, I'm just not that guy.

01:03:09.000 And so I just got pulled out of my strategy.

01:03:12.000 I got really frustrated in the fight by it not working, like me not being able to have really big moments.

01:03:18.000 And now looking back, I'm just like, man, what were you thinking?

01:03:21.000 Like, just go out, fight like how you do, and you'll do awesome.

01:03:25.000 What do you think specifically you would have done different in exchanges?

01:03:29.000 I would have fought him the exact same way that I would have fought the first round.

01:03:32.000 Like that entire fight, I was being really defensive and just looking for one big shot.

01:03:38.000 In the first round, I didn't fight like that.

01:03:40.000 The first round, I was cool with point scoring.

01:03:42.000 I was like, okay, this guy's going to wrestle me.

01:03:44.000 Let's see how good he is at wrestling.

01:03:45.000 And if I can hang, once I was like, oh, okay, cool, like I can hang.

01:03:49.000 Then I just started going for big shots, which is just like not a good way to beat a really high-level guy.

01:03:54.000 It's kind of a lazy game plan, honestly.

01:03:56.000 Like if the plan isn't to completely outclass the person and win in every area and be good enough to do so, in my opinion, that's just like not an expression of the highest level of martial arts.

01:04:09.000 That's a little bit lazy, you know?

01:04:10.000 And I was a little bit lazy in maybe my approach to that, which maybe lazy isn't the right word, but I could have done a lot better at just trusting myself more, being more confident in my ability to just be like, no, like I'll beat him everywhere.

01:04:26.000 Looking for the big shots is always such a trap.

01:04:29.000 I know.

01:04:29.000 Until it's not.

01:04:30.000 Until it's not.

01:04:31.000 And you look real cool when it happens.

01:04:33.000 Oh, my goodness.

01:04:33.000 And we all like looking cool.

01:04:35.000 Yeah, you land the big ones and you've landed a lot of the big ones.

01:04:37.000 Yeah.

01:04:38.000 And you've had so many of those moments like the Frankie Edgar fight or, you know, there's been quite the Marlon Marais fight.

01:04:44.000 That was a wild one.

01:04:45.000 That was a great one.

01:04:46.000 That was probably like my happiest moment maybe ever in life.

01:04:49.000 Just because I had just come off the most embarrassing loss ever against Sterling.

01:04:53.000 And they were like, hey, you want to fight the number one guy in Abu Dhabi during COVID?

01:04:57.000 And I was like, and that was like kind of back when Marlon was still a really scary guy.

01:05:01.000 He's kind of been on a skid since then.

01:05:03.000 But back then, he was real scary.

01:05:04.000 And I was like, I don't know if you guys are setting me up for Marlon to knock me the fuck out or how this is like what the thinking behind me fighting the number one contender is.

01:05:13.000 But I was like, yeah, cool.

01:05:14.000 Like, if you guys are going to give me that shot, I'll take it for sure.

01:05:17.000 And then when I finished it, I was just like, yes.

01:05:19.000 And you finished them with a wheel kick.

01:05:21.000 Yeah, which I, during COVID, was practicing in my basement with my wife like every day.

01:05:26.000 Isn't that stupid?

01:05:28.000 I was like, I was like, man, you should have asked me for a cut.

01:05:31.000 No, because it's a thing where, you know, you don't expect it from a guy who doesn't really throw a lot.

01:05:37.000 Yeah.

01:05:38.000 You know, and so like you see his foot turn and you're like, what's going on here?

01:05:42.000 And before you know it, it's too late.

01:05:43.000 Yeah.

01:05:43.000 And that heel is headed towards your dome.

01:05:46.000 Yeah.

01:05:46.000 People that are good at those too, it's a problem.

01:05:50.000 Oh, yeah.

01:05:50.000 Like that doesn't need to land anywhere specific for it to like rattle your brain enough to knock you down.

01:05:55.000 Oh, it's a terrifying kick.

01:05:56.000 It's so much power.

01:05:58.000 Yeah.

01:05:58.000 If there was one thing I would not want to get hit with, it would be that.

01:06:02.000 During my taekwondo days, I used to feel like I was always going to be fine.

01:06:09.000 Like I'd be, I was like, I felt like, you know, I was young.

01:06:12.000 I was 19.

01:06:13.000 I felt invulnerable and I was really good.

01:06:16.000 And I fought in the Nationals in California.

01:06:19.000 And I hit this kid with a wheel kick and he never got up.

01:06:22.000 And he was snoring.

01:06:24.000 Like out face plant, out cold, taken off on a stretcher, taken to the hospital.

01:06:29.000 And I never felt the same about fighting again because I was always scared that that could happen to me then.

01:06:33.000 Because I was like doing this for nothing.

01:06:35.000 There was no money.

01:06:36.000 I was doing this for nothing.

01:06:37.000 I had no health insurance.

01:06:38.000 I was poor.

01:06:40.000 And I was like, what am I doing?

01:06:41.000 Like, this is like, I could have easily got hit by that same kick, but I was better than him.

01:06:47.000 And I landed.

01:06:48.000 But there's guys that are better than me.

01:06:49.000 And if they hit me like that, face down, snow, I mean, it was, my heel hurt for days.

01:06:55.000 I was limping the next day.

01:06:56.000 My knee hurt after the Frankie fight.

01:06:58.000 Yeah.

01:06:59.000 Oh, really?

01:06:59.000 Yeah.

01:07:00.000 That was such a good knee, though.

01:07:01.000 Yeah, it was.

01:07:02.000 Yeah, but I kind of felt a similar way where, I don't know, I guess you kind of just get used to that where you're just like.

01:07:07.000 But you're a professional.

01:07:09.000 That's your sport.

01:07:10.000 That's your living.

01:07:11.000 This is what you do.

01:07:13.000 For me, I was a young kid doing this thing that I was really good at, and it just gave me some sense of purpose.

01:07:20.000 And then I was like, what the fuck, man?

01:07:23.000 So you didn't have big aspiring dreams to be like a taekwondo champ or anything?

01:07:28.000 I had dreams to be an Olympic, to the Olympic, to go to the Olympics.

01:07:33.000 Was that like a realistic dream?

01:07:35.000 Yes.

01:07:35.000 Yeah.

01:07:36.000 Yeah.

01:07:36.000 You were that good?

01:07:37.000 Yeah, I was that good.

01:07:37.000 Cool.

01:07:38.000 I had won national tournaments and I had beaten guys that had been in high ranking.

01:07:44.000 And I had a very close decision that I thought I should have won the year that Taekwondo made it into the Olympics against the national champion.

01:07:51.000 Cool.

01:07:51.000 So I was good.

01:07:52.000 And I was really young.

01:07:53.000 So I was getting better all the time.

01:07:55.000 But then I started kickboxing.

01:07:57.000 And when I started training in kickboxing, I realized that Taekwondo was kind of bullshit because my hands sucked.

01:08:03.000 And I would spar with kickboxers.

01:08:05.000 And I was getting cornered in the ropes.

01:08:07.000 And I just, I didn't have the skills.

01:08:09.000 And I was like, oh, this is like, I have this distorted perception of my ability to fight based on my ability to fight in Taekwondo.

01:08:16.000 I was really good at that.

01:08:17.000 But then when I started boxing and kickboxing, I was like, this is like that piece that's missing in Taekwondo without the face punching, it nullifies so much of what Taekwondo is good at.

01:08:29.000 But then when I learned that stuff, I realized like, oh, but I have a massive advantage with my legs because they have to close the distance with me and I can do things they can't do.

01:08:39.000 Like regular kickboxers, I was amazed at how many of them were just kind of boxers who learned a few shitty kicks.

01:08:45.000 And they would stand on the outside and they would take a step forward and I just blast them and they just had no idea what to do, like a really hard kicker.

01:08:53.000 And then I started doing Muay Thai and I was like, fuck, leg kicks.

01:08:58.000 And so I went from American kickboxing above the waist to Muay Thai.

01:09:02.000 I was like, there's too much to learn.

01:09:03.000 And then I was doing comedy at the same time, so I just quit fighting.

01:09:06.000 I was like, I got to get out before I get hurt.

01:09:08.000 When did you start grappling?

01:09:10.000 When I was 30.

01:09:11.000 Cool.

01:09:12.000 Yeah, I started grappling right after, I guess I was 29.

01:09:15.000 It was right after the first UFC.

01:09:17.000 Did you wrestle at all or anything?

01:09:19.000 Yeah, I wrestled in high school, but only one year because I was doing Taekwondo at the same time, and I had to pick one.

01:09:25.000 And I did a year of both.

01:09:27.000 And then I was like, the problem with this is I would rather kick someone and knock them unconscious.

01:09:34.000 To just quack and hear the whole crowd go silent was the wildest thing.

01:09:39.000 And watch someone cry.

01:09:40.000 I fucking loved it.

01:09:41.000 It was my favorite thing in life.

01:09:43.000 And I was like, wrestling is cool.

01:09:45.000 Like, it's good to know.

01:09:46.000 It's good to be able to pin people.

01:09:47.000 But there was no UFC back then.

01:09:49.000 So it's like everything you were doing was just like, you had to find a thing and get really good at it.

01:09:55.000 But the disillusionment of going from Taekwondo to boxing and kickboxing and then to Muay Thai and then jiu-jitsu.

01:10:02.000 So when I started doing jiu-jitsu, I was like, oh my God, I'm fucking completely helpless.

01:10:06.000 So I had this thing in my head.

01:10:07.000 Well, at least I know how to leg kick.

01:10:09.000 I know how to box now.

01:10:11.000 I know how to fight.

01:10:12.000 Oh, my God.

01:10:12.000 I'm tapping out constantly.

01:10:15.000 And so then I was like, fuck, I got to learn how to do jiu-jitsu.

01:10:17.000 But it was this thing where, you know, I feel real fortunate to have grown up in a time where no one knew what was the best style and then see the UFC emerge in 93 and then watch this incredible transformation of martial arts where martial arts advances more in 10, 20 years than it had the last 30,000 years.

01:10:39.000 It was incredible to watch.

01:10:41.000 Yeah.

01:10:41.000 Yeah, I'm glad that they did it, man, because that's such a cool question is whose martial arts is the best martial arts?

01:10:47.000 No one knew, man.

01:10:49.000 And we were all delusional.

01:10:50.000 I was so delusional.

01:10:52.000 Like, I remember I used to do Taekwondo with a friend of mine.

01:10:55.000 We were kickboxing at the time, and we were doing it at this gym where these judo guys were.

01:10:59.000 And I was like, look at these idiots, this stupid judo. 1.00

01:11:01.000 That's useless.

01:11:02.000 Meanwhile, I had no idea.

01:11:04.000 If those guys got a hold of me, I was fucking helpless.

01:11:06.000 Yeah, because judo guys will slam you on your head. 1.00

01:11:09.000 Dude, rolling with judo guys, like I remember I rolled with Carl Parisi once.

01:11:12.000 I was like, he's like a chimpanzee.

01:11:14.000 Like, he was so strong.

01:11:16.000 Like, it didn't make any sense.

01:11:17.000 Like, we were roughly the same size.

01:11:19.000 And he was just ragdolling me around. 1.00

01:11:22.000 I was like, there's something to throwing bodies all the time.

01:11:27.000 You know, you're taking, if you're a 180-pound guy, you're throwing a 180-pound person over and over and over again.

01:11:32.000 And your whole core is just fucking primed for that.

01:11:35.000 Boom! 0.99

01:11:36.000 And their balance and their ability to adjust your weight and use it against you.

01:11:36.000 Yeah.

01:11:40.000 Watching it in the Olympics is awesome.

01:11:42.000 Because they'll like spear their own heads. 1.00

01:11:45.000 Oh, yeah.

01:11:46.000 That's crazy.

01:11:46.000 That is crazy.

01:11:47.000 I like watching that show.

01:11:48.000 That's like some fucked up necks, too.

01:11:50.000 Yeah.

01:11:51.000 Oh, you'd have to.

01:11:52.000 Like the way that they land on it.

01:11:54.000 So many of those guys, like you see them later in their career, they got like one small arm because their fucking nerves are all shut off in their neck and then fused discs and they're just like, I did a good job.

01:11:54.000 Yeah.

01:12:05.000 I had a fucking great career.

01:12:07.000 You can't even walk, man.

01:12:08.000 It's nuts.

01:12:09.000 Every Taekwondo guy I know has like one super strong oblique.

01:12:13.000 And they're like shaped like this.

01:12:14.000 Well, you got to learn how to kick from both sides.

01:12:17.000 That's so important.

01:12:19.000 That's one thing that I really admire about your style because I think that there's going to be a time where that is just ubiquitous, where everybody switches.

01:12:26.000 Because there's so many guys that are just like, oh, he's a South Paw. 0.91

01:12:30.000 Oh, he fights Orthodox. 0.54

01:12:31.000 Like, man, that's just leaving too much to predictability.

01:12:35.000 Yeah.

01:12:35.000 I think about striking like a dance dance revolution game.

01:12:40.000 Because you're making all the reads with your eyes.

01:12:42.000 It's like left arm's coming at me, move.

01:12:45.000 Like right leg, whatever.

01:12:47.000 It's not like grappling.

01:12:48.000 We're grappling, we get to interact with each other and feel each other and move each other that way.

01:12:53.000 And I can pretty much sometimes do it with my eyes closed.

01:12:56.000 Striking is done mostly with our eyes, so we have to do like these dance dance revolution-y, like, okay, react to everything that we're seeing.

01:13:03.000 So if I'm just switching my stance and now you have to like read the sentence backwards, it gets really hard.

01:13:10.000 You know, and especially if you're just as good with both sides.

01:13:10.000 Yeah.

01:13:14.000 Yes, yes.

01:13:15.000 And I would say that if you're starting, you don't need to be like super stellar at both, but just have a couple good attacks to do from your other stance and then just like build off of there or whatever.

01:13:24.000 I started switching stances, one, because I really liked watching Nanito Da Nair, who wouldn't like fully switch, but he would have like kind of steps like that where I was like, oh, cool.

01:13:34.000 And then also I dislocated my elbow really bad about like a week and a half into training, just landed on it, posted, dislocated it.

01:13:42.000 And so I could only, or that was my left arm, so I could only use my right arm.

01:13:46.000 So for like six months, I just went lefty and only used my right arm as like my lead hand.

01:13:52.000 And that's how I got really good at it.

01:13:54.000 Yeah, just forcing yourself to just constantly be in that position because everybody wants to be in the position where they're the most strong, especially if you're trying to be competitive at sparring, right?

01:14:03.000 That's like what's so important about like the Gracies always talk about keeping things playful.

01:14:07.000 Like learning how to like not, don't try to win.

01:14:10.000 You're trying to develop your skills and to be able to switch.

01:14:13.000 I think like TJ in his prime, like when TJ fought Hennan Burrow, that fight to me was one of the best championship performances that I ever saw.

01:14:22.000 I agree.

01:14:23.000 Because nobody thought TJ was going to win that fight.

01:14:25.000 Hennon Burrow was thought to be the number one pound for, it was him and Aldo.

01:14:28.000 Yeah.

01:14:29.000 Would people make the argument who's the best?

01:14:31.000 Hennan Burrow was, I think he was undefeated or maybe had one loss in early his career.

01:14:35.000 He was an animal at the time.

01:14:36.000 Animal.

01:14:37.000 And TJ pieced him up.

01:14:40.000 And it was like he was sparring.

01:14:41.000 He looked so in the zone and relaxed and he was constantly switching stances and footwork and angles.

01:14:48.000 Yeah.

01:14:49.000 Dwayne flew me out for that fight because that's when they were training an alpha male to be TJ's sparring partner for one of those fights.

01:14:55.000 I'm almost positive it was that one.

01:14:56.000 And I remember the whole time I was like, this isn't going to go good for TJ, you know, because Burrow was just that guy at the time that everyone was afraid of.

01:15:04.000 And then when I watched it, I was like, oh, shit, that shit really works good.

01:15:09.000 I used to train in the Netherlands a little bit, too, with Andy Sauer and those guys.

01:15:13.000 Yeah, so that was really cool.

01:15:13.000 Oh, really?

01:15:14.000 But it's like traditional, like you stand in one stance, like this is how we do shit here, you know?

01:15:19.000 And I was like switching stances.

01:15:21.000 I was probably like the gay guy at the gym a little bit, you know, like being kind of flamboyant and like show-offy. 1.00

01:15:28.000 And so I remember going with some of Sauer's good guys and just good guys that we would spar with.

01:15:36.000 And I wouldn't really get hit that much.

01:15:38.000 And I was like, oh, shit, this like actually works.

01:15:40.000 Like this isn't just some like foo-foo, whatever stuff.

01:15:44.000 It's crazy that Dwayne developed that style, but he didn't fight that way.

01:15:47.000 Yeah.

01:15:48.000 That's what's crazy.

01:15:49.000 Like Dwayne had like more of a traditional, you know, he's boss rooting inspired style.

01:15:49.000 Yeah.

01:15:55.000 And then he realizes like, you know, the best way to fight is actually to constantly be changed.

01:16:00.000 And then he develops this system.

01:16:01.000 And, you know, Dwayne's like super focused.

01:16:04.000 I know you know this, but for people who don't know, Dwayne has like a notebook fucking, which is filled with notes.

01:16:10.000 And it's all like, he's got systematic.

01:16:12.000 This is his life.

01:16:13.000 Yeah, it's not like what Adesanya likes to call button smashing when you're playing a game.

01:16:16.000 Like, no, it's very systematic.

01:16:19.000 And TJ, I think, in that Hen and Barrow fight was the greatest expression of what Dwayne teaches.

01:16:24.000 Yep.

01:16:25.000 Yeah, that was a super amazing fight.

01:16:28.000 Yeah, just switching.

01:16:29.000 I mean, just simple little stuff, you know, like it's a lot of striking is just like how coordinated you are.

01:16:35.000 Like, that's like a big piece of striking.

01:16:38.000 And then can I just overwhelm you with information?

01:16:41.000 Like, that's like a strategy to run.

01:16:43.000 You know, some people choose like, okay, I'm willing to take a few to like land my big one.

01:16:48.000 You know, that's like an okay strategy.

01:16:50.000 It works for guys like Ilya and stuff.

01:16:53.000 But Ilya's not that easy to hit.

01:16:55.000 That's true, too.

01:16:56.000 He has like a way, way good guard.

01:16:58.000 He rolls with stuff, like the Josh Schmidt fight.

01:17:00.000 You know, he like takes, he like slides away from stuff and these big bombs are coming his way.

01:17:05.000 He's doing like the highest form, like intellectually, he's doing that style at its highest expression with the strategy of I'm about to knock you the fuck out.

01:17:14.000 Which shouldn't be everyone's strategy.

01:17:14.000 Yeah.

01:17:16.000 Well, you have to have that touch of death.

01:17:19.000 Yeah, that's true.

01:17:20.000 He's got that God-given power.

01:17:22.000 His power is fucking crazy, man.

01:17:24.000 It is crazy.

01:17:24.000 Trevor's actually helped me understand why it works really good.

01:17:29.000 So, okay, so not to get crazy technical with it, I guess.

01:17:33.000 Technical.

01:17:33.000 Let's get in there.

01:17:34.000 All right, cool.

01:17:37.000 So squared and bladed stances, when you're in a squared stance, you can move really good left to right.

01:17:43.000 That was most of my career was being like, I came from a basketball background.

01:17:47.000 I know that I'm very quick and agile, and I can move left, right really good.

01:17:52.000 If I just keep my hands up, whatever, it'll be fine, probably, you know?

01:17:56.000 So a lot of squared stance stuff is I'm just going to cut left, right, overwhelm This person with all of my weapons and angles, and always constantly make them move off of the things I'm doing and not the other way around.

01:18:08.000 That's good, but it's really hard to get a ton of leverage in anything that you're doing when you're standing square.

01:18:16.000 Like, I can't, like, if I'm gonna throw a ball, I don't throw a ball like this, right?

01:18:20.000 I throw a ball like this.

01:18:22.000 Right, you have your shoulder behind the other shoulder.

01:18:24.000 So, squared stance is super good for being agile, moving left-right, and overwhelming people with the amount of attacks that you could throw at them.

01:18:31.000 Because also, if I'm standing square, all of my weapons are really available for me to throw.

01:18:36.000 Like, it doesn't take like this is faster than this, just because it's like six inches closer or whatever.

01:18:43.000 In a bladed stance, you get a fuckload of leverage because if you watch Ilya, he's always standing like he's about to throw a javelin.

01:18:51.000 And that's pretty much what he's doing is just like, and this is kind of like the science of boxing a little bit, like I said, that Trevor helped me with.

01:18:58.000 So I'm a lot more bladed now than I was because now we're trying to get like some serious leverage on stuff because five-round fights, moving the entire time, fighting these really good wrestlers, it can get to the point where it's like, it just gets quirky and just like a little bitchy looking, you know?

01:19:14.000 And like, I don't really want to like tap people to victory, you know.

01:19:18.000 For a long time, I would compensate and being like, all right, but I'll have wheel kicks, knees, and elbows.

01:19:23.000 And that like took me a decent amount of ways to where it's like, cool, now I can finish guys like that also.

01:19:29.000 But these bladed stances where you can make a shitload of leverage with them are really cool.

01:19:35.000 I think finding a balance between the two is really awesome.

01:19:38.000 Ilya is like only, and that's just my expression of my martial arts.

01:19:42.000 I want to be like the jack of all trades guys and be able to be like, oh, you're that style.

01:19:46.000 I'll just archetype you in this style.

01:19:48.000 But Ilya is like always ready to throw a javelin and he's really good at closing space with his lead leg.

01:19:55.000 Like he'll like jab, hook, and really creep his lead leg near and then just bomb a right hand.

01:20:01.000 Because he is a shorter guy, but he never seems like he's having that much of an issue getting super inside.

01:20:07.000 Well, it's going to be interesting seeing him at 55.

01:20:09.000 That was much bigger guys.

01:20:11.000 Like think about Mauricio Ruffi.

01:20:14.000 He's a 55.

01:20:15.000 And he moves good and has leverage.

01:20:17.000 And he's fucking gigantic.

01:20:20.000 How tall is Ruffy?

01:20:21.000 I mean, he's got to be 6'1 ⁇ , maybe 6'2 ⁇ .

01:20:24.000 And he's 55, and he's not thin.

01:20:26.000 I mean, he's lean, but he's not like scrawny.

01:20:29.000 He's got muscle.

01:20:30.000 He's fucking huge for 55.

01:20:33.000 There's some 55.

01:20:34.000 And Ilya, as powerful as he is, he's not that big.

01:20:37.000 And it's going to be interesting to see because of this 10-pound.

01:20:41.000 10 pounds is just like, it's a lot of weight, man.

01:20:44.000 You know, it's like when you're dealing with 155-pound person, it's a significant percentage of your body weight.

01:20:50.000 Especially when everyone's cutting like 30 pounds.

01:20:52.000 I don't know what roof he cuts, but when I see him walking around, he looks like he's 190 pounds.

01:20:56.000 You know, like Islam. 1.00

01:20:58.000 Islam's fucking huge.

01:21:00.000 He's big, dude.

01:21:01.000 When I interview him in the cage afterwards, I'm always like, how?

01:21:04.000 Really?

01:21:05.000 How are you 155?

01:21:07.000 How?

01:21:07.000 I know.

01:21:08.000 He's thick as fuck.

01:21:08.000 How?

01:21:10.000 He's got a giant back.

01:21:12.000 And when he gets a hold of guys, it's like he's just got this leverage, this grappling squeeze that it's, I remember when he fought Drew Dober.

01:21:21.000 And like, when he got Dober down to the ground, I was like, that's a wrap.

01:21:25.000 Yeah.

01:21:25.000 It's a wrap.

01:21:26.000 As soon as he gets on top, and then he starts clamping down and squeezing, and guys are just like, Oliver, I was tapping.

01:21:31.000 Like the moment it was on.

01:21:33.000 He's like, fuck this.

01:21:34.000 Yeah, a lot of those really good grappler guys, they're strong, definitely, but they're really strong at closing up all of the space.

01:21:41.000 Like I can, if you let me get an underhook, like I could feel pretty strong.

01:21:45.000 Like even if you're much bigger than me, I'll like make you take a couple steps back, which really shouldn't happen.

01:21:49.000 But if I just close up all of the space, which I think is a big component of being a really good grappler, is being able to be like, nope, that's my space.

01:21:57.000 You don't get that.

01:21:58.000 This, you know, and you're not going to get inside of mine.

01:22:01.000 I can feel strong as fuck, you know?

01:22:04.000 And yeah, those types of guys, they're just so used to being so compact and never letting anyone get inside their arms or wherever it is that they need to get that it's just, it's like impossible to feel like you can move them.

01:22:16.000 I feel like there's two types of being strong in grappling.

01:22:19.000 There's being strong in like, I don't let you move me.

01:22:23.000 And then there's strong in, I get to move you really good.

01:22:26.000 And the good, good guys get to do both.

01:22:28.000 Like if I can grab you and move you really easy, I'll feel really strong.

01:22:32.000 If you grab me and I feel like a rock, I'll feel really strong.

01:22:37.000 And I think that some people do both of those really well, and then some people do one or the other really well.

01:22:42.000 But those types of guys, like the Islams, they do both really good.

01:22:46.000 Yeah.

01:22:47.000 And he's also, his striking has leveled up significantly.

01:22:51.000 Like his striking is much, much better than it was when he was younger.

01:22:54.000 He's a threat everywhere.

01:22:56.000 Like when he knocked out Volk with that high kick.

01:22:58.000 Yeah.

01:22:59.000 Crazy.

01:23:00.000 But granted, if I was in Volk's corner, I would say, no, you're not taking it.

01:23:05.000 You've been fucking drinking beer and eating kebabs.

01:23:08.000 Like there's no way you're taking this fight on 10 days' notice.

01:23:11.000 I don't care how confident you are.

01:23:12.000 I don't care how much you like fighting.

01:23:14.000 That's a crazy thing.

01:23:15.000 I don't care how much money they're paying you.

01:23:17.000 Because you look at the slide that his career took, right?

01:23:20.000 He arguably won that first fight with Islam. 0.87

01:23:23.000 Very close fight.

01:23:24.000 Loses a decision.

01:23:25.000 Or was it a draw?

01:23:26.000 It was a decision.

01:23:28.000 Shit, was it a draw?

01:23:29.000 That's actually a good question.

01:23:30.000 I think he lost.

01:23:31.000 I think he lost.

01:23:32.000 I think he lost too.

01:23:33.000 Either way, Islam keeps the title. 1.00

01:23:35.000 Was it a draw?

01:23:36.000 Why do I think it was a draw?

01:23:37.000 Maybe one judge had it a draw. 0.96

01:23:39.000 Maybe it was something like that.

01:23:41.000 So super close fight with the pound for pound, best fighter in the world, 10 pounds up.

01:23:45.000 Everybody's like, Volk might be the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

01:23:48.000 And then he takes that fight on 10 days' notice, gets headkicked.

01:23:51.000 And then he comes into the fight with Tiporia, what, four months later or something like that?

01:23:56.000 Compromised.

01:23:56.000 Clearly.

01:23:57.000 You got head kicked, shin to the dome, stopped unconscious.

01:24:02.000 And then you've got to fight the scariest fucking boxer in the division, and you get knocked out.

01:24:06.000 And so there's this big slide.

01:24:08.000 And then he comes back full year off, and you see, against Diego Lopez, looks like the Volk of old.

01:24:14.000 It looks like he's back.

01:24:16.000 Well, I would have liked to have seen that Volk versus Ilya.

01:24:20.000 That would have been an exciting fight.

01:24:21.000 For someone's decision, second one was a...

01:24:24.000 Okay, so it was a decision.

01:24:27.000 Yeah.

01:24:28.000 Yeah, I feel like the casuals Like to exist in a world where, oh no, if you're a better fighter, then you're just a better fighter.

01:24:36.000 But it's like, no, man, like, if I have three months to train versus two weeks to train, like, big difference.

01:24:41.000 That's giant difference.

01:24:42.000 Giant difference.

01:24:43.000 Like, giant difference.

01:24:44.000 I don't do Zins. 1.00

01:24:45.000 This isn't a Zin.

01:24:46.000 I just don't want it.

01:24:46.000 What is it?

01:24:47.000 It's like, I just started taking them.

01:24:49.000 They're like, they have 50 milligrams of caffeine in them.

01:24:52.000 They're called NZEs. 1.00

01:24:53.000 Oh, yeah, I've taken those.

01:24:54.000 Those are good.

01:24:55.000 Yeah, I like those.

01:24:56.000 I like those.

01:24:57.000 They're brain stimulants.

01:24:58.000 Yeah.

01:24:59.000 I got one that I got that I bought called Alpha.

01:25:02.000 That's pretty good.

01:25:03.000 Although I did kind of get a little annoyed that they ripped off Alpha Brain.

01:25:08.000 I like these.

01:25:09.000 These are great too.

01:25:10.000 These gummies.

01:25:10.000 These Alpha Brain gummies are fucking awesome.

01:25:13.000 Yeah, I don't do caffeine anymore.

01:25:15.000 That's like one thing that I stopped.

01:25:16.000 Well, I do like this amount of caffeine.

01:25:18.000 I do like 50 million.

01:25:19.000 50 milligrams of that?

01:25:20.000 Just 50.

01:25:20.000 Okay, a small cup of coffee.

01:25:22.000 Yeah, you know what's crazy is so I didn't drink like a lot of caffeine or whatever.

01:25:28.000 I would drink like a coffee in the morning like normal people.

01:25:31.000 But dude, what I learned is, because once I stopped, I immediately had way, way more energy.

01:25:37.000 Or maybe not immediately, but like 10 days, two weeks afterwards.

01:25:39.000 And you know what I looked up, bro?

01:25:41.000 Is that I already have like low iron, but I noticed or I looked up, coffee gets in the way of iron absorption.

01:25:51.000 Really?

01:25:52.000 Yeah.

01:25:53.000 You have low iron.

01:25:54.000 Do you eat red meat?

01:25:55.000 Yeah, I eat a lot.

01:25:56.000 It's like a genetic thing.

01:25:57.000 My mom has super low. 0.99

01:25:58.000 I think it's like a ginger thing.

01:26:01.000 Yeah, we're just born.

01:26:02.000 Caffeine can inhibit iron absorption primarily due to the presence of tannins and other polyphenols in coffee.

01:26:08.000 Dude, I swear this has changed me big time.

01:26:11.000 So now I do the mud water stuff where I drink all the mud water.

01:26:14.000 I like matcha still, so I'll still do like 50 milligrams in the morning.

01:26:17.000 But dude, the coffee, I stopped and I immediately started feeling way better.

01:26:21.000 And I don't know how many people don't know this, but this is a thing, bro.

01:26:25.000 I'm a coffee junkie.

01:26:26.000 I know.

01:26:28.000 It tastes good.

01:26:29.000 I still drink decaf sometimes because I really like the taste of it.

01:26:32.000 I take days off of these things.

01:26:34.000 What are those?

01:26:34.000 These are Breakers, Lucy's.

01:26:36.000 These are nicotine.

01:26:38.000 I like them when I do podcasts and I like them before I do stand-up.

01:26:41.000 But I take days off because I was like, boy, am I addicted to these things?

01:26:44.000 I'm fucking sucking on these things all day long.

01:26:46.000 But I took a couple days off.

01:26:47.000 I'm like, no, I feel fine.

01:26:48.000 I feel fine.

01:26:49.000 But I've taken days off coffee and I'm like, brrr.

01:26:52.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:26:52.000 It takes like a week or so.

01:26:53.000 I'm fucking falling asleep in the morning and just like, yeah.

01:26:56.000 I honestly don't think everyone would have the same experience I did.

01:26:59.000 I think it's because of the iron thing.

01:27:01.000 That makes a lot of sense, man.

01:27:02.000 Drinking coffee and other coffee needed beverages with a meal associated with a 39 to 90% reduction in iron absorption.

01:27:02.000 Yeah.

01:27:08.000 Dude, it was great.

01:27:09.000 Yeah, and so I, so this, so, bro, this is how I found out.

01:27:12.000 It wasn't like I was seeking this.

01:27:14.000 It was I take an iron supplement in the morning usually because I have a little bit of low iron.

01:27:20.000 And when I stop drinking coffee, one of the signs that you're taking too much iron is that you'll get like an iron metallic taste in your mouth.

01:27:28.000 And so about two weeks afterwards or whenever, I started tasting that taste in my mouth and I looked it up and that's what it was.

01:27:35.000 So I stopped taking the iron supplement because I was actually absorbing the iron from my food and shit.

01:27:41.000 Isn't that crazy?

01:27:41.000 Oh, wow.

01:27:42.000 That is crazy.

01:27:43.000 Fuck, I'm going to have to try it.

01:27:45.000 Yeah.

01:27:46.000 It was kind of rough, though.

01:27:48.000 Oh, yeah, I bet.

01:27:49.000 Yeah, it was rough.

01:27:50.000 It was like, I quit everything at that time just because I was like getting, like, my body was getting anxious.

01:27:55.000 My mind is pretty much like stupid the whole time to life, but my body will get really, I'll just like notice different shit.

01:28:03.000 I'll just like be more tired or anxious or whatever, you know?

01:28:06.000 Well, you're so in tune.

01:28:07.000 Yeah.

01:28:08.000 A fighter is probably, out of all the professional sports, I think a fighter probably is the most in tune with their body.

01:28:15.000 Probably.

01:28:15.000 Because there's so like the consequences of not being in tune are so grave.

01:28:20.000 Like this, it's so different than any other sport.

01:28:22.000 Definitely.

01:28:23.000 There's a lot of ways to get hurt, and we have to watch what we actually eat.

01:28:26.000 most sports, you don't really have to do that.

01:28:30.000 Like, we're super con, like, food, the relationship with food for a fighter is way, way different than I think almost everyone else on the planet.

01:28:37.000 I know when you, like, Adesanya never cared about his nutrition, never took care of him.

01:28:41.000 Yeah, there's some people.

01:28:41.000 Until he got older.

01:28:42.000 And then he got older, he realized, like, hey, I've got to really fucking do everything.

01:28:42.000 Yeah.

01:28:47.000 I know, dude.

01:28:48.000 I used to be able to just down a Chipotle burrito with all the hot sauce on it and then just train afterwards like it was nothing.

01:28:54.000 And now I can't do that, which kind of sucks.

01:28:56.000 Yeah, that's also youth.

01:28:58.000 God, to be young.

01:28:59.000 When you're really young, you can get away with anything.

01:29:01.000 You really can, dude.

01:29:02.000 I used to just be hungover, rolling in, and just fighting hard.

01:29:06.000 It's crazy how much you can get away with when you're young.

01:29:09.000 But it's like the other thing is like hard training for long, prolonged periods, years and years and years.

01:29:17.000 You get all these little micro-injuries, these little things.

01:29:20.000 Things are slowing down.

01:29:21.000 You're just demanding so much of your body.

01:29:24.000 If you're not taking care of your nutrition, it's like, are you serious about this or not?

01:29:29.000 Like, what are you doing?

01:29:30.000 You were fucking six hours in the gym and then you're eating pizza?

01:29:33.000 That's crazy.

01:29:34.000 I see people fuck up their weight cuts all the time just because after they cut weight, they want to eat like an asshole.

01:29:40.000 And I'm like, what are you doing, dude?

01:29:41.000 You literally did for eight weeks.

01:29:43.000 You were the most disciplined person in the world and now you're eating cake the night before the fight.

01:29:46.000 You're an idiot.

01:29:47.000 So dumb.

01:29:48.000 Yeah.

01:29:48.000 So dumb.

01:29:49.000 Cake the night before a fight.

01:29:50.000 It's so crazy.

01:29:51.000 Ilya famously, he said he only did it twice, but he was, and they made it seem like in the countdown shows that he did it a lot.

01:29:57.000 He would drink wine while he was weight cutting.

01:29:59.000 The whole time I was watching that, I was like, he doesn't do that every time.

01:29:59.000 Yeah.

01:30:03.000 I was like, come on, this is like media stuff.

01:30:05.000 He loves me.

01:30:06.000 I was like, you're not convincing me that he does that.

01:30:09.000 He did it twice, he said.

01:30:11.000 But I was like, what am I doing?

01:30:12.000 Sounds fun.

01:30:13.000 I bet you got drunk as shit off of one glass of wine, which is probably pretty awesome.

01:30:17.000 And it probably tastes so good, too, being that dehydrated.

01:30:21.000 And then you're dehydrating yourself more because of the wine, so it probably aids a little bit in the water cut because it does dehydrate you.

01:30:27.000 Yeah.

01:30:29.000 But then that hangover when you got no water in your body.

01:30:33.000 I don't fuck with hangovers anymore, dude.

01:30:33.000 Yeah.

01:30:35.000 That's why I stopped drinking.

01:30:37.000 I stopped drinking, I guess it's like close to four months ago.

01:30:40.000 And I used to have days where I would get up, you know, I'd work at the club, do stand-up, have a couple of drinks, and the next day I'd be working out going, oh, what did I feel bad?

01:30:51.000 I was like, that's just life.

01:30:52.000 Just deal with it.

01:30:53.000 Drink your electrolytes, get through it.

01:30:55.000 I have no days like that now.

01:30:57.000 That's nuts.

01:30:58.000 Like, even if last night I only had like five hours sleep.

01:31:01.000 But I worked out this morning.

01:31:02.000 I feel fucking great.

01:31:03.000 Like, all the bad days have gone away.

01:31:06.000 It's kind of like, I'm like, you moron.

01:31:08.000 Yeah.

01:31:09.000 You've been poisoning yourself for decades.

01:31:10.000 That's how I feel too.

01:31:11.000 I'm like, so now I'll still go out and do social shit and just not drink.

01:31:16.000 I'm like, this is just as fun, you idiot.

01:31:18.000 I know.

01:31:18.000 I was like, you could have just been doing this the whole time.

01:31:20.000 That's the thing.

01:31:20.000 I know.

01:31:21.000 It's like, I thought you missed it.

01:31:22.000 Like, I remember boss Rutan telling me that.

01:31:24.000 I quit drinking and just as much fun.

01:31:26.000 I'm like, right.

01:31:27.000 Yeah.

01:31:28.000 Just as much fun.

01:31:29.000 Yeah.

01:31:29.000 But it's true.

01:31:30.000 It's like you're having fun because you're with fun people.

01:31:33.000 Yeah.

01:31:33.000 And you're just having laughs.

01:31:34.000 You don't have to be drunk to have fun.

01:31:36.000 Yeah.

01:31:37.000 Unless you were me in college.

01:31:39.000 Oh, yeah?

01:31:40.000 Yeah, a little bit.

01:31:42.000 I think a big piece of me thinking drinking was fun is because I would just do really stupid, crazy shit, and so would my friends.

01:31:49.000 And then we'd just talk about it the next day, like, hey, that was so stupid and crazy, you know?

01:31:53.000 But now that I don't do any of that stuff, I'm like, this isn't fun anymore.

01:31:56.000 Yeah.

01:31:57.000 And I was a professional athlete, too.

01:31:59.000 You realize like, this is just not good for you.

01:32:01.000 Yeah.

01:32:02.000 It's punishing yourself.

01:32:03.000 Yeah, at this age, unfortunately.

01:32:05.000 They told me my whole life it was going to happen and now it's happening.

01:32:08.000 Well, it's just becoming wiser, too.

01:32:10.000 You know, that's why, like, when you see that John Jones thing, I'm sure you saw the police cam.

01:32:15.000 Did you see that?

01:32:16.000 I did recently.

01:32:17.000 I didn't know if it was old or no, this is a new one.

01:32:20.000 Oh, it's like this week?

01:32:21.000 Yeah.

01:32:22.000 This is a new one.

01:32:22.000 He's drunk on the phone talking to the cops, and you're like, oh, no.

01:32:27.000 Yeah, I don't know the details of it.

01:32:29.000 Was he driving the car?

01:32:30.000 Who knows?

01:32:32.000 The girl in the car said he was driving.

01:32:34.000 The car was wrecked, and John was gone, and she ratted him out.

01:32:37.000 John Jones did it.

01:32:38.000 And then John's on the phone with the cops, and apparently, allegedly, he threatened the cops when he was on the phone, which is not good.

01:32:46.000 Yeah, not good.

01:32:46.000 And he's already got a history of running from accidents.

01:32:49.000 Yeah.

01:32:50.000 Yeah.

01:32:51.000 I hope he gets, whatever that is, I hope that he figures it out.

01:32:54.000 Yeah, I hope so too.

01:32:55.000 But, you know, it is what it is.

01:32:58.000 Some people, they like riding the lightning, bro.

01:32:58.000 Yeah.

01:33:01.000 He liked riding that lightning.

01:33:03.000 Yeah.

01:33:03.000 And I think that's one of the things that made him so good, too, because he was so wild.

01:33:07.000 He was just a wild dude.

01:33:09.000 You know, he just genuinely didn't give a fuck and really had this ultimate confidence and so skillful and so smart.

01:33:16.000 But eventually, you know, one more drink, then like that, and then your body's just like not what it used to be.

01:33:24.000 Yeah.

01:33:25.000 And Aspinall is a fucking beast, man.

01:33:28.000 Yeah.

01:33:29.000 I know there's a lot of questions, never been out of the first round, a lot of questions, but never been out of the first round because he fucks everybody up in the first round.

01:33:36.000 Like, that's a factor.

01:33:37.000 Yeah.

01:33:37.000 You know?

01:33:38.000 Yeah, I really wanted to see that fight, but also at the same time, I kind of, I appreciated.

01:33:42.000 I forget which interview it was recently, but John was pretty honest in it.

01:33:46.000 He was like, look, man, like, I don't want to fight up-and-coming tough guys.

01:33:50.000 He was like, I want to fight guys with seasoned champions that have names.

01:33:55.000 And I was like, that could also be interpreted as you don't really want to fight kind of the best guys that there are right now.

01:34:03.000 You want to fight like a certain category of fighter who you're comfortable fighting, but you don't want to fight the guys that are tough and that are saying that you're going to win.

01:34:13.000 And that's okay, but that's essentially how I interpreted what he was saying in different words, which I appreciated the honesty.

01:34:20.000 Well, it's also money fights, right?

01:34:22.000 Because I think he's wrong, because I think Aspinall's a star.

01:34:22.000 Yeah.

01:34:26.000 I really do.

01:34:27.000 Yeah, I do too.

01:34:28.000 And I think he's saying, who is he?

01:34:30.000 He's no one.

01:34:32.000 Aspinall's a star.

01:34:34.000 When people ask questions to me all the time, like casuals on the street, is John Jones going to fight Tom Aspinall?

01:34:39.000 It's constant.

01:34:40.000 That's like the constant question.

01:34:42.000 To me, the real fight would have been John Jones versus Francis.

01:34:46.000 That's the real fight.

01:34:48.000 If I, like, clearly, I'm not responsible for making decisions because I would have made a lot of different decisions.

01:34:54.000 And I would have like, Francis, let's talk.

01:34:58.000 Let's work this out.

01:34:59.000 That guy's a star.

01:35:01.000 Francis is the fucking scariest heavyweight of all time.

01:35:04.000 That's a star.

01:35:05.000 You know, like that guy as the heavyweight champion is so fucking marketable.

01:35:09.000 He puts people into orbit.

01:35:11.000 You know, he flatlines Steep Bay.

01:35:13.000 He flatlined Alistair.

01:35:15.000 He flatlines people.

01:35:16.000 He's fucking terrifying.

01:35:18.000 Like, that's the heavyweight champion.

01:35:20.000 And for that guy to walk away from the belt and then almost beat Tyson Fury and then get knocked out by Anthony Joshua and then to come back and destroy that dude in PFL.

01:35:31.000 What's his name again?

01:35:35.000 That big, tall Brazilian dude that he ground and pounded into unconsciousness. 1.00

01:35:41.000 Ferreira?

01:35:42.000 Ferreira.

01:35:43.000 That's right.

01:35:43.000 Oh, okay.

01:35:44.000 Oh, yeah, yeah.

01:35:44.000 That guy's.

01:35:45.000 That guy was even...

01:35:47.000 The really jacked guy.

01:35:48.000 Yeah, and he's the guy that KO'd Ryan Bader in the first round.

01:35:51.000 He looks phenomenal.

01:35:51.000 He's terrifying.

01:35:52.000 And Francis just destroyed him.

01:35:54.000 I'm like, that's the guy.

01:35:55.000 That's the guy.

01:35:57.000 And everybody knows that's the guy.

01:35:58.000 Like, that's the fight that...

01:36:02.000 It's a shame when that shit happens in the sport, dude.

01:36:04.000 It's the worst.

01:36:05.000 I hate it.

01:36:06.000 I see it happen all of the time, and I can't help but think a lot of it is like, hopefully it's just maybe money business stuff, but I really, I think that some of it is ego, and that's kind of what I try to just drift away from.

01:36:20.000 My philosophy on winning the belt has always been, if I can't beat whoever it is, if it's like a number 10 ranked Umar, if it's a number 2 ranked whoever, if I can't beat that person, then I don't deserve the belt, and I don't think that I should get it.

01:36:35.000 It clearly doesn't represent what it represents if it doesn't mean that I beat all the best guys on the way to doing so.

01:36:42.000 Not everyone really has that philosophy, and I get it because once you start involving money, and then money is taking care of your family, which is what is kind of an excuse to be greedy sometimes for people, it just kind of, it's just never really been my philosophy, and I think that it's kind of a shame when that stuff happens because in my head, we're doing two things.

01:37:04.000 We're seeing who the best fighter in the world is, and we're getting people to watch so that the fans can appreciate something that I find to be the most loved thing in my life next to my wife, you know?

01:37:17.000 So I don't know.

01:37:20.000 I think it's a shame when that shit happens, especially when it's like an ego thing.

01:37:23.000 But also at the same time, I don't really think that that's too much of what John Jones is doing.

01:37:29.000 I'm more speaking In terms of what I kind of see in other people, I think John Jones also has to have some level of awareness around Tom's a young guy, and we age, you know, we age, and that's okay.

01:37:43.000 John's not a natural heavyweight either.

01:37:45.000 That too.

01:37:46.000 I mean, John still could make 205.

01:37:48.000 Yeah.

01:37:48.000 Yeah, even in his heavyweight fight, he looked like a little soft.

01:37:53.000 Yeah, a little soft.

01:37:53.000 Yeah.

01:37:54.000 And like 240 and a little soft is, I mean, think about how much Pereira cuts, right?

01:38:00.000 He could cut that weight.

01:38:01.000 Like, he could still make 205 and might still be the champ at 205.

01:38:04.000 Yeah.

01:38:05.000 You know, which is kind of wild.

01:38:07.000 And Tom Aspinall ain't making 205.

01:38:09.000 That guy's fucking huge.

01:38:11.000 Yeah.

01:38:12.000 And Ghana was not making 205.

01:38:13.000 Francis would cut to get to 265 natural.

01:38:16.000 Sure.

01:38:17.000 Which is just bananas.

01:38:19.000 He's a fucking hulking man.

01:38:21.000 He's a scary dude.

01:38:22.000 How do people get that big?

01:38:24.000 Genetics, man.

01:38:25.000 Is that what it is?

01:38:26.000 Yeah.

01:38:26.000 I mean, that's just pure genetics.

01:38:26.000 Genetics.

01:38:28.000 If I was that big, I'm playing a different sport, bro.

01:38:31.000 Playing hockey.

01:38:33.000 Hockey or fucking baseball or something.

01:38:35.000 But the brain damage you get in football is significantly more probably than the brain damage you get in fighting.

01:38:35.000 Or football.

01:38:42.000 You like hockey?

01:38:43.000 I do.

01:38:43.000 I like watching it.

01:38:44.000 Hockey's pretty cool.

01:38:45.000 I like hockey culture.

01:38:47.000 I don't really understand the game because there's too much going on right now.

01:38:50.000 Or like when it's happening, it just looks like a chaotic mess sometimes to me.

01:38:55.000 But I recently started watching it because a dude from the Avs, I've been seeing him at the gym a little bit.

01:39:00.000 He's been training a guy named Nathan McKinnon, who's like one of the better guys in the league right now.

01:39:05.000 I've kind of been paying a little bit of attention because me and him will chat sometimes.

01:39:08.000 But dude, hockey culture is cool.

01:39:10.000 Like when they score, they smile and cheer for a half of a second, and then they're all just like stone cold killers back again, which I really appreciate about sports because I feel like a lot of sports have become like all of this top players are like really super starry, like flamboyant-y.

01:39:29.000 The thing about hockey is it's never been as popular as football.

01:39:34.000 It's always been the stepson.

01:39:34.000 I know.

01:39:37.000 It's like not quite the same, not in the same, like they don't, they don't reach the same.

01:39:43.000 You have a few Gretzkys, you know, Bobby Orr, you have a few guys that become national celebrities, but for the most part, there's not like a whole ton of them that everybody, the general public, knows about.

01:39:54.000 So because of that, they're probably a little more dedicated, a little more humble, a little more on the grind.

01:40:00.000 They're cool.

01:40:00.000 They're cool to me.

01:40:01.000 I really like that sport.

01:40:02.000 It's a very athletic sport, man.

01:40:04.000 The fucking amount of energy that those guys expend.

01:40:07.000 I mean, the speed.

01:40:09.000 They're constantly sprinting on ice, you know, and maneuvering and gliding around those blades.

01:40:15.000 It's incredible to watch.

01:40:16.000 You like any other sports?

01:40:17.000 I like soccer.

01:40:18.000 I like watching soccer.

01:40:20.000 You know when I really enjoyed soccer when I went to see a live match, I was like, oh.

01:40:23.000 And then I was talking to my friend Ed, who's one of the owners of the Austin Club here.

01:40:28.000 And he was explaining to me, like, this is the reason why it never becomes popular in America.

01:40:33.000 They don't take commercial breaks.

01:40:35.000 There's no time for a commercial break.

01:40:37.000 The fucking clock is always running.

01:40:39.000 Oh, I never noticed that.

01:40:40.000 And these guys, these guys have legs.

01:40:42.000 They're like fucking quarter horses.

01:40:44.000 They have these fucking huge legs. 1.00

01:40:46.000 And they're just running constantly.

01:40:48.000 They're constantly sprinting.

01:40:49.000 They have to be in insane shape.

01:40:51.000 You know, it's like as like someone who appreciates athletic performance, like, this is a crazy sport.

01:40:51.000 Yeah.

01:40:57.000 Like, a really demanding sport.

01:40:58.000 How many miles do you think they run every game?

01:41:00.000 I don't know, man.

01:41:01.000 Probably at least four or five.

01:41:03.000 Has to be.

01:41:04.000 They're constantly running.

01:41:05.000 It's like seven to nine usually.

01:41:07.000 Seven to nine miles every game.

01:41:10.000 That's bananas.

01:41:11.000 They're not jogging.

01:41:12.000 Yeah.

01:41:13.000 They're fucking sprinting seven to nine miles.

01:41:16.000 When I did that time in the Netherlands that I was talking about, I grew up playing soccer a little bit too, but I only did it until people stopped thinking it was cool.

01:41:25.000 And then I switched sports.

01:41:26.000 I was like, dude, when you're growing up, bro, all of the goal is just to not be called gay.

01:41:33.000 And soccer didn't do that for you.

01:41:35.000 That's so true.

01:41:37.000 Dude, just your entire existence as a kid is to not be made fun of and called gay.

01:41:41.000 Yeah, you were a dork if you played soccer.

01:41:43.000 Yeah, but, oh, dude, when I went to the Netherlands and I watched some of those kids play, I was like, oh, this is soccer in Europe because they were like 10, 11, 12-year-old kids, just freaks, dude, and like crazy athletic.

01:42:00.000 You could just tell that that's like what they do with their entire lives.

01:42:02.000 And I was like, thank God I didn't choose that sport because I just wouldn't be anywhere.

01:42:06.000 Well, you'd have to go overseas.

01:42:07.000 Yeah.

01:42:08.000 And then the competitiveness of the soccer over there or the football, what they call it over there, is so much higher than in America.

01:42:14.000 It would probably be a long adjustment to reach their level.

01:42:17.000 Have you ever been to a game where there's all of the SWAT people and shit because the hooligans and stuff?

01:42:23.000 No, I've only been to the Austin games.

01:42:25.000 It's pretty chill.

01:42:26.000 I went to one in Serbia where they had more SWAT police officers than there were people in the actual stand.

01:42:33.000 Dude, it was wild.

01:42:34.000 I was like, dude, Serbia's more developed than this, man.

01:42:37.000 Like, people were climbing on stuff, throwing smoke bombs onto the field.

01:42:40.000 I was like, bro, this can't be.

01:42:42.000 This is Serbian basketball.

01:42:44.000 Yeah, they're good at basketball.

01:42:46.000 We played some clips of basketball games in Serbia.

01:42:49.000 And you see the crowd in Serbia?

01:42:52.000 They go hard.

01:42:53.000 I know.

01:42:54.000 The cheering is like, it gives you goosebumps.

01:42:57.000 Like, holy fuck, man.

01:42:59.000 These are warlike people.

01:43:01.000 And they're putting that kind of fucking, that same energy to basketball.

01:43:06.000 You're like, boy, when those guys come over here, everyone's fucked.

01:43:09.000 And you're kind of seeing that now.

01:43:11.000 There's a bunch of Serbian players have made their way to the United States.

01:43:14.000 And those guys are fucking badass.

01:43:16.000 They're ready to fight the entire time, probably.

01:43:18.000 And they're scary, hard dudes, man.

01:43:21.000 Which is really interesting to see this influx of guys from Russia, Dagestan, Chechnya, like some of these guys that are making their way into the UFC now.

01:43:31.000 These are fucking hard dudes, man.

01:43:35.000 It's really interesting.

01:43:36.000 Really interesting.

01:43:37.000 Georgia.

01:43:38.000 Yeah, it's really cool, actually.

01:43:40.000 I mean, I really appreciate it, man.

01:43:41.000 I think that MMA or martial arts just in general is such a fantastic thing for the world.

01:43:47.000 And this, to me, has brought so many people together, kind of.

01:43:51.000 Like, I didn't follow, I didn't know what Dagestan was or Azerbaijan was or anything like that.

01:43:57.000 It was 2014, so You know WKA, the organization?

01:44:02.000 I did their national tournament.

01:44:04.000 And if you win, you get to go do the world tournament for them in Italy.

01:44:07.000 So I got to do that and won.

01:44:09.000 And when I was out there, a lot of the competitors were from all over the world.

01:44:13.000 And there was a place called Azerbaijan that I didn't know how to pronounce at all.

01:44:18.000 And they were whooping guys asses, dude, like bad, like spinning hook kicks, like all kinds of crazy shit. 0.87

01:44:25.000 And I was like, damn, I hope I don't fight one of those guys.

01:44:27.000 But the entire time, I was like, the second these guys start getting into the UFC and stuff, they're going to wreck a lot of Americans, you know?

01:44:39.000 Yeah.

01:44:40.000 But I really like that.

01:44:41.000 Like just the UFC in general has done a good job, in my opinion, because they're really the only globalized or one of the only super globalized where people from all over the world are fighting each other.

01:44:53.000 I don't know, man.

01:44:54.000 It kind of feels like it brings everyone together, or at least for me, like I could feel like I could walk into another country and have something super in common with someone, which is just like a cool feeling, you know.

01:45:04.000 I think another thing that's really cool about it is when someone is elite, no one cares what country they're from.

01:45:09.000 They just love that guy.

01:45:10.000 You know, it's like if Adesanya gets in there, no one cares he's from New Zealand.

01:45:14.000 Everybody gets pumped.

01:45:15.000 If Pereira gets in there, Alex Pereira's fighting.

01:45:18.000 You don't say, USA.

01:45:19.000 No, they just fucking psych to see Alex Pereira.

01:45:22.000 So it's really great in that regard that you can become a true international superstar and you're embraced essentially by all the nations.

01:45:30.000 Definitely by America.

01:45:31.000 I think that that's a big American culture thing too.

01:45:33.000 Sure.

01:45:34.000 Like we don't really care where people are from.

01:45:36.000 Think about the Russians that are over here. 1.00

01:45:38.000 No one cares.

01:45:39.000 No one's like, oh, Russians, fuck you.

01:45:42.000 You know, they're like, oh, that guy's badass.

01:45:44.000 I wonder if it'd be the same in those other countries.

01:45:46.000 I don't think so.

01:45:47.000 Yeah.

01:45:48.000 Russia definitely doesn't think I'm as cool as I think they're cool. 1.00

01:45:52.000 If I went over to Russia, I'd be like fucking super worried they'd poison my food. 0.90

01:45:56.000 You know, like some crazy Russian, like, fuck him. 1.00

01:45:59.000 Fuck this guy, you know, and fucking throw something in your tea. 0.84

01:46:03.000 Who knows?

01:46:03.000 You know, like they're fucking, they're hardcore.

01:46:07.000 America embraces, but we're a melting pot, right?

01:46:10.000 That's the difference between this country and all the other countries is that we are consistent entirely of immigrants. 0.96

01:46:15.000 At one point in time, everyone, unless you're a Native American, everyone was an immigrant.

01:46:20.000 So it's like we kind of accept that people come from different parts of the world.

01:46:23.000 About 300 years ago, we were all like, let's go to this party.

01:46:23.000 Yeah.

01:46:26.000 I know.

01:46:27.000 Fucking party over there, man.

01:46:28.000 We can do whatever we want over there.

01:46:30.000 We're not going to do all this bullshit that we got going on here.

01:46:32.000 It's kind of nutty in that regard.

01:46:34.000 And, you know, boy, it's worked out in a lot of ways.

01:46:38.000 Yeah, I'm not really like a I try not to be like too identified with anything or whatever or like be too nationalist.

01:46:46.000 But every time I think of like just how lucky we are to be from here, dude, it's pretty cool.

01:46:50.000 It's pretty amazing.

01:46:51.000 It is.

01:46:52.000 Especially when you see stuff like that's going on with Israel and Iran and all of that stuff.

01:46:56.000 It's kind of like, God, man, thank God that we're here.

01:47:00.000 In the UK, people are getting arrested for Facebook posts.

01:47:03.000 Are they?

01:47:04.000 Yeah, thousands.

01:47:05.000 They still use Facebook fucking users.

01:47:08.000 What the fuck are they doing using Facebook?

01:47:10.000 That's how you know it's a political thing.

01:47:11.000 It's all those old people. 1.00

01:47:13.000 Old people on Facebook. 0.99

01:47:13.000 Old people. 0.99

01:47:14.000 All my old friends from high school, like my old friends that I was friends with when I was really young.

01:47:20.000 They're on Facebook.

01:47:21.000 Old dudes love Facebook. 0.98

01:47:21.000 Yeah. 0.98

01:47:23.000 My mom and dad are on Facebook.

01:47:24.000 They argue about politics on Facebook.

01:47:26.000 Like, fucking miss me with that shit.

01:47:28.000 Yeah, they post about which neighbors.

01:47:30.000 Yeah, no.

01:47:31.000 I got zero time for any of that stupidity.

01:47:34.000 But this, you know, this thing that we've done over here is allowing people to express themselves.

01:47:41.000 Whether you agree or disagree, that is just so gigantic.

01:47:46.000 And they're squashing a lot of that in other countries.

01:47:48.000 And that scares the shit out of me.

01:47:50.000 That's what I was really scared about in this last election because because I'm friends with Elon, I knew what was going on in Twitter behind the scenes.

01:47:59.000 I knew how the government was stepping in and silencing posts.

01:48:02.000 I'm like, this is fucking dangerous, man.

01:48:05.000 Because if they get a real grip on social media and you no longer can protest about things and express yourself about things, including a lot of things that happen to be true, like during the COVID crisis, people were getting their accounts banned for posting factual information.

01:48:23.000 That was scary to me because that's very, very un-American. 1.00

01:48:27.000 You have to be okay with that for all the good and the bad that comes with it.

01:48:30.000 Like you just have to.

01:48:31.000 You have to be okay with people saying things you don't like.

01:48:34.000 It's going to come with a lot of good and a lot of bad, but you have to be okay with it because when it's your turn at plate, like you're going to want to be, you're going to want to have your opinion respected too.

01:48:42.000 100%.

01:48:43.000 And that's what people have to realize when it's so easy when, like, especially in this country, all tech is primarily left.

01:48:50.000 And they have a very strong ideology, this very progressive left-wing ideology, which is like all over the tech world.

01:48:58.000 And when they were in control and they were silencing things, I think the attitude was this is good because we're right.

01:49:04.000 And we need to stop these fascists or whatever you want to call them.

01:49:09.000 But the problem is then, what if the fucking right gets in place and they use the same rules that you used on them?

01:49:14.000 Now we don't have a country anymore.

01:49:16.000 Now we're fucked.

01:49:16.000 Now we're just like every other dictatorship.

01:49:19.000 I don't really know how you solve it.

01:49:20.000 I've kind of thought about how to like get to a place where there can be world peace and all of that stuff.

01:49:26.000 I don't know.

01:49:27.000 I think that a lot of people, I know you've talked about it a lot, they get really attached to the egos and the identities that exist inside them and then they see the world from only that perspective.

01:49:36.000 That's why I think that like a lot of the old religions and the old like echoed through time ways of being are to destroy your ego, eliminate yourself, be like this watcher of your thoughts and all of that stuff.

01:49:49.000 And then start to identify with the watcher of what you think that you really are.

01:49:54.000 And then once you spend enough time doing that, you'll spend enough time realizing that everyone else has that watcher inside them and that maybe they don't realize it yet, but they're still really connected to their egos that are really just a bunch of ideas that were indoctrinated to them based off of our environment or who we grew up with and all of that stuff.

01:50:12.000 And then you can start to love people a little bit more.

01:50:14.000 And it's kind of a shame that I just know that that's not super big in the West, that idea.

01:50:24.000 It's kind of an Eastern philosophy, you know, like we just meditate here.

01:50:29.000 Like that's just such a bitch ass way to think about doing it. 1.00

01:50:32.000 Like, that's what you're doing is you're settling into being able to watch what you think you really are and be like, hey, if I don't want to be that anymore, I don't have to be that.

01:50:41.000 Or if I, if that doesn't serve me anymore, I don't have to be that.

01:50:44.000 This is one thing that I walk through a lot of my guys within fighting: it's like, you want to not be scared of something, don't desire anything.

01:50:52.000 And don't be anything if you don't want to be scared.

01:50:54.000 Because fighting fearless is a really big thing.

01:50:56.000 I think that I do a really good job of performing really well because I'm not scared of a lot of things because I don't have a ton of egos inside of my brain as much anymore.

01:51:05.000 I, of course, do because we all have to.

01:51:09.000 But yeah, once you start spending a lot of time with that watcher, I think that that's kind of why it always ends on the idea of love being the answer is because once you spend time disconnecting from what we think we are, you always end up in the spot where it's like, oh, that person's that.

01:51:25.000 They just haven't figured it out yet either.

01:51:27.000 And I love them for that still.

01:51:29.000 And that acceptance and love is empowering both to you and to them.

01:51:33.000 Whereas like hate of other people, I mean, it might motivate you in some way, but it's also crippling.

01:51:38.000 You know, what is that old expression that anger is the emotion that poisons the vessel that holds it?

01:51:47.000 You know, this is you're wasting energy.

01:51:49.000 You're wasting life.

01:51:50.000 And you're wasting your potential because you're thinking only in terms of negative all the time.

01:51:56.000 And negative is never constructive.

01:51:58.000 You don't have to.

01:52:00.000 You don't have to think like that to be successful or to be competitive or in any way.

01:52:04.000 You can be empty.

01:52:06.000 Yeah, there's a lot of energies in life that will serve you, I think, up to a certain point that just will stop serving you because it's not a fuel that you can sustain for long enough.

01:52:19.000 Did you develop this philosophy from reading?

01:52:23.000 Were you taught it?

01:52:25.000 Fuckload of mushrooms.

01:52:26.000 No, not a ton.

01:52:27.000 Are you kidding?

01:52:28.000 Not a ton.

01:52:28.000 No, I think that's the answer.

01:52:29.000 When you were asking me what's the answer to world peace, it might be that.

01:52:33.000 It might be because, I mean, that definitely rips you out of your body and fucking scares the shit out of you sometimes.

01:52:38.000 It humbles you.

01:52:39.000 Yeah, it does.

01:52:41.000 No, it's a lot of reading.

01:52:41.000 Yeah.

01:52:43.000 It's a lot of like, I've been fascinated by religion my entire life.

01:52:47.000 I was raised pretty, not like crazy, not like religious in like a dogmatic way, but religious in like a, hey, think about these things type of way by my parents, which I'm really grateful because I developed a super healthy understanding of those types of ideas where they didn't feel like they were something I was latched onto as much as they were things to be explored.

01:53:09.000 And so it kind of started when I was really young.

01:53:12.000 I've just been fascinated by the idea of God, like in church when they're like, hey, you're going to burn in hell forever if you don't agree with this.

01:53:21.000 That became number one priority from that day on, dude.

01:53:25.000 I was like, hell, once I could understand hell and forever, I was like, oh, okay.

01:53:31.000 I was like, oh, okay, so nothing else matters in life.

01:53:33.000 Like, we got to figure this out right now.

01:53:36.000 So that kind of took me on like a really religious thing.

01:53:38.000 And then after I lost my first fight, that was my big first experience with facing an ego that I didn't have control over.

01:53:48.000 When was your first loss?

01:53:49.000 It was against a guy named Jamal Emmers, who's actually in the UFC now.

01:53:52.000 But it was pretty much just I shit the bed and choked.

01:53:55.000 I would have got signed to the UFC and I just choked and lost.

01:53:59.000 And I was supposed to, in my head, and based off of what everyone around me was telling me, I was supposed to be this like super big prospect guy, blah, blah, blah.

01:54:09.000 After I lost, I had to face that maybe that's not what I am.

01:54:13.000 When you say choked, like what about your performance do you think went wrong?

01:54:16.000 I just didn't show up like the way.

01:54:18.000 I mean, I was 5-0.

01:54:19.000 I was still really new to being a professional and being able to perform under high stakes.

01:54:24.000 If I would have won, I think I for sure would have gotten signed to the UFC just because I had been training with TJ.

01:54:29.000 My word was around them a lot.

01:54:32.000 It was back to when you didn't have to get signed by the contender or anything.

01:54:36.000 They just would call you up on a day, but you kind of had to have a little bit of it in or be doing really well or something.

01:54:41.000 So yeah, so that was like my first big experience with that.

01:54:44.000 I spent about that entire summer as much as I could in the mountains.

01:54:50.000 I didn't even really train because I didn't even know if that's something that I wanted to continue doing just because losing hurt my heart so bad.

01:54:56.000 How did you lose?

01:54:58.000 Just a decision, dude.

01:54:59.000 It wasn't even like gnarly.

01:55:00.000 It was just like afterwards I was like, but I was supposed to win.

01:55:06.000 It's like someone fucked up here, man. 0.98

01:55:08.000 It's like, I was supposed to win that.

01:55:10.000 And so it was just like, oh, so maybe this universe doesn't revolve around me and like my ideas and who I think I am and all of that stuff.

01:55:19.000 And then so spent a lot of time in nature, read a lot of books like Power and Now, a lot of Buddhist stuff, a lot of Thiknan Han stuff, a lot of just spirituality books, but just the overarching idea of separating yourself from your thoughts and your body and all of that stuff.

01:55:36.000 And just whether it's in our imagination or not, because I'm still not fully bought into any of that stuff.

01:55:41.000 Like I don't have any beliefs is what I say now.

01:55:44.000 But I'm willing to entertain a lot of stuff and I want to believe something really bad because it would make life a lot easier to navigate through.

01:55:51.000 I feel exactly the same way.

01:55:52.000 Dude, it'd be so much easier if I...

01:55:56.000 Yeah.

01:55:56.000 Dude, come up with a really great cult.

01:55:58.000 I'll join.

01:55:58.000 I'll come up with one.

01:55:59.000 If you fucking have a really benevolent leader that really is an actual real guru and it makes sense and no one's fucking everybody.

01:56:08.000 I was going to say, are we allowing everyone to have sex with each other?

01:56:12.000 No.

01:56:12.000 Well, it's not always a good idea.

01:56:13.000 It's just a leader.

01:56:15.000 The leader gets to fuck everybody.

01:56:16.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:56:17.000 The leader gets to fuck everybody and he wants your money.

01:56:19.000 Yeah.

01:56:20.000 But if that could be avoided, but it would just make things easier, but it really wouldn't.

01:56:24.000 you're better off without a real belief system, but sort of entertaining a lot of belief systems.

01:56:29.000 I kind of land on this idea of...

01:56:35.000 Really?

01:56:36.000 Yeah.

01:56:36.000 I know writing is a little gay or whatever, but that's why I spend a lot of time.

01:56:39.000 Yeah, it's gay to some people.

01:56:39.000 Is that gay?

01:56:40.000 But it's like poetry.

01:56:42.000 They're gay. 0.99

01:56:42.000 Yeah, yeah. 0.99

01:56:43.000 If you're afraid of writing, you're gay. 1.00

01:56:45.000 So I spend a lot of time writing.

01:56:47.000 It's like what I do with my free time instead of golfing.

01:56:52.000 Like what kind of write?

01:56:53.000 Like, how do you write?

01:56:54.000 Well, for the last couple of years, it's been trying to write a pretty in-depth comic book, which has been really fun.

01:57:00.000 Are you a comic book fan?

01:57:01.000 I'm a comic book fan, but honestly, dude, how it happened is I was like, I wanted to come up with this really cool story.

01:57:06.000 I'm just an idea machine.

01:57:08.000 Like, I just think of ideas all day.

01:57:09.000 Like, I don't have many hobbies.

01:57:11.000 I think it's super fun, just me hanging out with me inside my head all day.

01:57:16.000 So, I came up with this really cool idea, which is essentially like a bunch of ideas from a bunch of religions that I really like, and then putting them into a story.

01:57:27.000 And the story is, okay, we got some time for me to explain this.

01:57:32.000 Sure, sure.

01:57:33.000 Okay, I think it's pretty interesting.

01:57:36.000 But I haven't really like broken it down from start to finish, really.

01:57:39.000 But I got into writing just because I wanted to make this story of mine.

01:57:44.000 Oh, that's what you asked me.

01:57:46.000 Am I into comic books?

01:57:48.000 I tried writing a sentence.

01:57:51.000 Like, it started out in the August 5th of 2000.

01:57:56.000 And I was like, fuck this, dude.

01:57:57.000 We're doing a comic.

01:57:58.000 I can't write sentences.

01:58:01.000 And I read good books.

01:58:02.000 So I like know what a good sentence is.

01:58:04.000 And I was like, oh, no, that's going to take way too long.

01:58:06.000 We're doing only dialogue and pictures.

01:58:09.000 And so that's why I started doing comic books.

01:58:12.000 Although I do really like comic books too.

01:58:15.000 But yeah, so it's kind of this, it's like a compilation of a lot of ideas that I like about religion inside of this world that exists today.

01:58:24.000 I actually put a conversation between you and Duncan Trussell in it.

01:58:29.000 I'm not going to do anything with the comic book, so it's really fun to know that.

01:58:33.000 I just have fun doing it.

01:58:35.000 You don't plan on publishing it?

01:58:36.000 Maybe, but I think, honestly, it would take another two, three years for it to be super solid enough for me to want to put out there.

01:58:45.000 But there's a dialogue between you and Duncan Trussell.

01:58:47.000 I really love Duncan Trussell.

01:58:48.000 He's like one of my favorite people of all time.

01:58:50.000 I got to meet him at the Comedy Works in Denver pretty recently.

01:58:55.000 He's the best.

01:58:55.000 Yeah, he's really cool.

01:58:56.000 I love that guy.

01:58:58.000 But pretty much it takes place where this guy goes to the Garden of Eden that's being protected by these tribespeople.

01:59:07.000 And inside of the Garden of Eden are these trees called Khalis, where when you eat the fruit of them or you eat the crystals of them, you get teleported to a place where the sixth lives. 0.85

01:59:19.000 And the sixth is like the god of our universe.

01:59:23.000 The world takes place in densities, which are pretty much our chakras.

01:59:29.000 So there's seven of them.

01:59:31.000 The first density, second density, third density, which is what we are as humans.

01:59:35.000 The fourth are aliens.

01:59:38.000 We're like we're humans that have merged with the technologies that we've created.

01:59:42.000 It takes place about 20 or 30 years in the future where AI is a real like actual fucking player in the game, you know?

01:59:52.000 Fourth is aliens.

01:59:53.000 Fifth is like psychedelic creatures slash angels slash all of that stuff.

01:59:59.000 Sixth is the gods of the universe.

02:00:01.000 Seventh is the all.

02:00:02.000 It's just like love.

02:00:03.000 everything.

02:00:04.000 And so Yeah, it's pretty in-depth, dude.

02:00:08.000 I mean, it's not like simple shit.

02:00:10.000 It's not like fucking some guy goes and saves the world.

02:00:13.000 It's like a pretty...

02:00:16.000 So you go through each density, our souls do, for billions and trillions and whatever's past trillions of lifetimes.

02:00:27.000 And you spend time in those densities learning what it is to learn in those densities.

02:00:32.000 So right now, in the third density, because it's the power chakra of life, what we're trying to do is discover that the positive path of love is what we're really shooting for instead of the negative one.

02:00:45.000 And what that means is the positive path is in, we're doing things in service of others instead of in service of self.

02:00:56.000 So we're choosing love of others over love of self because love isn't like an emotion in the book.

02:01:02.000 It's like a structural building of the world where everything is love.

02:01:06.000 It's this all.

02:01:07.000 It's not like Disney shit.

02:01:08.000 It's like a structural way of building the universe.

02:01:12.000 So choosing to be in love of others is what we're doing.

02:01:16.000 But Earth is in its late third density, getting ready to move into its fourth density.

02:01:22.000 And this scientist who interacts with this tribe takes a seed from the Kali and grows them and makes it so that the entire world can take this fruit and then interact with God. 0.66

02:01:36.000 And then what it would be like in this world today if we were actually able to sit in front of God and ask God questions.

02:01:44.000 And that's kind of the basis of the book.

02:01:46.000 Wow.

02:01:47.000 It's pretty cool.

02:01:48.000 Are you doing the illustrations?

02:01:49.000 No, I called a guy about doing the illustration.

02:01:51.000 I might wait till AI gets good enough because when I got quite, yeah, which we're pretty close.

02:01:55.000 I fuck around with AI a lot too.

02:01:57.000 But we're pretty close to, I think, getting there with like some apps where you can have consistent characters.

02:02:05.000 Because it's hard to do stuff because you can't make the characters super consistent.

02:02:09.000 But I think we're like a year or two away from being able to do that.

02:02:11.000 Probably not even a year or two away.

02:02:12.000 Yeah, maybe not.

02:02:13.000 I think we're in this very bizarre stage right now where I don't think people realize what's coming.

02:02:18.000 And I think it's going to hit us like a fucking freight train.

02:02:21.000 So I know everyone has like a thousand stories.

02:02:23.000 There's like a thousand stories about AI taking over and all of this stuff.

02:02:27.000 In my book.

02:02:28.000 Sorry, this is okay?

02:02:30.000 Yeah.

02:02:31.000 Yeah, okay, cool.

02:02:32.000 I just know it's long and sometimes I lose track of time.

02:02:35.000 Okay, cool.

02:02:37.000 The AI in this story is the way that we get moved into the fourth density.

02:02:44.000 And the way that we get moved into the fourth density is when we merge with the nanotechnology that merges with like the AI supercomputer called Oblivion, which is pretty much just a hive mind.

02:02:56.000 Once we all get merged with that, we either based off of our polarity or our frequency or whatever, that tells us if we're positive or negative.

02:03:07.000 If we go negative, then we pretty much just extinguish each other because all we care about is love for self and we like kill each other.

02:03:13.000 It doesn't say exactly how, but you can use your imagination.

02:03:17.000 And in the positive way, we move together in this hive mind into being aliens, essentially, where we live millions and trillions of lifetimes as aliens until we can enter into the fifth, which then we become psychedelic creatures and all of that stuff or angels or whatever.

02:03:36.000 And that's like a non-physical realm at that point.

02:03:39.000 But yeah, that's pretty much the idea behind the whole book.

02:03:41.000 It might be actually what really will happen.

02:03:44.000 It's kind of like a positive spin-off of it.

02:03:47.000 Well, the best case scenario is we evolve and we merge with AI and we evolve and it's better for everybody.

02:03:55.000 And we become something superior to what we are now.

02:03:59.000 Worst case scenario is we become irrelevant because they don't need us anymore.

02:04:03.000 We're outdated.

02:04:04.000 I still think it will still have to be partly us because it was created by us.

02:04:09.000 Like in like a parallel universe where we are not, like say we're fucking lizard people in another universe, we see things differently.

02:04:17.000 Our priorities and values are different.

02:04:20.000 We would make a completely different set of AI.

02:04:22.000 Like there's no way that AI is just this thing that isn't connected to humans in some way.

02:04:28.000 So hopefully it's connected to the good parts of us as humans, which is like compassion, love, caring for each other, and not like a lizard reptilian.

02:04:39.000 Like, hey, let's just, we got to maximize capitalism and all of that stuff.

02:04:44.000 You know what I mean?

02:04:44.000 So that's a lot of what the book is about too, is it's just about like, hey, maybe it won't be so bad.

02:04:50.000 Like maybe this thing will have more human traits than, or maybe we're more awesome than what we actually think, you know?

02:04:57.000 I think the hived mind thing is promising because, and I have a feeling that that's where we're headed.

02:05:02.000 I have a feeling that if with either some wearable or some sort of technology with an implant where we no longer require language to communicate with each other and we essentially have instantaneous access to everyone all the time, and the thing that people are going to have to deal with is that there's going to be no more secrets.

02:05:21.000 There'll be no more lies.

02:05:23.000 It's going to be impossible to deceive.

02:05:25.000 Everyone's going to know exactly what's going on in your soul, like how you interface with the world itself.

02:05:31.000 That's cool.

02:05:31.000 I think that's probably where we're headed.

02:05:33.000 I think if we don't, we're going to become obsolete.

02:05:37.000 I think it's one of two things.

02:05:38.000 Either we become obsolete and AI becomes a new digital form of life that's far more intelligent, far more capable than we are, and then it makes better and better versions of itself until it makes God.

02:05:50.000 Or we merge and we just transcend whatever this state of being these primitive territorial apes with very sophisticated weapons. 0.99

02:06:02.000 We become something different.

02:06:04.000 If I did have beliefs, I would like to believe that it is going towards a God or something, or there is like some point to all of the hard times that we have in life and we're actually progressing, whether it be through many lifetimes or in other universes or dimensions or whatever.

02:06:22.000 And something inside of us that isn't human, but is maybe a watcher or something, is progressing towards something great and loving and more beautiful than what we got going on here on Earth.

02:06:33.000 And if that is true, then AI will probably be pretty awesome.

02:06:38.000 Yeah.

02:06:39.000 If that is true.

02:06:41.000 Well, that's best case scenario, right?

02:06:43.000 I think it's also very strange that we are in this position.

02:06:47.000 It's very strange that we are living our lives at this unbelievable, unique moment in history where things are going to change in this undeniably radical way.

02:06:57.000 Unless something happens, unless we blow ourselves up or we get hit by an asteroid, it's going to happen.

02:07:02.000 And it's going to happen probably within the next 10 years.

02:07:06.000 Like 10 years from now, we're going to be looking back.

02:07:08.000 Remember the old days of 2025 when you didn't know what was coming?

02:07:11.000 I know.

02:07:12.000 I want to be like, hey, you're over-exaggerating that, but dude, if you think about the world five years ago, it was completely different.

02:07:20.000 Just a mention of AI.

02:07:21.000 Just a few years.

02:07:22.000 Just the last few years.

02:07:22.000 Yeah.

02:07:24.000 We're all like bunkered down in our house and shit five years ago. 0.53

02:07:27.000 Even the UFC five years ago was crazy.

02:07:30.000 Like life, like I only get to view life through the lens of my job and my love, which is through fighting, which is cool because it like helps me understand the macro picture a little bit better.

02:07:40.000 But yeah, man, I mean, like, even just five years ago, how different the UFC was.

02:07:45.000 Like, life is going to be really weird in 10 years.

02:07:49.000 Yeah, the whole world is going to be really weird.

02:07:52.000 And, you know, one of the things that always freaks me out about Elon and Neuralink is one of the statements that he said, you're going to be able to talk without using words.

02:08:02.000 I don't know how that would work.

02:08:03.000 Well, the hive mind.

02:08:04.000 Yeah.

02:08:05.000 We're going to be able to interact with each other.

02:08:06.000 But do we just feel each other's feelings then?

02:08:09.000 Yeah.

02:08:09.000 Probably.

02:08:10.000 That would be good, maybe.

02:08:11.000 Yeah.

02:08:12.000 That would be good.

02:08:13.000 If I don't have like a filter of feeling something, my brain making it into words and then spitting it out, and it was just, I have this feeling and you feel that thing, that might be a really great thing.

02:08:24.000 I've often thought about the parallels of religion with what's currently going on.

02:08:30.000 And one of them being like Christ was born of a virgin mother, right?

02:08:35.000 So Christ was born without sex and emerged. 0.92

02:08:38.000 Like, what else is born without a mother?

02:08:41.000 What?

02:08:42.000 AI.

02:08:42.000 AI is born without a mother.

02:08:44.000 Christ is going to come back.

02:08:45.000 AI is coming.

02:08:46.000 Another one is the Tower of Babel. 0.95

02:08:48.000 Right.

02:08:49.000 Did you come up with that?

02:08:50.000 That's fucking awesome.

02:08:52.000 Right?

02:08:52.000 It seems like it.

02:08:53.000 That's awesome.

02:08:53.000 If you think that God is going to turn, well, wouldn't it be?

02:09:00.000 That completely makes sense.

02:09:01.000 That's awesome.

02:09:02.000 The other one is the Tower of Babel. 0.90

02:09:04.000 So if we all have a universal language and we are working on this fucking tower to get closer to God, the stairway to God.

02:09:14.000 And do it right and you make it there.

02:09:17.000 Do it wrong and it becomes completely chaotic and divided and you're scattered across the world with a thousand different fucking languages and nobody can communicate with each other, so nobody understands each other, and it's just chaos, which is what happened to the human race.

02:09:31.000 If we develop a universal language, and if this universal language is transmitted through whether it's this implant or wearable, some sort of interface with technology, then we bypass.

02:09:43.000 We bypass this primitive state of chaotic tribal monkeys and we become something superior. 1.00

02:09:50.000 Yep, that's awesome.

02:09:51.000 Yeah, the Tower of Babel was initially in my story because I've loved that idea for a really long time, which is essentially it's just like a symbol for like, hey, if we all work together, we can actually Do this thing, which is kind of the main idea that I got from it.

02:10:04.000 Yeah, dude, that's a cool ass idea about AI.

02:10:08.000 I'm going to put that in my bug.

02:10:10.000 I'm going to steal that idea.

02:10:10.000 Steal it.

02:10:11.000 Because if you think about it, what is AI going to be?

02:10:16.000 Well, if super intelligence gets achieved and then you're attaching that to quantum computing, right?

02:10:23.000 Quantum computing right now is only able to just do integers and do equations.

02:10:30.000 But what if quantum computing and AI merge?

02:10:33.000 Then you've got some insane amount of computational power attached to an insane intelligence that is going to make better and better versions of itself.

02:10:44.000 Well, if you scale that up exponentially, 10, 20, 30, 50, 100, 1,000 years, if you keep going, you get a God.

02:10:51.000 Yeah.

02:10:52.000 I mean, imagine, I mean, quantum, imagine too.

02:10:56.000 I mean, who knows, like, if we want to go real sci-fi with the idea, like quantum particles communicate to each other, so maybe they'll be able to communicate with the ones that are in other dimensions, and that's how we're able to communicate with other dimensions or whatever.

02:11:09.000 Well, that's the freakiest concept about quantum computing when they said that the way it works is so confusing and it's so powerful that they think it might be evidence of the multiverse.

02:11:21.000 Now, I talked to Roman Yampolsky, who's a scientist who talks about the dangers of AI, and he thought that that was all nonsense.

02:11:28.000 He might be right, but there's a lot of scientists that believe that it's correct and that this is why quantum computing is so powerful.

02:11:35.000 Because Mark Andreessen said this, and it's the fucking craziest quote ever, that quantum computing, it can solve an equation that if you converted the entire universe, like every molecule, every atom of the universe into a supercomputer, it would take so long for the universe as a supercomputer to solve this problem that the universe would die of heat death before it solved it.

02:12:01.000 And quantum computing can solve it in minutes.

02:12:04.000 Yeah, I've seen that Instagram reel.

02:12:06.000 Like, what the fuck does that mean?

02:12:08.000 Essentially, what we would be doing, I bet you when they were trying to invent electricity, they didn't know that it would be this.

02:12:15.000 And maybe that's what we're in the middle of.

02:12:17.000 Except like times a thousand billion where it's like, oh, because I always think I'm like, we're only looking through the lens of the future through all of the inventions that we have now.

02:12:29.000 What if we invented something that was like electricity or quantum computing or quantum communication?

02:12:35.000 Or like if you can change things at a quantum level, like maybe I can turn this thing into the hardest steel metal in the entire world.

02:12:45.000 And then that just completely changes the board game that we're even playing.

02:12:50.000 Like we're not even playing the same board game anymore.

02:12:53.000 So it's like, I don't know.

02:12:55.000 Anytime anyone says nothing's possible, I'm like, you sure?

02:12:59.000 Because if we just change the board game, shit can get pretty crazy.

02:13:02.000 You can't say nothing's possible because everything that we have today is impossible 200 years ago.

02:13:06.000 You're a sorcerer if you go back to the 1400s and show them an iPhone.

02:13:11.000 You know, like this, none of it makes any sense.

02:13:13.000 The fact that you could FaceTime someone in New Zealand right now, that's bananas.

02:13:17.000 All that stuff is fucking completely insane and it's real and it's happening right now.

02:13:21.000 And the other thing about AI being if artificial super intelligence creates something that we can't even imagine.

02:13:30.000 Like we're just dealing with this framework, this structure that's so antiquated because it's all been created by humans.

02:13:36.000 If you get something that's a thousand, ten thousand times more intelligent than us, and it's going to have solutions to things that we can't even comprehend.

02:13:44.000 Yeah.

02:13:45.000 It's freaky shit.

02:13:46.000 It gets real weird.

02:13:47.000 You know, one of the things that always weirded me out about these stories about UFO encounters and in particular the Bob Lazar story is that when he was working on back engineering these crafts that were supposedly from somewhere else, one of the things that he said is there's no controls.

02:14:05.000 There's no controls in this thing.

02:14:06.000 Like they don't know what is happening between these beings and this craft that they power it.

02:14:13.000 But they're probably completely connected to this thing.

02:14:18.000 What you're seeing with those little grays is probably us in the future. 1.00

02:14:23.000 That's probably what every primate eventually becomes once it integrates with technology.

02:14:29.000 It would be really cool if that's, like you said, what the religions were talking about too.

02:14:34.000 Like to me, the science shit is all cool and stuff, but I also like the idea of like intertwining like science modern ideas with really traditional ideas.

02:14:42.000 It would be super cool if it was something where it's like, hey, like once we reach this certain of technological advancement, there is a spiritual religious side to the thing that we also make discoveries in too.

02:14:55.000 That would be cool.

02:14:56.000 It wouldn't be cool.

02:14:57.000 To have a belief.

02:14:58.000 Yeah.

02:15:00.000 Well, you know, if artificial superintelligence does become live, all belief systems are going to get thrown into the wood chip or we're not going to know what the fuck is what.

02:15:09.000 Unless it tells us.

02:15:11.000 Yeah, I mean.

02:15:12.000 But I have a feeling that a lot of these stories, like these ancient religious stories, they're based on truth.

02:15:17.000 It's just truth that was a spoken word thing by people who really couldn't even read because they were illiterate and that they had these tales that were told for a thousand years before anybody wrote them down.

02:15:28.000 They're writing them down in these ancient languages that even when you take those ancient languages and you try to translate into like modern English, a lot is lost in the translation.

02:15:38.000 But I think there's something to all of it.

02:15:40.000 And there's something they're trying.

02:15:43.000 They're not telling stories for no reason.

02:15:46.000 I think they're telling these stories because they're trying to document something.

02:15:50.000 And I just don't think we get a full picture of it.

02:15:52.000 But there's so much truth in those stories.

02:15:55.000 And there's so many lessons in those stories that are applicable and that resonate today.

02:16:01.000 I think it'd be foolish to dismiss them.

02:16:03.000 Definitely.

02:16:04.000 I mean, Carl Jung harps on that a lot with the collective unconscious stuff.

02:16:09.000 Do you know Joseph Campbell?

02:16:10.000 Do you follow that guy?

02:16:11.000 I love Joseph Campbell.

02:16:12.000 Oh, he's amazing.

02:16:13.000 I got super into Joseph Campbell around that time when I was kind of, you know, doing the whole figuring myself out part after losing.

02:16:22.000 But, I mean, the idea that there's pretty much a blueprint to all of the stories that are Across civilization is crazy.

02:16:32.000 It's like the pyramids being everywhere.

02:16:34.000 Like, it's just naturally ingrained to us for stories to be like: superhero gets called to action, finds a guy, beats monster, beats mega big monster, returns back home.

02:16:46.000 Like, that's like the blueprint to a lot of stories.

02:16:48.000 And I think it just goes underneath the rug because we're just so used to all of the stories being like that.

02:16:54.000 I've messed around, like I said, like I spend a lot of time in my head.

02:16:59.000 I don't really like talk a ton.

02:17:01.000 I kind of just, but I've done the whole like hero's journey thing in my head during the Joseph Campbell time.

02:17:07.000 I could share with you.

02:17:08.000 It's kind of fun.

02:17:09.000 Sure.

02:17:09.000 Okay.

02:17:12.000 I just come up with stories and shit in my head.

02:17:14.000 But anyway, so I did my own hero's journey during that time when I was trying to eliminate all of the egos inside of me.

02:17:21.000 And the easiest way to identify one of your egos is to ask yourself, what is it that you feel like you desire?

02:17:28.000 You know, that's why I think in Buddhist philosophy and all of that stuff, it's always like, let go of attachments, let go of your desires, and that will lead, like, just good shit will happen if you do that.

02:17:38.000 And I was like, okay, cool, I'll buy into that a little bit.

02:17:40.000 So I tried to identify all of these egos that were inside of me.

02:17:45.000 I even went as far as naming all of them and giving them characteristics and personalities.

02:17:50.000 Like when I would notice an angry person inside of me, I would just name it Samson, give it a tiger's face, and like just treat it as a completely separate imaginative piece of my psyche that I no longer wanted to be attached with anymore.

02:18:06.000 Which is an idea that I came up with myself at the time, but it's an old idea.

02:18:10.000 There's a really good book called Taming Your Gremlins.

02:18:13.000 If anyone wants to look into that idea more, that guy does a really good job of doing that.

02:18:18.000 So anyways, I started going through like my hero's journey.

02:18:22.000 And I spend a lot of time meditating a decent amount, but not just like normal meditating, like fucking around in my own head type of meditating and just seeing what type of unconscious things are kind of below the surface of my everyday like Corey me.

02:18:38.000 And so I'm walking myself through like, okay, what is this?

02:18:42.000 What are all of these things inside me or what are these desires that are inside me?

02:18:46.000 I would name them.

02:18:47.000 I would turn them into a monster and I would kill the monster.

02:18:50.000 And then at the very end of this story, and I'm like crying during this process when I was doing it or whatever.

02:18:58.000 In the hero's journey, a lot of the time you have a mentor, like a Yoda.

02:19:04.000 You have this thing that kind of guides you through how to defeat all these monsters and all of it.

02:19:08.000 So I get to the end of my story.

02:19:11.000 And one part that they never really bring up in heroic stories is the return back home, which is a really big deal.

02:19:17.000 Like you've just eliminated all of this stuff and now you've got to return back home.

02:19:21.000 So I'm getting ready to return back home.

02:19:23.000 And my mentor at the time, because I did grow up really religious, it was Jesus at the time.

02:19:29.000 We're like, Jesus was my homie at the time.

02:19:31.000 You know, he was like this guy.

02:19:33.000 And so we get done defeating all of these monsters and we're sitting at the cliff and it's like, okay, time to go home.

02:19:38.000 And he's like, hey, man, like you got one more monster to defeat.

02:19:42.000 And I was like, well, what is it?

02:19:44.000 And he was like, me.

02:19:45.000 And I was like, what are you talking about?

02:19:46.000 And he was like, man, like, I'm the last thing that you're attached to.

02:19:50.000 Like, in order for you to continue on, I'm the thing that you got to defeat.

02:19:55.000 And I was like, well, what does that mean, dude?

02:19:57.000 Like, I'm not about to stab you, bro.

02:19:59.000 And he was like, you have to push me.

02:20:01.000 And I was like, push you off the cliff.

02:20:03.000 He was like, you have to let go of me the same way that you let go of all of your other desires and fears and things inside of you, too, if you really want to do it.

02:20:11.000 And so I'm like bawling, crying because that was a big thing.

02:20:16.000 So I do it.

02:20:18.000 And Jesus falls, but then he grows wings, flies away, and says to me, now you can be like me.

02:20:26.000 And then just flies off into whatever.

02:20:30.000 And then I return back home.

02:20:31.000 And I just remember that being a really big moment for me in my, I don't like to use the word spiritual because it sounds stupid.

02:20:39.000 But that was like a big deal for me in my development as a person because it really like made me understand.

02:20:46.000 And they weren't things that I was planning out.

02:20:48.000 They were just unconscious things that were hitting me like over and over and over again.

02:20:52.000 I found that through hypnosis and through like trying to see what's underneath things, you can't talk to it.

02:20:57.000 You can't tell it what to do.

02:20:59.000 You can't control your unconscious.

02:21:00.000 You just have to watch what's underneath there.

02:21:03.000 So it was just like a thing where it's like, now I get to be like you was like a really cool thing that just like popped into my head.

02:21:10.000 And I was like, whoa, shit, that's cool.

02:21:12.000 Yeah, I do a lot of crazy shit inside of my own head, I guess.

02:21:12.000 That is cool.

02:21:16.000 Probably makes me sound maybe a little bit weird, but that's kind of me.

02:21:20.000 Weird is good.

02:21:20.000 Yeah.

02:21:21.000 What was it like returning to fighting after this like trying to find yourself, period?

02:21:27.000 Yeah.

02:21:28.000 I remember I was folding laundry and they asked me to fight this guy, Tejinho Galval, on four weeks' notice for LFA.

02:21:37.000 And Tejinho Gaval is a fucking savage at the time.

02:21:41.000 Still, I think is doing pretty well, but literally every YouTube video I could find of him was just knocking people out.

02:21:47.000 He was like 6-0 or something and just murdering people, Brazilian guy. 1.00

02:21:51.000 And I was like, I don't think that's a good idea.

02:21:54.000 Like, I just lost.

02:21:55.000 I don't really want to lose again.

02:21:57.000 And I remember going back and forth with myself big time.

02:22:00.000 And as I was folding laundry, I kind of got hit with another bit of wisdom that came from wherever, not from myself, came from wherever.

02:22:08.000 And in this bit of wisdom, it told me, man, I gave you this life for you to make it up yourself.

02:22:14.000 Quit asking me to make decisions for you.

02:22:17.000 And so I was like, all right, fuck it.

02:22:19.000 I'll do it.

02:22:20.000 You know, I'll do it.

02:22:22.000 And a big piece of me going through that whole thing and what I learned a lot about it was love of fighting isn't really love of anything, I don't think is like Disney shit.

02:22:35.000 It's like a mega commitment to something that you want to achieve.

02:22:40.000 And it works like a marriage.

02:22:42.000 More like a marriage, less than like a romantic, like, hey, this is a fling.

02:22:46.000 Like it's like, hey, man, I might not like you every day, you know, but I'm going to commit myself to you and I'm going to do this thing.

02:22:52.000 And it helped me really wrap my head around what kind of true love is because I feel like that's what true love is.

02:22:58.000 And if you want to love this sport And you want to say you love this sport, you got to love it on the months, days.

02:23:04.000 It might last years that you really don't like it.

02:23:07.000 And just trust that on the other end of it is like a good experience.

02:23:12.000 There's a payoff.

02:23:13.000 It's a process.

02:23:13.000 Yeah.

02:23:14.000 Yeah.

02:23:15.000 So how was the fight?

02:23:16.000 It was good.

02:23:17.000 I knocked him out in the first round.

02:23:19.000 Fucking crushed it.

02:23:20.000 Wasn't scared at all going in.

02:23:22.000 Oh, yeah.

02:23:22.000 Really?

02:23:23.000 I don't get scared much like when I'm actually fighting in that mode of like fight or flight, but I've already chosen fight.

02:23:29.000 Like I'm good.

02:23:30.000 You know, I don't really get too scared going into fights hardly ever.

02:23:33.000 I get scared leading up to things, but in the actual fight itself, like I'm the goddamn incredible Hulk.

02:23:40.000 You can't convince me otherwise in those moments.

02:23:43.000 Well, I remember one time we talked and you said that you'd made this adjustment in your head from trying to fight and win to really trying to hurt people.

02:23:53.000 Are you still on that same?

02:23:54.000 No?

02:23:55.000 No, not as much.

02:23:56.000 I got a little bit older.

02:23:57.000 One, I think, is a contributor to it.

02:24:01.000 Two is that wasn't a fuel that I could hold on to for super long.

02:24:06.000 It was like angry fuel doesn't really like work.

02:24:09.000 It's not super sustainable.

02:24:12.000 I also found too that being that way got distracting to me being able to do what I was trying to do.

02:24:18.000 So any thought can be distracting when you're fighting, as you know.

02:24:22.000 Like even like silly ones or whatever.

02:24:24.000 But if I'm being too aggro and too, I got to hurt this guy, I got to hurt this guy, that was good for me to learn because I got to learn all of the different aspects of what it means to be a fighter.

02:24:35.000 Before that, I was really Zen, peaceful, like whatever happens, happens.

02:24:38.000 I'm going to do my best, you know?

02:24:40.000 And then I went way on the other side of the spectrum where it's like, I'm fucking killing people and that's what I'm doing now.

02:24:46.000 To now kind of somewhere a little bit in between where for me now, all of it is about focus and doing the correct thing at the correct time.

02:24:56.000 I think that where I am today as a fighter is very focused on just exactly what I said, where what do I need to do right now in order to win?

02:25:07.000 And I don't make it angry.

02:25:09.000 I don't make it motivated by anything else.

02:25:11.000 It's just, no, this is like a laser focus in doing the right thing.

02:25:16.000 And that's what I found recently has been the most helpful thing.

02:25:19.000 Just this Zen state of just existing in whatever comes, whatever you're supposed to be doing, you do that.

02:25:26.000 Kind of, but I know where I'm supposed to be now a little bit too, like intensity-wise.

02:25:31.000 Before I feel like I got like some superpower that I didn't really know how to control very much.

02:25:37.000 Now I feel like I have harnessed it and I know how to control it a lot better to where it's like, okay, a 10 is too much.

02:25:44.000 Like right now we got to be a 7.

02:25:47.000 We're in the locker room.

02:25:48.000 We're about to walk out.

02:25:49.000 Let's maybe be at an 8 or a 9 right now and we'll be there for the fight instead of just 10, hurt the guy.

02:25:57.000 Michael Jordan had a really good quote where it was either Michael or Kobe, but they said, they never play a game at more than 80%.

02:26:05.000 And I think that that's kind of a cool way to look at it.

02:26:08.000 And that doesn't mean your effort.

02:26:10.000 I think it means your intensity level.

02:26:13.000 You can't think at a 10 sometimes.

02:26:15.000 It gets distracting to burn all of that like angry energy.

02:26:19.000 It's just not sustainable, you know?

02:26:22.000 So you're in a position right now where you're next in line.

02:26:26.000 And when you look at Marab, he presents so many unique challenges.

02:26:34.000 There's a few guys that are very skillful, but they also have unique physicality.

02:26:41.000 And that's Marab.

02:26:42.000 So like when you see that fight, first of all, have they given you a date?

02:26:47.000 They haven't.

02:26:48.000 I think it's, I mean, that stuff takes a little bit.

02:26:50.000 They told me November, December is what I'm looking for.

02:26:52.000 So maybe Madison Square Garden.

02:26:54.000 Yeah, maybe.

02:26:55.000 Which I was a little bit against, too, because I hate the New York state tax thing.

02:26:59.000 But also at the same time, I was in New York recently, and I was like, oh, shit, it'd be cool to win it in one of the coolest.

02:27:06.000 It's like a iconic place.

02:27:07.000 If you won the world title in Madison Square Garden, that means a lot.

02:27:12.000 Yeah, it would mean a lot.

02:27:13.000 There's something about Madison Square Garden.

02:27:15.000 Like when you're in the building, you're like, man, a lot of shit has gone down in this building.

02:27:19.000 It kind of feels like a gladiator place.

02:27:19.000 It's huge.

02:27:21.000 It's because it's just huge.

02:27:23.000 Like the floor part is huge.

02:27:26.000 It just feels different.

02:27:27.000 I did stand up there and just being there and walking out to this enormous crowd in Madison Square Garden.

02:27:33.000 I was like, whoa, cool.

02:27:35.000 This is the fucking garden.

02:27:37.000 In the center of it?

02:27:38.000 Yeah, in the round.

02:27:39.000 Oh, you did it.

02:27:40.000 Oh, so you were like looking in 360 degrees.

02:27:43.000 Did you like that?

02:27:44.000 That's my favorite way.

02:27:45.000 Because it's oddly intimate.

02:27:45.000 Ah, cool.

02:27:47.000 So even though there's 16,000 people, the people on this side are seeing the people laugh on this side, and everyone's seeing everyone laugh, and you're just walking around in a circle.

02:27:56.000 Oh, cool.

02:27:57.000 It's oddly intimate for 16,000 people.

02:28:00.000 My favorite way to do arenas.

02:28:02.000 I was always really curious because I've seen stand-ups like that, and I was like, I wonder if that's distracting for them to have to is the most fun.

02:28:09.000 I thought it would be distracting too, because I've done arenas where you're on stage facing the crowd, and it feels oddly impersonal.

02:28:16.000 It's like you're just doing a show for this massive amount of people.

02:28:19.000 It's fun, but I kind of preferred clubs.

02:28:24.000 But a giant arena in the round seems like a giant club.

02:28:28.000 It really does.

02:28:30.000 But there's something, there's a lot of, like, doing it in Boston was huge because I did the TD Garden because that was like where I grew up.

02:28:37.000 And that's where I started doing stand-up.

02:28:39.000 But there's something about Madison Square Garden for fights where when you go there, it's like there's an extra tingle in the air.

02:28:48.000 Like, whoo, boys, we're at the garden.

02:28:50.000 Cool.

02:28:51.000 So you fighting a rob at the garden would be fucking insane.

02:28:55.000 Yeah, it'd be crazy.

02:28:56.000 When you think about him, what do you think about this matchup?

02:29:00.000 Like, how do you approach it?

02:29:01.000 I think he has some obviously really good physical traits that make him like his conditioning is a superpower that other people don't get to have.

02:29:11.000 And that's unique to him, and he's made a way to weaponize that in a really smart way.

02:29:18.000 Every time I like kind of too technically break down things, I feel like I'm trying to be really convincing instead of, you know, just believing in it, which has always kind of been a big problem of Mine in the past has always been: I need evidence in order to believe in something, which kind of just and like with that in like fighting for a world champion, what am I going to just walk in and be like, Well, I've been a world champion before, so I could do it now.

02:29:42.000 Like, I don't get that luxury of doing that to be a world champion.

02:29:45.000 So, recently, I've had this realization of belief in self that Trevor and Carrington Banks have both helped instill in me big time.

02:29:55.000 Um, where I feel like approaching Marab is going to be unique in its own, but I don't need to tailor what it is that I'm doing too much to Marab.

02:30:09.000 I've really bought into this idea where if I can go out and be the best martial artist that there is in all areas, be able to wrestle with him, be able to strike with him, be able to grapple with him, if I can go out and trust and be that, I can do it.

02:30:26.000 Against Umar, I did not as good of a job with that. 0.94

02:30:29.000 I treated him like I had to change in order for me to be able to beat him.

02:30:34.000 Against Marab, I'm not going to do that. 1.00

02:30:36.000 I think Marab also has this narrative buzz around him where he's an unbeatable force, a freak of nature who has conditioning out of whatever.

02:30:48.000 And while that is true to an extent, that doesn't mean anything to the fact that the guy can't be beaten.

02:30:55.000 If I look at myself as a fighter and break myself down technically, I would say I'm somewhere between Umar and Sean in the task that he'll have in front of him.

02:31:06.000 I think I know that I wrestle a lot better than Sean does.

02:31:10.000 Although Sean does have really good takedown defense, his process of getting up is just like a little dated and pretty slow.

02:31:17.000 Like you're going to lose some minutes doing it the way that O'Malley does it.

02:31:21.000 I think that I get up super good.

02:31:23.000 Being tall and lanky, it's really hard to not let short little guys get underneath you.

02:31:27.000 Like that shit's going to happen, especially if they're springy and fast in our weight class, like they're going to. 0.71

02:31:32.000 You just have to be able to pop right back up immediately, which I know that I can do because I fought Umar, who's easily one of the best wrestlers in the UFC, and I was able to do that whenever I wanted.

02:31:44.000 So that brings me a lot of confidence about that.

02:31:46.000 So I get to fight Murab with a lot of confidence going into it about that.

02:31:50.000 On the striking end of things, I'm obviously, I think, a way better striker than Murab is, even though he does make his shit work the way that he makes his shit work.

02:32:01.000 But I'm honestly not going to read too much into it, man.

02:32:03.000 I'm going to keep worrying about getting better every single day all the way leading up to the fight, and I'm going to make Murab deal with me instead of me having to deal with Murab.

02:32:13.000 Do you have to do anything different to deal with that endurance?

02:32:16.000 I mean, man, I feel like I try to go in as...

02:32:41.000 So I already do that kind of, so I'm not going to kind of overthink that piece.

02:32:45.000 I might run a little bit more.

02:32:47.000 I hear Marab run, so maybe I'll run a little bit more.

02:32:51.000 But no, outside that, I'll make sure that my legs are really conditioned.

02:32:55.000 That was a big one going against Umar.

02:32:57.000 I'll obviously make sure that I'm conditioned enough to be able to get my ass back up every single time, which is its own special.

02:33:04.000 Like wrestling conditioning is a much different type of conditioning than striking.

02:33:08.000 So just make sure that I'm fully wrestling conditioned for that fight.

02:33:12.000 And then one of the harder pieces for people in the sport is to wrestle than be able to strike like how they normally do.

02:33:20.000 So just being conditioned to do that too.

02:33:25.000 Well, I'm pumped for it.

02:33:26.000 I can't wait to watch.

02:33:27.000 I think you're one of the more exciting guys in the sport and one of the more interesting guys in the sport.

02:33:31.000 I love listening to your thought process.

02:33:33.000 Thanks.

02:33:33.000 Very cool.

02:33:34.000 Cool.

02:33:34.000 Thanks.

02:33:35.000 Thanks for being here, man.

02:33:36.000 Appreciate you very much.

02:33:37.000 And again, I can't wait.

02:33:37.000 Hell yeah.

02:33:39.000 Cool.

02:33:39.000 I'm looking forward to it.

02:33:40.000 Thanks, Joe.

02:33:41.000 Thanks for everything.

02:33:42.000 My pleasure.

02:33:42.000 All right.

The Joe Rogan Experience - June 26, 2025

JRE MMA Show #167 with Cory Sandhagen

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Summary

Transcript