00:01:06.000I just, I remember what was the one episode with Theo and you asked about the headphones and he was, he says something like, it's like sitting there with the, with the, with the, with the condom and she's just looking at you or I forget exactly how the joke goes.
00:01:24.000It's like one of Theo Vaughn's greatest moments where he says all these things.
00:01:28.000He was like, when I, when I feel like saying it, I just write it down.
00:01:31.000I don't know if you saw this clip, but it's, I mean, I'm sure I was there when it happened, but, He says so many ridiculous things I can't remember.
00:02:51.000He's a sick grappler in his own right.
00:02:53.000I thought he was going to get out that one moment where he had the leg hiked up, he had the ankle, and all he had to do was swim inside, but he kept it too long.
00:03:01.000It allowed him to hit the ground, and he was able to readjust and lock in that figure four, and it was over.
00:03:06.000Well, when he reached over and grabbed the far arm and used that to hang on to the back, that is slick.
00:03:59.000He's, first of all, real tall for the weight class.
00:04:02.000I think he's over six feet tall, long, excellent reach, excellent strike.
00:04:07.000The other thing that he did that was really slick, he pretended to get up off of his back so Gamrod explodes and he exposes his neck right there.
00:04:16.000Watch that, back that up just a touch.
00:05:44.000It's interesting, like these guys that have the unknowns.
00:05:48.000You know, like some guys get really far.
00:05:50.000Like Tom Aspinall becomes heavyweight champion of the world, and it's kind of an unknown whether he can fight in the fourth and fifth rounds.
00:06:15.000But then if you get into the, you know, you run into the wrong one and the fight starts to get tough, you don't know if you can actually push that envelope.
00:06:38.000It should be you get paid what you get paid.
00:06:39.000It shouldn't be, first of all, if judges were perfect.
00:06:44.000Every time, maybe you could make an argument for that, but I still don't think you should make an argument for that because I think guys fight as hard as they can to win.
00:06:52.000There's no one who's fighting harder because you think you're going to get a win bonus.
00:06:56.000You know, you're fighting as hard as you possibly can at the highest level.
00:07:01.000And so you're not incentivizing people to fight harder.
00:07:04.000You're just giving too much of their career, too much of their future, too much of their actual, like, how they're going to feed their family to the whims of people that sometimes get it wrong.
00:14:40.000And I kind of got away from it, but the old version of me would like to just say all kinds of crazy shit, but I'm, you know, a little bit more mature now.
00:14:48.000There's no benefit in it, and it wastes energy.
00:15:32.000If you and your friends, like, bro, Drake's talking shit with me, and you and Drake are going back and forth, you're like, fuck you, pussy.
00:15:47.000But I think that when you get to the level that you're at, a literal world champion and a professional fighter of the highest caliber, you do yourself a disservice.
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00:26:58.000The fascinating part is when I went up to 45, I got down and I was lighter in my natural walking around weight, still eating the same way I always did.
00:27:07.000And I was walking around about 168, sometimes 66, to about 172.
00:27:12.000And I'm like, this just doesn't even make any sense how much lighter I am from 135.
00:27:18.000Maybe it's just less anxiety about making the weight.
00:30:44.000That's one of those fights where you're like, that fight's not right.
00:30:47.000This is just too much of a changing of the guard.
00:30:49.000There's one guy who is coming off of karate combat, first of all.
00:30:54.000One thing, if Junior was a wrestler, if Junior was a sick wrestler, and, you know, oh, you know, maybe he's going to take him down, ground and pound.
00:31:01.000This is kind of, even though he's older, he's been knocked out a bunch of times, he's still very dangerous.
00:31:05.000But, you know, Junior had seen his best days back when he knocked out Kane.
00:34:38.000If he had, like, the real drive and did it as a lifestyle change and, like, did it over the course of, like, a year and, like, really leaned himself out, got on, like, a ketogenic diet, leaned himself out.
00:34:53.000But then how often would he be able to fight?
00:34:56.000Depends on how much he actually gets his body weight down to.
00:35:18.000But if he had, with his frame, if he had slowly but surely leaned himself out and did it healthy, smart over like the course of a year, he'd have to take some time off and really just dedicate himself to just getting lean.
00:35:57.000Yeah, you know, because when I would cut down, and I wasn't always this big at 35, but when I would cut down to 35, I would have to do it in stages.
00:36:05.000So I couldn't do a three month turnaround like I did for the one fight.
00:37:21.000I'm like, I could have been eating right now and I'm the same weight that I was when I just ate.
00:37:27.000I'm like, I'd much rather just stuff my face.
00:37:29.000I think the idea is that it hydrates you more efficiently because instead of having to go through your stomach, it goes right into your veins and then it hydrates your muscles more efficiently.
00:37:38.000I didn't really feel like a performance difference, if I'm being honest.
00:38:05.000That guy's built, I'm built different, but he's built different than me.
00:38:08.000Well, I think John is just so fucking talented and so fucking smart that he was able to get by and dominate at a world championship level by putting himself at a deficit like that.
00:38:21.000Whereas if John, you say that, but John's a different person.
00:40:27.000Like you're in shape, i'm in shape, let's have one or two, and uh, and I always get my Thai chili wings over there.
00:40:34.000And so whenever I go in Long Island, i'm finishing up a camp on the east coast, i'm fighting home on the East coast, um Rishi always hit me up.
00:40:41.000He goes, we're gonna do the uh, the ritual, get the Thai chili wings and get my Ipa's, and yeah but, like I said, everyone's different.
00:40:49.000Whatever makes you feel comfortable, if you're gonna do it, You can't, like, for me, like having a drink the night before the fight, and people go, You're not worried, it's going to affect your performance.
00:40:58.000And I go, If I lose because of this one drink, I wasn't supposed to win.
00:41:19.000And the difference is whether or not you got that extra REM sleep the night before where you could push.
00:41:25.000When you lay off, when you lay back on the gas, when you really maybe could, like, if you were a little bit more rested, you could just one extra move, one extra transition, one extra guard pass, one extra attempt at a submission, one extra thing that gets you the round.
00:42:37.000I go, I go, Jason, I've trained with Jason, and I'm not attacking him because I don't want people to think I don't like to attack people unless they really deserve it.
00:42:46.000But I go, if you're not sure, because he said he wasn't sure, he said it looked like a tap.
00:42:50.000So I go, if you think it looked like it and you weren't sure, why not just wait?
00:42:54.000Because if it was, he would do it again.
00:44:19.000I try this literally the very next day, and I go, There's no way you could submit somebody with your ass in the air.
00:44:25.000You could be squeezing as hard as you want, but if your ass is in the air and this guy's on the side, it's going to be really difficult to make somebody tap in that position.
00:44:31.000Very hard, depending upon your squeeze ability, right?
00:45:24.000Now, if you're grabbing the leg, so if he was grabbing his leg, you would go knee across the chest and you put it right down on the sternum.
00:45:31.000But he did that to make sure he was flattened out.
00:46:00.000Like, a guy who could do gymnastics, a guy who was like really good at tumbling, that kind of explosive ability and balance and control and body strength totally translate to jujitsu.
00:46:16.000You know, these dudes are doing weird shit where they're on one arm with their legs, lotus position above their head, and they're hopping around on one arm.
00:50:35.000Yeah, I'm getting maximum amount of energy, maximum efficiency.
00:50:40.000It's the difference between throwing a punch like this.
00:50:43.000You can knock somebody out if you throw a punch like this, like a crazy arm punch, and you could hurt them and knock them out 100% of the time.
00:50:49.000And you could do that once and say, that's the way to throw a punch.
00:50:52.000Or you could learn how to throw a punch Tommy Hearn style, where you're fucking turning your body into it and you got all that torque and bang, it catches you on the end in a straight line.
00:51:02.000And Tommy would just starch people with that.
00:51:22.000Yeah, it's going to have power, but it's not going to have as much power as the way I do it.
00:51:26.000The way I throw it, when it lands, everything's going in a straight line, and I'm pushing off my back leg, and I'm getting all my abs into it, my hips into it, and it's just straight, just thud.
00:51:38.000And I know that if I hit you with that, you're going nowhere.
00:51:55.000I was at the U.S. Cup in Connecticut and I hit this dude with a spinning back kick and sent him through the air, sent him flying through the air.
00:52:02.000And I knew the moment I hit him, I'm like, this fight's over.
00:52:05.000I turned around and just walked off casually.
00:52:07.000Because I would like to do that, like, fuck with people's heads.
00:52:10.000But I knew that one move has too much power for your body to absorb.
00:53:58.000Like, if you look at him, he could go, I'm not probably going to knock anybody out at heavyweight with the way I punch, so develop something else, and it worked.
00:55:26.000So I'm curious to know what your thoughts were before the fight, obviously, hindsight.
00:55:30.000Because I know what I thought going into the fight.
00:55:33.000What did you think going into the fight?
00:55:34.000I thought it was going to probably be one of the hardest fights, for sure.
00:55:39.000We've trained together multiple times.
00:55:41.000Back in 2017, we trained together a couple times within the last two years.
00:55:46.000And I always knew he moved well on the feet, lateral footwork, great calf kicks.
00:55:51.000And I said to myself, if I get chopped down with a couple of these calf kicks early in the fight, it's going to be a rough night, especially if I can't move and do what I do, which is I'm also good at lateral footwork.
00:56:02.000And he has those nasty knees up the middle that are very quick to end a fight or put you on skates and could get you out of there, right?
00:56:16.000I was like, for me to win this, I got to stay on the outside and put pressure on him when I can put pressure on him.
00:56:21.000Take away his calf cakes when I can by putting him on the back foot, making it a little bit more difficult to land that calf cake with authority, right?
00:57:35.000That's why I feel if they did same day weigh ins, kind of like what you do for an amateur, you can get as big as you can get, which is going to be very little, maybe five pounds.
00:59:18.000It would be different if you only had to cut a few pounds, though.
00:59:21.000Like, if it's so, if you did it that way, random weigh ins and then weigh in day of the fight, even if a guy was heavy, like you weighed in, you know, 137 or whatever, you're like, well, you got to lose two pounds.
00:59:34.000Anybody can lose two pounds the day of, and it's not that big a deal.
01:00:33.000So that's why I think the same day it makes sense because you're not as depleted, where it wouldn't be as severe in comparison to what we're doing now.
01:01:33.000I mean, but this is also why Manny Pacquiao was able to go up and win world championships in eight different weight classes, which is fucking bananas.
01:05:08.000There's the guy who fights in the PFL, Mega Madoff, who's fucking nasty, man.
01:05:14.000And he fights exactly like, The guy who I think might be the best striker in the world, who's just a Muay Thai guy, Azadullah Iman Gazaliyev.
01:05:51.000The caucus regions, but he's a nasty striker.
01:05:56.000There's so many of those guys right now that are coming up that no one knows, and they're world class, they're like elite world class fighters, and no one knows who they are.
01:07:00.000No, but in a sense, even when you're talking just from a weight standpoint, from what he was walking around at, I forgot what he told me he walked around at, but he wasn't cutting a whole lot of weight.
01:07:10.000I want to say, off the top of my head, maybe 10 pounds.
01:07:15.000So I go, you're cutting just this, and you're going out there and doing this to these guys who are essentially bigger, heavier guys, but he's got the speed advantage.
01:07:26.000The thing about Islam, he's such a complete fighter, he could do everything, but this will be the first time he's got a A test with a guy who's a long man and can he get inside, take him down?
01:07:37.000I don't think he's going to stand up and strike with him.
01:07:39.000He can, but I just don't think that's the path to victory against a guy like Ian.
01:07:43.000I don't think he has any plans of standing up and striking with him other than as a means to an end.
01:08:04.000Al might have been like the only guy who was able to like escape certain positions multiple times where most guys they kind of just concede defeat and they just fold.
01:08:15.000And we were talking afterwards, he goes, I think you would actually do really well grappling with him.
01:08:21.000I'm like, You're trying to get me killed right now.
01:08:26.000You're trying to get me killed by the bear.
01:08:28.000But whenever he said that, it kind of stuck with me.
01:08:31.000I'm like, man, just from my own like experience, not like an ego thing or anything like that, just be cool to see.
01:08:37.000And I would like for them to put it on me.
01:08:39.000Just so I can see where I'm at, see how my strength measures up with theirs positionally, IQ, knowing when to transition to certain spots.
01:08:47.000Of course, the weight's going to play a big advantage, but it's still cool because I grapple with bigger guys.
01:09:44.000He's just always giving you something to think about.
01:09:47.000And I remember GSP talked about that, just saying, like, you want to use your feints to challenge the nervous system, get guys to react, because eventually you start to slow.
01:09:55.000Like in the beginning, we're quick, twitchy, right?
01:10:18.000Very smart dude when it comes to like strategy and understanding like what's going on with fighters and why they're reacting to certain things and what to do and how to counter.
01:10:29.000It's not guesswork, it's like a really intelligent, structured system of what to do.
01:10:38.000Yeah, I think some guys they train and then they go and fight without any goal in mind.
01:10:46.000And I try to preach this because I used to coach at Longos a lot.
01:10:49.000Before running a lot of my own practices, training camps, and stuff like that.
01:10:53.000So I took over the role of, you know what, we're going to add these two MMA classes in.
01:10:58.000And when we come in, we're going to work on specific things for my fight.
01:11:01.000And anybody who has a fight, and if I'm not fighting, we're going to focus on you guys.
01:11:04.000And even if I have a fight, we'll also work in positions that you guys need to work on.
01:11:09.000And I always try to explain to guys like, when you're coming in, you should have a mission.
01:11:13.000Don't just waste an hour, hour and a half of training just to say, I trained.
01:11:18.000That's cool if you don't have a fight, but you should always be looking for something to get better at, something that you can improve at.
01:11:23.000When you're sparring, hey, you're not just going in there to spar, there should be an intent.
01:11:27.000Your sparring partner should be looking to give you a look for the fight.
01:11:30.000And you shouldn't be looking to be a complete asshole and kill your sparring partner because then nobody wants to spar with you, right?
01:11:36.000They're doing you a favor and you need the favor from them to get where you want to be to make sure all the things that you're drilling on the pads, drilling with your partners one on one.
01:11:44.000And then when you go into sparring and you're putting it together, pull it from 100%, pull it down to like 70%.
01:13:08.000If he goes here and I feel him going this way, I go this way.
01:13:10.000And if he's starting to turn the other way, then I know I need to do this and turn his head the other way, put my pressure or my weight in another position so that I can now create this space so I can escape and get my leg out.
01:13:22.000And a lot of guys, they're not trained like that.
01:13:23.000They're going, they're sparring, they're just throwing a bunch of punches.
01:13:26.000Maybe they're throwing set combos at their head on the pads, but how are you setting that up?
01:13:30.000Are you feinting, moving him towards the cage, looking for the gap where the octagon kind of changes, where it's no longer like a flat surface and it's cutting at an angle where you take away a little real estate?
01:13:41.000And then you're trapping them where there's not a lot of room for them to get back from.
01:13:46.000But now you can set up your strikes and know where you're trying to go.
01:13:48.000But if I'm cutting him off and he constantly does this and he maybe juke steps me and goes back the other direction and I'm starting my combination, now he's gone.
01:13:56.000So it's like, how do you set up all these things that you know exactly where you want to go?
01:14:01.000Because he's going to have an option in the fight in real time.
01:14:04.000But in training is where you should be working out the kinks and understanding this.
01:14:09.000And I truly feel this is one of the things I. Done so well early on in my career, and why I was teaching the class because I felt like the guys needed it.
01:14:18.000I was taking these guys down at will, there was no resistance.
01:14:22.000I'm like, I'm good, but how good am I actually?
01:14:25.000Because these guys just don't know, they don't have the information.
01:14:49.000How do I readjust, post my hand, get height again, attacking the legs, taking them back the other way, or coming through the middle, through the crotch, and finishing a takedown like what we call some people call it an Iranian or we call it an all American finish.
01:15:02.000But there's just so many little nuances.
01:15:03.000And I feel in MMA, people are still training just to train.
01:15:08.000And I think that's the difference between understanding your timing.
01:15:12.000You know the same moves, but if I know how to react faster than you, I'm going to win that position or the situation.
01:15:19.000Every single time, unless you throw caution to the wind and it's just some random wild card that I just get caught by, which, if I'm aware, the chance of that should be very, very long.
01:15:29.000Well, that's the benefit of teaching the people that you're training with everything you know.
01:15:33.000That way, you must come up with a new solution.
01:15:45.000But that's also a world champion mindset versus someone who's just a fighter.
01:15:49.000Who fights and does well and is a good fighter.
01:15:52.000But there are so many times where I watch guys fight and I watch exchanges and they're wading towards each other and throwing bombs at each other and one guy wins and one guy loses.
01:16:02.000But I'm like, this is not the ultimate way to do this.
01:16:08.000You can be a battering ram and a blunt force object and you can get it done.
01:16:12.000We've seen so many fights that have just been insane first round wars.
01:16:16.000And then we've seen guys that just are slick.
01:16:20.000And they're moving around and switching stances and doing wild shit that you don't expect and overwhelming the other guy's nervous system and not getting hit and doing things where you're like, oh my God, that's so sweet.
01:16:32.000And those are the guys that are going to excel and those are the guys that are going to really take it to the next level.
01:16:38.000And I think when you're talking about all these guys, like the caucus guys, these Dagestani guys, so many guys that are coming up right now that are so fucking high level, like you can't have any flaws in your game anymore.
01:18:04.000Farrell did have a tough fight, though, but I was curious to see how that one was going to go because Ian, to me, is the dark horse in that division right now.
01:18:27.000And you realize, like, there are levels, and these guys coming up right now, they're already at a level that's above and beyond world championship level of 15 years ago.
01:18:39.000And, you know, 20 years ago, you would have said he was the GOAT.
01:18:43.000But what's fascinating is, like, from a striking standpoint, you could see that and look at a guy and go, this guy is the real deal.
01:18:51.000But then you kind of wonder, like, well, what happens later in the rounds if a guy does take him down and how can he adjust to those takedowns in terms of a cardio standpoint, lactic acid buildup?
01:19:01.000Can he turn it around and still be as efficient, as effective?
01:19:22.000If it goes in this direction, he's able to get off a couple of these things and I'm beating up a little bit.
01:19:29.000What are my fallback defenses to try to turn the tide a little bit and get it back to going where the ball's now back in my court?
01:19:36.000Well, that was why I was so interested in seeing what happens in the Conor McGregor Max Holloway fight, which was crazy.
01:19:47.000That the result was ridiculous, but take that away.
01:19:51.000Um, I was interested because I was like, if Connor can't take him out quickly, Max Holloway does not get tired, he does not get tired, and he's so accustomed to that five round pace.
01:20:05.000He understands when to hit the gas, when to back off, he knows when to move, when to, and he's always moving.
01:20:11.000And side, it's like you want to talk about getting overwhelmed, like Max Holloway overwhelms people with pressure, pace, and feints and skill, yeah, and he's not going anywhere.
01:20:21.000You guarantee he's going to be fighting in the fourth round just like he was fighting in the first round.
01:20:43.000But it's crazy because he threw that same kick in the back room, but this time he runs at him and he throws it and lands and it's like, oh, God.
01:20:49.000Well, he threw that kick when you're hitting a pad, it's very different than when you're kicking the air.
01:20:57.000You throw that kick jumping in the air, the amount of torque that is on your supporting leg is bananas.
01:21:03.000You're just hoping and praying that your knee stays together.
01:21:07.000Look, if you throw a jumping side kick, that's a different thing.
01:21:10.000You're landing on the ground, you're landing in a linear way, right?
01:21:14.000When you're rotating and kicking and flying through the air at the same time, and your opponent adjusts, so you're trying to change the arc in midair, try to catch him as he's circling off, it's the worst kick to jump and throw.
01:22:33.000That he lands when he lands this kick.
01:22:35.000When he throws that, he throws the jumping roundhouse kick, touches him with the right leg, and then comes up top with the left and just clean across the chin.
01:22:46.000They're doing some good stuff at Karate Combat.
01:26:49.000I was like, I don't know if I'm supposed to be doing this right now, but I kind of need the money.
01:26:54.000So, well, you needed the money, but if I could have given advice to like Volkanovsky, I would have said, first of all, I would have said, never take a fight.
01:27:03.000With Islam Makachev on 11 days' notice.
01:28:06.000And I kind of wonder if that's something to do with the way people grow up, if maybe they dropped on their head a couple of times when they were kids.
01:30:33.000They put all these plates in his head.
01:30:35.000Yeah, he had all sorts of screws and plates and everything to piece his head back together again because his skull structure has been compromised.
01:32:22.000His elbows in the clinch and in tight, you know, because he's a Muay Thai world champion.
01:32:27.000And, you know, that was his original discipline, which is interesting when you see these guys who start off as strikers and then they get to Dagestan training room with.
01:32:36.000Khabib and Islam and all those guys, and they learn the wrestling, but they start off with just this elite level of striking.
01:33:23.000I want to continue my acting career, and I got a whole lot of things I want to do, but it's going to be a little tough if you get a couple of those.
01:34:58.000But for some reason, when I talk about it, I am.
01:35:02.000And maybe because I'm not the crazy guy like a Sean Strickland, because Strickland has talked about it and he's always been known as the crazy guy.
01:35:09.000But when he talks about it, he makes it a very logical, understanding bit where I go, How come he's not getting?
01:36:54.000But because of that, he made it more controversial to the overall fan base because he decided to use his wrestling a lot later on in the fight.
01:37:04.000Yeah, but I think he needed to show that he's not boring.
01:37:19.000I think it was opening up Lerone to shots that I don't think he expected were coming at him because I think he probably anticipated shot takedowns, takedown temps.
01:37:29.000And instead, Mosvar was getting off on him.
01:37:49.000And they were saying, like, that was boring.
01:37:50.000That was just like, listen, this is the sport we're watching.
01:37:55.000If a guy like Mirab can take you down and give you noogies for five rounds and you can't do shit and you lose your title, that's how it goes.
01:38:03.000You can't say that's boring and he should fight differently because Sean's got to come up with a solution.
01:38:09.000He's got to figure out how to deal with that.
01:40:54.000Because I was just like, it's not like saying I wanted him to win, but I felt for him like, damn, bro, you made the biggest mistake that you could have possibly made in a situation like that.
01:41:05.000It's literally the only thing he can hit you with.
01:41:21.000I always tell people the way he leaves that, he just leaves out that lead hand and he's measuring, stiff jab, and he's stepping back and he takes that sidestep pivot, that L step, and then boom.
01:45:52.000And then, and also, you might try to like overemphasize those movements and he counters catching you coming in because he's faster than you.
01:46:18.000It was the worst matchup for Alex to step into heavyweight.
01:46:23.000A guy who is bigger than him naturally, moves faster than him, and lighter on his feet, and is also an elite striker, a world championship caliber striker at a heavyweight level.
01:46:34.000Because, like, you know, Alex has been 185.
01:48:29.000If he was winning the fight and having his way, would he have said, you know what, I'm going to suck it up and try to fight through this even though I still can't see?
01:48:45.000Because look, he didn't lose that fight.
01:48:47.000It was a foul, although controversial.
01:48:50.000He doesn't get knocked out, he doesn't get head kicked, he doesn't get flying mead in the face.
01:48:54.000If you can't see out of one of your eyes, there's all sorts of shit that's coming from this direction that you're just not going to see coming.
01:49:01.000And in wild exchanges where your peripheral would catch it and you would duck under, you're not going to be able to see it.
01:52:43.000But either way, I think Ian's going to have to look to something like that, see if there's maybe some of those old tendencies that that punch was able to land.
01:52:51.000That was also such a younger version of Islam.
01:52:53.000I just don't see him making those mistakes again.
01:53:10.000We just saw this with Gagey and Taporia.
01:53:14.000But I would say Islam has the one shortcut way to win push him against the cage, take him down.
01:53:20.000And even if he presses him against the cage, I'm curious to know if, curious to see if Gary can do damage in the clinch.
01:53:27.000Whenever I'm in the clinch with somebody, I always tell the guys look for your knuckles.
01:53:31.000And hit the eyeball, hit the nose, hit the soft spots that's going to make this guy uncomfortable in the clinch, not looking for his foot sweeps, where he's comfortable just resting on you, looking to set up his takedown, his next transition.
01:53:44.000And I learned this from Brian Carraway, my first pro loss in the UFC.
01:53:59.000I was like, what the fuck is he hitting me with?
01:54:01.000And I go back and I watch the tape and I get to see, and I learned that.
01:54:04.000So, I always like to share these little tricks and stuff with guys when I'm teaching them.
01:54:09.000So, if Gary could land some good damage in those positions, kind of deter Islam a little bit or make him a little bit more sloppy on his finishes, it could cause some chaotic scrambles where he could potentially get to a good position and maybe we see Islam on his back again, kind of like what happened with Volk.
01:54:24.000And when he was there with Volk, it did not look good.
01:55:39.000Like some of those other girls, she gets the back mount or full mount and she's able to land these solid elbows, beat them up in that position.0.91
01:55:46.000Mackenzie's a jiu jitsu world champion.0.59
01:59:00.000I don't even know if that was the end of the round.
01:59:02.000Yeah, that wasn't the actual stoppage.
01:59:05.000So if you keep going in the fight, it gets even worse.
01:59:08.000I mean, the thing about stand up is when you're dealing with a guy who's a world championship kickboxer and you can't take him down and he's got really good takedown defense and he's got a reach advantage.
01:59:21.000It's like everything possible that's terrible about what could happen is going on.
02:01:56.000You can show all the technique in the world, and I always say it comes back down to what do you do when you're in there under those bright lights, and that's the most important thing.
02:02:05.000And if you can't dial it in, it's a scary place to be.
02:03:25.000Like, if a guy is elite already and already a dog, and you give him just some different things to concentrate on, I don't think there's anything wrong with it.
02:03:35.000What I think is, if you need it, it shows me that there's an issue.
02:03:40.000And sometimes that issue can never be fixed.
02:03:43.000There's some guys that, when the going gets tough, they find a way out.
02:07:41.000In two different weight classes and won world championships in two different weight classes.
02:07:44.000If he beats Ian, if he submits Ian and says, I've had enough, I'm going to do what Khabib did and I'm going to coach now, I could see that.
02:11:19.000It's because then you want to know the openings, you want to know the strategies, you want to know, okay, if I do this sacrifice, and there's so many little things.
02:13:22.000And there was a dude who got out of prison and learned how to play in his head in prison because they didn't have a board.
02:13:28.000And so this kid and this old dude were sitting there playing chess in their head and they would call out the moves and they had the whole board mapped.
02:13:46.000You got to rely on, and you know, this one guy had played so many times in prison in his head that he could keep track of the entire board, and this kid was a wizard at it.
02:13:55.000And watching these two guys call out moves and just sitting there staring at each other, like trying to figure out who's winning, I'm like, you guys are playing an invisible board.
02:20:14.000People think I have a kicking background.
02:20:15.000I'm like, no, I just watched a lot of VHS tapes when I was a kid and played White Tiger, White Lion, and all that stuff with my brothers growing up.
02:20:57.000But when I was at Team Bomb Squad in New York when I was in college and I was just starting off as an amateur and early pro, we had this Muay Thai guy come up, Stone something, I want to say.
02:22:11.000That's where I trained with first, with Nick Sick.
02:22:13.000The training times were a little bit odd for me.
02:22:15.000It was like 3 30 pro classes and stuff like that.
02:22:18.000But I think this sport's still kind of backwards.
02:22:21.000People doing all these classes, I think in the beginning is good, but I think eventually you have to get to that one on one Ilya Taporia, O'Malley, Henry Ciudo, Mighty Mouse.
02:25:26.000We're doing real life practical stuff, scenarios that happen in the fight.
02:25:29.000So I don't mind doing the classes with this, but I also like to do my one on ones afterwards, especially when it's fight specific that we need to work on.
02:25:36.000And I think they do a good job with that.
02:25:37.000Now, you were saying you had thoughts on the Steve Garcia Lopez fight.
02:26:00.000If you watch some of his other fights, the one fight, the few fights he lost where he was knocked out was him just being more reckless than he probably should have been.
02:27:29.000I always speak my mind on things, and sometimes it gets me in trouble.
02:27:32.000And it turned into a whole thing with his manager and myself, and Twitter beef, and all this whole thing.
02:27:37.000And I thought the fight should have gone to Mozart, just being fair, based on merit, should have gotten it.
02:27:43.000Tied up the division, jammed up fights that probably should have been different directions, right?
02:27:49.000But I thought, I told him, congratulations, you fought a smart fight, you pulled him into your solid fight, and that's how he got the job done.
02:27:55.000If he fought him on a technical standpoint like that, I think Diego would have probably ran away with it.
02:28:59.000Yeah, you could make an argument that he could have won that fight because he was closer to finishing multiple times, and those should count.
02:29:06.000Those submission attempts, close submission attempts, should count in a big way.
02:29:10.000And just because a guy got out of it doesn't mean he was almost dead.
02:29:21.000That's a bad aspect of judges because it's very difficult to get to a position like that where you're almost submitting a guy multiple times.
02:30:49.000So, but with the fight, I thought he, the thing he said that made the most sense to me that resonated was he changed people's perception of the fighter.
02:31:00.000Where before, people were kind of going in there hesitant, scared, and they kind of knew what they were walking into and it was going to be a bad night.
02:31:08.000And going in there doing that to Ferguson changed Ferguson's career.
02:31:11.000Going in there doing this to Taporia, Can Taporia bounce back and be the same guy and have that same aura, same persona that people are going to step in the octagon with him and be a little hesitant to want to go in there with him because of what he's done in the past?
02:31:27.000But then also knowing that, yo, just like us, man, he puts his fucking pants on the same way we do, one leg at a time, unless he could jump and put both on at the same time.
02:31:36.000I think there's a physics element to it, too.
02:31:39.000The reality of Gaichi and Taporia is that Taporia is much smaller.
02:32:17.000And that's the problem, you cannot empty the gas tank on that guy.
02:32:21.000I think he tried, he got ahead of himself too.
02:32:24.000I felt like he was trying to put an exclamation point bow tie ribbon on the finish where he could have submitted him or maybe just go for the TKO, but instead he went for the Khabib like mounted triangle that Khabib hit on Gaichi.
02:32:39.000And he was in the same position, was going for the same sequence.
02:32:42.000And I go, brother, this is either going to be really dope or it's going to be the reason you lose.
02:34:14.000It's a matter of whether or not you get that shot.
02:34:16.000I and I think they should hopefully let's say I don't get booked because there's not a lot of options, but let's say they have their fight.
02:34:25.000Hopefully, it's in Abu Dhabi sooner rather than later.
02:34:28.000I think that's when it's supposed to be, right?
02:37:12.000Because there's still a lot of history that wasn't too long ago.
02:37:15.000And I always tell my friends, like, yo, we are blessed.
02:37:18.000To be in this country because the shit we bitch about and complain about, these are luxuries, liberties, and freedoms that a lot of these countries do not have.
02:39:09.000I feel like our sports isn't as, like, our fan base is, besides New Yorkers who will beat you up for being a rival team in the playoff finals, wearing the wrong jersey, you better take that shit off.
02:39:50.000I mean, this is literally the land of opportunity.
02:39:53.000But when you see people that come from Serbia, we see people that come from Dagestan, we see people that come from these like war torn Chechnya, they're different because their childhood was different.
02:40:09.000Like I've seen it, I've learned a little bit from Marab.
02:40:12.000And going to Georgia, learning the history about them and Russia and the whole war and everything and the political side of things.
02:40:20.000And then going to Albania, going to Kosovo, and then going to Serbia and seeing how, like, the Serbians are coming up to my Albanian friends, introducing themselves basically, or asking my friends where they're from.
02:40:35.000And then just straight up just saying, Kosovo is Serbia.
02:40:38.000As an introduction, I would go, Are we just trying to start a fight right now?
02:42:50.000But there's still some crazy people out there that still have this pent up resentment and anger for everything because of the separation of the lands and all this.
02:42:57.000But this, it's almost like the Israel Palestine thing.
02:43:01.000It's all the lands get divided from years ago, and then you did this to me, but then you did this to me, but then you did this to me first.
02:43:11.000And I'm like, what are we going to go back to BC?
02:43:14.000Like, what the fuck are we talking about?
02:43:16.000Can we draw a line in the sand and go, okay, this is where we all agree that this is where it should be and just make everybody happy or somewhat happy so that we can go on with our lives in peace?
02:43:40.000Because you're from this country and this guy had a pleasant conversation with you, he's gonna pull out a fucking grenade and he's going, I'm like, nah, it's crazy.
02:43:51.000But, yeah, don't take any fights over there if he's Albanian.