Kevin Lee talks about his UFC 246 win over Edson Barboza, the importance of being a "well rounded" fighter, and what it takes to be the best at what you do. He also discusses his upcoming fight with Khabib Nurcayang, and why he thinks he has the best chance to beat him in the future. Kevin also talks about how he prepares for his next fight and what he's looking forward to in his upcoming bout with Cowboy Cerrone, and how he plans on going about his business in the UFC in the near future. Kevin also explains why he believes he's a better southpaw than an orthodox fighter and why it's important to be able to fight any style you want in order to be successful in the sport of mixed martial arts. You won't want to miss this one! Subscribe to Kevin's YouTube channel, Kevin Lee's YouTube Channel, and listen to his podcast "The Kevin Lee Show" on all of the social medias, if you search for "Kevin Lee's" you'll find us. If you like the show, please HIT SUBSCRIBE and leave us a review and tell a friend about what a great podcast you're listening to. We'll be looking out for him! Thank you so much for all the support, and we really appreciate it! -Jon Rocha and the support we've gotten so far this week. -Jon's Place is a great place to support the show. -Tune in and shout out the show out on social media - Jon's place is amazing. Jon's Place Podcasts and we're looking out on the road and we'll be listening out for the best of the best in the rest of the place in the world and the best places in the place that's the best place that he gets the most of the world - Thank you for your support is the best in the land that he's getting the most appreciated and the most genuine support out there - thank you for the support he gets out of the most authentic and most appreciated, the most appreciating the most love and the love he gets back from the most respect he gets sent out in the best out there, the best support is truly appreciated by the most received, and he really gets it is truly sent out of his time is truly out of it, so he gets it, he really is truly appreciative of it all of it is appreciated.
00:02:26.000I've only been going southpaw for maybe the past year, year and a half or so, and just kind of getting a filler for it down, but I feel like that could be one of the...
00:02:35.000When you listen to a lot of the great fighters in the past, they talk about a right-handed southpaw.
00:02:40.000There's so many advantages that can be there.
00:02:43.000And it's just always great to be able to switch up and change time, especially when you've got a guy that's trying to time you like Edson.
00:02:49.000Yeah, they say that if you work on the opposite side, it actually makes the other side better.
00:03:28.000I mean, he can fight left or right, but when he switches, when he goes right, you know that front leg side kick's coming, that front leg roundhouse kick is coming, and then when he stands orthodox, he's much more likely to throw a punch or maybe even spin.
00:03:40.000He mixes it up, but he's limited, maybe, in the way he attacks.
00:04:02.000Where I feel like he doesn't sit down on his punches too much or, you know, he gets in spots where he can get clipped in between those with your feet off the ground.
00:04:10.000So I try to find the happy medium between those two, switching up too much and being able to make those hard switches too.
00:04:17.000Well, TJ's really been doing that style for just like three or four years now since he's been with Bang.
00:07:52.000Like he pulls it almost like you get an armbar?
00:07:53.000So, one of the things we do is he takes a band and he stretches it out so it really pulls my shoulder.
00:07:59.000And I was telling you, I very rarely have shoulder problems.
00:08:02.000And I think a large reason, he pulls it all the way out, kind of out the socket, and then we work it out from there, you know, to build strength from those little muscles.
00:08:15.000That's the part where I get my true strength from, you know?
00:08:17.000I do that, a lot of yoga, a lot of, you know, a lot of things that just all the strength comes from within me, not lifting weights or anything.
00:08:24.000How often are you doing yoga when you're in camp?
00:11:26.000He said, some new guy came into the gym and he's sparring with this new guy and this new guy's trying to kill him and he broke his hand on this dude's forehead.
00:11:34.000And I was thinking, you're Vitor Belfort.
00:11:59.000You know, if them boys would catch you, they'd be hungrier than you.
00:12:02.000Well, you're seeing all these new guys that are coming up that can do everything.
00:12:05.000You know, they have like Taekwondo skills, they got Muay Thai, they can wrestle, they do flying arm bars and shit.
00:12:11.000There's just, kids are, because MMA is such a part of like the zeitgeist now, and everybody understands it, and kids know if you want to be a really tough fighter, it's not about boxing, it's about MMA. And so you're getting these wild-ass kids at a really young age practicing this shit on each other, learning it, going to gyms when they're 9, 10 years old.
00:12:34.000By the time they're in high school, they're killers.
00:12:35.000Yeah, and we have so many of them that come through Vegas especially.
00:12:39.000And I think that's my favorite part about living there is the training partners and, like you said, the new kids.
00:12:45.000Even though I'm only 25, I'm trying to see what they're doing that's coming up next.
00:14:06.000But I think a lot of, you see, a lot of what I was, my focus going into this one was really on my footwork, my balance, you know, doing yoga.
00:15:58.000When you're that guy who wants to stand up, and you've got guys that are just constant pressure, constant pressure, people don't realize how much endurance it takes to move away, too.
00:16:08.000Moving backwards, it's a lot more difficult to do.
00:16:46.000It's like, I can stand at range with, I mean, he's definitely the most explosive, dynamic, all those things that you want to say, the best kicker in the lightweight division.
00:16:56.000And I can stand at range with him and kick just as well with him.
00:16:59.000I can wrestle with the best wrestlers.
00:19:54.000If I'm completely just kind of like bullshitting, doing whatever, I've gotten to as high as like 195. Now, when you're in training, like when you get, like say you're four weeks out, where are you at?
00:20:30.000I'm more suited for 155. Some of the things that I've got to play around with, I think will keep happening in the upcoming months.
00:20:39.000I didn't project that I would fight again until July or so, so a lot of the things that I was doing diet-wise was kind of getting to that, and they approached me with this Barboza fight maybe like eight weeks earlier than that, so I just had to do what I had to do.
00:20:52.000So, is it a matter of just you didn't taper off quick enough, or you just came in too heavy before you started?
00:20:58.000You know, it was just the timing-wise.
00:21:02.000It's something on that timing that I've really got to figure out, and that was the biggest problem with the Tony Ferguson fight.
00:21:08.000You know, I can break it down for you.
00:21:10.000So, usually, you know, I'm normally about 185. Through six weeks of diet, I can usually diet down to about 76, 77. That's where I'm optimal.
00:21:20.000And then from there, I start the water cut.
00:21:22.000So the week of the fight, the Tuesday, I'm 76. I save that all the way until I overload my body with water and flush out some of the sodium and the carbs and all that.
00:21:34.000I save the rest of that up until the day before, and I try and cut as much as I can as...
00:21:41.000Because I want to spend as little time dehydrated, that dehydrated as possible.
00:21:46.000And I think that's some of the problem with having these early morning weigh-ins is the timing issue of it.
00:21:51.000Because you wake up and then you have to start from the time you wake up rather than if it's at 4 o'clock in the afternoon like it used to be, you'd be able to do it all throughout the day.
00:22:00.000Yeah, I can cut more reasonably through the morning.
00:22:04.000So you feel like if you had more time, you would have been able to make it?
00:22:44.000Your heart rate slows down when you sleep.
00:22:46.000I mean, you know, I try my best not to spend as much time dehydrated as possible.
00:22:51.000So it's just a timing issue on that last one especially.
00:22:53.000When you see guys like Dos Anjos that just can't do it anymore, and he goes up to 70 and he looks better than ever, what do you think about that?
00:26:03.000I didn't notice it at the weigh-ins, but then the moment you walked into the cage, it was funny, man, because they were telling DC, don't talk about it.
00:27:08.000at about 162. And weigh-ins are between 9 and 11. And from 5 a.m.
00:27:15.000till 8 a.m., I had only cut one pound.
00:27:19.000Compared to in other cuts that have gone really well, I would normally cut about four or five pounds at that time.
00:27:25.000But because I just was feeling good and I wasn't worried about it, and I was using the same temperature of water, I was using the same everything, but the staff made my body hold on to the water.
00:27:37.000So when I went down and checked and saw that I was still like five pounds up with like two hours to go, they started like throwing boiling hot water on me to get, you know, Yeah, to get me sweating to get it off.
00:28:25.000Did you have to decide whether you should take antibiotics, and then you know that compromises your endurance for sure, or just let your body fight it off?
00:28:33.000I had it before, so I had been on the antibiotics, and they just make me feel terrible.
00:28:38.000If you've ever been through it, I mean, it's a terrible feeling.
00:28:41.000So I just was like, you know what, I think I can just push through it.
00:28:45.000And I'm young, and I was like, you know what, fuck it, let's just go.
00:28:48.000Did you try any natural remedies, like tea tree oil or anything like that?
00:28:54.000It wasn't a whole lot I could take because I also got to cut the weight still.
00:29:19.000Garlic has some real strong antibacterial properties.
00:29:23.000And one of the people that have been on the podcast many times, Dr. Rhonda Patrick, said she had dealt with some persistent staph infection.
00:29:58.000Anybody else that has that staph, anytime you have any sort of ringworm or staph or anything, there's some natural stuff, not like some bullshit homeopathic nonsense, but some actual, real, natural stuff that can help you.
00:30:11.000And Defense Soap specializes in that because Guy Sacco, the guy who owns the company, he coaches wrestling and deals with kids that always have ringworm and staph infections.
00:30:22.000So he came out with these soaps, these natural soaps.
00:32:04.000When you took him down and mounted him in the first round, I was like, holy shit, because I know how good Tony is on the ground.
00:32:10.000You know, it's interesting because you look at someone when they fight, and this is one of the things that I've been saying about Khabib, because it's so hard, because he's doing what people do, right?
00:32:23.000But he's doing it to people that other people can't do it to, and he's doing it in a way that it's like, wow, how good is this motherfucker?
00:32:30.000Like, when he was mauling Michael Johnson, I was like, how fucking good is he?
00:35:24.000You know, people were talking about the Barboza fight before, and they're like, are you looking at that fighter and you're going to try and build off that one?
00:36:10.000I love I love watching him fight, but part of me is like, Jesus, man.
00:36:15.000If he mixed what he can do, because he's one of the very best at leg kicks and close, that dude would be in the middle of a combination, like chest to chest with you, and then somehow or another, he whips a leg kick straight down on your leg.
00:36:38.000Yeah, he'll just take it and just walk right into it.
00:36:40.000But it seems like when you look at all the skills that he has, that would be better represented with some movement and some footwork and some other things.
00:36:49.000Yeah, especially with a guy like Trevor Whitman in his corner.
00:36:52.000You know, Trevor's a great, great coach.
00:38:44.000Now that I understand that a little bit more as I'm getting older and, you know, going through life, too, with it, like I said, with Rob.
00:38:51.000You know, one of the reporters there, he asked me, he was like, we seen you in there talking, and they thought I was talking to Barboza, but I was really just talking to myself.
00:39:00.000Like, I was saying things that he would say or...
00:39:54.000Even the kick, the kick that he landed, if you see a microsecond before that, I was nodding my head because I took my mind off him for a split second.
00:40:05.000I saw the knockout there, I seen him dip to his left, and I'm like, next time he dips, I'm about to get it.
00:41:29.000Mark Delagrate, who's seen some of the best of the best fight in Thailand, in real, you know, in life, like right there, in person, he said, I've never seen a guy with a faster switch kick.
00:41:39.000He goes, even the top, the most elite of the Thais, he goes, that's the fastest switch kick I've ever seen.
00:41:44.000Even when he was dead tired, I mean, I beat the hell out of him.
00:54:50.000Connor, you can tell he likes it a little bit more.
00:54:52.000It gets my mind off the actual fight itself because that's what we grew up like talking shit, you know, so it's Some guys, though, it rattles them.
00:55:00.000You know the best I've ever seen, the best response to someone shit-talking?
00:55:41.000She made me nervous when I was standing next to her.
00:55:43.000That's what the thing with, you know, people look at my style, even the way I promote it and talk fights and, you know, talk shit or whatever.
00:58:08.000So I just, I wanted to Stand out as much as possible, you know?
00:58:12.000Do you feel like now that you've had a few of these big fights, right?
00:58:16.000The Chiesa fight was a high profile fight, and then of course the Tony fight was a very high profile, and then this last Barboza fight was a real big fight.
00:58:22.000Do you feel like now you've like settled more into the fact that not only do you belong here, you deserve to be here, but you're more comfortable being here?
00:58:31.000Yeah, there's that saying, like, the fake it till you make it.
00:59:08.000So yeah, I would exaggerate a little bit too much here and there.
00:59:11.000But the fake it till you make it thing, I think it's...
00:59:16.000A lot of people hear that and they take it negatively all the time.
00:59:21.000I always heard that and I took it positive.
00:59:25.000I read George St. Pierre's book and he talked about that a lot.
00:59:28.000He texted me two days before this fight with Barboza and he was talking about giving me some tips and pointers and all that.
00:59:35.000But the last thing he said to me was, You know, you're gonna have that fear before you go in there, but once you get in there, your body's just gonna turn on autopilot.
01:02:20.000So I just, I don't know, for some reason, I just didn't have the confidence.
01:02:23.000But when I got around them and I started living and kind of training together every day, and I realized I'm like, we all the same, you know?
01:03:14.000And that really has allowed me to go over to Ireland and compete, to go down to Brazil and compete, to fight the best kickboxer in the world and not have that, and still have that same confidence.
01:03:31.000You see some superstar in whatever their field is, whether it's a musician or whatever, you just assume that person has got to be a different thing than you.
01:03:40.000If you see Mick Jagger or something like that, that's got to be a different thing than me.
01:03:47.000Yeah, and the thing with, and I started the hashtag 25toLife and all that mostly because the way I grew up, I didn't get to see many successful people.
01:04:10.000You know, the only examples, literally the only examples I had was the dope man, you know, the jack boys, you know, the pimps.
01:04:17.000And, you know, you didn't really have much else to really look forward to.
01:04:21.000So when I was, I thought when I was 25, like where I am now, I thought for sure I was just going to be in jail.
01:04:26.000Like, Yeah, that's one of the most important points when people talk about people being able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and they should just get a job and they should just do this.
01:04:35.000You say that because you grew up around that.
01:04:38.000But if you didn't grow up around anybody doing that, you're feeling the way you felt when you were around wrestlers that had been competing their whole lives.
01:04:46.000You didn't feel like you belonged there.
01:04:47.000You didn't have any of that success around you.
01:05:23.000And especially when you kind of grow up in that environment and, you know, it's you don't really, you know, you see a doctor on TV and you don't you just don't connect with it.
01:05:33.000You know, at least for me, like, that's what I wanted to be.
01:05:35.000I wanted to be a doctor first, but I didn't, you know, I didn't live in neighborhoods with doctors, you know, I didn't meet a doctor.
01:05:41.000When I did, he was like some old dude.
01:05:42.000And it's like he didn't really give a fuck.
01:05:44.000He's like, you know, you know, you're on Medicaid, motherfucker.
01:05:47.000Like, you know, you know, they get 35 bucks.
01:06:25.000I think one of the biggest things is just that integration is really important.
01:06:30.000And I'm starting to see that the more I'm getting out and kind of seeing the world and seeing the way things run and kind of comparing that to the way I grew up.
01:07:08.000Policeman had pulled over three or four times picked us up in the car and took us back across and then dropped us off like you don't and It's like we go to school there.
01:07:17.000You know what I mean like they didn't believe you You know we we weren't also like the best looking kids probably Yeah, yeah, we did but but you know I have to but I feel like that integration and It's just really, really important.
01:07:34.000And I'm starting to see that the more I'm getting out and learning the world.
01:07:40.000I mean, we vary for sure, but we're all just people.
01:07:45.000And sometimes having all those advantages when you're young is a disadvantage.
01:07:49.000Because the hungriest, most determined people are the people that had nothing at one point in their life when they understand what nothing means.
01:12:40.000I don't know if it's a physical thing...
01:12:42.000If their body works better or if it's just that they are able to see how someone does something and listen to instruction and then break it down and put it together.
01:15:46.000And I think the most purest form of it, too.
01:15:50.000What else do you call arts if not that?
01:15:52.000Well, they don't understand what it is.
01:15:54.000And one of the things that they don't understand is that it's so difficult to do.
01:15:59.000And that when you see the finished product, when the person steps into the cage and competes that night, you're not just seeing these brutish moves.
01:17:38.000It makes me stay sharp, but it goes from sometimes outside of life, too.
01:17:44.000It's good that you think like this because clearly you're a very confident guy and you're obviously successful in your mixed martial arts career, but to have just a little bit of that insecurity is fuel.
01:18:18.000That's why you don't see, you know, you never see me say some outlandish shit like, oh, I can't never be beat or, you know, or I can go out there and, you know, arm bar Cain Velasquez, you know, or something like that.
01:18:28.000I mean, Not meaning to pick on Ronda, but...
01:18:45.000And she was a real Olympic caliber athlete, and her judo was at such a high level, no one could fuck with her.
01:18:53.000And she was throwing people around until someone could fuck with her, until she ran into someone like Holly Holm.
01:18:59.000then we really saw the holes in the preparation the distractions the fact that she had you know movie deals going on they wanted her to do roadhouse and she's scripts and this and agent meetings and all the bullshit man it's like a fucking hollywood it it was like a hollywood script yeah like this is what happens to you and this is how like rocky when rocky went soft and And then all of a sudden you got this badass Holly Holm sitting there ready to fucking head kick you into another dimension.
01:19:49.000I can always see myself losing, you know?
01:19:52.000And people ask me that and they're like, you talk about all this visualization that you do, like, sometimes I visualize myself getting hurt too in fights.
01:19:59.000Do you do that to see how you recover?
01:20:51.000Happen in the fight like the first minute he got me down and I got off I got him off me in like 30 seconds or something and after that I was like whew this is about to be a cakewalk.
01:21:00.000I'm about to just run through this man like he don't you know I'm like it was 17,000 people in the arena.
01:21:07.000I'm like we all just waiting on him to fall you know only him he was the only one that saw that he could clip me.
01:23:35.000Yeah, I mean, I think there's something to that.
01:23:38.000If you half-ass things, I mean, you can get away with being a great fighter and still half-ass things in your life, but maybe you would be better if you didn't.
01:23:45.000Like, maybe you would be an even better fighter, or better whatever you are, fucking tennis player, whatever it is, if you didn't half-ass other things in your life.
01:23:54.000Maybe you would really reach your full potential.
01:26:05.000The way you approach something will change what that thing is.
01:26:10.000Yeah, and it's got to be natural for you, too.
01:26:12.000I actually like doing it, so I think it's just something that if I could see myself, if I forced it or if I was one of these guys that didn't at all, then yeah, I could see it being even a bigger hindrance, but since I like it, I mean, it's fine.
01:27:47.000You can't run a marathon the whole time either.
01:27:49.000So I try my best to, that's how I want to be, as well-rounded as I possibly can be in having great cardio and understanding what that's like is part of that.
01:27:59.000Yeah, it's hard for people to understand, but you're not throwing 100% of your power all the time.
01:30:39.000One of the better mixes of speed and power and non-telegraphic, and I try and blend that a little bit more with Muay Thai and find the best style.
01:30:48.000I feel like Muay Thai is absolutely the best, but there's some shit that those Taekwondo guys can do that'll catch you off guard, and if you know those other things, you can do those things.
01:30:59.000Like the wheel kicks, and that's what you see with Edson.
01:31:02.000Yeah, I mean, the tie style has probably the hardest kicks and the most technical from it, but, you know, you can kind of see some of them coming, you know, unless you got freak speed like Barboza, you know, but actually, technical-wise, you know, you can kind of see it coming a little bit more.
01:31:37.000Because if you allow the Muay Thai guy to kick the legs, the Taekwondo guys just really don't know what to do.
01:31:41.000But once they learn it, Then they have the Taekwondo too, but it's a matter of whether, like we were talking about before, if you're a wrestler, do you really learn how to strike or do you just try to take everybody down?
01:31:51.000If the Taekwondo guys really learn how to check leg kicks, they already know how to kick.
01:31:57.000They'll be able to pick up the Thai style way quicker than the Thai guys are going to be able to do jumping wheel kicks and shit like that.
01:32:04.000That stuff is already ingrained in their wheelhouse.
01:32:09.000Yeah, and I think that's one of the things, the beauties about MMA being such a young sport is, you know, you're still seeing guys evolve.
01:32:16.000And, you know, like me, I'm trying to take the best of those styles and make them great for MMA. You know, because there's certain, you know, you can't chop down a leg if a guy's trying to take you down, you know.
01:32:26.000But you can still chop the leg, but there's certain ways that you can change that up.
01:32:30.000And that's one of the beauties about the sport being so young is still figuring out.
01:32:36.000I sat right next to, on an aerial show, I sat right next to Demetrius Johnson, and they asked me who's the best pound-for-pound fighter, and I think people expected me to say me or something, or say DJ, and I honestly don't think that he's been...
01:33:05.000He does a lot of things, but he gets away with a lot of stuff that he does because the guys that he's going against are 25-pounders.
01:33:12.000They don't have a whole lot of explosive one-punch power to really make you pay for some of the mistakes.
01:33:18.000Especially as far as the hop switching and stuff.
01:33:21.000That's why TJ can get away with it a lot more at 35, I think, than a 55-pound fighter would.
01:33:28.000TJ Cruz, a lot of those 35ers can have that style.
01:33:32.000Because if you leave an opening, the consequences can be so much more devastating because they hit so much harder.
01:33:37.000Yeah, I mean your legs are your shock absorbers.
01:33:39.000When I get the wobble, the leg are the shock absorbers.
01:33:42.000If your legs are in the air while you get hit by somebody that's explosive like that, you're going night-night.
01:33:48.000The only thing that's eating all the shock is your brain.
01:33:52.000I bet Dwayne Ludwig would disagree with you if you sat down and talked to him because I think the idea is to present a very complex target and to overload the brain with possibilities.
01:34:03.000I feel that, you know, and I try and do that too.
01:34:06.000I try and, you know, I've taken Dwayne's, a couple of Dwayne's seminars actually.
01:34:17.000Yeah, no, I love Dwayne's style and it's just a different style to be had, but I feel like that's not even, it's still not the best style, you know.
01:34:23.000I don't think the best style has been, Demetrius Johnson has a great style, but I don't think the best style has been seen yet.
01:37:47.000He's one of the very few guys that I think, in MMA especially, that really, he trained a lot of, he trains David Taylor, a lot of the U.S. Olympic wrestling team.
01:37:58.000He worked with those guys for a long time.
01:38:00.000Boy, you're seeing some mad scientists get into the game now, right?
01:38:03.000When they're realizing there's real money in it.
01:38:10.000You know, where you gotta, like, I think it's like something crazy, like bike 120 miles, and then you swim 20 miles, and then you run a full marathon.
01:38:19.000And he's doing it like 53, 54 years old.
01:39:01.000I was trying to give him some tips and tricks when we was doing the media tours together for 2016. No, not necessarily to talk shit, but he's not going to be able to come out and just talk shit.
01:39:56.000If you can handle all those stresses and still go out there and compete, then if you shy away from that, I got to take that away from you as far as being the best power fighter.
01:40:44.000Especially when you're black in America, controversy is one of the best things that can happen to you, really.
01:40:50.000Well, John, when he's loose, when him and Daniel were in that press conference and Daniel was talking shit, he goes, I beat you after I did cocaine.
01:41:04.000He could have already been the biggest star if he'd just been himself from the beginning.
01:41:08.000If they don't really suspend him for very long and he comes back within a few months, it's entirely possible that he could come back and be the biggest still of all time.
01:41:18.000I think he's going to be way bigger, especially after, like I said, controversy is a great one when you're black in America.
01:41:24.000It's like for John, like how much more focus will the – I mean, my fear is that he's going to somehow or another sabotage again and that this is not just – that these lessons aren't sinking in.
01:42:19.000Like, and I've approached it a couple of times.
01:42:21.000You know, you get that, especially when you got that confidence in the thing that made you great in the first place.
01:42:26.000It can be like a hindrance to you, too.
01:42:29.000And I think a lot of it has been, or at least a lot of my growth in the past couple months has been me getting in my own head and understanding it and kind of breaking it down.
01:43:26.000It just makes you angrier and it just kind of compounded everything.
01:43:30.000But honestly, like when I smoked weed, it was like, because at that point I was like, you know what?
01:43:35.000I had tuned it out for so long because that's what folks did that I kind of associated with being lazy and not successful and, you know, these fucking...
01:43:54.000It kind of opened up my mind for the first time and I think that actually did have a lot of help with it.
01:44:01.000You know, I don't like chronic or nothing, but, you know, I know what you're saying.
01:44:04.000I think that's what people are afraid of with it, too, is that paranoia.
01:44:08.000I always say paranoia is just you looking at things realistically.
01:44:11.000And even the possibilities of things happening realistically.
01:44:15.000I mean, some people, for sure, if they have tendencies to be schizophrenic in particular, and then they smoke a lot of weed, it could spiral them.
01:44:49.000We all, especially men, I think we puff our chests up and we like to look at ourselves as maybe better than we really are because it's like a shield, like a false confident shield that you put up to protect yourself from your vulnerability.
01:45:05.000But marijuana says, no, no, no, fuck that.
01:45:07.000Why don't you just look at whatever the fuck you're vulnerable and stop doing that, stupid.
01:46:49.000There's a lot of people out there that like doing different things, and you might be leaning more towards one than the other, and you just got to kind of soul search.
01:46:57.000And nobody can answer that other than you.
01:46:59.000That's why it's terrible when people tell people what to do.
01:47:03.000When people tell people what you need to do is get a good job, or you need to go with something that's going to be saved.
01:48:35.000Yeah, and I think that's one of the things that I'm learning, especially as I'm kind of going forward, because you get to meet so many people, and so many people want to be a friend.
01:48:45.000All of a sudden, there's so many people.
01:49:31.000You know, position that I was here instead of being here where I was losing my balance or I was losing some of my power or it was putting more strain on one area than the other and making it harder.
01:49:41.000And I'm just like, this translates so well, you know?
01:50:20.000And I would think that learning all these different ways to move would just enhance your overall understanding of how your body works.
01:50:25.000Yeah, yeah, and it makes you I think it like makes you more in tune with it to you know to make it healthy That's one of the biggest keys.
01:50:32.000I think it's just being as healthy as as possible and not You know tampering with that too much for sure and also flexibility I think having flexibility is so important for a fighter You know being able to move your body.
01:50:45.000There's some people that just aren't flexible They just can't move in certain ways and you know I can tell from watching you throw head kicks in that fight like you're flexible and You don't have a lot of tension in your legs when you're doing that.
01:50:57.000I think tension is the perfect word for it, really, because that's what causes you to tighten, too.
01:51:05.000When a guy, it's difficult for him to throw a body kick, and you see him kind of leaning, and you see that stroke.
01:51:27.000Whereas some people throw head kicks and you don't even see it coming.
01:51:31.000Yeah, I mean, and also in grappling, too.
01:51:34.000You know, you have to be able to have strength, I think, in every direction.
01:51:38.000Yeah, that's one of the biggest reason why I don't lift weights is because you get so used to in that one Uniform direction that's interesting you have to be able to move I have to be just as strong here as I am here as I am there You know, do you get all your resistance from just grappling or from these these calisthenics and plyometrics and different Grappling a lot.
01:51:57.000You know, yeah, I just pick guys up and put them down So that's a lot of body weight - so that's 100% exercise Now, do they concentrate on specific core exercises, or do you have days where you concentrate on just using your legs?
01:53:06.000I mean, I watch a lot of the big boxing fights, especially.
01:53:09.000I barely—I only got to see, like, little clips and pieces of the Broner and— I was paying more attention to his arguments with that rapper kid, that 6ix9ine.
01:56:27.000I still eat carbs, obviously, because I have to to have that explosion still, I feel like.
01:56:32.000I just think you have to eat more carbs and you probably still stay ketogenic.
01:56:37.000I think that when people look at carbs and they say, like, you only have 25 to 50 grams of carbs during the day, that's great if you're not doing two-a-days and fucking wrestling and running hills and shit.
01:56:49.000Your body probably needs more carbohydrates than that.
01:59:35.000People are going to be fucking idiots, isn't it?
01:59:37.000It's almost like, when I've said that veganism is sort of a religion, it's an ideology in the sense of the way some people practice it, that they want to go after.
01:59:47.000There's some people that are Catholic that hate Protestants, right?
01:59:50.000They think the Protestants are the enemy.
01:59:52.000And this is just, I mean, this is obviously something that went on for a long time in human history.
02:00:22.000And then they want him to put a sign in the window saying something like, no animals should die so that we live and it's not our right to take their lives.
02:00:30.000And so they protest every week until he does this.
02:01:21.000Really, the problem is when people don't want to hear the other side, they want to shout people down, they're not willing to listen, and there's common ground across the board.
02:01:30.000And some of it probably is just learned, I think, a lot about how you grew up, and I think it's important to understand that.
02:01:38.000Like I said, just to go back to my childhood, that's the way I grew up, and that's what I understood, but when I look at...
02:03:37.000And they'll just start rattling off statistics about the instances of crime in the black community and how the Asians don't do this, but the blacks do.
02:04:20.000And that only goes back two, three generations.
02:04:22.000Well, what's crazy is you're talking about 1865 is when slavery was abolished.
02:04:27.000So we're talking about a small amount of time in human history where there haven't been slaves.
02:04:32.000So all your isolation when you felt as a kid, when you felt separate from the people that were in the miles that were higher than yours, think about That times a hundred is if you were a slave.
02:04:46.000An insurmountable gap between a slave that has no chance of ever not being a slave and someone who can go to school wherever they want and travel abroad and do whatever the fuck they want.
02:04:57.000The idea that some of these white people think that these people should just get over it.
02:05:02.000The amount of time is so fucking short.
02:06:28.000I mean, it's going to take a long time before we just abandon all this nonsense and just treat people based on who they are as a human being.
02:06:35.000But my grandparents came from Italy and they were treated like dog shit.
02:06:40.000I mean, my grandfather always talked about the racism that he encountered when he came over.
02:06:44.000From Italy to America, and they didn't think of Italians as white people.
02:06:49.000Now, they think of Italians as white people.
02:06:54.000Like, you know, if you're from Spain, you're basically white.
02:06:58.000Like, nobody thinks of a guy from Spain as being, like, you don't think of them the same way you think of Mexicans.
02:07:05.000But one day, all that shit will go away.
02:07:08.000One day we'll get past this, whether it's...
02:07:11.000Who knows how many generations it'll take, but I think it's changing now because of the internet.
02:07:15.000I think there's definitely more hate groups that consolidate, and they get together, and they live in an echo chamber online.
02:07:23.000They talk, and they agree with each other.
02:07:26.000You see it on Twitter, and Twitter's trying to stop that, and maybe that's misguided because maybe it strengthens it, but I think that ultimately...
02:07:33.000This ability to exchange information is gonna allow more and more people to compare notes and understand that there's no benefit to thinking of people as being inferior or superior or better or worse.
02:07:49.000We're just all different, but we're all human.
02:08:03.000But all different, too, because that's one of the beautiful things is that you see these little different aspects of individuals' personalities.
02:08:11.000But to lump people in a group, oh, you're a Chinese guy.
02:08:20.000There's a broad spectrum in each and every classification, but at the end of the day, we're all the same thing, because we're all just people.
02:08:29.000I mean, it's just, when you talk about having, like, pride in it, I feel like it helps a little bit more if I identify as a black American, you know, instead of like an African American.
02:09:29.000That's like the stereotype is like the angry black man, but some of it stems from not knowing where you're from and not having that core identity.
02:09:41.000And I feel like we can just do that again here in America as black Americans instead of...
02:09:46.000Yeah, I hope what it represents is a meter to register that racism is dying.
02:09:56.000And there's a lot of white people that are really going way out of their way to go see it because they wanted to show everybody that they're not racist.
02:12:06.000I mean, and that's the beauty about it, and I think you need to keep that alive.
02:12:10.000You know, there's two different spectrums to it.
02:12:11.000There's the person that's just like, oh, just go ahead and get over it.
02:12:14.000And there's this person that's just like, okay, well, you don't even have...
02:12:18.000Like, they don't want even, like, I didn't...
02:12:23.000Acknowledge your culture, you know what I mean?
02:12:24.000They just want to like just shun it or just not, you know, just put it in the closet somewhere and you know that that's Almost the it's the opposite, but it's just as bad I was talking to a buddy mine who lives on the Big Island about that He's a white guy and he lives in Hawaii and he grew up in Hawaii And I said did you experience a lot of racism against white people?
02:12:44.000He's like no because I'm not a fucking asshole And I said, that's what it is, right?
02:13:48.000One of the things that I really enjoyed about traveling so much with the UFC is you got to see all these different cultures and you got to see all these different styles of life that these people live in.
02:13:57.000And you kind of put it all together and it just gives you...
02:14:01.000I think it's one of the best things about traveling is that it gives you this more rounded perspective.
02:14:07.000If you lived in Italy, you'd be like one of these people.
02:14:17.000Yeah, and it's important to acknowledge, I think, all those different styles, too, you know, of living.
02:14:23.000And I think if you really want to like cure racism in America and all that, it's just being open about it and just talking and, you know, people understanding other people's upbringings and what they went through and what they do, because that makes you understand it more.
02:14:39.000If you try and just shun it away or just say, if you even bring up the word black or white or anything like people get, you know, you kind of see it sometimes people get tense and it's just like, just be honest about it and just be open about it.
02:15:16.000I think that makes you more the asshole there.
02:15:19.000Well, if you're talking to a human being, if you really want to have a conversation with them, you want to know their actual experience.
02:15:24.000And if their experience is as a Puerto Rican that came from Puerto Rico, a lot of Puerto Ricans feel super disconnected with the United States because they're not really United States citizens, but they are.
02:15:36.000It's kind of like it's not really a state, but it's sort of protected by the United States, and so they're disconnected.
02:15:43.000On the East Coast, growing up with Puerto Ricans, they have a weird alienation.
02:15:49.000If you don't want to talk to them and you don't want to hear about that from them, that's fine, but you're just going to miss out on that part of what life is for them.
02:16:04.000The different styles of fighting that they bring, the different dances.
02:16:07.000Everything about the culture, you're going to miss if you try and just shy away from it.
02:16:13.000Mixed martial arts is a perfect example of all these different cultures coming together in this one boiling pot.
02:16:20.000Yeah, I mean, that's one of the most beautiful things about it.
02:16:25.000I can go over to Ireland and fight a Russian in Ireland, and it's different than going down to Brazil and fighting a Brazilian, or something like that.
02:16:38.000It's just different styles of being able to do it, but everybody does it.
02:16:41.000What's crazy to me is how when you go to these other places like Brazil or Ireland or something like that, how rabid they are for their local people.
02:16:51.000When you're fighting someone who's Brazilian in Brazil, I mean, maybe it's relaxed a little bit now, but I was there for some of the earlier UFCs there.