In the first episode of the new year, the boys are joined by the OG of OG's, one of the original UFC fighters, Jussie Smollet. We talk about the early days of the UFC, the origin story of the organization, and the crazy things that went wrong with the organization in the 90s and early 2000s. We also discuss some of the craziest things that have happened in the UFC and how the organization has changed since the days of Dana White and Dana's first UFC fight. And of course, we get into who was the real co-creator of the whole thing, Campbell McLennan! If you don't know who he is, you're not going to want to miss this one, it's a must listen! Subscribe to the show Subscribe on iTunes Learn more about your ad choices. Rate/subscribe in Apple Podcasts! Review, comment and subscribe to our new podcast Listen to our other shows MIC/LINE, The Anthropology, The Real Reel and The Reel Reel Podcast. Subscribe on Podchaser.fm and leave us a review and tell us what you think of our podcast! tag=2894607&name=%20The%20Reel%20cast&qid=2895607&ref=the%20CastleCastlecastle Castle We'll be looking out for a new episode next week! Cheers, Cheers! Cheers. Cheers - Chuck and Cheers - Chuck, Chuck, Chuck and Chuck Chuck, Jon & Jon Jon & Ben Mike @ The Real Real Goodson Subscribe: & Jon & Co CHECK OUT THE FIRST ANNUAL CHECKOUT THE FIRST EPISODE OF THE PODCAST OF THE FASTEST EPISODES EVER AGAIN! - CHECK THEM OUT AT CHEER AND CHEERS AND CHECK OUR OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA AND OTHER LINKS THEY'S AVAILABLE FOR PRODUCEDUCATION AND PRODCASTLE SUPPORTED ON INSTAGRAM AND OTHER THOUGHT AND TALKING ABOUT OUR PODDS AND TRAINING AND SUPPORT OUR SOCIALSALARES AND TAYLOR AND GOOGMENTS AND LINKS AND OTHER MEDITATION AND OTHERTHING LIKE THAT AND MORE! CRITICALLY SUPPORTED IN THE FUTURE OF CHECKBOOKS AND GIVING THEM AT CHECKBACK AND GOT A FRIENDS AND OTHER MEETING AND OTHER MAKING THEM SOMETHING LIKE THAT'S MORE THAN THAT!
00:00:23.000I was watching, the other day was the 20th anniversary of Dan Henderson's first UFC appearance, and as me interviewing him afterwards, I'm like, who's that fucking little kid interviewing Dan Henderson?
00:00:33.000Who's Dan Henderson pretending to be Dan Henderson?
00:00:55.000Yeah, you were one of the people that I cite all the time for why that stupid reason, the 12-6 elbow, you're the one who just explained it to me.
00:01:05.000Because I couldn't believe that what you're telling me was true.
00:01:08.000The reason 12-6 elbows were illegal...
00:02:05.000But anyways, when the unified rules, you know, what happened was, everyone looks at the UFC and says, oh, well, you know, when the UFC went to the first show that was done in New Jersey...
00:02:21.000It was done in September, I want to say, of 1999. And the UFC went there in November of 1999. And you have to go back and understand the history of what was going on.
00:02:35.000And this is where I have my issues with people that try to change history and rewrite things.
00:03:21.000He did things and I will absolutely give him credit for what he did because he was the reason that it actually made it to pay-per-view because Art Davey had gone to everyone.
00:03:34.000Prime Ticket at the time was a pay-per-view provider because the pay-per-view world back then was about 15 million.
00:03:43.000You were limited, but Prime Ticket was one, HBO was another, and he had gone to all those, and they all turned, no, no, no, no, no.
00:03:51.000And there was this one company, Semaphore Entertainment Group, out of New York, that did rock and roll shows, and they did one sporting event.
00:04:01.000It was Martina Navratilova against Jimmy Connors in tennis.
00:04:16.000That was the only sporting thing they'd ever done before the UFC. But they were looking for something that they could rerun and make happen again and again.
00:04:26.000And Campbell looked at what Art brought to him and said...
00:06:03.000I can go through the whole thing of how I met Horian, but when I met him, there was never anything about, well, we would do this in that situation, but we can't do that because we'll hurt you.
00:06:14.000And that was what happened in a lot of martial arts.
00:06:17.000Oh, well, we can't do that because that'll hurt you.
00:07:16.000Like Bruce Lee and these martial artists who, technique over size, and they would beat all these people, but in the real world, that shit didn't work.
00:07:26.000They were heavier, you hit them, it didn't work, you bounced off of them, they got you on the ground, they punched your face in.
00:07:32.000But all of a sudden, there was this little guy, it wasn't little, but he was 175 pounds, in comparison to the rest of the people, he was fairly small, and he was tapping guys with triangles off his back and armbarring people, and everybody would tap.
00:08:47.000So when Art had, with Horian, he gave Horian 25%, he had 25%, and Bob Meyerowitz owned 50% because of putting it on pay-per-view.
00:08:57.000So you had WOW Promotions owning 50%, Semaphore Entertainment Group owning 50%, and actually WOW owned a little bit less because they had brought together investors.
00:09:08.000And they were trying to get $250,000 and they got somewhere around $115,000, $112,000 of investment that they put up because that was going to be part of the money for the people that were competing in it.
00:09:20.000It's crazy when you think about what it is now.
00:09:23.000Because we're talking about 1993. What new sport can you think of other than MMA from 1993 that's now a huge global force?
00:09:34.000I mean, it is something that everybody talks about.
00:10:44.000That will take the advantage away from the girl because now she's actually starting to cup over and her finger strength starts to go before.
00:11:17.000I had to do what's called a work permit for LAPD because I worked for LAPD back in 1993. 93 into 94. And it was because I was going to referee...
00:11:32.000The second UFC, which was March 11th in 1994. And for me to actually work, the department has to allow me to.
00:11:40.000I have to ask for permission, and then they have to grant that permission.
00:11:43.000Was there a concern that it was too outrageous?
00:11:46.000Well, that was part of the whole thing is I didn't want to say, oh, I got two guys going into a cage that are going to beat the shit out of each other.
00:11:57.000And then they said, well, what kind of martial arts?
00:12:00.000So I wrote mixed martial arts referee.
00:12:03.000Now, I can tell you that that was in 92. Right at the end of 93 and beginning of 94. And where did you get that term?
00:12:10.000I didn't get it from anywhere other than I'm sitting there trying to think.
00:12:13.000But I do know that there was a columnist, a sports writer from the LA Times that wrote about the very first UFC and in his article wrote mixed martial arts.
00:12:43.000Because the fact of the matter is, and it doesn't matter what I wrote, what matters is when you joined it, When you joined the UFC, it was still considered no holds barred.
00:12:58.000And it was something that was, and this is probably part of my problem with Campbell McLaren, is back before UFC 2, they had him on Good Morning America with Jim Brown.
00:13:09.000And you go back to that, and he came up with the line that you could win by knockout, tap out, or death.
00:13:18.000And for years after that, I was in court having that thrown in my face by the frickin' attorneys trying to put us down saying, isn't this what your company – no, that's not what my company says.
00:13:47.000But when we were trying to combat that, we were trying to get away from no-holds-barred, because no-holds-barred meant there's no rules, and there was rules.
00:13:55.000But the thing is, it's still no-holds-barred.
00:13:58.000I mean, you could do inside heel hooks, you could do the Imanari choke, you could do whatever you want.
00:15:23.000The longest one was two minutes and 30-some seconds.
00:15:26.000So after the first UFC... The semaphore looked and said, well, why are we having rounds when none of the fights are going that long anyways?
00:15:37.000And so we're just going to take the round thing away so we don't have any stop in the action.
00:15:41.000And then there was certain fighters, Zane Frazier being the main one, saying, if I could have kneaded the groin like I would in my system and what I do, it would have been a completely different fight.
00:15:52.000And they went and said, okay, you can knead the groin.
00:16:09.000It's just so crazy to think that this is a giant sport that's on Fox, it's on ESPN, it's a huge pay-per-view force, you hear about it all the time, you have a real group of experts wearing suits and ties discussing techniques.
00:16:24.000I mean, when you sit down and watch the Fox panel and you see like Tyron Woodley and Michael Bisping and Paul Felder and everybody sitting there discussing technique and strategy and...
00:16:34.000And they need to thank people from the past that got them there.
00:16:36.000Yeah, I mean, you go back and watch some of the old school shit where the sumo guy got his tooth kicked into the stands.
00:17:22.000You know, there's been a couple of fights where I can tell you, you know, Hoist had a fight in, you go back and watch it, you'll see he doesn't punch somebody.
00:18:15.000What is the story about Hickson not being in the first UFC? Because everybody knows, everybody that knows jujitsu knows that Hickson is widely regarded as the greatest of all time.
00:18:27.000When it comes to the Gracies, when it comes to anybody of that era, Hickson was the fucking man.
00:19:24.000I'm sure you've seen those exercises he did on the balancing beam where he's standing on a balancing beam with one leg doing a full split in the air.
00:20:37.000You are, you're the guy who, you know, and you say it perfect all the time where he's got his ninja, you know, the ninja geeks, you know, all these guys that are just geeky guys that are killers in jiu-jitsu now.
00:21:38.000And I wouldn't say that that is inaccurate, but it's not that Minotauro is arguably one of the greatest jiu-jitsu fighters of all time as far as MMA goes.
00:21:47.000I mean, what he did for jiu-jitsu when he armbarred Bob Sapp, I mean, holy shit.
00:21:53.000When he triangled Mark Coleman and all those different guys that he tapped out over in Pride, you got to see basic jiu-jitsu, meaning the things that everybody knows, like triangles, armbars, chokes.
00:23:27.000And you're watching the progression of guys from leg locking people in jiu-jitsu Two leg-locking people now in MMA. Dylan Danis the other day with that footlock.
00:27:45.000Went back to the house, and he put on fights, and he was breaking down fights for me, and talking about errors people were making, and he was talking about space.
00:29:10.000Jacked and a good grappler who, you know, you can go back and look at all the guys from the past, you know, the Satos and everybody that were phenomenal.
00:29:18.000They all said, well, no one can beat him here.
00:31:50.000People have to understand how much time Horian had spent trying to get people to understand grappling is an art form.
00:32:01.000That taking somebody down and putting them into a place where they are unaware of what can happen to them, unknowledgeable, is a way for you to be safe in a fight, taking kinetic energy off of their plate and putting you in a place where you could do what you do.
00:32:15.000And he was trying to sell this the whole time.
00:32:44.000And when he opened up his studio in West LA, Horian went, whoop, you're not going to, the person that is going to be fighting in this is going to be representing my school, right?
00:33:15.000The sentence was that because he was physically impressive, it wouldn't be as good an advertisement for jiu-jitsu because Hoist was long and thin and he wasn't the typical.
00:33:24.000But Hickson, when you looked at him with his shirt off, he had a six-pack and big muscles, he looked like a physically impressive guy.
00:33:31.000But Hickson was 10 pounds heavier than Hoyce.
00:36:04.000And the one thing out of all of them, because at least I've been lucky enough to be able to know all of them and talk to them and train with a lot of them, and all of them, man, Carlson Gracie, I love him.
00:36:22.000That was the thing, because I remember I had some friends that went to Torrance, and right after Hoist tapped out Dan Severn with a triangle, they wanted to learn the triangle.
00:36:31.000And they were saying, no, you're not ready for that yet.
00:37:19.000It went under somewhere around 98, and that's when I moved over to John Jock, and I started training at John Jocks since 98. You didn't miss a beat there, though.
00:37:30.000I had just started to understand who John Jock was, but everybody wanted that Gracie name, which is why a lot of guys went with Gracie as their last name, even though it wasn't their last name.
00:39:13.000Well, one of the things is that John Jock was born with a deformity where he only has a thumb on one hand.
00:39:18.000So his left hand doesn't have any fingers.
00:39:20.000So because of that, a lot of people credit John Jock with a lot of the over hooks and under hooks that really tend to dominate no-gi grappling.
00:39:28.000Because John Jock was not grabbing the gi with that left hand.
00:39:48.000Well, that's where Eddie learned a lot of his technique.
00:39:53.000Obviously, Eddie's a black belt under Jean-Jacques, but he learned a lot of his no-gi principles from Jean-Jacques because Jean-Jacques couldn't rely on the gi.
00:40:02.000One of the things that happens to these gi guys when they come over to MMA, if they rely too much on the gi, they have like half their game.
00:43:27.000I go and they say, you've crushed this.
00:43:30.000And so they went and looked, and when they were supposed to do the surgery, they were going to fuse from 5 to 7. I said, alright, whatever.
00:43:37.000And they do that while my body itself fused around the cage that they'd put the disc in.
00:44:40.000You're getting injured over and over and over again, and your discs are getting compressed, and it's not a coincidence that this disc-degenerating disease is happening with grapplers in the exact same spots, lower back and the neck, and it's all from getting cranked on.
00:47:04.000Someone's just cranking you in an Americana or whatever, and you don't want to tap, and the next day you're back in there again, and you're sure it's sore, but you don't know what it is, and after a while it's not so sore anymore.
00:47:15.000I didn't know you tore your Achilles tendon.
00:47:26.000But the Achilles now, one of the girls who works at the UFC, Heather, she had it done, and they fixed it so fast, they reattached it to the bone now, and you're walking around, like, immediately.
00:47:59.000It's like he doesn't have any strength in it.
00:48:01.000It took a while to rebuild the strength back.
00:48:03.000But it used to be you were in a fucking cast and you couldn't do shit and it took forever to rehab.
00:48:08.000Now it's like they just bolt things down.
00:48:11.000There's new techniques now where they can, Dr. Rodney McGee out of Vegas has explained to me, when you tear an ACL in half, instead of replacing the ACL now, they put that ACL back together again.
00:48:23.000They have new techniques of tying the ACL back together again.
00:52:31.000People don't realize, like when Mark Coleman came into the game, like when Mark Coleman beat Dan Severin and just got him in that scarf hold and cranked on his neck, when people saw what Mark was doing to people, everybody got bigger.
00:53:52.000Because I think, why should you have padding on your knuckles that makes your knuckles more effective when you don't have it on your shins, you don't have it on your elbows, you don't have it on your knees?
00:54:44.000They brought him in because they knew that they needed someone who was very respected to be against MMA. Exactly.
00:54:51.000You've got to look at the pay-per-views.
00:54:52.000The very first pay-per-view for the UFC, 87,000 buys.
00:54:56.000They were hoping for a home run at around 25. They got 87,000.
00:55:01.000Second one, they were in the 180-some thousand, then 200,000, then 300,000.
00:55:06.000To put it into perspective, today, sometimes, like, I think, there was a fight, oh, Mighty Mouse, there was a fight fairly recently, or Mighty Mouse pay-per-view, where I think it only got 150. Let's be honest.
00:55:19.000I think probably the last one they had, it's not going to be up there.
00:56:50.000And if you look and say, if you want to take away some things that go with what's the most traumatic injuries we have in MMA, people are going to look and say all this stuff about, oh, we have guys breaking our...
00:57:03.000Concussions are the most important thing that we have going on.
00:57:06.000That's the most critical thing we have going on.
00:57:09.000And if someone gets to punch less because they have to be more precise with where they're doing it and be careful as far as how many times they do do it because they can't continue to do it in that prolonged fashion, Does it make it safer or is it more dangerous for the fighters?
00:57:25.000But it's a perception and it's, you know, this goes back to athletic commissions and everything.
00:57:46.000It was the first time I've ever done anything in my life right there.
00:57:48.000The 12-6 elbow strike, was it because, this is what I've always said, and I believe you're the one who told me this, that when the commissions were talking about techniques, they had seen those karate guys on ESPN at 1 o'clock in the morning breaking bricks with their elbows, and they were like, there's no way you could allow that strike because that strike would be too deadly.
00:58:11.000When we talk about commissions, there was only a couple of commissions at the writing of the unified rules as far as when we came together.
00:58:21.000That was back in April of 2001. And New Jersey, I started talking about the UFC was not the first show to go there, but New Jersey, after they had the IFC and then the UFC, and then they had a couple other small shows, Ring of Fire starts to come in, and everyone has their own rules.
00:58:41.000The UFC had their own rules, IFC had their own rules, Ring of Fire wants to do their own rules, and New Jersey was like, we can't have these people coming in and giving us what their rules are.
00:58:50.000If we're going to do this as a sport, We're going to do this under our rules.
00:58:56.000And okay, what we're going to do is we're going to bring people together to create those rules.
00:59:01.000People that supposedly know who they really invited other than, you know, I think you had the Mohegan Sun as far as the Tribal Commission come down.
00:59:25.000And they bring in all of these promoters.
00:59:27.000And the promoters were King of the Cage, Terry Treblecock.
00:59:31.000You had Dana White, Lorenzo Fertitta, John McCarthy, Joe Silva, and Jeff Blatnick from the UFC. You had people from Pride, Yuki Kondo and Kanda or whatever, Hideki, I can't remember his name.
00:59:46.000And you had Paul Smith, you had a couple, but that was it.
01:03:12.000Where if you grab my wrist and I'm John Jones and I take and I roll that elbow over and boom and bring it down, you let go of my wrist because you're being attacked.
01:03:22.000And so they looked at it and said, and the Dom Colletta being the doctor said, he goes, look it.
01:03:44.000At the time, in this show, about 335 pounds.
01:03:48.000And he's fighting a guy named Brad Gabriel who's 6'1", 210, 215 pounds.
01:03:53.000And Brad Gabriel is trying to get a hold of Gan just to survive.
01:03:58.000And Gan is taking his arm and he's boom, boom, boom.
01:04:00.000And he's bringing it straight down on top of...
01:04:04.000Brad Gabriel's head and then he gets his back and he does the same thing like the old Brazilian style of bringing shots to the back of the head.
01:04:12.000And he said, he goes, I can't have that.
01:04:16.000He said, I've seen them break big blocks of ice like that.
01:04:19.000That's a dangerous spell, but we can't have that.
01:04:22.000And I started to combat it and Lorenzo Fertitta looks at me and goes, John, let it go.
01:07:31.000Their rationale is they don't understand it and they're afraid to say...
01:07:34.000They look at the sport and they look at it from a different view than you and I as people that are a part of it, you and I as fans, any of that.
01:07:44.000They look at it from, well, right now.
01:07:53.000And we haven't had a problem having that as being illegal.
01:07:56.000So as soon as we bring it into, okay, now it's legal, and we have a fighter that supposedly gets hurt by it, and now they come after us saying, well, before it was illegal, you guys meant illegal.
01:08:18.000But right now, I will tell you, the University of Auburn Is doing a study for us about elbows and the power behind each different type that we're having them do, being that one up and down.
01:08:32.000So I've already had – I used to do things with sports science, and they've already done that test for me.
01:08:40.000We'll have a university having a test, and so now it's going to come out that all these elbow strikes that are allowed are all much more powerful than that elbow strike.
01:08:50.000Well, not only that, but forget about power.
01:08:53.000Because you could take whatever Dominic Cruz's most powerful technique and then use Francis Ngannou's jab.
01:09:01.000So are we just saying that you can't have power?
01:09:04.000Because that doesn't make any sense at all.
01:09:06.000Well, no, because see, that's what the whole thing is with that elbow strike.
01:10:35.000But if you're a fighter and you get used to accepting damage, accepting punishment, you can accept a lot of things to a certain point where that person's speed and power come together to create a velocity that will put anybody out.
01:10:51.000And that just comes with strength and weight and size.
01:10:55.000Because the.22 caliber bullet is not like the.45 caliber bullet.
01:10:59.000And no matter who the athlete is, the downward elbow is not going to be the most powerful strike in their arsenal unless they're just some fucking downward elbow wizard.
01:11:09.000And there might be a few of those guys out there.
01:11:12.000In the Thai world, there might be some guy who does one of those tomahawk elbows that just has a vicious one, but...
01:11:19.000For those guys, there's few and far between.
01:11:22.000So tell me how that elbow is going to be stronger than a guy with a rolling thunder kick with his heel hitting someone on the top.
01:11:55.000And look, I hate to say this, there will be one fighter out there, whoever they are, who ends up saying, well, I have this lawyer who said I can make money and they're going to sue somebody over it.
01:12:07.000And they're going to say, that was what got me hurt.
01:14:52.000Because now it becomes, instead of me having to pull and having to lift, we'll say, 80 pounds of pressure, that pressure becomes 160 pounds of pressure because it's double.
01:19:35.000And we were talking earlier, and it's like, you know...
01:19:38.000As a fan, I would love to have, even boxers, everybody in one little, this is the group, this is what we watch for fighting, because I get to see the best against the best.
01:21:18.000I look and go, I understand why you say screw that.
01:21:22.000And it can, you know, in some ways, I guess it can diminish your product if someone comes from the outside and, you know, goes against your champion, it could diminish your product if you want to say that.
01:22:00.000But that's the difference between what happened with MMA. Right.
01:22:04.000I can tell you, you know, back before UFC 30. UFC 30 was the first one that, for Tito's, were the owners of the UFC. And I can remember going to, it was at the Mark Edis Arena at the Trump Taj Mahal.
01:22:17.000And, you know, they're doing Tito's walkout.
01:22:21.000Because Tito was the champion, he's going to fight Evan Tanner.
01:22:47.000And Lorenzo at that time told me, he says, man, I want to be the first promoter to be able to pay an MMA fighter a million dollars for a fight.
01:23:31.000I said, you're always going to have issues with fighters to a point.
01:23:34.000It's just they're looking at what's best for them, and you're looking at what's best for you, and there's got to be always that compromise towards the middle.
01:23:41.000I go, so you can always control the brand.
01:23:44.000And eventually, that's what he realized, and he pushed, and he made the UFC the brand, because it was Pride UFC, and he started, you know, from the Ultimate Fighter, he started having this term where people associated the UFC with mixed martial arts.
01:24:24.000I want to see Rory McDonald fight the best fighters in the world, and I think that Rory McDonald is one of the best, if not the best, 170-pound fighter on the planet.
01:28:47.000And this is the, in my personal, and I could be wrong, but this is the problem that we have with kickboxing and Muay Thai both.
01:28:54.000Is people don't know what they're watching.
01:28:57.000And then when they don't understand it, same as you said, I don't understand football, I don't understand soccer.
01:29:02.000As soon as you don't understand what you're watching, you start to get, eh, I can not do it.
01:29:06.000It's understanding this is what's allowed and being part of it, now you're invested in it.
01:29:13.000But if you don't understand what the rule sets are, and there's so many rule sets when it comes to kickboxing, they've got to come together.
01:30:32.000And when you talk about the evolution, there's evolution for fighters, there's evolution for promoters, there's evolution for fans as far as what they get to watch and how they get to watch it.
01:30:42.000And all of that has to evolve for the sport to continue to rise and build.
01:30:47.000When the UFC sold, and this is no disrespect to anyone, the greatest thing that the UFC had was Lorenzo Fertitta.
01:30:58.000Dana was fantastic for the UFC as far as his work effort and the amount of work he put into it and, you know, nonstop, just going after deals, trying to make things happen.
01:31:11.000You know, he was the workhorse for it, but Lorenzo's the brains behind it.
01:33:03.000There's also a mistake in the kind of...
01:33:06.000Especially, initially, did a lot of sort of Hollywood-style promotion.
01:33:11.000Like, when I thought there was a real problem was when Ronda Rousey was making her comeback against Amanda Nunes, and they weren't even mentioning Amanda Nunes.
01:33:18.000I'm like, you guys are out of your fucking mind.
01:33:21.000This is the woman that I was saying before Ronda got knocked out by Holly Holm.
01:33:25.000I was saying Amanda Nunes is more dangerous.
01:34:10.000They were so they were hyped up on that video that they made where Ronda's like Ronda's back And she's in this mansion wandering on her mansion and watching Amanda Nunes on TV I'm like you guys are out of your mind You're out of your mind because it doesn't matter how many hype pieces you make She's still got to fight Amanda fucking Nunes that woman is She's so good and her fucking power in her hands is like nobody else in the division.
01:34:34.000Oh She's so physically strong and fast.
01:37:42.000And so as the trainer, what are you there for?
01:37:45.000You are there to get your fighter ready for the fight.
01:37:49.000You're there to be the person that's helping them during the fight and giving them instructions and telling them how to attack this person and saying, you're doing this wrong.
01:37:57.000I need you to do this, whatever it's going to be.
01:40:16.000I mean, a guy who's got a cut weight, a natural guy who's got a cut weight to get down to 265. And when he hits you, you literally can't take it.
01:40:25.000The only guy that's been able to do it right is Stipe.
01:40:27.000Because he moved away from everything.
01:42:20.000Like, you see people get hit, and you see this look on their face, they're like, oh, Jesus!
01:42:24.000But you've had that same look, no matter if it's...
01:42:28.000You're doing kickboxing, sparring, or you're grappling with someone, and all of a sudden someone's doing something, and you're like, holy shit!
01:42:38.000But what makes you think, like, what would happen if you got a guy like a LeBron James, like a real super athlete, and they got invested in MMA the way Aaron Pico is, you know?
01:43:02.000But I was doing training with a bunch of NFL players and MMA guys and just getting NFL guys to do martial arts-type training to help with their flexibility, help with their strength, help with their conditioning.
01:43:17.000And Frank Trigg was one of the guys there.
01:43:19.000And Golston, I had him doing arm bars, just swinging hips left to right, left to right.
01:45:38.000For the sport of boxing and the sport of MMA. But when you're looking at everything that, you know, as far as weights, you know, we went and said, look, there's 10 pounds between 25, 35, 45, 55. Why are we jumping 15 pounds?
01:46:18.000But he could do it with the things he likes and be at 175. Yeah, I agree.
01:46:23.000But this is where, you know, the UFC is the most powerful entity within MMA. And, you know, look, they've done a ton of great things for the sport.
01:46:33.000But they've also done things that have held the sport back.
01:46:45.000Well, we forgot that UFC used to have the weight class was 199. It wasn't 205. Exactly.
01:46:50.000When we first did the unified rules, Tito Ortiz was the light heavyweight champion at 199.9.
01:46:59.000And as soon as the unified rules came in and we said, okay, that weight class is 205, Tito Ortiz was the light heavyweight champion at 205. Right.
01:47:19.000Dana's told things by people because he can't know everything.
01:47:22.000And when he hears that, oh, they're talking about new weight classes, he doesn't make a comment about it.
01:47:29.000He goes to his people and he says, hey, is this a problem for us?
01:47:33.000And you have Sean Shelby and Mick Maynard are the two matchmakers for the UFC. And they have enough problems as it is with getting everybody to the fight and making sure that fight happens and stuff.
01:47:48.000And the guys are pulling out and stuff.
01:47:50.000And they're going to tell you, we don't want that.
01:47:53.000Because you're diluting my weight class now.
01:47:56.000When you're not diluting your weight class, just move that person here, move this person.
01:48:00.000You're putting them in, but they're going to say that you're diluting it and you're making it too narrow for them.
01:48:05.000And so they don't want that change in the weight class.
01:48:08.000So Dana goes, we don't want changes in the weight class.
01:48:12.000The sport of MMA needs changes in the weight class because there's so many fighters out there that, look it, when we make changes, the change is not for the UFC. The UFC does not have to have that weight class if they don't want it.
01:48:31.000They can sit there and say, and the reason that the 170 pound weight class stayed and remained is because of the UFC. They said, okay, we'll agree to bringing in more weight classes, but we want to keep the 170 because they didn't want to move Tyrone Woodley and they didn't want to have to move their champions.
01:49:58.000When you talk about size now, and when the skill level is the same and the size is different, I can tell you who's going to win that fight.
01:50:58.000You're dealing with the percentage of the body size.
01:51:00.000It's a far greater percentage of the body size going from 125 to 185 versus...
01:51:06.000Your biggest percentage is going to be in that 155 to 185. You've got more fighters, 145 to 185. Right, but what I'm saying is someone fighting someone who's 60 pounds larger than them when they're 125 pounds is a way different thing.
01:54:15.000And when we have problems with the weight cuts and we have problems with subdural hematomas, it's always the smaller fighters.
01:54:22.000And it's because they lose so much weight that it becomes a problematic thing with that fight.
01:54:30.000Where their brains are dehydrated, it pulls away from the dura, you have all these things that can happen with bleeding, and it cannot stop it, and we get problems from it.
01:54:55.000And that guy got really, really badly hurt in that fight, and that was one of the rare situations where a heavyweight experienced serious brain bleeding and got rushed to the hospital.
01:55:05.000He had his cheek crushed in the second round.
01:55:08.000Imagine fighting and having a heavyweight boxer punching your face when your cheek is broken and crushed.
01:55:16.000Just everything in that, and this is where sometimes corners...
01:56:27.000What did you think about all that crazy talk about...
01:56:29.000Dana said it's 100% bullshit, but the crazy talk about Connor and Floyd fighting in an MMA cage with boxing gloves, no kicks, no takedowns, no submissions, but you can clinch.
01:58:55.000If you go to a fucking job site and you see a guy who's working as a finished carpenter, you don't go, oh, that poor guy's got to work as a finished carpenter.
02:00:40.000That's not sad, but it's sad when you look and you say...
02:00:43.000He could have gotten away with that if he just saved all that money.
02:00:46.000If someone was smart enough to tell you back then, look, I want you to take this much and put it here, maybe you wouldn't have to be doing this today.
02:00:54.000And you look at his whole thing, the way his dad was with him and the things he went through, you look and you go, I feel bad.
02:01:04.000I feel bad that you're having to come in here.
02:01:06.000Every day like I am, but after what you've done in your life and the status that you actually had at one time, I feel bad.
02:01:14.000Yeah, you feel bad, but if you was just a regular guy, you wouldn't feel bad.
02:02:18.000People wanting to come into officiating for MMA. And the big questions I get is, you know, oh, how much, you know, how long will it take and how much can I make?
02:02:28.000Okay, my first response is, get the fuck away from me.
02:02:48.000But tell me what it's like for Joe Rogan to walk into an arena, some of the biggest arenas in the world, Madison Square Garden, you know, T-Mobile, Staples.
02:03:46.000But all the stuff that my dad made me do, doing anything that had to do with combative sports, and then from there, continuing on, and then meeting Horry and Gracie, and going and learning that,
02:04:01.000and all of that set me up to have the ability to be successful At this sport where I tell people all the time, let's look at the NFL. You want to be an official and you want to do the Super Bowl.
02:04:59.000And by the time they call and say, hey, do you want to come here and start to do summer league for the NFL, you've put in 15 to 20 years of officiating and of going through problems and situations and everything.
02:05:13.000And that's the big difference that people don't get.
02:05:17.000Even the athletic commissions, they all will have somebody that has been their guy at their state who is – Well, he's there for all our small shows.
02:05:27.000And he's always available and he's always doing stuff.
02:05:30.000So we want to give him that bigger shot.
02:05:32.000When the UFC's coming here, we want to put him in that main event fight.
02:05:50.000The adrenaline's flowing and they're scared.
02:05:52.000They're scared because, oh my God, I can't make a mistake.
02:05:56.000Because now, I got all these eyeballs on me.
02:05:59.000And that's where you get all of that knowledge is doing the small shows and going through time and seeing, you know, having problems yourself, seeing other people have those problems.
02:07:24.000I do it, when I would do it, why I wouldn't, okay?
02:07:28.000Because you get, you know, there's positions and you know what they are.
02:07:31.000When a guy takes somebody down, it's not easy to get somebody down.
02:07:35.000Okay, now if I'm the guy getting taken down and I close my guard, grab a hold of him, gable grip, pull him in tight, let's see, what am I doing?
02:07:56.000If I'm the referee in this situation, I'll never stand you up.
02:08:01.000I'm going to give that guy in the top position all the time in the world to get past what you're doing as long as he's working trying to do it.
02:08:09.000It's when he starts to stall in the top position and not try to do anything and just sit there.
02:10:29.000He's a phenomenal, phenomenal kickboxer.
02:10:32.000But there's a difference, you know, and you know...
02:10:35.000You can take some kickboxers out there and put them in an MMA fight, they're in trouble.
02:10:41.000But man, you put them in a kickboxing fight, those dudes are phenomenal!
02:10:47.000And just the fact that what they do, they cannot do in an MMA cage because the ability for them to be taken down, it stops them from trying to do some of those things.
02:10:58.000Well, with Paul, Paul is that guy, he's the high-level striker in MMA. Put him in kickboxing against some certain guys.
02:11:48.000You know, and look, when he, in the end of the first round, when he went after John, hey, no one's sitting there saying, stop, let's put you on the ground.
02:12:25.000He goes, I had to switch to a southpaw to fight Jake Shields.
02:12:28.000Because if I got hit standing right-handed, I got hit and my head went that way, he goes, my entire arm would go numb and I couldn't feel it.
02:16:47.000If you're paying attention and you're learning from life's mistakes and life's decisions and all the trials and tribulations, you should theoretically at least be improving in the way you approach life every day.
02:17:31.000There's certain people, they're predisposed, if they get head trauma, they're going to have problems.
02:17:37.000And there's certain people, dude, you could hit them in the head with everything you have for as long as you want, and they're just going to be fine.
02:17:43.000Yeah, there's certain guys that one or two knockouts and they're basically done.
02:20:23.000Matt Lindland, who was a great competitor, but maybe perhaps a little bit over-enthusiastic about the outcome, was willing to bend the rules a little bit.
02:22:19.000Against Murillo, he goes to the ground with Murillo and goes, fuck that, I'm not going to be on the ground with this guy, I'm in danger.
02:22:26.000He gets up and decides, I'm going to be a boxer, and Murillo's like, I don't want to stand up with that dude hits hard for a two- He hit very hard.
02:22:35.000Remember when he knocked out Kevin Randleman in Brazil?