The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #27 with Robin Black

00:00:02.000 Four, three, two, one.

00:00:07.000 Robin Black, ladies and gentlemen.

00:00:09.000 What's up, buddy?

00:00:09.000 Hey, man.

00:00:10.000 It's great to see you.

00:00:11.000 Are you fresh back from Singapore?

00:00:12.000 I am.

00:00:13.000 Yeah, I was in Singapore like 48 hours ago.

00:00:15.000 Did they make that special shiny silver one for you?

00:00:18.000 Because that looks like that's designed for you.

00:00:20.000 No, I mean, yeah, it does kind of look like it's designed for me, which is why I wanted it.

00:00:24.000 Yeah, it's a rock and roll one championship, one FC championship.

00:00:28.000 So what's it like over there, man?

00:00:30.000 So let me explain to everybody.

00:00:31.000 One FC is like the Asian version of the UFC. It's a gigantic organization that has been going on for how long now?

00:00:38.000 2011. So solid seven years and really high-level fights over there.

00:00:44.000 Amazing, amazing fights.

00:00:45.000 Singapore itself is...

00:00:46.000 Is wild.

00:00:47.000 So I went over there to chat with them.

00:00:50.000 So Chatri Sityatong runs it.

00:00:53.000 And he and I had been chatting.

00:00:54.000 And I love kind of how they see martial arts.

00:00:58.000 So they don't call it even FC anymore.

00:01:00.000 It's just one championship.

00:01:01.000 They don't even use the word fighting, really.

00:01:03.000 It's martial arts.

00:01:04.000 And the way I see it and the way I study martial arts and share it is an art form.

00:01:10.000 Like painting or yoga or, you know, things of that nature.

00:01:14.000 Less spectacle.

00:01:15.000 That's always how I've seen it and always how I love it.

00:01:17.000 And that's how they see it.

00:01:18.000 And that's how they present it.

00:01:20.000 And it's presented from this sort of inspirational, own your history kind of way in Asia.

00:01:26.000 And that was what attracted me to them right away.

00:01:29.000 I mean, it's definitely an art form.

00:01:32.000 It's values-based.

00:01:33.000 Like, they're kind of seeking to inspire people through these athletes and artists. 0.95

00:01:38.000 It's pretty fucking cool. 0.95

00:01:39.000 Really? 0.94

00:01:40.000 So what's motivating them to take this sort of radical approach?

00:01:44.000 So it's wild that you say that because to me this is the approach.

00:01:51.000 So I think what we do or the way that we present it in North America is radical.

00:01:57.000 I think martial arts is an art form.

00:02:00.000 Martial arts is this inspiring thing.

00:02:02.000 I mean, you take, say for example, Aung Laun Sung.

00:02:05.000 He is their 185 pound and 205 pound champion.

00:02:08.000 He's from Myanmar.

00:02:10.000 They have never had a world champion in any sport ever in their history.

00:02:14.000 I don't think they've had a gold medalist in the Olympics.

00:02:17.000 They've never had that.

00:02:18.000 This guy's a two-division champion.

00:02:21.000 And when I talked to Chhatri about it, and he was talking sort of about why he sees it this way and why he's proud to present it this way, he's like, he knows without question that there are kids, and he won his 205-pound title in Myanmar, in a stadium in Myanmar.

00:02:36.000 And he said he knows without question there's a kid in there going to become a lawyer one day because of that.

00:02:41.000 And they can feel it, and it's real.

00:02:43.000 It's not like a marketing strategy.

00:02:46.000 Like, this is how they see martial arts.

00:02:49.000 And it's how martial arts is viewed in Asia.

00:02:51.000 Martial arts, I get to travel so much now.

00:02:53.000 It's viewed different in Russia.

00:02:55.000 It's viewed different in Brazil.

00:02:56.000 How's it viewed in Russia?

00:02:58.000 Russia's wild, man.

00:02:59.000 I got to work for ACB. You know, ACB, awesome.

00:03:04.000 Another big organization.

00:03:05.000 Another big organization.

00:03:05.000 So in Russia, it's very masculine.

00:03:07.000 And it's about victory and about showing your power and your strength.

00:03:13.000 And Russia is like that. 0.87

00:03:15.000 You know, it's a reflection kind of of Russia.

00:03:18.000 Yeah.

00:03:19.000 The martial art thing I absolutely agree with you on, that it is an art form, but I also think it's a fight.

00:03:27.000 Like, Gilbert Melendez versus Diego Sanchez.

00:03:30.000 That's an art form, but it's a fight. 0.98

00:03:33.000 That was a fucking wild fight. 0.94

00:03:36.000 And there's no way that's just art. 0.99

00:03:40.000 That's art and a fight.

00:03:43.000 It's both things.

00:03:43.000 But a fight is art.

00:03:45.000 It's an expression of who you are.

00:03:47.000 It is, in a way.

00:03:47.000 It's an expression of your personality, your individuality, your heart, your fearlessness.

00:03:53.000 100%, but it's a fight.

00:03:54.000 I'm not scared of the word fight.

00:03:55.000 No, I'm not either.

00:03:56.000 I like it.

00:03:57.000 I like that word.

00:03:58.000 But it is an art form.

00:04:01.000 Fights are art.

00:04:02.000 Yes, definitely.

00:04:04.000 Anderson Silva's second fight with Chael Sonnen, the way he landed that knee to the body on the ground, that is just art.

00:04:10.000 That's art.

00:04:11.000 I mean, if you go back to Lyoto Machida just landing that front kick on Vitor Belfort, that's art.

00:04:17.000 Especially for someone who practices martial arts, you see the beauty in that.

00:04:23.000 Oh, it's like a flower blossoming or just a sunrise or just something perfect.

00:04:29.000 The impossibility of it is what's so beautiful.

00:04:32.000 Like, these guys are so unwilling partners, and they have such, like, a desire to accomplish what they want to accomplish. 0.97

00:04:41.000 To kick that guy in the face from that position. 0.59

00:04:44.000 Vitor has a lifetime of this. 0.99

00:04:47.000 Mm-hmm.

00:04:47.000 A lifetime of being able to not let you do that.

00:04:50.000 And for you to first be willing to be free enough to try it and to express it in that moment, it is definitely art.

00:04:59.000 But I'm with you.

00:05:00.000 Fight doesn't intimidate me at all.

00:05:03.000 A fight is a beautiful thing.

00:05:06.000 We fight for things all the time.

00:05:08.000 It's a metaphor for life itself when you fight.

00:05:11.000 I think people, rightly so, are concerned with the idea of violence against someone who's an unwilling participant.

00:05:20.000 And that's how they think of fighting.

00:05:22.000 They think of it as this thing that they want nothing to do with.

00:05:26.000 They don't want any violence in their life.

00:05:27.000 They don't want anybody to hurt them.

00:05:29.000 And I completely understand that.

00:05:30.000 I understand that position.

00:05:32.000 But that's not what it is when it's a competition.

00:05:35.000 I mean, it's a tired expression because I've said it too many times, but my perception of what fighting is is high-level problem solving with dire physical consequences.

00:05:45.000 Big time.

00:05:45.000 And the physical consequences are what make it so special.

00:05:50.000 Yes.

00:05:51.000 No question.

00:05:53.000 The hard times make the good times better.

00:05:55.000 And the possibility that bad things can happen to you.

00:06:01.000 And do sometimes happen, even to the great ones.

00:06:03.000 I mean, you see great fighters have been KO'd and come back, and there's something about that where you realize, like, hey, even Fedor can get knocked out.

00:06:13.000 I mean, hey, even Anderson Silva.

00:06:17.000 Can play cocky and get caught by that Chris Weidman left hook.

00:06:20.000 I mean, this is just the game.

00:06:22.000 And, you know, I think in Asia in particular, but there's different pockets of how this is viewed and how the philosophy of connecting to martial arts and fighting is viewed.

00:06:34.000 And in Asia, you would see, a certain amount of the fighters would see losing badly It's an opportunity, a chance, because to come back and win again or to come back and show that you're able, you were given the gift of trying and failing.

00:06:52.000 You know what I mean?

00:06:53.000 I do know what you mean.

00:06:55.000 Yeah, that's a great way to approach it.

00:06:56.000 It's a great way to look at it.

00:06:58.000 You know, I mean, there really is a lesson.

00:07:01.000 That the average person can take in their life.

00:07:04.000 Like every time a person does have a bad thing happen to them, that terrible feeling is an opportunity to rise from the ashes.

00:07:12.000 Yeah.

00:07:13.000 And winning, when you're just winning at everything and things come easily to you, I'm sure it still feels good.

00:07:21.000 But when you've gone through really hard times or when you've been challenged by something or you've dropped lower, the high of the success is so much higher.

00:07:29.000 It's so much of a longer journey. 0.99

00:07:31.000 Personally, when we spoke before and when we talked about CM Punk when he was fighting the first time, I was like, this is stupid. 0.94

00:07:39.000 This guy is pushing, stacking himself into a position to try to not fail by making the challenge so difficult that even if he fails, he don't really. 0.93

00:07:49.000 But this is fully different now.

00:07:51.000 Like now I'm cheering for him because he was humiliated.

00:07:56.000 Like he was – he didn't just fail.

00:07:58.000 He was humiliated.

00:08:00.000 He in front of everybody was shown to be – people would judge him as weak or people – the judgment that he would feel is bad.

00:08:09.000 And he said, I'll go do it again.

00:08:11.000 He – We are now in a completely different context because that's a guy who epically failed in front of everybody and then dealt with that and now says, I will try the journey again and this will make me a better person.

00:08:24.000 And now I fully endorse this.

00:08:27.000 I'm cheering for him now.

00:08:28.000 Well, he's now fighting a fighter who's commensurate in talent.

00:08:31.000 And there's nothing wrong with being a beginner in martial arts.

00:08:35.000 But there's something wrong with thinking that you can be a beginner and fight Mickey Gall.

00:08:39.000 Big time. 0.99

00:08:40.000 It was a foolish venture.

00:08:42.000 And my approach to it was this is going to be a very good lesson for people that are fans of positive thinking and they think that's enough. 1.00

00:08:53.000 That shit is not enough. 0.99

00:08:54.000 If you weigh 110 pounds, you get positive. 1.00

00:08:57.000 To the bank, Francis Ngannou's still gonna punch your brains out.

00:09:01.000 There's just no way around it.

00:09:03.000 And a guy who has really very little experience in martial arts and has rudimentary control of his body.

00:09:11.000 I mean, that's what I saw when I saw him training.

00:09:14.000 When I saw him training, I was like, oh my god.

00:09:16.000 He didn't belong there.

00:09:17.000 He did not belong there in that context.

00:09:20.000 But he belongs here.

00:09:21.000 Yeah.

00:09:22.000 And everything's contextual. 1.00

00:09:25.000 Just because I thought that was stupid, it was stupid. 1.00

00:09:28.000 It was stupid. 1.00

00:09:29.000 But that doesn't mean in this context I can't look and go, there's a guy who doesn't need to come back. 1.00

00:09:36.000 He doesn't need to try again.

00:09:37.000 He doesn't need to go into the gym.

00:09:39.000 And I've been there.

00:09:39.000 You're in the gym and everyone's going, oh man, you did good.

00:09:43.000 I didn't do good. 0.99

00:09:44.000 I fucking failed miserably in front of everybody. 0.98

00:09:46.000 And then show up there, clean the mats, and work really hard and say, I'm going to try it again. 0.99

00:09:51.000 And yes, that fight still, him and this guy, still should take place somewhere else.

00:09:56.000 100%.

00:09:56.000 It should.

00:09:57.000 It shouldn't even be on the Tuesday Night Contender show.

00:09:59.000 No.

00:10:00.000 No, it shouldn't.

00:10:01.000 It should be in some amateur event somewhere.

00:10:04.000 That's really what they are.

00:10:05.000 They're guys learning how to compete.

00:10:09.000 They're in the first fight in the pay-per-view. 0.99

00:10:11.000 It's fucking crazy. 0.95

00:10:12.000 But that has nothing to do with them. 0.99

00:10:14.000 That is a reflection on You're 100% right.

00:10:32.000 It makes it deeper and harder and more chances to fail epically.

00:10:36.000 And I lost twice in a row and then still wanted to fight again and still because I really wanted to.

00:10:43.000 And it was important to me and it meant something to me.

00:10:46.000 And I was going to change as a human being by doing it.

00:10:48.000 And I was ridiculed.

00:10:50.000 I can relate to what he's going through.

00:10:51.000 But I did it on a little show in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

00:10:55.000 You know what I mean?

00:10:55.000 I would never have put myself in that place to look bad.

00:11:00.000 But here he is, and here it is, and I'm cheering for him as a human being in a weird situation that has put himself into a deep, dark, hard spot and saying, my way out of this is to try really hard and really go in.

00:11:17.000 And the chance, all of that...

00:11:19.000 I would want for him, if I knew him and he was my friend, is to fight your way through some adverse situations.

00:11:25.000 To be able to be in it and find when it's hard, you discover, yeah, I can handle when it's hard.

00:11:31.000 I can get up when I've been dropped, or I can fight through not being able to breathe.

00:11:35.000 If he loses and does that, it will have been worth it for him.

00:11:38.000 No matter how much ridicule he'll take, it will have been worth it for him.

00:11:41.000 What was really weird watching him walk to the cage was that he was approaching it like a pro-wrestling fight.

00:11:46.000 Because he had done so many of these pro-wrestling matches that he was walking to the cage with pro-wrestling mannerisms and everything.

00:11:53.000 And I was watching this and I did an internal head shake. 0.99

00:11:58.000 Like, oh, fuck. 1.00

00:12:00.000 You can't... 1.00

00:12:02.000 It was a terrible idea.

00:12:05.000 On everybody's part. 1.00

00:12:06.000 Whoever on his side said that he could fight Mickey Gall, you're out of your fucking mind. 1.00

00:12:10.000 Watch that kid fight once. 1.00

00:12:11.000 That kid is very good on the ground.

00:12:13.000 Very good.

00:12:14.000 Big and strong and young.

00:12:15.000 Stand-up's not bad either. 0.99

00:12:17.000 You know, and he's tough as shit, and he's smart, he's clever, and he's mean. 1.00

00:12:21.000 He's a mean fucker. 1.00

00:12:22.000 And that is, at that stage, he was maybe 1-0, I think, or maybe 2, but it's still the lowest level that there is in the entire elite world of fighting. 1.00

00:12:32.000 It didn't matter.

00:12:33.000 It was the way he won.

00:12:35.000 Like, you saw it.

00:12:36.000 You saw the way he took that guy's back, and the way he sinks hooks in.

00:12:40.000 And when he was on top, and just delivered with like, yeah.

00:12:43.000 But that's how it...

00:12:45.000 And you're 100% right.

00:12:47.000 If somebody's watching that, that is the reality of thinking, I'll put myself in a situation that I can't win, but I've got guts and heart and I believe I'm going to do it.

00:12:57.000 You get the metaphorical version of that punch in the face if you go through life like that.

00:13:02.000 Yes, you do.

00:13:02.000 And you know what?

00:13:03.000 You shouldn't do it in fighting because you don't want those punches in the face if you can't avoid them.

00:13:09.000 If you're in a situation where you want to prove your toughness and you want to battle it against someone who's of your skill level and try to figure your way through the maze of this contest, that makes sense.

00:13:21.000 What doesn't make sense is getting punched in the face unnecessarily.

00:13:26.000 And when you fight, in my opinion, when I looked at that fight, I was like, Mickey Gall's gonna smash him.

00:13:31.000 This is just how it's going to go.

00:13:33.000 There's very few fights where I can tell you this is absolutely gonna happen.

00:13:36.000 Like, here's a perfect example.

00:13:38.000 Rafael Dos Anjos against Colby Covington. 0.98

00:13:41.000 I don't know what the fuck's going to happen. 0.95

00:13:42.000 No idea. 0.99

00:13:43.000 I don't know.

00:13:43.000 They're going to get in there.

00:13:44.000 They're going to throw down.

00:13:45.000 Let's see.

00:13:46.000 Mickey Gall versus, you know, I forgot.

00:13:50.000 CM Punk.

00:13:51.000 What's his real name?

00:13:52.000 Phil...

00:13:53.000 Jackson?

00:13:54.000 No.

00:13:54.000 Hartman?

00:13:55.000 What's his fucking name? 1.00

00:13:57.000 Phil... 1.00

00:13:58.000 Whatever.

00:13:59.000 CM Punk.

00:14:00.000 What is it?

00:14:01.000 Jamie?

00:14:02.000 Brooks?

00:14:02.000 Brooks.

00:14:03.000 Brooks.

00:14:03.000 Phil Brooks.

00:14:04.000 Sorry, Phil.

00:14:06.000 I was like, well, this is a terrible idea, because he's just going to get...

00:14:09.000 You can only get punched in the face so many times in your life.

00:14:12.000 You have a number.

00:14:13.000 Whatever the number is, everybody's different.

00:14:15.000 Mark Hunt's number seems to be extraordinarily high.

00:14:17.000 Yeah.

00:14:18.000 There's some people that could just take it.

00:14:21.000 It's true.

00:14:21.000 But, you know, you don't want it when you can't avoid it.

00:14:24.000 And he's not going to avoid it in that fight.

00:14:27.000 He's going to get smashed.

00:14:28.000 Unless Mickey caught a crazy arm bar early in the fight, and that was what he gave him. 0.58

00:14:33.000 Other than that, he's getting his face smashed in.

00:14:35.000 And you should not do that if you don't have to.

00:14:38.000 I remember when we spoke about it, it's unconscious incompetence.

00:14:43.000 And that, if you don't know what you don't know, like... 0.98

00:14:48.000 It's a really fucking weird place to be. 0.90

00:14:50.000 And we go through life that way a lot of times in a lot of different contexts until you find out, you know, conscious incompetence. 0.99

00:14:57.000 We're like, oh, fuck, I don't know anything about this. 0.97

00:14:59.000 He wasn't even at that point. 0.99

00:15:01.000 Now he's at that point and he has a lower level thing.

00:15:03.000 And, you know, it was a mistake to start down this road, but you're down it now.

00:15:09.000 You're on it now.

00:15:10.000 I guess.

00:15:12.000 It seems to me that, I mean, he's taken, what, two years since that fight?

00:15:17.000 Has it been about two years?

00:15:18.000 He's getting there, yeah.

00:15:19.000 And we've subsequently got to see Mickey Gall in some contests against some really tough guys and beat them.

00:15:26.000 Yeah, beat some good guys. 0.99

00:15:28.000 And we got to see, like, okay, this kid is fucking for real, which is what we suspected all along. 0.99

00:15:33.000 But we don't know anything about Phil. 0.98

00:15:36.000 We haven't seen him spar, we haven't seen him train, but from what I saw... 0.91

00:15:40.000 When I first saw him training, when I first saw him sparring and moving around, I was like, God damn, there's a lot of work to be done. 0.59

00:15:48.000 First steps of Everest work to be done.

00:15:52.000 We're not talking about a guy who has a deep background in martial arts, like Brock Lesnar.

00:15:58.000 Wrestling is absolutely a martial art.

00:16:00.000 He was a legit top-of-the-food-chain amateur wrestler. 1.00

00:16:04.000 He was a fucking monster. 1.00

00:16:06.000 And a physical monster. 1.00

00:16:08.000 And a psychological monster.

00:16:10.000 Fighting is skills, for sure, but it's your body and it's your mind.

00:16:14.000 And when you are a heavy competitor, when you focus, when you're able to focus in the deepest, most fearful conditions, Brock Lesnar did that.

00:16:27.000 Physically, when you're aware, like you said, when you're aware of where your body is in space and how to control it, that can take a lifetime.

00:16:35.000 So it's a weird one.

00:16:36.000 I think it's something you also develop as a child, as a young kid.

00:16:40.000 When you're in your developmental years, 13, 14, 15, your body's growing, and it's growing into whipping kicks and punches and shooting takedowns and landing chokes, your body develops that way. 0.95

00:16:52.000 When you're a full-grown man in your 30s, and then you're starting to throw roundhouse kicks and front kicks, and your body's all goofy and shit and doesn't want to listen right, it's not pliable, it's not elastic, you're a different animal. 0.94

00:17:07.000 You can... 0.97

00:17:08.000 Still learn anything.

00:17:10.000 At 50 years old, you can take up anything in the world.

00:17:13.000 You can take up anything, and you should.

00:17:15.000 Yeah, you should.

00:17:15.000 But you shouldn't, you know, go in the NFL with it.

00:17:18.000 Or if you start playing piano when you're 50, you should learn to play piano and show all your friends that you know the song.

00:17:23.000 Right.

00:17:24.000 But you can't go, like, you know, be in a concert piano scenario where you're going to fail.

00:17:29.000 And doing it and saying, you know, I believe doesn't I agree.

00:17:44.000 Yeah, I think it is, too.

00:17:45.000 But you can't be a 34-year-old man who's never boxed a day in your life and have a goal to, in 12 months, fight Lomachenko.

00:17:52.000 No.

00:17:54.000 It's never going to happen.

00:17:56.000 If it does happen, it's going to be a disaster.

00:17:58.000 And there are giant exceptions.

00:18:03.000 One in a million of things where people do things.

00:18:05.000 But there's always some other explanation.

00:18:07.000 And often it is, as a youth, they created the neural pathways and the physicality and the connection to their body.

00:18:15.000 I did gymnastics when I was a kid.

00:18:17.000 And I loved it.

00:18:18.000 It's a great base.

00:18:19.000 Yeah, I loved it.

00:18:20.000 And, you know, it helps you physically understand where your body is.

00:18:26.000 And so later on in life, I was always at least okay at sports because I understood how to move my body in space.

00:18:32.000 And I understood where my hand was compared to my foot and how I balanced.

00:18:35.000 And to learn that as a child, somebody who was a master of something as a kid who at 30 picks up another thing and has some really advanced learning abilities, there are exceptions.

00:18:46.000 We see rare exceptions, but you're right.

00:18:50.000 I mean, reality is still reality.

00:18:52.000 I wonder, too, if those exceptions are genetic.

00:18:54.000 I wonder if, like, maybe perhaps someone in their family was a great athlete and is transferred through their genes, which I am, as I get older, a firm believer in. 0.99

00:19:03.000 I just don't think we know enough about what transfers through genes, but there's some freaky shit I see in my kids, in particular, where I go, okay, that is my fucking personality. 0.99

00:19:14.000 There's something... 0.99

00:19:15.000 And I'm not teaching her to do this.

00:19:17.000 This is something that's in her, like this repetitive exercise, like doing things over and over again obsessively. 0.97

00:19:26.000 There's some weird shit that I'm like, I wonder if that's a neural pathway that's passed down through the DNA. It just seems like there could be A person who's never engaged in athletics, but maybe their grandfather was like a world champion boxer. 0.94

00:19:41.000 And then one day they put on the gloves and then they just sort of like start moving around and the coach was like, hey, what the fuck's going on here?

00:19:48.000 Where'd you learn how to throw your jab like that? 0.76

00:19:50.000 I'm forgetting Francis Ngannou's coach's name.

00:19:53.000 I forget his name as well.

00:19:55.000 Fernand Lopez.

00:19:56.000 Yes.

00:19:57.000 He's a wonderful guy.

00:19:59.000 A smart guy.

00:20:00.000 He's been around like the best of the best through Europe.

00:20:04.000 And Cameroon to France and these areas.

00:20:07.000 And he's seen the best of the best that that genetic crop of humans has to offer.

00:20:12.000 And then Francis Ngannou walks into his gym.

00:20:15.000 And you talk to – next time you see Fernand, ask him about this because you see his eyes light up.

00:20:21.000 Like that thing where there's like a color in the eye and he's like, you know, I just knew.

00:20:26.000 Like he said, I watched him do things and his awareness of his body and how he could physically express himself.

00:20:31.000 He said he'd just never seen anything like it.

00:20:34.000 You know, week one in the gym, he said first sparring session, he didn't really know how to fight yet.

00:20:39.000 But he said he saw him adapting and learning within the round against somebody who knew how to fight.

00:20:44.000 And you see it in his eyes. 0.99

00:20:46.000 He literally found a fucking unicorn that just strolled in. 1.00

00:20:49.000 I think? 1.00

00:21:10.000 That must have been wild.

00:21:12.000 It must have been wild to experience that when you have a lifetime of seeing athletes.

00:21:19.000 Yeah, it's like that scene in The Color of Money.

00:21:21.000 I don't know if you ever saw that movie with Paul Newman and Tom Cruise.

00:21:26.000 When Paul Newman hears Tom Cruise break the balls for the first time and turns around, he's like... 0.99

00:21:32.000 What the fuck is going on over here? 1.00

00:21:33.000 And he looks over and he sees this kid. 0.99

00:21:35.000 There's certain people that just have this crazy talent and when someone has been around for a long time as a coach and had a bunch of untalented or reasonably talented or very talented people, there's this big stew of humans coming to their gym and you see that one unicorn that steps in.

00:21:53.000 And he's also a case where his father, I mean, he didn't have a background in martial arts before he started training, but his father was a great street fighter.

00:22:02.000 And it's entirely possible that something was carried on through him.

00:22:06.000 Or something was present in both that allowed them both to be capable of doing that.

00:22:11.000 Rather than the learn to pass, because we don't know how that passes genetically from behavior.

00:22:17.000 We know that genetically we may behave similar to our parents or kids, but we don't know if that came from that.

00:22:24.000 But I'm always weirdly uncomfortable...

00:22:31.000 Thinking about genetics.

00:22:32.000 Why?

00:22:33.000 Because I don't like the idea that we're limited by them.

00:22:37.000 And I know that we're not on some level.

00:22:39.000 But we are.

00:22:40.000 You and I are not going to play basketball against LeBron James.

00:22:45.000 But if we identify...

00:22:46.000 No.

00:22:46.000 No, we're not.

00:22:48.000 If we do, it's not going to go well.

00:22:50.000 True.

00:22:50.000 Okay.

00:22:50.000 No, there's doubt.

00:22:52.000 Yeah.

00:22:53.000 Definitely some truths.

00:22:54.000 I mean, I'm five foot six on a tall day.

00:22:57.000 Like, that is a genetic limitation that is undeniable.

00:23:01.000 Right.

00:23:01.000 Right?

00:23:02.000 But if we're looking at things and we decide that our genes...

00:23:06.000 Have you seen the movie Gattaca?

00:23:08.000 Have you ever seen that movie?

00:23:09.000 Man, I did see that movie a long time ago.

00:23:11.000 That's one of my favorite movies ever.

00:23:13.000 Matt... 1.00

00:23:13.000 What's that little fucker's name? 1.00

00:23:15.000 Ethan Hawke. 1.00

00:23:15.000 Ethan Hawke, thank you. 1.00

00:23:16.000 Ethan Hawke, yeah.

00:23:16.000 I always think of him as Uma Thurman.

00:23:18.000 Yeah.

00:23:19.000 She's in it.

00:23:20.000 I know, but I think of him as Uma Thurman because he used to be married to her.

00:23:24.000 I'm like, oh, that's Uma Thurman.

00:23:25.000 That's not Uma Thurman.

00:23:27.000 But you know what I mean?

00:23:28.000 Yeah.

00:23:29.000 In that movie, his brother is genetically superior to him.

00:23:34.000 But he beats his brother in these swimming contests all the time.

00:23:36.000 And at the end, his brother's like, how are you doing this?

00:23:39.000 And he said, I never saved anything for the swim back.

00:23:41.000 I was just going to swim to the other side. 0.98

00:23:43.000 And his brother's like, there is no fucking other side. 0.96

00:23:45.000 But it was a – I know it's a movie. 0.98

00:23:46.000 But it was a mindset, right?

00:23:48.000 And the truth is that – like talent, OK? So you're talented at certain things.

00:23:53.000 Jamie's talented at certain things.

00:23:54.000 Francis Ngannou is talented.

00:23:56.000 Talent multiplied by effort.

00:24:00.000 Equals skill.

00:24:01.000 Then skill multiplied by effort equals accomplishment.

00:24:06.000 So effort counts twice. 0.99

00:24:08.000 Effort counts fucking twice. 0.96

00:24:10.000 But then you get effort with a talented guy with freak genetics like a LeBron James or a Michael Jordan or a Brock Lesnar and then you get some crazy results. 0.99

00:24:20.000 Yes.

00:24:20.000 Oh, big time.

00:24:21.000 And the guy who doesn't have the talent but had effort twice, effort was applied twice, will go as far as the man or woman will go as far as they possibly could.

00:24:33.000 They'll actualize their true potential by committing themselves to effort.

00:24:38.000 And not going, well, I can't do it, so forget it.

00:24:41.000 By applying effort over and over and over again, and then once you've developed talent, more effort to take that talent and do something, that twice-used effort will get you as far as you possibly can.

00:24:52.000 If you say, well, I'm not gifted, I'm not talented, so I won't put in any effort, you have no idea how far you can go.

00:24:57.000 So I absolutely cannot beat Francis Ngannou.

00:25:00.000 But by not thinking that I'm too limited by my genes and continuing to apply effort regardless of my genes, I can get to the best possible place I can as an individual.

00:25:11.000 Do you know what I mean?

00:25:12.000 So I think that you don't want to go down some road that cannot be accomplished, but you also don't want to not go down roads because you're not genetically predisposed to them.

00:25:23.000 I think effort can get you somewhere.

00:25:24.000 It definitely can get you somewhere, but I think what we're talking about here is what I love about life is that it's messy.

00:25:30.000 Yeah.

00:25:30.000 That there's not...

00:25:31.000 It's not one plus one is two.

00:25:33.000 There's not zeros and ones.

00:25:35.000 It's just there's a bunch of factors. 1.00

00:25:37.000 There's a lot of shit going on, man. 0.91

00:25:38.000 And that's why when something magical takes place, when you get a... 0.99

00:25:43.000 George St. Pierre, or when you get a Mighty Mouse, when you get someone who's like, whoa, look at that.

00:25:50.000 There's so many factors that lead you to be Gennady Golovkin.

00:25:55.000 There's so many different things have to fall into place.

00:25:59.000 Here's a guy, like, how about Michael Bisping? 0.99

00:26:02.000 Like, Michael Bisping is just one of the toughest motherfuckers ever. 0.99

00:26:06.000 That's just what he is. 0.99

00:26:07.000 I just found the perfect example.

00:26:08.000 Yeah.

00:26:08.000 But you found the perfect example.

00:26:10.000 Yeah, Michael Bisping is one of the toughest motherfuckers ever. 0.98

00:26:13.000 He's not extraordinarily talented in any one form of MMA. He's not like the fastest guy. 0.97

00:26:20.000 He's not the strongest guy. 1.00

00:26:21.000 He doesn't have this great background in Brazilian jiu-jitsu where he's just a world-class strangler and if he gets your back, you're fucked. 0.99

00:26:28.000 There's none of those things. 0.99

00:26:29.000 He's just tough as fuck and he's one of the most mentally strong guys. 0.98

00:26:34.000 Even Tim Kennedy, who was here the other day. 0.99

00:26:37.000 Tim Kennedy's like, God, I hate to give him a compliment, but he's so fucking tough. 0.95

00:26:40.000 You can't deny him. 0.96

00:26:41.000 You can't.

00:26:42.000 And that goes right back to this.

00:26:44.000 And I think this is at the root of questions about life.

00:26:48.000 Was Michael Bisping genetically tough?

00:26:51.000 Is he genetically mentally tough?

00:26:53.000 Or did he work really hard and just push himself through things?

00:26:56.000 And that one day when it got really fucking tough, he didn't give up, which taught him that he shouldn't give up, which taught him to go even further, which made him push himself.

00:27:04.000 Or was it, in all likelihood, it's both.

00:27:06.000 But Michael Bisping, free of that effort to continue to...

00:27:12.000 What's his name?

00:27:13.000 Think of the mentally toughest guy that...

00:27:15.000 I have a thing with names sometimes.

00:27:17.000 Even names I know I'll describe.

00:27:19.000 A guy's got a chain and he's howling and he does a power slam, but I can't think of Rampage.

00:27:24.000 I can't think of Rampage.

00:27:26.000 Big elbows.

00:27:27.000 You've had him probably on the podcast.

00:27:29.000 Tough, hairy chest.

00:27:33.000 Who am I thinking?

00:27:34.000 I'm 170 pounds, fought Damien Maia.

00:27:38.000 Matt Brown?

00:27:39.000 Matt Brown.

00:27:39.000 Oh, okay.

00:27:40.000 Matt Brown.

00:27:40.000 Okay.

00:27:41.000 But that's the example.

00:27:42.000 I can literally say all these things, but the name will escape me.

00:27:47.000 It's a strange thing.

00:27:48.000 Well, it happens to me, too.

00:27:51.000 Take some alpha brain. 0.99

00:27:52.000 It'll help you.

00:27:54.000 It's also early in the morning.

00:27:55.000 Yeah, right.

00:27:56.000 I worked with John Ramdean for years, one of my best friends, and He would literally just see it in my eyes.

00:28:00.000 He's like, I won't have the name and I'll throw out one or two of those factoids and he always had it.

00:28:04.000 He'd be like Matt Brown.

00:28:05.000 That's why having good friends to work with is great.

00:28:08.000 They know your paths.

00:28:10.000 Yeah, but talking to Matt Brown on the phone, doing an interview with him, I said, you're one of the mentally toughest guys there is.

00:28:16.000 And he said, I don't think I am.

00:28:19.000 If I think I'm mentally tough for one moment, I will not do all of the things necessary to walk in mentally tough.

00:28:26.000 He said, he's like, I am not mentally tough.

00:28:29.000 The mental toughness is a result of all of the hard work and preparation that I have done to be able to do it in that moment.

00:28:36.000 And he heard it in his voice.

00:28:38.000 He had no doubt that this was so.

00:28:40.000 And I think he's right.

00:28:42.000 I think he's right.

00:28:43.000 I think he's right too, but he's also mentally tough.

00:28:45.000 Because he also does those things.

00:28:47.000 But one of the things about Matt Brown that separates him is that that guy empties out in the cage.

00:28:53.000 He separates himself from the pack because he's so ferocious.

00:28:58.000 Like, that guy's ferocious.

00:29:00.000 I remember when he stepped into the cage, we were watching.

00:29:02.000 I think we were doing a fight companion.

00:29:04.000 But we were...

00:29:05.000 Maybe we were wearing...

00:29:07.000 Anyway, when he stepped into the cage and fought Diego Sanchez, when he stepped into the octagon and screamed and roared, it was literally like an animal.

00:29:17.000 I mean, it was ferocity defined.

00:29:21.000 And that's just how he fights, man. 0.99

00:29:23.000 That guy just empties out whatever the fuck he's got. 0.99

00:29:26.000 He's not holding anything back, man. 1.00

00:29:27.000 He goes for it.

00:29:29.000 And that's why I think when we were talking about fight and art, to me that's an art of human expression.

00:29:36.000 Like, I think that is to be capable.

00:29:39.000 I mean, whether you're doing jazz or punk rock, it's human expression.

00:29:44.000 Whether you're Matt Brown or you're some elegant mover, it's still the same art at its root.

00:29:49.000 But you remember that elbow he fired on Diego Sanchez in that fight?

00:29:53.000 Like, it was there.

00:29:55.000 And these moments are there a lot when you're analyzing fighting and looking at it from that other perspective.

00:30:01.000 These fight-ending moments are there.

00:30:03.000 They're there way more often than these guys realize.

00:30:06.000 But when they spot them, like Matt did in that moment, this is, I have a free shot from an angle.

00:30:12.000 Time has slowed down enough that I see it.

00:30:14.000 I can see the little red arc of where it's going, and I'm going to end this fight.

00:30:19.000 There's a visceral, like...

00:30:23.000 It's...

00:30:23.000 Here it is right here.

00:30:24.000 Oh, look it.

00:30:25.000 You see it.

00:30:26.000 See?

00:30:27.000 Just like... 1.00

00:30:28.000 That is fucking art to me. 0.99

00:30:30.000 But watch the left hand, the reach... 0.99

00:30:33.000 And the hold, and it's like there is no doubt what's happening here.

00:30:37.000 There is no doubt what's gonna happen.

00:30:39.000 Diego Sanchez is another curious example because he's also a guy who is ferocious, like a ferociously tough guy.

00:30:47.000 But there's always been something about his movements that makes him come up short against the best of the best. 0.89

00:30:55.000 And I mean, you're talking about a guy who's so fucking mentally tough as well. 0.76

00:30:59.000 Like I always bring his fight against Jake Ellenberger, who is a brutal knockout artist at 170. And Diego really, I mean Diego fought at 145, remember? 0.94

00:31:08.000 And Diego really is a tweener.

00:31:10.000 He's like a little too small for 55. I don't know how the fuck he made it to 145. He basically starved his body away. 0.99

00:31:17.000 And probably did some irreversible damage, but his movements are always just shy of elite.

00:31:26.000 And I've always wondered, what is that?

00:31:29.000 It's almost like, even if you see that, go back to that clip again.

00:31:33.000 You don't have to.

00:31:34.000 It's okay.

00:31:34.000 But there's something about even the way he steps.

00:31:38.000 He's not stepping the way a T.J. Dillashaw steps.

00:31:42.000 You know what I'm saying?

00:31:43.000 I see it as his sort of intention.

00:31:47.000 He's over-intentioned.

00:31:48.000 God, that is so nasty and so perfect.

00:31:51.000 But he wants it badly.

00:31:54.000 Like, he's over-engaged.

00:31:56.000 I think it's psychological as much as anything.

00:31:58.000 I was in Albuquerque.

00:32:01.000 Look at the placement of the left hand.

00:32:03.000 There's just no doubt where this is going.

00:32:05.000 Yeah, it's perfect.

00:32:06.000 And it is the moment that Matt Brown created.

00:32:09.000 Like, he created that moment.

00:32:12.000 See?

00:32:12.000 Hair and chest.

00:32:15.000 That's one of my reminder cues, right?

00:32:20.000 So I watched Diego Train in Albuquerque, and I love the guy.

00:32:24.000 I was there interviewing Cub, who is my favorite artist probably to watch for many reasons.

00:32:31.000 I'm not really sure exactly why.

00:32:33.000 People can't tell you why their favorite band is their favorite band, but there are many things I can describe.

00:32:37.000 But I was there to interview him for Monster Zim.

00:32:40.000 It's a website in South Korea that when I became a freelancer, they were like, we'd like to give you some work.

00:32:48.000 I'm like, well, that would be amazing.

00:32:50.000 We'd like you to go.

00:32:50.000 He just fought Do Whole Choice.

00:32:52.000 We'd like you to go interview Mr. Cub Swanson.

00:32:54.000 I'm like, this is.

00:32:54.000 Badass.

00:32:55.000 It's like my favorite fighter.

00:32:56.000 They're going to send me to Albuquerque.

00:32:57.000 Then I hung out in the gym and analyzed them and watched and made notes about what I could.

00:33:01.000 And Diego trained super intense.

00:33:04.000 And he like does everything super intense.

00:33:06.000 And as much as he loves yoga and at different times yoga and meditation has allowed him to do it differently, that hyper intensity, I think, doesn't allow the sort of soft relaxation that's necessary to really do what you're describing.

00:33:20.000 You know?

00:33:21.000 Yeah.

00:33:22.000 I know what you're saying.

00:33:23.000 Like, one of the things that people don't understand about striking hard and, like, having real power is that you're not fully tense through the entire movement.

00:33:31.000 There's a lot of parts of striking where the momentum starts and you're almost, like, completely loose, like, up until instance before the point of contact.

00:33:42.000 And then it's bling! 0.94

00:33:44.000 There's this weird thing that real knockout artists have that you don't see in these fucking super tense windmill guys. 0.91

00:33:53.000 The windmill guys are too tight. 0.95

00:33:55.000 Totally!

00:33:56.000 But a guy like Ray Robinson will throw a PAP! There was a Gene Fulmer, Ray Robinson KO clip from the other night.

00:34:03.000 I was watching it online.

00:34:05.000 I must have watched it like 13 times in a row.

00:34:07.000 But you watch him land this, I think it was a left hook.

00:34:10.000 But you watch the punch land, you're like, Jesus, like the snap that that guy had.

00:34:15.000 But that snap is not, it's not, it's not fully tense.

00:34:20.000 Here it is, right here.

00:34:21.000 Like look how loose and soft he is.

00:34:24.000 Yeah, supple.

00:34:25.000 Yeah, soft.

00:34:26.000 Boom! 0.99

00:34:26.000 Look at that. 0.99

00:34:27.000 Look at that left hook right there. 1.00

00:34:28.000 That one softens him up, ties him up.

00:34:30.000 But everything is like...

00:34:32.000 Oh, he's flowing.

00:34:33.000 He's swimming.

00:34:34.000 Yeah, I mean, it's just...

00:34:36.000 He was an amazing boxer, dude.

00:34:38.000 And you're talking about a guy who had like, what, a hundred and something fights, right?

00:34:42.000 He's almost gentle, right?

00:34:44.000 Like, soft is the right word.

00:34:46.000 There's a suppleness.

00:34:47.000 There's a calmness.

00:34:48.000 There's a relaxation.

00:34:49.000 And mentally, too.

00:34:51.000 You know that idea of...

00:34:52.000 There's a storm going on and in the middle there's this calm area.

00:34:55.000 That gentleness, that calmness has to be in your mind to allow you to do this.

00:35:00.000 And that's where Diego is...

00:35:02.000 Look at that.

00:35:03.000 Come on, man.

00:35:04.000 Just look at that. 0.99

00:35:06.000 That's fucking incredible. 0.99

00:35:07.000 That left hook, right here, here it is. 0.99

00:35:09.000 Yeah, and even just to create that moment and to see that moment, you know?

00:35:15.000 And to set it up and lay traps and see when the guy is moving his hands down, see when he's coming forward, see his patterns and tendencies.

00:35:22.000 Or make him do those things.

00:35:24.000 Yep, yep, yep.

00:35:25.000 But it's that kind of power in that left hook that does not come from...

00:35:30.000 No.

00:35:32.000 That's just this little twist that he does.

00:35:36.000 I'm like, come on, here it is right here in slow-mo.

00:35:39.000 Bang! 1.00

00:35:40.000 And it's his hip.

00:35:43.000 I'm sure you saw it, or I think you saw it.

00:35:45.000 I did a little breakdown of your kicks.

00:35:47.000 I did see that, yeah.

00:35:48.000 And that's what I was zooming in on, was this double pulse, and that's real.

00:35:52.000 That is the neurology of high athletic performance.

00:35:57.000 So I have these friends that I've gathered over the years, and I love what I do, man.

00:36:03.000 I'm happy every single day.

00:36:06.000 A big part of it is I've met these people that I have these conversations with.

00:36:11.000 And sometimes they're very long and deep.

00:36:14.000 And I have friends that are a PhD psychologist.

00:36:17.000 And this one guy, Dr. Stu McGill, do you know who he is?

00:36:20.000 No, I know that name though.

00:36:21.000 Yeah, you've probably heard that name.

00:36:22.000 I'm sure somebody has mentioned it because you're around different athletic types of all types.

00:36:27.000 He is the world's foremost expert in the spinal cord and neurology of athletic performance.

00:36:33.000 Spinal cord?

00:36:34.000 Yeah, the spinal cord and your neurology and your nerves and how your nervous system.

00:36:40.000 And George St. Pierre has worked with him a lot.

00:36:42.000 If you ask him about him this week, he would talk about him extensively.

00:36:46.000 So Dr. Stu and I became friends.

00:36:48.000 And it's a big compliment because he sought me out based on seeing my work. 0.54

00:36:53.000 And saying, that guy knows some things I want to talk to him, which was a fucking deep compliment to me.

00:36:58.000 And now we became friends and we chat all the time. 0.70

00:37:00.000 And one of the things we constantly talk about is the double pulse neurology.

00:37:05.000 And people talk about a fast twitch fiber.

00:37:08.000 It's not a fiber.

00:37:10.000 That's just terms we've started to hear.

00:37:12.000 It's a fast twitch neurology.

00:37:17.000 Fastball hitters have it.

00:37:18.000 You know what I mean?

00:37:19.000 That neurology where you...

00:37:22.000 There's a pulse of tension and then a complete relaxation until the pulse of tension again.

00:37:28.000 The Bruce Lee's one-inch punch was the simple example of that.

00:37:31.000 But that is the neurology of high athletic performance.

00:37:35.000 And that's what I zoomed in on when I was looking at your kick because you can see it quite clearly.

00:37:39.000 There's the moment, there's the relax, and it ends up being more of a whip.

00:37:43.000 And Dr. Stu has all these incredible analogies because he's examined this in so many different angles and layers, which is the beauty of analyzing anything for years.

00:37:53.000 And he'll use terms like, you can't shoot a cannon out of a canoe.

00:37:57.000 And you think about that, and you're like, of course. 0.99

00:37:59.000 Because the canoe's all wobbly and shit. 0.94

00:38:00.000 Yeah, but if it's tense, and then it shoots, or you can't push a rope, right? 0.98

00:38:04.000 You push a rope, right?

00:38:06.000 And so, but you can whip a rope through tension, relaxation, and tension again.

00:38:10.000 And that neurology is the neurology of high performance. 0.83

00:38:14.000 And George, you talk to George about neurology, he'll go deep down some shit, George St. Pierre, because he studied this to understand himself and what he was doing at a high level with Dr. Stu. 0.65

00:38:25.000 But it is a fascinating thing because we often will say fighting is 90% mental. 0.97

00:38:32.000 Sipping this cup is 100% mental.

00:38:37.000 My brain told my body to reach out and do it.

00:38:41.000 My brain made the choice.

00:38:42.000 I activated everything.

00:38:44.000 It's all your brain.

00:38:46.000 Everything.

00:38:46.000 And once you get to a high level of performance, you know how to punch and kick and you train like crazy and you make the things happen by themselves almost by training so much they take so little attention and decision making.

00:38:57.000 It becomes about maximizing your nervous system.

00:39:01.000 How your nervous system.

00:39:02.000 And I think that's true of almost anything.

00:39:04.000 Is there something he's doing here?

00:39:05.000 Oh, there's Dr. Stu right there.

00:39:07.000 Who is he training with there?

00:39:08.000 George and Dr. Stu.

00:39:10.000 Oh, I couldn't see his face. 0.75

00:39:11.000 He looks like a black guy, to be honest.

00:39:14.000 Who, George? 0.78

00:39:17.000 So he's got him whipping a ball around?

00:39:20.000 Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what he's doing or why there.

00:39:23.000 But I'll put you in touch with him often.

00:39:26.000 So it looks like he's got some heavy weight at the end of a rope.

00:39:31.000 Yeah, and I guess engaging the core through the use of, you know, probably asking him to only engage certain things to counterbalance the movement.

00:39:39.000 I'm surprised to see George wearing your typical running shoe when he's training with the thick heel and...

00:39:47.000 You know, I'm still surprised to this day when I see, when you talk about neurology and activating muscles and tissues, like there's so many athletes that still train with those big cushy-bottomed running shoes.

00:40:00.000 I mean, I think that is crazy.

00:40:02.000 Big time.

00:40:02.000 It's weird.

00:40:03.000 Yeah.

00:40:04.000 It's weird. 1.00

00:40:04.000 I mean, you should be doing that kind of shit barefoot, especially a fighter. 1.00

00:40:07.000 You fight barefoot. 0.99

00:40:08.000 You should be wearing nothing on your feet.

00:40:11.000 The only thing connecting you to a stable surface is your foot.

00:40:15.000 I agree 100%.

00:40:17.000 Sometimes when we're trying to make sense of these things, we go to multiple different sort of perspectives of it.

00:40:25.000 So I'll take what I learned from Dr. Stu, and he's just my friend now as well, so I like hanging out and chatting with him about way out there aspects of these things.

00:40:34.000 But you talk to Erwan LaCour as well, who has a different sphere of connecting to this kind of thing.

00:40:39.000 And Erwan starts with the foot.

00:40:41.000 Right.

00:40:41.000 And you've had Erwan on the...

00:40:43.000 Yes.

00:40:43.000 And he starts with the foot and everything else.

00:40:45.000 It makes sense, right?

00:40:46.000 I go to throw a punch and the important part is going to be my foot through the leg, through the hip, through the core and relaxed until the moment that it hits.

00:40:55.000 But it all starts with the foot.

00:40:56.000 Nick Kurson is the same way.

00:40:57.000 When I asked Nick Kurson about training athletes, what's the thing that he thinks fighters should work on the most?

00:41:05.000 He's like, foot strength.

00:41:06.000 Hmm.

00:41:07.000 I was like, wow.

00:41:08.000 And I thought about it.

00:41:09.000 I'm like, well, of course, right?

00:41:11.000 That's how you push off.

00:41:12.000 That's how you move.

00:41:13.000 If your feet are weak and they get tired, you can't move well, which I've experienced.

00:41:17.000 I'm sure you've experienced.

00:41:18.000 When your feet are weak and tired, if you don't run and then you try to run, one of the first things you get tired are your feet.

00:41:26.000 The very worst injury I've ever had in my life by far was plantar fasciitis of both feet.

00:41:32.000 My last fight.

00:41:33.000 And I was through training and everything.

00:41:35.000 And then I had my fight in Montreal.

00:41:39.000 And the whole strategy was put...

00:41:43.000 Getting to a place where I could be safe and use better knowledge of the situation to fatigue the other guy.

00:41:49.000 So a lot of the seven or eight minutes of the fight took place with me pressuring him against the fence.

00:41:54.000 Just driving off both feet, pressuring against the fence to try to land things or create lines for different weapons.

00:42:00.000 And it's only eight minutes, but eight minutes of intense drive from my feet.

00:42:04.000 And then we went...

00:42:05.000 On vacation the very next day and that night we grabbed margaritas and we walked around the resort and my feet were destroyed for acutely for three or four days like I couldn't walk and the inflammation was so unbelievably bad it was like bricks and even for months after it was really good Did you ice them?

00:42:25.000 I tried to ice I would ice or I would get in immediately into the cold pool and spend the day in the cold pool drinking tequila in hopes that it would help and it kind of did I guess Yeah, foot pain is, I mean, that's one of the things that hurt Dominic Cruz in his comeback fight when he fought TJ Dillshaw.

00:42:44.000 You notice he was, like, kind of limping a little.

00:42:46.000 We were attributing it to the leg kicks.

00:42:47.000 He said that's not the case.

00:42:49.000 He said what was going on was he had plantar fasciitis because, you know, he had multiple injuries that he was receiving.

00:42:56.000 Recovering from during that training camp and when he got knee surgery and he came back from that and he tore his groin he tried to like really ramp up his training he was doing a lot of sprinting and a lot of different things with his feet you know because obviously he's very footwork intensive with his fighting and he fucked his feet up man his feet just weren't in condition to do the kind of stuff that he used to be able to do and the first thing he got was plantar fasciitis Schaub had it too he told me it was one of the worst things he's ever had me too Think of this for

00:43:26.000 the big picture meaning of this for Dominic.

00:43:29.000 So you got somebody else and they're going about fighting and their career as a martial artist, a competitive fighter, one way.

00:43:38.000 And Dominic goes about it a different way.

00:43:40.000 And through Dominic's choices, Moving, training, footwork, he avoids a lot of the damage that these guys will take.

00:43:48.000 But you can't avoid, something's going to go.

00:43:51.000 So instead of getting kicked a lot and punched in the head and taking all those things, the training necessary to make that not happen fucks up something else.

00:43:59.000 You can't get away from it.

00:44:01.000 You're going to work yourself until your body gives up.

00:44:04.000 Even Dom, brilliantly finding a way to work outside of taking the damage that they take, still could not get away from damaging his body.

00:44:12.000 TJ Dillashaw vs.

00:44:13.000 Cody Garbrandt, the rematch, is one of the most intriguing fights of the year for me.

00:44:17.000 I'm really, really curious about that fight because I know those guys were tightly matched in the gym, and I know that Cody cracked him with a big right hand before TJ put him away.

00:44:27.000 And he was stunned.

00:44:29.000 Yeah, he was stunned.

00:44:30.000 He got rocked.

00:44:31.000 And I believe when Cody cracked him, it was towards the end of the round.

00:44:36.000 He was.

00:44:36.000 Yeah, and so he had an opportunity to recover.

00:44:39.000 I mean, who knows if he had caught that right hand the first minute of the round, what had gone on.

00:44:44.000 But when TJ recovered from that and then landed that head kick and then knocked him out and put him away...

00:44:51.000 You got to see, like, what a high-level, high-stakes game these two guys are playing.

00:44:58.000 And, you know, TJ has, through Bang Ludwig, has really radically improved his movement, his footwork, his angles, his approach.

00:45:08.000 He's so versatile.

00:45:10.000 With his ability to switch stances, his ability, I mean, he's constantly cutting angles and striking as he's switching stances, and there's so much information coming at you if you're fighting him.

00:45:22.000 Your brain's overloaded if you're not used to that.

00:45:25.000 And even the guys who used to train with him, I believe in alpha male, are not used to what he's doing now.

00:45:30.000 I agree.

00:45:31.000 Because it's at a far higher level. 0.99

00:45:33.000 That said, Cody still has a fucking missile in his right hand. 1.00

00:45:38.000 It's so goddamn fast. 1.00

00:45:40.000 His hand speed is so fast. 0.94

00:45:42.000 And his fluidity and efficiency in his boxing is so good.

00:45:47.000 This is a very, very interesting fight for me.

00:45:49.000 That's about as good as it gets right now, like from the raw materials of those guys and the skills that they have.

00:45:57.000 But I am definitely with you as far as my deep curiosity of the choices of the coaches.

00:46:05.000 And you talk to some of them, different ones.

00:46:08.000 I've got a few key friends that I talk to on a very regular basis.

00:46:11.000 And so what it will take...

00:46:14.000 What we would decide to do to train to make our guy the best or try to be the best in the world in 10 months, if we take a different strategy and we start to build them to be the best in the world in three years, it's a different game.

00:46:26.000 And that's what Dwayne's done. 0.72

00:46:27.000 Dwayne has said, we will, and it's fucking hard work for Dwayne, too. 0.93

00:46:33.000 Like, that's the thing that people won't necessarily appreciate. 0.96

00:46:37.000 They'll be like, oh, he's a brilliant coach.

00:46:38.000 That's nonstop, constant searching and examining and trial and error and reinterpreting his language of understanding where the chaos is and understanding, you know, can we make this guy believe something's happening or are we too deep in it that he doesn't think that and it fails?

00:46:56.000 Like, what levels of misdirection are too deep?

00:47:00.000 How good is he?

00:47:01.000 And when I talked to them leading up to that one, it was like, you know, the conversation was about...

00:47:14.000 Sure.

00:47:15.000 Yeah.

00:47:28.000 So your brain may be going, okay, this is all the stuff from the left, which happens when this happens, or the legs are doing this, or you're running algorithms in your brain.

00:47:38.000 I don't know what yours is.

00:47:40.000 I don't know how you categorize my threats.

00:47:42.000 I don't know whether you categorize anything from my right hand or anything in combination.

00:47:45.000 Or if you're watching the patterns of my shoulders, I have no idea.

00:47:49.000 So Dwayne and anybody else playing with this concept is trying to figure out how you'll read this and use that against you.

00:47:58.000 And to me, that's the layer of complete mind-blowing nature.

00:48:03.000 Like, what did you say?

00:48:05.000 Chess with dire consequences or problem solving?

00:48:07.000 I said high-level problem solving. 0.98

00:48:08.000 Think of how fucking hard those problems are now. 0.96

00:48:10.000 How many there are. 0.97

00:48:11.000 That's the game.

00:48:12.000 And it can be done at this level because their skills are so good.

00:48:16.000 Their minds are so good.

00:48:17.000 They're physically so good.

00:48:18.000 They're capable.

00:48:19.000 They're fearless.

00:48:19.000 They're confident.

00:48:20.000 They have all of those raw materials.

00:48:22.000 And now we're playing a game that most of us cannot comprehend.

00:48:26.000 And they've also sparred countless hours together so they understand each other.

00:48:30.000 And they've told each other lies for long periods of time.

00:48:33.000 Lies on lies.

00:48:34.000 I one time went with...

00:48:37.000 I worked for a company called The Score Fighting Series.

00:48:39.000 It was a brilliant show.

00:48:41.000 Like it was kind of Canada's Bellator.

00:48:43.000 Like it was on the same network and they aired Bellator.

00:48:46.000 And it was very, very good.

00:48:48.000 Developmental league stuff.

00:48:49.000 And that company brought in Forrest Griffin...

00:48:52.000 And then a bunch of poker players.

00:48:54.000 And they were on a train together, and contest winners on the thing got to ride on this train with Forrest Griffin and a bunch of high-level pro poker players.

00:49:03.000 And I was there, and that was the first time I met Forrest, and he's a killer smart dude.

00:49:08.000 But you watch these poker players who are all riding together, and they all know each other, and they are just telling each other lies all the time, trying to tell stories about things that represent the fact that they are conservative when really they're risk takers, or trying to tell each other things that make them think they're crazy,

00:49:24.000 but really they're calculating.

00:49:25.000 They are telling each other lies ongoing, and they're gambling with each other.

00:49:29.000 It's completely degenerative.

00:49:32.000 But that's the kind of thing that's happening on some level with the high-level fighters, too.

00:49:37.000 Making them think certain things about what they will do or believe they'll do.

00:49:41.000 Almost everything they say, the fans and the audience, we should assume is a game chip.

00:49:49.000 It's like a something to make the other one believe something that might in that moment let me land that kick if he thinks that I'm, you know, whatever, right?

00:49:56.000 It's manipulative stuff.

00:49:58.000 And at that level, that is just so unbelievably fascinating.

00:50:02.000 It really is.

00:50:03.000 It really is.

00:50:04.000 And the stakes are so high.

00:50:05.000 You know, the kick lands, you're a hero.

00:50:07.000 The kick misses... 1.00

00:50:08.000 If you get caught with a left hook, you're a loser.

00:50:10.000 You know, there's just so much at stake with every single choice you make and all those choices have to be almost subconscious or semi-conscious because you've got to be in the Zen state.

00:50:21.000 You've got to be flowing.

00:50:21.000 So everything has to be prepared.

00:50:23.000 You have to have...

00:50:26.000 While you're in there, you have to have no regrets.

00:50:28.000 You have to be able to just flow.

00:50:30.000 And you have to be able to capitalize on any movement, any opening you see.

00:50:34.000 You've got to pounce.

00:50:35.000 And you have to be in condition to execute all these things.

00:50:38.000 So you have to have had the physical discipline and the mental fortitude to push yourself through training to a level that you probably didn't think you could get to.

00:50:46.000 And I want to pounce with the opening, but what if it's a lie?

00:50:50.000 Right, right, right.

00:50:51.000 Like, what if Matt Brown's line on that thing was actually, that one would be hard to be a lie, but there are other ones where it feels like that one little opening, but instead TJ's going to catch you or Cody's lined you up to draw you into something.

00:51:02.000 Well, Cody's so goddamn fast, too.

00:51:05.000 His hand speed is so ridiculously fast. 0.55

00:51:07.000 I go back to the Thomas Almeida fight, and Almeida's really never been the same again.

00:51:11.000 Almeida, going into that fight, was undefeated, was thought to be the dark horse in the division, like, look, a future world champion.

00:51:18.000 And Cody lit him up like a Christmas tree.

00:51:20.000 And the way he did it was so definitive that you're like, Jesus, like, there could be no doubt this guy has real world championship potential.

00:51:28.000 Yeah.

00:51:29.000 You know, and... 0.73

00:51:30.000 I think that the Dwayne Ludwig factor is so fucking huge. 0.77

00:51:34.000 I really, really do. 0.96

00:51:35.000 Me too.

00:51:35.000 And I've seen Dwayne's work.

00:51:39.000 Dwayne, unlike a lot of guys, has notebooks, like binders, full of ideas, and his system is a very declared system.

00:51:51.000 It's not like loosely based, like, we always work off the jab, we got good footwork.

00:51:55.000 No, it's None of that, no.

00:51:57.000 Like, there's a system to his, like he has a belt system to his style.

00:52:02.000 And his style is based on, for people who don't know, Dwayne was a world-class kickboxer.

00:52:08.000 World-class Muay Thai fighter.

00:52:10.000 I mean, he fought Ramon Deckers.

00:52:11.000 I mean, he fought some of the best of the best.

00:52:13.000 Had some amazing fights in both MMA and in kickboxing.

00:52:16.000 I mean, he was a really talented guy.

00:52:19.000 And then transitioned on to being a coach.

00:52:22.000 And the obsession that he has towards coaching, is really at a higher level than even his obsession towards fighting and he talks about that that his passion is teaching people he loves it he loves being able to mold students and he's found the perfect muse or the perfect willing uh participant in tj And TJ and him have a very unique friendship and a very unique student mentorship sort of relationship.

00:52:50.000 It's really, really interesting to watch the two of them together.

00:52:53.000 It's wild now.

00:52:54.000 The super gym with 20 guys.

00:52:56.000 And then you've got...

00:52:57.000 And Dwayne has tons of athletes too, but a commitment and connection to TJ. Then you've got Matt Hume and Demetrius.

00:53:05.000 You've got a few of these guys who are just like...

00:53:09.000 We will funnel all of my experience through everything through this super athlete. 0.93

00:53:13.000 But like you talk about those books, the only way that you get to a point of this level of mastery that we're talking about is that you must go down some fucking road for six months that amounts to nothing.

00:53:26.000 So that you learn that road isn't the road.

00:53:29.000 And the only way, and you can't give up too early, and what if by going down it long enough, some different concept about how you switch your feet in a certain moment.

00:53:37.000 You think maybe that ain't it, but you have discovered that by pushing through some of these concepts long enough, you find it, so you stick with it long enough, and it turns out, no, Dwayne, or anybody else reaching that level of mastery, has gone down some rabbit hole for months or years and discovered the only value they got out of it was,

00:53:55.000 well, no, there's lots of value, That wasn't the rabbit hole.

00:53:58.000 And the process of searching this rabbit hole has made me better at searching rabbit holes.

00:54:03.000 So those two values, some of the stacks of his books are things that didn't work.

00:54:08.000 And he will probably appreciate those just as much as any of the ones that did.

00:54:11.000 There's also TJ's approach is really interesting to me because TJ is obsessed with improvement and knowledge and he keeps talking about his fight IQ and you know him and Dwayne, I've been around them, I've trained with them, I've worked out with them, I've watched him coach TJ and I mean they're constantly working on the minutia,

00:54:31.000 they're constantly working on finite details and improving every single aspect and Tightening things up.

00:54:38.000 And it's really interesting. 0.99

00:54:40.000 And TJ's a fucking open book, man. 0.97

00:54:42.000 I mean, you can talk to that guy about anything. 0.98

00:54:46.000 And he's considering it.

00:54:48.000 He's thinking.

00:54:48.000 And he's like, oh, okay.

00:54:50.000 I see what you're doing.

00:54:51.000 He's a guy who's always trying to take in information.

00:54:57.000 So, these are the things when we do watch this kind of thing, whether it is martial arts or even jazz or football or whatever, there are these lessons that are there.

00:55:09.000 We should do that.

00:55:10.000 We're supposed to go through life doing that.

00:55:13.000 We're not supposed to look at T.J. Dillashaw and go, wow, isn't that crazy?

00:55:16.000 If we do that, our lives will get better, right?

00:55:20.000 I got to work for TSN in Canada, which is like ESPN in the States.

00:55:26.000 Myself and Aaron Brodenstetter are like the two-person division that talks about UFC and fighting.

00:55:33.000 And when George was fighting Michael, they went and said, you know, could you approach your friends with George and his people?

00:55:41.000 Could you approach them about doing a half-hour-long documentary on him about his comeback and training and stuff?

00:55:47.000 And I did.

00:55:48.000 And at first, George was open to it, and Rudolf, his manager, was like, oh god, I hear the word documentary, and I know what that means.

00:55:55.000 It's going to be months, and there's going to be cameras, and it's going to be a distraction.

00:55:58.000 I said, I'll just travel with George, and I have the best producer, Simon, the best producer we have.

00:56:04.000 And we'll just travel with him.

00:56:06.000 And they said yes.

00:56:07.000 And so I got to travel with George for a month, six weeks, off and on New York, LA, Montreal, life, eating ice cream, training with Freddie Roach.

00:56:17.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:56:18.000 That must have been interesting.

00:56:19.000 When is this going to come out?

00:56:20.000 It did come out before.

00:56:22.000 So mostly in Canada.

00:56:23.000 But I'm going to send a message.

00:56:24.000 How do I get that?

00:56:24.000 I'm going to send a message immediately after we get off here to Simon and the rest of them and say, where is that right now?

00:56:30.000 And then I'll tweet it out.

00:56:31.000 You could learn a lot from a guy like that.

00:56:33.000 Oh man, it changed my life.

00:56:34.000 Really?

00:56:35.000 Yeah, because you don't get to be around the greats of the greats and study them.

00:56:40.000 And we're friends, so I can talk to him.

00:56:43.000 Like, we hang out. 0.97

00:56:44.000 I got to fucking train karate with his team. 0.99

00:56:46.000 Like, point karate. 0.99

00:56:48.000 So he'd be, oh, Robin's training with us today.

00:56:50.000 What kind of point karate training do they do?

00:56:52.000 And do they do this to practice blitzing?

00:56:55.000 And just think of this.

00:56:58.000 You were big on point karate like 2012, 2013. And I didn't disagree, but I didn't really get...

00:57:05.000 There it is.

00:57:07.000 Oh, fuck. 1.00

00:57:08.000 It was so magical to see. 1.00

00:57:10.000 And I wasn't just like, how does he kick?

00:57:12.000 I'm like, how does he think?

00:57:13.000 And why does he do the things he does?

00:57:15.000 And what's his motivation?

00:57:16.000 And it really made me a better human being getting to do that.

00:57:20.000 So what I didn't really connect to, sometimes there's something so simple, and we don't see it because we're deep in whatever we're in.

00:57:28.000 But the idea of point karate, people right away say, well, they're just touching each other.

00:57:33.000 It's like, true.

00:57:34.000 So if I'm training to just touch you, I'm not training to hurt you.

00:57:37.000 Okay, that seems like that's not valuable. 0.99

00:57:39.000 Yeah, but you're training to not let me even fucking touch you. 0.99

00:57:43.000 If you can't get touched by me, how hard, impossible is it for me to hit you clean? 0.99

00:57:47.000 You know what I mean? 0.99

00:57:48.000 If your movement and your defensive systems and your management of the distance between our weapons and targets are such that I can't fucking touch you, how can I hurt you? 0.98

00:58:00.000 If I can't even touch you with my glove. 0.84

00:58:02.000 Well, the thing is, Here's what I think about point fighting and what I think was valid about it.

00:58:08.000 If you're just doing point fighting with a point fighter, it is extremely frustrating.

00:58:13.000 I fought in point fighting tournaments when I was competing.

00:58:18.000 I came from a full contact Taekwondo background.

00:58:21.000 And we fought in these tournaments and the object was to knock people unconscious.

00:58:25.000 And you would fight, you know, there were three minute rounds and you would fight and you would try to kick people into another dimension.

00:58:30.000 I fought very similar in Canada.

00:58:32.000 There was a lot of people that I trained with that openly dismissed point fighting.

00:58:38.000 And the reason why they openly dismissed point fighting was because they would stop every time someone would get touched.

00:58:43.000 And I would be like, well, in the real world, or everybody would say, in the real world, you don't just stop when you get touched.

00:58:49.000 You keep fighting.

00:58:50.000 And so with our techniques, a lot of it, you would hit someone once, and they would counter, and then you'd set up the big shot afterwards.

00:58:56.000 Like, this is part of the thing.

00:58:58.000 And if the referee kept stopping you, then you would never get anything done.

00:59:02.000 But my thinking once I got into MMA was...

00:59:06.000 Okay, yeah, but if you can do that and do the other things, it's like people dismiss Taekwondo because they're like, well, Taekwondo, you know, you get taken to the ground, you get your legs kicked out.

00:59:19.000 Absolutely.

00:59:20.000 But if you have takedown defense... 0.99

00:59:23.000 And you know Muay Thai, you can wheel kick someone into another fucking dimension. 0.97

00:59:29.000 And we saw that with Edson Barboza versus Terry Edom. 0.95

00:59:31.000 We've seen these Taekwondo techniques manifest themselves in MMA, and you realize like, oh, these are some of the most powerful things you could do to a person inside a cage.

00:59:42.000 When you see the point-fighting style, like the Raymond Daniels or the Michael Venom Page, this ability to blitz, if they can do those other things too, this is another level.

00:59:54.000 There's something to it.

00:59:55.000 So as a fighter, I wasn't willing to dismiss point-fighting because I had been lied to already.

01:00:01.000 When I went and took Taekwondo and then started kickboxing, first American kickboxing above the waist, First thing I realized was how easy it was for me to get punched in the face.

01:00:11.000 I was like, oh, okay. 0.98

01:00:13.000 Now if I'm trapped in this ring, and I can't go anywhere, and someone's throwing punches, and I don't understand how to get away from them, and I'm used to this Taekwondo style of having your hands down low, I'm getting fucked up. 0.97

01:00:23.000 So I've been lied to. 0.83

01:00:23.000 Taekwondo is not the best martial art. 0.83

01:00:25.000 None of them are.

01:00:26.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:00:27.000 None of them are.

01:00:28.000 There is no best martial art.

01:00:29.000 But there is something absolutely legit about that blitz, that karate blitz, that some of these guys can do. 0.95

01:00:37.000 And I fought some really good guys in those karate-style tournaments, and I got an ass made out of me. 0.69

01:00:42.000 I mean, you don't know what to do. 0.88

01:00:45.000 And you get kicked, and then the referees point, and you're like, ugh.

01:00:49.000 You don't have a chance to fire back because they're separating you guys and I really absorbed those lessons and I was like in MMA that ability to close the distance because in MMA there's so many guys and Connor talked about this there's so many guys that have this Muay Thai stance and they're presenting this very predictable target they're standing right in front of each other and I think This stance,

01:01:12.000 and especially the forward stance, is one of the reasons why Vitor has been caught and knocked out twice with front kicks.

01:01:21.000 Because he squares off. 0.99

01:01:23.000 Vitor explained this to me in, like, shit. 0.95

01:01:28.000 1997, when I was training at Carlson Gracie's, he was explaining that some kickboxers are going to have a hard time in MMA, even though they're really good kickboxers, because the MMA stance, you really have to square off. 0.98

01:01:41.000 You can't stand like this.

01:01:43.000 You can't stand like a boxer.

01:01:45.000 And a kickboxer is a little more open than a boxer, but then MMA is a little more open than that.

01:01:50.000 He's like, you almost have to be square.

01:01:52.000 But that square leaves you open to front kicks to the face and then turning side kicks and side kicks to the body.

01:01:59.000 Think about what Vitor has been dropped with.

01:02:00.000 Jon Jones dropped him with a side kick to the body.

01:02:03.000 Sakuraba dropped him with a turning side kick to the body. 1.00

01:02:06.000 Two front kicks.

01:02:06.000 Two front kicks to the face.

01:02:08.000 It's because he presents this square thing.

01:02:10.000 But to him, this is sprawl and throw punches and throw the blitz that he used on Vandalie Silva.

01:02:16.000 And it worked through much of his career.

01:02:18.000 He either won with it or lost with it.

01:02:20.000 And I respect that thinking.

01:02:22.000 But those types of doctrines is literally...

01:02:26.000 And in martial arts, in day-to-day life, in anything, if you think anything is the thing, you're totally wrong.

01:02:33.000 Because if we all agree it's the thing, then we're all acting like it's the thing, then we all start ignoring other things, and those things will work.

01:02:40.000 So if you have to, if MMA, you have to square up.

01:02:45.000 All of a sudden, some Connor comes out with a different thing, and you were wrong.

01:02:48.000 Wonderboy Thompson.

01:02:49.000 The guard is the one that is glaring to me right now.

01:02:54.000 I've talked to some of the smartest and the best, and we do this over and over again.

01:02:59.000 We do it in everything.

01:03:01.000 Remember when you cannot cross your feet when you do an armbar?

01:03:05.000 Do you remember that earlier? 0.99

01:03:06.000 Like, what the fuck? 1.00

01:03:07.000 What are you talking about? 1.00

01:03:08.000 Now everybody does.

01:03:09.000 Head kicks don't work in MMA. This has been going on forever.

01:03:14.000 So any absolute decision that this is a fundamental rule is completely... 0.99

01:03:19.000 That's where you're gonna get fucked. 0.99

01:03:21.000 Yeah, I mean, how about the low calf kick? 0.99

01:03:24.000 Benson Henderson was, in my opinion, the first guy to bring it to MMA. And he started doing that back in the day, but not at the effectiveness, the level of effectiveness that we're seeing now.

01:03:34.000 That low calf kick is fucking people up. 0.88

01:03:36.000 It's really interesting. 0.96

01:03:38.000 And then they'll adapt, and then it won't work.

01:03:40.000 But that adaptation will put something else available.

01:03:44.000 I think the problem with the low calf kick is that you really can't condition the lower part of your leg the same way you can your thighs.

01:03:51.000 And I think it's going to keep working.

01:03:53.000 But then we have to not get hit by it.

01:03:54.000 Exactly.

01:03:54.000 So we'll make a change to not get hit by it.

01:03:57.000 Once we do, that'll force us to do something else that someone will take advantage of.

01:04:00.000 It's amazing how quickly it works.

01:04:03.000 Like if you see a guy get hit with a brutal leg kick, like it takes one or two and then they start to feel it.

01:04:08.000 There's something about the first low calf kick you see guys wobbly.

01:04:11.000 Like that muscle is like...

01:04:13.000 Really, the insertion at the bottom is so small, and it's taking so much work, like it's carrying so much.

01:04:22.000 These are when things work beautifully.

01:04:25.000 And again, I used to take anything we'd talk about, and I'd bring it back to fighting.

01:04:30.000 Now I tend to take anything in fighting and I try to figure out what it means in life.

01:04:34.000 Like I've kind of, over time of study, I've started to do that, right?

01:04:39.000 And this is true of this kick and it's true of anything.

01:04:42.000 It's like, it works best when the physiological truth, that calf is small and weak and thin, works with the systemic issue.

01:04:52.000 He's got his foot there and the way he's standing is such that you can hit it.

01:04:55.000 Those two things together are making that thing work right now.

01:04:59.000 You can't change the strength of the calf.

01:05:02.000 So the only thing we can change is how available that calf kick is if we don't want to get hit with it.

01:05:07.000 So we must change that.

01:05:08.000 And if we do, we've changed a lot of different things.

01:05:11.000 And now something else is available that Dwayne or Duke or somebody else is already planning how to take advantage that you've made that adaptation.

01:05:19.000 Yeah.

01:05:19.000 And that is, for me, what is eternally fascinating about martial arts.

01:05:24.000 But again, those are the lessons of life that are there. 0.99

01:05:27.000 If you can't see that the world around you has changed dramatically and you act as if it's the same, you get fucked up. 1.00

01:05:34.000 You will get fucked up. 0.99

01:05:36.000 You know, I bring this to Paul Daly versus John Fitch because that fight was extremely frustrating to Paul Daly and frustrating to a lot of people that were watching it, too, because John Fitch was just able to take him down and kind of do what John Fitch does and hit him on the ground and kind of beat him up and controlled the position. 1.00

01:05:56.000 And, you know, at the end of the fight, Paul's yelling, boo!

01:05:59.000 It was so strange, you know?

01:06:02.000 But... 1.00

01:06:03.000 This is a guy that if you just stand with him, he's going to fuck you up. 1.00

01:06:08.000 Like, if you just decide to trade shots with Paul Daly on your feet, he's got a left hand that is a goddamn nuclear missile. 1.00

01:06:16.000 Basically, everybody he hits with that thing goes night-night. 0.99

01:06:18.000 That's scary.

01:06:19.000 Even Lorenz Larkin, who's a seasoned striker, he got clipped by that left hand.

01:06:24.000 The ability to generate and create that amount of impact is...

01:06:30.000 It's elegant.

01:06:31.000 It's elegant, yeah.

01:06:31.000 It's like our human bodies and minds don't do all that many things that are that unbelievably beautiful and rooted in our history as human beings.

01:06:41.000 You know what I mean?

01:06:42.000 This is at the basis of what it was to survive and protect and expand and stuff.

01:06:47.000 And you see it right there when Paul Daly hits somebody.

01:06:51.000 It's unreal.

01:06:52.000 The opposite of that scenario is Johnny Hendrix was fighting Stephen Thompson.

01:06:58.000 And Johnny Hendricks wanted, when Steven would come in, he wanted to drill him with hooks and uppercuts and then get to his body and take him down and do what John Fitch did.

01:07:08.000 But Steven's like, you're not doing that.

01:07:10.000 And after he kicked him and beat him up at distance and then finished the fight, Johnny was being interviewed and he's like, well, it wasn't my name.

01:07:17.000 And Johnny's a classy guy all over the length of his career.

01:07:22.000 He sometimes gets heat, but who cares, right?

01:07:24.000 The opinion of other people shouldn't matter to Johnny Hendricks.

01:07:27.000 But Johnny said after, he's like, well, I was kind of hoping he'd come in and trade a little more. 0.99

01:07:32.000 It's like, why the fuck would he do that? 0.99

01:07:34.000 That's not his style. 1.00

01:07:35.000 That's a ridiculous thing to hope for. 0.96

01:07:36.000 And that's what you want. 0.92

01:07:37.000 He wants to do what you don't want.

01:07:39.000 The whole goal is to do something that benefits him in this scenario and does not benefit you, which would be exactly what he did.

01:07:46.000 Which is what brings me back to the Paul Daly-John Fitch fight.

01:07:49.000 This is the answer to that style.

01:07:51.000 The answer to that style is take you down and not ever let you get up and force John Fitch's game on you, which is what makes fighting so interesting.

01:08:02.000 If John Fitch had just decided to go cowboy and bite down his mouthpiece and just wing punches at Paul Daly until one of them went to sleep, that would have been a great fight for Paul Daly.

01:08:12.000 Great fight.

01:08:13.000 When Nick Diaz and Paul Daly did that, remember that?

01:08:16.000 I mean, that was pretty epic.

01:08:18.000 And that only happens, again, you're creating a moment, and it only happens because Nick was motivated by who he is in that moment.

01:08:28.000 He wasn't motivated by strategy even, necessarily. 1.00

01:08:30.000 He's like, fuck you! 1.00

01:08:33.000 Fuck you! 1.00

01:08:34.000 Exactly. 1.00

01:08:35.000 And that, however people will look at that, that is, again, it is an expression of the individuality, the authentic truth of who Nick Diaz is.

01:08:44.000 Yeah.

01:08:44.000 That's why that's art.

01:08:46.000 We were just talking art and fight.

01:08:48.000 That's a fight.

01:08:49.000 This was a great...

01:08:50.000 And he got clipped.

01:08:51.000 That's a fight, but that's...

01:08:51.000 Let's watch a little bit of this here, man.

01:08:53.000 Yeah, look at this.

01:08:53.000 Because he just kept the pace.

01:08:55.000 He's just refusing.

01:08:57.000 Yeah, Paul just got too tired, too quick.

01:08:59.000 He was winging big shots.

01:09:01.000 And look at Nick just...

01:09:03.000 Right there.

01:09:04.000 See, he got clipped.

01:09:05.000 That's his left hook you're talking about.

01:09:06.000 This is over.

01:09:07.000 Okay, it's over.

01:09:08.000 There, we're done.

01:09:08.000 No, because Nick won't be done.

01:09:10.000 Yeah, well...

01:09:12.000 I mean, who knows?

01:09:12.000 Maybe if Paul was in better condition, but this is the end.

01:09:15.000 The end is Nick just battering him.

01:09:18.000 It's crazy that he beat him in a striking contest.

01:09:20.000 Yeah.

01:09:20.000 But he did it with Will.

01:09:23.000 He was always a great boxer.

01:09:24.000 Yep.

01:09:25.000 But, I mean, and again, this is a metaphor for life.

01:09:29.000 Like, you got a wall.

01:09:30.000 That was one of the greatest victories ever. 0.99

01:09:31.000 Yeah, it's fucking unbelievable. 0.97

01:09:32.000 It really was. 0.97

01:09:33.000 That was the quintessential Nick Diaz fight.

01:09:36.000 Look at him, look at him.

01:09:37.000 Yeah, I know, right?

01:09:38.000 Ah!

01:09:39.000 And there are people who don't like him.

01:09:41.000 I love that guy.

01:09:42.000 Me too.

01:09:42.000 Because what we're searching for, I think, is we're trying to be authentically who we are.

01:09:49.000 I think that's all we're doing.

01:09:50.000 That's what Nick Diaz is. 0.99

01:09:51.000 Whatever the fuck you think he is, he is authentically Nick Diaz. 0.99

01:09:55.000 And the metaphor to me is Paul Daly is a wall. 0.99

01:10:00.000 And you can.

01:10:01.000 You can dig under it, or you can go around it, or you can trick somebody to give you a rope, or you can climb it, or you can dissemble it. 1.00

01:10:08.000 And Nick's like, fuck it. 0.99

01:10:09.000 I'm going to go through it. 1.00

01:10:10.000 I'm going to go through it. 1.00

01:10:11.000 And there are many ways to choose to live your life, and that's how Nick Diaz lives his fucking life. 0.99

01:10:15.000 And that's beautiful. 0.99

01:10:17.000 What sucks is that he hasn't fought in forever.

01:10:20.000 I mean, he hasn't fought since the Anderson Silva fight.

01:10:22.000 That's crazy.

01:10:23.000 And it's crazy that they suspended him from marijuana when Anderson Silva tested positive for steroids in that fight, and he got a shorter suspension than Nick.

01:10:31.000 That's a reflection.

01:10:33.000 That's a cultural, leftover cultural reflection.

01:10:36.000 Well, it's also that Nick refused to pay the fine.

01:10:38.000 Because that's Nick Diaz being authentically Nick Diaz.

01:10:41.000 He's like, yeah, you're not getting that money from me.

01:10:43.000 See ya.

01:10:45.000 You can admire that.

01:10:46.000 Some people will look at that and go, dude, just pay it.

01:10:49.000 It'll go this way.

01:10:50.000 And he's like, no, fundamentally who I am, I cannot do that.

01:10:53.000 I will get negative consequences in my life, but I will be authentic to who I am.

01:10:59.000 But Nick is like 36 now, I think.

01:11:01.000 How old is Nick Diaz now?

01:11:02.000 34?

01:11:03.000 He's 34 now.

01:11:04.000 That's it?

01:11:04.000 Yeah.

01:11:05.000 Oh, dude, his first fight in the UFC, I believe he was 20. Wow.

01:11:08.000 You know, when he fought Jeremy Jackson, like way back in the day, he was 18. Wow.

01:11:13.000 You know, I mean, he's been around, man.

01:11:16.000 You know, he's been around.

01:11:18.000 So he's still, like, literally in his physical prime.

01:11:21.000 And this is crazy, considering the fact that I want to say the Anderson Silva fight was three years ago.

01:11:28.000 Yeah, probably.

01:11:29.000 Yeah, it feels right.

01:11:30.000 Somewhere around there.

01:11:31.000 I would love to see him back in there again.

01:11:34.000 I don't know.

01:11:35.000 You've got to do what you want to do, though.

01:11:37.000 If he really, truly, that's what he wants to do, he'll find a way to do it.

01:11:41.000 And if he doesn't, George, you've got George coming in.

01:11:45.000 I asked George, so at work they're like, hey, can you see what's up with George and this Nate Diaz thing?

01:11:51.000 I'm like, I'll ask, and I'll ask honestly as a friend, and he knows that I'm also employed by somebody, so we'll have a little conversation about it.

01:11:59.000 But I will never, ever sacrifice a friendship or a long-term relationship to find something out. 0.99

01:12:07.000 Yeah, that shit is not good for you. 1.00

01:12:09.000 And I don't care about Twitter beefs, and I don't care about breaking news and all that. 1.00

01:12:14.000 It's just not interesting.

01:12:15.000 It's not anything to do with my life.

01:12:17.000 But I'll go ask George.

01:12:18.000 So I asked George, who we are friends.

01:12:21.000 We talked yesterday.

01:12:22.000 And we will – he will tell me the truth. 1.00

01:12:26.000 And then – and something as simple as, oh, you know, nah, that's fucking bullshit. 0.99

01:12:32.000 Maybe not in exactly those terms, but he would say. 0.99

01:12:34.000 But when I asked him about it, he's like, no, bro, I haven't signed nothing.

01:12:39.000 And I looked at that and like, oh my god, that's George trying to be deceptive.

01:12:43.000 Like, George would normally go, ah, it's BS, man, that's not happening.

01:12:46.000 I know I haven't signed anything.

01:12:48.000 Well, I know they've offered him Nate Diaz. 0.92

01:12:50.000 But that was George, who's shitty at being deceptive, trying to be deceptive.

01:12:54.000 Like, he, yeah, so like you said, they've offered it to him. 0.93

01:12:57.000 They've offered it to him.

01:12:58.000 And by saying I haven't signed it means he's considering it to me.

01:13:00.000 I think he's considering it, but I think he's also considering Khabib Nurmagomedov, and then there's always the great Irish leprechaun.

01:13:10.000 I think those are the two big fights.

01:13:12.000 The two big fights are Khabib at 155 or even 170. GSP wants the winner of Conor McGregor vs.

01:13:18.000 Khabib, not Nate Diaz.

01:13:20.000 Insider drops bombshell.

01:13:22.000 And this is May 19th, Saturday.

01:13:24.000 Yeah, I'm sure he wants that, but that fight would have to take place first, and who the fuck knows when Conor or Khabib would fight afterwards. 0.56

01:13:31.000 If it's Conor, it might be a decade later. 0.98

01:13:33.000 I mean, who the fuck knows what that guy's going to do now? 0.78

01:13:36.000 When you give a guy like Conor $100 million, you know, I mean, this is what happens. 1.00

01:13:40.000 He's throwing dollies at bus windows and losing his fucking mind. 1.00

01:13:44.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:13:45.000 What's the matter, Jamie?

01:13:46.000 That UFC insider was shot.

01:13:48.000 Was it?

01:13:48.000 Yeah, it was on his podcast.

01:13:50.000 I just saw that.

01:13:50.000 I just scrolled down.

01:13:51.000 It says UFC Insider.

01:13:53.000 Why don't they just say Brendan Schaub? 1.00

01:13:55.000 Everybody knows who Brendan Schaub is, you fucking idiots. 1.00

01:13:57.000 That's fucking funny. 1.00

01:13:58.000 He's some obscure insider. 0.99

01:14:00.000 Yeah.

01:14:01.000 Some obscure...

01:14:02.000 Well, I'm sure he does want that, but if they offer him a fat paycheck, and they really should, if they want...

01:14:07.000 Look, the UFC's in a weird position.

01:14:08.000 They bought the company for $4 billion.

01:14:11.000 I don't know what it's worth, but I would guess it's probably not really worth $4 billion.

01:14:16.000 They have a giant monthly nut. 0.99

01:14:17.000 It's fucking huge. 0.96

01:14:19.000 The monthly nut that they have to make caused them to fire I mean, there's a lot going on and there's been some, you know, great fights and it's obviously still incredibly popular, but you want to make those big pay-per-view bucks. 0.98

01:14:33.000 You need the big name stars.

01:14:35.000 GSP was always a big name star, became even bigger when he came back and beat Bisping and won by a finish and got him on a rear naked choke and put him to sleep.

01:14:46.000 He's still a giant star.

01:14:48.000 However, he hasn't fought in a while, vacated the title, doesn't have the title anymore.

01:14:52.000 So it's not as big of a deal to the public's eyes.

01:14:56.000 Is it though?

01:14:57.000 It is.

01:14:58.000 People are dumb as shit, man. 1.00

01:15:01.000 The funny thing to me is like, I always feel like, and I always feel like... 1.00

01:15:07.000 A lot of these mechanisms, title shots, rankings, belts, you know, Twitter beefs, they were intended to be there as a short-term solution to give people a talking point until they got deeply invested and connected.

01:15:23.000 And I think that was...

01:15:24.000 But yet somehow these sort of extra outside distractions became the focus. 0.97

01:15:30.000 Who the fuck cares who's the number eight guy? 0.83

01:15:33.000 And who cares if these guys are mad at each other on Twitter? 0.98

01:15:37.000 And the belt itself is a mechanism for discussion.

01:15:40.000 What matters is the fight.

01:15:41.000 And I know that it's like...

01:15:43.000 Yeah, but you're obsessed with fighting.

01:15:45.000 Most people, if you show them what's really going on there and contextualize the fact that these two human beings have dedicated their life and taken all of the knowledge in human history to put on the line in this moment of severe intensity and consequence, you won't care as much about whether somebody has an interim title.

01:16:04.000 You won't.

01:16:05.000 No, I won't and you won't.

01:16:07.000 But the average Joe Blow buy a pay-per-view once a year is going to care.

01:16:13.000 Maybe.

01:16:13.000 That's the idea behind stripping Tony Ferguson.

01:16:16.000 I mean, why strip him?

01:16:18.000 Why take away his interim title?

01:16:19.000 Let him keep the interim title.

01:16:20.000 If you want to strip Conor, just strip Conor.

01:16:23.000 Strip Conor, and then Tony's obviously going to go through surgery.

01:16:26.000 Tony didn't do anything wrong.

01:16:27.000 He fell and hurt himself.

01:16:28.000 But I think at the root of it is an incorrect philosophical belief.

01:16:33.000 So if I talk to people at the UFC, and I talk to them periodically...

01:16:40.000 And I'll discuss something with them about, you know, and it's generally at different times been like, hey man, you can see the work that I'm doing and you can see people like it.

01:16:48.000 Could I contribute something X or Y? And then I'll mention, you know, they will then say, well, you know, You've got like a really unique way of approaching it.

01:16:59.000 We think, you know, we've got so many casual fans watching on Fox or on these TV stations.

01:17:05.000 It's just such a casual audience.

01:17:07.000 And I think about it and it's like nobody questions that.

01:17:10.000 The percentage of people that are a casual fan that is watching anything is very close to zero.

01:17:17.000 Very close to zero.

01:17:18.000 You think so? 1.00

01:17:34.000 I go see what fucking Joe is feeding Marshall. 0.99

01:17:36.000 Nobody's watching something they're not interested in ever in our society. 0.99

01:17:40.000 We are all constantly and consciously choosing what we consume at all times.

01:17:47.000 And if we're sitting there with our boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife and they're watching it, we're somewhere else.

01:17:52.000 By feeding this non-existent casual audience and really believing they exist despite all the evidence that there is no such thing, you are now giving less attention Importance to your actual audience who is ready to go deeper, ready to see something more meaningful,

01:18:09.000 ready to be brought somewhere different.

01:18:10.000 There is no casual audience of almost anything in our modern world.

01:18:15.000 I like what you're saying, but I disagree. 0.97

01:18:18.000 Because people are watching and they don't know what the fuck they're watching. 0.96

01:18:21.000 I've done it with people. 0.99

01:18:23.000 I've unfortunately watched fights over friends' houses before because I happened to be there.

01:18:28.000 And then, you know, there'll be people sitting around watching.

01:18:30.000 Why doesn't he just do this?

01:18:31.000 But they still chose to watch it.

01:18:33.000 They still made that choice.

01:18:35.000 They're barely paying attention.

01:18:35.000 Yeah, but they made that choice.

01:18:36.000 Yes, but they're barely paying attention and they don't know what the fuck they're watching. 0.99

01:18:39.000 I'll accept that. 0.96

01:18:39.000 So a guy like you comes in talking about artistry and all this. 0.96

01:18:43.000 They, I think...

01:18:45.000 You are great.

01:18:47.000 I love your approach, but I think your approach in their eyes is a little bit too esoteric and complex and maybe they balanced out better with someone like me.

01:18:57.000 Yeah.

01:18:57.000 Yes.

01:18:58.000 You know what I mean?

01:19:02.000 Especially the last year or so, I've looked at it like trying to force something.

01:19:08.000 I'm not happily saying that I would be in a relationship with you and accept what you are.

01:19:16.000 I'm saying, I think we should be in a relationship, only I want to change you.

01:19:21.000 And that's not right.

01:19:22.000 That's not right.

01:19:23.000 I'm literally saying, I'm not saying, put a role here, tell me what that role you need, and I'll do it.

01:19:28.000 I'm actually saying, I think it should be different.

01:19:31.000 And that's why it's not a good fit.

01:19:33.000 And that's why I say a one championship is a more logical fit for me.

01:19:37.000 Because it's younger in its evolution, but still growing.

01:19:41.000 I think, I agree with you, but I think it goes back to the money.

01:19:45.000 Because I think there's so much money involved in the UFC that they have to make money every month.

01:19:50.000 I mean, They're in a tricky situation.

01:19:53.000 It's like if you're a guy and you make $500 a week and you really like this car. 0.91

01:19:59.000 Goddamn, that Corvette is so nice. 0.87

01:20:00.000 I really like it. 0.86

01:20:01.000 Well, how much is the lease?

01:20:01.000 The lease is $1,000 a month, but you only make $2,000 a month.

01:20:05.000 How are you going to do that?

01:20:05.000 Well, if I only pay $500 a month in rent.

01:20:08.000 I can kind of pull it off.

01:20:10.000 You're like, yeah, I guess you can.

01:20:12.000 But you've got to watch every penny, and you've got to be cautious.

01:20:15.000 And I think you can put yourself in these traps, and then you have to really micromanage everything you do.

01:20:20.000 Like, we've got to make money, but we've got to make money, but we've got to make money, instead of...

01:20:25.000 We gotta do what we like and put together what we like and do the best possible version of what we like.

01:20:32.000 A perfect example is this podcast.

01:20:35.000 I don't have a boss.

01:20:37.000 There's no overhead.

01:20:39.000 I have a couple employees.

01:20:41.000 It's very easy.

01:20:42.000 There's no worries. 0.99

01:20:43.000 So I don't give a fuck if I have... 0.91

01:20:45.000 You want to talk about stuff? 0.97

01:20:47.000 Or a sleep expert?

01:20:50.000 I'm not going to have anybody on that I'm not interested in talking to. 0.98

01:20:53.000 And I'll talk about whatever the fuck I want to.

01:20:56.000 I don't think, I don't know if people are going to be interested in this. 0.95

01:20:59.000 I need that advertising money.

01:21:01.000 I need to say...

01:21:03.000 Because of that, I think it's one of the reasons why the show's been successful because it honestly represents my thinking.

01:21:09.000 It's like I'm allowed to pursue my interests and have these conversations and let it be pure.

01:21:16.000 I think if the UFC took that exact approach, I think the product would be better.

01:21:20.000 And I think if they had someone like you breaking down the artistry of specific techniques, the air quote casual fan would be more educated and they would learn more about it.

01:21:32.000 And you get some of that from Dominic Cruz when he does his breakdowns on Fox and some of the other fighters who do breakdowns and when Daniel Cormier does wrestling breakdowns and breakdowns, specific techniques of why they work and why they don't work and what someone's doing right or wrong.

01:21:49.000 You get educated.

01:21:50.000 And I try to do the best I can, too, when it comes to the ground in particular, which is what I think is the most confusing aspect of MMA for the casual fan.

01:21:57.000 But I think we should approach the entire sport in the most illuminating way possible.

01:22:06.000 And I think a guy like you and your approach is very valuable.

01:22:10.000 And I love your breakdowns.

01:22:11.000 I'm a big fan of them.

01:22:13.000 That's why I retweet them all the time.

01:22:14.000 I just think you have a very unique and passionate and not just a passionate approach, but it's genuine.

01:22:23.000 Like, I know you.

01:22:24.000 I've talked to you when the cameras are not on and you're just as interested in this stuff.

01:22:28.000 I really am.

01:22:29.000 And I think we're just going through.

01:22:32.000 Thank you, by the way, man.

01:22:33.000 I think we're going through whatever you're doing, if you're trying to seek some kind of mastery, and if you realize you're really early in it, you can do it by studying yoga.

01:22:42.000 Some people do.

01:22:43.000 Some people do it.

01:22:44.000 They go to church twice a week.

01:22:47.000 You're just looking to try to grow.

01:22:49.000 And if you do it with something that you're deeply fascinated in, eventually you kind of learn about connections in all things.

01:22:55.000 The study of martial arts or the study of yoga or the study of jazz or whatever teaches you about connections and all things. 0.84

01:23:03.000 And my life is so fucking good.

01:23:05.000 And these little moments where I'm like, I don't know why these guys, I don't work for them. 0.65

01:23:09.000 That doesn't make any sense.

01:23:11.000 It doesn't make any sense for me to think that because I get up in the morning and I make my wife and I coffee and I sit in my kitchen. 0.98

01:23:18.000 And I fucking analyze fighting.

01:23:20.000 I sit down, and I look at it, and I look for moments, and I look for things that I think people will find fascinating. 0.98

01:23:26.000 I look for things that will teach us something about life.

01:23:29.000 And I look for these, and I make them.

01:23:31.000 Then when I make them, people seem to like them.

01:23:33.000 And then that gets me jobs commentating, where I fly off, and I get to... 0.68

01:23:36.000 I mean, I got it so fucking good to try to...

01:23:39.000 Square peg my way into a large corporation because years back I dreamed about working there. 0.88

01:23:46.000 Sometimes you change your dream.

01:23:48.000 Sometimes it's okay to change your route and find...

01:23:51.000 The world changes constantly.

01:23:53.000 Yeah, don't be afraid to be flexible. 0.65

01:23:54.000 And, you know, the idea of holding on to a dream for your entire life despite your interests is pretty ridiculous.

01:24:01.000 It is, yeah.

01:24:02.000 I mean, there's things that I wanted to do when I was young that I don't want to do anymore.

01:24:06.000 You should follow your interests, period.

01:24:09.000 As you change and grow, I talked about my waning love for Taekwondo when I realized that it wasn't really the right way to go.

01:24:20.000 When I first started doing it, I thought it was the most effective martial art.

01:24:23.000 Once I realized it wasn't, I lost interest.

01:24:26.000 I lost interest in competing in it.

01:24:28.000 It just didn't seem like the thing to do anymore.

01:24:31.000 And I think that as you grow as a human being, you should have other interests.

01:24:37.000 And I think the ones that are the most intriguing and the most passionate Or you're the most passionate of.

01:24:45.000 They're going to give you the most reward if you pursue them.

01:24:49.000 If you're more passionate about music than you are about accounting, but you decide to stick with accounting because it's what's paying your bills.

01:24:56.000 I'm like, man, that's a dark road.

01:24:57.000 It is.

01:24:58.000 That's a soul-sucking road you're going to go down.

01:25:00.000 It feels scary for somebody in that setting to change.

01:25:05.000 Yes.

01:25:05.000 Because in the short run, it will be painful, but in the long run, it will be so valuable.

01:25:10.000 And less painful.

01:25:11.000 Yeah.

01:25:12.000 Listen.

01:25:12.000 20 years of way less pain is such a great trade for two years of pain.

01:25:17.000 But if you're that guy with that Corvette that you got that lease on and you could barely fucking make those payments, you cannot take any chances. 0.53

01:25:25.000 You have to just work those extra hours. 0.51

01:25:27.000 Well, if I just put in two hours of overtime every day, that's still only 10 hours of work a day, but that was two hours at 20 bucks an hour. 0.99

01:25:34.000 You start doing those calculations and that's how you get fucked. 0.99

01:25:37.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:25:38.000 And that's how you get trapped. 1.00

01:25:39.000 And next thing you know, you've got a family, and you've got kids, and you definitely can't move, and you've got a mortgage, and you definitely ain't pursuing any music dreams now, motherfucker. 0.99

01:25:47.000 That's true. 0.99

01:25:47.000 And this is the trap that life leads? 0.99

01:25:49.000 Yeah.

01:25:50.000 You know, I watched...

01:25:52.000 So I do a one-man show now.

01:25:54.000 So I built with a friend.

01:25:55.000 I built a one-man show.

01:25:57.000 It's like...

01:25:57.000 Oh, you're in a theater setting, right?

01:25:58.000 Yeah.

01:25:59.000 How do you do that?

01:26:00.000 Do you use video and photographs?

01:26:02.000 Right now it is, as we put it, four punch-drunk TED Talks.

01:26:07.000 So it's four story-driven parts of life that take you on a bit of...

01:26:13.000 In theory and in practice so far, people seem to be inspired or find it compelling.

01:26:20.000 People have cried at them before, which is really quite moving.

01:26:23.000 Those people should go to a doctor. 1.00

01:26:24.000 They maybe should.

01:26:25.000 Especially, yeah.

01:26:27.000 But I did it.

01:26:29.000 So I decided I wanted to do that.

01:26:32.000 I decided I wanted to get up and tell stories and hopefully entertain people or inspire them or take them somewhere.

01:26:41.000 And I did it partly, I watched your show, and then I would have never in a million years, or when I saw you in Vegas, would never in a million years thought I could do that.

01:26:49.000 Because it's clearly a lifetime of training, and development, and improvement, and trial and error, and thousands and thousands of repetitions.

01:26:57.000 And you look at that, and you don't look at an Olympic gymnast and say, I can do that.

01:27:02.000 And that's kind of so I didn't think of it at all.

01:27:03.000 But then I saw Brendan do his show, and it was awesome, and I realized he only started working on this two years ago.

01:27:10.000 You know what I mean?

01:27:11.000 And all he represents is hard, hard work, sacrifice, and drive to learn.

01:27:17.000 And that's possible.

01:27:18.000 Yeah, what Schaub is doing is what I said to him is you are essentially using an athlete's work ethic and applying it to an art form.

01:27:27.000 And that's what's awesome about it.

01:27:28.000 He's a funny guy who realized, like, I can do stand-up.

01:27:33.000 I just need to put the time in.

01:27:34.000 And, you know, I've seen that guy kill.

01:27:36.000 I mean, kill.

01:27:37.000 And he's been doing comedy for, like, two years. 0.91

01:27:39.000 That is inspiring.

01:27:42.000 You should be aware when you see that that that means something you work on for only a couple years is possible if you're driven.

01:27:48.000 And smart and really committed.

01:27:50.000 And that's what I took out of his show.

01:27:51.000 Plus, he explained to me the process.

01:27:53.000 So I decided I'm doing it, right?

01:27:55.000 So I booked about five months ahead in Winnipeg, because there was a UFC in Winnipeg, and that's my hometown, to do a small theater.

01:28:01.000 And I'm like, okay, five months. 0.96

01:28:02.000 And I'm like, what the fuck do I do? 0.94

01:28:05.000 So I called up a good friend of mine, Graham. 0.93

01:28:07.000 So when you booked it, you didn't have a show?

01:28:09.000 I didn't have a show.

01:28:09.000 Wow!

01:28:09.000 Yeah, I didn't have a show.

01:28:11.000 Maybe six months.

01:28:11.000 That's a good way to force yourself?

01:28:12.000 Yeah.

01:28:13.000 But I had one plan.

01:28:15.000 I was going to call up my friend, Graham Isidor, who is a playwright and a writer for Vice and a bunch of other stuff.

01:28:22.000 And very smart and interesting.

01:28:24.000 And we're good friends, but we have very different perspectives.

01:28:26.000 And I said, I booked this show.

01:28:27.000 It's in six months.

01:28:28.000 I need 40 minutes.

01:28:30.000 It's got to be...

01:28:30.000 And he has told some of my stories in Vice before.

01:28:34.000 Getting drunk with sumo wrestlers and different stories.

01:28:37.000 Dude, how much do you weigh?

01:28:39.000 About 156. And you got drunk with sumo wrestlers?

01:28:42.000 It was scary.

01:28:43.000 Oh no!

01:28:44.000 It was joyous!

01:28:47.000 You've never seen anything like that.

01:28:49.000 Oh my god, they're so big though.

01:28:51.000 Oh, you should see it.

01:28:53.000 Do you know who Biomba is?

01:28:54.000 No.

01:28:54.000 Okay, so if you ever see a sumo on TV, that's Biomba.

01:28:58.000 So he's the guy in the Geico commercial, skating, being a figure skater.

01:29:03.000 He's like the Tiger Woods of sumo wrestling.

01:29:04.000 That's right.

01:29:05.000 And he is a genius.

01:29:06.000 He's a world champion, but he's also an entertainer.

01:29:09.000 So he lives in Hollywood, and he's very, very booked.

01:29:11.000 He lives here?

01:29:12.000 Yeah.

01:29:13.000 And he sumo wrestles.

01:29:14.000 Yeah, there he is.

01:29:16.000 He's from Mongolia, but he spends a great deal of time here working as a television personality and an actor and whatever.

01:29:24.000 He doesn't just look fat. 0.92

01:29:26.000 That guy looks jacked.

01:29:27.000 Go to that one where he's doing that muscle pose.

01:29:30.000 That one right there?

01:29:31.000 Yeah.

01:29:31.000 See, that's like the shoulder muscle through all that fat.

01:29:34.000 That guy looks like a tank.

01:29:36.000 Well, people don't realize, but underneath there is like you.

01:29:39.000 Or underneath there is like TJ Dillashaw.

01:29:41.000 You know what I mean?

01:29:42.000 There is a muscular person underneath all those additional layers of fat and flesh and skin.

01:29:47.000 There's a powerful athlete in that.

01:29:49.000 Is there a real benefit in being that fat?

01:29:53.000 Yeah, force, power generation.

01:29:55.000 Like, momentum, the ability...

01:29:57.000 I mean, if the other guy is that big, and our goal is just to smash into each other until one of us is taken from the platform, and you're not that big, it's going to be very difficult.

01:30:06.000 So it's like an arms race of size over generations where they just got bigger and bigger out of necessity.

01:30:12.000 Because if you're bigger, I mean, what am I going to do?

01:30:15.000 Right.

01:30:16.000 We could, in theory, maybe I could use your size against you, or I could use technique and strategy and smarts to take you off. 0.92

01:30:25.000 But I could be big and also do that.

01:30:28.000 So why not be also big?

01:30:30.000 So arms raced to that point.

01:30:33.000 And there are little guys.

01:30:36.000 Who's that guy that's with him? 0.98

01:30:37.000 That guy's gonna get killed. 0.98

01:30:38.000 I think he's an impractical joker. 0.95

01:30:41.000 But yeah, Viamba is like, he's the most famous sumo guy in the world.

01:30:45.000 And I got wasted with him at the World Combat Games in St. Petersburg, Russia.

01:30:49.000 So I got to commentate it.

01:30:51.000 So I was in St. Petersburg and I absolutely love, I found a niche where I get to commentate like real traditional martial arts a fair bit.

01:31:01.000 I've done Taekwondo and Karate at the Pan Am Games and I did the World Sumo Championships or the World Combat Games.

01:31:07.000 I do the World Wushu Championships which is Kung Fu and San Da.

01:31:11.000 And so I've carved out this niche where I get called for these and develop expertise in these different areas and get to experience them and see the little details that change when you change something.

01:31:21.000 And so I got to commentate Sumo.

01:31:23.000 And then after, he seemed to like me and he's kind of like, you, we drink.

01:31:29.000 And it was something, man.

01:31:32.000 What does he drink?

01:31:33.000 Vodka.

01:31:34.000 Well, you're in Russia, too.

01:31:35.000 Oh, right, right, right.

01:31:35.000 You're in Russia.

01:31:36.000 I love Russia.

01:31:37.000 Do you?

01:31:38.000 I really do.

01:31:39.000 I love the Russians.

01:31:40.000 I love their view of combat and of martial arts and stuff.

01:31:46.000 They're very straight.

01:31:48.000 Like, you know, when you negotiate to commentate or to do some work, they're just straight.

01:31:52.000 This is what we can pay you.

01:31:53.000 This is what we expect of you.

01:31:55.000 If you do that, we're all going to be happy.

01:31:59.000 Frank Mir does commentary for them over there, right?

01:32:02.000 Yes, he does.

01:32:03.000 He's very good.

01:32:04.000 Frank Mir, I would hope that someone would hire him in America.

01:32:07.000 They can't afford him.

01:32:08.000 Is that what it is?

01:32:09.000 He's getting paid way too well.

01:32:11.000 In Russia?

01:32:12.000 In Russia.

01:32:12.000 Really?

01:32:12.000 No kidding.

01:32:13.000 Good for him.

01:32:14.000 He said that's why he couldn't do a deal with Bellator. 0.99

01:32:17.000 No shit. 0.97

01:32:18.000 And his deal with ACB, who he loves and respects, he's become sort of partners in there with Mr. Haseev, who runs it, where Frank is now a partner of the presentation of it for American shows. 0.99

01:32:31.000 He'll be part promoter.

01:32:33.000 And I think Frank may even get away from some of the commentary.

01:32:36.000 As much as he's good at it and loves it, I think he's interested in some of the other aspects of it now.

01:32:42.000 But yeah, they pay very well.

01:32:45.000 And they pay the athletes very, very well.

01:32:47.000 You can be a guy that had a couple of UFC fights or a Bellator fight or two.

01:32:51.000 They'll give you $60,000 U.S. cash in your hand in an envelope at the end of it.

01:32:56.000 Interesting.

01:32:57.000 Yeah.

01:32:57.000 That's great.

01:32:58.000 Well, it's always great that fighters have more options.

01:33:00.000 I know Bellator has become a viable option to a lot of fighters.

01:33:05.000 Guys like Ryan Bader are making good money over there now.

01:33:08.000 And Roy McDonald, obviously, who's their champion now.

01:33:12.000 I just think we need more of those.

01:33:14.000 I know that Oscar De La Hoya is getting into the mix now, but just the approach that he's making... 0.95

01:33:21.000 It seems to me to be ridiculous.

01:33:23.000 It's an old-school promoter's approach. 0.51

01:33:25.000 Get some big name and then invest all your time in that big fight.

01:33:29.000 But that's the same thing you were just talking about, the UFC, the challenge they face now is that we need another big one.

01:33:35.000 We need another big one.

01:33:36.000 It just seems like...

01:33:38.000 That approach, like, we just, we know, okay, if this wasn't the approach, would this be the ideal approach?

01:33:44.000 No.

01:33:45.000 It's never the ideal approach.

01:33:46.000 The ideal approach is to do the best fights possible.

01:33:48.000 The ideal approach is not necessarily to make the most money, or to have the, like, the most spectacular, like, like, When they were really promoting Ronda Rousey in the rematch or the fight with Amanda Nunes and didn't promote Nunes at all,

01:34:04.000 I was like, I'm a huge Ronda Rousey fan.

01:34:09.000 Everybody knows that.

01:34:09.000 Me too.

01:34:10.000 I think she's a legend.

01:34:12.000 I mean, what she did for women's MMA, she essentially was the reason why the UFC decided to have women's MMA was one woman. 0.57

01:34:20.000 Every single woman fighting now owes her that debt.

01:34:23.000 It just passed her by and it happened so quick.

01:34:26.000 You know, but...

01:34:28.000 Amanda Nunes, I was thinking, even before Holly Holm beat her, Amanda Nunes was the big threat. 1.00

01:34:34.000 I'm like, that girl can knock you fucking dead with one punch. 1.00

01:34:37.000 She's such a ruthless striker. 1.00

01:34:39.000 And she's a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt.

01:34:41.000 I'm like, this is a terrible matchup for Ronda, I thought.

01:34:44.000 Because Ronda's hands, although good, and getting better, really was starting to look like a polished striker.

01:34:52.000 Still doesn't have nearly the kind of power that Nunes has.

01:34:56.000 And the ability.

01:34:58.000 Like, Nunes is...

01:34:59.000 She can take it as well as receive it.

01:35:02.000 We've just seen Ronda sort of have these blitz moments with, like, Bech Cohea and, you know...

01:35:08.000 Kind of drove through the bricks.

01:35:10.000 Just smashed through.

01:35:11.000 But when you see the overall game, like, versus Holly Holm, then you get to see, oh, there's a lot of limitations here in trying to smash through the bricks.

01:35:19.000 If the bricks aren't there, and the bricks head kick you, you know what I mean?

01:35:23.000 There's a lot going on there.

01:35:24.000 So we're seeing the layers upon layers upon layers.

01:35:27.000 So what happens after you get to the first layer?

01:35:29.000 Oh, well, you don't have a second layer.

01:35:32.000 This is your layer.

01:35:33.000 Your layer is straightforward, move ahead.

01:35:36.000 You know, coaching is to blame as well.

01:35:37.000 There's a lot of things there.

01:35:39.000 But the fact that they weren't even promoting Amanda Nunes.

01:35:42.000 You have the very first ever openly gay women's MMA champion in the UFC. From South America.

01:35:48.000 From South America.

01:35:48.000 All these interesting aspects of her.

01:35:50.000 And she's a fun girl. 0.79

01:35:51.000 She's interesting. 1.00

01:35:52.000 You know, and she's a fucking killer, man. 1.00

01:35:55.000 She's a fucking killer. 1.00

01:35:56.000 And they showed it in that fight. 1.00

01:35:57.000 They had an opportunity to make another star.

01:36:00.000 Instead...

01:36:01.000 They didn't make this other star, and then you look at her most recent pay-per-view, I heard the numbers were abysmal.

01:36:06.000 Really?

01:36:07.000 See if you can find out what the numbers were, because someone told me, I think it was Shop told me, there were 85,000 pay-per-view buys.

01:36:14.000 Wow.

01:36:15.000 That's scary!

01:36:16.000 You should be...

01:36:16.000 But at that point, you have to stop and wonder, is there anything we could do strategically different?

01:36:23.000 Like, just because something worked all the way along in any business or in anything you're doing, there might be a time to take a slightly different approach or to change one of the fundamental beliefs of how we do business or something.

01:36:35.000 You know what I mean?

01:36:36.000 What you can't do is just go, well, hopefully the next one will be good.

01:36:39.000 I mean, you watch that happen all the time.

01:36:40.000 There's some massive change in your business or in life.

01:36:46.000 That change, at first people deny that it's there.

01:36:50.000 Right?

01:36:50.000 They deny.

01:36:51.000 And then they say it's a niche.

01:36:52.000 And then they say it's a blip.

01:36:53.000 And then by the time that it's actually in the heat of something scary or challenging happening, you've wasted two or three years that you could have used adapting to be ready for it.

01:37:03.000 Yeah.

01:37:03.000 You know what I mean?

01:37:04.000 No, I do know what you mean.

01:37:05.000 Yeah.

01:37:05.000 I mean, I think that...

01:37:08.000 What you gotta do when you have a champion that has spectacular results, like Amanda Nunes, you gotta hype the shit out of her. 1.00

01:37:14.000 Invest.

01:37:15.000 Yeah, invest, hype the shit out of her. 0.99

01:37:17.000 And that would have made the Ronda Rousey fight, I think, even bigger.

01:37:20.000 If you show her smashing Misha Tate, you show her, you know, smashing Sarah McMahon, you show what she's capable of. 1.00

01:37:27.000 Like, she's a fucking monster. 1.00

01:37:28.000 For sure. 1.00

01:37:29.000 For sure.

01:37:29.000 And you talk to Mike Brown or anyone there who's been around the greats, and they talk about it.

01:37:35.000 But this level now, where they are, the brilliance of what we've seen, it's another example.

01:37:41.000 If you think that only fighting to stand up when you're in guard is right, or only keeping somebody down is the game, and the only thing you have to worry about is they'll stand up, they'll submit you. 0.98

01:37:51.000 As soon as you don't recognize where you are in the change of the river of life and time, you sometimes get fucked up. 0.97

01:38:01.000 It's a fascinating thing. 0.88

01:38:03.000 I know I literally was just in Singapore and I just spent days with this company, but they see the world differently.

01:38:10.000 Is simply they're a values-based company that believes in the values of these things and tries to show people and share martial artistry for the greater good.

01:38:22.000 And it's not some business.

01:38:23.000 It's what they truly believe.

01:38:26.000 They truly are going about and making choices. 0.93

01:38:28.000 And when Chhatri says, I would not hire Conor McGregor because of what he represents, He's dead fucking serious.

01:38:35.000 What does he represent that you wouldn't hire him for?

01:38:36.000 His idea is, and what he sees, and I shouldn't speak for him at all.

01:38:41.000 He's a brilliant man, by the way, this guy.

01:38:43.000 He was a homeless kid with a single parent that later became educated and then moved to America and went to Harvard and then started managing corporate funds and became a Muay Thai champion.

01:38:56.000 And this is all easily documentable.

01:38:58.000 This is who that individual is.

01:39:00.000 And he's lived that life based on honor, respect, teamwork, excellence, that mind.

01:39:09.000 That is what built that company.

01:39:11.000 And one is a billion dollar company now.

01:39:13.000 It's a billion dollar company.

01:39:14.000 It's in 1.7 billion homes in Asia.

01:39:17.000 This isn't some mythological idea.

01:39:19.000 This is a guy who's built a massive company based around these values.

01:39:23.000 And that's a different thing.

01:39:25.000 But what does he say about calling?

01:39:27.000 Oh, sorry.

01:39:27.000 Yeah, I go off on these.

01:39:29.000 No, it's cool.

01:39:30.000 So he looks at it as the things that he says and the way that, and again, I shouldn't speak for him.

01:39:36.000 This is what I've gathered.

01:39:38.000 Throwing things and creating conflict and controversy as your currency is not something to be proud of.

01:39:43.000 That's an interesting way of putting it, as your currency.

01:39:46.000 Yeah.

01:39:47.000 Yeah, I get it.

01:39:48.000 You know?

01:39:48.000 And that sounds because – and I'm not quite – although I've drank the Kool-Aid, I believe in what they're doing and I see it as real, not only because my values line up with it, but I think they are going to grow dramatically as a result of some of these – the way they see the world.

01:40:02.000 But not only that, but I'm still also immersed here.

01:40:06.000 And I like Connor.

01:40:08.000 I think of – I work for TSN because Connor fell out of a march to a red carpet to shake my hand while my boss was watching.

01:40:17.000 You know what I mean?

01:40:19.000 Some of the most interesting moments I've had are with that guy and some of the most interesting, many dozens of hours of trying to figure out what's happening and research and growth has happened by studying that guy.

01:40:31.000 And I see the games that he is willing to play as part of his strategy for success as a fighter and success trying to be successful for his family and his future.

01:40:43.000 I see it all connected.

01:40:44.000 So I don't dislike him.

01:40:46.000 But I respect this idea that conflict and controversy are not good for...

01:40:52.000 I understand that, but I also understand psychological warfare, and I think that Connor's a master of that, and that has a huge factor in victory.

01:40:58.000 I mean, this is something Miyamoto Musashi used to his advantage.

01:41:02.000 You know, if you read the Book of Five Rings, what Connor's doing is fucking with people's heads to To the point where he has space in their head, and then Connor goes into the cage like loose as a goose, relaxed and calm. 1.00

01:41:17.000 So he's letting you know, I don't give a fuck about you, but you give a fuck about me, and I'm going to fuck you up right now. 0.99

01:41:23.000 And you're like, no, you're not. 1.00

01:41:24.000 You better not.

01:41:24.000 You can't.

01:41:25.000 This is too much.

01:41:26.000 And Jose Aldo is the perfect example.

01:41:29.000 Aldo was so out of composure. 0.98

01:41:31.000 Aldo charged at him with that just leaping left hook and just got fucking waylaid on the way in. 0.96

01:41:37.000 And Eddie Alvarez, the greatest game day performer, one of the great game day performers we've ever seen. 0.96

01:41:42.000 And I talked to Eddie.

01:41:44.000 Eddie's one of my favorites.

01:41:46.000 And I admire and am inspired by Eddie Alvarez.

01:41:50.000 Michael Chandler, too.

01:41:51.000 You know, those two are like the same guy.

01:41:53.000 Yeah, almost.

01:41:55.000 But Eddie was like, the plan was to wrestle a lot and stay at distance barely at all.

01:42:01.000 And I stayed at distance almost the whole time and barely wrestled.

01:42:04.000 Like, he's just like, it was real.

01:42:06.000 And by not accepting it was real, coming in, and suddenly you find yourself in there and it's real and you feel different and you're...

01:42:13.000 You know, your mind is working differently, and your hormones are working differently, and who you are in that moment is different. 0.99

01:42:18.000 And you're like, holy fuck, it's real. 0.99

01:42:20.000 Had I prepared for it to be real, I could be in a different state right now. 1.00

01:42:24.000 But I denied that this was going to be real, and now it's fucking real. 0.98

01:42:27.000 It's real. 0.98

01:42:27.000 That's interesting. 0.98

01:42:29.000 It's real.

01:42:29.000 I also think you got clipped early.

01:42:31.000 I think that's a factor.

01:42:32.000 You get caught on the chin like that and your legs give out real quick and your brain doesn't work right anymore.

01:42:38.000 Your body doesn't work right anymore.

01:42:39.000 I think that's a factor.

01:42:40.000 The ability that Conor has to land those sharp shots that come out of nowhere and blitz you and come at you so fast.

01:42:49.000 And just drop those shots on you. 1.00

01:42:51.000 I mean, his left hand is a fucking laser beam, and he's so good at landing it. 1.00

01:42:55.000 That's that double pulse. 0.99

01:42:56.000 That is the definition of it.

01:42:58.000 He's so good at landing that shot. 1.00

01:43:00.000 And he's also good at landing a bunch of other shit, too, man. 1.00

01:43:04.000 I mean, he'd pick you apart. 0.99

01:43:05.000 He's a real dynamo.

01:43:07.000 I just...

01:43:08.000 I hate to see things like what happened in New York in Brooklyn.

01:43:12.000 He threw the dolly at the bus and smashed the window. 1.00

01:43:15.000 It's so fucking stupid. 1.00

01:43:17.000 All that thuggish shit running in with a bunch of other guys and everyone screaming. 1.00

01:43:22.000 What did Khabib do? 1.00

01:43:24.000 He smacked your friend in the face because your friend was talking shit. 1.00

01:43:28.000 Even the way he smacked him was pretty gentle. 1.00

01:43:31.000 You know? 0.95

01:43:31.000 And Artem called him a coward. 0.95

01:43:34.000 And he said he doesn't fight and Conor's a real fighter.

01:43:37.000 He's like, listen, man.

01:43:38.000 He's Russian.

01:43:39.000 You're Russian. 0.91

01:43:40.000 You guys got to sort this out on your own.

01:43:42.000 That is how they sort it out.

01:43:43.000 Yeah.

01:43:43.000 And look, it was a pretty calm sorting out, in my opinion.

01:43:46.000 I mean, they didn't stomp him. 1.00

01:43:47.000 They didn't beat his ass. 0.99

01:43:49.000 But once we get to that point, I mean... 1.00

01:43:51.000 I get it.

01:43:52.000 Yeah, once you're doing something and I'm responding, which he responds, that happens every day in gangs and wars in Northern Ireland and Ireland and all types of religions.

01:44:01.000 That's been going on forever.

01:44:02.000 Nobody ever wins when that happens.

01:44:04.000 It just perpetuates it.

01:44:06.000 And when you watch it, and then there'll be a lot of people, you see this scenario and like Khabib's fans or friends or supporters and Connors and they're like, he did this, now he We did this.

01:44:16.000 They're both wrong.

01:44:18.000 And nobody...

01:44:19.000 Everybody always...

01:44:20.000 When somebody does something bad to somebody else, they almost always feel like something was done bad to them.

01:44:25.000 Very few people instigate.

01:44:26.000 They always perceive something happen.

01:44:28.000 Right.

01:44:28.000 They perceive a slight.

01:44:29.000 And, you know, some people, you do one thing to them, and then they're like, okay, motherfucker, now it's to eternity! 1.00

01:44:35.000 Right. 0.99

01:44:35.000 Like, okay, well, that doesn't make any sense either. 0.99

01:44:38.000 Now you look like a fool. 1.00

01:44:40.000 Like, you know... 1.00

01:44:42.000 You just can't throw a dolly at a bus, you know, filled with other fighters, because it's so selfish.

01:44:48.000 I mean, all those people that got cut, you know, I mean, Ray Borg got cuts in his eyes.

01:44:54.000 I mean, the whole thing is a disaster.

01:44:56.000 So my theory, based on bits of information that we have, Is that Connor on some level, I mean, it reinforces constantly. 0.99

01:45:06.000 If your kid does something terrible that we know is bad and you give him candy every time, they're going to do bad shit. 0.99

01:45:12.000 Give her candy every time she does something bad. 1.00

01:45:15.000 Reward!

01:45:16.000 Connor's been rewarded.

01:45:18.000 He gets richer, more famous, more influential, belts, and he's been given candy.

01:45:24.000 Right, right, right.

01:45:24.000 Every time he's done this.

01:45:26.000 And it works.

01:45:27.000 And, I mean, there is parallels in the political system in America.

01:45:30.000 There's parallels all over the world that by acting out in these strange ways, it's so bizarre and unsettling that we reward it, you know?

01:45:38.000 It'd be a good name for a band.

01:45:39.000 Candy for bad behavior.

01:45:40.000 Yeah.

01:45:41.000 That'd be a good name for a band.

01:45:42.000 It's a punk band.

01:45:43.000 It'd totally be a punk band.

01:45:44.000 But that's what's happening, right?

01:45:45.000 And so now we take it, and then you add the strategy element that you're talking about, right?

01:45:51.000 So he's looking at it, and it's like, okay...

01:45:54.000 Khabib would be a great fight. 0.87

01:45:55.000 I'd like to fight in Russia.

01:45:56.000 He likes challenges.

01:45:57.000 This is hard, but let's do it.

01:45:59.000 Now, if I create some viral controversy, which I did with Pauly Malignaggi, who's...

01:46:05.000 Do you know Pauly?

01:46:07.000 I've only talked to him on Twitter.

01:46:08.000 I don't know him personally. 0.97

01:46:09.000 I fucking love Pauly. 0.95

01:46:10.000 I like him as a fighter, and I love him as an analyst as well. 0.98

01:46:13.000 And I like him as a dude.

01:46:14.000 I really do.

01:46:16.000 But...

01:46:17.000 So he created that and it worked.

01:46:19.000 And he's like, okay, on what level he's strategizing this?

01:46:23.000 He's like, let's go do some pushing and shoving with Habib and his guys.

01:46:26.000 Some giving the finger, it'll be caught on cameras.

01:46:28.000 One thing we know about Conor, he's always late.

01:46:32.000 It's always late.

01:46:33.000 He didn't plan to get there when they're on a bus.

01:46:34.000 He planned to get there when they're in the hall.

01:46:36.000 He planned to get there when there's a bunch of people around and security and it's easy to manage.

01:46:40.000 Little pushing, little shoving, a couple of cameras.

01:46:42.000 And all of a sudden, his $5 million payday is a $12 million payday in Russia and everybody's going crazy.

01:46:47.000 It'll work.

01:46:48.000 It's brilliant.

01:46:48.000 But he's late.

01:46:50.000 So he shows up there on the bus.

01:46:51.000 Now the cameras are out.

01:46:52.000 And what's he going to do?

01:46:53.000 He's got to perform.

01:46:54.000 He came there to perform.

01:46:55.000 He came there to do a thing.

01:46:56.000 We showed up.

01:46:57.000 And now it goes sideways.

01:47:00.000 And that's the most likely scenario.

01:47:02.000 Is that it was a, let's do it.

01:47:05.000 It'll feel right for us as defending our friend.

01:47:08.000 But also it'll have some inherent value when the cameras come out.

01:47:11.000 And nobody will get hurt.

01:47:12.000 I think you're probably right there.

01:47:14.000 He's got a good point. 1.00

01:47:16.000 But, obviously, it's a terrible thing to do and stupid. 1.00

01:47:20.000 You know, there's a way to manage that. 0.99

01:47:22.000 But then these people say, well, you know, now it becomes like the WWE. And, you know, there's people that love real fighting that have a real hard time with these fake WWE-style scenarios where you know that...

01:47:37.000 Whether it's Colby Covington, he did a promo recently where he had a girl by the pool and the girl sat in his lap and she obviously had a planned script and seemed kind of corny. 0.97

01:47:52.000 There's people who think that's great and there's people who fucking hate it. 0.96

01:47:56.000 I'm the hate it. 0.99

01:47:57.000 Yeah, I'm the hated too.

01:47:58.000 I don't...

01:47:58.000 I mean, I don't have a real problem with pro wrestling.

01:48:00.000 I joke around about it all the time, and I get the fact that people like it. 0.99

01:48:04.000 I don't like that kind of shit bleeding into MMA. I think it's dumb. 1.00

01:48:08.000 It's bad. 0.99

01:48:09.000 It's also...

01:48:10.000 I mean, again...

01:48:12.000 If you're viewing it as inspiring artistry with which there are lessons to fucking live your life on one hand, and that's how I truly see it and interface with it and experience it and share it and want to see people get to feel that.

01:48:30.000 And then on the other hand, you're putting together these weird scripts to sell pay-per-views.

01:48:35.000 But I mean, wrestling, that stuff came up in wrestling because it isn't inherently real.

01:48:41.000 It needed those extras.

01:48:42.000 It needed all that stuff.

01:48:43.000 If we understood how brilliant Colby Covington was, if we understood how brilliant of a combat sportsman he was, he wouldn't have to do that.

01:48:51.000 But he's doing that and that's what got him a title shot.

01:48:53.000 So on the other side of the coin, we're wrong.

01:48:56.000 Well, no, if we understood, he would get it based on that.

01:49:00.000 But we don't understand.

01:49:01.000 We, the royal we, don't get it.

01:49:03.000 It's like, I'll see people talk about fighting after, and they'll be like, and some people, this is their idea of covering a fight, or fans, or people, and everybody's entitled to their own thing, but they'll be like, yeah, the show is kind of a lackluster affair, not a lot of finishes. 0.97

01:49:19.000 Fuck it, you had 20 brilliant athletes interact and your opinion of how it did or didn't excite you is super valid to you. 0.94

01:49:28.000 But that's not what we were watching. 1.00

01:49:31.000 Right, but what I'm talking about is like what got him a title shot. 1.00

01:49:33.000 What got him a title shot is being an asshole. 1.00

01:49:35.000 Because of the reality that we live in, that's what he had to do. 1.00

01:49:37.000 Right, I mean like what he did in Brazil after he beat Damien Maia, said this is a shithole.

01:49:41.000 That's literally what got him the title shot.

01:49:43.000 I mean if you really stop and think about it, he's ranked, what is he, ranked number three?

01:49:46.000 Yeah.

01:49:47.000 He's only beaten Maia.

01:49:48.000 I mean, he's beaten some other people, but in terms of top 10 contenders, in terms of like real world-class fighters, there's a lot of guys that are out there that have fucked up a lot of other people.

01:49:57.000 Like, Wonderboy was like, how is this guy fighting for the title, for an interim title, and I'm not?

01:50:02.000 After he's gone through those two big fights with Tyron Woodley, beating Jorge Masvidal, beating Johnny Hendricks, beating all these different fighters, Colby beat Damian Maia, and that's really the big name on his resume.

01:50:14.000 But it's also because he's going to be fighting Rafael dos Andros, who's a Brazilian. 1.00

01:50:18.000 He said a lot of stupid shit about Brazil. 1.00

01:50:20.000 Brazilians hate him. 1.00

01:50:21.000 Brazil's a giant market.

01:50:23.000 It's an easy sell.

01:50:24.000 And this is what he's talked himself into.

01:50:26.000 And it's a tough fight.

01:50:27.000 Don't make no mistake about it. 0.99

01:50:29.000 The guy that beat Damian Maia is a tough fucking fighter. 0.98

01:50:32.000 Colby's a tough guy. 0.98

01:50:33.000 And again, you talk to Dean Thomas or Mike Brown, and they, two years back, when they were talking, and I'm Jorge Masvidal, That's one of those special artists to me.

01:50:45.000 And so I'll be asking, you know, like when I'll see Mike or Dean or these guys or anybody around that, I'm like, hey, how's Jorge doing?

01:50:52.000 What's he working on?

01:50:54.000 What does he change this?

01:50:55.000 And they'll talk.

01:50:56.000 Oh, and he's always training with Colby. 1.00

01:50:57.000 He's a fuck. 1.00

01:50:58.000 He's deadly. 1.00

01:50:59.000 He's one of the greats in the gym.

01:51:00.000 The two of them are first there, last to leave.

01:51:03.000 You've heard about how good he was under that public surface.

01:51:08.000 But I see what you're saying.

01:51:09.000 Based on what we've created, he doesn't have much of a choice if he wants to achieve his goals other than doing it this way.

01:51:18.000 And the guys who are good at it, Chael, obviously, Chael is really good at it.

01:51:21.000 One of the best ever.

01:51:23.000 And he's an entertainer.

01:51:24.000 And don't you love Chael?

01:51:25.000 I love Chael. 0.99

01:51:26.000 I fucking love Chael. 0.98

01:51:27.000 And yet, this is something I find distasteful about this art form is that game. 0.99

01:51:33.000 Yet somehow Chael is so lovable.

01:51:35.000 I love Chael, right?

01:51:37.000 But it's because there's a natural love of that kind of performance.

01:51:42.000 And Colby, and I've played around with it a little bit when I played in a band where you would be rude and arrogant and play that kind of game.

01:51:49.000 It's not, it's hard.

01:51:52.000 It's hard.

01:51:52.000 It's hard to do.

01:51:53.000 It's hard to be convincing.

01:51:55.000 It's also hard to be hated all the time.

01:51:57.000 That's real.

01:51:58.000 You will feel the hatred of all Brazilians who truly hate you, even though you were playing a game. 1.00

01:52:06.000 And they get fucking real about that shit. 1.00

01:52:08.000 Real! 1.00

01:52:08.000 Brazilians are extremely patriotic. 1.00

01:52:10.000 Very nationalistic. 1.00

01:52:12.000 You talk shit about Brazil, you better duck. 1.00

01:52:15.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:52:16.000 And they don't get the joke.

01:52:18.000 And in fact...

01:52:20.000 Even if you were to talk to somebody like a stereotypically passionate person we're talking about here, and you said it's a joke, and they'd be like, you can't make that joke.

01:52:31.000 Their point isn't that I don't care if he was kidding. 0.96

01:52:34.000 The fact that he was willing to do that is so disrespectful to all of us that we must slit his throat. 0.94

01:52:41.000 And that's what they'll chant when he goes to walk out there. 0.99

01:52:43.000 And they mean it.

01:52:44.000 Yeah, they do mean it.

01:52:45.000 But meanwhile, he just doubled down. 0.99

01:52:47.000 He didn't give a fuck. 1.00

01:52:48.000 Even after he got hit in the head with a boomerang. 1.00

01:52:49.000 Still, doubling down, swinging for the fences.

01:52:52.000 What other choice, I guess, do you have?

01:52:54.000 Well, look, it has got him to the dance.

01:52:56.000 And if he wins two Saturdays from this one, or one Saturday, how's it going?

01:53:02.000 Next one is Till and Wonderboy.

01:53:04.000 Yes.

01:53:05.000 That's another one to talk about.

01:53:06.000 Yeah.

01:53:07.000 But if he wins, he will have a belt.

01:53:11.000 I mean, it's not the real belt.

01:53:13.000 I mean, it's an interim belt, but it guarantees him a shot at the real belt.

01:53:17.000 Yeah.

01:53:18.000 So it gets very interesting.

01:53:21.000 I know that my look at these sort of systems and the areas around it, I have a negative bias.

01:53:32.000 It's not about that.

01:53:33.000 And I know that's negative to me.

01:53:35.000 About the bells.

01:53:36.000 Yeah, or the rankings or the beefs or whatever.

01:53:39.000 But the belt cannot mean what it meant before.

01:53:43.000 By the nature of once upon a time, there were only ever 27 of them, and now there's been 340 of them.

01:53:49.000 By nature, it cannot be as valuable as it once was.

01:53:52.000 And when there's two in yours, it inherently cannot have the value because scarcity is where value comes from.

01:53:58.000 Yeah, it's really just a promotional tool.

01:54:00.000 It's a marketing tool.

01:54:01.000 And it's a questionable one.

01:54:03.000 You know, there's a real good argument that it's a bad idea to have these interim title shots.

01:54:09.000 Because, you know, like, okay, well, what's the rules?

01:54:11.000 You just decide when to have an interim shot?

01:54:13.000 Especially with a guy like Tony Ferguson, right?

01:54:15.000 He beats Kevin Lee, spectacular fight, triangles him off his back.

01:54:19.000 Lost to Noah.

01:54:19.000 Lost to nobody, won the interim title, and then you strip it because he falls down during a promotion?

01:54:26.000 He trips on some wires? 0.97

01:54:28.000 I mean, it's not like he went and did something stupid outside of fighting. 0.96

01:54:33.000 He was just doing a promotion and tripped on some wires. 0.99

01:54:37.000 Freak accident.

01:54:38.000 And really, if we move away all other things and just look at the systems at play and how and why it's there, if he had another 2 million Instagram followers, that would not happen.

01:54:49.000 You're right.

01:54:50.000 And that's it.

01:54:50.000 You're right.

01:54:51.000 It's strictly that.

01:54:52.000 That is true, right?

01:54:53.000 Yeah.

01:54:53.000 If Tony was a giant, huge star, there's no way they would strip him.

01:54:57.000 No.

01:54:57.000 Yeah.

01:54:57.000 No.

01:54:58.000 But by not being...

01:54:59.000 Because he's a character.

01:55:01.000 He's an oddball.

01:55:02.000 He's unique.

01:55:03.000 He's one of a kind.

01:55:04.000 We should celebrate that.

01:55:06.000 He's one of a kind.

01:55:07.000 He's an individual.

01:55:08.000 He's different than everybody.

01:55:09.000 That's a good thing.

01:55:10.000 Also, if you're going to strip Conor, which they did, and you have Khabib fight for the title, the true title, and, you know, look, that's arguable whether or not you should do that.

01:55:18.000 It should probably be two interim fights or two interim titles.

01:55:21.000 Which would be cool.

01:55:22.000 He's not beating the champion.

01:55:24.000 If he didn't beat the champion, he beat Al Iaquinta.

01:55:26.000 How is him beating Al Iaquinta more valid than Tony beating Kevin Lee?

01:55:30.000 That's crazy.

01:55:31.000 It isn't.

01:55:32.000 It's crazy.

01:55:33.000 It doesn't make any sense. 0.98

01:55:33.000 I mean, no taking anything away against Al, but Al took that fight on fucking one day's notice. 0.98

01:55:38.000 That's even more ridiculous. 0.99

01:55:40.000 And awesome. 0.97

01:55:41.000 Yeah.

01:55:41.000 And awesome.

01:55:42.000 And awesome.

01:55:42.000 I mean, it was a great fight, too.

01:55:43.000 It was really fun.

01:55:44.000 Well, there's there's a bunch of yeah, it was really fun and I like Ally Quint is another one of these guys.

01:55:50.000 How can you not be inspired seeing a guy that's like Life is traveling along and all of a sudden you have this one shot at something.

01:55:59.000 You're not ready You don't have you haven't prepared in the ways you want but you know what I'm gonna go for right that's a life lesson you know and there's also like There's a forgiving nature to this machine that is kind of admirable.

01:56:12.000 Like, Al has created problems.

01:56:14.000 Al has had conflict with that company.

01:56:16.000 And then they were still like, you know what, let's do this.

01:56:20.000 You know why they did it, though?

01:56:22.000 They did it because they wouldn't use Paul Felder. 1.00

01:56:26.000 The fucking Athletic Commission and all their ridiculous... 1.00

01:56:29.000 I mean, all their... 1.00

01:56:33.000 They decided that Paul Felder isn't ranked high enough. 0.99

01:56:37.000 You don't know shit. 0.98

01:56:38.000 They don't even know where rankings come from, which is a bunch of people hanging out who kind of watch fighting a bunch and making an arbitrary choice and then combining it. 0.99

01:56:46.000 Do you know what a first-class noticer is?

01:56:49.000 Have you ever heard this term?

01:56:51.000 A first-class noticer in business or any number of things is somebody who, over time, you start to see the different systems and how they interact with each other.

01:57:01.000 And you are one.

01:57:11.000 Right, right.

01:57:27.000 And he's a dangerous fight for anybody at 155, including Khabib.

01:57:31.000 And committed and mentally strong and a striver.

01:57:35.000 And he's a world-class striker. 0.99

01:57:36.000 And his striking is fucking deadly. 0.98

01:57:38.000 And he's not just a striker in terms of punching, like Al. 0.99

01:57:42.000 He's a really nasty kicker.

01:57:44.000 I mean, Al can kick, no doubt about it.

01:57:46.000 But Paul is a bit more achieved.

01:57:49.000 He's got more weapons.

01:57:51.000 More complex.

01:57:52.000 He's like spinning back fists and elbows and knees and nasty leg kicks.

01:57:57.000 And, you know, went three hard rounds with Barboza, went toe-to-toe with him.

01:58:01.000 I mean, he's that good.

01:58:02.000 He's that good on his feet.

01:58:03.000 And smart.

01:58:03.000 Yeah, very smart.

01:58:04.000 He's a great analyst for such a young one.

01:58:06.000 So you're like, how is that possible?

01:58:09.000 Because that's really hard.

01:58:10.000 And it's a different skill set than just being a good fighter.

01:58:13.000 There's language and being able to rationalize things and all these different things.

01:58:16.000 But you look back and he did it on the small leagues.

01:58:20.000 Which he didn't need to do.

01:58:22.000 He pursued because it was of interest to him.

01:58:24.000 He pursued it to get good at it because he loved it, which means he's predisposed to thinking that way.

01:58:30.000 So now you also have a thinker, a fighter, an incredibly dangerous striker, a guy who can play complex games in it, and you, in your infinite wisdom, don't think he can fight Habib because somebody somewhere said that he put a seven next to his name instead of a three.

01:58:46.000 There was a lot of real problems with the Athletic Commission, and we won't go into depth with them.

01:58:51.000 I don't want to cause any problems.

01:58:53.000 But they had some real issues.

01:58:55.000 They're young.

01:58:56.000 They're new.

01:58:56.000 Yeah, there's a lot of nonsense that was going on behind the scenes.

01:58:59.000 But I think that what was interesting about that fight was we got to see Al step up, we got to see Khabib have some issues with striking, and we got to see...

01:59:11.000 I mean...

01:59:13.000 What I don't like about it is the whole championship thing.

01:59:18.000 What I don't like about it is he didn't beat a champion to become a champion.

01:59:21.000 They just sort of set this fight up.

01:59:23.000 Al wasn't preparing for that fight.

01:59:25.000 He was preparing for a three-round fight.

01:59:27.000 And then Tony gets stripped.

01:59:29.000 All those things I don't like.

01:59:30.000 Yeah, because they don't make any sense.

01:59:33.000 Yeah, they don't make any sense.

01:59:33.000 They don't really make any sense.

01:59:34.000 Because if we have some kind of value root of what we're about other than the necessity to sell things based on the same marketing that we've used, we wouldn't have to be in that situation.

01:59:46.000 But we find ourselves there.

01:59:48.000 And when you're on the bottom of half guard, you just have to work your way out of half guard.

01:59:53.000 And that's what that machine has to do.

01:59:54.000 And that's what Habib has to do.

01:59:56.000 They got an artificial stand-up.

01:59:58.000 Yeah, exactly.

02:00:00.000 They couldn't work their way out of half guard.

02:00:02.000 They got stood up.

02:00:03.000 Yeah, I don't know.

02:00:04.000 I don't know.

02:00:06.000 Wonder Boy and Till.

02:00:07.000 That's a big fight.

02:00:09.000 That's a Saturday.

02:00:10.000 That's chaos.

02:00:11.000 That fight is very interesting to me.

02:00:13.000 I am very, very, very interested in that fight.

02:00:16.000 Me too.

02:00:16.000 Yeah, I want to see what happens when Till fights Wonderboy because I was stunned by how easily Till ran through Cowboy.

02:00:24.000 And Cowboy, in all fairness, is not, in my opinion, a real 170. He's a tweener.

02:00:30.000 I think Cowboy would be a 165. And I think maybe his struggles to make 155 maybe should be 10 pounds heavier.

02:00:38.000 And I think that 10-pound weight class thing is real.

02:00:41.000 I think that's where it should be.

02:00:43.000 Every 10 pounds. 1.00

02:00:44.000 Darren Till is a fucking huge guy. 1.00

02:00:47.000 So is Steve. 0.99

02:00:48.000 Yeah.

02:00:49.000 They're both very tall and strong.

02:00:52.000 But Till regularly is well over 200 pounds.

02:00:57.000 He's walking around at like... 0.99

02:01:00.000 You know, fucking 205 and shit and cutting down to 170. That's a good one, man. 0.99

02:01:05.000 It's a really, you know, there's so many little oddball variables and unknowns, right?

02:01:11.000 Like, we literally, when we go and we look at these, the more you've studied and analyzed and commentated fighting for 20 years of your life, the more you realize how little we actually know.

02:01:23.000 Like, we have about 2 or 7 or 18% of the actual information.

02:01:27.000 You know what I mean?

02:01:28.000 And we're trying to work with it.

02:01:29.000 And the big one, so when Cody fought Dominic, I was like, I just don't see how he can win.

02:01:37.000 I don't see how Cody can win.

02:01:39.000 And then somebody would say, well, why'd he say that?

02:01:41.000 He knocked out all these guys.

02:01:42.000 I'm like, well, yeah, it's hard to get to Dominic.

02:01:44.000 And we've never seen evidence of him doing well after those minutes.

02:01:47.000 The evidence isn't there to see it.

02:01:50.000 Of course, 100% wrong.

02:01:52.000 But you have to go by what evidence you have.

02:01:55.000 What have we seen or what information have we gathered that can allow us to make this decision?

02:02:00.000 To me, Cody Garbrandt did not have, there was no evidence he could beat Dominic.

02:02:04.000 And then, boom, beats up Dominic and you're blown away.

02:02:08.000 And that's an exciting feeling.

02:02:10.000 And that is, I think, what's at play here.

02:02:12.000 Is there any evidence that Darren Till can do what Rory McDonald couldn't do and Jorge Masvidal couldn't do and get to a guy who has that movement, that blitz thinking, that karate, those karate instincts we were talking about?

02:02:25.000 We've seen no real evidence of that.

02:02:28.000 That doesn't mean he can't do it.

02:02:29.000 It doesn't mean he can't do it.

02:02:31.000 But the evidence isn't there.

02:02:33.000 I don't know about that.

02:02:33.000 I was stunned by his ability to close the distance on Cowboy, that nasty left elbow that he landed over the top, the way he put him away.

02:02:41.000 I don't know. 1.00

02:02:42.000 I think that's pretty good evidence that he's a fucking monster. 1.00

02:02:45.000 I agree. 0.99

02:02:45.000 And his fights previous in the UFC as well, although they didn't have a lot of fanfare behind him. 0.99

02:02:50.000 You know, stunning results.

02:02:52.000 And then you talk to people that know him, you know, talk to people that know his striking acumen and people that have seen him in the gym and understand what he's been through in his life.

02:03:00.000 And he's a young guy.

02:03:01.000 I think he's only 25. How old is Darren Till?

02:03:05.000 I'm pretty sure he's 25. He's also never lost, right?

02:03:08.000 Yeah.

02:03:08.000 Never.

02:03:08.000 It's a fucking beast, man.

02:03:10.000 Yeah, and you see the pictures even. 1.00

02:03:11.000 Yeah, 25 years old.

02:03:12.000 That's wild, man.

02:03:13.000 But what I'm saying is, I would not be the slightest bit surprised if he could do it.

02:03:19.000 Because we've seen enough over time to know that what a 23-year-old is capable of, they'll see the whole game differently.

02:03:26.000 They'll see their understanding of where they are in relation to the other guy is so different that one day, all of a sudden, all these 25-year-olds are just so fucking good, and we don't really have the language to explain why.

02:03:41.000 Can we just say, oh, he was able to close the distance on Stephen Thompson?

02:03:45.000 If he does, we'll say yes.

02:03:46.000 But then the question will be, how?

02:03:48.000 When nobody else could do it, how and why could he do it?

02:03:52.000 And that's always what obsesses me.

02:03:55.000 If you see him do it, there is now, the explanation isn't he was better at closing the distance or his range management was excellent.

02:04:02.000 That's true for a bit. 0.99

02:04:03.000 But then my next question the next morning will be like, how the fuck did he do it? 0.97

02:04:07.000 What changed now? 0.90

02:04:09.000 What about the entirety of the game itself, the systems of the relationships of two fighters?

02:04:15.000 What changed in such a way because of his behavior?

02:04:18.000 And that's where it gets to me really, really wild.

02:04:21.000 Because right now, nobody gets to Stephen Thompson.

02:04:24.000 And I mean, nobody really at all.

02:04:26.000 Tyrone has knocked him down twice and had him really badly hurt in both fights.

02:04:29.000 There's 50 minutes.

02:04:30.000 50 minutes.

02:04:31.000 Yeah, but those are the moments in the fight where they engaged.

02:04:34.000 See, the problem with those two Tyron Woodley fights is Woodley fought Wonderboy the right way.

02:04:39.000 That's how you gotta fight him.

02:04:40.000 You don't engage, and when you do engage, you gotta be absolutely convinced you're gonna land.

02:04:44.000 And Tyron did, and did land, and hurt him.

02:04:46.000 I mean, you looked at those two fights, Tyron is the one who's the wrestler, but he's also the one that hurt Wonderboy.

02:04:51.000 Wonderboy never hurt Tyron in those fights.

02:04:54.000 Tyron had him very close to being out.

02:04:57.000 I just wonder if Wonderboy is starting to slip.

02:05:01.000 You've got to wonder.

02:05:02.000 You've got to wonder if all his years of combat sports, all of his years of kickboxing.

02:05:07.000 I mean, you've got to remember this guy has one of the most spectacular kickboxing records ever.

02:05:10.000 I mean, what is he, like 57-0 or something like that in kickboxing?

02:05:14.000 And then he gets into MMA and he loses to Matt Brown.

02:05:19.000 He gets kind of beat up on the ground.

02:05:21.000 Comes back, has some really good fights, and, you know, has been in there with world-class fighters and beaten some world-class fighters.

02:05:28.000 But he's also, I want to say, he's 34, 35, right?

02:05:32.000 Yeah, he's getting there.

02:05:32.000 And those are a lot of fights.

02:05:33.000 Although, until those three examples, he didn't really get hit all that much.

02:05:39.000 But it's still the wear and tear on your body.

02:05:40.000 How old is Steven Thompson?

02:05:41.000 Find out how old Wonderboy is.

02:05:42.000 The hips.

02:05:42.000 I want to say, he might even be 35. Yeah.

02:05:44.000 The hips and the knees and the shoulders and that whole thing.

02:05:49.000 And there's also that he developed mastery in what he does.

02:05:56.000 And once you've developed that elite, elite, top level of reached your highest potential, it's hard to keep going.

02:06:04.000 And then the masses start to close that distance.

02:06:07.000 The general young kid start, you know, a kid at TriStar, like some of their young guys, they have that, and they've had Thompson in there for years, and Faraz has been able to study people like that up close, and they all studied Lyoto.

02:06:20.000 Now the young guy can do a lot of those things at a much higher level than fighters that came before them.

02:06:26.000 So your level of mastery starts, you plateau to a point that it's hard to go beyond.

02:06:31.000 It's really hard work, and sometimes it requires you to get a little shittier.

02:06:35.000 For a bit to go past that plateau, to weaken or get worse by having to re-examine what you believe and the way that you train or the way that you fight.

02:06:45.000 To break through a plateau, you've got to kind of be willing to go backwards a bit.

02:06:49.000 And when you're fighting Tyron Woodley's other world, you cannot go backwards.

02:06:52.000 So it kind of stalls you there.

02:06:55.000 But ultimately, the big question also is, is there some other strategy that hasn't yet been done that is a Stephen Thompson beater?

02:07:03.000 And that low leg kick you talked about, so I cannot get to your – so what would I prefer when I'm fighting Stephen Thompson?

02:07:11.000 Body lock.

02:07:11.000 If I can get to the body lock, I'll rip him down.

02:07:13.000 To get to a body like I got to touch him. 0.55

02:07:15.000 That's really hard.

02:07:16.000 He stops me from doing that. 0.99

02:07:18.000 Or I got to hit him or kick him. 0.89

02:07:20.000 But when I do that, he moves away and hits. 0.91

02:07:22.000 What if I can just get to the edge of his sort of bubble of that hot range where he can hurt you?

02:07:29.000 And maybe that low leg kick is a part of that.

02:07:32.000 Maybe that low leg kick just getting on the outside of it where you're still somewhat safe, but you can smash him up a little bit.

02:07:38.000 Maybe there's a weapon that hasn't been used.

02:07:40.000 Well, this is also arguably the best striker that Wonderboy's ever faced in MMA. Arguably, right?

02:07:48.000 I mean, Masvidal is a very talented striker as well, but Wonderboy is a master of that front leg, and that front leg is a real tricky one.

02:07:57.000 Because that karate style that he uses, he keeps his hands down low, he stands totally sideways on you, and you've got to get past that front leg side kick.

02:08:05.000 And Johnny couldn't get past it.

02:08:06.000 Hendrix got lit up by that front leg side kick and then front roundhouse kick to the face right afterwards.

02:08:11.000 It's just, there's a lot going on with that front leg if you're not used to that.

02:08:15.000 And then if you get too obsessed with it, the back leg comes.

02:08:18.000 Yeah.

02:08:19.000 Till is a way better master of distance.

02:08:24.000 He understands distance and strike and knows how to close that distance with explosive power.

02:08:29.000 Very interesting.

02:08:30.000 Really interesting.

02:08:31.000 And before he fought Cowboy, his successes were fighting at distance and smashing guys who came in.

02:08:37.000 So he does do that game.

02:08:39.000 He does.

02:08:40.000 By doing it, you understand it on a different level.

02:08:43.000 You connect to it.

02:08:44.000 He does it in a Muay Thai way, whereas Wonderboy does it in a karate way.

02:08:48.000 And Wonderboy is fantastic at moving his waist back and forth like a snake.

02:08:53.000 Tony's really good at that, too.

02:08:55.000 Yes. 0.98

02:08:55.000 Tony Ferguson's really fucking good at that. 0.98

02:08:57.000 Yeah, yeah. 0.95

02:08:58.000 And that, so when I get to go study sanda and kung fu and wushu, there are, you know, some of my friends are like, well, you know, like, enjoy it. 0.73

02:09:08.000 I'm like, No, there's going to be some brilliant shit to learn over here.

02:09:11.000 And some of that long fist stuff, like people will often say, well, Kung Fu's not super relevant. 0.93

02:09:16.000 Some of that long fist reaching where I move my body through space to reach you, which people would say is dangerous, you get countered.

02:09:23.000 The answer is don't get countered.

02:09:25.000 The answer isn't discard a valuable weapon.

02:09:28.000 And so you see some of that.

02:09:29.000 Tony does that stuff regularly.

02:09:30.000 Really, really, really well.

02:09:32.000 He does a lot of kung fu.

02:09:32.000 It's really cool.

02:09:33.000 He does.

02:09:33.000 See him work with the Wing Chun dummy?

02:09:34.000 Yeah, that's cool, man.

02:09:35.000 Yeah, he does a lot of that stuff.

02:09:37.000 Wing Chun, too.

02:09:38.000 When I'm sitting in your guard wanting to beat you up, tell me that isn't Wing Chun, just we're attached.

02:09:43.000 That's what that is.

02:09:44.000 That's what that is, right?

02:09:45.000 Yeah, I mean, there's techniques in every single art that are like an established, realistic art that are valuable.

02:09:52.000 And there's got to be something in Wing Chun that people are missing.

02:09:55.000 For sure.

02:09:56.000 For sure.

02:09:57.000 It's there.

02:09:58.000 I mean...

02:10:00.000 Arts like that, people would look at and might discard because they would think they're limited to only this scenario.

02:10:06.000 Well, that scenario happens.

02:10:08.000 I'm in your guard and I want to fight.

02:10:10.000 That's that scenario.

02:10:11.000 So that thing may not be useful to fight Frank Mir, but that thing will be useful in a context when you're fighting a guy like that.

02:10:19.000 Well, how about John Jones' use of you grab his wrist and he comes over the top with an elbow?

02:10:24.000 Yeah.

02:10:24.000 I mean, that is hand trapping.

02:10:26.000 Yeah, for sure.

02:10:27.000 I mean, it really is what it is.

02:10:28.000 Or when he glovered Teixeira.

02:10:30.000 Oh, yeah.

02:10:30.000 That's limb destruction.

02:10:31.000 Yep, yep.

02:10:31.000 That's old school limb destruction.

02:10:33.000 How and why that hasn't been...

02:10:35.000 Rabbit-holed a lot more.

02:10:37.000 Although you do start to see that in that moment where I get to four points and I'm going to stand up and you just kind of decide, okay, that's all right, we'll get back to the fence.

02:10:47.000 In that process of standing up, a lot of guys throw a fight-finishing kick there or just at least take that chance to smash your leg with one.

02:10:55.000 There's free shots that exist in these moments and Jon Jones is a master of finding them.

02:11:00.000 He really is. 0.97

02:11:01.000 Yeah, I hope they figure out what the fuck they're going to do with him soon.

02:11:05.000 I don't know where they stand now in terms of his suspension or what have you, but here's my ultimate goal, my hope, my dream, is that Cormier fights Stipe for the heavyweight title, and somewhere around then they announce when Jon Jones' suspension is up,

02:11:25.000 they announce Jon Jones versus Brock Lesnar.

02:11:27.000 Oh, man.

02:11:28.000 Love it.

02:11:29.000 I love it.

02:11:30.000 I mean, look at their body types and look at what they are and where they come from.

02:11:34.000 I mean, I love it.

02:11:36.000 But I know you've sat down with John and stuff.

02:11:39.000 What did he feel like?

02:11:43.000 Do you know what I mean?

02:11:43.000 What read did you get from him?

02:11:47.000 Did you feel like he was saying the things that he thought you wanted to hear?

02:11:51.000 Or did you feel he was being honest and genuine?

02:11:53.000 He's...

02:11:53.000 Definitely both.

02:11:54.000 He's being honest and he's also had some things that he planned out.

02:11:58.000 I like John a lot.

02:11:59.000 I really love that guy.

02:12:00.000 But I think he surrounds himself with a bunch of knuckleheads.

02:12:03.000 I think he's around too many people that are of bad influence and I think he's a wild man.

02:12:10.000 And I think when he's a wild man around other people that are sort of indulging that stuff with him...

02:12:15.000 This is the word that I get not just from what I know, but from the people that know him very well.

02:12:21.000 Is that he's just around the wrong people.

02:12:23.000 You know, he's got bad influences.

02:12:24.000 And, I mean, if you can identify that, then you must change it.

02:12:29.000 Yeah, it's not to take any personal responsibility away from him either, because I'm sure he also makes for a bad influence to them. 0.97

02:12:37.000 I mean, if the fucking baddest man on the planet can live like this, I'll live like this too. 1.00

02:12:41.000 Fuck it. 1.00

02:12:41.000 Let's do more coke. 1.00

02:12:43.000 You know, let's party harder.

02:12:44.000 Let's drive fast.

02:12:45.000 Let's go drunk.

02:12:46.000 I don't know.

02:12:48.000 You know, I don't know what the answer is for a guy like John, I really don't know.

02:12:53.000 He's got to have that come to Jesus moment.

02:12:56.000 Or not. 0.98

02:12:57.000 Maybe he just keeps doing what he's doing and keeps beating everybody's ass and people keep forgiving him and hopefully he doesn't wind up in jail. 0.98

02:13:04.000 But he should for sure get a driver. 0.99

02:13:07.000 For sure get someone to fucking drive him around. 1.00

02:13:09.000 That's a good band-aid but it's not going to be the problem solver. 0.98

02:13:12.000 The truth is I think I mean, we get to live the life that we want.

02:13:18.000 We get to choose the things that we do.

02:13:21.000 To a certain extent.

02:13:22.000 Yeah, to a certain extent.

02:13:23.000 I know free will is something that you've discussed, and it's a fascinating concept.

02:13:28.000 But to some degree, we are authoring our own lives.

02:13:32.000 And if it isn't going the way that you want it, small, tiny changes can push it a different way.

02:13:38.000 Yeah.

02:13:39.000 It's a matter of whether or not he's willing to make those changes.

02:13:42.000 And right now, I'm sure he just wants to get his license back.

02:13:46.000 But when I see him having these battles back and forth with Chuck Liddell online, I'm like...

02:13:53.000 You gotta walk away from that.

02:13:55.000 Chuck Liddell is an old warrior who's clearly taking too many shots.

02:14:01.000 Calling him an old man and saying all this stuff.

02:14:05.000 It's like, just be the better man in this situation.

02:14:09.000 You're at the top of the heap right now, at the top of your game.

02:14:12.000 You don't want some young guy doing this to you 15 years from now, talking to you that way.

02:14:18.000 These are the dark days.

02:14:21.000 But when we turn the TV on, I don't care if you watch CNN or Fox or CNBC or whatever, or the NFL or hockey or fighting or whatever, a lot of what we see is a bunch of heads who somebody has said, you choose different sides, or they know that's what they should do,

02:14:37.000 and then they just argue.

02:14:38.000 And we watch it, we're taught it, we see it every single day all the time.

02:14:42.000 Does that drive you crazy?

02:14:42.000 It drives me crazy when it comes to fighting.

02:14:45.000 The sports guy talk...

02:14:47.000 That drives me nuts when it comes to fighting because they have this sort of robotic, predetermined pattern of behavior that they apply to football and baseball.

02:14:59.000 I just feel like fighting is more personal, more intimate.

02:15:04.000 There's more on the line.

02:15:05.000 There's more at stake.

02:15:06.000 It means more to me.

02:15:07.000 And when I see that Dopey sports guy jock talk applied to fighting.

02:15:12.000 It makes me angry.

02:15:13.000 It makes me angry, too.

02:15:15.000 But for different reasons as well.

02:15:17.000 One is this doesn't apply exactly as you said.

02:15:22.000 And the other one is, does it even apply to football or anything?

02:15:24.000 Because it's ritualistic.

02:15:26.000 Like, it acts as if this show doesn't exist.

02:15:29.000 The reason it looks...

02:15:31.000 So we were talking about how things' meanings change.

02:15:33.000 Once upon a time, that was a professional speaker.

02:15:35.000 Yeah.

02:15:35.000 Now that is a rehearsed, over-strategized, constructed, artificial speaker.

02:15:40.000 In a world where someone watches the fucking Joe Rogan podcast or goes on and sees Dwayne training guys or watches a supermodel on Instagram or sees what The Rock is cooking, like I said, we see real people everywhere. 0.88

02:15:53.000 So now this becomes ritualistic and artificial. 0.98

02:15:57.000 You know what it is, man?

02:15:57.000 It's a strip club DJ. Hey, coming to the top stage!

02:16:00.000 It's like that predetermined sort of pattern of behavior.

02:16:05.000 They adopt this pattern.

02:16:07.000 And, you know, there's a lot of people that adopt that sports guy pattern. 0.98

02:16:11.000 And there's a lot of shitty writers that do it, too. 0.98

02:16:13.000 Sure! 0.99

02:16:14.000 And they apply that insulting style of writing to combat sports. 0.99

02:16:19.000 And some of them have never been inside a cage in their fucking life. 0.99

02:16:23.000 Most of them. 0.99

02:16:23.000 And barely even trained. 0.99

02:16:24.000 Yeah.

02:16:24.000 No, it's...

02:16:26.000 If you... 1.00

02:16:27.000 If you have not been kicked in the fucking head in front of your mother, you have no right to criticize. 1.00

02:16:33.000 My mother never saw me fight. 1.00

02:16:35.000 I fucking got... 0.99

02:16:36.000 Oh, God. 0.99

02:16:37.000 I got...

02:16:38.000 I wouldn't want that pressure.

02:16:40.000 So a couple of punches happen and I get caught in a guillotine.

02:16:43.000 And I'm thinking I'm okay and I'm driving my shoulder in and then I start to go out and I'm just...

02:16:47.000 And I kind of hit him and then I tap. 0.93

02:16:49.000 And I look up and my mom is right fucking there. 1.00

02:16:52.000 She's right there. 0.98

02:16:53.000 And...

02:16:54.000 My mom, my family is wonderful, right?

02:16:57.000 Like, I got the best wife that humans have ever had, and my parents, and her parents, I'm surrounded by great people.

02:17:03.000 And I know that my mother literally was looking at me like, I'm proud of you, you know, don't worry, this happens.

02:17:10.000 But my memory has her going... 0.99

02:17:14.000 Well, she's probably just sad.

02:17:17.000 Sure she's going to shake her head.

02:17:18.000 She's sad.

02:17:19.000 Yeah, but if you haven't been through that, if you haven't experienced failure, if you haven't been carried out on a stretcher as everybody boos you or felt victory or been terrified, you cannot logically criticize them because you don't understand.

02:17:35.000 Even if you haven't done it, if you have some respect for it, I respect you.

02:17:40.000 Just understand what they're going through.

02:17:42.000 I don't think you necessarily have to have gone to war to be a war correspondent to understand it, to talk about it.

02:17:47.000 You don't have to have shot someone to be able to understand what people are going through, or at least try to comprehend it, but have some respect about it.

02:17:56.000 There's a way to criticize technique and movement without being insulting.

02:18:00.000 And I think this is a part of the problem.

02:18:02.000 The sports guy attitude is an insulting attitude.

02:18:06.000 It's a judgmental one.

02:18:07.000 Yeah, it's judgmental and mocking.

02:18:09.000 And I think they play to Johnny Lunchbox.

02:18:12.000 I think they play to dum-dums. 1.00

02:18:14.000 And it really hurts my feelings when I see that sort of strategy applied to covering mixed martial arts.

02:18:21.000 Yeah, and like I said, it acts as if, as less and less people consume this older, but valid interface, television, less and less, and more and more are consuming other things that are different and new and stuff.

02:18:39.000 It's bizarre that the old one starts to say, yeah, well, we still do it this way.

02:18:44.000 We're good to go.

02:19:02.000 They haven't evolved.

02:19:03.000 Yeah, you have to.

02:19:04.000 You have to re-step in, and this applies to us all.

02:19:08.000 You have to re-step in, look at where you are and what its meaning is, and realize, oh, technology changed, the audience changed, the world changed, my life changed, the economy changed, the market.

02:19:18.000 All of these things have changed.

02:19:19.000 I'm still the same.

02:19:20.000 I'm a dinosaur.

02:19:21.000 That doesn't make sense.

02:19:22.000 I can't do that.

02:19:23.000 I must change.

02:19:24.000 Right, right.

02:19:24.000 But the reason sports television, the NFL, or many of these things, news, doesn't, is it starts out that there are innovators.

02:19:33.000 So in fighting, it was Dana White and the Fertittas, and you guys, and the vital, young, innovative creators.

02:19:41.000 And then as it grows, you need organized thinkers.

02:19:44.000 You need people who can organize and structure something so that it can grow.

02:19:49.000 The problem is they get really good at structuring hierarchies.

02:19:52.000 They get really good at structuring business in such a way that they are then in charge.

02:19:56.000 And then when it changes, you need those creatives again.

02:19:58.000 But these structure guys are there and they've built these formulas that they are then bound by.

02:20:05.000 Where it's like, well, of course we're starting with the opening shot, and then we're going to go, we're right here in Brazil, shot of Christ the Redeemer, and then we'll go, and here we've got a, oh, it's an unbelievable matchup with the winner gets the title shot.

02:20:16.000 Those are rituals.

02:20:17.000 Those are bizarre, formulaic rituals created when they mattered and they were valuable by highly intelligent people that were required to make this work.

02:20:27.000 But now you need different people.

02:20:28.000 You need a different thought.

02:20:29.000 You need the creatives back in, and they usually don't want that.

02:20:33.000 Yeah, I think I like your point about different approaches.

02:20:37.000 And I think one of the best ways to maybe perhaps have a different approach is to have more intense coverage of training footage.

02:20:45.000 And I think they're doing that with the Embedded series, those online things.

02:20:49.000 I'd like more people to check those out.

02:20:51.000 I think if more people got an understanding of how much is involved in this. 1.00

02:20:55.000 Like when people get injured and pull out of fights, like some people will freak out and complain and write a bunch of stupid shit. 0.99

02:21:01.000 Like, I don't know what happened to Mirko Krokop. 1.00

02:21:03.000 But you can't say anything bad about him.

02:21:06.000 He's a superhero.

02:21:07.000 He's a superhero.

02:21:07.000 If that guy pulls out of a fight, you gotta go, well, he obviously must be too hurt to fight.

02:21:12.000 And this is part of the game. 0.99

02:21:14.000 But I've read some ridiculous shit that people have said about Mirko. 0.97

02:21:18.000 I went to Canelo's page the other day. 0.99

02:21:21.000 Oh my god.

02:21:22.000 There's pictures of Canelo Alvarez and people are, you know, judging his body and saying he looks tiny now and there's all these emojis of pills and needles all throughout his entire Instagram post.

02:21:36.000 The comments are ruthless. 0.98

02:21:39.000 Just ruthlessly fucking insulting. 0.98

02:21:41.000 I mean, this is just the world we live in now. 0.99

02:21:44.000 It is.

02:21:45.000 I did a breakdown on Vitor.

02:21:47.000 And, like, you know, you go in.

02:21:48.000 And Instagram, at least in my experience, is the least negative.

02:21:53.000 Because it's the newest.

02:21:54.000 What's the most negative?

02:21:56.000 Probably YouTube.

02:21:56.000 I agree.

02:21:57.000 Yeah, probably YouTube.

02:21:58.000 Because it's the oldest.

02:21:59.000 Is that what it is?

02:22:00.000 Yeah!

02:22:01.000 Because as things get older, a lot of negativity is around and positive people leave.

02:22:06.000 Positive people leave because they go on, they're on the early part of the technological adoption life cycle.

02:22:12.000 Positive people are innovators and early adopters and they go on to the newer thing.

02:22:17.000 And then you leave behind the people who were negative and made the whole place go septic, and then they just argue with each other.

02:22:22.000 I wonder.

02:22:23.000 I wonder if that's the case.

02:22:24.000 I've never really figured out what is wrong with YouTube comments, but they're so ruthless.

02:22:29.000 Like, whenever I have a liberal woman on, in particular... 1.00

02:22:35.000 Who you have on with an open mind and are interested in their perspective.

02:22:39.000 Some of them are my friends, like Abby Martin. 0.97

02:22:41.000 When she's on, I don't even fucking touch those comments. 0.98

02:22:43.000 Or Whitney. 0.98

02:22:44.000 When Whitney Cummings is on, I don't even...

02:22:45.000 I don't look at the comments, period.

02:22:48.000 But if I did, those would be the last ones that I would look... 0.98

02:22:50.000 Because they've looked at them before, and Whitney contacted me, and she's like, what in the fuck? 0.99

02:22:55.000 And I was like, don't read that shit. 1.00

02:22:57.000 It's like, don't taste the poison. 1.00

02:23:00.000 Wherever the positive people are, if you're going to spend time, and I like to because if 50,000 people watch me do a breakdown, that means a lot to me.

02:23:11.000 And if 60 of them commented, if I can schedule in the day 45 minutes, I'm going to take the time and thank as many of them as I can.

02:23:18.000 But only where the good ones, only where the positive ones are.

02:23:21.000 Not that I want to be reinforced at what I'm doing, but I'm not going to spend the time on people who are going through life so negative that I can't get through to them anyways.

02:23:29.000 Right.

02:23:29.000 Somebody who's going through life looking for something and trying to either be inspired or learn something or be positive.

02:23:36.000 Those are the people that you should spend time with.

02:23:39.000 And it's also like the reverse of giving candy to your kid when they're bad.

02:23:43.000 It's like, don't go give those people candy when they're negative.

02:23:45.000 You want them to get away from that.

02:23:47.000 You want their lives to get better, which you will if they stop having that behavior.

02:23:52.000 Yeah, maybe.

02:23:54.000 Some of them are just so broken.

02:23:56.000 It's just like their structure is so poor.

02:23:59.000 The structure of their thinking is so poor.

02:24:02.000 And, you know, a lot of them are like shut-ins and there's a lot of people with mental illness that are just constantly commenting.

02:24:08.000 For sure. 0.94

02:24:09.000 And then there's the argument to kill the comments, but then people get furious at you.

02:24:14.000 We had an issue for a while, and it was an accidental issue.

02:24:17.000 And the issue was, during the stream, we don't allow the live chat. 1.00

02:24:21.000 Because it was always like, cunt, your mother's a cunt. 1.00

02:24:25.000 It's just poor shit. 1.00

02:24:26.000 Because people were just trying to get attention. 1.00

02:24:28.000 If we read that...

02:24:42.000 That's sad.

02:24:47.000 Or valuable.

02:24:48.000 Because of the fact that we had the comments killed during the live feed, you couldn't chat during the live feed, when we would transfer it over to YouTube, the comments would be disabled, and people went crazy.

02:25:02.000 And I had a tweet about it, but look, I'm not disabling the comments.

02:25:05.000 I don't know what this glitch is, but they're going to figure it out.

02:25:09.000 But Schaub decided to disable his comments on purpose. 0.98

02:25:13.000 And dude, they fucking went crazy. 0.98

02:25:16.000 And they were attacking him. 1.00

02:25:18.000 But what are the numbers that give a shit? 0.97

02:25:21.000 Have you ever commented on a YouTube video? 0.99

02:25:23.000 Have you ever watched a YouTube video and commented on it?

02:25:26.000 I don't think I ever have.

02:25:27.000 I never have either. 0.98

02:25:28.000 I don't know anybody worth a fuck that has. 0.97

02:25:29.000 Like, that's the part of the problem. 0.97

02:25:31.000 It's like, I know there's some really positive comments and people who are healthy people who are just interested in debate and discussion about particular topics, but when you're dealing with all these negative people, like, what are the numbers? 0.75

02:25:42.000 If you have a million people watching a YouTube video, are we talking about a hundred people that are cunts? 1.00

02:25:48.000 A thousand? 0.95

02:25:48.000 Is it even? 0.95

02:25:49.000 I don't even think it's a thousand.

02:25:50.000 Is it two hundred?

02:25:51.000 It might not even be a hundred. 0.99

02:25:52.000 You might be dealing with like thirty cunts. 0.83

02:25:54.000 And they're the ones who are going to be mad that you disable the comments. 0.96

02:25:58.000 But does that really matter? 1.00

02:25:59.000 And is keeping that cesspool open, keeping that commode open for them to dump their fucking verbal diarrhea into, is that giving the kid candy for being an asshole? 1.00

02:26:12.000 Is it the same thing? 1.00

02:26:13.000 Maybe.

02:26:14.000 Maybe.

02:26:14.000 I once saw you stand and talk to 600 people who came to your show.

02:26:21.000 You had an in-depth conversation. 0.99

02:26:23.000 Chemtrails this and fucking fighting that with each of them. 0.96

02:26:26.000 In the eye, you spent for sure four hours when you took a bunch of your friends out for dinner and invited me, which was really cool. 0.95

02:26:33.000 Thank you.

02:26:34.000 I brag about it all the time.

02:26:35.000 And then I saw you walk across.

02:26:37.000 That was four hours for sure.

02:26:39.000 Okay, two to four hours.

02:26:41.000 I don't know the exact number.

02:26:42.000 Then I see you walk across the casino, and in that time, you do it again for another half hour.

02:26:47.000 As, you know, Joey Diaz is like, oh, bro, you know?

02:26:51.000 And then we sit down, and somebody comes over as soon as you sit down, and they say, hey, can I? And you go, fuck off, man, I'm eating. 1.00

02:26:57.000 That's the guy who will tell the world Joe Rogan's an asshole. 1.00

02:27:00.000 Well, I didn't say fuck off. 1.00

02:27:01.000 I said, come on, man, I'm eating. 1.00

02:27:03.000 You can't just stop your meal every time someone comes over.

02:27:07.000 It's a rude thing to ask.

02:27:08.000 There was 800 human deep interactions, meaningful interactions. 1.00

02:27:13.000 That one can fuck off. 1.00

02:27:14.000 Well, I don't want to say fuck off. 1.00

02:27:16.000 I just think that people have this distorted idea of space. 0.99

02:27:21.000 That they should just be able to invade your space while you literally have a mouth full of food.

02:27:25.000 I mean, I've had it happen when I was feeding my daughter.

02:27:28.000 Have her in my lap. 0.96

02:27:29.000 Can I get a selfie?

02:27:30.000 You definitely can't get a selfie right now while I'm feeding my daughter. 1.00

02:27:32.000 Get the fuck out of here, man. 0.99

02:27:34.000 But that's just a misunderstanding of... 0.99

02:27:36.000 Space.

02:27:37.000 Yeah.

02:27:37.000 Of your personal space.

02:27:38.000 You're a human.

02:27:39.000 Yeah.

02:27:39.000 It is a strange thing.

02:27:41.000 I mean, I didn't watch...

02:27:43.000 My wife was asking me, because I was in Singapore, if I watched the Royal Wedding.

02:27:48.000 I'm like, no.

02:27:50.000 I don't get that.

02:27:51.000 I don't understand that at all.

02:27:53.000 I don't understand the motivation for doing it.

02:27:55.000 Me neither.

02:27:55.000 I don't even want to get into it.

02:27:57.000 But those are still humans.

02:27:59.000 Yes.

02:27:59.000 Those are still people.

02:28:01.000 And people don't understand. 1.00

02:28:03.000 That woman shits. 1.00

02:28:05.000 She does. 1.00

02:28:06.000 You know what I mean?

02:28:08.000 They're people.

02:28:09.000 Can you imagine if the person asks you while you're feeding your daughter, if somebody did that, maybe the first time he'd be like, well, I can't believe this guy wants to take a selfie with me.

02:28:17.000 But after that, you're still living your human life.

02:28:20.000 The only one you have.

02:28:21.000 You just can't interrupt people while they're sitting at dinner with their family or with their friends.

02:28:24.000 They're just sitting there cutting food up.

02:28:27.000 They don't owe you that.

02:28:28.000 And you shouldn't ask for that.

02:28:30.000 That's just not the way to do it.

02:28:32.000 It's just not.

02:28:33.000 And you've got to know when people can't stop.

02:28:35.000 They just can't.

02:28:36.000 Just say hi.

02:28:37.000 Can't you just say hi?

02:28:38.000 No one can say hi.

02:28:39.000 Everybody wants to dress up their Facebook. 1.00

02:28:41.000 Everyone needs that fucking selfie. 1.00

02:28:42.000 It's just like... 1.00

02:28:44.000 We're in a weird space with that stuff, that whole social media shit, because people want something from you that they get up to. 0.91

02:28:52.000 It's not just that they're a fan and they want to say hi. 0.97

02:28:55.000 They want something from you to make them look cooler.

02:28:58.000 And it's like you can give them some currency.

02:29:00.000 It's like you're a Pokemon, and they can pick you up and get a point from it.

02:29:04.000 It's weird.

02:29:05.000 It really is.

02:29:05.000 Yeah, it is weird.

02:29:07.000 So I told you I was in... 1.00

02:29:10.000 Oh, shit! 0.99

02:29:11.000 Fabrizio Verdum got flagged. 1.00

02:29:13.000 And he was just going to fight in Russia, I think, against Olnyak.

02:29:16.000 Yeah.

02:29:17.000 Well, that's not happening.

02:29:18.000 That's a wrap.

02:29:19.000 That's a wrap on that.

02:29:20.000 He's 40 years old, trying to compete in something that's a young man's game.

02:29:24.000 That's the thing.

02:29:25.000 It's like...

02:29:26.000 You can get mad, you can get outraged, and that's a reasonable result, a reasonable response if you want.

02:29:33.000 But if you rationalize, if you have empathy, it's like this guy still wants to do this thing that his body won't allow him to do, and so he's willing to bend the rules to attempt it.

02:29:42.000 He failed, and now he's going to have to pay the consequences.

02:29:45.000 Yeah, it's a month after his knockout loss to Volkov.

02:29:48.000 Right. 0.99

02:29:49.000 Volkov fucked him up, man. 1.00

02:29:50.000 That guy's dangerous. 1.00

02:29:52.000 That guy's fucking dangerous. 1.00

02:29:53.000 Big, long, tall, knockout artist. 0.99

02:29:56.000 The heavyweight thing is a whole other thing.

02:29:58.000 It's a whole other thing, man. 0.99

02:29:59.000 And when you get these seven-footers that can kick ass, like Volkov, that's a fucking nightmare. 0.99

02:30:05.000 What is he like? 0.99

02:30:05.000 He's at least 6'11", right? 0.99

02:30:07.000 It's scary.

02:30:08.000 Volkov's...

02:30:08.000 How tall is he?

02:30:09.000 He's a big guy.

02:30:10.000 He's bigger than Verdum by a lot.

02:30:12.000 So call it 6'6", 6'7".

02:30:13.000 Somewhere in that range, right?

02:30:15.000 And Verdum is, what, 6'4", right?

02:30:17.000 Yeah.

02:30:17.000 Somewhere around that range?

02:30:18.000 Have you ever met Brett Rogers?

02:30:20.000 Who's Brett Rogers?

02:30:21.000 The wrestler?

02:30:22.000 No, Brett Rogers fought...

02:30:24.000 Oh, Brett Grimm Rogers?

02:30:26.000 Yeah.

02:30:26.000 Yeah, fought Fedor.

02:30:27.000 Strikeforce.

02:30:28.000 Yeah, that guy.

02:30:29.000 That's the biggest person I've ever met.

02:30:31.000 Really?

02:30:31.000 Yeah.

02:30:31.000 I don't know what it was about his frame, but I was trying to interview...

02:30:35.000 And he was only 6'9 or 6'8 or something, but it was the physical frame of him.

02:30:40.000 And I was just like...

02:30:41.000 It was so wild.

02:30:42.000 I saw Triple H in a restaurant one time, and I was like...

02:30:44.000 Whoa, like giant dude.

02:30:45.000 Yeah, these big athletes like this, like what the force that they can generate, like Ngannou, that ability to create that type of power and impact.

02:30:56.000 There's a crazy picture of Ngannou standing next to a professional basketball player, and Ngannou looks like a tiny person.

02:31:02.000 It's so weird.

02:31:04.000 Ngannou looks like I look when I stand next to him. 0.98

02:31:07.000 I mean, not quite as much contrast, but pretty ridiculous. 0.98

02:31:10.000 There it is. 0.92

02:31:10.000 Look at that. 0.92

02:31:11.000 What?

02:31:12.000 That's absurd. 1.00

02:31:14.000 Fucking crazy. 0.99

02:31:15.000 There's more always, but I have a Chihuahua. 1.00

02:31:18.000 I have a Chihuahua, and you have your dog.

02:31:21.000 You put them beside each other, and you're like, that can't be the same species. 0.88

02:31:24.000 I know.

02:31:24.000 It's weird, right?

02:31:25.000 Humans are just like dogs in that way.

02:31:27.000 We vary so wildly in our size.

02:31:30.000 Hey, listen, dude.

02:31:31.000 Let's wrap this up.

02:31:32.000 Tell people where they can get your breakdowns and your MMA stuff.

02:31:37.000 If you're from Dublin, Ireland, I'm there doing my one-man show June 22nd.

02:31:41.000 How often are you doing this?

02:31:42.000 I'm doing...

02:31:43.000 This will be the fifth, I think.

02:31:44.000 Nice.

02:31:45.000 And there was one practice, one sort of friends and family.

02:31:48.000 I learned a lot from it.

02:31:49.000 Then Winnipeg, then London, Ontario.

02:31:50.000 And I did because I knew, you know, hominic. 0.69

02:31:53.000 And I've got some good friends there that would be supportive.

02:31:55.000 And that was good.

02:31:56.000 Then I sold out a little venue in Toronto.

02:31:58.000 It went really, really well.

02:32:00.000 And then now Ireland.

02:32:01.000 Nice.

02:32:01.000 So the 22nd in Ireland.

02:32:04.000 On my Instagram page, you can click through.

02:32:06.000 And John Cavanaugh is going to be my guest.

02:32:08.000 Beautiful.

02:32:08.000 Do you have a website that people can go to?

02:32:10.000 It's coming up.

02:32:10.000 Okay.

02:32:11.000 Okay.

02:32:11.000 It literally could be coming up today or in the next couple of days.

02:32:14.000 I think it's robinblackmma.com.

02:32:16.000 And robinblackmma on Twitter.

02:32:17.000 Yeah, and Instagram.

02:32:19.000 And if you follow me on Instagram, I set out to do 100 breakdowns in three months, and I've done 118 in three months.

02:32:25.000 That's how you try to develop mastery.

02:32:27.000 You've just got to be prolific and try.

02:32:28.000 Well, it's also how you develop a great following, you know?

02:32:31.000 It's awesome.

02:32:31.000 Appreciate you, bro.

02:32:32.000 Thanks, brother.

02:32:32.000 Thanks.

02:32:33.000 Let's do this again.

02:32:33.000 Please.

02:32:34.000 Robin Black, ladies and gentlemen.

02:32:35.000 Woo! 0.99

The Joe Rogan Experience - May 22, 2018

JRE MMA Show #27 with Robin Black

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript