The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #48 with Henry Cejudo & Eric Albarracin

00:00:15.000 That's right.

00:00:17.000 Captain Eric Albaracin.

00:00:18.000 Henry's coach.

00:00:20.000 What do you do with him specifically?

00:00:23.000 Well, I've been with him since 2004 and recently became his coach right before the first Demetrius Johnson fight, and I'm his head coach for MMA. And you're in disguise in case some other athletes try to swipe you.

00:00:35.000 And it's Halloween.

00:00:36.000 Happy Halloween, everybody.

00:00:37.000 Happy Halloween, folks.

00:00:38.000 So, first of all, man, congratulations on your victory.

00:00:43.000 What does it feel like?

00:00:44.000 Oh man, it feels good.

00:00:48.000 It feels good.

00:00:48.000 Try to keep this fist away from your face.

00:00:50.000 Yeah, it feels good because it's...

00:00:53.000 God, it's...

00:00:54.000 I think as a competitor, you live for these moments.

00:00:57.000 You live for these fulfillments, you know?

00:00:59.000 Yeah.

00:01:00.000 I think somebody like...

00:01:01.000 And I told people since the beginning, it wasn't so much...

00:01:04.000 You know, the UFC belt, but it was because I made it about Demetrius, and it was about Demetrius.

00:01:09.000 Well, I mean, he is widely considered to be the best pound-for-pound fighter ever, and you're the first guy not only to beat him, but the first guy who, not just to beat him, but beat him in like 11 years, but the first guy to win an Olympic gold medal in wrestling and a UFC championship.

00:01:26.000 I mean, those are two gigantic accomplishments.

00:01:30.000 Yeah, no, for sure.

00:01:31.000 It's almost like, God, I beat the greatest, to me, the greatest of all time.

00:01:36.000 And then on top of that, I can make the run for who's the greatest combat athlete of all time.

00:01:43.000 I'm a two-sport world champion.

00:01:45.000 I'm just like...

00:01:46.000 Yeah.

00:01:46.000 I mean, you're absolutely in the running now.

00:01:49.000 I mean, if he's not the greatest of all time, I think he is, but the argument is that he didn't face people as good as Jon Jones faced, and then Fedor and Anderson Silva are the other people that are in consideration for the greatest of all time.

00:02:04.000 I mean, it's just a subjective argument.

00:02:07.000 I mean, who knows who's right, but obviously you beat, without a doubt, one of the best ever.

00:02:14.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:02:14.000 And like I would tell people, there's a bit of admiration that I had for Demetrius Johnson.

00:02:21.000 Like I was...

00:02:22.000 It was like, you know, you're fighting a dude that almost seems untouchable.

00:02:28.000 A guy that makes you question yourself.

00:02:30.000 Like, whoa, this is...

00:02:32.000 This guy is that good.

00:02:34.000 Well, what's crazy is you beat him after he had stopped you.

00:02:37.000 How long?

00:02:38.000 Was it two years?

00:02:40.000 Close to about two and a half years ago now.

00:02:43.000 I think two years and four months.

00:02:46.000 That's an amazing turnaround between getting stopped in the first round and then coming back and beating him.

00:02:53.000 And then beating him in the championship rounds is really where you pulled it off.

00:02:57.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:02:59.000 Absolutely.

00:02:59.000 I had studied Demetrius Johnson.

00:03:01.000 As soon as I lost him the first time, what I pretty much did is I got rid of a lot of people, including my MMA head coach.

00:03:10.000 My whole philosophy was if I can't be the best, then there's something wrong.

00:03:14.000 You know, emotionally, physically, everything else, just invested.

00:03:18.000 And when I lost, I'm just like, man, I need a...

00:03:21.000 I'm looking for a better leader, you know?

00:03:24.000 And that's kind of what I did.

00:03:26.000 I ended up, you know, letting go a lot of my cornermen.

00:03:29.000 You know, I started traveling the world.

00:03:31.000 Went out to Singapore, went out to Thailand, went out to the Netherlands, spent months and months at a time out in Brazil.

00:03:40.000 Like, I was on a quest.

00:03:42.000 It was like the...

00:03:43.000 I kind of remind myself a little bit like Ash Ketchum from Pokemon.

00:03:46.000 Like, I was just on a venture dude.

00:03:48.000 I have no idea who that is, but...

00:03:49.000 Vision Quest.

00:03:51.000 Vision Quest.

00:03:52.000 The Matthew Modine movie.

00:03:54.000 Every wrestler has to watch that movie.

00:03:58.000 And that's...

00:03:59.000 Like I said, it became an exception.

00:04:01.000 I knew that if anybody could do it, it'd be Henry Sehudo.

00:04:04.000 Like, I really did.

00:04:05.000 Even after the first time, Joe, when he beat me...

00:04:09.000 I still, when they asked me, it's like, Henry, you know, like, I was like, guys, I don't know, but I still know that I could beat him.

00:04:16.000 Even being knocked out, like, two minutes and 36 seconds.

00:04:19.000 Like, I still knew in my heart, and you'll see when I sat at their press conference, I know I'm still the one to beat him.

00:04:26.000 What was it about him that made you think that you could beat him?

00:04:29.000 What was it about you, specifically, in relation to him and his skill set?

00:04:35.000 It was...

00:04:36.000 If you're asking me what the difference was...

00:04:40.000 Yeah, well, what was it that made you think, even after he stopped you in the first round?

00:04:44.000 Oh, God.

00:04:46.000 I think it was more so just believing in my abilities.

00:04:50.000 I think me just believing more, okay, Henry, you need time.

00:04:53.000 Like, I was only doing MMA for three years when I fought him the first time.

00:04:56.000 Yeah, a lot of people don't know that.

00:04:57.000 Yeah, three years.

00:04:58.000 They assume you see you fighting for the title, not once, but twice, that you've probably been doing MMA for a long-ass time.

00:05:03.000 But when you fought him for the first time, that's a very short amount of time to be fighting in MMA. Especially against a caliber athlete like Demetrius.

00:05:12.000 What year did you win the Olympics?

00:05:15.000 In 2008. Yeah, see, that is...

00:05:18.000 I mean, when you're doing that, you're 100% dedicated to wrestling.

00:05:22.000 You have to be, right?

00:05:23.000 So were you doing any striking training at all back then?

00:05:27.000 I did, I did.

00:05:28.000 What happened was, once I won the Olympics, I almost kind of...

00:05:31.000 I fell out of love with the sport.

00:05:34.000 I fell out of love with wrestling.

00:05:35.000 I remember being at the Olympics.

00:05:38.000 And being like, man, I don't know if I have it in me no more.

00:05:41.000 Just because you're burnt out?

00:05:42.000 Yeah.

00:05:43.000 My whole childhood was gone because of the sport.

00:05:46.000 Take that crazy mask off, brother.

00:05:47.000 What are you doing?

00:05:50.000 Anyway, I've been waiting for you to say that.

00:05:54.000 How about that?

00:05:55.000 We'll do it in stages.

00:06:00.000 So you fell out of love with it.

00:06:03.000 I fell out of love with it.

00:06:04.000 But is it just because your whole life had been dedicated to wrestling and you finally achieved the greatest of great goals?

00:06:10.000 Yeah.

00:06:10.000 Olympic gold medalist is the top of the mountain.

00:06:12.000 No, but check this out, Joe.

00:06:15.000 In the year of 2007, man, I went through the worst year ever.

00:06:20.000 I was ready to become a world champion, and I went out to the world championships in 2007, and I didn't even score a point in the first round.

00:06:28.000 I got put out by Iran, and for some reason that whole year, man, I was just going through freaking struggles left and right.

00:06:35.000 You're talking about just adversity.

00:06:36.000 I couldn't win a tournament to save my life.

00:06:38.000 What was it?

00:06:40.000 I don't know.

00:06:41.000 I don't know.

00:06:42.000 I truly, truly don't know.

00:06:44.000 I think I was...

00:06:45.000 I think I probably began kind of falling out of love with it.

00:06:49.000 And I remember there was...

00:06:50.000 To me, there was only two tournaments that I really wanted to win.

00:06:52.000 And that was the Olympic trials and eventually the Olympic Games.

00:06:57.000 And somehow, like...

00:06:58.000 Because I'm correlating this with the fight with Demetrius Johnson.

00:07:02.000 And I remember, you know, just almost being in tears.

00:07:07.000 Like, I just don't know if this is for me.

00:07:09.000 But I just stuck with it.

00:07:11.000 I stuck with it.

00:07:12.000 I ended up winning the Olympic trials.

00:07:13.000 I ended up going to the Olympic Games.

00:07:15.000 I ended up pretty much falling behind in every single match that I was wrestling in.

00:07:20.000 So these are kind of the adversities that I was going through, leading up to becoming an Olympic champion.

00:07:25.000 You know, it's interesting, when you were fighting Demetrius for the second time, Daniel Cormier said something very interesting.

00:07:32.000 He said, most guys, he goes, I would never give a chance.

00:07:36.000 You get stopped by DJ, and then a couple years later, you're fighting him again?

00:07:42.000 Like, he's going to have your number, he's going to be better in the rematch.

00:07:45.000 And he goes, but Henry Cejudo is a different kind of athlete.

00:07:48.000 And he talked about you competing, and then coming back a year later, and being...

00:07:54.000 He goes, he was many times better.

00:07:56.000 He goes, the amount of improvement that he got in just one year was just unbelievable.

00:08:02.000 Yeah, and I think, you know, I guess you can owe that to genetics.

00:08:05.000 I think you can talk a lot about desire, too, just having the...

00:08:08.000 Genetics only get you so far.

00:08:10.000 Yeah, but it's also...

00:08:11.000 Everybody at the Olympics has great genetics.

00:08:14.000 For sure.

00:08:15.000 But it almost becomes a mentality.

00:08:18.000 It becomes a philosophy.

00:08:20.000 You almost start doing things to not feel the pain of losing.

00:08:29.000 That's a motivator.

00:08:30.000 To not feel the pain of losing.

00:08:31.000 I remember when Demetrius Johnson hit me in the leg.

00:08:35.000 I don't think he pointed out how severe it was.

00:08:38.000 I literally sprained a severe low ankle sprain in those first 30 seconds.

00:08:43.000 In the second fight, yeah.

00:08:45.000 So I fought Demetrius Johnson like that.

00:08:47.000 But to me, the motivator was like, man, I don't want to feel that pain of losing no more.

00:08:52.000 I hate it, man.

00:08:53.000 I hate feeling second place.

00:08:54.000 I hate feeling kind of somebody's looking over me.

00:08:57.000 Someone's almost like a manhood challenge.

00:08:59.000 And I hate that.

00:09:01.000 Was it a low leg kick that...

00:09:04.000 They made your your ankle go like what was it?

00:09:06.000 Yeah, it was there's a nerve that you have behind like the bone.

00:09:10.000 It's a per I think it's the perineal nerve P-E-R Yeah, and I got hit there so I put my foot to sleep Just like when Michael Chandler happened to him and Bellator same thing exactly stepping on it and it's just not working and And the reason why everybody kind of got scared,

00:09:30.000 I mean, because I was hurt, but I remember before the fight, I remember I saw my quarterman, like, kind of, before I fought Demetrius, I remember I saw him all nervous.

00:09:41.000 And I remember grabbing my quarterman and putting him right in front of me.

00:09:44.000 I remember telling him, I was like, hey guys, I've been here before.

00:09:48.000 Like, I was ranked 31st in the world.

00:09:50.000 I know, I became a world champion in wrestling.

00:09:54.000 Guys, I want you guys to have a little faith in me, but I'm going to ask you guys one thing, and I'm going to ask you guys to be composed.

00:10:02.000 I said the key to winning this fight is for me to be composed.

00:10:06.000 And then pretty much, six hours later, right before we walk on, they start playing my song.

00:10:11.000 I looked back at my corner, and I said, guys, the key to this fight, remember, is going to be composure.

00:10:19.000 So when Demetrius Johnson kicked me, I believed in my own philosophy.

00:10:23.000 I went back to, all right, my composure.

00:10:25.000 Because I was hurt, Joe.

00:10:26.000 He could have stopped me that first round.

00:10:28.000 I was forced to switch southpaw, which I never fight in southpaw.

00:10:33.000 You know, so now I'm kind of...

00:10:35.000 Me and Demetria Johnson are playing poker.

00:10:38.000 My whole philosophy and the key to this victory was the composure part.

00:10:42.000 And when he hit me, I really did.

00:10:45.000 I was like, oh my God, dude, not again, dude, not again.

00:10:48.000 I'm not going to last two minutes and 36 seconds, not again.

00:10:51.000 But again, the motivator was not to feel the pain to lose again.

00:10:55.000 Like it wasn't a desire to win.

00:10:57.000 I was like, I just don't want to feel that pain anymore.

00:10:59.000 As a competitor, as somebody that's on a mission, dude, that sacrifices life.

00:11:05.000 Explain to someone who's never experienced that before.

00:11:07.000 What is that pain like?

00:11:08.000 Like you train for how many weeks and then you fight Mighty Mouse with a title, you get stopped in the first round.

00:11:15.000 What is that pain like?

00:11:16.000 Oh man, I think every fighter has a spirit.

00:11:19.000 Like, what is a spirit?

00:11:20.000 The spirit is your dream.

00:11:23.000 The spirit is that, you know, you've watched somebody become a world champion.

00:11:27.000 You want to be, hey, I want to be just like that guy.

00:11:29.000 Your confidence, your self-esteem, that's your spirit, and we also have a spirit of award.

00:11:35.000 That's like the manhood side of it.

00:11:37.000 And what happens when I got stopped with Demetrius Johnson, I almost felt like, and I've never gone through this, not even in wrestling in my life, like my spirit was shot.

00:11:47.000 And I had to kind of pick up my pieces to kind of start healing myself, like mentally.

00:11:52.000 And I feel like, and if you look at it, Joe, somebody like Roy Jones Jr., he got knocked out one time, and it became a domino effect.

00:12:00.000 Yeah.

00:12:01.000 Because he never picked up those pieces.

00:12:03.000 He never started healing that spirit.

00:12:05.000 Well, he got knocked out again real bad right afterwards by Glenn Johnson, too.

00:12:08.000 Remember, there's two knockouts in a row.

00:12:12.000 Tarver.

00:12:13.000 Yeah, Tarver KO'd him.

00:12:15.000 But the thing is, there's a lot of factors involved in that loss because I think Roy was also coming off of the John Ruiz fight where he gained a lot of weight to get up to heavyweight and then he had to lose that weight to get down to light heavyweight again.

00:12:28.000 So he was lean at heavyweight and then all of a sudden he's dropping down to 175 pounds again.

00:12:34.000 And he just looked like shit.

00:12:36.000 He looked smooth.

00:12:38.000 It looked like his body was all sucked in.

00:12:40.000 And I just think it was a bad, bad weight cut.

00:12:43.000 And, you know, I think whatever he took to get himself up to 200 pounds, too, was probably out of his system.

00:12:49.000 And now his body was, you know, his hormones were probably all fucked up.

00:12:52.000 He just wasn't the same guy.

00:12:54.000 I mean, let's be real, right?

00:12:56.000 You don't just...

00:12:58.000 Grow to 200 pounds without some Mexican supplements.

00:13:03.000 You know what I'm saying?

00:13:04.000 It'll take a long fucking time for a 168 pound fighter to get up to 200 pounds. 0.88

00:13:11.000 It takes a long time.

00:13:12.000 If you want to really get up to 200 pounds, like an actual 200 pound body, not just like fill yourself up with water and fat No, to actually be 200 pounds the way he was, your body's got to say, hey man, we need to fucking grow.

00:13:27.000 We got resources that need to be allocated towards muscle.

00:13:31.000 We got to gain all this weight because we're lifting weights all the time.

00:13:35.000 We're doing things.

00:13:36.000 You have to do something to get your body that heavy.

00:13:38.000 So then all of a sudden to shut that shit off and say, all right, now we're getting down to 175 and you got to do it in a few months.

00:13:44.000 I think his body was just wrecked.

00:13:46.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:13:47.000 Boxers don't always cut weight the right way either.

00:13:50.000 Neither do MMA fighters, particularly back in the day, which is really interesting about the approach that you guys took to this camp that you wanted to talk about, which is a very, very scientific approach towards your recovery, towards your training methods, towards everything.

00:14:03.000 I mean, you really had it dialed in as opposed to just trying to wing it, which for many, many years was how almost every fighter did it.

00:14:12.000 Yeah, and I think it's...

00:14:15.000 Oh, we got a video.

00:14:15.000 Look at this.

00:14:17.000 I found that part where he got kicked and you can see the leg.

00:14:18.000 Oh, okay.

00:14:19.000 Let me see it.

00:14:22.000 So it was right there, just the back of the leg like that?

00:14:28.000 That is so crazy.

00:14:29.000 Just one shin to the back of your leg. 0.93

00:14:31.000 But I'm still flopping.

00:14:32.000 I'm still flopping.

00:14:33.000 So I'm going back to that philosophy, composure.

00:14:36.000 Look, I'm still flopping.

00:14:37.000 But it doesn't seem like he understands what's happened to you yet.

00:14:40.000 You played poker so well.

00:14:44.000 Really interesting.

00:14:46.000 Yeah, look, I'm still...

00:14:47.000 I remember as soon as that happened, I did remember the Michael Chandler fight, and I remember he went on a show and said exactly what happened.

00:14:55.000 So I told our other coroner, Santino DeFranco, when we get in, put ice on his knee, not his ankle, because it was the knee where it happened, because I watched that show.

00:15:05.000 And I remember watching it for that reason, to wonder why...

00:15:09.000 What happened to him?

00:15:10.000 It's crazy when you watch it because it's just the foot hit the back of your knee.

00:15:15.000 Yeah.

00:15:15.000 You know?

00:15:16.000 You can see it again.

00:15:17.000 I mean, it wasn't even the hardest kick in the world.

00:15:19.000 He kind of caught you at the very end with his foot.

00:15:22.000 And immediately that nerve just went boing-oing-oing.

00:15:25.000 Right here.

00:15:26.000 Swap.

00:15:26.000 Right there.

00:15:27.000 Barely flicked it.

00:15:29.000 That shit is just like boing-oing-oing.

00:15:31.000 You know who it also happened to was Scott Jorgensen.

00:15:35.000 Did it?

00:15:36.000 What fight was that?

00:15:37.000 Man, you know what?

00:15:38.000 I can't remember, but he didn't win the fight, I can tell you that.

00:15:41.000 Yeah, anyways, it was a terrible feeling.

00:15:44.000 Terrible, terrible feeling.

00:15:46.000 Wow, you poker-faced your way through it.

00:15:48.000 But again, Joe, it goes back to philosophy.

00:15:51.000 You got to believe in your...

00:15:52.000 You got to be up here.

00:15:53.000 There has to be a philosophy up here.

00:15:55.000 Against a guy like Demetrius, it's beyond the physical and the technical stuff.

00:16:01.000 You got to be just kind of hypnotized up here.

00:16:04.000 You have to have everything, right?

00:16:06.000 You have to have the physical skills, but you also have to have this unstoppable mindset.

00:16:10.000 Yeah.

00:16:11.000 Now, what kind of mind training do you do?

00:16:15.000 Do you do any visualization training or do you work with a sports psychologist?

00:16:21.000 You know what?

00:16:22.000 I like reading up on a lot of people's stories.

00:16:25.000 I think people's stories are the ones that intrigue me.

00:16:28.000 You know, how Michael Jordan rolls to the top or athletes like that.

00:16:33.000 I think that's the stuff that I got like a human interest.

00:16:37.000 That's kind of my motivation.

00:16:39.000 Like reading biographies?

00:16:41.000 Yeah, reading biographies or watching stuff on YouTube.

00:16:44.000 Even watching other sports.

00:16:47.000 I'll watch Michael Johnson's at times.

00:16:50.000 Watching him win the 96 Olympics.

00:16:52.000 Things like that.

00:16:54.000 And watching people's celebrations and trying to embrace the feeling of what they're feeling, you know, because it becomes like an addiction, like a drug, like going through these feelings of like, dude, I accomplished what I set out to do.

00:17:08.000 Right.

00:17:09.000 So you're like seeing them accomplish these fantastic goals and visualizing yourself experiencing that exact same thing.

00:17:16.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:17:17.000 As corny as that sounds, yeah.

00:17:19.000 Doesn't sound corny at all.

00:17:20.000 Especially not coming from the champ.

00:17:22.000 You know, once you're the champ, all that corny shit's out the window.

00:17:25.000 Obviously, it works.

00:17:26.000 People start believing it.

00:17:28.000 All of a sudden, it became a 10. Yeah, they believe the fuck out of it.

00:17:31.000 Now, they're talking about you possibly fighting TJ Dillshaw for the bantamweight title.

00:17:37.000 Yeah.

00:17:38.000 I mean, there's talk.

00:17:39.000 There's talk.

00:17:40.000 You know, you just hesitated and you're like, yeah, yeah.

00:17:43.000 There's negotiations.

00:17:44.000 There's beef behind that.

00:17:46.000 It's not just talk.

00:17:47.000 He wants it.

00:17:48.000 We want it.

00:17:48.000 Yeah.

00:17:49.000 No, I'm sure.

00:17:50.000 Where's that at right now?

00:17:51.000 Because there's going to be a card in January out here.

00:17:55.000 It was just announced.

00:17:57.000 Oh, what date was that?

00:18:00.000 It's the same night as the Fedor-Ryan Bader fight, which pisses me off because I wanted to go see that fight.

00:18:05.000 It's January 26th.

00:18:07.000 Yeah, that fight's going to be at the Forum, and the UFC fight, I think, is at the Staples Center.

00:18:14.000 Or maybe Anaheim.

00:18:15.000 Anaheim?

00:18:16.000 Anaheim.

00:18:17.000 Anaheim and the Pond.

00:18:18.000 Oh, okay.

00:18:19.000 Both here.

00:18:20.000 Both here in California.

00:18:22.000 Well, there's 20 million motherfuckers in California. 1.00

00:18:24.000 Plenty of people to go around in terms of audience.

00:18:29.000 There's been talks, but I don't think Ali, my manager, has really, truly actually sat down and talked with the UFC. I think everybody wants to do it, though.

00:18:39.000 Well, it's one of two things that's going to happen there, right?

00:18:42.000 It's either, I mean, now the DJ has gone to one.

00:18:46.000 Demetrius Johnson just left the UFC and went over to One FC. One FC, for people who have no idea what we're talking about, is a gigantic organization in Asia.

00:18:55.000 They are literally the equivalent to the UFC in Asia.

00:18:58.000 And although many people in America are not aware of them, they don't know who they are, they're a huge...

00:19:25.000 I love the deal.

00:19:29.000 I love it.

00:19:29.000 I love the idea of it.

00:19:31.000 I mean, I feel like Mighty Mouse...

00:19:33.000 You know, he loves the idea of starting new and a new organization and, you know, they're gonna pay that motherfucker.

00:19:46.000 Nice.

00:19:47.000 All these flyweights need to get paid.

00:19:49.000 Exactly.

00:19:49.000 And he also likes the mentality that that organization is operated with, which is respect for the martial arts.

00:19:58.000 They're not into this.

00:19:59.000 You know, what we saw with the Conor McGregor, Khabib Nurmagomedov fight, all the trash talking and all the stuff that you're seeing that is becoming more and more prevalent in the UFC, you don't see that at all at 1FC. And that's something that Mighty Mouse is very happy about.

00:20:15.000 Yeah, I think first, I think congratulations too to Ben Askren.

00:20:18.000 I think he's...

00:20:20.000 Everybody's in trouble.

00:20:21.000 Yeah.

00:20:22.000 A lot of motherfuckers are in trouble when Ben Askren gets ahold of you.

00:20:25.000 You're like, why can't I get up?

00:20:27.000 Yeah, Ben Askren's one of those guys that he's very, he's a very confident, he's a very dangerous human being because he knows that, he's going to be very confident about it.

00:20:38.000 And I've always told people, I said, hey dude, maybe the best in the world is on the UFC, man.

00:20:44.000 There's some dude by the name of Ben Askren that will take you down.

00:20:46.000 We've been saying his praises for years.

00:20:49.000 Yeah.

00:20:50.000 People think Khabib's control is good up top.

00:20:53.000 You wait until you get a four-time NCAA finalist, two-time NCAA champ on top of you.

00:20:59.000 And 2008 Olympian, his teammate.

00:21:02.000 And Olympian.

00:21:05.000 He's a bad matchup for anybody, Joe.

00:21:07.000 Anybody.

00:21:07.000 No, Ben Askren, I mean, there's a reason why he's undefeated, and he hasn't been hit in several fights.

00:21:13.000 He was detailing when the last time he got hit.

00:21:15.000 You know, I had him on the podcast because I wanted to let people know about him.

00:21:20.000 I mean, I've been a big fan of Ben Askren's from back when he was the Bellator champion, and if you watch his fights in Bellator against Koroskov and Lima...

00:21:29.000 Lima's a beast, man.

00:21:31.000 And he just dominated him.

00:21:33.000 Lima fucks people up, man.

00:21:36.000 Lima's a dangerous, dangerous cat.

00:21:38.000 And Ben Askren just, whoop, oh, you're on your back again.

00:21:41.000 Look at that.

00:21:41.000 You can't get up, and you're taking punches.

00:21:46.000 It's just a different caliber of wrestling.

00:21:49.000 And I've said it many, many times, and I'm sure you believe it as well.

00:21:52.000 It's the most important skill for MMA, is wrestling.

00:21:55.000 It dictates where the fight takes place.

00:21:58.000 If you want to stand up, the guy can take you down, Chuck Liddell style.

00:22:02.000 And if you want to go to the ground, you're the one who gets to dictate where the fight takes place.

00:22:06.000 If you're the superior wrestler, I mean, it's the best base for MMA. I really believe that.

00:22:12.000 And especially a guy like Ben, because I think Ben knows that his striking's not that good.

00:22:17.000 Right.

00:22:18.000 So he just relies on, this is what I know, I do it better than anybody, and I'm going to control this, and you're going to know how I'm going to do it.

00:22:25.000 So that's what makes Ben Askren dangerous.

00:22:28.000 He's so dangerous.

00:22:30.000 I mean, a real bad fight for him would be someone that can figure out how to keep it standing.

00:22:35.000 Like Jay Heron gave him a real tough fight in Bellator.

00:22:38.000 Because Jay Heron is a good wrestler and kept the fight standing.

00:22:42.000 I forget what his take on that fight was.

00:22:45.000 We talked about it on the podcast, but I don't think he was too happy with his training for that fight.

00:22:51.000 But...

00:22:52.000 Someone like Tyron Woodley, who's also a very good wrestler, who's a very dangerous striker, would be a tough matchup for him.

00:22:58.000 But they're really close friends and training partners.

00:23:02.000 Yeah, well, this is another thing, too.

00:23:03.000 On the flip side, Tyron's been wrestling him for years, I think.

00:23:08.000 So he knows what the Ben Ashkin experience is, and that's scary.

00:23:12.000 I mean, people would be lucky to kind of take him down.

00:23:16.000 If you really want to give no takedowns, he just wouldn't let people take him down.

00:23:20.000 Yeah, Pettis was talking about it.

00:23:22.000 You know, he's saying, listen, it was back when Pettis was the champ.

00:23:24.000 He said, if I was forced to fight Ben Askren, he goes, it would be a fucking terrible fight for me.

00:23:30.000 He's like, that guy would just take me down and beat the shit out of me.

00:23:33.000 He's like, that's what he does.

00:23:34.000 If Ben was to win a belt, the 2008 Olympic team would have five belts.

00:23:39.000 Henry gets two, DC has two, and Ben Askren would have one.

00:23:44.000 That's five UFC belts if he came into the UFC and won a belt, his teammates.

00:23:49.000 Well, they are going to open up eventually that 165-pound division, which is what Ben is shooting for.

00:23:54.000 Ben would like that division, and he said that if he had 165 and Tyron kept the welterweight title, that would be great for him.

00:24:03.000 I just don't see the UFC doing a 5-pound weight difference when all the other weight differences are so huge.

00:24:09.000 I feel like the smart move would be 10 pounds every spot.

00:24:13.000 35, 45, 55, 65, 75. Move 70 to 75. When the UFC had a light heavyweight division initially, the division was a 200-pound division.

00:24:23.000 When Tito Ortiz first won it, I believe, it was a 200-pound division.

00:24:27.000 And then they raised it up to 205. And they needed a 195 too, I really believe, and probably a 225. I think that would round it all out, which probably will all happen eventually.

00:24:42.000 Yeah, that's interesting to see how that unfolds.

00:24:45.000 But as of now, it's...

00:24:46.000 Man, Ashton...

00:24:47.000 She's a beast. 1.00

00:24:48.000 Ashton's going to be fighting for the belt pretty soon.

00:24:50.000 Well, he's calling out Darren Till.

00:24:52.000 He wants to fight Darren Till.

00:24:53.000 Of course.

00:24:54.000 Which I love.

00:24:55.000 I love that fight.

00:24:56.000 That is a classic striker versus grappler matchup.

00:24:59.000 Especially after Tyron just smashed him.

00:25:02.000 I mean, Tyron in the hype train.

00:25:05.000 For Darren Till, we learned a lot about Darren.

00:25:07.000 Darren is a sensational striker.

00:25:09.000 Very, very dangerous striker.

00:25:11.000 But keeps his hands low, keeps his chin up high.

00:25:16.000 Tyron has proven himself to be really dangerous even against elite strikers.

00:25:20.000 You look at the Wonderboy fights.

00:25:22.000 I've said this time and time again.

00:25:23.000 You look at those two fights.

00:25:24.000 Wonderboy is known as being one of the best strikers to ever compete in the UFC. I think it was 57-0 as a kickboxer.

00:25:31.000 Something fucking spectacular like that.

00:25:33.000 Amazing striking skills, but yet Tyron hurt him in both fights.

00:25:38.000 Both fights Tyron was the one who landed big shots and had Wonderboy badly hurt.

00:25:43.000 And then you look at the same thing with Darren Till.

00:25:46.000 Darren Till is known as being this unbelievable striker.

00:25:49.000 Tyron clips him, drops him, and then strangles him.

00:25:55.000 It all changes with MMA. These guys can be even the best wrestlers.

00:26:01.000 Sometimes it doesn't translate to the sport.

00:26:03.000 It takes a special somebody to adapt to the sport of MMA, not just a wrestler.

00:26:09.000 Yep.

00:26:09.000 And I think Tyron has adapted to his timing to his right hand.

00:26:13.000 You know, man, if you're able to take out two strikers like that, man, you're the real deal.

00:26:17.000 He's unquestionably the real deal.

00:26:19.000 I'm fascinating to see whether or not Nurmagomedov and Ben Askren go at it.

00:26:26.000 That, to me, if I had a fight that I really...

00:26:32.000 What are you saying?

00:26:33.000 Floyd Mayweather what?

00:26:33.000 Floyd Mayweather's next.

00:26:35.000 Stop with all that nonsense.

00:26:37.000 That's just what we were talking about.

00:26:38.000 That's not going to happen.

00:26:39.000 He has the same agent.

00:26:40.000 Listen, that ain't going to happen.

00:26:42.000 But Khabib is much more of a grappler than he is a striker.

00:26:47.000 I mean, Conor is a striker.

00:26:48.000 That sort of made sense.

00:26:50.000 If you want to talk about levels, I think Ben's probably the better grappler.

00:26:58.000 Who the fuck knows?

00:26:59.000 That's what I want to see.

00:27:00.000 I want to see that fight.

00:27:02.000 There's levels.

00:27:03.000 Even though they don't give black belts in wrestling, there's levels to that.

00:27:07.000 Yeah, there's levels.

00:27:07.000 And I think Ben Ashkin was one of the greatest folk style riders of all time.

00:27:12.000 That's how dangerous he is.

00:27:13.000 He was putting the best kids in the world in pretzels and submissions.

00:27:18.000 They just wouldn't get out of his...

00:27:20.000 He's like a bull constrictor.

00:27:21.000 He's stunning in his ability to control guys.

00:27:24.000 You're like, what the fuck, man?

00:27:27.000 Koreshkov and Lima are two great examples because you look at those guys in Bellator and they just smash people.

00:27:33.000 Koreshkov has one of the craziest spinning back kick knockouts I've ever seen in my life.

00:27:38.000 He sent this dude flying through the air.

00:27:40.000 Did you see that a couple of fights ago?

00:27:43.000 The Grand Prix.

00:27:44.000 It's fucking nasty!

00:27:47.000 He hits this dude with a spinning back kick and literally launches him into space and then smashes him when he goes down to the ground.

00:27:54.000 I mean, you look at what Liam has been able to do to people.

00:27:56.000 The Roy McDonald fight was a very close fight.

00:27:58.000 Look at this.

00:27:58.000 Watch this.

00:27:59.000 Look at this.

00:28:00.000 Boom! 0.99

00:28:01.000 I mean, he launched that dude.

00:28:04.000 Is that in Boise?

00:28:06.000 I don't know where that was.

00:28:08.000 So, Koreshkov, you know, if you watch the Koreshkov fight with Ben Askren, and it's a mauling.

00:28:15.000 It's just a guy just getting fucked up.

00:28:19.000 That's what that fight is.

00:28:22.000 Oh, God.

00:28:23.000 Ben Askren just dominated him.

00:28:25.000 Like, absolutely dominated him.

00:28:26.000 See, the dude tried to jump back and landed...

00:28:30.000 It landed right as he was in the air.

00:28:32.000 Ouchie, Wawa.

00:28:34.000 Yeah.

00:28:36.000 And this guy never got a punch off of Ben Askren.

00:28:39.000 It was a total domination.

00:28:40.000 Same as the Lima fight.

00:28:42.000 Lima crushes people, man.

00:28:44.000 Lima's one of the scariest strikers.

00:28:45.000 I mean, he knocked out Korshkov.

00:28:48.000 I mean, Lima smashes people.

00:28:50.000 But you see Lima against Ben Askren.

00:28:53.000 I mean, obviously it was a younger Lima.

00:28:55.000 I mean, he's got more experience now.

00:28:56.000 But the difference was so stunning.

00:28:59.000 What is this?

00:29:02.000 No, it's not.

00:29:03.000 No, those are two Chinese guys, bro.

00:29:06.000 This is not Askren and Lima.

00:29:08.000 You gotta trust me.

00:29:10.000 This is not Askren and Lima either.

00:29:16.000 I'm sure the video's titled that.

00:29:18.000 I said, is Joe being a bully?

00:29:20.000 You gotta trust me.

00:29:24.000 Those dudes are not the same guy.

00:29:26.000 Joe, you're losing your patience, man.

00:29:28.000 There it is.

00:29:29.000 There it is.

00:29:31.000 Man.

00:29:32.000 I mean, just the way he manhandled them.

00:29:35.000 Like, his wrestling is just, you see guys that are used to defending takedowns, and then they find themselves on their back, and you say, holy shit, man.

00:29:44.000 I think he did get upkicked here, and his nose got broken.

00:29:47.000 Oh yeah, he got cracked.

00:29:49.000 I mean, Lima's a fucking monster, man.

00:29:52.000 He's a super dangerous striker, and he's huge for the weight class.

00:29:56.000 You stand next to Lima, you're like, Jesus, how do you make 170?

00:30:00.000 He does it in a jacuzzi at the hotel.

00:30:03.000 I've seen him.

00:30:04.000 Yeah, no, he's struggling to make that weight.

00:30:07.000 He's a big guy.

00:30:09.000 But anyway, point being, Ben Askren at 170. Super, super interesting fight.

00:30:15.000 Personally, the fight that I would like to see, I'd like to see him and Kobe.

00:30:21.000 Kobe Covington.

00:30:22.000 Ben and Kobe?

00:30:23.000 Yeah, that would be really interesting.

00:30:25.000 But isn't Kobe next in line for the title?

00:30:28.000 I think he's got the interim belt.

00:30:30.000 If he has the interim belt...

00:30:32.000 I'm surprised it still has the interim belt.

00:30:34.000 Huh.

00:30:35.000 Yeah.

00:30:36.000 Yeah, maybe I guess.

00:30:37.000 It's in the White House.

00:30:39.000 He doesn't have it anymore.

00:30:41.000 It's in the White House.

00:30:42.000 But I mean, they didn't strip him, did they?

00:30:44.000 Because there was some talk of stripping him because he was supposed to...

00:30:48.000 Not that I know of.

00:30:48.000 I don't think there was ever a strip.

00:30:50.000 So I think they're trying to market it.

00:30:51.000 I think as soon as you get the champ...

00:30:53.000 Wikipedia here says he was the interim from June 9th to September 8th.

00:30:58.000 Oh, so they did strip him.

00:30:59.000 Oh, so they did strip him.

00:31:00.000 So the stripping was because they wanted him to fight on the Darren Till card.

00:31:04.000 When Darren Till fought Tyron, they wanted him to fight...

00:31:09.000 Tyrant and apparently he had gone through, you know, hard training camp.

00:31:13.000 He was all busted up.

00:31:14.000 He needed time to recover.

00:31:15.000 So I guess they stripped him.

00:31:17.000 That whole, man, interim titles.

00:31:20.000 Interim titles are like attached with Velcro.

00:31:23.000 They just disappear.

00:31:24.000 They get yanked off you.

00:31:27.000 They're not really like...

00:31:30.000 Especially at UFC 229. They all had belts.

00:31:33.000 Tony Ferguson had a belt.

00:31:34.000 Conor had a belt.

00:31:36.000 Obviously Khabib had his belts.

00:31:37.000 He had three people walking around with belts.

00:31:39.000 The Tony Ferguson one to me is a shame.

00:31:43.000 It's a shame that a guy gets injured and then they strip him like that.

00:31:47.000 That doesn't make any sense to me.

00:31:48.000 I didn't like that one.

00:31:50.000 That one bothered me.

00:31:51.000 I feel like Tony should still have the interim title.

00:31:54.000 I really do.

00:31:55.000 Yeah, but that was like the third time that fight had fallen, right?

00:31:58.000 I know.

00:31:58.000 It sucks.

00:31:58.000 But the other one wasn't his fault.

00:32:00.000 The other one was Khabib.

00:32:01.000 Khabib, right?

00:32:02.000 Khabib was supposed to make the weight and he got medically pulled out.

00:32:05.000 2-1.

00:32:06.000 That's a good argument.

00:32:08.000 How many times did Khabib pull out and how many times did Tony pull out?

00:32:11.000 Tony pulled out once for sure because he was injured, the last one, when his knee blew apart.

00:32:16.000 And then Khabib definitely got yanked off the card once with the weight cut, remember? 0.80

00:32:21.000 The weight cut was so bad that his kidneys were failing.

00:32:25.000 Either way.

00:32:26.000 We've been there.

00:32:28.000 Yeah, that's the fight.

00:32:30.000 Now, do you like fighting at 35?

00:32:33.000 Because I know you fought at 35 for a while when you were struggling to make flyweight.

00:32:37.000 You had some issues early on in your career where you really didn't make the weight very well.

00:32:42.000 Yeah, I was...

00:32:44.000 God, I was...

00:32:47.000 I was getting older, I think, in my career.

00:32:49.000 I think the reason why I started having weight problems was because I was just getting older and I was doing some crazy stuff.

00:32:55.000 I used to cut about 16 pounds in two two-hour sessions.

00:33:06.000 What?

00:33:06.000 Yeah, as a flyweight or supposed to be flyweight.

00:33:10.000 Why were you doing that?

00:33:11.000 Because I'm a wrestler.

00:33:14.000 I think my whole philosophy at first when I got into MMA was kind of like in wrestling we would never get the same recovery.

00:33:23.000 I know it's stupid as stupid as heck but we would never get the recovery that a fighter gets.

00:33:28.000 So to me, it was like, dude, I can stretch this as long as I can, and I can suffer the day of wins, but I'm going to recover within 24, 28 hours sometimes.

00:33:40.000 So to me, I was looking at it just in an odd way, and it finally started catching up to me.

00:33:47.000 So you just had confidence in your body's ability to bounce back, even though you're putting it through an extraordinary amount of stress and losing massive amounts of weight really quickly.

00:33:56.000 You just felt like your body could handle it.

00:33:58.000 You're tough.

00:33:59.000 You're used to it.

00:34:01.000 Yeah, it was the whole...

00:34:02.000 Because in wrestling, we would make weight every week sometimes.

00:34:07.000 We would wrestle so much that we're used to that whole struggle side of things.

00:34:12.000 And then, okay, we wrestle again, we do it again.

00:34:14.000 What kind of weight cut were you talking about when you were wrestling?

00:34:16.000 How much were you cutting?

00:34:18.000 I was a lot more disciplined then, but I was probably doing about 12 pounds, but I had no fat.

00:34:24.000 At that time, I was eating just as healthy and as clean as possible because I would make weight every three weeks I had a tournament.

00:34:33.000 You know, I had George Lockhart on, and he was explaining to me that a lot of people think that when you cut weight that, you know, like you're cutting out fat.

00:34:41.000 He's like, you're not cutting out fat, you're cutting out water.

00:34:43.000 And it actually helps to have more muscle.

00:34:46.000 Because muscle is mostly water.

00:34:49.000 So you're just draining out your muscles, then replenishing them.

00:34:52.000 You know, when he was explaining that to me, I was like, I never really thought about it that way.

00:34:56.000 That like a guy like a Yoel Romero who's very muscular can actually cut more weight.

00:35:01.000 Yeah.

00:35:02.000 Yeah.

00:35:03.000 Now you're a pretty muscular guy for a flyweight.

00:35:06.000 So you were walking around how many pounds over?

00:35:08.000 Oh man, I was probably cutting for like maybe 20, 25. Wow.

00:35:12.000 So you're walking around like 150 and getting down to 25. Yeah.

00:35:16.000 Holy shit.

00:35:17.000 I just had loss.

00:35:18.000 A lot of it too, because you fight three times a year, you're not always honest with your diet either.

00:35:27.000 Coming from Mexican descent, we like to, we love to eat.

00:35:31.000 You go to my mom's house and it's going to be laid down.

00:35:36.000 But when you're in camp, how do you organize your nutrition?

00:35:40.000 I'm disciplined.

00:35:41.000 I have a meal prep company.

00:35:43.000 They deliver my food like every three days.

00:35:46.000 And is your meal prep based on your suggestions to them or your recommendations and directions to them?

00:35:52.000 Yeah, no, a lot of it's based on kind of, well, my diet's just according to kind of like my training schedule.

00:35:59.000 So my training is very, very organized.

00:36:01.000 Like now, Joe, I'm like a pretty much, I'm a professional now, I guess you could say.

00:36:07.000 Like I do things, you know, the right way.

00:36:10.000 I use the whole scientific route, the nutrition route.

00:36:14.000 Almost like how Bernard Hopkins, as he got older, he kind of changed his whole philosophy and started using science more.

00:36:21.000 So I think everything now in my life when I get ready for fights is all based on science.

00:36:26.000 How did Bernard change his training?

00:36:28.000 Do you know?

00:36:29.000 He just started recovering more.

00:36:31.000 I think he started using a lot of those neural stems, hyperbaric chambers, things of that matter, and just more scientific-based, just his whole training all around.

00:36:43.000 And did you incorporate any of those methods?

00:36:46.000 I did, I did, actually.

00:36:47.000 I ended up connecting with this company called Neuroforce One, a science-based company.

00:36:53.000 And I actually wanted to bring them in to kind of talk about it, Joe, because this right here just changed my whole philosophy.

00:36:59.000 We're talking about the whole weight cuts, how I struggled, to how my whole training has changed because of science.

00:37:09.000 And a science that's very...

00:37:13.000 A science that's very, I guess, complex you could say.

00:37:16.000 You gotta have like the right people, man, like dictating your schedule.

00:37:20.000 So when you set up a training camp like this, how far in advance do you sit down and work out all the details?

00:37:27.000 It's almost like the morning that we wake up is what we know we're gonna do.

00:37:32.000 Right, but how, like say if you know you have a fight in July, when would you start preparing for that and when do you sit down and map everything out?

00:37:39.000 Well, we try to map things out maybe about three months in advance, kind of like a preparation to leading to the camp.

00:37:45.000 And that's kind of like the phase that we're on now.

00:37:47.000 Like now we're on, you know, if it is that I fight in January, it's almost like our schedule, it's like there's a pre-test to the big test.

00:37:56.000 So tomorrow's November 1st.

00:37:58.000 So if you were getting ready for a fight in January, you would start ramping up somewhere around now?

00:38:03.000 Yeah, but it would be more of a...

00:38:06.000 I think the first month leading up to the next eight weeks would be a lot of it would be technical and tactical, just working on those particular areas that we believe we're going to be in.

00:38:18.000 So you're not doing anything crazy strength and conditioning-wise?

00:38:21.000 You're not trying to break your body down?

00:38:22.000 No, no.

00:38:23.000 Because it's all a learning phase at that point.

00:38:26.000 You know, working the body, preparing the body with a lot of body motion, movements, and things of that matter.

00:38:31.000 Kind of just bringing more circulation to certain parts of my body.

00:38:35.000 Rather than, you know, somebody picking up a kettlebell and throwing it and crazy things like that.

00:38:41.000 It's all sports specific.

00:38:44.000 Right, right.

00:38:45.000 Range of motion.

00:38:47.000 So how do you organize this?

00:38:49.000 What is the team of people that you use and who's responsible for what?

00:38:54.000 Yeah, well, like I said, I think...

00:38:55.000 Because you've got a whole crew in the back.

00:38:57.000 People don't know.

00:38:58.000 Captain America's with you, but you get the rest of the Avengers are all waiting in the waiting room.

00:39:03.000 I was going to say, we first found him when he hurt his hand and he had to rehab it.

00:39:09.000 Hold on, let me get this off.

00:39:10.000 See, it's going in layers.

00:39:12.000 It's going in layers.

00:39:13.000 So he had hurt his hand before his first fight with Sergio Pettis.

00:39:18.000 And I was trying to find any way for him to still compete.

00:39:22.000 And we found somebody using this machine, which led us to actually Neuro Force One and Kareem and all these guys.

00:39:29.000 And we tried to force it for him to get back in time.

00:39:34.000 And I have video of him just screaming in pain, trying to get there.

00:39:38.000 And we thought we stayed off it for a couple of weeks.

00:39:40.000 And then the day of the face off, he went to cut weight and he said his wrist kept slipping out.

00:39:46.000 And we had to pull him from the fight.

00:39:47.000 We went to see the doctor.

00:39:49.000 The doctor said, no way, shouldn't fight.

00:39:51.000 So what was the injury?

00:39:53.000 I think it was a it ended up being something with a sprained ligament.

00:39:59.000 I had sprained one of my ligaments in my hand, so there was nothing I could do.

00:40:06.000 I would open the cap bottle to brush my teeth.

00:40:12.000 When it hurt to that point, I'm just like, man, I can't do anything.

00:40:18.000 Eric here ended up connecting me with Neural Force and found out that they had these certain machines that help you heal faster.

00:40:25.000 What did the machines do?

00:40:28.000 Accelerated recovery, so it was like NeuroStem, and they have about a thousand programs on it, and it just forced him to recover a lot faster.

00:40:37.000 The best example was UFC fighter Pantoja.

00:40:40.000 He was on the Ultimate Fighter 24 with us, our number one seed that we picked, Alexander Pantoja.

00:40:46.000 I saw him blow three ligaments out of his elbow, and he started crying because he had a fight in eight weeks in Iron, no, Scotland.

00:40:54.000 And, um...

00:40:57.000 I said, no, no, no, don't go home tomorrow.

00:40:59.000 He's supposed to be going back home to Brazil.

00:41:00.000 And I said, no, no, no, let's try this.

00:41:02.000 You got to try it.

00:41:03.000 And they did it twice, two sessions a day for 10 days.

00:41:06.000 And he went back and he fought.

00:41:09.000 He fought that guy and beat him.

00:41:10.000 He ran naked choking that guy, Neil Seary, and put that guy in retirement.

00:41:14.000 So after that, I was like, we need these guys.

00:41:18.000 Henry.

00:41:19.000 Whatever these guys did to Pantoja, we need to do it for you.

00:41:23.000 And that's how it started.

00:41:24.000 When a guy gets injured like that and you're still going through camp, how do you work around that injury?

00:41:29.000 You just say, okay, there's nothing squeezing, nothing where you're putting any strain in those tendons, nothing where you're doing anything with that hand that's going to re-injure it?

00:41:37.000 I think you just have to hope for somebody to wrap it very well.

00:41:40.000 Like, you're screwed.

00:41:42.000 Having a hand injury is probably the worst injury you could have.

00:41:45.000 I mean, we eat with these hands, you know?

00:41:47.000 Right.

00:41:48.000 This is how we survive.

00:41:51.000 Yeah.

00:41:51.000 And when you have an injury like that, you're going to be fighting with the other.

00:41:56.000 Yeah.

00:41:56.000 Do you remember when Uriah Faber fought Mike Brown and broke both hands?

00:42:00.000 Yeah.

00:42:01.000 And just started throwing elbows?

00:42:02.000 And slapping them.

00:42:03.000 It just didn't give in for a second.

00:42:06.000 Yeah.

00:42:06.000 That's how tough that motherfucker is.

00:42:08.000 Two broken hands just trying to find a way to win.

00:42:10.000 Yeah, it's miserable.

00:42:12.000 It was a title fight, too.

00:42:14.000 You do amazing things for title fights.

00:42:17.000 No, but I wanted to bring in Joe, if you allow me, because I'm honored, man.

00:42:23.000 And I think I brought them in, Joe, because I want to kind of share the new age stuff, like something that's just taken over the top.

00:42:33.000 So, Kevin, if you can hear me, come on.

00:42:36.000 Oh, you can't.

00:42:36.000 There's a bit long delay.

00:42:37.000 There's like a 30-second delay.

00:42:39.000 You can go grab him.

00:42:39.000 Okay, I'll grab him.

00:42:41.000 Yeah, go grab him, Captain.

00:42:43.000 He's going to come back with a new layer removed.

00:42:45.000 He's going to come back with a cape.

00:42:47.000 He's going to come back naked.

00:42:49.000 We don't have another microphone, though, unfortunately.

00:42:51.000 So he's going to have to take your spot because there's not another microphone.

00:42:54.000 Who do you think of Captain America, man?

00:42:56.000 When we use a fourth microphone, we actually have to set it up, and it's not up right now.

00:43:00.000 Joe, what do you think of Captain America?

00:43:01.000 He's hilarious.

00:43:03.000 I think that we got to him.

00:43:08.000 Oh, man.

00:43:08.000 You know how you are with Eddie?

00:43:12.000 That's kind of how I am with him, you know?

00:43:16.000 No, it's that certain relationship.

00:43:18.000 Hey, man, that helps.

00:43:20.000 How are you, sir?

00:43:21.000 Good.

00:43:21.000 How you doing, Joe?

00:43:22.000 Push up.

00:43:22.000 Tell everybody who you are.

00:43:23.000 I'm Kevin Longoria.

00:43:24.000 I am the Chief Science Officer for Neuroforce One.

00:43:27.000 And then I'm a neurophysiologist as well.

00:43:29.000 Keep this about like a fist from your face.

00:43:31.000 Okay.

00:43:32.000 So tell us what your role was in camp and what you did to help him get ready.

00:43:39.000 Cool.

00:43:39.000 Yeah, so Neuroforce One is a neuroscience-based training company and a medical-grade diagnostic testing company as well.

00:43:46.000 Where are you guys at?

00:43:46.000 We're out of Scottsdale, Arizona.

00:43:48.000 So what we really focus on, which a lot of companies aren't talking about, is the role of the gut and the mind in conjunction with your physical training.

00:43:54.000 So essentially what we do is we start off with a really comprehensive baseline assessment.

00:43:58.000 We want to run them through everything.

00:43:59.000 So the traditional...

00:44:01.000 Functional threshold powers, autonomic nervous system, DC brain potentials.

00:44:06.000 And really what you want to do is you want to put somebody on a normal curve.

00:44:08.000 What is a DC brain potential?

00:44:10.000 DC brain potential is a...

00:44:11.000 It's like you want to be like Daniel Cormier.

00:44:13.000 Yeah, sounds like...

00:44:13.000 You got to get that DC brain potential.

00:44:15.000 We all want to be a little bit like DC. But basically it's an objective measurement of your central nervous system.

00:44:20.000 So you can actually, your central nervous system is basically the data aggregator, if you will.

00:44:24.000 So it has to take information from your metabolic systems, your autonomics, Kind of coordinate things like neuromuscular and metabolic efficiency.

00:44:32.000 That's kind of the data center, if you will.

00:44:34.000 So this is a measurement of potential, basically how much energy you have in the central nervous system to go coordinate neuromuscular and metabolic efficiencies, which is really what we focus on.

00:44:43.000 So is this on like a chart?

00:44:46.000 Is there a number reading that you're getting?

00:44:49.000 What is it that...

00:44:50.000 Correct.

00:44:50.000 Specifically for DCs, it's going to be in millivolts.

00:44:53.000 And then you just compare that to normative ranges.

00:44:54.000 But most importantly, what it is is trending data over time.

00:44:57.000 This is an assessment that we would do on Henry every single morning.

00:45:00.000 It's a home test kit.

00:45:02.000 We really believe in just collecting as much data as possible and trending data.

00:45:05.000 That way, when you see a change, essentially you get predictability in terms of, you know, today's a no-go day because central nervous system is diminished.

00:45:13.000 We're just going to be going through the motions.

00:45:14.000 We're not going to make physiological adaptations and your inflammation is really high.

00:45:18.000 No-go because we're not going to go risk injury when we can't make adaptations.

00:45:22.000 So this is a measurement we would do every single morning where we can look at autonomic nervous system, which is basically things like recovery, sympathetic, parasympathetic balance, DC brain potentials, and metabolic systems.

00:45:32.000 And what is measuring all these things?

00:45:34.000 Is there a device?

00:45:35.000 Is it a...

00:45:36.000 Yeah, this is a pretty amazing device.

00:45:38.000 We actually got it from the UFC Performance Institute.

00:45:41.000 Shout out to those guys, Clint, Bo, and Roman over there.

00:45:44.000 Set us up with this technology.

00:45:45.000 It's basically a chest strap that does heart rate variability, so time and frequency domain analysis.

00:45:50.000 And it does DC brain potential, so a little sticker right here on your forehead.

00:45:55.000 Basically four minutes, you just kind of relax and we collect pretty amazing data and it breaks it down into four different categories, what's called windows of trainability.

00:46:02.000 So it says today we should focus on strength and power or skill acquisition based on metabolic readiness, autonomic readiness and DC brain potentials.

00:46:10.000 So what is our body primed to go do today?

00:46:13.000 Because if you're not primed, your nervous system doesn't have the energy, you're just going to be going through the motions.

00:46:18.000 So you're sort of there to dictate when it's going to be a hard day, when it's going to be an easy day?

00:46:23.000 Correct, yeah.

00:46:24.000 And that's something, as I'm sure you guys know, in wrestling, it's always hard, always let's go.

00:46:28.000 So this was a little bit of an issue in the camp at the very beginning, if you could imagine.

00:46:32.000 Henry wakes up, it's a sparring day, we're maybe even supposed to do two-a-days.

00:46:36.000 He wakes up feeling really good, and nervous system is out of whack.

00:46:39.000 It's like, sorry man, I know you feel good, but you're not, you know...

00:46:43.000 Wow!

00:46:44.000 Yeah, so we would go a no-go that day and, you know, as you can see, it all worked out in the long run.

00:46:49.000 Well, it worked out fantastic, but was that weird for you to feel good and then to be told you got to chill out?

00:46:55.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:46:56.000 It almost takes a while to kind of adapt, but as I started recognizing my body change and how I felt in sparring and how I just felt recovered, I was like, God, this is crazy.

00:47:09.000 I didn't run at all this whole camp.

00:47:12.000 So do you get a baseline off of this?

00:47:14.000 Eric, you've got to stop moving around.

00:47:15.000 You're freaking me out.

00:47:16.000 He's doing hand signals back there.

00:47:18.000 He's translating for the deaf people.

00:47:20.000 So would you do a baseline on this before you get started and then you as before camp get started and then when camp starts ramping up, then you start measuring all the various details?

00:47:31.000 Correct, yeah.

00:47:32.000 So we do a comprehensive baseline assessment, including the Omega Wave, as well as six or eight hours of other testing, everything that you could think of under the sun.

00:47:40.000 And we put together basically columns of this is what you're suboptimal at, this is what you're average at, this is what you're really damn good at.

00:47:46.000 So basically what we want to do is exploit your functional strengths, it's what you're good at, but then we also want to focus on your functional deficiencies.

00:47:53.000 In a sport like MMA, we also sometimes have the advantage of looking at your opponent and making certain assumptions in terms of their weaknesses, their strengths.

00:48:00.000 Going against somebody like DJ, you don't really have that advantage.

00:48:03.000 So what we really needed to focus on is what Henry's really good at, his ground game.

00:48:07.000 You look, you know, we're doing nervous system assessments while he's on the ground.

00:48:10.000 His sparring partners, their stress systems are going like crazy.

00:48:14.000 He's calming down because this guy likes to be on the floor rolling around.

00:48:17.000 So we pinpoint these little strategic strengths and deficiencies, and then we target all of his nutrition, supplementation, A big thing that we focus on is nutrient timing, something that's not really talked about as well.

00:48:28.000 When you're talking about gut health and recovery, managing the hormones associated with exercise, you've got to be getting in the right nutrients in your energy, anabolic, and growth phases.

00:48:39.000 So for nutrient timing, you're talking about when you're actually eating and what you're eating, so you're planning that out as well?

00:48:44.000 A hundred percent, yes.

00:48:45.000 We put together a nutrition program and because training varies every morning, we're deciding what we're going to do for the day.

00:48:51.000 It's completely dynamic.

00:48:53.000 So we're kind of reinventing the game of periodization and programming because you can't give somebody an eight-week plan.

00:48:58.000 You have to check every single day.

00:49:00.000 This is how you stay very dynamic and you avoid plateaus and just the issues.

00:49:04.000 It's always going to lead to suboptimal performance if you're programming out.

00:49:07.000 So every day we adjust.

00:49:09.000 We're doing...

00:49:10.000 This intensity of training.

00:49:11.000 We did a VO2 max assessment.

00:49:12.000 So we know exactly how much glycogen you're burning at various levels of intensity.

00:49:17.000 We do heart rate tracking during your training.

00:49:19.000 Alright, this is exactly what you have to replace following.

00:49:21.000 So I'm standing on the sidelines, you know, after every practice mixing up custom supplements for him as well.

00:49:27.000 So this is something...

00:49:28.000 What kind of stuff?

00:49:29.000 You know, we have our own supplement line right now.

00:49:31.000 Frankly, not because the world needed another supplement line.

00:49:33.000 It's not really what our goal was.

00:49:35.000 In sports like this, you have to be so careful what you put in these guys' body.

00:49:39.000 So we just went the route of going GMP certified.

00:49:41.000 WADA, USADA approved on everything we do.

00:49:44.000 Eventually, we want to try and work with a badass company because we don't want to be in the supplement game.

00:49:48.000 For us, it was just quality control.

00:49:50.000 So, being a nervous system based company, obviously we're doing things like Omega-3, DHAs, BCAAs, you know, to maintain, put on a little bit of muscle.

00:50:00.000 We do a lot of, big one I believe is the Generation UCAN, the Superstarch.

00:50:04.000 Very good without a big glycemic, you know, big insulin response, but very good at replenishing your glycogen stores following to minimize cortisol and inflammatory responses and things like that.

00:50:13.000 So, every day it's a little bit different, but yeah, we ended up going with our own line and One of the biggest things that we never really talk about in the fight as well is the role that gut health plays.

00:50:22.000 So that's something Henry does year-round, regardless of when we're fighting, is take our line, which is called Freedom Cleanse Restore.

00:50:28.000 This is world-renowned, utilized by university researchers all around the world right now.

00:50:34.000 And basically, it's all just about restoring good gut bacteria, prebiotics, probiotics, and lymphatic cleansing.

00:50:40.000 And this is going to be something that really played a big role in his weight cut as well.

00:50:43.000 It's kind of a missing link that athletes aren't talking about.

00:50:46.000 But good gut health is going to help with serotonin production, so recovery, relaxation, mood, you know, production of brain-derived neurotropic factors so our nervous system can make these adaptations and learn new skills and things along these lines.

00:50:59.000 So this is something, you know, in my opinion, a big reason why He had the issue with DJ the first time around.

00:51:05.000 Henry will tell the story, he had gut inflammation so bad that people would say, good luck before the fight, tap his gut, and that hurt him.

00:51:13.000 That's not normal, and that all goes back to the issues associated with weight cutting, as we were talking about a little bit.

00:51:19.000 But getting that gut health right, no inflammation, and that goes a long way.

00:51:22.000 How long have you guys been in business for?

00:51:25.000 We've only been in business for about eight months.

00:51:27.000 We're still very new.

00:51:28.000 Been working with Henry a little bit longer than that.

00:51:31.000 But yeah, this company's just getting off the ground.

00:51:33.000 We kind of rebranded a few months ago.

00:51:35.000 Just opened our first facility as well out in Scottsdale.

00:51:38.000 What is your background in?

00:51:39.000 I'm a physiologist.

00:51:41.000 I opened the first mobile medical grade diagnostic testing company in Arizona.

00:51:45.000 So basically, I would have these diagnostics, and largely it was trying to fix the healthcare system a little bit.

00:51:50.000 You know, we want individualized solutions.

00:51:52.000 We want data-driven outcomes, right?

00:51:54.000 You want quantifiable progress.

00:51:56.000 So people want to feel good about what they're doing, but maybe a doctor can't afford this big-ass metabolic cart, or they don't know how to use it.

00:52:03.000 So what I did is I purchased this equipment, hired technicians, and we would bring it mobile.

00:52:08.000 You know, technology's getting smaller, more mobile.

00:52:10.000 So this was my idea of how I would go make my little dent in the healthcare system.

00:52:14.000 You know, there were issues with scalability in terms of finding good technicians, but the goal is just to go out there and provide data-driven solutions, right?

00:52:21.000 We live in a world of subjectivity, guesswork.

00:52:24.000 A very punishment-oriented fitness system where it sucks to start working out.

00:52:29.000 You typically gain weight if you're doing the right stuff because you're getting hydrated.

00:52:32.000 You go get injured.

00:52:33.000 The goal is to redefine how we assess people so that we can find these little tweaks for positive reinforcement.

00:52:39.000 And that goes a long way with healthcare as well as fitness.

00:52:42.000 So you guys mostly working with civilians?

00:52:45.000 Are you working with pro athletes?

00:52:47.000 Right now we're in the research and development phase, so we're really only working with guys like Henry, Victoria, Anthony, a very badass wrestler we're working with right now as well.

00:52:55.000 Just some amazing people, largely for research and development.

00:52:59.000 We trade them the training for the data.

00:53:01.000 And how'd you guys get together?

00:53:03.000 We've been working with Henry about a year.

00:53:05.000 He knew our CEO, Kareem Amin, a great guy.

00:53:08.000 We kind of all circle around Kareem.

00:53:10.000 He brought us all together.

00:53:13.000 He came in probably about eight months ago, a little bit before the first camp, and we met, talked, and No, Henry was straight up.

00:53:19.000 He's like, man, you know your stuff, but you don't know MMA. So I took that, you know, personally, we, you know, spent a lot of time together.

00:53:25.000 I had to learn the sport.

00:53:27.000 I'm a physiologist, not an MMA physiologist.

00:53:29.000 So we really took the time to get to know each other, you know, hang out a lot now.

00:53:33.000 I got to go to his house and wake him up every day for eight weeks.

00:53:36.000 So that was, we got to know each other pretty well.

00:53:38.000 I do his meal preps and stuff.

00:53:39.000 Too much.

00:53:40.000 Yeah.

00:53:41.000 That's a fantastic combination, though.

00:53:43.000 A guy like you who knows so much about the body and recovery and a real super high-level Olympic gold medalist athlete.

00:53:51.000 I mean, when you get that combination, that's really a dream for a guy like you and for a guy like you.

00:53:57.000 For both of you guys to come together like this, I understand why you wanted to bring him on as well.

00:54:03.000 Yeah.

00:54:05.000 If you understand half of it.

00:54:08.000 I don't.

00:54:08.000 I can pretend.

00:54:09.000 Yeah, yeah, the DC mind thing.

00:54:12.000 That shit's important.

00:54:14.000 I do feel honored and blessed to be able to work with somebody like Henry.

00:54:19.000 He's the hardest working guy out there.

00:54:21.000 Of course, the hard work goes a long ways, but man, this guy's a genetic freak as well.

00:54:25.000 I've had the ability to test Olympic athletes, many other sports as well.

00:54:30.000 This guy makes adaptations faster than anybody.

00:54:32.000 He came off a 12 weeks, 16 weeks maybe of not training, VO2s already in the high 60s, functional threshold powers that would go compete with the world-class Ironmen that I'm training in things as well.

00:54:44.000 We did some amazing stuff.

00:54:47.000 If you looked at the body composition changes that we did in 7 weeks, it wasn't even a full 8-week camp, he put on 4.2 pounds of skeletal muscle mass, like good mass, which as a physiologist I would call bullshit on if I didn't see it with my own two eyes.

00:55:00.000 That's pretty incredible.

00:55:01.000 Yeah, incredible.

00:55:01.000 And, you know, Henry will tell you he may be picked up weights like three or four times.

00:55:05.000 We don't really do traditional strength training because, you know, a lot of people just...

00:55:09.000 It's called vector-based training.

00:55:11.000 So a lot of people do things like squats and deadlifts.

00:55:13.000 This is an axial plane.

00:55:15.000 Like, we don't live in this up-and-down plane.

00:55:16.000 So we break it down by vector.

00:55:18.000 What angles does he need to exert and absorb force in very effectively?

00:55:22.000 And very rarely does that come down to actually utilizing weights.

00:55:25.000 We do things like positional isometrics and eccentric training and things along these lines.

00:55:30.000 Number one, they integrate with the nervous system very effectively.

00:55:33.000 Isometrics?

00:55:34.000 Yeah, positional isometrics.

00:55:35.000 Like what kind of, like planks?

00:55:37.000 I mean, that's kind of a low level of it, yeah.

00:55:39.000 Largely what you would want to do is like a biomechanical assessment and look at overactive and underactive muscles.

00:55:44.000 And you put them in very specific positions and you leverage what's called reciprocal inhibition.

00:55:49.000 So basically, and then the most basic term, like when I'm flexing my bicep, my tricep is relaxing.

00:55:54.000 So you'd hold certain positions so that you want to turn on certain muscles and kind of turn off other ones.

00:55:59.000 It's kind of a high level of PNF stretching, proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation.

00:56:04.000 So this is what would be done in like a PT office.

00:56:07.000 So for wrestling, what kind of exercises would you do that would incorporate those methods?

00:56:15.000 I mean, wrestling is, you know, largely a torsional sport.

00:56:17.000 So when it comes to wrestling, we do things like Kaiser, like pneumatic compressions and things like that.

00:56:22.000 So instead of using weights, we use air pressure, basically.

00:56:24.000 It's very smooth, very low risk of injury.

00:56:27.000 And they live in this torsional plane.

00:56:29.000 So you do a lot of transverse plane.

00:56:31.000 And we do a lot of velocity-based training as well.

00:56:34.000 Actually, really interesting, a study that was published recently, they had a lot of guys working on it for a full year.

00:56:39.000 Some only did velocity, never actually picked up a weight.

00:56:41.000 The other ones did traditional strength training.

00:56:44.000 The people who did velocity-based training, no actual weight training, got stronger with less muscular hypertrophy.

00:56:50.000 I mean, they didn't get as big, but they were stronger at the end of the day.

00:56:53.000 So when you look at something like wrestling and MMA, where you got to make a low weight, but you want to be as strong as possible, you know, velocity-based training is kind of the way of the future.

00:57:01.000 So this is kind of our general gym concept that we're building right now is the gym of the future may not need weights.

00:57:07.000 We're going to be next door to these CrossFit gyms where they're throwing all these weights over their head, getting injured. 0.94

00:57:12.000 We're next door, empty gym, and people are getting stronger.

00:57:15.000 That's kind of the gym of the future the way we see it.

00:57:18.000 How would you define velocity-based training?

00:57:20.000 So basically what you want to do is, it's kind of like the new one rep max.

00:57:23.000 We all know one rep maxes aren't the safest thing to perform, right?

00:57:27.000 So there's different assessments.

00:57:28.000 Actually what I'm wearing here on my wrist right now.

00:57:31.000 This is the wearable tech of the future.

00:57:32.000 This is something we're testing right now.

00:57:34.000 This does velocity.

00:57:35.000 So I could stand in any position.

00:57:36.000 I could do a push press or I could do a punch. 0.99

00:57:39.000 This is going to measure my velocity.

00:57:40.000 Your max velocity at no weight would be your one rep max velocity basically.

00:57:45.000 And then you're going and you're doing your training.

00:57:47.000 So max velocity every single rep.

00:57:48.000 When you hit 20% dampening, so say I was at 10 meters per second, as soon as I hit 8 meters per second, I stop.

00:57:56.000 So this is kind of what they call fatigue.

00:57:57.000 So you stop that.

00:57:59.000 So instead of doing, you know, you're going to do 8 reps.

00:58:01.000 You do as many reps as you can until you reach a certain dampening of velocity.

00:58:04.000 And what are you doing them with?

00:58:07.000 Largely things like the Kaiser, the functional trainer, if you're familiar with that.

00:58:10.000 So you're just blasting.

00:58:11.000 Band work, yeah, things like that.

00:58:12.000 I mean, very rarely we'll throw Indian clubs and things like that in there as well.

00:58:16.000 So it all depends on the sport and what we're focusing on that day, metabolic readiness, things along those lines.

00:58:22.000 But it's all just about training in the right vectors and being able to not only put out force, but absorb force as well, which nobody really talks about.

00:58:29.000 And if you look at largely other professional sports, All these injuries are happening in the deceleration phase.

00:58:34.000 So when people are trying to slow down, this is absorbing force.

00:58:37.000 This is kind of similar to some of the pieces that just aren't trained in MMA as well.

00:58:42.000 You've got to be able to absorb force just like you put it out.

00:58:44.000 Now, this wrist thing that you're wearing, it measures velocity.

00:58:49.000 So how is it doing that?

00:58:51.000 So basically I have one here and then I have one on my shoe as well.

00:58:55.000 So it can do it by using two sensors, it can measure relative velocity.

00:58:58.000 So it's reading one relative to the other.

00:59:00.000 This is also doing everything that a badass traditional wearable would do as well.

00:59:04.000 So it's doing my heart rate, heart rate variability, which is actually clinical grade.

00:59:08.000 Everything we do has got to be clinical grade because what's the point of collecting data if it's shit, right?

00:59:12.000 And then it does pulse oxometry.

00:59:14.000 So I'm looking at my oxygen saturation.

00:59:16.000 The next version is going to be able to do hydration, all kinds of badass stuff.

00:59:20.000 What's really cool about it as well is it can measure form.

00:59:23.000 Any exercise that you're doing, we can compare you essentially to an ideal form.

00:59:27.000 And because we have two, you don't even have to tell it you're doing a power clean.

00:59:30.000 It can read your motions and things like that.

00:59:32.000 And it gives you like a consistency number as well.

00:59:35.000 So one thing we really talk about is not building muscle on top of dysfunction.

00:59:39.000 We have to get your biomechanical patterns right first, and then we start putting muscle on.

00:59:44.000 If you just put muscle on top of dysfunction, you're facilitating further dysfunction.

00:59:48.000 Would you have to wear one of those on each hand?

00:59:50.000 I mean, I'd say ideally for someone like a fighter, you obviously are thrown with both hands.

00:59:55.000 I think it would be ideal.

00:59:57.000 It's really difficult to time sync multiple devices to be on the same timeline.

01:00:01.000 So that's something we're working with this company, an amazing company actually out of here out of LA to develop this thing right now.

01:00:07.000 So I would say that would be the goal.

01:00:09.000 It's not something that's going to be applicable to the average guy though as well.

01:00:12.000 We're trying to bring this type of training to everybody.

01:00:15.000 Would it be possible instead of time syncing it, you have a left and a right computer, like two different computers that are reading data, one off the left, one off the right, so you don't have to coordinate them?

01:00:25.000 You just look at the various data?

01:00:27.000 Yeah.

01:00:27.000 I mean, at the end of the day, you still would have to sync them.

01:00:29.000 So the thing there, you'd be collecting it in two different sets of hardware.

01:00:33.000 You'd want an API connectivity, put it up in the cloud, and then you'd still, at the end of the day, have to find the same time axis.

01:00:38.000 So it sounds simpler than it really would be.

01:00:41.000 That's why this is the only wearable in the world right now that has even one in the foot.

01:00:45.000 And so this also allows you to track your gait while you're running and things as well.

01:00:48.000 But the more devices, the more complex.

01:00:50.000 And, you know, that's something I think would be great, but maybe not applicable to everybody.

01:00:54.000 Is it going to be able to track martial arts moves?

01:00:56.000 Like will it be able to track a double leg takedown or a roundhouse kick or anything like that?

01:01:01.000 Right now you can program it to do anything.

01:01:03.000 You put it into kind of like a learning mode on your app.

01:01:06.000 You do a few motions, you name it, and then it can basically compare you to yourself in that mode.

01:01:10.000 So you can try and do perfect form and measure your form relative to yourself.

01:01:15.000 But if you have shitty form, you're comparing yourself to shitty form.

01:01:18.000 Exactly.

01:01:19.000 So it doesn't know any better.

01:01:19.000 Exactly.

01:01:20.000 So what we're doing right now, which will be a little bit of a lengthy process, is defining a library of perfect form for everything that you could think of.

01:01:27.000 And then this is going to unlock telehealth and teletraining.

01:01:31.000 When you have something like that, we can do remote programming and be monitoring people's neuromuscular function, their biomechanics completely remotely.

01:01:39.000 So that's really what we're going towards.

01:01:40.000 Wow, this is fascinating stuff, man.

01:01:42.000 There's always been several aspects to getting a fighter ready for camp.

01:01:46.000 There's always been their skill set, what they're good at, specific training for that one individual opponent that they're going to face, and then all the strength and conditioning.

01:01:56.000 And, you know, it's usually thought of as, you know, weights and sprints and plyos and all these different things.

01:02:03.000 But I feel like this is probably the next step.

01:02:06.000 The next step, measuring all of your, all these variables that you're talking about and seeing how your body is at any given time so that you're not just guessing whether you're peaking.

01:02:16.000 You're scientifically peaking.

01:02:18.000 Exactly, man.

01:02:19.000 I mean, there's just no room for guesswork and subjectivity at this level.

01:02:23.000 And technology, there's no need for it anymore.

01:02:25.000 So we're just trying to let people know shit like this is available, right?

01:02:29.000 So we're developing it, and then the end goal is just to make it extremely user-friendly, right?

01:02:33.000 So you're doing your velocity-based training, and it says stop.

01:02:36.000 And then you rest, and we're using your heart rate variability to tell you when to go again.

01:02:40.000 So it's easy to stop and go for your periodization and things like that.

01:02:45.000 The technology's here, now making it actionable recommendations for the individual that can understand is kind of what we're moving towards.

01:02:52.000 This is awesome stuff, man.

01:02:53.000 Thank you.

01:02:54.000 Yeah, we're really passionate about what we're doing.

01:02:55.000 It's crazy that you've only been around for such a short amount of time, too, and yet you already have a world champion.

01:03:00.000 Oh, I know, man.

01:03:01.000 I mean, I feel, you know, there's times where you feel like you didn't deserve the opportunity because I'm new to the field.

01:03:06.000 You know, we obviously work our asses off and everything, but for Henry to put the faith into us, you know, this was a world champion camp.

01:03:12.000 We're a company...

01:03:13.000 Honestly, we're not even open yet.

01:03:14.000 This is probably one of the best acceleration for a company that's never seen the light of day ever.

01:03:19.000 We also are in a few other sports as well.

01:03:22.000 But yeah, for him to give us this opportunity, we felt like we owed him something.

01:03:26.000 So we worked extra hard, essentially put our entire company on hold for eight weeks to go help him out.

01:03:32.000 And it's paying dividends, obviously.

01:03:33.000 We're here right now.

01:03:34.000 Now, are you guys going to be open tomorrow?

01:03:36.000 To the general public, say the average girl or guy who does, say, jujitsu tournaments and wants to get in the best shape of their life, are you going to have products for them and a service where they can sign up for something like that?

01:03:49.000 Certainly.

01:03:49.000 Right now we are already open in terms of diagnostic testing.

01:03:53.000 So you can come in based on your sport, your goal, whatever it may be.

01:03:56.000 We do have customized diagnostic packages.

01:03:58.000 Because some assessments just aren't applicable to some people.

01:04:01.000 So we customize your assessment.

01:04:02.000 We basically tell you what you're good at, what you're bad at.

01:04:05.000 Then if you want to, you know, develop a program, that's a little bit of an upcharge.

01:04:08.000 The real goal there is to be able to do completely remote training, completely in-house training, and then any level of hybrid training as well.

01:04:16.000 So right now, what the world needs is the diagnostic testing, the data.

01:04:20.000 We're already ready to do that.

01:04:21.000 What we're building now is the processes of being able to use data, put it into recommendations, and then scale that.

01:04:27.000 It's hard to teach somebody everything that I do, so we're building the softwares to essentially replicate ourselves.

01:04:33.000 My buddy in the other room, Andre Hicks, one of the best strength and conditioning coaches in the world, these guys will attest to it.

01:04:39.000 You can't teach people what he knows, so we have to code this into a software, a lot of if-then type stuff.

01:04:45.000 And then this is able to be scalable to everybody.

01:04:47.000 We want to provide this training to people, you know, the average Joe trying to lose weight, you know, the weekend warrior, the jujitsu, everything, man.

01:04:57.000 We want to be able to provide this to everybody.

01:04:58.000 Everybody deserves this type of training.

01:05:00.000 That's minimal risk of injury, high yield return, efficient.

01:05:04.000 That's what everyone's looking for.

01:05:05.000 And that's why, you know, the people are getting fatter.

01:05:08.000 There's no good positive reinforcement out there and there's no clear roadmap of how to get to where you want to be.

01:05:13.000 You know, we put together like, you know, comparing it to Google Maps.

01:05:16.000 Everybody knows their endpoint.

01:05:17.000 They know where they want to be, but it can't tell you where you're at unless you know exactly where you're starting from.

01:05:21.000 You have to do this baseline assessment.

01:05:22.000 You know, sometimes it sucks to really understand how fat, you know, your body fat percentage and your metabolics and your risk of, you know, your insulin resistance and things like that.

01:05:31.000 But you have to figure out where you're starting from, where you want to be, and that's how we develop a roadmap.

01:05:35.000 So getting people, you know, and we believe this is the way of kind of making our way into the healthcare system as well.

01:05:41.000 That's our end goal as a company.

01:05:43.000 To be able to provide, you know, integrative fitness is what we're calling it.

01:05:46.000 Taking little pieces from all the different methodologies of fitness.

01:05:49.000 Like, you know, we bring meditation and yoga into our practice as well.

01:05:53.000 So little pieces of just about everything.

01:05:55.000 And be able to, you know, provide this to everybody.

01:05:57.000 That's what we're doing.

01:05:58.000 So in the future, when you guys are open, you're not totally open to the general public yet, right?

01:06:04.000 Correct, yeah.

01:06:04.000 About six or eight months.

01:06:05.000 Would someone have to come to you for the first initial assessments and then possibly be able to do the consulting either online or through the application?

01:06:15.000 I mean, there's totally different degrees.

01:06:16.000 We have 100% remote kits right now.

01:06:19.000 There's badass stuff you can do on your iPad, like biomechanical assessments that can find your joints and things like that.

01:06:24.000 We can send this to you.

01:06:26.000 There's a lot of things that we want to be able to do 100% remote.

01:06:28.000 For the most complex assessment, you got to come in.

01:06:31.000 You got to do a VO2 max assessment.

01:06:33.000 We can't send you a metabolic cart and shit, obviously.

01:06:35.000 So the goal is to get people to just come into the facility and then do remote programming from there.

01:06:40.000 And this is, you know, our concept is to put these diagnostic centers and possibly the attached training centers as well and just start providing these everywhere.

01:06:48.000 Because frankly, if we just went, you know, the diagnostic gym of the future route, it could be five, six hundred square feet, low, you know, low overhead facilities that are just really efficient, you know, just putting people out, collecting data left and right.

01:06:59.000 That's amazing, man.

01:07:00.000 What has it been like for you to make this gigantic change and to basically be like Ivan Drago?

01:07:07.000 Yeah, pretty much.

01:07:09.000 That's pretty much how it's kind of been.

01:07:11.000 We took in the Ivan Drago approach probably more than the Rocky approach, which I think Russians kind of tend to use science a little bit more in their training.

01:07:22.000 So to me, at first, it was almost like, man, I'm going all in on this, especially this camp against Demetrius.

01:07:28.000 I'm like, God, I'm going all in, man.

01:07:30.000 I'm going to have faith in the science, like 100%.

01:07:33.000 I'm going to do everything according to, even if I don't want to.

01:07:39.000 And I think it just, as I started seeing my body change, I started seeing like the coaches kind of adapt with like, okay, man, science is in the center of this whole camp.

01:07:46.000 And I saw the change, Joe, and I've never felt so recovered the night that I fought Demetrius Johnson.

01:07:51.000 I've never felt so good, and I'm 31 years old, and I've been cutting weight since I've been a kid.

01:07:58.000 So you felt a big difference through the entire camp doing this kind of method?

01:08:03.000 Yeah, through the entire camp.

01:08:04.000 People would trip out and be like, people were like, man, you're committing suicide.

01:08:07.000 How come you're not doing this?

01:08:09.000 How come you're not doing that?

01:08:11.000 What were they saying, how come you're not doing?

01:08:14.000 What specifically?

01:08:15.000 Oh no, just more work, more pad work, more sparring rounds, things of that matter, kind of like the gladiator stuff.

01:08:24.000 They're like, no, no, no, it's going to go according to my heart rate.

01:08:28.000 It's going to go according to what my windows of opportunity of training are.

01:08:35.000 And people are like, what kind of mumbo jumbo are you talking about?

01:08:38.000 You're supposed to be fighting.

01:08:39.000 Yeah, nobody knows.

01:08:40.000 The day that I wake up, the day that I train, nobody knows what's going on until the data's gone in the hands of Kevin and Neuroforce 1. And then, okay, they determine this is how many rounds, this is how we're going to kind of peak you for your fight.

01:08:53.000 If you could imagine standing on the sideline when he's sparring in rounds and stuff and we're like, slow down, pace your...

01:08:59.000 Coach is like, you can't do that.

01:09:01.000 This is fighting.

01:09:01.000 You can't try and control your heart rate while training.

01:09:03.000 No, this is training for fighting, right?

01:09:05.000 So we're constantly telling him to train less, slow himself down.

01:09:10.000 There was a little bit of clashing there at the beginning and then they started to see the body composition come around and started to feel his power and everyone kind of bought into the process but it takes a while.

01:09:20.000 We're redefining it and we understand that there's Give me some pushback.

01:09:24.000 This is such a universal concept when it comes to strength and conditioning coaches.

01:09:28.000 It's being discussed over and over again nowadays.

01:09:31.000 People are doing too much.

01:09:33.000 They're doing too much and your body just doesn't have a chance to recover.

01:09:37.000 And even though you're getting in better shape, ultimately, you're not getting in as good a shape as you could have gotten if you did less, which is so counterintuitive for most people.

01:09:47.000 Yeah, and that's kind of how...

01:09:48.000 I used to train so hard, but I used to get hurt.

01:09:53.000 I mean, I used to have back spasms kicking.

01:09:56.000 Like, that's how hard I would train.

01:09:57.000 Like, my back would literally go out just kicking.

01:09:59.000 I'd throw one kick, and they had to pull me off the gym in a stretcher.

01:10:04.000 You know, and I had those problems because I had just...

01:10:07.000 I really...

01:10:08.000 I didn't...

01:10:10.000 You almost train according to how...

01:10:12.000 How the schedule is rather than, okay, this is the approach today because this is how your stress levels are.

01:10:20.000 Yeah.

01:10:20.000 Like relax, dude.

01:10:21.000 And then at times you're going to go hard and it'll spike you at times.

01:10:26.000 It's crazy.

01:10:27.000 Well, that's the crazy contrast, right, is between this championship mentality that just wants to do more than anybody, push harder, train while everybody else is asleep, put your body through more than anybody else is willing to do because that's what makes a champion.

01:10:42.000 And then someone like you comes along and goes, no, that's what fucks you up.

01:10:46.000 You need to slow down, you need to do less, less rounds, move slower.

01:10:50.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:10:51.000 I mean, that was one of the biggest things I told him.

01:10:53.000 If you're not sleeping eight to ten hours a night when you're putting your body through something like that, you're doing your body an injustice and you're not going to make adaptations.

01:10:59.000 When we're out there training, we're breaking our body down.

01:11:02.000 It needs this repair.

01:11:03.000 We need to, you know, activate our glymphatic system, our brain's waste removal system as well, so we can go learn some new things the next day as well.

01:11:09.000 So if you're not sleeping, you're suboptimal, just like you're not properly hydrated and things as well.

01:11:14.000 This all comes down to the cellular level, you know, nervous system based approach.

01:11:18.000 Now, are you taking melatonin or anything to ensure that you go to sleep at a specific time?

01:11:25.000 Do you time your sleep schedule?

01:11:27.000 How are you organizing that?

01:11:29.000 Yeah, and that's another thing.

01:11:31.000 Even at times, according to when I would go to sleep, because at times, you know how you train late and sometimes you come back and it just takes you a while to go to sleep.

01:11:41.000 So even then, it would be like, alright, when Henry's ready to wake up, obviously if I don't hear my alarm and I snooze it, I'm more likely they're going to allow me to sleep an extra two hours.

01:11:52.000 Which is important.

01:11:53.000 Yeah, so it's kind of like what Floyd does.

01:11:55.000 Floyd will be like, hey, we'll wake everybody up at 3 in the morning.

01:11:58.000 But there's no scientific to what Floyd's doing.

01:12:00.000 To us, it's like, hey, dude, we have to peak today.

01:12:03.000 I've always wondered if there is science behind it and he just doesn't talk about it.

01:12:08.000 You know, with Floyd, like, you don't know.

01:12:11.000 Yeah, like when he drinks a Pepsi after a workout.

01:12:15.000 I was like, I wonder if someone told him to do that to replenish his body with a ton of sugar.

01:12:21.000 I mean, high glycemic carbs right after.

01:12:23.000 That's the only time it's really good, that little 45 window of insulin sensitivity.

01:12:27.000 So I do believe that.

01:12:28.000 One technology while we're on the sleep thing, one that we're utilizing for Henry, just a little light microcurrent here to your temporal lobes and it's proven to increase serotonin and melatonin and decrease cortisol.

01:12:40.000 So we're like manipulating biochemicals and it's a very natural way of making you feel drowsy.

01:12:44.000 What time do you do that at?

01:12:46.000 We would do that immediately following every rigorous training session to kind of like negate inflammatory responses and things like that.

01:12:52.000 You know, get you back into that anabolic phase as quickly as possible and then ideally right before bed every single night.

01:12:58.000 Did you feel like a science project while all this shit was going on?

01:13:00.000 I did.

01:13:01.000 I did.

01:13:01.000 Actually, they did a presentation on me in Russia with Roman, with the scientists that they have at the USCPI. Like, they tracked everything according to the Omega wave, the device that we were using.

01:13:12.000 And he was able to kind of show, he was like, hey, look, my system, you know, this system does work.

01:13:19.000 You know, it's just like people were kind of just tripping out.

01:13:21.000 So I went out there, did the whole presentation in Moscow.

01:13:38.000 The Russians have really been pioneering this type of training for quite a while.

01:13:45.000 Specifically, the type of training that Pavel Tatsulin Where you're using way less energy, you're working out way less, but you're getting better results from it.

01:13:56.000 There's a lot of thought processes that have been leaning in this direction from a lot of really high-level top coaches for quite a while now.

01:14:05.000 Yeah, I know.

01:14:05.000 And it's cool to see it because I come from a traditional sport where you put your head down and you go.

01:14:10.000 That's how wrestling is. 0.96

01:14:11.000 Wrestling and Muay Thai, I think they're very alike in that sense.

01:14:15.000 They're very traditional.

01:14:17.000 The harder you go, the more you push through injury, the better you will become.

01:14:21.000 Yeah, I also think that there's something to be said for that, though, in terms of mental strength.

01:14:27.000 Because one of the things that wrestlers have, that it's not just that they have a great skill in being able to manipulate bodies, but they also have mental toughness that's at a level that I don't think you get from any other sport.

01:14:39.000 I mean, I think there's a lot of pro athletes, even tennis players, that are just mentally tough.

01:14:44.000 They're just tough.

01:14:44.000 People just know how to win, they know how to push themselves, but I feel like wrestlers are on another level because they're always tired, they're always over-trained, they're always dehydrated, and they're always working out with a bunch of fucking savages that are all the same way, and everybody takes pleasure in being miserable.

01:15:02.000 There's something to that.

01:15:04.000 You see it.

01:15:05.000 Man, I've seen thousands of fights.

01:15:08.000 There's something about wrestlers.

01:15:10.000 They have just like an extra gear.

01:15:12.000 Like a high-level wrestler in particular has an extra gear that a lot of other fighters just never develop.

01:15:18.000 Yeah, it's almost like I tell people, wrestling's not, it's almost like not a sport, man.

01:15:22.000 It's like a culture, man.

01:15:24.000 Yes.

01:15:24.000 It's like you're just, you're in the culture of wrestling, and once you have that, it's almost a, there's an honor to it.

01:15:31.000 There's a warrior to it.

01:15:32.000 Like, and it's, it's, it's, I was just at the World Championships, Joe, and I can tell you, Man, the best athletes in the world.

01:15:41.000 I was just in Budapest, Hungary, and I saw Kyle Snyder and all these guys compete.

01:15:45.000 And I'm just like, man, these are the best athletes in the world.

01:15:49.000 This is the hardest shit a human being could ever do.

01:15:51.000 If you're to see the finesse and the strength and the power and what's involved in becoming a world champion and watching these guys go through this freaking tough, just the toughest tournament in the world.

01:16:04.000 I think what we do in MMA is fun compared to wrestling.

01:16:09.000 I really do.

01:16:10.000 I believe you do.

01:16:11.000 That stuff is hard.

01:16:13.000 What these guys go through to win a tournament, the weight cuts, they don't get paid a lot of money.

01:16:21.000 These dudes are literally out for the glory.

01:16:23.000 Each and every one of them.

01:16:25.000 It's all glory.

01:16:26.000 There's no financial reward at all.

01:16:27.000 That's what's fascinating about it.

01:16:29.000 But it's just interesting to me that I think you kind of need both in some weird way.

01:16:36.000 Your mind needs to develop this layer of toughness that wrestlers have.

01:16:42.000 And then I think once you've developed that, then maybe I think your approach, Kevin, is applicable.

01:16:50.000 But I think that until an athlete has that indomitable spirit, until they have that sort of iron will that a wrestler possesses, to make a champion I think you need many, many things.

01:17:03.000 But I don't think you can ever discount that ability to work through discomfort the way wrestlers have.

01:17:08.000 I just don't think it's wise as a professional athlete at a championship level to compete compromised.

01:17:15.000 Oh, agreed.

01:17:15.000 Yeah, you know, there's the intangibles, the stuff that you just can't teach.

01:17:19.000 You can't quantify, you know.

01:17:20.000 So we do our best to quantify as much as we can, but yeah, I mean, I completely agree.

01:17:25.000 You gotta put in the time and the work to learn the skill at some point, and then once, you know, it's autonomic, the skill's mastered.

01:17:31.000 That's when you can kind of kick it back into our method.

01:17:33.000 I'm gonna agree with you, Joe.

01:17:35.000 I think I'm gonna agree with you.

01:17:36.000 And I think the reason why this works for pretty much every MMA fighter is because we've all been through hell.

01:17:41.000 Yeah.

01:17:42.000 Like, in order for you to see and believe in science, you have to go through hell to understand, like, hey, man, the hard way probably isn't the best way.

01:17:49.000 But when you were talking about the feeling that you had in not wanting to ever feel the pain of losing again, that feeling that you had when your ankle was going out, and that, like, fuck this.

01:18:03.000 No, no, no.

01:18:03.000 I'm not doing this.

01:18:04.000 I'm gonna find a way out of this.

01:18:06.000 Like, you almost have to experience lows in order to have that.

01:18:11.000 And I feel like one of the things about wrestling, That makes it a sport that creates so many fucking savages is because you go through so much shit, so much hardship, so much difficulty that, 0.99

01:18:28.000 you know, if you had Science-based wrestling programs, the way you're doing a science-based camp, and you went in and said, everybody, you gotta slow down.

01:18:37.000 Slow down.

01:18:37.000 You're going too hard.

01:18:39.000 Slow down.

01:18:40.000 Can't run up hills today.

01:18:41.000 Your DC brainwaves are off.

01:18:44.000 Your wrestling coach would be like, shut the fuck up and sit down. 1.00

01:18:47.000 Who is this asshole?

01:18:48.000 If Dan Gable brought you into camp and you guys were running around doing all this stuff, he'd be like, what?

01:18:54.000 What are you saying?

01:18:55.000 This is how we make champions.

01:18:57.000 Yeah, but like I said, I think you hit the nail on the head.

01:19:00.000 I think it's, to me, the way I would see it is like you have to kind of go through hell in order to understand it because you have to go through that callus, through that burn.

01:19:07.000 But I feel like, especially in MMA, a lot of athletes or even athletes just in general, everybody busts their butts almost.

01:19:14.000 If you're an elite athlete, you'll always train maybe not the smartest way.

01:19:22.000 I guess you could add more to your training or take away less.

01:19:28.000 But there's a fine line to it.

01:19:30.000 Yeah, the fine line is what's fascinating to me.

01:19:34.000 One of the things that I love about MMA is that it's so broad, there are so many skills, that the approach to success is different with every individual, and you have to find what that approach is.

01:19:46.000 The approach to you, for you to achieve success, is going to be different than the approach for a different athlete.

01:19:53.000 It doesn't have the same skills that you have.

01:19:55.000 But like Anderson Silva, perfect example.

01:19:58.000 He's not a wrestler.

01:19:59.000 He's gonna have a different approach.

01:20:01.000 There's going to be different things that they work on in training.

01:20:05.000 There's gonna be a different mindset.

01:20:06.000 There's gonna be a different way of preparing.

01:20:08.000 Right, right.

01:20:09.000 And it's all according to everybody.

01:20:11.000 I think a lot of things are cookie cutter.

01:20:14.000 Looking at it the way now, it's like a lot of things have stayed even in wrestling just over tradition.

01:20:21.000 You know, like bridging.

01:20:23.000 Every time I see people bridging, the way they stretch their neck, I'm just like, dude, that ain't good for us, man. 0.74

01:20:27.000 That shit's so bad for your neck.

01:20:28.000 And then they be doing these springs on their head. 0.99

01:20:32.000 Kevin, how bad is that?

01:20:33.000 How bad is bridging for you?

01:20:35.000 I mean, I wouldn't recommend it.

01:20:37.000 But Mike Tyson always looked badass when he was doing it back in the day.

01:20:40.000 I was going to say, it looks pretty badass.

01:20:42.000 Have you ever fucked around with the iron neck?

01:20:46.000 With the iron neck?

01:20:47.000 You don't know about that?

01:20:47.000 Oh, I got one back there.

01:20:49.000 Those things are badass.

01:20:50.000 You gotta try this, man.

01:20:51.000 I saw some of your videos.

01:20:52.000 That's definitely one of the missing links why a lot of these wrestlers get hurt.

01:20:55.000 The neck instability, the postural issues that come associated with it as well.

01:20:59.000 These guys need to strengthen their necks.

01:21:00.000 It's a halo.

01:21:01.000 You put it on, you pump it up like a Reebok pump.

01:21:04.000 Remember the Reebok pump?

01:21:05.000 Yeah.

01:21:06.000 You pump this sucker up so it tightens up on your head.

01:21:08.000 You put a chin strap on.

01:21:10.000 It's got a bungee cable on that's set to 50 pounds.

01:21:13.000 You back up and then there's resistance on the halo.

01:21:16.000 So it spins.

01:21:17.000 The halo has like, you could tighten up or clamp down or loosen up the resistance.

01:21:22.000 And you do these exercises like...

01:21:26.000 You go sideways, you do like loops back and forth.

01:21:30.000 It's fucking badass.

01:21:32.000 Damn, that's crazy.

01:21:33.000 I'm excited, man.

01:21:35.000 Yeah, you gotta try it.

01:21:36.000 Is that why I signed that waiver?

01:21:40.000 No, you signed a waiver because you've got to get a hold of some of that weed.

01:21:44.000 You're running through walls.

01:21:45.000 And then the float tank.

01:21:50.000 If you want to try the float tank, that's what the waiver's for, too.

01:21:52.000 I don't want you to lose your mind.

01:21:53.000 Yeah, the sensory immersion, those float tanks are pretty badass.

01:21:56.000 We study those quite a bit for the nervous system-based stuff.

01:21:58.000 We're building kind of our own sensory immersion, like mindfulness room of the future as well.

01:22:02.000 All the walls, LED screens, so you can put yourself fully immersed in any environment.

01:22:07.000 It's going to be pretty badass.

01:22:08.000 Mindfulness is so overlooked in these sports.

01:22:10.000 How important.

01:22:11.000 I know you're a meditation guy as well.

01:22:13.000 Getting your mind right is invaluable.

01:22:16.000 Yeah, and you were saying that meditation and yoga is also a part of the preparation that you guys employ?

01:22:22.000 Oh, 100%.

01:22:22.000 Yeah.

01:22:23.000 I mean, it all comes down to, you know, when we're doing our warm-up, training, and recovery, it's all mind and body.

01:22:29.000 So his warm-up is going to include, like, somatosensory reaction testing.

01:22:32.000 So imagine, like, a wall, and it has different lights on it.

01:22:35.000 You react as quickly as you can as soon as they light up.

01:22:38.000 Then I say, alright, if the light comes up red, use your right hand, and blue, use your left hand.

01:22:42.000 So we're invoking cognitive decision-making processes.

01:22:45.000 Then we have you stand on one of these shake plates, a proprio-receptive plate.

01:22:48.000 Now your vision, your neuromuscular, your proprio-receptive, everything is warmed up.

01:22:52.000 Everything, every part of your brain that's going to equate to, you know, force output, absorption, and so on.

01:22:56.000 Then we go do a more traditional warm-up, whatever that may be.

01:22:59.000 We do cognitive training, we do physical training more from a functional aspect.

01:23:04.000 And then as soon as you're done, we get you into a mind-based recovery as well.

01:23:07.000 So we get you into yoga, meditation, that technology we're playing with right now that manipulates your biochemicals.

01:23:13.000 Just about everything, man.

01:23:15.000 It's mind and body every step along the way.

01:23:17.000 And when you're doing yoga, are you doing yoga to increase mobility?

01:23:21.000 Are you doing it for the mental training, for both?

01:23:25.000 Definitely a little bit of both.

01:23:26.000 We believe Andre more leads the yoga, what we're doing over there, so he'd be better to ask specifically.

01:23:31.000 But we believe it largely for nervous system and for breathing.

01:23:34.000 One thing we really talk about is the diaphragmatic breathing, and yoga is really a calm environment to be able to focus on your breathing.

01:23:40.000 What does that mean, diaphragmatic breathing?

01:23:42.000 Diaphragmatic breathing, yeah.

01:23:43.000 Breathing from your diaphragm.

01:23:44.000 This is how we're all born, breathing from our diaphragm.

01:23:46.000 And just, you know, eventually we end up breathing from our chest, which is very ineffective for metabolic efficiency.

01:23:52.000 What's the difference?

01:23:52.000 Explain, like, what is it?

01:23:53.000 Just like when you see, like, you know, the Wim Hof guy, he's always breathing from his gut here.

01:23:58.000 And that's like...

01:23:59.000 Engaging your core as opposed to just like your chest.

01:24:01.000 So you're actually getting deeper breaths.

01:24:03.000 You're encouraging like core stability and things as well.

01:24:06.000 It's better for metabolic efficiency.

01:24:07.000 So when you're actually exercising, it's better for delaying anaerobic threshold, buffering lactate, things like that, as well as keeping the nervous system calm as well.

01:24:16.000 Do you think there's any benefit to breathing through your nose and out through your mouth?

01:24:22.000 I'd say it's on an individualized basis.

01:24:24.000 I think the best thing is to not think about your breathing.

01:24:26.000 When you start thinking about it, it can kind of get fucked up.

01:24:28.000 So if we encourage diaphragmatic breathing without this, this technology we utilize is actually, even though when you're utilizing the technology, you're just breathing in and out through your mouth, it actually encourages in through the nose, out through the mouth when you're training.

01:24:40.000 So I mean, I'm not an expert specifically on that, but I think there's definitely some performance advantage to it.

01:24:46.000 I want to talk MMA now, Joe.

01:24:48.000 Thank you, Kevin.

01:24:48.000 I appreciate it, man.

01:24:49.000 This guy will go on all day.

01:24:51.000 I love it, Kevin.

01:24:52.000 Thank you so much, man.

01:24:53.000 That was amazing, really.

01:24:54.000 Yeah, of course.

01:24:55.000 And tell people where they could find out about your company and what your website is.

01:24:59.000 Our company is in Scottsdale, Arizona.

01:25:01.000 The website is neuroforce1one.com.

01:25:04.000 Check us out.

01:25:05.000 All right.

01:25:05.000 Thank you.

01:25:06.000 Thanks, Joe.

01:25:06.000 That was very informative.

01:25:08.000 Intense shit, son.

01:25:10.000 Henry's now become the standard because, like he said, that Roman from the Performance Institute did that PowerPoint presentation for UFC Moscow.

01:25:19.000 He told us he's the first athlete that ever did eight weeks, that they have eight weeks collection of data.

01:25:25.000 So Henry's now become the standard of the system that Roman had Neuroforce 1 and all the data put together. 0.68

01:25:33.000 It's the first time ever that an athlete actually...

01:25:35.000 Stuck to the program for eight weeks.

01:25:37.000 That's fantastic.

01:25:38.000 So for you now, you got the title, and there is talk about you fighting for the bantamweight title against champion TJ Dillashaw.

01:25:47.000 What are your thoughts?

01:25:48.000 Where are you at right now?

01:25:49.000 What are your goals?

01:25:50.000 It's a beautiful time to be the champ.

01:25:56.000 There's tons of options, Joe.

01:25:59.000 Where's your contract at right now?

01:26:01.000 Well, I still have about seven fights left, you know, but we're going to renegotiate because I think more likely that T.J. fight might happen.

01:26:11.000 It's got to happen.

01:26:12.000 That T.J. fight might happen if, you know, if it's going to be a done way with the flyweight division.

01:26:17.000 You know, I think the cat's out the bag and, you know, Dana had mentioned that to me and said, hey, you know, we want to take you up on that offer if you are challenging to go up against T.J., but this is where the company's been...

01:26:30.000 I've been thinking about it for a while.

01:26:32.000 And TJ's down for it too?

01:26:34.000 I don't think so.

01:26:35.000 I think TJ wants to come down to 25. I think that's kind of like the delay a little bit.

01:26:41.000 Now, would you rather fight him at 35 so that you can get an additional title?

01:26:45.000 Or would you rather fight him at 35 because you don't have to cut weight?

01:26:49.000 I like both ideas.

01:26:51.000 I actually kind of left it off to him.

01:26:52.000 I said, I don't know, but I want to fight you, man.

01:26:54.000 I said, I want to fight TJ. I want to go out to the next best thing.

01:26:57.000 And I think that's him.

01:26:59.000 So you don't mind fighting him at 25 or 35?

01:27:01.000 Yeah, I don't.

01:27:01.000 That makes it easier.

01:27:02.000 Yeah.

01:27:03.000 That definitely makes it easy.

01:27:04.000 Yeah, I'm just like, hey, let's do that 25, let's do that 35, but let's fight, man.

01:27:09.000 That's where your mind is right now.

01:27:10.000 That's your number one goal.

01:27:12.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:27:13.000 And I believe TJ wants to fight me, too.

01:27:16.000 I think beating Demetrius, I think that's going to help his name.

01:27:20.000 I guess for both, you can say.

01:27:24.000 But now that Demetrius has left the division and gone off to 1FC to get...

01:27:32.000 Where do you think the division is right now?

01:27:36.000 Is that one reason, like, if you won at 35 and won the title at 35, would you consider dropping the 25-pound title and competing at 35, or would you rather stay at 25?

01:27:48.000 I wouldn't mind dabbling in both.

01:27:50.000 I know that's kind of broad, but at one point you do get tired of cutting weight.

01:27:57.000 What do you weigh right now?

01:27:58.000 I'm probably about 50. Losing 15 pounds is way better than losing 25 pounds.

01:28:08.000 Yeah, I'm a little bigger now because of that reason.

01:28:13.000 I might have to fight at Bantam.

01:28:17.000 I think more likely it might happen at Bantam way.

01:28:21.000 What people don't know is that, actually, Henry almost fought TJ when he was the champ.

01:28:27.000 When Hennon Baral didn't make weight, his first fight in the UFC, he didn't make weight.

01:28:31.000 But two hours later, Hennon Baral didn't make weight and they were looking.

01:28:34.000 For somebody to go up and fight TJ. When Joe Soto fought him?

01:28:38.000 When Joe Soto fought him, Henry was the number one option.

01:28:43.000 But Henry had already declined.

01:28:45.000 He said he wasn't fighting Jorgensen.

01:28:48.000 But now here we are, three years later.

01:28:51.000 Back now, he's got the belt.

01:28:54.000 TJ came back and won the belt.

01:28:57.000 Let's do it.

01:28:57.000 These guys have been beefing for a long time, so that's ever since the first day he ever came into the UFC. Him and TJ have been at it.

01:29:06.000 And then on Ultimate Fighter 24, Dwayne Bang was the coach.

01:29:11.000 There was a little beef with Henry, and Benavidez's team, Benavidez's coach.

01:29:17.000 So it kind of goes way back.

01:29:21.000 There's a bit of animosity too on top of everything.

01:29:24.000 Now you're a very goal-oriented guy.

01:29:26.000 Do you have your career mapped out in terms of like when you would like to get out of the game?

01:29:32.000 I do.

01:29:33.000 I do.

01:29:33.000 And I think about it a lot.

01:29:34.000 Because, man, I'll be honest with you, Joe.

01:29:36.000 I've accomplished everything I've ever wanted to, you know, in my career.

01:29:41.000 Like, I've always...

01:29:42.000 I had three goals, and that was just, you know...

01:29:44.000 My number one goal was just to be a good person, a good father, a good husband.

01:29:48.000 And then after that was to be an Olympic champ, and then eventually UFC champ.

01:29:53.000 So everything's kind of...

01:29:55.000 I've done everything that I've ever kind of set my mind to.

01:30:00.000 Those are the two biggest things, the two manliest things anybody could ever do.

01:30:04.000 And I don't see myself fighting for more than maybe three to four years.

01:30:10.000 The only other thing, you really are in this rare space where you have the possibility of being considered one of the greatest combat sport athletes of all time.

01:30:20.000 You're already in the mix, right?

01:30:21.000 Olympic gold medalist, UFC champion.

01:30:24.000 I mean, you have this very rare opportunity for incredible greatness.

01:30:32.000 I think for the most part, I mean, I like to eventually, I mean, I do a lot of motivational speaking.

01:30:38.000 I've been doing that for a while, Joe.

01:30:39.000 I've spoken in front of like the biggest companies in the world.

01:30:43.000 I mean, the Coca-Cola, like the TD Ameritrade, Procter& Gamble, a billion dollar company.

01:30:47.000 I just got signed by Kroger.

01:30:49.000 And they kind of, you know, they use me for that reason.

01:30:53.000 And I really enjoy doing that.

01:30:55.000 And plus, you get paid!

01:30:59.000 And you don't have to get leg kicked.

01:31:01.000 Yeah, you don't have to get leg kicked and hit that nerve and do the drunken monkey.

01:31:06.000 You don't got to do all that.

01:31:07.000 And it's just cool to kind of share the whole underdog story.

01:31:12.000 I love that people do do that.

01:31:13.000 That companies have the mindset of bringing in champions and people that are extraordinary at whatever they do and speaking to these people that work for them and explaining.

01:31:26.000 Motivation is gigantic.

01:31:27.000 Motivation is such a huge...

01:31:29.000 Source of fuel for people in all walks of life.

01:31:33.000 You know, to have a guy like you come in and talk to a company could have a really big impact on their creativity, on how they pursue goals, on all kinds of different things.

01:31:44.000 Yeah, so anyways, that's kind of where I can see my life kind of heading to.

01:31:49.000 I think I'll always be a fan of the sport, but I don't think I'll be involved in either wrestling or fighting as much as I think I would.

01:31:57.000 Not as a coach, not as...

01:31:59.000 No, no.

01:32:00.000 It's too hard, Joe.

01:32:01.000 Like, look at all these coaches.

01:32:03.000 It's a relationship.

01:32:04.000 Yeah.

01:32:05.000 You know, being a coach, you're in a relationship with your athletes.

01:32:08.000 Sometimes you go through these breakups, and sometimes the athletes don't give you what they want to give you, and then it's just a headache at times.

01:32:15.000 Yeah.

01:32:15.000 And I see that with a lot of, you know, I see that with him, and I'm just like, man, I don't know if I want those stress levels.

01:32:21.000 That's it.

01:32:22.000 That's a lot of stress.

01:32:24.000 Well, Eric, for a guy like you, you get across a guy like Henry, you hit the goldmine.

01:32:29.000 But you could get across a guy who is a really talented guy that's a flake.

01:32:35.000 And those, to me personally, there's plenty of those.

01:32:38.000 But to me, as an analyst, as someone who watches fights, they're the most frustrating.

01:32:43.000 Because there's some guys that I see and I go, God damn, that motherfucker's good.

01:32:46.000 He's got the potential.

01:32:48.000 Like, they can do things inside the octagon.

01:32:50.000 They do things...

01:32:50.000 Like, I'll see guys in the gym.

01:32:52.000 Like, I'll go to a gym and watch guys train and see the guy and I go, if this motherfucker could put it together like this, in the cage...

01:33:00.000 The way you see when he's sparring.

01:33:02.000 Some people are just artists, but the anxiety of competition and all the factors that come involved, the discipline, the consistency, all the things that make someone a great fighter sometimes.

01:33:15.000 There's so many different things that make someone a great fighter that wind up fucking them up when they actually go to compete.

01:33:22.000 The recklessness, impulsiveness that actually makes them good.

01:33:27.000 Also can wind up tanking them if they don't sort of forge it with some sort of severe discipline.

01:33:34.000 Yeah, there has to be a training of the mind, too.

01:33:38.000 And I think that's where people are skipping.

01:33:41.000 And, you know, I think that's where you have to understand, like, the philosophy up here.

01:33:46.000 Like, you have to be right up top.

01:33:50.000 You have to be right.

01:33:51.000 You have to be literally, you have to understand and know who you are as a fighter, as a person.

01:33:56.000 And, you know, to kind of...

01:34:00.000 To be stable enough to perform when it really matters.

01:34:04.000 And if you don't have that, you can be as talented and as gifted as you want.

01:34:11.000 You'll never make it.

01:34:13.000 And we see those all the time.

01:34:14.000 I'd see guys in practice, man, they would tear me up.

01:34:17.000 They came to competition, they would just roll over like fish.

01:34:20.000 It's weird, right?

01:34:21.000 Yeah, it's crazy.

01:34:22.000 I'm like, huh?

01:34:23.000 Yeah, it's weird as you're coming up and you see those guys and you realize, like, man, there's something missing.

01:34:30.000 And then you're terrified you're going to see that in yourself.

01:34:33.000 And I think it's the embracement of embracing pressure.

01:34:37.000 It's something that you don't neglect.

01:34:39.000 It's something that you don't shy away from.

01:34:40.000 It's something that you don't allow to damage you.

01:34:43.000 But it's an embracement.

01:34:45.000 It's like, hey, bring it, man, bring it.

01:34:46.000 Because that's what it is, Joe.

01:34:48.000 It's the pressure that people feel, the reason why they can't perform.

01:34:50.000 It's what makes champions.

01:34:52.000 I remember when T.J. Dillshaw first fought Hennen Burrell.

01:34:55.000 When he got into that octagon, dude, he looked like he was sparring.

01:34:58.000 He was loose as a goose.

01:35:00.000 And I saw him, I'm like, damn, look how loose T.J. is.

01:35:03.000 Like, this is a world title fight, and he's switching stances and giving them looks, and he looks fantastic.

01:35:08.000 He just looked loose, and then BOOM! He hits him with that big overhand right, and the next thing you know, Henneporell's getting fucked up.

01:35:15.000 I mean, and that was what TJ thrives on that kind of pressure.

01:35:19.000 He lives for that kind of pressure, just like you do.

01:35:22.000 Which is why I want to see that fight.

01:35:25.000 Let's do it.

01:35:26.000 I want his head on a spike.

01:35:30.000 We both do.

01:35:32.000 I want to make some snake shoes out of TJ, man.

01:35:37.000 Snake skin, baby.

01:35:38.000 I want snake skin shoes.

01:35:40.000 Maybe suit. 0.67

01:35:41.000 I think he might be big enough for me.

01:35:42.000 Yeah.

01:35:43.000 What a fight that would be for fans, too.

01:35:45.000 I mean, those champion versus champion encounters are always so fantastic.

01:35:49.000 No, and the reason why it's cool, too, is because we're both in our prime, too.

01:35:52.000 Like, TJ's probably a couple years older than me, but even with, like, Demetrius, like, dude, I beat Demetrius in his prime.

01:35:57.000 Like, yeah, it was a close fight.

01:35:59.000 But man, I can say, dude, I beat him.

01:36:01.000 In his prime.

01:36:02.000 In his prime.

01:36:03.000 It's almost like there's no doubt, but it was because of the game planning.

01:36:06.000 And you ended the greatest winning streak in the history of the sport.

01:36:10.000 Right.

01:36:10.000 I mean, the greatest championship defense streak in the history of the sport.

01:36:14.000 And then on top, I mean...

01:36:16.000 Nurmagomedov has the greatest winning streak in the sport because he's still undefeated.

01:36:20.000 But as far as defending the title, DJ was number one.

01:36:24.000 And again, you did it to him in his prime.

01:36:26.000 If you look at the way he destroyed Wilson Hayes, if you look at, like, I mean, fucking...

01:36:32.000 Everybody.

01:36:33.000 Everybody, man.

01:36:33.000 Moraga.

01:36:34.000 Everybody.

01:36:35.000 He's a monster, man.

01:36:36.000 Ray Borg, the greatest submission in...

01:36:39.000 That was the craziest shit of all time.

01:36:41.000 He fucking suplexes him and then catches an arm bar on the way down.

01:36:45.000 Get the fuck out of here.

01:36:47.000 He told me he does that in training all the time.

01:36:50.000 Yeah, Matt Hume is a wizard.

01:36:52.000 One of the things that I did that was kind of unconventional for this camp, I had them video edit.

01:36:59.000 Obviously, we scouted Demetrius Johnson, but then I went back and got every one-minute clip of Matt Hume's Interval between rounds so 25 fights I have the one minute what he tells him how he adapts and changes and one of the things I noticed is that he always went to wrestling and when he always went to wrestling he sounded like it was automatic alright so this round we're gonna take him down and we're gonna work it was always automatic and when it went into the fifth round it wasn't automatic you can hear him

01:37:29.000 say You can try to take him down if you want.

01:37:33.000 It was kind of like that the way he said it.

01:37:35.000 And when I went back and watched, I was like, we got him.

01:37:38.000 And going into that fifth round, one of the things that we talked about subliminally and mentally training was...

01:37:46.000 When we went, Henry was just put in the Hall of Fame, you know, which has never been done at such a young age.

01:37:52.000 As a wrestler.

01:37:53.000 As a wrestler.

01:37:54.000 And when I was at the Wrestling Hall of Fame, Nate Carr, who's also one of the greatest wrestlers ever, he told me, he said, you know what, Eric?

01:38:02.000 When I wrestled Kenny Monday and I lost him in the Big Tens, I knew that when I went out two weeks later to fight him in the NCAA Finals that it might come up that, man, this guy just beat me.

01:38:16.000 So I had a book.

01:38:17.000 Actually, I think he said his wife made his book.

01:38:20.000 And he put all the positive things that Nate Carr had done and all the articles, and she made quotes from that and put it in this book.

01:38:28.000 So he gave me that idea, and then I did that.

01:38:31.000 So Henry was put in the Hall of Fame.

01:38:33.000 That night, they had a video highlight.

01:38:35.000 They had Terry Brands, his coach.

01:38:36.000 They had Sergey Belaglazov, Kenny, Kevin Jackson, some of the greatest, all his coaches, saying stuff about him.

01:38:44.000 And I took that and I put it in this book, and it kind of like...

01:38:48.000 I read it to him every day, and it kind of like happened in the fight.

01:38:52.000 One of his own quotes was that, I've got to go in there and kill and be ready to die.

01:38:57.000 And you know, when he got that leg injury, you know, he was ready to die.

01:39:02.000 He was ready to keep going forward.

01:39:03.000 Yes, we adapted and went southpaw, but some of that stuff in the book came exactly true.

01:39:10.000 Start fast and finish even stronger.

01:39:13.000 Compete with passion and purpose.

01:39:16.000 And this is what I said to him right here.

01:39:19.000 He's been waiting all day to show you this shit.

01:39:21.000 Oh yeah.

01:39:22.000 Because this is what I told him going into the fifth round when we was 2-2.

01:39:27.000 Let's hear it.

01:39:29.000 Shit, let me see.

01:39:30.000 I said, let's throw Henry.

01:39:31.000 Burn the ships.

01:39:32.000 Take the fucking castle.

01:39:34.000 Let's take him down. 0.86

01:39:36.000 Hurt him on the ground.

01:39:37.000 If he gets back up, knock his ass out.

01:39:40.000 And that's what I told him going into the fifth round to shake him.

01:39:43.000 Are you selling that shirt?

01:39:44.000 I think we only had one or two, but we should, says the messenger.

01:39:48.000 So, you know, it's just something that I was ingraining into him every sparring session.

01:39:54.000 I had something said for him.

01:39:56.000 But this time, going into the fifth round against DJ, I wasn't sure if it was 2-2 or if he needed a knockout.

01:40:03.000 How did you feel?

01:40:05.000 I thought it was 2-2.

01:40:06.000 I thought it was 2-2.

01:40:07.000 And I think DJ, from the interviews that I've heard, I think he felt like it was 2-2 going to the 5th.

01:40:13.000 Yeah, we thought it was 2-2.

01:40:14.000 When we were watching the fight, we were like, damn, this is as close as it gets.

01:40:18.000 Yeah, and again, Joe, I wouldn't, like I said, because it was such a close fight, dude.

01:40:24.000 I'd clap for Demetrius too if they would have gave them the fight.

01:40:27.000 I know it was close, you know.

01:40:30.000 What did you weigh?

01:40:32.000 I was actually a pound lighter than Demetrius.

01:40:36.000 I don't know if you knew that.

01:40:37.000 Wow, you looked bigger.

01:40:38.000 Yeah.

01:40:39.000 You really did.

01:40:40.000 But that's, again, that's kind of where they, the way they placed my muscle, like it was...

01:40:47.000 That's why I look bigger, but no, I was a pound lighter than Demetrius Johnson.

01:40:50.000 What did you weigh?

01:40:51.000 141. Oh, wow.

01:40:54.000 That's because when you saw you guys standing together in the octagon, you really did look bigger than him.

01:40:59.000 Yeah.

01:41:00.000 It's really interesting.

01:41:01.000 Yeah.

01:41:01.000 Yeah, so I was lighter than Demetrius, people, FYI. And he kept on saying.

01:41:07.000 He said it twice.

01:41:08.000 He's so big, he's so strong.

01:41:10.000 He said it twice in his post-interview.

01:41:12.000 Well, that's wrestling strength, right?

01:41:14.000 Wrestling strength is just a different kind of strength.

01:41:16.000 Well, sometimes it's not even strength, it's leverage.

01:41:19.000 It's learning how to use, how to tippy-toe things and how to use your weight to pressure your opponent or to take them down.

01:41:26.000 For sure, yeah.

01:41:27.000 But there's also strength.

01:41:28.000 I mean, there's some creepy strength that wrestlers have.

01:41:31.000 Anybody's ever rolled with a wrestler knows that.

01:41:33.000 Yeah, I guess you're right.

01:41:34.000 If you could see the transformation that he had from the eight weeks, from the beginning to the end.

01:41:39.000 There's a documentary.

01:41:40.000 These guys filmed the whole entire thing.

01:41:42.000 Are you guys going to put it out?

01:41:44.000 You're putting the documentary out?

01:41:45.000 Yeah, I think we're going to put it out sometime, I think in the spring.

01:41:48.000 But it's going to come out.

01:41:49.000 It's going to be nice.

01:41:51.000 We're going to try to pitch it to Netflix.

01:41:54.000 Nice.

01:41:55.000 Beautiful.

01:41:56.000 The whole process.

01:41:57.000 The messenger.

01:41:57.000 Yeah.

01:41:58.000 The messenger.

01:41:59.000 And don't forget, not only was he fighting for the title, this guy was fighting for his life only eight months before in the Santa Rosa fires.

01:42:06.000 So his story is very inspirational.

01:42:08.000 That's a crazy fucking story in and of itself.

01:42:10.000 You actually burn the bottom of your feet running, escaping a fire that snuck up on you like lightning speed, huh?

01:42:16.000 Yeah, it was the craziest thing that's probably ever happened to me.

01:42:20.000 And I've done some crazy things.

01:42:22.000 Yeah, they documented it in the UFC pre-show.

01:42:25.000 Like, when they showed all the damage to the area where you were living.

01:42:29.000 It's fucking terrifying.

01:42:31.000 Yeah, it was crazy.

01:42:33.000 Anyways, I mean, I guess this is where people kind of share their stories, right?

01:42:37.000 But it's...

01:42:39.000 Yeah, so this was about a year ago now.

01:42:41.000 So this was, yeah, about a year ago now.

01:42:43.000 And I got invited to this event with, you know, raising money for kids and cancer.

01:42:48.000 And everybody in there, every big celebrity gets invited, like Jerry Rice, like Barry Bonds, like the big A-list celebrities, and everybody was there.

01:42:57.000 And we had a fundraiser that night in, you know, Wine Country in Santa Rosa, California.

01:43:01.000 You know, and everybody had their drinks and whatnot.

01:43:04.000 You know, I had a couple glasses.

01:43:05.000 Maybe I had a few glasses of wine, but I don't drink wine.

01:43:08.000 But I had a few glasses, and I remember I told everybody, hey, I'm going to sleep, guys.

01:43:11.000 And it was close to about midnight.

01:43:13.000 I was like, I ain't trying to stay up with these people.

01:43:15.000 And I'm trying to sleep because I never drink wine.

01:43:18.000 So I go to my room and I shower and get into bed.

01:43:23.000 And I remember right before I went to bed, I remember I saw like the flickering of lights.

01:43:28.000 And I just thought it was weird.

01:43:30.000 Roughly by the time I got to my hotel, I showered, I saw the flickering of lights and I didn't think anything of it.

01:43:35.000 And I pass out, 2.30 hits, 2.30 in the morning hits, and I'm just, you know, I wake up because I hear the alarm, you know, kind of pop off at the hotel.

01:43:46.000 So now I'm hearing these alarms starting to go off, and I've, you know, I checked out.

01:43:50.000 I checked out in front.

01:43:51.000 I checked out through the window, and I checked out at the lobby.

01:43:54.000 Nobody was moving, so I was like, it's a false alarm.

01:43:56.000 So I got the pillow put all over my head and I freaking slept through the alarm.

01:44:00.000 That happened about 2.30.

01:44:01.000 Now 4.30 comes about and this time I don't wake up because of the alarm.

01:44:05.000 I wake up because of the smoke.

01:44:08.000 I'm like coughing on the smoke and at first I thought I was dreaming.

01:44:12.000 So I wake up and at that time I slept in my towel.

01:44:16.000 That's how tired I was.

01:44:18.000 And I got up, and I'm going to turn on the lights, and the lights ain't turning on.

01:44:21.000 And then I go through the window, and I check the window, and next, you know, I see the car right in front of me on fire.

01:44:27.000 Three-fourths of the hotel.

01:44:29.000 Like, I was probably about five rooms away from, like, getting hit hard.

01:44:31.000 Like, I'm talking about, like, fire coming out the window.

01:44:35.000 Like that, and I'm waking up to this.

01:44:37.000 Like, thinking I'm dreaming.

01:44:38.000 You know, in a towel.

01:44:40.000 And the lights, everything was dark, but I could see everything, like the room started getting hot.

01:44:45.000 And I couldn't hold my breath no more.

01:44:47.000 I started looking for my shoes.

01:44:48.000 I couldn't find my shoes.

01:44:49.000 And I bumped into my slacks and I left them on the ironing board the night before and I put them on.

01:44:54.000 And I grabbed my phone and I jumped out the window.

01:45:00.000 I jumped out the window.

01:45:00.000 As I jumped out the window, my right foot catches on fire.

01:45:04.000 My right foot catches on fire fast and I'm trying to put it out.

01:45:10.000 I can see how people can catch on fire real quick because my right leg was like, boom!

01:45:16.000 It was crazy.

01:45:17.000 Wow.

01:45:18.000 So I jump out and I start walking.

01:45:20.000 As I'm walking, I'm seeing the whole town in front of us was all in sticks.

01:45:24.000 The whole thing was just in sticks.

01:45:26.000 The fire had just ate that thing up.

01:45:28.000 There's a building in front of me on fire.

01:45:31.000 I'm just walking through the streets, going up the hill.

01:45:33.000 I'm just thinking, God, it's going to be a horrible way to die.

01:45:37.000 Horrible way to die.

01:45:38.000 Fuck.

01:45:39.000 And I got a bird's eye view when I was on top of the hill, and then I saw there's a cop down there.

01:45:46.000 There's a cop down in the middle of the freeway.

01:45:49.000 I'm just like, you know, that's where I got to go.

01:45:51.000 So now I'm running fast, and I'm seeing this brush fire kind of come along.

01:45:55.000 I'm seeing California just catch on fire completely through my eyes.

01:46:00.000 I jump over the first fence to get to the freeway, no problem.

01:46:04.000 I jump over the second fence, and then the third fence, it was a very flimsy kind of fence.

01:46:11.000 And I remember as I jumped out, I remember it snagged part of my slacks.

01:46:15.000 Keep in mind, the only thing I had on was slacks.

01:46:18.000 I was commando, slacks, no shirt, no shoes, out in the cold in California.

01:46:25.000 And as that flimsy fence, as I jumped off that last fence, it like cut.

01:46:30.000 And like a part of the fence, I grabbed my butt and it just, it cut me open hard.

01:46:35.000 And it tore like half the leg.

01:46:36.000 So now, I'm full of smoke.

01:46:40.000 My right foot's burned.

01:46:41.000 And I'm pretty much half naked in the middle of the freeway.

01:46:47.000 Jesus Christ.

01:46:48.000 So I see the cop car and I go up to the cop car.

01:46:51.000 And as I'm going up to it, I'm sorry, the freaking cop car leaves.

01:46:54.000 Like, fucking just scrambles.

01:46:56.000 I'm just like, oh my god.

01:46:58.000 And as soon as that cop car left, I remember seeing, like, this big-ass diesel, like, coming towards me. 0.77

01:47:03.000 And ever getting into the middle of the freeway and kind of, you know, waving my hands, like, dude, you're gonna take me out?

01:47:08.000 I ain't dying like this.

01:47:09.000 Like, hit me, dude.

01:47:12.000 And as it got closer, I saw it was a firetruck.

01:47:15.000 And I get rescued by the firemen.

01:47:18.000 They put me in the firetruck, and they're just kind of like looking at me like, damn, dude, you just survived death.

01:47:24.000 Wow.

01:47:25.000 You just survived death because I was black, dude.

01:47:27.000 I already smelled like a marshmallow.

01:47:29.000 Did anybody die in the hotel?

01:47:31.000 Fifty.

01:47:31.000 Fifty people died in the hotel.

01:47:36.000 I'm not sure if anybody died at the hotel.

01:47:38.000 I hope not, but I could see how.

01:47:40.000 50 people died in the town?

01:47:42.000 Yeah, it was the worst.

01:47:43.000 No, yeah.

01:47:43.000 50 people died.

01:47:45.000 50 families.

01:47:46.000 It was sad to hear, man.

01:47:48.000 So it just happened quick.

01:47:49.000 Those fires come so quick, people don't realize before it's too late, and then there's no escape route.

01:47:54.000 And I think the reason why, because I think people had time to get out, and I think the reason why 50 people died is because they didn't take the alarm like me serious.

01:48:02.000 And next you know it was too late because that smoke will blind you.

01:48:05.000 So you think you're going into the right direction, and next you know you're walking into the biggest fire in history.

01:48:10.000 Jesus Christ.

01:48:12.000 So that had happened like two months before I fought Sergio Pettis.

01:48:16.000 And I still fought him.

01:48:17.000 I trained with two socks, with a wrestling shoe.

01:48:22.000 And I just stuck it out because I pulled out the first fight with him.

01:48:25.000 I said, I gotta make it up to you.

01:48:27.000 And I told him, I said, I owe you one.

01:48:29.000 And then he kind of called me out on it.

01:48:31.000 I was like, dude, I'm gonna fight you regardless now, man.

01:48:34.000 With first degree burns on my foot.

01:48:37.000 I'm sorry, third degree burns on my foot.

01:48:39.000 Wow.

01:48:41.000 Well, I'm glad you made it, man.

01:48:43.000 Yeah, here I am, 2018, USC champ.

01:48:47.000 I'm glad you made it, and I'm glad we could do this podcast.

01:48:50.000 Thanks for doing this, man.

01:48:51.000 I really appreciate it.

01:48:52.000 Yeah, no, for sure.

01:48:53.000 Thank you, Joe.

01:48:53.000 I've been a big fan of your show, and I hope you guys got some good insight on the messenger and Captain America over here.

01:49:01.000 We certainly did.

01:49:03.000 We definitely did.

01:49:04.000 And Kevin as well.

01:49:07.000 Yeah.

01:49:07.000 Well, thank you.

01:49:08.000 Thank you very much.

01:49:08.000 Thanks.

01:49:09.000 Thank you, Eric.

01:49:09.000 Thank you.

01:49:10.000 Bye, everybody.

01:49:13.000 Hmm.

The Joe Rogan Experience - October 31, 2018

JRE MMA Show #48 with Henry Cejudo & Eric Albarracin

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Transcript