In this episode, I sit down with UFC Heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum. We talk about his career, UFC 246, and the upcoming fight with Francis Ngano on January 20th at UFC 246 in Cleveland, Ohio. We also talk about what it's like being the first black man to ever win the UFC's Heavyweight title and what it means to be a black belt in the UFC. I hope you enjoy this episode and if you can't tell by the background noise, this is not a podcast you should listen to if you are not a fan of the UFC, or don't want to listen to it if you don't like it, then don't listen to this one! I'm sure you'll agree with me that it's not the best episode I've ever done, but it's definitely not the worst either! I'll be back with a new episode in a few weeks, so stay tuned for that! Cheers, Cheers! -Jon & Jon - Jon & Jon J. - Jon & John - John Jon is a good friend of mine and a great human being. He's a good dude. - Jon talks about a lot of cool stuff. - John talks about UFC 246 and UFC 246. -Jon talks about his life and his life in general - Jon gives me some great advice on how to deal with the pressure of being a Black Belt and being the current UFC Champion. - can't wait to do it all the time! - Jon and Jon talk about the UFC 246! - John and I can t wait to talk about it! - I hope y all the best! -Jon is a great guy! - - I love you, Jon, Jon talks a little bit about the future of UFC 246 - I'm looking forward to the future - Jon's future in UFC and much more! - Canelo vs. JDS vs. Bigfoot! - can you do it? - I'll see you soon! - much love, Jon has a lot more! Thank you Jon! - Thank you for listening, Jon & I appreciate you Jon, much much, much appreciate you, bye, bye! - Cheers Jon & Much love, bye Jon! <3 - Tom and bye! Love ya, bye - AJ <3 - Raldron Love you Jon & AJ - Rory Mcgregor - SONGS
00:02:50.000What do you think about him that's unusual?
00:02:52.000What about him, other than the size and the strength, what stands out?
00:02:57.000I mean, it's power, I guess, you know, but I think everyone who's tired in the heavyweight division, I mean, 260-pound man, 250-pound man, I mean, you're not supposed to be hit by something like that.
00:03:08.000You know, I fought JDS, I fought everyone else, and I fought Mark Hunt.
00:03:11.000I mean, I got guys who, you know, do hard.
00:03:43.000You know, like, when you fought him, how did you feel?
00:03:46.000Well, when I fought him, he was, like, very traditional, moving around, running, but, like, kept, you know, keeping his distance.
00:03:53.000I'm like, alright, cool, it's a fight, you know?
00:03:55.000And then he tried that lunging, I don't know what kind of kick to my thigh, and I grabbed it in time and took him down.
00:04:03.000I didn't watch the whole fight with Nagano, but what I saw was he was doing all these wild punches.
00:04:08.000When he fought me, he was throwing straights.
00:04:12.000I think with Ngannou it was almost like he felt like he could not get hit, which was correct, right?
00:04:17.000So he just decided to be just completely wild and unpredictable.
00:04:21.000I mean he threw that wild lunging left hand to start the fight off and then got the clinch immediately, but wasn't able to do anything with it.
00:04:54.000But it's hard to see when a guy's really young in MMA. It's hard to see a fight from three years ago, or whatever that was, and then look at him and say, well, that's the same guy today.
00:07:37.000He used to train with us, so he's a good dude, and he just loved it.
00:07:39.000He showed my coach, and my coach was like, oh, that's awesome.
00:07:41.000So what, did he put it on an MRI or something like that?
00:07:44.000Yeah, he took an x-ray, I think it was an x-ray or something like that, and he saw the pictures, and he's like, man, this is a deep bone bruise.
00:07:51.000Yeah, it's amazing to me that, you know, you think of all the techniques in martial arts, that this technique becomes like a prominent technique in 2016, 2017. Yeah, you know, I'm still trying to work on my jab.
00:08:05.000You know, that's what I'm working on right now in 2016. So over that, it takes off for a while.
00:08:08.000No, but yeah, it's funny how, you know, mixed martial arts, there's one thing and then like, you know, when it started, you know, there was one guy who's a wrestler, one guy with jiu-jitsu, one guy.
00:08:16.000You know trending and trending more and more and then you know you got guys who like you know sprawl and brawl or Yeah, it's just crazy watching how the sport evolves.
00:08:24.000It's amazing actually well you you're an interesting case because you're a guy who does everything right you're not a One sports specialist like you didn't come in as a kickboxing champ like Overeem or like Mark Hunt You know you you came into the sport with everything you know you're you're one of the new guys We're essentially you know you're you do everything you know you're not you're not a specialist Yeah, I think so.
00:08:49.000Yeah, I mean, I wrestled my whole life.
00:08:51.000And then, you know, actually, it was my coach, actually, who made it better.
00:08:55.000Because when I started training with mixed martial arts, he literally was like, I would take everyone down.
00:10:21.000I mean, what I thought was fascinating about the commentary, they were talking about how his dad made him take four years off and just do Ukrainian dancing.
00:11:34.000Not even when I walk around in, I'm like, we're going to call it day.
00:11:36.000I'm wondering, but I think he's one of those guys that's like a bar raiser, right?
00:11:41.000Like where he's just raised the bar, where people look at what footwork is and they look at that guy and go, okay, this is not just like moving around a lot.
00:12:43.000It's not like he's dancing all over the place and moving away.
00:12:46.000He's doing some shit, and he's doing it in a way that nobody else is doing.
00:12:50.000Like, Floyd had a lot of shoulder rolls, and he's slick as fuck, and Floyd stands right in front of you, too, and he ties people up and shit.
00:12:58.000But what Lomachenko's doing is just some total next-level shit.
00:13:06.000Yeah, he does a lot of very interesting stuff.
00:13:11.000But I'm wondering if we're going to see this in the future now.
00:13:14.000Obviously, when Ali came along, a bunch of guys started imitating Ali.
00:13:18.000When Tyson came along, a bunch of guys tried to imitate Tyson.
00:13:39.000Like if someone figures out a way to move like that, with that kind of footwork, but that one punch, go to sleep, you know, knockout power.
00:13:54.000I mean, this is an amazing time for all combat sports, I think.
00:13:59.000I think the bar, like, I think with all sports, right, like if you look back at the olden days, you look back at today, the athletes are bigger, they don't know how to train better, they're faster.
00:14:07.000But I think anywhere that's more apparent than MMA. I feel like MMA is like the best example because it's so new.
00:14:29.000I just love it because it's always evolving.
00:14:32.000You literally cannot take, like, two months off.
00:14:34.000And if you do, people are going to pass you off.
00:14:36.000Yeah, and it's interesting too, it's like there's different schools of thought, right?
00:14:40.000There's like the AKA school where you have all these killers in one room, and you have like world champions beating up world champions, and then you have your gym, which is much more specialized.
00:14:51.000You know, it's like you're the big guy to emerge from your gym, and then it's been Jessica Ai and some other high-level MMA fighters coming out of your gym.
00:14:59.000But that's a, like a lot of people think that's the way to go, to have specialized training like Max Holloway has.
00:15:05.000Specialized training where you're not dealing with a bunch of people that are already champs.
00:16:03.000Isn't it interesting how there's guys like that in the gym and then for whatever reason it never clicks for them?
00:16:08.000Like there's some guys that are just so insanely talented, but they just don't have whatever it is, whether it's focus, whether it's the discipline to keep going when things get weird, to just finally realize their potential.
00:16:23.000Like what separates a guy like that, that's like a gym killer, from a guy like you who can perform under the bright lights?
00:16:33.000You know, when I was fighting at UFC, I don't mean the whole story here, but when I was fighting, I was like 9-0, I lost to Struve, and I thought I was unstoppable, and then Struve beat me.
00:16:43.000I'm like, I almost didn't want to fight anymore.
00:16:45.000I was like, I don't know if I'm ready for this anymore, and then Came back, fought Roy Nelson, had a couple more fights, and then I lost to JDS. And literally, when I walked in the back locker room, I was just like, I'm down.
00:18:49.000And if you're entering into something like a mixed martial arts fight, someone's gotta win and someone's gonna lose.
00:18:56.000And you gotta learn from those losses.
00:18:59.000Some of those losses, that devastating feeling, like I'm sure was there for you after this true fight, the rebuild from that is what makes real champions.
00:20:44.000But when you think about, like, that's a critical component in keeping your mental state together, right?
00:20:53.000That's one of the things that a lot of people will talk about, like having a good support group around you, having a support system, family, friends, real loved ones.
00:21:02.000So in her examining that, do you think she was trying to, like, reinforce, like, what matters and what's important?
00:21:10.000You know, I never actually thought about it that way.
00:22:41.000You know, but it's just tough, because being full-time, you know, I didn't get hired full-time, so I couldn't, you know, it'd be tough to do both.
00:22:49.000You know, if I did before, it'd be a lot easier, but I can't just take a test because you have to do probation year-long, and then you can't fight.
00:22:54.000So while you're fighting, you work part-time, and do you have it set up where, you know, like you tell them in advance, like, hey, I got a January 20th fight.
00:23:40.000The guys that work, I mean, actually a lot of them are coming to the fight January 20th.
00:23:44.000Yeah, well, that's an interesting thing about firefighters is that a lot of times you get those 24-hour shifts, you know, and where, you know, you get a chance to work out, you can cook, you know, hanging out with guys.
00:23:56.000It's like once the duties are done around the firehouse, right?
00:24:38.000But the terrible thing is, once it gets crispy, and the other night, you know, when this was all happening, I was at my house, and the wind was blowing like ridiculous.
00:24:46.000They were calling it a dry hurricane, because the wind was so crazy.
00:24:49.000Trees were falling down all over the place.
00:24:51.000And the thought was, man, if a fire gets lit here, we're fucked.
00:24:55.000And then, boom, they start popping up.
00:25:01.000I think there's a lot of psychos out there.
00:25:03.000I think there's a lot of fucking people that recognize these are crazy fire conditions, and they just want to light something on fire, and they do, and they step away, and then next thing you know, it's a 300,000 acre fire.
00:25:15.000There's accidents for sure, but I think for sure some of this is arson.
00:25:18.000That was within a day or two of all those ones burning.
00:25:26.000I think there's definitely some accidents and obviously those winds exacerbate anything that would have been a small fire.
00:25:32.000Like there was a small fire in my neighborhood a couple months ago.
00:25:35.000But it wasn't windy, and the firefighters jumped on it quick, and they put the house down.
00:25:39.000But, man, when the winds were the way they were, you were having chunks of embers that were flying six, seven hundred yards away, flying through the air, this and that, and everywhere.
00:25:47.000There was no way they could stay on top of it.
00:26:55.000Sometimes it's a, I mean, it's not a good thing to lose everything that you work for, but sometimes it's a good thing to know that you are vulnerable.
00:27:01.000You know, like in these fires, like I think, it's one thing that LA is missing, is humility that's brought on by the weather.
00:27:09.000Like, you know how it is in Cleveland, when it fucking snows, right?
00:27:13.000When it snows out, and it's thick, There's that feeling in the air where everybody calms down, right?
00:28:16.000And then they said like 15 tornadoes touched down between Indiana, Ohio, and PA. And so we came to my house and it was like, I have one big tree in my yard.
00:30:00.000Remember when we were kids, like, a lot of guys had, like, not a lot of guys, but people were talking about building bomb shelters in their backyard?
00:33:30.000Both stations, they're just, you know, Oakland and Valley View, those guys are just good guys.
00:33:34.000They're just always, you know, like they actually, when I fought in Brazil, so they couldn't go to a fight, so they flew to Vegas and had their own watch party in Vegas to watch the fight.
00:33:57.000You know, as I, you know, became champ, they were okay.
00:34:01.000I felt bad for them, though, because, like, literally, so I, you won the title on Saturday, I flew in on Monday, I got home Monday, and I think worked Wednesday at the one station, and literally, like, everyone found out, and that phone did not stop ringing in the doorbell, and they were, like, looking at me, like, are you serious, you motherfucker?
00:34:16.000We're supposed to be taking naps right now, like, you know, ding dong, ding dong.
00:35:24.000I think it keeps me grounded because, you know, we don't always talk about fighting, you know, but like it just, you know, other things to worry about.
00:35:30.000I don't have to worry about fighting and this and that.
00:36:30.000What if, say, you continue your title run and you make more and more money, become a giant superstar like you deserve to be, and you start making those Conor McGregor checks?
00:38:48.000But, yeah, Marcus, he sets it all up, makes sure it's all good, you know, Monday, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and then, you know, just Saturdays.
00:41:01.000It works my hips and helps me with my lower back.
00:41:04.000Next round we did, I would squat, medicine ball, throw it to one coach, squat, throw it back, back and forth for five minutes, and then the other one I would do, like, bird bands.
00:42:29.000You know, like, I do listen to my body if I'm tired or I'm struggling, you know.
00:42:33.000Like, the last camp for JDS camp, I don't know what I was thinking, but I did, like, I was already doing five five-minute rounds within, like, the first, like, 12 weeks before the fight.
00:44:12.000But I talked to another coach who said that when he was competing, that what he would do is the last week of the fight, he literally wouldn't do anything.
00:47:42.000So it was like a muscle that just was broken down, and it wasn't getting enough recovery?
00:47:46.000I think it was from wrestling, from being, you know, and then just being tight all the time, and then hurting my back when I was a little kid.
00:47:51.000You know, not a little kid, when I was 18, I hurt my back.
00:48:08.000I remember, I forget, when I was training in the gym before I started doing mixed martial arts, I was doing a yoga class, and I was trying to do it, and this lady's like, you're just too big.
00:48:36.000I would just think that for anyone that's involved in anything that's as brutal as MMA, that yoga is a great sort of balancing thing for that.
00:51:38.000Well, I just, you know, I read a little study on it that said, like, you know, they did, like, you know, adjusting, you know, twice a week.
00:51:44.000And kids, like, reaction, like, since sports were quicker just because everything was, like, lined up perfectly.
00:51:57.000I just don't think your body is manipulated that way.
00:52:02.000I think that what's happening is you're putting attention on your body, you're thinking about recovery more, you're getting adjusted, and while you're getting adjusted, you're getting massaged.
00:52:10.000When I used to get adjusted, the best part of it was what you said, the massage.
00:52:19.000But when I talk to guys that are actual orthopedic surgeons and real doctors, like spinal doctors, and they talk about it, they're like, you're just making a pop.
00:52:31.000Your body would be so fucked up if you could manipulate it one way or another, and that's how you fix things.
00:52:36.000It's like, that's not how you fix things.
00:52:37.000If you've got an injury, there's a whole bunch of shit going on.
00:52:41.000If you have some sort of a muscle pull or a back injury, I soured on it when I had a bulging disc.
00:52:46.000And the reason why was because this guy was convinced that I didn't have a bulging disc and I didn't get an MRI and I was just going to a chiropractor and he was like pushing down on my head.
00:52:53.000I had a, in my cervical, in my neck, it was a, my hands were going numb from jujitsu.
00:52:59.000And this guy was trying to tell me, just keep coming to the car, you'll get adjusted, it'll be fine.
00:53:04.000And then I finally went to a real doctor, and they gave me an MRI, and they're like, no, this is why you're in pain.
00:53:09.000Your disc is bulging out, and it's pressing against your nerve, and it's called the ulnar nerve, and that's why your hand is going numb.
00:53:15.000We're going to give you spinal decompression, and you should try to look into some things that are going to reduce inflammation.
00:53:20.000They changed my diet, and I started getting something called Regenikine.
00:53:25.000Which is like platelet-rich plasma when you take your blood they spin it to heat it up and in the heating up the blood it produces this radical anti-inflammatory process and They then inject that your own blood back into the injuries and just fixed it over like the court a period of like two or three months Then I got another MRI and it went away so I think a lot of that shit is just fucking voodoo to It's just nonsense.
00:53:53.000And you think it's working, or you're thinking about it, or you're giving yourself time to rest while you're getting all those adjustments, so you think that the adjustments are what's doing it.
00:54:03.000But obviously there's a lot of people that are chiropractors that are very skillful in all sorts of different methods of recovery, like electrical muscular stimulation, massage.
00:54:32.000Like, if I get a good massage and I have, like, something that's tight and, you know, like, your neck is fucked up from not tapping or something like that and then you go get it massaged out, like, you can fix that.
00:54:43.000Like, that actually can provide you some relief.
00:54:46.000And I'm sure that if you go to a good one of those people that does cupping like people apparently swear by that shit, you know?
00:55:00.000Half of it is like the marks in your body make you think like you're getting something done, but you they take this cup and it sucks all your your skin up into the cup and How does that I don't know how it works.
00:56:30.000Scroll over towards the right so I can see that.
00:56:33.000Drawing up the skin in the cup is believed to open the skin's pores, which helps to stimulate the blood flow, balances and realigns the flow of...
00:57:42.000Yeah, they have this thing, it's plugged in, and your foot sits in it, and there's some sort of reaction with the water in your feet, and it turns black, and they try to tell you, oh, the toxins are coming out of your body.
00:57:54.000And then you walk out of there, I feel amazing, now I need a colonic.
00:58:05.000There's lots of videos you can look up where people do the exact process without putting anything in there, and the water still turns black.
00:58:11.000I think it's something to do with battery acid or...
00:59:16.000Unless it's needed, but say you sprain your ankle and you kind of just start moving it right away and get the blood flow back in there without...
00:59:26.000Well, I think it depends entirely upon the injury, but if you look at the vast majority of scientists and sports medicine therapists and the people that are at the cutting edge of the business, they almost all use ice.
01:01:00.000First of all, the guys that developed it, what they did was instead of having it where you're breathing in liquid nitrogen, you know, like where it's from the neck down, which is a lot of those places, you go into it and you're breathing air and you have to have your head above...
01:01:13.000Where the cryo is, because you can't breathe that shit in, which is how that girl in Vegas died, folks.
01:01:18.000If you don't know, there's a girl in Vegas that went in the tank by herself, and she was too short, and she was breathing in the nitrogen, and she passed out, and then she froze to death.
01:01:29.000But the ones at cryo healthcare, that's the normal one.
01:01:32.000That's like Floyd Mayweather in there right there, where you see the cryo stuff is all below his head.
01:01:39.000The ones at Cryo Healthcare, they jack the temperature way down, like 240 degrees below zero.
01:01:45.000And what they do is they freeze the air itself.
01:01:48.000So the air they're pumping into is super cold air.
01:02:04.000And it's supposed to have way more benefit because your head gets cold too.
01:02:08.000So the reaction that your body has for producing cytokines and anti-inflammatory cold shock proteins, your body freaks out way more when everything is covered.
01:02:18.000Not just from the neck down, but your head too.
01:03:05.000You know, but I understand it's part of the game and it helps, you know, promote you and, you know, your sales and, you know, pay-per-views and all that stuff like that.
01:03:12.000It does, but there's like a balance to be achieved, right?
01:05:15.000When you have a big fight with a guy like, say, Mark Hunt, where you know it could be a brawl, and that turned out to be a five-round fight, right?
01:05:26.000When you have a fight like that, and you know you're in there for the long haul, do you plan on, like, staying for days after the fight to recover?
01:05:51.000Did you see that video that they posted yesterday of these guys in Australia with a 39-foot boat and a shark swam by it that was 20 feet long?
01:09:24.000I mean, you were trying to be a good dad, and you're like, I'm going to take a fish, and then they'd just be the smash of the smile right in front of her.
01:09:32.000It just was the total wrong experience.
01:09:34.000Like, my youngest daughters, I took them fishing, and they caught little fish, and it was a great experience.
01:09:42.000Like, they caught little fish, we brought them back to the restaurant, the restaurant cooked them, we were staying at a resort, and that was great.
01:09:48.000It was like, whew, nobody got clubbed.
01:09:51.000I was terrified the first time I took him.
01:09:53.000I'm like, if you're fucking four and you watch a marlin get clubbed to death, you might not ever bounce back from that.
01:10:35.000But we would go and they would follow these seagulls and bait fish.
01:10:40.000So like the bait fish would be frothing on the water because the tuna were underneath jacking them and then just cast into them and just, oh, it was amazing.
01:11:14.000Because with meat, you can eat a lot of meat fresh right after you kill it and it tastes really good, but much of the best cuts of meat that you get from a butcher or from a really good steak restaurant, they let it age.
01:11:28.000And apparently they do that with tuna too.
01:11:30.000Like when you get sushi, I didn't know that.
01:11:56.000Actually, we made a bet, one of the UFC fights, and a bunch of my coaches were over, and I was lit up, having fun, and I never bet, and they're like, I bet you this person wins, so I was like, I'll take that bet.
01:12:07.000I'm like, if the person that wins, you can do it, you want to pick whatever, so I win, I'm like, alright, you guys have to get in my little shuttle boat, and you have to go across the lake, and we did snowballs at you.
01:14:12.000Like, I expected some sophisticated, ketogenic diet protocol where they're monitoring her fucking ketone levels and her blood and checking out all of her portions are mapped out.
01:16:31.000But, obviously, there's pros and cons to being big, and the con is, if you're getting into the third, fourth, and fifth rounds, those big guys are not known for their endurance.
01:16:44.000There was always a thought in MMA, like when Cain Velasquez was on top, there was a thought that that might be the perfect size, like 240. Anything bigger than that, maybe it's just not worth it, because a 240-pound man could basically knock out anybody on the planet.
01:16:58.000So the power's still there, but nobody had more endurance than Cain.
01:17:15.000I remember after Mark Hunt, man, Mark Hunt, I kind of went on the deep end and just went on binge drinking and flying me, waiting for, like, living it out of my life.
01:19:16.000So he kind of has a shuffle, and the idea was that that shuffle allowed him to save energy because he wasn't picking up his legs really high.
01:24:33.000You know, you have a great relationship with your coaches, too, which is very important, I think.
01:24:37.000Like, you were saying about having a great wife, having great friends, having a great support system, like, all that stuff, like, for your mind, for your mindset, it's great.
01:24:47.000But having coaches that you have a great relationship with, that you really, you know they're looking out for you.
01:24:52.000You know they're working hard for you.
01:26:46.000My fourth UFC fight was a five-rounder.
01:26:52.000Even if they didn't go five rounds, you're still doing a camp for five rounds.
01:26:58.000The Verdum fight was so crazy because I almost think you benefited from it being in Brazil because it seemed like Verdum was so emotional and so ramped up because it was in Brazil.
01:27:11.000He's like chasing after you, which I was like, this is crazy.
01:27:15.000Yeah, I think a little bit too is that we knew exactly what he was going to do.
01:27:17.000He did everything he wanted to do and I just wasn't falling for anything he wanted.
01:27:21.000He went for a fine knee, he went for a takedown, he went for a body kick.
01:27:25.000I just wasn't giving him anything he wanted.
01:27:43.000And when a guy gets hit and then just tries extra hard to get it back, a lot of times they're exposed and you just caught that right hand perfect.
01:28:12.000And then, you know, I stopped the fight and I looked over and my coaches were like, oh hell yeah!
01:28:17.000So I run over and I was like, no one heard us before that, but before I said I'm a world champ, I looked at my coaches and I'm like, we did it, we did it.
01:28:24.000That's what I told them, we all did it.
01:28:26.000Then I said I'm a world champ and I kind of went like Frank Tank and I blacked out and didn't remember what I said after that.
01:28:31.000But, you know, it was awkward, too, because it was so quiet in there.
01:28:49.000Those moments, man, those are some of my all-time favorite moments when a guy realizes the biggest dream, the biggest accomplishment of his career, thus far at least, and to see a guy like you win the title.
01:29:20.000Yeah, actually, my brothers and my cousins, and they were all on the top row with my buddies, and when I knocked them out, they were all going, like, yeah!
01:29:27.000They were going crazy, and actually, they were like...
01:30:19.000You're the UFC heavyweight champion of the world.
01:30:22.000I mean, one day you're going to look back, you're going to be talking to your grandkids, and you're talking about the time, like now, when you're the fucking champ of the world.
01:30:55.000Historically, in boxing, the voice said, that the health of the heavyweight division just represents boxing overall.
01:31:01.000I don't think that's the case anymore.
01:31:02.000Because now in boxing, you've got all these lightweight guys like Gennady Golovkin, Canelo Alvarez, Lomachenko, all these big stars now that are emerging in a lighter weight division just because they're so skillful and talented.
01:31:15.000But I think in the heavyweight division of the UFC, it's been a while since people were really pumped up about a big heavyweight title fight.
01:31:34.000When you see a guy like that, what preparations, like what do you think is different about him than guys you've fought before, and what are you going to do different?
01:32:46.000I mean, he fought his heart out, but he got caught and got choked out.
01:32:49.000And then to go from that to say, you know, honesty is a relief.
01:32:52.000And then rebounds and then gets back on the horse and, you know, probably had to have that experience just to have the perspective that, or I don't know if you ever had the perspective that you have, but your perspective is different in that you, like, you don't seem to be concerned.
01:33:50.000Well, you know, it's an interesting thing, too, because what we're seeing today with MMA, we're seeing this combination, like this marriage of fighting with promotion.
01:34:02.000But you not being that guy is promotable.
01:34:08.000First of all, I don't think the UFC has enough resources to promote every fighter adequately.
01:34:14.000Because I think UFC is a promotional entity, but it's also like the sanctioning body.
01:34:20.000Not the sanctioning body, but they're the ones who put on the fights, they're the ones who decide who fights, and you've got a 500 fighter roster.
01:34:29.000Whereas in other organizations, you would have a bunch of different venues and avenues where different fighters could go.
01:34:37.000When a guy like you is the heavyweight champion...
01:35:37.000Listen, if you hit the fire station all day, man, I'll shit-talk the best of them.
01:35:40.000But I just don't want to go out of my way and just hurt someone's feelings I don't even know.
01:35:44.000Yeah, but like Colby Covington, he's making a name for himself, but he's making a name for himself, not just beating good guys like Damian Maia, but talking mad shit.
01:37:38.000Well, not everybody's Conor, you know?
01:37:41.000So, like, for a guy like you to see all these guys getting a lot of attention, and they're very good fighters as well, in Conor's case, great fighters as well, but the thing is the shit-talking.
01:37:54.000Like, that's sort of what's ramping everything up.
01:37:56.000That's what's getting all these people to buy the pay-per-view, right?
01:37:59.000Yeah, I mean, if someone came at me, of course I'm going to defend myself.
01:40:16.000So, back in the day, back in the day when I lost the stream or anything, I was like, people would write me like novels to tell how bad of a person I was.
01:42:36.000The fucking daily grind of MMA training.
01:42:39.000What that's got to be doing to your body.
01:42:42.000When you were talking about how you barely get out of bed some days, most people would think they see you fighting like, this fucking guy's just doing cartwheels all around his house all day.
01:43:48.000I mean people just don't they don't know because what all they're seeing is you KOing Fabricio Verdun, knocking out Junior Dos Santos, raising your hands, you know, all of the glory moments.
01:43:58.000I think that's one of the things that Embedded does really well is they show like hey this is a fucking grind for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks until you get into a cage for a fistfight and this is a fucking brutal way to get by in life.
01:44:16.000And you can go 30 seconds Or in 25 minutes.
01:45:17.000If you get up in the morning and you're real fucking sore, how do you know when maybe I should take today off?
01:45:23.000I usually know by that night, the night before.
01:45:26.000I talk to my coaches, you know, and they'll be like, hey, how do you feel?
01:45:30.000Just how my sparring goes and stuff like that, or grappling, whatever I do, some type of my sparring session, if it's MMA, kickboxing, or boxing, or jiu-jitsu, whatever it is, they'll just watch me, and they'll be like, how do you feel?
01:46:24.000But here's another thing, too, is, like, we're so used to training a certain way, you can get through those workouts even if you're tired and sore.
01:46:30.000But I can go and pick up a bag of groceries and blow up my back.
01:46:34.000I pick up a baby or put it on my shoe.
01:46:36.000I never have it, but you do random stuff that you don't do every day.
01:46:39.000You pick up a bag of groceries and you're like, oh my bag, oh!
01:46:42.000And your bag goes out, but then I can go and spar five five-minute rounds and my body's dead, but I can make it through just because I'm so used to my body going through it.
01:46:50.000Yeah, that's the weirdest thing, right?
01:46:52.000You do the most ridiculous, hardcore shit and then you just go to tie your shoes wrong and something tweaks.
01:48:15.000So I drove to Vegas like this the entire way, like four hours.
01:48:19.000And every time I had to turn, like, to look behind me to park, I had to literally turn my whole body like this from just turning to grab shampoo or something.
01:50:18.000So I put on these super tights, these super tight things, and I zip myself up, and you can go like half your body weight, 60% of your body weight, whatever, and you hit the bike.
01:52:17.000You should look into, like, talk to Dr. Davidson from the UFC. They're shooting stem cells into knees and regenerating cartilage and meniscus tissue.
01:54:05.000That's got to feel good for you, though, to be thinking about the future, like all the stuff you're doing to yourself right now, all the injuries and getting banged up.