In this episode, I sit down with UFC referee Herb Dean Andrade to talk about his career and what it's like being a referee in the UFC. We talk about how he got into the business, what it takes to be a referee, and how to deal with the pressure of officiating a UFC fight. He also talks about his favorite fights of all time and how he deals with the craziness that comes with officiating UFC fights. I think you're going to enjoy this one, and I hope you do too! If you like what you hear, please HIT SUBSCRIBE on Apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your stuff. I'll be picking one person at random who leave a review to win a FREE place on the next Shreddin8 contest! Thanks for listening and Good Luck Out There! Peace, Blessings, Cheers, EJ & Rory. -The Cheers! -Your Hosts, Rory McElroy & Rory McIlroy. -Jon & Rory - The Cheers Crew - EJ and Rory and EJ's Dad, Don the Dragon Wilson -EJ Wilson & EJ s Dad, Herb Dean . EJ talks about UFC 246, UFC 246 and UFC 246. -Ej's recent trip to the UFC Hall of Fame. . . . EJ tells us about his time officiating the UFC fight night. Ej talks about the UFC Fight Night at UFC 246 in Las Vegas. , and talks about being a few of his favorite UFC fights, and why he doesn't like watching UFC events anymore. - and why it's better than watching UFC. - And why he's not watching UFC any more. - Ej doesn't watch UFC anymore. EJ doesn't want to be watching UFC anymore... -and EJ is better than you should watch UFC, so why you should do it. -and much more! -and so much more. We hope you enjoy this episode! -Jon and Rory talk about it! - and we talk about what he's watching UFC in real life. -Jon talks about it more than you can do it, not like that he does it. :D -and he's a little bit more... Thank you for listening, Rory talks about some other stuff too! -And we're glad you like it, Rory & Ej does it better than that.
00:01:32.000You're trying to use your words in the most pleasing way possible.
00:01:38.000You're trying to massage people's ears in a way.
00:01:41.000You're trying to also represent what you're seeing and how special it is.
00:01:47.000Yeah, I did it a little bit, not for real.
00:01:51.000Somehow I used to do this thing that was for these people, Black Belt TV, and I was with Don the Dragon Wilson, and they were just like old fights, and we're supposed to commentate this old fight, and that's why I think it's hard, because I was horrible at it.
00:02:03.000Well, old fights are harder, because you might know what's already happened, so you've got to play dumb, so it's almost like you have to be an actor as well as commenting on a fight.
00:02:14.000I think it would be harder to call an old fight.
00:02:17.000Because in the back of your head, you'd be like, I'm a big phony.
00:02:24.000I think they did that with some of the Pride fights.
00:02:26.000I think some of the Pride fights, they did the commentary after the action.
00:02:32.000Because you remember when Pride would come on at like 3 o'clock in the morning, and we wouldn't get it until like a day later or something like that?
00:02:39.000I remember one time, the worst is when one of your friends tells you, because you wait, you don't look at the internet.
00:02:45.000I remember I was training, I think I went and I trained with Savant one time.
00:02:49.000I don't know if you know him, Savant Young.
00:02:50.000Yeah, and we had been in the car the whole time rolling.
00:02:52.000I was like, when I get home, I'm going to watch Pride.
00:02:54.000And then right before he, I dropped him off at his house, right before he gets to the car, he goes, oh, Vanderlei Silva lost.
00:09:44.000It's so funny because so many things come back and they go back and forth and there's all these things that people are telling you you're not supposed to do this or this isn't going to work and then someone comes up and shuts it all down and says, yeah, no, this is going to work.
00:12:39.000When I'm refereeing fights, you know, there's some times where, you know, some positions are anxiety.
00:12:44.000Like, you know, you see two guys going after leg locks.
00:12:47.000You see a noodle mess of legs and you know you're going to have to help one guy out and figure out who's tapping and make sure you're on the right arm.
00:12:54.000When I see some chokes, a rear naked choke, especially the guy in the back face up, I took a sigh of relief.
00:13:15.000And he's not going to take any other damage.
00:13:19.000Bulldog choke, anytime you have a choke where there's pressure on the neck and they're bending the C-spine backwards like that, that's a rough situation for me.
00:13:30.000So I see someone go limp and I know that on top of it they're no longer putting tension on their neck and their neck is just being bent.
00:13:45.000I like to talk to people who have opinions about fights, especially people who are interested and who they know what they're talking about.
00:13:51.000Because if I always have a situation, if I always have a mindset that I'm always doing the right thing, I can't get better.
00:13:57.000So I'm going to have to look at something and say, is there a teachable moment there?
00:14:02.000And is there a way I could do something different?
00:14:05.000And no, I think with that same situation, with an arm going limp, with that type of a choke on someone, I don't know of a defense that requires the arm.
00:15:02.000We never want to see anything that could make you have a feeling that it's inconclusive.
00:15:07.000But I can't think of what else I should have done.
00:15:11.000But, you know, I mean, especially for that fight for those two guys, you know, you always wanted people to have a feeling of conclusion there.
00:15:19.000Well, when we talked about on the phone, when you brought up the possible damage to the neck with the bulldog choke, you might be cutting off nerves and you might be bending the spine in kind of a fucked up way.
00:16:25.000What it is, basically, folks, it's like a guillotine from the back.
00:16:29.000It's like taking a rear naked choke hooks, but instead of choking a guy this way, which is how you would do it, which is wrap your forearm underneath his neck and wrap the other arm behind his head.
00:16:41.000Instead of doing that, you wrap your arm all the way around the front like a guillotine hold, but from the back, and you have ungodly leverage.
00:19:04.000Yeah, I know of several guys that have gotten paralyzed because of defense from guillotine or trying to take a guy down when someone gets you in a guillotine.
00:19:17.000So that's why with some submissions, especially some of the chokes, it's like, okay, things are slowing down and things are getting a little bit easier for me.
00:19:27.000With that one, things are not easy at all.
00:19:29.000That's not something that I want to play with.
00:19:44.000I think that's a little irresponsible when it's some dangerous techniques like that.
00:19:49.000Well, I think you really pointed that out about the neck in a very important way, and I think that's something that people should really take into consideration when you see someone, you've seen people, have you ever refereed someone who got caught in a twister?
00:20:05.000It's so, your neck is so fucked up and there's so much pressure, and the fact that your left leg's isolated and your head's getting pulled, it feels like it's going to Yeah.
00:21:07.000So anyway, yeah, that's why I think, you know, you can't always say look at things as good or bad, but, you know, some situations I've seen referees in, and that one I think is a difficult situation.
00:23:22.000I feel that it's one of these positions that our athletes are not stupid people.
00:23:27.000A lot of them could be doing a lot of things with their life, and they've chosen this path, and they take time from their family, they take time away from other careers where they could be progressing, and all to meet their dreams and hopes, and I need to balance that with their safety.
00:23:41.000So it's something I think about a lot.
00:23:44.000Even in the way I talk to my friends, I'm always working as a referee.
00:23:52.000Anytime I'm out in the streets or with friends, people are going to ask me, what do I think about this fight or who do I think can be better?
00:23:58.000Because of this job you're doing, you no longer have the luxury of talking about mixed martial arts in a fun way about who's going to win and how's this going to happen because who knows, I might referee the fight.
00:26:52.000So yeah, I think anytime that the athletes get to do what they do and people are going to watch it again and people are going to be excited about it, I don't know.
00:27:01.000Well, I don't think it's going to happen now, at least not immediately, because Masvidal and Ben Askren have a date for July.
00:27:09.000They're going to do that July show in Vegas.
00:28:31.000If you don't know what we're talking about, TJ Dillashaw tested positive for injectable EPO, which is a serious performance enhancing substance.
00:28:40.000And in some circumstances, according to Jeff Nowitzki, it's given people strokes.
00:28:47.000And I had heard this too, that like young guys doing like Tour de France type shit would have strokes because they were taking too much EPO. Because you know, like if you're supposed to take one, take two, fuck it.
00:29:07.000And I think that's, I guess that's probably the discipline, right, of how people are always getting away with things beforehand, right, is to try to maybe try to do it in a way where they won't get caught.
00:29:17.000But I think that's like, oh, if this much is good, then this much more is going to be better.
00:29:23.000Yeah, and we know guys who've done that with TRT. There was a few TRT tests when TRT was legal, testosterone replacement therapy, where you would hear about guys testing like 1400s, 1470, which is insane.
00:32:31.000Like, what if it's easy and cheap to do a test?
00:32:33.000So you just run 500 tests on the last 500 championship fights, and then you have like 400 fights that you now have to change the result of.
00:32:56.000I mean, look, we all know, at one point in time, performance-enhancing drugs were a huge part of mixed martial arts, and that's why the UFC stepped up and decided to institute this program.
00:33:08.000I think it's a big part of professional sports in general.
00:34:09.000They're not fair from this guy's suspension to that guy's suspension.
00:34:13.000In baseball, they have a three-strike rule.
00:34:15.000The first time is somewhere in the 10-25 game range, and then the second one is half the season.
00:34:20.000The third one, you're out for a whole year, and if you do it again, you're banned.
00:34:23.000Yeah, but there's no outside government body, right, who shows up and decides to test your champion, right?
00:34:27.000Just the baseball or NFL or basketball deciding what's the best.
00:34:32.000Well, let's say you have a big moneymaker in your sport, and then somebody outside of your company just comes along and says, yeah, I'm a government body.
00:36:05.000If they wake you up after like 6 hours or 5 hours, it's possible that a punch might connect on you that wouldn't have connected if you got 8. That's not bullshit.
00:37:02.000The thing about this EPO apparently, and this is what Shab was telling me, was that it didn't used to be detectable the way it is now.
00:37:11.000They've got these new methods of detection.
00:37:14.000And EPO is one, too, that apparently, from what I've read, don't listen to me, I'm not a doctor, they can absolutely tell that you injected it.
00:37:23.000It's injectable, it comes in the injectable form, that's what's in the body, so there's no chance of a tainted supplement.
00:40:26.000Like, okay, you're going to take it and you're going to notice that you're able to, like, the other day, you could barely finish a loop around the Rose Bowl, a three-mile loop, and then you start taking it and you can get, what, five, six miles in.
00:41:21.000So, for me, I was like, man, I was going to come on Joe Rogan's show, and let's see, what could he talk about to make me uncomfortable to talk about?
00:41:45.000It's like, all I wanted, like, it just doesn't feel like a good conversation because all I could do is just, it just get, like you said, it's just going to take away from...
00:41:54.000What I've seen, and then the more I imagine about it, it's just going to be more takeaway, and then anything I could say or think about, I can't think of anything that's solution or...
00:42:10.000I think we're in this stage right now where they're probably looking at the data going, okay, what does this signify and how many more people should we test?
00:42:19.000Once they develop a new method of testing, that's the whole reason why they want to keep the old samples anyway, in case new, more sensitive methods of detecting are invented.
00:42:28.000And you know about this stuff because I know that you're a science...
00:42:36.000Especially when it comes to anything that can enhance this life that we have on this earth.
00:42:41.000So yeah, I'm sure you know a lot about this stuff.
00:42:43.000Well, I've had a really amazing conversation with many people about it.
00:42:51.000And David Sinclair was one of the more recent ones who did this discussion about life extension and different anti-aging solutions and different things that they're coming up with.
00:43:02.000But what I've come through with is, at the other end, is there are probably hundreds of thousands of people that are involved in either legitimate supplements or legitimate molecules or testing hormones on people or trying all these different things to try to figure out how to get the body to perform better.
00:43:27.000Some of them are legal and some of them are illegal.
00:45:42.000They had a secret separate room where they transferred the dirty urine through a hole in the wall and slipped out the good urine and they put it back in place.
00:45:53.000So they substituted clean urine for the urine that was collected.
00:46:43.000It's just, for me, it's one of those things, I just don't have an answer to it.
00:46:49.000I know there's always going to be people who are going to look for an advantage.
00:46:52.000And I think as long as there's one person looking for an advantage, then I think there's some people are going to have the attitude that if there's an advantage out there, I'm a fool for not taking it.
00:47:03.000The people who don't take it are people who are gifted in some way or have just a work ethic that goes beyond and it's a matter of pride that they don't do it.
00:55:04.000No one can really see it, and then all of a sudden, right at the last second, they spot it, and they're like, oh shit, get the fuck out of the way.
00:59:41.000Because if I was to try to always read some undercurrents or read what people tell me I'm supposed to experience, I'm never going to do anything.
00:59:50.000Like, a long time ago in my travels, I was going to go do a Warner Butterbean show down in Alabama.
00:59:57.000And my parents were like, man, you're going to Alabama, man.
01:00:14.000So I went down there and I was at this show and some cops come up and they look like the cops from, you know, in the movies from the south that are supposed to scare you.
01:00:24.000And I took a picture with them and they're like, and somebody else came to take a picture and they're like, oh, look what we started.
01:01:23.000I'm like, so then after the tasing, one of the agents, one of the guys who's working with me comes up and tells him that he has some business to talk about with me.
01:01:35.000I go, wait, what do you want to talk about?
01:01:36.000He goes, man, I could see you were so uncomfortable with what was going on that I was like, thanks.
01:01:41.000So I get back to my hotel room and I was thinking, I was like, man, You know, I'm worried about people prejudging and being intolerant.
01:01:52.000I'm prejudging of these guys because of some history.
01:02:06.000They're like, yeah, they took it, and it was like, the place looks like Roadhouse, and you know what I mean?
01:02:11.000Like the whole, everything you see in a movie, like, you know, your wife's not going to be happy about that, and I'm going to catch you next week, one of those type of things.
01:08:18.000My friend Adam Greentree, he lives in Australia, and he has a lot of experience with the indigenous people that live there, because he works in a mining company, and they deal with a lot of the aborigines, and they have the groups of people, they call them mobs that's what they call themselves okay instead of like a village or clan or they call themselves a mob
01:08:43.000that's what that's what aborigines use and they have different languages for different mobs so like there might be hundreds of mobs in this area and they all have different languages so you drive I go how close he's like a few miles I go a few miles you know he would say kilometers maybe 20 hundred kilometers Like, so you go 100 kilometers, and you got a totally different language.
01:11:42.000Indiana, someplace in Indiana I'd never go.
01:11:44.000You know, and some of these, I've got to go all through them, throughout most of the states in the U.S. Because even before I was doing a lot of the UFC, I refereed for King of the Cage.
01:11:56.000So by the time I got to the UFC, I got to referee more fights than anyone I knew.
01:12:00.000I think I met you at a King of the Cage.
01:12:02.000Yeah, way back in the day at King of the Cage we met there.
01:12:35.000Larry was a referee and I trained with Larry.
01:12:37.000And everybody liked Larry as a referee.
01:12:40.000He's a really, you know, Larry's a really good guy and he did a lot.
01:12:44.000He went and when he started doing it, he went and did a little research and, you know, talked to people from the commission from doing boxing and kickboxing.
01:12:54.000And, you know, so he put inspectors in place and things like that.
01:12:58.000I would go out there, we'd bring our guys out and I would like kind of manage the inspecting team and, you And then I think they ended up working me too hard one show.
01:13:08.000I was like, man, I came and volunteered my time.
01:13:10.000I want to be able to see at least a fight or two.
01:13:56.000And what happened is someone told me that it was a conflict of interest and that I needed to pick one or the other.
01:14:03.000And no one's going to miss me as a fighter.
01:14:08.000So, you know, that's kind of how that worked out.
01:14:11.000Well, you're definitely one of the best in the world, man.
01:14:13.000I get happy when you're refereeing a fight because I know that it's going to be handled.
01:14:18.000I mean, I agree with you on virtually every single time you and I have had a discussion about what should or shouldn't be done.
01:14:26.000The one thing that drives me crazy about referees, and not you, but some referees, is breaks and stand-ups that don't necessarily need to happen.
01:14:35.000When guys are working towards something and you can see there's a battle, the guy's trying to defend, the guy's trying to get out of half guard and get in the mount, and then you'll see a referee come over and just separate it because the crowd's booing or because they don't understand what's happening, how much of a struggle it is.
01:15:31.000I think for me, it's helpful as I do my pre-fight instructions, you know, and so I tell the fighters what I expect and what to expect from me, you know what I mean?
01:15:40.000So I don't want to, I want to interfere as little as possible.
01:16:46.000Whoever did that one, we don't even have to pull it up, but there was a moment in the first round when Damian Maia got a hold of Kamaru and was trying to take his back.
01:17:33.000But when Damian Maia gets a hold, especially early in the round, you know, he's fresh, and he's got his back already.
01:17:41.000And he has a lot of interesting takedowns from there, too.
01:17:43.000While he's like, he goes back and forth with halfway taking your back, and then when you're defending the takedown, he starts taking your back.
01:19:31.000I talked to one of his guys he trains with.
01:19:33.000I was refereeing some fights in China.
01:19:36.000And it's one of the guys he trains with in New Zealand.
01:19:39.000This guy was telling me so much and showing me different things about angles they do and things that they set up in their striking that I never knew or thought about.
01:19:47.000This was before I saw him start fighting in the UFC. Everybody was aware of him, but he hadn't been in the UFC yet.
01:20:03.000Like, when you're seeing, like, really high-level, super-technical strikers like him, like, who's a world-class, I mean, he easily could be world champion in many organizations as a kickboxer.
01:20:15.000To see him now in the UFC and see guys having to deal with that, it's like, oh, okay.
01:20:20.000Like, the Anderson fight's a great example.
01:20:50.000I mean, that's interesting that he started out as a wrestler, because how much of his style now is kicking you?
01:20:56.000It's a giant part of his game, his utilization of those long-ass legs.
01:21:00.000Right, and it's interesting how much time he...
01:21:04.000It looks like he's getting information a lot, right?
01:21:06.000And then all of a sudden, when he shifts gears, it's like, okay, I've gotten a lot of information, and here's what I'm going to do with it.
01:21:50.000I think the interesting thing about...
01:21:51.000Well, for me, what's interesting when I watch any of the heavier guys fight is they really have to understand where they're safe and where they're not.
01:21:58.000That's something that John does really good.
01:22:00.000How to be in the pocket and the places where he's safe.
01:22:04.000He's the best ever at utilizing his reach.
01:22:06.000No one's ever been better at controlling reach and then never letting a guy reset.
01:22:11.000When guys try to reset, bam, he kicks him, bam, he kicks him again, bam, he kicks him again.
01:22:15.000He knows when you're trying to get comfortable, when you're trying to settle in, and that's when he kicks you.
01:22:20.000It's almost like he senses it, and he just starts battering you.
01:22:23.000He sees, like, no, no, no breaks, no breaks, no breaks, no breaks, no breaks.
01:22:28.000Speaking of no breaks, what about Max Holloway?
01:28:13.000Or, like, I didn't listen to a lot of country music, but then I used to work with Glideater Challenge a lot, and Ted Williams was like, you don't like country music, so he gave me country music education.
01:28:24.000What's the matter what you don't like, Tom?
01:29:30.000There's been a couple of times where, you know, he called me up after the podcast, so I was like, man, I didn't even know what the fuck we were talking about for the first 20 minutes, because we were so high.
01:29:40.000Because if you live in Nashville, like, he lives in the Nashville area, you go out there and get the weed, they have pretty good weed.
01:31:01.000I mean, he's also like, he doesn't like losing.
01:31:04.000So he's like, I don't know, I'm going to figure out how to win.
01:31:06.000I'm going to figure out how to beat this.
01:31:07.000So he'll, like, look at a position and he'll have some weird, unorthodox take on how to get to a better spot or how to control the position better or how to finish from there.
01:31:18.000And, like, you'll see, like, damn, like, his brain just works weird.
01:31:21.000Yeah, just every, you know, if you have a conversation with him about stuff, you'll learn a lot just from him every time.
01:31:27.000Like, okay, I know you're going to take away something from him.
01:34:37.000Apparently, the guy was working in this area doing research for whatever the government wanted him to do at Area 51. What he did there, who knows?
01:34:46.000He gets fired from this job and then takes his friends to this viewing position in the mountains where they can see them flying saucers.
01:34:58.000He was telling them, they fly them out of this base.
01:35:46.000He was talking about this element, this man-made element that it's a real element that they've now identified.
01:35:54.000But when he was talking about it in 1980, no one knew what the fuck he was talking about.
01:35:58.000Or 1984 or whatever it was when he first got interviewed about this.
01:36:02.000So when this guy is bringing this stuff up today and people are looking back at all the different things that he said that have since been proven to be true, especially the existence of Area 51, the government had to, at some point in time in the 90s, they had to say that they owned the base and say that it did in fact exist so that they could broaden the top secret area or the,
01:36:27.000you know, like there's a do not enter They wanted to broaden that area so people couldn't be watching their crafts fly around like Bob Lazar was.
01:36:39.000And when they did that, when they expanded the territory, that's when they had to actually admit that the base was real.
01:36:45.000So he was proven to be correct on so many different things that he said, like explain how they get him out there, explain what the research was, and he said that they had these Things that run on some, they manipulate gravity in some way, and they're very small because these aliens are very small little creatures, like a child, like an eight, ten-year-old child.
01:37:10.000And so he talked about, he saw them, he knew how they operated.
01:37:13.000The things that he knows that are true, that turned out to be true, that how could he have known them if he didn't work at Area 51 are the most compelling aspects of it.
01:37:23.000And the fact that Area 51 was, at one point in time, by the government's take, it didn't exist.
01:37:31.000And this was when he was talking about it.
01:37:34.000And so, watching this documentary and seeing this guy 30 years later still basically saying exactly the same thing, but with a bunch of things that have been proven.
01:37:41.000Have been proven, yeah, yeah, that is intense.
01:38:03.000If they really knew there was something that was so sophisticated that it could visit us from another planet, it could be here in minutes, land on the White House lawn, do whatever the fuck it wanted to, you couldn't even shoot it with bullets.
01:38:42.000I remember the conspiracy that, I remember I did, remember that when there would be like these booklets of like Xerox stuff going on, like the one about AIDS and stuff like that?
01:39:17.000Well, there was one doctor at one point in time that was trying to say that HIV does not cause AIDS. And we had him on way back in the day, early on.
01:41:06.000I mean, it's very highly unlikely that all these doctors are incorrect and are hiding the fact that HIV... And then now the fact that they've got these...
01:41:16.000HIV medications that basically they can take people and make them HIV negative now.
01:41:21.000Didn't they have like a couple people have tested HIV negative after medications?
01:41:33.000Like, when I watch some of those things, you know, some of them, they'll, like, lead off with these statements, and we all know, and we know this.
01:41:51.000And that was the one that I, that one, that one when it was out back in, what, 89 or something, 88, when those little pamphlets were going around.
01:42:52.000I think if you're in a high-pressure job and you're very busy, like I am, I think those little insights are very important.
01:42:59.000Because you can get caught up in your own bullshit and what you're trying to do and not think of the impact you're having on the people that are around you.
01:43:13.000Especially with, you know, like, you know, because I have things where, like, my philosophy might change, or a little thing, and you're talking to a lot of people, and you're like, oh, I don't know if I feel like that anymore.
01:43:43.000Obviously those things, normal stuff that everybody agrees on, but then you get to a certain point and I think we get real married to the idea of our opinions being right and we get real married to the idea of winning an argument with our opinions.
01:43:55.000I think that's when things get kind of squirrely because Then you start trying to calculate an argument to make your position sound better rather than considering your position for what it really is.
01:44:06.000Yeah, and then also always trying to figure out and learn a little something.
01:47:00.000I'm not smart enough for that one to know how that's going to work.
01:47:03.000But he seemed to think that there was a lot of...
01:47:06.000Ancillary benefits, things like lowered crime rates, you would have lowered instances of disease, lowered instances of people that were injured doing certain things.
01:47:21.000If you had money and you made sure that people had a certain amount of money, it actually might cost the public less money.
01:47:28.000I can see where he would come from with that because I think there's something, because there's a lot of people, we've probably met a lot of people who say that money isn't everything and there's these things that mean this, but it's only once you get enough money where you can step off the little hamster wheel for a second to start a...
01:47:50.000I mean, if you don't have it, it's overwhelming.
01:47:52.000I remember when I first got a development deal, when I was doing stand-up, and I got a big check, and I just immediately felt like, literally like a weight was lifted off my back.
01:48:56.000Maybe that's why I like to think I'm deep.
01:48:58.000Yeah, no, I don't need a Mercedes, man.
01:49:00.000I'm just, you know, I'm just driving my car, my 2005. You know, I just need to get from point A to point B. But, you know, maybe that's why.
01:51:01.000He's all just trying to help people in all these different facets of life, help people with financial advice, help people with motivation, help people to get the bullshit out of their life, get the clutter out of their life.
01:51:11.000Yeah, no, I even like when I first started really liking it was when he was doing that thing where he was meeting up with people to run.
01:55:07.000Yeah Mr. David Feldman who says I croak look at him was evil look at you guys having fun tonight make some noise But you know fighting championship is a brand new sport in a brand new company and we're here for action And we want action and we demand action from the fighters Mmm, the man didn't get action that last fight cuz rusty crowder wanted to run and
01:55:36.000Therefore, he's given half his purse to Reggie Barnett.
01:56:46.000But in Asia, some of them, I used to work a lot at this Korean show, and they were figuring out their style, but man, when I first got there, they're like, so there's a yellow card.
01:56:56.000Any backward step, a back step, any back step, we want to give a yellow card.
01:58:13.000Answering the guy, but this is a tweet from the Bare Knuckle FC. Okay, Kevin Johnson, no money was taken from any fighters.
01:58:19.000That statement did exactly what it was supposed to, what was supposed, it didn't say to, supposed and lit a fire under every single fighter's ass from that point on.
01:58:30.000Giving you one of the greatest fights you'll ever see.
02:00:13.000It's not bare knuckle, but it's, um...
02:00:17.000I think bare knuckle Muay Thai would be the hardest.
02:00:21.000But the thing, what my argument was always, and it still remains this, that if you're not going to pad anything else, like you're not going to pad the shins, you're not going to pad the knees or the elbows, why are you padding the knuckles?
02:00:32.000You're just giving people a false sense of security in terms of what is actually effective.
02:01:23.000I wasn't thinking about it from that point of view.
02:01:24.000Yeah, that is giving people, people are thinking that, yeah, you're right.
02:01:29.000Like, people think that boxing, well, before MMA, everything was the most effective way of doing things.
02:01:34.000But then, when you, MMA is a whole different from the size of the boxing glove, of the techniques you can do and what you can't do and what's going to work and what's not going to work.
02:01:44.000It's supposed to be the sport of fighting, and you've basically brought it down to a raw form, but you're still covering the knuckles and patting the knuckles just because of perception.
02:01:56.000And see, the problem with that guy, this bare-knuckle boxing guy, when he says some stupid shit like that, is that it reinforces what people don't like about combat sports, What people don't like about the idea of bare-knuckle boxing, that it's brutal and it's just there for chaos and blood.
02:02:24.000I think MMA athletes, I think, are the most honorable and well-behaved and, you know, not because of fear or anything, because of what the sport is.
02:05:06.000Maybe it's just shocking to me because it doesn't look like it would be that aggressive.
02:05:10.000Right, because when you think about fighters, especially guys even training together, it's rare that they swear at each other or talk shit to each other.
02:05:17.000If two guys get in an argument, like if some of the guy doesn't let go, somebody tapped and people scream or something like that.
02:05:24.000I think that's why the respect has, because to get better, you have to put yourself in situations where you're going to be at a disadvantage and vulnerable.
02:05:32.000And so you have to trust your training partners to have this level of respect, and you're going to have to reciprocate that.
02:05:37.000Yeah, well, especially with things like leg locks.
02:07:14.000Yeah, so that's when I remember when...
02:07:17.000Because I got to referee him in Brazil before he was doing a lot in the UFC. And so I kind of seen him in, I think one made me in a tournament format.
02:07:27.000And I've never had any problem, but he stopped when I told him to.
02:07:33.000There's one fight of his from, I think it was from Brazil...
02:07:37.000Or he's got somebody in a leg lock and he's not letting go.
02:09:16.000Well, his grappling's so elite, and he's getting really good at striking now, too, and he's really dedicated to MMA, and he's undefeated.
02:09:22.000He's been fighting in 1FC, which I'm excited.
02:09:25.000I'm very excited about 1FC. I love what they're doing.
02:09:28.000I love the attitude they're taking of making it about respect and martial arts and bringing it to, like, some old-school martial arts values.
02:09:35.000They're fucking gigantic right now in Asia.
02:11:34.000Well, when you see a guy like Khabib Nurmagomedov just run through people in the UFC, and you know where that guy's from, you gotta go, well, how many more of those guys are over there?
02:12:31.000They showed us a lot of really cool stuff.
02:12:32.000I went to like, you know, school where some kids wrestling school, like a lot of schools that were athletic with an athletic orientation and seeing these little kids.
02:12:44.000They put this little kid up on a bar and had him doing pull ups, man.
02:19:12.000He had already been smashed by then, too.
02:19:15.000He'd been hit with so many big punches from the top.
02:19:18.000He takes a great shot though, I'll tell you that.
02:19:21.000But it's just one of those things where I think in order for him to really have a real chance at getting another shot, what he's got to do is beat somebody big and say something that makes Khabib considerate.
02:19:35.000But not in the way of what he's been doing in terms of talking shit about him and talking smack.
02:19:43.000I mean, I think the only way it's going to be public demand, like he's going to have to get to a position where people want to see him fight Khabib again to see that the result may be different this time.
02:19:53.000And then maybe if he could just fucking communicate something to him.
02:19:56.000Say, you know, I respect you, you know, all trash talk aside, you know, I'd like to test myself against you one more time.
02:20:04.000I think that's the only way he's going to get it.
02:20:06.000I think the only way he's going to get it is to win a couple of fights, beat some real big name guys, And then make it so it's something that Khabib's actually interested in.
02:20:15.000Well, okay, so I don't know if that's the only way, but it's the way that I would like to see.
02:20:20.000They already offered it to Khabib, and Khabib said, fuck off.
02:21:01.000And also sometimes it does bring some energy and some, you know, when it's well done, it does bring some energy and some excitement to the fight and to the sport.
02:21:09.000And at the same time, not every fight, I think what's really interesting and what's really excited about the UFC is that there's a lot of Fights that people want to see that have no bearing on the title.
02:21:48.000Is it good for the way the sport, do you want the sport to look as far as martial arts and being a respectful thing and people looking at us like that?
02:21:57.000Is it good for the sport or the growth of the sport and for more opportunities for our athletes and for our athletes to become names that draw attention from other people that normally didn't know about it?
02:22:17.000I like a Lyoto Machida type character that's very respectful and bows and never talks trash and fights just a world champion caliber martial artist.
02:22:27.000And I also like a guy who talks mad shit.
02:22:33.000It's like, I like press conferences for that very reason, where, you know, guys are talking shit to each other, and they're just looking over at each other on the podium, and, you know, it's funny.
02:26:41.000I mean, martial arts has been around for thousands and thousands of years, and the level of martial arts since 1993 to today is indescribably more powerful today.
02:26:54.000The fighters are so much more well-rounded.
02:26:56.000And even in jiu-jitsu, if you go back and watch old jiu-jitsu matches from like 93, of course you're going to have like your Hicks and Gracies and your Higan Machados and John Chalk Machados who are at that elite level even back then where they can hang with guys today.
02:27:09.000But overall, the game is like so much more complex.
02:27:12.000And also even just the athleticism you see in it today.
02:27:21.000And I mean, and really what's interesting to me is that you're really only seeing a small percentage of the elite athletes that are available in North America that even decide to get into it.
02:27:33.000Like, if you talk about how many elite athletes decide to go into baseball or NFL or NBA versus how many elite athletes go into cage fighting, it's not even close.
02:28:08.000It's just, for those big athletes, the really big paydays are at NFL. That's the other thing, too, is that a lot of those guys are bigger than 265 pounds.
02:28:18.000They would have to cut a lot of weight to make 265, which is, isn't that weird that we have a heavyweight division that you have to weigh in for?
02:28:24.000Yeah, no, I think that is interesting.
02:28:26.000But I wonder what the super heavyweight division would look like.
02:28:32.000It would probably be just a small handful of giant guys.
02:28:36.000It would probably be like the flyweights, right, in terms of like how – unless Iceland.
02:28:41.000They get those Iceland strongman dudes.
02:32:47.000So I'm going to thank you for that right there because I think my career path would have been different.
02:32:52.000Well, that was one of those things where I felt an obligation to not just interview the fighter, but to explain to the entire crowd, like, you gotta listen.
02:33:06.000And Tim thanked you afterwards for saving his career, because he said, if you didn't stop that fight, and that became a compound fracture, fuck, man, horrible things happen when the bone breaks through the skin.
02:36:04.000That's got to be huge for you because, like, if a woman gets into the octagon or a man and they don't know anything about the sport, they're just there because they're a doctor.
02:38:51.000He was a really detailed instructor, but he was really good.
02:38:55.000But I got a lot of information from some of the other people who I thought was going to be good because in the beginning we tell why we're here.
02:39:01.000It sounded like I had a high-level class.
02:39:58.000So the first day I do is judging, and then the judges, the referees, for my, the way I do my certificate, if you want to be a referee, you have to be able to judge also, because everyone assumes that you can, and they'll throw you in the judge's seat, so you have a judging training.
02:40:13.000Oh, if you do a small show or something like that?
02:42:32.000It's from me, but recognized by certain organizations that are going to make it so that you can get a job.
02:42:38.000So it's from me, and here in the United States is recognized by the Association of Boxing Commissions.
02:42:43.000And if you're going to apply to, let's say, Camo here in California, you're going to have to have a certificate of training before you apply to the amateur or before you apply to, let's say, the boxing commission out in Tennessee to the athletic commission out there or the athletic commission in Nevada.
02:43:00.000They're only going to hire people who have taken a course that's recognized.
02:45:19.000He, to me, really carried the flag of catch wrestling, the Carl Gotch style of submission holds, more so than probably anybody else that ever fought in MMA. Oh, yeah.
02:46:18.000Yeah, so I feel like, you know, there's some people you say, okay, he's good.
02:46:21.000Then there's some people you look at as so, like, I've never got to, you know, roll with him, but he looks like one of those people that, like, you don't know what it feels like until you feel it.