The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #98 with Luke Thomas

00:00:12.000 Hello Luke.

00:00:13.000 Hi Joe.

00:00:13.000 We did it.

00:00:14.000 We made it.

00:00:14.000 We finally made it happen.

00:00:15.000 I wasn't sure it was going to happen.

00:00:17.000 Yeah, well, kudos to you for taking the chance to come here during the pandemic.

00:00:21.000 I know.

00:00:22.000 The all very oppressive pandemic.

00:00:24.000 Well, we were supposed to do it in March.

00:00:25.000 Yeah.

00:00:26.000 And then the world turned upside down.

00:00:28.000 Literally.

00:00:29.000 Basically.

00:00:30.000 But we figured out a way.

00:00:31.000 Yeah, we're here.

00:00:32.000 Yeah.

00:00:32.000 You said you did some traveling.

00:00:35.000 What did you do traveling for before this?

00:00:36.000 So I went to the Charlo Brothers doubleheader in Mohegan Sun, which was interesting because I got there early in the week and the casino was empty. 0.98

00:00:43.000 That bitch was slamming by Saturday night. 1.00

00:00:45.000 I had not been in crowds since March, right? 1.00

00:00:49.000 Yeah.

00:00:49.000 So that was a little bit weird.

00:00:50.000 So the casino is packed?

00:00:52.000 It was packed.

00:00:53.000 Yeah.

00:00:54.000 Not like to the rafters, but crowded.

00:00:57.000 Do they have rules?

00:00:58.000 Like with masks?

00:00:59.000 It's Native American territory.

00:01:00.000 They make their rules.

00:01:01.000 So yes, they do have the normal protocol.

00:01:03.000 Like there's hand sanitizing stations everywhere.

00:01:06.000 You have to wear a mask.

00:01:07.000 But if you're at the table and you're drinking, they just pull the mask right down. 0.97

00:01:11.000 Yeah, I'm like, even if it wasn't that, it's like, can you imagine how fucking dirty those poker chips are? 0.96

00:01:15.000 It's like the Excalibur. 0.87

00:01:16.000 You ever seen chips at the Excalibur? 0.99

00:01:18.000 Holy shit. 0.99

00:01:20.000 But anyway, so I was just, you know, I minded my business because it was actually in the sun, the Mohegan Sun Arena. 0.97

00:01:24.000 So we would just like beeline to the place there.

00:01:29.000 And then last week I went back to Jersey City, which is where the studios are for my Showtime gig.

00:01:33.000 Yeah.

00:01:34.000 So, that is interesting that if it's on Native American ground, they can kind of do whatever they want.

00:01:39.000 Pretty much, yeah.

00:01:40.000 Which is why the casino's there in the first place.

00:01:42.000 Right.

00:01:42.000 And again, I would say, you know what?

00:01:44.000 Most people were pretty good about compliance.

00:01:47.000 I did not feel like...

00:01:50.000 Honestly, I thought people were more compliant than the airport yesterday. 1.00

00:01:53.000 All these fucking weak constituted people that pull the mask below their nose, I want to fucking hit all of them with a car antenna. 1.00

00:02:01.000 I hate every single one of them. 1.00

00:02:03.000 I just want to look at them like, it's not a hardship. 1.00

00:02:06.000 Just put on the fucking mask. 1.00

00:02:07.000 Not only that, if you have it below your nose, you're not doing anything. 1.00

00:02:11.000 I know, I was like, just take it off!

00:02:12.000 Just take it off!

00:02:12.000 I'd feel better if you had it off.

00:02:15.000 Right.

00:02:15.000 Because at least you're like...

00:02:16.000 You're an honest broker in this exchange.

00:02:19.000 You know what I mean?

00:02:19.000 So it was fine.

00:02:21.000 They tested us a bunch of times when we were there.

00:02:23.000 Have you seen the new things?

00:02:25.000 Like these new hazmat suits they're selling?

00:02:27.000 It's literally like...

00:02:29.000 Go to John Joseph Cromag.

00:02:32.000 Go to his Instagram page.

00:02:34.000 Do you know John Joseph from Cromags?

00:02:36.000 I do not.

00:02:36.000 You have to forgive me.

00:02:37.000 He's the lead singer of the Cro-Mags, but he's also a triathlete.

00:02:41.000 He's a firm believer in strengthening your own immune system.

00:02:44.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:02:44.000 There's nothing to be said for that.

00:02:46.000 Look at this.

00:02:47.000 Look at this.

00:02:48.000 Holy mother of Jesus.

00:02:50.000 We're in space.

00:02:52.000 I mean, this is the future, and it apparently has some fog-proof attachment some way, somehow or another, and you put your hand, if you have to scratch your face, there's little zips on the side, and you put your hand through.

00:03:07.000 You know, I appreciate the spirit of innovation here, but this is a Black Mirror episode, right?

00:03:13.000 It is!

00:03:14.000 It is, well, you know, how many people do you know that have gotten it?

00:03:18.000 A bunch.

00:03:18.000 Yeah, me too.

00:03:19.000 Jamie's the latest.

00:03:22.000 But they're saying, which is very interesting, they're saying it really depends upon what kind of dose you're getting.

00:03:29.000 Right.

00:03:29.000 You obviously got a very mild dose, and you had a very mild case of it.

00:03:33.000 That's why the masks are important, right?

00:03:34.000 Because even if you get it, if someone has it, you know, they're not wearing it properly, you're not getting sprayed with this huge amount.

00:03:41.000 Right.

00:03:41.000 Especially if someone sneezes on you or yells.

00:03:43.000 That's the thing with drunks. 0.99

00:03:45.000 Like bars are super spreader events, right?

00:03:47.000 Because everyone's like drunk talk.

00:03:49.000 That's what I miss.

00:03:50.000 I miss the bars a little bit.

00:03:51.000 I miss the movie theater and I miss the bar.

00:03:53.000 And I'm not like, you know, till 4 a.m.

00:03:55.000 I got a kid.

00:03:56.000 But, you know, just saddling up a little bit, having a couple cocktails.

00:03:59.000 Yes.

00:03:59.000 I miss that a little bit, to be honest with you.

00:04:01.000 Well, me too.

00:04:02.000 I just got through Sober October.

00:04:04.000 Hey, it's November 2nd.

00:04:05.000 Yeah, you want to drink?

00:04:06.000 I'll drink.

00:04:07.000 I was going to lift after this, but I'll have a drink if you have one.

00:04:09.000 Can I have a couple of drinks and still lift?

00:04:11.000 Listen, I'm 40. I can't have a couple of drinks and think right, much less lift weights.

00:04:16.000 But I'll try.

00:04:16.000 I'll try.

00:04:17.000 But you know what?

00:04:18.000 It never gets talked about.

00:04:19.000 It deserves to be mentioned here.

00:04:20.000 Send in some whiskey.

00:04:21.000 I know a guy who was an ER doctor in New York.

00:04:25.000 He's still there now, obviously, but through March.

00:04:27.000 This doesn't get talked about, but it's worth mentioning.

00:04:30.000 There is...

00:04:32.000 So I knew a bunch of people that went to Iraq because I was in the Marine Corps, but I got out right before my unit sent.

00:04:36.000 So I was very, very lucky in that regard. 0.98

00:04:38.000 But a bunch of them came back super fucked up. 1.00

00:04:40.000 You know, they're all fine now, but super fucked up. 1.00

00:04:43.000 These doctors who were in New York in March, they all have PTSD. Watching day after day. 0.99

00:04:49.000 Remember, there was times when New York was losing 800 people a day.

00:04:53.000 And he was telling me, like, you know, you hold up enough phones to someone who's dying and so their kids are crying on the other end of FaceTime.

00:04:59.000 And you do that day after day after day.

00:05:01.000 He started smoking, the whole thing.

00:05:04.000 We don't talk enough about that.

00:05:06.000 I don't think it's bad enough now.

00:05:07.000 And he was even saying, if you're 25, you're fine. 0.97

00:05:09.000 But all of these at-risk folks just coming in and collapsing one after the other, it fucked him up. 0.98

00:05:15.000 Big time. 0.97

00:05:16.000 I can only imagine.

00:05:17.000 This also falls in line with the conversation that I've been having a lot about cops.

00:05:23.000 People don't understand what it is to be a cop.

00:05:27.000 All you see is these terrible videos like George Floyd.

00:05:31.000 Just imagine being a person who every day you're seeing suicide, murder, rape, crime, Car accidents.

00:05:38.000 You're constantly worried that the next car you pull over is going to be the guy that shoots you in the head.

00:05:42.000 And you've had improper training, probably.

00:05:44.000 You're asked to do responsibilities you couldn't possibly handle.

00:05:48.000 The policy failures of the world are just pushed onto you.

00:05:51.000 And you have to deal with the dregs of society. 1.00

00:05:55.000 Certainly, obviously, the George Floyd murder is...

00:05:57.000 Horrific.

00:05:57.000 Horrific in every way imaginable.

00:05:59.000 But my stepfather, my mom eventually got divorced, but I had a stepfather for a time, and he was a cop for 30 years in Washington, D.C. I'm not saying he had the most enlightened ideas of the world, but when you spend a few months in the hospital because they broke all your ribs...

00:06:12.000 And you had to deal with a two-year-old with a gun and every other situation.

00:06:17.000 It will warp you.

00:06:18.000 It will affect your moral calculations.

00:06:20.000 And if you have improper training and improper funding, it only exacerbates the problem. 0.99

00:06:24.000 We ask cops to do way too much shit and it results in a lot of problems. 0.94

00:06:30.000 And the job, like now, good luck trying to find really intelligent people that could do other things. 0.99

00:06:39.000 Right now, no one wants to be a cop, because the cops are the bad guys.

00:06:43.000 They're the enemies.

00:06:44.000 Right.

00:06:47.000 Defunding the police is now a mantra that the left likes to use.

00:06:50.000 Defund the police.

00:06:51.000 By the way, I'm a member of the left.

00:06:53.000 As am I. When I first heard it, I was like, I didn't know what it meant.

00:06:56.000 They like to tell you that it means one thing.

00:06:59.000 I don't think that it means one thing.

00:07:00.000 It means a series of different things.

00:07:02.000 To some, it means actually what they stay, which is what they claim, which is utterly demolish it and start from scratch for others.

00:07:09.000 Thank you.

00:07:10.000 For others, it means not going to that nuclear option, but sort of rearranging funds to go to different policy or other kind of intervention projects.

00:07:20.000 Do you ice or no ice?

00:07:21.000 It depends on how good the whiskey is there, Joe Rogan.

00:07:24.000 It's still Austin.

00:07:26.000 I've not tried it because we bought it.

00:07:27.000 I'll try it.

00:07:28.000 I'll try it neat.

00:07:28.000 All right.

00:07:29.000 There you go.

00:07:30.000 We tried it when I was doing the...

00:07:33.000 Cheers, sir.

00:07:34.000 Salud.

00:07:37.000 Ooh, smells nice.

00:07:39.000 It's pretty damn good.

00:07:41.000 That does not need ice.

00:07:42.000 That's good.

00:07:43.000 Yeah, it's a bummer.

00:07:44.000 And you know, it's really a bummer when you see cops scrap and they can't.

00:07:48.000 And you're like, how did you get this far?

00:07:51.000 Like, you're an actual police officer and you never learn how to...

00:07:54.000 You don't even know how to distribute your weight on the ground?

00:07:57.000 I understand that, quite frankly.

00:07:58.000 I was in...

00:07:58.000 Like I told you, I did six years in the Marine Corps.

00:08:01.000 The Marine Corps has this reputation, somewhat deserved, about there being super macho and shit relative to the other forces. 0.98

00:08:08.000 And some of that is true and some of that is deserved. 0.99

00:08:11.000 I had never seen...

00:08:12.000 I remember the first time...

00:08:14.000 You ever been to the Mojave Desert at all?

00:08:16.000 Yeah.

00:08:16.000 So there's the 29 Palms is out there.

00:08:18.000 I'll never forget the first time I went to 29 Palms, because there is fuck all to do at 29 Palms. 0.96

00:08:24.000 And so the Marine Corps wisely just invests in weight rooms. 0.93

00:08:27.000 It was the nicest gym I'd ever been in in my life, and it was nothing but Hoss Marine. 1.00

00:08:33.000 I mean, they're all on steroids.

00:08:35.000 They had to be... 0.99

00:08:35.000 I don't think any commanding officer gave a fuck. 0.99

00:08:38.000 And they were all huge. 0.99

00:08:39.000 And they lived this gung-ho life and blah, blah, blah. 1.00

00:08:41.000 But when it came time for hand-to-hand combatives training, McMap is shit. 1.00

00:08:46.000 It's not good. 0.99

00:08:47.000 It's better than nothing.

00:08:49.000 But unless you do straight-up army combatives, which is the best thing maybe the army's ever done for themselves in terms of that kind of aim, policy aim...

00:09:00.000 You get nothing.

00:09:01.000 And every cop I know who has ever trained, there's a bunch of guys who I know from various different martial arts schools, they took the initiative to go train outside of what law enforcement was providing them. 0.99

00:09:13.000 But like, this is what I mean, they don't get any of this shit.

00:09:16.000 Or if they do, it's like, you know, here's how to get out of if someone's choking you in this very, it's almost like a women's self-defense class is really the extent to which they learn. 0.99

00:09:25.000 That's ridiculous. 0.69

00:09:26.000 Yeah, it's not much. 0.92

00:09:26.000 It should be mandatory. 0.92

00:09:28.000 And not only should it be mandatory, it should be a part of the curriculum.

00:09:31.000 Jocko Willink said that they should spend 20% of their time training.

00:09:34.000 And I think he's right.

00:09:35.000 Who's got the money for that, though?

00:09:37.000 It's a good question.

00:09:38.000 Real consideration should be put to why don't we have the money for that.

00:09:45.000 Also, I would challenge it a little bit, if I may.

00:09:47.000 Which is, I saw in the wake of the George Floyd thing, there was a lot of people like, how do we...

00:09:51.000 Most people were basically horrified by that.

00:09:53.000 But the question is, what do you do about it?

00:09:55.000 And so I saw some op-eds.

00:09:56.000 I think MMA Junkie published one from this guy.

00:09:58.000 I'm sure he was well-intentioned, but he was like...

00:10:00.000 I think Henry Gracie had some similar ideas.

00:10:02.000 Because he really believes in the transformative power of jiu-jitsu, right?

00:10:06.000 I do to an extent.

00:10:08.000 I mean, here's what I would say.

00:10:12.000 It's the same thing going through the military.

00:10:14.000 If you don't succumb to the process, it will not redevelop your character.

00:10:20.000 You have to willingly give yourself to that.

00:10:23.000 Just giving cops jiu-jitsu training does not force that transformation.

00:10:28.000 So while I think it would help in certain situations, it could exacerbate existing problems with whatever cop has deranged or bad training about the world. 1.00

00:10:37.000 And now, oh wait, now you know Kimora's and you're a fucking asshole? 1.00

00:10:40.000 Right. 1.00

00:10:41.000 That's a problem.

00:10:42.000 That is a problem.

00:10:42.000 Yeah, you're right in that respect.

00:10:44.000 If you do get an asshole and you just teach him a few moves, you could create a worse asshole. 1.00

00:10:50.000 But I would hope... 1.00

00:10:52.000 The problem is, like...

00:10:54.000 In normal jujitsu, the way jujitsu transforms your life, it's not transforming your life in the stress of you being a police officer and all the things we talked about, PTSD, people shooting you, dealing with all the horrific things you see every day.

00:11:08.000 Essentially, you're going through this struggle, and that struggle sort of steals you and makes you a better person.

00:11:13.000 Yes.

00:11:14.000 Yeah, if you went through that struggle along with the chaos of the police academy or of rather police duty, I would imagine best case scenario is it alleviates some stress. 0.98

00:11:28.000 It helps you get past a lot of the bullshit that you would normally eat at you.

00:11:34.000 And it also allows you to relieve some tension and...

00:11:38.000 Yeah, I just – I don't know that I would – for cost reasons, I don't know that I would mandate that kind of training.

00:11:42.000 I think I would offer particular forms of incentives to get it to the right kind of folks.

00:11:45.000 I would mandate it just because you're going to have situations where people have hand-to-hand experiences.

00:11:50.000 You should know how to distribute your weight.

00:11:52.000 Fair enough.

00:11:53.000 But I would say doing that by itself would not be sufficient.

00:11:56.000 That along with other forms of reform – So that we're asking police to do the things that police are supposed to do and not the things they're not supposed to do.

00:12:03.000 I think in conjunction, it's never one solution, right?

00:12:06.000 Most problems in the world require a series of interventions.

00:12:09.000 Do those in conjunction, you're probably going to get a better policing.

00:12:11.000 When I was 19, I worked as a security guard at a concert place called Great Woods in Mansfield, Massachusetts.

00:12:17.000 And it was a short amount of time.

00:12:19.000 I wasn't there for but a few months over the summer.

00:12:22.000 But during that time, I recognized a really clear us-versus-them mentality between the security force and the concertgoers.

00:12:33.000 And it happened pretty quickly. 0.85

00:12:34.000 It happened really quickly where I saw security guys beat the shit out of me. 0.93

00:12:39.000 The first day of the job, I saw this guy get beaten up with a walkie-talkie because he stole a golf cart. 0.96

00:12:44.000 Like, 19-year-old, fresh-faced kid, like, what is going on here?

00:12:48.000 And this guy, his name is Alley Cat, tackles this kid who had stolen one of their golf carts, and he's hitting him in the face with a walkie-talkie. 0.97

00:12:55.000 And I'm like, what kind of job did I fucking sign up for?

00:12:58.000 I mean, and it was only like, you know, 15 bucks an hour or something, I would imagine. 0.94

00:13:02.000 I don't really remember, but I remember thinking real early on, like, this is a very strange how I've, like, very quickly developed this us-versus-them mentality.

00:13:13.000 I've also noticed, you know, back when I was 24, I was working doors at various bars in New York City to make some money to make ends meet because New York City is crazy expensive.

00:13:23.000 And I was lifting weights like crazy.

00:13:26.000 I was huge, you know, the whole bit.

00:13:28.000 And I'll never forget, people would always tell me, they're like, oh, I bet people don't want to mess with you.

00:13:32.000 And I was like, it is totally the opposite.

00:13:35.000 Drunks.

00:13:35.000 Right.

00:13:35.000 If you've got a badge on, they want to fuck with you.

00:13:38.000 A bunch don't. 1.00

00:13:39.000 But there's going to be a certain kind of person.

00:13:41.000 Oh, he's big and tall and muscly or whoever.

00:13:44.000 Anybody, you know, you've got sleeves or tattoos.

00:13:46.000 That is exactly who they target.

00:13:47.000 There's a certain kind of guy who's like, you know what, I'd like to see what happened if I tried to ride that ride. 0.99

00:13:53.000 Yeah, Chuck Liddell said that when he was in his prime, guys would fuck with him. 0.98

00:13:57.000 Not the least bit surprised. 1.00

00:13:59.000 You're like, dude, you have a fucking death wish? 1.00

00:14:01.000 Like, what is wrong with you? 1.00

00:14:03.000 They have a death wish. 1.00

00:14:04.000 Well, some people are just really stupid. 1.00

00:14:06.000 Have you ever seen that Onion article? 1.00

00:14:08.000 It's like, study.

00:14:10.000 Average man overestimates fighting ability by 4,000%.

00:14:13.000 You ever seen that?

00:14:14.000 No.

00:14:15.000 Most people think they know...

00:14:17.000 Yeah, look, if push came to shove, I know a little something, something.

00:14:19.000 Yeah. 0.99

00:14:20.000 You don't know fuck all. 1.00

00:14:21.000 You don't know fuck all. 1.00

00:14:23.000 The humiliation of seeing those guys on the mat is really adorable. 0.99

00:14:27.000 When you see a person who thinks they're fairly tough just get manhandled and ragdolled. 0.98

00:14:32.000 That's the tragedy of modern MMA. Because there was a time where it was like, is jiu-jitsu really all that good?

00:14:38.000 And they'd make videos of some guy coming in and being like, I'm going to fuck all these black belts up. 1.00

00:14:42.000 And then he goes in there and they wear him out. 0.99

00:14:45.000 They work him like a summer job.

00:14:46.000 You know what I mean?

00:14:47.000 For the Gracies, it was like the greatest promotional scheme ever. 0.81

00:14:51.000 Amazing.

00:14:52.000 Like to have people come in and fight them.

00:14:54.000 Yeah.

00:14:54.000 Come on, guys.

00:14:55.000 And they would be pretty gentle with those guys when you really think about it.

00:14:58.000 I mean, they hit them a little bit, but mostly they just strangled them.

00:15:01.000 Yeah, basically.

00:15:02.000 Yeah, it's true.

00:15:03.000 But we don't really see that anymore because basically the word got out.

00:15:05.000 Like, eh.

00:15:06.000 Maybe don't do that.

00:15:08.000 But it's kind of crazy when you think about the history of martial arts.

00:15:11.000 Martial arts were around for, since the dawn of time, people have been trying to figure out better ways to fuck people up.

00:15:17.000 Since they figured out language and figured out how to teach skills, they've been working on techniques.

00:15:22.000 And not until 1993 did we really know what worked.

00:15:26.000 You have a quote.

00:15:27.000 I have an old DVD back when those really mattered.

00:15:31.000 I bought it in, I want to say 2004. So this must have been one of the early editions of like Ultimate Knockouts.

00:15:38.000 I think Phil Barone fucking up Dave Manet was on the cover or something like that.

00:15:41.000 And you had a quote and it was, maybe it was like 2003. I think that's what it was.

00:15:46.000 So I forget, maybe it was like one of the Miami shows, whatever it was.

00:15:49.000 You had a quote and it was, martial arts has evolved more in the last 20 years than it has in the last 2000. Yeah.

00:15:56.000 With the exception of weaponry, that is 1000% true.

00:16:00.000 Yeah, 1000% true.

00:16:02.000 And weaponry, really.

00:16:04.000 Like, guns.

00:16:05.000 If you want to have a weapon, guns and knives.

00:16:08.000 Knives have been around forever.

00:16:09.000 Swords, I guess.

00:16:10.000 They used to be better at swords.

00:16:11.000 I don't know enough about hand-to-hand combat with weapons to say one way or the other, but I just know as it relates to martial arts...

00:16:18.000 The fast forwarding that happened from 93 on relative to before it, it was this sort of slow process and then it hit overdrive.

00:16:26.000 You know what's really very satisfying to me is that when I first got involved in the UFC in 1997, it was when I was on news radio and the people on news radio literally look at me like I was doing porn.

00:16:38.000 They were like, what are you doing?

00:16:40.000 Why are you doing this?

00:16:41.000 You're going to ruin your career.

00:16:43.000 And I was like, I don't know.

00:16:45.000 I don't know what to tell you.

00:16:46.000 I like it.

00:16:47.000 My whole life I've been a martial artist.

00:16:49.000 Now finally someone did the thing that I've always asked them to do.

00:16:52.000 My whole life I was like, I want to know what would happen.

00:16:55.000 If you've got a judo guy with a boxer, if you've got a this with a that...

00:16:58.000 And then the UFC's like, let's find out.

00:17:01.000 And then I'm like, oh my god, it's real.

00:17:02.000 It's happening.

00:17:03.000 To me, it was like someone came along with the Willy Wonka golden ticket.

00:17:07.000 It was happening.

00:17:08.000 It was real. 0.99

00:17:09.000 And then when they offered me a job, I was like, fuck yeah, I'm going. 0.64

00:17:12.000 How did you get that job? 0.97

00:17:13.000 How did they know you...

00:17:14.000 Did your agent put in a word?

00:17:16.000 My manager was friends with Campbell McLaren.

00:17:19.000 And Campbell McLaren...

00:17:20.000 Campbell's amazing.

00:17:21.000 He's a great guy.

00:17:22.000 And he's been on the podcast.

00:17:23.000 And Campbell had...

00:17:26.000 He had an opening, and he said, we need someone to do the post-fight interviews.

00:17:31.000 And it was, you know, very little money, and you have to take those little Buddy Holly-killing planes.

00:17:37.000 Fly to Dothan, Alabama.

00:17:39.000 That was the first gig I did.

00:17:40.000 I was actually supposed to be in Albany, but then they kicked it out of New York.

00:17:43.000 And then last minute, they moved the octagon to Dothan, Alabama.

00:17:47.000 And I was so happy.

00:17:49.000 It was the debut of Vitor Belfort.

00:17:50.000 Back when we were calling him Victor.

00:17:52.000 They were calling him Victor Gracie.

00:17:54.000 And this was when I was training at Carlson Gracie's.

00:17:57.000 And they were calling Vitor Victor.

00:17:59.000 I mean, the early posters were V-I-K-T-O-R Gracie. 0.96

00:18:04.000 Like he was Russian or something.

00:18:05.000 I don't know why they call him Victor.

00:18:07.000 Like, I don't understand why they did that.

00:18:09.000 But he was using the last name Gracie.

00:18:12.000 And so he was fighting. 0.96

00:18:14.000 He fought John Hess over in Hawaii and beat the shit out of John Hess. 0.63

00:18:19.000 And, you know, I was training at his school and I thought he was like... 0.98

00:18:23.000 Impossible to stop.

00:18:24.000 And he was 19. And when he was 19, his hands were a blur of light.

00:18:29.000 He was so fast and so aggressive and so different than any other Brazilian jiu-jitsu guy.

00:18:35.000 Because we thought of Brazilian jiu-jitsu guys, and he was a black belt, but we thought of black belts as being someone who just wants to get a hold of you, drag you to the ground, strangle you, or get you in an armbar.

00:18:43.000 And all of a sudden, you've got this guy who's wearing gloves, because nobody else is wearing gloves, or very few people, 10 Cabot wore gloves.

00:18:50.000 And just lighting people up with punches. 0.99

00:18:52.000 And we're like, holy shit! 0.90

00:18:54.000 And so, just by chance and fortune, I was training at his school and got to be on the card and doing the post-fight interviews the very first time that he fought in the UFC. Wow. 0.97

00:19:05.000 Yeah, so I got to see him.

00:19:07.000 He fought Trey Tellegman.

00:19:09.000 Remember Trey had a car accident when he was a little kid. 0.99

00:19:12.000 He could still strike his ass off that guy. 1.00

00:19:14.000 Fuck yeah, he could. 1.00

00:19:15.000 He was tough as shit. 1.00

00:19:16.000 And he had no idea. 1.00

00:19:17.000 No one knew what Victor was.

00:19:19.000 Vitor.

00:19:20.000 I'm going back in time.

00:19:22.000 But we called him.

00:19:23.000 I think I may have even said Victor a couple of times during the broadcast.

00:19:27.000 Because that's what we called him at the school.

00:19:30.000 Everybody called him Victor.

00:19:31.000 And then all of a sudden it was Vitor.

00:19:33.000 So you had anglicized his name a little bit because no one...

00:19:35.000 I don't know.

00:19:36.000 I don't know what happened.

00:19:37.000 It's like they call Kamaru Marty.

00:19:38.000 Well, how about Fedor?

00:19:40.000 His real name is Fyodor.

00:19:41.000 Yeah.

00:19:42.000 I mean, Piotr Jan.

00:19:44.000 Like, no one...

00:19:45.000 It's like Peter!

00:19:46.000 Everybody called him Peter for a long time in the UFC. It was a couple of years.

00:19:49.000 And then finally they were like, oh, it's Piotr.

00:19:52.000 I'm like, well, I could say that.

00:19:53.000 Why didn't you tell me that earlier?

00:19:55.000 Like...

00:19:56.000 They just decided to anglify it.

00:19:58.000 But Fedor's probably the biggest example of that, right?

00:20:01.000 Right.

00:20:02.000 Because Fyodor's not a hard name to say.

00:20:04.000 I'm trying to think that's the biggest example.

00:20:05.000 That's one of them.

00:20:06.000 But he's the great.

00:20:07.000 I mean, if you want to think about heavyweight greats, you've got Stipe, Kane, and Fedor.

00:20:13.000 Those are the three.

00:20:14.000 You've got to choose.

00:20:15.000 And to have the Mount Rushmore of heavyweights, you have to have Fedor.

00:20:18.000 Yeah, he wasn't some anonymous figure.

00:20:20.000 Right.

00:20:20.000 But you get introduced to him the wrong way, it's hard to undo that.

00:20:23.000 Right.

00:20:23.000 So I got introduced to him in Pride as Fedor.

00:20:25.000 Yeah, I'm still saying it.

00:20:26.000 And that will just stick forever, despite how it actually is supposed to be.

00:20:30.000 I know.

00:20:31.000 If I was friends with him, I'd probably say it right.

00:20:33.000 But if you...

00:20:34.000 You ever met him?

00:20:35.000 No, I never have.

00:20:36.000 I had him in studio.

00:20:38.000 Not the most thrilling interview ever.

00:20:40.000 He didn't give much.

00:20:41.000 He's not there to give.

00:20:43.000 I found that out later.

00:20:44.000 I'm like, I don't think he wanted to be here.

00:20:46.000 No. 0.99

00:20:46.000 He's there to give ass kickings. 0.99

00:20:49.000 To your point about the origin of things, I remember most people were like, I've been watching UFC since UFC 1. Well, I didn't. 0.98

00:20:57.000 Because I just didn't know.

00:20:58.000 I was a 12-year-old kid at the time.

00:21:01.000 You only know what someone shows you for the most part. 1.00

00:21:03.000 This is pre-internet, so you definitely only know that shit. 0.99

00:21:06.000 And I had a family friend who was involved in a martial art that was South Korean called Tukong, which apparently was the official... 0.99

00:21:13.000 So Taekwondo is, as I understand it, and someone's going to correct me on this, but as I understand it, what was explained to me was that Taekwondo is the official sport of South Korea, but Tukong was the official martial art or self-defense system of the military.

00:21:29.000 Well, Taekyon, T-A-E-K-Y-O-N, is what we were taught, was like an earlier version of Taekwondo.

00:21:36.000 I don't know anything about it, other than what this guy told us.

00:21:39.000 General Chaeyoung Yi, he was the guy, I used to teach Taekwondo, and General Chaeyoung Yi was the guy who really formulated Taekwondo into a system, and my instructor, Jaehyun Kim, was one of Chaeyoung Yi's I remember

00:22:10.000 it was the summer of...

00:22:14.000 Was it 95, 96?

00:22:15.000 Something like that. 0.99

00:22:16.000 And he was like, have you seen the skinny Brazilian dudes out here fucking people up? 0.99

00:22:20.000 That's always how they introduce it, right? 0.99

00:22:21.000 Yeah.

00:22:22.000 And I didn't believe it.

00:22:22.000 And he's like, let's go to Blockbuster.

00:22:24.000 Went down to Blockbuster.

00:22:25.000 It's the one down there by Barracks Row for folks who are in Washington, D.C. listening.

00:22:28.000 It's now a farmer's market or a yes market.

00:22:31.000 And it used to be Blockbuster.

00:22:33.000 I went down in there and I got UFC 4 was the first one I ever saw.

00:22:37.000 For me it was two.

00:22:38.000 It was two?

00:22:38.000 Yeah, so it was four.

00:22:39.000 And obviously he had four.

00:22:40.000 I think it was three he had skipped and four he had come back and fought chemo. 0.90

00:22:43.000 What was the one where he had, I forget the genesis, but there was enough in the video where he was just like lighting these people up in the way, he's like, how the fuck is this possible?

00:22:53.000 And it's been politicized now and it takes on a different meaning, but that truly was red-pilled at that moment.

00:22:56.000 Like, there was a eureka moment and the lights go on and you're like, wow, this really is the future.

00:23:00.000 It's a bummer that red pill has been politicized.

00:23:02.000 I know, because it's such a great term!

00:23:04.000 Isn't it?

00:23:04.000 Exactly.

00:23:05.000 Great term.

00:23:05.000 You're a Matrix fan.

00:23:07.000 You see Lawrence Fishburne giving you the choice, you know?

00:23:09.000 Yeah, it's been really co-opted.

00:23:11.000 Because that was the name that Radio Raheem came up with.

00:23:15.000 Radio Raheem, the boxing commentator, he came up with that for this room.

00:23:18.000 To this date!

00:23:19.000 And I'm like, yeah, that guy.

00:23:20.000 Yeah, I'm not sure.

00:23:21.000 That's a bummer, man.

00:23:22.000 The Deontay Wilder stuff that's going on right now.

00:23:25.000 He's released three different excuses.

00:23:28.000 The first one was the weight vest, the thing that he was wearing, that crazy costume, weighed 40 pounds, apparently wore his legs out.

00:23:35.000 The next one was that there was a bunch of people saying that Tyson Fury's gloves weren't attached correctly, so the gloves were extended.

00:23:44.000 So he was hitting them with the knuckles and the glove part was not really attached.

00:23:50.000 So he was catching them with the part that's supposed to be over the wrist.

00:23:53.000 Not correct.

00:23:54.000 Not true.

00:23:55.000 Easily provable.

00:23:57.000 The next one, he said egg weights.

00:23:59.000 He said he had egg weights in his hand.

00:24:01.000 This is recent, like a couple days ago.

00:24:02.000 Then, yesterday, there was an article that said that he believes that his water was poisoned.

00:24:07.000 By his own trainer.

00:24:08.000 And Mark Breland was a part of that.

00:24:10.000 Understand, for folks who don't know who Mark Breland is, former, I think, Olympic gold medalist, world champion, across two different weight divisions, if I'm not mistaken.

00:24:17.000 He is the voice of sanity, or was, until he was dismissed in that corner.

00:24:21.000 That was the guy that threw the towel for him, who, I mean...

00:24:25.000 Breland should be thanked by Wilder and his camp until the end of time.

00:24:30.000 His other trainer, I forget his last name, he was out there at the post-fight press conference being like, I don't know if I would have thrown that towel. 0.98

00:24:37.000 It's like, you fucking yes man. 0.98

00:24:39.000 Are you kidding me? 0.99

00:24:41.000 Breland took it upon himself to, I don't know, save the guy's life, but certainly make the right call for halting the contest.

00:24:49.000 He was thanked by being dismissed and now essentially dragged through the mud with utterly, I'm guessing, or utterly baseless accusations about poisoning his own fighter. 0.92

00:24:58.000 Maybe Tyson Fury's fucking awesome? 0.97

00:25:00.000 That seems like the simplest explanation. 0.98

00:25:02.000 Well, Tyson Fury changed his strategy.

00:25:05.000 And also you have to realize that Tyson Fury in the first fight was coming off of a multiple year battle with depression, mental illness, drinking, got suicidal thoughts.

00:25:14.000 He talked on my podcast about driving his Ferrari and almost slamming into a bridge.

00:25:19.000 He's like, I was pedaled to the metal and I was thinking about slamming into this bridge.

00:25:23.000 And they changed his mind and just slowly worked his way into shape, got healthy again, got his mind right again, and...

00:25:32.000 We're good to go. 0.97

00:25:51.000 Completely recovered from all the abuse of alcohol and cocaine and all the shit that he was doing. 0.99

00:25:55.000 And then he took on the cronk trainer, Sugar Hill. 0.97

00:25:59.000 And then his whole strategy changed.

00:26:02.000 He's like, the guy does not fight well off the heel, off the back foot.

00:26:05.000 Let's move him back. 0.99

00:26:07.000 And Tyson Fury is fucking enormous. 0.99

00:26:09.000 You know, he's huge. 0.99

00:26:10.000 6'9".

00:26:11.000 Yeah, and he came into the fight, I think he was like 280. And so he just pressed him and pressed him and just was throwing bombs.

00:26:16.000 And I don't think Deontay Wilder expected that.

00:26:19.000 Deontay Wilder expected him to run and move and jab and fight the same way he fought in the first fight.

00:26:23.000 Instead, Tyson Fury just came right at him and just clipped him hard and often.

00:26:28.000 And I think if you go back to their first fight and you look at how when Tyson Fury got dropped in the 12th, Right.

00:26:39.000 Right.

00:26:55.000 If you think about it, like, aggressive, attacking, multiple champions, Gerald McClellan, Tommy Hearns, I mean, the list goes on and on.

00:27:02.000 And he employed that sort of attacking strategy. 0.96

00:27:06.000 And he's a fucking masterful boxer, too. 0.99

00:27:08.000 Right, that's the other part about it. 0.99

00:27:09.000 I mean, folks don't realize he can play the defensive game.

00:27:11.000 I think you saw it in the Otto Wallin fight.

00:27:13.000 He's so long and has such good trunk movement.

00:27:17.000 He can actually lean on the ropes and the punches go in front because he's so tall and long.

00:27:21.000 He can play that game.

00:27:23.000 The Klitschko fight.

00:27:24.000 Right, exactly.

00:27:25.000 It's outboxed.

00:27:26.000 Vladimir Klitschko was one of the greatest ever.

00:27:28.000 It wasn't the most thrilling fight.

00:27:29.000 I mean, the Wilder fight was much better, but I did a whole video on it, too, and I was amazed.

00:27:34.000 From the stance he took, he had a little bit of an A-frame stance, so he could stay just away, and he was always a double jab away.

00:27:41.000 So he was long enough where he was outside of anything that Wilder could have put together.

00:27:44.000 He was a real one-two kind of guy.

00:27:46.000 Or, you know, Wilder would just come lunging in with a punch.

00:27:49.000 And he was good enough to back him up and then steer him into punches.

00:27:52.000 And I always talk about this.

00:27:53.000 Eugene Behrman, who is the—and everyone who gets on me because I'm always promoting city kickboxing.

00:27:58.000 But it's like— He's a masterful trainer.

00:28:00.000 It's like, well, not only that.

00:28:01.000 I mean, every once in a while you come around to a guy who not only can train fighters to a high degree— But has an idea about what the game is missing and how to fill that gap.

00:28:12.000 And they are big believers in fainting.

00:28:15.000 They make a point.

00:28:17.000 They basically say, like, how is it possible you can have people come from this little tiny island?

00:28:21.000 And, you know, Adesanya is the very best version of that.

00:28:24.000 But, like, they've got good fighters.

00:28:25.000 Brad Riddell, Shane Young.

00:28:27.000 Dan Hooker.

00:28:28.000 Dan Hooker.

00:28:28.000 They've got a lot of guys.

00:28:29.000 And Volkanovski has trained under Brad, who trained under...

00:28:34.000 Yeah.

00:28:54.000 Mm-hmm.

00:28:55.000 Which you can do, but they don't really believe that's the best way to do it.

00:28:58.000 The best gap to fill is that.

00:29:00.000 Fury, to circle the point here, is excellent.

00:29:03.000 He is such a brilliant fainter.

00:29:06.000 And he had Deontay Wilder dead to rights over and over and over again, which he didn't really do the first time around.

00:29:13.000 And so, you know, all these excuses about, Mark Traynor poisoned me.

00:29:17.000 It's like, that's not what the tape shows, bro.

00:29:20.000 Well, he was making excuses when he got dropped with the first punch.

00:29:24.000 He was pointing to the back of his head, and he was upset, and you could see.

00:29:28.000 It's really weird.

00:29:29.000 It's really weird when you see a guy who's so utterly dominant and who has what Teddy Atlas calls the great eraser, that right hand.

00:29:36.000 Because it really is.

00:29:37.000 It erases all your problems. 0.99

00:29:39.000 You fucked up a little bit? 1.00

00:29:40.000 Watch this. 1.00

00:29:41.000 Plank! 0.98

00:29:41.000 All your mistakes. 0.98

00:29:42.000 Gone with that.

00:29:43.000 His right hand is a force of nature.

00:29:46.000 It's one of the The best right hands in the history of the sport.

00:29:48.000 Ever!

00:29:49.000 The Luis Ortiz fight? 0.99

00:29:50.000 Like, what the fuck, man? 1.00

00:29:52.000 What the fuck? 1.00

00:29:53.000 Hit him on the forehead. 1.00

00:29:55.000 And Ortiz is down with a look in his face like, what happened? 0.97

00:29:59.000 And Ortiz is not some chump.

00:30:00.000 He's huge!

00:30:01.000 He's a Cuban boxer who has great pedigree. 0.99

00:30:05.000 One shot set his ass down. 0.99

00:30:07.000 And he was winning the fight. 1.00

00:30:08.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:30:09.000 He was winning the fight.

00:30:10.000 And all of a sudden, blah!

00:30:12.000 If you look at the...

00:30:12.000 My view on his power is that for straight rights, which is really what he basically throws, or maybe a little bit overhandy because it's a little bit looping, that's one of the best, if not the best, right hands in all of boxing.

00:30:23.000 If you're talking about full-on power punchers, though, I don't know that he's got the full repertoire.

00:30:27.000 Like, is his uppercut with his right hand as good as his straight?

00:30:30.000 I don't know that it is.

00:30:31.000 You see a guy like Ernie Shavers?

00:30:33.000 Right. 1.00

00:30:34.000 Fuck, bro. 1.00

00:30:35.000 Go look up Ernie Shaver's highlights on YouTube and then smoke some weed beforehand. 1.00

00:30:40.000 You will literally laugh at what he does to men.

00:30:42.000 For sure.

00:30:43.000 It's shocking to watch his power.

00:30:44.000 And he has the full repertoire of it.

00:30:46.000 Yeah, a lot of fighters who fought him said he was the most powerful puncher they ever faced.

00:30:49.000 A lot of fighters.

00:30:50.000 Someone told me, I forget who it was, but they got hit by Shavers.

00:30:53.000 And then they felt it in the...

00:30:56.000 In the roof of their foot.

00:30:58.000 What's the...

00:30:59.000 Arch?

00:31:00.000 The arch.

00:31:00.000 It folds it in the arch of their...

00:31:02.000 It radiated into the arch of their foot. 1.00

00:31:04.000 What the fuck is that? 1.00

00:31:06.000 I never heard some shit like that, you know what I mean? 1.00

00:31:08.000 Yeah, well, power's a weird thing, right? 0.99

00:31:10.000 Like, you're the born with it, or you're not.

00:31:12.000 I mean, I've seen so many guys who you'd look at, and they're big and strong, and you would say, wow, but that guy hits hard, and they can't crack an egg.

00:31:20.000 No.

00:31:20.000 There's a bunch of them.

00:31:22.000 There's always been a bunch of them in boxing.

00:31:24.000 There's been a bunch of them, like, you see them in the gym, and then you see guys, like, do you remember Michael McDonald when he was a kid when he was coming up?

00:31:30.000 Yes.

00:31:31.000 Skinny, looks like a little boy. 0.98

00:31:33.000 Knock people into another dimension, and you're like, whoa, this is crazy.

00:31:37.000 Do you follow boxing currently at all?

00:31:38.000 Yes, yes, I do.

00:31:39.000 So how about this kid, Jaime Munguia?

00:31:40.000 You seen him?

00:31:41.000 I have not seen him.

00:31:42.000 He fought last Friday night.

00:31:44.000 Holy mother of God.

00:31:45.000 You look at him, he obviously is an athlete, right?

00:31:47.000 He's in good shape.

00:31:48.000 You would look at him and think, eh...

00:31:51.000 I'm not going to say average, but there's nothing that stands out about him.

00:31:55.000 At least Wilder is huge.

00:31:56.000 He's bricked up.

00:31:57.000 Makes sense.

00:31:58.000 Munguia is in fight shape, but he's not bricked up. 0.99

00:32:01.000 And this fucking guy, I mean, he's rearranging. 0.99

00:32:04.000 I mean, he is keeping dentists in business. 1.00

00:32:06.000 Was he on Showtime?

00:32:07.000 He was on DAZN. DAZN. He was on DAZN. And what was the undercard of which fight?

00:32:11.000 Oh, God.

00:32:12.000 I don't remember.

00:32:13.000 I only tuned in because I was like, I have an alert for Jaime Munguia whenever he fights.

00:32:16.000 Oh, really?

00:32:16.000 Yeah.

00:32:17.000 He's that good.

00:32:17.000 Yeah.

00:32:18.000 There's Munguia, the guy on the left.

00:32:20.000 Look at him.

00:32:21.000 Does he look like a power puncher to you?

00:32:22.000 Oh, super normal.

00:32:23.000 He is arguably the biggest power puncher in boxing.

00:32:26.000 What?

00:32:26.000 Really?

00:32:27.000 Arguably, yeah.

00:32:28.000 That's crazy. 1.00

00:32:29.000 That fucking guy can crack. 1.00

00:32:31.000 And I think he rearranges... 1.00

00:32:32.000 Oh, so you remember the lip split that Overeem had when he fought Rosenstruck? 1.00

00:32:36.000 Wait till you see what he does to this fucking guy's face. 0.99

00:32:38.000 He uppercuts him to the point where a piece of his face goes flying off. 1.00

00:32:42.000 This was last Friday.

00:32:43.000 This was just a couple of days ago. 1.00

00:32:45.000 Look at that shit. 1.00

00:32:46.000 Look at that. 1.00

00:32:46.000 That was from one uppercut. 1.00

00:32:48.000 Oh my god.

00:32:49.000 Look at his face, Joe!

00:32:51.000 That's pretty crazy.

00:32:51.000 He looks like he got attacked by a bear.

00:32:54.000 Now, did they let fights go on in boxing with a split lip like that? 0.99

00:32:57.000 No, they called it eventually here.

00:32:58.000 That's interesting.

00:32:59.000 Because, like, you remember Robbie Lawler with that crazy split lip when he fought Rory McDonald?

00:33:03.000 But it was right at the end.

00:33:06.000 Interesting. 1.00

00:33:07.000 And then, uh, yeah, I mean, look at that shit. 0.99

00:33:09.000 How about the Gervonta Davis knockout? 1.00

00:33:11.000 Bro.

00:33:12.000 How beautiful is that uppercut?

00:33:14.000 That was a thing of beauty.

00:33:15.000 The same uppercut that Pavetkin used.

00:33:18.000 Yeah, a little bit.

00:33:19.000 Similar, that same slip in with the left uppercut.

00:33:21.000 If you go and look closely, Gervonta is squared, and so he's leaning to either side, and so when the punch comes, he's able to slip this direction.

00:33:28.000 So he's left-handed, Joe, but he...

00:33:30.000 Here it is.

00:33:31.000 So watch.

00:33:31.000 See, look at how he's square.

00:33:32.000 Oh yeah, he's totally square.

00:33:33.000 So see how that left hand...

00:33:35.000 Can you go back and pause it for just a second?

00:33:36.000 I want to show you something.

00:33:38.000 Pause it right at the moment of impact.

00:33:41.000 If you can.

00:33:41.000 If it's at all possible.

00:33:44.000 That's what he's gonna throw here.

00:33:46.000 So he slips.

00:33:47.000 Now watch.

00:33:49.000 First of all, the Povetkin one, the arm was extended, so it came under the arm.

00:33:52.000 This is in front.

00:33:53.000 It's on the inside angle.

00:33:54.000 But notice, Gervonta is left-handed.

00:33:57.000 He is left-hand forward here.

00:33:59.000 So he's squared, and you know how some guys jab with their power hand to throw people off or just stick them with it?

00:34:05.000 De La Hoya.

00:34:05.000 Exactly.

00:34:06.000 So he sat in square and then gave this guy every inch of a lead uppercut from his power hand. 0.99

00:34:12.000 God damn, that was a beautiful shot. 0.99

00:34:14.000 Look at that. 1.00

00:34:15.000 Al Bernstein got saved, too, because Al Bernstein's the man I love.

00:34:18.000 Every time I've interacted with him, he's the sweetest guy.

00:34:20.000 He's a great guy.

00:34:21.000 He was about to say, you know, if...

00:34:22.000 He was right in the middle of saying, you know, if Gervonta Davis thinks that his power is going to put Santa Cruz down, and then he cracked him with it, so he stopped mid-sentence.

00:34:33.000 Wouldn't have been his fault, because the point was, like, Santa Cruz opened up.

00:34:36.000 Like, he was engaging with the guy.

00:34:38.000 Davis is, like, I think he's...

00:34:40.000 What has he got, 23 knockouts?

00:34:42.000 Something.

00:34:43.000 He's only had one person go the distance, yeah.

00:34:45.000 Yeah.

00:34:45.000 Which goes back to the Wilder fight.

00:34:48.000 Like, Wilder, Deontay, before Tyson Fury beat him, had only gone to decision two times.

00:34:54.000 Tyson Fury and Dominic Brazil, is that what it was?

00:34:59.000 Brazil he knocked out in the first round in the rematch.

00:35:02.000 Oh, no.

00:35:02.000 Berman Stiverne, right?

00:35:03.000 That's right.

00:35:04.000 Stiverne.

00:35:04.000 Stiverne was in the first fight.

00:35:06.000 He beat him by decision.

00:35:07.000 And so he had gotten so confident towards the end of his career.

00:35:12.000 I remember there's a photo of him walking to the fight or walking through a casino in Vegas.

00:35:19.000 It's an amazing photo.

00:35:21.000 He's wearing a fur coat with an open shirt holding his wife's hand.

00:35:24.000 And he just looks like the ultimate heavyweight champion in the world.

00:35:27.000 You see him like, that is what I want from a heavyweight champion.

00:35:31.000 Just top of the game, just wearing these crazy sunglasses, fully shredded, fur coat, holding his wife's hand.

00:35:39.000 I'm like, that's a heavyweight champion.

00:35:41.000 Conor has that in his head.

00:35:43.000 Conor's the heavyweight champion of the world in his head, you know?

00:35:45.000 Which I don't like.

00:35:45.000 I'm not bashing him for it.

00:35:46.000 I want that. 0.98

00:35:48.000 You should be resplendent and ignorant and amazing all at once. 0.97

00:35:52.000 See if you can find that photo of Deontay Wilder holding his wife's hand wearing a fur coat. 0.94

00:35:57.000 It's one of my favorite fighter photos, like getting ready for a fight of all time because it's so just aggressively confident.

00:36:05.000 Just...

00:36:06.000 And on top of the world.

00:36:07.000 How do you do that? 1.00

00:36:08.000 It's almost like a fuck you to everybody, you know? 0.99

00:36:10.000 Yeah, I mean, he was basically, he was being the baddest man on the planet. 0.99

00:36:14.000 I don't think I've ever had that kind of self-confidence ever.

00:36:17.000 You know what I mean?

00:36:18.000 Well, you have to have that to be that guy, right?

00:36:21.000 Especially when you have, you know, he doesn't have the widest skill set.

00:36:25.000 You know what I mean?

00:36:26.000 I mean, what literally came into the game, I mean, I had the privilege of, that's one of them.

00:36:30.000 Is that the one?

00:36:31.000 There's one where he's got no shirt on.

00:36:33.000 Oh, up in the...

00:36:34.000 Is it for the first or second?

00:36:35.000 Oh, that he doesn't have a shirt on?

00:36:36.000 It's just a...

00:36:37.000 Oh, okay.

00:36:38.000 Okay, there it is.

00:36:39.000 Yeah, there it is.

00:36:40.000 That's it.

00:36:41.000 There's a few of those.

00:36:42.000 He looks like Mr. T with all the chains, too.

00:36:44.000 Yeah.

00:36:45.000 I mean, come on, man.

00:36:46.000 And you got a white guy getting your luggage?

00:36:48.000 Even better.

00:36:50.000 Just, I mean, I'm a fan of his.

00:36:52.000 I really am.

00:36:53.000 And I'm a fan of his as a human being.

00:36:54.000 I really enjoy talking to him.

00:36:56.000 I mean, he told me a story.

00:36:57.000 He's a great interview.

00:36:57.000 He's a great guy.

00:36:58.000 He got into boxing because his daughter was sick.

00:37:02.000 Spina bifida, right?

00:37:03.000 Yeah, and he's a delivery guy for, like, was it Budweiser or something like that?

00:37:08.000 Or Coca-Cola?

00:37:09.000 Yeah.

00:37:10.000 Some liquid. 0.99

00:37:10.000 And he was like, look, I got to make some fucking money. 0.99

00:37:13.000 And he knew he wasn't going to be able to play in a college sport or in a professional sport without a college background. 0.98

00:37:19.000 So he's like, well, I'm going to get into boxing.

00:37:21.000 A year and a half in wins a bronze medal in the Olympics. 1.00

00:37:24.000 Like, what the fuck? 1.00

00:37:26.000 Just dumb power. 1.00

00:37:28.000 Dumb power. 1.00

00:37:29.000 Crazy power. 1.00

00:37:29.000 Crazy, like one in a billion human power. 1.00

00:37:32.000 But have you ever seen him interact with his kids?

00:37:35.000 The nobility of trying to do that for your daughter is one thing.

00:37:38.000 He's got a bunch of kids.

00:37:39.000 He's got five or six of them.

00:37:42.000 I just had a kid about 18 months ago, and I didn't understand it when I would watch.

00:37:46.000 But I don't think he's happier than when he's with his children, and there's not even a close second.

00:37:52.000 A doting family man?

00:37:54.000 It's really unfortunate he's made these excuses, because as a person, he seems like such a sweet guy.

00:37:59.000 It's a bummer, and I wish someone was there to advise him.

00:38:02.000 Breland.

00:38:02.000 He was.

00:38:04.000 Well, I should bring, you know, I don't know, maybe Mark doesn't have the kind of relationship with him that he can call him up.

00:38:08.000 My understanding is his manager, Deontay's manager, was the one who brought in Breland years ago.

00:38:15.000 I was like, we need somebody here who's like a high-level trainer, and brought him in, and it worked for our time anyway, but here we are.

00:38:23.000 I talked to Roy Jones about him, and Roy Jones was saying if he trained him, what he would train him is he would concentrate on his left hand.

00:38:30.000 He was like, where do you know you can put people to sleep with your right hand?

00:38:33.000 He goes, what about your left hand?

00:38:34.000 He goes, I want to keep people at distance, use the jab, use the hook.

00:38:38.000 He goes, I would concentrate on just working that left hand.

00:38:40.000 He goes, that would fix so many of his problems.

00:38:42.000 Because his left hand is just like, here comes the right.

00:38:45.000 Here comes the right.

00:38:46.000 Boom! 0.99

00:38:46.000 I mean, he'll throw jabs. 0.99

00:38:48.000 But you're not terrified of it the way you're terrified of Roy Jones' left hand.

00:38:52.000 You know, Roy Jones, have you ever seen Roy Jones' left bicep?

00:38:55.000 Is it the one that splits down the middle like a perfect...

00:38:58.000 No, he'll show you, like, his right bicep is like a normal bicep, and his left bicep's like twice his size.

00:39:04.000 It's crazy.

00:39:05.000 It's huge.

00:39:06.000 You've got the Sage Northcutt bicep?

00:39:07.000 Because he throws so many left hooks.

00:39:09.000 Like, he was flexing.

00:39:11.000 He was like, look at this.

00:39:11.000 And I was like, that's crazy.

00:39:13.000 He was like, this one's normal.

00:39:14.000 But you look at this one, his left, look at his left body.

00:39:17.000 Yeah, he's got that Sage Northcutt splittered on the middle.

00:39:19.000 Dude, it's enormous.

00:39:20.000 I mean, it's enormous.

00:39:22.000 It's, it's, it's crazy how much bigger it is.

00:39:25.000 Like, legitimately 50% larger.

00:39:28.000 Wow.

00:39:28.000 I had no idea.

00:39:29.000 Well, his left hook is just a thing of beauty.

00:39:31.000 When he was in his prime, he barely jabbed people.

00:39:33.000 He was just leaping left hook him and crack him. 0.51

00:39:36.000 And his speed, his foot speed and his hand speed were so incredible that he could get away with that.

00:39:41.000 I know folks of this modern era, they know the name, but they don't really know what he meant to the game.

00:39:46.000 If someone asked me, who's the modern Roy Jones Jr. in boxing?

00:39:49.000 There isn't one.

00:39:51.000 There's not one.

00:39:51.000 There's this guy to take risks and liberties and had crazy Crazy athleticism and pinpoint punching and showman.

00:40:00.000 He was a showman, too.

00:40:01.000 There's great boxers.

00:40:04.000 Boxing's in a great place in many ways.

00:40:05.000 There's nobody who does what he did.

00:40:07.000 Roy made world champions look like they had no business in there.

00:40:11.000 And people were like, oh, he didn't fight anybody. 0.99

00:40:13.000 Bullshit, he didn't fight anybody. 0.99

00:40:15.000 He fought world champions. 1.00

00:40:16.000 He fought really tough guys, but he fucked them all up. 0.98

00:40:19.000 It's the same with Khabib. 0.98

00:40:21.000 Oh, Khabib didn't fight anybody. 1.00

00:40:22.000 No, motherfucker. 1.00

00:40:23.000 He makes them look like they're fighting me. 1.00

00:40:25.000 That's the difference.

00:40:26.000 Look what he did to Justin Gaethje.

00:40:27.000 That's all you need to know. 0.99

00:40:28.000 If you say Justin Gaethje's a nobody, you're crazy. 1.00

00:40:31.000 You watch that Tony Ferguson fight, Justin Gaethje's a fucking animal. 1.00

00:40:34.000 He's a savage. 1.00

00:40:34.000 And he just closed that gap. 1.00

00:40:36.000 And he ate a lot of leg kicks, too, man.

00:40:39.000 He had a lot of leg kicks that would...

00:40:41.000 I mean, I don't know how many of those you can eat from Justin.

00:40:44.000 Maybe he had like five or six more in the tank until you're on E. But he closed the gap and then wound up finishing with a triangle off of his back. 0.99

00:40:52.000 I mean, god damn. 0.96

00:40:53.000 A serious question about this, because I went through it a couple times. 0.99

00:40:55.000 So from the moment he got kicked, then he initiates the takedown.

00:41:00.000 He tried the first round.

00:41:01.000 He did it off a head inside single.

00:41:02.000 It didn't work.

00:41:03.000 Second round, he tried it off a double from the outside leg kick.

00:41:05.000 First round was an inside leg kick, hence the inside single.

00:41:09.000 Didn't work, so then he goes to the double.

00:41:10.000 It's 22 seconds from that till the finish.

00:41:13.000 So 22 seconds, we're apart.

00:41:15.000 22 seconds later, you're unconscious.

00:41:17.000 I mean, this is my question to you.

00:41:20.000 Is that the best back take you've ever seen in MMA? Because what he does is, when Gaethje is sprawling in this contest, he's not just sprawling.

00:41:27.000 He is sprawling and turning so he doesn't get pushed into the fence.

00:41:30.000 He was very diligent about that in the Alvarez and the Gaethje fights.

00:41:32.000 You can go back and you can watch it.

00:41:34.000 So in this fight, when you see the level change that Khabib hits, You'll see automatically Gaethje turn because he doesn't want to get turned that direction.

00:41:41.000 But what Khabib does is he actually scoots under him, pulls him up, and then with his head posts him over, gets the hands to plant.

00:41:48.000 Well, once the hands are planted, the double is over.

00:41:51.000 He doesn't care about it anymore.

00:41:52.000 Now he just wants the tight waist.

00:41:54.000 And from the tight waist, he's holding...

00:41:56.000 His elbows aren't flared.

00:41:57.000 They're tight here, right?

00:41:59.000 Like he's T-Rexing inside.

00:42:00.000 At that point, you have created, if you're just in Gaethje, putting your hands, you've created a stable structure.

00:42:07.000 We're good to go.

00:42:32.000 Yeah.

00:42:52.000 And he's doing back takes like that.

00:42:54.000 He is...

00:42:54.000 Jon Jones, to me, is the most accomplished fighter we've ever seen.

00:42:57.000 Like, the things accumulate over time.

00:43:01.000 No one is as flawless as Khabib Nurmagomedov.

00:43:03.000 Not even close.

00:43:04.000 I think that is the argument, right?

00:43:05.000 Like, who is the GOAT? I think if you look at Jon Jones' early career, right?

00:43:09.000 Jon Jones wins the title in 2011, and...

00:43:13.000 He, from then on, has fought more fights as championship fights than he has other fights.

00:43:18.000 So he's the most accomplished, for sure.

00:43:20.000 Wins the title, earliest, youngest guy to ever win the title in the UFC. Beats Mauricio Shogunhua, who's a legend.

00:43:27.000 And then the way he dominates all these other fighters, up until you get to Alexander Gustafson, you can make the argument that he had a similar career.

00:43:38.000 You can make the argument, like if you look at what he did, Jon didn't lose any rounds.

00:43:41.000 Jon was smashing people.

00:43:43.000 You look at what he did to Rashad Evans.

00:43:44.000 You look at what he did to Rampage Jackson.

00:43:46.000 You look at what he did to Lyoto Machida.

00:43:47.000 You look at what he did to everybody.

00:43:49.000 Everybody he fought up until the Gustafson fight.

00:43:52.000 But the Gustafson fight, then you have to say, well, how much slack do you give him for admittedly not training?

00:43:58.000 We're good to go.

00:44:15.000 Then goes on a tear, right?

00:44:18.000 Beats...

00:44:18.000 Look at the way he beat Daniel Cormier in the first fight.

00:44:21.000 Took him down. 0.98

00:44:22.000 Like, who the fuck takes Daniel Cormier down, right? 0.99

00:44:24.000 And then you look at him in the second fight. 0.99

00:44:26.000 Even though it was ruled a no contest, we know what the fuck happened. 0.99

00:44:29.000 He head-kicked him and stopped him. 0.99

00:44:30.000 You know, it was spectacular.

00:44:33.000 You look at what John has done...

00:44:47.000 I did too.

00:44:52.000 So those fights haven't happened with Khabib yet.

00:44:56.000 And we don't know if they ever could.

00:44:57.000 We don't know, right?

00:44:59.000 Like, right now, would you see flawless victory after flawless victory?

00:45:02.000 You could maybe make the argument that Khabib lost two rounds his entire career.

00:45:06.000 Maybe the second round against Justin...

00:45:09.000 Or first round rather, maybe first round rather against Justin, and maybe the third round with Connor.

00:45:14.000 That's right.

00:45:14.000 That's it.

00:45:15.000 And either one of those didn't get cut, didn't get dropped, didn't get hurt.

00:45:18.000 To never get cut and to never get dropped, I don't think folks understand what that means. 0.68

00:45:21.000 Crazy.

00:45:21.000 In a sport filled with, it's not a scientific measurement per se, right, who gets cut the most or something, but in a sport built on unpredictability, on violence.

00:45:30.000 Yeah.

00:45:31.000 St. Pierre went to wrestling to get away from all of that in large part, and then to never experience that, it is shocking beyond description.

00:45:39.000 Shocking.

00:45:40.000 I don't know how to explain that to folks.

00:45:41.000 But to your point, the thing about Khabib where he falls short is that it's just an inevitability.

00:45:46.000 Your run through 29 fights is the best run I've seen through 29 fights ever.

00:45:50.000 Ever.

00:45:52.000 And John's not my best friend or anything, but I just don't...

00:45:56.000 That is the best...

00:46:03.000 We're good to go.

00:46:05.000 We're good to go.

00:46:15.000 You're going to go to heavyweight, and you're going to probably win.

00:46:18.000 I mean, I don't know if that's a guarantee, but let's assume that you do.

00:46:21.000 Everything that happens right now is just recency bias.

00:46:24.000 And Khabib retired, and his father died, and it was this incredibly sad and inspiring moment. 0.99

00:46:29.000 Let the fucking guy have his moment, because when you have your moment, the worm is going to turn. 0.99

00:46:34.000 And then everyone's going to be like, John's the fucking greatest. 1.00

00:46:37.000 He's going to get his. 0.98

00:46:38.000 Just not today, at this moment.

00:46:40.000 Recency bias, that's real.

00:46:43.000 Recent biases, that's a real thing.

00:46:46.000 We just watched Khabib, and then the fact that Khabib did supposedly retire.

00:46:50.000 Come on, son, I know you want some more.

00:46:51.000 Yeah, I know.

00:46:52.000 I haven't eaten much, so my head is spinning a little bit.

00:46:54.000 That's alright.

00:46:55.000 Everyone asks me, when I go on, I'm like, are you going to smoke weed? 0.99

00:46:58.000 I'm like, there's no chance I'm smoking Joe Rogan's fucking super weed. 0.97

00:47:02.000 There's no chance I'm smoking it right now. 0.98

00:47:04.000 I haven't done anything in a month.

00:47:05.000 I had a couple glasses of wine last night, and I was like, woo!

00:47:08.000 Yeah, I'm feeling it a little bit.

00:47:10.000 Gotta be careful.

00:47:11.000 The John Joad situation is also, it's a contrast in personalities, right?

00:47:16.000 Khabib, who's this really religious, very moral, ethical person who doesn't drink, he doesn't party, he doesn't do anything, he just trains, he's always in phenomenal shape, he takes every fight incredibly serious,

00:47:32.000 he's never been out of shape, he's never been fat, he's never, I mean...

00:47:35.000 He's missed weight a couple of times earlier in his career, but he got that dialed in.

00:47:39.000 He's just so dedicated.

00:47:42.000 Whereas John is a wild man.

00:47:44.000 He's just wild.

00:47:45.000 I mean, you talk about not training for the Gustafson fight.

00:47:49.000 Buddy, that ain't the only fight he didn't train for.

00:47:52.000 How about what he said to Cormier?

00:47:53.000 I did coke and I still beat you.

00:47:55.000 And I'm like, I don't think he's lying.

00:47:57.000 I mean, the stories I've heard, I don't want to repeat them because I cannot verify them.

00:48:01.000 But I've heard stories like, if y'all think that was the one fight, he's just like, oh, I'm going to pump the brakes this time. 0.99

00:48:07.000 No, bitch. 1.00

00:48:07.000 I mean, here's the other part about it. 1.00

00:48:09.000 It's like, when you...

00:48:11.000 So who's a guy, for example, who maintained dominance through the game and took significant amounts of time off in boxing?

00:48:17.000 Floyd Mayweather would be a great example of that.

00:48:19.000 But Floyd has been training as a family affair...

00:48:23.000 From adolescence, right?

00:48:24.000 For the long part of his life.

00:48:26.000 And he is so gifted that he can take time off and the game is so developed that people aren't going to make warp speed development in his absence.

00:48:34.000 And so they got a little bit better every time he took a little bit of time off, like the Maidana first fight with the corkscrew punch.

00:48:38.000 That was a little bit of a wild card there.

00:48:41.000 But in general, he was able to maintain that dominance.

00:48:43.000 In MMA, the game changes rapidly.

00:48:46.000 Super fast, because people are still discovering best practices.

00:48:49.000 In two years, people will not be doing the same kinds of things to the same degree they do now.

00:48:54.000 The calf kick and its explosion is sort of an obvious example of that.

00:48:59.000 John was doing things like not training between camps.

00:49:03.000 I mean, that's something only elite boxers do because they've been doing this since they were five, six years old, and they can take the time to not necessarily do that.

00:49:10.000 Whereas most MMA fighters are like, I'm an everyday martial artist.

00:49:14.000 I just ramp it up. 0.92

00:49:16.000 He would do nothing and then something and still go out there and beat world fucking champions in what at the time was the UFC's marquee division. 0.99

00:49:24.000 That is out of this fucking world bonkers. 0.99

00:49:28.000 I'm going to beat you as a part-time guy? 1.00

00:49:31.000 Yeah.

00:49:31.000 What?

00:49:32.000 Yeah.

00:49:32.000 You just couldn't wrap your head around it.

00:49:34.000 I wonder if maybe there's some benefit, because it's not like you got totally out of shape, but I wonder if there's some benefit to that in that he's not getting beat up.

00:49:42.000 He's not getting his joints wrecked.

00:49:46.000 Probably?

00:49:47.000 Yeah, it's a real question of what's the best way to approach it.

00:49:51.000 We're still trying to figure that out, right?

00:49:52.000 If you go back to the early days of, say, Hammer House and the Miletic Fighting Systems guys, those guys used to beat the... 0.68

00:50:01.000 They beat the fuck out of each other. 0.96

00:50:02.000 Curitiba, shoot the box. 1.00

00:50:03.000 Those guys beat the fuck out of each other. 1.00

00:50:06.000 It was hazing. 0.98

00:50:06.000 Let's call it what it was. 0.98

00:50:07.000 Hazing.

00:50:07.000 Sure.

00:50:08.000 Well, you know, that's a famous story about BJ Penn.

00:50:12.000 Like, BJ Penn's crew.

00:50:14.000 Like, they would just scrap.

00:50:15.000 They would fight. 0.96

00:50:16.000 They would get together in the afternoon, they'd beat the shit out of each other, and that would be training. 0.97

00:50:20.000 I'm like, whoa. 0.97

00:50:21.000 And, you know, that was how everybody did it.

00:50:26.000 And now they realize, like, hey, you can't really do that. 0.96

00:50:29.000 If you do that, it's going to really fuck with your longevity.

00:50:32.000 My sense about it is, I mean, even then in jiu-jitsu, too, like the old Health Gracie school.

00:50:36.000 Like, you talk to Dave Camarillo or whatever, all those guys back then.

00:50:39.000 I mean, Health...

00:50:40.000 Savage! 0.99

00:50:41.000 They were not fucking around. 1.00

00:50:42.000 No, not fucking around. 0.99

00:50:43.000 This is not like, hey, you want to get better at self-defense? 0.99

00:50:46.000 No, not that kind of school.

00:50:48.000 But my answer to the question about, is it better to do what John did?

00:50:52.000 My hunch is that there are probably some net benefits to it.

00:50:56.000 On balance, there's going to be some downsides and some upsides.

00:50:59.000 The downsides are going to be that this development that you might need as a martial artist will be somewhat impeded.

00:51:06.000 However, there'll be some longevity issues you may not have to worry about by consequence.

00:51:10.000 In fact, you look at him tearing his toe in the Chael Sonnen fight.

00:51:14.000 Now, I fucked up my toe similarly, not to the extent where I was through the skin, but he has a buddy system with the wrap on the toe, and I had to use the exact same thing for a long time, because even now, if I step on my right foot just right, it sends fire through my toe. 0.98

00:51:29.000 It hurts like shit, you know? 0.96

00:51:31.000 Yeah, John still takes... 0.99

00:51:32.000 He still tapes it.

00:51:33.000 And so my point being is, to that extent, he's probably minimized some of the long-term impacts.

00:51:38.000 It's just he was so far ahead of the game, so naturally talented, so athletic, he could just get away with it.

00:51:45.000 You could not be average and do what he does.

00:51:48.000 You have to be very...

00:51:49.000 I mean, the day he fought Shogun, correct me wrong, it was either the beta fight or the Shogun fight.

00:51:54.000 That morning, he chased down a robber in Newark, New Jersey.

00:51:58.000 I had worked there one time. 1.00

00:51:59.000 It fucking sucks. 1.00

00:52:00.000 I was born there. 1.00

00:52:01.000 You were born in Newark?

00:52:02.000 Yeah.

00:52:02.000 Wow, Joe, you've come up a long way.

00:52:05.000 Newark sucks. 0.93

00:52:08.000 Anyway, he chased down a robber there and the whole nine yards. 0.98

00:52:11.000 And, you know, I mean, just things about distraction and blah, blah, blah.

00:52:15.000 And it had zero impact on it. 1.00

00:52:17.000 And he fucked. 0.99

00:52:18.000 And everyone wants to say, by the way, I don't know if you follow closely MMA Twitter. 0.99

00:52:21.000 I'm a little bit more, you know, in the weeds on that kind of thing by virtue of my media placement.

00:52:27.000 Everyone wants to say, oh, Shogun was washed. 1.00

00:52:29.000 Motherfucker. 1.00

00:52:30.000 He was the belt holder at the time John took it. 1.00

00:52:34.000 Yeah, just knocked out Lyoto Machida. 0.99

00:52:35.000 What the fuck are you talking about? 0.99

00:52:37.000 Was that Prime Shogun from the 2005 middleweight tournament in Pride? 1.00

00:52:41.000 No.

00:52:42.000 But was he some kind of washed afterthought? 1.00

00:52:45.000 What the fuck? 1.00

00:52:46.000 What kind of revisionist nonsense is this? 1.00

00:52:48.000 He was one of the best fighters in the world.

00:52:49.000 Right.

00:52:50.000 Yeah.

00:52:50.000 Right.

00:52:50.000 It's hard to say he was washed up.

00:52:52.000 Just because John comes along.

00:52:53.000 First of all, John opens up with a flying knee. 0.99

00:52:56.000 Who the fuck does that? 0.99

00:52:57.000 You know, what young kid? 1.00

00:53:00.000 What is he, 23?

00:53:01.000 Right?

00:53:01.000 If.

00:53:02.000 If that.

00:53:03.000 He opens with a flying knee on a legend.

00:53:05.000 Right.

00:53:06.000 You almost watch it.

00:53:08.000 Here's what he really did at the time.

00:53:09.000 He was just disrespectful. 0.97

00:53:11.000 Not like in the fuck you kind of sense, but like, I'm going to fight you in a way where all these stories that they told me about you, it's like the buzzing of flies to me. 0.99

00:53:19.000 Didn't matter. 0.98

00:53:19.000 He was so confident. 0.98

00:53:20.000 He just was a guy who, first of all, When you look at just the genetics in his family, it's phenomenal.

00:53:29.000 His father is a massive man.

00:53:31.000 Both of his brothers are NFL players.

00:53:34.000 Elite NFL players.

00:53:36.000 There's just tremendous athletes in the house.

00:53:39.000 And then they grew up together.

00:53:41.000 Have you watched guys who grew up with athletic brothers? 0.73

00:53:44.000 They all beat the fuck out of each other, right? 0.99

00:53:47.000 Matt Hughes and Mark Hughes, they beat each other's asses. 1.00

00:53:50.000 Joe Lozon and Dan Lozon beat each other's asses. 1.00

00:53:53.000 There's so many examples of guys growing up with tough brothers, and they are fucking hardened by the time they get into the octagon. 0.99

00:54:02.000 There's so many of them like that. 0.94

00:54:04.000 I think there's something to that. 0.99

00:54:06.000 Having two bad motherfuckers as brothers and constantly competing with each other, I think... 0.99

00:54:12.000 But it doesn't also say something that, like, okay, Noguera exception aside, most of the brother tandems, or even the sister tandems, one is clearly better than the other, though. 0.99

00:54:22.000 Like, Matt, better than Mark.

00:54:24.000 Valentina, Antonina.

00:54:24.000 Joe, better than Dan.

00:54:25.000 Joe, better than Dan.

00:54:26.000 The Noguera brothers, I might say that Big Nog, a little bit better than Little Nog. 1.00

00:54:32.000 Although Little Knock was pretty fucking great, you know, it wasn't like a tremendous difference.

00:54:36.000 But in general, usually one, like, kinda, kinda puts it on the other one for a little bit, you know? 0.76

00:54:41.000 Yeah, that's true, yeah.

00:54:42.000 Well, sometimes that is what makes a really tough fighter, too. 0.99

00:54:46.000 Like, Chris Weidman's story, him and his brother, his brother used to beat his ass, and his brother was bullying him, and Chris Weidman became a fucking savage, cause he was just so tough from dealing with his fucking brother. 0.99

00:54:56.000 You know, like, Do you have any siblings? 0.99

00:54:58.000 I only have a sister.

00:54:59.000 Forgive my ignorance.

00:55:00.000 I have a brother.

00:55:03.000 Not the same kind of thing.

00:55:04.000 My brother was a super hardcore academic nerd, and so I don't have any...

00:55:09.000 I have a brother, and you're telling me these stories, and it's like, that is so divorced from my reality from having a brother as a sibling, you know?

00:55:17.000 Really, we're talking about a lack of observation.

00:55:21.000 Parents should be there. 1.00

00:55:21.000 Hey, you fucks! 1.00

00:55:23.000 Stop beating each other up! 1.00

00:55:25.000 Separate!

00:55:26.000 Or, you know, probably parents didn't have the time or the...

00:55:29.000 There's only so much you can do when you've got...

00:55:31.000 Can you imagine if you had Arthur Jones, Chandler Jones, and Jon Jones in the backseat of the car and they want to slap each other? 0.99

00:55:37.000 The fuck are you going to do? 0.99

00:55:38.000 What are you going to do? 1.00

00:55:39.000 I mean, that's some fucking powerful genetics. 0.98

00:55:42.000 I don't know if Arthur is still in the NFL. I think he is out now. 0.99

00:55:46.000 I don't know if he still is in there.

00:55:47.000 But his brother on the right is Chandler.

00:55:50.000 Chandler...

00:55:50.000 I don't know if you follow...

00:55:51.000 You don't watch team sports, right?

00:55:53.000 No.

00:55:53.000 You're missing out, Joe.

00:55:54.000 I got to get you on it.

00:55:55.000 I got too much to do.

00:55:56.000 I hear you.

00:55:57.000 Chandler is like a legitimate multiple-time All-Pro. 1.00

00:56:01.000 He is the fucking man. 1.00

00:56:03.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:56:04.000 He's at a little bit of the latter stage of his career at this point.

00:56:07.000 Obviously, they're all kind of aging a little bit.

00:56:09.000 But Chandler, of the three...

00:56:11.000 Well, I guess, well, John had a great career.

00:56:13.000 But of the two in the NFL, Arthur had a good career, I think you could say.

00:56:17.000 But Chandler is, I mean, primo talent.

00:56:20.000 Arthur trains.

00:56:22.000 Quite a bit.

00:56:22.000 Yes.

00:56:23.000 He was a wrestler for a time.

00:56:24.000 I wonder if he's thought about fighting in MMA now that he's not doing NFL anymore.

00:56:28.000 I mean, he's probably a better athlete.

00:56:30.000 He's got the Paul Buentillo syndrome a little bit where they don't look like it. 0.99

00:56:35.000 But I bet he can go in there and fuck people up. 0.98

00:56:37.000 Well, Fedor had that better than anybody. 0.99

00:56:40.000 Arguably the greatest heavyweight of all time.

00:56:42.000 And then the other two besides Stipe is Kane, who also didn't have the best body in the world.

00:56:48.000 Although Kane, he looks menacing.

00:56:51.000 Oh, his face, yeah.

00:56:51.000 You know what I mean?

00:56:52.000 He's got a big-ass fucking head, too, you know? 1.00

00:56:53.000 Looks hard as fuck. 1.00

00:56:54.000 I re-watched Kane vs. 0.99

00:56:58.000 Junior 3 the other day. 0.99

00:57:00.000 God damn it. 0.99

00:57:01.000 That's hard to watch. 1.00

00:57:02.000 That's hard to watch.

00:57:03.000 He changed JDS. Yeah, he changed him.

00:57:06.000 He changed him.

00:57:07.000 It's hard to watch. 0.94

00:57:07.000 You ever seen this documentary, I think it's called The Season, but if I'm getting it wrong, I know your listeners are going to fucking kill me if I get it wrong. 0.94

00:57:15.000 I forget the exact name, but they, you know Steve Mako, he's the ATT wrestling coach?

00:57:20.000 I'm not sure exactly who he is.

00:57:21.000 He was for a long time.

00:57:23.000 Steve Mako's hilarious.

00:57:24.000 One time, speaking to Jon Jones, Jon was fighting Glover in Baltimore, and Steve definitely did not want me to interview him, but he didn't say no.

00:57:31.000 I was like, Steve, can I get a couple seconds with you or whatever?

00:57:33.000 And I stuck a microphone in his face, and I'm like, so, you know, specifically, what kind of strategies around Glover have you trained here?

00:57:39.000 He's like, you know, some particular strategies around Glover for Jon.

00:57:43.000 Like, he would just literally repeat the exact words back to me.

00:57:46.000 Four questions in, I'm like, you don't want to do this.

00:57:48.000 He's like, I don't want to do this.

00:57:51.000 It's like you could have said it up front.

00:57:52.000 Anyway.

00:57:53.000 John has an issue with you?

00:57:55.000 You guys have a weird thing?

00:57:56.000 Well, real quickly, I'll tell you real quickly.

00:57:58.000 Because it was a funny time where he says...

00:57:59.000 Yeah, yeah. 0.99

00:57:59.000 He fucking sent me to hell on a press conference once. 0.99

00:58:01.000 But real quickly, when it comes to Steve Mako, Steve wrestled at Oklahoma and then Iowa. 0.99

00:58:06.000 I think Iowa first and Oklahoma.

00:58:08.000 And they had...

00:58:09.000 I think it was ESPN had done a documentary and they had gone to...

00:58:12.000 Iowa wrestling is like...

00:58:14.000 Penn State is now the best program in the country and has been for some time because of Kale Sanderson and the recruiting and the great work that they've done.

00:58:21.000 But in general, for a long time, Iowa is sort of one of these titans of college wrestling.

00:58:25.000 And they ask Steve Mako, as a college student, why do you like wrestling?

00:58:29.000 Why do you want to compete so hard?

00:58:30.000 He's like, because when I really win and I dominate, I change people.

00:58:35.000 We're good to go.

00:58:55.000 I had a very good relationship with him and his management for a long time, and I still have a decent relationship with his management.

00:59:02.000 So the fight back with Cormier at 214, I think it was, whatever the number was, the rematch, he had a press conference, he had a shaved head, and he was in a mood.

00:59:12.000 And I'd ask him some totally softball, innocuous question.

00:59:16.000 And to the public, he goes, you know, Luke, I don't like you, so I'm not going to answer your question.

00:59:21.000 And it was a shock to me because his coach, Brandon Gibson, I'm like very tight with, you know, and a bunch of other people.

00:59:27.000 And they didn't know either.

00:59:28.000 In fact, I talked to his manager, Malky, at the time.

00:59:31.000 I met him at the host hotel. 0.99

00:59:32.000 And I go, bro, what the fuck was that? 0.98

00:59:34.000 Like, it was totally out of nowhere. 0.99

00:59:35.000 He's like, you know Malky, right?

00:59:37.000 You ever talk to him?

00:59:38.000 Yeah.

00:59:38.000 He's like, I don't know.

00:59:39.000 He's like, but you got a big mouth.

00:59:41.000 That's your problem.

00:59:42.000 You got a big mouth.

00:59:42.000 And I was like, okay, but what specifically was the issue?

00:59:45.000 He didn't know.

00:59:47.000 And I didn't get a chance to follow up with John, obviously, and Brandon Gibson didn't know. 0.99

00:59:51.000 Nobody fucking knew. 0.98

00:59:52.000 So here's my hunch. 0.99

00:59:54.000 My hunch is that we were reasonably in good terms. 0.94

00:59:58.000 Then he had all those fuck-ups where, you know, he got into the car accident and everything else. 0.87

01:00:03.000 And I probably said something he didn't like. 0.93

01:00:06.000 They don't tell you.

01:00:07.000 They don't call you up and be like, I'm really mad at you.

01:00:10.000 They just wait to some other opportunity.

01:00:12.000 I had a discussion with John where he was thinking, why did I go bad on him?

01:00:18.000 What was I saying?

01:00:19.000 Because one of the things that I said, I speculated that maybe one of the reasons why he was behaving the way he was behaving was CTE. And I still kind of stand by that.

01:00:30.000 I think one of the things that happens with CTE, and not that I think John should get out of the game, I'm not saying this at all, but I'm saying that there's an inevitable consequence of getting hit in the head.

01:00:43.000 We've seen the video of John getting pulled over drunk driving and he says, I forget a lot of things, I get hit in the head for a living.

01:00:49.000 There's an inevitable consequence of getting punched in the head where fighters experience some sort of negative effect of it.

01:00:59.000 And some of them become very impulsive.

01:01:01.000 It's just one of the side effects of head trauma.

01:01:05.000 And even head trauma that's like acceptable.

01:01:08.000 They get impulsive. 1.00

01:01:08.000 They do wild shit. 1.00

01:01:10.000 I mean, they do more wild shit. 1.00

01:01:14.000 It's harder for them to control their impulses. 0.99

01:01:16.000 Well, in the case of John, as it relates to my interaction with him, And I hold no ill will, believe it or not, because, frankly, I almost prefer that.

01:01:26.000 You know, because here's what ends up happening.

01:01:28.000 If you get too friendly, then you could hold back.

01:01:31.000 Not even that.

01:01:32.000 A little bit.

01:01:33.000 But that's less my issue.

01:01:34.000 Like, I always tell fighters, I'm like, I'm not your friend, but I'm definitely not your enemy.

01:01:38.000 Like, you have to understand that.

01:01:39.000 Like, I mean this truly.

01:01:40.000 You cannot work in MMA media.

01:01:43.000 You cannot work in MMA media.

01:01:45.000 It's not possible to do the job correctly, such as the job can be done correctly, which I'm not even sure that's even true anymore.

01:01:49.000 But...

01:01:58.000 We're good to go.

01:02:06.000 You cannot.

01:02:07.000 So to the extent that he gets mad, he's okay.

01:02:10.000 Does he want to answer?

01:02:11.000 He does not have to answer my question. 0.97

01:02:13.000 I'd have fucking preferred a different result, you know? 0.97

01:02:16.000 Right. 0.97

01:02:16.000 Than him saying he doesn't like it. 0.97

01:02:17.000 In a press conference?

01:02:19.000 I mean, I was like, Jesus.

01:02:20.000 All right.

01:02:21.000 There's a better way to handle this.

01:02:22.000 But at the end, it's like, you know, I can't tell you how many fighters get mad at me.

01:02:26.000 And then won't talk.

01:02:27.000 And I've had intermediaries reach out and be like, hey man, what's the issue?

01:02:31.000 And they won't even tell their friend intermediaries who are often coaches, fighters, blah, blah, blah.

01:02:36.000 Dude, they're incredibly sensitive, which I understand. 0.95

01:02:40.000 And they're incredibly, you know, they don't suffer shit gladly, which I also understand. 0.94

01:02:45.000 But it's like, I've got a job to do. 0.99

01:02:47.000 You think I can watch somebody do the shit that John was doing at a time in his life and just like... 0.98

01:02:51.000 Can I constantly, reflexively defend all of it? 0.97

01:02:55.000 It's not possible.

01:02:55.000 I have a job to do.

01:02:57.000 So if he doesn't like that, that's okay.

01:02:58.000 But if that causes a division, then that causes a division.

01:03:05.000 There's nothing I can do about that.

01:03:06.000 Well, I think fighting is uniquely personal, right? 0.76

01:03:10.000 It's not like saying Bill Buckner's a loser because he let that ball go between his legs.

01:03:15.000 It's a different thing.

01:03:16.000 Like when a fighter loses, I almost feel like they put themselves out there more than any other athlete and they deserve more respect than any other athlete.

01:03:29.000 This is my personal opinion.

01:03:30.000 Obviously, I'm incredibly biased because that's the only sport that I've ever covered.

01:03:35.000 Right.

01:03:36.000 I get why they feel the way they feel.

01:03:39.000 I get it.

01:03:40.000 And I try to be as respectful as possible while still being accurate.

01:03:45.000 And that's a fine line to draw.

01:03:47.000 But I'm an employee of the UFC. You're not.

01:03:50.000 And one of the things that I would love to get into with you, you said What was the way you phrased it?

01:03:56.000 That they're uniquely disadvantaged within the power structure of MMA? Yeah, there's no way to...

01:04:00.000 I don't think you can...

01:04:02.000 Like, if your job is to cover the sport, right?

01:04:04.000 Your job is different.

01:04:04.000 Your job is to commentate for UFC and then do your podcast.

01:04:06.000 And, you know, my position I come to a little bit differently, right?

01:04:12.000 So for me...

01:04:14.000 If you're looking at the world and your job is to the best approximation that you can, tell the truth about it, how do you tell the truth about the world and say that the fighters...

01:04:36.000 We're good to go.

01:04:46.000 It is settled.

01:04:46.000 There is no argument anymore.

01:04:48.000 We now have court documents to this effect.

01:04:51.000 They get paid roughly 18-20% by the UFC year over year as a more or less fixed position.

01:04:57.000 Now, as the UFC makes more money, 20%, the percentage might stay fixed, but the amount of money can go up.

01:05:03.000 So money is going up, but it's relative...

01:05:05.000 It's all a function of this continued amount.

01:05:08.000 20%.

01:05:08.000 Okay, that doesn't seem to me quite equitable.

01:05:10.000 That's a personal opinion, but that's the way I look at it.

01:05:12.000 Then, you want to look at their management.

01:05:14.000 There are no barriers to entry for management.

01:05:16.000 I cannot tell you half of these guys.

01:05:17.000 Listen, some of these guys I interact with, they're great.

01:05:19.000 I disagree with them at times.

01:05:20.000 I agree with them at times.

01:05:21.000 I think they really have the fighter's best interest at heart. 1.00

01:05:23.000 But there's a lot of them there that are fucking snakes. 0.99

01:05:26.000 That's just the way that it goes. 0.99

01:05:27.000 And they are not...

01:05:33.000 I don't think the fighters are necessarily the best stewards of understanding what's in their rights and interests.

01:05:39.000 It's my personal opinion, but anti-doping to me is, to me, I won't call it a fraud, but I think it's a tragic mistake in the way that we are doing it.

01:05:47.000 How so?

01:05:48.000 Well, in the case of the fighters, they had no say.

01:05:51.000 It was forced upon them.

01:05:52.000 Here's another thing where it's like, to what extent do the fighters support it?

01:05:55.000 There could be high support for it, but we don't know because it's a compulsory demand that they have to give into it.

01:06:02.000 That's the first thing.

01:06:03.000 There's many issues that I have with it.

01:06:04.000 We can get into that.

01:06:06.000 But let me let you go through your list and then we'll come back because there's a bunch of issues.

01:06:09.000 So then it goes to the sponsors, and then they take away all of them, which is the UFC's right, by the way.

01:06:14.000 It totally is their right.

01:06:14.000 But again, to me, I never understood it from just a pragmatic standpoint, because this was a way to offset complaints about fighter pay, because you have now Venom at the time, or name any brand or whatever the fuck that was sponsored.

01:06:25.000 Ryu, whatever brand that's come and gone, was a way to offset fighter pay.

01:06:29.000 So they are restricted.

01:06:30.000 And by the way, the media, I think, doesn't treat them fairly in the sense that, and I'm a member of the MMA media, and I have been for almost 15 years, You are expected to be either friend or foe with them.

01:06:41.000 And I don't want to be either.

01:06:43.000 I want to be friendly.

01:06:44.000 I want to be professional. 0.99

01:06:46.000 But I don't want to be your buddy because it causes all kinds of problems down the road when shit starts to go south for you. 0.99

01:06:52.000 And by the way, it will. 0.98

01:06:53.000 Every fighter who's young thinks that they're going to live off these winds forever.

01:06:57.000 And it's like, dude, I've been around long enough to see the downside.

01:07:00.000 It's coming for you.

01:07:02.000 So, you begin to add up all of these factors, and you can say, well, what is the moment we can create to fix all of this?

01:07:09.000 That is the responsibility of the fighters.

01:07:11.000 It used to be the case that you can make an argument that MMA media was not covering enough of these issues with full-throatedness.

01:07:18.000 That is no longer the case.

01:07:19.000 They have aired out all of this.

01:07:21.000 They have covered this multi-billion dollar lawsuit that is happening.

01:07:25.000 They have covered...

01:07:26.000 Which multi-billion dollar lawsuit?

01:07:28.000 Oh, there's a storm a-coming, Joe Rogan.

01:07:30.000 So...

01:07:31.000 There is a Nate Quarry, Kyle Kingsbury, Kung Lee lawsuit, and many others as well.

01:07:38.000 They are basically suing the UFC for...

01:07:41.000 To put it in layman's terms, the bad effects of monopoly.

01:07:45.000 And they believe they're entitled to compensation and other forms of change in the industry as a consequence.

01:07:51.000 We are going to get a result, I think on the 19th of this month, from the judge in the case that if he allows it to go forward, he will have to certify them as a class.

01:08:00.000 And all indications are he's going to, which means that trial will proceed.

01:08:03.000 Now, it still has a long way to go, but that is a major institutional hurdle on behalf of the plaintiffs.

01:08:07.000 I'm not hearing anything about this.

01:08:09.000 Because MMA media...

01:08:11.000 Right.

01:08:11.000 Yeah.

01:08:12.000 Right.

01:08:12.000 Are you talking about this?

01:08:14.000 Oh, like a fucking parrot. 1.00

01:08:15.000 Here it goes. 1.00

01:08:16.000 John Fitch is involved as well.

01:08:17.000 Yeah, it got launched in 2014. Can I shout out a couple people who are tremendous reporters in this regard?

01:08:23.000 Sure.

01:08:23.000 There's a guy by the name of John Nash.

01:08:25.000 He goes by the name of, you want to follow him on Twitter, it's at HayNotTheFace.

01:08:30.000 I don't understand it.

01:08:32.000 He has done absolutely fantastic work and is a professor at Pepperdine.

01:08:35.000 He's an economist.

01:08:36.000 He's a professional economist who teaches economics there.

01:08:40.000 He goes by the name of MMA Analytics, but his name is...

01:08:43.000 God, I'm blanking now because I've been drinking.

01:08:45.000 But I've had him on my show a million times.

01:08:47.000 These two guys, and also MMA Payout has done a good job of covering this.

01:08:52.000 Josh Gross, to an extent.

01:08:53.000 I know you know Josh.

01:08:53.000 Josh has done some good work for The Athletic, although he's no longer with them.

01:08:56.000 But these are basically the only folks really talking about it.

01:08:59.000 No one else is really doing it.

01:09:00.000 It's hard to focus on the lawsuit because if the judge denies them class certification or it gets thrown out at any moment, then the whole thing goes away and it's a long-term projection.

01:09:09.000 We're not anywhere close to any kind of end on this for the next five years or something.

01:09:14.000 What is the argument?

01:09:16.000 Basically that the UFC is not a monopoly, it's a monopsony, which instead of sort of one seller, it's one buyer.

01:09:22.000 It's a different kind of monopoly and that it has resulted in depressed wages, it's resulted in unfair contracts, It's resulted in any number of harms related to the fighter and their ability to negotiate.

01:09:33.000 I mean, most of that is not arguable, right?

01:09:35.000 You cannot argue that the UFC and the fighter go to contract negotiations with equal amounts of leverage.

01:09:42.000 That is not true.

01:09:43.000 Now, what the solution to that is, is very debatable.

01:09:46.000 How do you want to fix that?

01:09:47.000 What kind of policy prescriptions do you want to pass?

01:09:48.000 Do you want to pass the Ali Act and extend it to MMA? There are some problems with that as well.

01:09:53.000 Let's explain the Ali Act to people.

01:09:54.000 The Ali Act is an act that exists in boxing.

01:09:57.000 It currently is a thing.

01:09:58.000 It was passed, I think, by John McCain, I want to say around 2000 or so.

01:10:02.000 I might be getting the date wrong.

01:10:03.000 But basically, the idea behind the Ali Act is that it provides a series of protections for the boxer against the promoter and or the industry in the form of disclosures.

01:10:12.000 So, for example, by virtue of the Ali Act, they have to disclose to the fighter, to the boxer, like Teofimo Lopez just won, right?

01:10:18.000 Top rank has to disclose to him who's making what.

01:10:20.000 Margins on the costs, sales on pay-per-view, or it was on TV, but to the extent that it's relevant.

01:10:27.000 So they have to disclose that kind of thing.

01:10:29.000 The Ali Act prevents any promoter from having the title.

01:10:32.000 So it's a Strikeforce title.

01:10:34.000 It's a Bellator title.

01:10:35.000 It's a UFC title.

01:10:36.000 You can have a problem with the alphabet soup, but that really is the crux of the issue, is to the extent that the promoter holds the title, they hold everything.

01:10:43.000 That is a weird issue, right?

01:10:45.000 And it is with Bellator, with Strikeforce, it is with 1FC, with all these organizations.

01:10:51.000 It's a mix between the boxing and pro wrestling model, to an extent.

01:10:54.000 Yeah.

01:10:55.000 Anyway, I'm not suggesting that the Ali Act is the cure to everything. 0.88

01:10:58.000 But yeah, see, because the other thing is, like, promoters and then the sanctioning body, like, then the fighters are paying the sanctioning body, and they're paying the promoter, and the sanctioning bodies are, you know, they're trying to get mandatories that nobody gives a fuck about, and if you don't, you know what I mean?

01:11:11.000 And even WBA. I covered boxing for a long time, and then I stopped because the nature of my job changed, and I didn't have the opportunity to really...

01:11:20.000 I was just so engrossed in the MMA world.

01:11:23.000 I'd missed a lot of time, and I remember I was catching up with my co-host for the show I do on Showtime, Morning Combat, and my co-host was like, okay, so...

01:11:32.000 This guy has the WBA regular title, and then this one has the WBA franchise title, and then this one has the WBA Latino title?

01:11:41.000 Like, what's the difference?

01:11:41.000 He's like...

01:11:42.000 Do you see what Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr. are fighting for? 0.96

01:11:44.000 Yeah, like the old man belt or some shit? 0.93

01:11:46.000 It's some crazy thing, but it has Black Lives Matter on the belt? 0.99

01:11:50.000 They're just trying to capitalize on this moment.

01:11:53.000 I forget what it's called.

01:11:54.000 I forget, but it's some bizarre name for the belt.

01:11:57.000 But both of those fighters are very upset that they're making them fight two-minute rounds.

01:12:01.000 But we're going to get to that in a bit.

01:12:04.000 Long story short is I'm not presenting to you that I'm a huge fan of it, but I think it's the cure-all.

01:12:08.000 Basically, my view on what would be more equitable, this is my personal view, and economists will debate this.

01:12:14.000 My view is that there should be a union.

01:12:17.000 Or a trade association, depending on how you want to view it.

01:12:20.000 There's some debate about that as well.

01:12:22.000 And that that will negotiate on behalf of the fighters' interests with some additional leverage by virtue of law.

01:12:27.000 At that point, if they're an actual union, the UFC has a legal obligation to negotiate on their behalf.

01:12:33.000 And so I can, as media, stop fucking talking about how I think the Reebok deal is unfair or the rankings are unfair or pay is unfair.

01:12:41.000 At that point, it becomes the union's responsibility. 0.97

01:12:43.000 And then you can just go into that.

01:12:45.000 Does the NBA have a deal with a particular sneaker brand?

01:12:49.000 I don't believe so.

01:12:50.000 I believe you're allowed to.

01:12:51.000 The collective bargaining agreement through the NBA certifies all of this.

01:12:55.000 You are allowed to have your own endorsement. 0.97

01:12:57.000 The teams might have some kind of individual sponsor, but if you're a LeBron, you can wear whatever the fuck you want. 0.74

01:13:01.000 But that's also, if you're Conor McGregor, you can negotiate in any way you want as well.

01:13:06.000 Right.

01:13:06.000 There are some carve-outs.

01:13:07.000 When there's superstars.

01:13:09.000 The key is this.

01:13:11.000 People think that if there's a union, the fighters are going to get 50% of everything, which they would not.

01:13:16.000 It's not true.

01:13:17.000 What do they get in boxing?

01:13:21.000 Boxing purses are, on average, through the range of things.

01:13:24.000 And again, John Nash has looked at this through the regional circuit.

01:13:27.000 Basically, if you look at the two curves, there is a moment in time in the curve where boxing is less than the MMA fighters.

01:13:33.000 It's that middle class.

01:13:34.000 But before that, and then after that, it's all boxing pays higher.

01:13:38.000 Well, for sure, when you get to guys like Floyd Mayweather, who's the highest-paid boxer of all time.

01:13:42.000 But there's no one that's really commensurate other than Conor in MMA like Floyd, and really not commensurate because Conor's lost.

01:13:51.000 Right, but let me give you a better example.

01:13:53.000 Two guys who are roughly similar positions in their division, actually from the same area.

01:13:56.000 Regis Progray just fought Juan Geraldes on Showtime.

01:14:00.000 He was the number one guy at 140. He's probably number two now, right?

01:14:03.000 Josh Taylor's probably number one.

01:14:04.000 You got Dustin Poirier.

01:14:05.000 He's number two-ish or close in his division.

01:14:08.000 If you look at the Google Analytics, Dustin Poirier is eminently more popular than Regis Progray.

01:14:14.000 It's not even close.

01:14:16.000 He's four or five times to one in terms of how people are interested in what he is doing and looking for him.

01:14:21.000 Regis Progray makes seven or eight times what Dustin Poirier makes.

01:14:26.000 Really?

01:14:27.000 Seven or eight times.

01:14:42.000 It's significantly different.

01:14:43.000 So you can make an argument that there are sections of the boxing world that don't take care of the middle class as well as the UFC, and that is very, very true. 1.00

01:14:51.000 Again, I'm not here to paint UFC as criminals.

01:14:53.000 The UFC is a business.

01:14:54.000 They're going to run it like a business.

01:14:56.000 And the only way to fix this is for the fighters to decide they want to do something about it.

01:15:00.000 That is it.

01:15:01.000 There's no cavalry coming.

01:15:04.000 It's going to be so hard for fighters to do that because another fighter will come in and say, I'll take that fight. 0.64

01:15:09.000 Hence the lawsuit being a bit of a game changer because it could, again, this is very much speculating, it could change the procedure for how this goes forward.

01:15:20.000 There's a couple of outcomes where it could result in a union or a trade association and then that sort of fixes the problem.

01:15:27.000 Yeah, it's interesting, right?

01:15:30.000 There's fighters that get to a position where they are world-class, where they're challenging for a title, and they never quite make enough money where you feel like it was worth it.

01:15:47.000 Right.

01:15:48.000 Sometimes you read some of the statistics.

01:15:51.000 You read fighter payouts, and you go...

01:15:54.000 Here's the thing.

01:15:55.000 It's like you always hear these stories.

01:15:56.000 And Bellator, by the way, if you're asking what percentage they pay out, it's mid-40s.

01:16:00.000 So that's what they pay?

01:16:03.000 Right.

01:16:03.000 Which you could say is like, who pays more?

01:16:06.000 They make less.

01:16:07.000 But they make a lot less.

01:16:08.000 And you can keep your sponsors there.

01:16:10.000 I don't know how much that...

01:16:11.000 It matters, but...

01:16:12.000 It matters in some cases, right?

01:16:13.000 It can.

01:16:13.000 I'm sure it matters with, like, Michael Venom Page, really popular guys.

01:16:17.000 Right.

01:16:17.000 Douglas Lima.

01:16:18.000 Douglas Lima, right.

01:16:19.000 Yeah.

01:16:19.000 Really popular guys, I'm sure.

01:16:21.000 It's valuable.

01:16:21.000 This is what I try to explain to people.

01:16:23.000 It's like, there used to be this debate because you hear these fighters come out and be like, you know, I got this bonus one time and it wasn't expected and it was huge.

01:16:29.000 And it's like, listen, man.

01:16:30.000 If you've ever been broke and someone came in with a lifeline, you can't get anything but teared up thinking about it.

01:16:38.000 Especially if you have kids and now you can have a Christmas with your kids.

01:16:41.000 I take what the gesture of money to a person who needs it, I take it very seriously.

01:16:47.000 I mean that absolutely sincerely.

01:16:49.000 I really do.

01:16:50.000 But the debate is over.

01:16:53.000 There is no more debate about fighter pay.

01:16:55.000 We have court documents year over year over year with express intent written in language by UFC to say we want to keep it at roughly 20%.

01:17:05.000 And they include the fighter expense of USADA as fighter compensation.

01:17:10.000 That's called fighter compensation. 0.92

01:17:12.000 So it's really a little bit closer to 18 or 19. What?

01:17:14.000 USADA is...

01:17:15.000 Fighter compensation.

01:17:16.000 I wish I was making that up.

01:17:18.000 I'm not making that up.

01:17:19.000 Oh, that's unfortunate.

01:17:20.000 So here's my point.

01:17:22.000 Please go ahead.

01:17:22.000 Anyway, I've been rambling.

01:17:23.000 I apologize.

01:17:24.000 Go ahead.

01:17:24.000 You brought this.

01:17:25.000 That's okay.

01:17:26.000 That's okay.

01:17:27.000 Keep going.

01:17:27.000 The last thing I would say is I appreciate the stories of locker room bonuses and helping people out at Christmas.

01:17:33.000 But the fundamental question is, if you're a fighter, do you get half of the UFC's money from ESPN? What kind of cut do you get from pay-per-view?

01:17:42.000 And how much leverage do you have to negotiate that?

01:17:44.000 That is all that matters anymore, and we know what the documents say.

01:17:47.000 The UFC is obviously a different kind of an organization than, say, boxing, where you just have a promoter, and the promoter promotes the fights they promote, and they don't have obligations to 500 fighters they have on the roster.

01:17:58.000 There's obviously much higher overhead for the UFC. The UFC runs multiple performance centers all over the world.

01:18:04.000 The UFC has...

01:18:07.000 This promotion machine built into it, right?

01:18:09.000 Which is very expensive.

01:18:11.000 The UFC has a tremendous staff, which they've kept employed even during the pandemic.

01:18:15.000 They never let anybody go, which to me is very admirable.

01:18:18.000 I feel what you're saying.

01:18:20.000 I have always been the person...

01:18:21.000 Obviously, I'm an employee, a long-term...

01:18:25.000 Started for the UFC in 1997, was a different organization.

01:18:28.000 I'm pre-Zufa, right? 0.98

01:18:30.000 But they do...

01:18:33.000 They have something that doesn't exist anywhere else where you can go through the system, become a champion, and be a multi-multi-millionaire.

01:18:44.000 Sure.

01:18:44.000 That's not really available anywhere else.

01:18:47.000 Here's the thing.

01:18:48.000 I'm not advocating for a world where we make UFC suffer.

01:18:54.000 UFC suffering is bad for all of us.

01:18:57.000 I'd lose my livelihood.

01:18:58.000 Why would I want that?

01:18:59.000 That's bad for me.

01:19:00.000 You just want the fighters to get a bigger piece of the pie. 0.98

01:19:03.000 It's just when it's all over, man, and you see them at the end there, and they got shit to show for it. 0.94

01:19:08.000 By the way, to be clear, if not part of it, a huge portion of it is their own fault. 0.98

01:19:13.000 There's no doubt about it.

01:19:14.000 Listen, it bothers me more than anything in the sport, watching guys at the end with nothing.

01:19:19.000 And then you see what they lost it on, they got scammed, or they bought a car, or some $700,000 Maybach or whatever. 0.99

01:19:27.000 And you're like, holy fuck, how did we get here? 0.99

01:19:29.000 How did we get here? 0.98

01:19:29.000 But I'm just saying, on some level, it's like with USADA, which we've kind of lost track on, like, when I get up and I think about, before I hit publish or whatever, what do I owe these people? 0.98

01:19:40.000 What do I owe the fighters?

01:19:41.000 What do I owe UFC? What do I owe the public?

01:19:43.000 What do I owe?

01:19:44.000 Right?

01:19:45.000 And I owe it to the fighters to say, there is a situation where you could be making more.

01:19:49.000 I do not think it would be 50%.

01:19:51.000 Because to get that 50...

01:19:52.000 What do you think the numbers...

01:19:53.000 What's the right number?

01:19:55.000 I think probably around 35. 35 seems like the sweet spot.

01:19:58.000 Because to get the 50, Joe, you have to have a situation where, like, you play for Major League Baseball.

01:20:04.000 You play for the Royals, and they don't want you.

01:20:06.000 But the Oakland Athletics might want you, or blah, blah, blah.

01:20:07.000 And so teams are competing...

01:20:10.000 That is what gets you to 50, right?

01:20:11.000 But if you have just one promoter and you have one union, that mechanism to drive pay doesn't exist.

01:20:17.000 What might exist is enough at initial CBA negotiations to just push it a little bit higher.

01:20:21.000 Do you factor in all that overhead?

01:20:22.000 Do you factor in all the employees?

01:20:24.000 Do you factor in the machine that's behind the UFC that doesn't exist in boxing?

01:20:28.000 Right.

01:20:28.000 It's hard to parse that because you have to ask yourself to what extent is that kind of – it's vertical integration, right?

01:20:34.000 They want their own hotel, which they're building.

01:20:36.000 They want their own Apex facility, which they have.

01:20:38.000 They want their own broadcast.

01:20:40.000 They have UFC Fight Pass.

01:20:41.000 If ESPN went away, UFC just still puts on fights.

01:20:44.000 They're going to have their own hotel.

01:20:45.000 They have their own facility.

01:20:47.000 They have their own broadcast network with Fight Pass, whatever.

01:20:49.000 They have this total, not total, but they have near vertical integration across the industry.

01:20:53.000 And so, in many ways, that is a great way to keep fights going.

01:20:56.000 But it's like, you hear Eddie Hearn, who runs Matchroom Boxing, and he always sort of laments, He's like, there's got to be a better model that, you know, the UFC model really has figured it out.

01:21:05.000 But you don't get that if the fighters have rights.

01:21:09.000 You don't get that.

01:21:09.000 You don't get a model where you can have all this extra stuff if the fighters get a significantly greater share.

01:21:16.000 So my answer to that would be...

01:21:20.000 Yeah.

01:21:39.000 Yeah.

01:21:39.000 Have you talked to someone who has parsed out the numbers, has looked at the expenses, like what it costs to run the UFC? Sure.

01:21:47.000 John Nash has done this extensively through all the court documents.

01:21:51.000 He'd be better to talk about the overhead and how significantly that impacts.

01:21:54.000 I'd be speaking a little bit out of turn.

01:21:56.000 This is a significant factor because it doesn't really exist in boxing in relationship to promoters.

01:22:01.000 They don't really have the staff or the promotion machine.

01:22:04.000 They don't have the amount of overhead.

01:22:06.000 And you have to ask yourself a question.

01:22:07.000 In defense of the UFC, they're going to have this...

01:22:09.000 Again, let's imagine the pandemic doesn't exist for a moment.

01:22:12.000 They either have, or it's already opened, the Institute in China.

01:22:16.000 So they are forcing that market to begin to recruit and develop and recruit and develop.

01:22:23.000 And I don't know if it'll be successful, but no one in boxing has that kind of hand in the pot to begin to make things happen in the way that UFC could for the betterment of MMA. That's a real thing I give them absolute credit for.

01:22:34.000 It's just you have to decide what you want.

01:22:36.000 Do you want an institute in Shanghai?

01:22:38.000 Or do you want Diego Sanchez to have been paid what he should have been paid?

01:22:41.000 There's a question you have to ask yourself there a little bit.

01:22:43.000 I want to get to Diego, and I want to get to Anderson, and I want to get to a bunch of other fighters as well.

01:22:49.000 The argument, if I was arguing on behalf of the UFC, which, of course...

01:22:54.000 So I don't mean to put you on the spot for it.

01:22:56.000 No, no.

01:22:56.000 I'm happy to be put on the spot.

01:22:58.000 I'm never anti-UFC. I just think about the fighters.

01:23:00.000 What do I owe them?

01:23:01.000 Listen, man.

01:23:02.000 I owe them the truth.

01:23:02.000 I'm on your team when it comes to fighter pay.

01:23:05.000 I don't dictate it.

01:23:07.000 I'm not an accountant.

01:23:08.000 I'm not the guy who gets to decide what the checks are, but...

01:23:13.000 I think they should be paid as much as they can be paid. 0.97

01:23:15.000 I mean, I think it's the fucking hardest job outside of being a cop or a soldier or a firefighter or a first responder or a fucking surgeon in the emergency room. 0.99

01:23:25.000 It's one of the hardest goddamn jobs on the planet Earth. 1.00

01:23:28.000 It's crazy. 0.98

01:23:28.000 I mean, I don't want to quantify whose job is tougher, but to me, I am obviously a massive fan. 0.98

01:23:34.000 And it means everything to me that these guys make as much as they can.

01:23:40.000 But it also, the UFC has to be profitable.

01:23:43.000 In order to be sold to someone like WME, it has to be valuable.

01:23:48.000 In order for it to be valuable, it has to be profitable.

01:23:50.000 In order for it to be something that they can promote and get behind and make it as big as they've made it.

01:23:55.000 There has to be some sort of pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for these people.

01:23:58.000 When you're dealing with business folks like, you know, like the WME. I mean, these are big-time players in the entertainment business.

01:24:07.000 For them to come along and fork out billions of dollars, literally billions, for the UFC, it has to be a valuable thing.

01:24:13.000 And from that, people have clearly profited.

01:24:16.000 From that, stars have been born.

01:24:18.000 And when you get to a guy who's a superstar, like a Conor McGregor or a Kameed Nurmagomedov, Israel Adesanya or Jon Jones, they're going to make a shitload of money.

01:24:29.000 The argument is, do the guys below them, do the journeymen, journeywomen, do they make enough?

01:24:40.000 Raquel Pennington, does she make enough? 1.00

01:24:41.000 I would disagree a little bit, if I may.

01:24:43.000 Let's talk about Jon Jones for a second.

01:24:45.000 Again, not my best friend, but I take his side on this one, which is, do you remember when Jon was beefing with UFC about going to heavyweight?

01:24:52.000 He was like, I'm retired.

01:24:53.000 Yes.

01:24:55.000 And he was asking for Deontay Wilder money.

01:24:58.000 Yeah, he should.

01:24:59.000 I agree, but there's no crowds.

01:25:02.000 The problem with asking for Deontay Wilder money when there's not a stadium, obviously you realize that stadiums bring in a significant amount of revenue.

01:25:10.000 It's a big deal. 0.99

01:25:11.000 I mean, it's millions and millions and millions of dollars for a fucking... 0.99

01:25:15.000 You're Jon Jones, you sell out the T-Mobile arena. 0.99

01:25:17.000 That is a...

01:25:19.000 Yeah, but John doesn't see a cut of that.

01:25:21.000 He doesn't see a cut of that, but it makes sense that they pay him more because of that.

01:25:25.000 So here's what I would be sympathetic to the argument if the problem was the song was the same pre-pandemic as it was during the pandemic.

01:25:32.000 Pre-pandemic, it was the same thing.

01:25:33.000 This money is outrageous.

01:25:58.000 We don't possibly have it.

01:26:00.000 But it's like, John has been outselling Deontay Wilder on pay-per-view, and this is not an exaggeration, for a decade.

01:26:06.000 For a full decade, he has been logging four, five, six, seven hundred thousand pay-per-view buys.

01:26:13.000 Now, has he cost the UFC some money with his variety of indiscretions along the way?

01:26:19.000 Maybe.

01:26:20.000 But you're asking, who sells more between the two and who has sold more?

01:26:24.000 It's not even a contest.

01:26:26.000 Especially cumulative, right?

01:26:27.000 Oh my god, it's a very easy call for Jon Jones.

01:26:30.000 Here's the question, though.

01:26:30.000 When Deontay Wilder makes that money, everybody's tuning in just to see Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury.

01:26:35.000 The undercard makes a fraction, a tiny, tiny fraction of that.

01:26:39.000 Whereas the undercard of a huge UFC event, you will have four big fights on the card.

01:26:44.000 Then you will have overall 12 fights, usually.

01:26:47.000 11 or 12. You have to pay all those fighters.

01:26:50.000 This is what I mean, though.

01:26:51.000 I'm not asking for the guys to get 50. I don't think 50 is realistic for the reasons you mentioned.

01:26:56.000 What the UFC has done spectacularly well is create a fighter middle class where guys can make six figures a year.

01:27:03.000 I don't know how many of them, but there's a portion of them where they can make six figures.

01:27:06.000 They at least have some accident insurance, and there's ways to leverage that, and there's a whole lot of them relative to what there is in boxing.

01:27:12.000 That's the sweet spot there.

01:27:13.000 But when you talk about the argument about who's most underpaid, the people point to the guy who's making 10 and 10 because he's a sob story.

01:27:20.000 But if you're asking who has generated the most versus what they were paid, yes, for the reasons you articulated, John shouldn't be getting whatever Deontay got for the second Fury fight.

01:27:33.000 No, it would be a little bit less than that.

01:27:35.000 But relative to what he got, no.

01:27:37.000 Conor McGregor is underpaid.

01:27:40.000 Relative to what he generates for the company, you think he got 50% of that?

01:27:44.000 I don't think he got 50% of that.

01:27:45.000 I have zero idea.

01:27:46.000 I've never looked into it even for a second.

01:27:48.000 But when you get to a point where you're talking about a world championship fighter...

01:27:56.000 At least they have the leverage of people knowing that this is going to sell a shitload of pay-per-views.

01:28:01.000 What leverage does Conor have?

01:28:02.000 Let me ask you.

01:28:03.000 It's a good question.

01:28:03.000 He has no leverage.

01:28:04.000 Not right now.

01:28:04.000 He has very little leverage.

01:28:05.000 Right now, I would say he doesn't have a lot of leverage.

01:28:08.000 But post-Jose Aldo and then post-Eddie Alvarez, I would say he had a lot of leverage.

01:28:11.000 So here's why Conor's in a bit of a problem.

01:28:13.000 One...

01:28:14.000 You may not realize this, but the UFC over the years, they're smart businessmen here.

01:28:18.000 UFC's very smart.

01:28:20.000 That's what I mean.

01:28:20.000 A business is going to do what a business is going to do.

01:28:23.000 You can get mad at them for it.

01:28:24.000 I don't get mad at them for it.

01:28:26.000 I understand they took advantage of...

01:28:28.000 The UFC didn't break any laws.

01:28:31.000 They took advantage of what the laws were.

01:28:33.000 They were smart businessmen.

01:28:34.000 I completely understand it.

01:28:36.000 But they're very good now about having contractual revenue, right?

01:28:39.000 So it used to be...

01:28:40.000 For example, the ESPN pay-per-view deal is a very good example of this, where, you know, you know as well as I do.

01:28:46.000 2014, John fights Glover.

01:28:48.000 Eh, may sell okay, but not great.

01:28:51.000 John fights Cormier.

01:28:53.000 It's going to be much higher numbers.

01:28:54.000 And that's still true to this day because star power sells.

01:28:56.000 But what cut the UFC takes for how much money they can get is a function that's very volatile by virtue of the star power involved.

01:29:03.000 The ESPN deal cuts out a shitload of that.

01:29:06.000 One, so for a couple of reasons.

01:29:07.000 I really am ignorant to the ESPN deal.

01:29:10.000 So there's a couple of different factors.

01:29:11.000 One is, to the extent that they meet their total quota, so I think it's like 40-something shows a year, they get $750 million.

01:29:17.000 It's a shitload of money.

01:29:18.000 That's contracted.

01:29:19.000 So you cross the finish line, money's yours.

01:29:22.000 And they're going to meet that quite easily this year, and good for them.

01:29:24.000 I'm glad.

01:29:25.000 Again, the UFC's staying in business and doing well.

01:29:28.000 Everybody wins when that's the case, including me.

01:29:30.000 I recognize that.

01:29:31.000 So that's the first one.

01:29:32.000 The second part is, what they did with ESPN was they took it away.

01:29:34.000 Like, if you have a cable subscription through DirecTV or Comcast, you can't order UFC pay-per-views anymore.

01:29:41.000 You have to go to ESPN+. The way that works is that ESPN +, or ESPN rather, gives them a flat check for every pay-per-view.

01:29:47.000 My understanding is, this is not confirmed, and I hope your audience understands this, so double-check it.

01:29:52.000 It's believed to be around what they would get for a $500,000 pay-per-view buy.

01:29:56.000 Where are you getting that from?

01:29:58.000 Again, various reports that we've seen from Sports Business Journal.

01:30:01.000 Isn't that weird, though?

01:30:02.000 Just to come out with a number based on various reports?

01:30:06.000 Have you ever asked the UFC to substantiate that?

01:30:08.000 I asked the guy who wrote the article.

01:30:09.000 Yeah?

01:30:10.000 What did he say?

01:30:11.000 Again, it's a little bit off the record, but there's a reasonable reason to believe it.

01:30:14.000 Again, or double-check it or don't.

01:30:15.000 I'm just going to give you what I know.

01:30:17.000 Yeah, but that seems like a weird one.

01:30:18.000 I mean, I'm with you on all this, but that's a weird one if you don't have the fact...

01:30:24.000 If I have not seen the documents myself...

01:30:26.000 Well, here's what I can say for certain.

01:30:27.000 They get a stipend for each individual pay-per-view, and then on top of that, if it sells past a certain point, they get a percentage of everyone past a certain threshold.

01:30:37.000 The Khabib fight sold 500...

01:30:39.000 Is that what it's sold?

01:30:40.000 I think domestically, plus an additional amount worldwide.

01:30:42.000 Do we know what it's sold internationally?

01:30:43.000 I think around 150, 200 extra.

01:30:46.000 Okay.

01:30:46.000 Which is a...

01:30:47.000 I mean, that's a huge...

01:30:47.000 700 plus.

01:30:48.000 Dude, sell at 2pm and you...

01:30:49.000 Right.

01:30:49.000 That's a shitload.

01:30:50.000 That's very, very good.

01:30:51.000 Anyway, so the point being is, what they have done intentionally...

01:30:55.000 I think?

01:31:18.000 That any one individual fighter may have.

01:31:20.000 Plus, Conor pulls out and they go, okay, Jorge, you're on deck. 0.94

01:31:23.000 And Jorge has just fucking exploded to a megastar.

01:31:26.000 And he's all too willing to play ball until he had his own moment. 0.96

01:31:30.000 But they have a ton of different resources to go to so that fighters think, oh, I'll just retire.

01:31:36.000 I'll just retire and that'll show them. 0.99

01:31:38.000 It's not going to show them shit. 0.99

01:31:39.000 Well, the Jon Jones thing, wasn't he contractually obligated to fight? 0.99

01:31:45.000 Like, he had a contract for X amount of money per fight, and he wanted substantially more to fight at heavyweight because he said the risk was higher.

01:31:54.000 And that was where the negotiation broke down.

01:31:56.000 Yeah, but why is that crazy?

01:31:58.000 That's what any other person in any other combative sport, certainly in boxing, what you would get.

01:32:03.000 You would get higher paydays for a move up in weight.

01:32:06.000 Yeah.

01:32:07.000 You would, if there was a fight there that would generate substantial revenue.

01:32:13.000 I think, John, moving up to heavyweight, you could make...

01:32:17.000 How well did Stipe versus DC do, the second fight?

01:32:23.000 I don't know.

01:32:23.000 The third fight, rather.

01:32:24.000 I don't know.

01:32:24.000 You know, that would be the argument whether steep A is a big enough challenge for John to generate X amount of pay-per-view buys, which would justify the revenue.

01:32:36.000 But this is my point, Joe.

01:32:37.000 I see your point, though.

01:32:39.000 It makes sense.

01:32:39.000 I'm just trying to say...

01:32:40.000 There it is.

01:32:41.000 $600,000, so that's pretty good.

01:32:43.000 $500,000?

01:32:43.000 Where do you see it?

01:32:44.000 500,000.

01:32:45.000 Oh, I'm sorry.

01:32:46.000 So 500,000 for three.

01:32:48.000 Take these numbers with a little bit of grain.

01:32:49.000 So that's from Topology, which is a great site, but these are not double-checked to some degree.

01:32:55.000 Well, actually, you know what?

01:32:55.000 Some of them might be.

01:32:57.000 But the point being is this, Joe.

01:32:58.000 It's like, what is Jon Jones entitled to?

01:33:00.000 Here's what I would like it to be.

01:33:02.000 I would like it to be a case where I don't know the answer to that.

01:33:04.000 I'd like to let the union figure it out. 0.98

01:33:05.000 Like, y'all fucking figure this out. 0.98

01:33:07.000 And let it go. 0.99

01:33:09.000 I feel you on this union thing.

01:33:11.000 I understand the position, and like I said, I'm always for fighters getting paid more money, but I just don't know if that would ever work.

01:33:19.000 It will work.

01:33:20.000 You think it will work?

01:33:20.000 Yeah, it definitely will work.

01:33:21.000 You think it's gonna work?

01:33:22.000 Yes.

01:33:22.000 Really?

01:33:23.000 So you think the future is a union?

01:33:24.000 How we get there, I don't know.

01:33:26.000 Now that is, I couldn't, I'm with you. 0.99

01:33:28.000 It's like their reluctance, because I know for a long time, you know, privately fighters would be like to me, they'd be like, y'all never talk about this shit. 0.99

01:33:34.000 You'll never talk about it. 0.98

01:33:35.000 And I was like, you know, it's a fair point.

01:33:36.000 We never talk about it.

01:33:37.000 And then we spent the last seven, eight years talking about it, and it hasn't moved the needle.

01:33:42.000 And so it's like, I don't think it's up to me.

01:33:44.000 I don't think we can solve this problem.

01:33:46.000 You know, it's really, if you guys want it to be better, it's up to you.

01:33:50.000 Because again, UFC is going to do what they are allowed to do.

01:33:53.000 And they're just going to keep doing it.

01:33:55.000 So, like, for example, we had this whole issue with Leon Edwards.

01:33:57.000 He got removed from the rankings.

01:33:59.000 And everyone was like, fire and brimstone, fire and brimstone.

01:34:02.000 I'm like, dude...

01:34:04.000 What do you want me to say, man?

01:34:05.000 It's their rankings.

01:34:06.000 They're going to do what they're going to do.

01:34:08.000 Well, the Leon Edwards one was weird because is there anyone that gets less respect for being that good than Leon Edwards?

01:34:18.000 No one is calling out Leon Edwards.

01:34:20.000 No one is asking to fight Leon Edwards.

01:34:23.000 Leon Edwards is a top five guy, right?

01:34:26.000 Easy.

01:34:26.000 Easy top five.

01:34:27.000 He's world fucking class. 0.98

01:34:29.000 He's supposed to be fighting Jorge Masvidal, right? 0.99

01:34:32.000 After that scrap that they had backstage where Masvidal sucker punched him.

01:34:36.000 Three piece in the soda.

01:34:37.000 That's supposed to be a fight that gets made, right?

01:34:40.000 And everyone knows.

01:34:41.000 I mean, you look at how good he is.

01:34:43.000 Beats Donald Cerrone, you know, beats Rafael dos Anjos.

01:34:47.000 I mean, he's a world-class fighter.

01:34:48.000 And Gunnar Nelson.

01:34:50.000 Don't forget Gunnar Nelson.

01:34:52.000 One of the best jiu-jitsu guys in the division.

01:34:54.000 You don't hear his name being brought up.

01:34:56.000 It's kind of crazy.

01:34:57.000 For whatever reason, he's fallen into this kind of weird spot where he's really good, but he doesn't get the attention he deserves.

01:35:05.000 I feel bad for him.

01:35:06.000 Oh, Leon Edwards.

01:35:07.000 Woo! 0.99

01:35:08.000 Woo! 0.99

01:35:08.000 Yeah, Khonsat Chimaev. 0.99

01:35:10.000 That's a big step up for Chimaev. 1.00

01:35:13.000 That is a big step up.

01:35:14.000 You know what's funny is, did you watch the card? 0.99

01:35:17.000 Fuck, not the last one. 0.99

01:35:19.000 Maybe two cards ago, they had this dude from Kazakhstan. 1.00

01:35:22.000 You know people, I don't care where you're from, Tennessee or Kazakhstan, if you wear dead animals on your head, shit, dude, you mean business, right? 0.99

01:35:32.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:35:32.000 This dude, he beat Cowboy Oliveira. 0.99

01:35:34.000 Remember that guy?

01:35:35.000 Yes, yes.

01:35:36.000 His Rachmaninoff thing is his last name.

01:35:37.000 Yes.

01:35:37.000 And he guillotined him.

01:35:40.000 Guillotined him, yeah. 0.96

01:35:41.000 It's like that dude guillotined Cowboy Oliveira, who is better than anyone Chemayev has fought, and there's no fucking buzz about the guy. 0.77

01:35:49.000 Part of it is, for Leon Edwards, is that, and here's the other part, like he beat good guys.

01:35:53.000 He beat him on Fight Pass events or cards that just didn't have a ton of buzz on him.

01:35:59.000 And he has good management.

01:36:00.000 He's with Paradigm, which is a big company.

01:36:02.000 But up until recently, he hasn't done a lot of vocalization.

01:36:07.000 When was the last time he did a big interview with a big outlet?

01:36:10.000 I don't know, man, but I hate that that's a factor. 0.99

01:36:12.000 I hate that fighters have to talk shit. 1.00

01:36:14.000 It drives me crazy. 1.00

01:36:15.000 Not even that.

01:36:15.000 He just doesn't do a lot of talking.

01:36:16.000 Here he is.

01:36:17.000 There he is.

01:36:17.000 Shavkat Rachmanov.

01:36:19.000 Look at this fucking animal. 1.00

01:36:20.000 Oh, he's very, very good. 1.00

01:36:21.000 Very good.

01:36:22.000 Yeah.

01:36:23.000 And Cowboy Oliveira, you know, is he the best fighter in the world?

01:36:25.000 No, but he's not a chump by any stretch of the imagination. 1.00

01:36:28.000 Look at that. 1.00

01:36:28.000 This guy has a fucking nasty guillotine, too. 1.00

01:36:31.000 Yeah, squeeze. 1.00

01:36:32.000 Yeah, very good. 0.90

01:36:32.000 And then he goes and puts on dead animals on his head, bro. 0.90

01:36:34.000 Look at him. 0.79

01:36:36.000 You know?

01:36:36.000 I mean, he's probably directly related to Genghis Khan.

01:36:41.000 Look at him.

01:36:42.000 Like, that's Genghis pound jeans.

01:36:44.000 Here's what really got Leon.

01:36:45.000 You know, everyone took an L with the pandemic one way or the other.

01:36:48.000 He took a major L. Sure, being in Europe, being in the UK. Remember, so the UFC had that show, I think it was a Sao Paulo show.

01:36:55.000 After every sport was like, we're done, they went down to Sao Paulo.

01:36:58.000 And then they were going to follow it up in London.

01:36:59.000 And that's when the world began closing airports and everything else.

01:37:02.000 And here was the key, man.

01:37:04.000 He was supposed to fight Tyron Woodley at that fight.

01:37:07.000 That was going to be the main event for UFC London.

01:37:09.000 And BT Sport, shouts to BT Sport because they do an unbelievable job with promotional fighter packages.

01:37:17.000 They did one talking about Leon's story, being bullied.

01:37:21.000 I think his parents, I could be getting this wrong, but I believe they are from their Jamaican by heritage or his family lineage.

01:37:29.000 Whatever it was, they had this story about him growing up You know, tough situation.

01:37:34.000 It was all illustrated like a cartoon and how he had arrived at this position.

01:37:37.000 That was his big breakout moment.

01:37:39.000 And I think he definitely would have beaten Tyron, especially the current condition that Tyron is in as a fighter.

01:37:44.000 And he lost all of it.

01:37:46.000 This is it.

01:37:47.000 Look at this.

01:37:47.000 I mean, the BT Sport does such an incredible job.

01:37:51.000 Look at this thing.

01:37:52.000 Oh, wow.

01:37:52.000 Yes, I was right.

01:37:53.000 He's from Jamaica.

01:37:54.000 I mean, they show the story and you feel like all at once, I don't know who Leon Edwards is, but I want to know more.

01:38:01.000 I understand his story. 0.96

01:38:02.000 There's a lot of Jamaican immigrants, certainly in the UK, and growing up hardscrabble and getting fucked up and being in fights and shit, and then finally arriving at this moment. 1.00

01:38:10.000 Look at this shit, Joe. 1.00

01:38:11.000 Isn't that incredible? 1.00

01:38:13.000 That's a great piece.

01:38:14.000 And he lost the momentum from all of this.

01:38:16.000 Well, you know, the good news is he's still in his prime, and once all this shit blows over, there's still a lot of big fights to be had at 170, and there's also the opportunity that comes with guys inevitably getting injured and fights falling out, and the Chemayev fight, if you can shut down the hype train, that will put him right in the driver's seat. 0.92

01:38:33.000 Chemayev, I mean, it's really quick that this guy has all the hype on him, and the Mearshart fight just fucking put a candle on that cake, didn't it? 0.82

01:38:40.000 You ever watch the regional tape on this kid?

01:38:43.000 Chemayev?

01:38:43.000 Yeah.

01:38:44.000 Oh, he's a monster.

01:38:45.000 There was this dude, I was like, because people are like, he's just like Khabib, and I'm like, let me see how true that is. 1.00

01:38:49.000 Fucking striking is a different level. 0.97

01:38:51.000 Exactly. 0.99

01:38:52.000 So there was this dude he fought, he made most of his fights in Brave, which is the promotion out of Bahrain, and he fought this dude who was a world champion in Sambo. 0.99

01:39:03.000 No bitch at all. 1.00

01:39:05.000 This guy is all dude. 0.99

01:39:07.000 And Chemaev couldn't take him down.

01:39:09.000 Like, for a full round.

01:39:10.000 Could not take this guy down.

01:39:11.000 And then said, you know what? 1.00

01:39:13.000 Fuck it. 1.00

01:39:14.000 Let's strike. 1.00

01:39:15.000 And punched his fucking lights out. 1.00

01:39:17.000 The Mearshat punch. 1.00

01:39:18.000 He has one punch KO power.

01:39:19.000 Yeah, that Mearshat fight. 1.00

01:39:20.000 And also, at 185. Yeah.

01:39:24.000 He's a 70. That's the crazy thing.

01:39:26.000 He's a 170 fighter.

01:39:27.000 I mean, at 170, he's world class, I think.

01:39:30.000 I mean, I'm really interested to find out.

01:39:31.000 Well, we'll see.

01:39:32.000 We'll see with Leon Edwards.

01:39:33.000 I might have spoke too soon.

01:39:35.000 We're going to find out.

01:39:36.000 It's a very, very intriguing fight.

01:39:38.000 This is the guy I was telling you about.

01:39:39.000 This guy he's knocking out is not a chump at all. 1.00

01:39:42.000 He is very, very good.

01:39:43.000 Fake slow?

01:39:44.000 Boom.

01:39:44.000 Oh, man.

01:39:45.000 Yeah, he's got legit power.

01:39:47.000 Was this a 170 fight?

01:39:48.000 I think it was 170. When the guy's doing the one arm frozen up in the air or a leg, anytime there's something frozen in the air, you know, it's a bad knockout.

01:39:55.000 My go-to on this is what we call testifying in church. 0.97

01:40:00.000 When they throw the hands up, when they come back and they head fucking slams like the testifying in church. 0.98

01:40:04.000 The head banging off the ground is always scary. 0.97

01:40:06.000 You see that Muay Thai ref who caught the head?

01:40:07.000 Yes.

01:40:08.000 Isn't that amazing?

01:40:09.000 What a humanitarian! 1.00

01:40:10.000 Fuck Mother Teresa, this guy! 1.00

01:40:12.000 He's probably a fighter. 1.00

01:40:13.000 That's probably why.

01:40:14.000 He's probably a former fighter.

01:40:15.000 But just the agility and wherewithal to catch the head.

01:40:18.000 When you talk about guys that have been KO'd, who has been KO'd more than Alistair Overeem but shows less results, less effects of it?

01:40:26.000 I was thinking about that.

01:40:27.000 Amazing.

01:40:28.000 You mean like full on out?

01:40:29.000 Well, he's been flatlined multiple times.

01:40:32.000 He's been KO'd in Pride.

01:40:34.000 He's been KO'd in K1. He's been KO'd in multiple organizations.

01:40:40.000 But you look at him and he seems fine.

01:40:43.000 Yeah, I talked to him at UFC DC, which was in what, about a year ago.

01:40:47.000 Seems lucid.

01:40:48.000 Yeah, right.

01:40:49.000 I mean, how?

01:40:50.000 Even Vangeli Silva is starting to be the complaining about headaches thing. 0.97

01:40:54.000 I don't speak Portuguese, but the people that I'm friends with that do speak it, say the way he communicates in Portuguese is all fucked up now. 0.95

01:41:01.000 Sorry to hear that. 0.93

01:41:02.000 Listen, this is how it is.

01:41:03.000 We know multiple fighters that slur their words and don't sound like they used to sound.

01:41:11.000 Overeem and Bisping, Michael Bisping, I don't think he's been KO'd as many times, but certainly he's had a number of setbacks.

01:41:17.000 You've got one-armed guillotine against Luke Rockhold, and the Dan Henderson knockout's pretty bad, and whatever.

01:41:22.000 The Dan Henderson knockout was clearly the worst.

01:41:24.000 Really, really bad.

01:41:25.000 But both those guys have an incredible resolve.

01:41:28.000 In fact, Michael Bisping, this is my standard Michael Bisping point, is that round three he fought Anderson, and he got kneed.

01:41:37.000 And then, if you look at the numbers, the best round Bisping had in any round in that fight was the next round. 0.99

01:41:43.000 Oh, he's a fucking animal. 0.99

01:41:44.000 First of all, he got KO'd because he was pointing that he lost his mouthpiece. 1.00

01:41:48.000 He was trying to get the judge to give him his fucking mouthpiece, and he let his guard down, and Anderson hit him with a flying knee. 0.97

01:41:53.000 Caught him right on the chin, and it looked like the fight was over. 0.99

01:41:55.000 Anderson walked away like the fight was over, and could have ended the fight, but thought the referee was going to step in and stop, but didn't.

01:42:03.000 I think it was Herb Dean, I believe.

01:42:05.000 I might be wrong.

01:42:06.000 I think that's right.

01:42:08.000 Gold standard, Herb Dean.

01:42:10.000 You know, now that John McCarthy's not reffing, that's the gold standard. 1.00

01:42:13.000 So, Anderson walks away, and Bisping, like, you gotta put that motherfucker away. 0.99

01:42:18.000 Like, there's no quitting that dude. 1.00

01:42:19.000 There's zero quitting that guy.

01:42:21.000 I don't think folks understand, to get, when you, if you lose enough at something, and not that they've lost a tremendous amount, I mean, he's a Hall of Famer and a champion, but I'm just saying, at the elite level, when you lose like that, There it is.

01:42:31.000 It is a psychological barrier to overcome it.

01:42:35.000 People think it's all, we just get back up and...

01:42:37.000 Well listen, this is small potatoes.

01:42:39.000 How about the fact that he fought most of the last half of his career with one eye?

01:42:43.000 It's just shocking.

01:42:44.000 That's what's insane.

01:42:45.000 It's completely shocking. 1.00

01:42:45.000 I mean, he kind of faked his fucking eye tests. 1.00

01:42:48.000 Yeah, and another part is like, what would you say is his ace in the hole as a skill? 0.99

01:42:53.000 Just tough.

01:42:54.000 His mind.

01:42:55.000 He had good everything.

01:42:56.000 Yeah.

01:42:57.000 But he wasn't like Demi and Maya or whatever. 0.99

01:42:59.000 He just had a relentless fuck you in your face ability. 1.00

01:43:04.000 Just tough as fuck. 1.00

01:43:05.000 Doesn't get any tougher. 1.00

01:43:06.000 I've said it.

01:43:07.000 Up here, bulletproof.

01:43:09.000 Totally bulletproof.

01:43:10.000 Bulletproof.

01:43:10.000 You gotta beat him.

01:43:12.000 He doesn't beat himself. 0.99

01:43:13.000 I mean, the knockout of Luke Rockhold was goddamn sensational. 0.94

01:43:16.000 I remember being there for that and seeing the joy on his face to finally achieve what... 0.96

01:43:22.000 A little surprise.

01:43:24.000 A little surprise on that.

01:43:25.000 Right at first, he had that smile.

01:43:27.000 Remember he looked around like this? 0.99

01:43:28.000 Like, holy fuck, I'm the champ. 0.99

01:43:29.000 I did it. 0.99

01:43:30.000 And the fact that he KO'd Rockhold with that beautiful left over the top like that, and that him and Jason Perillo saw that as a flaw in Rockhold's defense.

01:43:39.000 But I mean, that was an amazing performance.

01:43:42.000 Clearly the performance of his life because it won him the title.

01:43:45.000 But I say you go to the Kong Lee fight. 0.97

01:43:47.000 The Kong Lee fight, he beat the fucking brakes off of Kong Lee. 0.94

01:43:50.000 And that was when Kong Lee was Kong Lee. 0.98

01:43:52.000 And Kong Lee was like a scary guy.

01:43:54.000 He had these wild taekwondo kicks.

01:43:56.000 He'd throw spinning back kicks and wheel kicks.

01:43:58.000 And, you know, had a dangerous style.

01:44:00.000 Hard to figure out.

01:44:01.000 And Michael Bisping just beat the fuck out of him at the end of the fight.

01:44:04.000 In retrospect, I'm a little less surprised by that by virtue of the Scott Smith fights that he had in Strikeforce, Kung Lee.

01:44:11.000 But to your point...

01:44:13.000 But Kung Lee in that fight also, didn't he test positive?

01:44:16.000 Oh, I mean, I think he was like...

01:44:18.000 Because he looked super saucy. 0.99

01:44:19.000 Oh, he was fucking shredded. 0.99

01:44:21.000 Yeah, he had a beautiful six-pack. 1.00

01:44:23.000 And then Bisping was like, what the fuck is going on here? 0.99

01:44:26.000 Which, by the way, for Bisping is like extra... 0.99

01:44:28.000 Oh, yeah.

01:44:29.000 Well, that was the Vitor thing, too. 0.99

01:44:31.000 When Vitor stopped him, Vitor was on just full whatever the fuck he was on. 0.94

01:44:38.000 There was a moment, for people who don't understand this, there was a moment of madness in MMA where you were allowed to take testosterone. 0.97

01:44:46.000 And all you had to do was show low testosterone.

01:44:49.000 Well, guess what?

01:44:49.000 If you've been doing steroids, you show low testosterone.

01:44:53.000 You get off the steroids, and then your endocrine system's all fucked up, so you go to a doctor, the doctor blood tests you, and says, yep, you have low testosterone.

01:45:00.000 You need TRT. So testosterone replacement therapy is on the menu.

01:45:05.000 And then all of a sudden, you go from Vitor Belfort, who got frontkicked in the face by Anderson Silva, who had, if you go, pull that up, because it's one of Anderson's most spectacular knockouts.

01:45:16.000 And the first time ever I saw someone get KO'd by a frontkick to the face.

01:45:21.000 Because I remember I had a conversation with Eddie Bravo once in my gym where I had like one of those little rubber dummies that looks like a person.

01:45:27.000 And he goes, could you throw a front kick to the face?

01:45:29.000 I was like, yeah, you could.

01:45:31.000 But you'd have to time it perfect.

01:45:32.000 It's really not the best place for it.

01:45:34.000 I'm like, place for it?

01:45:34.000 Meanwhile, you know, front kick.

01:45:36.000 But look at Vitor.

01:45:37.000 Vitor then, you know, he just looked normal.

01:45:41.000 Just looked like an athlete.

01:45:42.000 You know, he wasn't particularly shredded, particularly ripped.

01:45:45.000 Now go to Vitor Belfort. 1.00

01:45:48.000 Yeah, I mean, what in the fucking holy shit? 0.99

01:45:52.000 You go, 2012 was the year he was like super saucy. 1.00

01:45:55.000 Go to Vitor Belfort versus Michael Bisping, if you could find that.

01:46:00.000 Because there was a time where they let Vitor take whatever he wanted, and the problem with that is they did a test once, and when they did a test on him, like look at that picture where they're touching gloves.

01:46:11.000 Which one was that?

01:46:11.000 Yeah, right there.

01:46:12.000 I mean, he is just I'm fucking jacked. 0.95

01:46:16.000 Vitor Belfort is proof that no one's ever been like, you know what, your traps are too big. 0.97

01:46:19.000 Look at that picture. 0.98

01:46:21.000 God damn, that's making weight, right? 0.99

01:46:24.000 That's when you had to make weight. 0.99

01:46:25.000 That wasn't the unofficial weigh-ins where you weighed in and rehydrated and then you got to step on those, you know, and I would say the official weight for Vitor Belfort, 185, but really he'd be 195 plus when he would stand in front of the camera.

01:46:39.000 At least, yeah.

01:46:40.000 But look how shredded he was.

01:46:41.000 And that's when he was on testosterone replacement therapy.

01:46:44.000 So Bisping fights him all natural. 0.98

01:46:47.000 And Vitor, when he was on TRT, it's like the best goddamn... 0.85

01:46:51.000 If you want to do an ad for TRT, you would have Vitor during those dominant years. 0.95

01:46:56.000 To your point, you didn't even have to take steroids to get TRT. You could just have a bad night of sleep.

01:47:01.000 Bad night of sleep.

01:47:02.000 Or eat, by the way. 0.99

01:47:03.000 If you just ate a bunch of shitty food. 0.98

01:47:05.000 And they'd be like, eh, get on the low side of things. 0.98

01:47:07.000 And then you literally allowed to self-administer.

01:47:10.000 And this is where it got crazy.

01:47:11.000 Because Vitor tested one time.

01:47:13.000 One of the reasons why they stopped the testosterone replacement therapies, they tested him one time when he was in Vegas.

01:47:19.000 And he was just off the charts. 0.99

01:47:20.000 And they were like, what in the fuck, man? 0.99

01:47:23.000 He was off the charts for the Jon Jones fight. 0.99

01:47:26.000 That's true, too.

01:47:27.000 Super off the charts.

01:47:28.000 And Jon was upset with that, right?

01:47:30.000 Because, well, that was a fight at 205, right?

01:47:32.000 That was a fight that really tested Jon Jones' mettle.

01:47:34.000 And that's a fight where a lot of people forget...

01:47:37.000 John Jones had a fully hyperextended arm bar on him. 0.95

01:47:40.000 I mean, his arm was fucked, and most people would have tapped. 0.97

01:47:43.000 I mean, that arm was gonzo, to the point where John decided to coach the ultimate fighter because he knew he wasn't going to be able to train for a long time because his arm was so fucked from the Vitor fight. 0.98

01:47:54.000 Vitor, in his guard, threw up an arm bar and had it fully hyperextended. 0.94

01:47:58.000 And I think Vitor might have let it go or something.

01:48:01.000 I mean, I don't know what happened there. 0.99

01:48:02.000 Either John just gutted it out and Vitor got tired, but his arm was fucked. 0.96

01:48:08.000 Where if you're watching it, you're cringing because you're waiting for that Frank Mir, Tim Sylvia snap. 0.96

01:48:15.000 But that was actually low on the arm.

01:48:17.000 That was here, right?

01:48:19.000 I remember that. 0.99

01:48:21.000 Goddamn. 0.98

01:48:22.000 I donated to Tim's GoFundMe for that. 0.99

01:48:24.000 Did you?

01:48:25.000 Oh, where you get the metal pulled out of the arm?

01:48:27.000 I felt bad, so I gave him some money, yeah.

01:48:28.000 Yeah, how crazy is that, right?

01:48:30.000 World champion.

01:48:31.000 Why doesn't the UFC pay for that?

01:48:34.000 I'm not sure what the rule...

01:48:36.000 Is that a part of the medical...

01:48:36.000 He tried, and I think it's a...

01:48:38.000 I don't know, is the answer.

01:48:40.000 I don't know.

01:48:40.000 So what do they have to do?

01:48:41.000 They have to cut them open, take out the plates?

01:48:43.000 Apparently the screws were getting pushed out naturally, and you can see he poured hydrox...

01:48:48.000 What's it?

01:48:52.000 Hydrogen peroxide?

01:48:52.000 Hydrogen peroxide.

01:48:53.000 And you'd see all the bubbles and shit from the infection. 0.99

01:48:55.000 Oh, boy. 0.99

01:48:56.000 I think he got like 15 grand off GoFundMe.

01:49:00.000 So I think he more or less got the surgery that he needed.

01:49:04.000 But yeah, it's from that.

01:49:05.000 Jesus Christ.

01:49:06.000 I know.

01:49:07.000 It's like, why would you fight?

01:49:09.000 Why would you fight for a living?

01:49:10.000 It's so...

01:49:11.000 Well, how about Frank Mir?

01:49:12.000 Remember when Frank Mir got hit by a car when he was on his motorcycle?

01:49:15.000 2004, yeah. 0.99

01:49:16.000 He's got screws and plates in his fucking thigh. 0.99

01:49:18.000 His femur was snapped in half, which is real touch and go. 0.99

01:49:23.000 You could lose a leg there easily because the blood flow.

01:49:26.000 That injury is super dangerous.

01:49:28.000 A femur break is really dangerous.

01:49:31.000 I know you don't follow team sports.

01:49:33.000 Did you follow the case at all, though?

01:49:34.000 Because this got a wider view of things.

01:49:37.000 Alex Smith, quarterback for the, formerly the Washington Redskins?

01:49:41.000 No.

01:49:41.000 Okay.

01:49:41.000 So Alex Smith, it was a recent quarterback.

01:49:44.000 It was, I think, a season or two ago.

01:49:45.000 He got tackled.

01:49:47.000 But the way he got tackled was very different.

01:49:49.000 He broke his shinbone.

01:49:51.000 Okay?

01:49:52.000 But it wasn't a snap like this.

01:49:54.000 Right?

01:49:54.000 They didn't break it like spaghetti.

01:49:56.000 They...

01:49:57.000 Oh! 0.60

01:49:58.000 So this is known as a spiral fracture.

01:50:00.000 Yeah.

01:50:00.000 They twisted it like a sponge.

01:50:03.000 And not only that, you can see the upper right there.

01:50:06.000 That's his leg.

01:50:07.000 He had to get, I think, a dozen...

01:50:09.000 Go to that picture.

01:50:10.000 Oh, they made a whole documentary on this guy, Joe.

01:50:13.000 Look at this.

01:50:14.000 Yeah, Jamie told me about him and that he's playing again now, right?

01:50:17.000 Are you a football fan, Jamie?

01:50:18.000 Jamie, go to that full picture, the upper top one, the one right there that you got up there on the right-hand side.

01:50:23.000 No, the one you just had.

01:50:24.000 Just before, just before.

01:50:26.000 Yeah, go to that.

01:50:27.000 Make that large.

01:50:28.000 Jesus Christ.

01:50:29.000 Look at that.

01:50:31.000 That looks like a dog's chew toy.

01:50:33.000 Okay, ready?

01:50:35.000 I thought he wasn't going to walk again, and he got infected, and he almost lost his leg.

01:50:40.000 A couple of weeks ago, he made his return to the NFL. That's insane.

01:50:43.000 Can you believe that?

01:50:45.000 Look at that calf. 0.84

01:50:47.000 Yeah, 17 or so surgeries, I think, is what he had.

01:50:50.000 Over the course of how long?

01:50:51.000 A year and a half or two.

01:50:52.000 Look at that picture.

01:50:54.000 Make that picture bigger.

01:50:55.000 That is insane!

01:50:57.000 You've got to watch the documentary they made on him, Joe.

01:50:59.000 It is, I mean, again, I love fighters, but there's more profiles in athletic courage than just what they do.

01:51:05.000 Look at that.

01:51:05.000 They had to take muscle and reattach it down low.

01:51:08.000 That's like an American Werewolf in London when he starts to change.

01:51:13.000 It's like, are you Teen Wolf?

01:51:15.000 That's so crazy.

01:51:17.000 And he made his return.

01:51:18.000 Oh my God, look how bad that break is.

01:51:21.000 Yeah, again, it wasn't in half, it was a rotating break.

01:51:24.000 That's rough.

01:51:25.000 Isn't that crazy?

01:51:26.000 Well, you know, there's only been two UFC leg breaks.

01:51:30.000 Oh my god, look at that.

01:51:32.000 Show the drills.

01:51:33.000 If you've got the video, you can see him do the drills.

01:51:35.000 By the way, he made $18 million on his year off, by the way.

01:51:38.000 Nice for him.

01:51:39.000 Yeah, good for him.

01:51:41.000 It's just video.

01:51:42.000 And how did he do when he came back? 0.99

01:51:44.000 He sucked. 0.98

01:51:45.000 He wasn't very good. 0.99

01:51:47.000 And every time he got tackled, you were like...

01:51:49.000 Oh my god, imagine him.

01:51:51.000 And dude, he had his little kids there and his wife, and they were like... 1.00

01:51:55.000 But I was like, fuck that, dude. 0.99

01:51:57.000 I had a hard time watching. 1.00

01:51:58.000 He's fine, but he's not very good right now.

01:52:00.000 Is he compromised?

01:52:02.000 Like, to the point we'll never be the same again?

01:52:04.000 To the full extent of that, I don't know.

01:52:06.000 I mean, they put him on the roster and he started it because the initial quarterback is young and he's not very good.

01:52:12.000 They're going to get rid of him.

01:52:12.000 Then the backup got a concussion.

01:52:14.000 So he was third string.

01:52:16.000 And they're like, you're active.

01:52:17.000 So I think we have to go back over all the different things you were breaking down because I let you go on this long run about the UFC. No, no, no.

01:52:25.000 It was excellent.

01:52:26.000 But there was a long run on the UFC and all the different things that you think are disadvantages for fighters.

01:52:38.000 Yeah, MMA in general.

01:52:39.000 I want to make sure I don't blame just UFC for all these problems.

01:52:42.000 There's the monopoly argument, right?

01:52:46.000 Well, obviously there's other organizations, right?

01:52:49.000 There is the Professional Fighters League, they still call it that?

01:52:52.000 I believe so.

01:52:53.000 Which you win the tournament, you win a million dollars.

01:52:55.000 And that's on NBC Sports, right?

01:52:58.000 ESPN 2 and ESPN Plus now.

01:53:00.000 Oh, okay.

01:53:00.000 So it was on NBC. That's good.

01:53:03.000 Good for them.

01:53:04.000 That's excellent.

01:53:06.000 That's where Justin Gaethje came from back when it was the PFL. No, it wasn't the PFL. It was World Series of Fighting.

01:53:11.000 That's right.

01:53:13.000 So you have one FC, which pays a lot of money, and they brought over Mighty Mouse Johnson and Eddie Alvarez and Brandon Vera's over there.

01:53:22.000 I think he's still their heavyweight champion.

01:53:25.000 Cut down to light heavyweight and lost and just really, like, drained.

01:53:30.000 What's his face?

01:53:31.000 I forget, the Malay guy, I think?

01:53:33.000 I don't know how to say his name.

01:53:35.000 I think that's the song you sing at New Year's.

01:53:37.000 The guy's a really good fighter.

01:53:39.000 Yeah, he's very good.

01:53:39.000 I forget his...

01:53:40.000 I don't know how to say his name.

01:53:43.000 We should find out his name.

01:53:45.000 Find out what is the guy who just beat Brandon Vera for the light heavyweight crown.

01:53:51.000 Brandon Vera, by the way, at heavyweight, looks fucking phenomenal over there. 0.77

01:53:56.000 Buddy. 0.98

01:53:56.000 Yeah, they're letting him take all the Mexican steroids. 0.98

01:53:58.000 You know what?

01:53:59.000 Good for him.

01:53:59.000 You look good for him, yeah.

01:54:00.000 I mean, he's been around a long time.

01:54:02.000 Yeah. 0.98

01:54:03.000 And he's fucking jackmified over there at heavyweight. 0.99

01:54:07.000 He looked really good with soccer kicks and all that shit on the ground. 0.99

01:54:10.000 Brandon Rivera's a threat. 0.99

01:54:11.000 I remember him.

01:54:12.000 I saw him at Lloyd Irvin's gym in 2005 or so.

01:54:16.000 Say that name.

01:54:17.000 Yeah, Ong La...

01:54:19.000 I don't know. 0.99

01:54:20.000 I don't fucking know. 0.99

01:54:21.000 Ong La... 1.00

01:54:22.000 He's Burmese, so you know he's tough as shit. 1.00

01:54:24.000 He's tough as shit. 1.00

01:54:25.000 He's really good. 0.99

01:54:26.000 And he is a Henry Hooft student, right?

01:54:29.000 Oh, is he really?

01:54:30.000 I believe so.

01:54:31.000 I believe he trains with the artists formerly known as the Black Zillions. 0.54

01:54:36.000 What do they call themselves now?

01:54:37.000 So now they're Sanford MMA, because they've got a healthcare sponsor.

01:54:40.000 Oh, interesting.

01:54:41.000 So it was Hard Knocks 365, and now it's Sanford MMA. Yeah, that's an interesting camp, right?

01:54:46.000 Because you got Gilbert Burns, who's a fucking monster, and then you got Kamaru Usman, who is now with Trevor Whitman. 0.96

01:54:55.000 And he realizes that him and Gilbert Burns are going to have to go after it. 0.98

01:54:59.000 And that's going to be really interesting, because they're long-time training partners.

01:55:04.000 I can't wait for that one.

01:55:05.000 Gilbert Burns is complete.

01:55:06.000 You know what's amazing?

01:55:07.000 He's complete.

01:55:08.000 Do you remember the quintet that UFC did?

01:55:10.000 I think it was like early in the...

01:55:11.000 The grappling tournament.

01:55:12.000 Yeah.

01:55:13.000 So it's like a five-on-five.

01:55:14.000 And it was like Sean O'Malley, Anthony Smith, who were all good grapplers.

01:55:18.000 And then it was like a bunch of...

01:55:21.000 I forget who they were going against.

01:55:22.000 But every once in a while, you'll see an MMA guy.

01:55:24.000 And these MMA guys are usually pretty good at this point.

01:55:27.000 Not world class, but they're very, very good.

01:55:29.000 And then Gilbert gets down there.

01:55:31.000 And you're like, oh, right.

01:55:32.000 He's one of them.

01:55:33.000 He's one of the elite.

01:55:35.000 He's a world champion.

01:55:36.000 Of course.

01:55:36.000 But I mean, he hasn't...

01:55:37.000 I'm sure Jiu-Jitsu has fallen off a little bit relative to what it was when he was just Jiu-Jitsu.

01:55:43.000 But you can tell some of these guys...

01:55:45.000 He's not like one of these Meow Brothers who is... 1.00

01:55:47.000 You know, a gripping, heavy, kind of leg entanglement, strategic kind of guy. 0.99

01:55:51.000 Gilbert's athletic as shit. 0.99

01:55:53.000 He can pass. 1.00

01:55:53.000 He can go underneath. 1.00

01:55:54.000 He's got a good guard.

01:55:55.000 He can wrestle.

01:55:56.000 He can do the whole nine yards.

01:55:58.000 When I stand next to him, I have a hard time believing he ever made 155. It's shocking.

01:56:02.000 He was really compromised.

01:56:04.000 He's one of those guys that was really compromised at 155 because he's so thick.

01:56:08.000 He's walking around well over 200 pounds. 0.99

01:56:10.000 He's thick as fuck. 0.98

01:56:12.000 And has zero problem competing with guys like Tyron Woodley at 170. He's a fucking monster, man. 1.00

01:56:19.000 His striking is nasty, too. 1.00

01:56:22.000 That's what's interesting about Gilbert, is that he is an elite Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, but his striking is fucking world class. 0.98

01:56:29.000 That Woodley fight was Oh my god. 0.97

01:56:32.000 Dude, his striking is terrifying.

01:56:34.000 It's really, really good.

01:56:35.000 Right.

01:56:36.000 And I mean, here's the thing about it.

01:56:37.000 It's like, you know, I mean, can you imagine?

01:56:39.000 It's like, what's your ace in the hole?

01:56:40.000 Like, what's your thing you can go to if you need it?

01:56:43.000 Oh, you're a world champion black belt?

01:56:45.000 That's the thing you have if you need it?

01:56:47.000 Because everything else is good enough to win a UFC title?

01:56:50.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:56:50.000 That is fucking frightening. 0.99

01:56:51.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:56:52.000 If you don't want to stand with him, he's terrifying standing.

01:56:55.000 And he could barrel down on Tyron.

01:56:58.000 Because it's like, I mean, maybe he'll fight the takedown if it's there, but probably not.

01:57:02.000 Because on the ground, you know, I mean, his ability to sweep or just create space or threaten you or omoplata or whatever.

01:57:09.000 Yep. 1.00

01:57:10.000 Good luck fighting that fucking guy on the ground. 1.00

01:57:12.000 Probably at welterweight. 1.00

01:57:14.000 Let's think about this.

01:57:15.000 You have Colby, Kamaru, Masvidal.

01:57:18.000 By the way, very underrated ground game for Masvidal.

01:57:20.000 Oh, yeah.

01:57:20.000 I'm sure you know that.

01:57:21.000 I'm just saying for the audience's sake.

01:57:22.000 Very underrated wrestling.

01:57:23.000 Everything.

01:57:24.000 Everything.

01:57:25.000 Everything.

01:57:25.000 But all those guys in the top five, Gilbert is your biggest submission threat by a country mile.

01:57:31.000 Oh, a country mile.

01:57:32.000 I would have really loved to have seen Jorge Masvidal and Kamaru Usman if Jorge had a camp.

01:57:38.000 Because he did not have a camp for that fight and still presented some real big problems for Camaro.

01:57:42.000 Don't you find the ascension of Jorge kind of funny?

01:57:44.000 I love it.

01:57:45.000 I love it.

01:57:46.000 Do you remember when he fought Alaya Quinta at 155?

01:57:48.000 I do.

01:57:48.000 So I was at that fight.

01:57:49.000 It was in Fairfax, Virginia.

01:57:51.000 And I'll never forget, Fight Week was at one of these UFC gyms somewhere in the suburbs of D.C. I don't remember where.

01:57:56.000 I live in city proper, so I had to like...

01:57:58.000 You know, go out to the suburbs.

01:58:00.000 And it was decently attended.

01:58:02.000 It was not a super well-attended open workout, but it was, you know, it was enough people there.

01:58:06.000 And Al got a huge, you know, whatever.

01:58:08.000 And I think it was Frankie, no, it was Chad Mendez and Ricardo Lamas in the main event.

01:58:13.000 And Chad was a big alpha male guy at the time, and, you know, he got a big applause.

01:58:17.000 Jorge came out, and maybe 10 people knew who he was.

01:58:23.000 The Latin media that was there wanted to talk to him, but most of the media was kind of like, give or take on it. 0.97

01:58:30.000 And I remember thinking to myself, do y'all not know how fucking good this guy is? 0.93

01:58:34.000 By the way, I thought he won that fight too. 0.97

01:58:36.000 And then years later...

01:58:37.000 The crowd did as well, remember? 0.97

01:58:38.000 Yeah, and then I was like, you're gonna fucking boo me? 0.98

01:58:40.000 You're gonna fucking boo me? 0.99

01:58:43.000 Gotta love Al. 0.99

01:58:44.000 Al's hilarious.

01:58:46.000 But, you know, to see later, it's like, it's amazing.

01:58:49.000 It's like, you're nothing, you're nothing, you're nothing.

01:58:51.000 All of a sudden, something.

01:58:52.000 Well, you know, the resurrection. 0.99

01:58:54.000 You know, he talks about how he went on that stupid reality show where they made him live in the jungle for a couple of weeks. 0.99

01:58:59.000 Ex-Sultan? 1.00

01:59:00.000 Yeah, whatever it was. 0.98

01:59:01.000 And he was like, what the fuck am I doing with my life? 0.93

01:59:04.000 And then he had a chance to think about all those fights where he just fell short. 0.97

01:59:08.000 And why did he fall short?

01:59:10.000 What did he do?

01:59:10.000 Was he playing it safe?

01:59:11.000 He decided he was going to start baptizing people, as he puts it.

01:59:15.000 Man, you talk about a guy who turned a corner and changed.

01:59:18.000 The Ben Askren fight, though, that was it.

01:59:21.000 That was the cherry on top.

01:59:22.000 And then, of course, the murking of Nate Diaz. 0.98

01:59:25.000 He beat the fuck out of Nate Diaz. 0.89

01:59:27.000 That was a crazy fight. 0.95

01:59:29.000 They were talking about running that back.

01:59:31.000 I was like...

01:59:31.000 For what?

01:59:33.000 Yeah, I was confused.

01:59:34.000 Don't forget, Darren Till put his lights out too.

01:59:36.000 Yes, with a beautiful step forward left hook combination. 0.98

01:59:40.000 I mean, he's a monster. 0.99

01:59:42.000 He's a monster. 0.99

01:59:42.000 He's hard for anybody to deal with. 0.99

01:59:44.000 And the fact that he stopped Darren Till when Darren Till was this terrifying striker that had just beat down Donald Cerrone.

01:59:50.000 Darren Till was a scary guy.

01:59:52.000 And to see him put him away that way.

01:59:55.000 And obviously it was after Tyron had beaten him.

01:59:58.000 But it was still a stunning, stunning KO. And he's just a fun guy.

02:00:05.000 Everything's fun about him.

02:00:06.000 I had him on the podcast and I said, the real question is whether or not Ben Asker can get a hold of you.

02:00:12.000 He's like, he can get a hold of these nuts.

02:00:16.000 That's him.

02:00:17.000 I mean, that's him.

02:00:19.000 He's just a real fun dude.

02:00:21.000 He's a fun dude to watch fight.

02:00:23.000 He's a fun dude to listen to him talk.

02:00:26.000 He's been...

02:00:27.000 He can do...

02:00:27.000 Sorry to cut you off, but Dan Levitard is a big national sports radio guy based out of Miami.

02:00:32.000 There's a couple of Miami guys, a couple of Cuban-Americans, and they're on opposite sides politically, very much so.

02:00:39.000 Oh, he's all Trump, right?

02:00:40.000 Yeah, super...

02:00:40.000 And Dan Levitard's very left, but they have this camaraderie Yeah, he's awesome.

02:00:51.000 But I'm a big fan of him skillfully.

02:00:53.000 I think he's a really exceptional fighter.

02:00:56.000 He's very clever.

02:00:57.000 He also has a very unusual stance.

02:00:59.000 Like, he stands straight up.

02:01:01.000 Like, he stands like a Muay Thai fighter.

02:01:02.000 And it's one of the reasons why his takedown defense is so good.

02:01:05.000 He's confident that he can stand straight up like that.

02:01:07.000 And his striking is very crisp.

02:01:10.000 Very clean.

02:01:11.000 And he's clever.

02:01:12.000 Like, he sets traps.

02:01:13.000 You know, he catches you. 1.00

02:01:14.000 Like, that fucking Ben Askren thing was goddamn genius. 0.99

02:01:17.000 And when you see him prep for it, when you watch the training footage, that he did that over it. 1.00

02:01:21.000 And not only that, he prepped for the angle.

02:01:23.000 Right?

02:01:23.000 Leaned against the cage.

02:01:25.000 So he, like, presented this and then turned a corner.

02:01:28.000 Went to the right and then charged at him. 0.92

02:01:31.000 So that Ben Askren would be like, I'm just going to grab this guy.

02:01:33.000 Like, literally, he set two different traps.

02:01:37.000 The running at him and then the turning the corner and then running at him.

02:01:41.000 And Ben Askren, like, instincts just dove in.

02:01:44.000 And he couldn't help himself.

02:01:45.000 I call it the Jorge Masvidal test.

02:01:47.000 Go through any of his fights pre-tilt.

02:01:50.000 Win or lose.

02:01:50.000 Doesn't matter.

02:01:51.000 And watch how many times when, you know, they're getting the mouthpiece put in and the Vaseline put on at the At the beginning, watch how many times the commentator says, folks don't understand how good he is.

02:02:02.000 Folks don't know how smart he is.

02:02:03.000 This is one of the most well-rounded fighters in all the UFC. And they do it in this kind of way to almost plead with the audience to understand the fighter as they do.

02:02:11.000 Yeah, that would be me.

02:02:12.000 I've done that many times.

02:02:14.000 Brian Stan's done it a million times.

02:02:15.000 The thing is, if you and Brian Stan are doing it and you're not coordinating it, something is happening here.

02:02:19.000 Well, I remember when he knocked out Eve Edwards with a head kick, when Eve Edwards is one of the best 155-pounders in the world, after Eve Edwards had beaten Josh Thompson, who's another guy who doesn't get nearly the respect that he deserves.

02:02:31.000 The first guy to ever knock out Nate Diaz, right? 0.87

02:02:34.000 I mean, Josh Thompson at one point in time was the fucking man, right? 0.96

02:02:38.000 And so he knocks out Eve Edwards in Bodog. 0.98

02:02:42.000 Remember Bodog?

02:02:43.000 I have all the DVDs at home.

02:02:45.000 I have them all at home.

02:02:46.000 Bodog, for people who don't remember, Calvin Ires, who's like this big gambling guy, who, I think what they were trying to do was boom. 0.99

02:02:56.000 God damn, that was beautiful. 0.98

02:02:58.000 And total finishing instinct. 0.99

02:02:59.000 And then look at this.

02:03:00.000 Look at this.

02:03:02.000 He poses like he's a male model.

02:03:06.000 Yeah, but they put down a bunch of fights, like good fights.

02:03:09.000 That was where Cain Velasquez made his debut.

02:03:12.000 That was where Matt Lindland fought Fedor, remember that?

02:03:16.000 But I think their idea was online gambling.

02:03:21.000 They were gonna do it and they were gonna be compensated through online gambling.

02:03:24.000 But then that was right when online gambling got shut down in the United States, which is really weird.

02:03:30.000 Because I'm like, why are you shutting online gambling down?

02:03:32.000 We can be in person in gambling.

02:03:35.000 Why are you deciding where people can gamble?

02:03:37.000 What is this?

02:03:38.000 And the company went under, and I think Calvin Iyer is like, I think he's like a fugitive.

02:03:42.000 I think he has to live in other countries.

02:03:44.000 I don't know.

02:03:44.000 I've not kept up.

02:03:45.000 You might be right.

02:03:46.000 Because Dana and him were going back and forth.

02:03:50.000 And yeah, because Calvin Iyer, when he had the Bodog thing, had a big billboard for Bodog fight, but it was him. 0.95

02:03:57.000 Like, Calvin Iyer, like, in Vegas, like, looking slick with a nice, tailored, expensive suit, and he was talking shit about Dana White, and Dana White's like, you can't even get into this country. 0.99

02:04:07.000 Like, you're a fucking fugitive for the law. 0.99

02:04:09.000 If you come into this country, they'll arrest you. 1.00

02:04:10.000 Like, I don't remember what it was, but I think it was one of those things where he was doing this online gambling thing, and they were like, this is illegal, and he's like, fuck you, I'll do it in Belize or some shit. 0.99

02:04:20.000 Costa Rica, I think. 0.98

02:04:21.000 Something like that.

02:04:21.000 I think he lives there now.

02:04:23.000 He has to.

02:04:24.000 I don't think he can step foot in America.

02:04:27.000 I might be talking out of turn.

02:04:28.000 Please don't sue me.

02:04:31.000 See if you can find that.

02:04:33.000 But he's a big gambling guy.

02:04:35.000 I mean, he's a big online gambling guy.

02:04:37.000 And I think... 0.99

02:04:38.000 There was some weird shit that went down, which, look, I'm a big fan of personal freedom, and I'm a big fan of people being able to gamble wherever the fuck they want. 0.99

02:04:46.000 I'm not a big fan of people regulating things. 0.99

02:04:49.000 Unless you can prove that someone's getting robbed, unless you can prove they're stealing money from people, I think they should be able to gamble.

02:04:55.000 I think that was one of the things that happened with that Bodog organization, but they threw around a lot of money and put together... 0.90

02:05:03.000 What is it?

02:05:03.000 I thought his name sounded familiar.

02:05:05.000 He got also involved in cryptocurrency afterwards.

02:05:08.000 That sounds about right.

02:05:12.000 That case initially, I think, has been settled, though.

02:05:14.000 The cryptocurrency case?

02:05:16.000 No, no, the initial Bodog thing.

02:05:17.000 Oh, so he's allowed to come to America?

02:05:19.000 I don't know about that.

02:05:20.000 Sorry, Calvin.

02:05:21.000 Again, don't sue me.

02:05:23.000 I don't want to be careful here. 0.99

02:05:27.000 I gotta say, he put together some great fucking fights. 0.98

02:05:30.000 Bodog was excellent. 0.99

02:05:31.000 You mentioned those three.

02:05:31.000 Chael Sonnen fought there.

02:05:32.000 Jake Ellenberger fought there.

02:05:34.000 Tons of good guys fought out of Bodog.

02:05:36.000 Yeah, and they did it on the beach with hot chicks. 1.00

02:05:38.000 Who was her name? 0.96

02:05:39.000 You know who fought there?

02:05:40.000 It was the brother and sister combo.

02:05:42.000 Karina and Rodrigo Dam.

02:05:43.000 Oh, that's right. 1.00

02:05:44.000 They did the capoeira shit. 1.00

02:05:45.000 They would be in the middle and they would do this shit during the middle of a fight. 1.00

02:05:49.000 They would fuck people up, too. 1.00

02:05:51.000 Well, you know, the interesting thing is like... 0.98

02:05:53.000 I don't know what happened with that organization, but they put together a small number of fights.

02:06:01.000 I think it was maybe three or four fights, three or four cards. 0.98

02:06:04.000 But if you go back and look at those three or four cards, they fucking hold up. 0.93

02:06:08.000 They hold up any affliction event, which is another organization that threw a lot of money into big fights. 0.93

02:06:14.000 You ever talk to Jeff Osborne?

02:06:16.000 Sure.

02:06:17.000 Jeff Osborne and I did commentary on the very first UFC. I'm a big fan of his.

02:06:21.000 No, but I mean like recently.

02:06:22.000 No, I haven't.

02:06:23.000 So out of nowhere, I'm no longer with SiriusXM.

02:06:25.000 I moved on, but I had a show once and they were like, Jeff Osborne's on line one.

02:06:30.000 And I'm like, wait, the Jeff Osborne? 0.92

02:06:32.000 So Jeff has a memorabilia shop of like all MMA shit in his hometown. 0.78

02:06:37.000 And he called in and we talked about a bunch of stuff. 0.98

02:06:39.000 Hook and shoot.

02:06:40.000 Who can shoot, right? 0.99

02:06:41.000 That's him.

02:06:41.000 But also, do you realize this?

02:06:43.000 The Kane fight that they had was in an ice rink, in the middle of an ice rink, and they actually built a studio slash stage presence for it in the middle of an ice rink in wherever the fuck it was, St. Petersburg, and then a ring to make it look like they were somewhere else. 0.98

02:06:57.000 Meanwhile, they're in the middle of a fucking ice rink. 0.99

02:06:59.000 Really? 1.00

02:07:00.000 Yeah.

02:07:01.000 Which fight was this?

02:07:03.000 Kane's fight there.

02:07:04.000 I thought Kane fought on the beach.

02:07:06.000 Uh-uh.

02:07:06.000 No?

02:07:07.000 No.

02:07:07.000 Who did Kane fight?

02:07:08.000 I couldn't tell you. 1.00

02:07:09.000 Who the fuck knows? 1.00

02:07:10.000 And this was Bodog? 1.00

02:07:12.000 Bodog, yeah. 0.98

02:07:13.000 So was this the same card where Lin-Lin fought Fedor?

02:07:16.000 I don't think so.

02:07:19.000 But again, I can't be sure.

02:07:20.000 But you've got to reconnect with him sometime.

02:07:22.000 I'd love to.

02:07:23.000 His Bodog stories are out of control. 1.00

02:07:27.000 See this?

02:07:28.000 This is in the middle of an ice rink.

02:07:31.000 Jeremiah Constant.

02:07:32.000 You got fat tattooed guy versus Cain. 0.54

02:07:36.000 Cain about to work you like...

02:07:38.000 Cain was a force of nature.

02:07:41.000 He's the best heavyweight I've ever seen.

02:07:43.000 I'm not saying he's the best heavyweight ever, but in terms of the eye test and what he could do, nobody was better than Kane.

02:07:49.000 You know, the thing is, it's like, how long can you be at that level?

02:07:54.000 That's the real question.

02:07:56.000 It's not...

02:07:57.000 Sometimes you want to look at a guy like you look at Anderson, right?

02:08:00.000 And you look at the Jared Kananier fight, or you look at...

02:08:04.000 The second Chris Weidman fight, it's really interesting.

02:08:07.000 You look at Anderson's career, and I actually went over it last night because I knew I was going to talk to you today, and I was thinking, you know, there's one point in time where I was convinced that Anderson was a GOAT, and I think he was at his time.

02:08:17.000 I think in his prime, he was the GOAT at the time. 0.98

02:08:22.000 And you go from the Chris Weidman fight, where he's the baddest motherfucker on earth. 0.98

02:08:27.000 Chris Weidman KOs him, and then he loses every fight afterwards. 0.99

02:08:32.000 Except Derek Brunson.

02:08:33.000 Except Derek Brunson.

02:08:34.000 He beats Derek Brunson by decision, but he loses every other fight.

02:08:37.000 And it's crazy.

02:08:38.000 I mean, you look at him, you go from Chris Lieben, starching Chris Lieben, you look at his fights.

02:08:44.000 I mean, there was a few that people forget.

02:08:46.000 There's a few that were boring, right?

02:08:48.000 There was, you know, the...

02:08:51.000 Talos Latis.

02:08:52.000 Talos Latis.

02:08:53.000 The Kote fight wasn't that good either. 0.98

02:08:54.000 Patrick Cote was very cautious, because Patrick Cote knew that Anderson Silva was a counterfighter, and Patrick had a powerful fucking right hand. 0.99

02:09:02.000 And Patrick was like, I'll let you come to me, bitch. 1.00

02:09:04.000 And then Patrick, with a weird thing, like he hopped on his knee to throw a kick, and his knee just blew out. 0.99

02:09:10.000 And he fell and held his knee, and that was a really...

02:09:13.000 But the Damien Maia fight, people forget that.

02:09:15.000 That was in Abu Dhabi.

02:09:16.000 And he came... 0.98

02:09:18.000 Fucking, like, hell on wheels in the first couple of rounds trying to take Damian Maia out. 0.98

02:09:23.000 And Damian Maia survived, and then he just coasted for the last few rounds. 0.98

02:09:27.000 And everybody was terribly upset.

02:09:29.000 It was really...

02:09:30.000 Anderson Silva, like...

02:09:31.000 I remember Dana White was like, if he does that again, I'll cut him.

02:09:34.000 And everybody was like, whoa, this is crazy.

02:09:36.000 Like, everyone was so furious because this was the big fight in Abu Dhabi.

02:09:41.000 BJ Penn fought Frankie Edgar, and Frankie Edgar upset him. 0.65

02:09:44.000 And everybody was like, this is crazy.

02:09:45.000 BJ Penn lost.

02:09:46.000 And then Anderson Silva comes out like a demon, and he was like screaming at Damien Maia.

02:09:53.000 Damien Maia was probably the nicest, most respectful person.

02:09:55.000 I don't know what their beef was about.

02:09:58.000 Still to this day, I don't understand what it was.

02:10:01.000 But for whatever it was, Anderson had in his head, he was angry at Damien Maia and fought very emotionally and tried to take him out and didn't.

02:10:09.000 I also think in that fourth, maybe it was the fifth round, Damien hurt him.

02:10:12.000 Yeah.

02:10:12.000 There's a big punch that lands, and you watch the body language and the sort of tactical approach begin to change almost instantly after he gets drilled with one.

02:10:20.000 Now, maybe, I'm not saying he's the best striker, I'm just saying at that moment...

02:10:23.000 It was hot out, too, by the way.

02:10:25.000 You were there, right?

02:10:25.000 Yeah, we were outside.

02:10:26.000 It was fucking hot. 0.95

02:10:28.000 And I think... 0.99

02:10:29.000 And there were also bugs flying around, like the size of birds.

02:10:33.000 It was weird.

02:10:34.000 Like, what is that thing?

02:10:35.000 I'm like...

02:10:36.000 It's weird, because we're outside.

02:10:39.000 And Damien survived.

02:10:41.000 He survived the initial onslaught, but just could never be fast enough to take Anderson, to get a hold of him.

02:10:49.000 You never felt like he was meaningfully moving the needle.

02:10:53.000 He just wasn't at that level, striking-wise.

02:10:57.000 But he did threaten him, he did hit him, and then Anderson decided to coast.

02:11:01.000 But Dana was so mad. 0.99

02:11:04.000 And folks don't understand, too, this was, I think, two things were happening at the time.

02:11:07.000 One, that was when they had made the sale to Flash Entertainment, and they had sold 10% of the company.

02:11:11.000 I believe that's why they had gone to Abu Dhabi, was partly of those reasons.

02:11:14.000 That was sort of an internal thing.

02:11:16.000 That was an external thing.

02:11:16.000 But folks don't realize this.

02:11:17.000 This was when the UFC was fucking red hot. 0.98

02:11:20.000 Red hot. 0.98

02:11:21.000 I mean, they could not miss.

02:11:22.000 Every time they come out, maybe the pay-per-view wasn't great, but it wouldn't sell poorly.

02:11:26.000 You know, this was at a time where I don't think it was too far removed from... 0.97

02:11:28.000 I remember when I was in New Orleans once, now my wife, my then-girlfriend, And we watched, I remember this card got super fucked up.

02:11:36.000 I don't even remember what the initial one was supposed to be.

02:11:38.000 It ended up as Rashad versus Tiago Silva.

02:11:41.000 Remember that? 0.95

02:11:41.000 It was three rounds and it sucked. 0.95

02:11:42.000 That thing still did almost 400,000 buys. 0.82

02:11:45.000 I mean, they could not miss.

02:11:47.000 And they had Anderson Silva.

02:11:48.000 They had all these sort of important guests there.

02:11:51.000 This was this coronation moment for this new opportunity. 0.98

02:11:54.000 And it kind of shit the bed a little bit. 0.99

02:11:56.000 And Dana was fucking heated. 1.00

02:11:59.000 Woo! 0.99

02:11:59.000 After that. 0.99

02:12:00.000 I can understand that, too.

02:12:01.000 I can understand it, too.

02:12:03.000 Yeah, it was not a good fight. 0.98

02:12:06.000 But Anderson, when he was in his prime, there was moments, like the Forrest Griffin fight, where you walked away and just go, who's better than that fucking guy? 0.93

02:12:15.000 But obviously, it was a tailor-made kind of style for Anderson. 0.92

02:12:20.000 Forrest was like a blood and guts, come forward, doesn't hide anything, just really charges...

02:12:26.000 And Anderson would just, like, see everything.

02:12:28.000 He was so relaxed.

02:12:29.000 He would find openings.

02:12:31.000 And the famous step back away from those punches and then just hit him with a right hand, a fadeaway right hand, and knock him out.

02:12:39.000 That's what Hall hit him with.

02:12:40.000 Did you see that fight over the weekend?

02:12:42.000 Which fight?

02:12:42.000 Hall solo.

02:12:43.000 Oh, Uriah Hall.

02:12:44.000 Yes, exactly.

02:12:45.000 Yeah, it was slightly different, but I saw it and I was like, dude, this is a game where you stay around long enough and the elderly get eaten. 0.97

02:12:52.000 Well, it was also like when you're watching Anderson move, he's doing things that he would have never done when he was younger.

02:12:58.000 It's almost like he's trying to get the sparks flying, like crank the engine over, but it doesn't want to.

02:13:03.000 He's moving forward in a way that you're like, ah!

02:13:07.000 You would never see the Anderson Silva that fucked up Rich Franklin twice. 0.82

02:13:11.000 You would never see him fight like that.

02:13:13.000 The Anderson self that stopped Chris Lieben, he would never fight like that.

02:13:16.000 You know, that Anderson was a clever tactician.

02:13:19.000 That Anderson was a technical fighter.

02:13:22.000 Whereas, like, he fought really aggressive in the first round.

02:13:26.000 But, you know, go back to Vitor being on TRT. You give Anderson TRT, you'll see a different fighter.

02:13:31.000 But if you want to make him fight on the natch, you're 45, man.

02:13:36.000 This is 45. It's 45. It's like, unless you're Bernard Hopkins...

02:13:41.000 Unless you're a guy that's so fucking good at boxing, where you're clever and you don't waste any energy, and you're so disciplined and so technical and so defensive-oriented that you can take these, like, world championship-caliber young guys and drag them into seven,

02:13:58.000 eight, nine rounds and then set traps for them and eventually capitalize on them. 0.93

02:14:01.000 There's very few guys that get to the point, like, Bernard got into his feet.

02:14:07.000 When he changed his nickname to The Alien, I didn't think it was a better nickname, but it was maybe a more appropriate one.

02:14:13.000 But then when he fought Joe Smith and he got knocked out through the ropes and fell and landed on his head, I was like, oh, Jesus Christ.

02:14:20.000 But the difference you highlight, I think it's really important between Hopkins and Silva, which is that It would not be accurate to say that Silva lived on his chin.

02:14:30.000 That is not true.

02:14:32.000 But it would be accurate to say there was a couple of times he let it slide.

02:14:36.000 You'd see times in fights where he would kind of just take one and then his head would whip, but he'd still be right there.

02:14:41.000 How about the Jorge Rivera fight?

02:14:43.000 Right.

02:14:43.000 Remember the cage rage fight?

02:14:44.000 He'd let him punch him in the face.

02:14:45.000 Right. 0.82

02:14:46.000 I mean, that was a little more demonstrative.

02:14:48.000 That was crazy.

02:14:49.000 Okay, but there was all these moments where he would kind of let it go, and he just, at 45, you just do not have the capacity for that at all.

02:14:58.000 Yeah, you don't.

02:14:59.000 Yeah.

02:14:59.000 And also, again, we're talking about a natural 45, a guy who can't, you know, you have a very low testosterone level.

02:15:07.000 Bro, my back hurts.

02:15:08.000 I'm 41. My back hurts when I got a fucking bed. 1.00

02:15:10.000 I'm not a one-class athlete, but I'm just saying. 0.99

02:15:12.000 Full training camp.

02:15:13.000 But even if you watch him train, it's not what you want to see.

02:15:18.000 I've watched training footage of Anderson.

02:15:20.000 It's hard to say, unless you're in the gym with him day in, day out, what kind of output he's really doing.

02:15:27.000 But when I'm watching him hit the mitts and hit the pads, it's just not what I used to see.

02:15:33.000 He is one of, I think, three.

02:15:36.000 There may be more.

02:15:37.000 But if I had to ask how many fighters currently competing in the Ultimate Fighting Championship have pro MMA wins that predate 9-11, Robbie Lawler, him, and Overeem were the ones that come to mind.

02:15:47.000 That's about it.

02:15:48.000 There might be a couple more.

02:15:49.000 Diego, but Diego's out of the mix now, right?

02:15:52.000 I'm not even sure he has a win that predates 9-11.

02:15:53.000 He might, but the point is...

02:15:55.000 Not in the UFC, you're right, because his debut was 205. Oh, not in the UFC. Maybe just period.

02:16:00.000 2005. Does he have one that predates 9-11, really, Diego?

02:16:02.000 I don't know.

02:16:03.000 He's 2005. He was his debut in the UFC when he won Ultimate Fighter Season 1. Okay.

02:16:08.000 Right?

02:16:08.000 That's 2005, wasn't it?

02:16:09.000 2005, correct.

02:16:09.000 Mm-hmm.

02:16:10.000 There's a certain beauty to it, which is, and I know you appreciate this, you know, I was thinking about it.

02:16:14.000 I was like, there's a lot of strikers and a lot of great fighters folks don't remember.

02:16:17.000 And Silva, I don't even fought him, but like, you know, Mark Weir.

02:16:19.000 Sure.

02:16:20.000 Mark Weir's a great fighter.

02:16:22.000 Dude, Silva's maybe best fight, and this is debatable because of the Chael Sonnen comeback, but you asked me, like, my favorite Anderson Silva fight?

02:16:29.000 He fought Lightning Lee Murray.

02:16:31.000 Lee Murray!

02:16:32.000 Cage Rage! 0.97

02:16:32.000 In Cage Rage, in London. 0.97

02:16:35.000 By the way, everyone knows Lee Murray as, like, oh, the guy who robbed the bank, because it's such an incredible story, and I recognize that.

02:16:41.000 But put that aside for just a minute. 1.00

02:16:43.000 Lightning Lee Murray was a bad motherfucker. 1.00

02:16:45.000 Bad motherfucker. 1.00

02:16:45.000 He could fight his ass off. 1.00

02:16:47.000 He was very good. 0.92

02:16:48.000 Vicious power. 0.99

02:16:49.000 And athletic and quick and like, super fucking, just elegantly evil, okay? 0.99

02:16:56.000 And Anderson Silva beat the fucking brakes off of him. 0.99

02:16:59.000 Beat the brakes off of him. 0.99

02:17:00.000 In London, in front of Lee Murray's hometown crowd and did it with a certain gusto.

02:17:04.000 Mm-hmm. 1.00

02:17:05.000 And no one knows that shit! 1.00

02:17:07.000 Can you imagine if you just joined... 1.00

02:17:10.000 Listen, you come to MMA when you come to MMA. You can't be one of these fans who beats up on newer fans.

02:17:15.000 I got lucky.

02:17:16.000 Someone introduced me.

02:17:18.000 But can you imagine understanding Anderson Silva as a function of Conor McGregor popularity?

02:17:22.000 You came to UFC because of him, and that's all you know? 0.99

02:17:25.000 Oh my fucking god! 0.99

02:17:27.000 You missed the whole show? 1.00

02:17:28.000 Yeah, you missed the evolution.

02:17:31.000 Because there was times where, like if you go back, do you remember Alex Stiebling, the Brazilian killer?

02:17:36.000 They didn't like that nickname too much, did they?

02:17:39.000 Anderson caught him with a high kick and busted open his eyebrow and stopped him.

02:17:43.000 But I believe, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, Jamie, pulled up Anderson Silva's record.

02:17:49.000 I think Rio Chonan beat him after Lee Murray.

02:17:52.000 Yes, he did.

02:17:53.000 The Rio Chonan, man, that was a crazy fight.

02:17:57.000 So did it.

02:17:57.000 What's his face?

02:17:57.000 Where he hit him with that flying scissors hold?

02:17:59.000 Yeah, that was his last fight in Pride.

02:18:00.000 He went from that, I think, to...

02:18:02.000 Maybe he had the Otsuka fight.

02:18:03.000 I have to go look it up.

02:18:04.000 But he went from that to the Lieben fight, I believe.

02:18:06.000 So something like that.

02:18:08.000 I think he might have fought one more time in cage rage.

02:18:11.000 So Lee Murray and then Rio Chonan.

02:18:13.000 And Curtis Stout, another good striker that folks don't remember.

02:18:16.000 Cage rage 14. So that's what's interesting, right?

02:18:19.000 So he loses to Rio Chonan and then beats the fuck out of Jorge Rivera, but that was after the Lee Murray fight.

02:18:27.000 So he went from Lee Murray, which was arguably, I agree with you, one of his most impressive victories, and then Rio Chonan beats him.

02:18:35.000 People forgot about Rio Chonan.

02:18:37.000 And then the Yushin Okami win is just a...

02:18:39.000 That was a disqualification.

02:18:40.000 He upkicked him on his knees, basically.

02:18:42.000 That was BJ's promotion.

02:18:43.000 And then the Tony Fricklin crazy upward elbow.

02:18:46.000 Hot!

02:18:46.000 Remember that?

02:18:47.000 Yeah.

02:18:47.000 And then he went and fought Chris Lieben after that.

02:18:49.000 Remember when Lieben said he was going to send him back to Japan?

02:18:51.000 Yeah.

02:18:52.000 Hi.

02:18:52.000 I'll never forget.

02:18:53.000 I was at...

02:18:54.000 So I had a job in Washington, D.C. and this job I hated.

02:18:56.000 I used to work a little bit in politics. 1.00

02:18:57.000 And I hated this fucking job. 0.99

02:18:59.000 And I'll never forget. 1.00

02:19:00.000 It was the night of Silva versus Lieben.

02:19:04.000 And everyone was like, hey, we got a bunch of work to do, blah, blah, blah, blah.

02:19:06.000 And I was like, I had to make up some excuse.

02:19:08.000 I'm like, I think I have AIDS. I'm sick.

02:19:10.000 I don't know.

02:19:10.000 Something's wrong.

02:19:11.000 And I was like, I had to go home.

02:19:12.000 And I sprinted home.

02:19:14.000 And then I was like, I don't want to watch this alone.

02:19:15.000 And I went to a bar that was near where I was living at the time.

02:19:18.000 And I watched it.

02:19:19.000 And it was one of the most...

02:19:22.000 Drinking alone stories usually don't end with a smile and glee.

02:19:26.000 But none of my friends like MMA. I'm just the only one.

02:19:30.000 So I didn't have anybody to call. 0.99

02:19:31.000 So I was like, fuck, I'm just going to go to the bar. 0.99

02:19:32.000 And I watched it. 0.99

02:19:33.000 And it was one of the truly great sports memories of my life.

02:19:37.000 Yeah, I remember I had friends come into that.

02:19:39.000 And that was back when you could bet.

02:19:41.000 I mean, you still can bet.

02:19:42.000 But I used to bet on fights.

02:19:45.000 I used to bet on fights before.

02:19:48.000 Nobody told me not to.

02:19:50.000 But I decided at a certain point I probably should stop.

02:19:53.000 And I don't think I'd bet on that.

02:19:56.000 I think that was like the last one I didn't bet on.

02:19:58.000 Because we're like, this is stealing money.

02:20:00.000 Because whatever the line was, it wasn't big enough.

02:20:03.000 I was like, listen to me.

02:20:04.000 And I was talking to my friends. 1.00

02:20:04.000 I go, that motherfucker can't lose. 1.00

02:20:07.000 I go, this guy's an assassin. 1.00

02:20:08.000 Can I make a request to Jimmy to look it up?

02:20:10.000 Can you go to bestfightodds.com?

02:20:12.000 I'm not paid.

02:20:12.000 It's just a repository for good information.

02:20:14.000 You can look up someone's odds throughout their career.

02:20:17.000 Oh, okay.

02:20:17.000 How it opened, how it closed.

02:20:18.000 Let's go bestodds.com.

02:20:22.000 That's what it is?

02:20:22.000 No, bestfightodds.com.

02:20:24.000 Bestfightodds.com and try to find the Chris Lieben-Anderson Silva fight.

02:20:27.000 All you have to do is just punch in someone's name like Wikipedia and it'll show you all their odds.

02:20:30.000 But I remember telling my friend, this is stealing money. 1.00

02:20:33.000 I'm like, this motherfucker's an assassin. 1.00

02:20:34.000 I'm like, he's so good. 1.00

02:20:36.000 He's so good.

02:20:37.000 I thought it might be competitive in the sense that Silva was better.

02:20:40.000 Here we go.

02:20:41.000 So do they have it? 1.00

02:20:42.000 Ah, fuck. 1.00

02:20:43.000 I don't think they have it. 1.00

02:20:44.000 It goes all the way back to Nate Marquardt.

02:20:47.000 That was 2007. How is it that close?

02:20:49.000 Jesus.

02:20:50.000 Yeah, that's crazy. 0.99

02:20:51.000 Well, Nate was really fucking good. 0.98

02:20:53.000 That's why. 0.96

02:20:54.000 I mean, Anderson was only a two-to-one favorite back then, but you've got to remember, that's Nate Marquardt when he was in his prime.

02:21:01.000 And Nate Marquardt...

02:21:02.000 King of Pancreas, bro!

02:21:03.000 When I talked to Brendan Shaw, when Brendan Shaw was training with Nate Marquardt, he goes, dude, let me tell you something. 0.99

02:21:07.000 He goes, I never saw that motherfucker lose a round in sparring. 1.00

02:21:10.000 Nate Marquardt is a guy who, at one point in time, was one of the elite of the elite. 0.99

02:21:15.000 Remember he knocked out Damien Maia with one punch?

02:21:17.000 In the air. 1.00

02:21:18.000 Yeah, he was a fucking killer, man. 1.00

02:21:21.000 But... 1.00

02:21:22.000 He knocked out Tyron Woodley with one of the most nasty fucking video game combinations you've ever seen. 0.99

02:21:29.000 It was like right out of Mortal Kombat. 0.98

02:21:30.000 He hit a...

02:21:31.000 What's his face?

02:21:31.000 Who's the striking coach?

02:21:32.000 Christian Allen?

02:21:33.000 Is that his name?

02:21:34.000 The striking coach over there for him?

02:21:37.000 He's the striking coach at Elevation now, I think.

02:21:39.000 He's like Corey Sanhagen's guy.

02:21:41.000 Is that who he is?

02:21:41.000 I think it's Christian Allen.

02:21:42.000 I've never talked to him, but everyone tells me he's a fucking genius. 0.99

02:21:45.000 He hit Wilson Gouveia. 0.99

02:21:46.000 Remember this?

02:21:47.000 He hit him with the punch, punch, high kick, spin, back fist.

02:21:54.000 Oh, yeah.

02:21:55.000 He hit him with that.

02:21:57.000 God, I forgot about that guy too.

02:21:59.000 Wilson Gouveia, another good guy.

02:22:00.000 There's so many fighters that just like you forget about Travis Luter.

02:22:04.000 Like, oh yeah!

02:22:05.000 Yeah, but he's training the next gen of guys.

02:22:06.000 Is he?

02:22:07.000 Kevin Holland's out of Travis Luter's gym.

02:22:09.000 Is he really? 0.99

02:22:10.000 Kevin Holland's fucking good, man. 0.99

02:22:12.000 He's fucking good. 0.99

02:22:13.000 Travis Luter's one of those guys where I remember when he fought Silva, I was like... 0.99

02:22:20.000 This one might be worth watching.

02:22:21.000 And then he missed the weight.

02:22:22.000 Let me tell you this, dude.

02:22:23.000 I've never seen anybody closer to death than I did Travis Luter on his way to making the weight.

02:22:28.000 When he missed the weight and then he was going to the scale and I saw him shuffling because he couldn't walk, couldn't pick his legs up.

02:22:35.000 He was shuffling like he was snow skiing, right?

02:22:38.000 And then his lips were cracked.

02:22:40.000 Like you could see the red in between the cracks.

02:22:43.000 Like he had no water in his body and he was trying to make weight and he couldn't make weight.

02:22:47.000 That's how Khabib was.

02:22:48.000 I interviewed him.

02:22:50.000 We had Media Day before the Ferguson fight at 209, which obviously did not happen.

02:22:55.000 We did Media Day, and it was my turn to talk to Khabib, and I stuck a microphone in his face, and he had the worst...

02:23:01.000 I've seen in 15 years in the fight business, and I've covered collegiate and Olympic wrestling a little bit, I've seen cottonmouth. 0.90

02:23:08.000 I've seen a lot of it.

02:23:09.000 That is the worst cottonmouth I have ever seen in my life.

02:23:12.000 I mean, he could barely separate the tongue from the inside of his mouth.

02:23:16.000 It's crazy to make guys talk like that.

02:23:18.000 It's also crazy that we allow that.

02:23:20.000 I applaud 1FC for their weight cutting measures.

02:23:23.000 I think what they've done, their whole hydration thing, I think it's the most important thing in MMA. I think we need to do that across the board, but I think there needs to be more options for fighters.

02:23:33.000 I think there should be more weight classes.

02:23:34.000 I really, really, really do.

02:23:36.000 I'd be a little bit skeptical of them.

02:23:37.000 Yeah?

02:23:38.000 Here's what I'm saying.

02:23:39.000 The weight hydration system, as we understand it through collegiate wrestling, appears to be a godsend, right?

02:23:46.000 So what we understand of it works.

02:23:48.000 Now, I want to be very clear about what I'm about to tell you.

02:23:50.000 I am not declaring to you that what they are telling us about their weight cutting system is wrong, because like you, I've talked to Ben Askren, I've talked to Gary Tonin, and they really enjoyed it.

02:23:59.000 What I'm telling you is, I'm a little bit skeptical of the veracity of the claims that aren't independently verified.

02:24:06.000 They have only recently begun to stream their weigh-ins and even then you can't see what's on the scale.

02:24:11.000 You have no idea about if someone is missing weight and there could be any number of factors related to whether or not they actually made it.

02:24:18.000 I'm just telling you, personally as a guy in media, I do not take promoter's word for it.

02:24:23.000 And so this is not me declaring to you that their weigh-ins are Fugazi.

02:24:26.000 This is me declaring to you, until we get independent verification of them, I would pause a little bit on some of their claims.

02:24:32.000 Do you know what Fugazi really means?

02:24:33.000 Do you know where it comes from?

02:24:34.000 I know the band, and I know it's supposed to mean like, because I'm from D.C. Fugazi is actually how I pronounce the band.

02:24:38.000 I say Fugazi.

02:24:39.000 But it means sort of counterfeit.

02:24:41.000 It was a company that was writing bad checks.

02:24:43.000 I'm pretty sure it was a limo company.

02:24:45.000 That sounds perfect.

02:24:46.000 They were writing bad checks, and so it became like synonymous with a Fugazi check.

02:24:50.000 I found my friend Mike Starr, who's in Goodfellas, been in a bunch of movies.

02:24:56.000 He was in Dumb and Dumber.

02:24:58.000 He told me about it. 1.00

02:24:59.000 I was like, what the fuck is Figazi? 0.98

02:25:00.000 I'm from D.C., so we know waiting room. 0.99

02:25:03.000 I have a bit of skepticism about their drug policy.

02:25:07.000 A bit?

02:25:08.000 Yeah, quite a bit.

02:25:10.000 And now that Vitor's over there, they've got a few guys over there that look pretty juicy.

02:25:15.000 Yeah, good.

02:25:15.000 I don't care.

02:25:16.000 It doesn't bother me.

02:25:17.000 I don't care if it's known.

02:25:20.000 The thing is, I wish there was a policy.

02:25:26.000 There's an argument that could be made when it comes to things like Tour de France, that you could argue that it's safer to do it with the steroids than it is without.

02:25:38.000 It kills the human body.

02:25:40.000 Yeah, it's destructive.

02:25:41.000 And there's an argument that doing that with it is actually healthier.

02:25:47.000 The problem is in this country we have this idea that you're cheating and it's un-American. 0.60

02:25:53.000 We have it from baseball and Mark McGuire. 1.00

02:25:56.000 A lot of stupid ideas, Joe Rogan. 1.00

02:25:58.000 Yeah, there's a lot of weirdness when it comes to that. 1.00

02:26:00.000 So the last few years, I remember I used to talk to Travis Tigert who runs USADA pretty regularly back in 2015 or so.

02:26:09.000 And I found him to be a very earnest guy, very nice.

02:26:11.000 I think he's very committed to his mission.

02:26:13.000 I have nothing bad to say about him personally other than now.

02:26:17.000 I couldn't find more disagreement with him if my life depended on it.

02:26:21.000 Basically, it sent me down a rabbit hole.

02:26:22.000 And let me tell you what I've been doing the last five years of my life.

02:26:25.000 No one will tell you this.

02:26:26.000 I don't know why.

02:26:27.000 But there is this entire movement.

02:26:30.000 And I don't mean of...

02:26:35.000 I'm talking academic scholars with research who have done the homework in the most complex of ways, right?

02:26:43.000 There is this entire body of work around anti-doping.

02:26:47.000 And if you follow the rabbit hole that I went down, this is not some YouTube rabbit hole.

02:26:50.000 In fact, if you look, you can't find it.

02:26:53.000 It's dense reading, quite candidly.

02:26:55.000 The history of anti-doping, where it comes from, how it developed, and what the status is today, you can only come away with a couple of conclusions.

02:27:03.000 One, anti-doping globally is a dramatic failure.

02:27:06.000 It has not worked.

02:27:07.000 And number two...

02:27:09.000 The major problem that I have is I'm not expecting everyone to agree with what I say about anti-doping.

02:27:14.000 Many of my views are outside of the Overton window.

02:27:17.000 But the debate around anti-doping is so incomplete and so dishonest that it's hard to get in a word edgewise.

02:27:25.000 It's hard to get people to understand that you're just repeating 1980s drug war nonsense without even really realizing that's what you're doing.

02:27:34.000 If you actually examine the facts of the case, What is the conclusion you've come to?

02:27:41.000 What does that mean?

02:27:59.000 Financial doping is basically a way to cook.

02:28:01.000 They call it doping because it's a way to make things sound bad.

02:28:03.000 In fact, the word doping comes from the early 20th century when they were trying to figure out a name for giving horses drugs.

02:28:09.000 They called it doping and then they used that.

02:28:11.000 They ported it over to human athletics to sort of make it sound...

02:28:15.000 And by the way, in fairness, it was the mafia doing a lot of that.

02:28:18.000 So they took this sort of like organized crime human on animal crime and then they...

02:28:35.000 Mm-hmm.

02:28:48.000 But there's a couple of scholars, Werner Muller, I think he's out of Denmark, and then Paul DiMio out of Scotland.

02:28:54.000 They have written a couple of books on the history of anti-doping, on the state of anti-doping, on the ethics of doping and anti-doping.

02:28:59.000 These are not guys who think that steroids should just be legal.

02:29:02.000 People think that, like, this is one of the major problems with being in the position that I'm in.

02:29:05.000 People are like, oh, you just think everyone should take steroids.

02:29:07.000 No, that's not what I think.

02:29:09.000 I think if you're an athlete and you say, listen, man, I'm really good and I don't want to take drugs to compete, I think that's perfectly reasonable.

02:29:17.000 I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

02:29:18.000 But when you begin to drill down how you solve that problem, no one really wants to get to what the heart of the issue is.

02:29:23.000 First, the issue is this.

02:29:27.000 Everyone, you cannot understand drugs in America without understanding media hysteria and how it has changed things.

02:29:36.000 And no one should appreciate this more than you.

02:29:38.000 Think of any drug we've ever had.

02:29:41.000 To what extent have false media narratives, exaggerated claims, totally ridiculous things, have had to been year over year pulled back by virtue of...

02:29:53.000 Evidence that has weighed in or whatever the case.

02:29:56.000 Reefer Madness is sort of the common example.

02:29:58.000 Steroids is exactly that way. 0.97

02:30:00.000 The claims of harms related to them are totally overstated.

02:30:03.000 It does not mean there are no harms.

02:30:04.000 It means relative to what people have claimed, it is simply not true.

02:30:08.000 In fact, the Australian government did a study over what would be the most harmful drugs in a human experience, and it was behind tobacco.

02:30:16.000 It was behind numerous other drugs well in advance that are perfectly legal.

02:30:21.000 And have a deeper societal acceptance.

02:30:24.000 So that's for harm, though.

02:30:26.000 Right, it's for harm, yes.

02:30:27.000 But in terms of actual performance...

02:30:29.000 Yeah, I'll get to that.

02:30:30.000 The argument about steroids, especially as it relates to combative sports, if you wanted to make the claim that if you and I were fighting and were, let's say, reasonably equal, and I took it and you didn't, it tilts the competitive balance and that makes it unfair, I would agree.

02:30:44.000 I think that is actually true.

02:30:45.000 I don't think there's much argument about that.

02:30:46.000 But that is not really fully what they claim.

02:30:49.000 What they claim as it relates to MMA or any other combative sport is that it makes MMA safer.

02:30:55.000 There is literally not a shred of evidence they have ever presented not one time that makes that true.

02:31:02.000 Joe, you've been watching MMA a long time.

02:31:04.000 It looks safer to you.

02:31:06.000 No, I wouldn't imagine it makes it safer.

02:31:09.000 I wouldn't imagine.

02:31:09.000 Right, but that was a key selling ingredient when USADA was sold to the public about why it was necessary.

02:31:14.000 I think the argument is that if someone is on it and the other person isn't, a la Vitor versus Michael Bisping, that Michael Bisping winds up blind in one eye from a high kick by Vitor.

02:31:24.000 Right, so let's remove that example for one second because it's such a powerful example.

02:31:28.000 It's like the Ben Johnson of examples.

02:31:31.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:31:31.000 By the way, Carl Lewis was on some shit too. 1.00

02:31:34.000 Of course. 1.00

02:31:34.000 Of course he was. 1.00

02:31:36.000 Yeah, he was on some shit. 1.00

02:31:37.000 Show me the evidence that since the introduction of USAID... Allegedly. 1.00

02:31:40.000 Don't sue me, Carl.

02:31:40.000 Yeah, don't...

02:31:41.000 Carl, be friendly.

02:31:42.000 Come on, Carl.

02:31:42.000 Get together with Calvin.

02:31:43.000 Show me the evidence.

02:31:44.000 Show me the evidence that MMA has become safer as a virtue because what everyone had said at the time was, this is not like hitting a baseball.

02:31:51.000 This is not like dunking a basketball.

02:31:52.000 We need to protect the health and safety of athletes.

02:31:54.000 Right.

02:31:54.000 The Vitor Belfort incident doesn't even come close to the Cyborg versus MVP incident where he cracked his skull, which was ostensibly totally done naturally.

02:32:02.000 Yes.

02:32:02.000 Okay.

02:32:02.000 The idea...

02:32:03.000 That was crazy.

02:32:04.000 It was super fun. 1.00

02:32:04.000 It's fucking crazy. 1.00

02:32:06.000 Fighting is like smoking. 1.00

02:32:07.000 You can smoke marble reds, you can smoke menthols, you can smoke lights.

02:32:12.000 At the end of the day, you're putting yourself at risk at a pretty significant degree.

02:32:16.000 It does not matter what kind of filter you put on the cigarette.

02:32:19.000 And you can make the argument that if you are taking EPO and if you are taking testosterone, you'd have more energy to get away from shots as much as you would have energy to land them.

02:32:29.000 I think the argument about...

02:32:29.000 So maybe it could be safer.

02:32:30.000 Here's the issue.

02:32:31.000 I think the argument about taking what is complex...

02:32:33.000 And I think ultimately the athletes should decide.

02:32:36.000 So who should decide who takes what in the UFC? I think the athletes should work with the UFC to make a broader decision.

02:32:42.000 And by the way, they might decide that USADA is what they want.

02:32:44.000 I cannot preclude that as a possibility.

02:32:46.000 But to me, it's like, let's take the Pepsi challenge.

02:32:48.000 Let's bring in Vada.

02:32:49.000 And let's see how many, to a man, decide this is something that they want.

02:32:53.000 I bet you you get the numbers drop off fairly significantly.

02:32:55.000 Do you think there's a way to skirt the system right now, even with USADA? Do you think there's some therapeutic, some shit that people aren't... 0.97

02:33:03.000 Do you think so? 0.99

02:33:04.000 Of course there is.

02:33:05.000 I would imagine, but I'm ignorant to it, so I'm just guessing.

02:33:08.000 Let's say something outright.

02:33:09.000 This will get me in trouble with the Puritans, but I think it deserves to be said. 1.00

02:33:13.000 Drum roll, please.

02:33:14.000 When I watch athletes who I think or know are on something, the sport tends to be better. 0.98

02:33:21.000 When I watch Mark McGuire hit balls into fucking Mars, I love it. 0.96

02:33:26.000 I think it's great. 1.00

02:33:27.000 Well, especially baseball, because that's the only good thing about that stupid fucking sport. 1.00

02:33:30.000 It's not my favorite sport in the world. 1.00

02:33:32.000 One of those meatheads hits a ball into another dimension.

02:33:34.000 Right, but when I watch any other sport where I know it's drug-addled, it does not reduce my enjoyment of it.

02:33:40.000 You're supposed to have this moralistic, puritanical idea about drugs.

02:33:44.000 I do not, because I understand this is complex, but the basic idea is this.

02:33:50.000 All the claims that folks want to make about MMA as it relates to safety, there is no indication that if you say USADA is working, it's any safer.

02:33:58.000 You're asking about how it's being used now.

02:34:00.000 It's a little hard to say because, again, USADA claims a lot of victories without providing any evidence about them.

02:34:07.000 Can you imagine somebody you hired to do some kind of service for you?

02:34:12.000 Claiming all the victories they claim, and then when you ask to see the receipts, they don't have any.

02:34:17.000 I know Jeff Nowitzki came on your show, and I'm sure he means well, but saying that the testosterone has been lowered, I actually asked Paul DeMio about it.

02:34:23.000 It means nothing.

02:34:25.000 In any way, there's no way to draw any conclusion about usage.

02:34:28.000 There's a guy, by the way, who has a YouTube channel, More Plates, More Dates.

02:34:31.000 He's been a long-time steroid user and PED user.

02:34:33.000 He has gone through several UFC fighters.

02:34:35.000 He has shown, there was a recent study that was done, you can still take I think?

02:34:54.000 What we know from academic research is that is there a reason to believe that relative to what commissions we're doing, that the introduction of USADA has overall depressed usage?

02:35:04.000 There is some reason to believe that.

02:35:06.000 Well, there's physique changes.

02:35:08.000 Yes, but again, here it goes again.

02:35:10.000 Everyone doesn't respond to physique changes equally.

02:35:13.000 In other words, you could have genetics that make major pronouncements and change related to physique change, and I could take the exact same thing you're taking and not have the same result.

02:35:22.000 But the point is this, is that as it relates to these considerations, what ends up happening is you might depress overall usage, but what you do is you end up empowering the folks at the higher end.

02:35:32.000 I mean, since 1960, the growth in pharmaceuticals, which the anti-doping world basically just plays catch-up on all the time, I mean, they didn't catch Marion Jones, right?

02:35:41.000 The way they got her was somebody mailed some shit anonymously, then they developed a test for it, and all of a sudden, eureka.

02:35:45.000 But the amount of independent stuff they can find to catch everyone is... 0.90

02:35:49.000 Yeah.

02:36:11.000 But what is the alternative?

02:36:13.000 The alternative is you let people get juicy as they want?

02:36:15.000 No.

02:36:15.000 Do you have limitations?

02:36:16.000 So here's my view on things.

02:36:18.000 Okay.

02:36:18.000 Number one, look at American football.

02:36:20.000 And this is what kills me when MMA fans try to defend USADA. It's like, this ain't the hill to die on, folks.

02:36:26.000 In American football, we have multiple deaths and fatalities every year.

02:36:31.000 I'm sorry, deaths or paralysis every year.

02:36:33.000 Not just that, we have multiple deaths at the high school level annually annually.

02:36:38.000 Annually, these kids die.

02:36:40.000 If you look at the health outcomes from American football relative to fighting, it is much worse across the board in American football. 0.99

02:36:48.000 And that is a sport where you can get caught taking something and they'll suspend you for four fucking games. 0.99

02:36:54.000 You are watching in the NFL, and I don't want to name names because I don't want to be sued, but you see a lot of guys in their 40s or late 30s continuing to do shit that they're not supposed to be able to do, or they look like fucking He-Man. 0.98

02:37:03.000 It's because it is very easy to take something in the NFL and avoid detection, and the fans simply do not care.

02:37:09.000 The idea that they're really concerned about the health and safety, given the outcomes and given the nature of the sport, simply does not match the reality at all.

02:37:19.000 So, what do I think is best?

02:37:22.000 Couple of things.

02:37:22.000 One, if you have a system where the athletes have a say, and they work with the organization, and they carve out a system where it may not be as rigorous as possible, because by the way, there's a study out of the University of Adelaide.

02:37:33.000 Testing is basically low information.

02:37:36.000 It's basically theater for low information fans.

02:37:38.000 It does something, but not really all that much. 0.76

02:37:40.000 The real big fucking fish that USADA gets or any other anti-doping agency is a function of investigations through snitching, which MMA fans don't like.

02:37:48.000 I'm like, folks, that's how the sausage is made. 0.97

02:37:49.000 I don't know what to tell you.

02:37:50.000 So if you wanted to do testing, you'd have to do it literally.

02:37:52.000 The University of Adelaide has a study that came out that said it would have to be basically every day.

02:37:56.000 But that would require privacy invasions, right?

02:37:58.000 So you have this enormous amount of privacy invasions where they have no life.

02:38:01.000 They would constantly be under rigorous control.

02:38:03.000 What would be different though with testing every day versus testing randomly?

02:38:08.000 How would you catch someone? 0.60

02:38:10.000 Obviously, if they're taking something and you just wake them up at 6 o'clock in the morning, hey, Frankie Edgar, I gotta check your piss.

02:38:17.000 You're gonna catch them if they're taking something on a daily basis, right?

02:38:22.000 You mean through random or through...

02:38:24.000 Random.

02:38:24.000 Random is the idea is that it would happen frequently enough...

02:38:28.000 That there would be no method of, or at least very few methods of wooding detection.

02:38:33.000 The idea, though, is that there are sufficient things you can take to gain real clear advantages that even randomized testing simply could not account for.

02:38:42.000 Again, it would be some kind of proprietary drug that a rich person could make that there'd be no test for, as a clear example.

02:38:49.000 So, but if you did...

02:38:50.000 Okay, so something that doesn't have a test for it currently.

02:38:53.000 Right.

02:38:53.000 Something like the Clear.

02:38:54.000 Something like what Balco came up with.

02:38:56.000 Yeah, something like that.

02:38:57.000 But there's a couple of examples.

02:38:57.000 So, here's what I'm saying to you.

02:38:59.000 One is, like, what's a suitable model?

02:39:01.000 Well, NBA, MLB, to a lesser extent, but MLB, and then NFL. We already exist in a world where basically a pretty significant chunk of those guys are taking something, and nobody seems to care, and it works out well for everyone.

02:39:13.000 What people claim they don't like is sort of the scandalization of it all.

02:39:17.000 What is the Billy Corbin documentary on Alex Rodriguez?

02:39:20.000 Oh, I've seen it.

02:39:21.000 Screwball. 0.99

02:39:21.000 It's fucking great. 0.99

02:39:22.000 Fucking amazing. 0.99

02:39:23.000 It's fucking great. 0.99

02:39:24.000 Is it those little kids acting? 0.99

02:39:25.000 Yeah, little kids are acting the part of Billy Corbin, or excuse me, Alex Rodriguez and the other players.

02:39:31.000 And all these low-level mafioso types, you know?

02:39:34.000 But what a genius idea to do it that way.

02:39:37.000 Well, let me just get this out.

02:39:38.000 Sorry, I know I'm ranting, but the last thing is this.

02:39:41.000 There's a couple different methods you can pick.

02:39:42.000 You can just decide that the existing professional sports leagues, in my judgment, have totally figured it out, which is that you get a union to organize, basic protections.

02:39:49.000 You put kind of a lid on the lobster, and you just let it cook there without sort of really being super inside the details about it, which means you will allow for some, but you basically get to a point where there's not Too many violations, you're not giving too much of an advantage, and you just let it rock because the general for-profit sports world tends to prefer that.

02:40:08.000 Yeah, but then we're agreeing to deception.

02:40:10.000 We're agreeing on deception.

02:40:12.000 We already agreed to deception.

02:40:13.000 Right, but why do that?

02:40:15.000 You saw it as not the cure to the...

02:40:17.000 Well, listen, I'm not a fan of some of the practices.

02:40:20.000 The big one is things like Josh Barnett, right?

02:40:22.000 Josh Barnett gets hit for a tainted supplement.

02:40:26.000 He disputes it.

02:40:27.000 He's out for, I believe it was more than nine months. 0.99

02:40:31.000 They say, oh, we fucked up. 0.94

02:40:33.000 It's a mistake. 0.98

02:40:34.000 You're free to fight.

02:40:35.000 But what happens to all that time and money that he's missing?

02:40:38.000 Nothing.

02:40:39.000 No one compensates him.

02:40:40.000 It gets worse than that.

02:40:41.000 They don't exonerate him.

02:40:42.000 How about Tom Lawler?

02:40:44.000 I mean, they took his career from him.

02:40:46.000 It needs to be said out loud.

02:40:47.000 USADA tested Tom Lawler.

02:40:50.000 And they said, you tested positive for, it was an Osterian at the time, and you tested at such a level, we're going to ban you for two years.

02:40:56.000 Two years later, they come up with a test that makes them give more refined results.

02:41:00.000 And they come back and they say, if you had tested at this level, you'd have been totally exonerated. 0.99

02:41:04.000 They took that fucking guy's career from him. 0.97

02:41:07.000 And they never apologized and they never acknowledged that basically they had too much belief in their scientific instrumentation to ever say sorry. 1.00

02:41:16.000 Dude, that is fucking evil. 1.00

02:41:17.000 That is evil. 1.00

02:41:18.000 You cannot do that to a person.

02:41:19.000 So this is my point.

02:41:22.000 There's one system which is basically let a union decide and the union decides with the sports organization.

02:41:29.000 The other one is basically what the strength of fitness world has done, which is that you have some competitions where you just don't test, and you have some where you do.

02:41:39.000 And that's not a perfect solution either, right?

02:41:41.000 Because you can still take it and try to take the one that's sort of...

02:41:44.000 Yeah, but again, we're agreeing to deception.

02:41:46.000 This is why I'm with you most of the way.

02:41:49.000 There is no alternative.

02:41:51.000 Well, isn't the alternative, let them do whatever they want?

02:41:55.000 Sort of.

02:41:56.000 And not test.

02:41:57.000 Sort of.

02:41:57.000 I mean, at that point...

02:41:58.000 See, because I just don't imagine a world where we're going to agree that you're allowed to lie.

02:42:04.000 That doesn't make any sense to me.

02:42:06.000 Oh, that's the world we live in.

02:42:07.000 I understand.

02:42:08.000 But to legislate this, to mandate this...

02:42:11.000 You're saying there's some kind of harm to it.

02:42:14.000 If you have an organization like the UFC, that's this multi-billion dollar organization, they're never going to come up with rules or say, hey guys, we know you're going to lie, so we're going to allow you to lie, and we're going to talk to your unions, and we're going to set it up so you can lie.

02:42:29.000 They're not going to do that.

02:42:30.000 No, no.

02:42:31.000 But what they will agree to is certain amounts of protections for the rights of athletes, and through those protections...

02:42:35.000 They could lie.

02:42:36.000 They could lie, yes. 0.99

02:42:37.000 That seems so ridiculous to me. 0.98

02:42:38.000 That's the world we live in, man. 0.92

02:42:40.000 But is it the world we live in?

02:42:41.000 Every lawyer in the world has used that trick.

02:42:43.000 Let's assume, let's go from where we are now to the future, where I agree with you, we will have...

02:42:49.000 Things like CRISPR and genetic manipulation and some other methods that we probably haven't even invented yet.

02:42:55.000 And they're going to invent them and they're going to have perfect physical specimens.

02:42:59.000 What do we do then?

02:43:00.000 Then it's going to be ridiculous to say that you can't do certain things because it's going to be undetectable.

02:43:04.000 It's going to be unstoppable.

02:43:06.000 You're going to have people in China that are making designer babies that are seven feet tall and they're built like He-Man. 0.99

02:43:12.000 We're going to get to that point eventually, right?

02:43:14.000 Right.

02:43:15.000 So here's the deal.

02:43:15.000 You have to have stratified sports.

02:43:17.000 Is the answer.

02:43:18.000 And people don't want that balkanized world.

02:43:20.000 Stratified how so?

02:43:21.000 In the sense that basically what happens now is that like, let's say you want to compete in elite weightlifting, right?

02:43:26.000 That's what you want to do.

02:43:27.000 You don't really have much of a choice to do it other than through the Olympics.

02:43:31.000 But if you want to do it through the Olympics, then it involves a series of procedures that relate to anti-doping and blah, blah, blah.

02:43:35.000 Okay.

02:43:36.000 But what if you want to do like strongman, for example, people kind of clown it because they do it in a circusy way.

02:43:40.000 I agree.

02:44:03.000 For those who do want to do drugs and for those who don't.

02:44:05.000 For weight classes, for age, for gender, and everything else in between.

02:44:09.000 Now, you don't get the satisfaction of saying that you won Tour de France, the only competition that relates to that.

02:44:14.000 I mean, there's other races, but there's only one Tour de France.

02:44:18.000 But you have to live in a world where you just understand some of these are going to...

02:44:23.000 Everyone wants to make it like, oh, I'm the athlete who doesn't want to take drugs.

02:44:27.000 What about me?

02:44:28.000 Right.

02:44:28.000 Well, what about the two athletes who both don't mind taking drugs?

02:44:32.000 Right.

02:44:32.000 What are we supposed to do for them?

02:44:33.000 We're supposed to say you can't take drugs?

02:44:34.000 Why?

02:44:35.000 Imagine a world where they never did put any restrictions on testosterone replacement use and Vitor Belfort still around.

02:44:42.000 Okay, but see, I'm actually against TRT. Really?

02:44:44.000 What?

02:44:44.000 Yeah, for a couple of reasons.

02:44:45.000 Who the fuck are you and what have you done with Luke? 0.99

02:44:49.000 For a couple of reasons. 1.00

02:44:50.000 One is that the easiness of it was a little too much for me.

02:44:54.000 There should be some hurdles to taking some kind of drug.

02:44:57.000 You should be able to lie, like, cleverly?

02:44:59.000 You should put some effort into your lying.

02:45:01.000 There should be a little bit of hurtling.

02:45:03.000 You shouldn't just be able to go to a doctor?

02:45:04.000 No.

02:45:05.000 That's the problem.

02:45:06.000 If it's that easy and it's that ubiquitous and it's that easy to hide, you've not created enough stumbling blocks and obstacles along the way to deter some usage.

02:45:14.000 The whole point is to deter the low-hanging fruit.

02:45:16.000 That's what you really want to sort of iron.

02:45:18.000 But doesn't that set it up so that the rich guys and the guys that are the big camps that are funded by major sponsors, they're the ones that are going to have the best athletes?

02:45:26.000 It's the opposite.

02:45:28.000 Now is what you have that.

02:45:29.000 Now is what you have because the other ones are super restricted.

02:45:31.000 They don't really have much of an opportunity to fight back against any kind of other form of testing.

02:45:36.000 They're really sort of subject to it.

02:45:38.000 They can't afford a lawyer to challenge it.

02:45:39.000 So you are of the opinion, and we don't need to name camps, but the top camps employ scientists or doctors or someone who knows how to get around the system.

02:45:51.000 I don't know about top camps.

02:45:52.000 I don't know how it would work that way.

02:45:53.000 But you're asking me like top athletes?

02:45:55.000 More plates, more dates guy.

02:45:56.000 I know that guy looked at Yoel Romero.

02:45:59.000 And Paulo Costa.

02:46:01.000 Yeah.

02:46:01.000 And a bunch of stuff.

02:46:03.000 And again, is everything he says gospel?

02:46:04.000 I don't think so.

02:46:05.000 But I think his take on Yoel Romero was that he's a genetic freak.

02:46:09.000 Right. 0.99

02:46:10.000 But he got fucked by USADA too. 1.00

02:46:11.000 Yes, he did. 0.99

02:46:12.000 Right.

02:46:12.000 Well, so did Tim Means, right?

02:46:14.000 Another guy.

02:46:15.000 Who doesn't look like he's on steroids at all.

02:46:16.000 Right.

02:46:17.000 There's a bunch of guys.

02:46:18.000 A bunch of female fighters too, right? 1.00

02:46:20.000 Haven't they been popped?

02:46:21.000 Sure.

02:46:21.000 For tainted supplements?

02:46:23.000 Sure.

02:46:23.000 They have no one protecting them.

02:46:25.000 Yeah, but it's also like you're not supposed to take that stuff.

02:46:27.000 Okay, I mean, listen.

02:46:28.000 I've dealt with fighters for a long time.

02:46:31.000 They're not the most organized people in the world.

02:46:33.000 I love them.

02:46:34.000 God bless them.

02:46:34.000 They're the most inspiring people I know.

02:46:36.000 You're preaching to the choir.

02:46:37.000 Buddy, I can't tell you how many times I'm like, okay, 1 p.m.

02:46:39.000 East Coast time, we have an interview.

02:46:42.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:46:42.000 And they just, oh, they're like, oh, I was napping.

02:46:45.000 Like, you think they're going to take, they're going to look on the fucking bottle? 0.99

02:46:48.000 I mean, come on. 0.99

02:46:49.000 No.

02:46:49.000 And let's be honest.

02:46:51.000 Also, there's a lot of guys who say they took a tainted supplement when really they were probably microdosing and they got busted.

02:46:57.000 Right.

02:46:57.000 There's also that as well.

02:46:58.000 Yeah, there's that as well.

02:46:59.000 So I think you have to look at two situations.

02:47:00.000 One, do you want a professional sports world like we have, where people claim they care very much about health outcomes, but they really don't, where people are obviously using in the NFL? Which, by the way, I mean, how do you get through an NFL season without growth hormone?

02:47:12.000 I would love to know.

02:47:13.000 Probably very difficult to do that.

02:47:14.000 Peptides?

02:47:15.000 Okay, but here's my point.

02:47:16.000 Something is a brutal, vicious game.

02:47:19.000 And then on the other side, or you can just, you can balkanize it a little bit.

02:47:22.000 You can have divisions for older people.

02:47:24.000 You can have divisions for people who don't want to take drugs.

02:47:27.000 And for the ones who do, again, does this solve all the problems, Joe?

02:47:31.000 It does not solve all the problems.

02:47:32.000 But it's a much more honest and policeable world.

02:47:36.000 When I talked to Roy Jones and talked about the Mike Tyson fight, he told me that they're testing.

02:47:41.000 They're doing VADA testing.

02:47:42.000 And I was like, man, like, Roy's 51 and Mike is 54. And I'm like, hmm, boy.

02:47:50.000 I would have swore that's not the case if you looked at Mike's physique.

02:47:54.000 He looks ripped.

02:47:55.000 He looks so shredded.

02:47:57.000 But he might be one of those outliers, one of those rare Herschel Walker type dudes.

02:48:01.000 That can be 54 years old and be shredded.

02:48:04.000 I mean, there are guys like that out there that have just unbelievable genetics and maintain their physique deep into their 50s.

02:48:11.000 I mean, Yoel is what?

02:48:12.000 45, I think?

02:48:14.000 Something?

02:48:14.000 3?

02:48:14.000 He looks ridiculous.

02:48:16.000 He's insane. 1.00

02:48:17.000 He's the epitome of specimen. 1.00

02:48:19.000 He's a specimen.

02:48:20.000 Do you know what happened with him once?

02:48:21.000 Want to hear this story?

02:48:22.000 I told it before.

02:48:23.000 Forgive me if you've heard it, folks.

02:48:25.000 He got a fracture.

02:48:27.000 I think it was in Australia.

02:48:29.000 He had an orbital fracture.

02:48:31.000 And after the fight, I think it was the Whitaker fight.

02:48:36.000 Doctors examine him, and the doctor calls up the UFC and goes, Where did you get this guy?

02:48:41.000 And he goes, he's one of the UFC fighters.

02:48:44.000 He's like, this guy's a specimen.

02:48:47.000 He goes, yeah, yeah, he's amazing, right?

02:48:49.000 He's a top fighter.

02:48:50.000 He goes, no, [...

02:48:52.000 Like, I've never seen a person like this.

02:48:55.000 He's like, I've been doing, I've been a doctor for decades.

02:48:59.000 He goes, his tendons in his eyes are three times larger than a normal person's.

02:49:05.000 And he goes, and that fracture's already healing.

02:49:08.000 Yeah, and so Dana was telling me about this, and he was saying that, you know, Cubans had this crazy athletic program, and they were doing all kinds of experiments with people, and he thinks that they did some experiments with athletes to create super athletes.

02:49:24.000 Like, you remember Corellin?

02:49:26.000 You know, Corellin was, they called him the experiment. 0.99

02:49:29.000 That was his nickname, because his parents were both like 5'5", 5'7", and he's a fucking giant of a man. 0.99

02:49:37.000 A refrigerator. 0.99

02:49:37.000 Who moves like a panther? 0.99

02:49:39.000 You know, literally a 300 pound man who moves like a panther.

02:49:43.000 And, you know, obviously Cuba had a deep relationship with Russia.

02:49:47.000 And if you've seen the movie Icarus, you've seen that movie, right?

02:49:50.000 Which is an amazing movie on doping. 1.00

02:49:52.000 Like, Russians don't fuck. 0.99

02:49:56.000 I mean, they had a very specific program. 1.00

02:49:58.000 No corner cutting with them.

02:50:00.000 No corner cutting.

02:50:01.000 It was like super scientific and everyone's on board.

02:50:04.000 Like, you're not going to compete on the natch.

02:50:06.000 Like, no, no, no, no, no, no. 1.00

02:50:06.000 We're here to win, bitch. 1.00

02:50:08.000 And, you know, I don't know what they did to make Yoel Romero, but that's not a normal human. 0.99

02:50:14.000 And everybody who fights him says the same thing.

02:50:16.000 Luke Rockhold said it feels like he's made out of metal.

02:50:19.000 Yeah.

02:50:19.000 It's like you fight the guy.

02:50:21.000 It's like he's made out of steel.

02:50:22.000 Yeah, here's what's funny.

02:50:23.000 So I tore my labrum lifting weights maybe 10 years ago or something.

02:50:28.000 And the guy who ended up doing my surgery, by the way, the MMA fan.

02:50:32.000 He loved talking MMA whenever I would go see him.

02:50:34.000 Was the previous orthopedic surgeon years ago for, at the time, the Washington Redskins.

02:50:40.000 They've since changed their name.

02:50:40.000 But NFL football team.

02:50:42.000 And I was like, what are they like?

02:50:43.000 Like, cutting these dudes open.

02:50:44.000 He's like, this is exactly what he told me.

02:50:48.000 He goes, they're not built like you and me.

02:50:50.000 You know, he was like saying, you cut them open and you can't believe that the muscle fibers look the way they look.

02:50:54.000 Or that the tendons are attached with the same kind of, like, tensile strength, whatever the proper terminology is.

02:51:00.000 He's like, it was just like, everything you understand about the human anatomy, you know it from a sort of averaged position.

02:51:06.000 And then you see these Herculean monsters... 0.98

02:51:09.000 And you're like, oh, so that's what Mothra looks like when you cut him open or some shit. 0.99

02:51:13.000 Well, that's what I'm thinking is going to happen eventually in MMA if the money does get higher. 0.60

02:51:18.000 You're going to see more of these next-level Yoel Romero-type athletes because they exist more in NFL and NBA. Like, imagine.

02:51:27.000 You know, a guy like LeBron James fighting in MMA, who's like just a perfect specimen.

02:51:33.000 Imagine these Michael Jordans.

02:51:35.000 Imagine these next level athletes, which unfortunately, a lot of those guys wind up going to sports like basketball or baseball because there's more money.

02:51:45.000 There's more money in those sports and you don't get kicked in the face.

02:51:47.000 You know, and then the football guys, like, there's more money in football. 0.96

02:51:51.000 Like, you can make a fucking insane amount of money in football. 0.99

02:51:54.000 Like, I was just reading about some guy whose contract was like $400 million, like some crazy shit. 1.00

02:52:00.000 In football? 0.99

02:52:01.000 Yeah.

02:52:01.000 I'm not sure who that would be.

02:52:03.000 Who's got the most money in football?

02:52:06.000 Patrick Mahomes.

02:52:07.000 Maybe it was baseball.

02:52:08.000 This is how little I pay attention to sports.

02:52:09.000 You're missing out, man.

02:52:10.000 There was an article yesterday about a guy who is getting his full contract in baseball, and it's a lot of money.

02:52:15.000 It's like $300 million.

02:52:16.000 Yeah, maybe it's that guy.

02:52:17.000 Bro, have you seen D.K. Metcalf?

02:52:19.000 No. 1.00

02:52:19.000 Holy fucker. 1.00

02:52:20.000 Who's that guy? 1.00

02:52:20.000 A motherfucker. 1.00

02:52:22.000 Yeah? 1.00

02:52:22.000 You think Yoel Romero's a specimen? 1.00

02:52:24.000 Can you pull up D.K.? Really?

02:52:25.000 Yeah.

02:52:26.000 Have we talked about him before?

02:52:26.000 No.

02:52:27.000 Pull up D.K. Metcalf at the combine.

02:52:29.000 Oh, my God.

02:52:30.000 Dude.

02:52:32.000 Here's the thing.

02:52:33.000 I disagree with you halfway, which is to say, to the extent you get this kind of athlete, you're probably going to get, on average, better results. 1.00

02:52:38.000 The one caveat, look at this motherfucker. 1.00

02:52:42.000 Bro, he's a... 1.00

02:52:43.000 That's the guy!

02:52:45.000 Joe, Joe, he's a pass catcher.

02:52:47.000 How much does he weigh?

02:52:48.000 6'4", 229. What was his...

02:52:50.000 He's 229?

02:52:52.000 Yeah, dude, what were his combine numbers?

02:52:54.000 His bench and his run.

02:52:56.000 He is, look at this, 6'3", the 1% body fat is not real, but he did run a 4-3-3, he benched 225 27 times, and he had a 40-inch vertical. 0.99

02:53:07.000 Look at that motherfucker. 1.00

02:53:08.000 He can't be 1% body fat. 1.00

02:53:09.000 No, that part's not real. 0.99

02:53:11.000 But holy shit, is he shredded. 0.99

02:53:12.000 Look at that. 0.99

02:53:13.000 Woo! 1.00

02:53:14.000 I mean, try tackling this fucking wall. 1.00

02:53:17.000 The thing about fighting, though, that separates the men from the boys is the mind. 1.00

02:53:21.000 Right.

02:53:22.000 And the difference between being able to perform in a sport and being able to fight another man who's trying to separate you from consciousness is a very different thing.

02:53:30.000 It's like some guys just can't rise to the occasion in a fight.

02:53:33.000 This is the big thing he did last week while he went viral.

02:53:36.000 He is right here.

02:53:38.000 Watch him at the top of the screen.

02:53:39.000 I'm going to start it over again, though.

02:53:40.000 Watch him at the top of the screen.

02:53:41.000 There's this guy here.

02:53:42.000 Top of the screen.

02:53:43.000 Here he comes.

02:53:43.000 Middle.

02:53:44.000 Look at him run this fucking guy down. 1.00

02:53:46.000 Oh my god. 1.00

02:53:47.000 Look at him.

02:53:48.000 Dude, he's 240 pounds and he runs the guy down.

02:53:52.000 That guy should be very fast also.

02:53:54.000 Yeah, by the way, the guy he's running down is like a wide receiver.

02:53:59.000 Super fast.

02:54:00.000 That's amazing.

02:54:01.000 That's amazing. 0.99

02:54:03.000 It's just amazing how many times these guys get tackled and it doesn't just rip their fucking legs apart. 0.99

02:54:08.000 Sorry, it was an interception, so it would be a cornerback who got this, I believe. 0.99

02:54:10.000 Watch DK Metcalf. 0.99

02:54:12.000 He goes for it, misses, and then comes back around and chases this fucking guy down. 0.99

02:54:16.000 That's amazing. 0.99

02:54:16.000 It's unheard of for a guy this big. 0.99

02:54:19.000 There he is.

02:54:20.000 There's DK right here.

02:54:23.000 Look at him. 1.00

02:54:24.000 Fucking smoking. 1.00

02:54:25.000 Look at him go! 1.00

02:54:26.000 Dude, DK Metcalf is so impressive.

02:54:28.000 Oh my god, that's amazing.

02:54:29.000 You ever watch the combine?

02:54:31.000 When the combine comes on, dude, I'll turn off everything.

02:54:33.000 My wife is like, you're watching a bunch of dudes run. 0.99

02:54:35.000 I'm like, not dudes.

02:54:36.000 Heroes.

02:54:38.000 Superheroes.

02:54:38.000 But to your point about the fighting, Mark Ellis.

02:54:42.000 You remember Mark Ellis?

02:54:42.000 Yeah.

02:54:43.000 He was like a Division I national champion wrestler.

02:54:45.000 I think he had one fight in Pro Elite, and he was like, no mas.

02:54:49.000 This is the one caveat.

02:54:50.000 I don't know about DK Metcalf or anybody else.

02:54:52.000 But you see these guys, and in terms of athletic ability, they're beyond comparison.

02:54:58.000 Yeah.

02:54:59.000 But there is something about two things.

02:55:00.000 One, people are always like, oh, with fighting, it's like you have to learn how to be punched in the face.

02:55:05.000 Yes, that's half of it.

02:55:06.000 The other half is, and I think people overlook this, You have to have something constitutionally where you're willing to hurt another person.

02:55:14.000 And not everyone has that.

02:55:15.000 Not to the same amount.

02:55:16.000 That is not an automatic response.

02:55:18.000 It might be in the case of an emergency.

02:55:20.000 It's not just that.

02:55:20.000 You have to solve a puzzle.

02:55:21.000 You have to solve a puzzle that's in front of you.

02:55:23.000 And reason through it.

02:55:24.000 Yeah, there's a lot going on.

02:55:25.000 There's creativity that's involved in fighting that may not be involved in a lot of other sports that are just pure strength and speed and athleticism and a knowledge of moves and understanding of positions.

02:55:34.000 But there's a different thing that's going on where you're trying to create an opening.

02:55:38.000 When you're trying to create an opening fighting, You know, there's things that people can do in fighting that...

02:55:44.000 Also, you have to commit to that at a very young age if you want to be elite. 0.94

02:55:49.000 Like, you can be a guy like Greg Hardy, who has a reasonably successful career as a heavyweight, just because he's a tough motherfucker who hits really hard and he's a very good athlete.

02:55:58.000 But are you ever going to be Francis Ngannou?

02:56:01.000 Are you ever going to be Stipe Miocic?

02:56:04.000 It's like there's a level that you reach where you only reach that level if you've been training it most of your life.

02:56:13.000 And particularly for striking, for some reason.

02:56:15.000 There's exceptions to that rule where some people can figure it out, but not in boxing.

02:56:20.000 In boxing, it's very rare that someone even picks it up after their teenage years and reaches an elite world championship level.

02:56:28.000 There's something about the timing and the understanding of...

02:56:31.000 It's like, to someone who's looking out on the outside, it's a guy trying to punch another guy, the guy's trying to punch you, you're trying to punch him.

02:56:37.000 But there's so much more to it.

02:56:39.000 That's why a guy like Floyd Mayweather always wins. 0.89

02:56:42.000 Like, he's got a vocabulary that's just fucking volumes and volumes of books, and you got a little pamphlet. 0.92

02:56:52.000 Yeah. 0.95

02:56:52.000 You got a little pamphlet of ideas, you know? 0.95

02:56:55.000 And he's standing in front of you with his shoulders like this and you think, oh, I see. 0.77

02:57:00.000 I can hit this guy. 1.00

02:57:01.000 You don't have a fucking chance in hell. 1.00

02:57:04.000 He's so many steps ahead of you. 1.00

02:57:06.000 That's what you saw in the Conor McGregor fight.

02:57:08.000 He just slowly lures Conor into his web and so relaxed and composed and eventually starts piecing him up and taking him out.

02:57:17.000 But there's levels that I think you only achieve if you start while your body's developing.

02:57:24.000 There's something that happens while your body's maturing and growing with striking.

02:57:28.000 That's where the real speed and timing and power comes from.

02:57:32.000 And again, there's exceptions.

02:57:34.000 There's some people that are just sensational athletes.

02:57:36.000 I don't think Gilbert Burns started out as a striker.

02:57:39.000 I don't think he started out doing any striking. 0.97

02:57:41.000 I think he learned how to do that shit as a world champion jiu-jitsu player who got into MMA. But he's a rare freak, you know? 0.99

02:57:48.000 But it's also...

02:57:50.000 He's already a champion martial artist.

02:57:52.000 He already knows how to smash men, right?

02:57:55.000 There's a thing about that.

02:57:57.000 There's a thing about knowing how to solve a puzzle, knowing how to figure a man out, getting a hold of a man's neck and putting him to sleep.

02:58:04.000 He knows how to do that already.

02:58:05.000 So to figure out that, I just need to know how to put knuckles to chin.

02:58:09.000 And he's already a fast guy.

02:58:11.000 He's already an explosive guy.

02:58:12.000 And the dedication that allows someone to get to a world championship level...

02:58:16.000 In jujitsu, it's the same thing in striking.

02:58:20.000 If he just puts the time in and has the focus, the intensity, and figures out how to put in with the right coaching, which is also huge.

02:58:28.000 The wrong coaching can set a guy back for...

02:58:30.000 I mean, it could ruin you.

02:58:31.000 The wrong coaching can ruin you. 0.99

02:58:33.000 Someone with bad ideas and piss-poor strategy and execution, you could fucking ruin... 0.97

02:58:39.000 You can run into a guy like Duke Rufus, and he can create a world champion out of you. 0.96

02:58:43.000 There's so many factors that play into it, but if you can get a guy who has that mentality, has a fighter's mentality, a person who wants to risk it all...

02:58:54.000 You know, and not have the protection of other players, not have the, you know, the caveat, well, you know, the team, we didn't put together defensively, and we'll be back next Sunday. 0.99

02:59:03.000 Bitch, there's no next Sunday when you get head kicked, right? 1.00

02:59:06.000 You know, like, you're not fighting again for a long time, you're suspended for 90 days, you're not even supposed to be sparring, you know, and then when you come back, you're probably still going to be a little bit fucked up from that fight. 0.99

02:59:16.000 There's a thing about fighting that separates us from all the other sports.

02:59:20.000 I hate to say it again, but I call it high-level problem-solving with dire physical consequences.

02:59:25.000 It's different than anything else.

02:59:27.000 Because there's so much going on.

02:59:29.000 It's just two people.

02:59:30.000 And there's so much going on in those exchanges.

02:59:34.000 And it's so hard to read unless you know it and understand it.

02:59:37.000 It's like the ground game.

02:59:38.000 One of the things that meant so much to me when I first started doing commentary...

02:59:42.000 Was expressing what I know about the ground game so that a person who's never trained at all can understand it.

02:59:48.000 So when people are going through positions, and a guy gets to a position, and I know they're close to a finish, or I know they've reached a pivotal point, I would get excited and explain it.

03:00:00.000 I wanted to explain it so descriptively, like, now he's got to get the arm. 0.99

03:00:04.000 And once he gets that arm past his leg, now he's fucked. 0.98

03:00:07.000 And being able to do that to people so they could piece it together and watch it at home. 0.99

03:00:11.000 Like, oh, when Khabib mounted him and sat on top of him and put his leg around him.

03:00:16.000 Oh, that's how he's heading up the triangle.

03:00:18.000 And then he finishes Justin with it.

03:00:20.000 Oh! 0.99

03:00:21.000 I wanted to be able to show people what I feel when I see a guy do a mounted triangle in a fucking world championship MMA fight and then find out the guy had a fucking broken foot when he did it. 0.99

03:00:35.000 Madness! 0.99

03:00:35.000 Just madness! 0.99

03:00:37.000 Not every baseball player can do that.

03:00:40.000 Not every soccer player can do that.

03:00:42.000 Not every football player can do that.

03:00:44.000 It takes a man with a gladiator's mind like Khabib Nurmagomedov to do something like that.

03:00:50.000 That's an unusual human.

03:00:52.000 It's the 1% of the 1%. 0.99

03:00:54.000 Well, I would say, for me, I often view the combative arts like a language, which is why learning them five, six, seven, that's actually teach someone a second language, right?

03:01:03.000 If you teach them at two, they don't actually pick it up.

03:01:05.000 You have to wait a few years, and then they begin to get it, and then they learn to speak.

03:01:09.000 You can't force it on them when they're young.

03:01:10.000 Yeah, I've tried with my daughter.

03:01:12.000 It's not, you know...

03:01:14.000 She prefers Apple to Manzano.

03:01:16.000 We're working on it.

03:01:16.000 But the point being is you wait until they're 5, 6, 7, and they begin to begin to get absorbing.

03:01:20.000 And then once it becomes the language and the fluency and everything begins, by the time they're 14, 15, 16, 20, 21, my God, the fluency is sort of incredible at that point.

03:01:29.000 So that's part of it.

03:01:30.000 Wrestling is the same as boxing in that way.

03:01:31.000 You have to start very, very young to actually want to compete later on.

03:01:35.000 But the other part is the problem solving.

03:01:36.000 I would say that someone who's like a quarterback, Dude, that is high-level problem-solving.

03:01:40.000 Oh, for sure.

03:01:41.000 It's not the same kind of situation where...

03:01:43.000 And this is why, again, everyone's going to focus on a different aspect of fighting that really appeals to them.

03:01:47.000 The problem-solving is interesting, and that's why Adesanya faking and fainting, because he keeps him at a distance so he can watch everything.

03:01:53.000 I hate to have favorite fighters, but right now he's my favorite guy to watch.

03:01:56.000 Next to Khabib. 0.98

03:01:58.000 Because there's something about Stylebender, man, especially that Adesanya, the Paulo Costa fight. 0.98

03:02:04.000 God damn, did he shut down the hype. 0.97

03:02:06.000 Yeah. 1.00

03:02:06.000 He changed the way I broke down fights. 1.00

03:02:08.000 Ever tell you this?

03:02:08.000 I guess I haven't because the first time I'm talking to you, but I was just thinking about this the other day.

03:02:12.000 He did something in the Silva fight where I was watching and I was like, I don't know what the fuck he is doing here. 0.89

03:02:17.000 I can't make it. 0.95

03:02:18.000 If you just watch it, even in slow motion, I can't make heads or tails of it.

03:02:22.000 I don't understand what the point of it is.

03:02:24.000 So because of him, now when I break down fights, I actually start.

03:02:28.000 I go round by round and I make notes every time any kind of strike lands or misses.

03:02:34.000 And then I begin to go back and I piece together a narrative based on what, if there is a narrative, sometimes there's not, but more often than not there is, about what is happening.

03:02:42.000 And I had to do it from this stance and then that stance because he was switching stances.

03:02:46.000 Close distance, far distance, inside distance.

03:02:49.000 He is so meticulous and so thoughtful but so effortless that I had to peel everything apart before I could even begin to comprehend it.

03:02:58.000 People go and look at that fight and go, oh, well, he only won 29-28.

03:03:09.000 I agree.

03:03:23.000 He doesn't have a peer in that particular regard.

03:03:25.000 I really enjoyed your breakdown of the Paulo Costa fight.

03:03:28.000 Thanks.

03:03:28.000 Yeah, particularly that one where you broke down how he pointed the fake, like he faked, pointed out that Paulo fell for it, and then kicked his leg right afterwards.

03:03:39.000 Yeah, you bit on it. 0.98

03:03:39.000 Dude, he fucked that guy's mind up. 0.98

03:03:43.000 Afterwards, like, you signed a contract, signed the guy's contract. 1.00

03:03:48.000 Contract!

03:03:49.000 Did you just not watch what happened?

03:03:51.000 You got torn apart for two rounds where you landed two body kicks and one leg kick for two rounds and you got dismantled and dropped to the left hook and then beaten down and dry humped.

03:04:03.000 That was the...

03:04:05.000 And you're talking about a guy in Paulo Costa that everyone was terrified of.

03:04:09.000 The guy who walked down, Yoel Romero.

03:04:11.000 The guy who was smashing everybody they put in front of him.

03:04:13.000 He's a destroyer. 0.99

03:04:15.000 I mean, Paulo Costa's a fucking terrifying force. 1.00

03:04:18.000 Terrifying. 0.99

03:04:19.000 Adesanya just had all the answers. 0.99

03:04:21.000 And he knew he had all the answers coming in.

03:04:23.000 What do you think about Adesanya Jones? 1.00

03:04:25.000 Where are you on that?

03:04:25.000 I love it!

03:04:27.000 Yeah, everyone loves it.

03:04:28.000 How competitive do you think it is?

03:04:29.000 Well, he's got to get past Jan Blachowicz. 1.00

03:04:31.000 First of all, that motherfucker hits hard. 1.00

03:04:35.000 Yeah, he does. 1.00

03:04:35.000 He hits scary. 1.00

03:04:36.000 When he put out Dominic Reyes, I was like... 1.00

03:04:38.000 Holy shit. 0.99

03:04:40.000 And with a weird punch, too. 1.00

03:04:42.000 A weird left hand over the top that fucked him up. 1.00

03:04:45.000 He's a beast, man. 1.00

03:04:47.000 And he's another guy that was killing himself, making 185. Goes up to 205 and starts nuking motherfuckers. 1.00

03:04:54.000 He's a dangerous, dangerous guy. 1.00

03:04:56.000 You can't make any mistakes with that guy.

03:04:58.000 Gustafson out-wrestled him for three rounds.

03:05:00.000 And at the time, I remember people being like, oh, he had to wrestle him.

03:05:02.000 He ain't that good.

03:05:03.000 I'm like, in retrospect...

03:05:04.000 That's a great win by Gustafson.

03:05:06.000 A great win.

03:05:07.000 A great win.

03:05:07.000 Yeah.

03:05:08.000 Look, you know, that guy moving up to 205 is going to be some growing pains, but now he's the champion, and he knows that he can nuke a guy like Dominic Reyes, who went five hard rounds with Jon Jones, and in your eyes, won the fight against Jones.

03:05:22.000 It's the only time I've ever scored against Jones.

03:05:23.000 The only time. 0.98

03:05:24.000 It was fucking tight. 0.99

03:05:25.000 It was tight. 0.99

03:05:26.000 It was arguable, for sure. 0.96

03:05:27.000 I'd have to go over and watch it again if I wanted to score, but I remember thinking, God damn, this guy is ahead, deep. 0.87

03:05:33.000 And then John came on strong in the fourth and fifth. 0.94

03:05:36.000 But he nuked that guy. 1.00

03:05:38.000 He nuked Reyes.

03:05:39.000 And it's not like Reyes wasn't in the fight, but when he started hitting that left kick to the body and left that gigantic brute, you'll realize this dude hit so hard.

03:05:49.000 And his game is all power.

03:05:51.000 He's just a big power striker.

03:05:53.000 And just durable and tough. 1.00

03:05:56.000 Just a bad motherfucker. 1.00

03:05:58.000 He's impressive. 1.00

03:05:59.000 He's a force.

03:05:59.000 I had Dominic Reyes on my show after the loss to Jon Jones.

03:06:03.000 And we talked about his game plan.

03:06:04.000 And his game plan was pretty smart if you think about it.

03:06:06.000 Which is, you're not going to barrel down on Jon.

03:06:09.000 It's really not going to happen.

03:06:10.000 Jon, I think his offense is not the same as it used to be.

03:06:12.000 But his defense, if you look at the numbers and just what the tape shows you, Jon's defense is excellent.

03:06:17.000 Why do you think is offense not what it used to be?

03:06:20.000 What do you think is different?

03:06:21.000 So do yourself a favor.

03:06:21.000 If you have Fight Pass, Fight Pass, I can't say enough good things about Fight Pass.

03:06:25.000 I think they need to update their interface, but in terms of the service it does for someone like me, because you think you see a fight in your head one way, then you go back and you watch it, and you're like, oh my god. 0.82

03:06:32.000 I totally forgot half this shit, you know?

03:06:34.000 So it's a great way to remind yourself. 0.99

03:06:36.000 But if you go back and you look, he had a certain kind of wrestling dominance from the Shogun to the Rashad, really even up through most portions of his career that has begun to wane.

03:06:45.000 His takedown ability has gone from about the mid-50s, a little higher than that.

03:06:49.000 I'd say the 60s to about the 30s.

03:06:51.000 It's dropped off a cliff.

03:06:52.000 What do you think's happened?

03:06:53.000 The game has just gotten better.

03:06:55.000 I mean, if you think about it, Dominic Reyes didn't make his pro debut until 2014. Now, Jon Jones was the fucking man already by then, right? 0.96

03:07:02.000 I mean, long since been the man by 2014. So how could it be that a guy can be training that long and at least make it that competitive on paper? 0.97

03:07:08.000 It's because best practices have gotten much, much better.

03:07:11.000 So what Dominic Reyes wanted to do was create motion.

03:07:14.000 The idea was to get John moving because if he's stationary or he's barreling down on you, he's much harder to hit.

03:07:20.000 But to the extent you can get the guy moving, he's open to the body and to the legs.

03:07:24.000 Now that's a hard way to win because really the head contest is what wins and loses fights more often than not.

03:07:28.000 Whether or not that's fair, it's hard to win a fight on body shots unless you drop them.

03:07:33.000 But I thought he did win it.

03:07:34.000 So he tried the same kind of thing against Jan Blachowicz.

03:07:37.000 He was trying to bait motion.

03:07:38.000 He was trying to bait activity.

03:07:40.000 Blachowicz no-sold it completely. 0.99

03:07:42.000 He was just standing there going, nope, not playing any of this bullshit whatsoever. 0.99

03:07:46.000 Yeah, come close, get nuked. 1.00

03:07:48.000 That was his game.

03:07:49.000 And so Reyes couldn't.

03:07:51.000 I don't think he was expecting that.

03:07:53.000 I think he had a hard time adjusting.

03:07:54.000 Also, when he smashed Reyes' nose, Reyes was in deep trouble.

03:07:58.000 He had shattered his nose before that big overhand. 0.87

03:08:01.000 He's just a beast of a man.

03:08:03.000 I think that's an interesting fight to watch Stylebender fight him, and apparently that's the next fight for Stylebender.

03:08:08.000 It's going to be at light heavyweight.

03:08:09.000 I don't know if it's going to be for the title.

03:08:11.000 Oh, yeah.

03:08:12.000 It is going to be for the title.

03:08:13.000 Is this confirmed?

03:08:14.000 Oh, yeah.

03:08:14.000 No, no, it hasn't been.

03:08:15.000 It is confirmed, Jamie?

03:08:16.000 So Dana White announced it.

03:08:18.000 We've not had a full-on confirmation, but Stylebender did an interview with Submission Radio.

03:08:23.000 Those are a couple guys out of Australia, and he was talking like it was a done deal.

03:08:27.000 So they haven't formally announced it, but I would expect it.

03:08:30.000 I'm very interested to see that because Blachowicz has that power style and Stylebender is, in my opinion, the most sophisticated striker the sport's ever seen.

03:08:39.000 And he's so clever.

03:08:40.000 And you look no further than the Paulo Costa fight. 1.00

03:08:44.000 I mean, Paulo Costa is a fucking gorilla. 1.00

03:08:46.000 He's just an attacking, smashing dude. 1.00

03:08:49.000 And he...

03:08:50.000 He had nothing for him.

03:08:52.000 He had nothing for him.

03:08:53.000 And then afterwards, to see Paulo Costa, I was injured, I was this, I was that, signed the contract.

03:08:59.000 It's like, bro, stop talking.

03:09:01.000 Take away his iPhone.

03:09:02.000 Stop.

03:09:03.000 Stop talking.

03:09:04.000 What is happening here?

03:09:05.000 Opens as heavy favorite over UFC light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz.

03:09:09.000 Oh my goodness!

03:09:10.000 You know what though?

03:09:11.000 But Blachowicz has been slept on forever.

03:09:13.000 There's nothing new there.

03:09:14.000 I've been wrong about him a million times too, you know?

03:09:16.000 Yeah, well, it's very, very interesting.

03:09:19.000 Can you pull up his record though real quickly?

03:09:21.000 Last thing on this?

03:09:21.000 Can you pull up Blachowicz's record?

03:09:22.000 Because here's a guy who I think lost the majority of his first six UFC fights. 0.98

03:09:28.000 I think he lost like three or four of them or some shit. 0.73

03:09:30.000 He had like a really not a great run at first. 0.73

03:09:33.000 But dude, you know what's amazing?

03:09:34.000 These guys, like Michael Bisping or whatever, it's one thing to persevere in the moment.

03:09:38.000 It's another one to have just like long-term relentlessness.

03:09:43.000 So look, scroll down here if you can for just a second.

03:09:45.000 So he starts there.

03:09:47.000 He wins against Ilir Latifi, which is a nice win.

03:09:50.000 And then he loses to Manawa and Anderson.

03:09:52.000 He beats Igor Perkayak.

03:09:54.000 Then he loses to Gustafson and Cummins.

03:09:55.000 So he's losing four of his first six.

03:09:57.000 Mm-hmm.

03:09:58.000 But then he's like, you know what? 1.00

03:09:59.000 Fuck all you hoes. 1.00

03:10:00.000 And then he just started... 1.00

03:10:01.000 He lost to Tiago Santos.

03:10:04.000 I believe that was the last fight at 85, right?

03:10:06.000 And he was a beast.

03:10:06.000 Okay, no harm, no foul.

03:10:08.000 And then he KOs Rockhold.

03:10:10.000 The Jacare fight was not great.

03:10:12.000 But the Corey Anderson fight is a perfect example.

03:10:14.000 Corey Anderson bodied him in the first fight.

03:10:16.000 The fact that he KO'd him with one punch like that, that is crazy.

03:10:21.000 Yeah, that was a really interesting thing because Corey can take a shot, too.

03:10:24.000 And Corey was coming off of that big win off of Johnny Walker.

03:10:28.000 Look, there's a lot of great fighters.

03:10:30.000 You know what I'm really interested in?

03:10:32.000 Alex Pereira.

03:10:33.000 Alex Pereira, who is the Glory...

03:10:35.000 I believe he's a two-division champion.

03:10:38.000 Bulletin?

03:10:39.000 Yeah.

03:10:39.000 What is he fighting for?

03:10:40.000 LFA? Yeah, I think that's right.

03:10:42.000 Yeah. 1.00

03:10:43.000 He's fucking terrifying. 0.99

03:10:44.000 And he's the last guy to KO Adesanya. 1.00

03:10:47.000 He's on my radar.

03:10:48.000 I'm really interested in seeing...

03:10:49.000 He's a champ champ over at Glory, too.

03:10:50.000 Or he was.

03:10:51.000 He's terrifying. 1.00

03:10:52.000 That guy's fucking terrifying. 0.99

03:10:55.000 That guy is almost like you want to grab his arm and feel what it feels like. 1.00

03:10:59.000 Like, what are you made out of? 1.00

03:11:01.000 That motherfucker just puts people into orbit. 1.00

03:11:04.000 He KOs everybody. 1.00

03:11:06.000 I mean, when he knocked out Jason Willis, watch this flying knee KO. Boom!

03:11:10.000 And Willis, by the way...

03:11:11.000 A beast.

03:11:12.000 By the way, beat Adesanya, I believe.

03:11:15.000 Shouldn't have.

03:11:15.000 Okay.

03:11:16.000 I gave it to Adesanya.

03:11:17.000 I gave it to Adesanya as well, but it was close enough.

03:11:19.000 Look at that.

03:11:21.000 But this is Pereira. 1.00

03:11:23.000 Look at this shit. 1.00

03:11:24.000 But he does this to everybody. 1.00

03:11:26.000 There's something about this guy.

03:11:28.000 It's like you see him hit guys and it looks like normal punches and they just go unconscious. 1.00

03:11:33.000 Like that shit. 1.00

03:11:34.000 I mean these are world-class kickboxers and this motherfucker just puts them into another dimension. 1.00

03:11:39.000 He just put out an instructional with BJJ Fanatics. 0.98

03:11:42.000 Have you seen it?

03:11:42.000 No, but he's been training a lot with Glover Teixeira.

03:11:46.000 He's in Connecticut training with Glover.

03:11:48.000 And I think it's one of the reasons why Glover has made this resurgence.

03:11:52.000 Like, Glover has looked sensational as of late.

03:11:54.000 I love Glover Teixeira.

03:11:55.000 I love Glover.

03:11:56.000 And I think one of the reasons why Glover, at 40-plus years old, has made this resurgence is he's training with Pereira.

03:12:02.000 Huh.

03:12:03.000 I mean, look, iron sharpens iron.

03:12:05.000 We all know that.

03:12:06.000 And there's something about exchanging ideas with one of the best kickboxers on planet Earth.

03:12:10.000 Not just the best kickboxer, but a weirdly powerful one. 0.85

03:12:13.000 He's a freak, man.

03:12:15.000 There's something about Pereira.

03:12:17.000 He's astonishing.

03:12:18.000 And I think him moving into the LFA, and if he gets through a few fights there, I have zero idea what his ground game is, zero idea what his wrestling, zero idea what his takedown defense is. 0.99

03:12:29.000 But he nukes motherfuckers. 0.99

03:12:31.000 I mean, in a weird way. 1.00

03:12:33.000 I mean, when he knocked out Stylebender, it was like, Jesus, one left hook.

03:12:38.000 He does it to everybody.

03:12:39.000 I know.

03:12:40.000 With the big gloves.

03:12:40.000 He's got a lot of different ways to do it.

03:12:42.000 It's not like Deontay, it's just this.

03:12:43.000 He does it with everything.

03:12:44.000 Knees, kicks, punches, everything.

03:12:46.000 All of it.

03:12:47.000 And now he can throw elbows?

03:12:48.000 He couldn't even throw elbows in glory?

03:12:50.000 Now he can throw elbows?

03:12:51.000 And he can grab you and throw knees? 1.00

03:12:52.000 Everyone's going to try and take this fucker down. 1.00

03:12:54.000 Oh, they have to. 1.00

03:12:55.000 You fucking better. 0.99

03:12:56.000 Yeah. 0.99

03:12:57.000 You better.

03:12:58.000 You're standing up with that guy.

03:12:59.000 That's death. 0.74

03:13:00.000 That's death.

03:13:01.000 I know.

03:13:01.000 I'm just like, I want to get excited.

03:13:03.000 He beat Stalbender twice in kickboxing.

03:13:06.000 I know.

03:13:06.000 By decision and by KO. I'm just dying to see how the rest of it looks because of the issue.

03:13:11.000 Well, how old is he?

03:13:12.000 How old is Alex?

03:13:13.000 I don't know.

03:13:13.000 He might be like 34-ish, 35-ish.

03:13:16.000 I was there at the last man standing tournament right before he peaked.

03:13:20.000 He was pre-peak at that point.

03:13:22.000 And he was still a formidable 33. So he's still got some time.

03:13:26.000 And it literally completely depends on how much time he has spent on the ground.

03:13:32.000 How much time he's spent drilling takedown defense.

03:13:35.000 Because it's relatively late to enter the game in MMA. You know, he's had a couple of MMA fights.

03:13:41.000 But as a kickboxer, it's just a fucking shame that he can't get the love and the money as a kickboxer. 0.98

03:13:47.000 Because as a kickboxer, you're just watching executions. 0.98

03:13:50.000 Like, when does he land?

03:13:51.000 I know.

03:13:52.000 And Gloria was a shame, because did you watch the...

03:13:55.000 Still exists.

03:13:56.000 I know, but they had some issues, obviously, due to the pandemic.

03:13:59.000 But did you watch the Badr Hari Enrico Verhoeven?

03:14:03.000 Yes. 0.82

03:14:04.000 Crazy. 0.87

03:14:04.000 Fuck, that was so fun. 0.87

03:14:06.000 That was weird, though. 1.00

03:14:06.000 They did such a great job. 1.00

03:14:08.000 How weird was the stoppage?

03:14:09.000 Like, he throws a wheel kick and then falls.

03:14:11.000 Didn't he get injured in the process?

03:14:13.000 He hurts his ankle.

03:14:13.000 Yeah.

03:14:14.000 But, I mean, just the fucking feel of it. 0.98

03:14:16.000 You've been to the Netherlands, I'm sure, right? 0.98

03:14:17.000 No, I haven't.

03:14:18.000 Never?

03:14:18.000 Never.

03:14:19.000 I think?

03:14:38.000 This is how society should be organized.

03:14:41.000 Really?

03:14:41.000 Yeah.

03:14:42.000 It's a homogenous society to a large degree.

03:14:44.000 Obviously, part of the reason why they have some problems is because to the extent that it's not homogenous, they have some issues.

03:14:49.000 But just the way you see the municipal planning and how life looks like in the cities there, it's peaceful and it's happy. 0.99

03:14:57.000 It's like, how did a place that is so tranquil and so lovable and so nice produce you savage motherfuckers? 1.00

03:15:05.000 Mm-hmm. 1.00

03:15:05.000 I mean, it's just shocking. 1.00

03:15:07.000 I know the story because the Dutch went down to Thailand and brought it back and blah, blah, blah. 0.97

03:15:10.000 Dude, it is...

03:15:12.000 If someone's like, you have to leave America because it got set on fire, where are you going to go?

03:15:17.000 Canada, a little too cold. 1.00

03:15:18.000 I'm going to the fucking Netherlands. 1.00

03:15:20.000 Really? 1.00

03:15:20.000 Yeah. 1.00

03:15:21.000 Wow.

03:15:21.000 That's where I'm headed.

03:15:22.000 Well, they certainly have an insane history of kickboxers, right?

03:15:25.000 Rob Kamen, Ernesto Hoost, you know, I mean, there's just so many.

03:15:29.000 The list is endless.

03:15:30.000 Yeah, there's so many.

03:15:31.000 Raymond Deckers.

03:15:32.000 Ramon Deckers is like one of the all-time greats, and he may be even more impressive because he was small.

03:15:36.000 He was the size of the ties, and he would go up there and light them on fire.

03:15:40.000 He was amazing.

03:15:40.000 They didn't like that too much.

03:15:42.000 Dude, he fought so hard, he shattered his ankle and had to have it fused.

03:15:47.000 And he still fought and still kicked.

03:15:49.000 They were like, you can't kick with his ankle.

03:15:50.000 You'll have to have your foot amputated. 1.00

03:15:52.000 He was like, fuck you. 1.00

03:15:53.000 Just kept kicking with it. 1.00

03:15:54.000 He was an animal.

03:15:55.000 He was literally the gold standard for European Western guys who went over and fought the Thai.

03:16:02.000 What's the word?

03:16:02.000 Farang?

03:16:03.000 Farang?

03:16:03.000 What's the Thai word?

03:16:04.000 Yeah, I think that's what they call it.

03:16:04.000 Something like that?

03:16:05.000 But it's amazing, too.

03:16:06.000 One thing about the Dutch is kind of funny.

03:16:08.000 I don't know if you've picked up on this.

03:16:09.000 The Dutch will fight their teammates without a whole lot of consternation, especially in kickboxing, where it'll be like, wait, you're from Mike's gym, and you're from Mike's gym.

03:16:18.000 How come you're fighting?

03:16:19.000 And they're like, business.

03:16:21.000 They're not personal.

03:16:22.000 I'm like, in America, that's the most personal thing.

03:16:25.000 They don't seem to have a hard time getting knocked out and getting back in there again, either.

03:16:28.000 Which brings you back to Alistair Overeem, who's a Dutchman who's just got this crazy record.

03:16:34.000 Yeah.

03:16:35.000 You want to talk about a guy who's had, what an insane record, right?

03:16:38.000 K-1 Grand Prix Champion, Dream Heavyweight Champion, Strikeforce Heavyweight Champion.

03:16:42.000 At the same time.

03:16:43.000 Yeah, and he's just gotten so close to UFC gold.

03:16:47.000 You know, hurt Stipe, dropped him, had him hurt, and just eventually wound up losing the fight.

03:16:52.000 But he's a guy, when he was juicy...

03:16:55.000 You couldn't stop him.

03:16:57.000 When he beat Brock Lesnar, that's as juicy as the world gets.

03:17:01.000 Do you remember when he was fighting in Dream and K-1 at that time?

03:17:04.000 What Michael Shiavello said about his back?

03:17:06.000 No, what did he say?

03:17:06.000 He said you could screen a movie on it.

03:17:09.000 Dude, when he fought Todd Duffy, I'm like, oh my god.

03:17:13.000 But when he fought Brock Lesnar, that's probably the most impressive.

03:17:15.000 Because he muscled Brock Lesnar around.

03:17:18.000 Like, Brock Lesnar was the guy.

03:17:20.000 And obviously Brock Lesnar coming off of diverticulitis.

03:17:22.000 He had his giant section of his small intestine.

03:17:27.000 Something like that.

03:17:27.000 Digestive organs, for sure.

03:17:29.000 Some serious stomach surgery, right?

03:17:31.000 So he's got gut surgery and not that many months removed from that.

03:17:35.000 Less than a year, he's getting kicked by Alistair over him.

03:17:38.000 I remember Alistair hit him with his shin to the body.

03:17:41.000 You see him, like, grab his body and go down, then get beaten up.

03:17:44.000 But it was the way he beat him up before that.

03:17:48.000 It was just everything about it.

03:17:50.000 He muscled them.

03:17:51.000 He moved them around.

03:17:53.000 That was the ream when he was like full uber-ream.

03:17:58.000 When he was 265 pounds, shredded, built like a tank, looked like a comic book superhero. 0.97

03:18:05.000 Goddamn, if you want to make an argument for steroids, that's the argument. 0.95

03:18:08.000 Well, again, he should be doing it against other people who know what they're in for. 0.98

03:18:11.000 I'm totally okay with that.

03:18:13.000 Well, don't you think Brock knows what he's in for?

03:18:15.000 Yeah, I mean, again, you think I have sympathy for Brock Lesnar in this case?

03:18:17.000 No.

03:18:18.000 We're talking juicy.

03:18:18.000 But here's a point about Overeem is, I remember when Ronda got knocked out by Holly, and Max Kellerman was on Twitter at the time.

03:18:26.000 Love Max.

03:18:27.000 And Max had said, you know, I don't think Ron is ever going to recover from this mentally. 0.99

03:18:31.000 And at the time, I was thinking, like, Max, you don't know shit! 0.97

03:18:33.000 Now, he ended up being right, but the reason why I felt that way was because I had seen guys like Overeem get viciously KO'd. 0.99

03:18:41.000 Or Michael Bisping.

03:18:42.000 Or Michael Bisping and come right back.

03:18:44.000 Some people can come back.

03:18:45.000 They are special, special guys, man.

03:18:47.000 Yeah, some people can come back and some people are never the same.

03:18:51.000 Before we wrap this up, there was a few other things you were saying about the UFC. I know that this has been so much fun.

03:18:57.000 We've been going on all these different rants.

03:18:59.000 But there was a few things specifically that I think we'd be doing a disservice if we didn't cover.

03:19:04.000 One of them, you think, is USADA, which I can agree with you.

03:19:07.000 Can I make one final point about that to wrap up on this?

03:19:10.000 The one thing I want folks to understand is if you look at the history of anti-doping, and again, the scholarship on this is quite clear, pre-USADA-UFC, I mean, long into the 20th century, and then Really beginning around 1968. The way in which anti-doping has moved itself forward is through, there's been reports in the media that drive further forms of hysteria,

03:19:27.000 and then that forces the institutions to act.

03:19:30.000 And so you have to understand, you can't talk about A, anti-doping without media hysteria around drugs.

03:19:37.000 And B, a lot of times when you see these developments in anti-doping protocol, it's institutions protecting themselves.

03:19:45.000 Like when the UFC really went to USADA, was it on behalf of the athletes?

03:19:48.000 If you want to believe that, you can.

03:19:49.000 I cannot say it is wrong.

03:19:51.000 But what the scholarship is pretty clear about in anti-doping is that institutions do it for their own protection.

03:19:56.000 Which I understand.

03:19:56.000 There's nothing wrong with the UFC being like, you know what?

03:19:59.000 If we have a scandal here, we're going to get fucked if we don't do more. 0.98

03:20:01.000 I totally get it. 0.97

03:20:02.000 But that's a part of the argument that deserves to be noted and should not be forgotten.

03:20:05.000 I don't know what the argument was that forced them to institute you.

03:20:09.000 TRT. TRT caused all the problems.

03:20:13.000 TRT was a problem.

03:20:14.000 The question is how you solve it.

03:20:16.000 Right.

03:20:16.000 And we went overboard, in my judgment.

03:20:18.000 That's the problem I think we had.

03:20:20.000 Now, that's debatable, but that is the cause of everything.

03:20:23.000 Do you think that a certain level of TRT would be acceptable, like a doctored, ministered...

03:20:30.000 I tend to think that it's such an...

03:20:34.000 Listen, if you're going to have a system where folks are going to use, then the way to screen that is through health outcomes.

03:20:41.000 So you're looking at forms of screening, not so much for what they're taking, but how their blood enzymes look and digestive organs and what kind of damage they're taking and blah, blah, blah.

03:20:51.000 To me, TRT is one of these things where it's like, we're going to make it super easy and we're going to...

03:21:02.000 Like I said, the readiness of it is too easy for me.

03:21:04.000 Is part of the issue that testing is random and that testing is, you know, you might get tested four times a year, you might get tested ten times a year.

03:21:14.000 No one knows, no one can tell.

03:21:16.000 What if there was a way where every fighter had something, almost like an app, and somehow or another you put it on you and it screens you?

03:21:27.000 There's something that you could do where it can't be faked.

03:21:31.000 You check in.

03:21:32.000 Maybe you check in on your computer, like a FaceTime thing, and it does something.

03:21:37.000 If there was a way, obviously, I don't know what I'm talking about, but if there was some sort of technology that allowed them to see every day, twice a day, check you in the morning, check you at night, okay, Luke, it looks like you're good.

03:21:49.000 You're in the range.

03:21:51.000 Everything's fine.

03:21:51.000 So a couple things.

03:21:52.000 It's like every employee that I know who's not an athlete gets to have time off except an athlete.

03:21:57.000 We ask certain things of athletes that we don't ask of anyone else in the world.

03:22:00.000 And the reason why is supposed to be to combat these harms.

03:22:04.000 But if you can't prove to me that these harms are existing or that you're meaningfully doing anything about it, then why are we engaging in these privacy invasions? 0.97

03:22:10.000 What kind of about wasting time with Conor McGregor when he's in a fucking yacht somewhere. 0.98

03:22:15.000 They show up in a buggy like, hey man, give me a piss test. 1.00

03:22:19.000 He's like, I'm fucking retired. 0.99

03:22:20.000 Right. 0.98

03:22:21.000 So there's a lot of problems there.

03:22:22.000 It's like, if you can't prove what you're doing or stopping, why are we engaging in all these privacy invasions?

03:22:26.000 But it gets to a larger point.

03:22:27.000 Remember when Tim Kennedy got back from practice and he didn't want to get ringworms, so he showered?

03:22:31.000 And you saw the folks who were like, we got to test you.

03:22:33.000 Once we're here, we can't give you time. 1.00

03:22:36.000 So they watched the fucking guy showered, which is deranged to the nth degree. 1.00

03:22:40.000 Yeah. 0.99

03:22:40.000 But the point being is here's what anti-doping folks don't want to tell you. 0.99

03:22:43.000 There is a natural tension between what privacy exists and what solutions there are.

03:22:48.000 And there's a lot of good solutions – or not good solutions.

03:22:51.000 There's a lot of better solutions if you just decide that people don't have any right to privacy.

03:22:55.000 If you decide that, you have some options at that point.

03:22:58.000 But if you at all care about athletes and what they are entitled to as human beings...

03:23:02.000 And by the way, problems might be... 0.99

03:23:04.000 Don't you have to look at a guy's dick to make sure it's not rubber? 0.99

03:23:07.000 Oh, yeah. 1.00

03:23:08.000 He showered with the curtain open and Tim Kennedy... 0.74

03:23:12.000 You know Tim Kennedy was like all balls and everything? 0.50

03:23:15.000 He's like, watch my back! 0.96

03:23:17.000 Come watch my back! 1.00

03:23:18.000 But when you pee, do they have to look at your dick? 1.00

03:23:22.000 I think they do. 1.00

03:23:22.000 They look at everything. 1.00

03:23:23.000 Because you can have the whizinator.

03:23:24.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

03:23:25.000 And guys, didn't Kevin Randallman do that?

03:23:27.000 They said it's non-human urine. 0.98

03:23:29.000 It's like, you have like a dead man's piss. 0.95

03:23:31.000 How did you do that? 1.00

03:23:34.000 Yeah, it is weird whenever someone's allowed to look at your dick because they're thinking you're going to cheat. 1.00

03:23:39.000 How about you see if they're cheating first and then go, hey, I've got to see your dick next time. 1.00

03:23:44.000 Right. 1.00

03:23:44.000 It just seems like a first step to just look at your dick while you pee is pretty crazy. 1.00

03:23:49.000 If you moralize doping, which they have done, if you moralize it, which is not a moral issue, it's a strategic issue, if you moralize it, you've decided that it's an evil worth combating to the point now, well, this is Rodchenkov Act is being floated through Congress. 0.99

03:24:02.000 Yeah.

03:24:03.000 I mean...

03:24:28.000 Do I think I'm right about doping?

03:24:29.000 You're going to go.

03:24:30.000 But they're eventually going to realize what they've always realized, which is that the punishment, the sociological research on this is pretty clear.

03:24:35.000 It's really not the punishment that really concerns them.

03:24:38.000 It's their, to what extent they'll be caught.

03:24:41.000 They think they'll be caught.

03:24:42.000 But if you're rich and you can avoid it or you're willing to take risks because that's inherently in the job that you're in, you don't really think about these kinds of things.

03:24:48.000 And by the way, you might have good methods of evasion.

03:24:51.000 So they're going to put people in jail.

03:24:53.000 And I think, honestly, they're going to put a lot of people in jail.

03:24:56.000 I think almost like we need a separate podcast just about this, and I feel like it almost should be a roundtable discussion with someone like you as a proponent of this, someone like me.

03:25:05.000 I kind of see your point and I agree with you.

03:25:08.000 And maybe some doctors and maybe someone from USADA that would argue against it.

03:25:12.000 I think that would be an interesting discussion.

03:25:14.000 Because my arguments against USADA are the Josh Barnett arguments, the Tom Lawler arguments.

03:25:21.000 The arguments where you're ruining guys' careers and there's no repercussion.

03:25:25.000 They're ruined financially.

03:25:26.000 They lose so much money.

03:25:27.000 They don't get any of it back.

03:25:28.000 You've made mistakes.

03:25:29.000 It doesn't matter.

03:25:31.000 And I get what you're doing.

03:25:32.000 I get you're trying to make the sport safer.

03:25:34.000 You're doing your job.

03:25:35.000 You were hired to do it.

03:25:36.000 But is it the most effective use of time and resources?

03:25:39.000 Right.

03:25:39.000 And also, can you prove what you're doing?

03:25:42.000 Show me.

03:25:42.000 Show me the results of what you have done.

03:25:44.000 And they will be like, oh, but probabilistically we should rely on this.

03:25:47.000 I have never seen an institution in my life more than anti-doping institutions who just are begging you and frankly demanding of you to take their word for it. 0.99

03:25:58.000 Motherfucker, show your work. 0.99

03:26:01.000 I have to show my work. 1.00

03:26:02.000 Show your work.

03:26:03.000 When you say show your work, what do you want to see from now?

03:26:05.000 Prove to me that what you are doing is having an effect.

03:26:08.000 And don't give me all this bullshit about, well, we can't really do this and we can't really do that.

03:26:11.000 You are demanding money. 0.98

03:26:13.000 You are demanding that athletes give in to privacy invasions. 0.97

03:26:17.000 You are ruining people's careers, which we've already shown, so it better be fucking worth it. 0.93

03:26:22.000 This juice better be worth the squeeze. 0.96

03:26:24.000 Show me the squeeze.

03:26:25.000 What could they possibly show that would make it...

03:26:29.000 That is their concern.

03:26:31.000 That is not mine.

03:26:32.000 The burden of proof is not on me.

03:26:34.000 The only thing you could say is you've caught people, and you've stopped people, and you could look at physique changes and say, you know...

03:26:41.000 It means nothing.

03:26:42.000 It means nothing.

03:26:43.000 It means a lot of that?

03:26:44.000 It means a little bit of that.

03:26:45.000 But I'm just saying, you have anecdotal evidence.

03:26:47.000 In what other world can you say, I've got anecdotal evidence for my broad-based claims? 1.00

03:26:52.000 I can tell you, go fuck yourself. 1.00

03:26:53.000 There's no other world where you can do that except theirs. 1.00

03:26:56.000 I'm saying to you, if what you are saying is working, and what you really believe in is true, show your work.

03:27:02.000 If there was a lawsuit, and if someone won a substantial financial reward for some of these... 0.99

03:27:09.000 Fuck-ups. 0.99

03:27:11.000 I think we'd see a big change. 0.99

03:27:12.000 I think that would make...

03:27:14.000 If someone like Tom Lawler won in court and got really paid because of this...

03:27:21.000 Well, they don't have money for that.

03:27:22.000 Tom doesn't have money for that.

03:27:22.000 It's unfortunate because that...

03:27:24.000 I think he's...

03:27:27.000 But John Jones is the future, right?

03:27:30.000 So the scholarship on this is clear.

03:27:31.000 If you want, after this is over, I'll give you a couple of things you can read.

03:27:34.000 It's a little bit dense, but it is...

03:27:36.000 I'll pretend to read it.

03:27:37.000 I'll skim it.

03:27:39.000 Keep it on your bookshelf, because even if it's a reference tool, you may find some value in it. 0.99

03:27:44.000 Again, you read the shit and you're like, I had no idea, I had no idea, I had no idea. 0.99

03:27:47.000 It just keeps going, you know? 0.99

03:27:49.000 But what they found through scholarship is that...

03:27:51.000 So they've upped the punishments from a year to two years to four years.

03:27:55.000 So first of all, someone explain to me why UFC athletes are on Olympic cycles, number one.

03:27:58.000 Number two.

03:27:59.000 That's number one.

03:28:00.000 So the second one is, beyond that...

03:28:04.000 In putting together this sort of portfolio of punishments beyond the sort of Olympic cycle, I think I said this already, there's no evidence that indicates that the severity of it forces the behavior change.

03:28:22.000 It's only the sort of surveillance of it all as a function of...

03:28:31.000 Mm-hmm.

03:28:34.000 Mm-hmm.

03:28:45.000 We're good to go.

03:29:05.000 Why do we have one standard for the Olympics?

03:29:07.000 We've got one standard for a private client for an underfunded organization, which is about $20 million is their budget for USADA, and results in this sort of different world punishment. 0.95

03:29:17.000 John is the future because the research shows that the more severe punishment you get, The more that you have to take precautions to not fuck someone over, right? 0.76

03:29:26.000 Because if you're going to ban a guy for eight years, you're going to ban a guy for life, man, you better be damn sure you're doing it.

03:29:31.000 But that has opened the door to fighters like John who have money and a legal team, and of course there may be the science on his side as well, but it shows that you can take that opportunity and you can say, aha, you were trying to ban me for four years.

03:29:44.000 Man, what is your evidence?

03:29:45.000 And they can poke holes through all of it.

03:29:48.000 When your punishment is a year, it doesn't really matter what mitigating circumstance you can show.

03:29:51.000 Well, his case is so weird, too, because it showed positive and then negative and then negative and positive, but in such trace amounts, there's no way he could have tested it and then had it go out of his system in time.

03:30:02.000 The argument is that he had the long-term metabolite, but not the short and medium-term metabolite.

03:30:06.000 Yeah, so it's showing this weird pulsating effect where it comes and goes, particularly during weight cuts. 0.99

03:30:11.000 Right, which is apparently what Alexi Torakiti had, and he got fucked. 0.99

03:30:17.000 Luke, this was a lot of fun, man. 0.99

03:30:18.000 I'm glad we did this.

03:30:19.000 I think I talked too much.

03:30:20.000 No, you were awesome.

03:30:21.000 It was great.

03:30:22.000 I really appreciate it, and I appreciate you.

03:30:23.000 I appreciate your show.

03:30:24.000 I really enjoy your breakdowns.

03:30:26.000 I enjoy your MMA show.

03:30:27.000 I think you have a very unique perspective, and thanks for coming, man.

03:30:32.000 It was awesome.

03:30:33.000 Thanks for the invite, and...

03:30:34.000 Let's do it again.

03:30:35.000 The whiskey was great.

03:30:36.000 Happy to come on anytime.

03:30:36.000 It was fun.

03:30:37.000 Thank you.

03:30:38.000 Bye, everybody.

The Joe Rogan Experience - November 03, 2020

JRE MMA Show #98 with Luke Thomas

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