June 2, 2010 - The Joe Rogan Experience
01:19:45
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| Come down here hunting sometimes. | ||
| Yeah, man! | ||
| Come down! | ||
| A lot of wild pigs out here. | ||
| Alexander Gustafson, ladies and gentlemen, we're live. | ||
| Good to see you buddy. | ||
| What's happening? | ||
| It's good to be here. | ||
| I'm good. | ||
| I'm good. | ||
| You just recovering from shoulder surgery? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| What did you have done? | ||
| I was wrestling. | ||
| I wrestling practice. | ||
| I got taken down, believe it or not. | ||
| I got actually slammed. | ||
| I was trying to pose with my arm and I was slammed. | ||
| I just felt something in my shoulder basically. | ||
| It didn't hurt at first. | ||
| I was trying to stand up, and I felt it was just a mess in there. | ||
| And after that, I went to the hospital, and from there, I've been rehabbing. | ||
| I got a plate inside. | ||
| Oh, wow. | ||
| A plate? | ||
| Yeah, I took it out now in, like, end of last year. | ||
| But I had a plate for a couple of months, yeah. | ||
| What was the extent of the injury? | ||
| Nothing was broken. | ||
| It was more like the collarbone, just... | ||
| Dislocated? | ||
| Dislocated, ripped apart from my shoulder, so they had to put it back in, put the plate on, three screws down. | ||
| That's the first real injury I had for my whole career. | ||
| I had bruises, stitches and all that, but this is the first real, probably my back, but Pull this thing right in front of your face there. | ||
| It's under your viking beard. | ||
| It's getting muffled up. | ||
| So were there tendons torn or ligaments? | ||
| Yeah, ligaments, tendons, everything just torn apart. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Wow. | |
| So they stitched it all back together again, put a plate in there. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And now I've just been rehabbing. | ||
| I feel fine. | ||
| I'm 100% now. | ||
| I'm in training. | ||
| So how many months was it? | ||
| Well, this happened in August, and I took away the plate end of last year, and I've been rehabbing for a couple of months. | ||
| Six months, totally, maybe. | ||
| When you grabbed the bow and you were pulling it back, I'm like, maybe I shouldn't have him do that. | ||
| That's like, you know, that kind of movement is like bench pressing. | ||
| Yeah, but I'm fine now. | ||
| I'm good. | ||
| I'm good. | ||
| It's all good. | ||
| That bow was powerful, though. | ||
| I didn't expect that. | ||
| Yeah, it's no joke. | ||
| It's good. | ||
| It's definitely good back training if you wanted to work on those muscles. | ||
| They're very specific. | ||
| 100%. | ||
| So when you do that, are you doing platelet-rich plasma and all sorts of different therapies to try to accelerate the healing? | ||
| Well, I've done my physical rehab. | ||
| I've done a lot of like... | ||
| I don't know the word in English, but a lot of acupuncture, a lot of massage, a lot of rehab and lifting small weights. | ||
| Really boring stuff. | ||
| I hate that stuff. | ||
| I hate it so much, but you just have to do it. | ||
| It's just tiny weights. | ||
| I started with that and then I've just been increasing and that's it. | ||
| Boring as rehabbing. | ||
| You know, obviously I'm a big fan of yours, and I was very worried when, after the Glover Teixeira fight, which I thought was like your masterpiece so far in your career. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Appreciate that. | ||
| Well, it's just, you've always been a very, very good fighter, but when you see a guy hit this new level, and that's what I felt like you were in the Glover fight, I was like, Jesus Christ. | ||
| Like, that combination that you finished him off with, that was some video game shit. | ||
| That was crazy. | ||
| Like for yourself too, right? | ||
| Yeah, no, he was just standing there. | ||
| He ate my uppercuts. | ||
| I ate uppercuts all night. | ||
| It was crazy. | ||
| So then when I heard that you were injured after that, I'm like, ah, shit. | ||
| Like you were just catching your stride. | ||
| It was just a perfect performance. | ||
|
unidentified
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No, I know. | |
| That's what I felt because I felt like, like you said, I had everything going. | ||
| I had such a flow in training, in life generally. | ||
| Everything felt really good. | ||
| I'm hungry. | ||
| I was motivated. | ||
| I'm very motivated. | ||
| But that time, after that win, and Glover is a tough opponent and everything went so well with the fight and everything. | ||
| I felt really good. | ||
| And then this happened. | ||
| It was a big setback. | ||
| What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? | ||
| So I just kept working on it. | ||
| I just looked forward and I got a goal in my sight. | ||
| That's it. | ||
| Well, the one thing that is good about something like that is it really gives you time to pause and reflect and pay attention to all the other aspects of your game. | ||
| You're such a footwork-heavy, movement-heavy guy as it is. | ||
| That's my thing, footwork. | ||
| But it's so unusual for a guy as tall and as big as you to be so agile and have so much footwork and movement. | ||
| I mean, it must be a giant asset for you in fighting. | ||
| It is. | ||
| And for the Glover fight, I could do that for turnarounds. | ||
| You know, I wasn't tired at all. | ||
| I did my thing and I was out of there. | ||
| I wasn't in his pocket. | ||
| I wasn't in his range. | ||
| Then I did my thing again and I was out of there. | ||
| I could do that all night, all night long. | ||
| That's also a thing, like, I knew I always had it, but after that fight I really felt that this is working, this is my thing, and this is what I'm gonna use, and I'm gonna get better at it. | ||
| I'm gonna get better at everything, the whole game, but this is my... | ||
| This is my key thing. | ||
| This is it. | ||
| And I know... | ||
| Movement and footwork. | ||
| If I fought DC, like I fought Glover, I'll beat him. | ||
| I'll beat him all day long, I'm telling you. | ||
| I'll beat him. | ||
| Well, it was a very close fight the first time you guys fought. | ||
| Yeah, but I still didn't. | ||
| I didn't do it enough, man. | ||
| I was in his pocket too much. | ||
| One of the things that I really like about you, Alex, is that when you talk about yourself, you're very hard on yourself. | ||
| You know, like, I like that. | ||
| One of the things that you said is that you're never satisfied. | ||
| This is the life of a high-level athlete. | ||
| Never satisfied. | ||
| Never, never. | ||
| I just wanted to improve all the time. | ||
| And I've always been that guy, always been that person, always had to take the hard way in stuff. | ||
| Learning new stuff, I have to all the time take the hard way, you know. | ||
| I always had to take a beating first before I win. | ||
| That's how it's been and that just makes me stronger and I got that fire in me and it just grows. | ||
| Yeah, well, you're still young. | ||
| I mean, how old are you now? | ||
| 31. Not that young. | ||
| That's young, though. | ||
| I mean, consider how long you've been fighting in the UFC. I mean, how old were you when you had your first fight in the UFC? 21, 22. That's crazy. | ||
| It's 10 years now. | ||
| That's crazy. | ||
| It's 10 years. | ||
| Do you think about yourself as 21 fighting in the UFC? Like, what? | ||
| Yeah, no. | ||
| It feels like... | ||
| But I think it's 10 years. | ||
| It's always 10 years, but it feels like it was yesterday. | ||
| I'm sure. | ||
| Time runs. | ||
| In particular in this business, because your life is all about the next fight. | ||
| It's always about planning for the next fight, the next fight. | ||
| So... | ||
| Well, you also have constant growth and improvement, but it gets tested in these big jumps, like every three times a year, two times a year, whatever it is your schedule that you're fighting on, you get these big tests, and you get to find out how applicable everything that you've worked on is. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| That's how it is. | ||
| And after that test, you just feel like, what's next? | ||
| What should I do next? | ||
| What's the next improvement? | ||
| What's the next opponent? | ||
| Where's the belt? | ||
| Stuff like that. | ||
| You had one of the most spectacular fights with Jon Jones, down to the wire, as close as it gets. | ||
| When you get out of a fight like that where you almost won the title against the greatest of all time, what is that feeling like and where do you go from there? | ||
| You know, it was tough. | ||
| It was really tough. | ||
| Everybody was saying, you're winning this fight. | ||
| You're winning this fight. | ||
| You had three rounds against him. | ||
| You're winning this fight. | ||
| It felt like... | ||
| Like you said, it was just... | ||
| It was just right there at the goal line. | ||
| You know, I didn't really pass that goal line at all. | ||
| I just felt like that... | ||
| It was tough. | ||
| It was tough. | ||
| But like now, sitting here now talking to you, it's a really good experience for me. | ||
| And, you know, I really... | ||
| It was a good time for me. | ||
| The fight was a highlight in my career for sure, in my life for sure. | ||
| It was such a close fight. | ||
| When the scorecards are being tabbed and you're just sitting there waiting for the decision, did you think you had it? | ||
| I didn't know. | ||
| I didn't know. | ||
| So much chaos. | ||
| Could you even remember what had happened over the last five rounds? | ||
| I remember the fight. | ||
| I remember almost the whole fight, but it was just... | ||
| John Jones is such a beast. | ||
| He's... | ||
| You know, I'm telling you, just for me, Jon Jones, winning over Jon Jones is bigger than taking the belt. | ||
| I'm telling you, that guy is such a beast and... | ||
| Yeah, what was the question? | ||
| No, it's okay. | ||
| I mean, express yourself. | ||
| That's fine. | ||
| I mean, I agree with you. | ||
| He is a beast. | ||
| I'm very disappointed with all the stuff that's happened to him, obviously, and especially the most recent one, which I really believe, based on the evidence, is a mistake. | ||
| I think he got a hold of something tainted, because they tested him before that, he was negative. | ||
| They tested him after that, he was negative. | ||
| And what he tested for was such a minuscule amount. | ||
| There's no way. | ||
| I think so? | ||
| Yeah, there's no way. | ||
| According to Novitski and according to USADA, according to how they test people, whatever he consumed must have been an extremely small amount. | ||
| It wasn't an amount that would have had any benefit whatsoever in terms of performance enhancing. | ||
| Well, they know the thing. | ||
| So, you know, just let the expert handle that. | ||
| I don't know what to say. | ||
| I know for a fact that He's been in that same situation a couple of times. | ||
| This is not the first time, so, you know, it's... | ||
| Well, he definitely is a wild motherfucker. | ||
| He is. | ||
| He is. | ||
| He definitely does some shit he probably shouldn't do, but... | ||
| Yeah, 100%, man. | ||
| But, I mean... | ||
| But the thing is, it's so stupid because he's what he is. | ||
| He's the best guy, pound for pound. | ||
| Out there. | ||
| He's done things nobody else has done. | ||
| He's just a beast. | ||
| And still, shit just comes up all the time. | ||
| He doesn't even need that steroids. | ||
| He doesn't even need that shit in him. | ||
| He's still the best guy out there. | ||
| I don't think he took anything. | ||
| I really don't. | ||
| But I agree with you on that. | ||
| And I think you need a guy like that. | ||
| You need a guy like that out there. | ||
| To bring you to your full potential. | ||
| Do you agree? | ||
| Yeah, I agree with you. | ||
| Like I said to you. | ||
| Fighting him and beating him, that's bigger than taking the belt right now. | ||
| That's how I feel. | ||
| Look what he did to D.C., man. | ||
| D.C. is tough. | ||
| He finished D.C. That's just insane. | ||
| It is just insane. | ||
| And he finished him with a kick that D.C. said he's never going to hit him with. | ||
| That's crazy. | ||
| That's insane. | ||
| He's like, you're never going to hit me with that left eye kick? | ||
| Oh, wow! | ||
| Just look for the opportunity he takes it. | ||
| Yeah, tendencies are crazy. | ||
| It's just some of them just get so ingrained in the way your body moves and the way you operate. | ||
| No, he's an expert, of course, what he's doing and he's studying his opponent very well. | ||
| Everything is just such planted in details for the fights and he knows exactly when he should go for that or that or that and staying creative and using his fantasy and it's amazing to see. | ||
| Yeah, that Jackson-Winklejohn team is a truly exceptional team. | ||
| I mean, they really do phenomenal with him. | ||
| Now, where you're at now is a very interesting situation because John is in exile. | ||
| No one knows what's going to happen in terms of how long he's going to be suspended. | ||
| DC is now fighting Stipe Miocic for the heavyweight title, and who knows what's happening there. | ||
| I mean, does that bother you? | ||
| Because it seems like it kind of puts the 205 title in limbo. | ||
| It does. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| It does. | ||
| I didn't see that coming at all. | ||
| It's a great fight for them and for the fans and for the sport. | ||
| But for us standing in line, we're just sitting there waiting for an opportunity and it's not going to come. | ||
| It's not going to be there. | ||
| So, you know, and, and, you know, I will, that's also a thing that has been motivating me a lot because after the fight with Glove, I got injured and all that. | ||
| And I was really looking forward to come back and make a really strong performance, you know, very strong next performance. | ||
| I had my eyes on that goal. | ||
| And then I actually counted almost, you know, fighting DC. But then it was all gone by him going up the steepest. | ||
| So it's a crazy situation. | ||
| The whole division is just crazy right now. | ||
| Yeah, it really is because that fight is not even going to take place until July. | ||
| So here we are in April, May, June, July. | ||
| We have three months until that fight takes place. | ||
| I know. | ||
| So that fight and then obviously at least three months, most likely more, before the title could be challenged again. | ||
| We don't even know if he comes back again. | ||
| Right, he might not. | ||
| Who knows what happens in that fight. | ||
| Plus once he gets used to eating again? | ||
| It's going to be tough. | ||
| If DC wins? | ||
| I see it in pictures now. | ||
| I'm going to meet him a couple of days. | ||
| He looks a little bit, you know, heavy right now. | ||
| Well, he was on TV the other day eating potato chips. | ||
| Like, man, you're in camp. | ||
| What the fuck are you eating? | ||
| No, he loved that. | ||
| Yeah, he loves food, that's for sure. | ||
| I mean, and I, you know, you look back at his performance in Strikeforce as a heavyweight and it was phenomenal. | ||
| He did good. | ||
| Phenomenal, yeah. | ||
| He didn't lose. | ||
| No, he didn't lose that heavyweight and tossed around gorillas like Josh Barnett. | ||
| Yeah, lift him up like nothing. | ||
| Crazy, right? | ||
| You know, this fight against Tippi, if he would be against another heavyweight, I'd probably say Tippi was going to win this fight. | ||
| But you see, like you said, he's a really good heavyweight, so who knows what happens. | ||
| Well, his wrestling is just so next level. | ||
| It's an interesting position because Stipe is a very good wrestler, but of course DC is world class. | ||
| He is world class and he doesn't take one step back. | ||
| He just comes at you. | ||
| He's just in your face. | ||
| But it's tough to count out Stipe, too, because Stipe is the pound-for-pound consensus best heavyweight ever. | ||
| I mean, the guy has defended the title more than anybody. | ||
| You look at his resume, it's impeccable. | ||
| Knocks out Junior Dos Santos, knocks out Overeem, beats Francis Ngannou, who everybody's scared of. | ||
| I mean, phenomenal. | ||
|
unidentified
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No, he's a badass. | |
| He's a badass. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So, you know, but DC, he's such a competitive guy. | ||
| He doesn't take a step back and he just goes for it. | ||
| Even in a tough situation, he just eats it and comes back and do what he do always. | ||
| And for being a fat guy, that guy works. | ||
| He's screaming at you right now, hey man, settle down! | ||
| But that guy is doing five rounds like nothing. | ||
| So the conditioning is on top. | ||
| Yeah, he just eats the wrong food. | ||
| That's all it is. | ||
| I mean, maybe some of it's genetic. | ||
| I just think he's just eating the wrong food. | ||
| I mean, there's evidence. | ||
| He's eating potato chips. | ||
| I mean, there's evidence. | ||
| It's not like I'm just talking out of my ass. | ||
| I've seen him eat the wrong food. | ||
| Me too. | ||
| But yeah, nothing but respect for that guy. | ||
| He's an awesome human being, too. | ||
| Yeah, he's a great guy. | ||
| He's a fantastic guy. | ||
| Have you ever thought about fighting heavyweight? | ||
| It crossed my mind from time to time, but I feel I'm not done in light heavyweight yet. | ||
| I have still things to do. | ||
| What do you walk around at? | ||
| I'm heavy. | ||
| I'm heavy. | ||
| I'm calling DC fat, but I probably shouldn't say anything. | ||
| Yeah, but you have an excuse. | ||
| I've been in America for two days. | ||
| I gained directly 10 pounds, not just being here. | ||
| All our GMO food fucks you up. | ||
| So when you normally are getting down to 205, what do you walk around at? | ||
| Maybe I'll stop my camps at 2.35. | ||
| Really? | ||
| Wow. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I'll go up to 2.40 sometimes. | ||
| No kidding. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| Are you healthy at 2.40? | ||
| I move like never before. | ||
| It's crazy. | ||
| Really? | ||
| Yeah, I do. | ||
| I got some speed in my footwork. | ||
| Do you feel good at 240? | ||
| I feel pretty good being heavy. | ||
| I do. | ||
| And I feel strong. | ||
| I feel strong. | ||
| I'm sparring big guys. | ||
| I'm sparring heavy guys. | ||
| And I feel really strong in being a heavyweight. | ||
| But like I told you, man, I'm not finishing light yet. | ||
| I understand. | ||
| I understand. | ||
| But how much of you gets diminished in that cut to 205? | ||
| Not that bad, no? | ||
| It's like, you know, when I start, because off-season I do maybe, off-season I do, I do eight to ten sessions a week. | ||
| I don't stress, you know, I don't eat shit food. | ||
| I, of course, sometimes I drink a couple of beers or I have a pizza or whatever, you know, I'm a, I have to live some time, but it's good regular meals, doing a little bit of lifting, some weights. | ||
| When I stop my camps, it's like my body feels like it's time now to start working here. | ||
| I start doing my sprints, my miles on the treadmill. | ||
| You know, from one week to another, I maybe lose like 10 pounds. | ||
| It's crazy. | ||
| It's like my body just knows, okay, it's time to work, and then I just drop like nothing. | ||
| Wow, so your body's just accustomed to the drop. | ||
| Yeah, and I feel it's because, you know, I've done it many times, so it's just like, you know, the routines. | ||
| Now, I know you do a lot of hunting, and you were showing me some photos before the podcast. | ||
| Do you incorporate wild game into your diet? | ||
| That's all I do. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That's all I do. | ||
| I wouldn't say never, but I barely buy anything from the store when it comes to meat or all that. | ||
| I just hunt everything I eat. | ||
| I try to support my family with what I'm hunting. | ||
| I'm hunting a lot of wild boars. | ||
| We have a lot of wild boars in Sweden. | ||
| I'm hunting deers. | ||
| We have red deer, fallow deers. | ||
| We got mousse. | ||
| You can't compare the meat. | ||
| It's a science just to cook it right, but if you cook it right and you know what you're doing, it's the best thing ever. | ||
| Yeah, I agree. | ||
| And I've always wondered, as a professional athlete, what it would be like. | ||
| Whether or not you see the benefit in eating such protein-rich, nutrient-dense meat as opposed to pasture-raised or farm cattle. | ||
| Yeah, you can compare it. | ||
| You can compare it. | ||
| And everything around it, too. | ||
| They're suffering. | ||
| It's not a good business. | ||
| I don't like that business. | ||
| I don't want to support it all. | ||
| So I'd rather do my hunting. | ||
| No, I agree. | ||
| To me, it's the best way. | ||
| If you're going to eat meat, it's absolutely the best way. | ||
| But what I'm thinking is, I don't know a lot of pro athletes that only eat wild game and only hunt wild game. | ||
| But I would think that there would be a great benefit in that. | ||
| 100%. | ||
| 100%. | ||
| You can get better... | ||
| Nutrition to your body than eating that meat. | ||
| It's the best thing there is. | ||
| How do you feel after eating like a 400 gram steak after eating like a 400 gram whatever deer it is you've been hunting? | ||
| You don't feel the same. | ||
| You don't feel tired. | ||
| You don't feel like you're getting this food coma and stuff like that. | ||
| You feel fresh. | ||
| It's weird, right? | ||
| Wild game has almost an invigorating sensation to it when you eat it. | ||
| It actually feels good. | ||
| You feel strong. | ||
| You feel good about doing it. | ||
| How long have you been hunting? | ||
| I've been hunting since a kid. | ||
| I grew up on a farm and my dad was hunting a lot when I was a kid and then I didn't hunt for a long time and I get back to 2012 actually. | ||
| I took my license and after that I've been hunting. | ||
| If I don't train, I'm outdoors. | ||
| If I don't train, I'm outdoors. | ||
| And we have seasons in Sweden, so it's not like you're hunting all year round. | ||
| Right. | ||
| But I make sure I fill the freezer under those seasons. | ||
| So, yeah. | ||
| And I'm not training, I'm hunting. | ||
| That's awesome, man. | ||
| Well, you don't use bows there, though. | ||
| It's not legal. | ||
| It's not legal, right? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Only guns. | ||
| A lot of European countries. | ||
| I know in Spain it's legal. | ||
| Yeah, in Spain where you said you hunted those red deer. | ||
| I have a friend of mine who lives in Spain. | ||
| He's a big bow hunter. | ||
| No, it's only rifles in Sweden. | ||
| But that works too, man. | ||
| It works. | ||
| I mean, it's the most effective way for sure. | ||
| And obviously you can shoot them at a higher distance and a lot of people think it's more humane too. | ||
| If you're not good with a bow, they're right. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But when it comes to the feeling of being outdoors, being close to the animal and stuff like that, I don't even think you can compare it to actually the bow hunting. | ||
| No. | ||
| It's a whole lot of technique. | ||
| It's a whole way to hunt. | ||
| Well, a guy like you, who loves challenges, who thrives off of that, you would thrive off a football hunter. | ||
| No, I haven't done it, but if I tried, I'd probably love it. | ||
| Listen, man, I'll hook you up. | ||
| I appreciate that. | ||
| I'll set it all up. | ||
| I'll be back. | ||
| My friend John Dudley is tall like you, too, so he'd be the perfect guy to coach you. | ||
| He could explain it to you and take you out on a hunt. | ||
| Yeah, no, I can't wait, man. | ||
| I love that. | ||
| Well, especially wild pigs. | ||
| There's a place that he has in Oklahoma that they hunt a lot of wild pigs. | ||
| I mean, they just have to eradicate them. | ||
| There's so many of them. | ||
| I heard about it. | ||
| It's too many. | ||
| And how they hunt them too is kind of crazy. | ||
| Oh, the ones in Texas where they do it from helicopters? | ||
| Yeah, I saw that on YouTube channels and stuff like that. | ||
| Going crazy down there. | ||
| They just have to. | ||
| Texas is so big and there's so many pigs. | ||
| There's millions and millions of pigs there and they're constantly breeding. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| They'll have like three, four littles a year, and each litter they'll have four, six piglets, and they just keep going and going and going and going, and there's just no end. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| And they don't have very many predators. | ||
| A few mount lions take them out occasionally, but for the most part, they're just running and gunning, and they keep breeding. | ||
| Do they get big in here? | ||
| Yeah, they get big. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They do? | |
| Yeah, they get big. | ||
| Several hundred pounds, yeah. | ||
| That's crazy. | ||
| Yeah, it's common to see three, four hundred pound pigs. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| In Sweden, we have a couple of them, but they don't get that big, though. | ||
| The thing is how we hunt them in Sweden is when the farmers, when they have all their acres and all their lands, they actually call us in. | ||
| Yeah, to help them out. | ||
| And we're just out there all night. | ||
| The sun never goes down in Sweden in the summertime. | ||
| Oh, really? | ||
| Now we have like a midnight sun. | ||
| So it's so cozy being out there. | ||
| It's kind of warm. | ||
| It's nice. | ||
| You're going around, you're checking the lands, and it's pretty good, man. | ||
| You will like it. | ||
| I'm sure I would. | ||
| I've only been to Sweden once for the UFC when I was there, but I loved it. | ||
| Stockholm is a beautiful city. | ||
| Fantastic. | ||
| Really enjoyed it there. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Very nice people, too. | ||
| Oh, they are. | ||
| They are. | ||
| They are. | ||
| So how did you get aligned with Alliance? | ||
| How did that wind up happening where you started coming to America to Train and how far into your career was that? | ||
| Right after Phil fight. | ||
| Really? | ||
| Yeah, right after Phil fight. | ||
| And back then we didn't have those resources in Stockholm at all. | ||
| And you say Phil Davis, we're talking about Phil, Mr. Wonderful. | ||
| Yeah, Mr. Wonderful. | ||
| Who is also an alliance fighter. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Which is pretty cool, man, that you guys fought and then you went to train with him. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| How'd that work out? | ||
| It went good. | ||
| You know, he just kicked my ass the first couple of times before I started learning the whole wrestling part and how even to defend a takedown. | ||
| And after that, I just become good at it. | ||
| And I really enjoy coming down here, meeting the guys and training. | ||
| It's a whole other type of life. | ||
| Well, it's so cool that he, you know, accepted you after you were an opponent too and had you come and learn with them. | ||
| Yeah, you know, we just talked after the fight right away and I just swallowed my pride and I just talked to him after the fight and he invited me over and We just came meeting my coach. | ||
| We just came over and we had no idea what to expect. | ||
| I remember we just landed at night time. | ||
| So we went to the gym to sleep. | ||
| I woke up the day after and I was hitting someone hitting the bags down there, like in the mat area. | ||
| Like early now, super early. | ||
| I'm like, who is this? | ||
| I went down, it was Phil. | ||
| It was hitting the bags. | ||
| And I felt so like, oh damn, I have to do this too. | ||
| Then we started to like, you know, train together. | ||
| So it was a really good time. | ||
| And then he came actually down to us to help me out with Glover Teixeira too. | ||
| So you went to Sweden? | ||
| Yeah, I went to Sweden for a couple of weeks. | ||
| And he fought, loved it too. | ||
| It means so much to me to have these guys training with me, you know, with Phil, Ili Latifi, we have Jimmy Manoa and all those guys. | ||
| Such great guys and love training with them. | ||
| And it makes my training just, it just steps up. | ||
| You know, steps up even more. | ||
| We have a bunch of guys. | ||
| We have, like, Russian communists. | ||
| We established a really good place now at All-Stars in Sweden and Europe, around Europe, and getting so much good guys. | ||
| And my level of fighting just... | ||
| Rises through the top, man. | ||
| I'm telling you. | ||
| If I spar with Phil, Jimmy, or Ailer, I just feel like every day is a fight. | ||
| You can't be relaxed. | ||
| You can't just throw a jab and don't care about the counter. | ||
| You have to... | ||
| Such amazing training. | ||
| Well, it's so fantastic, too, over the last decade, the level of talent that's coming out of Europe has just escalated. | ||
| It's been so different. | ||
| It's so big. | ||
| And the wrestling, too, which is a big part of it. | ||
| So much more wrestling. | ||
| So much more talent. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| We have guys coming from Uzbekistan, we have different Russian countries down there, they're coming in and those guys are beasts, I'm telling you, they're beasts. | ||
| And they're driving, they're double legs, they take downs, and they eat shots though. | ||
| They eat shots, they take it like nothing and it just comes at you. | ||
| So they make me work a lot. | ||
| And yeah, that's exactly what I need. | ||
| Exactly what I need. | ||
| Yeah, that's been one of the more interesting things over the last five or six years is the rise of the Russians. | ||
| There's been so many from the former Soviet Union. | ||
| They have such a working capacity. | ||
| They work a lot. | ||
| We have a couple of guys down at the gym now. | ||
| They're at the gym when I come to the gym, they're at the gym when I leave the gym. | ||
| They never leave. | ||
| They live in there, though, so they never leave, basically. | ||
| They live there, so they actually do live there. | ||
| We have a facility so people can stay and train. | ||
| Oh, that's excellent. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But they just work, man. | ||
| They work all day long. | ||
| That's a great asset to have a facility where people can train and live there. | ||
| I know American Top Team put something like that in. | ||
| Winkle John and Greg Jackson put something like that in. | ||
| That's got to help so much where young guys who don't have much money but want a place to train. | ||
| 100%. | ||
| It's a really good way to... | ||
| Also to give something back, man. | ||
| They have their rooms to sleep in. | ||
| We manage so they have really good food to bring lunches and stuff. | ||
| And we also got it from here. | ||
| Because at the beginning when we came to San Diego, like I told you, it was another type of training, another type of lifestyle. | ||
| And we saw that, me and my coach, Andreas Michael. | ||
| We just, after doing this years and years and years, we now manage to do it at home. | ||
| And I just love it. | ||
| You know, I've been traveling all my career to America to train and around the place. | ||
| So, now we've established a good training system that works, and we've established it good, and I feel great to be home, you know, when you're getting a family and stuff. | ||
| I'm 31 years old, and it works, man, it works. | ||
| I've never been in that shape of my life than I've been training at home and feeling good. | ||
| That's fantastic where you don't have to drain yourself by flying over across the country and staying somewhere you don't know. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You were a real pioneer in terms of like European mixed martial arts. | ||
| What is it like now seeing all this sort of explode around you? | ||
| I mean, it's become so popular all over the world now. | ||
| I mean, MMA from when you started 10 years ago to now, it's barely recognizable. | ||
| No, you were a gangster back then. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Or you were a psychopath. | ||
| Either one or two of those when you're training like... | ||
| But nowadays, it's amazing. | ||
| I walk around in Stockholm and people are young kids. | ||
| They know even more than I know about the techniques, about the sport. | ||
| We have all ladies and all gentlemen coming in, one on an autograph or a picture. | ||
| It's grown so much. | ||
| Like you said, it's been exploded all over the world. | ||
| Now, what I was getting at was that when you first started out, how much of a structure was in place in terms of how much strength and conditioning you should do, how much sparring you should do, how much drilling you should do? | ||
| You know, I let Andreas Michaels handle that to me. | ||
| He's a mastermind of coaching. | ||
| He puts me in situations where I hate him. | ||
| He's the worst ever. | ||
| We've always been fighting sometimes. | ||
| But he has this old mentality of training. | ||
| We don't do too much of the scientific thing. | ||
| You watch your pulse, you measure your thing. | ||
| We just do the hardcore things. | ||
| Of course we do that too, the scientific a little bit, but not too much. | ||
| So we try to balance it out. | ||
| He plans everything out. | ||
| He's a mastermind of coaching and he knows me in and out and I know him. | ||
| That's another very important part in the development of young fighters is having someone that they can entrust that has knowledge where it's an Eric Del Fiero or Andreas or you know Jackson Winklejohn like whoever it is like having someone who really understands the sport who can guide you yeah and that's just such a giant resource for a guy yeah it is it is and you know as the sport explodes and get bigger you have those Fake ones coming in and think they know everything. | ||
| They want to have a piece of the cake, basically. | ||
| But we have these guys like Eric Delfiero and Andreas Michael and they're masterminds, man. | ||
| What is Andreas? | ||
| What is his background? | ||
| Boxing. | ||
| He was a professional boxer back then. | ||
| He has like 19 or 20 now in his boxing record. | ||
| And then he broke his arm and he had to finish his career because of his arm. | ||
| But no, that's his background. | ||
| That's where I got my footwork from. | ||
| That's where I got my foundation in fighting from. | ||
| Also one thing about a coach, like for Andreas, for example, or Eric Tufiero, they don't They don't care about the glory. | ||
| They don't care about the attention. | ||
| They don't care about... | ||
| They're the head coaches, but they take in... | ||
| If they are honest to me and to themselves, I don't know these things. | ||
| I don't know the grappling things. | ||
| I don't know the wrestling things. | ||
| They learn too, as it grows. | ||
| And they learn with me. | ||
| But they take in people that... | ||
| So we cover the whole thing. | ||
| We cover the whole... | ||
| All the aspects of the game, basically. | ||
| So... | ||
| Yeah, Eric is one of the most important, but yet the most humble guys. | ||
| Yeah, he's super humble. | ||
| He's very in the background. | ||
| There's a few guys like that that I really respect. | ||
| John Crouch from the MMA Lab, he's very similar to. | ||
| They're not looking for attention, just laying back. | ||
| And there's a lot of guys that aren't looking for attention. | ||
| They just get it because they're so good. | ||
| Like Farah Sahabi. | ||
| You can keep going on and on. | ||
| There's a lot of them. | ||
| But those guys are so important. | ||
| I mean, it's so critical. | ||
| Like, finding a big camp with great fighters and a fantastic coaching staff. | ||
| The difference between you realizing your full potential and not, that sometimes is the difference. | ||
| Having the right coach is the key, basically. | ||
| That's the key. | ||
| Coaches and training partners. | ||
| Yeah, 100%. | ||
| So you give him full reign in terms of everything you do? | ||
| And we discuss it all the time. | ||
| We argue sometimes. | ||
| We're hugging sometimes. | ||
| It's like a relationship, man. | ||
| It's my family, too. | ||
| That's all it is. | ||
| I remember we had a really good... | ||
| We were in Vegas, actually, for a camp. | ||
| I thought I was fighting Thiago Silva. | ||
| And he was putting me in there in the cage with some big-ass wrestlers. | ||
| And I wasn't 235 back then. | ||
| I was like 220, 219, walking around with... | ||
| These guys was heavy. | ||
| Big American heavyweights. | ||
| Good wrestling guys. | ||
| And they were just taking me down, taking me down. | ||
| Like... | ||
| Submitting me and I was like, I stand up in the cage, I throw over my thing. | ||
| I'm like, it's enough. | ||
| I can't take it enough. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let me out. | |
| Let me out of the cage. | ||
| So I was hitting the door. | ||
| I wanted out of the cage. | ||
| And the gym was full of people now. | ||
| So everybody just froze. | ||
| Look at me like this. | ||
| And the cage was like on a pedestal so everybody could see me. | ||
| So I was hitting the door and I see Andreas outside the door. | ||
| He's like doing this. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Nope. | |
| He's staying in there. | ||
| One more round. | ||
| I'm telling you, I was so close to... | ||
| Meanwhile, when you took Jon Jones down, you had to be thinking, God damn, I'm glad he didn't open up that door. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| I was surprised when I ended up in that position on top of him. | ||
| You shocked the shit out of me. | ||
| Did this really happen? | ||
| I didn't think you were going to go for it. | ||
| So when you went for it and then took him down, we were like, Oh, shit! | ||
| No, I was shocked. | ||
| I was laying on top, and I'm like, wow, I'm actually on top of this guy. | ||
| I didn't even think that was possible, but it wasn't that too hard to take down, you know? | ||
| I think you caught him by surprise. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, I did. | ||
| It was pretty awesome. | ||
| I think he was a surprise, too. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Well, it was pretty fucking awesome. | ||
| Now, what is a typical day in your camp? | ||
| Do you break up conditioning days with skill work days? | ||
| Do you do conditioning in the morning? | ||
| Do you do it after you're done with your skill work? | ||
| How do you work that? | ||
| I do from 10 to 12 sessions a week when I'm in camp. | ||
| We have actually the group workouts with the whole group, the whole elite group, in the mornings. | ||
| And then we do everything from sparring to good kickboxing drills to whatever. | ||
| That's when the group is training. | ||
| It's all the time. | ||
| It's the same group at the same time, every morning. | ||
| And then the night time is more like individual. | ||
| Okay, what I'm doing today. | ||
| Yeah, you maybe do five rounds of pads and then you do the sprints. | ||
| Or it could be either one. | ||
| Or strength. | ||
| Yeah, it could be either one. | ||
| So that's how we do it, basically. | ||
| So do you have a separate jiu-jitsu coach, a separate Muay Thai coach? | ||
| How do you work all that stuff out? | ||
| Yeah, the guy that's with me now, Joakim Karlsson, he's actually the national coach of Thai boxing. | ||
| And he's coaching me in my kicks, in my knees, in my kickboxing. | ||
| Alan Nascimento, he's a Brazilian, he's been living in Sweden for many years, he's a family and everything. | ||
| He has my jiu-jitsu and my grappling. | ||
| He's such a competitive guy. | ||
| He still competes. | ||
| He beats me up and he spars with me basically. | ||
| He spars with me and he makes me learn the hard way. | ||
| So you've got just an amazing staff over there. | ||
| Amazing staff. | ||
| It's amazing staff. | ||
| That's fantastic. | ||
| Yeah, I love it. | ||
| And so when you say you do these 10 to 12 sessions per week, do you have like a board up on the wall where you outline the week ahead? | ||
| Or do you do it day by day? | ||
| How do you do that? | ||
| No, I get a text from Andreas. | ||
| That's it. | ||
| This is the week. | ||
| Today we're doing this. | ||
| I'm just waiting for that text, man. | ||
| I put my phone like that. | ||
| I don't want to see it, man. | ||
| But I have to, man. | ||
| So that's how it works. | ||
| He gives me a text. | ||
| It could be on the board. | ||
| We have a big board on the wall. | ||
| It could be on the wall, too. | ||
| He puts down the session. | ||
| If it's something particular. | ||
| We have maybe sparring coming in. | ||
| We have to adapt the schedule a little bit. | ||
| It's different. | ||
| It's different from every week. | ||
| Yeah, I can imagine. | ||
| Are you still training? | ||
| Yeah, I still train. | ||
| I've got some serious injuries that I'm trying to heal up right now. | ||
| What's the injuries? | ||
| Two problems. | ||
| One big one is I got tendinitis in my elbow. | ||
| I've never had tendinitis before. | ||
| I don't know what that is though. | ||
| It's fucking strain in the tendon. | ||
| Tendons have low blood supply, so the problem with tendonitis is it takes forever to heal. | ||
| You overstretched the arm? | ||
| It was from pulling, from cleans, and from chin-ups. | ||
| This one on the inside, this muscle right here, or this tendon right here, Man, I fucked it up. | ||
| I kept training with it. | ||
| You got the inflammation in it? | ||
| Yeah, real bad. | ||
| To the point where it wasn't healing. | ||
| And I did stem cells and PRP. I finally got a hold of it. | ||
| But this thing right here, I keep it with me all the time. | ||
| This helped me more than anything. | ||
| It's a thing called the TheraBand. | ||
| And what you do is you hold it. | ||
| This is the elbow that's injured. | ||
| So I hold it out like this, I twist it, and then I slowly untwist it with this side. | ||
| And that therapy, just doing this, I do this like five, six times a day, I'll do like 10 reps. | ||
| That's been like the best thing. | ||
| That's helped me more than anything. | ||
| Will you be able to train now or you've been just now? | ||
| Pretty soon. | ||
| Pretty soon. | ||
| I think I'm good in about two weeks. | ||
| I'm gonna give myself two more weeks. | ||
| You have some badass kicks. | ||
| Oh, thank you. | ||
| That's what I heard. | ||
| I'll show you. | ||
| I can still kick. | ||
| I have no problem with my kick. | ||
| Flexible? | ||
| Yeah, I'm very flexible. | ||
| I did Taekwondo when I was a little kid. | ||
| I started out with that and then got into Muay Thai later. | ||
| I'm not flexible at all. | ||
| I have to stretch for an hour before the workouts. | ||
| Really? | ||
| I think it's from my genetics or something. | ||
| I'm just a stiff... | ||
| Vikings. | ||
| I'm telling you. | ||
| Carrying swords, swinging swords all the time. | ||
| I should be happy if I kick over your knees. | ||
| I can only move fast with my feet, that's all. | ||
| Yeah, but I guarantee you, you could improve that flexibility if you really, really concentrate. | ||
| That's the thing I have through my whole career. | ||
| I'm just working on my flexibility. | ||
| And when I'm stepping in that octagon, I'm flexible as hell. | ||
| But that's just two times a year, though. | ||
| So once you get to the full peak of camp, then you're flexible. | ||
| As soon as I leave the cage, it's gone. | ||
| Are you doing a lot of weightlifting? | ||
| Is that what it is? | ||
| You're doing a lot of squats or deadlifts? | ||
| No, it's in my genetics, I think. | ||
| I'm super stiff. | ||
| I'm not stiff everywhere. | ||
| It's just my hamstrings are stiff. | ||
| When did you start martial arts? | ||
| For real, when I was starting MMA, end of 2006. Really? | ||
| Okay, so it was fairly late in life. | ||
| It was. | ||
| I've been boxing and stuff, but that's just been an amateur level. | ||
| I don't even count that as a series doing sport thing. | ||
| It was just... | ||
| Fucking around? | ||
| Yeah, just been playing around. | ||
| So you were basically like 18, 19 when you really got into it? | ||
| Around there. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So your body already matured. | ||
| See, one of the things that you see about kicking in particular is... | ||
| When you get young fighters before their body is matured, then their flexibility usually stays. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You know, like if you start karate or something like that. | ||
| And you look at Phil Davis, for example. | ||
| That guy is massive, but still he's flexible as... | ||
| He's great. | ||
| That guy's a fucking stud athlete, too. | ||
| He looks like a superhero. | ||
| I know. | ||
| I know. | ||
| His waist to shoulder ratio. | ||
| I know. | ||
| It's same with Jimmy though. | ||
| I don't put up my t-shirt when I'm training with him. | ||
| Just keep my hoodie on me. | ||
| Just keep my hoodie on me. | ||
| Same with Phil. | ||
| Yeah, those guys are jacked. | ||
| Yeah, I know. | ||
| Even if they're off-season, that's the thing. | ||
| I'm just getting chubby, like a big, big-ass reformer body. | ||
| These guys look like athletes all year round. | ||
| Man, is that frustrating? | ||
| Sometimes. | ||
| But is that just genetics? | ||
| But it feels good though when I'm winning the rounds sometimes. | ||
| Right, when you're winning the rounds as a fat guy. | ||
| Fat guys all over the world. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So do you watch your diet at all outside of camp? | ||
| I do. | ||
| I do, actually. | ||
| I do. | ||
| I try to stay away from sugar. | ||
| When I do sugar, if I do like sodas and stuff like that, candy, whatever, I gain a lot of weight. | ||
| But as soon as I quit it, I just... | ||
| It's crazy, isn't it? | ||
| Yeah, I drop in weight. | ||
| Sugar's the devil. | ||
| It is. | ||
| I hate sugar. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's the worst. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| When you realize what it's actually doing to your body, and then you realize it's everywhere, and that most people that you run into are just eating sugar all day long. | ||
| Yeah, and it actually doesn't taste that good if you don't do it. | ||
| Right, that's the weird thing, right? | ||
| Once your gut bacteria becomes acclimated to eating healthy food, you start craving salads and shit. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| It's weird, right? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Now, when you talk about flexibility, do you ever do yoga? | ||
| I don't. | ||
| You don't? | ||
| No, I don't like that. | ||
| No. | ||
| Vikings and yoga don't mix. | ||
| No, I think it's just because I'm so bad at it. | ||
| You need patience. | ||
| You need a lot of patience. | ||
| I wish I liked it. | ||
| Because I would probably need it more than ever. | ||
| Don't get me wrong. | ||
| I stretch. | ||
| I do my flexible things in my training and all that. | ||
| But... | ||
| Put a whole workout in just to stretch your body. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I don't have the patience for it. | ||
| It's not just that, though. | ||
| That's what's interesting about it. | ||
| It's a strengthening thing, too. | ||
| It just strengthens your body in an unusual way. | ||
| I've seen a lot more fighters getting involved in it and really seeing benefits. | ||
| One of them was Nathan Corbett. | ||
| You know Nathan Corbett, the Muay Thai champion? | ||
| Yeah, I heard about it. | ||
| He was doing some interview recently talking about how much yoga he does and how much it's helped his power and helped his movement. | ||
| No, I believe it does. | ||
| I believe it does. | ||
| But you're still not interested? | ||
| I probably have to think about it. | ||
| Well, I was thinking a guy like you who's so driven at trying to succeed at all costs, trying to figure out what's the best way to succeed. | ||
| You might want to investigate that. | ||
| I should. | ||
| I should actually do it. | ||
| I should do it. | ||
| I think I will... | ||
| You know, people are telling me my kicks. | ||
| I have to work on my kicks more. | ||
| I have to use my kicks more in the fights. | ||
| They're all right. | ||
| I need to start doing my kicks more. | ||
| The thing I kick, but I kick with a certain maybe insecurity. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I think it is from back in the days when I was getting taken down all the time doing my kicks. | ||
| But nowadays, people are taking me down, but they can't hold me down. | ||
| If they take me down, nobody can hold me down. | ||
| So that's something I need to start doing even more. | ||
| Not just kicking to the legs or more powerful kicks to the body. | ||
| My knees are good. | ||
| I work on my knees all the time and I'm putting more in my fights. | ||
| I love my knees. | ||
| I'm getting really high with my knees. | ||
| That's one of the beautiful things about MMA and martial arts in general is that there's always room for improvement. | ||
| There's always things to work on. | ||
| No one is the best at everything. | ||
| Even if you're 31 years old, you're doing this for 10 years, you still have so much to learn. | ||
| That's the good thing with the sport. | ||
| No, it's such a comprehensive sport. | ||
| I mean, I really don't think people appreciate how much thought is involved in the preparation. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| No, it's a lot. | ||
| It's a lot. | ||
| It's a lot. | ||
| How long do you think you'll be doing it? | ||
| You say 31 like you're old, but you're not. | ||
| But it seems like you've been doing it a long time, right? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| How many years do you think you have left? | ||
| I feel really hungry and motivated. | ||
| I don't think the age is going to be... | ||
| I don't think my age in terms of, you know, have pain in your body or injuries or anything like that is going to stop me. | ||
| It's more like as long as I'm having fun... | ||
| As long as I'm enjoying what I'm doing, I'll do it. | ||
| I'll do it. | ||
| You have guys that are doing it late in the 40s. | ||
| That's also a good thing with the sport. | ||
| It's such an old age of peaking if you compare it to other sports. | ||
| I have a lot more to gain. | ||
| I can't give you a number, but I have a lot more to give. | ||
| You've had moments in your career though that you were kind of down, right? | ||
| Like moments in your career where you're thinking, how much longer am I going to do this? | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| Now after Anthony Johnson lost, that was a tough one. | ||
| You know, but I always told myself like, you know, either I just put my, either I just I just love my life as it is. | ||
| I'm so flexible in my schedule, in my time with the family. | ||
| I gain everything from the sport. | ||
| I have to do it more, and I'm going to do it more. | ||
| That's what I... If I would, for example, say, you know, fuck it, after I lost against something, for example, I regret myself a lot in the late fours, maybe. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Well, because you had your finest performance after that. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, the Glover Teixeira fight. | ||
| And I just feel like that's the thing. | ||
| You know, I just feel like I'm just keep going like this. | ||
| Then I had a couple of setbacks, but I'm still seeing those marginals. | ||
| I see the numbers going up. | ||
| I see myself doing better. | ||
| So I believe in myself 100%. | ||
| And I believe I have what it takes to take that belt. | ||
| I believe I have what it takes. | ||
| And I believe I can beat Jon Jones. | ||
| I believe 100%. | ||
| I have what it takes to beat Jon Jones. | ||
| And I have what it takes to beat DC. So I'm just looking for that opportunity. | ||
| I want to, you know, step in there. | ||
| People say I'm not active enough. | ||
| I don't say enough. | ||
| But that's never been my thing. | ||
| I've never been like a Conor McGregor. | ||
| And if I should start doing what he's doing, people are going to tell me, like, shut the fuck up. | ||
| You know, I see right through you. | ||
| You're not that guy. | ||
| I was just, like, silly myself. | ||
| So I just, you know, doing what I do. | ||
| I'm always going to do what I do. | ||
| And I show what I have when I fight. | ||
| And I've been a little bit inactive because of my injury now and because of all that. | ||
| But, you know, whatever people say, I'm... | ||
| I'm down and I'm just waiting for the next opportunity basically. | ||
| I can't wait. | ||
| The Rumble Johnson fight was a tough one for you to swallow too because it was in Stockholm. | ||
| It was this enormous event. | ||
| Everybody was there to see you. | ||
| In that fight, we didn't pick it up while the fight was going on, but you guys collided heads. | ||
| Yeah, it was a headbutt. | ||
| I'm not taking anything away from Anthony Johnson. | ||
| That guy is a beast. | ||
| And he's one of the hardest hitters in the fucking sport. | ||
| No doubt. | ||
| I mean, no one's taken anything away from him. | ||
| He's truly exceptional. | ||
| But the thing is, I was throwing my kick there and he just came in there and his forehead hit my chin. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And I just blacked out. | ||
| I went down. | ||
| I went up again. | ||
| I was in the match again. | ||
| When he gets a taste of blood, he just goes for it. | ||
| I should just keep my guard up. | ||
| I'm very like this. | ||
| I'm very lengthy and he just caught me as I'm doing all that. | ||
| But isn't that one of those situations where until you've been there... | ||
| And you've been that hurt in a big fight like that. | ||
| It's like the experience is... | ||
| It's an alien experience. | ||
| It is. | ||
| It is. | ||
| You don't recognize any of it. | ||
| It's like you can't... | ||
| Nothing controls your mind trying to control your legs, your arms, like this and that, but... | ||
| I was just disorientated, man. | ||
| It was four in the morning in one of the big stadiums in Sweden, four in the morning. | ||
| We filled it up. | ||
| It was a huge place. | ||
| It was huge, man. | ||
| And like I said, four in the morning, when the people told me, oh, we're going to do this, I'm like, no, it's not going to happen. | ||
| How should we manage to fill this place up? | ||
| But still, people went there to see it, and it was just an amazing feeling stepping out there. | ||
| Well, for people who don't understand why, they did it to coordinate it with American pay-per-view. | ||
| Yeah, exactly. | ||
| So, yeah, that was it. | ||
| That was it. | ||
| Yeah, it was rough, man. | ||
| It was a rough loss. | ||
| And now Rumble just decided he doesn't want to fight anymore, which is kind of crazy. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Every now and then he thinks about it. | ||
| He says he wants to come back as a heavyweight. | ||
| Yeah, I don't think he's even going to make it to light heavy anymore. | ||
| No. | ||
| It's so crazy to think that that guy fought at 170 at one point in his career. | ||
| I can't even see that now. | ||
| Yeah, I don't understand how he even did it. | ||
| Such a massive guy. | ||
| His neck is like the size of his head. | ||
| He has not a small head. | ||
| He has like this big round head. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And the neck is the size of his head. | ||
| No, he's a big guy. | ||
| A really big guy. | ||
| I ran into him once while he was fighting 170. He was in the lobby of a hotel. | ||
| I came downstairs and I go, Anthony! | ||
| How much do you weigh? | ||
| And he starts laughing. | ||
| He's like, 230? | ||
| I was like, 230? | ||
| You weighed 230? | ||
| You gotta get down to 170? | ||
| That makes my weight cut easy, man. | ||
| I'm telling you. | ||
| That makes my weight cut easy. | ||
| His weight cut was horrific. | ||
| He used to, his whole, his cheeks used to suck. | ||
| He has prominent cheekbones, right? | ||
| So like when his weight cut was fully dehydrated, when his body was like really, really thin, it was like horrible. | ||
| It was like a skeleton. | ||
| It's like, man, that guy, he missed weight a bunch of times too. | ||
| Now going up to like table weights is probably the best thing he's ever done in his career. | ||
| I agree. | ||
| I was kind of stunned when he decided to retire, but what he said was interesting. | ||
| He said, I'm not a fighter. | ||
| He goes, I'm an athlete. | ||
| He goes, I'm just really good at fighting. | ||
| I don't like fighting. | ||
| I don't know if that's correct, though. | ||
| I would see him more like a fighter. | ||
| He's a great athlete, but I see him more like a hardcore fighter. | ||
| Of course, we all are athletes doing this, but he's more like the fighter. | ||
| You know, Phil Davis is an athlete. | ||
| He's an athlete, but this guy, he's just like, he's a fighter, man, I'm telling you. | ||
| You've got to tell him, man. | ||
| I mean, if you watch his fight with Glover Teixeira, or you watch his fight with Little Nog, yeah, that motherfucker's a destroyer. | ||
| He does. | ||
| He's a destroyer. | ||
| You don't want to be in front of him. | ||
| And that shows you how fucking tough DC is. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| DC beat that guy twice. | ||
| I throwed everything I had at him. | ||
| Everything I had. | ||
| I need him in the face. | ||
| I kicked him in his body. | ||
| Sometimes I hit him and I saw his eyes go like this. | ||
| And he just kept going. | ||
| DC's an animal. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| A four-week drive just kept on going. | ||
| He's a fucking animal, man. | ||
| Whatever I throw. | ||
| And he just, same pace, same pace. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You know, if I fight him again, I will not stand in his pocket. | ||
| I will not stand in front of him. | ||
| So you think that was the critical error, like being right in front of him? | ||
| Yeah, 100%. | ||
| Especially when you have such a reach advantage. | ||
| Yeah, I respect his wrestling too much. | ||
| So yeah, if I fight him again, I would do it a way different way. | ||
| Yeah, I'm sure he'd do something different too, though, right? | ||
| He'd probably do. | ||
| He'd probably do, but he'd still do one thing all the time. | ||
| He just keeps moving forward. | ||
| That's what he does. | ||
| What you got to do is you got to catch him when he's coming down from heavyweight. | ||
|
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|
Yeah. | |
| You remember the towel when he was pushing down? | ||
| I saw that. | ||
| I saw that. | ||
| I want him to come down. | ||
| I hope he's coming down. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| He can't just like... | ||
| Take that fight now. | ||
| Even if he wins, he has to come down and... | ||
| Defend? | ||
| Defend and fight. | ||
| Listen, if he beats Stipe, he might fight Francis again. | ||
| Who knows? | ||
| He might fight Volkov, who could fight... | ||
| No, he has to fight me. | ||
| He doesn't want to fight me, but he has to fight me. | ||
| He has to, in your mind. | ||
| He has to fight me. | ||
| That's what you need. | ||
| Yeah, that's what I need. | ||
|
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|
Yeah. | |
| That's my... | ||
| It's him or John. | ||
| So if John's back first, you would like to be the first guy to fight John. | ||
| I will come back right away. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I'm in camp. | ||
| I'm not in camp, sorry. | ||
| I'm training. | ||
| I'm feeling great. | ||
| My shoulder is good. | ||
| And I'm just waiting for an opportunity. | ||
| The light heavyweight is pretty wide open right now. | ||
|
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|
It is. | |
| Particularly with this decision for DC to fight against Stipe. | ||
| It's interesting. | ||
| You have Ozdemir, who just lost. | ||
| You got your friend Jimmy Manoa. | ||
| You have a few guys who are at the top of the heap. | ||
| But you're the standout right now. | ||
| I am. | ||
| With John being in limbo. | ||
| Yeah, he's gone. | ||
| Nobody knows what's happening with him. | ||
| Who else stands out to you in that division? | ||
| Yeah, I wouldn't fight my teammates. | ||
| I don't fight my teammates. | ||
| I've been training with him since I started my career. | ||
| Jimmy and Ilyar, we've been saying to each other that whatever happens, we're not fighting each other. | ||
| Yeah, the only fight that makes sense for me right now is fighting the top guys. | ||
| I'm ranked number one right now, so I can't look back. | ||
| I can't look down. | ||
| I have to look up. | ||
| What's the next up here? | ||
| And we take it from there. | ||
| We take it from there. | ||
| And like you said with Jon Jones, he's in limbo. | ||
| I hope he comes back. | ||
| If he doesn't come back, Maybe I'll fight him in boxing. | ||
| I'll fight him in boxing too. | ||
|
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|
Why? | |
| Does he want to box? | ||
| He's been boxing on his Instagram. | ||
| That's all he do is boxing right now. | ||
| Really? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I haven't been paying attention to his Instagram. | ||
| Nah, he's boxing all the time. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I don't see him coming back as a boxer though. | ||
|
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|
Maybe he just sees that Conor McGregor money. | |
| Yeah, that's another thing. | ||
| But we can take it like, you know, maybe a sideshow here. | ||
| We can box him. | ||
|
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|
Whatever. | |
| So you just want to get in there with them somehow or another. | ||
| Yeah, somehow or another. | ||
| Your competitive drive wants to get in there with them. | ||
| That's my... | ||
| Like I told you, it's bigger than winning the belt. | ||
| That's your Mount Everest. | ||
| Yeah, it is. | ||
| John Jones. | ||
| It is. | ||
| John's out there going, yeah. | ||
| He knows that. | ||
| He knows that. | ||
| There he is. | ||
| Yeah, there he is. | ||
| He's still got that Corvette. | ||
| Yo, sell that thing. | ||
| Get a minivan. | ||
| Drive slow. | ||
| It looks good, man. | ||
| It looks real good. | ||
| Yeah, it does. | ||
| It's got to be so frustrating for him to be in a situation that he's in. | ||
| Yeah, I can't even imagine. | ||
| Yeah, I can't imagine either. | ||
| It's fucked up. | ||
| It's a crazy situation to be in. | ||
| Did you see the article, Colby Covington? | ||
| No, what did he say? | ||
| What he said about Jon Jones? | ||
| I don't even want to hear it. | ||
| No, okay, we shouldn't even go there. | ||
| I mean, you could bring it up if you want to, but Colby... | ||
| No, he was talking. | ||
| It was like a text like this, just about Jon Jones, how a piece of shit he is. | ||
| Now, I was even surprised when I saw it myself. | ||
| You know, I was like, is this right or wrong? | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| Jon Jones gonna be in front of you one day. | ||
| Gotta be careful. | ||
| Watch your fucking words. | ||
| You're gonna get slapped in the face by a guy who can kill you with his hands. | ||
| That's a bad move. | ||
| I get what Colby's doing. | ||
| He's making a lot of noise and trying to do business. | ||
| And if you fight him, you're going to make a lot of money. | ||
| Because a lot of people are going to come to see him get his ass kicked. | ||
| He's not probably on the popular list. | ||
| He's probably on the I want to see you get knocked out list. | ||
| He's in a dangerous situation right now. | ||
| He's going to fight Dos Anjos. | ||
| Rafael dos Anjos is Brazilian. | ||
| He talked crazy shit about Brazil and they were gonna fight in Brazil. | ||
| But they moved the fight to Chicago. | ||
| Which, for Kobe, thank the baby Jesus. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| I would say the same thing. | ||
| Fighting Rafael dos Anjos, Brazilian. | ||
| You don't even want to be close to Brazilian right now. | ||
| You don't even want to be close to him. | ||
| No, I would not go if I was him. | ||
| He'd probably go anyway, man. | ||
| He doesn't give a fuck. | ||
| He'll go if the money's right. | ||
| I'm sure he would. | ||
| But dos Anjos right now at welterweight, I think, is a murderer. | ||
| He's a fucking killer at welterweight. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| For him, that cut down to 55 was just too big. | ||
| He's a big guy. | ||
| He's big. | ||
| I mean, it's just too much of a cut, too draining on his body. | ||
| And then you see the way he beat Robbie Lawler in his last fight. | ||
| You're like, holy shit. | ||
| It goes through Neil Magny, Robbie Lawler, and you look at how good he looks at 170. It's a tough fight. | ||
| It's a good fight. | ||
| It's a good fight. | ||
| It's a very good fight. | ||
| It's a really good fight. | ||
| Particularly stand-up. | ||
| He has a big advantage, I think, over Colby. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Stand-up. | ||
| What does he do, Colby? | ||
| Is he a wrestler? | ||
| He's a wrestler. | ||
| He's a wrestler. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| His stand-up is good. | ||
| I mean, he beat Damian Maia. | ||
| He beat him up. | ||
| But I feel like Maia is, you know, I mean, Maia was coming off of that very, very hard fight against Tyron Woodley. | ||
| Five hard rounds, got beat up. | ||
| And then he's going to go five, I think he went three rounds with Colby. | ||
| But I just don't think he's the same guy anymore. | ||
| I think he's 41, I think, Maia. | ||
| He's been in the game for a very long time. | ||
| Long time. | ||
| He's been in the game for a very long time. | ||
| Yeah, and I think those long, hard five-round wars like he did with Woody. | ||
| It takes a toll on you, yeah. | ||
| It takes a toll on you. | ||
| Not taking anything away from Colby, but I also think Colby's style is probably tailor-married for a guy like Maia. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You know, wrestling is very strong. | ||
| That's what you usually see. | ||
| Like wrestling against Brazilian Jiu Jitsu guys. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Now, you're a fucking decent guy. | ||
| You don't get in any bullshit. | ||
| You're not involved in any brawls. | ||
| You don't get involved in any stupidity. | ||
| You're an excellent representative of a professional athlete. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| What do you think about all this Conor McGregor bullshit? | ||
| Like you see someone throwing a dolly at a bus and shattering a window? | ||
| No, I don't even have words for it, man. | ||
| I have no words for it. | ||
| What did you think of when you heard the news? | ||
| I heard the news when I landed. | ||
| I was in the plane when it was all happening, flying to New York, and when I landed, my phone was like... | ||
| All these text messages coming in going, what the fuck is wrong with Conor? | ||
| I'm like, what happened? | ||
| And then I checked the news and I was like, oh Christ! | ||
| And then I hear that two fights were pulled from the card, then three fights were pulled from the card. | ||
| Conor McGregor, he's just losing it right now. | ||
| It feels like he's lost it. | ||
| I feel like... | ||
| You know, I've never really been... | ||
| You know, I respect all the things that he does. | ||
| He's a great businessman. | ||
| He does what it takes to make money. | ||
| He knows what it takes to get money. | ||
| And he does really good. | ||
| He's a masterman when it comes to trash talking, man. | ||
| He takes it to another level. | ||
| But, like, this thing he did now, it's just crazy. | ||
| You don't do that. | ||
| You don't do that at all. | ||
| I don't know what it is. | ||
| Why is he doing it? | ||
| Yeah, I don't know either. | ||
| Is he drunk as fuck or is he just... | ||
| I wouldn't say it's booze. | ||
| I wouldn't think that's a booze move. | ||
| That seems more like a coke move. | ||
| Could be. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| Or it just could be part of his act. | ||
| Yeah, but that's the thing. | ||
| Do you really take it that far? | ||
| Do you really take it that far to just... | ||
| Make some noise. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| My thing is, what if that dolly hit the car where Rose was sitting and cut Rose's face up? | ||
| That would just be... | ||
| Fuck, man. | ||
| That would be crazy. | ||
| Michael Chiesa, I'm sad that he got cut, but Chiesa's a tough bastard. | ||
| He'll be fine. | ||
| He's probably pissed off and he's going to sue Connor and he'll probably make a shitload of money suing him. | ||
| But what if it hit Rose? | ||
| No. | ||
| That would be bad. | ||
| That would be really bad. | ||
| I would feel terrible. | ||
| The fucking world would hate him. | ||
| Oh yeah. | ||
| Like what if Rose was blinded in one eye because of that. | ||
| Oh no. | ||
| For real. | ||
| What the fuck. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Look, look. | |
| Ray Borg got cuts in his eyes. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, it's entirely possible. | ||
| Yeah, he got glass cuts in his eyes. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| He got glass shards. | ||
| He got a scratched cornea. | ||
| Are they all suing Conor now? | ||
| They should be. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't know. | |
| Find out how many lawsuits. | ||
| I know Chiesa filed. | ||
| Chiesa definitely filed a lawsuit or filed a complaint which will lead to a lawsuit, I imagine. | ||
| Look, I imagine if I was Conor, I would settle the fucking every single thing outside of court because if he loses, if he loses and he gets a felony, he's fucked. | ||
| He probably won't even be able to come into the country. | ||
| No, exactly. | ||
| No. | ||
| Here's my thing. | ||
| Imagine, switch it around. | ||
| Imagine if Ray Borg threw that dolly at the bus and Conor was inside. | ||
| Yeah, he will smoke. | ||
| Be gone. | ||
|
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|
His career will be over. | |
| He will be gone, for sure. | ||
| That's one of the more fucked up things about this. | ||
| Yeah, he will be gone. | ||
| Is that you know Conor's getting special treatment. | ||
| Of course. | ||
| He is. | ||
| Yeah, of course. | ||
| That's not good for anybody. | ||
| No, it's not. | ||
| It's not. | ||
| Like I told you, he's just losing his mind right now. | ||
| You do it to a certain level, and then you just chill. | ||
| You don't take it further than what it just did. | ||
| I don't have any words for it, man. | ||
| I just feel like it's terrible for everybody in the sport, man. | ||
| No, it's terrible. | ||
| It's terrible for Conor even, because you don't want to be in a position like that. | ||
| Yeah, he's making money. | ||
| I don't know what he made for that Mayweather fight, but I'm telling you, if he keep doing what he's doing, that money is not going to be enough to pay all that shit he has to pay. | ||
| No, no. | ||
| He'll burn right through that money. | ||
| But he's probably burning through that money anyway. | ||
| Every time you see him, he's got a new Bentley. | ||
| He probably lives in a mansion now. | ||
| Oh yeah, he does. | ||
| 100%. | ||
| He has his private jet. | ||
| I don't know how many... | ||
| I don't know how many... | ||
| What do you call it? | ||
| Bodyguards you had when he hit that guy in Ireland. | ||
| The gangster guy he hit in Ireland. | ||
| He had a bunch of bodyguards I had around him. | ||
| But they cost every day. | ||
| They're not cheap though. | ||
| Yeah, that money piles up. | ||
| But when you're 29 years old like Conor, you don't even think about it. | ||
| No, you don't. | ||
| He's thinking about now, not the future. | ||
| And he probably thinks he's going to make hundreds of millions more. | ||
| That's the sad part of it, man. | ||
| That's the sad part of it, man. | ||
| Whatever it is, a billion or whatever it is, it's not a lot of money. | ||
| It's going to run through you. | ||
| Well, there's that. | ||
| And then there's the thing that really gets me, is that... | ||
| What Conor is, is an exceptional world championship fighter. | ||
| I mean, that's what he really is. | ||
| All this other stuff The bullshit is going to get in the way of his legacy. | ||
| I mean, his legacy shouldn't be a boxing match where he was TKO'd by the greatest boxer ever. | ||
| That's fucking stupid. | ||
| Yeah, I know. | ||
| His legacy should be the next fight after Eddie Alvarez. | ||
| I know what you mean, man. | ||
| I know what you mean. | ||
| Eddie Alvarez, that was a masterful performance. | ||
| He's been smashing beasts. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| He's been taking two belts. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| He's a... | ||
| He's just a regular guy from Ireland who comes to America and just lives the American dream. | ||
| Nobody's done before. | ||
| So it's terrible. | ||
| It's terrible to see all this shit happen. | ||
| Yeah, because I'm saying that all these things that are happening, it's bad for him. | ||
| Yeah, of course. | ||
| It's not just bad for the sport to let him get away with it. | ||
| It's bad for him. | ||
| With all this happening, you don't even think of what he's been doing in Octagon. | ||
| Right, exactly. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| I mean, just think about setting him up with Khabib, you know, having that fight. | ||
| Like, Jesus fucking Christ, that would be a giant fight. | ||
| That might be one of the biggest MMA fights ever to make. | ||
| Him versus Khabib? | ||
| Yeah, Khabib is, what's his record? | ||
| 25 and 0? | ||
| 26 now. | ||
| 26 and 0. 26 and 0. That's amazing. | ||
| And he's barely tested. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| He barely gets tested. | ||
| Yeah, that's amazing. | ||
| You see one little flaw in him, you get all excited. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Because it's like, ooh, look, he's keeping his chin up. | ||
| What do you think wins that fight? | ||
| What's that? | ||
| Who do you think wins that fight? | ||
| It's a good question. | ||
| Well, the question is, can Conor catch him? | ||
| Can Conor catch him while he's coming in? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| And if Conor can catch him, look, Conor can knock anybody out. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| I mean, you see what he did to Eddie Alvarez. | ||
| You see what he did to Aldo. | ||
| Nobody had ever done that to Aldo before. | ||
| That's the best strikers in the division. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And what Conor has is incredible precision and the ability to... | ||
| He's so fast. | ||
| So fast. | ||
| His speed, his angles, he moves, create an angle, and he just counter the shit out of the guys. | ||
| And yeah, that's all he needs. | ||
| He also moves unusual. | ||
| Almost like a karate guy. | ||
| Yeah, he does. | ||
| Wide stance, but then knocks you out like a real pro boxer. | ||
| The only thing I'm doubting on Conor, he's the best striker and all of that, but does he have the conditioning for Khabib? | ||
| That's a good question. | ||
| Khabib, he just keeps going. | ||
| Different animal. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And there's also the wrestling. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Khabib's wrestling is not just a level above everybody else, but multiple levels. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I heard like heavy guys, not talking about heavyweights, talking about Khabib's pressure on the ground being on top. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Taking that seatbelt around, taking his hands, moving that leg up. | ||
| Just neutrals the guy totally. | ||
| Luke Rockhold said he never loses a round in training. | ||
| Oh, he said? | ||
| He said he doesn't lose a round. | ||
| Yeah, Khabib. | ||
| Khabib doesn't lose a round. | ||
| He just smashes everybody. | ||
| That's insane. | ||
| Everybody who wrestles with him are like, fuck, here we go. | ||
| Time to go through the grinder. | ||
| It's like those fucking guys in Dagestan, man. | ||
| New York Times had an article about Dagestan wrestling and about how these guys, they have very few options. | ||
| And so a lot of them, you know, they go towards the dark side and get involved in terrorism, all these other things. | ||
| And this is the way to go towards the light side. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| They compete. | ||
| And they have a different mindset there too. | ||
| If you're doing good, if you win the World Games or whatever, they take care of you. | ||
| They really support you. | ||
| The whole government, the whole country is carrying you out from the mat. | ||
| You're a king there. | ||
| It's a great motivation, man. | ||
| They're animals, man. | ||
| They're animals. | ||
| Did you see Zabit fight? | ||
|
unidentified
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Who? | |
| Zabit Magomed Sharapov. | ||
| He fought on the undercard of... | ||
| No, I don't think so. | ||
| Holy shit. | ||
| He's another one from Dagestan. | ||
| Another one of those. | ||
| Another one, but he's totally different. | ||
| He's like six foot one, fights at 145. Yeah, that guy. | ||
| The karate guy. | ||
| Yeah, that guy, yeah. | ||
| I think his background is actually like... | ||
| I'm going to say it's wushu or something like that. | ||
| I think he started off as a kung fu guy. | ||
| Who did he go? | ||
| He won that fight. | ||
| Kyle Bokniak. | ||
| Great fight. | ||
| Crazy three-round fight. | ||
| Bokniak just kept coming at him. | ||
| Kept coming at him. | ||
| And then at the end of the third round, Bokniak finally has him cornered up against a cage and he's teeing off on him. | ||
| Phenomenal fight. | ||
| I mean, phenomenal fight for the toughness of Bokniak and the skill of Zabit. | ||
| Fucking phenomenal. | ||
| Just ridiculous technique. | ||
| And this guy is not even a wrestler. | ||
| He's a striker. | ||
| He's a striker, but he's got wrestling, too. | ||
| I mean, his wrestling is good, too, and his takedown defense is very good. | ||
| And his jiu-jitsu is very good too, but his fucking striking, crazy shit, wheel kicks, front leg roundhouse kicks to the face, switch kicks, just everything, lightning fast, perfect technique. | ||
| And here's a big thing too, is his footwork. | ||
| When he lands, he's always in perfect position. | ||
| Everything he does, when he comes down, he's never awkward, he's never like, his legs are never crossed up, nothing. | ||
| Phenomenal technique. | ||
| That's impressive to see. | ||
| It's impressive to see when guys are like good strike, guys with good kicks. | ||
| For example, John Jones, for example. | ||
| They kick high. | ||
| They kick from different angles. | ||
| And they just land like they haven't kicked. | ||
| They land like really good base. | ||
| They're ready for another. | ||
| They're ready for a counter. | ||
| They're ready for this. | ||
| It's impressive to see. | ||
| So for you as a guy who, if you had to say you have one area in your game that needs the most work, you'd say that's your kicking? | ||
| Wow. | ||
| I think, you know, I don't know. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Of course, kicking is one of the things. | ||
| I think I have to work on a lot, man. | ||
| I'm far from... | ||
| I will probably never be a complete fighter. | ||
| I have to work on everything. | ||
| I need to keep working on my boxing. | ||
| I have to keep working on my footwork. | ||
| I have to keep working on my kicks, my knees, my elbows, my grappling, my... | ||
| My wrestling, keep my chin down, guard up, all that shit. | ||
| It never ends. | ||
| It never ends. | ||
| It just keeps going. | ||
| Just keeps going. | ||
| Who do you like to watch fight? | ||
| I like to watch my teammates fight. | ||
| I like seeing guys in my division. | ||
| I should be honest to you. | ||
| I'm not a guy that really watches fights. | ||
| I don't watch all the fights. | ||
| I barely watch any fights. | ||
| If I know either my teammates or Competition fights. | ||
| My competition is fighting. | ||
| I look at fights. | ||
| Good title defenses and stuff like that, but I don't barely watch fights. | ||
| Do you think it's because it's just too much a part of your life? | ||
| I think it's important that you have some distance to To your work. | ||
| It is a work. | ||
| Even if it's your hobby and your lifestyle and your passion, it's a work. | ||
| And you need some distance. | ||
| And my distance, like I told you, is being outdoors. | ||
| My distance is being outdoors, hunting, family and friends. | ||
| So it doesn't interest me to watch the fights. | ||
| It's getting too much of it. | ||
| Particularly when I'm in camp. | ||
| I don't watch fights at all. | ||
| It gets too much. | ||
| I would imagine. | ||
| I mean, you're probably spending five hours a day just training, right? | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| No, it gets too much, man. | ||
| But like I thought, if I know Jon Jones is fighting, DC is fighting, Vulcan is fighting, I'm watching those fights. | ||
| Do you have a guy that's like your favorite guy to watch? | ||
| Like a Mighty Mouse or someone or Anderson Silva or someone? | ||
| Yeah, those guys. | ||
| I watch those guys. | ||
| Yeah, I watch Mighty Mouse. | ||
| That guy is incredible. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Hands down, he's the best guy out there right now competing. | ||
| Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like if you were that light? | ||
| Wonder what it would be like if you only weighed 125 pounds? | ||
| No, I would be so fast. | ||
| I'm fast and light heavy. | ||
| I would be... | ||
| You'll see my shadow in there. | ||
| Running around like this. | ||
|
unidentified
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I know. | |
| It would be crazy, right? | ||
| I mean, Mighty Mouse is so fast. | ||
| One time, I've told this story before, but one time I grabbed him just playing around from behind. | ||
| I'm like, what's up? | ||
| I grabbed him. | ||
| He turned and kneed me in the body two times before I even knew he did anything, man. | ||
|
unidentified
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He went, da-da! | |
| And I went, oh, dude. | ||
| That was ridiculous. | ||
| I'm like, how the fuck did you move that quick? | ||
| Like, you know, his fights is amazing to see. | ||
| And the way he finished his fights, the one he's like throwing the guy, taking that armbar in the air. | ||
| Yeah, it was just amazing to see. | ||
| Yeah, he suplexed him and took the armbar in the air on the way down. | ||
| I mean, that is fucking video game shit. | ||
| It is, it is. | ||
| He said he drills that. | ||
| No, it's insane. | ||
| He said that's something he drills all the time. | ||
| He plays video games a lot, so he probably gets it from the video. | ||
| I have to try this. | ||
|
unidentified
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We do something in the video, I have to try this, and then he goes and do it. | |
| Yeah, that's crazy. | ||
| Now, do you watch a lot of boxing? | ||
| Well, yeah, I watch the big fights. | ||
| I watch the big fights. | ||
| I do. | ||
| But I'm not really a guy that watches a lot of fights overall. | ||
| You see, it's just because, like you said, you need distance? | ||
| Distance. | ||
| It's not in my interest. | ||
| You know, I got guys in my team. | ||
| They're like such a nerds. | ||
| They know everything about everyone. | ||
| They don't even train themselves. | ||
| They just know everything about everyone and that's enough for me. | ||
| They just tell me, who's this? | ||
| I asked them. | ||
| They're like, oh, don't you know? | ||
| I'm like, no. | ||
|
unidentified
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Who's this? | |
| Oh, this is this? | ||
| He has the skills. | ||
| Okay, good. | ||
| So, yeah. | ||
| So, like when you're in camp, what do you do to try to relax, like for downtime? | ||
| Do you try to read books? | ||
| Do you watch TV? Do you play video games? | ||
| Like, what do you do? | ||
| I'm actually spending time outdoors. | ||
| During camp? | ||
| During camp. | ||
| That's what I do. | ||
| That's my way to get away from everything. | ||
| You know, watch a series, hanging out with my family and stuff. | ||
| But for me, the real distance I get when I'm outdoors, hunting or I don't even have to hunt. | ||
| I just go out there. | ||
| Hike? | ||
| Yeah, hike. | ||
| I got some lands not far from Stockholm. | ||
| I go out there and just hanging out. | ||
| Sometimes I'm just tracking. | ||
| Oh, what's this? | ||
| Oh, that's a wild bird. | ||
| And I just follow it where it goes. | ||
| Could be anything. | ||
| I like to be outdoors. | ||
| Even if it's like 10 minus degrees or if it's summertime. | ||
| I'm out all the time. | ||
| That's awesome. | ||
| That's a great way to put things into perspective too, right? | ||
| Yeah, and the guys are telling me, they're like, if you put that much time, like you're doing in hunting, you did that in training, not time, but just having that interest. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You know, they all the time tell me that. | ||
| But don't you think that those interests, things like hunting, are a relief for your mind? | ||
| But it is. | ||
| I wish everybody could see that. | ||
| It's a healthy way of living, I think. | ||
| Yeah, I think... | ||
| I think, especially to a guy who has such an intense pursuit, it's probably good to have another thing that you're interested in so that it gives you a relief from not always thinking about fighting all the time. | ||
| There's a break. | ||
| Obviously, hunting is not competitive, so what you're doing when you're hunting is more primal and natural, but also very difficult and time-consuming. | ||
| It's like you train, you compete at the gym, you compete in the octagon, you're competing in business, you're competing in... | ||
| Everything is just a competitive way of... | ||
| You live a competitive way of... | ||
| It's a competitive way of living, basically, and it gets a toll on you after a while. | ||
| When I was young, when I started this sport, I was just... | ||
| That was, you know, I was just like, I wanted to smash everybody at the gym. | ||
| But now, you know, nowadays I'm like, I know my body better. | ||
| I know what my body needs. | ||
| I know, okay, this is, I found a way where I, even if I was doing what I was doing six, seven years ago, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, even if I do that in training wise, being such a nerd in training and just training, training seven days a week, 24 hours a day, I wouldn't be a better competitor. | ||
| I wouldn't do better in fights. | ||
| Now I found a way of... | ||
| I basically found a way of, okay, this is what I need to make my life better and make my competition better. | ||
| I perform much better doing this. | ||
| I perform much better having that distance from all that competitive things. | ||
| So, yeah, I need it, man. | ||
| I need it. | ||
| So, where are you staying right now? | ||
| You're healed up. | ||
| You're ready to go. | ||
| Do you just sit and wait for a call? | ||
| Your manager informs the UFC that you're ready to go into camp? | ||
| I'm ready. | ||
| I'm ready to go in camp. | ||
| I'm training right now. | ||
| I'm healed up. | ||
| I'm 100%. | ||
| But how does that work? | ||
| Do you contact the UFC and try to negotiate something to try to get something going? | ||
| Do you wait for them to contact you? | ||
| Or do you wait for this Stipe Miocic DC fight? | ||
| Basically, I'm just waiting for them to come with something that makes sense for me. | ||
| And so there's been no discussion so far? | ||
| Not really. | ||
| Not really, no. | ||
| That's got to be kind of frustrating. | ||
| Yeah, you know, it's been some discussions, but nothing that really I count on or anything like that. | ||
| It's just been up in the air and I'm just waiting for something on the table that makes sense. | ||
| I'm ready to go, man. | ||
| So what would make sense? | ||
| Other than Jon Jones, other than DC, what would make sense? | ||
| You as the number one contender right now, Jon's unranked because right now he's currently suspended, but as soon as they put him back in, he's likely to be right up there with you, and then you have DC. I mean, who else in your division makes any sense now? | ||
| If they were to offer you a fight now, if Jon Jones is going to be suspended still for another six months or whatever it's going to be, who makes sense in your division for you, other than DC? Well, I wish I had an answer to that right now, but I really don't. | ||
| I just, you know, I just feel like it has to be an unmeaningful offer. | ||
| It has to be something that I feel, this is right. | ||
| This is what I want. | ||
| I feel like, man, in my position, in my career right now, every fight has to mean something. | ||
| Yeah, that's what I'm getting at. | ||
| With you at the top, really the fight to make is one of two, DC or John. | ||
| Those are the two fights. | ||
| Yeah, or it could be something else too, Joe, but it has to be... | ||
| It has to feel right, though. | ||
| It has to feel right and it has to be something meaningful. | ||
| Like a big main event on Fox or something like that? | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| Something where it's a big fight to showcase. | ||
| Something good, man. | ||
| Something good. | ||
| And, you know, everybody knows that when I'm stepping up in that octagon, I'm going to perform and I'm going to make a show. | ||
| And I'm looking for that goal. | ||
| That's all I'm seeing. | ||
| Well, listen man, I'm a fan. | ||
| It's been a pleasure to be able to commentate your fights. | ||
| I really enjoy watching you fight. | ||
| I really enjoy watching you develop the whole process. | ||
| And I really appreciate you coming on here, man. | ||
| Appreciate it, Joe. | ||
| I appreciate that. | ||
| Thank you very much, man. | ||
| Thanks for having me, man. | ||
| And good luck to you. | ||
| Appreciate that. |
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