Joe Rogan interviews Rafael Lovato Jr. (35, Bellator’s first American father-son black belt duo) and Justin Wren, who transitioned from MMA to anti-bullying advocacy after childhood torment, including suicidal threats. Lovato Jr., trained in BJJ since age 12 under his Jeet Kune Do-influenced father, now blends striking and grappling at Kudachiba’s brutal two-week camps. Wren’s Fight for the Forgotten partners with Bellator, Zebra, and others to fund water wells in Tanzania while pushing Oklahoma’s anti-bullying laws—like Heroes in Waiting, a program where 87% of bullying stops with bystander intervention. Their crowdfunding tournament (deadline: Dec 31) ties gym upgrades to global impact, proving combat skills can fuel real-world change. [Automatically generated summary]
Well, you know, that's kind of my life story, I guess.
You know, my father is a lifetime martial artist.
And so I had a whole...
Martial arts upbringing well before I ever found out about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
My father was a Jeet Kune Do instructor.
And so growing up, you know, the main thing that we were training when I was a child was the Jeet Kune Do system.
Which was basically mixed martial arts before mixed martial arts.
You know, Bruce Lee's philosophy was way ahead of his time.
He believed in, you know, learning from all the arts and creating your own personal system of self-defense that involves, you know, each range of combat.
And so, you know, I grew up doing several different forms of martial arts, boxing, Muay Thai, Escrima, Wing Chun, Pinjak Silat.
I mean, you name it, I've probably done it.
And when my father discovered Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, I was an early teenager, like around 12 years old.
He learned about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in one of the Jeet Kune Do instructor conferences that takes place in California.
They brought in the Gracies.
They had They did shoot fighting and different sort of martial arts that included grappling, but it was very rough and not near the technique that Brazilian Jiu Jitsu has.
So whenever he first started learning Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, he fell in love with it.
My dad's a smaller guy.
At that time, he was probably like 145, 150 pounds.
So it was perfect for him.
And he fell in love with it and he comes home and he starts telling me about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and teaching me what he learned.
And we lived in Oklahoma and the instructor conference was in California.
At that time basically the only Jiu Jitsu was in California, maybe a little bit in Florida and then Henzo was in New York.
So everything was as far as possible from us because we were right there in the middle of the country.
And, you know, he fell in love with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
And so he started making trips to California to learn Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
And I was just a teenager.
I'm a young kid.
So, you know, I was already doing some boxing at the time.
I was competing in amateur boxing.
And I'm used to training with adults.
And once I started learning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I fell in love with it right away because that gave me something that I could do where I could be competitive with the adults right away.
I was a long, lanky kid, and the guard just felt natural to me.
And just being on the ground, I really loved it.
And I loved it.
The technique of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, how technical it was and the science of it.
So I fell in love with it right away.
We sacrificed a lot to learn Jiu Jitsu.
Being in Oklahoma, always traveled to learn.
The first time I went to Brazil, I was 16 years old.
It was in 1999 to train and compete in the world championships.
And, you know, we just never stopped and we became the first American father and son Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belts.
But, you know, going back to your question...
The full spectrum of martial arts was always in my blood.
You know, even as a jujitsu competitor, you know, someone that found his passion in jujitsu, I still considered myself a martial artist first and foremost, not just a jujitsu practitioner.
And so it was always in the plans to one day do MMA. But I really wanted to go as far as I could in Brazilian jujitsu.
You know, I was there when BJ Penn won the world championships in 2000. And I watched him win and I said, you know, man, I really want to be the next American to win the Worlds.
That immediately became my big life goal, my first life goal.
And I achieved that in 2007. But we all saw BJ go straight to MMA after he won.
He never even did another tournament.
That was the only tournament he ever did as a black belt was the Worlds.
And he won and then switched to MMA. And so I really wanted to be an American, you know, just kind of representing for us in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, competing at that high level and winning as much as possible.
And kind of, you know, at that time, it wasn't like today.
The worlds were still in Brazil.
The sport was just dominated by Brazilians and pretty much still is today.
But, you know, now we've come a long way.
And I just wanted to be that force to...
Show everyone like, hey, we can do it.
You know what I mean?
It's possible.
Because at that time, it was a whole other scene.
The world's in Brazil.
At the end of the tournament, you're lucky if you had a handful of non-Brazilians on the podium at all the belts, including blue, purple, brown, all the belts, let alone black belt.
And so I stayed in the sport to really try to get a second gold.
That was the main thing that was keeping me in it, to win a second gold at the Worlds as a black belt.
I ended up medaling eight times, never got that second gold.
But towards the end, I was just like, you know, it's time to switch.
You know, I really felt like MMA was calling me.
Jiu-Jitsu was getting a little too comfortable, you know, and I had been fighting.
Every now and then I felt it, especially when I went back to compete in Brazil.
The world switched to the US in 2007, the year that I won it.
So I stopped having that thing to push me to go to Brazil to compete.
And so I went back a couple of times to compete in the Brazilian Nationals and I had really good performances there.
I ended up winning the absolute in 2013 in Brazil.
The all weight class division became the first non-Brazilian to ever win a major absolute title.
I did it in Brazil.
That was a day I was extremely inspired.
Competing in Brazil brought that out of me.
I just didn't feel that way all the time.
I just got too used to it.
I just felt like it was calling me.
I knew one day I was going to do it.
I had to have one fight, just as a martial artist.
I had to do at least one before it was all said and done.
And I really just kind of took it as a one-fight basis.
I knew I needed to do it once, and the time felt right.
Like, okay, let's go.
Let's switch back in to kind of tapping into who I was as a martial artist, the training that I had as a kid, as a child, under my father, under the Jeet Kune Do system.
And I did one fight, and I enjoyed it, and I said I gotta do more, and I gotta do at least one more.
Yeah, supplement Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, the no-gi competitions, ADCC, things like that.
You know, and I just believed in training everything.
I did Judo as well.
Like what about practicing ground and pound and all the other things in MMA? Well, whenever I was younger, my father, he had some fighters that he was training.
And so I trained a lot with them.
And then whenever I took over the academy, we had a couple guys that were fighting then as well, one of which went to the UFC. And so I was sparring with these guys, helping them get ready.
Well, it's totally designed for MMA. You know, it's not Muay Thai for Muay Thai, you know.
They call their system Evolusantai, basically means evolution, you know.
And it's evolved into this system that is designed for MMA. You know, you're not just training striking for striking, you're doing striking to set up takedowns or defend takedowns.
It was just an incredible system.
Justin, whenever we fought last year, he got to train with Mighty UCO and experience it for himself.
And for me, it was so good because they can work with me as a jujitsu guy much different because they don't have to worry about someone trying to take me down.
You know, I can pretty much throw whatever, whatever is possible, everything in the kitchen sink.
And for the most part, You're happy if someone takes you down.
Yeah, it's okay.
It's okay.
And then also I have the threat, being able to threaten someone with a takedown, which opens up a lot of striking as well.
And so the way they have this system designed is just perfect for me.
And Mauricio as a person is just an incredible guy that I really fell in love with.
Honestly, if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be doing MMA. He just made me feel like I had the right person in place, the family, to go into MMA confidently and enjoy it.
In the beginning, I wasn't sure how much I was going to How much I was going to like the whole process.
My parents, both my parents, just have given me incredible support.
My mom, I mean...
My dad is a full-on martial artist.
He follows his passion.
He's a martial artist, musician.
He plays the organ.
Just a very unique individual.
He opened a martial arts school.
My mom gave us incredible support.
I just basically followed his footsteps.
Whenever I started to commit myself to going all-in, they've always been behind me.
And, I mean, the timing of it is just very special because he was inspired by Bruce Lee and that's what pushed him to, you know, follow the Jeet Kune Do system.
And so I got to come in in that, which is a very, you know, unique style.
When I was a child, I was training with Danny Nusano, Richard Bastille, some of the most incredible martial artists that have ever lived.
And then I was at this special age of a teenager, you know, when Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu first started making its way to the U.S. And I had the support of them saying, yeah, you're going to go to Brazil, you're going to compete in the Worlds.
And I got to see Jiu-Jitsu, you know, very early on.
The first World Championships was in 96. And I competed in 99. And so I got to experience Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in almost its roots in Brazil and see what it's become today, you know, worldwide, such a big sport.
And now I'm also fighting MMA. So it's really cool, my whole martial arts.
And there are definitely days where I have to kind of speak up and say, you know what, I'm going to pull back just a little bit today, just depending on what my body feels.
You know, when Eddie Bravo does his camps with him up in Big Bear, and he says, it's nuts, man.
They do hill sprints.
Everybody else is exhausted, and Tony's just lapping them.
Just running back up.
I mean, he's just never out of gas.
He'll work out six hours hard a day.
And on top of that, what he does is he gets there, they rent a house, and then he builds his own gym.
So they'll have like a house that they rent, he'll mat up the living room, and then he'll go outside, he'll put up a Wing Chun dummy, he'll hang heavy bags, He does it all himself.
I mean, he actually used Wing Chun in the fight with Pettis.
He trapped his hand and hit him with an elbow once.
And I remember watching it going, like, holy shit, he just used Wing Chun inside the cage.
Like, it works.
Like, if you really know your shit, he trapped his hand and then came right over the top with an elbow.
And I went, look at that shit.
Because he's always practicing it.
He's always practicing kung fu, but he's a very, very unusual guy.
There's all this talk about a Conor rematch, because financially that would be a fantastic fight, right?
Financially.
But when you look at what happened, that was a dominant victory.
I mean, there was one round where Conor did pretty good, the third round.
Other than that, Khabib just sort of dominated him.
I mean, dropped him in the second, beat the fucking shit out of him in the fourth, and the third was a round where Conor did pretty good because most of it was standing up.
There's a new angle of video where Khabib's Russian manager, as Connor is tapping, he comes right behind Dennis and slaps him on the back like three or four times.
I was hoping the chairs wouldn't start flying and then it wouldn't get too crazy.
And I was really, really, really hoping that someone wouldn't do something stupid and hurt someone to the point where they would get kicked out of the UFC or suspended.
But that might be the case with that one gentleman.
What is his name?
Zuba?
What is his name?
I should check my Instagram because it's filled with free Zuba.
So him and 12 other guys came over to our Airbnb and we watched the fights and it was Conor vs.
Khabib and we loved watching everything that night.
And then whenever that happened, so I'm torn on it because I love those guys as fighters.
I absolutely love them as fighters.
And then whenever that happened, it was just something that In me, I don't know if I was embarrassed or if I was disappointed, but we were introducing some guys.
Steve Weatherford, who played for the New York Giants, he came over for like...
He played for the Giants for like 10 or 12 years.
Lives in San Diego.
Great guy, but he's not a big MMA fan.
So I was explaining everything to him.
And when that happened, it was just pretty disappointing.
Then I spoke at...
At Anti-Bullying Coalition in Tulsa.
And I went there and there was this girl there that she looked real sweet, real quiet, introverted.
And she worked with mental health.
And her name was Allie.
All of a sudden, she found out I was an MMA fighter.
And she said, Oh my gosh.
You know, my husband's a huge MMA fan.
I'm not at all.
I never really even sat down and watched it with him.
But then he decided to take me to the T-Mobile Arena for her first fight was Conor Khabib.
And she was in there, and she said she loved it.
Before that, Michelle Waterson was an incredible inspiration to her, her saying that she wants to be the first mom to be a UFC champion.
She said that the night was going great.
And then whenever that happened, she said, It literally scared her because fights started popping off to the right of her, left of her, behind her.
She just kind of poured out into the arena.
And so that was her first introduction to MMA. So that was a little tough to see, but at the same time, I get it.
Yeah, I mean, same thing that you were feeling, just, you know, that little bit of kind of sadness and disappointment of, you know, the biggest event, the most views, the most people watching, and that's the last thing that they see.
That's what they, you know, go to bed thinking about and feeling about.
I don't think...
Even Conor and Khabib, that's not who they are as martial artists.
Sure, all the motions are flying, and they have a history, and it's hard to let that go.
But I just don't feel like that's even who they really are.
You see in all their other fights, they respect their opponents.
He talks shit to people and fucks with their head.
I mean, it's a giant part of his game.
And I know that that was part of the strategy of him throwing that dolly at the bus.
That shit's way out of line.
I mean, throwing a dolly at the bus, that's not what a martial artist does.
If you stop and think about...
What we value about martial arts in terms of teaching children honor and respect and discipline and the things when we think of as a classical martial artist like Liotta Machida or someone like that bowing to their opponent.
That is not.
This is theatrics.
This is hype.
But in all fairness, the UFC used that to sell that fight.
I mean, that was a big part of their promotional campaign was seeing Conor throw the dolly at the bus and the screaming and the yelling.
You know, you're setting an example.
There's something going on outside of the actual contest itself.
There's all this extracurricular violence.
There's throwing a dolly at a bus, shattering in the window, all these guys running and screaming, get off the bus, and then they're promoting this.
They're showing this.
And then everyone's shocked that it escalates after the fight itself.
You know, one of the In some ways, one of the more interesting moments of the fight was Khabib on top of Conor, beating the shit out of him, going, let's talk now.
If you look at his standard behavior, he's very respectful.
I mean, he's never had an incident like this ever in a fight.
All of his fights before that are him shaking his opponent's hand, doing the standard stare-down, standard stuff, talking about his skill set and what he's going to do.
I'm very torn because all the shit that he talked to Jose Aldo, look, that was a big factor in Jose Aldo charging at him, losing his composure, face first, and getting clipped with that left hand.
That's a big factor, is the emotional angst that he had gone through for months and months on the road with this guy.
Yeah, I mean, that mental warfare is a real thing.
It just didn't work with Khabib.
It had the opposite effect.
With Khabib, he's like, I can't wait to get my fucking hands on you.
It wasn't, I can't believe this guy's saying these things to me.
With Khabib, but it ramped up the violence to the point where he was letting you know, like, hey, this is real to me.
If you want to act thuggish, we'll just keep going.
I'll keep taking this.
He didn't want to stop after Connor had tapped.
He was holding on to him.
And he's letting him know, hey, motherfucker, this is real.
This is not just shit talking.
Connor was saying to him, this is just business.
It's just business.
And he's like, let's talk now.
Let's talk now.
He's like, this is not business to him.
So to him...
Fights, I mean, this is what he said in the press conference.
It should be, this is a respect sport.
And this sport should be about two men expressing themselves to the best of their physical ability inside the cage.
Just doing their best against the best fighters in the world.
And that should speak for itself.
And that they should have respect and honor outside of it.
The sad part was him letting the emotions take over what he felt and instead of just getting the belt tied on and kind of killing them with kindness at the end and saying that and having that chance to put that in everyone's minds and ears.
He did in the post-fight interview, or the post-fight press conference, but how many people got a chance to see that?
I mean, just a few thousand, I'm sure, in comparison to the 2.4 million that downloaded the pay-per-view and the many, many, many, many more that saw YouTube clips and Instagram clips.
Yeah, I mean, everybody saw it.
It's unfortunate, but it's also a financial windfall.
The whole thing, it's weird because part of what makes Conor so interesting is that he's so good at talking shit, he's hilarious, and he knows how to back it up.
But when we saw him fight Khabib, he just fell short.
It's really that simple.
When skill versus skill, he fell short.
And the shit-talking led to Khabib taking it very personal, and very personal at the end, and then pointing at Dylan Dennis and jumping off the top of the cage.
The whole thing was just...
It's so fucking crazy.
But the idea that people should be surprised after Connor throws a dolly at the bus and then still winds up able to fight.
Throwing a dolly is fucking way worse than punching a guy who punches people for a living, which is Dylan Dennis is a professional fighter.
He's a professional fighter.
He jumps out, he takes a swing at him.
They're screaming, and Dylan's like, fuck you, and he's like, fuck you, and there's a bunch of people get involved, and then a bunch of other people jump in.
The whole thing was nuts, but the idea that we should be shocked after him throwing a dolly at a bus because Khabib's on the bus, those Russians don't fucking play like that, man.
Did you see the videos afterwards in Dagestan where they're shooting off the Uzis and AK-47s?
So I wrestled there when I was like 18.
Wrestled there and it was crazy.
They were taking us around everywhere in G-wagons.
And the ones in front of us had like armed, I don't know, machine guns on top of them.
The one behind us armed machine guns on top of them.
And then what was it?
We were walking through one of the streets.
And there's these big chains that are in between the road and the sidewalk.
And we're walking down the sidewalk.
And all of a sudden there's like a laser that comes over.
And our guys are like, we got to go.
All of a sudden, a car came up onto the sidewalk, started driving like they were gonna plow us down.
We had to jump into the road to not get hit.
And I don't know why that happened, but after that, we weren't allowed our...
The hotel we were in, we had, like, balconies to where we could look out.
Well, they had to move our rooms to where we're inside, to where we couldn't have a balcony and everything else, to where, just because of that threat, because of the laser that came, because of the truck that came up onto the sidewalk and tried to run us over.
But if you are sitting there and you cross your legs and you show the bottom of your foot, that's culturally really disrespectful to show the bottoms of your shoes or the bottom of your feet.
There's a photo of him that he posted on his Instagram with his father, him and his father standing right after the fight he did it, like, to explain, like, that this...
What this is about to him is honor.
It's not about money.
It's about honor and respect.
And it's a photo of him standing with his father with this incredible mountain range behind him.
But they say it's the story, and it is the story, but at a certain point, if it's something that was illegal, hurt somebody, maybe don't use that for the promotion.
I was honestly shocked that they were using it in promotion.
I was like, well, I shouldn't be shocked.
I thought that when I saw the promo, and I saw the dolly flying at the bus, and then the video from the inside with the glass shattering, I was like, okay, I guess I shouldn't be shocked, because it did happen.
You know, it is a part of the story, but I mean, is this encouraging this?
Like, what is...
I mean, they're using it to sell the biggest fight in the history of the sport.
Turned out to be true.
It is the biggest fight in the history of the sport.
It's different, but at the same time, this might be more for the purist or hardcore MMA fan or martial artist that competes, but what originally drew you to the martial arts?
I mean, I haven't heard that firsthand from you, but what drew you to the sport initially?
Like Raphael, I found out about Bruce Lee when I was a kid.
I mean, Bruce Lee was the first.
I saw those Bruce Lee movies.
I lived in New Jersey in an apartment complex, and my superintendent in the apartment complex, his son was my age, and I went over his house, we watched a Bruce Lee movie.
I was like, holy shit, look at this.
And the kid had nunchucks and shit, I whacked myself in the back of the head trying to practice nunchucks.
But I remember watching that guy throw kicks and, you know, jumping off of tables and beating the fuck out of all these dudes that are coming out.
And every kid wanted to be Bruce Lee.
Every kid wanted to be Bruce Lee.
And then I took a Kung Fu class, and then I took karate, and then I got into Taekwondo, and then I got into Muay Thai, and all these other different things.
But to me, it was just, martial arts was, you know, it was...
It was a way to learn how to fight, first of all, for sure.
But then it was also a way to test yourself.
But it was always, there was no shit-talking back then in martial arts tournaments.
There was no trash-talking.
Even if, you know, there was like little subtle things that people would say to each other at the weigh-in, under each other's breath, like, I'm gonna fuck you up, or something like that.
It was very quiet.
It was very little of that.
Most of it was bowing, shaking hands, and then there was just the fight.
But there was also no money involved.
It was just fighting.
And I think that when you're dealing with money and you're dealing with promotion, let's just be completely honest.
Conor throwing that dolly at the bus and Conor talking all that shit probably made that fight twice as big.
Maybe he would have gotten one million pay-per-view buys and wound up getting two and a half million.
It's worth a lot of fucking money.
Think about two and a half million versus one extra million people buying it at whatever the fuck it costs.
And now I think that people, you know, after people seeing him choke out Rumble Johnson and then seeing him knock out Stipe, people are like, oh, he's a bad motherfucker and he's a really nice guy.
You know that Hollywood arithmetic, like when a movie comes out?
Do you know how that works?
Dude, it's hilarious.
People who have written movies and produced movies and dealt with studios, they factor in all this other shit.
Like, this is how much my car costs.
This is how much it costs for gas.
This is how much it costs to rent this building.
This is electricity.
Oh, there's no more money left over.
Okay, here it says, the Ali Act...
Amending Professional Boxing Safety Act of 1996 specifies that a sanctioning organization may not receive any compensation from a boxing match unless it files its bylaws and a complete description of its ratings, criteria, policies, and general sanctioning fee Scheduled with the FTC. The act further directs the FTC to make this information available to the public.
A sanctioning organization does not have to submit this information to the FTC. However, it makes the information accessible through a public website.
Alright, if you can translate that, I don't know what the fuck that means.
I mean, he fell, he ripped his knee apart, and they stripped him.
I mean...
Look, I get that they'd be upset that the fight would happen, or that the fight would not happen, and that he would, you know, someone else would have to take his place.
I understand that.
But stripping him doesn't make any sense.
Like, how could he get stripped for an injury?
It's one thing if he did something to someone, like the Jon Jones situation, crashed into that lady's car, took off in the scene.
Just for the rankings and the ability to get your shot, you know, just that by itself, I think, deserves a sanctioning body 100%, let alone the ability for them to get paid more and be more, you know, fair across the board and everything.
Well, you see how USADA has completely taken away The UFC has nothing to say about USADA testing and about the punishment that it implements.
It's completely independent.
So what they do is they come in, they randomly drug test fighters, they make sure the fighters give their whereabouts at all times, they have to register and log in and let everybody know wherever they are, and if they violate that, USADA hands out the punishment.
And we've seen these punishments and they're strict.
They're very severe.
And they take away a fighter's ability to make a living if they violate any of their policies or if they test positive for any supplements.
They've since made what I think is a welcome amendment where if a fighter has If it's possible that it's a tainted supplement or they have a trace amount of something, they don't say anything until after it's resolved.
So instead of putting the fighter on blast and putting it out there to the whole world, hey, this guy tested positive, instead of doing that, they resolve it.
Which is smart.
Yeah, which is the way they should do it.
But still...
Look at a guy like Josh Barnett, okay?
Josh Barnett was ultimately exonerated, but he had to go like two years where he couldn't make a living.
But my point is, that is a completely independent entity.
It's outside of the UFC's ability to- they don't control that.
They step back, they take care of- it kind of should be that way when it comes to who gets to fight for the title.
If a title is a title, like if it's- if it's the world championship and you look at a guy like Tony Ferguson, I think- I believe he's 11-1 in the UFC, right?
He's on this crazy win streak.
He's fucking beaten- you look at his- His, like, who's who, of who he's beaten.
What do you think about tournaments coming back to the UFC? I mean, they haven't done that, but what do you think about them doing that for finding out who's going to fight for the title?
It was funny, the last time, you know, Shanji, he's always in my corner, and, you know, one was at Chicago, Rich, Rich Chow, who's also, I hope I said his last name right.
Shanji's seven-time world champion, two-time absolute world champion.
He's the greatest heavyweight that there's ever been in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
It's a really cool story.
I was 19 years old.
I was a brown belt, and I competed in my first professional event.
It was a no-gi pro tournament in Ohio.
It was part of the Arnold Classic event that goes on with the bodybuilding and all that.
They had a jiu-jitsu competition, and they had a pro no-gi tournament.
It was only three-weight classes, like a lightweight, a middleweight, and a heavyweight.
And at that time it was...
Like the biggest Nogi tournament that there was besides for ADCC. And a lot of the ADCC champions would do that event to win the money, of course, and then also just kind of prepare for ADCC later in the year.
And I knew Saul, he had his home base, his affiliations, association schools were in the beginning in that area of the country, in Ohio.
And he always competed at that tournament.
So did Shanji.
And so I knew there was a great chance that I would get a chance to face Salo going into that event.
I had to send my resume in to get accepted into the pro tournament.
And I'll never forget the email they sent me where it was like, you've been accepted.
Congratulations.
Sal Hubero is in your division.
Good luck.
And I'm like, okay.
I'm already thinking, how awesome would it be to have a match with Salo?
I'm 19 years old.
Salo was already a six-time world champion, a legend already.
And so, you know, I go to the tournament, and sure enough, it was Destiny Man.
We're on opposite sides of the bracket, and, you know, he clears out his side, gets to the finals, no problem.
And I fight my way to the finals.
I had four matches, and actually in the semifinals, I ended up going against one of his black belts.
And it was the first time I ever faced a black belt.
At that time, there wasn't a whole bunch of no-gi opportunities where you could be a non-black belt and fight a black belt.
And I was losing on points, and at the end I started coming back, and I was able to submit his black belt and go to the finals.
And his black belt kind of threw a fit and was pretty disappointed.
I wouldn't shake my hand, wasn't there when the referee raised her hand.
And I could feel all this energy because it was kind of – I think everyone thought they were going to close it out together.
Yeah, and I'm 19. I'm a brown—and, you know, it wasn't like today where you see all these— You know legends and these world champions all the time like at that time they were all in Brazil You know and so it was hard to see these guys like the only time you saw him is if you were in Brazil and they were still very like they had this mystique about them and You know it it was just a different vibe.
They were way more scary I guess you could say way more intimidating Back then so I was definitely super intimidated, but you know at the same time I was fired up, you know, I want to be a world champion I get to face, you know a legend and Let's go.
We had a good match.
I was able to last for a good amount of time.
He eventually passed my guard, mounted me, and submitted me at the very end.
I wasn't disappointed.
I was happy.
This was the first time I got to face someone like that.
I did my best.
I was able to keep my guard for a while, so I was proud of that.
But at the same time, he mounted me, tapped me, and that's what he was supposed to do.
But he was so nice to me afterwards, gave me a big hug, and we talked, and that was kind of that at that moment.
But I felt like I had earned his respect.
Fast forward a few months later, I'm in Brazil and at that time there was two world tournaments.
There was a second organization called the CBJJO. So there was a CBJJ and then there was a CBJJO and they were paying.
There was a world championships that were paying.
Novo and Yao kind of created that event.
They separated, didn't want to support the original World Championships.
And they made their own World Championships.
And they were paying.
And that was the way they could get a lot of guys to come over and support that tournament.
And it was big.
It was pretty much the same.
It was basically the same thing.
There was only a couple teams that didn't support that tournament.
And at the same time, there was a couple teams that competed at that tournament that didn't support the original Worlds.
So depending on what division you were fought in, it was either exactly the same or it was tougher, you know, especially in the lightweights because Novo Niel had all the best lightweights at that time.
And so I'm at that event.
I competed, uh, there and Salo wasn't competing that year.
And so he was very approachable.
He wasn't fighting.
He was just coaching.
And, um, and I competed.
I was a brown belt still.
And I come over and I say, what's up to Salo?
And, uh, Oh, he's like, hey, my brother, good to see you.
How are you doing?
And he's like, where are you training?
And I tell him where I'm training.
He's like, well, you want to come train with me?
I said, yeah, I would love to.
And he was like, here's my card.
Give me a call on Monday.
I'll come pick you up.
Sure enough, I call him.
He comes to my hotel, him and Shanji.
They pick me and a couple of my friends up.
They drive me all the way to Copacabana.
We were staying in Baja.
And we go and train.
And man, just seeing the way he interacted with his guys, the energy, the way I felt there.
At this time, there was a lot of the...
How do I put it?
There was Brazilians and then you were a gringo.
It was hard to go to Brazil and learn a lot and have someone really open up and help you and show you and teach you a lot.
Eddie would know.
I'm sure you've heard the stories.
I remember being in Brazil with Eddie a long time ago back in the day.
You know, you just, especially if they felt like you were a threat, you know, they wouldn't show you a lot because what if you ended up fighting one of their buddies, you know what I mean?
And so this was the first time that I wasn't treated that way.
And, you know, Salo and Shanji really opened up and was like, you know, bringing me sort of into their family right away.
Total control, you know, and it's just pressure and, you know, I mean, everybody that I've talked to that's rolled with him or Shanji says it feels like you have a building on top of you and these guys are on you.
I mean, they would just destroy me with that pressure.
And it was like the exact answer to my guard because, you know, you fight your way inside.
So I couldn't use my length.
And I didn't understand how to frame, how to protect myself.
And I just literally got smothered and, you know, just destroyed on a daily basis.
And in Toledo, Ohio, it would just be the three of us.
You know, they didn't have like a big team.
And so I would go there and stay with them, and we would just train for hours every day, and the bike, the Airdyne bike, would be the evening training partner.
You know, so when two guys were out, the other guy was on the bike.
And so you didn't want to be the one like going too slow and in the middle of the training, Sal looks over and he's like, you know, yelling at you to pick it up.
You know what I mean?
So you had to push it.
And then it was your turn to go in.
And, you know, so I'm going back to back between Salo and Shanji.
I think he's teaching and I think he's also some of his family, either it's a bait and tackle shop or maybe it's like the standing paddle boards or something like that on a lake.
And I think he's helping with that business as well, too.
There are times where we push it, but I don't ever leave feeling like I'm not going to be able to train later.
Actually, a lot of people do strength and conditioning type training later in the day after they've already done their martial arts training, so they don't feel tired when they do their martial arts training.
The strength conditioning training that I do actually makes me feel healthier.
It makes me feel, kind of awakens my body.
I feel looser.
And so I always do in the morning.
That's the way I like to start all my days.
But, you know, we do a lot of kettlebells.
I've been playing a lot with the mace lately as well.
I do a lot of airdyne bike.
I'm on the bike a lot.
Sledge rags.
You know, we just pick heavy things up and move it around, you know.
The only lift I really do on a regular basis somewhat is deadlifts with a trap bar so it's safer.
And there's just also a lot of movement, a lot of mobility involved.
It's so critical for decompressing, decompressing your spine and then strengthening up all that area in a real weird way that's very difficult to do outside of that machine.
Why don't you, you know, he taught me how to crawl and, you know, just start crawling for five minutes, ten minutes.
Hang, you know, get on the pull bar, hang.
He would incorporate all these recovery techniques and exercises into my training and a lot of movement and would be the first one to say, I know you want to go this hard today, but no.
You're going to tone it down.
How are you feeling?
What's on your schedule?
And really just put it to where it fits nicely into my routine and isn't something that is everything, that takes it all out of me.
And he kind of opened my eyes to the movement area of his training.
And that kind of led me into another person I'm training with now these days.
His name is Cameron Shane, who's an innovator when it comes to movement.
He has a system, the Budokan movement system.
And he's an incredible guy.
He's in Florida and Miami.
And he is a yoga, you know, he's a yogi.
He's a martial artist first.
Fell in love with yoga and then created this free-form mobility and movement that you see guys like Ido Portal preaching and doing now.
He's really well known for his work with Connor.
And I'm really into that as well.
And so I've been working with him now for a year and I love that movement.
I just love it.
And Salo and Shanji are also, they spend a lot of time with Alvaro Humano from Genesca Natural.
So I love yoga, I love movement, and that's a big part of my recovery and training without impact, you know, and it's kind of implemented into my strength conditioning program as well.
Yeah, I was 100% going for all the major tournaments in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu at that time, and I would kill myself in strength and conditioning, go to train, neck would get jacked up.
Yeah, I do something every day, Monday through Friday.
And then Saturday is like a long, hard training day in the mornings.
And then Sundays is like a yoga recovery day.
That's the other thing Luke taught me about is active recovery.
You know, I used to think, well, I need to take a day off.
I need a rest.
And I would basically lay around, you know, and I thought that was helping.
And it wasn't.
He was the first one to really get me to active recovery, like go take an hour long walk, you know, stretch, move, breathe, do yoga, you know, something like that.
And that helps tremendously, too.
I don't get to a level of soreness anymore where I feel like I can't do anything.
You know, whereas that used to happen to me.
But I was younger, and I had this, you know, stubborn mindset, and I just thought, well, no, I gotta go, go, go, go.
I've always wondered how many fighters ruin themselves before they get to the fight because they just overtrain.
I think it's real common.
And I think you can get to a level of spectacular strength and conditioning.
You can get there.
But it's not something you're going to get to in a two-month camp.
And I wonder how many guys are coming into camp where they're not in the best shape and they're just pushing it so hard during camp that by the time those eight weeks are done, they're fucking worn out, man.
And they taper off the last week or so, but it probably isn't enough.
And then JASCO's out of there, a company that I'm a spokesperson for.
But then...
The thing that was the deciding factor, my wife and I, we watched, if anyone's got a Flow Grappling subscription, or you need to go get one, because they did a documentary on Raphael, and it's called The American.
And it's his life story, his life journey, and you get to see how hard he works.
You get to hear all the history.
But then, to me, it was like, this guy's like a modern-day samurai.
And then whenever I went down and trained with them, it was suffocating.
And I've trained with Shane Carwin and Frank Mir and Randy Couture and all sorts of big heavyweights that are known for being so much pressure.
I've never been claustrophobic under any person in my entire life except Raphael.
And it just feels like, like you said, a building or like this building of melted hot, I don't know, cheese or blanket that's going over your face.
I don't know.
It sounds cheesy to me saying that, but it's just like it's melted all over you and you can't get them off and you take inch by inch by inch.
And I have a good wrestling game, but I wanted to get my jujitsu there where every time I take someone down, I'm going to finish them.
And I've done that in fighting statistically.
Every fight I've taken to the ground to finish, but I wanted to get even more proficient at that.
And just seeing the way that he coaches, he teaches.
Honestly, I've been coached by Kale Sanderson and Kendall Cross and Kenny Munday, Olympic gold medalist in wrestling.
Fantastic people.
Amazing coaches.
What is it about it?
inch by inch.
I mean, the way that he will, because he's an active competitor too, and he's a great teacher.
And becoming part of the team, part of the family.
Of course, I did my research on Justin and I knew he was an amazing person, but I just didn't know what he trained like, what his energy was like inside the academy.
But he was open to putting on the gi.
The first conversation we had, I said, hey man, I'm going to want to put a gi on you.
For me, I can't pass on what I really have to offer, you know, my passion, my love.
There's no way I'm going to be able to pass that on to you if you don't put on the gi, if you don't get inside my head and learn what I have to say and how I feel about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
When a wrestler falls in love with jiu-jitsu, I mean, you already have this ability to manipulate bodies that it's at such a high level and the strength that wrestlers have.
But so many of them, for whatever reason, never make that leap.
And so to do that, go to guard, to have someone put you in a...
You're not supposed to be getting pinned.
You're supposed to be turning your back and getting up, but getting comfortable with your back just flat on the mat, but then getting to your side because you understand that you're just going to get smashed and smashed and smashed if your shoulders are flat against the back.
The doctor told me that if I didn't have short legs, I'd be like 6'7".
Bizarre.
Wow.
But yeah, I got short little legs.
And just coming in the academy, it's been really great.
I came in and really wanted to be coached.
And I wanted to have a mindset of being coachable and just absorbing everything he teaches.
But then on the flip side, last year we had like this.
Holiday break, Christmas party, and Rafael said, you know, what if we could, like, transform a community with clean water, and so what if we, like, set a goal at raising, and what does that cost?
And I was like, man, it's like $4,200.
And he's like, man, let's set a crowdfunding campaign, and let's do it.
And hosted a party, and we were able to raise $14,400.
Through the academy and the team just came around it and said, hey, this is your passion.
You're sharing in our passion.
We're going to do something great in the community and in the world.
And so that's been great.
Raphael and I are partnering again.
We are getting ready to launch a nationwide, through Fight for the Forgotten, a nationwide bullying prevention campaign and curriculum.
And it's kept me out for a while, but the whole time I've been, and it was actually after being on the podcast last time talking about bullying, it's like, how can we make a difference?
And there was such a response from the JRE community saying, let's do something here also.
Let's make a difference here in the United States with bullying.
In Oklahoma, this is the at-risk youth behavior survey, and they say that 15.4, no, 15.1% of the students are dealing with suicidal ideation, like seriously considering suicide.
And then 7.4, 7.4% of the students have attempted suicide.
Attempted it.
I was one of those kids.
I was one of those kids.
Seven out of 100 kids have attempted suicide just in Oklahoma schools.
And that goes around the country, too, around that 6%, 8%.
I was on a bullying prevention summit in San Antonio with Congressman or U.S. Representative Will Hurd.
He brought me in to speak with Maureen Molak.
And Maureen, she has a foundation called David's Legacy.
She started it because her son in San Antonio was getting...
Ridiculed and cyberbullied relentlessly.
You know, whenever we were growing up, bullying would end at 3 p.m.
because you're out of school.
But now it just increases because kids aren't in school.
They aren't in class.
And so that's whenever they can really take off and start bullying.
Well, David had over 300 comments of people that were just brutally cyberbullying.
A ton of them were calling for a suicide.
It went on for weeks and weeks.
They moved him from schools.
He attempted suicide not once or twice, but his third time he was successful.
And I'm very proud of Maureen, very proud of her, because she got a law passed called David's Law.
So the law basically, Maureen's family was told basically at school, the school was good to them.
They were trying to make a difference, but they were basically saying their hands were tied.
Their hands were tied from doing anything about it because it was an overwhelming response to students.
I mean 300 students.
And then it was off-school property and it was online.
So they said their hands were tied.
Well, now the law basically brings into effect that law enforcement and the schools can get involved off a school campus and they can look into the cyberbullying and they can take action against it.
So it basically just means, hey, this is serious and it's not okay.
And we're going to stand up and do something about it.
Texas, I'm proud of Texas.
That's my home state.
They passed it 33-0.
No one voted against it.
And it's really great.
We're working with a state representative named Colin Walkie in Oklahoma and a judge, Trevor Pemberton.
And then there's this principal named, it's kind of sound like a joke.
Last week, it was a MMA fighter with a politician.
We went to dinner with a politician, a judge and a high school principal.
You know, MMA fighter, what brought us all together, you know, it was bullying prevention.
But Debreon Davis, she's the high school principal of Edmond North.
It's one of the biggest and one of the best public schools in Oklahoma.
And in the last nine years of her working in public schools, she's been to nine funerals of kids that have all committed suicide.
And it's just on the rise in such a brutal way.
And one of the things that really touched my heart and wanted me to get into this, like, hey, we've...
Fight for the forgotten.
We're always going to be focused on the pygmies.
We're working with even expanding in Uganda.
We're working with the pygmy king of the Batwa pygmies in Uganda.
We're looking to do land, water, and food initiatives among them.
But there's kids in our own community right here that feel forgotten.
And whenever I was a kid, sitting at the lunch table by myself, getting pelted in the back of the head with chocolate spit wads, food, fist, when kids were pulling up my shirt and slapping my belly and twisting my nipples in front of the girls and acting like they're hitting me with a harpoon, you know, because I'm the size of a whale and all this stuff, you know, and telling me, you should just kill yourself.
Telling me, you should just kill yourself.
You're worthless.
You're nothing.
I mean, I felt forgotten and thought...
You know, I am worthless and I should just kill myself and dealt with that over and over and over.
And now the kids are taking action on that in such an incredible way that we've got to stand up and do something.
And so we're partnering and I'm really excited.
We are hopefully getting into 100 martial arts academies this year to equip them with bullying prevention curriculum.
It's called Heroes in Waiting.
And you know, a real inspiration to me, there's two things.
There's a TED Talk called The Psychology of Evil.
I'll text you that link.
It's incredible.
But it's The Psychology of Evil.
And it's by the name of Philip Gombardo or something.
And in there, he kind of coins a term called Heroes in Waiting.
And then you, with the Onnit video that you did, be the hero of your own movie.
You know, be the hero of your own movie.
I love that.
I love that you've spoken out and said that about people.
You can be the hero of your own movie.
Well, Heroes in Waiting, the curriculum that we developed with Century and Maya, which is the Martial Arts Industry Association, It's all about teaching kids.
It's bullying prevention, but it's also character development.
The only people that bully are people with weak characters.
And kids that are...
Usually, there's something wrong at home.
A lot of these kids that are bullies, they're usually getting abused at home or either by an older brother or by their dad or cousins or whoever the fuck it is.
And then they're taking it out on someone who they feel is weaker than them.
This is one of the reasons why I think martial arts is so important for young men.
Because, I mean, we know from our experience in gyms, when you're dealing with high-level martial artists on a regular basis, they're some of the nicest, friendliest fucking people you're ever going to meet.
Because they don't have any insecurities.
And whatever insecurities they have, they get out in the gym.
They get out through training.
They get out of their frustrations.
They don't have all this pent-up, fucked-up energy that a lot of kids have.
Kids are always dealing with existential angst.
Their whole life is just this weird...
Ball of confusion and hormones.
The whole idea of life itself is so confusing that anytime they have any sort of control over anything, they exercise it.
Whether it's control over another kid or control over throwing a rock through a window.
They don't know what the fuck they're doing.
They have all this pent-up, fucked-up energy and pain.
And I think that so many of them are just...
Severely lacking in guidance and discipline and just those things alone guidance and discipline and also the lessons that you learn from martial arts that you can overcome things that you can get better at things and that when you feel like quitting and you don't you actually grow and learn like your experiences like training with Shanji and Salu just like that it's just one of the things that made you such a champion I mean training with people that are like It all started with my dad and having that when I was a kid.
You're so fortunate because of that.
And those experiences are what shaped you into the person that you are today.
And a lot of people don't get those experiences.
And unfortunately, they act in disgraceful ways.
And this is what we were talking about earlier, to bring it all back to...
What is martial arts?
Is martial arts shit-talking and throwing dollies?
Or is martial arts really competing in one of the most difficult endeavors in all of the world of sports?
But, you know, besides for, you know, those are the core values and then, you know, being a forever student and dedicating your life to learning and bettering yourself.
I mean, these things that martial arts gives you, I just...
You know, there are certain areas and other sports that give you a piece of that, but nothing is like martial arts.
You know, for me, everything I know of life, I've learned through martial arts.
Yeah, I think what you're saying, that there's other sports that teach you discipline.
Like, just, I mean, if you become a long-distance runner, there's discipline involved in that that's going to build up your character, but it's not specifically emphasized the way it is in martial arts.
The Cash App is one of my favorite sponsors has done an incredible thing in donating $5 to Fight for the Forgotten every time someone signs up and uses the code word Joe Rogan, which is pretty amazing.
In January, we're starting to implement, but Cash App Came to me and we were trying to do a $50,000 fundraiser to drill a deep, deep well in Tanzania for the Maasai Warriors.
And we're going to do that with Water Boys, which is Chris Long's foundation.
Chris Long plays for the Philadelphia Eagles.
He won the Super Bowl doing it his entire salary.
Really great guy.
Climbed Mount Kilimanjaro with him.
And we were partnering together to help this village to get 7,500 people clean water.
So it's about $6 per person.
I started posting about that and Garrett McManus from Cash App hit me up and was just like, hey, we want to do something big with you guys.
And we already had another $50,000 donor that was being anonymous and Cash App came in and said, hey, we're going to match that $50,000 match you have.
So Cash App gives $50,000 if we could raise $50,000.
And so we ended up raising $52,625, and then it was tripled.
So it came out to being $152,625, and Cash App gave us $50,000 because they believe in the mission and vision of Fight for the Forgotten.
They believe in you.
They believe in this community.
And, man, I absolutely love Cash App.
In fact, on this crowdfunding tournament we're doing, on the website fightfortheforgotten.org slash heroes, we're doing a Heroes in Waiting crowdfunding tournament.
And so we're inviting in 100 martial arts academies and 100 individuals.
To help us raise $4,200.
There it is.
So, yeah, we're doing it through December 31st.
So we're giving us quite a bit of time.
But what we're going to be doing is the crowdfunding tournament is going to fund Wells.
So it'll transform a community with $4,200 and it will equip their martial arts academy with a bullying prevention curriculum.
Everything that you could ever ask for to help pass that knowledge along and increase your program, help your school bring more kids in, make a bigger impact.
So not only are you helping the kids, but then you're also raising money inside the academy to help towards the fight for the forgotten.
Yeah, and it's going to be a thing where – so there's 12 weeks of Matt Chat topics, and I love it because Heroes in Waiting talks about, hey, everyone is a hero in waiting.
And what is a hero?
A hero is someone who sees a need and takes action immediately.
And so we're teaching the kids that, hey, guess what?
87% of the time, whenever you see bullying and you say something, it can be as easy as, hey, that's not kind.
Or you include the person that's being bullied into your group.
Hey, come over here.
Within five seconds, the bullying stops 87% of the time.
All you have to do is say one thing.
87% of the time, almost 9 out of 10 times, you can shut down bullying whenever you see it happening.
Because here's the problem.
Whenever people think you're...
When you see bullying happening, a lot of times you might think you're an innocent bystander.
But your body language and you being around and involved and the bully seeing that, he takes you being that you're a silent supporter.
So you're not an innocent bystander.
You're now involved when you see it.
And so you're being a silent supporter if you're not standing up and doing something about it.
And so we're doing this competition and whoever is the top crowdfunding team is going to get their gym renovated by Zebra.
They're going to get $10,000 worth of Zebra mats.
Sentry is going to come in and do $10,000 worth of gear.
They're going to do gloves, headgear, sparring equipment, shields, the Bob the dummy.
Suplesse is going to do the Bulgarian bag, the throwing dummy.
And then the top individual fundraiser is going to get a free home gym from Zebra and Sentry gear.
Bellator just let me know last night that whoever is the top fundraising individual It's going to get flown out all-inclusive to January 26th, the Heavyweight Grand Prix finale between Fedor and Ryan Bader.
You know, Justin has inspired me so much to, you know, get involved in these sort of things.
You know, I'm happy to have my school involved and I'm just kind of out there calling out for all the other jiu-jitsu schools, you know, in the country.
Like, I mean, if we just get two schools per state, that's 100. And if each one, you know, reaches the goal of 4,200, then we've done it.
It's a great cause.
It helps the school.
The material that they get is very helpful to implement into their children's programs.
It even comes with marketing material to help get those kids in the doors.
So it's totally worth it.
And then, you know, it's always great, like he said, you know, when we had the school Christmas party last year.
And it's always great to get everybody behind something, behind a cause.
And, you know, to get your whole school to rally together, you know, for this cause would be, you know, a great thing for your teams and your jujitsu families.
And it's not that hard to do.
You know, it's not that hard to hit 4,200.
And if we get 100 schools to do it, then we've done it.
I mean, honestly, it's skyrocketed us to be able to make the difference we want, to knock out the water crisis and to stand up and speak out against bullying here.