Michael Bisping joins Joe Rogan to discuss his UFC heavyweight title pursuit, eye injuries (including 2200 vision in one eye), and retirement after Gastelum. He critiques boxing’s brain trauma risks, rugby’s safety despite no gear, and football’s concussion dangers, refusing to let kids play it. Bisping defends trash talk as entertainment but regrets past seedy training camps and overindulgence between fights. His gambling platform, Play Lime, offers $1M daily prizes and a $1B pool for perfect predictions, with no reported cheating yet. The conversation highlights MMA’s brutal toll—physical risks, career unpredictability—and Bisping’s belief that only obsession justifies the commitment. [Automatically generated summary]
You know, I mean, it's nice to be involved with the sport, obviously, as a martial artist, as a fighter, and then now retired to still, you know, still have a little hand in there.
I would think if it's a billion dollars, I would think it'd be like some Guy Ritchie movie where some mobsters would get together with some fighters and say, this is how we're going to do it, see?
The reason why I say this is because this is what happened with Professional Pool.
Professional Pool had a line at one point in time in Vegas casinos, and the pool players all got together and said, Let's fucking put all our money on this guy who's a 10-1 favorite to win it, or 10-1 underdog to win it, and we'll all make money.
And so they all dumped, and this one guy, I think his name is Mike LeBron, he won the whole thing.
You don't get any bigger Anderson Silva fan than me, but you didn't have your mouthpiece.
You were pointing to the mouthpiece.
You were separated and you took a pause and you thought the referee was going to separate you and give you back your mouthpiece and Anderson comes in with the knee.
Yeah, listen, I'm aware that people would say, oh, but you didn't get Anderson in his prime.
Well, maybe it wasn't his prime, but with the amount of shit that I talked, I certainly see a difference in the way he fought me to the way he's fought recently, you know?
and yeah it's funny because people always say you're not worried that when you talk shit going into a fight that you're gonna motivate your opponent even more and i always used to say ah no don't be stupid listen they're gonna try and hit you as hard as they can but i don't know in that one i think it did motivate anderson because he was certainly not fucking about in that one that's for sure no you it wasn't it wasn't like the anderson in the derrick brunson fight that's for sure yeah that was a different fight right derrick brunson and him almost like like they made an agreement.
Well, the thing is, I think, where it started getting a little weird.
And I don't want to bang on about stories too much because that's been a narrative that I've...
I've said my piece about that.
I don't want to bang on about it too much, but I think where the waters really got murky is when TRT came in.
When testosterone replacement therapy became a thing, and all you had to do was go to your doctor and say, You know, I can't get a hard-on or whatever, and all of a sudden, they sign you off and you're on TRT. No, I know.
Yeah, I remember there was a picture of us both on the scale in Brazil.
And...
You know, looking back now, you go, holy shit.
You know, anyone else would think, oh, have you seen this guy?
He's kind of big.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But you don't think like that at the time.
You can't as a fighter.
If you start having those thoughts, those doubts, start looking at a fighter's physique and thinking, oh, he looks good.
You've already lost, you know, but in hindsight, you can look back and say, holy fuck, what was I thinking?
You know, this guy's fucking roided out of his mind.
I remember on there, I was trying to get a rise out of him, and he kept putting his hand in my face.
I'm not a religious guy, and, you know, God bless anyone that is, you know, I mean that, I respect everyone's opinions, but I'm not, and as we know, Vitor is heavily religious, and he kept sticking his thing in my face, he was pissing me off, so I said, Vitor, come here, come here, and he leans in, I said, there is no Jesus.
Maybe there is.
Maybe there is.
Me getting dropped with a head kick in the second round.
Yeah, you know, I mean, I hate that to be, you know, the first thing people say about me, but, you know, It was one element.
It was a thing.
It was what I did.
And in my mind, where I come from, my background, if we're going to fight, then we're going to fight.
And then it's all out war until it's all said and done.
And if I can make you doubt yourself, if I can...
You know, it's like at the weigh-ins.
At the weigh-ins, that's the last time you're going to get a chance to stand in front of your opponent and send a message to him.
You know what I mean?
And if you get in his face and you can just instill a little fear, puff your chest.
That's why animals do it in the wild.
You know what I mean?
Puff your chest out, look intimidating, look as angry as you can.
And some fighters might just look at that and laugh and say, this ain't going to work on me.
but some it does and then they don't fight to the best of their ability because they're slightly doubting themselves and they're not fully committing to the punch or the kick and if they're not fully committing they're not 100% they're not fighting as well as they can be and I'm winning that battle you know so yeah you look like kind of a thug standing up there and pointing your finger and talking shit but it's for a reason you know it works Yeah, he does.
It's a thing, like, a lot of people would wish that fighters were respectful and just, you know, treated it the martial arts way and bow to each other.
I understand what he's saying, but it's entertainment and it gets people...
That's another reason why I used to do it.
You're trying to sell the fight.
You want every product you're involved with to be as popular as possible, whether it's a podcast, whether it's fighting, whatever it is.
if no one's watching no one gives a fuck then you're not going to make much money you're not going to get booked again you're not going to be on the big cards you talk a little I know from a consumer standpoint if I'm watching a fight I mean look at that last week with Fury and Wilder you know I was eating out the palm of their hands I mean it was an amazing fight but you know it hypes it it's great it's awesome to watch I mean yes it is beautiful to see two fighters walk up there and bow and shake hands and all the rest of it but it's also a little fucking boring if I'm honest like when I'm working the way in shows I'm like
Give me something to talk about, please.
You know, because I don't want to talk about your boring last fight that went to a split decision when nothing really happened.
But if you get in their face at the weighing, great, we can pump it up a little bit.
Sorry, pardon me, Brian was, you know, he's like, listen, I hope you're well and I hope you're over the injuries and all that type of thing.
That was nice to see.
It was great.
But they both were exuding confidence at the same time.
They were both adamant they were going to win the fight.
So it wasn't, they weren't being too overly cordial.
I don't want to see that right right.
I don't want to see two fights pretending like they're in church or meeting the fucking president Okay, I want to see two guys that want to rip each other's head off Call me an animal.
Call me a barbarian.
Call me whatever you want.
But that's what gets my, you know, engine ticking.
I thought, shit, if I'd gone on, you know, two days, three days out from a fight, if I'd gone on fucking UFC tonight or whatever, just doing my obligations as a fighter, and then another fighter on the roster is calling me out for an injury, and now the fight's off, I'd have been pissed off with them.
You know what I mean?
Maybe, you know, that's my choice if I want to highlight it.
So I felt a little bad, but I really respected Max.
He sent me a message thanking me.
You know, he said, thank you.
He said, you know, he said, I appreciate that.
I needed someone to do that because he knew he wasn't 100%.
So yeah, you know, so anyway, I was saying I wasn't fully convinced that he was okay because it seemed like he was...
I don't know, still slurring his words or whatever.
He reads the fight and he's so good at implementing that strategy of consistent pressure, constant angles, switching stances, and he switches stances flawlessly.
He fights just as good southpaw as he does orthodox, and he'll switch in the middle of a combination and then turn corners on you.
Because there was some issues, and I think a lot of that probably had to do, I'm just speculating, but probably had to do with that massive weight cut.
I mean, he was trying to get down really quickly to 155, which is crazy, right?
Because he fights at 145, he's the champion.
And even struggling to go down from, he was in the 180s, to get down to 155 quickly to fight Khabib.
People didn't know, but it was hard for me to talk about it.
I didn't want to talk about it too much while I was commentating your fights, but you had a neck injury that was so bad, one of your arms was weaker than the other.
If you were doing bench press, Oh, for sure, still to this day.
Well, there's a company in Santa Monica called Lifespan Medicine and they do a procedure called Regenikine and that's what Peyton Manning had done over in Germany.
Maybe that's why John struggled a little bit the first time because he's not used to fighting somebody with the same frame, the same physical attributes that make John so great.
Well, I know you had both guys on the show, and I listened to a little bit of yesterday's with Deontay when I was picking my son up from wrestling.
But when I watched that fight, I... Sorry, not when I watched it, prior to the fight happening, I thought Deontay was going to win.
Okay?
Even though Tyson's a very, very good technical boxer and for such a big man he uses a lot of feints and a lot of misdirection and he's very good, I thought Deontay's probably going to catch him.
But then when I saw that he weighed in at 212 pounds, I said, oh, it's over.
I mean, I know there was all that talk and Deontay put it on his Instagram about it not actually being 10 seconds, about it being over 10 seconds, but still, it is what it is.
But I gotta say, over the last six months or even the year, you know, he really, really won me over.
What he overcame, losing all that weight, going through that depression or slump, whatever you want to call it, and then coming back and looking so good.
And then afterwards, you know, the post-fight speech I thought was beautiful.
I felt like it was, it looked like Tyson was outboxing him and, you know, using a lot of feints, a lot of movement, a lot of misdirection, a lot of, that herky-jerky style that he does.
And anyway, but as I was watching it, obviously Deontay was looking for that big right hand and Fury was doing a very, very good job of rolling away from it, just avoiding that shot.
And I said, if he follows that with a left hook...
He's going to catch him, and eventually that's what happened.
Yeah, clipped him with the right hand, then caught him with the left hook as he was going down.
And the fact that he got up after he was flat on his back, his arms were down, I think six out of ten referees would have stopped that fight right there.
It's interesting when a judge or referee, rather, has a decision to make.
Whether or not they decide to stop a fight.
And it's one of the more frustrating things ever when a referee stops a fight prematurely.
It's rough.
But then when you look at a fight, like the Adonis Stevenson fight this weekend, and I don't remember how to pronounce the Russian gentleman's name, it's with a G-Z. The guy who knocked out Adonis Stevenson.
I think, what is it, 12 to 15 deaths per year in boxing around the world.
It's a very, very sad start.
I guess, you know, I mean, you're involved with the UFC, you know all the pro MMA... Dialogue that's put out there, you know, well, boxing is more dangerous because it's only punches to the head and they can take more blows, but...
Well, we've gone over some of the most recent statistics that they've released on CTE with football players, and they're talking about from Pop Warner to high school to college to professional, the number, like across the board, the number that exhibits CTE symptoms is staggering.
They line up single file and eventually they come into like a little cubicle like this and you're standing above them and as they come in you push a button door drops down and they're in this confined environment like a big rectangle like a big cubicle and you're raised up and you have this bell you touch the head and then you knock it on the head that shoots a bolt it falls down and falls into the wall then you push a button and the door slides up and the Cow rolls down.
So you run down the steps and as you're running down you grab what's called a piffing rod.
It's like a eight foot long flexible piece of plastic it's in sterilized liquid you pull that out as you run down then you put your like neon belly you put your knee on the uh the head of the cow you feel for the hole you just made in the hair then you get the end of the piffing rod you push it into the hole you feed it all the way in until it's all the way into about this much out the top of the head how long is the rod about eight foot eight foot and you feed it all the way because it goes down the spinal column You're killing all
The only way that makes sense to me is if you're in a part of Africa where lions are consistently killing your livestock and you have to protect your livestock, which is Colorado.
A famous majestic lion that was in this park, and the lion left the park and went into this area where it's legal for them to hunt, and a hunter who's a dentist from America shot this lion, and everyone became very mad at this guy because the lion had a collar on it, which meant that there was a lion that they were tracking.
The thing is, they can't see the collar when they're trying to shoot it.
And then I was flying home and I was looking for some walkie-talkies for my seven-year-old.
I don't know why.
I thought that'd be a good idea.
Turns out getting a hold of walkie-talkies isn't very easy these days.
I went on a fucking wild goose chair trying to get these fucking walkie-talkies that didn't even get played with.
He was like, yeah, cool, I've got a phone, Dad.
I'm like, yeah, I should have thought of that.
And as I'm looking for them, I checked Twitter, I got a coffee, and I see Chris Wyman and pulled out.
So yeah, I text Dana, I said, listen, if this is true, you know, you know where I am.
And he was like, oh, great, we love that, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But Jacare is our first option.
So I thought, for a minute there, I thought I was getting a title shot, and I thought, there's no way Jacare is going to turn it down.
So I went to my buddy's Jason's house and watched a basketball game and had a few drinks and, you know...
Didn't party as such.
I was on set the next day, but I had a few drinks.
Now, if I knew I was fighting for a world belt in two weeks, you know, I would have been on a strict diet, not overindulging, but I definitely overindulged.
And then the next day, I'm walking into the gym just to have, you know, this little light workout.
And my phone starts exploding, lighting up like a Christmas tree.
And I'm like, what the hell?
And then Ariel Hawane calls me.
He's like, Mike, Dana just announced at SportsCenter that you're fighting for the belt.
Because I went into that fight feeling so strong, feeling so good.
I'm like...
Because I consistently overtrained every single fight in my career, apart from that one.
And I said, oh, I'll learn from this.
I'll learn from this.
And you don't.
And it's like Jason Prillo always says...
It takes confidence to take a day off to rest the body, you know?
And now, of course, there's a fine line between having the confidence to take a day off and being a lazy bastard and saying, I'm going to sit on the couch today, you know?
But if you know, listen, I'm good...
I'm going to take a day or two off because I need it, you know?
So that was one of the mistakes I made with my career.
I always train too much.
And Jason said, you know, I used to mind fuck myself because it meant so much to me.
You know, my fight career meant so much to me.
I used to overcomplicate it, overanalyze it, overwork it, stress myself out with it, you know?
And that was hindering my performances.
I never once thought to my ability of what I performed in the gym.
Never once.
I remember one day I pulled up outside Ruka and Jason was waiting for me outside.
And I pulled up and he says, Mike, come here.
Can we have a quick chat?
I said, yeah, what's up?
He said, listen...
Bunch of good guys in there, okay?
He said, but you're a fucking world champion.
Can you go in there and spar these guys and act like a world champion?
They're here, you're up there.
Act like it.
Don't go in, lose your fucking temper, spaz out, stress out, act like a dick, say things you regret.
You know when the sparring's not quite necessarily going your way, you know, you get a little pissed off or whatever, you know, say your jiu-jitsu coach is catching you and tapping you out a little bit and you start getting a little frustrated.
He said, can you just...
You know, can we have none of that please?
Great advice.
Just like when I was fighting for the belt, when I flew home from doing that movie, I went straight to the gym when I landed and Jason said to me, because I was always stressed, you know, and he said, listen, We don't know if you're going to win this fight, Mike.
You know, fingers crossed.
I believe in you.
I believe you're going to win this fight.
But we don't know if you're going to win this fight.
So this might be the only time you're ever going to fight for a world title, right?
I said, well, yeah, possibly.
He said, well, let's enjoy the process.
You know, let's go through this with a smile on your face.
He said, this is huge.
He said, you're in a position that everyone would kill to be in.
You're fighting for the championship.
You're fighting for the belt.
You've wanted this your whole life.
Enjoy this, you know?
And it was such...
Amazing advice.
Because I was like, yeah, you're right.
And I went through the whole thing with a big smile on my face.
And then he went down and obviously he's got very good jiu-jitsu and he was kind of sat back against the fence and I thought, I've got to be careful not to go in his guard, but...
Yeah, I got the finished felt.
The best feeling I've ever felt in my life was big John McCarthy's gigantic forearm nearly pulling my head off my shoulders as he wrestled me off him.
You know, for me, the amount of fights I've had is unbelievable, professionally and unprofessionally.
When I was a kid, that's all...
I was.
That was my only identity as being a fighter and just being that guy.
Unfortunately, rightly or wrongly.
Well, it's wrongly.
It's wrongly.
Of course it is.
I was a fucking idiot when I was a kid.
I was fighting so much.
But that's what I clung to.
I was a fighter and that was the only thing that I could draw pride from.
Becoming the world champion, knowing that everybody wrote me off, knowing that everyone talked shit about me, you know, other fighters, just, you know, it was everywhere.
I heard what people always said about me, do you know what I mean?
So to win like that in style in the first round, yeah, yeah, it felt amazing.
My wife was behind me there and she deserves a shout-out because if it wasn't for her, none of this would have happened.
But with Rockhold, with what happened after the fight, so I... Okay, there's a few things that I regret that happened after the fight.
First of all, I jump on the fence and I'm just so worked up.
I scoot down.
Fuck you.
Whatever.
No big deal.
I'm not too concerned about that one.
Um...
And then as I'm doing my, like, victory dance, if you will, I do a lap of the octagon.
And I cross paths with Luke, pardon me, and I'm like, hey, you know, you say whatever you say, you know, unlucky bird, you know, good fight, whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I said that, and I carried on having my moment.
I was just out of my mind, on adrenaline, and just having a great time.
And then I found myself, I'd done an entire lap of the octagon again, and I was passing him again.
So I just thought I'd extend my courtesy one more time.
And I put my hand out and he said, I already shook your hand.
I'm like, oh, really?
You're still going to be a dickhead?
He's like, yeah, I already shook your hand.
So then I was like, okay, well now the gloves are off.
I said, don't worry, buddy.
You're in an octagon.
You've just been knocked out.
It's okay.
You'll figure it out in a minute.
Don't worry about it.
You'll come too, bud.
You'll be good.
So I kind of looked like an asshole because people didn't see that.
He refused to shake my hand the second time.
I was like, well, go fuck yourself then.
And then when you gave me the microphone, when you gave me the microphone, I said the most crude comment ever.
I'm like, I've been fighting ever since I came out of my mother.
I'm like, whoa, that is not an image that I want to portray to the world when I win the world belt.
What I meant was ever since I've been born.
But in the moment, the words escaped me a little bit and I... Painted a rather disturbing image of my mother giving birth to me.
But yeah, I didn't choose my words too carefully there.
I'm just happy that for you, you know, having a chance to see all your fights and see your career go for as long as it went, that you did go out with a title.
For me, the main thing, I mean, as I say, you know, I was cleared medically by the doctors and, you know, the UFC were very, very on top of all of that.
The UFC, you know, sent me to a number of different doctors and whatnot.
And as I say, I passed the test just, but it was...
And every time I did, the doctors were like, we don't recommend that you fight, you know.
Looking back now, not that I sit there at night and get drunk and watch my old fights.
I've never done that once.
But if I ever do see some old fights back, which occasionally just happens by chance, afterwards, I'm always calling for a shot at the belt or whatever.
I said to my wife, I said, What the fuck was this guy thinking?
Do you know what I mean?
He's out of his mind, you know?
Absolutely out of his mind.
But at that time, quitting and trying to not become the champion did not even occur to me for a split second.
Giving up never even occurred to me for a heartbeat.
He's an inspiration to all aspiring martial artists out there.
If there's one man you can model your career on, the way he trains, the way he looks after his body, the way he cross trains, George St. Pierre would be that man, you know?
He's an inspiration to myself, you know?
So, nothing but the greatest of respect.
But people, as we said at the start of the show...
That doesn't sell.
People don't want to see that.
People don't want to see that.
So I'll play the bad guy.
I've been portrayed as the bad guy my entire career, you know, by the UFC, the editing, you know.
I've fallen foul to some creative editing.
I've fallen foul to my own mouth as well at times.
So, you know, come on, you know, I'm my own worst enemy as well.
Yeah, the week before the fight, I had the best training camp of my life, you know.
Sounds braggy, but knocking out multiple sparring partners, not on purpose.
It just felt incredible.
It felt absolutely incredible.
Final sparring session, we had MyProtein.
They'd flown in for a photo shoot.
There was someone else there for a photo shoot.
The gym's absolutely packed, and we got some guys in there sparring me.
And, you know, everybody wants to be the guy.
That gets the takedown or whatever or gets the submission on the guy.
That's how it is.
That's why I don't like going to too many MMA gyms when I was fighting because every time you walk in, you have a target on your back.
Anyway, it was the final round.
We've done five rounds.
It was the Friday before the fight.
And this guy shoots in, shooting a double leg, runs me all the way across the octagon, like his life depended on it, picked me up, slammed me down, and his shoulders went right into my ribs, and I felt it instantly, just all the cartilage just tore completely.
And I just started swearing and screaming, because I knew, I knew.
I went, I saw a doctor and whatnot, and yeah, it wasn't good, so I was...
I got treatment every day and I was having ice on me and all that type of stuff.
But it wasn't working, so...
We came up with this plan.
I was going to inject myself with lidocaine before the fight, because it will numb you.
But the problem is, the area where it was...
Was you can pierce a lung where I have to go in.
You can pierce a lung and bleed to death.
Jesus Christ.
Yeah.
So I got this doctor and I was going to, I had the needle, I had the lidocaine and I was going to fucking go in and sneak into the toilet and FaceTime the doctor and he was like, okay.
And anyway, the whole thing, it was just too on top.
It was bullshit.
I was like, fuck this.
This is the stupidest plan ever.
Bollocks to it.
I'll fight with the sore rib.
A bit of adrenaline and you're not going to feel it anyway.
Which I didn't on the night.
But people said, oh, you didn't lock yourself in there.
Like your coach will say, okay, let's call it that guys.
We're good.
Call it that and you're like, I don't know.
Come on, let's get one good one in.
Because sometimes, I normally train a spar Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
And if the Wednesday spar goes really well, you're like, let's end it there.
Because you want to end on a really good spar.
You know what I mean?
Because you feel like a world champion.
You feel...
Great.
You know, you remember how you handled all your sparring partners and whatever good shots you landed and you didn't really take any damage.
That's a great, that's great momentum to go into the fight with.
And you don't know if you have another sparring session, it's going to go like that.
You know, you might be tired, you might be worn down.
Those guys might be on the game that day.
And if you get a tough sparring session, well then you want to do one more because you can't go into a fight after getting your ass kicked in a sparring session.
You know what I mean?
That's not good karma or energy to go in there with.
So it's always a weird one.
It's a fine balancing act, but yeah, there you go.
It's hard for young fighters too when they get contractually obligated to someone that doesn't suit them later in their career but then they start becoming successful and they're still contractually obligated to those people that they started out with.
Yeah, well for me I wasn't contractually obligated.
I kept my mouth shut.
I did my five years and moved on but they saw it a different way so they came out with some totally fabricated nonsense about camp bills going back to 2006. They just created invoices and Just totally fabricated an entire case.
Not a single email, not a single signature, nothing.
It's laughable that it even got this far, but if you've got brass balls on you and you're willing to stick to a story and talk a lot of shit and lie, you can go a long way, it seems.
But I don't want to talk about that too much because I'll probably end up getting fucking sued again.
I really would love to because I feel this was one of my issues as I was a coach, sorry pardon me, as a fighter because believe it or not, you know, I mean I retired at 39 years old and at the time I'd had the most fights in the UFC and you know, whatever.
Believe it or not, I know a thing or two about how to prepare for a mixed martial arts fight.
You know, so that was one of my conflicting things always with my coaches.
Not that I didn't respect them, but I would always kind of feel maybe I should be doing this or should be doing that.
And that's what I would do a lot of the time.
I was kind of like the head coach.
I mean, Jason Prillo was probably the head coach, but I would...
Like, be the one that did the program.
I need to work on this.
I'll see that guy on that day.
So yeah, I would love to.
I would love to.
Right now, I've got a lot of things going on and life is good, so I don't really have the time to dedicate myself to it.
And actually, I'm kind of enjoying just...
Well, I'm still working for the UFC doing the fight coverage stuff, but it's enjoyable to be doing something different.
After being submerged in it, totally submerged for so long, it's refreshing to be doing something else.
There's some of them that are making those transitions into training.
And who better to know what it's like to prepare for a fight than someone like yourself who had so many fights in the UFC? I mean, it's almost like that knowledge and experience is almost wasted.
Or at least the experience of how to prepare kind of goes away if you don't pass it on.
Because otherwise someone has to go through all the stuff you've been through to learn it.
That is the best case scenario, though, your situation, because you've retired into a very profitable career, whereas there's a lot of fighters, they're lost when it's over.
So I left school at 16. You know, no education like a fucking idiot.
That's one of my big regrets in life.
Small town boy, you know, northwest of England, not a lot going on there.
Beautiful little town, but, you know, tiny little town.
Not a lot of opportunity and just fell into a rut, you know, working minimum wage in factories, you know, from seven in the morning till six o'clock at night, just doing mundane, medial shit, you know, and I hated it.
I hated it.
I really did, and that's why...
I became a fighter, ultimately.
And it was a very well-planned decision.
You know, the whole story to me coming to do this was, it didn't happen overnight.
I think what we saw in the Ronda Rousey fight with Liz Karmouche, Liz Karmouche took her back and almost choked her out from that.
And if Liz was the Liz of today, she probably would have choked her out.
She just wasn't quite experienced enough at the time.
I think the reason why you're seeing it more in women's MMA is because although the level is very high with Valentina Shevchenko and Jacek and Cyborg, the level of the champions is very high.
There's still the lower levels nowhere near.
You could watch a guy on an undercard that's fighting on Fight Pass who's a fucking world-class demon in the UFC. He's a man.
The women, there's way less of them and the competition is not as strong.
I was just about to say the percentage of men interested in pursuing martial arts and mixed martial arts as opposed to the percentage of women, way lower.
I don't know what the percentage is of men.
If we said it's 50 just for the sake of the argument, women it's going to be 5%.
His girlfriend, he was cornering his, you know, the mother of his children.
She was a Thai boxer, Cassie, and shout out Cassie, no disrespect, you know, but to be cornering your loved one, that you're in a relationship, and she got knocked out cold in a Thai boxing fight.
I was like, wow, Daz, how do you do that?
And, you know, the mental strength to understand that this is a different relationship, that she's the student and the teacher, and this is just the way it is.
There's not too many, and I say this with the greatest respect to women's mixed martial arts, and I respect everybody that applies themselves and is willing to get off a couch and make something of their life.
So, you know, I'm not being overly judgmental.
But there isn't too many that I... Really get excited for and that really thoroughly enjoy watching.
Because as we just said, the level of skill isn't quite there yet.
As I say, it's nothing to do with genders.
Why do I want to see a watered down product?
If I can see these guys doing it at such an extreme level, I don't really want to watch smaller...
People that can't hit as hard with lesser technique.
You know what I mean?
As I say, nothing to do with gender.
But obviously, there's a few exceptions to the rule.
And Jon Jekek impressed me, you know, because she had a, I think it was a tough three rounds, fourth round, you know, she probably might have edged that fourth round, you know, so it's impressive that she still had the fight in her, so late in the fight.
Well, a lot of it was the weight cut was crushing her, and then she didn't have to cut weight for 125, but on the flip side, you're fighting a bigger, stronger woman than Valentina.
I was like, if Max, if it goes to the ground and Max gets caught up in something, I mean, Ortega's got the nastiest fucking submissions in that featherweight division.
There's a lot going on in that fight to learn from in terms of his movement, in terms of just trying to handle Max's barrage and the pressure that he puts on you.
You know, it's interesting, like, you had a great situation with Jason Perillo and the other coaches that you worked with, and sometimes a young fighter needs, like, a mastermind, right?
It's a sport where you were incredibly fortunate in that you got to not just be there when it was exploding, but you got to be a part of the explosion.
I mean, I remember he hit me, I went down, he was swarming on me, hit me with some elbows.
But I remember I was always fine, but I was like, holy shit, that was what hit me there.
And then I managed to get myself back to my feet and had blood pouring out my face and whatnot.
Of course, second round, same thing happened.
He had two big moments in the fight.
Two big shots, but they were big moments.
But you don't win a 25-minute fight by landing two shots.
But they were big shots.
Fair play to him.
But, you know, I refused to quit there because...
Obviously, going into that fight, I talked a bit of shit, like always.
And you can lie to everybody.
You can lie to the media, you can lie to the press, you can lie to your family, lie to your coaches.
Well, it's not necessarily lies, but you can ooze bravado and this and that.
But you can't lie to yourself.
When you're led in bed at night and your head's on the cushion, You can't bullshit yourself, you know?
And day of the fight, because the fight was at six in the morning, day of the fight, I'm laying on my bed trying to just have a nap, because it was going to be a long night, obviously.
And I couldn't sleep.
And all I was thinking, human nature, last time I stepped into an octagon with this guy, I was fucking out.
Cold.
For a long time.
My brain was scrambled eggs for a long time after that fight.
And...
As I say, you can lie to everybody else, but now the fight was getting close and it's in my hometown and it's my first title defense and all this.
I'm like, shit, shit.
I know I'm better than this guy, but fuck, last time.
Last time didn't end well.
So I was getting a little worked up.
And I remember I was at the arena and I was kind of, you know...
Being a little edgy, a little snappy with people, and there was no need for it, and then I just stopped.
I started laughing, and Pril, I said, what are you laughing at?
I said, well, what's the worst that's going to happen if I lose?
What's the worst?
I'm going to lose a fight.
It's happened before, so why am I stressing myself out of it?
And I just started laughing, and after that, I was fine, but...
Yeah, I definitely had a sore face the next day after that one, for sure.
I spoke to doctors about it, you know, because I was...
Yeah, I was always curious what could be done, but I don't think in my lifetime there is.
But the reason I retired was at the Gastelum fight because I was cleared to fight and the doctors were always like, we don't really advise it, but you are cleared.
You've passed the test just by the skin of your teeth.
And for me, that was all well and good.
You've got to do your medical.
The most stressful part of all of that was when you...
You've got to go do a full training camp now, then fly somewhere, and you're going to see another doctor, a commissioned doctor at the weigh-in.
Right?
And you don't know what this doctor is going to be like.
You don't know if he knows anything about eyes.
You don't know if he wants to be a hero.
You don't know if he wants to make fucking press, the guy that pulled the main event.
Do you know what I mean?
Very, very stressful time.
So for me, the fight was always the easy part.
The hard part was just fucking making it to the octagon.
And I go to the weigh-ins and I get cleared.
I was like, The feeling was like, okay, we're good.
The fight's on.
Because I didn't know the fight was on until I got past the commission doctor.
As soon as I found out about that, you know, I sparred a few times and then got on a plane and went out there.
And yeah, you know, God bless him.
He got me.
But then after the fight, because, you know, as I said, you know, I was clear to fight, but the doctors always said, We don't recommend it because if anything happens to your good eye, you're going to be in a real problem.
And I was like, well, so many fighters in the UFC have long careers and they don't get detached wetness.
It's a very...
Not rare, but it's pretty rare.
Pretty rare.
You don't hear about it too much.
So I'm thinking, okay, well, the lightning's already struck.
Okay, lightning isn't going to strike twice.
You know what I mean?
I'm not that fucking unlucky.
Anyway, so we have the Gastelum fight, and then we go to an after-party in Shanghai.
I'm in some club.
And I'm in the club, and every time I look that way, and it still does it to this day, every time I look that way, tsh, tsh, tsh.
And I was in this club, and every time I'm looking, it's doing that, and I start freaking out, because I know, you know, I've got a history of symptoms with eye problems and whatever, and I start telling myself, I don't believe this.
I've got a detached wedding in my good eye, and I'm freaking out, and I don't want to be in a nightclub around a bunch of fucking dickheads anyway, all drinking.
I hate nightclubs.
So I said, oh, I'm just going to go to the toilet and restroom, and I wasn't.
I was leaving, you know, but I just wanted to be by myself, and I left there and shed a little tear in the taxi.
I didn't want to be sat in a fucking nightclub crying, because if people see me crying, they're going to be like, oh, he's crying because, bless him, he lost a fight to Gastelum.
I was like, No, I'm not crying because I lost a fight to Gaston.
I'm crying because I might be going fucking blind here.
You know what I mean?
So I jump in the taxi, I go back to my hotel, and then later on, Perillo and a few guys came back to see if I was okay.
And, you know...
Whatever, we just carried on talking and having a few drinks in the room and forgot all about it.
And, you know, turned into a bit of a messy one in Shanghai.
Forgot all about my eye.
And the next thing, I'm on a plane flying home.
And I'd forgotten all about it.
I fall asleep on the plane.
I wake up halfway home, probably flying over the Pacific somewhere.
The plane's pitch black.
And then I open my eye.
It starts doing it again.
I'm like, shit!
Because I've forgotten all about it.
So I'm trying to get on Wi-Fi on the plane, trying to find something about it, trying to Google it, what it could be and all the rest of it.
The Wi-Fi wouldn't work and I'm going up and I'm trying to beg the air hostess, you know, please, please, I need to get on Wi-Fi.
I have to.
I didn't tell her why.
And she said, no, it's down right now.
I'm like, oh, fuck.
Anyway, so I land, I call my eye doctor straight away.
I tell him, I say, listen, I think I've got a detached wetter in my good eye.
Why do you say that?
I tell him the story.
He says, don't worry, don't worry.
You know, you'll be okay.
So I go see an eye doctor the next day.
And, uh...
He says, I tell him the issue.
He says, why do you say that?
And I tell him why.
I said, so do you think it's a detached retina?
He says, well, it certainly sounds like one.
I'm like, fuck me.
He says, okay, we're going to put some drops in your eyes.
Everything's going to go blurry.
And I only see a tiny bit out of this eye.
And I'm like, oh, I make a stupid joke as my defense mechanism.
I'm like, oh, I guess I better get used to this view, eh?
And the doctor's like, well, we don't know that just yet.
And I'm like, fuck me.
Do you know what I mean?
That's not the answer I was expecting.
Anyway, turns out, didn't have a detached retina.
I had a partial vitreous detachment.
So you have your cornea here, your retina at the back, and in between what's called vitreous fluid, millions of fibers connect to the retina to send a message, I think.
If I'm getting it wrong, I'm sorry, doctors.
And in your 60s, that just slides off the retina and detaches naturally.
Maybe in your 60s, 70s, who knows.
But as you get older through old age, it just slides off.
It can detach due to trauma.
So that's what happened to me.
But it had partially detached.
But the problem was when these fibers are pulling, they can cause the retina to tear.
So they were like, well, we need to keep an eye on this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So anyway, long story short, after that, I thought, fuck this.
I was supposed to fight Rashard in London earlier this year, but we couldn't agree on the deal terms with the UFC if I never materialized.
And I was flying up to New York to do my podcast with Lewis and on the plane I'm watching this movie called The Journeyman and it's Paddy Considine, it's about a boxer who's a world champion and at the end of it he wins the fight and then he has severe brain damage and It's a very, very sad movie.
Yeah, I mean, as I say, no regrets, you know, I mean, it was a wonderful ride.
I loved it.
I never thought a young kid doing martial arts and, you know, a guy that just liked to have a scrap when he was a kid could take it this far.
And that's the beautiful thing about the UFC these days.
You know, if you're of that certain mindset, that certain character, you like a bit of rough and tumble, you don't mind getting a punch in the face here and there and you're willing to go for it.
You can make a living.
When I was younger, I used to do a lot of professional kickboxing, but I never looked at it as a career, because it wasn't back then.
Well, especially for a guy like you who's a good talker, who understands how to break fights down and you can make this transition.
It's one of the things that I really like about the UFC. They've allowed these fighters, like, you know, I do a lot of commentary now with Paul Felder and Daniel Cormier, Dominic Cruz, and they've given these guys these options.
As I was saying before, but that was one of the things that scared me as well as a kid because...
You go in gyms all over the world and you see amazing talent everywhere.
Amazing talent and...
You know, they're sleeping in the cars or they're sleeping on a couch at someone's friend's house, you know, and they're struggling to pay the bills and they're driving a shitty, beat-up piece of shit, you know, and it's a shame.
And I see them and my heart goes out to them.
And for whatever reason, they don't get the brakes, they don't look right, they can't put it together on Friday night, the nerves get the better of them, who knows what it is, but they just don't make it.
You know, and fighting such a cruel, vicious sport.
It really is.
So that's why when people...
I get asked all the time, do you want your son to do it?
I'm like, well, no, not really.
The way I see it, I fought so he doesn't have to.
But if he wants to, he's the number four ranked wrestler in California.
If it wasn't for my father, I wouldn't be here either.
But I wouldn't wish it on him.
I wouldn't wish the life of a fighter on anybody because it's so unpredictable.
And just because you're good and just because you can take a punch and just because you're an animal in there doesn't mean you're going to be a success.