Dec. 1, 2010 - The Joe Rogan Experience
02:47:22
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
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And we're live! | |
| What's up? | ||
| How are you? | ||
| What's up, Joe? | ||
| Dude, you're on a rollercoaster ride. | ||
| What is it like to be the champ? | ||
| What's the feeling like? | ||
| This is fresh for you. | ||
| Well, first of all, I just want to say, man, it's such an honor to be here. | ||
| The honor's mine. | ||
| I never... | ||
| I'm going to be honest. | ||
| My thing is I'm just going to be 100% totally transparent. | ||
| I never really watched the show. | ||
| I never really kind of heard of the show. | ||
| Of course, I heard of you and all the things you do. | ||
| I'm like, oh yeah, it's Fairfactor guy. | ||
| But I never really heard of the show until after a fight or two in the UFC and people are tagging me and shit. | ||
| Yo, Joe Rogan's talking about you. | ||
| Joe Rogan talking about you on podcast. | ||
| I'm like, fucking podcast? | ||
| Because I never listened to podcasts at the time. | ||
| I was like, what are you talking about? | ||
| Until I finally started listening. | ||
| I'm like, oh, this dude is for real. | ||
| This dude got some pool. | ||
|
unidentified
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He got some people watching this shit. | |
| Random people would tag me. | ||
| Oh, Joe was talking about you today on the podcast. | ||
| I'm like, oh man, this guy's for real. | ||
| And then every time after that, that I see you, I'm like, what's up, Joe? | ||
|
unidentified
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What? | |
| Yeah, we've been talking about you for a long time, man. | ||
| We were just, with your friend out there, we were watching a video of us talking about you back when you were ranked number 12th. | ||
| And I was saying, I think you could fight for the title right now. | ||
| Yeah, man. | ||
| And I like to attest it to, I think, because I went back, once I started kind of researching, I like to go back and do a little research. | ||
| And I'm like, fucking, Joe's been with this sport for the beginning. | ||
| Like, you were in the back with hair. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| 97, yeah. | ||
| He was here freaking interviewing the guys during the tournament that were fighting multiple fights at night. | ||
| And you were interviewing those guys. | ||
| And I was like, even back then, Joe had skills. | ||
| Joe was a beast at interviewing these guys. | ||
| There was no shaking behind it. | ||
| One thing about me, I've gotten into commentating and things like that now. | ||
| And I'm like, dang, Joe, he didn't seem nervous. | ||
| You were just like a freaking natural at it. | ||
| And the sport was just growing at that time. | ||
| I was like, damn, Joe's known for a while. | ||
| There was nobody watching back then. | ||
| It wasn't as much pressure. | ||
| It wasn't like coming into it today, ESPN, pay-per-view, all that deal. | ||
| It would be a lot of pressure. | ||
| But back then, it was just fun. | ||
| It was weird, man. | ||
| The first one I did was in Dothan, Alabama. | ||
| I don't know if it was a high school gym or some small auditorium, tiny little place. | ||
| It was very weird. | ||
| Yeah, but you made it look like a freaking certain little walk in the park. | ||
| I mean, I was like, damn, Joe's been doing this shit for a while. | ||
| Well, it's an interesting thing to see, you know, to see it progress from 1997 to where it's at in 2019. The biggest difference is not just the amount of eyes that it gets and the amount of people that are paying attention to. | ||
| The real difference is the level of athlete. | ||
| It's a giant, giant leap, like in no other sport. | ||
| I don't think there's another sport from 1993 to 2019 where the athletes are almost, it's almost unrecognizable how much better the fighters are. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Now, back in the day, it was like, okay, you finished your college career, you finished all this, you've got to the height of whatever. | ||
| Sport, you could be, let's start fighting. | ||
| Guys were coming in at 28, 27, starting to learn the tricks. | ||
| Now you got freaking 10-year-old kids sparring. | ||
| There's all these crazy videos of little bitty kids fighting in Russia or other places. | ||
| They're full-on MMA fighting. | ||
| Yeah, it's a totally different world. | ||
| It's like, yeah, whole promotion. | ||
| I'm like, man, by the time these guys get to 16, 17, they're going to be killers. | ||
| Yeah, but if you go back and watch a boxing match from like 93, a world champion boxer like Marvin Hagler, perfect example. | ||
| Marvin Hagler from the 80s could absolutely hang. | ||
| With middleweights, he would fit right in with world champions today. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| But a UFC champ from 93, it's just not the same. | ||
| It's not by any stretch. | ||
| Back then, it was wild. | ||
| It was crazy, but nobody had endurance. | ||
| There was a few guys that had some skill, like Orlando Veen or Hoist Gracie. | ||
| Guys are really good at their individual arts, but there was no real complete fighters yet. | ||
| Yeah, you got the transition because it was, everyone came in with their special skills and that was the big thing. | ||
| I think UFC even sold that as, oh yeah, you got the wrestler fighting the combo, the sambo guy and the jiu-jitsu guy. | ||
| So that was the thing. | ||
| Everyone came in with their one skill and they put it to the test to see which skill was better. | ||
| It's freaking crazy, Joe. | ||
| My first fight, first time I ever watched a UFC fight, I was visiting John Jones in college, freshman year. | ||
| This was our freshman year, true freshman year. | ||
| I was visiting him because I went to a small school, William Penn University, which was about two hours away from him. | ||
| He was at Iowa Central in Fort Dodge, Iowa. | ||
| So, I went to go spend my fall break a whole week with him, just hanging out, because we had met the previous year in high school, and just, you know, it's two brothers wrestling. | ||
| It was like, hey, two brothers, what's up, man? | ||
| Where you going to school next year? | ||
| It's like, I'll be Iowa. | ||
| I was like, yo, me too! | ||
| And so, we kept in touch, and I went up to hang out with him, and during that week, it was a fight on him. | ||
| Someone, like a friend of the team, something like that, invited us to come to his house and watch it. | ||
| And we went over there to watch the fights. | ||
| I had never really heard of it. | ||
| I never really cared. | ||
| I was just a freshman just trying to hang out with John and party. | ||
| What year was this around? | ||
| This was 2005. Yeah, 2005. So it was like first season of The Ultimate Fighter. | ||
| Yeah, 2005. So I think it might have been Randy Couture or someone. | ||
| John just reminded me, but I forgot who was fighting. | ||
| And we went to the house party and watched it. | ||
| I really didn't really remember the fight. | ||
| Because I didn't really care. | ||
| I never paid attention to it. | ||
| I never thought I would ever do something like that. | ||
| So I just watched it. | ||
| And then I remember the guy saying, Hey man, you guys can do this. | ||
| Why don't you guys try this? | ||
| And I was like, me and John kind of looked at each other like, hell no, ain't no way we gonna do that shit, you know? | ||
| Wrestling is controlled, you know, there's rules, you know, certain things you can or can't do. | ||
| There's no way we're doing that. | ||
| So we kind of laughed it off and left that day. | ||
| Never knew that I, freaking years later, I'd be doing this. | ||
| Not just doing it. | ||
| You dethroned the guy who many people, including me, were saying is a very good argument for the best welterweight ever. | ||
| I felt like Tyron is like, you gotta give it... | ||
| There's like two... | ||
| There's legendary status, right? | ||
| There's like... | ||
| Matt Hughes has legendary status for being the original. | ||
| He was one of the first wrestlers who really knew how to submit guys. | ||
| And then George St. Pierre was, of course, in many people's eyes, the greatest of all time in the welterweight division. | ||
| Went on this long run. | ||
| But I was like, man, if Tyron beats Usman, I was like, there's a real good argument for him being number one of all time. | ||
| Beating Wonderboy, smashing Darren Till, beating Damian Maia, knocking out Robbie Lawler to win the title. | ||
|
unidentified
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Absolutely. | |
| I considered him. | ||
| I put him in that conversation. | ||
| Yeah, he's in that conversation for sure. | ||
| For sure, I put him in that conversation. | ||
| I, you know, nothing but respect for Tyron. | ||
| It was nice to see afterwards. | ||
| There's a video of you and Tyron's mom and Tyron and Tyron's mom afterwards. | ||
| It is a beautiful video. | ||
| Yeah, man. | ||
| It's a tearjerker. | ||
| I freaking let it go because I'm one of those guys I never really sit and stop and smell the roses and things like that. | ||
| I always have a chip on my shoulder and I'll explain why that is but I always had this chip on my shoulder with everything that I do so I never really sit and celebrate and say oh yeah I accomplished this or I did that or did that but I'd known his mom. | ||
| I've met her previously to the fights. | ||
| I fought in St. Louis one time. | ||
| Of course, I'd seen her several times in his fights. | ||
| I was fighting in St. Louis, and I was there early. | ||
| And she was at the hotel. | ||
| Tyra wasn't fighting or anything, but she just came to the hotel. | ||
| I think she was just hanging out. | ||
| And I got to sit with her before all the fighters even came into town. | ||
| I had to sit with her. | ||
| I think we sat for a couple hours, maybe three, four hours, just talking. | ||
| I got to know her, and she was just such an angel. | ||
| But at the same time... | ||
| She's a gangster too. | ||
| She was everything. | ||
| The biggest thing I could compare her to is, if you've ever seen that show from way back, it's called Touched by an Angel. | ||
| I forget what her name is. | ||
| She's the famous black actress. | ||
| Do you remember that woman? | ||
| Adele. | ||
| I forget her name. | ||
| What is it? | ||
| Maya Angelou. | ||
| No, it wasn't Maya Angelou. | ||
| It was that late. | ||
| I mean, she was Maya Angelou's status, how big she was, and inspirational, but that's kind of what I compare her to. | ||
| And so we got, you know, I knew her. | ||
| And Tyrone obviously wasn't who I would have chosen to take the belt from, but... | ||
| Is how long can you hold yourself back? | ||
| Because being a champion, there's a huge difference between being a challenger and a champion. | ||
| And of course, I needed to have my family in that argument. | ||
| I need to get them to that status to where now I'm setting my daughter up. | ||
| I'm setting everyone up for... | ||
| You know, life, better life forever. | ||
| And I couldn't continue to hold that back. | ||
| So, yeah, it was unfortunate that I had to take that from him. | ||
| And I kind of, in a sense, I felt like I was taken away from what he was doing for them. | ||
| So when I saw her walking backstage, I just couldn't control it. | ||
| I just let go and I just couldn't help but cry on her shoulders. | ||
| This is a great video. | ||
| What is her name? | ||
| The actress is Roma Downey. | ||
| Yeah, that's her. | ||
| The video is amazing because she's hugging you and she's telling you congratulations and she's telling you that they're going to be coming for you. | ||
| So train hard. | ||
| And just like her attitude, man, it's beautiful, man. | ||
| It's amazing her character that she handled that. | ||
| I mean, this is her baby. | ||
| Her baby just lost and lost every round. | ||
| And it was a pretty dominant victory by you. | ||
| And for her to treat you that way afterwards just shows amazing character. | ||
| There it is right here. | ||
| You can see it up here. | ||
| Look at her. | ||
| She just embraces you, open arms. | ||
| It's all good. | ||
| It's all good, baby. | ||
| Look at that. | ||
|
unidentified
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Amazing. | |
| That's an amazing woman right there. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| That's amazing, man. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| And even Tyron, the way Tyron handles it, it's crazy, right? | ||
| It makes me cry. | ||
| There's something in the air over here. | ||
|
unidentified
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What's going on? | |
| Y'all got it dusty in here. | ||
| Dude, I got it too. | ||
| It made me cry when I saw it. | ||
| It's making me cry now. | ||
| Yeah, man. | ||
| And the way she treated Tyron too, the same thing. | ||
| I mean, she's just... | ||
| That's how my mom is too. | ||
| So I felt such a connection to that, to her, because my mom is the exact same way. | ||
| My mom would have done the same thing to Tyron. | ||
| It was powerful, man. | ||
| It was moving. | ||
| And it goes to attest to how big the sport is as well. | ||
| It's not, oh man, it's just a regular fight. | ||
| You guys hate each other and you're fighting. | ||
| No, this was a competition. | ||
| This was two men that went in there for a competition and one guy won. | ||
| And you saw the aftermath. | ||
| You see the family receive each other. | ||
| People love that, man. | ||
| They love when people put all that bullshit aside. | ||
| I mean, you guys had a lot of... | ||
| Trash talk at the press conferences, and there was a lot of that going on, but that sells tickets, and it's good for everybody, and it's natural and normal, but after it was over, it was nothing but respect, and it's what a lot of people think is wrong about the trash talk of this era, because there's an era right now, right? | ||
| We're in the trash talk era, and some people are really good at it, and some people are terrible at it, but it seems like everybody's trying. | ||
| I mean, Masvidal, Recently, when he just beat Darren Till, it was very interesting because, you know, his take on it before the fight was, why trash talk? | ||
| Like, what are we doing? | ||
| You know, we're going to fight. | ||
| Like, what is all this bullshit about? | ||
| Like, he doesn't like it. | ||
| He was like, I don't like where this is going. | ||
| I don't like where the sport is going. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things that I had to adjust to because I wasn't brought on those principles. | ||
| I'm not, you know. | ||
| You're a competitor. | ||
| Yeah, I wasn't here for a salesman. | ||
| Asked me all the time, why do you do this? | ||
| I chose to do this. | ||
| I'm college educated. | ||
| I can get a fucking job and sit in an office and punch numbers and all that. | ||
| But I chose to do this because of my burning desire to compete. | ||
| Even now, when I compete with guys, I'm not competing angry. | ||
| I don't want to kill this guy. | ||
| I'm not rah-rah-rah and all that shit. | ||
| No, it's competition for me. | ||
| My mind is, I'm going to beat you. | ||
| Which goes to attest to how I fight and how I compete. | ||
| I'm not like that. | ||
| This is not the only thing that I can do. | ||
| And so this era came about where now everybody, you got to talk shit, you got to sell, you got to do this and do that. | ||
| Do you feel any pressure to do that? | ||
| At some point I did because I was fighting the way I was fighting. | ||
| I was dominating guys and I was getting nowhere. | ||
| It was like no notoriety. | ||
| They were kind of like just kind of putting you on the wayside. | ||
| They would always tell me, oh, you get a top 10 guy. | ||
| You'll get a top 10 guy. | ||
| But it wouldn't happen. | ||
| It was like, oh, you fight this guy. | ||
| And you can't really argue with them because this promotion is giving you the opportunity to even really make money at all for the career path that you chose. | ||
| So... | ||
| For a while, I just felt like, man, this is not... | ||
| I guess I just got to do this. | ||
| Because you saw it. | ||
| The other clown, Covington, he had to do that. | ||
| He absolutely had... | ||
| Nothing has changed with the way that he fights. | ||
| He's done the exact same thing since he'd been in the UFC. But after the first couple of fights, no one gave a shit. | ||
| So he felt, you know what? | ||
| No, I'm just going to have to start doing this. | ||
| Everyone knows it's fake. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Because he just one day woke up and started doing it. | ||
| And that's the thing now. | ||
| People try to say you have to do that. | ||
| But for me, what I'm not going to do is I'm not going to just sell my soul just to, oh yeah, I'm just trying to earn a couple bucks because I'm not going to do that. | ||
| I'm going to do it the right way. | ||
| George did it the right way, and I'm a firm believer that when you do it the right way, you will earn what you deserve. | ||
| It will come to you at some point. | ||
| I don't think that you have to. | ||
| I really don't. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, Kobe Covington does, because that dude freaking sucks. | ||
| You've got to give it to him. | ||
| He did beat Dos Anjos. | ||
| That was a big victory. | ||
| He did beat Damian Mayan. | ||
| That was a big victory. | ||
| Those are two legit victories over two very dangerous guys. | ||
| He did beat those guys. | ||
| Yes, absolutely. | ||
| So he's got skill on top of the trash talking. | ||
| But the trash talking bumped him ahead of you in line. | ||
| And a lot of us were surprised. | ||
| I was surprised. | ||
| I was surprised. | ||
| He had to do it. | ||
| And I mean, it's gotten him where he has. | ||
| And I mean, look what he did two weeks ago when I fought. | ||
| His whole deal was for me to create an uproar to get my name back in the picture. | ||
| And he did a wonderful job. | ||
| This is one thing that I would say is that he has done a wonderful job at having people talk about him. | ||
| Whether you hate him, which, and even the bosses have said the exact same thing, is no one has done what he's done. | ||
| No one has ever created the persona that is unanimously hated worldwide. | ||
| Like, unanimously. | ||
| There's not even... | ||
| He's a heel. | ||
| A wrestling heel. | ||
| Like, literally a heel. | ||
| Like, those guys, they still had fans, you know, that wanted to see him succeed. | ||
| Like, nobody likes... | ||
| He's not safe anywhere. | ||
| No. | ||
| You know, you don't even have to be... | ||
| There's flightweights that want to hurt this guy. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So he's done a good job of creating that, which I love. | ||
| And I appreciate that. | ||
| It's going to sell a lot of pay-per-views when you guys fight. | ||
| Yeah, I'm not a hater. | ||
| I'm not a hater. | ||
| I give credit where credit is due. | ||
| I appreciate the fact that he's done that. | ||
| And that's one thing that Rashad taught me over the years is that you have to appreciate certain things like that. | ||
| And I do. | ||
| I always wanted this moment. | ||
| I always wanted that. | ||
| Conor and Khabib, that adversary, that Rashad and Rampage, that Hughes and George St. Pierre. | ||
| I always wanted that, and he's done a good job of creating that. | ||
| So, not just an adversary in terms of a legitimate, worthy opponent, but a dude that you want to fuck up. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| I mean... | ||
| I haven't been in a fight yet where it was malicious. | ||
| I was maliciously trying to hurt someone. | ||
| I haven't been in that fight yet. | ||
| Yes, that's the thing about me is my mind. | ||
| My mind is strong. | ||
| I don't compete. | ||
| Oh yeah, I'm trying to kill this guy and then you swing five punches, you miss, now you're dead tired. | ||
| I don't compete like that. | ||
| This one, I'm still going to compete as myself, but there's going to be a letter extra of that. | ||
| Behind these elbows now. | ||
| I'm going to fillet your face with the little longer cuts. | ||
| I'm trying to... | ||
| This one is going to be one that I really enjoy. | ||
| Well, that was the same with Khabib and Conor when he said, I want to change your face. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| When he said that, I was like, damn, that's deep. | ||
| I want to change your face. | ||
| And you saw that even when Khabib was like that. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Khabib was never out of character. | ||
| Khabib never was like, oh yeah, I'm just going to go out there and try to kill this guy. | ||
| There's a certain level. | ||
| There's a certain mentality that certain fighters have to have. | ||
| And Khabib is another guy that I've seen that competes similarly to the way that I do as far as his mind, where it's at. | ||
| Like, I don't give a shit what you do. | ||
| Talk about me. | ||
| Do all this. | ||
| Try to distract me. | ||
| Like, they tried me. | ||
| Leading up to the tyrant fight, they did everything. | ||
| What are you going to do? | ||
| And then you had his little sidekick that looked like Sancho Bob that was talking and doing this, trying to distract me. | ||
| And then Kobe popped up trying to distract me. | ||
| That didn't change anything. | ||
| That's not going to do nothing to me. | ||
| My mind is on competing. | ||
| I'm going to compete to the best of my abilities. | ||
| And I'm going to embarrass you. | ||
| And then this guy is going to be even more worth it. | ||
| The big change in your skill set from your first fight in the UFC to now is your striking. | ||
| Your wrestling has always been outstanding. | ||
| Your cardio has always been excellent. | ||
| But your striking is much more fluid and much looser. | ||
| You're much more efficient now. | ||
| You were always powerful. | ||
| But it seems like now everything's flowing together. | ||
| You don't have any holes in your game anymore. | ||
| It's a different thing. | ||
| Yeah, Joe. | ||
| I've been with my same team since the start. | ||
| The same guys that I've been with. | ||
| Glenn Robinson started our gym. | ||
| Unfortunately, he passed away. | ||
| Rest in peace to Glenn. | ||
|
unidentified
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When did he die? | |
| I didn't even know he died. | ||
| He died last year. | ||
| Yeah, he died last year. | ||
| I didn't even know. | ||
| Yeah, he had a heart attack. | ||
| It was sad. | ||
| I couldn't really believe that it happened. | ||
| It did and I'd say he's in a better place. | ||
| He started all this. | ||
| Him and Rashad Evans. | ||
| Rashad needed a new place when he was leaving Jackson's. | ||
| They got together and decided to start this. | ||
| It's Rashad Evans. | ||
| At the top of the game, who doesn't want to train with Rashad Evans? | ||
| It kind of spread like wildfire to where everyone started going down there. | ||
| But, yeah, I've been with the same guy. | ||
| Henry Hooft just came down at that time. | ||
| Henry Hooft was a striking coach. | ||
| I've been with him since. | ||
| He's a phenomenal coach, too. | ||
| Amazing coach. | ||
| Such a good striking coach. | ||
| Those Dutch fundamentals. | ||
| I mean, that guy's got it down. | ||
| Yeah, and a lot of... | ||
| I've seen a lot of different coaches, different styles. | ||
| I like a lot of different things, but the thing with Henry is he's very basic. | ||
| Because at the end of the day... | ||
| When you're fucking tired and you can't even hold your arms up and do certain things, you're just going to do basic regular shit. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Jab. | ||
| Right. | ||
|
unidentified
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Two. | |
| One, two. | ||
| That's what you're going to do. | ||
| Now, he's going to keep it simple, stupid. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| He's very like that. | ||
| He keeps it simple. | ||
| And that was the way for me to learn it. | ||
| It's just from the bottom up. | ||
| I learned it. | ||
| Now, don't get it wrong, Joe. | ||
| I can do some of that cool shit. | ||
| Like, in practice, I'll do cartwheel kicks. | ||
| I'll do all that... | ||
| Cool as shit. | ||
| I can do that. | ||
| Yeah, that reverse loop-de-loop front side taekwondo kick. | ||
| You do all that shit? | ||
| I can try it. | ||
| Do you think ever about moments in fights? | ||
| There are moments in fights where a fighter will do something. | ||
| The best example is Chris Weidman versus Luke Rockhold. | ||
| Chris Weidman tries this wheel kick out of nowhere. | ||
| And he misses with it. | ||
| Luke gets a hold of him, drags him to the ground, and beats the shit out of him. | ||
| Luke has a nasty top game. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| His top game is crushing, and he's just ruthless ground and pound. | ||
| And it changed the course of Chris's career in a lot of ways. | ||
| That beating went on. | ||
| I mean, he lost the title, and then he lost other fights afterwards. | ||
| But before that, he was dominating. | ||
| He had beaten Anderson twice. | ||
| He had crushed Vitor. | ||
| He was a different thing. | ||
| There's these moments, these pivotal moments in fights when someone just tries something. | ||
| I mean, most of the time you just get away with it. | ||
| But sometimes, and that is my go-to when I tell people, don't try some shit that's not your thing. | ||
| This is the best example. | ||
| Chris Weidman throwing that wheel kick against Luke Rockhold. | ||
| Yeah, and that's part of everything that's grouped in with Fight IQ. You have to be able to assess risk-reward and certain things like that. | ||
| At some point, it was a knock on me. | ||
| It's like, oh, this guy never gets out of position. | ||
| He never does any of the cool shit or any of that. | ||
| Who's giving you that knock? | ||
| Fucking people. | ||
| You can't listen to them. | ||
| Come to me. | ||
| I know, Joe. | ||
| I listen to you say that all the time. | ||
|
unidentified
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I was like, he's doing everything perfect. | |
| I was saying a long time ago, this guy's not fucking up. | ||
| He keeps running through guys and he's beating guys like a world champion already. | ||
| Yeah, a lot of people always kind of, you know, like, oh, he didn't do all this, he's not doing all that. | ||
| But the thing with me is being able to assess when I can do that, when I can't do that. | ||
| Like when I fought RDA, I threw a freaking axe kick in the fifth round. | ||
| And I practiced that in practice. | ||
| I catch guys with it all the time. | ||
| And it's just being able to assess... | ||
| You already had him. | ||
| Yeah, I knew that this was an opportunity for me to start letting go. | ||
| And so I started letting go. | ||
| And I mean, RDA's a tough, tough dude. | ||
| Very tough. | ||
| Tough dude. | ||
| He's a tweener, right? | ||
| Freaking hardhead. | ||
| He seems like he's a tweener to me. | ||
| Like, he's not quite a 170. I mean, he could beat a lot of guys at 170, but it's almost like he should be like 160 or 165. But 155 is too hard of a cut for him these days. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Yeah, but the thing is, that's the nature of the game. | ||
| Because if we started saying, okay, we're going to accommodate everybody, it's never going to stop. | ||
| Do you think there should be more weight classes? | ||
| Well, you don't care. | ||
| 170 works for you. | ||
| It's still a hard cut. | ||
| Is it? | ||
| What do you walk around at? | ||
| 190? | ||
| 180, 88 to 190? | ||
| Believe it or not, for most people that are listening to this, that's on the light side. | ||
| Yeah, no, absolutely. | ||
| I know it is. | ||
| But the thing is, I'm so lean and I'm 180 and I'm walking around below 6% body fat. | ||
| Who do you use for weight? | ||
| For the last couple of fights, man, I've been working with Clint Wittenberg up at the PI and Trifecta. | ||
| I like Clint a lot. | ||
| What is Trifecta? | ||
| Trifecta Food System. | ||
| Essentially, the meal delivery, meal prep stuff. | ||
| And they do a phenomenal job. | ||
| Phenomenal. | ||
| And Clint... | ||
| The reason I chose to go with him is I've always did it by myself. | ||
| I like to cook. | ||
| I cook for myself. | ||
| I always, you know, when all those fights, earlier fights in the UFC, every one of my fights, I was in charge of my whole diet. | ||
| I cook for myself. | ||
| I do this. | ||
| Because I've done it so many years in wrestling all the wrong way. | ||
| I can look at myself. | ||
| I can wake up in the morning, look at myself in the mirror, and tell how much I weigh, and I'll be right on. | ||
| Just because I'm so used to my body. | ||
| So I know what I can or I can't eat, what can hold food, what can hold water. | ||
| And it's just a discipline thing for me as well. | ||
| And so I decided, you know what? | ||
| I'm getting higher up now. | ||
| One thing that I don't understand is that I haven't done the research is what foods to eat before a certain practice at certain times to feel me the best, to help me feel the best. | ||
| Because I'm getting older and things aren't the same the way they used to be. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How old are you now? | |
| I'm 31, and I'm going to be 32 in May, and I'm like, man, I just don't feel it. | ||
| What differences have you noticed? | ||
| A lot of difference. | ||
| At 24, I just fucking wake up at 6 a.m., and I can go for a freaking five-mile run like that with nothing. | ||
| Now I can't do that anymore. | ||
| Do you think that is age, or do you think that is miles? | ||
| Like all the hard training? | ||
| It's a combination of both. | ||
| Because 31, you're in your athletic prime. | ||
| Yeah, it's a combination of both because in wrestling years, I got to be in the late 40s. | ||
| I mean, in wrestling years, I'm late 40s. | ||
| I mean, back is a shot. | ||
| My, you know, my shoulders are shot. | ||
| My knees. | ||
| Oh my God, my knees. | ||
| I've had five knee surgeries. | ||
| Jesus Christ. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I saw you limping. | ||
| Did you have one recently? | ||
| I just had surgery. | ||
| Actually, I had surgery on Tuesday. | ||
| Oh, that's a hernia, right? | ||
| Last Tuesday I had a double hernia. | ||
| Jesus. | ||
| So did you fight with a double hernia? | ||
| I tore it before, like five weeks before the fight. | ||
| But I don't know if it was completely off. | ||
| You had a hernia and a broken foot for that fight? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| That is fucking crazy. | ||
| The funny thing is, and Ali makes fun of me about this, my manager, is... | ||
| All fight week, if you saw me, you would think this guy was like a zombie. | ||
| I limp around, I freaking light again patches on me, and I'm in a boot or sleeve, and all I do all day is I go do the media rounds or whatever I need to do, training, come back, and I'm just in my room, either game ready on me or something on me. | ||
| But when I walk through that door to fight, the Nigeria nightmare wakes up. | ||
| I flip the switch. | ||
| And a lot of people would, if they go back and look at videos, when I walk into the cage, I step right before the cage, I pray, say my prayer for protection. | ||
| And when I walk in, I just freaking don't know if it's like I flip that switch. | ||
| Do you have a prayer that you say every time? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You have the exact same thing? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| What do you say? | ||
| Similar along those lines. | ||
| I basically just a prayer for protection. | ||
| Prayer for me to be able to display the best of my abilities. | ||
| It's never... | ||
| Because I'm not selfish. | ||
| I'm not getting in that prayer, please let me win. | ||
| No, it's please protect me in here so I can go back to my family safe and sound. | ||
| And protect my opponent as well. | ||
| And give me the strength to be able to display the best of my abilities. | ||
| And that's it. | ||
| And once I freaking walk through that door, I'm the freaking Nigerian nightmare. | ||
| I just... | ||
| That's it. | ||
| You feel like a different person when you walk onto the cage? | ||
| I am. | ||
| And you see it in my face. | ||
| I'm good and dandy, but when I walk in, it goes away. | ||
| I transform into that person. | ||
| Yeah, I think a lot of people would be surprised at how friendly and easygoing you are outside. | ||
| People can't tell. | ||
| And that's the thing now. | ||
| There's no change in me. | ||
| I'm still the same freaking guy. | ||
| I haven't done anything since the fight. | ||
| Nothing. | ||
| People are asking me, have you gone out and partied in this and that with the belt? | ||
| Nah, I haven't done shit. | ||
| You sleep with it? | ||
| No, my daughter. | ||
| I brought it for my daughter. | ||
| My daughter did. | ||
| But I didn't do anything. | ||
| I just sit on the couch, watch TV, go back, maybe go to the shop that I like to take my daughter to get French toast. | ||
| She loves this one place. | ||
| So I take her there, come back. | ||
| That's it. | ||
| Or maybe take her to a date night. | ||
| The only difference is now a lot of people are starting to recognize me more. | ||
| So I'm walking out of the movies. | ||
| People will stop me. | ||
| Hey, can I get a picture? | ||
| Can I get a picture? | ||
| Yeah, of course. | ||
| But nothing changed. | ||
| I'm the same freaking guy. | ||
| I haven't got a chance to do anything. | ||
| I had surgery last Tuesday. | ||
| I've been in bed for weeks. | ||
| So I haven't done anything. | ||
| But I don't think anything is going to change. | ||
| I'm the same guy. | ||
| Well, you sound like you have the perfect attitude. | ||
| Like the idea that you're making a prayer to just do your best and not be hurt and not have your opponent hurt and protect you and your opponent. | ||
| That is a beautiful attitude. | ||
| And the fact that the way you're approaching this, I mean, you're just here to compete and to do your very best. | ||
| You're free of the burden of a lot of bullshit that some people carry around with them. | ||
| Joe, and I was thinking about this on the way up. | ||
| A lot of those fighters, a lot of those champions, after a while, they feel this certain pressure to be able to do this or that. | ||
| Some of the examples that I gave is, there's so much pressure on Anderson Silva. | ||
| I almost felt like he couldn't wait to lose. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| He was just like, it's like a pressure the way you just want to put it down. | ||
| Imagine you said that to me when BJ Penn beat him. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| You said there was just so much pressure. | ||
| You just want to get out of it. | ||
| And I feel like it was so much pressure. | ||
| George St. Pierre ran away from the sport because of that pressure. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| For me, I don't feel shit. | ||
| I was just thinking, I was like, I don't care. | ||
| Look at this fight now. | ||
| They're coming to fight. | ||
| Everyone's already making a big deal out of it. | ||
| It's another fight for me. | ||
| I don't even think of myself as, oh, you're the champion. | ||
| I don't care. | ||
| I just want to beat this guy up. | ||
| Do you think that you will care, though, when the media obligations and all that shit happens? | ||
| Or do you think you'll just be able to zen your way through all that shit? | ||
| Um... | ||
| I would be lying to say I would never care. | ||
| I think that would be doing an injustice. | ||
| But I feel like I go to certain people, like I have some of my go-to people that I get to. | ||
| I call them my mental coaches. | ||
| And like Rashad, the biggest thing that I learned, I talked to Rashad about is, Rashad was always pouring into me. | ||
| Like, man, just enjoy, man. | ||
| Enjoy the ride. | ||
| You'll be okay with that feeling. | ||
| Because there was a certain time where I was a little more nervous than usual. | ||
| I was nervous for what? | ||
| One, I think, I can't remember the fight. | ||
| And I was nervous. | ||
| And Rashad was like, man, just make friends with that feeling. | ||
| Be okay with it. | ||
| Make friends with the feeling of being like it. | ||
| Understand that it's okay to feel that way and just be okay with it. | ||
| And so I go back to those feelings. | ||
| And even there was an exercise when I was wrestling. | ||
| I was living at the Olympic training center. | ||
| I was training and I started feeling all this pressure that a lot of people put on me. | ||
| Oh, you're a Division II guy. | ||
| You can't be Olympic champion. | ||
| You can't do this. | ||
| You can't do that. | ||
| And my coach at the time, Brendan Slay, was like, yeah, a lot of people put that pressure on me when I was competing, too, and said that, oh, you're too short. | ||
| You can't beat these guys. | ||
| You can't beat Bouvet, Satie, the most famous Russian wrestler of all time. | ||
| And they were saying, you can't beat him. | ||
| You can't do this. | ||
| You can't do that. | ||
| And he said one exercise he should do is he'll think of all these negative thoughts. | ||
| Because people start saying it, in your mind, it goes into your mind. | ||
| Especially now when all these fans tweet shit and say stuff to you, you read it. | ||
| If you read it, it's in there. | ||
| And so one thing he said he used to do is just put all those thoughts in it. | ||
| Just imagine this, envision this glass jar. | ||
| You just put them all in the jar. | ||
| Shut the lid, grab a big sledgehammer, and you just smash it. | ||
| And it sounds silly, but I was like, uh... | ||
| It wasn't until a little while after I started kind of doing that. | ||
| So when I started doubting myself, man, can I do it? | ||
| Can I do it? | ||
| Oh man, this guy, he can beat me. | ||
| I mean, what if he knocks me out and embarrasses me in front of everyone? | ||
| Then I'm like, snap the fuck out of it, man. | ||
| Put it in that jar. | ||
| Put it in that jar and smash it. | ||
| I'm like, have fun with it, man. | ||
| You're supposed to feel like this. | ||
| Rashad said you're supposed to feel like this. | ||
| Yeah, man. | ||
| Yeah, and I just take a deep breath. | ||
| I smile, and I just snap back in. | ||
| And Eddie Alvarez also is someone I consider a brother. | ||
| And these are the guys that I go to for when I start to feel down. | ||
| And I talk to Eddie quite a few times before this last fight. | ||
| When I start feeling a little bit of pressure, I talk to them. | ||
| And they just kind of snap me back. | ||
| Were you getting frustrated that you weren't being considered amongst the top contenders when you were undefeated, you were dominating all these people, and you were seeing when Wonderboy got two shots, and then you saw the Damian Maia fight, and all these other fights. | ||
| Was that hard for you? | ||
| Yeah, it was. | ||
| It was a time where, I'm not going to lie, Joe, I was like, why the fuck am I doing this? | ||
| I'm going to keep fighting for 25 and 25, 30 and 30? | ||
| Right. | ||
| What? | ||
| What? | ||
| The thing is, what a lot of people don't understand is they think, oh man, it's that 15 minutes that you're out there or that 25 minutes you're out there training, fighting, and that's it. | ||
| You know, you got paid 10 and 10. Bro, I just did a five-month training camp to where I had to eat right for five months. | ||
| For $20,000. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| If you win. | ||
| If you win. | ||
| And on top of it, that's society so backwards nowadays. | ||
| To eat clean food is more expensive, right? | ||
| So for me to just eat clean for five months, I'm already five, ten grand in the hole. | ||
| On top of it, you got bills coming every month. | ||
| That's not going anywhere. | ||
| Just to train for these fights, I've spent more than that. | ||
| And you have taken more damage than that because that's when you really take damage. | ||
| I'm sparring and when I fractured my foot, that happened the last week in training, my last sparring session. | ||
| I kicked someone in the face, boom, my foot's gone. | ||
| How bad was the foot? | ||
| It was bad. | ||
| At first, I just figured, you know, it's like Muay Thai, you kick shins and elbows all the time, and you get the little fractures, but you work on it, and that's gone in a week. | ||
| But this one just wasn't going away. | ||
| The swelling kept coming back and coming back, so I started freaking out. | ||
| I'm like, oh, shit, I think I really broke something. | ||
| And so I start freaking out and then a day or two, three days, four days, I get it worked on. | ||
| I have a really special compression socks that I have on it at all times. | ||
| I'm icing this thing four times a day and it's not going away. | ||
| I'd wake up, the swelling would be bigger. | ||
| I'm like, oh man, I did damage. | ||
| So and then I kept walking on it and I haven't, because I have to practice because I got to keep that weight down. | ||
| I got to keep that metabolism going. | ||
| And so I'm just like, man, There's no way I'm not fighting. | ||
| Like, you only get an opportunity once. | ||
| If I call and say, I'm pulling out of this, I might not ever get a shot again. | ||
| And so, I'm like, I'm going to fight. | ||
| And there was no doubt in my mind of what I could do. | ||
| I was just like, it's going to happen. | ||
| I'm already dealing with the hernia situation. | ||
| And so, I'm like, screw it. | ||
| And the thing about me is, I haven't ran in three years, Joe. | ||
| Because of your knees? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| My knees are so bad. | ||
| I have not ran in three years. | ||
| How the fuck do you have such good cardio? | ||
| What are you doing for cardio? | ||
| Everything I do, I do freaking hard. | ||
| I guess. | ||
| I do it freaking hard. | ||
| I'm on that airdyne. | ||
| And man, shout out to my strength and conditioning coach, Dr. Corey Peacock. | ||
| Man, he's also on it too. | ||
| I mean, Corey, we put in some time, man. | ||
| And it's not just him. | ||
| It's my coaches. | ||
| Greg Jones, when we wrestle, I wrestle freaking hard. | ||
| I can't do it often anymore, but I wrestle hard. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because you need? | |
| Yeah, when I hit pads, I hit pads hard with Henry. | ||
| Everything that I do in my mind, I try to do it at the speed that I would want to do it in a fight. | ||
| Everything greater. | ||
| Because my whole mentality is, when you get tired, when people get tired, that's your threshold. | ||
| That's where you're at. | ||
| So that's why your body feels like that. | ||
| Oh, I'm tired. | ||
| This is as far as I can go. | ||
| I try to get to that as fast as possible. | ||
| Boom! | ||
| Because then everything after that is extra. | ||
| I just push that conditioning more and more and more. | ||
| So I just freaking go hard. | ||
| Everything that I do, I do it hard. | ||
| Of course I do it smart, but I do it hard. | ||
| But I haven't ran, Joe. | ||
| Almost three years. | ||
| That is crazy because one of the most impressive things about the fight is you never let your foot off the gas. | ||
| And in the fourth round, I think it was, when you had Tyron Hurt and you really started pouring it on, I was like, okay, he's trying to finish this fight. | ||
| How much gas is he going to have left in the tank? | ||
| Because you know that sometimes when someone tries to finish someone and they can't, they're done. | ||
| You poured it on, you took a couple of deep breaths, then right back on him. | ||
| I'm like, damn, that's some serious fucking cardio. | ||
| Because you were sprinting. | ||
| In my mind, I watched that back. | ||
| I was like, what the fuck was I doing? | ||
| I was swinging like wild. | ||
| Wild, man. | ||
| Just because I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And I was like, you know, and I'm, it's like I was sprinting towards it, but then it caught me getting dimmer and dimmer. | ||
| I was like, oh shit, fucking slow down. | ||
| Tyron's tough as fuck. | ||
| You're still going to get there. | ||
| Man, he was tough. | ||
| He's tough as fuck. | ||
| He ate some big shots. | ||
| And people didn't really see it, what happened, what started that transition. | ||
| We were in the clinch. | ||
| I had him in the Thai clinch. | ||
| And I think he was trying to work on my body. | ||
| And I hit him with a knee. | ||
| I hit him with another knee. | ||
| And in my mind, I just remember some of the trainings that I've been through. | ||
| I've been in that situation in training. | ||
| And I used to train with Cosmo Alexander, Muay Thai guy. | ||
| Freaking amazing. | ||
| And one thing that he would show me is how Muay Thai guys would sneak in elbows. | ||
| And so I'm in there, and I'm like, Tyrone's not really getting out of this, so I'm like, freaking, let me try it. | ||
| And this elbow that you throw, it's a sideways elbow. | ||
| And I'm in there, I throw a knee in, and I just do the sideways elbow. | ||
| And it doesn't look hard, it doesn't look crazy or anything like that, but it was like side of the head. | ||
| And I just felt it land. | ||
| And I'm trying to... | ||
| Because you got to read fast. | ||
| So I'm trying to read him. | ||
| I'm trying to assess him. | ||
| I'm like, is he hurt? | ||
| Because he kind of stumbled back. | ||
| But Tyron has a very good poker face. | ||
| So he has this nonchalant face on. | ||
| And I'm trying to read him. | ||
| I'm like, wait, wait. | ||
| So I kind of fake, a little fake at him to see if he's trying to set me up for a big shot. | ||
| And I fake. | ||
| He doesn't throw anything. | ||
| He keeps sense. | ||
| I'm like, oh shit. | ||
| So I throw a jab and I throw a... | ||
| A right hand, I threw it across his guard to hit him. | ||
| And he really didn't, the look didn't change. | ||
| It didn't look like he was out there. | ||
| I was like, oh shit, he's hurt. | ||
| Freaking, let's go. | ||
| It's go time. | ||
| And I remember I talked to Eddie Alvarez and I asked him, why did he freak out like that when he had RDA hurt? | ||
| And Eddie was just like, man, I saw that light at the end of the tunnel and I just freaking, I had to empty the tank. | ||
| And I'm like, fuck it. | ||
| Empty the tank. | ||
| Let's go. | ||
| This is my moment. | ||
| Empty the tank. | ||
| So I'm throwing like a madman. | ||
| And Tyron is taking it all. | ||
| And he's tough as shit. | ||
| I'm like, damn. | ||
| He's not going down. | ||
| And there was a couple of times he was rocked. | ||
| It looked like he could have went down. | ||
| And all I had to do was really settle back and hit him with clean shots. | ||
| But I wasn't even fucking thinking about that. | ||
| I was just like, get this guy out of here now. | ||
| This is what I wanted to do. | ||
| Put the stamp on it. | ||
| Let's freaking do it. | ||
| It was a hell of a barrage. | ||
| Yeah, and I'm throwing, I'm throwing, I'm throwing, and I'm like... | ||
| Redline. | ||
| Redline. | ||
| The gas tank is on E. It's on E. It's on E. Which is the only reason I even shot in for a shot. | ||
| And then I heard my coaches saying, take him down. | ||
| That's what they realized. | ||
| I wasn't freaking knocking him out. | ||
| They were like, take it down. | ||
| I was like... | ||
| And I grabbed his leg and tried to... | ||
| But that was the thing. | ||
| I could recover pretty quickly. | ||
| You recovered very quick because it was one of those pivotal moments in a fight where I was like, man, if Tyron doesn't go out here, how much does he have left? | ||
| I knew. | ||
| I was scared because I was like... | ||
| I know he knows he's probably down three to four rounds. | ||
| And I knew, I was like, I was in a sense waiting for him to just start letting go. | ||
| To snap out of it. | ||
| But that's the one thing, you never really give yourself enough credit with your game. | ||
| With my game, I feel like I put people in a trance, in like a certain stage to where they just know getting out of it. | ||
| And that's kind of been a knock on me. | ||
| People are saying, oh, you're not finishing fights. | ||
| You're not doing this. | ||
| You're not submitting guys. | ||
| You're not knocking them out. | ||
| This is my mentality on that. | ||
| And this has been since I was wrestling. | ||
| As they were wrestling, you could pin guys really quick, do slick moves and pin guys. | ||
| But then the guys would get up and say, oh man, I've never seen that move before. | ||
| He caught me in this slick move. | ||
| That's why he got me. | ||
| I'm going to get him next time. | ||
| I'm going to do that. | ||
| I'm going to get him. | ||
| And the same thing with the fight. | ||
| It's like, man, I had my hand down and he caught me sleeping. | ||
| So he caught me with a shot. | ||
| It was a lucky shot. | ||
| He's never going to do that shit to me. | ||
| Next time, I'm going to get him. | ||
| Or he caught me with a slick submission. | ||
| I've never seen that before. | ||
| I'm going to train for it next time. | ||
| I'm going to stop him. | ||
| My thing is, even in wrestling, what I always wanted to do is I wanted to tech-fall guys in wrestling. | ||
| And tech-fall, what that means is when you're beating someone by 15 points, you have a 15-point gap, they stop the match. | ||
| Because it's basically a skunk. | ||
| Like, you skunk this guy. | ||
| Like, he sucked. | ||
| Like, you were beating him that bad. | ||
| They had to stop it. | ||
| That is my mentality. | ||
| That is always what I strive for. | ||
| And in 2011... | ||
| I believe I, not 2011, 2009, I led the nation, Division 1, 2, and 3, NAI, whatever, in Tech Falls. | ||
| I think at one point, me and Brent Metcalf was battling. | ||
| Like, every week I would look and see who had the most Tech Falls. | ||
| It was me, it would be him, it would be me, him. | ||
| And I had the most because that was my goal. | ||
| I wanted to skunk guys. | ||
| Because in their mind, what it says is, you can't fuck with that guy. | ||
| You can't hang with him. | ||
| There was nothing you can do. | ||
| It wasn't a quick pin, a lucky pin, or this. | ||
| Like, he destroyed you. | ||
| He just set levels apart. | ||
| And that's what I do even in fighting now. | ||
| I do the exact same thing. | ||
| I would much rather dominate you from start to finish. | ||
| I want to break you. | ||
| When you think about fighting me again, I want you to say, fuck. | ||
| No, I don't... | ||
| No, shit, no. | ||
| He beat me everywhere. | ||
| He broke me. | ||
| He took something from me. | ||
| Because you're going to think about... | ||
| You only remember the fights you lose. | ||
| You know, like I've beaten so many guys in wrestling. | ||
| I can't tell you maybe 30 guys that I've beaten wrestling. | ||
| I don't have no idea. | ||
| But the ones you lose, you can almost tell everyone. | ||
| And that's my take on it. | ||
| I want to dominate you so bad, when you think about fighting me again, you don't. | ||
| You say, fuck that. | ||
| I'll pass on that fight. | ||
| And so people are like, oh man, this guy doesn't really finish guys. | ||
| But how many guys want to fight me again? | ||
| Not a lot of them. | ||
| Do you have one loss in MMA? Yes, I do. | ||
| One loss, right? | ||
| Yeah, I have one loss in my second fight. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Um... | |
| Caceres. | ||
| I forget his name. | ||
| I forget his first name. | ||
| Is it Jose Caceres? | ||
| No, Alex Caceres. | ||
| Yeah, it's Jose. | ||
| His name is Jose Caceres. | ||
| Is he Alex's brother? | ||
| I think it's older brother. | ||
| Oh. | ||
| Yeah, and man, I took the fight on like two weeks notice or something like that because it was like... | ||
| Eight months in between, I fought my first fight, and I thought... | ||
| See, that's the thing with fighters coming into MMA now. | ||
| This is a lesson to you guys. | ||
| Everyone feels like, oh, I'm just going to jump in, and it's going to be peachy. | ||
| I'm going to be getting fights every other week, every other month. | ||
| No. | ||
| So I fought my first fight, and I thought, okay, this is great. | ||
| My career is kick-starting. | ||
| I'm going to be doing fights so often. | ||
| I went through 22 opponents... | ||
| Within my first fight, before I got the second fight. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| Because now, you know, it's Google now. | ||
| Everyone, oh, fuck, he's a national champion wrestler. | ||
| No, I don't want to fight that. | ||
| Because everyone wants to get to the UFC, and they figure, oh, it's the best record. | ||
| You want to be undefeated to get to the UFC. So nobody wants to fight anyone that's hard. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And so, of course, at that point, I was a wrestler. | ||
| I could take anyone down and hold them down for three rounds and wouldn't fight. | ||
| So everyone, no one wanted that fight. | ||
| So... | ||
| It was months and months went by, and then that fight came about. | ||
| I was just like, shit, I'll take it. | ||
| And I'll be honest, I never grappled before that. | ||
| I never did jiu-jitsu. | ||
| And so I figured, I can wrestle my way through all this shit. | ||
| Like, man, fuck these guys. | ||
| These guys are all low-level guys. | ||
| You know, look who I train with. | ||
| I train with Rashad Evans and these guys. | ||
| Those guys can't touch me. | ||
| I get in a fight. | ||
| I throw a one-two. | ||
| His legs are there. | ||
| I hit him with a one-two. | ||
| Boom, boom. | ||
| Double leg. | ||
| Live within 15 seconds. | ||
| Boom. | ||
| Threw him down. | ||
| Full mount. | ||
| And I'm kind of throwing punches. | ||
| I didn't really know what I was doing. | ||
| I'm throwing punches. | ||
| And I'm trying to elbow him. | ||
| And Jose Caceres died. | ||
| I think 6'2". | ||
| 6'1". | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| He's well taller than me. | ||
| Long limbs. | ||
| He throws his legs. | ||
| I'm in full mount. | ||
| He throws his legs around my body. | ||
| I never seen no shit like that before. | ||
| My mind at that time was like, what is... | ||
| Oh shit, what's this shit? | ||
| I didn't know what to do. | ||
| So I'm like... | ||
| So I start kind of panicking in my mind. | ||
| I don't know what to do. | ||
| I'm like, fucking get out. | ||
| Which is what you don't do. | ||
| So I turn my body. | ||
| I'm trying to get up and walk out. | ||
| Which is what you don't do. | ||
| And so he just basically climbed up my back. | ||
| Boom. | ||
| We're not even sweating yet. | ||
| Boom. | ||
| He's on my back. | ||
| I'm standing up with the backpack on. | ||
| He's six something. | ||
| He has a foot on the ground, one foot wrapped around me. | ||
| He's fighting for the choke. | ||
| And I think I hold him off for another like minute and a half. | ||
| I'm standing and I'm fighting this choke. | ||
| All the while I'm thinking like, oh shit. | ||
| I can't go down because I don't know what the fuck I'm doing down there as well. | ||
| So I don't really know the defense down there. | ||
| So if I go down, that just might make it worse. | ||
| I don't know the defense. | ||
| And this dude looks like he knows what he's doing behind me. | ||
| He's got a few fights. | ||
| And I'm kind of scared. | ||
| And I'm fighting it. | ||
| Now I'm standing up. | ||
| My feet are getting heavy. | ||
| It's getting shaky. | ||
| I'm like, I'm a strong guy. | ||
| Why the fuck are my feet shaking? | ||
| Because they're starting to fill up with blood. | ||
| My adrenaline is pumping. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I'm just like, oh shit, I'm about to lose. | |
| Joe, there's this moment in your mind to where you start to come to realization with certain things. | ||
| I'm like, oh shit, I'm about to lose. | ||
| And then I start thinking about random thoughts. | ||
| And one of the thoughts that I thought about was, before the fight, we had a commission meeting in the back. | ||
| And the commission said, if you get choked unconscious, you're suspended for six months. | ||
| So you can't fight for six months. | ||
| Because in my mind, I'm like, fuck this, I'm a tough guy. | ||
| You gotta put me to sleep. | ||
| I ain't never tapping. | ||
| So I'm like, if I get... | ||
| It took me eight months to get this fight. | ||
| And it's a short notice fight. | ||
| I haven't made money in eight months. | ||
| I'm broke as shit. | ||
| I sleep and I live with Rashad. | ||
| I live with another man. | ||
| I'm broke as shit. | ||
| I have no money. | ||
| I need money. | ||
| So if I can't fight for another six months, I have no money. | ||
| So all these thoughts are going through my mind and I hear Alex Caceres on the other side of the cage screaming, he's gonna tap! | ||
|
unidentified
|
He's almost out! | |
| And I'm like, fuck! | ||
| I'm like, fucking well played, Alex. | ||
| Now I'm thinking about tapping just for that shit. | ||
| Oh, man. | ||
| And I just saw it going down. | ||
| And I'm like, you can't be suspended for six months, bro. | ||
| I know you want to be tough right now. | ||
| You want to go to sleep, but you can't be suspended for six months, bro. | ||
| You have to, you gotta, you know, you gotta make money. | ||
| You're broke. | ||
| I fucking tapped, Joe. | ||
| I fucking tapped. | ||
| I never felt so... | ||
| I don't want to say emasculated, if that's the word. | ||
| I never felt so... | ||
| That's why I said, win or lose, it takes something from you. | ||
| And I walked out of that fight. | ||
| I went to the back. | ||
| I paced for maybe two, three hours in the back. | ||
| All the fights finished up, and I finally went to the locker room, got my stuff, and came out. | ||
| But I just paced back and forth. | ||
| And the feeling in my mind was, I am never going to feel like this again. | ||
| I do not ever want to feel like this. | ||
| And ever since then, I got a fucking gi. | ||
| I never had a gi before. | ||
| I got a gi. | ||
| I started training with George Santiago, my jiu-jitsu coach, every fucking morning. | ||
| I was like, bro. | ||
| I saw he gave you your black belt after the fight. | ||
| He gave me my black belt. | ||
| And this is the thing is... | ||
| I never worried about that. | ||
| I never worried about... | ||
| Like, yes, I was freaking beating up blue belts before I was even a white belt. | ||
| Like, yeah, because I never did that skill. | ||
| Trained the jiu-jitsu skills. | ||
| But, like, I knew how to grapple through certain things. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| You know, I've been grappling at a high level. | ||
| But it wasn't just jiu-jitsu. | ||
| So, he kept challenging me. | ||
| Like, I was always... | ||
| Because I want to be that guy. | ||
| I want to be the freaking blue belt that freaking works all the brown and black belts. | ||
| But he would freaking promote me. | ||
| He's like purple belt. | ||
| Because you've been training. | ||
| You're training the gi. | ||
| I'm going to promote you. | ||
| So he kept challenging me and challenging me. | ||
| So now people knew. | ||
| I felt like all he was doing was alerting people of what to expect when they went with me. | ||
| And for them to try to really fuck me up. | ||
| And so he promoted me, I think a couple years ago, it was Brown Belt. | ||
| I think maybe two and a half, three years ago. | ||
| And then he promoted me to Black Belt. | ||
| He just asked me to come in the gym. | ||
| I didn't really even know. | ||
| I just felt like, okay, man, he wants everyone to take pictures with the belt. | ||
| And he freaking gives me my Black Belt. | ||
| Another thing just floored me. | ||
| I was like, shit. | ||
| I never knew... | ||
| I never expected all of this. | ||
| I just wanted to fucking compete. | ||
| I just wanted to be a martial artist, learn all this stuff, and compete. | ||
| I never knew that I would get a black belt. | ||
| I never knew that I would win the championship belt, be the best in the world at that time. | ||
| So I never knew all that. | ||
| How much did you adjust your training to incorporate jiu-jitsu? | ||
| Did you add more training sessions, or did you substitute? | ||
| Abso-freaking-lutely. | ||
| What I would do is... | ||
| Because I was living with Rashad at the time. | ||
| So what I would do is I would somehow get to the gym. | ||
| Because Rashad was traveling a lot. | ||
| This was at the height. | ||
| He was doing a lot of different shows and stuff. | ||
| And so I would go to the gym at 7 a.m. | ||
| We'd have 7 a.m. | ||
| practice. | ||
| I think Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays. | ||
| George would have a class. | ||
| And I would go and take that class. | ||
| And then our pro class was I think it was at 9.00. | ||
| So I would just stay at the gym while the pros came in for the practice at 9. So I would go through that class as well. | ||
| And then after that, lift on my own, strength and conditioning, right after that. | ||
| And dumbass me. | ||
| That's what I'm saying. | ||
| I was 20-something at that time. | ||
| I wasn't eating in between all the sessions. | ||
| I wasn't doing any of this. | ||
| I was just freaking going, going, going, going. | ||
| So you'd eat breakfast and that was it? | ||
| I didn't eat breakfast at that time. | ||
| You didn't even eat breakfast? | ||
| I didn't even eat breakfast. | ||
| I would get up cold, go to the gym, work out. | ||
| Then go roll into the next session and work out. | ||
| Then roll into straining condition, whatever I did on my own workout. | ||
| No food? | ||
| No food. | ||
| And then freaking go home, eat a big meal. | ||
| Snap! | ||
| Then go back for the night session, night practice. | ||
| And that's how it was for a long, long time. | ||
| And Rashad would always come home and say, hey man, why don't you come out with me this weekend? | ||
| Let's go out, let's go do something. | ||
| And I was always like, nah man, I gotta train on Monday, man. | ||
| I don't wanna do all that. | ||
| I don't wanna go out. | ||
| And Rashad would be like... | ||
| Bro, you gotta have balance in this. | ||
| It's gotta be a balance. | ||
| And I just thought at that time, like, oh, fuck that. | ||
| You say that because you're the top. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You're the champ. | |
| You're the best. | ||
| So, you say that. | ||
| My whole thing was, I just need to work. | ||
| I need to catch up. | ||
| I need to catch up to these guys. | ||
| I need to work. | ||
| So, I was just doing overtime, overtime, overtime. | ||
| But, you know, now I understand what Rashad was saying. | ||
| There has to be balance. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| When did you adjust your eating? | ||
| I think we got a strength and conditioning coach, Jake Bonacci. | ||
| And Jake, amazing coach, man. | ||
| He worked with a lot of the extreme couture guys. | ||
| Worked with like Randy and those guys back in the day. | ||
| And he kind of started like, you got to fuel yourself. | ||
| He kind of started, you know, letting me in. | ||
| And I seek, that's the thing about me, I seek knowledge. | ||
| Like I'm always, I always want to learn. | ||
| I always want to learn whatever I can. | ||
| And I started learning like, Oh, shit. | ||
| No wonder I was dead tired in that session. | ||
| No wonder I had nothing left because I really didn't eat. | ||
| I had no fuel. | ||
| So I started kind of putting things in and the more and more. | ||
| Like I said, it wasn't until my last two or three fights that I started working with Trifecta and Clint Wittenberg. | ||
| I seek knowledge. | ||
| Whenever I can get knowledge, I take it. | ||
| So these Trifecta folks, what kind of stuff do they prepare for you? | ||
| Man, they prepare my meals and they send it to me. | ||
| They send me the, like I said, I like to cook for myself. | ||
| They send you like a cooler or pre-packaged food? | ||
| Yeah, they send me the pre-packaged food, but I'm not so much into the pre-packaged stuff. | ||
| Like, you know, just throwing a microwave and eating. | ||
| I'm not so much like that because I like hot food. | ||
| I want it to feel fresh. | ||
| So they'll send me like the packages, like the protein. | ||
| And the chicken and the steak or the fish and things like that. | ||
| And basically, I take it out and my responsibility to take it out. | ||
| I think it's pre-cooked, but I take it out and I put it over the stove and make some veggies with it and other stuff that I want with it. | ||
| And I'll cook it that way. | ||
| So it seems more like a fresh meal, even though it's kind of pre-made just for my mind. | ||
| Right, I get it. | ||
| I get it. | ||
| So, did they have it broken down with a certain amount of calories for each meal, depending upon what kind of working out you're doing? | ||
| Yeah, man. | ||
| Clint broke it down. | ||
| I give him my schedule for the week, and he breaks it down. | ||
| Like, this is what you need to eat. | ||
| Four servings of protein, four servings of carb, fats, and this and that, before your weightlifting session, before you're sparring, before this. | ||
| You need this amount of sugar, and this amount of this, this amount of that. | ||
| Man, it made a big difference, because I would... | ||
| There'll be certain practice. | ||
| I would lift and I'm like, yeah, I feel good. | ||
| I want to get out of there to where usually I hit a wall. | ||
| Like, boom. | ||
| Fucking, this is miserable. | ||
| You were getting by the toughness. | ||
| Yeah, I just grind through it. | ||
| That UFC Performance Institute is amazing. | ||
| It's just incredible what they did. | ||
| When they were talking about building that, I was like, what is this going to be? | ||
| Like, what are they doing there? | ||
| They're spending a lot of money. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Who knows what the fuck it's going to be? | ||
| But then they took me on a tour of it. | ||
| I was like, this is literally the ultimate training facility. | ||
| In 10 years, it will still be up to date. | ||
| It will still be like, okay, this thing is now catching up. | ||
| They have napping pods. | ||
| They took me there. | ||
| I was like, bro, I can just live here. | ||
| Yeah, I know, right? | ||
| You can literally live there. | ||
| Well, a lot of people relocated to Vegas just to make that the center of their training. | ||
| Oh, yeah. | ||
| I've seen, like, Claudia Gedelia's down there. | ||
| Francis Ngannou did a lot of training. | ||
| Francis Ngannou, of course. | ||
| But he trained for his last fight in France, I believe. | ||
| Yeah, his last two fights, he did it in France. | ||
| Yeah, we, you know, like, that's my boy. | ||
| We talk all the time. | ||
| That's the scariest heavyweight of all time. | ||
| I don't understand what people are. | ||
| A lot of people, especially after those last couple of fights, the Derrick Lewis fights, people were like, these fans, man. | ||
| They were condemning him. | ||
| It's one of those things you just got to give him time to recover from the Stipe fight. | ||
| He had a psychological block, but he got over it with Curtis Blades. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, he stopped Curtis Blades, who's one of the best guys in the heavyweight division. | ||
| Curtis is a big guy. | ||
| Curtis was a beast as well. | ||
| He's a beast. | ||
| And even for this fight, everyone's like, oh, Kane's going to do him. | ||
| Kane's going to do him. | ||
| Kane's a better version of Stipe. | ||
| And I get it. | ||
| I understand Kane. | ||
| Kane is the greatest heavyweight we've ever really seen. | ||
| I mean, D.C. right now, that's an argument, too. | ||
| But Kane was great. | ||
| But Kane's been gone for almost three years, two and a half years, a long time. | ||
| And people are putting all this pressure on him, expecting him to come back and be the same old Kane like nothing happened. | ||
| And I'm like... | ||
| Guys, like, and then not to come back, come back against the scariest heavyweight we've ever seen. | ||
| Ever. | ||
| Ever. | ||
| I mean, Francis, the first time he lifted weights was with me. | ||
| What? | ||
| Francis never touched weights. | ||
| Ever. | ||
| And that's the scary thing. | ||
| You go to Africa and there's millions of guys like that walking around. | ||
| I was saying that his story is like that Conan scene where Conan was pushing the wheel. | ||
| He was working in a sand mine, just digging sand and becoming this tank of a man. | ||
| He's crazy. | ||
| It's obviously superior genetics on top of that because you don't get to be 265 naturally. | ||
| You have to have fantastic genetics. | ||
| He's got that too, but his ability to land punches that just put people away. | ||
| He can graze you and fuck you up. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| And his speed. | ||
| That fucking Alistair Overeem left hook? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I tried to spar with him once. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| You were 170. Why are you sparring with him? | ||
| I mean, it was just playing around. | ||
| And that's the thing in our room. | ||
| Everybody spars with everybody. | ||
| And he loves sparring with smaller guys. | ||
| He loves it. | ||
| Because of speed. | ||
| Yeah, because he's not trying to hurt anyone. | ||
| He's not trying to hurt you. | ||
| But it's just... | ||
| He likes working on his speed. | ||
| He's so fast. | ||
| I think he's faster than me. | ||
| For sure. | ||
| I mean, it's... | ||
| And I'm like... | ||
| He's that fast with that much power. | ||
| I mean, if he even, and that's what I say, if he touched anywhere near this circumference right here, you're going to wake up and ask what happened. | ||
| Well, that's what Kane was saying, that he didn't remember what happened when Francis apparently grazed him with the first punch near the back of his head, and Kane doesn't remember shit after that, and then clipped him with that uppercut. | ||
| On the inside. | ||
| Everyone was saying, like, oh, he hurt his knee, that's what happened. | ||
| No, he got hit with a punch in there. | ||
| He got hit with an uppercut. | ||
| It was a small, sharp punch. | ||
| That's all it takes with that gun. | ||
| But, yeah. | ||
| Yeah, what's amazing is that Stipe weathered the storm. | ||
| That's what's amazing. | ||
| You've got to give credit to Stipe. | ||
| Stipe weathered the storm when Francis was convinced he was going to put Stipe away after the Overeem destruction. | ||
| I mean, he put Overeem into orbit. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| To watch that, it was like, holy shit! | ||
| And you think the striking credentials of Alistair. | ||
| I mean, Alistair's glory heavyweight champion, Strikeforce heavyweight champion, K1 Grand Prix. | ||
| I mean, he won the three of the most prestigious titles in combat sports. | ||
| And to have Francis clip him like that was just like, Jesus. | ||
| That goes to attest to MMA. This is why the sport's so great. | ||
| It doesn't matter where you come from, what you're good at. | ||
| It doesn't matter. | ||
| With those four-ounce gloves and being able to wrestle and grapple and do all this, everything changes. | ||
| It's an even playing field for everybody. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Now, if he just gets his wrestling on point... | ||
| I mean, it's crazy that he's only been doing MMA all told for, what, five years now? | ||
| Yeah, five, six years. | ||
| That's crazy. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, I made the switch around the same time. | ||
| We had our first official UFC fight at the same time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Wow. | |
| Yeah, in Orlando. | ||
| What was your first year of your first fight? | ||
| What was your first fight? | ||
| My first fight, I think, was in 2013 or 2012. So, seven years ago, which is crazy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| And how much striking had you done before your first fight? | ||
| Not a lot. | ||
| I mean, the thing with me is I used to watch videos. | ||
| When I was convinced myself I was going to start doing this, and this has been years in the making. | ||
| I coached on season 14 of The Ultimate Fighter with Bisping and Mayhem Miller. | ||
| I was Mayhem's wrestling coach. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| And that was the season with TJ Dillashaw, John Dodson, Dennis Bermudez, and all these guys. | ||
| And so at that point, I had started to... | ||
| Shout out to Ryan Parsons, man. | ||
| Dr. Parsons, the one who brought me in. | ||
| He was managing Mayhem at the time. | ||
| I love Ryan. | ||
| Yeah, Ryan's a good dude. | ||
| Super good guy, man. | ||
| I loved Ryan. | ||
| And I'd fiddle with it. | ||
| I'd throw up my hands a little bit. | ||
| Like, yeah, I'm going to do this one day. | ||
| Just kind of playing around and playing around with it. | ||
| So I love boxing. | ||
| I love watching all that stuff. | ||
| I was like, man, maybe I'll do this stuff one day. | ||
| But when I watch those guys go through The Ultimate Fighter... | ||
| Being in Vegas and in the house, I was like, yeah, no way. | ||
| I'm not doing that shit. | ||
| Never. | ||
| Not doing it. | ||
| Even back then, you were thinking, I'm just going to wrestle. | ||
| Yeah, because at that time, I was living at the Olympic Training Center. | ||
| I was training for the Olympics. | ||
| I was like, yeah, I'm going to do this shit. | ||
| No, it's not possible. | ||
| So what was it that flipped the switch? | ||
| Rashad. | ||
| Really? | ||
| Rashad. | ||
| The same time, I think 2011... | ||
| I was still at the Olympic Training Center. | ||
| I had gone back and just training. | ||
| And I was friends with King Mo. | ||
| I've known King Mo ever since I was in high school. | ||
| And the funny thing is, man, we were so connected because we were walking similar paths. | ||
| King Mo is from African descent. | ||
| So am I. And he wrestled in Texas. | ||
| And so was I in high school. | ||
| And then he's a Division II guy. | ||
| I went Division II. He was a national champ. | ||
| I was a national champ. | ||
| And, you know, walking the similar path, I just felt connected to King Moe. | ||
| So I would always talk to him. | ||
| I looked up to those guys, King Moe and DC. They were like, you know, the black dudes that you look up to because there weren't a lot of black wrestlers. | ||
| So they was the dudes that we looked up to. | ||
| It was like, yeah, man, King Mo. | ||
| So he had been doing MMA. I think at that time he was the Strikeforce champion. | ||
| And so King Mo calls to me. | ||
| And my friend Jake Fisher, who was a world team member at the time, was like, hey, you guys want to come down to Denver and train with us? | ||
| You know, I'm going to train that night. | ||
| Of course I'm going to go. | ||
| Yeah, training with King Moe, my boy. | ||
| I get to see him, you know? | ||
| So we go down. | ||
| This is the first time I've ever been starstruck in my life. | ||
| And this is now I've been watching MMA now. | ||
| You know, I've done the show and all these things. | ||
| So we get down there. | ||
| And we're in a dressing room. | ||
| I'm just thinking King Moe's coming in and we're going to work out with him. | ||
| It was Mead Fisher, T.C. Dantzler, and another kid named Bo. | ||
| And we're in a dressing room. | ||
| We're changing. | ||
| And it was Joe Warren's gym. | ||
| We're changing. | ||
| Shout out to Joe Warren. | ||
| Shout out to Joe Warren, man. | ||
| Badass, dude. | ||
| He's a funny dude. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And we're changing. | ||
| And all of a sudden, you know, I'm changing. | ||
| I look back. | ||
| Rashad Evans walks in the fucking dressing room. | ||
| I'd never been starstruck in my life. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I was just like, oh, shit, that's Rashad Evans. | |
| So, of course, you know, I had to play it cool. | ||
| I can't even be that dude. | ||
| You know, I ain't no fanboy. | ||
| But I'm thinking in my mind, oh shit, that's fucking Rashad Evans. | ||
| I just watched this dude fight Rampage and they do the ultimate fighter and all this joy. | ||
| Like, oh shit, that's Rashad. | ||
| So we get back out. | ||
| Now we're training together. | ||
| We're wrestling. | ||
| I just can't believe how good... | ||
| To this day, he can fucking lie and say he took me down. | ||
| He didn't get one takedown in that training session. | ||
| I freaking took him down several times. | ||
| Ran him off the mat. | ||
| But the one thing that I couldn't... | ||
| I was impressed by how good of a wrestler he was. | ||
| Then I started doing my research. | ||
| I was like, oh, he actually wrestled. | ||
| He was a wrestler at Michigan State. | ||
| He was a two-time JUCO champion. | ||
| He was a wrestler. | ||
| I couldn't believe how good he was. | ||
| But then after that session, we sat on the mat and we just talked. | ||
| And to keep in mind, my whole mind is like, shit, I'm talking to a superstar here. | ||
| And he was at the top of the game. | ||
| And I couldn't believe. | ||
| We talked like we were brothers. | ||
| We were homies. | ||
| We've been best friends for a long time. | ||
| He's a great guy. | ||
| He floored me. | ||
| And I was just like, shit. | ||
| That's Rashad Evans. | ||
| Gave me his number. | ||
| Gave me his numbers like, bro, yeah. | ||
| Hit me up. | ||
| What you doing? | ||
| What you gonna do tonight? | ||
| I was like, oh, we gotta drive back to Colorado Springs. | ||
| He's like, oh, okay. | ||
| I'll be back in Denver. | ||
| I'm gonna hit you up. | ||
| Talk like we were boys. | ||
| And of course, I'm like, it's like, you're holding the piece of paper, his number on it. | ||
| I'm like, oh shit, that's Rashad's number. | ||
| So, I go home, it's like, do I wait two days to text him? | ||
| What do I do here? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Like a chick. | |
| Like a chick. | ||
| Oh wait, what do I do? | ||
| Oh shit, that's Rashad's number. | ||
| It's just sitting on my desk. | ||
| I walk by it, I look at it. | ||
| Oh man, so... | ||
| A week goes by and he freaking texted me. | ||
| He just texted me out of the blue. | ||
| Like, yo, what up, man? | ||
| Like, what's up? | ||
| I'm going to be in Denver this next month or something like that. | ||
| Why don't you come do a train with me? | ||
| I was like, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. | ||
| So I went and trained with him again. | ||
| Just, you know, hung out for a little bit. | ||
| And then he started and it became regular. | ||
| He would text me regularly like, hey, I got a fight coming up. | ||
| I'm about to fight Phil Davis. | ||
| I'm going to bring you down to Florida with me to train with me for two weeks. | ||
| Fuck, you're going to fly me to Florida to train with you? | ||
| Yeah, yeah, of course. | ||
| I'm down. | ||
| So now I became part of his training arsenal. | ||
| And every time, that's the thing, Rashad, every time he would make fun of you like brothers do. | ||
| He'll poke fun at you. | ||
| You know you want to do MMA. You know you want to do this. | ||
| You should be doing this shit. | ||
| Why are you over there busting your butt in wrestling? | ||
| You would train all through this whole wrestling camp, go all the way to Russia, wrestle a tournament. | ||
| If you won the tournament, you got $1,500. | ||
| I would help these guys train. | ||
| These guys go out, beat somebody up, make $7,500,000. | ||
| Like, what the fuck? | ||
| What sport am I in right now? | ||
| What's going on? | ||
| And so he kept poking at me like, man, you know you want to do this. | ||
| You know you want to do that. | ||
| So he slowly started to shift my motivation and my focus towards MMA instead of winning that Olympic gold. | ||
| And then, of course, I was dealing with a lot of different injuries here and there. | ||
| Tore up my knees. | ||
| Tore up my back. | ||
| And I just... | ||
| I started to feel like my chance of winning Olympic gold started to diminish more and more and more. | ||
| And then I started falling in love with this sport here and there. | ||
| And then I talked with him. | ||
| I talked with King Mo. | ||
| And King Mo was just like, man, don't straddle the fence, man. | ||
| Because I straddle the fence. | ||
| And look what happened. | ||
| Because King Mo was supposed to be the Olympian. | ||
| And he was like, I just traveled the fence, and look, I lost to the trials, and nah, I'm in MMA, so if you're gonna do that, just do that. | ||
| And Rashad was like, why don't you come down to Florida? | ||
| I was like, man, that's it, I'm done. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| Now, when we were talking about Cain Velasquez earlier, Cain has had a series of catastrophic injuries. | ||
| Knee injuries, knee surgeries, shoulder surgeries, back surgery. | ||
| When you think about your style, that's kind of similar to his in a lot of ways in that you rely on pressure, volume, mental toughness, and wrestling. | ||
| All those things. | ||
| You're constantly attacking. | ||
| You're constantly bombarding your opponent with technique and with pressure. | ||
| When you see that you've gone through all these surgeries and you see what happens with a guy like Kane where his body just can't compete with his mental toughness anymore. | ||
| It's almost like his mind is too strong for his body. | ||
| His body just breaks. | ||
| Yeah, I mean it's... | ||
| Does it fuck with you at all? | ||
| It's a little bit because it's like, man, you gotta switch up because you wanna have longevity. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| I've had seven surgeries now. | ||
| So what have you done? | ||
| I've had five knee surgeries. | ||
| Five fucking knee surgeries? | ||
| Five knee surgeries. | ||
| I've had four meniscus on each. | ||
| Four? | ||
| Four. | ||
| Two on the left, two on the right. | ||
| And then I've also had a microfracture, which is probably one of the biggest serious surgeries that I've had on my right knee. | ||
| Now, is that one of those ones where they try to regrow cartilage? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I guess the process is they make breaks. | ||
| They make fractures in the condyle. | ||
| To hopefully, I guess, just scar up, you know, generate a blood supply, scar up, so it creates a little cushion, but fuck it, it didn't work. | ||
| I feel like it set me back. | ||
| Really? | ||
| Yeah, man, big time. | ||
| Have you ever heard of Dr. Neil Reardon and what they're doing down in Panama with stem cells? | ||
| No, I've never heard of him. | ||
| I've heard of stem cells and I've actually had a round of stem cells. | ||
| What they're doing down in Panama. | ||
| Do you know TJ Dillshaw? | ||
| Yeah, I know TJ. Talk to him about it, man. | ||
| Because he has some phenomenal... | ||
| I actually sent my mom down there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Really? | |
| Yeah, they were trying to give my mom a knee replacement surgery. | ||
| I was like, hold on, mom. | ||
| Let's see what we can do. | ||
| So I sent her down near the Panama. | ||
| His office is in Dallas, and I had him on with Mel Gibson. | ||
| Mel Gibson's dad, when he sent him down there, was 92, and he was in a wheelchair. | ||
| Now he's 100, and he's walking around. | ||
| And according to Mel, I didn't ask, but according to Mel, still getting hard-ons. | ||
| I didn't ask. | ||
| I don't think that goes away, y'all. | ||
| But he said, I mean, Mel's gone down himself, and man, I would go down if I had anything really wrong with me, too. | ||
| I mean, I've gotten a lot of stem cells done here in the States, but they can do some shit down there in Panama that they just cannot do here in terms of regulations and shit, and they're doing phenomenal work with regrowing cartilage and meniscus and all kinds of shit. | ||
| Especially, like, right now, while you're in recovery phase anyway, you really should get in contact with them. | ||
| Yeah, for sure. | ||
| I'm going to definitely give that a try. | ||
| Because they've helped TJ quite a bit. | ||
| I know other fighters have gone down there as well. | ||
| Yeah, that's something that definitely I'm going to look into. | ||
| Yeah, because, you know, I mean, when you're dealing with bone on bone, like I'm sure you probably are. | ||
| I've been on for a long, long time. | ||
| It's fucking hard to train. | ||
| A long time. | ||
| Well, that's why it's so impressive, your cardio, because you can't run. | ||
| So are you doing plyos as well? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, part of what, like I said, my strength and conditioning coach, Corey, we do a good job of adjusting to what I can or can't do. | ||
| And, you know, obviously back squats are not the biggest, the best thing for me to be doing. | ||
| So we modify. | ||
| We do different types of squats and things like that. | ||
| And we still get pretty good results. | ||
| Do you do any swimming? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Yeah, I play in the water a lot, too. | ||
| I do a lot of footwork stuff in the water because it takes a lot of pressure off. | ||
| I was forced. | ||
| I can't... | ||
| I mean, I'm not going to go in here and do backstrokes and all this crazy swimming techniques, but I get in there to get that workout. | ||
| Do you do sprints in the pool or anything like that? | ||
| Yes, yes. | ||
| Big into those. | ||
| I do sprints. | ||
| Now, you said your shoulders are fucking with you, too? | ||
| Shoulders are... | ||
| I mean, I'm a wrestler. | ||
| You know, shoulders are always going to be banged up, you know, but... | ||
| I haven't, I've been fortunate, no surgeries there yet, but yeah, knees, I've had surgeries, five, and then I tore this, my index finger, that tendon right there, I tore that my junior year in college. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| And I told her that I had surgery with that to replace that, repair that. | ||
| And then now this freaking whole apparatus that I have going on in my lower abdomen. | ||
| Did they put a mesh? | ||
| Is that what they do? | ||
| They did a little bit. | ||
| I told them because the doc didn't want to work with mesh that well because he said that... | ||
| You know, there's good and bad results with the match. | ||
| So, you know, I got this freaking drain coming out of me right now. | ||
| Oh, shit. | ||
| Look at that. | ||
| Oh, my goodness. | ||
| Look at that. | ||
| Is this pus and stuff? | ||
| It was blood. | ||
| Like, it was basically the blood. | ||
| It's like a vacuum, I think is what they call it. | ||
| It's draining blood. | ||
| But now it's coming down. | ||
| It's not that much blood coming out of there anymore. | ||
| How long ago was that? | ||
| Tuesday, I got that. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| So, yeah, I've been having to walk around and maneuver with this thing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Jesus. | |
| And the worst thing is the burning, because it's obviously sticking out of a hole. | ||
| There's a hole in me. | ||
| So, the burning sensation around it. | ||
| The third day, I told the physical therapist, I was like, yo, I almost cut this shit off with a scissor. | ||
| Because I'm not big into the painkillers. | ||
| Right, right. | ||
| So I'll take it maybe the day after. | ||
| I'll take it. | ||
| But they just don't do much for me. | ||
| It doesn't kill the pain. | ||
| I'm like, why do they call these painkillers? | ||
| It doesn't kill the pain. | ||
| It doesn't make me a little loopy. | ||
| It makes me stupid as fuck. | ||
| I don't fuck with them either. | ||
| I just have a bag of them and I don't do anything with them. | ||
| What about CBD? Do you use that? | ||
| I do, man. | ||
| Shout out to, I'm sponsored by Love Hemp. | ||
| Beautiful. | ||
| Love Hemp is a UK company. | ||
| Very good company. | ||
| Yeah, amazing. | ||
| They're doing some really, really big things. | ||
| And I'm big into like the oil I have and I have the rub. | ||
| Both of them are great. | ||
| Yeah, I use those a lot. | ||
| So that's in my repertoire. | ||
| Yeah, that's huge for anybody that's experiencing any kind of inflammation. | ||
| Plus, for general anxiety and overall health, CBD is fantastic. | ||
| And no psychoactive effects, too. | ||
| Yeah, because that's the freaking stigma behind it. | ||
| It's like, oh, it's marijuana, it's weed. | ||
| Yeah, we were talking about marijuana before the podcast. | ||
| Should I smoke? | ||
| And I was like, don't do it. | ||
| I'm like, I'm coming on Joe Rogan. | ||
| Should I smoke with Joe? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, champ. | |
| No. | ||
| We want you lucid here. | ||
| I want you going in the hole. | ||
| The problem is when people don't get high and then they get high in a pressure situation like this, you're just like, you go into that tunnel, you're like, yikes! | ||
| Oh my god, yeah. | ||
| I've tried, I've smoked four times in my life. | ||
| How did that go? | ||
| Not good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean... | |
| The first time was my 24th birthday. | ||
| 24th birthday, I smoked with... | ||
| Who was it? | ||
| A couple of friends of mine at the Olympic Training Center. | ||
| And they didn't do anything. | ||
| Because I didn't know how to... | ||
| I don't know how to hit the blind. | ||
| I didn't inhale. | ||
| Yeah, so... | ||
| I was like, man, this stuff don't affect me, dawg. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I ain't gonna do this. | |
| So... | ||
| So I didn't say screw that if you want to do it again. | ||
| And then the next time was the year after with Jason Miller, Mayhem Miller. | ||
| Oh, Mayhem knows how to hit that wheel. | ||
| Yeah, we were doing Ultimate Fighter. | ||
| We were doing that. | ||
| And one thing we do at night is a lot of people expect, like, man, when he's not... | ||
| It's a man. | ||
| Super cool guy. | ||
| He's a very good dude. | ||
| I mean, there's always like... | ||
| Kind of like being around Mike Tyson. | ||
| There's always like... | ||
| Edge. | ||
| Yeah, there's always that edge to where you're in a room with the freaking lion. | ||
| Like, yeah, he's the coolest lion ever, but you still know it's a fucking lion. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| And Mayhem's like that. | ||
| You're in a room, everything's cool, but he still has... | ||
| He can snap at any moment. | ||
| So... | ||
| We're sitting on the balcony at night and we'll just talk. | ||
| And he would just talk about these... | ||
| The weird thing about Mayhem is he always watched... | ||
| He watched nothing but smart shit. | ||
| Like the news. | ||
| Like the Colbert Report. | ||
| Things like that. | ||
| He wouldn't watch... | ||
| I would think he'd watch 90210. Or freaking shows like that. | ||
| No, man. | ||
| He was a very intelligent guy. | ||
| He would just sit there and talk at night. | ||
| And... | ||
| He gave me the nickname that night too. | ||
| And freaking, he's like, bro, your first name starts with a K. Your last name is Ushman. | ||
| Usman. | ||
| I'm gonna freaking call you Kush. | ||
| I'm calling you Kush. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Ha ha ha ha. | |
| Freaking the next day on set, everyone calls me Kush. | ||
| To this day, people call me Kush. | ||
| You're like, I'm the Nigerian nightmare. | ||
| And at that time, it wasn't born yet. | ||
| The name wasn't there yet, because I didn't start fighting yet. | ||
| So I've had nicknames all throughout my life, my career, which is that whole Ben Askren shit that he's trying to run with. | ||
| What is he calling you? | ||
| Marty from Nebraska? | ||
| Why is he calling you Marty from Nebraska? | ||
| He calls me Marty from Nebraska. | ||
| See, this is the thing is... | ||
| When I started wrestling, I started in high school. | ||
| My coach was this big marine dude. | ||
| You know, he was in shape. | ||
| Buzz cut, white dude. | ||
| And he comes up to me. | ||
| I'm 5'2", 100 pounds, soaking wet. | ||
| And he's like, yo. | ||
| He's like, what's your name, kid? | ||
| I tell him. | ||
| But I don't even think he paid attention. | ||
| And he's like, hey, you tried wrestling? | ||
| I never heard of wrestling. | ||
| All I've heard is WWE. I'm like, nah, man. | ||
| I ain't trying to get hit with chairs and stuff. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I ain't trying to do that shit. | |
| So, he fucking kind of looks at me, he's like, ah, okay, yeah, alright. | ||
| We'll give it a shot. | ||
| And our assistant wrestling coach was the assistant football coach. | ||
| So they kind of would poke at me, yeah, you come try wrestling, come try wrestling all through the football season. | ||
| Then the next year, I freaking, I nutted up. | ||
| And I freaking just signed up for wrestling. | ||
| I went in and, um... | ||
| He looks at, he's reading the roll sheet, calling names, and he goes, Kamaru, who the fuck, who is this kid? | ||
| Who the fuck is this kid? | ||
| And I'm like, that's me, coach. | ||
| He's like, that's your name? | ||
| He's like, I'm not saying that because my whole full name is Kamarudin. | ||
| He's like, I'm not going to say that. | ||
| I'm going to call you Marty. | ||
| And I'm just like, yeah, sure, coach. | ||
| I'm fucking 5'3", 100 pounds. | ||
| I'm just scared of this guy. | ||
| I'm like, sure. | ||
| I mean, you're a kid. | ||
| You don't care. | ||
| You're going to have nicknames all growing up. | ||
| Why does the UFC shorten your name? | ||
| To Kamaru? | ||
| No, that's what my parents call me. | ||
| It's Kamaru. | ||
| Yeah, my parents call me Kamaru. | ||
| But the full... | ||
| It's like, my name's Joseph. | ||
| My parents call me Joe. | ||
| Joe! | ||
| Exactly, yeah. | ||
| So, it's Kamaru. | ||
| That's what my parents have always called me. | ||
| That's what I call myself. | ||
| But my full name is Joseph. | ||
| It's Kamaru Dean. | ||
| So, Marty. | ||
| Yeah, he's like, I'm going to call you Marty. | ||
| So, fuck it up. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Now, the whole team is calling me Marty. | ||
| And, you know... | ||
| So... | ||
| White people are so fucked up. | ||
| Change people's names. | ||
| I love that coach, man. | ||
| He essentially changed my life. | ||
| He changed the course of my life. | ||
| That is such a funny thing, though, to do. | ||
| I'm going to call you Marty. | ||
| That's not even close. | ||
| That starts with a totally different letter. | ||
| I know, but it seemed to work. | ||
| It worked so well. | ||
| This is the thing about nicknames. | ||
| If you're a guy that's just a regular average guy and you suck, Your name dies with you. | ||
| You move on. | ||
| No one cares. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| But if you're doing something incredible, something spectacular, that name lives on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| So now Marty went from just now everyone on the team calling me Marty to where people know about the wrestling, around the wrestling circuit. | ||
| In high school, they're calling me Marty. | ||
| Oh, that Marty guy. | ||
| That kid's good. | ||
| And then our college coaches are calling like, oh, I want to recruit this kid, this Kamaru-ian kid. | ||
| And he's like, ooh, Marty? | ||
| So now they all know me as Marty. | ||
| So now I go to college and the coach is calling me Marty. | ||
| And now the college team is calling me Marty. | ||
| Now here's the situation with this whole Ben Askren thing. | ||
| Like I just mentioned, if I was just a regular guy who sucked, no one cares. | ||
| No one knows your name. | ||
| You'd die out. | ||
| But because I made waves, like I was that Marty kid that wrestled at Nebraska that has beaten the shit out of everyone, Division 1, 2, 3, NAIA, JUCO, it doesn't matter. | ||
| Ben knows of me. | ||
| So, you know, he's trying to cling on to something to bring it back. | ||
| Like, oh, this is funny. | ||
| I'm trying to hide from it. | ||
| No, I really was Marty from Nebraska. | ||
| I really was whooping everyone's ass while I was Marty from Nebraska. | ||
| I really was that guy. | ||
| So, for him to bring it up, I thought he was silly. | ||
| But you know these fans. | ||
| Fans want to... | ||
| Because Ben is a representative of the trolls. | ||
| Like, most of the trolls look like Ben Askren. | ||
| If I can give you any... | ||
| That's hilarious. | ||
| That is hilarious. | ||
| If I can give you any advice, please don't pay attention to anyone. | ||
| I don't give a shit. | ||
| Don't pay attention to comments. | ||
| You know that glass jar? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Once you smash that thing, just don't even put anything in there anymore, man. | ||
| Nothing. | ||
| And I've heard you say that so many times. | ||
| When I started paying attention to the show, I started watching the show. | ||
| And I watched the one you did with Tyrant. | ||
| When Tyron was up here. | ||
| And you're so right. | ||
| Because that's one thing that I always felt like was so unfair about Tyron. | ||
| A lot of people just gave him shit. | ||
| And I think it started because he didn't take that belt. | ||
| They didn't dethrone George St. Pierre. | ||
| So I think a lot of it stemmed from that. | ||
| I don't know about that, man. | ||
| I know. | ||
| The way he stopped Robbie Lawler, that didn't give people... | ||
| I understand, but George St. Pierre was still looping around as the welterweight champion. | ||
| But sort of not, because he retired. | ||
| He said, I'm going to step away. | ||
| Yeah, but he stepped away. | ||
| Yes, for you being... | ||
| Obviously, you know so much about the sport. | ||
| You're being in the sport for so long. | ||
| Yes, but for these fickle fans that don't know shit... | ||
| That's why you can't listen to him. | ||
| All they know is George St. Pierre. | ||
| Rue Saint-Pierre was a champion and he never lost his belt. | ||
| So I felt like Tyron never got his fair share necessarily. | ||
| I feel like the same. | ||
| Because they're like, oh, he never took the belt from George. | ||
| I think it was the Wonderboy fights. | ||
| I think the Wonderboy fights were so fucking hard. | ||
| Yeah, but even before that. | ||
| He had to fight Wonderboy that way. | ||
| That is the way you fight that guy. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Unless someone like me comes in and does it easier. | ||
| What would you do? | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I just do me. | ||
| Because he's still in the mix. | ||
| I would just do me. | ||
| I would eventually get a hold of him. | ||
| I would eventually break him. | ||
| And eventually make it look easy. | ||
| And then people are going to just complain. | ||
| So it is what it is. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| The problem with him is he's so difficult to get close to. | ||
| He's a different guy because his style's so different. | ||
| He'll stand totally sideways on you. | ||
| His hands will be down, and he can wrestle. | ||
| I mean, in terms of takedown defense. | ||
| He's got good takedown defense, and his strikes come from fucking weird angles, man. | ||
| He moves like a snake. | ||
| Like he bends at the waist and pops forward. | ||
| You ever watch him kickbox? | ||
| Yeah, but I saw that. | ||
| I knew it was a problem when he threw that one kick that came over the fucking shoulder and smacked the kick. | ||
| Question mark kick. | ||
| It was weird. | ||
| He doesn't have the front leg. | ||
| He's very good with it. | ||
| You don't even know what's going on. | ||
| You think maybe he's going to kick you in the body. | ||
| Yeah, he loops around, comes over the top and smacks you in the face. | ||
| No, he's very talented. | ||
| I like Wonder Boy a lot. | ||
| But I just felt like I saw that show with Tyron. | ||
| And you said the exact same thing to him. | ||
| And that's what I said too. | ||
| And that's what I was thinking too. | ||
| But it's easier sin than none. | ||
| Because partially when I got into this and why I appreciate the platform that I have right now is the fact that you can affect so many people at such a rapid amount of time. | ||
| Because there's been instances to where I don't know if you ever remember that movie, What Women Want? | ||
| I never watched it. | ||
| Well, Mel Gibson. | ||
| I didn't watch it. | ||
| And basically, he could hear women's thoughts and things like that. | ||
| And then there was a girl, the office girl in the movie, who she was planning to kill herself because no one really paid attention to her. | ||
| She's like, no one would care. | ||
| She just walked around with books. | ||
| I applied for a job. | ||
| Everyone blew me off. | ||
| No one cares. | ||
| I'm gonna kill myself this day. | ||
| So she was planning to kill herself. | ||
| And he heard her because he could hear what women think. | ||
| He heard her thoughts. | ||
| But initially he didn't really pay attention to it until later on he realized she was missing from the office and then he like ran to go find her and essentially saved her life. | ||
| But my thing is, and that's a quote that I live by, with great power comes great responsibility. | ||
| Like what if there's someone that's dealing with something at a certain time? | ||
| And yes, I didn't ask to be put in that position. | ||
| But they just decided, oh, I'm just going to reach out and send a message before I kill myself this day. | ||
| No one's going to respond. | ||
| No one's going to care. | ||
| And I happened to read that message and talk that kid off the ledge. | ||
| And that kid becomes fucking, you know, wins the Nobel Peace Prize later on in life. | ||
| Like, that's a responsibility that I have. | ||
| I didn't put that on myself, but that I have with the gift that I've been blessed with to touch so many people. | ||
| And so how am I going to know that? | ||
| If I never read any of my messages or comments or things like that. | ||
| Yes, of course, you know, the negative ones, yeah, blow it off. | ||
| But how do I know it's negative if I don't read it? | ||
| You know, so that's what I'm saying. | ||
| It's easier said than done. | ||
| It's like I read this. | ||
| If now what I do is I read if I even feel like it's getting negative delete. | ||
| Dilly, Dilly, I can't read them all because after that fight, fucking, I got thousands. | ||
| I'm sure. | ||
| So, you know, I can't read them all, but every now and again when I'm bored enough and I have time, like, I'll read some of it because sometimes it is good, good things, but, you know, that is very easy. | ||
| Most of the time it's good things. | ||
| No? | ||
| you know i shit you not there was Yesterday, I posted a picture. | ||
| There was one guy that responded to maybe 40 to 50 people. | ||
| All negative shit. | ||
| Oh yeah? | ||
| How about we find that dude and give out his Instagram handle? | ||
| You were gonna die in this... | ||
| You know what? | ||
| I just blocked him. | ||
| He said you were gonna die? | ||
| It's like, oh man, you're gonna get knocked the fuck out. | ||
| You're gonna do this. | ||
| I'm just like, oh my god. | ||
| Like, bro, really? | ||
| You literally took the time out of your day to sit here today. | ||
| Just knocked on his door and he opened the door and saw your face. | ||
| Imagine? | ||
| Oh my god, I wish we could do that. | ||
| I wish we could do that. | ||
| And he answers. | ||
| Guess who answers the door? | ||
| It's Ben Askren. | ||
| He looks like Ben. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Just fucking belly out like this. | |
| He's never trained a day in his life. | ||
| What did you think of the Robbie Lawler fight with Ben? | ||
| Oh man, like, I mean, come on. | ||
| They gotta run that back. | ||
| I was thinking when it was over that Herb Dean made a mistake, but the more I watched it, the more I think he didn't. | ||
| I think what happened was, I think Robbie went out, I think his arm dropped, and I think when Herb came over, this is what Ben says too, that he loosened up the choke a little bit. | ||
| And Robbie came back to it, and Robbie probably doesn't even know. | ||
| Because Robbie's such a fucking savage, he probably didn't even know he went out. | ||
| Yeah, but, okay, you know, this is the argument. | ||
| And this is why it has to be ran back. | ||
| Yeah, it's a good argument to run it back. | ||
| You know, this is the argument because... | ||
| First of all, when Robbie ran that truck through Ben's face, he was out. | ||
| That's a funny way of putting it. | ||
| He was out and woke up. | ||
| He recovered. | ||
| I mean, he got hit with some fucking bombs. | ||
| We're freaking wrestlers. | ||
| The one thing about wrestlers at the elite level is you can be out of it, but your body will naturally go through certain motions, grab a leg, pull up, do that. | ||
| Do you think he was out cold when Robbie was bombing on him? | ||
| Robbie ran a Mack truck through his face. | ||
| Let's watch it. | ||
| Pull that fight up. | ||
| Trucked through his face. | ||
| I feel like Robbie knocked him out, woke him up, knocked him out. | ||
| Robbie was just savage mode. | ||
| And that's the one thing about Robbie. | ||
| And knowing Robbie now, because I train with him, Robby's such a different guy. | ||
| The way he handled the loss was so classy. | ||
| But that's Robby, man. | ||
| He's so classy. | ||
| This is the thing with the explanation. | ||
| You can argue the fight should have been stopped when Robby was bombing on him. | ||
| You can argue that. | ||
| For sure. | ||
| But at the same time, Robbie explains it is Robbie has so much experience. | ||
| And it was a bulldog. | ||
| It's like Big Brother choke. | ||
| So, you know, it could have not been doing anything. | ||
| But Robbie explained it as I put my hand down because this wasn't doing shit to relax, you know, because I don't want to panic. | ||
| Robbie has that much experience. | ||
| He should know what to do. | ||
| Maybe that's what he was doing. | ||
| But the way he put his arm down, it looked like it was out. | ||
| But then when Herb Dean came to check on him, While he was giving the thumbs up, Herb Dean didn't really give him a chance to put the thumbs up and stops the fight right then and there. | ||
| But as far as, oh, I loosened the choke, that's why he came to me. | ||
| No, you don't loosen the choke until the ref pulls you off of him or you pop his head off. | ||
| He said he lightened up when Herb came over because he thought that Herb was going to stop the fight because he felt Robbie go limp. | ||
| You don't lighten up because you think someone's going to stop the fight. | ||
| I see your point. | ||
| You don't lighten up because you think. | ||
| You squeeze harder because you want to make him stop the fight. | ||
| I see a point, and also, there is a difference between squeezing someone out and beating on them when the referee's coming. | ||
| If the referee comes and you stop punching because the guy's out, that's one thing. | ||
| That's one thing, but you have him in a bulldog. | ||
| You're here in survival mode. | ||
| You're in survival mode at that time. | ||
| Bulldog chokes are legit, man. | ||
| They really do work. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, that's how Pat Meletic lost the title. | ||
| Yeah, I'm not going to say... | ||
| Carlos Newton caught him in a bulldog choke. | ||
| Remember that? | ||
| Yeah, I'm not going to say that don't work. | ||
| I'm not going to say that. | ||
| I'm not going to... | ||
| You know, he could have been out, he could have not been out, but the only way to put that all to rest is to run it back. | ||
| But what kind of sucks is when you're like, no, I pass. | ||
| I mean, I pass. | ||
| What? | ||
| What? | ||
| Come on, bro. | ||
| Relax. | ||
| He said he didn't want to fight him in the first place. | ||
| Well, no shit. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Well, Robbie looks sensational. | ||
| Robbie looked like a fucking savage. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Here we go. | |
| We're going to watch it right now. | ||
| Here we go. | ||
| We're going to watch this shit. | ||
| Ben, look at the body on him. | ||
| You laughing? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Are you trying to make me laugh here? | |
| Fucking stud. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, look at that body. | |
| That's the ideal combat sports body. | ||
| Look at this. | ||
| But it is amazing that he's able to get a hold of Robbie. | ||
| I was stunned. | ||
| No, I knew he was going to get a hold of Robbie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I thought, but right away, that was crazy. | |
| Now eat that. | ||
| Eat that. | ||
| Eat that. | ||
| These are big shots. | ||
| Go to sleep. | ||
| I'm out. | ||
| I think he's still there, man. | ||
| I don't think there's no evidence that he's out. | ||
| Really? | ||
| You don't see the hands go? | ||
| No, no. | ||
| I don't think so. | ||
| I think he's eaten the shot and then he's got the clinch. | ||
| I don't think he was ever out. | ||
| No. | ||
| There were certain moments he was... | ||
| Well, he definitely ate some big shots, but I don't think there's any evidence at all that indicates to me that he was out. | ||
| This is the thing. | ||
| Like, Ben is tough as shit, though. | ||
| Like, I give credit where credit is due. | ||
| Ben is tough as hell, man. | ||
| He's tough as hell. | ||
| And right now, he's just drunk driving. | ||
| Right now, he's drunk driving. | ||
| He's a wonky leg. | ||
| Drunk driving is a funny way to put it. | ||
| Bro, he's drunk driving right now. | ||
| Look at this. | ||
| Drunk driving. | ||
| But now Robbie Bixfrey. | ||
| See, I forget the actual scramble that led to the bulldog choke. | ||
| Yeah, it happens from now on when Robbie tries to get up because he does get the takedown. | ||
| Oh, look, he's drunk driving. | ||
| Oh, my God. | ||
| Oh, man, a lot of blood. | ||
| You caught him with a nasty left hand there. | ||
| Yeah, like... | ||
| Robbie's looking for a bomb. | ||
| And Ben is just moving forward like a zombie. | ||
| But he still grabs ahold of him. | ||
| It's interesting. | ||
| Interesting that he was able to grab ahold of him. | ||
| Because I would have thought that Robbie would have avoided that shit at all costs. | ||
| Yeah, but that's why he's able to grab ahold of someone. | ||
| When someone is so worried about you grabbing them, it kind of shuts them down a little bit. | ||
| Good Knees of the Body there by Robbie. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That's another thing you did in the Tyron fight. | ||
| Those fucking body shots. | ||
| Good lord. | ||
| I was trying to take that body home. | ||
| You hit him with so many right hands to the body. | ||
| So here we see Ben still got the clinch. | ||
| Yeah, he's doing a good job here. | ||
| He's trying to come to it. | ||
| He's trying to recover. | ||
| Doing a good job. | ||
| Keeping it close. | ||
| Now you can't really get hit with big shots. | ||
| And he does get the takedown at some point. | ||
| Yeah, I do not remember how it happened. | ||
| Here it is. | ||
| He reaches down. | ||
| So he's got him in the clinch here. | ||
| He's got the underhook on the left side. | ||
| Okay, he grabs the leg. | ||
| This is interesting. | ||
| I don't remember this. | ||
| All I remember is the opening exchange and then the final exchange. | ||
| Yeah, two on one. | ||
| Right now he's trying to go two on one. | ||
| Yes, good job. | ||
| So he's got the single. | ||
| Single. | ||
| Robbie doing a good job. | ||
| Now he's got the hands clasped together. | ||
| It's amazing to me how good of a wrestler he is. | ||
| I'm going to be honest with you. | ||
| But it's just funky because it's not really muscles there. | ||
| It's just like Gumby. | ||
| You know, it's not going anywhere. | ||
| But it's tricky. | ||
| Yeah, very tricky. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sneaky shit. | |
| Yeah, very sneaky, very tricky. | ||
| So now he's got him down. | ||
| And now Robbie's on his back. | ||
| He's in... | ||
| Yeah, sort of in side control. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So now he's got an arm. | ||
| Yeah, typical Robbie. | ||
| See, Robbie's just chilling. | ||
| Boom. | ||
| He circles out. | ||
| He's got the headlock. | ||
| Okay, now he's got the headlock. | ||
| And now watch that right off. | ||
| But see, this position. | ||
| Yeah, but see, this position. | ||
| Robbie puts it down. | ||
| Yeah, it's moving. | ||
| It's moving. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Nope. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| See, changed my mind again. | ||
| Yeah, like, see, that's what's tricky about that. | ||
| That's what's tricky about that. | ||
| I changed my mind again. | ||
| I don't think he was out. | ||
| No, see, because... | ||
| Back it up just to the arm going limp. | ||
| Because the thing about the arm going limp is the way it went limp looked... | ||
| It really looked like he was out. | ||
| Okay, but this is what I'm saying right here is... | ||
| Initially in the situation, wait till he turns. | ||
| Wait till he turns. | ||
| Went right, right, wait till he pulled his arms out. | ||
| Boom, right here. | ||
| See, this is uncomfortable. | ||
| This is very uncomfortable. | ||
| You're spread out here and the guy's choking on your neck. | ||
| You got to bring one down to relieve pressure. | ||
| Either that one down or take this one inside. | ||
| So Robbie did the right thing or the arm fell down whether he was out. | ||
| So, man, it... | ||
| It's a tough go, man. | ||
| One more time. | ||
| Let me see that arm drop. | ||
| Just back it up just a little bit. | ||
| Here it goes, right there. | ||
| See, the way it drops, he like... | ||
| But it moved. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It moved. | |
| Yeah, it moved. | ||
| Shit. | ||
| Boom. | ||
| It's so hard to know. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Move. | |
| Yeah, he might have just been dealing with the choke. | ||
| Yep, nope. | ||
| I changed my mind again. | ||
| And it's typical Robbie, man. | ||
| Because Robbie says, man, yeah, experience. | ||
| He said, man, I knew that. | ||
| That was uncomfortable, so I just put my arm down chilling. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And that's it, man. | ||
| Now I'm on your side. | ||
| Fuck. | ||
| You gotta run it back. | ||
| There's only one... | ||
| You have to run that back. | ||
| I would say so. | ||
| But how much can the UFC tell him what to do? | ||
| Like, what could the UFC... The UFC said to Ben Askren, listen, this fight has to happen again. | ||
| That's the sport we're in. | ||
| UFC's the judge, the jury... | ||
| And if they want, the executioner. | ||
| What did Dana White say after the fight? | ||
| He said he wanted Ben to fight him again, right? | ||
| Yeah, Dana said we're going to run that back. | ||
| And Ben's like, not pass. | ||
| Man, I don't know. | ||
| Robbie's like, yeah, we got to do it again. | ||
| Well, I know Robbie was angling for a fight with Darren Till, but after Masvidal starched Darren Till, which was nasty, man. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Nasty, man. | |
| People sleep on Masvidal. | ||
| They do. | ||
| I do not know why. | ||
| I don't understand it. | ||
| Go back and watch those backyard fights. | ||
| That guy's been going at it a long time. | ||
| Hey, man. | ||
| Both backyard fights are the one that he just had again this weekend. | ||
| Yeah, I know. | ||
| That was crazy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What was that about? | |
| It's about... | ||
| You can't just talk... | ||
| Nowadays, it's this era. | ||
| You can just say whatever. | ||
| You feel like you can say what you want because of social media. | ||
| You want to get fans on your side and this and that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And... | |
| He just happened to say it to the wrong guy at the wrong time. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Like, that's the situation. | ||
| And you did it backstage, too. | ||
| Masvidal won't give a fuck. | ||
| Like, I legitimately... | ||
| You know, mutual... | ||
| I think it's mutual respect with me and Masvidal. | ||
| Like... | ||
| I respect him. | ||
| You know, I mean, if we have to fight, we have to fight one day. | ||
| But, you know, like we feel the same when it's like, if you're going to talk shit online, when I see you keep the same energy. | ||
| Like when I saw Ben Askren backstage, the only thing that stopped me from pushing his head through that wall back there was the fact that I almost blacked out when I was walking towards him. | ||
| Then I realized... | ||
| Dana was right behind me. | ||
| So you were angry? | ||
| It wasn't that I was angry. | ||
| It was the fact that, bro, you came at me online like you had a problem with me. | ||
| Right. | ||
| You started talking mad shit to me like you had a problem, like saying things, putting up memes and all this. | ||
| To me, that means you have a problem with me. | ||
| I don't know what I did to you, but you got a problem with me. | ||
| So when I see you now, I want you to still have that same energy. | ||
| Don't just act like we're cool. | ||
| Like, what's up, bro? | ||
| Yo, you want to hug it out? | ||
| Don't act like that. | ||
| Act like you still have the same problem. | ||
| Well, I think he's just trying to mark it. | ||
| I mean, Ben never has an anger attitude towards anybody. | ||
| But that's what I'm saying. | ||
| That's the thing. | ||
| People are kind of letting them off with certain things. | ||
| Now, what happens if Masvidal would have starts him like that? | ||
| Backstage. | ||
| Because he did talk shit to Masvidal too. | ||
| What happened if that was him? | ||
| Masvidal starts like that. | ||
| What happens? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You know? | ||
| So that was my thing. | ||
| When I saw him backstage, I almost wanted to push his head through the wall. | ||
| But then I realized, Dana's behind me. | ||
| Brian's behind me. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What happens to Masvidal now in England? | |
| Because they don't like that shit over there. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I think he got away free. | ||
| He's got free. | ||
| Really? | ||
| I think. | ||
| I haven't heard anything. | ||
| And everything's fine? | ||
| Isn't he back already? | ||
| That's hilarious if that's the case. | ||
| Because that's assault. | ||
| Yeah, but... | ||
| I mean, I guess you could say it's a brawl. | ||
| It's hard to say assault when you're dealing with UFC fighters. | ||
| Right, right. | ||
| It's almost like he played basketball off the court. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| It's hard to say. | ||
| It's a tricky situation. | ||
| Right. | ||
| He struck him out in the parking lot. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| After the baseball game. | ||
| What? | ||
| But I think Dana... | ||
| Didn't Dana put out a statement saying that that can't happen anymore? | ||
| We gotta do a better... | ||
| Something like that, a better job. | ||
| Well, they really should do a better job of having security around to separate guys. | ||
| They did in my fight. | ||
| Don't let guys... | ||
| They didn't let me near Ben Ashwin or Colby Covington. | ||
| Well, there was one time, not before this fight, but before a previous fight, where you were backstage. | ||
| It was actually... | ||
| Was it a press conference? | ||
| It was a press conference. | ||
| And you were trying to talk to Colby. | ||
| Like, what's up, man? | ||
| You're just talking shit. | ||
| Yeah, I was scheduled to fight Santiago Ponce and Nebo. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| And we were doing a big press conference. | ||
| And they happened to have... | ||
| Like, I didn't even know he was there. | ||
| Because they had him hidden away the whole time. | ||
| It wasn't until we were going to get on the bus to go to the press conference, he came downstairs. | ||
| We were all meeting in the lobby and I saw him and right away I told Reed, I don't know what it is. | ||
| I just started, my blood just started boiling. | ||
| I told Reed, I was like, Reed, man, this is not going to work. | ||
| This is not going to work. | ||
| You got to move it. | ||
| Reed was like, we're getting him right now. | ||
| We're moving. | ||
| And Reed, they put him in a different car and all the other fighters ride together. | ||
| And this is what I mean. | ||
| He's already isolated. | ||
| That's so funny. | ||
| So we get there, but we have to line up to walk out. | ||
| So he's lined up, and he just happened to be in my vicinity. | ||
| And I just freaked out. | ||
| I was trying, and I was like, yeah, I'm not gonna say nothing. | ||
| I'm not gonna say nothing. | ||
| I'm not gonna say nothing. | ||
| I just look at him. | ||
| Yo, I see you was talking all that shit online now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Huh? | |
| Now we in person, you can't talk. | ||
| What's up with all that shit you was talking online? | ||
| You thought you was tough. | ||
| What's up with that? | ||
| What's that tough guy now? | ||
| And he's just like, I think he was reading his lines, like what he was going to say when he got out there on the press conference. | ||
| He was just like reading. | ||
| And he heard me. | ||
| And he's like, shit, I don't want to say nothing. | ||
| Shit, I could get my ass whipped right here. | ||
| I don't want to do that. | ||
| And I could say all those thoughts was contemplating. | ||
| And Whitaker was standing next to him. | ||
| And Whitaker does one of these joints. | ||
| Like, look around. | ||
| Who the fuck is this dude talking to? | ||
| Because I had to watch the video over and over. | ||
| Whitaker looked back like, he ain't talking to me. | ||
| And then saw Kobe. | ||
| He's like, oh, he's talking to Kobe. | ||
| So Whitaker just kindly slid off to the side. | ||
| And I'm like, what's up with all that shit you was talking? | ||
| And then he's like... | ||
| Quiet, quiet. | ||
| And then he sees the security kind of... | ||
| Because then they heard me. | ||
| And security kind of walks up. | ||
| I didn't even know there was a camera back there. | ||
| And then security walks up. | ||
| And security's like, yo, yo, no, no. | ||
| We don't need this. | ||
| We don't need this. | ||
| And this was... | ||
| This was after Khabib's bus situation. | ||
| And so they're like, yo, we don't need this this week. | ||
| We don't need this. | ||
| And now, once there's security, he goes, stick to network television, Junior. | ||
| Stick to this, boy. | ||
| Network television? | ||
| What does that mean? | ||
| Because I guess he was fighting in his first fight now on pay-per-view. | ||
| Oh. | ||
| But this is the thing. | ||
| So you run Fox. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But this is the thing is he had never headlined a card. | ||
| To this day, I don't think he's ever headlined a card. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| No, he headlined a card. | ||
| Did he? | ||
| Not a pay-per-view. | ||
| But when he fought Rafael Dos Anjos, that was the main event, wasn't it? | ||
| No, it was the co-main event under Yoel Romero and Whitaker in Chicago. | ||
| He's never headlined a card. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| Never, never headlined a card. | ||
| Well, you might be right. | ||
| I'm thinking about it. | ||
| Yeah, and he's like, stick to network. | ||
| I'm like, I'm fucking headlining. | ||
| Like, bro, you've never done shit. | ||
| And so he's trying to play that angle and all this and that. | ||
| And I was just like... | ||
| Yep, you were right. | ||
| Look at that. | ||
| Whitaker Romero, too. | ||
| Yeah, he's never headlining. | ||
| He fought Damian Maia on an undercard. | ||
| Well, I think it was like on the main card, but... | ||
| CM Punk and Michael Jackson. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Tremendous fight. | ||
| I was impressed with him beating Dos Anjos. | ||
| I really was. | ||
| I thought that was impressive. | ||
| In what way? | ||
| Well, because he beat Dos Anjos. | ||
| Dos Anjos is a fucking savage. | ||
| Yeah, I give that. | ||
| Yeah, you beat Ardie. | ||
| Ardie is a name. | ||
| That dude's tough as hell. | ||
| Former champion. | ||
| Yes, I give it. | ||
| But Ardie won rounds. | ||
| Ardie won fourth and fifth round. | ||
| Ardie was taking him down. | ||
| Like, you saw that already took him down numerous times. | ||
| Well, he didn't, let me just clarify, he didn't beat him as impressively as you did. | ||
| That's for sure. | ||
| No, yeah, but I don't really care. | ||
| I don't really care about all that stuff. | ||
| Like, man, my thing is, overall in all, Joe, like, I've been on such a journey, man. | ||
| My whole life, I've been on such a journey. | ||
| I've dealt with so many things that I internalize, man. | ||
| And I don't really talk about, so I don't really care what all these guys are doing, man. | ||
| I've had a hard life. | ||
| Not the hardest. | ||
| I'm not saying it's the hardest life, but I've had a lot of things happen to me in life to where I'm at this point in life where, man, I... I don't want to deal with all the hate. | ||
| I don't want to deal with all this other stuff. | ||
| I understand it's going to come with the sport that we do, but man, I got bigger shit going on in my mind that I'm worried about rather than all that little things, man. | ||
| Good for you. | ||
| Like I said, your attitude in so many ways is so good that you're there to compete, that you're there to do your best. | ||
| You're not getting caught up in bullshit and petty nonsense. | ||
| And you're just putting pressure on yourself to be the best you could possibly be. | ||
| That's where you see real greatness. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And like Tyron was, man. | ||
| There's this thing to where you get to a point where you're the guy who has to provide. | ||
| You're the guy who has to hold up. | ||
| And it's not necessarily people saying you have to do it. | ||
| But you feel that sense of responsibility. | ||
| And in my family, I felt that. | ||
| I feel that sense of responsibility. | ||
| You mean in your family when you were growing up? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| When I say I come from humble beginnings, being raised in Nigeria, And it wasn't like the village, village where we lived in huts. | ||
| We had a house, but we didn't have plumbing. | ||
| We had to go to the well or get water. | ||
| Electricity was rare. | ||
| That's a scarce thing. | ||
| Even when we came here, when we immigrated here, life got a lot better. | ||
| How old were you when you came here? | ||
| About 8 years old. | ||
| And it was hard to adjust to the school system. | ||
| You know, because kids are mean. | ||
| I have to talk with a funny accent and kids would tell you, hey, why don't you say this to the teacher? | ||
| Say, hey, bitch, call her this. | ||
| And I was always in the principal's office because I had no idea what that means and things like that. | ||
| So kids are cruel. | ||
| I dealt with all that. | ||
| Did you know English when you came here? | ||
| Yeah, we spoke English, but it's Pigeon English. | ||
| So we knew that, like, you know, we're colonized by the Europeans, so the English is, the root of the words, root words are from the Europeans. | ||
| So we knew English, but it's just our take on it. | ||
| How much different? | ||
| It's pretty different. | ||
| Yeah? | ||
| Yeah, it's very different. | ||
| Like, if I was talking with another Nigerian, I was speaking Pigeon English, you would pick out words, but it's a little different. | ||
| Like, can you say something in Pigeon English? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Right now, we just sit down here. | ||
| Just they talk now. | ||
| You know, just they talk. | ||
| Just they yawn each other. | ||
| Not be anything. | ||
| That sounds cool. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, it does. | |
| If, like, me and Israel Adesanya was talking, like, it would be mad cool. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, right, right, right. | |
| You know, like, we speak it to each other. | ||
| So going from that to, you know, being essentially raised and going through school and one thing that, man, I really haven't ever shared with anybody, you know, very, very few people know, is that my father has been incarcerated since 2009. And this is the first time really I've ever talked about it. | ||
| My dad goes to a test to just the justice system here, man. | ||
| It's so crooked and it's so backwards. | ||
| Yes, of course, we're fortunate. | ||
| There's so many things that we're thankful for living here in this country. | ||
| That, you know, you can sleep at night in your house and not worry about somebody breaking and robbing you and killing you, you know, for the most part. | ||
| And so we're thankful for all that. | ||
| We're thankful for the opportunities. | ||
| But my dad was a businessman. | ||
| And my dad built one of the... | ||
| A really, very big business in Dallas. | ||
| He owned like an ambulance company. | ||
| And... | ||
| It comes to a certain point where people just don't want you to be... | ||
| You're an immigrant and you're succeeding in a certain business to where it's kind of like people don't care about it. | ||
| People don't want you to be there. | ||
| It's one of those situations where... | ||
| My dad hired the people that he thought were the right people to do what he didn't know. | ||
| The job. | ||
| To run his company. | ||
| While he could tend to certain things like us. | ||
| Like his family. | ||
| Day to day different things that he cared about. | ||
| To where they run the company into the ground. | ||
| And not because my dad was the owner of the company. | ||
| They put it all on him. | ||
| Even though the people that were doing the things that were wrong in the company admitted to doing the wrong things. | ||
| But what the court is saying is that, oh, because you own the company, so ignorance is not an excuse. | ||
| So, because of that, we're going to sentence you to 15 years. | ||
| So, he got sentenced when he did no crime? | ||
| See, the thing is... | ||
| What was the business again? | ||
| My dad owned an ambulance company. | ||
| An ambulance company. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| So it was a transportation for emergency and non-emergency, you know. | ||
| And one thing that he hired these, like the paramedics, the AMX, to run the company. | ||
| Because these are people that know the business. | ||
| So he had people that he acquired from a different company. | ||
| But, you know, one thing that I will say is my dad's ignorance. | ||
| Is he didn't really do his research well enough on the guys that he hired. | ||
| So you hire certain guys and now these guys are running the business and these guys are like, yeah, we're going to help you grow this business. | ||
| Like any businessman. | ||
| Fuck yeah, I hired the right people. | ||
| Yeah, help me grow the business. | ||
| So now... | ||
| They're doing that. | ||
| He thinks, okay, I trust these guys. | ||
| They're taking care of the business. | ||
| And the most disappointing and heartbreaking thing about the business is they're not the one who does the billing for the business. | ||
| They contract an outside company to do the billing. | ||
| So it's not them doing it. | ||
| So they're doing the runs. | ||
| They're sending the notes to them. | ||
| This is the runs we did to you guys build the government or whoever else to pay us. | ||
| My dad's the owner. | ||
| He has people that are doing all this. | ||
| He's not there running the day-to-day. | ||
| So eventually, they go on their investigation. | ||
| Oh, we're investigating, like, I think maybe, like, 15 patients or something like that. | ||
| I don't know the exact number. | ||
| Like, 15 patients were investigating for these runs or whatever that would bill this billing on them. | ||
| And so they put it all under investigation, and they're like, okay. | ||
| After a while, they come back, and they say, all right, we'll give you your stuff back. | ||
| Like, we didn't really see anything, but we'll give you your stuff back. | ||
| After they shut it down for a little while. | ||
| So damn, now I got to go back to business. | ||
| So my dad's like, oh, fuck it, I'm getting out of business. | ||
| They already killed my business for me. | ||
| So now it became one of the biggest companies, but you shut down for so long, you've lost what you've worked for. | ||
| So now he's getting rid of it, getting out of it. | ||
| Then they come back later, a few years later, for the same thing that they've already said, you're good, here, have your stuff back. | ||
| They come back and say, no, we're going to prosecute you for this. | ||
| So now those guys, and I've seen it, this is obviously how the feds work. | ||
| Now those guys that you caught the EMS and these guys that clearly did what was wrong, you gave them a deal and said, hey, we caught you guys. | ||
| Because those guys started their own company doing the same shit. | ||
| So they get caught. | ||
| Now they're like, okay, we want that guy. | ||
| So you guys basically gave them a deal to say, okay, that guy was in on it. | ||
| And my dad's like... | ||
| And I guess they offered my dad a deal, a plea deal, which his lawyer didn't really tell him about because he had a court-appointed lawyer. | ||
| So he said, no, I didn't do shit wrong. | ||
| Why would I take that deal? | ||
| Which would have been, I think, maybe like five years was the deal or something like that. | ||
| My dad's like, no, I didn't do shit wrong. | ||
| Why would I take five years? | ||
| So he goes to trial. | ||
| And, bro, we've seen murderers. | ||
| We've seen... | ||
| All these people that have defraud the government, like Stockmar Hedge Fund guys, billions of dollars, get bail. | ||
| They said, no, they wouldn't even grant him bail. | ||
| My dad's a citizen, like turned over his passport and everything. | ||
| They said, no, I'm not going to give you bail. | ||
| We're going to hold you. | ||
| We're going to freeze all your accounts. | ||
| You can't really fight the case. | ||
| So you're stuck there. | ||
| And now your family's left with nothing. | ||
| Nothing. | ||
| No money in the account. | ||
| Nothing. | ||
| And so, my dad had to deal with that. | ||
| And they just threw the book at him. | ||
| They're like, you know, we'll give you 15 years. | ||
| And this was 2009. And he's already been in for 10? | ||
| Yeah, he's been in for 10. And one thing that really killed me was... | ||
| One thing, it was a part in a trial where the lawyer would basically tell the judge, like, this guy's an upstanding guy. | ||
| No record. | ||
| You know, he has kids. | ||
| Look at his kids and how well they're doing. | ||
| His older son is in college. | ||
| The second one is in college. | ||
| The youngest is about to be in college. | ||
| These kids are all scholarships, student athletes, great student athletes. | ||
| And the one thing that killed me was... | ||
| The prosecution was like, the reason that is, is because he was defrauding the government from this money. | ||
| That's why they're in college. | ||
| And I was like, wait, my dad's not paying for us to be in college. | ||
| We're all student athletes. | ||
| We earned this. | ||
| We worked hard. | ||
| Earned scholarships as far as to be in college. | ||
| The defense didn't say that? | ||
| They didn't fucking say it. | ||
| Did he have a court appointed attorney? | ||
| I think he did, yeah. | ||
| And bro, my dad just got railroaded, man. | ||
| And it was so heartbreaking to where you're telling a man that has raised his family, raised his kids to work hard, get to a place in life, and you're telling him that the only reason he's there is because he cheated. | ||
| And it was just one of those things that added a chip on my shoulder. | ||
| Man, there's been so many moments that put chips on my shoulder with everything. | ||
| I've been through so much that I just internalize. | ||
| And I compete with all this energy. | ||
| And so for that, you're telling my dad that, yeah, you're going to sit down. | ||
| And obviously, of course, I researched more and more into that because I was so heartbroken after that. | ||
| For what? | ||
| For how much? | ||
| You're saying up to almost a million? | ||
| They just piled a lot of money on. | ||
| They're like, oh, this, this, and that. | ||
| They're saying a little over a million total, which is nowhere near that. | ||
| You gave them 15 years when these hedge fund guys that you found guilty for manipulating these markets for billions, you give them six months house arrest? | ||
| If that... | ||
| And you're saying you're going to give him 15 years. | ||
| And I started researching. | ||
| I'm like, a lot of these judges have stakes in these prisons. | ||
| And to what they do is they give a lot of time because they get paid for a prisoner that's in prison. | ||
| You know that story about that guy in Pennsylvania? | ||
| He was a judge and he was doing that. | ||
| He was sending kids to jail. | ||
| He was extending their sentences and giving them sentences for nothing. | ||
| And it turned out he had been getting paid by the prison to send these kids down the river. | ||
| Yeah, I heard a lot of them get kickbacks and different things from that. | ||
| And so to put people there. | ||
| Well, as you become more and more famous, you can shed more and more light on this. | ||
| Yeah, man. | ||
| When did your dad do for parole? | ||
| Man, I don't even know. | ||
| I think soon. | ||
| Listen, this podcast alone, you talking about this, could very well bring someone forward that wants to help you with the appeal. | ||
| Yeah, man. | ||
| My dad actually wrote, because during the Obama administration, there was that whole clemency deal when they were doing it. | ||
| My dad actually wrote a letter. | ||
| I actually have that letter. | ||
| I don't know where to put it, but he wrote a letter to him. | ||
| And it was, when I read the letter, man, I can't help but cry about it. | ||
| Because my dad cares about his family so much. | ||
| And when I go to see my dad, because my dad is so proud of me. | ||
| And I'm so proud of him. | ||
| I mean, he raised us so well. | ||
| And to go see him in there. | ||
| And I mean, it's not like he's sitting in maximum security, but... | ||
| For someone to tell you that you can't go home to your family at night. | ||
| For 10 fucking years. | ||
| You got to sleep when we told you to sleep. | ||
| You got to eat when we told you to eat for 10 years. | ||
| And when you know I didn't do anything wrong because I chose to say, no, I didn't do anything wrong. | ||
| I'm not going to take the sentence you give me. | ||
| They say, okay, fine, then. | ||
| You're going to sit in there for 15 years and there's nothing you can do about it. | ||
| And, man, it broke my heart, man. | ||
| And when I think about it, I just hold it in because, you know, I try not to cry about it. | ||
| Which I'm just like, screw it. | ||
| I have different situations that happen in life. | ||
| I'm like, you know. | ||
| But I ate that one up on the shoulder. | ||
| I put that chip on. | ||
| I'm like, you know what? | ||
| They're going to say that the reason I'm here, I have a scholarship, is because my dad, they're saying my dad got money. | ||
| A little bit of money. | ||
| Are you serious? | ||
| What about the freaking hard work that I did to get here? | ||
| What about all the times that I sat in a freaking hotbox my bathroom upstairs with a trash bag on because I knew that I needed to get a pound off the next day in order to be able to wrestle at this JV tournament? | ||
| What about all that? | ||
| You know, that didn't make any difference. | ||
| You know, the only reason it was there is because of that. | ||
| What about all the times my brother ran, worked hard to make national team when he was playing soccer? | ||
| Or my little brother getting numerous scholarships for Division I football everywhere? | ||
| Like, that? | ||
| What? | ||
| So all that put a chip on my shoulder, Joe, to where I was like, man, I gotta succeed at all costs. | ||
| I don't really care. | ||
| And where did this happen? | ||
| Where was this trial? | ||
| In Texas, in Dallas, Texas. | ||
| Not the best place to have it happen, but it happened, and man, it put a sour taste in my mouth. | ||
| Has he filed an appeal? | ||
| Oh, man, he filed an appeal one time. | ||
| They didn't even look at it, man. | ||
| It was like one of those things where it's like that judge, they put you there, you're there. | ||
| That was his domain. | ||
| They didn't even look at it. | ||
| Like, who cares? | ||
| Because I feel like you're being the UFC welterweight champion. | ||
| But I think that they treated him like that because you're an immigrant in the system. | ||
| Get in there. | ||
| And that's, you know, Joe, to wrap that, put that on. | ||
| That's part of what this next fight symbolizes to me is the attitude that a lot of people have towards immigrants. | ||
| It's people are forgetting that Americans are immigrants. | ||
| I was just having that conversation in the last podcast. | ||
| People are forgetting that. | ||
| The entire country is immigrants. | ||
| To where people have this attitude to where it's like, we're Americans. | ||
| Go back to your country. | ||
| Go back. | ||
| This is a free country. | ||
| You're this and that. | ||
| I always heard that growing up. | ||
| I always heard that. | ||
| The more I researched, I'm like, what? | ||
| What are you talking about? | ||
| First of all, this whole attitude. | ||
| When you walk into a nail shop, get your hand, feet, nails done. | ||
| Who are the majority of the people that run those nail shops? | ||
| Asians. | ||
| I'm not saying all of them in the world, in the country, but the majority of them are Asians. | ||
| But there's a lot of people that look down on it like, I'm not washing your feet. | ||
| I'm not going to do your nails. | ||
| No, those people, I take pride in that because that provides for them. | ||
| You know, they do that. | ||
| But people condemn it. | ||
| That's not a job people want to do. | ||
| When you go to these hotels and certain things, who are the main people that are the maids that clean up the hotels? | ||
| A lot of them are immigrants. | ||
| We take pride in them because now we're in a country, we're in a better place where we can provide for families. | ||
| Those are jobs that a lot of people, so-called Americans, the whole Colby Covington whole persona are like, I'm above that. | ||
| I'm above that. | ||
| That's the persona. | ||
| But then at the same time, people now want to cry. | ||
| Oh, they're here taking our jobs. | ||
| Let's build a wall. | ||
| Let's keep them out. | ||
| They're taking our job. | ||
| No, they're providing. | ||
| They're helping this country get to its height. | ||
| The fact that you could come here and have someone do your nails, someone clean your house, someone wash your car, someone do all this for you, is part of what makes America so great. | ||
| One of the greatest nations in the world. | ||
| And the fact that you want to build a wall. | ||
| You want to keep these people out. | ||
| You can't come here. | ||
| You can't bring your culture, your stuff here. | ||
| It just saddens me. | ||
| And it upsets me. | ||
| It's part of what this fight, when it happens, this fight represents for me. | ||
| Because I feel like that's the attitude that this young man has. | ||
| He's entitled to. | ||
| I should be UFC champ. | ||
| You're a soy boy. | ||
| You don't deserve it. | ||
| You can't hang with me, boy. | ||
| That's his attitude. | ||
| You can't do this, boy. | ||
| First of all, who's your boy? | ||
| I'm a grown ass man. | ||
| Don't fucking talk to me like that. | ||
| And that's the attitude that he has. | ||
| I'm entitled to this. | ||
| I should be the champion because I am this way. | ||
| I'm American. | ||
| I'm this and that. | ||
| Bro, we're all American here. | ||
| And so this fight is greater than just me beating up a guy that's talking a lot of shit. | ||
| This fight means a lot to me. | ||
| So when I get the chance to put my hands on that guy, let's just know it's the wrath of every immigrant that has stepped foot in this country that I'm going to put on him. | ||
| You and your family are the ideal immigrants. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Overachievers. | ||
| First of all, what is it about Nigerians that do so well in this country? | ||
| If you look at Nigerian immigrants, successful ratios of Of different immigration groups. | ||
| Nigerians in particular are extraordinarily successful upon immigrating to America. | ||
| Yeah, I think it's a family thing. | ||
| It's like when our families decide and we get the opportunity to move to a better place, the thing is, the whole persona is, we're going to be able to sustain this forever. | ||
| So my kids are not going to just play around in sports, because that's not guaranteed. | ||
| Right. | ||
| What is guaranteed is the fact that you're going to go to school and you're going to become a doctor because you're going to get a job anywhere in the world that you want. | ||
| That's why the majority of them are doctors. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Majority of them are doctors, engineers, because these are jobs, high-demand jobs. | ||
| You're always going to get a job anywhere. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And so that's all we push. | ||
| You're going to be a doctor or you're going to be an engineer. | ||
| None of them are saying you're going to be a professional athlete. | ||
| My parents, hell no! | ||
| They didn't care for that. | ||
| Like, I lied to them the first couple of years that I was wrestling. | ||
| I didn't tell them that. | ||
| You know, my brother is a doctor in pharmacy in Dallas. | ||
| My little brother, you know, could have gotten the NFL. He was a stellar football player. | ||
| Played at the University of Houston and the University of Arizona. | ||
| You know, my sister now is in college. | ||
| She's in nursing school in college. | ||
| Like, that's just what we push. | ||
| We want you to get a job that you can provide for your family forever. | ||
| Yeah, they remind me of Koreans in a lot of ways. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Yeah, super hardworking and appreciate once they've gotten to a place like America where there really is no ceiling on the possibility. | ||
| You could do anything you want once you get here if you work hard. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| And that's another thing that's dear to my heart is when you're in Nigeria, like when you're in a situation that we were at... | ||
| My mom was a teacher. | ||
| My mom owned a store. | ||
| A little convenience store. | ||
| We did little jobs on the side. | ||
| We sold certain things on the side. | ||
| And on top of it, raising three boys. | ||
| Rowdy boys. | ||
| In the school, it wasn't like, oh, there's a car. | ||
| The bus is going to pick you up at 3, 7 a.m. | ||
| to go to school. | ||
| No. | ||
| The school was two miles away, three miles away. | ||
| You're walking. | ||
| You better get going. | ||
| Don't be late. | ||
| Because if you was late, you was going to get a whooping before school started. | ||
| That's how it was. | ||
| And especially the education system is so high because you miss a couple answers on the test. | ||
| You had to go out and get a switch and you were going to get whipped in school for those answers that you missed on the test. | ||
| Who would beat you in school? | ||
| Yeah! | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| The teacher. | ||
| First of all, it's not teacher. | ||
| It's uncle and aunt. | ||
| That's your uncle and your aunt in school. | ||
| They knew your parents. | ||
| They knew your family. | ||
| They were going to whoop you in school if you decided to mess up. | ||
| And that's how it was. | ||
| So that's why there's a lot of these smart Nigerians that get out. | ||
| And if there's no freaking job, we gotta somehow make money. | ||
| It's so fucked up because I don't want people to beat kids, but goddamn, when you put kids under that kind of pressure... | ||
| My parents put me in Catholic school for one year, and I got excellent grades. | ||
| And afterwards, I was fucking terrible. | ||
| Terrible, man! | ||
| And I remember my stepfather said something to me. | ||
| He said, your grades were only good when you were in Catholic school. | ||
| I was like, I was fucking terrified. | ||
| I'm like, it ain't a good move. | ||
| I mean, they were threatening me all the time. | ||
| They wanted to beat me and make me sit on a nail in the closet. | ||
| But it's this... | ||
| I don't... | ||
| I would never want you to go through that. | ||
| But the fact that you went through that is probably one of the reasons why you're the man you are today. | ||
| That's humanity. | ||
| That's what I call humanity because as human beings, when we're growing, and you hear this all the time with parents, I want a better life for my kids. | ||
| I want a better life for my kids. | ||
| Yes, absolutely. | ||
| That's what we want. | ||
| We want to present them with endless possibilities. | ||
| But you can't forget the fact that the reason you're the champion or the upstanding person that you are today is because you went through these hard things. | ||
| All these hardships molded you. | ||
| And that's part of the situation now. | ||
| Everyone's like, oh no, I don't want these kids to play these sports. | ||
| They're too tough. | ||
| They're too rough. | ||
| They could get hurt. | ||
| They could get that. | ||
| Or that kid could turn into a freaking champion. | ||
| He can get knocked on his butt 50 times and that one 51th time he gets up and says, you know what? | ||
| Screw this. | ||
| I'm going to be a champion today. | ||
| There's also that you could do other things. | ||
| I think a guy like you could do anything. | ||
| Once you've achieved what you've achieved in MMA and in wrestling, the kind of mindset that makes you push your body to the limit like that and allows you to get just your body into the kind of condition that made you fight five rounds like that against Tyron. | ||
| That's an extraordinary mind. | ||
| Yeah, I'm thankful. | ||
| I'm thankful for... | ||
| And this is one thing that I always say is I'm thankful for every individual that I've crossed paths with. | ||
| Because when I really look back on my life and I internalize a lot of things, I was a freaking pipsqueak in Nigeria carrying this hot plate on my head to go sell up and down the street. | ||
| I never imagined that I would get to the point where I would run into all these different wrestling coaches that would pour knowledge into me. | ||
| And this is a shout out to every coach. | ||
| If you ever saw me, I was drilling a move and you came over and just corrected me. | ||
| Or you said, no, no, do it this way. | ||
| Even if it's just a moment, an inch in my life, all of that contributed to the person that I am today, to all those coaches, all those people, all my mentors that give me advice, each and every one, because I never knew that I would cross paths. | ||
| Look how crazy my life is. | ||
| I crossed paths with John. | ||
| First time I ever seen an MMA fight was John Jones. | ||
| I won my belt on the same card as John Jones. | ||
| When I went to visit Jon Jones, I stayed in the same room that Colby Covington stayed in the following year when he went to school with Jon Jones. | ||
| How fucking crazy is that? | ||
| That's pretty fucking crazy. | ||
| Jon's roommate was Joe Soda who also is in the UFC. Yeah. | ||
| Like... | ||
| Went to the University of Nebraska at Kearney, became a national champion, wrestled with Travelle Delognam, Joe and Jake Ellenberger, Jake Ellenberger in the UFC, Joe Ellenberger in the UFC. Look at the paths that I've crossed in this life. | ||
| To get me to this point here, I'm extremely thankful, man. | ||
| At the end of the day, there's nothing that I can do that I got to give it up. | ||
| This was a plan. | ||
| This wasn't me. | ||
| I didn't control this and say, you know what, when I'm 25 and when I'm this age, I'm going to do that, I'm going to do that, do that, and it all come together like that. | ||
| I've been blessed. | ||
| I've been very, very blessed to cross paths with all these guys and it's gotten me to this moment. | ||
| I'm so thankful. | ||
| Well, I think it's both. | ||
| You've definitely been blessed, as all of us have, but besides just being fortunate, you went through the work. | ||
| You went through the work, and you completed the process. | ||
| Just the fact that you fought Tyron motherfucking Woodley with a broken foot and a hernia. | ||
| And still dominated him for five rounds is crazy. | ||
| You don't get to that without having... | ||
| You built your mind and your body in a very crazy way. | ||
| In a way, through the fires of hard work and discipline, you forged a champion. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, thank you, Joe. | ||
| Like, that's... | ||
| It all goes back to everything. | ||
| This is how my mind works. | ||
| Ever since I was little. | ||
| I'm one of those guys. | ||
| I sound silly, but I'm a one-trip kind of guy. | ||
| When I go to the grocery store and I'm bringing all that shit in the house, I'm a one-trip kind of guy. | ||
| Carried it in one trip? | ||
| I'm going to do it all in one. | ||
| I don't care how much it is. | ||
| I'm going to try to do it in one trip. | ||
| And this is one thing that I say to myself when I'm carrying all that stuff inside. | ||
| Yeah, it hurts. | ||
| Yeah, it's heavy. | ||
| Yeah, this makes no sense. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| The house is literally 50 feet from the car. | ||
| But in my mind, while I'm carrying all that heavy shit, I'm just like, yeah, one trip, one trip. | ||
| Get tough, baby. | ||
| Get tough, get tough. | ||
| I've been doing that since I was a kid. | ||
| Get tough, get tough. | ||
| You can do it. | ||
| Get tough. | ||
| Or when I'm doing sets of stuff, reps, and the coach is like, all right, four sets of 10. I'm doing 10 when I get to like 10. I can do one more. | ||
| 11. Let's get 11. Boom. | ||
| Get an extra set in. | ||
| I've been putting in extra set forever. | ||
| Forever. | ||
| To where I feel like all that has built me up to where my mind is today. | ||
| Well, your mind is there, but do you have a concern, like what we were talking about before with Cain Velasquez, that your mind might be too strong for the tissue, too strong for the ligaments, too strong for the joints? | ||
| I mean, this is what I worry about with a guy like you. | ||
| Not that you're not mentally strong. | ||
| I have no fear of that at all. | ||
| My concern was with a guy like Cain Velasquez. | ||
| There's certain people that... | ||
| I worry that they might do too much or push too hard. | ||
| But the fucking problem is the only way you become a Cain Velasquez or become you is to have that mindset to begin with. | ||
| Joe, how else can you see Cain Velasquez fighting? | ||
| Can't see it. | ||
| Can't see it in any way. | ||
| Can't see him training any other way. | ||
| That's what made Cain. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And I think that's all part of the plan. | ||
| Like, there's a time for everybody. | ||
| There's a time... | ||
| There was a time designed for Tyron Woodley to become champion, to be champion. | ||
| There's a time for me to be champion and to reign as a champion. | ||
| There's a time for everybody. | ||
| Of course, I'm... | ||
| And like I said, I like to take all this different knowledge that I get and I like to put it all together. | ||
| So, of course, my coaches are... | ||
| Now, no one will tell me, yo, just go home. | ||
| Like, you look great. | ||
| In my mind, I want to freaking go harder. | ||
| Like, I don't know. | ||
| You've done great. | ||
| Go home. | ||
| So, where I'm listening and I'm giving them the lead on that. | ||
| But... | ||
| The way I train is what's gotten me here. | ||
| And the way Kane trained is what's gotten him there. | ||
| Now it's the responsibility of not just Kane, but everybody else that's around him that he really confides in to let him know when it's too much and when it's not too much. | ||
| With cane, there's so many issues now because the surgeries have been so extensive and back surgery and knee surgeries and reconstructions, not just meniscus like you, but the actual structure of the knee itself. | ||
| One thing that I would always say is... | ||
| Kane, you can't always... | ||
| With Kane, with anybody else, the human body and the human mind is so powerful. | ||
| You can never say, oh man, it's over for that guy. | ||
| Or that guy's never going to be the same. | ||
| No, you never know. | ||
| You never know. | ||
| Like Kane, you know, much respect to Kane. | ||
| Kane can come back and be a savage and still run through guys in the next year or two. | ||
|
unidentified
|
For sure. | |
| You never know that. | ||
| I mean, if he gets his knee fixed, I don't know what the extent of that injury was, but... | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I'm hopeful and optimistic that he's going to be back soon. | ||
| But I feel like there's a time for everybody. | ||
| And if Kane doesn't fight like that, can you imagine Kane fighting any other way? | ||
| Point fighting. | ||
| Point fighting. | ||
| You can't. | ||
| No, you can't. | ||
| There's an argument that he's the best UFC heavyweight ever. | ||
| He's for sure one of the best UFC heavyweights ever. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Not even a question. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Now, when do they have you fighting Colby? | ||
| When is that supposed to take place? | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| You don't know? | ||
| I think it's... | ||
| I have to get healthy first. | ||
| For a long, long time, I've been fighting hurt. | ||
| But I just, like, I don't care. | ||
| Gotta send you down to Panama. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I'm gonna give you that guy's number. | ||
| We'll get off this block. | ||
| I'm gonna contact Dr. Reardon. | ||
| Give it to you. | ||
| I've been fighting hurt for so long, Joe. | ||
| Like, whether it's a knee or whether... | ||
| There's been training camps where I can barely walk. | ||
| Like, walk. | ||
| Not training. | ||
| Walk. | ||
| For I think the last two years, my daughter laughs at me. | ||
| I come down the stairs backwards. | ||
| Really? | ||
| I go down the stairs backwards because it leaves pressure on my knees. | ||
| Jesus Christ. | ||
| And my daughter laughs at me. | ||
| But... | ||
| It was a time where I couldn't walk. | ||
| That's crazy. | ||
| Before the Leon Edwards fight, I fought Leon Edwards years ago. | ||
| Before that fight, I could barely walk. | ||
| I mean, I shit you not, Joe. | ||
| Walk down to and from the house, from the car to the house. | ||
| It was in pain. | ||
| I walked on grass. | ||
| I couldn't walk on concrete because I felt like that relieved a little bit more stress. | ||
| That's the extent of the pain that I've been in in some of these fights. | ||
| That is fucking insane. | ||
| Now, this is during the camp? | ||
| During the camp. | ||
| Just to make it to the fight. | ||
| Just walking on grass instead of concrete. | ||
| Walking on grass instead of concrete because it's softer. | ||
| Jesus Christ. | ||
| And it's not as much hard surface to walk on. | ||
| So just when the fight came on, you just put it all aside? | ||
| Yeah, when I walked through that cage, fuck it. | ||
| Let's go. | ||
| This is a matter of me getting maybe $10,000 or $20,000. | ||
| Let's go. | ||
| I chose to be here instead of sitting in front of it. | ||
| Instead of sitting at a desk earning money, providing for my family. | ||
| This is how I'm going to do it. | ||
| And like I said, Joe, my daughter lit a freaking fire under me, Joe. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Man. | ||
| That was an adorable moment, man. | ||
| When you had her, you carried her. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, man. | |
| You put the belt on you. | ||
| I want her to... | ||
| She's looking around. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| When she grows up, I want her to remember that forever because... | ||
| She lit a fire. | ||
| Remember we were talking about the tank that you have in there? | ||
| Part of why I'm a little scared to be locked in those tanks is because I've never been claustrophobic ever in my life. | ||
| I never was. | ||
| But there was a time when I found out that I was going to have her. | ||
| That my girl was pregnant with her at the time. | ||
| I... I'm freaking living with Rashad Evans. | ||
| I have no money in my bank account. | ||
| I'm broke as hell. | ||
| I'm having a child. | ||
| And I'm not married yet. | ||
| And these are... | ||
| Especially these are principles of your African parents. | ||
| You gotta be married and things like that. | ||
| I'm not married yet. | ||
| Of course, her mom is a phenomenal woman. | ||
| Phenomenal. | ||
| And I'm not married and all these things is happening. | ||
| I was fucking... | ||
| My mind, I was panicking. | ||
| And the fight before that, I just lost. | ||
| This was right after I lost the second fight. | ||
| Now I'm getting ready for the third fight. | ||
| And there was this doctor's office that we'd go in and sleep in the hyperbaric chamber because we heard it was better for your body and stuff like that. | ||
| So I'd be doing it here and there once a week. | ||
| I'd go in and sleep in the plastic ones. | ||
| They zip you up in there and it compresses up. | ||
| And I was in there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And one time I was in there and I started thinking. | |
| I usually pass out. | ||
| And when it starts to decompress, I wake up. | ||
| I'm in that thing. | ||
| I wake up, you know, but it hasn't decompressed yet, you know, so I never really thought anything of it. | ||
| I'm just kind of in there and I'm in this office in this room. | ||
| It's dark because the nurses, they flip the light off and they go on about their business tending to other patients. | ||
| And I'm like, okay, shit. | ||
| I gotta fight this fight. | ||
| I got choked out in my last fight. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Damn. | |
| Okay. | ||
| This shit might happen again. | ||
| This dude, they say this dude is tough. | ||
| They saying this dude is tough. | ||
| He gets crap. | ||
| I'm about to have a daughter. | ||
| Shit. | ||
| I'm broke. | ||
| I ain't got no money. | ||
| I gotta win this fight because I'm fighting for like $2,000. | ||
| One at one. | ||
| If I win $2,000. | ||
| All this shit is going through my head now. | ||
| This tank hasn't decompressed. | ||
| The room is dark. | ||
| I'm hearing nothing. | ||
| No nurses. | ||
| So now I start to get hot. | ||
| I'm in the thing and I start getting a little hot in the tank. | ||
| I'm like, okay, so now my body's getting a little hot. | ||
| I'm laying there. | ||
| Now I start dripping. | ||
| My forehead is dripping sweat. | ||
| So, I'm trying to control. | ||
| I'm like, relax, bro. | ||
| You've done this so many times. | ||
| Relax. | ||
| You got this. | ||
| You got this. | ||
| It takes me. | ||
| You're good. | ||
| I can't see the clock, so I don't know how much time has gone by. | ||
| Now, I'm freaking the fuck out. | ||
| My mind is like, I'm stuck in this tube. | ||
| I don't know what's going on. | ||
| I might die in here. | ||
| I don't know what's going on. | ||
| You gotta get me out of here. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh no. | |
| So I'm like, relax. | ||
| Relax. | ||
| So I'm bringing my mind back. | ||
| I'm relaxed. | ||
| Take a deep breath. | ||
| You good. | ||
| You good. | ||
| What you worried about? | ||
| Now, I'm having this conversation in my mind, back and forth. | ||
| I'm like, relax, you good. | ||
| So I relax. | ||
| I'm like, alright, think, how you gonna knock this dude out? | ||
| Jab, jab, one, two, boom. | ||
| Okay, so now I'm calm, I'm calm. | ||
| But what if he counted with the left hand? | ||
| Boom, now you knocked out. | ||
| Now I'm fucking sweating. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Jesus Christ. | |
| Yo, I said, you know, I was sweating so bad. | ||
| So I started tapping on the thing. | ||
| Like, you know, I don't want to freak out because I still got to be cool. | ||
| I don't want to let these nurses know, like, I'm freaking out. | ||
| I'm a fighter. | ||
| I'm freaking out in this tank. | ||
| So I'm tapping on the thing. | ||
| I'm like, you know, trying to ask somebody, hey, how much time we got left? | ||
| Just to at least hear another voice. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| Nothing. | ||
| Nothing. | ||
| They can't hear me because it's loud. | ||
| The tank is loud. | ||
| And I'm... | ||
| Relax. | ||
| I'm full-on panic attack in there. | ||
| Full-on panic attack. | ||
| And I'm trying to bring myself back. | ||
| I'm calming myself down. | ||
| And I'm sweating heavily, like profusely now. | ||
| I'm dripping. | ||
| And all of a sudden, I'm tapping this thing hard. | ||
| And a nurse walks in. | ||
| As soon as she walks in and flips the light, I hear the machine start to decompress. | ||
| Oh, fucking thank God. | ||
| And I'm like, she opens it, you okay? | ||
| I'm like, yeah, I'm good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, just getting a little hot. | |
| But I had a full-blown panic attack in there. | ||
| I have not been in a hyperbaric chamber since. | ||
| I tried it one time. | ||
| I probably could have done it. | ||
| Was it helping you? | ||
| I couldn't really tell. | ||
| My body was so damaged at the time. | ||
| I'm so crazy on my body. | ||
| It's hard for me to tell. | ||
| It's supposed to heighten recoveries? | ||
| Yeah, it's supposed to heighten it. | ||
| But after that day... | ||
| Like, certain things kind of make me feel a certain way. | ||
| Like, I've had tons of MRIs after that, but they freak me out. | ||
| Because you put me in the MRI machine, especially when you got to do the head one, I got to go in head first. | ||
| I don't like those. | ||
| I have to give myself a pep talk and calm myself down to go in there to do those now. | ||
| Like, I just did one the other last week before I had my surgery. | ||
| And the lady's trying to put me, I'm like, yo, I just got an MR. I got the disc from the last one that I did last week. | ||
| The doctor said I could just bring this disc in and I'm good. | ||
| She's like, the doctor wants us to get a new one. | ||
| I'm like, you sure about that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I already got the same disc here. | |
| I'm like, no, we got to do one. | ||
| I'm like, how long is it going to be? | ||
| 40 minutes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Fuck. | |
| 40 minutes, because my shoulders are wide, so I'm in there tight. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And the machine is right here. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, and it's making a noise. | |
| And it's like, yeah, I'm just, it's, I have to give my mind a pep talk. | ||
| And I'm just like, relax, bro. | ||
| What you mean, man? | ||
| You good. | ||
| You got this. | ||
| You can do this. | ||
| And I look at them and I'm like, let's go. | ||
| Let's go. | ||
| Let's do it. | ||
| Let's knock it out. | ||
| Boom. | ||
| Then we're doing it. | ||
| And God forbid I freaking wake up or my mind starts wandering 20 minutes in that I'm just fucking halfway panic attack through the rest, but I'll get through it. | ||
| Yeah, it's scary, but you know since that day And it was crazy. | ||
| At that point, when we were pregnant with my daughter, I was just like, fuck, am I going to survive? | ||
| I can't keep asking this grown man, Rashad, that works hard to support me. | ||
| I can't do that. | ||
| I got to make my own. | ||
| I got to do this. | ||
| So I was scared. | ||
| I was scared. | ||
| I didn't know what was going to happen. | ||
| And then all of a sudden, right when we're having her, we have her, boom. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Boom. | |
| Boom! | ||
| The opportunity comes out. | ||
| We're going to do the ultimate fighter. | ||
| I said, no, I don't want to do the ultimate fighter. | ||
| I was like, bro, you got to do this. | ||
| I fucking end up doing the ultimate fighter. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Boom! | |
| I win the ultimate fighter. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Boom! | |
| I fight for the finale. | ||
| Boom! | ||
| I do this. | ||
| Like rollercoaster. | ||
| Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. | ||
| All the hard work, everything that I've been putting in, boom, starts paying off, paying off. | ||
| Now I'm making 10 and 10. Okay, you feel like that's enough to be able to sustain me until I got to fight again, got to fight again, got to fight again. | ||
| Boom, this happens. | ||
| This happens. | ||
| I get with, you know, amazing manager, Ali Abdulaziz, who freaking, you know, helped just transform the career, take it to the next level, you know, and get with him. | ||
| And now things are going the way that I, you know, I've been wanting them to go. | ||
| Boom, boom, boom, boom. | ||
| Everything's, man. | ||
| And it was just, it's just motivation to keep working, like, Every time I look at my daughter, how innocent she is, how sweet and wonderful she is. | ||
| It transforms me. | ||
| There's a video. | ||
| I even have a video of her. | ||
| She's been coming to the gym with me ever since she was six months old. | ||
| I used to take her to the gym. | ||
| Mom's at work. | ||
| She'd come to the gym with me. | ||
| When she comes to the gym, she knows what I do. | ||
| She watches me do it all the time. | ||
| There's this video where she has gloves and she hits the bag too when I work out. | ||
| And I was doing a circuit. | ||
| I was getting ready for a fight. | ||
| And she's running around with me, and she's cheering me on. | ||
| She's like, let's go, Daddy. | ||
| I'm so proud of him. | ||
| And, like, to hand it to my coach. | ||
| And she's like, come on, Daddy. | ||
| Like... | ||
| And I watch those videos and I'm just like... | ||
| I was always one of those hard guys. | ||
| Man, I ain't gonna be no sucker when I have kids like that. | ||
| I ain't gonna be acting like that. | ||
| I can't watch a video with her and not smile. | ||
| It's the craziest thing to me. | ||
| People who don't have children will never totally understand that. | ||
| No. | ||
| It's a different fire that they light underneath you, man. | ||
| If you don't get motivated once you have kids, you're never gonna get motivated. | ||
| No, you probably shouldn't have just been doing that anyways. | ||
| It changed my life, for sure. | ||
| Yeah, she is... | ||
| Man, she's my little rider. | ||
| She rides with me. | ||
| I love her to death, man. | ||
| I can't explain it. | ||
| I can't explain it. | ||
| She's my plus one. | ||
| That's what I call her. | ||
| No matter whatever I do in life from now on, she's a plus one. | ||
| She's with me. | ||
| That's amazing. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I gotta find the video, but it's so funny. | ||
| It's so funny when I'm doing like a circuit, and I'm running around, and you can see her running around like, come on, Daddy! | ||
| I'm so proud of him! | ||
| So she's just hanging out, like no one's watching her? | ||
| No, she's just hanging out with you while you're training. | ||
| She's such a good little girl. | ||
| Ever since she was six months old, I put her in her car seat and just put her by the side of the mat. | ||
| Boom, she would just watch me train for two hours. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| Two hours. | ||
| To when she got to a certain point where we had a daycare in the gym. | ||
| And she would go in the gym. | ||
| She would go to the daycare and she was good there. | ||
| And then to the point where now, the kids that are in our gym are around similar age. | ||
| And our coach's wife, Henry Pookie, she does a good job. | ||
| And she'll just watch them, you know. | ||
| But they govern themselves. | ||
| They just play around on the other side and run around. | ||
| But it's not like they're around harmful things in the gym. | ||
| You know, they just have a good time there. | ||
| That's great that you have that environment. | ||
| Yeah, man. | ||
| She's... | ||
| Like I said, a lot of people are like, oh man, she's so beautiful. | ||
| No, I'm not worried. | ||
| My daughter's going to have a nice one-two and a hard low kick. | ||
| Whoever can deal with that, hey, good luck. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| Yeah, man. | ||
| But yeah, she lit that fire. | ||
| And I dreamt about that moment. | ||
| It's so surreal, Joe. | ||
| I think about that moment when you were interviewing me. | ||
| I freaking forgot your name while you were interviewing me. | ||
| I'm like, Joe, wait, your name is Joe? | ||
| Yeah, your name is Joe. | ||
| It's got to be surreal when they put that belt around you for the first time. | ||
| Yeah, because I imagined it so many times. | ||
| Let me ask you something honestly. | ||
| Do you like the new belt or the old belt? | ||
| Initially, I used to talk shit. | ||
| I was like, man, nah, because that's the way you picture that old belt. | ||
| Right, right, right. | ||
| And we're human beings. | ||
| People don't like change. | ||
| Right. | ||
| You know, that was the thing. | ||
| I was like, oh, man, this shit looks like a spaceship. | ||
| But that fucking thing is phenomenal. | ||
| That's your belt. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Phenomenal. | |
| That new belt now is phenomenal. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Of course. | |
| It's amazing. | ||
| You won it. | ||
| It's beautiful. | ||
| It's beautiful. | ||
| Of course. | ||
| I always wanted that old belt, you know, but now it's like comparing it to, no, like this new belt's got all these colors and these country flags on it and the stones. | ||
| It's amazing. | ||
| Like, you know, the people that are, all the ones that are still hating on it and say, oh no, that looks crazy. | ||
| Wait till you put that belt on you. | ||
| Wait till you hold that thing and it's super heavy. | ||
| It's amazing. | ||
| It's amazing. | ||
| I love it. | ||
| What did you think about the deal today where all the pay-per-views are going to be on ESPN Plus? | ||
| Fucking UFC, baby! | ||
| These guys are... | ||
| Hey, there's always a way to cut out the middle, man. | ||
| Yeah, I guess so, man. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Hopefully... | ||
| This is the thing. | ||
| My hope is now... | ||
| The pay-per-view scale for the fighters bumps. | ||
| That's what I hope. | ||
| I hope the numbers stay high. | ||
| People have to subscribe now to ESPN+. I believe. | ||
| I'm not sure. | ||
| That can't be. | ||
| Because if you're paying your money, unless you get it free. | ||
| Is that what it is, Jamie? | ||
| It says you have to subscribe to ESPN Plus in order to get a pay-per-view. | ||
| Well, how does that work with people out of the country? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I believe it's cheaper, though. | |
| I think it's the same price you're paying at the end of the day. | ||
| Because I think it was like $65 or $70. | ||
| Yeah, but now you get a subscription. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's $60 instead of $65. | |
| Right. | ||
| And it comes with a subscription, right? | ||
| But you have to subscribe, and you can cancel at any time. | ||
| What if someone only wants to buy one or two pay-per-views a year? | ||
| They resubscribe every time? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I guess. | |
| Yeah, I mean... | ||
| Yeah, I mean, it works. | ||
| I mean, if you really want to... | ||
| I hope it doesn't mess with the numbers, but the thing is... | ||
| I wish Brandon Schaub was in here so he could talk some shit. | ||
| You and I can't talk some shit about this, but if Schaub was here... | ||
| Oh man, Brandon, another guy that's, I think Brandon's doing, his show's got big. | ||
| He's huge. | ||
| He's doing phenomenal. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I went to one of his shows down in, uh, West Palm. | ||
| Yeah, in Florida. | ||
| And, um, I fucking, it's Brandon Schaub. | ||
| I didn't think he was funny. | ||
| I was like, let's do it. | ||
| He's Brandon Schaub. | ||
| I was bored at night. | ||
| I was like, let's go to a Brandon Schaub show. | ||
| He was freaking funny. | ||
| He works hard. | ||
| He told the whole story, man. | ||
| And I was impressed, man. | ||
| Hats off to Brandon Schaub. | ||
| He was funny. | ||
| Basically, all he did was tell his story of what's going on, what went on in his life, in his career. | ||
| But the twist, it was freaking funny. | ||
| I went backstage towards the end. | ||
| I was like, man, that show was funny. | ||
| I didn't think you were funny, but that was amazing. | ||
| I loved it. | ||
| Well, he's showing fighters that there's a path outside of fighting. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely. | |
| He makes way more money now than he ever made during fighting times. | ||
| And he's doing well and he's happy and he's fulfilled. | ||
| He's got two great podcasts that he's doing. | ||
| He does comedy shows. | ||
| Just filmed a Showtime special. | ||
| He's doing amazing. | ||
| That's amazing. | ||
| And which is... | ||
| Excuse me. | ||
| Part of all this whole shit. | ||
| People are giving Tyron shit for doing music or doing movies and all this stuff like that. | ||
| No, man. | ||
| More power to him. | ||
| I'm glad that he's doing that. | ||
| Because that's what we want. | ||
| You want all these different revenue streams where you don't have to get punched in the face until you're 50 to do it. | ||
| You've got to have an exit strategy. | ||
| Yeah, and I love that and I appreciate that. | ||
| That's what I want to do. | ||
| Imagine me and Francis in the next Black Panther. | ||
| You can see it, right? | ||
| I can't see it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We should definitely be in that. | |
| Whoever's making that movie, casting for that, hey, Francis Ngannou, you don't need to teach us accents at all. | ||
| I'm from Nigeria. | ||
| There's no team you have to teach me. | ||
| I have my own accent. | ||
| You can teach them. | ||
| Yeah, I can teach them. | ||
| Keep it authentic. | ||
| I commend them for that, man. | ||
| Have you thought about an exit strategy? | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What do you think you're going to do? | |
| I want to do all that. | ||
| I've been commentating. | ||
| I work with Titan FC down in South Florida. | ||
| Titan does an amazing show, too. | ||
| You have some very good fighters come out of there. | ||
| Very good. | ||
| Sometimes I'm watching fights and I'm like, fuck, these guys fought each other for one and one. | ||
| Yeah, and they're crazy. | ||
| Like, good, good tough fighters. | ||
| They want to get into the big show. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So, man, yeah, I commentate for them. | ||
| I think that's on UFC Fight Pass, right? | ||
| UFC Fight Pass, yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And so, yeah, I want to get into movies. | ||
| I've been, you know, practicing. | ||
| I'm not in no way saying what they do is easy. | ||
| Those actors, I know they work hard to be able to transform and make people feel a certain way and evoke certain emotions from different people with your characters. | ||
| That's a real art. | ||
| So I respect that and I want to learn more about that. | ||
| And yeah, I definitely want to do movies to get more famous, richer, and not get punched in the face. | ||
| Oh, for sure. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| What about doing a podcast? | ||
| You ever thought of that? | ||
| Yeah, I would love it. | ||
| You know, I just haven't been approached with the right, you know, with the right situation. | ||
| The beautiful thing about podcasts, you don't need anybody. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You don't need shit. | ||
| You just need a fucking tape player. | ||
| You could use it on your phone. | ||
| You could record what you think. | ||
| There's great little tiny microphones that stick in the bottom of your iPhone. | ||
| And it worked great. | ||
| And you just sit down and talk about shit. | ||
| Yeah, we'll have to give that a try. | ||
| What I don't want right now is something that distracts me from... | ||
| Because I'm not one of those guys who are, oh yeah, I gotta fight and I gotta be in training camp. | ||
| And if I don't have a fight, I'm just doing whatever the fuck I want. | ||
| I freaking practice every day. | ||
| I'm going to practice. | ||
| It's like my life right now, I don't know what to do if I don't go to practice. | ||
| So while you're recovering from the surgery... | ||
| Yeah, I'm going to try some different things. | ||
| Does it feel good, though, to just slow down a little bit? | ||
| Smell the roses? | ||
| Not really because this whole week I couldn't freaking train. | ||
| I wanted to go to the gym and at least hit the bag. | ||
| Excuse me. | ||
| Hit the bag of something. | ||
| Because I think I'm an addict of that burn. | ||
| Of course. | ||
| That burn of a workout. | ||
| Whether it's lifting or push-ups or doing something. | ||
| Pushing yourself. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I'm an addict of that. | ||
| And so when I don't have that, it's kind of like, I don't know what to do with myself. | ||
| Well, that's what made you you. | ||
| And that's what made you the champion. | ||
| I mean, that engine that's inside you is what made you the champion. | ||
| It only makes sense. | ||
| If you really could just relax and kick back, I'd be nervous. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I'd be like, damn, look at him. | ||
| Shifting gears already. | ||
| That's what they say. | ||
| They're like, oh, you changed now. | ||
| You changed. | ||
| You used a different person now. | ||
| You know, you don't got Hollywood on us. | ||
| You don't... | ||
| I fucking hate when people say that. | ||
| Yeah, it's a gross thing people say. | ||
| People just love to come up with some excuses for why they don't do as well as you or why... | ||
| Oh, what I was going to bring up too is I saw you do, because when I started researching you and watching your stuff, I saw the podcast you did with freaking Jamie Foxx years ago or something like that. | ||
|
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He's amazing. | |
| Fucking, I mean, I'm a huge Jamie Foxx fan. | ||
| He's so fucking talented. | ||
| I mean, talking triple threat. | ||
| He can do anything. | ||
| How many people can do things that- He does stand-up comedy. | ||
| Like, chicks are in trouble. | ||
| Sings incredible. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Women are in trouble. | ||
| He can make you laugh. | ||
| He can serenade you with his voice. | ||
|
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Yeah. | |
| And he can freaking act. | ||
| A lot of dudes are lucky he's not gay. | ||
| How about that? | ||
| He made me in trouble. | ||
| He's fucking amazing, man. | ||
| He's such a genuine guy, too. | ||
| I've known him for a long time, but he's a fucking Academy Award winning actor. | ||
| When he comes in and hangs out with you, you would never imagine it. | ||
| The energies like that is what I gravitate towards. | ||
|
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He's so normal. | |
| It's like Rashad Evans. | ||
| Rashad is the same way. | ||
| And those energies I really gravitate towards. | ||
| And I love it. | ||
| Yeah, people who don't take themselves seriously. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But they do. | ||
| Of course. | ||
| Like, they do, but they don't pretend they're better than you or anything. | ||
| Like, I ran into Jamie at a fucking gas station like six, seven months ago. | ||
| Wait, what time was this? | ||
| Normal time, like during the day. | ||
| He was actually with his daughter. | ||
| She was coming from a martial arts class. | ||
| And I'm getting gas, and this guy pulls up in this crazy fucking car. | ||
| Like, I never saw one of these things before. | ||
| I forget what it's called. | ||
| Some weird SUV that looks like it's from the future. | ||
| Like, oh, the Lamborghini SUV? No, no, it's not a Lamborghini. | ||
| It's some crazy... | ||
| He knows the guy who makes them. | ||
| It's crazy. | ||
| I mean, I don't even know what the fuck it is. | ||
| I never saw one before. | ||
| I'm like, what is this thing? | ||
| And I'm looking at this thing. | ||
| And then the dude rolls down the window and goes, what's up, Joe? | ||
| I go, oh, what's up, Jamie? | ||
| I go, what the fuck is this, man? | ||
| And he's so normal. | ||
| He jumps out of the car and starts talking. | ||
| People just start coming up to him. | ||
| And he's like, hey, what's up? | ||
| How you doing? | ||
| Just totally normal. | ||
| You know what? | ||
| I feel a little bit of that right now. | ||
| Because it's... | ||
| Because I still do the same shit. | ||
| I still go to the same little nutrition shop that I go to, get a protein shake here and there. | ||
| And I still go to the same... | ||
| I took my daughter to the movies before I left. | ||
| I still go to IPIC. And I just roll in. | ||
| It's just me and her. | ||
| Perfect. | ||
| We'll just freaking roll in. | ||
| Keep that as long as you can. | ||
| And people ask for pictures. | ||
| And I think one guy one time said that... | ||
| Bro, I can't believe you're here, bro. | ||
| Like, bro, you serious, bro? | ||
|
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Like, this one guy was like, bro, you here, bro? | |
| Like, who's mom, bro? | ||
| Can I get a picture with you, bro? | ||
| He almost like crying. | ||
|
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I was like, yeah, bro, of course. | |
| You can get him. | ||
| Yeah, you want me to take it? | ||
| Which angle? | ||
| Let me take a couple. | ||
| I'm snapping the picture and I'm kidding. | ||
| But they just couldn't believe the fact that I'm normal. | ||
| You know, that people are just normal. | ||
| People are just normal. | ||
| People are just people. | ||
| They're just people. | ||
| Well, I think one of the great things about someone who accomplishes something that's pretty spectacular is that you didn't just do that and win the world title, but you set a lot of people in motion. | ||
| You know how many people watch that and must have been pumped up and excited about it and then started doing things? | ||
| There's probably a lot of people that decided to start fighting because of what I mean. | ||
| Millions of people watched that fight. | ||
| So stop and think about how many different people must have been inspired by that. | ||
| How many different people saw the highlights on Instagram and on Twitter and on YouTube and how many people got fired up because of that. | ||
| And that's what I'm thankful for, Joe. | ||
| I'm thankful for the opportunity. | ||
| Shout out to the UFC for creating such a business. | ||
| In a market now, you can touch so many people all across the world. | ||
| And fighting is one thing, that's a universal language. | ||
| It doesn't matter if you fucking speak Russian, you speak English, you speak Igbo or Yoruba, it doesn't matter. | ||
| You know fighting. | ||
| Right. | ||
| This, this, this. | ||
| You don't have to know the rules. | ||
| You don't have to know the rules. | ||
| It's not like cricket. | ||
| Yeah, it's universal. | ||
| So it's one of those things that's a sport that's going to grow. | ||
| It's only going to get bigger and bigger, man. | ||
| Shout out to the UFC. Dana, Hunter, all these guys. | ||
| Lorenzo, Fertitta, all these guys that created this and packaged it to the way it is now. | ||
| Because it's given us platforms to be able to touch people. | ||
| And yeah, I truly am aware of what that could have done for certain people. | ||
| Certain people. | ||
| Yeah, I might have not thought of an individual person, but someone, you know, I might have inspired someone to start fighting that come from where I come from or somewhere in China, Indonesia, anywhere in the world. | ||
| Yeah, so I'm thankful. | ||
| I'm very thankful for that. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, that is a big part of what a champion is. | ||
| I mean, we were talking earlier about Marvin Hagler or different fighters that I watched when I was a kid coming up. | ||
| Those people give you energy, you know? | ||
| There's something about watching someone do something spectacular. | ||
| They give you energy. | ||
| And when you hear a story like yours... | ||
| You know, a kid who immigrates to the United States at eight years old and goes through all the shit that you went through and becomes a world champion. | ||
| People hear that, man. | ||
| It gets them off the fucking couch, man. | ||
| It gets them to do things. | ||
| It does. | ||
| I think about doing that fight is there was two other guys, two special guests that I had come to the fight. | ||
| And they were both Nigerian nightmares, you know, in their respective rights, sports and right. | ||
| Christian Okoye, you know, Kansas City Chiefs running back was called a Nigerian nightmare because he was a fucking terror. | ||
| You know who Christian is? | ||
| I don't know anything about football. | ||
| Jamie's laughing. | ||
| He knows who it is. | ||
| Yeah, he was a fucking monster, man. | ||
| I think he was a 260-pound running back. | ||
| I'm talking Mack truck, running through dude. | ||
| Boom, boom, boom. | ||
| And he had speed and power. | ||
| So he was considered a Nigerian nightmare. | ||
| So he was one of those first guys that people really resonated as a Nigerian nightmare in American sports. | ||
| And I never watched him play live. | ||
| Of course not. | ||
| But these are the guys that create such a legacy to where, when you're growing up, somehow you hear about that legacy. | ||
| And that inspired me to want to be great, bearing that nickname. | ||
| And also, Samuel Peters. | ||
| I don't know if you know Samuel Peters. | ||
| Samuel Peters, WBC Heavyweight Champion of the World, was at the fight. | ||
| Oh, no shit. | ||
| And man, these guys, I never saw him fight live, but he created such a legacy to where I heard about him. | ||
| I had to research them. | ||
| And these guys inspired me to where now having that nickname, I have to hold it to the highest regards. | ||
| I have to do the best that I can to be able to inspire many, many kids that are going to come in the future. | ||
| So man, I'm thankful for the opportunity and just grateful. | ||
| I'm not... | ||
| I'm a humble little kid from Nigeria, you know. | ||
| I used to walk around barefoot, step on nails, glasses, you know, things like that. | ||
| And now look where we at. | ||
| Now we rockin' shoe designers, baby! | ||
| Dude, you're the UFC welterweight champion of the world. | ||
| Undisputed. | ||
| Yeah, man. | ||
| It's pretty incredible. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Does it feel real? | ||
| No, I mean, I still feel normal. | ||
| I don't feel anything different. | ||
| But you know you're the champ. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But I think part of why it feels the way it does is because I've known for a long time. | ||
| I've felt like it for a long time. | ||
| I've known nothing's going to change the way I'm going to train for these fights. | ||
| Nothing's going to change my mentality how I'm going to approach these fights. | ||
| It's all the same. | ||
| A fight is a fight. | ||
| It's not, oh, I'm trying to defend this or I'm trying to hold on to this. | ||
| I don't give a shit. | ||
| I'm still going in there to dominate you from start to finish, to break you mentally so you never want to freaking fight me again. | ||
| That's my approach to every fight. | ||
| So nothing changes. | ||
| I don't feel different. | ||
| The only thing now that's cool, everyone's like, treat me a little different. | ||
| People kind of, you know, people hold doors for me now and shit like that. | ||
| And hopefully you're making a shitload more money. | ||
| Well, yeah, let's all... | ||
| You heard that, Dana? | ||
|
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Yeah, please. | |
| Hopefully that, but that's the only difference. | ||
| I don't feel different. | ||
| I don't act any different. | ||
| At least I hope not. | ||
| No, when we were talking earlier about guys who like to trash talk and what trash talking is kind of doing for the sport, whether it's good or bad, some guys are really funny with it. | ||
| Connor's fucking hilarious with it. | ||
| Amazing. | ||
| There's something about that that is, like when Jeremy Stevens said something about it, it's like, who the fuck is that guy? | ||
|
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God. | |
| I mean... | ||
| The most famous line in fucking MMA. In sports. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean... | ||
|
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Oh, man. | |
| I mean, how many times has that been repeated? | ||
| Shout out to Jeremy Stevens, too. | ||
|
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I like Jeremy. | |
| I love Jeremy. | ||
| Those guys come to scrap. | ||
| Always. | ||
| He's a beast. | ||
|
unidentified
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He's a beast. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| But I think that that's not the only way a guy can sell a lot of pay-per-views. | ||
| A guy can also sell a lot of pay-per-views by being exceptional. | ||
| And that was the case with George St. Pierre. | ||
| Like, George St. Pierre was never a trash talker and still sold a shitload of pay-per-views. | ||
| Yeah, I think we're, as human beings, humans can kind of tell the energy. | ||
| If it's a fake energy, I think people can tell and people are put off by it. | ||
| Well, people are also enamored of people that are exceptional. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| You can just be exceptional. | ||
| You don't have to just be talking shit all the time and pushing each other at press conferences. | ||
| It's not the only way. | ||
| No, but then you get the majority of the shitty fans who... | ||
| Who likes that stuff? | ||
| Who wants to see it too? | ||
| Yeah, there's a few who, even though they know it's fake, they just still like that. | ||
| They just want to see it, you know? | ||
| So, they put that pressure on people. | ||
| Like, no, you got to do this. | ||
| You have to do that. | ||
| Because those are the guys that are going to tweet you. | ||
| They're going to comment you. | ||
| Do they tell you? | ||
| Do they give you advice on how to talk? | ||
| No, no. | ||
| Dana's never once said, you gotta talk, you gotta do this, you gotta do that. | ||
| No, they don't do that. | ||
| Do you feel, though, that sometimes they show you that by favoring guys who do do that? | ||
| Like when Colby got a shot at the interim title before you? | ||
| Yeah, because this is the thing is when someone starts doing that and they're starting to trend a lot more, of course, the company gets behind them because the company is about money. | ||
| It's about green. | ||
| Like they got to make money. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And that's one thing that I understand more than anything right now. | ||
| They're about green. | ||
| Like people say, oh, Dana hates me because this and that. | ||
| The only race Dana cares about is green. | ||
| Like if you're going to make money, Dana cares. | ||
| And so I think that once someone starts doing that and they're starting to create a little, they're starting to have a little buzz. | ||
| Of course, Dana is going to push because that guy might bring in money, making more money. | ||
| So I understand that aspect of it, but it's not. | ||
| I don't think it's Dana necessarily saying, oh man, you got to act like this, you got to do this because this is what sells. | ||
| No, Conor did it. | ||
| And if Conor, Conor became who he became. | ||
| So yeah, Conor is going to be favored because Conor brings in millions and millions of dollars. | ||
| Khabib did it his way. | ||
| And now Habib brings him, you know, he's favored. | ||
| So he's going to bring in money and things like that. | ||
| But Dana's not going around saying, yo, you got to be like this guy. | ||
| You got to be like that guy. | ||
| Bisping did it his way. | ||
| Bisping brought in money. | ||
| George did it his way. | ||
| It's just, as long as you want to be real, what you choose to do, you're going to be real with yourself. | ||
| Because at the end of the day, you have to look at yourself in the mirror. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| If you can do what you want to do, and then at the end of the day, look in the mirror when everyone's gone, it's just you, you take a piss in the morning, and then you wake up looking at yourself in your mirror, and you're like, I'm alright. | ||
| Then that's fine. | ||
| Do you. | ||
| Beautiful. | ||
| Beautifully put. | ||
| You're a bad motherfucker, Kamaru. | ||
| My man, Joe, man. | ||
| Thanks for doing this, man. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| It's a pleasure. | ||
| Thanks for telling people your story and inspiring people, and I wish you nothing but the best. | ||
| Thank you, man. | ||
| Thank you, brother. | ||
|
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I appreciate it. |
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