Khalil Rountree-Jr reveals his brutal recovery routine—Finnish ice lake saunas, tumo breathing, and microdosing chocolate mushrooms—while debating Wu-Tang Clan’s sampling legacy and hip-hop’s evolution. After near-career-ending losses like the oblique kick to Pracnio, he now fights with military discipline, prioritizing jiu-jitsu over striking. His upcoming film explores dark sides of combat sports, including painkiller abuse and athlete trauma, mirroring his own struggles: financial desperation at $1K–$2K per fight, pre-pandemic training in Thailand’s Petyan Di gym, and a return to Las Vegas for heat-based conditioning. Rogan praises his resilience and suggests podcasting as a platform for Khalil’s Bitcoin advocacy and raw storytelling, hinting at a broader shift beyond the cage. [Automatically generated summary]
There's like a metal walkway that you can't see, so it looks like you're just walking into the water at night, but there's like a little walkway, like a railway underwater, and you can hold onto the rail and do your lap.
And I think I did it like maybe four times, like four sessions, and it was one of the best things at the end of the night.
So, one of the cool things, too, is, like, doing sauna, ice bath, or, you know, like, cold plunge, but also with this tumor breathing, I feel like something that really helped elevate and, like, activate everything in my body was I took a small little, like, chocolate microdose mushroom.
I ate a little piece of chocolate and then like kind of let that settle in.
We were like calming down and then got into this breathing exercise and when I tell you just there like I just felt so full like my brain was firing differently just so many sensations that I felt that were just like they felt like they were very healthy and like very powerful like I needed those things it was it was a really cool uh cool experience to mix it with uh With the mushrooms a little bit.
I think if people did that, first of all, it doesn't affect your cognitive function in a negative way, like your ability to think or talk or do work or anything like that, but it puts you in such a good place.
You know, like stretching and breathing into stretches and, you know, if you were to microdose and do yoga or something like that, I'm sure it would be something that's...
It's been cool to be able to Yeah, just kind of bring new instruments and techniques into training and make it more exciting and more about fighting and, you know, Focusing more on just like my overall health and yeah ability, you know, just like ability mentally physically Emotionally, right?
And just that mentality, the beat and the drums, you just feel like this, I don't know, like a badass martial artist in a way, like a street martial artist.
I was born in 90. I think it was like 78 or 79. It could have been.
Do you know?
80. Okay, so yeah, so that's that's when rap was essentially modern rap was essentially born and then you know 10 years later 15 years later, you know, you got cool G rap and DJ polo you got all those 90s hip-hop guys Yep, you know correct that's officially released on September 16th, 1970 Did you get to see the Wu-Tang Saga at all on Hulu?
No I hadn't been excited about a show in a long time.
I saw the Wu-Tang Saga, and some people have certain, you know, whatever their opinions on it, but I think to be able to see the background of every single member of Wu-Tang, right?
So it follows each character individually and how they all came together.
And Ashton Sanders, Saunders, who plays the RZA, And just there is a scene in season two where he's sampling the music and it takes him into this like all black room where the, I can't even remember the group that he was sampling, but they pop up.
And they're each playing their instruments.
And then as he turns it down on the keyboard, or as he turns it down on the board, then the guy's still singing, but you can't hear him anymore.
Apparently he was on set for a lot of the scenes and stuff, just kind of overseeing everything or giving his input on this is how it is.
But yeah, being someone who loves to make music and produce beats and stuff, it When I saw that scene, I had to rewind it.
I had to replay it because I'm like, yeah, exactly.
When you're listening, when you're trying to create music and maybe if you're sampling, you might just hear the guitar and you don't want the drums or you don't want the sing.
So you turn that down and you're like, ah, that's the feeling that I want to sample.
So when I saw that, I mean, that was season two, but I was already sold on the show before, you know.
The interesting thing about hip-hop is that it was the first musical genre, at least a popular musical genre, that sampled stuff.
Like in that, they, and they, it, what, you know, it made the songs more interesting because you heard a little bit of an old song in there, and you're like, oh, I remember that beat, but then it's all these new lyrics over that beat that changes what that beat is, and it's like, There was this, you know, there was like a lot of debate in the early days of sampling.
Like, is this stealing?
Like, what is this?
It's like, no, because the other song still exists, and it's obvious that this is a piece of that other song.
It's like someone created this masterpiece already, and I took my favorite part from it and maybe just looped it or sped it up and then kind of made a version of it.
You've just made this amazing, you know, piece of music that I can now listen to on repeat or listen to in a way that, you know, translates to me in a certain way and to millions more.
Yeah, it's not like they're pretending they didn't do that.
You know what I mean?
Stealing is like...
There's been bands that have gotten in trouble because they have a riff that sounds exactly like an old riff that's on a record and they don't give the other band credit.
It's not a sample.
They're just trying to copy it and then they wind up losing all the royalties.
I'm pretty sure that's true, because I remember that song being really interesting, but the beginning of it was too close to a Rolling Stones song, and they lost in court.
Okay, so the Verve received permission from DECA, the record label that had released the orchestral album, to use a few notes of the string melody from the Andrew Oldham Orchestra Instrumentals in exchange for half of the Verve's royalties on Bittersweet Symphony.
What was the song that was the Rolling Stones song that was...
Well, that's sort of the issue, I think, is if they had permission, they had an agreement already in place, and then something in that agreement changed.
I was going to give you a better example before you brought that up, is the I'll Be Missing You, when Puff Daddy took that from the police.
I read this even through a different article where he was being interviewed with one of his bandmates from the police, and that guy was bitching about how he's not getting any money from it.
Sting's taking all of it, and the way he's complaining about not having a chateau in Italy or something, he's like, we don't have chateaus in Italy, we have them in France.
But I think one of the things was the guys didn't really understand the music business.
RZA was like the brains behind it.
He was the one who...
You know, had all of the kind of like business decisions and like, hey, I need you guys to sign this.
I need you guys to sign these contracts so we can get this money to make this music.
And, you know, they kind of trusted him and did it.
And I guess it just it didn't end up really being like a good deal for everybody.
They go over it a little bit in the show, but I think there's another documentary that kind of goes a little bit more in depth, you know, with all that stuff.
Have you ever seen, there's a video from like the 1930s, and it's like, it says, I saw it on YouTube, it was a question mark, like is this the first ever rap?
And it's these dudes rhyming to music on some television show.
And like, yeah.
unidentified
Would you folks like to learn everything in five easy lessons?
So I've been really, really focused and like intrigued in this whole Bitcoin thing lately.
I've been doing a lot of research and just like trying to get my own understanding.
I went to the Bitcoin conference in Miami this year and just got to see and hear Some really, really cool things.
And the people who are pioneering this and really believing in Bitcoin specifically, not just the whole world of cryptocurrency, but Bitcoin itself, I haven't been excited about something like this in a really long time.
And I'm not a finance guy.
Really?
I'm not a guy who grew up knowing about financial systems and networks and stock markets or anything.
And now I'm finally at a point where I'm Starting to be able to see a future for myself and also a way to...
People like me don't really have generational wealth, right?
And I don't see how I can really create that through fighting alone.
So lately I've just been trying to understand more of...
The advancement of technology and kind of where we're headed, right?
Like, for instance, you know, when I was a kid in the 1990s and early 2000s when the internet came versus now.
Like, in that jump in my lifetime, it's night and day difference.
Like, I'm living in the sci-fi compared to what was in the 90s, you know?
So now just, you know, listening to people really, like, Really smart people.
Even like Yeonmi Park, who you had here.
And hearing her and how she spoke about how like Bitcoin is actually helping save some children.
This is what she said.
In North Korea, when women are taken as sex lives and shipped over to Northern China, where these guys are buying them because China has this one-child rule in certain areas, right?
So, if the woman, if the sex slave has a child, then that child is half North Korean and half Chinese and the Chinese won't accept them and they can't go back to North Korea because the women kind of like escaped, right?
Because of that, there's actually what she said are pretty much millions of stateless children who can't get birth certificates, who can't get schooling, who can't get anything, and they're either sent to prison camps as children or killed because what are they going to do with them?
China doesn't accept them and they can't go back to North Korea, so what happens, right?
So there's like underground church groups that are actually taking these kids in and because they can't use Chinese money and they, you know, because it's happening in China, because they can't use Chinese money, the only currency that they can use right now is Bitcoin.
And so people are able to fund them so that they can at least school these kids and feed them and things like that.
So from a currency and money standpoint, there's a small fraction where I'm like, okay, I see how this works.
But then trying to uncover and dive more into the whole...
This system of how this can be implemented into just like daily society, I'm seeing more and more possibility, and it's making me more and more secure on, hey man, I can actually finally have something that I own that's mine.
Like, whatever I earn is going to be mine, and you can't touch it.
No one can touch it.
And there's a guy, Adam Curry, who- He's a good buddy of mine.
Yeah, you know, like Podcast Index.
Now they've created this thing where if you want to have your own platform and not worry about being taken down or censored or whatever, and you can also get paid in Satoshis, which are fractions of a Bitcoin, From the supporters.
So you can stream your stats.
You don't have to buy Bitcoin.
You can create a platform where, hey, I'm speaking.
If I wanted to start one and I'm like, you know what?
I don't have the money to actually buy Bitcoin, but I do have a lot of stuff that I want to talk about.
Subscribe to my podcast.
And then my fans and my followers are streaming to me Satoshis just like they would on Instagram, like likes.
I think of Bitcoin the same way I think about the early internet.
I think they didn't see it coming, and now it's a viable form of currency.
You can actually buy things with it, and I think the government is freaking out.
I think what they're going to try to do...
Is they tried to do some shit with the internet during the Obama administration where they were going to try to censor the internet and it fell apart because people were furious in the uproar and they thought the political repercussions of it were not worth it.
Like the juice wasn't worth the squeeze so they backed off of it.
But I feel that there's going to come a time where some government, whether it's the United States or another government might try it first, they're going to try to implement, I know they already do it in China, but they're going to try to implement a digital currency, a centralized digital currency that they can control.
What's scary about that is they could say, Khalil, we've looked at your behavior online, and you have some marks against you, and so you're not going to be able to buy this.
Or you can only buy staples.
You can buy food and shelter, but we're not going to allow you to travel.
Because that could be a real thing where they could literally limit what you spend your money on.
The more that I hear and the more that I see just the world evolving and...
Governments getting more strict or people getting censored.
And the more that I see parts of freedoms getting stripped away, the more that I'm like, okay, what can I do to kind of get a little bit more control over what's mine for the sake of my own future?
And so, yeah, just like the currency exchange in North Korea where like, Hey, it doesn't matter if you're a millionaire or a billionaire or if you have zero money in your account, starting, you know, next week, turn in your money and get exchange for, you know, for what?
Which, you know, me also says, like, you know, when that happened, if you were a millionaire, then you had to trade in your money for the amount of two bags of kilos or two kilos of rice is what the money that the government gave you.
So like, I'd never been interested in anything like that before, you know?
And like...
I think this was one of the biggest things that really just kind of helped me just pivot in my thinking and really wanting to secure a future for myself moving forward.
You're a great fighter, but if someone didn't know you were a fighter and they just talked to you, they'd be like, oh, he's probably an artist or something.
I get that a lot.
You don't seem aggressive.
But you fight like you got rabies.
It's crazy.
It's interesting.
Your last fight in particular, I felt it was really fascinating because against Roberson, you were fighting with a low stance.
That was a totally different thing.
Like when you fought Eric Anders, you're standing up straight and you were very Thai-style, light on the front leg, and in this fight you're like hunkered down low and almost like a wrestler.
I don't know if there's ever really a game plan, Joe.
Really?
There has been in the past, and I think just game plans for me sometimes require a bit too much thinking, when in reality, yeah, there's some thinking in fighting, but...
I think it's good to have an idea of where I can finish the fight and where I want the fight to go and kind of stick to that.
But if I get too attached to a game plan, then I might miss opportunities to do certain things in the moment.
Yeah, I have a different approach right now to fighting.
I think it feels more like my duty as if I'm in the military.
Really?
As if when I'm not fighting, I'm enjoying my family and I'm figuring out new ways to create a future for myself and invest money and get into more of a security mindset because I want to.
I don't have any really role models to look up to as far as like, how do I model myself after this?
I think I want to be...
Wealthy, man.
You know, like, if I'm out here fighting and putting my life on the line and, like, for what we do, I mean, we all know it's no shot at the UFC. I'm very grateful for what I get paid, but, man, it's not enough.
And so, like, I have to figure out ways to, you know...
Have security for myself, but also to preserve my own life and my own body because I'm going in there with another guy who's a trained beast, you know, and like my face could get broken and, you know, so many different things can end my career at, you know, I don't know what the other guy's thinking, so I've got to do what I've got to do.
So that's why I feel like lately I'm fighting for more my life than I am for a sport.
You know, like, when I go in there, when I fight, you're facing me, like, the man, the person who, like, you kind of have to kill me to beat me in a way.
But when you throw it sideways, like when you have a sideways stance, like when you threw it, it was essentially like a front leg sidekick to the knee, right?
It's a different technique.
Like that dude, knee stomps, where it says knee stomps, MMA Uncensored, that's a sidekick.
I'd say, like, not long term because nothing was, like, torn or anything, but it was, like, there was, like, a stiffness for a good, like, two months.
Yeah, because it was, like, right on the top of my knee, right, you know, like, right above the patella, and it was just, like, it just, for me to bend it all the way or stretch, I had to do a lot of, you know, stretching and things, icing, stuff to really fix it.
So, I mean, that was, like, the mentality switch kind of happened knowing that I was on my last UFC, you know, fight on the contract, and I knew that I just, I'm not done.
I still want to continue to make the best run that I can, knowing internally that I gave my best efforts.
Uh, because after I had spoken to you from being in Thailand and having that performance with Eric Anders, all that, um, I had reached a place where I felt like I was just happy with my life.
And I was in Thailand and I saw just the quality of life there.
And I had, you know, I had this idea that I was going to live there forever.
And, um, I would have been happy just like serving coffee at a, you know, at a cool spot in You know, in Sukhumvit, Bangkok, you know, because like just the people there are so cool.
And so I just I came to a point where I'm like, I think I'm striving for too much like in America.
Like, just, I want to have all of these things.
I want to have a big house and I want to have a lot of money when in reality, like, I don't absolutely need it all because I'm, I'm, my heart is full right now, you know?
So I just, and I wanted to fight Muay Thai and the UFC were like, no, you can't do that.
I wanted to fight in the stadium, you know, at Raja Damnarn Stadium.
And my friend, who's like one of the biggest promoters in Thailand, was like, yeah, I can do it.
And we can make it for the WBC heavyweight belt.
And I was like, you mean the green one?
He's like, yeah, we can make it at the stadium.
And I was like, okay.
But I had to get the clearance from UFC and obviously that's a hard no.
And so I was so passionate about wanting to stay in Thailand and wanting to fight Muay Thai that I was willing to give up my last fight in the UFC and kind of become like a sensation in Thailand.
And, like, even to this day, there's a part of me that still wants to do it.
But now, like I said, I'm worried.
I'm not worried, but I'm focused on, like, just creating something out of all of this, you know, for myself, for my family, you know, something like some type of generational wealth, man.
So I was locked down there for, yeah, for all of 2021, or 2020. My fiance and I were there and we decided we have to come back because at that time it was very hard to get any type of paperwork from the embassy and my debit card got lost.
The height of the pandemic.
Phone lines were tied up.
Embassy was not taking anybody to get visa renewals.
It was just such a pain in the ass process for me to still be there because of the pandemic.
And we decided I have to go back to America for a little bit.
And then once I came back here, I got booked to fight.
That's where I plan to also spend a good portion of my money, too, moving forward, is being able to fund a trip to the mountains or Big Bear or something where, like, hey, or even build something like Cowboys Ranch, something very small that, hey, we're in camp, and for the next eight weeks, we're in camp.
And if you're my coach, you're here, and if you're my training partner, you're here, and the world doesn't exist.
Trips and sweeps are some of my favorite things to do now.
It all comes from being able to be a student of the game and see...
One of the trainers, he didn't even really talk to me much, but one day I was training and he was like, if you don't have defense, you're not a fighter.
Yeah, you can have all the offense in the world, but your defense sucks, so work on your defense.
And that's checking kicks, blocking kicks, being able to identify offense and defense.
Deliver full strikes and then defend fully.
So they have a very simple way of putting things, but it's all for a reason.
So now I think...
Yeah, I can show it more than I can explain it from across the table, you know what I mean?
I think what's going to help me stay motivated and stay passionate about being here in the UFC and kind of going into this new run is having an equal balance in my life.
Nah, it's definitely something that I watched, and there's some cheesy parts.
but overall like the storyline and the fact that all of us really did go in there and like give our best I think it shows you know what I mean I think it shows and if you're a fan of oh yeah here's the trailer can you rewind it really quick with the sound is that possible okay and this is out uh it's on tubi yeah you stream it through tubi he wants you to throw the fight Trey goes down more later than round two.
unidentified
you go down for good baby girl Dad!
I told you to throw the fight.
What do I got to do to walk out of you with my daughter?
I can't say too much, but it has a lot to do with...
How athletes and fighters and celebrities are always like we are often looked at in this light where people see us as like stars and like larger than life but don't really realize and remember that we're human beings and that we have the same you know Struggles and things as any other person.
We have families, we have worries, we have bills, just like everybody else.
Right.
And oftentimes when we hear about drugs in sports, we think PEDs, right?
But there's only a handful of guys that, you know, that can do it and that love it.
Like, those are the guys that are going to go down in history for, like, being fighters.
Being fighters.
Andre Arlovsky is a fighter.
He's that guy.
There's a handful of those.
Unfortunately, I'm just not that guy that wants to continue to go in there and go to war with people to hopefully win and hopefully make a living out of it.
You have a lot of potential to do a lot of different things.
One of the things that I think you could do and you could be really successful at that would leave you independent is being a podcaster.
I really think you could do that.
I thought that from the first time we did it together, and I was like, yeah, 100%.
Because you have an interesting take on things, and you're a very smart guy, and you've been around the world, you've seen a lot of things, you've had a lot of wildlife experiences, and you have your own individual, unique take on things.
You talk to some people, and you're like, oh, I've heard these kind of opinions before, but you have a very specifically Khalil viewpoint on things.
Damn, that's actually, I've never really, like, it's probably crossed my mind before, but to look at it after you've kind of described me in a certain way, I'm like, oh, okay, yeah, that kind of makes sense.
I mean, when Steve Jobs went on stage to demonstrate podcasts on Apple Music, I think it was at the time, it was on iTunes, the podcast he pulled up was No Agenda.
He pulled up Adam Curry's podcast.
It might have been A different podcast at the time?
Was it no agenda back then?
Do you remember?
Because it was like he gave this speech, a conference, and when Steve Jobs was talking about Apple Podcasts, like how to get podcasts, he pulled up Adam Curry's podcast.
But if you have questions and you're a guest, you can always ask questions.
I don't give a shit.
We're just talking.
I mean, I don't think of this as an interview.
I just think of us as talking.
I have questions for you, but if you have questions too, I don't give a shit.
But you could sit down with a notepad and just any subject that you would like to discuss, like Bitcoin, because you went to that Bitcoin conference, and just write out some stuff about Bitcoin and maybe have someone on that's a Bitcoin expert, and you could ask them about how did this get started?
Are there other crypto coins that you're interested in?
There's so many different angles you could take.
And then you could take that with music.
You could take that with, I mean, you could have all kinds of different people on your podcast.
You have all kinds of different interests, right?
You have different interests in art, interests in culture, interests in, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, there's so many different things you could talk about.
Well, I see it as an extension because so many people are so concerned about social media, right?
We're talking about likes and engagement and everything like that.
That's a big thing with people.
Well, what is a podcast other than the ultimate form of social media?
That's what it is.
It's the ultimate form of social media.
It's like, I have social media, I have Facebook, I have Twitter, I have Instagram, but this is my real social media.
If you want to know who I am, you listen to me talk.
And I mean, just your journey in going to Thailand and training over there and the big adjustments and leaps that you've made.
I mean, if you watch some of your early fights to post-Thailand training, you changed, you know?
Change your mindset.
That's interesting to people.
People like when people do things and talk about them and get excited because we all feed off of each other's energy and passion and we all gather inspiration from other people.
And that's one of the things that makes podcasts interesting.
It's like I get to listen to the way another person thinks and it can flavor the way I think and maybe enhance the way I think.
Maybe give me a different perspective that I maybe didn't have before.
Yes, yeah, and you just keep adding to them, you know, and then each one you learn a little bit more, like you go over that one, like, well, I was a little clunky on that one, or that was good because I did this, I'm going to do that more often, and then just keep building on it.
I wish more fighters did that, because there's a lot of interesting guys that are fighters.
Sanhagen's another guy.
I think he could have a really good podcast, too.
He's an interesting guy.
He's just a name I threw out there.
There's a lot of names.
You could bring up guys who would be really good at podcasts.
The life of a fighter is a life of extreme, intense action in brief moments in time and arduous training and discipline and drive for months on end for one intense moment in time.
And it sucks because when we're champions, it's kind of when all of the opportunities and things like that present themselves.
And people want to...
Tell me about your backstory.
Tell me about the things you've overcome to get you to be where you are today, a champion.
But it's like, nah man, there's a lot of fighters in here right now.
We're busting our asses and we've been through crazy shit.
And we're not champion yet, but we can help millions of people.
Just based off of our own stories.
You get me?
There's different ways.
There's a lot of people that can be impacted by these fighters that are going out and putting everything on the line to become the champion.
There's a lot of work that can be done now and a lot of people that can be helped now through listening to maybe what we have to say or what we've been through or some type of inspiration to help the people who are struggling.
We're all struggling, but...
Yeah, to just be of some type of like light to a lot of people.
Well, you got real emotional in your post-fight speech where you were talking about how at one point in time you were suicidal and you feel like you have a message that you could reach out to someone that might be in that same sort of position.
I mean like I've sensed that I've gotten so many messages and I didn't know that it would bring this amount of Energy and attention.
I didn't know what type of energy and attention it would bring.
I just know that I wanted to be able to use my victory to maybe inspire someone to stick around another day and not give up and maybe find some type of...
Something to hold onto to just keep you from making a decision to like take your life, right?
Because I know that that's what it was for me is having someone like my family or a coach that's like, hey man, come back to the gym tomorrow.
But since saying that, I think for the first month my inboxes were flooded to where it became almost like uncomfortable because everyone was reaching out to me as if I was going to help them.
You get me?
So I'm going, I'm getting these like, I'm getting messages like, dude, I'm going to take my life tomorrow.
I'm like, how do I read this and just let it pass, man?
So like, there was, there was one guy specifically that it was like, he's like, yeah, man, like, thanks for the message and all that stuff.
But like, you know, this, my birthday is on this date.
And like, this is when I plan to make it happen.
But, like, I respect what you're doing and I respect everything.
He's like, but, like, on the day that I was born is the day that I plan to do it.
And it was only in, like, three days, Joe.
And I was like, dude, and I fucking, I picked up the phone and I just started sending voice messages out of nowhere, just, like, just talking, you know?
And I'm like, I don't know this guy, but, like, I can't just let this pass.
And then, yeah, so there's just messages and a lot of people that are reaching out.
I think actually the last message I sent a voice message but I never got one back and I've just been on my own life journey to where I never reached back out but I'm now reminded and I'll probably reach back out today but like it's not just that one there's a lot and it's like and if I don't get back to a certain message it's almost like yeah you don't really care you know and I have to ignore these things too but so the attention that I've gotten now has been more like People have been reaching out
to me specifically to help them.
And me being who I am, I'm just trying to find different ways that I can.
It could have been like a year before I started fighting.
I was going on tour with my friends who were musicians at that time.
I was living in a two-bedroom apartment, but it was almost like a one-bedroom apartment because there was four or five of us in there and we had to use one of them as storage.
Four or five people, two-bedroom.
We had to use one room as storage for all of our stuff.
Plus, we had downsized from a home because in my...
Life we moved a lot just from my mom kind of struggling to make ends meet for all of her kids.
I'm a single mother trying to raise four kids.
So we had a larger place but then we had to downsize so one of the rooms like I said was a storage.
I think rent was about 750 bucks and between the four of us we could barely even make that.
Every month.
And just really had no hope and no kind of like vision.
I was already overweight.
I'd been overweight my whole life.
I had friends who played music, so I joined them on tour.
But even then, I'm like this big black dude, overweight, touring with heavy metal bands across the world, like across the country.
So I already fell out of place in a way.
I connected to the music and I connected to my friends, but when we start going places and when we start going to Alabama and the heart, when we start going to places around the country, I'm like, okay, I really feel out of place here.
And not only that, I almost felt worthless because these guys were playing on stage and I'm sitting here just selling the merchandise and I'm almost envious of them because they're following their passion and their dream and they're excited every night to go on stage and I'm just kind of an extra.
Well, they treated me well.
My friends always treated me well.
But just kind of comparing where am I in my life?
What do I have versus the things that they're receiving?
So I was about like 19, 18, 19. And it just, coming home from tour, after just like being stimulated or being on tour, Just getting home, kind of back to the same old shit, back to my, you know, my apartment, back to seeing my mom struggle, back to seeing, you know, my brother struggle.
Just everybody, and there's just like this struggling, hopeless type of place.
And I was very unhealthy, and if, I mean, if anybody, like, you should know, if you're unhealthy, and your gut's unhealthy, and your brain's unhealthy, and you're smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, and only drinking soda, and eating fast food, if you're in that...
If that stuff's in your gut and in your brain, what do you think your mind is?
I just remember sitting on the stairs and just smoking, chain smoking, and drinking at the same time, and just being in this place of like, fuck it, dude.
If I had to wake up, if I had fucking died a night in my sleep, like, I really don't care.
Like, I'd much rather that happen because tomorrow I'm just gonna wake up to the same thing, right?
So, um, I think that might have been the night where, I can't really remember because a lot is a blur, but that might have been the night where, um, I was pretty high on just weed and just a lot of alcohol and a lot of cigarettes.
And I remember going to bed, or trying to go to bed, just kind of laying there, just all fucked up.
And I felt like my heart was going to stop.
I felt it doing really weird things.
I felt my heart doing weird things.
And I was only 19. And it scared me.
And that's the moment where I realized, oh shit, I don't really want to die.
I was kind of driving myself to that.
I was purposely, I'm going to smoke two packs.
I'm going to drink the whole bottle.
You know, like, things like that.
Like, just really trying to fuck myself up, you know?
Like, so not doing anything, like, I wasn't swallowing a whole thing of pills or, you know, slitting my wrists or anything like that.
Like, physically doing anything to take my life quick, but I was trying to fuck myself up.
They started pulling up pictures of Bob Sapp and shit.
And they were like, oh, this is Khalil.
He's going to look like...
They were passing around the phone in the van and like, yeah, when you fight, you're going to be like this guy and pulling up pictures of Bob Sapp, literally.
Because that was the biggest comparison, because I wasn't ripped, I wasn't shredded, I was fat.
So they looked for a big guy who was an MMA fighter, and at the time it was Bob Sapp.
So they thought it was kind of a joke, and I remember hearing a couple of comments of like, okay, we'll see you next tour.
Or like, if it doesn't work out, you always have a spot here, you always have a job here.
So when we started researching MMA, my brother and I, we started researching together, and we would look up certain videos, and we got into Pride, because Pride, at the time, that was like the best fights.
And I remember seeing Vanderlei's Silva, and he's doing the fucking...
And it's saying, Vanderlei's Silva, the axe murderer.
Muay Thai specialist and I was like what the fuck is Muay Thai and this guy's the axe murderer and I just saw his I saw his violence and that I connected to it in a way and then we started researching him and realized that he had a gym in Vegas and I'd used all the that last tour I used all the money to I collected all my tips and my savings and that was enough to get my brother and I a membership and then that's where it all unfolded.
Every sparring session was a fight with everybody.
And it was kind of like top dog mentality almost.
But we all loved each other.
We all cared about each other.
We were a unit, you know, like that gym.
We all beat the living shit out of each other, but we were a family.
Nobody could take that from us.
Until things just kind of towards the end kind of started to fall apart.
What fell apart?
I think there were just some bad eggs, man.
Bad seeds.
Just kind of broke...
I don't remember.
I wasn't too connected, but it might have been on the business side or even on the team side and just kind of started to break things apart, spoil the batch, and we all kind of split and went separate ways.
You know, one of my first training sparring sessions was with Daniel Cormier before he even started training MMA. What?
Yeah.
Dude, he came in.
I was still overweight.
I was still big.
And Daniel Cormier came in.
Before he even fought MMA, he was just thinking about it.
He came to Vanderlei's gym.
Him and I sparred.
He wrestled the shit out of me.
I went home so pissed off that day.
I was like, fuck this, I'm over it.
He was throwing me around.
Next day I come in, my coach gives me a piece of paper and it says, Daniel Cormier, he says, hey, after you leave today's session, he's like, quit being a little bitch and go research this.
Like, go look at this on YouTube.
And I typed in his name and I saw that he was this collegiate fucking gold medal wrestler.
And then I came back the next day to the gym feeling a lot better because, yeah, Daniel Cormier had like thrown me around.
And he, like I said, he hadn't even competed in his first MMA match yet.
But if you go and you push 100%, every time you go to, like, your mental and physical limits, like, you'll see some results really, really, really fast.
So do you remember specifically when you realized as you started training that this was for you?
Do you remember like when you realized it was changing your life and that you were like so in the beginning were you still smoking and still drinking and still doing all that shit when you first started training?
But the guys who are active champions and who have a lot of money riding on them, if they were caught smoking, they'd probably get hit with a stick or something.
Oh, no kidding.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They might sneak it, you know, just because when you're in Thailand, when you're a part of a Thai camp, like, you know, like you're under like ownership, right?
And so they might feel like it's a bit of like rebellion, like we're going to sneak out and smoke cigarettes, you know, because it's the only thing to really do.
After, let's say, just to be safe, let's say the first week, which would be three days, right?
Within a week, I went and trained three days because of that we only had enough gas to get to the gym for three days.
So, every single time but the third day was like confirmation that I just felt so much peace and like I'd slept so good in between or like you know that night because I'm like wow I just went and let out of all this like bad energy and got so much good energy back and I'm tired muscles are sore but I want to go back but I can't move and I was like man this is like this is fucking awesome.
That was really my take on it when I first started is that it was an amazing thing and I just got addicted to that feeling of feeling exhausted but being proud.
I had something that I was proud of.
I was exhausted because I was actually applying myself to something that was good for me and I was surrounded by good people.
So a couple months in, you start physically feeling better, you start to feel your face slimming, and then you knew you were on this good path, but did you think that you were going to fight?
So I went from eating fast food and, like, sugar and stuff in boxes and all that to kind of just what I saw people in the gym eating.
Chicken rice, broccoli, steamed fish, you know, things like that.
Stuff I never even would, like, think twice about.
And I kind of just...
I saw what the people at the gym were eating and the fighters were bringing their meals to the gym and eating lunch right after training.
I just kind of was just a product of like influence, right?
I'm looking at these guys.
I'm like, hey, he's eating chicken and rice and that guy's got a bunch of broccoli.
So that's what I would go shop for.
And then I'd...
So that I could kind of feel like I fit in and I'd, you know, cook at home.
My brother and I'd cook eggs and chicken and broccoli and bring it to the gym so we can eat with the guys and kind of eat the same stuff because we'd never been in an MMA gym before.
We never knew the culture, you know?
My brother played...
Like high school football and basketball where afterward they'd go to 7-Eleven and get like hot Cheetos and put cheese in it and like drink soda.
You know, like that's where we come from.
That's what we did.
So yeah, like I think being in the environment of an MMA gym just kind of started teaching us how to eat.
So we started just eating more whole foods, right?
Yeah, that's where the bloating in my stomach started to go down and energy levels started to increase.
I, that's where I picked up my addiction to coffee.
I would actually brew, I'd brew black coffee, and I'd put the whole thing in the fridge the next day, and then the next day in the morning I'd pick it up and just chug it straight out of the coffee container thing, and I'd be like, ah, like hyped, and then I'd go running, and then come back, and then, yeah, and then that became kind of like my new addiction.
I couldn't smoke cigarettes, so I'm like, ah, I gotta find some coffee.
Yeah, all the way up until I transferred over to Black House MMA. And so when you were at Vanderlei's gym and you're training, you said about a year in you had your first fight?
I mean, it was for fighting, but it was, you know, they removed some of the scar tissue around his eyes and tightened it up because he would, you know, you would breathe on him and he would cut.
I keep a pretty consistent diet just in life and in training camp.
There was a time while I was in Thailand and a little bit after that I tried to do a vegan thing and that was just causing for me some gut inflammation because I was eating the Beyond Meat and all that stuff and I was just like, ugh.
But it was just, no matter what, I just wasn't, I felt inflammation in my gut.
But I didn't know what it was coming from until, like, my coach started telling me, like, a lot of the, like, beans and plants and stuff that I was eating contain lectins, which are, like, almost like toxins that plants and beans and stuff can release as, like, a defense mechanism.
So if I'm eating them, it's not too good.
But I went from that to pretty much, like, a carnivore-type keto, you know, diet where – Like my last training camp, my daily meal would be, I'd probably eat within a day like four burger patties.
Yeah, four burger patties, eggs, steak, elk, like just primarily like meat and fats.
When I was trying to do strict carnivore, what I would notice is when I would work out really hard, I just didn't have that extra gear.
I would fade off.
And then when I added fruit to my diet, I changed that.
I think, you know, I subscribe to Paul Saladino's way of doing it.
He's the carnivore MD guy.
And he essentially says, like, if you look at the most cherished foods by hunters and gatherers, number one is meat, number two is fruit and honey and raw dairy.
And he believes that to thrive, to have your body operate optimally, that those are the foods that your body's most comfortable with.
I think it varies, you know, because Jake Shields doesn't have any problem when he eats vegetarian.
He just has eggs for protein and occasionally some other things, but most of what he eats is vegetable-based, and he seems fine, I think.
I know a lot of people think that people are using that as an excuse to do steroids.
Like, oh, my supplements were tainted.
No, a lot of fucking supplements have bullshit in them.
I know that for a fact because at Onnit, when we started putting together AlphaBrain, what we would do is we would have a third party that would mix all of our nutrients for us.
We would test it independently and we'd find stuff in there that's not supposed to be in there.
A lot of the stuff, like if people were buying creatine from China, well, you're getting the same lab that's putting that together might also be making steroids.
Because you're thinking about the future, you're thinking about life, but then you're also recognizing that when it comes down to training camp, you're all in.
And so, like, I picked up enough to where, like, I could live day to day and take my taxis and, like I said, order my You were telling me once that the way they throw kicks is different in that they're more relaxed as they're throwing the kicks.
Yeah, yeah, because the first day that I ever trained, I couldn't sleep.
I remember I got there pretty late at night, so I couldn't sleep and I went to go train the next day and everyone was like really intrigued by my size because they'd never really seen anybody my size.
And then some of the trainers put me into clinch with these guys who are no more than 145 pounds.
So, in a Muay Thai stadium, the locker room is about the size of this, and all of the fighters that are even fighting against each other are all in the same room, and they're all getting massages with Thai oil and stuff.
But then, right before you walk out, you sit on a bench, and you're just, like, sitting next to the guy that you're about to fight.
And most of the time, the guys are just talking, like, shooting the shit about life, about, like, something that has nothing to do with fighting.
They're just like, oh, yeah, did you see that?
Yeah, yeah, I saw it.
And then, like, they go and they fight.
And there's no...
Even the fighting itself, the spirit of Muay Thai is...
It's beautiful, man.
It's crazy.
As violent as it is, it's so non-violent.
When they go in there and fight, there's so much respect before, a little bit of during, and after, that it blew my mind.
It blew my mind.
That's why all I wanted to do was just learn and study it and be around it.
And it's also very unusual that it's so damn effective.
And if you think about the history of martial arts and you think about the history of kicking martial arts, there's so many different countries that developed their own specific kicking styles.
But they were the ones who figured out how to kick the legs correctly.
They were the ones who figured out how to fight in the clinch correctly.
They're the ones who figured out elbows better than anybody.
Because there's people that make a living off of the gambling, and they're passionate about the gambling.
Like anything in life, there can be some bad parts to it.
From someone who's coming from an outside perspective and seeing the type of life that it's providing for these people, I think that the gambling's a good thing.
No, but sometimes you hear the impact of a shot and you realize how effective it is.
If you're dealing with significant blows, you can kind of tell, but sometimes you can tell plus the impact sound adds to your understanding of what kind of force was involved in that strike.
Sometimes I guess it is a little bit better to like watch a fight without the commentators or yeah You know and you just you're seeing it for what it is I would like fight Fight judges to have the same setup that I have when I'm doing commentary though When you know DC and John Anik and I are doing commentary we have all these monitors Yeah, so there's sometimes when shit's going down.
I can't see it right right in front of me I prefer to look right through the cage and But sometimes I have to look at the screen, and I don't think they have that option, unfortunately.
Yeah, I still don't understand how they're scoring these things.
I know they say that it's like, you know, strikes landed, cage control, stuff like that, but I don't really see that being the way that they're scoring these fights.
And then he caught him in a triangle afterwards that.
So it's like you've got to give credit to Volkanovski for having the heart to gut through it, for having the technique to get out of that position, and then for smashing him afterwards.
But is the smashing him afterwards more valuable than those two almost submissions?
I don't know.
It's tricky.
I think Volkanovski, if I wanted to look at the judges' scorecards, I would assume, rightfully so, he won those rounds.
Because he did get out, he did land those shots, and it was super impressive.
And at the end of the fight, he's beating the fuck out of Ortega.
And, you know, looking at each round in its entirety, he was imposing his will more.
And at the end, he was dominating.
But, boy...
You know, look at like a boxing fight.
If a guy clips you and drops you, that's a 10-8 round, right?
How's it not a 10-8 round if you're almost going to sleep?
Particularly people that already had COVID, you know, when they were telling him they had his mandatory vaccination, he's like, that doesn't even make sense.
He's like, there's all these scientific studies that show that natural infection is superior.
Recovering from natural infection imparts superior antibodies.
He didn't have a fake version of COVID. I don't want to say fake, but non-symptomatic, asymptomatic.
He had fucking COVID. And he got over it, and they're like, you gotta get vaccinated.
So we heard about it in 2019 and had already started prepping in January, my girl and I. So we started ordering boxes of masks and alcohol and all this stuff just to prepare.
Yeah, man.
Like, no shit, no bullshit.
And our house, or her house in New York, was stocked of everything.
So then she came back out to Thailand with me, and that's when Thailand told us, like, hey guys, you have about two weeks.
We're going to do a lockdown.
There's this pandemic happening.
It's starting to spread everywhere.
So you have about two weeks to go to the grocery store and, like, get what you need to get, but your area, your, like, neighborhoods are going to be shut down.
Indefinitely.
Like, we don't know when, but we're just encouraging everybody to just lock down and stay put.
And at the time, people were already wearing masks in Thailand because of the pollution, right?
PM25 or PM9.5, something like that.
It was like, there's a little particle that you can breathe in that was causing defects in newborn children.
Because of all the pollution and the barbecue stuff.
Particulates.
Yeah, so masks were never, like, a problem.
Which was cool because we didn't have to hear about, like, just...
Everyone was like, okay, cool.
We'll put on a mask.
We'll go shopping.
We'll stay home.
We don't want to go to jail.
You know, because Thai police are like, you either do this or you get fined or you go to jail.
So for, like, the first month and a half, two months, we were isolated at home.
And we couldn't go outside.
There was a curfew of, like, 4 o'clock.
So in between, like, you know, in the morning time and up until 4 o'clock, we could at least drive to the grocery store.
But even then there was like a police barrier where they would like sign a piece like they sign you off like you got 30 minutes to go to the grocery into the grocery store and back.
So what that did is because everybody was locked down and stationary they were able to see where the sick people were coming from in what areas.
So, like, they're like, ah, this place in the past month, there hasn't been one case reported.
But down here, there's been six.
So let's open this place up and give them a boundary.
Like, you can't go past this.
We're going to open.
You don't have to stay at home all day, but you can at least go this far.
But then, like, everyone down here, because you have six cases, we're going to keep you locked down.
So they were finding where these cases were at and then letting other places open up slowly but surely until...
Eventually, it was like almost everybody was able to travel freely again through Phuket, at least.
How long ago was that?
This was in 2020. I'd say from March 2020 all the way until...
The gyms weren't open, but we would train just at home.
George, my coach at the time, I would hit pads with him.
He had access to like his father-in-law's like Muay Thai Stadium and we'd just go there and hit pads and Have a group of like maybe three four guys to come and train so No, the gyms weren't open, but we had our own like personal Team and so eventually shit got too crazy as you were saying before and you had to get out of there.
Yeah, because as a foreigner They told us like if you're a foreigner you can stay here or you can leave and Like, but we're shutting down the airport.
We don't know when we're going to open it back up.
We want to get this thing under control.
So that caused a lot of the people to go back to their home country instead of to stay.
So I was the guy who was like, I'm staying.
So I went to the embassy and I got my stamps.
for extension but because of just the embassy being tied up and the pandemic going crazy and other places it was just hard to to get through any phone lines you know so I needed to get an extension or I needed a certain piece of paper for my visa you know just for like that those type of documents and it was just almost impossible to get and so I started to get pretty nervous and
I didn't want to get fined or banned from Thailand, banned entry, you know, the next time I want to come.
So that's kind of what I was like, fuck, I just have to go home for a bit then.
My girl and I have actually been having dreams like I've had like reoccurring dreams the past month of like being there and I have a Thai family you know and like she has a Thai family too and we just we really miss it and we miss the essence of you know of Thailand and the training so we have a plan to go back soon.
Fortunately, I've had enough to do, and I've been busy since the fight, and I'm grateful for that.
But I do have to go back to training soon, so I don't know if I'll be able to do it in this break.
But it is my goal to be able to go there this year, for sure.