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March 11, 2013 - The Joe Rogan Experience
02:50:41
Joe Rogan Experience #335 - Bas Rutten
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b
bas rutten
01:37:29
j
joe rogan
01:09:07
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a
andy stumpf
00:03
b
brian redban
00:33
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Speaker Time Text
joe rogan
Oh, sweet baby Jesus.
We're back again, ladies and gentlemen.
This episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast is brought to you by Squarespace.
What's that, Joe Rogan?
Why am I talking about myself in the third person?
I'm getting bored with these things.
Squarespace is a new sponsor, and it's a very cool one that I'm excited about.
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If you want to use it, you say, hey, you know what?
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Use the code Joe3.
It's three because now we're in the Munchmark.
I don't know why they decide to have the number correlating with the March.
unidentified
Tracking months.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Month of March.
Month of March, rather.
Month of March.
If you use the code JOE3, you will get 10% off your first purchase on new accounts.
Including monthly and annual plans.
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brian redban
And if you want to sell something, they have a shop feature that you can just pretty much sell anything you want to.
unidentified
And it's really easy to upload images.
joe rogan
Yeah, super easy to create your own online store.
Super fast.
So check it out.
It's a very cool website.
We're also brought to you by Ting.
Ting is, as we said on the podcast, if we're selling something, it's always going to be a good product.
We're not selling anything that's dog shit.
And we also, one of the things that we like is companies that have a good ethic behind them.
And I've never even heard of a company like Ting before.
The way Ting is, what Ting is, is a cell phone company that uses the Sprint backbone, but they have no contracts.
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So it credits you the difference on your next bill.
I've never even heard of that before.
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That's amazing.
It's a beautiful company.
I think some companies like Ting are starting to realize that you don't have to rip people off to make money.
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What you can do is offer people a good service with an ethical ideal behind it and No, try to rip them off.
Just try to give them something good.
And people will respond.
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So it's a really badass service.
So please go and check it out.
Rogan.ting.com This Wednesday night, is it, Brian?
unidentified
Thursday night?
joe rogan
This Thursday night.
You guys have a DeskWad show at the...
What does that mean, DeskWad show?
It's a comedy show.
It's a comedy show this Thursday night at one of the coolest comedy clubs in the Southern California area.
American Comedy Company in San Diego is this really badass, low ceiling, like really set up, cool.
brian redban
Yeah, nice area too, so like afterwards there's huge bars across the street you can just party at afterwards.
joe rogan
Yeah, if you've never been to San Diego, you know, you should go down just to check it out.
It's such a cool little area.
People walk there, you know?
Nobody walks in LA. LA is like walk free.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Unless you're like, there's like a couple of blocks on Melrose where you might catch somebody walking around.
Right.
But for the most part, people are not really walking around in LA. From their cars.
Yeah, that's about it.
So it's this Thursday night, and the lineup is Yoshi.
You've heard him on our podcast.
unidentified
Yoshi didn't, I guess.
joe rogan
Yoshi didn't podcast.
He's also, a lot of times he's on David Cho's podcast.
Very, very funny guy.
Billy Bonnell, very funny guy.
Jason Teeb, of course, our buddy.
We've had him on before.
He's a very, very cool guy and funny guy.
And Tony Hinchcliffe, a really hot, up-and-coming comic.
I really believe that Tony Hinchcliffe, like five, six years from now, is going to be a serious...
unidentified
He's going to blow the fuck up.
brian redban
I was watching him last night, and the most amazing thing about him is how fast he was.
Don Barris goes, what do you think the lead singer of Counting Crows, is he Jewish or not Jewish?
And Tony goes, Jewish, Jewish, it should be the Counting Crows.
unidentified
It was so fast.
I was like, how the fuck did you do that that fast?
joe rogan
He's hilarious.
He's a very, very funny guy.
So that's next Thursday night.
unidentified
Or this Thursday.
joe rogan
I'm sorry.
This, as in the next one that comes up.
This one.
This one in three days.
brian redban
And it's AmericanComedyCo.com for tickets.
joe rogan
We are also brought to you by Onnit.com.
One of the things we started carrying, it's O-N-N-I-T. One of the things that we started carrying is we started carrying these fitness apparatus things, like kettlebells.
And now we've added to them.
We have a mace.
Which is this crazy pipe with a metal ball.
It looks like a weapon.
And a steel club.
Again, it's not a weapon.
Club bells are a very functional way to get strength, especially in your shoulders.
They're not even that heavy.
The ones I use, you use between 15 and 25 pounds.
It seems like nothing.
But when you do all these things, they're called shield casts and all these different exercises with the clubs, you'd be amazed at how much they wear you out.
One of the things that Onnit is interested in, really the only thing we're interested in, is things that increase your physical performance.
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I mean, you can get some benefit out of any kind of lifting weights, but to really get the maximum amount of benefit from your time, you wanted to Do something that involves your whole body.
And you'd be amazed at what kind of a workout you can get with a 35-pound kettlebell.
I mean, it is phenomenal.
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I mean, I'm talking 20 minutes in, you're ready to die from a 35-pound kettlebell.
Go to Onnit.com and check out all of the fitness equipment.
And I always advise anybody, if you're even thinking about doing something like that, get a trainer.
Just hire at least once.
To have someone show you how to do the proper maneuvers so you use proper technique, you're not putting a lot of strain on your body.
You really should, if you can afford it, get a trainer.
If you can't, there are some online videos you can get off of YouTube that are good instructional videos, but it's very important to start light and use good form.
You can always get injured in lifting weights.
Boss Rootin will tell you about that later.
I've been injured many times exercising.
It's just part of the program.
If you want to get fit, you have to take chances.
If you take chances, sometimes you get hurt, but you want to minimize that as much as possible.
One of the best ways is good form.
Always use good form.
Never allow yourself to get sloppy when you're training.
If you feel like you're getting sloppy, most likely you're using too heavy a weight.
It's just for functional strength, you really can't beat the stuff that we have at Onnit.com.
Battle robes, kettle bells, maces, steel clubs.
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And I say this too much, but it's impossible to do a commercial fucking 100,000 times in a row and seem sincere.
But I am sincere, and as is Onnit, the company is a very ethical company.
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Alright, you fucks.
Boss Rooten is here, ladies and gentlemen.
We're finna get crazy.
We're gonna get jiggy with it.
And we're gonna learn some knowledge from the great master.
Master Rooten is in the house.
unidentified
The Joe Rogan Experience.
bas rutten
Train by day.
Joe Rogan Podcast by night.
unidentified
All day.
joe rogan
Powerful, boss, rootin', welcome to the podcast, sir.
It's always a pleasure.
bas rutten
Same here, you know, I'm amazed with the commercials, you fox shit motherfuckers, you know, that's great way to, you know, get it out there.
joe rogan
Well, you know what it is, man?
You gotta just be yourself.
You gotta always be yourself.
bas rutten
That's true.
joe rogan
You know, and anybody who doesn't want to hear that kind of stuff, I don't want them listening.
So it's a way of filtering out tight asses.
bas rutten
I don't think that anybody hit the delete button right now.
joe rogan
You never know, man.
Dudes will get pissed off at anything.
They'll decide that your commercial is the reason why their life sucks.
This motherfucker is on it!
Fuck you and fuck on it!
And they'll shoot their fucking computers.
There's someone out there.
You're catching them.
They're at nine before you even meet them.
Just...
And then they just decide.
It's that fucking Boss Rudin O2 trainer that sent me over the top.
bas rutten
How cool is that?
My wife gave it to me just before I walked out.
She said, she's going to be on camera, right?
joe rogan
Yeah, powerful.
That O2 trainer is, it's like for improving the strength of your lungs.
Is that what it is?
bas rutten
That's it.
joe rogan
For folks who don't know, Bas Rutten, former UFC heavyweight champion, if you're not into the world of martial arts, I should always introduce my guests.
I never do.
I just start conversations.
Bas is a good friend.
He's been a good friend for years and one of the greatest mixed martial arts fighters in history.
Legit.
You're a legend.
When you fought Tiyoshi Kosaka, that was one of the highest level MMA fights that we had ever seen up to that date.
When you came into the scene, when you won the heavyweight title, you elevated the entire sport.
You were the fucking man.
bas rutten
Wow.
joe rogan
You know that.
bas rutten
No, no, I didn't know that.
I do know.
I recently found out that I was actually the first heavyweight champion.
I didn't know that.
joe rogan
Well, you were actually, yeah, there were all super fights.
bas rutten
Yeah, there were all super fights.
joe rogan
Well, not only that, you were only about 210, 220 pounds at your heaviest, right?
bas rutten
Yeah, I was at the Randallman fight.
I was under 200 and I was 200 and over.
I literally had to drink water At the weigh-in to make 203, because otherwise they said it's not going to be a title fight.
joe rogan
Yeah, you had to be above the light heavyweight limit was 203 at one point.
Or 200. 200 pounds.
203 in Japan, right?
Pride?
bas rutten
Yeah, I believe so.
joe rogan
They called it middleweight, though.
unidentified
It's...
bas rutten
What is that?
That is 93 kilos, I believe, is 203. Yeah.
Yeah, or 91. Something weird.
joe rogan
So you were a small heavyweight, man.
bas rutten
At that time, that day and age, you could get away with it.
Nowadays, I would fight at 205 because I'm already walking around almost at 205. But at that time, I like the word heavyweight title much better.
And there were all these big guys when you beat up the big guy.
You only had to survive them for like four minutes if they brought an onslaught.
And then it was smooth sailing from there.
You could wear them down.
joe rogan
Yeah, to a lot of mixed martial arts fans, when you look at the eras of fighting, you certainly brought in the era of the technical striker into the heavyweight combat sports.
Because you and Maurice Smith were really like the first guys.
And of course, Maurice came after you.
But they were the first guys to really...
To have real technical striking, not just powerful guys who can knock anybody out, because there's always going to be a lot of those.
Did you see the Bernard Hopkins fight this weekend?
bas rutten
No, I did not.
joe rogan
Great fight.
bas rutten
He won again.
joe rogan
He won again.
bas rutten
48 years old.
This guy is unbelievable.
joe rogan
And what you can learn, like anybody who's interested in any sort of martial art, watching that Bernard Hopkins fight.
bas rutten
Angles, you know, he's really good with that.
unidentified
Technique!
Yep.
joe rogan
His technique is perfect.
His defense, the way he rolls away from shots, and even then he occasionally got hit, but he knows how to cover up, he knows how to protect himself.
And the technical fighters are always going to have an edge.
It's not easy to be technical.
The instincts are just to go crazy and attack.
But there's got to be a method to your madness.
And that's what separates the great men from the other fighters.
bas rutten
Well, you were talking about Maurice Smith, and I have to tell this really funny story real fast because I fought him twice, actually, in Pancras.
And there was this one time I kicked him in the head, and I go, oh, this is easy.
I made a switch kick, but I slipped and I fell on the ground, and he wanted to jump on top of me.
And I go, wait.
unidentified
And he stopped, and I get up, and I go, thank you.
joe rogan
He stopped!
I just said stop.
Yeah, you told me this before.
It's unbelievably ridiculous.
You hypnotized him.
bas rutten
Yeah, that's it.
joe rogan
You used Jedi mind tricks on him.
bas rutten
Time out, time out.
Wait, wait, one second.
joe rogan
You were having some back pains as far back as the Kosaka fight, right?
bas rutten
Yeah, it all started there.
You know, six weeks before the Kosaka fight, I had Del Golar, the wrestler, had him in a triangle choke.
And he thought it was smart to lift me up and slam me down, and he slammed me with my head against a wall in the corner.
And that really did some damage to me.
I had a baby at the time, just couldn't even lay on my chest.
I couldn't breathe, couldn't cough, and I brought that whole thing with me to the Randallman fight as well.
But once they put me on the posters and they introduced me to the world's greatest martial arts, I go, I can't say no now, I gotta do this thing.
You know, so I remember I was in the dressing room, I had this big syringe with lidocaine and I was injecting myself in between my ribs and then the camera crew came in and they see me and I was at the time I believe at Universal Soldiers and they see me injecting and they turned around, they ran out, they thought I was doing something illegal.
I said, dude, I'm just putting lidocaine in here because it was so painful.
joe rogan
So this is when you were about to fight, you were pumping yourself filled with lidocaine.
bas rutten
Yeah, in between the ribs.
joe rogan
Did you ever get an MRI for that?
Find out what that was?
bas rutten
No, it just went away after years, took a long time to sleep.
I took a lot of sleep medication at the time because it would hurt during sleep.
joe rogan
Yeah, you probably had a bulging disc or something, or a herniated disc.
bas rutten
I have a lot of bulging discs.
You know, I just had neck surgery two years ago, and then I now had it again early this year.
And now they fuse three discs together.
Now it's finally, like yesterday, before it started, I feel slightly slowly.
My arm, see, there's a whole dent in here.
joe rogan
Right.
bas rutten
See, in here, it's all gone.
It's really weird, all those muscles have to start refiring, so to say.
joe rogan
So it's because the nerves were cut off.
They were pinched by the herniation.
bas rutten
Yeah, lost complete power, man.
It's a scary thing when you can't grab the milk out of the fridge anymore.
joe rogan
Yeah.
bas rutten
And especially if you're used to doing one-arm pull-ups.
So, yeah, that kind of scared me.
But now we're back on track, and hopefully it comes back.
joe rogan
So you got three discs fused, so upper and lower to one, so it's three in a row.
bas rutten
Three in a row, five, six, and seven.
joe rogan
And is that an issue in putting pressure on the discs above it and below it?
bas rutten
There will.
It will happen, especially the one below it.
That's what they already warned me for.
But my mobility is the same.
I was amazed when I came out because they told me three discs is a big deal, but I don't feel any different than I was before.
joe rogan
That's interesting.
So you probably were hindered in your mobility anyway because of your disc issue.
bas rutten
That's probably the case, yeah.
joe rogan
I'm going through a little bit of a bulging disc right now too, but I don't have any numbness or anything, but I've been getting it treated, I've been getting rolfing done, and I'm getting spinal decompression.
They put you in a machine and stretch you out.
bas rutten
Rolfing, last week I had that done, but this old lady that comes in and just kills me, terrorizes my body.
It's amazing, it's very painful, right?
joe rogan
It is, and you know, a really fascinating conversation I had with this woman yesterday, who is a chiropractor, who told me you would be surprised.
Like, people take anti-inflammatories, but How much you can do with food just by eating resveratrol, cutting out all your wheat, cutting out pasta and gluten and all that crap.
You would decrease your inflammation so much from all that stuff.
We don't understand that we have very powerful immune systems for the most part.
We're constantly fighting things off.
But your body is fighting off inflammation all the time.
And it's better at doing it when it's not being poisoned and when your body doesn't have wheat to deal with.
Like, we don't think about it, but pasta and bread, all that delicious stuff, it's fucking terrible for you.
It's basically sugar.
It's just this sloppy, gooey fucking nonsense that your body's not really supposed to be eating.
And then she was going on and on about Glutathione and resveratrol and all these different antioxidants and eating a clean, much more like paleo diet.
bas rutten
I'm trying.
I'm trying actually gluten-free more now, more often.
Not completely because, you know, I like carbs as well.
But, you know, same breakfast.
Ah, shitty breakfast.
All the time I had this brown rice, cracked brown rice with hot water and honey.
And I've been eating that for the last years because it's the only food.
Otherwise, I don't eat until like 4 o'clock.
I'm not hungry during the day.
I force myself to drink this thing, and then when it expands in my stomach, I get hungry.
Actually, I just ate a burrito just before I came here, which is amazing for me because normally I never eat.
joe rogan
Is this because of your injury?
bas rutten
No, no, no.
My whole life I've had that.
I will wake up, and everything with me, if it works, I never change it.
I have the same stretching routine I was talking about last time, but also the same food.
I think my whole career, I ate six slices of bread in the morning with like a marmalade jelly on it because I believe that the peel, the orange peel, you know, that it stops lactic acid from getting into your muscles.
And I always had that feeling with it and sometimes I added peanut butter and that was my breakfast.
And when I say that, that means my entire career, I would eat the same thing.
I would wake up very early, two hours before my workout, eat, go back to sleep, and then when I would wake up it would be digested and I would start training.
joe rogan
Wow.
But that's not like what any nutritionist would ever tell you to do.
bas rutten
No, no, no.
The best thing, you know, Ryan Parsons, you know, he was with me with my last fight when I was training together with Kevin James.
He was there all the time, for real, because they said, oh, it's a publicity stunt him in the corner.
Hi, he was pretty much every day helping me, training, shouting, screaming.
And Ryan Parsons, with the last fight, when you see me, I look the best I've ever looked.
I go, my God, you know, this is...
But it was just because that was the first time in my life I had a diet.
I ate like six, seven times a day, small portions, fish, chicken, rice, all that stuff that I never did.
I ate pizza and steaks and beer.
When I was competing, that just worked for me.
So again, why would I break a winning combination?
joe rogan
You drank beer while you were in training camp?
bas rutten
Yeah.
Actually, in Japan, you have to understand, when you go from Holland to Japan, there's a time difference, which is Daytime is nighttime for you.
So that means you're awake all night and around 7 o'clock in the morning, that becomes 11 o'clock at night where you come from, you're going to start falling asleep.
So I go, After the first two fights, I don't want to take sleeping pills because I'm going to compete.
I always figured medication slows me down, and I always stayed away from that.
But then I said, you know, let's go out.
We've got great Roppongi here, and we'll drink a couple of beers, and it worked.
I woke up home and fall asleep, and that became my...
You know how you say, my schedule became, before the fight I would just go out and get a couple of beers.
joe rogan
Like how many beers?
Three?
bas rutten
Five.
joe rogan
Five beers before a fight?
bas rutten
You know, in Holland, it's so weird.
You're kind of used to that.
In the evening, you drink those beers.
In Germany, they actually, in the army, they drink during the day.
There's people there.
joe rogan
In the army?
bas rutten
Yeah, the lieutenants, the sergeants, you know.
joe rogan
That explains Hitler.
bas rutten
That explains where Hitler came from.
joe rogan
They were hammered.
It seemed like it made sense.
That's hilarious.
So will they just drink a beer with lunch or something?
bas rutten
I guess.
Yeah, yeah.
No, they do.
You know, I was training the elite special forces.
They do the same thing during the day.
They drink beer.
joe rogan
Wow.
That's crazy.
I never would have thought that that would ever happen in the army.
I know some places, it's common that you drink wine with lunch, like in France, a lot of people.
bas rutten
Yeah, in Greece, I had Larry Papadopoulos with me.
He would, every morning, he had his port with him, and he would drink a glass of port every morning.
Really?
Yeah, like a half a glass.
You know, he said, we'll fight all the immune system.
It's good for that.
joe rogan
He just likes beer, the motherfucker.
bas rutten
Yeah, likes to get a kick in the morning.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's crazy.
So, that's...
You were afraid of sleeping pills, but you weren't afraid of the repercussions of alcohol.
bas rutten
No, no, because it doesn't do anything.
I believe it's natural, right?
I wouldn't get tanked, but I have moments that when I would But the stare down, which I never did.
You know, only when they try to intimidate me, then I will put it on on them, you know?
But otherwise, we'll just look down.
But I knew they would smell like beer.
The booze.
The booze coming from your mouth.
They go like, this guy is crazy, you know?
I always thought, actually, because at the end I didn't do it anymore because I was fighting here in America and I didn't need it because I'm falling asleep.
But I always thought, you know, to go to the...
Just before you go to the center of the cage, flush with whiskey in your mouth.
Spit out to go to him and then let him think that you're hammered, you know, just to get inside their heads.
joe rogan
Yeah, there's some guys that show up in jiu-jitsu class drunk.
There's this one dude who used to be drunk all the time.
He'd roll with him.
You'd always smell the whiskey.
bas rutten
Well, there's a lot of guys stoned, right, during jiu-jitsu.
It's true.
joe rogan
Different though in that stone doesn't fuck with your reflexes.
Not to me at least.
Doesn't fuck with my reaction time.
I actually feel like I'm probably better at jujitsu when I'm high.
A lot of guys feel like that.
That's why so many of them roll stoned.
bas rutten
You're more creative also.
I guess you come up with more stuff.
joe rogan
Yeah, more creative, more relaxed, more completely focused on what you're doing.
They say that it's easier to get into it.
bas rutten
Wouldn't work for me.
I'm a plant.
One of those guys, if I do it, I'm sitting and I'm eating and there's no...
You ask me two questions.
Hey, boss, what's your Christian name?
What are your Christian names and where you were born?
I go, oh, it's Sebastian.
What was the other question?
Literally, my friends would laugh at five-second memory.
It's amazing.
joe rogan
Well, everybody's different.
So when you were competing, so no weed, even though you lived in Holland.
bas rutten
No, never, never.
joe rogan
A lot of people in Holland don't really smoke weed.
bas rutten
Isn't that funny?
It is because it's not...
joe rogan
It's not taboo?
bas rutten
It's not taboo.
It's like a drinking age you don't have in Holland.
I think you now have.
It's maybe 14 or something.
But you never had a drinking age.
But all these kids, they're not going to say, hey, I want to drink because it's cool.
Because it is not cool.
A 12-year-old, 13-year-old kid can do it.
joe rogan
Right.
Yeah, it's no big deal.
It's just a part of life.
Yeah, a 12-year-old, 13-year-old kid.
Holy shit, that's hilarious.
bas rutten
I was in America half a year, and then I went back to Holland to visit the family, and I was looking at, they call it the puppet theater, and there's just these two little curtains open up, and there are people from Holland, everywhere from the country, and they can say whatever is on their mind.
And there were two little kids sitting there with a bottle of Heineken.
unidentified
And they said, yeah, we like to drink beer.
bas rutten
And they were drinking.
unidentified
And I look at my wife and I go, can you imagine this happens in America?
bas rutten
What are people going to say?
It's insane.
I mean, they were six or eight years old and they were drinking a beer.
Yeah, my parents, they're not really against it.
I go, whoa, dude.
And then the curtain closed again.
It was the wildest thing.
unidentified
Can you imagine the strip clubs?
The girls are wearing bibs.
joe rogan
Well, they don't have strip clubs.
They have whorehouses.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
Yeah, I mean, Holland is a totally different thing.
They have a whole area where it's all whorehouses, right?
bas rutten
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The red light district.
You have that in pretty much every town.
You have a red light district.
Not only in Amsterdam.
joe rogan
Yeah, I mean, think about that for a second.
Not a whorehouse.
No, a whore neighborhood.
They got a whole whore neighborhood.
bas rutten
Yeah, window shopping.
joe rogan
But lowest incidences of HIV in all of Europe and lowest incidence of heroin addiction, which is really crazy.
bas rutten
They all get tested.
They all need to be legal there.
There's a lot of testing there going on.
You'll be amazed.
You walk there like in the red light district in Amsterdam.
And you see girls that you go, you know, it could be the girl next door.
It's amazing the amount of different, the plethora, as El Papa would say, of girls that they have.
joe rogan
And they wouldn't even think about it the same way we think about it.
Like, the way life is there from the get-go is so much different than the way life is here.
That, in my opinion, like, to change our laws and to make it so that prostitution is legal and make it so marijuana is just openly tolerated everywhere and kids can drink at 12, like, man, you would almost have to start from scratch.
bas rutten
Yeah, you have to.
And it's amazing.
Like, I couldn't do it.
If you go to the red light district, sometimes you see, like, eight guys in a row waiting in front of one window.
joe rogan
She's hot.
bas rutten
I can't imagine the guy comes out and he's like an ugly dude coming out and then you gotta go in.
It's not for me.
brian redban
It's like don't get sushi on Sundays, don't go to a Korean spa at 9 o'clock at night.
bas rutten
It's a broth.
joe rogan
Yeah, it seems like Holland is all in all just more laid back, more fun, wilder people, right?
Like a big kickboxing scene, huge kickboxing scene.
bas rutten
You know, I was just watching today on Facebook, somebody posted the Majiro Jam on my Facebook from 83. That was when Andre Brillemann was still alive.
You know, the guy who got killed and tortured.
He was a phenomenal kickboxer.
You saw Rob Kamen, Millel Goebly, I mean Fred Royers.
Eight guys from that gym were world champions.
I mean, they went to Thailand and beat the Thais.
It was insane.
I went to a show in the Yop Ada Hall in Holland where there were four world title fights and they broadcasted it live to Thailand.
And the best Thai boxers came there and there was like Al Gobley and Rob came and all these guys.
And we won four out of four.
They knocked these guys out.
It was the craziest thing.
It never happened after that again.
joe rogan
Well, the Dutch style incorporated a lot more striking with the hands, right?
A lot more boxing technique.
bas rutten
That's it.
Tying it together.
That's, I think, the biggest thing.
And they had great hands.
Everybody has great hands there.
joe rogan
And the Dutch style of striking is really, like, to the layperson, it looks like you're just kicking and punching.
But the technical aspects of it, like, I've taken some classes with Rob Kamen before.
The way he breaks things down into, like, patterns and how to follow these patterns.
He's got, like, these automatic patterns.
unidentified
Yep.
joe rogan
That he does, like when your foot is here, he's doing this.
When his arm is here, he's doing that.
He hits with the left hook, and then it's the right leg kick.
And he's got like this, you know, this really technical system that when you see him sparring, it's really fascinating to watch it in action.
bas rutten
Yeah, because he just taught it himself to do it all the time.
Like when I hold focus mitts for my guys, I have shin pads on myself.
And out of the blue, I kick.
And I'll do the mitt combination, whatever they don't expect, and they got to...
Whatever.
Left kick, he counters with a cross hook, low kick.
And the other counter, hook, cross, low kick.
And then we change the combination.
Right body, left hook, low kick.
Or left hook, right body.
Liver shot, right hook.
I mean, I start.
joe rogan
But it's all the same.
The idea is to program them into the head so that in combat it all comes out automatically.
bas rutten
Here, attack comes.
Bam, bam, there's your counter.
And whether it's going to be started with a body shot and then a head or a head body or a head head body body.
Whatever it is.
joe rogan
That's what people really truly don't understand about What's required in order to pull something off under extreme stress.
We had Sam Sheridan.
He wrote that book, A Fighter's Mind.
bas rutten
Yeah, I have somebody recently talk to me about it.
Very good book actually.
joe rogan
And he's got a great new one out called The Disaster Diaries.
And it's all about pressure and dealing with natural disasters, horrible situations where people's character gets exposed and how to stay calm.
And one of the things he's talking about in the book is about how your body moves in a competition.
The only things that are going to come out are the things that you've drilled into your brain to the point where they're in your subconscious.
So the left hook whizzes by your head, the counter's right there.
It's just automatic.
It has to be automatic because you're not going to have time to think and you're going to be flooded with adrenaline.
bas rutten
I had a guy who came to me.
He actually won the amateur title last weekend, Jens Grau.
He was 38 years old when he came to me.
He was 245 pounds.
He was a power lifter.
And he wanted to train.
He had a torn bicep.
He had this big bar stacking out of his arm.
He said, when do you want to train?
He said, tomorrow.
So I grabbed him by the bar and I pulled him to the side.
I said, not really working, right?
And he goes, yeah, I don't know, but maybe we can start with kicks.
I said, first of all, you're going to lose that weight.
I mean, this is going to stop you.
You can't even scratch your back.
And he started training, training, training.
And every time he would ask me, boss, when you're on the ground, you teach us the knees to the thighs, right?
Yeah.
That's allowed, right?
unidentified
Yeah.
bas rutten
Why is not anybody doing it?
I said, because they're stupid.
They don't do that.
I said, well, wait till you're fighting.
And then another guy is in a clinch.
You know, you can hit the thighs too or elbow them.
And yeah, why is nobody doing it?
I went, wait till you're fighting.
You'll find out when you're fighting.
And every week he came back with another question.
I said, just wait.
Now, I had a few combinations.
I have combinations.
I give you like three combinations.
Stand up, attack combinations, three up against the wall, and then on the ground some.
So there's only six you get.
But when they come back at you, Almost a guarantee they're going to knock you out.
They're just really solid combinations.
One of them was a big hook nut to the spleen, but you keep your whole demeanor low, and then you're hitting high.
But everything stays low, so he thinks it's another body shot.
Now, the fight started.
It was amateur, so it was.
It was all over the place and nothing, oh my god, and his hands were not good.
joe rogan
Craziness.
bas rutten
But the one thing came back, it was the right hook to the body, right hook to it, and that's how we knocked him out.
You see, and there you see, like, even in all that chaos, because I always tell the people, when I knocked out my first Thai boxer, if they would, at the moment of knockout, they would have blindfolded me, they would have called in five other guys, and then they would put my blindfold off and say, okay, who did you fight?
I had no clue who I thought.
It's like it's a person, but he doesn't have a face.
It's like there's too much going on.
It's like the first time driving a car.
But once you can channel all that, you know, instead of listening to their corner and doing that stuff, then it comes together.
And it's all panic.
One combination came back and it happened to knock him out.
joe rogan
How did the Dutch figure that out?
How did the Dutch figure out to add the hand combinations and the boxing combinations?
Because the Thais were already using their hands, but much less so than they were using their legs.
bas rutten
I have no clue.
joe rogan
Was it just the size of their bodies?
bas rutten
Yeah, I think it just automatically came with them.
I truly believe it really started at Majira Gym.
Rob Kamen and all those guys there.
You know, and then Shakariki, all those names, Meng Ho, you know, Core Hammers, and everybody started coming.
I recently saw a video from Robin Decker when he was 19 years old, you know, and that was the first time when I saw him destroying somebody.
My buddy told me, he says, watch this man, you're going to freak out.
And I thought, he's going to get killed, this kid.
But he just drilled.
He gave him a low kick and the guy flies horizontal in the air and he falls.
And I was like, what?
I mean, you got to see pictures of him.
He was skinny.
joe rogan
Yeah, Ramon Deckers, unfortunately, just passed away, I think, two weeks ago, right?
bas rutten
Yeah, the 27th.
joe rogan
And he apparently had a heart attack while he was riding his bike.
He was amazing, amazing guy to watch.
He could watch the older fights, and then the newer fights, as he got older, he got thicker, more muscular.
But you're right, in the early days, when he first started fighting, he was very, very thin.
bas rutten
He was the...
Every interview for 25 years, I've been saying it, you know, the best striker.
You know, MMA Bloodlines, you know, the t-shirt company, they wanted to do something with me, with MMA, but also with kickboxing.
And I say, no.
You know, from Holland, you know, that you got to go to a Ramon Decker speeder or Ernesto host.
That's not me.
You know, I'm to the MMA because these guys are just really good.
You know, and my whole style was pretty much what Decker did.
And I took that and I took Mike Tyson.
Because he's the most powerful striker.
I adapted my whole style like that.
Square up.
Set up square.
Oh, you've got to be a smaller target.
All these people.
I can do some apps, dude.
I mean, that will stop you from body shots.
Did Tyson ever go down to his body?
No, he did not.
And he fought against the best people in the world.
But he knocks people out with a jab because it's not a jab anymore.
It's a straight punch at the moment when you square up.
And that's why I believe that.
Deckers was included in that.
joe rogan
Deckers squared up with guys too?
bas rutten
Also, but not as much.
He didn't have to worry about sprawls.
joe rogan
He didn't have to sprawl.
That was a big difference.
This shifting, like watching Bernard Hopkins this weekend, he stands totally sideways when he boxes.
bas rutten
Unbelievable.
joe rogan
And you can't do that in MMA. It's just too easy to take you down.
And leg kicks too.
bas rutten
Yeah, but also, I cannot imagine.
You know, Dwayne Ludwig, when he knocked out Jens Pulver, we knew what Jens was going to do.
He stands all the way in one line.
He's a southpaw.
If he wants to throw a left or a right hook, he has to load up.
So we thought, right straight.
That's it, right?
And you can watch the fight.
At the moment, he does it once, and Dwayne didn't see it.
You see Dwayne looking at me like, damn, I missed the one.
But right away, he does it again, and Dwayne nails him right away with a straight punch.
joe rogan
Dwayne had a, well, still does, has this vicious technical right hand, too.
You know, the way he throws it, it's like, it's so crisp.
And that's how he got the fastest knockout ever in UFC history.
bas rutten
Dwayne is one of those guys that I have no clue.
I was just talking to my buddy about it.
It's like, this guy is the nicest guy, does everything right, doesn't do drugs, doesn't drink, doesn't cheat.
You know, he's the cleanest guy out there.
And for some reason, he always has these crazy injuries.
Like you misstep and he breaks his ankle.
Or then he pulls out his knee.
And I always go, why is that?
You know, such a good guy.
He deserves so much better.
joe rogan
It's physical.
It's just, you know, it's life.
You know, you only got so many miles you can put on that car.
bas rutten
That's true.
joe rogan
After a while, ball joints start breaking.
It's a crazy thing.
When you think about Dwayne had so many fights before he even got to the UFC. He had so many King of the Cage fights and He had kickboxing bouts.
He won a world title in Muay Thai, correct?
bas rutten
Yes, he did.
joe rogan
So that's a lot of wear and tear.
A lot of wear and tear on your body.
bas rutten
I saw Dwayne first time when I did the boss with the Invitational.
I see a lot of fighters nowadays who became bigger fighters come from that It was a tournament that we had and it was so badass at one moment you had to fight four times in one night and there was almost no weight classes.
joe rogan
Didn't they do that recently?
unidentified
Glory?
bas rutten
It was a long time.
Glory does it also but it's a bit striking.
But that's where I found Dwayne for the first time.
He was there and we needed an opponent for somebody and he just said oh I'll do it and his little kid jumps up And he fights this guy, 30 pound heavier, knocks him out with a hat kick.
And I go, ooh, I gotta know who this kid is.
And we became friends instantly there.
joe rogan
Yeah, Dwayne's been around.
Very, very nice guy.
And now he's the head trainer at Alpha Male.
bas rutten
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's great.
bas rutten
How cool is that?
He was teaching a seminar there.
joe rogan
I love watching guys like you move into commentating careers, too.
bas rutten
Yep.
joe rogan
You host MMA Live now, right?
Inside MMA. Inside MMA. What is MMA Live?
Does that even exist anymore?
bas rutten
I don't know.
joe rogan
There's all these different fucking names.
The important thing is it's on AXS TV. It's you and Kenny Rice and guests always.
And you've been doing it a long time now.
bas rutten
Six years, man.
It's getting crazy.
Yeah, every week.
It's a great gig.
This is the gig that pulled me out of all the stress.
People have no clue what I had to do to stay here to survive for my family.
The first nine years, I missed every Christmas, every New Year, because I was in Japan doing those big shows.
I missed the holidays, birthdays.
I missed the birth of my youngest daughter.
I mean, all because I had to go otherwise there was no more money.
Because people think when you're on TV but the pay-per-view is rich.
It doesn't work like that.
And I had to come back and right away I had to do a seminar here and a seminar there and constant traveling, constantly.
And then when Inside MMA came along, they gave me that basic.
Income and that was the first time in my life and now I actually have the power to say no.
Now it's – and it actually financially is also much better because now they're going to – if you say no, they say, oh, I'll double it.
No, no, they're really going to – oh, what about if we triple it?
You see, it's – but I didn't have that power.
All the way back.
And now for me, if it really doesn't interest me, I'd rather stay with the family, you know?
I missed enough.
I'm trying to catch up now.
joe rogan
Right, right, right.
bas rutten
And see if I can do that.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's a tough thing.
You were the commentator, the head commentator in pride, and you were constantly going back and forth for that.
How many fights did you go over there to cover?
bas rutten
Twelve a year, because they had Bushido at one time also.
joe rogan
Twelve a year.
bas rutten
When I became citizen here, I had to count how many times I left the country.
And I had a passport and I go, my God, this is an insane number.
So I went to my old passport and I started counting.
152 times I've been to Japan.
But that's Holland and America.
Is that crazy?
I mean, we're talking about that.
That's a three-year solid straight because every time was at least average a week because sometimes it was four days, but many times a week or I stayed sometimes even for three weeks to train there because I had no training partners in Holland.
joe rogan
You were still thinking about fighting back then too.
Whatever kept you from fighting in pride because you fought Reuben, Warpath.
bas rutten
I was going to come back.
I was going to come back when, you know, I had many injuries.
I stopped really because all the injuries and the tendonitis I had, I think it comes from all the cortisones I took when I was a kid.
And that started really to flaring up.
And once that starts, training till the fight is going to be a nightmare.
You have about 45 minutes to train without it, and then it will hit you.
You might as well stop training because everything will go downhill from there.
And then you're in pain for an hour and a half.
Intense.
It's like really intense pain.
And, you know, it sucked the life out of me.
You're not happy anymore.
And I didn't want to train.
And I couldn't eat because of the pain.
joe rogan
Wow.
This tendonitis, you believe, is from cortisone shots?
bas rutten
Yeah.
I took way too many cortisones when I was a kid because I was so sick.
But anyway, I started recently training a little bit and just striking.
I tried to stay away from grappling because if I have to power out or something, then it would hit again.
And then when Ken Shamrock came, I said, listen, I want to be his first fight.
I come out of retirement for him.
I want to fight him.
But he declined.
He said, no, we already did it.
We don't need to do it again.
But I was going to...
Fight for that fight.
And then it almost happened with Vanderlei at the Dynamite show because there was a mix between K1 and mixed martial arts at Pride.
And I said, they're looking for an opponent for Vanderlei.
I said, I'll fight him.
I said, but what do we do another rule?
Listen, I haven't been ground fighting for three years.
What about this?
People want to see this anyway.
We put on the Pride gloves and we do K1 rules.
I think that's what people would love to see, right?
And that also didn't happen at last time.
And it was not because of...
But that would have been great, I think.
Because at that time I was pretty in shape.
I started kicking Amir's Thai pads and his whole arms were bruised up the next day.
He goes, I think you're ready.
I felt good.
joe rogan
Oh, that would have been an amazing fight to see.
Holy shit.
bas rutten
I still, to this day, I always say, why isn't there a company that comes out with that idea that I just said?
joe rogan
They did.
Cage Combat.
bas rutten
Cage Combat, yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah, and what is his name?
John Wayne Parr from Australia.
Do you know who he is?
bas rutten
I heard about him, yeah.
joe rogan
Badass kickboxer.
Very, very good kickboxer.
bas rutten
Yeah, that's fun.
joe rogan
Yeah, and he's calling it, I think it's called Caged Muay Thai or something like that.
Let me find out.
bas rutten
How many minute rounds?
Like five minute rounds as well?
joe rogan
I think they do it like three minute rounds.
bas rutten
Okay, same as care one then.
joe rogan
Yeah, I think that's how they're doing it.
Let me find this, because I know he's a good dude, too.
bas rutten
You see, that is exciting.
joe rogan
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
bas rutten
Watch out.
joe rogan
Yeah, it is interesting, isn't it?
That the other strikers, striking sports, never switched to the little gloves.
They never tried the little gloves.
bas rutten
It's amazing.
It's amazing, because now we realize it doesn't really...
You know, it's not really any difference, I guess, with the impact.
I think only body shots, maybe, because it's a smaller surface, it penetrates through easier, I think.
But I don't think that the head, you know, even with a bare knuckle hitting a head, or with a glove, if I have to say, I do think that with a glove has more impact than with a bare knuckle.
joe rogan
Yeah, people don't understand that.
Bare knuckle, you can really hurt yourself.
Especially punching some hard-headed dude in the forehead.
bas rutten
Oh, that's what I used to do when I was a bouncer also.
I would look at my fellow bouncers and say, check this out.
If somebody was angry, I let them throw a punch and I just leaned forward and hit them at the top of my head.
It's a fun way to pull a trick on somebody because they hit you once.
joe rogan
Yeah.
bas rutten
Once.
joe rogan
So John Wayne Parr's company is called Caged Muay Thai.
And it is essentially that.
It's Muay Thai in a cage.
bas rutten
MMA gloves.
joe rogan
MMA gloves.
I believe it's MMA gloves.
bas rutten
I love it.
joe rogan
It looks like MMA gloves.
Yeah, there's a difference in the way you can defend yourself, too, with those boxing gloves.
bas rutten
A big difference, you know?
joe rogan
Well, you can cover yourself up.
You cover so much more area.
bas rutten
MMA glove goes right behind it, right through the middle.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?
bas rutten
Yeah, and especially body shots also, you know?
joe rogan
Yeah, right?
You really can dig in with a body shot.
It's not a blunt object.
It's sharp.
bas rutten
That's right.
Finally, we see guys...
You know doing it.
I always talk about this.
I never get it.
I always tell my students, I say, fighting is really easy, right?
You hit somebody really hard in the head, defense will go up, and there's the body for you.
Or you do it the other way around like Foreman did, hit the body real hard until they have to defend it, and then you go on top.
Now, when you rock somebody, step back.
What is he going to defend when you hit somebody on the chin?
Well, he's going to defend his hat.
Why on earth would you start hitting the hat now?
This is your moment to go to the body, but hit it hard.
Cross to cross to the body.
You know, combinations like that.
Hit as hard as you can.
That defense has to come down and then you go back to the head.
joe rogan
And they plant themselves and you attack the legs.
bas rutten
But I mean, there's a few fighters out there.
The last one I saw using it was Rory McDonald against BJ Penn, who dropped him with the body shot.
They're not dropping, but he was hurt.
And right away he went back to the head.
Get him in the comfort zone again to bring the hands up and then go for the body again.
Now he's thinking.
joe rogan
Rory McDonald is one of those new breed of guys that is getting great at everything.
He doesn't just have one specialty like a wrestler who learns from ground and pound.
No, he's essentially mixed martial artist from the jump.
And so he's very technical in all aspects of his attack.
But you're right in the striking.
We're just sort of starting to see people who have a more nuanced understanding of different kicks.
How about front kicks?
All of a sudden, people are landing front kicks to the face.
That never happened.
Think about all the fights we've seen and how few guys got knocked out with a front kick to the face.
bas rutten
I did knock him out, but I kicked him under his nose on a Frank Shamrock.
It's a front kick in the nose.
joe rogan
He had a shoe on, too.
bas rutten
You smell that!
joe rogan
Yeah, pancreas was a weird thing if anybody has never seen it before.
They wore shoes and then shin guards over the shoes and you couldn't punch to the face.
You had a slap open hand.
But Boss was the only one to figure out that instead of slapping, Use punch combinations, but just pull the hand way back, and you're essentially blasting them with the palm, and in a way it's even better because you can't break your hand.
bas rutten
You know, until this day I still don't get it, that people don't use it because I always say it's very simple.
If I'm standing here, this is the target, a left hook, right straight.
If I connect with the left hook, I'm too close for my right straight.
It doesn't have power.
It needs space to get power, to get pickup speed, so to say.
But if I do a palm strike, and when I do it, yeah, you see it already.
I pull all the way back.
I hit with this bony part here.
joe rogan
Yeah.
bas rutten
And I hit on the ear, just here underneath the ear.
But now the straight punch is way better lined up than the left hook, right straight combination.
So I don't get it.
I get a cross hook because with the cross you bring the head backwards and then the hook will catch it.
But the left hook right straight, I say use a palm strike and still to this day they don't do it.
joe rogan
It's essentially a bitch slap right hand combination.
bas rutten
That's it.
joe rogan
That's what it is.
bas rutten
Yeah, maybe they don't do it because of that.
But how cool is that?
joe rogan
Today you have to keep your hands closed.
You're not supposed to strike with your hands open.
I mean I guess you could probably get away with a karate chop or something like that.
But the issue is going forward and poking eyes.
We have a real problem with eye pokes.
bas rutten
Wow.
joe rogan
Your guy had been around a long time.
unidentified
Yep.
joe rogan
And you fought, you know, the bare knuckle days.
Was there as many eye pokes back then as there are now?
bas rutten
You know, no.
What really messed me up was the pro wrestling I started doing after my career was over.
And I started, you know, I felt that I could do something again.
And Inoki asked me to do pro wrestling.
My first fight, I break a disc in my back.
And then the second one, I ruptured my eyeball with a finger in my eye because you don't block the punches.
You let him hit you.
And the third one was, oh yeah, an eardrum.
That's been broke for six years straight.
Because you fly, you can't fix it.
Because you cannot fly for six weeks when you do it.
Actually, this is a funny story.
My first pro wrestling match was with Don Frye.
I was in my corner.
I was fighting this guy, Nishima or something.
It was at the Tokyo Dome, right?
So 60,000 people, and you go through, you know, this is what you do in the beginning, then you ad-lib a little bit, and in the middle you do this, and then you ad-lib some more, and in the end, you know, you get the wrap-up.
joe rogan
So this is an orchestrated pro wrestling event?
bas rutten
Yeah, pro, yeah, real pro wrestling.
And he was going to, at the start, he was going to pick me up, throw me in the corner, and give me like three elbows in the face, And then he would go to the audience and he would drop me with an elbow.
I would take an eight count and then the fight would start.
But I never progressed in my life before.
So he attacks me and the first elbow he gives me is perfectly timed.
But the second one is a little harder and the third one he hits me full.
And my automatic reflex kicks in and I go boom and I hit him in the face and he goes and he's out.
unidentified
So I look at Don and he goes, what?
bas rutten
And I go, I don't know.
And the referee, he's walking around the guy and he goes, one.
unidentified
And he walks around two times, two.
bas rutten
And he starts dragging the time, you know.
unidentified
And then finally at eight, yeah, he started twitching and he started waking up.
bas rutten
Dolvin for a moment, he goes like, dude, that was crazy.
I said, he hit me hard.
So then the next time...
joe rogan
So did the guy get up and finish the match?
bas rutten
Yeah, yeah, he finished the match.
joe rogan
He was unconscious, completely unconscious.
bas rutten
Oh, he was with his eyes open.
joe rogan
So then when you wake him up, what do you tell him?
bas rutten
No, nothing.
Afterwards, everybody got scared.
So they came to me the second one.
He goes, please, but no real fight.
I said, you don't hit me, I don't hit you.
It was very simple.
He hit me hard.
That's why...
joe rogan
Right.
He took advantage of you.
bas rutten
I guess.
I don't know.
Maybe it was on purpose, maybe not.
joe rogan
But there wasn't as many eye pokes back there in MMA. No, not in MMA. Why do you think that's happening so much these days?
bas rutten
I never hit like this with open hands.
And I would all the way pull back.
You know, I think it's also a lot of guys who have no good control.
I mean, I poke somebody, I cannot even imagine that.
It would never happen with me.
joe rogan
Well, they're pushing off.
That's what everybody's doing.
It's amazing that you say that because you were fighting with your hands open and you weren't poking guys' eyes.
bas rutten
That's what I mean.
In Pancroce, I never...
joe rogan
It's a big issue now, to the point where...
bas rutten
It looks like it's on purpose sometimes.
You're going to really do it.
joe rogan
I would hate to speculate, but it's a very unfortunate aspect of having the ability to have open fingers.
And I was wondering if you think there could be a way where you could cover over the tips with maybe a soft leather so it was all one smooth piece over the top, but it was soft enough so that you could still grapple.
Because most people don't understand, you don't really grapple like that anyway.
unidentified
No.
joe rogan
You use your whole hand, and the only time the thumb even is involved is with wrist control.
I mean, most of the time when I'm grabbing things, I'm grabbing things like this, because I'm pulling with my thumb.
I give myself the added muscle down with my thumb, whereas you don't have that if you do this.
bas rutten
This situation, for instance, when somebody's a mount on me, and I never get this anyway, people at their mount, they let themselves just buck up, I always say.
It's so simple.
I mean, just freaking buck up.
Bring your feet close to your butt.
Start bucking up.
He needs to look for balance.
He can't keep hitting you.
Now, at the moment he looks for balance, you catch one hand.
And that's what I always say to my students.
These two fingers are the strongest.
So what I do, I grab two and two.
Because it's a stronger grip around the wrist than when I do this.
See?
See, there's the carpal tunnel that comes with the neck.
It's the weirdest thing.
joe rogan
So these three fingers on each hand...
bas rutten
On one wrist.
Yeah, I go around on the wrist and I pull it to one side, I lock up the foot and I throw it to the other side.
It's a simple reversal.
joe rogan
So you feel like grabbing like this is stronger than grabbing with both of your hands?
bas rutten
Yeah, because look, this hand is here and the other hand is here.
Look how open your grip becomes because of the forearm.
But if you have around two fingers here and the other two fingers there, you got a really strong grip on one hand.
Oh, I see what you're saying.
And even when you're on the bottom and he hits you with the other hand...
joe rogan
Okay, I see what you're saying for folks that don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
What he's saying is that at the base of the wrist, it's the thinnest.
So you have more strength in your hands When your fingers are completely wrapped around something and the index finger and the thumb are touching together.
And the more your fingers are spread out, the less power you have to grab ahold of something.
So, in the case of the human body, you're better off grabbing the wrist with three fingers and three fingers.
That's very wise.
bas rutten
Yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's very, very smart.
And so that's what you would do and then fight to try to get out of the mount from that position.
bas rutten
Yeah, because it's pretty easy.
First of all, mount never allowed him to sit on your chest.
That's a bad mount because then you can buck up whatever you want and there's no leverage, so he doesn't move.
So the first thing when I always say, keep your elbows here, always.
Plus, if he's already a high chest, I push my elbows here and I wiggle myself upwards.
You don't have to push him down, but you can push yourself upwards because the end result is the same.
Now once he's on your belly, the other great thing that comes with it is that his feet are underneath your legs.
So now with your other foot, you can catch...
One of those feet.
joe rogan
People listening to this right now are going, what the fuck is he talking about?
bas rutten
I can catch one of his feet here.
joe rogan
Right.
bas rutten
And then if I grab his right arm and I pull this to the side and at the moment I have it here, I lock it and I'll pull him to that side.
I take this base away.
joe rogan
Does that work on really good guys?
bas rutten
Yeah, it works well.
I'm really good, guys.
joe rogan
Who's the best guy you ever pulled that off on?
bas rutten
In training?
joe rogan
That's the whole thing.
bas rutten
I don't know.
joe rogan
When someone tells me some revolutionary new technique, I'm like, hmm.
bas rutten
Yeah, but that's not a revolutionary technique.
I just take your post and your post away.
It's a very basic thing.
I think I had maybe Carlos Newton with it, Gage Sudo at the time.
I've been using that a lot.
If you mount and you put an arm around my neck, you're on your back.
I guarantee you that.
I'll go real fast.
I wait for those moments.
I go lay like this, that means please attack my neck, man.
joe rogan
When you first started, you weren't a submission guy at all.
You were mostly just a stand-up guy, right?
When you first started competing in Pancrase.
And then, what was it like?
Which fight was it that really made you realize, like, hey, Ken Shamrock?
bas rutten
Ken Shamrock, last one, put me in a knee bar.
I trained four weeks to not get caught in a knee bar.
Funaki taught me one way to stop it.
He said, if he's in half guard, he's going to slip over your hip.
And you see me in the fight waiting for him to slip over my hip to catch the foot, and he threw the leg over my head.
And I go, mother, you know, they set me up.
That was so weird.
But that moment on, I said, okay, this won't ever happen again.
Now I'm going to listen to people.
But I'm also going to find out if it's really that right way.
And then I started just breaking down everything.
I found one sparring partner, Leon van Dijk, and we went nuts.
We went three times a day.
We were rolling, rolling, rolling, watching on fights, see a move, go.
Okay, how do you get out?
Well, I can do this.
Okay, how can I stop that?
And so break it down, break it down, break it down.
joe rogan
So you essentially taught yourself a little bit of instruction from other people and a lot of it from tape and trial and error.
bas rutten
Yeah, just like that.
I had my big DVDs of combat, right?
I had a phone call a long time ago.
This was before I knew BJ Penn personally.
And he said, hey boss, it's BJ. BJ Penn?
Yeah, hey, how are you doing?
I'm getting ready for a run.
I once met you as he was fighting at the time.
I said, why are you calling?
He says, I'm watching your instructionals.
And I said, so?
He says, the best instruction I've ever seen in my life.
I go, are you kidding me?
And he says, yeah, I gotta go.
Can I use that quote?
Because that's a great quote.
But he was also a mess with, I do a lot of hand control.
My arm bars are different.
My way of breaking your grip, if I break your grip, you'll never escape.
I guarantee you that.
If you break my grip, I'll already set myself up.
If my lands are locked, my elbow is right away here.
And at the moment they start pulling, I throw my other legs in the same line as you, and I have to make a really tiny roll.
joe rogan
The folks listening to this on iTunes.
This is all very baffling but it's very exciting too because there's a bunch of different branches of grappling in MMA. There's the catch wrestling sort of branch where a lot of Gene LaBelle taught guys and a lot like Josh Barnett as well.
Very catch wrestling oriented.
And of course there's a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu oriented.
But there's also like the Japanese style which is sort of a combination of the both.
Like Sakuraba who had a lot of Carl Gotch influence.
He was like one of the early catch wrestling guys to go over to Japan and teach these guys.
All these different techniques, but he also had the Japanese martial arts and the judo submissions and everything as well.
Really fascinating when you stop and think about, when you started, I mean, the first UFC fight was in 93. When was your first punk race fight?
bas rutten
Ninety-three.
Two months before, a month before, September.
joe rogan
You were there in the beginning of the blossom.
It must be really interesting to see all these new techniques and all these, well, really a lot of ancient techniques, but become mainstream and new.
bas rutten
What I love...
And this is something I figured out also like in the early days because like – I always say the example is the simple figure four.
Everybody knows a figure four, right?
joe rogan
I said but if you can create a way – Are you saying like an Americana?
bas rutten
Yeah, an Americana.
I call that figure four, reverse figure four.
So if, hammerlock, I mean there's so many names, that's why I do it.
Also, they always forget to push the arm down.
Now, suddenly, but I mean, you know as well here, you can't do it.
You push it down.
Come on, dude, you have to know.
This is your...
joe rogan
Yeah, what he's saying for folks listening, there's a technique.
It's like, you know when a guy's like showing you his muscle, like, look at my bicep, boom.
Well, that, if you take that arm and just drop it down to the rib, And then pull the arm backwards, there's a surprisingly small amount of room that you can move where you're in excruciating pain.
But, if you keep it up there, where you show, like, the muscle, You can move way back.
bas rutten
People roll out.
They escape the submission.
joe rogan
It hurts, but you can get out of it.
bas rutten
But what I always say is everybody knows it's probably the first submission they've been taught.
But if you can create different ways to go to that submission so it's undetected, it's like a ride straight to the face.
You know it's going to come.
But if I find a way to deliver it undetected, and that counts the same for submissions.
And that's why I always found two or three or sometimes four submissions.
Sorry.
Four different ways to go to one combination.
And when I start mixing those up also, I go from one to four, then I go from two to four, then eventually you catch somebody.
A guy who's really good with that also is Noguera in the early days.
He's got triangle, armbar, overpallada, and he constantly...
And that's what I like.
Find different ways, and that's the coolest what I see nowadays.
You see guys get so creative, suddenly there's a submission, and I go, whoop, I rewind, I go, how the hell did he say that?
And that's something I really enjoy watching.
When I can't see it coming, then I go, okay, that is really cool.
joe rogan
Now, what do you miss about Pride?
Do you miss anything about the rules?
Because there's a lot of debate about whether or not the Pride rules were the best rules.
A lot of people think that they favored the more skillful fighter and they were more chaotic because they had stomps, soccer kicks, but yet no elbows.
bas rutten
You know, I always said elbows and now, you know, Now we see guys start knocking people out with elbows.
But normally, if a fight gets stopped by elbows, 95% is because of a cut.
It's not because of a knockout.
And then I say, that is not a real win.
If you think about it, on the street, if you get cut, you won't stop either.
You keep on fighting.
The cut's not going to do anything to you.
Knock him out.
And that's why I say, you know, sometimes I like it even better on knees to the face on the ground.
And take the elbows out for my care.
And I think the ring makes it also a little bit more technical because you can't walk up.
It's a whole different strategy suddenly.
You can lock some people standing.
You can lock them up in the corner.
You can do that in a cage.
You see, it's a whole different strategy.
joe rogan
Yeah, you can't use the cage to push your back against it to get away.
You can't reverse people as easily.
There's a lot.
The wall, I mean, the cage is almost like a weapon in there.
It's almost like a tool.
bas rutten
And now especially, now we see Patterson coming up with the crazy stuff and pushing off with the straight parts.
That one I did, but that kick.
That was really crazy.
Actually, that pushing off and then with the knee, I saw the trainer from Gilbert Eiffel all the way back.
joe rogan
Lucien?
bas rutten
Lucien Carbin.
He used to do that on the bottom rope in Thai boxing.
In the clinch, he would stomp on the bottom rope and then boom, knee to the face.
joe rogan
Did you see Anthony Pattinson started throwing knees that way?
bas rutten
How cool was that?
And how did he slip it around on his knee in between that defense?
joe rogan
It was crazy.
bas rutten
Yeah, he's got great timing.
joe rogan
He's a bad motherfucker.
bas rutten
Yeah, he is.
joe rogan
I mean, because Donald Cowboy Cerrone's a bad motherfucker, too.
He stopped him with a body shot.
And you could see Cowboy didn't want to acknowledge it.
He blasted him once with a kick to the body, and all you saw was Cowboy's abs just...
bas rutten
Oh, and thanks for the plug, by the way.
unidentified
I heard it.
joe rogan
Boss Ruth, the liver kick!
Whenever it's a liver shot, like Boss Ruth knows the power of the liver shot.
And he's, you know, from Boss's commentary...
You've always been so adamant about attacking the liver.
Folks who don't know, where a person would hit you with a left hook, there's an area where your liver is where if you take a sizable impact on that liver, your body just shuts down.
It's a weird thing to watch.
It's a weird thing to feel.
Everybody's felt it.
Everybody who's ever trained has felt it.
bas rutten
My first Thai boxing class, I got dropped with the liver shot.
That's where my love comes from, the liver shaft.
I was on the ground breathing and asking him, what is it?
He says, how's the left hook to the body?
That's where your liver is located.
I go, oh man.
And that's when I started focusing because I knew right away, I thought I was a badass because I In karate, I was beating people up in training and in Taekwondo, but when I went to Thai boxing, because we were not used to really punching the head, you know, when they started taking my head, my hands flew up way too high, of course, and exposing, overexposing my body, and that's when the body shot came.
joe rogan
I have the exact same story.
I started out in Taekwondo and realized it was like right around the time I wanted to try to make the U.S. national team.
I won the Massachusetts state championship like four years in a row, and I I won the US Cup.
I won some good tournaments, or the US Open, but I got to the Nationals in 1988. By the time I was doing that, though, I'd already started boxing, and I realized I was full of shit.
Everybody that takes karate, at least back in the day, before the UFC came around, everybody that took judo, everybody that took...
Whatever you took, you thought what you had was the shit.
You didn't need anything else.
I got super lucky.
There was a guy named Joe Lake, who's a great guy, who was a boxing coach at this gym that I was working out at, and I was teaching a Taekwondo class there.
And so he started teaching me how to box, so I could teach him some kicks.
So I was teaching this guy some kicks, and then we started doing some sparring.
He'd bring in some boxers that I could spar with.
And I just got the fuck beat out of me.
And I was like, oh, Jesus Christ.
Like, trying to kickbox with these guys, my hands were so terrible.
I was so unaware of how easy it was to punch me in the face.
And I went through that same sort of a transition where you realize, like, wow.
I got a lot to learn.
I developed a style that's based on no punching to the face, so it's an unrealistic style.
But those guys that come from that unrealistic style, because there's so many kicks, they have a dexterity and a kicking dexterity that very few other guys ever develop.
bas rutten
Yeah, yeah.
There's a few guys that kick really freaking hard, coming from Taekwondo, who break arms.
Anthony Pettis.
Yeah, Pettis.
He's a really good one.
joe rogan
Anderson Silva.
bas rutten
The thing that I had, though, when they beat me up the first class...
I went back home and I always tell my students, I always say, if I can do it, you can do it.
Because people, they say, yeah, but it comes easy to me.
Sure, maybe you can, but I work really hard as well.
Don't forget that.
I stood four hours in front of the mirror with my hands.
Four hours.
And I was not going to drop my hands.
And my wife at the time said, you're crazy.
I said, no, no, no.
This will not happen again.
And the next day I went back and I just almost cleaned.
They cleaned up everybody.
They thought that I was pulling a trick on them.
That I already knew how to box or to tie box.
And then I just came in.
I said, no, I spent four hours in front of the mirror yesterday.
My hands were not going to drop anymore.
The guy though with the liver shot, he still had the best of me.
He was really good.
joe rogan
Well, that's just the only way to get great is to be obsessive, right?
bas rutten
That's it.
joe rogan
You got to be crazy.
bas rutten
You know, I tell this story and you've probably heard it before.
I would wake up my wife in the middle of the night because I would dream a submission and then I would put her in that submission.
I would say, hey, it's your shoulder, right?
Yeah, it's my shoulder.
I would write it down and then I would go to sleep and the next day I would go.
This happened at least six times.
joe rogan
You just wake up and use her as a grappling dummy?
bas rutten
That's it.
I would wake her up and I say, man, I got another one.
My whole house was full of little post-its.
Yeah, I was nuts, man.
joe rogan
Mario Sperry told me that.
Mario Sperry told me once that when I first learned Jiu Jitsu, I practiced a triangle.
I had my girlfriend, the CD in my guard.
And I go, bam.
And I just said, bam.
And he just would practice triangle over and over again.
And she's like, stop.
I don't want to do anything.
Fuck you.
unidentified
He kept doing it.
joe rogan
He just used his girlfriend as a grappling dummy, just slapping triangles on her.
I'm like, she should be honored.
That's Z-Mario, Mario Sperry.
bas rutten
But she's not with him anymore.
joe rogan
Probably not.
Maybe he married her.
I don't know.
Maybe it's a payback.
You got to see, and commentating in pride, you got to see some of the most historic fights in MMA history.
I mean, those days, in my opinion, and this is my opinion, I work for the UFC. Obviously, I'm biased.
I think the greatest fighters live today.
I think today, the level of fighters is at the highest level it's ever been in the UFC. Whether it's Anderson Silva, George St. Pierre, John Jones, that's the highest level it's ever existed.
But as far as the greatest events...
You were there for those 90,000 seat events.
bas rutten
91 and a half.
They came in.
Parachutes came in.
It was the wildest thing ever.
joe rogan
Oh, Inoki, right?
He landed with a parachute.
Yeah.
bas rutten
And Takata on top of the roof was opening the show.
I mean, it was insane.
It was the craziest thing.
unidentified
Jesus Christ.
bas rutten
A small show would be 45,000 people.
That was considered the normal show.
joe rogan
How did he land?
How did he glide himself?
bas rutten
I remember when it started, the wind was going really hard.
And I go, this is going to go wrong.
I mean, somebody's going to be like a fly squatted up, splatted up against whatever is there.
But I mean, they came in.
unidentified
They did it.
bas rutten
It was phenomenal.
It was the craziest thing.
joe rogan
The Japanese sense of pageant.
Did you want a water or something, man?
bas rutten
No, no, no.
That makes it worse with me.
I like a Diet Coke for some reason.
It seems to work.
joe rogan
Do we have anything?
I don't think we have a Diet Coke.
We have ginger ale maybe.
bas rutten
Yeah, I'll try that.
joe rogan
Coconut water.
We have coconut water.
bas rutten
Coconut water.
I like that also.
joe rogan
We have coconut water.
Cocoa Cafe.
It's coconut water with espresso in it.
It's delicious.
You want to try that?
bas rutten
Yeah, I'll try that.
joe rogan
Get me one of them too, Jamie.
Please.
But the sense of pageantry that the Japanese...
I still, on this TV right here, I have Best of Prides, and a lot of times before the podcast, I'll watch like a bunch of pride fights in a row, and sometimes I forgot how insane they were.
bas rutten
You know, I remember the time when Dana White was there with Chuck Liddell, you know, and they were sitting there in the first row waiting, and it started.
And I looked at Dana and he was like, what?
I mean, and I looked at him and I'm like, right?
He goes, it was the craziest ever.
joe rogan
This is that Coco Cafe stuff.
These aren't our sponsors, but they're cool people.
They send us cool shit.
It's called Coco Cafe.
And the other stuff that's over there, which is...
It's unbelievably delicious.
That's C2O coconut water.
bas rutten
Last time I was here and you had that, I buy it by the pellet now too.
You know what the good is?
This with a cigar.
unidentified
It's a good combination.
joe rogan
It's delicious, sweet coconut juice.
It's from Thailand.
C2O, they said that those coconut trees are small.
They're only like five feet tall.
They're not like a regular crazy coconut tree, but it's a Thai coconut that you want.
Amy and Brian's has the Thai Coconut and CTO. But sometimes they have the little bubbles in also, this one.
The green one has little chunks of coconut in it as well.
That's what I put in my morning shake.
I make a hemp force with a hemp protein.
I make a shake.
Hemp?
Not even psychoactive.
bas rutten
It's good for everything.
joe rogan
Well, it is good for everything.
That's what's crazy about it.
Well, they just came up with a hempcrete.
Have you heard of this?
They got this hemp concrete and it's actually flexible.
For real.
Yeah, it's incredible.
It's called hempcrete.
bas rutten
It's the same as they have in the Olympic Stadium?
joe rogan
Well, they're harder than...
This is what's crazy.
They're harder than regular concrete.
bas rutten
Wow.
joe rogan
And lighter.
bas rutten
And because it moves, it's way better for buildings because it can't break, you know?
Yes, it sways.
Nice.
joe rogan
Hemp is a crazy plant.
It doesn't even seem real.
And what a lot of people don't know is that it's not...
When you're talking about, like, you say hemp, you're thinking about pot, you're thinking about getting high.
It has nothing to do with getting high.
bas rutten
It has just to do with...
joe rogan
As a product, as a commodity.
It's an amazing plant.
What it can do is you can get the stalk, like the base of it.
It's hard as a rock, but yet it's light, like styrofoam.
It's alien.
It's like an alien plant.
There's no plant on the planet like hemp.
And it's illegal, these fuckheads.
Jesus, Boss Rootin!
It's really illegal in Japan, right?
I mean, if you get caught in Japan, you're in fucking trouble, right?
bas rutten
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
Was that weird, spending so much time in that culture?
Because Brian and I went last year, and that was both of our first time, and we were like, holy shit, this place is nuts!
bas rutten
Yeah, you brought a lot of the pills, the THC pills.
Did you bring those a lot?
Because they're legal, right?
You can't get them on your prescription.
What's the name again of those?
Oh, Marinol?
joe rogan
Yeah, those would fuck you up.
bas rutten
Yeah, but I mean, if you go to Japan, you better bring that.
joe rogan
Yeah, if you want to get high, you mean.
unidentified
I got offered weed.
joe rogan
You got offered weed in Japan?
bas rutten
Oh, no, it's very easy to get there.
If you go to Roppongi, it's all...
Craziness.
joe rogan
All those African dudes.
Those African dudes that are wandering the streets trying to offer you massages.
unidentified
Is that where we went, Kapangi?
joe rogan
Rapongi?
bas rutten
Rapongi.
unidentified
Rapongi.
bas rutten
That's the one.
That's the place I went to, like I said, before a fight.
joe rogan
That's where you would go and get fucked up.
bas rutten
Yeah, that was Rapongi.
That was it.
joe rogan
Was it weird, though, being over in that culture, like, on a regular basis?
bas rutten
You know, it is.
I have a buddy with me from Sweden.
He's young, and I know him for four years, been bullied when he was a kid, until, you know, also stood up and knocked the bully out and started getting in.
He wants to start fighting, and he's coming now here also.
And he's here for the first weekend, and he wants to stay for three months to train.
And he also said, you know, yeah, it's hard, you know, your family and especially, you know, because he's used to his family all the time around.
And I said, you know, I know exactly what you're going through because I had that too.
Sometimes I went five weeks over there.
I was in a hotel room.
And that was it.
You go in the morning, you go train, you go back, you eat, you go train, you go back, and then that's it.
And then you have video games.
I was very good at Virtua Fighter, playing these big video games there.
But there is nobody to communicate.
There's no going out district.
The only thing they have is a Roppongi.
But for the rest, it's not like you can walk in a bar somewhere.
Plus, you don't want to do that because you're in training.
It's hard.
It's hard at that moment to be there.
It's very weird.
People are completely different.
It's quiet.
Everything is...
It's a weird feeling.
To me though, I truly believe that I completely changed my fighting style.
I was a super aggressive fighter.
That's why I put those big R's on my hand in the beginning.
But in Holland, I would come out very technical.
Boom, jab, low kick.
I would get hit.
It was like...
And then I would just tear them up.
That's why I got like 13 first round knockouts.
You know, just blasted people over this, would hit them out of the ring almost.
Just totally lost control.
joe rogan
You would try to start out technical, but then you'd just get crazy when you got hit.
bas rutten
Oh, I got hit and I got so angry.
And then when I went to Japan, I realized...
These guys are known to take a hit.
When I found out, that was the funniest part, no weight classes.
So my guy was 245. I go, and that's not a problem here, no.
I said, okay, good, good, good.
So I'm bluffing now, right?
I said, so how many runs we got?
Five?
They said, no, one run.
I said, one, great.
How many minutes?
30. I said, oh yeah, great, great, great, great, great.
But in my mind, I went, Jesus.
joe rogan
30 fucking minutes.
bas rutten
So that's why I put the R's on my head.
If I unload myself the first two minutes, I got 28 minutes to go.
I don't want to take that risk.
joe rogan
Do you like that?
Do you prefer when you see the Pride 10 minute round, the opening round?
There's a lot of debate about that as well.
Whether or not the 10 minute opening round is better or the 3-5, you know.
bas rutten
Well, I can tell you one thing.
The 10 minute opening round makes for a better strategical fighter.
That's for sure.
Because you got...
People have no clue how tired you can get in one minute or in two minutes.
I have these one minute drills that I do on the back that pros come in and they go...
I mean, but I go berserk, you know, give you combinations.
Everything is 100%.
unidentified
I've got to ask this while you're saying this before I forget.
joe rogan
Someone's been asking on the underground, do you still sell those Boss Rootin workout tapes?
bas rutten
Yeah, still.
Everybody's using it.
unidentified
Where can you get them?
bas rutten
Are you finally using them now?
BossRootin.com.
joe rogan
BossRootin.com.
You sell it.
Okay.
bas rutten
Yep.
joe rogan
Because there was a bunch of people that were asking on MixedMartialArts.com.
bas rutten
The Boston MMA workout.
That workout is going to be your best friend.
When I train myself, it's always part of my workout.
For real.
Once you did it ever with the numbers.
joe rogan
Yes, it's great.
bas rutten
It's great because you can do it anywhere.
You can do it in the hotel room.
I put the bed to the side with the sprawls and everything.
joe rogan
It's fun.
bas rutten
It's a fun workout.
I love that.
But the 10 minutes opening round, if you overshot yourself, shoot yourself in the beginning of the round, you know, you're going to have eight minutes left.
And eight minutes is a very long time, you know, to come back from that.
So I truly believe, you know, you play always that danger as a fighter.
That's why I always said to all my guys, the 38-year-old guy who I said was starting fighting, I said, stamina is going to be your number one goal.
Technique we put at number two.
I want stamina at one.
Because if you run out of gas, you can have 100 black belts.
It's not going to save you.
You're going to get knocked out.
And he really did that.
He can go, and especially with amateurs, he gets short rounds.
He can blast them all the way along.
And that's how he had a hard first round, and then the guy started getting more tired.
And then the third round, yeah, he just destroyed the guy.
Knocked him out.
And that's with fighting.
You play a little bit of a risk factor.
That's why I always trained so hard.
I didn't want to have that risk factor in there.
I never run out of gas in my life.
joe rogan
Yeah, you were never a guy that had a short gas tank even in the Kosaka fight where you couldn't train grappling.
And he took you down and he was basically trying to out-grapple you in that fight.
He didn't want to stand with you.
You still managed to have the conditioning to take him out on the feet.
bas rutten
Yeah, yeah.
The Kosaka fight was also...
I always show my backdoor escapes with...
And I always said...
I said, what's that fight?
He takes me down, see how long he's got me.
I think, what, 20 seconds?
I'm out.
You know, it's just backdoor escapes.
But I would go over and over and over again, you know.
When I do something, I do it.
It's black and white with me.
I'll go all the way and...
joe rogan
Well, your style is always very interesting to me.
It's fascinating how many different people have a different approach, like Nick Diaz's approach, where he throws like, he'll hit you with like 50% punches.
He'll just come at you like this.
Have you seen the video of him shadowboxing, by the way, or hitting the speed bag?
Brian, pull this up.
Nick Diaz hits the fucking speed bag for 23 minutes in a row.
bas rutten
Wow.
joe rogan
It's insane.
bas rutten
23 minutes in a row.
I did this five minute round.
23 minutes in a row?
joe rogan
And by the way, he had ridden his bike 15 fucking miles to the gym.
I'm not bullshitting.
He rode his bike 15 miles to the gym, sparred five five minute rounds, hit the pads, and then does this.
For 23 fucking minutes.
bas rutten
The only thing with me is though, I'll do one, one, one.
I don't do about diggity diggity.
I don't do that.
I go diggity diggity.
I go really fast.
But that is crazy.
There's no elected assets.
joe rogan
It's amazing.
He's got incredible conditioning.
And he's a couple of days away from the fight.
That's this weekend.
This Saturday night.
George St. Pierre and him are going down.
bas rutten
That's going to be crazy.
joe rogan
In Montreal.
This is 23 minutes of this he does this boss.
And at the end of it all, he's not even that tired.
I mean it's fucking crazy.
This guy's not doing this at a slow pace.
Look at this.
Nick Diaz has, in my opinion, he's got the best cardio in all of MMA. But you see, he's doing what I said, you know?
bas rutten
Just do it more than other people.
Look at this, man.
That's insane.
If he does this for 23 minutes, guess why he doesn't get burned out in his shoulders?
joe rogan
Because he's always doing it.
bas rutten
This is the reason.
joe rogan
He does it so often.
And by the way, when he's not doing it, he's fucking doing triathlons.
The guy swam from Alcatraz twice.
You know how crazy you have to be to jump in the water up there?
This is filled with sharks.
That's like great white mating habitat.
bas rutten
That was a big myth also, right?
At that time.
That they planted it in people's heads so they wouldn't start swimming back.
joe rogan
Oh no, there's fucking sharks.
bas rutten
But the stream is the worst.
The stream that takes people out there.
unidentified
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
bas rutten
That's the most dangerous.
joe rogan
Yeah, the tide.
Yeah, there's a lot of shit that's dangerous.
First of all, the water's really fucking cold up there.
bas rutten
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But you know what?
And that's what I say again.
What he does, you can do too.
You just have to do it.
joe rogan
You just have to do it.
bas rutten
And that's what the people, when they run out of gas, go run a freaking hill, man.
I mean, that's what I used to do.
joe rogan
One of the things that you said is you said, You said I would do one round.
I would start out one minute, and I would go full clip, and then next time, I'd do one minute and a half, and then eventually you build up.
bas rutten
That's it.
joe rogan
But that was your style of doing it, though.
bas rutten
And you know what I do?
I have those one minute drills on the back.
That would be focus mitts and tie pads, what you just talked about.
But I would take it even easier.
What I would do is one minute on the back, One minute rest.
And I would do 15 rounds.
That's 30 minutes.
Then I would go the next week, one minute and five seconds on the back, 55 seconds rest.
Next week, one minute, 10 seconds, 50 seconds.
Every time, five seconds more and five seconds away from your rest time.
At the end, you're at one and a half minute.
Going crazy on the back.
Every punch is hit through somebody's head.
Like, there's not one half punch.
joe rogan
And what are you down, like 30 seconds rest?
bas rutten
And then 30 seconds rest.
One and a half minutes full.
You see guys in fights, In a fight who suddenly unload themselves for 20-30 seconds and they gassed out.
joe rogan
Right?
bas rutten
How many times do you see that happening?
joe rogan
Many times.
bas rutten
Well, that's the drill for you, this.
joe rogan
Yeah.
bas rutten
You know, you're going to be bizarre strong.
And every time it's just five seconds more.
unidentified
Right.
bas rutten
You know, every week.
So it's fine, slowly.
And that you do together with the other drills that I said going...
Two to five to six minute rounds.
joe rogan
What I was getting at with the Nick Diaz thing was that it's so interesting to see the different styles, like the way Nick approaches it, where he just has a lot of volume and he doesn't blast you full blast with every shot, whereas you had a different style.
You would, even when you would kick their arms, you would try to crush them.
You would try to break their arms.
bas rutten
Make him afraid of it.
Like I say, if somebody puts his defense up, kick as hard as you can on the defense, put in his head that, I better block this because if I don't block it, you know, now you're inside his head.
You see, already created.
But Nick Diaz has a different muscle than I have.
I have the fast twitch fibers.
A lot of guys out there have that.
They burn a lot, but he doesn't have.
He has the slow twitch fibers.
And that doesn't mean it's slow, but I mean it has a difference.
He has the endurance guys.
A lot of them have that.
But all the explosive guys, they really have to watch out how they fight.
Burst, relax.
Burst, relax.
You have to fight and train like that because otherwise you run out of gas.
That's why you see all those super explosive guys, they run out of gas and that's the reason because they don't train like that.
joe rogan
One of the things that Chael Sonnen said, he said that if you try to knock a guy out, if you feel like you have an opportunity, you try to knock the guy out, if you don't knock him out, you're probably not going to win a decision.
Like, you have to realize, you're gambling it all.
And if the guy survives it, you might be out of gas.
bas rutten
Yeah, but Steele has the same thing.
There's also no knockout power.
You know, he just throws volume, volume, volume, volume.
Like, Nick Diaz, he's got knockout power if he wants.
He can drop one.
But you see, again, Mitchell, he's got incredible stamina.
You see, that's those muscles.
joe rogan
It's a grappling stamina, too, more.
Yeah, it's just such a fascinating thing to see guys start to put it all together and also to see the whole style changing where these guys like these Rory McDonald guys that can do everything are starting to sort of move ahead.
bas rutten
And who is explosive also.
joe rogan
Yeah, explosive also and does a lot of explosive drills.
You ever see his workouts?
He's doing a lot of, like, jumping over those horses, you know, those sawhorses.
bas rutten
Oh, beautiful.
unidentified
I see.
I love that.
joe rogan
You know, jumping over those barriers.
What are they called?
Hurdles?
A lot of hurdle jumping, a lot of, like, powerlifting, a lot of, like, all that, you know, strength and conditioning shit that you see with, like, pro football players, pro hockey players.
That's what you're seeing now is you're seeing, like, real athletes.
bas rutten
Yep.
joe rogan
And also guys that have multi-faceted attacks.
For the longest time, I've always said, like, guys should throw more leg kicks, and people would get pissed at me.
They're like, why do you keep saying that?
You know, he's doing well on his own.
I'm like, because it's not...
unidentified
He can do better.
joe rogan
He can do better, yeah.
And who am I to say it?
Well, yeah, who am I? But I'm also a guy who's seen a thousand fights, and I know...
What some people can do.
I know there are guys...
When you see a guy like Anderson Silva who basically can do everything, and when you see that guy, you know that those guys are possible.
So when you see a guy who doesn't, or when you see a guy like George St. Pierre who makes it so unpredictable what he's going to do, whether he's going to punch you or try to take you down...
And that's part of why he's so effective.
It's because he's moving.
He moves really well.
He covers distance really well.
And you don't know if he's shooting a double or if he's throwing a punch at you.
You don't know.
He makes you worry about it.
bas rutten
He's like the La Jolla used to do.
The La Jolla would go to a fight, and every time he would bring a new thing to a fight, and that would be his focus on.
And GSP has the same thing.
Like, for instance, when he fought Koshek, it was the jab, a long jab.
And it was that spinning back.
He comes with two or three things and he will throw that the most and in between he ad-libs and he does all the rest that he knows very well.
joe rogan
The spinning back was from him working with me.
unidentified
Oh yeah?
joe rogan
The whole video of me teaching him how to do it.
We were at Legends in Hollywood and it was the most ridiculous conversation.
I was talking to John Donaher and he was looking for someone to teach George St. Pierre how to throw a Spinning back kick, he was asking me, do you know any good Taekwondo guys?
I go, this is going to sound crazy.
You're not going to believe me.
I go, but I got a fucking nasty turning side kick.
It was like my number one technique.
I could show him.
And so I worked with George on it.
We went over like a lot of it.
He already had a decent one.
He just was, he had a couple of weird things.
bas rutten
Rotates over, over-rotating.
joe rogan
Over-rotating.
And a lot of it was the low knee kicking up as opposed to the higher knee kicking straight.
Like that Taekwondo style.
You started in that way too.
bas rutten
The swing is from the knee, backwards.
joe rogan
More of a back kick.
bas rutten
Yeah, the back kick is higher with us.
I'll lift it up higher now as well.
joe rogan
Lifting it up higher is where you get the real power because you involve the hip in a full rotation.
bas rutten
The only example, Peter Smith.
You know, remember Peter Smith, the Kyokushin guy?
The first time I saw him, he was doing a Kyokushin tournament and I think he won his six fights in one day, all by spinning back kick.
And that was that kick.
joe rogan
Oh, he had a nasty one.
bas rutten
But it was so ridiculous hard.
It was like, poof!
And the guy would crumple.
You know, it was the craziest thing ever.
What a guy too, man.
He's up there now with Roman, for sure.
Because those guys, they knew each other as well.
joe rogan
Peter Smith?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
bas rutten
What a great person also, man.
joe rogan
Yeah, he fought a lot of guys too.
I mean, he fought a lot of Thai guys too, right?
bas rutten
Yeah, he's hilarious.
joe rogan
Yeah, guys that will mix up, like I always loved it, those guys would mix up karate techniques and taekwondo techniques with the Muay Thai, like Andy Hoog.
I mean, throw that wheel kick to the thigh.
bas rutten
To the leg, you know, that's how he won the whole thing with Bernardo, remember?
Bernardo got his legs messed up already with Peter Ertz and everybody, you know, and then he was a smart guy, Andy Hoog.
Who did that?
Nobody ever did that, and he did, and he knocked him out like that.
To the legs.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's amazing.
It's an amazing technique.
That wheel kick to the leg.
There's so much power to it.
bas rutten
It's like those capoeira guys.
Today I had a question on Facebook.
If a pure capoeira guy against a pure Thai boxer was going to win.
And then I go, but okay, well, I'll take the pure Thai boxer.
I say Holland.
I don't mean like...
Than Thailand.
But I say the Thai Boxer, of course, because they will probably close the distance really fast, being in hand range, and Capoeira doesn't have that.
They have only kicks and spinning.
But once a kick hits, I mean, they have so much power when they propel that weight, the way they throw that kick, but landing it, that's the thing.
It's a lot of movement.
A lot of movement is easily detectable.
joe rogan
It's like when Lyoto Machida landed that front kick on Randy, that jumping front kick to the face.
bas rutten
Jumping, yeah.
Even more crazy.
joe rogan
But the reason he could do it is because he's got good wrestling, he's got a black belt in jujitsu, he's got good hands, he's got all the other things as well.
And so then you can add those karate techniques and then they become incredibly deadly.
bas rutten
Yeah, and talking about Machida, that's maybe good to mention because one time I said, yeah, he doesn't have a lot of weapons.
I didn't mean it like that.
What I mean is that he doesn't use a lot of weapons.
He's got a very southpaw stance, a one-line karate stance, which shuts him down for the right.
Like he has a sidekick, but a roundhouse kick you don't need to be worried about because he can't use his hip power in there.
And I'm not saying people go like, oh, so he can't knock you out?
I'm not saying that.
We saw Kimbo getting knocked out with the weirdest little tiny punch.
Everyone can get knocked out when you hit him at the wrong time, at the wrong spot for him.
You're at the right time, right spot.
But he says his attacks are most of the time it's a left straight or it's a left kick, left straight, or a left kick, left straight, right hook.
And when he moves backwards, I said, he always moves to that side.
And if you bull rush him because of his stance, he has to start walking backwards.
Because otherwise he can't move backwards fast enough.
And that's what I meant, you know.
But he always, like with the front kick, he brings something, you know.
He has those same attacks, but he knows them very well.
He's got really precision accuracy.
And then on top of that, his counters are bizarre.
But his attack...
It's pretty much those attacks.
joe rogan
Machina gets a lot of heat, and he got a lot of heat in the Dan Henderson fight.
When I was interviewing him after the fight, the whole audience was booing him.
And I thought that was kind of fucked up, because I thought, first of all, Dan Henderson is incredibly dangerous.
Very, very, very dangerous guy.
Super powerful puncher.
Ruthless, very aggressive, and a lot of experience knocking people out.
Dan Sanderson knocked out Fedor, knocked out Vanderlei.
He knows how to put knuckles to chin.
He's a spooky guy.
And there's only one way to fight him and not get knocked out.
Don't get hit by him.
And so Machida's number one goal, don't get hit by that fucking nuclear weapon this guy's packing.
And I thought that was an exciting fight.
bas rutten
It was an exciting fight.
But I can understand the people because he's a counter fighter.
He waits for Henderson.
Henderson, though, I thought right from the get-go, he throws one punch and he stays there.
And I go, he's going to get knocked out now.
Because Machida is very good at countering.
I thought if I would fight, if I was Henderson with his wrestling, I would just run on him.
Run, put him up against.
You know he's going to go that way because he doesn't fight 95%.
You watched the day before.
Take him down and go for ground and pound.
But whatever you do, don't throw single punches or two punch combinations because he's so good at the counter.
joe rogan
Yeah, I think when I see a lot of older wrestlers like Dan, I mean, I know Dan recently had a knee injury and his knee was really wrapped up for that fight.
I always assume that they're going in there banged up.
Always assume.
bas rutten
Like Sakuraba.
joe rogan
Yeah, and I think with Dan, especially because he's got so much knockout power, Probably avoid the grappling.
I mean, I bet he's got back issues.
I'm sure he does.
These guys, I mean, it's a fucking brutal way to make a living.
And he's 42 now?
bas rutten
He's the man's man, though.
I really like that.
That is, you know, the way when he fought Fedor, you know, that Fedor came out banging, and then you see him making up his mind like, oh, is it going to be like that?
joe rogan
Yeah.
bas rutten
Okay, I can do that, too.
And then he freaking came.
And that's what I love about that man.
I saw him in pride, like after the first round, crawling on his knees back to the corner, and then he would come out second round like nothing happened and just fight again.
joe rogan
He's a tough motherfucker.
bas rutten
Very.
joe rogan
He took that first Vandele fight.
He was not in good shape.
You could tell.
He just wasn't in condition enough for that fight.
And that was a scary fight for him at one point in time, when Vanderlei was mounting him and pounding on him.
bas rutten
Beating everybody at Vanderlei at that time.
joe rogan
Yeah, Vanderlei was a spooky, spooky dude back then.
And also, this is in Pride, where there's no drug testing.
You could be on EPO, testosterone, you name it.
Everybody knows it.
It's the dirty little thing that nobody wants to talk about.
Those motherfuckers are juice to the gills.
bas rutten
I always say, just look at the bodies, and then look at the bodies, how they changed, and most of the time, there you have the answer.
joe rogan
And on top of that, they didn't get tired.
Vanderlei didn't get tired.
bas rutten
It was the craziest thing ever.
joe rogan
Vanderlei in his prime back then, man.
He was so fucking scary.
bas rutten
How cool was it to see back in Japan that fight?
joe rogan
It was amazing.
Have him beat Bryan Stan.
Classic Vanderlei.
You know what I liked about that fight, too?
He didn't cut down to 185. Yeah.
bas rutten
I think that's not good for him.
joe rogan
I think it hurts him.
bas rutten
I tell everybody, you know, this is the thing with fighters, a bunch of fighters.
When they lose in a certain weight class, they blame it on the other person cutting more weight than them.
That's why they were strong.
I said, dude, make up a technique.
Get more stamina and more technique and work harder.
That's what I would do.
I always fought heavyweight.
I could easily fight under 200 punch.
I was under 200 punch, but I didn't want to do it because I saw all these guys, all my friends, getting sick.
I mean, they were all shrunk up before the fight.
I say, keep the body happy, man.
You're beating it up every day already, two times a day.
The only thing I can do for it is give him what he wants.
Give him all the fluids.
Nutrients.
Give it to him.
And don't pull that out.
It's the worst thing you can do.
joe rogan
People don't understand what we're talking about if you're not into MMA, but there's a real issue in mixed martial arts with weight cutting.
And what that means is, well, guys will weigh...
Say if you had to get down to 170 pounds, there's guys that weigh, like Anthony Rumble Johnson, well over 200 pounds.
Well over 200 pounds.
He's enormous.
He's fighting heavyweight now.
Anthony Rumble Johnson, I think on March 23rd, he's fighting Orlovsky.
unidentified
At heavyweight!
bas rutten
It's fucking crazy!
joe rogan
He used to cut down to 170. What that means is you essentially starve yourself and then dehydrate yourself.
And dehydrate yourself the day before the fight to the point where guys would black out.
Guys couldn't move their legs.
Literally their legs would stop working.
And then they would have to fight in a cage fight the next day.
bas rutten
We had to pull Hordeski out of the sauna, you know, to pass out.
He lost in 27 pounds.
joe rogan
In a day?
bas rutten
In a day, the guy, the...
joe rogan
He's a young kid too.
bas rutten
The Atlantic Commissioner said that it was the biggest difference he ever saw.
That's almost two weight classes up.
That he was 27 or 28 even pounds heavier the next day.
joe rogan
But didn't Hordeski was like 18 at the time, too?
bas rutten
Yeah, I was very young.
Yeah, I think, yeah, 18, 19 was when he started fighting at the IFL. And I remember the first time, because he fought the guy from Hanzo, and I go, oh my god, because it's a baby.
unidentified
You know, you look at him, he's a little baby.
bas rutten
And Sean goes, don't you worry about it.
You watch.
And then he started, man.
He went to town, and he became a fan favorite right away.
joe rogan
Yeah, he looked like he had a little bit of body fat on him, though.
bas rutten
Yeah, at that time, yeah.
joe rogan
He could have, like, lost the weight correctly.
unidentified
Mm-hmm.
bas rutten
Yeah, true.
Longer out.
joe rogan
Weight cutting, man.
It's just so...
bas rutten
Don't do it!
joe rogan
But then again, some guys know how to do it well.
Like, look at Benson Henderson.
bas rutten
Yeah.
joe rogan
You know, he does it great.
He doesn't look sucked in.
He is obviously very, very lean, but he's disciplined about it, and...
Because of that, when he fights, he's got all the stamina in the world.
He can do five five-minute rounds, no problem.
And, you know, he's huge.
bas rutten
He's huge for 155. Some guys, though, they drink two gallons of water a day, you know, and that's a lot of power right there.
And if you only have to cut that out, then it's easy.
But I think once you start cutting before and you start eating away muscle, you're doing it wrong.
And once the reserves are going to be asked for in the body and they're going to say, okay, I truly believe it.
Like the brain fluids, God knows you take them away there also.
And that is the reason the brain is bouncing upside down.
And that's why people get...
joe rogan
Brain damage.
bas rutten
Brain damage, yeah.
joe rogan
And people don't know this, but in boxing, I believe all of the deaths ever recorded were below the heavyweight division.
Because the heavyweights, I mean, there might be some rare occurrences.
Boxing is a tough game.
Some people might have died as a heavyweight.
But most of the incidences were in the lighter weight classes when guys cut a lot of weight, and that was when they used to have the weigh-in the day of the fight.
And that was also when they weren't using IVs.
What a lot of folks don't know is when you see these guys dehydrate themselves, one of the things that's sick about it is they go and they get fucking IV bags stuck in their arm.
They get a needle in their arm And they replenished their fluids that way.
bas rutten
Yeah, I would walk in a room, and the whole room, everybody would sit there, and there was bags hanging everywhere, you know, and they got re-tanked.
joe rogan
How about fucking blood?
I know a guy who went into a room where one of the fighters, this is way back in the day, And the guy had fucking pints of blood out that they were putting back into him.
bas rutten
But you see, if that's blood coming out of the fridge, that's like EPO. They put more white blood cells in there.
joe rogan
Exactly.
And he was also doing it to make weight.
They were taking blood out of him to make weight and they were adding extra blood in.
bas rutten
Idiots, man.
Fucking nuts.
It's like that EPO shit, what they're doing right now also.
Your blood gets really thick.
Your heart rate gets really low.
Some of these guys have to wake up in the middle of the night, jump 10 minutes on a bike or in the home.
They have it in the bedroom because otherwise the heart might stop beating.
And I go...
Do you really want to get a title like that?
Plus, when you get your title and you cheated, what if you use steroids or anything and you get a title?
I always tell these people, if I brush my teeth, I can look at myself in the mirror.
I did everything without cheating, nothing ever in my body other than just good food.
joe rogan
How about brushing your teeth?
bas rutten
Yeah, when you brush your teeth and you look at yourself in the mirror, you're going to go like, I was a cheater.
joe rogan
I was like, how competitive are you at teeth brushing?
Taking steroids to brush your teeth?
bas rutten
Oh, hey.
joe rogan
You know what?
bas rutten
You're going to laugh.
My wife laughs her ass off every time.
Because my little daughter is the same as me, like movement-wise.
She bounces all day long, ding, ding, ding, you know, and dancing at 11 o'clock at night.
And when you hear her brushing her teeth, it goes...
She's the same as me.
She puts a lot of power in.
I have the same thing.
It's hilarious.
It's so cool when you see one room for my daughter.
It's a garbage field.
The other one is like everything is perfect.
unidentified
The pen is perfectly on the paper.
joe rogan
It's funny how their personality is different.
I have one, my two-year-old, that I think might be a lesbian.
I don't have any problem with that, but my wife does.
When I say she's a dyke, she goes and grabs Batman and Spiderman.
She always wants to play with the Hulk.
She wants to play with boys toys.
She likes it.
bas rutten
Maybe she likes boys very much.
joe rogan
She sees me work out, so she comes over, she tries punching and kicking the bag.
She's very aggressive.
bas rutten
Oh, it's the best.
joe rogan
But the other one's like girly and princessy.
She's built different too.
She has like thick ankles and shit.
bas rutten
Probably a dyke.
I have no problem with it.
joe rogan
I love lesbians, man.
You know, my wife's like, don't say that.
And I'm like, how can you?
unidentified
Who cares?
joe rogan
Yeah, not only that.
My wife has gay friends.
She loves gay people.
I don't know what to do.
bas rutten
So what, man?
I think the people with a lesbian brain capacity, they have all problems with that.
I truly believe.
You know, like the transgender who's fighting, and they asked me last week, I said, who even cares?
joe rogan
I care about that.
They need to fight transgenders.
If a transgender is going to fight, they need to fight other transgenders.
bas rutten
You think so, yeah?
joe rogan
Fuck yeah.
unidentified
Why?
bas rutten
You think he's going to get horny while he's...
unidentified
No!
joe rogan
No, no, no, no, no.
Physical, they have an advantage.
The mechanical advantage of the male body.
Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa!
bas rutten
So he fights girls?
unidentified
Yes.
bas rutten
No, I didn't know that.
No, no, no.
I thought he fought guys.
joe rogan
No, girls.
bas rutten
Oh, no, no, no.
That's BS, right?
Yeah, of course.
He's got testosterone.
Come on.
joe rogan
Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee, if you've been a transgender, if you've cut off within two years, I think after two years, they allow you to compete against women in Taekwondo.
No.
Yes, in Taekwondo.
bas rutten
See, I didn't know that.
joe rogan
Yeah, I think it's ridiculous.
bas rutten
No, I thought just fighting with guys, come on, I don't care.
joe rogan
Well, with guys, they would get killed.
Without the testosterone, they'd get killed.
You get your balls cut off and then fight against guys, you're going to get killed.
There's a famous Muay Thai fighter who was a ladyboy.
unidentified
Who fought really well.
joe rogan
And then she got the operation and then she started getting knocked out.
Because once she got the operation and became a woman, she didn't have testosterone anymore.
So then she started really getting fucked up.
But you might not be able to beat men after you get your dick cut off, but you still can beat women.
The tendons, the ligaments, the bone density, especially because she's not just walking around.
She's training for MMA. So she has a male body that she's training for MMA. And I looked at her and she's so bulky, man.
I'm like, man, I can't believe that this chick is not taking something.
If she has no balls anymore, how is she keeping this much muscle mass?
I mean, she looks like a muscular man.
It's gross.
bas rutten
It's fucking craziness.
That's not cool.
Fight other guys.
Then I'm okay with it.
joe rogan
How did you feel about that whole Cyborg thing, when Cyborg tested positive for steroids?
If you don't know who that is, folks, Cyborg is one of the scariest women fighters.
She's a real woman, but she's very masculine and very muscular, and she tested positive.
bas rutten
Well, she says she didn't do it.
I get it when people say that, but nobody was in shock, right?
But the way she looks, she looks indeed like she's doing it.
I mean, the way after the fight when she was throwing up her husband at the time, the divorce now, you know, it was like, whoa, she's abnormal strong.
joe rogan
She looks like a man on steroids.
bas rutten
Yeah, so it was not a big surprise.
But I always say if they say no and they say no, you have to believe them.
I think it will be very sad, but that's me.
I could not lie like that.
I could not live in a lie like that.
If I have to lie about that, then my whole life is a lie now suddenly.
joe rogan
Well, here's the reality.
The reality is she came from a Brazilian camp known for aggressive fighters that may or may not have taken substances as well.
So there's that issue, right?
That's legit and inescapable.
And then two, she tested positive.
And once you test positive, I mean, it's essentially, why would we believe you?
You look like you're on steroids, and you test positive for steroids.
That is just as much of an issue to me as a transgender woman or a man who used to be a woman.
bas rutten
Well, when you said it with the transgender, you heard now with the ovary.
I read that last week with the injury.
I heard something on the day of Inside MMA. They said, oh, it was an injury.
I truly believe there is because his testosterone was 180. Oh, you're talking about Alistair Overeem.
Alistair Overeem's testosterone level was so low.
179. So I thought that was the reason he was not going to fight in Nevada because Keith Kaiser had said prior usage.
That's the reason.
That's why he cannot fight.
joe rogan
I've got to explain everything.
What we're talking about is testosterone use exemption, a TUE, for testosterone replacement therapy.
It's a very controversial issue now.
With MMA fighters where they're taking testosterone because the body doesn't produce it as much anymore.
And there's two reasons for that.
There's three, actually.
One is just the natural aging process.
There's a natural aging process.
Once you get over 30, your body starts producing less and less testosterone.
bas rutten
I would say 45, maybe.
joe rogan
Well, no, it's slowly.
unidentified
Yeah, slowly.
bas rutten
But you don't need it.
joe rogan
You don't need it.
No, you certainly don't need it.
But the true issue, though, is when guys have taken steroids...
In the past, they take them for prolonged periods of time and then it kills their balls.
And so then they test really low.
And that's most likely what's going on with Alistair.
bas rutten
And then Keith Kaiser said if they find out that your prior usage because Alistair was caught before, this is for the listeners at home, you know, by using testosterone, Then they said, okay, you cannot get it.
And since the fight was in Vegas, I thought, oh, that is the reason.
But then on the day of the show, they said, oh, no, he just released.
It was his hamstring.
So when I said this story, I said, well, I thought it was that Teston-Steron deal he was with.
People right away, because I said something about Alistair like over a year and a half ago or something, they go like...
Oh, it's only because he left Golden Glory and all that stuff.
I go, dude, you grow over it.
I don't have a problem with it.
I'm just saying what I read this week and I thought was the reason he couldn't compete in Nevada because Keith Kaiser is there.
joe rogan
For folks who don't know what the fuck we're talking about, testosterone is a huge controversial issue now.
Vitor Belfort is another example of it because Keith Kaiser has said that Because of the fact that he tested positive for steroids in 2006, I believe it was.
I think it was when Pride was in Vegas, right?
He fought against Dan Henderson.
When you test positive for steroids, if you have any history of doing that, they assume that the reason why your test is low is because you ruined your body.
And if that's the case, you're on your own because you cheated.
If you have a real medical condition for why your testosterone is low, Then they'll grant exemptions and they've granted them for Forrest Griffin and a bunch of other guys.
Dan Henderson.
bas rutten
He's 42 years old or something.
Now we start talking age here.
But a guy who's under 35, he should not have low testosterone.
He should not.
joe rogan
Unless he's got a medical condition.
unidentified
Yeah.
bas rutten
You know, I had guys that were looking at me and they said, no, and I really need it.
And I go, dude, I remember you when you were 225. You're back full of zits.
You were freaking huge.
Now you're fighting at 155 and now you want an exemption because, oh no, I have something with my colon or whatever they say.
I say, you know what the reason is.
Don't be here lying to me now, you know?
joe rogan
Nobody ever wants to admit my balls don't work because I took roids.
bas rutten
Too much.
Yeah.
joe rogan
But so like...
Vitor, who's active in the UFC and is doing really well, just knocked out Michael Bisping, and now he's going to fight again.
He's going to fight in Brazil.
He can never fight in Vegas now.
bas rutten
No, that's what I said also in our show.
I gave the example of Alistair, and I said, because he said the same thing with Vitor Belfort, and of course they attacked me with...
Oh, you're against Alistair because you left Colin Clark.
No, no.
Everybody's the same.
When I said he had a glass jaw, I didn't say that.
Look, if he was really close as a friend, I wouldn't mention it.
Many people need to know, but then otherwise I say it.
I said about Cain Velasquez, I love Cain Velasquez.
I think he's a great fighter, but he's not a super strong chin.
But he's an unbelievable fighter.
You can see what he can do.
I mean, he took it to Junior De Santa.
joe rogan
That was an amazing fight.
bas rutten
Is this fight going to happen now?
Because I don't know anymore.
Junior versus Hunt, is that on?
joe rogan
Yes.
bas rutten
Oh, my God.
That's going to be a hard fight for Junior, man.
unidentified
Yes, yes, yes.
bas rutten
Oh, man.
joe rogan
Yeah, I love when guys like you hear about that fight and go, oh, fuck you.
You don't know, man.
No, he is.
bas rutten
Because Hunt, you can't knock him out, the dude.
joe rogan
He is a motherfucker.
Yeah.
Well, you can knock him out.
I mean, Melvin knocked him out.
No, no, no.
bas rutten
Did you see that fight?
unidentified
Yeah.
bas rutten
Okay, watch the fight in slow motion.
I bet you, because we all wear steel cups in Holland, right?
unidentified
Right.
bas rutten
He knocks him down, yes.
He falls forward, but Hunt falls on his cup.
unidentified
Watch.
bas rutten
You see him, boom, hitting the cup, and then he flies down.
I go, I guarantee you the extra, yeah, the steel cup.
unidentified
Seal the deal.
joe rogan
The steel dick cage.
bas rutten
But I remember Mirko Krokop kicking him with his freaking shin in the face and he just took a knee.
No, the first time he didn't flinch at all and the second time he took a knee and he got up like freaking Terminator and he kept going.
joe rogan
Super Samoan.
bas rutten
Scary guy, man.
joe rogan
And he can bang.
He can bang.
bas rutten
Did you see that break?
unidentified
It was right on the spot, right on the spot where he hit that hook.
joe rogan
He's a way, way more experienced striker than anybody else in the UFC. The only guy on his level as far as experience is Alistair, because he's the only other guy that won the Grand Prix.
And Alistair won the Grand Prix clean, whereas Hunt won it because that crazy fight he had with Ray Cepho, and then Ray Cepho couldn't continue, so he went and he took Ray Cepho's place and won it, right?
bas rutten
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, he did.
But I've got to say, Saki normally, because when they spar, you know, I know who's helped out Brad over him.
And Saki went into that fight in the finals with a broken hand and a broken arm.
joe rogan
Right.
bas rutten
So that would be a great fight between the two of those when both are healthy.
joe rogan
Yeah, I love the fact that K1, well, it's not really K1 as much as it is Glory now, and there's just been more high-level kickboxing on television these days.
It's really coming back.
bas rutten
It's a great show.
It really is a great show.
Such high-level strikers.
I was here at the airport there, the casino they have there somewhere, you know, on Century.
I was there about four weeks ago.
There was a glory show.
And I was amazed with the talent they had here.
Like, I was truly amazed.
The kickboxing talent coming from America.
joe rogan
Yeah.
bas rutten
And that was not in the past like this, you know?
And these guys looked really good.
joe rogan
Well, I think MMA has fed it to the point where everybody realized how important Muay Thai skills are to win an MMA. And then more people started gravitating towards Muay Thai.
And then, you know, I think we're seeing, when you see the highest level, like you see like a Giorgio Petrosian, Or someone like that, like a real high-level technical guy.
Like, you realize, like, wow, the level of striking, which is probably the most entertaining and exciting part of MMA, the level of striking is way higher in, like, high-level kickboxing than it is in MMA right now.
Way higher.
bas rutten
No, for sure.
joe rogan
Anderson, I think, could compete in high-level kickboxing.
bas rutten
Still, some of the high kicks, his knees and his crazy front kicks and timing in his hands are specifically really good.
I don't know if he's got a really good roundhouse kick to the head.
I never really see him make that.
joe rogan
Yushin Okami.
He blasted Yushin in the first round.
bas rutten
Oh, that wasn't the UFC. Yeah, that's true.
Okay, good.
joe rogan
Roundhouse kicked him in the face, stunned him, then the bell rang, and then he finished him off in the next round.
bas rutten
Yeah, against Chill, he threw it from a weird angle, I thought.
But I think he was too excited to fight Chill and he really wanted to knock him out.
That's when you start making those little mistakes.
joe rogan
That fight with the Stefan Bonner fight was the most brutal version of Anderson Silva.
bas rutten
That was incredible.
Literally, if there was a moment in my life that my mouth was open, that was the moment when he just moved back.
Move, move, and he goes, poof.
joe rogan
Pressed against the cage.
bas rutten
I go, holy crap.
joe rogan
And he stopped him with that knee in the bottom.
bas rutten
Oh, no, no, no, with Stefan Bonner, of course, in Brazil.
Forrest Griffin.
Forrest Griffin, yeah.
Forrest Griffin was, that was, in my mind, that was, like, just unbelievable.
It was the most amazing thing ever.
joe rogan
He manhandled him.
bas rutten
So moving, letting miss, letting miss, and then go, bonk, and right on that button, you know, so beautiful.
joe rogan
He's so accurate.
Do you think he's the best ever?
bas rutten
Yeah, he's up there.
Fedor, I still put up there also.
I cannot.
All these great fights we saw at Pride, he's got to be up there, man.
But yeah, right now, who can stop him?
joe rogan
Fedor in his prime, like the Noguera days, when he beat Noguera, he was unbelievable.
When he beat Krokop, he was so good back then.
bas rutten
Beating everybody.
And the way he did it, so calm.
joe rogan
I would have loved to see a prime Fedor versus a prime Cain Velasquez.
If we could go back in time with Cain, take the Cain of today and bring him back and fight Fedor.
That would have been an amazing fight.
bas rutten
Yeah, good stuff.
joe rogan
Yeah, we're so lucky now to see this evolution of shit.
And Kane is another one of those guys that just, you know, he's got a full skill set.
Throws leg kicks, head kicks, punches, you know?
bas rutten
And the stamina.
I love that.
Although, in the Junior Dos Santos fight, he started running out of gas also, you know?
Not with his pace, but the strength got away, you know?
The ground and pound was not effective anymore.
Not to knock him out.
joe rogan
We threw a hundred million punches.
unidentified
Oh, man.
bas rutten
No, but he's insane.
What heavyweight?
And everybody goes...
One guy told me one time, I said, yeah, but I'm heavyweight.
I said, well, look at Cain Velasquez.
And he goes, yeah, but he trains really hard.
And I go, really, dude?
That's the answer.
You just gave it to yourself.
joe rogan
Just train really hard.
He's a relatively small heavyweight.
He's a little heavier than you at about 240. But realistically, Cain, when you look at him, he carries more body fat as well.
It's interesting how it seems like that's about as big as you need to get.
Like those big 265-pound guys that cut weight and get...
You almost sacrifice something.
bas rutten
You do, always.
And I think that Kane has that burning insight from his family, you know, what they showed on TV when they did their specials on him.
He wants to provide for his family.
He's got his old father working hard.
And he's got that mentality.
And I think a guy like that...
You know, that is a hard guy to beat.
And he will always be ready.
That punch with Junior Dos Santos, the first time, I thought Cain was going to beat him exactly the way he did the second time.
Because I thought, oh, he's going to outwork him.
But Junior never had anybody pressing as hard as Cain can do.
And then he's going to outwork him, and then championship rounds probably, he might seal the deal there.
But then he got hit with that crazy overhand.
joe rogan
Well, also that, I mean, you can't say, take anything away from Junior.
Junior's a vicious knockout striker.
bas rutten
He knocked the croak-up out.
He knocked everybody, Verdum out, everybody, you know.
joe rogan
Yeah.
bas rutten
Yeah, he's an animal.
joe rogan
Yeah, he really is.
That Verdum knockout was brutal.
unidentified
Yep.
joe rogan
But the difference being that Cain Velasquez was injured in that fight.
I mean, he had a pretty serious knee injury.
bas rutten
Oh, yeah, I heard that also.
joe rogan
Pretty serious knee injury.
Like, he couldn't move.
bas rutten
And then your focus will be on that injury.
Of course.
It's always like that.
joe rogan
Yeah, so he wasn't able to really attack and have the mobility that he likes.
The second fight was all about him moving forward.
bas rutten
That's it.
Taking away the striking.
joe rogan
It puts that pace on you.
bas rutten
Nobody can stop that.
You know Matt Horwitz, right?
I mean, he has almost no striking skills, but he is tough and he's got stamina.
When he fought Mike Pyle, I'll never forget this.
He beat Mike Pyle with a combination on the ground and he sucked him into a submission which blew me away.
But he outworked him.
He just got him tired.
And then later I overheard him talking.
unidentified
And then Horace says, he's like freaking, what is it, Rain Man.
bas rutten
He said, yeah, yeah, I know.
I know that you did it.
Four years ago, I was rolling with you, and you did that to me, so I knew what the counter was going to be.
And I go, what?
unidentified
He knew.
bas rutten
He remembered it.
Four years ago.
joe rogan
He's a strange cat, Matt Horace.
He's a great guy, too.
bas rutten
A beautiful human being.
Cutting weight is fasting for him.
joe rogan
Yeah.
unidentified
He says, oh, I love to fest, love the trees, the flowers.
joe rogan
Well, I love the universe and all of its potential possibilities in the multiverse, like if you hear him talk.
bas rutten
Yeah, I love this guy.
joe rogan
But he's a sweetheart of a guy, and a very tough guy, too.
I mean, and knocked out Benji Raddick with a head kick.
bas rutten
Unbelievable.
joe rogan
How crazy was that fighter?
bas rutten
Unbelievable.
But again, outworking.
Outworking, yeah.
These examples, he makes the best, most technical fighters in the world, makes him look like crap.
unidentified
Yep.
bas rutten
Because why?
He can take a punch and he just comes forward.
And you can be a great striker, you cannot strike moving backwards.
If you really push it, you shut down the whole striking.
And that's how you fight a great striker.
joe rogan
And Matt Horwich is an interesting guy because he's not burdened down with ego.
I think a lot of guys with all their macho bullshit, like you talk a lot of shit before a fight, you carry that around with you.
That becomes like a weight that you carry when you get inside that cage.
bas rutten
When you say, I'm gonna rip his head off, shit in his neck, you know those kind of things?
You have to understand that the moment you have to go to the fight, they play that clip on the big screen and you see yourself saying that.
And now you're going to go, I better do it.
And that's, boom, right away weight on your shoulders.
You should never do that.
That's why I never did stare downs.
I don't like to get angry.
I don't want them to make...
I like to say little things in interviews that piss them off.
So hopefully they get really angry at me.
Like the whole thing with Kimo Leopoldo...
I never asked for him, you know?
But they set that up.
I went to the photo shoot for my last fight.
It was at the WFA. And he was there and I said, hey, Kimo, how are you doing?
And he shook my hand and he looked right away.
And I go, wow, I go to Jeremy Lepp and I say, wow, he's taking this fight serious, right?
And he says, yeah, we told him that you specifically asked for him.
I say, why would you say that?
Well, that gets him a little angry.
It's better for the fight.
And I go, okay.
So I figured I'm not going to say anything because then At least he will train very hard.
We're going to get a good fight.
But I always thought that I specifically asked him.
I didn't.
They say, who do you want to fight?
I say, Hickson.
They say, why?
I say, well, they always say he's the best, so I would like to test my skill.
He says, no, we don't have the money for that.
joe rogan
How much money would it have cost for you to fight Hickson Gracie?
bas rutten
Now?
joe rogan
How much would it back then?
bas rutten
For the same thing.
No, no, no.
joe rogan
To Hickson.
bas rutten
To find Hickson.
joe rogan
They said they couldn't afford him.
They said they couldn't afford Hickson.
bas rutten
Oh, for him.
Okay.
For me, it was $250,000 at the time.
joe rogan
How much would they pay Hickson?
How much did Hickson pay?
bas rutten
I think $6 million or something.
Something high.
I don't know.
I don't know.
But I heard really great.
Whatever you read on the internet, we know better.
Don't believe it.
But no, a really high number.
But I just thought, you know, I would love to, because I have nothing, you know, Aixin and I, we met in China, everything's cool, you know, there's nothing going on.
Because he is, he's a really nice guy.
joe rogan
For folks who don't know who he's talking about, Hoist Gracie won the very first UFC.
And Hoist Gracie, who's a brilliant Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner, who really kind of exposed Brazilian jiu-jitsu to America and showed it to us, showcased it.
His brother was the champion of the family.
His brother apparently by all accounts is the greatest Brazilian jiu-jitsu artist ever.
And everybody who rolls with him pretty much universally says this, that Hickson is just on this other level.
So you wanted to fight him, huh?
bas rutten
Just for that.
And even I would go on the ground because at that time I thought, well, I just want to see.
joe rogan
You in Japan, in Pancras, when you won the King of Pancras, he had also won Japan Vali Tudo within a year of that, right?
bas rutten
He was sitting there when I was in the Budokan, knocked the guy out.
And that was at the time when they were on the cover of Black Belt Magazine saying that, oh, Pancras this...
So I, you know, needless to say, I said, okay, then I want to test the skills.
And that's where I actually challenged him.
I said, hey, I would like to fight you.
And I don't mind the rules.
We will bend the rules.
We will make any rule anytime.
joe rogan
And what happened with that?
bas rutten
It never happened.
joe rogan
Were you trying to do it for pride?
Is that what you were trying to do?
bas rutten
Well, in Pancras was that.
But I said, I don't mind any organization anywhere.
You know, I... Let this fight happen.
For me, once I put the fans to the side to care about for fighting, you know, if you really as a fighter go in fighting for yourself, it doesn't really matter.
I always tell my guys like this, if they put me with Randy Couture in this room, they lock the room and we fight.
It doesn't really matter who wins.
If he's better at the team, he wins.
If I'm better, I win.
But what is hard for a fighter is to come out and all these people know.
And then Chris Lieben said it very funny one time at our show.
He says, yeah, the guy at Blockbuster told me what I should have done when I fought Anderson Silva.
You know?
And then I say, yeah, you see, but a lot of fighters care about that.
I always say, the fighters always say, yeah, I fight for my family.
unidentified
Wrong.
bas rutten
Right away.
Fight for yourself, man.
If you fight for yourself, you fight the best.
If you really don't give a damn about anybody what they think, you fight really the best because it is not bad to lose.
You know, everybody can have that day.
That's the mindset I had with Hicks and, you know, although I thought I was going to beat him, but I would say, you know, it doesn't really matter.
This is testing the skill against somebody who everybody thinks is the best guy in the world.
I would love to test that.
That was the only thing.
joe rogan
That was one of the things that Randy always said that I found very admirable.
He would say that to his fighters when they were going out to fight.
He would say, even if you lose, the worst thing in the world is you lose and you'll be fine.
You still have your friends.
You still have your loved ones.
Get that out of your head.
Don't worry about that.
Don't worry about losing.
Because sometimes if you concentrate on not losing, You can't see what you're doing.
You can't relax.
bas rutten
I say it different.
I say as long as you fight, you cannot lose.
You go to Japan.
I had like Vernon Tiger White.
He lost a whole bunch of fights in a row.
And there was a row of people waiting for him to get autographs.
But he fought.
joe rogan
That's just the Japanese fan mentality.
It's very different as well.
bas rutten
But if you lay on the ground and somebody lifts his arm from ground apart and you tap, you'll never be back in Japan.
They'll boo you.
Then they get vicious.
And that's why I tell my students, as long as you fight, you know, if you leave everything out there, you know, it doesn't matter if you want to lose.
You know, to me, you can never lose.
joe rogan
Well, also, you're always involved in improving yourself.
You're a work in progress.
And until you find those great fighters who are better than you, you don't realize what you need to work on.
And that, a guy, you show me a guy who, you know, I forget who made this quote, but I put it on Twitter the other day.
I retweeted it yesterday.
Show me someone who hasn't made mistakes and I'll show you someone who hasn't done anything.
It's true.
You have to get beat in order to really understand, first of all, how much it sucks to lose and that will motivate you more.
The guys that are always problematic are the guys that are super talented, that win easy, that don't have to train hard.
And then someday someone catches up to them.
bas rutten
And they lose.
If they lose, it's always stamina.
You watch.
Because they beat everybody in the gym, dominate everybody, and once you fight on your own pace, you never get tired.
You can fight for two hours.
But if you have that guy that interrupts your breathing pattern, that's what I always say.
You know, that's the moment.
You know, if somebody hits a bag, I'm standing behind him, I'll kick him out of the blue to the body.
Not to knock him out.
You know why I do that?
I do that so he has to flex at that particular moment and it interrupts his breathing pattern.
And that's why you're getting tired.
You know, I'm not kicking hard.
I'm just making him, oh, he does this.
And now it's all like, you know, he interrupted it.
And that's how you get tired.
joe rogan
Well, that's also the issue with Nick Diaz, right?
With all his pat, pat, pat punches.
You never can breathe.
You never get a chance to take a break and relax.
bas rutten
Yeah, he's this guy who just flies through everything.
joe rogan
Now, what do you think about that fight that's coming up this weekend?
Nick Diaz is fighting George St. Pierre.
Johnny Hendrix is fighting Carlos Condit.
And Jake Ellenberger is fighting Nate Marquardt.
I mean, it's great fucking fights, man.
bas rutten
That's going to be a really good show.
It's a hard one.
You think if GSP plays his game, what he normally does, he's a really good wrestler.
We know he can take him down.
But Nick, he has to be on the ground.
He has to outwork him.
He needs to fight, if he gets taken down, to get back up.
And if he keeps fighting, keeps fighting, George is going to need to spend a lot of energy.
Now, it's going to be hometown for George.
A lot of pressure on his shoulders.
A lot of people.
He don't want to lose.
That pressure maybe already took care of a little bit of his stamina.
Took a little 20% away.
The more the pressure, the more stamina gets taken away from you.
He needs to be super, super relaxed.
If he doesn't let him to be super relaxed and constantly escapes and fights the takedown and fights back to get up, then that might be a trouble for George.
But the way George was fighting last time against Condit, Man, I love that George.
That's the guy I want to see again.
A guy who, he was working.
And he was working hard.
And that's what he needs to do with Diaz, but he needs to stay out of the guard preferably.
I would say, oh, half guard, you know, and if you go in the guard squat, don't let him close the guard.
That's going to be a problem for you.
Constantly from a half guard squatted ground and pound.
Playing the jiu-jitsu game on the ground, I don't know if it's a smart thing to do with Nick.
joe rogan
Yeah, Nick has a hell of a guard.
I mean, we saw that in the cyborg fight, type-tap cyborg off of his back.
bas rutten
Gomi, I mean, with the freaking...
joe rogan
Gogo Plata.
Yeah, the Gomi fight.
Yeah, he's very underrated, I think.
I think he's got a lot of Brazilian jiu-jitsu skills that we rarely see, because over the past couple of years, he's been beating guys up on the feet.
bas rutten
That's it.
And now George has to overcome that reach, that long hand, constantly peppering, peppering, peppering, but I think he will shoot straight through it.
joe rogan
You think so?
bas rutten
Yeah.
I think that Nate, maybe, if he would work really hard on a knee to the face on a takedown, because I think the takedown will be there anyway, because he's such a good wrestler.
It's going to be hard to stop him, but can he still stop him in the championship rounds if it goes in there, you know?
joe rogan
Well, and the question is going to be, well, is he going to try to stop him or is he going to try to pull guard?
Is he going to try to roll with it and just lock up a good position right away like he did with Gomi or, you know, like he did with Cyborg?
He has a very nasty guard.
I mean, Nick Diaz is a high-level black belt.
bas rutten
Yep.
joe rogan
And that fucking stamina, man, that's a big deal, too.
bas rutten
That's the thing.
You know, if you fight a guy like that...
You know, what did I say?
Fatigue makes cowards out of men.
And it really is.
We all been there, you know, that you're really tired.
I had it in the fight.
I go, oh my God, I hope.
Thankfully, I knocked him out with a knee to the liver.
But I was really about to stop almost, you know.
Everything sinks away.
You know, I was sick also.
But I mean, it starts with stamina and fatigue.
And then when you see him still going strong, that's a mental crusher, man.
And that's the thing.
That GSB now has, he knows that whatever happens is not going to run out of gas, Nick.
joe rogan
Yeah, Nick's not going to run out of gas, but you know what?
George has always been very well conditioned as well.
You know, it's interesting how many fighters get sick before fights.
It's a huge issue.
I always had it with the Taekwondo days, I'd get sick from nerves.
bas rutten
Yeah, but I think also a lot is the cutting weight.
unidentified
Yes.
joe rogan
There's that.
But it's also just hard training and not watching their diet.
bas rutten
You see, I never had that.
I brought my own food.
I brought my own loaf of bread and all that stuff.
I was not going to get food poisoning.
Forget about it.
I brought my own water.
You heard all these stories in Japan that they put something in your water.
I don't want to take a risk.
Whether it's through a myth or not, I don't care.
I'll bring my own water.
Nobody's going to touch it.
The dumbest thing, those are guys who go the day before, go to a McDonald's sushi place somewhere, and they're going to eat bad sushi.
They go, yeah, it's food poisoning.
You're an idiot.
That's part of your training.
You should not have done that.
joe rogan
Well, I take that risk, yeah.
bas rutten
It's the dumbest thing you can do.
It's like the guys with the bad mouthpiece.
When I saw Karo Parishan fight with the mouthpiece that fell out the whole time, that drives me nuts.
That should be a penalty for that.
Constantly fall out.
Who does that?
You're a professional fighter.
You need a good mouthpiece, right?
joe rogan
Yeah.
Are you still training fighters on a regular basis?
bas rutten
You know, it's hard now because I had that neck surgery and last week I did two sets of push-ups, 18. Imagine, I did 120 for fun back in the day.
And I was like, oh my god, I'm so weak.
And then after two days, I lost all power.
So I know there is something that when it swells up or it flares up, it stops my nerves from getting in.
And tomorrow I'm going to find out, tomorrow 10.45 in the morning, I'm going to find out, they did a nerve-conducting test, where that blockage is.
And I think once they can open that up, Then everything is going to be just...
joe rogan
Wow, so you're going to have to have another operation.
bas rutten
I don't know.
Maybe they say, oh, it's rest or this, or maybe they do an epidural there, right on the spot that will loosen it up, something like that.
But my nerve in my neck jumped from below 30%.
He said, when we opened your neck, it jumped back same level as your other one, 100%.
joe rogan
You've been dealing with this for years now.
bas rutten
Years now.
It's a nightmare.
But, you know, I used to be a crazy guy training.
It's kind of my own stuff.
I was talking to people, world champions, and they would teach, what did they say?
They go hard on Fridays, 70%.
And I go, and what do you do for the rest?
Well, we train.
I said, you spar one day a week.
Yeah, and I started laughing.
I said, I spar two times a day, and we go hard.
I'll try to knock you out of your legs and your body, and you do it to me.
And on the hat, of course, I'm not going to knock him out, but I got the control for that.
Well, we go.
That's why I never had a ring rust.
When I came back in 2006, I didn't fight for six years, but I had no problem because two times a day we have a fight.
That's what we're doing, so I felt great.
joe rogan
What about the wear and tear, though, from doing that?
bas rutten
That's the thing.
That's the thing.
But I advise to every fighter now is to always get the right equipment.
Make sure you're packed in.
Make sure your ankles are taped.
Things like that.
Because with the shin protection, now they've got really good shin protection that has also...
You know, with the instep, they have protection there now, you know?
So that cannot be hurt like when you kick an elbow.
And those are bad injuries the whole time, you know?
Watch out.
Just pack yourself in.
Make a good mouthpiece.
Get a professional mouthpiece done.
It's insane.
Put grease on your weight.
Watch for cuts.
Play everything safe.
joe rogan
Now, when you have guys training, though, do you have them spar that same way?
Twice a day?
You know, going all out to the body and to the head?
bas rutten
We have people coming in with us and they want to spar on Sundays and they turn around when they see them spar.
They go like – but that started since Carlo, Rommel Decker's brother, came to teach at my gym.
He says, "Now we're going to spar like we do in Holland." That's the way we used to do it.
And they go hard.
joe rogan
So that's what he's got going on down there?
bas rutten
Yeah.
But all the guys, our guys are already used to it.
Wow.
They just don't care.
They just go.
But they have the right equipment.
As long as you have the right equipment that you don't get beat.
joe rogan
Now where is your gyms in Thousand Oaks, right?
bas rutten
Yeah, it's on Hampshire Road, 880 Hampshire Road.
joe rogan
What is the website if people want to get some information about that?
bas rutten
EliteMMAgym.com.
joe rogan
And so you have Ramon Decker's brother teaching down there now?
bas rutten
He's teaching there, yeah.
unidentified
Wow.
bas rutten
He's like a long time in the business, been there for his whole career, teaches all those, holds a focus piece of anti-pets for all the top guys, ovary, peterers, musashi.
I mean, all these guys have been there, you know, so he's a...
Yeah, a really great coach.
joe rogan
What is his name?
bas rutten
Carlo.
Carlo Deckers.
joe rogan
Carlo Deckers.
Wow.
And when is he there?
What days are we?
bas rutten
Well, he's there every day.
Now he's, of course, he's still in Holland because the funeral was a couple of days ago and I didn't even ask him.
I told him, you know, take whatever time you need to wrap things up there because he was very close to Ramon.
They were like...
Yeah, two peas in a pie, man.
That was very hard for him.
joe rogan
It's crazy that he had a heart attack riding a bike.
I mean, think about all the fights that guy had.
bas rutten
And also, you know, yeah, we're talking about 240 fights or something, you know.
And this guy is fighting with a broken hand and a broken foot at the same time.
He would keep fighting, you know.
The guy was just indestructible.
And also living a clean...
He's a healthy lifestyle now for the last six years.
Also, you know, like being in shape.
He has everything planned out.
He has this children's foundation that he set up in Thailand for these kids who had no future and he would give them money.
And all that stuff is now still going to happen.
There's now a t-shirt coming.
MMA Bloodlines is going to make a t-shirt.
100% goes to the family or to the charity.
So they're working on a lot of things to keep his name out there, of course.
joe rogan
Wow.
It's fucked up.
I can just be that great a fighter and an athlete and just have a heart attack at 43 and just drop dead.
bas rutten
It's the wildest thing ever.
Since he passed away, I drank one and a half glass of wine.
Normally I drink two glasses at night or two.
Right away I go, oh my god, this is really scary.
He was healthy.
He was good.
There was nothing in his family, bad hearts, nothing.
Just out of the blue, so that really freaked me out.
joe rogan
Yeah, well, it's got to be freaking you out with all this nerve shit going on with your body.
bas rutten
Yeah, once this comes back.
You know, I've been always blessed with all that kind of stuff.
It heals fast, and I think it comes because of my eczema that I had, really bad eczema, so I was recouping fast.
If I had wounds in training, Like a wound that would be literally two days, you couldn't tell it was there.
It would go so fast because that was what my skin was doing 24-7, you know?
So now it's...
I'm blessed with having that.
But my neck, yeah, that's annoying.
That doesn't really...
You know, those blockages, it's here.
I can feel it.
It's lumps.
joe rogan
And what is a blockage?
Is it scar tissue?
unidentified
Is that what it is?
bas rutten
Muscle spasms is what they say.
What stops the nerves from getting in my arm.
And that's why, look, it's all thin.
It doesn't fill up yet.
Yet.
It will start happening.
joe rogan
And they said because of what you've done by fusing the neck, it's alleviated some of the pressure?
Is that what they did?
bas rutten
It jumped back right away to 100%.
That's what they said.
joe rogan
So disturbing to me how many people have back issues.
I mean, it's so disturbing.
There's so many guys who have fucked up backs.
It's really crazy, man.
unidentified
My shit's fucked up right now, but it's just because I got three massages in one day, which never do that, ever.
joe rogan
Well, that's just sore.
You're talking about muscles.
You know, the issue that these fighters are having is a lot different than you, pal.
The wear and tear on the body is just fucking unbelievable.
It's brutal.
It is.
bas rutten
There's no time to recoup also.
You know, I had, when I was preparing for that last fight, I had two times a week off.
I had only ten weeks for that fight.
I didn't train for three years.
So I had ten weeks to get in shape and two weeks from that I didn't...
joe rogan
You didn't train at all for three years?
bas rutten
No, not at all.
Since my last fight, I think I worked out maybe 25 times.
That's in 2006. Wow!
Yeah, that will be at the end because I started, finally, I started training again, and my god, I feel really good.
Like in four weeks, I was actually, people always think that I just say something and that it's not true.
I say, the boss, the body action system, I use that myself.
The O2 trainer, I use it myself.
The workout, I use it myself.
And they go, yeah, you're just saying that.
I go, wait a minute.
I can go back on my security camera and you can actually see me training in the backyard.
So I went back on the security camera and I got it for a month back.
And I was training only for five weeks.
In the beginning, you see me, I'm struggling, man, at like two-minute rounds, really bad.
But amazing, if you see like seven workouts further, it's a whole different.
Suddenly, the screen for the auto trainer went from three to seven, which is a heavy setting already.
I had 10-pound ankle weights, heavy gloves.
I put weights in there also, hitting.
You put weights in your gloves?
Yeah, yeah.
But I watch out with hyperextending then when I do that.
Or I hit that boss thing, so I don't hyperextend.
But it's good for the burn and for everything to get tired.
And then I threw one time in the air something, I think.
Maybe I hyperextended and it was just from one day to the other, my hand dropped.
And I go, oh God, it's back.
And that was it.
And that was in October.
And then they did the surgery in January.
joe rogan
So you were getting yourself back in shape.
bas rutten
And it was going really well.
I started feeling great already.
I mean, you watch it online.
It's on the o2trainerblog.com.
joe rogan
You can find a video there.
When the first operation, they didn't fuse the discs, what'd they do?
bas rutten
They made the holes around the nerves a little bigger, but it was still a little squeezing, so it was only a 30% working, and I knew that because...
joe rogan
It was honey-aided discs?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Is that what it was?
Yeah.
bas rutten
But they only were like 30% or a little bit less.
And I knew that because I could, like, with 10 pounds, they did like 25 reps.
Still very weak because I used to do way more with that, but that makes sense with the 25 to 30%.
I'd go, okay.
But then what happened in the training, I think that's when the jam happened here.
joe rogan
Now, knowing what you know and all this experience that you have, especially all this experience with your body breaking down, What do you tell fighters to do now?
What do you advise them to not do what you did that was wrong?
bas rutten
Stretch, man.
Stretch a lot.
I would stretch.
I would make that one of my primary things.
You know, watching TV. Just stretch while you're watching TV. Get to a stretch bench.
Yoga?
Yeah, while you're watching TV. You're busy with it.
It doesn't really matter.
And good food.
Don't dehydrate yourself.
And once you start dehydrating yourself, stretch even more, man, because that's why you're...
Your tendons get dehydrated, everything.
They rip faster.
You see a lot of that also happening close to a fight.
They start dehydrating and they make a kick and they pull a hamstring, you know?
And that's exactly because of that reason.
You're dehydrating yourself.
Those tendons need to stay moist.
Keep it good and watch out.
joe rogan
As far as the kind of therapy that you're doing right now for your back, do you do any inversion therapy or anything where they're trying to do any sort of traction?
bas rutten
No, what I do, I have these two hooks, so to say, in my hand.
And I have on the stairs to go to the second floor with us.
I hang.
And I just hang and I stretch my arms out.
And that seems to help.
Like last week, I could do three, with five pounds, three reps, five pounds.
joe rogan
Wow!
bas rutten
And then I started stretching.
And I start mentally focusing.
Somebody told me just force it to be gone and visualize how you can get rid of it.
I start doing that and then yesterday evening at the 10. So that was just in four days, but I've been also hanging.
joe rogan
How many of the guys you run into that have these issues?
bas rutten
Lots.
A lot of guys have that.
Benji Reddick, Tito Ortiz.
joe rogan
Benji Reddick has a back issue as well?
bas rutten
Yeah, he had a big neck.
Also lost everything.
He lost his pecs.
I believe that's seven or eight or something, I think.
I don't know how that exact works.
With me, it's biceps.
Biceps and shoulder.
My shoulder starts coming back now because that nerve goes over here over the top.
That's good.
I see the muscle start getting there, so that's good.
But for the biceps, I get this Carpal tunnel that I already had but never was a problem with me.
Now because the nerve, it is a problem.
So now I can, if I grab things, my whole hand spasms.
It's really weird.
Before demonstrations, I always say, gosh, you see that?
It's not like I'm not crazy.
It's just my hand shoots suddenly like that.
Like when I grab something, it's really weird.
My wife started noticing because I was sitting like this the whole time.
He says, what's wrong with your hands?
joe rogan
Twisting.
You can't open it up?
bas rutten
Yeah.
joe rogan
Wow.
That's got to be like, for a dude who's this bad motherfucker, former UFC champion, that's got to be really disturbing.
unidentified
It is.
bas rutten
It is really disturbing.
I don't like to see myself as weak.
I started biking now, because that I can do with my knees now.
You know, I'm actually going to get a nicer bike now.
joe rogan
You have knee issues as well?
bas rutten
Oh, I have no cartilage on my kneecaps.
And there's nothing they can do for that.
Now I know everybody's going to email, oh, I know this doctor.
No, if you go to a real surgeon, they will tell you there's nothing they can do.
When you have no car to show your kneecaps.
The only thing they cannot fix.
Actually, Alatrash at the Curlin Job told me that's the reason why the mafiosos break your kneecaps.
It's infixable.
You can't.
And the bolt.
Now, if I have patches out, they can regrow my own cartilage.
You can hold it up with stem cells and that grows itself.
They explain it like a mat of grass.
When pieces are out, you put pieces of grass in there and that goes with the other grass and it's strong again.
That's how cartilage works.
He says, but if you have none, there's no way they can attach it to your kneecap.
Now there is something they can do.
They have to drill a hole and attach a Teflon plate, which will work, but then your kneecap is 35% weaker, more chance of breaking.
And once it breaks, you're really done.
So he said, we'll come, then we'll find something in a couple of years.
But right now, walking stairs, getting up, sitting down, Up or down, walk in, everything hurts.
Everything hurts.
joe rogan
My friend Steve has his knees, he was on the U.S. ski team.
He's had like, I don't know, some insane amount of knee surgeries.
More than 20 knee surgeries.
unidentified
Whoa.
joe rogan
Yeah, and he had no cartilage in his knees as well.
And he's got these steel plates that are over the tops of his joint.
andy stumpf
Like where the cartilage used to be, they resurfaced it.
bas rutten
Yeah, but they do it, they go with lasers in and then it bleeds out, right?
They can do that too, but with me it's the kneecap.
Like with you, they're standing on each other, that's it.
The kneecap, when I stretch my leg and I bend it, it already moved again.
So whatever they attach it, it's in constant motion.
You can't do anything.
Like between the knees, between your upper leg and your lower leg, yeah, there's stuff that they can put in between, resurface, and they do that, what is it, they let you bleed.
unidentified
They let you bleed your own blood.
bas rutten
Nobody lets me bleed my own blood.
What movie was it again?
Dodgeball or something, right?
Yeah.
But they drill these holes in the knees and it starts bleeding and it serves, oh, like that.
Wow, yeah.
joe rogan
That's my friend's knee.
That's where you see the top of his knee.
bas rutten
But I can see where the kneecap goes through.
I can tell that and where the other one goes on top.
But the kneecap, it's, you know, maybe on that other stuff I can put something like that.
On the other bones, not on the kneecap.
joe rogan
Well, that is his kneecap.
bas rutten
Yeah, one piece, but not all three.
joe rogan
Yeah, well, that's the bottom piece and then the top piece and where the cartilage used to be.
Look at this, Brian.
Have you seen that?
bas rutten
That is crazy.
Where did he do this?
joe rogan
Well, Steve's at the cutting edge because he's a doctor himself.
So he's well aware of what the...
Let me...
bas rutten
I need his number.
joe rogan
See, that's...
You just popped the thing out.
That's for the folks at home who can see it.
He's...
He's happy with it.
Also, you can see lower, as I scroll down a bit, you see that white thing?
That white thing is artificial meniscus.
So he's got a double whammy.
He's got a resurfaced knee, so the top of his bone is covered with this steel plate.
And then he also has this white stuff here, which is an artificial meniscus pad.
He still trains.
bas rutten
I need this information.
For real, I would love to do that, man.
Sometimes when they shoot me up with cortisones, then for like two and a half weeks...
It is paradise for me.
Like, I can walk stairs, I can jump.
I can jump up from happiness.
I don't feel a thing.
It's amazing, the difference.
joe rogan
What did you do to fucked up all your unique heartlets?
bas rutten
I'm just very explosive.
And I think that just scratched everything.
I'm kicking, kicking, drilling.
Thousand kicks.
Do it, right?
joe rogan
And ignoring the pain.
bas rutten
Just go through it, you know?
And if it's pain, go harder.
That's the mentality, right?
I gotta go through it.
joe rogan
Now that you've done that all, though, and you've seen what that damage can do to your body, how much...
bas rutten
No, I regret everything.
I go, like, why did I do it so crazy?
But now, again, when I see fighters go full-time, sometimes I go, wow, it's weird that I did all that.
You look crazier back in life.
You go, like, wow.
joe rogan
After you're out of it.
bas rutten
Yeah.
joe rogan
Step away.
bas rutten
I never had, though...
It comes over.
People go like, oh, look at him, but it's really not.
I never was nervous like that.
I was really good at talking to myself.
Everything in my life when I went through, I realized it was all meditation.
I never taught everybody, taught me anything, but I'm just really talking to myself.
What's the worst thing that can happen?
The worst thing is that can happen.
You knock out, you're not going to feel it.
Okay, you're going to get submitted, you tap and it's over.
Okay, it's the people talking.
That's the worst thing, really, if you think about it.
joe rogan
People talking shit.
bas rutten
Yeah.
And since I don't care about that, I would have no nerves, for real.
And I was always in that zone.
I was addicted to that feeling going there and go, and then I would hear.
I would tell people's conversations at the first row after us.
I will go back.
I said, I heard you talking about the movie yesterday evening.
All right.
With Maurice Smith, I was going to give Kosaka a high kick.
I'm always listening to it at the other corner.
And he goes, watch out for the high kick.
And right away, so I switch it for a straight punch.
joe rogan
And that was also Japan, right?
Where they were really quiet in the audience.
bas rutten
No, no, no.
That was here in America against Kosaka.
That was the UFC, my first UFC fight.
joe rogan
Oh, Kosaka?
bas rutten
Kosaka, yeah.
joe rogan
And Maury Smith was saying, look out for the high kick.
bas rutten
Yeah, because he saw me setting it up.
And then so I changed his rider.
I switched it to a straight punch because I heard him.
And I told him, I say, you should be quiet.
unidentified
He says, boss, you're probably the only guy who listens to the other corner.
bas rutten
But I used to always do that.
Like in Frank Shamrock's book, it's so funny to read.
He says, yeah, boss was always talking.
I think he kind of did it for self-meditation.
But then I say, okay, I have a Dutch corner.
Why do you think I was talking English, speaking English?
I did it for a reason.
If I do it in Dutch, they're not going to understand what I'm saying.
But if I, in the middle of a fight, look at my corner, I say, dude, you want to go to Roppongi tonight?
Where do you want to go, Motown tonight?
unidentified
Yeah?
bas rutten
Okay.
What are you going to drink?
I would just do crazy stuff and then I would continue fighting and those fighters would go like...
What the hell was that?
joe rogan
It was a distraction.
bas rutten
It's just a distraction.
joe rogan
Right.
bas rutten
And I would do it in English because otherwise Dutchie couldn't understand.
So that's why I spoke English.
joe rogan
When you put together this gym out in Thousand Oaks, you've got a really nice place out there.
bas rutten
It's very nice.
joe rogan
Were you thinking about starting a team and training fighters and moving on to the next phase?
bas rutten
No, no, no.
For me, it's just a good place that I can go and train.
I can still teach.
I'm pretty much almost all the time there on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
I teach at 6 o'clock myself.
For the general audience, but also pros coming in because I go back to the basics.
And basics is where all the magic happens, man.
Trust me.
And a lot of pros forget it or their teachers don't want to say it anymore because now you're on that really high level and I don't care where you are.
I'm just going to tell you, this is what you do wrong.
You can hit harder if you do it like this.
Try it out.
And most of the time they try it out and they go, oh my god.
I hit much harder.
You see, they just forget certain things and I like to put them back on the basics.
And I like to have a gym with my name.
It's very close to my house, you know, and I can actually be there.
Sunday mornings, you know, I'm going to start doing now more.
I got to do the fight classes with the guys.
Just enjoy that.
I have a really good partner, you know, who thankfully he helped me out a lot because without him we could have not been open because we lost a lot of money to make the gym.
But now we are at the place, like for the last half year, We started finally to make money.
And that's of two years being here and six years at the other place.
So in eight years, we never made any money.
We were broke even at the other place.
And this is an 8,500 square foot place.
You've got saunas.
I mean, it's a really nice place.
And people love it.
The thing that we have, we have 30 people sign up, say, a month, and five stay.
And those 25, they're all these tough guys that come in.
And their bodies say, hey, man, you can do that shit.
You know, you got to do that shit.
Look at that.
They make a lot of money.
So then they come in and they get beat up by blue belts, you know, little kids.
And that's it.
joe rogan
You have a jiu-jitsu program there as well?
bas rutten
Yeah, I got Rodrigo Calvado.
He was world champion last year at the Grace.
He's got six weeks.
He told me this morning he's going to go another gun in Long Beach.
He's unbelievable.
He came in, was five days in the country, and he told me, hey, boss, the Naga championships are in Vegas.
You think I should go?
I said, you think you can do it?
He said, yeah.
I said, but you didn't train.
He said, no, I want to do it.
I said, yeah, we'll drive you over there.
So we brought him and he won gold right away.
And then he won the one at the Gracie.
He won gold again.
unidentified
Yeah, he's a very, very high level Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black player.
bas rutten
That guy… Gi or no gi?
joe rogan
Does he teach?
bas rutten
Yeah, both.
unidentified
Both?
bas rutten
And he is… I've never had one complaint from him.
You know, hey, sorry, you got to do five classes more because we're not pulling it now, right now.
No problem, boom, right away.
You know, he's like the best.
And we have everybody, all the parents for kids, and everybody's telling me, my God, he's such a great guy.
joe rogan
So you teach kids classes out there as well?
bas rutten
Teach classes also, yeah.
joe rogan
When are the kid classes?
bas rutten
At 4 o'clock most of the time, yeah.
At 4 o'clock on Saturdays, I believe at noon.
joe rogan
Well, that's great.
And Thousand Oaks, where you're at, is an awesome spot.
It's beautiful out there.
bas rutten
It's really nice.
joe rogan
So quiet.
bas rutten
When we arrived there, we made the turn on Westlake Boulevard.
I saw the promenade there.
There was a band playing on Friday night.
I go, wow, we want to live here.
No parking meters, no nothing.
It's a nice place.
Best school system, blue ribbon schools all around.
It's cool for the kids safe.
Second safe city in the country.
joe rogan
You know what the other one is?
Irvine.
bas rutten
Irvine?
joe rogan
Irvine is like the safest.
It's the safest city in the country.
Yeah.
Irvine is very, very safe.
It's all white people.
bas rutten
Yeah.
You see now, if I was a criminal, those would be my targets.
joe rogan
Of course.
bas rutten
Because all the garage doors.
My friend, he had a $6,000 bike and leaves the garage door.
And he always said, you know, you got to close the garage.
Sure enough, they stole his bike.
joe rogan
In Thousand Oaks?
bas rutten
In Thousand Oaks.
I say, But the smarter criminal goes to those places because everybody, oh, you don't have to lock your doors, you know, because it's so safe.
unidentified
That's why I got robbed in Burbank.
joe rogan
Well, Burbank's sketchy.
bas rutten
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
Burbank's sketchy.
Burbank's very close to a lot of funky areas, you know.
Thousand Oaks is in the middle of fucking nowhere.
bas rutten
Yeah, nobody wants to go there, you know.
But once you're there, they call it Pilot Town.
Because the pilots would see from the top that there was no pollution there.
That's how it got started, with all pilots living there.
joe rogan
Thousand Oaks?
Yeah.
Oh, that's interesting.
bas rutten
And then it became, because they say, oh, it's the valley.
I said, dude, we're 50 miles out of the valley.
We're, like, far away from it.
It's, like, four degrees lower temperature-wise than the valley is.
joe rogan
Yeah, you get that breeze from the ocean, too.
I feel like the further you can get away from LA, the better you're at.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
There's too many fucking people here.
I was the other day on Saturday in the afternoon, okay?
I drove down to meet a friend of mine in Bellflower, so I drove down...
It took me two hours to get there and two and a half hours to get back on Saturday.
Bumper to bumper traffic, stop dead on the 134, stop dead on the 405. I switched to the 210, stop dead.
It was fucking nuts.
The 101, stop dead.
The 5, stop dead everywhere on Saturday.
I'm like, what happens if this shit hits the fans?
bas rutten
That's why I always save all my telephone calls.
I save that for one day.
If I, for instance, have to go to San Diego, that's where all my phone calls start happening because I save them up for that time, the two and a half hours on the road or whatever it is, maybe three hours if there's traffic, and then I make all the phone calls.
joe rogan
Oh, you drive and make phone calls?
bas rutten
Yeah, do it at the same time.
joe rogan
You know what I do, Boss Ruten?
I listen to audible.com.
bas rutten
Audible.com?
joe rogan
Yeah.
bas rutten
These fucks again?
Is that what the commercial is now?
joe rogan
It's one of my commercials.
I do, though.
It's amazing.
unidentified
It's great.
joe rogan
Audible books.
Audiobooks are amazing.
bas rutten
Oh, you know, I love on HLN they have these crime cases.
I love that, you know.
unidentified
And then the man walked in, but he forgot one thing.
bas rutten
One thing that led to another thing.
joe rogan
Is this like on the radio?
bas rutten
Oh, yeah, mysterious.
It's on HLN. I don't know.
HLN? HLN, Headline News from CNN, I guess it is or something.
joe rogan
Oh, so satellite radio.
bas rutten
Yeah, satellite radio.
unidentified
Oh, I see.
bas rutten
And then you got those great things, murder things.
You're now watching the Jody Arias case.
Oh, my God.
And if she gets out, that's like the weirdest thing, the total psycho.
What a psycho!
I mean, she goes head-to-head with the prosecutor, and then when she thinks she has the best of him, she like chuckles.
You know, I got you.
I go, dude!
joe rogan
Yeah, people are watching you.
bas rutten
The jury will watch you, you know?
You'll see.
They see it.
joe rogan
Yeah, if you don't know that story, she stabbed the guy, cut his head off, shot him, and then shot him.
She did a bunch of fucked up shit.
bas rutten
But she goes to the problem because she said she shot him first, but now all the blood was there and the shell casing was on top of the blood.
So she shot him, she killed him first, stabbed him in the back.
joe rogan
Bitch is so crazy.
bas rutten
Yeah, and had rented a special car.
They wanted to give her a red car.
She says, no, I want a white one because she didn't want to attract attention.
You know, three cans of gasoline so she didn't have to stop anywhere so she could be traced back.
I mean, it was the wildest thing.
Then a.22 gun, which happened to be the murder weapon, the day before she left, very mysteriously, disappeared from her grandparents, where she, by the way, lives.
joe rogan
You're locked into this story.
bas rutten
Oh, this is amazing.
joe rogan
Isn't it fucked up when you see someone whose life just went completely off the rails?
When you see someone crazy like that just one day whacks out and just stabs the shit out of somebody and shoots them?
bas rutten
This one you know.
She was like three months away from him and she was still following him.
He did things on stage, whatever, I was public speaking or something.
She would like make pictures and she would tell people, isn't he beautiful?
Well, they already separated.
I go, that's a real one to have around.
joe rogan
Well, that guy fucked the shit out of that bitch.
That's part of what happened there.
That guy broke her.
He did some dirty shit to her.
bas rutten
Oh, everything.
He did everything.
But now she tries even to say he's a pedophile.
And it's like, what?
I mean, drags us through the mud.
Poor guy.
joe rogan
He's already dead.
bas rutten
Yeah, but his parents...
joe rogan
She's already done the worst, I know.
bas rutten
Yeah, it's amazing.
joe rogan
Yeah, my friend Tony Zara, remember Tony, Rancid Turtle from Columbus?
He has a great saying that I say all the time.
It said, psychotic and erotic are very close to each other.
bas rutten
Oh, yeah.
joe rogan
They're very close to each other.
And those really crazy girls are oftentimes the best in bed.
They're so nutty and the shit they'll do is so crazy.
This fucking guy, I mean, you listen to some of the text messages that he was sending her, you know, you're my dirty little whore.
bas rutten
Oh my god, I thought it was only in porn movies, like people write like that.
joe rogan
Oh, just fucking check his text messages.
He'll send you some.
He'll forward you.
Yeah, thank you.
Don't take me so polite.
bas rutten
I don't really.
joe rogan
There's a lot of nutty people out there, man.
There's a lot of fucking nutty people.
bas rutten
Very crazy people, that's my wife.
Before we forget, we've got to do the karate guy story, the street karate guy.
joe rogan
What happened?
bas rutten
This is a funny story, okay?
We're at...
Kimbo has to fight.
And before the fight, we go to a tap-out party.
And those people are there, and then these guys, these tough guys are there.
One of us, I think, selling jewelry or something, and he was with a bunch of guys.
And from the guys, I think he was the toughest guy.
So we're talking, and of course, he didn't know who I was, so that was the best thing.
And the people are talking about fighting, and suddenly he comes forward and he goes, yeah, I used to do karate.
He says, but not normal karate, I used to do street karate.
I go, wow, street karate, what is that?
He said, well, I can tell you one thing, that my routine has saved me like six, seven times.
And I go, your routine?
Yeah.
I go, okay, you got to show me that routine, you know, because I would love to learn.
So the guy comes to me, And I actually put this in the movie, here comes the boom, you know?
That was a true story.
Well, that was a long story.
But anyway, so the guy comes to me, he says, first of all, I would stand there, and then out of the blue, I will go, and he, no, no, no.
He goes first with his elbow, he goes to me.
He does it to me, this close, right?
And then he goes, and he was shaking in front of my face.
joe rogan
He's serious.
bas rutten
He's serious.
He's this close to my face, right?
Shaking.
Like this close.
And my friends, everybody is already, like, almost dying laughing.
joe rogan
Right.
bas rutten
And then he says, and at the moment, he's perplexed, but I go, I go to the neck, and then they always do this.
He says, ah!
unidentified
He says, and I grab him, and now he kept eye contact with me, right?
bas rutten
And he grabs, he says, I go, ah!
unidentified
Ah!
So he threw knees to the body, and then threw them on the ground, he kept eye contact with me, and he stops, you know?
joe rogan
Okay.
Okay.
bas rutten
So I look at him and I go, nah, you never did that.
Total bullshit.
unidentified
I said, you practiced this in the mirror and it looks really cool, but you never did this.
bas rutten
His friends were like, they were waiting for my reaction because they were in awe.
This guy was, it was his glory.
And then at the moment I said, total bullshit, I started talking and another guy came and said, you know who he is?
He was actually a professional fighter.
So the whole group left.
But the fact, the face, the facial expression from all those guys, they're all dressed the same, like these khakis with shirts over the top, all jewelry everywhere.
You know, those guys.
unidentified
King Sparks.
bas rutten
Exactly.
joe rogan
King Sparks.
unidentified
The street karate guy, his routine saved his life seven times.
bas rutten
They expect that you believe that crap.
It was the most insane thing I've ever seen.
And I did it in Here Comes the Boom, you remember?
unidentified
Head, butt, knee to the face, throw away, stomp!
bas rutten
Victory dance!
And I told the backstage camera for Here Comes the Boom, I said, this is a true story.
Somebody told me this technique.
joe rogan
There's a lot of those knuckleheads, right?
Those street defense guys.
They're like fake karate guys.
bas rutten
And you know, the worst part is they say, yeah, we cannot use it in the ring because it's way too dangerous.
I say, well, if you can kill somebody like this, you can also not kill him, right?
I mean...
joe rogan
What?
bas rutten
Yeah, right.
joe rogan
You have that kind of control.
bas rutten
If you have that kind of control, you just...
joe rogan
Their techniques are too lethal, boss.
You don't understand.
It's like dropping a nuclear explosion on you.
You know what I'm saying?
bas rutten
Yeah, the one in Sponge, all that...
joe rogan
Yeah, I love those videos, like Kung Fu videos where guys are demonstrating techniques and how they're going to work.
Have you seen the one where the old man who's got this class where he throws like...
bas rutten
People, and then the karate guy, pancreas guy comes in.
joe rogan
And beats the shit out of him.
bas rutten
And beats the shit out of him, right?
joe rogan
Sad, right?
bas rutten
And when you see him bleed, he sees himself.
He cannot believe it.
It doesn't work.
joe rogan
And he's trying.
bas rutten
That one guy, he goes, the guy goes like this.
unidentified
Yeah.
bas rutten
And then he goes...
And he makes a somersault and he falls on the ground.
joe rogan
It's almost like he believed his own bullshit, right?
bas rutten
Well, what are these guys doing?
They're all faking it.
They know.
joe rogan
They are, but they're probably...
It's like mass hypnosis or mass hysteria.
You know, like cult behavior.
They get locked into believing.
Like, I remember when I was in...
My Taekwondo school was not cultish in the sense that nobody had to do anything crazy.
They didn't try to get your money or get you to leave your family or anything like that.
But the devotion that some people had towards the instructor was pretty crazy.
bas rutten
It's amazing.
joe rogan
And they didn't exploit it, but if someone did exploit it...
You could see how they could get some weak people that would really fall into it.
It's sort of a disturbing aspect of martial arts.
One of the things that I really loved about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was that you didn't kind of see that.
You didn't see all the bowing.
It was more friendly.
When I trained with the Machado, I was like, hey, my friend, how are you?
bas rutten
Come on.
joe rogan
Once they show you the techniques.
But they're very friendly and more like...
They don't try to place themselves above anyone.
There's no master this.
bas rutten
No, because they don't need to because they're going to let you know that it is really effective right there.
joe rogan
And the respect that you get from them, they'll earn it just by being amazing.
bas rutten
Yeah, but it's because they're good.
All the other guys who preach and talk about it like that, they're not good.
They suck.
Like every guy who tells me that he is unbelievable but he never fought is full of shit.
joe rogan
Well, you know how many times you guys have told me?
bas rutten
Guaranteed.
It's not possible.
He will not know if he can do it under pressure.
He will not.
It's amazing.
joe rogan
Do you know how many guys have told me, though, that they could never lose?
I could never lose, man.
You don't know about my mentality.
My mentality is...
bas rutten
Until they get choked.
joe rogan
I'm like an animal, bro.
I might go blank and then...
bas rutten
Yeah, that's the best one.
joe rogan
Body stunt dropping.
bas rutten
I go blank.
That means you don't think, right?
That's the easiest.
I had ninjas coming into my class one time.
I'm not kidding.
There's a guy walking in with a stash, glasses, and a big belly, and blue kimonos, and they came in Holland.
And they walked in and there was six girls following him.
It was like a cult.
It was the weirdest thing ever.
Later on, we found out he couldn't even do like eight pushups.
It was like bizarre.
And every time when I would show something, they would say something.
Like one time, you know, I had an arm bar and this girl says, oh, we would bite in the leg, you know?
So I started slowly but surely.
I figured I'm not going to say anything.
But then, you know, it kept going, kept going.
I have somebody in the rear naked choke.
And I said, and explaining, and she goes to somebody else, she says, we will poke the eyes out now.
And I go, oh, excuse me, what was that?
And she said, we will poke your eyes out right now.
I said, wow!
Let's find out.
I mean, I'm going to try this with you.
Is that cool?
Yeah.
She goes, let's go.
Sit down.
I said, put my arm around her neck.
I said, okay.
In three seconds, I'm going to go.
If you touch my eye, I'm going to break your neck.
unidentified
Okay?
bas rutten
Let's go.
She goes, whoa, whoa, whoa.
What did you say?
I said, in three seconds, we're going to go.
I will count down.
You come near to my fucking eye.
I'm going to break your neck.
unidentified
Okay?
bas rutten
I said, no, no, no.
What do you mean?
I said, okay.
You know what I... Normally, when somebody touches my eye, you think I'm going to go, no.
I'm going to go, my eye goes, and I'm going to go, motherfucker.
That in my eye hurts.
joe rogan
That face was awesome.
bas rutten
Never, never fuck with somebody who has a dominant position over you.
If I have you in an armbar and you bite my calf, Guess what's going to break at that moment?
It's the most idiot thing that people actually believe that if you put a finger in my eye and live in that situation, I'm going to let go of the choke, really.
I'm going to snap the neck first, then I'm going to let go of the choke.
joe rogan
Not only that, people don't understand how quick you go unconscious.
Like, if someone has a rear naked choke on you, especially if you don't really know defense, you haven't been choked a lot before, you don't know how to relax, you don't know how to touch your chin.
bas rutten
Oh, and do you know how hard it is to poke an eye?
joe rogan
Yeah, it's fucking hard.
bas rutten
If you do this, I do that, you're out.
It's very hard.
It's very hard.
I squeeze my eye, I put my eye against the back of your neck, back of your head.
joe rogan
See, what you're used to doing, Bas Rutten, is fighting in a sport-type situation where you've got rules.
See, out on the street, there are no rules.
bas rutten
No rules.
You know, and like, I cannot fight without rules, too, right?
unidentified
Yeah, that's funny.
bas rutten
It's like, I can stab eyes, too.
Only I can do it better, more accurate as well.
joe rogan
I used to do this, well, I do this radio show.
I won't name the guy, but there was a guy that they had as their bodyguard, and he's a fucking total bullshit artist.
And he was a ninja, and he would fucking do videos doing nunchucks and shit.
It was so stupid.
unidentified
Why didn't you want to say his name?
joe rogan
Master Poe.
So, uh...
Opie and Anthony show.
We were on the show once, and I'm fine.
You do whatever you want, but as soon as you're on the air, you represent it.
I've got to tell the truth.
You're on the fucking radio now, and people are going to listen to you, and if I let you get away with some nonsense...
bas rutten
Yeah, you look stupid.
joe rogan
Not me, man.
Some young kid could be listening to that, and they want to start a martial art, and they get sucked into doing those stupid fucking street karate classes.
And I go, listen, it's real simple.
The shit that works on trained killers is the best shit.
You don't see Anderson Silva...
You know, practicing eye pokes, although eye pokes are pretty successful in UFC. They're good, yeah, yeah, they work.
You don't see him doing, you know, death touch and fucking, you know, pressure point attacks.
That shit doesn't work.
bas rutten
It doesn't work.
I said on camera, we had an email from somebody who said that his master could, with point pressure, they could knock you out.
I got a great story about this also with Amir.
Anyway, I looked in the camera.
I said, okay, anybody in America you're watching right now, if you have a person who says that he can knock me out with a punch, like just pressing somewhere, we invite him.
We pay him.
We pay his trip.
He can come on the show.
He can do it on camera on me.
He can knock me out.
I said, it's a no-lose situation for me because if it works...
I'm signing up.
I'm going to do that stuff.
But I tell you, it's not going to work.
We had this guy, but you know Amir Peret, so you know him also, right, my buddy?
We see these guys on stage and the touch guys, right?
joe rogan
Yeah.
bas rutten
So one guy goes this.
This is what the person does.
joe rogan
They just fall back.
bas rutten
And then the guy said, did you see his eyes roll back in his skull?
That means he was out for real.
So I go to Amir and go, this is going to be fun.
Watch this.
So these guys come walking down after the set.
I said, okay, do it to me.
I want you to do it to me.
You want him to knock out.
He said, are you sure about that?
I said, do it to me.
I want to know how that feels.
And he goes, you know what?
I got something better.
So he already steered away from it, right?
So he says, let me show you this.
And he walks over to his buddy.
They start talking to each other.
And then he walks away.
And in the corner he stands like this.
unidentified
I mean crazy.
bas rutten
And he runs towards his friend.
And he goes like this.
Fuck!
unidentified
In midair, he stops and he flies on the ground.
joe rogan
So he threw like kung fu hands at him.
bas rutten
Kung fu hands at him.
joe rogan
Doesn't touch him.
bas rutten
Doesn't touch him.
I go, dude, I'm sold.
Do that to me.
unidentified
Right.
bas rutten
I'm going to attack you right now.
So I'm going to the corner and he goes, yeah, but you have to be really angry.
I said, excuse me, you're really angry, otherwise it won't work.
I said, your friend just did it, right?
I said, I think I can better act than your friend.
Don't worry, I'll be in the zone.
He says, no, no, because if you're not real angry, it doesn't work.
It needs to be that balance.
So I knew it was his way out.
So I walked over to him and I'm standing like this.
Kick me in the pills.
And he says, what?
I said, kick me in the pills.
I said, I'm going to be really fucking pissed.
He didn't want to do it, needless to say.
I mean, but they're idiots that truly believe that is true.
joe rogan
Well, it's so easy to take someone who doesn't know anything, like who's a student, and trick them like that and be a con man like that.
bas rutten
And you know what the worst thing is?
There's teachers out there, they give you a false sense of security, and then they teach you how to defend a knife, you know, grabbing the wrist.
I mean, it's so dangerous.
Knife is dangerous than a gun, on a short distance at least.
They teach him the wrong way, and then something happens on the street, somebody pulls a knife, and he goes to his buddy, dude, step back, I got it.
And they get killed.
joe rogan
Eddie Bravo has a crazy story about that.
bas rutten
And it's that guy's fault.
It's the coach's fault.
joe rogan
Eddie Bravo, when he was first learning martial arts, actually almost got into an altercation before he knew Jiu Jitsu.
He was first learning martial arts.
He really thought he was going to be able to attack this guy and put him away with some fake karate shit.
bas rutten
Yeah, there you go.
joe rogan
See?
Eddie's first instructor was a fake guy.
bas rutten
It didn't work.
joe rogan
The guy said that he was going to China to train with the monks.
I'll be back in a week.
I'm going to China to train with the monks.
So Eddie was at the supermarket, and he saw the guy's car.
He's like, what the fuck?
And he ran into the guy at the supermarket, who was supposed to be in China, training with the monks.
bas rutten
What is the guy who killed, you know, the...
joe rogan
Rafael Torre.
bas rutten
Yeah, he would say that he would go in the forest, and he would fight a whole tournament, and he would come back, and he had, like, these bulleted-up knuckles, and suddenly a trophy.
joe rogan
The story of Rafael Torre, his name was not really Rafael Torre.
That was a fake name that he created.
He was a fake Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt and he had his friend drop him off in the woods and said, I'm about to fight in a Kumite karate to the death tournament.
And so he's carrying this bag and in the bag he had this fucking trophy already.
He's like, drop me off in the woods, they're gonna meet me here and then I'm gonna fight for a couple days and I'll see you in a couple days.
So then his friend comes back two days later to pick him up.
Yeah, I won everything.
Here's my trophy.
bas rutten
Motherfucker!
joe rogan
You think I'm retarded?
You brought that bag!
You brought that trophy in a bag!
But, you know, he came from that era where you could get away with faking shit like that.
bas rutten
And people believe that.
I have a lot of guys who believe stuff, you know?
And they put a cover of magazines, and they're this and they're that, and they're nobodies.
Absolutely nobodies.
But people believe it.
And directors believe that.
unidentified
Oh, yeah.
bas rutten
Here they go.
Oh, my God.
This guy, man, is dangerous.
joe rogan
What do you think of Seagal's?
Seagal's claims.
unidentified
Did you see the interview he did with Michael Schiavello on your network?
bas rutten
Oh, get a laugh in your face.
The thing is this.
The thing is this.
Here I go back.
Here I go back to.
Did you ever compete?
No.
No, but I trained with other guys.
We would fight in a dojo.
We all know that fighting in a dojo...
And fighting under pressure in a cage or in a ring, whatever, you cannot even compare to each other.
I always explain, and my buddy Amir Peretz always would say it, you know, if you take a 2x4, like a long, 20-foot long, right, and you have to walk over it, it's an easy thing to do.
You just walk over, it's 20 feet long.
Now you put that same bar up about two buildings, 20 stories up, and now you have to walk over there.
Now it's a whole different ballgame, and it's not so easy anymore.
Now that's the same as in fighting.
And sparring?
Nothing compared.
How many dojo fighters you know that tear up everybody, including the professionals, but when they fight themselves, they can't fight.
They panic.
And that's what I always say.
Until you've competed, you can never tell.
You can have 100 black.
I don't care.
I've got to see it.
I've got to see you fight.
I don't believe people saying that you're good.
I want to see you fight.
Not in training.
Under pressure.
With people around.
joe rogan
So important.
Wise words by Bas Rutten, ladies and gentlemen.
Learn, knowledge, respect.
Follow Bas Rutten on Twitter.
It's Bas Rutten.
B-A-S-R-U-T-T-E-N-M-M-A. The website also.
What is your website?
The O2Trainer.com?
bas rutten
O2Trainer.com.
O2TrainerBlog.com if you want to check out that one video.
And then Bas Rutten.com.
joe rogan
And bossrutin.com for your website and EliteMMA.com.
EliteMMAgym.com.
EliteMMAgym.com for your gym, which is in Thousand Oaks.
Fantastic gym.
You can't go wrong.
Training there.
When is Ramon's brother back from Holland?
bas rutten
I think we'll be back next week.
And I'll be there every Tuesday and Thursday at 6 o'clock.
If you want to come in, people say, oh, can I train with you?
I'm there.
I love to teach.
So be there.
Bossrutin on Facebook is just slash Bossrutin.
joe rogan
All right, my brother.
An honor, as always, and always a good time hanging out with you.
bas rutten
Same here.
joe rogan
Follow Boss Rootin, ladies and gentlemen.
Again, that's Boss Rootin MMA on Twitter.
Thank you very much for tuning in to the podcast, my friends.
Thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring the podcast.
If you go to squarespace.com forward slash Joe, and if you use the code name Joe3, that's one word, Joe3, You will save yourself 10% off your first purchase on new accounts.
It includes monthly and annual plans.
Thanks also to Ting for sponsoring our podcast.
If you go to rogan.ting.com, you will save $25 off of either cell phone or service.
And they have a full line of the best Android mobile phones available.
So thank you to Squarespace.
Thank you to Ting.
Thank you to Onnit.
Go to O-N-N-I-T. Use the code name ROGAN. Save yourself 10% off this Thursday night at the American Comedy Company in San Diego.
Brian Redband will be there along with Yoshi, Billy Bonnell, Jason Tebow, Tony Hinchcliffe.
It's going to be a heck of a show.
And it's at one of the coolest clubs in Southern California.
This Wednesday night in Pasadena, I am at the Ice House Comedy Club with Ari Shafir and Ian Edwards.
Should be a lot of fun.
It's a 10 o'clock show.
It's only 15 bucks.
And Montreal this weekend is sold the fuck out.
So suck it!
Tough shit.
We love you, but we gotta sell tickets.
unidentified
Alright.
joe rogan
We'll see you guys very shortly.
We have a podcast tomorrow with Scott Sigler, who is an author, writes cool horror and fiction and science fiction shit.
And then on Wednesday, Shane Smith returns to the podcast.
So thank you everybody for tuning in and go fuck yourselves.
Alright, we'll see you soon.
Love ya!
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