John Wayne Parr—Muay Thai legend with eight world titles and 16 fights in Japan—trains relentlessly, blending brutal Thai camp discipline (sleeping on wooden floors, monk rituals) with power-driven striking. He critiques MMA’s overemphasis on grappling and stalling, contrasting it with Muay Thai’s fluid, high-scoring stand-up, where body kicks and knees dominate. Parr’s documentary Blessed with Venom reveals Thailand’s gambling-fueled underworld, where fighters risk bribes or worse to lose matches, while his seminars in California (Faction MMA, Art of Eight Limbs) focus on maximizing strike efficiency over brute strength. A master of intimidation, he argues combat sports should reward heart over technical perfection, proving why traditional striking still reigns supreme. [Automatically generated summary]
The Joe Rogan Experience Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day Yes, ladies and gentlemen Yeah, my phone shit the bed, officially.
iPhone 6, done.
I think I dropped it too many times.
Or it got scared when it saw John Wayne Parr.
My phone decided to just...
Give up.
What's happening, man?
Welcome back, my friend.
It was very fun working out with you today.
That was very enjoyable.
John Wayne Parr, for those who don't know, multiple time Muay Thai champion, very famous in the world of combat sports, both for your accomplishments in Muay Thai.
And a lot of people in the UFC know about you for your work with George St. Pierre.
You did a lot of training with George St. For some of his MMA fights and got to show him some of your Muay Thai techniques, which I really learned a lot today watching you explain how you do things.
You have a very specific style that is very uniquely your own.
Yeah, I was lucky enough to go to Thailand to live for four years.
So I took the Thai concept and then I retired from Muay Thai and went to boxing for a year.
And then I just concentrated on my hands and then I liked boxing but then it sort of got a bit stale because the crowd's a little bit older and the Muay Thai crowd really pumps you up so I decided to come back to Muay Thai again and I sort of blended the two together with the top half of the boxing and the bottom half of the Muay Thai.
And then I just sort of created my own concept, and yeah, it's been very cool.
It seems like you also, like we were talking today, you incorporated a lot of the way Ramon Deckers used to throw combinations, who was a Dutch guy who became probably one of the most famous ever foreigners to fight in Thailand, one of the most successful in the lower weight classes especially.
In the world of Muay Thai and the world of fighting, there's guys who have gigantic names.
If you were thinking about a sport like hockey, it would be like a Wayne Gretzky or like a Bobby Orr.
That's where Ramon Deckers was.
Most casual people, casual fans, they're not aware of some of the greats in this sport.
It's really unfortunate.
It's because America, like, kickboxing, for whatever reason, never really caught on.
And Dana White has a really good theory.
And he thinks it's because that in, like, the 1980s and the early 19...
I guess it wasn't even the 90s, like, mostly the 80s, they had that PKA kickboxing on TV. Which is where Rick Rufus came from, who turned out to be a great fighter.
But a lot of those guys were sloppy boxers who had to throw a certain amount of kicks per round.
They would make you throw six, seven kicks per round.
I forget what the number was.
And so they would throw these little flippy kicks with no power, and then they would just kind of sloppy box.
For the Joe Shillings, for example, we need to go to his house and see what he is like a person instead of just seeing the bell ring, have his fight, put his hand up, and then he disappears.
Whereas the UFC, I know everything about George St. Pierre without even meeting him.
I know everything about John Jones without meeting him.
I know everyone.
And then when they fight, I feel I have that emotional connection.
And I really want to cheer for that guy because I feel like I'm emotionally involved.
Whereas the Glory guy is like, I can't tell you who's who and how many daughters he has or what kind of pets he has at home.
One of the things that I really love about just striking, I'm obviously a big fan of the MMA, but when you've got to think about takedowns and when you have to think about submissions and There's so many different things that a fighter has to consider.
They're not as open with their striking.
They don't have as many moments to just freely exchange without worried about being taken down.
When you watch real high-level Muay Thai, real high-level kickboxing, you get to see this next-level fluidity and this next-level technique.
You see it in boxing as well.
I've had conversations with people that say boxing is better.
You never see people land those combinations in the UFC. And I'm like, well, it's because they're going to take you down.
You can't stand sideways with your shoulders like that against a really good wrestler because they're just going to shoot in and take you down.
That style against someone, if you make that agreement, like it's only going to be stand-up, it's only going to be hands, you get to see the really high-level, the Manny Pacquiao's, the Floyd Mayweather's, you get to see this just next-level technique.
And I feel the same way with kickboxing.
I feel like with Muay Thai and with kickboxing, you don't get to see the real high-level stuff unless it's just two straight, pure strikers in a Muay Thai match.
When I got the opportunity to work with George, for instance, the first time that we sparred, I think George is so used to throwing one-twos, one-two-threes, and then I was literally chasing him from one side of the cage to the other, doing a U-turn and then going straight back at him again.
And then after the spar, he told me, it felt like I was sparring four guys at once because it was just relentless.
Like if you have a very crude grasp of the language and you try to have a conversation with someone, it can be very frustrating because you're searching for the words.
You don't know exactly what to say.
You're trying to figure out what that person's saying.
But if you're like you or me who speak English very fluently, you and I could have a conversation.
We could be rattling back and forth.
Well, you're that way with striking.
You could tell like striking is like a part of your body's language.
So it's so normal to you.
You're so used to it that the combinations just flow like water.
Whereas, like, you were trying to teach me some things today about the really unique style that you have of, like, when you were trying to teach me that crazy power jab and then the setups to those knees.
Like, you have a very specific way of moving that I was trying to emulate.
That's why I can't go to MMA, because I've spent my whole life learning stand-up, and I'm in fear that I have to spend another lifetime on my back if I want to reach the same sort of level.
And I wouldn't do it unless I had that perfection on the floor, too.
That's why I come up with the cage Muay Thai idea.
Because I want to fight in the cage and I want to experience the little gloves.
But I didn't want to learn the ground because as much as I respect it, I'm not good at it.
And I want to be at a high level.
So we do promotions in Australia already between me and my wife.
I said, well, instead of hiring a ring, why don't we just hire a cage?
So I studied a little bit on the YouTube, and I'd seen it done before, and they wore boxing gloves.
And I thought, well, how am I going to get the respect from the MMA crowd if I wear boxing gloves, and they wear little gloves?
I'm going to look like a pussy.
So I thought, well, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it properly and I'm going to wear the MMA gloves just to show that I'm just as a warrior as the MMA guys are.
So, so far, we've done five shows and it's amazing.
That's interesting that you say that because I can't imagine you would have to feel like you, at this stage of your life, with all your accomplishments, that you still feel like you have to prove yourself.
I mean, all high-level athletes will tell you that.
They're never satisfied.
And I guess when you see guys fighting with striking with little gloves and you see that you're using the larger gloves, maybe that just makes you feel like you have to show that you're capable of doing that as well.
It's it's crazy because if you watch it I've always said this it's not like the product isn't there I'll give you watch high-level Muay Thai and I watched a lot of your fights last night after we did the podcast together I went back and this morning I watched the documentary on your life, which was amazing and I watched some of your fights and You know, the product is there.
That's what's crazy.
It's like, it's a dynamic, exciting product.
I'm a boxing fan, but if you give me a chance between watching, a choice rather, between watching high-level boxing and watching high-level Muay Thai, I'll take high-level Muay Thai all the time, because the possibilities are more.
The knees, the elbows, the high kicks, the leg kicks, all those things together, it's more dynamic.
There's more things going on.
There's no reason why people shouldn't know about who you are.
It's exactly where the UFC was at one point in time.
There was a time in the 90s when the UFC was banned from cable, when the UFC was only, you could only get it on direct TV. And fucking nobody knew who it was.
I mean, I was on news radio, which was a sitcom in America, and I was starting to do the interviews, the post-fight interviews.
I would tell them that I would do it and people would look at me like I'm ruining my life by being involved in this nefarious Adventure to go and watch people fight in a cage like I was gonna go watch Lions fight to the death or something.
It was just it was weird It was like like you were talking about porn or even worse than porn.
It was like animal porn or something It was strange, but now it's a normal like you tell people the UFC Oh, I've seen that even if the casual person is aware of it's it's Gotten into the public's eye enough where the casual person is, you know, it's a part of the zeitgeist.
I had the opportunity to fight in Thailand, and it was an eight-man tournament.
I had to fight three times in two hours, and it was live on Thai TV, and it smashes build up, and I fought three times, and I beat the Russian, the French, I beat a Thai in the final.
I won a world title, a million baht, which is about 35,000, and I won a trophy from the Prime Minister of Thailand.
I got back to Australia, and I rang the Brisbane newspaper.
There's a big newspaper in Brisbane.
And then they've come around, and then I said, I've just won this.
I've won this trophy from the Prime Minister.
And the lady on the other end said, well, it sounds like you're exaggerating all this.
Why don't you just try your local newspaper?
And hung up on me before I even got a chance to say goodbye.
She was like, we only deal in football and cricket here in Australia, because it's not a mainstream sport.
It was okay, and then they've just come around and they've banned it.
I have a cage in my gym, and it's like, just step into a cage to realize how safe and protected it is compared to a ring.
Once you step into it and appreciate what it is for what it is, You'll understand that it's so much better than falling out of a ring that's a meter and a half high.
So as he's fallen out of the ring, he puts his hands out, the brace he's for, he puts a hand on a chair, and each hand, the chair's split, and it falls straight on his neck.
I think he was in a coma for like a month or two.
Because he fell from about two metres high.
He fell over the top rope, so incorporate that from the ring to the concrete floor.
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Do you remember back in the day, they used to run events because the cage was banned in New South Wales.
Oh, you're in Queensland, sorry.
And I think it was Tony Bonello's show.
And then they used to have not had a cage.
So what they did is they had the platform and they had all the big boys like Tama Tahuna and Jamie Tahuna and all those boys standing around with the kick shields.
I've been talking about this for a while, that if they can have a big room for basketball, a big flat surface, why can't they have a big flat surface for fighting, where everyone can see what the fuck's going on?
Because you don't see what's going on a lot of times with the cage, even me.
Like, I'm right there when I'm calling UFC fights, but sometimes a post is in the way, or it's around, they're like sideways, like I have to lean up to try to see, because it's kind of like I'm looking sideways through the cage.
I think that a flat surface would eliminate a lot of the stalling and a lot of the pressing, the clenching up against the cage.
Clenching in the center is a totally different animal than when you're leaning on someone, pressing someone against the cage.
Like, Charles Oliveira is one of the best in the UFC at fighting off his back.
You saw his last fight with Jeremy Stevens.
I don't know if you're aware of him, but he's got a vicious guard.
His guard is attacking all the time.
So when you take that guy down, it's no fucking picnic.
You know, he's constantly threatening your arm, your neck.
And those guys are gonna excel in a world where you can't just, you know, you can't just hold a guy against a cage, or if you take a guy down, he can't just wall walk.
A guy's gonna have to fight off of his back.
I feel like that's more honest, you know?
I mean, the cage is a real element of MMA, and guys train for it, and therefore you should be able to utilize it.
If you're a professional, you should understand it.
But it also puts a weird taste in people's mouths, like, oh, they're fighting in cages.
Even for what we do with the CMT, the cage stuff, as soon as they close the door, it just seems like it's you and your opponent and the black of the fence just makes it like a black wall so you can't see the crowd, you can't see the judges, and then it just feels like the arena.
There were so many guys that were doing karate that changed over the kickboxing, boxing that changed over the kickboxing, so they wanted to eliminate the hands and make more guys kick more.
So it had to be at least eight kicks above the waist.
And then, so the very next year, they said, okay, we've got a new rule, one hand, one knee, and then that gives the guys that are proper, more boxing-orientated, an opportunity to fight guys like Borcal, where they had no chance before.
You ever seen that fight that he fought, I forget who it was, Teixeira, where he hit him, he clenched with both hands behind the neck and hit him with a knee and it looked like he got shot, like someone hit him with a sniper bullet.
That's one of the things that drives me nuts about modern MMA is stand-ups when when guys get taken down and they're fighting on the ground and then they get stood back up I mean, I just I just think it's ridiculous like if you only have five minutes especially me coming from a jujitsu background if you have five minutes and you take a guy down It's a lot of times is a slow progression to a submission and you know you you can't be like you're like come on guys Let's work.
Let's work like they're fucking working.
Okay, but sometimes when guys are working, it's a stalemate and Like sometimes you're trying to pass the guys trying to stop you from passing you try to advance the other side the guy tries to stop you from the other side like there's there's a lot of shit going on there's a lot of shit going on and Unexperienced referees or referees that are unexperienced in grappling or referees that are easily influenced by the crowd like sometimes they'll hear booing and you know you just What are you gonna is this show for assholes?
You know people who don't understand fighting you?
Stand him up!
Okay, stand him up.
No, these guys are trying to fight.
Elite XC was the worst example of that.
Big Country, Roy Nelson had Andrey Arlovsky down, inside control, working at Kimura, and they stood him up.
It was fucking ridiculous.
They had like a 15-second thing, where if you went to the ground, if something didn't happen in 15 seconds, they stood you up.
I just don't think you ever see that with high-level guys.
I think that's just a part of being a fighter who's not that good.
Or a fighter who's learning.
You see a guy like Cain Velasquez.
Cain Velasquez never gets warned to keep moving.
He's fucking punching you in the face.
He's taking you down.
It's like he's constantly in motion.
And that's why he's one of the elite of the elite.
You don't see that stalling, that kind of stalling on high-level guys.
I just think you've got to let them fight.
It's ridiculous enough.
Like five minutes is a small amount of time for a grappler.
And sometimes guys just are trying to work techniques and they're getting stalled out or someone's using good defense and the referee just standing them up.
Like, that's what jujitsu is all about.
It's all about the guy defends, and you try a different way.
Dai defends, you need to try to keep hammering at him until he can't keep the rhythm up.
And then you advance, and then eventually you catch him.
But sometimes you'll be, a guy will be defending like a wizard.
Like, if you watch two guys roll, two high-level guys, like, it is like we were expressing before.
It's like a conversation.
They're arguing about shit, and they're trying to find holes in each other's game, and it'll go on where it looks like it's a stalemate for five minutes, but...
Save like it's like a Marcelo Garcia character He's fighting a guy who's really athletic and you think you go man is how long can this guy hold Marcelo off and that's really what the question is It's not a matter of all this guy's just as good as Marcelo not really no Eventually he's gonna figure out the right combination of things to do to this guy And he's gonna have his back and then once he has his back that guy's fucked But it's like how long does it take to get him there and in an MMA? Halfway there, you're like, boo!
That's an interesting thing you were talking about last night about Muay Thai scoring, that the clinching is like a big part of the scoring, whereas we look at clinching as stalling out or like, you know, something that they're doing where they're trying to like wait, buy their time, figure out what to do next.
Like in Thailand, it's a big aspect of the fighting.
Round one, if they don't get in the clinch, no one bets.
No one bets until halfway through round two, all of a sudden they get into a clinch, and then it's like, boom!
You see the hands go crazy, because everyone's their own bookmaker in Thailand, so everyone's doing their own odds, and they won't bet until they know the other guy's got a solid base or a solid knee game.
Because it's so easy to throw a leg kick, anyone can throw a leg kick, but it takes a high level to land a solid, even if it kicks the arms, that's considered a point as well.
They did a story on it because as he put his check up, he put his instep of his foot on his knee so there was no give instead of having the leg floppy and then he's locked it into his other leg and then as he's kicked through it, it's like kicking through a baseball bat.
Dude, back on the day when Dennis Alexio was a young man, he wasn't schooled in the ways of the low kick and he fought Don the Dragon Wilson and Don Wilson fucked him up with low kicks.
Defense and low kicks.
There's a guy that doesn't get enough credit.
Don Wilson had sort of like a weird sort of karate style, but he knew how to throw a good low kick.
When Chuck Norris had that World Combat League, and he was doing a very similar thing that we were talking about, where they fight kind of in a small bowl, like a saucer.
Like, they didn't have a ring and they didn't have a cage.
They had just this sort of slightly elevated platform that had a lip to it.
So when they get to the outside edge, you know, the referee would bring them back in.
I was trying to get the UFC to buy K1 a long time ago.
And the number one thing that I talked to Dana White about is like, ah, people don't like kickboxing.
That PK karate ruined it for everybody.
And I was like, that's so crazy to say that, because that's like saying that UFC 1 ruined it for what we're seeing today.
Because this is so not related.
The product itself, the kickboxing product itself is so high level.
When you go to...
The fights, the classics, the Peter Ertz fights, the Andy Hoog, the Mike Bernardo, those fights, those fucking Jerome LeBanner, those were crazy fights.
I mean, if you look at that product, I couldn't imagine anybody not wanting to put on those fights.
Everything was high definition, the slow-mos, the highlight packages that make up, you couldn't help but feel like this was the I was lucky enough to fight there in 2004, 2005, and we were pulling 40,000 people every show.
Yeah, and you'd walk out to the arena, and then you'd check out the stage, and sometimes you'd come up through the floor for your walkout, or it was just unbelievable.
Song Chai, who I was fighting for, he'd make all his money from the TV production.
So he'd do live shows in the middle of nowhere.
And people would drive for hours to be present for a live event.
And we'd have 40,000, 60,000.
There's this one big event once a year called the King's Birthday.
And we get 100,000 people plus every year on the 5th of December.
Holy shit!
I was lucky to fight on that four years in a row.
So the first time I went on the ring, it was the first time that my knees went weak, because as far as I could see was an ocean of heads, and I started trembling, and then I've come out in the first round, I've tried to finish him, and then by the fifth round I sort of spit my pennies, I fell over a couple of times.
And losing on points.
And then the next year I got invited back and I said, oh no, I'm not going to get spooked out this time.
Like the UFC jitters, like you talk about all the time.
I had the jitters the first one.
The second time I was like, no, this time I'm going to love it.
I'm going to absorb it.
I'm going to run with it.
So I got out there, big breath and 100,000 people.
And then I had the greatest fight of my life.
There was 10 Westerners versus 10 ties and I was the only Westerner to win.
I'm getting high-fived from Ty's on the way back to the change room.
And then the last time I did it, there was probably only 95,000 people there.
If you go out there and give it your all, and you go out in a stretcher, they prefer you go out in a stretcher than you lay down from a knee and say, oh, it hurts.
Well, that's one of the major complaints from a lot of fighters, like Rampage said that many times about the difference between fighting in Japan and fighting in America, is that in Japan, they appreciate effort.
They want you to fight your best.
And if you fight your best, sometimes you fight someone who's better than you and you lose and that's just the way of fighting and it's a way of learning and that's how guys get better.
That adversity from loss and going back and regrouping and watching films and realizing where you have to step your game up, that's what creates champions.
I mean that is what creates a real champion is you have to be able to fight people who are better than you or as good as you or it's got to be a really high level that you're aspiring to and along the way sometimes you lose but in Japan They treat the losers in those really high-level fights where it's just incredible action and heart.
They treat the losers the same way they treat the winners.
That doesn't happen in America.
In America, that's the number one complaint is that people look at you like, oh, you're a loser.
Well, there's a few fighters that still have that kind of support just because they're so exciting.
Like Vanderlei Silva is a perfect example.
Vanderlei has been knocked out quite a few times, but he still has a gigantic following because there's no such thing as a boring Vanderlei Silva fight.
Every Vanderlei-Silva fight, it's like, ready, ready, chaos!
Are you ready?
Are you ready?
Fucking mad violence until that guy's last heartbeat.
I mean, every time he fights, he fights like a man possessed, which is why he has so many people that love him.
But a lot of guys, they felt like Quentin, Rampage especially, I hate to keep bringing him up, but he experienced a lot of hate after beating Chuck Liddell.
And he was like, I can't believe people are upset at me for being good.
Because I'd beat their hero.
All these people would say horrible shit to them.
I think in that sense, the United States crowds, there's something to be desired about some of the people that are excited about fighting.
If he had strong hands, if his hands didn't break all the time, you know, like Floyd, he's had quite a few, like, broken hands.
He's had a serious problem with hand breaks.
If he didn't have that man, god damn, you know, if he had punching power as well as that insane defensive technique, he's, in my opinion, he's the most masterful of all the boxers I've ever watched.
Bernard Hopkins, right up there.
Andre Ward is another one.
He doesn't get enough credit.
Like, a lot of Americans, for whatever reason, are not aware of how good Andre Ward is.
But goddamn, he's a good boxer.
Another one, just brilliant defensively.
Very rarely see him in trouble.
And he's so different, too, because Andre Ward fights different styles for different fighters.
Like, some fighters, he'll fight on the outside, he'll fight long range, and he'll box them.
And then on other fighters, he just fucking gets right up in your grill and he's throwing these combinations and cutting angles on you and never letting you breathe.
They're sort of, I don't want to fight you because you might beat me, or I got that zero that might disappear if you beat me, so I don't want that happening.
Look, if they fought in their primes, and I'm not saying Pacquiao...
Let's be real about this.
Let's be totally real about this.
Pacquiao went up eight weight classes and retained his punching power.
And there was always all sorts of allegations of special proteins that came in needle form.
Mexican supplements, if you were.
I don't know what the fuck was going on, but that's one of the things that Floyd always was saying, and a lot of other fighters have said it too.
I don't know if it's true, but if it is true, and Floyd wasn't doing those same things, and they did fight and Pacquiao did have that unnatural advantage, you know, a few years ago, like back when he fought Margarito or, you know, back before Marquez knocked him out.
You gotta wonder like maybe it's intelligent to not fight a guy like that at that time If you know something that that you and I and the regular people that aren't involved in the deep deep in the boxing world Maybe smart might be smart.
Just you know, nobody wants to see a guy cheat his way to victory That's like that's something that drives everyone crazy.
There's no doubt about There's no doubt in the fact that Pacquiao works hard.
I mean, Pacquiao's discipline, he's focused, he's an amazing fighter.
I mean, no doubt about it.
But, man, there's a lot of fucking allegations connected to his camp.
That Alex Ariza guy, the guy that left and was, who the fuck was he training with?
He was training with one of Pacquiao's opponents.
I forgot which fight it was, but that guy's got a lot of weird shit attached to him.
There's a lot of these guys that have a lot of weird allegations that may or may not be true, but if you're smart and you're a guy like Floyd Mayweather, why not avoid those guys?
And that's something that we were talking about earlier today because George, when he was talking about, when he left the UFC, And when he said, I'm gonna take a break and I'm gonna relinquish my title, one of the things that he talked about was the problem with PEDs.
He talked, he said, this is a huge problem in MMA. And a lot of people poo-pooed him.
We don't need to name names.
A lot of people said that, oh, he's exaggerating.
But now, man, it's now with these more stringent tests that are being performed, fucking Anderson Silva pisses hot.
13, 14, about 16. And I said, he'll fight him, he'll fight him.
This guy's had like 250 fights, and my young teenager here, he'll fight him.
And then he said, oh, he can't fight him.
I'll let him fight, though.
Does anyone in the room want to fight the white guy?
And I kid you not, about 60 hands went up in the room.
They said, well, we'll fight him, we'll fight him.
So they said, oh, you two, you're about the close size.
So I ended up fighting this guy in front of 40,000 people.
I got cut in the fifth, bloodstreamed in my face.
I ended up doing enough to beat him every round.
And then the number one promoter in Thailand said, okay, done.
From now on, you're going to start fighting for me.
And then the next minute, I'm starting to fight at 60,000.
I'm starting to fight at Lumpini Stadium.
I'm fighting on TV, all the fights.
I'm the first Westerner to make the number one selling Muay Thai magazine in Thailand.
And all the Thais started calling me the dangerous kangaroo.
Then I started reaching the A-class guys, which was a bit of a shock.
I fought a guy called Orono, and I had 20 fights, and he had close to 300, and he was the household name.
He was the Anderson Silva, almost, of Muay Thai in Thailand.
And then the third round, he cut me 21 stitches.
The fight gets stopped.
So I went down a few pegs.
And then from then on, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards.
And then the year 2000, I got to rematch the Orono again.
And this time was on the King's birthday in front of 100,000 people live on Thai TV. And then I schooled him every round and won his world title in front of all his Thais.
And then from that moment on, all of a sudden, I started becoming a...
Sort of a celebrity in Thailand.
Not a celebrity, but in the Muay Thai world, I was a somebody now.
I've been quite successful the last 15 years doing it by myself.
And there's no middleman either.
I don't have to worry about a manager or someone telling me what to do.
And I push myself in my training to a high standard where I'm, I guess, doing okay because I've won another eight world titles by myself.
And I've been lucky enough to travel the world too, going all over Europe and fighting in Japan 16 times and, yeah, beating everybody in Australia already set for my last one.
Bernard Hopkins is 50. He was supposed to retire when he was 40. He promised his mom he was going to give it up when he was 40 and he's lasted another 10 years and he's still fighting the elite and still winning world titles.
Winning a world title was always, I didn't want to win a world title.
I wanted to win a world title in Thailand against a Thai, against a genuine.
I don't want to win against someone down the road.
I always wanted to take it to the next level.
And once I did win the world title, I ended up winning two in Bangkok.
But now it's about the legacy.
It's about the...
Yeah, it's like any human being.
Once you pass, you just turn into flowers.
I want to be...
I want people to look like Dicker.
The amount of respect that I show him after he's passed away for the last couple of years, I want people to look at me in exactly the same light, hopefully one day.
I've had, I was on a five or six fight winning streak.
But then in six months, it was driving me insane.
Just that not being that, the famous guy anymore, not being in the magazines, not being on TV, not people coming up and not giving that recognition anymore.
And then I came back and I went on another five fight winning streak.
And it was so good to be back amongst the mix and to be in front of that crowd again.
I understand why people can't give it up and they keep coming back out of retirement because it is the most exciting thing that you could possibly do on earth is to stand in front of someone and try and knock each other out.
So you have this bowl and then every morning you walk this track and then there's Thai people on the side of the road giving you offerings.
So they give you rice, they give you meat, they give you this, they give you that.
And then you say a chant to them and that's helped to give them good karma for either that day or that week or maybe in a future life.
And then every morning we had a blind lady, and her sister would come out, hold her hand, put the spoon into her bowl, would say this chant, and it just was so special that every day we said this thing to her to help her have this good energy because life must be shit, not being able to see.
And it just meant so much for us coming around.
And then every day we had Buddhist studies, and then they were saying how the Buddhist is the oldest religion out of everything.
It was 500 years older than Christianity, which is a few hundred years older again than a Muslim.
So after we have breakfast in the morning, we do Buddhist studies for about an hour, two hours after that, and then we're either sweeping around the temple, keeping everything clean, and then afternoon we do Buddhist studies again for another hour or a half and two hours, and then we sleep in the temple and try not to get attacked by ghosts.
Yeah, the ghosts were scary.
Yeah, Thailand, the ghosts are so full on.
They really have this thing where they really believe in them.
So the ghosts have more of a tendency of showing themselves or coming to you in dream form.
And then it's so realistic.
It was life-changing.
I had a few different dreams where I came out of the temple thinking, fuck, I'm changing the way that I do things from now here on in.
19. 19. 19 to 23. So, if I had to guess, you're a young man, you're in Thailand for the first time, you're experiencing this incredible culture shock, you're also experiencing the anxiety of preparing for fights, this whole new world that you're living in.
And you probably have a lot of questions and doubts about life and, you know, there's anxiety, a lot of built-up stuff.
And then you're hanging around a bunch of people that are telling you that ghosts are trying to kill you.
So say your house looks this nice, and they have a little house in front of their house, and they decorate it more so it's more attractive for the ghost to live in there.
This is a true story.
And then they put food, little bits of rice, little bits of drink, and then little bits of whiskey sometimes.
And then before you fight, you pray to the ghost house that the ghost will hopefully give you good inner strength for when you go into battle.
It's easy to ridicule and it's easy to make fun of, but I think that when you look at things like the power of suggestion and the placebo effect, what that means, what it really means is that the mind has incredible capabilities.
The mind has the ability to heal you if you're sick.
The mind has the ability to do all sorts of things that you think you need a drug or medication to fix.
I mean, that's, the mind is amazing.
And if you're around a bunch of people that really believe These things, your mind is almost preparing you for these things being real.
I don't know if ghosts are real or if they're not real.
I've never experienced it.
But everyone I know that has, like, studied it, there's two types of people.
There's either, and maybe I haven't met enough of them, but there's charlatans who, like, you know, they're just the guys who do those shows where they've got, like, night vision, they're in a basement somewhere, and they're like, did you hear that?
And then they cut to commercial.
You know, never hear shit like those ghost hunting shows like you want to talk about a show like a genre with the least amount of success It's like it might be ghost hunting shows those motherfuckers have never seen a ghost like there's never a goat like you see it you go.
So I've gone into my room, and then it's one of those scenarios again where I'm just drifting off, and I hear the door open.
I'm thinking, oh, someone must be coming in to get something out of the room.
And then I hear footsteps.
And then, boom, I'm held down as hard as I can into the mattress, and I've got enough energy to open my eyes, and there was nothing there, but I could hear the breathing, the ha, ha.
And then I tried to relax.
I tried to relax.
I felt the pressure come off my chest.
And then as soon as it let me go, I grabbed my towel and my blanket and I went and slept in the Tyrus bedroom for two weeks on this floor because I was too petrified to sleep by myself for about two weeks.
I shitted myself so bad because I had my eyes and I could hear it.
Again, if I had to guess, one of the things that I would say is not only are you young and the power of suggestion, all these things are a factor, but also the fact that these things are happening to you while you're sleeping.
When you're sleeping, your mind produces all sorts of crazy psychedelic chemicals.
It's very possible that what you're experiencing is some semi-dream state.
And that in this semi-dream state, especially if you're convinced that ghosts are real, your brain starts, your imagination starts flooding your consciousness with all sorts of physical experiences, all sorts of physical sensations.
Or, ghosts are real.
That's possible, too.
I mean, I don't know.
I mean, I might be wrong.
It's just...
It's there's so much fuckery and ghosts You know when you when you look at the people that are telling you about them and the people that say that they've seen them It's just it's so it's such a weird subject.
unidentified
It's a big big part of Thailand though Like you know work for the rescue team like we spoke about last time And it's actually quite nice hearing you say this stuff because I'm like, oh my god, I'm not crazy.
Like, one of my heroes, John White, had this too.
But, yeah, I mean, like, everyone I know in Thailand has had something, and they're so superstitious.
So when you chop a tree down and then build your house, the ghost comes with the house.
The ghost comes with the wood.
So then there's certain poles that might be a bit more crazy, more powerful.
Even the ring, the ring's made out of wood.
So we used to decorate the ring with ribbons and powder and perfume, and then we'd pray to the ring just before a fight because it helped get us fit for that six weeks, eight week prep.
And then we'd decorate with flowers, we'd buy flowers just the day before the fight to say, thank you for my preparation.
So just little, tied to traditions more so than anything, I guess.
But even if they're not real, there's something to be said for eliminating a certain amount of anxiety just by having this ritual, having this process that you go through in your mind where you believe you've appeased the ghosts.
So you believe that you will have good luck.
Definitely.
Yeah, you have good karma, you have good spirits with you.
I mean, if you believe in ghosts and you're worried about the unknown and you find a ritual that appeases that and then settles that fear, I mean, there's a benefit in that.
In Thailand, it's a live Thai band too, so they have a guy on the drums, a guy on the cymbals, a guy on the flute, and then while you're dancing, you might be 100,000 people there, and then you just turn it all off, and then you're just praying for your, asking permission from the earth, the wind, the fire, the water, from God to give you all this inner strength.
Myself, I think for my mother, my father, my grandfathers, my grandmothers, Past, present, future, former trainers.
Every single person that helped you get to that present point in that particular second that you're thanking for helping you get right there in that time.
And then you take a big breath and all that energy just fills up your whole body.
And you get pins and needles in the hair stands on the back of your neck.
And then once you finish the dance, it feels like you're invincible.
A guy explained to me once also that when he did it, he would relax because he was sort of performing in front of all these people as he was doing it and it helped him perform better in his fighting because it wasn't just like, are you ready?
Are you ready?
Go!
Like he'd already done something in front of all these people and then it sort of loosened him up.
Before I ever did commentary for the UFC, I got to commentate on one of Koban's fight.
This was way back in the days, before 2002, which is when I started commentating for the UFC. I was the post-fight interview guy in like 97 to 98, and then I commentated from 2002 on.
In between then, I was working at, not working, I was working out at John Jock Machado's and me and Richard Norton.
It must have been an amazing experience for you just I mean what Just to go there as a young man as a teenager and just get immersed in this life It's so different than just like taking a Muay Thai class at a gym or even getting obsessed with Muay Thai in Australia or in America where you know You're working out all the time and you love Muay Thai but to be living there in Thailand the best part that I look back one upon is not just the The training and the fighting but the ghosts becoming a white tie and Oh,
And then I'd go to the shops and every single person would stare at me and I'd love it.
And then I could speak Thai, so I'd start talking to them and they'd freak out.
And then I'd start going to the nightclubs and, for instance, sometimes I'd have a live band and then I'd go up to the band and say, hey, do you know this song?
And then they'd give me the microphone and I'd sing Thai songs to the crowd and the crowd would bounce.
Yeah, you come back to Australia and you just blend in with everyone else and then you go back to Thailand and you're back to being that special person in the suburb again.
Wow.
And then I used to run on the road and everyone used to flash their lights at me and toot their horn because I was the fighter kid, the Aussie guy.
Three months before I could hold up a conversation.
So I remember the very first...
I used to learn, okay, eat, kin, drink, dum nam, and then I got my first sentence.
I still remember it.
They said, okay, we're going to send you to the shop.
We want you to say, I would like one bag of ice.
Pom tong gan nam kang nung tung.
So as I walked down the street, in my head, and then from there, I worked, okay, if instead of saying ice, and then I started getting sentences, and then I'd start asking questions, okay, what's this?
What's that?
What's this?
And then before I knew it, all of a sudden I was one of them.
I stopped thinking English, and I started thinking in Thai.
That's when it got scary because I came back to Australia and I start my sentences in English and I finish them in Thai, but I wouldn't know that I was finishing them in Thai.
And people were looking at me going, what the hell did you just say?
And then I started to speak in pidgin because the Thai, I started, me hungry?
Me thirsty?
unidentified
I was doing that to Westerners and I was like, what am I doing?
Yeah, and because I live with kids as well, there was kids in the camp, and then you could joke around with them, and if you said something wrong, they'd laugh and go, no, stupid, you say it like this, but if you said it to an adult, you'd feel a little bit sort of shy and embarrassed, but to a kid, you just slap them in the back of the head, and they don't laugh anymore.
Yeah, so if you fight and you're afraid of your opponent, they have a thing called round six, and then that might include you getting bashed by one of the trainers after you get home, and then it's like, okay, Round six, meaning you fight five rounds, and then you come back and they kick your ass.
And then you get your ass kicked.
And then it's like, what are you going to be scared of?
Are you going to be scared of the trainer kicking your ass when you get back?
Or are you going to be scared of your opponent, someone your size and weight with rules?
Or are you going to be scared of me?
So they get a lot more scared of the round six than they do their opponents.
It's weird because they don't get a chance or like they don't get a choice rather.
Whereas like if you have a young kid and they really aspire, there's some young kids that they aspire to fight at a very young age and that's what they're driven to.
These kids, a lot of them don't get a chance to decide.
If you're a famous boxer, you might make $5,000 a week.
So there's this drive that if I can be just a normal Joe Bloggs cooking rice on the side of the road, or if I'm a famous boxer, all of a sudden I could be the next Thai version of Floyd Mayweather.
Like Sanchai or Yotsin Klai or Borkha or somebody.
So there is a chance to get out of poverty through fighting.
You're seeing crazy matches, and then once you've got your bet on too, now you're cheering this guy home like the last final couple hundred meters for a horse race.
So if you're losing and then someone says, I'll give you 50,000 if you win by knockout this next round, all of a sudden you're tired, you're losing, and then 50,000.
Yeah, all of a sudden you've got this second win and you want to go out there and hurt him and then you knock him out and then the guy comes up and he's your 50,000.
And then what you have now is, well, forever, the Marvel influence.
So they might say, look, you're earning 50,000 baht for a normal fight.
We'll give you 300,000 fight if you happen to lay down round two by a head kick.
Really?
So you might be, today, you're unbelievable.
And then the mafia might come along and say, okay, do this.
And then next round, you don't know how to hold your hands up.
And then you get a head kick.
And then the referee will go, stop, stop, stop.
Mate, I've seen you fight 400 times.
You're a legend.
There's no way no one you don't know how to throw a jab.
This fight is now considered a no contest.
This will go to the Tribunal, and you're looking at six months.
And that could be the worst possible thing for any Thai boxing camp, because now you've brought dishonesty and distrust, and your camp's name is now Mud.
Where you've got two, there's so many Thais in Thailand that there's so many guys in the waiting line that know they can, like Yod-Sing-Guys, that haven't got a name that is just machines.
It's hard to say.
Yeah, I know I'm not elite, that I'm never going to be beaten.
So the Thais just believe they can just walk over.
Yeah, if you're one of the big gyms, let's pretend TriStar, and all of a sudden George goes down from fighting someone that he shouldn't, and then all of a sudden TriStar, and I don't want to put TriStar guys on my shows anymore.
Because they're obviously mafia influence, so we don't want to deal with them anymore.
Without saying any names or any camps, I know of a camp in Thailand that two of the guys did happen to lay down and brought disrespect to the camp, and they might have passed away.
And then for a certain amount of money to the Thai police, that file goes missing.
And then it's just a warning to the other boxers that it's not a good idea to lay down from my gym, otherwise you could also go missing.
Well, they have a Muay Thai paper that comes out every day, and they'll tell you what the odds are for each fighter tonight, what the odds are tomorrow, who won big last night.
If you're playing poker at home with six of your mates from next door, one of the other neighbours could look through the window, ring the police, and then they'll come in with six SWAT cars and race everyone in the house from the kids to the grandparents for playing poker indoors in their own lounge room.
So that, to me, has always been one of the most bizarre parts of Muay Thai is watching all those people screaming and betting and throwing their hands up in the air.
And me, as someone who's never been over there, I never understood what was going on.
But it's crazy that you being over there didn't know what was going on either.
You're still trying to figure it out after all these years.
Decker was there and Danny Bill and even Manu Entos.
You know Manu?
He was fighting there regularly also.
But the tyres will come into the change room and instead of looking at it, they'll come and feel your arms like a horse, see how fit you are, look you up and down like you're just a piece of meat.
They made a movie about her because she used to save all the prize money and then she eventually saved up enough to get a sex change.
And then she started doing the hormones.
Then it was all over the news because she started taking these injections that make boobs.
And then she wouldn't take her shirt off when she fought.
And then she was a big spectacle.
She was making main events in Japan but she stopped fighting in Thailand because she didn't want to fight other Thai boys.
And they were paying like thousands of dollars just to have dinner with her because she was such a freak, or he was such a freak.
And then eventually after, they said, we've got to give you injections, grow the boobs, make sure you want a sex change first before we chop your doodle off.
And then they eventually chopped the doodle off, and now she fights chicks.
But because she's had all the hormones, now she doesn't hit as hard.
So one time, they made her fight a female rock and roll wrestler that had never thrown a punch before.
And they put boxing gloves.
And then she had the face painted up in the wrestling stuff and had the get up with the lycra.
And then the bell went.
The wrestler come and charged me across.
The transgender grabbed her by the back of the neck, elbowed her three times in the face, and then knocked her out unconscious for about two or three minutes.
It didn't go well.
unidentified
And the dance before the white crew, like John was talking about, I think she does the, like, lipstick on the mirror as well.
Some dudes, if their eye gets, their orbital gets so shattered that they have to repair it and do reconstructive surgery on it, whatever you're doing is picking up on the microphone over there, fella.
Are you eating nuts?
Just push it away from me.
We don't hear it.
But he had one eye that was always really weird after that.
And because of that, he pretty much never was willing to take a punch after that.
Yeah, and then the Bob Satin, the Ernest Hoos, and the Peter Ertz's, they'd be on all the game shows, and then they'd be on all the Wheel of Fortune Japan sort of style, and they were just celebrities.
Because they really didn't understand how much different Japanese business is than American business.
Like, one of the things they did was, it's really kind of interesting how they did it, The Japanese would talk about selling Pride.
They'd be like, you know, we would like to sell Pride.
And they'd go, okay, let's sit down.
Let's talk.
Let's go over numbers.
And so they'd make this big announcement.
The UFC is sitting down with Pride.
They're talking about buying Pride.
And then they'd go, eh, we're not going to sell.
And they would sit down, they'd reach some sort of an agreement, and then, hmm, not gonna sell.
They went for a long time.
They're like, what the fuck is going on with these guys?
Like, they say they're gonna sell, and they don't sell.
But what they were doing was, I mean, they had Vandelay Silva come over, and he got in the cage with Chocolatel, and they mean-mugged each other.
Eh, we're not gonna sell.
And what they did was they hyped up Pride through the UFC. And they made Pride more exciting by pretending that they were going to sell Pride to the UFC. By pretending they were going to bring fighters over and fighters were going to fight in Pride.
And they had Chuck Liddell go over and fight in Pride.
Remember that?
Rampage Jackson and Chuck Liddell fought and then Chuck came back to the UFC and then finally they said they were gonna sell Pride.
And they sold it for $65 million.
The UFC got it and once they went through all the paperwork, all the money's exchanged hands, they realized they'd bought bullshit because all the contracts were invalid.
They were all bullshit contracts.
They didn't hold up.
So, like, they didn't have Fedor.
They didn't have a lot of the stars.
And they had a video library.
That's all they had.
They got a video library for, like, $65 million.
Then it gets even crazier.
So they say, okay, we're going to run Pride in Japan.
We're going to maintain the office in Japan.
We're going to use these Pride employees.
We're going to build up Pride, and we're going to start running Pride in Japan.
So they start trying to do that, and the people that were working for them started a dream.
So they're working for them.
They're working for the UFC, and all the while, they're putting together this dream promotion.
Well, that's one of the things that fucked Bob Sapp over.
Bob Sapp was, they had some sort of a contract dispute, and they tried to get him to fight without a contract in the main event of one of their events.
He walked out of one of the events in Holland, and Peter Ertz was in the crowd after a few beers, and he ended up putting his hand up and saying, oh, fine, I'll save the show.
And he did it, too.
He got beat, but he had to borrow someone else's shorts.
I was going to better say the same thing, because Crow Cop's got the reputation for the head kicks, but then you look back at Peter Ertz, there's Well, Crow Cop has a reputation for head kicks in MMA. Yep.
But it's also, Crow Cop had a really good style for MMA because he's like this Explosive sprinter type dude like his style for kickboxing He might have not had the best style to compete against like the Ernesto who's or the the best kickboxer guys Like they were like a little bit more technical than him.
They had a little bit more classic kickboxing training You know, he's over in Croatia, but he's just a savage You know, and just had lightning-fast kicks.
He was a good guy for when he went to Pride because we had someone that we could relate to that was doing so well in MMA. It's like, yes, everyone cheered for Crow Cop because he was one of us prior to going over.
It's sort of like what we were talking about earlier, where when you're fighting, when you see guys that are fighting in kickboxing or in Muay Thai, you're seeing the highest level expression of that art, of striking art.
Like the Yotsin Kalais, the Bull Cows, John Wayne Pars.
Who was, do you think, your toughest opponent that you ever fought?
That's interesting though because it's kind of arbitrary like that they decide that the punches don't score as much in Thailand like the only way you can score I don't think you mentioned on this podcast but you talked about it yesterday in the fight pass that a guy could like box the shit out of a Thai fighter and And if the tie was kicking his arms, the tie fighter would win.
He had about 200 fights for Popomuk, and then he won the K1 two or three times, two times, won $50,000, $100,000 both times, and then he kept asking his trainer, so how's my money going?
Oh, don't worry, I've put it in a bank, I'm investing it for you, and he went out and bought five houses for himself.
The manager did.
And then he said, okay, where's my money?
He said, you have nothing.
He had a pillow and a suitcase of clothes after 200 fights to show you for his name.
Yeah, Borkao had the opportunity to fight for K1, which blew his career up before that, and he was just fighting on Channel 7, just a small time, and then got in front of the K1 walled scene, and then he blew up, and then Yad Singlai never had the same opportunities as Borkao did.
So I had the opportunity to come to Canada and I did seven seminars all around Canada and there was about three days left on my schedule before I had to fly back to Australia.
And then the gentleman that brought me over said, hey, would you like to travel to Montreal and go to TriStar and meet George?
I said, holy shit, that'd be pretty cool.
Get a photo with George and Facebook status and that'd be amazing.
So we drove to Montreal and I said, hey, Ferez was so nice.
He goes, oh, I know who you are.
I'm happy to put you up in a hotel for tonight, and then tomorrow is Muay Thai sparring day.
Would you like to spar a few of the boys?
I said, holy shit, that'd be pretty cool.
So the next day, I brought on my gear, and then we're stretching out, and I say, all right, John Wayne, you go and spar George.
It's like, whoa.
And then I touched George's glove and then I was like a little schoolgirl.
Oh my God, I can't believe I was right.
George, you're not moving.
It's like I did with you today.
Exactly the same I did with you today.
And then the first 10 seconds I was so afraid of George's jab.
And then I've waited, waited, and then he's thrown something I counted.
He threw something else.
I counted that.
He threw a jab.
I come over the top, and I place my shin across his neck, and I just left it there just long enough for the whole gym to stop and stare.
And then George's eyes lit up, and then I chased him from one side of the cage to the other side of the cage, and I felt pretty good.
And then next round, hey, all right, John Wayne, you go Rory.
So I sparred Rory, and I said, holy shit.
I said to Rory, are we going to go light?
Because I thought he was a pretty psycho.
And he was really cool.
He was a really nice guy.
And then we sparred him, and did really well against Rory as well.
All right, back with George.
Sort of did really well against George again.
So I took some photos, and then I thought that was it.
I thought it was all done.
And then about two months later, Ferraz gave me a call.
He said, hey, George is getting ready for Hendrix.
We've got about two months.
Any chance you want to come back to Montreal and train George personally for Muay Thai?
But I had the UFC shirt on, so I stood out like dog balls.
And then I finally got the courage to go up and ask him for a photo.
And then he said, just a minute, just a minute.
I have to buy my son an ice cream first.
I'll come back.
And I felt this big.
I felt like a little midget.
And then sure enough, he come back over.
Hey, I'll get that photo with you now.
And I felt...
If you didn't know who I was, I introduced myself, but he's just a polite smile, took the photo, wished me on my way, and then he came to Australia, and then he did seminars here, and the guy that organized the seminars got him to give me a call.
Hey, talk to John Wayne, and then I told him the story, and it was pretty funny.
By the way, you know, but I mean, hey, I mean, he's 50. You don't know, you know, I mean, there's guys that have come back after all those years and, you know, but Maurice was in great shape.
He did it the right way.
He was always known for his discipline and his cardio.
Well, he was one of the first guys that showed how important cardio was in MMA when he fought Mark Coleman.
Because Mark Coleman came at him like a fucking bat out of hell in the first round.
But Maurice just showed poise and discipline and stayed calm.
And then after, you know, the first round was over and Coleman started to gas out, then Maurice starts landing those heavy leg kicks.
You hear that thump.
That fucking thump.
That disgusting baseball bat to meat sound.
Yeah, it's been very interesting to see the evolution of the stand-up striking in MMA. Now for a guy like you standing on the outside and watching this, it's got to be really interesting for you too, you know, coming from that pure striking background and seeing all the things that MMA fighters and, you know, in the stand-up aspect, what they do wrong.
No one teeps in MMA. Well, a few guys do, but we were talking about it last night that the stance is so different in MMA and you're still worried about the takedowns and the grappling aspect.
You might open the door to front kicks and things along those lines.
And then my first day at Eric Paulson's gym, it's Muay Thai day, okay?
And I'm the new guy.
I know nothing.
No one knows who I am.
And then Eric Paulson's like, okay, Muay Thai guys, put your gear on guys.
Okay, so Josh Barnett, you spy this guy.
He points to me.
So we start, and I'm moving around, inside kick, jab, and then Josh throws something, I'm like out, and then I'm in, boom, boom, boom, and I'm going again.
I'm in and out, in and out, fearing for my life, just tapping away.
And then we do two rounds.
After two rounds, he takes his glove off and he throws it across the room.
He takes his shin pad off, throws it across the room.
He packs his bag.
He storms out.
And then they go on to Tokyo the next day to fight on the New Year's Eve Pride tournament.
I forget who it was against.
And then about a week passes.
Josh loses his fight.
I got a phone call from Eric Poulsen about three or four days later, once I got back, and I said, Hey, this is Eric.
How are you going?
I just want to let you know that we blame you on Josh's loss because he was fine right up until he spired you, and then some kid that he'd never seen before owned him in the sparring and took away all his confidence.
I mean, imagine you're expecting just some average guy in the gym that's smaller than you, and then you just run into some multiple-time world Muay Thai champion who just happens to be in town.
That's one of the things that a lot of fighters who are really good at one style have a huge issue with is learning.
Like a lot of wrestlers, they never really developed the ability to strike because they would start sparring and they would get fucked up and they'd be like, I hate this.
I just want to take these guys down.
That's what I do.
Or a lot of jujitsu guys, they didn't want to learn how to kickbox.
Or a lot of strikers, they just didn't want to learn jujitsu.
It's just like you were saying, you're a world champion and then you would go in there and you wouldn't know what to do and you didn't like it.
Yeah, well that's the thing about MMA as opposed to like we said like boxing like their camps are incredibly organized and they bring in people to mimic a very specific opponent.
That still exists in MMA. You know, and some people think it's a good thing.
You know, some people think it's cute.
But I just think, you know, what you were saying before about George preparing for Johnny Hendricks, very specific style, and this is the things that will work best against this very specific stance and style.
I mean, I think that's the future.
I think when you're dealing with the highest level athletes in combat sports in MMA, you're going to have to have these really meticulously designed training camps.
For me, I watch the Rotor UFCs and they're coming up and they spend so much time hitting the tire with the hammer.
They've got the ropes on this and they're doing all the sprints with the parachute but they can't throw a straight jab.
It's like all those hours spending getting fit when you could have spent in the gym just perfecting that style.
And then I go back to Thailand and the Thais don't lift weights.
All they do is hit pads, run, kick back, like cavemen.
And it's been for 2,000 years, but everything's so perfect.
And their bodies are ripped up.
And I think to myself, I'd rather look like a Thai fully ripped and fit than a half-bodybuilder trying to pretend I'm a rock-on-one wrestler with the...
Well, there's a lot of fighters that believe that there's sort of a point of diminishing returns when it comes to strength and conditioning, but there's a balance that has to be achieved.
When you're dealing with grappling and you're dealing with takedowns and the ability to explode and shoot a double...
A double leg takedown.
It's like, I think a certain amount of strength and conditioning is necessary.
I think it's different though with striking.
I think with striking, efficiency of movement, you know, also your body becomes accustomed to those techniques, so you have, with more efficiency of movement, you have more, you use less energy.
Whereas you're seeing a lot of these guys that are in great shape, Great strength and conditioning programs.
They're fit.
They're physically strong.
They have a lot of muscle, but they don't have a lot of physical efficiency in their movements when it comes to striking.
And they're emphasizing strength.
You see them fucking, fucking...
Everything is like wide punches.
It doesn't look as fluid.
Whereas if you're watching like, you know, like Yotsin Klai or like you or like Bula Khao, you're seeing like a really relaxed, like the execution is very relaxed.
But then you got these motherfuckers that take you down, you know, and you can't get back up and you get exhausted from the takedowns and, you know, the grappling is a different...
It's so different when you add the grappling.
Because the way George beat BJ Penn was so clever.
Because BJ was a very good striker.
And he's wicked with his hand speed.
So George just tied his ass up and made him exhaust his arms.
And BJ was not known for a guy who concentrated on strength and conditioning until really after those fights.
After the fight with George is when he got down with the Marinovichs.
And the Marinovich era of...
When he was at his best, I think, was when he was doing, maybe, why did I think he fought George after that?
I might be wrong.
The best BJ Penn, though, was BJ Penn, who went through that Mark Marinovich strength and conditioning program, because it was just unbelievably brutal.
They would show it on, you know, the countdown shows.
You just see all the shit that he was doing.
And he was talking about he couldn't even hold his kid at night.
He was so sore and exhausted.
His body was just broken down.
But Marv Brnovich put him in like this insane...
He was famous as like a strength and conditioning guy because his son was like his prodigy and his son kind of went crazy because he disciplined him so hard.
He was so like...
Into training, but his son was like a football prodigy from his dad's strength and conditioning programs, and he instilled this program on BJ Penn that he just was fucking unbelievable.
But what happened out of it was you got this BJ who didn't get tired, and BJ Penn had so much skill.
He had so much talent and so much heart and determination, but all of a sudden he has this never-ending gas tank, which you never saw from BJ Penn before.
So in MMA, man, it's like sometimes it's necessary, and sometimes it's like trying to find that balance, though, of how much skill training and how much strength and conditioning.
Because all the skill training in the world, if you get exhausted because you're wrestling with a guy who's just shooting on you and taking you down all the time, it's just...
It looks like someone's training here, then they're jumping in a car for four hours and doing something over there, then they're back over here for two hours from in a pool.
I really enjoy working with everyone and moving around, training different people, and then meeting celebrities like yourself, and then doing stuff with you even.
That's a very different approach than, say, a modern boxing approach.
Whereas you're seeing guys in corners, they'll come back to the corner and the corner will say, just touch them, touch them with the jab, touch them with this, touch them with that.
There's a lot of guys, maybe like Nick Diaz is a good example, who's throwing a lot of punches, he's just touching you.
Is there a different approach to fighting in a Muay Thai fight where it's three rounds with no grappling as opposed to MMA which is five rounds with grappling and then maybe that sort of style of like so much fucking energy and hard to maintain conditioning for that?
Last night was probably his most impressive performance because Edson Barboza is a very good striker and he just attacked, attacked, like right from the beginning.
I can't thank them enough for making the documentary.
But now it's on YouTube for free, so if anyone wants to watch it, it's called Blessed with Venom, and it's going to Thailand, visiting my old camp, interviewing Yod-Sing Lai and other Thai opponents, Sanchai, the traditions about going to fighting at Lumpini Stadium, and lots of highlights of old fights.
One of those things where you pinch yourself and you can't believe this is happening.
But now it's on YouTube, so it's pretty cool.
And then if you don't know much about Muay Thai and you want to find out about the culture, this is the perfect documentary to realize that we're not bad guys, we're not thugs, we're just everyday guys trying to make it in a sport where it involves punching other people in the face.
Well, you're people that are involved in a very unusual quest, you know, the quest to get excellent at using your limbs to fuck up other dudes who are really good at using their limbs to fuck up other dudes.
I mean, it's about as exciting a sport and as exciting an endeavor as you could participate in, you know?
It's beautiful, man.
And it was an honor to have you on here.
Honor to train with you.
In my world, you're a huge star.
And you've always been a big name in Muay Thai and kickboxing.
So it was cool to meet you when I met you at the UFC. And it was cool to do this, man.