Garry Tonon and Eddie Bravo dive into jiu-jitsu’s brutal history, like the 1954 Kimura vs. Rikido-zan Vale Tudo fight, and debate leg locks’ MMA potential, praising Cyborg’s guard and Nathan Orchard’s defensive evolution. They critique submission-only tournaments for damage risks but push no-gi formats like EBI (March 22, $10K prize) for TV appeal, comparing it to UFC’s success. Garry’s wrestling-to-jiu-jitsu journey—including a 35-minute triangle choke session and ADCC prep—shows how athleticism and mentality outweigh diet, while they clash over junk food’s impact. The episode ends with Joe Rogan hyping EBI’s winner-take-all stakes and Garry’s rematch against Darryl O'Connell. [Automatically generated summary]
This is a very special podcast, a very special Saturday afternoon podcast.
We're watching an old fight from 1954 that's supposed to be a pro wrestling match with Gary Tonin, one of the best jiu-jitsu artists in America today, one of the hot young fucking killers of grappling, and of course my brother Eddie Bravo.
Where it starts out just a pro wrestling match and turns into full-on Vale Tudo.
See, this is so cool.
We were talking about this before the podcast started, that it's so cool that shit like this exists, and we can watch some, like, historical moments in martial arts.
His name is P-O-L-O-N-I-S-T-A. Polonista, I guess you would say it.
And he wrote a whole breakdown of what happened.
And apparently this Rakita Zahn guy...
You know, Kimura was saying that Rakitozan, that he got taken for greed and the money and the fame, he lost his mind and just started beating the fuck out of the dude.
And so, apparently, they stabbed him with a urine-soaked knife.
Well, you know they do those poop things where they take poop and they transmit fecal matter, they transplant it to someone's intestinal tract and apparently it's supposed to be good for your body to get that bacteria, like somebody else's bacteria in your body through a fecal transplant.
The rap world, holy shit, if you're in that rap music world, the more famous you get, it's like in China, the more famous you get in China, the triads take over, you know what I mean?
They're like, you gotta pay us, son.
We're responsible for this shit.
We own the movie houses or whatever.
And in the rap world, look at the T.I. He's always walking around with a gun.
If someone was telling a story about some racist white guy who said the N-word to a black guy and then a black guy hit him or something, can you tell that story and use that word?
Or do you have to say N-word again when describing the story?
It's a tough one, right?
Because Howard Stern just says the word when he talks about someone else saying it.
I mean, his songs, I would never buy his CDs, but the dude can sing really good.
He can play guitar.
He shreds on drums.
He's been a musician his whole life.
He's actually very talented, but there's no way that guy's going to make it through the teens, and now he's 21, 22. But how are you going to get there through all that and not be a douchebag?
I think girls like that in the beginning, and then they end up fucking hating it.
It's the thing that kills them.
You know what I mean?
They were attracted to the barbarian and the fucking wild savage, but then now that they got him, they're like, damn, I wish he wasn't such a fucking savage, because other bitches like that, too.
I think we're still stuck with the echoes of some ancient DNA. I think we still have, for whatever reason, we still have all the instincts that people had back when you had to worry about, like...
Marauding hordes coming over the top of the hill with swords and knives.
Like, you had to be kind of an asshole back then.
You know?
And you had to fuck more than one chick because your kids are all gonna get killed by arrows and fucking flying bodies and catapults.
And by the time we were in our 20s, way before we had kids, those people back in the day, like where all our DNA came from, they were on their way out the door.
They not only had kids, they were getting old.
They were going to be dead by the time they were in their 30s.
They'd probably be killed.
Or disease or something.
So that crazy, the reason why we're here is because of the same reason why women would like a guy that's aggressive or an asshole because she thinks that guy could protect her.
It's this bizarre fucking trick that nature's played on us.
Thousands of years of evolution, technologically and historically and how much information we have and the way we can communicate with each other still doesn't work.
Still doesn't totally stop that monkey fuck gene that's still deep down in the back, because chicks want some guy who can defend the castle.
So you were saying before the podcast that Danaher, you went to Danaher's to get a private or something like that at first or to train with them and then he introduced you to his leg lock system.
Oh, yeah, I mean, just when we started, when I started training with John, you know, at first it was just on an inconsistent basis, like once a week or so, you know, a lot of MMA fighters come to like a Monday afternoon class, so I was going in there, and that was when I was in college, so I didn't have time to like go over.
All the time.
But once I started coming there consistently, I got a chance to see the strategy that he teaches.
Leg locks aren't his main focus, but I think he's made huge innovations in the leg lock game to the point where when he teaches it, it seems like that's his main thing.
It definitely went over our whole leg lock game, me and Eddie Cummings.
Both of our leg lock games just stem from that for sure.
And if you, even if you don't train, if you're thinking about training, you're thinking like, man, maybe I should do something.
You watch how fun it is.
Watch how exciting it is.
I think that the only reason why jujitsu and submission grappling, the way you're doing it on your show, the only reason why that's not on television, is just people aren't, they're not accustomed to it.
Like, you're accustomed to having golf on TV. So you sit there and watch golf.
Or you're accustomed to having cricket in some parts of the world.
My point being, if Jiu Jitsu was on TV, if they got to see some wild matches, like, especially, one of the things I'd appreciate about watching your match, I got exposed to you by Eddie, the first one I saw was you and Krohn.
So, the very first one, we did 170 and we did featherweights too.
We were doing UFC weights.
And Gary, of course, he was going to be in sub only and Scotty on the mat was involved and he said, my boy Gary, you got to put him in.
And by that time, BJJ Kumite was out and I remembered who he was.
That was the guy, that Scotty Nelson's boy.
So then, went to Abu Dhabi, 2013, and I remember the first time we met there, we were at the hotel lobby, and I still didn't know who you were, and I came up, and I came up, and I was like, hey guys!
I didn't know who he was, and then I go, oh shit, you're Gary!
And then he goes on.
It was one of the greatest Abu Dhabi.
Even though you didn't get the gold medal, it was one of the greatest performances.
That fight with Krohn was absolutely incredible.
And then after that, after you almost pulled it off, he ended up finishing you.
When you see a guy like that, and you see those leaps and bounds, what do you attribute that to?
Do you attribute that to the high-level jiu-jitsu that's available today that everybody has to kind of keep up?
Do you attribute it to just people?
I think overall, people are getting better, right?
We all admit that, right?
I mean, the guys of today...
There's guys that stand out, in my mind.
There's always going to be Marcelo Garcia and Hickson in his prime.
There's always going to be these guys that stand out.
But the guys that today, it seems like if you wanted to get into jiu-jitsu and watch Submission Grappling like the EBI tomorrow, there's no better time.
Well, that's a beautiful thing about jujitsu that's misunderstood.
A lot of people think that it has to do with strength and aggression.
You know, you think of it as being like this thing, but so many of the guys that do it, they are like, if they weren't doing this, they would be building computers or something.
I mean, that's the theory that I try to, you know, pass on to my students and stuff.
You know, as opposed to, like, I tell it at seminars all the time.
I'm like, guys, if you're ever doing a move, and you're just like, this isn't working, the reason is probably not because you're not pushing harder, or you need to go faster.
You know what I mean?
Like, that's not the reason something's not working.
I think the compliment to that though is like, so you look at that and I've seen people do it, people that used to be on our team, they would look at these guys, what are the top guys doing, focus on that, but you focus too much on it.
Those top guys, let's take like the Mendez brothers for instance, with like Barambolo, right?
These guys are doing a move that they've perfected, right?
So sure, I could study what they're doing and learn what they're doing, but am I going to be able to make the same headway that they have with that move?
Probably not.
So I probably need to pick up a different facet of my game and make headway with that move.
You know what I mean?
And that's what I try to do.
That's what I tell people.
Oh, you know, what's the best way to get a step forward in competition, a step ahead of the game?
And I think it's being somewhere, being in a position more than other people.
Or in that position.
And developing that.
Not so much what you see other people doing.
If you're constantly just trying to do what other people are doing, you're going to get caught up in that game and they'll always find a way to submit you.
Because they've been doing it longer.
You know what I mean?
I think that's the opposing strategy to what you were just talking about.
I always promote and push to keep your go-to moves polished.
Do not forget about your go-to moves.
Those are your special moves.
Anytime a new student comes to me and you see them developing a move, even if it's a move that I suck at, I'm like, that's your move right there.
I remind them, I go, that's yours.
Get really good at that.
That's your secret weapon.
You gotta have secret weapons.
But at the same time, I have new students starting every day.
So I like to expose them to everything that's working out there and create their own style like that.
Even though personally, I teach the barambolo.
It's part of our warm-up system.
I'm not ever going to be a barambolo player.
I mess with it every now and then when I'm rolling with 12-year-olds and women.
I'll bear and bowl the shit out of a white belt girl.
I'll do that.
I know, but I know eventually, eventually, I'm going to get really good at that in like 10 years, and then I'll be able to attack with it.
But right now, you stick to your go-to, keep those strong, and take your go-tos to the highest level.
But also, also...
Have a constant introduction of new stuff in your game that'll pay back later, maybe 10 years down the road, 15 years down the road, where maybe it's not your game now, but it will be after a while.
Yeah, I mean, it just keeps getting better and better over the years, like Joe was saying before, you know?
The progression of jujitsu in general and the level of it is just going up and up and I think the biggest innovations that are happening now Are probably in the leg lock game, to be honest.
I think that's like the next new frontier for jiu-jitsu.
Since they won a 10th planet, I've never outlawed heel hooks or reaping.
I just never wanted to get heavy on heel hooks because I wanted to train my fighters for MMA. I didn't want their first habit to go to heel hooks because it's a little dangerous when the highest-time guys are telling me...
When the leg lock school guys are telling me, Manny, Carl, Karin, oh bro, bro, MMA, leg locks, last resort, you don't want to give up position.
When they're saying that, I'm like, okay.
But I never discouraged it, but I had leg lock, like Shigeki, one of my black belts, very good at leg locks.
Denny got really good at leg locks.
I told Denny, five years ago, Submerge yourself in leg locks.
He's not going to do MMA. I go, so leg locks are very important for you.
But then when we saw what you did in EBI 1, you just leg locked the shit out of everybody.
And then in the Grappler's Quest Ultimate Absolute, in EBI 1, in the finals, you beat Richie Martinez, one of my guys.
You heel hooked him, inside heel hook.
And then at the Grappler's Quest Ultimate Absolute or Ultimate whatever, Submission only, I get those mixed up.
It was you and Nathan Orchard at the end of that 16-man bracket, another one of my black belts, and you got him with the inside heel hook again.
From that point, Nathan decided, you know what, he started studying everything you were doing, and we, to me, I never got deep into them.
When I first started training leg locks, I walked in and Eddie had already made a lot of headway in the leg lock game and obviously John had been teaching him.
You know, when I first came in, my intentions were, you know, I was preparing for ADCC. So my intentions were like, alright, I want to know a little bit about this leg lock game.
I'm going to be competing in a tournament where heel hooks are illegal, which I don't usually do.
You know, I want to be ready for this.
You know, I'm ready for whatever people are going to throw at me.
I'm just going to learn how to do it well enough that I can defend it.
And then I learned that it's like a whole different martial art.
Like just the leg locks, you know, adding the leg locks.
And I'm like, what the fuck?
I'm like, one day I asked John because I'm so frustrated I'm not passing Eddie's guard because he just keeps leg locking me.
And I'm like, so, you know, when a guy's good at leg locks, how do you pass the guard?
He's like, fucking learn leg locks, dude.
So you gotta learn how to do what he's doing so that you know the counters and everything.
I realized I had to spend time on it, you know, as opposed to just like dismissing it as like a small part When you see someone when you see someone dismiss him in MMA like the highest on guy saying don't do it because it's a last resort But then you see a guy like I was gonna say that one today leg locks in MMA. What do you think?
I just think there needs to be, there's a few guys that are using them well, and I just, I think that, you know, there's just not enough people out there that are confident enough in them and have done enough technical research to make them, you know, useful, you know?
I think at the high level, that's what it looks like.
I think if the guy is kind of shaky about leg locks and he doesn't have leg lock defense in his DNA, he's going to get caught.
Alan spent two months solid with Dean Lister, flew him in, Davi Ramos, who's a mini Pajaris leglock.
And he said the first two weeks, he just got leglocked all day.
And after a while, you learn how to slow it down, and then you get tapped, and you slow it down, and then you get tapped, and you slow it down, and then you start attacking.
And that's what he said.
So I think maybe with the leglock game, if everybody got really good at the defense, That, yes, you can get in these leg lock positions and avoid getting hit, because I think the saddle and the hunting, I think it's pretty safe, right?
You ain't going to get hit there.
They can't reach you.
But if the guy defends it, and is comfortable defending it, and then can sit up in a certain spot and sprawl out on you, then it could be trouble.
I'm rooting for leg locks in MMA. Trust me.
I'm just not a hundred percent.
I need this.
Once the punch is coming, once they start flying, I hear Ryan Hall is making leg lock works and MMA training.
Will be the future of, or part of the future, of grappling in MMA. Well, you know, we always have this conception about this idea of it because of Frank Mir versus Ian Freeman.
I mean, that's like cemented in people's heads.
Remember?
Frank Mir's going for the heel hook, looked like he's got it locked up, and Ian Freeman's teeing off on his face while he's holding onto his leg.
They brought in a sports psychologist to try and, like, hey, why are you breaking your training partner's legs and everybody's legs in competition and not letting go?
And the sports psychologist after a week was like, fuck this.
Once he gets a hold of you, it's like you have a whole new level of oh fuck.
Like everybody has in their head like a level of oh fuck like okay.
I'm okay here.
I'm okay here.
I'll defend here, but I think he's so goddamn strong and on top of that his technique so sharp then went to grabs a hole you see this look on dudes faces like oh shit I'm not getting out of this guys are letting him get where he wants to be though.
Yeah, like most of them anyway You know the better strategy is to put him where you want him as opposed to oh Yeah, I'm just gonna keep this on the feet.
No, you're not you're not gonna keep this on the feet He's gonna find a way to get to the leg lock so pull guard put him put him down It shows you what a demon Hector Lombard is.
I do a little bit of research, but I don't do extensive stuff.
I'm just training all the time.
Luckily, I live in an age where I have all these people around me that Study and you know know the martial art you know like I always think about that like think back to like You know, what was it like when nobody knew what the fuck they were doing and you just had to make everything up You know I mean you had nothing to go off of you know what I mean?
Now we're in this era where it's like, you know I could go to John with pretty much anything I'm gonna get a 95% accurate answer to whatever question is that I have because he's seen it You know a hundred times before on tape, you know what I mean?
We don't have to innovate as much Are you planning on fighting in MMA? Yeah, one or two years.
With a guy as good as you are, I think the most important thing is you go to whoever you go to, if you decide to embark on your MMA career, go to someone that's got a full knowledge, like a Firas Zahabi type dude.
We have good connections with Firas and that camp.
Their guys come to us for Jiu Jitsu and our guys go down to them for MMA. I'm definitely hoping once I get some striking and shoot boxing to a certain level, I'd love to go down there.
Like I said, it's just so...
I feel like almost they wouldn't know what to do with me at this point just because I'm just so base level right now.
I haven't really considered it yet because we just haven't gotten it to that level.
I think...
I think I would still try at some point to transition into MMA. Maybe I would hold it off for a little bit longer.
Like if I really saw that the sport was taking off and I felt like that's where I could make my headway and that's where I could make my mark, I'd definitely spend a lot more time there.
I still think I would like to make a transition in MMA purely for a few reasons.
One, just to test myself at a new thing.
To make sure that I have the knowledge for when somebody comes up to me and goes, oh yeah, I want to make a transition to MMA from Jiu Jitsu.
What's your advice?
Well, I can't really give them advice if I've never done it before, I don't feel like.
So I want to really know what I'm talking about if I'm talking to these young guys that want to come up and do something with MMA instead of just Jiu Jitsu.
I definitely, from a teaching perspective, I need to get into MMA and experience that and know what it's like.
That's how I feel anyway.
Regardless of whether or not jiu-jitsu takes off and it's on TV and all that stuff.
I gotta talk to some of my coaches and stuff and see what they think is best in terms of my development and things like that.
I would imagine that that probably would be good for sure.
I want to avoid as much as possible Going the route of just getting knocked out all the time and training and stuff like that and just having that just gritty type of training where you're just It's just getting you tough You know in quotation marks and then I'll get to a point where I'm in a fight and I'm just getting touched on the chin and knocked out I want to make sure I'm focusing mostly on technical details and then you know putting it all together so smart and so happy to hear you say that it's one of the most important things and You know, Jamie Varner just did this interview recently.
You know, he started talking about how he was sparring Ryan Bader and all these dudes who were way bigger than him.
And that over those years of doing all that sparring with these larger guys and sparring really hard three days a week, He's like, don't try to prove you're tough.
You're tough.
You're in the UFC. You're already tough.
Like, don't.
Just try to do it right.
And he said, sometimes you don't even have to do it once a week.
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking in terms of, like, when I get to the sparring and stuff like that, for sure.
I used to spar back in the day, probably three, four years ago when some of my teammates had started doing some MMA.
I just did it for fun, for some experience and things like that.
But it was stupid and dangerous for me to be doing that without really knowing what I was doing in terms of striking, I think.
Because all I was really doing – All I was really doing was, you know, hitting until I could get to a takedown anyway, but, I mean, just taking unnecessary damage for no reason from people that wanted to take my head off, you know?
But you see guys that train for a long time and maintain that mentality and still are just like, you know, just rough and tough guys that are just trying as hard as they can every single role.
And they're not making a lot of progress.
I see plenty of people like that.
So time, but with good direction from, like, coaches and teammates and things like that.
Because there's still plenty of guys that you could be training for 10 years and you're just still trained like a jerk-off, you know?
I was focused on points jiu-jitsu for a long time.
I was still trying to submit people.
But my strategy was, I'm going to get to the back because there's a high score for points there, and I can do a rear naked choke.
It's a highly effective submission, and it's low risk.
So that was my strategy for everything.
So the first five years of my training was all dedicated to that.
From every position, let's get to this guy's back, choke him from behind.
Keep this simple.
I'm going to have more points and I'm going to be able to submit the guy.
Past that, these last three years, I think I've made the biggest developments in terms of broadening my submission base and learning how to submit people from different places and things like that.
But I think it was kind of good for my progression because I got positionally sound and had a strategy and things like that.
But it took until I was a black belt to really make How do you feel about submission only versus the points game?
I think it takes a couple different things.
You could see people that are possibly successful in both or successful in one or the other, but I think what it comes down to is the mentality of the person that's training or competing in either one of those things.
I mean, you take somebody, whether they're a points fighter, if they're a points fighter competing in a submission-only tournament, you're going to pretty much see them take the same strategy in the submission-only tournament.
You know, it takes guys that are constantly hunting for submissions in training, and that's when you're going to see the best matches, you know, guys that are constantly hunting after submissions all the time.
It's not just like a situational thing.
There's like this overarching thing that some of the bigger jiu-jitsu guys say, I think I saw it like an article from Kyoter and I love Kyoter.
He's a great guy, but he posted this thing that said like, you know, Oh, you know, you know, I hate when people talk about, you know, submission fighters and, you know, points fighters and, you know, the difference between the two.
And I think it's like, you know, the points fighters, it's all the same, you know, and these guys talk about, oh, I'm going to use my jujitsu.
And if a submission opens up, I'm going to, yeah, I'll finish the guy if the submission opens up.
No, you make the fucking submission open up.
It's not, it's not like, oh, I'm waiting for this guy to like accidentally stick his arm out there.
No, I make him, I take his arm away from him.
That's the point.
You know, there's two complete, those are two different mentalities.
You know what I mean?
Oh, I'm going to wait for this guy to make a mistake and I'm going to make this guy in danger.
Yeah, that's why the difference between the way Josh Barnett describes submissions and the way some more technical jiu-jitsu-based guys would describe submissions.
Barnett always calls catch wrestling a violent art.
It's not the gentle art.
Jiu-jitsu is the gentle art.
Catch wrestling is the violent art.
A lot of the young guys, like yourself, super aggressive guys, there's a change in philosophy then.
There's more adhering to that philosophy, like the aggressive go-after-it philosophy.
Yeah, and I think when we're talking about taking grappling to a point where it's a spectator sport, which is like what Eddie's trying to do in many of these other organizations, that's what needs to happen.
Absolutely.
Whether it's going to help you win fights or not, like, you know, you take a look at the UFC and Dana White's always telling people like, You have to have exciting fights.
You have to have exciting fights.
And it's true because you won't have as many fans if you don't.
He'll eventually kick you out of the UFC if you don't.
You know what I mean?
But that's what makes it expected.
That's why people get paid to do it because people are excited to watch it.
And whether you win or lose, it can't be the only thing in your head at that point when we're talking about bringing people in.
If you're making money, you're putting on a performance, you know?
So it has to be about the attacks.
It has to be about what's exciting about Jiu Jitsu.
The submission.
You know what I mean?
So people constantly getting attacked, that's what people want to see.
And that's going to make this a big thing that people are interested in.
I don't necessarily think that you can't have exciting matches in the gi.
I just think you have to find the right people.
You have to find two people that are willing to put it all on the line and just try to submit each other and not give a shit whether or not they get submitted.
For everything in my future, it's just like, you know, if I'm gonna do MMA, it only makes sense.
Every match, every super fight that I'm being asked to do is without the gi.
It just literally at this point makes no sense for me to spend a lot of time on it.
Now, once again, like I said before, from an instructional standpoint, students that might be interested in training in the gi, at some point, once I break away from You know, my athletic career, I'll definitely study the Gi, I'll definitely study Judo, I'll definitely study all the things that, those little intricacies that people use in Jiu Jitsu, the lapel guards and things like that, so that I can better help my students, but not so much for me as a professional athlete.
I don't think, I think at this point, we're hitting a point in Jiu Jitsu where you have to make a decision, what am I going to specialize in?
And I think I'm going to specialize in no-gi submission grappling.
I ask for it all the time, but again, I can't really call Krohn out and he beat me.
I call him out in a sense like, hey, I want to fight you, but I would never talk shit about Krohn to try and get him to fight me because that's not fair.
So it's cool that something like that exists, and I just think that we need to have more of those out there, and then eventually Hollywood people are going to go, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is wild shit.
Like, hold on.
Nobody has this locked down?
This isn't on television?
But the UFC has established a very firm, huge property in the UFC. That's what everybody connects with MMA. MMA equals UFC. And if you're fighting for Bellator, they go, oh, wow, you think you're going to be fighting for the UFC someday?
How many times have you heard a guy in 2000, 2001, 2002, guys that were already deeply into the UFC. We saw it in 93. It's 2000, 2001. Even to this day, you run into guys that aren't into it, and they go, yeah, I've seen it a couple times.
Just a couple dudes rolling around.
It was uneventful for them.
For them, it was uneventful.
But when we saw it, what did we see?
What was the difference?
The difference was the fucking tournament.
The first one I saw was UFC 2. And that was a 16-man tournament.
Because it ends up being when you see one match at a time, it's like a documentary.
Maybe that first round, no one looks familiar.
But that second round, you're like, oh shit, that dude with the long hair against that ninja dude.
And then the semifinals, you're like, holy shit, how's that going to work out?
You just saw their career that night.
And then the finals, hoisting Patrick Smith, you're like...
Holy, I went from hating Hoist in the opening round, because he beat my karate guys, to rooting for him and just being his follower right there at that final.
Because Pat Smith was kind of a, you know, he was like a heel, even within that.
And you can't do that with MMA, but you can totally do that with Jiu-Jitsu.
And that's why Abu Dhabi is so special, because it's a bunch of 16-man brackets.
But the only thing that...
I think Abu Dhabi should have a 16-man bracket, have it like four days, like a whole week, where every day is a different one.
Because the way they do it now, it's like watching three movies at the same time.
You're not watching it unfold.
And then on the internet, you just watch a link of the finals, and then you go back and watch a semifinal.
It's like watching a movie in pieces, and you already know the ending.
But what Metamorris does is have a single fight.
Every fight is main stage.
There isn't three matches or 12 matches like the Mundial's.
It's one match at a time showcased, but it's not tournament style.
So what I'm trying to do is I took the best from Abu Dhabi and the best from Metamorris and try to combine it.
Metamorris, submission only, one match at a time.
And Abu Dhabi, the super 16-man brackets that are in themselves, if you watch it one by one, one at a time, center stage, it's mind-blowing when you watch it like that.
We need to watch it like that, in my opinion.
That's what made EBI 1 and EBI 2, which, I mean, Gary went and submitted everybody in the 16-man bracket.
Every dude, he ran through, and in the final, by the time he got to the final with him and Richie, Richie blew through everybody on his end of the bracket, so it was Richie and Gary...
Everyone was going nuts because they saw it unfold one at a time.
That's how powerful tournaments are when you watch it.
It's so powerful that you might not be able to do it in kickboxing.
All this shit could go wrong.
It's risky, but the tournament is so exciting that if we could pull this off and no one gets hurt and we get lucky, it's a grand show that people are going to watch over.
And when you watch it from the beginning to end, you feel it.
We need Renato Laranja right now to dispute your claims, because right now you're talking crazy, disrespectful, sport of jiu-jitsu, and the gi is everything, my friend.
And, you know, he got choked to sleep, which I think was very important for jiu-jitsu, just to show, like, everyone looked at Hoist Gracie, rightly so, as this massive innovator, this pioneer of jiu-jitsu and MMA, a hero.
Look, the big issue with MMA and the big issue with boxing has always been that.
Trying to get the best guys to be able to fight the best guys.
When you're exclusive for one promoter or exclusive for another promoter, it makes things super problematic.
Independent contracts for independent matches and no long-term commitment to things is the smart way to go for grapplers because if that gets established as the go-to, then it favors the grappler and then there's no advantage that the promoter has over the grappler.
The grappler could always find another promoter.
So if the promoters We're good to go.
It's the best thing to do, because I think if everybody just set that precedent and we created this market where the grapplers were the star.
Like, this is what's important.
If people want to see, you know, fill in the blank, Marcello Garcia versus Gary Tonin.
If people want to see that match, the real benefiters of that match, the benefactors of that match, should be Marcello Garcia and Gary Tonin.
And then, of course, some money should go to the promoter, you know, some money should, but...
The only thing that's exciting about submission grappling is the submission grapplers.
That's it.
Because if you're not selling that, you're selling air.
That's it.
That's all you got.
So if you're locked up to one organization, it also limits matches.
Every single one of these organizations, these professional organizations, EBI, Metamorris, Polaris, all these things that are popping up here and there, they're all doing amazing things for the sport.
They're broadening the audience for submission grappling.
It's so silly to think that you need to be just the guy.
Dude, how could you not want Gio Martinez on your fucking show?
He just blew through everybody in the Abu Dhabi trials, all within two minutes, tapped everybody, won EBI, won as a featherweight, won as a bantamweight, finished everybody.
Well, the people that are doing jujitsu, the people that are involved in jujitsu, if you're involved in these matches, if you're involved in competition, most likely, 99% of the time, you're making your money off of teaching, right?
Most of the people that are running these schools, that's where they're making their money.
So it's not like a situation where there's this giant piece of pie that everybody's battling over, so everybody wants dominance.
It's like it's beneficial for you to get your students into Metamorris because then they can highlight how good of a teacher you are.
It exists in martial arts, where martial arts today, like here's a perfect example, where jiu-jitsu guys are constantly trading techniques with each other, constantly showing each other things.
The whole thing about martial arts in the old days, like in the 60s and the 70s, was how secret it was.
You know, they wanted to keep it within the Chinese culture.
Now it's the total opposite.
Now everybody's exchanging and everybody's just trying to find out what's the best shit, who's the best at this.
And you get guys together and you match them up with each other.
I mean, that's essentially the new thinking.
And it's the new thinking for everything.
And the fact that this is how it is right now so far with Jiu Jitsu, with professional submission grappling, is awesome.
That means it has a shot.
But as soon as someone comes along and buys the whole thing and then wants to put on only, like you said, 12 matches a year, like you compete, how often do you compete?
But the performance that really impressed me, your two performances in Metamorris, man, when you went against Kit Dale and you didn't even leg lock him.
The only reason I called it Marcellotine, I didn't know it was called High Elbow Guillotine.
I'm sure there was a name, but I just stuck with Marcellotine so that in the 10th Planet system, every time that comes up, and it's so crucial, it's a part of our warm-ups.
I want Marcelo to make sure he gets credit, because no one's had more success with it than anybody.
I would say, because of that success, he's probably the best at it.
I've seen him run through black belts.
I've seen him run through a high-level black belt 10 times in 10 minutes with the same guillotine.
The difference between those, what Marcelo told me, is this feels so much easier for me, but what Marcelo says, and Danny does it this way too, Marcel, we went over it.
He said, he does it like this as opposed to this because the guy underneath is going to come up and reach and grab.
And if he gets in between these two hands here, his fingers are going to come up.
He can wreck the grip.
You've got to beat the grip.
But if he comes up here and I come this way, it doesn't matter if he grabs the inside.
That's how Marcel, dudes think they're doing the right thing.
They're going, boom, and they still get choked.
They're going, boom, and they still get choked because he's coming around it instead of here.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense There's a bunch of different what we're talking about for people don't know if you're listening to especially there's a bunch of different ways to hold your hands with different submissions and that's one of the interesting things about jujitsu is that there's there's little tweaks that you learn little turns and twists yeah, like Einstein always likes to call it freedom rock and You know that one guillotine?
You ever seen that commercial for Freedom Rock?
It's a ridiculous commercial for one of those compilation records that you would buy.
Turn it up, man!
The turning it up is Freedom Rock.
The turning your hand to the side and forcing the blade of your wrist into someone's neck.
It is a smart thing, and it's cool that there's those little technical things about jiu-jitsu, and for people that get involved in it and start realizing, like, from the outside, you look at it one way, and then you get involved in it, and you start seeing all the depth to it.
That's where all the jiu-jitsu nerds come into place, because that's...
Where it doesn't seem to jive.
People are like, well, how come these really computer-oriented, nerdy kind of dudes are so in love with jiu-jitsu?
Well, you know, like Donaher always talks about, there's a video that we were talking about earlier that they were playing on the underground with him talking about it being high-level problem-solving under stress.
And that's what's exciting about people who are, maybe they would be into video games, or maybe they'd be into chess, or maybe they'd be into all sorts of problem-solving type things.
But you get, doing it in real time, the rush of success is so much better.
Like, the rush of winning a chess match, I'm sure is great.
But do you think it's as good as you choking Kit Dale?
Yeah, somebody overlaid some of your podcast over some, like, jujitsu video, some reel, about, like, you talking about submissions and, like, what submissions really are or what a tap really is.
And you're like, oh, yeah, I just possibly killed you right there.
And you could still, like, you watch that match, man, that's exciting shit.
I dare anybody who knows nothing about jujitsu, just watch Gary Tonin versus Kit Dale and watch it with an open mind and watch those transitions that you're going through and you realize, like, whoa, this is a, they're doing a crazy thing here.
They're like, they're, like, Helston Gracie, I had Steve Maxwell on the podcast the other day, and Helston Gracie, somebody asked him to describe jiu-jitsu, and I guess his English is not the best in the world.
He's got a little bit of an accent.
He goes, this is jiu-jitsu.
You do this, then I do that, then you do this, then I do that, forever.
That is true, but in a situation where you can't grapple with someone, like, if you're in a street fight, would you want to be in a street fight with Marcelo Garcia in a bar, or would you want to be in a street fight with John Wayne Parr?
John Wayne Parr is going to be head kicking motherfuckers and putting people in the hospital with elbows to the face.
Like, you try to get close to that dude, you're going to get your head smashed in.
One of the reasons why he's in jail, they took this guy's leg, and they stomped it, and snapped his shin in half.
And this guy's fucked.
Like, the wrong dude to fuck with, you know, in a street confrontation.
So, I'd say both sides...
It's good.
You can get super high level and striking.
It is intelligent.
It's more intelligent than wrestling with somebody.
If you're in a bar and a bunch of other people around and you're in a melee type situation, if you can be a John Donaher, look, you could protect yourself for sure.
John is an excellent black belt.
Anybody that goes one-on-one with him is just going to get mangled.
There's no either or, because there's a lot of intelligence and there's a lot of technique to high-level striking.
If you watch those Lawrence Kenshin breakdowns or the Jack Slack breakdowns on the underground, he goes over the real technical process of why Bullcat or Yotsin Klai, one of the really high-level Thai guys, why they're so good.
I think this is like one of the best times for it ever because of all the people talking about on the internet and all these online communities that have formed.
It seems to me like jujitsu has a lot of enthusiasm behind it right now.
I knew, I had a feeling it was gonna be that powerful when you watch it unfold, but when we actually did EBI 1 and 2, man, it was incredible.
The people that were there were coming up to me and saying constantly, and I mean they were saying that was the best Jiu-Jitsu tournament they've ever seen.
It's only because they saw it that way, one match at a time.
By the time they got to Gio Martinez and Jeff Glover in the final, triple overtime, the place went nuts!
Do you think it's possible to do something like this and stream it, like a Netflix service where a bunch of people already have the service and all they have to do is just click on it?
You know, or an Apple TV type deal where a lot of people already have, like if you get access to Netflix, you get access to 70 million homes.
And there's still people that, for whatever reason, they don't have the ability to get the internet on their TV, so you don't get them.
But the people that do, the people that have internet connected to their TV, a lot of fucking people have Netflix, man.
So much so that they're sponsoring television shows.
They're making their own shows.
They got this Marco Polo show that's pretty fucking dope, dude.
And it's like a really expensive show.
Like, you could tell they spent a lot of money making this thing.
You can't put Metal Morris on TV. You can't put Abu Dhabi on TV. I think it's really simple.
It's got to be submission only.
It's got to be no gi if it's going to be on TV. You ain't going to put gi on TV. You have a better chance of putting chess on TV. Yeah, I agree with you with that.
There's just a lot of matches that wind up being stalemates where they're holding onto the collar.
And it's also, as much as it's an interesting learning tool, and it's great to learn that if you get in a fight with someone who's got a winter coat on, the reality is when we're looking at sport, like combat sport, we're looking at jiu-jitsu, we're looking at jiu-jitsu and MMA... They should be interchangeable, and they're not.
They're not interchangeable when you have a gi.
They are when you have no gi.
So it seems pretty cut and dry, straightforward.
I mean, I think if someone just wants to do jujitsu in the gi, it's fun to do.
It's great.
It's a great way to do it.
It's a good way to slow the game down.
You know, a lot of older guys like it, especially because of that reason.
Nothing wrong with jujitsu with the gi, but I agree that for no gi, the difference between no gi and gi is it just smoothly transitions into MMA. Except for a few variables like the getting punched when you're going for leg locks and stuff.
The UFC is the hottest rising sport on the planet.
There's millions and millions and millions of fans all over the world that are the rabid fans of the UFC. There's no reason why there can't be one million of those fans that are into no gi jujitsu because really it's the same thing just without the striking.
On the ground, it's the same objective.
They're in the same positions.
Standing, there's no striking, but if you love MMA, you should be able to appreciate some good grappling as long as it's exciting, the format's right, there's no points, and it's single matches.
There's no reason why you can't get a fraction of all those UFC fans.
Realistically, I'm lowballing.
If it's done right and marketed right, I believe you can get 25%.
I could see there being some sort of a cable television show where they do it, like a Spike TV. Spike TV has Friday night, they have all combat sports now.
They have boxing, they're having glory, and then they have Bellator.
The difference being you can't clinch, you can't throw knees to the body, you can't throw elbows in the clinch.
You can't do a lot of things that you do in Muay Thai.
Like Muay Thai, real Muay Thai oftentimes winds up being a grapple fest where they grab ahold of each other and they blast each other with knees to the body along the ropes.
Like that's a big part of Muay Thai if you watch it in Thailand.
If you watch some high-level matches, these guys clinch up with each other and they blast each other with the body.
They dump each other.
They sweep each other all the time.
And it's just a different thing when you're adding in knees and elbows to the body.
And Glory doesn't have that, just like K-1 didn't have that.
K-1, you could only, for a while, you could throw elbows with two knees, but then a lot of dudes came over there and they just blasted two hands behind the head.
And then it became illegal to even throw knees with two hands behind the head.
The true art of stand-up involves throwing stand-up, throwing strikes in the clinch, throwing...
Muay Thai involves a lot of elbows and tight.
Muay Thai involves manipulating bodies and leading people into knees, leading...
Alan Joban, perfect example, in his last UFC bout.
The way he turned that dude into that elbow, that is Muay Thai applied to MMA. I mean, it's a combination of grappling your opponent and striking.
And that's a big part of Muay Thai.
And you don't see that as much in glory, because I think it was along the lines of what they were trying to do with K1. They thought it would make it more exciting if you had, like, less clinching, more exciting, and the guys wouldn't get cut up, which is what they're worried about for tournaments.
But I think tournaments with striking is super fucking dangerous anyway.
I think they're asking for trouble by having a guy like Joe Schilling fight three...
He's fighting Simon motherfucking Marcus, you know, and then after Simon Marcus, he's fighting Wayne motherfucking Barrett, and then after that, he's fighting Artin motherfucking Levin.
Three of the baddest motherfuckers on Earth, and you're throwing head kicks and punches and elbows.
You can't have elbows in there because you get cut up.
So the idea of tournaments...
Like you're preserving, making sure the fights happen more often.
Yeah, if they have Bellator, then they have a way more dangerous sport anyway, as far as what the public's perception would be, because you're adding in takedowns and submissions.
You're just adding elbows and knees.
They should totally be able to do that.
And then more time in the clinch.
Allow guys to clinch.
Because those guys, like a guy like Simon Marcus, you take away his clinch, you take away a big part of his game.
A lot of his game is he's a really strong guy, he's excellent in the plumb, and he manipulates dudes, and he's blasting you in the body.
Boom, boom.
That's a big part of his fucking game.
A huge part.
Elbows in the clinch.
That's a huge part.
You take that away, and you're forcing them to just kickbox.
I just think it's not as good.
Still fun.
Glory's awesome to watch.
Still exciting.
Just not as good as if it was like full Muay Thai rules.
I hope so, man, because full Muay Thai rules is also way more technical.
You're watching way more, like, you never know what the fuck, like a guy like Kevin Ross, he's a perfect example.
He's a guy who fights total Thai style or like Bua Cao.
When you see that guy use everything, Knees to the body, elbows in the clinch, upward elbows coming in, step off to the side, leg kicks across the front of the thigh.
They're using all these different techniques.
There's so many of them.
And then the clinch, knees to the body, knees to the body, elbows.
All that stuff is a part of the sport.
And you try to make it more exciting.
That's like when Elite XC was saying that you would go to the ground, but only for 15 seconds, and then they have to stand you back up.
We're like, this isn't fucking MMA! When Big Country had Arlovsky down and he was working at Kimura and they stood him up from side control.
Yeah, you have five minutes to get a guy to the ground and submit him and the guy's trying to kick your fucking head off Yeah, the idea that you should be stood back up because it's boring look if it's boring then you know what's gonna happen?
Less people are going to buy your pay-per-view.
Less people are going to pay to see you fight.
You're going to make less money.
If you want to finish guys, you're going to make more money.
The market should dictate your style.
The rules should be the rules of fighting.
And in fighting, sometimes a guy like Ben Askren can hold you down and do whatever the fuck he wants.
And the idea that you get to be stood up, you get a second shot at kicking his fucking teeth in.
If you wanted to make a league or a fight company that was totally fair, when the fight ends, if they're on the ground in the mount, The next round should start just like that in the mound, right?
That was the Gary Shaw thing in Elite XC. He told them to stand people up.
So you got guys, like, Orlovsky wound up knocking Big Country out, which is kind of fucked up.
Because Big Country was dominating that fight.
And if they stayed on the ground, he probably would have stayed on top of them.
I don't see Arlovsky reversing Big Country.
Big Country's jujitsu is legit.
He's a big fucking strong dude, and he's working a position that he earned.
He got you to the ground.
It's fucking hard to do!
A guy like Arlovsky, you get him to the ground, you get him in side control, and some fucking slob of a promoter decides that you have to stand these guys up because they want war.
The crowd wants war.
We're selling fighting.
We're not selling hugging.
Spitting fucking salami sandwiches flying out of his mouth as he's talking.
That guy gets to dictate what happens in a professional martial arts event?
If I say that jiu-jitsu was the opposite, if we lived in the twilight zone and 98% of the people doing jiu-jitsu were women, and I was one of them rare dudes, I'd be like, hell yeah, I'm going to do jiu-jitsu forever.
That was one of the matches I wanted to talk to you about is your Javi Vasquez match.
Dude, that was such a slick submission, man, because you're known for your leg locks, and it's kind of like Javi was defending well, and Javi has really good defense anyway, and then you switched it up and went for that triangle and caught the triangle on the side.
As I move forward with my matches and things, there's certain situations where I'm just at all costs trying to submit somebody and beat them in whatever way that I possibly can.
Specifically in that match, I had every intention because I had just beaten a really good leg locker Marcin held.
I had every intention of trying to not submit him with a leg lock.
Really?
Yeah, I didn't want to because I don't want to be known as just the guy that does leg locks.
You know what I mean?
I want to be known as a fucking killer on the match.
But on the bottom, the only way it's going to work on the bottom, generally, is you've got to have that lockdown.
And without the lockdown, because if I have the lockdown and I have the arm trunk on the bottom, I'm just going to stay there and try to finish it from there.
You could keep the lockdown, roll to a vaporizer, or you could get a vaporizer by just simply turning and then just sitting back nice and slow where there's no roll and you go to it.
Yeah, your match was interesting because when you guys were commentating on that match too, when you saw he got to that position on the side trying to set up that triangle, you got fired up.
As far as, I'm sure you have way more than I know, but I know, I've seen you, I know you got all round jiu-jitsu game, and I understand you, and I feel you don't want to be known as the leg lock guy, because you do have, you're really good, like your guillotine is right up there with the top guys.
Not that she would have disapproved of that or anything like that, but it's not like it would have been something I would have been brought interest to.
The end of the match leads to a sternum bruise the size of Iron Man's fucking circle on his chest.
Like, Giburn, like, bloody cuts all over my face from fucking Giburn.
And, like, literally, it was definitely child abuse.
Like, could have been arrested if I, like, complained, you know, but I would never, you know, because I deserved it.
And it made me a stronger person.
But after that, it was like that, uh, that, that Pi May experience where, you know, in Kill Bill Vol.
2, she's like, uh, you know, Beatrice is getting the shit kicked out of her by Pi May.
And she's, like, being held down by the arm, like, Do you want this power?
That sort of thing.
And I wanted that power to be able to fucking have control over my fate, have control over being able to defend myself against another person, You know act in that way and then from that point on I was in love with jiu-jitsu eventually, you know in love with competing and wanting to Teach and all that stuff.
No, no, I don't I don't I probably should though if I wanted more actually I do do that to my to my student that I'm trying to bring up Gordon Ryan I beat the crap out of him as much as possible and try to demean him and make him whoa Just feel horrible keep him on the deal.
There's something to that, for sure, but there's also something to just, like, being really lucky and having a great instructor.
You know, when a kid has an instructor like you that's so passionate about the game, like, one of the hardest parts about Jiu-Jitsu in the day was finding a real good instructor.
Eddie and I got super lucky.
We found Jean-Jacques Machado.
But if you didn't find him, if you were in the middle of nowhere South Dakota and there's no good instruction, it's hard.
It's hard to find a really good instructor.
It's such a big deal to have a good camp when you have a Tenth Planet Jiu-Jitsu or Henzo's Academy or Art of Jiu-Jitsu.
This is like these big jiu-jitsu places where all these killers come from.
It's such a giant...
Advantage is so it's so huge.
We're so lucky here in Southern, California I mean what what's better as far as like locations on earth and Thank God the Brazilians like the beach Yeah, when you find like the ones that are like fuck man, I'm gonna go to Toronto.
There's moves that you do in breakdancing that require, like, insane balance and coordination and strength.
Like, Steve Maxwell had me do these crazy workouts the other day where you're doing, like, this push-up, and then you pick one hand up, and then you put one leg up, and then you lift the other knee off the ground by two inches, and you're holding it there.
So one leg's forward, you're in, like, a Superman position, right?
You're holding yourself up with one hand and one foot on the other side, and your knee is off the ground, and the leg is up, and the hand is up, and you're just holding it.
Yeah, I think the main goal right now is to bring submission grappling to that level we're talking about, to where it's an exciting spectator sport that people can get paid to do, and it's like a career.
Obviously, personally, that's kind of my goal, but it's kind of a goal for the sport in the same sense.
So anyway, I was just like, alright, these guys really have this clean diet.
I'll give them the real look at what my diet is really like, you know?
And for me, because I'm in between trainings all the time and stuff like that, it's just like, I eat whatever I can and I need a high, dense amount of calories all the time.
So it's like, Cheeseburgers and pizza and stuff like that.
That's my main bulk of my diet.
Now, when I weight cut, I know how to eat healthy.
But I don't take as much stock into it as some people believe like, oh, this is gonna be that deciding factor that 0.1% that's gonna make you beat, you know, so-and-so.
I don't truly believe that, you know, because I mean ultimately if I lose Because my diet wasn't good that day or whatever the case may be.
I really just don't feel like I was that good at jiu-jitsu to begin with.
Like, I should be making improvements in jiu-jitsu.
Like I said, it's important, but it's not going to be the deciding factor between me beating somebody or not beating them.
Don't you think there's a technique to giving yourself the right amount of carbohydrates at a certain time, the right amount of protein at a certain time?
Okay, so this is is this like things that are just like Okay He once punched Steve someone Steve Kerr in the face during practice We don't need to see all that shit, but okay, so forget what I said Trying to say his fucking diet wasn't that good.
So yeah, so you've got that's all healthy shit the people don't think that's healthy or people that are have an agenda They're like either vegans or they they want to promote like some really radical idea of Nutrition knife my favorite comments on the metamor the pre metamorist video was Gary Tony needs to stop eating cheeseburgers and buy some proactive What's proactive?
This is ugly Eddie has a good story about this He's training with a dude that had like a giant hole in his way He didn't actually train with him because as soon as he saw the fucking hole It was like let me stay the fuck away from that guy.
He's like dude.
What's wrong with your you definitely have staff man He's like he's like you should go to the doctor.
He's like yeah, I've been rubbing some like honey on it and stuff I'm really not into like, you know the doctor I'm like into like natural remedies and stuff, you know and She's going to keep putting honey on it.
You know, our friend Bud, his mom has cancer, and she's been taking cannabis therapy for it.
And, you know, they attribute it to a bunch of different things, but one of them being that she stopped doing chemotherapy, And it's at the same time she started doing this cannabis and her tumor shrunk by like 30% over a period of just a few weeks.
They don't know if it was the combination of the chemotherapy and the cannabis oil, but they know that the cannabis oil has a big, big effect on it.
And I've been talking to so many people that know people with cancer.
That have also gone that route and have started taking cannabis oil, that Rick Simpson's oil and a bunch of different CBD oils.
Yeah, because it's not, you know, illegal in any sense.
I mean, they have, like, some light testing that they do for, like, IBJJF, but it's, like, one of those situations, again, where, like, if people know what to do, like...
Yeah, I mean, it's clearly rampant, you know, as to what to do about it.
Like, you either need to...
There's only two routes.
There's one, you just don't do anything, okay?
And then everybody has their option to use it or not use it, which, you know, whatever.
I mean, obviously the people that choose not to are going to suffer in terms of the disadvantage and not the strength.
And then the other way to go about it is you have to do it...
Fucking right and just have random testing all the time and in a way where people can't fucking cheat it.
You know what I mean?
Because if some camps get really...
Which is what happens in MMA. Some camps get really, really good at figuring out what the ways are to cheat the tests or this, that, and the other thing.
And then other guys aren't going to fucking go through that.
I mean, it gives those guys an advantage over the other guys that...
Well, we've also seen a bunch of guys who are jiu-jitsu guys that got into MMA and then got caught when they got into MMA. Because then they get tested a little bit more thoroughly, and it turns out they were probably using it the entire time.
Well, there was an article recently online where they were saying that these businessmen, these middle-aged businessmen are taking EPO and winning cycling races.
Just entering into amateur cycling races on EPO and winning them.
EPO? Well, Ali Bagutinov, who fought for the title against Mighty Mouse Johnson, he tested positive for EPO. Shane Mosley tested positive for EPO back in the day.
Yeah, well, there's still guys, I'm sure, that blood dope.
I'm sure they do that, because there's no test for that.
When you take your own blood out of your body, you make weight, your body has that blood regenerated in your body, and then you add more blood to your body, you have more oxygen-carrying capability.
It's a fascinating time where people are learning more and more about how to cheat and then how to stop cheating.
The shit that Hector Lombard got caught for, I've never even heard of it before.
It's some designer steroid that was really expensive, exotic shit that it was like that clear stuff that Barry Bonds and the Victor Conte stuff where they thought that nobody knew how to detect it.
There are landing punches that you probably wouldn't be able to land.
You're doing damage, especially when you're dealing with some sort of a war where one person surges and comes on at the end and stops that person, you know?