Justin Wren, a Bellator fighter and founder of Congo Corruption/Water 4, balances combat training—cut from 12 to six weeks due to Congo trips—with drilling wells for impoverished Pygmy communities plagued by parasites like jiggers and malaria. His organization, backed by UFC stars Francis Ngannou and Chet Congo, now owns 3,000 acres in Congo/Cameroon, expanding from one well on 300 acres, while confronting local violence (e.g., a drunk mechanic’s assault) and near-mob justice at borders. Wren credits goal-setting—like his wrestling championship vision—to overcoming past bullying, depression, and addiction, proving discipline can transform lives and communities. [Automatically generated summary]
I think, actually, whenever I was here with you, I fibbed a little where I said it was a little longer because I didn't know if my opponent was going to watch or whatever.
But my fight camp got cut in half.
I was traveling, traveling, traveling.
The book was getting ready to come out and other stuff and trying to write the book and prepare and trying to figure all that out where...
We were just talking before we got on about just life stuff and scheduling it and everything.
And I had the book and then Congo and then telling people about it and then also training for a fight.
And I didn't know how to balance those real well.
But I planned 12 weeks.
All of a sudden, Congo Corruption took me to Congo for three weeks at the beginning.
So I cut it down to nine weeks.
And then whenever I got back or while I was there, I found out they were moving the fight up on me three weeks.
And so it cut my camp down to about six, seven weeks.
Actually, our director at Water4 was taking malarone.
It's like the best anti-malaria pill.
I think it's something like $7- $8 every pill.
So it's the creme de la creme of malaria meds, and it didn't work on him.
And then I was actually going into Congo.
Actually, I stopped in London, did one of those TED Talks at a university called Warwick University.
And the day of the talk, I was at a 103 degree temperature, 103.2.
And I thought I was pulling out.
They thought I was pulling out.
We were at the hospital for four, five, six hours.
Oh, and dude, even the opportunity to go speak at that is because their team was all fans of JRE. Wow.
That's awesome.
Yeah, that was the opportunity I got because of this.
It was tough doing the talk, and then whenever I got into Congo, they told me I had the flu in London, and the doctor's there, and that's what I feel like here, too.
There can be tropical medicine specialists here, and they're probably really great, but I would trust a doctor that's lived in the climate, the tropical climate around malaria, that's seen it, that's treated it, that knows all the symptoms.
Yeah, and so whenever I got into Congo, I flew from work to Congo, and whenever I landed, instead of going straight to the forest, they took me to an airstrip at a hospital out in the middle of nowhere.
So I landed, went straight to the hospital, and then right there, they're like, you don't have the flu, you have malaria.
And I'm like, but I've been in the States, I just fought, and then I've, in Europe, like there's no malaria really there.
But it was because it's still living inside me.
There's like, I think there's three strands, one to live in your body for three years, five years.
I think the other is like 30 to life or something.
But right after the fight, so you're recovering from malaria, you go through your six-week fight camp, you have your fight, you run down, and then after the fight you got malaria again?
But with malaria, you have to get the test, the blood test, while you have a certain degree temperature, like fever, whenever it's cycling out of your liver and coming out.
They have to draw the blood at that exact time to get it.
And so that's why I was misdiagnosed four times in the Congo and in the Congo.
And I had a couple things that happened where, you know, I started trying to take the anti-malaria meds, but it's the only medicine I've ever really reacted to.
Even, uh, even, um, no, I'm pasty white and I get real sun sensitive.
Um, I know another medicine called mefequin, um, which is, uh, I think it's developed in Switzerland or Sweden, supposed to be an awesome new malaria medicine.
It's actually the one thing my body kind of responds to, but, um, but it's actually really dangerous because, uh, I've seen people that are there for aid work and different stuff.
And dude, they have to retreat if they're there with kids and stuff.
They've moved there to the country.
They're taken off because kiddos or even adults have mental breaks that they can't come back from.
You can have psychotic episodes for, I think they said if it lasts longer than a week.
It's probably gonna last like three months.
If it lasts longer than three months, it's probably gonna last forever.
Because it's more of an arid climate, they have less there.
It's not so tropical there.
I've been to Tanzania a couple times and out in Sanzibar.
I mean, it wasn't there, but I saw it and it was...
I don't know, man.
It's a crazy, crazy place, because you go from Congo, where they have all these tropical diseases, and you go, I don't know, same continent, you just go over a little bit, and there's all these other kinds of parasites.
Like, in Congo, they have very little of a...
I believe they're called jiggers, with a J. Be very careful when you say that word.
Well, honestly, I think one reason with poverty, the kids don't get shoes until they can work and buy them, and the elderly, if they're not able to work and provide for themselves, it's harder for them to get shoes and stuff, but...
Also, it's just where they live, because on the sandy, it's either sandy or the clayish or silty soil that's real red in Uganda.
Man, it just wreaks havoc on those kids to where they're having to have people come in every week to different villages, sit there with safety pins and all sorts of these little hooks that they dig into the people's feet.
Whenever I've seen people getting it done, they're literally putting their, and I've had one in my foot, and it kind of came and gone.
It's not that bad when it's just one, but whenever your whole foot or your whole heel or all the, you know, the balls of your feet are just covered in, I mean, I'm talking 20, 30, 40, 50 of these parasites, and they're just brutal.
So every step you see them, when they're walking, they're grimacing.
Well, obviously, from the outside, that's what it looks like.
Someone like me who tries to pay attention as much as I can, but there's only so much you could actually know about it without being there, I think, right?
I think whenever you get there, I don't know, fall in love with the people and develop the relationships, that's why you can see past all the garbage, all the discomfort.
Yeah, he called me and said, Effie, you got to get back here in like three weeks.
And I'm like, what?
I'm training for the fight.
Like, it's coming up.
And I can't leave now.
He says, if you don't come back now, like, I don't know when you can come back.
They're going to revoke your visa.
They're going to.
And I'm like, what for?
And so they said, check your passport.
They said your visa is expiring in three weeks.
And I'm like, it shouldn't be expiring.
I have a five-year visa.
But then you have to come in and out of the country every 11 months because if you don't, you lose that five-year visa.
And so whenever I left with my wife, literally, just so that they can get money out of us and steal and be able to ask for $1,400, sometimes $2,500 to get a visa like this, they write down on your visa when they stamp it the date they write it in.
And so now I know.
Look every single time they're writing to make sure they write the right date.
Because she backdated it like six months or something like that.
Or maybe nine months.
And then all of a sudden I had to get back there because they're like, nope, it's going to expire.
And they thought they gave them...
Actually, it might have been less than three weeks.
I think I had to go for three weeks is what happened because I had like a week notice.
I just took off, went.
It's actually the cheapest trip I've ever got there because it was like the last seat.
So I went, and it helped because that saved me some money that I was going to have to pay to try to get out of the corruption and stuff.
But luckily, when we went there, they didn't think I would just drop and be there in five, six, seven days.
I took off, went, and we spent three weeks trying to just negotiate with the courts and everything else and say, look, you guys did this, you set me up, all this other stuff.
Trying to prove them wrong, they're never wrong.
They're always right.
Trying to show them Even receipts and pictures.
We were showing him pictures from Ben's wedding.
He's like my best friend, like a brother, a translator for me.
He's our team leader.
Literally, we were showing him pictures of me at his wedding.
Luckily, he was dated and everything.
I was here in the country when you said I had already left four or five months before.
But it's weird because whenever people come, I guess they're more acclimated to it, but it still kills so many.
But whenever I get it, they're saying, you know, the doctor here told me because of the malaria meds, it would be better for you to go because you're already getting sick with medicine.
Just go, get malaria, and then get it.
Diagnosed quick enough get the cure and now your body's actually gonna adapt to it and the next time you get it'll be less and less Wait a minute.
Yeah, but honestly I've seen people even even Ben Ben's nuts like the year that I was there he had malaria and Now, it's almost killed him before, too, but he had malaria like three or four times in a year, and it's just kind of really, really common there.
Wow.
But once you, if you can survive it the first couple times, then they say after that it gets more bearable because you feel it coming.
You feel the heat waves coming over you, and then you feel the shoulder joint pains and elbows.
And it just down your whole spine and your finger joints are just throbbing.
Now, all the kids love them, everything else, but you get these like corsages or fake flowers that they put real big up top and then they are streamers with literal bells and whistles.
Full-size teddy bears.
You can have two, three teddy bears.
When I was in high school, the girl would wear it on her shoulder and the guy would wear it around his arm.
Now, in Texas, they literally have to put a harness around them and hold these things up because they're so big.
I saved it up and my allowance asked one of my crushes to go to the homecoming game with me.
She said yes to my surprise.
Went to the game and spent pretty much all my allowance on her mom.
Her name's Jessica.
And I took her to the game, and I'm up in the stands with her, and halftime comes around.
I'm up at the very top left, and all of a sudden everyone looks back up over the right shoulders at us.
And this one guy is kind of my bully through...
Elementary and middle school for sure and his name was Justin as well and so he walks up and Puts his arm out To her and she puts her arm around his and he grabs the streamer that says Justin and Jessica and the year on it or whatever and he says Thanks for getting her this and I'm like what he goes you didn't think she'd come with you Did you and so he just kind of walks down all the schools look in there all laughing?
having fun And that one hurt, but what was worse was the next year, because, you know, people liked that part of, I don't know, I think...
For me, when I see bullying now, I just spoke out of middle school and I told one of the teachers asked, what should you tell a kid that's battling with suicidal thoughts or depression, even maybe suicidal thoughts?
I'm like, well, if this is 300, 400 kids in here, like, for sure, one person is dealing with these issues right now.
And I would say, you know, the thing that probably saved me was my parents didn't own a gun.
Probably only Texans that don't own guns.
And then, I don't know.
I mean, I guess...
One of the main things was, well, I don't even know that I've ever said this publicly, but I remember having attempted suicide once and then thinking about it again and then thinking, you know, what would this do to my mom?
And so I love my mom.
I'm a mama's boy.
Dad's great too, but that's just who I am.
She's a tough cookie.
She's where I got my competitiveness.
She was a national champion and Barrel racing, state champion in tennis.
And so she always pushed me.
My dad, if he was at a wrestling tournament and it's the finals, even state, I would dislocate my thumb or something.
He'd come up, you don't have to wrestle in the next match.
I'm like, it's the finals.
My mom's like, he's getting out there.
So my mom's the one pushing him.
Shut up, Jimmy.
He's going to go out there and he's going to wrestle and he's going to win.
And so my dad was more of the one wanting to protect me, and she's the one wanting to push me out there.
So I guess I don't even know why I was saying that except for, oh, that thought was just...
I'm ringing in my head.
And so whenever I finally verbalize that and start talking to people, that's what really helped.
You know, it didn't have to be a bunch of people.
I didn't have to go around and be a drama queen or do it for attention or whatever, but just find one person.
And for me at that age, it was having a great mom and parents that love me.
And I think that's probably absolutely amazing.
What saved me at that time.
And so I was telling these kids, you know, hey, even if it's just your mom.
So I was taking pictures with some of the kids afterwards and stuff, and I walk out to leave.
And I'm in the hall, and this mom stops me because she's with her little guy, and he's crying.
So a mom had come to school, had heard there was anti-bullying talk.
She came up, and I see this little guy.
It reminded me a lot of me.
The only difference was he had these kind of big glasses on, but he was...
A little chubby and just had one of those things that you'd see stereotypical, like, this kid's gonna get picked on.
And so, probably a lot like me, he's used to getting his...
Fat pinched and nipples twisted and, you know, all that different stuff.
And so he was out there just bawling with his mom.
His mom asked if I could come talk to him for a little bit.
I did.
And she was saying that he had never opened up with her in the last two years, but she knew he had been dealing with really bad depression.
And right there he told her, I've been dealing with suicidal thoughts for two years.
And so I don't know why I even brought that up except for like it's nuts.
My parents have a have a photography company and they made a memorial a few years back For a little boy, he was getting bullied, didn't think he had an option out, and he took his life at nine years old.
And so I saw the plaque and everything made up for him, and just gut-wrenching.
And so, you know, as I say that, and the first story was kind of one that kind of brought everything to a head.
I was in middle 8th grade this time.
Got invited to Jennifer's birthday party.
Really excited.
Got one of the real invitations in my hands.
Made the plans.
Talked to my mom.
Asked if I could go.
Talked to some of the people.
Who else was going?
I was just kind of the dorky kid anyways.
But on the invitation, I noticed, man, it says costume contest and the winner gets a prize.
I started doing research, all this other stuff.
Other people were doing it, too.
And I found out that her dad worked at Dr. Pepper and that their house was decorated with it, all this other stuff.
And then she loved transformers.
And so I thought, what if I combine those two things?
What if I could make myself a cardboard transformer from head to toe?
I think it was a 24-pack around the head, 12 packs around the arms, legs, boots.
I had a Chestplate had a sword out of cardboard a country kid Texas you see those moms we can do pretty much anything with duct tape and so duct tape cardboard just made it up and Walked into the party and her grandma opened the door.
Oh, Jennifer's gonna love this Walked in they literally had a dr. Pepper machine one of those like old-school ones you don't have to pay just push the button it pops out 13 year old kid you love that so we got dr. Pepper can one hand and Have the Dr. Pepper cardboard sword in the other.
Walk to the backyard.
And whenever the door opens, I open the door.
I'm greeted there with like some flashes of lights and fingers pointing, people laughing.
And I remember Jennifer saying, I can't believe you thought you were cool enough to come to my party.
And I was the only one that was dressed up.
Everybody else had gotten there early, and they'd all been planning it.
And even the invitations were fake, just so that I would come there, dress up.
Another kid said...
You're worthless.
So in that moment, I felt worthless.
And then the main bully said, you should just kill yourself.
And so whenever he said that, 13 years old, battle with depression, suicidal thoughts, all that different stuff.
Man, it took me on a downward spiral, a tailspin.
It really sucked.
I didn't know how to cover it up.
And then I guess I'm getting back to the end of May route where...
I found that.
13 years old at like a flea market in Texas and walking down these aisles.
I'm looking for a BB gun.
And all of a sudden I get to this like used video shop and it's got UFC VHS. I think it was 2 through 10 or 2 through 11 or something like that.
I didn't have a cell phone until I was like 16, 17. And so I'm 13, run out, found a Dairy Queen.
Went in the back, and where the drive-through is, there was like a, I don't know, a dumpster, and they got like the fence around it.
And I just was able to open it, sit there, and just cried, basically, until someone came out to throw away the trash.
And then they were like, oh, honey, got down, and what do you need?
And all this other stuff.
Can you call your mom?
I'm like...
If I have a phone and so I walked inside called her but she wasn't there so it took a little while to get a hold of my mom and then um Yeah, I mean it was just it was nuts because um It's weird how you you'll believe Especially in today's age with social media and all the tweets and things that people just throw away I throw around You know, it's nuts how you can see somebody don't even know them.
They might have one follower and But somehow it can still, if you let it, it can still affect you instead of just shrugging it off.
I forget, but, you know, even the people around, like how you're saying, you know, to people, plan it out and everything else, look you in the eyes.
I mean, I think that might have been what took me back the most because I was like, man, like this is, if you're sitting by, this is what I try to tell some of the kiddos growing up now.
It's like, if you think that by laughing, I mean, if you're there and you're not bullying, but you're giggling, you're laughing, like you're definitely a part of it.
So this bullying all throughout your childhood led into adulthood, and the only thing that made it better was you going to the Congo and helping out these pygmies and building wells and sort of dedicating and devoting your life to their life.
Yeah, I would say practically that has been, you know, to have a sense of purpose.
I mean, I think it's a lot of different things.
But that all kind of came together.
But for me, yeah, I mean, when you're not living for yourself and you're living for others, you just won't.
I mean, I didn't know that...
For me, I had a big paradigm shift or change in my life whenever, you know, coming out of the addiction, I felt like, oh man, like I don't have to walk around and hate myself and stay away from people because they're either going to hurt me or I'm going to want to hurt them.
Like, I don't have to do that.
I can help people.
I can want to love them.
I can...
You know, figure out something.
Dude, it first started, what really started helping a lot was I got involved with a lot of different stuff from a juvenile detention center, going in and meeting with some of those kids once a week, to a homeless shelter, to becoming an official volunteer at the Denver Children's Hospital and taking the grudge guys through there.
And I think like Rashad and Dwayne and Shane Carwin and Brendan and all these guys, you know, they were going and they actually saw me going through the really tough addictions and getting kicked off grudge fight team.
And then a year later, I'm luckily able to organize an event where they wouldn't let us come in just as fighters to visit the kids because they were like, fighters, why would you guys come and visit us?
And that's violent.
And so I decided I'll become a volunteer here, go through all the processes and the training and all the other stuff.
And then I loved volunteering there.
And then after they got to know me, I'm like, hey, can we do a team visit?
Man, us in there, the best visit they had ever had was the bikers.
Like this biker gang guys always brought pizza on Wednesday night or something.
And they literally did look rough and tumble.
And then they said ours was the second best.
And I'm like, you know what?
And they said, well, I won't say the teams, but some of the other big major league sports, they said those have been, and they named some of them, they've been some of our absolute worst.
I'm like, man, see, you thought fighters were going to come in here and I don't know if you thought we were going to beat up the kids or something, but no, we're passionate about the sport.
I mean, I think passionate means you love something so much that you'll suffer for it.
Or even that suffering looks like enjoyment or becomes enjoyment because you love it and you're passionate about it.
And so, I mean, whenever you're a fighter, you're getting beat up and all the other stuff.
Yeah, there's an intense camaraderie between people that train together because you go through such difficult sessions and difficult sparring and difficult moments and conditioning and all that stuff and you push each other and it's a different kind of bond, right?
Yeah, and on that I think I saw someone recently post something that was Pretty cool where it showed like a jujitsu gym and it was showing all the different people.
And in it, it said something like, where's the one place you can find these religious people and these different skin colors?
After The Ultimate Fighter, I got invited out by one of the guys.
And just because I think a couple of people...
Yeah, I saw one of the guys who was one of the main guys and he's like, hey, I just saw him walking around downtown Fort Worth and he's like, why don't we go out here or whatever?
I'm like, alright, I'll go.
And, well, he had actually brought me into the sushi restaurant and all around the table was most of the people that were, not most, it was probably only like 8 or 10 people.
But they were some of the main kids that were at that party when I dressed up and everything.
Man, if we'd have known you were a fighter, you could have kicked our butts, then we wouldn't have done that to you.
So I told him I was going to the bathroom and just left.
I think that's the only time I've ever done anything like that, but I was like, I can't be around these guys.
I mean, I guess I could understand that if the kids have been abused themselves and they want to lash out, they're angry and hurt, but oftentimes it's just they find someone who's vulnerable.
It's like they find the pecking order, and they find the one person they can get away with, and they all funnel their insecurities and their anger and their aggression on this one person, just because with no regard whatsoever what kind of impact it's going to have on that kid.
But I think it certainly can happen to people where they get to this point where not only do they not want to live, they don't want you to live anymore either.
Because, I mean, I'm sure if you had been in a situation where you knew someone, you had a friend who was in the same boat as you, you know, like those kids from Columbine.
Where the two kids got together and they sort of helped each other do something really fucked up.
If you were involved with the wrong people at that time and someone had a gun and you knew where these kids were and you wanted to do that to yourself, who knows what you would have wanted to do to them as well.
I think it was in between 7th and 8th grade where I started hanging out with a lot of the Just the kids that were involved in just darker thoughts, music, stuff like that, where I'm hanging out with them and we're all depressed.
We're listening to that Papa Roach song, The Last Resort.
I think it's like, cut myself bleeding.
I'm never going to...
Or I don't want to breathe again or live again or something like that.
And then all of a sudden they're bringing out, what are those, the big black cats or those M80s or something like that.
And there's a bunch of frogs where we lived in the country.
And they go, get the frogs, blow up a frog, get another frog, blow up a frog.
And all of a sudden I'm like, this is a little way too dark for me.
Every time you've been here, it's just been all joyful and loving and all the things.
I didn't know your history.
Well, hey, man, it's just honest expression.
There's nothing wrong with it.
It makes me, as an adult, I almost want to go back in time and stop it from happening.
It makes me...
It makes me very sad.
It's just...
It's one of the worst aspects of human beings that they could plan something like that and do that and just try to ruin someone's life just for sport, just for fun, for no reason.
Shape and mold me now in a way of like, I look at it and it was Loretta while we were writing the book.
She's like, do you not see all these kind of parallels?
And I'm like, what do you mean?
You grew up, you got really, really bullied.
Then you're trying to help people that are like maybe the most bullied people on planet Earth.
I'm like, oh, I guess I see that now.
And what was it last?
Not the last trip, but the second to last trip to Congo that I had.
I was there and we're having to get a mechanic to help.
We're tires and different stuff, and all of a sudden a drunk mechanic comes out, and he's always drunk, and he comes out, he's talking with us, this little boy walks by, he's literally He should be in school, but because his family's so poor, he's out selling eggs.
And if he's selling eggs, he'll make, you know, nothing.
But he'll never be able to go to school, probably.
And he's just trying to make money to feed his family.
And he's literally five, six, seven years old.
And he's coming around selling the eggs.
Normally they sell them hard-boiled, but sometimes they don't.
When they're walking around, you want to eat it then.
But these kids were all raw, so it's even harder for them to sell them.
But the drunk guy picked up the egg.
He's looking at it, shakes it a little bit, finds out it's raw, and just smashes him.
The kid, this is an adult, 30-something-year-old man, and this is literally a 5, 6, 7, 8-year-old kid, just smashes it over his head, and the kid looks up at him with just fear.
I mean, it's not smart for me, because, you know, I'm the outsider to the government's eyes and everything else, but, like, I almost got in a fistfight with him.
I remember just pulling my hand straight back and And just almost just backhanded him right across the face.
And then Ben's like, whoa, whoa, whoa!
Then I grabbed, I think I grabbed his shirt, grabbed his shoulder, And I said, Ben, translate for me real quick.
If he ever lays his hands on that kid or any other kid, I'm going to lay my hands on him.
And so just make sure he understands that, this kind of thing.
And I don't even know what I'm into that except for...
I mean, I just don't get...
Get people sometimes.
We'll get into some positive stuff, but that one just blew me away.
I was like, you're an old guy picking on a kindergartner.
There's actually a pretty incredible video that I was absolutely terrible whenever I gave the speech or whatever, but I played part of the video, cut it down to like three minutes.
It's had like 12. I think it's called The Battle at Kruger.
It's the water buffaloes and the lions and the crocodile.
Yep.
The lion takes the...
The back of the pack, the smaller, weaker, younger, lions all go after that one, tackle it, splash in the water, they're dragging the baby out of the lake, or river, and all of a sudden a huge crocodile comes and grabs it, and they have a tug-of-war match.
But what I love almost in that analogy of where, you know, if you're standing by like you're encouraging it or if you're not doing anything, you're encouraging it.
But if you just stand up, oh, that's the stat I saw where 87 percent of bullying happens in the presence of nobody.
But in the times that it is around people, if one person says one thing to the bully, 90 percent of the time, it's 80 to 90 percent of time it stops within five seconds.
It just stops.
And it doesn't have to be anything aggressive.
It can be, hey man, lay off of them.
And then if you, after that, it's something like 95% of the time if you invite the bullied victim to come into your group or hang out or sit at your table or whatever, then it stops even better right away when you don't address the bully, you address the person that's getting bullied.
I almost got us arrested, and not just a little bit, a lot of bit, where we accidentally, I believe the Serengeti's in Tanzania, and we're on the border of Kenya and Tanzania, and we're taking a shortcut from some locals, which is always fine if you're from there.
And we saw this awesome, but we didn't know we were going through the Serengeti.
We just thought it was a shortcut.
We didn't pay for a park pass or anything like that.
And all of a sudden I see this just gigantic Cape Buffalo skull just sitting in the middle of nowhere.
I'm like, let's get that.
Let's take it back.
And so we put that in the back of the truck.
All of a sudden we're driving and we get pulled over by the park rangers.
Then they see the Cape Buffalo skull, they say we're poachers, they say this, that, and just swarmed by all these park rangers, like three or four different vehicles.
Saying they're going to arrest me, all this different stuff, and our crew, and luckily, anyways, that's a random thing, but luckily we just said, hey, can I just put it right back where it was?
I didn't mean to, I didn't know we were in a national park.
Yeah, for endangered species, for sure, with the okapi.
One of my last trips, someone tried to I think I maybe said earlier where on one of the past episodes where someone tried to sell me the meat and the fur of an okapie.
I just can't imagine that here we are in 2016 with Viagra and Cialis and all these different boner pills you buy at the gas station that Red Band takes.
I mean, I just can't imagine that the rhinos are literally on the verge of going extinct because people want to kill them and take their horns, which do nothing.
Yeah, but they have this erroneous idea that you eat it and it makes your dick hard.
I just...
I don't know.
What the fuck is going on with Asia?
That's a broad statement, isn't it?
Boy, I generalize.
I generalize on a billion people.
What the fuck's going on with Asia, man?
I mean, I wonder...
I think it's also a status symbol I was reading.
That even though it might not necessarily be real or really work, but it's such an ancient cultural status symbol thing that these businessmen will get together and they'll have rhino horn tea.
But they think it's cool because it's illegal and you can't get it and it's dangerous and it's got to come from Africa.
CT scans have shown that the horns are, in fact, similar in structure to horses' hooves, turtle beaks, and cockatoo bills.
The studies also reveal that the centers of the horns have dense mineral deposits of calcium and melanin, a finding that may explain the curve and sharp tip of the horn.
The calcium would strengthen the horn, while the melanin would protect some of the core from being degraded by ultraviolet radiation from the sun.
Huh.
Softer outer portion worn away over time by the sun and typical rhino activities, bashing horns with other animals, rubbing it on the ground.
The inner core would be sharpened into a point, much like a wooden pencil.
Yeah, and the horn that this kid was basically trying to sell it.
He was like 15, 16 years old.
old his dad was the poacher and his dad didn't want to get arrested so he sends his kid and it had all sorts of like us deep deeply scratches inside of it and stuff and or just all over kind of the top was all nicked up and stuff University of Hong Kong found a large doses of rhino horn extract could slightly lower fever in rats imagine Imagine if rhino horn was a cure to malaria.
We're getting ready, I think, to replant, I think it's 1,000 more trees, which would take our total up to 4,500 on the land for the pygmies.
Around there, the reason that, I mean, China and all these other places are coming in, they're cutting down the rare hardwoods, the mahogany, and the reason King Leopold went there was the rubber boom and the trees there and everything else.
But then it just nuts me because I think they're, you know, they want it for greed, money, everything else.
But then the people in the country, they're starting to learn and get educated in the fact that, like, hey, if we're cutting down all these trees, we better start replanting some because it takes so long for them to grow back.
And so, no, but it's just for charcoal or fire, and they're like, once that's gone, what do you have?
I was in Canada, and they do a pretty good job of regulating it in BC, but it's still disturbing because you come across these big, gigantic fields where the trees are just gone.
They leave perches for animals, which is probably, like, an awesome spot for, like, a hawk or an eagle or something like that, because everything's cut down.
Yeah, and so I was in a village before my wife's first time to Congo, and it was, I mean, it was almost like, you know, lush, untouched, virgin forest, and then all of a sudden, come back next time with her, come out of the forest, come back in, it was probably a month or so, because we went to a couple other villages, we go back, start going on the same hike, and all of a sudden there's this huge clearing, at least 10 acres, probably 20, 25, and it was just...
Nothing there except for a few remaining huge cut-down trees that I could stand in front of and the base or whatever was way taller than I was.
When you consider your life and you consider these horrible stories that you're telling us about your upbringing, how disturbing it is, does it feel to you, since you've found this sense of purpose and this real connection with these people in the Congo, that almost like these horrible events in your life were setting you up to be the perfect person to find these folks?
You hear someone talk about hikes in LA. It's like, oh, I'm gonna take my little dog to Runyon, and we're gonna go hiking.
You say hiking.
Yeah, that's what people think of.
They think of some recreational activity with one of those little camel things, the little water things, camelback, water reservoirs you put on your back and you suck on the straw as you're walking.
My first time I went for about a month, I had it for a week or two, and then all of a sudden it started breaking, because I was even filtering the water in the town that's coming from wells, because I don't know if they...
And you can boil it, but it's just impractical where every single time you want to drink, you take a container down to dirty water, which could be 30, 45 minutes away.
Yeah, and then all of a sudden all the ash is getting in it, and then it's the hot, humid rainforest on the equator, and boiling water doesn't cool down basically ever there.
Yeah, that's exactly what I learned from his buddy of mine named Matt.
He was the director of implementation.
Now he's like the chief operating officer.
And he came out there and one of the things he really drilled into us for our well drilling team, we're learning from a great guy.
He's saying, hey, you can drill 100 wells or 200 wells, but if you didn't do it right and proper...
Then I would have rather you done one the right way or none.
None.
If you do it the right or the wrong way, 100 times, 200 times, and you are giving a village, like you just hit home hard because he's like, look, we're learning every single step.
You can't skip one.
We've got to Drill us in you where you know it, you know, because we can't skip a step or miss something, and then all of a sudden they are looking at it, drinking it.
It tastes good.
It's clean.
It's cool.
It's crisp.
It's in a well, but yet it can still be, you know, contaminated, dirty, and still get real sick if you don't properly construct the well.
And so what's so great is seeing that, you know, they're, they're, they're taking this on as, as their own thing and flying on their own two wings.
They, they were empowered in a way that's like, Hey, you can, you can do this.
You can do it for yourself, for your countrymen.
You guys are going to be more passionate about ending the suffering because you know the suffering because you have suffered.
You've lost family members, you have sick kids, all that different stuff and And so they're going to be able to be a better champion for this cause than I could be.
Because, I mean, maybe we have different resources where I get to, you know, you share your platform with me, which has been incredible.
And the Kickstarter and the documentary coming out, all the different stuff is really great.
But I know that the team there, like, I couldn't do anything without them doing it and how great they've gotten.
I was just at UFC 200. I was at the World Series, NBA Finals, Super Bowl, Pacquiao fights.
I mean, I've been to all these things and those huge crowds are 30, 40, 50, 100,000 different stuff.
And that little crowd of 100, 120, to me, it drowns out the sound of an entire stadium.
It's a different kind of gratitude, thankfulness, when you've suffered your whole life.
And then you get to partner with people.
And I'm not even talking about me.
Our team, our well drillers, they see them coming in, staying with them, living like they're living, eating like they're eating.
Sitting around the campfire like they sit around, which nobody else does that with them.
And so, sleeping in the huts that they sleep in, which nobody else would do in that area.
And then, like, you just develop this bond and really quickly and to where all of a sudden they're jumping in and helping with the construction of the well and everything else.
Now, they do the simple day labor stuff, not the technical stuff, but then, yeah, our guys are getting it down, which is pretty cool.
Over here in America, we have so many trivial things that we're constantly worrying about and fretting.
When it gets down to basic human necessities, like water, the ability to get clean water, which is, without that, All the other things that we argue or bicker about, it's all nonsense.
That's something that I... I get this crazy culture shock because I feel like I'm in two different worlds.
And when I'm there, it's uncomfortable because I'm passionate about it.
I enjoy it.
But then getting back here, sometimes it's like, man, everything, a lot of times, everything that we're chasing, even me, doesn't really matter in the big, grand scheme of things.
How can we...
How can we instead of get for ourselves, how can we give to another person?
Because, like, I mean, it truly is, like, that's better.
And I know you have to take care of yourself so you can take care of someone else.
Like, I get that.
I just think it's kind of like this.
Our culture here...
You see kids and even adults.
That's mine, right?
I mean, that's our culture.
We say, that's mine.
Give me that.
It's mine.
In Congo, if that kid that had the eggs, instead of having an egg, if he had a bag of peanuts...
And he bought it for himself.
And then I walk by, sit down with him.
If I'm a friend or not, even just introducing myself, he's going to offer me his food.
Like, instead of, it's mine, he's going to say, you want some?
And so it's different in that culture where it's nuts.
They don't have anything, but they'll give you everything they got.
Like, for instance, that knife last time that I was able to, you know, bring back that Chief Leo May made.
You know, he made a bow and arrow, and I'm actually bringing that to you.
It was under our crawl space, and I lost it, and now I know where it is.
But he's pumped to bring that back to you.
But, I mean, for them to give that kind of stuff away...
Whenever Leo May, he's the chief of his village, and now, because he's got a job, he might have more, but whenever I knew him, he had maybe, he was lucky if he had two changes of clothes, because most of the pygmies have the clothes on their back.
They don't even have a blanket.
The fire's their blanket.
And so it's just a completely, I don't know, night and day difference.
We're getting ready to do something that I'm pumped about.
Me and Papa Wai and Ben and Matt, we had talked about it and kind of dreamed it up.
And we were saying, how awesome would it be?
If in Bunia, which is kind of a city center, maybe less than half a million people for sure, but in the city center where there's a university, there's a community development program that's literally changing their part of Congo by not waiting on the government or by not waiting on an NGO. They're just taking the initiative themselves.
And so we've seen that they're so bought in.
That whenever we presented an idea of, what if we could start a sustainable solutions, appropriate technology center where there's land, water, and food solutions.
And then after that, maybe we can get into solar.
Maybe after that we can do this or that or, you know, whatever.
But at that place, we'll have different stations where here's land.
You can come learn about land rights, how to replant the trees, the forestry aspect, you know, all that different stuff, the importance of land.
And we have people there that can help and show them things.
If a chief wants to come in and book our well drilling team for their community, they can come in, see how we do it, why we do it, everything about it.
We want to have a little conference room where we can train people up on the WASH program, because now we're doing that.
All the villages that we've drilled wells in, we're going back in and we're doing the WASH program, water and sanitation and hygiene.
And so for the year I was there, there was one or two of the ten villages we were in had a quote-unquote latrine, but it was only like three or four feet deep, which isn't safe.
Yeah, and honestly, until you do it the right way, because outside of there, some of those latrines in the cities, man, I... Definitely think I've gotten sick from a fly that maybe landed there.
So, I mean, I don't know.
But, yeah, so we get to go in there now, teach them how to dig the latrines, make sure it's way far enough away from the water well.
I'm telling you, there was at least 20, 30 people in line.
Oh, God.
And Ben was trying to tell him in the most appropriate way possible to like not crush the hopes and dreams of the village there But he also want to know like hey this water can it look safe.
It's not And so so that's why we're testing our wells and whatever happened That feels did you you had to leave?
Yeah, I mean it's a town.
We don't I've been in the town Maybe twice, but um, yeah, it was the first time I saw it last time Jesus yeah, so But that's what's creating.
A lot of people don't know.
I think it's...
No, I know it is.
Half the hospital beds in the world right now are because of dirty water or waterborne-related diseases.
So if we were able to, as human beings, if we could join forces, unite, kind of like everyone did against Ebola, you know, if we attack the problem head-on, and just because we got it, we don't pretend everybody else has it, like, we could really end this thing.
We could fix it.
Like, the tools are there, the water is there, it's under our feet, and here we waste it, and there they don't have it.
Kind of growing up, you know, getting bullied, you're only looking at, why am I getting bullied?
And all this stuff's true, and I am not a good person.
And then, or nobody likes me, whatever.
Then when I got 23, fighting, still not really fulfilled.
I was living more for myself there, and I'm like, man, what am I doing with my life?
Now it's so cool because seeing that and being able to tell you that last time I was here, 20 water wells or 25. But regardless, we've done 20 or 25 more.
And so that to me is a life that I get to look at.
And if I were to die, I know.
I know.
Without a shadow of a doubt that my life meant something.
And I know that I never felt that before during the depression, addiction, and all that other stuff.
But now I know that the life I live hopefully will outlive my life.
I want this team to...
Doing what they're doing.
Climb higher than I can climb.
Run farther than I can run.
Jump higher than I can jump.
You know, like, I want my...
What's that saying?
I want my ceiling to be their floor.
I want them to go farther than I can go because then that means that I actually made an impact that matters.
That mattered to them enough that it continued.
That it had a residual effect.
It just kept on going.
And, man, that's really shifted...
Kind of everything in my life.
Like, man, this is what life is about.
I've been signing my book ever since it came out, but I signed it, Live to Love, Love to Live.
And I know that can sound cheesy or goofy or whatever, but that's something that just really helped me whenever I was sobering up was, man, if that's what I focus on, if I can live my life to love, love, love, Then I'll love to live.
But everyone wants to love their own life that they live.
And so they're just focused on that and get this and get this materialistic thing and get this different chick because she didn't make me happier, you know, this or that or whatever.
I don't know if that's if I think there's a natural inclination to gravitate towards unattainable things like Ferraris and mansions and you see those things on TV and the movies and you just that shows you that you've made it and When you don't have anything and you're wanting for things you don't have Money and you're struggling you look at someone who's got all those things and money and you think if I only had that all my worries would be gone and then I would be happy But if you have that,
and nobody likes you, your life is shit.
It's still shit.
Meanwhile, you are in a hut in the middle of nowhere, well, in the middle of the Congo, with all these people, and you're having a great time.
That picture that came up, I think why I got so excited was because that night in that village, I mean, we, I'm not kidding, danced and danced and danced and feasted.
I mean, we just all came together just to celebrate.
Celebrate life.
Celebrate each other.
Celebrate, guess what, our kids aren't going to be sick anymore.
Different stuff like that to where...
It's just a life where, like what you were just saying, you're always comparing, comparing, comparing.
For me, man, comparison, I think for most people, comparison is probably the number one thief that robs us of joy, of being able to be at peace.
We're always comparing ourselves and we always compare up.
Or just compare ourselves to people that are just like us.
We always look at what you're saying as unattainable.
And always pursuing that.
And my whole thing has been, like, recently, man, I just want...
I think I've learned it from our team in Congo.
Like, that's been the greatest gift.
Like, you were saying that, you know, there's been a lot of great stuff that's been happening.
And that's true.
But, man, I started thinking, and now I think it sounds cliche, but I'll say it anyways, where...
Man, like...
They've given me more of a gift than I can give them.
I mean, you see, I told you that growing up and everything else, but to find a life of purpose, of passion, of helping one another, of, I don't know, our mission statement is defend the weak, love the unloved, empower the voiceless.
And the vision statement is overcoming oppression with overwhelming opportunity.
And so if we can go into these communities, and we've seen incredible stuff, that's what's going to be in the dock this last trip.
Me, Ben, Matt, and Derek, the filmmaker, we would not be—they wouldn't be ashamed of me saying this.
We were in tears after an interview with one of the former slave masters that ran a hospital.
And actually, if you could pull up a picture, it's called Captula.
And we were at this hospital.
And it's tough because we were trying to get treatment for Keptula.
He's a buddy of mine that passed away.
And we spent seven months taking him to hospital, taking him to hospital, taking him to hospital.
And they were just sending him away because he was a pygmy.
And it's like I knew whenever I first saw him.
Actually, if you bring up maybe the first Keptula one, that's when I saw him.
Right there, we didn't know, but I had a gut feeling that it could have been tuberculosis because we've helped several of the pygmies that have tuberculosis and stuff.
That's why the bugs are even worse on me, because I have many times slept in the huts whenever the fire's going, but it just fills up with smoke to where my eyes are just...
Yeah, and there's so many kids that are at this Sustainable Solutions Center that we're hoping to get up and running.
We're wanting one for cooking, where they can use either corn cobs or corn husk or peanut shells or different things where they can put those into little briquettes.
And then they can use that and recycle it and everything else.
And it burns longer at the same temperature.
And you're not having to deforest anything and you're not breathing in that terrible smoke.
People throw the outside of the coconut away, but apparently it's really good for charcoal.
So Bellator has embraced this narrative.
They've embraced your story and they've made it a big part of your fighting there to let everybody know that you're doing it not just because you want to compete, but also because you want to expose the world to this passion, this project, this sort of life direction that you've taken.
Dude, I love the UFC. I was 13 years old, found those tapes.
And just on that real quick, I bought all those tapes, put them under my bed, and I would wait for my parents to go to work or to go to sleep.
And I'd be popping them in the VHS. And my dad comes in and I Turn it off real quick, lay down, act like I'm asleep, and it's, you know, the VCRs, the VHS is still moving, and the, I don't know, the screen's still lit up and everything.
My dad confiscated that tape, then when he found the rest, he thought it was all porn, but it was just the UFC. Why did he confiscate it?
Well, I think me being 13, being picked on, you don't want me to start fighting people at school and different stuff.
Just a precaution.
But he told my mom, he's going to do that one day if we let him keep that stuff.
I was like, no, I won't.
But in my head, I'm like, yeah, I will.
I remember looking at the VHS tape, and when I turned it over and saw the...
Jiu-jitsu and sumo and boxing and wrestling and all these different things, it came alive to me.
It's like, oh my goodness, these guys...
Well, I think I originally connected with it because I'm like, well, these guys aren't anything like me.
They could stick up for themselves.
They're an athlete.
They're popular probably.
Instead of being the laughingstock at the party, they might be invited to the party or it might be their party.
And so, I mean, I like that aspect, but then I just fell in love with the sport of it, you know, watching it and seeing how everything, and now being a fan and watching how it's evolved and everything else, it's just, it's not seeing a guy like Dan Henderson that's been fighting, I think, isn't it 20 years straight?
Since I was on that season, I think he threw a couple elbows, but when they finally stopped it, we were all counting every single punch, but he was just tapping his forehead like this because it wasn't intelligently...
The big countries got very good submissions, but everybody expected that from him when he started fighting.
Like, if you remember back when he was fighting for Elite XE, which was like the most corrupt organization in the early days of MMA, he had Andrei Olofsky down in side control, working for a Kimura, had that, yep, had side control and had that double wrist lock position, and he was working for the Kimura, and they stood him right up.
And I remember watching TV going, it's corrupt!
We're screaming at the TV, it's corrupt!
They had a 15-second rule.
Like, if it went to the ground, if nothing happened in 15 seconds.
I think Jake Shields submitted Paul Daly.
It was one of the few submissions in Elite XA. But he just mounted him and just immediately went to an arm bar and locked it in.
I mean, apparently he had a doctor telling him, you know, for people who don't know what we're talking about, Kimbo died really recently of heart disease.
And he had a doctor telling him recently that he needed a heart transplant.
I guess he had some sort of congenital heart disease.
That, I mean, how could that be, you know, you look at him, the guy's a stud, he's in great shape.
I mean, how could you imagine that?
His heart was so bad that they were telling him he needed a heart transplant.
And this, yeah, this could probably sound cliche again too, but because knowing him, being an ultimate fighter, and him cooking the best steak I've ever had, sorry Big Josh, but he, I don't know, even though he had a bad heart, I think I don't know.
In fact, I went about it, and it was a learning lesson.
I don't regret it, because I got some great training here in California.
I think, is it called Hesperia, California?
And there's something called CalEarth, and they build ecodomes, or earthbag homes, or they call them super adobe, the technical term.
But they make...
It looks like pygmy huts out of sandbags that they fill up with sand, do it in a circle, and supposedly they're earthquake-proof, tornado-proof, all this different stuff.
We have a lot of like-minded beliefs of how to help people.
But yeah, I loved it because...
Housing what?
Because I slept in the huts the first two times I went and got rained on and literally one time woke up in the mud like sunk halfway because it just rained and rained and rained and rained.
Well, for water, I have definitely hope for that, but then...
I don't know.
I think I just feel...
I don't know.
Whenever you...
How is it?
When you have that heart connection, it's kind of like, well, I want to see these people if they have everything I got, too.
I still want to hang out with them all I can.
Of course.
You know what, though?
It's been really cool to see...
So there's these guys from Uganda that came in and helped train us, and they're called Young Men Drillers.
And there are these guys that were...
You've heard of the LRA and Joseph Kony and different stuff like that?
One of the guys was, he told me around a campfire that he was one of two, it might have been three, survivors out of a three, four, five hundred person village.
The Rebels came in, killed everybody.
He barely escaped.
And then another kid, another kid.
And it's so cool to see these young guys all of a sudden stand up and Water 4 got involved with them and train them up on how to drill wells in their own country.
And these, when I say young men drillers, like, I think some of them were 16, 17, 18 when they started.
Well, then all of a sudden they cranked out over 100 water wells.
Over 100 water wells.
They've been doing it longer than we have.
We haven't done any.
I'm in the Congo.
We try to get them out to us to help.
Matt comes in to train us and to continue training with them.
And then they were going to leave that team.
We've got the main three guys from Youngman Drillers behind to train us, to invest and impart their knowledge in us.
Matt was doing real intensive training.
And then these guys are going to stick around for the next three months and make sure we could bust out, you know, a few wells and do it the right way.
And so it's so cool.
They came and stayed with us.
And so cool to see that they've gone through all that, where one of the guys, it was probably every other night or every three nights, He's waking up in night terrors where he is just screaming.
And I've never been around that before.
But the things he saw, the things he's been through are just so tough.
But then to see he chose that he's going to take a different path.
He's going to find something that he can help people with, and then he's going to give it to others in a different country, in Congo.
So they came and lived with the pygmies for three months.
It was awesome.
Now, Ben and a couple of our other drillers are in Cameroon.
And I kind of had this thing that I haven't really spoken out, but I would love to see the pygmies in Congo all have water.
But then after that, you know, the other pygmies are suffering in very similar ways to the pygmies in Congo.
And so what's so cool is that, okay, the Youngman drillers comes out, invest in us, pours their hearts and lives.
He was from Congo, and they were from Uganda, and at the border, they had to get in with a Congolese taxi driver.
Well, they do that, and they can't even speak the same language.
And he gets in a wreck.
He knows Congo.
He does that drive all the time to the border.
And so he just bails.
And literally, the people in a place called Nyoka, which means snake, it was a place of a rebel group that used to be there and everything.
And so it was a very, very bad part of town.
There's gold mines on both sides of them.
Luckily, this lady took them in and held them in there and called the military because people literally had, not the military, but the cops, and it was just a little shack.
And so, luckily, man, I, yeah, very luckily, it was a miracle that Papawai is such a great, like, I don't know, he's a peacekeeper.
Like, he can go somewhere and talk with anyone that's having a dispute and bring him to some sort of agreement.
And he was able to go out there on behalf of our Ugandan guys, doesn't even really know him yet.
Gets them out.
And while they're leaving, Papa Wai is really respected because he's actually helping people in their country.
People know him when he's walking around because he's like, oh, that's the crew that's actually putting what they're learning into action.
And so he went up there and as they were getting ready to leave, someone came up to him and whispered to him and says, we know where all your stuff is.
And he's like, what?
Everything that was stolen.
He's like, I think it was something like he said it to him there or later.
Why they didn't keep it and why they gave it back.
But whenever they got there, it was the case.
They had broken the lock, opened it up, and...
Oh, whenever they opened up that solar pump, it's got these two different...
Oh, man.
I'm losing my words, but canisters on it.
And they left it because they thought it was a bomb.
And so they left that and all our well-drown equipment, and we were able to reclaim everything, get them to us.
They lived with us for three months.
Then there are supply chain from Uganda to Congo.
I'll wrap this up where it's so cool to see where now, no joke, the guys that came out to learn from Cameroon that work with the Pygmies in Cameroon are named Willie and Turbo.
Those are their names from Cameroon.
And actually, that big heavyweight, what is his name?
And both those guys ended up in France because they're French-speaking countries, both Congo and Cameroon.
So it's just cool to see how the trickle effect comes from these guys that are lucky to be alive.
Then from growing up, then they're lucky to be alive coming to help us.
Then they decide to stay in the country that they were almost murdered in for an extra three months so that we get it down to where we really know what we're doing.
Then they can go back and we have this great relationship.
But now another can come and learn from us.
And now we're sending our team out to different parts of the continent, to Rwanda, to Kenya, to Cameroon, to I think Rwanda, Uganda, and training up these other teams that are wanting, they have a desire to...
Well, he did something pretty incredible, and I heard about it when I was in high school, but Kenny Monday, which he got to, it came full circle.
He coached me in high school, then for my comeback fight, and he coached me a little bit in MMA at the beginning, but then for my comeback fight in this last one, he was in my corner.
But anyways, he told me, you know, hey, if you want to wrestle, go home, write down your goals.
Like, write them down.
And this book talks about how if they polled some class, some senior class at Harvard, and asked who has goals.
Who knows their goals?
And some like 87% didn't know.
Like, besides, I'll get my college degree from Harvard and then I'll figure it out.
Then they asked, who knows your...
I think it was 87% of them or something like that.
Or 83% something.
And then it was...
13% or something like that where they had...
I'm sorry I'm screwing this up, but it's an incredible stat.
So 87% or 83% didn't know their goals.
13% or 17% did know their goals, but they didn't have them written down.
And then only 3% of the class had written concise, direct goals of what they wanted to do in their life.
I think they went back 10 years later, and the ones that had goals but didn't have them written down were making twice as much on average than all the other 83% or 87% that didn't have goals.
And then the people that had written down goals, they were making 10 times as all the other 97 combined.
And for me, and seeing that, hearing that, and then having Coach Mundy tell me that.
Honestly, wrestling, MMA, having a goal to focus on, having a goal to write down, I think that really helped me escape the depression for a while, for a few years, because now I found something that I could focus on and I was passionate about.
That was my outlet.
But he also told me, he went a step further, I don't think I've said this publicly, but he told me, write down, what's your goal?
I'm like, I want to be a state champion.
And he said, okay, go home, write that down, and put it somewhere you can see it either on your website.
You know, your bathroom mirror or somewhere.
I put it above my bed, but I didn't never write down state champion.
I wrote down national champion.
Started working towards it, was state champion that year.
Having a great, great training partner.
And I'm kind of jazzed up that the Olympics is coming up.
I know some guys that are going.
Robbie Smith, he's a heavyweight.
He was my roommate at the Olympic Training Center.
Travelle DeLagniv, we wrestled together in high school and then after.
So I'm pumped about it.
But see these guys obtaining their goals, their dreams, and writing them down.
Well then, with Coach Mundy, he's like, hey, get some of your favorite wrestling moves, some pictures, so you can visualize them.
Not just see the words, but see the actual thing that you want to do.
Like, see it.
And so I went and I put one wrestling move on the left and another on the right.
And man, I just would go to sleep dreaming about it, basically, and wake up motivated to attain that gold national champion.
And having a guy that's Olympic gold medalist teaching you the basics, like, you'll get good quick that way.
But, um...
Also having the goals.
The first national championship I won was with the move on the left, and the second national championship was with the move on the right.
And it was nuts to see how all that works out.
And looking back on this book and seeing, like, man, you've got to...
Yeah, I think focusing on one individual goal like that or writing something down, having a very clear thing that you're working towards, it takes away a lot of the ambiguity that people have about wanting to be successful.
Just wanting to be successful, just wanting to do well, that's not enough.
You have to have something that you're looking towards, something you're moving and working towards.
That's probably one of the biggest strengths that our team has had.
The 18 employees we have at Water 4, we write down what we want to do.
It's so cool.
When I came on the show the first time, And I had gone and I'd only experienced the terrible stuff.
Like, nothing good had happened yet.
Only corruption and me holding the little guy that died and all this just brutal stuff.
But I came back and, like, finally was like, okay.
I can't say no anymore.
I got to do something.
And so let's just write it down and do it and start speaking about it and throwing it out there.
And then to see the other team, like they're coming in with the real, like here's the big vision stuff, but here's filling in all the details, how we're going to get it done.
And man, my first time to write things down was one water well on 300 acres of land, and maybe we could build a school and get a teacher.
And they would help them with education because the Pygmies don't have any representation in the government because nobody is educated.
And that's their excuse, at least in Congo, what I hear.
And so I was like, school, that'd be great.
One water well and 300 acres.
And now it's, by the end of this year, it'll be 3,000 acres of land.
Even being able to go back and have all these pictures to show you about Leo May growing papaya trees and standing in front of banana trees and all the different stuff.
But the time off, the ring rust, the time away from the sport against Josh Burns, a guy who traditionally wasn't a very fast starter, we thought he'd have time to warm up and he didn't.
Burns came right after him, a guy I think was trying to take advantage of the fact that Wren had been off for so long.
Wren handled it extremely well.
Wren had been away from it a long time so you could see the surprise.
You could see the fatigue.
You could see the questioning of himself.
You could see those times when things started working out and it started coming back to him.
The story of all his time off was on his face and was in his performance.
That's a guy making up for time off in one fight.
What's easy to forget with Justin Wren's story, with him helping out the Pygmies, with all he's done socially, with all he's done politically for that tribe, they can't go in there with him.
And the pressure of having a big story on your shoulders, everybody rooting for you, everybody reading your book, that's not an easy thing to carry into a fight.
Everybody talks about how great the story is and what it does for a fighter and what it does for their career.
It's also a gigantic burden.
You're not just fighting for yourself anymore.
You're fighting for everyone who looks up to you.
Winning that night was a big deal for him.
People don't understand what he was carrying.
He was carrying ring rust, and he was carrying the hopes and dreams of everybody he was fighting for, and he managed it.
Yeah, and two, it was, man, but one of the ring rust kind of things was, I could hear the commentators, and I could, I looked out, the first person I see is my wife.
And I see her, make eye contact with her, like, we stared into each other's eyes, and I know this is going to sound goofy, but...
She had a new outfit on and I'm just like, she's beautiful.
And then all of a sudden I see her and she's like, go!
And all of a sudden I'm like, I'm in a fight!
And he's like punching me and I'm just like, ah, crap!
So, uh, no, it was in, in actually right there was the closest part where I almost finished him there with some, some knees or coulda, shoulda, woulda.
And, um, and then I stop, look out at my wife, see her and Grace, which she came to Congo with us too.
And I see them, and I'm like, what am I doing?
After the fight, I instantly thought, what was I doing in the fight?
Looking out, seeing my wife, and thinking, she's beautiful.
So, I don't know why I brought that up, except for...
It was a moment.
Yeah, I mean, it was unique, and it was a blessing.
And that video actually was...
I'm glad to show it because of that, but then...
I meant to show you the one that came first, which we don't need to play that, but what happened for the first fight back, which is kind of nuts, that the guy surprised me and called me in the morning, and I was able to see him, and they were able to encourage me for the fight and say, we know you're fighting for us, all that.
It's really great.
Then Emily sent me a picture of her.
It's so awesome.
Her with like 10 or 12 kids around her, and they all have the biggest smiles.
Yeah, I think it was that and then I think internally there was some butting of heads between a few different people, between maybe coaches, maybe management, maybe fighters too.
I haven't given myself time to settle, to really train, to really focus, and I know that now it's a time crunch.
I'm 29...
I know that the youngest heavyweight, I think, is still JDS and Junior Dos Santos in the top 10. He's 32. I mean, Barnett's, I think, 38 and Brock's 39. Heavyweights tend to mature later in life.
It was a different pain than I've ever felt because it's a nerve pain.
And I was out in the forest and there was a couple, two, three days where we were there, you know, for the documentary, for the water wells, everything else.
And we got a team that came.
And so we got to get it done.
So I kind of stayed back a couple days.
But then while we're out there and different stuff, like a rebel group actually came like...
I believe it was three miles from us and only about a mile away from our truck.
And so I'm sick.
I can't get back to the hospital that I just came out of from getting treatment for malaria to get treatment for shingles.
So that was tough.
But for me, to answer your question, I want to be...
I want to be realistic, but at the same time, a quote my mom taught me, I forget who it was, but she says something like, an optimist is someone who goes after Moby Dick in a rowboat and takes the tartar sauce with him.
So an optimist goes after Moby Dick in a rowboat and takes the tartar sauce with him.
So for me, I want to swing for the fences, make the biggest impact possible.
But at the same time, We're restructuring stuff.
We had meetings at Water 4, and I think just getting everyone on the same page.
Well, me too, because I was spreading myself too thin.
Maybe first Bellator, then UFC. Yeah, is that a thought that you have in your mind?
Yeah, we'll be on one of those goals.
Okay, at UFC 200, this could sound goofy to anybody else.
I think a lot of athletes would probably get it.
Some might not, but I bought a UFC replica belt because I'm not going to hang it or anything, but I want to have times where I set that down on a table or a desk and look at it, think about it, dream about it.
And know that before I go out the door training You know, that's that's a goal of mine, you know, if I could get there then I know this fight for the forgotten can be Set up for you know, the maybe the rest of my life there, you know It could keep going on and on further than it right what if I did realistically to try to attain that sort of a goal Like it's gonna require more than just staring at a belt or writing something down.
You're gonna you're gonna need to go on a rampage and Yeah, Waterforce surrounded Fight for the Forgotten with a team of eight people from media to my sports agent to lawyers.
All these people are incredible.
And I'm sitting in the room with them at a conference table like this.
And I'm like, what am I doing in a room with these incredible people?
Yeah, and sorry, I probably should have set that up a little better, but this guy is an absolute monster, and we're getting together and we're going to start working out, and he's at Prime Jiu-Jitsu now in Colorado Springs, but they cross-train with Easton's, and anyways, the thing...
I'm all over the place.
But he is the only guy at the Olympic Training Center.
We're all jumping, doing squat jumps, row by row up these bleachers.
And I promise he's skipping one at least and sometimes two.
And he's just flying up there.
People will be halfway, three quarters of the way.
This guy's six foot four, 235 pounds, solid muscle, freakish athlete.
Well, I think you've also brought a lot of people in to help you with Fight for the Forgotten.
They can sort of pick up the slack as well.
And you've started a movement.
I mean, there's a lot going on here besides just your involvement.
You've started this movement and being involved with Waterfor and writing the book and letting people know about it on these podcasts and educating people to what your goal is and what you've been able to accomplish over there.
You started a movement.
So...
I think, man, if you really can do it, it would be absolutely incredible and it certainly would shine even more light if you could really become successful as an MMA fighter from here on out.
I feel like there's two parts of this where, man, the fight for the forgotten guy in me wants to be...
I want to be humble and everything else say, you know, it's not going to happen unless I do all the right things, which is the same on the other side of the coin.
But I'm at the same time, I feel like if if I can just get the time, I haven't been getting the time to train.
And one of the things that Well, you have to make the time.
Yeah, we have to make the time, and it's got to be the priority, and I don't think I do six to eight hours.
Whenever I was telling the guys at Water 4, and it's just because they've been incredibly supportive, but whenever I broke it down, like, when's your training schedule?
What time do you train a day?
I mean, they know some NFL guys and stuff like that that might train once a day for four or five times a week or maybe twice a day.
But with MMA, it's just so different that they're like, oh, wow.
So that's why they've rallied around me.
And I think that through that, it's going to free me up to really go to all the right places, get up to grudge for my striking, get to the Olympic Training Center for my wrestling, get around these black belts and world champs.
In jiu-jitsu get around the 10th planet guys get around this so that we can We can take this the farthest that we can beautiful.
Listen Again, one more time for people at home fightfortheforgotten.org fightfortheforgotten.com What is your the big pygmy on on Twitter on Twitter and Instagram?