All Episodes
Sept. 12, 2016 - The Joe Rogan Experience
02:23:35
Joe Rogan Experience #845 - TJ Dillashaw, Duane Ludwig & Bas Rutten
Participants
Main voices
b
bas rutten
30:55
d
duane ludwig
25:13
j
joe rogan
57:25
t
tj dillashaw
26:12
Appearances
Clips
j
josh olin
00:04
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Speaker Time Text
joe rogan
Yes!
Slow down, Dwayne.
Slow down.
You have an orange watch.
You are a fucking...
What is the orange thing?
duane ludwig
I've always been attracted to orange.
I grew up in Colorado.
So the Broncos, orange has always been around me.
So the favorite Ninja Turtle at the time was Michelangelo with the orange.
And then really no other fighters or gyms were using orange.
So I wanted to make sure I did my own thing.
joe rogan
That is your own thing.
duane ludwig
Orange, yes sir.
joe rogan
I absolutely love orange.
duane ludwig
I see some orange at a store, a crowd of people, I see an orange shirt and my eye just goes...
joe rogan
So if there's a fruit bowl and there's an orange right next to a banana.
duane ludwig
Ground to orange.
joe rogan
TJ, what is it like being around this guy?
tj dillashaw
Oh, it's intense, man.
I love it.
You know, life's full of energy.
You know, you can't be calm around him because he's got enough energy for both of us, you know?
joe rogan
Yeah, no, he's a madman.
We worked out today, and he's in the middle of, like, training.
He just gets excited and starts hitting his pass together.
duane ludwig
I love it.
tj dillashaw
I don't ever have to do road work because of this guy.
We hit mitts for so long and so hard that I'm in too good a shape already.
joe rogan
That's interesting.
All the footwork drills and everything, I never really thought of that.
You probably don't have to do road work.
tj dillashaw
It'd be too much.
I do too much training as it is.
If I started doing road work, I think I'd overtrain myself.
joe rogan
That's fascinating.
You have to kind of regulate that, huh?
There's a standard model that a lot of fighters follow, and road work is a big part of that.
But you think with all the stuff that you do, if you did that as well, it might be too much?
tj dillashaw
It'd be too many hours put into the day.
I'm just too tired by the time I get home.
I mean, I could do it out of camp, you know, just to keep my mind right and kind of get some zen going.
But during camp, it's too much.
joe rogan
Train too much to be able to have to have to run as well It's funny because everybody's got a different sort of way of doing it like Jeremy Stevens was on the podcast recently And one of the things that he was saying is that he really ramped up his running to the point where that What he was saying is that having like this like long endurance base Really helps him and fights because he knows that he is always gonna recover You can always push further and harder to me He seems like a kind of fighter that does need to build on the cardio anyways, you know
tj dillashaw
I feel like each person's body is going to react differently to training.
And I'm someone that has endless cardio, it feels like, when I'm fighting and training.
So I need to stay a little bit more fast twitch.
And I'm always putting size on instead of losing it.
And I feel like Steven's been trying to drop weight and get smaller.
And it helps with his weight cut, I'm sure.
joe rogan
Yeah, I think it helps with his weight cut.
But I think with him, it's also like a mental thing too.
He wants to break guys.
He's such an aggressive guy.
That's a big part of his training is just being able to have those extra gallons in the gas tank.
tj dillashaw
Absolutely.
I mean, I think that's what's kind of hard.
It's hard for me to run because of my mind so crazy, though, too.
I'm all over the place.
I'd rather hit mitts and be aggressive.
I'm too aggressive of a person, I guess.
joe rogan
Well, we were talking before the podcast about our friend Cam Haynes who just ran 200 miles, and we were like, that shit is not good for you.
tj dillashaw
No way.
No way.
Your body's not supposed to do that.
joe rogan
It might be good for his brain, though, because he's so fucking crazy.
He needs to know that he can do something like that.
He ran for 78 hours.
tj dillashaw
That's why I want to hunt with him.
Because I just know, it's like my dad.
When I grew up hunting, we'll go hike 100 miles in a week to go out the backcountry and have a backpack and sleep out in the middle of the woods.
I just feel like that's how Cameron Haynes would do it, you know, just as hard as possible just to do it.
joe rogan
Yeah, my friend Adam Greentree from Australia came over, flew over to America last week, went to Montana, and then hiked...
Some crazy amount of miles into the mountains, camped out, went in deeper and deeper because he kept encountering wolves and grizzly bears, camped out there, shot an elk, and for the last four days has been packing out this elk by himself.
tj dillashaw
Wow.
joe rogan
Four days.
So if you've never shot an elk or you've ever seen an elk before, folks, an elk could weigh, you know, somewhere around 800 pounds, which is probably around 400 pounds of meat that he's packing out.
So four days of 100 pounds on his back...
tj dillashaw
When you're hiking, you can't carry it all out.
You've got to quarter it out.
So not only say you hike five miles with something on your back, you've got to go back and get the rest of the elk to hike that five miles again.
So you're hiking the same trail two, three, four times, depending on how big the elk is when you're quartered out.
joe rogan
Yeah, and I'm pretty sure he said he hiked 12 hours.
So that could easily be who knows how many miles.
tj dillashaw
At high altitude, I'd imagine.
duane ludwig
Oh, that's right.
Another piece of the puzzle.
joe rogan
So he's got 100 pounds on his back for 10 hours, 12 hours a day, for four days in a row.
duane ludwig
That's ninja.
joe rogan
That's a workout.
tj dillashaw
I feel like there's nothing better than that.
It's so primal, hunting with a bow out in the middle of nowhere, especially by yourself.
That's crazy.
joe rogan
Well, also, you could get him on Instagram, Adam Green Tree Bowhunter on Instagram.
He documented it all.
You know with the Instagram stories?
So he was there.
There he is.
And a dude met him up there, a friend of his, hiked through the night to come and meet him up there and help him, I think, on the third or fourth day.
But he's got all these videos of him up there in the mountains.
tj dillashaw
That's an awesome picture.
unidentified
Wow.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's just so cool because, I mean, he's just out there surviving.
Look at this.
We're looking right now for folks at home listening.
We're looking at this tent that's covered in snow.
The ground's covered in snow.
And this is where he's been living for the past week.
I mean, that is the high country.
Because when you're on public land, most countries don't have the same sort of public land setup that we have in the United States where you can just go hike into the mountains and camp out in these national forests.
And so he took advantage of all that, and he's up there.
duane ludwig
Oh, where's he from?
joe rogan
Australia.
duane ludwig
Oh, okay, okay.
That's right.
joe rogan
Yeah, all you have to do is come to Montana.
You buy a tag.
I think a tag for an elk is $1,000.
And, you know, he's up there with a pistol because there's bears up there.
So his kill sight, a bear came in on his kill sight when he came back.
There was a grizzly there, and there's a lot of grizzlies in Montana.
tj dillashaw
Yeah.
Mendez was just up in Alaska and got an awesome moose.
And his story is pretty cool, too.
He got a real big moose and then over the night in camp, a grizzly bear came in and tried to take his moose off and took a big chunk out of its neck.
unidentified
Oh, Jesus.
tj dillashaw
Yeah, so his whole story of what he's got going up there is pretty cool.
He went on an awesome hunting show.
joe rogan
Wow, look at that thing.
Good Lord!
tj dillashaw
Yeah.
joe rogan
We're looking at Chad Mendez's.
It says a 63 inch do-it-yourself Alaska moose hunt is now live on his YouTube channel.
63 inches is the width of the horns, which is just insane.
That is an enormous animal.
So if an elk is 800 pounds, that's probably like 1,500, 1,600 pounds.
That's an enormous animal.
duane ludwig
He's doing guided hunts, right?
joe rogan
Yeah, he guides people.
unidentified
That's awesome.
duane ludwig
That's his passion.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's what he wants to transition to after he's done fighting.
duane ludwig
He should.
I mean, that's where his passion's at, and he's obviously extremely good at it, so no reason not to.
That's cool.
joe rogan
Well, here's a question.
He got popped for some supplement thing.
And a lot of people are getting popped for tainted supplements.
If you buy things in the store, there's a lot of supplements that you get at any nutrition store that have all these...
If they're not steroids, they're peptides, they're all these things that sort of make your body produce more hormones that are illegal by USADA. And he got caught for that stuff, apparently.
tj dillashaw
Is that what he got caught for?
joe rogan
Yeah, yeah.
But they proved it, that it was a supplement.
tj dillashaw
Oh, really?
joe rogan
Yeah.
tj dillashaw
Oh, cool.
I haven't really asked him too much about it.
joe rogan
It's a bummer.
tj dillashaw
Yeah.
duane ludwig
That's good.
At this level, you have to be mindful of what you're taking into the body, especially with the new guidelines, so it's just part of following the rules.
You can't go in the cage and eye poke somebody and be like, oh, I didn't know.
Now there's so much going on with supplements.
Now you have to make sure you put it in the research and the investigation.
joe rogan
Speaking of eye poking, did you see that picture of Travis Brown's finger knuckle deep into Fabrizio Verdum's eyeball?
duane ludwig
He didn't even say anything in the fight, right?
Did Verdum...
I don't remember seeing Verdum call home or anything on that.
joe rogan
I don't remember.
duane ludwig
I did see that jump sidekick in the beginning at the end on his trainer.
That was a cool fight.
joe rogan
Well, it was a bummer to me to see Travis fight like that because I remember Travis earlier in his career was just a look at that picture.
duane ludwig
That is creepy.
joe rogan
Fucking insane.
It's creepy.
Esther Lynn from All Elbows on Instagram put this picture up.
And she's an MMA photographer.
She takes awesome pictures.
duane ludwig
That's an awesome picture.
joe rogan
And this is insane.
I mean, it is literally knuckled deep in his eyeball.
It's hard to look at, man.
duane ludwig
His second knuckle, though, too, right?
His middle knuckle.
joe rogan
It's like his finger has disappeared in the eyeball.
duane ludwig
I don't remember him stopping or saying eye poke or anything.
joe rogan
I don't remember either.
duane ludwig
It was focused.
joe rogan
But there was a bad one earlier in the night with Jimmy Rivera and Uriah.
duane ludwig
Yeah.
joe rogan
That was a bad one.
And Jimmy Rivera, after the fight, said he couldn't see.
He said he still couldn't see.
He said he couldn't tell what color things were out of his right eye.
duane ludwig
Yeah.
joe rogan
Fucking eye pokes, man.
duane ludwig
Pride gloves, huh?
You've got to redesign the gloves.
A little bit of a curvature in there and that open all the way.
Sorry.
joe rogan
No, I think you're right.
duane ludwig
Most of the time, this is what I do.
Obsessed about martial arts making things better.
joe rogan
Someone's got to do something because the way things are going We're just so many guys are getting eye gouged so many guys getting damaged eyeballs It's just it's not worth it man, and it seems like we're waiting for something terrible to happen You know like look at Michael Bisping.
tj dillashaw
Yeah.
duane ludwig
Yeah.
joe rogan
I don't know if Bisping's came from a kick though.
I feel like it might have come from Vitor's kick Was it that or was it in practice?
I don't know.
Do you think it was in practice?
tj dillashaw
I think he detached his retina a couple times, so I think that's why it is the way it is now.
I think he's heard it multiple times, and it was kind of where...
Because it's not completely fixed.
I think they fixed it enough to where he can fight, and then when he's done fighting, they'll probably fix his eye completely is what it seems like.
joe rogan
Well, what they did is they stuck oil in his eye.
I don't understand it, but one of his eyeballs apparently has oil in it that's protecting the retina, so that's why one of his eyeballs is black.
Oh, yeah.
duane ludwig
I was wondering what was going on with his eyes.
That's why.
joe rogan
Yeah, one is black and one is his original eye color, which I'm not sure what it is, but it's very strange looking.
But it's just, he's a fucking savage.
I mean, he didn't even consider retiring.
He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, stick some oil in there.
Let's get going.
tj dillashaw
Whatever I can do, put an eye patch on.
Let's do this.
joe rogan
Gotta get back to the gym, mate.
duane ludwig
He does push it.
That guy comes to fight each and every time.
joe rogan
He's a fucking animal.
duane ludwig
Yes, sir.
joe rogan
Michael Bisping is the middleweight champion of the world.
And who saw that coming?
unidentified
He did.
duane ludwig
He did.
I've seen that opening in Luke Rockhold's Instagram videos leading up to the fight.
I've seen the same thing his trainer saw.
joe rogan
Really?
duane ludwig
Yeah.
tj dillashaw
He was telling me weeks before the fight that...
Things he was doing while he's hitting mitts, dropping his right hand all the time with his left cross and kind of leaning back and kind of shoulder rolling and whatnot.
And Dwayne called it out a couple weeks before the fight that he saw openings.
He didn't say he was going to get knocked out with it, but he saw some openings there.
duane ludwig
I mean, it's pretty simple.
You can see where the openings are on that one for sure.
And I remember after Bisping caught him, and his trainer pointed at him, and I'm not quite sure what he said, but he was for sure saying, like, see, I told you, I told you, like, that was it.
joe rogan
Jason Perillo was very good.
duane ludwig
Jason Perillo, yes, yeah.
He's a good boxing coach.
He understands the game.
I got respect for that guy.
But it's cool to see something you've trained multiple times come out and actually work, and then win the fight, and then the title fight, whoo!
That's nice.
That's rewarding.
joe rogan
Well, along the lines of what we were talking about today when we were working out, there's so much depth to this sport.
There's so many options and there's so many possibilities that to the outsider, people look at it, it looks brutal.
You see that eye poke and you're like, oh my god, this sport should be illegal.
But to a person who really understands and watches it and appreciates it, it's like this crazy language.
That you have to learn with all these different words and all these different ways of putting together sentences and I like to use a language analogy because Like if you're talking to someone and they only know a few words and they want to yell at you But you're like some Sam Harris type dude who can just has an incredible language and you're just so eloquent You spin them up like a web and they don't really don't know what the fuck to say.
Yeah And that also happens in a fight when a guy has a very simple like real obvious game He does a couple of things and he does it well as long as you engage him in that same sort of simple obvious way He's got a chance, but when you over flood him like Dwayne this Dwayne was showing me this Switch series that he works on, which is really amazing.
Really, really interesting stuff.
duane ludwig
Thank you, sir.
joe rogan
But one of the things I noticed is while you were demonstrated to me, because it's so unusual, it forced my brain to hiccup for a second and go, oh, okay.
And if that happens in a fight, you're fucksville, right?
unidentified
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
tj dillashaw
100%.
joe rogan
Those little hiccups, right?
Those little moments where your brain is overloaded because it's got to think instead of just react because you're doing something unique.
tj dillashaw
If you're thinking inside the octagon, you're going to get caught, you're going to be in trouble.
You need to have a completely clear mind and just kind of react to things.
And for me, it's just been kind of having fun out there.
You know, the more fun I have and the more loose I stay, the better I'm going to fight.
If I go in there with a game plan and thinking what I want to throw and what to watch out for, what he's good at, what he's not good at, then I'm going to be a little bit slower, you know?
joe rogan
We were talking about your fight with Dominic Cruz that you seemed so emotional.
You wanted to kill that dude.
I did.
tj dillashaw
I definitely wanted to kill him.
joe rogan
It was obvious.
You were headhunting.
One of the things that I really enjoyed about your first and your second fight with Hen and Burrell...
But your first fight with Hen and Barat was like, here you are, fighting for the title, and you look like you're in a sparring session.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
You were just so loose, like right away.
There's nothing under tension to what you were doing.
Everything was like flowing.
And I was like, look how well he's responding to the pressure.
You were having a great time out there.
tj dillashaw
Yeah, exactly.
Not thinking about it.
Like you said with the Cruz thing, I wanted to finish him.
I wanted to go out there and put a point on it.
Things you learn from.
Those are the small mistakes you learn from and you change them up next time and you come out there a little more level-headed and play his game.
Kind of like you were saying, he's a point fighter.
If you go out there and let him point fight you, then that's what he's going to do.
So you've got to be able to react to how he fights and change it up a little bit and that's why each training camp is a little bit different and you learn those things.
joe rogan
When you go and watch a fight after it's over, do you see openings and you're like, shit!
duane ludwig
That's called regret.
I still have this, but sorry.
tj dillashaw
Yeah, 100%.
You'll see it and I'll start sweating because I'm getting mad that I didn't do something correctly.
You know, like in the...
Into the first round, I was watching the fight against Cruz and I had a double leg locked up so deep and I just didn't finish it and that could have changed the entire fight.
Just one takedown in the first round.
I was all the way deep, hands under his butt perfectly.
I just didn't pinch my elbows to finish it.
So I went to lift him and he slid right through my arms.
One difference I had to make was pinching my elbows in and, you know, it changes it.
joe rogan
It's just one of those things in the moment, isn't it?
It's fascinating how you have to train perfectly and then you have to just let everything go automatic.
duane ludwig
Yeah, that's exactly it.
You hit the nail on the head is to train everything perfectly.
Now it comes down to quality reps.
But then, what's a quality rep?
Hitting and not getting hit, or getting the takedown, not getting taken down, things like that, right?
So now it comes to the point of adapting to the athlete and the scenario.
What's correct, again, is making sure you have high success with that technique, whatever that technique may be.
So just putting in the time of the reps until it comes out fluidly and there's no longer a thought but an instant reaction.
joe rogan
Well and also having the right coaches too that can give you that information and can give you that high level technique because there's so many people out there that are talented people but you see their game just doesn't evolve.
It just hits this level and it's sort of like the level that their coaches are capable of taking them to and then they don't go any further.
tj dillashaw
You have to believe and trust in that coach to be able to take you to that level.
Someone can be telling you the exact thing you need to do, but if you don't trust and believe that guy, if he doesn't get it through your head the right ways, then it's not going to make sense.
You're not going to do it because you don't believe in it.
joe rogan
Well, I think it's amazing what's going on right now with MMA, that people who are casual people, like, perfect example, the other day I was at my daughter's school, and one of the dads came up to me, and this dude was just a new fan.
He'd only been watching MMA for the past year.
And he was just rapid-firing questions at me, and he was obsessed with it.
He's like, I was never into martial arts when I was a kid.
I watched a little bit of boxing.
And he's like, but man, the UFC has just got me hooked.
And he's like, one of the things that I love about it is how many different ways a fight can end.
He's like, it's so crazy.
You'll watch a fight, and then all of a sudden, the guy's getting choked.
It's like, what happened?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
And we were going over this, about it, and this guy was a real smart guy.
I think he was a hedge fund manager or something like that.
But he was obsessed with all the possibilities.
You know, and I think casual fans are starting to understand now that this is a very intellectual pursuit.
If you don't have a strong mind, and if you don't have this full range of options and possibilities inside the octagon, you're most likely limiting yourself.
duane ludwig
Agreed.
Agreed.
I see that.
Yeah, possibilities are nice.
Way to change things up.
And again, like we said earlier, confuse the brain, get them thinking about something else, and then you do something else.
So it's always nice.
joe rogan
But I think right now we're seeing, like, there's a pack, right?
There's like this standard pack of athletes that are doing things in a certain way.
And then there's a few that are moving away from the pack.
And they're expanding the potential of MMA. I think you're one of those people.
tj dillashaw
I appreciate it.
joe rogan
And I think you for sure are one of those coaches and there's a few guys out there I know you don't like to hear but Dominic Cruz is one of them.
He's also doing it We were talking about him today that like his style is so fucking odd You know, he's technically not sound actually, but you know, but he uses it the right ways.
tj dillashaw
He's got awesome timing Yeah, he's got great cardio.
He's got a great chin Yeah, and then he can get away with the the bad things he does because he does them for the right way for himself Yeah, I don't necessarily think you can say it's technically bad because he's so fucking successful and he knows how to do it.
joe rogan
I just think it's not standard.
We were using Ramon Deckers as an example.
He does not throw kicks and punches like Ramon Deckers.
do is he throws him like Dominic Cruz where he's moving like a pendulum back and forth and his footwork is so weird and he's overwhelming your mind with possibilities and he doesn't do the same thing twice he mixes things up so well that he's a tough nut to crack indeed yeah he He's tricky.
duane ludwig
He's trickier than I expected, for sure.
But a piece of that, again, game planning is the talks up to the fight to get them emotionally invested, and then it becomes a bit trickier to find the head.
joe rogan
Right.
duane ludwig
If that's the goal.
joe rogan
When you were leading up to the fight, he was talking so much shit, and you could tell that you were getting so upset.
But that is a big factor in fights, right?
Because fights are so emotional.
Because it's one of the only sports in the world where your health is on the line, like literally.
It's not like you might get in a car accident when you're racing cars.
That's a possibility.
But the goal of MMA is for you to fuck up someone's body.
tj dillashaw
Absolutely, man.
The thing with him, too, that pisses you off so much is that he'll attack anything and just talk about something that doesn't even make sense just to talk and talk louder and faster and not give you a chance to talk.
It's like high school girls just bickering at each other.
I think that's what pisses you off the most, you know, because he's not even actually making a great point.
He's just making it and making it louder.
joe rogan
Well, he's very articulate.
tj dillashaw
Yeah.
joe rogan
He's a good analyst because of that.
He's good.
duane ludwig
He does good at that.
Agreed.
Another technique.
joe rogan
If you get a chance to fight him again for the title...
tj dillashaw
Yeah, I better.
joe rogan
Which, you're in line, right?
Obviously.
Well, you lost a very close decision to him, and then you beat Rafael and Sun Tzu, which, in my opinion, was, we were talking about this today, was an excellent example of how far you progressed, because you guys had a really tough fight the first time you fought.
It was a close fight.
This fight was not close.
You just ran away from him.
I mean, ran away with the fight, rather.
Not ran away from him, but ran, I mean, you were just, it was a clear victory.
You were so much more technical.
There were so many more options you were presenting to him.
He was basically the same fighter that he was back then.
Maybe slightly better, but you're a way better fighter.
tj dillashaw
I appreciate it, man.
We've worked hard.
We've worked long hours, worked really hard.
You know, it's crazy how, like you said, this sport works out how quick things can change.
You know, I mean, I could be on an 11-fight win streak right now and a split decision loss to Rafael Sinsal.
You know, I thought I won that fight.
A very close fight with Dominick Cruz that I felt I won as well.
Those two fights go my way.
I'm on an 11-fight win streak, still have the belt, you know, known as hopefully one of the greatest pound-for-pound fighters in the world, you know.
joe rogan
Well, you still are, for sure.
What's interesting right now, too, is this new rule set that's going to go into place in January, you know, where they've changed this whole thing about downed fighters, like being able to attack a down fighter.
You have to have four points down now.
I like it.
Yeah, if you put a hand down on the ground and someone kicks you, that's totally legit now, which I think is a long time coming.
I'm a little bummed out they didn't get rid of the 12-6 elbow.
But, you know, whatever.
tj dillashaw
Which is one of the most ridiculous rules, because that's really not going to hurt you any more than me putting a shin across your face.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's crazy.
tj dillashaw
Or getting a knee in the face and crushing your skull.
That stuff happens all the time, and now you're going to take away an elbow that you can't even really generate that much force with.
joe rogan
Well, it's not more force.
I mean, I think there's way more force in the elbow that comes down the side, because it's more like a punch.
Because you get your whole shoulder torques into it.
Your shoulder dropping down is a weird movement.
I mean, I guess there's some guys like Anderson Silva or, you know, Yatzen Klai or some badass TIE fighters that can generate ridiculous power with that, but I don't think it's any more than any other kind of elbow.
tj dillashaw
No, absolutely not.
No way.
joe rogan
It's just some of the rules, I think, are a little bit archaic.
I think we all agree, though, that the gloves...
duane ludwig
Yes, sir.
joe rogan
...is probably, like, if there's going to be, like, one thing that needs to be changed, I mean, it would be really nice if we could all get together and figure out a way to make it so there's less eye pokes.
duane ludwig
Well, here's three experts in the field right now, and we're all saying...
Pride style gloves would be an example, or like the Shido gloves, but anything that doesn't allow the hand to fully open.
joe rogan
Fuck, they own Pride!
Just use those goddamn gloves, you know?
duane ludwig
Those are the sweetest gloves, too.
I love the Pride gloves.
I collect all kinds of fight memorabilia.
joe rogan
Yeah.
duane ludwig
I'm all over the place.
joe rogan
No, they're dope, man.
By the way, show everybody your wallet.
duane ludwig
Oh yeah, nice.
I'm a boxing coach, Trevor Whitman, who's by far the most tentacle martial artist I've ever come across.
He took an old fight glove and made me a wallet out of a fight glove.
Have you seen that yet?
tj dillashaw
Yeah, I saw it on Instagram.
joe rogan
That is so dope.
duane ludwig
It's soft.
It's nice.
He makes all my punch mints, my tie pads, my belly shield, my leg kick pads, my kick shield.
joe rogan
I'm super impressed.
I was always impressed with Trevor as a coach.
Let me get a picture of that.
duane ludwig
He's just a ninja.
I mean, I take that same skill set and put that into martial arts or to developing technique or drills.
It's the same things.
You can put that same information to running a successful business or whatever it is.
He's just a detailed guy.
joe rogan
Yeah.
It's just fun to see someone do something that cool.
duane ludwig
Heck yeah.
That's unique, huh?
joe rogan
So, you guys are in Colorado now.
You moved to Colorado full-time.
You know, how much different is it living there?
And what is it like now?
Also, you're training at altitude all the time.
tj dillashaw
That actually made a huge difference.
I didn't even take into account when I first went out there.
When I was cross-training, I was going back and forth from my camps, going from Sacramento to Colorado.
Going back out there was so tough.
Some people get affected by the altitude differently.
Joseph Benavidez doesn't get affected by it at all.
joe rogan
Mexicans!
duane ludwig
He never gets tired, man.
joe rogan
Mexicans don't get tired.
It's a racist thing to say in a positive way.
I'm telling you, Mexicans have fucking incredible gas tanks.
tj dillashaw
Joseph will come up.
He'll be gone in Vegas.
He'll come out and he'll train exactly the same.
For me, when I go to altitude, it messes with me big time.
But I feel like I get the effects from it.
Long term when I'm done with the camp.
I've felt big differences when I train at altitude when I'm done with my camp.
After I've been out there for six weeks and I'm in a camp, and you come back down to sea level, when we first start hitting mids at wherever we go, it just feels awesome.
joe rogan
Yeah, sea level, you feel like a Superman, right?
tj dillashaw
Yeah, it's crazy how much of a difference it makes.
joe rogan
Have you ever tried one of those altitude tents, those things that people sleep in?
tj dillashaw
I have tried it.
It's so hard to sleep in it.
joe rogan
Is it?
tj dillashaw
Yeah, it gets hot in there, and then your body doesn't recover as well.
If you're sleeping at really high altitude, anything higher than where we're at, if you're sleeping at a real high altitude, it's hard for your body to actually recover overnight when you're actually supposed to recover.
You're supposed to have your testosterone built up when you're sleeping and oxygen get into your muscles and recover over the night.
And if you're sleeping at high altitude, it's really hard to do that.
You wake up more sore, you wake up more tired, and it's hard to recover.
joe rogan
Interesting.
So what I had heard was that the best balance was training at sea level, but sleeping and living at altitude.
duane ludwig
I heard that as well.
tj dillashaw
It seems like it wants to go back and forth all the time.
That's what I heard when I was in school.
You know, I was a kinesiology major and I was really into the exercise physiology.
They said, train low, sleep high.
You know, so that your body, when you're sleeping and hanging out, you're rebuilding all these red blood cells, but then your threshold of working out at sea level, you can push it so much harder.
So your body's used to going that hard.
You know, but you train in lack of oxygen, you can't train as hard.
So I mean, that makes sense to me.
But then when sleeping in an altitude tent, I feel like you can't recover until you're acclimated.
You know, once you're acclimated, you can recover, you know, because you have more red blood cells in your body.
But until then...
joe rogan
I wonder if anybody does it where you live in San Bernardino and then train up in Big Bear and just keep going back and forth.
duane ludwig
That was Tito's thing for a while, huh?
He lived up there though, right?
joe rogan
Yeah, Tito used to live up there for his camps.
He was one of the first MMA fighters to incorporate that, you know?
duane ludwig
No, Boss.
joe rogan
Oh, Boss did it.
duane ludwig
When Boss did pop for his heavyweight title, he came to Colorado for his camp for his fight against Kevin Randleman.
There was a promoter in town that would hold shows.
They were called the Lone Wolf Invitational.
He had a couple shows, and then I think maybe his third show, Boss was there.
He was just a special guest.
So then the shows after that were now at the Boss Street and Invitationals.
But when he was there, he would be a special guest at the show, and then he would do a seminar the next day.
Then I'd fight on the show and then do a seminar.
That's how we came together.
And he noticed the effects of the altitude, and then so he just did his next camp there.
joe rogan
I wonder if there's a difference between, like, when, I think, when they're studying how athletes perform while they sleep at a high altitude and train at low altitude, I wonder if there's a difference between the intensity level that MMA requires and the amount of, like, I don't think there's a sport in the world that requires you to train as much as MMA, because there's so many different things you have to work on.
duane ludwig
Good point.
tj dillashaw
Or as hard.
We train with a lot of NFL players with Lauren Landau in Denver.
He trains a lot of Denver players and a lot of guys come before they do their combine and come and train with them.
And you just kind of realize how much harder your strength conditioning is and how much harder you have to push.
And that's just one workout.
And then maybe they're going to do some football drills and whatnot.
We're going to hit mitts and do some grappling and wrestling.
It's a very tough sport to get ready for.
I really don't know if there's many that are as hard or harder.
duane ludwig
That's what makes it fun, huh?
joe rogan
What definitely makes it fun to watch.
You know, it's really kind of crazy when you think about like the 10-minute rounds that Pride had and how difficult five-minute rounds are.
Well, you definitely need it if you're a grappler.
I mean, who the fuck's going to beat Damien Maia if every round's 10 minutes?
duane ludwig
Yeah, good point.
tj dillashaw
Yeah, you're going to be worn out.
That guy's a backpack man.
joe rogan
He's so on another level right now.
tj dillashaw
That's one of those guys that's so good at one thing, but he's incredible at it that he can get away with it.
Most guys can't get away with just being good at one individual aspect of MMA, but he's one of those guys.
He's just so dominant at jiu-jitsu that he can get away with it.
duane ludwig
See, that's the theory, too, or the concept, is he's really good at the rear naked choke.
Well, a few submissions, obviously, right?
But let's say you're just ninja at the rear naked choke.
Now, that's your one technique.
Now, everyone's aware of that.
So all you have to do is just have different entries for that rear naked choke, right?
So different entries, and then obviously you finish the submission.
But as far as the striking concept, the same techniques or combination, just different entries and different exits.
Again, that same technique itself.
joe rogan
Yeah, there are a few guys who have just really excelled at one particular technique to the point where it gets ridiculous.
Like, remember Cody McKenzie?
He was catching everybody with that McKenzatine, do you recall it?
tj dillashaw
The backwards guillotine thing.
He came and showed it at Alpha Male.
That thing is crazy.
But you have to be built for it, though.
He's perfectly built for it.
His arms are long, you know?
joe rogan
Skinny, yeah.
Well, then there was Paul Sass.
Remember Paul Sass won like fucking 12 fights in a row by triangle?
And everybody knew it was coming.
He couldn't do shit about it.
tj dillashaw
But you can use that to your advantage, though, as well.
So I was helping Matt Brown train for Maia.
And I didn't like how he was approaching the fight that he was so worried about what he was going to do.
He's like, he's going to do these takedowns.
He's going to take your back.
He's going to do this.
He was so entrenched in what Damian Maia was going to do to him in the fight rather than worrying about what he should do.
What aspects he should take to the fight to stay away from his game instead of really what he's going to do.
So, you know, you can use that to your advantage if you're a fighter that's so strong at one thing.
Confuse someone and get them so worried about what you're going to do that they're actually thinking inside the fight rather than reacting and just doing what they're good at already.
Because if Matt would have fought, I feel like the way he should have in that fight, he could have picked Damian Maia apart.
Maybe.
joe rogan
Or maybe he would have got fucking grapple fucked again.
duane ludwig
Maybe later on.
tj dillashaw
That's my hope and thought at least.
joe rogan
Well, I'm a big Matt Brown fan, but I'm a big Damian Maia fan as well.
For me, it's weird because I'm a fan of a lot of guys and these guys oftentimes fight each other.
You just got to appreciate the event and appreciate the result.
tj dillashaw
Appreciate the sport.
joe rogan
Yeah, but what's one of the cool things about MMA is that there are these outliers, like this one-trick pony, like Damian Maia, but what a fucking trick!
I mean, he can strike, and Damian striking has gotten leaps and bounds better.
It's one of the reasons why he's gotten so better at applying his jiu-jitsu, is because he's so much more comfortable with his stand-up, his distance is very good now, he understands striking really well now, but...
That jujitsu is just so next level.
duane ludwig
He's making it happen.
joe rogan
When he runs through a guy like Carlos Condit like that.
tj dillashaw
Or out grapplers Gunnar Nelson that easy, you know?
joe rogan
Mawled him!
Just mauled him.
duane ludwig
Like you said, another level, for sure.
joe rogan
And also, goes to show you how fucking good Jake Shields is.
duane ludwig
Oh, you're right.
joe rogan
Good call.
People sleep on Jake Shields.
Jake Shields beat him in essentially a grappling match.
You know, and a lot of people forget, you know, Jake Shields was always a guy who kind of struggled with the stand-up because he wasn't like an explosive guy.
He was just sort of like competent with the stand-up.
Yeah, awkward.
But again, he beat Tyron Woodley, the fucking welterweight champion of the world.
Beat him in essentially a stand-up fight.
duane ludwig
So did Nate Marquardt.
tj dillashaw
Shields is smart with his grappling.
He's come out to Muscle Farm, worked out with us, and showed some technique.
And his top game is just so tough.
joe rogan
Ridiculous.
tj dillashaw
He doesn't even have to use any strength.
It's just all about his positioning and the way he's on you.
It's so tough.
I mean, it's a chess match for sure.
joe rogan
Yeah, he gets slept on.
He's fighting Fitch now.
They're gonna fight in the World Series of Fighting.
That's a very good fight.
Very, very interesting fight.
duane ludwig
That's interesting.
We have both ways.
I was wondering about Fitch.
It's good to see him back in there.
He hasn't fought for a while, right?
joe rogan
I don't know when the last time.
He tested positive after he fought Paul Harris.
tj dillashaw
Oh, did he?
unidentified
Yeah.
tj dillashaw
I thought his knee got hurt.
joe rogan
A little bit of that, too.
tj dillashaw
Yeah.
joe rogan
He tested positive for elevated testosterone.
tj dillashaw
Oh, wow.
duane ludwig
Yeah, you can have that.
You gotta follow the rules, right?
The guidelines.
unidentified
The rules.
duane ludwig
That's what has to happen.
joe rogan
Yeah.
duane ludwig
Making sure that's good.
joe rogan
But back to, like, styles.
unidentified
Yes, sir.
joe rogan
It is so interesting that there are so many different styles, and there's so many different people, like Wonderboy, who's a one-trick pony in the other direction.
You know, just his fucking striking is just bizarre.
unidentified
Mm-hmm.
joe rogan
And his style is like really karate-based, almost like a sport karate style.
duane ludwig
But it just incorporates the movement, and he's operating from a longer distance, and he likes to draw people in and get them extended before he catches them.
joe rogan
Dude, he's like a cobra.
duane ludwig
Yep, exactly.
joe rogan
Like his movement, like his back and forth, pivoting off the waist.
He does another thing that fucks with people, is that front leg.
His front leg is so nasty.
When he fought Hendrix, he hit him on a front leg side, To the body, and you could see Hendrix got stuck by it.
It was a hard shot, and he kind of acknowledged it, and then he got roundhouse kicked in the face with the same foot right away.
tj dillashaw
It's like the Zohan.
He just puts your stuff up in your face all the time.
He just never stops.
duane ludwig
Oh, that'd be funny.
joe rogan
To me, a dream fight is Damian Maia versus Wonderboy.
tj dillashaw
Just complete opposite styles.
joe rogan
Yes, that's a dream fight.
I want to see what the fight is.
I feel like now what we're watching too with Damian Maia is also we're watching this master who's 38. Oh, you're right.
duane ludwig
Good point.
Yeah, he's up there for the competitive ages, but he seems healthy and making it happen.
38?
tj dillashaw
That's the old man.
I don't want to fight at 38. You don't have to.
joe rogan
It's one of those things where you gotta wonder, like, how much more sand is left in that hourglass.
unidentified
Yeah, interesting.
duane ludwig
Or is it pulled around a couture trick and just fight until he's 50?
joe rogan
Yeah, I mean, fuck, Randy almost came out of retirement for Fedor.
duane ludwig
Oh, nice.
joe rogan
He was thinking about fighting Fedor.
duane ludwig
I wouldn't mind seeing that just as an old fight fan.
He's a fight nerd, yeah, for sure.
tj dillashaw
You gotta think about Maya, though, too, being 38 and being able to push it that hard still is his style of fighting.
duane ludwig
Yeah, good call.
tj dillashaw
He's not getting hit very much.
He's on your back.
His training's probably that way as well.
And so he's able to go a little bit longer rather than someone who's going to be in front of you and slug it out.
duane ludwig
Yeah, good point.
He's definitely taking less damage striking-wise over the years.
joe rogan
I think they did a stat on him where he got hit 13 times over the last four fights.
No way.
unidentified
Yes.
joe rogan
And most of them are the Matt Brown fight.
It's just fucking crazy how technical he is when it comes to his jiu-jitsu.
duane ludwig
That's why you don't play jiu-jitsu, right?
So you gotta punch him in the face while he kicks like Nate Marquardt did.
joe rogan
Yeah, well, Nate caught him early in his career, too, though, before he really understood the stand-up game.
Yeah, people sleep on Nate Marquardt, too, man.
You know, people forget how goddamn good Nate, especially in his prime.
duane ludwig
Yes, sir.
joe rogan
And you watch that Tyron Woodley fight when you fought him in Strikeforce.
duane ludwig
He looked really good then.
joe rogan
That combination that he hit him with was like fucking a video game.
duane ludwig
Yeah.
Yep.
He was sharp.
That's when he was working with Trevor Whitman.
He's back with Trevor as well.
Is he?
Again, Trevor is by far the most technical, detailed martial artist instructor that I've come across in any field.
He really breaks things down.
joe rogan
And I hear Shane Carwin's making a comeback.
duane ludwig
Oh, nice.
Really?
tj dillashaw
I heard that as well, yeah.
joe rogan
He's a free agent, so he can go wherever he wants.
duane ludwig
Oh, interesting.
I wonder where that's going to go.
Interesting.
joe rogan
Is he training with Trevor as well?
duane ludwig
I'm not sure.
I don't actually spend too much time with Trevor, but hopefully, if he's smart, he should.
He will.
tj dillashaw
I know he's really close with our wrestling coach at Mosley Farm, Leister Bowling, and I've been hearing it from Leister that he's a free agent.
Looking about getting back into working out and seeing how his body holds up to see how he's going to push it and what's going to happen.
joe rogan
Yeah, he has some pretty significant back injuries, right?
tj dillashaw
It was his neck, right?
joe rogan
Back in his neck, I believe.
But, you know, you gotta think, that guy played football at a high level for a long time.
And all that crashing, big dudes smashing into each other.
tj dillashaw
Those guys are freaking natures, man.
That's so crazy to be able to be that big and that fast.
duane ludwig
230 pounds, just run into somebody who's standing there.
joe rogan
It's not good for you.
duane ludwig
Yeah, definitely not good for you.
You want to stay healthy, that's for sure.
It goes back to keeping those same rules in line when you're training.
The goal of the training is to get better, right?
Not to hurt each other.
So just making sure you're taking care of your partner and using this time to improve and get better.
The better I get, the better you get, and so on.
joe rogan
Yeah, and if you can get a good camp like that where everybody has their ego in check and you all grow together, that's massive.
duane ludwig
Good point, yeah.
No egos.
They're there to learn and get better overall.
tj dillashaw
You know, that's something that I've had to obviously work on too because I'm so competitive and I want to be the best all the time.
You know, even in the gym, no matter what, I'm like, I'm pushing like, I want to train harder than you.
I want to be better than you.
And so that's something that me and doing have had to work with and I've always had to work on it.
You know, I just gotta, gotta, you know, stay, stay controlled.
duane ludwig
Control the fire.
tj dillashaw
Yeah.
joe rogan
How do you control yourself when it comes to like the amount of work you do?
Do you monitor your heart rate?
Do you check, like, do you have any sort of markers that you check to make sure that you're not overtrained?
tj dillashaw
I know a lot of guys do it off their heart rate and it's a good way to do it.
Mine is just kind of off the field for the most part.
How am I waking up in the morning and how am I feeling?
Am I eager to go train?
Am I eager to still feel like I'm the best in the world?
That's kind of like my body lets me know mentally what I should be doing and what I shouldn't.
It's taken a while to learn that.
I wish I would have known this during wrestling because I believe I messed up my wrestling career in college by just pushing too hard for too long and redlining my body.
So it's all just off the field now and I kind of lay out my whole camp that way.
I know what days I'm going to do three practices, what day I'm going to do one, and just kind of go off of feel.
If I need to rest a whole weekend or just rest Sunday, it's all off of just my energy levels and how much I'm willing to do.
joe rogan
Do you have a nutritionist that works with you?
tj dillashaw
I do.
They're perfecting athletes.
I'm actually teaming up with them now, too.
We're doing programs for little kids and for wrestlers as well because the wrestling world does not know enough.
I mean, they've cut weight for the longest amount of time, but they just do it the wrong ways.
But yeah, perfecting athletes has helped me out a lot with my career.
They actually have been able to boost my hormones with the way I eat.
How so?
My nutritionist, Michelle, she used to be a fertility doctor.
She's real holistic.
She's into acupuncture and doing all that.
And the foods that they're feeding you are the right things for your endocrine system and boosting your testosterone and making you just a healthier human being.
I mean, if you eat and live healthier, your body's going to produce more testosterone and live the right way.
And that's what they've done with me.
joe rogan
What I've heard is that more fats, like eating more fats, and I've seen it in a lot of different athletes, especially athletes that start following ketogenic diets.
It ramps up their hormone production because fats are a precursor for hormones.
So a lot of coconut oil, a lot of avocados, saturated fats from healthy meats, especially like grass-fed meat.
tj dillashaw
I feel like you can't get enough of it.
I mean, if you're working out as much as I am during camp or even just working out all the time, like you can't get more.
The good fats are one of the best things for you.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's the other thing to take into consideration.
When people talk about athletes and people talk about people that exercise and are fit and want to follow a healthy diet, there's such a different caloric requirement for someone like you who's training two or three times a day.
tj dillashaw
Yeah, two or three, just to switch it up.
Sometimes I'll do one hard one.
It just depends where I'm at.
But yeah, I'd say on average, three times a day.
joe rogan
So your body's just a blast furnace.
tj dillashaw
It's hard for me to hold on to weight.
I've got to try as hard as I can to keep my weight up.
So when I'm out of season, like right now, I'm trying to lift heavy and stay as big as I can.
And then when I get into camp, you know...
Change it up.
I'm doing a lot of hypertrophy right now.
A lot of hypertrophy training.
I'll get closer to camp.
I'll start doing more strength training.
And then when I get in camp, closer to my fight, I'm doing more power training.
joe rogan
So when you say hypertrophy, what kind of training?
Like deadlifts?
What kind of stuff?
tj dillashaw
Yeah, obviously I'll do deadlifts and stuff, but it all depends on the reps you're doing, really, and how much weight you're going to do.
So if I want some hypertrophy, I find a weight that's hard for me to do 10 to 12 times.
That's what's going to make my muscles build higher reps and start building size.
And then when I want to get strength, I'm going to start doing less reps, around six.
That's hard to do at six, and then that's when I start building more strength.
You know, power is, you know, three quick, hard explosive, you know, deadlifts and cleans and stuff like that.
joe rogan
And then, like, big breaks in between sets?
tj dillashaw
Yeah, all depends on the breaks as well, too, yeah.
joe rogan
So, when you're getting down to 145, or 135, rather, how difficult is that for you?
Like, what are you walking around at?
tj dillashaw
During camp, I walk around like 150. I usually show up five days before my fight at 152. I usually train what I'm going to fight at.
So I walk into the cage 150, 153 probably.
I'm training like that my whole entire camp.
Five days before the fight, I'm weighing 150 and then I just lose it all with water weight.
joe rogan
So that's not that much.
tj dillashaw
Not at all.
joe rogan
15 pounds.
It seems like a lot to people listening probably, but we know guys who are losing 25, 30 pounds.
tj dillashaw
Which I think is too much.
I think it's not healthy for your brain.
It's too hard to recover hydration on your brain, you know?
joe rogan
Have you ever thought that if you didn't do the hypertrophy training and you didn't do all the power training and you just did more aerobic, like you might drop down to 145 naturally and then might be able to cut to 125?
tj dillashaw
Yeah, yeah.
Have you thought of that?
I could make 25s.
I mean, it definitely wouldn't be fun, and I don't really want to have to, but yeah, it's definitely something I could do.
I mean, you know, I'm trying hard to...
joe rogan
Mighty Mouse needs a super fight.
tj dillashaw
He does, man.
And I'm a huge fan of the guy, too.
You know, he's so good that I would love to fight him, and I do feel I have a really good style for Mighty Mouse, too.
joe rogan
Because I know he's talking about doing a super fight.
tj dillashaw
Yeah.
joe rogan
I mean, he's in an interesting position because he's really essentially cleared out his weight class.
I mean, he's fighting Wilson Hayes, and Wilson's a very tough fighter.
duane ludwig
Is he fighting Wilson?
No, no.
Is he?
joe rogan
Yeah.
duane ludwig
He's going to fight the winner of the show that Benavides was just...
Benavides just wrapped up filming a show at the...
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think Dimitri is supposed to fight the winner of the show.
joe rogan
I think you're right, but what did I read today?
tj dillashaw
He was supposed to fight Hayes, but he got hurt and pulled out of the fight.
And now I think he's supposed to fight the winner of the Ultimate Fighters.
joe rogan
No, I think you're right, but I read something today.
I forgot about that, but I read something today about him fighting Wilson.
So maybe it was just an older article or something like that, or maybe it was confused.
Possibly.
But my point is, even if he fights the winner of the show, good luck to those guys.
tj dillashaw
Yeah.
joe rogan
Good luck.
You're fighting a fucking human buzzsaw.
duane ludwig
Yeah.
Yeah, he's on another level again.
tj dillashaw
Endless cardio, plunging from all angles.
Yeah, he's good, man.
joe rogan
And he's, in my opinion, one of the best examples, or the best example ever, of a guy who has so many possibilities.
His language, the language of fighting, his language has the richest vocabulary of any fighter.
I mean, the way he fucked Cejudo up in a clinch with those knees to the body...
Like, who does it better than that?
I've never seen a guy break a guy down better with knees to the body like that.
You'd have to go to Anderson versus Rich Franklin.
duane ludwig
Oh, nice.
Good call.
joe rogan
But that was almost like a more brutality-oriented thing.
I mean, when Anderson did, it was just grab ahold of you and just ragdoll you.
When he was doing it, when Mighty Mouse was doing it, it was crazy to watch.
It's like, Jesus Christ, these things are coming.
They're landing like that.
He's firing them off with no hesitation.
There's no wind-up.
There's no exertion.
Everything seems effortless.
And it looks like he could do it all day.
He could.
It looks like a real fucking problem when you're in there with him.
duane ludwig
I'm assuming, makes sense, is Matt Hume, being his coach, who's obviously the wizard, right?
Very intelligent in the fight world, but with the background of Cejudo missing weight so much, attacking the body, assuming that maybe he had a hard cut and maybe ate too much or drank too much, and attacking the body as far as the game plan.
So it's very smart of him.
Then also, obviously, he did it with the correct timing and accuracy, so it was good.
joe rogan
Cejudo really struggles to get down to 25. That's right here.
duane ludwig
He looked big on the show.
He's a big guy.
Yeah.
For 25, yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah, I find that he may be the exact example we're talking about with TJ. Maybe they were very similar in size, and he just decides to go down there.
duane ludwig
Ah, good call.
Yeah, just doesn't have the correct, maybe not the correct path to actually make it happen if he's actually missing weight that he needs to get.
I don't know what his deal is.
joe rogan
He doesn't miss it in a long time, but he did a few times back in the past.
duane ludwig
But he missed a couple of the UFC weights, huh?
joe rogan
Yep, and they made him fight at 135. That's right.
He fought a fight at 135, and then he showed them that he could make 25 again and did it.
duane ludwig
Because he's going to be fighting Benavides now, and I'm not sure when that fight is, maybe December, but Benavides is coming out to Colorado in about one week.
He just texted me the other day.
He actually bought a condo in Colorado, so he's going to be training with us.
Nice.
good benavides is a very creative martial artist i we me and him when we train we flow we create a whole bunch of new rhythms and paths and patterns it's good i do i love it as a martial artist finding the next level of the game it happens a lot with him also with tj it's fun to work with that level of athlete just to play with the game itself of overall expanding the level of martial arts that's where i'm fascinated by what's the next level where are we at what can we create yeah i
joe rogan
Benavidez is also one of those guys that if you saw him in a silhouette, if you couldn't see who he was, if you couldn't see any detail but you saw him move around, you would know it was him.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Even the way he holds his hand.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
The way he holds his hands, like everything.
He's got a very distinct...
duane ludwig
He's unique.
tj dillashaw
He's one of my favorite people in the world, man.
duane ludwig
He's awesome.
unidentified
I love that guy.
joe rogan
Love that dude.
unidentified
Yeah.
tj dillashaw
He's such a character, man.
duane ludwig
He is.
joe rogan
He really is.
duane ludwig
Talking about spinning kicks and stuff, he's got them.
joe rogan
He's such a good dude.
duane ludwig
He is really good.
joe rogan
What do you got here for notes, dude?
duane ludwig
Just for me to slow down and make sure I take my time.
Yeah, that's my main thing.
Slow down and think.
I get so wrapped up and I put myself into fight mode when I talk.
I just got to make sure I'm being calm and being collective and making sure I'm getting the points and the messages across with With what I'm doing because now obviously on the podcast This podcast has helped change my life over the years and I'm sure you get this all the time But you'd literally help change people's lives for the better and I thank you for that and thanks for having me on and Thanks for us.
It's it's badass, but to use this time properly to help influence others and not to Try to tear anybody's name down, but to help uplift and inspire and help people become better human beings.
That's what I feel my message is on this earth, is to help people become better.
And my vehicle, my tool is martial arts, so I love it.
Whether it's general fitness or training the highest level ninjas to compete for the belt, it's my service back to the world to help make sure we're all together.
joe rogan
Well, it's interesting to see you really flourish as a coach, too, because very few fighters have taken to it the way you have, where not only were you a very good fighter, an excellent fighter, but you've surpassed that as a coach.
That's really rare.
duane ludwig
I feel that.
I agree with that.
I appreciate that.
I just put my time and energy and my OCD-ness into developing others.
That's literally what it is.
I'm obsessed with it.
Only one way to be great is to be obsessive and then to have fellow ninjas like TJ and Benavidez to play along with this tool of martial arts to see what the next layer is.
I love it.
I need this level of dedication and athleticism in order to do that.
Because of them, I'm at the level that I'm at.
It's a win-win.
Every relationship should be.
Read the notes.
Slow down.
Every relationship should be a win-win, not a one-sided path.
Not long ago, TJ asked me why I'm always so hyper and excited and loving life.
It's because his goals are my goals.
One of my dreams is to see him with the belt again.
That's something that I obsess of, is to make sure he's wearing the belt, that it's in his proper place.
And same thing for Benavidez.
I would absolutely love to have Benavidez be wearing the belt.
For me, to help others become better brings me a lot of joy, and I love that.
joe rogan
Isn't it funny that that passion and that intensity and focus has a negative connotation?
People call it OCD. We're weird with our definitions.
duane ludwig
It works for me.
joe rogan
But why is that necessarily negative?
duane ludwig
It's not, yeah.
For me, because I have so many things going on, there's so many other elements throughout the world with my wife, my family, my business, I'm lucky and I'm blessed that everything in my circle, my bubble works with each other well.
Because, I mean, I take my kids to go and train, my wife goes and trains.
People ask me this quite a bit.
Are you going to have your kids fight?
No, I'm not going to have them fight.
If they choose to, I will support their path, whatever that is, whatever their passion is, I will support that.
But they do have to train because they look at it as a form of insurance.
I'm not always going to be around to protect them.
I want to make sure that they can handle We're good to go.
joe rogan
El Guapo just texted me.
duane ludwig
Yeah, Sensei!
He's here.
He's the man.
tj dillashaw
Carter's definitely going to fight.
duane ludwig
Yeah, little boss.
So I have my daughter, Jade, my little boy, Dwayne Bang Ludwig, and then my third child is Carter Boss Ludwig, but we all refer to him as Boss.
Well, little boss.
He's the man.
So Sensei Ruins is my main...
He's the most influential martial artist to make an impact on me.
And he's changed my life with what he's done for me, his care and his passion in my martial art journey.
And then he's the first guy to take combinations and put them into one coat.
joe rogan
Oh shit!
Ladies and gentlemen, the great Boss Rudin is here!
Boss Rootin, ladies and gentlemen, former UFC heavyweight champion and one of the baddest men that ever lived!
tj dillashaw
I know Carter's gonna fight just because how aggressive he is.
I remember like the first time ever going to Dwayne's house and watching his little two-year-old pride stomp his dog.
He knows what a pride stomp is.
unidentified
We have big, huge pit bulls.
duane ludwig
One of them was.
joe rogan
That's a dangerous move, a two-year-old kid stomping a pit bull.
duane ludwig
People have the misconception of pit bulls being bad dogs, but they were known in the past as nanny dogs.
My kids can actually physically rough up my pit bulls, and they don't care.
They're big enough, they're strong enough, they're composed enough, and they're females.
So they're just about it.
joe rogan
The females, that definitely helps.
duane ludwig
So that helps for sure, yeah.
bas rutten
Tell them the story that you pretty much went naked and I heard from your wife yesterday.
The pit bulls separating the pit bulls.
duane ludwig
So the two dogs.
joe rogan
Do you have two females?
duane ludwig
We have two females.
Ooh, that's not good.
Yeah.
The story would prove your point correct.
I'm about to hop in the shower, and my wife tells me the dogs are fighting out back, so I grab my towel, I wrap it on it, I run outside to separate the dogs, because they'll fight because the neighbor's dog barks, and they'll bark at that, and then they'll bark at each other, and then they start arguing and fighting, right?
So, anyways, I run outside with my towel on to get the dogs to separate them.
While I'm separating the dogs, the towel falls off, but I still have to separate the dogs, and the neighbor's behind me now.
joe rogan
It's a show.
duane ludwig
Boom, and they have a get-together.
Oh, nice!
I'm in the back naked just rolling with the dog and separating him and making sure everything is good.
joe rogan
Does anybody have their phone out?
duane ludwig
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure, but his wife winks at me now and it's a little bit strange.
unidentified
It's good to be wanted.
duane ludwig
No, she doesn't.
She doesn't, no.
It's always nice to feel wanted.
joe rogan
That's a savage scene.
unidentified
A dude separating his fighting pit bulls naked.
duane ludwig
Dick flopping around.
unidentified
Oh yeah, that would have been good, huh?
duane ludwig
It's a joke now, so I'll say the dog's fighting and go rip my shirt off like I'm...
unidentified
Yeah.
duane ludwig
But that was a good one.
joe rogan
I had two females that fought to the death.
duane ludwig
Oh, that's right.
I heard that.
joe rogan
I came home as a dead dog in my living room.
Not good.
duane ludwig
How was the other dog?
Was it healthy?
joe rogan
She was fucked up.
She was fucked up.
I put her down after that.
She killed another dog, too.
She was crazy.
Rescue dog.
I got her a little too late.
duane ludwig
Both of mine are rescues.
joe rogan
I got her when she was about nine, ten months old, and she had already been indoctrinated into the world of violence.
unidentified
Oh.
duane ludwig
Yeah, as much as I travel and move around, I want the pit bulls there because no one's gonna break into my house with the pit bulls and my wife having the gun and everything, so we're good.
Or if they do, they're not gonna have a good night.
unidentified
That's a warning, guys.
duane ludwig
Yeah, yes, sir.
joe rogan
Yeah, and females are like super protective.
duane ludwig
They both of them are, yep.
Yeah, they genuinely love our kids.
joe rogan
Yeah, but females together, they're like chicks together.
Try having two wives.
Good luck with that chick.
bas rutten
Both together to the restroom, right?
That's what they do.
joe rogan
They go together and stab each other.
It's just something about females.
Two men, they get together and one of them will decide, or two male dogs.
One of them will decide, like, okay, that guy's the king and I'll just fucking cower when he growls at me.
But females, they fucking, they never decide who the alpha is.
They just go, nah, that bitch got lucky last time.
unidentified
We're going again.
joe rogan
We're going again right now.
bas rutten
It's women.
It's all the time with women, if you think about it.
When my wife comes back, she went out with other women, there's always stress, like, oh, so-and-so has cancer, so-and-so has this.
With us, with guys, that never comes up, right?
We go, oh, did you hear about him?
unidentified
No, we're like, party, have a great time!
So much sorrow.
joe rogan
That is so true.
Women always want to tell you who's sick.
Who's got a problem.
Oh, she's got chronic fatigue syndrome.
bas rutten
Oh, they read on the internet.
Oh, I have a headache.
And they read on the internet.
Oh, this could be cancer.
joe rogan
Oh, I think I have cancer.
unidentified
Right?
All the time?
tj dillashaw
My wife does that stuff all the time.
duane ludwig
My wife's good.
My wife, she's on point with stuff.
She's good about the good, positive stuff and lifestyle and take care of the family.
She's good.
She's programmed herself wisely, I feel.
joe rogan
Well, they say that there's a natural evolutionary path that women get together and talk a lot.
That's one of the reasons why gossip exists so much with women.
Because women would be gathering food and talking, and that was one of the ways they figured out who was full of shit and who wasn't.
Whereas the men would be out hunting, and they'd be like, shut the floor.
duane ludwig
Interesting.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's why men value.
It's also why men, they value quiet men who know when to be quiet.
That's important.
And also, they don't value men who wear shiny shit and are really loud and have a lot of junk on and stuff like that.
Because those assholes would fuck up hunting parties.
duane ludwig
Interesting.
I agree with that.
joe rogan
I don't know if it's right, but it makes sense.
It makes sense to me.
tj dillashaw
I believe in it.
bas rutten
Women are programmed to do more things simultaneously at the same time.
That's why they can't really take care of the kids, but they can do anything.
We don't.
We just have one focus, and that's it.
That's why with the military and women, I always think it's a dangerous thing.
And the reason I'm saying a dangerous thing is because the natural inclination for a guy is to protect a woman.
So if something happens, everybody wants to automatically...
That's an instinct that's built into the guy to protect a woman, which could, of course, make a big trouble in a great...
joe rogan
Right.
I see what you're saying.
As opposed to treating them as an equal on the battlefield to protect them.
bas rutten
Well, maybe training will take that away.
If they train like a guy, then they go, okay.
duane ludwig
My wife is down.
bas rutten
She's a little tomboy.
duane ludwig
She'll fight.
She fought me.
tj dillashaw
I'm afraid of her.
I can't insult.
If I play too rough with the kids, I'll see her looking at me, watching over across the gym.
I'm like, oh, shit.
She'll come and fuck me up, man.
She's awesome.
joe rogan
Well, there's strange times because we're asking women to take on a lot of the traits and characteristics of men.
Some of them want to, and I understand that, but for some, they feel like they're required to, and I don't necessarily know if that's what they want.
But I think society wants a woman to be a breadwinner.
They want women to contribute and compete with men in the workplace in a lot of ways.
And a lot of women want to do that, too.
duane ludwig
Equality, yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah, and then when you see that, and then when it comes to the military, it's very difficult to say, like, oh, women shouldn't be on the battlefield.
Because then all of a sudden you say, well, what are you, sexist?
But, you know, it's not traditionally a female...
duane ludwig
Open option.
joe rogan
Yeah.
duane ludwig
If that's the path you want to go, then go ahead.
I want to be me, you be you.
We'll have fun.
joe rogan
Yeah, I get that.
I mean, there's some women that I think would probably gravitate towards killing people.
They'd probably think it would be a lot of fun.
bas rutten
Well, if you're a feminist, then also, when you see a spider, don't let us get rid of the spider.
They all want to be power, power, and then some of them, you know, oh, no, no, I do everything myself.
Ah, a spider!
unidentified
We can take a spider!
bas rutten
I say, well, that's your job right now as well.
unidentified
Right?
Right?
joe rogan
Yeah, I guess so.
I was reading something about arachnophobia, where they were thinking that arachnophobia, which is a fear of spiders, and a bunch of different snake phobias and a bunch of different phobias, might literally be the memory of your ancestors.
Someone your ancestors know died in front of them, got bit by a spider, or they almost died and they got bit by a spider, and that shit is just hardwired into your DNA. Some people will see a fucking spider and they can't move.
They freak out.
It doesn't make any sense.
duane ludwig
My daughter freaks out when a wasp comes by.
She'll just freeze.
I'm like, oh shit, I gotta go pick her up or swap the wasp away.
We have wasps in our area.
She just freezes out.
They fly around.
joe rogan
You don't know where they're going.
duane ludwig
My daughter's got good footwork.
She does.
bas rutten
A hummingbird.
That makes a lot of noise.
Sometimes when you're meditating, they're flying in front of me.
joe rogan
When you meditate, they come and fuck with you?
bas rutten
I open my eyes, this guy came back twice.
And I look at him, I go, what's up?
And he's right in front of me here, and he goes...
joe rogan
Maybe he sensed your chi.
bas rutten
For sure he did.
Or it's female.
unidentified
Maybe he was not a he.
It's Sensei Boss.
joe rogan
Is that Sensei Boss?
unidentified
El Guapo is meditating in the yard.
duane ludwig
We were just talking about Sensei before he arrived as far as...
I'd like to go back to this, but again, he's the first one that I was aware of that actually did elevation training when he came to Colorado.
Sorry to say that, but also...
What he did is he took combinations and then chunked them together, hence numbers like four.
If you say four in the routing system, it's jab, cross, hook, cross.
So again, it's that same idea of taking a combination and chunking it together because if I was to say jab, cross, hook, cross, that's a lot more time than me just saying four.
And that concept is what it took to continue to develop the system and just the idea to be able to communicate with TJ on the pads or in the cage with limited time, just calling simple commands or combinations so we can actually make sure that the fight's still taking place and not getting too sidetracked.
joe rogan
You know who's got a really interesting system is Mark Henry.
Mark Henry, who trains Edson Barbosa, Frankie Edgar.
He's a fantastic trainer, like one of the most underrated guys in the business.
Rashad Evans told me that he will name combinations after his daughter, like Rashad's daughter, like certain things.
And he changes them with every camp.
With every camp, the names change, so no one's ever going to be able to pattern you.
The other corners are not going to have any fucking idea what he's calling out.
bas rutten
Tyson used to do that.
He used to change the numbers all the time.
Because they would have a number system, but then every time he would change the numbers so nobody could pick up.
tj dillashaw
I feel like we do too much shit.
If you're going to change shit up on me, man...
I'll be so lost.
duane ludwig
We're always adding.
tj dillashaw
He's got a system.
We do an online system.
We do his own academy, which he teaches, you know, the basic stuff.
I mean, boss, we got a boss combo.
We do, you know, we got my combo, stuff like that.
We'll put it online and, but then we always switch it up.
So each camp, my combo might be different, you know, but if he completely switched all of it up, I'd be lost.
We already do too much as it is.
duane ludwig
I'd be lost.
joe rogan
Yeah, we did the boss combo today.
When you're trying to remember all these different things, like the Ramon Deckers, there's like 50 shots in a row.
unidentified
Yeah, it does.
tj dillashaw
The Deckers, stuff like that, the Tyson and the Deckers, those things kind of tie together.
You're doing things you're supposed to do naturally anyways, like you're returning with the same punch and slipping and then rolling into the body and kicking inside and then kicking the head.
Those are supposed to come together no matter what.
He's just making it a combo.
So once you stop Stop thinking about the combo, you just naturally start to do it.
duane ludwig
Right.
Put on the reps.
tj dillashaw
With the Tyson, he's following the hooks up with coming to the body and then the uppercut.
So it's kind of stuff that ties together and it's a lot easier to remember it that way.
duane ludwig
Has to flow.
Has to flow.
Natural intuition.
joe rogan
Yeah, boss, before you got here, we were talking about the level of MMA right now.
It's so fascinating because there's so much depth and people are getting so much better and there's so many different styles and it just seems like such an exciting time right now for MMA. Yeah.
bas rutten
It is.
It is really exciting.
For me, the first big change that happened in MMA was that everybody now was in shape.
Finally.
You remember we had all these guys running out of gas?
Dude, that's like being a painter with half a can of paint, do a job and say, I'll run out of paint, I'm sorry.
You know, it's the dumbest thing there is.
unidentified
Go run a hill.
bas rutten
You know what one guy one time told me?
I said, yeah, but I'm a heavyweight.
I said, Kane Velasquez.
And he goes, yeah, but he trains really hard.
joe rogan
Also, he's Mexican.
unidentified
I look at him like, are you kidding?
I say, you just gave the answer.
Just train really hard.
duane ludwig
Nice.
tj dillashaw
And there's a science behind it now, too.
You know, how to train, when to train that hard, and which ways to do it, how to make your body bigger if you need to, or faster, if you need more endurance to train that way.
So, I mean, it's just like all these other sports.
joe rogan
There is a science to it.
tj dillashaw
It's becoming a real sport.
joe rogan
But to back up my Mexican theory.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
I talked to Crazy Bob Cook and Crazy Bob Cook said, Kane will take like a month off or two months off, get hurt, you know, something like that.
Has to rest up an injury.
Not trained.
Come back and outwork everybody.
tj dillashaw
It's so not fair, man.
That does not happen to me.
joe rogan
We were talking about Gilbert Melendez, another one.
Fantastic cardio.
A lot of Mexicans have crazy fucking cardio, man.
duane ludwig
I always had good cardio.
tj dillashaw
He has good cardio because he doesn't calm down.
duane ludwig
Yeah, I don't calm down.
tj dillashaw
If he shows up here early for the podcast, he's out in the parking lot shadowboxing.
You know what I mean?
He's not on his phone hanging out like most people waiting for whatever he's got to do to happen.
He's always doing something, always crazy.
bas rutten
But he goes 100%.
The thing with Dwayne is when you hold focus, Mr. Typex for Dwayne, You cannot say, oh, you cannot take a break for five seconds and say, listen, make sure that you do it.
He wants to keep going, keep going hard the whole time.
I said, guys, step back, do this different now, okay?
Just relax constantly.
He's in my face.
You know, he wants to go 100% all the time.
tj dillashaw
He does that to me holding mitts.
So on the other end of it, I'll be hitting mitts.
We'll be going for like an hour, hour and a half.
I'm just like, you know, dead tired.
So my feints and my fork have gotten so good because how much he's in my face.
He'll come at me at nonstop wanting me to throw combos and I am so dead tired I'll feint and move.
You know what I mean?
Like, give me some time.
Let me breathe.
Let me breathe.
duane ludwig
It's for the GoPro, a good cause of developing your skill set and martial arts as a whole.
There's a purpose to it.
joe rogan
We were talking about how interesting it's been how Dwayne has transitioned so well into becoming a trainer.
Was that a challenge for you going from being a great fighter to being a great trainer?
bas rutten
No, no, it wasn't.
For me, it's always been like riding shotgun.
We were talking about if a student fights.
I'm more nervous than the student.
Then I would be when I would fight for myself because then I'm in control.
unidentified
No.
joe rogan
But sometimes it's difficult if you don't have the right student, right?
If your student is not responding.
bas rutten
Yeah, it's very hard.
Once you have those, you know, but a lot of them don't.
A lot of these fighters don't listen to their corners.
Still, till this day, top fighters.
I mean, you hear the corner constantly screaming.
They don't do what they're doing.
They think they can see it better, you know, but once there is a trust, And there was always a good trust between Dwayne and myself, and the same with him and TJ. Then he knows what you're seeing that's probably gonna work.
And he will do it.
If I would say four to Dwayne in a fight, it will come out less than a second later.
I would just shout four, pa-pa-pa-pa, it'll come out right away.
If you could enhance my voice, When he's fighting, it's a video game.
We need to get a bow horn.
joe rogan
Get a bow horn.
The UFC should allow bow horns.
unidentified
No, no, no.
bas rutten
I did that.
unidentified
In the UFC, I brought a megaphone because I thought everybody was screaming and they actually put it in the contract after that.
That you couldn't have a megaphone?
bas rutten
Watch my fight against Kosaki.
Short combinations.
unidentified
You didn't like this letter.
bas rutten
Because I figured in Japan they're quiet, but here everybody's going to scream.
I'm not going to hear them.
So Avi Rubin, the old owner of the Beverly Hills Jiu-Jitsu Club says, I'm going to bring a megaphone.
unidentified
They go, yeah!
That's a good idea.
duane ludwig
That is a great idea.
joe rogan
What about just like a tube, like a roll of toilet paper or something like that?
duane ludwig
You should roll up a piece of paper, huh?
joe rogan
Yeah.
Could that work?
unidentified
I'll try it Cones yeah, nice.
joe rogan
I always do it when I see them The reason why I brought that up about training fighters is because there's a there's an interesting parallel between you two guys Both great fighters and then both wind up having great students you having Duane as a student and Duane now having TJ's And a bunch yeah, I mean there's there's a lot to that There is you know, but it's all connection, and that's about everything in life.
bas rutten
You know, once there is a connection, that is, people, you know, if I don't care for him, you know, if he's not a good guy, you know, and that's what some fighters also, they come in, they just work out, they're gone again.
You know, they don't build a relationship, and once that happens, it hurts their fighting, I guarantee you that.
joe rogan
Yeah, I'm sure, and for fighters, it's really a problem when you build a relationship with the wrong trainer, and then you've got to leave that guy, and you know, you have this tight bond with someone who doesn't really know enough.
duane ludwig
Yeah.
bas rutten
That's a hard one.
joe rogan
Yeah.
I've seen that many times.
And when they leave, people get super butthurt.
It gets to be a real problem.
bas rutten
Yeah, but if it's real, it's real.
I always say, you know, I say to my daughter, she said, what do I tell the guy?
I said, Just tell the truth.
Can't go wrong with the truth.
It's a guy, sorry.
It's like on Inside MMA, I would say about a certified, oh, that sucked, or this sucked.
And they say, yeah, but what if we're going to get him on the show?
I say, I'll say the same thing.
And if he tells me that I'm wrong, he can't say, because it did suck.
You just got to be honest.
There's nothing he can do.
joe rogan
Yeah, it doesn't mean they suck as a human being.
It just means that in that moment, that was the wrong thing to do, or they didn't execute it properly.
duane ludwig
Yeah, and then I have to be on point, too, as far as a trainer with the fighters I'm coaching, I've got to make sure I'm calling the right commands at the right time as well, and that goes back to...
The relationship that you have and making sure you have that connection.
joe rogan
When you also have to know your fighter's capabilities.
duane ludwig
Exactly.
joe rogan
When you have a great racehorse, everything becomes so much more interesting because you have all these options.
tj dillashaw
And there's so much mental behind it, too.
Dwayne knows how to coach me, too.
Not everyone responds to negative energy.
Right.
Some people respond to negative energy right.
Like Danny Castillo.
You've got to tell Danny Castillo, you're doing that like an idiot.
Come on.
duane ludwig
Yeah, he responds differently.
unidentified
Fix that.
tj dillashaw
And he's like, okay, yeah, and he'll do it better.
With me and Dwayne, it's a little more, you know, I've got to pump the guy up maybe a little bit.
Tell him what he's doing right instead of what he's doing wrong.
So you've got to know how to coach each fighter.
And once you build that relationship like Boss is talking about, you don't let it go.
joe rogan
There's very few things that are as painful as listening to bad corner work.
unidentified
Yeah.
duane ludwig
Oh, that's fun.
bas rutten
I had a guy, went down to his liver in the corner, cross who crossed!
I go, you don't want him to throw a right hand right now.
unidentified
Let him keep that here so the liver is protected.
bas rutten
And I go, yeah, that's an idiot.
duane ludwig
Exactly.
bas rutten
Who does that?
duane ludwig
Yeah, I see that.
joe rogan
Did you watch the fights this weekend?
bas rutten
Yeah, I did.
joe rogan
What did you think about Stipe and Alistair?
bas rutten
Man, that was crazy.
duane ludwig
I love Stipe.
bas rutten
That was so crazy.
The three or four last punches he gave, I mean, they're on an inch.
They're all exact at the same spot.
He's got really good precision.
Yeah, I just stopped him.
And he got hit hard.
He waved it off.
But then that guillotine, and we know, 11 guillotines, I believe, that he had before.
unidentified
That's right.
bas rutten
And tight ones.
He put me in one time.
I said, I want to feel it.
I go, whoa, this is a really tight guillotine.
But he got out.
joe rogan
Yeah.
bas rutten
He's a freak athlete.
He really is.
And he's a very likable guy.
duane ludwig
He's awesome.
unidentified
Yeah.
duane ludwig
Steep is a good guy.
joe rogan
We were talking about his composure.
duane ludwig
Yes, sir.
joe rogan
He's so composed.
Like in Brazil when he fought Fabricio, when he was in a stare down.
He's just dead-faced.
He's got his own dead face.
It's not like a Fedor dead face or a Kane dead face.
He's got his own dead face.
But those guys, they can just stay completely calm.
unidentified
Mm-hmm.
joe rogan
You know, in that incredible environment of being there in Brazil, 45,000-plus people screaming for Fabrizio Verdum, and he just shuts his lights out.
duane ludwig
Yeah, that's one of the things, our main battle, right, is being able to control ourselves.
And he looks to have mastered that ability to control his own emotions and make sure he's directing the energy in the right path.
So, Stipe, good job.
joe rogan
He's a bad motherfucker.
It would be interesting.
To see if someone got into his head the way you and Dominic were going after each other or the way Conor got into Aldo's head.
That was a master class in fucking with someone's head.
Absolutely.
Conor took Aldo completely out of his element where he was just so frazzled by the time they actually met each other inside the Octagon.
duane ludwig
It was just...
bas rutten
I think with Overeem and Stipe, it's the same as Holm and Rousey.
You know, Rousey's intimidating everybody the way she is.
And when she stared at the stare down, that's when she lost it because she realized Holly didn't care.
At all.
She was just there, I'm gonna hurt you.
Everybody is intimidated by Overeem and you should be because he's a monster.
But I think Overeem could see in his face already He's not intimidated, this guy.
And then when you fight a guy like that, that little voice starts playing in your mind when it gets bad.
And that's why maybe we saw these crazy things running away.
Which I say is a good thing, because I said the same thing against Corwin McGregor.
But for a big, huge heavyweight, it doesn't look good.
And now you set yourself up more as a victim because he's following you in.
And that all is an input in your own brain.
Because now you start telling yourself, oh, I know everybody thinks I'm hurt.
Or that I'm afraid.
Am I afraid?
You know, there's the whole doubt thing that goes on in the mind.
There's always these two voices I say.
So one voice wants to quit and the other voice wants to go, right?
You know, you're in a really bad situation and they say, okay, call it quits, call it quits.
And then suddenly the other one goes, no, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait.
Let's just see what happens, you know?
And then suddenly you come out of the situation.
Like I was about to tap in my second fight, but then the audience started cheering for him.
And then my ego took over.
I go, okay, I get out of the situation.
And then 30 seconds later, I knocked him out with a knee to the liver.
And I go, okay, this is the last time I'm going to think like that.
Because the bad voice, stay away from the bad voice.
duane ludwig
Yeah, focus on what you can control, and that's yourself, right?
joe rogan
Did you ever use any psychological training?
Did you ever talk to a sports psychologist or anything like that?
Or is it all self-taught?
bas rutten
All self-taught.
But what I did a lot is talking to myself.
And people might laugh about that, but I'm very honest to myself.
Like people say, oh, are you nervous to fight?
No.
I'm not nervous.
Why not?
What can happen?
What can really happen?
He's going to knock me out?
Well, it's going to be hard because it never happened before, but if it happens, well, I'm not going to feel it.
Apparently, you know, you're going to go down.
Submission.
Is the submission?
Is that really so bad?
I'm going to tap.
So what is so really so bad?
Well, the really bad thing is, Listening to all the crap that all the not-so-good fans are going to tell you afterwards on social media.
But if you just care, remember last time I told the story from in the room?
If you take a fighter, who's normally a nervous fighter, this is what I tell my students who are nervous when they have to compete.
I say, okay, imagine now, the guy's right here, we put you in the room, we lock the door, nobody can go in there.
You guys fight, and when you come out, you're not allowed to say who won or lose.
Do you really care if you would lose?
And he goes, no, because everybody can lose.
I say, well, that's the mindset you should have when you go to a fight.
That's my mindset.
You know, winning or losing, I'm going to win.
I'm going to do everything in my power to win.
But if I lose, so what?
You know, we're human.
We come out of it.
I say, you overcomplicate things.
Certain combinations.
When I say it's a four, and then I do four punches to the head.
And then I say, I'm going to...
We stay with this combination.
The only thing we're going to change are the heights.
So now I'm going to say, you do the four-punch.
It's a left, right, straight, left hook, right, straight.
I'm going to say, okay, body, head, head, head.
Now the first one has to go to the body.
Head, head, head.
Body, body, head.
Head, body, head.
Body, head, body.
I mean, now you can make like 12 combinations from just a four-punch.
But some people, when I tell it to my students, sometimes they overthink it.
I say, no, just think body hat.
Do the same combination, but they start thinking, oh, that's a liver shot.
No, that's not a liver shot.
It's the body.
Just keep it simple.
And once you can keep it simple, it's much easier to...
joe rogan
Well, it's one of the things that we were talking about earlier was the amount of fighting that is mental.
And the amount that is your attitude and how you feel about things and how you go into things and just your enthusiasm.
Like Travis Brown, we were talking about Travis Brown, who earlier in his career was this fucking stone-cold killer.
I mean, he had all this crazy footwork, he'd throw a lot of kicks, and like, remember when we knocked out Stefan Struve with that Superman punch?
Oh, that's right, yeah.
Damn, he was so unpredictable and wild.
I was like, this motherfucker's going to be the heavyweight champ.
Just give him some time, and then he moved to Jackson's.
He's training at a great camp, but he just doesn't seem...
I mean, maybe there's a few losses in a row.
He just doesn't seem to have that fire anymore.
bas rutten
Did he lose when he was at Jackson's?
He changed camps.
joe rogan
Yes.
bas rutten
Right?
He started losing after he I change camps.
Most of the time, and that's what I tell people, like my stretch routine, and every time when I say this, they ask me, what is your stretch routine?
I do the same stretch routine as I did 23 years ago when I started.
Same routine.
And the reason is, it never got me an injury.
So if it's a winning combination, don't break it.
And it's the same with your team.
If it's a winning combination, do not break it.
Once you break, how many fighters you see changing camp or firing a trainer or firing a manager or somebody who always helped them and suddenly they start losing?
You broke the spell or whatever you want to call it, the mystical thing that was going on.
That was working.
Don't break it.
Why would you?
joe rogan
Yeah, but it's so rare that you find the perfect person.
Like, if you're with Johnny McFuckstick in Columbus, Ohio, and he's a shitty coach, and you've been with him forever, and you've got this weird bond with him, and then Faraz Zahabi wants to train you, and you're like, God damn.
What do you do?
Not everybody runs into Bas Rutten right off the bat.
bas rutten
You know, because I tell all my students, I say, listen, I teach two times a week, go anywhere you want.
Any gym, I don't mind, guys.
You want to spar with other guys, go anywhere you want.
But the problem is, if you have that guy we are talking about who doesn't know anything, he's going to be butthurt.
He's going to be, okay, you cannot go, you cannot go.
But a good coach will say, go!
joe rogan
Yes.
bas rutten
Just train everywhere.
If you can't find something better, please do.
joe rogan
A perfect example is Duke Rufus, who's a great coach.
And Pettis, Anthony Pettis, started training at Jackson's.
He just wanted new looks.
He wanted different things.
He wanted to mix things up.
And he had some great success doing that.
tj dillashaw
And he also cares about Anthony Pettis.
He wants him to do that.
He cares about his career.
He wants him to grow.
And so he's like, yes, please go do this.
joe rogan
Yeah, experience some new stuff.
tj dillashaw
Every time I went up and trained with Frost at TriStar, he loved it.
He loved the idea.
Go up there, get some new looks, get some new technique, grow, you know?
Those are real friends, those are real people that care about you, and they want you to have the best thing in your life.
bas rutten
I sent Dwayne to other camps, right?
I mean, he went to church camp also to train.
joe rogan
Well, there's a small handful, maybe a half a dozen or more, of really truly elite camps right now.
You know, there's American Top Team, of course.
There's a few that you could go over, but of places where you really kind of can't go wrong.
It's really just a matter of finding the right combination for you, too, right?
I mean, some camps are more grappling heavy, and you might be more of a striker.
We've seen that happen, too.
You know, the guys just kind of get the wrong formula.
bas rutten
It's the thing, if you're a great striker, go to a more grappling-oriented camp.
That's what I always say.
You got the striking.
That's what I decided.
Okay, this is it.
Forget about striking three times a day submissions.
That was it.
Never lost again.
It's just doing what you're not comfortable at.
And do that a lot and make sure you get comfortable at it, and that's it.
joe rogan
Wonderboy is a great example of that.
He started training with Weidman, who was a great wrestler, and it just completely changed his confidence and his stand-up, and now he's so loose standing up.
You're getting to see the same Wonderboy that was, I think he was like 57-0 as a kickboxer, something fucking crazy like that.
And you see those skills now because good luck taking that guy down.
duane ludwig
Correct.
joe rogan
He's getting mauled by Chris Weidman all the time.
Weidman, who's a big 185. Exactly.
duane ludwig
Yeah, that comes to the...
There's so many levels to mixed martial arts, so many areas.
We could obviously take the three easy ones with the striking, the wrestling, and then the grappling, right?
So with those now, what's your style?
What's your skill set?
Now, with that being said, you got to make sure you're getting with the best people in those three areas also.
But now we can take in the fourth account, which Sensei said earlier, It's the conditioning aspect now.
So there's a lot of pieces of the puzzle and you can't just go to one guy.
You can't just go to a boxing coach.
Well, if the boxing coach isn't really familiar with MMA because things are different, as we point out today, with the distances, right?
And then using the switches because of the further distance.
So you've got to make sure you have the correct people that understand the mixed martial arts game.
Because if you go to an expert karate guy who doesn't understand MMA, that's not going to work.
No matter how much you guys love each other, it's not going to work.
You have to have MMA in the mix.
tj dillashaw
Yeah, you go to a wrestling coach that doesn't know how to strike, he's not going to learn how to close the distances with punches to build a timer takedowns.
He's going to want to grab ahold of you and move you around to shoot on you.
joe rogan
He might also not understand where you're in vulnerable positions for submissions.
A lot of wrestlers still shoot that double with the neck on the outside.
They just haven't figured the distance out or the difference in the technique out.
duane ludwig
Yep, agreed.
Yeah, that's why I love this trio and this lineage because I'm taking what Sensei has done as much as I can than what I've done and then adding that up and I'll pass it in TJ's way and this is a direct line of lineage of martial arts information that's been expedited and it's awesome to have an actual martial art family.
Just keep passing along the knowledge.
It's fun for me as a martial art nerd.
joe rogan
It's also interesting because TJ has that wrestling background as well.
And I think that's a big factor in his success because he's incorporating all of your techniques and your techniques.
And then on top of that, you've got that elite athleticism.
Yes, sir.
The wrestling base so you've got awesome takedown defense and takedowns and also I really firmly believe there's something about wrestlers that fucking grind of dieting and starving yourself and dehydrating yourself and the mental toughness that you get from certain wrestlers It's off the charts.
tj dillashaw
I've still to this day never done anything harder than wrestling, even with all the aspects of martial arts and fighting.
Fighting to me is a lot easier than a grind of a wrestling season.
I wrestled at Cal State Fullerton where we started weight tour.
Like I said, I overworked myself and pushed through a 9-month season being completely strict on everything.
My diet, my I'm not going out and having fun with my friends because I'm wrestling and then wrestling every weekend.
It's such a hard practice.
Still today, we do two days a week wrestling practice.
I'm like, damn it, I don't want to go to wrestling.
duane ludwig
I just love wrestling.
tj dillashaw
I'm going to get hurt.
I'm going to have to go really hard.
Man, wrestling.
It's tough, man.
And it definitely does breed mental toughness.
And then you're learning how to compete on your own every weekend.
joe rogan
When you're training at Team Elevation and you're doing wrestling practice, are you doing strictly wrestling?
Are you putting wrestling shoes on?
And you're doing full-on wrestling competition between your teammates?
Are you doing that, Kyle?
tj dillashaw
We do that as well as MMA wrestling as well.
There's different forms of it.
But yeah, I'll go throw my wrestling shoes on and we're doing matches.
It depends on where we're at.
We'll do situations.
And yeah, we're doing full-on real wrestling practices.
joe rogan
Is there a benefit to having wrestling shoes on though?
Because you're not going to fight with them on.
tj dillashaw
Your defense will become way better if you wear shoes.
So it's so much easier to get out of a takedown.
A single leg, you should not get taken down on a single leg in MMA. If you do, it's so easy to slide your leg out on a single leg.
But with a wrestling shoe on, I can't just go to that easy defense.
I have to use my hips.
I have to cover his head.
I have to use all these positions to have a better defense with my shoes on.
joe rogan
So it's the difference between grappling with gi and no gi?
Is it that kind of a thing?
tj dillashaw
Yeah, I mean, so in college I shot high singles.
That's what I shot.
I shoot a high single, a guy tried to turn and kick out, I would catch his shoe and then take his back.
In MMA, a guy turns and kicks out all the time, so a high single leg is not going to work anymore.
So, yeah, I mean, like with a gi on, you can't get away with certain things.
You can't just slip out of a submission.
You can't just slip out of an arm bar and roll out of it.
You actually have to have the real technique of getting out of it if this guy is so good at it.
So yeah, it's learning you to do the defense the right way instead of using the cheat moves.
joe rogan
That's interesting.
Would it be okay if you did it with no shoes on and your opponent did it with shoes on?
Because that way you would have the slipperiness of being barefoot.
tj dillashaw
So if I'm wrestling against a kid that I know is coming in from college and he's really good, I am not wearing shoes.
I don't care.
I'm not going to wear shoes like Chad Mendes, one of the best wrestlers in the world.
At practice, he'll never ever wear shoes now.
His defense is ridiculous.
He just pushes you off his leg.
The way he'll stand now, too, is because he'll only let you shoot a single leg because he knows how easy it is to get out of it.
He'll never ever wear shoes again wrestling ever since grappling.
bas rutten
Don't you think the injuries, the twisting knees, come from shoes, wearing shoes?
Because a lot of guys, they do it on the wrestling mat, and that's still okay because it might slip a little bit, but as soon as you step on the judo mat with shoes, you're planting your feet.
And then with upper body motion rotation, something's going to twist.
Because a lot of injuries happen with wrestling, right?
tj dillashaw
Yeah, you've got better traction.
I've wrestled my entire life, so I guess I kind of know my positioning with wrestling shoes on and stuff.
But I think it creates better habits.
To have your shoes on while wrestling, you know, because you're not going to be able to get away with a, we call it a stanky leg, where you just whip your leg out, you know?
If I have a grip, and what you want is the grip above your knee, but as soon as I get your grip below my knee, just by pushing it down, I'm out.
I'm just sliding my leg out.
joe rogan
There's got to be a similar situation to wearing gloves, right?
Like when you're trying to limp arm at a certain position, you have those, yeah, real naked, it's really hard to finish with gloves on, yeah.
tj dillashaw
Any kind of grappling we do at elevation is with our gloves on, you know, because I'm catching certain moves and I can wrist ride differently.
Chokes are different.
I can't slide it as easy behind your head.
You've got to learn all those things with gloves on as well.
joe rogan
Some people think that it would be a safer sport without gloves.
tj dillashaw
Probably.
duane ludwig
I heard the point before about that, yeah.
bas rutten
A lot more bloody, that's the thing.
The guts and everything.
And the breaking hands.
joe rogan
Yeah, but you would learn a lot more effective striking.
Like, you really couldn't just unload.
On a guy and just hit anything.
tj dillashaw
So for Ross, I was up training up at TriStar.
He's like, hey, I recommend at least like once a day, once every other day, hitting the back with no gloves on.
You know, get that proper technique of knowing how to hit something with no gloves on so you don't have that padding and protecting.
If I got a 16 or a 10 ounce glove, I'm able to just go away on that bag and punch it as hard as I want.
I don't have to punch right.
But if I don't have gloves on and I'm hitting that as hard as I can, I have to hit it correct.
I have to have the right knuckle placement to put it on that bag.
joe rogan
Yeah, I mean, that's what a lot of karate and traditional martial arts guys believe.
They believe that those gloves are actually giving you this sort of false sense of your abilities.
Because your wrists are all wrapped up, your hands are all wrapped up.
bas rutten
Look at Tyson.
How many times did he break his hands in a street fight?
All the time!
joe rogan
Mitch Blood Green.
bas rutten
Because they perfectly...
Tape his hands up in training, and then when he has to hit without.
On the other side, you know, hitting a bag, but because if you do it wrong, like if you're hitting a bag bare knuckle, because I had a guy who told me, my coach is a really good coach because he lets us hit the bag until our hands bleed.
I say, your coach is an idiot.
That's what your coach is.
I said, because if this happens four weeks before the fight, guess what's going to happen?
Every single workout when you hit, you're going to reopen the cuts.
It's going to hurt every first round of your workout, right?
So yeah, if you do it perfect and the impact is perfect, but as soon as you hit and you slide a little bit and you shave a knuckle off, well, four weeks before the fight, that's not going to heal anymore because you reopen it every time.
joe rogan
One of the interesting things about MMA is how we're still kind of learning, and there's no right approach for everybody.
Everybody's approach is different.
The approach for Damian Maia is going to be different than the approach for Wonderboy is going to be different than your approach.
And it's so difficult to figure out who's right.
I mean, it's really based on the success of the past.
duane ludwig
Well, if we take away the gloves, everyone's going to turn into Wonder Boys kicking with Damian Maia's grappling.
joe rogan
Yeah.
duane ludwig
If we take away the gloves.
joe rogan
Well, there'll be a lot more chokes.
A lot more chokes and a lot more kicks if they take away the gloves.
duane ludwig
There we go.
joe rogan
Yeah, I mean, it's so much easier to sink chokes in, so much harder to defend.
duane ludwig
So we definitely have to change up the commands then.
joe rogan
If you look at football or baseball or any professional sport, they pretty much have protocols that are very similar.
Most teams have pretty similar protocols as far as training and how they prepare their athletes.
But with MMA, it's wildly different.
Who decides, for you, who decides when you're doing strength and conditioning, when you're doing hill sprints, when you're doing sparring?
How do you guys work that out?
tj dillashaw
I find someone that I trust completely and then work together with them.
For my striking and my MMA with Dwayne, it's something we team up together and think of like, what if I do this?
What if I do that?
And then kind of make a perfect plan for myself.
My strength conditioning coach, Lauren Landau, I believe in him completely, of watching him train athletes and peeking me the right way and how I feel personally.
It's all trial and error.
You know, where I'm at right now, I trust in every single coach that, for different aspects, at least for bowling for my wrestling, he's been around the game for so long and knows how fighting works, that I'm going to trust him in my wrestling techniques and help him pick me apart.
You know, Elliot Marshall is my jiu-jitsu coach.
I really believe in Colorado at Elevation Fight Team with me and Dwayne.
We really got it pretty good to figure it out.
But someone's going to come in and have a different mindset of what they want to do.
And if it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's just, it's the trial and error and the learning as you go along is so interesting because, you know, you lose a fight and then you go, God, what did we fuck up on?
duane ludwig
Where did we go wrong?
What do we need to do better?
joe rogan
Yeah, and then, you know, maybe, you know, you get that Joe Silva call, like, hey, you know, we have a fight in eight weeks.
You ready to take it?
duane ludwig
I had Joe Silva call me when I was up on a ladder doing electrical work in the mountains to fight in two weeks, and it was against Jonathan Goulet.
So I said...
Sure.
I take the fight and then I text boss right away or I call him and I say, can you train me?
He's like, sure.
So, go out for a week.
So, yeah, going back to the point.
That worked out well.
joe rogan
The fastest KO in history.
duane ludwig
Ever.
joe rogan
Ever.
We had a fight for that, dude.
We had a fight for that one.
duane ludwig
Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogan, thank you, sir.
joe rogan
I appreciate that.
Goddamn, there's so many people hating on him having the fastest KO in history.
There's a lot of fucking debate.
I was like, the referee, it's wrong.
It was a wrong call.
They were saying it was like 11 seconds or something like that.
duane ludwig
Yes, sir.
joe rogan
Like, bullshit.
duane ludwig
Yeah.
joe rogan
That was sick.
We played it over and over and over again.
duane ludwig
That was fun.
We were working on that exact technique, just pulling down the jab, going overhand, right in the back with Sensei, and just repped it out, ripped it out.
bas rutten
It was so fun because I'm leaning over the cage, and I'm saying, Dwayne, he's going to come up straight forward.
I want you to step to the side and just knock him out.
You will hear me say that, repeating it over and over.
I say, I don't know what, because every time I have that, I have one time I say, he's opening with the right low kick, I want you to counter it.
And then the guy opens with the right low kick, and how do you know?
I say, I have no clue.
Every time he works with us, with Jens Pulver, how we knocked him out, that combination we worked in the dressing room before.
Boom.
I mean, it's all the time.
With Goulet, for some reason, I go, he's going to come straight at you, just move out, and just counter.
joe rogan
Don't you think it's kind of data chunking?
You've seen so many fights, you've trained so many people, you just see things.
And you don't even know what you're seeing.
You know how sometimes you'll see a guy, like I call it all the time, I'll see a guy lift his heel up and he's about to throw a right kick.
Like you just know, just for whatever reason.
bas rutten
Twist a little bit, you know his back kick is coming.
And then, the funny part is when he does a back kick, 9 out of 10 times, the other one throws a back kick.
So I always thought, I'm going to do this on purpose and hopefully when he makes one, I'm going to catch it.
tj dillashaw
A little off-beats.
duane ludwig
Off-beats, yes sir.
unidentified
Like, I could do this too.
joe rogan
It's crazy when people throw backkicks.
Probably the most ill-advised backkick of all time was Chris Weidman vs.
Luke Rockwell.
unidentified
Was that called at the moment?
joe rogan
What do you mean?
duane ludwig
Did his corner call it at the moment?
joe rogan
I don't know if he called it.
I think maybe it's because Luke had been knocked out by Vitor.
duane ludwig
Right, yeah.
joe rogan
With a wheel kick.
So maybe, I'm just guessing, that Chris decided to throw a wheel kick.
But it was like, you could see it coming.
It wasn't fast.
bas rutten
No, if you don't know 100% how to kick, I said don't kick.
And he shouldn't have done it.
It was way too slow, and they saw it coming.
duane ludwig
Off a memory of that, though, when Vitor Belford did it, I think I remember correctly, Rockhold was against the cage, correct?
Because he was trying to circle off, right?
Yeah, so he was aware of the cage.
Now, Wideman's back was against the cage.
I thought he was closer to the cage than Luke was in that fight.
joe rogan
I don't believe so.
duane ludwig
No?
joe rogan
I believe it was the same thing.
He was moving towards Rockhold.
I don't remember though.
duane ludwig
The correct direction?
josh olin
But I remember Vitor threw it before, and it was the first time I'd ever seen him throw a wheel kick.
joe rogan
He threw it right before against Rockhold and missed, and he threw it again and landed it.
duane ludwig
Caught him.
Nice.
joe rogan
But he was just...
That was a TRT tour.
tj dillashaw
That was a different Vitor.
bas rutten
He told me before, he says, boss, my kicks are going to be getting really good right now.
I'm going to knock somebody out with a spinning back into the head.
I said, go for it, dude.
unidentified
And then he knocked him out.
joe rogan
Well, Vitor has had so many hand surgeries.
I believe he's had eight different hand surgeries.
He's broken his hand so many times that I think he just started concentrating more on kicks.
duane ludwig
I see that.
joe rogan
It made a big difference.
duane ludwig
This is going back to patterns.
People lift the heel up, you know they're going to throw something.
Well, figure out what they're going to do in that same theory is paying attention to what combinations and what techniques actually land and then chucking those together and making those the system.
So just going back to the language and the vocabulary of high percentage combinations, drill them and rep them out.
So it's not too bad.
joe rogan
Know how to really deliver a technique before you attempt it.
Like, the first time I ever saw Cain Velasquez throw a wheel kick ever was in the Travis Brown fight.
And it looked fucking perfect.
I was like, what has this guy been hiding this forever?
Like, he never threw a wheel kick and all of a sudden it's a perfect wheel kick.
But it's probably because he had practiced it and drilled it to the point where he's got it down.
It's like, alright, time to unleash the wheel kick.
duane ludwig
He has a lifelong martial artist in his corner, Javier Hernandez.
So I'm sure he's seen a million back kicks and can correct him on what to do properly rather than what he's doing wrong.
joe rogan
Yeah, but it's interesting when you see a guy out of nowhere pull a technique that you've never seen before.
duane ludwig
Well, I love athletes.
I can show TJ anything, right?
Or watch videos and see something.
He can pull it off right away.
He's a great visual learner.
I'm a great visual learner.
So the sensei, I can learn by watching tapes and watching somebody do something.
I can just mimic it.
So can TJ, so can Sensei.
It's just the way it is.
joe rogan
I wonder what the next technique that we're going to see that we couldn't believe someone's pulling off inside the octagon.
duane ludwig
Interesting, yeah.
bas rutten
It's been a clothesline, boss with his clothesline, and elbows to the collarbones.
joe rogan
I saw somebody land a clothesline recently.
bas rutten
When you do that, that fight's gonna be over.
joe rogan
I saw someone do that, and I was thinking of you, because you've talked about that so many times, that like, go up to a bag, yeah.
bas rutten
They attach to us both on the Twitter feed, right?
It was on Twitter somebody else.
joe rogan
Yes!
bas rutten
It's a clothesline.
joe rogan
Yeah.
bas rutten
But the clothesline, if you really do it, they can cover up with their hands, but you're still gonna hit them.
You loop around, and you loop around to the back of the head, which still outside the Mohawk.
joe rogan
Yes.
bas rutten
It's still a legal punch.
tj dillashaw
Well, I know feet is completely illegal.
He moved his head or didn't move his head, and it's his fault.
joe rogan
Well, also, Eddie Bravo and I had a conversation about this.
When you hit a guy with a head kick, a lot of times it's landing on the back of the head.
A lot of times.
It's coming over the shoulder.
A lot of times, the foot is impacting, the instep is hitting the back of the head before anything.
bas rutten
And nobody's ready for that impact.
Everybody's impact ready for the sides and to the front.
Tyson, his hooks, he was always the smallest guy, shortest guy, but he would hit his hook almost to the back of the head.
His hooks were so short.
I always say, just hit yourself really gentle with the palm in the back of your head.
Your brain is simply not ready for that.
joe rogan
Yeah, one of the best head kick KOs I've ever seen that came from the back of the head was Ernesto Hoos versus Maury Smith.
duane ludwig
Nice.
joe rogan
Did you ever see that combination?
bas rutten
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
Jamie, find that because it's such a crazy combination.
The way Hoos gets his leg up, they're in the middle of a clinch and...
Maurice, I believe, picks his knee up and Hoost comes over the top and down behind his head.
bas rutten
Saxo Janjira style.
duane ludwig
Yeah, yeah.
unidentified
He used to do this.
duane ludwig
Yeah, he just did a seminar at the academy.
bas rutten
Kicking over the defense.
duane ludwig
Yeah.
Right there.
And just like what you said before is, say you take a punch mitt and put it on the head.
You're going to let me just hit the punch mitt?
Like if you have your hands up?
bas rutten
It makes no sense.
duane ludwig
Yeah.
So, you know, having your hands up, you think the guy's protected now?
Don't punch him?
Put your hands up.
Let me punch your hands.
That's something I've always got from Sensei.
joe rogan
Especially kick.
duane ludwig
Block my kick.
Come on.
bas rutten
It's a misconception of people.
When they put their hands up, but this is what goes on.
If I want to kick you in the head and I see you put your hand up, a normal person automatically takes the power of the kick because he sees he's defended.
But if he just would not care and just kick as hard as he can on the defense, he will kick him out.
He's going to knock him out.
joe rogan
This last weekend we saw Yancy Medeiros fought Sean Spencer.
Spencer blocked the kick and he took it right to the head.
Check this out real quick.
This is Maury Smith versus Ernesto Hoos.
Play the whole thing so you can see the combination.
See?
Boom!
Look how he does it in the clench with the knee.
Boom!
unidentified
Nice.
bas rutten
Yeah, that is Rommel Decker's kind of style, you know?
Like the push and the kick to the head.
He started with that at all.
joe rogan
There's a way he was able to bring it up and around like that, too.
It's just crazy technique.
tj dillashaw
If you realize when he's in a clinch, he'll block the shoulder and almost pull his hand down for him.
joe rogan
Yeah.
tj dillashaw
He kind of guides his hand out of the way so his kick's going to come up and land behind the head, too.
joe rogan
That's also where flexibility is so critical.
Like, there's no more important thing when it comes to kicking technique than flexibility.
Because if you don't have the flexibility, your body's all stiff and it doesn't move right, and you just can't...
There's no one can do that unless you're flexible.
duane ludwig
Yeah, gotta stretch.
Gotta do the stretching routine.
bas rutten
Oh, this is a complete animal, man.
He's such a good guy.
joe rogan
Oh, who's the best?
bas rutten
In all the fights, him and Cayman, and all this...
joe rogan
Who was that one Croatian dude that kept knocking him out?
That fucking guy hit so hard!
unidentified
What an animal!
bas rutten
He was the first K1 champion.
joe rogan
He was an owl.
bas rutten
That's right.
He knocked him out.
Yeah, his muscles also, when you see it, it's like a different kind of muscle, it almost looks like.
It's very strong.
joe rogan
Yeah, there's some dudes like that.
bas rutten
It took a long time for him to break the ice with me, and suddenly he came to me and he goes, you're a funny guy.
unidentified
But it took like four times of meeting him.
He had no clue what to expect.
joe rogan
That's a hard part of the world.
It's a hard part of the world.
duane ludwig
Probably tough to relax in that area.
Gotta be on guard the whole time.
joe rogan
I think to this day, the greatest stare down of all time was Krokop vs.
Vandele.
Vandele would mean mug everybody and it would work.
He looked at Krokop and Krokop looked at him like, motherfucker, I'll cut your head off.
unidentified
He was a little too high with the kick.
joe rogan
That was the second fight, but in the first fight, I mean, you never saw the eyes of a killer more than that one time.
Because, I mean, he was ahead of an anti-terrorist squadron in Croatia.
bas rutten
But you see, I go back again.
That was Vendelay always intimidating somebody, and now you have suddenly a guy who does not care.
joe rogan
Not only that, your strong suit is striking, and you're taking on one of the most explosive strikers to ever compete in MMA, and a guy who, you know, was a legit K-1 level striker.
You know, it's interesting how that style really worked really well.
Like, here it is.
Like, look at this stare down.
Look at Kroko.
Get the fuck out of here!
Look at that fucking stare down!
I mean, that's goddamn terrifying, and I'm not even there!
That is legit as fuck.
duane ludwig
He's not believing in Vandele very much.
joe rogan
But it's interesting because Krokop was successful in K1, but he was never the elite of the elite.
duane ludwig
Right, agreed.
joe rogan
But his style, that explosive one-shot style, translated so well to MMA. Whereas maybe Ernesto's style would not have translated that well.
duane ludwig
I see that.
joe rogan
Because he was more technical, he would set things up more.
bas rutten
What I say, no single kicks, I always say, because they can be countered.
And I always say, or you kick like Mirko Krokop.
Because if you then kick really hard on the defense, you're buying yourself a little bit more time because you force them to block it.
But some of these guys with the left kicks, if they're the orthodox, they can't kick.
I say, take the kick.
What are you going to do?
Is it going to give you a rash?
I mean, it's not going to do anything.
It's not going to kick a muscle.
Just counter the kick.
Well, when Krokov gets a full blast kick, you're going to be forced to block, and then you can counter, which buys him a little bit of time to get out of the way again.
duane ludwig
That was TJ in his last fight with the sensei.
I just went for the kick and just step in and throw the cross, time him on the way in.
joe rogan
Well, there's levels to everything, right?
unidentified
Yes, sir.
joe rogan
And there's levels to kicking.
And Edson Barboza's switch kick.
duane ludwig
Nice, yes.
joe rogan
That's one of those things where I watch that and I go, what the fuck?
I've never seen anybody switch kick that fast.
tj dillashaw
He just...
His inside leg kick, he can win a whole fight with it.
bas rutten
A bunch of old Benny the Jet...
duane ludwig
Oh, yes.
bas rutten
His spinning back into the body.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
bas rutten
Oh, his back into the body.
Against Fujiwara.
I mean, I saw that.
Kings of the Square Ring.
When you see him, you can hear the impact on the body.
unidentified
It goes.
You see the guy crumble.
joe rogan
Benny the Jet was a bad motherfucker.
duane ludwig
By far the best American kickboxer ever.
joe rogan
Yeah, he's without a doubt one of them, for sure.
duane ludwig
I would say him, and then I would say Rick Rufus.
joe rogan
Such a pioneer, too.
I mean, he was doing that back when there was really no one at that level.
I mean, he was at such a high level.
Such a wild dude, too.
Again, Mexican!
duane ludwig
Is he a Native American?
joe rogan
Is he?
Oh, is he?
unidentified
I'm sorry.
duane ludwig
Or maybe a mix, but I'm pretty sure.
Because he used to come out with the headdress and stuff as well.
joe rogan
That's right, Blinky Rodriguez, who was his brother-in-law, was...
bas rutten
I saw him in Holland, coming in, he was fighting Spang, Ewan Spang, who's a big, bright guy, strong, strong kickboxer, and Benny never fought with low kicks.
And Spang is murdering him in the first round.
Everybody's for Spang, Spang keeps going, and he gets low kick, low kick, I don't know how he stayed in the fight, Benny, right?
In the second round, he starts coming in a little bit, and it was five rounds, five at the time, because Thai boxing.
In the third round.
And now, Benny the Jet starts coming back.
And suddenly, Spong starts spitting out his mouthpiece because he needed an extra break and then he did it again and he did it again.
And there, it was like Rocky versus Ivan Drago.
You saw literally the whole audience change from being for the Dutch guy to be for Benny the Jet because they realized this guy is so tough and he keeps hanging in there.
And then, Benny the Jet stopped him in the fourth round.
It was the craziest thing.
People were going nuts.
When he spit out his mouthpiece, even Spong, everybody, boom!
He was a new hero there.
It was the coolest thing I've ever seen.
joe rogan
Did you watch Glory this weekend?
bas rutten
No, but I heard it was really good, right?
joe rogan
Yeah, Jason Willness knocked out Simon Marcus.
unidentified
Oh, wow.
joe rogan
Fucking crazy.
And Marcus was lighting him up early in the fight.
Lighting him up.
bas rutten
He's like 44-2, right, Marcus?
Yeah.
Oh, three then, I guess.
joe rogan
Three now, yeah.
He lost to Schilling in that crazy fight where they went that extra round, and Schilling knocked him out with a right hook, which was an insane fight.
That was the tournament, too.
That was the first fight of that tournament, and Schilling fought two more A lot of times after that fucking crazy fight.
But the Willness fight, Simon Marcus was lighting him up, man, with Muay Thai.
And Willness is more of a boxer style.
And he was moving in and he had some success with combinations.
But then he caught him at the end of the round with a shot.
And Simon Marcus was kind of playing with him and lowered his hands and was smiling.
And he got hit with a couple of shots.
And the referee gave him a real questionable standing eight count.
And the commentators are screaming.
Joseph Valtellini was screaming, like, that's ridiculous.
They shouldn't do this.
The eight count's no good.
He wasn't about to go down.
There's no standing eight count in kickboxing.
Like, why'd they count him?
Like, they're saying that the ropes held him up.
Then the next round, Willness just fucking dropped him legit and hurt him bad and then dropped him again and finished him off.
bas rutten
For Hoover.
I'm looking forward to him fighting Badr Hari now.
joe rogan
December 10th, right?
Goddamn, that's going to be nuts.
Badr Hari is one of the scariest motherfuckers to ever walk the face of the planet.
unidentified
I have no clue how he's still out.
bas rutten
Out of jail?
unidentified
Out of jail.
joe rogan
I guess he's got money.
duane ludwig
Oh, that's right.
unidentified
Yeah, because they said it was maybe going to be in Morocco.
I go, don't do it in Morocco, dude, because if you beat him, that's going to be a problem, I think.
joe rogan
Yeah.
duane ludwig
Didn't he rob a bank, right?
joe rogan
No.
bas rutten
No, not him, but he beat up some people.
duane ludwig
Oh, Lee Murray.
joe rogan
Lee Murray went to Morocco.
duane ludwig
Okay, okay, sorry.
unidentified
With brass knuckles.
duane ludwig
My story's better.
joe rogan
Well, he beat some guy up at a nightclub where he stomped his shin.
They held the guy down, and he allegedly stomped on his shin and snapped it in half.
duane ludwig
See, that's not being a good person, y'all.
Fuck, man.
Like, damn, man.
joe rogan
I don't think that's what he was going for.
duane ludwig
No, I don't think so.
joe rogan
I don't think he was going for the good person.
Yeah.
bas rutten
Stories like that, you have many of them from him.
duane ludwig
Oh, man, that's not good.
unidentified
Yeah, not good.
joe rogan
Obviously, I'm a huge fan of MMA. I think that MMA is the most exciting sport in the world, but there's some things that you see and And kickboxing that you just don't see in MMA because there's no threat of the takedown.
So you see these wild technical exchanges.
And in my opinion, we need more of that.
There's not enough eyes on it.
Just don't think enough people are paying attention.
bas rutten
Phenomenal show, Glory.
It's a phenomenal show.
That's right.
I don't understand the numbers.
Why is not many more people watching it?
And especially the guys who are complaining about not understanding mixed martial arts.
Well, punching and kicking.
unidentified
Everybody can understand that.
bas rutten
85% knockout ratio.
It's a great show.
joe rogan
I love Glory, but I like Lion Fight better.
I like traditional Muay Thai.
I just feel like Glory would be even better if they just went Muay Thai.
Because why take away elbows?
Why no elbows?
duane ludwig
I'm not a big fan of elbows just because of the cuts.
It cuts too easy, right?
joe rogan
I understand.
duane ludwig
But then also limiting the clinch time because the clinch time can be boring, right?
So I think the K1 rules are more...
I like the K1 rules or glory rules better for that aspect, for the higher-paced fight.
Or just in the clinch, keep elbows, but in the clinch, just don't allow them to play around as long.
joe rogan
See, I understand what you're saying about elbows, but part of me is like, look...
It's a striking contest.
Why would you eliminate one of the best weapons in striking, which is elbows?
And Lion Fight has these...
I mean, look, they get cut up, like, for sure.
Like, do you see Gaston Bellanos as one of his face?
I mean, he gets cut the fuck up.
His opponents cut the fuck up.
They're blasting each other with spinning elbows.
But it's fun as hell to watch.
duane ludwig
Yeah, definitely fun to watch.
I'm not trying to be in there anymore at all.
tj dillashaw
I'm done.
joe rogan
I'm good.
duane ludwig
Much easier just coaching TJ and coaching the guys and teaching martial arts and eating what I want and hanging out.
joe rogan
I totally respect that.
I just think as a person who appreciates the purity of the art.
duane ludwig
Yes, sir.
joe rogan
I just feel like there's no reason to take out those clinch battles, and there's no reason to take out those elbows.
Because the guys who are good at those clinch battles, you know, they just start fucking blasting each other with knees to the body, and it has a significant toll.
And then the elbow battles that they have inside the clinch, to me, it's a really important part of stand-up striking.
duane ludwig
I see that.
Yes, sir.
Agreed.
We were talking about earlier Sexton Jinjura.
He just did a seminar at my academy and he showed us some really cool clinch elbow knee techniques.
It was nice to get it from an actual pure Muay Thai fighter to see his look and his perspective of what can happen in the clinch.
That was eye opening.
It was cool.
joe rogan
Yeah, I think if we didn't have those guys, we wouldn't know that.
We would have only the level of striking that we see in MMA. And I think, you know, when you go and you watch, like, a Ramon Deckers fight, you know, you watch, like, him in his prime, you realize, oh, okay, this is possible.
Like, there's levels to this fucking thing.
bas rutten
Jordan Mean, right?
duane ludwig
Yeah.
unidentified
His elbows.
joe rogan
Oh, man.
He retired.
unidentified
Yeah.
bas rutten
No, he's coming back.
joe rogan
He is.
bas rutten
I heard, yeah.
His father is the boss of the MMA system also.
unidentified
Yeah.
bas rutten
And he told me he's going to be back.
joe rogan
Yeah, he's a black woman to you, right?
bas rutten
Yep.
joe rogan
His father's a fucking savage.
There's a picture of him on his Instagram page.
He's like 50. He's fucking jerked.
unidentified
He's still screaming like crazy.
He's fucking jerked.
joe rogan
Yeah, Jordan is a very, very talented guy, but he had so many fights as a young man.
I mean, I think he was only 24 or 25 when he retired, right?
bas rutten
That's what I tell everybody.
It's because they start competing too young.
He competed when he was 15, 16 years old.
They have to lie about his age.
You're going to burn out.
You shouldn't do that.
Everybody's asking me.
I met this girl now in Visalia, 12-year-old, Jenna.
I started following her.
I sent her a whole bunch of gear and stuff.
She says, watch me.
I'm going to be the next Ronda Rousey.
So I go, yeah, I want to see that.
But it's, you know, it's the training.
I told her, start sparring maybe when you're 15 years old.
Wait with that, because your brain is still wiring everything to your nerves, you know, at that age, and it stops at 14. Just give it two more years, you know, till all the connections are there, and then maybe start sparring.
But competing, I would just wait, wait for competing.
Don't go in this early, do jiu-jitsu, wrestling, do all that, but striking to the head, I think they should wait with that.
tj dillashaw
Even doing those things at a young age, you need to make sure they're fun.
I almost got burnt out of wrestling in 8th grade.
I wanted to quit.
I wanted to be done with wrestling.
That's too much.
It was just because every weekend I'm competing that I'm so nervous as a little kid.
I'm putting so much pressure on myself.
They're like, I gotta win this tournament.
I gotta do good.
My dad was my coach.
I wanted to impress him.
All this stuff.
8th grade, I almost just gave it up.
Wow.
But you've got to learn to have fun with everything.
As long as everything's fun, you can compete, do all that stuff.
I mean, obviously kickboxing is a little bit different because you're going through some brain trauma.
But even with the wrestling and jiu-jitsu, make sure it's fun.
If you've got a little kid that wants to do MMA or a little kid that wants to get involved in grappling and wrestling, make sure it's fun.
Go to practice, play in some games, do some things as well as learning technique because little kids will get burned out way too fast.
bas rutten
Yeah, but how many times?
Because we heard it in striking a lot, right?
AKA, they were striking, they got injuries and injuries there, and how many times should we can spar?
We spar two times a day.
Do we ever get injured?
duane ludwig
No.
You and I are sparring?
No.
bas rutten
And we go.
If people watch, they're going to go, oh, these guys are crazy.
But we know exactly what we hit, where we kick it.
It's all about sparring partners.
Now, if you decide, oh, your great sparring partner doesn't show up and you get somebody from the club somewhere, yeah, who has this weird, he's not as professional, yeah, you get injured.
But I've never been injured in sparring.
joe rogan
Yeah, but you're a freak.
unidentified
So, yeah.
joe rogan
Keep boss rooting.
Settle down.
unidentified
Yeah.
bas rutten
But same with you.
You never get injured, right?
duane ludwig
We all spar hard.
joe rogan
What did you think about Cowboy Cerrone deciding no more sparring?
He doesn't spar.
He just does drills.
He was talking about that and looked sensational in his last fight.
bas rutten
He looked sensational because he still was sparring before that.
You know, it's closer, but the furtiest tear away, it's like Lawler.
He said he never sparred and finally he started sparring.
He started sparring and he became much better.
See, I look at that.
I think your reflexes need to be tested all the time.
If you're going to fight, well, then you're going to have to fight in training because that's what's going to happen.
Unexpected things, unexpected techniques, you know, you need to be prepared for that.
If you just spar, you don't know what I'm going to throw at you.
You can visualize a counter on my right straight.
Well, what if I set it up as a one-two instead of just a right straight?
duane ludwig
With that being said, we're talking about sparring, but it's not just full-on fight sparring, but there's a whole level of sparring drills that you can play with and mimic scenarios going back to the patterns, right?
Like, what's a typical pattern?
The jab, the cross, the rear low kick.
Learning how to deal with those things in the motion.
But while you're doing that drill, you have to have the clear mind like you're in the fight, but know that you're going to be countering the jab.
You're sending something up in the jab.
Not just going in fighting guys, I don't want this to be misled, where everyone's just fighting and sparring hard, but to do actual sparring drills, because there's a full path between hitting mitts and actual sparring, and then that's the web of the sparring drills.
joe rogan
Yeah, I think Cowboy also had an issue with cutting the weight, too.
duane ludwig
Yes, sir.
joe rogan
Yeah, he looks good at 70. Cutting weight was just too much for him.
At 170, he's a fucking assassin.
tj dillashaw
I feel like when he went up to 170, there was a lot less pressure on him at first, too.
He got to go into a fight with just having fun and not thinking about, like, I'm supposed to win this fight.
For him, he's going to a completely different weight class.
What is there to lose, you know?
And so I think that's what's helped him out a lot, too.
And I think he's kind of catching his groove.
He looked awesome in the last fight.
bas rutten
Right body, left hook, right eye kick.
I loved it.
And it went all...
unidentified
If you saw the body shot, it dug in there.
bas rutten
And then wrap it up with the high kick.
I loved it.
joe rogan
And the technique, the technical aspect, there was no wind-up, there was no muscle behind it.
Everything was just perfect.
Head kick.
It was just, God damn.
duane ludwig
He's another guy as far as developing somebody.
I used to help him out when he was first training in Colorado.
And he was so wrapped up into his own style, I would try to say, no, do this and do that.
But then I realized, look, everyone needs to be their own athlete.
You've got to do what's good for you.
If it feels natural, go ahead.
And then he's just a prime example of someone you have to allow to be themself.
joe rogan
Right.
duane ludwig
But just kind of guide a little bit here and there.
But he went down to Jackson's and look what he's done.
He's amazing now.
joe rogan
Well, he's such an individual.
duane ludwig
Yes, sir.
As we all are, yeah.
joe rogan
Trying to put Cowboy in some other boxes.
He's just a fucking wild man.
Who's the weirdest guy you've ever worked with where you're like, Jesus, I don't even know if I can fucking help this guy.
duane ludwig
Faber!
joe rogan
Faber?
unidentified
Yeah.
tj dillashaw
He's not going to try to learn new things, though.
duane ludwig
Yeah, he sat in the past, so you've got to respect that.
You've been successful, there you go, but the game has changed, now look at the results.
The game has changed, you have to change along with it.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing, expecting different results.
You have to evolve, you have to...
Let the eagle go and continue to develop and train and learn.
That has to happen.
joe rogan
Well, you guys had personality conflicts for whatever reason, you know, no blame, but whatever they were, you guys had...
duane ludwig
But it was a great time when we were together.
Like, look what happened.
Look what flourished, right?
joe rogan
Yeah.
duane ludwig
I became much better as a martial art instructor, being able to work with all the athletes, right?
Everyone, we worked together, everybody arose.
So it was a good time.
It was a good win-win.
It worked out.
Time for me to go home and do my own thing, and things laid where they were.
unidentified
Yeah.
bas rutten
You asked about why you know him as a good coach.
And the reason of that is what I already mentioned with the training.
He's always there.
He's always there on time.
He always goes full out.
And that work ethic he took to be a coach.
He will always be there with the guys cutting weight, doing everything.
I guarantee you they can call you at 3 o'clock in the middle of the night, the day before the fight.
joe rogan
As long as he's not naked breaking up pit bull fights.
duane ludwig
Just give me 30 seconds.
unidentified
I got this.
bas rutten
But that's it, you know?
That's it.
If you have that drive and you're so focused on one thing, you just put that focus on training.
tj dillashaw
I'll be training all day long, right?
I'll get home and want to just relax, veg out, maybe watch some TV, just do nothing, right?
And then maybe it'll be like 12 o'clock at night, I'll get a text from Dwayne, like, on something on my fight, what I should be doing, what I should be thinking about.
duane ludwig
I'm like, Sorry.
tj dillashaw
Now I've got to think about this all night.
The reason why he's so great is, like you said, he's constantly thinking about it, and he cares how well I do.
joe rogan
Before you fought Hannon Burrell, I was eating lunch in Vegas at the hotel.
I had a bunch of my friends with me.
We're all getting ready for the fights.
Dwayne comes over.
Hey, man, come on, sit down.
How you feeling?
Boom!
Sits down and just...
This is what we're going to do.
He's going to sit.
The whole thing is movement.
It switches.
He gets to the side.
The whole thing.
Burrell has his style.
It's his style.
He goes like this.
And he just was like a fucking hundred miles an hour.
And then he's sitting there putting food in my mouth going.
unidentified
And then he visited Kevin, James, Whiteman, and me in Vegas.
We were also in Vegas.
duane ludwig
That's right, yeah.
unidentified
And we still got the same thing.
joe rogan
Same thing.
What do you think?
unidentified
This is good?
Boom!
joe rogan
But that's why you're so fucking good, you know?
And I don't like the term OCD, man.
Obsessed.
duane ludwig
I've dedicated my life to the arts.
joe rogan
OCD is those weirdos who wash their hands a hundred times before they leave the house.
This is a different thing.
It's a positive obsession.
duane ludwig
Yes, sir.
unidentified
Yeah.
duane ludwig
Again, I've dedicated my life to the arts.
joe rogan
Yeah, man.
duane ludwig
So it's fun.
I love it.
joe rogan
Yeah, pretty much everybody at this table has.
Your method, though, is so uniquely Duane.
And I really love your system.
I think that's so critical, is that you've taken all your stuff and you've written it out and you put it into this system.
Where you can really learn.
And that's something I learned from Rob Kamen, too.
Rob Kamen, who's amazing, he has a system.
And one of the things that I learned when I was training with him was like, this guy has this system the same way a lot of jujitsu guys have a system.
You know, and it's like his system of breaking things down and movement and strikes, that it's all like, it has a pattern to it.
And you can follow this pattern, there's a progression to it.
tj dillashaw
And with the way the world is today, you can learn it all from him online.
He's so good at breaking things down and being able to film it and show it to people that you can go on his online academy and learn exactly what I'm doing.
joe rogan
Yeah, all you need is a willing participant.
Someone to train with you is going to do the same amount of work that you are.
duane ludwig
Agreed.
Yeah, it's fun.
I love it.
I definitely love it.
It gives me thriving passion and a purpose, you know, to put energy into other humans and to watch them flourish and grow and get better.
And that's a feedback for me.
joe rogan
It's obvious.
duane ludwig
I might be just doing it for myself, but it's a good service back first.
But I love to see people do good.
joe rogan
Well, I'm glad you're around, dude, because it makes it interesting.
And this is such a sucker-fucking-exciting time for MMA, man.
unidentified
Yes, sir.
joe rogan
So much good shit is going on, boss.
unidentified
Life is good.
joe rogan
Are you loving doing that show, the MMA show?
I love it.
bas rutten
You know, last time, I heard you on...
On the broadcasting, you're talking about the different levels of a knockdown, right?
And we had Herb Dean and Big Joe McCarthy, and Joe McCarthy was talking about the five levels of a knockdown, you know?
Once you start staggering, once you fall back, once you crumble, there's all different sides, you know?
And I think that...
I love those conversations, you know?
The round table, sit down with some professionals and talk about problems that we have right now, and then figuring it out.
And I love that.
And the show also is great.
I see new talent.
Like Conor McGregor in the beginning, we had him on...
So we see these guys come on the show, but also once in a while we got Mark Coleman or Don Fry.
I see my old buddies again.
It's just a fun show.
joe rogan
Boss, before you got here we were talking about eye pokes and we showed the Fabrizio Verdum, Travis Brown eye poke.
Did you see that?
Have you seen it?
bas rutten
Yeah, I heard about it.
joe rogan
Fucking crazy, like knuckle deep into Fabricio's eye.
What do you think could help that?
What do you think could fix that?
bas rutten
I think penalties.
I truly believe so, because if you look at Pancras, which was open-hand striking, we never stabbed each other in the eye.
And we have open hands!
How is that even possible, right?
So now, because we arch our hands backwards, because we want to hit with the palm.
And just the fact that when that happens, it won't happen in training, right?
And especially not at that cap.
Oh no, not anymore, of course.
Because if they come from Greg Jackson Winklejohn, I would say, well, Mike Winklejohn lost an eye, you know, with a nail.
Whether it was a footnail, okay, but still, you know.
joe rogan
Holding pads for somebody.
bas rutten
Holding pads.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's what happens.
bas rutten
It's very dangerous, yeah.
No, but I think once you say, listen, if you're known to do that, that it happened with you in the past, a referee should be allowed to go before there and say, listen, when I poke, I'm going to give you a red card.
And I think that will stop it.
Because people are going to become more careful.
joe rogan
Red card, which in pride would cost you 10% of your purse.
I think the point deduction.
I think one point every time.
I think no warnings for an eye poke.
I think the gloves.
I think the gloves too.
But I think that even if you take a point away from a guy, if you warn him, that person you poked in the eye is still damaged by that.
So even if he says it's an accident, it doesn't matter.
One point.
Either way.
Even if it's an accident.
Even if it's obviously an accident.
unidentified
Both.
joe rogan
If your fingers go into someone's eye and you know it's going to cause a point, everyone is going to curl their knuckles back.
duane ludwig
Be more accountable for it, right?
Yes, sir.
I see that.
Yeah, so gloves and penalties.
bas rutten
Or a beating afterwards if you do it.
joe rogan
I hate to believe anybody's doing it on purpose, but someone must be doing it on purpose.
duane ludwig
Some, I feel, are kind of aware of that.
They have to be.
Yeah, for sure.
How often is that happening in training?
I don't know.
Some of them do look deliberate.
bas rutten
It's like kicks in the pills.
I mean, Christoph Suszynski was one time fighting, and he got kicked six times, I believe, it might even be seven, in the pills, and he goes back to the corner.
joe rogan
The pills are the balls, ladies and gentlemen.
And I go, kick him back!
Yeah.
bas rutten
That's my answer.
I say, he's not getting a warning, so do it back.
duane ludwig
Yes, sir.
unidentified
Right?
bas rutten
Then he knows how it feels, and hopefully he's going to stop.
But Christoph is too nice of a guy.
unidentified
He didn't do it.
joe rogan
There's a few fights where you go, ooh, I've got to wonder whether or not that's on purpose.
Did you see Czech Congo versus Krokop?
He just waylaid him in the sack.
Wham!
Like, more than once.
I mean, it was several good blows.
bas rutten
Most of the time, it's bad technique.
Most of the time, it's with the lead leg, and they don't step open the right foot, so the angle cannot go like a 90-degree angle into the muscle, and it kicks straight up.
And Beecher goes, look, if everybody who gets kicked in the pills, I guarantee you, the leg that they're standing on, the toes are pointing forward.
If they would point to the side, it would be okay.
joe rogan
Well, with check, I believe it was knees and a clinch.
bas rutten
Oh.
joe rogan
I think it was just right to the sack.
unidentified
But it's a Thai boxer.
joe rogan
Yeah.
bas rutten
A Thai boxer, you should know that.
I never need anybody to pill.
I did once, actually, but that was on purpose.
unidentified
Yeah, see?
That was against Renee Rosen.
You know, if I could find video from that.
That is the best.
bas rutten
So I fight Rene Rose.
You heard about him, right?
The total guy from...
Total psychopath, I say.
And he does always illegal things.
So we're fighting him.
And the first round, I beat the crap out of him.
And the second round, we come out and we're clinching and he bites in my ear.
And I'm shouting, let go, let go, let go!
And then you see my knee going all the way back.
And then I knee him.
He comes loose from the ground.
That's hard.
I knee him in the pills.
He goes down, and I wanted to attack him on the ground, but they pulled me off, and then Cora Hammers was in my corner.
Now, he brought all his friends.
He had Hells Angels with him, and I had all my bouncers' friends with me, and they all started fighting.
unidentified
They threw a chair into the ring.
bas rutten
It bounced off Cora Hammers' back.
It lands behind me.
If you see the video, man, it lands behind me.
unidentified
I look behind me.
bas rutten
I see the chair.
unidentified
I sit in the chair while I watch everybody fighting.
bas rutten
And then later they cleared everybody, everybody tore down because the referee took, he says, why did you do it?
I said, look at my ear.
And it was a hole straight through my ear.
He bit straight through my ear, a hole in there.
And then he grabbed the microphone and he announced to everybody, whoa, whoa, whoa.
He's got a hole in his ear.
He bit his ear.
That's why he did.
And then everybody calmed down.
unidentified
Oh, wow.
joe rogan
And did you continue the fight?
bas rutten
No, no, no, that wasn't it.
unidentified
It was a hard knee.
joe rogan
Wow.
unidentified
It's like the Wild Wild West.
duane ludwig
That was a good one.
joe rogan
Eddie Bravo thinks he should be able to hit a guy in the back of the head.
He thinks that when you take a guy's back, that when the old days of MMA, when a guy had two hooks in, you almost didn't go to the rear naked choke.
You just blast a guy in the back of the head with elbows.
bas rutten
Yeah, that's right, but then we go again before rules, right?
unidentified
What was that?
duane ludwig
Henzo?
joe rogan
Henzo did that to the judo guy, huh?
Yeah, what's his name?
duane ludwig
Stryker?
joe rogan
Yeah, something.
bas rutten
From Holland.
Spikers.
joe rogan
Spikers.
Ben Spikers.
duane ludwig
Ben Spikers.
joe rogan
Yeah, the judo guy.
Apparently that guy was fucking with Henzo, kept calling his room.
duane ludwig
I love Henzo.
joe rogan
Calling his hotel room all night.
So Henzo was like, oh, okay.
unidentified
And did you see what he stepped on his face at the end?
joe rogan
Stepped on his face after he smashed him.
duane ludwig
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's what guys would do.
They would take someone's back.
I remember Half Gracey fought somebody.
I forget who it was, but he got a hooks in and just BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Right to the base of the skull.
It's so effective though.
duane ludwig
I know, but it's the longevity of the crew.
unidentified
It keeps your spine intact.
joe rogan
Here's Henzo.
duane ludwig
Oh, nice.
joe rogan
Oh, this is actually...
Okay.
duane ludwig
Look at that cage.
Just duct tape around it.
joe rogan
So he gets his back, he flattens him out, and then here it comes.
Boom!
Boom!
Yeah, I mean, that is the way to open up that choke, man.
You can't defend once someone starts raining those elbows down.
And you know, you can cover that shit up all you want.
Now he's tapping.
unidentified
Now watch this.
bas rutten
When he goes away, what he's gonna do...
joe rogan
He gets up and steps on his head.
duane ludwig
That's right, yeah.
unidentified
That's my Hanzo!
joe rogan
Hanzo!
duane ludwig
Hanzo's awesome.
joe rogan
World Combat Championship.
duane ludwig
He's a master.
joe rogan
That was, I think, the same.
Look at it.
He helps him up.
unidentified
Hey, roll over, buddy.
tj dillashaw
After he stepped on his head.
joe rogan
We're pals now.
duane ludwig
Oh, this is the Peoples.
Wow.
joe rogan
Yeah.
duane ludwig
Nice.
joe rogan
He beat the fuck out of that, dude.
duane ludwig
That was a good one.
joe rogan
That was, I think, the same event where Murillo Bustamante fought Tom Erickson and they fought for like fucking 90 minutes.
It was one of those crazy fights.
It was like a 45 minute fight, I think it was, honestly.
duane ludwig
Wow.
joe rogan
It was a crazy fight because they didn't have like an ending to those things.
They didn't, you know, you just fought.
unidentified
He had only 90 minutes for Sakuraba and Hoyt.
Remember that?
joe rogan
Yeah.
duane ludwig
That's right.
joe rogan
But they did rounds.
They did rounds.
I don't think Murillo and Erickson did rounds.
I think it was just one long...
I don't remember.
But I remember Erickson at the time, he's like the forgotten heavyweight.
When he was in his prime, he was...
Fucking terrifying.
Because he was a natural 300 pound gorilla.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
An enormous wrestler.
And he could hit so fucking hard.
I remember he knocked out Kevin Randleman.
He hit Kevin Randleman with a left hook and knocked him out.
But I was like, Jesus Christ.
He was one of the scariest guys for his time.
But just kind of missed the window.
He was really scary in the early days of MMA. Nobody wanted to fight him.
bas rutten
Bustamante, though.
Super tough, man.
What a great guy.
joe rogan
Remember we tapped Matt Linlin twice?
You had to tap him twice?
Linlin was like, nothing happened!
I didn't tap!
unidentified
And they believed him.
bas rutten
Big John actually talked about that on our show.
He said, yeah, that was a bad one for me because...
I didn't see it.
And that's what people should understand at home.
Same as the referees, especially of Dean and Big John, they're so invested.
They love the sport so much.
There's so much there for the fighters.
So when they make a bad call, it hurts them as well.
But then to get the avalanche of all the people on the internet, come on.
Everybody's human.
And we were talking about, I believe...
Four calls or three calls that they were talking about with Herb Dean.
Herb Dean had over 7,500 matches he did.
Like, oh, the odds are great.
unidentified
I like those odds.
Only four mistakes and 7,500 matches.
bas rutten
You're doing a good job.
joe rogan
Well, both of those guys are the gold standard.
Herb Dean and John McCarthy, that's the gold standard.
I mean, you know who was really good before he went away for selling weed?
Josh Rosenthal.
bas rutten
Yeah, he did my last fight.
joe rogan
He's very good.
tj dillashaw
He's a very good referee.
So crazy he went away for something like that.
So crazy.
joe rogan
Well, he went away from selling weed, and he had a little bit of an arsenal.
A few illegal guns.
bas rutten
Selling a little bit, only 12 acres of weed, or what was it?
joe rogan
Hey, nothing wrong with that.
It's just helping the world.
But the real problem was, I believe guns were involved, and that's one thing.
But yeah, you're going to sell weed illegally.
You've got to protect yourself.
It's unfortunate.
The whole thing's unfortunate.
But he was a very good referee.
Very good referee.
Very good martial artist, too.
duane ludwig
Yeah, he always trained.
And I respect that, obviously, having people in the field.
If you're going to work in the field, you should actually train in the field.
joe rogan
That's what I wanted to bring up to you.
What did you think about the Travis Brown-Fabricio Verdun fight where Travis called time?
He got his finger jammed.
Fabricio threw a punch, and Travis's finger apparently broke, and there's some photos of it now online.
It's fucking nasty.
It shows you how tough Travis is that he continued with his finger smashed, and it was a compound fracture where the bone broke through the skin.
That's one picture, but there's some even better ones that he released today where you could see it after the fight.
It was a nasty break, but...
So it was a weird thing where Fabricio threw this punch and he threw like one of those Chuck Liddell style overhands that come over the top and it landed on the fingers of Travis and snapped one of his finger.
So Travis calls time, which you really can't do.
He's like, my finger's fucked up.
He calls time.
Scroll up though and you see the actual opening.
bas rutten
Here comes the boom.
He says timeout, right?
joe rogan
Yeah.
bas rutten
Kevin James said.
So he cannot do that.
duane ludwig
Against Maurice Smith.
tj dillashaw
Did they stop it?
duane ludwig
Did they give me time?
Sorry.
tj dillashaw
Oh, that's right.
joe rogan
You did that, boss.
You did that in a fight.
bas rutten
Yeah, Maurice.
No, I like that, yeah.
I kicked him in the head, and then I got excited and wanted to give him another kick in the head, but I slip, and I fall on the ground, and Maurice wants to jump on top of me, and I put my hand up.
I say, wait.
unidentified
And he stops, and I'm getting up, and I go, thank you.
duane ludwig
That's composure, huh?
That's ninja.
joe rogan
It's a trick.
bas rutten
You know, another one that's pretty funny, if anybody, was with Jason DeLucia.
I dropped him with his liver shot, right?
And then I walked towards him, and you see what I'm doing.
I stretch my arm above me, and I wave with my hand, and you see him looking up to my hand, and then I liver kick him again.
I just put my hand up and say, yeah, look at this.
He actually looks there.
unidentified
That's so ridiculous.
duane ludwig
That's good composure, right?
tj dillashaw
We actually use that stuff all the time.
unidentified
The bird.
tj dillashaw
The bird.
So there's Master Tong.
Master Tong, he's my first striking coach at Alpha Male.
And when Dwayne first started to come to teach at Alpha Male, I think it was my second fight you were there.
We were in San Jose against Hugo Vianna.
And we're in the hotel room, day of the fight, just kind of hanging out, just waiting, and Master Tong's just in the bed.
He sleeps all day long, and then he's in the bed just hanging out.
Dwayne comes to hang out with us, and he's telling Master Tong a story, and Master Tong's kind of looking at him like he's paying attention.
But then he looks at Dwayne and he goes, bird!
And we're inside a hotel room, right?
And Dwayne looks over and looks if there's a bird.
And as Dwayne turns back to start talking to him again, he's rolled over on the bed and looking the other direction and sleeping.
So he faked him out.
unidentified
He juked me.
tj dillashaw
He's like, look over there while I turn over and go to sleep.
joe rogan
He couldn't deal with the barrage of the Ludwig.
tj dillashaw
Talking fast.
He doesn't understand it, so he turns around.
duane ludwig
The fucking guy, he was supposed to corner TJ in that fight.
Should I say it?
tj dillashaw
What's that?
duane ludwig
He was supposed to corner you on that fight and we couldn't find the fucking guy.
tj dillashaw
I'm about to walk out for my fight and Master Tong's nowhere to be found.
I'm like, what the hell?
I'm going out to my fight.
Where's Master Tong?
And then so Danny just corners me and after the fight I get back and Master Tong's like, oh TJ, I go smoke way up in the rafters.
So supposedly he says he went up in the rafters to smoke his cigarette and he was too scared to get down so he couldn't come down to come corner me.
bas rutten
That's a great reason.
duane ludwig
Good point.
I'm in the room like the next day and I go say, dude, where the fuck were you?
joe rogan
What's up with ties and cigarettes?
tj dillashaw
Or gambling or everything.
I don't know.
It's just a culture.
joe rogan
Really good fighters that smoke cigarettes.
tj dillashaw
Yeah, I mean, he was smoking while he's fighting.
I mean, that guy is so talented.
It's crazy.
I wish he...
If he had half the work ethic that Dwayne had, he'd be amazing.
He's such a good trainer.
He's such a good fighter.
I don't know, man.
joe rogan
He's such a freak though.
I would see him in the corner with a tank top on and gold chains and sunglasses inside.
Big smiles on his face.
Suns out, guns out.
Big ass belt buckle on.
duane ludwig
He's awesome.
tj dillashaw
And he would make sure to be in the camera for the decisions.
He's positioning himself so you can see him.
He wants to be a superstar.
joe rogan
Wasn't there an issue with him gambling against one of your fighters too?
duane ludwig
Against Faber apparently.
tj dillashaw
No, I'm not joking.
This is for reals.
duane ludwig
When Faber fought Baral in New Jersey, it was me and Tong.
And no one knows if this actually happened, right?
joe rogan
Allegedly.
Let's use the word allegedly.
duane ludwig
So allegedly he gambled on Baral to beat Faber and he's cornering Faber.
Like, what the fuck, man?
I go to New Jersey to corner my...
I do two seminars.
I get up super early, do two seminars before his fight, come back and fight, do everything I need to do.
And then after the fight, which apparently he gambled against Faber, I'm leaving the hotel to go...
I gotta get up super early and take off to go back home.
And I'm walking out down the hall, and he's got a track record of hitting people up for money all the time.
Tongue.
tj dillashaw
Well, he's an addict.
unidentified
He gambles.
duane ludwig
Yeah, so he legitimately apparently has a problem gambling and not budgeting his shit, right?
So, anyway, I fly to New Jersey, do two seminars, corner, I'm working my ass off, I'm leaving the hotel after the fight down the next morning, and he's following me down the hotel.
unidentified
Oh, Dwayne, Dwayne, can I have a little bit of money?
duane ludwig
And then I gave him the crow-cop stare.
I was like...
No, motherfucker.
I got up early, came out here, worked my ass off two seminars, cornered and did what I needed to do while you were sleeping in.
Don't ask me for money, motherfucker.
Like, I got genuinely mad because he's, you know, just being lazy ass and asking me for money.
So, um, I told him no.
bas rutten
It's like Deadpool when he says you're the world's worst best friend, you know, when he bets against him in the Deadpool.
unidentified
Oh, that's right.
joe rogan
But on the positive side, Master Tong's a badass motherfucker.
tj dillashaw
He's so bad, man.
He's such a talented dude.
I think he is one of the best guys in the world to hold mitts.
I wouldn't say he's super structured and going to...
Maybe it's his understanding of English.
He can't break something down like, this is why you should do it and tell me why I'm doing things and when to do it.
He just kind of shows you.
He makes you do it on the mitts.
Without even you knowing it, he makes you do things you're supposed to do the right way just by holding them and having a very limited vocabulary.
duane ludwig
He's helped TJ a lot.
tj dillashaw
Oh, he was my first trainer, and I picked up on a stand-up very quick with him, and I think he's a great trainer.
He's just an addict.
joe rogan
He's got nasty Muay Thai, too.
tj dillashaw
Oh, dude, he's so, yeah.
joe rogan
Very good Muay Thai.
tj dillashaw
He's good.
I love the guy, man.
joe rogan
It's a problem, man.
When people get that gambling bug, that's a scary bug.
bas rutten
That's a very scary, yeah.
unidentified
I never did that.
duane ludwig
If you get a bug, then it'd be a good bug.
tj dillashaw
I mean, if you've got a trainer that's betting against you, that's as bad as it gets.
unidentified
Yeah, what the fuck?
tj dillashaw
So, Master Tong was coaching out in Texas.
He was at a gym in Texas.
That's when Dwayne first got here.
So, Master Tong was kind of mad and just kind of left.
That's why we needed a new coach.
That's why we brought Dwayne in.
And then when Faber was going to fight Burrell, he brought him back for eight weeks for his camp.
And he was out here training him.
Faber went into that fight with a hurt hamstring and Master Chong knew that as well.
He tore his hamstring a little bit and went into the fight a little injured.
And so when Master Chong went back to Texas, he was bragging that he made $5,000 because he bet all this money that Faber wasn't going to win the fight.
And then it got back to Faber because Faber knew the trainer out in Texas.
And so it came back to him and he found out about it.
And, you know, allegedly, who knows if it's really true, but Master Tong was bragging about it, you know?
joe rogan
That hurts.
duane ludwig
That's awesome.
unidentified
That's loyalty.
tj dillashaw
Yeah, you love him.
I mean, I love the guy, you know, and if I come to find out he'd bet against you, that's rough, you know?
joe rogan
What if he gave you four?
He won five and gave you four.
Like, that's what you're supposed to do.
But listen, dog.
You know and I know that you came into that fight a little fucked up.
So, like, here's a taste.
Give him the majority of it.
duane ludwig
Right?
joe rogan
Not even half.
Like, most of it.
He still won a thousand bucks.
bas rutten
People with a gamble problem don't do that.
joe rogan
I know.
They don't.
unidentified
They want to keep it all the green fucks.
bas rutten
They want to gamble it away again.
tj dillashaw
Well, because he had nothing to show for it afterwards.
He guaranteed you went and gambled it somewhere else.
unidentified
Oh, man.
tj dillashaw
I mean, when he was coaching at Alpha Male in the beginning before Dwayne got there, I mean, he was making good money.
You know, I know he's...
He supports his family and stuff, but he should have been a lot more well-off than he was.
It's an addict.
It's a serious problem, man.
You wouldn't actually think that it's a problem.
It's a serious problem.
duane ludwig
That goes back to what I always tell my guys.
For myself, if you're going to create habits, let them be good habits.
And I got that from Sensei.
Create good habits, right?
joe rogan
Yeah, your habit is train like a motherfucker.
Teach like a motherfucker.
Get obsessed with that.
Don't get obsessed with blackjack.
duane ludwig
I invest in other humans.
bas rutten
Or poker for that matter.
Anything!
It's weird.
Once you gamble because you need it, you always lose.
Trust me.
joe rogan
I enjoy gambling on fights.
I used to do it all the time.
When I first started working for the UFC, I would gamble on fights.
And then I was like, can I get in trouble for this?
I was like, I wasn't sure.
I was like, I can't affect the outcome.
bas rutten
You should mention it before the fight.
You say, I put my money on him.
tj dillashaw
That would make it more enticing.
joe rogan
People would get mad at me, though.
What the fuck, bro?
But I was right.
Yeah, but what the fuck, bro?
duane ludwig
The best is when the time when Diego Sanchez won a fight, and then at the time you're going to interview him, he's like, hey, you told me I was weird before.
And you're like, yeah, you're weird.
And then he's like, just got quiet.
He tried to call you out, but you're like, no.
joe rogan
Yeah, you're a weird guy.
It's not bad then.
Diego's weird as fuck.
tj dillashaw
Have you seen his interview before he fought Joe Lozon?
Which one is that?
At UFC 200. He was doing an interview before Joe Lozon.
He had this whole...
It had to have been planned out.
It was almost like a freestyle rap.
He put it on his Instagram.
It is one of the funniest interviews I've ever seen.
I wish I remembered exactly who he did an interview with.
duane ludwig
I'm going to have to look that up.
joe rogan
He's so odd.
But awesome.
duane ludwig
Yeah, he's awesome.
bas rutten
And a good thing about him, a long time ago, this is before The Ultimate Fighter, this guy would send me videotapes from the East Coast.
duane ludwig
Oh, that's right.
bas rutten
And with a note, and he says, boss, okay, this one I won, but I still, can you break it down where I have to work on?
And I would write everything down and send it back to him.
And then I saw him with The Ultimate Fighter, and then later I met him in an elevator.
I say, man, you always used to send me the tapes.
He said, yeah, thank you very much.
But you see, I really appreciate it about a guy like that.
joe rogan
Yeah, no, he's a really, really dedicated guy.
You know, Diego Sanchez is a fucking warrior.
And he's a guy who's won more third rounds of fights where he lost the first two.
The Martin Kampman fight, I'll never forget that fight.
Because his face was hanging off of his skull.
And he's chasing Martin Kampman.
And Martin Kampman, who fought at 185, was a big fucking guy for 170. And Diego's just...
Just running out of a mask of blood.
The Jake Ellenberger fight.
The end of the fight, he's on Ellenberger's back beating the shit out of him.
duane ludwig
That's right.
joe rogan
Lost the first two rounds, comes back in the third like a fucking savage.
If every fight was a hundred rounds long, Diego Sanchez might be undefeated.
bas rutten
Mexican.
joe rogan
Yeah.
unidentified
That's right.
joe rogan
Fantastic endurance.
duane ludwig
He always had a crazy cardio.
joe rogan
Fuck you, Donald Trump.
Oh, that's good.
I mean, think about who had more endurance than Julio Cesar Chavez, right?
duane ludwig
Well, yeah, you're right, but then people fail to mention that he trained, it was in Mexico City or at 7,000 feet elevation.
People don't take that into account.
And his fights, a lot of his fights were there as well.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's a good point because a lot of people don't realize how high Mexico City is.
I didn't know until the first time I went there.
I just did a fucking elliptical machine there and I was like, holy shit!
bas rutten
I said it to Cain Velasquez on our show.
Are you going to go out like three weeks ahead because of the elevation?
And he says, no, we will.
I said, do you think that's a smart idea?
Because you should be training there.
When I trained for the Redmond fight in Colorado, my first week, eight days, nine days were really not nice.
They were not fun.
I mean, I got tired so fast.
It took really a while for me to get into it.
joe rogan
And Colorado is 2,000 feet below Mexico City, which is crazy.
To have a heavyweight title fight there.
bas rutten
Do you remember the second UFC there when everybody ran out of gas?
joe rogan
Yeah!
duane ludwig
The first two UFCs were in Colorado.
bas rutten
Oh, the first one too.
duane ludwig
McNichols and then the...
The other arena downtown.
I forgot which other one was.
joe rogan
Do you remember Ben Rothwell and Mark Hunt in Colorado?
duane ludwig
Oh, yeah.
joe rogan
Oh, those poor guys almost died.
They both almost died.
duane ludwig
There's only one way to prepare for that.
You have to be in that element because you literally have less red blood cells.
joe rogan
Yeah.
duane ludwig
Period.
joe rogan
I talked to a guy who's an endurance athlete who lives in Boulder, and he told me, you have to live there for three years.
He said to reach the full potential.
He's like, for those guys, when you're talking about bikers or triathletes or something like that, for them, every last second is...
Because you're doing the same activity over and over and over again.
It's not like fighting where your creativity, your explosiveness, all these different things come in a factor.
It's just biking.
You're just biking.
You're just running.
You're just swimming.
These are the things you're doing.
And so every little second, every little ounce of extra endurance.
So they optimize everything in that regard.
And he was saying to really hit your full potential, you need to live at altitude and train at altitude for three years.
duane ludwig
Okay, so he lives and trains very nice.
Yeah, I see that.
unidentified
Three years.
duane ludwig
Wow.
bas rutten
Yeah, well, full potential.
Go from the 99% that you had at one year to 100% after three years.
It could be like that as well.
But I understand what he's saying.
If you have only 10 days or two weeks to train high altitude, I almost would say don't do it because your first week It's going to be the worst week.
You can't think straight.
It's better to just stay.
But if you have to fight at high altitude, always go there beforehand, man.
I'm telling you, three, four weeks at least.
duane ludwig
There's the First Bank Center, which is right by my academy.
They had a couple UFCs there.
When you walk out of the dressing room, there's a big metal sign on the wall, and it says, Extreme Elevation.
If you feel lightheadedness or dizzy, please rest and drink water.
So that's what the fighters see as they're walking out to the cage, and that big-ass fucking sign is right to my father.
joe rogan
I was like, yes.
Yeah, it's crazy for people who don't live there to take fights at altitude.
It really is.
Especially when fighters can't afford, like if you're training for a fight in Mexico City, you can't afford to go anywhere.
I mean, if you're on the undercard, you're making, you know, what's like the lowest paid guys in the UFC make?
tj dillashaw
8,000?
duane ludwig
Is it 8 and 8?
tj dillashaw
It's crazy.
duane ludwig
It's crazy.
You've got to get on the O2 trainer.
We get those lungs.
bas rutten
That will help, that will strengthen them, for sure.
Because a lot of people say, oh, this part that you know, it mimics high altitude, can't.
You cannot.
It doesn't.
Oh, you have to wear it like eight hours a day.
But otherwise it won't.
But it makes your whole inspiratory system much stronger and it's easier for you to pull in.
joe rogan
Well, you're talking about your own personal O2 trainer where you put it in your mouth and you have like different filters on it too, right?
Stronger and weaker.
Yeah, stronger.
bas rutten
I'm now with a guy who is the trainer, the scientist behind Usain Bolt, three other gold medalists on track and field, actually Dominic Cruz as well is training there.
This guy has a higher IQ than freaking Einstein had.
He has like over 25 medical journals wherein it's proven that only inspiratory training works.
So what happened was he did an A review of my competition.
joe rogan
Explain what this thing is to people that are listening that don't know.
bas rutten
It's a device that I invented because I was an asthma patient and I realized that after an asthma attack for like a week in bed or eight days in bed, I would resume my track and field and I would break my running times.
And it always...
It puzzled me.
Why am I stronger after an attack?
This is crazy.
The medicine, medication.
And then I realized when I went to the doctor's office and I saw a poster on the wall with a pair of lungs on there and it showed where it's inflamed when you have bronchitis.
And what happens is you think as a kid it's infected in the lungs.
It's not.
It's in the air pipes that go to the lungs.
So that was my aha moment.
I realized, oh, I've been working out my lungs unknowingly because I've been pulling air through that infected hole.
So unknowingly, I made my whole lung system, my inspiratory system stronger.
So why don't I come up with something that controls the air intake?
And that was it.
And then finally, I started, oh, there you got it.
I started making it.
And it's a very simple device.
It starts with a hole of 15 millimeters.
Millimeter you start training with it and once you feel that you get the same air as you did before you go to 14 millimeter and now with this guy what this guy does with it because When my lawyer called me and he said listen, did you read that review about a competition?
It's horrible.
They They slam this.
I say, I know, because they control the air in and out.
It's not a good way to do it.
I say, contact that guy.
I want to send him an O2 trainer.
And when he contacted him, he said, Bas Rutter will lie.
He said, Bas Rutter from the O2 trainer?
Yeah, we're already using it.
Inspiratory trainers.
I love the product.
joe rogan
So what is the difference?
bas rutten
The difference is, when you control the air out as well, you cannot completely empty your lungs.
Because you do it with resistance.
But if you complete, and air out is all with force, it's all done by your core and your diaphragm and your intercoastal muscles here and your ribs.
But breathing in is also done with that.
It's much harder to breathe in.
But as soon as I start stopping the airflow out, I cannot completely exhale anymore before I take a new breath.
And that's what I started with.
So now we're going to come out with all these medical journals with Usain Bolt, all these people that he trains all do inspiratory muscle training.
joe rogan
So they all use that kind of a device?
bas rutten
All use, yeah.
joe rogan
Wow, so like those masks that you wear that control in and out, those are no good.
bas rutten
That was the...
joe rogan
That's the competition.
bas rutten
That was the competition, yeah.
joe rogan
So it's just something that just controls in and then you can breathe out with your own mouth.
So you breathe in through it, and then when you breathe out, how does it work when you breathe out freely?
How does it work?
bas rutten
Everything comes out, because it gets two valves.
One side is where they have the holes on, and on the other side you have a flap.
And if I breathe in, the flap closes, forces you to breathe into one side.
joe rogan
That's brilliant.
bas rutten
Yeah, and it works.
And the only thing that the scientist said is that, well, you can use it like you did, boss, with training, because it cured me from my asthma.
On my website, you will read a lot of people cured it from asthma.
I don't use an inhaler anymore.
And I used an inhaler my entire life, even before world title fights.
Always had an inhaler with me, because if I would sneeze, for instance, very aggressively three times, my lung would close.
I have to open them up with an inhaler.
I haven't used an inhaler for two and a half, three years now anymore.
So it works with everything.
We're actually looking for an FDA improvement.
Everything is going to happen now because the results are just crazy good.
joe rogan
That's fascinating.
bas rutten
Yeah.
Oh, and what he said, what I wanted to say is what he does, he lets them in the morning do 30 repetitions.
So they take a small or tiny hole and you lean over with the O2 trainer and once you breathe out, every bit of air goes out of your lungs and then while you're breathing in, you're sitting straight up.
And then you breathe everything out again.
You do 30 repetitions in the morning.
That's it.
For your inside.
joe rogan
So that's all you're doing is just 30 repetitions?
bas rutten
That's it.
joe rogan
And that'll build you up.
bas rutten
If you go for six weeks, two times a day, 30 minutes, and 30 repetitions, and after that, just one time a day, the increase you're going to have, you're not going to have any lactic acid in your core, which, by the way, is the most important thing in fighting.
That's why everybody gets tired, I always say, because they're...
The muscles start pumping, you know, just like your biceps are pumping, and they start pushing your lungs backwards.
So now your lungs cannot freely inhale anymore because you're pushing them backwards with your core.
And that's the reason when you see guys, you know, that's why I used to do, I actually said that at the seminar last Saturday, I said that's why before a fight I would do a lot of abs, but constant stretching abs.
Abs, stretching.
Abs, stretching.
And that was for that reason, because I know if this gets tight, your core gets tight, everything goes downhill.
That's why the guys in the beginning with the steroids, well, in the beginning they're still doing it apparently, but you saw guys, because if you use steroids, you pump much harder, right?
So they're very strong until the core builds up with lactic acid.
Now the lungs can...
Breathe in anymore.
And that's why you see them going strong, strong, strong, strong, strong, and then suddenly they drop and it's over with them.
That's the reason.
joe rogan
So your protocol for this O2 trainer is you do it 30 times, like 30 breaths?
bas rutten
30 breaths in the morning, 30 in the evening, after six weeks, you increase your whole respiratory...
They say you got 15 to 20 percent you will gain.
It's incredible.
You cannot do this with BEDs.
joe rogan
15 to 20 percent in how long?
How much time?
bas rutten
That was six weeks.
joe rogan
In six weeks.
bas rutten
Yeah, you'll be amazed.
Once we're going to come out with all these journals, you're going to like it.
joe rogan
So 15 to 20% lung capacity?
bas rutten
Yeah, look, this is inspiratory, right?
This is other devices.
There's still air in there because they can completely empty their lungs.
joe rogan
We're looking at a video, for folks who are just listening to this, we're looking at a video on Boss Rootin' O2 Trainer, which is online on YouTube, right?
Is it just O2 Trainer?
What is your...
bas rutten
O2 Trainer dot com.
unidentified
The site crashed right now.
joe rogan
Oh, okay.
So the site crashed because we swamped it?
We swamped your site, Boss.
bas rutten
Swap my side.
joe rogan
Boom.
unidentified
Nice.
joe rogan
Selling some O2 trainers.
I love the flap though.
That's amazing.
Dude, I'm buying one of these.
bas rutten
It's such a...
I'll get you one.
unidentified
Free!
bas rutten
It's such an easy...
joe rogan
Score!
unidentified
It's such an easy thing.
bas rutten
Are you using the body exercise system?
unidentified
It's right back here!
You want to see it?
Come on back!
joe rogan
Come on back!
I'll take you back here!
We've got to end this podcast anyway, but I'll show you in the back.
Because I've got to get the fuck out of here.
Boss Rutten, you're a fucking gem of a human being.
It's a pleasure to know you and an honor to make your acquaintance.
Same, I can say for both of you gentlemen, it was an honor to train with you today.
Bang Ludwig, you're a fucking genius.
And TJ, you're a bad motherfucker.
I can't wait to see you fight for the title again.
And I really hope it is soon.
And thank you, everybody.
That's it.
This fucking podcast is over.
Jihad!
unidentified
Woo-hoo!
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