Kevin Ross and Gaston Bolanos break down Muay Thai’s niche U.S. struggle, tracing its 1980s/90s kickboxing stigma to diluted authenticity—like shortened Y-Crew dances or compromised clinch rules. Ross’s near-fatal steel-plated shin kick in China (2005) and Bolanos’s early training under Rodrigo in Peru highlight the sport’s brutal demands, contrasting with MMA’s flashy but often shallow striking. They critique judges’ lack of technical depth, praise Bellator’s cautious Muay Thai integration, and debate how boxers vs. Muay Thai fighters would fare—Ross’s adaptability (even against untrained boxers) vs. Bolanos’s carb-heavy diet for peak energy. Both credit resilience over struggles, positioning Ross as a trailblazer keeping the sport alive through relentless competition and mentorship. [Automatically generated summary]
But to see that and then to see us just with nothing, no coverage whatsoever for so long and, you know, it's finally on TV but still relatively under the radar.
It's tough to watch, but knowing that it's going to be there eventually, it's just a matter of time, you know?
So it's nice.
Every time we take another step, like when it got on AXS TV, it was such a giant leap compared to where it was prior to that.
So what's coming next?
What's coming next?
It's just a matter of time and the right people coming along doing the right things.
We talked about this today, but Dana White had a point that I think he's probably right about, is that in a lot of people's eyes in America, kickboxing got kind of poisoned with that whole PKA karate stuff that was on in like the 80s or the 90s.
Whereas in Muay Thai, especially in Thailand, you see a tremendous amount of clinching and it's very technical.
There's a lot going on in that clinching.
And I've always maintained, I've been a big fan of Lion Fight because what Lion Fight is doing is giving you the actual pure Muay Thai, other than the dancing and the music and all the stuff that happens before in a traditional Muay Thai fight.
You know, different gyms, different people do longer and shorter ones.
You know, I do a very limited shorter one when I fight.
Well, I haven't done it in forever, but because of that, you know, and knowing that people don't really want to see it, you know, you kind of Americanize it and shorten it, where some of them, I've seen some longer wide crews than fights in the past.
It's like baseball here in America where you don't have to play baseball in order to appreciate and love it because it's our pastime.
And that's what it is in Thailand.
Not everyone there is actively training or fighting or has fought, but it's so embedded in their culture that they just love it and they appreciate it.
Everything about it.
So to go to a live Muay Thai fight in Thailand is just, you can't even describe it.
But in America, if you go to see a live event in America, half of the audience, at least, is either people from the gym or people that know people from the gym.
And it's sort of almost an incestuous kind of an environment.
Yeah, especially like when I was coming up, the only people that were there...
We're trained.
We're family or friends of the people fighting, you know, so that you weren't hitting this wider audience, you know, where now it is getting on TV and there are people seeing it who don't know anything about it.
And it's slowly building momentum and getting out there and getting a little more popular.
But it's just one of those sports where, you know, it's not for everybody and you got to...
Find the way to bring it to everyone.
It doesn't have this mass appeal.
The fight in itself does.
But everything that goes with it is very different.
I was in LA a couple years back when they had that big pro Muay Thai event.
They had a lot of big name fighters fight, and Buakau fought, and he apparently had some beef with some dude that he was gonna fight, and there was a lot of shit talk back and forth.
So he had this long Y crew where he was shooting arrows at him.
Same thing that happens to a lot of organizations.
They try to go too hard out the gate.
They pay all this money for all these super high-level fighters, which, you know, you're...
Muay Thai fans are going to know who they are, but your general public has no idea.
And that's who we're trying to reach, is the people that don't know anything about it.
So those people aren't going to come out just because there's this high-level Muay Thai guy.
They don't know who this is.
They don't know anything about him.
They'd be more likely to come out to a local person because at least, like, hey, that guy fights out of California or whatever.
And that's been the biggest thing that's slowed Muay Thai down is these promotions try to go too hard out the gate as opposed to building it up, which, you know, you got to lose a lot of money and build these people.
With anything, you got to start, slow, and build people gradually, build the promotion, build the fighters, build your audience, and eventually you can get to that level where everyone on the card is like top 10 people.
But you can't do that from the beginning when you were just trying to grow and build.
Well, the match-ups and the talent level is very high.
It's way higher than the credit it's getting.
It's like, you know, I watch...
I have a DVR in my gym.
I've got...
I mean, what number are they up to now?
Like 30-something?
32. 32?
I've got way back to like...
21 or something.
Just saved up.
And I can watch them all while I train.
And it's...
There's such high level.
There's so much good fights.
There's so many good guys.
It's so exciting.
And it's such a dynamic, technical sport.
And that's one of the things I think is probably...
It probably slips by some people when the casual observer is watching it.
Just some of the stuff that we were doing today, where you were showing me just the little shifts and variations and stances and little things like that.
When you train in it, when you try it, it makes the experience of watching people compete in it richer.
Because you kind of understand.
You're like, wow, this is very complex.
There's a lot going on here.
It's not just guys going, and just trying to fucking kick each other.
Not good matchups, not very talented guys because you want to save some money, or they'll spend so much money on the main event and the co-main event that they have to cut those corners with everybody else.
And so you're putting these crappy fights out there, and you're trying to bring this new audience in, so people come and are like, this is terrible.
Why would I want to come to this?
You know, because they're bad matchups.
And as we were talking about Lion Fight, what they did from the beginning was they had quality matchups throughout the entire card, whether it was the main event, whether it was the undercard, whether it was the amateurs.
They were good, exciting matchups, regardless of the level.
Man, my first coach, Rodrigo, you know, he had a vision of the sport, you know, when he first started.
He came here to train with Alex Gong at Fairtex San Francisco, you know, it was very small, but he went back and I remember I started training with him and it was, everything was so small back then.
Like, the amount of talent there is now, like, I mean, Kevin and Kieran saw it when we went to Peru last November.
It's just fascinating that that one part of the world is starting to produce a lot of really high-level talent.
And then, talking to you about it, you were saying that it's like soccer, and then Muay Thai is really coming up in popularity behind soccer, which sounds crazy to me.
Muay Thai is the predominant striking art in MMA. It's the most, I would say, probably the most successful striking art in MMA because it has all the elements of boxing and a lot of the elements of a lot of the other traditional martial arts, but There's something about the combination of kicks and elbows and the technical style of Muay Thai that really lends itself to MMA. And I think when Maurice Smith came along,
like Maurice Smith was probably the first guy who was like a really high-level technical striker who gave MMA a try and was showing everybody the effectiveness of Muay Thai in MMA. But for whatever reason, it translated to Muay Thai getting more popular in MMA, but it didn't necessarily translate to Muay Thai getting that much more popular.
I mean, I didn't really think anything of it at the time.
You know, this was, what, like 10 years ago, you know, and we would just fight everywhere, anywhere, whatever, you know, and not really think twice about it, and...
So I fought.
He kicked me in the back of the head.
I got dropped, got up, ended up knocking him out.
Fought again the very next day.
What?
Yeah, knocked this guy out too.
And then when we got back to the States, I was having headaches all the time.
I just thought I had a bad concussion, you know, but like up to like almost like a month later, I kept seeing these like flashes of light.
Anytime someone would ever touch me, you know, I'd be working with like little kids or girls and smaller people and just them touching me, I'd get this like jolt and you know, it was kind of freaking me out.
And I was getting ready for another fight and I had to get my MRI or a CAT scan.
I remember what it was.
And they're like, yeah, you got an inch and a half crack in the back of your skull.
And they're like, I don't know why you're not a vegetable right now.
You should be.
They're like, if you even hit that again, it would probably kill you.
It was a pretty rough thing to happen, and I couldn't do anything other than hit the bag by myself for, I don't remember how long it was to let it heal.
Where now it's like everyone's kind of looking for the big show or picking their fights.
Like a month is short notice for people.
Where us it was like an hour.
It was like, yeah, we're ready.
We're here.
Fight.
Let's go.
The time I came up was a different mindset than it is today.
And that's kind of the pros and cons of it getting bigger.
The bigger things get, you've got to take the faker people with it.
When I started and I was at fights, you knew every person that was at that fight I was a diehard Muay Thai fan.
There's no other reason to do this other than the fact that you loved it.
You're losing money.
There was no show to get on.
There was no television to get on.
There was no reason to do this sport except for the fact that you loved it.
It wasn't a question.
There's no reason to do this except for you love it.
With everything that's in you.
So everyone you met, everyone you talked to, every gym you went to, every fight you went to, you were surrounded by people that had the same heart and mentality as you.
Whereas now, you know, people are doing it for different reasons.
You know, maybe they want to get famous or they want to get Instagram followers or, you know, they want to look cool doing pad work.
And that's kind of the good and the bad of things getting bigger.
So you think that by the sport getting more popular, by more people paying attention to it, it opens up the door to more people doing it, but they just don't have the pure intention.
I'm not going to say it, me personally, but fortunately I have good people around me who would be like, look, that's not smart.
I'm like, yeah, yeah, you're right.
And again, it was in a time where if I don't take this fight, who knows when another fight's going to come along.
You've got to take what you can get when you can get it, and that's why I'm fighting people who outweigh me by 30 pounds, and just taking a fight on a couple hours notice, because...
There wasn't opportunities, so you gotta do what you had to do to get in there, to get experience, and that was the only way you were gonna get fights.
It was more about getting fights than it was about what am I getting out of this fight.
So it wasn't about making money.
It wasn't about getting on TV. But there was a long period of time when I just couldn't get a fight to save my life.
And that's when I was highly considering switching over to MMA. Because everyone I trained was fighting.
They're fighting in the UFC. They're getting fights all the time.
They're fighting every month.
And I'm sitting here busting my ass.
And I can only get a fight or two a year.
There was a time I had over 30 fights fall through.
preparing myself for it and then they'd fall through and they'd fall through and they'd fall through and that's why I started just taking a boxing fight even though I'd never trained boxing in my life or taking a San Shao fight that is that one in China was a San Shao fight because I just had to do what I had to do to stay busy or taking a fight on a day's notice or fighting with a cracked skull because I knew I had to stay in there and stay active and stay busy or else I'm never gonna get better especially if I want to compete with guys who have like 400 fights and been fighting since they were eight years old you How are you going to fight against a guy like that if you don't get the experience?
You have so much to make up for anyway.
I didn't start until I was 23. You know what I mean?
I'm so late to the game.
My mentality was always, I'm always going to be playing catch-up.
No matter how good I get, I'm playing catch-up.
And so I've got to do everything I can, every way I can.
Maybe it wasn't the smartest thing, but I wouldn't be where I am today if I didn't take those risks and maybe take those not-so-smart fights.
But yeah, there is a fine line between Putting yourself out there and being dangerous.
Well, the first time I ever saw Muay Thai was like 94, 94 or 96. They went back when ESPN used to play them late at night, like the old school fights.
I'd always thought about boxing and doing some kind of fighting, but I always loved martial arts, you know, and When I saw Muay Thai, I was like, that's it, man.
Because every other kind of thing with, like, kicking and knees was, like, taekwondo or point fighting and not that real boxing style of hardcore fighting, you know?
So when I saw Muay Thai, I was like, if I'm going to do anything, that's going to be it.
But unfortunately, at that time, I was too busy living in Vegas and drinking myself to death every day and partying, you know, and...
It was never one of those serious things.
So I never told anybody about it.
Because I didn't even know how serious I was.
Because obviously I couldn't live the way I was living and compete.
So I knew that if I was ever going to do this, I would have to completely stop drinking, partying, living the lifestyle I was living.
And I wasn't ready to give that up.
I wasn't ready to give up my friends and lose all these people.
Not to say that I would, but I knew that was a possibility.
And I only ever told one of my friends about it.
His name was Mo.
You know, I always figured people would laugh at me if I told them I want to be a fighter one day.
If you knew me back then, you probably would have laughed at me, too.
Like, what are you talking about, man?
Like, you drink every single day.
All you do is party.
And I told him, to my surprise, he didn't laugh at me at all.
He's like, why don't you go after it?
And I was like, well, I'm like...
I was only like 18 at the time, and at that point I thought I was way too old to start.
I'm like, I can't start now.
I can't start now and make it anywhere.
You know what I mean?
These people start when they're like 10. It's too late for me.
He's like, you should do it anyway.
If you want to do something, you can do it.
And he was born with a bad heart, and he ended up passing away.
And I promised myself when he died that I would do it.
I was like, I'm going to go after this dream, if not for myself, then for him.
Because he was never able to live, you know?
And unfortunately, his death sent me just in a really bad downward spiral, even more so than I was already in drinking and partying and all that stuff.
This continued on for years and years and through a month-long series of really horrible things happening, like friends dying or almost killing people, drunk driving, and myself getting pulled over, doing like 120 on the 215 in Vegas.
And for whatever reason, the cop let me go.
And that was just...
All these things happened.
It was this huge wake-up call for me.
And I realized that if my friend was still alive, he would...
Beat the shit out of me.
You know, he's like, well, you're wasting your life.
You're wasting this dream you have because you're too scared to do it.
I've just always believed if you're going to do something, it's all or nothing.
I never wanted to half-ass it and that's why I knew if I was gonna do this I'd have to give up partying and drinking and hanging out with my friends and going out all the time and I wasn't ready to do that you know I've always been in that mentality of if you're gonna do something do it you do it all the way you don't do it at all because because you're sabotaging yourself and then you can just say oh I didn't make it because of this that and the other Right,
but what were you getting out of it when you realized that it wasn't really about how good you get or how far you go, it was about giving it everything you have?
A lot of it had to do with seeing my friend pass away at 18, you know?
There's no reason to ever halfway do something because there's people who don't get the opportunity to even attempt to go after these things because of whatever reason.
They might die.
They might have a disease.
They might not have all their legs.
And you can do this.
Maybe you can't be the great, but you can do this.
You can at least attempt this.
And you owe it to yourself and you owe it to them to give it everything that you have.
Everything to go after my life with everything I had all my dreams I need to go after a hundred percent because there's people that don't get to I'm asking this because I think this is a common theme with people is that when they're pursuing a dream or when they're attempting to do something they realize somewhere along the line that You're doing something more than just like trying to get really good at Muay Thai or whatever you know fill in the blank with whatever sport it is your I I was the expression I was used is that martial arts Are
a vehicle for developing your human potential.
And I think that until you have a really difficult task in front of you, like becoming a professional Muay Thai fighter, which is one of the most difficult tasks in all combat sports, until you have that task in front of you, until you go down that road and realize how much is actually required of you, you don't know how much you can give to something.
And once you do realize how much you're capable of giving you something, and then you can give a little more, and then you can give a little more, and then you realize, like, did I give my all?
Yeah, well, in the beginning, as I said, for me, it's always been all or nothing.
You know, I didn't realize that at the time, but looking back, I can kind of understand the mentality behind it, is there's so many things that are going to come up that will deter you from going after it.
Maybe you get injured, or maybe you're not getting the opportunities, and if you're not in it, 100%, those things are going to steer you away.
Those things are going to make you quit.
People kind of look at people who have made it as if they just had this easy path and all of a sudden they're in the spotlight and they're a world champion and doing these things.
But it's like any person who's made it to a high level, whether it's an athlete or a business person, if you go back in their life and see the things they've had to do and overcome and the obstacles in their way, you have no idea.
And that's why everyone's like, well, they didn't have to deal with this, or they didn't have to deal with this.
You know, like, if you watch, like, Gabriel go out the other night, you look at him, he's 19 years old, he destroys that guy, what was the guy's name, Josh Shepard, who was a really talented fighter himself, goes out and destroys this guy in the first round, like, well, how hard could he have worked?
It's very rare that a guy would be like 34 and then when he's 39 he's this motherfucker of motherfuckers like he is.
You know what I mean?
Like what is it?
I've always wondered like is it that life just you burden yourself down with responsibility and information and just life itself, relationships, bills, bullshit, stress, existential angst, the fucking grave calling, all these different things.
I'm sure it's a crazy story, but when you go back and watch Mike Tyson when he was 19, You see Mike Tyson hitting the bag with Teddy Atlas when he's 19. You just go, Jesus fucking Christ.
How does anybody get that good?
What happens from 13 to 19?
How is it possible that someone can just reach that insane level?
And it seems that it happens primarily when someone's really young.
One of the most important things for a young fighter is to find the right environment to develop and we were talking about that earlier today like you can get unlucky and Find a bad coach in a bad gym and you get all tangled up with that person psychologically and they become family and then you know You're kind of fucked.
Yeah, it's a very difficult break for a lot of fighters to make and Yeah, man.
Another unfortunate thing is just because somebody's a great coach doesn't mean they're great for you.
You know, so sometimes you'll see these people, like, leave their camps and go to this really high-level coach who's had a lot of success with certain individuals, but that doesn't mean they're going to be great for you.
So I try to always tell people, you have to find what works best for you, whether it's a coach, whether it's your diet, whether it's your training schedule.
What works for me won't always work for you.
You've got to find what's best for you, and that doesn't always necessarily mean I need this great coach, because you guys might just clash.
You know what I'm saying?
Like coaches and fighting, it's very much...
It's like having a relationship with somebody, with another person.
I'd say the older I get, the more it's a mental approach kind of thing.
My technique isn't going to be altered that much at this stage, but the way that I apply them, the way I go about them, the way I think about them, very much is going to change.
At a certain stage, it's like you have all these weapons to use.
It's just a matter of which ones you use, at which time, at which speed.
In the way that you apply them, where in the beginning you're just trying to do things well and you're trying to almost put all these tools in the toolbox as your career develops.
But at a certain stage, not to say I'm not adding more, is that I have all these tools.
I need to figure out which ones work best for me and which ones work for me at which time against which opponent, which venue, which sport.
You know what I mean?
There's so many things that you can play with and adjust and Good and bad.
That was a huge thing I struggled with after my knee surgery was like, I almost forgot how to fight as myself.
You know what I mean?
Because it was like, okay, here's all your weapons.
Pick up which ones you want to use.
I'm like, I don't know.
I don't remember which ones I used and how I put them together.
And it took me a series of fights to find myself again as a fighter in the ring.
Well, like, you know, there was those options, but I was like, I don't want to take anything else out of myself that might weaken that thing.
Like, I got enough to deal with now.
I can't weaken something else.
So for me, it was, and in talking to other athletes that have had it, it just, it seemed like the better approach for me, and it has worked best for me.
I had my left one done with a patella tendon graft where they take a big chunk of your patella tendon with a piece of bone from your shin and a piece of bone from your knee.
And it's fine, but that was like a year before it felt good again.
But the right knee, I have zero problems with it.
And I was training.
I was doing jujitsu again in six months.
Oh, yeah.
And it was with no pain.
Yeah.
There was no consequences for the injury.
Whereas the left one, still, where they'd cut the bone out, if I kneel down on a hardwood floor, I could still feel it.
There's a lot of people that are scared of cadavers, though.
Oh, that's why I tell a lot of people like learning how to absorb and take a punch or a kick is just as if not more important than throwing it because you're going to get hit.
It's another one of those things where it's just a piece of the puzzle.
It's good to develop your power and stuff.
But yeah, if that's all you're doing, when something's moving around on you, it's giving you very different looks.
It's kind of like a...
Like we do a lot of technical sparring, you know, with no gear on and stuff.
If you have all these pads on and you have this false sense of security and then you get in there with someone who's got nothing on and it's just like you're kicking things wrong and you're catching elbows and you're messing your feet up because you haven't...
Learned how to place things correctly and where they need to go and where you maximize their damage and minimize yours.
Is there a point of diminishing returns though with a heavy bag where like at a 300-pound bag and you're kicking it, it's probably not developing your power as much as even maybe a 150-pound bag would.
When you think about Muay Thai fighters just being this mindless, like we're just going to throw power at each other and just stand there and we have no thought or process behind anything.
Yeah, there's definitely fighters who do that.
And maybe to an outside observer, they might not see all the small...
Details and the complexity of the things they're doing, just because I'm standing in front of you not moving doesn't mean there's no thought behind it.
You know what I mean?
It's like I've learned how to use those head movement and footwork things on a very, very small scale.
So to me, I am doing a lot of movement and footwork, but to an outside person, I'm just standing there mindlessly just winging shots at each other.
So you don't see all the complexity that goes into it where I can watch it and view those things very well.
Is it one of those things where you're watching, like say, if you're watching an MMA fight, for example, where a lot of times when you're watching MMA, you're watching someone who's pretty good at a bunch of different things, but not maybe technically proficient at any of those things.
And you're seeing a lot of that, where guys are just kind of standing in front of each other and almost playing Muay Thai, right?
I mean, especially, it hits me really hard sometimes.
Friday night lion fights, you're there live, and then you're watching whatever UFC or whatever other card there is on, and you're on TV, and it's like, oh my god.
I've said some things to Scott about it, and I think they're just trying to establish that kickboxing side of their cards, and hopefully one day he might bring in some Muay Thai fights.
Maybe once the Bellator kickboxing can be more of a standalone promotion, I think they might be able to venture out into mixing the cards and maybe have some Muay Thai fights on the undercard or in between fights as well.
But for now, I think they're just trying to start out and do things right and build up that portion of it and having those mixed cards where it's the Bellator MMA and the Bellator kickboxing, which has worked out very well.
And I think people really enjoy it because we're having both fights on the card.
But eventually, it'd be nice if the kickboxing can stand alone and then kind of develop from there.
But yeah, Sanchez is one of those guys, like, he doesn't fight like a traditional Muay Thai fighter, and he's the best Muay Thai fighter of all time, arguably, you know?
I think Lawrence just does him under his name, but he's a really, really smart guy and really, really aware of Muay Thai and really aware of the complexities.
And he did a breakdown on Sanchai and one of the things Sanchai setting up high kicks.
And that's kind of what we were speaking of earlier in the gym is...
It's just that one thing, his kick, but he has so many ways and variables to set that up as far as speed, and so he uses all these things to test you, and once he figures that out, you're done.
And that's how he's able to destroy basically everyone at every level of the sport, because he has so many answers to that one question.
It's kind of ironic having Cecil Peoples be the referee in a fight that's a Muay Thai fight because Cecil Peoples is one of those guys that says that you can't stop people with leg kicks.
That was like one of his quotes.
It was one of the bad decisions that went down where he's like, leg kicks don't stop fights.
Not knowing when people are stalling out or trying to buy time or just moving their legs for the sake of looking like they're actually kneeing each other.
These judges and these refs don't have an understanding of that.
It's an issue with the UFC when certain fights go to the ground, whether it's judging or whether it's even refereeing.
Some guys are setting up certain positions and then the referee will come up and stand them up.
That is crazy.
They're working.
They're fighting.
But I think that in the clinch as well.
There's a lot of times they separate guys from the clinch when...
Two guys, if they're clinching up and they're both working to try to establish dominant positions, one is eventually, maybe, going to win that dominant position battle, and that's part of the grind.
Part of the grind is a guy imposing his skill set, his will, his conditioning, all the above, on his opponent.
And if you just get in and separate that because you want to watch a knockout, you're kind of diluting the sport.
And it's like I don't care how many fights you've watched or how many courses you've taken.
If you haven't done this before, if you've never fought before, you don't know what's going on in there.
And that's the problem.
You have people, even if they've been in the sport for a very long time and may have been around it for a very long time, if you've never fought, at least at some level, you don't know what's going on in there.
But what I'm watching here, I'm watching all this complex interactions of footwork and kicks and elbows and knees and clenching and knowing when to time things and dealing with a really high-level opponent who's very crafty and he's sort of...
And so that kind of shit, I mean, look, here's you, world championship caliber fighter, fighting another world championship caliber fighter, both guys in their prime, and you're fighting in front of 50 people.
And making a couple books.
And it's super complex.
I mean, what's going on is this exchange, the interactions.
And I think one of the things about having guys like Lawrence Kenshin putting out these videos, and a lot of other people that have done these tremendous breakdown videos of Muay Thai, is that People that are fans, even if they don't train themselves, even if they just watch it, they can see things now that maybe perhaps they wouldn't have seen before and then appreciate what these athletes are doing.
There's a lot of people that watch football that can't fucking play football at all, but they can enjoy it.
And I think that you're seeing that in this, you know, and watching the, whoa, there's the, is that where he called a knockdown?
What it means is that in boxing, when you have two great fighters from two different weight classes that meet at a catch weight, they make it a diamond belt fight and they put real diamonds on the belt and it's the epitome of the WBC title.
Yeah, you see that a lot with sweeps and trips, and you see some really interesting trips and sweeps in Muay Thai that are very, very technical about manipulating guys, setting them up in one direction, then changing direction on them and throwing them to the ground.
Well, a lot of the stuff in the Muay Thai clinch is very similar to Greco wrestling.
You know, all upper body throws and stuff because we can't shoot in, but everything we can do is above the waist and those kind of manipulations and off-balancing.
And that's why, like, if I just do Greco wrestling, I do pretty well, you know.
And people are often surprised by how well my wrestling or jujitsu is if I'm just messing around doing it because there's so many similarities.
Now, when guys take guys down in Muay Thai, how much does that count?
How are they scoring fights?
Obviously, knockdowns are critical, but if you dump a guy a bunch of times, meaning you sweep him and trip him and slam him on his back, how much of a factor is that in a fight?
You know, there's so many factors, man, that go into it.
And again, if you have a judge or a ref that basically has a very elementary understanding of this sport, they can't give you an accurate judge of this or an accurate reffing of this because they're not so...
It's like if you sweep somebody and seamlessly do it and make it look like nothing as opposed to sweeping them and falling on top of them and you both lose their bounce, of course, yeah.
Well, this punch should get this amount of credit or this much credit as opposed to just that pitter-pat stuff.
So, you know, it's a very difficult thing to do and to do correctly and accurately because there's so many variables and so many things you're seeing or not seeing depending on where you're sitting, how you're viewing it, if you're in there, if you're out there, if you're on the left side of the ring, the right side of the ring.
It's too complex a thing to...
That's why I could never say anything about a decision.
It's like, well...
It's such a difficult thing to do.
Unless it was so one-sided.
How in any way could you view this?
But if any fight is relatively close, I don't see how you can complain really about the decision because no matter what, sometimes you're going to be on one side of it and sometimes you're going to be on the other side of it where maybe you didn't win and they gave it to you.
One of the things I love about talking to fighters, and especially about putting on a podcast, is I think it gives people the impression of fighters, like a similar impression to what I have.
I think a lot of people have the wrong impression.
They have this impression that fighters are all, hey, I'm a bad motherfucker.
I'm out there to fuck the world and kick ass.
But really, the very best fighters are almost all very intelligent and very complex people.
What you do when you fight, when you compete, is like a representative of your focus.
It's like all the stuff that you had to do to get to that moment, especially after you've done it a few times and you're aware of all the demands and you've risen to the occasion on more than one time and you realize all the variables that are involved in it.
It's cool talking to you guys and going over that stuff.
I think there's a lot of people that are listening right now like, these fucking guys are sharp.
There's a lot going on to this that I didn't think.
It's a thing that you don't see the whole thing sometimes.
Yeah, I mean, depending upon—there's a lot of variables that are involved in that.
But what fighting is to me, the way I always like to describe it, is high-level problem-solving with dire physical consequences.
And so when you watch someone who's absolutely sensational at it, you know, like when you watch an Anderson Silva in his prime, you see some guy who's just figured out a way through this puzzle in this really extraordinary way.
And there's a beauty to that that I think the people that really love and appreciate fighting can understand it and can feel it and see it.
And I always want to try to find a way to express that to other people.
Like, do you see what I'm seeing?
Because if you saw what I'm seeing, you'd be fucking freaking out just like I am.
When you saw there was some recent event that, what was it, NBC or whoever was putting it into, they spent like hundreds of millions of dollars on boxing.
They had a few events.
They lost a shitload of money.
And then it's done.
It's out.
And it falls apart.
I've watched something like that.
I'm like, goddamn, they put so much effort into this.
If they just put together a fucking stacked Muay Thai card, just a stacked one, and just let people know, and put it on primetime TV, just like they do with Fox, with the UFC, I feel like you can't miss.
I really do.
I feel like it's one of those things where the product is there, the talent is there, the fighters are established.
As we said earlier, there's so many variables that go into it, and it's just a matter of all those right pieces coming together at the right time.
Just like when the UFC really started blowing up with the Stephen Bonner and Forrest Griffin fight, how long it had been around, how many amazing fights had been going on, and it was just that, the right time, the right people, the right thing.
There's also losing, I mean, you see it in MMA, like fighters from different disciplines, maybe grapplers or something like that, that lose by KO for the first time.
Yeah, and that is really the key, because eventually, if you do this long enough, those things are going to happen.
And how you overcome them is really what shows you what a great fighter is.
Because anybody that goes around winning and just crushing people is, yeah, that's great and all, but if you have never come back from total destruction, you're not a complete fighter, I don't feel.
Back when I was in Vegas, I originally started doing it because I broke my hand three times in a year, and I was always so hesitant to throw it.
It's always painful and stuff, and I just mentally couldn't get over it.
That was how I originally started working with a mental coach with...
Sort of hypnosis, but more just getting to that right mind frame, like going into the ring.
And then I started going from there as very specific things I wanted to work on.
Because it's all about having that right mentality when you get in there or when you're getting into training, as opposed to just going through the motions.
And you can get very, especially when you've been doing this for so long, you can get very comfortable and too comfortable.
And that's one of the problems I've had, especially being so calm as I am.
It's very easy for me to just be like, ah, this is whatever.
I'm here to very specifically build myself up, get ready for this fight.
I'm not just here to work out.
It's the difference between working out and training.
You're very focused on the task at hand.
Why are you doing this?
You're doing this to be the best.
Like, you're getting ready for this date, you need to give it all you have at this very specific moment, instead of just casually getting through the training.
You know, you're doing everything you're supposed to do, but if you're not mentally doing that as well, when you get into the ring, you're gonna fight in that kind of laid-back, casual way, as opposed to this being this very, you know, dangerous thing you're doing.
Yeah, like just dialing everything in, you know what I mean?
Some people have more of that automatic thing.
They're like, when I'm in the gym, I'm very focused, very determined.
I'm doing this for this specific goal.
But after you've been doing this for so long, it just becomes like, I'll just get through it and do it.
You kind of almost get lazy mentally.
I've never been lazy physically.
You know, I've always pushed myself almost too much, but mentally there's been times when I've had those bad fights is when I've allowed myself to slip.
Whether that's because, you know, the person I was fighting didn't give me enough threat in my mind or there was things going on outside the gym with family and pets dying and things like that that kind of broke certain things to me down where I was still doing the work, but mentally I was just broken.
Like, there's a buddy of mine who used to work with fighters and it would seem like every time his fighter was getting to get ready to compete, his girlfriend would have some fucking major drama and she'd be waking him up in the middle of the night and screaming at him and she just wanted to fight, like, as he was gearing up to a fight because he was pulling away from her and We're good to
Well, when you've experienced life at 10, like you guys are living, you know, you're living this extremely dangerous, difficult, incredibly complex life.
I mean, the task of being a professional combat sports athlete...
Is one of the most difficult jobs that is available to a person.
It really is.
It's incredibly difficult.
And it's incredibly difficult psychologically.
It's not just difficult.
It's difficult across the board.
There's not a single fucking thing that's easy about it.
And to find the right formula to make that thing work for you...
And you really have to pay attention to it because the longer you let things slide and don't realize, like, hey, you're letting this slip over here, the harder it is to make those adjustments.
That's what I was saying.
Like, every day, you're on both sides of too much or too little of one thing or another, whether it's training, whether it's your mental approach, whether it's your diet, whether it's how much or how little you're running.
There's a fine line that people make when they're training and they're putting together a schedule.
There's a big debate, especially in MMA, over how much strength and conditioning you should do versus how much fight-specific skill training you should do.
Where do you guys fit in on that and how do you make the distinction?
I have a long training session in the afternoon, but then Tuesday I run, then we do strength and conditioning, then I come back in the afternoon, I hit pads, then we all spar together.
I find it's hilarious and fun to watch when you see Thai guys training with American people and the American people don't speak Thai and the Thai guy doesn't speak English and they're trying to teach him a technique and they're just kind of like...
It's this weird thing where you're looking at each other and they're trying to figure out what the other guy's saying.
Well, that's funny you said that because we worked out today and you're very complex.
I mean, we were talking just about the switch kick and I think you went on this 10 minute rant of just all the different variables that are involved in it.
Again, I learned it by doing it, but it wasn't until teaching it that I had to figure out what all those steps were, which has helped me in what I do and helped me improve a lot of the techniques I have, is realizing all the complexity of every technique, of every movement.
When I explain it to people and I train people, a lot of it is just me telling them how you do it.
How I learned was just do it.
Go run.
Go kick the bag.
You've got to fix this.
By watching and studying, that's really how I learned.
Well, what's interesting and maybe unfortunate is that you could train with a lot of people and they would never point out some of the stuff that you guys pointed out today.
It's finding someone who's technically proficient and understands how to relay that information.
It's one of the harder parts of being a martial artist, unless you're a self-starter and you just do a lot of...
Well, now today, obviously, when you were there, you couldn't do YouTube, but now...
I've found some shitty ones on all sorts of things where they don't know what the fuck they're talking about on all sorts of different martial arts techniques.
They didn't have to learn all the fundamental aspects that go into this technique.
Whereas somebody that might not be as good, they've studied it a lot more.
And that's why a lot of times you'll see not the highest level fighters be the better coaches.
because they've had to study it so much more and they've had to really look into it and dissect it that much more because they weren't able to or for whatever reason do it so naturally Like Freddie Roach.
And that's something I've gone out of my way to do.
It was much more natural for me to do, but throughout the years, I've realized that.
And how do I tell someone how to do this?
I've had to figure out what those things are, and how do I tell someone how to do this?
Because I can just do it just by doing it.
I can watch somebody do something, and I'm like, I want to do it.
But how do I explain this to somebody?
And I've had to dissect my own self and realize all these things and all these aspects of the technique and it allows me to translate that to somebody else as well as fine-tune it in myself.
It's when people have a false sense of where they're at in the sport and what they can do.
You literally know nothing, but you have this mentality that you're decent at stand-up, you're decent at Muay Thai, and you're terrible, compared to someone that really does know what they're doing.
You know what I mean?
Most people's understanding is very elementary, if that.
You know, you take another person and I could beat you without even, like, touching you.
You know what I mean?
And just let you mess yourself up because you don't really know what you're doing.
There's wrestling, there's jiu-jitsu, there's all these things.
You can get away with a lot more, like the striking in MMA, you can get away with because of those variables, because of the smaller gloves, because of the takedowns.
You put that person in the ring with even a moderately good Muay Thai person, a moderately good boxer, they're going to get murdered.
Yeah, well, that's why, like, I've never really understood the argument of, like, pitting this person against that person, or, like, who's got the best Muay Thai and MMA? Well, nobody, because they're not doing Muay Thai.
Well, it's interesting that Wonderboy Thompson is going to fight Tyron Woodley, who's the UFC welterweight champion and who's this super powerful wrestler, but he's also training with Duke Rufus, who's obviously very talented, knows a lot about Muay Thai, great coach.
When you see a guy like that, the reason why I keep bringing up Wonderboy's style is because it's so unique.
We brought up Raymond Daniels in Glory, who's one of the only guys that has that similar background.
And then Michael Page, of course, in MMA who fights for Bellator, has a very similar style, too.
I think what we were speaking of earlier, if you've never applied that in a fight, a real fight, not point sparring, not that kind of thing, there's certain techniques and things that are completely worthless.
And unfortunately, in a lot of those sports, you don't get exposed by that until it's way too late.
So you're trying these techniques that...
A decent person is just going to walk right through because they look good and they're flashy and they're great on the pads and all that, but when you have to damage someone...
But when you see, what I was trying to get at is that such a weird style where he stands sideways and he leaps in and out and he moves back and forth from the waist like a snake.
I mean, he's got a lot of, there's a lot of weirdness to the way he moves and it's very difficult to find anybody that has that level skill with sport karate, kickboxing, but also has a really good wrestling base too.
Yeah, and I think that's one of the biggest things and why he's able to apply those things because he can deal with the wrestling and everything else that goes in.
So that's why you'll see him throw those techniques because he's not as worried about it as someone who might be just as good as him with those things and has zero ground or wrestling where they're not going to throw because they're going to get taken down and crushed.
Yeah, it's like we were talking about your experience in a Taekwondo school, that you went there, and the first day you start doing sparring, you threw a low kick, and they're like, get out of here!
Well, I think he's an expert and he's become an expert striker in MMA. So he's applying all the techniques that he knows and have worked for him in MMA. So it's different than if he would get in the ring and do Muay Thai.
At a certain level, you lose that, where your spinning flashy techniques are going to work against those mid-level guys, but you put them in there with the best in the world, and a lot of that stuff gets exposed and is not working out so well.
It demonstrates the holes in some of the stances and techniques.
If I'm not flinching on the things you do and don't really care so much about you hopping around and spinning around, I'm just walking down crushing you.
That's where that kind of gets exposed.
It's like putting a boxer into a Muay Thai fight.
All I'm going to do is kick your legs and you can't punch me.
But you take a boxer and teach them how to defend those kicks and stand in a little bit more of a squared up way where I can't use your weakness against you as much.
You're going to have much better success.
Even if you never throw a kick, now you just can take those kicks better and just kill me with your high level hands.
Yeah, I mean, they were all on like a week's notice.
One of them was like the day I got there, like, well, this was when I was saying I was having all those fights fall through, and I went to this fight, it was supposed to be a Muay Thai fight, and I told the promoter way ahead of time, like, look, I've had all these fights fall through, I'm not coming out there unless you have a fight for me.
I'm like, not only do you need to have a fight for me, I need you to have a backup guy for me as well.
He's like, don't worry, don't worry, we got it, we got it.
I'm like, I'll call them before I went out there and be like, so the guy's still gonna fight me, right?
Yeah, yeah.
You got the backup guy too, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Alright, get out there.
Well, yeah, they both backed out, so I don't know what we're gonna do.
And I was like, look, if you don't get me a fighter, you need to drag your ass in the ring and we're gonna fight because I killed myself and you promised me we had a fight.
He's like, oh, man, I'm gonna get you something.
I'm gonna get you somebody.
I'm like, alright, so I weighed in.
Left.
Came back.
He's like, well, we got somebody, but he's a boxer.
Do you want to do a boxing fight?
And I used to carry my boxing shoes with me just in case.
And I would bring my mouthpiece and my cup to fights even if I wasn't fighting just in case.
Yeah, there's a certain amount of carbohydrates that a lot of people that are involved in, like, very strenuous shit, like whether it's triathletes or somewhere along those lines.
Like, there's a lot of people that try, maybe they go with a ketogenic diet.
I know some guys have made the transition successfully and then they compete and they do a lot of things, burning off fats.
But I'm always curious about extreme people, like people that are doing ultramarathons, people that are doing things that are extreme energy requirements, you know?
But the people that are successful with it, apparently there's a curve where you go through that keto flu stage for a few weeks and then you get better.
But I've talked to people that never get better.
I know some friends, jujitsu friends, that went through the whole process and didn't train hard for three or four weeks and got themselves to a state of ketosis but just did not feel right.
I mean, I know it works for power lifters and stuff like that, and people like that, but me as a fighter, personally experienced it for a little bit, I just would not do it again.
It takes your body a while, apparently, to make that adaptation.
But it is controversial.
I mean, it works for me and it works for some people, but obviously my lifestyle doesn't have the same energy requirements that your lifestyle does when you're training for fights.
I mean, like all things, you've got to find what works out best for you.
That's why I'll make the adjustments I feel like I need if I feel like I need some more carbs, some more grains on a certain day or going into a certain workout.
I'm going to have them.
That's why I wouldn't say I have a specific diet because it varies.
It varies how I'm feeling, what's working, what's not working.
I mean, like, I have days, you know, towards the end of camp that I'm like, dude, like, I cannot, like, even with my diet and everything, like, you're so sore, you've busted your ass for so long, you know, you're like, I just can't.
And I've taken that AlphaBrain stuff, and, like, that stuff puts you on, for sure.
Man, the movie is such a small fraction of what this dude went through.
Seeing how much stuff he overcome, not once, not twice.
Every time you think there's no way this guy can overcome this, he did it again, did it again, did it again, did it again.
Unbelievable stuff, man.
It's one of my more favorite books.
But people like that, I'd say I'd seek that out and look for stories of inspiration, not just fighters, but in any art or aspect of life in general.
Seeing the things that...
People overcome.
As I said earlier, if you go and look at anyone's story who's ever made it, you can take inspiration for them.
Seeing the struggles they went through, it's unbelievable.
When we don't know these things, we think of ourselves as the only ones that have to overcome stuff or are dealing with things that That might have slowed us down, but you're like, well, that guy had way worse than I ever did.
You know what I mean?
And that's why I've always tried to be very vocal about the things I've struggled with and overcome.
And like the first highlight video I ever had done for me, it was very important for me to show myself getting knocked out and dropped and all these things.
I'm like, everyone just shows these highlights of their life.
It gives you a very skewed perception of what it is we have to deal with and go through, especially to reach a certain level.
Like...
It's terrible, man.
We go through a lot and people don't know it because you just see the end result of all this hard work and you see the glamour and the lights and the highlights and stuff, but you don't know what people have come with and dealt with, things that would crush most people.
I think what's really important about inspirational videos and books and biographies and things along those lines is it gives you an insight into someone's perspective that you...
You can find parallels.
You find parallels to your own life and it normalizes some things that might just seem incredibly confusing because maybe to you it's the first time you've had to overcome something that's so difficult.
But then you find out that other people have done it as well and it kind of You can take a lot of comfort in people that have gone before you.
Just sitting down and talking to somebody, hearing their story, it can be very inspirational and really help you overcome anything you might be facing.
And again, that's why I've always tried to be very vocal about my story and share some of my fight experiences or training experience or life experiences because Most people, they don't ever hear that side of fame, if you want to call it that.
They don't see that.
It doesn't get put out there like the successes do.
Well, that's one of the things that I think is interesting about you.
You're obviously a very intelligent guy, and you're a guy who's gone through a lot of things, but you're also a guy who wants other people to know that you've gone through all these things.
You're a guy who wants—you're assuming not just this role of a fighter, but you're also assuming a role as a mentor and of an example to— To those that are coming up.
Well, it's something that's been very important to me because, like, as I was coming up, you know, before YouTube and everything, like, I didn't really have anyone to look at and be like, well, he did it, I can do it too.
So it was very, it still is very important to me.
One of the most important things to me to show people that they can do it, you know, and to show people...
How late I started and where I was and the things I've overcome because when you've seen that someone's done it before you or similar and overcome these things, it makes it that much easier for the next person.
There's a really amazing book called The Rise of Superman and I don't know if you've ever read it.
They talk about...
Like the leaps we've made in athletics.
They were more talking about extreme sports.
One of the things they were talking about was the four-minute mile.
That used to be physically thought of as impossible, whereas now it becomes a requirement.
For people to do.
And like kids in high school are doing it.
Where they used to think of it as like there's no way you can physically do this.
And they brought up I think it was like the 900 on a skateboard.
Like it was impossible to do.
It's like there's no way you can do this.
And then Tony Hawk or whoever did it.
And now eight-year-old kids can pull this off because that thing that's viewed as impossible becomes the norm.
And as soon as that happens, you can get to the next level and the next level and the next level.
And the only way to do that is for someone to break through whatever that impossible thing is.
And if these things aren't put out there and people don't know about them, you're still always viewing that barrier as this is as high as we can go.
I've always known where, speaking about Muay Thai, where the sport could go.
You know, coming up, I never thought I'd still be actively doing it while it got out there and got the exposure it's been getting recently.
But I always knew I would be a person that helped it go along.
And that was a huge thing that kept me from ever venturing full-time into MMA or into boxing.
Because I was like, there's only a handful of us doing this.
Me and Joe Schilling and Tiffany and Kai and a lot of other people.
I was like, if there's only a handful of us doing this at this level and going out there and taking these almost impossible fights, and I leave, who's there to do this?
Who's going to do this?
Somebody's got to go through the gate.
And get bloodied up.
You know, that first person has to do it.
And I can't, like, pass this off on somebody else.
I can't give up.
Like, that's gonna make it that much harder for them.
So, yeah, I've always felt like I needed to be the inspiration I wanted to see in the world.
I mean, before, when we first started training together, dude, I would get this, like, adrenaline dumps when I was sparring with him.
I was like...
I was like, oh my god, I'm sparring with Kevin Ross, and then slowly it would get better, and now we've become great training partners, and he's been a huge part of my career, obviously.
Guys that are coming up that are in the same place that you were a few years ago and you get to see it now, that it is this sort of long, crazy chain of events and this process that really essentially you only get a couple decades out of it if you're lucky, if you're super, super lucky.
And it's such an unbelievably difficult experience.