Feb. 23, 2017 - The Joe Rogan Experience
02:07:36
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| These are sick. | ||
| It's like those MREs. | ||
| Two, one, bam. | ||
| Yeah, Dominic Cruz is sitting here. | ||
| He's looking at this thing called Green Belly Meal, Meal to Go. | ||
| The guy who created this is like this long-distance hiker. | ||
| Like, he does those... | ||
| Like, do you know that trail? | ||
| What is it called? | ||
| The Appalachian Trail that goes from... | ||
| I know of it. | ||
| You know of it, yeah. | ||
| What does it go from, like, Georgia to Maine or something crazy like that? | ||
| And these... | ||
| People walk it. | ||
| It takes like six months. | ||
| Yeah, I'm into stuff like that, but that's like a whole different part of your life I feel like you get to when you do stuff like that. | ||
| Well, you gotta have a real commitment because you're not doing anything but that for six months. | ||
| Yeah, it's a different lifestyle change. | ||
| It's like a different time in your life, I feel, when you do something like that. | ||
| Yeah, but being a fighter, do you feel like you're pretty limited as to what you can do outside of fighting? | ||
| As far as you're always recovering from training, you're always involved in something related to either promotion or preparation? | ||
| Yeah, agreed. | ||
| I mean, I'm not telling you anything you don't know. | ||
| How many of these things have you done with pro athletes? | ||
| I've done a lot. | ||
| You know that it's all or nothing. | ||
| Because everybody's so good that if you don't invest every ounce of yourself into something, there's somebody else that is, in my opinion. | ||
| So it's like, you have to do that, or else you get passed by. | ||
| Yeah, and you also feel like you have to be super objective, too, about where you stand and where your skills are at. | ||
| Of course. | ||
| Because you're either at a point of constant improvement or you're at some sort of stagnation or a decline. | ||
| Yes, I think so. | ||
| But then that question always comes to mind according to win and loss ratio, which doesn't always tell the truth. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Because that's not always the fact. | ||
| It could just be a bad night and a good matchup and they had a game plan or... | ||
| You lost and now you're going to sit and go to the drawing board and say that everything was off because of one loss? | ||
| Right. | ||
| Doesn't really make sense to me. | ||
| So it's kind of a mixture. | ||
| You've got to find the happy medium. | ||
| It comes down to trust in the people around you. | ||
| Not having nothing but yes men around you. | ||
| And I feel like as long as you have a good solid base of people that give the truth to you… Then you don't have to think with your emotion and you can think with logic. | ||
| I think it's important to have those people around you so you don't steer off the course. | ||
| Right, because even if you do have a loss, it's not saying that everything is off, but certainly something wasn't adequate in that particular matchup. | ||
| So you're just getting off of the second loss ever of your mixed martial arts career. | ||
| The first one, you got caught by Uriah with a guillotine, and then the second one, this Cody No Love fight. | ||
| What are your thoughts on it now, having time to reflect and look back? | ||
| Well, my thoughts are... | ||
| I pretty much laid it all out right away because I wanted to just do that, which was at the press conference, the post-fight press conference. | ||
| I pretty much just wanted to, like I literally laid every ounce of every thought I had at that moment out there for everybody to hear at a point where I'm very vulnerable. | ||
| And I did that on purpose to show that... | ||
| We're not all, you know, the same. | ||
| Some people don't want to show their vulnerability. | ||
| Some people want to just be seen as only perfect, only tough, only strong. | ||
| And really the truth of what makes the strongest people in the world is their vulnerability early until they learn how to be tough. | ||
| And, you know, losing is part of that lesson, unfortunately. | ||
| For everybody and being unsuccessful is part of that lesson for people just as much as losing so it's like you do what you can with it and that's how I feel now is like I do what I can with it and the only way to make the best of it is to accept it right the second it happens understand that That's just the way it is. | ||
| That's the way that this has been slated for this portion of my life and just move forward. | ||
| And as long as you embrace it, don't make excuses for it, and then you can actually look at what you did wrong and take it in. | ||
| The second you make an excuse, the second you say, well, I was a little off here, a little off there because of this, this, and this, is the second you allow your mind to go into a path of, well... | ||
| It wasn't in my control, which means you're not really dealing with the problems at hand, I don't think. | ||
| I think you're kind of bypassing the problems at hand when you do that. | ||
| And then you can't grow from the experience. | ||
| So what's the point of a loss if you're not going to grow from it and get the most out of it? | ||
| Now it's just useless if you don't accept it. | ||
| Yeah, there's a real instinct that many fighters show, like almost immediately after a loss, to go right into what was wrong with the camp, what was wrong with an injury, what they could have done differently, personal problems. | ||
| And that really can wreck havoc with your mind. | ||
| Correct. | ||
| I agree. | ||
| I think more than wreaking havoc with your mind, I think it just shows How long it's going to take for them to get over the loss. | ||
| I mean, that's the thing. | ||
| The second you just say it, lay it all out there, and everybody knows, including yourself, the next step is growth. | ||
| It's no longer stagnant and sitting and feeling the loss and trying to accept it. | ||
| I've already accepted it. | ||
| I accepted it the second I shook his hand in that octagon and they raised his hand as the winner. | ||
| I mean, am I really going to sit here and make excuses? | ||
| Because let's say on the judges scorecard, I had some mindset that's like, oh, I shouldn't have lost the decision or maybe this, maybe that. | ||
| It's like, what's the point of that? | ||
| Because in the end, it's already been chalked. | ||
| It's already there. | ||
| It's written down. | ||
| Yeah, it's over. | ||
| Regardless of what anybody says, that's not leaving that piece of paper. | ||
| So what's the point of really saying all this stuff, letting people argue that, well, you could have won here, you could have won. | ||
| Where is the argument anymore? | ||
| Where's the logic in that? | ||
| Where's the point in all that? | ||
| And I'm just sick and tired of excuses. | ||
| I've fought so many years, winning so many years, hearing so many excuses about why I beat people. | ||
| And I wanted to set a perimeter right off the bat that I'm not that person. | ||
| Now, you're getting really well known as an MMA analyst, and I think you do an amazing job on Fox. | ||
| I think you're one of the best guys in the world at it. | ||
| You're really, really good at it. | ||
| But one of the things that people are getting a chance to see because of that is how your mind works and how much thought you put into not just fighting itself, but the whole process. | ||
| The whole process of preparation and mindset while the competition is going on. | ||
| And that's also being reflected right now in the way you express how you get over a loss. | ||
| Where have you learned to think like this? | ||
| Well, my mom is a big reason for that, I would say, early on. | ||
| She just always forced me to deal with the things I didn't want to deal with. | ||
| And not just deal with them, but look at them in the eye and talk about it. | ||
| Like what kind of stuff? | ||
| Anything. | ||
| Like you steal a packet of gum from the store and you walk out with it and you're... | ||
| I'm seven years old and you get home and you're eating a piece of gum and your mom goes, I didn't buy that for you, where'd you get that gum? | ||
| And we drive back with the gum in my mouth, put it in the wrapper, show the person at the front and that's not enough because I embarrassed the cash register so I gotta apologize to them and then I gotta go to the owner of the store, the manager, and apologize to them and then... | ||
| Might have to go paint a wall for him to make up for the piece of gum that I... I mean, it goes all the way down to that. | ||
| My mom has been that way since I can remember to where. | ||
| There's just... | ||
| She would never, ever let me make an excuse for anything I ever did. | ||
| Ever. | ||
| And I used to get so frustrated with her because she would also never really get mad. | ||
| She would never really raise her voice. | ||
| She would never really show a whole lot of emotion. | ||
| She would literally say, I'm not going to yell. | ||
| I'm not going to scream. | ||
| I'm not going to get angry. | ||
| I'm not going to give you that power. | ||
| But that's one. | ||
| And that meant I was getting one whooping when I got home when I did something wrong. | ||
| And so now I got to sit and think about that for the next five hours until we get home. | ||
| And then she takes me into a room and she sits me down with no anger. | ||
| Everything's understood. | ||
| And she says, do you know why we're here? | ||
| And she explains to me why we're here and why I'm in trouble and why I'm getting smacked on the ass with this breadboard. | ||
| And she just... | ||
| There was never any escaping anything. | ||
| Ever. | ||
| So it's like... | ||
| It put me in this weird mindset where I just I don't make excuses and anybody who makes excuses I call them out on it because it's old. | ||
| It's annoying. | ||
| It's flawed in my opinion. | ||
| It's just weak. | ||
| That's a great lesson. | ||
| That's a great way to be raised to your mom. | ||
| I'm not perfect. | ||
| Don't get me wrong. | ||
| I'm not saying I do this every time. | ||
| It's just something that's like made me You asked how I got that in my mind and it just, it wired me a little different. | ||
| My grandma's pretty crazy on that too. | ||
| So between my grandmother and my mom who helped raise me because my dad wasn't around so much, those two molded me into this weird being. | ||
| Do you think they could have got through it without beating you? | ||
| Without the paddle for the ass? | ||
| No, absolutely not. | ||
| You think that was imperative? | ||
| It was me and my brother. | ||
|
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We were just little mutants. | |
| In the trailer park, we'd be fighting. | ||
| My mom's at work. | ||
| We lived in a trailer across the street from my grandmother. | ||
| And it was like $400 a month, you know, to live in this trailer. | ||
| It's one bedroom, single wide. | ||
| She would come, when we would fight, we'd hear the door open and my grandma would be at the door. | ||
| And me and my brother, because you could hear us slamming into the floor because it's echoes from the bottom of the trailer, right? | ||
| And so she'd run across the street and oh no, we knew we were in trouble when grandma came over. | ||
| It was bad news. | ||
| So, I don't know, it's just a weird upbringing kind of to an extent. | ||
| I think everybody got raised by their family, but by my mom and my grandmother. | ||
| It just put a different mentality in me. | ||
| My grandmother is a very tough individual. | ||
| She's been through a lot. | ||
| Now, when you started fighting, how did they approach it? | ||
| Yeah, that's another odd thing. | ||
| My mom was just all support. | ||
| I was going to college when I just started. | ||
| I was coaching a local high school, and one of the kids that I was coaching, I was 19 years old at this point. | ||
| And I just graduated high school and started coaching a local high school team because I wanted to compete. | ||
| Wrestling, correct. | ||
| And I didn't get into college like I wanted to to wrestle and didn't do all these things. | ||
| So I just needed to compete. | ||
| So I got in the room and started coaching these kids. | ||
| Well, they're my age. | ||
| They're 18. I'm 19. I just graduated. | ||
| So we become friends. | ||
| One of these guys invites me to a gym he goes to. | ||
| I jump in there and start training, right? | ||
| So during this time... | ||
| My mom, I'm going to school. | ||
| So I'm working three jobs. | ||
| You know, I work at Sherwin-Williams. | ||
| I'm a janitor at the gym. | ||
| And then I'm coaching this high school wrestling team. | ||
| And then I'm going to school at night and I'm training in between that. | ||
| So this is what I'm doing in Tucson. | ||
| And during this time, I told my mom, you know, I'm just so tired of school. | ||
| I go to night school after my three jobs. | ||
| I go three jobs and then I go to night school at 8 p.m. | ||
| and I'm just wore out. | ||
| I'm sitting in Spanish class one day trying to learn what I've been learning in high school in Spanish class. | ||
| I'm like, why am I paying for this school when I just did this class in high school and now I'm paying for it to get an associate's degree to go to another four years in college that I'm going to be in debt for? | ||
| Like, what am I doing? | ||
| I don't want to be here. | ||
| I wasn't happy in school after all my days at work. | ||
| So I said, you know, the only time I felt free and happy was in the gym. | ||
| It's the only time I could talk and laugh and smile and be myself, hurting other people, punching things, kicking things, yelling at things, telling people how I felt. | ||
| And then if they had a problem, we could fight about it. | ||
| I was at peace there. | ||
| So I just stopped going to school and said, Mom, I'm going to start training to become a fighter. | ||
| I said, They got the Ultimate Fighter going on. | ||
| It's a big thing. | ||
| It's growing. | ||
| Now's the time. | ||
| If I'm going to do it, I need to go all in. | ||
| She said, Okay. | ||
| You don't need to go to school to be successful. | ||
| You don't need to go to college. | ||
| Follow your heart and you will be successful. | ||
| It's a guarantee. | ||
| And she was right. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| That's fascinating. | ||
| My mom has a weird, spiritual, emotional... | ||
| Way of talking, explaining, and getting through to me that can't be explained until you meet somebody like that. | ||
| Well, also, no one is ever going to be able to recreate that because she made you. | ||
| Yeah, that's a good way to put it. | ||
| I mean, I think everybody believes their mom has their own. | ||
| I mean, moms are special. | ||
| We all know that. | ||
| But every person has their own way that they were raised and brought up and then they pass that on to their child. | ||
| My mom had a hard life. | ||
| So I think she's just so wise that she passed a lot of A lot of wisdom off to me young because she just growing up and raising us broke like she did by herself I think just taught her so much that she didn't want us to have to live any kind of struggle life like that. | ||
| So she made us learn the hard way with her instead of her taking everything and not teaching us anything. | ||
| We lived it with her and grew in the experience with her and then that got added to my life and what I wanted to do moving forward. | ||
| Now, you developed a really unusual fighting style. | ||
| I mean, I think I've said about you that one of the more unusual things about your style is that I could watch you like as a silhouette. | ||
| Someone could show me a silhouette of you moving around. | ||
| I go, oh, that's Dominic Cruz. | ||
| There's very few people that you would say that about, like, where you would instantaneously recognize their movements. | ||
| Like, your movements are very unusual, very difficult to pattern, and they're not really indicative of, like, a style. | ||
| Like, you know, there's the Muay Thai style. | ||
| People have that light front leg. | ||
| There's the karate style, like, you know, Wonderboy Thompson. | ||
| There's a bunch of styles where you go, oh, I see what this guy's doing. | ||
| Your style is very uniquely yours. | ||
| What sort of caused that? | ||
| Where'd that come from? | ||
| It's a mixture of things as... | ||
| I mean, I've been fighting since as long as the Diaz brothers. | ||
| I started when I was 19 years old back in 2005. And I've been doing it since then. | ||
| So that's part of it, is that just years and years of fighting and facing different people and seeing what the issues were. | ||
| But more than that, it was built around the fact that I knew whether I knew I was ahead or not, my mindset said I have to fight, do something different, because this is a new sport with new rules and different equipment than has ever been seen in the history of this world. | ||
| So that means there's four-ounce gloves, We're using kicks, knees, elbows, and hands, everything, right? | ||
| All eight limbs. | ||
| So I said I need to make sure that I'm not taking damage. | ||
| As long as I'm not taking damage, I should win. | ||
| I gotta be hard to hit and my defense needs to be flawless with these size gloves. | ||
| It's not going to be the same as boxing. | ||
| I can't just sit here and cover like this because my gloves are a quarter of the size. | ||
| Things peek in and I learned that real quick. | ||
| And so I said, alright, so I need to move nonstop. | ||
| I can't sit still like I do in boxing or kickboxing because you're going to get taken down as well. | ||
| So that's where my mind started changing is with the takedown. | ||
| That's where I knew I really had to do something different is in no striking sport on earth is there a takedown involved. | ||
| So that means that I need to attack on a different plane. | ||
| And that means I need to not be down the center line. | ||
| As long as I fight not down the center line, it takes away As long as I don't fight on the center line all the time, it takes away almost all weapons from all styles. | ||
| Boxing is probably the one style that flows most off the center line. | ||
| But when we're talking about Muay Thai, or we're talking about wrestling, or we're talking about Judo, or we're talking about almost every other martial art, they attack down a straight line. | ||
| And so I knew I could take away most of their weapons just by changing the plane that I fought on. | ||
| If I fought on a different plane than them, then they would not have answers for the plane that I'm fighting on because everything they do is on that line. | ||
| So instead of fighting them and their style, I fought the lines that they're fighting on. | ||
| And then that kind of changed things mixed with the defense. | ||
| Well, I've always enjoyed watching you fight, and I've always enjoyed explaining how you fight to people that have never seen martial arts or don't understand it. | ||
| Because for people on the outside, maybe someone who's not a fan or never did any martial arts training, they look at it like just violence. | ||
| You know, they see guys just beating the shit out of each other. | ||
| And the way I try to describe it to a friend once, I said, think about it this way. | ||
| It's a lot like a conversation. | ||
| And the more words you have at your disposal, the more verbal memory you have, the more used to stringing together sentences you are, the more fluently the conversation is going to come out of your mouth. | ||
| The more it's going to flow. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And when you're watching, and I'll show someone like you, when you're trying to have, you know, let's call it a conversation, trying to have a conversation with Dominic Cruz inside the Octagon, You don't know where the fuck he's going. | ||
| Like, you're setting up so many weird angles and so much weird movements and so many false entries, and there's so much going on that you're, in a lot of ways, you're overloading a person's reactions. | ||
| You're overloading their mind. | ||
| That is partially what I'm trying to do. | ||
| Yes, I'd agree. | ||
| Now, you're starting to see that over time there's an answer for every style. | ||
| There's an answer for everything. | ||
| And that's the fun of this thing is that it's not always stagnant. | ||
| It's not always the same. | ||
| And there is an answer to everything. | ||
| And then you've got to adjust. | ||
| So that's what I'm built on is adjustments. | ||
| My whole game is built on adjustments. | ||
| So it can always change and always look different because every round I come out with a different adjustment off of what you did to me. | ||
| And now you're fighting a different guy every round. | ||
| You just don't know it. | ||
| But that comes from fakes and seeing what they want on you. | ||
| And that comes from their game plan. | ||
| It's a whole mixture of reads in there. | ||
| And that's something that you either have or you don't have. | ||
| Somebody like Anderson Silva can make reads extremely quickly. | ||
| And that's what's made him so successful. | ||
| Demetrius Johnson reads extremely quickly. | ||
| Makes him successful. | ||
| The best in the world adjusts. | ||
| And the best... | ||
| For me, the best in the world aren't the ones who just win. | ||
| It's the ones who win and stay on top for a long period of time. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Because now you don't just have a style to win a fight. | ||
| You have a style to stay winning. | ||
| Which means that your style hits so many different avenues that you can compete with all these different styles no matter what they match you up against until... | ||
| Now my style, I built it so that no matter which style you try to throw at me, it was going to give it a problem. | ||
| And that was the basis that I wanted to create when I fought, every single time I fought somebody. | ||
| It was, it doesn't matter what your gift is, the planes that I'm going to fight you on make it impossible for your gifts to be your gifts anymore. | ||
| Now, I've seen you practice, and I've seen your footwork drills, and I've seen, you know, a lot of your steps and the different various entries you have to techniques. | ||
| Are these... | ||
| Moves that you've learned from somewhere? | ||
| Have you acquired them from other martial arts? | ||
| Have you sort of adjusted them and adapted them? | ||
| Or did you figure them out your own? | ||
| It's been a mixture. | ||
| Working with Eric Del Ferro was a huge step because I had a lot of natural... | ||
| He's one of the best coaches in the sport and one of the most underappreciated guys because he doesn't blow his own horn. | ||
| That's why I love him. | ||
| I like the coaches that don't need the pats on the back for themselves. | ||
| They're about the athlete. | ||
| Eric is about every athlete he's ever coached. | ||
| He's not about himself. | ||
| He's a great corner man, too. | ||
| When he starts talking in the corner, he's outstanding. | ||
| He knows what he's doing. | ||
| He's been in this sport 20-plus years. | ||
| The bigger thing that Eric doesn't get credit for is his understanding of the psychology that goes into preparing somebody to win a fight. | ||
| You could have all the tools around that person. | ||
| They could be the best human being on earth. | ||
| But if their mind is not pieced together, the psychological pieces are not there, you're not going to be able to trigger them and get them in the fight when you need to. | ||
| Jeremy Stevens is a great example of somebody like that. | ||
| Sometimes you gotta like... | ||
| Get crazy with that dude in the corner and even slap him around a little bit maybe and he just goes and he'll kill somebody. | ||
| It's like there's a psychological thing about certain athletes that you have to be able to touch on. | ||
| Same with Greg Jackson is another guy who can do that. | ||
| And that's what makes a good coach on that night, a good corner man on that night. | ||
| Not just what you did for eight weeks holding pads and patting the guy on the back and wiping the sweat off their shoulders and You know, doing interviews and looking famous with them. | ||
| Like, what are you doing to make sure this person wins on that night? | ||
| Not, what are you doing to make sure you look good in this person's corner while he wins? | ||
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Right. | |
| And that's something that I've run into a lot with people, is people a lot want to associate themselves with you when you're winning and not actually be there for you, but be there so they look good in your corner while you win. | ||
| And those are the people you've got to cut out. | ||
| Those are the yes men. | ||
| And those are the ones you've got to be careful with. | ||
| Eric is the opposite of that. | ||
| And he's somebody that's why I stick with him. | ||
| He's somebody I can trust. | ||
| He understands my psychology. | ||
| He understands the emotional rollercoaster of outside life, personal life, fight life, everything mixed together. | ||
| We've gone through this together. | ||
| And then he's a trustworthy person. | ||
| There are not a lot of people you can trust in this industry these days, or in fighting in general, boxing or MMA, so it's hard. | ||
| He knows his stuff, and he is underrated, and I think the fact that he doesn't toot his own horn, he doesn't get on these interviews, it does hurt him a little. | ||
| But... | ||
| That was what was hurting me early in my career too. | ||
| We're a lot alike. | ||
| And I had to say, if I'm going to make a living, if I'm going to really do this fight thing, I better start stepping this media thing up. | ||
| I better start stepping up this portion that we're doing right here and figure out a way to make it. | ||
| Because this is part of the sport. | ||
| You're no longer always fighting who deserves, who's the best in the world. | ||
| You're now fighting in this era. | ||
| The best superstar, not just the best athlete. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And so you've got to be a happy mixture. | ||
| And when you can figure that out, you start piecing your career together. | ||
| You look at Eric Del Ferro hasn't figured that out. | ||
| He doesn't want to. | ||
| He doesn't care about it. | ||
| And so you don't know about him. | ||
| But you should. | ||
| He doesn't have to. | ||
| The best people know about it. | ||
| Know about him, rather. | ||
| Now, that's an interesting thing you put that up, too, because it seems like... | ||
| I mean, it doesn't just seem like it. | ||
| It is. | ||
| But fighters in general and trainers almost all at one point in time were fighters or at least martial artists. | ||
| A lot of them are broken people looking to rebuild. | ||
| And that's what martial arts does for them. | ||
| That's what fighting and competing does for them. | ||
| It gives them an identity. | ||
| It gives them a sense of purpose and a sense of worth. | ||
| And that those types of people often time get very selfish and it's very difficult to find someone that you trust enough to let them all in and then once they do they're intensely connected. | ||
| Correct. | ||
| You know I mean the bonds that you have With people that you train with and people that you spar with on a regular basis or people that you've competed with and gone to places with, I don't think people that have never experienced such an intense competition will ever truly understand that kind of a bond that people share. | ||
| I agree. | ||
| And ironically, just by chance, pretty much every one of the closest friends in my life, I have fought almost to a bloody death. | ||
| And that's what's so crazy. | ||
| Well, you know them, yeah. | ||
| I know them. | ||
| And you can't lie to me. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| There's nothing you're going to lie to me about. | ||
| Because if you lie to me, I'm going to see you on Monday, idiot. | ||
| And we're going to see what you're made of. | ||
| Well, you'll know anyway. | ||
| I mean, without even knowing what they're made of, you'll know they're lying. | ||
| But it's different when you fight somebody. | ||
| You literally know what they're made of when you see the look in their eye. | ||
| They say what they say and they do what they do and then they go and they fight and they don't say what they say and they don't do what they do. | ||
| And that's just fighting. | ||
| And that's what's so refreshing about it to me. | ||
| Yeah, well, the psychological aspect of it, I mean, you know, who was it that said this, that fighting is 90% mental and the other 10% is in your head? | ||
| I forget who said that. | ||
| I don't remember either, but I've heard it. | ||
| That's a great quote. | ||
| I don't remember who said it, but I mean... | ||
| I believe it with all my heart. | ||
| There's so many people out there that are so incredibly physically talented. | ||
| And how many gym assassins do you know that, for whatever reason, they just can't put it together? | ||
| When the referee says, fighter, are you ready? | ||
| Fighter, are you ready? | ||
| Go! | ||
| They just are a fraction of who they really are. | ||
| Well, just really break down and think about what happens to the ones that do make it and then have to deal with the media and the opinions. | ||
| I really feel like athletes, the biggest hurdle is the fact that we're willing to actually just get up there and say we might win, we might lose. | ||
|
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Right. | |
| And just put that out there and say, are you willing to put yourself out there like that? | ||
| Are you willing to embarrass yourself if you do lose? | ||
| Are you willing to... | ||
| Deal with the media if you win for 10 years straight and then lose and then now you're the worst guy that's ever been seen in the sport or the worst female that's ever been seen in the sport. | ||
| You didn't even belong there. | ||
| Are you able to deal with that? | ||
| That's the question. | ||
| That's what being an athlete is. | ||
|
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Not... | |
| Well, that's what being a fighter is. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Big difference between losing a basketball game. | ||
| It's true. | ||
| You lose a basketball game and people might think you're a fucking loser or a scrub, but it's nothing like the shit that I see fighters face online. | ||
| No, I mean, just look at... | ||
| I gotta bring Ronda Rousey up because it's heartbreaking for me as an athlete. | ||
| I know what she's feeling. | ||
| I know what she's going through. | ||
| And as a female, it's even on another level. | ||
| I can't really imagine that. | ||
| It's a different level of scrutiny, I would imagine. | ||
| But... | ||
| It shows how hard it is to deal with this, man. | ||
| The ups and downs. | ||
| Because the downs hit hard just as hard as the ups hit. | ||
| And you've got to be ready. | ||
| And there can't be any separation in who you are with a win and a loss. | ||
| Because if there is, it's going to show. | ||
| And you've got to be who you are and not be solely connected to fighting as your whole being. | ||
| Otherwise, you're over when it ends. | ||
| Right. | ||
| That was something about the Ronda Rousey promos that I always felt like I just... | ||
| I didn't like hearing it. | ||
| Like, she was like, I gotta get back to fighting because it's the most important thing, and it's the thing that I can be best in the world at. | ||
| I was like, ooh. | ||
| I actually like hearing that stuff. | ||
| Do you? | ||
| I do. | ||
| And the reason... | ||
| Is it such a lesson if you're really listening in between the lines to the issue of the world? | ||
| And that's just my opinion. | ||
| We're all putting so much into this one thing and we think that that is our everything. | ||
| When really, it sounds cheesy, but if you put all that energy towards loving yourself and not the fight career, the fight career will still be there just as heavy as it is. | ||
| Right. | ||
| You know, so what I mean is she's using the fighting as her identity. | ||
| With that championship belt, she is Ronda Rousey, the Ronda Rousey. | ||
| Without the championship belt, we don't know who she is. | ||
| She won't come out. | ||
| So who are you unless you're winning? | ||
| We don't know. | ||
| Do you know? | ||
| You're counting on that belt to know who you are now. | ||
| And that was my biggest point. | ||
| That was the hurdle I ran into when I lost my belt. | ||
| I didn't know who I was anymore. | ||
| And that's how I knew this. | ||
| That's how I figured out what my issues were. | ||
| Is, alright Dom, you're getting ready to fight Brow. | ||
| You ready? | ||
| Yes, I'm ready. | ||
| Screw it. | ||
| Let's do it. | ||
| These knees can't stop me. | ||
| These injuries can't... | ||
| Blow your quad out and now you're out of that fight. | ||
| Now we're taking your belt. | ||
| But for people that don't know what we're about to be talking about, you had one of the most horrific injury streaks in the sport, in your prime. | ||
| You were considered to be one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world, and then you had a series of catastrophic injuries and surgeries. | ||
| So for a lot of people listening to this podcast that aren't really hardcore MMA fans. | ||
| That makes sense. | ||
| So you, like, talk us through it, because you went through, like, one of the most difficult trials in terms of recovery from injury. | ||
| No, the most difficult I've ever seen anybody go through in the entire history of my time of calling fights. | ||
| Well, for fighting, I definitely agree. | ||
| In the sport of fighting. | ||
| I've heard of the sport of NFL, because I researched them. | ||
| Oh, okay. | ||
| These guys who went through three ACL reconstructions came back and competed. | ||
| And one of them was just competing. | ||
| They almost made it to the Super Bowl. | ||
| And he had three ACL reconstructions in the game of football and came back and was still playing. | ||
| And he was like over 30. Wow. | ||
| And people like that need to be around in this world. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Just to let you know that it's possible. | ||
| Just to let you know that it can be done. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That mindset right there, when you make it bigger than yourself, is the only way you get the power to get through stuff like that. | ||
| And that's what got me through, is understanding that I go through this. | ||
| These knee surgeries. | ||
| It becomes bigger than me when I come back and succeed. | ||
| It's not just about me coming back and getting my belt. | ||
| I already had belts. | ||
| I already knew what it felt like to be a five-time world champion by that point at the age of 26 before I blew my knee out. | ||
| I was on top of everything. | ||
| I had everything that I thought I needed and wanted. | ||
| Blew my knee out, get my belt stripped, go through three ACL reconstructions. | ||
| You soon find out that you actually have no idea who you are. | ||
| What was your initial injury? | ||
| ACL, MCL. What happened though? | ||
| I was training while I was getting ready on the Ultimate Fighter back in 2012 or 11 for Faber fight. | ||
| We were getting ready to compete at the end of the show. | ||
| And I was training with a guy, and it was just a hard week. | ||
| I mean, we were the first show that ever went live and was training for the fight at the same time, being tough. | ||
| We're the first and only live show that they did. | ||
| So that meant that while we coached, we were also going to compete at the same time. | ||
| So I had to do my fight camp while I trained the Ultimate Fighter guys simultaneously. | ||
| So I was doing four practices a day, two with the tough guys and two with myself. | ||
| And that workload was just insane. | ||
| That was a hard, hard training camp. | ||
| Ended up breaking me down. | ||
| Hurt my knee. | ||
| Just sparring. | ||
| It was a sparring day. | ||
| Guy went for a grappling transition and sagged on my hip weird and just blew my knee out. | ||
| A crappy takedown. | ||
| You know, where they sag instead of actually get the takedown. | ||
| And it just blew my knee out. | ||
| When I blew my ACL MCL, I was like, it's alright. | ||
| You'll be fine. | ||
| I fought it. | ||
| I almost literally fought the injury. | ||
| Like, you're too tough, you're too strong, you're too young, you can do this. | ||
| Let's go. | ||
| Fought the injury meaning not get surgery and try to rehab it? | ||
| Meaning you just heard what I just said. | ||
| It didn't happen. | ||
| Mentally. | ||
| I did the surgery. | ||
| I did... | ||
| That wasn't the problem, though. | ||
| That's my point. | ||
| The problem isn't if you're doing all the things right to get better. | ||
| It's understanding that... | ||
| It was understanding that I didn't need to fight to be better. | ||
| Giving up on it was when I finally got better. | ||
| Understanding I didn't need fighting to be who I was. | ||
| When you say get better, you mean get better emotionally, psychologically? | ||
| Well, physically. | ||
| Even physically? | ||
| Physically. | ||
| I did not get better until I gave up on fighting the injury. | ||
| And what I mean by fighting the injury is saying... | ||
| You'll be fine. | ||
| You'll come back. | ||
| Just keep training, keep training, keep training, keep training. | ||
| And I trained, but in the logic that I was given with what I'm allowed to do, according to my physical therapist, Gavin McMillan, he would say, you can do this, this, and this. | ||
| Don't push it. | ||
| I wouldn't push it. | ||
| I would do the things allowed. | ||
| But I'm telling you, that wasn't the issue. | ||
| The issue was surrendering. | ||
| The issue was knowing that fighting was the only way I was going to be happy then. | ||
| Being able to compete was the only way I could find peace. | ||
| Being able to prove that I was as good as I always was even after the injuries became everything that I was trying to do. | ||
| It was just a non-stop fight to just get healthy. | ||
| And I get through my second ACL reconstruction on the same knee. | ||
| Then I blow my quad out before I was supposed to fight. | ||
| How did you blow out the second one? | ||
| You had the injury, you had it reconstructed, and then how do you blow out the second one? | ||
| It's the same knee and I was training on Christmas. | ||
| How many months after the initial surgery? | ||
| Six. | ||
| So it's real recent. | ||
| It's probably not 100% healed yet. | ||
| It's not 100% healed yet. | ||
| Nine months is supposed to be full strength. | ||
| But six months is when you get to start pushing it to get ready. | ||
| So now you're like six months to six months you're not allowed to do any kind of cutting. | ||
| Cutting, meaning side to side. | ||
| No lateral movements. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Just straight down the line. | ||
| Nothing risky. | ||
| Keep your brace on. | ||
| When you're trained at a six-month mark, they're like, take the brace off. | ||
| You've got to start getting the stabilizer strong. | ||
| You can start testing it more. | ||
| You can start doing things, but you've still got to wear your brace when you do live scenarios. | ||
| But you can drill without it. | ||
| You see what I'm saying? | ||
| So you're actually pretty strong. | ||
| strong enough that it's not gonna tear but that's when I had a cadaver ACL mm-hmm so it wasn't as strong as it should have been at that at that six-month point because it was cadaver tissue my body did not adapt to the tissue as well as it could have mmm so do they do an MRI to see where it's at or do they just kind of base it on how it feels they base it on the endpoint and the stability of your knee at When they manipulate it? | ||
| When they manipulate it at the six month mark. | ||
| You're going in every two to three weeks for six months to double check with the doctor. | ||
| I've had two. | ||
| I've had two reconstructions. | ||
| Well, I was doing that at Curlin and Joe. | ||
| They were good doctors and they tried to stay on me, you know? | ||
| So you've had two, so you know. | ||
| And you know at the six month mark, it's like... | ||
| You can push it, but you don't want to overkill it because you'll tear it. | ||
| So the second one, I wasn't overkilling it, but I was doing what I was allowed in my brace. | ||
| And I made a cut, like a turn, and it just popped. | ||
| It just like, it wasn't anything... | ||
| Like, oh, I shouldn't have been doing that. | ||
| It was kind of like, you know, I was boxing in my brace. | ||
| I had it taped. | ||
| I warmed up. | ||
|
unidentified
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I stretched. | |
| Were you sparring? | ||
| I was doing drills, boxing drills. | ||
| Just drills? | ||
| Yeah, boxing drills. | ||
| But you just pivot wrong, and it just pops, and then you know. | ||
| Like, I remember sitting there, and just the pain's very specific. | ||
| And then it goes away too quick. | ||
| That's when you know. | ||
| Because it's there, real, real, real, real hard pain, and then it goes away in like two minutes. | ||
| Because the ligament's gone. | ||
| It's torn, so now you don't have pain anymore. | ||
| And I'm like, oh no. | ||
| So I sit down and I go, alright, my knee's torn. | ||
| And that was when I hit like a real bad rock bottom on that one. | ||
| That was like, that one like, Oh my gosh. | ||
| When I went to the MRI and got home, I literally like called my friend and I told him to come over and I just, I mean, I pretty much just drank as much of a bottle as I could because I was in pretty good shape at that point. | ||
| So it put me out. | ||
| I passed out. | ||
| My head was, I woke up. | ||
| In my porch with my head on the grill in the morning, just a mess. | ||
| It was not pretty. | ||
| But I didn't care because I was out for nine months, you know? | ||
| Right, right. | ||
| So everybody hits these lows, you know, it's normal. | ||
| What were you doing financially back then? | ||
|
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Yeah. | |
| Because that's where it gets rough, right? | ||
| That's another part of it. | ||
| I mean, us athletes, we all know, or you know, we only make money when we fight for the prize, you know? | ||
| Thank God, you know, Lorenzo and the UFC, they gave me a decent chunk of money for a good part of time while I had the belt. | ||
| And then once they took the belt, I stopped getting that chunk of money even when I was hurt. | ||
| So they were paying me a little bit of stipend while I was hurt. | ||
| And that helped me. | ||
| And then when they stripped the belt and gave it to Brow, they stopped with that. | ||
| Because I'm not the champ anymore. | ||
| And then it was kind of like, that's what I mean. | ||
| That's when it kind of turned reality. | ||
| Like, you're not the champ on paper anymore. | ||
| You didn't really lose it, but that's it. | ||
| So what are you going to do? | ||
| Is this it? | ||
| How are you going to make money? | ||
| How are you going to do this? | ||
| How are you going to do that? | ||
| And I panicked. | ||
| But I knew... | ||
| That I was going to still come back and fight because I was still young. | ||
| And so I hadn't given up on fighting yet. | ||
| Still only in my second ACL surgery. | ||
| So I'm still not fully admitting that I'm not, that I'm a mess. | ||
|
unidentified
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Right. | |
| I'm kind of not really like admitting it to myself yet. | ||
| And it's screw what you're saying to everybody else. | ||
| That's what I'm trying to say. | ||
| It's what you believe to yourself is all that matters. | ||
|
unidentified
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Right. | |
| Period. | ||
| And I was like, I'll be fine. | ||
| This isn't that bad. | ||
| I can do this. | ||
| I've gone through worse. | ||
| So in doing it, I still hadn't really just given up yet. | ||
| So I'm still competing in my mind, which is the problem. | ||
| And that's when you're just overworking. | ||
| And not just doing things you're not supposed to on your knee, but just in general in life. | ||
| I'm just overworking. | ||
| I'm doing my Fox stuff now to make money. | ||
| And then I'm trying to do my rehab five days a week because I have to come back and fight for the belt when I come back. | ||
| That's another thing people don't equate is I was the champ, so I got to come back and fight for the belt when I come back after this injury. | ||
| I don't just get to come back and fight somebody three rounds. | ||
| I got to come back and fight five rounds. | ||
| Never been done before. | ||
| I had nobody to bounce this thought off of. | ||
| I just had to wing it, man. | ||
| And so I was. | ||
| And that caused, I think, a lot of problems with me because I didn't have the mental capacity to deal with it at that point with all the things that I was doing. | ||
| So I just kept grinding. | ||
| And then I finally get back to health after the second ACL. Six months, nine months goes by. | ||
| All right, let's take this Burrell fight. | ||
| So I'm ready. | ||
| I'm training in camp about a month in. | ||
| Um... | ||
| I have like a weird pinch in my groin. | ||
| It turns out to be the exact same injury Daniel Cormier just pulled out of the fight for. | ||
| It's the extensor tendon in your, or no, it's the, I forget the name of the, there's a tendon in your groin area that pulls and then you gotta just rest it. | ||
| I tore the... | ||
| mine was a little bit worse. | ||
| I tore the muscle, the quad muscle off the bone. | ||
| So it like separated from the bone. | ||
| But it wasn't all the way. | ||
| It was just enough that it was... | ||
| I could still like think I was okay. | ||
| But it would just fail on me occasionally. | ||
| So I could tape it some days and it would be alright. | ||
| Shoot a bunch of Toradol, which is a... | ||
| For anybody who's curious, it's a natural... | ||
| It's a legal anti-inflammatory. | ||
| A lot of football players take it. | ||
| Toradol? | ||
| Toradol. | ||
| It's a... | ||
| Yeah, I think that's... | ||
| Yeah, I think that's what it's called. | ||
| But anyways, it's a natural... | ||
| Or it's an anti-inflammatory, not a natural one. | ||
| But it's like ibuprofen, but stronger. | ||
| And I would take that and that helped. | ||
| But... | ||
| It just, it wasn't right. | ||
| I remember I was sparring one day and I went to throw a right hand and my leg just gave out and I fell on the floor. | ||
| I wasn't kicking. | ||
| I wasn't shooting. | ||
| I just threw a right hand. | ||
| And the feeling of falling because I threw a right hand made me know like something wasn't connected. | ||
| Like it just didn't feel right because it just failed me. | ||
| It wasn't like it hurt and I stopped. | ||
| It just literally, there was no pain and it just failed. | ||
| And I was like, something's way mechanically wrong with me. | ||
| I can't fight mechanically wrong like this. | ||
| And that was about four weeks out of the fight, three, four weeks out of the fight. | ||
| Well, I had already done a month camp with this injury, trying to tough it out. | ||
| So my camp was rough. | ||
| It was a hard camp. | ||
| And I didn't want to pull out, obviously, naturally. | ||
| So I ended up calling Dana, and it's one of the few phone calls I've ever had with Dana, unfortunately, and this is probably one of the times your members are telling them, I'm sorry, I gotta pull out. | ||
| But I remember not wanting to have my manager call them. | ||
| This goes back to how my mom put something in my head where you deal with this face-to-face or talking. | ||
| So I called and I said, look, I don't want to do this, but I gotta pull out of this fight. | ||
| If you got any doctors, you can have MRI me, whatever you want, but I'm telling you something's wrong with my leg. | ||
| So he's like, okay, I'll do it. | ||
| I got guys on it. | ||
| We can't have you pull out now. | ||
| I'm sure you're fine. | ||
| Check it out. | ||
| Get the doctors check it. | ||
| Yeah, your quad's torn. | ||
| You can't fight. | ||
| So the UFC pulls me. | ||
| You know, Dana's naturally pissed. | ||
| But then that slides Faber in there. | ||
| Boom. | ||
| Faber gets the shot with Burrell. | ||
| Ends up getting knocked out in that matchup. | ||
| But I pull out of that fight. | ||
| That's when they strip my belt. | ||
| And then that was the beginning of me giving up on fighting to an extent. | ||
| And what I mean by that is... | ||
| It's different than you think. | ||
| It sounds negative, right? | ||
| When you say that. | ||
| I'm giving up on fighting. | ||
| But it is actually the building point in my life where I finally let go of control. | ||
| I always had this thing up to that point where I wanted to control everything. | ||
| It's just something that I always had the gift of being able to do. | ||
| This last one, after the two ACL reconstructive surgeries coming back, and then tearing my quad after that, I said... | ||
| Like, I don't know what else you want me to do. | ||
| I've gotten through two ACL reconstructions. | ||
| My higher power is God. | ||
| So I'm praying at this point. | ||
| Saying, I don't know what you want me to do. | ||
| So you're talking to God saying, what do I got to do? | ||
| What do I got to do, man? | ||
| I'm in this for reasons bigger than myself. | ||
| I want to come back and show people that this can be done. | ||
| I'm not the only one that can do this. | ||
| Anybody can do this, right? | ||
| I'm here for you, bidding your will, God. | ||
| This is my talking. | ||
| And no answers, no nothing. | ||
| And I said, maybe that's the answer. | ||
| I remember thinking, maybe that's the answer. | ||
| It's just, you might not ever fight again. | ||
| Are you okay with that? | ||
| And that was something that I never allowed my brain to even go to, ever, until all these injuries hit me. | ||
| And I would have never been able to unless I went through all that. | ||
| That was literally all the stuff because I'm so stubborn and so... | ||
| Just tough that I had to go through all that just to mentally say, okay, you might never do this again. | ||
| It could have been after the first one I could have done that, but I didn't. | ||
| When I did that, my health skyrocketed immediately. | ||
| I just went to therapy every day knowing I was trying to get better, but I didn't care if I fought again or not. | ||
| I focused all my energy in FOX and coaching the guys at Alliance Training Center to make them better and try to make the team better and feed off the thirst and the hunger that those guys had to be the champion that I still wanted to be. | ||
| And I decided that if I focused on Fox, focused on the positive energy of these guys at the gym, kept my mind in the sport, my body will be there because my age is compliant with my body still. | ||
| I'm still young enough that I'll be okay. | ||
| So I just needed to get my mind wrapped around the sport, stay in it mentally, but understand that if I never have it again, that's okay too. | ||
| And when I did that, it took away so much importance Off of needing to fight, have the title, as the person that I was, that it allowed me to open up and say, if you never fight again, you're still a great person. | ||
| You still did great things. | ||
| You still laid the tracks for the bantamweight division in a lot of ways. | ||
| You did this. | ||
| You had a great career, Dom. | ||
| It's okay if this is it. | ||
| And I kept that mindset, kept focusing on the things that I could control instead of the things that I couldn't, like the fact that I wasn't competing yet. | ||
| And as I did that, I got healthier and healthier, came back, fought Mizugaki. | ||
| That set me up to fight Mizugaki. | ||
| Destroyed Mizugaki, one of your best performances ever, whirlwind, first round, destruction. | ||
| That was the most at peace I've felt in a long time, walking into that fight. | ||
| I remember interviewing you after the fight, and you were like, I don't even remember what happened. | ||
| You just went into a trance. | ||
| It was weird. | ||
| It was one of the weirdest performances of my whole career, easily. | ||
| Because the walkout was different. | ||
| Just I was so... | ||
| I had no connection. | ||
| I had no connection to the win or the loss at that point. | ||
| There was nothing. | ||
| It was just... | ||
| I was just there to enjoy being there again after three and a half years and all these injuries. | ||
| Like, I can't believe I made it here. | ||
| I'm not injured. | ||
| And I remember thinking like, just you're in front of these people. | ||
| Enjoy the limelight, man. | ||
| Enjoy this ride. | ||
| Like this is incredible. | ||
| There's people that would pay millions and trillions of dollars to get this walk you're about to get and go fight somebody in this octagon. | ||
| Just enjoy it. | ||
| Don't work. | ||
| Don't connect. | ||
| And by letting go, man, by letting go of the injuries, by letting go of the wind, by letting go of the loss, by letting go of either mattered, I was in my zone and it allowed me to just be free And that was the best performance of my career. | ||
| But more than anything, it showed me a mental thing that I'd never opened up before. | ||
| And it was letting go of the things that you can't control will give you actually more peace because it disconnects you from... | ||
| What happens? | ||
| So you feel like that piece was a significant factor in your body recovering because the pressure and the stress and the anxiety all that was playing It was it was wrecking not just your mental state, but also your physical state 100% every piece of it. | ||
| That's really interesting every piece of it and that's the biggest thing I learned is That is like it wasn't my physical body. | ||
| It was my mind doing it to my physical body and So it was initially a physical injury, and then it was the cascade of psychological issues that came with the physical issue that led to more physical issues. | ||
| It was the cascade of trying to figure out why I was so sad with all these things that I earned around me. | ||
| I already had everything that I thought... | ||
| When you grow up in a trailer like I did, and then you go to winning a GTR, the car you wanted since you were a kid, in a prize fight, and having a home that you bought with your own money that you never thought you'd be able to own a home in California because you live in a damn trailer park in Tucson, Arizona, it kind of makes you feel like Like, that's it. | ||
| You know, like, you've done crazy great things. | ||
| And you've, um, I, those were all just dreams to me and they happened so quick. | ||
| Like, at 20, you know, I mean, I didn't get my house till later, but when I got those things, it's like, I really, I, why are you so, I was still sad is my point. | ||
| Like, I was still, I had my depression that was hitting me. | ||
| And that's, so many people in this world are dealing with depression. | ||
| Like, it's a huge, catastrophic problem across the planet. | ||
| And And I definitely, it's in my bloodline on both sides of my family. | ||
| And it's something that everybody, not just myself, deals with on a daily basis, I think, in certain people's lives. | ||
| And that hit me very hard. | ||
| And I didn't understand why it hit me so much harder now, after I stopped competing. | ||
| Like, why is it so much worse now? | ||
| Well, the reason is my body was used to the active. | ||
| The activity, just go, go, go. | ||
| And what I realized is I turned off all my emotional, spiritual, and mental issues with exercise to where I never, ever, ever dealt with them, ever. | ||
| I only physically worked them out. | ||
| So my physical was perfection. | ||
| I'm a world champion monster killer, whatever you want to call me in your own perspective mind, right? | ||
| But emotionally, physically, and spiritually, I was a cricket. | ||
| And I never understood that until I was hurt, trapped in my own body like a prison cell. | ||
| Couldn't train, couldn't run, couldn't walk, couldn't bend my leg. | ||
| Laying on the couch, eating pain pills, realizing, man, unless you train, unless you compete, you hate yourself. | ||
| You hate yourself. | ||
| You're a piece of shit in your own mind without those things, without the beautiful girlfriend, without the beautiful house, without the nice cars, without the big money to show people. | ||
| You hate yourself. | ||
| So what am I really doing? | ||
| Why am I doing this? | ||
| I lost sight that the whole reason we're fighting is it's a spiritual, emotional, physical, mental battle that helps you grow as an individual and as a human being. | ||
| It's not just to have these things that you think will make you happy. | ||
| You have to learn those things through the process. | ||
| And I didn't know that until I was trapped in my own body. | ||
| I literally felt like I was in a prison cell. | ||
| And I knew that wasn't right. | ||
| We shouldn't be in our own body alone without people around us to keep us company and on a couch feeling like we're in a prison cell, should we? | ||
| No, definitely not. | ||
| No, we shouldn't, but I did for three years. | ||
| So how did you get yourself out of it? | ||
| By just accepting it? | ||
| There must have been some sort of a mechanism that you used. | ||
| I have people that I talk to, professionals. | ||
| Like sports psychologists? | ||
| Well, sports psychologists and then you got to get a psychologist in general to deal with depression, whatever, when you hit your lows. | ||
| It's okay to get, you know, if you're bench pressing 350 pounds, it's okay to have a little touch. | ||
| It's okay to have a little spot here and there, you know? | ||
| And then after you get a couple spots, now after a while you can do it yourself. | ||
| You don't need the spot anymore. | ||
| That's how I look at psychiatric help to an extent for some people, especially if they're battling depression. | ||
| Sometimes you just need a floaty and then you can take the floaties off after a year. | ||
| You see what I'm saying? | ||
| It's a mental floaty and it's okay because we all hit low parts. | ||
| Low points in our life where it's unbearable. | ||
| And you either allow it to continue to be unbearable and just deny it, or you deal with the task at hand and say, I'm a little low right now. | ||
| I need the floaties. | ||
| It's okay. | ||
| I'll get through this. | ||
| And then when you take the floaties off, you realize I only needed them for a little bit of time, and now I'm okay. | ||
| I'm here. | ||
| And that's kind of what it felt like. | ||
| It's like I just needed a little bit of a push. | ||
| I needed to get through this and learn some things about my own My own mind and understand my own emotions and understand that I didn't need... | ||
| All these things that I was thinking weren't real. | ||
| It was me not being in control of my own emotions. | ||
| Your own emotions are your choice. | ||
| And I chose to feel trapped. | ||
| I chose to be sad. | ||
| I chose to feel like I was jack shit. | ||
| I chose all these things. | ||
| And it's like, you don't need fighting to be these things. | ||
| You need to let go of fighting to learn that you are something without it. | ||
| And that was actually a gift. | ||
| It became a gift because I learned so much in life now. | ||
| Bigger than fighting. | ||
| I look at the things that I went through as a gift because I have gotten the gift of feeling retired during my career. | ||
| Who else gets that? | ||
| Some people retire for five years, lose their freaking mind, end up in the bar and come back and try to fight again ten years later. | ||
| With a weakened body. | ||
| A mess. | ||
| From abuse. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Why though? | ||
| Why are they doing that? | ||
| They're not doing it because they're physically capable. | ||
| They're doing it because they never dealt with their life away from fighting. | ||
| Fighting was their life. | ||
| Fighting is who they are. | ||
| Fighting is their persona. | ||
| So take away fighting, what are they? | ||
| They're in the bar drinking away what they're not. | ||
| Instead of drinking, putting the booze down and knowing what you are without fighting. | ||
| Being happy with that chapter of your life and being able to live who you are. | ||
| I've gotten to feel that. | ||
| And now I can fight with a peace of mind knowing how good I am without fighting and how great I am with it too. | ||
| And that's what this thing's about. | ||
| All these fights. | ||
| Me attacking those challenges, coming back and winning and getting my belt back. | ||
| Could only happen because I let go of control the things I couldn't control So you come back you fight Mitsugaki you put on the performance of your career just destroy him It was just a whirlwind wild crazy first-round stoppage Then what happens? | ||
| Well That was a big deal for me because he'd never been stopped like that before, Mizugaki, at this point. | ||
| At this point, he was on a five-fight win streak. | ||
| He hadn't lost since the whole time I had been hurt. | ||
| And he was beating the top guys. | ||
| So to beat him was going to tell me, you're good enough, let's go for the title. | ||
| And I beat him and I said, okay, here I am. | ||
| Let's go for that title. | ||
| And at this point... | ||
| If you remember, it was Burrell was the next coming to Christ. | ||
| And then TJ beat the brakes off of him. | ||
| And now TJ's the next coming to Christ. | ||
| He's a better version of me. | ||
| He's this, he's that. | ||
| And so I said, yeah, I can beat him. | ||
| I knew I could. | ||
| I've been watching him on film and for Fox and breaking down his fights. | ||
| And I knew I could beat Burrell. | ||
| I knew both those guys couldn't beat me at that point. | ||
| But it didn't matter what I thought. | ||
| I had to prove it. | ||
| Four injuries the way I had them so I just had to go do it. | ||
| I blew my knee out training one month after I fought Takaya Mizugaki. | ||
| Now this is what's interesting about the story is I did research later. | ||
| I'm now basically a doctor to figure all this stuff out because all the injuries I've been through. | ||
| But three weeks before I fought Mizugaki, I had a staph infection on my right thumb that popped up. | ||
| So I took an antibiotic called Cipro. | ||
| I think it's with a C-I-P-P-R-O. Now, me trusting the doctors and me not, it's my own fault, not the doctor's fault. | ||
| I should have read what was the hazards of the antibiotic. | ||
| But you kind of trust the doctors and assume, why would he give me something bad, right? | ||
| Well, Cipro has an after effect for six months after you ingest it that it weakens your tendons. | ||
| So it makes them soft, like real putty. | ||
| And so I took it three weeks before the fight. | ||
| That made it about two months after I ingested the Cipro, I was throwing a left high kick. | ||
| I never had a problem with my right knee my entire life ever, and it just popped throwing a right high kick. | ||
| I pivot on my right leg to throw the left one up high, and it just popped. | ||
| And I knew right away, obviously, because I've done it twice, that I blew it out. | ||
| And I remember literally blowing it out, sitting on the floor. | ||
| The guy that I was drilling with is like, what's up? | ||
| And I was like, I just blew my knee out. | ||
| And he's like, what? | ||
| Nothing happened. | ||
| It was crazy. | ||
| It was a weird feeling. | ||
| What was even weirder was the piece I had sitting there, not even caring. | ||
| I literally was just... | ||
| I remember blowing it out and sitting on the ring like... | ||
| I told him, I said, Eric, come here. | ||
| And I told him to come over and I was like, you ready for another nine-month ACL reconstructive surgery? | ||
| And he's like, what? | ||
| He's like, what are you talking about? | ||
| Your knee's fine. | ||
| I'm like, no, I blew it out right now. | ||
| He's like, no, you didn't. | ||
| I said, yes, I did. | ||
| And that was it. | ||
| And so I start again. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Wow. | |
| Start again. | ||
| So I started the rehab again. | ||
| Same style of reconstruction? | ||
| This time's better. | ||
| Because I had the first two practice tries. | ||
| And now I had the secret link. | ||
| What's the secret link that I didn't know for the first three injuries that I had? | ||
| Was letting go of control. | ||
| This was my diamond. | ||
| Now I had a way to prove that I was on to something. | ||
| In my own mind. | ||
| And I did it. | ||
| And I was onto something, and I know it now, and nobody can ever tell me anything different. | ||
| It was just, I stopped right then and there. | ||
| The day I blew my knee out, I didn't train again for nine months other than physical therapy. | ||
| I didn't shadow box, I didn't do a push-up, I didn't do a sit-up, I didn't do a squat. | ||
| I went in the gym occasionally, but because I had learned to let go of fighting from the first two injuries, I didn't go in there panicking trying to keep training because I needed it for my health anymore. | ||
| I already learned that the way I find health... | ||
| Is to not train, let my body completely heal, don't do anything, and focus on my mind. | ||
| So I spent another nine months focusing on nothing but my mind. | ||
| And my tactic was, your body's not working right now, so you gotta switch it over to the next weapon that you have, which is your mind. | ||
| Your mind is the only other weapon you use besides your body on fight night. | ||
| So if your body's not working, switch it over. | ||
| So I just focused on my mind. | ||
| And by focusing on my mind, I'm talking. | ||
| I started looking up guys like Wayne Dyer. | ||
| I started talking to a guy named Michael T. Lardin. | ||
| Dr. Michael T. Lardin. | ||
| I started putting in place specific go-to people to talk to that I looked up to. | ||
| Power people, I guess you'd put them right. | ||
| I'm sure you have some too. | ||
| And I focused on nothing but my mind. | ||
| I didn't train at all. | ||
| And I remember I got a call. | ||
| I was out at the lake in Arizona. | ||
| I literally hit the nine-month mark on this weekend. | ||
| I get a call from Shelby. | ||
| The nine-month mark. | ||
| They knew my knee was going to be healthy. | ||
| And he goes... | ||
| You're healthy, right? | ||
| And I was like, well, I've done nothing but rehab, and it's been nine months, so technically I'm cleared by the doctor. | ||
| They know I'm cleared by the doctor because the UFC talks with the doctors 24-7 whether they admit it or not. | ||
| So it's like, even if the doctor shouldn't tell the UFC, they're telling them everything. | ||
| So they know exactly where I'm at in rehab, exactly where I'm at in therapy, to the T, and that's why they know when to call me and put the heat on me. | ||
| So I'm out on the boat drinking some beers, trying to enjoy my life, And I get a call. | ||
| We want to give you a title fight with TJ Dillshaw in the beginning of the year or whatever. | ||
| At that point, I had 12 weeks when they called me to get ready for the fight. | ||
| So three months, but zero training for nine months. | ||
| Correct. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Wow. | |
| After the Mizugaki fight. | ||
| That's insane just to be able to get yourself into five-round peak performance. | ||
| Correct. | ||
| And this is... | ||
| I mean, you're hearing a story right now I haven't told anybody. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because... | |
| I don't sit down and talk for two hours to anybody about this stuff. | ||
| So it's like, who am I going to go on an interview with and talk about this stuff? | ||
| Pretty much you're the only guy who gets into this weird stuff. | ||
| So here we are. | ||
| And it comes down to that. | ||
| Like, yeah, I was on zero. | ||
| And I said, again, because of what I learned with the Mizugaki thing, letting go. | ||
| I just kept exercising that because what's going to happen is going to happen. | ||
| It's out of my control. | ||
| God's got his plan for me. | ||
| He took me this far in my mind. | ||
| That's my higher power. | ||
| And remember, if you're listening and your higher power is not God, it can be whatever you want it to be for your higher power. | ||
| It's a matter of just letting go. | ||
| It's a matter of just letting go and understanding that there's something in effect that's bigger than you here in the universe. | ||
| And as soon as you can do that, You're going to be who you're going to be. | ||
| And then when you are who you are because you're not worried about all these other things connected to it, you're your fullest self. | ||
| And in being that, it allowed me to get ready for TJ because I wasn't thinking about, he's been fighting, you haven't, he's been this, you haven't that. | ||
| None of that mattered. | ||
| It wasn't relevant because I was fighting him no matter what. | ||
| So I just let go and said, get in the tip-top shape you can with the tools you have and let's go fight him. | ||
| You know you have the skill set. | ||
| You know you have the knowledge and the movement and you're young enough and your body's working. | ||
| You just proved that with Mizugaki. | ||
| So you just got to get in shape and you're fine. | ||
| And that was literally my mindset. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, at the end... | |
| 8-week mark. | ||
| So at 12 weeks, I start training. | ||
| 12 weeks out? | ||
| 12 weeks out. | ||
| I stop just physical therapy, which I was doing three times a week only, and I go to fight training. | ||
| I start just my regiment, what I do for each camp. | ||
| In doing that, going from off the couch, doing nothing, straight into a five-round title fight... | ||
| That actually sparked what I now have, which is plantar fascia tendonitis in both my feet. | ||
| And so it's because going from resting for a year or whatever, three years, and then going full bore on your feet, it tore all the fascia on the bottom of my feet because they weren't ready for the brunt of force that I was putting on them with my footwork and my movement and my sparring and my kickboxing and all that. | ||
| It wasn't ready, so I tore all the fascia on the bottom of my feet. | ||
| So I started feeling something weird on the bottom of my left foot in that camp. | ||
| Simultaneously at the eight-week mark after I'd been training for 12, what, Four weeks I've been training for the TJ Dillashaw camp. | ||
| I broke my rib. | ||
| So I get kicked in my rib. | ||
| My body's just soft. | ||
| I hadn't been getting kicked or punched in over three and a half years now. | ||
| Because if you think about it, Mizugaki fight doesn't even count. | ||
| Right, so fast. | ||
| And he didn't even hit you? | ||
| He didn't hit me. | ||
| He hit me one time and it was just under a minute long fight. | ||
| And so the only wear and tear and callous, for lack of a better term, I have on my body is from the training camp before Mizugaki, which was only a three round camp. | ||
| So I have no wear and tear on my body, no toughness. | ||
| I get kicked in my rib. | ||
| Breaks my rib. | ||
| I lose right then and there. | ||
| I can't wrestle anymore and I can't spar anymore. | ||
| So now I'm at eight weeks out of the fight and they take away my sparring and they take away my wrestling because I can't go live. | ||
| So I'm just drilling kickboxing now. | ||
| Pad work with coach Eric Del Ferro and Miguel Reyes and grappling drills. | ||
| So you're taping up your rib? | ||
| Now I get this big thing that goes over the top. | ||
| It's like this weird protector and I wear that. | ||
| Is it a protector against impact or a protector? | ||
| Is it actually like a cast that holds your ribs in place? | ||
| No, it was like I had to look it up online myself for some makeshift thing that would work and this thing worked the best. | ||
| I forget what it's called. | ||
| I could text it to you and figure it out. | ||
| Picture what the coaches wear when they wear that body plate and you can punch in the body and it goes all the way up to here. | ||
| Do you know what I'm talking about? | ||
| It's like one of those but it's a little smaller. | ||
| And it just goes here, and then you put it on like a shirt, and the cables cross in the back, and then the whole front is kind of like squishy, but protecting you from squeezing in blunt force. | ||
| But I wasn't taking any anyways. | ||
| I was just wearing that for when I would drill. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| I wasn't going live yet. | ||
| Right. | ||
| So then I finally... | ||
| Start panicking when I can't spar or wrestle live after four weeks with the busted rip. | ||
| I was like, oh it'll go away. | ||
| It just wasn't going away. | ||
| It was just killing me. | ||
| I couldn't even breathe, man. | ||
| I couldn't sneeze. | ||
| I couldn't cough. | ||
| It was horrible. | ||
| So I just said, I gotta shoot it with cortisone and see if that helps. | ||
| So I go in, see the doctor, they shoot it with cortisone. | ||
| Thank God it works. | ||
| It numbed it. | ||
| Within three days, I'm moving again. | ||
| I'm good. | ||
| So the reason I didn't shoot it right away is because you want to give it as much time as you can to heal before you shoot it to see if you can minimize the damage that you do with the cortisone. | ||
| Does that make sense? | ||
| That's why I didn't do it right off the bat. | ||
| Cortisone does damage? | ||
| It breaks down a tissue, like muscle and tendon tissue, if you overdo it. | ||
| You can do within three in one injected area, but you don't want to do more than three in one area, depending on where you're at. | ||
| This is my first one in this particular rib. | ||
| I mean, I've had them all over my body, but this and this rib. | ||
| When that kicks in, I'm like, sweet. | ||
| I can spar and I can wrestle now. | ||
| I just got to wear that thing. | ||
| So the whole camp, I'm wearing this thing. | ||
| And I can't do any core workout. | ||
| I can't do any strength and conditioning at all. | ||
| Because we had to ditch those two things in order to focus on cardio and skill. | ||
| Because we had to get my cardio and skill back and my timing and my reads back. | ||
| More than I needed strength and conditioning. | ||
| So because I'm coming back from so much, you actually have to just cut out what's not needed in the camps that you've had in the past and take what you can use. | ||
| So what are you doing for cardio at this point? | ||
| I have a sprint routine that I run that's solely mine that I got from a guy named Drew Fickett way back in the day. | ||
| Oh, I know Drew. | ||
| Oh yeah, he was my first MMA coach. | ||
| He's a tough dude. | ||
| He's a nasty, crazy, dirty, filthy son of a gun. | ||
| I'll just leave it at that. | ||
| Him and Don Frye, I started out with. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let's put it that way. | |
| Those were my two first MMA coaches. | ||
| Just to give you an idea of when I started. | ||
| And they weren't even my coaches, because if you know them, they don't coach anybody. | ||
| They just yell at you, slurs, and then maybe put you to sleep a couple times. | ||
| And Don Frye throws head kicks when you're only supposed to be boxing. | ||
| So it's like, they're not real coaches. | ||
| They're just showing you how to be a maniac. | ||
| But anyways, he shows me this sprint routine. | ||
| Which I still use to this day. | ||
| So, Drew Figg, it's the man. | ||
| So, but you're still dealing with plantar fasciitis. | ||
| Now, well then, it starts kicking in. | ||
| Because of the sprinting as well. | ||
| Because of the sprinting, the footwork, everything else coming from nothing. | ||
| But it's only in my left foot. | ||
| So, I think I kicked an elbow. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I have it yet. | ||
| So I don't go get an MRI. I don't check anything. | ||
| I just ignore it because I'm fighting either way. | ||
| I don't want to know. | ||
| Sometimes it's just better not knowing. | ||
| Especially if you're going to fight whether it's hurt or not. | ||
| So I just said, screw it. | ||
| I didn't shoot it up with cortisone or nothing. | ||
| I just ignored it, kept running. | ||
| Super painful if you've ever had it. | ||
| Plantar fasciitis. | ||
| It's debilitating to an extent. | ||
| But thank God it was only in one foot. | ||
| And then I go into that fight... | ||
| I had about a good solid four-week camp of sparring and wrestling, thank God, of live stuff. | ||
| But other than that, the first 12 weeks was basically just getting into shape. | ||
| So my whole camp was comprised of Mostly sprints, pad work, and about a month of sparring. | ||
| I lost almost all rounds coming back because I was just so off from the year and not doing anything in my body, not being strong, and trying to get back in shape. | ||
| It was tough. | ||
| By far, that camp was the worst put-together ever. | ||
| Most off and horrible camp I've had in my whole 24 fights, by far. | ||
| But you won the title. | ||
| Yeah, thank the good Lord above I won that title. | ||
| It didn't really make sense, but it happened. | ||
| And we didn't know that you had plantar fasciitis, so when you kept getting hit by leg kicks and your leg was giving out, I was thinking that your leg was giving out from the impact of the kicks. | ||
| And I know, and I don't take... | ||
| You know, it's hard, especially I do it with you, color now. | ||
| It's hard, man. | ||
| This thing's hard. | ||
| Somebody's going to get mad no matter what you do, no matter what you say, eventually. | ||
| And it's like, how are you supposed to know my foot's blown out before I get in there? | ||
| Well, now I saw you in the Uriah Faber fight, which happened after that, and then I noticed your foot was taped up. | ||
| Both. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| It went into the other foot. | ||
| So it went into the other foot as well. | ||
| And then the Cody fight, it multiplied by two. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hmm. | |
| In both feet. | ||
| So instead of just having it in one for TJ, I get through. | ||
| Then I have it in both. | ||
| It just started in my other foot for Faber. | ||
| And then by the Cody fight, it's been out of control. | ||
| I'd done three camps and I'd done a year. | ||
| A year of nonstop work after that year off. | ||
| And what can you do to heal it? | ||
| No excuses. | ||
| I want to go ahead and make this point right now. | ||
| There's no excuses for that. | ||
| I did pretty good at wrapping it. | ||
| I shot Botox in the bottom of both my feet. | ||
| Botox? | ||
| It was the worst thing I've ever gone through. | ||
| Why does Botox... | ||
| What does that do for you? | ||
| Well, the idea with Botox is it was an off-the-wall method because there's no cure for plantar fascia tendonitis. | ||
| So you just improvised this? | ||
| Yes, because I was... | ||
| Well, I heard it from other doctors. | ||
| It's an underground method. | ||
| It's like I was just willing to do anything, Joe. | ||
| Like, I was in so much pain, dude. | ||
| I couldn't... | ||
| I'd wake up in the morning... | ||
| And I'd have to go on my hands and knees to the bathtub so I wouldn't put weight on my feet. | ||
| I'm not kidding. | ||
| This is during fight camp? | ||
| Oh yeah. | ||
| So I wouldn't put weight on my feet because they're too cold. | ||
| So it's like needles, you know? | ||
| So you have to warm them up first so that the fasciitis doesn't get worse. | ||
| So I fill up a tub with hot water and Epsom salt and then... | ||
| I had to fill that up by going on my hands and knees because you don't want to put weight on it early. | ||
| This is a method I heard from a runner that he used in order to heal his. | ||
| And so I tried it for about a month. | ||
| I would fill it up and then I soak my feet every morning. | ||
| Then after I soak them, I have a tape routine that I have on both my feet. | ||
| I tape both my feet like you would picture taping your hands. | ||
| And then I wear my shoes and I warm up my feet before I get there at the gym and then I'd go. | ||
| But that was for all three of the fights this last year. | ||
| I've had to deal with that. | ||
| And I actually did a really good job minimizing the pain. | ||
| And the Botox... | ||
| First, I shot cortisone in them. | ||
| And that didn't help. | ||
| It numbed it a little bit, but it didn't help. | ||
| I shot it after... | ||
| When I fought TJ and I was getting kicked in the leg, like you say, and I was... | ||
| That was my foot being tore. | ||
| Like, the fascia actually completely tore off the heel in that fight. | ||
| That hurt. | ||
| That I felt. | ||
| I've never felt anything really in a fight. | ||
| That I felt when it popped. | ||
| And that's how I knew. | ||
| I was like, I said, I was like, I think my foot's tore in half or something. | ||
| Because it just, I felt it when it popped open in that fifth round. | ||
| And I had about four minutes left of the round. | ||
| And I remember like, oh shit, you better hit it. | ||
| You better figure something out. | ||
| And then, you know, you could tell I was staying a little bit more stationary, I think, and that's why the kick started to land. | ||
| But that's the way it goes, man. | ||
| We're in the fight business. | ||
| All of us go in there with injuries. | ||
| I'm not making excuses, but people want to know, you know, injuries, we all go in there injured. | ||
| I'm not, like, almost all of us do with something. | ||
| And a lot of high-level Like marathon runners deal with this foot problem that I have and they run marathons with it. | ||
| So it can be done, but it's just an extra hindrance. | ||
| It's very difficult. | ||
| And going barefoot with it is the hardest part. | ||
| That's true, right? | ||
| Because at least marathon runners can wear shoes. | ||
| And that helps because I have orthotics and there's supports you can put. | ||
| That keep the support. | ||
| But I have a high arch, and so what that means is the arch, there's a fascia that holds everything in place, and the arch starts to fail, and that's what that needle feeling is. | ||
| It's like it's the fascia on the bottom of your foot. | ||
| Because I'm always on my toes, it just wasn't ready for the brunt from zero to hero, and then it kind of put a bunch of lesions in it, and now how do you heal those? | ||
| Now, can you tape it with an orthotic underneath? | ||
| No, because then you have orthotics stuck to the bottom of your feet while you're hopping around. | ||
| But in training, can you do that? | ||
| Well, I wear my wrestling shoes and I tape my feet. | ||
| Tape my feet and wear wrestling shoes with my supports in there. | ||
| And what methods of healing can they sort of use? | ||
| There isn't any. | ||
| Nothing? | ||
| This is why I use Botox. | ||
| Stem cells? | ||
| I was actually thinking of getting some stem cells put in my elbows and my shoulders and my knees coming up, but for my feet, PRP and stem cell is all just, it's all just, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. | ||
| Anything you look at, if you Google plantar fat, they have no cure for it. | ||
| It's a worldwide problem that there's no cure for. | ||
| Where are you going to get the stem cell stuff done? | ||
| Well, I've only talked to people about it, but I'd be more than happy to get with you on it. | ||
| I'm sure you've got some hookups, because I need the best in the world, obviously. | ||
| There's a guy in Vegas, Dr. Roddy McGee. | ||
| He's the best. | ||
| He's worked with a lot of UFC fighters. | ||
| Daniel told me he's worked with people before... | ||
| Cormier? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Cormier's guy does... | ||
| Well, there's a bunch of different ways to do it. | ||
| Cormier's guy went into his hip, and they pulled bone marrow out of his hip, and it's super painful. | ||
| And then they get your own stem cells from that. | ||
| The way the guy in Vegas does it, they're taking the stem cells when a woman has a cesarean section. | ||
| When she gives birth through cesarean section, they take away the placenta. | ||
| They usually just throw it out, but they can take that placenta and extract stem cells from it. | ||
| I'd rather have that than some of DC's bones. | ||
|
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That's for sure. | |
| You don't want them digging in your bone. | ||
| It's super painful on your hip, too. | ||
| Yeah, he was talking about how he was limping for a couple weeks. | ||
| He's big bone, though. | ||
|
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I could go all day on his jokes with DC. Yeah, he's a big fella. | |
| You know, it's interesting. | ||
| Somebody said to me once that DC should be fighting middleweight. | ||
| I'm like, go stand next to him and say that. | ||
| His core is like this thick. | ||
| Yeah, he's a tank. | ||
| He's a big dude. | ||
| Yeah, he might only be 5'10". | ||
| Well, they say that because he's a little chubby, but he's stronger than anybody can imagine. | ||
| You don't pick up Dan Henderson. | ||
| How about Josh Barnett? | ||
| Remember when he was fighting heavyweight in Strikeforce? | ||
| He picked up Josh Barnett like he was a pillow and slammed him on the ground. | ||
| That's what I mean. | ||
| The guy... | ||
| It blows my mind how good he is. | ||
| And I don't think people give him enough credit. | ||
| I know DC on a training level when I watch him train on a personal level. | ||
| I mean, he's DC. He's crazy. | ||
| He's always talking out of his butt, you know, to an extent. | ||
| It's hilarious. | ||
| But... | ||
| He's a beast, man. | ||
| You gotta respect that. | ||
| Yeah, I love that guy. | ||
| Me too. | ||
| He's a great guy. | ||
| He's in the era of Jon Jones, and he lost to Jon in his first fight, and he's also dealing with the fact that Jon, although I love Jon too, Jon's a fuck-up. | ||
| And so he's gotta sort of be there while Jon keeps fucking up, and then a lot of it comes back to him. | ||
| But that's where I look at DC and why I try to give him all the respect in the world I can, because I don't feel that people... | ||
| Give enough respect to DC for the fact that he's not fucking up. | ||
| Right. | ||
| No, he's a great guy. | ||
| How does that get overlooked? | ||
| Well, I think a lot of it has to do with people can connect to fuck-ups. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Two. | ||
| There's that. | ||
| You know, I mean, and Jon Jones is that good. | ||
| That's the other thing. | ||
| He's literally that good. | ||
| He's that good he could beat you after he did coke three weeks ago. | ||
| I don't know what to say about that. | ||
| That's the thing about John. | ||
| I'm good enough to win after three surgeries. | ||
| So let's see. | ||
| We can test the waters on both. | ||
| Let's see who does what. | ||
| I'll do a line of coke next time and then try to jump in there and see how I do and let's blow his knees out three times and then we'll see who's better. | ||
| Well, that's a different animal. | ||
| It's interesting that sometimes people are just supremely talented physically. | ||
| And they don't have to deal with as many trials and tribulations in that regard. | ||
| He's very gifted. | ||
| It's interesting. | ||
| I've always said this. | ||
| There's a way that John gets a hold of people that you could almost tell when he gets a hold of them that they really have never felt anything like that before. | ||
| And you saw it with DC. DC, who's a supremely talented wrestler. | ||
| One of the best wrestlers to ever compete in MMA. Period. | ||
| Jon Jones got a hold of him, and you could see DC was like, oh, shit. | ||
| Like, this guy is no joke. | ||
| I agree. | ||
| I mean... | ||
| Jon's a stud. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| He's a fucking stud. | ||
| He's that good. | ||
| So is DC, though. | ||
| DC could still beat him. | ||
| I really believe that. | ||
| It's entirely possible. | ||
| If I had to choose, I would probably... | ||
| If I had to choose on paper, you'd take Jones, depending on how healthy he is. | ||
| Well, DC was so furious that he didn't fight him in the Ovin St. Prue fight because he was like, I would have beat that Jon Jones. | ||
| Because I did commentary with him in that fight. | ||
| He's like, I would have beat that Jon Jones. | ||
| And here's another thing on that, okay? | ||
| Because... | ||
| How's that? | ||
| That might not be true either. | ||
|
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Right. | |
| Because that Jon Jones would have trained differently for you than he trained for Ovin St. Prue. | ||
|
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Of course, yeah. | |
| And he hates— Well, the Ovin St. Prue was a very late replacement, right? | ||
| Don't forget this, though. | ||
| I mean, how much does he hate DC? He's not going to let that get away from him. | ||
| Oh, yeah. | ||
| It's a different level of training you're doing for different people and where your emotions are with that human being. | ||
| That's a really good point. | ||
| It is. | ||
| But don't you think that was a big factor in the first fight as well? | ||
| Because DC was very emotionally wrapped up in fighting John. | ||
| It was very intense because he had never had anybody disrespect him like that. | ||
| They had that fist fight at the press conference. | ||
| That definitely had to do with it. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Of course. | ||
| That has to do with every fight. | ||
| It has to do with my fights. | ||
| It has to do with all of them. | ||
| You have to calculate. | ||
| It had to do with Conor McGregor's fights, Ronda Rousey's fights, Anderson Silva's fights when he's shellboating. | ||
| Everything. | ||
| I mean, you can go... | ||
| The list goes on of the mental... | ||
| Problems that a lot of these athletes have had and usually if the mental isn't there they lose. | ||
| It comes down to that. | ||
| And you also got to go back to the way Daniel Cormier handled rumble. | ||
| He's the only guy that's been able to eat rumble shots, absorb them and come back and break them. | ||
| Yeah, he ate that right hand and just hit his head on the floor, woke back up, and then went after it. | ||
| And that's respectable, too, that I don't think fans or anybody can really understand what it takes to get slightly knocked out, stand back up, and want to keep going. | ||
| That's a different level of understanding of this sport. | ||
| As an athlete, when I watch a fighter go through that and keep their composure, move around, and deal with that problem, And then even if they lose but stay in the fight and go the distance and tough it out, like Diego Sench is a great example of that. | ||
|
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Yeah. | |
| It's like, how do you not respect and have a real logical understanding that that human being is built from something different? | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| That's insane. | ||
| There's fighters that come back, and there's fighters that almost never come back. | ||
| It's really interesting. | ||
| We were talking about BJ Penn, one of the all-time greats. | ||
| I can't remember a fight where BJ was losing, where he came back and won. | ||
| Frankie Edgar, on the other hand, you can never count that motherfucker out, ever. | ||
| Frankie Edgar, in the Grey Maynard fights, those two chaotic fights, was so close to being stopped in the first round, where Grey Maynard is putting it on him, and Frankie's going down and down again and stumbling around the octagon, and Grey keeps catching him, and Frankie goes on to stop him. | ||
| I mean, that was insane. | ||
| Those two fights were insane. | ||
| And he should go down as one of the best ever fights. | ||
| You know, I mean, it's like stuff like that. | ||
| Both of those fights. | ||
| The one where they won to a draw, and then the other one when he beat them. | ||
| And it's true. | ||
| I mean, you gotta... | ||
| It's hard, though, because there's so many crazy fights that you can give credit to everybody. | ||
| And it's like, how do you really dictate who gets what, where? | ||
| Because we're all putting our life out there on the line, too. | ||
| So every single one of these is just as serious as the next. | ||
| And every single one of us has sacrificed just as much as the next. | ||
| So at what point do you really start drawing the line as to who is the best and who isn't? | ||
| I think it has to come down to who stays the best the longest. | ||
| Yeah, no, I agree with you. | ||
| I mean, how else do you really... | ||
| That's why I put Fedor over Kane as the best heavyweight of all time, although I still think I maintain that Kane, when he was at his best, as far as what I see him, what he was able to do to guys, and what I see from his performance inside the octagon, especially his cardio as a heavyweight, his clean technique, his wrestling, the pace he puts on guys, his chin, I don't think there's been ever anybody like Kane. | ||
| I think Kane, when he was at his prime, was the best I've ever seen. | ||
| I never got to see Fedor fight live, but I would say if you have to give an all-time great to a heavyweight, I kind of lean towards Fedor because he stayed on top longer, beat more guys longer. | ||
| Who did he beat compared to Kane? | ||
| Noguera in his prime, Krokop in his prime, fought some freaks like Semmy Schilt, took him down. | ||
| Yeah, and that was in the early days. | ||
| Yeah, the early days. | ||
| When it was still very limited knowledge. | ||
| And it was wild rules as far as supplements go. | ||
|
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It really was. | |
| Wow! | ||
| Take whatever you want, motherfucker. | ||
| Let's get this party going. | ||
| Let's see if we can get you bigger than Joe Rogan. | ||
| Everybody's bigger than me, man. | ||
|
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I'm tiny compared to Cro Cop at 42. Okay, bigger than Lorenzo. | |
| Lorenzo's a gorilla. | ||
| Yeah, yoked. | ||
| But Cro Cop just won the Rising Grand Prix. | ||
| I mean, he's a shell of himself in the UFC under USADA testing. | ||
| They send him off to Japan and all of a sudden he's super Cro Cop again. | ||
| Looked sensational. | ||
| I didn't see that. | ||
| Oh, he looked fantastic. | ||
| Missed that one. | ||
| Kickboxing looked fantastic. | ||
| Well, he went and did some kickboxing, looked really good in kickboxing again, and then fought in Risen and won their heavyweight Grand Prix. | ||
| I mean, he looked extraordinary. | ||
| He looked like the Crow Cop of old. | ||
| He really did. | ||
| He really turned back the clock. | ||
| I'm about to watch it. | ||
| And then he decided, I'm good. | ||
| I'm done. | ||
| I ended my career with an amazing high note. | ||
| That's awesome. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And very rare do people come back and do that. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You need a little help. | ||
| Huh? | ||
| You need a little help from Dr. Mexican Supplements. | ||
| Well, I mean, Ricky Bobby said it best, huh? | ||
| What'd he say? | ||
| You ain't cheating, you ain't trying. | ||
| Is that what he said? | ||
| I thought it was, you ain't first, you're last. | ||
| Maybe it's both, or maybe I stole that from a different movie. | ||
| If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying, that's like real old, right? | ||
| Yeah, maybe that was somebody else. | ||
| Maybe it was just, I don't know. | ||
| Yeah, no, but... | ||
| Some old guy yelling at me. | ||
| I mean, there's that, but that, you always have to have that asterisk next to Pride, that there was no drug testing. | ||
| And I've had Ensign anyway here on a couple times where Ensign was talking about it. | ||
| They're in the contracts. | ||
| It said in capital letters, we will not test you for steroids. | ||
| And Ensign was laughing about it. | ||
| He's like, what the fuck? | ||
| Like, is this what I'm fighting? | ||
| They were just telling you, like, we want to have some fun. | ||
| Yeah, but I remember even, because I was part of the sport in that era, and I'm so glad. | ||
| I really am so glad I was part of the sport during that time. | ||
| And I was just coming up, and I was like maybe 2-3-0 at this point. | ||
| I can specifically remember a time having to make a decision at 21 years old. | ||
| Do I want to be in the IFL? Do I want to go try out for the Ultimate Fighter? | ||
| Or do I just keep working my three jobs, coaching wrestling, doing what I'm doing here in Tucson as a janitor, stay with my money, and just be patient and keep winning fights until I get there? | ||
| And I was 20 years old. | ||
| They were offering me $2,000 a month to fight in the IFL with the Sabres, which was... | ||
| This was, you know, forever ago. | ||
| And $2,000 a month for me would have changed my life. | ||
| I'm 20 years old. | ||
| I'm living paycheck to paycheck and I'm doing all these jobs. | ||
| I can quit all my jobs and focus on training 24-7. | ||
| That's my mindset with $2,000 a month. | ||
| Heck yeah, I can do that. | ||
| That's the way to go. | ||
| But wait a second. | ||
| There is no 135-pound weight class. | ||
| There's no 145-pound weight class. | ||
| It's only 155 and up. | ||
| So I'm already eating as much as I can, trying to put weight on and get into the weight class to fight at 155 pounds. | ||
| What do you walk around at? | ||
| Like right now? | ||
| Now I'm walking around 55, 60. But then at 20 years old, 42. You know, 142 pounds. | ||
| Trying to eat everything I can in sight. | ||
| And between that and 50, you know, 150. So I said, you're too small for that, I felt. | ||
| If they lock you into that contract for two grand a month, they're going to throw you out there, you're going to lose twice, they're going to cut you, and then you didn't get any money and you lost. | ||
| Now you've got two losses on your record because these guys are monsters. | ||
| And... | ||
| How do you come back from that? | ||
| So I said, alright, I'm going to say no to the IFL. I'm going to go try out for the Ultimate Fighter. | ||
| Tried out for the Ultimate Fighter. | ||
| Didn't get in. | ||
| Lost that opportunity. | ||
| So then I just kept training and that's when I got my first fight at 6-0. | ||
| I was 5-0. | ||
| Got an offer on two days notice to go fight in total combat, which is now my coach, Eric Del Ferro's promotion back then. | ||
| He was a promoter. | ||
| And I took the fight, fought it, and then I met Eric. | ||
| And that was the beginning of that. | ||
| Wow, so you were living in Arizona at the time and that's how you moved down to San Diego? | ||
| Tucson, yeah. | ||
| Tucson, Arizona. | ||
| I was raised there from two years old until I was 21, until I moved to San Diego and fought Faber. | ||
| Faber fight in 2007 was the first camp I ever had a coach. | ||
| Never had a coach before that point. | ||
| I'd never been to Vegas. | ||
| I just legally able to go there. | ||
| There's a lot of things I've never gotten to do. | ||
| It was incredible to get to do that back then. | ||
| First fight ever on television in the WEC. It was the WEC. I got to fight in front of Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz in the audience. | ||
| Weird things like that that I remember that was like, what am I doing here? | ||
| What am I doing here? | ||
| I made it. | ||
| Just to be part of the game at that point, Diego Sanchez is the man at 185 pounds. | ||
| Get to train. | ||
| That was Ultimate Fighter season one when he won the Ultimate Fighter. | ||
| Those are the guys I'm watching saying, I'm gonna do this. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Wow. | |
| So when you tried out for the Ultimate Fighter, what season was it? | ||
| I think it was like two or three tops. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Wow. | |
| So you were trying at 55 then? | ||
| I was. | ||
|
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|
Wow. | |
| And I have three fights at 55. I have three fights at 45 if I remember right. | ||
| Also Wow, so at the time when this was going on 2005 when you started out was right when Stephen Bonner and Forrest Griffin had that epic fight in the finals the ultimate fighter season one and it launched MMA Yeah, and that's what made me decide and that's when I'm going to school You see so I'm like alright this thing is this is the time if you're gonna do it Get in now and just see what you can do with it. | ||
| Go all in, Dom. | ||
| You might make it. | ||
| Or keep going to school. | ||
| I wanted to be an EMT firefighter. | ||
| That was the goal. | ||
| And it was like, you know, what do I do? | ||
| I have so much stability here. | ||
| I got three jobs. | ||
| I got money coming in. | ||
| I'm comfortable. | ||
| I'm going to school. | ||
| I'm doing the picture-perfect 20-, 19-, 20-year-old vision for a kid who wants to be something, right? | ||
| Going to school, working. | ||
| Threw it all away and just said, screw it. | ||
| And it was nerve wracking. | ||
| But like I said, I didn't do it until I asked my mom. | ||
| My mom didn't even, the fact that she didn't even like think about it, like I didn't think about it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Wow. | |
| I didn't even think about it. | ||
| I just quit my jobs, packed all my shit up in an eclipse. | ||
| My car couldn't make it to California, so I had to have my friend's truck tow it on a trailer. | ||
|
unidentified
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Whoa. | |
| With everything I owned in the car and then we drove in the truck. | ||
| So my truck basically became a shed for everything I owned. | ||
| Or my car did. | ||
| My car became a shed for everything I owned, you know? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Wow. | |
| But so many stories like that. | ||
| Come on. | ||
| I mean, how many MMA fighters have that story? | ||
| A ton. | ||
| Well, what is interesting to go back to your style, your very unique style, is that you really did come along when the sport was in its... | ||
| I wouldn't say it's infancy, but it was like a teenager at the time. | ||
| The sport was really only 12, 13 years old. | ||
| And I'm so glad I got in it then, because that exact fact, what you just mentioned, is why I knew I could do something different. | ||
| That's why. | ||
| Because it was growing and there was so much room. | ||
| It was too new. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I could do things nobody had ever seen and it wasn't wrong anymore. | ||
|
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Right. | |
| Because this is new. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And if you say I'm wrong, I say fuck you. | ||
| I'm going to do it my way because this is new. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| There wasn't an established orthodox like Bernard Hopkins style. | ||
|
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|
There was though. | |
| There was though. | ||
| And I got ridiculed my whole career. | ||
| You're not supposed to do that. | ||
| You're boxing. | ||
| You're not supposed to do that. | ||
| You're kickboxing. | ||
| You're not supposed to do that. | ||
| You're wrestling. | ||
| But I'm not doing any of those things. | ||
| I'm doing them all mixed together. | ||
| So how are you telling me I'm doing something wrong right now? | ||
| Well, one of the things you said about you, I've said, if you watch Dominic Cruz fight, I would tell you, don't fight like that. | ||
| But look how goddamn good he is at it. | ||
| So you can't say don't fight like that. | ||
| Because he's not just like, the way you throw punches, the way you move and throw punches, and throw punches from odd angles, you could tell someone, if someone was like a very traditional, technical coach, you would say that is the wrong way to throw punches. | ||
| But I would say no. | ||
| Because look, he's fucking landing them, and they're hurting the guy, and he uses them a lot, and he's very effective with it. | ||
| Always be my argument with every conventional coach, and this is why. | ||
| I break what makes them relevant. | ||
| Well, it's not necessarily you break what makes them relevant. | ||
| You figure out a way to make your style work in a way that confounds the experts. | ||
| Well, what I mean by that is when they talk to me. | ||
| So, like, maybe not to... | ||
| 20 million other people, they are the shit. | ||
| But when you try to tell me that, and I can't tell you how many countless world champion kickboxing coaches go, only you can do that. | ||
| You're awesome. | ||
| Keep doing it. | ||
| And I couldn't disagree more. | ||
| Well, anybody can do it if they mimic your movements, and your movements aren't like Cirque du Soleil movements that you have to be physically gifted in order to pull off or work towards them for a hundred years. | ||
| Yeah, I'm not going to sit here and break it down, but there are obviously movements that I'm doing, and they can be read. | ||
| It took 30 rounds to figure out with the same camp for 10 years, but they figured it out. | ||
| Right. | ||
| They can imitate you. | ||
| You ever see Justin Buchholz do you? | ||
| They know what they're doing, but who else has fought somebody as much as they've fought me? | ||
| I mean, think about it. | ||
| Benavidez twice, Faber twice, TJ Dillashaw, Charlie Valencia has fought with them. | ||
| Scott Jorgensen trained with them before I fought him. | ||
| Ian McCall trained with them for a tiny bit of time before I fought him. | ||
| Essentially, every single person I've ever fought for the past 10 years has at some point been friends with Faber, trained with that camp because they were the little guy camp, while I said, why join them if you can beat them? | ||
| And I just did it my own way and let them all hate me and train together. | ||
| And it was okay with me, you know? | ||
| I needed to do things my way in order to build something different in a game that hadn't really caught up to the things that I was thinking about yet, in my opinion. | ||
| It didn't make me the only one that was right in these things. | ||
| It's just how I used the things that I used. | ||
| They had theirs too. | ||
| But my whole mindset was, like I said, if I fight like them, I'm going to be like them and they're going to adjust to me like they adjust to everybody else. | ||
| Now, going back to the early days when you sort of learned the style, we kind of got off this, but I really wanted to touch back on it. | ||
| When you said that your style, no one had your style before. | ||
| No one could tell you that it... | ||
| It was the wrong way to do it because you were being very effective with it. | ||
| But did you take it from anywhere? | ||
| Did you look at boxing footage? | ||
| Did you look at kickboxing or Muay Thai? | ||
| Where did you get all your footwork from? | ||
| Well, there's a mixture of things. | ||
| One, it all started with me fighting at 155 pounds weighing 142 pounds. | ||
| That's where this whole mindset started. | ||
| So it was, they're already twice as big as you, and on fight day, they're gonna be three times as big as you. | ||
| So you better not get touched, you better not get grabbed, and you better not get hit at all. | ||
| Don't let them touch you, because they're too big. | ||
| If they take you down, your energy's gonna be zapped by the time you do get up, if you get up. | ||
| And if they hit you, they're big and strong, and they're probably gonna put you out. | ||
| So you have to use all that strength, all that size against them, and make it their weakness instead of their strength. | ||
| And that's how I started, because I was so little. | ||
| I said, alright, I need to focus on defense. | ||
| Obviously, I've got to hurt them too, but after they do what they're trying to do with their big strength and be stronger and be more powerful and be more athletic, they're going to wear themselves out. | ||
| Now we're even. | ||
| Middle or round two, all those things that they had early, we're even now. | ||
| Now I can just outthink them and pick them apart and beat them. | ||
| I always had that mentality rather than Fight fire with fire. | ||
| It just didn't make sense to me when my body was on the line. | ||
| I wanted the path of least resistance. | ||
| And so it started with that until I got to about 5-0, fought in total combat. | ||
| I took that fight on two days notice, went out there with no coaches, no corner men, and went by myself, and they just picked random corner men and put them out there. | ||
| That night was why Eric liked me, because he saw I took it at short notice, won it. | ||
| It was a tough fight, but I had no corpsman. | ||
| I came solo on a flight and just went. | ||
| And so he's like, okay, I can work with this. | ||
| This guy wants to do it. | ||
| So he picked me up, but then that's really when the progression started, meeting Eric. | ||
| And that's because I'd never had... | ||
| I mean, I had pads held for me here and there in Tucson, but only if guys were getting 65 bucks to do it or Something for it because there's not a lot of money in fight game. | ||
| So they're all as hungry as I am the trainers and I wasn't really like some star pupil that everybody wanted to get on board and make a world champion at this point I was just a guy right? | ||
| I So I wasn't getting pad work. | ||
| I wasn't getting one-on-one training. | ||
| I lined up my own coaching. | ||
| I'd have guys that knew what they were doing, being pro boxers, pro high-level wrestlers, high-level blue belts at this time, and roll and wrestle and make my own team and my own coaches with the people that I had available, but I didn't have a head. | ||
| And when I found Eric, I won that fight, found Eric, and he said, I'll coach you, I'll get you a manager, and I'll get all this figured out for you. | ||
| That's what I was really looking for. | ||
| That's why I went to California and got out of Tucson, because I knew I wasn't finding that in Tucson. | ||
| When I went there and got that, it was like a gift. | ||
| I was like, this is what I'm talking about. | ||
| I knew if I went there and won with no one in my corner, somebody would want to pick me up. | ||
| And they did. | ||
| Eric did. | ||
| And we've stayed together ever since. | ||
| So was your style something that you worked on with Eric? | ||
| Like, Learning those footwork drills. | ||
| When you came to him, you essentially were a smaller guy who was fighting bigger guys and had to be a little trickier in your movement. | ||
| Where were you getting that stuff from? | ||
| Well, now, when I meet Eric, I'm no longer the smaller guy fighting bigger guys because, well, a little bit, but 45 is now allowed. | ||
| Now 145 pounds is just getting into these small shows, not just the WEC. So by the time I meet Eric at 6-0, I take that fight on two days notice at 145 pounds. | ||
| But I was getting ready to fight at 155 in Colorado for a world title. | ||
| But the whole show got canceled. | ||
| That's why I was in shape to take the fight on two days notice. | ||
| So when I met Eric... | ||
| The 45-pound weight class was there. | ||
| 55 was the one that was basking. | ||
| So that was how I got into the UFC. But your question exactly was what? | ||
| How did you devise your movement? | ||
| How did you devise your footwork? | ||
| Did you study other stuff? | ||
| Did you learn it with Eric? | ||
| Did you guys put it together? | ||
| Honestly, I had a couple things that I did naturally, and then Eric has a skill set where if you have a natural movement, he doesn't tell you to fix it. | ||
| He lets you do it and then has you add a weapon to it. | ||
| That's his gift. | ||
| And I had a lot of those little weird, odd things that I did. | ||
| And those weird, odd things you had just devised to learn how to get away from bigger people. | ||
| Yeah, and it was a mixture of wrestling stance with punching and kicking. | ||
| If you watch wrestling, there's no set stance. | ||
| There's no set. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| If you watch college, high school, like the highest level wrestlers, it's all fluent motion in both stances. | ||
| So I made fighting that because I started out wrestling. | ||
| And then I added the punches and the kicks to that motion. | ||
| Instead of trying to change what I already did with my wrestling and try to make it this way, he just let me do what I did Up to 5-0 with my wrestling and whatever I taught myself, and then he just tightened it up and made it into a pro-level look to an extent. | ||
| Speed, timing, range, these type of things. | ||
| And now, do you have it now as a system? | ||
| Do you have it organized? | ||
| Do you have it written down? | ||
| No, I have a system, but I'm a visual learner, so you could... | ||
| You can literally just do a movement in front of me and I'll learn it really quick. | ||
| But if you write it or I have to read it, I'll never get it. | ||
| I'm all visual. | ||
| There's certain things that I was running into when I would spar early on starting that I came up with habits to deal with because of my wrestling and not having a coach that instead of the coach saying, no, do this, I just adjusted and found my own answers. | ||
| And do you keep a training log of all these lessons that you learned? | ||
| No, I know them. | ||
| They're just all in your mind? | ||
| Yeah, I know them. | ||
| I know them. | ||
| I know them very well. | ||
| I've studied it. | ||
| And you're just 100% confident that you'll keep that stuff in your memory and you don't need to write it down? | ||
| No, I don't need to write it down because I drill it. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And once I have a memory, I don't just write it. | ||
| I do it. | ||
| I drill it. | ||
| I'll show Eric and I'll say, what do you think about this? | ||
| And he'll be like, okay, well I do this, this, and this to make it a little better and keep you da-da-da-da-da. | ||
| And we go, okay. | ||
| And then we use it. | ||
| But I mean, I'm using... | ||
| I'm not using the craziest moves in the world. | ||
| John Jones used crazy moves. | ||
| Certain people like Stephen Thompson has crazy moves, you know what I mean? | ||
| I'm actually using crazy movements to stay defensive and offensive simultaneously. | ||
| That's the idea, to do both at the same time. | ||
| And to be very hard to read. | ||
| Well, you're hard to read if you're being offensive and defensive at the same time. | ||
| Yeah, it's hard to read because you don't know if I'm being offensive or defensive. | ||
| It's one or the other or both. | ||
| I can do both because where I put myself, I'm defensively in a, generally speaking, when I've been doing very well in my matchups, I put myself in the gray area where even if you do hit me, it's limited power and I'm still able to hit you more than you're able to hit me, basically. | ||
| That's the idea, generally. | ||
| Now, here you are. | ||
| You're coming off of the toughest loss of your career. | ||
| You lose to Cody Nolove in a very, very tough fight against a super talented guy. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| How do you feel about that fight, and how do you feel right now? | ||
| I feel good. | ||
| I just want to heal up my body a little bit. | ||
| That year, doing the three camps, coming back after the couch, it just... | ||
| It was a hard year. | ||
| It was a good year. | ||
| Because you weren't conditioned when you went full bore in the camp? | ||
| When I first started, but that also affected my style. | ||
| If you look at the last three fights this year and my fights before the injuries, I threw a million more kicks. | ||
| Well, you looked outstanding against Uriah. | ||
| You looked like your body didn't look as good with TJ. You looked like you were a little softer. | ||
| That was the one where I was hurt. | ||
| That was the one where I was hurt. | ||
| You could tell. | ||
| You could tell physically by looking at you. | ||
|
unidentified
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Oh, yeah. | |
| And by the Faber fight, I did strength training camp for that whole camp. | ||
| That's the difference of having a strength training camp and not having a strength training camp. | ||
| You could tell by the way you looked. | ||
|
unidentified
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Right. | |
| But my cardio was through the roof because I implemented sprints instead of strength training. | ||
| Whereas for the Faber fight, I could do strength training because I had enough time and my sprints. | ||
| Got it. | ||
| So I could double up on the workload. | ||
| To make my body stronger, more fast, more efficient, and more than anything, tougher. | ||
| To take damage better. | ||
| Your core, toughening up your core, everything. | ||
| Taking kicks, taking punches feels night and day different now. | ||
| Even for the Cody fight, I felt great. | ||
| I do look at that fight and I think, maybe I could have waited so I wouldn't overwork myself in that year with the training and stuff because... | ||
| It's one thing to take three fights in a year, and it's another thing to take three title fights in a year. | ||
| Anybody can say whatever they want. | ||
| I fought six times this year. | ||
| Yeah, but you didn't fight three. | ||
| You didn't go through three title fight camps and then fight these guys who are the best in the world. | ||
| That's a different thing. | ||
| And all three fights go into five rounds as well. | ||
| Yeah, and it's a lot of workload. | ||
|
unidentified
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Um... | |
| But the camp is really where the damage is done, not the fight. | ||
| The camps are just painful for five rounds, just the way it is. | ||
| But after getting through that fight with Cody, I feel like I just want to face the winner of those two. | ||
| I think that he had a good night. | ||
| Like I said, I fought that camp how many times, man? | ||
| Legitimately, if you had to break down, I mean, if you went back and looked at tape, you could probably break down 30 rounds with me in that camp. | ||
| That means they have all those reads on me through the years. | ||
| And then Cody started out watching me in junior high, high school. | ||
| And then the way I look at it is he's the one guy who could implement it because he looked up to the guys that wanted to beat me as they are the shit. | ||
| so it took down the ego From him and allowed him to learn from the best guys that I fought and really taking that information and use it Whereas you give a guy like Faber or TJ Information and I guarantee you it's in one ear out the other. | ||
| They already know everything You don't teach think TJ's learned a lot from Dwayne he is now, but I'm talking about then okay in that camp and I think that Cody is Was just like a sponge for these guys because he was young. | ||
| And so he came up in that camp as a youngster and nothing those guys could say to him would be wrong. | ||
| And so that made him very effective with what he's doing today. | ||
| And then he's built his style to be the champion, which was me. | ||
| I think a big factor in Cody's ability is also he came to MMA from boxing with very good hands. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| His hands are outstanding. | ||
| Yeah, but we expected that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| I'm sure you did, but I'm just saying that that's a big factor in his success in MMA, period. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Agreed. | |
| Is that his boxing was already at a really high level before he entered into MMA. Well, he had a lot of... | ||
| I think even more than having boxing at a high level, it's just the rounds. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| It's the rounds. | ||
| It's the experience in the fights, more than even being good or not. | ||
| Like, he was good, obviously, but he had the rounds. | ||
|
unidentified
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Right. | |
| So he wasn't coming in green. | ||
| He was coming in as a 10-0 as an amateur. | ||
| and then having 10 pro fights and so that's 20 you know basically we were you know what i mean or 10 and 0 as a pro he lost some fights as an amateur but even then he goes through his losses as an amateur so they don't affect him on his record right and so like he's learning those things even though your brain is taking the damage he's still learning things that are going to be added to his pro career that gave him experience in the matter and | ||
| And that's what the amateur system, you know, the amateur system is going to create a different level of up-and-comers now because they're not coming in as their record. | ||
| They're coming in as two or three times their record if you count their amateurs. | ||
| Yeah, that's always the thing that drives me crazy about people that jump right into the UFC. Like, I mean, not to pick on CM Punk, but the idea that CM Punk with no competition experience whatsoever is going to fight professionally in the biggest organization in the world. | ||
| It's a little offensive. | ||
| Really? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Why because here's a guy that has no competition experience whatsoever and he's gonna fight someone who Legitimately in Mickey Gaul is a brown belt in jiu-jitsu very good on the ground good stand-up tough kid has fought Amateur has fought professional and has a wealth of martial arts experience it's Contrary to everything anyone has ever learned about learning and teaching and getting better at martial arts and You don't just jump into the deep end of the pool when you're not some physical freak like Brock Lesnar or something like that. | ||
| You're talking about a guy who's a good athlete. | ||
| I mean CM Punk is... | ||
| but there's nothing unbelievable about him. | ||
| He's not some freak of nature. | ||
| So I would think that if this guy really did want to do this and do it the right way, Get him to go through it the right way like everybody else would. | ||
| Get him to start at small organizations. | ||
| Get him to learn martial arts. | ||
| So who's fault is that then? | ||
| Is it CM's fault? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| No. | ||
| No? | ||
| I don't think so. | ||
| Whose is it? | ||
| I don't agree. | ||
| Whose is it? | ||
| I think that CM Punk... | ||
| Is a genius for saying I could make a million dollars on this and go fight somebody. | ||
| Is that what he made? | ||
| Could have. | ||
| Could have. | ||
| 50,000. | ||
| He'd never fought in his life. | ||
| I paid $500 to fight my first five fights. | ||
| Right. | ||
| This is my point. | ||
| This is exactly the point I'm getting to. | ||
| Right. | ||
| He was already famous. | ||
| That's what the fight was for him. | ||
| But do you think that it should be approached that way? | ||
| No, but it's gonna keep happening. | ||
| That's what the UFC, to an extent, is promoting. | ||
| Right, because they're promoting promotion. | ||
| Not who deserves and not how good you are. | ||
| If you really look at what sells, Dada 5000 and freaking Kimbo Slice had record sales on these weird things. | ||
| And it's like, what sense does that make? | ||
| Is that fair? | ||
| Is that right? | ||
| No. | ||
| Is it selling? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Why are people buying it? | ||
| Because they understand it? | ||
| But wouldn't you think that once you're already wealthy, like CM Punk is, he's already a millionaire, wouldn't you want to do it correctly rather than go for the big cash grab that's going to wind up getting your face punched in? | ||
| Like, if he was your friend, let's put it this way. | ||
| If he was my friend, I know exactly what I'd tell him. | ||
| You gotta learn how to fight. | ||
| You gotta learn how to fight the right way. | ||
| You gotta learn how to fight like everybody else does. | ||
| Slowly and surely. | ||
| You gotta train with the best people in the world and learn from your ability up. | ||
| Don't pretend you're already there. | ||
| Don't jump right into the UFC with a mean face on. | ||
| That's fucking crazy. | ||
| You're gonna get smashed. | ||
| And I respect you because you said that to Brandon Schaub. | ||
| Well, Shaw, it was also an issue of him being a very good friend of mine and also me knowing... | ||
| Like you said, a friend. | ||
| That's what you say to a friend. | ||
| You tell the friend the truth. | ||
| You don't just yes-man him. | ||
| I knew how many times he'd been knocked out. | ||
| I knew how many times he'd been knocked out in football. | ||
| I knew how many times he'd been knocked out in the gym. | ||
| And I knew he was having issues. | ||
| And I knew he wasn't able to take a punch like he used to anymore. | ||
| And I also knew that he also had a way out with podcasting and he was being really successful in it. | ||
| And he had a foot out the door. | ||
| He already had a foot out the door. | ||
| Yeah, and that's you being a good friend. | ||
| So all I'm saying is it's proof that you would say that. | ||
| That's proof that you're following through with what, you know, and that's rare. | ||
| But I would never stop CM Punk from competing. | ||
| What I would say is, hey man, have a fucking jujitsu match. | ||
| Have an amateur submission grappling match. | ||
| Have an amateur kickboxing match. | ||
| So why do you think he didn't? | ||
| Because he got a fuckload of money and because he thought he could do it. | ||
| Because he's a strong man. | ||
| He's got a strong mind. | ||
| He's like one of those straight edge guys that thinks he could just get a hard work pays off, you know, and just went out there. | ||
| And he's a huge celebrity. | ||
| And he felt like he was just going to ride that to a new career in the UFC. And I'm like, that's like saying you're just going to jump into NASCAR and you've never raced a car before. | ||
| You're going to wind up dead. | ||
| Well, that being said, then the only logical thing has to be the money in that decision for him. | ||
| Yes, 100%. | ||
| Money. | ||
| Money and delusion. | ||
| Delusional thinking. | ||
| What's the delusion? | ||
| Thinking that he's going to beat a guy like Mickey Gall. | ||
| It's delusional. | ||
| You think he really thought that, though, more than he wanted the money? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| 100%. | ||
| 100%. | ||
| I think he thought he could beat him. | ||
| I think he thought he could... | ||
| Look, he's training. | ||
| He wasn't training to lose. | ||
| He wasn't training to be 100% defensive. | ||
| He stepped forward and threw a wild right hand. | ||
| He didn't dance around the outside and try to avoid him. | ||
| He tried to win. | ||
| He stepped towards him and got taken down immediately and then got mauled. | ||
| You know what it's like when a guy has very little ground experience. | ||
| How long it takes before they actually become competent. | ||
| I mean, I watched that fight, so I already knew that was going to happen. | ||
| Of course. | ||
| You knew it was going to happen. | ||
| As soon as he went to the ground, you knew exactly what was going to play out, right? | ||
| But you said it's almost offensive. | ||
| I remember you saying that. | ||
| And it's like, who is it more offensive to? | ||
| Us as the fighters? | ||
| Or is it like, I don't know if I should be more mad at Mickey Gall for thinking he can do it, because that's in every single one of us. | ||
| Not Mickey Gall. | ||
| I'm sorry, not Mickey Gall. | ||
|
unidentified
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CM Punk. | |
| CM Punk, sorry. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Is it his fault that he believed that he could do it to an extent? | ||
| Does that make him that delusional that every man on earth thinks that they can go in there and fight and win? | ||
| Or is it the UFC that says, yeah, we'll give you this much money and... | ||
| Give you a pay-per-view and put you at the top of it, and let's see how much money you can generate. | ||
| Well, it's a great move for the UFC. Right. | ||
| Because the UFC is like, look, hey, we got this huge superstar, and we're going to send him in with this fresh-faced young whippersnapper who's a good fighter, who's got a really good mouth, great at talking, and he's going to fuck him up for sure. | ||
| Like, this is great. | ||
| And what do they do? | ||
| They made a hero out of Mickey Gall. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| And then when this Mickey Gall goes, he goes, stage North guy, I think you're fucking corny. | ||
| Takes another one. | ||
| And then takes him out, too. | ||
| And chokes him out in his next fight. | ||
| I know, and I love it. | ||
| Mickey Gall's a goddamn genius. | ||
| What he's done is beautiful. | ||
| So, in a way, the UFC's done a beautiful thing. | ||
| Because they go, oh, you think you can fight in the UFC? Come on in! | ||
| Have a seat. | ||
| Can we get you something to drink? | ||
| Hey, come on! | ||
| And that being said, for me, it's not offensive that CM Punk went in there and did it. | ||
| No. | ||
| It's offensive, like, I guess, how... | ||
| Depending on who you are, it's not offensive, but it's crazy how you start to realize in those scenarios that it doesn't matter how much time, skill, or purpose you put into this craft. | ||
| It matters how famous you are or else you don't get paid. | ||
| In a way, yeah, you're right. | ||
| And this is my issue. | ||
| It's not... | ||
| Who's wrong? | ||
| Who's right? | ||
| You don't need to train and be the best anymore. | ||
| In fact, that has a tiny, eensy-weensy, tiny little bit of how you make money. | ||
| See, I don't think that's true. | ||
| I think that is a factor, and that factor is compounded if you're a great shit talker. | ||
| The point being Conor McGregor. | ||
| Conor McGregor is not just a fantastic shit talker. | ||
| He's a world-class fighter, a bad motherfucker, and he's capable of knocking people out with one shot. | ||
| I mean, that is something people, they're so excited to see him. | ||
| They're paying money to see him. | ||
| He's different. | ||
| We're talking about somebody on a different level than CM Punk. | ||
| Well, Ronda, when she was in her prime, Ronda, when she was beating all these women and when she was just flipping people in their head and arm barring them, people were paying to see not just this spectacular figure, but also this person who really knew how to fight. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And it was a mixture of that and decent matchups, too. | ||
| Oh, 100%. | ||
| Well, also in the sport being really young, the female MMA being, it's gone through in just a few years, this fantastic metamorphosis where you're seeing women like Valentina Shevchenko, that is just an overall well-rounded, world-class mixed martial artist now. | ||
| Girls like, you know, Rose Namajunas who are coming up. | ||
| These MMA fighters that are coming up that are like super talented now and everyone's getting better. | ||
| The young people coming into the game that have this really comprehensive MMA game, whereas before she was fighting people, no disrespect to her opponents, but they were limited. | ||
| They were very limited. | ||
| Their striking maybe wasn't so good. | ||
| They were awkward. | ||
| They weren't that good athletically. | ||
| They weren't that strong. | ||
| They couldn't last as long. | ||
| They couldn't touch her on the ground. | ||
| And she shined in those matchups. | ||
| I guess it's just odd how you can look at somebody like Paige Van Zandt and the champ That if you really look at the breakdown of the weight class, Paige Van Zandt and The Champ are almost of equal value if you fight them to an extent because of views and who wants to see who fight. | ||
| One was on Dancing with the Stars, became a big household name. | ||
| Before Dancing with the Stars, she got Dancing with the Stars because of Before Dancing with the Stars, she was already on Dancing with the Stars. | ||
| She's like a fucking beautiful cheerleader. | ||
| That is the appeal that's making money, is my point. | ||
| She can fight. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| She's beaten some great girls in the division. | ||
| But if we're talking about Young Jacek, who can fight, fight, fight, put her blood, sweat, tears, like you see it in her and everything about it. | ||
| And then Paige Van Zandt, who is a good athlete and can fight, It's crazy the money levels that come to the same because one is just that famous and that camera... | ||
| Perfect compared to the other one who's just that good at fighting, but she's not as good on the camera as the other one. | ||
| So it levels everything out. | ||
| And that's what's blowing my mind is watching that happen even though the skill set isn't even close to the same, they're gonna make the same money. | ||
| Well, the really scary thing is when those matchups get made. | ||
| Or Paige might make more money. | ||
| Maybe, yeah. | ||
| And it's crazy. | ||
| That's what's trippy. | ||
| It is kind of trippy, but it kind of makes sense because it's entertainment as well as fighting. | ||
| It's not just a sport. | ||
| It's not just who's the best sprinter. | ||
| And that's where I go to, it doesn't offend me with CM Punk. | ||
| Well, it doesn't offend me in that sense. | ||
| What offended me was that he... | ||
| It didn't offend me that he thought it because I felt like someone should have told him. | ||
| And it didn't offend me that his coaches prepared him for it because his coach is a good friend of mine, Duke Rufus. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| And what do you got to do? | ||
| The guy comes to you and wants to learn how to fight. | ||
| Throw him in there. | ||
| You got to throw him in there. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| It just... | ||
| It should happen the way it happened because it's good for everybody to see. | ||
| It shouldn't happen the way it happened because that's all we were going to see. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| You know what I'm saying? | ||
| Man, there wasn't a chance. | ||
| It was a mauling. | ||
| Like, you remember those Mike Tyson fights where he would fight guys and you would just go, don't blink, because this shit is not going to last. | ||
| It's kind of like that. | ||
| It's like, yes, it's a competition, but goddammit, it's not really. | ||
| You know? | ||
| Like, Paige Van Zandt, let's go back to her again, who's a very talented, tough girl. | ||
| I've got nothing but respect for her. | ||
| I think she's really fun. | ||
| I'm with you on that. | ||
| It scared the fuck out of me when she was getting close to Ioana. | ||
| When she was winning fights and then she fought Rose Namajunas. | ||
| And Rose Namajunas is like right there, right? | ||
| Rose Namajunas lost to Karolina Kivalkovich in a very close fight. | ||
| Karolina went on to have a very close fight with Ioana, right? | ||
| So Rose beats Paige Van Zandt decidedly, right? | ||
| She beat her down. | ||
| It was a huge performance for her. | ||
| But that meant that Paige was literally two steps away from a murderer. | ||
| I mean, Ioana, look what she did to Jessica Panay. | ||
| Look what she did to Carla Esparza. | ||
| I was just going to say that. | ||
| That's my homegirl. | ||
| She trains with us at Alliance. | ||
| And Jessica's no slouch. | ||
| No slouch. | ||
| And she's tough. | ||
| That's the other thing. | ||
| She's not just like, I mean... | ||
| She took it. | ||
| Yeah, she's a tough girl. | ||
| And all these girls are tough. | ||
| But when you... | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I was a little off when the girls came in the gym, especially at Alliance. | ||
| We never had women in the gym ever my whole career. | ||
| It wasn't like... | ||
| It was just like... | ||
| It was just like, no women. | ||
| We're fighting. | ||
| For years? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| When did the women start coming there? | ||
| It's been... | ||
| They've been with us like two, three years now, I want to say. | ||
| Maybe. | ||
| If that. | ||
| With our camp with Eric. | ||
| But when they first came, I was a little off-put. | ||
| But the longer they're around, the more they're... | ||
| Like, they just... | ||
| They're so in the sport. | ||
| Their eyes are just like sponges. | ||
| That's the best way I could put it. | ||
| And they're just so hungry to hear. | ||
| And they're not just listening. | ||
| They're hearing you. | ||
| That's the biggest difference I notice with the women compared to trying to work with men. | ||
| They listen, but they're not hearing you. | ||
| They already have their own vision of, I'm CM Punk. | ||
| I'm going to go out there and hit him with the right hand. | ||
| He had that vision. | ||
| And no matter what you told CM Punk, That it wasn't going to go that way because you were a 50-time world champion and you know what's going to happen. | ||
| He had that vision and that was it. | ||
| Women, you can tell them how it's going to happen and they trust and they listen and they are open and they're willing. | ||
| And when you have that and you're teaching somebody something, that's when you can watch this thing grow. | ||
| And that's a huge thing with the women that I really have learned being around them They're just so humble in knowing where they're at. | ||
| We're in a fight here. | ||
| I need to listen. | ||
| Things could go weird. | ||
| Whereas men, it's like I was built to do this. | ||
| This is me. | ||
| This is how I did. | ||
| I'm a man. | ||
| I'm the man. | ||
| I could kill anybody on earth. | ||
| We're all wired that way. | ||
| Ego. | ||
| Is that in some ways connected to your learning to let go? | ||
| It's 100% my biggest battle. | ||
| And I didn't mention it. | ||
| Because I'm still learning so much about it that I don't want to sound too off with my description because I'm not... | ||
| I haven't... | ||
| Completely well versed. | ||
| Yeah, and I haven't... | ||
| It's such a hard thing to master. | ||
| But when you can let go of the ego, the ego is just such a horrible thing for us. | ||
| I mean, it... | ||
| many things that we could be free from. | ||
| Um, my ego could allow me to, to make me think that I'm above you and that you should have, uh, two espressos here for me because I'm me and I should have my water at 80 degrees and somebody should be giving me a massage. | ||
| And then when we get out of here, I should have my own car pick me up. | ||
| And if I don't have my own car pick, picking me up, then, you know, some, somebody should be, but that's only because I put myself above things. | ||
| And the only reason I put myself above things because my ego, The only reason I make excuses is because my ego forces me to hide what I am Rather than what happened. | ||
| Ego just demolishes everything, especially in the sport of fighting. | ||
| When you can set your ego aside, you hear it all the time, leave your ego at the door and then come. | ||
| That doesn't happen. | ||
| Very rare do people leave their ego at the door. | ||
| They're keeping track of every submission that happens, every takedown, every punch. | ||
| They're fixing their shin guards in the middle of the practice because they're getting tired and they don't want that one big kick to land or that one big takedown to land when they're tired. | ||
| And then it hurts their brain because their psychology needs to stop all takedowns In order for their ego not to be hurt, it goes on and on and on and on. | ||
| And ego is the biggest thing that I notice is the difference with men and women. | ||
| Now, women have it too, but it's just a different feel when we got women in the room and men in the room and how they... | ||
| The energy is just interesting. | ||
| Do you think that women are better at taking instruction from men and maybe not as good at taking it from women? | ||
| Do you think that what's going on is that the women are conceding that these men are bigger and stronger and more experienced and so it's easier for them to do it but maybe they still have that ego against other women? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| I mean, you pretty much... | ||
| I really believe that that is pretty much exactly... | ||
| I mean, there is a... | ||
| Now, it doesn't always go this way, but there is a natural flow in the way we were built as human beings, right? | ||
| To where in the past where, you know, the man is the leader of the household, da-da-da-da-da, like that was the old way of thinking. | ||
| And now we're getting contemporary and it's like everybody is equal. | ||
| And as that's come to pass, we've seen women be the biggest hit in the world for fighting right now. | ||
| Like, they're main-carding everything. | ||
| And they're running stuff. | ||
| And I think that that has become so many years in the past where you're like, alright, men are the household, they run everything. | ||
| The women had to put their ego aside for so long that they learned how to do it. | ||
| They had no ego walking into things. | ||
| They just already assumed the worst. | ||
| But then it made them so much more open that, yeah, they take instruction. | ||
| I swear they just it's just different with women. | ||
| Not all of them, but it's just odd. | ||
| You have to be in it to really feel it that women just take instruction differently in a fight scenario. | ||
| And that's not with everybody. | ||
| I think that if you're dating the fighter or something and you try to help them, it's actually the worst thing that could ever happen. | ||
| I've seen that. | ||
| So it goes both ways. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I've seen it, but rarely do I see two lovers coach together and train together and do fine, right? | ||
| The only odd one that I've seen work is Smiley. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Misha. | |
| Misha Tate and Brian Caraway. | ||
| Misha too, there's another one. | ||
| What were you going to say? | ||
| Who were you going to say? | ||
| Smiley. | ||
| Who's Smiley? | ||
| Smiley. | ||
| He just fought. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He's got the smiling on the back of his head. | |
| The redhead. | ||
| Smiling Sam Alvey? | ||
| Sam Alvey. | ||
| His girl's in his corner almost every time he fights. | ||
| Oh, I didn't know that. | ||
| Yeah, and his girl, they got, he was walking into the last fight with his kids with him and his girl, and he's kissing her while he's laughing at the, and it just, it blows my mind because everybody has their own systems, you know? | ||
| No, he's a happy guy. | ||
| He seems like he's having a grand old time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Duh. | |
| Who knows, man? | ||
| I don't get it, but... | ||
| Yeah, well, it's him, you know? | ||
| That's the weird thing about people, right? | ||
| Everyone's got a whole different formula. | ||
| Yeah, it's just the whole thing. | ||
| All these topics are interesting. | ||
| So we're pretty much running out of time because you've got to head back to San Diego, but I wanted to get back to where you're at now as far as, like, recovery and what your thoughts are about resting and getting back to camp and when do you think your feet are going to be raring to go again and all your injuries. | ||
| That's pretty much, that year just put a good brunt on my body, so I'm just, right now I'm just healing, and then those two are going to fight, I think, July, I don't know. | ||
| I think it's the July 4th card, is that what it is? | ||
| The July weekend, or I think it's the 7th or the 8th? | ||
| I don't really know, but I don't know the exact date. | ||
| But that's the big weekend. | ||
| That July 4th weekend is always a huge weekend for the UFC. And I think... | ||
| Those two will fight on that card, and then I'd like the winner of that. | ||
| I'd like to come back and fight for the belt and put on another good show. | ||
| I mean, regardless, that show was great. | ||
| And, you know, just to touch on that fight one more time, what was going through my head that changed things. | ||
| You know, I hear a lot about what people... | ||
| Oh, he didn't look the same. | ||
| He this, he that. | ||
| And it's like, there's some things that I want to clarify that unless you're a professional fighter and you're in that zone, you don't really understand. | ||
| And that was the... | ||
| The way that I approached the fight was a little different in this one than you've seen in the past. | ||
| For the first two rounds, it was pretty good. | ||
| It was back and forth, me and Cody. | ||
| It was a competitive matchup. | ||
| Coming into third, I get cut. | ||
| Did he hit you with a kick? | ||
| I think it was a kick or a headbutt. | ||
| I don't know, but it doesn't matter. | ||
| We're going to say it was a kick. | ||
| Who cares? | ||
| Headbutt kick cut me right here in my eyebrow. | ||
| I remember I got cut and I remember it started bleeding. | ||
| It wasn't the blood that bothered me as much as the doctor. | ||
| That's when, if you're me and I think about everything that's going on and I'm adjusting, it's like, alright, the doctor's in here, this cut is bad. | ||
| I mean, the way they were talking to me, are you okay? | ||
| How's it look? | ||
| And I'm like, oh shit, they're gonna stop this fight. | ||
| And when I heard the crowd's reaction, ooh, when they saw it, when they showed it, I was like, crap, they might stop this fight. | ||
| So, this is the third round. | ||
| I gotta go after it in the fourth. | ||
| It's no longer fighting smart. | ||
| It's no longer fighting smart after I got cut. | ||
| The third round is lost for me right when you get cut. | ||
| That's it. | ||
| Chances of me winning that are I have to drop them or take them down and hold them down. | ||
| And then maybe I could win. | ||
| But the cut is a deciding factor as an athlete that you have to make a choice. | ||
| Am I all in or am I going to play safe? | ||
| And I was all in once I got cut because I already lost on the scorecards in my mind. | ||
| Once you get cut, you're down on the bleeding and the damage. | ||
| They're going to see that and that's it. | ||
| So now I either cut him or put him out or keep him down on the mat. | ||
| That was the goal from then on after that cut. | ||
| It was no longer stick, move, go to the weak side, go to the strong side, time this, time that. | ||
| You've got to kill this dude or else you're going to lose the decision. | ||
| That's it, Dom. | ||
| And that's why you saw a different me in the fourth. | ||
| And that's where the big mistake was of me getting put down on my butt a couple times in one round and getting a 10-8 round. | ||
| But at that point... | ||
| With a cut, let's say I take it safe. | ||
| Let's say I get cut and I play it safe like I've been doing. | ||
| The chances that the doctor would stop it were high. | ||
| I'll play it safe so he doesn't cut my eye open worse, right? | ||
| Stick, move, just stay safe. | ||
| No. | ||
| It's like, just go for it. | ||
| Like, I'm all in. | ||
| I'm in the fight. | ||
| That's what I was feeling at that time. | ||
| And that's what can't be read on the outside of a fight is what a fighter's feeling. | ||
| What I'm feeling is they might stop this fight because of this cut. | ||
| So you either got to take him out, take him down, or cut him back. | ||
| And so that was the focus. | ||
| And when that happened, I went all in. | ||
| And then that created the openings that he needed to be successful in his game plan. | ||
| And that was it. | ||
| So... | ||
| Fifth round, I knew I had to take them out. | ||
| I mean, I won the fifth round. | ||
| Who wins the fifth round after losing, after getting put on their butt a couple times? | ||
| Not very many people. | ||
| So it's a matter of, that fight can go different. | ||
| I have the tools, the skill set, the cardio, everything it takes. | ||
| A little bit of health, some adjustments, and everything's fine. | ||
| It's a game of inches. | ||
| So that's how I feel about it. | ||
| I'm not I'm not discouraged by that as much as I feel like I can grow from it. | ||
| It's also a massive challenge now that you know that you've faced a guy that can beat you like that. | ||
| And now that massive challenge will certainly burn a fire inside of you. | ||
| You shouldn't need that to burn a fire inside of you, Joe. | ||
| You don't think it gives you more? | ||
| More motivation? | ||
| If losing makes you... | ||
| For me, if losing changes how you approach something, then it weighs more than winning. | ||
| Does that mean that the... | ||
| Well, okay. | ||
| I see what you're saying. | ||
| And I think that they should... | ||
| I don't... | ||
| You gotta be who you are, winning and losing. | ||
| You can't let that decide. | ||
| Now, if I don't have the drive to go win a world title without winning or losing, then what am I doing? | ||
| Right. | ||
| So that's not the right way to think about it, in my opinion. | ||
| And this is a big part of your new mindset. | ||
| No, this is life. | ||
| Right, but this is a part of your new mindset. | ||
| Not new, though. | ||
| I've always had this. | ||
| I mean, I've gotten better at accepting it, yes. | ||
| With losing control of things that I can control, yes. | ||
| But I've always thought that way. | ||
| How do I make it so winning and losing are equal? | ||
| Because I don't want it to change me even if I lose. | ||
| I need to still be the person that I tell everybody I am, winning and losing. | ||
| You have to be what you are. | ||
| You can't change because it didn't go your way. | ||
| Right. | ||
| I don't think I need that loss to be driven. | ||
| I was driven and thought I was going to win that fight as much as ever before that fight. | ||
| I'm as driven and as good as I always was now after the loss. | ||
| It's just a matter of making adjustments, not burning desire. | ||
| Just another challenge. | ||
| Not burning desire. | ||
| Burning desire, if you don't have that in all times, then get out because you're going to get hurt. | ||
| So how much time, so if we're talking with them fighting in July, we're talking right now, it is now February. | ||
| So if they fight in July, then you're likely looking at somewhere around December, somewhere like that. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, if I do one fight this year, okay, and go back and win my title, okay, and then defend it another three times in one year, okay. | ||
| If I, you know, I mean, these guys are going to fight, there's going to be a winner, people want to see me fight them. | ||
| I really believe that. | ||
| One of these guys. | ||
| So what am I in a rush for other than getting healthy and healing and putting on a good show and fight these guys? | ||
| They want to fight me, I'll tell you that. | ||
| Both of them. | ||
| So what's the rush other than being perfectly healthy so I can put that show on? | ||
| I fought three times last year. | ||
| Cody sat on the outside, fought a three-round fight, came in and fought me. | ||
| I fought three titles. | ||
| Fought for three titles against the best guys in the world. | ||
| I would like to see... | ||
| How he can do. | ||
| Let's see if he can keep a win streak going. | ||
| Let's see if he can keep the belt at all against the guy that I already fought. | ||
| And let's see if TJ, what TJ can do with this opportunity. | ||
| This is the thing. | ||
| I don't mind seeing what these gentlemen can do with it because I fought them both. | ||
| And I know what it takes to be the best for a very long time, not just for one fight. | ||
| And I'm not sure if they have what it takes yet, but I'm here and I like the challenge to find out and I like to challenge them again to find out. | ||
| Dominic Cruz, it's been a pleasure, man. | ||
| I really appreciate you coming down, man. | ||
| That was awesome. | ||
| Good times. | ||
| And I'm really looking forward to seeing you back in there again. | ||
| I'm really looking forward to you and me doing commentary. | ||
| I'll see you soon. | ||
| March 4th. | ||
| See you soon. | ||
| Thank you, everybody. | ||
| We'll be back tomorrow with Philip DeFranco. |
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