C.T. Fletcher joins Joe Rogan to reveal his brutal health battles—two open-heart surgeries, a June heart attack, and a pending transplant delayed by cancer tests—while debunking myths about muscle and endurance in MMA, citing genetic exceptions like Tyron Woodley and Hershel Walker. He admits early steroid use backfired with rage and dysfunction, contrasts his father’s abuse with his own redemption as a present father, and exposes the sugar industry’s 1950s conspiracy to mislead heart disease research. Their raw, no-excuses philosophy—rooted in Fletcher’s mother’s resilience and Rogan’s sincerity—underscores how real struggle fuels growth, not empty memes or manufactured outrage, leaving fighters like Rumble Johnson and Francis Ngannou inspired by authenticity over gimmicks. [Automatically generated summary]
Yeah, I fought my way back, and just recently this June, had another setback, had another major setback, had a heart attack out of the blue, and I thought I was a goner again, Joe, but I'm still here.
Well, it's a really long process to even get on the list.
So I'm going through that process now.
I'm almost through the end, but it's a really long process.
They presented my case to the doctors who performed the actual transplant, and they said that I'm a good candidate, and everything's looking up right now, except I may have a little throwback.
I had a cancer biopsy yesterday, and if that's positive, then that's going to hold me up a little bit.
It's just crazy, because when you look at a guy like you, and you look at you, especially when you're in your prime, you think, there's nothing that's going to stop this guy.
Well, people thought that we were really upset at each other.
The debate was, and this is a constant debate in MMA, whether big muscles enhance you or hurt you.
And my take on it is they do both.
My take on it is the bigger the muscle, the more power you have.
And I think Tyron is a perfect example of a guy who's figured out how to use them perfectly.
Like, what he does is he conserves his energy, and when he sprints, you can't stop him.
So, like, when he's in the cage and he has these moments of explosion, the amount of horsepower that he can generate in a short period of time is just above and beyond everybody else in the division.
And it's a terrifying thing for everybody in the division.
But he can't operate at the same pace constantly like some of the guys can.
Some of the guys who have less muscle, they're carrying around less mass.
They have less oxygen requirements.
They can go longer, but they just can't generate the same kind of power.
But what Tyron's figured out how to do pretty brilliantly is how to conserve his energy into these bursts.
And then now, like his big criticism earlier in his career was that he would gas out as he got into the later rounds.
But now he's able to fight five rounds no problem.
But that's not exactly I want to start it with this, Joe.
Okay.
Now, for all the people who said that I would never be able to sit down across the table from Joe Rogan, I want to take a special moment to say, fuck y'all right now.
I'm here.
And I attacked him.
Joe Rogan on the internet.
I attacked him.
And I want to explain.
I got the opportunity to explain to you.
It's true.
I did attack Joe Rogan.
And I have the opportunity to explain to you why exactly I did that.
I had people, you know, because I'm really cool with a lot of UFC fighters, and I said, I wonder if he even knows me, but I had people that was especially set out to keep tagging you until you...
Hey Joe, we want to have CTO. My response is always, Joe, he probably don't even know who the fuck I am, man.
Just quit tagging him.
He don't even know who the fuck I am.
Just quit tagging him.
Don't bother the man.
That was my response to them all the time.
I just said, look, Don't bother Joe.
He's busy.
He don't know who the fuck I am.
I'm not in that league, so don't even bother him.
Then I said, well, you know what?
I got these fighters.
I know all these fighters, and they friendly with me.
I said, maybe Joe do know who I am.
And I'm like, you know, after a while, maybe Joe just don't like my ass, you know?
So I said, you know, so when the Tyron Williams thing came up and Joe was talking about the muscular guy, I said, well, you know, here's my opportunity.
I said, hey, Joe, you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
And as soon as I said, hey, Joe, that motherfucker don't know what the fuck he's talking about, then you responded to me.
I know you have to have known guys like this that are naturally, naturally just more muscular, more built, and they look like they lift weights and work out.
Outstanding athlete, you know, and Bo Jackson, for example.
These guys, fantastic athletes.
Muscular, very muscular guys.
But I think if you were born, born muscular, there's a difference in a guy that goes in the gym and works out three, four hours a day.
muscle on.
He started out, you know, normal guy.
But if you were born with that muscle, then you were born with the cardiovascular system, the lungs and whatnot to support that muscle.
And it's, yeah, you take it way, way back to guys like Jim Thorpe, okay, head and shoulders above all the other athletes of his era because he was born that way.
So he was born, the good Lord give us the cardiovascular syndrome, lungs and everything to, you know, to go along with that extra muscle that we were born with.
In some cases, in some cases.
Now, I thought that you were making a...
Blanket statement, and they covered a lot of, you know, that all muscular guys are going to tire out because of the extra muscle.
And I disagree because I think if they were born with that muscle, then they were born with the support system to support that muscle.
But I do think that if you have a certain amount of muscle, like there's just no way you are going to be, you're going to have the same cardiovascular capabilities as someone that's built like a marathon runner.
You're not going to have the marathon runner.
There's advantages and disadvantages, I think, to all sorts of body types, especially when it comes to fighting.
There's a big advantage to being powerful.
It's scary.
You look at a guy like Woodley, you go, oh shit.
You know you can't stop him.
The only thing that's going to stop him is him getting tired.
Or you've got to catch him when he's coming in.
He's just faster than you, stronger than you.
So there's benefits to that.
But I think that...
When it comes to like, there's no, you're never going to see a marathon runner that's built like Woodley.
They just don't exist.
So even though he has the cardiovascular system and the support system that's designed for that build that he's born with, he still is never going to be able to compete with like an elite triathlete.
Because your body has to be smaller.
You have to have less oxygen requirements, less weight that you're carrying around.
There's no way.
But there's benefits.
It's a real balancing act, I think, at MMA because you have to have some muscle.
You have to be able to get guys off you.
You have to be able to get up from the bottom.
You have to be able to explode.
You have to be able to close the distance quickly.
And everything he does, he does like with a thousand percent effort.
You know, his workouts, like, he would tell me that the way he would work out was when he would prepare for a five-minute round, when he would start to get in shape, he would go as hard as he could for, like, a minute, and then, like, be exhausted, and then he would work himself up to a minute and a half, then work himself up to two minutes, and then by the end of his training camp, he'd go five minutes full clip.
I'm like, that's fucking crazy.
But in you know against that his boss's body started to deteriorate because he's so goddamn tough Like he has no cartilage in his knees his knees are completely shot He kept shooting cortisone and all of his joints like whenever he'd have injuries so his joints are all fucked up He's got tendonitis everywhere.
It's just his mind was too strong for like the vehicle that it was carrying his mind around.
Well, no, no, but you know Matt Hughes in his day Let me see how to put this like First of all, he's not built like a tank like maybe the way Woodley's built.
He's a little bit more slight than Woodley, but still pretty goddamn thick.
But also, what he was able to do, too, was he was such a good wrestler.
He was able to dictate where the fight takes place.
And a good wrestler can control situations, take guys down.
And then, you know, once you're on top, like, you get a break.
You know, you can rest and then, you know, he would use his ground and pound and submit guys.
He was one of the first guys ever, too, that was a high-level wrestler that started submitting dudes.
And if you can get into a physical shape where you can use those muscles the way you need to do, the way you need to do inside the octagon, I mean, there's obviously great benefit to being muscular.
I think he represents a real world-class athlete that's fighting in MMA, whereas, like, maybe that guy would have gone to football or somewhere else in another era.
I tried, I went to a doctor, and I don't know if I should say this fucker's name because he might still be in business, still alive, but the same doctor did Arnold and all the guys who were in the magazines.
Yeah, oh, fucking man, I couldn't wait to go out and get some of them amino acids and shit, man.
So they got me, for sure, because I thought that's what we were taking.
But I won a couple of little contests, and the guy who was promoting the contest came to me and said, what are you taking, CT? And I had 20-inch arms, you know, then.
I thought everybody, I thought every fucking body that I've seen in those magazines, on or anybody else, was drug-free.
He goes, what are you taking?
And I told him the amino acids and shit.
And he goes, oh man, what kind of steroids are you taking?
A total of six months, but what they do is, they told us back then, you do two months on and two months off.
So it took longer, so I do two months on, I take two months off, two months on, two months off.
That was the protocol.
Yeah, that's what they told us.
That's what Dr. Man, whatever his name is, told us how to do it.
So, it was a total of six months, but it took longer than that because I had two months off in between, two months off.
And that stuff, it definitely, what they don't tell you is when you stop taking this shit, when you just stop taking it cold turkey like that, every fucking thing that you gained during that time, and I gained, you know, I was...
Ready for...
I had one, like, little small bodybuilding contest.
I thought I was ready for fucking Mr. America after this shit.
You know, I'm like, oh, fuck.
I just got so much tighter and I had more veins and shit than ever.
And I'm like, oh, man, this is great shit.
But when you get off that shit, everything that you gain...
You lose it.
And then some.
I lost any strength gains that I might have got from it or any, you know, the hardness.
I had to start From lower than where I was before I started taking it.
I mean, I talked about it, you know, and I was interviewed in magazine articles and stuff a few times when I was world champion back then.
I brought it up in the articles.
I never thought it was anything to hide, you know, or anything like that.
I said, yeah, you know, I wish...
That I had never done it.
I wish I could say now, I wish I could say I have a perfectly clean record.
Like my training partner, Richard Schumer, we've trained together for 20 years.
And this guy, perfect record, never even tried it.
Well, he was stronger than me.
His mind was stronger than me.
Peer pressure and wanting to be in the magazines and wanting to make a living doing something that I love instead of punching a clock every fucking day.
That...
Appeal was too great for me as a young guy for me to pass it up.
I wanted to do something that I loved and make money at it way back then.
But I wound up working at the post office for 28 years.
And it's a crazy documentary, man, because the guy, Brian Fogle, who's the director, is also...
He's in it because he was an amateur cyclist, and what he wanted to do is an experiment.
So he ran...
Or he cycled this race one year, totally clean, and then the next year, he went to this Russian doctor and said, just fuck it, dude.
Juice me up to the gills.
Let's do this.
And they just shot him up with everything.
And in the process of him getting to know this doctor, the scandal broke out about the Sochi Olympics, about the Russians cheated during the Sochi Olympics.
And it's all documented in this film as the news is breaking.
And then the guy who's the Russian doctor has to flee Russia.
He leaves his family behind.
They take his family's house.
Dang it.
They take all their money, and they're basically making his family homeless to try to get him to come back to Russia.
He's in protective custody in America right now, and he detailed the entire program.
Well, the argument is, I mean, I see it in terms of fair competition.
I see the argument against it for fair competition.
It makes sense.
But like, I also see the argument in terms of like, if you're going to be taking amino acids and creatine and all these different things that do give you some sort of a benefit, why not take the shit that gives you the real benefit?
Well, you know, Joe, I don't find fault with people who decide to take roids because, like I said, I'm a 21-year-old kid and I took them.
So how the fuck can I... Talk shit about anybody who decides to make the same decision that I did that many years ago.
I'd be a hypocrite asshole if I was to do that.
As long as...
Everybody in the competition that you're in, whatever that competition might be, if you're fucking flipping pies or whatever, whatever the fuck it is, cut and grab, whatever the fuck it is.
If everybody else in there is doing it, then it's a level playing field.
But when you got guys that are trying to compete naturally against guys that are not, then it becomes unfair.
So, if they have a division, and they do it a lot in these weightlifting contests and things now, they have divisions that are called natural divisions, and they actually test for steroids and stuff like that, and maybe they should do something like that for the fighters, too.
Hey, we ain't gonna test you guys.
If you motherfuckers, you just come on in here and whatever you...
There's a lot of things going on later in his career, but it seems like when he came to America, one of the first things he did, if he was ever on anything before, he wasn't on it when he came to America.
It looks like he also stopped weight training and only concentrated on sports-specific exercises, which a lot of people disagree with.
Some people say that you have to have some kind of weight training.
You have to have some sort of strength and conditioning program.
Everybody who wants to do something in their life has ups and downs, and we need fuel.
Like, I'll tell you, I got some fuel today when you were in front of those kids in Compton and you were talking to them about obsession being a good thing if you want to be great at anything.
I wanted to shut that fucking TV off and go run the hills, man.
Fuel like that is important for people.
Seeing someone like you get fired up and talk about things, it energizes the people that are watching.
Every time you put out one of those YouTube videos and a million people watch it, how many of those million people engaged in an activity that maybe they weren't going to do that day?
How many of them went to the gym when they weren't going to go to the gym?
How many of them just decided to get their fucking career in order, get their life in order, get their shit together when they maybe weren't?
I mean, he tell you to do something, goddammit, you better do it.
So when I went, after growing up like that, I grew up in fear.
I was afraid of my dad all the time.
But growing up in Buddy Fletcher's household, when I went into the military, it was a piece of cake, man.
I was used to it.
I was already, you know, used to Yes, Sir, and I was just standing there to chanting and saluting and shit and doing impossible shit or whatever he asked me to fucking do.
I was already used to it.
So the Army was, you know, shit, I've already been doing it.
I told him that I had recently had a heart attack and I have blamed you my entire life for a whole lot of things that went bad or went, you know, that I always, you know, blame you and I'm sorry.
I don't want to blame you for that anymore, and would you please forgive me for carrying this against you for my whole life?
I don't want to die letting you think that I love you, man, and I want you to know that.
You know, it's kind of fucked up, but in a way, and I don't know why this is, but sometimes people that have gone through terrible childhoods, they recognize what it means to be a good father.
I see you with your kids.
I see it in the documentary, and I see how your kids are around you here.
I want to make sure that if somebody asks my kid, you know, 20 years from now, Do you have any fine memories of your dad and your child and how you grow?
I want to make sure that they got plenty of fucking fine memories, you know, that they can say, you know, my dad was, my dad, we did this together.
My dad was, he was, loved me to death.
I never had one doubt in my mind.
My dad loved the shit out of me.
I don't want my kids to grow up, you know, like I did.
So I put forth an extra effort to make sure that's, you know, that's not going to happen.
Yeah, I made it a fucking point, man, because it's miserable on that kid.
But also, Joe, you know what good came out of that?
The childhood, the kind of childhood that I went through, I get, and I'm sure what I get is just a tinge of what you get.
But it's so many thousand, thousand people that contact me and tell me, hey, man, my dad, you know, I had a fucked up childhood, and I see that How you were able to come out of that.
Or some kids, kids contact me now that I'm going through a fucked up childhood, CT, and because you made it, because you were able...
So that, when I look back and I used to think, why did I have to go through this?
Why did I have to have such a fucked up childhood?
It's because of that.
Because I can talk about my childhood, and it helps so many other people, so many other kids that are going, oh, Joe, I look back on it now, and I say, it was so worth it that it wasn't even funny, man.
It's so worth it.
Everything that I had to go through, wanting to hide every time I heard my dad's keys in the door, wanting to just, you know, run away from fucking home.
I hated my childhood, but it was so worth it.
Everything was so worth it.
Just being able to help one kid who might be going through the same thing.
It's a real problem because you give yourself a way out.
You can fail at things.
You could try and not be able to do it.
But the excuses for why you can't do it or why you're going to fail or why you don't feel up to it today or why you're tired or why you have other things on your mind, why you have other things you have to deal with first before you can start working out.
Being a human, being an athlete, being a doctor, whatever the fuck you are trying to do, if it's difficult to do, you're going to fuck up along the way, and some people can't handle the fuck up.
But a real person, a real person like you who's already accomplished a shitload of things, who understands the benefits of real hard work and intensity and focus, when you do those videos, man, I get fired up.
I get fired the fuck up.
I see those videos and I just want to go to the gym right away and just get fucking fired up.
And after all these motherfuckers said, oh yeah, it's this big giant feud between Joe, he'll never, you'll never be on the Everybody who said I'd never be on this show, fuck y'all.
Yeah, we're doing this Patreon campaign, which I'm going to be honest with you, Joe.
I hate...
To ask anybody for anything.
I hate that.
I've had a job, a working job since I was 12 years old.
At 12 years old, I've worked in a gas station pumping gas, and it was during the fucking gas crisis when the gas lines were super long.
But I've always worked for it.
I hate asking people.
And this Patreon campaign is like asking people to help me now that I'm Not able to travel the world.
I'm not able to get out there and promote things like I used to.
Patreon is a way that they can support me, and it's called defying death.
I wanted to call it my last will and testament, because if I don't, if I'm not successful in my fight, and if I don't get a heart transplant, I do get a heart transplant and rejects, and I'm dead, I have a record.
There's a record, and I thought last will and testament would be the best thing to call it, because if I lose the fight, Then people can go back and see and hopefully get some benefit.
They can see how I faced.
You know, you hear a lot of people.
I have so many people telling me, oh, CT, don't worry about it.
We're praying for you.
We got your back.
But hey, none of that matters when you're in that operating room.
I appreciate the good wishes and the goodwill and all that.
But in the end, you got to face it.
It's a solo experience.
You have to face death.
Everybody will.
You have to face death on your own and nobody else can step in for you and die for you or it's how you deal with it.
So this is a permanent record of how I deal with death.
You know, being in a situation where I could possibly die.
And I want people to be able to look at him just in case I make it, don't make it, whatever.
They can look back and say, well, this is how CT dealt with it.
This is, he's facing a transplant.
He didn't make it, but he went in with a Shit-ton of faith, and he believed he was gonna make it.
He believed he was gonna make it, and if I don't make it, fuck it, I ain't gonna know nothing about it anyway.
You guys will be able to talk all the shit that you want to, but I went in with a very positive attitude.
I get a shit ton of well wishes and support, and I think from Iron Addicts all across the planet.
I mean, they're all behind me, and I really, really appreciate it.
But actually, it's easy for me to say, hey, Joe, be tough.
I know you're going through this thing, Joe, but I want you to be tough.
I want you to hang tough, and I want you to...
But have I actually gone through, when I'm asked, the circumstance that you're facing, the difficulty that you're facing right now, have I actually had any experience with that?
Because it's hard for me to listen to you to tell me to, you know, be strong and be tough about getting a heart transplant.
And, you know, you ain't never had nothing but a fucking hangnail or something like that.
I mean, if you've actually been through something, then I can listen to you a lot better.
It's like a fighter, a guy who's never been in a fight trying to tell a fighter what to do in his next cage.
Right.
Hey, get in there.
I want you to put this on.
Put this.
Right.
That fight.
I'm not going to be listening too hard to a motherfucker that don't have no experience.
Yeah, he told me that on the day of a fight, He made no plans for after the fight.
No plans.
We're going out to dinner.
We're going to celebrate.
None of that.
He said, I was completely 100% prepared to die in that octagon.
And I'm like, fuck yeah!
Oh, God!
Damn!
That resonated with me so hard because I remember my last contest.
They told me about my heart valve in the 90s, in 95, at my last contest, Greatest Bench Press in America.
They say, Mr. Fuster, you can go out there in front of all those people and your valve could break, burst, and you could die right there on the bench press in front of all those people.
Are you going to go?
And Joe, I looked at him and I said, fuck yeah, I'm going.
My doctor looked at me like I'm crazy.
I'm looking at him like he crazy.
Fuck yes, I'm going.
Hell yeah, are you out of your mind?
What a glorious way.
What a glorious way to go out.
Doing what I fucking love to do, what I've trained to do my whole fucking life in front of all these people.
Oh man, I couldn't ask.
If I was writing a movie script, it couldn't be any better.
Wow.
Fucking died right there on stage in front of every fucking body.
Bitch, bro.
So I felt the same way.
I felt the same way that Corey's crazy.
And it just really made me feel good that I wasn't the only crazy motherfucker on the planet.
I'm going around the world giving speeches and seminars in front of live audiences.
It's much easier for me.
And this is a big-ass thing, but it's much easier for me to sit across the table from Joe Rogan and talk to him than it is to do those people shooting all kinds of questions at me and shh.
There's a lot of people that are vegan that are vegan for the right reasons.
They're vegan because they're conscientious, because they want to do it for health, because they want to have the least amount of impact on the environment, because they don't want animals to die.
But then there's a lot of people that are vegan that really just belong to something.
They could have been Scientology.
They could have been a Mooney.
They found that and they ran with it and now they are fucking ruthless against people that aren't in that group.
And they generally give good-hearted, kind-hearted vegans a bad name.
And it's a small percentage.
But a lot of these motherfuckers, they have vegan in their online name, and they attack.
You look at their comments, they're all attacking all these other people constantly.
They're just angry people that found a reason to be an aggressive person.
They found a green light.
Oh, this person's not vegan, I can attack them.
unidentified
And you're the reason why the world, you're responsible for all the pollution and all the crime.
I would like to get you connected to some real nutrition experts that could break down why that might not be the best idea and what is important in your diet in terms of essential fatty acids and healthy fats.
A lot of people think that refined carbohydrates are the big problem with heart disease.
Refined carbohydrates and sugar is what contributes to heart disease.
You know the whole thing that came out pretty recently in the New York Times at an expose about the sugar industry having paid off scientists in the 1950s to put the blame on saturated fats and cholesterol instead of sugar?
Wow.
Yeah, it's a complete, total, fabricated conspiracy by the sugar industry because they were doing these tests and they were realizing, like, holy shit, sugar fucks people up.
It's terrible for you.
And so what they did is they literally bribed scientists, and not that much money, which is kind of crazy.
In the 1950s, they paid them something around $50,000.
And these people just fabricated these reports and got everybody convinced that saturated fat, which is an essential part of the human diet, and cholesterol, which is literally the substrate for hormone production, like cholesterol is important for your body, and that these things are responsible for heart disease and not sugar.
But I respect the people that are doing it because they're doing it because they don't want to cause harm.
And I respect the people that think they're doing it for their health.
But I've talked to a lot of vegans that were formerly vegans, especially Chris Kresser, who is an actual scientist and is one of the leading experts on The real issue with the vegan diet and how it does work for some people.
Some people with their biological requirements and their physical requirements in terms of what their activity is, they function fine on a vegan diet.
As long as they're careful, they make sure they get enough B12, they make sure they get their fatty acids.
Make sure they get their essential fatty acids from coconuts and flaxseed oil, avocado.
There's a lot of different ways you can get oils for your body.
I think hemp protein is very easy for your body to digest.
The real problem with a lot of plant proteins is, I mean, if you just eat just plants, especially eating whole foods, your body's not breaking it down the same way your body would break down a steak, say, or a grass-fed beef.
That's awesome that people need to hear that they do need to hear that and they need to hear your attitude about excuses because both of those things are very important It's very important for people to process because a lot of people have like bad patterns in their mind these bad patterns are just the way they've Interacted with the world the way they've approached all sorts of different problems They have these patterns and they fall right into these patterns and maybe they learn these patterns from their family Maybe that maybe they learn these patterns from their environment Maybe these patterns are like defense mechanisms to
keep them from challenging themselves, but you got to recognize what those are It's not you like you're not a lazy fuck, but you've been behaving like a lazy fuck Well you are as a human right and you could be anything you could just decide to you know the story of David Goggins David Goggins.
All the people out there that think they're lazy, no.
You've been behaving like a lazy person.
You've been following lazy patterns.
If you just decide tomorrow, first of all, if you decide tomorrow you're gonna be a disciplined, focused person, don't expect to have the kind of energy That someone who's been disciplined and focused for years has.
Because you're not going to.
That's right.
Your body's not going to be conditioned for it.
Your mind's not going to be accustomed to the strain.
Well, when I was kickboxing, man, I got a lot of fucking headaches.
And I was really worried.
I came from a real meathead gym, and we did, like, hard sparring.
And I did a lot of hard sparring.
There's one kid in particular who is a really good boxer, and we beat the fuck out of each other.
And the problem is, I would go home, and this was going on over a few years.
I would go home, and my head would be pounding, just boom, boom, boom, lying in bed.
And I was thinking, what am I doing to myself?
Am I going to be stupid when I get older?
Am I going to not know where I am?
Am I going to be stumbling on my words?
I was terrified of brain damage.
Yeah.
I've always been a very curious person, and I've always been fascinated by the way you can change the way you think about things.
That's why I'm so excited about talking to you.
Inspiration and motivation and even information.
Having these things in your mind.
You can forge these things together to make your mind go in a certain direction.
So the quality of my thoughts has always been very, very important to me because I know that that's what made me successful in all the different areas that I've chosen to pursue.
It's like the quality of your thinking and being able to recognize what's good and what's bad.
The mind itself, if the mind itself is compromised, then you're not going to be able to do all those things you want to do.
You're not going to be able to appreciate life if you don't remember where you are and you don't know how to talk anymore.
And I was around people that I was watching their ability to talk and their cognitive function decay.
Fighting is...
It's glorious.
But you gotta know when to stop.
You gotta know when to stop.
And for me, when I stopped, it was 1989. There was no UFC. There was no money.
There was no money in kickboxing.
Like, I think I got offered a fight for 500 bucks.
I was doing amateur fights and I got offered a pro fight for like, it might have been $400.
I don't remember how much it was, but I was like, what?
I was like, that's crazy.
I'm going to train for months and maybe get my ass kicked and maybe get head kicked for like $400.
And I was getting these headaches.
The headaches were bad, man.
So I just decided early on.
If the UFC was around back then, I'm most certain I would have pursued it.
I was thinking of choking him, but I was like, I better not choke him.
Because if I choke him, you know, maybe they could sue me.
So I just decided, I decided if I grab ahold of him and grab him by the back of the head, he'll probably realize once I lock onto him that he's pretty helpless.
And he'll probably stop.
And he kind of did.
He kind of just flailed around a little bit.
But he's like, when someone grabs your neck, There's something about controlling someone's neck.
He had attacked a counselor before on another television show, and he had thrown his girlfriend to the ground, or his wife, on another television show.
Oh, my God.
And they had told me about him before he did the show.
They're like, this guy's a serious hothead.
We were thinking about not having him on the show at all, but we thought it'd be good drama, just be careful.
And so...
He punched some guy, or she punched some guy on the show.
And I said, the wife punched a guy that was heckling him.
And I said, you can't hit someone.
I go, just because you hit your husband doesn't mean you can hit other people.
And then the guy got in my face.
And there's a lot of it that wasn't on film that they didn't put on TV. But I pushed him out of my face.
He goes, don't touch me.
And I said, or what, bitch?
What the fuck are you going to do?
And he got in my face again, and I pushed him again.
And then I said, this is just too tense.
I go, I'm just going to grab this guy.
I'm like, I'm not getting punched in the face.
Because sucker punches happen.
Especially if you're not ready to get punched and you get punched, you can get fucked up.
Especially if you don't think someone's going to punch you, and then they do.
So I'm always thinking when someone raises their voice, they're ready to punch me.
I'm just going to clamp down this dude's neck, get a hold of him.
Well, see, the idiots are the reason why I never was getting your information in the first place when you're reaching out to me, because I'm not paying attention to anything.
I've seen too many people, it starts their day off in a bad way, and they get obsessed with it, and they start going battling back and forth with people in the comments.
And what's interesting, too, about exercise is there's some things that are debatable in terms of the way to do it and the way not to do it.
There's not necessarily always a consensus about how someone's doing something right, whether it's like, you know, like there's just a lot of people online that are just making a lot of noise.
If you see someone who inspires you and you admire them and you want to do what they're doing, it's hard.
But everybody starts out in the beginning, especially when you're a young person, when you admire someone, you kind of copy a lot of their mannerisms and the way they do it.
You go in there and you try to figure out who's got the best approach and who's going to be able to use their body, who's going to be able to use their talent, their skill, their dedication, who's going to be able to figure out a way to solve your problem.
I mean, because I have the utmost respect for fighters, boxers, and MMA guys especially.
I mean, anybody.
The guy who gets knocked out every time he steps in, I respect the fuck out of him.
Because he had the testicular fortitude to step through the fucking gate, man, and get in there and actually do.
Do you know?
Joe, I know you know, but people don't understand how much it takes to just take that trip down and actually get in that cage and face another man who's trying to take your fucking head off.
That takes a tremendous.
I remember how much it took fighting at the Long Beach Arena and just the crowd there.
And there's nothing compared to MMA crowds.
And they have people...
That crowd makes a big fucking difference, Joe.
I got so fucking nervous.
Everything that I had learned, I fucking forgot.
As soon as that guy kicked me upside the head, I forgot.
Every fucking...
Every cotter, all that shit went right out the window.
I went and tried to kill him.
I forgot everything.
I went straight to Compton, man.
I forgot all my cotters and everything.
And I... It takes a tremendous, and that's why I respect the guy so much because I have an inkling of an idea.
I don't have a real idea because I've never done this yet, but I have an inkling of an idea of what it takes to actually get in that octagon and be for all those thousands of people and for millions of people watching on TV and perform.
I think he would be a champion if he could completely get rid of that.
It's very hard.
But when you're going in the ring, And it's your job to stop this guy, to stop your opponent.
And if you're going in hoping that you don't hurt him, then I don't think you can perform to your utmost capabilities if that's really foremost in your mind.
Yeah, I think fighters only have a certain amount of time they can compete as well before the overwhelming reality of what they're doing sets in.
I mean, in the beginning, when they're 19, 20, 21, they're just fucking full of piss and vinegar and shit and lightning and kicking people in the head and just, whoa!
Every day is just chaos.
And then as time goes on, you deal with your own injuries.
You start to see people...
Just suffer the repercussions of a career in combat sports.
And then as you get older, you just realize what this is really that you're doing.
You know, it's a very interesting sport to follow because there's so many exceptional human beings that are competing in this thing, that are involved in this high-level problem-solving event.
It's just you see these human beings that are pushing themselves, their minds, their bodies to such extreme limits that it's very valuable for people.
Much like I say, your videos are very valuable.
It's very valuable for people to be able to watch someone competing at such a high level.
I wish you the best, and I really appreciate you coming here, and I'm really excited that we got a chance to talk.
And what I said I really mean.
I think you're very valuable.
I think what you've done is...
I mean, I know it just kind of came to you out of nowhere by accident, but I think you've helped a tremendous amount of people, and I know you've helped me.
Well, listen, man, keep us posted with your health, and we're going to send you all the best positive energy and wishes we can, and I really hope you get that transplant and everything works out well, and we'll have you in afterwards, and we'll talk about it, man.