Feb. 26, 2021 - The Joe Rogan Experience
02:05:08
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The Joe Rogan Experience. | |
| Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. | ||
| Dustin Poirier. | ||
| What's up, brother? | ||
| What's happening, man? | ||
| Good to have you here, man. | ||
| Good to finally be here. | ||
| What does it feel like right now? | ||
| You're on the top of the world, son! | ||
| Feels good. | ||
| You know, everybody's asking me that, like... | ||
| But I've been fighting for a while, so it's just... | ||
| It's another win. | ||
| It's a big one. | ||
| You know, the guy's such a celebrity, but just another win. | ||
| Well, if you look at your last, like there was a, I think it was an Instagram post or someone put up, your last victories, all the guys that you've beaten. | ||
| Like, dude, I mean, you talk about earning your way to the top. | ||
| I mean, you went through a fucking who's who, a murderer's row of the 155 pound division. | ||
| I mean, you earned it. | ||
| I mean, you really did earn it. | ||
| Paid in full. | ||
| Yeah, 100%, Matt. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I'm trying to keep adding them, Joe. | ||
| I know. | ||
| I know you are. | ||
| But yeah, I think it's five or six world champions that I beat in the UFC. Yeah. | ||
| Pettis, Gaethje, Eddie, Max, Conor. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Huge. | ||
| I don't know if there's another one in there, but that's enough. | ||
| Those are giant victories, man. | ||
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Yeah, for sure. | |
| Giant, giant victories. | ||
| And for a guy like you, who's been at it for a long time, you just keep getting better. | ||
| You just keep improving. | ||
| You just keep adding on. | ||
| And more important, I think, than... | ||
| Or not more important, or as important as any of those things, is your composure. | ||
| Your composure now is at the top of the heap. | ||
| Yeah, I'm really comfortable in there. | ||
| And I trust myself. | ||
| Even when shit's going to get bad in there, I just trust myself to find a way. | ||
| And I think that comes with fighting at the highest level for as long as I have. | ||
| I've been going on like 11 years in the UFC. It also like being at the brink a couple of times like the Jim Miller fight when your leg was so fucked up. | ||
| You talk about like lessons learned and how they pay off later. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So interesting because your leg was so fucked up in that fight and then to have you debilitate Connor in the exact same way and then stop him right after that. | ||
| Yeah, dude, that was so painful. | ||
| That was the first time I've been calf kicked in an actual fight. | ||
| And I thought my leg was broken. | ||
| We went to the hospital. | ||
| They gave me morphine in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. | ||
| It was jacked up. | ||
| And then the altitude, you know, after flying back home, I couldn't walk. | ||
| I couldn't walk for a few days. | ||
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unidentified
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Wow. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| I remember that fight because I remember there was a moment where it seemed like you couldn't move, but then you got the takedown. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| He threw another kick. | ||
| I think I caught his foot and tripped him up. | ||
| Yeah, I had to get him down. | ||
| And that's what I'm talking about, finding a way. | ||
| Like, I trust myself to grab that damn foot. | ||
| Yeah but isn't it crazy how those pivotal moments in a fight like it could go this way or it could go that way and it goes your way and then you know you see guys careers teeter in the balance of those pivotal moments. | ||
| Yeah if it goes that way a couple times in a row a lot of guys can't come back from that. | ||
| But we were talking recently about Anderson Silva. | ||
| You think about Anderson Silva's spectacular career, and then Weidman knocks him out, and then he doesn't win another fight for years. | ||
| He wins one fight with a decision over Derek Brunson, and that's it. | ||
| Every fight since then, he's lost, which is crazy. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I don't want to say that that's because of just his age and decline, but it could be that, or it could be some guys just don't know how to lose. | ||
| Some guys just don't know how to lose. | ||
| He's been on top, so successful for so long, and you start getting... | ||
| You realize you're human. | ||
| I'm not saying that's his case, but I've seen it happen. | ||
| Yeah, it definitely can happen. | ||
| That is an important thing, right? | ||
| Learning how to lose. | ||
| Because there's some guys that, for whatever reason, they have all this confidence, all this momentum, and then they lose. | ||
| When they lose a fight, it's not just that they lost the fight. | ||
| They lose 30% of who they are. | ||
| They lose their aura. | ||
| They lose their confidence. | ||
| They lose this feeling that no one's going to beat them. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I think the important thing with that is remaining a student. | ||
| Like, when I take my losses, I go back to the gym and try to drown myself in work and remain a student. | ||
| It kind of blocks out all the thoughts and all the critics. | ||
| I just get back to work, train hard, and it just drowns all that negativity out. | ||
| And I think you have to remain a student for longevity in the sport. | ||
| Because it's one thing to make it there, it's a whole other thing to stay there. | ||
| And these guys who get to that pinnacle and stay there for a while, then they lose. | ||
| Are they still that student that they were that got them to that height, you know? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Now, you're living in Louisiana, but you train American Top Team for your fights. | ||
| How far out do you go down there? | ||
| At least eight weeks, I try. | ||
| Now, my fights are bigger, so before, you know, in the past, I would have a fight six weeks notice, but now the fights are bigger, so there's more buildup, and I usually try to get at least eight weeks. | ||
| And in between fights, how do you schedule your workouts? | ||
| Say like right now. | ||
| You win this big fight over Connor. | ||
| What are your workouts like now? | ||
| So I have a personal gym in Louisiana, and a bunch of my buddies that I grew up with fighting in Louisiana have gyms as well. | ||
| So I train with their guys, and I train with those guys who will get together at my gym, just throw something together, or I'll go to one of their classes. | ||
| And I just stay in the mix with that. | ||
| This Saturday, I'm going to Mississippi. | ||
| We have a local guy who I train with fighting out there. | ||
| I just stay in the mix. | ||
| I stay in different gyms, working on stuff. | ||
| Is Alan Belcher down there? | ||
| Alan Belcher's in Mississippi. | ||
| He's in Mississippi. | ||
| Yeah, but Tim Crater's in Louisiana, Lafayette. | ||
| Crazy Tim. | ||
| Nuts. | ||
| I met that guy in 98, I think? | ||
| 99, something like that? | ||
| He was the first black belt in Louisiana. | ||
| Is he really? | ||
| Yeah, he was the Machado guy. | ||
| I trained with him at John Jock's. | ||
| Rodrigo Medeiros. | ||
| That's what he is? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Yeah, I'm a black belt under Tim. | ||
| So Rodrigo Medeiros under Carlson Gracie? | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| Yeah, Carlson Gracie, for sure. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Well, he was very high level early on in the game. | ||
| Yeah, I think he's picked it up in the Navy out in San Diego or something. | ||
| He started doing jujitsu at a young age and then brought it back to Louisiana. | ||
| And then started choking these Cajuns out, man. | ||
| Yeah, I trained other Rodrigo Medeiros when he was at Carlson's place on Hawthorne in Hollywood. | ||
| That's like when I was at White Belt when I first started in 96. Long time ago. | ||
| Yeah, back when Vitor was 19 years old and he fought John Hess in Hawaii. | ||
| Jacked. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Jacked. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Rodrigo still comes down to Louisiana for seminars. | ||
| Does he really? | ||
| Please tell him I said hello. | ||
| I will for sure. | ||
| Good dude. | ||
| Real good dude. | ||
| Really nice guy. | ||
| Yeah, it's crazy like the lineages of jujitsu and martial arts and you know where you meet people and train people and learn under their tutelage. | ||
| Yeah, and it's growing so much, but it's still a small circle, even though it's growing as fast as it is. | ||
| Everybody knows somebody that knows somebody. | ||
| Legitimately, yeah. | ||
| So you have your own gym. | ||
| What's it called? | ||
| My gym is Diamond Training Center. | ||
| It's just a private gym. | ||
| And you got your own hot sauce, which I need to try. | ||
| Stay spicy. | ||
| Stay spicy. | ||
| Louisiana hot sauce. | ||
| So, your gym, is it an MMA gym? | ||
| Yeah, but it's a private gym, so there's no classes being run there. | ||
| I just rent out a warehouse space that I ever last helped me deck the whole thing out. | ||
| I have mats there and heavy bags. | ||
| And it's just like a personal space where me and guys get together, drill stuff, or I get bag work in. | ||
| Oh, that's great. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So you don't have to deal with bullshit. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| You don't have to deal with fanboys and nonsense. | ||
| Yeah, people asking for pictures and stuff like that. | ||
| Oh, yeah. | ||
| That would be annoying. | ||
| Oh, that's cool. | ||
| So you got your... | ||
| How many square feet is it? | ||
| It's probably 3,000 square feet maybe. | ||
| Oh, perfect. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| It's big. | ||
| Enough for me and my guys. | ||
| Everything you need in there. | ||
| Yeah, and we never have more than like six guys on the mat at once, so it's plenty of room. | ||
| So are you drawing from other gyms, like when you take your training partners? | ||
| Yeah, so like I said, the guys who kind of I came up with in Louisiana fighting, they all have their own gyms now. | ||
| And they all have their own, you know, teams, fight teams. | ||
| And the higher level guys will just, I'll set a time, we have a group text and say, hey, I'm going to be at my gym. | ||
| If you want to show up, we train. | ||
| Otherwise, I go to their gyms and run classes with them. | ||
| And do you have local boxing coaches or local Muay Thai coaches or jiu-jitsu coaches that you work with? | ||
| Yeah, I have a boxing coach in Louisiana. | ||
| And my kickboxing, I kind of do with the students. | ||
| We just work stuff back and forth, a lot of Holland drills, a lot of Thai pads. | ||
| But I don't have somebody I work with on a regular basis, really, for striking there. | ||
| I just kind of move around and have fun. | ||
| So when you get ready for a camp, like say if you get ready for a Conor fight or a Khabib fight or something like that, when you go down to American Top Team, who formulates the game plans? | ||
| Is it Mike Brown? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah, he's a mastermind. | ||
| Yeah, he's a good dude, man. | ||
| Been around forever, too. | ||
| Yeah, a pioneer, man. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| Fighting over in Bodog and WC, everywhere. | ||
| He's the man. | ||
| But he puts together my training camp. | ||
| And I've been fighting for long enough. | ||
| I kind of self-regulate throughout camp. | ||
| But Mike Brown puts down the meat and potatoes of what we need to work on and focus on. | ||
| And so, when you get down there, like, say a fight, like a Khabib fight or something like that, you have, like, specific things you want to work on and specific timelines you want to get these things in by. | ||
| Like, how does an eight-week camp get structured? | ||
| Does you write it out? | ||
| Do you have it on a board somewhere? | ||
| Like, how does that work? | ||
| We kind of take... | ||
| Well, the strength and conditioning part is written out, I think, a little bit early, but the... | ||
| The technique stuff is week by week. | ||
| We plan one full week, get through that week, plan the next week. | ||
| And if things are working and moving right, we'll keep it the same for two weeks maybe and then switch it up again. | ||
| Mike Brown's pretty good at that. | ||
| He's always coming over to my house watching footage and help me plan everything. | ||
| And he kind of coordinates with the other coaches, like my boxing coach, kickboxing coach. | ||
| He kind of sets up everything and runs the whole thing. | ||
| Did you see DC's breakdown in detail of the second fight versus the first fight with Conor? | ||
| Very interesting. | ||
| It is, but I see a lot of people talking funny stuff about the leg kick didn't knock him out. | ||
| What happened? | ||
| So DC says in the detail breakdown, I kick Conor's calf, and Conor steps back and his leg kind of goes, and DC says, well, that's the leg kick that hurt his leg or whatever, but... | ||
| After that leg kick, he kind of reached down to grab the foot and threw an uppercut. | ||
| And I was switch stance, so I threw a cross from my backhand that clipped him good. | ||
| And that's when he took the step back and was hurt. | ||
| I think that's a detail people are missing. | ||
| That right hand. | ||
| You landed a lot of solid shots in that fight, but there's no doubt that leg kick was fucking that right leg up. | ||
| For sure. | ||
| But the detail, what I was going to get over is the difference between the first fight and the second fight was you were landing hard leg kicks in the first fight, but you were landing them on the thigh. | ||
| And then it switched over to the calf. | ||
| What a crazy difference that calf kick has made in MMA over the last few years. | ||
| It's really nuts. | ||
| It is, man. | ||
| And it doesn't take many. | ||
| And it doesn't take as much commitment. | ||
| You know, a thigh kick, you're turning your hips over, Muay Thai style. | ||
| You're really set in your position, whipping. | ||
| This calf kick, you can flick. | ||
| You can flick it like a jab and just... | ||
| Catch the top of the calf. | ||
| It's so wild that this one kick was almost ignored. | ||
| I always give Benson Henderson credit because I think he was the first guy to start using it in the UFC. But for whatever reason, he didn't have the same impact with it. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I'd have to go over some fights. | ||
| Huge legs. | ||
| I'm sure he kicks hard as fuck. | ||
| I'm sure he kicks hard as fuck. | ||
| But for whatever reason, he wasn't stopping guys with calf kicks. | ||
| But then along the way, somewhere in the last, what was it, five, six years or something like that? | ||
| Maybe not even that far back. | ||
| Which is crazy! | ||
| I can't think of a single technique that revolutionized the sport that way. | ||
| And like I said about the calf, you can't take many because there's nowhere for the swelling to go. | ||
| So that's why it's so painful and debilitating. | ||
| Your nerves and your foot kind of stop working with you. | ||
| It's bad stuff. | ||
| Yeah, there's no meat there either. | ||
| I was explaining to someone, I'm like, just karate chop your arm right here where the bone is. | ||
| It hurts just to do that. | ||
| Now imagine someone kicking that. | ||
| And that's what it's like when you get kicked in the calf. | ||
| There's nothing there. | ||
| There's no meat. | ||
| And even when you turn your shin outward to check it, you still get it. | ||
| It's still bad, man. | ||
| Yeah, well, I noticed that in the Conor fight. | ||
| You could see somewhere in the first round when he started realizing, like, oh, this is a real problem. | ||
| And Conor doesn't have the ability to switch stances. | ||
| Or if he does, he doesn't do it. | ||
| Yeah, definitely didn't do it in that fight. | ||
| And it was only going to get worse. | ||
| That was second round. | ||
| We had three more rounds, 15 more minutes of me chopping that leg. | ||
| If we do it again, it'll be interesting to see what he does different in preparation or by defending that. | ||
| But you were such a different guy in the second fight. | ||
| First of all, you weren't debilitating yourself getting down to 145 pounds. | ||
| You were a big 145. How rough was that cut? | ||
| It was horrible. | ||
| And it made me hate the process because my quality of life sucked. | ||
| You know, training camps were torture, you know. | ||
| I'd walk around 190. Jesus Christ! | ||
| I'd get up to 190. That's so crazy! | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Oh my God, you get up to 190 and go down to 145. 45 fucking pounds? | ||
| Dude, let me tell you this. | ||
| When I fought Cup Swanson in London, England, I took it on short notice. | ||
| And I had just won a fight before, and it was right around Christmas, so I was eating. | ||
| And when they called me, they asked me my weight, and I told them, ah, 170, but I was like 187 or something. | ||
| And it was like really short notice. | ||
| So me and my team fly out there, and I'm 30 pounds over when we land. | ||
| You know, fight week, they check... | ||
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Both! | |
| Jesus Christ! | ||
| Oh my God! | ||
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That's so crazy! | |
| They check your weight fight week when you show up to make sure. | ||
| I was 176, and it was a 45. Oh my god. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But you made it. | ||
| Made it. | ||
| How the fuck did you make that? | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I almost died. | ||
| I feel like weigh-ins were kind of blurry. | ||
| My memory's gone from weigh-ins. | ||
| It's not good for you. | ||
| Do you have any kidney problems or anything from that? | ||
| I've never had. | ||
| That fucked DC up. | ||
| I mean, that kept DC out of the Olympics. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| The weight cut. | ||
| So many guys get kidney problems because of it. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah, you're lucky. | ||
| Not yet. | ||
| Jesus Christ. | ||
| Knock on wood for that. | ||
| I didn't cut 30 normally. | ||
| I would show up like 18 fight week or 16 fight week. | ||
| But I was sucked down to get that close. | ||
| And once you suck down those last pounds, even if it's three pounds, it's horrible. | ||
| I just had to stop it. | ||
| How do you do that? | ||
| Are you one of those guys that drinks a lot of distilled water and flushes your body out? | ||
| How do you do it? | ||
| I used to do that, but we kind of stopped doing distilled water. | ||
| I do drink a lot of water. | ||
| We water load. | ||
| We do like three gallons for a couple days, two gallons, half a gallon. | ||
| So you're just peeing constantly. | ||
| Yeah, and you kind of flush out all your minerals. | ||
| You know the process. | ||
| Sodium and everything. | ||
| Everything that holds water and keeps you hydrated kind of gets flushed out in that process because you're not putting anything back, no potassium, no anything. | ||
| So your body naturally dehydrates itself over the fight week. | ||
| That's basically how we do it. | ||
| I diet down for eight weeks, get as close as I can, and then the water cut is usually like 12, 10 pounds at 55. So it's a complex process, right? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Who's the guy who figured that out? | ||
| Was it a wrestler that came to MMA camps and figured it out? | ||
| Who figured out how to do that? | ||
| I have no clue. | ||
| I wish they wouldn't have, because I'd rather just fight at my walking around weight. | ||
| But if I fight at 170, these guys are 200 plus pounds. | ||
| Right, that is the problem. | ||
| What do you weigh around right now? | ||
| Probably 180, 176-ish. | ||
| You look so much bigger than you looked when you were at 145. One of the things that we were talking about was when you were fighting Conor, your fucking back looks huge. | ||
| You're so much wider. | ||
| You're just so much thicker. | ||
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Yeah. | |
| I'm built like that, though. | ||
| I'm kind of built like SpongeBob a little bit. | ||
| Well, that's where the punching power comes from, right? | ||
| That width. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And, you know, the reach, the length when I'm twisting my body, I feel like, you know, guys feel like they're out of range, but I can still touch them. | ||
| Right, yeah. | ||
| Well, guys with long arms. | ||
| Like, we were commentating a fight recently. | ||
| It was Andre Yule. | ||
| Andre Yule has these crazy long arms. | ||
| He had like a 7-inch reach advantage over his opponent. | ||
| They were the same height. | ||
| And you look at him like, wow, that is nuts! | ||
| Like... | ||
| He's pretty tall for that weight class, too. | ||
| There's so many guys that have these long... | ||
| like Jon Jones, famously. | ||
| It's so hard to even just get close to him because he's so good at utilizing that reach. | ||
| Reach is just such a huge advantage. | ||
| It's a giant advantage. | ||
| Especially with a good jab. | ||
| Guys who use it, right? | ||
| Because you talk about reach and Dan Hooker's last fight with Chandler. | ||
| You've got to use it. | ||
| You've got to get along. | ||
| Even when I fought Dan, he fought me in the pocket a lot. | ||
| Yeah, I feel like Dan was trying to pace himself or something, like he was setting himself up for a long fight, and Chandler just charged forward. | ||
| And that's MMA, one shot, man. | ||
| Well, especially with a guy like Chandler, who's such a tank, and he's so explosive, and he can move forward so quickly. | ||
| That division is on fire right now. | ||
| Yeah, man. | ||
| A lot of killers. | ||
| And it's kind of been murky. | ||
| Waters in the 55-pound division for a while. | ||
| It's been very top-heavy. | ||
| And it's taken forever for this thing to play out. | ||
| Yeah, but it's played out right now at the peak. | ||
| You know, Oliveira's still waiting. | ||
| The thing that's holding everything up is we don't know what Khabib's going to do. | ||
| And Dana White seems to be trying to convince Khabib to keep fighting. | ||
| Yeah, that's... | ||
| That's Dana White. | ||
|
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Yeah. | |
| I talked to DC, he thinks Khabib's done, but, you know, I don't know what's said behind doors and... | ||
| Well, all it would take is Khabib's mom to change her mind. | ||
| That's what he said after the Gaethje fight, right? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| If Khabib's mom was like, eh, a couple more fights, fuck it. | ||
| Right. | ||
| He'll be back in there quick. | ||
| Yeah, it's interesting to see what's going to happen because Charles Oliveira is definitely up there for a title shot. | ||
| He's been around a long time and put some wins together. | ||
| I was super impressed with him in the Tony Ferguson fight. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, I was impressed with him in the Kevin Leaf fight. | ||
| I had been impressed with him for years. | ||
| But that was a Virtuoso performance against Tony. | ||
| I mean, that was really, really impressive stuff. | ||
| I'm interested to see how Tony bounces back from that one. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Or who he gets matched up with next. | ||
| Yeah, I don't know what they're going to do. | ||
| I mean, I don't know what they're going to do in terms of the title. | ||
| They can't just let it sit. | ||
| I mean, what are they going to do? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I have no clue. | ||
| I haven't heard anything. | ||
| Yeah, it's an interesting situation. | ||
| What was it like fighting Conor when he wasn't an asshole? | ||
| Was that weird? | ||
| Dude, you know fighting is hectic already. | ||
| You're about to go in there for 25 minutes and you've been training. | ||
| You know what's on the line, so it's just a lot of pressure. | ||
| So just it being a little bit more calm for me... | ||
| It was smooth sailing, man. | ||
| Because it's already hectic enough. | ||
| I'll say the same thing about the fans. | ||
| Like when I fought at the Apex, it was nice. | ||
| Because, like I said, fighting is crazy. | ||
| So without having guys spilling beer, yelling you're going to die, on the way to the walk, it's relaxing to me. | ||
| So it just makes it smooth sailing. | ||
| So it's not good for him. | ||
| It's really better for him to be an asshole. | ||
| Yeah, be an asshole. | ||
|
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Yeah. | |
| But it seemed so odd. | ||
| It's just like he just decided that he respected you. | ||
| But he did the same thing with the cowboy. | ||
| I thought maybe this is him just maturing and he's got a few kids now. | ||
| Or he does have one on the way. | ||
| Maybe he's just maturing and he's a different... | ||
| We all change. | ||
| Maybe he's a different person. | ||
| Yeah, could be. | ||
| I think also the amount of shit that he caused in the Khabib fight... | ||
| I mean, realizing at the end of it what had happened. | ||
| Dudes jumped into the cage and beat his ass. | ||
| Guys were jumping. | ||
| Khabib jumped out of the cage. | ||
| Got in a fight with Dylan Dennis. | ||
| It's chaos. | ||
| I mean, it was so nuts. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And then, you know, what had happened before that with him throwing the cart at the bus and, you know, fights got canceled because broken glass. | ||
| Kiesa got cut. | ||
| I think a couple other guys got cut with the glass that was flying. | ||
| It's like he had done so much and fucked up so much. | ||
| Throwing energy cans at press conferences, remember? | ||
| Oh, that's right. | ||
| That's right, yeah. | ||
| But that was kind of like minor. | ||
| In comparison. | ||
| Cutting people with broken glass in a bus, yeah. | ||
| But the chaos that he caused us so much. | ||
| But that had also been a part of what sold fights. | ||
| Like the Jose Aldo fight. | ||
| He tortured Jose Aldo for months. | ||
| Remember they did that crazy press conference where he toured all over the world? | ||
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Mm-hmm. | |
| And he ripped the picture in half. | ||
| Stole his belt. | ||
| It's my belt. | ||
| By the time they got into the cage, Jose also was afraid. | ||
| I would have known afraid just overthought in his own head. | ||
| In his own head. | ||
| Compared to what I'd seen from Aldo in the past, he seemed much more nervous. | ||
| Much more aware of the magnitude of the moment. | ||
| And Conor seemed so relaxed. | ||
| And I felt that same thing, though, the first time I fought Connor. | ||
| I felt like that. | ||
| When the bell rang, I was like a deer in the headlights. | ||
| It's happening. | ||
| Here we go. | ||
| All that talk and everything over the months just sat in my head. | ||
| And I just read into it too much. | ||
| Thought too much. | ||
| And I think that's probably what happened with Aldo. | ||
| That is what shit-talking can do to a person, right? | ||
| It's the art of war, man. | ||
| I mean, fighting is mental. | ||
| As much mental as it is physical, I believe. | ||
| Well, there's so much mental involved. | ||
| I mean, it's for sure physical, but it's also, look, it's mental just to get yourself through training camp, right? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| To cut weight, to show up, to do interview after interview, press conference after press conference, you know? | ||
| How hard is that to do while you're getting ready for a fight? | ||
| While you're cutting weight, and then you're doing these interviews, and they're boring-ass questions? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Same question over and over. | ||
| What's different between this Dustin and Dustin six years ago when Connor beat you? | ||
| I heard that question a thousand times. | ||
| It just gets redundant and it's aggravating. | ||
| Before you even sit down and do the interview, you know the questions. | ||
| Going through the motions, I just... | ||
| Some are fun, though. | ||
| Some interviewers are good and change it up and then it's a fun conversation, but most of them it's the same thing. | ||
| How was camp? | ||
| How are you feeling? | ||
| What's different between this, Dustin? | ||
| I don't know how much of that stuff sells a fight either. | ||
| I really don't. | ||
| I feel like you should cut it off about two weeks out. | ||
| I feel like you can get the interviews in before and then the last two weeks. | ||
| Just leave the fucking fighters alone. | ||
| Leave them alone. | ||
| Just let them train. | ||
| Only do the big ones, like an ESPN SportsCenter interview or something. | ||
| Just the big ones. | ||
| Just a quick one. | ||
| Cut out all the media, MMA media. | ||
| How many hours of that shit do you have to do in a week? | ||
| For this Conor, this last Conor one, I was stuck in the hotel on Fight Island, so it was all mostly from my computer. | ||
| I would say over that whole fight week, three hours maybe, total. | ||
| Oh, that's not too bad. | ||
| No. | ||
| That's not too bad. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| What did you think of Conor pulling up to the Fight Island in that yacht? | ||
| That's baller, man. | ||
| I was mad. | ||
| I'm like, damn, I want a fucking yacht. | ||
| You do, but you don't. | ||
| You know, that shit seems like you have to have so much more money than the yacht cost to enjoy the yacht. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| It'd look like a big one. | ||
| It'd look like a big one. | ||
| But if you have a yacht, this is my thought. | ||
| If you have a yacht and the yacht is worth whatever a yacht's worth, what does a yacht cost? | ||
| 10 million bucks? | ||
| Okay, let's say 10 million bucks. | ||
| That one, probably more. | ||
| Probably more. | ||
| Let's say 20 million bucks. | ||
| Let's say you got a 20 million dollar yacht. | ||
| For you to not be sweating that yacht, you better have 100 million. | ||
| Right. | ||
| You know? | ||
| How much does it cost to gas up? | ||
| How much does the pilot cost? | ||
| How much does the captain? | ||
| What am I doing for repairs? | ||
| Shit! | ||
| Those big yachts have to have a crew, I think, year-round. | ||
| Yeah, all year-round. | ||
| All year-round. | ||
| So you're paying a staff salary. | ||
| They live on it. | ||
| It's their house. | ||
| You just go and sit in it every now and then. | ||
| And I heard there's a big docking fee as well. | ||
| So wherever the boat stays, you're paying a big docking fee. | ||
| So you're thinking about all that while you're about to fight. | ||
| That seems like more money, more problems. | ||
| He's got that whiskey money, man. | ||
| He's all right. | ||
| He does have that whiskey money. | ||
| That is a different thing. | ||
| I got that whiskey money. | ||
| Yeah, whiskey money is a different thing. | ||
| I'm building it up, man. | ||
| I got the hot sauce money coming in. | ||
| I'll pull up on like a bass boat next time. | ||
| Yeah, it's just the idea of pulling up at a yacht is the opposite of what everybody tells you about fighting. | ||
| Fighting, you have to stay hungry. | ||
| Like, stay humble. | ||
| You know, like Rocky III style. | ||
| You don't pull up in a fucking yacht. | ||
| But if you do, the only person who's been able to do like that is Floyd Mayweather. | ||
| He's the only guy who's been able to just be... | ||
| Balling out of control. | ||
| Constantly flashing money. | ||
| Million dollar watches. | ||
| You know, a fleet of super expensive cars. | ||
| And still fucks everybody up. | ||
| He does. | ||
| He's the only guy. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Literally the only guy. | ||
| I'm trying to think of other guys besides like him and Connor who's really... | ||
| Adrian Broner, but he's... | ||
| He just won, I think. | ||
| He won. | ||
| Disputed decision. | ||
| But he seems to be more concerned with having fun and being crazy. | ||
| The thing about Floyd is he never lost his discipline. | ||
| Floyd's discipline was undeniable. | ||
| But through that ball of nights, I don't think he was doing drugs or drinking. | ||
| He kept his... | ||
| Floyd would famously run home from the nightclub. | ||
| So he would go out in Vegas. | ||
| He'd be partying. | ||
| It looked like he was partying. | ||
| He was drinking water. | ||
| And then he would have his driver drive, and with his fucking pants on, with jeans on, he would jog home. | ||
| The dude was always training. | ||
| Always training. | ||
| Never got out of shape. | ||
| Dude, the jog home in jeans isn't the torture. | ||
| The torture is sitting around a bunch of drunk people drinking water in a club. | ||
| I jog home all night. | ||
| Rather than that, right? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| It's an interesting thing, though, the keeping your motivation as you reach a certain level of fame and success. | ||
| Because that's a lot of the motivation for fighters, is to one day be that champion. | ||
| One day have that money where your family's going to be taken care of for life. | ||
| You don't have to worry anymore. | ||
| Do you hit that spot? | ||
| And then what keeps you going? | ||
| Yeah, how do you remain a student in that spot? | ||
| There's the famous quote that it's hard to wake up and run the miles when you're sleeping in silk pajamas. | ||
| I forget what boxer said that, but it's got to be true. | ||
| Unless you just keep setting goals, maybe he's trying to... | ||
| To do something that's never been done, maybe that's the driving factor now. | ||
| Because a lot of guys' money might be the driving factor. | ||
| But once you get the money, maybe you set it up to try to leave legendary things behind. | ||
| Well, the thing about Floyd is he spends so much money. | ||
| Maybe money's still the motivation because he's just always about to go broke. | ||
| Because he just spends like a fucking maniac. | ||
| I would like to think, even though he's spinning like that, he's made some great investments in... | ||
| Yeah, I'd like to think that too, but I bet it's not the case. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Definitely spent a lot of money. | ||
| But he's made so much, man. | ||
| Over a billion, right? | ||
| Isn't that crazy? | ||
| Over a billion. | ||
| Over a billion dollars in fighting. | ||
| A billion. | ||
| With a B. And now he's about to fight Logan Paul in a boxing match in Japan. | ||
| But apparently they postponed that, right? | ||
| I thought it was a different fight in Japan. | ||
| No, I think it's Logan Paul, right? | ||
| It is, yeah. | ||
| No, it's Logan Paul. | ||
| They postponed it, though, because they didn't have enough pay-per-view interest, right? | ||
| Is that the... | ||
| Jamie, you know the... | ||
|
unidentified
|
Not according to them, but... | |
| Not according to them. | ||
| Probably the cover, I mean, Mayweather's side. | ||
| Yeah, a new date's coming soon. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Whatever that means. | |
| I mean, he's fighting 200-pounders. | ||
| I mean, obviously Logan Paul's not a real professional boxer in terms of like, certainly not in the caliber of Floyd Mayweather, but he's a big fucking dude. | ||
| Yeah, huge, because Floyd's not a big guy. | ||
| No. | ||
| You know, I've never seen the other guy in person. | ||
| I don't know how big he is. | ||
| I met him. | ||
| He's a big fucker. | ||
| Yeah? | ||
| Yeah, he's big. | ||
| Skills pay the bills, man. | ||
| I guess so. | ||
| He doesn't give a shit, man. | ||
| Well, he also fought Tenshin Nazukawa, the little tiny dude in Japan, which was ridiculous. | ||
| And that guy fights at like 126. Yeah. | ||
| I was surprised how that went. | ||
| I thought Floyd was going to beat him, but I thought it would be a little bit more happening than that. | ||
| That was... | ||
| Floyd didn't even look like he trained a day for that fight. | ||
| He looked like he was a little bit out of shape, like he had a little ring around the midsection, and smiling like he knew what he was going to do. | ||
| Like, how are you going to beat me? | ||
| He's so little. | ||
| He's been fighting these big power punchers, and he's fighting this little guy who's known for his kicks. | ||
| Tension is a badass kickboxer. | ||
| Have you ever seen him kickbox? | ||
| No. | ||
| Oh my god, man. | ||
| He's a bad motherfucker. | ||
| As a striker, he's really exceptional. | ||
| He does some wild shit. | ||
| It's really kind of unfortunate that he took that fight because... | ||
| If you just look at his career as a kickboxer, he's really exceptional. | ||
| He's really special. | ||
| He does some wild shit. | ||
| Like, he knocked this tie out with one of the weirdest back kicks I think I've ever seen. | ||
| He set this dude up with this... | ||
| He set him up... | ||
| I forget what the setup was, but he hit him with this wild spinning back kick to the face and KO'd him. | ||
| And he does shit like that. | ||
| Like, he's... | ||
| He's very intuitive and he's very creative inside the ring. | ||
| But as a striker, just with his whole arsenal, kicks and punches, someone his size in a kickboxing match, he's a genius. | ||
| I mean, it really is. | ||
| It's really special. | ||
| It sucks that people only know him for getting lit up by Floyd Mayweather. | ||
| Yeah, I need to go back and watch some of his fights. | ||
| Watch some of his kickboxing fights. | ||
| See if you can find that one. | ||
| You found it? | ||
| Did he beat a... | ||
| Watch this. | ||
| It's a wild dude, man. | ||
| He did the Sanchai. | ||
| That was one KO. That was not the... | ||
| No, he's got a... | ||
| Oh, he's got a shitload of them, man. | ||
| He's got a shitload of them. | ||
| He's a bad motherfucker, dude. | ||
| And again, it's stuff like this. | ||
| He's really creative. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You gotta see him fight. | ||
| But he's tiny, man. | ||
| He fights at 125, 126. I mean, he just doesn't have the power. | ||
| And he's a kicker, really, more than anything. | ||
| Right. | ||
| The kicks will set up his hands, probably. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| He's KOing these little tiny dudes with punches, but I mean, he's very small. | ||
| Did he beat Horiguchi in MMA? I don't know. | ||
| I don't know how many MMA fights he's had. | ||
| I think he's only had a handful of MMA fights. | ||
| I think most of his fights have been striking. | ||
| I think he beat Kyoji. | ||
| Yeah? | ||
| I think so. | ||
| And Horiguchi's also 125, right? | ||
| He fights flyweight. | ||
| Yeah, he's fighting 35, I think, and bouncing around. | ||
| In Bellator, he won the 35 belt. | ||
| But he was 25. What do you think of 1FC's decision to try to eliminate weight cutting? | ||
| I love it, because I hate cutting weight. | ||
| I just don't... | ||
| I don't know the protocol they have. | ||
| I don't know how it can be really monitored and safely done. | ||
| I don't know what they're doing, but I would love if we didn't cut weight. | ||
| Do you think there's a way to do that? | ||
| It would have to be long. | ||
| It would have to be like a long... | ||
| During camp, somebody comes down, checks your weight every couple weeks, every two weeks. | ||
| How else are you going to... | ||
| And then maybe a hydration test. | ||
| I know they do that in high school wrestling, right? | ||
| Yeah, that's what it would have to be. | ||
| It would have to be a hydration test. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But I would love if we didn't have to do that. | ||
| Yeah, it is a crazy thing, because it's almost like a sanctioned cheating. | ||
| Like, everybody does it. | ||
| I wouldn't do it if the other guys wouldn't, but I'm not going to be the... | ||
| Of course, you have to. | ||
| ...outweighed by 30 pounds. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, when you think about what you did by losing in the Cub Swanson fight, losing that much weight, I mean, how bananas is that? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You're so much larger than actually 145 pounds. | ||
| And if you think about guys like Usman. | ||
| Like, say if you went up to 170. He's so big. | ||
| He's so big! | ||
| He's so jacked, too. | ||
| I mean, he's got to be walking. | ||
| Or, like, one of the best examples that didn't work out well was Rodolfo Vieira in his last fight. | ||
| Did you see that fight? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| He looked like he was about 210, 215 pounds. | ||
| And he's fighting 185. He was so big. | ||
| Chiseled. | ||
| Like a fucking specimen. | ||
| It wasn't durable. | ||
| You can tell he was gassing. | ||
| Quick. | ||
| It's not good for the fans. | ||
| We're taken away from the performances of our fights by doing that. | ||
| For sure. | ||
| There's a lot of fighters who, having gone up in weight, have reached their best. | ||
| Look at that. | ||
| Fucking dude. | ||
| A Greek god. | ||
| He's ridiculous. | ||
| And his jiu-jitsu is off the charts. | ||
| What's crazy is when you watch that fight with, was it Anthony Hernandez who stopped him? | ||
| Submitted him, right? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Beat the shit out of him and then submitted him. | ||
| For him, that's just gigantic. | ||
| But Vieira was dead by the end of the first round. | ||
| It didn't even make sense. | ||
| And he was trying to figure it out. | ||
| I was like, I don't know what happened. | ||
| I'd like to know what he walks around in. | ||
| He looks so big. | ||
| He used to be an American Top Team, actually. | ||
| Yeah, he's a big guy. | ||
| I gotta think he's well over 210. Yeah. | ||
| That's what he looks like, at least. | ||
| But that shit's gotta be terrible for you. | ||
| How the fuck does Paul Costa do it? | ||
| I've never seen him in person, but he looks huge as well. | ||
| Gigantic! | ||
| He's gigantic. | ||
| You see him in between fights. | ||
| I mean, he literally looks like a heavyweight. | ||
| It's like there's two schools of thought, right? | ||
| There's like the school... | ||
| Like, Kane Velasquez as a heavyweight when he was in his prime, to me, was the most impressive heavyweight I've ever seen. | ||
| And he was, you know, 235, 240. Yeah. | ||
| I feel like the length might play a little bit of a part in cutting down, you know, like... | ||
| For somebody 135, who weighs... | ||
| What's a 135 or walk-around at, you think? | ||
| Like, 55, something like that, usually. | ||
| That jump between... | ||
| If they did fight at 45 or 55, that jump in length of those weight classes, you know, the reach, the leg reach is so huge. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And I think they... | ||
| You know, so if you're a shorter guy, you might cut more weight to kind of not be around those big, long guys. | ||
| That's what I think a lot of it is. | ||
| And then it's just... | ||
| It's a trend now that we have to cut weight to... | ||
| To be competitive, so you're not standing across a guy weighing 30, 40 pounds more than you. | ||
| Do you think there should be more weight classes? | ||
| I do, yeah. | ||
| What do you think, like every 10 pounds? | ||
| Every 10 pounds, but I'd like to see something, if they wouldn't do it every 10 pounds, I'd like to see something between 55 and 70. Yeah. | ||
| Yeah, like a 62 or something. | ||
| Why not 55, 65, 75? | ||
| I mean, it's just not that big a deal. | ||
| The 70s would be... | ||
| Like, if you told Usman, hey, guess what? | ||
| Now your weight class is 175. Shit, he might look even better. | ||
| Would you just promote the guys at that weight to the champion at that weight? | ||
| Or would they just carry the belts over? | ||
| I think you just carry the belts over. | ||
| I mean, there's room for the 65, right? | ||
| You'd have to have a 65-pound title. | ||
| But the 75-pound title, why would you... | ||
| I mean, you already have one of the best 70s ever as your champion. | ||
| Just change the weight class. | ||
| That's what they did in the early days of the UFC where they had a 200-pound division. | ||
| They changed it to 205. But don't you think that would make weight cutting more people would be willing to cut? | ||
| Because somebody who can't make 55, Maybe. | ||
| Yeah, maybe, but at least you give more options. | ||
| I just think there's some gaps that are too big. | ||
| Like 85 to 205 is crazy. | ||
| 20 pounds is an enormous weight class. | ||
| I mean, so the weight gap between the middleweights and the light heavyweights is so big. | ||
| That's 20 pounds is a lot of fucking weight, man. | ||
| That's multiple weight classes in boxing. | ||
| Dude, Luke Rockhold is so big. | ||
| When I'd see him at 185, I couldn't believe it, man. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, there's a guy. | ||
| I'd like to talk to him about his weight cuts, but he must have been torturing himself. | ||
| But nobody looked bigger than Yoel. | ||
| Yoel Romero did my show. | ||
| He was about 230 pounds. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He's going up to 205. He was so big, though. | |
| He was sitting there, and Joey Diaz was translating for him. | ||
| It was one of the most fun times I've ever had. | ||
| But you see Yoel sitting there, and you're like, how the fuck are you ever making that weight? | ||
| He was so big. | ||
| Yeah, two-something shredded, no fat... | ||
| Yeah, a specimen. | ||
| I've seen him at American Top Team a few times, man. | ||
| I think he trains in Miami, but he came up to Coconut Creek a few times, and he's just doing flips and all kinds of crazy stuff. | ||
| Just an incredible athlete. | ||
| One of the best I've ever seen. | ||
| No, he's a freak and not losing a step. | ||
| And he's 44. Like, everybody's waiting for him to slow down. | ||
| Like, he hasn't slowed down. | ||
| I don't see any... | ||
| I mean, he's lost some fights. | ||
| But those... | ||
| Look at... | ||
| Let's look at the fights that Yoel's lost. | ||
| Okay, second fight with Robert Whittaker. | ||
| Arguably, he won that fight. | ||
| He hurt Robert Whitaker a lot in that fight. | ||
| And Robert Whitaker really didn't hurt him. | ||
| And in the remaining rounds, he had Whitaker in trouble on at least two occasions. | ||
| We had him in deep shit, where I think he should have won the rounds. | ||
| So that's one fight that he could have easily won. | ||
| Knocks out Luke Rockhold, but didn't make the weight, so he doesn't get the title. | ||
| Then you gotta think about his... | ||
| You know, the fight with Adesanya, he just kind of didn't do anything. | ||
| That was weird. | ||
| That fight was weird. | ||
| They both kind of... | ||
| Well, I think Adesanya realized, like, early on in the fight, Adesanya, he attacked, and Yoel countered with a big left hand and clipped him, and you could see Izzy realizing, like, this motherfucker is fast, and he's playing this weird game where he just wants to stand there and wait for you, and then just explode on you, you know? | ||
| But you look at some of his knockouts, like the knockout of Chris Weidman, you're like, Jesus Christ, look at him! | ||
| He's 44! | ||
| And he's going up, man. | ||
| So maybe cutting less weight, he might... | ||
| Bro, he might be better. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And it's crazy, he's fighting Rumble. | ||
| I mean, Rumble's been out for how many years now? | ||
| Rumble is huge too, man. | ||
| Yeah, enormous. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Rumble's been out for at least four years, right? | ||
| I want to say... | ||
| Not that long. | ||
| No? | ||
| I wouldn't think. | ||
| Well, Cormier was the light heavyweight champ at the time. | ||
| And he beat Rumble. | ||
| And this is when Jon Jones was suspended. | ||
| When they stripped Jon of the title. | ||
| What year was that? | ||
| 17. Yeah, four years ago. | ||
| Damn. | ||
| Almost exactly. | ||
| It doesn't feel like that long. | ||
| I know. | ||
| So that was UFC 210. And then he's coming back. | ||
| And, you know, it's interesting, too, because Bellator, they don't have USADA. They do not. | ||
| They do not. | ||
| So they're a little bit looser. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You know, you basically, I think what it is, it's like the old days where you just get tested at the weigh-ins. | ||
| Sometimes you don't even get tested. | ||
| Really? | ||
|
unidentified
|
When do you not get tested at the winners? | |
| They go by the Athletic Commission. | ||
| Whatever that state that the Bellator shows in, that's what it goes by. | ||
| Just like a small circuit show. | ||
| If the Athletic Commission is testing, then you get tested. | ||
| If not, you don't. | ||
| Oh, that makes sense. | ||
| Because there were some dudes that were fighting. | ||
| I don't want to mention any names. | ||
| But I'd look at them and be like, get the fuck out of here. | ||
| Just get the fuck out of here. | ||
| Most of the time it's post-fight when you get back to your locker room. | ||
| If the athletic commission in that state is doing tests, then they'll test you. | ||
| But there's some places you could do it, especially if you do it on Native American reservations, like those fights. | ||
| They probably don't test. | ||
| I know that... | ||
| Let me think. | ||
| I think that they do at the Bellator when we go up to Connecticut. | ||
| Foxwoods? | ||
| No. | ||
| The other one? | ||
| Mohegan Sun. | ||
| Mohegan Sun? | ||
| I think they test. | ||
| They test? | ||
| I believe so. | ||
| So do they have their own commission? | ||
| No. | ||
| Not sure. | ||
| They might... | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I don't know how they do it. | ||
| But I'm pretty sure I remember being with a buddy who got tested. | ||
| Does USADA wake you up at like 6 o'clock in the morning? | ||
| They knock on your door? | ||
| 7 a.m. | ||
| one time on Super Bowl Sunday, they came. | ||
| I'm like, man. | ||
| Yeah, they come all the time. | ||
| They come all the time. | ||
| How annoying is that, though? | ||
| I like it. | ||
| I mean, I don't like being woke up and taking blood that early in the morning, but if it's cleaning up the sport, I like it. | ||
| I don't mind. | ||
| I like the cleaning up the sport. | ||
| I don't like waking up athletes when they need their sleep. | ||
| Sleep is so important. | ||
| It's such a factor. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| It's such a factor in recovery. | ||
| You could fuck up a training session. | ||
| That could lead to an injury. | ||
| Easily. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That's... | ||
| I mean, that's my thought. | ||
| They could come late in the afternoon. | ||
| They don't have to be that early. | ||
| But there is no other way to... | ||
| You have to randomly get tested to pop these guys. | ||
| Otherwise, if you know when you fight, like on a normal fight, like we're talking about with Bellator or something, you know you're getting tested that night probably. | ||
| So you do your drugs, whatever you're going to do, and just make sure you're clean that night. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah, you can plan. | ||
| That's the problem. | ||
| This is a short-acting... | ||
| Compounds that they can take that will be out of your system in six to eight hours. | ||
| So if you did go to bed at midnight and you knew that you were going to get tested at 10 a.m., you'd be golden. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| The random thing is... | ||
| I get it, but still. | ||
| It's just fucked up. | ||
| An athlete in the middle of a training camp for a big fight and you're waking them up early in the morning to test them? | ||
| For me, it's usually around 8 a.m. | ||
| 8 a.m. | ||
| is not too bad. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I sleep till... | ||
| Do they always take blood as well? | ||
| Do they take urine and blood sometimes? | ||
| Most of the time it's just urine, and every now and then there'll be urine and blood. | ||
| Huh. | ||
| They come in with a nurse to wherever you're at. | ||
| I wonder how long they're going to keep doing that. | ||
| You know, I wonder. | ||
| How long is the deal? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't know. | |
| Did they sign you saw the deal? | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| Not sure. | ||
| It seems expensive, but they have caught people. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And you've seen some physiques melt. | ||
| Have you? | ||
| I'm just glad I didn't come up training with Tim Crater and stuff like that early in my career. | ||
| That wasn't a part of the gym. | ||
| I wasn't at a big gym where that was around, so I've never really been exposed to it. | ||
| Yeah, well, I wonder with some gyms, you know, if they have chemists and scientists and they're trying to figure out workarounds. | ||
| Because one of the weird things about MMA is you've got some very wealthy people who invest in MMA and it's a super positive thing like Dan Lambert. | ||
| Like Dan Lambert. | ||
| Fucking love that guy. | ||
| And what he did with the American Top Team is literally helped elevate the sport in a gigantic way. | ||
| He spent millions and millions of dollars. | ||
| He took care of the fighters, he created dormitories, he built a state-of-the-art, world-class facility, hired the best instructors, and really elevated what it means to have a world-class MMA gym. | ||
| American Top Team is an institution. | ||
| It's like, you drive by it, it's huge. | ||
| Like you said, dorms, the amenities there are incredible. | ||
| And Dan goes out like, It goes out of the way to make sure you're good. | ||
| For me in training camps, if we want a different look, he'll fly sparring partners in and never ask me for a dollar. | ||
| He wants to make sure the fighters are prepared. | ||
| He's a good dude, man. | ||
| He's a great guy. | ||
| I've known him forever. | ||
| The sport is very fortunate to have Dan Lambert around. | ||
| And there's been a few guys like that that have kind of maybe not become as prominent and stay in the shadows. | ||
| I wonder how many of them are a little shady, you know? | ||
|
unidentified
|
How many of them are a little shady, a little higher-end, a little chemist, like, listen, we're gonna help this guy. | |
| We're gonna make a super team, yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| What can we do? | ||
| What's legal and what's not? | ||
| Or what can show up in tests? | ||
| You know, like, when you hear about that Victor Conte thing with Balco, when they developed the clear that they used for Barry Bonds, they had this undetectable steroid. | ||
| They basically had a steroid that, when they went to look for the steroids in the tests, the standard tests that they used, the steroid wouldn't show up. | ||
| Yeah, the crooks are always out in front trying to figure a new way. | ||
| Then the other side catches up and you've got to figure something else out. | ||
| It's a cat and mouse game of getting jacked. | ||
| Well, I always wonder what's happening right now. | ||
| What's happening right now that we're going to hear about in the future? | ||
| Did you ever see the documentary Icarus? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Crazy, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| So the EPO thing was one that kind of got away, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Guys were using EPO. Yeah, yeah. | |
| Yeah, the EPO one was one that a few guys got popped for it. | ||
| I remember Bagutinov got popped for it back when he fought Mighty Mouse. | ||
| He got popped for it. | ||
| Or during that time period, he got popped for EPO. But you didn't hear about very many guys until TJ. Yeah, TJ was a big one. | ||
| When TJ got popped for EPO. I think people had suspected TJ was doing something because he looked like a dead man. | ||
| Like, literally looked like a dead man as he was like... | ||
| The guy's gotta be doing something just to show up in the morning. | ||
| Because he had dehydrated and starved himself down to, like, a fucking skeleton to try to make 125. I don't know a whole lot about... | ||
| EPO, but it gives you energy as well? | ||
| It raises your blood. | ||
| It raises your blood count. | ||
| So what it is, is it makes your body produce more red blood cells. | ||
| Which is similar to what we were talking about before. | ||
| The sauna has a similar effect, but just not as potent. | ||
| But so with that, you get more oxygen and more nutrients to the muscles? | ||
| Yeah, you get more endurance. | ||
| Famously, this is one of the things they use in cycling. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| Yeah, because they need that endurance. | ||
| But, you know, for a guy like TJ, I guess, I read an interview recently where he's talking about it, that he was anemic because he had starved himself to try to make 125. He's big, man. | ||
| You know, I've been around him. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| For 125, he's big. | ||
| Well, he was 145 in the Ultimate Fighter and then won the title at 135 and then tried to get down to 125 to fight Henry. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, he made it. | ||
| He did make it, but God, he looked like shit. | ||
| He looked scary. | ||
| To do that, you have to have a team and a chemist behind you to get your body. | ||
| I mean, that's just as extreme as it gets. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Yeah, and that's a perfect example of why not just fight at your weight class? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| It's a bummer, man. | ||
| It's a... | ||
| I think before I'm done fighting, I'm going to fight at 170. You think so? | ||
| Yeah, I'll go up to 170 and fight Nate. | ||
| For sure. | ||
| So you would do that now? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You think that fight's interesting? | ||
| I do. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Also because of the way it fell apart. | ||
| Me and him were supposed to fight Madison Square Garden. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And I kind of was the fall guy. | ||
| I had to... | ||
| He gets the point and say, I pulled out of the fight. | ||
| And I did. | ||
| I went to get stem cells done on my hip. | ||
| But I was going to fight. | ||
| I was going to go through with camp and fight him if they wouldn't have started offering me other replacement opponents. | ||
| Nate was playing games with the UFC. UFC started offering me opponents. | ||
| And I said, look, guys, if this is happening, I'm just going to go get my hip taken care of. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| And he's a guy I've always wanted to fight. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| You had a labrum issue, right? | ||
| I had a bunch of bone spurs. | ||
| My labrum was torn, but it's the head of my femur that was the big problem. | ||
| It wasn't round anymore. | ||
| Oh, wow. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And so what do they do? | ||
| So the stem cells didn't work because, you know, stem cells might help connective tissue and stuff like that, but it was a, the construction, like, of my... | ||
| The bone was rubbing against... | ||
| It was a structural issue. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Stem cells aren't going to change the shape of your femur. | ||
| Right. | ||
| So I went to Vail, Colorado, to the Stedman Clinic, and they fractured my femur, re-rounded it. | ||
| Dude, five-hour surgery. | ||
| Whoa. | ||
| I had to get an epidural. | ||
| It was nuts. | ||
| They re-rounded it and fractured it. | ||
| How do they fracture it? | ||
| They drill a bunch of micro holes in the head of it. | ||
| Oh my god. | ||
| Until it kind of cracks. | ||
| And then with that, stem cells and healing stuff comes out and creates a new surface on top of the femur. | ||
| Holy shit. | ||
| So I couldn't put any weight at all for eight weeks because the surface of my femur was, you know. | ||
|
unidentified
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Wow. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| That's a long recovery process then, huh? | ||
| Yeah, and it was right after the Khabib fight. | ||
| Like I was telling you earlier, I usually, when I lose, get back in the gym. | ||
| I went straight to surgery a couple weeks after, so I had to just sit there and think about that. | ||
| I couldn't get back in the gym, dude. | ||
| Eight weeks, I'm like Bruce Lee, man. | ||
| I'm trying to do the mental training when he was hurt. | ||
| I'm sitting there watching fights, writing stuff down. | ||
| I became a student, really. | ||
| I watched a lot of old boxing matches. | ||
| Oh, yeah? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So you used the time wisely? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Well, that's good, though. | ||
| At least you got something out of it. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I was still, like, really focused on becoming a better defensive fighter and trying to make less mistakes, so I watched a lot of Peniel Whitaker and stuff like that. | ||
| I got to really sit back and just watch fights. | ||
| Absorb. | ||
| And think. | ||
| I couldn't train at all. | ||
| Couldn't even walk on it. | ||
| Couldn't even walk. | ||
| Eight weeks. | ||
| Had to sleep in a machine, a metal machine every night that, like, moves your leg. | ||
| So I had to sleep with my leg moving. | ||
| A constant motion machine? | ||
| I had one of those when I had my ACL done. | ||
| I had a patella tendon graft, and immediately after surgery, they put you in this thing, you go... | ||
| That shit's annoying. | ||
| I had to sleep in that for like maybe six weeks. | ||
| What? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Oh my god. | ||
| Wow. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It sucked. | |
| What was it like to take the first steps after eight weeks? | ||
| I had kind of started putting weight on it and I wasn't supposed to with the crutches because I was on crutches for eight weeks. | ||
| So I wasn't like... | ||
| My balance and everything still felt good, but I definitely felt weak. | ||
| You know, like my ass, my back. | ||
| I felt it there. | ||
| When I started grappling and stuff, I felt like my hips. | ||
| And, you know, when you're trying to get back on top and you're fighting position, I just felt a difference there. | ||
| How long did you wait before you trained hard again? | ||
| I went... | ||
| The next fight after that one was the hooker fight. | ||
| Not that long. | ||
| Yeah, that seemed like you would need more time to recover from eight weeks of nothing. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And then also just whatever's going on inside of your hip. | ||
| Yeah, and it was sore for a while, even after the surgery, like when everything was supposed to be healed. | ||
| I think it takes a lot longer than eight weeks for bones to really get back to... | ||
| How's it feel now? | ||
| I feel good. | ||
| Every now and then I'm sore. | ||
| My range of motion isn't a whole lot better, but... | ||
| But it's not doing the damage to the inside of your... | ||
| Yeah, hopefully in the long run, the arthritis won't be as bad from, you know, the bone-on-bone stuff. | ||
| But they repaired the labrum, and I'm still sore here and there, but my quality of life is better. | ||
| It's like before, if I'd go to the mall with my wife and daughter, and we'd walk around for an hour and a half, I'd be hurting. | ||
| Really? | ||
| I'd like to stand on it that long, yeah. | ||
| Isn't that crazy? | ||
| Professional fighter at the highest level, and it hurts walking through the mall. | ||
|
unidentified
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Right. | |
| Like if we'd sit down in the food court and I'd go to get up too fast, I'd have to sit back down real quick. | ||
| It's like a shock in my hip. | ||
| It was very painful. | ||
| And I don't have that anymore. | ||
| So that's a big... | ||
| That's crazy. | ||
| And you were fighting like that. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Grappling, kicking people and shit. | ||
| I couldn't run. | ||
| So for that, before the surgery, sprints, if I ran sprints, I would pay for it for a week and a half with my hip. | ||
| So I'd have to pick and choose what I'm going to do. | ||
| Or if I repped a bunch of kicks on my left leg, anything over the body, like if I went high or even the body, too many of them, I would pay for it for a week and a half after. | ||
| It was always usually a week, a week and a half of really bad soreness if I pushed it too far with my hip. | ||
| So the hooker fight was how many months ago? | ||
| June, I believe. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So that's not that long. | ||
| Yeah, as soon as I got the green light to be full steam training, I went right into camp a couple weeks after. | ||
| So what is that, eight months? | ||
| That's not that long for a severe injury like that. | ||
| You know, like a real injury like that where they're getting into the bones. | ||
| Doing all that micro-fracturing shit. | ||
| I've had some friends that have had that done to their knees. | ||
| And it's a long, brutal process to get back to 100%. | ||
| It's amazing that you were able to fight so quickly after that. | ||
| Because the Khabib fight was only a few months before that, right? | ||
| September. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I got a picture, man. | ||
| They took a lot of bone out. | ||
| It was a lot. | ||
| Like how much? | ||
| Show me it. | ||
| Can you send it to Jamie so we can put it on the screen? | ||
| They put it next to a ruler so you can really get a scale of how big the pieces were. | ||
| Pretty serious, man. | ||
| Let me see here. | ||
| Like enough to fill up a water bottle top? | ||
| Oh, more. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Really? | |
| Oh, yeah. | ||
| Let me find this. | ||
| More than that, dude. | ||
| Like a mouthwash cap? | ||
| I would say mouthwash cap. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Really? | |
| Maybe more, dude. | ||
| Oh my god. | ||
| Let me see. | ||
| Here we go. | ||
| September. | ||
| Let's keep you guys waiting here. | ||
| No, that's okay. | ||
| We're waiting. | ||
| We're excited. | ||
| I remember when Jacare got his elbow done. | ||
| Oh, here we go. | ||
| I stared at that shit for weeks. | ||
| I actually have a... | ||
| So here's an actual ruler. | ||
| Oh my God! | ||
| You might better fill up a coffee cup with that, bro. | ||
| Dude, this is crazy. | ||
| This is crazy. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| Okay, let me airdrop this. | ||
| How do I airdrop this? | ||
| I don't have an iPhone. | ||
| Oh, what do you have? | ||
| What is this nonsense? | ||
| Samsung. | ||
| How dare you? | ||
| Oh, actually, well, I can't get it to my computer. | ||
| I know, I hear it all the time. | ||
| Oh, it's okay. | ||
| If you could text it to me. | ||
| Here, hold on a second. | ||
| I don't even know what my number is. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let's see. | |
| I'm sure you got a new one. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'll probably have your old one. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| It's the bottom one. | ||
| The bottom one there. | ||
| Yeah, text it to me. | ||
| Gotcha. | ||
| Yeah, but they took a lot of- You're one of those Samsung renegades, huh? | ||
| One of those dudes living on the edge? | ||
| Living on the edge, bro. | ||
| Operating with an Android? | ||
| Do people give you shit about it? | ||
| All the time. | ||
| Isn't it weird? | ||
| Yeah, because like on Twitter, you know, you can see Twitter for Android or something like that. | ||
| And people just... | ||
| Isn't that weird though? | ||
| Why does it matter? | ||
| Why is it a gang thing? | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| It's weird. | ||
| It's like a Republican-Democrat thing. | ||
| Why is it a gang thing? | ||
| It is. | ||
| It's a weird thing. | ||
| Like people decide they don't like... | ||
| My friend Ian Edwards, look at this. | ||
| That's your hip? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That's that thing in my stomach. | ||
| So I had an epidural line in my back, and this in my stomach is a nerve block. | ||
| And a piece of cloth casually covering your hog. | ||
| So that all went in there. | ||
| God damn, dude. | ||
| So this picture, he's going to send it to me, Jamie, and then I'm going to text it to you. | ||
| Did you send it to me? | ||
| I'm doing it now. | ||
| It literally looks like pebbles that you found on the beach. | ||
| It looks like a handful, like a solid handful of pebbles. | ||
| So that's probably the worst injury you've ever had, I would imagine, right? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I've had two surgeries on my nose. | ||
| I have a cadaver rib cartilage in my nose bridge. | ||
| Oh, really? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| When I fought Joe Duffy, he crushed my nose. | ||
| Yeah? | ||
| Crushed it, yeah. | ||
| And the first surgery, I still couldn't breathe, so we had to do it again. | ||
| They had to re-break it and stuff. | ||
| Some guys, you can hear them talk, like Justin Gaethje, and you know that dude can't breathe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| There's no way he's breathing out of his nose. | ||
| I think that's so smart to do that. | ||
| It's so smart to be able to breathe out of your nose. | ||
| And I know guys are like, well, I'm just going to break it anyway. | ||
| That's so what? | ||
| Yeah, I'm not going to mess with it again until I'm done fighting. | ||
| Because it's going to get smashed. | ||
| Actually, when I went for the second surgery, they said, you only broke your nose once. | ||
| I was like, yeah. | ||
| They said, no, you've broken it three or four or five times. | ||
| I guess the healing lines of the cartilage and bone, they saw it was crushed or cracked a bunch. | ||
| I'm sure. | ||
| Micro cracks all the time. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Just even probably from sparring. | ||
| What's happening with your phone? | ||
| I'm having trouble with this. | ||
| Do you need help? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Maybe you should get an iPhone. | ||
| Be super fucking easy. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I'm gonna get it. | ||
| You're gonna get an iPhone? | ||
| No. | ||
| No? | ||
| I'm gonna get this. | ||
| Oh, you're committed. | ||
| You're committed to the Android phone? | ||
| I am. | ||
| It's been- Because people fuck with you, right? | ||
| You're one of those guys. | ||
| I'm just used to it. | ||
| I don't want to switch it up. | ||
| I get it. | ||
| I'm just used to it. | ||
| But you're right. | ||
| We would have this message. | ||
| We would have the picture up if I had an iPhone. | ||
| But it's an interesting thing, the commitment that people have to Android. | ||
| When they have it, they're like, no, fuck you. | ||
| I'm sticking in my guns. | ||
| And then when they do give in, they do give in. | ||
| A lot of them give in. | ||
| I've thought about it. | ||
| Really? | ||
| So I've thought about it. | ||
| What have you thought? | ||
| Be easier? | ||
| Does your wife have an Android? | ||
| Uh, iPhone. | ||
| Oh, that's a problem. | ||
| Dude, I can't get it. | ||
| You can't do it! | ||
| Here, listen, man. | ||
| Write your fucking phone number down on this. | ||
| Write your phone number down on this, and I will send you a text, and then you can text me the photo if you can figure out how to do that. | ||
| I feel like we're in the 80s. | ||
| This is outrageous. | ||
| Isn't it? | ||
| Come on, man. | ||
| It shouldn't be this hard. | ||
| For some reason, when I go to the photo, it doesn't let me add a new number. | ||
| It's going to my contact list. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Really? | |
| Yeah. | ||
| That's what's happening. | ||
| It doesn't let you add a new number? | ||
| You can't just text in a number? | ||
| I guess I have to have your number saved to share a photo from my... | ||
| Alright, I'm calling you right now. | ||
| That's me. | ||
| You got that? | ||
| Got you. | ||
| Alright, there you go. | ||
| No, send a text message. | ||
| Or maybe I'll just text you because it's confusing to you. | ||
| No, I got it, Joe. | ||
| It's Joe. | ||
| There you go. | ||
| Got it. | ||
| Alright, send me that picture, bro. | ||
| Come on, we can do this. | ||
| This is a 10 minute, but it's going to be worth it, folks. | ||
| For the people at home. | ||
| For the people that want to see how fucked up. | ||
| And this is the worst Samsung advertisement of all time. | ||
| Don't do it. | ||
| Don't go to the Samsung. | ||
| I'm going to get it. | ||
| Hold on. | ||
| You good? | ||
| Great. | ||
| Dude, I'm saving your number now. | ||
| Oh, you're saving it. | ||
| Better than good. | ||
| I understand. | ||
| And now you have to save it first, and then... | ||
| Now I can edit. | ||
| You can't just send me a picture? | ||
| That doesn't make any sense. | ||
| Boom. | ||
| How about that? | ||
| Just send it to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, here we go. | |
| Come on, baby. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Come on. | |
| Nothing. | ||
| Where is this bitch? | ||
| Nothing. | ||
| Alright, I'm gonna hold onto my phone and Jamie, the moment it comes to me could be within the hour. | ||
| It's going through some routing in South Korea. | ||
| You know what else? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Ah! | |
| I got it. | ||
| Boom. | ||
| Alright, here we go. | ||
| You know what else? | ||
| From Android to iPhone, if I send a pic, it gets grainy. | ||
| I notice my wife and her friends, when they send pics, it stays clear. | ||
| Yeah, it's because of airdrop and because of iMessage. | ||
| iMessage, here, Jamie, I'm going to airdrop it to you. | ||
| Look how quick this is. | ||
| This will take literally seconds. | ||
| Dustin, you send me the picture, it took about 10 minutes, and then bam, Jamie's got the picture. | ||
| Sorry about that. | ||
| No worries, bro. | ||
| No worries. | ||
| We got it now. | ||
| There you go. | ||
| Oh, the other one is your hip. | ||
| The other one is the hip before they reshaped it. | ||
| Oh, wow. | ||
| So look at all that debris. | ||
| That is fucking crazy. | ||
| All that shit was floating around inside your hip, and you were fighting with that. | ||
| That's nuts. | ||
| That's big. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Some of those chunks are like a half an inch. | ||
| Those are big fucking chunks. | ||
| It was a five-hour surgery. | ||
| Jamie, look how big those chunks are. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Those are floating or those are what broke off them? | |
| I don't know. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're both. | |
| And this one here is the... | ||
| My body was pushing more bone growth to the outsides of my femur. | ||
| So it's kind of mushroomed out in that picture there. | ||
| You see the edges of it are kind of mushroomed out? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So that was not allowing me to... | ||
| Anytime my leg would go laterally, that edge would hit inside of the... | ||
| Inside of my hip and rip it up. | ||
| So were you concerned that this was kind of a career ender? | ||
| Like, what was the doctor's prognosis when he saw how bad it was in there? | ||
| He kind of gave me some confidence because he told me the spacing in my hip, from my femur to my hip socket, the spacing is healthy. | ||
| So that's what they usually, like hip replacements and stuff, if you're spacing, you have no room in there, that's when they usually have to do something or it's a threat to your career. | ||
| But my spacing is healthy. | ||
| It was just the bone growth. | ||
| My body pushed more bone on the outside of my femur and wouldn't allow me to... | ||
| So it's basically an injury that you should have taken care of a while ago and you kind of let it go a little too long and it started getting weird. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| When did it first start fucking up? | ||
| So it's been years. | ||
| It's been bothering me for years. | ||
| And then we did stem cells. | ||
| Did that help at all? | ||
| I thought it did. | ||
| I was hoping, but it turned out I was still in a lot of pain. | ||
| Did it help in the beginning and then stopped helping? | ||
| I thought I was less sore. | ||
| If I did run sprints, instead of taking a week and a half, I thought maybe three or four days I was good. | ||
| So I noticed a little bit in that, but then it felt like it went back to exactly how it was before. | ||
| It sounds like the structure was just tearing up all the inside of your head. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| Structurally they had to re-round it. | ||
| But it seems like now if you've got stem cells, since they've re-rounded it and everything, maybe it would help heal up that area a little bit better. | ||
| Yeah, we did PRP when they closed it up after surgery. | ||
| When did you get the stem cells done? | ||
| In LA, but I don't know what doctor. | ||
| It was a doctor that does a lot of NBA players. | ||
| You gotta go to another country, bro. | ||
| Where they can really do it. | ||
| You gotta go to Panama. | ||
| I didn't get the good stuff. | ||
| But still, it wouldn't have reshaped the head of my... | ||
| No, no, it wouldn't have. | ||
| But I mean, like, to now, to heal up the area. | ||
| There's shit that they can do in other countries that the United States, for whatever reason... | ||
| They just don't want to take those chances. | ||
| I sent my mom down to Panama twice. | ||
| They wanted her to get a knee replacement and she was in some pretty significant pain and eight months later, no pain. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| I don't fully understand how stem cells, like, what was arthritis or she had a tear? | ||
| Yeah, arthritis, you know, some cartilage issues and some meniscus issues. | ||
| And, you know, it just, it's soft tissue and it can regenerate tissue and reduces inflammation pretty radically and it can... | ||
| It really should be used much more extensively in the United States, but for whatever reason, whether it's political, whether it's the FDA, who is responsible for regulating it, they're not showing any real significant problems from people using it, but they are showing a lot of significant benefits. | ||
| It's crazy how they go into your body and know what to repair and what to do, right? | ||
| It's nuts. | ||
| Yeah, they've got a lot of people who are going down to Columbia now, and Dr. Neil Reardon, who's been on my show before, he took care of TJ. TJ went down to Panama, and that's where I sent my mom. | ||
| What did TJ get done? | ||
| Shoulder? | ||
| Shoulders, yeah. | ||
| I think he got his knee done, too. | ||
| I mean, by the time... | ||
| One of you guys gets to be 32 years old. | ||
| I mean, how many fucking injuries are you dealing with constantly? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Have you had any back issues? | ||
| Never. | ||
| That's amazing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Never. | |
| Now, do you do stuff to strengthen your back? | ||
| Do you do maintenance work and training? | ||
| Yeah, and beginning of every training camp, my strength and conditioning coach, Phil Daru, kind of gets a base. | ||
| Like, we build off the base and switch it up in phases throughout the training camp. | ||
| So the base at the beginning of camp is a lot of legs, a lot of lifting, heavy stuff. | ||
| That guy's very respected. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Highly respected guy. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| He's a good dude, man. | ||
| A student. | ||
| Like I said about Mike Brown, with fighting, he feels a student of strength and body movement. | ||
| You know, not just getting strong, but efficient. | ||
| And he's helped me out a lot with a lot of different hip stuff we do. | ||
| And he knows my limits as well, so he knows if I run a bunch of sprints, I'm going to be banged up for the rest of the week. | ||
| So we've just called audibles on a lot of different things we do, and he's helped me out a lot, man. | ||
| What have you done in terms of supplementary exercises? | ||
| If you can't do sprints and you're trying to develop explosive endurance, how do you do it? | ||
| What's your standard cardio stuff? | ||
| We do a lot of aerodyne stuff. | ||
| I do a lot of swimming myself. | ||
| And then I use my actual training, honestly, as a lot of cardio stuff, like my sparring rounds, my hard wrestling rounds every Monday. | ||
| That's cardio. | ||
| For sure. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And the best way you can get it, getting the muscles tired that you're going to use, getting your heart rate up. | ||
| I like to do that. | ||
| I like to use my training as my conditioning. | ||
| I don't do a whole lot of extra things for conditioning. | ||
| Like I said, erodyne bike here and there, sprints, but we don't do anything crazy or really focused on cardio. | ||
| And I think, naturally, I have a little bit of a gift, and everybody's different. | ||
| My cardio, even off the couch, I'm pretty good. | ||
| So the stuff that you do with Phil Darrow, is that more strength stuff? | ||
| Strength stuff and accessory works, like keep my shoulders healthy, my hips healthy, my flexibility, stuff like that. | ||
| But at the beginning, the first phase is strength. | ||
| We get a base, and then we kind of start branching off every week after that. | ||
| And so when you said that he does stuff to keep your body healthy, like, do you do stuff specifically to work your back muscles to keep from being injured? | ||
| I'm not sure. | ||
| Because that seems like a big issue with MMA fighters. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Neck. | |
| Is the back and neck. | ||
| Yeah, neck. | ||
| How's your neck? | ||
| My neck's fine. | ||
| Yeah? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Nothing? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Crazy. | |
| I mean, now and then I have a crick in it, or not a crick, but like I'll jam it in wrestling, you know, shooting a double leg and get my head jammed back and then I'm sore for a few days, but nothing serious. | ||
| That's amazing. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Do you do neck exercises? | ||
| I do. | ||
| I do. | ||
| What do you do? | ||
| At the gym, we have a machine with two pads on it. | ||
| You stack. | ||
| It's like, you know, free weights you stack on it and you go forward, you go sideways. | ||
| Normal neck exercises. | ||
| And at my gym back in Louisiana, I have the head harness that you see guys use. | ||
| Do you ever fuck with an iron neck? | ||
| Do you know what that is? | ||
| I saw one before. | ||
| I've never used it. | ||
| I'll get one sent to you. | ||
| Those guys will send one to anybody that likes it. | ||
| It's the shit. | ||
| And the good thing about that is it doesn't put weird pressure on your joints. | ||
| And the rotational resistance. | ||
| Yes, exactly. | ||
| It's a big deal. | ||
| That's where the whip is, right? | ||
| When you're getting cracked and punched. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| That's another thing. | ||
| Strengthening the neck seems to really help guys' ability to absorb shots, right? | ||
| Have you found that? | ||
| Of course, of course. | ||
| Well, if you... | ||
| I tell guys all the time, like younger fighters that I work with, of course it's punching power. | ||
| Some guys just have natural punching power, but a lot of times in fights you see guys go down, it's their positioning when they receive the shot. | ||
| And not being grounded. | ||
| Feet on the ground, neck in a position ready to receive a blow like that. | ||
| If you're throwing a hook and your neck's disconnected, like Anderson Silva, Chris Weidman. | ||
| Pulling back, your neck disconnected from your body, it's going to take all of that spin and whip. | ||
| Or the opposite side of that, you've got a guy like Justin Gaethje who sits down and just takes, but he's set and ready to receive, like his body's ready for the impact. | ||
| I think that's important, man, on the receiving side of it. | ||
| So I tell guys that a lot. | ||
| And strengthening those muscles that cause that whip, of course, would help. | ||
| Do you do hard sparring? | ||
| I used to do it way too much. | ||
| Way too much. | ||
| Now I only do five weeks every camp. | ||
| And I don't spar. | ||
| Right now between fights, I'm not fighting anybody. | ||
| I'm not sparring at all. | ||
| What did you think of Max Holloway's fight with Calvin Cater, which was probably one of his best performances ever? | ||
| Not probably. | ||
| One of his best performances ever. | ||
| No sparring at all. | ||
| He looked amazing, man. | ||
| Crazy. | ||
| Amazing. | ||
| Does that make you think? | ||
| I think at the beginning it's important, though. | ||
| Because, like, young fighters who have one or two fights, they're still kind of figuring things out. | ||
| I think you need that time under pressure. | ||
| You need to be... | ||
| For young fighters. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Right. | ||
| But then you get to a point where Max, Max's level, former champion, one of the best in the sport, for a guy like him... | ||
| I think you should. | ||
| Obviously not as much, but I think you should just to get your timing. | ||
| I'm not going to stop. | ||
| Just completely cut out sparring from my training camp, so I won't stop. | ||
| But I have moved it to five weeks. | ||
| I only spar five weeks at the end of camp. | ||
| Yeah, there's so many schools of thought regarding this. | ||
| That's why when Max decided to not spar at all and then puts in a performance like that, I think that opened up a lot of people's eyes. | ||
| We were like, wow, this is kind of crazy. | ||
| On the reverse side of that, before Robbie came to American Top Team, when he came, he hadn't sparred for years. | ||
| Years and years and years. | ||
| Came to American Top Team, started sparring and stuff, and then had an incredible run. | ||
| And at an, not say older age, but in his 30s. | ||
| That's true too, right? | ||
| There's There's two different, yeah. | ||
| And our genetics are different. | ||
| Some guys might be able to spar their whole career and still be composed and have their faculties. | ||
| Another guy might not be able to. | ||
| Yeah, that's the weird thing about CTE, right? | ||
| That there's a genetic component to it, and some people get it, and they get it pretty quickly. | ||
| And then some people, they can just fight their whole career, and they're fine. | ||
| I mean, Jesus Christ, Alistair Overeem has been fighting forever. | ||
| I mean, he's been KO'd so many times. | ||
| And you hear him talk... | ||
| Seems fine. | ||
| Yeah, Andre Olowski. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Another guy who's witty and sharp. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Seems fine. | ||
| It's not even. | ||
| It's not like 10 shots for you is 10 shots for this guy. | ||
| No, it's different for everybody. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| It's interesting, too, when you see the ties who fight a lot. | ||
| They don't spar hard at all. | ||
| They touch each other in the gym. | ||
| They're basically playing. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| They're just getting their timing down and moving light. | ||
| But when they hit each other, it's not hard at all. | ||
| That's kind of what I do between fights with my buddies and training partners. | ||
| We just touch and we have that. | ||
| But you have to have the right people to be able to do that with. | ||
| Everybody's trying to show themselves something. | ||
| Especially now, right? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| How do you avoid those guys? | ||
| How do you keep those guys out of your circle? | ||
| I don't go to gyms and just train with anybody. | ||
| It's usually people I know. | ||
| Unless it's jiu-jitsu or something, I'll bump hands and roll with guys I don't know. | ||
| But if we're doing MMA stuff, it's fighters who I know and they have experience. | ||
| I can trust them and I've worked with them before. | ||
| I probably wouldn't even bump fists and do MMA rounds with somebody I didn't know at a gym. | ||
| I would make sure it's... | ||
| For my money, that guillotine you got, Khabib, is the closest he's ever been caught. | ||
| Dude, it was so close. | ||
| That was so close. | ||
| My plan was to guillotine Conor and change it from Fight Island to Guillotine Island. | ||
| That was the plan. | ||
| But I'll take a knockout. | ||
| Yeah, no, the Khabib fight was close. | ||
| I should have went full guard. | ||
| It was so close. | ||
| I jumped out of my seat. | ||
| I jumped out of my seat when I was watching that. | ||
| Oh my god. | ||
| It was locked in. | ||
| You got a nasty guillotine too. | ||
| You could see. | ||
| It was tight as fuck. | ||
| I haven't finished anybody in the UFC with it. | ||
| It's coming. | ||
| It's coming. | ||
| I'm going to get you. | ||
| It's going to happen. | ||
| I have a couple variations I do with the guillotine. | ||
| I submit people all the time. | ||
| Put people unconscious. | ||
| You think if you went to full guard you would have got it? | ||
| Hindsight, Joe. | ||
| Hindsight. | ||
| Is that the moment of the fight that fucks with you? | ||
| I just know how close it was. | ||
| A game of inches. | ||
| See if you can pull that up. | ||
| I know how close it was. | ||
| Let's take a look at it. | ||
| It was so tight. | ||
| I jumped out of my fucking seat. | ||
| Because I wasn't there for that fight, right? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That was on Fight Island. | ||
| I jumped up and I gripped the corners of the chair. | ||
| What haunts me more than the full guard is me not switching Like a Darce or anaconda when he rolled to his side. | ||
| That's what gets me more. | ||
| Why didn't I punch that arm through? | ||
| He's a beast, dude. | ||
| That motherfucker. | ||
| So, so intelligent. | ||
| People ask me all the time, is he strong? | ||
| I mean, he's strong. | ||
| I don't know if he's the strongest guy I've ever fought, but he's strong at all. | ||
| They're all strong. | ||
| Nothing overwhelming or that really surprises me. | ||
| It's just his understanding of balance and weight placement was incredible, dude. | ||
| I've been fighting and wrestling a long time as well, but he just knew where my weight was and where it needed to be for me to stay up with his foot trips. | ||
| It's hard to explain, man, but he's good. | ||
| No, that makes a lot of sense, his positioning. | ||
| He's so good at taking guys down and holding them down. | ||
| It's kind of stunning. | ||
| Here it is. | ||
| So he shoots... | ||
| Oh my goodness, that's tight. | ||
| That is so tight. | ||
| I should have crunched over too to keep him... | ||
| But look how tight that is. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right there. | |
| No, it's tight. | ||
| Right there. | ||
| I was like, oh my god. | ||
| Oh my god. | ||
| This is... | ||
| Like reliving this. | ||
| What is this like? | ||
| Like right there... | ||
| Like I should have punched your arm through. | ||
| Right. | ||
| But still, you still got it locked in, man. | ||
| You still got... | ||
| Right here. | ||
| Oh my god, he's in deep shit. | ||
| He is in deep shit here. | ||
| And now... | ||
| He used that right elbow. | ||
| He used that right elbow really effectively to create some space. | ||
| But even then, fuck, he gets through. | ||
| And then moves right to mount. | ||
| And then the arm control breaks you down. | ||
| Motherfucker is good, man. | ||
| Motherfucker is good. | ||
| So technical. | ||
| Part of me doesn't want him to come back. | ||
| I just love the fact that a guy escaped with 29-0. | ||
| It's a pretty impressive record. | ||
| And fought everybody. | ||
| Fought everybody. | ||
| Mauled everybody. | ||
| Got to the top. | ||
| Fought the best guys. | ||
| Fought you. | ||
| Fought Justin. | ||
| Silence. | ||
| Connor. | ||
| Just did the thing. | ||
| Got out. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And he's obviously a great man, you know, on top of being a great fighter. | ||
| He's a great man. | ||
| And it's so unusual the way he lives, you know? | ||
| Guy drives around in a Toyota pickup truck. | ||
| Doesn't give a fuck. | ||
| Lives in the same house. | ||
| He helped me raise a bunch of money for my foundation, and we hooked up with Justin Wren and Fight for the Forgotten. | ||
| So Khabib was a huge part of getting those water wells built. | ||
| That's awesome. | ||
| No, he's a beautiful person. | ||
| And just a great example of a champion, you know? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But you want it again. | ||
| Of course. | ||
| Of course. | ||
| How old is he? | ||
| I believe he's 32. Dude, he's prime time. | ||
| Yeah, 33? | ||
| 32? | ||
| 32? | ||
| Yeah, he's prime. | ||
| 32 and never really taken damage. | ||
| Yeah, not really. | ||
| His body probably hurts from years of training like a maniac, but in actual fights, he's never... | ||
| Michael Johnson's the only one who dinged him. | ||
| And he recovered from that and beat him. | ||
| And that was one fight. | ||
| Other than that, nobody really stunned him. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| 29-0. | ||
| Got away. | ||
| Pretty amazing. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But the longer you stay, it's not a long game at that point. | ||
| Like, something bad's gonna happen. | ||
| Yeah, anything can happen. | ||
| And also, all these fighters have so much time to study you. | ||
| So much time to look at, like, how many people are gonna look at the Justin Gaethje fight and go, wow, he was in danger with those leg kicks. | ||
| How many people are going to look at that like, hey, that guillotine was fucking tight. | ||
| How many people are going to look at the moments that he's had where maybe he had some vulnerability where someone has a specific skill set that could have capitalized on that? | ||
| I think Gleason Tebow is the closest to ever beating him. | ||
| Yeah, very close. | ||
| That guy's ridiculous. | ||
| How the fuck does that dude ever make 155? | ||
| That's a gorilla. | ||
| That dude's so big. | ||
| Yeah, I trade with him in American Top Team. | ||
| He's a good dude too, man. | ||
| Funny guy. | ||
| Real nice guy. | ||
| Always wants to help. | ||
| He's so big. | ||
| He looks like he's a 190 pounder. | ||
| Oh, he is. | ||
| Plus, he's two-something. | ||
| Really? | ||
| Oh, yeah. | ||
| And he gets down to 155. And when he weighs in, he's one of those guys like Yoel Romero's the same way. | ||
| When he weighs at 185, you're like, what? | ||
| Wait a minute. | ||
| Let me look at that fucking scale. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Like, how the f... | ||
| That's not 185 pounds. | ||
| It doesn't make sense. | ||
| But he'll sit in the sauna for hours on hours smiling. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah? | |
| Yeah, that's the energy he has. | ||
| He's so happy and positive. | ||
| He's never down. | ||
| Even when he's suffering, he's happy. | ||
| He loves it. | ||
| Really? | ||
| Yeah, man. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| I think he's been to Germany a bunch helping some fight team out there. | ||
| Oh, is that what he's doing now? | ||
| He's coaching guys? | ||
| He just got back to American Top Team right before I left for my fight. | ||
| Is he done fighting? | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| He was talking about going up to 170, I think. | ||
| How old is he now? | ||
| He's gotta be pushing 40, right? | ||
| 37? | ||
| It's hard, man. | ||
| You know, it's a crazy sport. | ||
| You're relying on your tissue and your bones and your brain and you only have a certain amount of time. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And everybody's time is different. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That odometer. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Look at Yoel. | ||
| Yoel's like a Toyota. | ||
| 300,000 miles on that thing. | ||
| It is like that. | ||
| It is true. | ||
| Do you have thoughts on when you're going to get out? | ||
| I always said before... | ||
| How old are you now? | ||
| 32. I turned 32 in January. | ||
| I always said 35. That's a number I've been having for a while. | ||
| I thought 35. It seems like a good number. | ||
| Yeah, and I think after 35, in fighting, you're not going to get any more durable or any healthier or any more athletic. | ||
| 35 is, you know. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And you still have a whole life ahead of you outside of fighting. | ||
| Right. | ||
| You know, like at 35, I can go to college for five years, six years, and still have a whole career after that. | ||
| Right. | ||
| So I'm just trying to, you know, be smart with it. | ||
| I have a family, but I love fighting. | ||
| I hate the process where I'm at in my career now. | ||
| I don't enjoy that at all. | ||
| What process? | ||
| But I love the process of fighting. | ||
| Cutting all the weight, doing the interviews, the fashion show that Mixed Martial Arts turned into with Instagram and social media and the call-outs and just all that hype stuff. | ||
| I don't like that stuff at all. | ||
| You seem very smart about that stuff, particularly with social media. | ||
| You don't seem to get into any weird back and forths with people. | ||
| You don't seem to be paying attention to haters. | ||
| I'll make fun of myself with the guys, you know? | ||
| Because I know that with the social media stuff, when I was younger, man, like around the Conor fight, I used to read everything and thought about every comment and stuff. | ||
| And I don't really care anymore because just over maturity, I realized that they don't know me. | ||
| So the things they're saying, it's meaningless. | ||
| It's not like... | ||
| Social media is a mirror. | ||
| Those people who are saying all that shit really don't like themselves, man. | ||
| You know, that's what I've started to realize as I got older and I just don't want to play in any part of that. | ||
| For sure. | ||
| One of the things that I've always said is greatness. | ||
| Like, if someone is truly chasing greatness in their life, they don't have time to leave comments on your page and be mean. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And talk about what a loser you are. | ||
| The type of people that are doing that, they're not fulfilled in their own life. | ||
| That's just the fact. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| The type of people that are saying mean shit to a professional fighter to try to make them feel bad, they're not fulfilled. | ||
| Or maybe they're young and they're dumb. | ||
| They could be 15. Yeah. | ||
| A lot of that is. | ||
| Fuck, fuck. | ||
| Somebody gave me an Instagram account when I was 15. I'd probably say horrible shit to people. | ||
| I'm so happy it wasn't around. | ||
| Me too. | ||
| Me too. | ||
| I was so dumb. | ||
| I can only imagine. | ||
| Yeah, but it's wise that you've figured that out and that you avoid it now. | ||
| Yeah, I try my best. | ||
| When I do get on there, I honestly try to give positivity out because there's so much darkness on there, man. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I try to encourage guys or reply to fans. | ||
| I just try to keep it good. | ||
| The darkness and the negativity, it's... | ||
| It's so much more impactful. | ||
| That's what's so weird. | ||
| It's like if you read a hundred comments and they're great and one of them is horrible, that one is the one that sticks with you. | ||
| It doesn't get drowned out by the hundred people that love you. | ||
| That one that's so mean, you're like, whoa, this guy really hates me. | ||
| And why? | ||
| Yeah, what did I do? | ||
| But this guy doesn't know me. | ||
| He hates himself. | ||
| That's the problem. | ||
| They don't really. | ||
| And they also, they're trying to diminish what you are because what you are is what most men wish they could be. | ||
| A championship level fighter. | ||
| Most men wish they were bad motherfuckers. | ||
| You could pretend. | ||
| If you gave any hater dork that's never worked out a day in his life and you said, hey man, I'm gonna give you a pill and the pill's gonna turn you into a beast. | ||
| Like, with this pill, you'll be able to fuck people up. | ||
| You'll have all the skills. | ||
| Be able to fuck people? | ||
| Then I'll take it. | ||
| Be able to fuck people, too. | ||
| Have people actually want to fuck you. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| They would take that pill. | ||
| Yeah, for sure. | ||
| Yeah, it's a thing where you see someone who's so much more successful than you in this most manliest of things. | ||
| You know, you're a fucking fighter. | ||
| And you see the comments. | ||
| Like, I genuinely... | ||
| Get confused when I see comments on fighters' pages after losses. | ||
| Because some people are so goddamn vicious. | ||
| Dude, what about the guy who just freaking FaceTimed somehow? | ||
| These guys are getting numbers. | ||
| They're getting our personal cell phone numbers somehow. | ||
| Because I was just in Utah on a ski trip last weekend and somebody called me and was like, is this Dustin? | ||
| I'm like, who's this? | ||
| He's like, oh my god, you're a legend. | ||
| I'm like, how the fuck do you get my number? | ||
| I'm a big fan. | ||
| Use your number to buy things or if you use your number to... | ||
| Shit leaks. | ||
| Yeah, you rent a car. | ||
| But talking about being vicious, the guy who just called Curtis Blades, you see that? | ||
| No. | ||
| Somebody FaceTimed him and he answered it. | ||
| And the guy's like, you got knocked the fuck out. | ||
| Like, just a shit fan. | ||
| And he filmed it? | ||
| I don't know how it got filmed. | ||
| Oh, the other guy must have filmed it, yeah. | ||
| Oh my god. | ||
| I just felt so bad, because I've been knocked out, and I know that spot. | ||
| I don't know where he's at mentally, but I know where you're at. | ||
| You know, where I was. | ||
| Do they know who it is, the guy who did it? | ||
| I'm not sure. | ||
| I haven't really looked into it, but I saw. | ||
| Curtis should show up with that guy's work. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I'll show up with him. | ||
| Yeah, right? | ||
| He can take him down, I'll punch the shit out of him. | ||
| Dude, how scary is Derrick Lewis, though? | ||
|
unidentified
|
God. | |
| Such an athlete. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Damn. | |
| Such an athlete. | ||
| Goddamn, he can crack. | ||
| I just saw a montage of him doing get-ups from half guard, from being down the bottom, from side control. | ||
| He just fucking puts his arm in people's armpits and sits up like, I'm getting out of here. | ||
| He's so strong. | ||
| I'm getting out of here. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| He's had some back issues. | ||
| And I guess he's got those squared away. | ||
| Because if he's healthy, if he doesn't have any back problems, every moment you're standing with that guy is a dangerous, dangerous moment. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| He's got that one-punch sleep power. | ||
| A man doesn't tattoo Knockout King on his chest. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Unless he's got that fucking one-sleep, one-hitter-quitter. | |
| He's so crazy, too. | ||
| His Instagram is one of the most hilarious things online. | ||
| If you don't know, go to Derek Lewis's Instagram. | ||
| I think it's Beast UFC. What is his... | ||
| The Beast? | ||
| The Beast. | ||
| The Beast UFC, I think it is. | ||
| I forget what his... | ||
| Yeah, he has a good sense of humor. | ||
| Hilarious. | ||
| And everything is, he's okay. | ||
| Like, when dudes... | ||
| You know the guy's dead. | ||
| You know? | ||
| He's like, he's okay. | ||
| I saw the thumbs up thing. | ||
| That's so fucked up that he did that. | ||
| Oh, this one's a good one. | ||
| Yeah, the Beast UFC. This is this guy. | ||
| He throws the net and totally misses. | ||
| Look at this. | ||
| Look how terrible this is. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He's okay. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| Look how bad this guy is. | ||
| I wonder what country that is. | ||
| Oh, a series of? | ||
| Yeah, that's what I was talking about. | ||
| Look at this. | ||
| I'm out of here. | ||
| Just lifts you up. | ||
| Boom! | ||
| He's so powerful. | ||
| And explosive. | ||
| Like when he jumps for knees or kicks, you can just tell how much. | ||
| Well, he'll throw a fucking switch kick, a left high switch kick, and you're like, holy shit. | ||
| Heavyweights aren't moving like that. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Look at this. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Boom! | |
| The power he has. | ||
| My god. | ||
| And a legit 265. You know? | ||
| Like, full on. | ||
| I'll tell you what, man. | ||
| Crazy. | ||
| Just gets up. | ||
| Just gets up. | ||
| I mean, if... | ||
| Rex Kwan-Dostow. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| If he... | ||
| If Francis Ngannou beat Stipe, and that's a big if, right? | ||
| Because Stipe... | ||
| Look, if you look at it on paper, he's the GOAT. He's... | ||
| Stipe's... | ||
| The most accomplished heavyweight of all time. | ||
| If Francis beats Stipe, and it's a big if, him versus Francis. | ||
| Derek Lewis versus the rematch. | ||
| Right. | ||
| That's a crazy fight. | ||
| Lewis won the first one. | ||
| He won the first fight. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But it was the most uneventful fight ever. | ||
| Yeah, not a lot happened. | ||
| Well, that's the thing about Lewis, too. | ||
| People don't give him credit. | ||
| He's patient. | ||
| He's patient. | ||
| He'll wait on... | ||
| You know, the first round with Curtis Blades, very patient. | ||
| Very patient. | ||
| Waited his moment. | ||
| And then when Blades went in for that very obvious takedown, and he stepped back and caught him with that uppercut. | ||
| That was a weird motion by Blaze, too. | ||
| He kind of changed levels without a penetration step or drive. | ||
| He kind of just changed levels and was there. | ||
| Yeah, he didn't hide it with punches. | ||
| And, you know, you just can't have any room with Derek. | ||
| You can't have any errors. | ||
| Because all he has to have is one. | ||
| Boom! | ||
| The great equalizer. | ||
| It is. | ||
| Power is the great equalizer. | ||
| Especially in the heavyweight division, right? | ||
| Four-ounce gloves. | ||
| Those... | ||
| Some fights in the heavyweight, like Francis versus Alistair Overeem. | ||
| To this day, I watch that KO and just go... | ||
| Shit. | ||
| Yeah, that's horrible. | ||
| He's had another one like that, right? | ||
| Francis? | ||
| Oh, yeah. | ||
| Rosenstreich, KO'd him horribly. | ||
| Everybody, he hits really hard, except Derek, he KOs. | ||
| I mean, he's one of the scariest... | ||
| Him and Derek are the two scariest heavyweight punchers ever. | ||
| I want to see it again. | ||
| Fuck yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| It's not going to be like the first one, I don't think. | ||
| I don't think so. | ||
| Unless both guys just respect the power so much that they're both trying to... | ||
| Well, hopefully it'll be five rounds, too. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And if it's for the title again, I think Derek will get himself in really good shape. | ||
| And it'll be crazy. | ||
| Who the fuck knows? | ||
| But then again, that's like a big if to get past Stipe. | ||
| I mean, Stipe's the only guy who's been able to figure out how to avoid Francis' punches and get him down. | ||
| And that's big. | ||
| And I don't know. | ||
| I mean, I know he's an extreme couture now. | ||
| I'm sure they're working on takedown defense. | ||
| I'm sure they're working on the grappling. | ||
| Have to be. | ||
| That's the biggest thing, right? | ||
| If he can keep it on the feet, he's... | ||
| Stipe's a motherfucker on the feet, too, though. | ||
| He's good everywhere! | ||
| Stipe's good everywhere, you know? | ||
| I always felt like the Cormier fight, first of all, was the perfect punch when Cormier knocked him out. | ||
| It was perfect. | ||
| He didn't see it coming, in the pocket, from the clinch. | ||
| But also, I always wondered, like, how much of that KO was him recovering from the Francis fight? | ||
| Because the Francis fight was just a few months before that, and that was a brutal five-round war. | ||
| And Francis hit him with some big shots, man. | ||
| For sure. | ||
| Every shot is a big shot. | ||
| Yeah, it's just... | ||
| What do you think is the most brutal war that you've been in? | ||
| The hooker fight was a war. | ||
| Man, that's not good for you. | ||
| Hooker fight was a war. | ||
| Korean zombie fight was a war. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That was a while back, but that was a pretty bad one. | ||
| I probably took more damage in the hooker fight. | ||
| That was a crazy back-and-forth fight. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But I've never had headaches or anything after those fights. | ||
| Really? | ||
| The worst head trauma that I think I've had in my career, and I've been stopped a couple times from strikes, was in Dallas when Eddie Alvarez kneed me. | ||
| Yeah? | ||
| Yeah, that's the most symptoms I've had from a headshot like that. | ||
| That was the disqualification? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And I wasn't out or anything like that, but the symptoms the next day, because my wife drove there, and we drove back to Louisiana right after the fight the next day, and I was sick, car sick, the bumps in the road, the light was messing with me. | ||
| I said, this is for sure, you know, for sure from getting hit in the head. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| What do you plan on doing when you're done? | ||
| Do you have a plan? | ||
| Not really. | ||
| Keep growing the hot sauce. | ||
| I have an idea for a TV show that's kind of getting some traction. | ||
| I want to call it Food Fight and travel to different cities and train at gyms and then explore local restaurants because I like to cook and I'm a foodie. | ||
| I think it's a good idea. | ||
| I don't know if that's a career. | ||
| Why not? | ||
| We got to see how it goes, I guess. | ||
| Fuck, why not, man? | ||
| It sounds like a good idea to me. | ||
| No, I'm saying a success. | ||
| One season, if it doesn't do well, it's not a career. | ||
| Well, here's the thing, man. | ||
| Put it on YouTube. | ||
| Put it on YouTube, let it grow, and then sell it somewhere. | ||
| The thing about these shows is they don't give it a chance to find its place, find what it is. | ||
| And if you're doing a show like that, and you're a slave to the ratings... | ||
| If you put it up on YouTube, first of all, it's going to get an automatic audience because it's free, it's available, and it's you, and you're popular, and it's an interesting idea. | ||
| And it also doesn't have to be as structured. | ||
| When you do something for a network, there's a lot of pressure involved. | ||
| They have advertisers. | ||
| If they don't reach a certain number of ratings, a certain number of viewers, they have to cancel the show. | ||
| I've always been interested in real estate as well. | ||
| But I don't know. | ||
| I don't want to look too far at Plan B. I'm still focused on Plan A, but it's going to happen. | ||
| But do you think you're going to miss it? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That's the problem, right? | ||
| But if I can find some... | ||
| Because for me, Joe, I've self-evaluated myself. | ||
| And I'm a maniac, so it's probably wrong. | ||
| But I think I have to be in some kind of constant conflict. | ||
| Like whether that's preparing for a fight... | ||
| Or, you know, doing something with my foundation. | ||
| Like, I have to have a goal where I'm... | ||
| Something challenging. | ||
| Full steam in trying to get something done. | ||
| Otherwise, I'm self-destructive. | ||
| And what way? | ||
| I noticed that about myself. | ||
| I, uh... | ||
| Do dumb stuff. | ||
| I start drinking too much. | ||
| If I don't have something set for me to be working towards, I just feel like that's when I do dumb stuff. | ||
| Not huge things, but I just feel like that's where I start to get depressed. | ||
| I don't even know what to call it, but it's not a good place for me to be in. | ||
| I have to have something I'm working on. | ||
| And when I'm working on something, that's where I'm most comfortable. | ||
| So whether it's a fight, like I said, or the foundation. | ||
| I'm building a house right now. | ||
| I have to be all in on something. | ||
| It makes sense. | ||
| Some people are just built for high-pressure situations. | ||
| I have to. | ||
| And if I can find something that puts me in that position, and as much as fighting does, I'm going to be successful at that. | ||
| I don't know what that is yet, but when I find it, I'm going to be in conflict with that all the way. | ||
| And that's just going to find that, whatever that is. | ||
| But I'm still all in on fighting. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| What do you like cooking? | ||
| Louisiana foods, gumbos, jambalayas. | ||
| I mean, I cook anything, Joe. | ||
| Damn, we need a kitchen in this place. | ||
| That's what we need. | ||
| We need to have a special... | ||
| Because there's been a bunch of people that come in and say they like cooking. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Have a special segment. | ||
| Right before I flew out here, I made my wife meal prep for the week. | ||
| I did a lemon butter, caper fish, you know, a kale saute and all kind of stuff. | ||
| I get down, man. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Really? | |
| I get down in the kitchen, yeah. | ||
| Do you read books? | ||
| I watch a lot. | ||
| YouTube and stuff? | ||
| YouTube, also Food Network, just any food shows. | ||
| I've been a fan for a long, long time. | ||
| Dude, you need a food show. | ||
| Food fight. | ||
| I'm trying to do it. | ||
| I like it. | ||
| I like it. | ||
| But Louisiana food is your specialty? | ||
| Of course, yeah. | ||
| Because that's where you're from. | ||
| Creole food. | ||
| Yeah, like when you cook, are you a guy that, like, do you go to the supermarket and get all your prep in advance and you got like a shopping list and the whole deal? | ||
| Do you wear an apron? | ||
| Do you put an apron on? | ||
| No. | ||
| I do not. | ||
| What about one of them crazy hats? | ||
| If I had it, I'd wear it. | ||
| I'm not going to buy one, but I'm going to wear it. | ||
| A hat with a diamond in the middle? | ||
| There you go. | ||
| There you go. | ||
| Yeah, I get my list together, and then even when I'm cooking stuff that I don't know a whole lot about, like if I'm trying to do something new, I'll get the list, kind of read the instructions or the recipe, then I won't look at it again. | ||
| I kind of got an idea of how, okay, and then I just put my own twist on everything. | ||
| Add a little of this, a little of that. | ||
| Yeah, and I enjoy that, dude, getting all the stuff for the grocery store, going back home, prepping everything. | ||
| I enjoy that. | ||
| Do you have a specific way? | ||
| Do you like grilling? | ||
| Do you like frying things? | ||
| What's your favorite way of cooking? | ||
| I like grilling, baking stuff, but I like cooking down sauces and stuff like that. | ||
| Cooking down sauces, really? | ||
| Yeah, like meat and gravy over rice, cooking down something in a good... | ||
| So you get serious. | ||
| Oh yeah, come on, man. | ||
| You get serious. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Come on. | |
| That's a lot of work, man. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That's interesting. | ||
| So you say when you do meal prep, do you do this while you're training too, or do you not have the time? | ||
| When I'm in Florida, I do all my own cooking. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Really? | |
| Yeah. | ||
| So you don't have a meal prep company that you use? | ||
| I work with Lockhart. | ||
| He kind of gives me the pointers of my nutrition. | ||
| He helps you cut weight as well? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mm-hmm. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| But I cook all my own stuff. | ||
| He'll tell me, okay, you can have a four-ounce piece of salmon or something like that, and I'll just kind of prep it out for the week and keep it switched up. | ||
| So I'll cook salmon and chicken for the week, and that way I'm not eating salmon every day. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| And when you do something like that, do you have to be careful about sodium content and content of sugar and different things that you put in your... | ||
| Sugar, for sure. | ||
| Sodium, I don't... | ||
| I use salt and stuff during training camp. | ||
| I don't limit that at all. | ||
| You sweat so much. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Sugar, for sure. | ||
| Sugar, I do. | ||
| Are you one of those guys that eats six meals a day? | ||
| Yeah, usually five or six. | ||
| Breakfast, a light snack, lunch, a light snack, dinner. | ||
| So you're just constantly keeping food in your body, and how many times are you training a day when you're in camp? | ||
| Usually two times, or one time with a run, or one time with a swim. | ||
| I do active recovery stuff between, and like I said, I self-regulate my camp, so if I'm feeling a little run down or something's hurting, I'll pull back, but usually two times. | ||
| And do you use anything like a whoop strap or a monitor, heart rate monitor, anything like that? | ||
| So I started using a whoop strap, and I used it for a while, and then I was like, let me take this shit off because it's messing with my head. | ||
| Really? | ||
| Because work needs to get done. | ||
| I'm waking up, I'm not ready, but fuck, I got, this guy's, I got to get ready for this fight. | ||
| So it's saying you're not recovered enough. | ||
| Yeah, I'm not recovered enough, but I got to go to the gym and work. | ||
| What am I going to do? | ||
| So that was fucking with your head? | ||
| Well, not fucking with my head, but making me say, why am I wearing this and paying this membership whenever it's saying you're not ready, but I'm fucking, I'm getting ready. | ||
| I'm packing my bags. | ||
| I am ready. | ||
| I gotta go train. | ||
| I understand. | ||
| Some guys like using it particularly to see what your resting heart rate is and to make sure it's not elevated. | ||
| Steve Maxwell once told me that if you pay attention to your resting heart rate, And if it's 10 beats above what it normally is when you wake up in the morning, he's like, take the day off. | ||
| He goes like, your body's fighting some shit off. | ||
| It's going to be a lot of days off if I do that. | ||
| I can't afford to do that. | ||
| My resting heart rate gets pretty low, like 32, 34 in camp. | ||
| Well, that was the thing. | ||
| We were talking about how you had COVID. You didn't even know it. | ||
| I just found out right now. | ||
| Before we jumped on these mics, I was like... | ||
| He's got the antibodies. | ||
| You were negative for the disease, but you had the antibodies. | ||
| So you had it and beat it, and you didn't even know. | ||
| And I fought a month ago. | ||
| And she said it was pretty recent, the way the test came out, that strong of the lines and result. | ||
| So it was pretty recent. | ||
| And my last test was fight night, or the day before the fight. | ||
| So that was exactly one month ago. | ||
| So in the last three weeks or so, I've had it. | ||
| That's crazy. | ||
| Didn't even know. | ||
| Well, when you get off of a fight like that, what is your general routine? | ||
| Do you take a couple weeks off and just chill, eat gumbo, and have margaritas? | ||
| Yeah, and I'm never really off. | ||
| I trained yesterday. | ||
| I'm never really off. | ||
| I'm always training, but I'm not... | ||
| Focus on my weight. | ||
| I'm not running miles. | ||
| I'll run here and there. | ||
| But I eat. | ||
| Eat and drink whiskey, dude. | ||
| I'm from Louisiana. | ||
| I like it. | ||
| I like it. | ||
| So, I know they're talking about Conor again. | ||
| What has the UFC brought up to you? | ||
| What has the conversation been like? | ||
| So, Conor wants the trilogy. | ||
| And I do, too. | ||
| If they want to do it, let's do it. | ||
| Well, that's where the loot is. | ||
| Right? | ||
| That's where the loot is. | ||
| And that's pretty much it. | ||
| We're just trying to get the right deal structured. | ||
| You know, this is going to be a big fight. | ||
| Oh, my God. | ||
| He knocked me out. | ||
| I knocked him out. | ||
| Yeah, this would be one of the biggest fights ever. | ||
| The trilogy. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| For sure, one of the biggest fights this year, but maybe of all time. | ||
| Yeah, it could easily be one of the biggest fights of all time. | ||
| Just the hype machine behind Connors. | ||
| He's got such a cult of personality behind him. | ||
| He's such a powerful person. | ||
| Yeah, and I know Mayweather stopped him, but he's never been stopped. | ||
| It was a different kind of stoppage. | ||
| It was an exhaustion and overwhelmed with punches. | ||
| No, you wrecked him. | ||
| Stopped him. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| No ifs, ands, or buts. | ||
| Yeah, he was out. | ||
| Yeah, when you stepped in and hit him with that big right hook, it was like, whoa! | ||
| And when you dropped and then you put him away, that's it. | ||
| There's no ifs, ands, or buts about that. | ||
| Yeah, and when he went down, I got one more shot off that was a good one. | ||
| He was out, you know? | ||
| Yeah, you could see it. | ||
| So I think the trilogy makes a lot of sense and a lot of money. | ||
| So we're just trying to get the right deal structured and see what the time frame is. | ||
| Because for Connor, for a guy like Connor, you want fans in there, even if it's limited. | ||
| And right now, at the apex where they're set up in America, there's obviously no fans. | ||
| So where do you do that at? | ||
| Florida, baby! | ||
| What's the time frame? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Florida doesn't give a fuck. | ||
| Do it like three blocks away from an American top team. | ||
| Let's do it. | ||
| Like, they don't give a fuck. | ||
| You could do it in a goddamn arena in Florida. | ||
| Well, Canelo's fighting there, right? | ||
| He's fighting this weekend. | ||
| Is he fighting in an arena? | ||
| I think he's fighting in the... | ||
| A stadium? | ||
| Packed, probably, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't know. | |
| Packed! | ||
| I don't know what the limit is. | ||
| They don't have a fucking limit. | ||
| It's Florida. | ||
| But Dana's saying... | ||
| Well, it'd be interesting because Dana's saying he doesn't want to do it in a stadium or arena unless he can fully sell tickets or whatever. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| We just went to Abu Dhabi, so I'm thinking if me and Connor did have the trilogy, it might be in Abu Dhabi because they're allowed limited ticket sales or whatever. | ||
| Just do it in Miami. | ||
| I mean, fuck. | ||
| I train on the street. | ||
| I'll drive there. | ||
| That's what I'm saying. | ||
| They can do it. | ||
| That governor doesn't give a fuck. | ||
| So it's either going to be that or Nate Diaz, I think. | ||
| Mmm. | ||
| Now, how much time, if you want to be honest, how much time does a man need after a knockout like that? | ||
| Like, I was hearing that they were talking about Conor fighting you again in May or June, and I was like, that seems crazy to me. | ||
| It does. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| Every man is different, right? | ||
| What are they saying to you in terms of like when they want to schedule a fight? | ||
| So they haven't gave me a date. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| They haven't gave me a date. | ||
| Do they ask you like when, how much time you need? | ||
| What is the conversation like when something like this happens? | ||
| So I don't directly talk to them. | ||
| You have a manager. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Who's your manager? | ||
| They talk to my manager, Rob Rovetta. | ||
| And so? | ||
| And a guy named Wayne. | ||
| They kind of, we've kind of Try to put ourselves in the best position to sit at the table with them and have a legit conversation about getting this fight booked. | ||
| Like I said, we're trying to structure the right deal. | ||
| When it happens, I think the fight will be on. | ||
| Until then, we'll see. | ||
| So, because when I heard June or July, I was like, that just seems so soon. | ||
| That seems so soon for a bad KO like that. | ||
| Like a legit out cold KO. That's a concussion. | ||
| I mean, that's brain trauma. | ||
| You would think you want six months after something like that. | ||
| How often do you like to fight? | ||
| Especially now that you don't have the injury anymore and you're healed up from that and you're riding high right now. | ||
| Would you prefer maybe get the Nate Diaz fight in first? | ||
| No, because I think the longer removed from this last fight with me and Conor, the further we remove and it just takes away from the heat behind it. | ||
| I agree. | ||
| I think the only problem is that's the fight for the title. | ||
| You are, in my eyes, if Khabib steps down, you're the uncrowned champ. | ||
| So... | ||
| In true Thug Jitsu fashion. | ||
| Shout out to Eve Edwards. | ||
| I'm the only other guy that ever fight in the UFC under the Thug Jitsu banner. | ||
| And he was the uncrowned world champion. | ||
| Yeah, he was. | ||
| He was. | ||
| Yeah, when he knocked out Josh Thompson. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So I'm keeping Thug Jitsu alive. | ||
| All right, beautiful. | ||
| I love Eve. | ||
| This... | ||
| You're there for the real title, though, too. | ||
| And I want to know what the fuck is going to happen. | ||
| I really want to know if Khabib is going to step down, you should be the guy fighting for the title. | ||
| No ifs, ands, or buts. | ||
| Do you think it makes sense, though, for you to be fighting Conor for the title? | ||
| No. | ||
| I don't think so. | ||
| Do you think it should be Oliveira? | ||
| Conor's been away so long. | ||
| His last two fights at 155, he's lost. | ||
| So you can't put him in there for a title fight. | ||
| Right. | ||
| How could you justify doing that when you have guys like Oliveira? | ||
| But if Khabib retires and they say, hey, this is for all the marbles, you're not going to say no. | ||
| What are you going to say? | ||
| You're going to say, I'm a purist. | ||
| What are you gonna say? | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| If Dana pulls you aside, he goes, it doesn't have to make sense. | ||
| Of course. | ||
| Let's make some money. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| We're fighting for the belt. | ||
| Yeah, you have to fight for the belt. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| We'll see what happens, man. | ||
| I think it's going to be something soon, because we've got to keep it moving. | ||
| They're not going to sit forever chasing Khabib, and the division has to move on. | ||
| It is interesting that in the time where that low calf kick is coming to prominence, and this is also the time when Conor started moving away from the sport, took time off, fought boxing, then came back and had the fight with Khabib, and then came back and had the fight with Cowboy. | ||
| The calf kick was never in play in any of his fights. | ||
| But if you look at him stylistically, and this is one of the things, I love DC's detail that he does on ESPN. It's amazing. | ||
| But when he broke down Conor's heavy weight on the right leg, he leans in like this all the time. | ||
| He puts a lot of weight on that right leg. | ||
| When he paused in that southpaw stance, and because you fight southpaw a lot as well, it just opens up that kick so big. | ||
| It's such a big weapon. | ||
| And sometimes, like you said, that wide stance as well, it's just hard to check the kick from that wide stance. | ||
| Well, it's a crazy stance for everything other than calf kicks. | ||
| It's a great stance. | ||
| I mean, he's so good at moving in and covering distance with that stance. | ||
| It's very karate-like. | ||
| Great countering. | ||
| Like you see in karate, bounce back and forth to boom, attack. | ||
| And he has a hell of a left hand where he's knocked out a bunch of guys with that counter, with that pull too. | ||
| And that's what we worked on a lot that training camp with my boxing coach. | ||
| Daya Davis is that pull too. | ||
| Baiting him in to throw the pull too. | ||
| Yeah, the one time when you caught him several times, but one time when you caught him with that counter right hook and you pointed at him, you're like, ah, got you, bitch. | ||
| Yeah, that felt good. | ||
| I just felt like I was kind of grabbing the wheel and starting to let him understand, oh, this guy's changed. | ||
| This isn't the same fight. | ||
| DC also broke down at the end of the first round. | ||
| You kind of gently punched him in the stomach. | ||
| Just gently. | ||
| Like, hey man, good round. | ||
| Good game, buddy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good round. | |
| There was a little gamesmanship going on there. | ||
| I didn't do it in the moment. | ||
| I didn't do it like... | ||
| Like you're thinking about it? | ||
| Yeah, it just happened. | ||
| It was just natural? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| What did you say to him at the end of the first round? | ||
| You said something. | ||
| When we were hitting each other with the shoulders, I was having fun asking him. | ||
| I think I told him, how'd you like that clavicle? | ||
| Just messing around. | ||
| You know? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's a funny thing. | |
| How'd you like that clavicle? | ||
| How'd you like that clavicle? | ||
| Has anybody ever said that in life? | ||
| That might be the first time a human being has said, how'd you like that clavicle? | ||
| I delivered one. | ||
| I think that's probably... | ||
| He got me back better though. | ||
| You think of all the sentences that people have said throughout history? | ||
| How'd you like that clavicle? | ||
| Yeah, there might be like two or three other humans that have ever lived that have said those words together. | ||
| How did you like that clavicle? | ||
| Right? | ||
| Yeah, that's not a phrase you use often. | ||
| Very uncommon phrase. | ||
| How'd you like that clavicle? | ||
| Oh, man. | ||
| Then he started cracking me with him. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| He had more pop on his, for sure. | ||
| The cowboy fight, that was bananas. | ||
| He was able to do that kind of damage. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Broke his nose, maybe? | ||
| Yeah, for sure. | ||
| I mean, he was bleeding out of the nose right away. | ||
| That was nuts. | ||
| A lot of people didn't even understand what was happening. | ||
| I wonder why, because when he started hitting me with them, I just naturally felt like I just put my head on the other side. | ||
| Yeah, here it is. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He just said to him. | |
| Well, it's obviously something that he's practiced. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| One of the things about this fight is you look like the bigger guy. | ||
| I'm pretty sure I weighed more than him. | ||
| Yeah, you looked like it. | ||
| You looked more muscular. | ||
| He's muscular, but his waist is small. | ||
| He's just built different. | ||
| I'll probably walk around heavier than him. | ||
| Do you feel like now, after that first fight, that you got his number? | ||
| Or after the second fight? | ||
| It's fighting, man. | ||
| I don't think you ever really... | ||
| He'll make adjustments. | ||
| Yeah, he'll make adjustments. | ||
| It'll be a completely different fight. | ||
| Like, the first one and the second was different. | ||
| The third one's gonna be different as well. | ||
| Because I'm gonna make adjustments as well. | ||
| I gotta switch it up and keep things fresh and keep him guessing. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Now, ideally, when would you like the rematch? | ||
| June, July. | ||
| June, July. | ||
| Because I'm still, my wife's birthday's coming up, so we're going to go somewhere for a couple days. | ||
| Like, I'm still not, I will if I get the call and it's time to go to work, I will lock myself in training camp. | ||
| But I'm still not right now ready to just go back to Florida a month removed from the last fight and then lock down for another 10 weeks or whatever it is. | ||
| So we'll see. | ||
| If they call, I will do it, but I'd rather it be a little bit further. | ||
| Let me enjoy my life back home in Louisiana before I go right back out to Florida. | ||
| So if they call you and say, May, you will be doing it, but you'd rather June or July? | ||
| Yeah, I'll do it anytime. | ||
| I would be really shocked if they decided to do it in May. | ||
| Just that close after that KO, I just don't think that's wise. | ||
| Yeah, it is soon. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And obviously, I mean, honestly, it's not a lot of time to adjust and work on what he needs to work on for the calf kick or what I want to switch up, you know? | ||
| We're just right back in camp getting ready to fight. | ||
| We're not really... | ||
| Evolving outside of training camp. | ||
| For me, I learned things in training camp because it's just constant every day under pressure. | ||
| But it's the time between camps. | ||
| Like right now when I'm in the gym having fun, rolling and doing light kickboxing drills with my friends where I feel like the big gains are made when I'm having fun. | ||
| Because I'm kind of tunnel vision in training camp. | ||
| I'm showing up, all right, let's wrestle. | ||
| I'm not having fun and exploring different things. | ||
| So in between camps, that's when you're loose and you experiment and learn things? | ||
| Yeah, trying stuff I wouldn't normally do. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And do you ever find yourself doing stuff like that and then applying those in fights? | ||
| For sure. | ||
| Yeah? | ||
| Oh yeah, for sure. | ||
| All the time. | ||
| And I don't even think about it. | ||
| Like in the Dan Hooker fight, against the fence, having fun, messing with my guys, I always chop them with the inside of my hand, like from a clinch position. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mm-hmm. | |
| And I did it in the fight. | ||
| Didn't even think about it. | ||
| It just happened. | ||
| But that's from just having fun and, you know, fighting. | ||
| Now, when you look at your career, you've had this amazing career so far, and you're talking about maybe retiring somewhere around 35. Do you have specific milestones? | ||
| Like, I know you said you want to fight at 170. Do you have specific fighters in mind that you would like to fight both in lightweight and maybe in welterweight? | ||
| For sure, Diaz and welterweight. | ||
| Welterweight for him? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Other than that, I don't have any... | ||
| I mean, I fought them all. | ||
| I fought them all. | ||
| When Eddie was in the UFC, he was a guy I really wanted to fight. | ||
| Because I've watched him for so long. | ||
| I watched him back in... | ||
| When he was fighting in Japan, you know, I don't think it was Dream. | ||
| You know, he's had these crazy fights with Hellboy Hanson and stuff when I was a younger fighter watching this guy and like just blown. | ||
| I forgot about Hellboy Hanson. | ||
| Hell of a fighter, Southpaw, just always entertaining fights ahead of his time. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Wild dude. | ||
| Yeah, but like watching Eddie when I was younger, watching Eddie fight him and then being in a place in my career where Eddie was in the UFC in the same division, I'm like, fuck, this could happen. | ||
| You know, because I'm a fan of the sport as well. | ||
| And I know those are fun matchups. | ||
| Same with the Nate fight. | ||
| Now there's been a lot of talk about Chandler because of his big opening fight in the UFC. He's got this spectacular knockout of Hooker. | ||
| There's a lot of talk about him fighting for the title soon. | ||
| Do you think that when a guy comes in from another organization like that and just immediately jumps up to the top of the heap, obviously he earned a lot of respect with that Hooker knockout, but do you think it makes sense for him to fight for a title really quickly when there's all these guys like Justin, like you, like Charles Olivera in particular, that have had to pay their dues? | ||
| Dude, I'm not in a position to call it, but I just feel like he needs to cut... | ||
| And I respect the guy, and he's a great fighter, but he just needs to cut his teeth in the UFC a little bit more, a little bit longer. | ||
| Do you think that, for a marketing standpoint, to make a big-name fight for you and him, or... | ||
| Let's say they do Conor and you for the title, and you win, you got the title, and then they say, next up for you is Michael Chandler. | ||
| Do you think that makes sense, or do you think Chandler's got a... | ||
| Get a resume in the UFC first. | ||
| If he goes and beats Olivera and me and Conor fight, then it makes sense. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You beat two guys in the top five, top ten. | ||
| One guy's a fight away from a title shot. | ||
| I think that makes sense. | ||
| But you're coming in right now where he's at and beating a guy who's coming off of a loss. | ||
| I didn't finish him, but I beat him. | ||
| So you beat a guy who's coming off of a loss and then you're going to jump into a title fight. | ||
| I just think there's... | ||
| Higher ranked guys coming off of wins that put you in that position. | ||
| So when you look at guys outside of Conor, the guys that are interesting to you are Nate and Oliveira? | ||
| Oliveira for the title. | ||
| And just, you know, the hard style to figure out is just so good, man. | ||
| Everything's good with that guy. | ||
| Yeah, stand-up is as well. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Super technical. | |
| Yeah, those are three fights that in my head I think about, but I'm sure there's a bunch of fights, fun fights that could happen. | ||
| But those three are the ones I think are possibilities of what's next. | ||
| And when you say one day you want to fight at 170, do you think that's when you're 34? | ||
| Do you think you're going to finish your career at 170? | ||
| I think I'll be able to finish my career at 55, but I'm interested in going to 70, see how I feel. | ||
| And Nate's at 170. He said he's not fighting 55, so that's a little bit more motivation to go up there. | ||
| And it'd be cool to say, you know, at the end of my career that I fought in three different weight classes in the UFC. But I can maintain 55 for the rest of my career. | ||
| Now, do you think that you'll maintain a gym when you're gone and when you're out of the sport? | ||
| Do you think you'll coach? | ||
| Right now, where I'm at, that's not a passion of mine. | ||
| Not for people who don't know how to fight. | ||
| It's a passion for fighters, but you can't just have a fighters-only gym and make money. | ||
| You have to be established and then maybe build a team. | ||
| But I'm very passionate about helping that, talking and training and helping younger fighters who know about fighting. | ||
| But to start on a blank slate and teach the kids and teach people who don't know how to fight, that's not a passion of mine. | ||
| I'd love to be around the sport forever. | ||
| Like you said, what am I doing next? | ||
| I would love to commentate or get an opportunity to sit up at a desk and see how I do there. | ||
| You would be great at it. | ||
| Have they ever talked to you about it? | ||
| No. | ||
| Actually, yeah. | ||
| I got a story for that one. | ||
| I never even told anybody this, but when Paul Felder got his shot, he started on Dana White's Contender Series or looking for a fight. | ||
| He was one of the guys on there. | ||
| That's where he started. | ||
| I'm pretty sure that they offered me that spot to come in and give it a test run. | ||
| But I have a buddy of mine named Tim Metcalf who owns a couple restaurants. | ||
| He's just a good buddy of mine who was fighting a kickboxing fight. | ||
| He's 50-something years old just for charity and for fun. | ||
| And I told him I was going to corner him. | ||
| And I'd already told him I was going to corner him before the UFC called and offered me this sit-in gig as a commentator to see how I did. | ||
| And I think Paul Felder took it. | ||
| But you could do it still. | ||
| They haven't called back and offered me anything. | ||
| They will. | ||
| I think one of the cool things about the UFC is they do take guys like Dominick Cruz, take guys like DC, Paul Felder, and they give them careers as commentators, and I think they're the best commentators. | ||
| Dominick Cruz is fucking fantastic. | ||
| He's so good at breaking things down, and so is DC. And DC and I, when we do commentary, have more fun with that dude. | ||
| It's just all fun. | ||
| We're always having a great time. | ||
| Speaking the same language. | ||
| I would love for the opportunity like that just to see how I do. | ||
| So that would be some way you would stay in the sport? | ||
| Yeah, because I'm never going to be away from the sport, disconnected from it. | ||
| I'm going to be part of this sport until I die. | ||
| It's given me everything I have. | ||
| It's taught me a lot about myself. | ||
| It's put me in rooms with people like you sitting here. | ||
| I've learned so much through fighting that I want to give that back and be part of it as long as I can. | ||
| Do you feel now like you have a responsibility to be a role model or an example to young up-and-coming fighters? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Not... | |
| Because I used to do dumb stuff, man, all the time. | ||
| Maybe there's an example. | ||
| I'm flawed. | ||
| Yeah, but you're still very successful. | ||
| But in fighting, I feel like I have a lot to teach young fighters. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Just from bouncing back, from evolving, from staying true to the path and understanding yourself and finding out about yourself through... | ||
| Through the struggles of fighting, the good and the bad, I think I can help. | ||
| And I do that back home. | ||
| I have a lot of buddies who I talk to, and when they lose, I talk to them about my losses and just other things. | ||
| I have a lot to give, and I've learned a lot through fighting. | ||
| And I would love to shed some light on that with people and continue to do that. | ||
| But outside of fighting, I'm doing some awesome things with my foundation I'm very proud of, but I'm not trying to be a role model or anything like that outside of fighting. | ||
| Bouncing back from losses and teaching a fighter how to do that by the example of you bouncing back from losses I think is gigantic because it's one of the most devastating things for a fighter. | ||
| You train for weeks or months and then you have this big moment and then before you know it, it's over and you've lost or maybe you got stopped and then you have to figure out how to rebuild. | ||
| What's been the most difficult fight for you to bounce back from? | ||
| The first Conor McGregor loss was a big one, but my loss to Michael Johnson was painful, man. | ||
| Was that painful because you had already moved up to 55 and you had found the best weight class? | ||
| Yeah, and I started establishing myself. | ||
| I was on a streak, and I was just so confident I was going to win that fight. | ||
| And then to get stopped, that one just hurt because I had just built myself back up in a different weight class. | ||
| The Conor thing, when I lost to Conor at 45, the goal was to stay at 45 and be the world champ, or at least fight for the belt before I moved up. | ||
| But me and my coaches always knew that I had to move up. | ||
| I was just getting too heavy, and it was hurting me too much. | ||
| So when I lost to Conor, I realized I got two or three more fights to put myself back in that title position and we just can't do it. | ||
| So we went up to 55 and I kind of re-established myself and I got a streak going. | ||
| I don't know how many fights it was, but I beat some good guys and I went on a run and then I lost and it just put me back in that down on myself position that I was when I lost to Conor. | ||
| When you go back and look at the Johnson fight, is there anything that stands out that you did wrong? | ||
| Or anything that stands out in camp that you did wrong? | ||
| Like we talked about earlier, being in position when receiving a shot. | ||
| I was throwing an uppercut. | ||
| My feet weren't connected to the ground. | ||
| My chin was in the air. | ||
| And he spun my head. | ||
| He spun my brain with a good shot. | ||
| After that fight, I started being defensively responsible. | ||
| That was my goal. | ||
| Offense is there. | ||
| I know how to hurt people. | ||
| Now let me learn how to preserve myself and how to let the fights unfold and not just come out. | ||
| Because before I would come out like a drag racer. | ||
| I would just foot on the gas. | ||
| I'm going out or you're going out. | ||
| And it works most of the time. | ||
| But then sometimes it doesn't. | ||
| It's like flipping a coin. | ||
| And I just wanted to use my skills because I know I have all the attributes and the knowledge and understanding of breaking guys down and being a smart fighter and putting great performances together. | ||
| It's just to pull back the maniac inside and not step on the gas early. | ||
| And I think that fight really made me start worrying and focusing on defense. | ||
| Do you think in some ways that fight was actually important for your future? | ||
| They all are. | ||
| Everyone. | ||
| Everyone. | ||
| Every loss, every win. | ||
| It teaches you something different. | ||
| And that one was a huge one for being defensively responsible, like I said, for protecting myself in there. | ||
| And not that I didn't think before. | ||
| I know I'm a man. | ||
| I know I can go down. | ||
| You know, I've lost before that fight. | ||
| But it just really, really made me think about the longevity of fighting and protecting myself. | ||
| Yeah, that was... | ||
| About three years ago? | ||
| Four years ago? | ||
| Maybe 2015. Was it? | ||
| It was a while. | ||
| Maybe 2016 at the latest. | ||
| And, you know, when you see Michael Johnson is a very underrated fighter. | ||
| I mean, that war that he got in with Justin Gaethje, he had Justin in all kinds of trouble. | ||
| I was cage-side for that one, dude. | ||
| That was wild. | ||
| That was wild. | ||
| And Justin has kind of adjusted his style as well. | ||
| He used to be this guy that goes like a drag racer as well. | ||
| But then you saw the Ferguson fight. | ||
| He's really stepped away from that and was far more effective. | ||
| Just a lot more feints, a lot more movement, and looks for his moments. | ||
| The fight that he had with you was drag racing, right? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And I think kind of calming down and patience helped me in that fight in the later rounds, you know. | ||
| But that's another fight where my leg got torn up. | ||
| He partially tore my quad. | ||
| Really? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Jesus Christ. | ||
| He partially tore my quad. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Just from the leg kicks? | ||
| From inside leg kicks. | ||
| What do you do to recover from that? | ||
| I did a lot of physical therapy. | ||
| Surgery wasn't needed. | ||
| But dude, like right now, if I pick my leg up, you know how when you tear your bicep, it slides up? | ||
| So right now, when I do that on my leg, I have this big knot that slides up my thigh. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Really? | |
| With the motion on my leg, yeah. | ||
| Just from his shins? | ||
| Yeah, I guess like one of the muscles slid up. | ||
| Oh, shit. | ||
| That's crazy. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But it doesn't bother me at all. | ||
| Oh. | ||
| Not now. | ||
| I mean, it did. | ||
| Were they thinking about the surgery? | ||
| No, it was never even an option. | ||
| Oh, okay. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| A lot of physical therapy. | ||
| The big thing was getting a range of motion. | ||
| My heel to my butt. | ||
| Anytime I would pull on my heel to my butt, it felt like my leg was ripping. | ||
| My thigh was just so much pain. | ||
| So that was hard to get the range of motion back. | ||
| That dude can throw leg kicks from the weirdest positions. | ||
| He could be in a collar tie and he'll hit you with a leg kick. | ||
| Nobody does that. | ||
| Must have really flexible hips to do that, right? | ||
| To whip it that close. | ||
| And with reckless abandonment for his own health. | ||
| Especially inside leg kicks are easy to check and very devastating when they do get checked. | ||
| And he just doesn't care. | ||
| No, he's a wild dude. | ||
| He doesn't even set it up. | ||
| He'll just throw kicks by themselves. | ||
| He kind of established what he was going to do before he ever got to the UFC. He's like, I'm going to get knocked out. | ||
| He's like, I'm going to be the most exciting fighter in the sport. | ||
| And I'm going to win some. | ||
| And when I lose, I'm going to get knocked out. | ||
| Like, wow. | ||
| Who the fuck says that? | ||
| A maniac. | ||
| I'm tuning in when he fights every time. | ||
| Fuck yeah! | ||
| Fuck yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| And that's a possibility too. | ||
| You know, if he gets some wins in, we could fight again, me and him. | ||
| Yeah, for sure. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, without a doubt. | ||
| I mean, his fight with Khabib was very interesting. | ||
| In the moments when they were standing, it was very interesting. | ||
| It was interesting watching how much pressure Khabib is putting on him. | ||
| Because you never see Dustin moving that much, just trying to get away from him, chopping at the legs. | ||
| But he was having some success with that leg kick. | ||
| It looked like the pressure too gassed Justin a little bit. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Like, I thought he looked winded early in that fight. | ||
| It could be the pressure of the fight. | ||
| It could be the pressure of the movement. | ||
| It could be... | ||
| I mean, he can't breathe out of his nose. | ||
| I mean, you hear him talk. | ||
| He's talking like this. | ||
| There's no fucking way that nose works. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, he has to breathe out of his mouth. | ||
| And I talked to him about that. | ||
| He's like, you know, when he's done fighting, he'll get that fixed. | ||
| But not until then. | ||
| But I feel like for fighters, not being able to breathe out of your nose is such a huge disadvantage. | ||
| You know? | ||
| Even to this day, my right nostril is blocked. | ||
| Even after two surgeries. | ||
| Really? | ||
| Just get in there and poke around, clean it out like they did your hip? | ||
| I have to pull my skin on my face to let the air pass. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Really? | |
| Oh, Jesus. | ||
| I don't know what's going on with that. | ||
| Not good. | ||
| Not good. | ||
| It's not COVID for sure. | ||
| It's not COVID yet. | ||
| They checked. | ||
| Yeah, it's... | ||
| Dude, I think Justin and Chandler is a great fight. | ||
| Fuck yeah. | ||
| That's what I would make. | ||
| I think that is the fight to make. | ||
| And Justin's one fight removed, you know, that'll be the next fight from a title fight. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| If Chandler wins, then, you know... | ||
| As a purist, what I would like to see is you and Oliveira for the title. | ||
| As a person who wants to see you make a fuckload of money, I want to see a rematch with Conor. | ||
| That's what I want to see. | ||
| July 4th weekend. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Woo! | |
| Fans. | ||
| Come on. | ||
| In Florida. | ||
| Just COVID everywhere. | ||
| Who gives a fuck? | ||
| By then, maybe everybody will be vaccinated. | ||
| I bet Ireland to Miami is an easy flight. | ||
| Quick shot. | ||
| Five hour flight. | ||
| He'll go over in his boat. | ||
| Let's go. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Call Dana up. | ||
| Just have people cooking for him and shit. | ||
| Meditating on the dock. | ||
| Yeah, pulling in his boat. | ||
| Yeah, I think that's the fight for money. | ||
| I mean, if you want to be wise. | ||
| And with that, just being a man who... | ||
| I have a family to take care of. | ||
| And of course, I want to make as much money as I can in the sport. | ||
| But I also want to be the world champion. | ||
| Those are goals before I'm done fighting. | ||
| I was an interim world champion, but that's going to be an asterisk next to that forever because it's interim. | ||
| Even though I beat a current champ, or at the time he was a current champ. | ||
| It's just a lot of great area with that stuff. | ||
| I want to be undisputed world champion. | ||
| No argument. | ||
| And I can walk away a champion forever. | ||
| And what I originally set out to do is be the world champion. | ||
| I'll hit that goal. | ||
| But I have a family to take care of, and I can't fight forever. | ||
| So, you know, it's just a lot of pulling me in different directions mentally with that stuff. | ||
| Yeah, if they gave you the option, fight for the title or fight a rematch with Conor. | ||
| Fight for the title versus Oliveira, rematch versus Conor. | ||
| Would you have to think about it? | ||
| Yeah, I'm thinking about it right now because I knew you were about to ask me. | ||
| I'm like, shit. | ||
| Let me talk to you. | ||
| Fight Conor. | ||
| Take the Conor fight. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You're going to fight for the title again. | ||
| Yeah, well, go out there, beat Conor, then the next fight is the title fight, no doubt about it. | ||
| 100%, yeah. | ||
| And how often do you put yourself in a position for a trilogy of that magnitude? | ||
| You know, it might happen once in your career, it might never happen. | ||
| And for fighters and for fans alike... | ||
| It's just an amazing, interesting encounter. | ||
| It's an amazing opportunity. | ||
| The fact that he stops you in the first fight, you stop him in the second fight, Jesus Christ. | ||
| I mean, that's just... | ||
| And then, because of who Conor is, as just this larger-than-life personality, it makes it enormous. | ||
| And if Conor can convince people that he's figured it out, and he's more dedicated than before, and he can convince people that. | ||
| Oh, yeah. | ||
| And people love a comeback story. | ||
| Fuck yeah, they do. | ||
| And... | ||
| Have that shit in a giant arena in Florida? | ||
| I'm in! | ||
| I'll sign the contract right now. | ||
| Come on! | ||
| Jamie's gonna fly out too. | ||
| He's gonna be there. | ||
| Look at him. | ||
| He's excited. | ||
| His eyebrows are going up. | ||
| So, listen, man. | ||
| Thanks for being here. | ||
| I appreciate you. | ||
| I'm a big fan. | ||
| Thank you, man. | ||
| Watched you fight from the time you're in your early 20s, man. | ||
| It's been amazing watching you mature and grow and become who you are now. | ||
| It's awesome to see and best of luck to you, sir. | ||
| Thank you, Joe. | ||
| I appreciate that, man. | ||
| My pleasure, brother. | ||
| And thanks for the hot sauce. | ||
| Tell people where they can buy this. | ||
| They can buy that at heatness.com. | ||
| If you want to check out more info, go to diamondpoirier.com. | ||
| That's my website. | ||
| Heat-un-ist. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Heatness. | |
| Heatness. | ||
| Heatness.com. | ||
| Stay spicy, kids. |
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