Oct. 3, 2025 - The Joe Rogan Experience
02:33:42
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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unidentified
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Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. | |
| The Joe Logan Experience. | ||
| Train by day, Joe Relogan podcast by night. | ||
| All day. | ||
| Alright. | ||
| MVP in the house. | ||
| The most enigmatic, difficult dude to solve in all of MMA. | ||
| That's you, man. | ||
| Bro, you know what? | ||
| I want to start simply because you what you have done for me specifically. | ||
| I get a lot of criticism. | ||
| A lot of hate. | ||
| And especially obviously jumping when I first got into the into the MMA world. | ||
| New to me. | ||
| And I'm just like, okay, let me just be myself, do my thing. | ||
| First fight goes well, land this crazy kick, go viral, and I get nothing but hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. | ||
| But then having prominent figures like yourself that are constantly have been champion my style, uh champion championing the points element of things. | ||
| I just appreciate you for that. | ||
| Oh, my pleasure, brother. | ||
| I appreciate you. | ||
| It's almost like we called for you. | ||
| Because there was a time in the early days of MMA, like in the early 2000s, where I was like, this is what's missing. | ||
| There's what's missing is point fighters. | ||
| And people would like mock me. | ||
| I'd be like, no, no, no, no, no. | ||
| Like, I've sparred with these dudes. | ||
| You can't hit them. | ||
| It's a different thing. | ||
| I'm like, they have a very specific skill, that skill of closing distance and being elusive. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| It's not like any other sport. | ||
| It's almost like fencing an MMA combined or in martial arts combined. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, yeah. | |
| I always tell people that like most of the combat sports in terms of kickboxing, the full contact side of things is more to do with the there's a fixation on power, not for people else. | ||
| Whereas our element is just the speed element. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Getting in and getting out. | ||
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unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| Getting touch. | ||
| Like you said, the tag kind of feel fencing. | ||
| Similar kind of footwork and yeah, just not many people had decided to cross over to any kind of full contact world, really. | ||
| Um, and he had the likes of Wonder Boy Thompson. | ||
| Raymond Daniels. | ||
| Raymond Daniels. | ||
| You and Raymond were the most prominent ones in him and glory. | ||
| Yeah, of course, you in the well he did a little bit of MMA. | ||
| A little bit of MMA. | ||
| But you're more prominent in MMA. | ||
| But the the point was that this was a an element that when I remember when I was doing Taekwondo and I would fight in tournaments, I would occasionally fight in point fighting tournaments. | ||
| I'd go, and if you I'd fight a guy like Mafia Holloway or one of these guys that were really good, I'm like, this is crazy. | ||
| This is such a crazy skill. | ||
| Very different. | ||
| And when I saw MMA where a lot of guys were just like like real flat footed and waiting, I'm like, there's a giant opening here. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| And then you came along. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| And you really were the proof of concept. | ||
| And I was like, okay, this is it. | ||
| You get a world champion at that who figures all the other stuff out because essentially striking is striking. | ||
| You know, you can learn throwing leg kicks differently. | ||
| You can learn you know different stances and movements. | ||
| The grappling is the big heat. | ||
| That's the big hurdle. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| But once you can solve the takedown defense and some of the grappling hurdles, and you've got actually got some mission victories, then you got a real problem because every fight starts standing up. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| Every fight starts standing up with a big ass fucking cage. | ||
| It's a big ass cage. | ||
| And I see guys like Kevin Holland, like he's like, what the fuck do I do with this guy? | ||
| He hated every moment of it. | ||
| I could feel it. | ||
| But that's that's just part of my style is that kind of frustrating people because it's just so unfamiliar. | ||
| For like you, for someone like yourself, you would kind of be in there, whether you're successful or not, you'd understand what's happening, and you'd you'd be calm enough still to be like, okay, I need to know how to figure this out because I've I've experienced this before. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| For someone that's never experienced, and because there's few of us in the MMA world, who do you go to to train? | ||
| You there's very few people that are really good at that. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| And like I said, Wonderboy Thompson. | ||
| Yeah, he you know, friend of mine, uh, obviously, me and him and you know, just us getting on, and he's even said people have contacted him, like, oh yeah, I can fight an MVP, like I want to train with you. | ||
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unidentified
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He's like, I want MVP to win, so he's like you, bro. | |
| Can't do anything. | ||
| Well, it's it's good for the sport. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| It really is because you know, like, think about there's certain techniques just come along like the calf kick. | ||
| And all of a sudden, like, how is this people have been kicking legs for so long? | ||
| How is this kicking a different spot on the leg kind of revolutionized? | ||
| We need to see that. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| And I think the introduction of you is gonna make a lot of these guys that are like high-level point guys go, hmm. | ||
| There's a there's a spot there for me. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, yeah. | |
| Because the open look, there's always an advantage in the fact that every round starts standing up. | ||
| As long as you have takedown defense, every round starts in your realm. | ||
| And your realm is different than all the other stand-up realms. | ||
| It's totally different. | ||
| And if a guy is a plodding guy and he thinks, oh, this is my world, like that's how your world. | ||
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unidentified
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| It's not your it's your world against someone who agrees to fight the way you fight. | ||
| A hundred percent. | ||
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unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| And I always say that is because I, you know, I've caught come up against guys and was like, man, he can he's got big big hit with a big punch on him. | ||
| And I agree. | ||
| I'm like, yeah, I get it, but power only means something if you land. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And my whole element is like not being touched. | ||
| Well, it's also fucking with people's heads. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| One of the things he did during the Jared Cannonier fight after you hit him, he's like, calm down. | ||
| I was like, oh no. | ||
| Because you imagine just getting popped, your eyes are runny, your nose hurts, and this dude's standing in front of you going, calm down, calm down. | ||
| I was like, no, he did it. | ||
| Oh no. | ||
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unidentified
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But that's it's psychological war, but that's the end. | |
| That's obviously that's kind of like part of my personality coming out and the entertaining side of me. | ||
| And a lot obviously added to the criticism that I would get, which of how I would make my opponents feel in terms of their frustration, and then obviously the antics on top of it. | ||
| So many people that the the main term that came with me was like, Oh, he's fighting cans. | ||
| He's fighting cans. | ||
| My whole career was he's fighting cans, like he can't. | ||
| But I always say to people, is I'm just making it seem a lot less difficult than it actually is. | ||
| These guys are super talented fighters. | ||
| Yeah, I'm just not fighting on the same wavelength and timing as them. | ||
| As you said, these guys that plod around, they're so used to it. | ||
| So when they're fighting other people, it looks very even. | ||
| And when they're fighting somebody that they just can't get their hands on, yeah, and they're getting frustrated on top of that. | ||
| So this the mental side, the physical side. | ||
| And you have a lot of power, so there's consequences. | ||
| Yeah, there's consequences. | ||
| It's not like you're tip, you know, tippy tappy, pick patting them every now and then. | ||
| Like the cyborg fight was one of the craziest knockouts in all of MMA history. | ||
| And you know, one thing actually wanted to do, I actually brought some gifts for you. | ||
| But one of the things I actually wanted to bring for you. | ||
| Don't tell me you brought a piece of his head. | ||
|
unidentified
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No, no. | |
| He wouldn't let me have that, so uh I have to leave it. | ||
| I actually wanted to. | ||
| We we basically had a poke ball come, it's very specific one, and they messed up on delivery, but I'm gonna get it to you in Vegas. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So when we go over to the I'm just making sure I I get that to you because again, it's something that you've spoken about with me, and it's a big it's a big part of my my history uh in MMA, just that that that cyborg fight. | ||
| So that was the most gruesome injury I've ever seen. | ||
| I've seen a lot of broken bones. | ||
| I've never seen someone with a caved-in head. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| The doctors were saying that um what we were hearing back from they said he's only ever seen that in a car accident, never in MMA. | ||
| Yeah, that is so crazy. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| And that was his last fight. | ||
| And I know after the fight he was like, we're gonna fight again. | ||
| The doctor's like, hey. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| Because I think he was I'm so someone sent me something where he was supposed to fight again. | ||
| And then I'm not sure what happened there, but yeah, he didn't. | ||
| It's crazy. | ||
| How could you fight again after that? | ||
| What made it? | ||
| I felt very bad, obviously, at the time as well. | ||
| But then I didn't see him for another two years. | ||
| Boom. | ||
| That was just and the sound, the sound of that was it's only when I watched it back. | ||
| Give me the sound, Jamie. | ||
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unidentified
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It's hard to breathe. | |
| So just about everything you need in a fight, you lose off the liver shot. | ||
|
unidentified
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It came to the church, and it's over. | |
| Oh, it sounds like a baseball bat on a pumpkin. | ||
| Yeah, you know what I mean? | ||
| Just whop. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| Oh, yeah, it was different. | ||
| Thing is, I didn't know. | ||
| I I keep telling everybody, I didn't know what happened because obviously they're like, you celebrated like threw the poker ball at him afterwards. | ||
| I did not know. | ||
| You thought it was just a knockout. | ||
| Yeah, there's a knockout, and obviously, custom kicking his legs. | ||
| I'm I'm assuming maybe I broke his nose or because I can see he's not out, but he's in pain, it must have must be something like that. | ||
| It's only the next day that I found out. | ||
| But yeah, it was it was a bad one. | ||
| That was a bad one. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| So it was a very bad one. | ||
| And the thing is, like I said, I met him. | ||
| I want to say like two, two and a half years later down the line. | ||
| Obviously, this clip's just been going crazy online and so on and so forth. | ||
| And I just I felt awkward. | ||
| I didn't want to, but I also he had come over for another MMA show, but with one of his students. | ||
| But one of his students was fighting one of my teammates. | ||
| And at the beginning, my coaches were like, oh, do you want to, you know, go and at some point go and see him and say hello or I was like, uh yeah, please, like I'd love to, because that's the last time I saw him. | ||
| The fight happens, and my teammate is known for his leg locks and breaks his his student's leg. | ||
| So I'm like, fuck sake. | ||
| Oh god. | ||
| So now I was like, do you do you want to go and see him? | ||
| I was like, yeah, yeah, I I'd I'd try. | ||
|
unidentified
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I just I just felt like I needed to. | |
| Sure. | ||
| And I kind of walk into the room, his guy's obviously upset for losing his like getting sorted out by the medics, and he's sitting there, just looks at me and I'm like, hey. | ||
| Oh, what do you say? | ||
| Like unlucky. | ||
| Uh like I just like he's like shook my hand, like I could just feel the energy wasn't right. | ||
| This wasn't the right timer, but I didn't know when I'd get to see him again. | ||
| And I haven't uh again since so yeah, I just felt it's just one of those things. | ||
| I just felt bad. | ||
| Yeah, but what do you do? | ||
| There's nothing. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| What do you do? | ||
|
unidentified
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What do you do? | |
| You guys get a broken leg, you broke his head. | ||
|
unidentified
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It's just stay the fuck away from you and your crew. | |
| I mean, at least you're nice about it and friendly, yeah. | ||
| It is what it is. | ||
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unidentified
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| It's such an interesting because you've trained with um Marius, uh, my coaches, one of my coaches, Marius. | ||
| Uh, and um obviously he says to say hello. | ||
| Tell him I said hi. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, yeah. | |
| He says he trained with you guys. | ||
| I think you guys trained for about four years with Eddie Bravo as well. | ||
| I've known him for 20 years. | ||
| Crazy, crazy. | ||
| Crazy. | ||
| And that's obviously that's a big part of my my history now with them, them two, the brothers, uh Alexis and Marius. | ||
| Were you at the gym when when Lee? | ||
|
unidentified
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When Lee Murray was no, no, no, I was just after. | |
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Luckily, but interestingly though, when I was in at the time that I he was around, uh, I was still very like heavily focused on the points fighting, kickboxing. | ||
| So but a friend of mine was training at shoot, and he was like, You need to come and train with these guys, like these guys are serious. | ||
| And but for me, MMA was just never gonna be a thing that I'd ever see myself in. | ||
| Really? | ||
| I've always seen it as I guess like your average fan back in the day and some fans now of like ask brutal man. | ||
| Like I and again, I'm a points fighter, like I I don't see myself being good enough to or tough enough to fight these guys. | ||
| Like what changed? | ||
| Obviously, my had a successful career in the kitboxing, but it didn't really go anywhere. | ||
| It's like you're fighting the same people over like the amount of times me and Raymond have fought, and we were like the some of the top two guys, like we've we're both in the competition, like we both walk in the room, everyone was like, Oh my god, are these guys gonna fight? | ||
| Like, right, we were the guys, but I'm fighting the same people, and it's just like everything, everyone hoping that you're gonna lose, or your fans are kind of like supporting you, and then I come back to reality, come off a plane, I traveled, I fought all the you know, the whole week or whatever, won a world title, and I've come back home and then nothing. | ||
| Yeah, I come back home to just me being myself, just me being me, which I'm okay with. | ||
| But there's no recognition, there was no sponsorship. | ||
| I you I paid to do everything, and as I I loved it, and if I could choose the route again, I'd still do it because I absolutely loved it. | ||
| But there comes a point, I'm getting older, and it's comes a point where I have to start and I'm now starting to uh but at the time I'm I'm a kid, but now I get to the point where I have to work and so on. | ||
| Now it's like I can't do this forever, but at the same time, I know I want to compete for a living. | ||
| I just didn't know what in what so then I'd said to myself, okay, cool. | ||
| Let me I need to take a step away from this. | ||
| I know while I'm in this, this will be a distraction. | ||
| I'm not gonna be able to focus on things because another competition that I'm gonna want to win is gonna come up and it's gonna turn my attention. | ||
| So I said, look, I'm gonna I said to everyone I'm retired. | ||
| I thought let me say it to as many people as possible, so then it's hard for me to turn back on it. | ||
| So I'm just like, yeah, okay, yeah, I'm retiring now, not fine again, yeah. | ||
| This is my last fight, da da da da. | ||
| And I said, cool. | ||
| Started to go around looking at boxing gyms, looking at full contact kickboxing, looking at MMA gyms, and the first gym actually went to was uh in Miami, Coconut Creek, uh American Top Team. | ||
| Ah, because my sister uh used to live in that area, because I got uh siblings over in America as well. | ||
| So came out there and I in my head at the time, there's only few people from the UK that was doing anything in MMA. | ||
| So when I was like, maybe I'm gonna try MMA, I was like, obviously I have to go to America, and I'm lucky enough to have siblings that live over there, so I'm good. | ||
| So get to America, get to American top team, I go in there, I'm like, this is where I'm gonna start. | ||
| Like I've met a couple of the coaches and just kind of just like general chitcher. | ||
| I didn't tell them who I was or anything, just kind of saw the vibe, the the facilities are amazing. | ||
| I was like, yeah, this is this is gonna be my new life. | ||
| And then I get back to England and good friend of mine, Marvin Francis was like just in case, just have a look at some gyms over here. | ||
| You don't know. | ||
| Just what before because obviously I got things to sort out before I can just make the full move. | ||
| So while you're doing that, let's have a look at a couple of gyms. | ||
| And we did some research, we went to a couple of the Gracie gyms, went to a few other gyms that I was around, then I found London shoot fighters. | ||
| I hadn't done any research, and at this time I personally wasn't watching MMA at all. | ||
| The only person I knew. | ||
| What years this? | ||
| Uh so I'd have been I'd have been what, 24, so what's that about 12, 13 years back. | ||
| And I was trying to say the only guys in the UK would have been Brad Pickett was fighting. | ||
| Uh Solid Fighter. | ||
| Solid Fire. | ||
| Michael Bispin was fighting. | ||
| But nobody had like achieved anything of big quality from there. | ||
| Everything everything was in America. | ||
| Um was Bisping still living in England or had he moved to America? | ||
| I think he was still in the yeah, I think he was still in England. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| Um, but again, I was only learning it as I got more into it. | ||
| But initially I just thought I made the decision without actually researching anything, which is very much like me. | ||
| I'll just jump in head first. | ||
| Figure it. | ||
| Figure out afterwards, right? | ||
| So I literally I said to myself, okay, cool. | ||
| I've got to London shoot fighters, and the only person I knew was Chuck Liddell that's I've actually seen. | ||
| And I just was like, this guy was just knocking people out. | ||
| I was like, that's I could relate to that as like he's a striker. | ||
| Everything else I didn't really care for. | ||
| I was typical fan. | ||
| Like when they got on the floor, I was like, ugh. | ||
| Fuck's sake, get stand up, stand them up. | ||
| So and never been to a show, anything, but these are he's a guy that I like watching, and then I want to I made a decision I want to do it. | ||
| Cool. | ||
| Uh started in London shoot fighters, and for some reason the guys there, I don't know what I've I've had good coaching. | ||
| Um I'm outbringing, so I can I feel like I can hear sense when I've gone to a place, I'm I'm hearing how they're coaching and what they're saying, and I'm like, it just makes sense to me. | ||
| I was like, cool, I'm gonna start here. | ||
| I still want to go to America, but I'll start here for now and then just see where it goes, and then I just fell in love with the place. | ||
| Was that the first time you did any grappling at all? | ||
| Any grappling at all. | ||
| Wow, didn't do any I I all I was doing every day was applauding people because I was tapping every two seconds. | ||
|
unidentified
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I'll just say every two seconds frustrating, right? | |
| But I loved it though. | ||
| Oh, you have a good mindset. | ||
| Yeah, it was it was weird, like I kind of enjoyed the fact that like I'm looking at this guy like if I saw you on the street in my head, right? | ||
| I'm destroying you, yeah. | ||
| But this guy just twisted me up into a pretzel. | ||
| It's a humiliating feeling. | ||
| Oh, so humiliating, but I again I crave I if I go back to the point side, from about like you s you met my brother outside. | ||
| Uh Him, he's my he's the oldest uh of my siblings, uh, sorry, of my the the boys. | ||
| Uh my sister's the oldest, and it's my brother. | ||
| I've got two other brothers than me. | ||
| And at the time, we were fighting around, but they were winning everything. | ||
| I used to get my ass kicked everywhere we went. | ||
| And this is every single weekend. | ||
| That's crazy. | ||
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| Like he was for me, he was the more talented one. | ||
| But I mean, like every single weekend we're driving to Birmingham to Manchester to Scotland. | ||
| We did trips everywhere. | ||
| Like my dad started the gym, he was going around everywhere. | ||
| And every weekend, it's like three hours that way, four hours this way, this coming back, and I'm just gonna boss lip and they're just the medals are just like cling cling cling cling cling. | ||
| Like they got all the medals, and they're talking about how they spin kick some guy and they did this, and I'm just like, yeah, yeah, cool, cool story. | ||
| And I got destroyed for five years, and when I is that I got to a qualifiers uh in Birmingham, uh it was an Iaska uh qualifiers, and I I managed to win that, which that in itself was success for me. | ||
| Like, I'm like, oh man, I I qualify to go to the world championships. | ||
| I've already done well. | ||
| Everyone else was there, so they were supposed to do it, like they're good enough to have the expectation of themselves. | ||
| So then I get to the world championships, and the way they seed fighters in the US was very different to the UK at the time. | ||
| So I had one fight, another fight, another fight, and I'm winning, and I'm like happy, and I must be in like the finals already. | ||
| And then they're like, okay, bring the Cedars fighters in, and then like a shitload of fighters joined your your mat. | ||
| And I'm like, oh my dad would tell me, he's like, Yeah, I think you're in a in the in the semis, I think you're in the quarters, and then he was like, Bro, just keep fighting. | ||
|
unidentified
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He couldn't work out. | |
| I don't know. | ||
| Seriously, I genuinely don't remember. | ||
| I just remember just feeling tired, and I I didn't understand why this was still going on because in the competitions, three, four fights you're in a final. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And I I was at least ten fights deep, and still felt like I was fighting. | ||
| All in a day? | ||
| In a day. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| So there's uh again, the ISCO um world champions in Orlando, Florida, and it's it's a it's it was the big at the time, the biggest uh points kickboxing competition. | ||
| So there's thousands and thousands of competitors, kids, adults doing forms, doing you know, catters and all this stuff, and then uh you had the points fighting, the light contact fighting, and that was it. | ||
| Um yeah, it just all day, and then it literally got to this like okay. | ||
| Uh I won a fight, and the guy was like, Okay, you're in the final next. | ||
| The referee said that to me, and I was like, Oh, like I can't believe I'm in the final. | ||
| And this guy was very good. | ||
| I can't remember his name, we was young. | ||
| I was I think it's like 12 or 11 at the time, and I won the fight. | ||
| I just claps to my like my my back. | ||
| I was just like, oh my god, everyone ran in there because again, nobody expected that of me. | ||
| And I remember going in there, the trophy itself was six foot tall. | ||
|
unidentified
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And in my head, I was like, I just want one in my house. | |
| And I managed to to win that. | ||
| But something that competition clicked. | ||
| So all the times I was getting beaten up, all the competitions I was getting destroyed. | ||
| I know it wasn't even like close. | ||
| I was getting destroyed. | ||
| I won, I won this competition, and I went back home, and every person I used to get destroyed by, I was smoking them. | ||
| Like something was different. | ||
| Instantaneously. | ||
| There's a weird shift that just went click. | ||
|
unidentified
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Wow. | |
| And all the kicks that would I'd walk into face first. | ||
| I was like, oh, actually I can do this. | ||
| I was like, Wow, you entered into the matrix. | ||
| I'd literally, I just I to the point to the point where I saw when when I went back home, it's like 12 and for the year of that circuit, I I didn't lose a fight. | ||
| And this is from this is from getting whooped. | ||
| It's crazy. | ||
| And this is what I'm fighting, all the same guys that I grew up. | ||
| And they must have been like, what the fuck? | ||
| Yeah, what the hell's going on here? | ||
| Then the when I was 13, I asked my dad, I was like, can I please fight in the seniors? | ||
| And the seniors are 18 plus. | ||
| And he was like, and he said it to me, he said it to me later on. | ||
| He was like, as a coach, I knew you could, as your dad, I was like, hell no. | ||
| And I begged him, like every competition we got, I was like, please can I find the seniors, please? | ||
| And there was a big uh British championship competition, and I was I begged, I was like, please he was like, you can do this one. | ||
| And again, I don't think he remembered these guys are 18 plus but all different sizes as well. | ||
| I d I don't think he knew I'd do well, but not as well as he I did. | ||
| So I won the my senior division for my weight. | ||
| Um and like I said, these are big men. | ||
| But the problem is whoever when you win in this competition specifically, when you win your grand championship. | ||
| You go into the grand championships, and I'm like, Dad, you gotta let me go. | ||
| He's like, No, that's this is different now, because they're they're the winners of their division. | ||
| This is that was your weight division. | ||
| Now these guys are the winners of their own weight that you can't do this. | ||
| I begged him. | ||
| And I beat everybody and got to the final, and the final was really, really close, and I felt like I got robbed, and even my dad was like, he could never tell me no after that because I destroyed some of the best fighters on the in that in the UK at the time. | ||
| Do you think it was a confidence thing of having gone through that grueling tournament and proven that you could do it, and now you didn't have doubts in your mind anymore? | ||
| Or was it you had just seen so many different high levels of competition that like maybe your own expectations had risen? | ||
| Like what what was it that made that instantaneous shift? | ||
| Because it's one thing to go and compete and do really well all of a sudden and like now I'm competing, but then you went and you were doing it against people that were normally beating you and you're fucking them up. | ||
| That's cra that's a that's like a 50% shift. | ||
| That's a jump shift. | ||
| I would say one thing obviously I hated losing as anybody would, especially as a kid. | ||
| Um we also, and I think it's for all of us, we wasn't allowed, so a lot of the kids would fight first and then the seniors would fight, and but because we all traveled down together, we stayed the whole competition until the seniors were finished so we can drive back. | ||
| A lot of the other kids were messing around when obviously we like this guys that I've spent I've I've known since I was eight years old that I'm still good friends with now because we were the kids like playing with each other afterwards, like just being cool. | ||
| But my dad was like, no, no, no, you represent me. | ||
| You sit down and watch. | ||
| So as much as we could play a little bit, like when he wasn't looking, but we have to try and get back to the mats and make sure we were watching people. | ||
| And I've I feel like I'm a visual learner, and I feel like that helped me become that visual learner. | ||
| As much as I was getting my ass kicked, I was also spending time watching amazing athletes at the time. | ||
| I think it's an important thing to mention that at that time there wasn't video readily available, like there is like I remember the first time I went to the Taekwondo uh World Cup, it was in Colorado Springs in uh 2000, I mean not 2000, 1980, I think it was 86. | ||
| And the first time I went, um, I immediately got better just by seeing just by seeing everybody. | ||
| I just went as a spectator. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I hadn't beaten beaten anybody to qualify for the nationals. | ||
| So when I went there, the whole experience was just absorption. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And I came back and I was much better. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Much better. | ||
| I'd never seen those guys live. | ||
| But my expectations for competition, my expectations for movement and speed, everything had risen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| And at the time I was 18. | ||
| So it was just when you're 18, your brain just you just absorb. | ||
| You just absorb. | ||
| And I think even more so when you're younger. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| And oh, yeah, when you're a little kid. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| And I've like I my first competition, I was five years old. | ||
| So that is just many years again being up, but that's incredible though, because your body develops with that. | ||
| I I started a little late. | ||
| I started karate when I was 14, and then wrestling and taekwondo when I was 15. | ||
| But it I wished I'd started earlier. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Cause I was with these guys that were younger, and their their little bodies had like grown stretching, and they they'd grown punching and kicking. | ||
| Like you develop into that. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Well, funny you say that, I that's where my name came from. | ||
| So Venom came from when I was nine. | ||
| And the only kids that was in my dad's class at the time, mainly a fair few others, because he at the time we did it was basically one class. | ||
| He didn't really separate the kids and adults, it's just one class. | ||
| So you're I'm trying my best throwing everything in to hit adults. | ||
| And yeah, they're not moving, but I'm trying my best to just get some kind of reaction. | ||
| And then when I started hitting people my own size, even though I was losing because I obviously I was tall for my age as well, so I was fighting kids slightly more naturally developed than me. | ||
| But I had a had a whack on me. | ||
| That's a great way to put it. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| Like just even though I I you know I wasn't beating these guys, these guys were just way too fast for me. | ||
| But when I hit them, they felt it. | ||
| And it was one of my uh again, Marvin was literally just like, Yeah, you got some venom in you, man. | ||
| Yeah, and we was very into like Kung Fu movies back in the day, and then uh and I was very I'm creative mind, like I loved just even with my martial arts. | ||
| I learned a job like this, and now I have to add something. | ||
| Oh, I can't do things conventional. | ||
| I've never never liked to do it. | ||
| If there's a everyone's walking that way, I'm like, I want to see what's over there. | ||
| Like I just I don't know what is wrong, I don't know what's wrong with me, but what's right with you? | ||
| Or what's right with me, but I just got that like I was just curious and creative. | ||
| And so there's a film called The Five Deadly Venoms, like old school, old school Kung Fu classic. | ||
| And he would be like, Yeah, five deadly venoms, let's make a move for each like uh thing because he'd be like Scorpion or Toad, and I would make up weird moves and try to add it in to and that was always my thing. | ||
| I'd see something on the in the movies, and I'm like, I'm gonna try it in there in there. | ||
| This is all while I'm still getting beaten up by the way, as well. | ||
| But that never left me. | ||
| So even when I started beating all these people now, I'm doing it with the style and flair of like what more can I do? | ||
| Yeah, you know what I mean? | ||
| Yeah, so yeah, yeah. | ||
| Well, it's it's so perfect for martial arts for you for MMA, because a lot of MMA is pattern recognition. | ||
| You get it, you get a uh accustomed to certain types of movements. | ||
| I know this guy's gonna do this, the calf kick's gonna be available, I'm gonna faint with this, and I'm gonna throw that, I'm gonna shoot that double here because I know he's gonna come with the overhand right. | ||
| All these patterns, you don't have you don't have normal patterns at all. | ||
| So you're moving around, your hands are down, you're sideways, and they're like, and they have to make up new patterns as they go along, so they have to think. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| They have to react. | ||
| It's it's such an advantage. | ||
| Yeah, and I always tell people that like the first time they're actually really gonna experience this style is on the night. | ||
| Yeah, and it you have to figure it out on the night. | ||
| Because there's not enough guys that have what you can do that also compete in MMA. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| There's that this might be five or six in the whole world, yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| Which is nuts. | ||
| Yeah, it's kind of nuts, man. | ||
| It's it's really the it I had been saying this for decades. | ||
| I'm like, this is the one thing that's missing. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| And then when you came over, I was like, see? | ||
| This is what I'm saying. | ||
| This is crazy. | ||
| You can't even hit them. | ||
| It's weird though, it's a blessing and a curse. | ||
| Uh blessing, obviously being able being having the advantages of a fight, but sparring headache. | ||
| Earlier, a lot of people wanted to kind of like let me see what this is about. | ||
| Then the word spread is quite quickly. | ||
| And I struggle with sparring. | ||
| I think it's starting to come back now. | ||
| People are a bit more willing. | ||
| But I struggled with sparring. | ||
| You just couldn't get sparring. | ||
| Couldn't get sparring. | ||
| Because also I and I kind of see it from other people's point of view. | ||
| It's like, well, why I'm not gonna fight anybody like that. | ||
| So why why am I coming over? | ||
| Yeah, but if you saw that, if you with your mindset, I'm gonna you would be like, I gotta figure out what's the fuck he's doing. | ||
| 100%. | ||
| And my teammates, they're forced to. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And a lot of them, they even say, like, I'd spa you, and then I go spot someone else. | ||
| And it they feel so slow. | ||
| When I'm with you, my eyes are like this. | ||
| Like I'm I'm forced to be like ultra alert. | ||
| And then I go on someone's front of punch and like, oh that's the thing too. | ||
| It's exhausting. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| It's exhausting. | ||
| Your style's exhausting because you always have to be at high alert. | ||
| There's no moment because there's so many times where you've done like a a shift in rhythm, and it looks like you're slowing down and then you explode and crack people. | ||
| And you've done that so successfully so many times that if they've watched any tape, there's they know there's no there's no moments where you could catch your breath. | ||
| There's no moments. | ||
| And you're always putting pressure on people. | ||
| You're always fainting. | ||
| In the faints alone, see, people don't even know you're just standing there. | ||
| It looks like you're just standing there. | ||
| But you're standing there and a guy's fainting, and you you never know when he's gonna actually launch, and you're bodies. | ||
| You can't breathe. | ||
| And that's just their energy bodies doing this without anything happening. | ||
| No pun, which is actually why I'm actually uh a big fan of like Tom Aspino as well. | ||
| Oh, yeah. | ||
| You don't really see that anywhere full stop, but definitely not in a heavyweight division. | ||
| No heavyweight moves like him. | ||
| No one, no one moves out the amount. | ||
| It's crazy nuts. | ||
| With that kind of explosive and that power, it's crazy. | ||
| Crazy speed for heavyweight. | ||
| Crazy speed. | ||
| And that's why I was the John Jones thing was being, you know, promo. | ||
| John is one of the, if not the greatest fighter of all time. | ||
| But he's not the fastest guy in the world. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| He hasn't, but he's just so complete and his fight IQ is off the charts. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Off the charts. | ||
| Like it's very well rounded. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Very well rounded. | |
| And wild. | ||
| You know, opens up his world title fight with Shogun with a flying knee. | ||
| Yeah, crazy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Wild. | |
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| You know, just believes in himself, goes for it. | ||
| Confidence, yeah. | ||
| Goes for it. | ||
| I thought that was a complicated matchup for him. | ||
| It is, it is. | ||
| Because that guy's not easy to get to the ground and uh aspinal, and he's fast as fuck. | ||
| And he's big. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| He's a legit 250 pounds natural, not you know, no, he doesn't need anything. | ||
| There's no way he can make 205 ever. | ||
| He's fucking big. | ||
| Yeah, I've got the train with him, and I went down there and I was like, this guy, he's a he's a tank. | ||
| It's a tank. | ||
| So that's a problem. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That's a problem when you're not really a heavyweight. | ||
| As great as John is, and I think John beats most heavyweights that have ever existed. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I d that's a big the that guy's a pro Francis is another problem. | ||
| That's another problem. | ||
| Because you're dealing with the power factor. | ||
| Natural grew up in the sand mines. | ||
| Literally. | ||
| His story is crazy. | ||
| Crazy. | ||
| His story is. | ||
| Bro, when he told it on the podcast and told the whole story of him going to Morocco and getting to Europe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| That's a movie, man. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| It's a crazy movie. | ||
| I'm surprised nobody has jumped on that. | ||
| I'm surprised too. | ||
| Someone needs to. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| It's nuts. | ||
| Yeah, that we'll do it. | ||
| We'll do it. | ||
| We'll do it. | ||
| But when him, he was a child working digging sand in Cameroon. | ||
| It's crazy. | ||
| You know? | ||
| Incredible. | ||
| And then you you have incredible genetics. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And then you have just this fierce mindset from all the shit that guy's been through. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| That that was that was another one. | ||
| So there was two fights that I was really interested in with with John at Heavyweight. | ||
| Once he won the titles, like, God, bring back Francis, please. | ||
| I just don't see that. | ||
| Sort out your difference. | ||
| I wish I was running shit. | ||
| I feel like I'm gonna me and him get along great. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| I just feel like I don't know. | ||
| I think sometimes it's uh uh the executives and the fighters and Dana generally gets along with people, you know, like most fighters he gets along with, but him and Francis It didn't work. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| I love the guy. | ||
| I've never I've never got uh had the previo uh privilege of meeting him, but he's just seems very sweet, like a big friendly giant outside of the cage. | ||
| Yeah, exactly. | ||
| Big friendly giant. | ||
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| It's a fucking great guy. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| From what my ex- I'm always saying from my experiences with him. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But as a fighter, make it happen. | |
| Keep him around. | ||
| You gotta more important. | ||
| It's extra extraordinary gem. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And you want to talk about sellability. | ||
| You want to talk about marketability. | ||
| What's more marketable than that giant man who destroys everyone? | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| He's the guy. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| So true. | ||
| Drove me nuts. | ||
| I know. | ||
| Drove me nuts. | ||
| I think that's added to people's frustrations with the Tom Aspinall fight not happening then after as well. | ||
| Well, that was not on the UFC's side or on Tom's side. | ||
| That was all John Look, John's a wizard. | ||
| He knows how to play all games. | ||
| And one of the games he plays, I'm retired. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I'm back. | |
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Well now I'm hunting after my. | ||
| It doesn't matter for him. | ||
| He's gonna get the same amount of money. | ||
| He's still John Jones. | ||
| Like it's all it's all mind fuckery. | ||
| Like keep you guessing. | ||
| And meanwhile, John's deadlifting every day. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know what I mean? | |
| And partying. | ||
| He's just so wild. | ||
| But it's like that that fight would have been amazing to see. | ||
| But to me, the So that means it probably could still happen, though. | ||
| I hope so. | ||
| I genuinely hope so. | ||
| You know, they were talking about doing it at the White House. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| And then it's at the end. | ||
| Dana's like, I can't trust John to show up and be fine. | ||
| Which is fair, which is fair. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You gotta say. | |
| There's been a few times where things went awry. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| But however. | ||
| It would've been great. | ||
| Do it on a card where you have 12 other fights. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| That's what I say. | ||
| Who gives a fuck? | ||
| Let's see if it happens. | ||
| If it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. | ||
| That's true to say. | ||
| That's what I would be. | ||
| Let's go crazy. | ||
| Let's fucking go on. | ||
| I think what it I guess what would happen is it that fight overshadows many fights. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Uh-huh. | |
| So if it doesn't happen, even though the fights are amazing still, people are like, uh it does, but so what? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, you know, you get I don't know who you would do. | ||
| Ilio Taporia versus Justin Gagey or something like that. | ||
| Something crazy like that. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You'd have a few other fights. | ||
| It depends on what happens this weekend with Pereira and Alcalaev. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| It depends on what happens with Mirab and Corey Sanhagen. | ||
| Those are two very complicated fights. | ||
| Beasts. | ||
| Yeah, very good. | ||
| Rob is a beast, man. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Bees. | |
| Such a beast. | ||
| I'm not. | ||
| Dude, he was talking to I forgot who he was talking to. | ||
| He did an interview. | ||
| Oh, he was on uh Mighty Mouse's podcast. | ||
| No sauna, no cold plunge, no stretching. | ||
| Doesn't do any of that. | ||
| Doesn't do any of that. | ||
| Just no warmup. | ||
| Shows up. | ||
| I just show up, start the thing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Just shows up. | |
| Shows up and fucking hits the gas. | ||
| He stays up to one, two o'clock in the morning. | ||
| Just like his whole routine is totally contrary to everything that you've heard before. | ||
| And this is how he weight cuts. | ||
| I stop eating. | ||
| He just stops eating. | ||
| He stops eating on Tuesday. | ||
| He just stops eating. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Stops drinking water. | |
| Keeps working out. | ||
| Oh the man's mind is a giant factor that I think a lot of people are looking at his cardio, which is a insane weapon. | ||
| Of course, yeah. | ||
| But the band's mind, the toughness, the mental tough. | ||
| That is Fort Knox. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| You ain't getting in there. | ||
| You ain't getting in there. | ||
| Remember that time? | ||
| Who is it? | ||
| He was mounted. | ||
| I forget who got him. | ||
| But he got him in a mounted guillotine and he didn't. | ||
| I think it might have been Ricky Simone. | ||
| And he, or it was somebody else had him and he got out and then he won the fight. | ||
| But he was he was being choked unconscious for like two minutes. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| And he's like, yeah. | ||
| And he's like kicking his legs and moving around. | ||
| He's like, there's no quitting that guy. | ||
| Fucking zero. | ||
| You have to put him out. | ||
| Zero quit. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| And the Marlon Mariah's fight, he was basically out on his feet the first round. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| just came back and stopped him. | ||
| He's a monster. | ||
| He's a beast. | ||
| He's a beast. | ||
| And he keeps getting better. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| I mean, what a guy, you know, you feel like, oh, a guy like that is so good. | ||
| Look how good he is, he's better than everybody. | ||
| No, no, no, no, no. | ||
| He's still getting better. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| Like he's not done. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| He's a project. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| He's like, what can the human mind force the human body to do? | ||
| And how young is he now? | ||
| He's like 34, I believe. | ||
| So which is in that lightweight class. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| It's a little bit more of a problem in the heavier weight classes, but I don't see any. | ||
| His mind is a fucking steel trap. | ||
| But it's funny you say that because I don't I don't really have structure either. | ||
| So I said the weight cut, I do, but that's because I came in it with no understanding of weight cut and London sheet was like, you do this. | ||
| You look so big from one seven. | ||
| How the fuck did you do that? | ||
| How much do you cutting when you went to 170? | ||
| So even like now I'm massive now. | ||
| Yeah, you look like, let me guess. | ||
| 220. | ||
| What do you wear right now? | ||
| But yeah, it's about two, yeah, about 215. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Because I'll go and I do it in KG, so yeah. | ||
| Right, okay. | ||
| But yeah, yeah. | ||
| We never adopted so stupid. | ||
| It's a way better situation. | ||
| But yeah, it's but I've never struggled to get down though. | ||
| Because again, I was just told, I I guess it's ignorance as well, but I was just told to do these things, and it's like, okay, you do it. | ||
| What is it like what you're when you start, like say you get a call from the UFC weeks out. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Well, how you so you're not gonna accept any two week fights? | ||
| No. | ||
| You know, well, it depends on the fight. | ||
| And it depends where I'm always training. | ||
| But middleweight, maybe you would. | ||
| Middleweight, yeah. | ||
| Middleweight, yeah. | ||
| You have sit taken some short notes. | ||
| Yeah, sure, yeah, for for middleweight, which was the first one. | ||
| I was the first one or the second one I did. | ||
| Um, the last fight. | ||
| Uh maybe. | ||
| But I I would take short notice fight, it's depending on where I am in training. | ||
| In training. | ||
| But even I just like to have a rough idea, right? | ||
| Even right now, it's like trying to get and I'm like, I'm bugging people. | ||
| I've I'm I've come from a circuit where we fight weekends. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Every weekend where somewhere. | ||
| And it keeps you sharp. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And then this that's this is probably the most frustrating thing for me. | ||
| Obviously, starting the better tour, and you're training all the time. | ||
| And then you have a fight, and then you're training on the side. | ||
| And a lot of my fights, I I don't get take too much damage. | ||
| So I'm like, I'm ready now. | ||
| Like, yeah, give me a week off, and I can come back. | ||
| And then it's months and months. | ||
| I'm like, well, who am I fighting? | ||
| Do this and the problem is you're a hard sell. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You know, when it when people get a call. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Flat footed dude. | ||
| Like, shit. | ||
| I'm gonna have to learn how to dance in six weeks. | ||
| Fuck. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that's the thing. | |
| So I'm hearing and I I assumed wrongly that when I get to the UFC, that is gonna disperse. | ||
| Everyone's gonna be gunning for me. | ||
| Like, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna show everybody that this guy is is is is a can. | ||
| Like he only fought people that weren't his level. | ||
| Yeah, it just it's it's still the same. | ||
| I think, and obviously the more I fight, the less people are putting their hands up. | ||
| I think even um Whitaker said, which I respect to be fair. | ||
| He came out. | ||
| I don't even know who wait, somebody sent me something, but he had said, like, yeah, would it be interesting to make that fight? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| At this point in his career, that's just a setback waiting to happen. | ||
| Yeah, it's not and his style is very similar. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| Yeah, I'm a massive fan of his as well. | ||
| Like I love his obviously, he can tie in the the wrestling way better and just yeah, I I love his style. | ||
| I do too. | ||
| No, and and you've got to realize like that guy, he's take he's been in it for a long time. | ||
| He had two fucking wars with Yoel Romero. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| When Yo Aurero was made out of metal. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| That guy's still fighting. | ||
| Still, yeah, yeah. | ||
| He's 48 years old, fucking people up, looking like he's 30. | ||
| I'd swap buddies of him in a way. | ||
| Who wouldn't? | ||
| Bro, when he was in here, he was he came in the studio, it was the most amazing thing, because uh Joey Diaz translated for him. | ||
| Yeah, so it was him and Joey Diaz going back and forth, and you know, Joey's Cuban as well, of course. | ||
| And so um when when he was here, he had to be 230 pounds. | ||
| He his neck starts at the top of his ears, and one of the things that he said, man, he was talking about the Cuban system. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He goes, You have to be a machine. | |
| Because he was talking about the system of like you get more food if you're at a higher c caliber of athlete. | ||
| So the Just to get more food, he's like the athletes, yeah, man. | ||
| The athletes that are the lower caliber, they eat twice a day. | ||
| Yeah, in his caliber, he's eaten three times a day. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He's like, So every day, every day they're coming for you. | |
| You have to be on my gene. | ||
| And I was like, oh my god. | ||
| And you get to look in his eyes, man. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Bro, we are soft and fierce, bro. | |
| Oh, we're so soft in the West. | ||
| We're so soft in the West. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What the hell is that? | |
| I don't I'm not a fan of communism. | ||
| I don't believe it. | ||
| But damn, it creates a fucking beast. | ||
| Alexander Corellan. | ||
| I mean, I don't know if you get there's two things you don't get that with there's like substances, yeah, yeah. | ||
| With for sure taking place, and then there's also there's a regiment that they have both the Cuban system and the Russian system, yeah. | ||
| Where they had figured out the balance between unbelievable hard work but technical ability and recovery. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| They didn't go meat head style. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| In America, we went meathead style and we burnt a lot of dudes out, but the dudes who survived were just the killers of the killers. | ||
| But they probably could have made more killers like the Russians did if they did it more technically. | ||
| Well, I it's the same. | ||
| So again, shoots they've been again, they're the first MMA gym in the UK. | ||
| I think like 95, 97, 1975. | ||
| Yeah, I got a t-shirt, I got a London Shoe Fighters t-shirt from 2003. | ||
| Yeah, crazy. | ||
| I couldn't find it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I was going looking for it to be so like I said, they've been around. | |
| Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna tell him, I'm gonna tell him they've been around a long time, and obviously they've fought with everybody. | ||
| I think they fought of every every major competition that's ever been out. | ||
| They've they've done boxing with likes of like David Hay, Derek Chajora now, um, even Dylan White did a uh a kickboxing fight with them. | ||
| Uh you know, myself, Lee Murray, uh John Hathaway, um, even like Carlos Famola was the first Czech guy before Yuri to be in the UFC. | ||
| That was them guys, they've done a lot, but they're the meathead style. | ||
| Yeah, they are like, yeah, everybody will anything that produced Lee Murray. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| You know, you got that guy in your gym that's the problem, just the echoes of that guy's style will permeate through that gym for decades. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That guy's just an angry man, and he was an angry man. | |
| But then at the same time, you needed somebody like because my coach is our beast, like you needed that kind of militant force to be able to manage that and cope with that. | ||
| And that's what my coaches they are. | ||
| They like, yeah, that people used to come to our gym and we're just like, yeah, who's ready? | ||
| And if you don't do it, I'll do it myself. | ||
| That's one thing I always respected about them. | ||
| Even with the machines that the fitness machines that we had to do, the scores are crazy. | ||
| Like, I'm I see people in other gyms posting their scores, and I'm like, is that it? | ||
| And they're celebrating it. | ||
| And I'm like, we're forced to do this. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The hell is that? | |
| But he'd push you, but he'd also do it himself. | ||
| Like he'd jump on a machine, like, versus clamor, yeah. | ||
| Smoke it, fight like five fights, back to back, and then running and this and that, like, and we're doing we have to do all of it because he's doing it. | ||
| And he is not doing it, he hasn't got a fight. | ||
| That's the way you lead. | ||
| Yeah, and he leads to killers, exactly. | ||
| Yeah, that's the problem. | ||
| They demand respect. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And they have to know that you're real, exactly. | ||
| Yeah, otherwise you're just some pontificator on the sidelines with a fucking clipboard. | ||
| Fuck off, bitch. | ||
| Which is more nowadays, like I'm seeing a lot of like uh and to be fair, I'm a fan of a lot of these guys, like the fighting nerds, and again, I'm hearing that they had uh I forget like an uh data analyst or something that's in, and he does like this you know, he studies this, and I think that's cool. | ||
| Like, I feel like we we should have like add elements of these things as well. | ||
| But obviously, I've just grown up by this iron sharp's iron. | ||
| It does, it's undeniable. | ||
| I mean it sharpens iron, yeah. | ||
| You know, there's outliers, there's a guy who will come out of a gym with nobody, and he's a monster. | ||
| There's just a few of those guys that exist in the world. | ||
| Yeah, but for the most part, like if you look at a gym like American Top Team, for example, look at how many animals have come out of that gym. | ||
| So many Pantoja, who I think does not get the credit he deserves. | ||
| I think Pantoja's one of the greatest ever. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| Fucking guys a monster. | ||
| When that that Japanese cat came over from Ryzen, and he just like rag doll. | ||
| Like he had no business, and then the the Kaikara France rematch, like you see the difference between when they first fought and now the difference between like a dominant all-time world champion. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Whew. | |
| People like when he's on a card, like people don't freak out. | ||
| I'm like, God damn it, just because he's 125 pounds, get that shit out of your head. | ||
| You're watching one of the greatest ever. | ||
| But that's the thing, that's it's the marketability of people. | ||
| This is what I knew I had to get right as well. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| And a lot of I say that to my teammates as well. | ||
| I'm like, do you know how you're gonna market yourself? | ||
| I'm like, I don't know just you know, if I beat people up, it's like it doesn't always just unfortunately it should, but it doesn't that's not what's gonna get you. | ||
| If I have to, as a promotion uh owner and the person managing everything, I'm either gonna pick you that's beaten everybody, but nobody cares about, or this guy that's you know, it's pretty decent, but everyone's making noise about gonna pick that guy. | ||
| So you need to be able to market yourself. | ||
| And I I knew that from the jump, and this is before really social media was massive, massive is a is a thing. | ||
| But I said to myself, okay, I need to look in how am I gonna market myself? | ||
| Because we don't have that much time, like on the mic. | ||
| Uh yeah, the interviews at the time. | ||
| I don't feel like people got the recognition. | ||
| People just cared about the fight, they just want to watch the fight, didn't care what you said beforehand, right? | ||
| Unless you're arguing or shouting in you know, there's there's beef. | ||
| Unless you grab that mic and go crazy. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| You gotta go crazy. | ||
| Chelsea was the first. | ||
| Yeah, he was he figured it out before. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Anderson Silver, you absolutely suck. | |
| He's the best fighter, but he's still why he's on the mic now. | ||
| Yes, it was perfect. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| It was perfect. | ||
| But there was balance for the king. | ||
| There was for me, there's the perfect balance, like it it wasn't too far, it was it was it was exactly what you wanted, right? | ||
| Exactly what you need to to market a fight and to promote himself. | ||
| Yes, yes, I agree with you. | ||
| But well, yeah, again, it's weird though, because I think authenticity is important when you do that as well, though. | ||
| And Conor McGregor kind of is the next person for me that's kind of delivered that. | ||
| Oh, 100%. | ||
| He took it to a whole nother level. | ||
| A whole nother level. | ||
| Every time this guy's on the mic, he'll say one line, and I'm like, t-shirts, easy. | ||
| How about when Jeremy Stevens is yelling at him and he goes, Who the fuck is that guy? | ||
| It's you can't beat this guy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't mind I'm just like, why did you even open your mouth, bro? | |
| It's so funny, man. | ||
| It's so funny. | ||
| But you and you need to be able to do that. | ||
| Like, I before I even had my first fight, I would I spent hours. | ||
| I was a big WWE fan, and I felt like the rock, you know, Dwayne Johnson for out of all of them was the best at marketing himself. | ||
| He had the the crowd in the palm of his hands, every word that he said, and it was simple sayings, and I was like, Yeah, I studied this, study this. | ||
| Like, okay, okay. | ||
| What what could and then even like his stances, he'd come up, like jump on the ropes and put his hand up and just stand there, just like look around. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| Like, he just he just demanded eyes. | ||
| So again, I just came to okay. | ||
| What could I do? | ||
| What can I? | ||
| So I was like, okay, you know, venom, you know, the snake. | ||
| Yeah, read it to a snake. | ||
| Okay, like, okay, yeah, let me let me do this. | ||
| Okay, okay, okay, that's check. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I've got a stance that I can do. | |
| Okay, I need a saying, okay. | ||
| Like, what can I say? | ||
| Because again, I used to listen to people on after fights, and I didn't hear anything they said. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're like, Yeah, but I'm crazy, yeah. | |
| Beat that guy, I'm like, right here. | ||
| Thank you for my sponsors, like who were your sponsors? | ||
| Right. | ||
| Didn't hear anything, so I'm like, it has to be like concise. | ||
| I have to say specific words, and just I write this stuff down. | ||
| But again, I speak to my team, it's like, bro, what are you guys doing? | ||
| You need to do this kind of stuff and understand that this is a part of your game. | ||
| You are you've got five seconds after the fight on the mic. | ||
| If that's what are you, what are you going to say? | ||
| What message is gonna land? | ||
| What is gonna make you memorable? | ||
| And I do things on my walk-ins as well. | ||
| I need people to remember. | ||
| There's they're watching 16 fights on the night. | ||
| Why do they remember me? | ||
| Yes, my style is exciting. | ||
| That's cool. | ||
| Yeah, there's this weird guy who does some weird stuff with his arms, and that he's quite cool, but they're not gonna remember my name. | ||
| But I need other things to keep them coming back. | ||
| Oh, there's this guy in the way, and he stood above this guy, he put his snake hand up, and then oh, that's the same guy that did the dance, because now you're getting it from different places. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's the guy that threw the poker ball. | |
| Oh, but uh, what's his name? | ||
| What's his name? | ||
| The more times you keep hitting them with different things, the more times they they're more likely to kind of really buy into you. | ||
| And I think this is why I was able to create a big enough brand before even touching the UFC, just because I paid attention to that. | ||
| So you were the one of the first guys to make a name for yourself in Bell Tour because Bell Tor, it was hard to break out. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| There was some wild fights in Bellator that never got recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
At all. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| How about the Eddie Alvarez, Michael Chandler fights? | ||
| Fucking crazy fights. | ||
| And I feel like they those guys left a lot of who they are. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, unfortunately. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| We got them kind of after. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| And Chandler's still remarkably durable. | ||
| But that's just a discipline thing and a hard work that I think he's just accustomed to, like you said, he's been he's trained a certain way his whole life. | ||
| He's always gonna have that kind of athleticism. | ||
| But he's you know 38 now. | ||
| I mean, it's like you can only I wished he had not been in Bellator. | ||
| Look, I I'm all for competition. | ||
| I think competition's important. | ||
| I don't think there should be a monopoly in the MMA business. | ||
| I think it's bad for the athletes. | ||
| Yeah, definitely. | ||
| I love the fact that PFL overpays people. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Keep doing it. | |
| Give them a million dollars. | ||
| Everybody get a million dollars. | ||
| Everybody gets a car. | ||
| You get a car, you uh I wish there was more organizations. | ||
| I yeah, I hope one FC succeeds, you know. | ||
| It does help. | ||
| Yeah, that helped me as well, even in my negotiation. | ||
| Fucking everything. | ||
| Yeah, however, yeah, there's a calibre of athlete that I feel like should only be in the UFC. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| And you're one of those guys. | ||
| Thank you, I appreciate it. | ||
| There's a caliber of athlete where like I wanna see how good they really are. | ||
| You know, like some guy like Patchy Mitch, Patchy Mix is a beast. | ||
| He's a bad motherfucker, but so's Mario Bautista. | ||
| Mario Bautista had the perfect game plan to fuck up his party. | ||
| But that dude, when he was in Bellator was of that caliber. | ||
| I was like, I want to see him over here, man. | ||
| I I I personally, and obviously, because I've experienced it. | ||
| For me, the first time I got nervous in an MMA fight was my first fight. | ||
| In the EOC. | ||
| No, my first fight ever. | ||
| And then after that, I was like, oh yeah, this is the same as when I was fighting in the kickboxing mode. | ||
| I'm cool. | ||
| I didn't have any, I didn't get the nerves again. | ||
| The first time again since then was the first fight. | ||
| No, no, sorry, weird enough, the second fight in the UFC against Ian Gary. | ||
| Now, the first fight, I don't know why. | ||
| I just I don't know what it was, but I was quite relaxed. | ||
| And then the second fight, I was like, oh, it's something a reality hit me of like, oh, you're in the UFC. | ||
| The people are gonna demand a certain thing from you, and you got a reputation of before of the knockouts of the set of the celebrations of the walk-ins of the this of the that, and then I just let that put a weight on me. | ||
| Really? | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| That's crazy that it was the second fight. | ||
| I I I can't even explain as to why it was the second fight and not the first one. | ||
| And then even the third fight, I still had that kind of oh man, I'm not performing the way I want. | ||
| And I felt like I'm eager to impress. | ||
| And I never felt like that in Bellator. | ||
| But at the UFC, I'm like, I'm trying my best. | ||
| I literally have to crazy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, it's the same thing, it's the same thing. | |
| Same thing. | ||
| Cage cameras, people, same thing, same thing. | ||
| But I just the magnitude of it, I don't know. | ||
| I I I'm I'm guessing. | ||
| It's what we all grew up with. | ||
| It's what everyone grows up with. | ||
| It's like this is where like I said, there was always question marks around my name. | ||
| Even I was jump jump knees and this and that. | ||
| Always question marks around my name still, but then now I'm here. | ||
| It's like, oh, actually, I can these guys can respect me now, actually respect me now because I'm here. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| And then I'll just trying too hard, trying too hard, trying too hard. | ||
| The last fight was the first time I was like, You're back. | ||
| I'm back. | ||
| And this is why I don't just keep getting me back in the cage, because I swear to you this that I got I'm back to where I used to be and how I used to feel. | ||
| There's just an issue of getting guys that are willing to fight you that are of a certain caliber. | ||
| Exactly, exactly. | ||
| Because you know, obviously, right now you're pretty big, so for you to get down to 170 again would be a real problem. | ||
| Are you committed to 185 or are you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, no, no, I open either way. | |
| I want 170. | ||
| I can see a clear pathway, even after my last fight, I message Hunter and I literally like, look, uh, let me fight um it was Morales, yeah. | ||
| And I was like, look, another undefeated guy, perfect fight. | ||
| Like he's a beast. | ||
| Like, I'm I'm I'm ready. | ||
| Let me take him. | ||
| Then and I said, what I could do after that is in like the December, I think I said, or no, March next year. | ||
| I was like, yeah, give me that for November. | ||
| Like March next year, usually come back to the UK. | ||
| Let me fight the winner of um Leon Edwards and and Pratas. | ||
| I was like, another great fight there. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And then you've got July card. | ||
| Obviously, everyone's gonna put their hand up to be on that. | ||
| But I said, if you guys want me to be on that, I'd again I'll fight for whoever you want and in that top range. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Pick, I don't care who it is. | |
| Pick pick somebody, I'll fight them, and then I want a title shot. | ||
| Or you give me the title there. | ||
| Like, yeah. | ||
| But I'm like, I can see a clear path to where what I want. | ||
| And it's just everything seems slow. | ||
| Which I I did like I said, I didn't expect coming to the UFC. | ||
| I thought that's a good thing. | ||
| I think there's just too many athletes. | ||
| There is a lot. | ||
| I think they they have on contract more than 500. | ||
| Damn. | ||
| How many athletes does the UFC have under contract? | ||
| Throw that into but then also they're they're I think obviously I'm managed by Paradigm with Audi. | ||
| And he said he feels like uh the Paramount deal is they're having to integrate that now as well. | ||
| And I'm like, I didn't think about that. | ||
| But every time Bellator, because Bell's all kept getting new partnerships, it did slow things down a little bit. | ||
| Oh yeah, that would make sense. | ||
| So that doesn't start until January. | ||
| But obviously they're sorting out contracts and things from now. | ||
| And then they obviously have to try and align the shows and I'm guessing. | ||
| Obviously, I don't know, but I'm just saying, it just feels even slower than before. | ||
| And I'm like, I was that sucks. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| And I'm like, I just want to be back out there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't care. | |
| Just and this is why I'm happy to take 674. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| 674 fighters under contract. | ||
| And they don't have fights every week. | ||
| They have fights almost every week, but not every week. | ||
| That I mean, just think about that. | ||
| So you have 52 weeks, you have all these fighters, fighters want to fight multiple times in the year. | ||
| I appreciate that, but I'm MVP, man. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let's go. | |
| I am with you. | ||
| I'm with you. | ||
| I always say that I wish I was a matchmaker, but I don't. | ||
| Yeah, because it's the hardest job. | ||
| Yeah, I'm sure. | ||
| Yeah, I used to talk to Joe Silver back in the day when he did it. | ||
| He fucking hated it. | ||
| Dealing with everybody and managers and and people flake out, you know, fail drug tests. | ||
| Like, god damn it. | ||
| And these guys, you know, would what they're doing right now is very difficult. | ||
| Because what Mick Maynard and Sean Shelby are dealing with is the volume is so much greater. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| There's so and there's so many more really good guys. | ||
| Like in almost every division, like guys are coming in from the contender series. | ||
| That guy looks like a world championship caliber fighter. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Talented. | ||
| Talents off the charts right now. | ||
| And it's because they get to watch. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You know, these are the kids that are growing up watching Anderson Silva. | ||
| They're growing up watching John Jones' first fight. | ||
| They're growing up watching the early Chuck Liddell fights. | ||
| It's totally different. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| They they they like when they're play fighting with their friends, they're in stances that look right. | ||
| You know? | ||
| They know what they're doing. | ||
| They know the names of every submission and this is so true. | ||
| They're calf kicking each other in the fucking schoolyard. | ||
| It's a totally different world. | ||
| Very true. | ||
| And those kids are gonna grow up and that's gonna be integrated to their neuromuscular system. | ||
| Yep, yep. | ||
| Yeah, and they're gonna learn there's guys coming along that are like elite black belt level jujitsu. | ||
| Yeah, elite stand-up, elite wrestling, takedown defense, cardio off the charts. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| And they're 22. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| And you're like, this is nuts. | ||
| Now it's just about way whether you can compete, yeah, whether you can pull it off and keep your head together on fighting games. | ||
| Which is again, I think is something that people don't speak about enough. | ||
| Listen, it's Aaron Pico is as talented as they come, right? | ||
| That dude is a fucking vicious boxer, incredible wrestling, gold chip prospect from the very but Laurent Murphy is another guy. | ||
| Was not I was saying before that this is the guy that's not getting the credit he deserves. | ||
| Because you got all these loud killers at 145. | ||
| But you got this one dude that does everything perfect. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| And he's beating everybody's head. | ||
| He's beaten everything away. | ||
| And he doesn't take damage, and he's clever, and he's slick, and he does things, and every technique is perfect. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| He doesn't and there's no fat on anything, so wild winging punches, everything's tight and talent. | ||
| That spinning elbow was a work of art. | ||
| He just knew Aaron Pico's a train. | ||
| He's come bang. | ||
| That was a crazy. | ||
| That was But that's the difference between someone who can compete at the highest level. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| Someone's accustomed to it. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| It's the knowing when to hit the gas and when not to. | ||
| Pico's just all gas, no breaks. | ||
| Yeah, go ahead. | ||
| What is the Ike said? | ||
| It's like similar to Michael Chano again. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Just like in that rage mode all the time. | ||
| All gas, no breaks. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You need to take your time. | ||
| But that's a wrestler thing, too. | ||
| They always want to break people. | ||
| Because in wrestling, you can do that. | ||
| You can have that mentality where you're constantly in the gas, because you're not gonna get knocked out with a flying knee. | ||
| Yeah, true. | ||
| True, true. | ||
| Changes. | ||
| Yeah, because you get that, that's how you compete. | ||
| You get this mindset of I'm gonna fucking dominate. | ||
| I know what I did in training for this. | ||
| My gas tank's off the charts, my aggression's off the charts. | ||
| I'm a killer, I'm gonna dominate, I'm moving forward. | ||
| I'm moving forward. | ||
| The problem is with a guy like Lerone, it's like you think he's back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Bam, he's coming forward. | |
| Oh that was that was amazing. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| The timing. | ||
| It was just like, oh But Pico even stepped right into the elbow. | ||
| It was ruthless. | ||
| It made it ten times worse. | ||
| Ruthless. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| And that's uh that's my thing. | ||
| The car crash effect when you create those collision. | ||
| So for a guy like Lerone, who's not a big marketing guy, not a big like doesn't say wild shit on the microphone, just steady professional, does his job. | ||
| He needs to do that, right? | ||
| He needs like this spectacular thing where all of a sudden everybody goes, Yeah, he needs to fight Alexander Bolkonowski. | ||
| And that looks like that's what's gonna happen now because of that one performance. | ||
| Which is uh I'm so happy for him. | ||
| Me too. | ||
| He's a cool guy, man. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm so happy for him. | |
| But this is why I tell people if he had a just a little bit uh a little bit of chat, a little bit of show your personality or something, just give me something else. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You have that no, but you know what it is. | |
| I always say, like everyone, like um Demetrius Johnson for me is one of the greatest. | ||
| Of all time. | ||
| Of all time, of all time. | ||
| Another underappreciated guy. | ||
| Because of his size, yeah. | ||
| Yeah, but I feel like underappreciated because you can't market him in the exact same way as you'd market like a Conor McGregor or somebody else like that. | ||
| But he's a gamer. | ||
| I'm like, shed a light on there's a massive, yeah, massive community of gaming. | ||
| That industry is billion dollars deep. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Market this guy because he's on he comes back home and he's just like he's one of them. | |
| He's one of those guys. | ||
| So but again, we didn't see, I don't feel like we saw any of that until afterwards when he was kind of like doing his own thing. | ||
| And he's on now, obviously doing a lot of his YouTube time. | ||
| I'm happy, I'm so happy that he's you know, is getting rid of the stuff. | ||
| But it's kind of when he went to one that he started doing more of the game and stuff online. | ||
| But he no, he had been doing it though. | ||
| He had been doing it in the UC. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| But again, it's just more I guess they didn't capitalize. | ||
| Yeah, that's what I mean. | ||
| I just think so. | ||
| Certain people you have to like what is it your thing? | ||
| Right. | ||
| Not everybody is just uh the fighting, they have things like things to kind of release what that wind down and you know what I mean? | ||
| Yeah, find that out. | ||
| He's killing everybody anyway. | ||
| So how else can we market? | ||
| Instead of being like, ah, can't market him the same. | ||
| He doesn't talk, he doesn't do say anything. | ||
| There must be something there. | ||
| There has to be something else there we could look into. | ||
| Well, it's it's it's interesting because some guys, their personality is no personality. | ||
| Yeah, like Pereira. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| His personality is stone faced. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, yeah. | |
| Just stone face destroyer, death machine. | ||
| Here he comes, Amazon warrior, like literal actual Amazon warrior. | ||
| Yeah, like not a faker. | ||
| His fucking family comes from a tribe of Amazon. | ||
| But then that's what he markets, though. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I guess that's what they market. | ||
| But it was P. Markets that is. | ||
| He works out that that walkout. | ||
| Oh, yeah. | ||
| That's true. | ||
| Bro, I do it myself. | ||
|
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When he's walking out, I'm just waiting for him, like, ah that's true. | |
| And that's what I mean, though. | ||
| I mean, like, that's you, he you said you're telling you're selling your story with just something so simple. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| His walkout. | ||
| His walkout. | ||
| His walk out maybe the best in the sport. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| And that's what I'm trying to say. | ||
| Music. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Chungle music behind you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You just the walk. | |
| Just this Amazon warrior. | ||
| It's simple. | ||
| Everyone can relate to it. | ||
| Oh, yeah. | ||
| You it's consistent. | ||
| So I'm always gonna. | ||
| Oh, that's the guy. | ||
| And you see kids in the audience throw the one-two off they do it. | ||
| Yeah, and like I said, I'm a because I'm a big wrestling fan, I see it's those moments that everybody will remember and everybody will do. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Style bender came in to the undertaker. | ||
|
unidentified
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Shh bro, beast. | |
| But that's what I'm trying to say. | ||
| It's those kind of things that people just don't. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And I'm talking the fighters themselves. | ||
| Uh obviously I feel the UFC can do their bit as well, but technically you're already on the platform that's gonna show you to everybody. | ||
| So then it's your job to figure it out as well. | ||
| Another aspect of the game. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Like strength and conditioning, like all these different things. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| Just think about it. | ||
| You're you're professional, figure out how to market yourself. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You are the product. | ||
| The problem is though, it does lead to like cringe moments of some course. | ||
| So not everybody has your personality. | ||
|
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And some guys try it, it's like yikes. | |
| Shit. | ||
|
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You gotta take a risk. | |
| Because if if it goes well, it goes well. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| As well. | ||
| So like as you said about Alex Burke, technically, we wouldn't care if he walked out of that and got knocked out, we wouldn't give a shit. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But he's he's a killer. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That fight this weekend is very, very interesting. | ||
|
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| Because so here's the downside to fighting all the time. | ||
| Fighting all the time the with your style is a very different thing because you take so little damage, which is another huge element. | ||
| Like I I kind of would tell people that if you have a kid and your kid wants to learn martial arts and they want to eventually be an MMA fighter. | ||
| I would say two things. | ||
| Number one, wrestling. | ||
| Take that kid and teach him how to wrestle because if you could just develop take down defense and understanding of grappling, at least you have a base from the time you're real little. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| That should be your base. | ||
| Because it's the most important aspect of the fight. | ||
| If you can't grapple, a guy can take you down and he can hold you down. | ||
| You can't do shit about it. | ||
| Number two, learn how to point fight. | ||
|
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| Learn how to point fight. | ||
| Learn distance control. | ||
| There's a different thing that you guys are doing. | ||
| If you got like people think of Billy Banks is Taibo. | ||
| Yeah, you gotta go back and watch Billy Blanks when he was a fucking karate wizard dude. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| He was a wizard. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| And he was hitting people where you couldn't hit him. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| You know, all the the old school guys were all like light on the feet, bladed style, and they had this leap in ability that if you're used to a guy standing in front of it, it's a giant problem, and you don't have the timing to solve it. | ||
| And you can you could go two, three rounds deep before you start actually landing it. | ||
| Yeah, exactly. | ||
| You can't do anything to them. | ||
|
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| It's a giant problem. | ||
| And I would say you want to be the person giving the other person that problem. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| Then you can learn all the other stuff too. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| Learn your your boxing fundamentals and tying knees and elbows, but but if they're nowhere near you and you can hit them, you can close that gap quick. | ||
| You have a blitz. | ||
| So I mean understanding that distance control. | ||
| Yes. | ||
|
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And also the feints, the stutter steps, those things change the game. | |
| Yes, there's so much movement in that style of fighting that just gets lost when people are plotting and just teeping each other in the stomach and kicking the legs. | ||
| But it's funny, I people always used to go on about me and um Wonderboy Thompson fighting. | ||
| And I'd always say like it won't be as exciting as you think for us, like me and him, there'll be moments where we're bouncing and faking and then we would laugh at each other because we saw what would have happened if one of us went, but the crowd's like the fuck is going fight. | ||
|
unidentified
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The fuck are you guys doing? | |
| Smiling at each other, like they don't get the fight that's going on right in the moment. | ||
| And I say people it's not as exciting. | ||
| Two pluses don't always give you that plus, not always, but you still want to see it. | ||
| Of course, people always want to never it's it's also like fighting doesn't have to always be ultimate excitement. | ||
| You have to under like that's why I say no stand-ups ever. | ||
| When a guy takes a guy down, that person on the bottom does not want to be on the bottom. | ||
| They want to be up. | ||
| If they can't get up, tough shit. | ||
| It's only five rounds. | ||
| Every fight starts standing up, yeah, which is a giant, giant advantage for a striker. | ||
|
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Yeah, yeah. | |
| Because otherwise they wouldn't be able to get themselves up. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| So none of that. | ||
| See, it's got it's gotta be pure, it's gotta be real. | ||
| You can't have like ways that a guy won only because the rules set it up for him to get to a better position. | ||
| I agree. | ||
| The only the only thing that I find slightly frustrating in those in that element is I don't mind the wrestling. | ||
| I think wrestling is a beautiful art and is like you said, one of the most important arts to dictate where you want the fight to go. | ||
| But if you're taking me down, try to kill me. | ||
| I agree. | ||
| Try to try to finish the fight. | ||
| Don't just take me down and just I agree. | ||
| A lot of people like grabbing my legs and looking at the clock. | ||
| Here's the thing. | ||
| If they're not good enough to kill you, yeah, right. | ||
| What if they're good enough to take you down and hold you down, but then they just have to be real defensive afterwards, and they'll throw a little pity path. | ||
|
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|
I know, I know that's the only element that I just but here's the thing, they're not good enough to do more. | |
| Do you know what I'm saying? | ||
| Like But you must be though. | ||
| Maybe not. | ||
| Uh-uh. | ||
| Maybe not. | ||
| Maybe only good enough, like you're so good, and they're just good enough to hold you down. | ||
| But if they've reined up and started rein, and then you fucking framed off, you got to half guard, you got back up to your feet, all of a sudden we're dealing with this shit again. | ||
| But then but you're that but if you just stay on top and don't take any chances, now you can't do shit. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I agree. | |
| It just is boring as fuck. | ||
| And it's not for me, it's not even a boring element of it. | ||
| Like, I still enjoy that aspect. | ||
| If I was watching only joining the aspect because I know what I'm looking at now, like I'm like, oh, he's he's got okay, like he's got the he's grabbed his wrist egg, okay. | ||
| I can see what you're trying to work to. | ||
| Okay, now you didn't get it. | ||
| Okay, I can I'm still in the fight. | ||
| Whereas some people, I guess the people if you don't get into grappling, you're not gonna know what's happening other than they're just lying there. | ||
| So I get it for them. | ||
| But for me, still, it's just that the aim of this game is for me to beat you, and I mean like take knock you out, put you to sleep. | ||
| So I'm trying to show you that I am the stronger man as a warrior, and that's not by holding you. | ||
| Right. | ||
| That's not by holding you down, holding you down to get you to position to land his elbow and hold you down to get to position to land his yeah, but just to I completely agree. | ||
| However, even though I'm a fan of yours, if a wrestler who had that boring style took you down and held you down for three rounds and won a decision, I'd be like, damn, he did it. | ||
| Yeah, he did it because uh he can't do it any other way. | ||
| If he can't stand up with you, he's gonna get fucked up, and he can take you down anytime. | ||
| Why would he ever let you up? | ||
| And if losing position is dangerous, so like if you're very explosive and you're very good at grappling, you're very good on the bottom, you've gotten submissions off the bottom. | ||
| If a guy reigns up and starts throwing shots, but he feels like his base is gone and he just wants to clinch and hold on and maintain position, and he maintains position with this kind of shit. | ||
| Yeah, you know, on top and he's doing this kind of shit, just little movements, like he's still getting away with that. | ||
| Yeah, he's still doing that. | ||
| I agree. | ||
| I just might be his only pat right for you. | ||
| He's but the thing is, he's not good enough. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Where then you have guys like Kabib. | ||
| Kabib gets you down, you're getting fucked up. | ||
| You're getting fucked up constantly. | ||
| Everybody loved it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He's talking to you, he's he creating that space by still pinning you, he's crushing your legs and between his legs and he's fucking trying to choke on on you. | |
| That I can appreciate all day, every day. | ||
| I can too, but some guys aren't good enough. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| That's it, they're still fighting. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
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Right? | |
| They're in there, they're like they're not good enough. | ||
| There's guys at a world class level that are not gonna be world champions, but they might be able to beat a guy who could be a world champion if they can do that thing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, just it sucks. | |
| I know, I know. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's just hard to do. | |
| It's hard to class you as a world championship fighter then. | ||
| Okay, well, let's talk about Hamzat then. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, Drake is duple C is a perfect example of that. | ||
| You gotta elite grappler who dominated the fight without very with very little damage. | ||
| Yeah, in when I dominated it to the point where you're you're in the worst position you could be in MMA, you're in a crucifix position. | ||
|
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|
Over and over again every round, over and over again. | |
| And you can't do shit about it. | ||
| You let him just you can't do shit about it. | ||
| But did so do you think that is he's worried about his his him exploding? | ||
| Because in my head, I'm like, the fight ends if I keep if I elbow the shit out of you right now. | ||
| He's worried about the chaos, and Drick is getting back to his feet, and you know, they wanted to just win. | ||
| This is the whole thing because he came back to his corner, apparently, and this is told to me secondhand, but I'm pretty sure it's true. | ||
| Yeah, um, by a reliable source that he was saying, can I box now? | ||
| It's like, no. | ||
| Oh, okay. | ||
| No, you're not fucking boxed. | ||
| His team was like, take him down. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He can't look if you got that clear of a dominance that I still agree with though, as the coach is saying, no, get take him down. | |
| But I'm saying once you are in that position, smash, smash, yeah, your whole thing is smash. | ||
| Yeah, smash the shit out of this. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What the hell? | |
| Like, I think they just wanted that win, yeah, no matter what. | ||
| You know what it is? | ||
| Because it's like it's such a big deal. | ||
| Hamzat's finally got a shot at the title. | ||
| Yeah, like just like what is the clearest, most intelligent. | ||
| Like, if you're betting a billion dollars on this fight, what's the best way to victory? | ||
| Yeah, fucking just take him down. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| You can take him down anytime you want to, hold him down, punch him a few times, make sure you're in dominant position, so you're not gonna get stood back up. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, if the referee starts talking to you and telling you to gotta start to a little bit of this, do a little bit of that, fake a submission, don't throw all your gas into it. | ||
| You know, do whatever the fuck you gotta do, but get that goddamn title. | ||
| Yeah, right. | ||
| And then you know, there's gonna be some guys that he can't do that to. | ||
| Yeah, and that's where things get interesting. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| But who who would you say that is though? | ||
| Because I he's that his wrestling style is just Crazy. | ||
| Yeah, it's it's so Brennan Schab had been to his training camp. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And he called me up. | ||
| He goes, he goes, Bro, we gotta talk. | ||
| He goes, I just got back watching Hamza train. | ||
| He goes, I've never seen anything like that in my fucking life. | ||
| He's like, dude, but I'm telling you, he's mopping the floor with like division one, all Americans, world class grapplers, jujitsu black belts. | ||
| He he goes, he's mopping the floor with people. | ||
| He goes, It's nuts. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, yeah. | |
| Because they asked me if I wanted to spar with him. | ||
| Shaw goes, fuck you. | ||
| He's like fuck you. | ||
| I'm not going in there. | ||
| He goes, he was mauling people on the ground. | ||
| He goes, I never seen anything like it. | ||
| He goes, it was it was crazy. | ||
| He goes, he's so high level. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| I had the privilege of going to the gym and uh in Dubai and uh training alongside him and sorry for myself, and it's yeah, I was like it's a shocking level of grappling. | ||
| Yeah, and when you can achieve that shocking level of grappling on world-class MMA fighters, why wouldn't you do it? | ||
| This is this just my thing, my take on it. | ||
| Like if you just want to win and make as much money as possible and keep doing that. | ||
| I mean, you should finish guys whenever you can. | ||
| Yeah, but if you don't think you can, and the path to victory is grappling, this is still a sport. | ||
| Yeah, fair. | ||
| If it wasn't a sport, there'd still be headbuts. | ||
| Yeah, right. | ||
| Yeah, stomps, soccer kicks, all the wild shit that used to be, you'd still be able to wear shoes, who gives a fuck. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| But it's a sport. | ||
| So if it's a sport, we've got some rules. | ||
| Yeah, I just don't think I don't think there's anything wrong with winning by the rules. | ||
| It's not my favorite style. | ||
| Fair fair, fair, fair. | ||
| My favorite style is either a knockout artist or a submission artist. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, Oliveira when he was in his prime. | |
| Catching triangles and dars', and oh my god, he was a monster. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| He was so good. | ||
| Those guys, like when you watch a guy who's like an elite world class submission artist and the fight goes to the ground, it's just a totally different thing. | ||
| You know, you you you're in real like Fabricio Verdoom when he was in his prime when he caught Fedor with that triangle. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Bro, that was catching Fedor with a triangle is crazy. | |
| Yeah, just if you know how explosive that guy is and how fast he is and strong enough, what a great grappler he is. | ||
| But Fabricio Verdoom's another guy who doesn't get his due. | ||
| When you think about all time goats, yeah, you think about Noguerra, you think about Phaedor, and you think about Minotaro and Fabricio Verdoom tapped them all. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| He tapped all the greats. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Very true. | |
| All of them. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Tapped them. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| Tapped them. | ||
| All the greats. | ||
| Didn't just win by a decision. | ||
| Yeah, didn't just hold it. | ||
| Tap Fedor when Fedor was Fador. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And people like, whoa, that's crazy. | |
| Fadal's a beast. | ||
| Bro, he was a monster. | ||
| Stoic warrior from Russia. | ||
| Not no expression. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| And his earliest of his time. | ||
| Oh, way ahead of his time. | ||
| That's the first of his time. | ||
| Way ahead of his time. | ||
| His ability to catch some missions off his back with lightning speed. | ||
| He had a lightning fast armbar. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| And power on the feet. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| But he walked down Crow cop. | ||
| Yeah, it's crazy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Crazy. | |
| With stand-up. | ||
| Yeah, Cocot's head kicks were insane. | ||
| Every kick. | ||
| Everything. | ||
| But like Fedor was blocking them so intelligently too. | ||
| He was using that high block with the knee way up like that to catch that left kick. | ||
| And he caught it sh they caught it shin to shin many times. | ||
| It was that was a crazy fight. | ||
| But Fedor in his prime was so good, man. | ||
| Because he was the first guy other than Minotaro. | ||
| Minotaro, but he was more dangerous on the feet than Minotaro. | ||
| But Minataro on the ground was like one of the first guys, like super dangerous off his back. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Just super super lethal guard. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Like when he beat Bob Sapp. | ||
| That was the nuttiest fight in the history of MMA. | ||
| That was the nutty he Bob Sapp was 350 pounds with ass. | ||
| I was gonna say he's like he's kinda like your your Ingarnu nowadays. | ||
| Babe, but way bigger. | ||
| Always yeah. | ||
| Way bigger, but not as skilled. | ||
| Yeah, no one's different. | ||
| He's gotten yeah, Francis's improvement. | ||
| Because in his earlier stages, I was just like, yeah, he's got power by his technically like Francis basically beat Tyson Fury in a boxing match. | ||
| Crazy, right? | ||
| Basically beat him because I I scored it for him. | ||
| I scored it for him. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| 100%. | ||
| They did they just couldn't they could not let that happen. | ||
| He dropped Tyson Fury with a left hook and then danced in front of him. | ||
| I mean, that's that's that's skill. | ||
| I mean, he wasn't ready for Anthony Joshua because Anthony Joshua was a different thing. | ||
| Yeah, like it's just d he's got more one-shot knockout, but he took it more seriously too. | ||
| I know he k he likes to switch in. | ||
| But again, like this is where the boxing is if you don't have that kind of intellect in the boxing, that footwork and foot positioning is put your foot on one side, you're gonna get killed. | ||
| You're putting the foot in the other side, you're you're you're safe. | ||
| You can kind of manage manage the power and see the punches coming. | ||
| But he was kept switching stances, but just putting in and leaving himself in just the wrong positions. | ||
| Yeah, he wasn't ready. | ||
| There was a lot of hype off the fury fight. | ||
| Also, Joshua got to watch him box in the fury fight, see some patterns. | ||
| Fury, I think, probably took him lightly. | ||
| Yes, I think so. | ||
| It's one of the greatest of all time. | ||
| This guy's never had a boxing match. | ||
| Yeah, at the beginning of the fight, he's like, time to go to school. | ||
| Oh, really? | ||
| And then he probably got stunned. | ||
| You just got stunned and that was it. | ||
| He's now working. | ||
| You talk to any fighter, they will tell you the worst times of their life is when they thought that a guy was nothing. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And then in the middle of the fight, they realize, oh my god, I'm losing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| They took a guy lightly and they didn't get up for the fight. | ||
| Yeah, and then they went in there, and that dude was fired up and ready to go. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| You got with this thing, you can't take anybody lightly though. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. | |
| Mike Tyson Buster Douglas, another perfect guy. | ||
| Oh, yeah, 100% no. | ||
| No one's gonna be. | ||
| This guy was partying every day. | ||
| Yeah, he probably exactly. | ||
| He did not take it seriously. | ||
| You got bigger the biggest respect for Buster Douglas on that one, though. | ||
| That was oh my god, it was one of the greatest performances of any heavyweight title fight ever. | ||
| Yeah, to want to walk in and do that as well. | ||
| The fact that that guy could do that the whole time, but only did it against Mike Tyson is nuts. | ||
| Because he was one of those guys, and we all know them that is super talented and just never realizes their full potential. | ||
| Like Jim, you know, guys in the gym that like you'd see him spar and stuff like that. | ||
| I talk about this all the time. | ||
| Like I've had so many people, obviously, I've got to see over the years that are talented, and again, it's the same thing, but can you do it when it counts? | ||
| Can you do it when the lights are on? | ||
| Can you do it when there's pressure and it means something to your you, your friends, your family, money. | ||
| Yeah, can you still do it? | ||
| Yeah, that's when it counts. | ||
| But I've seen guys that are there's a guy actually, uh, and I always talk about him just because he was super unique, and weird enough, he got to the UFC for on a short stint, uh, Galore Buffundo. | ||
| I don't know if you ever remember him. | ||
| He only did he only had two fights, but he fought uh Charlie Ward, and I I call it Hadukin. | ||
| He just grabbed him and like threw his head into the floor. | ||
| Oh, geez. | ||
| And it was a KO. | ||
| And I don't he actually never got that the bonus for that. | ||
| I don't know how he didn't, because I've never seen anybody just throw someone's head down. | ||
| You need to watch it soon. | ||
| There you go. | ||
| Oh god. | ||
| And if you if you keep it going and you see how he finishes, look, he's like wow. | ||
| Oh landed hard. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| That dude landed hard. | ||
| And if you see the finish, look at this is how athletic this guy was. | ||
| Just watch light work, just landed just in a little perfect despite the sounds. | ||
| Yeah, perfect landing. | ||
| Now I had to deal with this every day. | ||
| Yeah, and that was nothing. | ||
| He's super explosive. | ||
| But again, he's a striker, very weird striker. | ||
| Like kick his kicks are like his hands. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He can for ages, yeah. | |
| I was sparring him one time, and me and him, like I I'm the guy with him. | ||
| When he steps in, my eyes do this, and I'm like, okay, I have to make sure I'm because a kick will come from anywhere. | ||
| And we're sparring and going back, going back and forth, and I'm I'm in my element, and everything slows down for me, and I see his head drop down, and alarm bells are going off, and I'm like, he doesn't he doesn't shoot, he doesn't go for takedowns. | ||
| But I'm feeling alarm bells going on like something's gone wrong. | ||
| I don't know why this felt this slow. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Something is wrong. | |
| And I've never done this block in my life, and I went like this. | ||
| X block. | ||
| I've never done this in my life. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Never been taught this, but my body said, throw your hands. | |
| He did that and did a cartwheel kick front flip. | ||
| Oh, jeez. | ||
| Yeah, landed on his foot and axe-kicked me. | ||
| If I didn't do that, I I'd be sitting here in two right now. | ||
| What talking to you about the story that I once used to do MMA and this guy split me in half. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He and he's front flip axe. | |
| He's done a front flip axe kick. | ||
| I wonder On his Instagram, I don't know if you'll find it, but on his Instagram, there's clips of him doing it on a bag. | ||
| And he literally flips, lands on his foot, bah, hits the bag, and he's just standing. | ||
| But he did it. | ||
| I've blocked it. | ||
| Now, even that alone, because I've now blocked it, you should fall off balance. | ||
| He took his foot off and carried on sparring. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Everyone in the gym was like, what the fuck? | |
| Shhh. | ||
| How was that? | ||
| I never even thought anyone could do that. | ||
| He's another person that in the cage. | ||
| He never showed this stuff. | ||
| I've seen him, someone on a single leg, and he's run up the cage and slipped up the single leg and kicked off the cage and landed behind the person and started. | ||
| I'm t it's it always when I talk about this, it sounds like I'm exaggerating. | ||
| He used to do stuff that I've never it's only in games. | ||
| And this is why everyone used to love. | ||
| Because that was crazy. | ||
| The landing was crazy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, like it was like he was like, it's not like just yeah. | |
| No, he landed softly on one knee. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| He was insane, but just never showed it. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| Never been retired. | ||
| Yeah, he's like he just he teaches and stuff now, but he just and it's a shame, and he was a fun character, uh like I said, amazing person to train with because he made me better because he's and he's got the few people that in the gym that could actually kick me in the head and catch me because I usually I'm I'm I'm good at seeing, I got good eyes, and he's just yeah, it was just something else. | ||
| Crazy that you knew it. | ||
| Like you had intuition. | ||
| I don't know what happened. | ||
| But something said if you don't do this, you're going to die today. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Wow. | |
| Wow. | ||
| That's crazy that you've recognized that of all movements. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| But again, his because like he never shoots. | ||
| He's a striker, he'll sprawling and start doing his jujitsu from there. | ||
| Never really shoots. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And he just went like this. | |
| And I'm like, what's going on here? | ||
| There's yes. | ||
| I I don't feel like sprawling. | ||
| Something's wrong, but I don't feel like sprawling. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, here you go. | |
| Here you go. | ||
| Oh my god. | ||
| Yeah, he does one, he does one and he lands. | ||
| He does one and he lands it. | ||
| That's crazy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Boom. | |
| That is so crazy. | ||
| Imagine doing that during sparring. | ||
| It doesn't make sense. | ||
| And he's he's I'm talking, he's hitting the bag. | ||
| Boom, look. | ||
| That's crazy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I tell people, people feel like you're talking rubbish. | |
| You can hear that. | ||
| Oh if that hit me. | ||
| That is so wild. | ||
| And I wish he was able to show this stuff. | ||
| Explosion you have to have to pull that off. | ||
| The amount of force you generate. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And who would see that coming? | ||
| I don't I still don't to this day know how I saw it coming, but if he did that, and again, he goes into he went into these fights, and he would it would be relatively basic. | ||
| He wouldn't show all of this kind of stuff. | ||
| So he would tighten up in fights. | ||
| Yeah, he'd just tighten up a little bit and just wouldn't express himself in the same way. | ||
| Did anybody at that time work with like a mental coach? | ||
| Uh no, no, I wouldn't. | ||
| From our gym, the only person that I I know did it from our gym was actually Alex Reed. | ||
| And but he is weird character anyway. | ||
| Funny guy, lovely guy. | ||
| Um, but he used to have like therapists come and do this kind of stuff. | ||
| And at the time he I feel like I didn't care for it because he just made it seem lame. | ||
| Like it's just because it was from him, but I understand more so as over my time the importance of the mental aspect of things as well. | ||
| Maybe if someone could explain to him or if you could have a conversation about what goes wrong when he competes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Like what what are the thought processes when he competes and what could be done different to change that thought like to combat them when they those thoughts come up to have a tool, yeah, have a mentals toolbox where you go, no, no, no. | ||
| Yep, we're not gonna entertain this kind of negativity. | ||
| We're gonna stay positive, we're gonna stay Xan. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| You know, the most important things, don't ever give in anxiety, don't let it get to you, don't let it fall. | ||
| You're positive, you're breathing, you're moving, you're a killer. | ||
| Keep moving, and and just have someone with him, maybe initially to coach him through those movements. | ||
| I wish there was some again, but again, also maybe the the gym that he's in with us at London Shoot, that's that was not that's not a thing. | ||
| It's right, we beast like we're just gonna. | ||
| And the thing is he was he he still look amazing up until the fight. | ||
| He'd get to the fight, and you'd be like, bro, I can't wait for people to see this. | ||
| Right, right. | ||
| And he'd get there, and you're like, what are you doing, man? | ||
| Yeah, and it's just it's frustrating because he's still super he was still super talented. | ||
| He's still, you know, he won one, and I think he lost the next one, and then that was it. | ||
| Um, but even his previous fights before that, he's got some exceptional fights, but just not what he's capable of doing. | ||
| I've never seen what I've seen in the gym on stage. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| Never seen, and he still got signed to the UFC. | ||
| Just because he was still talented, but and obviously somebody saw his talent and was like, Yeah, I want that, but that and nobody's ever seen what I've seen this guy do, and all of our teammates are like, Oh, if you go see that, this yeah, you everybody would be throwing money at this guy, just make sure he's on the next card. | ||
| It's crazy. | ||
| Yeah, it's really crazy. | ||
| Yeah, because it's it seems to be like that in almost every sport. | ||
| Yeah, but in fighting in particular, yeah, yeah. | ||
| Because it's the biggest mental hurdle. | ||
| You know, there's there's no team to fall back on. | ||
| There's no, I guess we lost tonight, boys. | ||
| No, you got fucked up in front of the whole world, and that's the sport that you're in. | ||
| You're in the sport with the highest highs and the lowest lows. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| So that pressure is just uh it's unexplainable to the average person. | ||
| Yeah, I you can't explain it really. | ||
| This is why I try my best to focus on the element of fun. | ||
| Because I feel like when I'm in when I'm dancing, smiling, laughing, joking, everything slows down and everything's enjoyable. | ||
| There's no stress. | ||
| And anytime I feel slightly stressed, you might see me dance, which is interesting because people just think I'm just doing it for the other person to mock the other person. | ||
| And sometimes it's just uh just stay chill, man. | ||
| You're here, you're here. | ||
| Like you don't need to do anything more than this. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| If I feel like a little bit like, oh, that was a bit, and my mind starts going, no, no, no, no, ha ha ha let's shake it off, get into this, get into your mode again, and then go back to enjoying yourself. | ||
| That's my and but I know some people need to be in this angry state and just you know, psych themselves into a and I don't even need to be angry at my opponent. | ||
| And I think that comes from the fact that I used to have to fight my siblings. | ||
| It's never it's not based on anger, but I love them. | ||
| Like, but my dad is he used to say, like, yeah, that's not your sibling on the map, but straight afterwards, make sure you pick that person up, make sure they're good, da da. | ||
| And again, my brother would beat me up, other brother beat me up, my sister would beat me up. | ||
| Everybody, but I still had love for them. | ||
| So I don't I never needed anger to think, and and the fact that my family did this thing, and even my nephews and stuff now. | ||
| We still they still it's generational, just something that keeps us all together, and we're so close. | ||
| It's not based on being angry, just based on learning something, enjoying something, and doing it with people that you love. | ||
| So I can I cause that's why I can make it fun. | ||
| Everyone everyone loves this whole like tense, like and I don't I think what a lot of people don't understand too is the hardest part of it is the day of the fight. | ||
| It's not the fight. | ||
| Once a fight starts happening, oh yeah, you're there, you're in it, you're in it, yeah. | ||
| It's not scary, yeah. | ||
| Unless you're you know, unless you're getting fucked up, yeah. | ||
| You know, when you're getting fucked up and you know like the end is near, yeah, yeah. | ||
| There's like you want to see ultimate bravery. | ||
| Khalil Roundtree in the last round with Pereira, yeah or Pereira's putting it on him, that's ultimate bravery because he knows he's getting fucked up, he knows he's not much time, there's nowhere out, yeah, his skill set is all on stand-up. | ||
| I mean, he can he can take guys to the ground, but at this point that's not gonna happen. | ||
| It's not happening, and he's faces broken up, and Pereira's doing that cobra thing, or he gets cobra style and he's back and slams in. | ||
| Oh, it was terrifying, but that's that that kind of bravery in front of the whole world. | ||
| A lot of people they're not sure if they have that. | ||
| Yeah, fair. | ||
| And so there's just that the pressure of that in front of the whole world, like maybe like they didn't they're in there and it's like just do enough, just do enough. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| They're scared, which shrinks you, and sometimes super duper talented people are the most scared because it kind of came too easy for them. | ||
| There's a thing about super duper talented people that for some reason, like that gift comes with a curse, and that curse is that it came to you too easily, so you never really developed. | ||
| I understand the grind, yeah, the real will and drive to like overcome, just make these little tiny wins every day to pile onto a skill set. | ||
| You're just a lightning bolt, yeah. | ||
| You know, you're a lightning bolt, and then you know, when it's time to actually fight, you're like, you don't know if you've been tested. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| You don't know who you are yet. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| I think I get that a lot though, as in like people always like, uh, he's just naturally talented. | ||
| And only when I tell people that I used to get my ass handed to me. | ||
| But this is the thing that I've always said. | ||
| Guys who grow up with brothers, especially older brothers who can kick their ass, they're ready to fight at all times. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Because they're fighting in their fucking house. | ||
| They're ready to fight with guys who can beat them up their whole life. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| Just that alone like sets you up for competition in a different way than someone like I grew up with my sister, we didn't fight. | ||
| Yeah, it's like nobody beat me up at home. | ||
| It's totally different. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Because you're you're accustomed to being around hostile males who are dominating you. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Was it older or younger though? | ||
| Younger sister. | ||
| Okay, yeah, because my older sister was still beat me out. | ||
| Uh my my sister never got into martial arts. | ||
| I was the only one in the family got into it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, okay, okay. | |
| But if I did, if I grew up with a bunch of brothers, I'm sure we'd be beating the fuck out of each other. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| Well we weird enough, we had to do it. | ||
| That's one thing again, you'd always say you can't no this is not for out here. | ||
| This is for in there. | ||
| So if you got an issue, you verbalize it. | ||
| And if you still have an issue, we can sort it out in there. | ||
| But yeah, I'd be annoyed at my brother. | ||
| We'd have fights every now and again, but nothing crazy. | ||
| But it's just the accustomed being accustomed to just to just constant back and forth. | ||
| How about fuck you? | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| It's like it's in your house. | ||
| It's in your house. | ||
| And I used to I was the wind up. | ||
| Oh yeah. | ||
| But I couldn't fight, so I had to have to do it some other way. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, it's some shit. | |
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| That's that's part of the thing. | ||
| You know, yeah. | ||
| What's crazy about John Jones is his his brother He's got two older brothers, no? | ||
| Well, I think one of them is younger. | ||
| Isn't it Chandler younger? | ||
| But they're all beasts. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, of course. | ||
| So you're growing up a house. | ||
| Like you you better l you better be ready for some hostility. | ||
| You gotta be ready for some aggression. | ||
| And there's a like there's a giant benefit of that as in far is uh as far as mindset because the mindset you you're accustomed to hostility. | ||
| I mean, all his brothers are super freaks, just giant athletes. | ||
| And so the you know, he's in this house with highly competitive males his whole life. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| So you're totally accustomed to competition. | ||
| Whereas with some people, competition is like super overwhelming. | ||
| And it's there's it's a test you don't want to take. | ||
| You almost don't want to find out if you're good enough. | ||
| I think school even the school system has like they slowly over the years it they've slowly taken out certain things that allows challenges people in a way that gives them that gift of being competitive and especially in the UK. | ||
| I don't know, I'm not sure about in the States, but in the UK, we they they changed the rules sort of just after I would have left to um not allowed to pick teams because you know people feel bad if they got picked last year. | ||
| I'm like, if you're shit, I'm not picking you, get better. | ||
| Yeah, this is real life. | ||
| Like that's how it works in real life. | ||
| And that that bad feeling of getting picked last. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Lionel Richie was talking about that yesterday. | ||
| Oh, seriously. | ||
| So Lionel Richard before he was in a band, it was always like he was the last one to get picked for this. | ||
| It was the last one. | ||
| He was talking about that openly. | ||
| But look, that's what created Lionel Richard. | ||
| 100%. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| And again, it I think we well, over again over there, not sure here, but we model uh molly molecular like the kids. | ||
| And then they think that they do you you you surround them in cotton wool. | ||
| Yep, and then the real life hits them and they're just like, Whoa. | ||
| It's the opposite of Yoel Romero. | ||
| Oh, yeah, exactly. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You become my chin. | |
| It's the opposite. | ||
| It's the opposite of that. | ||
| I think I was talking to my um my brother as well earlier about how they say was it a comment? | ||
| I forget the saying, it's like tough men create good times, good times, and that the whole cycle of that. | ||
| And it's I find it's it's very true though. | ||
| We're in too much good times for people, and everybody's complaining about everything. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| When things are really good, the problem is whatever is bad, even mildly becomes a giant thing. | ||
| Then you're dealing with like microaggressions of work. | ||
| Like people get crazy. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| They look for all kinds of grievances everywhere they look they go. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| When you're when you are involved in like hard competition, you're not interested in any of that stuff. | ||
| At all. | ||
| Because it's just a giant distraction. | ||
| The real thing is so difficult. | ||
| And that's why I think even though it's uncomfortable for kids, I think like wrestling in high school, any kind of competitive sports in high school, martial arts especially. | ||
| I've been advocating for ages. | ||
| For ages I've been saying this. | ||
| Like just it's okay to lose. | ||
| It's okay to lose. | ||
| It's actually good for you. | ||
| Very good for you, and you need to learn this kind of stuff. | ||
| Like I said, as soon as you as soon as they're out of your care, they have to experience that anyway. | ||
| You can't you're not you're and I used to do this if even in um when I was teaching. | ||
| We're teaching a jab or something, teaching a jab, and we're doing slipping drills. | ||
| And you're jabbing like this. | ||
| I was like, you're not helping anybody by jabbing away from their face because now this guy thinks he's amazing at slipping punches. | ||
| Right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And then we make him spar, and he's like, move your fucking head. | |
| I'll do what I usually do. | ||
| So I'm like, it's better that you hit him in the gym, so then when they go out into the real world or they go into a competition and whatever, they can actually they're actually good at these drills that I'm giving you. | ||
| You're not helping by trying to be helpful. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| You don't have to hit hard, but be accurate. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Get them used to it, and then slowly speed up. | ||
| Yeah, and then and it bro, I say this all the time, but it's exactly the same thing. | ||
| People need to go through those actual trials and tribulations in certain areas, so that then they can be ready for it later on. | ||
| 100%. | ||
| And this idea of protecting them, and everybody gets everybody gets a participation trophy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| That's so bad for it's that feeling of bad from losing is beneficial. | ||
| It's just like the feeling of being tired after you work out. | ||
| That's how you get in shape. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| It's all good to you. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| It's all good for you. | ||
| You're getting into a m emotional shape. | ||
| But this is why I feel a lot of people are trying to take shortcuts for everything. | ||
| Nobody really wants to do the hardware. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| Nobody wants to do the the hard work. | ||
| And and I get it if it's if you're if it's really excessive, you let you get get to a certain point, and it's like, okay, you need to at least some help to get to a certain point to then work out, but you need to work. | ||
| You need to work. | ||
| And it's good for your brain. | ||
| Your brain is uh we have for whatever reason a whole series of human reward systems that are built into our brains from the times that we were all living in tribes, yeah, thousands and thousands of years ago. | ||
| And in this brain, it requires tasks. | ||
| There's things it's like enforced in your brain that if you go out and you make arrowheads and you hunt the deer, you have food. | ||
| Yeah, your family survives, so you have tasks. | ||
| So they're whittling the stick and you're you're into it. | ||
| And you better be fucking into it. | ||
| Because if you're not into it, you're not gonna eat. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So if you have a life where there's none of those things, and you're sitting there in front of Netflix, of course you're depressed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| Of course you're depressed. | ||
| Your body's not getting any of the stuff that it needs. | ||
| I think your mind isn't getting any of the tasks that it needs. | ||
| Someone was telling me like it's the what's it, the reptilian mind set that looks for dangers or seeks dangers because we're not in a s society that has those dangers. | ||
| We look at danger, our dangers are now this person looked at me funny, or this person like or you're even worse, your phone. | ||
| Your phone, yeah. | ||
| It's even it's even easier now. | ||
| Yeah, people are commenting on you, oh the haters getting made today. | ||
| Yeah, I to be fair, it's funny. | ||
| The first time this was still early, so my comments were from YouTube initially. | ||
| I had an Instagram, but I didn't really use it like that. | ||
| So after my first fight, I was super pumped. | ||
| I'm like, because like I said to you, I was so nervous after my first fight. | ||
| And I always say I always say, look, if you watch all of my walkouts have been like, yeah, vibes, yeah, yeah. | ||
| I'm just happy to be here. | ||
| My first fight. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I was like this. | |
| I was dying inside, Joel. | ||
| Just like what in my head, I literally I was like, why did I decide to do this? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sorry. | |
| Why am I here? | ||
| What the what I was stressed the whole walk was the most the longest walk, and you've never seen me so tense. | ||
| And then the second I got in there and the bell rang, I was like, Oh yeah, same thing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Then I started to feel myself and you know the vibe or like my energy started like the MVP that we obviously come to know now, came out. | ||
| And that was for me, that was just like that was great. | ||
| But in terms of uh I just lost Raoul. | ||
| You lost what you're talking about? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| No worries, it happens all the time. | ||
| So, but that was interesting that then the second fight was the one that it really overwhelmed you. | ||
| That was in the second fight In the in the UFC overwhelmed me. | ||
| But so the first fight you ever had was when you walked out. | ||
| It was when I walked out. | ||
| The first fight you ever had. | ||
| So that was me against it was me versus no not you see me versus uh Dishman. | ||
| And I just walked out, and seriously, I just had nothing but fear inside me. | ||
| And what kind of tr what what kind of a I athlete was he? | ||
| What did he do? | ||
| Um I'm not sure he was a kickboxer or something. | ||
| Didn't see my first fight. | ||
| We had I had like I think three pull-outs before I got to that fight. | ||
| Like probably like the three weeks before. | ||
| Like three different people that and at the at that level, it happens all the time. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And I had fights online. | ||
| So my coach was like, Can you are you able to take these down? | ||
| I'm like, they're randomly filmed from so many random people. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So like I don't I wouldn't even know how to where to begin to find out to try and get them taken down. | ||
| So I just if anybody did research, they would see that I've got I had like a 720 kick. | ||
| So it made sense why people was pulling out. | ||
| For people that don't understand what that means, that's not a 360 60 degree kick. | ||
| It's a this is one of them. | ||
| This wasn't even the first time I did it. | ||
| Where is it? | ||
| Yes, okay. | ||
| Is it coming? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It'll be after this before. | |
| Okay, yeah. | ||
| Okay, it's gonna be yeah, I said just before this, just before this. | ||
| That's crazy. | ||
| That's such a crazy kick. | ||
| That dude is sitting there going, how the fuck did he hit me with that? | ||
| He put his hands on his knees and everything. | ||
| Like, how the fuck did he pull that off? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I understand why like people would look at that and be like, No, no, I mean that's not yes, yeah, yeah. | |
| But this guy stepped in. | ||
| Uh, and yeah, like I just I felt so bad, negative going forward, walking in. | ||
| But then once I was in there, but yeah, if you see the walkout, oh this one doesn't have it. | ||
| But even how I'm uh even here, I'm super tensed. | ||
| Like it was only until I started bouncing that it was even a thing. | ||
| What was the thing that was bothering you the most about doing this? | ||
| Just the fact just my decision, like why did I do this? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't know specifically. | |
| Oh, but once you got loose. | ||
| Once I yeah, once I got in there, I was like, oh cool. | ||
| He had an obvious game. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, he was trying to take me down. | ||
| Yeah, he wasn't strong, so I was just like, Yeah, just push off. | ||
| Like, felt I was feeling good. | ||
| And I think after he felt my strength, he was like, Okay, it's kind of stood back. | ||
| That style's such a problem. | ||
| It's such a problem. | ||
| I'm watching you move here, and I'm thinking, like, what do you do? | ||
| Oh, you can't do anything, you can't do anything because he's so far away from you, and you can like that when you try to close a distance on him, and or when it rather he tries to close the distance on you, and he just can't. | ||
| He just can't get close. | ||
| Like, look at that. | ||
| That's just nuts. | ||
| That's a terrible puzzle to try to solve in real life. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Wow, look at that dive. | ||
| That's pretty good though. | ||
| You got a hold of your ankle. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| I mean, that's that shows you how much he wanted that takedown. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| Until this happens. | ||
| Oh boy. | ||
| The best part is just the standing there. | ||
| That's amazing. | ||
| Look at this is amazing. | ||
| That's amazing. | ||
| That's the best not walk-off KO ever. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right? | |
| That's a standoff KO. | ||
| Like, you realize that's crazy. | ||
| You didn't even look at him. | ||
| That's amazing. | ||
| It's funny when I when people asked me like, why did you stand there? | ||
| Like, what if he came back? | ||
| I was like, I landed the kick and I stood still, and I was thinking he might come back, so I couldn't spin the other way and land another kick. | ||
| That was that was the game. | ||
| And then when he just the the referee stepped in, I was like, perfect. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| This looks good. | ||
| This thing's good. | ||
| It did look good. | ||
| It looks so good. | ||
| But that's the thing. | ||
| I went hell, okay. | ||
| That's where I remember I was going. | ||
| I had I went crazy viral for that. | ||
| Everyone's like, who's this guy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Like, da da da. | |
| And I was I was like, because of the relief that I had because of how tense I was, I was like, oh my god, like I that was for me ticking the box that I can actually do this. | ||
| I can actually make a career of this. | ||
| Because I wasn't sure. | ||
| And got home, what did you jump online, like I want to I honestly, like I'm seeing a video like crazy thousands of like comments and this and that like yeah, maybe the next comment. | ||
| Maybe the next one. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Nope. | |
| Yeah, people don't like me. | ||
| They didn't like you for that video. | ||
| I felt like I had murdered someone's child. | ||
| For that video. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| It just shows you why you shouldn't read comments. | ||
| Yeah, 100%. | ||
| Because you're only getting the opinions of the dumbest motherfuckers alive. | ||
| If you just saw that, yeah, yeah. | ||
| So let me tell you my thought when I saw that. | ||
| Because when that clip went viral, I went, finally. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| Like, this is proof of what I've been saying for a long time. | ||
| Like, there they have a different thing. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Like the really elite point fighters have a totally different thing, and you can't even get close to hitting that. | ||
| And we're seeing that. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| That was the beginning of it. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Because even though Raymond had really good success in glory. | ||
| Yeah, he was amazing, yeah. | ||
| He did a great success in glory, but it was different, right? | ||
| Because you're in a small ring, it's roped off, and he wasn't accustomed to leg kicks yet. | ||
| He had a he had what that one spectacular jumping side kick, spin back kick to the face. | ||
| Oh, he nearly hit me. | ||
| He needed to hit me with one of those. | ||
| He he was very famous for his double back kicks. | ||
| Oh my god. | ||
| And then every now and again he would hook it. | ||
| And then it's like he's he's knocked people out in the points game for it. | ||
| Everyone's seen it like, and I remember the I think it's the first time I fought him. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I was young, but I had a reputation. | |
| He's the he was the guy like over in America that had a repu reputation, and you know what he's we've we've collided. | ||
| Um I was like, I don't care who this guy is, man. | ||
| I'm just I was feeling myself, I was killing everybody for ages. | ||
| I remember faking that moving, moving, moving around, moving around, faking, faking got him in the corner. | ||
| I was like, oh, perfect. | ||
| Boom, blitz. | ||
| Same thing. | ||
| I was like, something's off. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Boom, did this. | |
| Bah, bah. | ||
| But both normally the first kick is light. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Both stamps. | |
| I was like, shit. | ||
| Not only was that fast, but that was powerful as well. | ||
| And that just got into my head. | ||
| This threw me, threw me right off. | ||
| I didn't want to commit to any of my strikes, and it just it just from the first from the first uh moment he he let that go. | ||
| I was just like, yeah, it was very dangerous. | ||
| Dangerous. | ||
| Very dangerous. | ||
| Dangerous, dangerous. | ||
| And he was another guy that like you know, proved that point that this is a completely different skill set. | ||
| And if you don't know how to deal with that, you're in real. | ||
| They took the elite guys, it took like the Nikki Holdskins and the Joseph Valini's, those guys to figure out Nikki was beast. | ||
| Yeah, just chop the legs. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| And Nikki was so technical, it was tight, hands up, hi, chopped the leg, chopped the leg. | ||
| He was a beast. | ||
| Yeah, chopping the legs, man, is a totally different ball game. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| As soon as the legs start getting chopped, you're like, it's hard, you can't bounce anymore. | ||
| But that's the thing, it's weird because I started to utilize that as a way to win fights. | ||
| Weird, not obviously taking the leg kicks, but only giving you that option. | ||
| So everyone's like, yeah, but that's an awkward style. | ||
| I was like, yeah, but when I stand in front of you like that, you don't think to do a punch because I look I feel way too far away. | ||
| So you're not doing a punch, you know. | ||
| The only thing you have is what's in front of you is a kick. | ||
| So it's like I got used to timing kicks as you're as you're kicking collision going in, or just pulling just off and then putting my foot in slightly deeper, and then just pull it off and then put my foot in slightly deeper now. | ||
| I know I can pull this trigger when I'm ready. | ||
| And you're you're getting more and more demoralized because you're not landing. | ||
| And there's only one thing available. | ||
| And there's only one thing available. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So I have to keep pressing that same button. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And the idea of you shooting on it feels far. | ||
| Yeah, too far. | ||
| Feels very far. | ||
| Well, that's the Hamsat thing. | ||
| It's like Hamzat shoots from the middle of the fucking octagon. | ||
| That that guy's got a crazy shot. | ||
| That shot he hit Whitaker with and the one he went with uh who is it? | ||
| Oh, the leech. | ||
| When he picked up the leech, he picked him up, carried him over to Dana White. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| And it's like, I kill everybody. | ||
| Like, whoa, this is nuts. | ||
| He was another guy that, like, how the fuck are you making one seven? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| He's a big is a big boy. | ||
| When I first met him, I was like, what are you talking about? | ||
| You know 170? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| Big boy. | ||
| I fucking hate the weight cutting. | ||
| I hate it. | ||
| I hate it with a passion. | ||
| I hate it more than anything in the sport. | ||
| I think it should be eliminated, but it's too late. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I don't think I think people should get down to a healthy weight and fight for the healthiest weight, whatever the hell that is. | ||
| Do you think there would be a way to combat that? | ||
| Not as well. | ||
| Because Obviously, in boxing, they got the you have to weigh in multiple times now. | ||
| Well, some fighters make you do that. | ||
| Like Javante Davis, he made uh Ryan Garcia do that. | ||
| He wanted to make sure that Brian Garcia didn't rehydrate. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| Mayweather did that to Canelo too. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| It's just a G move. | ||
| It's very smart. | ||
| That's when you're near the A side. | ||
| You're the smaller, you're the A side. | ||
| You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| I'll fight you, but you gotta weigh 43 when you get in that fucking ring, bitch. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Guys will take that fight for that you know, big paycheck, but it's not a good move. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Um, but I just think that it's legalized cheating. | ||
| I just think that it's cheating. | ||
| You're not looking if you're a hundred and fifty-five pound champion but you weigh 190 pounds, that's kind of crazy. | ||
| It's kind of crazy. | ||
| I agree, and if I didn't have to weight cut, because if you don't join in, uh you're fighting monsters. | ||
| That's true, but they would have to fight monsters too. | ||
| Everybody would have to fight a person that weighs what they actually weigh. | ||
| No, I I agree with that, but I'm just saying with the fact that people are weight cutting. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| When I got to this arena, I'd prefer to just report what I weigh that. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| But because everyone's weight cutting, I was like, You have to. | ||
| You have to. | ||
| Yeah, you have to do it. | ||
| Because you'll look like when you are fighting at 170, for people that understand I'm short, that's 30 pounds less than me. | ||
| Yeah, that's crazy. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| That's crazy. | ||
| Like that's just a giant advantage that you can't give up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| And when you're doing that across every single weight class and every single world championship, the last guy that I know that didn't cut weight was Frankie Edgar when he was 155 pound champ. | ||
| When Frankie Edgar was a 155-pound champ, he weighed 155 and he moved like a ghost. | ||
| He was all over the place. | ||
| He was fast as fuck, he had great endurance. | ||
| His his recovery was incredible because he could take a great shot because he wasn't dehydrated like everybody else was. | ||
| That's the thing. | ||
| I actually feel great at middleweight. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| We definitely have the size for it. | ||
| Yeah, I I'm I'm naturally that way, but it's weird though, because people's body types, because they are cutting, they're still slightly stuck, not necessarily as frame-wise as big as me, but they're just slightly stuck here, and obviously, as you say, the guys that want to come in and just go, Yeah. | ||
| They just want to clinch and get you. | ||
| It's a giant advantage. | ||
| It's an advantage if they're gonna be that much heavier than me as well. | ||
| Moving people, like even when um uh in my last fight when I got taken down in uh in that in that last round trying to uh against Cannonia, try trying to move him. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I was just like, geez, is Cannon's huge, he's a big there's a big boy. | |
| He's one of the only guys that's got KOs in three different classes. | ||
| No, from heavyweight, heavyweight, light heavyweight, and middleweight. | ||
| Yeah, beast. | ||
| He's huge for 185. | ||
| But he it's another perfect example. | ||
| And I think look, there's something to be said for the ritual of doing it for a lot of fighters, it means a lot, and you could choose to cut less so that you're more healthy the day of the fight. | ||
| But everyone kind of concedes you have to cut something. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| And I just don't think that's smart 24 hours before a fight in a cage. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| Why would you deplete your body purposely? | ||
| Because it's basically like getting drunk. | ||
| Yeah, it really is. | ||
| Like you're dehydrating the shit out of your body. | ||
| And you only have three, five, forty hours to rehydrate between the weigh-ins and the time you're actually gonna fight if you're lucky of 40 hours. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| That's not enough time. | ||
| Yeah, I I I can do it. | ||
| I don't care to do it. | ||
| I can do it. | ||
| I just I agree with you, and I just it would if everybody if everybody was like, yeah, okay, let's all just do our weights. | ||
| Well, imagine if people did dehydrate and rehydrate it and we started calling it cheating. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| I mean, it would be if people got caught and they looked at it the same way people look at people getting caught with steroids. | ||
| Fair, fair, fair. | ||
| Because there's the reality is right now you can't do it because of the weight class limitations. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| There's too many weight classes where like where you're at. | ||
| So 85 to 205, that's nuts. | ||
| That's 20 pounds. | ||
| That's so for and for maybe people who've never grappled, they don't know what that means or never been punched. | ||
| Yeah, they don't know what that means, but that's a giant amount of fucking horsepower. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| Gravity on top of you. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| And so if you're if you've got weight classes at a a reasonable space, like I feel like 10 pounds is good. | ||
| I feel like every 10 pounds, you get 45, 55, 65, 75. | ||
| And if you're in between, you either add muscle or you lose weight. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| You'd stop lifting as much weights and do more cardio. | ||
| You'll get down to that right. | ||
| Yeah, nothing. | ||
| But that's what you are, what you actually are. | ||
| And if we did that, I there would have to be some sort of a hydration thing where they just show up and weigh you. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Like, you know, like people show up and drug test you now. | ||
| Like drug free sport, they'll just knock on your door. | ||
| Hey, Venom, what's up? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| Can you PMS? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Let's uh let's talk. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| That makes sense to me. | ||
| Yeah, just show up. | ||
| What do you weigh? | ||
| Get on the scale. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| And then you get on the scale. | ||
| 190. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Bro, you're a banner weight. | ||
| This is crazy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| Because there's dudes that are out there doing that. | ||
| Oh no, 100%. | ||
| We always talk about Glayson T Bow. | ||
| When Glace and T Bow was 155 pounders, bro, he looked like a bodybuilder. | ||
| He looked like he weighed 200 pounds when he got into the cage. | ||
| It was nuts, man. | ||
| The rehydration. | ||
| I've seen people cut ridiculous amounts. | ||
| And then yeah, like you say, the way they rehydrate. | ||
| It's terrible. | ||
| But it's also a lie. | ||
| You're not 155 pounds. | ||
| You're 200 pounds. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Like that's what you actually weigh. | ||
| And I understand why you do it. | ||
| And I understand why everybody does it, but there's got to be a better way. | ||
| The worst I ever saw was Travis Looter when he fought Anderson Silva. | ||
| I don't remember that one. | ||
| He lost. | ||
| But he had Anderson down. | ||
| Travis Luder was an elite black belt. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And he was in the ultimate fighter. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Wins the ultimate fighter. | ||
| I mean, dominates everybody. | ||
| Dominates people on the ground. | ||
| Everybody that I talked to trained with him was like guys on a whole nother level as far as jujitsu. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And um the day of the weigh in, he can't make the weight, man. | ||
| And he's he's so dehydrated that his lips are cracked. | ||
| Yeah, see. | ||
| And he's not walking to the scale, he's shuffling. | ||
| He's just and I'm watching him. | ||
| And uh, he missed the first time, and then this is like one of the second or third time that he tried to make weight, and they eventually didn't make weight. | ||
| So even if he beat Anderson, he wouldn't have won the title. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| But bro, he had him down and he was on top of him in the beginning of the round. | ||
| And for anybody that's ever rolled with Travis, if he was healthy and he has you down on the ground, like that's you're in your fucksville. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| That guy's good. | ||
| Yeah, he was really good, but it was just the weight was way too much. | ||
| He was just drink. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| And then 24 hours later, you're supposed to fight one of the greatest fighters of all time. | ||
| And it depletes your your the the liquid around your your brain as well. | ||
| So you're taking a shot, so you're not gonna take it as well. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| Yeah, it's it's a lot. | ||
| Yeah, I agree. | ||
| You're tired, your endurance sucks. | ||
| Everything's all fucked up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| Everything's all fucked up. | ||
| But it's what I get down very close to my weight, because I on fight week, I'm very low. | ||
| Like, what do you weigh? | ||
| If you're fighting 185, what do you weigh in? | ||
| Fight week. | ||
| 185 is easier though, so 190. | ||
| Oh, that's great. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Like I don't know. | ||
| What about 170 when you're at 170? | ||
| I get down to probably about 182, 183. | ||
| Not that bad. | ||
| Not that bad, and then cut and then cut down from there. | ||
| That's not that bad. | ||
| Yeah, I don't I don't again, I don't like to overstress myself. | ||
| Pereira weighed in at 185 and fought at 220. | ||
| Massive. | ||
| Fought at 220. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Weighed in at 85, fought at 220. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Like you said, that's a lot. | ||
| That's insane. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's a lot. | |
| That's insane. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| That's so much fucking weight. | ||
| And what does that do to you? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I've seen people I can't even remember what fire is in Bellatour. | ||
| And his he was banging the sauna to get out, and his coach was holding the door. | ||
| Oh god. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Like you need five more minutes. | |
| Oh man. | ||
| And a guy is kicking the door, like bumpy. | ||
| He's like, I'm never doing that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't ever want to feel like that. | |
| That's so crazy. | ||
| So many guys black out. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I've seen people passing out and stuff. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Brian Ortega was just uh in an interview talking about that. | ||
| So he essentially like almost like what how did he describe it? | ||
| It was like 30 minutes where he was like in real trouble. | ||
| Oh for his last weight cut. | ||
| Yeah, he's like it's just he just got really wrecked. | ||
| People have blacked out before he was. | ||
| Fell off the stage. | ||
| Uh fell off the scales, wasn't it? | ||
| She she stepped back off the scales and then just her legs just went. | ||
| Oh, I don't remember. | ||
| 30 minute coma. | ||
| Oh sugar. | ||
| Due to his weight cut for Algernon Sterling. | ||
| Holy shit. | ||
| But he missed, he keeps yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| This is it's too much for I don't know why. | ||
| Why doesn't he just go up? | ||
| Well, that's the problem is the guys at 55 are jacked. | ||
| I think he just he dialed in his diet, though. | ||
| He looks a lot thinner now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| Like he showed pull up some of those photos he's got on his Instagram. | ||
| He's been taking photos lately. | ||
| Like he just he realized like he can never do that again. | ||
| So he's lost a lot of body. | ||
| Oh, that's good. | ||
| I think sometimes it is the discipline of it as well. | ||
| Yeah, look at him. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, yeah, yeah. | |
| Look at him now. | ||
| Way, big way leaner. | ||
| Big difference. | ||
| That's where you've been on that in ages. | ||
| Yeah, that's where he needs to be. | ||
| A hundred percent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, he likes to live that good life. | |
| Same. | ||
| Even when you said about like uh having like random weight checks, it'd make me consider certain burger sometimes. | ||
| Yeah, but they would have to give you an out of shape claws. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, okay. | |
| But then once you start training, they should be able to randomly show up during those six weeks and go, all right, Michael, get on the scale. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| 174. | ||
| Okay, good to go. | ||
| Good to go. | ||
| We're inside of six pounds. | ||
| Cause what you actually cut, what you're saying at 85 is perfect in my opinion. | ||
| Yeah, no, I don't I don't go I don't like to be five pounds is just a good weight well sauna session. | ||
| Yeah, it's not that much. | ||
| You're not losing a ton of weight, you're not killing yourself. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Maybe you ride the bike for half hour, like what do you do? | ||
| I literally do a 30 minute jog, and it's like really low with a sauna suit on. | ||
| Uh straight away I take that off, go straight into the sauna 15 minutes, then rap 15 minutes and rap, and I'm done. | ||
| See, that's perfect. | ||
| Yeah, that's actually probably therapeutic. | ||
| Yeah, that's what I mean. | ||
| It's not it's not it's not bad for you at all. | ||
| That's probably actually very good for you because you're giving your body all this recovery from the sauna and you're getting a nice little cardiovascular workout, but nothing crazy. | ||
| You're giving yourself a lot of heat shock proteins. | ||
| You're not killing yourself, yeah. | ||
| But there's guys, man, I've seen them and they've looked like okay. | ||
| Here's the worst one, the worst one, other than other than Travis. | ||
| Travis was the worst because I watched him shuffle backstage, but the visuals is TJ Dilshaw when he went down to flyweight. | ||
| He fought Henry Sehudo at flyweight and he looked like a dead man. | ||
| He looked like yes, I remember this. | ||
| He looked like a hostage that had just gotten released and it had not been fed for ages, yeah, yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He looked fucking because he gets quite jacked as well. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| He fucked up. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| He fucked up. | ||
| Look at look at what he looked like on the left. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| That's crazy. | ||
| That picture. | ||
| He's quite big there. | ||
| Right, but that picture. | ||
| That picture is fucking crazy. | ||
| That's a prisoner of war. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You know what I'm saying? | ||
| Like that's not a guy. | ||
| Look at who he looks like. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Well, now he's fucking tanked. | ||
| Now he's a tank. | ||
| That's a the one on the right is not fair because that's how it's a big thing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, that's that's yeah, he's finished down by a buck sixty-five now. | |
| He's fucking massive. | ||
| But he was uh he's another guy that doesn't get the credit that he deserves. | ||
| When he fought Hennan Barrow, I love this style. | ||
| Pure flow still pure flow. | ||
| But it's the it's it's the level uh changes of the up and you don't know where he's attacking. | ||
| It's not it's not linear. | ||
| It's not just I'm going here or I'm going here. | ||
| Switching stances constantly. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I used to love watching his style. | ||
| Have you ever talked to Ludwig? | ||
| No. | ||
| Oh, you should meet Dwayne Bang Ludwig. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| And talk to him. | ||
| Because Dwayne is the one who coached him in that style. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Dwayne, who was an elite kickboxer himself and fought in the UFC. | ||
| One point in time at the fastest ever knockout in the UFC. | ||
| At a I think it was a five or six second knockout in the UFC. | ||
| He was one of the fastest ever. | ||
| To step back, one right hand plan. | ||
| But Dwayne was a beast. | ||
| But maybe even better than he is as a fighter, he is as a coach. | ||
| Oh, wow. | ||
| And he doesn't have that style. | ||
| This is what's crazy. | ||
| He devised that style. | ||
| So this is Dwayne, watch this. | ||
| Yeah, nice. | ||
| So they call it six seconds. | ||
| I don't even think it was six. | ||
| Yeah, no, yeah, no, I know. | ||
| I don't even think it was six. | ||
| But the point is, Dwayne's style, like he learned from Boss Rutin and you know, it's like Dutch kickboxing style. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Um, but he realized like Dwayne is like this consummate studier of fighting. | ||
| And he realized that the best way to fight is to overwhelm them with possibilities and options, but have a whole system of how to do this. | ||
| So his system is all about switching stances and combinations while you're switching and turning and moving, and but he's got it mapped out. | ||
| Nice, nice, nice. | ||
| If the dude came over to my place with like a binder, like this thick binder of techniques and he's full-on egghead with this shit. | ||
| And TJ and him just locked up. | ||
| And the fruits of that labor was the hen and barrel fight. | ||
| Pull go to that fight, Jamie. | ||
| So I feel like this was one of the finest championship performances at the time. | ||
| I thought it was the best I had ever seen. | ||
| Of a guy who was an underdog going into a fight. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Hen and Barrel at that time. | ||
| A lot of people thought was the pound for pound best. | ||
| It was him and Jose Aldo. | ||
| They were talking about those two guys together. | ||
| And TJ just went in there and worked them. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| I mean, it was like it was sparring match. | ||
| He went in there Super loose and just move it around and started cracking them. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, it's a fun watch though. | ||
| You just get me in there. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So this is like Hen and Barrow was the boogeyman. | ||
| Everybody was scared of this dude. | ||
| He was so fucking. | ||
| Ooh, step in with an uppercut. | ||
| Just movement, constant movement, overwhelming you. | ||
| And look, always on the tips of his toes, moving around. | ||
| He didn't back up at all. | ||
| And never gave Hen and Barrow the chance to get some momentum going. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| And at the end, when he eventually stopped him, I mean was just a fucking ruthless combination when he took him out of there. | ||
| But like if you knew how difficult it is to be a good one. | ||
| Look at that right hand right off the bat in the first round. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| At this point, Hannah Barral's like, oh no. | ||
| I'm in problems. | ||
| Yeah, because nobody had thought that TJ was going to be capable of doing this. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| TJ, you know, was a a really good up and coming fighter, a really good contender. | ||
| But this was his finest performance. | ||
| And it was in a world championship fight against a guy that everybody thought was the man. | ||
| TJ just beat that ass. | ||
| And if you go like further, see if you can go to the actual stoppage, Jamie. | ||
| It's like further in the fight. | ||
| When he like at this point in time, TJ's just styling on him. | ||
| Just standing right in front of him and popping off. | ||
| Not getting hit, staying right in range, dropping down. | ||
| Oh, look at that head kick. | ||
| Oh my goodness. | ||
| Beautiful. | ||
| Look at this copy. | ||
| I mean, it and it's artistic. | ||
| It's fucking beautiful, man. | ||
| Yeah, look at that. | ||
| It's a beautiful stoppage. | ||
| Like one of the best championship winning performances in the history of the sport. | ||
| Yeah, easy. | ||
| In the history of the sport. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| Beautiful. | ||
| Whoo, but that dude, unfortunately, had two bum shoulders. | ||
| Oh, so is that what it was? | ||
| Yeah, forever. | ||
| He had even when he won the title, his shoulders were fucked. | ||
| He had torn super spinatuses in both of his shoulders. | ||
| I've done one on this. | ||
| It got to the point where he never got it fixed. | ||
| So it got to the point where they're just popping out. | ||
| So by the time he fought Al Jamine Sterling, he told the the the referee in the locker room. | ||
| My shoulder's gonna go out of socket. | ||
| Oh yeah. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| That's crazy to go in there knowing that that's so now he's he had to retire and he had multiple operations on his shoulder, and he can't even reach over his head. | ||
| He gets his arm that far. | ||
| Like that's how fucked he is. | ||
| Three months ago, so he's gotta get another one. | ||
| Oh yeah, you can see. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Jeez. | |
| Oh my god, get another soldier. | ||
| They're gonna cut off the head of my humorous and turn the head into a plastic plunger. | ||
| That sounds like a bit too much, though. | ||
| Oh I hate then I said like surgery for anything. | ||
| He has the worst shoulder injuries I've ever seen. | ||
| I know there's been a lot, like you're gonna be. | ||
| Was that fun before? | ||
| It was from wrestling. | ||
| Oh, it's from wrestling. | ||
| I think it's just from having torn shoulders and just trying to rehab them and not getting them surgically fixed. | ||
| Okay, okay. | ||
| Like if you you can have some things loose in there and strengthen everything else up and kind of be functional, but not if you're gonna be a world championship fighter. | ||
| Fair, fair, fair. | ||
| And the problem with a lot of those things is once it tears and pulls back, you can't get it back in place. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| So then you have really complicated surgeries where they have to take a piece of your hamstring and stick it up there or some other part of your body and reconstruct what was supposed to be there. | ||
| Yeah, and then you have to slowly build range of motion into it. | ||
| Like he got to the point where he was too tough for the injuries that he had, where he should have probably got them fixed immediately, and maybe he could have prolonged his own. | ||
| I feel like it sounds like he just he went back in in terms of getting back into training a bit too quickly. | ||
| So the I feel like the rehab can work. | ||
| I know you obviously there's certain things you're gonna need surgery for, but it's a lot of my stuff I've managed to bring it back and even I don't think he had surgery until after he was done fighting. | ||
| Oh, so he didn't have surgery. | ||
| No, he know he had surgery on one of his knees because he blew his knee out in the Sandhagen fight. | ||
| Or I should say Sandhagen after talking with Sandhagen about what happens in that 50-50 position. | ||
| Sandhagen blew his knee out. | ||
| Okay, okay, yeah. | ||
| So he he put him in a position where if TJ didn't give in, he was gonna get his knee fucked up and he got it, he chose to get his knee fucked up. | ||
| But that was Corey putting him in that position. | ||
| Um so he had to get an ACL reconstruction. | ||
| So that but I don't think he got the shoulder surgeries until after he was done fighting. | ||
| He might have gotten one and then tried to fight again. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But the problem is like his shoulders were fucked, man. | ||
| They were really fucked. | ||
| But that doesn't look fixed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
For you to be having to No, no, no, no, no. | |
| It doesn't look fixed. | ||
| But I think that's all they could do with it. | ||
| I think it was that bad. | ||
| I think it was that bad. | ||
| I'm looking at an article from right after that fight. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It says it's third shoulder surgery since 2019. | |
| Okay, so that's when you started getting him. | ||
| And when was that fight? | ||
| When was the last fight that he had? | ||
| That was like 2023. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The Algeo fight, I think it was twenty two. | |
| Oh, okay. | ||
| UFC two eighty. | ||
| Is it twenty twenty two? | ||
| That's when this article. | ||
| Okay, so he had those shoulder surgeries, and then I know he's had a ton since. | ||
| And since, you know, like you look on his Instagram page, it's like every few months it's him and a sling. | ||
| Well, trying again. | ||
| I know guys that are like surgery, surgery, surgery, surgery, and it like they it never seems to I've never unless I forced to, I don't ever really go down the surgery route. | ||
| I always try and figure it out a different way. | ||
| Like I've had weird enough, it was both my shoulders, but one was uh super spinatus, the other one was rotator cuff, and kind of like some lat injury as well. | ||
| But just slowly back to the point where I couldn't do a push-up. | ||
| When in my last couple of was it Bellator fights? | ||
| Yeah, my last few bellotor fights, I couldn't do a push-up. | ||
| I could still hit in certain so certain angles I was fine, but I had no strength in that direction. | ||
| While you were fighting. | ||
| While fine, yeah, yeah. | ||
| Oh no. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| So literally trying to I'll get that there, my my arms would just start shaking. | ||
| I couldn't why didn't you do something about that? | ||
| I was doing I was doing like rehab side. | ||
| I was like, as long as I can hit you, I'm fine. | ||
| Like that's so crazy going into a fight with that kind of a major handicap. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I've I've had worse, but what's the worst? | |
| I don't I don't want to say it as an excuse. | ||
| So but the day before my Ian Gary fight, I couldn't stand on my left foot. | ||
| Why not? | ||
| I I up till today I don't understand it. | ||
| I had um the p the UFC PI working everything. | ||
| They did shock therapy, they did acupuncture, they were doing everything, and I literally had it. | ||
| I had a um if you see the fight, I literally had uh ankle supports on, and they said you're allowed the ankle supports, you can't really have it tape, but I had it taped under the ankle support. | ||
| But obviously, if I I couldn't just do one ankle, so yeah, do both of them. | ||
| So I had to do both of them. | ||
| And um, yeah, just uh the day before the fight, I'm not sure if I did anything when I was uh cutting weight, like twinged it or something, but I don't remember anything distinct happening, but couldn't walk on my foot. | ||
| So it was your ankle, you twisted my ankle. | ||
| It was my ankle or something, and they were working on it literally. | ||
| I was trying to I was in you now you don't have a single instance where it went. | ||
| I don't remember anything all of a sudden it just hurt, and you started it hurt the night. | ||
| You woke up, it hurt the night before, so on the way in, it hurt, and I was walking around and I was like, it's hurt, but it didn't feel like anything drastic, and overnight it just got worse and worse and worse and worse. | ||
| Probably exaggerated by the weight cut, right? | ||
| Maybe, yeah. | ||
| And then in and literally the next day uh in the morning we had to go to the uh uh PI. | ||
| Uh I was my coach's like, bro, if we you can't bounce here now and I have to pull your father, I there's no way I can get pulled from this fight. | ||
| It's not happening. | ||
| I was like, it's not happening. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Wow. | |
| And I went out there, he's like bouncing up trying to adjust myself and and bounce. | ||
| And he had it, they they did the tape that it was he was gonna use for the fight, and he said he'll come in and do it again just before the fight. | ||
| And yeah, it was I was like adjusted adjusting. | ||
| And I obviously had uh still had a great performance. | ||
| Yeah, I had a I had my so my guy uh my videographer, uh Kishan, uh he filmed he was we're doing a documentary, so he's filmed all of it as well. | ||
| I was kind of like I'll wait until it comes out as as known, but not like not even to say as an excuse because I was able to adrenaline just I'm I'm in it now and fight, but there were certain things I was being cautious of and not not wanting to do. | ||
| But yeah, it was just irritating. | ||
| But I've had that's that's probably the worst in terms of the how close to the fight it was because it's the day before. | ||
| But I've had injuries in the build-up, and I'm like, if as long as I can throw a punch and throw a kick, I'm make it happen. | ||
| That's the thing that people don't understand when you watch fights. | ||
| Like sometimes guys this is one of the things about the rematch this weekend, Ankalaya versus Pereira, is that Pereira supposedly had a fucked up left hand and rotavirus before the last fight. | ||
| I I believe it. | ||
| He looked off. | ||
| He looked off. | ||
| He definitely didn't look himself. | ||
| But Ankalayev looked really good. | ||
| A hundred percent. | ||
| Yeah, I don't know. | ||
| I don't want to take anything away from Uncle If when someone looks off, I'm always like it's like Roy Jones. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Like people go, Roy Jones didn't fight anybody. | ||
| No, no, no, no. | ||
| Roy Jones fought everybody, but he made him look like there were nobody because they were fighting Roy Jones. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| It's like, so is that what's going on? | ||
| Like is Ankalaya that good. | ||
| And so we don't know. | ||
| I gotta see him fight again. | ||
| I'd only say no because towards the fifth round, it looked like Perr could do some stuff. | ||
| Like it's like, okay, you're actually now landing that that calf kick a bit more now. | ||
| You actually start to do it's like, why didn't you start like that? | ||
| He didn't have the gas. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So if you've got rotavirus, your gas is very low, and you probably your energy level feels very he's trying to be he's conserve he's conserving energy and so this is what's makes this what this fight so much more interesting because hopefully he's had the camp he is. | ||
| Ankle I have hopefully comes in looking exactly the same way he did that last fight. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Or better. | ||
| Or better. | ||
| He's gonna be better because he's gonna be the champion. | ||
| When you I think there's a thing that happens, Daniel Cormier has expressed this too. | ||
| It's like a 30% bump when you become the champion. | ||
| You just got you got thir you know, like when you were talking about when you won that tournament. | ||
| Also you were better. | ||
| Boom, yeah. | ||
| I think there's that when you get the championship. | ||
| Hopefully you're gonna get to experience it. | ||
| Yes, yes. | ||
| You'll get to experience that bump. | ||
| But this is you know, I I feel like that's just we're gonna we're gonna have to see. | ||
| And it's a very intriguing one. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Because Pereira, if he hurt his left hand, that's the doom punch. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| That left hook is that's death. | ||
| That's the one. | ||
| That's the one. | ||
| If you look at his highlight reel, there's so many left hooks. | ||
| He catches people with that even when he grazed like uh Jamar Hill. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| It was a g I don't I still don't get it now. | ||
| It's he grazed him. | ||
| He's got a hell of a punch on him, man. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| The Yuri Perhaska one at the end of the first round, you're like, yo, and then he head kicks him in the beginning of the second. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| He's got ferocious power. | ||
| That's power. | ||
| Fast. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I think it was fast as well. | ||
| Boy, I hope he's healthy. | ||
| But I heard I heard he's super heavy coming into this week. | ||
| Oh, is it? | ||
| I heard he's like two thirty going into this week. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But for him I guess he's got a lot to cut. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Some guys can do it. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| What the fuck learned? | ||
| Well, I guess if he he was able to get to middleweight. | ||
| Yeah, well, yeah. | ||
| But also sometimes it makes you lazier as well, like, oh, I can do that. | ||
| I need this. | ||
| And then yeah, and then you get close to the time a bit of work now. | ||
| Well, he has talked about moving up. | ||
| But again. | ||
| Yeah, and so is Ankalaya. | ||
| Oh, yeah, actually he has, yeah, yeah. | ||
| Ankle I have just said that recently that he wants to defend the title a couple of times, then move up to heavyweight. | ||
| I think it's a bit too small. | ||
| Maybe, but if you put size on and he gives himself enough time, he's got the skill set and Aspinall's gonna need some fucking challengers. | ||
| But then does yeah, fair. | ||
| Fair. | ||
| Unless Cyril Gone beats him, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| But then does he need you know, does it I would say like the time that John Jones took off to get to heavyweight, does he need that kind of time? | ||
| Because it takes a while to put on size like that. | ||
| Uh naturally it takes ages. | ||
| Not when you're over in Russia. | ||
| Fair. | ||
| Enough set. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Real difficult drug testing guys on a plane. | |
| And if they do, everybody knows when they landing. | ||
| Fair good luck of stick going into the bathroom while those guys pee. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, you'll accept Gleffs of urine. | |
| I will handle to Vitaly, he handles it to you. | ||
| This is clean urine. | ||
| I'm not accusing him of doing that, but I know that you know listen to me. | ||
| That it was always like the joke about guys going over to Thailand. | ||
| Like, why are they going over the Thailand training? | ||
| It was good training, and also really hard to get those USA guys on a flight. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Ah, yeah, I'm getting into that kind of stuff. | |
| Like, I just don't I just don't care enough because again, it's like like I said, I don't really have like a schedule for anything, even when I'm even the good stuff, like the things that you're supposed to be doing. | ||
| I'm just like eh. | ||
| I'll just I'll do it. | ||
| So you're not like a supplement guy or at all. | ||
| I I don't see protein sh shakes at all. | ||
| Nothing? | ||
| Nothing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Nothing. | |
| That's crazy. | ||
| Never. | ||
| Never been into it. | ||
| Multivitamins? | ||
| Vitamins, yeah, like uh but again, I just forget to take them. | ||
| Like I'm I'm I'm seriously, ADHD mind. | ||
| I'm just like you should have someone who makes like a little packet for you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| I'm I'm gonna get my wife to do it uh uh soon because she's very into that, she's very into our fitness and stuff. | ||
| She's uh Pilates in uh instructor, she's got her own Pilates app and stuff, and she's she smartly well I don't even know if she even intended it that way, but she kind of blew up over COVID because she set up her app at that time and now everyone's at home. | ||
| Oh perfectly. | ||
| I mean it's just perfect timing and she just blew up her apps uh called Cloud Nine Collective and she does Pilates for Women. | ||
| But have you ever done Pilates yourself? | ||
| Yes, I have. | ||
| Bro, I I did a video with her and she got her to train some MMA, and then I she's like, okay, you come and do this for lies. | ||
| She killed me. | ||
| It's a lot more difficult than I thought. | ||
| It's so much, but I didn't know. | ||
| Weird muscles. | ||
| Yeah, it inside of your legs. | ||
| But that's what's actually helped with a lot of my the rehab side. | ||
| Because it's it's those muscles that we we we bypass, we go to the big muscles. | ||
| Yeah, we want to work these muscles, and it's all those little ones that are not getting worked, and those are the ones that are injured. | ||
| Stabilizers, stabilizers, yeah, and I didn't know that that it was uh uh a man, I forget his first name, but called something Pilates who started it for men in war to help recover uh guys in war to get them back out to to war. | ||
| But it's become such a female-led uh sport. | ||
| Well, that goes to speak about what I was talking about with the Russians and being technical. | ||
| You know who was really into Pilates? | ||
| Kovalev. | ||
| Oh, Kovalev was the night light heavyweight champion, the crusher, yeah, he was fucking everybody up. | ||
| Yeah, he was big in the Pilates. | ||
| He was doing Pilates all the time, and everybody's like, wait a minute, what? | ||
| That guy? | ||
| The strength from you get can get from anywhere because like I said, those smaller muscles that help facilitate the bigger muscles. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, like it's it's crazy. | |
| It's the same people that like look down on yoga, like bitch, go to a 90-minute hot yoga class, go to yoga. | ||
| Okay, I did that, yeah. | ||
| It's hard. | ||
| And I was like, Yeah, I'm gonna go to a yoga, uh hot yoga. | ||
| You know, I was more thinking just it's nice to kind of get the sweat going and stuff. | ||
| I remember the lady, she's like, Oh yeah, go to uh if you go to that side of the room, it's a bit it's quite hot. | ||
| Uh so you know, if you're new to it, just go to this side of the room. | ||
| And I was like, it's woman, whatever, man. | ||
| Get all that hot. | ||
| Let me go to that hot side. | ||
| And she's like, Oh, you know, if you feel if you ever feel faint at all, you don't have to continue, you can kind of just sit down. | ||
| I'm just like, what's she talking about? | ||
| It's not that hot in here. | ||
| Google me, lady. | ||
| Bro I think like three moves later, I slowly like just like move the mat. | ||
| Like I didn't want to go too far, I didn't want to but I moved from the hot side of the room to like the middle-ish, closer to that side, and then there was one move I'll just stretch in, and like I literally just got lightheaded. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I was like, shit, she's this is real. | |
| It's real, it was real. | ||
| You see all those little old ladies in there, and you think, Oh, this is yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| It's difficult. | ||
| But my so my wife is strong as hell, and I'm just like, yes, it has to be from that. | ||
| Like she and then when I do the session, I didn't do the session with her this morning because she does some great sessions. | ||
| Like when I do sessions with her, like she she kills it. | ||
| And she's I have to say, she's smart in is in how she's done it as well, because actually something I didn't know because she's you know on her app, she's done uh cycle syncing specifically for women. | ||
| I didn't realise that women have uh obviously I knew women 28-day cycle and men have a uh 20 uh 24 day cycle. | ||
| Um 24 hours and they have 28 days, so there's specific times that they should be training as uh harder than they shouldn't be training, or they should be doing this and should be doing that. | ||
| Based on biometrics, based on just them of the cycle of the month. | ||
| But again, uh I in my head, I'm like, there's girls that are training our class and they have to train and do everything that we do. | ||
| But we we don't we forget that we're just doing it based on that with men can kind of just keep going. | ||
| Well, women should think about that when they're scheduling fights. | ||
| A hundred percent. | ||
| Well that should be a thing. | ||
| And that's what I said, she did it for police. | ||
| When she and I looked into it and I was like, oh, there's actually this is like even down to ice bars, great for you. | ||
| Not for women though, really not all the time. | ||
| But if you look into it, so there's specific times that it's okay for them, but they shouldn't put their body under that kind of stress in the same way that we can. | ||
| Oh, that's interesting. | ||
| Yeah, so there's loads of when I started looking at certain things loads of things that we forget that a lot of the times it's done from a male point of view, right? | ||
| Forgetting that we we're just different. | ||
| I never would have thought about that in terms of their menstrual cycle of fighting, but of course of course, of course, of course. | ||
| Yeah, wow. | ||
| So yeah, she's put it on so individuals can actually be like her it was scheduled and say, Look, you're good specifically for you, are good to train intensely today. | ||
| Or no, you need a very relaxed session, and and these videos that she's got hundreds of videos on I think that will come up and be like, This is for you, this was for you, this was for you. | ||
| But again, it just made me think about the women in MMA, like you said, yeah. | ||
| It's the same thing scheduling fight, even now to for them weight cutting, you know, at a certain time you're going through the elude of your face, they're holding weight, right? | ||
| Like it's just it's just different. | ||
| Yeah, we don't have any of those issues to worry about, but we get them to do the same structure as we would do. | ||
| That's a very good point. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| And it's it they they should be more information about that even for the female fighters. | ||
| Yeah, they should actually be like their coaches should be setting fights up entirely based on I wonder like how many fights they would have won that they they couldn't really train right. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because they're cramping up so it's just but it's different. | |
| When you I've seen some videos of you, you do a lot of plyometric stuff as well, right? | ||
| And is that something you've always done? | ||
| Well it's it kind of comes with just uh this is why I feel like I can bounce on my cast for ages, just because of that constant and it seems to be a thing now. | ||
| I didn't really understand it well enough. | ||
| It was just kind of how I trained. | ||
| And now Did you train like that from the beginning? | ||
| Yeah, but just because of the points fighting style is it's a lot of that shifting. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And but did you but back then when you were doing that, were you just doing the martial arts training or were you doing some martial arts training? | ||
| With plyometrics. | ||
| The reason why we did pliometrics more so is because we were also doing a lot of our catters, we did uh martial gymnastics, so the forms. | ||
| Oh. | ||
| So I had to learn how to do these crazy kicks and stuff in which I would then this is why I'd I would try seven twenties. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Not because uh like I just randomly decide to to to just throw it out today. | |
| It's because we were drilling them just for cater though. | ||
| And I was like, well, if I can do it for cat then I could surely I can find the time to throw it when I'm fighting. | ||
| And I would be like brave enough to try and attempt these things in in the points fighting world. | ||
| And yeah, that's that there's a couple of kicks that I keep telling people, there's a couple of kicks that even for me I haven't even shown you what I can actually do yet. | ||
| Like there's a couple of kicks that I know I I can land. | ||
| And it's you it's e usually it's easier on people that are well trained. | ||
| So usually the better fighter is actually easier to hit them. | ||
| Just because they are very traditional, they're very well trained. | ||
| They have patterns that I can pick up on them like ah, you're gonna step this way and you're gonna do that. | ||
| Uh and I always tell people I call it a attaching strings. | ||
| The first minute of the fight, not too much happens for me. | ||
| Because I'm faking this, that, that. | ||
| But every time I'm faking something, you twitch, I'm like, ah, this means you twitch this means this, this, and I just catch in strings to you. | ||
| So now I'm moving you. | ||
| You just became Pinocchio. | ||
| But that and that's important. | ||
| This is why all like you said, all those fakes, but those fakes mean something. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| You know, I mean I want I'm getting I'm g like you said, I'm getting that information from you. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay, yeah. | ||
| He wants that. | ||
| If I do this, he wants that. | ||
| I can okay, I see it. | ||
| Okay, perfect. | ||
| Now I I got it. | ||
| Yeah, that's what's so important for the casual fan to understand. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That there's a whole game taking place that if you could play it, you would understand what he's doing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| But you're just seeing movement, random movement. | ||
| You're like, hit him. | ||
| Yeah, hit him. | ||
| Why don't you hit him? | ||
| Meanwhile, you're if you knew you'd be watching something beautiful. | ||
| Yeah, exactly. | ||
| You're watching you know, a dance. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| Snake charming. | ||
| That's that's it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| It's part of the identity. | ||
| Well I try to tell people though, but yeah. | ||
| Do you know when you're fighting again? | ||
| Have they given you any kind of an idea? | ||
| No, like I said, I I pushed out information, I keep chasing up to try and find out and haven't really heard too much back. | ||
| Uh they're announcing some fights now, right? | ||
| That's what I'm saying. | ||
| It feels like things are slowly starting to happen. | ||
| Um, still waiting. | ||
| So Protest is gonna fight Liana Edwards. | ||
| Yeah, right. | ||
| So 170, which is what you're looking at the most, right? | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| I wanna I want to get back I know I'm big now, but you can make it though. | ||
| I've seen it, I can make it. | ||
| And you just want to manage it one seventy. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, I want to get back down to 170, just because like I said, I I feel like I think J DM's a great uh an amazing fighter. | ||
| Um I just film stylistically I can beat that, but I can beat him. | ||
| Well, it's a very good style for stand up for you. | ||
| Yeah, that's for sure. | ||
| I mean he's very complete. | ||
| Very complete. | ||
| Yeah, he's very, very good. | ||
| Yeah, very complete. | ||
| I really like his style and very smart. | ||
| You can tell he's very smart, like he has in specific to the opponent, he's like, Okay, yeah. | ||
| But like I said, that's one of the advantages. | ||
| It's like you're not gonna have it's gonna be very difficult for you, even as smart as you are to figure that out. | ||
| Well, that's why it's exciting for you with any stand up fighter. | ||
| As soon as you're fighting a guy who likes to stand up, it's like, are you sure? | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Are you sure you like to stand up? | ||
| I tell people I tell people this all the time. | ||
| This guy came in the past. | ||
| All these stand up guys are wrestlers. | ||
| And they always everyone's like, oh, I'm gonna strike with you. | ||
| Well, listen, brother, I can't wait to see you in there again. | ||
| I'm a giant fan. | ||
| I'm so happy you're at the UFC now. | ||
| And uh I know you do a lot of stuff online, so tell people how to find you and Yeah. | ||
| So again, it's all the social media, Michael Venom Page, everything, Instagram. | ||
| You know, I don't really do Twitter as much or X, sorry. | ||
| Um my Facebook, YouTube, I'm doing a lot of stuff. | ||
| Um ITM actually, I'm doing uh a film company. | ||
| Uh I always try to set myself up for the next stage. | ||
| And I my my creative mind won't stop either one. | ||
| I'm making movies. | ||
| I've already made, I've already made uh two short movies. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| Uh and again the same the congratulations, thank you. | ||
| That's awesome. | ||
| Thank you, thank you. | ||
| And I'm gonna get to acting as well. | ||
| What are they about? | ||
| So the first one was actually about an a an athlete's mindset. | ||
| One thing that I find with films, I think people are lazy watchers nowadays. | ||
| They find uh just explodes, explosion, explosion, action, action, action, and crap storyline, but I want stories telling again. | ||
| And um this one is just more about an athlete's mindset. | ||
| Um I did it through the eyes of a runner, just because it's slightly different. | ||
| I didn't want to just go down the the same lane as um MMA. | ||
| Did it through the eyes of runner and just how toxic your want and your need to be the best, how it can look like and again it's I'll go go into that one. | ||
| Uh I I'll let people watch that one. | ||
| That one's just called runner. | ||
| The next one's called Wait, and it's it's kind of about what anxiety can look like from a position of waiting for good news and a position of waiting for bad news and how the parallels work and and look I almost identical. | ||
|
unidentified
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So you're literally watching two uh point of views, so these two so this dude's just freaking out, waiting for yeah. | |
| He's he's that's fucking cool if you do things like that. | ||
| Thank you, man. | ||
| That's very cool. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, yeah. | |
| Like I said, I'm a creative mind. | ||
| I need to express it in some way. | ||
| And I know when I leave, I I'm not gonna be one of those guys that retire and want to come back every time I want to come back. | ||
| If I say I'm I'm done, then I'm done. | ||
| Well, that's great. | ||
| And I need something else to go into. | ||
| Nothing better than having something you look forward to that you actually enjoy and love outside of it. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| Yeah, because it's hard. | ||
| It's very hard for guys to end. | ||
| It becomes your identity. | ||
| A hundred percent. | ||
| And the thrill, you know more than anybody. | ||
| The thrill of doing that is above and beyond almost anything else you'll experience in life. | ||
| My thrill is usually for me anyway, it comes from expressing art. | ||
| And I we call it martial artists. | ||
| As much as people see the the the sometimes the blood, the knockouts and stuff, it's art. | ||
|
unidentified
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Like you we just watched TJ Dilly show. | |
| That was art. | ||
|
unidentified
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Art. | |
| That was pure art. | ||
| Pure art. | ||
| Like, yeah, people don't appreciate that outside of it. | ||
| And I'm I love to paint pictures, and I'm like, how can I continue painting pictures after this stage of my life? | ||
| I'm like, okay, yeah, cool. | ||
| Well, listen, man. | ||
| If you make movies like you can fight, I'm in. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| Trust me. | ||
| Yeah, we're we're doing it. | ||
| I believe you believe. | ||
| Kishan, uh the guy, my camera guy, Kishan Lakaney, he's it just worked. | ||
| The synergies just work. | ||
| He's directing films like he's done it for 20 years, and he's just unbelievable. | ||
| So that's awesome. | ||
| Whereas we're gonna do some uh magical things. | ||
| I love hearing stuff like that. | ||
| I really do. | ||
| I really do. | ||
| And I got uh sorry, like I said, I got a gift for you anyway. | ||
| What do you like? | ||
| Red or red or black? | ||
| You can have both if you want. | ||
| What is it? | ||
| Just a t-shirt. | ||
| Oh nice. | ||
| And it just it represents uh who we are, hands down martial arts, this guys that do this and everyone mocks all the time, but it's obviously my brand. | ||
| Uh so extra large, large, large. | ||
| Yeah, let me see. | ||
| Large. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And then I'm also I got again I I'm into everything, but I got a beef jerky company. | ||
| Called Snapdown Snacks for snapping people wrestling, snapping them down. | ||
| Snap down snacks. | ||
| So snap or snack down and some snap down. | ||
|
unidentified
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Beautiful. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Fantastic. | ||
| Yes, enjoy it. | ||
| Let me know what you think. | ||
| How do people find that company? | ||
| Is it a website? | ||
| Yeah, just snap down on uh snap down snacks. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, snacks. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| And when you when you're if you're in um the UK next or when you're in the UK next, let me know. | ||
| Um I got a Mexican restaurant uh as well, Ikshell. | ||
| Wow, man. | ||
| That's great. | ||
| You're invested in all kinds of things. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| We actually had uh Kendall's uh uh Kendall Jenner's um 818 Tequila featuring in there. | ||
| We're gonna have uh Jason Momoa um come in end of this month with his uh vodka, melee vodka. | ||
| So let's look at you. | ||
| Oh, I'm in there rather than shaking. | ||
| Oh, yeah, we're everywhere, everywhere. | ||
| Um all right, man. | ||
| I'll see you this weekend. | ||
| Thank you for doing this. | ||
| Thank you, man. | ||
| My pleasure. | ||
| I really enjoyed it. | ||
| I I do too. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. |
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