The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #176 with Dustin Poirier
Aired: 2026-03-17
Duration: 02:42:14


=== Weight Cutting and Dehydration Risks (05:14) ===

[00:00:15]  Dustin Poyer, the light heavyweight.
[00:00:19]  It's Thick Boy Summer.
[00:00:20]  You're looking healthy, son.
[00:00:21]  Yeah, like 190, man.
[00:00:23]  You look good, man.
[00:00:24]  I feel good, dude.
[00:00:24]  It feels good to eat and not count carbohydrates and calories.
[00:00:27]  Yeah, we were talking about that.
[00:00:28]  Where you like still, like a little part of you is like looks at meals and goes, oh.
[00:00:33]  Well, I mean, for the last 20 years, I've been macro and, you know, I knew I had a fight coming up.
[00:00:38]  Even if I didn't have a fight, I had to be in striking range from 155.
[00:00:41]  Right.
[00:00:41]  So I was always looking at the back of every label, being real cautious of what I eat.
[00:00:45]  It's like ingrained in my daughter now.
[00:00:46]  When we go to Whole Foods, she'll grab something off the counter and say, Dad, it only has three ingredients.
[00:00:50]  Like, she knows what's up.
[00:00:52]  Well, it's good to think that way anyway.
[00:00:54]  For sure.
[00:00:55]  Especially with the ingredients.
[00:00:56]  Yeah, that's the first thing she goes to.
[00:00:58]  Like, if she wants some chips, it only has five ingredients.
[00:01:01]  That's like a thing for her when we're shopping.
[00:01:04]  Yeah, well, that's smart, man.
[00:01:06]  That's cool.
[00:01:06]  You're raising them right.
[00:01:07]  Trying to, bro.
[00:01:08]  I'm trying to put the stuff I learned in fighting, you know, all the years to good use.
[00:01:13]  It is kind of crazy.
[00:01:15]  I think it's the worst thing about fighting is the weight cutting.
[00:01:18]  Can you imagine if everybody just, first of all, tell me if you agree, but I think the UFC needs way more weight cutting.
[00:01:26]  I do too.
[00:01:26]  Way more.
[00:01:27]  I do too.
[00:01:29]  Because the gaps are so big.
[00:01:31]  I mean, just if you look at boxing compared to mixed martial arts, the jumps in weight are so big from each weight class.
[00:01:37]  But also, all the shows they're putting on, they'd have more titles, more belts, more big fights.
[00:01:42]  But also, man, with that, there's going to be a lot of people trying to cut a little bit extra, trying to be double champ in every weight class.
[00:01:47]  I think it does cause more confusion.
[00:01:50]  Yeah, but that's better than the extreme weight cuts.
[00:01:54]  The extreme weight cuts are terrible.
[00:01:55]  You saw that dude a few, like, I guess it was about three events ago, who faceplanted and got removed off the card.
[00:02:02]  Yeah.
[00:02:02]  That is crazy.
[00:02:03]  You're getting someone to the brink of death 24 hours before they have an MMA fight, which is the most, if not the most dangerous sport, one of the most dangerous sports in the world for sure.
[00:02:14]  And you're doing something to your body to extremely weaken it 24 hours before you fight.
[00:02:19]  It's bananas.
[00:02:21]  Dude, I did it so many times.
[00:02:22]  You preach it to the choir.
[00:02:23]  I know.
[00:02:24]  There's been so many times I felt like that, like stand up too quick after a weight cut, and I'm like, you know, I might go down.
[00:02:29]  Oh, dude, I mean, I can only imagine when you see someone like Pereira that's cutting like 25 pounds and more when he was 185.
[00:02:38]  I mean, that guy was fighting inside the octagon at 225 and weighing in at 185 24 hours before.
[00:02:48]  That's crazy.
[00:02:49]  And even when he's big, he's lean.
[00:02:50]  You know, it's not like he's fluffy.
[00:02:52]  Well, they say that when you're muscular, it's easier to cut weight.
[00:02:58]  More water.
[00:02:59]  Yeah.
[00:02:59]  Yeah, which is counterintuitive.
[00:03:01]  You see a fat guy, you're like, oh, that guy can cut weight.
[00:03:04]  But you really can't because you can't deplenish your fat.
[00:03:08]  Right.
[00:03:08]  Not in a training camp's time, eight weeks, 10 weeks, you can't lose like 30 pounds of fat, but I said deplenish like it was a real word.
[00:03:15]  You can dehydrate yourself.
[00:03:17]  I don't think it is a word.
[00:03:18]  Deplenish?
[00:03:19]  Well, if you can replenish.
[00:03:20]  Right, but no one says deplenish.
[00:03:22]  Can you plenish?
[00:03:23]  No, you say deplete.
[00:03:24]  But I just threw it out there like it was real.
[00:03:26]  I don't think deplenish is a word.
[00:03:29]  Is that a word?
[00:03:30]  Yeah.
[00:03:30]  It is?
[00:03:31]  I don't think I've ever used it that weight.
[00:03:33]  Oh, okay.
[00:03:34]  Nice, man.
[00:03:35]  Nice.
[00:03:36]  I got lucky.
[00:03:36]  That was just luck.
[00:03:38]  But I talked to Hunter about it, Hunter Campbell, and we're trying to figure out a way.
[00:03:44]  Without, it has to be more weight classes.
[00:03:47]  I mean, California instituted a bunch of different weight classes.
[00:03:52]  I think they were doing it every 10 pounds.
[00:03:54]  I think California also did like a percentage of your body weight.
[00:03:58]  Like, I don't know, what was it, 15, 20%?
[00:04:00]  You couldn't dehydrate more than that.
[00:04:01]  That guy, Andy Foster, is on the ball.
[00:04:03]  And I think that's good, you know?
[00:04:05]  Yeah.
[00:04:05]  20% or whatever, some kind of rule where guys aren't cutting 50 pounds or 45.
[00:04:10]  That's still crazy.
[00:04:11]  Yeah, it's still crazy.
[00:04:12]  I mean, if you're tough.
[00:04:13]  Yeah, you're right.
[00:04:14]  200 pounds, 40 pounds.
[00:04:15]  I mean, it's a lot of weight.
[00:04:17]  Well, that's another thing that freaks boxers out when I tell them that there's a weight limit at heavyweight.
[00:04:22]  265.
[00:04:24]  That doesn't make any sense.
[00:04:25]  I go, I agree.
[00:04:27]  Why is there a weight limit for heavyweight?
[00:04:29]  That's crazy.
[00:04:30]  Dude, that gap, too, like 205, anything over that, you can be 210 to 265.
[00:04:37]  That's crazy.
[00:04:38]  That's crazy.
[00:04:38]  A 50-pound gap.
[00:04:41]  Well, heavyweight in boxing, like, look, Mike Tyson, when he was in his prime, was only like 220, 215, 220.
[00:04:48]  You know, that's where he, when he was dominating, that's where he kind of fell in that weight limit.
[00:04:54]  I wouldn't, I think it would be a good idea.
[00:04:55]  Anything past like 230, 235, super heavyweight.
[00:04:58]  Yeah.
[00:04:59]  You know, well, the difference in boxing, though, is the grappling.
[00:05:02]  The grappling in MMA, the gap, if a guy gets on top of you, is immense.
[00:05:06]  Yeah.
[00:05:07]  If you got a, like Ngana, when he was in his prime, was weighing over like 300 pounds and then cutting down to 265.
[00:05:14]  He was a 300-pound natural.
[00:05:17]  He's a guy who's like a knockdown power for sure, but grappling, like if you get a big guy who's 265 and knows how to grapple very well, wrestled his whole life, they get inside control or half guard, you're not getting up.
[00:05:29]  That's the end of the round.

=== Heavyweight Limits and Fighter Health (15:12) ===

[00:05:30]  Yeah.
[00:05:30]  Yeah.
[00:05:31]  Also, if they did do a super heavy, the fights might be either awesome or it's completely sucked.
[00:05:37]  Well, I think it should be heavyweight should be unlimited.
[00:05:40]  And then you'll scam down.
[00:05:41]  Yeah.
[00:05:42]  Because like Kane Velasquez, no one's holding that dude down in his prime.
[00:05:45]  Even when he was 240.
[00:05:47]  When he was 240 and he fought Lesnar, Lesnar was gigantic, but it didn't matter because the cardio that Kane had and the speed and his technique sort of it was ahead of his time.
[00:05:58]  He was ahead of his time.
[00:05:59]  He was like a hybrid, can do everything, great cardio, good athlete before MMA got to where it's at now.
[00:06:05]  Yeah.
[00:06:06]  The one fight that I always say that we missed is Kane and Fedor in their primes.
[00:06:10]  Because they were both in their prime at the same time and they never made that happen.
[00:06:14]  When UFC absorbed the Pride roster and stuff, I was crazy.
[00:06:18]  It's crazy that Fedor never fought in the UFC at all, man.
[00:06:21]  Well, they tried.
[00:06:23]  The UFC tried, but Fedor's management were a bunch of very dangerous dudes.
[00:06:27]  Yeah, you don't mess around with those guys.
[00:06:29]  Yeah, man.
[00:06:30]  It was like tense negotiations, and they wanted a percentage of the promotion.
[00:06:34]  They wanted a lot more than just a big purse.
[00:06:36]  Yeah, UFC's not playing that game.
[00:06:38]  No.
[00:06:38]  They were like, look, we'll give you, you know, a very healthy purse.
[00:06:43]  We'll bring Fedor over here.
[00:06:44]  But the problem was when they purchased Pride, they thought they were getting everyone's contracts, but the contracts were all bullshit.
[00:06:50]  Well, some guys came over on crazy, crazy money contracts.
[00:06:54]  I think Dan Henderson might have been one.
[00:06:56]  I was a young fighter one time and I was making, this might have been 2013 or something, 2014, I don't know.
[00:07:04]  And they came to give me my check.
[00:07:06]  This is back in the day before they wired.
[00:07:07]  They used to give us checks on fight night.
[00:07:09]  And they were going through the checks, and I saw Dan's, and I saw the number, and I couldn't believe it.
[00:07:15]  This is before people posting online fighter pay and all that.
[00:07:17]  And I saw the numbers he was making.
[00:07:18]  I was like, no way, guy's rich.
[00:07:22]  Does it make you angry?
[00:07:23]  Nah, nah.
[00:07:24]  Because the future, myself looking back or looking forward when guys are going to be fighting for belts and stuff, the money they're going to make in five years, I'm going to be that guy.
[00:07:33]  Like, damn, you know, I got out too early.
[00:07:36]  You know how it is.
[00:07:36]  The next generation always gets more.
[00:07:38]  Right.
[00:07:38]  Mike Brown tells me that all the time.
[00:07:40]  I was fighting for the belt in WEC defending it, making this.
[00:07:43]  You guys on the prelims are making more than I was making, you know?
[00:07:47]  Yeah, there's a weird that sort of discussion about fight or pay.
[00:07:52]  You know, I've always been of the opinion that fighters should be making more money, period.
[00:07:56]  Because the same way I feel about the way I run my comedy club, the comedians make 80% of the money.
[00:08:03]  Because I feel like that's who you're paying to see.
[00:08:06]  You're paying to see them.
[00:08:07]  We make plenty of money, like with drinks and 20% of the ticket sales.
[00:08:11]  It's like it's enough.
[00:08:14]  If we had a comedy club and there's no comedians, no one's coming, right?
[00:08:19]  No one's going to pay just to sit there and buy drinks.
[00:08:22]  The whole idea is they're paying to see someone's work.
[00:08:25]  If you fight, that's what people are paying to see.
[00:08:29]  They're paying to see fighters.
[00:08:30]  Without the fighters, there's no show.
[00:08:31]  Without the comedians, there's no show.
[00:08:33]  I understand.
[00:08:33]  But I think the big thing with the discussion of fighter pay is the percentages.
[00:08:38]  When you look at other major organizations like NFL, NBA, the percentages are so different.
[00:08:43]  Yeah, it's not good.
[00:08:44]  But dude, at the end of the day, I'm all for fighter pay too.
[00:08:47]  I've been fighting my whole life.
[00:08:48]  But you sign the contract, you agree.
[00:08:51]  This is how business is done.
[00:08:52]  Push for, try to get more of what you're worth.
[00:08:54]  You know, you can't sign a contract and complain.
[00:08:56]  Right.
[00:08:56]  That's true too, but also it's like the reality of MMA is if you're not in the UFC, people are not paying attention.
[00:09:05]  That's unsure, but it's reality.
[00:09:07]  Yeah.
[00:09:07]  You know, and I think there's some really good fighters that fight in the PFL and really good fighters that fight in one, but they don't, no one knows who they are other than the hardcore dudes.
[00:09:18]  Right.
[00:09:19]  Yeah, I got a buddy Johnny Eblin, who was the Bellator champion.
[00:09:22]  Awesome.
[00:09:22]  I've been training with him since he started MMA when he got out of college wrestling and stuff.
[00:09:26]  Like right now, he can go to the UFC and give the top five guys a run for their money.
[00:09:30]  There's no doubt in my mind.
[00:09:31]  He's only getting better.
[00:09:32]  Just because you fight in the UFC, that's a great organization to fight for, the biggest, the most known worldwide.
[00:09:38]  But dude, there's great fighters everywhere.
[00:09:41]  You know, like on the mats at American Top Team, there's a dozen guys you've never heard of that can make a run in the UFC right now.
[00:09:47]  That's what I heard is a nightmare about training at American Top Team.
[00:09:51]  Because it's a revolving door, man.
[00:09:52]  There's like 100 professional fighters on the mats at all times.
[00:09:56]  Different camps.
[00:09:57]  They have dorms.
[00:09:58]  So guys are from Russia, guys from all over the world are just in.
[00:10:00]  You never know who's going to be there.
[00:10:02]  And it's tough rounds.
[00:10:04]  Every practice is tough.
[00:10:05]  Well, not only that, but I've heard there's like guys coming in from Russia and they'll throw oblique kicks at your knees and you're like, hey, man, like, what are we doing here?
[00:10:14]  We're getting ready for fights.
[00:10:15]  We're not in a fight.
[00:10:16]  Right.
[00:10:16]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:10:17]  Like, some of these guys are trying to make their name off of a name guy.
[00:10:20]  And so you have to be very selective in who you spar with.
[00:10:23]  For sure.
[00:10:24]  And that's any, not just American Top Team, especially guys who are established.
[00:10:27]  Like, if I go to any gym here in Austin and it's open mat or something, I have a target on my back.
[00:10:32]  Of course.
[00:10:32]  You know, that's everywhere.
[00:10:33]  Of course.
[00:10:34]  But those guys, man, like at a big gym like American Top Team with the knowledge and the good coaches, those guys get weeded out.
[00:10:39]  You know, you won't stay there long if you're doing that stuff.
[00:10:42]  The problem is if you're one of the guys that has to weed them out, like you find out early on, this dude's, you know, throwing wheel kicks full blast.
[00:10:50]  And that happens all the time.
[00:10:51]  Oh, yeah.
[00:10:52]  Well, just, you know, makes sense.
[00:10:54]  I mean, you're from Dagestan or Chechnya or whatever, and you come to America.
[00:10:58]  It's like, this is your big chance.
[00:10:59]  And I do like to train hard to prepare for a fight.
[00:11:01]  You got to fight.
[00:11:02]  But, you know, you got to take care of each other.
[00:11:04]  We're professionals.
[00:11:04]  We're feeding our family with this.
[00:11:06]  Yeah.
[00:11:07]  And injury can ruin everything.
[00:11:09]  Well, there's so many fighters that get concussions in training.
[00:11:12]  And then, you know, they get chinny when they get into the fight.
[00:11:14]  It happens all the time.
[00:11:16]  Yeah.
[00:11:17]  Especially the early days.
[00:11:18]  There was a lot of guys who got hit.
[00:11:20]  Me.
[00:11:21]  Yeah.
[00:11:21]  Like the early days, we didn't really have classes that were organized, man.
[00:11:27]  It was just sparring and choking each other out and with four-ounce gloves sparring.
[00:11:30]  Like we didn't know.
[00:11:31]  We didn't know.
[00:11:32]  Isn't that crazy?
[00:11:33]  Like 2006, dude, we used to beat each other up every day.
[00:11:37]  That was MMA training.
[00:11:39]  And then it wasn't these super gyms where everything was under one roof.
[00:11:41]  I would drive to a boxing gym, drive another 45 minutes to a jiu-jitsu gym.
[00:11:45]  You know, it was put everything together on fight night, but you would train everywhere else because there wasn't mixed martial arts gyms back then, really.
[00:11:53]  I would drive to a kickboxing gym, boxing gym, wrestling, jiu-jitsu.
[00:11:57]  It was all separate.
[00:11:58]  Well, also, you were in a place that didn't have like a high volume of MMA fighters in your state.
[00:12:05]  Right back then, like Rich Clementi, Melvin Gillard were the big guys from Louisiana, you know.
[00:12:13]  Right.
[00:12:13]  Then Tim Crater came and got crazy Tim got on the Ultimate Fighter, and then I went to his gym once he got out of the TV show.
[00:12:21]  And me and him trained for years and years.
[00:12:23]  He still has a gym in Life Air, Louisiana.
[00:12:25]  I love Tim.
[00:12:26]  I've known Tim since I first worked out with him in like 98 at Machado's.
[00:12:31]  Well, he was in maybe the Navy, so he was in California station there, and I think that's when he started Jiu-Jitsu.
[00:12:36]  He was Louisiana's first black belt.
[00:12:38]  Oh, wow.
[00:12:39]  Yeah.
[00:12:40]  Yeah.
[00:12:40]  I knew him from that.
[00:12:41]  And then he was fighting and he was fighting in the UFC.
[00:12:45]  He was always around the MMA scene.
[00:12:46]  Him and Eve Edwards were good friends.
[00:12:48]  They opened a gym maybe in Houston or something.
[00:12:50]  He was cornering Eve in Pride.
[00:12:52]  And then I met Eve through Tim.
[00:12:54]  And it's just, it's a big family, man.
[00:12:55]  Eve's a guy that I always say there was a time where he was the best 155-pounder on earth.
[00:13:01]  When he beat Josh Thompson.
[00:13:02]  Yes.
[00:13:02]  He's the uncrowned champion.
[00:13:04]  He should have been the uncrowned champion.
[00:13:05]  There wasn't a belt.
[00:13:06]  I know.
[00:13:06]  Isn't that nuts?
[00:13:07]  Isn't that nuts?
[00:13:08]  That's so hard for people to understand how crazy it is.
[00:13:12]  Like being through the lineage of Thug Jitsu, man, it sucks to say that he can't say he was a champion, but I know he was.
[00:13:18]  He was.
[00:13:19]  He was.
[00:13:19]  He was the best man.
[00:13:19]  He was the best.
[00:13:20]  At one point in time, he was the best.
[00:13:23]  He lived out here before he moved to LA.
[00:13:25]  So before I moved to South Florida to train an American top team, I used to drive six hours here and stay with Eve.
[00:13:31]  He always had wrestlers down here.
[00:13:32]  This is like the beginning of my WEC days.
[00:13:35]  I would drive down here and train with Eve, man.
[00:13:37]  He was another guy who was ahead back in the day.
[00:13:40]  Yes.
[00:13:40]  Because he comes from NHB, like hook and shoot.
[00:13:44]  The crazy days.
[00:13:45]  Yeah.
[00:13:45]  Yes.
[00:13:46]  Yeah.
[00:13:46]  And he was doing it all.
[00:13:47]  Good jiu-jitsu, good kickboxing.
[00:13:49]  He fell in love with wrestling.
[00:13:51]  I was such a big fan of Eve, man.
[00:13:52]  He invented some moves too.
[00:13:55]  You remember that one thing that he would do where guys were on a single and he hit a dude with a flying knee, a jumping knee?
[00:14:00]  That was, dude, I'm an MMA historian, bro.
[00:14:03]  That was Elite XC, I believe, maybe.
[00:14:05]  Was it?
[00:14:08]  And you know, that was Edson Berto.
[00:14:11]  Was it?
[00:14:12]  I think Andre Berto's brother, the boxer.
[00:14:14]  Oh, wow.
[00:14:16]  Yeah.
[00:14:17]  Wow.
[00:14:18]  But that he had a single leg.
[00:14:19]  He was hopping and then jumped up and out cold.
[00:14:22]  Yeah, it was crazy.
[00:14:23]  It is Elite XC.
[00:14:24]  Look at you, bro.
[00:14:25]  I mean, pray that again.
[00:14:26]  Look at this.
[00:14:26]  This move is brilliant.
[00:14:28]  That's brilliant.
[00:14:28]  That's Edson Berto.
[00:14:31]  And I believe Andre and Edson's dad was a mixed martial artist.
[00:14:35]  Oh, wow.
[00:14:37]  That's such a slick move.
[00:14:40]  Yeah, he's so crafty, man.
[00:14:41]  Oh, yeah.
[00:14:42]  Well, that head kick that he landed on Josh Thompson in the middle of that wild, crazy scramble, jumping roundhouse kick to the head.
[00:14:48]  Dude, and they still play it every opener at the UFC.
[00:14:50]  Yeah.
[00:14:51]  They still play it as they should.
[00:14:52]  I mean, it was incredible.
[00:14:53]  Absolutely.
[00:14:53]  Yeah.
[00:14:54]  I gotta, you gotta give credit to Eve.
[00:14:56]  He's he was one of the real pioneers.
[00:15:00]  For sure.
[00:15:00]  And way before this was cool.
[00:15:02]  Yeah.
[00:15:02]  Way before.
[00:15:03]  Yeah.
[00:15:03]  But to be stuck at like 155, like that was his weight class.
[00:15:08]  And then there's no title.
[00:15:09]  Yeah.
[00:15:10]  They were the two best guys in the world at that time, him and Josh Thompson.
[00:15:13]  Yeah.
[00:15:14]  Josh Thompson's another one.
[00:15:15]  Doesn't get the credit he deserves.
[00:15:17]  That's it.
[00:15:18]  Boom.
[00:15:18]  Like, what a slick move, man.
[00:15:20]  But that was Eve.
[00:15:21]  Very creative, you know?
[00:15:23]  Yeah.
[00:15:24]  Man, Josh Thompson, like, peaked Josh Thompson for me.
[00:15:28]  What was it, Strike Force when him and Gilbert Melendez, maybe were going back and forth?
[00:15:32]  Didn't have to be a good idea.
[00:15:33]  Oh my goodness.
[00:15:33]  Yeah.
[00:15:34]  They might have had a trilogy.
[00:15:35]  It might have been two or three fights, but every fight was amazing.
[00:15:37]  Gilbert Melendez, the other guy doesn't get the credit he deserves.
[00:15:40]  Dude, legend.
[00:15:41]  Legend, man.
[00:15:42]  Legend.
[00:15:42]  All those guys, they were the groundbreakers.
[00:15:45]  You know, a lot of these young kids coming up, you bring up Gilbert Melendez.
[00:15:48]  They're like, who?
[00:15:49]  Like, bro, you need to know your history.
[00:15:51]  You need to know how this thing got started.
[00:15:53]  Going back.
[00:15:54]  Even more newer stuff.
[00:15:55]  Go watch him and Diego Sanchez.
[00:15:57]  Right?
[00:15:57]  Slug it out.
[00:15:58]  Diego Sanchez is another guy that I say is a tweener, right?
[00:16:02]  Welterweight.
[00:16:03]  Yeah.
[00:16:03]  I mean, he really wasn't really a welterweight.
[00:16:07]  And he, you know, and lightweight.
[00:16:09]  I mean, he tried to get down to 45 for a while, but that was just brutal.
[00:16:13]  He was killing himself, getting down to 45.
[00:16:15]  I remember seeing him making weight for 45.
[00:16:17]  I'm like, oh, this ain't good.
[00:16:18]  This ain't going to last long.
[00:16:19]  No.
[00:16:20]  But if there was a 165-pound weight class, Diego Sanchez might have been the champion of the world.
[00:16:26]  Right.
[00:16:26]  Honestly, man, like when I was competing, if they had a 65, I might have entertained it.
[00:16:30]  70s, just too big of a gap because I trained with 70s in the UFC and I know they're 200-something pounds.
[00:16:35]  And my heaviest, I was like 182, 183, maybe.
[00:16:39]  They're just too big, man.
[00:16:40]  Well, you got guys like Rumble Johnson when Rumble was alive.
[00:16:45]  Rumble got up to 230 pounds in between.
[00:16:47]  No, he was huge, man.
[00:16:49]  Huge.
[00:16:50]  Huge.
[00:16:50]  I can't believe he made 170.
[00:16:52]  He was living in South Florida, so I see him every now and then.
[00:16:54]  He was huge.
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[00:17:37]  He was the ultimate weight cutter.
[00:17:39]  Like he cut more weight than anybody.
[00:17:41]  When he was fighting at 170, it was bananas.
[00:17:44]  Like, how are you doing this?
[00:17:45]  I remember running into him at a hotel.
[00:17:47]  I was like, bro, how big are you?
[00:17:49]  And he was laughing.
[00:17:50]  He's like, I'm 230 right now.
[00:17:51]  And muscle.
[00:17:52]  Jack.
[00:17:52]  Yeah, muscle.
[00:17:53]  Like a heavyweight.
[00:17:53]  And he went up to heavyweight.
[00:17:54]  He beat Orlofsky.
[00:17:56]  Which is crazy.
[00:17:57]  He was a legit heavyweight.
[00:17:58]  Yeah.
[00:17:59]  Andre's still fighting.
[00:18:00]  I know.
[00:18:01]  And winning.
[00:18:02]  The bare knuckle champion.
[00:18:03]  Winning.
[00:18:03]  He's a bare knuckle champion.
[00:18:05]  Like, how durable is that motherfucker?
[00:18:07]  For the years and the miles that that guy has, I have to say, like taking shots, receiving damage.
[00:18:12]  I don't know if he takes it like he, obviously, he doesn't take it like he used to.
[00:18:16]  But his mobility and his movement for all the wars he's had and the years he's been fighting.
[00:18:20]  When I watch him in the gym, dude, he's light on his feet, flexible.
[00:18:22]  Yeah.
[00:18:23]  He moves so well.
[00:18:25]  And enthusiasm.
[00:18:26]  Still has enthusiasm for the game.
[00:18:28]  Yeah.
[00:18:28]  Which is crazy.
[00:18:30]  He loves it.
[00:18:30]  He clearly loves it.
[00:18:32]  I mean, he was what?
[00:18:32]  UFC heavyweight champion in 2005?
[00:18:35]  Yeah.
[00:18:36]  Was it like 2005?
[00:18:38]  2005 or 2006.
[00:18:39]  I think he beat Tim Silvia maybe.
[00:18:42]  When he was the champ, first of all, that motherfucker had a piston for a right hand.
[00:18:46]  I remember when he KO'd Paul Buntello?
[00:18:48]  Oh my God.
[00:18:49]  That's a Texas guy.
[00:18:51]  Paul Buntello, another dude.
[00:18:53]  I believe he's from Galveston area or Corpus Christi or something.
[00:18:58]  He's from Texas.
[00:19:00]  Well, if you think Arlaski from 2005 and he was a top 10 heavyweight as recently as like 2023.
[00:19:08]  Well, when he came back to the UFC after that long gap, he went on a streak.
[00:19:13]  He had a bunch of great fights.
[00:19:14]  I think he knocked out Travis Brown.
[00:19:15]  Beat Travis Brown, which is crazy.
[00:19:17]  Did he fight Bigfoot?
[00:19:18]  Did him in Bigfoot?
[00:19:19]  He was 161 is when he went in.
[00:19:21]  2005, February 5th, 2005.
[00:19:24]  That is bananas, man.
[00:19:26]  That really is bananas.
[00:19:28]  Man, back in the day, Tim Silvia used to train at ATT when I first got there.
[00:19:32]  He was the most uncoordinated, unathletic guy.
[00:19:35]  I couldn't believe he was a UFC champion, man.
[00:19:37]  I know.
[00:19:37]  He was like goofy.
[00:19:38]  Pigeon-toed.
[00:19:39]  But down to fight.
[00:19:40]  Oh, down to fight.
[00:19:41]  Down to fight.
[00:19:42]  Yeah, for sure.
[00:19:42]  Pigeon-toed.
[00:19:43]  His knees were weird.
[00:19:44]  Yeah.
[00:19:44]  Yeah, they went in.
[00:19:47]  I tried to talk to a trainer about that.
[00:19:49]  He goes, that's learned.
[00:19:50]  Like, you can correct that.
[00:19:51]  I was like, what the knee?
[00:19:53]  The knee?
[00:19:53]  Yeah.
[00:19:54]  The knees bowed in like that.
[00:19:56]  Was he said that's a learned thing?
[00:19:58]  You could correct that.
[00:20:00]  I was like, really?
[00:20:01]  How do you what?
[00:20:03]  I never heard of that.
[00:20:04]  Yeah.
[00:20:05]  They didn't understand how it seems like something they would do maybe when you're born surgery, like reposition the bones or something, no?
[00:20:10]  Well, I don't know if it is, I don't know.
[00:20:13]  I mean, I'd have to, I don't want to speak out of turn.
[00:20:15]  Like, I'd have to bring in that guy and have him explain to me how you could correct that.
[00:20:20]  But he's like, that's something that could be corrected.
[00:20:22]  That's like learned behavior.
[00:20:24]  It's just from being so big.
[00:20:25]  But, dude, watching him with his toes pointed out doing the ladder drills and stuff, you know, the ladders on the mat in and out.
[00:20:31]  Like, it was.
[00:20:31]  Well, big guys have their toes pointed out like that.
[00:20:35]  Like, Jellyroll went from 500 pounds and he's down to the, he's in the low 200s now, which is crazy.

=== Correcting Knee Issues in Combat (15:17) ===

[00:20:42]  Yeah.
[00:20:42]  I saw pictures of him.
[00:20:43]  It looks completely different.
[00:20:44]  Bro, he's lost like 300 pounds.
[00:20:46]  And he did it the right way.
[00:20:48]  No Ozempic, just like diet, exercise, runs all the time.
[00:20:52]  But he has a problem when he walks, his toes are pointed out and he's trying to correct it.
[00:20:57]  He's trying to be aware of it.
[00:20:59]  When he runs, he runs the right way, like feet pointed forward.
[00:21:03]  You see it too on the bigger guys' shoes.
[00:21:06]  The corners of the shoes are always flat, like flat times on the outside.
[00:21:09]  Yeah.
[00:21:09]  They just walk that way, man.
[00:21:10]  Well, you got to think.
[00:21:11]  You have so much weight.
[00:21:13]  You kind of kind of stretch out to kind of balance yourself.
[00:21:17]  Yeah.
[00:21:17]  But I always point to Tim Silvia when he knocked out Rico.
[00:21:21]  Rico Rodriguez.
[00:21:24]  That Tim Silvia was a beast, dude.
[00:21:27]  That was back when all the Mexican supplements were allowed.
[00:21:30]  There was a lot of dudes who are very juicy.
[00:21:34]  Oh, yeah.
[00:21:34]  And Tim had giant traps and huge fucking shoulders.
[00:21:38]  And I remember he struggled to get down to 265 for that fight.
[00:21:43]  Yeah, back in the day with the juice was just free-flowing, man.
[00:21:46]  I just worked the UFC desk with Bisming in Vegas when Max and Charles fought.
[00:21:51]  And we started talking about the same thing we're talking about now.
[00:21:53]  And he was like, oh, I fought Vito.
[00:21:55]  I fought them all in the height of TRT.
[00:21:57]  Right.
[00:21:57]  You know, he's fought legal juice, which was bananas.
[00:22:01]  I mean, Alistair.
[00:22:03]  Oh, yeah.
[00:22:03]  That was the juiciest fight of all time.
[00:22:05]  Alistair versus Brock was the juiciest fight of all time.
[00:22:11]  I recently watched the Mark Hunt documentary, and he's trying to push back and do a lawsuit against the UFC for all the juicing and stuff.
[00:22:21]  I mean, it's such a.
[00:22:22]  Yeah, that's a tough, that's a tough road because how much can the UFC do?
[00:22:30]  And it's on the Athletic Commission as well, right?
[00:22:32]  Wouldn't the lawsuit be against the state, not the UFC?
[00:22:35]  I think his position is that the UFC knew that Brock was juicing.
[00:22:42]  I don't know.
[00:22:42]  This is before random drug tests, I believe.
[00:22:45]  Yes, it was before.
[00:22:46]  So that would, I feel like that would fall on the state athletic commission.
[00:22:49]  Maybe it wasn't before because he did get popped.
[00:22:53]  But it wasn't random.
[00:22:54]  They weren't going to show up in camp.
[00:22:57]  No, no, that back in the day you would get tested on fight night.
[00:23:00]  Right.
[00:23:00]  You know, they would knock at your door.
[00:23:01]  Well, it was super clear that Brock was doing something.
[00:23:06]  It was super clear.
[00:23:07]  Like he was like in his late 30s.
[00:23:10]  He's built like a fucking like the side of a barn.
[00:23:13]  I mean, there's a bunch of guys back then.
[00:23:14]  Yeah.
[00:23:15]  A bunch of guys.
[00:23:16]  Yeah.
[00:23:16]  But it wasn't frowned.
[00:23:17]  It was okay.
[00:23:18]  Everybody was doing it.
[00:23:19]  But it was, and it wasn't, right?
[00:23:21]  Because it was illegal, but it was like when you have fight day drug tests, that's an intelligence test.
[00:23:29]  That's all that is.
[00:23:31]  Right.
[00:23:31]  That's whether or not you have good people in your corner.
[00:23:34]  Right.
[00:23:34]  And whether or not you have a chemist.
[00:23:36]  It's going to take this amount of weeks to get out of there.
[00:23:38]  Or this many days to get out of your system.
[00:23:40]  Well, there are certain camps that would employ scientists.
[00:23:43]  And these scientists.
[00:23:44]  The crooks are always going to be ahead, you know?
[00:23:46]  They're always going to be coming up with something new, trying to stay ahead of the curve and get away with stuff.
[00:23:50]  And I still think they're probably doing it, man.
[00:23:52]  Yeah.
[00:23:52]  There's probably something that we don't know right now, and it's going to come out in the future.
[00:23:57]  That's why they hold on to the drug tests for a prolonged period of time.
[00:24:01]  Yeah.
[00:24:01]  They ask you your consent.
[00:24:03]  You have to do an extra signature if you let them test it or use it for.
[00:24:06]  What happens if you say no?
[00:24:08]  I don't know.
[00:24:08]  I never said no.
[00:24:10]  I always give it to them.
[00:24:10]  Well, it's good for you because you're clean.
[00:24:12]  Yeah, I competed my whole career clean, man.
[00:24:14]  Nothing.
[00:24:15]  Nothing.
[00:24:15]  I was even scared of certain creatine.
[00:24:17]  Like, I got the trusted by sport on everything because I was so scared to be one of those guys.
[00:24:21]  Because every time I see it, tainted supplement, yeah, sure, buddy.
[00:24:24]  But, you know, sure, tainted supplement, but it could be.
[00:24:28]  You know, I don't want to be one of those guys.
[00:24:29]  Well, for sure, there are tainted supplements.
[00:24:31]  That's a real thing.
[00:24:32]  And, you know, I know that for a fact because as one of the owners of Onit, when we were doing, when we were doing third-party testing of some of our supplements, we would find stuff in there that's not supposed to be in there.
[00:24:46]  And so we'd have to contact the distributor, the manufacturer, and the people that mixed our stuff.
[00:24:51]  So the way Onit would work is like Alpha Brain has a bunch of different ingredients that enhance your, you know, your mental focus and clarity.
[00:25:02]  And we would give them the very specific numbers of what's supposed to be in each batch.
[00:25:07]  And then we would third-party test.
[00:25:09]  We'd find a bunch of shit in there that's not supposed to be in there.
[00:25:11]  And it's because, you know, if you're getting it done overseas, they have these vats where they mix all the stuff in and they don't even clean the vats, right?
[00:25:19]  They dump it out and then they dump the new stuff in there without cleaning it.
[00:25:22]  There's residue in there and then also the level of drug testing, how high these things can sense anything.
[00:25:28]  Right.
[00:25:28]  Even if there's a tiny bit, they'll find it.
[00:25:30]  Right with John Jones, right?
[00:25:31]  It was picograms.
[00:25:32]  We got introduced to the term picogram.
[00:25:34]  Picos.
[00:25:35]  Like a grain of salt in a swimming pool they can find.
[00:25:37]  Yeah.
[00:25:38]  So the testing is legit.
[00:25:39]  And I'm glad, you know, we're fighting.
[00:25:41]  We're kneeing each other in the face.
[00:25:43]  If we were running track or something, I would.
[00:25:44]  Exactly.
[00:25:45]  But we're fighting.
[00:25:46]  You can get seriously injured, man.
[00:25:47]  Exactly.
[00:25:48]  I've always been against doping.
[00:25:49]  But I'm retired now, Joe.
[00:25:51]  I'm retired now.
[00:25:52]  Now you can get the truth.
[00:25:54]  Yeah, I love when guys get, well, cowboy got real jacked too afterwards.
[00:25:57]  But then he talked about coming back and then he got off of everything.
[00:26:00]  That's the thing, though.
[00:26:01]  Like, always back in the day, all the TRT guys, like, if you change your body's natural production of testosterone with exogenous testosterone, you have to be on it for the rest of your life.
[00:26:11]  Well, you don't have to because there's things called HCG and HCG and clomaphene can restart your body's production of testosterone.
[00:26:19]  Yeah.
[00:26:20]  Because I know your testicles will stop producing once you introduce foreign testosterone, right?
[00:26:25]  Well, for a period of time, especially when you're a young man, you can restart it.
[00:26:31]  But, you know, my production, I've been on TRT since I was like late 30s.
[00:26:36]  Like, it's not coming back.
[00:26:38]  Yeah.
[00:26:38]  I'm shooting blanks on papow.
[00:26:41]  You're good.
[00:26:42]  But two of my daughters were born while I was on TRT.
[00:26:45]  So it does work.
[00:26:47]  I just had a limited amount.
[00:26:48]  I had soldiers, just one fucking special ops guy.
[00:26:51]  The only one was marching.
[00:26:54]  But he got through.
[00:26:55]  Black ops.
[00:26:56]  Yeah.
[00:26:56]  So if you think about like all of the time where people were allowed to dope, it is a giant percentage of the history of MMA.
[00:27:05]  Like pride.
[00:27:06]  The further you go back, for sure.
[00:27:08]  For sure.
[00:27:08]  For sure.
[00:27:09]  Pride, it was juicy as juice.
[00:27:10]  Yeah.
[00:27:11]  Like, like Ensign, anyway, when he was on the podcast, told me that in the contract, it said in all capital letters, we do not test for steroids.
[00:27:20]  We aren't looking.
[00:27:20]  And I've heard other people say that as well.
[00:27:22]  We aren't looking.
[00:27:23]  Thumbs up, green light, let's go.
[00:27:25]  Shoot up the juice.
[00:27:26]  Come fight.
[00:27:26]  We'll pay you cash.
[00:27:27]  Get out of here.
[00:27:28]  They wanted you to juice.
[00:27:29]  They wanted you to fight better, which is like it becomes a spectacle, but man, people can get seriously injured.
[00:27:35]  You can, especially, but then also the thing is, like, does it make you more durable?
[00:27:40]  I think it does.
[00:27:41]  Prevent you.
[00:27:41]  I think it does, man, because just one that right off the top of my head, when Bigfoot Silva was TRT or whatever he was on, he was so durable.
[00:27:50]  So durable.
[00:27:51]  Him and Mark Hunt had those crazy fights, but when he got off, he started getting knocked out.
[00:27:54]  Right.
[00:27:55]  You know?
[00:27:56]  But there's also the switch.
[00:27:58]  There's something that happens when you've had a certain amount of concussions where that's.
[00:28:02]  Another guy that comes to mind.
[00:28:03]  Remember Eric Silva?
[00:28:04]  Yeah.
[00:28:04]  Welterweight?
[00:28:05]  He was huge.
[00:28:06]  Dude, whenever they started doing the USATA stuff, he was getting knocked out and just wasn't himself.
[00:28:10]  He didn't look the same.
[00:28:11]  He melted.
[00:28:12]  I wonder what the medical reason for that is, but I think it has something to do with confidence and self-belief with the testosterone.
[00:28:19]  They just, I think that's a big part of it.
[00:28:22]  It's definitely a part of it, but also there's a part of it, your vitality.
[00:28:25]  You're just more durable.
[00:28:27]  I mean, when you're jacked up on testosterone, it's just more fucking durable.
[00:28:31]  Everything about you is more durable.
[00:28:32]  Aleister's a great example of that.
[00:28:34]  Like animal mode, man.
[00:28:35]  Yeah, man.
[00:28:36]  Dude, I think Aleister Overem, when he was Uberim, I think that is the best argument for TRT ever.
[00:28:43]  Looked like a superhero.
[00:28:44]  Bro, when he was in K1 and he was shelling up.
[00:28:48]  How are you getting through that?
[00:28:49]  How are you getting through that shell?
[00:28:50]  Remember how small he was, though, back in K1?
[00:28:52]  He was like a 205 or something like that.
[00:28:53]  Well, not even pride.
[00:28:54]  Pride.
[00:28:54]  Pride when he was fighting at Light Heavyweight.
[00:28:56]  When Chuck knocked him out.
[00:28:57]  Liddell knocked him out when he was a legit light heavyweight and he was skinny.
[00:29:01]  Yeah.
[00:29:02]  Young and skinny.
[00:29:03]  He just decided time to get big.
[00:29:06]  Look at him back then when he fought Shogun.
[00:29:08]  Still pretty jacked, though.
[00:29:09]  Oh, yeah, man.
[00:29:11]  He was shredded.
[00:29:12]  He was shredded, but he was a shredded light heavyweight.
[00:29:15]  You know, I think he's a vegan now.
[00:29:18]  Look at that.
[00:29:19]  Come on, son.
[00:29:20]  Come on, that's a rib eyes.
[00:29:22]  That ain't vegan right now.
[00:29:23]  Go back to that other one.
[00:29:24]  That's what I'm talking about.
[00:29:25]  I mean, that's what a UFC heavyweight champion is supposed to look like.
[00:29:28]  Hell yeah.
[00:29:28]  Come on, son.
[00:29:29]  I mean, put that on the White House car.
[00:29:32]  Not just that, but highly skilled.
[00:29:35]  For sure.
[00:29:35]  He wasn't just jacked.
[00:29:37]  He was highly.
[00:29:38]  I mean, there's a K-1 Grand Prix champion.
[00:29:42]  I mean, that dude was the cream of the crop at kickboxing.
[00:29:46]  He was the cream of the crop in MMA.
[00:29:48]  And he even won the Abu Dhabi European Trials as a pure grappler.
[00:29:53]  Yeah, people don't know about that about Alistair.
[00:29:55]  His grappling is high level.
[00:29:56]  He had one of the best guillotines in the game.
[00:29:58]  Like, Aleister in his prime, when he went over and he fought Brett Cooper over in, was it Burt Cooper?
[00:30:06]  No, who did he fucking fight in Strike Force?
[00:30:11]  Brett Rogers.
[00:30:11]  Brett Rogers.
[00:30:12]  That's right.
[00:30:12]  Sorry.
[00:30:13]  I'm thinking of the heavyweight boxer, Burt Cooper.
[00:30:16]  Burt Cooper.
[00:30:17]  Who fought, he had some crazy wars with Evander, Evander Holyfield.
[00:30:24]  I think Vander's down in South Florida too now.
[00:30:27]  I don't remember Cooper.
[00:30:29]  He was a really, he was a tank.
[00:30:31]  He was a tank.
[00:30:32]  He was a super jack guy.
[00:30:33]  But Brett Rogers, when he fought Alistair, Aleister immediately hit him with a low kick, and you could tell he was like, what is this?
[00:30:41]  Yeah.
[00:30:41]  Like, it was a different kind of low kick because you're dealing with the tree trunks of Aleister with perfect technique.
[00:30:47]  And that guy was as good a kickboxer as has ever entered into MMA.
[00:30:53]  And when he was saucy, he was a problem.
[00:30:57]  He was a real fucking problem.
[00:31:00]  Speaking of kickboxers from that era coming to MMA, dude, didn't Gokansaki come over?
[00:31:04]  Oh, yeah.
[00:31:05]  I thought he was going to do so much better, but he was older.
[00:31:08]  He was older, and he was at a time where it's like, you know, he had had so many fights in K1.
[00:31:17]  You know, he had so many wars.
[00:31:19]  And he fought Khalil.
[00:31:21]  You know, Khalil's fast as fuck.
[00:31:23]  And, I mean, good kickboxing.
[00:31:24]  Real good kickboxer.
[00:31:26]  Tie style.
[00:31:26]  Khalil cracked him in the first round and knocked him out.
[00:31:29]  Yeah.
[00:31:30]  Yeah.
[00:31:30]  Which was a big fight for Khalil because, you know, Gokan was the Turkish Tyson, was coming over here.
[00:31:36]  You know, he was one of those guys like Mirko Krokop was like an elite kickboxer who's entering into MMA, and everybody always gets excited about that.
[00:31:43]  Obviously, Pereira is the best example of that.
[00:31:45]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:31:46]  But he was a guy I knew.
[00:31:48]  I told everybody, I was like, that guy's going to be a nightmare for everybody because there's something about him, man.
[00:31:53]  I don't know what the hell is going on with his bone structure, his DNA, and his intelligence.
[00:31:59]  Like, he figures shit out that other people didn't.
[00:32:02]  Like, the way he threw that low kick, like the way he throws that calf kick with zero towel, no turning of the hips.
[00:32:09]  Like, he fucks up guys' calves better than anybody on the planet.
[00:32:12]  We had like a huge rush of the calf kick.
[00:32:14]  I saw it for like a year and a half, two years.
[00:32:15]  Everybody was doing it.
[00:32:16]  Now it's kind of fading away.
[00:32:18]  I've noticed that.
[00:32:19]  It is, but not with him.
[00:32:21]  It's not with elite guys, guys that are really good at it.
[00:32:24]  It does so much damage, man, so quickly.
[00:32:26]  It's crazy.
[00:32:26]  And it's so much, it's less commitment.
[00:32:28]  So you're not giving, you don't have to turn your hips over as much.
[00:32:30]  So wrestlers aren't grabbing singles as easy.
[00:32:32]  I remember your fight with Jim Miller.
[00:32:34]  It's just like, oh, dude, tore me up.
[00:32:35]  Yeah, that was that was one of the first examples of calf kicks being really fucking dangerous.
[00:32:40]  And I've never felt it before.
[00:32:41]  And I'm a South Paul, so they land good calf kicks.
[00:32:44]  You'd have to fight another South Paul, right?
[00:32:45]  And that doesn't happen too often, especially with one who's throwing those.
[00:32:49]  So I didn't know what kind of black magic he was doing, bro.
[00:32:51]  I was like, I got a flat tire.
[00:32:54]  What is going on?
[00:32:55]  What is this?
[00:32:55]  I know.
[00:32:56]  You know, isn't it crazy that it took that long for people to figure that out?
[00:33:00]  Ben Henderson was a guy doing it early, but it wasn't that effective for some reason.
[00:33:05]  Yeah.
[00:33:05]  He was doing it, but it wasn't having the devastating damage.
[00:33:08]  I'm trying to think of who's the first guy to really Edson Barbosa.
[00:33:11]  Would do it every now and then.
[00:33:13]  Trying to think of somebody who really brought it over.
[00:33:15]  Bro, it's made its way into kickboxing now.
[00:33:18]  It's because they were saying, like, the Muay Thai guys are not susceptible to calf kicks.
[00:33:22]  And everybody was saying that.
[00:33:23]  I was like, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
[00:33:25]  They are light on their front foot, so that front foot is they are, but there's times where they have to plant, like when they're throwing a right kick.
[00:33:32]  There's a guy named Yuki Yoza, Yuki Yoza, who fights for one.
[00:33:35]  He's a Kyokushin guy, and he is fucking everybody up with calf kicks.
[00:33:40]  Yeah, he fights like high guard, tight inside, and again, no pivot of the hips.
[00:33:48]  He's essentially throwing his calf kick almost like he's kicking a soccer ball straight up the middle.
[00:33:53]  That's the way I like to do it as well.
[00:33:54]  Just clip the top of the calf.
[00:33:56]  There's no commitment.
[00:33:57]  You don't have to pivot your hips or plant to turn.
[00:33:59]  You can just snap it out like a jab.
[00:34:00]  Yeah, well, a great example of the changing of technique was you in that Connor fight.
[00:34:08]  Yeah, calf over and over and over.
[00:34:10]  And it was also South Paul versus House.
[00:34:11]  South Paul.
[00:34:12]  Same thing.
[00:34:13]  You just destroyed that calf.
[00:34:15]  And you could tell he didn't know what to do because, as good as he was and as many fights as he had, two division world champion, he hadn't been calf kicked.
[00:34:24]  Right.
[00:34:24]  Which is a crazy transition when you see like the history of the sport.
[00:34:28]  That is one of the clear differenti, the like the differentiation.
[00:34:33]  That's another word that's fake.
[00:34:34]  That's the clear line in the sand where the techniques changed.
[00:34:40]  Yeah.
[00:34:40]  And it's one of those things like before it happened to me.
[00:34:43]  I saw it and I was like, ah, it might be uncomfortable.
[00:34:45]  And but until it happens, then you have a different respect for it.
[00:34:48]  So Connor probably learned a lot that fight, man.
[00:34:49]  Like, this is for real.
[00:34:50]  Calf kicks are for real.
[00:34:52]  What's fucked that it's just one shot?
[00:34:54]  That's what's crazy about it.
[00:34:55]  Because a thigh kick, like you can get a hard thigh kick and your leg goes dead for a couple seconds, but it comes back.
[00:35:02]  Yeah, calves don't really come back that quick.
[00:35:05]  They explained it to me at the hospital after the Jim Miller thing.
[00:35:07]  Apparently, your calf doesn't have the chambers for the fluid to drain.
[00:35:10]  So that's why it gets compartment.
[00:35:12]  Oh, compartment?
[00:35:13]  That's why it's so painful because you can't like go out through the swelling can't go out through your whole leg.
[00:35:18]  So it sits in one pocket and fills up and it's just uncomfortable.
[00:35:20]  It can stop nerves.
[00:35:22]  Do you ever see what happened to Austin Hubbard?
[00:35:24]  Dude, that's what they wanted to do after the Jim Miller fight.
[00:35:26]  They wanted to cut me at the way.
[00:35:29]  No way.
[00:35:31]  Fillet you to release the pressure.
[00:35:33]  Another guy, Uriah Faber, when he fought Jose Aldo, his leg blew up like a balloon.
[00:35:38]  Yeah.
[00:35:39]  Apparently, if it gets that bad compartment syndrome and the swelling's bad enough for long enough, you can lose function of your ankle and foot.
[00:35:46]  Yeah.
[00:35:46]  Which is crazy, right?
[00:35:48]  Right, right.
[00:35:48]  Well, Uriah was one of the first guys to implement going into what can't I think of it?
[00:35:57]  The fucking chamber, oxygen chamber.

=== Hyperbaric Therapy for Injury Recovery (07:30) ===

[00:35:59]  Hyperbaric.
[00:36:00]  Hyperbaric.
[00:36:01]  What's wrong with me today?
[00:36:02]  I'm making up fake words.
[00:36:04]  Can't come up with things that I know.
[00:36:06]  But he was using the hyperbaric exclusively to recover from that and documenting it.
[00:36:12]  And I was like, bro, that's interesting.
[00:36:14]  A lot of good brain benefits for hyperbaric.
[00:36:16]  I don't have one.
[00:36:17]  I've done it before, but it's never been like a routine thing.
[00:36:19]  Well, you have to have access to it.
[00:36:21]  And also the tints.
[00:36:22]  You need a lot.
[00:36:23]  The tints, the zip-up tints at home.
[00:36:24]  Not as strong.
[00:36:25]  Yeah.
[00:36:26]  You need a solid.
[00:36:27]  You know, you need like one of those propane tank ones, those big, thick, walled ones.
[00:36:31]  The glass, like it's really good high pressure.
[00:36:33]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:36:34]  And then, you know, you got to be careful in those things.
[00:36:36]  You can't, no sparks.
[00:36:38]  Yeah, dude.
[00:36:39]  I saw a story that a kid was in one, and you saw that?
[00:36:41]  That was a couple years ago.
[00:36:42]  Horrible.
[00:36:42]  Yeah.
[00:36:43]  Horrible story.
[00:36:44]  Yeah.
[00:36:45]  But hyperbaric is awesome for recovery.
[00:36:48]  It's also, it lengthens, there's a protocol that developed, one of the universities in Israel developed it, where you do 60 sessions over 90 days, and it lengthens your telomeres that's commensurate with, I think it's like a 20-year difference in your biological age.
[00:37:06]  Wow.
[00:37:06]  It's nuts.
[00:37:07]  It's super effective.
[00:37:09]  Like when you get a lot of oxygen into your system like that, it just helps everything recover.
[00:37:14]  For sure.
[00:37:14]  Like if you have an aura ring or a whoop strap and you go into one of those things, it shows you.
[00:37:19]  It's like, oh, you have an amazing recovery day.
[00:37:22]  Yeah, man, the metrics we can track now with all the wearable devices is pretty awesome, dude.
[00:37:26]  Well, it gets you to understand.
[00:37:29]  I think you can get a little addicted to those things.
[00:37:31]  For sure.
[00:37:32]  So when I was competing, I stopped using them because every day wasn't ready.
[00:37:36]  Need to rest.
[00:37:36]  Red, red, red every day.
[00:37:38]  So when I retired, I got back to it.
[00:37:39]  Now I'm using them.
[00:37:40]  But like when you're training for a fight, you can't take two days off.
[00:37:45]  I need to train.
[00:37:45]  And the fight's coming up.
[00:37:46]  If I'm in the red zone, I still need to train.
[00:37:49]  I know.
[00:37:49]  Isn't that interesting?
[00:37:50]  Like, there's a wearable device would tell you you're not supposed to train, but yet you know in order to reach MMA peak physical condition, you have to push when you're not ready so that your body's forced to recover quicker.
[00:38:03]  I know this guy's training.
[00:38:04]  That's why I got rid of it.
[00:38:05]  During camp, I don't use it or didn't use it.
[00:38:07]  Well, it's weird because like, what if you listen to it?
[00:38:11]  Like, some people say, like, Terrence Crawford was talking about like there's times where he wanted to push where his coaches told him not to, and then he realized they were right.
[00:38:22]  Yeah, maturing through fighting, man, pulling back got easier as I got older.
[00:38:27]  When I was a younger fighter, I didn't want to take any time off.
[00:38:29]  I needed to be as many reps, as much time on the mats as possible.
[00:38:33]  But as I got to like mid-30s, 36, I was like, you know, this is, I got to take days off.
[00:38:38]  Complete days.
[00:38:39]  Complete days.
[00:38:40]  Not just an easy day or a technique day.
[00:38:41]  I just need to be out of the gym.
[00:38:43]  Just relax.
[00:38:44]  Yeah, reset my mind to where I want to be there.
[00:38:46]  Just hard for fighters because you operate on momentum of the conditioning and the training and the discipline.
[00:38:51]  It's like you're in there.
[00:38:53]  And then to have a day where you're not, you feel like you're slipping backwards.
[00:38:56]  Right.
[00:38:56]  And you show up to fight week with that momentum.
[00:38:58]  Like, I did everything I could.
[00:39:00]  I busted my ass every day.
[00:39:01]  Like, it just gives you so much energy and so much confidence going into fight week.
[00:39:07]  You've turned over every stone.
[00:39:08]  Yeah.
[00:39:09]  Well, the worst thing, though, is seeing a fighter fight flat because you know they overtrained.
[00:39:14]  And the one thing that I always point to is when Tim Kennedy fought Kelvin Gaslam and he had gone through two solid camps in a row.
[00:39:22]  So he went through one camp, peaked, got ready for the fight, and then the fight got canceled, and then went right back into camp to train for gastolum and didn't give himself the chance to recover.
[00:39:33]  And, you know, he's too tough.
[00:39:34]  Yeah.
[00:39:34]  Too tough, too disciplined, and his body broke down.
[00:39:37]  You're redlining that engine over and over and over.
[00:39:39]  I mean, we just saw it with Murab, I think.
[00:39:41]  You know, not that taking anything away from Jan, but you stay that busy.
[00:39:45]  Those kind of fights, those training camps, I mean, it's hard to do.
[00:39:48]  That's what makes things like John Jones could be so impressive to me, man.
[00:39:52]  To get on top and stay on top that long, you know.
[00:39:55]  Yeah.
[00:39:56]  I know.
[00:39:57]  It's nuts.
[00:39:58]  There's so few guys have been able to do that.
[00:39:59]  Especially in MMA.
[00:40:00]  Too many variables, too many ways to slip on a banana peel, get caught in something.
[00:40:05]  I know.
[00:40:05]  I kind of love that Khabib went out on top.
[00:40:08]  And never came back.
[00:40:09]  Respect.
[00:40:09]  That's awesome.
[00:40:10]  And they offered him a lot of fucking money to come back.
[00:40:13]  He's like, nope.
[00:40:14]  Yeah.
[00:40:14]  Nope.
[00:40:15]  Good for him, man.
[00:40:16]  Yeah, good for him.
[00:40:17]  Yeah.
[00:40:18]  That's the way to do it.
[00:40:19]  And then you go out, all your faculties, everything's fine, undefeated, go down a legend.
[00:40:23]  Right.
[00:40:24]  Yeah.
[00:40:25]  Like, I think Floyd should have done it, you know, like that.
[00:40:28]  Now he's fucking fighting Mike Tyson, dude.
[00:40:30]  Come on, man.
[00:40:31]  I know.
[00:40:32]  There was some rumors around that Floyd was going to have a rematch with Connor, which is crazy.
[00:40:38]  But I think Connor would probably do it, especially if there weren't any drug testing involved.
[00:40:42]  I wonder if he's going to come back for sure.
[00:40:44]  Yeah.
[00:40:46]  But, man, to heal from an injury like he had, you probably need a bunch of stuff to, I don't know the ins and outs of that, but you probably need some help to heal.
[00:40:53]  He definitely needed some help to heal.
[00:40:55]  The problem is once you get used to that help and you enjoy it.
[00:40:59]  Yeah, I'm getting used to the help.
[00:41:01]  I know.
[00:41:02]  That's what I thought about Cowboy when he got jacked and then he was like, he's going to, he slimmed back down again.
[00:41:07]  He said he was going to fight again.
[00:41:08]  But I think he might have abandoned that.
[00:41:10]  I got hooked up with Brigham and Ways Too Well.
[00:41:12]  They did all my blood when I retired and got me.
[00:41:15]  I turned down no testosterone for me.
[00:41:17]  So I'm not on any testosterone.
[00:41:19]  I just don't want to mess up my natural production because mine wasn't high, but it wasn't low.
[00:41:22]  I'm just scared to mess with it.
[00:41:24]  Yeah, you don't need it.
[00:41:25]  And it's peptides.
[00:41:26]  I'm 37.
[00:41:27]  It can do a lot for you.
[00:41:28]  Yeah, I'm on a bunch of peptides.
[00:41:30]  Yeah, peptides are the way to go.
[00:41:31]  And I feel great.
[00:41:32]  Honestly, I wish I could have been on this shit when I was fighting, man.
[00:41:36]  I know.
[00:41:37]  You know, especially like the growth hormone releasing stuff.
[00:41:41]  Like tessamoralin.
[00:41:42]  Exactly.
[00:41:43]  Like I could have pushed hard every day, man.
[00:41:46]  As I got older, it got harder, man.
[00:41:48]  I know, and all it does is help your body recover.
[00:41:50]  It's not like it gives you some sort of a performance-enhancing boost.
[00:41:54]  I know it definitely helps with like fat mobilization and stuff like that, but just being able to push hard every day is huge in fighting, man.
[00:42:02]  But just BPC 157, which offers no performance enhancing, but would help you heal soft tissue injuries.
[00:42:09]  Because you're getting injured.
[00:42:11]  You're just getting small injuries every day training.
[00:42:14]  Every time you get leg kicked, every time you get punched in the stomach, arm bars, shoulder bars.
[00:42:18]  Everything.
[00:42:18]  Everything.
[00:42:19]  Your joints are always messed up.
[00:42:20]  Always.
[00:42:21]  Always.
[00:42:22]  And if you wanted fighters to perform better, something that would allow them to heal better is only good.
[00:42:28]  And it's not going to make you run faster.
[00:42:30]  It's not going to make you jump higher.
[00:42:32]  It's not going to make you an Uberim.
[00:42:34]  We're not talking about that.
[00:42:35]  And I'm not even sure if that's banned.
[00:42:37]  I haven't checked.
[00:42:38]  It is?
[00:42:38]  BPC 157 is banned.
[00:42:39]  Wow.
[00:42:40]  Yeah.
[00:42:40]  That's unfortunate.
[00:42:41]  Yeah, creatine, protein powders, that's the same stuff.
[00:42:44]  You just recover better.
[00:42:45]  Well, creatine.
[00:42:46]  I don't understand why.
[00:42:47]  Creatine's not banned, thank God.
[00:42:49]  But creatine in the 1990s was thought of the same way as steroids.
[00:42:53]  Right, yeah, yeah.
[00:42:54]  I remember.
[00:42:54]  People thought like creatine's cheating.
[00:42:56]  Oh, my God, you're taking creatine.
[00:42:57]  They literally put it in the same category as steroids.
[00:42:59]  Then they realized, oh, it's actually a part of food.
[00:43:01]  Great for your test.
[00:43:02]  Praisine, good for you.
[00:43:03]  Great for everything.
[00:43:04]  Yeah.
[00:43:06]  I just talked my wife into starting creatine.
[00:43:08]  Women need it more than men, I was reading.
[00:43:10]  Right?
[00:43:10]  You know, my wife's just starting.
[00:43:12]  Yeah.
[00:43:12]  I think the key is to make sure you're hydrated, too, and to make sure you're not taking too much of it and make sure you get your blood checked and so you're not putting a lot of pressure on your kidneys.
[00:43:22]  But like dehydration and kidneys, that like that is one of the big things that happens to a lot of fighters that cut a lot of weight.
[00:43:28]  They start getting kidney stones.

=== Creatine Misconceptions and Kidney Safety (08:23) ===

[00:43:30]  I mean, Jose Aldo dealt with that.
[00:43:32]  DC famously got pulled out of the Olympics.
[00:43:35]  Oh, yeah.
[00:43:36]  Because he was having kidney failure.
[00:43:37]  Yeah.
[00:43:38]  Yeah.
[00:43:38]  Your kidneys, man, they don't like you being drained out like that.
[00:43:42]  I've had a few weight cuts where I felt pain in my back.
[00:43:45]  And I think that's kidneys.
[00:43:46]  100%, man.
[00:43:48]  Kidney shots.
[00:43:49]  Didn't happen often, but I've definitely had it.
[00:43:51]  Tightness.
[00:43:52]  It feels kind of like cramping in a weird place you never had before in your back.
[00:43:55]  Isn't that spooky?
[00:43:56]  You're drying out your organs.
[00:43:57]  And then fighting for your life.
[00:43:58]  Crazy.
[00:43:59]  24 hours.
[00:43:59]  It was nice, though, when I started making it to the top of the cards, co-main event, main event, because then you have like 30-something hours to rehydrate.
[00:44:05]  If you're fighting early prelims in Vegas, two or three in the afternoon, you know, it's not too long.
[00:44:12]  Especially back in the day when weigh-ins were at 5 or 6 p.m.
[00:44:15]  There wasn't a morning and ceremonial.
[00:44:18]  The real weigh-ins were at 5, and you were going to fight at 2 the next day.
[00:44:20]  Yeah, those were nuts.
[00:44:22]  That was crazy.
[00:44:24]  Yeah, it was crazy when guys would like shuffle to the scale for the real weigh-in.
[00:44:29]  You'd see them all like a skeleton.
[00:44:31]  And you're facing off of your opponent trying to be tough, like both dying.
[00:44:34]  Well, I always remember Jose Aldo versus Connor.
[00:44:37]  Connor looked like he was one of the walking dead.
[00:44:40]  Yeah.
[00:44:40]  He looked like a zombie.
[00:44:42]  He was so skinny.
[00:44:43]  His face bones.
[00:44:44]  Yeah.
[00:44:45]  See if you can find that.
[00:44:46]  And he was also crazy.
[00:44:47]  Ah!
[00:44:48]  Yeah.
[00:44:49]  Like, like flexible.
[00:44:50]  He's always crazy.
[00:44:51]  He's always hyped up with no body fat, no water, just completely dehydrated.
[00:44:58]  Like, look at that.
[00:44:59]  Look at that.
[00:45:00]  The eyes.
[00:45:00]  Eyes sunken in.
[00:45:02]  That is nuts.
[00:45:03]  That guy weighed 145 and he probably weighed 170 or at least 165 when he got into the actual octagon that day.
[00:45:12]  If he does come back, I wonder what he's going to come back at.
[00:45:14]  Lightweight or Welter?
[00:45:16]  Well, the real key is if.
[00:45:17]  If.
[00:45:18]  I mean, he's had a lot of opportunities.
[00:45:20]  And I don't know.
[00:45:21]  I thought the Chandler fight was a layup for him.
[00:45:24]  That's the fight.
[00:45:24]  A great matchup for him.
[00:45:26]  Great fight technically.
[00:45:27]  It's a great fight stylistically.
[00:45:29]  It's a great fight age-wise.
[00:45:30]  Chandler's got to be, what, 39 now?
[00:45:33]  He's up there, 38 or 39.
[00:45:34]  Yeah.
[00:45:35]  I mean, and then that was the hype of the ultimate fighter.
[00:45:38]  True, but it's just a layup for Connor.
[00:45:40]  Chandler's hittable, covers distance, not that technically, you know, huge movements.
[00:45:45]  Right.
[00:45:46]  You jump in, you get carried out.
[00:45:47]  Connor's a sniper, man.
[00:45:48]  I just think that's a great matchup for him.
[00:45:50]  It's also a great matchup for Chandler because he's tired.
[00:45:53]  And he gets that, you know, because he sat out for two years waiting on Connor.
[00:45:57]  It's also like, remember him with Olivera?
[00:45:59]  Even in the fucking third round, that dude is carrying Olivera up and throwing him through the air and body slamming him while he's on his back.
[00:46:06]  Like the dudes have, he has incredible durance and incredible discipline.
[00:46:10]  He's always fit.
[00:46:12]  And that's been Connor's Achilles heel.
[00:46:14]  It's that Connor, he's so explosive and so fast that if you're sprinting in that first round, guaranteed you're not going to have that same kind of energy in the fifth round.
[00:46:22]  Yeah.
[00:46:22]  But some guys are just designed like that.
[00:46:25]  You know, you saw Tyron Woodley's a guy who has huge explosion, but they don't necessarily keep that for 25 minutes.
[00:46:33]  But on the opposite side of that, you got a guy like Nate Diaz who would keep that same pace from round one to five.
[00:46:38]  Round 30.
[00:46:38]  Yeah.
[00:46:39]  That dude could lombard out of a cannon, you know, and then slow down.
[00:46:44]  Just the way muscles and fibers are put, you know, connected.
[00:46:47]  I don't know what does that to a human.
[00:46:49]  Well, the only guys that figured out how to fight with all that bulk and just is like Yoel Romero.
[00:46:55]  He fought very smart.
[00:46:57]  He was just like, still fighting.
[00:46:59]  Still fighting.
[00:47:00]  Dude's still fighting.
[00:47:01]  50 years old.
[00:47:02]  Jacked.
[00:47:03]  More jacked than ever.
[00:47:04]  Yeah.
[00:47:04]  48 years old, 49 years old with abs, looking like a fucking super athlete.
[00:47:09]  I think he's doing bare knuckle, maybe.
[00:47:11]  Yeah, he did bare knuckle.
[00:47:12]  He did dirty boxing.
[00:47:15]  There's a fight where he had in dirty boxing where he's touching the dude up and then out of nowhere, he just leaps up into the air.
[00:47:22]  He does like a vertical.
[00:47:24]  He's like a five-foot vertical, lands on his feet and just starts putting it on a dude.
[00:47:28]  He's like, I'm tired of this.
[00:47:29]  Let me show you what I can really do.
[00:47:31]  I've had fun.
[00:47:32]  No play with the food.
[00:47:33]  I've had fun.
[00:47:34]  He's a crazy.
[00:47:35]  He's been on the mats a bunch of American top team as well.
[00:47:37]  And just a freak athlete, man.
[00:47:39]  Freak.
[00:47:40]  He's the freak of all freaks.
[00:47:41]  Just a freak athlete.
[00:47:42]  Yeah.
[00:47:42]  I mean, he came out of that Cuban.
[00:47:44]  They build him different over there.
[00:47:45]  Yeah, they build him with science.
[00:47:47]  Yeah.
[00:47:47]  Yeah.
[00:47:48]  But he also figured out how to pace himself.
[00:47:51]  You know, he figured out how to like explode out of nowhere, but not explode the entire time.
[00:47:56]  Like he had this casual, almost he would lull you into a false sense of security and then just pounce on you.
[00:48:02]  Right.
[00:48:03]  Like that knee he hit Wideman with.
[00:48:05]  Dude, that was a perfect example.
[00:48:08]  Perfect example because you get used to this kind of pace.
[00:48:12]  You're getting into the rhythm and then you just break it up.
[00:48:15]  But also, he didn't fight like, obviously, he's a wrestler.
[00:48:18]  He didn't wrestle too, too hard and really gas himself out.
[00:48:20]  He fought smart to do what he's good at.
[00:48:22]  Explode.
[00:48:23]  He barely used his wrestling in MMA, which is so crazy.
[00:48:27]  It's really crazy if you think about how good of a wrestler he was.
[00:48:30]  Because he was one of the best wrestlers to ever compete in MMA.
[00:48:33]  I mean, that dude was elite as a wrestler.
[00:48:36]  And in MMA, he's just starching people.
[00:48:38]  Yeah.
[00:48:38]  Luke Rockhold starched Luke.
[00:48:41]  Like, that was crazy.
[00:48:43]  Luke's another guy still fighting.
[00:48:45]  I think.
[00:48:47]  I think he might be done now.
[00:48:49]  You know, when he got knocked out by Darren Till in the boxing, I think that might be it.
[00:48:53]  I think that might be it.
[00:48:55]  And Darren Till's got a resurgence, man.
[00:48:57]  As a boxer, he looks fucking fantastic.
[00:49:00]  I saw the highlights of that, but I haven't seen a whole lot.
[00:49:02]  Bro, he looks real good.
[00:49:04]  He looks real because he's always been a good striker.
[00:49:06]  Very good striker.
[00:49:07]  And his Achilles heel has been his knees.
[00:49:10]  You know, he's had some serious knee problems and it really impeded him from being able to train hard.
[00:49:15]  He wasn't the best grappler in the world.
[00:49:18]  And so that was always his problem.
[00:49:20]  But as a striker, I mean, that guy was very, very good.
[00:49:23]  And you're seeing him now in boxing.
[00:49:25]  Like, he's making a real run.
[00:49:27]  I think it's very interesting because if you watch him box Rockhold and you realize like Rockhold's a really good striker, but against Darren Till, he looked like he had no business in there.
[00:49:37]  Yeah.
[00:49:38]  That's something I would like to do, man.
[00:49:39]  Box.
[00:49:40]  Still?
[00:49:41]  I always wanted to have a couple before I, you know, but I'm still under contract.
[00:49:44]  Even though I'm retired, I'll still have a contract with the UFC.
[00:49:47]  Do you think the UFC would let you out or they have Zufa boxing?
[00:49:49]  Dude, so they don't, trust me, I already pitched it to him.
[00:49:52]  Did you?
[00:49:52]  Me and Nate Diaz, Zufa boxing, let's go.
[00:49:54]  Let's go.
[00:49:55]  170, whatever.
[00:49:56]  168, super middleweight.
[00:49:57]  Let's do it.
[00:49:58]  They don't want any crossover.
[00:49:59]  What?
[00:50:00]  I think Zufa wants to be taken as a serious.
[00:50:01]  They hate money.
[00:50:02]  They must hate money.
[00:50:03]  Do they hate money?
[00:50:04]  They hate money.
[00:50:04]  Why do they hate money?
[00:50:06]  I don't know.
[00:50:07]  They want to be taken by the boxing world serious.
[00:50:09]  And I think if you open that door of an MMA guy fighting under Zoofa boxing, every guy on the roster, every girl on the roster is going to want to do the same.
[00:50:16]  It just becomes a mess, I think.
[00:50:19]  I don't know about that.
[00:50:21]  I don't think it's a mess.
[00:50:22]  I think there are some really fun MMA boxing matchups you can make.
[00:50:25]  Yes.
[00:50:25]  Fuck yes.
[00:50:26]  Especially when guys get older and you don't want to go through the training camp with wrestling and leg kicks and all that shit.
[00:50:32]  That's the thing.
[00:50:32]  Like thinking about a boxing training camp, dude, with no grappling, no wrestling, just run, condition, and box, it would be insane.
[00:50:42]  I love it.
[00:50:43]  Yeah.
[00:50:43]  Isn't that funny?
[00:50:44]  I'm on the beach.
[00:50:45]  As tough as boxing is, like, for you, like, oh, this is going to be fun.
[00:50:48]  I only have to box.
[00:50:48]  That's great.
[00:50:49]  Yeah.
[00:50:50]  Honestly, man, in training camp, those are my favorite days.
[00:50:52]  Striking, sparring is my favorite days.
[00:50:54]  Like the wrestling class is two-hour Mako on Monday.
[00:50:57]  It's like brutal, bro.
[00:50:58]  Well, it'd be great for you because you've always had great hands.
[00:51:01]  Like for you, that's a perfect.
[00:51:04]  I started boxing before mixed martial arts.
[00:51:07]  That would be a perfect way for you to get some other fights in.
[00:51:11]  I don't understand, Zufa.
[00:51:13]  Yeah.
[00:51:13]  I would just love to lace them up and box professionally once.
[00:51:17]  I know they want to redo boxing, and I know they want to like, and I think there's probably some real merit there.
[00:51:24]  Obviously, what the Saudis have done with Riyadh's season has been amazing, you know, making matchups that no one can make.
[00:51:31]  I'm a big Connor Bent fan too, man.
[00:51:32]  I'm excited to see him fight in Zufa.
[00:51:34]  And the guy he's fighting is from New Orleans.
[00:51:36]  Like, I know the guy.
[00:51:37]  Like, you know, it's fun.
[00:51:39]  It is exciting.
[00:51:40]  And it will definitely, I think they will elevate boxing.
[00:51:43]  And Dana is throwing all of his cards into that.
[00:51:46]  So I'm sure it's going to work.
[00:51:47]  Yeah, I'm glad we're seeing more boxing, Zufo boxing, and less power slap on my feed whenever I go to online stuff.

=== Zuffa's Impact on Boxing Markets (03:47) ===

[00:51:54]  Yeah, I'm not a big fan.
[00:51:55]  I've never been to one, but man, it's just fucking not my jam.
[00:51:59]  Yeah.
[00:52:00]  When I fought my retirement in New Orleans, Mike Brown went to the power slap they had there, and he said it was awesome in person.
[00:52:06]  Oh, sure.
[00:52:07]  It's awesome to watch someone get slapped, but like, I'm not interested.
[00:52:11]  I'll watch it on my fucking phone every now and then.
[00:52:14]  I'll see.
[00:52:15]  I mean, the highlights are good enough.
[00:52:16]  You see the knockouts and the crazy stuff.
[00:52:18]  It's great TikTok content.
[00:52:20]  For sure.
[00:52:21]  You know, you watch someone get slapped and they go forward and their head hits the desk and they fall backwards.
[00:52:26]  But it's like, it's a concussion.
[00:52:28]  You're watching.
[00:52:28]  And you can't, there's no defense.
[00:52:30]  There's no flinch or you get it's penalty if you do that.
[00:52:34]  That's crazy.
[00:52:34]  That don't make any sense to me.
[00:52:36]  I don't get it.
[00:52:38]  But I think they've missed out on the opportunity to have a Muay Thai league.
[00:52:42]  That's what I think.
[00:52:43]  America just doesn't buy into it that big.
[00:52:46]  I don't think that's true.
[00:52:47]  No?
[00:52:47]  No.
[00:52:47]  No.
[00:52:48]  I just think they have to do it.
[00:52:48]  Well, I mean, one is doing it on Amazon.
[00:52:51]  Yeah.
[00:52:51]  But it's like, who's watching Amazon?
[00:52:53]  That's the problem.
[00:52:54]  You have a show on Amazon?
[00:52:55]  I know guys who've released comedy specials on Amazon.
[00:52:58]  Like, good luck finding it.
[00:52:59]  Nobody cares.
[00:53:00]  That's just the reality of this platform.
[00:53:04]  I mean, look, Amazon is a phenomenal platform for buying stuff.
[00:53:07]  I love it for buying things.
[00:53:08]  Oh, dude.
[00:53:08]  I use it all the time.
[00:53:09]  Every week.
[00:53:10]  It's great for buying books, audiobooks.
[00:53:12]  It's great for buying products.
[00:53:14]  But for watching content, it's kind of a mess.
[00:53:17]  I had a couple big shows like the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and The Terminalist.
[00:53:22]  Those are great shows.
[00:53:23]  And those brought a lot of people over there.
[00:53:25]  But I mean, you know how big the Terminalist would have been if it was on Netflix?
[00:53:28]  As big as it was on Amazon?
[00:53:29]  More people watch Netflix than are ever going to watch anything on Amazon.
[00:53:34]  That's why what Jake's doing with the Netflix and bringing boxing MMA there, like it's big, man.
[00:53:39]  It's big.
[00:53:40]  So many people are going to be watching this.
[00:53:42]  100%.
[00:53:43]  But I think that if one was somewhere else, I think it would have been better.
[00:53:47]  There you go.
[00:53:48]  On the way here today.
[00:53:49]  What?
[00:53:49]  Yeah.
[00:53:50]  Yeah, that got announced this morning.
[00:53:51]  An MMA fight?
[00:53:53]  Yeah, it's the third fight on that card.
[00:53:54]  That's the Rousey card, yeah.
[00:53:55]  Wow.
[00:53:56]  Interesting.
[00:53:58]  That's very interesting.
[00:54:01]  That's very interesting.
[00:54:02]  That's a good fight.
[00:54:03]  Dude, you said a lot of people don't go to Amazon to watch TV.
[00:54:07]  I just went down a rabbit hole for weeks because I have a newborn at home.
[00:54:10]  So I did the night shift and I ran out of shit to watch on Netflix.
[00:54:14]  You ran out of shit to watch on Netflix.
[00:54:16]  Dude, staying up till 4 a.m. every night with a baby boy is like hours of documentaries, hours of stuff.
[00:54:22]  I switched over to Amazon and it was like a whole new world, man.
[00:54:25]  Well, there's a lot on there.
[00:54:27]  It's just they don't have the same viewers.
[00:54:29]  Like our podcast is on Amazon.
[00:54:31]  The numbers that we get from Amazon compared to everywhere else is so small.
[00:54:35]  It's just the reality of the way they've sort of marketed it.
[00:54:38]  And Amazon Prime Video just doesn't have the audience that everything else does.
[00:54:43]  Right.
[00:54:43]  And it's such a big platform.
[00:54:44]  You'd think it would be crossover from.
[00:54:46]  I think it's a mistake on their part because the product side is so big.
[00:54:52]  Amazon for buying stuff is so big that it's almost like an afterthought.
[00:54:55]  And then there's some money in it, but not the same sort of focus.
[00:55:00]  Also, the interface, when I've gone to it, is a little weird.
[00:55:04]  It's hard to find things.
[00:55:05]  It's not as simple.
[00:55:07]  The interface on Netflix is like the algorithm's great.
[00:55:11]  It's really good at recommending you things.
[00:55:13]  It knows what you like.
[00:55:14]  It shows you things.
[00:55:15]  It's easy to find things.
[00:55:16]  For sure.
[00:55:17]  Amazon's like a little tricky.
[00:55:19]  You go there and you're like, what?
[00:55:20]  But see, the 1 FC thing faces the same problem that PFL has.
[00:55:25]  Like, look, PFL is on ESPN Plus.
[00:55:28]  So you would imagine PFL would get the same sort of audience that the UFC got, but it doesn't.
[00:55:33]  No, of course not.
[00:55:34]  Because the UFC brand is like NFL.
[00:55:37]  The machine.
[00:55:38]  It's just.
[00:55:39]  Yeah, they own that space.

=== Streaming Interfaces: Netflix vs Amazon (15:00) ===

[00:55:41]  But the fights on 1FC are fucking amazing.
[00:55:45]  Like, especially the Muay Thai fights.
[00:55:47]  With the small gloves?
[00:55:48]  Oh, my God, man.
[00:55:50]  And I was trying to pitch this to Dana.
[00:55:52]  So I started sending Dana.
[00:55:55]  He goes, send me some.
[00:55:56]  So I started sending him all these high-level Muay Thai fights and high-level kickboxing fights.
[00:56:02]  And they're fucking phenomenal.
[00:56:04]  Look, he didn't like the Charles Olivera, this Max Holloway Charles Olivera fight.
[00:56:11]  He didn't like it.
[00:56:13]  The BMF fight, the fight wasn't that good.
[00:56:15]  I was like, I thought it was a great fight.
[00:56:17]  It was impressive if you were a fan of technique and a fan of how hard it is to do that to somebody like Max.
[00:56:22]  Like, super impressive.
[00:56:23]  And I was a fan of Max's defense.
[00:56:25]  I mean, Olivera was on his back in the first round.
[00:56:28]  A lot of people would have finished.
[00:56:29]  First minute and a half, I think, you know, dry.
[00:56:32]  Right.
[00:56:33]  I got finished there.
[00:56:35]  Yeah, I mean.
[00:56:37]  I think Olivera is one of the greatest submission artists that ever competed in the sport.
[00:56:40]  If not the best.
[00:56:42]  I mean, numbers prove it.
[00:56:43]  Yeah.
[00:56:43]  And against elite guys like you and like Justin.
[00:56:46]  And like he's fucking.
[00:56:47]  And then Gamrod.
[00:56:48]  Dude, Gamrod is.
[00:56:48]  I trained with him for years.
[00:56:50]  He's a wrestler, but his grappling is incredible, man.
[00:56:53]  No, he got tied up in knots with Olivera.
[00:56:56]  Olivera's a nightmare.
[00:56:57]  I knew it could happen, but I didn't think it would be that.
[00:56:59]  I was stunned too.
[00:57:00]  I was like, God, he's good.
[00:57:02]  He's so good on the ground.
[00:57:03]  So like props to Max for surviving.
[00:57:05]  But if Data didn't like it, so I started sending him.
[00:57:09]  I mean, when you have the title, the BMF, like you want to see some violence.
[00:57:13]  I understand, but it's still just a fight.
[00:57:16]  You can't fight outside of your just because a BMF belt's on the line.
[00:57:20]  You can't go out swinging for the fences.
[00:57:22]  I get it.
[00:57:22]  I get what you're saying.
[00:57:23]  But I mean, on the feet, I think Olivera was winning on the feet.
[00:57:26]  Dude, he hurt Max in the first.
[00:57:28]  I think he hurt him in the fifth.
[00:57:29]  Well, he definitely hurt him in the fifth when they did the point down ground thing, and then he cracked him and rocked him.
[00:57:34]  Olivera fucking cool.
[00:57:35]  He is, man.
[00:57:36]  He is.
[00:57:37]  He's just known we put the label on the grappler because he's finished so many guys and so many bonuses, but he can strike, man.
[00:57:42]  He's good everywhere.
[00:57:42]  Like with the Chandler fight.
[00:57:44]  He almost gets finished in the first round, comes back and hits it with a clean left hook in the second.
[00:57:48]  Yeah.
[00:57:49]  Even fucking good, man.
[00:57:50]  Yeah, knocked him out.
[00:57:51]  Even when I fought him, like he did a good job of picking where the fight happened.
[00:57:54]  He wouldn't fight me in boxing range.
[00:57:56]  It was either all the way in clinch or out where he was teeping my body, staying long.
[00:58:00]  Kicking range or clinching range is kind of where he fought me.
[00:58:03]  The times I did have success was in the boxing range, but he didn't let that happen.
[00:58:06]  Well, it just shows you how fucking good Ilya DiPoria is.
[00:58:10]  Fuck.
[00:58:10]  God damn that dude.
[00:58:12]  Dude, I love Justin.
[00:58:13]  I'm a fan.
[00:58:14]  I don't like this matchup for him.
[00:58:16]  Well, you know what?
[00:58:17]  I mean, Justin knows what he's getting into, and it's hard to count that dude out.
[00:58:21]  He's such an animal.
[00:58:22]  Yeah, he can land the shot.
[00:58:24]  And it's in the White House.
[00:58:25]  Who knows?
[00:58:26]  Who knows what's going to happen?
[00:58:27]  But that dude has the touch of death.
[00:58:30]  He has the touch of death.
[00:58:31]  And he's not a big guy.
[00:58:32]  I've never seen him in person, but I was talking to somebody recently and they said, no, he's 5'7.
[00:58:37]  He's small, man.
[00:58:38]  He's not big.
[00:58:39]  I mean, there's a photo of me standing next to him when we did the podcast.
[00:58:42]  We're standing next to you.
[00:58:43]  He's much smaller than me.
[00:58:45]  And, bro, he puts people into the shadow realm.
[00:58:48]  It's just technique and confidence.
[00:58:51]  His confidence is crazy.
[00:58:54]  He had a victory party for the Olivera fight the night before.
[00:58:58]  Drinking wine.
[00:59:00]  I don't think he was drinking wine.
[00:59:01]  I think he was drinking water the night before, but he has drank wine in weigh-ins when he's getting ready to weigh in or what do the weight cut.
[00:59:08]  He only did that for two camps, he told me, though.
[00:59:11]  He said, it's too much.
[00:59:12]  I was just like fucking hungover the next day.
[00:59:14]  Like, what am I doing?
[00:59:14]  Right.
[00:59:15]  And you're about to get your brain beat up.
[00:59:16]  You're dehydrating.
[00:59:17]  You're drinking.
[00:59:17]  Come on.
[00:59:17]  Well, I think he's dehydrating himself, and he said the wine actually helps you get dehydrated.
[00:59:21]  Yeah, alcohol definitely does.
[00:59:23]  Yeah, which is, but it's nobody does that.
[00:59:24]  Nobody drinks wine for the weigh-ins.
[00:59:27]  That's crazy.
[00:59:28]  No, bro.
[00:59:28]  And, like, I'm so not drinking anything.
[00:59:31]  I'm so depleted by that time.
[00:59:32]  I know.
[00:59:33]  And he's getting hammered.
[00:59:34]  Lucky.
[00:59:36]  And winning world championships.
[00:59:37]  Well, it was only two fights he did that for.
[00:59:39]  So it became like something where people are pretending he does it every way.
[00:59:42]  He's got all these young fighters out there in the world drinking on the other day.
[00:59:45]  I'm going to be like the champ, man.
[00:59:48]  Yeah.
[00:59:48]  But he's crazy talented.
[00:59:52]  For sure.
[00:59:52]  In a weird way.
[00:59:53]  Whatever it is, he has it.
[00:59:55]  Yeah.
[00:59:55]  He has it.
[00:59:56]  He's got it in his mind.
[00:59:57]  He's got it in his technique.
[00:59:58]  His grappling's fun.
[00:59:59]  I watched a video of him grappling with Murab, and he was all over Murab.
[01:00:03]  And that's crazy.
[01:00:04]  That's what they say.
[01:00:05]  His grappling's just as good, if not better, than his stand-up.
[01:00:08]  That's where he started.
[01:00:09]  He started as a grappler.
[01:00:10]  I've never seen him grapple, though.
[01:00:11]  Well, he finished Bryce Mitchell on the ground, and he's finished a few people on the ground.
[01:00:20]  He does clearly have phenomenal submission ability.
[01:00:23]  What are you showing me here?
[01:00:25]  What is this him?
[01:00:26]  He says he's done it for a long time.
[01:00:28]  You can see his face was already sucked in a little bit.
[01:00:30]  He said that when he was on the podcast, though, that he only did it twice.
[01:00:34]  Three years ago.
[01:00:35]  That's hilarious.
[01:00:36]  Look, he's all tipsy and drunk.
[01:00:38]  Look, I tell this to young fighters.
[01:00:39]  There's no right.
[01:00:40]  I mean, obviously, don't smoke crack before a fight.
[01:00:43]  There's no right or wrong way.
[01:00:44]  Everybody's different.
[01:00:45]  Whatever makes you feel comfortable to perform and compete, like everybody's different.
[01:00:50]  If there was a cookie cutter perfect way to work, everybody would do it.
[01:00:52]  Well, look at Carlos Pratez.
[01:00:54]  Yeah, exactly.
[01:00:55]  Smoking cigarettes.
[01:00:56]  Smoking cigarettes, like the day of the fight.
[01:00:58]  He's sitting there smoking marshes.
[01:00:59]  Dart reds.
[01:01:00]  Darts.
[01:01:02]  Who was the boxer?
[01:01:03]  Fucking everybody up back in the day.
[01:01:05]  Oh, yeah, Majorga.
[01:01:06]  Mayorga.
[01:01:06]  Cardamorga.
[01:01:07]  Yes.
[01:01:07]  Yes.
[01:01:08]  He was big.
[01:01:08]  Smoking cigarettes.
[01:01:09]  Yeah.
[01:01:09]  Drinking fucking Carlos drinking whiskey, smoking sigs.
[01:01:14]  He's like, during a party, you know, he's going to fuck people up.
[01:01:17]  Respect.
[01:01:18]  Yeah.
[01:01:18]  I mean, he's going to fight.
[01:01:20]  Is he fighting Jack de la Maddalena?
[01:01:22]  Is that the fight?
[01:01:24]  I believe that's the fight in Perth.
[01:01:26]  That is a very good fight.
[01:01:27]  Yeah.
[01:01:28]  A tough one for Jack to come back to, man.
[01:01:31]  I was in MSG when Islam took the belt from him, dude.
[01:01:34]  Complete domination.
[01:01:35]  Well, that's another guy.
[01:01:36]  Complete domination.
[01:01:37]  And Ilya was talking about fighting him too.
[01:01:40]  You know, the size difference would be so big.
[01:01:42]  So big.
[01:01:42]  Islam is huge.
[01:01:43]  He's huge.
[01:01:44]  He's huge.
[01:01:45]  He's too big for 55, and then you see him at 170.
[01:01:48]  Like, how did you ever make 55?
[01:01:50]  Right.
[01:01:51]  Because he's so dominant at 170.
[01:01:54]  Yeah, Hunter from the UFC.
[01:01:56]  I was in his office not too long ago, and they keep record of all the weights fight night.
[01:02:00]  They don't release them all, but they keep it.
[01:02:01]  And we were talking about the Islam fight when I fought Islam and he was telling me his weight.
[01:02:04]  I was like, that's exciting.
[01:02:05]  What is 192 or something?
[01:02:08]  I think.
[01:02:09]  The day of the fight?
[01:02:10]  I think so, yeah.
[01:02:11]  That's crazy.
[01:02:11]  Something more 190, 191.
[01:02:13]  Something around there.
[01:02:14]  That's crazy.
[01:02:15]  I was 176.
[01:02:16]  That's crazy.
[01:02:17]  But it looks like it in the cage.
[01:02:19]  Like, whenever I go.
[01:02:20]  I know.
[01:02:20]  I looked across under those spotlights and they had veins in his shoulders and shit.
[01:02:23]  I'm like, fuck, this guy's huge.
[01:02:25]  The ones where I'm like, how?
[01:02:27]  Gregory Rodriguez is the one where I'm like, how?
[01:02:29]  Yeah.
[01:02:30]  How?
[01:02:31]  How?
[01:02:31]  How are you 185?
[01:02:32]  How?
[01:02:33]  You're 6'3.
[01:02:35]  You're built like a Greek god.
[01:02:36]  How?
[01:02:37]  How do you ever weigh 185?
[01:02:38]  How is that even possible?
[01:02:40]  Whenever I interview him, I'm like, how?
[01:02:43]  Right.
[01:02:43]  Because I'm standing next to you, and I'm like, that doesn't make any sense.
[01:02:48]  You're not a 185-pound guy.
[01:02:50]  You're huge.
[01:02:50]  Like in his prime when Luke Rocco was a champion?
[01:02:53]  He's huge, man.
[01:02:54]  Huge.
[01:02:56]  Yo, Romero.
[01:02:57]  Yeah.
[01:02:57]  Yo, At Romero is the best example.
[01:02:59]  Like, how?
[01:03:00]  How are you 185?
[01:03:01]  Built like an Anvil, dude.
[01:03:02]  Solid all the way through.
[01:03:03]  When he came in to do the podcast and Joey Diaz translated for him, he was like 230.
[01:03:08]  Yeah.
[01:03:08]  Just like his neck starts at the top of his head.
[01:03:11]  Just a tank.
[01:03:12]  And shredded always.
[01:03:14]  No jiggle.
[01:03:15]  Dude, shredded always.
[01:03:16]  Veins in his abs, like crazy.
[01:03:18]  Yeah, and he was talking about the Cuban program.
[01:03:20]  I'll never forget.
[01:03:21]  It was like talking about how they have the lower-level guys only eat twice a day, but the top-level guys eat three times a day.
[01:03:31]  And so everybody is competing literally for food.
[01:03:35]  Crazy, you say that in Angola prison in Louisiana, there's a boxing league.
[01:03:40]  If you're on the boxing league and get accepted into it, you get more meals and stuff.
[01:03:44]  So the same thing, these prisoners are trying their best to stay on this boxing league.
[01:03:48]  You get more meals, more time, more free time.
[01:03:50]  Wow.
[01:03:51]  They actually fight other prisons, man.
[01:03:52]  Whoa.
[01:03:53]  I was thinking this would be a great documentary to come out with.
[01:03:56]  That would be a great documentary.
[01:03:57]  And it's CCTV to the other prisons, so other prisons can watch in their cells.
[01:04:02]  Whoa.
[01:04:02]  They bus them to Angola.
[01:04:04]  Other prisons in Louisiana, they box.
[01:04:07]  They put out a schedule every year.
[01:04:08]  If you ever want to go to one, it's invite only, but I can't.
[01:04:11]  I'd rather watch at home.
[01:04:12]  Bro, it feels illegal, dude.
[01:04:15]  It feels illegal.
[01:04:16]  Well, it might not be legal in other states.
[01:04:18]  Yeah, it might not be legal in Louisiana.
[01:04:20]  I might be getting in trouble saying this.
[01:04:23]  Is anybody any good?
[01:04:24]  Hell yeah.
[01:04:25]  You think Bernard Hoffman came out of jail?
[01:04:27]  I mean, the guy, obviously, Tyson beat him, but the Black Rhino was an Angola boxing prisoner who got out or pardoned to fight Mike Tyson.
[01:04:36]  Really?
[01:04:36]  Yeah.
[01:04:37]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:04:38]  Wow.
[01:04:40]  That's crazy.
[01:04:41]  I did not know that.
[01:04:42]  So do they have a program where they have coaches?
[01:04:45]  They have to.
[01:04:46]  Do they have equipment and everything?
[01:04:48]  Wow.
[01:04:49]  And different, according to the schedule, they'll bus them to the other prisons to fight, and it's played through all the prisons in Louisiana.
[01:04:56]  Man, you find a highly skilled guy who's in that program.
[01:04:59]  And they let him go, bro.
[01:05:01]  The refs, they're legitimate refs, but they let the fights go, man.
[01:05:04]  What kind of nutrition are they getting, though?
[01:05:06]  They're getting prison food?
[01:05:07]  Yeah.
[01:05:07]  Are they getting any better food?
[01:05:08]  No, prison food, but they get more meals.
[01:05:11]  They get to eat extra.
[01:05:12]  Still terrible food, right?
[01:05:14]  Yeah.
[01:05:15]  Yeah, Angola's a crazy, crazy prison, man.
[01:05:18]  Grow all the food there, make all the clothes there.
[01:05:20]  They grow their food there?
[01:05:21]  Yeah.
[01:05:21]  Awesome really.
[01:05:22]  Self-sustaining.
[01:05:23]  It's not bad.
[01:05:23]  Self-sustaining.
[01:05:24]  I'm sure they ship a bunch of stuff in, but they do have crops.
[01:05:27]  And it's such a big operation that the guards and the staff live on the prison grounds.
[01:05:32]  There's an elementary school.
[01:05:34]  Really?
[01:05:35]  Yeah, the guards, kids, and stuff go to school on the grounds.
[01:05:39]  It's wild, man.
[01:05:40]  Oh, that can't be good.
[01:05:41]  It's wild.
[01:05:42]  Every October, they have the rodeo there.
[01:05:45]  Article about that boxing association from 2011.
[01:05:48]  Wow.
[01:05:49]  I was in an interview with some people, I think, that were part of it.
[01:05:52]  Well, you want to focus.
[01:05:54]  You know, women weakened legs ain't no woman in there, dog.
[01:05:57]  Hell no.
[01:05:59]  That's crazy.
[01:06:00]  Yeah, serious business, man.
[01:06:02]  I did not know that.
[01:06:03]  That's nuts, man.
[01:06:05]  Yeah, how come no one's done a documentary on this, or have they?
[01:06:08]  I know.
[01:06:08]  Well, B-Hop was a prison boxer in Philly, right?
[01:06:12]  Yeah.
[01:06:13]  Yeah, this would be a great documentary, man.
[01:06:15]  Interesting.
[01:06:16]  Yeah, Bernard learned, I mean, I mean, learned like real discipline in prison and also learned that he never wants to go back.
[01:06:23]  No.
[01:06:24]  You know, which is as important.
[01:06:27]  And I think Angola is like maximum security.
[01:06:30]  So you don't go there if you have less than like 25 years or something.
[01:06:34]  So these guys are in there for a long time just trying to find things to do and boxing, eating extra, getting more free time.
[01:06:40]  Why wouldn't you do it?
[01:06:41]  Awesome.
[01:06:41]  Get in shape.
[01:06:42]  Keeps you focused.
[01:06:42]  You have something to concentrate on other than the fact that you're in jail.
[01:06:46]  Yeah.
[01:06:47]  Yeah.
[01:06:48]  It was wild, bro.
[01:06:48]  They set up a ring like in a cafeteria.
[01:06:51]  I went there once to watch it.
[01:06:52]  It was insane.
[01:06:53]  Wow.
[01:06:54]  It felt like I was doing something wrong.
[01:06:56]  It felt like I was doing something wrong.
[01:06:58]  Were the guys good?
[01:06:59]  Fuck yeah.
[01:06:59]  Some of them were good, man.
[01:07:00]  Wow.
[01:07:01]  Really good.
[01:07:02]  Wow.
[01:07:03]  Fuck.
[01:07:05]  That's interesting.
[01:07:06]  They pardoned that guy.
[01:07:07]  There's titles, too.
[01:07:08]  They have belts.
[01:07:09]  The Black Rhino.
[01:07:10]  Clifford, maybe?
[01:07:11]  ATN.
[01:07:12]  Yes.
[01:07:12]  Yes.
[01:07:13]  That's right.
[01:07:13]  That's right.
[01:07:14]  So he was in prison boxing in Angola and he fought Tyson.
[01:07:16]  Wow.
[01:07:19]  No shit.
[01:07:19]  Yeah.
[01:07:20]  I mean, why not, man?
[01:07:21]  At least it gives them something to focus on.
[01:07:23]  The idea is like, oh, you're going to make a more dangerous felon?
[01:07:26]  Bro, they're dangerous.
[01:07:28]  They're dangerous.
[01:07:28]  They're in there for murder.
[01:07:29]  What do you think?
[01:07:30]  What do you think?
[01:07:30]  They're in there for armed robbery, murder.
[01:07:32]  Like, let them fight.
[01:07:34]  Right.
[01:07:34]  Doing life.
[01:07:36]  Right.
[01:07:36]  Exactly.
[01:07:37]  Like, also, we're trying to pretend that that's not going to improve the quality of their life and improve them as a human being.
[01:07:43]  Like, doing something difficult, even if it's difficult and violent, like fighting, will make you a better human being.
[01:07:49]  For sure.
[01:07:49]  Will make you tougher, smarter, more disciplined, more focused.
[01:07:53]  Also, release all the aggression there so you don't have aggression in like regular altercations nearly as much.
[01:08:00]  Yeah.
[01:08:01]  That's where I'm at right now.
[01:08:02]  Like leaving fighting in the rear view is like, what do I do with my life now?
[01:08:07]  It's days along.
[01:08:08]  Dude, I've been traveling so much twice a week, maybe.
[01:08:12]  If I'm home on Friday, I do open matchups.
[01:08:14]  A couple kickboxing classes if I can make it.
[01:08:16]  But I've just been traveling so much, man.
[01:08:18]  Why have you been traveling so much?
[01:08:19]  Sponsors, appearances, cornering buddies, like just saying yes to everything that I couldn't before.
[01:08:27]  I'm more busy now, I think, because before I would shut everything down, like I got to get ready for this fight.
[01:08:31]  I have to focus on this.
[01:08:33]  No, I can't do anything.
[01:08:34]  Black out these dates.
[01:08:35]  Now it's like.
[01:08:36]  You're really good on the desk, man.
[01:08:37]  I enjoy it, man.
[01:08:38]  I really do.
[01:08:38]  You can tell.
[01:08:39]  Yeah.
[01:08:40]  I mean, I think that's one of the best things that the UFC does with former fighters is they give them this opportunity to do stuff on the desk.
[01:08:48]  I think that's huge.
[01:08:50]  I hope they keep bringing me.
[01:08:51]  I just signed a contract for the year.
[01:08:53]  When it was ESPN, I was kind of doing like independence contractor stuff.
[01:08:57]  They would ask me.
[01:08:57]  I would say yes, but I'm on contract with the UFC for a year.
[01:09:00]  So hopefully they keep bringing me, man.
[01:09:02]  All the people behind the scenes, just being around the event that I've, you know, I've fought at for so long, it just makes me feel good.
[01:09:08]  Yeah.
[01:09:09]  And I get nervous because it's live TV.
[01:09:10]  You can't fuck up.
[01:09:11]  You know, live TV is different.
[01:09:13]  Well, I would like to see they allow more of you guys to take the spots doing fights in commentary.
[01:09:20]  Oh, like color?
[01:09:22]  Yeah.
[01:09:22]  Yeah.
[01:09:23]  I mean, right now it's just Dominic Cruz, Paul Felder, Michael Bisping, and DC.
[01:09:28]  That's essentially it.
[01:09:29]  Yeah.
[01:09:30]  I mean, those are only former fighters from the UFC that are doing it.
[01:09:34]  And I really think there's room for more guys.
[01:09:37]  Dan Hardy was great.
[01:09:38]  Yeah, for sure.
[01:09:38]  He was awesome at it.
[01:09:39]  Yeah, he was.
[01:09:40]  I don't know what the fuck happened with him in the UFC.
[01:09:42]  They had some sort of a squabble and he left, but he's fantastic over at PFL.
[01:09:46]  He's still with them?
[01:09:47]  Yeah.
[01:09:48]  Yeah, he does that.
[01:09:49]  He's really good, man.
[01:09:50]  He breaks stuff down.
[01:09:52]  Very good.
[01:09:52]  Yeah.
[01:09:53]  Very good.
[01:09:54]  And he's a great guy.
[01:09:54]  I've known him forever.
[01:09:56]  He was a 10th planet jiu-jitsu guy, so I've known him since like, fuck, I must have met him 20 years ago.
[01:10:02]  Wow.
[01:10:02]  Yeah.
[01:10:02]  I didn't know that.
[01:10:03]  Yeah, before he was fighting GSP, before he's fighting any of those guys, I knew him.
[01:10:10]  He would come over from England to train in America.
[01:10:12]  He was such a knockout artist.
[01:10:13]  We never really get to see him do jiu-jitsu.
[01:10:15]  Yeah, no, he was good at jiu-jitsu too, man.
[01:10:17]  I mean, he trained hard.
[01:10:19]  And he's just a very smart dude who knows a lot about the sport.
[01:10:22]  Yeah, it seems like when he's breaking down stuff, you can tell he's studied.
[01:10:26]  He's also just like a very skillful commentator because he's very intelligent.
[01:10:30]  And the way he describes things, it's exciting.
[01:10:34]  I mean, I think they, I don't know what happened with them.
[01:10:37]  And when I'm on the desk with those guys, I try my best to not break things down too much.

=== Muay Thai Rules and Elbow Damage (07:39) ===

[01:10:42]  Like on the stats side, I try to make it seem like a conversation, sitting on the couch watching fights with your boys where I talk about experiences that I've had and stuff because they explained it to me.
[01:10:52]  Like that's what fans want to see.
[01:10:53]  If they want to look up stats, they'll go look it up.
[01:10:55]  They don't want to hear you talk about submission attempts and exact stats.
[01:10:58]  They want to know your experience.
[01:11:00]  Yeah.
[01:11:00]  So like each rep, I think I'm getting better, you know, opening up and being more myself.
[01:11:04]  I'm trying to do a good job, man.
[01:11:05]  I really, really enjoy it.
[01:11:06]  I think stats are interesting sometimes, but what's really more important than that is like a technical breakdown of abilities.
[01:11:13]  Right.
[01:11:13]  Because stats, it's variable depending on who you're fighting.
[01:11:17]  Like, you take Charles Oliveira's stats, and then you say his fight with Islam Makachev, and you say, okay, well, where's the stats?
[01:11:24]  Like, it's like, it's really dependent upon skill sets, who's your level of competition, who you're competing with.
[01:11:31]  You know what I mean?
[01:11:32]  That was a quick submission, though.
[01:11:34]  The stats are one submission attempt, one submission.
[01:11:37]  Bro, he's got a crushing squeeze.
[01:11:40]  It's different to that.
[01:11:41]  Yeah.
[01:11:42]  Yeah, he strangled me.
[01:11:43]  And the way he did it, I think he Moikano filled in last minute to fight Islam and got caught with the same choke.
[01:11:50]  It's kind of like a Darsh choke, but he locks it on his forearm.
[01:11:54]  He doesn't go to the bicep.
[01:11:55]  I know.
[01:11:56]  And the squeeze is different.
[01:11:56]  He's pulling to his chest.
[01:11:58]  It's not like an angle squeeze.
[01:12:00]  It's different.
[01:12:00]  So the defense is different.
[01:12:01]  When I got my legs out and tried to walk around, he hooked my leg, but the squeeze is completely different.
[01:12:06]  Completely different.
[01:12:08]  You know, you belly down and kind of get some space to breathe.
[01:12:11]  You can't the way he does it.
[01:12:12]  Craig Jones broke it down.
[01:12:14]  It's like a front choke, almost like a squeeze to your chest.
[01:12:18]  It's not an angle that you use for a normal Darsh choke.
[01:12:20]  I know.
[01:12:21]  I was shocked the first time I saw him do it.
[01:12:23]  I was like, maybe he just couldn't cinch up the bicep.
[01:12:26]  And then I saw him do it a second time.
[01:12:27]  I was like, no, This guy's trying to do it that way.
[01:12:30]  He grabs right here.
[01:12:32]  Craig Jones pulls to his chest.
[01:12:34]  He has some breakdown of it on YouTube where he explains why it's effective and what's so good about it.
[01:12:40]  And when he gets the grip locked in, it's complete, immediate blood shutdown.
[01:12:44]  You know, usually you feel it slowly fading away.
[01:12:46]  It was like right away.
[01:12:48]  Wow, so that dude's got a background-through movie on.
[01:12:52]  The darkness started coming in as soon as he got the grip.
[01:12:55]  Really?
[01:12:55]  Yeah.
[01:12:56]  He's so fucking strong, man.
[01:12:58]  There's like something about those Dagestan guys, man.
[01:13:01]  Like the discipline those motherfuckers have.
[01:13:04]  Yeah.
[01:13:04]  You know, there's Dagestan guys that are making their way into Muay Thai now, too.
[01:13:08]  There's this dude, Asadullah Iman Ghazaliv.
[01:13:12]  I talk about him all the time, but I can't talk about him enough.
[01:13:15]  He's one of those one FC guys that is fighting in Muay Thai from Dagestan.
[01:13:21]  And this fucking kid is 22 years old and he's knocking out like multiple time world tie champions.
[01:13:28]  I've never seen him.
[01:13:29]  Bro, this dude is a freak.
[01:13:33]  I mean, he's just putting people into the shadow realm every fight.
[01:13:37]  Dude, it's so wild to fight four-ounce gloves in Muay Thai.
[01:13:40]  I know.
[01:13:41]  But I mean, you could throw elbows and stuff in knees.
[01:13:43]  It's perfect.
[01:13:44]  It's like four-ounce gloves.
[01:13:46]  I mean, look, you're throwing elbows, knees, everything else in the clinch.
[01:13:49]  It allows you to grapple better.
[01:13:51]  It just makes it so much more dangerous for the blocking.
[01:13:53]  You know, you don't have the gloves covering all the space around your ears.
[01:13:56]  But this cat is special, man.
[01:13:58]  He's special.
[01:13:59]  Nasty man.
[01:14:00]  And he's from Dagestan.
[01:14:01]  It's like, okay, imagine this motherfucker gets into MMA.
[01:14:04]  Everybody's fucked.
[01:14:06]  If this guy can wrestle at all, which you know he can if he's from fucking Dagestan.
[01:14:10]  Well, they do a lot of kickboxing sambo, right?
[01:14:12]  Yeah.
[01:14:13]  This dude's something, though.
[01:14:15]  He's something new.
[01:14:16]  Oh, my God.
[01:14:16]  Because he's 22 years old.
[01:14:18]  And he's like world Muay Thai champions.
[01:14:20]  He's sleeping them all.
[01:14:22]  Yeah.
[01:14:22]  It's nuts, man.
[01:14:24]  What weight is that?
[01:14:25]  145.
[01:14:27]  I think he's 145 or 35.
[01:14:29]  145.
[01:14:30]  Probably tall, taller than me.
[01:14:31]  132.
[01:14:32]  132?
[01:14:33]  Is that what it says?
[01:14:34]  This thing right here says on screen.
[01:14:37]  Weight limit, 132.7.
[01:14:39]  Interesting.
[01:14:40]  510.
[01:14:42]  Interesting.
[01:14:43]  60 kilograms.
[01:14:44]  22 years old, man.
[01:14:46]  Well, at that weight, well, and then you think about one has some crazy thing.
[01:14:50]  Look at this.
[01:14:50]  Win, knockout, win, knockout, win, knockout.
[01:14:53]  He's a freak, man.
[01:14:54]  And that one dude that made it to the unanimous decision is just this kid from Morocco who's just tough as shit.
[01:15:00]  But goddamn, he took a beating.
[01:15:02]  They have such a great product, man.
[01:15:04]  I wonder how many viewers and how the ratings are.
[01:15:07]  I mean, it's big in Asia, but they have financial struggles.
[01:15:11]  I don't want to speak to it because I don't know enough, but there's a lot of talk.
[01:15:15]  I know they wanted to start doing shows in America.
[01:15:17]  They've done a few.
[01:15:18]  Yeah.
[01:15:18]  I know they did one in Colorado.
[01:15:20]  They maybe have done multiple.
[01:15:21]  I'm not aware.
[01:15:22]  But it's a great product.
[01:15:24]  That's the thing.
[01:15:24]  It's like I love watching their kickboxing fights on YouTube.
[01:15:28]  And that kid, Yuki Yoza, that I was telling you about that throws calf kicks, he's fucking everybody up with calf kicks.
[01:15:34]  And there's another guy from a lot of these Kyokushin guys, especially in kickboxing.
[01:15:39]  So like they have different rule sets over there in one.
[01:15:42]  You can fight kickboxing where they use big gloves, or you could fight Muay Thai, where they use little gloves.
[01:15:49]  And I think they've had Muay Thai fights where they have big gloves too.
[01:15:52]  So in the kickboxing, you're not allowed to clinch, not allowed to throw elbows.
[01:15:56]  But you can throw knees, but you can't clinch and just continue to throw knees.
[01:16:00]  And you can't sweep and can't take guys down.
[01:16:02]  It's a little confusing.
[01:16:04]  I think Muay Thai is the way to go.
[01:16:06]  But the thing about kickboxing in Japan is like they just wanted to, that's what K1 was.
[01:16:11]  They're like, let's just take out all the clinching and make this as exciting as possible.
[01:16:16]  What's the best way to do that?
[01:16:18]  And the elbows, elbows are very effective, obviously, and knock a lot of guys out, but also cut a lot of people open and stop fights prematurely, which is why Pride didn't allow elbows, which is really crazy when you think about that.
[01:16:32]  Because soccer kicks and stomps.
[01:16:35]  But you were fighting multiple times.
[01:16:37]  True.
[01:16:38]  Cuts, you know, if you get cut in the first fight, it could change everything.
[01:16:40]  I think that makes sense.
[01:16:41]  I kind of, but I mean, soccer kicks?
[01:16:43]  Stomps and soccer kicks?
[01:16:45]  Yeah.
[01:16:45]  No elbows?
[01:16:46]  It's hard to say because for-let knees to a grounded guy.
[01:16:49]  Yeah.
[01:16:50]  Ground and prown elbows are so effective.
[01:16:53]  It's so important.
[01:16:54]  I mean, it really, like, guys that think they're comfortable and safe in the guard, you're not.
[01:16:59]  You're not when a guy can still bust you up with elbows from a short distance.
[01:17:03]  It's a very effective technique.
[01:17:04]  Yeah, very damaging cut.
[01:17:06]  Yeah, very, very damaging technique.
[01:17:09]  Well, there's a real problem with the cage, and the problem is the wall.
[01:17:12]  Like, the fence is an artificial structure that keeps you from being able to move.
[01:17:18]  And I've always said this: that I think it should be an open mat.
[01:17:21]  It should be a large mat.
[01:17:23]  And you should not.
[01:17:25]  Like a wrestling mat?
[01:17:25]  Yeah, like a big wrestling mat.
[01:17:27]  Like, think about a basketball game.
[01:17:29]  Like, think about how much space is on a basketball court.
[01:17:32]  And you still get 16,000 people in there to watch a basketball game.
[01:17:35]  Guys would be, I would think, running, running around a lot of.
[01:17:40]  You know, maybe you get penalty.
[01:17:41]  Penalty for moving too much.
[01:17:42]  Maybe you have a pride.
[01:17:43]  Yeah.
[01:17:44]  You have a red zone.
[01:17:44]  Yellow card?
[01:17:45]  Well, you have a center that you're supposed to stay in, and then you have a red zone outside of it.
[01:17:50]  And then you have a black zone outside the red zone where you get points taken away.
[01:17:54]  You enter into the red zone too many times.
[01:17:56]  You get a warning for the first time, another warning for the second time, third time, you get a point taken away.
[01:18:00]  So you could use it once or twice to evade, but then you got to go back into the area where you're supposed to fight.
[01:18:06]  I think that would be cool.
[01:18:07]  How big of an area are you talking about?
[01:18:08]  Basketball court.
[01:18:09]  That's too big, man.
[01:18:11]  That's too big.
[01:18:12]  How about football?
[01:18:12]  How about football fucking field?
[01:18:15]  Meeting.
[01:18:15]  Meet the center.
[01:18:16]  That's too big.
[01:18:17]  They're doing that with no rules fights.
[01:18:18]  Yeah.
[01:18:19]  Yeah, I watch a lot of no rules fights.
[01:18:20]  They're hard.

=== No-Rules Fights and Arena Sizes (13:28) ===

[01:18:21]  The Russian stuff?
[01:18:22]  They're so scary because guys just mount guys and gouge their eyes out.
[01:18:26]  Yeah.
[01:18:26]  They're mounting people and just shoving their fingers in there, and guys are screaming and tapping.
[01:18:31]  I run across some pretty crazy stuff on IG sometimes.
[01:18:35]  But they're fighting in parking lots.
[01:18:37]  They're fighting on booths.
[01:18:38]  Yeah.
[01:18:39]  Cars, upside down, underwater.
[01:18:40]  They're fighting everywhere.
[01:18:41]  They're fighting everywhere.
[01:18:42]  I saw them on a cargo container floating on top of water where you get knocked off.
[01:18:47]  That's crazy.
[01:18:48]  It's so ridiculous.
[01:18:50]  American Gladiator.
[01:18:51]  KO'd and you fall into the water and you just breathe water and they don't rescue you in time.
[01:18:55]  Just fight with those kid floaties on.
[01:18:58]  If you get knocked out, you just float to the top.
[01:19:00]  Instead of those Muay Thai things, Blow them up.
[01:19:04]  Your corners blowing them up.
[01:19:06]  Yeah.
[01:19:06]  But I think the cage.
[01:19:09]  You know how the UFC BJJ does that sloped surface?
[01:19:15]  A perfect karate combat.
[01:19:16]  Karate combat.
[01:19:17]  Karate Combat does that sloped surface.
[01:19:19]  That's a good one.
[01:19:19]  And that's a big space they fight in karate combat.
[01:19:21]  Yeah.
[01:19:22]  Something like that, I think, would be good.
[01:19:23]  It would be better.
[01:19:25]  There's something about the, but the problem is then you're backing up and you hit that ramp and you fall down.
[01:19:30]  Or what was the old karate?
[01:19:33]  It was like, I don't think it was Chuck Norse.
[01:19:34]  Chuck Norris.
[01:19:35]  Yeah.
[01:19:35]  Chuck Norse.
[01:19:35]  His league, something like that.
[01:19:36]  Yeah, I think it was World Combat League or something.
[01:19:39]  I went to see that one.
[01:19:40]  WCF.
[01:19:41]  Yeah, something like that.
[01:19:42]  World Combat Federation.
[01:19:43]  Yeah.
[01:19:44]  I think the first guy to do a slanted thing, though, was Frank Shamrock.
[01:19:49]  You know, a lot of people don't realize that Frank Shamrock had an organization for a while.
[01:19:53]  And they fought in like this sloped sort of thing.
[01:19:57]  Fucking Kumite.
[01:19:59]  I think he might have been the first guy.
[01:20:01]  Frank was way ahead of his time.
[01:20:04]  Way ahead of his time.
[01:20:05]  And he's another guy that got erased from, because he had a falling out with the UFC.
[01:20:10]  And he got kind of erased from the lineage of elite fighters from the past.
[01:20:14]  Fighting older in Strike Force, like still bodied up.
[01:20:17]  I know.
[01:20:18]  He was a student of martial arts.
[01:20:20]  Yes.
[01:20:20]  Yes.
[01:20:21]  But by the time he got to Strike Force, his kind of best days were behind him, like when Nick Diaz beat him up.
[01:20:28]  He wasn't the same guy.
[01:20:29]  When he fought Phil Baroni, it wasn't the same guy.
[01:20:31]  He had a lot of knee problems, and it's like, it's just not, after a while, it's like, he might have been like 40s in Strikeforce.
[01:20:39]  I don't know how old he was.
[01:20:40]  Late 30s, 40s.
[01:20:41]  Late 30s for sure.
[01:20:42]  But when you go back to his fights in the UFC, I mean, he was a pioneer, man.
[01:20:47]  When he fought Tito or Ts, he was nowhere near Tito's size.
[01:20:51]  And he just beat Tito with cardio, just cardio and defense.
[01:20:54]  And then eventually wore his ass down and beat him up and changed Tito's entire strategy for fighting after that.
[01:21:00]  He was one of the guys early who was like super fit, super, you know, really focused on his health and nutrition and supplementation and everything.
[01:21:10]  Back then, you didn't see a whole lot of that, but he was one of the guys for sure.
[01:21:12]  Well, the Lions Den, you know, Ken Shamrock's, the thing that they put guys through, this gauntlet that they put guys through in order to make the team, to make the fight team, was hell.
[01:21:24]  It was just hell.
[01:21:25]  They wanted guys to break.
[01:21:27]  And so extreme conditioning, extreme mental toughness, like all that was emphasized.
[01:21:34]  And so Frank was the best example of that, though, because he was elite everywhere.
[01:21:40]  He was taking guys down.
[01:21:42]  He had great submissions.
[01:21:43]  He had great striking.
[01:21:45]  And, you know, he fought some wild fights, man.
[01:21:48]  He fought Ensign.
[01:21:50]  I don't remember where that was.
[01:21:52]  Was that in K1?
[01:21:54]  But he beat Ensign with knees.
[01:21:58]  He had fought in multiple organizations.
[01:22:00]  Obviously, he started out in Pancrease.
[01:22:02]  But he had only been training for like a year or something like that when he fought boss rooting in Pancrace.
[01:22:08]  He was super fucking talented, man.
[01:22:12]  They let him wear boots, right?
[01:22:13]  Or some kind of leg.
[01:22:14]  Yeah, you had some weird shin pad deal.
[01:22:17]  You had wrestling shoes with shin pads and open-hand slaps.
[01:22:23]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:22:23]  It was always Palm.
[01:22:24]  Uh-huh.
[01:22:25]  Yeah.
[01:22:25]  So what is this in?
[01:22:27]  Does it say what it's in?
[01:22:30]  2011.
[01:22:31]  This says UFC.
[01:22:32]  It's not UFC.
[01:22:34]  Oh, it's Valley Tudo Japan.
[01:22:36]  Yeah, this was before 2011.
[01:22:38]  Yeah.
[01:22:39]  Okay, so this is Valley Tudo Japan.
[01:22:41]  So Valley Tudo Japan, I wonder if it's the same Valley Tudo that Hickson fought in.
[01:22:46]  So Hickson was the champion of Valley Tudo Japan early on.
[01:22:52]  Well, that was like in the documentary Choke.
[01:22:54]  You've seen that, right?
[01:22:56]  A long time ago, yeah.
[01:22:56]  Documentary rules.
[01:22:57]  Yeah, man.
[01:22:58]  That documentary rules.
[01:23:01]  That's how Hickson became a legend.
[01:23:03]  Back in the real NHB, no, no rules days.
[01:23:08]  Well, the first UFC that I went to was UFC 12 in Dothan, Alabama.
[01:23:13]  And you could wear wrestling shoes.
[01:23:15]  You could punch guys in the nuts.
[01:23:17]  Hair pulling.
[01:23:18]  Yeah.
[01:23:18]  Grab their clothes.
[01:23:19]  No weight classes.
[01:23:21]  There was two weight classes back then.
[01:23:24]  Like, because Vitor won the heavyweight tournament back then.
[01:23:28]  I think they had two weight classes back then.
[01:23:31]  So they still recognize that there's some smaller guys and some big guys.
[01:23:34]  The smaller guys are real talented, but they're never going to beat the big giant guys.
[01:23:38]  So let's have a weight class for them.
[01:23:40]  Yeah.
[01:23:42]  I remember written VHS tapes with my dad or the old UFCs, dude.
[01:23:46]  What got you into the sport?
[01:23:47]  Like, how old were you when you first started martial arts training, period?
[01:23:50]  17.
[01:23:51]  17.
[01:23:52]  That's late.
[01:23:53]  Yeah.
[01:23:53]  If you think about it, right?
[01:23:55]  Well, I mean, if you want to call it wrestling, I wrestled for two years when I was 10 and 11 for a private club.
[01:23:59]  Did like traveling, Texas a lot, Louisiana, small club meets.
[01:24:04]  But other than that, no combat sports, no martial art experience.
[01:24:07]  How'd you get into it?
[01:24:08]  Boxing when I was 17, I wanted to box.
[01:24:10]  Always wanted to box.
[01:24:11]  Started going to a boxing gym.
[01:24:13]  Met some MMA guys there.
[01:24:15]  Didn't know they had MMA where I was from.
[01:24:17]  Then went to the MMA gym and never went back to the boxing gym.
[01:24:20]  So what year are we talking?
[01:24:22]  2006, maybe?
[01:24:23]  Oh, okay.
[01:24:23]  So this was right when the UFC first started.
[01:24:26]  This is like, I remember when Stefan and Forrest did the big thing.
[01:24:30]  This was like beginning around the time I was training.
[01:24:33]  Boxing and mixed martial arts.
[01:24:35]  So that wave, like, I just never stopped.
[01:24:37]  Wow.
[01:24:38]  Yeah, man.
[01:24:39]  What was it?
[01:24:41]  The World Combat, like Chris Horodecki was over there.
[01:24:46]  Ben Rotho was over there.
[01:24:47]  Remember, what was that called?
[01:24:49]  The team organization.
[01:24:50]  That was big at the time.
[01:24:51]  Right.
[01:24:51]  IFL.
[01:24:52]  IFL.
[01:24:53]  Yeah.
[01:24:54]  Everybody had teams and stuff.
[01:24:55]  That was weird.
[01:24:56]  That was real big around that time.
[01:24:58]  Yeah, I didn't know.
[01:24:59]  That's where Dan Miller, Jim's brother, landed the grossest guillotine I've ever seen in my life.
[01:25:06]  Have you ever seen this one?
[01:25:07]  I think so.
[01:25:07]  Oh, my God.
[01:25:08]  It's the worst guillotine of all time.
[01:25:10]  He gets this guy in a guillotine, traps his head in his chest, and bends his chest so his head is connected to his own chest sideways.
[01:25:19]  So like this.
[01:25:20]  His head went all the way down and touched his chest.
[01:25:23]  I don't even know how he stayed alive.
[01:25:24]  Yeah.
[01:25:25]  Watch this.
[01:25:25]  Watch this.
[01:25:26]  Watch this guillotine.
[01:25:27]  There it is.
[01:25:27]  Check this out.
[01:25:28]  No, watch this guillotine.
[01:25:30]  Look at that.
[01:25:30]  Look at that.
[01:25:31]  Bro.
[01:25:31]  Jesus.
[01:25:32]  Bro, how's that guy alive?
[01:25:34]  Look at that.
[01:25:34]  Look at that.
[01:25:35]  How is he alive?
[01:25:36]  Have you ever seen that before?
[01:25:38]  Ever?
[01:25:39]  Like, that's crazy.
[01:25:41]  That is the craziest guillotine I've ever seen in my life.
[01:25:44]  That's so crazy.
[01:25:45]  Looks like his neck's broken, bro.
[01:25:47]  How's he alive?
[01:25:48]  Yeah.
[01:25:49]  Like, first of all, why did it take so long for the referee to stop?
[01:25:51]  Who's the referee?
[01:25:52]  Steve Mazzigati.
[01:25:56]  I don't know who it is, but you could have probably stopped that a couple of seconds earlier.
[01:26:00]  But I mean, it's just hard to imagine that a neck can go in that direction.
[01:26:05]  Like, it's so that doesn't show it.
[01:26:08]  The other angle that you showed is really what showed it.
[01:26:10]  Yeah.
[01:26:11]  The other angle where you see it from the side, where you see his head.
[01:26:14]  Like, when he cinches it up here, that is crazy.
[01:26:20]  That you're not supposed to bend like that.
[01:26:22]  You know, your ear is never supposed to touch your chest.
[01:26:24]  No.
[01:26:25]  I don't know how it does.
[01:26:26]  I don't know.
[01:26:27]  It just seems like everything would break.
[01:26:29]  It seems like you would never walk again.
[01:26:31]  He's not, Dan's not fighting anymore, aren't he?
[01:26:33]  No.
[01:26:33]  Jim's still fighting.
[01:26:34]  Jim's still rolling, man.
[01:26:35]  Jim's still fighting.
[01:26:36]  Still rolling.
[01:26:37]  It's crazy.
[01:26:37]  Most fights in UFC history.
[01:26:39]  And still fine.
[01:26:40]  No surgeries?
[01:26:41]  No, nothing.
[01:26:42]  Yeah.
[01:26:42]  Still durable.
[01:26:43]  Did get beat up.
[01:26:44]  Was his last fight, Bobby Green?
[01:26:46]  That was the last time I think I saw him fight.
[01:26:47]  I don't know if that was his last fight, but he definitely got beat up.
[01:26:49]  That was the one.
[01:26:50]  He's definitely lost a step.
[01:26:51]  I mean, he's 40 years old.
[01:26:53]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:26:53]  But man, dude still loves it.
[01:26:55]  Still loves it.
[01:26:56]  Respect to him, dude.
[01:26:57]  Yeah.
[01:26:57]  I mean, he sent me a cookbook.
[01:27:00]  He came out a cookbook.
[01:27:01]  He's a big cook and hunter and stuff.
[01:27:03]  He said he had a cookbook and a spatula.
[01:27:06]  Oh, that's hilarious.
[01:27:07]  Captain Redbeard or Jimmy Redbeard on the spatula.
[01:27:09]  It's like engraved into it.
[01:27:11]  Fuck yeah.
[01:27:11]  He's quite a character.
[01:27:12]  Yeah, I like him.
[01:27:13]  I like him, man.
[01:27:14]  I like him a lot too.
[01:27:14]  He's a very fun dude.
[01:27:15]  And also, complete wits about him.
[01:27:18]  Doesn't have any problems mentally.
[01:27:21]  Seems like a hard worker.
[01:27:22]  He's always on his farm doing stuff.
[01:27:23]  Like, you would never think he was a fighter if you didn't know.
[01:27:26]  I know, right?
[01:27:27]  Yeah.
[01:27:27]  Yeah, he's a fascinating character.
[01:27:30]  Well, the thing about this sport is that exceptional humans are exceptional at fighting.
[01:27:36]  Like to be an exceptional fighter, you have to be an exceptional person.
[01:27:40]  There's really no way around it.
[01:27:42]  There's like, it's too hard to do.
[01:27:44]  You have to be a very unique kind of human being that can get through those camps, that can perform under the big lights, that can figure out how to keep getting better and evolve.
[01:27:53]  For sure.
[01:27:54]  And that type of stuff is like the last time I was on a show, I was talking about it.
[01:27:57]  It's like a gift and a curse, man.
[01:27:58]  It's like you have to be all in at something.
[01:28:00]  Those kind of people who are built like that, whether it's fighting or drinking or whether it's good or bad, you're going all in.
[01:28:08]  It's dangerous.
[01:28:09]  That's the problem.
[01:28:09]  Yeah.
[01:28:10]  The problem is like what you see with Connor, when they don't have the fighting, then they go all in with the other things.
[01:28:15]  Yeah.
[01:28:16]  Yeah.
[01:28:16]  Right.
[01:28:17]  Fighting was always, for me, always pulled everything together.
[01:28:19]  You know, that's why like retiring is scary, man.
[01:28:22]  Days are long.
[01:28:23]  I have a lot of time.
[01:28:24]  I don't have to get ready for a fight.
[01:28:26]  I don't, you know.
[01:28:26]  You're still a young man, too.
[01:28:28]  You still have a whole lot of life ahead of you.
[01:28:30]  37, man.
[01:28:31]  Yeah, so it makes you think, like, what do I do now?
[01:28:33]  What do I do with my future?
[01:28:34]  What do I do?
[01:28:35]  What do you want to do?
[01:28:36]  Dude, I kind of got like for a week or so, I wouldn't say depressed, but I kind of got into like a funk.
[01:28:40]  Like, what the hell am I going to do with my life?
[01:28:42]  Every day I would wake up for the last 20 years.
[01:28:44]  How can I be a better fighter?
[01:28:46]  How can I, what's new in fitness?
[01:28:47]  How can I push myself?
[01:28:48]  I want to be the champion.
[01:28:49]  And then, boom, you lay the gloves down and you wake up and you're a fucking civilian.
[01:28:53]  Like, it feels crazy.
[01:28:56]  You know, it's like I'm relearning who I am.
[01:28:59]  Like, I always knew fighting was just something I did.
[01:29:01]  It wasn't who I was.
[01:29:02]  But after 20 years of doing it, even though you know that and you think that, like, it, fuck, I don't know who I am without fighting.
[01:29:09]  How long did it take you?
[01:29:10]  I'm a father.
[01:29:11]  I'm a husband.
[01:29:11]  I'm a lot of things.
[01:29:12]  But like, fighting was a cloud in my mind that never went away for 20 years.
[01:29:18]  Right.
[01:29:18]  And now I wake up and it's gone.
[01:29:20]  Like, what do I do?
[01:29:22]  I'm still trying to find out, Joe.
[01:29:23]  I don't know.
[01:29:24]  Did you still get nervous when you would go to events?
[01:29:26]  You know, that feeling that you get like you competed?
[01:29:28]  You couldn't be competing.
[01:29:29]  No, no, no.
[01:29:30]  Yeah, dude.
[01:29:30]  When you go to other events for other people.
[01:29:32]  Yeah.
[01:29:32]  Just feeling like you might have to compete.
[01:29:34]  Dude, my hands are sweaty.
[01:29:35]  Yeah.
[01:29:36]  Yeah.
[01:29:36]  That's weird, right?
[01:29:37]  For sure.
[01:29:38]  I mean, obviously, it just happened to me last couple weeks when Max fought Charles.
[01:29:43]  I was nervous.
[01:29:43]  I had armpit stains.
[01:29:44]  My hands were sweating.
[01:29:45]  I'm like, dude, I hope those people don't see this.
[01:29:48]  Right, because you feel like you're still there.
[01:29:50]  You're connected to both these guys for some reason.
[01:29:52]  Well, you are forever.
[01:29:53]  Yeah.
[01:29:53]  That's the thing.
[01:29:54]  That's what's so interesting about watching old fighters, even old boxers when they go to like Hall of Fame ceremonies and they've seen each other and hugging.
[01:30:01]  Like those guys are connected in time forever.
[01:30:04]  Yeah, Max came up to the desk and I was like, we spent an hour of our lives fighting each other as hard as we could.
[01:30:12]  And he didn't even know.
[01:30:13]  He's like, no, wait, an hour?
[01:30:14]  I'm like, yeah, dude.
[01:30:14]  We went to two decisions, two five-round decisions, and we fought the first fight was one or two rounds.
[01:30:19]  So it's an hour a fight.
[01:30:21]  Yeah.
[01:30:22]  We spent an hour beating each other up.
[01:30:24]  That is crazy when you think about it.
[01:30:26]  An hour is a long time.
[01:30:28]  An hour is a long time to fight another man.
[01:30:30]  Especially burying your soul in front of the world.
[01:30:33]  It's not a regular hour.
[01:30:34]  Just being out at the beach.
[01:30:36]  It's the biggest hour.
[01:30:38]  And it's an hour you're prepared for for months each time.
[01:30:41]  But because of that, like you were saying with the boxers, like we know, we have an unwritten thing we know about each other.
[01:30:47]  Something we never spoke about, but we know each other better than a lot of people do.
[01:30:51]  Yeah, you know when a person breaks and who doesn't break.
[01:30:54]  Max doesn't break.
[01:30:55]  He doesn't break.
[01:30:56]  I mean, you see it in that fight.
[01:30:58]  I mean, how does he go through that whole round and not get submitted dry with Oliver on his back and got close a few times?
[01:31:06]  Like crushing his face.
[01:31:09]  Like that old Shinyayoki where you go the angle and you can choke through the jaw.
[01:31:13]  Oh, yeah, man.
[01:31:14]  Guys go to sleep.
[01:31:15]  Neck crank, it'll choke you to sleep too.
[01:31:17]  Well, even just a rear naked across your face.
[01:31:19]  I've seen guys go to sleep.
[01:31:20]  Yeah.
[01:31:21]  They just go to sleep.
[01:31:22]  You try not to tap and you just wake up and you're like, how did he choke me out over my face?
[01:31:27]  Because it's like if you get enough torque and crank, it'll cut off the vein or whatever.
[01:31:33]  You know, it'll put you out.
[01:31:34]  It's enough, which is nuts.
[01:31:36]  And it's so much pain on the jaw, too.
[01:31:38]  Oh, it's horrible.
[01:31:39]  Choking, getting lack of oxygen to the brain is one thing.
[01:31:42]  Like the jaw binding up against the bones.
[01:31:44]  Like, you know, that sharp pain you get when somebody's face cranking you in your jaw.
[01:31:48]  It feels hell.
[01:31:48]  Yeah, it feels like it's going to dislocate.

=== Neck Cranks and Submission Sleepers (14:55) ===

[01:31:50]  Yeah, well, that was the thing with Khabib and Connor, where he did that torque, that torque crank where he got his neck and he cinched it up with the forearm behind the neck and pulls back like this.
[01:32:01]  That is hell.
[01:32:02]  And those guys squeeze is different, man.
[01:32:04]  Those guys squeeze is different.
[01:32:06]  Well, there's something about lifelong grapplers.
[01:32:09]  There's like a density to them that's just different.
[01:32:12]  The density, the strength, and just like the knowing of where to put the pressure and what angle to turn your hips to make a big difference.
[01:32:21]  You know, people outside don't even see it, but it's so, so crucial in the moment when somebody's on your back and they just turn a little bit toward the elbow, you know, rather than just squeeze straight on.
[01:32:31]  Small things like that or, you know, what win fights.
[01:32:34]  I'll tell you the fight that I'm really looking forward to, really looking forward to, because I don't know what's going to happen is Hamzat versus Strickland.
[01:32:43]  I'm very interested in that fight.
[01:32:45]  Strickland is a fucking nightmare standing up.
[01:32:48]  For sure.
[01:32:49]  He's a nightmare.
[01:32:50]  For sure.
[01:32:50]  What he did at Fluffy Hernandez, I was like, holy shit, man.
[01:32:54]  The body shot, the finish.
[01:32:55]  But he made Fluffy fight.
[01:32:57]  You know, he fights at a slower pace.
[01:32:59]  He has his own pace in there, and he kind of forces the other guy to fight.
[01:33:02]  His opponent has to fight this pace with him.
[01:33:04]  I think the best chance is to blitz him, do unorthodox things, because he wants to jab, circle, throw a kick, jab, circle.
[01:33:12]  He keeps a very slow pace.
[01:33:13]  He's not sprinting or trying to blast you out of there.
[01:33:15]  He just chips away high guard.
[01:33:18]  Good show.
[01:33:19]  Yeah, very good show.
[01:33:20]  His defense is extraordinary.
[01:33:23]  He, you know, one of the things he was telling me is like, I spar more than anybody, and I get hit less than anybody.
[01:33:28]  And that is true.
[01:33:29]  Like, if you think about how much that guy spars, it's a giant part of his training.
[01:33:33]  Look at James Toney.
[01:33:34]  He was hard to hit and all he did was spar.
[01:33:36]  Yeah.
[01:33:36]  You know?
[01:33:37]  Right.
[01:33:37]  Perfect example.
[01:33:38]  There's something taught in that, in those homes.
[01:33:40]  100%.
[01:33:40]  Yeah.
[01:33:41]  Understanding of distance, timing, pattern recognition.
[01:33:44]  You're constantly in there, moving around.
[01:33:47]  It's like, and then there's also the cardio that comes from sparring.
[01:33:51]  It's different.
[01:33:52]  Yeah.
[01:33:52]  Like, because his cardio is almost entirely based on sparring.
[01:33:57]  And man, that motherfucker doesn't get tired in there.
[01:34:00]  And the Fluffy fight was like, I thought Fluffy was going to be a problem.
[01:34:04]  I'm like, Fluffy's really good, man.
[01:34:06]  You think he submitted Adolfo Vieira?
[01:34:08]  He's got all this fucking crazy cardio.
[01:34:10]  He puts a pace on guys.
[01:34:12]  And Strickland made it look like he just did not belong in there.
[01:34:16]  He's so heavy on that front foot, though.
[01:34:17]  I can't believe guys aren't smashing that calf, man.
[01:34:20]  I know.
[01:34:20]  Well, he's hard to hit, man.
[01:34:22]  And he also knows how to do that fucking hacky sack thing where, you know, like you're bending your knee upwards.
[01:34:30]  You know what I mean?
[01:34:30]  To check it?
[01:34:31]  Yeah.
[01:34:31]  Well, you don't even check it.
[01:34:32]  You just kind of like relax your leg and lift it up.
[01:34:35]  You know who showed me that?
[01:34:37]  Is Alex Pereira?
[01:34:38]  He's like, instead of checking it, it's like, if you check it, it still hurts you.
[01:34:42]  For sure.
[01:34:43]  But he just lifts his leg up.
[01:34:44]  He just goes heel to knee on the opposite side.
[01:34:48]  And so like a hacky sack man.
[01:34:49]  Right, right.
[01:34:49]  I've seen guys take thigh leg kicks like that.
[01:34:52]  Yeah.
[01:34:53]  Kind of let it swing a little.
[01:34:54]  But he does it with the calf.
[01:34:55]  So it's like he sees it coming.
[01:34:57]  Instead of doing that, stepping out and checking it, he just like, look at this.
[01:35:01]  See that?
[01:35:02]  Yeah, that's it.
[01:35:04]  Well, that, I think, in this instance, I think that was probably the, I don't know if that was the first fight of this hecken fight, but Izzy's calf was already done.
[01:35:14]  He was really happy.
[01:35:14]  He told me after that fight, he goes, when he got stopped in the first fight, he goes, dude, I wasn't even that hurt.
[01:35:19]  It wasn't that.
[01:35:20]  He goes, I couldn't move.
[01:35:21]  He goes, my calf was curved.
[01:35:23]  It doesn't go away.
[01:35:26]  Yeah, that one's crazy.
[01:35:27]  That's hard to do, bro.
[01:35:28]  That's kind of silly.
[01:35:29]  Soccer movie.
[01:35:30]  That's hard to do.
[01:35:30]  That's kind of silly.
[01:35:31]  I don't think he really does that.
[01:35:32]  Block it with the bottom of your feet.
[01:35:33]  He could, though.
[01:35:34]  I'm very interested in that fight, too.
[01:35:36]  Him versus Cyril Gon.
[01:35:38]  That's very interesting.
[01:35:39]  For sure.
[01:35:40]  For sure.
[01:35:40]  And I know the power is going to translate over to heavyweight.
[01:35:43]  That's not going to be 100%.
[01:35:44]  He'll be able to flatline heavyweights.
[01:35:45]  100%, especially with zero weight cut.
[01:35:48]  Yeah.
[01:35:48]  He's probably 230, 240 walking around.
[01:35:50]  230 something, maybe.
[01:35:51]  He's 240.
[01:35:52]  Yeah, dude, come on.
[01:35:53]  He's 240 walking around.
[01:35:54]  That's a legit heavyweight.
[01:35:55]  He's a legitimate.
[01:35:57]  Fucking guy, what?
[01:35:58]  85.
[01:35:58]  So is Cyril, man.
[01:36:00]  Cyril's good.
[01:36:01]  An athlete heavyweight.
[01:36:02]  Not just a big guy fighting at heavyweight.
[01:36:03]  He's a legit heavyweight.
[01:36:05]  It is a crime in the sport that that fight with Aspinall got stopped the way it did, that he eye-poked him.
[01:36:11]  It's a crime.
[01:36:12]  Yeah.
[01:36:13]  Because that fight was playing out in a very interesting direction because Aspinall was having a really hard time touching that.
[01:36:19]  He was bleeding.
[01:36:20]  He was getting touched up.
[01:36:20]  He was dusted up.
[01:36:21]  He was getting touched up a lot.
[01:36:23]  Cyril's jab is legit.
[01:36:25]  And that's what I was most excited for.
[01:36:26]  I wanted to see Tom have to come back, lose around, and come up.
[01:36:29]  I've never seen him.
[01:36:31]  Obviously, I've seen him fight, but I've never seen him in a real fight where you have to fight your way back into it.
[01:36:35]  How many times has he seen?
[01:36:35]  Has he even been in the second round?
[01:36:37]  Twice, maybe?
[01:36:38]  Something crazy like that.
[01:36:39]  Nuts.
[01:36:40]  And that's why the fan base kind of blew me away.
[01:36:42]  I was like, these guys are so high on Aspinall right now.
[01:36:44]  Like for a few months, everybody was talking about Aspinall, how good he is.
[01:36:48]  I've never seen it.
[01:36:48]  Not that he's not.
[01:36:49]  He might, I mean, he has to be good to be where he's at.
[01:36:52]  Yeah.
[01:36:53]  But I haven't seen it.
[01:36:54]  Well, my thought was the real problem that Aspinall is going to present is in the grappling.
[01:36:59]  He's a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt.
[01:37:00]  He's a big fucker.
[01:37:02]  He's fast.
[01:37:02]  He's got a power double.
[01:37:04]  I mean, he explodes.
[01:37:05]  But when he's standing there and trying to stand with Cyril Gon, this is the first time that he was ever in front of a guy who was agile and quick and very technical.
[01:37:16]  Cyril Gon was doing a lot of sneaky shit.
[01:37:18]  One thing he does is he keeps his hand low and they pops that jab out.
[01:37:21]  So you don't know where it's coming from.
[01:37:23]  Up jab.
[01:37:23]  He does a lot of weird shit with his front leg, too.
[01:37:26]  He's pretty quick for his size.
[01:37:27]  Real quick.
[01:37:28]  Real quick.
[01:37:29]  Good mobility, good hips.
[01:37:30]  Yeah, man.
[01:37:31]  Cyril's a great athlete.
[01:37:33]  Like, it's not just that.
[01:37:34]  I've seen him dunk basketballs and shit.
[01:37:36]  Like, he can move.
[01:37:37]  But it's just the fluidity of his striking is so efficient.
[01:37:41]  Like, that's his world.
[01:37:43]  If you just want to strike with him.
[01:37:44]  Yeah.
[01:37:45]  I mean, John Jones is so smart.
[01:37:46]  John's like, fuck all this.
[01:37:48]  Guillotine.
[01:37:49]  Even Francis.
[01:37:50]  Francis, well, he had a broken out knee in that fight.
[01:37:54]  But Francis just took him down every round and beat him up.
[01:37:57]  Yeah, man.
[01:37:58]  But that's a different Cyril.
[01:37:59]  That's a Cyril that wasn't concentrating enough on his grappling and probably never thought that Francis was going to employ that tactic.
[01:38:06]  Right.
[01:38:06]  And then really worked with a lot of wrestlers and tried to evolve his game.
[01:38:11]  And Francis is on that Nate J card as well, right?
[01:38:16]  Right.
[01:38:16]  He's fighting Philip Linz.
[01:38:18]  As an A to T guy.
[01:38:19]  Yeah.
[01:38:19]  Yeah.
[01:38:20]  How good is he?
[01:38:21]  I've never really watched him train that much.
[01:38:23]  I know he made it to the UFC for a stint.
[01:38:25]  Then he maybe went PFL.
[01:38:27]  I'm not sure how good he is.
[01:38:28]  Yeah.
[01:38:29]  I've seen him at the gym, but I've never watched him train.
[01:38:31]  It's fortunate that there's not another big name for him to fight.
[01:38:34]  Like, I was hoping they could get a big name.
[01:38:37]  Bob Sapp.
[01:38:40]  I mean, who would be the big name?
[01:38:41]  Like, who's at heavyweight?
[01:38:43]  Yeah, at heavyweight that's still talented.
[01:38:47]  No one.
[01:38:48]  Yeah.
[01:38:48]  Heavyweight is the most shallow division in the sport.
[01:38:51]  Period.
[01:38:52]  Kane's out of jail.
[01:38:52]  Get him in shape.
[01:38:54]  Well, Kane's got crazy back surgeries and knee surgery and shoulder surgery.
[01:38:58]  Jane Kane was like too tough for his own body.
[01:39:00]  And all the years of wrestling, man?
[01:39:02]  Wear and tear.
[01:39:03]  Wear and tear.
[01:39:04]  Well, also, just never giving his body a break, just constantly grinding and pushing.
[01:39:09]  And that's why he was so good.
[01:39:11]  I think in his prime, the best.
[01:39:12]  I think he was the best.
[01:39:13]  Well, he was certainly in the argument.
[01:39:15]  In my mind, it's him and Fedor.
[01:39:17]  But honorable mention always I give to Fabricio Verdum.
[01:39:21]  Yeah.
[01:39:21]  Because Fabrizio Verdum, people want to think about losses.
[01:39:24]  Think about peak performances.
[01:39:26]  Fabricio Verdum tapped everybody.
[01:39:29]  He tapped all the legends.
[01:39:30]  Great trying.
[01:39:31]  He tapped Minotaro, he tapped Fedor, and he tapped Kane.
[01:39:35]  Like, just that.
[01:39:36]  Just that alone.
[01:39:38]  He tapped all the legends.
[01:39:39]  I don't know why he's named it.
[01:39:40]  Like when I was thinking about heavyweights, why his name doesn't come in?
[01:39:42]  I just want to give him respect.
[01:39:44]  I always put it out there because the same way I do with BJ Penn, because people forget, they only want to think about BJ Penn maybe when he fought Frankie Edgar or when he fought Yair Rodriguez.
[01:39:54]  Go back to BJ Penn when he fought Sean Shirk.
[01:39:57]  Go back to BJ Penn when he fought Diego Sanchez.
[01:39:59]  That BJ Penn was a motherfucker.
[01:40:02]  Joe Stevenson.
[01:40:03]  Yes, Joe Daddy Stevenson.
[01:40:04]  You got to think about the guys when they're in their prime, when they're redlining for X amount of years at peak performance.
[01:40:14]  When you're talking about like all-time greats, I get it.
[01:40:18]  All-time greats, you got to think about guys like John Jones and Khabib.
[01:40:21]  He never lost.
[01:40:22]  They stayed flawless their entire career.
[01:40:24]  You're right.
[01:40:25]  But for peak performance, when they were at their best, how good were they?
[01:40:31]  I put prime time BJ Penn at 155 against almost anybody.
[01:40:35]  Yeah, you're right, man.
[01:40:36]  Bro, he was so good, and his jiu-jitsu was so good.
[01:40:39]  And he could knock you out, and he was an animal.
[01:40:42]  And when he was training with Marv Marinovich, when he went over there and was like really learning how to get in insane shape, and he would come there with carrying rocks underwater and stuff.
[01:40:51]  All that shit.
[01:40:52]  I think the carrying rocks was him.
[01:40:54]  Marinovich had him doing a lot of like crazy plyometric stuff.
[01:40:57]  And the Marinovich's strategy was: you already know how to fight.
[01:41:01]  Fuck all this fighting.
[01:41:03]  You know how to fight.
[01:41:04]  What we're going to do is just give you the most insane gas tank.
[01:41:07]  So your fight training is like secondary.
[01:41:10]  What's really important is just having the most spectacular gas tank so you never get tired.
[01:41:16]  But he hated those camps, man.
[01:41:18]  He hated it.
[01:41:19]  And he only did it.
[01:41:19]  Even in the peak of his shape, he was still a little soft.
[01:41:22]  He was never shredded.
[01:41:23]  He was pretty shredded when he fought Joe Stevenson.
[01:41:25]  Yeah, he had a six-pack.
[01:41:27]  He looked good.
[01:41:27]  I mean, it was different.
[01:41:29]  But at 55, it was different.
[01:41:30]  And everybody's body type's different.
[01:41:32]  Well, at 70, he was never really a 170.
[01:41:34]  You know, he was never.
[01:41:35]  I mean, he was much smaller than you.
[01:41:37]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:41:38]  He was never really a 170.
[01:41:39]  He was just so tough that he went up to 170 and beat a primetime Matt Hughes.
[01:41:44]  Yeah.
[01:41:44]  He stuck around longer than he should have.
[01:41:46]  He definitely did.
[01:41:47]  He did.
[01:41:47]  And he definitely fought without training well sometimes.
[01:41:51]  And that's the thing people remember.
[01:41:53]  Yes, I hate that, though.
[01:41:54]  They remember that one fight we fought on his tippy toes.
[01:41:56]  Remember that fight?
[01:41:56]  Yep.
[01:41:57]  Yep.
[01:41:57]  Crazy.
[01:41:58]  Weird shit.
[01:41:59]  But you got to think about him in his prime.
[01:42:02]  That's what I always say.
[01:42:03]  Don't look at it.
[01:42:04]  Like Fabricio Verdum.
[01:42:05]  Don't look at all the fights.
[01:42:07]  Look at the fights when he was in his prime.
[01:42:09]  When he was putting it all together.
[01:42:10]  Fabricio was a nightmare.
[01:42:12]  He was a nightmare.
[01:42:12]  Like when they hit their stride.
[01:42:14]  That's what I was scared about staying around fighting too long.
[01:42:17]  Like, I retired at 36.
[01:42:18]  I'm like.
[01:42:19]  Perfect.
[01:42:20]  How much more athletic am I going to get?
[01:42:22]  How much faster am I going to get?
[01:42:23]  How much, you know, power is the last thing to go, but durability, speed, reaction time, everything that I need.
[01:42:29]  Like, and if I'm not right in line for a title shot or knocking on the door of it, like, what am I doing?
[01:42:34]  Right.
[01:42:34]  I'm fighting just to fight for HR.
[01:42:36]  Isn't that crazy?
[01:42:37]  That's when I had to look myself in the mirror, you know, like, okay, this is it.
[01:42:42]  I'm going to.
[01:42:43]  You did the right thing.
[01:42:44]  Be healthy.
[01:42:45]  Leave my faculties for the most part.
[01:42:47]  The age that you retired was the age that Yoel Romero entered into the UFC.
[01:42:50]  Yeah.
[01:42:53]  Yeah.
[01:42:54]  Isn't that nuts?
[01:42:55]  Yeah.
[01:42:55]  It really is crazy if you think about it because that's really what happened.
[01:42:58]  And there's a few outliers out there in the sport.
[01:43:00]  Like in boxing, Usik is the great outlier.
[01:43:02]  Terrence Crawford is another great outlier.
[01:43:05]  Dude, what about Usuk and Rico?
[01:43:07]  Crazy.
[01:43:08]  Rico's a super nice guy.
[01:43:10]  I love Rico, man.
[01:43:10]  Super nice guy.
[01:43:11]  He's a nice guy, but without leg kicks, the fact that he's going to just box and he's going to box maybe the best technical heavyweight that's ever lived.
[01:43:21]  I don't know, man.
[01:43:23]  I learned my lesson, dude.
[01:43:23]  I bet $5,000 on Fury.
[01:43:25]  Did you?
[01:43:26]  Yeah.
[01:43:27]  The second fight?
[01:43:28]  Yeah.
[01:43:28]  Yeah.
[01:43:28]  Interesting.
[01:43:29]  If anybody can beat him, it's Tyson Fury.
[01:43:31]  If anybody can beat Usik, it's Tyson Fury.
[01:43:34]  Because Tyson Fury was beating him in the first fight.
[01:43:37]  He just got clipped.
[01:43:38]  He got clipped in the, I think it was the ninth.
[01:43:40]  He got really badly hurt.
[01:43:42]  I don't remember what round it was, but he got really badly hurt and dropped.
[01:43:45]  But Uzik is just so slick.
[01:43:48]  Yeah, man.
[01:43:49]  His footwork, his movement.
[01:43:50]  And the fact that he's essentially a blown-up cruiserweight and he's beaten all these giant heavyweights like Du Bois.
[01:43:56]  Like Daniel Du Bois is terrifying.
[01:43:58]  What he did to Joshua?
[01:44:00]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:44:00]  Just charged forward and just put fucking leather on his face.
[01:44:05]  Yeah.
[01:44:05]  Rico's a real heavyweight, but he's not a pure boxer.
[01:44:09]  No.
[01:44:09]  I mean, he can hit hard.
[01:44:11]  I mean, there's that.
[01:44:12]  But he's such a great kicker.
[01:44:13]  You're taking a weapon away.
[01:44:14]  It's interesting.
[01:44:15]  It's a spectacle.
[01:44:16]  I'm watching for sure, but I just.
[01:44:18]  I'm sure he's boxed with a lot of like really elite boxers in the gym.
[01:44:22]  I mean, but over the years, for sure, yeah.
[01:44:26]  The payday is probably bananas.
[01:44:27]  I'm sure.
[01:44:27]  And they're fighting in Giza.
[01:44:29]  In front of the pyramids?
[01:44:30]  Nuts.
[01:44:31]  Crazy.
[01:44:31]  Who's putting this together?
[01:44:32]  Who put that together?
[01:44:33]  I have no idea.
[01:44:35]  Yeah, aliens.
[01:44:36]  That's where they're going to land.
[01:44:38]  Do they need to do a Coliseum fight, MMA or boxing, where they set it up either in the Coliseum or right in front?
[01:44:44]  You know, that would be crazy.
[01:44:45]  Well, they were talking about doing that with Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
[01:44:50]  They were talking about the fighter.
[01:44:52]  A real fight.
[01:44:53]  I know, that's so crazy.
[01:44:54]  Dude, that would be so crazy to have those guys be the first fight in the first place.
[01:44:58]  Do that one at Meta headquarters or something.
[01:45:00]  Don't do that at the Coliseum.
[01:45:01]  Don't disrespect the Coliseum.
[01:45:05]  No, no.
[01:45:05]  I know.
[01:45:06]  That's silly.
[01:45:07]  So who's live at the Pyramids of Giza?
[01:45:10]  WBC World Heavyweight Championship, DeZone.
[01:45:13]  But I wonder who the promoter is.
[01:45:17]  WBC.
[01:45:18]  I don't.
[01:45:19]  Is that their faces?
[01:45:20]  That's so ridiculous.
[01:45:21]  Look at their fucking with their circular golden gloves on.
[01:45:26]  Glory in Giza.
[01:45:28]  It's going to be interesting, man.
[01:45:29]  I'm excited about it.
[01:45:30]  I wonder who's going to buy that.
[01:45:33]  How much is that going to cost?
[01:45:34]  I'm going to buy it.
[01:45:34]  But I mean, how many people are going to buy that?
[01:45:38]  you know what i mean like i'm gonna buy it because it's i love rico I've had Rico on the show.
[01:45:43]  I mean, I think he's the greatest heavyweight kickboxer of all time.
[01:45:45]  For sure.
[01:45:46]  I feel like the way combat sports has kind of intertwined all different stuff, boxing, MMA, how big mixed martial arts is now, you're going to get a lot of crossover.
[01:45:54]  Before you'd get a lot of hardcore boxing fans buying this pay-per-view, but now you're kind of going to get a little bit of everything.
[01:46:00]  Kickboxing, MMA, boxing fans.
[01:46:02]  Glory has such a small audience, unfortunately.
[01:46:06]  And this is the argument that Dana has said to me about kickboxing in America that they tried with Glory.
[01:46:13]  I just don't think they got the right promotion.
[01:46:16]  I think if the UFC was behind it.
[01:46:17]  I mean, it's nonstop action.
[01:46:18]  It's highlights the whole time.
[01:46:19]  Why would you say?
[01:46:21]  I feel like if the UFC got behind kickboxing in America, it could be gigantic, especially kickboxing with MMA gloves.
[01:46:28]  That Gazaliev guy was fighting in the octagon.
[01:46:31]  You know how fucking gigantic that would be?
[01:46:34]  Or Yuki Yoza, there's another guy, Masata Nori.
[01:46:39]  There's a bunch of guys.
[01:46:41]  There's a bunch of guys that are really elite that are fighting.
[01:46:45]  Yeah.

=== Knee Surgeries and Joint Preservation (15:36) ===

[01:46:46]  A bunch, man.
[01:46:47]  A lot.
[01:46:47]  A lot.
[01:46:51]  Yeah, Masaki Nori.
[01:46:54]  Usik open to fighting John Jones in crossover MMA fight.
[01:46:58]  What?
[01:46:59]  Wait.
[01:47:00]  Okay, now you got me interested.
[01:47:02]  Dude.
[01:47:03]  If the UFC comes up with the cheddar.
[01:47:06]  You better start wrestling.
[01:47:07]  I'm going to chill in now.
[01:47:08]  Yeah, you better start wrestling.
[01:47:09]  Wrestling right now.
[01:47:10]  Is that real?
[01:47:11]  Did he say that?
[01:47:13]  Rico is first.
[01:47:14]  Second is whoever wins between Wardley and Dubois.
[01:47:17]  And the third fight is my Fred Greedy Belly Tyson Fury.
[01:47:21]  So he's not.
[01:47:22]  A rematch with Dubois is a tough sell.
[01:47:24]  He just starched him.
[01:47:25]  The Tyson Fury fight is the big fight.
[01:47:29]  Because Tyson Fury is the only guy that, in my eyes, makes sense.
[01:47:34]  It says a fight with Jake Paul and MMA at this stage is not being considered, but we're always open to creative and interesting collaborations in the future.
[01:47:40]  If we were talking about crossover fights, a very interesting matchup could be against John Jones in the United States.
[01:47:46]  Whoa.
[01:47:47]  I don't know what John's going to do, man, with all the stuff going on with the UFC.
[01:47:50]  He might be done.
[01:47:51]  Who knows?
[01:47:52]  He doesn't want to be done.
[01:47:54]  I know he got stem cells on his hip.
[01:47:57]  I know because I helped him get it.
[01:47:58]  He got it over at, he's talked about it.
[01:48:01]  I wouldn't have talked about it, but he talked about it.
[01:48:03]  He got it at Waste Well.
[01:48:05]  And so he's feeling a lot better.
[01:48:07]  He does have arthritis in his hip.
[01:48:09]  It bothers him, but it doesn't bother him enough where he can't fight.
[01:48:12]  And, you know, he's the greatest of all time.
[01:48:14]  Period.
[01:48:15]  I did stem cells and PRP in my hip.
[01:48:17]  I didn't notice anything from that.
[01:48:19]  Well, it really depends on where you're getting the stem cells, what technology they're using.
[01:48:24]  There's a bunch of different kinds of stem cells.
[01:48:26]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:48:26]  Talk to Brigham about that.
[01:48:27]  He can explain it.
[01:48:28]  I got maybe one.
[01:48:29]  You had a labrum tear, right?
[01:48:30]  It was pretty significant.
[01:48:31]  Yeah, and I had to get the head of my femur reshaped.
[01:48:33]  Like a resurfacing.
[01:48:35]  It was kind of egg-shaped and didn't need to be rounded.
[01:48:37]  So it tore everything off the inside of my hip.
[01:48:39]  So how do they do that?
[01:48:41]  They take your leg out of socket.
[01:48:44]  They shave the top rounded, and then they micro, they put like a bunch of small holes in it to where it cracks.
[01:48:50]  And then stem cells leak out of your body to create a new surface, out of your bone.
[01:48:55]  How long did that take to recover from?
[01:48:56]  I couldn't put pressure on it for eight weeks.
[01:48:59]  yeah because it's like so you're just walking around on one leg for two months solid yeah And then once you start walking on it, how weird was it?
[01:49:07]  Very weird because I had to sleep in like a motion machine where my leg wouldn't stop moving at night.
[01:49:13]  Oh my God.
[01:49:14]  Because your hip capsule is like tricky.
[01:49:16]  If it heals up too tight, your leg won't have any range of motion at all.
[01:49:19]  So while it's healing, you need to be in perpetual motion, I guess.
[01:49:23]  That's crazy.
[01:49:24]  And every week, they would send a new code for my wife to type in the machine, and it would be a little bit different angle.
[01:49:29]  Whoa.
[01:49:30]  Yeah.
[01:49:31]  So my nightmare.
[01:49:32]  For those eight weeks, I was sleeping in this metal brace that moved my leg all night.
[01:49:36]  How did you sleep?
[01:49:37]  It was horrible because it went up to like your junk inside your leg and outside of your leg.
[01:49:42]  So it's like you had a wedgie by this machine and your legs just motion all night.
[01:49:46]  Oh my God.
[01:49:47]  It sucked, man.
[01:49:48]  That's terrifying.
[01:49:50]  But it healed up.
[01:49:50]  I'm fine now.
[01:49:51]  It healed up good.
[01:49:52]  That's crazy that it worked.
[01:49:53]  Yeah.
[01:49:54]  Wow.
[01:49:55]  Resurfacing.
[01:49:56]  Whoa.
[01:49:57]  The guy actually who did it in Vale, Colorado, invented the surgery.
[01:50:01]  GSP's had hip surgery there.
[01:50:03]  Really?
[01:50:04]  Yeah.
[01:50:04]  He invented this surgery.
[01:50:06]  And GSP had to do the same bullshit?
[01:50:07]  I don't know if he had exactly what I had, but he had surgery there on his hip.
[01:50:11]  God, that sounds like two months of no sleeping.
[01:50:14]  How'd you sleep?
[01:50:15]  Did you get used to it?
[01:50:16]  Well, the first week with pain medicine and stuff, you're on all that stuff.
[01:50:20]  It was after, like, when I stopped taking all that.
[01:50:22]  Pain medicine must have been fun.
[01:50:24]  Do, do, Triple Z, dude.
[01:50:29]  I was having dreams and getting the best sleep of my life.
[01:50:32]  Yeah, that's a time where it makes sense to take that shit.
[01:50:34]  Like, you're in a fucking crazy brace.
[01:50:36]  Let's party.
[01:50:37]  Yeah, for sure.
[01:50:38]  Watch Netflix and not give a shit about my leg.
[01:50:41]  Yeah, I'm sleeping in this machine.
[01:50:42]  Hamster wheel.
[01:50:43]  For real.
[01:50:44]  Whoever the hell's happening with my legs?
[01:50:46]  I was on one of those where I got my knee reconstructed.
[01:50:48]  You had a bunch of knee surgeries.
[01:50:49]  Yeah, but my left knee, I had a patellar tendon graft, and they put me on one of them things where it does this.
[01:50:57]  Like when I was in the hospital, that's morphine drip.
[01:51:00]  So you could press the button to get more morphine.
[01:51:01]  I was like, boink, boink, boink, boink.
[01:51:03]  Dude, it's lying there.
[01:51:05]  I had the same thing on my hip.
[01:51:08]  They put an epidural, and then they had a nerve block through my stomach.
[01:51:11]  So I was like completely paralyzed from the waist down.
[01:51:14]  But I had the button thing.
[01:51:15]  I don't think it was working anymore because I revved it up.
[01:51:19]  It was.
[01:51:20]  He red lines.
[01:51:21]  He was shooting blanks, man.
[01:51:22]  That's hilarious.
[01:51:23]  It is weird, though, to see your knee constantly moving forward, but I only had to do it like a couple of nights.
[01:51:29]  I can't imagine.
[01:51:29]  I did it for weeks.
[01:51:30]  I can't imagine.
[01:51:32]  That must have been so hard to sleep, man.
[01:51:35]  Yeah, the motion wasn't so bad because it's kind of slow.
[01:51:38]  Oh, okay.
[01:51:39]  It was the metal in my groin.
[01:51:40]  Oh, yeah.
[01:51:41]  It probably rubbed it raw and shit.
[01:51:44]  Oh, God.
[01:51:46]  Yeah, man.
[01:51:46]  Fuck, man.
[01:51:47]  But, like I said, I was on the pain medicine.
[01:51:49]  It's crazy that it all worked, though.
[01:51:50]  Yeah.
[01:51:51]  Shout out to that doctor.
[01:51:52]  Shout out to all these doctors.
[01:51:54]  I say that all the time.
[01:51:55]  Like, both my knees would be fucking completely useless if it wasn't for amazing doctors.
[01:51:59]  Right.
[01:51:59]  Shout out to these people.
[01:52:00]  I was just talking about figuring shit out.
[01:52:02]  I worked with Paul Felder at that Vegas show, and he just had a hip replacement.
[01:52:06]  Yeah, he had the real deal.
[01:52:08]  Yeah, no, he had a replacement replacement.
[01:52:10]  Why did he have to do that versus what you did?
[01:52:13]  I'm not sure exactly.
[01:52:14]  It's something to do with the spacing, I think, inside your hip, how much spacing you have.
[01:52:18]  Because my spacing was good.
[01:52:20]  I wasn't a candidate for a replacement.
[01:52:21]  Well, Paul went full nutty after he stopped fighting and started doing Iron Man's.
[01:52:26]  Yeah, dude.
[01:52:26]  was telling me he travels with a bicycle he does like still does that Cycling for five hours, like in a hotel room, like crazy.
[01:52:33]  That's not good.
[01:52:34]  That's not healthy.
[01:52:34]  That's crazy, man.
[01:52:35]  That's unhealthy.
[01:52:36]  Yeah.
[01:52:36]  Why are you doing that, Paul?
[01:52:38]  Five hours, he told me.
[01:52:39]  Well, the same kind of drive that made him a great MMA fighter made him want to be the best Iron Man dude in the world.
[01:52:44]  You need something like that, man.
[01:52:46]  Way before the surgeries a couple years ago when he first got diagnosed, I guess, with some injury.
[01:52:52]  Yeah.
[01:52:53]  So range of motion in my right hip.
[01:52:54]  Reached out to Heather and Dr. D from the UFC to help with an MRI.
[01:52:58]  Long story short, I have the hips in an 80-year-old man.
[01:53:00]  No soft tissue left, grinding bone on bone.
[01:53:04]  Ooi.
[01:53:05]  The problem is, once they put an artificial joint in you, you have that artificial joint forever.
[01:53:11]  It's never going back.
[01:53:13]  And as biologics get better and stem cells get better, they're better and better at rehealing or healing that actual tissue.
[01:53:21]  And if you could just hang in there, this is the kind of the conversation that I had with John because if you could just hang in there, they're so close.
[01:53:29]  They're injecting stuff into discs now and making the discs larger.
[01:53:34]  Right.
[01:53:35]  So like people with back problems where the doctor's like, look, we got to take some of your disc out.
[01:53:39]  Hang in there.
[01:53:41]  Hang.
[01:53:41]  And also look into other therapies, decompression.
[01:53:45]  There's a lot of different things that you could do that can create space where your disc is pushing against your nerves.
[01:53:51]  You can alleviate a lot of that.
[01:53:52]  Surgery is the absolute last.
[01:53:54]  Especially with your back.
[01:53:55]  Absolutely last.
[01:53:56]  Especially with your back.
[01:53:56]  Look, if you have a blood.
[01:53:57]  Of course, they're going to cut you up.
[01:53:58]  They'll do it anytime.
[01:54:00]  It's good business.
[01:54:01]  Cut you open.
[01:54:02]  That's the medicines, the hardware, everything.
[01:54:06]  It's a racket.
[01:54:07]  That's the last step.
[01:54:08]  That's the problem.
[01:54:09]  When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
[01:54:13]  And when doctors get paid for doing surgery, they want to do surgery because that's where they make their living.
[01:54:19]  And it's a real problem with stuff like the back because I don't know anybody that's had a back surgery and been better.
[01:54:27]  The only big one I could think of, I remember Nate Corey was a big advocate for some company.
[01:54:32]  Remember, he had a big skin.
[01:54:33]  He had an artificial spacer.
[01:54:34]  Yeah.
[01:54:35]  He had artificial discs put in his back way back in the day.
[01:54:39]  Yeah, he's the guy I think about back surgery.
[01:54:40]  But he also was in intense pain because of that.
[01:54:44]  And I think it wound up becoming a problem later on.
[01:54:48]  Like, I know guys that initially had some relief because of back surgery, and then it started getting way worse after that.
[01:54:55]  And then that's the same thing.
[01:54:57]  Follow-ups.
[01:54:57]  Always the same story.
[01:54:58]  Like, same thing with necks.
[01:55:01]  Like, you lose strength.
[01:55:02]  It's always bothering you for the rest of your life.
[01:55:03]  Like, Mike Brown has a fusion where they went in through the front.
[01:55:06]  Fusions are rough.
[01:55:07]  My buddy Alan Jobin had a neck surgery where Kayla Harrison just had one.
[01:55:11]  Like, once you have that, something Kayla have done.
[01:55:14]  I don't know exactly.
[01:55:15]  I don't think she's telling anybody.
[01:55:16]  I know that.
[01:55:17]  I'm pretty sure they went in through the front.
[01:55:18]  Right, but I don't think she's telling anybody what exactly happened because, like, Al Jamaine had a disc replaced, and he came back and beat Pyotr Jan in the rematch and looked fucking great and fought really well with that neck issue.
[01:55:30]  And you don't hear him complaining about that?
[01:55:31]  No, I mean, he said it's great.
[01:55:32]  Yeah.
[01:55:33]  I think the new artificial discs that they're putting in the necks, a lot of them, it works out really well.
[01:55:40]  I know quite a few people that have had those.
[01:55:42]  I've been fortunate, man.
[01:55:42]  I haven't had any neck.
[01:55:44]  She had a repair her knee to discs in her neck.
[01:55:48]  Right.
[01:55:49]  See, the thing is, what they usually do is just take some of the disc out, and then you have less disc.
[01:55:56]  So it's not bulging anymore, but you have less disc now.
[01:56:00]  So now you have more degenerative disc issues.
[01:56:04]  I just think there's other options.
[01:56:06]  And one of the options is decompression.
[01:56:08]  I don't know if anybody ran that by her, but I have a fucking neck harness that's attached to a chin-up bar, and I put it around my neck.
[01:56:16]  It straps under my chin, and I put my weight on it.
[01:56:19]  I just like stretch my neck out.
[01:56:21]  It works.
[01:56:22]  You know, relieving.
[01:56:24]  I hear it pop.
[01:56:25]  Pop, pop.
[01:56:27]  Replace the disc.
[01:56:28]  Oh, she had to replace.
[01:56:30]  Okay, so she got that thing that Al Jamain got done.
[01:56:34]  Yeah.
[01:56:34]  How's she going to fight that quickly?
[01:56:38]  Look at that.
[01:56:39]  Oi, yoi-yo-yoi.
[01:56:41]  I wonder what her turnaround time is.
[01:56:43]  I mean, International Fight Week, maybe her.
[01:56:45]  Her and Amanda.
[01:56:46]  What she's fighting isn't.
[01:56:47]  She was supposed to be fighting at the White House.
[01:56:49]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:56:50]  But her and Amanda were supposed to.
[01:56:51]  They decided not to do that.
[01:56:53]  Yeah.
[01:56:54]  So maybe this summer?
[01:56:55]  Maybe.
[01:56:56]  Because it's going to be, I mean, that's a big fight, her and Amanda.
[01:56:58]  It's a big fight.
[01:56:59]  But I mean, there's a possibility that you do something like that and you're never the same again.
[01:57:04]  So she might not have.
[01:57:04]  Oh, the surgery, yeah.
[01:57:05]  Yeah.
[01:57:05]  It's like you're, whenever you're dealing with your spine, it's very tricky.
[01:57:10]  Yeah.
[01:57:11]  You know, it's just one of those things.
[01:57:12]  It's like, shoulders, knees.
[01:57:16]  There's some things, man, you don't want to injure.
[01:57:18]  I don't think anybody's ever come back from a knee replacement and fought MMA.
[01:57:21]  I've never heard of that.
[01:57:23]  I've heard of disc replacements.
[01:57:24]  I've heard of a lot of knee surgeries.
[01:57:26]  Guys come back.
[01:57:27]  Modestus Bukakis was the worst.
[01:57:29]  Remember that he fought Khalil and Khalil side-kicked his knee sideways?
[01:57:33]  And he hyperextended it?
[01:57:34]  Oh, it went sideways.
[01:57:36]  John does that knee stomp thing too.
[01:57:39]  I don't know how I feel about that, man.
[01:57:40]  Well, Ian Gary did it to Shavcot.
[01:57:42]  I don't know how.
[01:57:43]  You fucked Shavcott's knee up.
[01:57:44]  I know.
[01:57:45]  It's kind of fucked because, look, yes, it's a legal, but so is eye pokes.
[01:57:49]  I feel like that's what I was about to say.
[01:57:50]  I feel like it's kind of dirty.
[01:57:51]  Like legalized eye pokes.
[01:57:53]  It is dirty.
[01:57:54]  I mean, so are nut shots.
[01:57:55]  Like, nut shots are effective too.
[01:57:57]  Are we going to allow those?
[01:57:58]  No.
[01:57:58]  I mean, why are we allowing someone to do a technique that you have to do?
[01:58:01]  We do have 12 to 6 elbows now, so that's at least we're getting someone.
[01:58:04]  Yeah, I like that.
[01:58:05]  But I'd rather have knees to a grounded opponent than kicking the knee sideways.
[01:58:10]  It just seems like it takes a year off of your career, at least.
[01:58:14]  So can a knee bar, so can an arm bar.
[01:58:17]  Yeah, but you could tap.
[01:58:18]  True, true, true, true.
[01:58:19]  You get a knee bar, you could tap.
[01:58:21]  Inside heel hooks is the scariest because you only got a couple of microseconds to tap.
[01:58:26]  When you get that one, that one's so nasty.
[01:58:28]  The knee across, you have no time.
[01:58:30]  You just gotta tap.
[01:58:32]  Yeah.
[01:58:32]  You just gotta know when you're done.
[01:58:34]  You gotta know when he got you and not let it.
[01:58:36]  Did you ever see when Mike Imusamichi fought some cat in?
[01:58:41]  I think I know what you're talking about.
[01:58:42]  And the dude would not tap.
[01:58:44]  He was just ripping his knee apart.
[01:58:46]  And Mikey was talking about it afterwards.
[01:58:48]  It was so gross.
[01:58:49]  I was like, why did you make me do that to you?
[01:58:51]  Why didn't you just tap?
[01:58:53]  He mangled that guy's leg.
[01:58:54]  I think I saw a highlight of that.
[01:58:56]  It was horrible.
[01:58:57]  It's so horrible to watch.
[01:58:59]  You got it?
[01:59:00]  Yeah, show me.
[01:59:01]  Yeah, let's see this.
[01:59:02]  Here it is.
[01:59:03]  Like, look at this.
[01:59:03]  Look at his leg.
[01:59:05]  Bro, bro.
[01:59:06]  That is almost as nasty as watching that arm bar or that guillotine from Dan Miller.
[01:59:13]  Look at this.
[01:59:16]  This dude won't tap.
[01:59:17]  It's so crazy.
[01:59:18]  And Mikey is just a master at destroying your knees.
[01:59:22]  Any normal human being would have tapped.
[01:59:25]  Yeah.
[01:59:25]  Yeah, for sure.
[01:59:26]  And he does this like seven times in this match where he rips this guy's leg sideways, left way, right ways.
[01:59:33]  The guy's knee's destroyed.
[01:59:36]  Like, look at that.
[01:59:36]  Look how nasty this is, man.
[01:59:38]  This is so nasty.
[01:59:40]  Look how sideways.
[01:59:41]  Right, that angle, too.
[01:59:42]  That angle is so awful.
[01:59:44]  The fact that this dude is just tolerating it, like right there, that's destroyed.
[01:59:48]  That is destroyed.
[01:59:51]  I don't know if that dude ever competed again afterwards.
[01:59:53]  He might never be the same.
[01:59:54]  No, he won't be the same.
[01:59:55]  He won't be the same.
[01:59:57]  He'll never be 100%.
[01:59:58]  Like, you get your shit ripped apart like that.
[02:00:00]  For sure, there's some meniscus.
[02:00:02]  MCL, ACL, meniscus.
[02:00:03]  MCL, everything.
[02:00:05]  Fuck that.
[02:00:06]  Heel hooks.
[02:00:06]  That changed.
[02:00:07]  I've been fortunate, man, with my knees.
[02:00:09]  I have a torn meniscus in my right knee, but never needed surgery.
[02:00:13]  Had a partial tear of my ACL when I fought Islam.
[02:00:16]  He pulled me off against the fence and my knee slid, and I felt it, Terry.
[02:00:19]  It felt like fire in my knee, you know.
[02:00:21]  And when you feel pain in a fight, you know it's bad because you usually don't.
[02:00:24]  Right.
[02:00:24]  But I felt it burning like fire.
[02:00:27]  But you didn't need surgery?
[02:00:29]  Didn't need surgery.
[02:00:30]  Did a bunch of physical therapy.
[02:00:32]  I had a partial tear.
[02:00:34]  There's something called maybe a ligamentum or something that connects where your ACL is.
[02:00:37]  Every time you tear your ACL, the ligamentum is completely torn always.
[02:00:42]  And mine had a partial tear in that.
[02:00:43]  So I must have took the weight off or we switched a position right before it tore my ACL.
[02:00:48]  Oh.
[02:00:49]  Yeah.
[02:00:49]  But I had like bruising.
[02:00:50]  You know, back of my leg was all bruised up.
[02:00:52]  Couldn't bend it for a little bit.
[02:00:53]  But now it's 100%?
[02:00:54]  Yeah, I feel great.
[02:00:55]  Yeah, it's interesting.
[02:00:56]  Like, Arnold.
[02:00:58]  No, who was it that was telling me that?
[02:01:01]  Like, there's different people that have had different levels of tears.
[02:01:06]  And then in those levels of tears, like some of them you can come back from 100%, but some of them.
[02:01:13]  Okay, this dude.
[02:01:14]  A broken ankle, too.
[02:01:15]  Oh, my God.
[02:01:16]  So this dude that try saying his name.
[02:01:20]  How do you say his name?
[02:01:21]  Gentamer.
[02:01:26]  So this is the guy, Mikey Musumichi.
[02:01:28]  He was torn ACL, torn MCL, torn meniscus, and a broken ankle.
[02:01:33]  That's crazy.
[02:01:35]  That's crazy.
[02:01:36]  He did like a toe hold or something.
[02:01:38]  How'd he break his ankle?
[02:01:39]  So was it Brendan Allen?
[02:01:41]  Brendan Allen was in the podcast.
[02:01:42]  He was telling me this.
[02:01:43]  He tore his ACL completely and never got it fixed, and it reattached.
[02:01:49]  Wow.
[02:01:49]  Yeah.
[02:01:50]  Like at a slightly different angle, but reattached.
[02:01:53]  Like it tore off, but it was still hanging in there and it rehealed.
[02:01:56]  I was like, that's not.
[02:01:57]  I never even heard of that before.
[02:01:59]  But I know some people that have had like a three-quarter tear and it heals, but it's not really the same.
[02:02:05]  Right.
[02:02:06]  It's still a little funky.
[02:02:07]  You know, Brad Pickett fought his whole career with the torn, no ACL in one of his legs.
[02:02:12]  I think Justin has that situation.
[02:02:14]  Yeah.
[02:02:15]  Like Brad would sit on the ground on the mat and then grab his shin and slide it forward and you could see like the movement.
[02:02:21]  How does that not chew your meniscus?

=== Bellator Contracts and Fighter Pay (15:39) ===

[02:02:23]  He fought so many fights like that.
[02:02:24]  Oh my God.
[02:02:25]  Well, Rico Rodriguez did too.
[02:02:27]  Rico always had a blown out ACL.
[02:02:29]  And he fought.
[02:02:30]  Rico was down in Louisiana for a while, man.
[02:02:32]  Rico Rodriguez was.
[02:02:34]  Oh, he was one of the first Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Black Belts.
[02:02:36]  I trained with him at Tim's Gym before.
[02:02:38]  Yeah, he was really good on the ground, man.
[02:02:41]  Rico was really good on the ground.
[02:02:42]  And he was a UFC heavyweight.
[02:02:44]  I know.
[02:02:45]  I know.
[02:02:45]  People forget.
[02:02:46]  Dude, I didn't even know who he was.
[02:02:47]  I was sparring him.
[02:02:48]  Tim was like, wasn't a heavyweight champion to use.
[02:02:51]  I'm like, no way.
[02:02:51]  I know, isn't that fun?
[02:02:52]  He was out of shape.
[02:02:53]  You know, I was like, who's this big tattooed guy?
[02:02:55]  Let's go.
[02:02:57]  There's a lot of guys that people forgot they slept on.
[02:03:01]  It's interesting when you think about that.
[02:03:03]  He was running a gym in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
[02:03:04]  I don't know if he's still in there.
[02:03:05]  Nico was?
[02:03:06]  Yeah.
[02:03:06]  He had partnered with Baton Rouge.
[02:03:08]  In Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
[02:03:09]  He took over an LA boxing.
[02:03:12]  They turned it into a UFC gym now, but he was part owner or something.
[02:03:16]  He was running it.
[02:03:17]  Wow.
[02:03:17]  Yeah.
[02:03:18]  Yeah, it's a hard road when guys retire and people don't even remember them.
[02:03:22]  Like, at least you have a giant name.
[02:03:25]  Like, you're always going to be able to do seminars.
[02:03:27]  People are always going to want to bring you into events.
[02:03:29]  You have a career no matter what.
[02:03:31]  Yeah, I've been doing a lot of watch parties where I get with the fans and watch the fights.
[02:03:33]  It's fun, man.
[02:03:34]  I enjoy it.
[02:03:35]  That's cool.
[02:03:36]  It's sometimes a little awkward because the fans will stick around too long.
[02:03:39]  Like I'm watching the fights with you, but you come sit at my booth and like we run out of things to talk about.
[02:03:43]  It's like, okay.
[02:03:44]  Hey, man, let me get your number.
[02:03:45]  Like, hey, bro.
[02:03:45]  Oh, hey, my buddy's on FaceTime.
[02:03:47]  Can you talk to so-and-so?
[02:03:48]  Like, dude, just chill.
[02:03:49]  I know.
[02:03:50]  Some people just can't hang.
[02:03:51]  Dude, but I fought, like I said, 19 years.
[02:03:54]  I say 20, but it's 19 years that I fought.
[02:03:56]  Until that Connor fight, like, that's when things changed for me recognition-wise.
[02:04:01]  Yeah.
[02:04:02]  Wow.
[02:04:02]  That's interesting.
[02:04:04]  That's crazy because the door opened for seminars, for appearances.
[02:04:07]  That changed.
[02:04:08]  Changed.
[02:04:09]  That's so weird.
[02:04:10]  And I had been in so many UFC main events.
[02:04:13]  I had fought for the belt.
[02:04:14]  I've done all this stuff.
[02:04:15]  But that guy's name, Jan.
[02:04:17]  Isn't it nuts?
[02:04:18]  A just personality got him so, well, obviously, very skilled.
[02:04:22]  For sure.
[02:04:22]  The Eddie Alvarez fight.
[02:04:23]  That's Connor in his prime form when he was in the Aldo.
[02:04:27]  Yes.
[02:04:28]  Eddie.
[02:04:29]  The Aldo fight was great, but because it was one shot.
[02:04:33]  And nobody's done that to Aldo ever.
[02:04:34]  Ever, ever.
[02:04:35]  And since that was amazing.
[02:04:38]  But the Alvarez fight was him in the Matrix when the punch is moving up.
[02:04:43]  He's touching his nose and he's firing back those combinations.
[02:04:47]  He was just in the zone.
[02:04:50]  That was funny.
[02:04:50]  And Eddie's Connor.
[02:04:52]  Walk in the park.
[02:04:53]  No.
[02:04:53]  Eddie's good, man.
[02:04:54]  He's tough as fuck.
[02:04:56]  When Eddie beat Dos Angelos, I was like, holy shit, man.
[02:05:00]  I was always a big Eddie fan.
[02:05:02]  Oh, he was.
[02:05:03]  Always.
[02:05:03]  His dream.
[02:05:04]  Fights with Chandler.
[02:05:06]  You want to talk about taking years off your life.
[02:05:10]  Those fights that those two had that nobody was watching other than the hardcore guys, those were to this day.
[02:05:16]  I tell people, you want to watch some chaos?
[02:05:18]  Watch Eddie Alvarez and Michael Chandler in Bellator.
[02:05:23]  There's some of the best fights of all.
[02:05:24]  Knockdown, drag out, both guys.
[02:05:26]  If you're a fan of chaos, watch those fights.
[02:05:28]  Those fights were fucking bananas.
[02:05:32]  And so that's what we anticipated when Chandler came over.
[02:05:35]  And then we knocked out Dan Hooker in the first round.
[02:05:37]  I was like, oh, shit, he's here.
[02:05:38]  Same card.
[02:05:39]  Same card as me and Connor.
[02:05:40]  But I think that it was too late.
[02:05:43]  I think he had already suffered so much punishment.
[02:05:48]  If we got a hold of Michael Chandler, like six, seven years before that, when he was fighting in Bellator, this is the problem with PFL.
[02:05:55]  This is the problem with Bellator.
[02:05:56]  And I don't think it's a problem because I think these guys are prize fighters.
[02:05:59]  You know, like, I think Francis Ngato said it best when he was talking about this Netflix card.
[02:06:04]  They're saying, someone said to him, Do you think this fucks with your legacy?
[02:06:08]  He goes, legacy?
[02:06:09]  Who's legacy for?
[02:06:10]  For you?
[02:06:11]  He goes, fuck, keep your legacy.
[02:06:13]  Give me my money.
[02:06:14]  Give me my pay.
[02:06:15]  This is what I'm supposed to be getting.
[02:06:16]  I'm Francis Ngano.
[02:06:17]  And I think he's right.
[02:06:19]  But he's Francis Ngano.
[02:06:20]  He's already the UFC heavyweight champion.
[02:06:23]  Left as the UFC heavyweight champion.
[02:06:25]  But for a lot of these guys that are starting their career, their best years are in these other organizations and not enough people know.
[02:06:34]  Like Johnny Eblin, perfect example you were talking about before.
[02:06:36]  He knocked out Leon Edwards' brother.
[02:06:38]  I mean, he's fucking beat.
[02:06:40]  He's beat Musasi.
[02:06:40]  I cornered him when he beat Musasi.
[02:06:42]  Dude, Musasi's a legend.
[02:06:43]  I grew up watching him, a legend.
[02:06:45]  There's a guy, another one, good guy that people forgot about.
[02:06:48]  Gagard Musasi was a fucking guy.
[02:06:50]  By the time he made it to the UFC, I was already such a big fan, but like the casuals didn't know who he was.
[02:06:54]  Oh, he was so good, dude.
[02:06:55]  Gagar was so good, so smart.
[02:06:58]  Right.
[02:06:58]  Just so smart and unassuming.
[02:07:01]  Was it him who upkicked Jakara?
[02:07:02]  Yeah.
[02:07:03]  Yeah.
[02:07:03]  Into a triangle.
[02:07:04]  Yep.
[02:07:05]  Yeah, man.
[02:07:05]  Yep.
[02:07:06]  Yeah.
[02:07:06]  I think that was in.
[02:07:07]  Dream?
[02:07:08]  Yeah.
[02:07:09]  Yeah.
[02:07:10]  Yeah, Gagar was a beast, man.
[02:07:12]  He was a beast.
[02:07:13]  Eddie Alvarez in Dream was a bunch of good fights.
[02:07:16]  And Gagard stopped Wideman in the UFC.
[02:07:19]  Really good fundamental boxing, great jab.
[02:07:21]  Yeah, great everywhere.
[02:07:22]  Yeah, good wrestling.
[02:07:23]  Good wrestling defense.
[02:07:25]  Just super smart, too.
[02:07:26]  Just a very, very intelligent guy.
[02:07:29]  He got put on the shelf with that Bellator deal.
[02:07:33]  He got put on the shelf, and I don't know what's going on with him.
[02:07:36]  What was the last time?
[02:07:36]  I don't know.
[02:07:37]  I don't know when Gagas had Musasi last fought.
[02:07:39]  He might not even still be under contract with PFL or whatever.
[02:07:43]  Well, I think he's 40 now.
[02:07:44]  He was old in the UFC.
[02:07:46]  Yeah.
[02:07:46]  He's got to be close to 40, if not older.
[02:07:50]  Where's Gagard Musasi these days?
[02:07:54]  He got drafted in the Global Fight League.
[02:07:57]  Canceled, I think.
[02:07:59]  Oh, that thing.
[02:08:00]  I knew that was going to fall apart from the jump.
[02:08:02]  Whatever thing was weird.
[02:08:03]  When I was talking to coaches at American Top Team, and they were telling me, like, all these ex-UFC fighters, what their contracts were with this company, I was like, dude, they haven't even put on one show and they're signing guys to these kind of contracts.
[02:08:14]  I mean, the money was crazy.
[02:08:15]  So 2023 was his last fight.
[02:08:17]  How old is he now?
[02:08:19]  So he lost to Fabian Edwards, the same guy that Eblin knocked out.
[02:08:23]  40.
[02:08:23]  40.
[02:08:24]  Yeah, cornered Eblin.
[02:08:25]  Dream catcher.
[02:08:27]  In that fight, dude, he got cut so bad with an elbow.
[02:08:29]  Like, I can see the vein in this.
[02:08:31]  I have it in my phone.
[02:08:31]  It was crazy.
[02:08:33]  I have it in my phone.
[02:08:34]  The vein's still intact.
[02:08:35]  It didn't cut the vein, but you can see it.
[02:08:36]  Oh, boy.
[02:08:37]  Oh, it's pretty gnarly.
[02:08:38]  And then he stopped him.
[02:08:39]  Yeah, elbow.
[02:08:41]  We were in Ireland.
[02:08:42]  Yeah, Eblin's a tough guy, man.
[02:08:44]  And I think he's like one of those guys that's like at the very top of the heap at 185.
[02:08:49]  But again, I know about him, but how many people do?
[02:08:52]  That's unfortunate.
[02:08:53]  Yeah.
[02:08:54]  You know, because he's been fighting NFL for how many years now?
[02:08:57]  Well, he was Bellator.
[02:08:58]  Bellator, and then they bought him.
[02:08:59]  For how many years now?
[02:09:00]  A long time.
[02:09:01]  I mean, I think he might have had one or two fights when Bellator signed him.
[02:09:05]  He got in early at Bellator.
[02:09:07]  But he's a student, man.
[02:09:08]  He's going to keep getting better.
[02:09:09]  He's pretty young still.
[02:09:11]  Submitting Mark Hunt's crazy.
[02:09:12]  That's crazy.
[02:09:13]  Right?
[02:09:14]  And you think how small he is?
[02:09:15]  He fought at 185 in the UFC, and he submitted 260-pound Mark Hunt.
[02:09:20]  Gagard Musasi was a fucking beast.
[02:09:24]  He was a beast.
[02:09:24]  Just technique.
[02:09:25]  Yep.
[02:09:26]  Just technique.
[02:09:26]  Technique, toughness, and intelligence.
[02:09:29]  Just so crafty.
[02:09:30]  Just so good.
[02:09:31]  Everywhere.
[02:09:32]  Good on the ground.
[02:09:33]  Good standing up.
[02:09:34]  And super patient, man.
[02:09:35]  Methodical.
[02:09:36]  Yeah.
[02:09:37]  Yeah, I've always been a fan of him.
[02:09:38]  There's a lot of those guys that just people forget about.
[02:09:40]  They forgot.
[02:09:42]  Yeah, a bunch.
[02:09:43]  I always tell you people, one guy that people underestimated because they didn't get to see him when he was in his prime or they just forgot is Masvedal.
[02:09:51]  People forgot how good Masvedal is.
[02:09:53]  Masvedal knocked out Eve Edwards with a head kick.
[02:09:56]  Remember that?
[02:09:56]  Bowdog.
[02:09:57]  Yep.
[02:09:58]  Yeah.
[02:09:59]  Bro, Masvedal in his prime was a motherfucker.
[02:10:04]  He was good.
[02:10:04]  When he knocked out Darren Till, remember that shit?
[02:10:07]  That switch step.
[02:10:08]  Oh, my God.
[02:10:09]  Yeah, of course.
[02:10:10]  Switch step, I think, caught him with a left hook.
[02:10:12]  Knocked him out cold.
[02:10:13]  Cold.
[02:10:14]  Head kicked.
[02:10:14]  And he was a dog.
[02:10:15]  Like, when he started focused on his wrestling, he was a dog in Strike Force, man.
[02:10:18]  At 55.
[02:10:20]  Oh, yeah.
[02:10:21]  He was a dog back then.
[02:10:22]  No, Masvedal was a beast, man.
[02:10:24]  And he's good everywhere, man.
[02:10:25]  He's good everywhere.
[02:10:26]  He has good jiu-jitsu, good wrestling, good kickboxing.
[02:10:29]  He's good everywhere.
[02:10:30]  I mean, when he went off the 170, that's not really his weight class.
[02:10:33]  His real weight class was 55.
[02:10:35]  Yeah, but I think as he got older, he's a big guy.
[02:10:38]  He's a big guy.
[02:10:38]  He has really thick legs, and he's a little bit taller, taller than me for sure.
[02:10:42]  But like when he was really competitive, I feel like it was at 55.
[02:10:45]  Yeah.
[02:10:45]  But I mean, like, he gave guys problems at 70.
[02:10:48]  Like, the Darren Till fight was at 70.
[02:10:51]  He fucked a lot of guys up at 70.
[02:10:52]  Cowboy.
[02:10:53]  Yep.
[02:10:53]  Cowboy.
[02:10:53]  Was that at 70?
[02:10:54]  Body shot at 170.
[02:10:56]  Damn.
[02:10:56]  Yeah.
[02:10:57]  No, Mazado.
[02:10:58]  People forgot.
[02:10:59]  And then, you know, he was having those backyard fights in the Kimbo Slice days.
[02:11:05]  Which is crazy.
[02:11:06]  The bare knuckle Kimbo fights, Kimbo Slice fights.
[02:11:09]  Yeah, man.
[02:11:10]  Kimbo used to come to the American Top Team, used to bring his kids and stuff.
[02:11:13]  It was crazy talking to him because I grew up watching his fights, you know.
[02:11:16]  Well, he was like the first guy to become a legend on YouTube.
[02:11:19]  Yeah.
[02:11:20]  Yeah, everybody knows who he is.
[02:11:22]  Pussy looks so cool.
[02:11:23]  The bald head and the beard and the hair in the back.
[02:11:26]  Everything was crazy.
[02:11:27]  The braids in the back.
[02:11:28]  Yeah.
[02:11:29]  Super jacked.
[02:11:30]  And just fucking people up in the backyard.
[02:11:33]  Yeah.
[02:11:33]  Like they were moving around like satisfaction.
[02:11:35]  I think he was a bodyguard or a driver for a guy in Miami who started a porn company and that's how it started.
[02:11:42]  Exactly.
[02:11:43]  And they organized these fights where they would just no warm-up.
[02:11:47]  Just all right, let's go.
[02:11:48]  No, he would get out the car in the front driveway and walk to the back and just start scrapping.
[02:11:52]  I know.
[02:11:52]  It's crazy.
[02:11:53]  But as a kid, like when that stuff came out as a kid, that was such a big thing to watch, you know, that we had to download it illegally on like LimeWire or something back then.
[02:12:00]  Yeah.
[02:12:01]  You know, that was wild times.
[02:12:03]  And then to see him in the UFC and the ultimate fighter, dude, what a journey that guy had.
[02:12:06]  I know.
[02:12:07]  What balls it took for him to do that, to enter into the UFC with like basically zero grappling.
[02:12:12]  Yeah.
[02:12:12]  Like really just kind of learning the sport.
[02:12:15]  But, you know, so good boxing, but I don't think like Jim, not trained boxing, just natural ability.
[02:12:20]  Well, he definitely had some training, right?
[02:12:22]  The way he moved was even in the bare knuckle, the way he moved was like a boxer, a shell, you know?
[02:12:27]  Yeah.
[02:12:27]  Like a Mike Tyson movement.
[02:12:29]  Yeah, but it was like rudimentary.
[02:12:31]  Remember when he fought Seth Petruzelli?
[02:12:33]  Yeah.
[02:12:34]  Yeah.
[02:12:34]  Like last minute, Petruzzelli comes in last minute.
[02:12:36]  Like Ken Shamrock had some sort of a dispute with them and maybe got cut backstage or something instead of how to cut.
[02:12:43]  And so like last minute, they swapped out Seth Petruzelli.
[02:12:46]  And he knocked him out.
[02:12:47]  Yeah.
[02:12:48]  I called that one.
[02:12:49]  I called that one camera.
[02:12:52]  No, I wasn't doing it.
[02:12:53]  The commentary.
[02:12:54]  I think it was Elite XC.
[02:12:55]  I think that bankrupt them or something.
[02:12:56]  I don't know how.
[02:12:57]  That fight bankrupt them?
[02:12:59]  I don't know if it bankrupt them, but after that happened, they didn't have many more shows after that.
[02:13:02]  Well, I think they were going under anyway, unfortunately.
[02:13:05]  Yeah, I don't know how that fight would have bankrupted.
[02:13:07]  Well, they had some guy who was a boxing guy who was running the whole thing.
[02:13:10]  Was his name Gary Shaw?
[02:13:12]  I don't know back then.
[02:13:13]  I don't remember either.
[02:13:14]  But, you know, like, it's hard to make money in these things, man.
[02:13:18]  Like, those things are hard.
[02:13:20]  Like, the UFC doesn't get the credit it deserves in terms of the promotional machine.
[02:13:24]  Like, that's a smooth-running machine.
[02:13:26]  Oh, yeah.
[02:13:27]  That machine's been around for a long time.
[02:13:29]  It's so polished between the production, all the guys in the truck, the directors, the producers.
[02:13:35]  Oh, they're the best of the best.
[02:13:36]  Yeah, they're the best.
[02:13:37]  It's hard.
[02:13:38]  And then you got all the best fighters.
[02:13:40]  And it's like the product.
[02:13:41]  So when they have a fight like Holloway and Olivera and like, oh, this fight wasn't good.
[02:13:47]  Like, that's a great fight, man.
[02:13:50]  You can't be a casual.
[02:13:52]  People are just bloodthirsty.
[02:13:53]  Yeah.
[02:13:54]  You know, like, listen, to do that to Max Holloway is crazy.
[02:13:58]  Do you not appreciate that?
[02:13:59]  Go watch baseball.
[02:14:00]  Wrestlers, great grapplers have never done that to him.
[02:14:03]  I know.
[02:14:03]  It's nuts.
[02:14:04]  It's nuts if you think about it.
[02:14:06]  Yeah.
[02:14:07]  It's exciting, man.
[02:14:08]  The UFC is definitely the best at it.
[02:14:10]  With this whole Paramount thing, I was kind of, we'll see how it turns out.
[02:14:13]  I was kind of worried.
[02:14:14]  Like, if you take pay-per-view off the table, how much is UFC going to put the biggest fights together?
[02:14:21]  Because they don't need to sell pay-per-views.
[02:14:22]  They're guaranteed money.
[02:14:24]  You know, I was just wondering if that would not water it down, but we would get a bunch of weaker cards, and I'm still waiting to find out, man.
[02:14:29]  Well, it is weird, right?
[02:14:31]  Because with pay-per-view, you're always building it up so that people buy it.
[02:14:35]  And then also points.
[02:14:38]  Like, the fighters get paid points.
[02:14:40]  So how are fighters getting paid?
[02:14:42]  I've been asking every show at work.
[02:14:44]  I ask everybody.
[02:14:45]  I want to know because my last few years in the UFC, nobody's telling you.
[02:14:48]  Nobody's telling me anything.
[02:14:50]  They're keeping you in the dark?
[02:14:51]  Keeping me in the dark.
[02:14:51]  What the fuck is that?
[02:14:52]  Keeping me in the dark, man.
[02:14:54]  Because, you know, I was a pay-per-view partner multiple fights with the UFC.
[02:14:57]  If there's, and that was always the thing they kind of in discussion about contracts and about future fights that they kind of held over you.
[02:15:05]  Like, you win this fight.
[02:15:06]  One day you're going to fight for the belt.
[02:15:07]  You're going to get pay-per-view.
[02:15:08]  Your life's going to change.
[02:15:09]  That was always a carrot they hung to make, you know, to do anything.
[02:15:13]  That was the goal.
[02:15:13]  To one day fight for the belt and get the pay-per-view money.
[02:15:16]  But now that that's gone, I mean, Connor's not going to fight.
[02:15:18]  Even Justin at the White House.
[02:15:19]  There's no way these guys aren't fighting with that backdoor money.
[02:15:23]  So they must be just guaranteeing them a bigger per I don't know.
[02:15:26]  Well, I think Justin would fight no matter what, because it's for the title.
[02:15:29]  This is his last fight.
[02:15:30]  Well, that, yeah, the title, the title.
[02:15:32]  But any pay-per-view that's at the White House, he's a patriot.
[02:15:35]  It's the last fight.
[02:15:37]  You know, I think he would fight no matter what.
[02:15:40]  But, like, you know, Rhonda Rousey, you know, she's promoting the Netflix fight.
[02:15:46]  She made, I don't know if you saw what she said, but she had this big, long speech about the UFC selling for $7 billion.
[02:15:53]  These fighters aren't making enough money.
[02:15:55]  And, you know, look, she made some good points.
[02:15:57]  And the most important thing is that she gets the conversation out there and it puts pressure on the UFC to pay people more.
[02:16:04]  You know, and if Netflix can become successful at MMA, if they can become successful at putting cars together and pulling fighters away, like right now, they're doing a one-off, right?
[02:16:15]  It's one-off and it's kind of a gimmicky thing.
[02:16:17]  And listen, this payroll is going to be crazy.
[02:16:19]  It's going to be crazy.
[02:16:20]  You got Rhonda, Francis, Nate, everybody's getting crazy money.
[02:16:24]  The payroll is going to be nuts.
[02:16:25]  But if anybody's got that kind of money, it's Netflix.
[02:16:28]  They throw around a lot of ridiculous money.
[02:16:30]  They make so much money.
[02:16:32]  So they can kind of do that.
[02:16:34]  The question is, are they going to do that more than once?
[02:16:37]  So if they do that more than once, then what happens is it's all about the name of the fighters, just like boxing.
[02:16:43]  Like if boxing, no one cares if it's Golden Boy, Rob Aram.
[02:16:47]  Nobody cares about that.
[02:16:48]  What they care about is who's fighting who.
[02:16:50]  Is it Benavidez?
[02:16:51]  Who's he fighting?
[02:16:52]  Is he fighting Bival?
[02:16:53]  Let's go.
[02:16:53]  That's a great fight.
[02:16:55]  So if Netflix can kind of do the boxing thing on Netflix with like big name stars, they can be a major player.
[02:17:04]  And that will elevate everybody's pay scale.
[02:17:06]  So as a lot of people are like, oh, Rhonda, how could you turn her back on the UFC and talk shit like that?
[02:17:12]  If what she's saying doesn't make any sense, she can't say it.
[02:17:17]  Right?
[02:17:18]  So if what she's saying makes sense, then you have to go, she's got a point.
[02:17:22]  Yeah.
[02:17:23]  She's got a point.
[02:17:24]  She's got a point.
[02:17:24]  They sold it for $7 billion or whatever it is.
[02:17:28]  They got this $7 billion deal, whatever the fucking deal was with Paramount.
[02:17:32]  Not even selling it, sold rights to it, right?
[02:17:35]  That makes sense.
[02:17:36]  She's making sense.
[02:17:37]  And so if she's saying this and Netflix listens, and if someone comes along, they're a shrewd businessman, they go, look, there's a lot of people, their contracts are coming up.
[02:17:46]  And when these people's contracts are coming up, let's get into negotiations.
[02:17:49]  And then all of a sudden, some people start drifting over.
[02:17:51]  So if like, you get like an Islam Makachev who starts leaving and they leave and go fight in Netflix.
[02:17:57]  And then they can talk four or five top major contenders into doing, look, it's a big ask.

=== Seven Billion Dollar Fight Deals (06:23) ===

[02:18:02]  Look, I love the UFC.
[02:18:04]  Spent most of my professional career there, but I love seeing these other organizations come up and people making money.
[02:18:10]  Like you said, it rises everything.
[02:18:12]  It's more places for people to work.
[02:18:14]  It's great.
[02:18:15]  It's only good.
[02:18:16]  Olivier Alban Mercier.
[02:18:18]  A million dollars in the PFL.
[02:18:20]  Yeah.
[02:18:20]  And I think he did it more than once, right?
[02:18:22]  Didn't he win the tournament twice or something like that?
[02:18:25]  I'm not sure.
[02:18:26]  He definitely won it at least once.
[02:18:28]  A Canadian gangster?
[02:18:29]  Right.
[02:18:30]  A guy who's not in the top 10 of the UFC goes over to another organization and makes a million dollars.
[02:18:37]  Okay.
[02:18:37]  I don't know if that's sustainable for them.
[02:18:39]  I don't know how they came up with that money.
[02:18:41]  They got to be bleeding money out.
[02:18:42]  They have to be bleeding money.
[02:18:43]  Nobody's watching it.
[02:18:44]  Or even guys like Pettus, who was a former world champion, who, you know, his contract was good in the UFC.
[02:18:49]  Right.
[02:18:50]  Didn't chose not to re-sign with the UFC and he went to PFL.
[02:18:52]  They had to be paying him big money.
[02:18:54]  They have to be.
[02:18:55]  So it's all competition ultimately is good for the most important thing, which is paying the fighters.
[02:19:02]  So I'm happy.
[02:19:03]  And places to work.
[02:19:04]  Like if the UFC cuts you or something, back 10 years ago, there's the only place to make money.
[02:19:11]  They cut you.
[02:19:11]  Now you got to get a job.
[02:19:12]  Maybe fight.
[02:19:13]  Try to get back in part-time fighting.
[02:19:16]  Now you can pivot and still have a career.
[02:19:18]  Well, this is the thing with Francis.
[02:19:19]  When Francis left the PFL, everybody's like, well, now he's fucked because he can't fight in the UFC.
[02:19:25]  I wanted him to come back to the UFC.
[02:19:26]  And I was like, come on.
[02:19:28]  Can we figure out a way to do this?
[02:19:29]  This happened.
[02:19:30]  But Dana just does not want to have anything to do with him.
[02:19:33]  Apparently, they did not get along very well.
[02:19:36]  Which is like, I'm like, come on.
[02:19:38]  Yeah.
[02:19:40]  Can I help?
[02:19:41]  Can I fucking get you?
[02:19:42]  Can you guys in a room together and fucking calm everybody down?
[02:19:45]  But the most important thing is.
[02:19:47]  He's still a guy I want to watch.
[02:19:49]  Oh, yeah.
[02:19:50]  He's still a guy I want to watch.
[02:19:51]  I mean, he's the legit heavyweight champion, if you think about it.
[02:19:54]  He never got beat in MMA as a heavyweight champion.
[02:19:58]  And then he fought Hennan Ferreira in PFL.
[02:20:02]  Yeah.
[02:20:03]  That's another ATT guy.
[02:20:04]  But it's another one where it's like, who's watching that?
[02:20:07]  I mean, and if you're watching it, you're just watching it with Francis.
[02:20:10]  Me and you.
[02:20:11]  Yeah.
[02:20:11]  Like, I mean, I wanted to know, like, what were the numbers for that fight?
[02:20:14]  It was probably the biggest fight they ever put on.
[02:20:16]  I don't think I've ever seen any numbers from PFL.
[02:20:18]  And I think if he was getting 20 million a fight and he wanted his opponents to get a huge amount too, I forget what the, he had like a minimum amount his opponents would get in his contract.
[02:20:31]  Respect.
[02:20:31]  That's that.
[02:20:32]  Yeah, that's cool.
[02:20:33]  That's part of his contract.
[02:20:35]  I forget what the number was, but it was substantial.
[02:20:38]  So Hennan Ferreira got a giant payday for that fight too.
[02:20:41]  It's like, how are they, where are they getting?
[02:20:43]  I guess they have Saudi money.
[02:20:45]  I think they did for some of the shows because they went to Saudi to do some shows.
[02:20:50]  But I don't know if they're backing them the whole company.
[02:20:55]  You're going to need something like Netflix.
[02:20:58]  And Netflix can kind of pull it off because Netflix has a massive promotional machine.
[02:21:02]  But they need big names.
[02:21:04]  So now that they have Nate and Mike Perry on the card too, like, okay.
[02:21:09]  Okay.
[02:21:09]  So you got Nate, Mike Perry.
[02:21:11]  You got Francis Philip Linz.
[02:21:13]  You have Ronda and Gina.
[02:21:16]  Okay.
[02:21:17]  Now you have three interesting fights.
[02:21:19]  Yeah.
[02:21:20]  You're going to need a few more.
[02:21:21]  And it's on Netflix, so it's going to be free.
[02:21:23]  But even if Nate and Mike Perry was the headliner, I would have bought that paper for you.
[02:21:27]  100%.
[02:21:27]  When you don't have to buy it, it's on Netflix.
[02:21:29]  So this is what gets interesting.
[02:21:31]  So if this fight goes on Netflix and gets 50 million views.
[02:21:36]  It's going to get a lot.
[02:21:37]  Yeah, it could get more views than any fight ever.
[02:21:40]  It could.
[02:21:41]  It's very possible.
[02:21:43]  Because Netflix is bigger than anything.
[02:21:45]  If they got more views than anybody ever, that would be fucking – and then YouTube might come along.
[02:21:51]  Oh, you're like a mixed martial arts event.
[02:21:53]  Hey guys, we're YouTube.
[02:21:54]  We're even bigger than Netflix.
[02:21:56]  YouTube is bigger than fucking Netflix.
[02:21:57]  YouTube is everywhere.
[02:21:58]  And if they come up with some crazy, if more players get involved in this and more people become free agents, it could get very interesting.
[02:22:06]  Dude, it's crazy to see how far the sport has come because all these big companies wouldn't want to touch this human cock fighting back in the day.
[02:22:13]  I know.
[02:22:14]  Now everybody wants a piece of the pie.
[02:22:15]  I know it's cool.
[02:22:16]  It's cool now, they know.
[02:22:17]  Yeah, it's cool.
[02:22:17]  It's cool now, right?
[02:22:18]  That cage fighting became something that like corporate America wants to get involved in.
[02:22:22]  Dude, I'm in the airport.
[02:22:23]  I'm in the grocery store.
[02:22:24]  Grandmothers, old ladies are walking up to me talking about fights, which is insane.
[02:22:29]  Insane.
[02:22:30]  Insane.
[02:22:30]  Because 15 years ago, it was loves it.
[02:22:32]  Bearded guys with tattoos would be in the grocery store.
[02:22:36]  We'd whisper about it, you know?
[02:22:37]  It was frowned upon.
[02:22:38]  We'd talk about Fight Club, you know?
[02:22:41]  Now it's like soccer moms.
[02:22:43]  Did you see the fight last week in the arm bar?
[02:22:44]  I'm like, what are you talking about?
[02:22:46]  Well, that's all the UFC.
[02:22:48]  The UFC, with that one deal, the Fritidas have such huge balls because they were down $40 million when they made that deal for Spike TV to do the Ultimate Fighter.
[02:22:58]  And they were like, we're fucking hemorrhaging money.
[02:23:01]  And they were talking about selling it.
[02:23:02]  And just a perfect storm.
[02:23:04]  Stefan and Forrest.
[02:23:06]  The world was watching, man.
[02:23:07]  And it felt special.
[02:23:08]  I remember being at my mother's house.
[02:23:10]  I knew I was watching something special.
[02:23:12]  Yeah.
[02:23:12]  Like, this is special.
[02:23:14]  I know.
[02:23:14]  It was crazy being there live, too.
[02:23:16]  It was so nuts.
[02:23:18]  It was so nuts to watch it evolve and watch it burst out.
[02:23:21]  And by then, by 2005, I had already been working for them for like four years.
[02:23:26]  Because I, well, I started in 97 with the old owners, and I did like the backstage and post-fight interviews.
[02:23:34]  And then I did it for a little bit, and then I had to quit.
[02:23:37]  I was like, this is costing me money.
[02:23:39]  I made more money going to a comedy club for a weekend than I would flying to Dothan, Alabama.
[02:23:46]  Bosier City, Louisiana.
[02:23:47]  But I was happy I did it because it was fun and it was exciting.
[02:23:50]  And I remember me and Eddie Bravo back then.
[02:23:52]  We were like, man, you know what the UFC needs?
[02:23:54]  This is like literally a conversation we had in like 98.
[02:23:57]  They need some crazy billionaires that love the sport to just dump a bunch of money in it because we know it's exciting.
[02:24:02]  It's just the rest of the world doesn't know.
[02:24:04]  And along came the Frititas and they did it.
[02:24:07]  Dude, they saw it and rode that vision out and it paid off.
[02:24:09]  It's nuts.
[02:24:10]  Paid off.
[02:24:11]  Literally, like exactly what we said needed to happen.
[02:24:14]  And then for that fight to happen in the Ultimate Fighter between Stefan Bonner and Forrest Griffin, because it was a perfect kind of fight, it was so evenly matched.
[02:24:22]  It was so chaotic, and they knew each other so well from being in the house together.

=== UFC Funding and Champion Stories (11:32) ===

[02:24:26]  They just went after it for three solid rounds at the end.
[02:24:29]  Both guys were like, oh, but dude, nothing.
[02:24:32]  How could the idea of the actual Kumite idea of putting the best fighters from all over the world, whatever discipline they train in, let's find out what's the best?
[02:24:40]  That's, I mean, it has, of course, it's going to succeed.
[02:24:43]  It's chaos.
[02:24:44]  Yeah.
[02:24:45]  It's everything you want to see.
[02:24:46]  And the crazy thing, it was really kind of invented as a showcase for Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.
[02:24:50]  Because Horian was like, you know, like, look, Jiu-Jitsu is going to prevail.
[02:24:55]  And he was kind of right.
[02:24:56]  No, I mean, at first.
[02:24:58]  Dude, Hoyce was in there against Giants.
[02:25:00]  Dan Seven.
[02:25:02]  Dude, come on.
[02:25:02]  Chemo.
[02:25:03]  What did he weigh?
[02:25:03]  180 pounds?
[02:25:04]  190 pounds?
[02:25:05]  Maybe, not even.
[02:25:06]  Even 176.
[02:25:08]  Fighting these bodybuilders.
[02:25:08]  And I asked him why they picked him.
[02:25:10]  He goes, Look at this face.
[02:25:12]  Look how beautiful I am.
[02:25:14]  I'm so good looking.
[02:25:15]  That's why they picked me.
[02:25:16]  Wearing pajamas.
[02:25:17]  We even know what a gi was.
[02:25:19]  Well, I had no idea jiu-jitsu was that effective.
[02:25:22]  I was so confused.
[02:25:23]  Yeah.
[02:25:24]  I was like, someone's going to kick him.
[02:25:26]  He's fucked.
[02:25:26]  Someone's going to punch him.
[02:25:28]  And no.
[02:25:29]  Like, you're just taking dudes to the ground that stomps.
[02:25:32]  And there's no idea of anything that they're doing.
[02:25:34]  Just letting them pass guard, letting them do anything.
[02:25:37]  You don't know anything.
[02:25:38]  He's choking guys with the gi, too.
[02:25:39]  He's grabbing his own clothes.
[02:25:41]  I'm like, oh, this is wild.
[02:25:43]  That's one thing I do.
[02:25:44]  Like, I got away from the gi.
[02:25:45]  So from white belt to brown belt, I competed at IBJJF every tournament I could do my weight class would do Absolute.
[02:25:53]  Get the reps.
[02:25:53]  I love jiu-jitsu, but probably around 2011, 2012, I stopped putting a gi on.
[02:26:02]  It was all in mixed martial arts training because I was getting before I would use jiu-jitsu to prepare for fights at a small school I was at, but when I went to American top team, I didn't need it anymore because I had such high-level guys on the mats at all times.
[02:26:13]  I was doing jiu-jitsu no gi every day.
[02:26:16]  But it's been so many years since I've put on a gi and had like a jiu-jitsu practice, man.
[02:26:20]  Even the practices I do now are all no gi.
[02:26:23]  It's fun.
[02:26:23]  I want to get back into gi.
[02:26:24]  Gi's fun, but Eddie Bravo said it best.
[02:26:27]  He goes, if you were a professional tennis player, would you practice for tennis by playing racquetball?
[02:26:33]  No, you wouldn't.
[02:26:34]  You would play tennis.
[02:26:35]  You would do the thing that you do.
[02:26:36]  If you want to get really good at MMA Jiu-Jitsu, you need to do no gi.
[02:26:40]  And he's right.
[02:26:41]  I mean, Gi definitely helps as well, but you got to do no gi.
[02:26:45]  What Gi does is it teaches you that you have to be technical with your defense because you can't muscle out of things.
[02:26:51]  But the reality is, like, you should just be technical with no gi.
[02:26:55]  For sure.
[02:26:55]  That's the thing.
[02:26:56]  Like, get out of the thing.
[02:26:58]  I always say that the best jiu-jitsu is to learn jiu-jitsu from a small guy.
[02:27:02]  All techniques.
[02:27:03]  Yeah.
[02:27:03]  Like a Barrett Yoshida, Hoyler Gracie, Eddie Bravo.
[02:27:08]  Like, learn Jiu-Jitsu from small people.
[02:27:10]  Yeah.
[02:27:10]  Because they're all technique.
[02:27:12]  They can't muscle out of things.
[02:27:13]  You learn Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu from some big giant motherfucker.
[02:27:17]  Like, their game is going to be so different because they're so strong.
[02:27:20]  Right.
[02:27:21]  But like, look at the Sambo guys.
[02:27:24]  Look at the Makachevs and Khabibs.
[02:27:26]  Like, that's the game of no Gi.
[02:27:30]  That's no Gi.
[02:27:31]  It's like their no Gi game is finely polished.
[02:27:34]  Yeah.
[02:27:36]  It's not going to help them to wear a Gi.
[02:27:38]  Their game wouldn't be better.
[02:27:39]  Like Khabib's game wouldn't have been better.
[02:27:41]  It's all top Gi on.
[02:27:42]  You never see those guys on their back in the guard.
[02:27:45]  It's a different speed.
[02:27:46]  It's Jiu-Jitsu, but it's a different game.
[02:27:49]  Yeah.
[02:27:49]  What they do.
[02:27:52]  Small changes on the locks, like we were saying with the Darsh choke, grabbing your forearm.
[02:27:55]  They do things a little bit different, man.
[02:27:57]  Even their wrestling is different.
[02:27:59]  It's not collegiate fundamental wrestling that you would teach at a wrestling camp.
[02:28:04]  It's just chain wrestling that they kind of developed and have their own style, man.
[02:28:07]  It's different.
[02:28:08]  It really is.
[02:28:09]  It's interesting.
[02:28:09]  And then, you know, when I've talked to Daniel, he's like, dude, I've seen Khabib put it on like high-level amateur wrestlers in the gym.
[02:28:19]  Put it on them.
[02:28:20]  And I believe it too.
[02:28:21]  I mean, he's just, his discipline, when he was in his prime, man, his discipline was just above and beyond.
[02:28:28]  His discipline, his drive, his focus.
[02:28:30]  And there's something to be said for those guys, too, because they're super religious.
[02:28:33]  So there's no partying, there's no drinking, there's no chasing women, there's no bullshit.
[02:28:37]  It's just drive, drive, drive, drive.
[02:28:40]  Right.
[02:28:42]  You know, and that collecting the legs that he does with the triangle underneath the legs when he's in the mount against the fence.
[02:28:48]  So hard to get out of it.
[02:28:50]  Everybody's doing it now.
[02:28:50]  You know, the wrist ride, the handcuff he's doing.
[02:28:53]  Everybody's doing it.
[02:28:55]  Yeah.
[02:28:55]  Dude, he, I mean, it's been really interesting to watch these dominant forces come along and like sort of remap the landscape of the game, you know, and we've seen it with them.
[02:29:08]  Especially in such a high-stakes game.
[02:29:09]  How do you do it that many times without catching a heel to the face, without catching a knee?
[02:29:14]  You know, the guys he's fought, so many dangerous guys, he's just drowned them, you know?
[02:29:19]  I know.
[02:29:20]  Well, you know, Islam got caught in that one fight and got knocked out.
[02:29:23]  Adriano Martinez.
[02:29:25]  Right, but it just shows you as a human being.
[02:29:27]  Yeah, it can happen to anyone.
[02:29:28]  It could happen to anybody.
[02:29:29]  And the Glason T-Bow fight with Khabib.
[02:29:33]  I feel like Glason won that fight.
[02:29:34]  Oh, man.
[02:29:35]  I know a lot of people always talk about that.
[02:29:36]  I feel like.
[02:29:37]  Glayson won that fight.
[02:29:38]  Me and T-Bow have been training partners for so much.
[02:29:40]  We beat each other up so much.
[02:29:41]  He's such a fun guy, man.
[02:29:42]  Gleason is such a good dude.
[02:29:43]  He's another guy.
[02:29:44]  Like, how the fuck are you 155?
[02:29:46]  So much energy, dude.
[02:29:47]  Never complains about anything.
[02:29:49]  He could have a 50-pound weight cut smiling in the sauna.
[02:29:52]  Just happy to be here.
[02:29:54]  He just hoped both teams have fun.
[02:29:55]  That's awesome.
[02:29:56]  Yeah.
[02:29:56]  That's awesome.
[02:29:57]  Just a happy-go-guy, man.
[02:29:59]  I watched that fight again because I was like, am I talking out of school?
[02:30:02]  Should I shut the fuck up?
[02:30:03]  And I watched it again.
[02:30:04]  I go, no.
[02:30:05]  I think he won.
[02:30:06]  Was it a split?
[02:30:07]  I don't remember.
[02:30:08]  I don't remember if it was a split.
[02:30:10]  But he was stopping takedowns.
[02:30:12]  Yeah, and he was a tank.
[02:30:15]  That guy was a tank.
[02:30:17]  He was big.
[02:30:19]  He was big and jacked.
[02:30:20]  Dude, probably 5'8, 5'7.
[02:30:23]  Little sausage.
[02:30:25]  Yeah, maybe.
[02:30:26]  Maybe.
[02:30:27]  Maybe.
[02:30:28]  I don't know.
[02:30:29]  I don't know either.
[02:30:30]  I don't know.
[02:30:31]  Skillful.
[02:30:31]  Super skillful.
[02:30:33]  You know, solid striking, solid jiu-jitsu.
[02:30:35]  Oh, great jiu-jitsu.
[02:30:37]  Very good.
[02:30:37]  Everywhere.
[02:30:38]  Black belt jiu-jitsu.
[02:30:39]  Who's strong as fuck?
[02:30:41]  And just, you know.
[02:30:42]  They knew from an early age because I think his middle name is Herculino.
[02:30:46]  I'm serious.
[02:30:46]  That's hilarious.
[02:30:47]  Yeah.
[02:30:48]  Herculino.
[02:30:49]  Herculino.
[02:30:50]  Brazilians have some of the funnest niche.
[02:30:52]  Yeah, he might have eight names, you know.
[02:30:53]  I bet.
[02:30:54]  Yeah.
[02:30:54]  Yeah.
[02:30:55]  Gleason Tiba, Alvez, Herculino, a few other things that I'm missing, I'm sure.
[02:30:59]  Yeah.
[02:31:00]  I'm serious, though.
[02:31:01]  Johnny Gleason, maybe.
[02:31:02]  Tibau.
[02:31:03]  I don't know.
[02:31:04]  He has a few names.
[02:31:05]  That's funny.
[02:31:05]  I mean, really?
[02:31:06]  He's got a bunch of names that nobody knows.
[02:31:09]  That's hilarious, man.
[02:31:10]  Well, an American Top Team, man, you probably have seen more elite talent come through those doors.
[02:31:16]  Shout out to Dan Lampert.
[02:31:17]  Well, Dan's a man.
[02:31:18]  That motherfucker put the money in, put the time in when there was no money to be made.
[02:31:25]  There was nothing.
[02:31:25]  That guy was.
[02:31:26]  He just loved it.
[02:31:27]  It was a passion thing.
[02:31:28]  And just think, it's just like what we said with the UFC.
[02:31:31]  We need a rich guy to come along and just throw the money at it.
[02:31:34]  That's what Dan did with American Top Team.
[02:31:36]  I remember when he was putting together the new American Top Team facilities, and you show me we're going to have dorms.
[02:31:41]  We're going to have this.
[02:31:42]  I was like, this dude's trying to go broke.
[02:31:44]  Like, what are you doing?
[02:31:45]  Dude, it's huge.
[02:31:46]  And that area is crazy expensive.
[02:31:47]  It's on a huge piece of land.
[02:31:49]  I need to get Dan in here.
[02:31:50]  I know for sure.
[02:31:51]  I talked to him about it before, but he deserves, he deserves the credit because that guy.
[02:31:55]  And dude, honestly, like him building the gym and asking fighters for 5%, which is crazy, unheard of.
[02:32:02]  Other gyms are taking crazy amounts.
[02:32:04]  He's giving you all these amenities, giving you a place to stay.
[02:32:07]  At one point, he had houses as well, fighter houses that he bought, and he would put fighters up in the houses for camps and stuff.
[02:32:14]  Dude, I've heard of him paying, covering medical bills that fighters didn't have money for, never getting paid back.
[02:32:22]  He's done so much stuff, man.
[02:32:24]  Yeah.
[02:32:24]  Good for the sport.
[02:32:26]  He's amazing for the sport.
[02:32:27]  And if he didn't put together that super gym, who knows how many of these super gyms would have ever evolved?
[02:32:32]  Because he kind of set the blueprint for what a gym could be.
[02:32:37]  To this day, that's still the best gym in the world in terms of like super gyms.
[02:32:40]  There's so much knowledge, man.
[02:32:41]  Right.
[02:32:42]  So much knowledge, so much equipment.
[02:32:44]  It's so big.
[02:32:45]  It's so well-made.
[02:32:47]  And you never know who's going to be on the mat.
[02:32:49]  At any time you walk in and do an MMA class.
[02:32:51]  There's literally thousands of mixed martial arts about experience on the mat at any time.
[02:32:56]  Was Robbie his first world champion?
[02:33:00]  I was there for every camp when Robbie came over.
[02:33:03]  I feel like it might have been.
[02:33:05]  Everybody was like, Dan Lambert deserves a world champion.
[02:33:08]  Someone's got to be a world champion.
[02:33:09]  Robbie might have been the first, dude.
[02:33:11]  I think he might have been the first.
[02:33:12]  Well, I mean, Mike Brown was WC.
[02:33:14]  Yeah.
[02:33:14]  There's been UFC champion.
[02:33:16]  I guess Robbie Lawler was number one.
[02:33:18]  I remember when he came over, man.
[02:33:21]  Hey, how was Pantoja?
[02:33:22]  Do you know how his Loja champion?
[02:33:24]  I don't know how the injury is, but it has to be bad if they're skipping him and going with this other title fight.
[02:33:29]  I know.
[02:33:30]  I was there like two weeks ago.
[02:33:31]  I went down to help some buddies.
[02:33:32]  I spent a week there.
[02:33:33]  I didn't see Pantoja at all.
[02:33:35]  It was so nasty, but what was really weird was like when Megan Olivi was talking to us, they were saying that he dislocated his shoulder.
[02:33:43]  And I was like, what?
[02:33:45]  What?
[02:33:45]  Like, what are you talking about?
[02:33:46]  His elbow went out.
[02:33:47]  Like, I'm watching his elbow go out.
[02:33:48]  It looked like the elbow.
[02:33:49]  I said, no, but I think the doctor had misspoke.
[02:33:53]  And I'm 99% sure that it was actually the elbow that went out because the elbow clearly moves and it caves in and gives out.
[02:34:01]  Right.
[02:34:02]  And when that happens, ligaments, muscles, everything gets damaged, but I just don't know the extent.
[02:34:06]  Well, it's too bad because also Pantoja's older and he's older and dominant in fly weight, which is very hard to do.
[02:34:13]  It sucks at any time to see a fight in like that.
[02:34:16]  Terrible.
[02:34:16]  Especially a title fight.
[02:34:18]  Especially a title fight, especially on the streak he was on, defending the belt.
[02:34:20]  Like it just, fuck, man.
[02:34:22]  Not just that.
[02:34:22]  And he's such a hard worker and such a quiet guy and just a good dude, you know?
[02:34:25]  He's a fucking savage, too.
[02:34:27]  I think he's one of the greatest of all time.
[02:34:28]  The post-fight, Dana said something about the shoulder also.
[02:34:31]  They popped his shoulder back in.
[02:34:33]  I thought it was the elbow.
[02:34:34]  Well, it was the elbow.
[02:34:36]  It says it's not the elbow.
[02:34:37]  It was his shoulder.
[02:34:38]  It's his elbow as well, though.
[02:34:41]  It's got to be.
[02:34:42]  That's weird.
[02:34:42]  Yeah, a follow-up post said there was no ligament damage, but I was trying to find updated.
[02:34:47]  So even if there's no ligament damage, there could be cartilage damage.
[02:34:50]  Oh, yeah.
[02:34:50]  There could be a lot of other shit.
[02:34:52]  Anytime something bends the way it's not supposed to, soft tissue damage.
[02:34:55]  His weight and Joshua Van's weight all on one arm posted, and that arm gives out.
[02:35:01]  But damn, dude, when he fought that Japanese cat, who was that guy?
[02:35:06]  Ran through him.
[02:35:07]  When Pantosha did?
[02:35:08]  Yeah.
[02:35:09]  Like, you just see how good he is.
[02:35:11]  When he fought Kai Carl France, ran through him.
[02:35:14]  I was like, this dude is on fire right now.
[02:35:16]  No, he's good, man.
[02:35:17]  He's on fire.
[02:35:18]  I think Pantoja is one of the best of all time.
[02:35:20]  And dude, not loud, not flashy, quiet.
[02:35:23]  He'll walk in the gym, go be in practice, you won't notice him.
[02:35:26]  Just working, always.
[02:35:27]  Just does his work.
[02:35:28]  Just working.
[02:35:28]  Yeah, just fucking focused.
[02:35:30]  Just a soldier.
[02:35:31]  I love to see that, though, man, because like a few years before he was the flyweight champion, he was driving Uber or Uber Eats, like just trying to make him, you know, scrapping to get bills paid.
[02:35:43]  And you see a guy because that's what makes fighting so special, though.
[02:35:46]  You know, like Teddy Atlas has a speech about it, but it's like, where else can you be from any discipline, any creed, anything, any background, and call yourself the champion of the world?

=== Quiet Champions and Hot Sauce (06:16) ===

[02:35:58]  That's true.
[02:35:58]  So powerful.
[02:35:59]  On any given night, you can go against the odds and be a busted Douglas or be a Uber East driver and be the world champion, you know, a couple years later.
[02:36:07]  Like, it's just special, man.
[02:36:08]  Fighting combat is special.
[02:36:10]  It is special, and it is the end-all of all sports.
[02:36:14]  Like, if someone shoots a basket and they make a three-pointer on you, you're like, okay, but I could still fuck you up.
[02:36:21]  You know, no one says after you fuck them up, yeah, but I could score a basket on you.
[02:36:26]  No one cares.
[02:36:26]  Dude, it's the end of all sports.
[02:36:28]  The end of all everything.
[02:36:30]  The best middle school comeback.
[02:36:31]  Somebody can be.
[02:36:32]  Can't beat me, though.
[02:36:33]  Yeah.
[02:36:33]  Can't beat me, though.
[02:36:34]  That was like they come back for anything.
[02:36:35]  Can't beat me, though.
[02:36:36]  Like, that's the top of the line.
[02:36:38]  The top challenge.
[02:36:39]  Exactly.
[02:36:39]  The top challenge.
[02:36:40]  Doesn't matter if you're better at backgammon.
[02:36:42]  Right.
[02:36:43]  Yeah, you dunked on me, but I'll beat your ass.
[02:36:45]  Yeah, beating someone's ass is the that's the end goal.
[02:36:48]  That's what all sports aspire to be.
[02:36:50]  Yeah.
[02:36:51]  Is combat sports.
[02:36:53]  So do you have plans for stuff you want to do outside of fighting now?
[02:36:57]  Like now that you're retired and now you're settling in?
[02:37:01]  Be a good dad, be a good husband.
[02:37:03]  That's my goals always.
[02:37:05]  But I have a few other businesses, you know, I've had for years.
[02:37:09]  I got a documentary.
[02:37:10]  You got a great hot sauce.
[02:37:11]  Got a great hot sauce.
[02:37:12]  That hot sauce is legit.
[02:37:13]  I'm good.
[02:37:14]  Thank you, man.
[02:37:15]  It's legit.
[02:37:16]  Poirier's Louisiana style hot sauce.
[02:37:17]  It's not white label.
[02:37:18]  We made this.
[02:37:19]  We developed it.
[02:37:20]  It's good, dude.
[02:37:20]  It's very good.
[02:37:21]  Thank you.
[02:37:21]  I'm proud of it.
[02:37:22]  I'm proud of it.
[02:37:22]  Yeah, when you sent it to me, I was like, okay, I'll try it.
[02:37:24]  I'm like, oh, shit.
[02:37:26]  It's legit.
[02:37:27]  Vinegar-based.
[02:37:27]  Vinegar-based cayenne fire.
[02:37:29]  Very good.
[02:37:29]  Very good hot sauce.
[02:37:30]  Thank you, man.
[02:37:31]  I put a little celery in there.
[02:37:32]  You can tell you put some work into that.
[02:37:34]  Yeah, I didn't want it to be.
[02:37:35]  There's so many vinegar-based hot sauces on the shelf.
[02:37:38]  You get lost in that.
[02:37:39]  And the shelf space is so hard to get.
[02:37:41]  I'm learning all this business stuff as I move forward, you know.
[02:37:44]  And now that I'm done fighting, I get to really see where the hot sauce is because every fight, every promotion, I got to talk about it.
[02:37:50]  And sales always around every fight were great.
[02:37:53]  But now we're going to level off and see what kind of stride we have.
[02:37:56]  Well, it's legit, man.
[02:37:57]  I recommend it highly.
[02:37:59]  Thank you, man.
[02:37:59]  It's very good.
[02:38:00]  Besides that, I have a few businesses in Lafayette, and I'm really getting excited.
[02:38:05]  I have a documentary coming out this year.
[02:38:07]  The same guys who made my first documentary, Fightville.
[02:38:10]  I don't know if you've seen it.
[02:38:11]  It came out in 2011.
[02:38:13]  It was on Netflix.
[02:38:14]  Actually, did a premiere here at South by Southwest.
[02:38:17]  Showtime picked it up.
[02:38:19]  But the same company that did that, Pepper and Bones, is doing my retirement documentary.
[02:38:24]  So they did the whole last training camp filmed.
[02:38:27]  They live in Germany.
[02:38:28]  So they would fly down, stay in camp.
[02:38:31]  They did the whole fight week in New Orleans.
[02:38:33]  Then they came back down for Thanksgiving, this recent Thanksgiving, and finished up the documentary.
[02:38:39]  And they have hundreds of hours of footage unreleased from when I was 17, 18 years old.
[02:38:43]  Whoa.
[02:38:44]  So they got the whole journey.
[02:38:46]  Whoa.
[02:38:47]  Just randomly, this guy was filming a war veteran who turned, he was doing a, him and his wife are documentary makers, and they were following this guy who just got back from the Middle East, and he happened to be a fighter.
[02:39:02]  And I met the guy at a fight show I fought on.
[02:39:04]  He was filming the other guy for a war film.
[02:39:06]  Started talking.
[02:39:07]  Then he just, man, I'm interested in you.
[02:39:09]  Let me start.
[02:39:09]  Started filming me.
[02:39:10]  And then, dude, now I have all this hundreds of hours of footage of me fighting amateur, small shows, behind the scenes at my house, like as a kid.
[02:39:18]  Oh, that's incredible.
[02:39:19]  Yeah, so we're going to put it all into this documentary.
[02:39:21]  Dude, that's awesome.
[02:39:22]  That's amazing.
[02:39:23]  Well, listen, brother, whatever you do, you know, if you put the same energy that you put into becoming a great fighter, you'll be great at anything you do.
[02:39:31]  That's just the beautiful thing about doing the most difficult thing is everything else is definitely going to be easier.
[02:39:37]  I want to go back to the difficult thing.
[02:39:39]  I don't want the easy path, man.
[02:39:40]  It's so hard to let it go, right?
[02:39:42]  It's hard to be as like, like I tell my wife, I say this a lot, be a civilian, to go from fight life every day for so long to being a civilian.
[02:39:51]  It's like I'm relearning who I am.
[02:39:53]  Maybe a couple boxing matches.
[02:39:55]  Maybe the UFC will let you out.
[02:39:56]  I would love to.
[02:39:57]  Do you think the UFC will let you out of contract, do some boxing matches?
[02:40:00]  Nope, I don't think so.
[02:40:01]  Unless the pot was big enough to wear, I don't think so.
[02:40:04]  Oh, they should.
[02:40:05]  But I'm not fucking fighting Floyd Mayweather.
[02:40:07]  The pot ain't going to be big enough.
[02:40:08]  Right.
[02:40:09]  You know?
[02:40:10]  Because there was a Russian company that wanted me and Nate to box.
[02:40:13]  Oh.
[02:40:13]  And the UFC said no.
[02:40:15]  I didn't even bring it to him.
[02:40:16]  Ariel Jawani hit me up and said, hey, any interest in this?
[02:40:19]  I have interest, but I didn't want to bring it to Hunter and Dana.
[02:40:21]  I didn't want to ask him.
[02:40:23]  Give it a try.
[02:40:24]  Yeah.
[02:40:25]  Give it a try.
[02:40:26]  See what happens after this.
[02:40:27]  I tried to do the benefit.
[02:40:28]  I tried to, let's do it in Zoofoo boxing.
[02:40:30]  Yeah, that's silly that they don't want to do any crossovers, but I get it.
[02:40:34]  Dude, I don't know if I want any more head trauma either, Joe.
[02:40:36]  Yeah.
[02:40:36]  Yeah, I want to raise my son.
[02:40:38]  That's true, too.
[02:40:39]  That's true, too.
[02:40:40]  I have 50-something fights.
[02:40:42]  Right.
[02:40:42]  That's true, too.
[02:40:43]  Maybe just let it go.
[02:40:45]  It'll never be gone.
[02:40:48]  Keep it in the back of your head.
[02:40:49]  Just work out.
[02:40:50]  It'll never be gone.
[02:40:52]  I want to take care of my head.
[02:40:53]  I'm never going to stop.
[02:40:53]  I'm never going to stop.
[02:40:54]  And I hope William's there tonight.
[02:40:55]  Yeah, he'll be there tonight for sure.
[02:40:57]  I didn't message him.
[02:40:58]  Oh, he was there.
[02:40:59]  William Montgomery.
[02:41:00]  Shout out to William.
[02:41:01]  I didn't even catch that you were saying that when you were jumping guillotine.
[02:41:04]  I'm never going to stop.
[02:41:05]  I didn't realize.
[02:41:06]  And then everybody online told me, oh, he's doing William Montgomery.
[02:41:10]  I was like, oh, my God.
[02:41:12]  How did I miss that?
[02:41:13]  I was 100% doing William Montgomery.
[02:41:16]  But also, I give you the benefit of the doubt, dude.
[02:41:18]  My delivery was kind of bad.
[02:41:19]  It wasn't the exact.
[02:41:20]  I was just so focused.
[02:41:22]  When I'm doing post-fight interviews, I'm just always so focused in trying to get everything out of the fighter that they want to say.
[02:41:30]  All I'm thinking of is what can I ask him that can help them better express themselves after this big victory.
[02:41:35]  Yeah.
[02:41:36]  You know, so it's like.
[02:41:37]  I was the underdog and Mike, every time I went to the corner, he's like, stop jumping guillotines.
[02:41:42]  You're giving up takedowns.
[02:41:42]  You're not going to get, cut it out.
[02:41:44]  Don't do it.
[02:41:44]  I'm like, was that the Ben Wallace underneath?
[02:41:46]  Never gonna stop.
[02:41:47]  Yeah, yeah.
[02:41:47]  That was a great victory, too, man.
[02:41:49]  That was a good one.
[02:41:49]  Yeah, with the streak he's on, this aging, aging well, aging well, man.
[02:41:53]  Very well.
[02:41:54]  Listen, brother, you're an all-time great.
[02:41:56]  It's an honor.
[02:41:57]  So cool to have you here again.
[02:41:59]  Thank you for having me.
[02:41:59]  And congratulations on an amazing career.
[02:42:02]  Thank you, gentlemen.
[02:42:03]  And like I said, you're going to kill it with whatever you do, whatever you do in life.
[02:42:07]  Try to be copy.
[02:42:08]  I'm going to try to do the desk work and see where that goes.
[02:42:10]  Yes.
[02:42:10]  And buy his hot sauce.
[02:42:11]  It's legit.
[02:42:12]  You heard?
[02:42:13]  All right.
[02:42:13]  Thanks, brother.
[02:42:14]  Bye, everybody.